Unnamed: 0 int64 | title string | text string | label int64 |
|---|---|---|---|
7,400 | Trump Accidentally Makes Democrats Look Great During Angry Tirade About His Failed Healthcare Bill | Less than 24 hours after Trump claimed he would be exclusively blaming Democrats for not endorsing his bill to uninsure 24 million people, he was lashing out at Republicans instead. He just couldn t help himself.The meltdown began last night as Trump used his Twitter account to promote Fox News Jeanine Pirro s Saturday night show. When people tuned in, they saw Pirro go on a vicious assault against Paul Ryan, demanding he step down as Speaker of the House. Trump, apparently too much of a coward to say it himself, wants you to know how much he hates Paul Ryan.The next morning, his temper had only gotten worse. Not leaving it to Paul Ryan, Trump lashed out at conservative Republicans for not properly supporting the bill.Democrats are smiling in D.C. that the Freedom Caucus, with the help of Club For Growth and Heritage, have saved Planned Parenthood & Ocare! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 26, 2017The tweet was particularly awkward because it was disturbingly true Yes, Democrats are smiling following the disastrous Trumpcare misfire. Things like Planned Parenthood and Obamacare provide life-saving resources to tens of millions of people. Preserving those things is something worth smiling about. The fact that Trump and Paul Ryan humiliated themselves in the process only makes those smiles a little broader.MSNBC s Lawrence O Donnell observed:I'm smiling at you attacking the people you need on your next vote. Please keep doing this. Please! https://t.co/5deg1puxyU Lawrence O'Donnell (@Lawrence) March 26, 2017Trump s latest meltdown directed exclusively at Republicans signals the sheer chaos that s rippling through the GOP following their healthcare fail. The implosion was so spectacular that nobody seems to be able to agree on a coherent message. Trump, for his part, has oscillated between I m not mad! and spittle-laden fury. He may have even found a scapegoat Reince Priebus.Source close to @POTUS says he's being advised to replace @Reince45 & is open to possibility healthcare was last straw Tara Palmeri (@tarapalmeri) March 25, 2017But if anyone is squarely to blame for the GOP s failure to repeal and replace Obamacare it s Trump himself, who spent a truly embarrassing lack of time on trying to accomplish it. Here s a typical write-up of Trump s involvement in the legislative process:Despite the proclamations of Paul Ryan, Sean Spicer, and others to spin Trump s participation in the AHCA push as some impressive feat of presidential prowess, several reports indicate that Trump was mostly disengaged from the process, divided over its merits, and only involved himself at the last minute, largely out of ego.The perception among lawmakers and White House insiders was that Trump was never personally invested in the bill, repeatedly asking aides if they thought it was good or not, typically prompted by the consistently negative media coverage of the bill that Trump was watching, according to the Washington Post.Many people, some even close to the president, admitted that they didn t believe Trump actually knew what was in the bill.The fact that he s now using his own shoddy leadership as a pretext to go to war with his own political party is music to any liberal s ears. This is a man whose ego is so large that he would rather burn every bridge he has than accept the fact that he botched the rollout of a complicated bill through incompetence and indifference. Instead he s incoherently lashing out at anyone he can think of: Democrats, Paul Ryan, Reince Priebus, the entire Republican Party.What a piece of work.Featured image via Alex Wong/Getty Images | 0 |
7,401 | CHRIS CHRISTIE Gets Frustrated…SNAPS At MSNBC Hack Host Nicolle Wallace: “Do You Work For Mueller Now?” [VIDEO] | New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie got into a heated discussion with MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace on Tuesday. Wallace asked Christie about Chris Wray, the new director of the FBI. Governor Christie told Wallace that he thought highly of Wray and that he was going to be an outstanding director of the FBI. Christie told Wallace that Mueller made some mistakes, in that he didn t do a very good job of vetting his team for his Russian collusion investigation. Christie then went on to tell her that Bob Mueller is a good man, but he shouldn t have allowed biased agents to be involved in the investigation.Wallace asked Christie, Were you ever around Donald Trump when he was ever warned about Russia or Russians? Christie responded, No, not that I remember, no. Wallace continued to press Christie, Were you ever around Donald Trump with Mike Flynn when they were talking about Russia or Russians? Christie answered, Who are you? Do you work for Mueller now? I mean, you know, no. Watch the exchange here: | 0 |
7,402 | Japan wants missiles with enough range to strike North Korea: sources | TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan is preparing to acquire precision air-launched missiles that for the first time would give it the capability to strike North Korean missile sites, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said. Japan plans to put money aside in its next defense budget starting April to study whether its F-15 fighters could launch longer-range missiles including Lockheed Martin Corp s extended-range Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM-ER), which can hit targets 1,000 km (620 miles) away, said one the sources with knowledge of the plan. There is a global trend for using longer range missiles and it is only natural that Japan would want to consider them, he said. The sources asked to remain anonymous as they were not authorized to talk to media. Japan is also interested in buying the 500 km-range Joint Strike Missile designed by Norway s Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace to be carried by the F-35 stealth fighter, Fuji Television reported earlier. Neither of those two items are included in a 5.26 trillion yen ($46.76 billion) budget request already submitted by Japan s Ministry of Defence, however additional funds would be made available to evaluate the purchase of these missiles, the sources said. The change suggests that the growing threat posed by North Korean ballistic missiles has given proponents of a strike capability the upper hand in military planning. Restrictions on strike weapons imposed by its war-renouncing constitution means Japan s missile force is composed of anti-aircraft and anti-ship munitions with ranges of less than 300 kms (186 miles). Any decision to buy longer range weapons capable of striking North Korea or even the Chinese mainland would therefore be controversial, but proponents argue that the strike weapons can play a defensive role. We are not currently looking at funding for this, Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera said on Tuesday at a regular press briefing. We rely on the United States to strike enemy bases and are not looking at making any changes to how we share our roles, he added. Before he took up his post in August, Onodera led a group of ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers that recommended Japan acquire strike weapons to deter Pyongyang from launching any attack on Japan. North Korea has since fired ballistic missiles over Japan and last week tested a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile that climbed to an altitude of more than 4,000 km before splashing into the Sea of Japan within Japan s exclusive economic zone. | 1 |
7,403 | Spot On! Fox Sports Host Calls Out ESPN’s Liberal Agenda After Host Calls Trump a ‘White Supremacist’: ‘They’re alienating their core audience’ [Video] | Tucker Carlson responded to an ESPN anchor calling President Trump a white supremacist. Clay Travis of Fox Sports joined Carlson and lit up the room with his spot on assessment of ESPN s liberal suicide by offending just about every Trump voter out there. Travis is fantastic!Liberal hater Jemele Hill of SportsCenter tweeted this and got a slap on the wrist The double standard at ESPN is unbelievable! ESPN previously fired former MLB pitcher Curt Schilling over a controversial meme objecting to the North Carolina transgender bathroom law. Mike Ditka was fired from ESPN for showing support for President Trump. Crazy!ESPN s public relations tweeted a statement, saying that Hill s comments do not represent the position of ESPN. That s it!Carlson called ESPN Endless Stupid Political Nagging and asked Fox Sports Clay Travis what he thought of Hill s attack.Travis said ESPN s statement is another example of Hill s politics going all the way to the top. He said parent company Disney CEO Bob Iger and ESPN president John Skipper hold left-wing views, and that of the 59 people Iger follows on Twitter, Hill is one of them. They want left-leaning politics the forward facing front of ESPN, going on to repeat Michael Jordan s famed warning about mixing sports and politics, Republicans buy sneakers too. Read more: Fox News | 0 |
7,404 | U.S. envoy to U.N. demands Myanmar prosecutions, weapons curbs, over Rohingya | UNITED NATIONS/YANGON (Reuters) - U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Thursday called on countries to suspend providing weapons to Myanmar over violence against Rohingya Muslims until the military puts sufficient accountability measures in place. It was the first time the United States called for punishment of military leaders behind the repression, but stopped short of threatening to reimpose U.S. sanctions which were suspended under the Obama administration. We cannot be afraid to call the actions of the Burmese authorities what they appear to be - a brutal, sustained campaign to cleanse the country of an ethnic minority, Haley told the U.N. Security Council, the first time Washington has echoed the U.N. s accusation that the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people in Rakhine State was ethnic cleansing. Myanmar rejects the accusations and has denounced rights abuses. The Burmese military must respect human rights and fundamental freedoms. Those who have been accused of committing abuses should be removed from command responsibilities immediately and prosecuted for wrongdoing, Haley said. And any country that is currently providing weapons to the Burmese military should suspend these activities until sufficient accountability measures are in place, Haley said. Myanmar national security adviser Thaung Tun said at the United Nations on Thursday there was no ethnic cleansing or genocide happening in Myanmar. He told the Security Council that Myanmar had invited U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres to visit. A U.N. official said Guterres would consider visiting Myanmar under the right conditions. China and Russia both expressed support for the Myanmar government. Myanmar said earlier this month it was negotiating with China and Russia, which have veto powers in the Security Council, to protect it from any possible action by the council. The Trump administration has mostly hewed to former President Barack Obama s approach of forging warmer relations with Myanmar, partly aimed at countering China s influence in the resource-rich Southeast Asian country. Meanwhile, international aid groups in Myanmar have urged the government to allow free access to Rakhine, where an army offensive has sent more than 500,000 people fleeing to Bangladesh, but hundreds of thousands remain cut off from food, shelter and medical care. Refugees are still leaving Myanmar, more than a month after Rohingya Muslim insurgents attacked security posts near the border, triggering fierce Myanmar military retaliation. Aid groups said on Thursday the total number of refugees in Bangladesh was now 502,000. The Myanmar government has stopped international aid groups and U.N. agencies from carrying out most of their work in the north of Rakhine state, citing insecurity since the Aug. 25 insurgent attacks. Aid groups said in a joint statement they were: increasingly concerned about severe restrictions on humanitarian access and impediments to the delivery of critically needed humanitarian assistance throughout Rakhine State. We urge the government and authorities of Myanmar to ensure that all people in need in Rakhine State have full, free and unimpeded access to life-saving humanitarian assistance. The government has put the Myanmar Red Cross in charge of aid to the state, with the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross. But the groups said they feared insufficient aid was getting through. Relations between the government and aid agencies had been difficult for months, with some officials accusing the groups of helping the insurgents. Aid groups dismissed the accusations, which they said had inflamed anger toward them among Buddhists in the communally divided state, and called for an end to misinformation and unfounded accusations . Rights groups have accused the army of trying to push Rohingya Muslims out of Myanmar, and of committing crimes against humanity. They have called for sanctions, in particular an arms embargo. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Thursday that the violence against Rohingya Muslims in the northern part of Rakhine could spread to central Rakhine, where 250,000 more people were at risk of displacement. Guterres told the U.N. Security Council during its first public meeting on Myanmar in eight years, that the violence had spiraled into the world s fastest developing refugee emergency, a humanitarian and human rights nightmare. A group of Republican and Democratic senators urged the Trump administration on Thursday to use the full weight of its influence to help resolve the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar and Bangladesh. A letter seen by Reuters and signed by four Republican and 17 Democratic members of the 100-seat Senate also calls on Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Mark Green to provide more humanitarian aid. The British Minister of State for Asia and the Pacific, Mark Field, described the situation as an unacceptable tragedy after visiting Myanmar and meeting leaders including Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has faced scathing criticism and calls for her Nobel prize to be withdrawn. Police in Bangladesh said they recovered the bodies of 14 refugees, including nine children, who drowned when their boat capsized off the coast in bad weather. A Reuters photographer said he saw several babies among the victims. The U.N. International Organization for Migration later put the toll at 15. Police officer Afrajul Hoque Tutu said three boats had capsized in heavy seas. Myanmar was getting ready to verify refugees who want to return, the government minister charged with putting into effect recommendations to solve problems in Rakhine said. Myanmar would conduct a national verification process at two points on its border with Bangladesh under terms agreed during a repatriation effort in 1993, state media quoted Win Myat Aye, the minister for social welfare, relief and resettlement, as saying. Myanmar authorities do not recognize Rohingya as an indigenous ethnic group, instead regarding them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. The government hates us, said refugee Zafar Alam, 55, sheltering from rain near a refugee settlement in Bangladesh, referring to the Myanmar government. I don t think I d be safe there. There s no justice. | 1 |
7,405 | The Bundys Are Suing Because They Can’t Have Guns….In Jail | No one has ever accused the Bundy boys of being intelligent. Their grasp on reality is a little sketchy, as is pretty much everything they do. They are the poster children for entitlement expecting the government to give them free stuff (cattle grazing land), and then when the government charges them, they take over a bird sanctuary in Oregon. Now, they are pissed that after they broke numerous laws, their rights are being stripped away, just like everyone else who s in jail.Ammon and Ryan Bundy, sons of Cliven Bundy, are suing the Multnomah County Sheriff s Office. Some of their complaints don t seem completely ridiculous. They want more access to the law library, discovery material and office supplies. They also feel that the jail hasn t been accommodating enough to their Mormon religion. But it s not all sane, at all.UNSPECIFIED LOCATION JANUARY 26: (EDITORS NOTE: Best quality available) In this composite with handout images provided by the Multnomah County Sheriff s Office, suspects (Top L) Ammon Bundy, Ryan Bundy, Ryan Waylen Payne, Brian Cavalier, (Bottom L) Peter Santilli, Joseph Donald OShaughnessy , and Shawna Cox pose for a mugshot photo after being arrested by U.S. Marshalls January 26, 2016 in Oregon. Ammon Bundy and seven others were arrested in a traffic stop along Highway 395 outside Burns, Oregon. One person was killed in the confrontation. Bundy led a group of armed followers, adopting the name Citizens for Constitutional Freedom, and occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. (Photo by Multnomah County Sheriff s Office via Getty Images) My rights are being violated. My right to life is being violated. All of my First Amendment rights are being violated. My right to freedom of religion is being violated, Ryan Bundy wrote in a supporting statement. My Second Amendment rights are being violated. I never waived that right. My Fourth Amendment rights are being violated.Wait, what? The Bundys are complaining because they re not allowed to have their guns, in jail!? Oh, and that search and seizure stuff that they tend to do in jail is very tiresome.Believe it or not, the jail hasn t completely laughed off all the Bundy complaints. They have given them more access to the library and they are considering giving them access to a computer of some sort. MCSO is willing to consider permitting inmates to have a solid-state device like an iPad, loaded with discovery including video, legal materials and a word-processing program to be made available to the person only in his cell, jail officials responded to the request.Just imagine one moment that the Bundys were Muslim instead of Mormon. 9/11 suspects were accused of having laptops, while in Gitmo, according to the unreliable Washington Times.As for the religious gatherings, the jail put their foot down. They wanted to gather together, wearing temple garments beneath their jail clothes. The jail was worried about them gathering, but they did allow them an extra towel for kneeling to pray and they are allowed to wear their religious garments.The jail also refused to give them access to the internet, chairs in their cells, access to other defendants, unmonitored phone calls, a cordless printer and scanner, more storage space and real pens. Come on, anyone who s every watched a prison movie knows that real pens are killers.Not a single one of the jail s concessions have been enough, according to the Bundys. They are considering suing. Here s a copy of the complaint. The Bundys are accused of 16 federal felonies. If they are convicted, they will never be able to own a gun again, not that that will stop them.Featured image via Justin Sullivan with Getty Images | 0 |
7,406 | Judge Lets Trump Postpone His Fraud Case Until Three Weeks AFTER The Election | Thanks to an absurd legal ruling, Donald Trump won t have to answer to charges of defrauding people of tens of thousands of dollars until after the election. A federal judge decided it would be unfair to make him testify while he s running for office presumably because it could give people the impression that he s a conniving huckster who fleeces gullible rubes in order to line his pockets. Heaven forbid.Trump s lawyers were extremely satisfied that they managed to convince a federal judge to schedule Trump s trial including his appearance on the witness stand after a previous judge had scheduled the hearing for June. It could have seriously hurt his political career. Instead, a San Diego judge told Trump s legal team that the law could wait until late November three weeks after the election.Donald Trump will testify after the presidential election on a class-action lawsuit that accuses the billionaire businessman and his now-defunct Trump University of defrauding people who paid up to $35,000 for real estate seminars.It seems likely that, should Trump win, the lawyers will change their mind about Trump attending the trial, however. He ll be busy organizing his transition team and preparing to move to the Oval Office (or moving the Oval Office to Trump Tower, perhaps).It would seem that getting to the bottom of whether or not Donald Trump willfully defrauded eager students of non-existent real estate seminars of $35,000 would be very important for voters who are deciding whether or not to put that man in office. As it stands, most voters will likely have no idea of the pending litigation against Trump come Election Day.As if to highlight the baffling favoritism, the FBI recently announced that despite not finding any evidence that Hillary Clinton committed any crimes with her emails, they are asking her to come into conduct a series of interviews with them just to be sure. The meetings will be sure to be covered wall-to-wall on the news networks and will lend further credence to spurious claims that she had done something wrong. Fair and balanced.So there we have it: One candidate who has never been charged is subjected to endless scrutiny and legal harassment. Another who has more pending and settled lawsuits than any presidential candidate in U.S. history got a federal judge to do him a solid and postpone justice for the people who he ripped off before he decided he d move onto bigger scams. If the moral arc of the universe does indeed bend towards justice, than we are still clearly behind the curve.Featured image via Tom Pennington/Getty Images | 0 |
7,407 | Southern Yemen leader sees independence referendum, parliament body | ADEN (Reuters) - A rebel former governor of Aden who is leading a movement for southern Yemen s secession has said an independence referendum would be announced soon and a parliamentary body set up to administer the territory. Aidaroos al-Zubaidi, who was sacked as Aden governor by President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, set out his secessionist plans to thousands of supporters gathered on Saturday in Yemen s main southern city to mark 54 years since the October 1963 uprising against the British. Zubaidi, who has previously declared a council that seeks secession for southern Yemen, said in a television interview late on Friday that an independence referendum would be held soon. Speaking to supporters on Saturday, Zubaidi said a new 303-member parliamentary body, the National Association, would act like a small parliament to represent Yemenis from all areas of the south. Zubaidi announced in May a new council formed by senior tribal, military and political figures. The council seeks the secession of southern Yemen and is looking to establish a political leadership under his presidency that would administer the south. The move threatens more turmoil in the impoverished Arabian Peninsular country where the internationally-recognized government is forced to sit in Aden because Houthi rebels control the capital Sanaa. The council was born out of a power struggle between the southerners and President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi that has undermined regional power Saudi Arabia s efforts to coordinate a military campaign against the Tehran-supported Houthis. Hadi s government has rejected the formation of the council, saying it would deepen divisions and play into the hands of the Houthi rebels. Many southerners feel that officials in the north have exploited their resources and cut them off from jobs and influence. | 1 |
7,408 | Philippines' Duterte says he's been 'demonized' over drugs war | MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Wednesday defended his bloody war on drugs, telling Southeast Asian lawyers he had been demonized and denying allegations of state-sponsored killings of drug dealers and users. Duterte s crackdown has caused international alarm, and domestic polls have shown growing scepticism about the 16-month old campaign that has killed thousands of mostly urban, poor Filipinos. His government s human rights record has been strongly criticized by Western countries, and is one of the issues U.S. President Donald Trump plans to raise on a visit to Manila next month to attend a regional summit. I know that I have been demonized, Duterte said, invoking God and his oath as a lawyer as he offered his assurance. The extra judicial tag that has been placed on me is simply not true. He was speaking to members of the ASEAN Law Association, attending a commemorative session in Manila, the host of this year s activities of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations grouping. Duterte spoke for more than an hour after delivering a prepared speech, as he defended the campaign and explained why many of those killed were from among the poor. He used United Nations pamphlets to describe how different types of illegal drugs, including the highly addictive methamphetamine, or shabu , could trigger aggressive behavior among users. I do not deny that there were people killed in that campaign, he added. But why were they killed? Because a shabu user, a lieutenant of the shabu syndicate, always has a gun and this was my experience when I was mayor. They always fight it out. During his 22 years as mayor of the southern city of Davao, Duterte estimated 600 drug suspects had been killed in police encounters. His anti-narcotics crackdown has come under unprecedented scrutiny following the high-profile Aug. 16 killing of a 17-year-old student, among the 90 people killed in less than a week of intensified police raids. A recent poll showed fewer Filipinos believe the official stance of the Philippine National Police that those killed in anti-drugs operations had refused to go quietly. When I say, I will kill you if you destroy my country, and I will kill you if you destroy the young of my country, I am asking everybody to find me a fault in those two statements, Duterte told the audience. | 1 |
7,409 | SEE GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS’ Reaction When Hillary Says She’s Ignorant About 9/11 Legislation | I don t really know about that Nice try Hillary! | 0 |
7,410 | Russia says satellite launch failure due to programming error | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Wednesday the failed launch of a 2.6 billion-rouble ($44.95 million) satellite last month was due to an embarrassing programming error. Russian space agency Roscosmos said last month it had lost contact with the newly-launched weather satellite - the Meteor-M - after it blasted off from Russia s new Vostochny cosmodrome in the Far East. Eighteen smaller satellites belonging to scientific, research and commercial companies from Russia, Norway, Sweden, the United States, Japan, Canada and Germany, were on board the same rocket. Speaking to Rossiya 24 state TV channel, Rogozin said the failure had been caused by human error. The rocket carrying the satellites had been programmed with the wrong coordinates, he said, saying it had been given bearings for take-off from a different cosmodrome - Baikonur - which Moscow leases from Kazakhstan. The rocket was really programmed as if it was taking off from Baikonur, said Rogozin. They didn t get the coordinates right. The Vostochny spaceport, laid out in the thick taiga forest of the Amur Region, is the first civilian rocket launch site in Russia. In April last year, after delays and massive costs overruns, Russia launched its first rocket from Vostochny, a day after a technical glitch forced an embarrassing postponement of the event in the presence of President Vladimir Putin. | 1 |
7,411 | U.S. threatens South Sudan action, Russia warns against U.N. measures | UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States threatened on Tuesday to take further action against the South Sudan government if it does not end violence and allow United Nations peacekeepers to do their job, but U.N. sanctions are unlikely as Russia has warned against such a move. A month after U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley visited South Sudan and met with President Salva Kiir in the capital Juba, she told the U.N. Security Council: Words are no longer sufficient. The United States is prepared to pursue additional measures against the government or any party, for that matter if they do not act to end the violence and ease the suffering in South Sudan, said Haley, who was the most senior member of President Donald Trump s administration to visit South Sudan. The Trump administration imposed sanctions in September on two senior South Sudanese officials and the former army chief for their role in the civil war and attacks against civilians. However, any U.S. push for the U.N. Security Council to take further action against South Sudan is likely to be resisted by veto power Russia. The council sanctioned several senior South Sudanese officials on both sides of the conflict in 2015, but a U.S. bid to impose an arms embargo in December 2016 failed. It is counterproductive to impose targeted sanctions, counterproductive to impose an arms embargo, such measures will not help to break this deadlock and will only further exacerbate the crisis, Russia s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Petr Iliichev. South Sudan spiraled into civil war in late 2013, two years after gaining independence from Sudan, and a third of the 12 million population has fled their homes. The conflict was sparked by a feud between Kiir, a Dinka, and his former deputy Riek Machar, a Nuer, who is being held in South Africa. A fragile peace deal in South Sudan broke down last year and East African bloc IGAD has been trying to revive it. We view as unjust the ongoing attempts to place all blame for the persistent unabated violence on Juba alone, it has done its role, now the opposition must reciprocate, Iliichev said. U.N. sanctions monitors reported earlier this month that despite the catastrophic conditions across South Sudan, armed forces, groups and militias - particularly those affiliated with Kiir and Vice President Taban Deng Gai - continued to actively impede both humanitarian and peacekeeping operations. | 1 |
7,412 | Trump, Nikki Haley to share U.S. spotlight at U.N. gathering | UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - When President Donald Trump takes the world stage at the United Nations for the first time this week, he will share the spotlight with his envoy Nikki Haley, who has emerged as the surprising public face of U.S. foreign policy. Haley, the 45-year-old former South Carolina governor, has proven to be a high-profile member of Trump’s administration, at times overshadowing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the former chief executive of Exxon Mobil Corp, despite her lack of previous foreign policy experience, diplomats say. “For the U.S., Nikki Haley is remarkable. It’s hard to find in the Trump administration. It’s someone who is very approachable and politically very assertive,” said a senior European diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. “I see her potentially taking over from Tillerson at some point. It’s clear her long-term objective is the presidency,” the diplomat said. Haley dismisses speculation she could replace Tillerson, the country’s top diplomat, who has at times publicly differed with Trump during the president’s eight months in the White House. On Sunday, she told CNN that Tillerson is “not going anywhere and I continue to work well with him.” Trump’s speech on Tuesday at the U.N. General Assembly will be his highest profile opportunity to explain his foreign policy vision couched in his America First agenda. Haley arrived at the 193-member world body in January pledging to “take names” of allies who did not have Washington’s back. Trump administration officials say the president, happy with her performance, views her as both tough and smart. He speaks regularly with Haley, his fellow Republican, one U.S. administration official said. Twice in five weeks she persuaded the 15-member U.N. Security Council to unanimously boost sanctions on North Korea. Her blunt language has raised eyebrows among diplomats. At the same time she has been careful not to steal the limelight from Trump, a wealthy businessman and former reality television star. “I personally think he slaps the right people, he hugs the right people, and he comes out with the U.S. being very strong in the end,” Haley told White House reporters on Friday. European Council on Foreign Relations U.N. expert Richard Gowan said Haley’s success could make Trump nervous and that it would be a “bad deal for her” if she was asked to replace Tillerson as secretary of state. “She would lose the independence she enjoys in New York and (it would) tie her more closely to the president’s agenda. But it is an offer that she could not refuse. It’s an irony that the one way Trump can hurt Haley is to promote her,” he said. Haley credits Trump with any U.S. achievements at the United Nations. After the Security Council toughened sanctions on North Korea this month, she praised his “strong relationship” with his Chinese counterpart for the result. When he dismissed the Sept. 11 U.N. resolution, which had been weakened by China and Russia, as “just another very small step, not a big deal,” Haley jumped to his defense and dismissed any suggestion they were not on the same page. “If we have to go further, this is going to look small compared to what we do,” she said at the time. Haley has made her mark also by fighting what she describes as U.N. anti-Israel bias, pushing for U.N. reform amid Trump’s call to slash U.S. funding, accusing Iran of meddling in the Middle East and challenging Russia over Ukraine and its support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that during a National Security Council meeting on Iran this month, Trump specifically asked Haley’s opinion about what strategy to pursue. “She gave her opinion, and he liked her point of view,” the official said. “She wasn’t afraid to speak up.” A senior Iranian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “This lady for some reason is very angry with Iran.” Before her selection as ambassador, Haley made national headlines when as governor she led a successful effort to remove the Confederate battle flag, viewed by many as a racist emblem, from the grounds of the South Carolina state capitol after the killing of nine black churchgoers in her state. During the 2016 presidential campaign Haley sparred with Trump, backing one of his rivals before he became the Republican candidate. The daughter of immigrants from India, Haley took Trump to task over his harsh campaign rhetoric about illegal immigration and for not speaking forcefully enough against white supremacists. When last month Trump inflamed tensions by saying that counter-protesters were also to blame for a deadly rally by white nationalists in Virginia, Haley spoke up, telling U.S. media she had a “personal conversation” with him about it. Without naming Trump she wrote to staff at the U.S. mission to the United Nations to say that everyone must stand up and condemn hate. | 1 |
7,413 | FOX NEWS Host EXPOSES Jimmy Kimmel HYPOCRISY After His Paid “Goon” Disrupts AL Church Service Where Roy Moore Spoke | If anyone thought the man who s been attacked by the left for most of his adult life, was going to roll over and play dead, as the Democrats and their allies in the entertainment industry come at him with a coordinated character assassination attempt, they were sadly mistaken.Breitbart The U.S. Senate campaign of Judge Roy Moore is firing back at Jimmy Kimmel and his paid trickster Rich Barbieri also known as Jake Byrd for disrupting a worship service at which Moore spoke here on Wednesday night. Jimmy Kimmel and the Hollywood elite cross the line when they invade our Churches under a disguise and attempt to make a mockery of our worship services, Drew Messer, a senior adviser to Moore, told Breitbart News on Thursday morning after the incident at the church on Wednesday night.On Wednesday evening, after the pastor of Magnolia Springs Baptist Church here in Theodore, Alabama, just outside Mobile warned attendees of a worship service at which Moore was speaking multiple times that it was against the law in Alabama to disrupt worship services, Barbieri proceeded to interrupt the worship service during Moore s speech.The pastor had earlier in the evening also warned event-goers against disrupting the worship service, so this constituted his second warning. But that did not stop Barbieri whose character on Kimmel s show is Jake Byrd from disrupting the event and being escorted out by police. Breitbart Watch:Turns out tonight's Roy Moore superfan is a comedian named Tony Barbieri, part of Jimmy Kimmel's gang. pic.twitter.com/ykeGKVDdkS Ben H. Raines (@BenHRaines) November 30, 2017Upon discovering that the man who disrupted the worship service was a paid comedian on the Jimmy Kimmel show, Roy Moore tweeted to the despicable leftist comedian/ activist to come down to Alabama and mock their Christian values face to face ..@jimmykimmel If you want to mock our Christian values, come down here to Alabama and do it man to man. #ALSen https://t.co/E7oQB9D83P Judge Roy Moore (@MooreSenate) November 30, 2017So Little @jimmykimmel sent one of his goons to Alabama to disrupt a church service where Roy Moore was speaking. I doubt Kimmel would ever disrupt a service at a mosque toddstarnes (@toddstarnes) November 30, 2017Roy Moore also responded to the leftist comedian, whose ratings are in the toilet, over his despicable comedian s stunt:Despite D.C. and Hollywood Elites' bigotry towards southerners, Jimmy, we'll save you a seat on the front pew. https://t.co/z7n6uaeyCj Judge Roy Moore (@MooreSenate) November 30, 2017 Was the Kimmel comedian s stunt about embarrassing Roy Moore, or was it more about jumping on the left s Hate Trump s All (or as the left falsely calls it: Love Trumps Hate ) campaign? Based on the most recent ratings of late-night shows, the only thing keeping the higher rated late-night shows on the air is their unabated criticism of President Trump, that s used as fuel to keep their hate-filled, leftist audience fed. Observer While Donald Trump has been a huge boon for late-night TV ratings, one host who isn t enjoying an upswing is Jimmy Fallon. The good-natured nice guy persona Fallon has crafted on NBC s The Tonight Show is great for producing viral videos, but not so great for navigating a politically tumultuous era. As Stephen Colbert s The Late Show and Jimmy Kimmel s Jimmy Kimmel Live have continued to hone in on the Trump administration, and seen viewership rise as a result, Fallon has largely stayed out of the fray and is suffering because of it.According to the New York Times, Fallon has lost 21 percent of his audience year over year since the fall season began on September 25. Since February, Colbert leads late night in total viewers by a wide margin and Kimmel has been gaining ground over the last several months as well. NBC s top brass have combated these trends by noting that Fallon still leads the field in viewers in the advertiser-friendly 18 to 49 demographic, but the New York Times points out that even that gap is closing.Breitbart Fellow senior Moore adviser Brett Doster bashed Kimmel for enabling Hollywood s culture of preying on women as seen by the recent downfalls of Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey. Last night, Jimmy Kimmel sent one of his goons to disrupt an Alabama worship service as a comedy prop, Doster said in an email to Breitbart News. For years, Kimmel hosted a show that exploited women and encouraged sexual impropriety. He and the rest of the entertainment industry look down their noses at our evangelical values while using their own pulpit to encourage the very behavior purveyed by monsters like Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey. It remains to be seen whether Kimmel will have the guts to face Moore s team head-on in Alabama, and own up to the actions of his staff. A Kimmel publicist has not responded to Breitbart News when asked via email whether Kimmel or Barbieri would be willing to defend themselves in an interview. | 0 |
7,414 | China hopes all sides' words and actions reduce tension on Korean peninsula | BEIJING (Reuters) - China said on Monday that it hopes all sides’ words and actions can help reduce tensions on the Korean peninsula, after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Japan would shoot down North Korean missiles if necessary. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying made the comment at a regular news briefing. | 1 |
7,415 | A Chick-Fil-A Got Shut Down In NYC Over Flies In Food – Conservatives Claim Religious Persecution | NYC s only Chick-Fil-A restaurant got shut down on Dec 30th after appalling sanitary and food safety violations were discovered in not one but two back-to-back health inspections. Rather than thanking God for sending an inspector, preventing them from contracting various fun diseases, conservatives are flipping out over not getting enough fly waste and food=borne illness in their daily diet.Below are some images provided by one twitter user regarding the closure. The list in red is the specific violations and total violation points.No line outside Chick-fil-A in NYC. Sign says closed for maintenance. Some violations online, no reason for closure pic.twitter.com/1lnuOonvXG Candice Choi (@candicechoi) January 3, 2016There were literally flies in and around the food to a point where a health inspector said the place had to stop serving food immediately. Gross, right?The flies must be a false flag for the liberal war on Christian anti-gay chicken sandwiches. Rather than adopting the personal responsibility attitude that conservatives love, and blaming the restaurant for not being more vigilant in the cleanliness of their facility, they started firing off accusations of it being a liberal plot and anti-religion operation.@TwitchyTeam war on religion Dave Rowan (@DaveRowan07) January 3, 2016@crispayumo @TwitchyTeam @ChickfilA BULLSHIT I WAS JUST THERE 2 days ago THE MAYOR HATES THE PLACE VERY CLEAN APPEARANC CORPORATE SHOW PLACE Chuck W Self (@MustacheChuck) January 3, 2016@TwitchyTeam sounds like the liberals will go to any length to close down a Christian co. John Funk (@BigBassettHound) January 3, 2016@TwitchyTeam why does this feel political by the progressive liberal left? Snikl (@morrisminor56) January 3, 2016They are even blaming the Muslims for this one too:@TwitchyTeam prob no prayer room. CAIR. S . (@Wrknpoor01) January 3, 2016More quality commentary was found on the Twitchy website:Here is a really important thing to know. A previous inspection earlier in December returned 39 violation points, indicating things got worse not better between the two inspections. If things were not brought to a halt, they would have been wheeling people out on stretchers. I guess at least they would still have religious freedom while they were getting their stomachs pumped at the hospital.Featured image via Wikicommons | 0 |
7,416 | CHAFFETZ CALLS FOR SESSIONS TO RESIGN: “It’s time to go…some deep systemic problems” [Video] | Jason Chaffetz just went there! He said what everyone else is saying about the DOJ s Jeff Sessions TIME TO GO!Fox News Contributor and former Republican House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz argued that Attorney General Jeff Sessions should step down..@jasoninthehouse: "I think it's time for [Jeff Sessions] to go." pic.twitter.com/aOgLa4FIvg Fox News (@FoxNews) December 16, 2017Chaffetz said, I ve got to tell you, and it pains me to say this a little bit, but I don t think the attorney general is up to the job that he s doing. He s absent from this. The reason there s a special counsel is because he had to recuse himself from everything. And I just, my own personal opinion, I think it s time for the attorney general to go. Because you need leadership there, some deep systemic problems there. Chaffetz also cited the DOJ not turning over documents on the Fast & Furious program and Sessions refusal to prosecute Clinton tech aide Bryan Pagliano for defying a Congressional subpoena. Via: Breitbart | 0 |
7,417 | Russian submarine fires cruise missiles at jihadi targets in Syria | MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian submarine fired cruise missiles at jihadi targets in Syria s Idlib province on Friday, the Russian Defence Ministry said, saying it had targeted Islamist militants who had tried to trap a group of Russian military policemen earlier in the week. The strike, launched from the Mediterranean by Russia s Veliky Novgorod submarine, was part of a counter-offensive against a jihadi attack on government-held parts of northwest Syria near Hama on Tuesday. The Russian Defence Ministry on Wednesday said 29 Russian military policemen had been surrounded by jihadis as a result of that attack and that Russia had been forced to break them out in a special operation backed by air power. On Friday, it said in a statement it had fired Kalibr cruise missiles at the same jihadis from a distance of 300 kilometers (186.41 miles) striking command centers, armored vehicles and the bases of jihadis who had taken part in the original attack. | 1 |
7,418 | Pakistan ministry seeks ban on new party backed by prominent Islamist | ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan s interior ministry has called for the electoral commission to bar from politics a new party backed by an Islamist with a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head, a government document seen by Reuters showed on Thursday. In a letter dated Sept. 22, the ministry recommended that the Election Commission of Pakistan reject the newly formed Milli Muslim League s (MML) application to become an official party as it is affiliated with Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT), a militant group blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people. The registration of MML is not supported, the ministry said in the two-page document. Spokesmen for the election commission and the interior ministry acknowledged the correspondence and confirmed that the letter was authentic. The United States has designated LeT founder Hafiz Saeed, who currently heads the Jamaat-ud-Dawa Islamic charity, a terrorist. It views him as the mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks and has offered a $10 million reward for information leading to his imprisonment. Saeed is currently under house arrest. Pakistan s reluctance to press charges against him has been a sore point in relations with Washington and India over the past decade. The ministry said MML is ideologically of the same hue as LeT and its affiliated charities Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and the Falah-e-Insanyat Foundation (FIF). Tabish Qayyum, a spokesman for the MML, said in a statement that the ministry s letter was unlawful. MML isn t a bus or truck which needs registration, he said, denying that MML had links with any banned militant group. The ministry s stance appears at odds with what political sources and a retired army general have said is a plan proposed by the military s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) to mainstream some Pakistan-based anti-Indian militant groups as part of deradicalization efforts by bringing them into politics. The interior ministry s letter was written a week after MML caused a stir by winning 5 percent of votes in a parliamentary by-election in Lahore on Sept. 17. The document said foreign countries have raised diplomatic objections to MML s existence and the interior ministry has sought the opinions of intelligence agencies on the group. One of the agencies, the ministry said, has warned against letting proscribed and monitored organizations enter politics with a view to gaining legitimacy. The interior ministry said the security agency has informed it that given the clamor, philosophy, outreach and modus operandi to operate, it is difficult to believe that MML will tread its own path completely at variance with its mother organization. Therefore, they have recommended that since the registration of such groups would breed violence and extremism in politics, as such registration of such groups be avoided. In the Lahore by-election, Yaqoob Sheikh, who swears loyalty to Saeed, stood as an independent candidate but was backed by MML and had Saeed s colleagues running his campaign. Saeed s portraits adorned posters promoting Sheikh, who the United States has also designated a terrorist and a senior LeT commander. | 1 |
7,419 | WATCH: BIKERS FOR TRUMP Ready To Take A Stand Against Antifa Thugs: “Twinkle Toes and Butter Cups” [Video] | Bikers for Trump leader Chris Cox spoke with FOX s Stuart Varney regarding the shut down of Ann Coulter s speech at the University of California Berkeley:The Bikers for Trump leader Chris Cox is now ready to take action on the University of California Berkeley after conservative commentator Ann Coulter cancelled her speech on the campus Thursday: We are certainly not looking for a fight We are here on the defense, not the offense Cox met with Berkeley police to discuss their plan of action going forward. He made great points about the need for law and order over violence: From what I understand, any rumors that they ve been told to stand down will be squashed today. They are not going to allow this disobedience, they are not going to allow the ski masks we ve been seeing around the country, so we still have a presence here at Berkeley today. We don t want to do anything that is going to give us a public relations black eye. We ve stayed within the framework of the law and I intend that protesters will continue to stay within the framework of the law I DIDN T SEE AN UPSIDE IN COMING TO BERKELY AND STANDING TOE TO TOE WITH TWINKLE TOES AND BUTTER CUPS | 0 |
7,420 | BUSTED! JEB BUSH’S CAMPAIGN USED “PLANT” To Attack Trump [VIDEO] | Just imagine if Jeb s campaign as much imagination and energy into researching the devastating effect that giving 25 million illegal aliens amnesty will have on America .During an appearance at a Jon Huntsman / The Hill No Labels event, a female audience member named Lauren Batchelder played the role of a female antagonist toward candidate Donald Trump.However, Ms. Batchelder is not just an average audience member. She s a paid political operative of the GOP and a paid staff member of Team Jeb Bush:Within minutes of her scripted performance at the event, the producers of CNN were quickly editing soundbites and framing a narrative. That story was pushed into the media stream within hours. CNN s Jeanne Moos was the delivery vehicle for the a hit piece.Here s the CNN narrative as presented yesterday:However, as previously noted, it didn t take long to discover that Lauren Batchelder was not just an ordinary audience member, she is actually a current staffer for Senator Kelly Ayotte and also working in New Hampshire on behalf of the Jeb Bush 2016 campaign.Batchelder s LinkedIn profile shows she is a Jeb Bush For President 2016 staffer.Given Senator Ayotte s position being pro-life, and contrasted against the framework of Ms. Batchelder s line of questioning being completely opposite of the boss(es) she is working for, it doesn t take long to figure out this was a planted Establishment GOPe hit job targeting Donald Trump.Of course, Ms Batchelder quickly began scrubbing her social media history trying to hide who she works for. Almost all of her Twitter history is now deleted, but not before much of it was able to be captured. Several other profiles remain available:Via: Conservative Treehouse | 0 |
7,421 | OBAMA UNLEASHES HUNDREDS Of Intelligence Agents To “Protect Elections” From Outside Forces…Hacker known as “Guccifer 2.0” Warns Of Threat “From INSIDE The System” | We all know by now that the biggest threat to the integrity of our vote is our very own President, the Democrat Party and their operatives. LOL! Russians are the least of our concerns The U.S. government is gearing up for an unprecedented effort to protect Tuesday s presidential election from cyber attack, U.S. officials told NBC News. There are a lot of eyes on this presidential election more than there normally would be, a senior Obama administration official said.Cyber centers at the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department and the FBI as well as the Pentagon, the CIA and other intelligence agencies will be on alert, with extra staff hunting for any possible threat, officials say.The concern is so high, intelligence officials told NBC, that for the first time, hundreds of military and intelligence cyber experts who work out of top secret facilities, including underground bunkers, will be monitoring intelligence about a U.S. presidential election. They will react to any threat to the federal government s communication and command systems. It s all hands on deck, a senior intelligence official said.U.S. officials have accused Russia of using cyber operations to meddle in the election, hacking into Democratic Party accounts and leaking the material to embarrass the Hillary Clinton campaign.American officials are worried Russia will use its cyber capabilities to try to disrupt the presidential election itself, possibly by releasing fake documents and creating bogus social media accounts designed to spread misinformation.On Tuesday, former NATO commander Admiral James Stavridis told CNBC his concerns about possible Russian activity included a dump of false documents and an attack on the U.S. power grid. There is maybe a one in three chance of this happening but it s not insignificant, said Stavridis.On Friday the hacker known as Guccifer 2.0 which U.S. officials say is a front for Russian intelligence tweeted a threat to monitor the U.S. elections from inside the system. NBC | 0 |
7,422 | Inspired by 'blasphemy killer', new Pakistani party eyes 2018 vote | LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) - The head of a new Pakistani Islamist party that lionizes the killer of a provincial governor said it would take its rallying cry of death to blasphemers to next year s general election, after its surprisingly strong showing in a recent vote. The Tehrik-e-Labaik Pakistan party, which won more than 7,000 votes at a weekend by-election, was born out of a protest movement supporting Mumtaz Qadri, a bodyguard of the governor of Punjab province who gunned down his boss in 2011 over his call to reform strict blasphemy laws. Supporters of Tehreek-e-Labaik waved photos of Qadri, who became an icon for Muslim hardliners after his execution last year, at campaign rallies in the eastern city of Lahore, where it won 6 percent of the vote in a contest for the seat vacated by ousted former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. He is a hero, party leader Khadim Hussain Rizvi said when asked about Qadri, adding that after its third-place finish in Sunday s by-election it would focus on next year s poll. Our preparation starts from today. We will contest bravely. While the party has almost no chance of gaining power next year, it is part of a new crop of political movements that espouse stricter Islamic rule as a remedy to corruption accusations and squabbling among Pakistan s three main parties. A stronger showing for Islamists could give them more influence after the election, expected to be hard-fought after the Supreme Court barred Sharif from holding office. In an interview with Reuters, Rizvi outlined his vision of governance according the Barelvi branch of Islam, of which he is a prominent cleric. Frequently citing Koranic verses and Pakistani history, he said his party could solve corruption problems in a day through stricter adherence to sharia, or Islamic law. Sharia will have to be enforced. No one should be worried about it, he said, sitting in the upper room of a Lahore mosque surrounded by followers, many who had adopted Qadri s signature look of long hair and kohl-lined eyes. He acknowledged his vision would mean some changes to daily life, giving the example of barring women from working as airline flight attendants. In its party platform, Tehrik-e-Labaik Pakistan calls for free education, free healthcare and social justice. But it is best known for its public and passionate support for Mumtaz Qadri - campaign rallies featured posters with Qadri s photo - and its insistence that Muslim-majority Pakistan s blasphemy laws should remain among the world s harshest. Dozens of people convicted of blasphemy are currently on death row and at least 65 Pakistanis have been murdered over blasphemy allegations since 1990, according to the Center for Research and Security Studies. One of the highest-profile killings was of Punjab Governor Taseer, who had called for the laws to be re-examined after a minority Christian woman was sentenced to death for blasphemy. After his arrest over the killing, bodyguard Qadri drew a slew of admirers among Islamists who showered him with rose petal at court hearings. Tens of thousands thronged his funeral last year to condemn Sharif s government for his hanging. Tehreek-e-Labaik spokesman Ejaz Ashrafi said the party started out as The Movement to Free Mumtaz Qadri, but changed its name and entered politics after his execution. Asked about Qadri s role as an inspiration to the party, leader Rizvi said: He is a hero until doomsday. He is a hero beyond doomsday. Asked if any Muslim has the obligation to kill a blasphemer, Rizvi said: No ... there is a law. Hand him over to that. But Qadri, he added, was justified because Pakistani police had failed to charge Taseer with blasphemy for criticizing the law. Tehreek-e-Labaik surprised many by its relatively strong showing in the Lahore by-election to fill the parliamentary seat left vacant when the Supreme Court ousted Sharif over unreported income, in a case initiated by opposition figure Imran Khan. The seat was won, as expected, by Sharif s wife, Kulsoom, but the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party s share of the vote in the constituency was cut to 49.3 percent from 61 percent in a 2013 election. Khan, a former cricket star, saw his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party increase its share to 37.6 percent from 35 percent in the last vote. But much of the PML-N s margin loss came from votes cast for candidates of new Islamist parties. In addition to Tehreek-e-Labaik, a newly declared party linked to Hafiz Saeed, named by the United States and India as the mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people, won about 5 percent of the Lahore vote. Religious parties have never gained more than a few seats in Pakistan s parliament because they tend to appeal to one particular sect or a single issue, such as blasphemy. Still, a surge of support for the ultra-religious parties could drain away votes from mainstream groups and potentially give Islamists leverage in policy-making. Tehreek-e-Labaik s Rizvi said his only goal was to see a stricter vision of Islam enshrined in the law of the land. We want to bring the religion of Islam to the throne, he said. | 1 |
7,423 | Trump ignites political fight over U.S. banking law reforms | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday ordered reviews of major banking rules that were put in place after the 2008 financial crisis, drawing fire from Democrats who said his order lacked substance and squarely aligned him with Wall Street bankers. Though the order was short on specifics, financial markets embraced Trump’s signal that looser banking regulation is coming and pushed bank stocks higher. The Dow Jones U.S. Banks stocks index closed up 2.6 percent. .DJUSBK [.N] At a White House forum on Friday with U.S. business leaders, including JPMorgan Chase’s (JPM.N) CEO Jamie Dimon, Trump said his administration expects “to be cutting a lot out of Dodd-Frank.” That will involve a lot more than issuing an order, said former Democratic congressman Barney Frank, co-author of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law that raised capital requirements for banks, restricted their trading by means of the “Volcker Rule,” and created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to guard against predatory lending. Trump “can’t make any substantial change in the financial reform bill without Congress,” Frank told Reuters. “The language in the order doesn’t do anything. It tells the secretary of the Treasury to give them something to read. The tone of it is to weaken the bill.” Trump and other critics of the Dodd-Frank law say its regulations have hindered lending. At the meeting with CEO’s on Friday Trump said, “I have so many people, friends of mine, that have nice businesses that can’t borrow money...because the banks just won’t let them borrow because of the rules and regulations in Dodd-Frank.” Despite such criticisms, recent data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis showed U.S. commercial-bank lending at a 70-year high, climbing steadily since late-2010. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren who lobbied for the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau accused Trump of forsaking middle and lower-income individuals to help banks. “The Wall Street bankers and lobbyists whose greed and recklessness nearly destroyed this country may be toasting each other with champagne, but the American people have not forgotten the 2008 financial crisis - and they will not forget what happened today,” she said in a statement. Trump’s adviser leading the deregulation effort, National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, was previously a top official at Goldman Sachs (GS.N). Billionaire investor Carl Icahn, meanwhile, is counseling Trump on regulation across the government. One order signed by Trump requires the U.S. Treasury Secretary to submit possible regulatory changes and legislation modifying Dodd-Frank in 120 days, according to a White House official. Trump’s pick for Treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, also a former Goldman banker, has yet to be confirmed by the full Senate. Meanwhile, a memo tells the Labor Department to review a “fiduciary rule” for brokers offering retirement advice that was finalized in 2016. While early reports said Trump wanted to push off the rule’s implementation, originally slated for April, by 180 days, the order did not mention any delay. The Labor Department late on Friday said it was considering legal options for delaying. Representatives of the six largest U.S. banks – JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), Bank of America Corp (BAC.N), Citigroup Inc (C.N), Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N), Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) and Morgan Stanley (MS.N) – either declined to comment or did not have an immediate comment. Bankers, lawyers and lobbyists privately said Trump’s order would not do much immediately. Also they said that they would prefer less-extensive modifications to Dodd-Frank after spending billions of dollars complying with the law. Many want to make it “a little bit more user-friendly,” said John Kanas, chairman of BankUnited (BKU.N), a lender with less than $20 billion in assets. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, a Republican, told reporters at the White House that Trump’s approach reflects legislation he has drafted to review Dodd-Frank. Hensarling is expected to re-introduce his bill allowing banks to choose between complying with Dodd-Frank and holding more capital later this month. Trump could also make changes simply by appointing new personnel or not enforcing rules. “A lot of the regulations of Dodd-Frank required a bit of a cop-on-the-beat if you will, to ensure enforcement and if you have a different cop-on-the-beat, they enforce different rules, or they enforce the rules differently,” said FBR & CO financial policy analyst Edward Mills. Many regulators, though, were appointed by Trump’s predecessor, President Barack Obama, and intend to complete their terms. Trump cannot fire heads of independent agencies, including the three top bank regulators: Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp Chairman Martin Gruenberg. In addition, the term for Richard Cordray, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director, stretches into next year. Republican lawmakers are pushing Trump to fire Cordray, but a federal court’s decision allowing him to has been stayed pending appeal. Meanwhile, some U.S. financial policy leaders want to keep the law. Chicago Fed President Charles Evans said on Friday Dodd-Frank “has largely been helpful” and led to a banking system with “more and better capital.” | 1 |
7,424 | Senate proposal on encryption gives judges broad powers | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bipartisan group of U.S. senators has begun circulating long-awaited draft legislation that would give federal judges clear authority to order technology companies like Apple to help law enforcement officials access encrypted data, according to sources familiar with the discussions. The proposal from Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein, the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, does not spell out how companies must provide access or the circumstances under which they could be ordered to help. It also does not create specific penalties for noncompliance, leaving that determination to judges, the sources said. Previous legislative efforts have focused on requiring technology products to have a built-in “back door” for law enforcement. The latest approach would not mandate any specific technology, but rather would require companies to figure out how to access the data. Congress has tried and failed for years to pass legislation that could prevent criminals and spies from “going dark,” or hiding from law enforcement by using encrypted computer and communications services. The latest effort died when the Obama administration signaled last fall that it would not support it. But Apple’s high-profile showdown with the government over a federal magistrate judge’s order that it unlock an iPhone connected to the mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, has reopened the debate. Apple and the Justice Department are set to face off in court on Tuesday. “The going-dark issue has been gathering momentum (in Congress) like a train coming down the tracks, but it still seemed for a while like it was going to be a long time before it got to the station,” Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told Reuters in an interview. “But it arrived with a fury with this lawsuit.” Apple and many of its allies argue that the court is over-reaching its authority in the San Bernardino case and that Congress should ultimately resolve the encryption debate. President Obama warned a tech conference earlier this month against “fetishizing” phones and made it clear that he supports law enforcement efforts to gain access to encrypted information. Administration officials have reviewed the legislation from Burr and Feinstein and offered suggested edits, the sources said, signaling that the White House may now be more open to a legislative approach. Still, the Burr-Feinstein effort is expected to face a steep climb in a gridlocked Congress wary about tackling such a complex and controversial issue during an election year. “We have previously been quite skeptical of legislative handling of this particular matter,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters last month after the Apple case began. “I don’t know at this point whether or not (conversations with lawmakers) will result in a piece of legislation that we will embrace.” In an attempt to break the congressional stalemate on encryption, Democratic Senator Mark Warner and Republican Representative Michael McCaul, who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, introduced legislation earlier this month to form a national encryption commission to further study the issue. That effort has been criticized by some privacy advocates who believe its composition would be skewed to favor law enforcement. Others have complained that it would give Congress an excuse to continue postponing action on encryption. | 1 |
7,425 | Congo naval boats battle rebels on Lake Tanganyika | BUKAVU, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) - Naval boats fended off attacks by rebels on Lake Tanganyika in the east of Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday as heavy fighting spread close to the lakeside city of Uvira, sources in the area said. Fighting between the Mai-Mai Yakutumba militia and Congo government forces broke out at the weekend on the outskirts of Uvira, close to the Burundi border. Unrest has mounted across Congo since President Joseph Kabila refused to step down when his mandate expired last December. Since 5 a.m. (0300 GMT) there has been an exchange of gunfire between the army and the Mai-Mai in Uvira, said Lubungula Dem s M Sato, a member of a peacebuilding advocacy group in Uvira, the second largest city in South Kivu province. Congo s navy also repelled an attack by five rebel boats on the lake, military spokesman Louis-Claude Tshimwanga said, adding that the navy had sunk one of them and that government forces remained in control of Uvira. Lake Tanganyika is hundreds of kilometers (miles) long and also borders Burundi, Tanzania and Zambia. Mai-Mai Yakutumba, formed in 2007 by local militiamen opposed to integration in Congo s national army, has well-established gold smuggling networks on the lake. In an audio statement this week that was shared on social media, its leader William Yakutumba said his forces were rebelling against Kabila s mismanagement of the country s natural resources and failure to quit power last year. Militiamen believed to be aligned with Yakutumba in a coalition opposed to the Kinshasa government also clashed on Thursday with army troops in Kasongo in neighboring Maniema province, said Modeste Shabani, the director of a local radio station. Meanwhile, the Congolese army s chief of staff, Didier Etumba, arrived in South Kivu s capital of Bukavu in the afternoon en route for Uvira, a Reuters witness said. Congo s mineral-rich eastern borderlands are a tinderbox of ethnic tensions and for more than two decades have been racked by violence that has often spilled across the country s borders. The region is the world s biggest source of coltan, used in mobile phones and other electronic products. Operations at Banro Corp s Namoya gold mine near the border between Maniema and South Kivu remained suspended for a fourth day on Thursday due to nearby militia activity, Banro vice president Desire Sangare told Reuters. The company s mines in the two provinces have been hit by a series of attacks and kidnappings in recent months. Congo s U.N. peacekeeping mission, MONUSCO, said it had deployed troops around Uvira to protect civilians although the recent elimination of a 100-person riverine unit as part of sweeping budget cuts across U.N. missions limited its options. I urge the armed groups to immediately cease this hostility including all forms of violence against constituted authority and innocent civilians, MONUSCO head Maman Sidikou said in a statement. | 1 |
7,426 | U.S. must suffer 'painful responses' from Iran after Trump speech: Guards chief | BEIRUT (Reuters) - The head of Iran s Revolutionary Guards said on Wednesday that the United States should experience painful responses following President Donald Trump s harsh criticism of Tehran at the United Nations. In his first speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday Trump called Iran a corrupt dictatorship and accused it of supporting terrorism and destabilizing the Middle East. He also hinted he might not recertify a 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran when it comes up for a mid-Oct. deadline. Taking a definitive stand against Trump is only the beginning of the path, said General Mohammad Ali Jafari, according to Sepah News, the news site of the Revolutionary Guards. What is strategically important is that America witnesses more painful responses in the actions, behavior and decisions that Iran takes in the coming months. In recent months, tensions have ramped up between Iran and the United States in the Gulf, with both sides accusing each other of provocative maneuvers with military vessels. Jafari urged Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to deliver a definitive response to Trump in his speech at the United Nations on Wednesday. With the successive and exhausting defeats that the Americans have faced in the region from Iran, it s natural that their nervous system and coherence of thought have fallen apart, Sepah News quoted Jafari as saying. In Tuesday s speech, Trump called the 2015 nuclear deal, negotiated between Iran and six world powers, and backed by his predecessor Barack Obama, an embarrassment . Under the deal, Iran agreed to curb its atomic program in return for easing economic sanctions. | 1 |
7,427 | nbcs baghdad bob there is no fbi investigation of hillary frontpage mag | posted by madeline oct daily blog thanks gre
bovendien
former defense minister of canada paul hellyer has filed a lawsuit along with several others at the state canada on the ceta treaty ceta stands for comprehensive economic and trade agreement a trade which are entered according to prosecutors constitutional and international rights of people with feet paul hellyer called the treaty therefore comprehensive trade and takeover agreement with this convention which comes out of the hat of the international bankers families will obtain control over almost the entire world constitutions of member countries will no longer apply only the will of the families the elite will apply
the lawsuit was officially filed on october of this year and actually consists of four
namely separate indictments the federal government does not have the constitutional authority to sign execute and implement treaties without the express prior authority of parliament through an act of parliament
the federal government has no constitutional right to sign ceta and or perform without having this treaty first by the parliament through official channels the solid majority of the ceta articles and their impact encroach on exclusive provincial spheres or forumprotected by the division of powers under the constitution act
most of the ceta provisions and their impact undermine exclusive legal rights protected by the canadian constitutional law the ceta gouge and extinguishes the constitutionally protected judiciary in canada by creating foreign tribunals to determining property and legal issues in canada without any judicial oversight or jurisdiction of the canadian courts over the disputes and
ceta removes the constitutional legal system by setting foreign tribunals have to judge between property and other legal issues without overlooked may be the canadian legal system and various articles of the ceta violate constitutional enshrined rights in the charter of rights and freedoms and overrides charter guarantees that ground canadas ability to mount public programs on health education social services and public utilitiesincluding the elimination of subsidies monopolies and state enterprises for public welfare in short the treaty places the rights of private foreign investors about those of the canadian constitution and canadian citizens
various provisions of ceta violated constitutional builtrights enshrined in the document charter of rights and freedoms and transcend guaranteed rights that canada has the opportunity to develop public programs in the fields of health education social services and public funds including the termination of subsidies monopolies and state enterprises for the public interest in short the treaty puts the interests of private foreign companies over those of the canadian constitution and its inhabitants
but this is not all paul hellyer which is so you can immediately see and hear his call to canadians and the rest of the world his mind has put on the roll of the largest crime syndicate has ever known the world the international bankers international intertwined the main industries in which the owners of the revenues come from only families
paul hellyer remembers the canada which was separate from the bankers yet not so long ago until the canadian government expressed its money itself there was no such thing as inflation poverty and debt canada was one of the largest financiers behind the allies that europe was liberated from the germans at that time life was good cheap and everyone had enough money to do the things they wanted to do from one day to the issued money creation in the central banks and money was no longer free within a few years canada had a huge debt that is recovered just as us on the civilian population through numerous taxes paul hellyer has evidence that this happened in unconstitutional manner and wants to decide turn back to canada to give it right back himself pressing her money to spend this affects every canadian citizen a large sum of money to free education health housing etc can be paid without causing debts paul hellyer does the same as foundation for our money aims but in a turbo version he lets no grass grow does not perform educational skits for the people who maintain this crime for years paul hellyer goes straight for the scapegoat
now the video of paul hellyer where he explains personally exactly what is going on and how they want to approach this
dear readers this could be the big break this information should be shared very broadly as to all countries under the thumb are the bankers the same applies we can deliver all of this unfair system where our benefit only a handful of people the power over the creation of money is a sovereign matter since no one has more to do with it we want a better and fairer world then this is the opportunity that everyone has been waiting for
privatized money is the reason for all wars privatized money is the cause of poverty oppression exploitation neglect of our elderly and less fortunate privatized money is the root of all evil on this beautiful planet now is the chance to get out from under the yoke to stand up for the future of ourselves and our children now is the chance to rid the world of those people who make a huge mess for over years with one goal to keep the creation of money in their hands and with it the power over almost anything this planet has to offer
the earth is not a handful of bankers and politicians the earth belongs to everyone | 1 |
7,428 | Republicans retreat from plan to curb some press camera access in U.S. Capitol | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Republican-led Senate panel backed away from a plan to restrict media cameras in parts of the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday after Democrats and some Republicans criticized the move as an attempt to curtail press access. Senate staff who manage press access told television network reporters earlier Tuesday that they could no longer film interviews with senators in the hallways of the Capitol without first receiving permission, citing a directive from the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration. Such interviews, an everyday occurrence in designated areas throughout the Capitol, provide a running insight into legislators’ thoughts on bills and hearings. The staff said the restrictions were because the number of reporters has swelled due to negotiations on healthcare legislation and high-profile hearings. The directive came from the Senate Rules Committee, which oversees operations on the Senate side of the Capitol, they said. The panel is controlled by Republicans, since they hold the majority in the Senate. Committee Chairman Richard Shelby said in a statement the panel was simply enforcing rules already on the books, adding it “has been working with the various galleries to ensure compliance with existing rules in an effort to help provide a safe environment.” The senior Democrat on the panel, Amy Klobuchar, said she was not consulted in advance and objected. In a statement, Klobuchar said she called on Republicans “to allow reporters to do their jobs.” She added that she had talked to Shelby, who had told her he would not move to change press access without consulting her. “We must hold him to it. This is no time for limiting press access in the U.S. Senate — with Russia hearings, Attorney General (Jeff) Sessions testifying, and what appears to be the secretive drafting of a healthcare bill. We have to preserve freedom of the press,” she said. Shelby’s office did not respond to a request to discuss the dispute over media access except to provide his prepared statement. A Senate aide, who asked not to be identified, said that Rules Committee members were “looking to make changes and have backed off for now.” “We’re certainly not trying to deny anybody an opportunity to have questions asked,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said during a press conference, referring reporters back to the Rules Committee for detailed guidance. The Capitol hallways have been crowded with both reporters and summer tourists in recent weeks as Senate Republicans work on an overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system. Current and former government officials have also drawn crowds at hearings related to probes into alleged Russian meddling in last year’s presidential election. | 1 |
7,429 | Colombia authorizes air raids against dissident FARC, crime gangs | BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia s armed forces have been authorized to launch air raids against crime gangs and FARC members who have refused to adhere to a peace accord with the former guerilla group and instead chose to continue drug trafficking and other criminal activity, the Defense Ministry said on Tuesday. As many as 1,000 members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have not abided by the terms of last year s peace agreement with the government, preferring instead to remain armed, fight the government and profit from illegal drugs and mining. The conflict killed more than 220,000 people and displaced millions since it began in 1964. The executive order allows troops to conduct bomb attacks against FARC dissidents and crime gangs from airplanes and helicopters, and shields the military from criminal prosecution, the Defense Ministry said in a statement. Raids can only be carried out if civilians are not close by. Air raids were the most effective weapon in the government s fight against the FARC, pushing fighters deep into inhospitable jungle and killing high-level rebel commanders. That strategy also has been used against the National Liberation Army (ELN), now the biggest active guerrilla group in Colombia, which is in peace talks with the government. The two sides began a bilateral ceasefire in October. More than 11,300 members of the FARC, including fighters, urban militia and prisoners are in the process of being incorporated into society after the group handed in its weapons to the United Nations and formed a political party. | 1 |
7,430 | WOW! FANS BREAK NFL JERSEY SALES RECORD For 3-Time Afghan War Vet Who Bravely Stood Alone For National Anthem…Now He Claims “Standing By Myself” Was “Mistake” | Pittsburgh s head coach Mike Tomlin showed his solidarity for players who took a cowardly stand against our President after Trump said NFL owners should fire players who disrespect our flag during the national anthem. The Pittsburg Steelers team and coaching disrespected our flag and our veterans who have sacrificed so much by hiding in a tunnel instead of joining the fans to honor our flag. After the game, coach Tomlin took it a step further, and openly criticized the Army Ranger and 3-time Afghan war vet Alejandro Villanueva, for standing during our National Anthem.Fans rewarded the brave offensive lineman buy snatching up so many of his jerseys, that Villanueva s jersey sales surpassed the previous record held by Patriots QB Tom Brady. Today, that vision of a hero Americans watched yesterday, who stood alone on the field, undeterred by angry leftists, determined to promote division and hate for our law enforcement, has been shattered.NYP Pittsburgh Steelers offensive lineman Alejandro Villanueva, who broke with his team to stand for the national anthem on Sunday, became the best-selling NFL player Monday, according to a report.The former Army Ranger, who served three tours of duty in Afghanistan, was the only Steeler to appear for The Star-Spangled Banner before the game against the Chicago Bears.Alejandro Villanueva was the only Steeler to come out for the National Anthem, standing in the tunnel. pic.twitter.com/L4EtxRQSvA CBS Sports (@CBSSports) September 24, 2017Fans rewarded Villanueva by purchasing his jersey, helping him to break a record for NFL jersey sales:His patriotic counterprotest while his teammates remained in the locker room helped him unseat New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady as the top gear seller in the league, ESPN reported.A spokesman for Fanatics, which runs the NFL s online store, confirmed that more Villanueva items, including jerseys and T-shirts, had been ordered than that of any other NFL player in the past 24 hours.Less than 24 hours after the dust settled, and Villanueva s teammates and coach had a chance to vocalize their feelings about him standing alone, Villaneuva made a shocking statement to the press about his decision.The Pittsburgh Steelers player who is being heralded for taking the field on Sunday for the national anthem despite the rest of the team boycotting has now revealed that it was all a big mistake, and he meant to be in the tunnel with his fellow players. Unfortunately I threw my teammates under the bus, unintentionally, Alejandro Villanueva said on Monday. Every single time I see that picture of me standing by myself I feel embarrassed. Villanueva then explained that he had asked to stand in the front of the team with the captains of the squad at the last second so that they showed some respect for wounder veterans.That plan backfired though when he did not stop to check that the captains were by his side as he walked to the opening of the tunnel, which is how the 6ft 9in lineman ended up in plain view on the field as the national anthem began to play.Watch:His admission comes after thousands across the country declared him a hero for his actions, and began purchasing his jersey in record numbers to show support for what they thought was a calculated move.Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger also said on Monday that he was meant to be by Villanueva s side at the time, but got held back by the melee in the tunnel after the tackle walked too far out. Daily MailSocial media isn t buying Villanueva s story:Villanueva has now been pressured to apologize, after his coach criticized him. So much for HIS free speech. https://t.co/quHh76R5F6 Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) September 26, 2017 | 0 |
7,431 | What’s the Leading Killer of American Adults Under 50? Drug Overdose. | 21st Century Wire says Last April, the UN general assembly met to discuss how the world s nations can combat the global drug problem. It was just the latest non-event in a long line of categorical failures, led by the United States. Ever since US president Richard Nixon declared the War on Drugs in 1971, the international narcotics trade has grown from strength to strength, in a black global market that is now worth hundreds of billions of dollars per year. After Nixon, other US presidents tried to champion the issue, from Reagan to Clinton, Bush and Obama. Each of them presided over one epic failure after another. However, where long-term data is available, it does point to systematic failures in drug policies. A study published in the British Medical Journal in 2013 found that despite efforts to limit the supply of these drugs, since 1990 prices have fallen while the purity of the drugs has increased. The trends were similar in the US and in Europe. The authors conclusion was clear: These findings suggest that expanding efforts at controlling the global illegal drug market through law enforcement are failing. (The Guardian)As a direct result of the policies of western governments led by the US, and their corrupt accomplices in the international banking, UN and NGO sectors in 2017, cheaper, newer and more deadly drugs continue to ruin families and communities, and millions of lives in the new western underclass and youth population Zero HedgeThe opioid crisis that is ravaging urban and suburban communities across the US claimed an unprecedented 59,000 lives last year, according to preliminary data gathered by the New York Times. If accurate, that s equivalent to a roughly 19% increase over the approximately 52,000 overdose deaths recorded in 2015, the NYT reported last year.Overdoses, made increasingly common by the introduction of fentanyl and other powerful synthetic opioids into the heroin supply, are now the leading cause of death for Americans under 50. And all evidence suggests the problem has continued to worsen in 2017. One coroner in Western Pennsylvania told a local newspaper that his office is literally running out of room to store the bodies, and that it was recently forced to buy a larger freezer.The initial data points to large increases in these types of deaths in states along the East Coast, particularly Maryland, Florida, Pennsylvania and Maine. In Ohio, which filed a lawsuit last week accusing five drug companies of abetting the opioid epidemic, the Times estimated that overdose deaths increased by more than 25 percent in 2016.In some Ohio counties, deaths from heroin have virtually disappeared. Instead, the primary culprit is fentanyl or one of its many analogues. In Montgomery County, home to Dayton, of the 100 drug overdose deaths recorded in January and February, only three people tested positive for heroin; 97 tested positive for fentanyl or another analogue.In some states in the western half of the US, data suggest deaths may have leveled off for the time being or even begun to decline. Experts believe that the heroin supply west of the Mississippi River, traditionally dominated by a variant of the drug known as black tar which is smuggled over the border from Mexico, isn t as easily adulterated with lethal analogues as the powder that s common on the East Coast Continue this story at Zero HedgeREAD MORE WAR ON DRUGS NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire War on Drugs FilesSUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 0 |
7,432 | South Africa's unruly ANC branches kick off race to succeed Zuma | JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa s ruling African National Congress (ANC) is holding hundreds of branch meetings as grassroots members nominate candidates to take over from President Jacob Zuma as party chief in December. The frontrunners are Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, former chair of the African Union and Zuma s ex-wife, but with several other senior ANC figures running, the contest is too close to call. The ANC s next leader will probably become president in 2019 given the party s electoral dominance. First they face the tough task of winning back voters disillusioned with Zuma s rule and investors spooked by ratings downgrades. The fractious, sometimes violent, branch meetings start the decisive final stretch of the race to succeed Zuma, whose rule has been marred by corruption allegations and a sharp economic slowdown. Ramaphosa, a former union leader and one of the country s richest people, is viewed more favourably by foreign investors, who help cover the country s deficits. Many of them are unsettled by Dlamini-Zuma s calls to radically redistribute wealth and change the ownership structure of the central bank. Ramaphosa and Dlamini-Zuma s campaign teams did not reply to requests for comment on reports of intimidation and manipulation of the nomination process in some provinces. The real fight is in December, but psychologically the battle for the soul of the ANC has begun, said Stan Itshegetseng, who chaired a branch meeting in the Diepkloof district of the sprawling Soweto township on Sunday. It took 11 hours for Itshegetseng s branch of over 320 members to nominate Ramaphosa for ANC president, recommend more than 20 other officials for the party s National Executive Committee and agree on a delegate to send to the December party conference. Nominations in the branches matter because they send 90 percent of the more than 5,000 delegates who will vote in December. Branch meetings started last month and are due to end in mid-November. For a factbox on the ANC leadership contest, see: Unless change comes under the ANC s next leader, some analysts believe the ANC could lose the 2019 election, a once unthinkable scenario for a party that has led comfortably since sweeping to power under Nelson Mandela at the end of apartheid in 1994. As the ANC s electoral majority has shrunk, so the battle for control of the party has intensified between the factions backing Dlamini-Zuma and Ramaphosa. Zuma and the ANC s youth and women s leagues he controls want Dlamini-Zuma, while Ramaphosa is backed by a diverse group of labor unions, communists and ANC members who say the party has lost its way under Zuma. Provincial ANC leaders are split. Carol Sono, a branch member in Diepkloof, said Dlamini-Zuma s stints as health minister, foreign minister and home affairs minister meant she was the most qualified. It s only because of patriarchy that she wasn t chosen sooner, Sono said. Kedi Saletese, a branch secretary in the Orlando district of Soweto, said only Ramaphosa could tackle corruption and help the ANC reclaim its image as a defender of ordinary South Africans. Now people see the ANC as a stepladder to enrich themselves. It makes you ashamed to wear an ANC T-shirt, she said. Saletese s branch - like Itshegetseng s in Diepkloof - nominated Ramaphosa on Sunday. The Gauteng province, where Soweto and the country s commercial capital, Johannesburg, are based, is an area where Ramaphosa enjoys strong support. Ramaphosa also polls well in the Eastern Cape and Limpopo provinces, whereas Dlamini-Zuma is likely to receive a greater share of votes in provinces including her native Kwa-Zulu Natal and Mpumalanga, where the premier is viewed as a Zuma ally. Earlier this year there was a spate of political killings in Kwa-Zulu Natal, and some officials have expressed concern there could be more bloodshed as the leadership race nears its climax. At the three branches Reuters visited in Soweto on Sunday, there was no sign of violence, though a coordinator for Ramaphosa s campaign said he had been threatened with being taken out permanently for his choice of leader. Activists for Ramaphosa and Dlamini-Zuma mingled with party members, urging loyalty before the nominations began. As Ramaphosa supporters emerged victorious from their branch meeting in Diepkloof, they started singing Things will change . | 1 |
7,433 | this simple daily tip can improve your health and jumpstart weightloss | the trump campaign is so desperate that they are openly celebrating the reopening of the fbis investigation into hillary clintons emails
trump campaign manager kellyanne conway tweeted a great day in our campaign just got even better fbi reviewing new emails in clinton probe cnnpolitics httpstcowbltglak
kellyanne conway kellyannepolls october
the problem with the idea that the emails will save donald trump and the republican party is that clinton was beating trump while the fbi did their first investigation into her emails clinton has led trump all through the congressional hearings into her emails she led trump throughout the fbi investigation into her emails clinton won the democratic nomination with her emails being a story
the point is that hillary clintons emails arent a big issue to the majority of voters the people who arent republicans in this election dont care about her emails
when compared to trump sexually assaulting women not paying federal income taxes and being sued in two states for fraud the emails seem like a quaint political scandal from a much simpler time
there has also never been a shred of proof that hillary clinton did anything wrong
republicans cant get past the basic hurdle of needing actual evidence to back up their email conspiracy
hillary clinton is facing donald trump in this election and only a moron or a truly desperate campaign manager clinging on the last bit of hope that she can find would believe that the reopening of an email investigation will make a bit of difference on election day
the voters are speaking and they dont care about hillary clintons emails | 0 |
7,434 | The NRA Endorsed Trump, But They’d Have Ended Him In 2012 For His Comments Right After Sandy Hook | Donald Trump gave a speech to the NRA, who then endorsed him for President. That seems a little odd, given Trump s past support for certain gun control measures that the NRA wouldn t touch with a 60 foot pole. It s especially telling that, as recently as 2012, Trump supported President Obama s attempts at reasonable gun legislation following Sandy Hook. Now, though? They seem to have forgotten.Back then, President Obama said: We can t tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change. We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true. No single law no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world, or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society. But that can t be an excuse for inaction. Surely, we can do better than this. Trump s response to that?Back in 2000, he also wrote in his book, The America We Deserve: I generally oppose gun control, but I support the ban on assault weapons and I also support a slightly longer waiting period to purchase a gun. Those are both things the NRA can t stand. Trump used to call out Republicans for walking the NRA line, and refuse even limited restrictions on firearms too, which is really all Democrats want. The NRA, however, would have us believe that Obama is coming for our guns any minute now, and, if not him, then the next Democratic president will. Somehow, some way, some Democratic president will take everyone s guns.We have to wonder when that s actually going to happen, since they keep saying it s just a matter of time.So Trump used to be pro-gun legislation, and now he s anti-gun legislation enough for an NRA endorsement. The NRA has a short memory, apparently. While people do evolve on their positions as they learn new facts, this is pandering, because the NRA willfully ignores the facts.Trump, however, must enjoy pandering, because he does an awful lot of it.He s also pandering to the extreme end of the pro-gun crowd, even proudly accepting an endorsement from a Sandy Hook truther back in January. In March, Pastor Carl Gallups gave a speech where he said that Trump was the pragmatic choice for Christians. However, Gallups website calls the Sandy Hook massacre a gun-grab hoax, and allegedly has evidence proving that. He also said that there s no question that the victims parents are all fakes.The fact that it doesn t occur to the guns-everywhere crowd that Trump s support for the NRA, the gun nuts, and everything they stand for, is an illusion in order to gain support he knows he needs boggles the mind. Of course, it s hard to catch the liar of liars in a lie, because he s got excuses for everything and he s good at making his lies sound perfectly reasonable. He s very likely snowed the NRA here.Featured image by Scott Olson/Getty Images | 0 |
7,435 | morgen neu am kiosk postillon am sonntag | muhten ihm einiges zu bauer soll streit unter kühen schlichten mönchenskinder abt erzürnt über verstoß gegen das zölibat im falschen körper gefangen erdmännchenweibchen tretrad roller rad kasperl für großen fuhrpark kritisiert will sich mal schlau machen blondine informiert sich über färbemöglichkeiten beinhaar oberschenkel nahezu komplett rasiert wolp erdinger weg fabelwesen leert weißbier in einem einzigen schluck und verschwindet adl tom oga sod sta kol kly jetzt bestellen der postillonnewstickerkalender nur der postillon newsticker artikel teilen | 0 |
7,436 | Israel rejects U.N. vote, thanks Trump for stance on Jerusalem | JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel rejected a U.N. vote on Thursday that called on the United States to withdraw its decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Israel rejects the U.N. decision and at the same time is satisfied with the high number of countries that did not vote in its favour, said a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu s office. Israel thanks (U.S.) President Trump for his unequivocal position in favour of Jerusalem and thanks the countries that voted together with Israel, together with the truth, it said. | 1 |
7,437 | Trump ends nine-day overseas trip with a flourish as trouble looms at home | SIGONELLA, Italy (Reuters) - With trouble facing him back home, U.S. President Donald Trump ended his nine-day overseas journey in dramatic fashion on Saturday, addressing U.S. troops at a campaign-style rally. Trump flipped traditional U.S. foreign policy upside down on his tour through the Middle East and Europe, coddling Middle Eastern leaders with questionable human rights records while demanding traditional European allies pay more for their defense. At a Group of Seven summit in the resort town of Taormina on the island of Sicily, Trump refused to entreaties from the other six allies to maintain U.S. support for the Paris climate agreement, insisting he needed more time to make up his mind. In a hangar at Naval Air Station Sigonella, which is also on Sicily, Trump was introduced by his wife Melania, who has raised eyebrows during the trip by twice flicking away her husband’s hand when he tried to hold hers. “My husband worked very hard on this trip and I am very proud of him,” she said. Trump, whose Marine One helicopter landed from Taormina to the soaring soundtrack of the “Air Force One” movie, emerged from two days of closed door summitry to declare his trip a success. Trump said he had helped forge more international cooperation in the fight against Islamist militants, a threat he said was underscored by a suicide bomber in Manchester, England, and the killing of Coptic Christians in Egypt. “It was a tremendously productive meeting where I strengthen American bonds,” said Trump. “We have great bonds with other countries and, with some of our closest allies, we concluded a truly historic week.” Trump skipped the traditional end-of-trip news conference to avoid facing questions about a host of problems he faces upon his return to Washington later on Saturday. His May 9 firing of former FBI Director James Comey has raised concerns about whether he was trying to squelch a federal probe into his campaign’s ties with Russia last year. The questions have been intensified in the wake of disclosures on Friday that a senior adviser, Jared Kushner, the husband of Trump’s daughter Ivanka, had contacts with the Russians in December about opening a secret back channel of communications with Moscow. Trump used his trip to promote “America First” policies, promoting $110 billion worth of arms sales to Saudi Arabia and telling G-7 allies that the United States needs a more level playing field on trade. His body language on the trip demonstrated his typically brash behavior, dramatized by his demands that NATO allies pay more for their defense and his refusal to explicitly declare that the United States backs Article 5 of the alliance’s charter, which requires each member to come to the defense of each other. His pushing aside of the prime minister of Montenegro to get in place for a family photo generated headlines across Europe. At Sigonella, Trump said his appeals to NATO allies to pay more was working. “Money is starting to flow in,” he said. “It’s only fair to the United States. We’re behind NATO all the way. But we want to be treated fairly.” | 1 |
7,438 | McConnell says will discuss Supreme Court pick with Trump | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said he would meet with President Donald Trump later on Tuesday to discuss Trump’s Supreme Court pick, and that he expected the nominee to be highly qualified and conservative. “I anticipate what we’re going to get from the president is a highly qualified, well-credentialed conservative jurist,” McConnell told reporters. | 1 |
7,439 | Trump questions why U.S. Civil War had to happen | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump has shown a fascination with populist 19th-century U.S. president Andrew Jackson since he has occupied the Oval Office, hanging “Old Hickory’s” portrait in the Oval Office, visiting his plantation in Tennessee and placing a wreath at his tomb. In an interview that aired on Sirius XM satellite radio on Monday, Trump suggested that if Jackson had governed a little later than his 1829-1837 presidency, the American Civil War might have been averted. Trump also questioned why the bloody conflict had to happen. “Had Andrew Jackson been a little later, you wouldn’t have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart,” Trump told Sirius XM. He said that although Jackson was a “swashbuckler,” after his wife died, Jackson visited her grave every day. Jackson, a slave owner who was instrumental in the forced removal of Native American tribes from the U.S. Southeast in the so-called Trail of Tears, died nearly 16 years before the start of the Civil War. But Trump told Sirius XM that Jackson “was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War.””He said, ‘There’s no reason for this,’” Trump said. “People don’t realize, you know, the Civil War — if you think about it, why? People don’t ask that question, but why was there a Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?” It was not clear what Trump believed Jackson would have done to avert the 1861-65 conflict, which cost 620,000 lives. In a tweet later on Monday, Trump acknowledged that Jackson had died 16 years before the start of the war but said he “saw it coming and was angry. Would never have let it happen!” The events leading to the Civil War have been extensively researched, with slavery being one of the root causes. Slavery and its legacy have been a source of division in the United States since. By the time of his death, Jackson owned about 150 slaves who lived and worked at his plantation, the Hermitage. During his time in office, Jackson denounced the growing activity of abolitionists seeking an end to slavery. Trump and his supporters have likened his election victory to Jackson’s triumph in 1828, when Jackson became the first U.S. president from what was then the western frontier of Tennessee. The populist Democrat famously opened the White House to all comers after his inauguration, turning the normally dignified executive mansion into a mob scene. | 1 |
7,440 | Militants attack checkpoint in Somalia's Puntland, seven dead | BOSASO, Somalia (Reuters) - Islamist al Shabaab militants attacked a checkpoint in Somalia s semi-autonomous Puntland region, killing at least seven people in the early hours of Monday, police said. The fighters then ambushed officers rushing in to help colleagues on the outskirts of the city of Bosaso, an officer at the scene told Reuters. Al Shabaab said it took the checkpoint then left, though the police said they fought off the assault. Al Shabaab has launched a string of attacks on Somalia s capital Mogadishu and other areas controlled by the federal government in a bid to oust the Western-backed authorities and impose the group s interpretation of Islamic law. Attacks are relatively rare in Puntland, which has its own government and security forces patrolling its territory on the northeastern tip of the Horn of Africa, jutting out into the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea. At about 1 a.m., many well-armed al Shabaab fighters attacked us from all directions in an attempt to capture the checkpoint, police captain Abdifatah Mohamed said. Three police and four civilians died and at least 13 others were wounded in the clashes, he said over the phone from the checkpoint. Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaab s military operation spokesman, said its fighters killed seven soldiers and wounded 11 others. We captured the Bosaso checkpoint and left this morning. We also ambushed a police reinforcement, he said. Puntland is also home to a splinter group of al Shabaab that has sworn allegiance to Islamic State. Security sources say a small contingent of foreign fighters is based there. | 1 |
7,441 | Half of Britons support a second vote on Brexit, poll finds | LONDON (Reuters) - Half of Britons support a second vote on whether to leave the European Union and a majority think the government may be paying too much money to the EU to open the way to trade talks, according to a new opinion poll. The poll, published in the Mail on Sunday newspaper, found 50 percent of people supported another vote on the final terms of Britain s exit deal, 34 percent rejected another referendum and 16 percent said they did not know. The newspaper said it was the first major opinion poll since last week s media reports that Britain is preparing to pay about 50 billion euros ($59 billion) to help to move on to talks on a future trade pact with the EU. Mike Smithson, an election analyst who runs the www.politicalbetting.com website and a former Liberal Democrat politician, said on Twitter it was the first time any pollster has recorded backing for a second Brexit referendum. Since the referendum in 2016, high profile opponents of Britain s exit - from French President Emmanuel Macron, to former British prime minister Tony Blair and billionaire investor George Soros - have suggested Britain could change its mind and avoid what they say will be disastrous for the British economy. Blair said on Sunday he was trying to reverse Brexit because claims by the leave campaign, such as the National Health Service getting an extra 350 million pounds a week once Britain leaves the EU, have been proved false. Blair told the BBC that the government aims in the Brexit negotiations will fail because it wants to leave the single market, but retain all of the benefits, and voters can change their minds. It s reversible. It s not done until it s done, he said. When the facts change, I think people are entitled to change their mind. Brexit supporters argue any attempt to halt the exit process would be anti-democratic. According to the Survation poll only 11 percent of voters said Britain should pay 50 billion pounds to quit the EU, while 31 percent said the government should not pay anything at all. The poll also found 35 percent of those surveyed said they would be worse off financially after Brexit, while 14 percent said they would be better off. The online poll, carried out by research firm Survation, interviewed 1,003 adults in Britain between 30 November and 1 December. Survation said it carries out polls for media organizations including the BBC, Sky News, the Daily Telegraph and the Guardian. The polling agency correctly predicted a narrowing in the vote between the ruling Conservative party and the opposition Labour Party in this summer s general election that resulted in May leading a minority government. ($1 = 0.8411 euros) | 1 |
7,442 | YALE REMOVES Name Of DEMOCRAT White Supremacist, Passionate Supporter Of Slavery From Res College…Why Not Rename It After Most Famous Black Alum, Justice Clarence Thomas? | University trustees, known as the Yale Corporation, voted in favor of the renaming on Friday, reversing a decision last year to keep the name. Keeping the name had been defended as a way to confront rather than paper over the legacy of slavery.The change will go into effect in time for the 2017-2018 academic year. John C. Calhoun s legacy as a white supremacist and a national leader who passionately promoted slavery as a positive good fundamentally conflicts with Yale s mission and values, President Peter Salovey said in a message sent to the Yale community on Saturday. He said depictions in the college celebrating plantations and the Old South suggest that Calhoun was honored in part because of his support for slavery, not in spite of it.Yale is among a number of colleges that have grappled with how to honor their histories without offending modern sensibilities. Vanderbilt University last year said it would pay $1.2 million to remove the word Confederate from a residence hall s facade, while Princeton University said it would keep Woodrow Wilson s name on its school of public and international affairs and a residential college, while increasing discussion of the former president s support of segregation. WSJIf Yale is so concerned about promoting diversity and working to erase any signs of slavery, why not rename the Calhoun College with their most famous black alumni, US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas? The tradition at Yale has been to name colleges after prominent, deceased, alumni, and ones that have contributed somehow to the human race. Morse College, for instance, is named after Samuel Morse, of the eponymous Morse Code.Yale will feel immense pressure to rename Calhoun for a minority figure, but who? Of Yale s deceased minority alumni, no one leaps to mind. Someone suggested Levi Jackson, which I thought was a nice idea, but Jackson isn t well known outside Yale circles, and I doubt any of today s students have any idea who he is.It seems likely Yale might jettison the being dead requirement. If that turns out to be the case, how about Clarence Thomas? He is easily Yale s most prominent black alum, even if he wasn t an undergrad.I am joking of course. While I would be proud if this came about, the left would sooner burn Calhoun to the ground than let it be named for a black conservative, only going to show that this isn t about race, it s about power and politics.One other thought: Elihu Yale was apparently a slave trader, among other things. How soon before the activists set there sights on renaming the entire university? The Naked Dollar | 0 |
7,443 | ILLEGAL ALIENS Set Up Huge Tent City…You Won’t Believe Where It Is! [Video] | Legal Latino Heat filmed a tent city full of illegals (Language alert!) that s right between two courthouses in Santa Ana, California! This is Sanctuary City Hell! Santa Ana declared itself a Sanctuary City in December of last year in defiance of Trump (see below).Coming From New York City I thought the homeless were bad over there. Here they have their own community and the city allows it. Illegals and criminals have their way in Liberal Sanctuary cities. If you needed more evidence to convince you that sanctuary cities are destroying our country, then look no further than this Activist Legal Latino Heat released a shocking video that shows a massive tent city packed with illegals, drug addicts, and their pets. sprawls across the Plaza of the Flags situated in the heart of the Santa Ana Civic CenterThis illegal camp is centered in sanctuary city of Santa Ana, California, sprawling across the Plaza of the Flags situated in the heart of the Santa Ana s Civic Center.It doesn t even look like America!SANTA ANA DECLARE ITSELF A SANCTUARY CITY IN DECEMBER OF 2016: Santa Ana declares itself a sanctuary city in defiance of TrumpSince Donald Trump was elected president in November, cities with large Latino populations have debated how to respond.Many activists have urged these communities to do everything they can to protect people in this country illegally, even though such efforts might jeopardize some federal funding from a Washington in which Republicans will control not only the White House but also Congress.Santa Ana the seat of Orange County and home to one of the nation s largest Latino populations decided this week to strike a defiant tone.City Council members voted to declare Orange County s second-most populous city a sanctuary city a largely symbolic gesture to protect immigrants who are in the country illegally.Paid Post WHAT S THIS?FREE Unlimited?A Message from SprintHere s all you need to know: FREE Unlimited data, talk and textSee More Tuesday s vote is historic in that it makes Santa Ana the first city in Orange County to grant itself the designation. It joins dozens of other cities across the country that have declared themselves sanctuaries. Still want to bail out California? | 0 |
7,444 | U.S. farm groups discuss policy with Clinton staff, pursue Trump | CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. agriculture groups are pushing for continuing talks with the presumptive Democratic and Republican presidential nominees in an effort to influence their farm policy positions as a slump in crop prices squeezes the sector’s profits. Representatives of about a dozen trade associations, including the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Farmers Union, met with staffers for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton on Friday at her New York campaign headquarters. It was the farm coalition’s first meeting with Clinton’s staff and included discussions of issues ranging from agricultural trade and labor to mandatory labels for foods containing genetically modified ingredients, attendees said on Wednesday. The meeting was the start of a push by the sector for more details from Clinton and Republican rival Donald Trump about their stances on issues affecting farmers and agribusiness. The groups are seeking a meeting with Trump’s campaign. “All of us agreed, on both sides of the table, that it is a successful meeting only if it’s the first of a number of exchanges,” said Jay Vroom, the chief executive of pesticide association CropLife America, who attended the session. The candidates’ agriculture policies are crucial, the groups say, because net U.S. farm income is forecast to drop to its lowest since 2002, largely due to a decline in grain prices. If that happens, incomes will be down 56 percent from a recent high of $123.3 billion in 2013. “With that kind of climate, we’re definitely concerned about what farm policy will look like building to the next (congressional) farm bill,” said Tom Bryant, the National Farmers Union’s membership director. If elected, Clinton will increase agricultural production and profitability for family farms, spokesman Tyrone Gayle said. A Trump spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Matt Paul, a former U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesman working with Clinton’s campaign, participated in the meeting. The gathering came a day after Britain’s surprise vote to exit the European Union, which drew support from some regions with low population densities. Chandler Goule, incoming CEO of the National Association of Wheat Growers, said farm groups drew parallels to Britain’s referendum because “it’s going to be rural America that’s going to turn out for this election, that’s actually going to determine the outcome of this (presidential) election.” Now that Clinton and Trump are the presumed nominees, “it’s time to start making more detailed and more in-the-weeds-type commitments,” he said. | 1 |
7,445 | California, eyeing Cosby, ends statute of limitations for rape | SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) - California Governor Jerry Brown on Wednesday signed a bill to end the statute of limitations for rape, a measure inspired by accusations against comedian Bill Cosby, some of which surfaced decades after alleged crimes occurred. Cosby, who built a long career on family friendly comedy, including his long-running NBC sitcom “The Cosby Show,” has steadfastly denied ever assaulting anyone and has insisted that all his sexual encounters were consensual. He is charged in Pennsylvania with drugging and sexually assaulting a former Temple University employee, Andrea Constand, at his home in 2004. In California, he faces a civil suit by a woman now in her 50s who alleges that Cosby plied her with alcohol and molested her in 1974 at the Playboy Mansion when she was aged 15. Existing California law generally limits prosecution of a felony sexual offense to 10 years after the offense is committed. Only two in 100 rapists will be convicted of a felony and spend any time in prison, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. “Governor Jerry Brown’s signature of SB 813 tells every rape and sexual assault victim in California that they matter and that, regardless of when they are ready to come forward, they will always have an opportunity to seek justice in a court of law,” said bill author Senator Connie Leyva. “Rapists should never be able to evade legal consequences simply because an arbitrary time limit has expired,” she said. The bill will not work retroactively and will not help some of Cosby’s accusers, according to Gloria Allred, an attorney who represents several of the comedian’s alleged victims. The governors of Nevada and Colorado have signed similar bills extending the statute of limitations to 20 years for rape cases into law. The California law takes effect on Jan. 1, 2017. | 1 |
7,446 | Once Again, Trump Proves How INCREDIBLY Ignorant He Is About The World (DETAILS) | President Donald Trump does not know anything about foreign policy. Now, it appears, he knows just as little about trade. This is more troubling as one of his selling points was that he was a successful businessman with a global company. You d think that a person with such a vast empire (there are Trump Towers all over the planet) would know a thing or two about the subject. This idea was blown out of the water this week by comments from a German official about Chancellor Angela Merkel s recent visit to Washington, DC.The official told The Times of London, Ten times Trump asked [German chancellor Angela Merkel] if he could negotiate a trade deal with Germany. Every time she replied, You can t do a trade deal with Germany, only the EU. On the eleventh refusal, Trump finally got the message, Oh, we ll do a deal with Europe then.' For a man who claimed to be able to make the best deals for the United States with our trading partners, it helps to know who exactly those partners are.As bad as that is, Trump s lack of world knowledge is more than just problematic when it comes to problems the country is dealing with on the other side of the world. Not only has the Trump Administration failed to even nominate an ambassador to South Korea, up until China President Xi Jinping visited him at Mar-a-Lago, he was under the impression that the only thing that had to happen to contain North Korean leader, Kim Jung Un, was have China tell him to behave.North Korea is looking for trouble. If China decides to help, that would be great. If not, we will solve the problem without them! U.S.A. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 11, 2017After his visit with Xi, Trump told the Wall Street Journal, After listening for 10 minutes, I realized it s not so easy. I felt pretty strongly that they had a tremendous power [over] North Korea. But it s not what you would think. Keep in mind, Trump spent a lot of time during the campaign (and before) touting, I know China. He claimed that the combination of the work he has done with the Chinese and the hundreds of books he had read about China made him an expert on the region. All of this is odd, given his comments about that short (ten minutes!) conversation. His lack of understanding goes further.After his meeting with Xi, Trump told an interviewer, Korea actually used to be a part of China. This did not go over well with the South Korean government. South Korean foreign spokesman Cho June-hyuck responded with, It s a clear fact acknowledged by the international community that, for thousands of years in history, Korea has never been part of China. But wait, there s more.An interview with Fox & Friends makes it appear that Trump really doesn t even know who is running North Korea right now. He told them:I hope things work out well. I hope there s going to be peace, but you know, they ve been talking with this gentleman for a long time. You read Clinton s book, he said, Oh we made such a great peace deal, and it was a joke. You look at different things over the years with President Obama. Everybody s been outplayed, they ve all been outplayed by this gentleman and we ll see what happens. But I just don t telegraph my moves.Bill Clinton never dealt with the current leader, he dealt with his father, Kim Jung Il. Getting these facts wrong says a lot. Trump doesn t know who to deal with when it comes to trade with Germany. He seems to have taken his information about Chinese and Korean history from Xi. He doesn t appear to have a clue as to who the leader of North Korean leader. The questions with this president are not What did he know and when did he know it? but Does he know anything and can he be taught? Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 0 |
7,447 | Republican Senator and Trump critic says will not seek re-election | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republican Senator Jeff Flake, one of the most prominent critics of President Donald Trump, said on Tuesday he was out of step with his party and would not seek re-election. “There may not be a place for a Republican like me in the current Republican climate or the current Republican Party,” Flake, whose term ends in 2018, told the Arizona Republic. Flake added that he would not run as an independent. | 1 |
7,448 | MUST WATCH: Barack Obama After January 20th…This Will Make Your Day! | January 20th can't come soon enough. We need this anti-American, terrorist sympathizer out of our White House. #WorstPresidentEver pic.twitter.com/D20c8phH18 Steve Hirsch (@Stevenwhirsch99) December 21, 2016 | 0 |
7,449 | NRA Recreates Children’s Stories And Gives All The Heroes Guns (IMAGES) | Despite how much the National Rifle Association (NRA) would like everyone to believe that they are doing their best to educate and protect children against gun violence, the pro-gun organization s latest stunt is pretty puzzling.NRA Family has recently released a pair of children s stories but added its very own special twist. Recreating children s fairy tales like Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel, the NRA has taken it upon itself to rewrite the stories and give their heroes guns to defeat their enemies. After all, hasn t everyone wondered at some point or another what would have happened to Little Red Riding Hood if only her grandmother had been armed with a shotgun? Finally, this burning question has been answered.Little Red Riding Hood NRA FamilyIn the recreated version of Little Red Riding Hood (Has a Gun), the Big Bad Wolf finds himself out of luck because Little Red has a rifle. He gives up and tries to eat Grandma instead, but finds himself in the same predicament because she s also packing heat. Here s a snippet of what the fairy tale looks like with the NRA s special trigger-happy touch: What big teeth you have! Grandma said, as his fierce jaws came near. The better to eat you with! the wolf threatened.The wolf leaned in, jaws open wide, then stopped suddenly. Those big ears heard the unmistakable sound of a shotgun s safety being clicked off. Those big eyes looked down and saw that grandma had a scattergun aimed right at him. He realized that Grandmother hadn t been backing away from him; she had been moving towards her shotgun to protect herself and her home.Hansel And Gretal NRA FamilyThe story of Hansel and Gretel (Have Guns) isn t much better. In this adapted classic, Hansel and Gretal avoid danger because their parents taught them how to use guns. Gretel is not only able to hunt down a 10-point buck, but the pair is able to rescue the children being held captive in the witch s cottage all because they re armed.These revamped children s tales certainly send the wrong message to kids, and hopefully parents will be smart enough to know that. Time and time again, we see that when guns get into the hands of children even when they have been taught how to use firearms things usually go terribly wrong.But the NRA has consistently proven that it doesn t know what s right for children and the organization just doesn t care. The gun-friendly organization continues to promote its Eddie Eagle GunSafe program, an initiative to help educate kids and prevent accidental gun deaths. It has been proven extremely ineffective several times, but the NRA refuses to actually do something that will really protect children like support gun control. The association has consistently opposed and resisted any attempt the Obama administration has tried to make toward gun reform, even as mass shootings have become more common than ever.This is an organization that does not care about America s youth, and these rewritten stories prove it. These revised tales will only make kids want to use guns MORE, and offer zero education about the dangers and seriousness of handling firearms.Featured image via NRAfamily.org | 0 |
7,450 | BREAKING: PETER W. SMITH, GOP Operative Who Sought Hillary Clinton’s Missing Emails FOUND DEAD In Hotel Room | The plot thickens Republican donor and operative from Chicago s North Shore who said he had tried to obtain Hillary Clinton s missing emails from Russian hackers killed himself in a Minnesota hotel room days after talking to The Wall Street Journal about his efforts, public records show.In a room at a Rochester hotel used almost exclusively by Mayo Clinic patients and relatives, Peter W. Smith, 81, left a carefully prepared file of documents, which includes a statement police called a suicide note in which he said he was in ill health and a life insurance policy was expiring.Days earlier, the financier from suburban Lake Forest gave an interview to the Journal about his quest, and it published stories about his efforts beginning in late June. The Journal also reported it had seen emails written by Smith showing his team considered retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, then a top adviser to Republican Donald Trump s campaign, as an ally. Flynn briefly was President Trump s national security adviser and resigned after it was determined he had failed to disclose contacts with Russia.At the time, the newspaper reported Smith s May 14 death came about 10 days after he granted the interview. Mystery shrouded how and where he had died, but the lead reporter on the stories said on a podcast he had no reason to believe the death was the result of foul play and that Smith likely had died of natural causes.The Journal stories said it was on Labor Day weekend in 2016 that Smith had assembled a team to acquire emails the team theorized might have been stolen from the private server Clinton had used while secretary of state. Smith s focus was the more than 30,000 emails Clinton said she deleted because they related to personal matters. A huge cache of other Clinton emails were made public.Smith told the Journal he believed the missing emails might have had been obtained by Russian hackers. He also said he thought the correspondence related to Clinton s official duties. He told the Journal he worked independently and was not part of the Trump campaign. He also told the Journal he and his team found five groups of hackers two of them Russian groups who claimed to have Clinton s missing emails.Smith had a history of doing opposition research, the formal term for unflattering information that political operatives dig up about rival candidates.For years, Democratic President Bill Clinton was Smith s target. The wealthy businessman had a hand in exposing the Troopergate allegations about Bill Clinton s sex life. And he discussed financing a probe of a 1969 trip Bill Clinton had taken while in college to the Soviet Union, according to Salon magazine.Smith s death occurred at the Aspen Suites in Rochester, records show. They list the cause of death as asphyxiation due to displacement of oxygen in confined space with helium. Rochester Police Chief Roger Peterson on Wednesday called his manner of death unusual, but a funeral home worker said he d seen it before.An employee with Rochester Cremation Services, the funeral home that responded to the hotel, said he helped remove Smith s body from his room and recalled seeing a tank.However, the Chicago Tribune obtained a Minnesota state death record filed in Olmsted County that says Smith committed suicide in a hotel near the Mayo Clinic at 1:17 p.m. on Sunday, May 14. He was found with a bag over his head with a source of helium attached. A medical examiner s report gives the same account, without specifying the time, and a report from Rochester police further details his suicide.In the note recovered by police, Smith apologized to authorities and said that NO FOUL PLAY WHATSOEVER was involved in his death. He wrote that he was taking his own life because of a RECENT BAD TURN IN HEALTH SINCE JANUARY, 2017 and timing related TO LIFE INSURANCE OF $5 MILLION EXPIRING. One of Smith s former employees told the Tribune he thought the elderly man had gone to the famed clinic to be treated for a heart condition. Mayo spokeswoman Ginger Plumbo said Thursday she could not confirm Smith had been a patient, citing medical privacy laws.Peter Smith wrote two blog posts dated the day before he was found dead. One challenged U.S. intelligence agency findings that Russia interfered with the 2016 election. Another post predicted: As attention turns to international affairs, as it will shortly, the Russian interference story will die of its own weight. Chicago Tribune h/t Gary Klug @garyinlv01 Peter W. Smith tweeted an interesting article on January 16, 2017. The article says Russian hackers did not hack the DNC emails and that the person who hacked them is a Russian named Dmitri Alperovitch who also worked for Barack Obama.Russian ex-national guards U.S. nuclear codes for Obama https://t.co/j0vz8h1Cmx Peter W. Smith (@PTRSIH) January 16, 2017State of The Nation 2012 Russians did not hack the DNC system, a Russian named Dmitri Alperovitch is the hacker and he works for President Obama. In the last five years the Obama administration has turned exclusively to one Russian to solve every major cyber-attack in America, whether the attack was on the U.S. government or a corporation. Only one super-hero cyber-warrior seems to have the codes to figure out if a system was hacked and by whom. Dmitri s company, CrowdStrike has been called in by Obama to solve mysterious attacks on many high level government agencies and American corporations, including: German Bundestag, Democratic National Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the White House, the State Department, SONY, and many others.CrowdStrike s philosophy is: You don t have a malware problem; you have an adversary problem. CrowdStrike has played a critical role in the development of America s cyber-defense policy. Dmitri Alperovitch and George Kurtz, a former head of the FBI cyberwarfare unit founded CrowdStrike. Shawn Henry, former executive assistant director at the FBI is now CrowdStrike s president of services. The company is crawling with former U.S. intelligence agents.Before Alperovitch founded CrowdStrike in 2011, he was working in Atlanta as the chief threat officer at the antivirus software firm McAfee, owned by Intel (a DARPA company). During that time, he discovered the Chinese had compromised at least seventy-one companies and organizations, including thirteen defense contractors, three electronics firms, and the International Olympic Committee. He was the only person to notice the biggest cyberattack in history! Nothing suspicious about that.Alperovitch and the DNCAfter CrowdStrike was hired as an independent vendor by the DNC to investigate a possible cyberattack on their system, Alperovitch sent the DNC a proprietary software package called Falcon that monitors the networks of its clients in real time. According to Alperovitch, Falcon lit up, within ten seconds of being installed at the DNC. Alperovitch had his proof in TEN SECONDS that Russia was in the network. This alleged evidence of Russian hacking has yet to be shared with anyone.As Donald Trump has pointed out, the FBI, the agency that should have been immediately involved in hacking that effects National Security, has yet to even examine the DNC system to begin an investigation. Instead, the FBI and 16 other U.S. intelligence agencies simply agree with Obama s most trusted cyberwarfare expert Dmitri Alperovitch s TEN SECOND assessment that produced no evidence to support the claim.Also remember that it is only Alperovitch and CrowdStrike that claim to have evidence that it was Russian hackers. In fact, only two hackers were found to have been in the system and were both identified by Alperovitch as Russian FSB (CIA) and the Russian GRU (DoD). It is only Alperovitch who claims that he knows that it is Putin behind these two hackers.Alperovitch failed to mention in his conclusive TEN SECOND assessment that Guccifer 2.0 had already hacked the DNC and made available to the public the documents he hacked before Alperovitch did his ten second assessment. Alperovitch reported that no other hackers were found, ignoring the fact that Guccifer 2.0 had already hacked and released DNC documents to the public. Alperovitch s assessment also goes directly against Julian Assange s repeated statements that the DNC leaks did not come from the Russians.The ridiculously fake cyber-attack assessment done by Alperovitch and CrowdStrike na vely flies in the face of the fact that a DNC insider admitted that he had released the DNC documents. Julian Assange implied in an interview that the murdered Democratic National Committee staffer, Seth Rich, was the source of a trove of damaging emails the website posted just days before the party s convention. Seth was on his way to testify about the DNC leaks to the FBI when he was shot dead in the street.It is also absurd to hear Alperovitch state that the Russian FSB (equivalent to the CIA) had been monitoring the DNC site for over a year and had done nothing. No attack, no theft, and no harm was done to the system by this false-flag cyber-attack on the DNC or at least, Alperovitch reported there was an attack. The second hacker, the supposed Russian military (GRU like the U.S. DoD) hacker, had just entered the system two weeks before and also had done nothing but observe.It is only Alperovitch s word that reports that the Russian FSB was looking for files on Donald Trump. It is only this false claim that spuriously ties Trump to the alleged attack. It is also only Alperovitch who believes that this hack that was supposedly looking for Trump files was an attempt to influence the election. No files were found about Trump by the second hacker, as we know from Wikileaks and Guccifer 2.0 s leaks. To confabulate that Russian s hacked the DNC to influence the elections is the claim of one well-known Russian spy. Then, 17 U.S. intelligence agencies unanimously confirm that Alperovitch is correct even though there is no evidence and no investigation was ever conducted.How does Dmitri Alperovitch have such power? Why did Obama again and again use Alperovitch s company, CrowdStrike, when they have miserably failed to stop further cyber-attacks on the systems they were hired to protect? Why should anyone believe CrowdStrikes false-flag report?After documents from the DNC continued to leak, and Guccifer 2.0 and Wikileaks made CrowdStrike s report look foolish, Alperovitch decided the situation was far worse than he had reported. He single-handedly concluded that the Russians were conducting an influence operation to help win the election for Trump. This false assertion had absolutely no evidence to back it up.On July 22, three days before the Democratic convention in Philadelphia, WikiLeaks dumped a massive cache of emails that had been stolen (not hacked) from the DNC. Reporters soon found emails suggesting that the DNC leadership had favored Hillary Clinton in her primary race against Bernie Sanders, which led Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the DNC chair, along with three other officials, to resign.Just days later, it was discovered that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) had been hacked. CrowdStrike was called in again and once again, Alperovitch immediately believed that Russia was responsible. A lawyer for the DCCC gave Alperovitch permission to confirm the leak and to name Russia as the suspected author. Two weeks later, files from the DCCC began to appear on Guccifer 2.0 s website. This time Guccifer released information about Democratic congressional candidates who were running close races in Florida, Ohio, Illinois, and Pennsylvania. On August 12, Guccifer went further, publishing a spreadsheet that included the personal email addresses and phone numbers of nearly two hundred Democratic members of Congress.Once again, Guccifer 2.0 proved Alperovitch and CrowdStrike s claims to be grossly incorrect about the hack originating from Russia, with Putin masterminding it all. Nancy Pelosi offered members of Congress Alperovitch s suggestion of installing Falcon, the system that failed to stop cyberattacks at the DNC, on all congressional laptops.Key Point: Once Falcon was installed on the computers of members of the U.S. Congress, CrowdStrike had even further full access into U.S. government accounts.Obama No Friend of AmericaObama is no friend of America in the war against cyber-attacks. The very agencies and departments being defended by Michael Alperovitch s singular and most brilliant ability to write encryption codes have all been successfully attacked and compromised since Michael set up the codes. But we shouldn t worry, because if there is a cyberattack in the Obama administration, Michael s son Dmitri is called in to prove that it isn t the fault of his father s codes. It was the damn Russians , or even Putin himself who attacked American networks.Not one of the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies is capable of figuring out a successful cyberattack against America without Michael and Dmitri s help. Those same 17 U.S. intelligence agencies were not able to effectively launch a successful cyberattack against Russia. It seems like the Russian s have strong codes and America has weak codes. We can thank Michael and Dmitri Alperovitch for that.It is clear that there was no DNC hack beyond Guccifer 2.0. Dmitri Alperovitch is a frontman for his father s encryption espionage mission.Is it any wonder that Trump says that he has his own people to deliver his intelligence to him that is outside of the infiltrated U.S. government intelligence agencies and the Obama administration? Isn t any wonder that citizens have to go anywhere BUT the MSM to find real news or that the new administration has to go to independent news to get good intel?It is hard to say anything more damnable than to again quote Dmitri on these very issues: If someone steals your keys to encrypt the data, it doesn t matter how secure the algorithms are. Dmitri Alperovitch, founder of CrowdStrikeFor entire story: The State of The Nation 2012 | 0 |
7,451 | Trump poses daunting new challenge for Germany's Merkel | BERLIN (Reuters) - Donald Trump’s victory has been a shock for America’s major partners around the world. But perhaps nowhere has the blow been more painful than in Germany, a country that under Angela Merkel has come to see itself as a bastion of openness and tolerance. On virtually every issue of importance to the German chancellor, from confronting Russian aggression and promoting free trade, to combating climate change and tackling the tide of refugees fleeing Syria, Trump seems likely to turn Washington from an ally into an adversary. He invoked the German chancellor’s name to insult his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton during the U.S. campaign, calling her “America’s Merkel”. And he described her decision last year to open German borders to hundreds of thousands of migrants as “insane”. So although Trump’s election is being seen as a rejection of the political establishment and liberal democratic values in general, it represents a very personal blow to Merkel, Europe’s most powerful leader. It heaps more responsibility on her at a time when she is nearing an announcement on whether she will run for a record-tying fourth term as chancellor next autumn. Despite the toll that 11 years of non-stop crisis fighting has taken on her, Merkel’s aides say that Trump’s victory and Britain’s decision in June to leave the European Union have, if anything, reinforced her determination to continue. “Given the challenges we face, in Europe and beyond, she can’t simply walk off into the sunset. That would look very bad. She has a sense of responsibility,” said an adviser. Germans have been falling out of love with the United States since George W. Bush invaded Iraq more than a dozen years ago. But the election of Barack Obama in 2008 was seen here as proof of America’s capacity to correct its “mistakes”. Obama was hailed as the heir to John F. Kennedy, who came to a divided Berlin in 1963, two years after construction of the Berlin Wall began, and reassured Germans with the word “Ich bin ein Berliner”. Obama, who developed a close relationship with Merkel in his eight years in office, will make what promises to be a bittersweet farewell visit to Berlin this week. Trump’s win heralds a hard break in a relationship that grew extremely close during the Cold War, before wobbling when Germany refused to go along with Bush’s Iraq war and was derided by his Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as “old Europe”. Last week, Germany’s Suddeutsche Zeitung published a cartoon of a beaming Trump opening his jacket to reveal the message “Ich bin kein Berliner” (I am not a Berliner) plastered across his chest. This won’t stop Merkel, a restrained politician who prefers small steps to giant leaps, from trying to work with the brash Trump, who rode to victory on the dreamy promise to “Make America Great Again”. She is a pragmatist who has maintained dialogue with strongmen like Vladimir Putin and Tayyip Erdogan through crises in Germany’s relationship with Russia and Turkey. But Merkel’s statement on Wednesday, in the aftermath of Trump’s election, was telling. In it, she set conditions for cooperation with Trump, a provocative message from a close ally to the democratically elected leader of the United States. “Germany and America are connected by values of democracy, freedom and respect for the law and the dignity of man, independent of origin, skin color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or political views,” she said. “I offer the next President of the United States close cooperation on the basis of these values.” Merkel’s cabinet colleagues have been far more outspoken. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has denounced Trump as a “preacher of hate”. Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel has called him the pioneer of an international “authoritarian and chauvinist” movement. The German press has not pulled punches either. The cover of Der Spiegel magazine this weekend showed the head of a grimacing Trump hurtling toward earth like a giant flaming asteroid, above the title “The End of the World (as we know it)”. One of Merkel’s biggest foreign policy successes as chancellor was rallying the European Union’s disparate 28 member states behind sanctions against Russia in response to its intervention in eastern Ukraine. If Trump follows through on his promise to forge a closer relationship with Putin, the transatlantic and European front against Russia would crumble, leaving her Putin policy in tatters. Merkel was also the driving force in Europe behind the ambitious trade deal between the EU and United States, known as TTIP (the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership). That agreement, still in the negotiation phase, seems sure to die under Trump, whose protectionist promises, should they become reality, would hit few countries harder than Germany, whose economic strength depends heavily on the openness of the global trading system. “Nowhere would a move toward renationalization be more dangerous,” former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer wrote this week. Germany, he predicted, would pay “the highest economic and political price” if the wave of populism led to a further weakening, or even a collapse, of the EU. Trump’s presidency will challenge Germany on a number of other fronts, from climate and fiscal policy to defense spending and financial regulation. Trump has promised to do what Merkel and her veteran Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble have resisted for years: take advantage of an ultra-low interest rate environment to invest vast amounts of public money in modernizing infrastructure. It was ironic that in the same week Trump was elected, Germany was finalizing a 2017 budget that is a model of fiscal restraint. How long Schaeuble will be able to stick to his cherished “Schwarze Null”, or balanced budget, with Trump demanding that Europe shoulder more responsibility for its own defense, is unclear. But one thing does seem clear: in Trump, Germany faces its biggest test since the fall of the Berlin Wall. “To suggest that Germany has suddenly become the new leader of the western world is not only absurd but dangerous - because it raises expectations that simply can’t ever be met,” a senior German official said. | 1 |
7,452 | AWESOME! JUDGE JEANINE: Why Hillary Is ‘Losing To A 74-Year Old Socialist’ [Video] | Leave it to Judge Jeanine to get to the heart of the matter! | 0 |
7,453 | Rachel Maddow Reveals Her Secret To Successfully Covering Trump | The Rachel Maddow Show has become a hit among cable news viewers, with more than double the number of people tuning in. Maddow herself recently revealed her secret to successfully covering Donald Trump: treat him like a silent movie. We developed sort of an informal, internal mantra which is that we basically cover them as if they are a silent movie, Maddow explained. I stopped covering the Twitter feed and we started covering only what they do rather than what they say. Without a doubt, she s doing something right. The Wrap reports that in February, Maddow had the largest total viewer audience ever in the 9 p.m. ET timeslot. But her success isn t limited to just one month. She has also beaten CNN s regularly scheduled programming for 45 straight months, and gained 99 percent in total viewers compared to February 2016. During the same time period, CNN gained only 70 percent and Fox News increased by a measly 31 percent. It is an unusual thing that the White House and its chief spokespeople have been called out saying stuff that s not true over and over and over again, she said. It s the petty stuff but it s also important stuff that they ve not told the truth about. Maddow explains that lies have consequences. Once you prove yourself as untrustworthy, you words no longer have any real meaning. We no longer go to that person for factual information, Maddow said. Once she realized that these people could no longer be trusted, she came up with a new game plan for covering the Trump administration. I really feel like it was helpful to me, in terms of trying to come up with what to talk about every day, and serving up information for our audience that is substantive and not manipulated by people at the White House, Maddow said. It was helpful for us to just stop paying attention to what they were saying. Maddow said that Kellyanne Conway might be a nice person, but as her fellow MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski recently pointed out, she s just not credible anymore. Maddow added that conversations with her (and most of Trump s other surrogates) are essentially just talking to a pro-Trump political operative rather than actually speaking to a White House representative.It seems that Maddow has done what the majority of the media is still struggling to do. She has figured out how to cover Trump and the secret is simple: focus only on what they do, not what they say because it s probably a lie anyway.Featured image via video screen capture | 0 |
7,454 | trump tsunami incoming what trump did in florida today will make him president | home news longtime clinton aid if america read all of hillarys emails she could lose states longtime clinton aid if america read all of hillarys emails she could lose states fisher mins ago news comments off on longtime clinton aid if america read all of hillarys emails she could lose states longtime clinton aid if america read all of hillary s emails she could lose states new york if americans were to read all of hillary clintons emails she would either win states or lose states wrote philippe i reines clintons longtime aide who served as her senior advisor while she was secretary of state
in the same email reines cryptically wrote about clintons email scandal that email retention benghazi
the march correspondence was posted by wikileaks after the email was ostensibly captured in john podestas hacked gmail account
the message was a response to a suggestion from clintons communications director jennifer palmieri that clinton make a joke about the email fiasco during a charity dinner later that day this was two months before the state department publicly released the first batch of clintons emails messages which had previously been provided to the house select committee on benghazi
greetings i wanted to float idea of hrc making a joke about the email situation at the emilys list dinner tonight what do folks think about that palmieri asked in an email to numerous clinton confidantes including podesta and reines
margolis and i discussed replied mandy grunwald a communications adviser to clinton we dont know whats in the emails so we are nervous about this might get a big laugh tonight and regret it when content of emails is disclosed
thats when reines chimed in with his remarks
trust me most of the email themselves are funnier than any joke we can come up with read in total by america she would either win states or lose states i go back and forth
im not hard over either way but i would not make a joke just for the sake of making a joke because email retention benghazi
but if we could get some business done in a light way its worth trying signaling that she is more than fine with them making their way into the public domain because past the process stuff next phase is content and the assumption is that she did this secretly hiding etc simply not true we cant jam state to release them at this point but if dan can think of a light way to say i am proud of the work we did at state and hopefully at some point everyone will be able to read whats in them as a way to better understand that work but until then i want to talk about doesnt need to be at the top could be at some natural point
thats my strong vote since i think her expressing more than a willingness for them to be released into the wild is whats most important | 0 |
7,455 | Justice Department appeals lawyer on Mueller Russia probe | NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. Justice Department appeals lawyer is on special counsel Robert Mueller’s team probing interference in the 2016 presidential election, Reuters has learned. Scott Meisler, an appellate attorney with the Justice Department’s criminal division, is one of 16 lawyers who have signed on to the probe and one of only two who have not been previously identified. Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller, said Meisler joined the team in mid-June. In an investigation like Mueller’s, former U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli said appeals lawyers would help determine whether the conduct being examined violates sometimes complex federal laws. “Having people who’ve spent their careers making difficult judgments in this area would be quite valuable,” Verrilli said. Appeals lawyers usually argue in federal circuit courts or the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold or overturn trial results. The solicitor general’s office represents the U.S. government before the Supreme Court. Meisler is one of several appeals lawyers on Mueller’s legal team. The most senior is Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben, who has argued more than 100 cases before the Supreme Court and is widely considered the Justice Department’s top criminal law expert. Elizabeth Prelogar, an assistant solicitor general, is another appeals lawyer on the team. Mueller, who was appointed special counsel in May, is looking into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the election, among other matters. Last week, his team began interviewing former and current White House officials, according to a person familiar with the matter. Russian officials have denied meddling in the U.S. election, and Trump denies any collusion by his campaign. A 2005 Georgetown University Law Center graduate and fluent Spanish speaker, Meisler has been in his current position since 2009, aside from a recent year-long stint as an assistant solicitor general. He has represented the government in appeals involving search warrants and seizures, motions to suppress wiretap evidence, mail fraud, wire fraud, structuring financial transactions and money laundering. | 1 |
7,456 | Buffett rails against presidential candidates who talk down economy | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Warren Buffett bemoaned the “negative drumbeat” on the U.S. economy from presidential candidates in his annual Berkshire Hathaway Inc shareholder letter on Saturday, saying they are misleading Americans into believing their children will be worse off than they are. “It’s an election year, and candidates can’t stop speaking about our country’s problems (which, of course, only they can solve),” Buffett wrote, italicizing “they” for emphasis. As a result of their dour outlook on the U.S. economy, many Americans now believe that their children will not live as prosperously as they themselves do, the 85-year-old Buffett said. “That view is dead wrong: The babies being born in America today are the luckiest crop in history,” Buffett said. Buffett did not single out any presidential candidates by name. The billionaire in December officially threw his backing behind Hillary Clinton, a Democrat. “During presidential elections where no incumbent is running, both sides who are running for president always say they are the ones to solve the nation’s problems and point out what those problems are,” said Bill Smead, who invests $2.1 billion at Smead Capital Management in Seattle. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who won New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s endorsement on Friday, has offered a bleak assessment of the U.S. economy, repeatedly saying it is in a “bubble” that he hopes will pop before he takes office. “I don’t want to inherit all this stuff,” he has said. In his letter, Buffett said “some commentators bemoan our current 2 percent per year growth” in real gross domestic product, “and, yes, we would all like to see a higher rate.” But he said America’s population is growing about 0.8 percent per year, and that 2 percent GDP growth equates to a 1.2 percent per capita growth rate. “That may not sound impressive,” Buffett said. “But in a single generation of, say, 25 years, that rate of growth leads to a gain of 34.4 percent in real GDP per capita.” Buffett, whose home in Omaha, Nebraska sits on less than an acre, said society has advanced significantly since he grew up during and after the Great Depression. “All families in my upper middle-class neighborhood regularly enjoy a living standard better than that achieved by John D. Rockefeller Sr. at the time of my birth,” he said. “His unparalleled fortune couldn’t buy what we now take for granted, whether the field is – to name just a few – transportation, entertainment, communication or medical services. Rockefeller certainly had power and fame; he could not, however, live as well as my neighbors now do.” All told, Buffett said it is not a good idea to listen to these presidential candidates’ negative outlooks. “For 240 years it’s been a terrible mistake to bet against America, and now is no time to start,” he said. “America’s golden goose of commerce and innovation will continue to lay more and larger eggs. America’s social security promises will be honored and perhaps made more generous. And, yes, America’s kids will live far better than their parents did.” (Reporting By Jennifer Ablan and Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Nick Zieminski) 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 |
7,457 | Trump may have to settle for deterring, not disarming, North Korea | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump, like his predecessors, may find that neither negotiations nor economic and military pressure can force North Korea to abandon its nuclear program, and that the United States has no choice but to try to contain it and deter North Korean leader Kim Jong Un from ever using a nuclear weapon. North Korea conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on Sept. 2, describing it as an advanced hydrogen bomb for a long-range missile, a dramatic escalation of its stand-off with the United States and its allies. U.S. officials declined to discuss operational planning, but acknowledge that no existing plan for a preemptive strike could promise to prevent a brutal counterattack by North Korea, which has thousands of artillery pieces and rockets trained on Seoul. In an implicit recognition that the military options against the North are unpalatable at best and pyrrhic at worst, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis last week told reporters: We are never out of diplomatic solutions. U.S. and Asian officials believe it is necessary to try negotiations and more economic pressure but concede these are unlikely to curb, let alone eliminate, the nuclear and missile programs that North Korean considers essential to its survival. That leaves Washington and its allies in South Korea, Japan and elsewhere with an unwelcome question: Is there any way to live with a nuclear-armed North Korea, one that is contained and deterred from using its nuclear weaponry? Trump declined to answer that question at a news conference on Thursday, saying he would not disclose his negotiating strategy publicly and adding it would be a very sad day for North Korea if the U.S. military settles the matter. Military action would certainly be an option. Is it inevitable? Nothing is inevitable, Trump said. Still, a senior Trump administration official said it is unclear whether the Cold War-era deterrence model that Washington used with the Soviet Union could be applied to a rogue state like North Korea, adding: I don t think the president wants to take that chance. We are very concerned that North Korea might not be able to be deterred, the official said, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity shortly after Trump s remarks. Among the U.S. options to strengthen its deterrent is the long-planned modernization of America s aging nuclear forces that would assure that North Korea would be destroyed if it fired a nuclear-tipped missile at the United States, a U.S. military base, Japan, or South Korea. Another is stepped-up investment in U.S. missile defenses, particularly testing, research and development of technologies that could defeat a significant number of incoming missiles. Both steps would need to avoid triggering new arms races with Beijing and Moscow, experts say. Another factor weighing on Pentagon planners is their readiness for a major conventional conflict after 16 years of war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. There has been no sign the White House, which has been cool to the idea of talks and hopes pressure can change the North s calculus, is ready to settle for a containment strategy. Despite pessimism about talks, a U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity said there was a chance that economic pressure, especially from China, combined with an agreement to negotiate could convince Pyongyang to limit its nuclear arsenal or even sign the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty. Signing the CTBT would given the North tacit admission to the nuclear club but end its testing program, the official said. That, along with assured destruction, might be the best that could be done. The remaining question, however, is whether Trump would be willing to settle for that. Discipline and steadiness are not words one usually uses in a sentence that also has the name Donald Trump, said Robert Einhorn, a former State Department official who negotiated with North Korea and is now at the Brookings Institution think tank. Would he over time recognize that he may have no choice? Frank Jannuzi, president of the Mansfield Foundation, which promotes U.S.-Asia relations, is more optimistic. Does he have the patience to manage a difficult process of deterrence and containment against the (North) rather than doing something impulsive? I think so, he said. Some of his deals have taken years to come to fruition. | 1 |
7,458 | Barely a quarter of Catalans want to pursue split from Spain: poll | MADRID (Reuters) - Barely a quarter of Catalans want to continue with a plan to claim independence from Spain in the wake of Dec. 21 regional elections, according to a poll published in El Pais newspaper on Monday. An illegal Catalan independence referendum on Oct. 1 plunged Spain into its worst political crisis in decades. It eased after the sacking of the secessionist Catalan authorities by the Madrid government elicited little resistance. But uncertainty could return if the pro-independence camp wins in the Dec. 21 vote. Just 24 percent of those polled by Metroscopia said they would like to continue with the independence process after the elections, whereas 71 percent said they would prefer politicians to find an agreement based on Catalonia staying part of Spain. Pro-independence parties may fail to retain an absolute majority of seats in the Catalan parliament in next month s election, the first part of the poll published on Sunday showed. However, the survey s margin of error at 2.4 percent and the fact support was evenly split between the two sides makes reading conclusions from polls difficult. The telephone poll surveyed 1,800 Catalans between Nov. 20 and Nov. 22. Failure to capture a majority in the regional parliament would be a heavy blow for Catalan separatists who have billed the election as a plebiscite on Madrid s decision to impose direct rule on the region last month. The Oct. referendum produced a large majority in favor of independence, but turnout was only 43 percent because many who opposed the breakaway did not vote. Catalan separatist parties are forecast to win 46 percent of the vote, down slightly from 47.7 percent in a previous election in 2015. Unionist parties combined would account for another 46 percent of votes, up from less than 40 percent last time, according to the Metroscopia poll. Turnout for the election, which former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont said on Saturday would be the most important in the region s history, is predicted to reach a record 80 percent. | 1 |
7,459 | Pakistan says over 300 Baloch separatist militants surrender | ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - More than 300 Baloch separatist militants have surrendered over the past few months, Pakistani government officials said, after a ceremony to mark the downing of guns and militants return to civilian life. The surrenders are part of government efforts to end a decade-long insurgency in the southwestern Baluchistan province by offering amnesties and financial rewards to soldiers and commanders to help them re-integrate into the society. In a high-profile ceremony on the lawn of the Baluchistan provincial assembly in the western city of Quetta, the regional capital, some 313 militants from three separatist movements handed over weapons to Nawab Sanaullah Zehri, the Chief Minister of the province. I will hug all that who believe in integrity and sovereignty of Pakistan but will not tolerate (those) who will challenge the writ of the State, Zehri said at the ceremony on Saturday. Pakistani government officials say about 2,000 militants have surrendered over the past 18 months. In April, the government held a similar ceremony where about 400 militants handed over their guns. The latest ceremony saw surrenders by 143 militants from the Baloch Republican Army (BRA), 125 fighters from the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and 17 from Baloch Liberation Front (BLF), according to officials. Under the agreement, foot soldiers are given 500,000 rupees ($4,700) and the top-level commanders receive about 1 million rupees ($9,500) to help them and their families build a life after militancy. Baluchistan s government and the powerful army, which has a huge say in the running of Pakistan s poorest province, tout the amnesties as an effective way to reduce the power of separatists who accuse Islamabad of exploiting Baluchistan. While security has improved in Baluchistan over the past few years, critics and human rights groups say the army has crushed dissent and free speech, while separatists accuse security officials of extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances. The military denies abuse claims. Pakistan s desire to dismantle the insurgencies has grown in urgency amid vast Chinese investment from Beijing s Belt and Road infrastructure splurge. China has frequently urged Pakistan to improve security, especially in Baluchistan. A new transport corridor (CPEC) through Baluchistan, linking Western China with Pakistan s Arabian Sea port of Gwadar, is due to become operational in late 2018. Separatists have vowed to disrupt CPEC, and earlier this week China warned its citizens of a security threat inside Pakistan. | 1 |
7,460 | Watch Hillary Clinton And Rachel Maddow Brilliantly Handle Protester Who Disrupted MSNBC’s Town Hall | On Monday evening, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders both sat down with Rachel Maddow for a town hall style interview to try to pick up any undecided voters who may be left before Tuesday s primaries. During Clinton s interview, a protester interrupted to yell out a question, but instead of becoming irritated, Hillary and Rachel handled the protestor with the dignity they deserved.A female protester stood up and yelled something about women in immigration detention. Now, if this had happened in a Republican town hall meeting, the women would have been immediately escorted out and possibly beaten if Trump s supporters were there. None of that happened here. Rather than treat the women like an annoyance, Maddow repeated the woman s question and Clinton answered it.The transcript from MSNBC documented the incident:QUESTION: (OFF MIKE) the lives of the women that are (inaudible) right now?MADDOW: This is outside of our forum (ph). Let me just rephrase the question for you. Tell me if I get it right. Asking about women and families in family immigration detention facilities.CLINTON: Yes, I m against that. Absolutely I m against that. I ve been against it for a long time. I ve said we should have family detention. We should end private prisons and private detention centers. They are wrong. We should end raids and roundups, and when I am president we are going to get comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship. So we will end all of these problems at the time we are successful.By taking the protester seriously and not becoming angry, Hillary Clinton showed the audience (both at the venue and at home) that she cares about the issues that are weighing on the voters in this country. She could have just ignored this woman, but she showed her the respect she deserved by giving her an answer to the question she yelled out. And it wasn t a bullshit answer just to shut her up, it was clearly something she has thought about and wants to fix.Hillary Clinton acted presidential last night and it was great.Watch:Featured image via video screenshot | 0 |
7,461 | JUST EXPOSED: Clinton Broke “Ethics Agreement” With Latest Bombshell “Gift” From This Middle Eastern Country While Secretary Of State | The Clinton Foundation has confirmed it accepted a $1 million gift from Qatar while Hillary Clinton was U.S. secretary of state without informing the State Department, even though she had promised to let the agency review new or significantly increased support from foreign governments.Qatari officials pledged the money in 2011 to mark the 65th birthday of Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton s husband, and sought to meet the former U.S. president in person the following year to present him the check, according to an email from a foundation official to Hillary Clinton s presidential campaign chairman, John Podesta. The email, among thousands hacked from Podesta s account, was published last month by WikiLeaks.Clinton signed an ethics agreement governing her family s globe-straddling foundation in order to become secretary of state in 2009. The agreement was designed to increase transparency to avoid appearances that U.S. foreign policy could be swayed by wealthy donors.If a new foreign government wished to donate or if an existing foreign-government donor, such as Qatar, wanted to increase materially its support of ongoing programs, Clinton promised that the State Department s ethics official would be notified and given a chance to raise any concerns.Clinton Foundation officials last month declined to confirm the Qatar donation.Read more: Breitbart | 0 |
7,462 | former classmate trump smacked his son so hard it knocked him to the floor addicting info the knowledge you crave | on november pm
if you had wanted to give trump supporters the benefit of the doubt this most recent incident proves that its far too much to give them
a yearold man in allen park michigan has just been charged with six felonies after he held six children at gunpoint because he thought theyd damaged the donald trump sign on his lawn yes this is the kind of deranged emotionally unstable supporters trump has attracted
the man michael robert kubek had called police on october th to report that his trump sign had been hit by teenagers who had fled the scene when the police arrived at the scene they didnt find kubek at his home however when the officers followed the screams coming from around the corner there he was
the police saw kubek standing over six children ages who were sitting on the grass kubek accused the children of destroying his sign despite the fact that he never actually witnessed them doing it the children denied any involvement and the officers told kubek to return to his house so they could speak to the children
according to the kids they were simply on their way to the park for a birthday celebration when kubek had pulled out a gun and pointed it at them instructing them to sit down on the grass those witnessing the act took to social media to vent their shock twitter twitter
the newsherald reported
the officer asked him again if he could identify any of the kids as the one who damaged his sign but kubek repeated that he could not the officer then asked kubek if he pulled out a pistol and pointed it at the kids according to police kubek said yes
in response to another question from the officer kubek said he felt threatened because he was outnumbered
yes a grown man used a gun because he felt outnumbered by a small group of innocent kids this is exactly the type of unhinged person who shouldnt be trusted with firearms kubeks hearing is scheduled for december th lets hope that whatever happens to kubek that he is no longer considered a responsible gun owner you can watch a report below
featured image via allen park police department and joe raedle getty images share this article author vera my passion is bringing attention to human rights and equality issues in addition to writing for addicting info i also run a website and digital magazine dedicated to social issues and promoting equality in all forms search | 1 |
7,463 | China's Xi looks set to keep right-hand man on despite age | BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping is likely to retain his right-hand man, the graft-buster Wang Qishan, in a senior position at a key Communist Party Congress this month even though he has reached retirement age, according to a majority of people with ties to the leadership interviewed by Reuters. The fate of the 69-year-old Wang, who keeps a low public profile but is often described as China s second most powerful politician, has been a source of intense speculation ahead of the Congress, which opens on Oct. 18. Twelve of the 16 people with ties to China s leadership, including former officials as well as relatives, aides and close friends of current and former senior officials, said Wang was likely to retain a leadership role. They said it was unclear what Wang s title would be and whether he would remain on the powerful seven-member Politburo Standing Committee. The other four said he would probably step down. Under one scenario, Wang would become one of two vice chairmen of the National Security Commission, set up in 2013 to increase coordination among the branches of China s security bureaucracy and headed by Xi, three of the sources said. Alternatively, he could become vice chairman of the Communist Party itself, if Xi resurrects the party chairmanship position, they said. Under other scenarios, Wang could become premier - replacing Li Keqiang, a role that traditionally includes management of the economy, or head of parliament. He will most likely stay on in some form, maintaining a position of power. He s important to Xi, said Zhang Lifan, a Beijing-based political commentator and historian. Xi has shown he is willing to break with precedent before and he ll probably do it again with the seven up, eight down rule for Wang, he added, referring to the unwritten rule that officials cannot be promoted when they reach the age of 68. The party signaled last year that the rule was not binding. However, deferring retirement would raise questions about whether Xi, 64, would himself use that as precedent to retain his roles as party and military chief beyond completion of the traditional two five-year terms. Regardless of title, Wang s next role may include a remit that extends to management of China s economy, whose growth is imperiled by heavy debt and inefficient state enterprises. Wang Qishan has a very strong economic policy voice. I could entirely see a circumstance under which he s given another role that brought that out more, said Duncan Innes-Ker, regional director for Asia for the Economist Intelligence Unit. Wang was previously a vice governor of the central bank, and as a vice premier with an economic portfolio helped oversee China s recovery from the 2008 global financial crisis. Another possible scenario is that the retirement age for Chinese officials would be extended to 70, the sources said. Wang could therefore retain his Standing Committee seat and head the National Supervisory Commission, a super-ministry that would absorb the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) he now heads. But the sources said keeping him in that role risked cementing the anti-corruption campaign as Wang s legacy, rather than Xi s. If Wang Qishan continued as CCDI secretary, his achievements would be so great it would shock his master, a leadership source said, quoting a Chinese idiom. China s State Council Information Office, which doubles as the party s spokesman s office, did not respond to a request for comment on Wang s future. The party s anti-graft watchdog also did not respond to a request for comment. After an absence from the spotlight in the summer, Wang has been increasingly active in recent weeks, meeting with high-profile foreign visitors. In September, he met Singapore s prime minister and Cambodia s deputy prime minister, while the Financial Times reported that Wang had a secret meeting with Steve Bannon, a key former advisor to U.S. President Donald Trump. These meetings show Wang is setting himself up to stay on, said a senior Asian diplomat who declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the matter. Wang has transformed his commission into one of China s most powerful bodies, with 1.34 million officials punished since 2013 and dozens of top officials jailed, including the powerful former domestic security chief, Zhou Yongkang. Some analysts and party insiders said it was possible Wang would simply retire, as precedent dictates. Having overseen the jailing or punishment of more than one million Communist Party, government and military officials, Wang has accumulated many enemies, the sources said. Keeping Wang on the standing committee at the expense of younger candidates for promotion could also put pressure on Xi. Wang may also want to retire, some of the sources said. He will stand down mainly because Xi does not need him any longer and changing the retirement age rule carries significant political costs, said Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Wang s retirement could also be perceived as a victory for Guo Wengui, the fugitive tycoon who has made unsubstantiated corruption allegations against senior party officials, including Wang and his family. More generally, one of the sources with leadership ties said, Wang s retirement could see corrupt elements launch a counteroffensive and try to retrieve lost ground . | 1 |
7,464 | Senators grill U.S. education secretary on proposal to slash budget | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos faced hostile questions from a Senate committee on Tuesday as she tried to win lawmakers over to President Donald Trump’s proposal to slash her department’s funding by 13 percent. DeVos, a Republican who narrowly won Senate approval for her post in February after strident opposition from Democrats and a few fellow party members, testified before the Senate appropriations subcommittee on education about the proposed budget Trump submitted to Congress last month. Trump’s plan to cut $9 billion from the Education Department’s budget would “improve educational opportunities” and shift the federal role in education, DeVos told the panel. “I understand those figures are alarming for many,” she said. “However, this budget refocuses the department on supporting states and school districts in their efforts to provide high-quality education to all our students.” Democrats took turns asking DeVos about the bigger budget line-items and talking about students who they say could be hurt by large spending cuts. The most pointed exchanges were on whether private schools that receive federal funds would have to agree not to discriminate against students. DeVos would only repeat that schools taking federal money must abide by U.S. law. But Senator Jeff Merkley and his fellow Democrats said she was refusing to answer the question because federal law is unclear in many areas of possible discrimination, such as the rights of transgendered people. Lawmakers are expected to alter Trump’s proposed budget before voting on it. The subcommittee’s chair, conservative Republican Roy Blunt, said he believed Congress would not approve the budget as proposed. “Such a significant cut to the department’s budget is likely untenable,” Blunt said, pressing specifically to preserve funds for technical programs, work-study financial aid and the Special Olympics. Civil rights groups and Democrats say the budget would send public dollars to private companies, disband after-school care, hurt schools in poor neighborhoods, shrink the ranks of teachers, and make it harder for many to afford college. DeVos is currently working on major transformations in student loans. The budget suggests changing income-based repayment plans and ending loan forgiveness for workers in the public sector, which DeVos said would clear up confusion around the loans. With the stated aim of giving parents more choices for their children’s education, DeVos and Republicans support charter schools, which are publicly funded but operate independently, frequently by corporations, as well as subsidies to help pay private-school tuition. Many Republicans on the panel applauded the budget’s proposal to boost such “school choice” programs. But the subcommittee’s senior Democrat, Patty Murray, said the cuts “highlight the ways that the policies and priorities you and President Trump are pushing would hurt students, hurt communities, and represent a clear broken promise to workers and the middle class.” | 1 |
7,465 | Republican Lawmaker Introduces Bill To Eliminate The Department Of Education Entirely | Republicans are apparently hell-bent on destroying public education any way they can. The Senate confirmed Betsy DeVos as secretary of education in a 51-50 vote on Tuesday. And as if that weren t enough, a GOP representative introduced a bill to do away with the Department of Education entirely.Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie introduced the one-page bill, which states that the Department of Education would terminate on Dec. 31, 2018. Now, to be honest, I could understand if this were a panicked, knee-jerk reaction to DeVos confirmation. Kind of a smoosh it before it lays eggs response. It wouldn t make it a good idea, but it would be understandable. Sadly, that doesn t appear to be the case at all.Massie wants to eliminate the agency, which has been in place since 1980, because he just doesn t think the federal government should be in charge of education. Instead, he thinks the issue would best be left to states and local municipalities. (Insert eye roll here.) Unelected bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. should not be in charge of our children s intellectual and moral development. States and local communities are best positioned to shape curricula that meet the needs of their students, Massie said in a statement.Massie isn t alone on this one, as seven other Republicans have also signed onto his bill: House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (Utah) and Reps. Justin Amash (Mich.), Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Jody Hice (Ga.), Walter Jones (N.C.) and Ra l Labrador (Idaho).The bill was introduced shortly after Vice President Mike Pence cast his tie-breaking to confirm DeVos. All Democrats voted against her and two Republicans, Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), broke ranks with their party and opposed her confirmation as well. Unfortunately, it was not enough to keep this blithering idiot from being confirmed as education secretary.Unfortunately, it was not enough to keep this blithering idiot from being confirmed as education secretary. And now, Republicans are trying to sabotage public education by abolishing the Department of Education entirely. Lovely.Read more:Featured image via T.J. Kirkpatrick/Getty Images | 0 |
7,466 | Kurds ready to pay any price for freedom, Barzani says, sticking by independence vote | ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Massoud Barzani said on Friday that Iraq s Kurds were ready to pay any price for freedom , rejecting international pressure to call off the referendum on independence planned for Monday in northern Iraq. Addressing a rally in support of the vote in Erbil, the seat of the KRG, Barzani reacted to a United Nations Security Council statement that expressed on Wednesday concern over the potential destabilizing impact of the vote on Iraq. | 1 |
7,467 | WHOA! RAND PAUL, NEWT GINGRICH RIP OBAMA’S National Security Advisor, Benghazi Video Liar, Susan Rice For ABRUPTLY Backing Out Of House Testimony [VIDEO] | Susan Rice will not visit Capitol Hill today for a meeting with the House committee probing allegations she unmasked President Trump associates in Russian meddling probes.Hmmm If Democrats really wanted to get to the bottom of their Trump-Russia collusion witch-hunt, it would certainly make sense that Rice would be jumping at the opportunity to testify at the House hearings.Rice had been expected to face tough questions on her role in the matter while serving as then-President Barack Obama s national security adviser. Trump alleges Rice may have committed a crime by asking government analysts to disclose the names of his associates documented in intelligence reports.Fox News was initially told Rice would be giving closed-door testimony Tuesday before the Republican-led House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.But that session has apparently been postponed.The panel is leading one of several investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 White House race, which have engulfed the Trump administration and evolved to include questions about whether anybody on Trump s campaign team colluded with the Kremlin to defeat Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan last week told Fox News that he wants Rice to answer the basic question: Did you unmask the names and if so why? He also argued that Americans indeed deserve to know the truth about the Trump associates but they also want answers from high-ranking Obama administration officials who may have misled Americans on critical matters including Rice, as U.S. ambassador to the U.N., saying the fatal 2012 Benghazi terror attacks were largely sparked by an anti-Muslim video. The American people want to get the truth on all of these issues, said Jordan. He also raised concerns about how Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch handled the Clinton email investigation and whether James Comey exposed classified information in an apparent effort to retaliate against Trump firing him as FBI director.Rice has denied that she did anything inappropriate, saying she was authorized as Obama s national security adviser to seek the identities of people whose names were redacted from intelligence reports.And she has suggested that her race and gender may be playing a role in the controversy, in a recent New York Magazine interview. Fox NewsIt would be more shocking to the American people if Rice didn t use her race and gender as an excuse for committing heinous crimes against American citizens. It s the only card left in the deck for a cheating, lying and deceitful administration with their backs firmly against the wall Fox News legal anchor Gregg Jarrett said Rice is lying. Jarrett goes on to explain exactly how Rice potentially committed 3 felonies:So THIS is why Susan Rice refuses to testify: she knows she committed three different felonies for Obama! #LockHerUp pic.twitter.com/fg37CijZPu Newt-Trump Fan Club (@NewtTrump) July 18, 2017Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) told Obama sycophant and Trump-hater Mika Brzezinski on MSNBC s The Morning Joe that he believes Susan Rice abused the system and she did it for political purposes. Rand told Brzezinski that Susan Rice needs to be brought in and questioned under oath. Of course, Mika defended Rice, and then quickly qualified her obviously biased defense of Obama s former NSA director by saying she wasn t defending her.RAND PAUL: Drag Susan Rice in make her testify under oath! "Ask her whether Obama ordered this or knew about it." https://t.co/RtjTt7jnbX Newt-Trump Fan Club (@NewtTrump) July 18, 2017Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich rips former NSA director Susan Rice over her spying on candidate Trump and the unmasking of his transition team. Gingrich likened Susan Rice and Barack Obama spying scandal on Trump to some third-world dictatorship and called it an extraordinarily dangerous situation. Gingrich went on to explain how much more serious the spying activities of Obama and Susan Rice were in comparison to Watergate: You have the power of the federal government looking into what the opposition is doing, in a way, in which I pointe out earlier. All of Watergate involved one physical break-in, one time. This apparently involves electronic break-ins over months. NEWT: Susan Rice spying on Trump "was like some third-world dictatorship way bigger than Watergate."Lock her up! pic.twitter.com/OY9hAXnm7P Newt-Trump Fan Club (@NewtTrump) July 18, 2017 | 0 |
7,468 | SEC nominee Clayton to get Senate panel vote April 4 | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate Banking Committee said on Wednesday it would vote next week on the nomination of Jay Clayton, President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. After the panel votes on April 4, Clayton would still need to be confirmed by the full U.S. Senate before he could be sworn in as SEC chairman. | 1 |
7,469 | JUST IN: Obama Campaign Secretly Paid $972,000 To Fund Creation Of Fake Trump Dossier | Well, well, well As a famous reverend once said, Obama s chickens have come home too roost OR AS MIKE HUCKABEE SAID:.@GovMikeHuckabee: I think it's easier to find Bigfoot and Amelia Earhart than it is to find collusion between the Russians and Donald Trump pic.twitter.com/RA68QqD9kG Fox News (@FoxNews) October 29, 2017Obama for America (OFA), the former president s political organization, has directed nearly a million dollars to the very same law firm that funneled money to Fusion GPS, the firm behind the infamous Steele dossier.Since April of 2016, Obama For America (OFA) has paid over $972,000 to Perkins Coie, records filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) show.The Washington Post reported last week that Perkins Coie, an international law firm, was directed by both the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton s campaign to retain Fusion GPS in April of 2016 to dig up dirt on then-candidate Donald Trump. Fusion GPS then hired Christopher Steele, a former British spy, to compile a dossier of allegations that Trump and his campaign actively colluded with the Russian government during the 2016 election. Though many of the claims in the dossier have been directly refuted, none of the dossier s allegations of collusion have been independently verified. Lawyers for Steele admitted in court filings last April that his work was not verified and was never meant to be made public.FEC records as well as federal court records show that Marc Elias, the Perkins Coie lawyer whom the Washington Post reported was responsible for the payments to Fusion GPS on behalf of Clinton s campaign and the DNC, also previously served as a counsel for OFA. In Shamblin v. Obama for America, a 2013 case in federal court in Florida, federal court records list Elias as simultaneously serving as lead attorney for both OFA and the DNC.OFA, which managed Obama s successful re-election campaign in 2012, retooled after that campaign to focus on enacting the president s agenda during his final term in office. The group reorganized again after the 2016 election and planned to use its staff and resources to oppose President Donald Trump. During the entire 2016 campaign cycle, the group spent only $4.5 million, according to FEC records.Federal records show that Hillary Clinton s official campaign organization, Hillary For America, paid just under $5.1 million to Perkins Coie in 2016. The DNC paid nearly $5.4 million to the law firm in 2016.The timing and nature of the payments to Perkins Coie by Obama s official campaign arm raise significant questions about whether OFA was funding Fusion GPS, how much Obama and his team knew about the contents and provenance of the dossier long before its contents were made public, and whether the president or his government lieutenants knowingly used a partisan political document to justify official government actions targeting the president s political opponents named in the dossier. According to the Washington Post, Fusion GPS was first retained by Perkins Coie on behalf of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton s presidential campaign in April of 2016.At the same time that Hillary s campaign, Obama s campaign organization, and the DNC were simultaneously paying Perkins Coie, the spouse of one of Fusion GPS s key employees was working directly for Obama in the West Wing. Shailagh Murray, a former Washington Post reporter-turned-political operative, was serving as a top communications adviser to Obama while the Obama administration was reportedly using information from the dossier to justify secret surveillance of Trump campaign staff. Murray is married to Neil King, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who was hired by Fusion GPS in December of 2016. While at the Wall Street Journal, King worked alongside Fusion GPS s core team, even sharing bylines with Glenn Simpson, the Fusion GPS executive who personally hired Steele to probe Trump s alleged Russia connections.As you might suspect, Neil King was a thick as thieves with CNN, the WSJ and the Washington Post. The lines between investigating the truth and fake news were blurred in a big way when King and Catan jumped from the WSJ to Fusion GPS. As the Daily Caller reported:CNN s reporting on the Trump-Russia dossier has left out at least one crucial fact: the close ties between the network and the opposition research firm at the center of the dossier controversy.CNN s reporting on the dossier, led by justice correspondent Evan Perez, has been favorable to the firm, Fusion GPS, and hyped the dossier s credibility. Left out of Perez s reporting, which has relied largely on unnamed sources, is his personal closeness to Fusion GPS operatives. Fusion has repeatedly been described in Senate testimonies as a smear-for-hire operation that manufactures misleading or false media narratives for its clients. Another Fusion founder, Tom Catan, worked as a reporter for the Journal at the same time as Perez and Simpson. The third Fusion co-founder, Peter Fritsch, worked above Perez and Simpson as the senior national security editor.KING (FUSION GPS) ON THE RIGHT -Photo posted on Facebook by Perez (CNN)Simpson and Fritsch left the WSJ in 2011 to launch Fusion. Perez jumped from the paper to CNN in 2013. Another longtime Journal reporter, Neil King, left the paper to join Fusion in December 2016.PEREZ ( LEFT) AND ALL OF FUSION The importance of the fake dossier and how it was shopped around to the press comes into focus when you realize that Obama, Clinton and the DNC had Fusion GPS create this smear campaign on Trump. This also opened the door for the phony Russia collusion investigation whereby the Trump campaign and family members were spied on because of something fake.Read more: The Federalist | 0 |
7,470 | Russia, Saudi Arabia close to sign S-400 missile deal: Ifax cites Putin aide | MOSCOW, MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia and Saudi Arabia are on track to sign a contract on supplies of Russia s advanced S-400 air defense missiles to Riyadh, the Interfax news agency cited an aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin as saying on Friday. The talks are ongoing now, the terms are being agreed, the agency cited Vladimir Kozhin as saying. He said the contract could be signed in the nearest time, giving no further detail. | 1 |
7,471 | Virginia governor says confident campaign donor was legitimate | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Terry McAuliffe, Virginia’s Democratic governor, said on Tuesday said he was confident that a person at the center of an FBI investigation over contributions to his 2013 campaign was a legitimate donor. “I’m very confident this gentleman had been fully vetted,” McAuliffe told reporters, adding that he was shocked by the news of the investigation on Monday. He said his legal team checked every donor and “they feel ... very confident the guy is a legitimate donor.” | 1 |
7,472 | LESTER HOLT PULLS A “Candy Crowley” 5 Times…Joins Team Hillary To Help Debate Trump | Who won the debate tonight? Donald J. Trump or the Lester Holt-Clinton team?NBC News Lester Holt had his Candy Crowley moment at the first debate of the 2016 presidential election on Monday night, bowing to pressure from the Hillary Clinton campaign and the liberal media by fact-checking Republican nominee Donald Trump on the question of his support for the Iraq War.Holt lived up to the expectations of his peers. But he lived down to the worst expectations of conservatives, who routinely see Republican candidates treated unfairly by debate moderators.Hillary also went over the 2 minute mark several times, while there were several times when Lester Holt would cut Donald Trump off after only having a little over a minute to answer a question. Again and again, Holt asked Trump tough questions that were straight from the Clinton campaign s talking points, and which were obvious set-ups for Clinton to attack (and for fact-checkers to pounce on whatever Trump asserted in his own defense).Here are the five worst examples.Tax returns. Holt never asked Clinton about her e-mail scandal, about Benghazi, or about the Clinton Foundation and its dubious dealings. But he did ask Trump about his tax returns, arguing not asking that there might be questionable information in them that the American public deserved to hear.Birther conspiracy theory. Holt never asked Clinton about her past record of racist statements, including her super-predator remarks as First Lady, or her explicit appeal to white Americans in her 2008 primary campaign against Obama. Yet he asked Trump about the Birther conspiracy theory and cast it as racist.Stop-and-frisk. After an exchange between the candidates over the policy of stop-and-frisk, Holt interjected to bolster Clinton s point by stating, erroneously, that stop-and-frisk had ended in New York because it had been declared unconstitutional by a court. Trump countered, correctly, that the new mayor had canceled the policy before the litigation was over. A presidential look. Towards the end of the debate, Holt asked Trump about what he meant by saying Hillary Clinton did not have a presidential look. He did so after noting that Clinton had become the first woman to be nominated for president by a major political party, thus setting Trump up as a sexist. As Trump answered, Holt interrupted him, then gave Clinton a chance to respond with her talking points about Trump s past comments on women.Iraq War. The question of whether Trump supported the Iraq War or not has been widely debated. What is beyond doubt is that Hillary Clinton voted for it. Holt only represented one side of the debate about Trump, and never asked Clinton about her own vote. Via: Breitbart | 0 |
7,473 | Elizabeth Warren SHATTERS Republican Effort To Thwart Obama SCOTUS Pick | With the death of a Supreme Court Justice many implications follow, including who will be their replacement. After ultra-conservative Justice Antonin Scalia s death many are left wondering what will happen next, and others are trying to sway decision-making altogether. Including Republicans who don t want President Obama to have the ability to pick who will be the nominee.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) wrote on Facebook just hours after Scalia passed away that The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president. Of course, he s completely politicizing the vacancy, while also assuming the next president will be a Republican.Noticing this absolutely pathetic attempt to thwart President Obama s constitutional authority to nominate the next Supreme Court Justice was none other that Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren (D). In her own statement released Sunday on Twitter, she said: Senator McConnell is right that the American people should have a voice in the selection of the next Supreme Court justice. In fact, they did when President Obama won the 2012 election by five million votes. Article II Section 2 of the Constitution says the president of the United States nominates justices to the Supreme Court, with the advice and consent of the Senate. I can t find a clause that says except when there s a year left in the term of a Democratic president.The Senate GOP took an oath just like Democrats did. Abandoning the duties they swore to uphold threatens the Constitution & our democracy. Abandoning their Senate duties would also prove that all the Republican talk about loving the Constitution is just that empty talk. And she s absolutely correct. President Obama is granted, by the Constitution, the ability to select who he deems appropriate as a nominee to replace Justice Scalia. What we are seeing right now is Republicans slip in to panic mode, because they are terrified that the replacement for their most conservative Justice in the Supreme Court has now fallen into the hands of Obama.The people more than showed their voice in who they want to have chosen as their Supreme Court Justices. They did so in November of 2008 and again in November of 2012 with the election and reelection of President Obama.Featured image: Flickr | 0 |
7,474 | Ghana and Ivory Coast act to implement ruling on maritime border dispute | ACCRA (Reuters) - Ghana and Ivory Coast set up a body on Tuesday to implement an international tribunal ruling on their dispute over a border running through multibillion dollar offshore oilfields, they said in a statement. The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea last month drew an ocean boundary that seemed to favour Ghana in a dispute with its neighbour Ivory Coast, ruling that Accra had not violated Ivorian rights in drilling for oil. Following last month s ruling, the two leaders have agreed to work together and this has culminated in the setting up of a joint commission to implement the ruling, Ghanaian foreign minister Shirley Botchwey said, reading a joint communique. The decade-old row between the West African neighbours has put the brakes on the development of Ghana s $6 billion offshore TEN field, run by Tullow Oil , one of the projects in the contested area of the Atlantic. The court ruling did not correspond with either Ghana or Ivory Coast s claim, but appeared closer to Ghana s, and it rejected the former s attempt to halt development. | 1 |
7,475 | Trump to get a range of options to curb steel imports: senators | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Thursday he will present to President Donald Trump a range of options to restrict steel imports on national security grounds, according to senators who met with Ross. Senator Sherrod Brown said that Ross “pretty much committed” to announcing these options next week as part of Commerce’s review of whether steel imports are threatening U.S. national security under a 1962 trade law. But Ross, speaking to reporters following a closed-door meeting with Senate Finance Committee members, declined to put a time frame on the review’s release. “It’ll come out when it’s ready to come out,” he said. The 79-year-old former steel industry magnate said he spoke to senators about the broad outlines of the “Section 232” probe, including its legal basis and objectives, “the potential tools for accomplishing those objectives, what are the risks involved in the process.” Ross did not provide any details on specific recommendations to Trump, saying the purpose of the meeting was to provide senators “with some background within which they can judge their reaction to the report when it comes out.” Trump told reporters on his flight to France that he was considering both tariffs and quotas to stop foreign countries from dumping steel into the U.S. market and “destroying” the U.S. steel industry. The release of his remarks sent steel stocks soaring on Thursday. “The options are everything,” said Brown, a Democrat from a major steel-producing state. “I pushed him to move quickly on this. I want it to be strong. I want it to be long lasting, and I want it to address the overhanging issue of Chinese steel overcapacity.” While steelmakers and workers argue that protections are needed to put the industry on a healthy footing, steel users say that import curbs would raise steel prices, putting them at a disadvantage to foreign competitors. Senator Ron Wyden, the Finance Committee’s top Democrat, said some members tried to convey to Ross that using the Cold War-era trade law to restrict imports of steel on defense grounds was “not an enduring solution” to the steel production glut. “The secretary feels confident that his approach is going to make all sides happy in the steel industry,” Wyden said. In 2001, Commerce investigated the national security impact of iron ore and semifinished steel imports but recommended no action. | 1 |
7,476 | ANTI-TRUMP RADICAL Taunts TRUMP Supporters With ISIS Flag Photo And Beheading Video | This really shouldn t be surprising for anyone who has been following the anarchy and chaos in Europe. Groups of roaming thugs are creating total chaos with violence and torching of cars. Sound familiar? We had the very same thing with the anti-Trump crowd at the inauguration. One solution is to COME DOWN HARD on these violent protesters. Law and Order should be brought back to kill the politically correct attitude we had for 8 long years.Read more: InfoWars | 0 |
7,477 | High court emissions ruling won't deter clean energy drive | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. power sector’s shift toward burning less coal and using more natural gas and renewable energy will not be derailed by the Supreme Court ruling against the Obama administration’s limits on carbon emissions, state regulators and utilities said on Wednesday. The U.S. Supreme Court decided 5-4 on Tuesday to block the Environmental Protection Agency’s carbon emissions crackdown on coal plants until a legal challenge is resolved. Some states may now slow work on compliance with the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. But some experts said they were confident the rule will survive the legal challenge when the D.C. circuit court makes a decision this summer. “In a way we are really just postponing the inevitable,” said Vicki Arroyo, executive director of the Georgetown Climate Center. Even in some of the 27 states that sued to block the rule, officials had been working on compliance plans. Most states said they will continue to decarbonize their energy supply. Utilities across the country have already begun a major shift away from coal-fired electricity toward cleaner burning and cheaper natural gas and renewables like wind and solar. “We fully expect that many of these states will continue their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under their own legal authorities,” said Bill Becker, director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies. States like California, Colorado and New York criticized the high court’s decision and vowed to pursue their plans to shift to cleaner energy regardless of the delay in the EPA rule. Meanwhile, states like Montana and North Dakota that joined in the lawsuit against the EPA welcomed the “breathing room” the stay provides. But even these opponents of the rule said they will keep diversifying their power supply. Colorado’s Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper said the state will keep working on compliance so it “is not left at a disadvantage if the courts uphold all or part of the Clean Power Plan.” Colorado challenged the EPA plan even though the governor supports it. The state’s Republican attorney general disagrees about the legality of the rule and its economic impact. Montana Governor Steve Bullock, a Democrat, opposed the EPA rule. He said the state would put on hold the work of a group to devise compliance options, but added that it still needs “to address climate change and embrace Montana’s energy future.” He said: “I am committed to ensuring we do so on our own terms.” For coal-producing North Dakota, which had one of the highest emission reduction targets to meet under the rule, regulators and utilities will keep working on ways to lower power plant emissions, said state health department chief Dave Glatt. He said the EPA plan did not give the state “a sufficient amount of time to have reasonable solutions.” He pledged to “look at reasonable steps forward.” For most states, coal-fired electricity has been in decline. In 2015, generators shut over 15,000 megawatts of coal-fired power plants, the most in any year, as low gas prices drove down power costs. It became uneconomical to overhaul older coal plants even to meet existing federal clean air rules. Ohio regulators said Wednesday they were not sure how the state will respond to the court decision, but the state’s major utilities are already shifting away from coal. American Electric Power Co Inc (AEP.N) will continue generating more power with natural gas and renewable energy since prices for those have dropped significantly, said spokeswoman Melissa McHenry. She added that the five-year extension of federal renewable energy tax credits has given AEP an incentive to bring more renewable energy into the mix. “It makes sense that we are sticking to our current plans, and will be positioned to respond to the courts’ ultimate decision on the future of the Clean Power Plan,” she said. Another Ohio utility, FirstEnergy Corp (FE.N), said it already retired a number of older coal plants in 2012. The court decision will have little impact. “The Supreme Court decision does not change the path we are on,” said spokeswoman Jennifer Young. “We think it is the right thing to do – this is a complicated issue and this decision will give the states the appropriate amount of time to develop their compliance plans.” | 1 |
7,478 | crosstalk on us election criminal in chief | right well that clears that up | 0 |
7,479 | In about-face, Trump nominates new head of export bank | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump nominated former Republican lawmaker Scott Garrett as president of the Export-Import Bank of the United States on Friday, completing an about-face over an institution he had denounced as “featherbedding” for big business. A White House statement also named Spencer Bachus, another Republican former congressman, to be a member of the board of directors of the bank. Both were named for four-year terms. Trump told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday he would fill the two vacancies on the bank’s five-member board that have prevented it from having a quorum and being able to act on loans over $10 million. His picks must gain approval from the Senate, which blocked nominees by former President Barack Obama. The Export-Import Bank, an independent government agency, provides loans to foreign entities that enable them to purchase American-made goods. For example, it has been used by foreign airlines to purchase planes from Boeing Co (BA.N) and farmers in developing nations to acquire equipment. The bank has become a popular target for conservatives, who worked in Congress to kill the institution, arguing that it perpetuates cronyism and does little to create American jobs. Trump’s backing of the bank represents a victory for manufacturers like Boeing and General Electric Co (GE.N), which have overseas customers that use the agency’s government-backed loans to purchase their products. Trump told the Journal the bank benefits small businesses and creates jobs, a reversal of his earlier criticism of the bank as being “featherbedding” for wealthy corporations. Trump’s about-face followed a meeting on Tuesday with former Boeing Chief Executive Jim McNerney, who left the company last year but oversaw the corporation’s aggressive lobbying effort in support of the bank in 2015. Large American corporations that do significant amounts of exports say other countries have similar agencies and the export bank levels the playing field. A 2015 fight to shutter the bank led by conservatives in Congress allowed the bank’s charter to expire for five months. After overwhelming bipartisan support emerged to renew the bank’s charter, which is needed for it to operate, conservatives blocked nominees to the board, preventing it from financing large exports like aircraft and power turbines. | 1 |
7,480 | Senator Rand Paul to back bill blocking FBI hacking expansion | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Kentucky Senator Rand Paul plans to become the first Republican co-sponsor of legislation to block a pending judicial rule change that would let U.S. judges issue search warrants for remote access to computers located in any jurisdiction, his office told Reuters on Thursday. The bill is expected to be introduced next week. Backing from Paul, a former Republican candidate for president with libertarian leanings, lends bipartisan support to an effort to undo a little-noticed modification to a text governing procedural rules for the U.S. court system that civil liberties groups warn would drastically expand the FBI’s hacking authority. So far, that cause has largely been championed solely by Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and digital privacy advocate. He has vowed to work to stop the rule change on grounds it would allow the government to use one warrant to access and search thousands or millions of computers at once, potentially implicating those suspected of no wrongdoing. Magistrate judges can normally only order searches within the jurisdiction of their court, which is typically limited to a few counties. But last month the Supreme Court, in a private vote, approved the amendments to Rule 41 of the federal rules of criminal procedure, which would permit judges to issue warrants in cases when a suspect uses anonymizing technology to conceal the location of his or her computer or for an investigation into a network of hacked or infected computers, such as a botnot. Congress has until December 1 to pass legislation that would reject, amend or postpone the changes to Rule 41. If lawmakers do nothing, which is customary in these circumstances, the changes automatically will take effect. The U.S. Justice Department, which is pushing for the rule change, has described it as a procedural tweak needed to modernize the criminal code, and has said it would not permit searches that are not already legal. Alphabet Inc’s Google has warned the change poses a “monumental” threat to the Constitution’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. Last year Paul and Wyden worked together to force a temporary expiration of the USA Patriot Act, which led to passage of surveillance reforms that pared backed the National Security Agency’s controversial bulk collection of U.S. call records. Other lawmakers are also examining Rule 41. Republican Senator Mike Lee is looking at ways to address concerns, a spokesman said, and a small group of lawmakers in the House are weighing introduction of companion legislation, sources said. | 1 |
7,481 | TEXAS DAYCARE WORKERS FIRED For Refusing To Call A Little Girl With Two Male Parents A “Boy” | The gay mafia has hijacked pretty much aspect of our lives. They apparently won t be happy until every trace of gender identity has been erased. When will Americans start fighting back? Two daycare workers have been fired for refusing to go along with the center s transgender agenda. Madeline Kirksey, one of the workers who is an author of a Christian book, says her religious liberty rights have been violated. The two were fired after refusing to call a little girl a boy.The two male parents of a six-year-old little girl told employees at the school to refer to their daughter as a boy, and to call her by a new masculine name. The little girl s hair had also been cut like a boy s.Kirksey told Breitbart Texas in an interview, that the problem was not so much with the transgender issue as it was with telling young children that the little girl was a boy when she was not, and with calling her John (not the name given) when that was not her name.She, and another worker who does not want to be identified, were fired from the Childrens Lighthouse Learning Center in Katy, Texas, a city just west of Houston.The school distributed guidelines to the teachers called How to Handle Transgender Students. The printed guidelines were obtained from the internet and can be read at this link.The guidelines and the instructions given the teachers included six rules, one of which was Help defend their dignity. Another, was to Educate yourself and your students. The Christian worker said she did not believe it was our job, to thrust the issue on the small children of other parents. She said the school should not force their beliefs on the children, or on her, or upon other parents.The author of the Christian book, In Pursuit of the Promise, said the other children should not be exposed at such an early age to the issue of transgender or gender identity, and felt that the two male parents were imposing the issue on their little girl. I don t think we should be talking to other people s children who are under the age of 18 about being transgender, Kirksey said in an interview with Fox26 in Houston. Both of the fired workers agreed on this point.Kirksey said that prior to this happening, she had been commended for the good work that she was doing at the school. After she refused to call the little girl by her new masculine name, and to tell the other children to do so, and to say that the little girl was a little boy, the daycare worker was written-up for alleged infractions that she did not believe were based in reality. She has worked at the school for over a year.The fired worker notified Child Protective Services that the little girl was being told that she is now a little boy. She believes that it is up to professionals to determine if the little girl is just confused, or if the new gender is being forced upon the little girl.Kirksey says sometimes the little girl refers to herself as a little boy, and sometimes she tells the other children to not call her a boy or to refer to her by her masculine name.The Childrens Lighthouse in Katy is just one of the school franchise s that are all over the country. The company is based in Fort Worth and according to its website, there are 37 learning centers in seven states. The school cares for children ages six weeks to twelve years old. Via: Breitbart News | 0 |
7,482 | Kerry's Syria plan greeted with concern over Russian intentions | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Thursday to propose close military coordination in Syria, the White House and Pentagon offered lukewarm support for the plan and demanded that Moscow show it was serious about fighting Islamic State, not just propping up President Bashar al-Assad.Kerry himself took a tough line after his meeting on Thursday with Putin, State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters in Moscow. “Secretary Kerry emphasized that absent concrete, near-term steps, diplomatic efforts could not continue indefinitely,” Kirby said. Kerry’s proposal would create a new center where U.S. and Russian militaries would share intelligence and coordinate air strikes against Islamic State and the Nusra Front, an al Qaeda affiliate. The move has angered U.S. military and intelligence officers and diplomats who argue that Russia has proved repeatedly that it cannot be trusted. Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said Defense Secretary Ash Carter supported Kerry’s efforts to encourage Moscow to “do the right thing” in Syria. But he added that Carter has experience dealing with Moscow and maintains a “healthy dose of skepticism” about Russia’s aims in the conflict. “The secretary supports Secretary Kerry’s effort ... but he has also said that he’s had questions about the Russian activities up to this point,” Cook told reporters. “If the Russians are prepared to do the right thing in Syria, then the secretary of defense would be open to that conversation,” he said. “But we’re waiting to see what’s going on. ... It’s not clear that we’ll ever reach an agreement.” WHITE HOUSE SAYS IT’S UP TO RUSSIA At the White House, spokesman Josh Earnest’s response was similarly cautious. “It’s time for Russia to make serious decisions about how they want to use their influence inside of Syria both when it comes to their diplomatic influence, but also when it comes to their military capabilities,” Earnest told a daily briefing on Thursday at the White House, “They have to decide if they’re going to use the military to prop up the Assad regime or if they’re going to use their military to go after extremists,” Earnest said, “Our case is you can’t do both.” Kerry has expressed growing frustration with the lack of progress in ending Syria’s five-year civil war despite agreements with Russia to secure a lasting nationwide cessation of hostilities and ensure that humanitarian aid reaches besieged communities. U.N.-led efforts to bring the warring sides together to negotiate a political transition also have failed. State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau acknowledged a “very robust and very vigorous conversation” among government agencies over Kerry’s plan. Asked whether Kerry’s visit had the full backing of the White House, she added: “I’m not going to characterize that for the White House, but I would say that the secretary is going to ... have discussions in Moscow that present the administration’s views.” Anger Within the Administration But U.S. military and intelligence officers and diplomats involved in Syria policy expressed anger about Kerry’s proposal, which several called naive. The Russians, said one official, had known for weeks about Kerry’s upcoming visit to Moscow, yet two days before he was due to arrive they bombed a remote camp near Syria’s border with Jordan used by U.S.-backed rebels. “That is consistent with what the Russians have been doing all along,” said a U.S. military official, who like others spoke anonymously to criticize administration policy. “More of it has been to us, not with us, and the message has been clear all along: ‘When our interests differ from yours, ours win.” “They’ve violated every cessation of hostilities agreement they’ve ever agreed to, sometimes within hours,” the official said. Another American official, who has helped train members of the Free Syrian Army rebel alliance, said the U.S.-backed opposition forces have been asking why the administration keeps seeking Russian help and are growing increasingly bitter, their anger compounded by what they complain is a lack of American military support. Former U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford expressed deep skepticism with Kerry’s plan, saying Russian air strikes have primarily targeted U.S-supported moderate opposition groups. “How serious are they (Russia) about defeating terrorism, as opposed to bolstering Assad’s position at the center? How are we to assume that they are going to do better if they work with the Americans?” Ford told Reuters. Ford said that Russia has been unable to get its “obstreperous client” Assad to make any political concessions, allow significant humanitarian assistance into numerous rebel-held enclaves or abide by a cessation of hostilities agreement. “I don’t think the Russians can deliver,” he said. “I don’t see how this American-Russian condominium on the Islamic State can help bring about a negotiated solution to the broader Syrian conflict. It will make it less likely that Assad will make concessions that will bring the broader civil war to an end.” | 1 |
7,483 | LEAKED DOCUMENTS Show How This American Citizen Works To Affect Outcomes Of Elections Around The World | Leaked documents from George Soros Open Society Foundations reveal how Soros works to defeat populist candidates and movements in Europe.Soros, a U.S. citizen, uses a network of nonprofits and partner organizations across Europe to try and affect the outcomes of elections in foreign countries, the documents show.Through advocacy efforts, education campaigns and media influencing projects, Soros does his best to affect electoral outcomes around the globe in support of his open borders worldview.Populist candidates opposed to mass immigration represent a direct threat to that worldview: THE PM OF HUNGARY HAS CALLED OUT SOROS ON HIS MASS MIGRATION EFFORT: It is causing trouble that they are trying secretly and with foreign money to influence Hungarian politics, Orban said.OSF sent $35,000 to the Athena Institute for the express purpose of Analyzing and reporting the 2014 European elections and countering extremist and populist political voices in Hungary. Another $49,930 went to the Institute for European Policy for Naming and shaming populism in [the European Parliament] election campaign in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia.Another $27,049 was given to the Public Diplomacy Council of Catalonia for a workshop to influence leading journalists and media practitioners from Europe to change their coverage to prevent populist, xenophobic and Eurosceptic movements. The stated aim of the workshop was to trigger a change of attitude amongst journalists and media practitioners so that they will report about the EU in a way that does not directly promote the cause of these movements. An OSF spokesperson said the organization has funded efforts to encourage voter participation and education, encourage policy innovation, and promote independent journalism to help make governments of all types more transparent and accountable to the people they serve. Open Society Foundations does not financially support candidates for public office. OSF may not financially support candidates for public office, but it is clear from the documents that OSF did support organizations who opposed candidates who clash with the OSF worldview.A $46,840 grant to the Center for Peace Studies, for example, was meant to stimulate public support and election turnout among ambivalent voters in order to prevent the election of xenophobic, racist, and other radical political options representing Croatia at the EU level. Supporting restrictions on immigration is typically synonymous with xenophobia in OSF s internal documents.Another $100,000 went to UNITED for Intercultural Action to counter the election [of European Members of Parliament] from populist and far-right parties in Europe. According to the documents, UNITED teamed up with the European Network Against Racism (ENAR) and Hope not Hate to push back against populist candidates in all 28 member states of the EU, while particularly focusing on five countries: France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, and the Netherlands. Local groups in these five countries will be formed to organize meetings and door-to-door campaigns ahead of the EP elections to (1) encourage voters to register and vote; and (2) to vote for non-extremist candidates, the documents state.Netherlands, a separate OSF document explained, was one of the five priority countries because of the rise of the far-right PPV party, lead by populist Geert Wilders.OSF chose Netherlands because polling showed PPV will have a very good result in the European Parliament elections, and because it is one of the drivers of anti-European and anti-migration discourse in the EU. Another document, from two months before the 2014 EP elections, stated that OSF s strategy in the Netherlands varied depending on the success of Wilders and PPV. The outcome of the European Parliament elections in May 2014 and how well the PPV, the populist party of Geert Wilders, does will help to determine [OSF s] next steps in the Netherlands, the document stated.In total, Soros gave more than $6 million to 90 different partner organizations to influence the outcome of the 2014 European Parliamentary elections.Read more: Daily Caller | 0 |
7,484 | Britain won't pay EU more, or sooner, than if it were EU member: Barnier | BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Britain will honor all its financial obligations to the European Union as part of its divorce bill, but the payments will not be required any earlier than if Britain had remained an EU member, the EU s chief negotiator Michel Barnier said. The European Commission declared earlier on Friday that sufficient progress in the divorce talks with Britain was reached to move on to discussions of a transition period and a future trade deal. Barnier repeated the words of British Prime Minister Theresa May that no EU country, including Britain would have to pay more or receive less as a result of Brexit. The UK will honor all the commitments entered into during its EU membership, Barnier told a news conference. | 1 |
7,485 | Listen To Reaction Of U.S. Troops When David Letterman Suggests Obama/Biden Third Term | While speaking in front of United States servicemembers at a recent USO event with both President Obama and Vice President Biden, David Letterman made a joke that many of us would really like to be a reality. He played off his age and said that his mind seemed to be playing tricks on him. He claimed that by listening to the two men speak, he thought the president and vice president were running for a third term.Letterman told the USO crowd: I don t know, sometimes the mind plays tricks on a person, especially when you get to be my age. I was listening to the president speak. I was listening to the vice president speak. And, for a split second, my mind said to me, oh, that s nice, they re running again.' Which at first was received by laughter, and then uproarious applause and cheers.And while it s true that President Obama cannot run for a third term, if he could, he would likely win. History will be very kind to Obama as all of his accomplishments make him one of the greatest leaders in the history of the republic.Watch the clip here: USO Crowd Roars As David Letterman Jokes About by DailyPoliticsFeatured image via video screen capture | 0 |
7,486 | U.S. House committee calls new hearing on Kaspersky software | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. House of Representatives committee said on Friday that it has scheduled a new hearing on Kaspersky Lab software as lawmakers review accusations that the Kremlin could use its products to conduct espionage. Kaspersky Lab has strongly denied those allegations, which last month prompted the Trump administration to order civilian government agencies to purge the software from its networks, and agreed to send Chief Executive Eugene Kaspersky to Washington to testify before Congress. The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology announced the Oct. 25 hearing a day after reports that Russian government-backed hackers stole highly classified U.S. cyber secrets in 2015 from a National Security Agency contractor who had Kaspersky software installed on his laptop. The House science committee did not say who would be called to testify at the hearing. Eugene Kaspersky last month told Reuters that the committee had invited him to testify at a Sept. 27 hearing and that he would attend if he could get an expedited visa to enter the United States. That hearing was later canceled, though the committee held a closed-door classified session on Kaspersky software on Sept. 26. Eugene Kaspersky said in a statement on Friday that he hoped to attend the hearing. “I look forward to participating in the hearing once it’s rescheduled and having the opportunity to address the committee’s concerns directly,” he said. An appearance before Congress would mark Kaspersky’s most high-profile attempt to dispel long-standing accusations that his firm may be conducting espionage on behalf of the Russian government. The investigation into the 2015 NSA hack is focused on somebody who worked at the agency’s Tailored Access Operations unit, a unit that uses computer hacking to gather intelligence, according to two people familiar with the classified probe. Kaspersky anti-virus software was running on the contractor’s laptop at the time of the hack, and investigators are looking into whether hackers used the software to breach the computer and steal the data, said one of those sources. | 1 |
7,487 | Clinton: 'I will be there' for presidential debates | ASHLAND, Ohio (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton told reporters on Sunday that she will attend the three debates set up ahead of the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election. “I will be there,” Clinton said, responding to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s complaints that the debates schedule conflicts with televised National Football League games. (This version of the story corrects the dateline to ASHLAND, Ohio, instead of CLEVELAND HEIGHTS) | 1 |
7,488 | Defense chief say he has power to set Afghan troop levels | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Wednesday he now had authority to set troop levels in Afghanistan and would deliver a revised strategy for the conflict there to the White House in the coming weeks. In testimony before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, Mattis said President Donald Trump had given him the authority to set troop levels in Afghanistan at noon on Tuesday. Reuters reported the move on Tuesday. | 1 |
7,489 | Newly found emails in FBI probe not on Clinton server: U.S. source | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Newly discovered emails related to an investigation into a private email server used by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton were found on a separate device during an unrelated probe, a U.S. government source said on Friday. The FBI said on Friday it will investigate the additional emails that have surfaced, in a new twist to the U.S. presidential campaign with 11 days to go before Election Day. | 1 |
7,490 | Watch Reporter’s Face As He Recounts Trump Going Full-Narcissist During Oval Office Interview (VIDEO) | On his 100th day in office, a listless Donald Trump sat down with Reuters to talk about his accomplishments. As fate would have it, Trump had just been told that two servicemembers had been killed in an anti-ISIS raid in Afghanistan, his re-re-remade healthcare bill was dead on arrival, and his plans to build a wall were going up in flames. But he had other things on his mind. For Donald Trump, every day is November 8th, 2016.To the three reporters, Trump passed out a printed picture of the United States, with counties he won in the election colored in red.More than five months after his victory and two days shy of the 100-day mark of his presidency, the election is still on Trump s mind. Midway through a discussion about Chinese President Xi Jinping, the president paused to hand out copies of what he said were the latest figures from the 2016 electoral map. Here, you can take that, that s the final map of the numbers, the Republican president said from his desk in the Oval Office, handing out maps of the United States with areas he won marked in red. It s pretty good, right? The red is obviously us. Later he posed for photos, insisting on holding up the map. (Note: Trump s White House photographer, who formerly worked in the Bush White House, likes to take pictures of Trump from really far away. It s unclear exactly why.)So this happened today pic.twitter.com/UqtgvoyIRj SalenaZito (@SalenaZito) April 28, 2017here's a pic from reuters of Trump with the electoral maps he showed to reporters yesterday pic.twitter.com/1X3edpeJDQ Gideon Resnick (@GideonResnick) April 28, 2017Reporter Jeff Mason recounted the surreal moment the President of the United States interrupted questions on North Korea and China to brag about a map of the election he had won more than 5 months earlier. His expressions cycle from disbelief to pity to humor and back to disbelief.CNN s Chris Cuomo asked the reporters the obvious question: Is Trump really so insecure that he still feels he has to prove that he won the election? Mason said it could be a lot of factors (all troubling from a mental health standpoint): I think that s a good question and it s hard for me to answer that. I think he just wanted to relish in the fact that this map, uh, looks good for him and he said the red is obviously us and the red are areas in the country that he won. So he s just very proud of it. And whether that s rooted in a sense that he still has to prove that he won or that he s upset that the media got it wrong in terms of the predictions ahead of time it s hard for me to say. Trump, a 70-year-old billionaire, craves the attention one might give a child for a project they made in art class. He may as well have asked the reporters to pin the map up on their refrigerator doors.Making it even more clear that Trump is suddenly feeling very small, he later admitted that being president is really hard, and it s not as fun as his old life. The fact that running the country wouldn t be as easy as being a semi-retired billionaire and reality tv show host was something that apparently never occurred to Trump prior to being elected. I loved my previous life. I had so many things going. This is more work than in my previous life. I thought it would be easier. At least he s got his map.Featured image via CNN | 0 |
7,491 | Cher Drops An ENORMOUS Truth Bomb On Twitter; SLAMS Trump’s Cabinet (TWEET) | It s pretty obvious at this point that Donald Trump duped his working and middle-class voters. He ran on a ridiculous slogan of drain the swamp. Meaning, he would rid Washington D.C. of business as usual politics and be the supposed outsider to change things up.Well, now that Trump has won, albeit only by a slim electoral advantage with Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote by 2.7 million votes, he s showing all of us that his drain the swamp slogan was absolute bullsh*t.With cabinet pick after cabinet pick, Trump is showing all of us that not only is he not draining the swamp but instead filling it to the brim with politics as usual. He s filled his cabinet with millionaires and billionaires, and putting them in roles they are not at all suited for.Pointing out how outrageous Trump s picks are is none other than the legendary entertainer extraordinaire, Cher.On Twitter, Cher wrote: How many Goldman Sachs, Billionaire Execs, Does it take to run America!? These Men didn t become Billionaires by looking out for Working men and women. How Many Goldman Sachs, Billionaire Execs,Does it take2 Run?? These Men didn t become Billionaires by looking out 4 Working men & Women Cher (@cher) December 9, 2016And she s exactly right. These billionaires are only out for one thing, themselves, and maybe their business cronies.Republican voters, hopefully, will one day learn that they re not voting in their best interests, but that day was most certainly not this most recent election day.Featured image via Gustavo Caballero/Getty Images | 0 |
7,492 | Russia: Moscow does not want to escalate situation around U.S. diplomats - agencies | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Moscow does not want to escalate the situation around U.S. diplomats in Russia, Russian news agencies cited Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on Tuesday after talks with U.S. Undersecretary of State Thomas Shannon in Helsinki. Ryabkov said Moscow is not currently planning to further reduce the number of U.S. diplomatic staff in Russia, the agencies reported. | 1 |
7,493 | Erdogan says U.S. sacrificing strategic ally Turkey | ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan accused the United States on Thursday of mistreating a strategic ally, in a blistering speech which appeared to rule out swift resolution to a dispute between two NATO members jointly fighting Islamic State. Hours after Ankara announced officials would meet soon to settle differences, Erdogan accused the U.S. consulate in Istanbul of hiding an individual with links to a network he blames for last year s failed coup. He also condemned U.S. support for Kurdish fighters in Syria and separate U.S. court cases against a senior Turkish banker and the president s own security guards, mocking what he said was Washington s claim to be the capital of democracy . Turkey s relations with the United States and many Western countries have been strained since last year s failed military coup against Erdogan, in which more than 240 people were killed. Turkey felt many allies were slow to condemn the coup attempt and failed to appreciate the danger it faced. Western countries have grown alarmed at the scale of Turkey s post-coup crackdown, with 50,000 people detained and 150,000 suspended from work. Ties with the United States hit a low when Turkey detained a locally employed worker at the U.S. consulate in Istanbul last week. The United States says it is still seeking an explanation for the arrest - the second detention of a consulate worker this year. It suspended most visa services in Turkey, saying it needed to review Turkey s commitment to the security of its mission and staff. Turkey reciprocated within hours. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Wednesday and expressed his profound concern , the U.S. State Department said. Erdogan has blamed outgoing U.S. ambassador John Bass, saying he was putting at risk a decades-old alliance. Let me be very clear, the person who caused this is the ambassador here. It is unacceptable for the United States to sacrifice a strategic partner to an ambassador who doesn t know his place, Erdogan told provincial governors meeting in Ankara. Earlier, Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag said Turkish and U.S. officials would meet to work on resolving the crisis and described talks between their foreign ministers as constructive. But Erdogan aired a list of grievances, accusing Washington of sheltering suspected members of the outlawed Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), and supporters of Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen he blames for last year s coup attempt. Gulen denies involvement. On the one hand you say you are the capital of democracy, but you hide PKK and FETO members, Erdogan said, using the label his government has given to Gulen s network. He said Washington was defending a FETO-linked person hiding in your consulate , and said a Christian pastor arrested in western Turkey last year was also clearly linked to Gulen. Ambassador Bass said this week no one was hiding in the U.S. consulate, and that he had seen nothing of merit in the charges against the pastor, Andrew Brunson. Erdogan said U.S. authorities had wrongly arrested the former head of Turkey s majority state-owned Halkbank, and were trying to use a detained Turkish gold trader as an informant . Both men were arrested on charges of sanctions violations. Referring to a U.S. grand jury indictment of 15 Turkish security officials who clashed with protesters during his visit to Washington in May, Erdogan said most of them had never set foot on U.S. soil. You issue arrest warrants for 13 of my security staff who have never seen the United States, he said. If the ambassador in Ankara is leading the grand United States, then shame on you, Erdogan said. Someone should have said: You cannot treat your strategic partner this way, you can t behave like this . | 1 |
7,494 | House Republicans mull length of spending bill as vote looms | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives were in discussions on Tuesday about how long to fund the federal government in a short-term spending measure expected to come to a vote as early as Wednesday. “I feel like we’re going to have a majority... for passing the CR (spending measure) we have this week,” House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters after a closed-door meeting with fellow House Republican members. “We’re having a good conversation with our members about timing and date ... and all the rest,” he added. The conservative House Freedom Caucus, which has enough members to block legislation, has pressed Republican leaders to consider a spending measure that expires on Dec. 30, eight days later than the Dec. 22 deadline that House and Senate Republicans have been discussing up to now. Ryan said the end date of the measure, known officially as a continuing resolution, or CR, would become known when it reaches the House floor. But House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions told reporters his panel would consider a continuing resolution that expires on Dec. 22. The committee later rescheduled its hearing on the legislation for 3 p.m. (2000 GMT) on Wednesday. Several other House Republicans, however, said members were still debating whether the funding would expire on Dec. 22 or on Dec. 30, after the Dec. 25 Christmas holiday. “It’s still being negotiated,” said Representative Greg Walden. A Senate Republican leadership aide sidestepped a question on what Senate leaders thought about the CR date. “If the House makes any changes to their bill, I’m sure they will let everyone know,” the aide said. | 1 |
7,495 | Republicans revamp U.S. health bill, boost benefits to older Americans | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Republicans are working on changes to their healthcare overhaul bill to provide more generous tax credits for older Americans and add a work requirement for the Medicaid program for the poor, House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Sunday. Ryan said Republican leaders still planned to bring the healthcare bill to a vote on the House of Representatives floor on Thursday. Speaking on the “Fox News Sunday” television program, he said leaders were working to address concerns that had been raised by rank-and-file Republicans to the legislation. Republicans remain deeply divided over the healthcare overhaul, which is President Donald Trump’s first major legislative initiative. It aims to fulfill his campaign pledge to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, the signature healthcare program of his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama. Democrats say the Republican plan could throw millions off health insurance and hurt the elderly, poor and working families while giving tax cuts to the rich. “We think we should be offering even more assistance than the bill currently does” for lower-income people age 50 to 64, Ryan, the top Republican in Congress, said of the tax credits for health insurance that are proposed in the legislation. Ryan also said Republicans were working on changes that would allow federal block grants to states for Medicaid and permit states to impose a work requirement for able-bodied Medicaid recipients. Trump told reporters in a brief conversation aboard Air Force One that he had meetings about healthcare reform in Florida at the weekend and that the effort to sell the proposal was going well. He has been wooing lawmakers to vote for the bill and won the backing of a dozen conservative lawmakers on Friday after an Oval Office meeting in which the president endorsed a work requirement and block-grant option for Medicaid. Trump is set to meet Ezekiel Emanuel, a health policy special adviser under Obama who helped shape the Affordable Care Acton, at the White House on Monday, along with Ryan and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price. Block grants would give states a set amount of money to cover people on the Medicaid program and provide flexibility in spending decisions. However, there is no guarantee funding would keep up with future demands. While Ryan said he felt “very good” about the health bill’s prospects in the House, a leading conservative lawmaker, Representative Mark Meadows, told the C-Span “Newsmakers” program that there were currently 40 Republican “no” votes in the House. Republicans hold a majority in the chamber but cannot afford to have more than 21 defections for the measure to pass. Meadows and two other Republican opponents of the bill, Senators Mike Lee of Utah and Ted Cruz of Texas, met at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Saturday “negotiating with the president’s team, trying to fix this bill,” Cruz told CBS’ “Face the Nation.” North Carolina Republican Meadows said the changes being considered for the Medicaid program would not go far enough if they left it up to states to decide whether to put in place a work requirement. Price acknowledged the tough negotiations, telling ABC’s “This Week”: “It’s a fine needle that needs to be thread, there’s no doubt about it.” The healthcare bill would face significant challenges in the Senate even if it were to pass the House. Senator Tom Cotton, a conservative Arkansas Republican, said the bill would not reduce premiums for people on the private insurance market. “It’s fixable, but it’s going to take a lot of work,” Cotton said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Moderate Republicans have also expressed concerns about the bill, and their worries are often not the same as that of conservatives. Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine worried the bill would harm older Americans, and shift Medicaid costs to states - something critics say a block-grant approach would only make worse. Collins said coverage issues must also be dealt with, citing a report from the Congressional Budget Office that said 14 million people would lose health coverage under the House bill over the next year and 24 million over the next decade. Affordability has been one of the bigger concerns that insurers and hospital groups have raised about the legislation. To the extent that a change in tax credits makes healthcare more affordable for some people, insurers and hospitals could stand to benefit. The BlueCross BlueShield Association emphasized the need for the replacement to be affordable when the draft of the healthcare bill was released earlier this month. The association represents BCBS insurers that cover the vast majority of the roughly 10 million people enrolled in 2017 Obamacare plans. | 1 |
7,496 | Trump HUMILIATED By Presidential Historian’s Devastating Evaluation Of His First Days | Trump s first few days in the White House have been tumultuous, and not just because he s so upset about his inauguration numbers being less-than record-setting that he had his press secretary flat-out lie about them. His aides have revealed that his thin skin is making things difficult, and because of that, presidential historian Douglas Brinkley has weighed in with something rather embarrassing for a man obsessed with numbers and image: [H]e can never let go and stop watching cable TV. Now he s off to the worst start of a presidency in a very long time. [emphasis mine]The worst. In a very long time. Those are words Trump won t want to hear, seeing as how he thinks he is the best and has the best of absolutely everything. An expert calling him the worst at anything just burns.Brinkley believes Trump had a successful inauguration despite his numbers being lower than expected, and he should have built on that. However, given that he s so quick to anger when someone anyone makes him look bad to the world, he fixates on that instead of real issues and real work, and it s causing huge problems. Sources within the White House revealed that his aides have to control what information he s exposed to: One person who frequently talks to Trump said aides have to push back privately against his worst impulses in the White House, like the news conference idea, and have to control information that may infuriate him. He gets bored and likes to watch TV, this person said, so it is important to minimize that. Really? We have someone in our nation s highest office who gets bored easily and so he watches TV to, what, look for reports about how great he is? And then TV doesn t deliver, which pisses him off, and he goes off on tangents and people get frustrated. Even members of the GOP are floored by his behavior, like the news conference about his inaugural audience: It s surreal. We finally have the White House, and it s this. Yes, it s quite surreal that we have a narcissistic toddler in the White House.The Washington Post s Ashley Parker, Philip Rucker and Matea Gold said that, when he came back from his final inaugural event on Saturday, he turned on the TV, saw the Women s Marches, saw them protesting his presidency, and worst of all, saw that the protesting crowds appeared bigger than his own audience. So he got increasingly pissed off, and, seemingly on a whim, had Spicer give that press conference that was one lie after another, and culminated in Kellyanne Conway s alternate facts bullshit.And then Trump was unhappy with Spicer s visuals meaning he didn t like how Spicer appeared nervous, flubbed some of his words, wore a badly-fitting suit, and was apparently not forceful enough with the lying press. Besides that, there are all the power struggles plaguing Trump s administration that are very reminiscent of the power struggles that plagued his campaign. Some are upset with his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, trying to shove anyone he sees as a threat to his position as a close adviser aside. Aides are unhappy that Kellyanne Conway can do what she wants, when she wants, because she s outside the official communications department. And the list goes on.The word worst is not in Trump s vocabulary when he s talking about himself. Brinkley, however, knows what s what and is apparently not afraid to say it.Featured image by Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images | 0 |
7,497 | U.S., Gulf nations target Yemen terrorism financing | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and six Gulf nations have targeted 13 individuals they say are al Qaeda and Islamic State militants, in an action intended to disrupt terrorism financing in Yemen, U.S. administration officials said on Wednesday. Among those targeted are the militant group s chief financial officer in Yemen and head of assassinations in that country. The action puts those named on a business blacklist, which prohibits any financial actions and freezes their bank accounts. The nations joining the United States in the sanctions were Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait and Qatar. This is the largest ever multilateral designation in the Middle East, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in Riyadh on Wednesday. U.S. administration officials said this is the first joint sanctions action by Washington and Gulf states. The coordination was particularly significant because of a months-long diplomatic crisis between Qatar and several Gulf states. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Bahrain severed relations with Qatar in June, accusing it of financing terrorism, meddling in the affairs of Arab countries and cozying up to their arch-rival Iran. The four countries have since added dozens of individuals and entities to a blacklist they say are associated with Qatar. One of the individuals on Wednesday s sanctions list, Abdula Wahaba al-Humayqani, and one of the entities, Rahmah Charitable, are part of that blacklist. Qatar s National Counter Terrorism Committee said in a statement it had strengthened its anti-terrorism finance laws. Qatar is committed to taking the necessary steps to defeat terrorism in all its forms, and will continue to work closely with the United States to impose sanctions on those who facilitate terrorist activity, Major General Abdulaziz A. Al Ansari said in the statement. Qatar signed an agreement with the United States in July to increase cooperation on fighting terrorism finance, Qatar s counter-terrorism committee said. Peter Harrell a sanctions expert at the Center for a New American Security, said cooperation between Gulf nations and Qatar was an important step. Qatar has had a history of not being as robust on terrorism finance, Harrell said. It s heartening to see Qatar do this. It signals some ability to cooperate. | 1 |
7,498 | A Whopping 0% Of Black Voters In Ohio And Pennsylvania Support Trump | That s right, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist polls, zero percent of black voters say that they are supporting Donald Trump in the battleground states of Ohio and Pennsylvania. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Surprised? Nope, me either and it s likely that neither is anyone else who has been paying attention even a little.Trump is tied with Hillary Clinton in Ohio. NBC reports that 11 percent of the 848 registered voters in the poll were African-American and they went for Clinton 88 percent to 0 percent.Clinton holds a nine-point lead over Trump in Pennsylvania. Of the 829 voters in the poll, 10 percent were African-American and they chose Clinton 91 percent to 0 percent.The NBC/WSJ/Marist polls were conducted between July 5-10 and also included Iowa, but there were not enough African-Americans voters polled in that state for a statistically significant sample.Trump has said repeatedly that black people are going to vote for him and insists that they are going to like him more than they like Obama. Why in the world he would have such a ridiculous notion is unclear. Over and over we have seen black protesters assaulted at his rallies, often shouting such lovely sentiments as light that motherf*cker on fire. Trump has made an appalling habit of retweeting white supremacists. White nationalists have made robocalls on his behalf in multiple states. At the same time, he has slammed the Black Lives Matter movement for being too divisive. And these examples don t even include his bigoted rhetoric towards Mexicans and Muslims.He may deny it, but he knows he is in trouble when it comes to voters of color, that would be why he tweeted a fake photo of an African-American family who supposedly supported him. No sane black person would even consider casting their vote for this racist piece of sh*t egomaniac.Zero percent support is exactly what he should expect from the African-American community. But judging from the way he has pandered to white supremacists, it is unlikely that these are the voters he s really after anyway. Whether he admits it or not, though, he can t win the presidency without them.Featured image via Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images | 0 |
7,499 | GO FOR IT! RUSSIA THREATENS TO LEAK Things Obama Wanted To “Keep Secret” | Question: How do you see the future of Russian-US diplomatic relations in the context of the current atmosphere in Washington? Can you confirm that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will come to Moscow in April?Maria Zakharova: Apparently, many volumes have been written about the development of Russian-US relations. I announced the release of the Foreign Ministry s yearend Diplomatic Bulletin and even showed it at the previous briefing.I believe that about 20 per cent of that bulletin was devoted to Russian-US relations, the way we see them, how we want them to develop, what we expect from Washington, what we are willing to do with the United States, the priority areas of cooperation, areas where our cooperation should be revived without delay and the areas where this can wait, at least for a limited time.This issue has been covered in interviews by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, comments by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov and in numerous statements made at all levels by representatives from various Russian agencies, political analysts and politicians, as well as officials from the legislative and executive authorities. We can talk about bilateral relations with a different degree of mastery, but we would like to start implementing our relationship at long last.We provided our views on bilateral relations and the reasons for blocking them under President Obama. We said that we were willing to work with the new US administration, under President Trump. I don t think we need to invent anything in this respect, because so much has been said before. Simply, we should start concrete practical work. We are ready for this.You know that we always invite our American colleagues and diplomats to join bilateral or multilateral dialogues on issues in which the United States has traditionally played a big and active role, such as Syria, the consultations in Astana and many others. We expect Washington to formulate its foreign policy approaches in the form of a concept. We are ready for pragmatic and specific work on the principles that we have described many times.As for the visit by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the information about it, this is what I can say. It s not a secret that preparations for any visit include the coordination of the time when it can be announced. Visits by foreign ministers are public events that are never kept secret. At least, I don t know about any secret visits by foreign ministers in Russia or the United States. Preparations for such a visit also include the coordination of the format, agenda and the date it can be announced to the public.It is a matter of propriety and respect for each other s interests. One side proposes a date, and the other side is expected to accept it. This date should be acceptable to both sides, because the foreign ministers have packed schedules. The issue also concerns the coordination of the agenda by experts.One side informs the other side of the issues it plans to discuss, and the other side needs to respond that the agenda is acceptable. In other words, the sides need to reach agreements on many issues, after which they can announce an upcoming visit. This is how we work with our colleagues.To tell the truth, over the past few years we ve seen many strange things happen in Washington in connection with preparations for visits or talks by our foreign ministers. The US Department of State has more than once asked us not to announce planned visits until the last minute.This is not our tradition. We have been operating openly for years, but we have respected the requests we have received from our colleagues in Washington in the past few years. But what happened after that? First, the US Department of State asked us to keep the planned visit quiet and not to announce it until the last possible minute, until we coordinated the date.We did as they asked. But a day or two later the information was leaked by the US State Department and sometimes by the US administration. Frankly, this put Russia and the media in a strange situation, because they didn t know who to believe the official agencies or the many leaks.It is difficult to say if this diplomatic communication is a US tradition or the latest technique. But it definitely doesn t correspond to our traditions. We believe that everything we coordinate should be made available to the media in accordance with diplomatic procedure. When we coordinate a visit and the date for announcing it, the information should be made public calmly and as agreed. This is what we do in relations with our colleagues from other countries.As I said, such cases in our relations with the US Department of State have become a bad tradition over the past few years. So, I can say in response to your question that we will make the date and format of contacts between the Russian and US foreign ministers public after we coordinate them. We won t keep them quiet.At this point, I don t have any information I can share with you. I can say that this visit and such contacts are possible in principle, but it would be premature to talk about timeframes.Also, I would like to say that if the practice of leaking information that concerns not just the United States but also Russia, which has become a tradition in Washington in the past few years, continues, there will come a day when the media will publish leaks about the things that Washington asked us to keep secret, for example, things that happened during President Obama s terms in office.Believe me, this could be very interesting information.Our American colleagues must decide if they respect the diplomatic procedure, if they keep their word on the arrangements made between us, primarily arrangements made at their own request, or we create a few very nice surprises for each other.Read more: Gateway Pundit | 0 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.