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8,500 | U.S. judge will not dismiss accused Mexican drug lord El Chapo's indictment | NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Friday rejected an effort by Joaquin Guzman, the accused Mexican drug lord known as El Chapo, to dismiss a massive international narcotics conspiracy indictment on the ground he was extradited improperly to Brooklyn. While not challenging the merits of the case, Guzman s lawyers claimed that the indictment violated the extradition treaty between the United States and Mexico because Mexican authorities initially agreed to extradite their client only to southern California or western Texas. The lawyers questioned how Mexico could have suddenly consented to have U.S. authorities hurry Guzman to Brooklyn in New York City to face charges other than those for which his extradition had been sought, violating the so-called Rule of Specialty. But in a brief order, U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan said Guzman had no legal right to challenge the Brooklyn indictment because Mexico had not objected to it. Cogan also said the federal appeals court in Manhattan, whose jurisdiction includes the Brooklyn courthouse, upheld this principle in late July in an unrelated case. Here, there is no protest or objection by Mexico, nor is there an express provision in the extradition treaty between the United States and Mexico, Cogan wrote. Therefore, defendant s motion to dismiss the indictment based on an alleged Rule of Specialty violation is denied. Michelle Gelernt, a federal public defender representing Guzman, in an email said her office was disappointed, but not surprised with the order. We still believe Mr. Guzman s rights under the treaty were violated, and given that other circuit courts give the defendant the right to object to violations of extradition treaties, hope that the Supreme Court will decide this issue favorably to Mr. Guzman, she said. Prosecutors accused Guzman, 60, of running a global cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine smuggling operation as the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, and playing a major role in a decade-long Mexican drug war where more than 100,000 people have died. Guzman faces life in prison if convicted. He is being held without bail. | 1 |
8,501 | Canada defends refugee system as Somali immigrant charged in attack | EDMONTON, Alberta (Reuters) - Canada defended its immigration and refugee vetting system on Monday after a Somali immigrant, who had drawn scrutiny for his alleged extremist views, was charged with attempted murder for a weekend vehicle and knife attack that injured five. Abdulahi Hasan Sharif, 30, is accused of running down a police officer with his car in Edmonton, Alberta, and then stabbing him repeatedly. He then ran down four pedestrians during an attempt to evade capture. Sharif faces 11 charges including five for attempted murder linked to the rampage in the western Canadian city on Saturday night and police said more charges could be laid. He came to Canada in 2012 and was granted refugee status in the same year, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said. Though targeted in a probe two years ago for promoting extremist ideology, Sharif was deemed to pose no threat after what the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) described on Sunday as an exhaustive investigation. Goodale said it would be wrong to blame the attack on any shortcomings in Canada s immigration and refugee vetting system. There s absolutely no evidence of that whatsoever. The investigation is ongoing, but that conclusion is just not supported by the facts, Goodale told reporters in Ottawa. Still, the attack could leave Prime Minister Justin Trudeau open to more criticism from conservatives for the welcoming message he extended to refugees earlier this year, after U.S. President Donald Trump issued a travel ban targeting several Muslim-majority countries. Canada has seen a surge in illegal border crossings this year as people fearing a U.S. immigration crackdown and possible deportation sought asylum. Opposition Conservative parliamentarian Michelle Rempel said the incident raised questions about how police and immigration officials share information. If there are gaps in the system that allowed this to happen, what are we going to do to fix those? Rempel asked in comments to Reuters. Edmonton s refugee and Somali communities are bracing for a backlash in the wake of the attack, and met on Monday to discuss how to move forward, said Ahmed Abdulkadir, executive director of the Ogaden Somali Community of Alberta. We ve been receiving phone calls from moms asking us what to do and whether it s safe to send their children to school, Abdulkadir said. Sharif s bail hearing was delayed until Tuesday but police released a photo of Sharif taken after his capture, showing a young man gazing directly at the camera, a large bruise on his forehead. Karen King, one of Sharif s neighbors in an Edmonton, said he kept to himself and lived alone. Another, Jeff Dearman, said he played loud music and chanted sometimes. It was all normal other than that, Dearman said. Two of the four people injured on Saturday remained in hospital, with one listed in serious condition, RCMP Superintendent Stacey Talbot told a news conference. Despite the incident, Canada s government said it was keeping the terrorism threat level at medium, where it has been since late 2014 after two deadly attacks attributed to homegrown radicals. The incidents led to tougher new anti-terrorism measures. In October, 2014, a gunman killed a soldier at Ottawa s national war memorial before launching an attack on the Canadian Parliament. In the same week, a man ran down two soldiers in Quebec, killing one. | 1 |
8,502 | Trump budget opens new fight among Republicans | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican U.S. Representative Todd Rokita keeps a clock hanging on the wall of his Capitol Hill office that tracks the U.S. government’s rising debt in real time and reminds him of his top priority: reining in federal spending. “I was sent here on a fiscal note,” said the Indiana lawmaker and vice chairman of the House of Representatives Budget Committee, who rode a Republican wave during his first election to Congress in 2010. When President Donald Trump unveils his budget for the 2018 fiscal year on Thursday, Rokita will be among many conservative Republicans cheering proposed cuts to domestic programs that would pay for a military buildup. More moderate Republicans are less enthusiastic and worry Trump’s budget could force lawmakers to choose between opposing the president or backing reductions in popular programs such as aid for disabled children and hot meals for the elderly. “What you would hope is that the administration is aware of the difficulty of some of these things,” said Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma. The release of Trump’s budget, which comes as the Republican president is facing an intraparty revolt over proposed legislation to replace the Obamacare healthcare law, could open another fight among Republicans who control both houses of Congress. To keep the government running, lawmakers will need to approve a spending plan later this year. The White House has released few details about Trump’s budget, other than making clear the president wants to boost military spending by $54 billion and is seeking equivalent cuts in non-defense discretionary programs. But several agencies, including the State Department and the Environmental Protection Agency, have been asked to prepare scenarios for steep reductions, according to officials familiar with the discussions. While supporting deficit-reduction efforts, Cole said a major research university in his district could get hit by National Institutes of Health cuts, as could sewage treatment facilities funded by the EPA. Republican Senator Rob Portman, whose home state of Ohio sits on the southern shores of Lake Erie, expressed concern about media reports saying the Trump budget had penciled in sharp cuts in a cleanup program for the Great Lakes. While Rokita, who was among a group of Republican lawmakers who met with Trump last week, appeared comfortable with what he had learned so far about Trump’s budget, some Republican members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus said they wanted to see even further budget cuts. Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama said the outcry from lawmakers over the expected cuts underscored to him that the blueprint would be a “a very large step in the right direction” of reining in the debt. Brooks added: “My fear is that the Trump budget will not be austere enough to minimize America’s risk of suffering the kind of debilitating insolvency and bankruptcy that is destroying the lives of Venezuelans right now.” OPEC member Venezuela is immersed in a deep economic crisis, with inflation in triple digits, shortages of basic goods, and many people going hungry. Brooks and other members of the Freedom Caucus are among the most vocal critics of the legislation backed by the White House to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, former Democratic President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare plan, known as Obamacare. To try to woo the conservative lawmakers on Trump’s legislative agenda, budget director Mick Mulvaney, himself a former member of the House Freedom Caucus, has invited them to a bowling and pizza night at the White House on Tuesday night. Another Freedom Caucus member, Representative David Schweikert of Arizona, said Mulvaney was encouraging lawmakers to submit maverick fiscal ideas to the White House. Schweikert said he hoped to revive a proposal from a few years ago, in the midst of a fight over raising the U.S. debt limit, that would have allowed the government to take a series of alternative, albeit controversial steps, such as paying some creditors ahead of others. One senior Republican aide, who referred to Trump’s budget as a “slash and burn” proposal, said one fear of some House lawmakers was that they would be pressured to back big spending cuts only to have them rejected by the Senate, where Republicans hold a slimmer majority. The risk for House members is that their votes could prompt a backlash in the 2018 congressional elections. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said a budget that cuts State Department funds by one-third is unlikely to pass in his chamber. Other high-ranking Republicans are setting off alarms. Senator Lindsey Graham, following a White House lunch on Tuesday with Trump, said: “What I told him is that when we get in a deadlock between the House and the Senate, different factions of the party ... you’re the guy who needs to come down and close the deal.” Cole said Congress would ultimately have the final say on the budget. “At the end of the day, we’ll have a budget. We’ll pass the budget,” he said. “Our budget is not necessarily the president’s budget.” | 1 |
8,503 | 43-Year-Old Virgin With Bionic Penis Set To Have Sex For First Time (VIDEO) | A 43-year-old man with a surgically implanted bionic penis is set to actually use it for the first time. Mohammed Abad, from Edinburgh, will take the life changing step next week with 35-year-old sex worker Charlotte Rose after they get to know each other when they go on a dinner date in London. Abad lost his organ as a result of a freak road side accident and was fitted with a bionic one that apparently allows him to perform. Abad said: I have waited long enough for this it ll be a great start to the new year. My penis is working perfectly now so I just want to do it. I m really excited. I can t wait for it to finally happen. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nQF39iUyYg]When he was six, Abad was pushed into a road and fell under a moving car which dragged him 600 feet resulting in serious injuries, including to his genitals. He was fitted with a bionic replacement in 2012 but it s only been fully functional since 2015, when surgeons performed a special operation which will apparently allow him to have intercourse. Here is how the device works: The sexual device contains two tubes which fill up using liquid from his stomach, allowing him to maintain an erection. The contraption complete with on and off buttons in his testicles to pump it up or deflate it was made from the flesh of his arm and fitted by surgeons at University College London. It has a button in his testicles which he can press to pump it up, as well as another button which drains the penis after use, so it deflates. Here is how the gadget was attached: Molding and attaching it took three years, with doctors from University College London using a skin graft from his arm to line its shaft. The skin and fat from his forearm was removed to create the new penis, which was then attached during an 11-hour operation. Along with giving him a sex life it has also allowed him to pass urine standing up for the first time. It took surgeons at University College London three years to mold Mohammed Abad s new penis using skin taken from his arm. However, it wasn t that simple. Abad said that he s had some complications as a result of the surgery: I got out of hospital on the 10th of July and got a train back up to Scotland. I had to keep it erect for two weeks. I had to do that for it to heal, because that s the way it works. My old penis didn t go to waste my surgeon used it to make my scrotum. In the last three years, Abad has had 119 operations. But that s not stopping him. His soon-to-be partner Charlotte Rose, who s a campaigner for sexual freedom and a dominatrix, said that that she is honored that Abad picked her and that she will not charge him. Abed, who was married for over two years, never told his wife that he didn t have a penis until their wedding night. She would later leave him. Rose said that she hopes that Abad will have more confidence after he loses his virginity.Hopefully everything will work out for Abad and he can be on his way to living a normal life. | 0 |
8,504 | Twitter HILARIOUSLY F*cks With GOP For Tweeting Fake Lincoln Quote (TWEETS) | The trouble with quotes on the Internet is that you don t know if they re genuine. Or something. Today is Abraham Lincoln s birthday, and to honor him, the GOP tweeted out an image of the statue in the Lincoln Memorial with a quote:What a respectable way to commemorate one of the greatest presidents this country ever saw. There s just one problem: The quote isn t Lincoln s. It s most likely from a 1947 ad for a book by Edward J. Stieglitz. He, in turn, was given credit for the phrase in 1949.Former Illinois governor Adlai Stevenson also used that quote, but there s no evidence that Lincoln ever said it. And the GOP looks really stupid.The funny thing is that one could assume the general population wouldn t know whether the quote is Lincoln s or not. In the age of Google, however, one has to be far more careful about attributing quotes and anything else, because someone will inevitably look it up and make you look stupid if it s wrong.So Twitter decided to make the GOP look really stupid, and what they came up with has us rolling: Stop making fools of yourselves, guys. We re going to bust our ribs laughing at you for the rest of eternity give or take an eon.Featured image via screen captures | 0 |
8,505 | EU awards human rights prize to Venezuelan opposition | BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Venezuela s democratic opposition was awarded the European Union s human rights award on Thursday and the European Parliament called for a peaceful transition to democracy in the troubled country. The prize, named after Soviet physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov, was awarded to Venezuela s opposition-led National Assembly legislature, which the government has stripped of powers, and all political prisoners, the EU parliament said. Venezuela is suffering from a harsh economic crisis and President Nicolas Maduro s government has clamped down on the opposition, jailing or otherwise barring from office many dissenting leaders and activists. Today we are supporting a nation s freedom struggle, European Parliament President Antonio Tajani said. We also want to launch an appeal for a peaceful transition towards democracy and an opening of a humanitarian corridor to ease the suffering, he added. Julio Borges, head of Venezuela s National Assembly, tweeted that it was an honor to receive the award on behalf of the whole of Venezuela, adding: The international community recognizes our people. The European Parliament s left-wing group GUE/NGL, which includes parties such as Germany s Die Linke, Ireland s Sinn Fein and Greece s ruling Syriza, said it would boycott the award ceremony, saying the decision was politically charged. Previous winners of the prize, first awarded in 1988, include Pakistani education activist Malala Yousafzai and South African President Nelson Mandela. | 1 |
8,506 | MUST WATCH VIDEO: LISTEN TO OBAMA AND HIS COMMIE MENTOR AND YOU’LL WONDER HOW SOMEONE WHO DISLIKES AMERICA SO MUCH COULD BECOME OUR PRESIDENT | OBAMA SPEAKS ABOUT FRANK AND HIS MENTOR WHO SCHOOLED HIM ON WHITE RACISM What I m trying to tell you is your [white] grandma s right to be scared . She understands that black people have a reason to hate. That s just how it is. For your sake, I wish it were otherwise. But it s not. So you might as well get used to it. Frank Marshall Davis OBAMA S COMMIE MENTOR SPEAKS | 0 |
8,507 | Nigerian VP Osinbajo says running for presidency not 'on the cards' | LONDON (Reuters) - Nigeria s Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who has served as acting president for much of this year, said on Monday he had not given any thought to contesting the country s next presidential election in 2019. Nigeria has faced heightened uncertainty over whether President Muhammadu Buhari plans to contest the next election. Buhari, 74, took power in 2015 but has been absent for much of this year due to illness. Osinbajo, a 60-year-old law professor, served as acting president during Buhari s absences, succeeding in calming tensions in the oil-producing Delta region and pushing small steps to improve the business climate, including foreign currency reforms. Some business leaders say he could provide stability by running for president himself in Feb 2019. Asked at the FT Africa Summit in London if he had considered running, Osinbajo said he hadn t thought about it, adding: None of that is on the cards . Osinbajo also said that militants in the oil-producing Niger Delta region no longer posed a significant threat to oil production. He said Nigeria had lost as much as 1 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil production last year amid militant attacks on oil and gas infrastructure, which is concentrated in the southern Delta region. It was now pumping roughly 1.85 million bpd and climbing toward 2 million bpd. That is closer to its top production of around 2.2 million bpd. Still, he added that Nigeria needed to diversify its oil-dependent economy and take advantage of the resource while it was still in high demand. We don t have all the time in the world with oil, he said. We have to use oil while it makes sense to do so. | 1 |
8,508 | Trump EXPLODES In Twitter Tantrum That Proves He’s Mentally Unfit To Be President | Donald Trump threw a massive hissy fit over just about everything on Tuesday morning.Some things just do not need to be commented on by the president, but for some reason, Trump thinks he needs to comment on everything.In a series of whining tweets, Trump took petty shots at Democrats, ESPN, Jemele Hill, the NFL, and Senator Bob Corker that perfectly demonstrate how thin-skinned and how pathetically unfit he is to be president.He began by threatening the NFL for not punishing players who exercise their right to free speech.Why is the NFL getting massive tax breaks while at the same time disrespecting our Anthem, Flag and Country? Change tax law! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 10, 2017Then he bitched about Democrats for not supporting his useless and expensive border wall.The problem with agreeing to a policy on immigration is that the Democrats don t want secure borders,they don t care about safety for U.S.A. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 10, 2017Trump then declared that he would destroy healthcare by executive order.Since Congress can t get its act together on HealthCare, I will be using the power of the pen to give great HealthCare to many people FAST Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 10, 2017Trump also attacked Jemele Hill for rightfully calling for a boycott of the Dallas Cowboys.With Jemele Hill at the mike, it is no wonder ESPN ratings have tanked, in fact, tanked so badly it is the talk of the industry! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 10, 2017Hill posted her tweets in response to Cowboys owner Jerry Jones threatening to punish any player who kneels during the national anthem. By issuing such a threat, America s team clearly does not support America s Constitution.To cap it all off, Trump attacked the New York Times and insulted Senator Bob Corker.The Failing @nytimes set Liddle Bob Corker up by recording his conversation. Was made to sound a fool, and that s what I am dealing with! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 10, 2017Seriously, does Trump have nothing better to do? You know, like actually doing his job?Featured Image: Spencer Platt/Getty Images | 0 |
8,509 | George W. Bush ends exile, helps Republicans raise money | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former President George W. Bush had every intention of sticking to his self-imposed exile from politics, but found that the phone kept ringing with appeals from Republican U.S. Senate candidates for help, friends say. As a result, Bush has embarked on a rescue mission to try to preserve the Republicans’ narrow Senate majority in a year in which many party figures fear presumptive nominee Donald Trump will drag them down to defeat in the Nov. 8 elections. Republicans control 54 seats in the 100-member Senate. “I think that this is a one-off, temporary thing that where he can be helpful he will be,” said Dana Perino, who was Bush’s White House press secretary. Condoleezza Rice, who was Bush’s secretary of state and is now a political science professor at Stanford University, is also raising money for Republican candidates, but on Friday ruled out speculation that she might be drafted as Trump’s vice presidential running mate. “Dr. Rice has repeatedly said in past cycles as well as this one, she’s not interested in being vice president. She’s happy at Stanford and plans to stay,” said Rice chief of staff Georgia Godfrey. Friends say Bush was initially reluctant to get involved, feeling his time in the limelight had passed. They said he was surprised at the appeals he was receiving to get back into politics more than seven years after his eight-year White House run ended. So far Bush has headlined fund-raising events for Senator John McCain of Arizona and Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire. He plans to help senators Rob Portman of Ohio, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Roy Blunt of Missouri. Bush is no fan of Trump, but to a certain extent, he is doing Trump a favor in spite of the continuing antagonism toward the Bush family from the bellicose New York businessman. Typically, the party’s nominee is the chief fund-raiser in election years, but Trump’s fund-raising effort has lagged. Meanwhile, Trump continues to take swipes at the Bush family, particularly at Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor who was defeated by Trump in the Republican presidential primary race. On Wednesday in Greensboro, North Carolina, Trump complained about Jeb’s decision not to honor a pledge made last year to support the Republican presidential nominee whoever it is. “He signed the pledge but he hasn’t endorsed me,” Trump said. Like his brother, Jeb Bush is helping raise money for Republican congressional candidates. “The Bush family has a deep love for the party and cares about the future and in light of Trump’s capacity to damage the brand, I think this is part and parcel of doing what they can to preserve the party,” said Jeb Bush’s spokeswoman, Kristy Campbell. | 1 |
8,510 | The Westboro Baptist Church Just Crucified Trump With A 2-Word Description Of His Candidacy | The Westboro Baptist Church doesn t leave much room for dissension among its ranks, so when a Phelps family member speaks on an issue, you can pretty well assume that their sentiment mirrors that of the entire cult. That s what makes the conversation The Daily Caller had with Lee Ann Phelps, whose husband Timothy is the late Fred Phelps son, all the more interesting. Talking politics at all with a cult family that hates everyone is typically a pointless endeavor, but in this case something stuck out that is just too good to pass up.Phelps said she couldn t support Donald Trump for president because he is too fringe. Yes, you read that right. Still, you ll want to take a deep breath and prepare yourself for the laughter that is undoubtedly making its way to the surface when you read it again: Donald Trump is too fringe for the Westboro Baptist Church. The same cult that pickets just about anything imaginable with such incendiary slogans as God Hates F*gs and America Is Doomed thinks that Trump is too far out there on too many issues to be considered for the presidency.According to Merriam-Webster, fringe means: Not part of the mainstream; unconventional, peripheral, or extreme. There is nothing in America more unconventional, peripheral or extreme than the Westboro Baptist Church. At least there used to be nothing that compared. Now we have a failed businessman masquerading as a success declaring racism and hate to be what will make America great again. You could almost wager that if you were to ask just about anyone who their guess would be for a WBC endorsement, Donald Trump would win hands down.While she says she isn t voting, Phelps has declined to weigh in on the Democratic candidates at all.Featured image from Wikimedia | 0 |
8,511 | Selling bonds, dropping bombs: How China could respond to Trump's Taiwan talk | (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has upset China by speaking to the president of self-ruled Taiwan and saying the United States did not necessarily have to be bound by its long-standing position that Taiwan is part of China. Taiwan is arguably the most sensitive part of the China-U.S. relationship, and China has never renounced the use of force to bring the island it regards as a renegade province under its control. Here are 10 things China could do to retaliate against the Trump administration if he continues to push the Taiwan issue. - Cutting ties with Washington If Trump offers any type of formal diplomatic recognition to Taiwan, China would likely severe its own diplomatic ties with the United States, in what would be an extreme and highly disruptive move. China refuses to have diplomatic ties with any nation that also has diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Cutting ties with Washington would likely be a final resort by Beijing. - War games near Taiwan China could signal its resolve over Taiwan by holding war games close to the island, for example by effectively closing off air and shipping routes by lobbing missiles into waters close to Taiwan’s densely populated western coast, a move that would deeply unsettle the region. Chinese state media have even suggested military means may now be needed to settle the Taiwan issue once and for all. - South China Sea face-off China has been angered by U.S. freedom-of-navigation patrols in the disputed South China Sea, where China has been reclaiming land on the islands and reefs it occupies and building airfields and other facilities. So far, China has responded to U.S. patrols by shadowing them and issuing verbal warnings. China may take more forceful measures to future U.S. patrols. In 2001, a U.S. spy plane was forced to land in China after colliding with a Chinese fighter over the South China Sea. Beijing would be reluctant to see a military clash as China needs a peaceful South China Sea to keep its trade lanes open. - Sanctioning U.S. companies involved in arms sales to Taiwan In 2010, Beijing reacted with fury to the Obama administration plans for a new round of weapons sales to Taiwan, threatening to sanction the U.S. companies involved. The threats ultimately did not come to fruition. - Cut its holdings of U.S. Treasuries China is America’s biggest creditor, holding $1.16 trillion dollars worth of U.S. Treasuries as of September. If Beijing decided to suddenly liquidate a big chunk of its holdings, it could do severe damage to U.S. debt markets, forcing the United States to scramble for funds. A big retaliatory sell-off of U.S. government debt by China would not be a precision strike, though. Such a move would roil global markets and likely even rebound on China’s own, making this, in some analysts’ minds, a worst case scenario short of war. - Ease up pressure on North Korea The United States has repeatedly urged China to “get tough” on nuclear-armed North Korea, and while China is Pyongyang’s most important economic and diplomatic backer, it has also been infuriated by its nuclear and missile tests. While China could ease up on United Nations sanctions on North Korea to express displeasure with the United States, it could boomerang and end up giving succor to Pyongyang and its missile and nuclear programs, something Beijing does not want. - Pressure on U.S. companies Indirect levers exist for hitting companies via state-run media and consumer organizations, or just stoking popular sentiment. After China lost an international ruling earlier this year over its claims in the South China Sea, several U.S. brands became targets for short-lived anti-U.S. protests and boycott calls, including Apple Inc (AAPL.O) and KFC-parent Yum Brands Inc (YUM.N). U.S. companies could also face higher tariffs as well as outright substitution of their products, such as aircraft, in favor of Chinese or other foreign competitors. China might throw bureaucratic obstacles in the way of U.S. firms in the country. A senior executive in China at a large American consumer goods firm told Reuters any strike back against U.S. firms would likely involve local authorities clogging up approval processes or slowing down paperwork, rather than a loud and brash response. - Alternative agricultural supplies China, the world’s top consumer of commodities from copper, to corn to crude oil, could hit the United States if it sought alternative supplies of agricultural products. Volumes of U.S. agricultural imports from corn to soybeans into China hit a record 47.9 million tonnes in 2015. - Kill momentum for market access A Trump departure from a one China policy would almost certainly undermine bilateral investment treaty talks. Trump may not be a fan of those to begin with, but greater market access under a Bilateral Investment Treaty tops the U.S. business community’s wish list for China. The U.S.-China BIT had long been viewed within the broader foreign business community to be the vanguard of liberalizing investment deals with China. If those talks stall, it’s possible China will promote investment treaty talks with Europe. - Undermining the consensus on cyber issues If Trump goes back on One China, it’s possible there could be a Chinese reversal on cyber security commitments made between Xi and Obama in 2015, which U.S. government advisers and security experts have credited with reducing China-led cyber-espionage. | 1 |
8,512 | Russia suspends diplomatic presence in Yemen, moves envoy to Riyadh: agencies | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia has suspended its diplomatic presence in Yemen and all its staff have left the country due to the situation in the capital Sanaa, the RIA news agency cited Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying on Tuesday. The Russian ambassador to Yemen and some diplomatic staff will be working temporarily out of the Saudi capital Riyadh, the Interfax news agency cited the ministry as saying. Yemen s conflict, pitting the Houthi movement against a Saudi-led military alliance which backs a government based in the south, has unleashed what the United Nations calls the world s worst humanitarian crisis. A Russian plane evacuated embassy staff and some Russian nationals from Sanaa earlier on Tuesday, Saudi state news agency SPA said, citing the Saudi-led military coalition fighting against the Houthi movement that controls the Yemeni capital. The agency quoted an official source in the coalition as saying it had received a request for permission for a Russian plane to evacuate the personnel, and that the plane had left Sanaa airport. | 1 |
8,513 | Fear of Iranian general left Iraqi Kurdish oil fields deserted | BAGHDAD/LONDON (Reuters) - When the Iraqi army and Iranian-backed Shi ite militia entered a key oil processing facility in Iraq s north to retake it from Kurdish Peshmerga forces last week, the installation was deserted and its alarm bells ringing. Engineers and workers on the facility, which processes oil from two major fields in the Kirkuk area of predominantly Sunni Kurdistan, had fled, fearing the military advance. No one wanted to risk their life and decided to evacuate as stories about the Shi ite militia and Qassem Soleimani were spreading fast, said a senior Kurdish oil industry source, referring to the head of foreign operations for Iran s elite Revolutionary Guards. The source declined to be identified. Iraqi engineers arrived to the sound of alarm bells warning about system malfunctions, prompting them to immediately shut down wells. Now, they need passwords and expertise from their Kurdish counterparts to restore oil output fully. The loss of control of Kirkuk oil fields is likely to starve the KRG of vital oil revenue and cause deep concern to global trading houses such as Vitol and Glencore, which have granted the semi-autonomous government billions of dollars in loans against future oil sales. Baghdad s lightning military offensive into northern Iraq came after the Kurdistan Regional Government held an independence referendum last month. Major-General Soleimani, one of the most influential military figures in the Middle East, with reach in Syria and Lebanon, issued tough warnings to Kurdish leaders ahead of the Iraqi military advance. We went inside the oilfield facilities after Kurdish workers fled and we found overalls and safety boots thrown on the ground, said an engineer from the Baghdad-run North Oil Company, who declined to be named because he was ordered not to speak publicly about the issue. It seems that workers took them off and escaped very quickly. NOC crews entered oil facilities in the Bai Hassan and Avana fields on Oct. 17 for the first time since 2014, when Peshmerga forces drove Islamic State from the area and found all crude oil stations unmanned. Peshmerga fighters had also withdrawn. After we discovered that some of the key equipment was missing and the control panel was ringing alarms of crude processing malfunction, we immediately shut down oil wells, the NOC engineer said. A week after the operation, Iraqi engineers are still struggling to resume Kirkuk s oil production, saying they had yet to understand how to operate the equipment processing some 350,000 barrels per day. The military offensive more than halved Kurdistan s oil output and cut its exports to global markets via Turkey by two thirds. The drop in exports has deprived the region of more than $200 million in revenues over the past week, a Kurdish oil industry source familiar with loadings told Reuters. It has also dealt a further blow to the region s finances already stretched by a fight against Islamic State and a budget crisis caused by a fall in oil prices. The United States has called on both sides to resume dialogue, saying the tensions hamper efforts to fight Islamic State. Resuming normal oil production and exports will be challenging and will take at least another week and will only succeed if Iraqi and Kurdish engineers agree to cooperate, according to both sides. On Tuesday, NOC officials asked Kurdish engineering firm Kar Group to send back its workers, according to sources on both sides. Iraqi engineers need guidance on how to operate recently installed equipment at Bai Hassan and Avana, the sources said. The pumping and operational stations for both oil fields are located in the city of Dahuk, which unlike Kirkuk is still under the control of the Peshmerga forces. Energy facilities in Kirkuk are more like a locked box and only their crew have the password, the Iraqi engineer said. Kar Group has, however, so far refrained from going back without security guarantees, according to sources close to the engineering company. Kirkuk, one of the oldest and best known oil areas in the Middle East, had long been under the control of Iraqi forces until it was over-run by Islamic State. In 2014, it was retaken by the Peshmerga, the official security forces of the KRG, as part of their advance on Islamic State. That allowed Kurdistan to regain control of an area it believes is historically Kurdish and ramp up exports from the oil fields while borrowing billions of dollars from trading houses and Russian state oil major Rosneft. We need to figure out who gets what when the fields resume production. At the moment the potential split of revenues is far from clear, said the Kurdish oil industry source. Before the referendum, Kurdistan was exporting some 600,000 bpd of crude via Turkey, which it said had made it almost totally economically independent as it could pay its own bills without the need to wait for budget transfers from Baghdad. Under the deal with Baghdad, Kurdistan was exporting 540,000 bpd on behalf of the government in the city of Erbil and some 60,000 bpd on behalf of NOC. With the loss of control of the Kirkuk area, Kurdistan will be in theory left with only 250,000-300,000 bpd of its own output, less than it needs to cover its debt obligations. Vitol, Glencore, Petraco and Trafigura have loaned Kurdistan some $2.5 billion and Russia s Rosneft has loaned some $1.2 billion. Glencore s boss Ivan Glasenberg said last week he could not rule out a rescheduling of the payments. | 1 |
8,514 | MOM NOT HAPPY: TRANSGENDER BOY BEATS DAUGHTER In Girls 100 Meter Running Race [VIDEO] | Sorry Leftists the DNA doesn t change because a boy wants to be a girl. What part of NOT fair don t you get?Alaskan mother Jennifer VanPelt is not happy that her daughter missed out on a podium appearance at a state track meet after a transgender girl was allowed to compete and got the third-best time in a 200-meter varsity final race.Here is the mother s Facebook post where she expresses her frustration with this clearly unfair rule:See video below:Pictured: Nattaphon Wangyot, KTVA/screenshotAccording to transgender.com, these 30 states allow athletes to compete in the sports based on gender they identify with:We discovered this by perusing the comment section of KTVA s story on Haines runner Nattaphon Wangyot, who finished the 100-meter in 13.14 and qualified for state. Via: Rare | 0 |
8,515 | BLACK LIVES MATTER TERRORISTS May Be Shut Down: Mall Of America Files Restraining Order | ter ror ist ter r st/ noun a person who uses terrorism in the pursuit of political aims. synonyms: extremist, fanatic; revolutionary, radical, insurgent, guerrilla, anarchist, freedom fighter; bomber, gunman, assassin, hijacker, arsonist, incendiaryThe Mall of America has requested a temporary restraining order against Black Lives Matter leaders in the hopes of heading off a protest intended to shut down the shopping center during the busiest shopping day of the Christmas season.From KARE11.com: MINNEAPOLIS The Mall of America has filed for a restraining order against leaders of Black Lives Matter (BLM) in an attempt to head off a protest scheduled for one of the busiest shopping days of the year.The legal documents, filed in Hennepin County Court, name BLM leaders Michael McDowell, Miski Noor, Lena Gardner, Kandace Montgomery and four others named only as John Does 1 through 4 as defendants. The request for the temporary restraining order says BLM has been using its Facebook and Twitter pages to promote a demonstration at the Mall of America s East Rotunda at 1 p.m. on December 23, 2015.In asking for a restraining order, attorneys for MOA point to a similar protest held on December 20, 2014 involving approximately 1,000 protesters inside the mall. A number of the demonstrators were arrested and charged with trespassing. The legal action maintains that MOA and its tenants suffered irreparable harm, including reduced guests and sales. The mall says traffic counts for the number of cars entering parking ramps on that day were down 15 percent from statistics from the previous five years, which translates into 24,000 fewer shoppers. Mall attorneys maintain that many retailers reported double digit decreases in sales on December 20,2014, the date of that demonstration. Via: Breitbart News | 0 |
8,516 | John Boehner Has A New Job, And It’s Vile (VIDEO) | When John Boehner left Congress, he left behind a stench so bad it took a team of professionals and a hefty chunk of change to get rid of it. No, I m not talking about his obstructionism. I m talking about the fact that Boehner is a massive chain smoker, and his office reeked so bad that Paul Ryan had to have new carpets, furniture and paint in his new office.Now, Boehner has found a new home, and it can only be imagined that the entire building stinks just like Boehner s old office. He s now a Class 2 director on the board of Reynolds American Inc, the company that makes his beloved Camel cigarettes. Yes, his job will be to lobby Congress to help prevent and eliminate those pesky regulations that tobacco companies have to jump through you know, like the ones that say the tobacco companies can t market to children, although a Boehner spokesman spun it to sound like just the opposite. RAI is striving to transform the tobacco industry through innovative strategies that include speeding the decline in tobacco use among young people and reducing the harm caused by smoking, said a Boehner spokesman. These are objectives Speaker Boehner supports and looks forward to helping RAI advance through his service on the board. Source: NPRHere s the video:The reality is much bleaker. There is a tiny grain of truth in the statement that fewer young people are using tobacco, but one of the things tobacco companies are trying to sell as a safer alternative to tobacco are e-cigarettes, which for children, are even worse than traditional cigarettes, just because the cartridge can be broken and children have been known to swallow toxic doses of nicotine.Not only that, tobacco companies are specifically marketing e-cigarettes to young children, often with ads touting their candy-like flavors.If you recall, Boehner stepped down from his speakership and announced that he would be leaving Congress immediately after a congressional visit from Pope Francis. He seemed to imply that the Pope had put the pro-life Speaker into a crisis of conscious. In truth, Republicans wanted him out, badly, but what happened to the man who claimed his life was changed after meeting the Pope?Nothing that the Pope would approve of. Smoking is still the leading cause of preventable death in this country. Nearly half a million Americans die from smoking ever year. While not as many children are picking up cigarettes, hence the panic and the hiring of Boehner, more than 3,200 new smokers each day are younger than 18. Of those, 2,100 will become addicts. This is what John Boehner is promoting. He s almost better back in Congress. At least there, he got nothing done. Now, he ll be personally responsible for the deaths of millions and he ll be pushing cigarettes on children.Featured image via Alex Wong/Getty Images. | 0 |
8,517 | Trump warns 'rogue regime' North Korea of grave danger | BEIJING (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump arrived in China on Wednesday seeking help to rein in North Korea, telling the reclusive state’s leader he was putting his country in grave danger by developing nuclear weapons. Trump used some of his toughest language yet against North Korea in a wide-ranging address in Seoul that lodged specific accusations of chilling human rights abuses. He called on countries around the world to isolate Pyongyang by denying it “any form of support, supply or acceptance.” “Do not underestimate us and do not try us,” Trump told North Korea as he wrapped up a visit to South Korea with a speech to the National Assembly before heading to Beijing, where he was making his first official visit. Trump painted a dystopian picture of the reclusive North, saying people were suffering in “gulags” and some bribed government officials to work as “slaves” overseas rather than live under the government at home. He offered no evidence to support those accusations. Trump’s return to harsh, uncompromising language came a day after he appeared to dial back the bellicose rhetoric that had fueled fears across east Asia of the risk of military conflict. On Tuesday, Trump had even offered a diplomatic opening to Pyongyang to “make a deal.” He went mostly on the attack in Wednesday’s speech but did promise a “path to a much better future” if North Korea stopped developing ballistic missiles and agreed to “complete, verifiable and total denuclearization” – something Pyongyang has vowed never to do. “We will not allow American cities to be threatened with destruction. We will not be intimidated,” he told South Korean lawmakers. “And we will not let the worst atrocities in history be repeated here, on this ground we fought and died to secure.” The North defends its nuclear weapons and missile programs as a necessary defense against what it says are U.S. plans to invade. The United States, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean war, denies any such intention. “The world cannot tolerate the menace of a rogue regime that threatens it with nuclear devastation,” Trump said, speaking as three U.S. aircraft carrier groups sailed to the Western Pacific for exercises - a rare show of such U.S. naval force in the region. ‘STATE VISIT-PLUS’ In Beijing, Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping resumed their “bromance” struck in April at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, making small talk as they toured the Forbidden City - which was shut down to tourists - with their wives before taking in a Chinese opera performance. While the sprawling palace complex in the political and cultural heart of Beijing is a regular stop for visiting dignitaries, it is rare for a Chinese leader to act as a personal escort, confirmation of the “state visit-plus” treatment that China had promised for Trump. Trump has threatened action over China’s wide trade surplus with the United States and called on Beijing to do more to rein in ally and neighbor North Korea, but has expressed admiration for Xi and held off on imposing trade measures. During his two-day visit, Trump will ask China to abide by U.N. resolutions and cut financial links with North Korea, a senior White House official said on the plane from Seoul. He also plans to discuss with Xi the long-contentious trade imbalance, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said at a ceremony with U.S. business leaders where $9 billion worth of deals were signed. The White House expects to announce deals in China this week worth more than $250 billion, Bloomberg reported, citing an administration official. Trump believes any talks with North Korea would require it to reduce threats, end provocations and move toward denuclearization, and that no deal can be achieved without denuclearization, the official added. Trump and Xi were scheduled to hold formal talks on Thursday. Before leaving for Beijing, Trump cited China as one of the countries that must fully enforce international sanctions against Pyongyang and downgrade diplomatic and commercial ties. “To those nations that choose to ignore this threat or, worse still, to enable it, the weight of this crisis is on your conscience,” he said. While Trump will try to convince Xi to squeeze North Korea further with steps such as limits on oil exports and financial transactions, it is not clear if Xi, who has just consolidated his power at a Communist Party congress, will agree to do more. China has repeatedly said its leverage over Pyongyang is exaggerated by the West and that it is already doing all it can to enforce sanctions. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said that China fully and strictly implements U.N. Security Council resolutions on North Korea, but will investigate if there have been any contraventions. During his speech in Seoul, Trump directed his words at North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. “The weapons that you are acquiring are not making you safer, they are putting your regime in grave danger,” he said. “Every step you take down this dark path increases the peril you face.” However Trump, whose strategy has stressed sanctions and military pressure instead of diplomacy, did not spell out any new approach. North Korea has made clear it has little interest in negotiations at least until it develops a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland, something U.S. intelligence officials say it may be just months away from achieving. “North Korea is a country ruled by a cult,” Trump said in a speech that was interrupted several times by applause and ended with a standing ovation. He stopped short of repeating the derisive nickname “little Rocket Man” that he has used to describe the young North Korean leader. Kim, for his part, has called Trump “mentally deranged.” The speech came after Trump’s attempt to make an unannounced visit to the heavily fortified border separating North and South Korea was aborted when dense fog prevented his helicopter from landing, officials said. A visit to the DMZ, despite his aides’ earlier insistence he had no plans to go there, would have had the potential to further inflame tensions with North Korea. Arriving in Beijing on Wednesday, Trump and his wife Melania descended from a red-carpeted staircase rolled up to the main door of Air Force One. That was in contrast to a 2016 visit to China by his predecessor, Barack Obama, who was forced to exit his plane from a lower door in what was seen as a snub. And while in China, Trump will not be deterred from using Twitter, his favored form of communication, despite its being banned there, according to an administration official. “The president will tweet whatever he wants,” the official told reporters on Air Force One. “I’m sure we’ve got the gear aboard this airplane to make it happen.” | 1 |
8,518 | Suspected Boko Haram militants kill eight soldiers, one civilian in Nigeria's northeast: police | BAUCHI, Nigeria (Reuters) - Suspected Boko Haram militants killed eight soldiers and one civilian in an attack in Nigeria s northeast, a police official said on Wednesday. The attack in Yobe state on Tuesday evening also left five civilians injured, Abdulmalik Sumonu, commissioner of police for Yobe, told Reuters by phone. | 1 |
8,519 | Clinton criticizes Trump for remarks on security briefing, Putin | WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton slammed Republican rival Donald Trump on Thursday for talking about things he learned in classified intelligence briefings and for praising Russia’s Vladimir Putin as a better leader than President Barack Obama. Speaking to reporters the day after a New York security forum featuring separate appearances by the two candidates, Clinton also criticized the businessman for saying U.S. generals had been “reduced to rubble” by Obama’s policies. At the televised forum on Wednesday night, Trump said he was “shocked” by information he got during the briefing. “What I did learn is that our leadership, Barack Obama, did not follow what our experts ... said to do,” Trump said. Clinton, who was secretary of state during Obama’s first term, said Trump’s comments on the briefing were “totally inappropriate and undisciplined.” “I would never comment on any aspect of an intelligence briefing I received,” Clinton said before boarding her campaign plane. As nominees for the Nov. 8 presidential election, she and Trump are entitled to receive intelligence briefings. Clinton said Trump’s praise of Putin as a better leader than Obama was “not just unpatriotic and insulting to the people of our country, as well as to our commander in chief, it is scary.” “It suggests he will let Putin do whatever Putin wants to do and then make excuses for him,” Clinton said. Trump fired back at Clinton, saying her comments were an effort to make up for a poor performance during the security forum. “Hillary Clinton is always complaining about what’s wrong,” he said during a campaign stop in Cleveland, where he visited a charter school and proposed federal spending on “school choice” programs. “I just watched her on the tarmac. She tried to make up for her horrible performance last night,” Trump said. The intensifying political combat came as Clinton’s lead in opinion polls has slipped in recent days. The current average of polls by website RealClearPolitics puts her at 45.6 percent support, compared with Trump’s 42.8 percent. Obama also hit back at Trump for criticizing his foreign policy record, saying the Republican nominee was unfit to follow him into the Oval Office and the public should press Trump on his “outright wacky ideas.” The televised “Commander-in-Chief” forum on Wednesday, attended by military veterans, was the first time Trump and Clinton had squared off on the same stage since accepting their parties’ White House nominations in July, although they did not appear at the same time. The forum offered a prelude to how Clinton and Trump will deal with questions of national security in their three upcoming presidential debates later in September and in October. Clinton has said her experience in government as secretary of state and a U.S. senator makes her uniquely qualified for the White House, and that Trump’s series of controversial comments make him temperamentally unfit for the office. Some of Trump’s foreign policy positions, such as his proposal to fight terrorism by imposing a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country, have alarmed not just Democrats but many in his own party’s leadership. Trump, who has never held elected office, has criticized Clinton’s judgment for backing the 2003 Iraq war and her support for the U.S. intervention in Libya in 2011. The Republican candidate was widely criticized recently when he called her a “co-founder,” along with Obama, of the Islamic State militant group. Clinton, who voted in favor of the 2003 Iraq war as a senator but has since said she regrets doing so, said she would convene a meeting of bipartisan security experts on Friday to discuss the fight against Islamic State. “What you didn’t hear from Donald Trump last night was any plan to take on ISIS,” Clinton told reporters, using an acronym for the group. “That’s not only dangerous, it should be disqualifying.” Trump and Clinton supporters went on the offensive on social media Wednesday night and Thursday morning, defending their candidates’ performances during the forum. Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway spoke with Trump supporters in Congress on Thursday morning, and Trump spoke with the group by phone to thank them for their support. Some supporters shrugged off his comments about Putin. “I think he is being very smart in how he addresses Putin and you know, maybe he’s playing with Putin’s ego,” said Representative Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. Mike Pence, Trump’s vice presidential running mate, told CNN it was “inarguable” that Putin had been a stronger leader of Russia than Obama had been in the United states. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, the top elected Republican official, who has frequently broken with Trump, took a sharply different view. “Putin is an aggressor that does not share our interests. Vladimir Putin is violating the sovereignty of neighboring countries,” Ryan told reporters at his weekly news conference. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus told reporters at the Cleveland rally that Trump was not endorsing Putin with his praise. “He doesn’t agree with his style of government. He wasn’t saying that,” he said. Clinton said Republicans holding or seeking office across the country should be pressed on whether they agree with Trump’s comments, including his views on Putin and U.S. generals that surfaced during the forum. “Republicans are just in a terrible dilemma trying to support a totally unqualified nominee, I have no sympathy for them, it’s their nominee,” she said. | 1 |
8,520 | WATCH JOE BIDEN’S Shocking Anti-Gun Comment About Texas Hero Who Stopped Gunman [Video] | Joe Biden is thinking about running for POTUS in 2020 but this type of anti-gun comment is a huge deal breaker for voters If Biden had used common sense he would realize that the Texas hero stopped the gunman from proceeding with any more deaths when he used his weapon Does Biden believe that if you outlaw a certain type of gun that they won t be out there anymore? Two words: Bill Clinton Joe Biden says that the man who stopped the Texas church shooter should not have been armed. pic.twitter.com/pY3hBHPHuX Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) November 14, 2017Joe Biden: Well, first of all, the kind of gun being carried he shouldn t be carrying, Biden said. Assault weapons are I wrote the last serious gun control law that was written and was law for 10 years, and it outlawed assault weapons and it outlawed weapons with magazines that had a whole lot of bullets and so you can kill a whole lot of people a lot more quickly. Joe Biden wants to run? Not gonna happen if he starts to go down this path Remember gun sales always skyrocket when there is an effort to ban them. The left s logic on this is upside down. Just because you ban guns or put a sign up banning them in a public place does not mean that people will obey them. The hero who shot the gunman was a brave American! Shame on Joe Biden! | 0 |
8,521 | Boiler Room #62 – Fatal Illusions | Tune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room starting at 6 PM PST | 9 PM EST every Wednesday. Join us for uncensored, uninterruptible talk radio, custom-made for barfly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher, & Spore along with Randy J of 21Wire, Andy Nowicki from Alt Right Blog Spot and Jay Dyer of jaysanalysis.com. Tonight the Boiler Gang discusses Brexit, Orlando Shooting, Istanbul Airport Bombing, gang vs counter-gang political shenanigans in Sacramento CA and whatever else floats into our air space during the show!BOILER ROOM IS NOT A POLICTALLY CORRECT ZONE! LISTEN TO THE SHOW IN THE PLAYER BELOW ENJOY! Reference Links: | 0 |
8,522 | The Chilling Police Abuse Footage Oakland Cops Didn’t Want You To See (VIDEO) | On January 19, 2016, the city of Oakland, California, agreed to pay $450,000 to settle a wrongful death suit, filed by the family of Hernan Jaramillo, a 51-year-old man who was killed while being restrained by police.The Contra Costa Times obtained video of the moments before Jaramillo s death. The video shows the man repeatedly crying out for help, saying, They re killing me! and I can t breathe. As one officer pressed his knee into Jaramillo s back, four others used their weight to hold the man down on the sidewalk. When Jaramillo cries out to his sister again, saying They re killing me, one officer responds No-one s killing you. Before becoming unresponsive, Jaramillo again tells his sister They know what they re doing. They re killing me. Jaramillo did not have a criminal record. Worse, he was not even accused of a crime at the time of his death.According to the family, Jaramillo s sister called police to report that her brother was being attacked by an intruder. When police arrived, they found him alone in his room.Although Jaramillo s sister insisted that he was not the intruder, police handcuffed him and led him to a waiting squad car.The officers claim that they wanted to take him in for a mental health assessment, but he resisted as they tried to get him into the police car. That s when they threw him to the sidewalk, compressing his body under their combined weight, until he stopped calling for help.Although Oakland police never released the footage, which was captured by one of the officers body cameras, the video was leaked to Contra Costa Times this week. It was later published to YouTube by US Uncut.Watch the footage below.While the city of Oakland will pay $450,000 to settle the wrongful death suit filed by Jaramillo s family, the officers involved in this incident will never be held accountable.That s because the Alameda County District Attorney does not investigate in-custody deaths unless they involve officer shootings.This insane policy gives cops the green light to murder citizens, just as long as they don t use their guns to do it.The victim repeatedly told the officers that he couldn t breathe. Still they continued to press down on him, until he finally became unresponsive.At best, the officers involved in the death of Hernan Jaramillo are guilty of negligent homicide and reckless endangerment, if not deliberate murder. But the policies of the Alameda County DA s office enabled them to get away with it.Featured image credit: video screen capture via US Uncut | 0 |
8,523 | BUDWEISER Unveils SUPER BOWL Ad That Distorts Truth About Trump’s Temporary Refugee Ban [VIDEO] | So much for the cute little puppies and clydesdales Budweiser has created a Superbowl Ad that is creating a lot of controversy. The 1-minute ad tries to explain to origins of the company s co-founder, Adolphus Busch, by focusing on the fact that he was an immigrant.The ad starts out with an actor who is playing Busch being told, You re not wanted here! Go back home! The vice-president and ranking executive for Budweiser brand in the U.S., Ricardo Marques, claims that this is not related to what is currently going on in the country in regards to illegal immigration.Yeah right..Budweiser took a big hit in stock prices yesterday after Americans discovered the news about their Super Bowl ad: Gateway Pundit | 0 |
8,524 | The Amazon Reviews Of The Trump Christmas Ornament Are The Best Thing About The Election | 2016 has been a gawdawful year. We lost David Bowie, Prince, Gene Wilder, Elie Wiesel and more than I d care to mention. We re also losing perhaps the best president in any of our lifetimes, although hopefully he ll be on this earth for a long while to come. One of the most lasting legacies of 2016 will be the fact that Donald Trump prevailed and we are now facing a white supremacist (or at least someone who won t denounce white supremacy) as our next president.We can take small solace in the fact that the vast majority of Americans did not vote for Trump. Only 25 percent did. He lost the popular vote by a significant margin but because of the antiquated voter suppression tool called the Electoral College, Trump won.For those who voted for Trump, and those who didn t, there is one prevailing image, and that was Trump s Make America Great Again red trucker cap. In case you haven t seen enough of that cap, you can order a Christmas ornament of it from Amazon.com for the low, low price of just $209.99 (plus free shipping). The cap is made of brass, and like everything Trump, it s finished in 14 karat gold. Or is it 24 karat? The Amazon page doesn t seem to be sure.While I have no idea how many people actually bought this overpriced Christmas ornament, the Amazon comments were, as usual, the best part.Here are just a few:Even the sellers aren t fans of the Great Orange One. Here s how they re answering some of the questions: Well, the nation is in grief. The best thing we can do (outside of crossing all 10 fingers and all 10 toes that Jill Stein s recount will work) is choose to laugh instead of cry. That s what the people on Amazon are doing, anyway.Buy one, while it s still available.Featured image via eBay | 0 |
8,525 | SICK TREND: ‘SOLOGAMIST’ Describes What It’s Like To Be The Bride AND The Groom: “I’m Worth It!” [Video] | You might want to grab a barf bag before you watch the video below of Erika discussing marrying herself This is a sure sign that feminism has taken it too far and that our nation has sunk to a new low. What comes to mind for us is the old Saturday Night Live skit with Stuart Smalley aka Senator Al Franken Remember that? Well, this is a thing now marrying yourself because Sologamy, or marrying one s self, isn t illegal, but it s also not recognized as a legal union in any state.Sologamists like Erika Anderson of Brooklyn describes her decision to marry herself as women saying yes to themselves. WUSA reports: I would describe it as women saying yes to themselves, Anderson said. It means that we are enough, even if we are not partnered with someone else. In many ways, the 37-year-old bride looked like any other on her wedding day. She wore a white dress and had a bouquet. Anderson looked stunning with the Brooklyn bridge and New York City skyline behind her.Except when she walked down the aisle, no one was waiting for her. That s just the way she wanted it.Anderson married herself to celebrate independence and believes others should, too. You re worth it! Anderson exclaimed.Anderson just celebrated her one-year anniversary with a solo trip to Mexico. She said even though she s married to herself, she s dating and open to marrying another person. She s dating and open to marrying another person. Then why get married at all?Nadine explains why she married herself:Read more: Legal Insurrection | 0 |
8,526 | Turkey's Justice Ministry says it canceled delegation visit | ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey s Justice Ministry said on Tuesday said it had canceled a planned delegation visit to the United States due to the on-going visa crisis, denying local media reports that Washington had rejected to grant the delegation travel visas. CNN Turk and other local media earlier reported that U.S. authorities had declined to grant visas to members of the delegation. Due to the recent visa crisis between the two countries, the visit was canceled by our Ministry, the Justice Ministry said in a statement, adding that there were no visa applications to be rejected. | 1 |
8,527 | Protesters Bring 51-Foot Long Joint To White House Demanding Marijuana Be Rescheduled (VIDEO) | On Saturday, pro-marijuana activists held a massive demonstration outside of the White House.The activists called on President Obama to reschedule marijuana down from a Schedule 1 controlled substance. A Schedule 1 controlled substance, marijuana is legally considered to be as dangerous as heroin. That s an especially cruel joke when one takes into consideration that medical marijuana is proving to actually help reduce opiate addiction.One of the most popular tourist destinations in DC is looking, and smelling, more like a reggae concert. pic.twitter.com/b2tbmkQCCm Alex Mallin (@alex_mallin) April 2, 2016Activists openly smoked marijuana during the protest, in an attempt to show just how little danger smoking marijuana actually is. It is legal to carry up to two ounces of marijuana in Washington D.C., though it is still illegal to smoke in public. It is also illegal to smoke marijuana on federal property. No arrests were made during the demonstration.Protestors brought along with them a 51-foot inflatable joint. However, Secret Service agents told organizers that the protest prop had to go due to security concerns.Secret Service officers currently blocking pro-marijuana protesters from carrying "51-ft joint" in front of WH. pic.twitter.com/cb7E7ag2FW Alex Mallin (@alex_mallin) April 2, 2016The event was organized by DCMJ, who wrote on their website: While we have been able to drastically reduce arrests for marijuana possession in the District of Columbia, millions of Americans across the United States are not so lucky. As long as cannabis is treated in the same category of drugs as heroin, with no accepted medical use, police will continue to arrest & lockup our brothers and sisters. Marijuana is currently legal in 23 states in some form. Of those 23, marijuana is legal for recreational use in four states and Washington D.C. After legalizing marijuana, those states have seen jaw-dropping amounts of sales tax revenue come in from legalized marijuana.https://www.facebook.com/ajplusenglish/videos/vb.407570359384477/711454438996066/?type=2&theaterHowever, as marijuana is still a Schedule 1 controlled substance, states have proven to be hesitant to legalize the drug unless voters force them to by means of a ballot initiative. This makes the state-by-state approach to marijuana legalization incredibly slow.In 2014, a pot arrest was made once every 45 seconds in the United States. That s nearly 701,000 people who have had their lives shattered for simply having marijuana in their possession.Every day people continue to be arrested for marijuana possession in the war on drugs. A war that is, in reality, nothing more than a war against communities of color and the poor. Featured Image from AJ+ video screenshot via Facebook | 0 |
8,528 | House panel wants Google, Facebook, AT&T CEOs to testify on internet rules | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chairman of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee on Tuesday asked chief executives from companies representing the two sides of the net neutrality debate, including Alphabet, Facebook, AT&T and Verizon, to testify at a Sept. 7 hearing. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is considering tossing out 2015 Obama administration net neutrality rules that reclassified internet service like a public utility. The current rules bar providers from blocking or slowing websites, or allowing websites to pay for “fast lanes” over competitors. Internet providers and major tech companies have been sharply divided over the rules. Many internet providers want Congress to step in and write permanent rules, while websites say the Obama era rules are critical to preserving the open internet. The outcome of the debate could have a major impact on the future of the internet economy and potentially profits of the companies involved. Other chief executives asked to testify include the heads of Comcast Corp, Netflix Inc and Charter Communications Inc. Several companies said they were reviewing the letter but none immediately said if they will testify. Comcast said it welcomed the hearing and “believes the best way to stop the regulatory ping-pong on this important issue is for Congress to enact bipartisan legislation.” “A strong consensus is forming across party lines and across industries that it’s time for Congress to call a halt on the back-and-forth and set clear net neutrality ground rules for the internet,” said Representative Greg Walden, a Republican, who chairs the committee. “The time has come to get everyone to the table and get this figured out.” Democrats on the committee want Republicans to invite small businesses and consumers, not just the CEOs from some of the “largest corporations in the world with a combined market capitalization of nearly $2.5 trillion,” said a statement from Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. and Communications and Technology Subcommittee Ranking Member Mike Doyle, both Democrats. Democrats have so far refused to work with Republicans on internet legislation. A group representing major technology firms last week urged the FCC to abandon plans to rescind the rules barring internet service providers from hindering consumer access to web content or offering paid “fast lanes.” Major internet service have urged the FCC, however, to reverse the rules, even as they vowed not to hinder internet access. In May, the FCC voted 2-1 to advance Republican FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s plan to withdraw the former Obama administration’s order reclassifying internet service providers as if they were utilities. The FCC is considering whether it has the authority to limit internet providers’ ability to block, throttle or offer “paid prioritization,” and, if so, whether it should keep any regulations in place. More than 12 million public comments have been filed on the proposal. The Internet Association, a group representing Facebook, Google, Microsoft Corp and Twitter Inc, said last week it was “open to alternative legal bases for the rules, either via legislative action codifying the existing net neutrality rules or via sound legal theories offered by the commission.” | 1 |
8,529 | 'Can I get it to go?' Canada's Trudeau charms Manila while ordering fried chicken | MANILA (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hopped from one table to the next, chatted with people and posed for selfies on Sunday at a fastfood chain store in Manila, charming residents of the Philippines capital for the second time in two years. Trudeau, in Manila for a summit of regional leaders, dropped in at an outlet of fastfood giant Jollibee Foods Corp after a visit to a nearby women s clinic that advocates family planning, a touchy subject in the Catholic-majority Philippines. He greeted nearly everyone in the store, shaking hands and exchanging hugs with fans after ordering fried chicken and a strawberry float. Can I get it to go? I ll eat it in the car, Trudeau said, before going behind the counter for a photograph with Jollibee staff. Earlier, when he landed at Clark airport, a smiling Trudeau waded into a crowd of children gathered to greet dignitaries arriving for the summit, exchanging high fives and waving to others. During his last visit to Manila, Trudeau won a Twitter poll with the hashtag #APEChottie that asked people to vote for the most attractive leader at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in 2015. He s so handsome! And he s very nice, said 29-year-old Rina Aparicio, among the customers at the fastfood outlet. I asked for a selfie and he said yes right away. Outside the store, hundreds of people screamed and shouted as Trudeau got into his car, waving what appeared to be hastily written placards saying Welcome to the Philippines! Trudeau visited the first Jollibee store in Winnipeg, Canada in January, a country with hundreds of thousands of Filipino immigrants. Jollibee, a $5 billion company that has been dubbed the McDonald s of the Philippines, is looking to go global with primary targets including China and the United States. The company, which also serves burgers and sweet spaghetti, is opening another outlet in Winnipeg this month and plans are to increase that to 30 in five to 10 years, said Jose Minana, a Jollibee executive. Minana said the company did not seek out Trudeau for the visit, and said it was requested by Canadian officials. We re very humbled by him taking time from his obviously busy schedule to give us a slice of his time, said Minana. I d like to also think that he enjoys the food. | 1 |
8,530 | HOW OBAMA MADE IT POSSIBLE FOR ISIS To Erase 2,000 Years Of Christianity From Iraq [VIDEO] | ISIS stormed into Mosul, Iraq last summer. Much of what took 2,000 years to build has been lost in a matter of months. There are no Christians left in Mosul Surely, our intelligence community warned Obama this would happen. If our President is so concerned about the welfare of Muslims (mostly men) supposedly escaping persecution by ISIS, why did he abandon these Christians in Iraq?Nothing is sacred to these monsters. Christian relics and books from the 1st century have been destroyed by ISIS. Christian homes in Mosul have been marked by ISIS. If you are a Christian and ISIS puts their mark on your home, it signifies you are expected to either convert to Islam, pay an extortion fee or face the sword. Unfortunately, democracy in Iran brought a new wave of persecution for Christians. When the US withdrew from Iraq completely, the situation became dire. The government was not capable of taking care of the Christian population and ISIS moved in to eradicate the Christian population and erase any trace of Christianity. Where Christians have been living for over 1,000 years, there is nothing but silence empty building and homes. | 0 |
8,531 | Red States Think A Bag Of Weed Is More Dangerous Than Illegal Guns | Some red state Republican legislators are having severe emotional problems over the idea of a person carrying a bag of weed across state lines from Colorado. They seem to think that this is some kind of issue that is going to destroy their state with rampant crime. Oklahoma and Nebraska got so worked up over it, that they tried to force the SCOTUS to shut down Colorado s legal weed industry.The Republican argument is that it s causing crime to come across state borders. As a result, they petitioned the SCOTUS to force Colorado to shut down their legalized weed industry citing that marijuana is still illegal under federal law.To call this court case a layer cake of profound Republican hypocrisy, would be understating it. Let s run down a couple important points.Republicans are arguing that the supremacy clause of the Constitution means that federal law completely overrules state law, in regards to marijuana legalization. These are the same Republicans who HATE the federal government and insist that federal laws on things like guns should simply be ignored or nullified as the confederates like to say. They insist that state s rights are a thing, even in the face of their beloved supremacy clause.Republicans are A-Okay with things like guns flowing from states with weak gun laws into states with higher gun regulation. They do not care about the crime, terror, violence and death these cause because the NRA told them they are not allowed to care. That joint you brought home in your pocket, though, is an outright declaration of war by Colorado apparently.The SCOTUS rejected the case, saying that the states did not try to pursue the avenues available to them in lower courts first. The Department Of Justice said, Entertaining the type of dispute at issue here essentially that one state s laws make it more likely that third parties will violate federal and state law in another state would represent a substantial and unwarranted expansion of this court s original jurisdiction. The likelihood of this case meeting any success on behalf of red states is low at best. The precedent set by some states being allowed to sue to rewrite the laws in other states would be a disaster for the courts, not to mention for Republicans corporate overlords. The NRA would be in a gasping panic over a state like Illinois or Connecticut suing Virginia over its lax gun laws causing otherwise banned firearms to cross state lines.Featured image via wikicommons | 0 |
8,532 | [VIDEO] FLASHBACK…MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. ON RIOTS: “We Can’t Win A Violent Revolution” | Wouldn t it be great if our first Black President would make an effort to quell the angry and violent crowds in Baltimore by and asking for calm? Is it too much to ask that he take this opportunity to address our nation and behave like a leader for the entire country and not like a Community Organizer with an agenda? As long as the negro finds himself living every day in a major depression, then every city will sit on a powder keg and will explode over the slightest incident. This is why I have constantly said that riots are socially destructive and self-defeating. After all, the negro ends up on the losing end. We can t win a violent revolution. The persons who end up not being able to get milk for their children are the negros, because things where they have to live are destroyed. Dr. King: Nonviolence is the Most Powerful Weapon Violence creates more social problems than it solves. | 0 |
8,533 | HACKED EMAILS Reveal Clinton Foundation CEO Was A Mole…Where Is He Now? | WHY WAS BRAVERMAN ON TRANSITION TEAM FOR OBAMA/BIDEN 2009 AND THEN CEO TO CLINTON FOUNDATION? A LITTLE INCESTUOUS DON T YA THINK? Podesta tells Tanden the mole is Eric Braverman to which she replies, Holy Moses! Eric Braverman was the CEO Of the Clinton Foundation. He abruptly resigned a short time later after being pushed out by long-time Clinton loyalists who had apparently grown very comfortable with the status quo of accepting donations from questionable foreign donors.Rumors are he fled the country WE CANNOT CONFIRMMore on Braverman:In December [2014], the board of the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation approved a salary of more than $395,000, plus bonus, for its Yale-educated CEO, Eric Braverman, while voting to extend his board term through 2017, according to sources familiar with the arrangement. Braverman, who had worked with Chelsea Clinton at the prestigious McKinsey & Company consultancy, had been brought in with the former first daughter s support to help impose McKinsey-like management rigor to a foundation that had grown into a $2 billion charitable powerhouse.But in January, only weeks after the board s show of support and just a year and a half after Braverman arrived, he abruptly resigned, and sources tell Politico his exit stemmed partly from a power struggle inside the foundation between and among the coterie of Clinton loyalists who have surrounded the former president for decades and who helped start and run the foundation. Some, including the president s old Arkansas lawyer Bruce Lindsey, who preceded Braverman as CEO, raised concerns directly to Bill Clinton about the reforms implemented by Braverman, according to sources, and felt themselves marginalized by the growing influence of Chelsea Clinton and the new CEO she had helped recruit.The previously untold saga of Braverman s brief, and occasionally fraught tenure trying to navigate the Clintons insular world highlights the challenges the family has faced trying to impose rigorous oversight onto a vast global foundation that relies on some of the same loyal megadonors Hillary Clinton will need for the presidential run sources have said she is all but certain to launch later this year.Already, a spate of recent news stories in Politico and elsewhere have highlighted questions about the foundation s aggressive fundraising both before and during Braverman s tenure, including the news that the foundation had been accepting contributions from foreign governments with lax oversight from the State Department when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. The foundation has been Clinton s main public platform since she left State in February 2013.The hiring a few months later of Braverman, who had been a partner in McKinsey s Washington office, was seen as validation of Chelsea Clinton s view that the foundation needed to address recommendations from a 2011 audit for tighter governance and budgeting, as well as more comprehensive policies to vet donors and avoid conflicts of interest.When Braverman arrived to replace Lindsey as CEO, he moved quickly to adopt the auditor s recommendations, and then some. He diversified the foundation s board beyond the Clintons and their longtime political allies and restructured its finance department. He oversaw the creation of a $250 million endowment and implemented data-driven analytics to measure the effectiveness of foundation programs.No public explanation was offered for Braverman s resignation. | 0 |
8,534 | The Big Squeeze: This election year, it’s all about the money | MIDDLETOWN, CONN. - Two years ago, Judy Konopka and Craig Diangelo lost their jobs in the IT department of what was then known as Northeast Utilities, a regional electricity provider, when the company decided to replace about 220 employees with guest workers from India. In order to receive a more lucrative separation package, they had to train their foreign replacements both here and overseas. Both had trouble finding new work. Konopka, 56, is still looking. Diangelo, 64, is working as a contractor for a company that provides no benefits, making substantially less than he did before. He views himself as a victim of globalization, a casualty of offshoring—and he credits Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee who has cast himself as the champion of displaced and disaffected U.S. workers, for bringing the issue to light. “I’ll vote for him,” says Diangelo, over dinner at a Thai restaurant on this town’s Main Street. Two others at the table murmur in assent. He continues, his voice rising: “I wasn’t planning on retiring early. I wasn’t planning on making $35,000 less. I’ve had to cut back a lot. I basically live paycheck to paycheck.” “I could never vote for Hillary Clinton,” Diangelo says, citing Clinton’s support of the North American Free Trade Agreement, passed while her husband, Bill, was president, as well as her advocacy of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade pact that’s still being negotiated by the Obama administration. (Challenged by Bernie Sanders, Clinton has since retracted her support of TPP.) Even Konopka, who favors Clinton (she calls Trump “the biggest idiot”), has to admit Clinton’s support of trade deals such as NAFTA gives her pause. When Northeast Utilities fired her after 21 years, “I felt betrayed.” Konopka took advantage of a federal trade assistance program to improve her skills in web design, then discovered she couldn’t compete with designers outside the country who were willing to work for much less. Now, to get by, she sells vintage books on the web. “It’s starting to get really scary,” she says. This presidential election is, purportedly, the Year of the Angry Voter, with images of scuffles at Trump rallies occupying cable-news screens. But as befitting someone who lives in a place called Middletown, Konopka is more typical of voters: consumed by a stomach-churning uncertainty, a vague sense of something lost, and an inescapable belief that an array of powerful forces—corporations, politicians, government—aren’t looking out for them. Economists and pundits have been struggling to explain why, with unemployment below 5 percent and a bounty of positive economic indicators, voters seem so dismayed, so distrustful. It might be something as simple as bargaining power. In his best-known book, The Art of the Deal, Trump advises every negotiator to “use your leverage.” But increasingly, U.S. workers, white-and blue-collar alike, feel they have none. They’ve seen their power erode as they are tossed into a global labor pool, as companies consolidate and shed jobs to please Wall Street, as unions wither, state budgets tighten, technology advances and iconic brands such as Nabisco pack up and move to Mexico. The squeeze is on. “There’s a feeling among workers that not only are they replaceable, but that they will be replaced,” says Gary Chaison, a professor of industrial relations at Clark University in nearby Worcester, Massachusetts. “That there is no security anymore, that someone is making a profit by letting them go.” “Trump,” he adds, “has tapped into that very well.” According to Reuters/Ipsos polling, 71 percent of Trump supporters either have had to take a lower-paying job in the last few years, have a family member who has had to do so, or have a family member whose home has been threatened by foreclosure. In a sign of how widespread the phenomenon has become, 63 percent of Clinton supporters reported the same dismal tally. “People feel more insecure about trade than terrorism,” Chaison tells me. “Everyone knows someone who has lost their job.” What bothers Diangelo most is that he was let go by a company that still valued his skill—just not him. “The sad part is that my job is still there,” he says. “It didn’t go away. I went away.” None of this should feel particularly new. The United States has been bleeding middle-class workers—especially in the industrial and manufacturing sectors—as long as Bruce Springsteen has been around to sing about it. Candidates adorned with hard hats vowing to bring back factory jobs have become a set-piece of modern politics. The United States has lost more than 5 million manufacturing jobs in the past 15 years as the trade deficit has mushroomed, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank in Washington. Wage growth in almost all sectors has flatlined over that time, including for the bottom 70 percent of fouryear college graduates—and growth overall has been anemic, at under 2 percent. And while the 9 million jobs vaporized in the flash of the Great Recession have been recovered, the majority of them are of lesser quality than the ones they replaced. Perhaps most fundamentally, the relationship between employee and employer has shifted. Workers’ share of the pie has decreased substantially since the 1970s, when the country’s corporate and industrial base began to erode. Last year, workers’ share dropped to 75.5 percent of corporate income, even as technology has made workforces more productive and efficient. U.S. corporate profits, meantime, returned to pre-recession levels in 2012. Workers “sense that the recovery is only partial. It helps employers more than it helps workers,” Chaison says. If workers’ sense of slippage seems familiar, the way their discontent is rippling through our politics feels newly transformative. Voters threw out the Republicans running Congress in 2006, then two years later elected the first African-American president, an outsider who vowed reform. Souring on him, they replaced Democrats then controlling Congress with another set of Republicans in 2010 and 2014, making governance as unstable as the business sector. In a period of war, terrorism and economic chaos, all that churn might best be viewed as a deeply frustrated electorate trying to use what little leverage they have to change a system they consider to be otherwise unaccountable. Trump has been the main beneficiary of that frustration. He makes those in the crowd feel like they matter, that they finally have a bully of their own who can push back at what they view as an alliance of unprincipled corporate culture and an enabling government. “You’re looking at a situation where the jobs are being ripped out of our states, out of our country, like candy from a baby,” Trump said at a rally this spring. It has been Trump, along with Democrat Sanders, who has pushed the issue of job losses to countries such as China, Mexico and India to the forefront. Trump has threatened to slap a tax on imports and tear up trade deals. In Indiana earlier this year, he ripped air conditioner manufacturer Carrier for announcing it would lay off 2,100 workers and move its operations to Mexico. He gave Nabisco the same treatment, pledging he would no longer eat Oreos. He has slammed companies such as Apple and Boeing for their overseas operations, as well. Few presidential candidates have such temerity to challenge well-known American brands, but clearly it is resonating. “They might not like everything he says, but they believe he says what he thinks,” Lewis Gossett, president of the South Carolina Manufacturers Alliance, told me last summer. “I think we’re repeating a time in history when the very rich are removed from the very poor.” Michael Smith is one of the Americans Trump rallies for. Smith was among 600 Nabisco employees laid off at the bakery on Chicago’s South Side earlier this year, after the company announced it was transferring some work to Mexico. He got the news at 3 a.m. “It was,” Smith tells me, “a dark night when all your livelihood passes in front of you, and you feel like you’ve been given the royal shaft.” Smith operated the machines that wrapped Oreo cookies and Ritz crackers. With overtime, he could clear $85,000 a year. He’s 59 and wasn’t thinking he would have to re-enter the job market. The day before, Smith had shown up at a shareholders meeting in Chicago to confront Irene Rosenfeld, the chief executive of Mondelez International, the holding company that oversees the Nabisco brand, about the move to Mexico. While sympathetic, Rosenfeld said it was her duty to maximize the corporation’s value to its shareholders worldwide by cutting costs. “There are two types of CEO mindsets,” Smith responded, “those who care about shareholders and those who care about the shareholders and the people.” In our conversation, Smith didn’t begrudge the company’s legal right to relocate the jobs, but he questions a CEO who earned more than $40 million in compensation over the last two years exhorting the virtues of cost-cutting to a room full of laid-off blue-collar workers. “That’s not good citizenship,” he says. “Wealth comes from the workers. That profitability comes from us.” Clinton met with a small group of the Nabisco workers in March, the day before the Illinois primary. But the visit didn’t leave Smith with much hope that as president she could do much either for the workers’ situation or to reverse the demands of a globalized economy. In part, that’s due to Clinton’s support of NAFTA, which Smith terms an “infection,” but also because of the lobbying might of Mondelez, a $30 billion company, and other big corporations. Smith is the unusual American voter who says he hasn’t decided between Clinton and Trump. He’ll focus on the election later. First, he has to keep his household afloat and his daughter in school at Columbia College in Chicago. He has six months’ salary to cushion him. He’s trying to stay optimistic about finding work, saying his wife and daughter are counting on him. But, he concedes, “I think I have been a little bit in denial. Even people of faith have bouts of depression.” Angela Valero gives a one-word reply when I ask her about a potential Clinton-Trump matchup: “Ugh.” I might as well be asking about who’s going to win the next regatta on Mars, so far is the election from her daily concerns. Valero’s dream job was to be a corrections officer. She was finally hired on by the state of Connecticut last fall. The single mother of an 8-year-old girl thought that, at last, she had a reliable, stable position with benefits. But after completing an academy training course and being posted as a guard at the state maximum-security facility in nearby Uncasville, she found out this spring that she was being laid off, a consequence of a decision made by Connecticut’s Democratic governor, Dannel Malloy, and the state legislature to not raise taxes on the wealthy to cover a budget shortfall. Lawmakers worried that the state’s richest residents would relocate to Florida, which has no state income tax, or other states with lower taxes. During the downturn, Connecticut lost a bevy of high-paying jobs in the financial services sector in the corporate hub of Stamford and elsewhere. The jobs created during the recovery were less lucrative, resulting in lower tax revenue. In addition, the state was spooked when General Electric, responding to an effort by the legislature to raise business taxes, announced it was relocating its headquarters from Fairfield to Boston. Aetna, the health insurer based in Hartford, also threatened to leave the state. That shelved any notion of new taxes. The state looked to trim its public workforce instead. “Easy targets,” says Lori Pelletier, president of the state AFL-CIO. Rape counselors, child-service workers, prison guards began receiving pink slips. Ultimately, 2,500 or more state workers could be let go. Pelletier contrasted that with the 200 jobs GE is moving to Boston—something that drew substantial media attention. The state of Massachusetts and the city of Boston helped recruit GE with a generous benefit package, including $25 million in property tax relief for a corporation that critics have long held pays little in U.S. taxes. “Angela last year paid more taxes than GE,” Pelletier says. “And she’s the one losing her job.” Valero tells me she has little faith that anyone in Washington can help her. She doesn’t sleep more than four hours a night, kept up by worrying about paying the electric bill and keeping her house. She has no idea whether she’ll ever be recalled to work. Throughout the interview, she stays stoic, determined, like the corrections office she was trained to be. Only at the end of our conversation does she slip a bit. “I held back the tears,” she says with relief. Ron Ozer greets me at the door with the sheepishness of someone who isn’t used to being at home during the workday. Ozer, 53, was laid off from DuPont Co. in January after a 23-year career. A Ph.D in chemical engineering, he has more than 20 patents to his name. He worked on long-term projects at the DuPont Experimental Station in Wilmington, Delaware, one of the more storied research facilities in the country, where products such as nylon, Lycra and Kevlar were created. “Some of the great developments in American industry came out of that site,” Ozer says. “It was a time when America was growing so dramatically.” But a lack of growth and pressure from investors forced DuPont to announce a merger with another giant, Dow Chemical. In advance of the merger, it has begun to shed jobs. In Delaware alone, DuPont plans to dump 1,700 workers—many in the area of long-term research, which can be expensive without yielding immediate rewards to shareholders. Ozer’s group was eviscerated. The $130 billion merger of DuPont and Dow blends two U.S. companies that date back to the 19th century. Barry Lynn, an economist at the New America think tank, says that industry consolidation chills the labor market, sapping demand for skilled workers such as Ozer. Dominant companies can use their market power to charge customers more or make suppliers pay less—all without having to grow and create jobs to survive. Indeed, the push from Wall Street is to cull and cut, not grow. And when companies do expand today it’s largely through acquisition, not investment. “That’s a huge amount of the energy that’s behind Trump,” Lynn says, “the sense of power being consolidated and being out of control and harming me and my family and my community.” Ozer will try to take advantage of his contacts at DuPont to become a consultant, but admits that’s a gamble. Asked if he thinks he can replicate the six-figure salary he enjoyed at DuPont, he laughs. “I’m not confident of that.” His chief concern is his two daughters, both of whom are out of college. In order to give his youngest a leg up in the market, he sent her to private Haverford College in Pennsylvania (tuition: $46,000)—going deep into debt to do so. “I have a lot of possibilities, but I need things to start turning into dollars soon,” he says. For Sara Blackwell, representing U.S. workers displaced by the federal H1-B visa program began as a gig. Now, it’s a full-blown cause. The Tampa lawyer has been giving away clients who would distract her from her work. She jokes she’s stopped sleeping and exercising. Recently, she launched a website called ProtectUSworkers.com. “I speak to an average of 10 people a day who are victims of this,” she tells me. “The more I learn about this, the more I have to fight.” She began by representing IT workers at Walt Disney World in Florida who were replaced by guest workers from India brought in on temporary visas by outsourcing firms that contracted with Disney. She has filed a long-shot conspiracy lawsuit in federal court. Blackwell contends that the practice of outsourcing low-end, back-office IT jobs to cut costs has become endemic. Globalization, she says, is systematically lowering the standard of living of American workers. “It’s a race to the bottom,” she says. The Disney case garnered the attention of some in the U.S. Senate, including Jeff Sessions, a Republican from Alabama who now is at the forefront of a fight against the American tech industry, which wants to expand the guest-worker program citing a lack of domestic qualified engineers and programmers. But those tech companies are at the back of the line. According to Ron Hira, a professor at Howard University who tracks applications, outsourcing firms have been crowding out tech companies in the race to acquire the highly coveted H1-B visas, which are capped at 85,000 a year. Sessions, who is also a fierce opponent of immigration reform, was one of the first U.S. politicians to embrace Trump—and Blackwell has spoken out against the program at several Trump rallies. She also has consulted with the outsourced employees who worked at Northeast Utilities in Connecticut, including Craig Diangelo. Part of Diangelo’s frustration—and part of what is driving him toward Trump—is that Washington has done so little to curb what he views as abuses of the H1-B program. There is a greater push now on Capitol Hill to broaden the program rather than rein it in. “There’s nobody to help us,” he tells me. “There’s nobody to say you can’t do this.” Richard Blumenthal, a U.S. senator from Connecticut, has been part of efforts to expand the program, but also to reform it. “It’s a desperately serious problem,” he says. He told me that even though there is some bipartisan consensus on reform, efforts still aren’t moving forward, consumed by the same paralysis that’s stalling everything else. “There are powerful forces against us,” Blumenthal says, “including the companies that exploit these programs.” To Diangelo, that’s the dilemma of the modern, middle-class voter. He worked hard for years, lost his job when his only transgression was being too old and making too much money, was humiliated when he had to train his replacement, and then watched how state and federal politicians have been able to do nothing to help him. Why shouldn’t he support Donald Trump? What’s worth preserving? He’s a tech worker, sipping Pinot Grigio over pad thai. He’s no militant or conspiracist. Yet... “There is going to be an uprising,” he says. “People are starting to say: `I’ve had enough of this. I’ve really had enough.’” This report first appeared in “The American Voter,” Reuters’ special election issue, available on iTunes or Google Play. | 1 |
8,535 | Mnuchin says business tax rate at 15 percent in Trump tax plan | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said the plan for “the biggest tax cut” in U.S. history due to be released later on Wednesday by the White House would cut the business tax rate to 15 percent, including for small businesses. “This is going to be the biggest tax cut and the largest tax reform in the history of our country,” Mnuchin said at a news forum in Washington. He said there was fundamental agreement between President Donald Trump’s administration and the Congress on the goals of the tax reform, and the details would be worked out. Separately, House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said he had seen a “sneak preview” of the plan. “We like it a lot, it puts us on the same page, we’re in agreement on 80 percent and on the 20 percent we’re in the same ballpark,” Ryan said. | 1 |
8,536 | U.S. Debt DECREASED By $68 BILLION In First Month Of Trump Presidency…Guess Who DOUBLED U.S. Debt During 8 Years In Office? | Compare the US Debt burden under former President Obama that was increased by more than $320 billion after his inauguration through March 8th 2009. Here s the chart for comparison:Via: Gateway Pundit | 0 |
8,537 | PATRIOT ARTIST’S LATEST TRIBUTE TO TRUMP SUPPORTERS: “You Are Not forgotten” [Video] | Patriot artist John McNaughton just revealed his latest painting A tribute to the middle class and Trump supporters who are the forgotten people of America Remember when McNaughton revealed the painting during Obamas s presidency that depicted the president burning the Constitution? ONE NATION UNDER SOCIALISM PLEASE CHECK OUT: JOHN MCNAUGHTON FINE ART THE FORGOTTEN MAN OUR PREVIOUS REPORT ON THAT INCREDIBLE PAINTING: John McNaughton is a special American painter because of his subject matter and the intensity in which he portrays our current government troubled and corrupt. The Forgotten Man painting is amazing in its symbolism.Here s how McNaughton describes the painting:Against the background of a darkening sky, all of the past Presidents of the United States gather before the White House, as if to commemorate some great event. In the left hand corner of the painting sits a man. That man, with his head bowed appears distraught and hopeless as he contemplates his future. Some of the past Presidents try to console him while looking in the direction of the modern Presidents as if to say, What have you done? Many of these modern Presidents, seemingly oblivious to anything other than themselves, appear to be congratulating each other on their great accomplishments. In front of the man, paper trash is blowing in the wind. Crumpled dollar bills, legislative documents, and, like a whisper the U.S. Constitution beneath the foot of Barack Obama.THE FORGOTTEN MAN McNaughton never sells his original paintings BUT he made an exception this time. He sold this painting to Sean Hannity so Hannity could give it to Donald Trump. Awesome, huh?November 9th McNaughton announced via facebook that he sold the original to Sean Hannity: Sean Hannity just purchased my painting The Forgotten Man to give to Donald Trump to hang in the White House Go to www.jonmcnaughton.comVia: Conservative Treehouse | 0 |
8,538 | Bahraini military court convicts six to death on terror charges | (In Dec. 25 story, removes reference to Shi ite Muslims in first paragraph, and changes militant attacks to terrorist crimes in second paragraph) DUBAI (Reuters) - A Bahraini military court sentenced six men to death and revoked their citizenship after they were convicted on charges of forming a terrorist cell and plotting to assassinate a military official, Bahrain news agency BNA reported on Monday. The men, including one soldier, were accused of several terrorist crimes and of attempting to assassinate a commander of the Bahraini army, BNA said. The court sentenced seven other people linked to the case to seven years in jail and revoked their citizenship, while five others were acquitted, BNA added, quoting a state prosecution statement. BNA said the 18 men involved in the case include eight who were convicted in absentia, having fled to Iraq and Iran. It was not clear which of the absent eight were sentenced to death and which to jail. Bahrain accuses mainly Shi ite Iran of stoking militancy in the kingdom, a strategic island where the U.S. Navy s Fifth Fleet is based, charges Tehran denies. Bahrain has a Shi ite Muslim majority population but is ruled by a Sunni royal family. The rulings are subject to appeal, the statement said. Bahrain in January executed three Shi ite men convicted of killing three policemen, including an officer from the United Arab Emirates, in a 2014 bomb attack. They were the first such executions in over two decades and sparked protests. Bahrain had seen occasional unrest since 2011 when authorities crushed protests mainly by the Shi ite majority demanding a bigger role in running the country. | 1 |
8,539 | Hezbollah says Israel pushing region to war | BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon s Hezbollah accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu s government on Sunday of pushing the region to war in Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, and said nowhere in Israel would be safe if such a conflict were to erupt. Tensions have risen this year between Iran-backed Hezbollah and its arch enemy Israel, which last fought a major conflict in 2006. Israel has said it would use all its strength from the start in any new war with Hezbollah. In a speech to followers, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said the Israeli government did not have a correct assessment of where this war will lead if they ignite it , and did not know how it would end. They do not have a correct picture about what is awaiting them if they go to the idiocy of this war, Nasrallah said. Israel does not know where such a conflict would be fought, or who would take part, he added. Nasrallah said earlier this year that a future Israeli war against Syria or Lebanon could draw thousands of fighters from countries such as Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and Pakistan, and could take place inside Israel. Israel is concerned by Tehran s steadily increasing influence in the region during the six-year-old Syrian conflict, whether via its own Revolutionary Guard forces or the groups it backs, especially Hezbollah. Nasrallah was speaking on Sunday on the occasion of Ashura, when Shi ites commemorate the slaying of the Prophet Mohammad s grandson, the Imam Hussein, at Kerbala in 680. He called on Jews who emigrated to Israel to leave and return to the countries from which they came so they are not fuel for any war that the idiotic Netanyahu government takes them to . Were war to erupt, he said, they might not have long to leave. They will have no secure place in occupied Palestine, he said. Netanyahu said in August that Iran was building sites to produce precision-guided missiles in Syria and Lebanon, with the aim of using them against Israel. Tens of thousands of Shi ites wearing mourning black marched through the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut to commemorate Ashura, when Hezbollah rallies supporters around its political causes. Men with boxes of tissues weaved through the crowds, handing them to those weeping in mourning. All of these crowds are answering Nasrallah s call, Hussein s call, saying we are ready to give our selves and souls and blood and children and all we own in sacrifice to this religion, said Deeb Hussein al-Annan, whose son was killed fighting for Hezbollah in Syria in 2014. We are defending the cause and our existence [in Syria], he added, holding a flag emblazoned with a picture of his son. The group s role in Syria is the focus of controversy in Lebanon. Hezbollah s opponents say it has dragged Lebanon into the conflict. Hezbollah says it has stopped extremist groups such as Islamic State from advancing into Lebanon from Syria. Nasrallah said the battle against Islamic State must continue in every place to eliminate Daesh , using an Arabic acronym for the group. | 1 |
8,540 | OBAMA’S SOLDIERS Cause 5-Hour SHUT DOWN On St Paul, MN Interstate…Throw Molotov Cocktails…Concrete At Cops Head…INJURE 21 Cops In Attempt [VIDEO] | Whoever thought asking Obama s terrorists soldiers to shut down highways, throw Molotov cocktails, bricks, concrete and fireworks at innocent human beings who risk their lives every day to keep our cities and towns safe would be a good idea, should really reconsider. There hasn t been this much anger or distrust between Americans in decades. In the end, this movement will have just the opposite effect the protesters hoped it would have. Police officers will likely stop coming into high crime areas and will instead, allow residents to sort out their own dangerous situations. This movement has completely divided our country into responsible, level-headed Americans vs. angry citizens and illegal aliens who have signed up to be soldiers in Obama s race war and his war on law enforcement in America. Nothing good or positive will come out of this and Obama knows that. But then again, Barack care about the interests of the Americans who elected him. It s all about pushing his radical agenda. Twenty-one officers from various Minnesota law enforcement agencies were injured and more than 102 protestors were arrested as a demonstration on the I-94 freeway in St. Paul turned violent Saturday night, with protestors hurling rocks, bottles, fireworks and bricks at law enforcement officers on the scene.Hundreds of demonstrators began protesting at the Governor s Residence in St. Paul Saturday night over the police-involved shooting death of Philander Castile earlier in the week before heading onto the I-94 freeway around 8 p.m., local Fox affiliate KMSP reported.The interstate was shut down in both directions for more than five hours and the protests eventually turned violent, with demonstrators hurling bricks, fireworks and at least one Molotov cocktail at officers, according to the St. Paul Police Department. Via: BreitbartLast night and this morning, 21 officers from multiple agencies were injured on I-94 and other areas of the city. #I94closed St. Paul Police PIO (@sppdPIO) July 10, 2016Molotov cocktail thrown at officers. Unclear if anyone injured. #I94closed St. Paul Police PIO (@sppdPIO) July 10, 2016Another officer hit in the head with a large piece of concrete, possibly dropped from bridge. #I94closed St. Paul Police PIO (@sppdPIO) July 10, 2016Bricks now being thrown at officers, along with more rocks and bottles. #I94closed St. Paul Police PIO (@sppdPIO) July 10, 2016An officer was just hit in face with bottle thrown by a protester on St. Paul street. #I94closed St. Paul Police PIO (@sppdPIO) July 10, 2016Officers arrested 50 people for 3rd degree riot last night on I-94. #I94closed St. Paul Police PIO (@sppdPIO) July 10, 2016 | 0 |
8,541 | Kremlin: law on media 'foreign agents' is our response to U.S. measures | MOSCOW (Reuters) - A draft law allowing Moscow to designate foreign media as foreign agents gives Russia a tool to reciprocate to restrictions Washington has imposed on Russian media operating in the United States, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday. He said it was too early to say how tough the law would be as the draft, approved on second reading by the lower house of parliament on Wednesday, did not spell out how it would be applied in practice. | 1 |
8,542 | 'Go to hell!' A divided America struggles to heal after ugly election | (Editors note: Attention to language in paragraph 30 that may be offensive to some readers) By Jason Szep ELLSWORTH, Maine (Reuters) - “He lies,” huffed Janet Foster. “And he’s a dirty old man,” chimed in her sister Jean as they discussed Donald Trump’s flaws a few days before he was elected the new president of the United States. “Well, I am with him,” their brother Paul, 60, interjected, raising his voice over snacks of cheese, muffins and crackers in the family’s living room. “Hillary Clinton is like a puppet - you know it’s all scripted.” The 2016 U.S. election was unprecedented in the way it turned Americans against each other, according to dozens of interviews in rural United States and across some of the most politically charged battleground states. It divided families like the Fosters in rural Ellsworth, Maine, broke up friendships and turned neighbor against neighbor. In a recent Reuters/Ipsos survey, 15 percent of respondents said they had stopped talking to a family member or close friend as a result of the election. For Democrats, this shoots up to 23 percent, compared to 10 percent for Republicans. And 12 percent had ended a relationship because of it. There was no comparative polling data from previous elections. But interviews with relationship counselors and voters suggest this election stood out by summoning passions, anger and a divisiveness in ways that will make healing difficult after Clinton’s loss to Trump on Tuesday. Sarah Guth, a Democrat in Colorado, says her father - an ardent supporter of Trump - no longer speaks with her after they clashed on Facebook over their political views. “He crossed a line,” she said. After attending a Trump rally, Guth wrote on Facebook that she saw 10 minorities among thousands of people. “I’m increasingly convinced that this election is about race,” she wrote. “I mean a fear among the white majority that their rule is coming to an end.” Some posters told her “to go to hell,” she recalled in an interview. “And then my dad very publicly attacked me, telling me that I should be ashamed of myself.” The two have not spoken since. Ty Turner-Bond, a 35-year-old black man in North Carolina, says he lost friends because of his support for Trump. Some called him an “Uncle Tom,” a slur for African Americans accused of deferring to white people; others threatened violence. In Springfield, a city on Ohio’s Mad River, Duke Level, 57, voted for Trump because he wanted “a wrecking ball” to hit Washington. The owner of Un Mundo Cafe isn’t surprised this election created divisions, and he fears they could get worse. “This is one of those crossroads crisis moments in history,” he said. Hours earlier, Trump rallied about 5,000 supporters a few miles away in a dirt-floored livestock arena. He blasted Clinton as “the most corrupt person ever to seek the office of the presidency,” drawing chants of “lock her up,” as well as a few of “string her up.” Down the street, Richard Scott, 51, an African-American supporting Clinton, shook his head when told of those chants. Those words, he said, recalled 20th Century lynchings of black Americans - including in Springfield where a black prisoner was shot and hung from a pole on Main Street in 1904. “It’s terrible,” he said. Weeks ago, he planted a Clinton sign in his yard. His neighbors put up Trump signs. Outside the funeral home he owns, a pro-Clinton sign was defaced with a “Hillary for Prison” sticker. “People are tense,” said Scott. The election hardened an already-clear racial divide in the former industrial city of 60,000 people - a snapshot of America at about 75 percent white and 18 percent black. Interviews with residents suggested its northern areas, mostly affluent and white, would vote for Trump, while its mostly black, lower-income southern section would largely support Clinton. “There is a division in this town, economically and racial. And we saw that in this election,” said Bob Leath, 58, owner of Buckeye PC Repair who voted for Trump to “clean house” in Washington. “If you voted for Clinton, you were most likely either young, lower-income or from the south side of the area.” For some, the tensions reach the bedroom. Sam Nail, a Cincinnati marriage counselor, said he has two couples who cited the election season as a “stressor” in their relationship. Much of the anger gets uncorked on social media and will be hard to undo. Some is well publicized. National Review writer David French has written about “an unending torrent of abuse” he and his family faced online from white nationalist Trump supporters, including a Tweeted image of his 7-year-old daughter’s face in a gas chamber. Others are less well known, like Brenda Thomas’ tangles with her older brother on Facebook. She says her brother unleashed a daily stream of Facebook posts on Clinton and President Barack Obama that she found objectionable. She said when her husband, a Republican, tried to reason with him, he was “unfriended” on Facebook. “I feel that I have to walk on eggshells with him and it causes problems at family functions,” said Thomas, 63, of Elizabethtown, Kentucky. In Charlotte, North Carolina, Karen Wilson, describes this election as “stressful” on Facebook. “I’ve got family members who are mad at me for deleting entire Facebook threads when I thought they were becoming too negative. I’ve deleted Facebook friends who I realized I never should have been friends with in the first place,” said Wilson, 43. Fourteen percent of respondents in the Reuters/Ipsos poll said they had blocked a family member or close friend from social media because of the election. For Democrats, this rises to 23 percent compared to 8 percent for Republicans. The divisions tore into the fabric of some communities. In Provo, Utah, Trump supporter Loy Brunson awoke on an October morning to find his car spray-painted with the words “AmeriKKKa” - a reference to “KKK” white supremacists - and “Fuck Trump.” His two Trump yard signs were destroyed. “So I doubled down, got motivated and put up 85 signs in my yard,” he said. Within days, all but six of those were stolen. “This was more than vandalism,” he said in an interview. “This was a free speech attack.” Some blame the divisiveness on campaign rhetoric that inflamed racial, ethnic and class tensions that have long simmered in America. Angry and extremist language moved into the mainstream. George Lakoff, a linguistics professor at University of California, Berkeley, blames Trump’s use of language, which he ranks as among the most violent of any candidate in modern times. He specifically notes Trump’s suggestion in August that gun rights activists could take matters into their own hands if Clinton defeated him, as well as the New York businessman’s comments that she should go to prison. “When you have extremes of that order, you have extremes of anger, extremes of fear,” Lakoff said. In Mississippi, Chad Scott, an activist in the Clay County Republican Party, fears a post-election split between the party’s working-class Trump supporters and business-minded elites - a sentiment echoed in Maine, where Foster, the Ellsworth resident at odds with his sisters, witnessed the election’s political vitriol first hand. Foster’s van was one of 20 vehicles spray-painted outside a Trump rally on Oct. 15 in the city of Bangor. And across Ellsworth, pro-Trump yard signs were stolen almost as fast as they were planted, Republican officials say. Foster worries about the divisions ahead. “My sisters will forgive me for my political views,” he said. “But the country is going to be on fire.” | 1 |
8,543 | WATCH: Racist Republican Congressman Steve King Displays A Confederate Flag On His Office Desk | It doesn t get any clearer than this that Iowa Rep. Steve King is a racist.During a story about King introducing Sarah s law, a program that allows parents to check if someone around their child has ever been convicted of sexual offenses against children, cameras busted the Republican openly displaying a Confederate flag on his office desk.Here s the video via YouTube. The flag can be seen at the 26 second mark.This pretty much confirms that King is a racist who fantasizes about secession. After all, he is a vicious critic of Black Lives Matter and has always hated President Obama, whom he directly blamed for the Dallas shootings in a post on Twitter.#DallasPoliceShooting has roots in first of anti-white/cop events illuminated by Obama Officer Crowley. There were others. Steve King (@SteveKingIA) July 8, 2016Furthermore, King tried to block the addition of Harriet Tubman, a former slave who escaped and became a prominent abolitionist who helped other slave gain their freedom via the Underground Railroad, to the $20 bill in defense of slave-holder Andrew Jackson, who is going to be moved to the back.King claimed that putting Tubman on the $20 bill is racist while he tried to portray his effort as unifying This is liberal activism on the part of the president that s trying to identify people by categories, and he s divided us on the lines of groups, King said. This is a divisive proposal on the part of the president, and mine s unifying. It says just don t change anything. King is also a fan of secession. When the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union last month, he cheered the vote on Twitter. Congratulations to UK, especially @Nigel_Farage & UKIP, for your noble & farsighted national decision to #BreExit. WesternCiv can be saved. Steve King (@SteveKingIA) June 24, 2016Texas conservatives also cheered the decision and have used it to push their own secession movement.Democratic candidate Kim Weaver, who is challenging King for his seat, told the De Moines Register, Like a lot of Iowans, I m disgusted by his gross insensitivity to the millions of Americans for whom that flag is a symbol of racism and division, and I join them in calling on Mr. King to remove it immediately. Even Iowa s GOP governor opposes King s display of the Confederate flag because Iowa was a Union state during the Civil War.Indeed, 76,242 Iowa men fought against the Confederacy. Iowans fought bravely with distinction at the Battle of Wilson Creek in Missouri and many are buried at Vicksburg National Cemetery. King s support of the Confederate flag is an insult to their memory and the memory of the 13,000 Iowans who died trying to defeat the Confederacy. It s also disgraceful to the Iowans who were killed by Confederate bushwhackers who repeatedly raided the southern part of the state during the war.Iowa heavily backed Abraham Lincoln and the Union, so Steve King s display of an enemy flag is totally offensive, especially since he is supposed to be a United States congressman.Featured Image: Screenshot | 0 |
8,544 | Ryan feels good about spending bill, wants budget cap talks | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said he felt good about the vote count on a government spending bill coming before House on Thursday afternoon that is aimed at keeping the government from shutting down this week. “I feel good where we are,” Ryan told reporters. He also said Republicans want to talk to Trump and other congressional leaders about budget caps. “It would be nice to get back to the table and start negotiating caps and all the other things we have to do,” he said | 1 |
8,545 | Struggling Republican Bush brings out the big gun: his mom | MANCHESTER, N.H./WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Jeb Bush brought out his famous family four days before the crucial U.S. presidential primary in New Hampshire, tapping his mother on Friday to scold Republican front-runner Donald Trump over his use of profanity and treatment of women. In a last ditch attempt to make a mark on a Republican primary campaign he was supposed to own, Bush lashed out at both Trump and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, the one-time protege who has eclipsed Bush as the party’s establishment candidate in the 2016 White House race. New opinion polls following Monday’s Iowa caucuses showed Trump maintaining a wide lead in New Hampshire’s primary next Tuesday with Rubio rising into second place in the state as Republicans battle for the nomination in November’s presidential election. Bush, the former governor of Florida, leaned on his well-known family for support. While former President George W. Bush appeared in a new ad praising his brother as having “a good heart and a strong backbone,” Jeb Bush sat with his mother for an interview with CBS show “This Morning.” The two attacked Trump as misogynistic and vulgar after he used a four-letter word in a recent campaign appearance. “I don’t think a president would have ever shouted profanities in a speech in front of thousands of people with kids in the crowd,” Jeb Bush said. “He does it all the time.” His mother lambasted Trump for criticizing Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly after she quizzed him at a Republican debate in August. Trump made comments widely interpreted as referring to her menstrual cycle. “I don’t know how women can vote for someone who said what he said about Megyn Kelly,” Mrs. Bush said. “It’s terrible. And we knew what he meant, too.” Much loved by today’s Republicans, the former first lady herself raised eyebrows in 1984 when she reportedly made a derogatory reference to Democratic vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman on a major party ticket, saying, “I can’t say it, but it rhymes with rich.” Trump has dismissed Jeb Bush as a “low-energy” loser. The son and brother of U.S. presidents who was expected to glide to the Republican nomination, Bush trails in the single digits in many national polls. Mrs. Bush, who was campaigning for her younger son in New Hampshire, said “America needs” Jeb and drew an implicit contrast to the brash swagger of Trump. “He’s got the same values that America seems to have lost. He’s almost too polite.” While rivals took aim at him, Trump was forced to miss a rally on Friday in Londonderry, New Hampshire because of a snow storm and was stuck in New York, a spokesman said. Trump has eschewed much of the one-on-one retail politicking of typical campaigns in favor of large rallies. But in New Hampshire, where voters are used to having candidates’ close attention, the strategy could hurt. Jeb Bush seized the opportunity to make fun of Trump on Twitter, pointing out that even his mother was able make it out despite the weather. “My 90 year old mother made it out to campaign,” he wrote in response to Trump’s tweet that he was moving a campaign event to Monday due to a “big storm.” The Bushes chatted with people at a diner in Derry, New Hampshire, according to a pool report sent to news outlets. “Vote for my boy,” Barbara Bush told one table. “I haven’t seen snow in 1,000 years,” she said. The snow did not stop Ohio Governor John Kasich either. His campaign sent reporters a video of the candidate in a snowball fight after a town hall. Jeb Bush also stepped up attacks on Rubio as lacking in experience and accomplishments, saying on MSNBC the first-term Florida lawmaker had done “nothing” in the U.S. Senate. He was not the only one piling on Rubio. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie released satirical videos slamming the Floridian as “scripted” for repeating himself in interviews and speeches. And the New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper’s publisher criticized Rubio in an editorial for presenting himself as a Washington outsider, saying Rubio “must think New Hampshire a bunch of rubes.” On the positive side for Rubio, he picked up the endorsement of former Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who dropped out of the Republican race in November. “I think he’s a principled conservative. I think he’s the right guy to lead us forward,” Jindal said on Fox News. A Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll released on Friday found that about one-third of likely Republican voters said they could still change their minds. The poll showed Rubio with 19 percent, behind Trump’s 29 percent. Kasich came in third with 13 percent, followed by Bush and U.S. Senator Ted Cruz. For the Democrats, opinion polls show U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont with a double-digit lead in New Hampshire over rival Hillary Clinton. Clinton went on the attack against Sanders on Thursday in their most contentious debate yet. (Additional reporting by Emily Stephenson in New Hampshire, Amy Tennery in New York, Mohammad Zargham and Eric Beech in Washington; Editing by Bill Trott, Alistair Bell and Bernard Orr; For more on the 2016 presidential race, see the Reuters blog, “Tales from the Trail”; here) SAP is the sponsor of this content. It was independently created by Reuters’ editorial staff and funded in part by SAP, which otherwise has no role in this coverage. | 1 |
8,546 | Exclusive: Republican U.S. tax framework sets 20 percent corporate rate | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans in the U.S. Congress and the White House called for slashing tax rates on businesses and the wealthy on Wednesday, as part of a new tax plan that offers few details about how to pay for tax cuts without expanding the federal deficit. Hammered out over months of high-level talks among Trump aides and top Republicans in Congress, the plan proposes: a 20 percent corporate income tax rate; a new 25 percent tax rate for pass-through businesses including partnerships; and a reduced 35 percent top income tax rate for individual Americans, according to a framework seen by Reuters. | 1 |
8,547 | Senator-elect Jones not joining calls for Trump resignation | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrat Doug Jones, who scored an upset victory last week in the U.S. Senate race in Alabama, said on Sunday he did not believe President Donald Trump needed to resign over sexual misconduct allegations against him. “I don’t think that the president ought to resign at this point,” Jones told CNN’s State of the Union program. “Those allegations were made before the election, and so people had an opportunity to judge before that election. I think we need to move on and not get distracted by those issues.” More than a dozen women have accused Trump of making unwanted sexual advances against them before he entered politics. Accusations of sexual harassment against high-profile men in politics, media and the entertainment industry have put a new spotlight on the allegations against Trump, and several Democratic senators have called on him to resign. Trump and White House officials have denied the allegations. The accusations emerged during the 2016 presidential campaign, when a videotape surfaced of a 2005 conversation caught on an open microphone in which Trump spoke in vulgar terms about trying to have sex with women. Trump apologized for the remarks but called them private “locker-room talk” and said he had not done the things he talked about. Jones prevailed in the Senate race against Republican Roy Moore, who himself had been accused of sexual misconduct. Jones’ victory in the deeply conservative state of Alabama was a political blow to Trump, who had endorsed Moore. | 1 |
8,548 | Republicans make repealing Obamacare 'first order of business' | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama exhorted fellow Democrats on Wednesday to preserve his legacy-defining healthcare law as Republicans moved ahead with their long-sought bid to scrap it in what Vice President-elect Mike Pence called the “first order of business” of Donald Trump’s administration. The emerging Democratic strategy is to warn that Republicans risk throwing the entire U.S. healthcare system into chaos by moving to dismantle the 2010 Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, without a plan to replace it. Republicans argue the system is already broken and that they will help more people gain coverage by repealing the law while working to minimize disruptions to those who depend on it. Both Obama and Pence visited Capitol Hill for closed-door discussions on Obamacare. Pence, the Indiana governor and a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, met Republican lawmakers to plot the path forward on scuttling the law. “The first order of business is to keep our promise to repeal Obamacare and replace it with the kind of healthcare reform that will lower the cost of health insurance without growing the size of government,” Pence told a news conference. Down the hall from Pence, Obama, who hands over the presidency to Trump on Jan. 20, urged Democratic lawmakers to protect his signature domestic policy measure. He told reporters his message was: “Look out for the American people.” Democrats acknowledge they lack the votes needed to stop repeal legislation being pushed by Republicans, who will control the White House and both chambers of Congress when Trump takes office. But they are warning of the risks of the repeal legislation in hopes of spurring a public backlash against it. Without a replacement by Republicans, as early as 2018, the roughly 20 million people who gained insurance under the law could see their coverage in jeopardy. “The Republican plan to cut healthcare wouldn’t ‘make America great again,’” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer told reporters, invoking Trump’s campaign slogan. “It would make America sick again and lead to chaos instead of affordable care.” Since the law was enacted, Republicans in Congress have voted more than 50 times to try to repeal all or part of it and conservatives have filed suits to try to invalidate it. Republicans criticize Obamacare as an excessive government intrusion into the healthcare market and contend it is harming job growth by adding burdens on businesses. Republicans on Wednesday stepped up their rhetorical attack on Obamacare, with House Speaker Paul Ryan saying the law ruined the American healthcare system. Trump wrote on Twitter that Republicans “must be careful in that the Dems own the failed ObamaCare disaster, with its poor coverage and massive premium increases.” Pence said Trump would work with congressional leaders for a “smooth transition to a market-based healthcare reform system” through legislative and executive action. Republicans have offered few details, however, on what a replacement for Obamacare would look like. Ryan said lawmakers would take action that did not “pull the rug out from anybody” and that the party had “plenty of ideas.” Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow said Republicans were “pulling the string that’s going to unravel the whole (healthcare) system.” Schumer said any effort by Republicans to shift the blame to Democrats would fail: “They want to repeal it and then try to hang it on us. Not going to happen. It’s their responsibility, plain and simple.” The House Republican Study Committee, composed of the most conservative members of the chamber, signaled they were aware of the risk of appearing not to have a plan and filed a bill on Wednesday that could constitute a replacement. House Republicans last year offered a proposal that would, among other things, provide refundable tax credits to help people afford their medical insurance premiums. Obamacare helped people obtain insurance by increasing funding to states to expand the Medicaid healthcare program for the poor and providing government subsidies to help people obtain coverage from private insurers through government-run exchanges. Republican Senator Rand Paul, who is a doctor, joined the Democrats in voting against beginning consideration of the Obamacare repeal resolution. While Paul said he supported repealing the law, he added the current proposal would increase the government debt by $9.7 trillion in the next 10 years. “Is that really what the Republican Party represents?” Paul said during Senate floor debate. The United States has a more complicated healthcare system than some other rich nations whose governments provide medical coverage. Many Americans get health insurance through their employers. Others buy policies directly from private insurers or are eligible for government-run programs for elderly and low-income people. About 29 million had no medical insurance in 2015, according to the most recent government statistics. The U.S. population tops 320 million people. Trump has vowed to protect some popular parts of Obamacare, such as barring insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions. | 1 |
8,549 | Young Catalan liberal rises in challenge to Rajoy's grip on Spanish power | MADRID (Reuters) - Forget the traditional Socialist opposition and perhaps even the Catalan separatists: the main threat to Spain s conservative prime minister may now come from a Barcelona politician dedicated to national unity - Ines Arrimadas. The 36-year-old leader of the liberal Ciudadanos party in Catalonia has jumped to the frontline of Spanish politics by coming out on top in elections to the region s assembly. Supporters even compare her performance with Emmanuel Macron s meteoric rise to the presidency across the border in France. Laying down the gauntlet to Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and the separatists alike, Arrimadas boosted her party s share of the vote to more than 25 percent in Thursday s snap election, up from just 7.6 percent two years ago. That made Ciudadanos ( Citizens ) the biggest group in the assembly, ahead of parties backing either more Catalan autonomy or outright independence which had won every regional election since the restoration of Spanish democracy in the 1970s. Arrimadas will struggle to form a regional coalition as collectively separatist parties achieved a narrow majority. Still, she celebrated victory with hundreds of supporters in the streets of Barcelona on Thursday night, flanked by her party s national leader, 38-year-old Albert Rivera. On Friday she made an appeal for unity following October s independence referendum which led to the Catalan leader fleeing the country, other separatists leaders landing in jail and Madrid imposing direct rule. Yesterday was a great night, a historic night and for me the start of reconciliation in Catalonia, even if sometimes things take a little longer than what we would expect, she told Onda Cero radio. Her performance echoed similarly strong showings from centrists in French presidential and legislative elections earlier this year, raising the hopes of Ciudadanos. This result is fully transferable to national politics, said Toni Roldan, a lawmaker for the party in the Spanish parliament who is also from Catalonia. It takes Ciudadanos to the next level and we will be competing on equal footing with Rajoy in the next Spanish election. Describing Arrimadas as a political jewel , Roldan said the choice for all Europeans was now between liberalism and populism. In this struggle, Ciudadanos stood alongside Macron - who beat far right candidate Marine Le Pen to the presidency - and was now ready to blow apart the traditional left-right divide in Spain, Roldan added. Ciudadanos, which has its roots in Catalonia, will need strong momentum if it is to threaten Rajoy s grip on power as the party came only fourth in last year s national election with 13.9 percent. An opinion poll taken before the Catalan vote put it still in fourth. However, alone among the major parties, its support was up to 17.5 percent, suggesting voters are being won over by its tough stance on Spanish unity and against corruption, as well as its young professional leaders. A veteran politician who has survived past crises, Rajoy leads a minority government and has yet to get a 2018 budget through parliament. However, he is under no immediate pressure as he can simply roll over the 2017 budget for months. Also, the opposition is so fractured that it probably cannot bring Rajoy down and no serious leadership rival has emerged within his traditional center-right Popular Party (PP). If the secessionists pursue their aims by negotiation, they too are unlikely to pose a great threat to Rajoy, who could also re-impose direct rule in the region if they decided to act unilaterally. Arrimadas was born in the Andalusian town of Jerez, far from Barcelona where she moved after completing a law degree. Her husband was a lawmaker for separatist leader Carles Puigdemont s party, before resigning in 2016 to avoid complicating her political rise. Both have said their passion for Barcelona football team brought them together. She was first elected as a Ciudadanos lawmaker in 2012 at 31, two years after a colleague at the consultancy where she worked in Barcelona had invited her to a party rally. The political and social situation was so serious that I felt the need to stop complaining from the sofa and go on to propose ideas and debate from parliament, she told an interviewer in 2015. Since then, her party has made a successful move into national politics, backing Rajoy s minority government although not joining it. Ciudadanos is creating the next big headache for Rajoy. They can extract concessions from the PP without any political cost. And if Rajoy fails to pass the budget because of the Catalan issue, he won t be able to blame Ciudadanos for the stalemate and a potential snap election, said Teneo Intelligence analyst Antonio Barroso. Barroso and other analysts said the moment of truth may come in the second half of 2018, should Rajoy have failed to normalize the situation in Catalonia. Rivals express grudging admiration for the party. Ciudadanos has managed to bring together all unionism in a technically perfect campaign, a source close to Puigdemont said on condition of anonymity. It is an artificial product that represents the feelings of many people. | 1 |
8,550 | Justice Department asks for hold on court sanctions in immigration case | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday filed an emergency motion to stop sanctions imposed by a federal judge in Texas that included mandated ethics classes for federal prosecutors, as part of ongoing litigation over immigration policy. The sanctions were ordered on May 19 by District Judge Andrew Hanen, who ruled in February 2015 that President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration were outside the bounds of the president’s authority. Hanen also ordered the Department of Homeland Security to prepare a state-by-state review of immigrants who were given three years of safeguards from deportation under Obama’s previous immigration action instead of two. The case has been brought before the U.S. Supreme Court. The Justice Department asked Hanen to put a hold on the sanctions while it seeks a review from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Justice Department will ask the Fifth Circuit for an appeal of the decision, a mandamus order or both to block the sanction order. In the court filing, in Houston, the Justice Department said it “takes with utmost seriousness the public trust committed to it to represent the interests of the American people in the courts of the United States, and insists that its attorneys adhere to the high standards of ethical conduct and professionalism required to carry out that critical mission.” “The court’s order to turn over immigration records would undermine trust in the Department of Homeland Security’s ability to maintain the confidentiality of personal information, which is essential to its mission,” said Patrick Rodenbush, a spokesman for the Justice Department, in connection with the review ordered by Hanen. | 1 |
8,551 | SORRY NANCY! Here’s PROOF Democrats Have NOTHING On Jeff Sessions [VIDEO] | Watch: Fox News' Catherine Herridge has the latest on AG Jeff Sessions and Russia. https://t.co/9s4PWKABvR pic.twitter.com/i0Djb4vSzB Fox News (@FoxNews) March 2, 2017Several senators on both sides of the aisle rushed to back Attorney General Jeff Sessions Thursday as he sought to blunt resignation calls from senior Democrats, following revelations he met last year with Russia s ambassador a detail omitted from recent congressional testimony.His defenders say such meetings between senators and diplomats were routine. And Sessions even got an inadvertent boost from Democratic Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, who in demanding the AG s resignation initially claimed she never called or met with Russia s ambassador only for tweets to surface indicating she had, at least twice.Other former colleagues intentionally came to Sessions defense, backing the former Alabama senator s claim he only met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in his official capacity as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. I ve met with the Russian ambassador with a group, in my capacity, with a group of other senators, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., told CNN. That s in my official capacity. That s nothing. That s my job. Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said in a statement that he d talked to at least twenty ambassadors in the last six weeks. It would have been very normal for Sessions, as a senator, to have talked to the Russian ambassador without discussing the election, Blunt said.Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said on MSNBC that he d met with six ambassadors in the last five months. Though he hadn t met with Kislyak, Cruz said he would do so without reservations.The statements of support came as other lawmakers including the two top-ranking Democrats, Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schemer demanded Sessions resignation. FOX NewsWatch: | 0 |
8,552 | PREGNANT CHELSEA CLINTON Makes Disturbing Confession About Why She Left Church At 6 Years Old | The apple doesn t fall far from the tree Chelsea Clinton is pregnant with her second child, so in typical progressive feminist fashion, Chelsea has abortion on her mind. In a new interview, Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of pro-abortion presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, says she left the Baptist Church at the age of 6 because it has a strongly pro-life position opposing abortions.Clinton made the comment at a recent fundraiser for Hillary Clinton in an attempt to address evangelicals who question her mother s faith in God. She said she was upset when teachers in a Sunday School class talked about the wrongness of abortion. My mother is very deeply a person of faith, Chelsea said. It is deeply authentic and real for my mother, and it guides so much of her moral compass, but also her life s work. I recognized that there were many expressions of faith that I don t agree with and feel [are] quite antithetical to how I read the Bible, Chelsea said. But I find it really challenging when people who are self-professed liberals kind of look askance at my family s history. Via: Life NewsHmmm .Six years old I wonder if that was about the age when Chelsea referred to the Secret Service as Pigs. As we said earlier the apple doesn t fall far from the tree | 0 |
8,553 | Italy's government wins confidence votes on contested electoral law | ROME (Reuters) - The Italian government on Wednesday won two confidence votes on a fiercely contested electoral law that is likely to penalize the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement in next year s national election. The proposed voting system is backed by three of the country s four largest parties, with the centre-left government looking to rush it onto the statute books ahead of elections, which are due by May 2018. Five-Star supporters protested in front of parliament as the Chamber of Deputies approved two confidence motions by a wide margin. A third such vote is scheduled for Thursday ahead of a final ballot in the lower house on the disputed bill. Unlike the current rules, the new system would allow the formation of multi-party coalitions before the ballot, a factor likely to hurt 5-Star, which is topping most opinion polls and refuses to join alliances. They want to take away our right to choose, said Nicola Zuppa, 45, who said he had paid 175 euros ($200) to travel from Padua in northern Italy to take part in the protest, which drew up to 2,000 people in the heart of Rome. The use of multiple confidence motions allowed the ruling coalition to truncate discussion on the bill and sidestep dozens of planned secret votes on various amendments. The reform still needs the approval of the upper house Senate. If you allow the electoral rules to be changed again so that the scum of the country rises to the top yet again, it will be your children who pay the price, 5-Star s founder Beppe Grillo wrote on his blog on Wednesday. President Sergio Mattarella, the only figure with the power to dissolve parliament, has called for new voting rules because the current system is very different for the upper and lower houses, meaning it could throw up conflicting majorities. All previous attempts to harmonize the rules have failed, most recently in June when dissident deputies used a secret vote to upend part of the proposed legislation. Former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi s Democratic Party (PD) drafted the latest version, which is supported by right-wing parliamentary rivals Forza Italia (Go Italy!) and the Northern League. Five small parties are also backing the proposed law. Five-Star estimates that the new rules could cost it up to 50 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and potentially scupper its chances of being the largest group in parliament after the vote. Mattarella is expected to give the formation that gets the most seats the first crack at forming a government. The PD has denied trying to stymie the 5-Star s chances. No one is preventing (5-Star) from making alliances if they want to, said Ettore Rosato, the parliamentary party leader of the PD who has put his name to the reform. If they don t want to do them, they can continue to be an isolated party. Analysts say the new electoral system looks unlikely to throw up a clear parliamentary majority, with opinion polls showing the centre-left, centre-right and 5-Star splitting the vote three ways. Such a result could lead to the creation of a grand coalition that would need to span the political divide. ($1 = 0.8452 euros) | 1 |
8,554 | GREAT NEWS! Thanks To New York’s Socialist Mayor And Leftist City Council…You Can Now Pee In The Streets! | The social rot continues in a city that was miraculously cleaned up on Mayor Giuliani s watch. All of the hard work Rudy did to fight crime and make tourists as well as residents feel safe again will all be undone by one Socialist mayor Scofflaws of New York, rejoice the City Council has cleared the way for you to litter, loiter and pee in the street to your heart s content.Watch here:New legislation dubbed the Criminal Justice Reform Act was passed by lawmakers Wednesday, giving miscreants a get-out-of-jail-free card by eliminating the criminal penalties on a raft of quality-of-life crimes.The disgusting and disturbing acts that the council voted to decriminalize include drinking alcohol out of a paper bag, lurking in parks after hours, urinating in the street and making enough of a racket to violate the noise code.Under the legislation, which Mayor Bill de Blasio is expected to sign, offenders will face only civil summonses instead of criminal citations.The main part of the reform act sponsored by Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito deals with reducing the penalty for public urination and other quality-of-life offenses. It passed by a 40-9 vote in the liberal-leaning council.It aims to keep offenders from getting a permanent criminal record and requires the NYPD to develop guidance for cops on when to issue criminal instead of civil summonses. | 0 |
8,555 | AMERICAN-MADE CONFEDERATE FLAG FACTORY Sees A Huge Change In Sales After Charlottesville | You d think people would be afraid to order a Confederate flag after the riot in Charlottesville BUT this Alabama flag factory is seeing a huge jump in sales The story of how this single flag manufacturer was started and has flourished is bittersweet ALABAMA FLAG & BANNER SALES SURGE!Sales of Confederate flags surged at Alabama Flag & Banner, which may be the only company still manufacturing the flags in the United States. Belinda Kennedy, the owner, sees the flag as a historical symbol.Rebel flag sales are up since Charlottesville. One north Alabama shop may be the only flag manufacturer in America meeting the increased demand.Alabama Flag & Banner is located in a small strip near downtown Huntsville. Two years ago, the company began manufacturing the Confederate flag after retailers pulled it from their shelves in the wake of the mass shooting at the Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, S.C. in which nine people were killed by a white supremacist who d been photographed holding a Confederate flag.The country s major flag manufacturers stopped producing rebel flags. Eventually, said longtime owner Belinda Kennedy, Alabama Flag & Banner became the go-to manufacturer for hundreds of retailers across the country looking to stock American-made Confederate flags. Online orders boomed, too.Two weeks ago, after the deadly Charlottesville rally sparked a national debate about whether Confederate monuments should be removed from parks around the country, flag sales spiked again. After the church shooting (in 2015), Amazon and Walmart stopped selling (the flag) and people were afraid they wouldn t be able to buy it, she said. And then you started seeing streets renamed, schools being renamed, mountains being renamed. And then people started getting angry. And then there s another surge (in sales). Since 2015, Alabama Flag & Banner has sold an average of 600-800 Confederate flags a year. Before that, they typically made a handful of special orders per year because they were able to order flags from a larger manufacturer.Kennedy said there are now Chinese-made flags available elsewhere, and she s seen a handful of individuals online who hand-sew flags to order, but as far as she knows her business is the only one in the country currently manufacturing Confederate flags.About half of the Confederate flags at her shop are a more labor-intensive appliqued flag which retails for anywhere from $93 to upwards of $200. The rest are a less expensive screen-printed flag, which costs $38.50 for a 3 x 5 flag. Everybody s got a different reason (for buying), she said. By and large, I think people are afraid they may not be able to get it one day. Confederate flags represent only a fraction of her business, she said, and she has not needed to hire any extra help so far. She has a team of seven or eight seamstresses, some of them Hispanic, who work on the manufacturing side, hand-stitching appliqued flags and preparing the screen-printed flags.Downstairs in Kennedy s office is a double-frame picture of two of her great-great-grandfathers, who fought for the South in the Civil War. I think there is a bigger racial divide in our country than what we ve had in many years, said Kennedy. I think a lot of it is (because) we re trying to sanitize history. You ve got white supremacists, but then you ve got people like me who are history buffs, pushing back and saying, don t change history. Removing Confederate monuments is not right, she said. She echoed President Donald Trump s remarks about the Charlottesville violence, asking where the country should draw the line at removing monuments because founding fathers like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves.The Confederate flag, in her view, has been co-opted for something it doesn t represent. She hated seeing it carried by white supremacists in Charlottesville. When you ve got people like the Ku Klux Klan and these neo-Nazi groups, the white supremacists, when they hijack the flag, that should be a crime, she said, because that s not what the flag is about. But that s what makes people so vehemently, adamantly opposed to the flag. Since 2015, Kennedy has been no stranger to attention, though she said she dislikes most of the publicity and news coverage surrounding the Confederate flag. Outlets such as CNN and Yahoo News have already interviewed Kennedy this week as part of coverage of the monument debate.A self-avowed Daughter of the Confederacy, Kennedy does not see herself as a crusader for the Confederate cause. But she doesn t accept that the flag or monuments, for that matter are anything more than a symbol of heritage or history. When we start trying to rewrite our history, we are forgetting our history, she said. Does anybody really think by taking down monuments and renaming mountains and taking down Confederate flags, that we are really going to see racism end? That s not going to fix it.Read more: AL.com | 0 |
8,556 | India files sex assault case against airline passenger for allegedly molesting Bollywood actress | MUMBAI (Reuters) - Indian police have filed a sexual assault case against an airline passenger after a 17-year-old Bollywood actress said the male passenger had molested her during a New Delhi-Mumbai flight, police said on Monday. A special court ordered police to detain the passenger for interrogation until Wednesday, when the case will be heard next. It can take months for formal charges to be filed in India. Zaira Wasim, the actress, was seen sobbing in a video she posted on Instagram after getting off a Vistara flight. She alleged she was attacked by the passenger seated behind her. He kept nudging my shoulder and continued to move his foot up and down my back and neck, Wasim said in the post. Is this how we are going to take care of girls? The video sparked outrage on social media with fans coming out in support of Wasim, who shot to fame through her role as a child wrestler in the 2016 blockbuster Bollywood drama Dangal . Police have registered a case against a man identified as Vikas Sachdeva, under Section 354 - for assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty - and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, a Mumbai police control room official said. Vistara is jointly owned by Tata and Singapore Airlines. We are investigating fully and will support Zaira in every way required, Vistara chief strategy and commercial officer Sanjiv Kapoor said. We have zero tolerance for this kind of thing. Neither Sachdeva or his lawyers could be reached for comment. In court, Sachdeva s lawyer accused Wasim of making the allegations for publicity, and asked why she had not complained to crew members during the flight. Local media quoted the suspect s wife, Divya Sachdeva, as saying her husband was innocent and that she was returning from a funeral and had been asleep on the flight. She accused Wasim of having made the allegations for publicity. A spokeswoman for the airline said it had provided details to the police and aviation authorities and its senior management had flown to Mumbai to assist Wasim in the investigation. We are deeply concerned and regret the unfortunate experience Ms. Zaira Wasim had onboard our flight last night. India s National Commission for Women, a government-appointed body fighting for women s rights, has asked the airline to explain why the crew did not step in to help the actress, according to local media reports. This is not done at all, Wasim, who hails from the northern Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir, was seen saying in the video while wiping away tears. This is not...how people should be made to feel. | 1 |
8,557 | TPP countries consider amendments to stalled trade deal: sources | SYDNEY (Reuters) - The 11 countries committed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership are considering amendments to the trade deal, three sources said on Tuesday, as officials meet in Sydney for talks to re-energize the stalled agreement. Among the areas being discussed, Vietnam has raised the prospect of changes to labor rights and intellectual property (IP) provisions in the original pact, one source familiar with the talks told Reuters. Vietnam had been one of the countries expected to enjoy the biggest economic benefits from TPP through greater access to U.S. markets. However, the original 12-member TPP, which aims to cut trade barriers in some of Asia s fastest-growing economies, was thrown into limbo in January when U.S. President Trump withdrew from the agreement. Trump s move fulfilled a campaign pledge to put America first - a policy that aimed to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States. Although the remaining members have publicly said they remain committed to the deal, implementation of the agreement linking 11 countries with a combined GDP of $12.4 trillion has stalled - raising fears that other countries will follow the U.S. lead and withdraw. Eager to keep all members onboard, representatives from the remaining countries are considering changes to the original TPP deal, three sources familiar with the talks said. We re all open to evaluating what we can do and what viable alternatives there may be, Edgar Vasquez, Peru s deputy trade minister, told Reuters. While no agreement is expected at the end of the three-day meeting, Vietnam s desire to shelve the IP provisions around pharmaceutical data is likely to win broad support, with Japanese and New Zealand officials also indicating their support for the change, two other sources said. The original TPP agreement was seen as particularly onerous on Vietnam, which be forced to make significant reforms, analysts said. There s not much sense to agree to provisions they don t really want such as stronger monopolies on medicines if they are not going to get access to the U.S. market, said Patricia Ranald, research associate, University of Sydney. The original TPP offered an eight-year window before competitors can have access to proprietary pharmaceutical data, which critics said would impede development of cheap generics. Potential amendments, however, require delicate positioning. While Trump has said he will not change his mind on TPP, the remaining members are hopeful a future U.S. president will commit to the agreement, a cornerstone of former President Barack Obama s pivot to Asia. But analysts said wholesale changes, while ensuring the support of smaller members, would repel the United States. The more you change the agreement, it is going to be harder to get the U.S. to sign on when it is ready to, said Shiro Armstrong, research fellow at the Crawford School of Economics in Canberra. | 1 |
8,558 | Hillary Clinton Survives Another FBI Pantomime, 650,000 Emails Investigated in 691,000 Seconds | Claire Bernish Free Thought ProjectIn no surprise to anyone paying even marginal attention, the FBI s clearing Hillary Clinton of wrongdoing in its briefly reopened investigation however, the time it took the agency to reach this conclusion is not only bereft of logic and reason, it constitutes the most hubristic of insults to the public s intelligence.In just 691,000 seconds from announcement to conclusion, FBI Director James Comey wants you to believe that agents thoroughly examined over 650,000 emails newly discovered on Anthony Weiner s computer including any threads resulting, as well as all attachments before deciding Clinton innocent of wrongdoing.We, the people of this planet, are just not that stupid nor are we even mildly amused by this farcical bullshit passed off as a credible investigation.Indeed, the lightning pace of this putative second investigation not only boggles the mind, it forces uneasy questions concerning the true motivation and apparent exceeding necessity to ensure Hillary Clinton walks away scott-free amid rapidly mushrooming evidence of flagrant corruption and mendacious collusion.Just a cursory comparison of two investigations shows such marked differences it would be impossible not to question legitimacy of the FBI s findings.In the summer of 2015, the FBI commenced its first probe into the former secretary of state s use of a private email server during her tenure in office, after John Giacalone then Director of the National Security Branch met with Comey to voice concerns emanating from the Intelligence community about classified information possibly handled carelessly.For nearly a full year 365 days, or 31,536,000 seconds a sizable task force of FBI agents pored over an enormous cache, first comprising of 30,000 emails, but later totaling 44,900 after additional documents not originally handed over by the Clinton camp to the State Department were discovered.This means rounding off the rough estimate of one year the Bureau combed an average of just over 123 documents every day.While that might seem to be manageable with a slew of investigators on the job, a basic comparison of the two probes proves the literal inanity of the reopened investigation.Later in the day on October 28, Comey announced the commencement of the secondary probe albeit to the consternation of current and former officials who felt his telling Congress broke a number of investigatory guidelines, including possibly influencing the outcome of the presidential race.According to Comey, an additional 650,000 documents located on the computer of Clinton aide Huma Abedin s now-disgraced and estranged husband Anthony Weiner deserved careful scrutiny for pertinence and relevance to the original investigation of the Democratic nominee.Public and official speculation predicted a months- or years-long investigation, even with substantial manpower dedicated to the task.But on Sunday, November 6, in yet another shocker of an announcement from the FBI director, Comey inexplicably declared nothing of relevance to the Clinton investigation no new conclusions had been revealed in its secondary probe.This means again rounding for brevity to eight days the total length of the investigation FBI agents inspected some 81,250 documents each day.Granted, both estimates have been averaged and roughened, but only for comparison s sake and that contrast doesn t survive the scantiest litmus test of believability.Not at all.Before the nay-sayers jump in with a there s no comparison deflection, consider the following points.Although an algorithm or program combing those documents might indeed retrieve subjects of interest to investigators keywords, germane subjects, accordant people s names, and the like in no way would such technological gatekeepers reveal subtle nuance as has been displayed in emails published by Wikileaks from Hillary Clinton, campaign chair John Podesta, and the Democratic National Committee.Such fine gradations of meaning, naturally found in the English language but also purposefully employed to throw off investigators and interlopers, could not possibly be revealed by artificial means at least not that quickly and particularly not with currently-available technologies.Still not convinced?Consider that if such technology did indeed exist to that discerning level of scrutiny in our heightened and overarching surveillance and police states, no criminal would ever roam free.Law enforcement departments and the National Security Agency together have amassed astonishingly voluminous data sets on every person in this country, including through emails and online activities. A technology advanced enough to comb for subtleties in language would hone in on criminal behavior and activity with incredible frequency.And while NSA programs have been revealed to hunt for keywords, there are limits to its effectiveness no terrorist plot has yet been halted in progress because the intelligence to discover it hasn t yet solidified to that point.Technology experts immediately weighed in claiming such technology does indeed exist, is frequently employed, and can do the job perfectly in a mere eight days no worries...Continue reading at Free Thought Project***SEE ALSO: Hillary s Russian Hack Hoax: The Biggest Lie of this Election SeasonREAD MORE ELECTION NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2016 FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 0 |
8,559 | jason chaffetz exposed hillary clintons plan to bribe fbi agents to let her go | email
during a radio interview comic legend and political pundit jackie mason joked that the only time hillary clinton is not lying is when her mouth is not movingand even then she is probably lying because shes probably sitting there thinking of the next lie she is going to tell he added
mason claimed that clinton is so untrustworthy that she likely couldnt land a job as an attendant in the ladies room because they would be afraid that she would steal the towels or the napkins even the toilet paper wouldnt be safe from her
mason was speaking during his regular segment on this reporters talk radio program aaron klein investigative radio broadcast on new yorks am the answer and newstalk am in philadelphia
he continued
do you think that if she went for any other job besides the presidency that anyone would hire her anywhere if you saw her resume which is a resume of accomplishing nothing and running from the police threequarters of her life she is always either indicted or almost indicted or about to be indicted her whole life spent fleeing from the justice departments of different countries now this yenta do you think she would be able to get any other job
would you think they would hire her as a chambermaid do you know what all those sheets and pillowcases are worth do you think they would trust her with it after they found out the history of her life lets be honest about it if you went on a vacation would you let her watch your house while you went on vacation would you expect to come back and find anything still there | 0 |
8,560 | WHY OBAMA’S CORRUPT INNER CIRCLE Is Desperately Fighting To Protect His Failed Reputation | History shows that we can, if we must, tolerate nuclear weapons in North Korea. Those words were written by former National Security Adviser Susan Rice on Thursday in the New York Times, in arguing for appeasement towards Kim Jong-un.It was also the perfect symbol of everything that was wrong with Barack Obama s feckless foreign policy and it explains why the world that President Donald Trump inherited is so dangerous and unstable.The Obama administration believed it was worth living in the shadow of terror and nuclear aggression as long as the U.S. could maintain a dignified posture that could not provoke anyone. BreitbartNoah Rothman of Commentary Magazine wrote a brilliant article about the death rattle of Obama s reputation . In his article, Rothman reminds us of the ineffective and dangerous path former President Barack Obama took our nation down, and why the successes of President Trump are forcing his corrupt inner circle to speak out against Trump in defense of Obama s failed legacy.The members of Barack Obama s administration in exile have become conspicuously noisy of late even more so than usual. Former CIA Director John Brennan accused Donald Trump and his administration of engaging in outrageous, narcissistic behavior typical of vengeful autocrats by threatening proportionate retaliation against countries that voted to condemn the United States in the United Nations, as though that were unprecedented. It is not. James Clapper, Obama s director of national intelligence, all but alleged that the president is a Russian asset. Perhaps the most acerbic and incendiary series of accusations from the former Democratic president s foreign-policy professionals were placed in the New York Times by Obama s national security advisor, Susan Rice. In her estimation, America has abdicated its role as a force for good. Rice s attacks on the Republican administration deserve the most attention, if only because they are the most apoplectic. Donald Trump s recently released national-security review paints a dark, almost dystopian vision of the world, Rice contended. His world is full of hostile states and lurking threats. Rice claimed that there is no common good in Trump s worldview. What s more, there is no international community and no universal values. There are just American values. Rice acknowledges that Moscow is a threat to regional stability and peace, Western values, and U.S. sovereignty. She implies that Trump is a menace because he declines to recognize that. In fact, it was Obama much more so than Trump who has failed to see the obvious.Barack Obama was inarguably the least Atlanticist president since the end of World War II. Within a year of Russia s brazen invasion and dismemberment of the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, Obama scrapped George W. Bush-era agreements to move radar and missile interceptor installations to Central Europe. In 2013, the last of America s armored combat units left Europe, ending a 69-year footprint on the Continent. By 2014, there were just two U.S. Army brigades stationed in Europe. The folly of this demobilization became abundantly clear when Vladimir Putin became the first Russian leader since Stalin to invade and annex territory in neighboring Ukraine.A year later, Putin intervened militarily in Syria, where U.S. forces were already operating, resulting in the most dangerous escalation of tensions between the two nuclear powers since the end of the Cold War. Putin s move in Syria should not have come as a surprise; Barack Obama outsourced the resolution of the Syrian conflict to Moscow in 2013, if only to avoid making good on his self-set red line for intervention in that conflict despite the norm-shattering use of WMDs on civilians. Even Rice s chief complaint about Trump, his failure to condemn Putin s brazen intervention in the 2016 election, didn t elicit a reaction from Barack Obama until the final month of his presidency.By contrast, and to the surprise of just about everyone, the Trump administration has been tough on Russia. Trump has ordered harsh sanctions on Moscow s Iranian allies for violating United Nations resolutions a course the Obama administration declined to take even if it allowed Hezbollah terrorists with direct links to Putin to operate with impunity. He ordered long overdue airstrikes on Putin s vassal regime in Syria, halting any further use of chemical weapons in the process. Trump not only declined to lift Obama-era sanctions on Moscow, as many feared he would, but expanded them. This administration closed Russian consulates and annexes in the United States. It has targeted Putin allies like Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov under the Magnitsky Act the same act that Kremlin cutout Natalia Veselnitskaya lobbied the Trump campaign to scuttle. Trump has even gone so far as to open U.S. arms sales to Ukraine, representing a significant blow to Putin s ambitions in Europe. It is without a doubt that Trump now has a stronger record on Russia than Barack Obama ever did. No wonder Susan Rice is so angry.Rice further alleged that Trump recklessly accused China of being an avowed opponent of the U.S. rather than just a competitor, and then insisted that China has not illegally occupied its neighbors. Tell that to Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, or Taiwan, each of which lay claim to strategic territory in the South China Sea that the People s Republic seized and turned into forward air and naval bases. Rice suggested that Trump s realists decided to lump Beijing in with Moscow, not because it is a rising military and economic power, but because they wanted to placate American nationalists. Though this White House declined to defibrillate the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement back to life when it inherited its corpse, it has done a far more comprehensive job of working with Beijing to isolate Pyongyang than Obama did. As the North Korean nuclear crisis intensifies, China has backed fresh sanctions on North Korean financial institutions, cut off all access to Chinese iron, lead, and coal, and may even scale back petroleum deliveries to the Stalinist state by as much as 90 percent. And all in the space of one year.Rice contended that the document failed to itemize the discrete identities on whose behalf the U.S. should labor: LGBT people, people in poverty, people with AIDS, people under 30, et cetera. Rather, the document insists that all mankind, regardless of conditions or accidents of birth, are objects of U.S. interest. Rice complained that climate change is no longer viewed as a threat to national security. Good. Climate change is not itself a threat to American national security but a threat multiplier, as the weather has always been. Save for some valid concerns about the prospect of an overly restrictive immigration policy and the precariousness of U.S. free-trade obligations, Rice painted a picture not of a radical administration but one that is returning to a familiar status quo ante. In nearly all respects, it was Obama s White House, not Trump s, that adopted an ideological foreign policy and rendered the U.S. and the world less safe as a result.Even as early as March of 2017, it was clear that the Obama administration s foreign-policy professionals were quite insecure about how posterity would remember their stewardship of American interests abroad. They had every reason to be. For now, at least, the Trump administration has declined to govern as Trump campaigned; not as a populist firebrand but a conventional Republican. Susan Rice and her former White House colleagues have every reason to worry, but not for the United States. Their reputations, however, are another matter entirely.To read the entire article, click here. | 0 |
8,561 | black turnout soft in early voting boding ill for hillary clinton | loading posted on november this professor devotes her life to countering dangerous speech she cant ignore donald trumps colby itkowitz washington post october
when susan benesch began looking at how speech could incite mass violence her research took her to farflung places like kenya and burma
lately shes been unable to ignore a case study at home in the united states
the american university law professor and harvard university faculty associate has grappled for months with whether donald trumps rhetoric constitutes dangerous speech as she has come to define it she has examined electionyear speech before but only abroad where the risks of mass atrocities were great
but in the past week with trump claiming that the election system and the media are rigged against him his messages have the type of undertone that increases the risk of violence between groups she said
benesch has dedicated the past six years of her life to developing and testing a framework for identifying dangerous speech to rise to that level at least two of these five indicators must be true a powerful speaker with a high degree of influence over the audience the audience has grievances and fears that the speaker can cultivate a speech act that is clearly understood as a call to violence a social or historical context that is propitious for violence for any of a variety of reasons including longstanding competition between groups for resources lack of efforts to solve grievances or previous episodes of violence a means of dissemination that is influential in itself for example because it is the sole or primary source of news for the relevan t audience
trumps speech is very difficult in the sense that he is so often slippery with it benesch said in a recent interview the meaning is so often ambiguous
but when trump said his supporters could use the second amendment against hillary clinton it seems to me impossible that people didnt understand that as a reference to violence she said or when he suggested that clinton and president obama were founders of the islamic state something he alluded to again at wednesdays final debate that was a hallmark of dangerous speech to describe an ingroup member as the enemy she said
and now with trump trafficking in the conspiracy theory that if he loses the election it will be because of a rigged system against him hes definitely laying the groundwork for potential unrest after the balloting direct incitement of violence is illegal but trump falls short of actually calling for any kind of civil disobedience
because of that its still a gray area that surrounds whether trump does use dangerous speech
trump may well be undermining the extent to which his supporters trust the essential institutions and practices of us democracy benesch said some of themthose who are most susceptible to being inflamed by such messagesmay therefore be more likely to commit violence however the united states is not in danger of mass intergroup violence in my view it is deeply irresponsible though since it can undermine some americans belief in our own democratic institutions which can make them more susceptible to dangerous speech going forward
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8,562 | FOX NEWS’ JAMES ROSEN: “Sheer Scale” of Obama Spying Against Americans “Staggering” [Video] | As we listen 24/7 to the fake news and fake outrage about Russia spying and stealing our election, the news clip below gets to the REAL scandal that no one is reporting on:JAMES ROSEN: Pelosi confessed ignorance of this week s disclosure that the National Security Agency for at least five years under the Obama administration systematically violated Americans Fourth Amendment rights Civil liberties groups said the disclosures should factor into lawmakers decision at year s end about whether to reauthorize the NSA collection program that witnessed the abuses The sheer scale of the 4th Amendment violations is staggering, as was the sternness of the rebuke of the Obama administration by the FISA court, which ordinarily approves 99.9% of the government s request. As of a few minutes ago, this story had not been covered by the Washington Post, the New York Times or any of the three broadcast networks.Comey s FBI broke its own rules | 0 |
8,563 | ACTOR WHO BLEW THROUGH $150 Million Fortune Is Worried Playing Ronald Reagan In Positive Light For Upcoming Movie Could Ruin His Career | LOL! If I was Cage s manager, I d suggest he shut his mouth and act.Think your money troubles are bad? Trying blowing through $150 million, going broke, then owing the IRS $13 million. Yes, we re talking about Oscar-winning actor Nicolas Cage.Forbes listed him as one of the highest-paid actors of all time. It s said he made $40 million in 2009 alone. That s a lot of money!Unfortunately, the fun was short-lived. As his income increased, so did his insane buying habits.By the time he reached his mid-forties (he s now 53), Nicolas Cage spent so much cash that he put the King of Arabia to shame. While he blamed his money manager for sending him down a path toward financial ruin, others say it was his crazy personal spending. Finance BuzzFast forward to today, where Nicholas Cage has been offered the role of Ronald Reagan in an upcoming film, but is reportedly voicing his concerns about how the former president will be portrayed in the picture.The Oscar-winning actor is said to be worried that it might damage his career if he plays Reagan in a flattering light reports Page Six.Cage s publicist, Stephen Huvane, dismissed that report however, saying: It s way too early in the development process. Little else is known about the film at this time, including the director, screenwriter or who else might star alongside Cage, should he accept the part. Daily MailTypical Hollywood liberal lunacy defined | 0 |
8,564 | FAKE NEWS WEEK: Exposing The Mainstream Consensus Reality Complex | In response to the establishment media s contrived fake news crisis designed to marginalise independent and alternative media sources of news and analysis, 21WIRE is running its own #FakeNewsWeek awareness campaign, where each day our editorial team at 21st Century Wire will feature media critiques and analysis of mainstream corporate media coverage of current events exposing the government and the mainstream media as the real purveyors of fake news throughout modern history Patrick Henningsen 21st Century WireSome things never change. In the 21st century, people in power are still attacking independent voices for speaking up for what they believe, and for sharing their opinions.The first time I heard the term fake news uttered in unison from the mouths of mainstream media pundits, the irony was overtaken by the absurdity of it. It was beyond outrageous, and hearing it coming from the mainstream media was bordering on vaudeville. After watching and analyzing decades of media deception and government-issued press releases masquerading as hard news, and then to see the establishment attempting to force-feed this meme down our collective mainstream feeding tube, I suppose that would make the old editorial board at Soviet Izvestia wince (not that they were any worse than CNN is today).Sure it s laughable, but it s also incredibly sad to watch otherwise well-educated, smart and intelligent media professionals get so caught up in the political comedy-tragedy that was the 2016 Election they volunteered en mass to abandon their senses and any semblance of journalistic objectivity, in order to join in a virtual witch-hunt. This was a new low-point for mainstream media, and for America.This topic is vast and growing more controversial by the day. There s a lot to unpack and we know, based on past performance, the mainstream media can t be trusted to do an objective job, much less critique itself. Their conversation is completely out of order. To help right this process, 21WIRE has launched Fake News Week to help educate the public on aspects of this important issue which will most certainly be ignored by the establishment media. Throughout this week, we will present a number well-researched articles cataloguing actual fake news and demonstrating this is a mainstream problem, and one as old as the media itself.The Story of Fake NewsSince the dawn of mass media in the 20th century, media propaganda has been steadily advancing in western societies. This process is being accelerated through technology. If you are waiting for the mainstream media to finally get together for some mass-mea culpa or have one giant come to Jesus moment, then you ll just be waiting for Godot. No, instead of reigning itself in, they have constructed an elaborate straw man instead, which they are calling fake news. With the passage of the US presidential election, many thought that the fake news meme would die off. Instead, the Establishment is doubling down on it, in hysterical fashion.We re told that the real problem started because of an unlikely fake news cottage industry, supposedly run out of the Balkans, in a little Macedonian village called Velles (if we are to take The Guardian and BuzzFeed s word for it, anyway), where enterprising eastern European teens started pumping out countless fake news articles, making use major social media platforms to propel their articles. That s right, there was actual fake news circulating on Facebook, but calling it news is a bit of an overstatement. If one were to accurately label it, it would just be called junk.It was in late September that I first noticed all of these fake news posts pouring into nearly every Facebook news groups I subscribed to. I began collecting links from about 50 URLs in a vain attempt construct a database in order to work out where it was coming from, who was behind it, and what was the object of the exercise. At first thing I thought, how could anyone take any of these seriously? Everyone is used to junk on Facebook, but these were ridiculous. One of the silliest stories was this one: Hillary Clinton Buying Illegal Weapons Kremlin Reports. Granted, you d have to be a real fool to take articles like that seriously, and yet, this is what mainstream media and academia are doing. They have made these obviously bogus internet posts into the pretext for a centralized system of control, arbitrated by Facebook and others, with the remit of deciding a baseline for what is true and what is deemed as fake news.As it turns out, during the election cycle and every day since, the only people who took these stories seriously were the mainstream media and still disgruntled Clinton supporters both of whom are insisting, baselessly, that these spoof stories somehow swung the US election. Sure, there is a radical minority of short attention span web surfers and 3am Reddit junkies who would grab and run with these type of stories, but I would think that most normal people would have thought, What idiot would believe any of these. By November, my database of fake news and election news websites was approach 300. It became clear that new websites were being launched almost daily. These sites had a few things in common; all were over-loaded with Click Bait pop-up ads, and many of them carried malicious malware. Undoubtedly, the owners of these faux news sites had been raking-in a fortune in CMP ad revenues based on traffic that was not so much driven by genuine interest, but rather out of entertainment-based curiosity, and possibly a depraved desire to shock friends and loved ones with crazy online stories. The real damage was subtle by flooding social media with junk, they would rapidly push real independent news and alternative media articles down the page s timeline, and into cyber limbo.Qui bono? Certainly, the establishment media, watching their main competition real independent media outlets, drowning in a cesspool of internet flotsam and jetsam of fake Trump and Hillary articles. Just like those cheap Chinese knock-offs at your local flea market, someone aped the alternative media, devaluing and damaging it in the process. If only it had ended there On Nov 18, 2016, I woke up to an inbox full of friends and colleagues informing me that this website, 21stCenturyWire.com, had been featured in the L.A. Times expos on fake news the first major blacklist of fake news websites featured in the mainstream media entitled, Want to keep fake news out of your newsfeed? College professor creates list of sites to avoid. A number of these blacklists have appeared online for a number of years, but this was the first time such a list was given credence by a mainstream publication.The list was created by one Melissa Zimdars, an academic and radical progressive-liberal activist, who teaches media studies from Merrimack College in Massachusetts. The story was quickly syndicated all over the globe, including spinoff reports by CNN and The Guardian. Not surprisingly, the author of the article was another liberal activist, a journalist named Jessica Roy. Like Zimdars, Jessica Roy is a feminist activist, and had previously used her position as a mainstream journalist to produce hit pieces promoting a radical liberal social agenda. Both Roy and Zimdars appear to support many of the same causes and are pushing similar political campaigns on social media, and were likely committed Hillary Clinton supporters too. With that in mind, both Roy and Zimdars were probably very unhappy about 21WIRE s harsh criticism of Secretary Clinton s tenure as head of the US State Department under Obama from 2009-2013, and probably were not chuffed either that we called the establishment s official Russian Hack conspiracy theory a hoax during the presidential campaign. Both of those articles went viral in the week before the election.Many other excellent and reputable independent news sites were also on the list, but were intentionally placed alongside well-known satire websites, as well as with obvious poorly crafted fake news sites. I seriously wondered if Dr Zimdars, a professor in media studies, thought so little of her own students that they should require her professional guidance to tell them that the The Onion is not a real news site. She also lists other satirical websites like Britain s Private Eye on her list. Less than two days after the article appeared, Zimdars removed Private Eye from the list (probably after getting an email from their legal department). Here we can see she has thrown a variety of people into one giant basket (of deplorables), thus branding everyone with the same derogatory label of fake news or its progenitor, conspiracy theory. What s worse however, is that Merrimack College s Melissa Zimdars appears to have lifted her celebrated list from a wacky left-wing blog site who had haphazardly cobbled the original list together (no visible methodology as to the selection process) and which had been fermenting up online for quite some time, long before Dr Zimdars was elevated by the LA Times and CNN. Not exactly academic, but the culture cops don t seem to care.Regardless, one would hope that any conscientious professional would agree that Zimdars effort, or lack thereof, was a foolhardy attempt at passing off a politically-motivated virtual book burning list as a study. It would be unacceptable for any undergraduate, or graduate student, much less something submitted as course material by a professor. And, to think that her students would pay thousands of dollars in course fees for Dr. Zimdars to teach them how to surf the internet. Is the bar really that low? I can t help but wonder how many of those students also signed-up for Critical Thinking 101.Judging by the amount of right-wing websites on her list, it s clear this was a political hit piece. That was the intention of article author Jessica Roy, evidenced by the fact that she offered no specifics of why any of these sites were on the list, nor did she challenge Dr Zimdars. Whatever it was, it was not journalism.A few days later, after the article in question was published in the LA Times, the paper removed the PDF image of the list, stating fears and threats as the reason for its disappearance. Their editor issued this statement: The professor who created the list has taken down the Google doc. She said it was a safety measure in response to threats and harassment she and her students and colleagues had received. She is continuing to work on it and plans to release it in the future in a format other than a Google doc. It s hard to keep up with Dr Zimdars definitive guide to the internet because she has revised and changed so many times. Here is a version from January 2017:2017-DR ZIMDARS False, Misleading, Clickbait-y, and Satirical News Sources Google DocsSoon after, I contacted the LA Times, asking their editorial board for the right to reply in my own defense in their opinion section, citing my belief that Roy and Zimdars had created a politicized piece which was hardly fair and balanced, and was designed to slander and discredit all of the websites on their list. I finally received a reply from Larry Ingrassia at the LA Times. The paper s excuse for denying me a right of reply was weak and evasive. Ingrassia stated to me that:Ingrassia s claim that my website is not mentioned in the article was not true. In fact, 21stCenturyWire.com appeared at the very top of the list in the database table image of Zimdars list in the article. Just because it wasn t in the text of the article doesn t mean it wasn t still visible to millions of readers. Likewise, just because the LA Times had later removed the database table image from the article, and replaced it with a hyperlink to Zimdars Google Doc, is no excuse either because the list was up on the LA Times website, and was widely syndicated during that time.As it happened, I did email Dr Zimdars immediately after seeing Jessica Roy s LA Times article asking her why she had included my website on her list, and to cite any specific news articles which she thought were fake or conspiracy and asked her to please remove 21stCenturyWire.com from her list. Not surprisingly, she did not reply to my request. Perhaps she realized that every one of the thousands of articles on our website contain either secondary, or primary source, and include more reference links than you will find on most mainstream media reports. For an academic who purports to hold so many persons and their websites accountable for being fake news when confronted about her work, she acts aloof and completely unaccountable. This further proves the point that this was not a study, but rather an activist campaign, done on the Merrimack College s dime.My experience with the LA Times was a disappointing one seeing a paper running with a cheap politicized hit piece, and then being dismissive when asked for equal time on the issue. Such is the state of many leading American media institutions. If this is what passes for the Fourth Estate in today s America, then the country is in deep trouble.Mainstream TrollingA few days later, I was then contacted by one of the US mainstream media most established investigative news programs, NBC Dateline. It was clear from their correspondence that they wanted to draw me into another fake news hit piece. This is one of NBC Dateline s email to me:If was bad enough to be slandered by a major national news outlet, now I was being trolled by the country s largest broadcast TV network?My reply to NBC s Calabrese was long but polite, and at the end I simply asked her for specifics in other words, what exactly were these unconfirmed reports she was accusing 21st Century Wire of publishing? As a reporter for a major outlet like NBC, I should rightly assume that she might be able to provide me with some substance, and not just an ad hominem accusation. Here is part of my reply: Our content is not fake and anyone with a basic understanding of geopolitics and media should be able to tell that. Many people like our work, and many I am sure do not like it. But the content should speak for itself. If you find some articles on our site that you feel are Click Bait-y or fake news then let me know and I would be more than happy to help and discuss your findings. Just like with Dr. Zimdars, I received no reply from NBC. This led me to conclude that they were not at all interested in having a candid discussion about the state of the media today, a discussion I offered to have. But NBC wasn t looking for a real conversation on media. Maybe they were just looking for an easy mark, someone to set-up and frame in a expos on the scourge of fake news. Another drive-by, hit-and-run piece.This wasn t the first time. We ve had similar approaches before by the BBC and others, sometimes through a third party, and always looking to draw us into one of their discomfiting conspiracy features on their network.Whatever it is that NBC thought we did that warranted an NBC Dateline hit piece, surely it can t be any worse than NBC s disgraced anchorman Brian Williams, now widely regarded as a serial liar. If you expected the company would want to preserve some integrity by letting him go after that embarrassment, you d be wrong. The same with CNN, after it was revealed how many of their staff were colluding with the Clinton campaign. Was anyone fired? The only person they let go was Donna Brazile, who was only a contributor and not a real member of staff.This begs the question: are big mainstream media outlets really capable of policing themselves? The answer to that question might tell us why the mainstream media have a 14% approval rating according to a recent Gallop poll.Take the big network s Syria coverage for instance. What about its ridiculous coverage of the 7 year old human agit-prop Twitter sensation, Bana of Aleppo? What about NBC getting its reports exclusively from Nusra Front (al Qaeda in Syria) occupied East Aleppo, and then spreading exaggerated false claims of a complete meltdown of humanity when in reality the terrorist-held part of the city was being liberated by the Syrian government? Unlike NBC, a billion dollar media operation, little 21WIRE actually had journalists like Vanessa Beeley reporting from on the ground in Aleppo during this period. Unlike NBC, we were able to give our readers and listeners an accurate depiction of events although maybe not the pro-terrorist, or activist version of events which the western mainstream media have relied on through six years of war in Syria, consistently and conveniently feeding the mainstream media what it wanted a regime change narrative which was streamlined with US State Department, CIA and British Foreign Office policy. Did it ever occur to them that someone should go and talk to Aleppo s residents? It did to us. We figured the terrorists already had plenty of media coverage, what with NBC, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, BBC, Channel 4, the New York Times, The Guardian and others all in tow.These mainstream outlets would never give any any credit to 21WIRE and Vanessa Beeley for its coverage in Syria, no matter good the reporting is because we re not conveying the right narrative, which is the Establishment s narrative. In that sense, we out-performed the entire mainstream media on one of the biggest stories of the last five years the Liberation of Aleppo. Maybe that s why they are coming after us.Channelling McCarthy Clearly, the corporate mainstream media in America has attempted to blame Hillary Clinton s loss on fake news. Clinton herself called it an epidemic. Indeed, it is an epidemic, however the unwashed masses on the internet are not the source of that pandemic. They should be looking in the mirror for colluding behind the scenes with the Clinton campaign, first to kill-off the Bernie Sanders nomination, before colluding in the general election, too, thus betraying the fundamental principles of a Fourth Estate. As bad as those outlets appear to be, they almost pale in comparison to this next incident On November 24, 2016, The Washington Post descended deep into the lower detritus of the DC swamp. This piece of propaganda was simply breathtaking. The journalist who drew the short straw for this job was none other than Craig Timberg, who is also a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University. It sounds impressive, until you see his work.In his feature entitled, Russian propaganda effort helped spread fake news during election, Experts say, Timberg placed The Post into a leading role in waging a new McCarthy-style witch hunt, targeting hundreds of independent websites and blogs, most of them American, accusing them of being part of a giant Russian conspiracy to undermine American democracy on behalf of the Kremlin. Experts say ? Did they really? Only, in this case, Timberg would name his experts a cadre of secret sources operating under the anonymous collective brand of PropOrNot. We re told that these patriots had to protect their identity for fear of retribution from Putin s equally secret army of hackers. What was this, other than a propaganda piece run by The Post, one which could just as easily be classed as actual fake news. The flood of fake news this election season got support from a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign that created and spread misleading articles online with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy, say independent researchers who tracked the operation, wrote Timberg. Way back when, if a piece this bad managed to escape out into the public sphere, either the editor or the reporter would get the sack. No such luck here.Timberg s cloak and dagger source managed to slandered some 200 websites, including many well-established, popular alternative news outlets like AntiWar.com, Counterpunch, Information Clearing House, OpEd News, Activist Post, Global Research.ca, Oriental Review, Truth-Out, Truth Dig, Zero Hedge, Consortium News (run by award-winning investigative journalist Robert Parry), Ron Paul Institute (headed by former US Congressman and Presidential candidate, Dr Ron Paul)) and Paul Craig Roberts (former Cabinet member under President Reagan), to name only a few from PropOrNot s list of alleged Russian propaganda collaborators, in an attempt to reverse engineer a virtual conspiracy trying to link 200 popular alternative websites with a theoretical Russian plot. When you read the content on most of these websites, you can see a few common themes nearly all of them were highly critical of U.S. foreign policy under the last three US Administrations of Clinton, Bush and Obama. Most were also critical of Hillary Clinton s chequered record as Obama s Secretary of State. They also challenged the prevailing anti-Russian party line in Washington. Here, The Washington Post is channelling the spirit of Joe McCarthy by promoting a Blacklist of independent journalists and commentators. A political hit piece by The Post, that s all.Soon after the publication of Timberg s fictional feature, The Washington Post caved-in to pressure by critics, printing this retraction soon afterwards:Editor s Note: The Washington Post on Nov. 24 published a story on the work of four sets of researchers who have examined what they say are Russian propaganda efforts to undermine American democracy and interests. One of them was PropOrNot, a group that insists on public anonymity, which issued a report identifying more than 200 websites that, in its view, wittingly or unwittingly published or echoed Russian propaganda. A number of those sites have objected to being included on PropOrNot s list, and some of the sites, as well as others not on the list, have publicly challenged the group s methodology and conclusions. The Post, which did not name any of the sites, does not itself vouch for the validity of PropOrNot s findings regarding any individual media outlet, nor did the article purport to do so. Since publication of The Post s story, PropOrNot has removed some sites from its list.They must hold their readership in such utter contempt as to not care what people think about the paper. How sad. What kind of paper would run a gargantuan fake news story like that? Are they still a paper of record ?Here at 21WIRE, and unlike the Washington Post, we recognize that our readership is intelligent enough to spot what the LA Times and the Washington Post are serving up and calling news. Unlike the Washington Post, we are not trying to bury under endless column inches government-issued propaganda. Instead, we are trying to expose those lies of the mainstream s multibillion dollar consensus reality complex. Tune in, as each day this week we ll give you an original inside look into the inner workings of the mainstream media s fake news empire. Aside from showing you how to spot their lies, we ll also demonstrate how truly dangerous their propaganda mill truly is.By this time next week, we hope you ll be even a smarter media consumer. *** Author Patrick Henningsen is an international journalist and current affairs analyst, and executive editor of 21st Century Wire, as well as the host the SUNDAY WIRE radio show on Alternate Current Radio, and also host of Patrick Henningsen LIVE on Independent Talk 1100 KFNX AM in Phoenix. READ MORE ABOUT MSM FAKE NEWS AT: FAKE NEWS WEEKSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE NOW & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 0 |
8,565 | ADMIRAL JAMES “ACE” LYONS WARNS: What The Joint Chiefs Should Do To Stop The Transformation Of Our Military | Admiral Ace Lyons has warned us all before in a viral video about Obama and his transformation of our military. He s yet another great commentary on what s happened to us and what the Joint Chiefs should do The Joint Chiefs of Staff is the one institution that has the status to sound the alarm to warn the American public to stop the transformation of this great country and our military. Failure to do so would be a dereliction of duty. Admiral Lyons There is no question that America s worldwide leadership, power and influence have been significantly degraded over the last seven and a half years. The basic reason, regretfully, is that President Obama has been very successful in the implementation of his goal to fundamentally transform America. In so doing, he has undercut the Judeo-Christian foundation of this great country while at the same time promoting the advancement of Islam throughout our society including the U.S. military. Clearly, any thinking American understands that this transformation, at its core, is anti-American and anti-Western. Yet it is also pro-Islam, pro-Iranianand pro-Muslim Brotherhood. Compounding this travesty is Mr. Obama s decision to embrace our sworn enemies. Unbelievable.When you want to take a country down, first you neutralize its military capability. Craig Luther, who served as a civilian historian with the U.S. Air Force for nearly 30 years, addresses this treasonous situation in unmistakable terms in his April 22, 2016 Front Page magazine article. While he primarily discusses the evisceration of the U.S. Navy by Secretary Ray Mabus, Mr. Luther s article actually applies to all of the services. Mr. Obama s relentless transformation of the military while ignoring the instability and worldwide threats we face has not only been dangerous, it has jeopardized our national security. Our force levels have been diminished to levels not seen since prior to World War II. In the U.S. Navy s case, levels such as these have not been seen since World War I. This unilateral disarmament is being done under the guise of sequestration, an Obama administration initiative. Furthermore, the all-volunteer force is being decimated by forcing out tens of thousands of well-qualified male personnel under the guise of diversity.One of the first cultural norms attacked was to destroy the moral underpinnings of the military by the removal of the Don t Ask Don t Tell mandate. This has led to the forced acceptance of open homosexuality. It has had a clear negative impact on unit integrity, cohesiveness and retention. The propaganda statements by Secretary of Defense Ash Carter that this transformation has been a great success are nonsense! In 2014, there were over 10,000 reported unwarranted male-on-male advances. If the Mr. Carter thinks this is a great success, I d hate to see what he thinks failure looks like.Compounding this travesty is Mr. Carter s decision to allow transgender members of the military to serve openly starting this year. This is unconscionable. Dr. Paul McHugh, former head psychiatrist at John Hopkins, stated in a July 12, 2015 Wall Street Journal article that our policymakers are doing a disservice to the public (and certainly to the military) by treating transgender s confusion as a right rather than as a mental disorder that deserves understanding, treatment and prevention. He went on to state that this disorder should not be treated as a civil rights issue. Clearly, the military should not be burdened with this problem. In my view, embracing the LGBT agenda is a slow decline toward paganism.Because of Mr. Carter s vast military background obtained at the ivy-covered walls of Yale, he ignored countless studies and personally overruled the U.S. Marine Corps (as did Mr. Mabus), opening all combat roles to women including infantry, artillery, special forces and Navy Seals. All of these debilitating social engineering directives are being imposed by people who, for the most part, have never served in the military and never will. Furthermore, we don t want them to. This is all being done under the mantel of diversity. When you are dealing with the lives of military personnel and the security of the country, we must have the best and brightest. That used to be the standard. Nothing less should be acceptable.The multicultural makeover of our military threatens to undermine the very fabric of our military forces, and is being accelerated with no apparent opposition from our military or congressional leaders. This is due in part to the fact that one of the founding principles of the military s culture is that it is subjected to civilian control. This is as it should be. It highlights not only the importance, but the loyalty and high esteem that the military holds for the office of the president of the United States and his role as commander in chief. However, Mr. Obama has used the military s founding principle of civilian control to impose his debilitating directives which are destroying the military s warrior mentality and the will to win. As Mr. Luther stated, the objective appears to be that of a complete irreversible cultural transformation of our military.Clearly, when the presidential office has been corrupted by multiple unconstitutional acts and has issued directives that have neutralized our superior military capability (e.g., restrictive Rules of Engagement that have caused the unnecessary loss of thousands of military lives and permanent injuries), then our military leaders must take a position. Silence is acceptance. Those who remain silent are complicit with the transformation and destruction of our military forces. They are violating their oath of office.The Joint Chiefs of Staff is the one institution that has the status to sound the alarm to warn the American public to stop the transformation of this great country and our military. Failure to do so would be a dereliction of duty. James A. Lyons, a retired U.S. Navy admiral, was commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and senior U.S. military representative to the United Nations.Via: WT | 0 |
8,566 | China brushes off Vietnam protests over South China Sea drills | HANOI (Reuters) - China on Wednesday dismissed Vietnamese condemnation of its military live-fire exercises in the disputed South China Sea, saying it was acting within its sovereign rights. China conducted the drills around the Paracel Islands, which Vietnam claims, prompting Vietnam to say it would resolutely protect its legitimate rights through peaceful means. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a regular briefing that China had done nothing wrong. We hope the relevant side can regard the drills calmly and reasonably, he said, without elaborating. China claims nearly all the South China Sea, through which an estimated $3 trillion in international trade passes each year. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan also have claims. Tension between China and neighboring Vietnam is at its highest in three years over the disputed waters. Vietnam suspended oil drilling in offshore waters that are also claimed by China in July under pressure from Beijing. China has appeared uneasy at Vietnam s efforts to rally Southeast Asian countries over the South China Sea as well as at its growing defense relationships with the United States, Japan and India. | 1 |
8,567 | Cruz Ad Turns Trump Into A Creepy Doll Who ‘Pretends To Be A Republican’ (VIDEO) | Ted Cruz s latest ad just manipulated children to send a political message to voters.The latest campaign move for the Texas Senator is a big jab at his biggest GOP rival, Republican front-runner Donald Trump, who is portrayed in the ad as an action figure who pretends to be a Republican. In the 45-second spot, young boys are shown playing with a Trump doll, while stating that this action figure likes bailouts for the banks and donates to Democrats. The ad also features a Hillary Clinton doll, who gets paid by Trump to befriend him a reference to Trump s claim that Clinton attended his wedding because he donated to her Foundation.Toward the end of the ad, a large dollhouse gets ruined by the Trump doll, who says, I m going to take your house with eminent domain and park my limos there! right before destroying it. This particular part of the ad is a reminder that Trump once tried to level an elderly woman s Atlantic City home so he could turn it into a parking lot for limos.At the end of the ad, concerned parents see their children playing destructively with the Trump doll and the narrator asks viewers: We wouldn t tolerate these values in our children. Why would we want them in a president? You can watch the ad below:Cruz s latest ad might just be the candidate s rebuttal to Trump indirectly calling him a p*ssy at a recent rally, but this ad doesn t communicate anything that hasn t been said about Trump before. Although the use of children in a political ad was not a tasteful decision, the GOP has often criticized Trump for being a phony Republican and this ad just points his inconsistencies out in easier terms. Trump has a history of flip-flopping and holding more liberal values.Last week, Cruz beat Trump in the Iowa Caucuses, but Trump took the New Hampshire primary. This attack ad might be the first of many as the two will face off again on February 20th for the South Carolina primary.Featured image is a screenshot | 0 |
8,568 | UK counter-terrorism police arrest four, send in bomb disposal team | LONDON (Reuters) - An army bomb disposal team was sent to a house in northern England after police arrested four men on Tuesday on suspicion of planning acts of terrorism. Three men, aged 22, 36 and 41, were held after raids at their homes in Sheffield and a 31-year-old was detained at an address in nearby Chesterfield. The arrests were intelligence-led and pre-planned as part of an ongoing investigation by Counter Terrorism Policing North East and (domestic security agency) MI5, West Yorkshire Police said in a statement. They added: The public may have heard loud bangs at the time police entered the properties. We would like to reassure them that this was part of the method of entry to gain access. Police said the bomb disposal unit had been sent to the Chesterfield house and that nearby residents had been evacuated as a precaution. There were no details about what the men were suspected of planning. They are being questioned on suspicion of being concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. Britain has suffered five militant attacks so far this year, four of which led to loss of life, while security chiefs say another nine have been thwarted. The country remains on its second-highest threat level meaning an attack is considered highly likely. | 1 |
8,569 | Bahraini civil society group under pressure after Israel visit | DUBAI (Reuters) - A Bahraini civil society group has defended sending a delegation to Israel as a gesture of tolerance and coexistence, state news agency BNA has reported, after news of the visit sparked wide anger on social media. The visit came amid high emotions in the Arab world over U.S. President Donald Trump s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the U.S. Embassy there from Tel Aviv, a move that was widely condemned across the Arab world. The visit by 24 delegates from the group called This is Bahrain has prompted a hashtag #Bahrain_resists_normalisation, in which twitter users declaring their opposition to what some called an act of treason against Palestinians and Bahrainis. In a statement carried by state news agency BNA late on Sunday, the group said the visit was a private initiative to Israel and occupied Jerusalem comprising Bahrainis and expatriates of various faiths. The initiative by This is Bahrain is based on the principle of tolerance and coexistence, an approach embraced by the Kingdom of Bahrain and a feature of its society, and aims to visit Islamic, Christian, Jewish and other holy sites across the world, the group said. Most Arab countries see Israel as an occupier of Arab lands, and say any normalization of ties with the Jewish state must be in line with an Arab peace plan that calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. | 1 |
8,570 | meet the journalist facing years in jail for filming the tar sands pipeline protest in north dakota | experimental gm crops from dow chemical and dupont fail to repel pests
sunday october by ethan a huff staff writer tags herculex yield guard crop failures naturalnews the utter failure of geneticallymodified crops gmos is once again on full display this time with crop products made by companies other than the usual monsanto a novel variety of transgenic corn produced and marketed by both dow chemical corporation and dupont is not exactly working as claimed new reports indicate and agricultural experts are urging the chemical industry to immediately cease selling these failed products to farmersknown as herculex the synthetic corn in question contains a gene modification thats supposed to prevent a pest known as the western bean cutworm from destroying crops but so far the genetic alteration has done nothing to stop this worm which means farmers everywhere have been paying through their teeth for a technology that not only doesnt work but thats also proprietary and exceptionally costly especially when compared to nongmo and organic crops that are opensource and are not patented or owned by multinational corporationsa group of six entomologists published an open letter to the seed industry in a recent issue of purdue universitys pest crop newsletter calling on those involved to do the right thing and fess up to the fact that herculex doesnt work farmers will soon be gearing up to plant next years crops and they need to know that its best to look elsewhere for corn thats not going to result in massive yield reductionspeople are frustrated and angry and more importantly yield was lost the letter states before growers make seed choices for we again urge the seed industry to acknowledge the reality of what is happening in the field dupont quietly admits herculex doesnt work but refuses to take responsibility in typical corporate fashion the owners of herculex are refusing to take the letter seriously resorting instead to excuses and legal speak to try to explain away the gm crops failure rather than pull the herculex product from the market dupont according to bloomberg has instead decided to merely decreased its efficiency rating in the companys product use guide from very good to moderatedupont has also issued an accompanying statement urging farmers to add other inputs to try to control cutworms including spraying additional chemical insecticides in other words herculex doesnt actually work and duponts solution is to have farmers just go ahead and blast away with all those endocrinedisrupting cancercausing chemicals to kill anything and everything that might be living on or around the crop its basically the same advice that monsanto is giving to farmers who foolishly adopted a similar gm corn product known as yieldgard that was supposed to deter the western corn root worm the insecticidal proteins in this crop product just like the one in herculex known as cryf havent lived up to all the wild marketing claims and yet both monsanto and duponts products continue to be sold to farmerscryf has failed in our states the letter continues adding that the scientists involved have already received dozens of calls and emails about the problem from concerned farmers for growers in our states the costs of scouting and spraying cryf corn negates a major reason they purchased and planted a hybrid with the trait in the first placeif left to run their course western bean cutworms and western corn root rooms will effectively eat up all the corn kernels and leave the plant defenseless encouraging the growth of harmful fungi and mycotoxins and since none of what the chemical industry has proposed as a solution is working their only recommended option is to spray more glyphosate dicamba d and other chemicals on their products sources for this article include | 0 |
8,571 | BREAKING…NYC: Stunning Video Captures Hillary As She Appears To Be Convulsing Then Falling, Secret Service Forced To Lift Her Into Van | This IS NOT heat related. #HillarysHealth pic.twitter.com/PFNfCEVFrV John Cardillo (@johncardillo) September 11, 2016 | 0 |
8,572 | Pope arrives in Colombia on mission to promote peace | BOGOTA (Reuters) - Pope Francis arrived on a five-day trip to Colombia on Wednesday with the hope his presence will unite a nation deeply divided by a peace deal that ended a five-decade war with Marxist FARC rebels. An Alitalia flight carrying the Argentine pontiff landed at the Catam military air base in Bogota and will head to the Vatican Embassy after being greeted by President Juan Manuel Santos. | 1 |
8,573 | Yahoo scanning order unlikely to be made public: sources | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Obama administration officials briefed key congressional staffers last week about a secret court order to Yahoo Inc YHOO.O that prompted it to search all users’ incoming emails for a still undisclosed digital signature, but they remain reluctant to discuss the unusual case with a broader audience. Executive branch officials spoke to staff for members of the Senate and House of Representatives committees overseeing intelligence operations and the judiciary, according to people briefed on the events, which followed Reuters’ disclosure of the massive search.[nL2N1C601L] But attempts by other members of Congress and civil society groups to learn more about the Yahoo order are unlikely to meet with success anytime soon, because its details remain a sensitive national security matter, U.S. officials told Reuters. Release of any declassified version of the order is unlikely in the foreseeable future, the officials said. The decision to keep details of the order secret comes amid mounting pressure on the U.S. government to be more transparent about its data-collection activities ahead of a congressional deadline next year to reauthorize some foreign intelligence authorities. On Tuesday, more than 30 advocacy groups will send a letter to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper asking for declassification of the Yahoo order that led to the search of emails last year in pursuit of data matching a specific digital symbol. “We believe such a massive scan of the emails of millions of people, particularly if it involves the scanning of email content, could violate (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act), the Fourth Amendment, and international human rights law,” the coalition wrote in an advance draft of the letter that was shared with Reuters. The Center for Democracy & Technology, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Brennan Center, Human Rights Watch and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers are among the signatories. The groups say that Title I of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, under which sources said the order was issued, requires a finding that the target of such a wiretap is probably an agent of a foreign power and that the facility to be tapped is probably going to be used for a transmission. An entire service, such as Yahoo, has never publicly been considered to be a “facility” in such a case: instead, the word usually refers to a phone number or an email account. The groups also pressed Clapper, who has pledged to be more transparent in the wake of controversial spying revelations, to explain how much authority the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has to order technical assistance from technology companies. Reuters reported that Yahoo had installed a special program that was hidden inside a Linux kernel module on its mail servers, where security staffers found it. Representative Justin Amash, who does not sit on one of the relevant committees, recently asked that all of Congress be briefed, given the significance of any change in interpreting foreign intelligence laws. “The briefing should involve all members, because all members will within about a year have to vote on a significant part of FISA,” said Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy & Technology, which circulated Tuesday’s letter among free speech and privacy advocates. “They should know what occurred so that they can decide whether to outlaw it.” Also last week, Yahoo itself asked Clapper to declassify the secret order or at least describe it, so that the company could respond to news reports and criticism that it did not do more to protect its users’ communications. The American Civil Liberties Union meanwhile filed a motion in the surveillance court asking that the Yahoo order and other significant ruling going back a decade be unsealed. | 1 |
8,574 | EXCLUSIVE Post-Election, Liberal Meltdown Explained In One Hilarious Poem: “Ode To Liberal Lunacy” | If you re like me . . . it s probably been an entertaining year Full of liberal lunacy, hypocrisy, and fear. There s been so many episodes , it s easy to forget. Luckily, they ve all been logged upon the internet.The circus added one more ring when Donald got the nod To represent the GOP . . . the libs cried Oh my God. The media assured them there s no way that Trump could win So they sat back on their parent s couch, enamored by the spin.Election Day was coming . . . entertainment getting slow, Thank God the folks in Hollywood maintained the status quo. A host of A-list wannabes began to trickle forth, And told us that if Trump should win . . . they d all be headed north.When Donald passed two-seventy . . . and victory was at hand, A Trump-induced psychosis sprouted up in Liberal land. The fireworks were cancelled, and purveyors of fake news Were left to invent reasons why their candidate would lose.They blamed it all on Comey, then they blamed a Russian hack A dog that ate their homework, and of course . . . the men in black. A unicorn, a sasquatch, and a faulty Gallup Poll Next . . . they ll blame the shooter who was on the grassy knoll.Those celebs that promised egress . . . failed to adhere We waited for the moving trucks, which never did appear. Yes, not a star left Hollywood, although we wished it so, Despite the fact that Rush and Sean would pay for them to go.So now we re stuck with Miley, and we re stuck with Barbra too, Several washed-up actors . . . and the women of The View. We still have Maddow s meltdowns, and Sharpton s brand of hate. And, we still have Lena Dunham . . . though she s lost a little weight.In Congress, you can bet there s more than one defective gene. Just climb on board the crazy train with Nancy and Maxine. They often make me wonder just how awesome it would be, If parts of California could just slide into the sea.I m watching Liberal journalists like Cooper, Wolf, and Tapper, Spew the Leftist mantra . . . as their careers go down the crapper. Deplorables will have their fun with Liberal rank and file, Watching rats abandon ship when Clinton goes on trial.When Debbie left the DNC, I thought we d lost our clown. Then, from the state of Idaho, came Sally Boynton Brown. The DNC will be reborn, no matter what it takes. And the mix will look like cereal . . . with fruit loops, nuts, and flakes.Then, I saw the women s march, a feministic treat. I watched with fascination as they spilled into the street. Among the more disturbing sights were lady Democrats Who dressed up as vaginas . . . others wore their kitty hats.An incoherent Ashley Judd paraded round a stage Saying all those nasty women should demand a higher wage. Then ranting about blood-stained sheets upon those women s beds. Somewhere a doctor s wondering why he took her off her meds.Madonna parked her walker to begin her caustic din, Dreams of blowing up the Whitehouse as senility sets in. Even in her senior years . . . the party never ends. She dances round her nursing home in Vera Wang Depends.The Liberals, you must admit, have done some crazy things. It s fun to see them come unhinged as Donald pulls the strings. So, if you feel you need a shot of petulance and mirth, Sit back and watch the Liberals, it s the greatest show on earth. This poem (Ode to Liberal Lunacy) is republished here with permission and attribution to author Tony Olson About the Author: Tony Olson is an American journalist, and bestselling author. His book SPIN GAME: Exposing Political Lies And Tactics was an Amazon Top Ten Bestseller. Tony also authored the recent poem Twas The Night Before Inauguration. Tony currently lives in Boise, Idaho. | 0 |
8,575 | IF HILLARY AND BERNIE Are Counting On The Cuban Vote…They’re Making A BIG Mistake…Here’s Why… | The Cuban vote is a conservative vote so Hillary and Bernie might want to steer clear.Every election cycle, media outlets beg the question of whether Miami s Little Havana will finally sway Democrat. After spending an afternoon in south Florida s most famous Cuban neighborhood, the prospect once again seems unlikely.Ahead of Florida s primary, Little Havana s Cuban-Americans are enthusiastic about a local figure with similar life experience in Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla). But they still hold the value of a GOP nominee over any individual candidate.Brenda Betancourt, a notary public at the Calle Ocho Chamber of Commerce who paints on t-shirts and canvases in her spare time, told Independent Journal Review she voted early for Rubio, saying, we prefer somebody that we know than a stranger. She added that she has never once cast a vote for a Democrat because the party s platforms are counterintuitive to the American experience: I will not vote for either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. I don t think that giving everything away without the person working is in the American dream. I think everybody has to work and earn what they need. Read more: injo | 0 |
8,576 | Too early to say if new legislation needed for Brexit transition deal: PM May's spokeswoman | LONDON (Reuters) - Britain is not yet able to say if new legislation will be needed to implement a Brexit transition deal, Prime Minister Theresa May s spokeswoman said on Thursday, hours after a junior Brexit minister said the position was that it would be necessary. We are looking to negotiate and agree an implementation period, we will do whatever is required to implement that, but it s a bit early to say exactly what that would be because it will be determined by exactly how we negotiate, the spokeswoman said. | 1 |
8,577 | CNN’S CUOMO Gets Ripped Apart By Trump…Bravo! [Video] | Donald Trump was on a phone interview with CNN s Chris Cuomo and let him have it! Cuomo started out with a question about Trump attacking Hillary and Trump was livid. It s damn refreshing to see the left wing media get a shove. Bravo Trump! First of all you should congratulate me for having won the race. I thought, you know, at least there would be a small congratulations, but I m not surprised with CNN, because that s the way they treat Trump. It s the, you know, they call it the Clinton Network and I believe that. | 0 |
8,578 | Texas Republican Introduces Bill To Put Women In Prison For Having An Abortion | Women in Texas may have to literally fight for their freedom and their lives to make sure this Republican lawmaker doesn t get his way.During the presidential campaign in 2016, Donald Trump actually mentioned jail and stated that women should receive some form of punishment for having an abortion.Well, Texas GOP Rep. Tony Tinderholt has introduced House Bill 948, which would punish any woman for having an abortion with prison time. The legislation contains ZERO exceptions for rape victims, victims of incest, and women who have to have an abortion to save their lives.During an interview with the Texas Observer, Tinderholt claimed that women use abortion as a form of birth control and that they are not personally responsible when they choose to have sex. Right now, it s real easy, Tinderholt said. Right now, they don t make it important to be personally responsible because they know that they have a backup of oh, I can just go get an abortion. Now, we both know that consenting adults don t always think smartly sometimes. But consenting adults need to also consider the repercussions of the sexual relationship that they re gonna have, which is a child. Tinderholt went on to interject his religious beliefs as one of his reasons for writing the legislation, stating that women should be forced to carry pregnancies to term because he s a firm believer that God creates children in his own image, regardless of how that child is brought into the world, it s created in his image, and how can someone want to destroy that? The conservative lawmaker hopes to ban abortion by threatening women with the punishment of prison.Make no mistake, this is the most dangerous and extreme piece of anti-abortion legislation that has been filed across the nation and it would literally punish women for making decisions about their own reproductive health. The punishment could even extend to women who take birth control pills since many conservatives believe that contraceptives are a form of abortion, even though such medication prevents conception in the first place. It also could punish women who have natural miscarriages. The fact that Republicans even want to jail rape victims for refusing to carry their rapist s baby is also monstrous.And now we know why Tony Tinderholt has been divorced four times. Clearly, the women in his life can t stand him.Featured Image: Woman Survival | 0 |
8,579 | WOW: Republican NYT Columnist QUITS GOP, Rips Trump To Pieces In Must-Read Rant | A Republican New York Times writer just jumped ship from the GOP to become a Democrat because of Republican cowardice to unendorse Donald Trump.Josh Barro, who is also the senior editor at Business Insider, penned a column explaining why he switched parties and he did not hold back. The most important thing we have learned this year is that, when the Republican Party was hijacked by a dangerous fascist who threatens to destroy the institutions that make America great and free, most Republicans up and down the organizational chart stood behind him and insisted he ought to be president, Barro began before focusing on Republicans who support Trump despite how dangerous he is to our country.Specifically, he called out Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and House Speaker Paul Ryan for standing by Trump anyway for reasons of strategy, careerism, or cowardice. Referring to them as cowards and scoundrels, Barro points to these three as the primary reason he has left the party he grew up supporting. They are taking an action that risks the destruction of the American republic to advance their personal interests, Barro wrote. I can only conclude from the available evidence that they love their careers more than they love America. And they are why I quit the Republican Party this week. Barro explained that he has been a Republican for a long time because he didn t think it was ridiculous to be in a party that I disagreed with on a lot of national issues. He had hoped to help bring change to the Republican Party from within, to improve ideas at the margin in the long run. But what this election has made clear is that policy is not the most important problem with the Republican Party, Barro said.Indeed, Republicans are only really interested in power, which is why Republican leaders have thrown in their lot with Trump. They are hoping Trump will be a puppet who will pass all of their agenda, which would basically burn the government to the ground and usher in a completely ideologically pure conservative government.Barro went on to describe the fundamental vulnerability of the GOP.Because of the fact-free environment so many of its voters live in, and because of the anti-Democrat hysteria that had been willfully whipped up by so many of its politicians, it was possible for the party to be taken over by a fascist promising revenge.And because there are only two major parties in the United States, and either of the parties nominees can become president, such a vulnerability in the Republican Party constitutes a vulnerability in our democracy. I can t be a part of an organization that creates that kind of risk, Barro said.Considering part of the Republican agenda includes voter suppression and stripping civil rights away from women and minorities, Barro is spot on with his observation.He has also concluded that while moderate Republicans may try to wrestle the soul of the party back from the conspiracy nuts and proto-fascists that have taken it over, he believe they will fail and he refuses to stick around to watch. Barro is definitely not alone. Many Republicans have been jumping ship because of Donald Trump. And on Election Day, we will find out just exactly how much the Republican Party has been damaged by this exodus. Because if Trump loses by a landslide and down-ticket GOP candidates get their asses handed to them, it will be such a disaster for the party that they will have no choice. They will have to change or go extinct.Featured Image: baystateconservativenews.com | 0 |
8,580 | Syrian opposition says Russian jets kill civilians fleeing across Euphrates | AMMAN (Reuters) - Military jets believed to be Russian killed at least 60 civilians trying to flee heavy fighting in the oil rich Deir al Zor province of Syria when their small boats were targeted as they sought to cross the Euphrates River, opposition activists, former residents and a war monitor said late on Wednesday. They said the jets targeted makeshift rubber dinghies and boats carrying dozens of families fleeing the town of al Ashara along the western banks of the Euphrates that lies south of Deir al Zor city, the provincial capital. Islamic State s last major stronghold, the cities, towns and farms in the fertile strip along the Euphrates bordering Iraq are fast becoming the focus of Syria s six-year-long civil war. Russian jets staged a second wave of strikes on the boats that were fleeing across the river causing more casualties among those who rushed to rescue earlier survivors, said Abdullah al Akaidat, a tribal figure in northern Syria from Al Ashara who is in contact with relatives in the area. Russia is throwing military weight behind the Syrian army campaign s to regain the province bordering Iraq, racing with U.S- backed forces to grab territory from Islamic State. U.S. coalition jets last year destroyed bridges that linked villages on the northeast of the Euphrates river with towns on the opposite bank. Although the goal was to cut militant supply lines, it forced people to use ferries to cross the river and its tributaries and ruptured a major lifeline for civilians, raising prices of goods and food. Fifteen civilians were killed in air strikes during the last 24 hours on the town of al Quriya, just further north of the town of Ashara along the river, said former residents in touch with relatives. Thousands of residents of the eastern province are fleeing war-torn zones to the safety of towns that have escaped relatively unscathed from the relentless fighting. The Russians built a bridge across the Euphrates near Deir Zor city to move troops and equipment. The militants waged a surprise counter offensive and claimed to have killed dozens of Syrian troops, Russian ground troops and Iranian-backed fighters. They regained some territory back. Islamic State released a video on Tuesday of two injured men it claimed were Russian soldiers captured in Deir al Zor province. Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the tape. The Syrian army is seeking to advance toward Mayadeen, a city in the province 44 km southeast of Deir Zor, where the river flows through it. Mayadeen is a major Islamic State stronghold that has also been targeted by the U.S.-led coalition which had earlier this year also increased bombing of the group in cities and towns along the Euphrates valley. Relentless airstrikes by Russian jets in Deir al Zor province have intensified in recent days according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The war monitor documented the death of at least 185 civilians, including at least 45 woman and children, in five days of aerial strikes. Russia rejects opposition and human rights groups accusations that the bombing campaign has killed thousands of civilians since its major intervention two years ago that turned the tide in favor of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Scores of hospitals and civil defense centers have been bombed in what the opposition said is a scorched earth policy to paralyze life in rebel-held areas. Moscow says it only attacks hardline Islamists. | 1 |
8,581 | POCAHONTAS CALLS Trump’s Comments To Dem Senator Gillibrand “Slut-Shaming”…So Why Didn’t She Call Trump’s Comments About Romney During The Campaign “Slut-Shaming”? [VIDEO] | How quickly the Democrats and their allies in the media forget, that when the bear is poked, he fights back. Donald Trump has never been shy about punching back when he s being unfairly attacked, and Democrat Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) is no exception. When she came after President Trump for allegations made by women for alleged sexual misconduct by then candidate-Trump, suggesting he should resign, Trump reminded everyone of how Gillibrand came to Trump, the former billionaire NYC business tycoon, begging him for campaign contributions.Here is Gillibrand s tweet calling for President Trump to either resign or threatening that Congress should investigate decades-old unfounded claims of sexual misconduct:President Trump should resign. But, of course, he won't hold himself accountable. Therefore, Congress should investigate the multiple sexual harassment and assault allegations against him. Kirsten Gillibrand (@SenGillibrand) December 11, 2017Donald Trump responded: Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a total flunky for Chuck Schumer and someone who would come to my office begging for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them), is now in the ring fighting against Trump. Very disloyal to Bill & Crooked-USED! Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a total flunky for Chuck Schumer and someone who would come to my office begging for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them), is now in the ring fighting against Trump. Very disloyal to Bill & Crooked-USED! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 12, 2017Fake Indian Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MS) took to Twitter in an attempt to shame President Trump. Here is the tweet by the female Senator who is more commonly known as Pocahontas :Are you really trying to bully, intimidate and slut-shame @SenGillibrand? Do you know who you're picking a fight with? Good luck with that, @realDonaldTrump. Nevertheless, #shepersisted. https://t.co/mYJtBZfxiu Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) December 12, 2017Clearly Senator s Warren and Gillibrand never saw Trump attacking Mitt Romney during the campaign, otherwise, they surely would have tweeted about Trump slut-shaming him right?Watch:Donald Trump on Mitt Romney: "He was begging for my endorsement. I could have said, 'Mitt, drop to your knees.' He would have dropped to his knees."Was Trump sexually harassing/slut shaming Romney?No, this type of language is a part of Trump's vernacular. pic.twitter.com/DwwOYCGljJ Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) December 12, 2017When Trump attacked Romney during the campaign, the Business Insider reported about the incident:GOP frontrunner Donald Trump responded to Mitt Romney s broadside on Thursday by saying that the former Republican presidential candidate had begged for his endorsement. He was begging for my endorsement, Trump said at a rally later in Portland, Maine. I could ve said, Mitt, drop to your knees. He was begging me, Trump said.Trump was referring to the 2012 race for president in which Romney, the GOP nominee that year, sought Trump s endorsement.But if they were friendly four years ago, that relationship has clearly deteriorated.Earlier Thursday, Romney gave a speech in which he railed against Trump, whom he called a fraud, con man, phony, and fake, among other things. His promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University, Romney jabbed. He s playing the American public for suckers. He gets a free ride to the White House, and all we get is a lousy hat. Throughout Trump s subsequent speech in Maine, the real-estate developer repeatedly and extensively lashed back out at Romney. Mitt is a failed candidate he failed badly, Trump said. That is a race that should have been won. He repeatedly called Romney a choke artist throughout the speech, an insult he s used against Marco Rubio, a top Trump rival for the 2016 nomination. He s a choke artist, I started hitting him so hard, Trump said. We can t take another loss. He choked, he choked like nobody I ve ever seen except for Rubio, he continued.At other points in his speech, Trump called Romney a disaster candidate in 2012. The billionaire businessman then mentioned a fundraiser he held for Romney that ruined his carpet. Trump said Romney did not compensate him for the damages Senator Gillibrand was clearly not above cozying up to sexual predators for contributions or for leveraging their political clout. This Twitter user posted a picture of Gillibrand with Harvey Weinstein, the most notorious sexual predator in Hollywood:Senator Gillibrand is also a close friend of Harvey Weinstein. So much for being a strong feminist ally. pic.twitter.com/eXNO0iZSBx DEPLORABLE MEDIA (@correctthemedia) December 12, 2017And here s Gillibrand posing with former President Bill Clinton the accused rapist and sexual assaulter, who was impeached for lying about having sex under the Oval Office desk with a 19-year old intern: | 0 |
8,582 | us undermining daesh fight to get footing in syria | politics us democratic presidential nominee hillary clinton listens as senator bernie sanders ivt speaks during an event at university of new hampshire september in durham new hampshire photo by afp
former us democratic presidential candidate senator bernie sanders has denounced republican nominee donald trump as a political coward over a voter suppression report
sanders condemned trump after a report that the republicans presidential campaign has three voter suppression drives intended to lower turnout for hillary clinton the democratic presidential nominee and to help trump winning the white house
anybody who is suppressing the vote because they know that those people will vote against them is a political coward the vermont senator tweeted
if you dont have the guts to run for office on your ideas realdonaldtrump then you shouldnt run for office at all he said in another tweet
a senior adviser to trump acknowledged in an interview with bloomberg businessweek that the republican team has three major voter suppression operations underway
sanders a former primary rival of clinton suspended his campaign in july and endorsed the former secretary of state despite leaked emails that showed top officials at the democratic national committee dnc privately planned to undermine sanderss presidential campaign
sanders had earlier said that he would not endorse clinton for president until they meet and he could measure her commitment to combating wealth inequality and other issues that powered his presidential campaign
sanders emphasis on us income inequality and the influence of corporate money on elections and the government helped him attract millions of voters to his campaign loading | 1 |
8,583 | LAWLESS FEDS REFUSE To Hand Over Communications On Global Warming Junk Science To Republicans | Oh, this is so ridiculous and so bogus that the intimidated researchers aren t handing over research documents and communications to the Republicans. If they want to preserve the integrity of the scientific process then they should be open and honest. Being secretive about results of research just shows the global warming scam is junk science they re trying to keep under wraps. The federal government s chief climate research agency is refusing to give House Republicans the detailed information they want on a controversial study on climate change. Citing confidentiality concerns and the integrity of the scientific process, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said it won t give Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) the research documents he subpoenaed. At the center of the controversy is a study that concluded there has not been a 15-year pause in global warming. Some NOAA scientists contributed to the report. Skeptics of climate change, including Smith, have cited the pause to insist that increased greenhouse gas emissions, mostly from burning fossil fuels, are not heating up the globe. Smith, the chairman of the House Science Committee, vehemently disagreed with the study s findings. He issued a subpoena for communications among the scientists and some data, leading to charges from Democrats that he was trying to intimidate the researchers. Late Tuesday, NOAA provided Smith with some more information about its methods and data but refused to give Smith everything he wanted. NOAA spokeswoman Ciaran Clayton said the internal communications are confidential and not related to what Smith is trying to find out. More recently, a famous physicist came out against the global warming scam: WOW! WORLD S TOP PHYSICIST AND DEMOCRAT: Obama Backs Wrong Side In War On Climate Change , Follow The Money, Carbon Does Far More Good Than Harm Dr.Freeman Dyson, himself a longstanding Democrat voter, is especially disappointed by his chosen party s unscientific stance on the climate change issue. It s very sad that in this country, political opinion parted [people s views on climate change]. I m 100 per cent Democrat myself, and I like Obama. But he took the wrong side on this issue, and the Republicans took the right side. Part of the problem, he says, is the Democrats conflation of pollution (a genuine problem) with climate change (a natural phenomenon quite beyond mankind s ability to control). Via: Gateway Pundit | 0 |
8,584 | Obama says Clinton never jeopardized national security in email case: Fox | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton never jeopardized national security in the handling of her emails as his secretary of state. Obama, in an interview broadcast on Fox News Sunday, said Clinton has recognized a carelessness on the email issue in which she used a private server for government business. “But I also think it is important to keep this in perspective,” Obama said. “This is somebody who has served her country for four years as secretary of state, and did an outstanding job.” Clinton, secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, has said her email arrangement broke no rules and that she will be vindicated in investigations of whether any laws were broken. The government forbids sending or storing classified information outside secure, government-controlled channels. The FBI has taken the server and is investigating the case with U.S. Justice Department attorneys. At least two Republican-led congressional committees are also investigating. The Democratic president was asked if the Justice Department investigation would treat the Clinton case impartially. “I guarantee that there is no political influence in any investigation conducted by the Justice Department, or the FBI, not just in this case, but in any case,” said Obama, who leaves office next year. “Guaranteed. Full stop. Nobody gets treated differently when it comes to the Justice Department. Because nobody is above the law,” he said. The State Department said this month it has suspended plans for an internal review of whether classified information was properly handled in Clinton’s emails at the request of the FBI. The department, complying with a judge’s order, has released more than 52,000 emails from Clinton’s private server. Republican rivals in the battle for the Nov. 8 presidential election have cited the email controversy in saying Clinton is unfit for the presidency. | 1 |
8,585 | FBI Agents Destroy Donald Trump After He Attacks The Agency And James Comey | Donald Trump went on quite a tweetstorm this morning, lashing out former Director of the FBI James Comey and the agency. Trump is losing his sh*t after his former national security adviser flipped in the investigation into any possible collusion between his campaign and Russia. On his former FBI Director, Trump called him a liar, writing, I never asked Comey to stop investigating Flynn. Just more Fake News covering another Comey lie! Then he claimed his FBI is the worst in History! and said it was in tatters. After years of Comey, with the phony and dishonest Clinton investigation (and more), running the FBI, its reputation is in Tatters worst in History! he wrote. But fear not, we will bring it back to greatness. After years of Comey, with the phony and dishonest Clinton investigation (and more), running the FBI, its reputation is in Tatters worst in History! But fear not, we will bring it back to greatness. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 3, 2017That tweet prompted a statement from the President of the FBI Agents Association in a series of tweets. Every day, FBI Special Agents put their lives on the line to protect the American public from national security and criminal threats, FBIAA President Thomas O Connor wrote. Agents perform these duties with unwavering integrity and professionalism and a focus on complying with the law and the Constitution. This is why the FBI continues to be the premier law enforcement agency in the world, he continued. FBI Agents are dedicated to their mission; suggesting otherwise is simply false. James Comey also weighed in. I want the American people to know this truth: The FBI is honest. The FBI is strong. And the FBI is, and always will be, independent. Me (June 8, 2017) pic.twitter.com/OZ1ZiBrMNL James Comey (@Comey) December 3, 2017Former President Barack Obama s Attorney General Eric Holder also took a shot at Trump s tweets. Nope. Not letting this go. The FBI s reputation is not in tatters, Holder tweeted. It s composed of the same dedicated men and women who have always worked there and who do a great, apolitical job. You ll find integrity and honesty at FBI headquarters and not at 1600 Penn Ave right now. Nope. Not letting this go. The FBI s reputation is not in tatters . It s composed of the same dedicated men and women who have always worked there and who do a great, apolitical job. You ll find integrity and honesty at FBI headquarters and not at 1600 Penn Ave right now Eric Holder (@EricHolder) December 3, 2017What the FBI agents are saying is that Donald Trump is fake news.Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images. | 0 |
8,586 | Trump says he will back away from business to focus on White House | NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump vowed on Wednesday to step back from running his global business empire to avoid conflicts of interest but gave few immediate details as concern over his dual role mounts ahead of his Jan. 20 inauguration. Trump, a real estate magnate who owns hotels and golf resorts from Panama to Scotland, said he would spell out at a Dec. 15 news conference how he will separate himself “in total” from his worldwide business holdings, which include a winery, modeling agency and a range of other businesses. After Trump won the Nov. 8 election, his company, the Trump Organization, had said it was looking at new business structures with the goal of transferring control to Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump - three of his adult children who are involved with the company. Trump gave few details in a series of early morning tweets but said that “legal documents are being crafted which take me completely out of business operations” and that his children would attend the news conference. He did not say what the planned change might mean for ownership of his businesses. Although Trump’s fellow Republicans generally take a more laissez faire stance toward business than Democrats, the president-elect will travel to Indiana on Thursday to formally announce a deal he reached with United Technologies Corp to keep close to 1,000 jobs at its Carrier Corp air conditioner plant in Indianapolis rather than have them moved to Mexico. Trump and his running mate, Mike Pence, the governor of Indiana, railed against Carrier on the campaign trail, using the company’s outsourcing move as an example of how trade agreements hurt American workers. Critics have raised questions about the role of Trump’s children, who are on the executive committee of his White House transition team. His daughter Ivanka joined a telephone call her father had with Argentine President Mauricio Macri earlier this month and attended a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, creating concerns about possible conflicts of interest. A brand name around the globe, Trump previously argued he had no need to separate himself from the Trump Organization, which includes a hotel down the street from the White House, a Manhattan tower where he lives and is running his transition to office, and a New Jersey golf course where he interviewed Cabinet candidates earlier this month. Trump said on Wednesday he was not required by law to alter his relationship with his business, but added: “I feel it is visually important, as president, to in no way have a conflict of interest with my various businesses.” As the Republican heads toward taking over the White House from Democratic President Barack Obama, scrutiny of potential conflicts has grown. Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill called for hearings on the issue. Rules on conflict of interest for executive branch employees do not apply to the president, but Trump will be bound by bribery laws, disclosure rules and the U.S. Constitution, which bars elected officials from taking gifts from foreign governments. The nonpartisan Office of Government Ethics, a government office that oversees ethics programs for the executive branch, issued a statement saying it applauded Trump’s aims and appearing to suggest that he completely shed his holdings. “Divestiture resolves conflicts of interest in a way that transferring control does not,” it said. Richard Painter, who served as the chief ethics lawyer to former Republican President George W. Bush, concurred. “He needs to sell the businesses not just have someone else manage them for him,” Painter, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, said in an emailed comment. Trump, a former reality TV star, has spent much of the past few weeks setting up his Cabinet and interviewing candidates for top jobs in his administration. On Wednesday, Trump said he would nominate his chief campaign fundraiser, Steven Mnuchin, to lead the U.S. Treasury. Mnuchin said the administration would make tax reform and trade pact overhauls top priorities as it seeks a sustained pace of 3 percent to 4 percent economic growth. Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs banker, also signaled a desire to remove U.S. mortgage-finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from government ownership, a move that could have wide-ranging ramifications for how Americans pay for their homes, and said banking regulations should be eased to spur lending. Trump named Wilbur Ross, a billionaire known for his investments in distressed industries, as his nominee for commerce secretary. Both nominees will require confirmation by the U.S. Senate. Trump is also considering Goldman Sachs President and Chief Operating Officer Gary Cohn, a former commodities trader, to head his White House budget office or to fill another position, a Trump transition official said. The economic picks were praised by the Business Roundtable, a group that represents America’s largest corporations. But U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren called Mnuchin “just another Wall Street insider.” “That is not the type of change that Donald Trump promised to bring to Washington - that is hypocrisy at its worst,” Sanders, a Vermont independent who ran for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, and Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, said in a joint statement. Trump pledged during his campaign to “drain the swamp” in Washington. A spokesman said giving top economic jobs to Wall Street figures was not inconsistent with that vow. “You want some people that are insiders and understand the system and some outsiders that are creative thinkers, out-of-the-box thinkers and disruptors,” said Anthony Scaramucci, an asset manager who is on Trump’s transition committee. Trump is also working to fill out his foreign policy team, but no decision appeared imminent on who the next secretary of state would be. | 1 |
8,587 | RNC Chair’s Comment Reveals Why Republicans May Never Turn On Trump | You almost have to feel sorry for Republicans (almost). They find themselves between a really unpopular president and a party that only rewards those who are perfectly loyal to Dear Orange Leader.Ronna Romney McDaniel, the current head of the Republican National Committee and niece of the last Republican presidential loser, Mitt Romney, says that not supporting Donald Trump should be a cautionary tale for any Republican that ever hopes to win another election.On CNN s Laura Ingraham Show, McDaniel tried to pretend that the RNC stays out of primaries, but that GOP Sen. Jeff Flake was sure to lose because, unlike the toy brown-shirted robots in Congress, he refused to march (at least on paper) to Trump s xenophobic (and generally everything phobic) message.Flake wrote a book called Conscience of a Conservative: A Rejection of Destructive Politics and a Return to Principle, a title he only partly stole from Barry Goldwater.Flake dared take on Trump and his own party, saying that Trump is a symptom of a dying party. But make no mistake, as a governing philosophy, conservatism is indeed in crisis and not in spite of this apparent success but because of it, later blasting self-described conservatives for changing their political stripes depending on fashion or the passions of the day or based on how much applause a line in a speech received at a rally. We have given in to the politics of anger the belief that riling up the base can make up for failed attempts to broaden the electorate, Flake writes. These are the spasms of a dying party. Source: NPRNow the party is pissed. McDaniel fell short of threatening Flake, but the implication was clear as day if Republicans don t support Trump, they will likely lose. They need to have another candidate that they supported and the three RNC members that have to agree on that other candidate for rule 11 to apply, but it is in their bylaws, McDaniel said. It s just interesting from a party standpoint, we do have governance. We have 168 members that they make those decisions. Sometimes you get in the nitty gritty, but I will say if you look at 2016, the senators that did not support the President, and let s look at Joe Heck and Kelly Ayotte, they fell short in those Senate races, so there is a cautionary tale there because voters want you to support the President in his agenda. Source: CNNWe should note that Flake votes with Trump 93.5 percent of the time. I guess his conscience is that of a man who wants to sell books.McDaniel, of course, neglects to mention that during the election, Trump s approval ratings were sort of close to 50 percent. Now, he s below 40 percent. Between his inability to negotiate deals of any kind and his efforts to take health insurance away from his own base, people are beginning to turn on him. It s not the same political climate as it was just a few months ago, so seeing the 2016 election as a cautionary tale for anything (other than letting Russians interfere) is pretty much moot.What this does say, though, is that Republicans aren t going to be turning on Trump anytime soon and that impeachment will be an uphill battle, at least if they want the support of their party, which of course, is more important than their country.Featured image via Mark Wilson/Getty Images | 0 |
8,588 | THOUSANDS OF TEA PARTY TARGETING EMAILS FOUND: Judicial Watch President: “Corruption at the IRS is astounding” | REMEMBER BECKY GERRITSON FROM THE WETUMPKA ALABAMA TEA PARTY? Her testimony about being targeted is riveting!The Internal Revenue Service has located 6,924 documents potentially related to the targeting of Tea Party conservatives, two years after the group Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for them.The watchdog group intended to find records regarding how the IRS selected individuals and organizations for audits that were requesting nonprofit tax status.The agency will not say when it will make the documents available to the public Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, is calling on President Trump to clean house at the agency. The corruption at the IRS is astounding, Fitton said in a statement. Our attorneys knew that there were more records to be searched but the Obama IRS ignored this issue for years. President Trump needs to clean house at the IRS as quickly as possible. The government released names of 426 organizations. Another 40 were not released as part of the list because they had already opted out of being part of the class-action suit.That total is much higher than the 298 groups the IRS inspector general identified back in May 2013, when investigators first revealed the agency had been subjecting applications to long potentially illegal delays, and forcing them to answer intrusive questions about their activities. Tea party and conservative groups said they was the target of unusually heavy investigations and longer delays.Read more: WFBRead more: The Washington Times | 0 |
8,589 | China says not devaluing yuan, urges U.S. cooperation as Xi prepares to meet Trump | BEIJING (Reuters) - China called on the United States to play its part in resolving trade frictions between the two countries, and said Beijing isn’t devaluing its currency to boost exports as tensions simmered ahead of President Xi Jinping’s first meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump set the tone for what could be a tense meeting at his Mar-a-Lago retreat next week by tweeting on Thursday that the United States could no longer tolerate massive trade deficits and job losses. The leaders of the world’s two largest economies are scheduled to meet next Thursday and Friday for the first time since Trump assumed office on Jan. 20. In Thursday’s tweet, Trump said the highly anticipated meeting, which is also expected to cover differences over North Korea and China’s strategic ambitions in the South China Sea, “will be a very difficult one.” Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang acknowledged there was a trade imbalance, but said this was mostly due to differences in their two economic structures and noted that China had a trade deficit in services. “China does not deliberately seek a trade surplus. We also have no intention of carrying out competitive currency devaluation to stimulate exports. This is not our policy,” Zheng told a briefing about the Xi-Trump meeting. The yuan fell 6.5 percent last year in its biggest annual loss against the dollar since 1994, knocked by pressure from sluggish economic growth and a broadly strong U.S. currency. China’s last one-off currency devaluation, a 2 percent move in August 2015, shocked global markets and was widely viewed by traders and economists as a failure. Trump has frequently accused China of keeping its currency artificially low against the dollar to make Chinese exports cheaper, and “stealing” American manufacturing jobs. While he resisted acting on a campaign promise to declare China a currency manipulator on his first day in office, tensions have persisted over how the Trump administration’s China policy would evolve. Zheng said domestic consumption in China will increase as it pursues economic reforms, helping to raise demand for foreign goods and services, including those from the United States. “This also helps ameliorate the trade imbalance between China and the United States,” he said. Chinese investment in the U.S. is also rising, creating more employment opportunities, Zheng said, adding that Beijing is willing to work with Washington to promote more balanced trade between the two countries. He said the trade imbalance can be resolved by improved cooperation, and urged Washington to lift restrictions on civilian technology exports to China and create better conditions for Chinese investment in the United States. Referring to protracted negotiations on a U.S.-China Bilateral Investment Treaty given disagreements about access to sectors the sides deem sensitive, Zheng said China remained committed to seeking solutions through dialog. Nonetheless, the United States had to do play its part too, he said. “China can expand imports from the United States. The United States should take steps to promote exports to China,” Zheng said. “As long as both sides broaden their thinking, take positive moves, both countries can do a lot in the trade and business sphere, and can achieve mutually beneficial, win-win results.” | 1 |
8,590 | Trump’s Ban Just Sentenced Two Christian Syrian Refugee Families To Persecution And Possible Death | Donald Trump claimed that his ban would make America safe while favoring Christian refugees. He lied.On Sunday, Trump defended an executive order banning refugees from seven nations from entering the United States by claiming that it won t affect Christians.Christians in the Middle-East have been executed in large numbers. We cannot allow this horror to continue! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 29, 2017Well, two Christian families are about to experience that horror despite almost stepping safely on American soil.According to NBC10, two Syrian families whose flight landed in Philadelphia were denied entry into the country and placed on a plane back to Syria despite being Christians and having family waiting for them at the airport.Two brothers and their wives and children fled Syria due to the war, persecution, and suffering taking place in the Middle Eastern nation. They have been working to come live in America for quite some time and it took months to go through the process of obtaining visas to get the opportunity to come here. Their travel plans had been set months in advance and they were looking forward to living in peace and making better lives for themselves in our land of opportunity.Pennsylvania resident and family member Joseph Assali called the situation a nightmare. This is like a nightmare come true, Assali said. They re all Christian citizens and the executive order was supposed to protect Christians fleeing persecution. But it turns out Trump s order doesn t just affect Muslims, but anyone who seeks refuge from the seven countries on the list, even Christians Trump promised would not be turned away. They came as legal immigrants and were going to try sorting things out while they re here, Assali continued, going on to state that his family members intended to become American citizens.But now they are on their way back to Syria, where they face persecution and possible death because of Donald Trump s bigotry and hatred.Here s the video via NBC10.Trump s order has caused and heartache around the world as families live in fear wondering if they will ever see their loved ones again. People are being detained at airports across the country or blocked from getting on planes just because they happen to be Muslim or from one of the countries on the list. People who have green cards are being affected and now even Christians are being punished by the order.But regardless of religion, any refugee should be granted asylum in this country. We are supposed to be a humanitarian nation, but by signing this ban, Trump turned against our values and gave terrorist organizations propaganda to use for recruitment. Trump is destroying the lives of millions of innocent people with this executive order and he needs to be stopped before he destroys our nation and everything we hold dear.Featured image via Andrew Harrer-Pool/Getty Images | 0 |
8,591 | WOW! REMEMBER WHEN MEDIA SAID TRUMP Mocked Disabled Reporter? Here’s PROOF They LIED! [VIDEO] | Kudos to Catholics4Trump for providing evidence that the story Hillary and her comrades in the media have been telling American voters for months about Trump mocking a disabled man was nothing more than an opportunity for them to fabricate a story about Trump, in hopes of making him look like an awful human being. Meanwhile, it accomplished what they had hoped for. It took the focus off Hillary and her corrupt and dangerous behavior as our Secretary of State and helped to diminish Trump in the eyes of many Americans. But here s the proof they were lying:At the Democratic National Convention speakers repeated the claim, amplified ad nauseam by the left and establishment GOP opponents over the past year, that Donald Trump mocked the disability of New York Times reporter, Serge Kovaleski. This accusation has served as a very convenient tool to both smear Trump s character and to avoid having to confront him on substantive political issues. But is it true? Here is the story the media is not telling you.It all started on November 21, 2015 when, at a rally, Trump said he remembered seeing reports of Arab Americans celebrating the 9/11 terror attacks on rooftops in New Jersey shortly after the twin towers fell. As he told George Stephanopolous in an interview the next day on ABC s This Week :Stephanopolous and all of the major news outlets immediately denied the existence of any such news reports following 9/11. One paper, the Washington Post, even went so far as to write a detailed article claiming to fact check Mr. Trump. After an exhaustive review, the Post lectured that there was absolutely no evidence of Trump s claim and deemed it false.Imagine the Washington Post s surprise when Trump uncovered one of the Washington Post s own reporters, Serge Kovaleski, supporting the claim in an article Kovaleski wrote for them on September 18, 2001. Kovaleski wrote:Very embarrassing for the media, especially the Washington Post which had done such a great job scouring news reports after 9/11 that they missed their very own story on the subject. It was in this state of embarrassment that the media was desperate to distract from the matter. The Washington Post ended up finding Kovaleski, now writing for the New York Times, so he could do damage control. Kovaleski predictably tried to backtrack from his 2001 account saying he didn t remember the details:Enter Donald Trump s rally in South Carolina soon thereafter. During the rally Trump pointed all of this out and paraphrased Kovaleski s backtracking as he impersonated a groveling reporter changing his story under pressure. While he did this, Trump moved his hands around quickly, acting flustered.Soon thereafter, the media revealed still photos of Kovaleski with his right hand in a permanently flexed position downward announcing that he was disabled. The media then shifted from trying to defend their oversight of the 9/11 Post article and instead, with disapproving shocked outrage, accused Trump of mocking a reporter s disability. Some liberals went even further and freeze-framed a millisecond of the Trump video at the exact moment when his hand went into a flexed posture. Then they dishonestly put this screen capture side by side with a picture of Kovaleski s flexed hand. Thus, you saw the following photo spread like wildfire over social media with commentary condescendingly and horrifyingly excoriating trump as a monster:The media s clear implication was that Trump was mocking the way Kovaleski moved his arms. People watching the clip of Trump s impersonation only knew that Kovaleski was disabled. Thus, they naturally assumed Kovaleski s disability must be similar to cerebral palsy where he has limited control of his movements and is prone to have muscle spasms or move his arms in jerky motions as Trump was doing at the rally. This is precisely the image the media wanted in people s minds. They wanted this to be the story: that Donald Trump knowingly and intentionally mocked the flailing arm motions of someone who can t control his muscles. They knew this would naturally trigger a visceral reaction of disgust from viewers and outrage amongst the disabled and all decent Americans, many of whom, to this day, think this is exactly what happened. Is it?What the media did not choose to show you was video of Serge Kovaleski. Notice how the media only showed and still shows photos of him. This was done for a reason. As it turns out, Kovaleski s disability is a congenital condition called arthrogryposis. Arthrogryposis causes restricted movement in the joints but does not cause spasms or uncontrolled moving of the limbs like cerebral palsy does.To show the depths of the deceit, one CNN reporter explained, while displaying a still photo of him, that Kovaleski, suffers from a chronic condition that impairs movement of his arms. Again, the implication is that Kovaleski can t control his arms from moving.To the contrary, Kovaleski appears perfectly calm when giving interviews. Thus, if Trump truly wanted to mock Kovaleski s disability, he would have had to stand perfectly still with a flexed right hand and not flail his arms. don t believe me? Watch the video:Here is Trump explaining that he NEVER mocked the leftist NYT s reporter who was using Trump s misconstrued comments and body language to do a hatchet job on his character:Here s Hillary using a bogus story about Trump created by the leftist media in an attempt to distract from her criminal and reckless behavior as Secretary of State:And finally, watch Trump use almost the EXACT hand movements when referring to the NOT disabled Ted Cruz or the General he spoke of while using similar hand movements:https://youtu.be/ydGOPzW227EBy the way here s the video proving Trump was also correct about Muslim s celebrating in Jersey City after 9-11 terror attack:Via: Catholics4Trump | 0 |
8,592 | BREAKING: OBAMA COMMUTES 67 Prisoners Serving Life Sentences…214 Federal Prisoners In Total | Making America Unsafe Again It s the Obama legacy. During his two terms in office, Obama released more prisoners than all nine Presidents before him combined. He s not just flooding our local communities and major cities with felons, he s flooding America s red states with illegal aliens and unvetted Muslim immigrants from countries who hate us, all to ensure Democrat Party dominance. President Barack Obama on Wednesday cut short the sentences of 214 federal inmates, including 67 life sentences, in what the White House called the largest batch of commutations on a single day in more than a century.Almost all the prisoners were serving time for nonviolent drug crimes, reflecting Obama s long-stated view that the U.S. needs to remedy the consequences of decades of sentencing requirements that put tens of thousands of Americans behind bars for far too long. Obama has pushed for a broader fix to criminal justice laws and has used the aggressive pace of his commutations in an effort to pressure Congress and call more attention to the issue.All told, Obama has commuted 562 sentences during his presidency more than the past nine presidents combined, the White House said. Almost 200 of those who have benefited were serving life sentences. Fox News | 0 |
8,593 | Republican lawmaker quits conservative House group over healthcare conflict | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican U.S. Representative Ted Poe resigned from the House Freedom Caucus on Sunday over the conservative legislative group’s role in sinking a healthcare overhaul championed by President Donald Trump. “Saying no is easy, leading is hard, but that is what we were elected to do,” the Texas lawmaker said in a statement. “Leaving this caucus will allow me to be a more effective member of Congress.” Poe was in favor of the Republican legislation, but the Freedom Caucus argued the proposal did not go far enough in repealing the 2010 Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare. The Freedom Caucus, consisting of the House of Representatives’ most conservative members, was instrumental in dealing Trump a stunning political setback on Friday when Republican House leaders pulled the healthcare legislation, derailing a major 2016 election campaign promise of the president and his allies. Trump’s fellow Republicans control both houses of Congress. Trump had courted Freedom Caucus lawmakers intensively. Outside conservative groups such as the Club for Growth and Heritage Action for America that are closely aligned with the Freedom Caucus had strongly opposed the Republican healthcare bill and urged lawmakers to vote against it. In a tweet on Sunday morning, Trump lashed out at both the Freedom Caucus and other conservatives, saying their actions had left “Democrats smiling in D.C.” | 1 |
8,594 | No Brexit deal would be 'a very bad deal' warns EU's Barnier | BERLIN (Reuters) - European Union chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said on Wednesday that the bloc had to be, and was, united in dealing with Britain on its withdrawal from the bloc and warned that failure to reach agreement would be very bad. No deal would be a very bad deal, Barnier said, switching from French to English in a speech to Germany s BDA employers association. It was his third speech to a German audience on Brexit in the day so far. Barnier also said he hoped to have made progress on the principles of Britain s divorce from the EU by next week and that London knew it could not have one foot in the single market and one foot out of it. | 1 |
8,595 | Kenya Supreme Court criticizes election board in verdict on polls | NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya s Supreme Court on Wednesday criticized the election board for failing to verify official results of last month s presidential election before announcing them, but did not find any individual at the board responsible for the failings. The court was offering a detailed ruling as to why it annulled the Aug. 8 election and ordered a fresh presidential vote within 60 days. The Sept. 1 decision was the first of its kind in Africa. The election board had said incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta won the contest by 1.4 million votes, but opposition leader Raila Odinga challenged the result in the Supreme Court. He says the previous two elections were also stolen from him. Kenya is a key Western ally in a region often shaken by violence. Its status as a diplomatic, trade and security hub for East Africa means the court s ruling and preparation for the fresh election, now scheduled for Oct. 17, are being closely watched for signs of instability or violence. On Monday, the French technology company supporting the election said it would be nearly impossible to be ready for that date. The court s Sept. 1 ruling identified some procedural problems, but the key finding against the election board on Wednesday was that officials had announced results before being able to verify them. Kenya used two parallel systems: a quick electronic tally vulnerable to typos and a slower paper system designed as a verifiable, definitive back-up. The official results were based on the electronic tally before the paper results were fully collated, the judges said. The system was designed that way after a disputed 2007 presidential vote sparked violence that killed around 1,200 people and displaced some 600,000 more. If elections are not seen to be free and fair, they can trigger instability. We do not need to look far for examples, said Chief Justice David Maraga. The board overseeing the 2017 vote did not have all the tally forms when it announced results, and some forms lacked security features like water marks, signatures or serial numbers, which calls their authenticity into question, the court said, adding there was no evidence of individual wrongdoing. Though the petitioner claimed various offences were committed by the issues of the first respondent, that is the IEBC (elections board), no evidence was placed before us to prove that allegation, Maraga said. We are therefore unable to impute any criminal intent or culpability. Odinga has said he will not take part in the repeat election if several demands, including the sacking of senior staff at the election board, are not met. Judge Philomena Mwilu said the forms should have been quickly available for inspection, noting officials said thousands of forms from polling stations were still unavailable four days after the official results were announced. The (board) cannot therefore be said to have verified the results, she said. It is an inexcusable contravention ... of the election act. She also censured the board s refusal to comply with court orders to open its computer servers, saying it meant that opposition claims of hacking or manipulation might be true. Noncompliance or failure by the board to do as ordered must be held against it, she said. But although the tallying process was questioned, voter registration, identification and voting all appeared to have been conducted in accordance with the law, she said. Opposition claims against Kenyatta were largely dismissed. Maraga said the opposition had failed to show evidence Kenyatta had campaigned using state resources or undue influence. Two judges read lengthy dissenting opinions and accused their four colleagues who issued the majority judgment of misinterpreting the law and other failings, including not paying attention to the evidence and judicial limits. As judges spoke, police used tear gas to disperse groups of rival political supporters holding demonstrations outside the Supreme Court. The election re-run has divided Kenya, with many opposition supporters celebrating it and the president and some members of the ruling party criticizing it harshly. After the majority decision was read, Deputy President William Rut tweeted: Evidently a supreme coup on sovereign Will of the people was executed on basis of technicalities against their verdict captured in ballots. On Tuesday, the chief justice told a news conference that judges were getting threats and the police were not offering adequate protection, an allegation that the chief of police denied. | 1 |
8,596 | TEACHERS GIVE STUDENTS OUTRAGEOUS Religious Ed Assignment: Write Letter To Parents Saying You’ve Converted To Islam | The indoctrination of our youth is happening at every level in almost ever corner of the world It was meant to be a creative writing exercise as part of a Religious Education lesson.But when pupils were asked to write a letter to their parents saying they had converted to Islam, it was met with outrage.The 12 and 13-year-olds at Beaucamps High School in Guernsey were asked to consider what it would be like to become a Muslim and to write a letter to their loved ones explaining their decision.But many parents blasted the homework, saying it was dangerous when so many youngsters were fleeing Britain to wage jihad in Syria. One said: The idiot who thought this one up is not fit to be at the school or in education. Muslims make up less than one per cent of the population on Guernsey and the island recently refused to accept any Syrian refugees.Gemma Gough said she and her husband Will had complained to Guernsey s education department, and added that their son Thomas would not complete the work.Writing on Facebook, she said: Sorry, but both Will and I feel very strongly as do many, many other parents that this is not acceptable. Kids are too impressionable, and imagine if these letters got in the wrong hands in years to come. Guernsey s education department said: It is important that our students are able to learn about, understand, investigate and question all that is around them. As with all subjects, homework will be set to cover all areas of the curriculum. One person wrote: Teach pupils about religion by all means but be very careful when you ask them to be a Muslim. Via: UK Daily Mail | 0 |
8,597 | If This Missouri Senate Candidate Is For Real, He’s A Real Subhuman Scumbag | Add this name to the list of people you ve never heard of, but are about to: Courtland Sykes.The Missouri Republican is a Navy Veteran, an impossibly good looking model-type, and a misogynist pig who s stuck in the early 1950 s. He s also running for the United States Senate in an uphill challenge against Democrat Claire McCaskill.The problem is, since he announced his run at the Senate, nobody s sat him down for an interview. He has, however, released a headshot to reporters, along with an interview-style, 11-page document that outlines some of his positions:He also addressed whether he favored women s rights, in a way that beggars belief: Chanel (Rion), my fiancee, has given me orders to favor these rights, so I d better. But Chanel knows that my obedience comes with a small price that she loves to pay anyway I want to come home to a home-cooked dinner at six every night, one that she fixes.It s exactly the kind of family dinner that I expect one day my future daughters will learn to make after they too become traditional homemakers and family wives think Norman Rockwell here and Gloria Steinham be damned. Now, I m not sure if Sykes is aware of Rockwell s liberalism after he began seeing a psychotherapist for his severe depression (likely brought on by the fact that his art was hijacked by Cold War politics), but he should probably check out some of Norman s later work before he starts citing him as an influence, la Saturday Evening Post.That headshot, though:Oh, I ve already Google reverse image-searched it. I ve been through his whole Facebook profile, and it appears to be legit. He even has pictures with his mom from when he was younger.It s not that I don t believe that Courtland Sykes is a real person. I just have a hard time believing this guy is for real.Featured image via Facebook | 0 |
8,598 | South Carolina governor urges U.S. to divert plutonium from Japan | TOKYO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley has written to U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz demanding a shipment of weapons-grade plutonium en route to her state from Japan be turned back or sent elsewhere, according to a copy of the letter seen by Reuters. The demand has the potential to embarrass the Obama administration a week before it hosts an important summit on nuclear non-proliferation and undermine what so far has been viewed as a success in keeping weapons-grade material safe. The ship loaded with weapons-grade plutonium left Japan for a Department of Energy site in South Carolina on Tuesday in what is the largest such shipment of the highly dangerous material since 1992, the environmental group Greenpeace said. The shipment “puts South Carolina at risk for becoming a permanent dumping ground for nuclear materials,” Haley said in the letter dated March 23. “Therefore, stop shipment or re-route this defense plutonium. God bless.” A representative for the U.S. Department of Energy said it is reviewing Haley’s letter but cannot comment on matters under active litigation. The state has sued the department over the federal government’s plans to scrap a plutonium recycling plant that has been under construction for years in the state. The dispute comes as Washington prepares to host the Nuclear Security Summit March 31 to April 1. The plutonium being shipped was supplied by the United States, Britain and France for the government-owned Japan Atomic Energy Agency’s Fast Critical Assembly research project in Tokai Mura, according to the International Panel on Fissile Materials. The agreement to transfer the material to the United States was reached in March 2014 at a previous non-proliferation summit, the panel said on its website. A South Carolina-based environmental advocacy group said the shipment “only exacerbates the plutonium storage and disposition problems at” the department’s Savannah River Site, a 310-square mile (500 square kilometers) area bordered by the Savannah River and Georgia. “The U.S. Government has done a poor job of explaining why this material is being taken to SRS,” Tom Clements, director of SRS Watch, said in a statement. The 331 kilograms (730 pounds) on board the British-owned Pacific Egret is only a tiny proportion of the nearly 50 tonnes (55 tons) of plutonium held by Japan. Japan wants to use the plutonium extracted from spent fuel in nuclear plants as fuel for modified reactors. But with nearly all the country’s units still shut down in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster five years ago and no schedule for further restarts there is little use for the material. Only a few reactors can take plutonium as fuel. A homegrown reprocessing plant being built in northern Japan, which has relied on the British and French to extract plutonium from spent uranium fuel rods, also has the potential to add to the stockpile, although its start has been repeatedly delayed. The plutonium being shipped, enough to make about 50 nuclear weapons, was taken from the nuclear research center in the port town of Tokai Mura near Tokyo, for transport to South Carolina. The website www.vesselfinder.com said the ship is a nuclear fuel carrier. Shipments of plutonium are highly sensitive because it can be used in nuclear weapons or to make a so-called dirty bomb. In Japan, public sensitivity is also high because it is the only country that has been attacked with nuclear bombs. Japan is also the only nation without atomic weapons with significant amounts of plutonium, which has led to constant criticism from neighboring countries, scientists and others. China, a nuclear weapons state, this week said Japan should abide by its non-proliferation obligations. “Japan is still stockpiling a large amount of other sensitive nuclear materials, including separated plutonium and highly enriched uranium. This certainly is an issue for the international community to be concerned about,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Tuesday. Thomas Countryman, an assistant U.S. secretary of state in charge of non-proliferation, has called into question the renewal of an agreement between Washington and Tokyo that allows Japan to reprocess and produce weapons-grade plutonium. The agreement is due to be extended in 2018, but with a new U.S. administration starting in January its status is unclear. “We think that there are genuine economic questions where it’s important that the U.S. and its partners in Asia have a common understanding of the economic and non-proliferation issues at stake before making a decision about renewal of the 1-2-3 Agreement, for example, with Japan,” Countryman told a Senate hearing last week. | 1 |
8,599 | Trump reassures farmers immigration crackdown not aimed at their workers | WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said he would seek to keep his tough immigration enforcement policies from harming the U.S. farm industry and its largely immigrant workforce, according to farmers and officials who met with him. At a roundtable on farm labor at the White House last month, Trump said he did not want to create labor problems for farmers and would look into improving a program that brings in temporary agricultural workers on legal visas. “He assured us we would have plenty of access to workers,” said Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, one of 14 participants at the April 25 meeting with Trump and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue. During the roundtable conversation about agriculture, farmers and representatives of the sector brought up labor and immigration, the details of which have not been previously reported. Some farmers told Trump they often cannot find Americans willing to do the difficult farm jobs, according to interviews with nine of the 14 participants. They said they were worried about stricter immigration enforcement and described frustrations with the H-2A visa program, the one legal way to bring in temporary seasonal agricultural workers. The White House declined to comment on the specifics of the discussion, but described the meeting as “very productive.” The U.S. Department of Agriculture did not respond to a request for comment on the April meeting. About half of U.S. crop workers are in the country illegally and more than two-thirds are foreign born, according to the most recent figures from the U.S. Department of Labor’s National Agriculture Workers’ Survey. During the roundtable, Luke Brubaker, a dairy farmer from Pennsylvania, described how immigration agents had recently picked up half a dozen chicken catchers working for a poultry transportation company in his county. The employer tried to replace them with local hires, but within three hours all but one had quit, Brubaker told the gathering at the White House. Trump said he wanted to help and asked Secretary Perdue to look into the issues and come back with recommendations, according to the accounts. While other issues such as trade, infrastructure and technology were also discussed, participants were more positive after the meeting about the conversation on foreign labor “than about anything else we talked about,” said Bill Northey, a farmer and Iowa’s secretary of agriculture. Tom Demaline, president of Willoway Nurseries in Ohio, said he told the president about his struggles with the H-2A guestworker program, which he has used for 18 years. He told Trump the program works in concept, but not in practice. “I brought up the bureaucracy and red tape,” he said. “If the guys show up a week or two late, it puts crops in jeopardy. You are on pins and needles all year to make sure you get the workers and do everything right.” While use of the program has steadily increased over the past decade, it still accounts for only about 10 percent of the estimated 1.3 million farmworkers in the country, according to government data. In 2016, the government granted 134,000 H-2A visas Employers who import workers with H-2A visas must provide free transportation to and from the United States as well as housing and food for workers once they arrive. Wage minimums are set by the government and are often higher than farmers are used to paying. Steve Scaroni, whose company Fresh Harvest brings in thousands of foreign H-2A workers for growers in California’s Central valley, says, however, that he could find work for even more people if he had more places to house them. For a related photo essay click on: reut.rs/2qdtfnb Trump recently signed another executive order titled “Buy American, Hire American,” calling for changes to a program granting temporary visas for the tech industry, but not to visas used by farmers and other seasonal businesses, including Trump’s own resorts. Trump also signed two executive orders, just days after taking office, focused on border security that called for arresting more people in the United States illegally and speeding up deportations. Roundtable participants said that many farmers have worried about the effect of the stepped up enforcement on their workforce, but Trump told them his administration was focused on deporting criminals, not farmworkers. “He has a much better understanding about this than some of the rhetoric we have seen,” said meeting attendee Steve Troxler, North Carolina’s agriculture commissioner and a farmer himself. The farmers at the meeting said they stressed to the president the need for both short-term and permanent workers. They said there should be a program to help long-time farmworkers without criminal records, but who are in the country illegally, to become legal residents. Last Tuesday, Democrats in the House and Senate said they would introduce a bill to give farmworkers who have worked illegally in the country for two consecutive years a “blue card” to protect them from deportation. Brubaker, the Pennsylvania farmer, said he liked what he had heard about the bill and hoped it would get the president’s support to make it a bipartisan effort. “The administration has got something started here,” he said of the meeting with farm leaders. “It’s about time something happens.” | 1 |
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