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8,900 | WATCH: Republican Lies About Immigrant Vetting Process, Gets SCHOOLED By Immigrant CNN Host | This House Republican didn t see this humiliation coming.During an interview on CNN with Brianna Keilar, GOP Rep. Marsha Blackburn embarrassed herself, her home state of Tennessee, and the United States by making a false claim about the immigration vetting process and demonstrating her complete lack of knowledge about how our immigration system works.Keilar, who made a name for herself during the 2016 Election by repeatedly standing up to and humiliating Trump supporters, asked Blackburn for her response to the terrorist attacks in Berlin. Blackburn immediately began vilifying Muslim immigrants in this country by claiming that they haven t been properly vetted and that our immigration system is flawed. Her source? Just random people she hears things from. One of the things that I m hearing from women, especially, is their deep concern over public safety and making certain we are dealing with the terrorist cells that are located in the United States. Blackburn said. They re concerned about what is happening with the refugees and the realization by many people that our governors and our mayors do not know when refugee populations are coming into the communities Many of these individuals are not vetted. Keilar, who immigrated to America from Australia, knows what the vetting process is like. So she was able to put Blackburn in her place with firsthand knowledge that every immigrant, even from Australia, are thoroughly vetted. Can I stop you on that, really quick? Keilar asked. Because you said many refugees are not vetted, and I know certainly there are concerns. The vast majority of refugees are peaceful, there are many people arguing there are risks when you open yourself up to people coming into the country. But you say they re not vetted and yet, I ve gone through the process and it s pretty extensive. Keilar also informed Blackburn that several government agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security are involved in the process.Mic. Dropped.And, of course, Blackburn responded by insisting that all these government agencies aren t doing their jobs and proceeded to treat Keilar like a child who doesn t know anything.Keilar once again countered Blackburn by pointing out that CNN has looked into these claims and what they found proves that Blackburn is only trying to spread fear to advance the GOP s anti-immigration agenda. When there is someone and they don t know who they are or where they re coming from, they don t let them in, Keilar said. There s a process to make sure. Do you know of specific instances where people are completely bypassing what is actually a quite labyrinth process to get into this county? But rather than answer the question, Blackburn demonstrated that she s full of shit by evading it completely, insisting that Keilar visit an immigration reception center and question the case workers.Keilar reminded Blackburn that immigrants are vetted by the DHS and the FBI along with several other government agencies. That s when Blackburn threw them under the bus by accusing them of not doing their jobs properly. She also repeatedly danced around Keilar s question, proving that Blackburn can t point to any specific examples of a Syrian immigrant being poorly vetted.Here s the video via YouTube.The fact is that immigrants face a two-year wait as they are vetted thoroughly to gain entrance into this country. They are then settled into this country after the long and grueling process and are often the targets of harassment and abuse even though they went through hell to get to the land of freedom and opportunity.If and when a Muslim refugee commits an act of terror, it s not that they came here with that intent. It s most likely that they were radicalized many years after they arrived here, and that s because they ve had to deal with the constant discrimination and hate from people like Blackburn who demonize Muslims and blame them for every problem. Stuff like that pushes people over the edge.Plus, immigrants are less likely to commit a crime than a citizen who was born here. But you don t hear Blackburn or her Republican colleagues calling for years of extensive vetting for every baby born on American soil. They certainly haven t called for vetting white supremacists after they commit acts of terrorism. That s because Republicans are hypocrites and are just using Muslims as a scapegoat for political gain.Featured Image: Screenshot | 0 |
8,901 | POLL: Most Trump Supporters Say Fake ‘Bowling Green Massacre’ Justifies Muslim Ban | Did you know that people who support Donald Trump s unconstitutional Muslim ban are idiots? This isn t just a flippant remark about them; there s evidence like the fact that most of them think the Bowling Green Massacre, which did not happen, completely justifies Trump s executive order.A new report from Public Policy Polling found that most Americans 48 to 43 percent view the travel ban as targeting Muslims , and only 22 percent of Americans support that position. In fact, the phrase one would have to be an idiot to support the Muslim ban is now more true than ever. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: the Bowling Green massacre shows why we need Donald Trump s executive order on immigration? respondents were asked, with 57 percent disagreeing and only 23 percent backing that position.The low number of Americans who still somehow think the Bowling Green Massacre is real is positive but when PPP looked at numbers among Trump supporters, they found that more than half view the Massacre That Didn t Happen as justification for Trump s ban:66% of Americans consider the United States to be a safe country, to only 23% who consider it unsafe. Perhaps as an outgrowth of that sentiment only 45% of voters support Trump s Executive Order on immigration, to 49% who are opposed to it. Among those who do support it you have to wonder how well thought out their position is- by a 51/23 margin Trump voters say that the Bowling Green Massacre shows why Trump s immigration policy is needed. By a 48/43 spread, voters do think that the intent of the Executive Order is to be a Muslim ban. And just 22% support a Muslim ban, to 65% who are opposed.Trump is likely sweating bullets, as the poll also reveals that almost half 48 percent of Americans want to see him impeached. His henchmen and women are growing steadily more unpopular too. 47 percent of Americans (compared to 34 percent who like her) find Kellyanne Conway to be detestable, 41 percent (32% like him) are dissatisfied with Sean Spicer s performance. A whopping 49 percent (compared to 27 percent) don t like Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and 72 percent hate Trump s best friend Vladimir Putin. In fact a sign of how desperate things have gotten more Americans (38 percent to 30 percent) say they would rather see Mike Pence as President than Trump. Hillary Clinton still wins in that regard, 49 percent to 45 percent.Even worse for Trump is the demographics of those polled. Only 39 percent of respondents identify as Democrats while 60 percent say they are Republicans or Independents, the exact groups Trump courted when he was running for President. In other words, there s no claiming that this poll was loaded with Democrats for Trump fans.Donald Trump said during the election that he loves the poorly educated, but he might as well have said stupid. Though Kellyanne Conway has used the Bowling Green Massacre in her scaremongering numerous time and ultimately admitted she lied about its existence, The Donald s supporters still take it as gospel. They ve gone from alternative facts to alternative reality. featured image via Getty Images (Chip Somodevilla)/screengrab | 0 |
8,902 | TRUMP Puts Illegal Aliens, Un-vetted Muslim Immigrants On NOTICE…Drops Names Of Like-Minded Cabinet Members…Liberal Heads EXPLODE! | Trump didn t stop with names of potential cabinet members he also doubled down on policies designed to make America safer. Voters should be asking why liberals are so offended when Trump suggests putting the national security of America before political correctness?Donald Trump is sticking with two of his most controversial policy proposals now that he has become the Republican Party s presumptive presidential nominee.Trump tells NBC s Lester Holt that he stands by his plan to temporary bar foreign Muslims from entering the country if he s elected president because of the dangers of extremism.He says, We have to be vigilant. Trump is also standing by his plan to deport all of the estimated 11 million people living in the country illegally.He says, Yes, they re going to be deported. He wants to put a system in place that would allow some to return.Donald Trump says he s setting up a vice presidential vetting committee very soon that could include some of his former running mates.In an interview with CNN s Wolf Blitzer Wednesday, Trump said that he has yet to begin to seriously consider his potential running mates.He says he may put Ben Carson and Chris Christie on the committee.Donald Trump is revealing some possible Cabinet picks if he s elected president.In an interview with Fox News s The O Reilly Factor, the presumptive GOP nominee says he d consider naming former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani secretary of homeland security, Gov. Chris Christie attorney general and Dr. Ben Carson secretary of health and human services.He says he has not made final decisions, but certainly they would three very wise choices. Trump also said Carson is not interested in being his running mate. Via: AP | 0 |
8,903 | URBAN TERRORISTS: HORRIFIC NEW VIDEO EMERGES OF HUGE MOB DRAGGING AND BEATING WHITE MAN From Inside Baltimore Liquor Store To Street | The identity of the victim has not yet been confirmed, but he is believed to be the owner of the liquor store where this horrific event took place. It appears that he is already unconscious by the time he is dragged out onto the sidewalk in front of the store where is repeatedly kicked by the violent mob. .@justin_fenton @baltimoresun I just watched a guy dragged from his store and sucker punched and stomped pic.twitter.com/R8zYI7bpWt Joe Talaiver (@jtalaiver) April 27, 2015 | 0 |
8,904 | Right-Wing Pastor Calls Upon Christians To Die Fighting Transgender Equality | In response to the Department of Justice s guidelines preventing school officials from demanding that students prove their gender identity to use a restroom, Franklin Graham took to Facebook to whine and call upon Christians to die fighting transgender protections and President Obama.Graham, also known as Billy Graham s demon spawn, posted a lengthy message on his Facebook page on Sunday night asking conservative Christians to take a bullet for their beliefs instead of following the law. What would you take a bullet for? Graham asked. What are the principles and beliefs that you would not compromise under any circumstances? Even if it meant putting your life on the line? And of course, that led into a Bible story featuring Christians martyring themselves.King Nebuchadnezzar who reigned over Babylon issued a decree that everyone worship the golden image he had made. Three men who knew the one true and living God, refused to worship the king s idol their names were Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. The king told them, But if you do not worship, you shall be cast immediately into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. Here is their bold reply: O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up (Daniel 3:16-18).Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego stood firm in obedience and faithfulness. They stood up for God s truth. They stood up for their faith, and they didn t waiver, even when it meant putting their very lives at risk.And finally, Graham concluded by asking Christians to martyr themselves now.I want to call on every Christian and every pastor to stand firm like these patriarchs of old and not bow to the secular, increasingly godless culture in which we live even when (not if) we re criticized, mocked, and labeled intolerant. The God of the Old Testament that delivered Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from their fiery execution is the same God today and He is still more than able to save. Will you stand against ungodliness? What are you willing to take a bullet for?Here s the full post via Facebook.This kind of rhetoric sounds awfully familiar, doesn t it? Oh yeah, it s what Islamic extremists tell their followers right before they strap bombs to their bodies and blow themselves up in the name of Allah. Except this time, it s an old white male Christian leader saying it to Christians in America, proving once again that fundamentalist Christians are exactly the same as their Islamic counterparts.Featured image YouTube | 0 |
8,905 | Golden State Warriors Coach Just WRECKED Trump After Attack On One Of His Players | On Saturday, the man we re forced to call President Trump responded to Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry s refusal to accept an invitation to the White House by doing the internet equivalent of incoherently screeching WELL FINE, YOU RE NOT INVITED ANYWAY. Going to the White House is considered a great honor for a championship team.Stephen Curry is hesitating,therefore invitation is withdrawn! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 23, 2017Unfortunately for Trump, Warriors coach Steve Kerr has Curry s back. The idea of civil discourse with a guy who is tweeting and demeaning people and saying the things he s saying is sort of far-fetched, Kerr said on Sunday. Can you picture us really having a civil discourse with him? It was an actual chance to talk to the president, he said. After all, he works for us. He s a public servant. He may not be aware of that, but he is a public servant, right? So maybe as NBA champions, as people in a prominent position, we could go in and say, This is what s bothering us, what can we do about this?' Then he laid in to Trump for attacking black football players for exercising their First Amendment rights while calling Nazis very fine people: How about the irony of Free speech is fine if you re a neo-Nazi chanting hate slogans, but free speech is not allowed to kneel in protest? No matter how many times a football player says, I honor our military, but I m protesting police brutality and racial inequality, it doesn t matter. Nationalists are saying, You re disrespecting our flag. Well, you know what else is disrespectful to our flag? Racism. And one s way worse than the other. Trump is a constant embarrassment to our country.Watch Kerr rip him apart below:Featured image via video screen capture | 0 |
8,906 | Democrats want 'major role' for Sanders: Reuters/Ipsos poll | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bernie Sanders may have lost his bid to become the Democratic nominee for the White House, but party members don’t want the U.S. senator from Vermont to step off the stage. More than three-quarters of Democrats say Sanders should have a “major role” in shaping the party’s positions, while nearly two thirds say Hillary Clinton - who beat him for the nomination - should pick him as her vice-presidential running mate, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. In a sign that Democrats hope their party can unite after a fierce primary season, two-thirds also said that Sanders should endorse Clinton, a former secretary of state and senator who appears bound for a showdown with Republican Donald Trump in November’s presidential election. Sanders, a self-described Democratic socialist, managed to turn his long-shot run into a mass movement with hard-line proposals to combat wealth inequality, increase access to health care and education, and defend the environment. His challenge to Clinton, one of the best-known figures in American politics, lasted far longer than expected, as he racked up strong results in a number of state nominating contests and stayed in the race even when the delegate count seemed to spell his doom, and yielded record numbers of small donations to his campaign. Sanders so far has not conceded defeat, even though Clinton recently clinched the nomination and won endorsements from President Barack Obama and U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts - a favorite of the same left-leaning voters who supported him. Sanders has said he will continue to push for a liberal agenda heading into the Democratic National Convention in July - when Clinton’s nomination is expected to become official - though he has hinted he does not want his presence to hurt the Democrats’ chances of keeping the White House. “We will not let Donald Trump become president,” Sanders told supporters last week. The poll, conducted June 7-10 - right after Clinton sewed up the delegate majority to become the presumptive Democratic nominee - showed that while most Democrats want Sanders to line up behind Clinton, about 44 percent would like him to make an independent run for the White House. Some 47 percent said he should not. The poll included 455 respondents and has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 5.3 percentage points. | 1 |
8,907 | Trump’s List Of ‘Unreported’ Terror Attacks Is Out, And It’s ABSURD (CITATIONS) | Earlier today, Trump said to a crowd at MacDill Air Force Base that the very dishonest media wasn t reporting on the terror attacks that are happening all across Europe all the time. Later on, the media pressed Sean Spicer on that topic while aboard Air Force One, and Spicer s response was to say that they d provide a list later on. Well, that list is out, and surprise surprise, it s completely ridiculous.Since Trump s comments focused on Europe and, by extension, the U.S., the following lists are focused there, despite many, many other attacks happening around the world.Perhaps one of the most ridiculous things about the White House s list of attacks is that it includes high-profile attacks that were covered for days on end, such as the 2015 attack against Charlie Hebdo in Paris, and the fateful attack at a Paris club in November. It also includes two foiled attacks that were also widely reported. Broken down:They also list several attacks in France in 2016 that were covered extensively.Then they list an attack in London in December 2015 that was covered by CNN, Reuters, The Huffington Post, USA Today, and more.There s one in Copenhagen, Denmark in February of 2015 that was covered by CNN, The New York Times, USA Today, The Huffington Post, Reuters, and more.Most of us probably remember the March 2016 attack in Brussels, Belgium, which was covered by CNN, NPR, The New York Times, CBS News, NBC News, USA Today, ABC News, and more.But that s Europe. What about the attacks they list here in the U.S. that supposedly weren t covered, or weren t covered extensively enough? Like the following:Really? So far we ve looked closely at 18 of the attacks listed, and they were all widely covered by U.S. media. Trump and his minions insist that we re not covering attacks in Europe hardly at all, and then they provide a list with 30 attacks that are in the Middle East, parts of Asia, and in Indonesia and the Philippines.Those attacks are terrible and tragic, too, but again, Trump didn t say anything about us not covering attacks in those regions. He probably didn t even think about those regions until whoever it was that compiled that list gave it to him (if they gave it to him).But the biggest falsehood is that the media isn t reporting, or is underreporting, on these attacks. It s like they hurriedly compiled a list of terror attacks worldwide from Wikipedia and couldn t be bothered to proofread, let alone research. There are spelling errors in addition to the lie that the media covers up attacks. Our dishonest president, has a lot of nerve accusing the media of actively covering up terrorist attacks.The full list, as provided to CNN, is below. Feel free to Google whatever you want:Here s the list the White House sent of attacks they feel did not receive adequate attention from Western media sources. pic.twitter.com/lj8eOZQfnY Kevin Liptak (@Kevinliptakcnn) February 7, 2017Read more:Featured image by Alex Wong via Getty Images | 0 |
8,908 | Turkey urges U.S. to review visa suspension as lira, stocks tumble | ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey urged the United States on Monday to review its suspension of visa services after the arrest of a U.S. consulate employee sharply escalated tension between the two NATO allies and drove Turkey’s currency and stocks lower. Relations between Ankara and Washington have been plagued by disputes over U.S. support for Kurdish fighters in Syria, Turkey’s calls for the extradition of a U.S.-based cleric and the indictment of a Turkish former minister in a U.S. court. But last week’s arrest of a Turkish employee of the U.S. consulate in Istanbul marked a fresh low. Turkey said the employee had links to U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, blamed by Ankara for a failed military coup in July 2016. Gulen denies any connection with the coup. The U.S. embassy in Ankara condemned Ankara’s charges as baseless and announced on Sunday night it was halting all non-immigrant visa services in Turkey while it reassessed Turkey’s commitment to the security of its missions and staff. Within hours, Ankara announced it was taking the same measures against U.S. citizens seeking visas for Turkey. The U.S. ambassador said the duration of the visa services’ suspension would depend on talks between the two governments about the reasons for the detention of local staff in Turkey. In a written statement late on Monday, Ambassador John Bass said the length of the suspension would also depend on “the Turkish government’s commitment to protecting our facilities and personnel here in Turkey”. He noted that the move was not a visa ban on Turkish citizens, that valid visas could still be used and visa applications could be made outside of Turkey. The U.S. Embassy had been unable to learn the reasons for the arrest of its Turkish staff member last week or what evidence exists against the employee, Bass said, adding that he had not been allowed sufficient access to the employee’s lawyer. Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul said that if Washington had serious security concerns about its missions in Turkey, steps would be taken to address them. “But if it’s an issue regarding the arrest of the consulate employee, then this is a decision the Turkish judiciary has made,” Gul told A Haber television. “Trying a Turkish citizen for a crime committed in Turkey is our right.” The Turkish foreign ministry summoned a U.S. diplomat to urge the United States to lift the visa services suspension, saying it was causing “unnecessary tensions”, and President Tayyip Erdogan also criticized the U.S. move. “For the (U.S.) embassy in Ankara to take such a decision and implement it, it is upsetting,” Erdogan told a news conference during a visit to Ukraine. State-run Anadolu news agency said another U.S. consulate worker had been summoned to testify over his wife and daughter’s suspected links to Gulen - which it said had emerged during the questioning of Metin Topuz, the employee arrested last week. The diplomatic spat spooked investors. The lira dropped 3.4 percent and stood at 3.7385 against the dollar after being quoted overnight as touching a level of 3.9223. The main BIST 100 stock index fell as much as 4.7 percent, closing the day down 2.73 percent at 101,298 points. Airline shares were particularly hard hit, with flag carrier Turkish Airlines falling 9 percent. The central bank said it was following developments closely. “This looks like a really serious situation,” said Blue Bay Asset Management strategist Timothy Ash. He added that the central bank would need to move quickly to calm market nerves and possibly hike interest rates - something Erdogan has resisted. Turkey’s leading business association, TUSIAD, warned that the dispute would harm bilateral economic, social and cultural ties, and called for disagreements to be settled calmly. The row with the United States coincides with deep strains in Turkey’s relations with Germany, another key ally, and with Turkish military activity at the Syrian and Iraqi borders, though their market impact has so far been limited. U.S.-Turkish tensions have risen in recent months over U.S. military support for Kurdish YPG fighters in Syria, considered by Ankara to be an extension of the banned PKK which has waged an insurgency for three decades in southeast Turkey. Turkey has also pressed, so far in vain, for the United States to extradite Gulen, viewed in Ankara as the mastermind behind the failed coup in which more than 240 people were killed. Friction with the United States has also arisen from the indictment last month by a U.S. court of Turkey’s former economy minister Zafer Caglayan on charges of conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions on Iran. Sinan Ulgen, an analyst and former Turkish diplomat, said those underlying disputes had created a crisis of confidence which made this latest fall-out particularly bitter. “This harshness is a result of a build-up,” he said. “We should not consider this as solely a reaction to the detentions of consulate employees”. | 1 |
8,909 | TRUMP SLAMS THE GLOBALISTS: “There is no global anthem…We pledge allegiance to one flag” [Video] | 0 | |
8,910 | Cuba wants to sign accords with U.S. before Obama exit: officials | HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba said on Wednesday it hoped to sign off on at least half a dozen agreements with the United States before businessman Donald Trump, who has threatened to derail detente between the former Cold War foes, becomes president on Jan. 20. Cuban and U.S. officials held talks in Havana to discuss what more could be accomplished during President Barack Obama’s remaining weeks in office, agreeing to arrange more high-level visits and technical meetings. The more Cuba and the United States deepen their detente, the more irreversible it will become, analysts said. “At the moment we are negotiating 12 more (accords) with the aim to be able to conclude and sign a majority of them,” Josefina Vidal, the Cuban foreign ministry’s director of U.S. affairs, told a news conference. The accords would be in areas such as seismology and meteorology, she said, adding that Cuba and the United States had already signed a dozen accords in the two years since they agreed to normalize relations, ending decades of hostility. They have also opened embassies, restored commercial flights and opened travel options. But some fear all that is now at stake, given Republican Trump has said he would seek to reverse the opening unless Communist-ruled Cuba gives the United States what he calls a “better deal”. Vidal declined to comment on Trump’s statements but said she hoped his administration would recognize that the detente had the backing of most Cubans and Americans. “Cuba would hope the new U.S. government takes into account the results we have achieved... that are backed by the majority of the Cuban population (and) U.S. citizens,” she said. Cuba was willing to continue improving relations but “within the respect of the existing differences and without having to make any kind of concession to the principles in which Cuba firmly believes,” Vidal added. In Washington on Wednesday, U.S. lawmakers joined more than 100 Cuban entrepreneurs to urge Trump to continue the thaw. Meanwhile, the Obama administration is pressing American companies to complete business deals in Cuba by then. Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd and Norwegian Cruise Line said on Wednesday they had received approval from Cuba’s government to operate cruises to the island. The number of U.S. visitors to Cuba had jumped 68 percent in the first ten months of this year to 208,000, Vidal said. | 1 |
8,911 | IF THESE CELEBRITIES ARE “With Her” Then Why Is Hillary Paying Them Big Bucks After Performing At Fundraisers? | Hillary gives pay-to-play a whole new meaning Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Tony Bennett all have one thing in common every one of them got paid after performing to raise money for Hillary. So are they with her or are they only with her if she pays up? Of course, this begs the question, besides Chelsea, is anybody really with Hillary ? Pop star Lady Gaga cashed a $21,000 check from Hillary Clinton s presidential campaign, campaign finance records show.Gaga is a public backer of Clinton, and performed at a fundraiser for the former secretary of state at Manhattan s luxurious Plaza Hotel in June 2015, an event that carried a price tag of $2,700 per head.During the fundraiser, Clinton snapped a picture alongside Gaga and singer Tony Bennett, who also performed at the event. The picture shows Gaga holding up a shirt that read, Yaaas Hillary! Hillary posted the photo to her Instagram account.Two months after the event, on Aug. 25, 2015, Hillary for American made a $21,088 payment to Mermaid Touring Inc. for event production in Los Angeles, California. The company is registered in the state of New York and lists Stefani Germanotta, the birth name of Lady Gaga, as its chief executive officer.Gaga urged her New York-based fans on Twitter to get out and vote for Clinton in the Democratic primaries. Hillary for America s New York primary day blog highlighted the tweet on its website.Tony Bennett, also an open Clinton backer, called the Democratic candidate the most qualified person to ever run for president shortly before the New York primaries. He has received two separate payments from the Clinton campaign, Federal Election Commission records show.The first check to Bennett was dated for July 17, 2015 in the amount of $2,052 for event production purposes and came one month after the fundraiser.On Jan. 7, 2016 nearly seven months after the fundraiser another check was cut to Bennett in the amount of $4,421, also for event production. This is not the first time that a celebrity who publicly backs Clinton has received payments from her campaign.The Washington Free Beacon previously reported that pop star Katy Perry s company, Kitty Purry, Inc., was given $70,000 from Hillary for America.In total, $97,561 in payments was dished out between Gaga, Bennett, and Perry from the campaign.Clinton s campaign did not return a request for comment on why the payment was issued to Gaga by press time. WFB | 0 |
8,912 | Republicans strike back at new U.S. ban on forced arbitration | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans lawmakers on Tuesday started trying to kill a brand-new U.S. rule prohibiting banks and credit card companies from requiring customers who open new accounts to sign an agreement that they will not join a group lawsuit in the event of a dispute. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Monday finalized the new rule banning “mandatory arbitration clauses” requiring consumers to forego class-action suits and instead settle disputes in negotiations overseen by arbitrators frequently hired by companies. The rule immediately ran into fierce opposition by Wall Street and Republicans who control both Congress and the White House. They have long criticized the consumer agency, which is run by a Democrat, Richard Cordray. Senator Tom Cotton, a member of the Banking Committee, has already announced he is drafting a resolution to kill the rule. His fellow Republican Senator Pat Toomey, chair of the subcommittee on financial institutions and consumer protection, said he is considering a similar step. Republican lawmakers plan to eliminate the rule, using a law that allows Congress to undo new regulations with simple majority votes in both chambers and a signature from the president. Analysts and consumer advocates have said the agency’s rule may survive the Congressional challenge. Still, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is contemplating a legal challenge and Trump administration officials are also looking at ways to kill the rule. Isaac Boltansky, a policy analyst for the investment firm Compass Point Research & Trading, said the rule has a slightly better than 50 percent chance of surviving in Congress. Joe Valenti, who tracks the issue for the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress, said the House of Representatives was unified against the rule, which opponents have argued benefits class-action lawyers, not consumers. “It comes down to the Senate,” said Valenti, noting that the rule would survive if only three Republicans in that chamber switched sides. That is possible, said Ed Mierzwinksi, the consumer program director for the U.S. Public Interest Research Groups. He noted that Senate Republicans have struggled to gather enough votes for majorities and the calendar is swollen with pressing legislation and confirmation hearings. In addition, Mierzwinksi said, senators may be leery of appearing to side with Wall Street against consumers. He noted that Wells Fargo & Co used clauses in its account-opening agreements to block customers from suing over its phantom account scandal. Supporters of the rule say mandatory arbitration denies citizens their day in court and is rigged in favor of big firms. They say litigants banding together in a class-action lawsuit have a better chance of getting companies to answer publicly for illegal activities and that fears of such a suit can discourage law breaking. The consumer protection agency wrote the rule after conducting a lengthy, multi-year study of the issue. Opponents of the rule say the study is flawed and that arbitration is cheaper and faster than class-action lawsuits and produces better awards for consumers. The Chamber is exploring a prompt legal challenge to the rule, said Matt Webb, senior vice president for its legal reform institute. Another possible challenge could come from the acting comptroller of the currency, Keith Noreika. He is laying groundwork to invoke an untested provision of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law that allows the council of the country’s top financial regulators to nullify a consumer agency rule if they decide it threatens the safety and soundness of the banking system. Rohit Chopra, senior fellow at the Consumer Federation of America and former CFPB assistant director, said a lawsuit will probably fail because the law says the agency can restrict arbitration as long as it hews to its study. He said the Dodd-Frank provision that the comptroller’s office is looking at was meant to keep risks to the financial system at bay. “To suggest that this rule would cause a financial crisis is ridiculous on its face,” he said. | 1 |
8,913 | Puerto Rico debt bill due in 'coming days': House Speaker Ryan | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said on Friday an updated bill dealing with Puerto Rico’s debt will be introduced in “the coming days.” “Right now, we are working with the Natural Resources committee, the administration, and our Democratic counterparts to iron out the final constitutional and legal questions surrounding the legislation,” Ryan said in a statement. “Let me be clear: There will be no taxpayer bailout of Puerto Rico,” he added. | 1 |
8,914 | Japan says jet fighters conducted drills with U.S. aircraft over East China Sea | TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese F-15 fighter jets on Saturday conducted an air exercise with U.S. B1-B bombers in the skies above the East China Sea, Japan s Air Self Defense Force (ASDF) said. The joint drill comes as South Korea braces for a possible further missile test by North Korea as it marked its founding anniversary, just days after its sixth and largest nuclear test rattled global financial markets and further escalated tensions in the region. The exercise involved two U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers flying from Andersen Air Force Base on the U.S. Pacific island territory of Guam, which were joined by two Japanese F-15 jet fighters. On Aug. 31, Japanese F-15 fighter jets also conducted an air exercise with U.S. B1-B bombers and F-35 stealth fighters in skies south of the Korean peninsula, two days after North Korea launched a ballistic missile over northern Japan. | 1 |
8,915 | UK counter-terrorism police arrest 11 in far-right investigation | LONDON (Reuters) - British police said 11 people had been arrested by counter-terrorism officers on Wednesday as part of an investigation into a banned far-right group. The 11 men were arrested across the country on suspicion of offences including preparing terrorist acts, being members of a banned organization and possession of terrorism documents as part of the inquiry into the National Action organization. The neo-Nazi group became the first far-right organization to be outlawed in Britain last year after the murder of member of parliament Jo Cox, whose killing it had praised. Earlier this month, three men, including two soldiers, appeared in court charged with being members of National Action and police said the men held in the latest arrests were part of the same investigation. Today s arrests are part of coordinated action by the national Counter Terrorism network and UK policing, said Det. Chief Supt. Martin Snowden, the head of counter-terrorism policing in northeast England. Those who promote extreme right wing views are looking to divide our communities and spread hatred. This will not be tolerated and those who do so must be brought to justice. Last month, a senior police chief said the number of referrals to the authorities about suspected right-wing extremists had doubled since the murder of Cox, who was killed in June last year by a loner obsessed with Nazis and white supremacist ideology. | 1 |
8,916 | SHOUT! POLL: Do the ‘White Helmets’ Qualify for a Nobel Peace Prize? | 21st Century Wire asks Currently throughout the western media exists a major public relations push to raise the profile of supposed NGO in Syria known as the White Helmets in advance of the upcoming Nobel Peace Prize award on Oct 7th in Oslo, Norway. Recently, streaming giant Netflix released a documentary film to much fanfare, about this alleged first responder group in Syria called the White Helmets. They produce many of the emotional images seen on western media about the Syrian conflict, and also claim to have saved 60,000 lives from Assad s bombs since 2013. What many people are not aware of, however, is that this group has been financed by NATO member states to the tune of at $60 million so far, and they are embedded exclusively in terrorist-held areas of Syria. All things considered, do they qualified for a Nobel Prize?Have your SHOUT! this week. Vote, comment and engage Useful reference links:WHO ARE SYRIA S WHITE HELMETS?The REAL Syria Civil Defence Expose Nato s White Helmets as Terrorist-Linked ImpostersWhite Helmets Staged Russian Bombing Scene Near Aleppo, Lapped-up by MediaGeorge Soros: Anti-Syria Campaign ImpresarioINTRODUCTION: Smart Power & The Human Rights Industrial ComplexHAVE YOUR SHOUT! AND VOTE ON THIS AND OTHER CURRENT EVENTS HERE | 0 |
8,917 | Puerto Rico oversight board favors more time for restructuring talks | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Puerto Rico’s federal oversight board said on Wednesday it was willing to extend key deadlines that would give the debt-laden U.S. territory’s government more time to negotiate restructuring deals with holders of its roughly $70 billion in bonds. In a letter to Governor Ricardo Rossello, the oversight board said it “is favorably inclined” to grant the governor’s request to extend to May 1 from Feb. 15 a freeze on litigation from creditors over missed debt payments. It also said it favored extending until Feb. 28 from Jan. 15 a deadline for Rossello to submit a fiscal turnaround plan for the island. Both requests will be taken up formally “later this month,” the board said, and would be conditioned on the government agreeing to turn over more information about its financial picture and not to take on more short-term liquidity loans. The board said Rossello’s fiscal plan should aim to generate $4.5 billion annually in new revenues or savings through fiscal 2019. It laid out specific areas the plan should address, including shrinking the size of the government, pension reform and spending reductions in higher education and healthcare. In addition to its nearly $70 billion in debt from a myriad of public issuers, Puerto Rico is struggling with a 45 percent poverty rate and unemployment that is more than twice the mainland U.S. average. The bipartisan, seven-member oversight board was created under the federal Puerto Rico rescue law known as PROMESA, passed by the U.S. Congress last year. It is charged with helping the island manage its finances and navigate its way out of the economic jam, including by negotiating restructuring deals with creditors. PROMESA calls for Puerto Rico’s governor to deliver a fiscal turnaround plan, due on Jan. 28, to serve as a blueprint for the island’s path out of crisis. The law also imposed a freeze on litigation from creditors over debt payments, set to run out on Feb. 15. Rossello, who won election in November and was sworn in on Jan. 2, asked for the deadline extensions, saying his new administration needed more time to assess the local financial situation and negotiate with creditors. Rossello has only just now hired lawyers and financial advisers to represent the government in those talks. Failing to reach consensual restructuring deals could push Puerto Rico and its many debt-issuing agencies into a messy and costly bankruptcy-like process under PROMESA. | 1 |
8,918 | WATCH: NRA VP Responds To Orlando Massacre Question With Unhinged Rant (VIDEO) | The NRA s Executive Vice President Wayne La Pierre appeared on CBS s Face the Nation Sunday morning where he and Face the Nation host John Dickerson sat down to discuss U.S. gun policy in the wake of the Orlando massacre. Well, that s at least what the topic of discussion appeared to be. The reality is that LaPierre decided to go on a lengthy rant that made him sound as if he is some mad man preaching about the end of days.Dickerson began the interview by questioning La Pierre about the fact that the gunman responsible for the massacre was able to legally purchase an assault rifle despite having been previously investigated by the FBI. LaPierre decided to divert the question by talking about how the narrative that has emerged around gun regulations is nothing more than an attempt to divert attention away from fighting terrorism. You can t save the country with politics. It s all being politicized with a politically correct White House s nose and fingers in areas they don t belong, said La Pierre. We need to look right in the face of what these people are, they don t care about the law. I mean, these bad guys we re facing, they don t say, Oh gosh, they passed a law. Oh gosh, I don t think I can do it. It s like what we re doing with this debate on the hill right now, it s like they are trying to stop a freight train with a piece of Kleenex. The entire interview boils down to a fear-based advertisement for guns. Right down to La Pierre s statement that terrorists are on the verge of overwhelming us. So far, no evidence has emerged to suggest that Omar Mateen, the gunman in the Orlando shooting, was seriously working with any international terrorist organization. Evidence has been piling up that speaks to the contrary. Including Mateen s apparent lack of understanding of basic middle eastern politics, his history of violent outbursts, and his intolerance of LGBT people.What La Pierre and the rest of the NRA will never admit to is that Mateen was a homegrown terrorist and that their organization is politically and culturally influential in producing such terrorists. Or the fact that the gun manufacturers which they represent benefit from mass shootings.You can watch the interview below.Featured image from video screenshot | 0 |
8,919 | Turkey's military says two Turkish soldiers killed in blast in northern Iraq | ANKARA (Reuters) - Two Turkish soldiers were killed and two were wounded late on Monday in northern Iraq in a blast caused by an improvised explosive device planted by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants, the armed forces said on Tuesday. It said the Turkish air force subsequently carried out air strikes in the same Zap region of northern Iraq, killing eight PKK fighters. The military statement said the incident was separate from another blast earlier on Monday in northern Iraq in which two soldiers were killed. | 1 |
8,920 | School, infrastructure bond measures fill U.S. ballots | CHICAGO/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - U.S. voters on Tuesday will decide the fate of $70.3 billion of municipal bond issuance, the largest amount of borrowing requests in a decade, with much of it earmarked to help pay for fixing the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. The biggest concentration of bonds hanging in the balance is in California, which accounts for nearly 60 percent of the total. Nationwide, the state, school and local government bond measures, 682 in total, would fund building and repairing schools, mass transit and roads, and even biomedical research in one state, according to data company Ipreo. To view the historical amount of bond ballot measures, click on tmsnrt.rs/2e9Z5bb. The governments will be able to take advantage of still-low borrowing costs and a stable economy, even when considering the possibility of an increase in historically low benchmark interest rates by the Federal Reserve in December. “This year, the finances at the state level look better. We’ve had more stability in revenues and more stability in the economy as a whole, so we would expect a substantial amount of these proposals to be accepted,” said Philip Fischer, municipal research strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Yields on top-rated 10 and 30-year bonds hit all-time lows in July on the U.S. municipal market’s benchmark scale. While yields have risen since then they remain attractive for state and local government borrowers. California ballots are bursting with 195 bond measures totaling $41.7 billion, including the biggest nationwide — $9 billion of state general obligation debt to finance new construction and modernization for K-12 and charter schools and community colleges. Another California ballot measure is aimed at reining in debt by requiring statewide voter approval for revenue bonds exceeding $2 billion for projects financed, owned, or managed by the state. Opponents of the initiative, called Proposition 53, say mandating voter approval would delay critical infrastructure projects. “The drought over the past four years has highlighted the need for infrastructure in California,” said David Guy, Northern California Water Association president, at a September panel on California propositions. “We don’t need another hurdle to progress in California.” While school and infrastructure financing are dominant themes this election, a measure on Montana’s statewide ballot would create a biomedical research authority funded by $200 million of bonds over 10 years. Voters will also be weighing 154 state-wide measures, including bonds, taxes, gun control and the minimum wage, in 35 states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In several states, voters will be deciding whether to increase various sales, income, property, cigarette and other taxes. For example, in Colorado there is a proposed constitutional amendment calling for a public option universal healthcare payment system, funded by a new 10 percent state payroll tax. Employers would cover two-thirds and employees one-third of the cost, according to the citizen-led initiative known as Amendment 69. Washington state voters will weigh the nation’s first tax on carbon emissions, while five states, including California, seek to legalize and tax recreational marijuana. Oregon voters will consider changing the corporate tax code to collect revenue equivalent to one-third of the state’s general fund expenditures. The legislature would decide how to use the proceeds. Eno Center for Transportation, a nonprofit think tank, reported that voters will decide tax and bond measures for roads, seaports, railroads, airports and mass transit that would raise an estimated $250 billion for specified projects over a period of years during which specific taxes would be collected. These include $3.5 billion of bonds to repair and improve the San Francisco area’s BART transit system, a regional property tax hike to raise $3.1 billion over 20 years for mass transit in the Detroit area and $70 million of bonds to improve Rhode Island’s seaport. Kerry O’Hare, vice president of Building America’s Future, a bipartisan coalition on infrastructure investment, said the dearth of reliable long-term federal transportation funding has left a void that state and local governments are trying to address via ballot measures. “At the state and local level, it’s ‘Listen, we need to step up and raise money for transportation needs,’” she said. | 1 |
8,921 | Vietnam, China avoid quarrel over South China Sea during visit | (Reuters) - China and Vietnam avoided conflict over the South China Sea on Sunday when Chinese President Xi Jinping met Vietnam s General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, hours after U.S. President Donald Trump offered to mediate maritime disputes. Relations between Hanoi and Beijing have been particularly strained since July, when China put pressure on Vietnam to stop oil drilling in a disputed area in the South China Sea. Vietnam s state television said the Chinese president had told the Vietnamese leader he wanted to work with Southeast Asian nations on a code of conduct in the sea. China s Xinhua news agency said China and Vietnam had agreed to properly handle maritime issues and strive to maintain peace and stability. Reefs and islands in the South China Sea are disputed by Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan as well as China and Vietnam. Since Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has grown closer to China, Vietnam has emerged as China s main challenger in the area. China s move to pressure Vietnam to stop oil drilling in a disputed area in July brought relations between the Communist neighbours to a low. Xi and Trump both held bilateral meetings with Vietnamese officials in the wake of a summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation in the Vietnamese city of Danang. Trump told Vietnam s President Tran Dai Quang that he was prepared to mediate between claimants to the South China Sea and said China s position was a problem. Trump and President Quang issued a joint statement underscoring the importance of free and open access to South China Sea, and saying parties should halt escalatory action. (This story has been refiled to fix reversed word order in paragraph one.) | 1 |
8,922 | UKIP leader and Brexit figurehead Farage congratulates Trump | LONDON (Reuters) - Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party who was a figurehead in the campaign to get Britain out of the European Union, congratulated Donald Trump on being elected the next U.S. president on Wednesday. Farage, who spoke at a Trump rally during the election campaign, had predicted the former reality TV host could harness the same dissatisfaction among voters that led to Brexit, something that Trump himself made repeated reference to. “I hand over the mantle to @RealDonaldTrump! Many congratulations. You have fought a brave campaign,” Farage wrote on this Twitter website. | 1 |
8,923 | VA Middle School Student Accused Of Stealing $.65 Milk Charged With Larceny (VIDEO) | A Graham Park Middle School student was arrested in front of his peers and later charged with larceny, after a school police officer accused him of stealing a $.65 carton of milk.On the day he was arrested, Ryan Turk says he went through the school cafeteria lunch line as usual. When he got to his seat, however, the student realized that he had forgotten to pick up a carton of milk with his meal.He went back to the food service area to grab a carton of milk, but before he could return to his seat he was grabbed by a police officer, who was assigned to the school by the Prince William County Police Department.The officer accused him of stealing the carton of milk.Turk says the police officer grabbed him by his arm and then accused him of stealing and trying to conceal the milk. The teen admits that he pulled away from the officer, telling him get off of me because he s not my dad. The student was placed in handcuffs, taken to the principal s office and suspended from school.Later the teen learned that he was being charged with larceny over the carton of milk.The student qualifies for the school s free lunch program.Ryan s mother, Shamise Turk, is outraged over the charges.During an interview with WJLA she said she has been trying to get the teen back in school, but so far that has not happened. I m angry, I m frustrated, I m mad. It just went too far, the teen s mother said. They are charging him with larceny, which I don t have no understanding as to why he is being charged with larceny when he was entitled to that milk from the beginning. This is what Prince William County taxpayers are paying police and school officials to do? These officials seem to think that prosecuting a middle-schooler over a $.65 carton of milk is a responsible use of taxpayer resources.Charging this student with larceny has nothing to do with justice. This entire thing is nothing more than an outrageous abuse of power.Here s more on the story from WJLA. Featured image via video screen capture WJLA | 0 |
8,924 | White House narrows search to three for Supreme Court | WASHINGTON/AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - The White House has narrowed its search for a U.S. Supreme Court nominee to three federal appeals court judges, Sri Srinivasan, Merrick Garland and Paul Watford, a source familiar with the selection process said on Friday. Srinivasan, an Indian-American who served under presidents of both parties before President Barack Obama named him as an appellate judge, and Garland, considered but passed over for the Supreme Court twice before by Obama, are considered the leading contenders, according to the source and two other sources close to the process. Obama is searching for a replacement for long-serving conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on Feb. 13. Senate Republicans have vowed not to hold confirmation hearings or an up-or-down vote on any nominee picked by the Democratic president for the lifetime position on the court. Senate Republicans, hoping a candidate from their party wins the Nov. 8 presidential election, want the next president, who takes office in January, to make the selection. A formal announcement could come as soon as Monday. That would give Obama the weekend to think about his final choice and make an announcement before Tuesday’s presidential primary elections in five states including Florida and Ohio. Srinivasan, 49, and Garland, 63, serve together on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. That appeals court has served as a springboard to the Supreme Court for several justices including Scalia in recent decades. Srinivasan, who was born in India and grew up in Kansas, would be the first Asian-American and first Hindu on the high court. Obama appointed him to the appeals court in 2013. The Senate confirmed him in a 97-0 vote. Srinivasan served in the Justice Department under Democratic and Republican presidents and worked as a clerk to the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court, Sandra Day O’Connor, a Republican appointee. Garland, who has earned praise from lawmakers of both parties, is the chief judge of the Washington appeals court, where he has served since being appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1997, winning confirmation in a 76-23 vote. Prior to that, he served in the Justice Department under Clinton. Watford, 48, is a judge on the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, winning Senate confirmation in a 61-34 vote in 2012. He previously worked as a prosecutor and in private practice. If confirmed, he would be the nation’s third black justice, following current justice Clarence Thomas, appointed in 1991, and Thurgood Marshall, who retired in 1991 and died in 1993. Obama is the first black U.S. president. It was unclear whether the other two other candidates who had been expected to be interviewed by Obama, federal appeals court judge Jane Kelly and federal trial judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, were now out of the running altogether. Kelly is a judge on the St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Jackson is a federal trial judge in Washington. Both were appointed to those positions by Obama. Without Scalia, the Supreme Court is evenly split with four liberals and four conservatives. An Obama appointment could tilt the court to the left for the first time in decades. Obama is traveling in Texas, where he spoke at Austin’s South by Southwest festival on Friday and is appearing at Democratic fundraisers. He returns to Washington late on Saturday. | 1 |
8,925 | Trump Might Not Propose A Budget Next Year In Order To Avoid Criticism | In an unprecedented move, the Trump administration is considering not submitting a budget to Congress next year. He would do this to avoid criticism and it s not illegal even though the Congressional Budget Act requires the president to submit the fiscal 2018 budget to Congress between January 2nd and February 6th. As Forbes notes, Trump could easily say that it was the responsibility of the outgoing Obama administration to comply with the law before the new president was sworn in on January 20. Forbes source of this news was someone in the GOP congressional leadership.Again, this is unprecedented, but there s a reason #TrumpFirsts was trending on Twitter yesterday. Clearly, the man doesn t know how to President:Every in-coming president since the Congressional Budget Act went into effect in the mid-1970s has submitted a budget. In many years, those budgets (or amendments to the outgoing president s final budget) were submitted months after the first-Monday-in-February deadline and were truncated versions of the usual multi-volume presentation. But, a fiscal plan with the new president s priorities was consistently released for over 4 decades.A newly elected President is typically eager to submit a budget the first year because it s an opportunity to display the details and plans for things to come. It s showing the new President s priorities. But after a budget is submitted, it gives a platform for those who will criticize the administration. So if there s no proposal then there s no criticism.And as for those promises Trump made: it would also eliminate the need for the administration to publish a table with the very optimistic GDP growth promised during the campaign, the high interest rates many economists think are coming and Trump s unrealistic assumptions on jobs and unemployment.This is coming from a man who didn t release his taxes during his campaign. That, too, is not presidential. We d love to hear a good defense on this from Trump supporters. Y all got burned and we re going to have to clean another Republican President s mess up when he creates an apocalyptic economy. By the way, the jobless rate is 4.6 percent right now. Watch how fast that increases._____________________________________________________________________________________Photo by Alex Wong via Getty. | 0 |
8,926 | Unions endorse Sanders, Clinton for president as NY race nears | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders won his first endorsement from a fellow U.S. senator on Wednesday, and he and rival Hillary Clinton both announced backing from New York City labor unions as they battled to win next week’s state primary. The Transport Workers Union Local 100, representing 42,000 workers in the New York region, backed Sanders as he struggled to dent Clinton’s lead in a state each has called home. Deriding “fierce attacks” against unions over the last several decades, Sanders called organized labor the last line of defense against corporate greed in America. “We’ve got to stand together, take on the big-money interests and make it clear that our government works for all of us, not just the 1 percent,” the U.S. senator from Vermont said. Following his endorsement announcement, Sanders joined a picket line of Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N) workers, who went on strike on Wednesday after contract talks hit an impasse. He thanked the workers for fighting corporate greed and told them: “Today you are standing up not just for justice for Verizon workers. You’re standing up for millions of Americans.” Clinton, a former two-term senator from New York, scored her own union endorsement from Local 3 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, representing more than 27,000 area workers. Sanders trails Clinton in the number of delegates won in primaries and caucuses. The former U.S. secretary of state has 1,758 delegates to Sanders’ 1,069, according to the Associated Press. A candidate needs 2,383 delegates to win the nomination to be the party’s candidate in the Nov. 8 election. Clinton on Wednesday also won backing from New York’s Daily News, which called her a “superprepared warrior realist” who understands the economic toll the country has faced, while labeling Sanders “utterly unprepared” with “politically impossible” goals. The newspaper’s editorial board interview with Clinton’s Brooklyn-born rival this month prompted criticism of Sanders as lacking detailed understanding of some of his main policy initiatives. U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, announced his endorsement of Sanders in a New York Times column, saying he supports Sanders for his work battling economic inequality, opposing trade deals and fighting for the middle class. “It is time to recommit ourselves to that vision of a country that measures our nation’s success not at the boardroom table, but at kitchen tables across America,” wrote Merkley, the junior U.S. senator from Oregon. Merkley’s announcement precedes Oregon’s May 17 primary. | 1 |
8,927 | State Department presses North Korea to release detained Americans | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States holds North Korea accountable for its treatment of U.S. student Otto Warmbier and wants three other U.S. citizens detained by Pyongyang to be freed as soon as possible, the U.S. State Department said on Tuesday. “We hold North Korea accountable for Otto Warmbier’s unjust imprisonment,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told a news briefing. Warmbier died on Monday days after being returned from North Korea in a coma after being imprisoned for 17 months. “We want to see three other Americans who were unjustly detained brought home as soon as possible,” Nauert said. | 1 |
8,928 | JEB BUSH WANTS CONGRESS TO APPROVE AMNESTY And Confirm Loretta Lynch (Eric Holder In A Skirt) For AG Position | Jeb Bush just unofficially placed himself on team Democrat Potential GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush is calling on Congress to confirm attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch, whose confirmation hearings took place in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee in January. In February, Lynch was voted out of the committee and approved 12-8. Due to the legislative schedule and fighting over bills already in motion, a full Senate vote on her confirmation has not yet taken place. More from POLITICO: I think presidents have the right to pick their team, Bush said, according to reports of his stop at the Politics and Pie forum in Concord, New Hampshire, on Thursday night.A Senate fight over a sex-trafficking bill that includes a controversial abortion provision has held up Lynch s nomination for 160 days since Obama announced his choice last Nov. 8, but Minority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is threatening to break protocol and force a vote on the Senate floor. If someone is supportive of the president s policies, whether you agree with them or not, there should be some deference to the executive, Bush told reporters. It should not always be partisan. The attorney general isn t supposed to be supportive of the president s policies. The attorney general is supposed to advise the president on constitutional matters and is responsible for ensuring the balance between the executive and legislative branches in maintained.During her confirmation hearings, Lynch expressed support for President Obama s executive amnesty and argued that anybody who is inside the United States, regardless of how they got here or what their legal status is, has a right to work. I think the right and obligation to work is one that is shared by everyone in this country regardless of how they came here and certainly if someone is here, regardless of status, I would prefer that they be participating in the work place than not be participating, Lynch said.https://youtu.be/FbjsvEjXLgoSorry Loretta, but we beg to differ: Via: Townhall | 0 |
8,929 | Trump names Eric Hargan as acting Health Secretary | (Reuters) - President Donald Trump has appointed Eric Hargan as acting Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), the White House said on Tuesday. Hargan, the deputy secretary of HHS, formerly served on Trump’s transition team for HHS. The appointment follows Tom Price’s resignation as HHS Secretary late in September over his use of costly private charter planes for government business. U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, considered a potential successor to Price, said on Tuesday he believed he could best serve the Trump administration in his current role. (This story has been refiled to correct paragraph 3 reference to late September, instead of last week.) | 1 |
8,930 | Senators want to change massive new Israel aid package | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican U.S. lawmakers launched an effort on Tuesday to modify a $38 billion military aid agreement with Israel by providing more money and easing controls on how it is spent, setting up a showdown with President Barack Obama over the package days after it was signed. Senators Lindsey Graham, Kelly Ayotte, John McCain and Ted Cruz told a news conference they had filed a measure to give Israel an additional $1.5 billion in military aid, while renewing U.S. sanctions on Iran. Republican Senators Mark Kirk, Marco Rubio and Roy Blunt also co-sponsored the bill introduced on Tuesday. Ayotte, McCain, Kirk, Rubio and Blunt all face competitive races for re-election on Nov. 8. Arguing that U.S. law gives Congress control of spending, they objected to a provision preventing Israel from asking for additional funds from Congress after the new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), begins at the end of fiscal 2018. “This is a very dramatic moment in the U.S.-Israel relationship between Congress and the state of Israel. Congress is not going to sit on the sidelines,” Graham said. The senators also object to Israel’s agreement to return any money if Congress tries to send it more than $3.8 billion per year before then. Graham said he would introduce legislation to overturn a provision in the agreement that phased out an arrangement that has allowed Israel to spend 26.3 percent of U.S. military aid on its own defense industry instead of on U.S. weapons. U.S. and Israeli officials signed the agreement on Wednesday. The 10-year package is the largest in U.S. history. It was reached after nearly 10 months of negotiations that underscored continuing friction between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. But Netanyahu decided it would be best to forge a new arrangement with Obama, who leaves office in January, rather than hoping for better terms from the next U.S. administration, according to officials on both sides. The senators insisted that Netanyahu was forced into signing because Israel’s arch-enemy Iran is growing stronger as it obtains billions of dollars unfrozen under an international nuclear agreement reached last year. “Now is not the time to say that we’re going to nickel and dime Israel,” Graham said. Congressional Republicans strongly oppose the nuclear pact. They angered the White House in 2015 by inviting Netanyahu to give an address to Congress opposing it. They have offered several pieces of legislation to overturn or undermine the nuclear deal, and sought to make it an issue in the 2016 U.S. elections. | 1 |
8,931 | snow reports from around the northland duluth through am saturday | election crossroads socialism or capitalism exclusive jane chastain explains impact of dems living wage proposal published mins ago about archive jane chastain is a southern californiabased broadcaster author and political commentator despite her present emphasis on politics jane always will be remembered as the nations first female tv sportscaster spending years on the sports beat jane blogs at janechastaincom she is a pilot who lives on a private runway print
our country is at a crossroads never before have we faced such an obvious fork in the road one road the one favored by politician hillary clinton and her democratic colleagues promises to lead us to a socialist utopia the other favored by businessman donald trump and some of his republican colleagues promises to get us back on the road toward freemarket capitalism
it is no secret that most career politicians lean toward a socialist system in this system they control the lions share of our money and in turn hand out favors in this system they make the major decisions that affect our lives as the government accumulates more and more power we invariably end up with less statistics show that the longer a politician stays in power the more of our hardearned money he or she spends yet we keep electing the same people over and over and over again expecting a different result
weve been headed down the road toward socialism for quite some time and this could be the last fork in the road we will have to get us back to the freemarket system that has given this country the highest standard of living in the world no it isnt perfect but it works for everyone who is willing to work hard and wants to improve his or her life
notice what i didnt say is simply willing to work hard there is the belief by some that if you simply work hard you should have what these politicians now call a living wage the income necessary to support a family of four and supply all its basic needs which is around a year in some parts of the country the democrats want to replace the minimum wage which is a training wage with this living wage that completely kicks the bottom rungs out from under the economic ladder americans have traditionally climbed to reach their goals and live independently
ideally it would mean that you could take a job flipping hamburgers and never gain any skills or accept any responsibility and live as comfortably as the guy or gal who does
unfortunately this socalled living wage will destroy jobs it will cause companies to automate and those that cannot will begin moving offshore at an even faster rate
but this living wage is only part of what the democrats want to do in the name of fairness
this no doubt appeals to many in this poor economy who have lost all hope so they are lulled into thinking that the socialist road is much better
wages have remained flat for far too long but the democrats are proposing raising taxes even higher on businesses and job creators
most people simply do not understand that businesses dont pay taxes they are passed down to consumers in the form of higher prices and when the price of the necessary goods and services becomes too high such as weve seen in obamacare there is a large outcry thats when the government steps in and takes over the means of production and the control of those services thats when the door to socialismcommunism slams shut
they tell us if we take this socialist road there is nothing to fear our benevolent government will take care of us they are offering us free college or almost free loans in order to get the job we want at a salary we think we deserve and if we dont get that job the government is going to give us free health care free food and free housing under president hillary there will be free child care free preschool and paid family leave what a country
if we dont reach our goals everything will be ok because social security and medicare will be there to finance our retirement and if that isnt enough the government will put us in a retirement center where we live out the remainder of our years playing checkers or watching television
what about the fact that social security and medicare are going broke how long can we keep printing money to keep us afloat before our economy collapses they never talk about that
as british prime minister margaret thatcher once said the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples money
dont be fooled this election is about a lot more than the two personalities at the top of the ticket its an important fork in the road one fork requires hard work and sacrifice but offers freedom the other offers a free lunch
media wishing to interview jane chastain please contact receive jane chastains commentaries in your email bonus by signing up for jane chastains alerts you will also be signed up for news and special offers from wnd via email name | 1 |
8,932 | Majority of U.S. Senate backs disaster aid bill | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A majority of the U.S. Senate on Tuesday backed a new round of disaster aid to help Puerto Rico and several states recover from damage from hurricanes and wildfires. The legislation would provide $36.5 billion in emergency relief as Puerto Rico in particular struggles to regain electricity and other basic services following destructive hurricanes. The House of Representatives approved the bill earlier this month. The Trump administration already has indicated it will seek another round of emergency relief from Congress. | 1 |
8,933 | JESSE JACKSON STYLE SHAKEDOWN: NAACP President Caught Selling Endorsements For Political Candidates | Making a political endorsement by the NAACP completely irrelevant You d think in order to get an endorsement from the NAACP or its members that you d have to demonstrate loyalty and allegiance to black causes, but you d be wrong. All it takes is some cold hard cash. An NAACP chapter president is offering up political endorsements from a Political Action Committee he represents in exchange for a fat stack of Ben Franklins.Hezekiah Jackson is the Birmingham, AL NAACP chapter president. He is also the co-chair of Team Seven, a powerful local PAC whose endorsements promise to deliver votes from the black community. Team Seven is hosting a banquet on February 4 for local candidates to connect with voters. Of course this banquet is not free to the candidates, but there s something even dirtier about it.I know that I wrote in my headline that Jackson was busted for selling endorsements, which implies he was sneaking around and got caught. In actuality, he was flaunting this pay-off scheme and didn t care who noticed. According to AL.com, Jackson sent the following e-mail to candidates he hoped would slide a little money his way. It s basically a list of how much things cost and what you get for it:1. Deadline to submit payment is Friday, January 23, 2016 to me (Jackson) or Pastor Webb (Ad committee co-chair Gwen Webb).2. Candidates purchasing an ad ($500) will have two minutes to speak.3. Candidates purchasing a table ($500) will have two minutes to speak.4. Candidates purchasing a combo (ad $250 and table for eight $500 = $750) will have three minutes to speak.Pay close attention to the next one:5. Candidates who do not purchase an ad nor a table WILL NOT be considered for endorsement.Did you get that? The candidates either pay up or they won t even be considered for an endorsement from Jackson s PAC. No matter how you look at it, that s unethical as hell and probably illegal. Political Action Committees are bound by certain laws and I d like to believe shaking down politicians for endorsements is a big no-no.This is a classic Al Sharpton race-hustling scheme. You want an endorsement? You want to be absolved of offending the black community? You want to avoid bad press and a boycott? Just pay some tribute to the good Reverend and he ll handle everything. Some may see this as extortion, but to Sharpton it s just black activism. Via: DownTrend | 0 |
8,934 | Zimbabwe civil society calls for post-Mugabe 'national dialogue' | HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe s Platform for Concerned Citizens, a civil society group, called on Tuesday for a far-reaching national dialogue involving all political parties to help plot a new course for the country after the resignation of Robert Mugabe. A National Transitional Authority must be the final outcome of a national dialogue, the PCC said in a statement. We have informed both the government and the military of our view. | 1 |
8,935 | Strong defense relationship with Britain to continue: Pentagon spokesman | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon is confident that defense ties with Britain will continue and U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter spoke with his counterpart by phone after Britain voted to leave the European Union, a Pentagon spokesman said on Friday. Speaking with reporters, Peter Cook said the United States was confident that Britain would remain a strong ally in NATO, which “will continue to perform its very important function.” | 1 |
8,936 | Desperate Republicans Are Begging Documented Liars From Fake News Network To Testify On Benghazi | Congressional Republicans are so pathetically desperate to harm Hillary Clinton that they are now turning to Fox News in order to secure more witnesses to testify at yet another Congressional investigation into the Benghazi attacks.On the May 11th edition of Special Report, Fox host Adam Housley brought on anonymous sources that swore there were military assets that could have been used to save our diplomatic compound in Benghazi on the night it was attacked in 2012. There was absolutely zero evidence given by Fox during the broadcast, other than shadowy figures reading off a list of what Fox wanted them to say. This apparently was good enough for Republicans.On the May 12th edition of Special Report, host Doug McKelway reported that Trey Gowdy who is the failed ringleader of months and millions of dollars worth of Benghazi busts actually contacted Fox News and urged these witnesses who spoke to Fox News to talk to his committee.Gowdy did this despite the fact that Housley, the one who miraculously found these fake witnesses, has a documented history of using admitted liars and fraudsters as expert witnesses about the events that happened that night in Libya.One of Housley s worst actors was Dylan Davies, who played a central role in Housley s journalistic fraud. Davies claimed he personally scaled the wall at Benghazi that night, and engaged in one-on-one combat with terrorists. Later he admitted that he completely lied about the entire thing. Housley has also used unnamed sources (liars) to push similar fake stories about Benghazi in the past, all of which were debunked by literally every relevant governmental agency, as well as every previous Republican-led Benghazi hearing.You can understand, in a way, Fox s desire to talk about anything other than Donald Trump and the impending self destruction of the Republican Party. Congressional Republicans, though, have no excuse.Think about it like this. The exact same Republicans on the exact same committee are using the exact same witnesses that their own investigations proved to be liars, as witnesses in another Benghazi investigation. What the hell do you even say to this? Illogical? Insane? Both?Featured image via YouTube screen capture | 0 |
8,937 | Trump says U.S. considering global trade embargo on North Korea: tweet | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Twitter on Sunday that the United States was considering cutting trade to any country doing business with North Korea. North Korea said it had tested an advanced hydrogen bomb for a long-range missile on Sunday, setting off a manmade earthquake near the test. | 1 |
8,938 | Factbox: Trump on Twitter (April 19) - Georgia elections, Karen Handel | The following statements were posted to the verified Twitter accounts of U.S. President Donald Trump, @realDonaldTrump and @POTUS. The opinions expressed are his own. Reuters has not edited the statements or confirmed their accuracy. @realDonaldTrump : - Dems failed in Kansas and are now failing in Georgia. Great job Karen Handel! It is now Hollywood vs. Georgia on June 20th. [0843 EST] - Despite major outside money, FAKE media support and eleven Republican candidates, BIG “R” win with runoff in Georgia. Glad to be of help! [0009 EST] -#MAGA #VPinASIA bit.ly/2oMuzv1 [0129 EST] - #BuyAmericanHireAmerican #MAGA [0736 EST] -- Source link: (bit.ly/2jBh4LU) (bit.ly/2jpEXYR) | 1 |
8,939 | This Single Anecdote Tells You EVERYTHING You Need To Know About Trump Voters | While pundits have been busily dissecting exactly what went wrong for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, it s becoming increasingly clear that in our post-fact world, it was lies, propaganda and the unwillingness of the mainstream media to point out the difference that propelled Donald Trump toward the presidency.The Atlantic spoke to people in Elkhart, Indiana, which has boomed since Obama took office in 2009. Unfortunately, residents of Elkhart seem not to know it, and neither do most Trump voters. Despite the fact that the U.S. economy has been on a constant trajectory of growth, almost since the day President Barack Obama took office, the vast majority of Republicans thought the economy has been horrible under Obama. Who can blame them? That s all Donald Trump and Fox News have been saying. The funny thing is, though, that immediately after the election, nearly half of Republicans thought the economy was getting better.In Elkhart, even the people who would acknowledge that things are getting better for them refuse to give Obama credit for it. They do seem willing to give Trump credit, though, despite the fact that he s done nothing yet. These two paragraphs from the article are going viral and they offer a big glimpse into the minds of Trump supporters:Andi Ermes, 39, offered a number of reasons for disliking Obama. She said Obama didn t attend the Army-Navy football game, even though other presidents had. Obama has actually attended more Army-Navy games than George H.W. Bush. She said that he had taken too many vacations. He has taken fewer vacation days that George W. Bush. She also said that he refused to wear a flag pin on his lapel. While it is true that Obama did not wear a flag on his lapel at points during the 2007 campaign, it was back on his suit by 2008. Ermes told me the news sources she consumes most are Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and a local conservative radio show hosted by Casey Hendrickson.Perhaps unsurprisingly, Ermes sees the biggest signs for hope in the economy in Carrier deal struck by Donald Trump, which will keep 1,000 jobs in the U.S. He s not even president yet and already he s helping the economy, she said.Of course, the Carrier deal was just another Trump lie. Far fewer than the originally touted 1,000 jobs were saved in the Carrier deal, which was just a tax break. President Obama, on the other hand, saved 1.2 million jobs with very little fanfare.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images. | 0 |
8,940 | ‘He’s Not Doing What I Thought’: Voters Pissed Off Over Wasting Their Vote On Trump (VIDEO) | During a sit down with Trump voters, CNN got their take on the alleged president s first 100 days. With polls showing Trump as the most unpopular president in history, some of the former reality show star s most ardent supporters have stood by him but others are fed up. One Trump supporter has had it with Trump s broken promises, such as the vow to work on the opioid epidemic spreading across America. Another Trump voter, Scott McCommons, said that he was disappointed with Trump s first 100 days, calling it was a disaster. He s got enough time to get on Twitter, and rant and rave, and on top of that lie on Twitter, he said. I voted for the man to make America great again, and I m willing to give him a chance, but he s not doing what I thought, that he made promises at rallies that I went to. I expected him to work a little harder [on health care], he continued. Be a little more reasonable instead of threatening people. That s unpresidential. I voted to send him to Washington strictly because I thought he would make change, nobody would push him around. He s used his power against people, I think that s wrong. gt s been a disaster, I think, in the first 100 days. If I were to vote tomorrow, I would not vote for him, he added.Watch courtesy of CNN:As the CNN host pointed out, Trump campaigned as the ultimate deal maker. One strong supporter of Trump s blamed House Speaker Paul Ryan for that. McCommons said Trump isn t willing to sit down at the table and negotiate. If only Trump supporters were warned that the alleged billionaire was a con man. Oh wait, they were. And now, here we are having to deal with a hot mess as Donald Trump once again targets millions of Americans health care while still insisting that Mexico will pay for his vanity-wall.Image via screen capture | 0 |
8,941 | MUELLER’S FBI RAID Of Paul Manafort and Wife Proves Special Council’s Agents Playing Too Rough | The intimidation tactics of Mueller s FBI are way off base according to reports that claim Mrs. Manafort was manhandled :Just how rough special counsel Robert Mueller is playing with Paul Manafort goes back before this week s indictment to the FBI s no-knock raid in July.It has been reported that the agents checked Mr. Manafort and wife Kathleen for guns as they broke into the Alexandria condo pre-dawn by picking the lock.A source familiar with the case told The Washington Times the search was even more intrusive: An agent patted down Mrs. Manafort before she was allowed to get out of bed. Agents felt up Mrs. Manafort lying in bed to see if she had guns, the source said of the intimidation.In all, 12 FBI agents entered the home, guns drawn, and stayed for hours.The aggressive search of a prone sleepy woman is, the source said, a hallmark of Mr. Mueller s top prosecutor, Andrew Weissmann. A former mob prosecutor in New York, he specializes in turning witnesses against bigger prey and is not afraid to make things rough for spouses, too. Weissmann will want to maximize the trauma to his family, said Sidney Powell, a Dallas appeals attorney critical of his tactics.A spokesman for the special counsel s office declined to comment.Via: WT | 0 |
8,942 | HOW THE CLINTON FOUNDATION RIPPED OFF HAITI…Stunning VIDEO That Exposes America’s Most Selfish Couple | While the media salivates over the illegal release of Trump s tax documents and criticize him for using legal tax loopholes to avoid paying taxes to our corrupt government, they completely ignored the Clinton crime families scheme to steal from the poorest of the poor in Haiti.Here is how the Clinton s used the money that Americans donated to help the devastated residents of Haiti to enrich themselves: | 0 |
8,943 | Former DNC Chairman Howard Dean Is Fired Up And Ready To Make Trump A One-Term President | The nation and world are reeling from the fact that we are now facing a horrifying reality: Four years being ruled by the likes of Donald Trump and Mike Pence. People are rightfully afraid of what he will do with regards to LGBTQ rights and women s rights, and the fact that he has mainstreamed bigotry on a level we haven t seen since the Civil Rights Era. There is also something else that must be considered when it comes to Hillary s stunning loss: The future of the Democratic Party.We are now the party that is in turmoil, with Donna Brazile as the interim Chair since Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was ousted at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, after it was revealed that she worked to undermine Hillary s primary challenger, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. It s also clear that Hillary was not successful in picking up enough of the Obama coalition to pull of an electoral win, and the party needs to come together and figure out why, so that we only have to endure four years of Trump instead of eight.The first thing we have to is to do turn out in DROVES and make sure Democrats take the House of Representatives and the Senate back. The second thing to do is to decide who our Party leaders are now, and devise a get out the vote strategy that ensures wins across the board in two years, and in four years. Well there is one man who thinks he will be the one to do all of that and then some: Former DNC Chairman Howard Dean. He tweeted:The dems need organization and focus on the young. Need a fifty State strategy and tech rehab. I am in for chairman again. Howard Dean (@GovHowardDean) November 10, 2016He is right, of course. The 50-state strategy that President Obama used so masterfully in both 2008 and 2012 is what gave Democrats the win. This is especially true of the first two years of his presidency, when Democrats controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress. Thanks to these facts, Democrats enjoyed the ability to offer up a literal cornucopia of progressive wet dreams, only to have all of that about to be destroyed now.If we let Howard Dean do as he promises, that can be our reality again. It s time to organize, Democrats, and listen to the concerns and demands of the Sanders coalition, reclaim the Obama coalition, and take back power.Featured image via Alex Wong/Getty Images | 0 |
8,944 | Congressional Black Caucus Signals That They Absolutely Intend To Impeach Trump | The Congressional Black Caucus, like most Democrats and reasonable people everywhere, have never had very warm feelings toward Donald Trump to put it mildly. After all, this is a section of the House of Representatives dedicated to protecting the interests and rights of Black Americans, and Trump is a lifelong open and avowed racist. However, they have, for the most part, seemed to stop short of calling for Trump s removal with the exception of Rep. Maxine Waters, who is, of course, in a league all her own.This level of restraint being exercised by the majority of this powerful group of lawmakers has definitely changed as of late, though. Ever since Trump s disgraceful response to the horrific events in Charlottesville at a rally of neo-Nazis that resulted in countless injuries and the death of a brave young woman, it seems that the Black Caucus is done playing. They want Trump out of office, posthaste. During a conference call held with the press on Monday, Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-LA) said of Trump: You can make an argument based on pure competency and fitness to serve, and that s the conversation the caucus will have. Am I concerned about high crimes and misdemeanors? Absolutely. Am I concerned about this president s fitness to serve? Absolutely. Richmond also indicated that Charlottesville was the last straw when it came to giving Trump the benefit of the doubt when it comes to whether or not he really has the concerns of Black America at heart. Granted, all of this is a pipe dream for now. The GOP will criticize Trump until the cows come home, but they sure as hell won t do anything about him. They won t even formally censure him, much less move to remove him from office.All of that could change, however, if the House is returned to Democratic control in 2018. Folks, if we want to save our republic, we ll give the Congressional power to the Democrats next year while we still have a country to save.Featured image via Law Officer | 0 |
8,945 | Alec Baldwin Delivers Bad News To Donald Trump Prior To This Week’s Saturday Night Live | Donald Trump is going to throw a temper tantrum tonight.It s been a couple weeks since Trump embarrassed himself by attacking Saturday Night Live and Alec Baldwin over a cold-open mocking him for obsessing with Twitter instead of listening to national security briefings. Just tried watching Saturday Night Live unwatchable! Trump whined. Totally biased, not funny and the Baldwin impersonation just can t get any worse. Sad. Just tried watching Saturday Night Live unwatchable! Totally biased, not funny and the Baldwin impersonation just can t get any worse. Sad Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016And Alec Baldwin immediately fired back with an offer for Trump. @realDonaldTrumpRelease your tax returns and I ll stop. Ha ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) December 4, 2016Four days later, Trump continued to whine about the skit during an interview on the Today Show in which he appeared to threaten Saturday Night Live. There s nothing funny about it, Trump complained. The skits are terrible. I like Alec but his imitation of me is terrible. Frankly, the way the show is going now and when you look at the work they re doing who knows how long that show s gonna be on. It s a terrible show. Well, Trump better put on his big boy pants because Baldwin is returning to SNL to portray Trump once again and he broke the news to Trump on Twitter.Baldwin first retweeted John Fugelsang s tweet mocking Trump for misspelling unprecedented on Saturday morning.Nixon was evil but he wasn t ignorant. W was ignorant but he wasn t evil. The incoming combo is #unpresidented John Fugelsang (@JohnFugelsang) December 17, 2016Then Baldwin compared Trump to a biker a girl brings home to meet her family.Trump is like that biker the girl brings home. DAD: You re not marrying him. GIRL: Yes I am! I LOVE WAYNE!!!! ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) December 17, 2016And then he revealed that he will be playing Trump again on SNL tonight and refused to apologize for it.I won t apple-agize. Tonight at 11:30. Live. ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) December 17, 2016 @snl tonight pic.twitter.com/otoph91mrg ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) December 17, 2016Now we just have to watch the skit and wait for Trump to lose his sh*t on Twitter about it. Because we all know that Trump s behavior is definitely unpresidented. Featured Image: Drew Angerer/Getty Images | 0 |
8,946 | In HISTORY MAKING Kiss Cam Moment, Gay Couple Featured At NHL Game (VIDEO) | During nearly every sporting event, at one point in the game, the cameras are taken off the game to scan the crowd for loving couples to smooch each other on the infamous Kiss Cam. Almost always, or let s just say it like it is, these cameras seem to always find straight couples. However, last year, a beautiful couple got caught on the Kiss Cam at Dodger stadium, and it looks as though another beautiful couple got their moment recently during a hockey game.In what is being reported as the first same-sex Kiss Cam moment in NHL history, Brad Parr and Andy Evans, while attending a Los Angeles Kings game at the Staples Center, were featured. The kiss drew huge cheers from the crowd.Parr told Outsports: It was a particularly sweet night since the Kings were playing and beat my hometown Toronto. My parents and siblings live in LA but the rest of my family think I am a terrible traitor for being a Kings fan; I ve lived in LA for 17 years. Not only did these fantastic men get to smooch in front of thousands of fellow King s fans, but they are also triathletes raising money for Leukemia and Lymphoma Society s Team in Training.This beautiful moment in history is wonderful and shows the progress we ve made as a nation, but it also highlights that in 2016, we re just now getting around to acknowledging that gay couples, male and female, do in fact attend sporting events.Congrats to the beautiful couple, and if you d like to donate to help their cause, go HERE.You can see the full video HERE, but here s a highlight of just the pair in their moment in history: Progress! Hear the cheers for the first gay kiss on Kiss Cam. A first in NHL history. LA Kings vs Maple Leafs Game. pic.twitter.com/ngEJnqqqif My Daughter s Army (@mydaughtersarmy) January 9, 2016 Video/Featured image: Twitter | 0 |
8,947 | Factbox: Trump on Twitter (April 17) - Fake news, foreign policy | The following statements were posted to the verified Twitter accounts of U.S. President Donald Trump, @realDonaldTrump and @POTUS. The opinions expressed are his own. Reuters has not edited the statements or confirmed their accuracy. @realDonaldTrump : - “The first 90 days of my presidency has exposed the total failure of the last eight years of foreign policy!” So true. @foxandfriends [0807 EST] - A great book for your reading enjoyment: “REASONS TO VOTE FOR DEMOCRATS” by Michael J. Knowles. [0813 EST] - The Fake Media (not Real Media) has gotten even worse since the election. Every story is badly slanted. We have to hold them to the truth! [0817 EST] - The super Liberal Democrat in the Georgia Congressioal race tomorrow wants to protect criminals, allow illegal immigration and raise taxes! [0931 EST] - TRUMP APPROVAL HITS 50% here [1838 EST] - See you tomorrow Wisconsin! bit.ly/2psD3KM [1841 EST] - With eleven Republican candidates running in Georgia (on Tuesday) for Congress, a runoff will be a win. Vote “R” for lower taxes & safety! [2218 EST] -- Source link: (bit.ly/2jBh4LU) (bit.ly/2jpEXYR) | 1 |
8,948 | Chile's Guillier concedes presidency to Pinera | SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Center-left presidential candidate Alejandro Guillier conceded the Chilean presidency to billionaire conservative Sebastian Pinera on Sunday, as Chile followed other South American nations making a political turn to the right. With 96.31 percent of votes counted in the world s top copper producer, former president and market favorite Pinera had won 54.57 percent of ballots, according to electoral agency Servel. Guillier had 45.43 percent. Guillier recognized a harsh defeat but urged Pinera to continue with outgoing center-left President Michelle Bachelet s reforms. | 1 |
8,949 | WATCH: Keith Olbermann Tells Fools Who Voted For Trump To Wave Goodbye To Their Social Security | Keith Olbermann did not mince words. The end of Social Security is near because of Donald Trump.Trump supporters are living in a fantasy land if they really believe Trump and the Republican Congress are going to protect Social Security.For decades, Social Security has been a lifeline for the elderly during hard times. During the Great Recession in 2008, Social Security kept people over the age of 65 afloat as millions of Americans took hits that drained their bank accounts or left them homeless.For senior citizens, Social Security did exactly what is was meant to do, prevent them from ending up in poverty.Every American in this country pays into Social Security so that they can benefit from the program one day.But Republicans are already planning on gutting Social Security in 2017 with a bill known as the Social Security Reform Act of 2016.The bill will raise the retirement age, which means American workers will have to work longer and harder before they can stop and draw the Social Security they worked so hard for. And it won t even be worth it because the bill also slashes benefits by 35 percent and will be cut by 50 percent for younger workers. In short, Americans will get less but have to work more.And Republicans are hoping to pass this bill handily without anyone noticing. Not only are they banking on Trump serving as a distraction, they are betting that he ll sign whatever they put in front of his face. The banana Republicans are going on a stealth offensive, Olbermann began. They have to reveal themselves sooner or later, if only to signal to corporations who own them that, yes, the fix is in and ownership will be getting what they prostituted the government for. Olbermann explained that chief actuary of the Social Security Administration Stephen C. Goss sent a letter to bill sponsor Rep. Sam Johnson warning him that his so-called reform plan will actually harm Social Security and hurt the millions of Americans who use it. Paul Ryan and all the other corporate whores intend to plunge the knife into the back of Social Security, and especially those hard working fools of Middle America who actually believed the net impact of a Donald Trump presidency would be more money for them and not poverty in their old age, Olbermann continued. Social Security would be gutted. Less money would be flowing into Social Security and Americans would see massive cuts, some of which would begin as early as December 2018. So millions of Americans will take a major hit two years from now, and right around the Christmas season to add insult to injury.And Olbermann added that Trump supporters will be too busy fawning over their new hero to notice that they are being swindled. They will be watching whatever Trump is doing at the moment at some point likely to be his version of Daffy Duck drinking a gallon of gasoline and a bottle of nitroglycerin, a pile of gunpowder and a glass of uranium-238 and then lighting a match and in the background, the Republican House and Republican Senate now full of the subsidiaries of the corporations who were able to buy this country after Citizens United, they will destroy Social Security so the rich can get even richer by stealing a billion dollars one dollar at a time. Our part-time president will take a quick look away from his Twitter feed to sign exactly where they tell him to sign. Here s the video via YouTube.Republicans are prepared to launch an all-out assault on not only Social Security but on Medicare and Medicaid as well. So senior citizens and every American who manages to survive to old age after Republicans destroy everything, will not have Social Security or healthcare. This is what Republicans mean when they say they will take care of the middle class. The reality is that Republicans are selfish and they only care about the wealthy. The time for peaceful protests is over. If we want to keep the programs we have all worked hard to earn and stop the greedy from stealing them from us, the time for open revolt is now.Featured image via screenshot | 0 |
8,950 | Mexico school collapse spurs doubts over building code for quakes | MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The school collapse this week that killed at least 19 children during an earthquake has prompted many Mexicans to question whether building codes developed after a devastating 1985 temblor are too easily flouted. Stringent codes enacted after a massive temblor killed thousands three decades ago minimized damage this week across the metropolis of 20 million people, even if experts say it is nearly impossible to design structures to withstand any quake. At least 293 people died in Tuesday s quake, measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale, but the toll could have been far worse. Still, the collapse of some structures built under the new codes, including the Enrique Rebsamen school that became a symbol of this week s tragedy, has sparked concerns over implementation of the rules. There are still gaps that mean new buildings don t always fully comply, said Roberto Meli Piralla, a structural engineer and expert on seismic preparedness at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. It is too early to know if code violations, neglect or corruption were factors in the collapse of the school or about 50 other buildings in Mexico City. Yet engineers said that challenges remain in enforcing the codes uniformly and ensuring that builders, inspectors and property owners follow approved plans. Inspectors can be criminally liable if a building they OK proves structurally unsound. The mayor of the district where the school is located said her office has been unable to find documentation to assess its construction and structural history. She blamed problems, including corruption, on a predecessor administration. When we came into office, there were many files missing, said Claudia Sheinbaum, the mayor of the Tlalpan district. She said she had no proof that corruption had anything to do with the collapse. Before the quake, municipal officials were already discussing revisions to strengthen code oversight, said Piralla, who is part of an engineering group that made recommendations to the city in recent weeks. One suggestion, according to another engineer involved in the discussions, was to have an independent, third-party review of designs before inspectors sign off on them. The Secretariat for Housing and Urban Development, the municipal office that oversees the code, could not be reached for comment. Even if compliance were universal, engineers said, there is no way to fully prepare because earthquakes vary widely. Tuesday s temblor generated a different frequency of shockwave from the 1985 quake and toppled mid-sized buildings of roughly six to eight stories, compared with towers of about 12 to 15 floors in 1985. It s not possible to say what problems could have been foreseen, said Antonio Gallardo, a member of the board of architects in Mexico City, a council that upholds professional standards across the capital. Most of the damage on Tuesday happened in central and southern districts where soils are less solid than in northern neighborhoods, and urban development, even after improvements in recent decades, is still patchwork. Although the toppled buildings are still being investigated, some were built after the 1987 code, which has periodically been revised since. At the school, which is in southern Mexico City, the older of two structures remained standing while a newer building collapsed. It was built early last decade and opened in 2004, according to several people familiar with its history. The school is a private facility founded in the 1980s by the family that runs it, according to two adult former students. The principal, a daughter of the founders, lived in an apartment that was part of the collapsed structure. She survived the quake, current and former students said. Neither the principal nor other family members could be reached for comment. But local authorities, neighbors and parents are demanding answers. Who could have approved this school? asked Raul D az, a doctor whose 7-year-old son, Eduardo, died at the school. The building was poorly built. If prior quakes are any guide, investigations and a full accounting will take years. But experts said it would be impossible to build structures that could withstand all quakes. There is always going to be a degree of uncertainty, said Mary Comerio, a professor of architecture and researcher on disaster recovery at the University of California at Berkeley. She cited the 2011 earthquake that leveled even costly, modern structures in Christchurch, New Zealand. The extent of a phenomenon known as liquefaction, in which solid soil behaves like a liquid, surprised scientists. Notwithstanding architectural advances, many other variables come into play including human error, ground conditions, the location, depth and force of an earthquake. In 2006, Comerio authored a paper in the journal Science called Can Buildings Be Made Earthquake-Safe? The answer is largely no, she said. | 1 |
8,951 | Venezuelan President Maduro will not go to U.N. rights forum | GENEVA (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro will not address the U.N. Human Rights Council next week, contrary to what had been announced, the United Nations and his country s diplomatic mission said on Tuesday. Maduro, accused of trampling on human rights and democracy in Venezuela, had been expected to address the opening day of a three-week United Nations Human Rights Council session on Sept. 11. The president is not coming, a Venezuelan diplomat in Geneva told Reuters on Tuesday. Rolando Gomez, Council spokesman, said in a statement: Please note that per information the HRC Secretariat just received, President Maduro of Venezuela will not address the Human Rights Council. Instead, (Foreign) Minister (Jorge) Arreaza Montserrat has been scheduled to address the Council on the opening day of the session. In a report last week, the U.N. said that Venezuela s security forces had committed extensive and apparently deliberate human rights violations in crushing anti-government protests and that democracy was barely alive . The actions indicated a policy to repress political dissent and instil fear , the U.N. human rights office said in a report that called for further investigation and accountability. Maduro, whose country is currently one of the Council s 47 member states, addressed the Geneva forum in Nov. 2015. | 1 |
8,952 | GOP Outreach To Women Continues As Trump Doubles Down On Sexist Attack On Clinton | Republicans haven t had a great time attracting women voters in recent history, and it s about to get much worse for them. Their inevitable nominee is someone who has a more lousy reputation with women than any of the legitimate rape can be a blessing from God crowd, and he just can t seem to stop making sexist comments. It s no wonder so many Republicans are deciding not to attend the Republican National Convention this year.Donald Trump recently went after Hillary Clinton with an attack suggesting that if she wasn t a woman, she wouldn t even be a legitimate candidate in the presidential race. Trump was asserting that the only thing she had going for her is the fact she would be the first female POTUS, and beyond that she has no qualifications. As you can imagine, it doesn t go over well with most people when you say a woman has literally no talents or redeeming values beyond her genitalia.Trump appeared on Fox News Sunday and was given an opportunity to address his poor choice of words by Chris Wallace. Trump did address the issue in the proper Republican way by doubling down on the offensive comments. I m my own strategist, and I like what I said, and it s true. I only tell the truth, and that s why people vote for me. He then suggested that she is just going to have to take it because she s a strong person. So, the new Republican position is that a woman has to just sit there and take sexist comments from a guy otherwise, she isn t strong. Really Donald? You re kidding, right? Even you aren t stupid enough to actually say that seriously.Following up on that verbal disaster, he reiterated his original comment by saying, The fact is, the only card that she has is the woman s card. She s done a lousy job in so many ways and even women don t like her. They don t like her. But it is the woman s card, and she plays it, and I ll let you know in about six months whether or not she plays it well. As is the usual case for Republicans, Trump is totally checked out on the reality of the situation. Recent polling models show that women overwhelmingly support Hillary Clinton over Trump by about 60 percent in hypothetical general election scenarios.In a strange way, Trump has done a great service for America and for the Democratic party. His candidacy has mainstreamed the core values of Republicans, such as bigotry, racism and sexism. He managed to convince Republican voters that it s ok to embrace these things openly, and require them to also be openly embraced by Republican candidates. In doing so, he may have single-handedly forced the Republican Party to destroy itself from the inside. Maybe Trump will make America great again, after all.Featured image via wikicommons | 0 |
8,953 | Germany's Merkel to name aide Altmaier as stand-in finance minister: sources | BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel s chief of staff will become acting and temporary finance minister when Wolfgang Schaeuble leaves office, sources in her conservative party said on Friday. The decision comes as negotiations to form a new government look likely to drag into 2018. The sources said Merkel had decided that Peter Altmaier would take over from Schaeuble, who agreed on Wednesday to become president of the lower house of parliament to let someone from another coalition party take the role. . Government spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer would not deny the news, first reported by Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, but noted the Bundestag would not elect a new president until its first session, which must take place by Oct. 24. We will inform you about everything promptly after that, Demmer told a regular news conference. Altmaier, a conservative and close confidant of Merkel s, would take over after the 75-year-old Schaeuble is nominated by the conservative alliance at a meeting on Oct. 17. He would then hand over to whoever is named by a new coalition partner, probably the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), which urged Merkel to accelerate the process of forming a new government. Fifty-nine percent of Germans support Merkel s aim to create a three-way coalition with the FDP and the environmentalist Greens, a survey for broadcaster ZDF found. But a so-called Jamaica coalition - after the parties colors of black, yellow and green that match the Jamaican flag - has never been tested at the national level and there are serious differences on migration, energy, taxes and Europe. Complicating coalition talks is a debate between Merkel s Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian sister party, the CSU, which lost 10 percentage points in Sunday s vote. Eager to claw back support ahead of state elections in 2018, the CSU has redoubled its calls for limiting migration, something Merkel has opposed. Only 23 percent of Germans would favor the continuation of the grand coalition of Merkel s conservatives and the Social Democrats (SPD), which governed for the last four years. Almost two-thirds of those polled supported the SPD s decision to go into opposition at the national level after its worst election result in the post-war era on Sunday. Andrea Nahles, the SPD s newly elected parliamentary leader, said the conservatives, the FDP and Greens need to and will get(a coalition agreement) done . If Chancellor Merkel thinks the SPD is a tactical reserve option for an emergency, then she is wrong, Nahles told Bild. Altmaier himself suggested negotiations may take longer than four years ago, when a deal was done by Christmas. That s what I m hoping for, but what s decisive is the substance, not the date, Altmaier said in an interview published by Focus magazine on Friday. Exploratory talks are expected after the Oct. 15 election in the state of Lower Saxony, now ruled by a coalition of the SPD and Greens. But Wolfgang Kubicki, deputy leader of the FDP, urged Merkel to get the process started sooner. Everyone knows what needs to be done. There s no reason to wait any longer, he told the Handelsblatt newspaper. He said the conflict within conservatives should not result in Germany remaining without a new government for a long time. Underscoring the problems still ahead in forming a government, key officials with the Greens and FDP on Friday questioned a push by Merkel s conservatives to implement facial recognition technology in video surveillance. Kubicki told Der Spiegel: Widespread facial recognition would be a significant step toward a surveillance state. Konstantin von Notz, deputy of the Greens in parliament, echoed his concerns, adding, Then we wouldn t be living in a free country anymore. | 1 |
8,954 | Trump says China 'won't help' with North Korea | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump criticized China on Monday, saying it had benefited from its economic ties with the United States but would not help control North Korea. “China has been taking out massive amounts of money & wealth from the U.S. in totally one-sided trade, but won’t help with North Korea. Nice!” Trump wrote on Twitter. | 1 |
8,955 | MIGRANT JIHAD: Muslim Migrants Attack Hospital Staff With Knifes, Leave Sick Children Behind, Bring AIDS, Syphilis, TB And Many Exotic Diseases To Europe [VIDEO] | Europe will never be the same. The millions of mostly Muslim men flooding their countries rich in heritage and unique cultures will not assimilate. They come with no health checks, no passports, no ID very few women and children. These are the same men who complain about lack of sex and good bars in refugee camps This is unbelievable.A Czech doctor, who works in a German hospital, is so disgusted and overwhelmed with the Muslim migrant invaders that she is threatening to leave the country and go back home to the Czech Republic. She explains, via an email letter (because the press is forbidden from reporting on this), how horrific the conditions are in these hospitals, with the Muslim invaders bringing diseases they weren t even prepared to treat. But that s just part of it. The superior attitudes of these Muslims and their belief that they should get everything for free is wreaking havoc everywhere, from the hospitals to the pharmacies.Really, you must watch this video where an independent Czech television host reads the letter in full. Or, if you prefer, read the transcription I made below which matches the English captions with slight corrections.We will return to the topic of the migrants because I have another letter here regarding the effect of immigrants on the everyday flow of operations.Eyewitness from a Munich hospital:A friend in Prague has a friend, who, as a retired physician, had returned to work at a Munich area hospital where they needed an anaesthesiologist. I correspond with her and she forwarded me her email. Yesterday, at the hospital we had a meeting about how the situation here and at the other Munich hospitals is unsustainable. Clinics cannot handle emergencies, so they are starting to send everything to the hospitals.Many Muslims are refusing treatment by female staff and, we, women, are refusing to go among those animals, especially from Africa. Relations between the staff and migrants are going from bad to worse. Since last weekend, migrants going to the hospitals must be accompanied by police with K-9 units.Many migrants have AIDS, syphilis, open TB and many exotic diseases that we, in Europe, do not know how to treat them. If they receive a prescription in the pharmacy, they learn they have to pay cash. This leads to unbelievable outbursts, especially when it is about drugs for the children. They abandon the children with pharmacy staff with the words: So, cure them here yourselves! So the police are not just guarding the clinics and hospitals, but also large pharmacies.Truly we said openly: Where are all those who had welcomed in front of TV cameras, with signs at train stations?! Yes, for now, the border has been closed, but a million of them are already here and we will definitely not be able to get rid of them.Until now, the number of unemployed in Germany was 2.2 million. Now it will be at least 3.5 million. Most of these people are completely unemployable. A bare minimum of them have any education. What is more, their women usually do not work at all. I estimate that one in ten is pregnant. Hundreds of thousands of them have brought along infants and little kids under six, many emaciated and neglected. If this continues and German re-opens its borders, I m going home to the Czech Republic. Nobody can keep me here in this situation, not even double the salary than at home. I went to Germany, not to Africa or the Middle East.Even the professor who heads our department told us how sad it makes him to see the cleaning woman, who for 800 Euros cleans every day for years, and then meets young men in the hallways who just wait with their hand outstretched, want everything for free, and when they don t get it they throw a fit.I really don t need this! But I m afraid that if I return, that at some point it will be the same in the Czech Republic. If the Germans, with their nature cannot handle this, there in Czechia it would be total chaos. Nobody who has not come in contact with them has no idea what kind of animals they are, especially the ones from Africa, and how Muslims act superior to our staff, regarding their religious accommodation.For now, the local hospital staff has not come down with the diseases they brought here, but, with so many hundreds of patients every day this is just a question of time.In a hospital near the Rhine, migrants attacked the staff with knives after they had handed over an 8-month-old on the brink of death, which they had dragged across half of Europe for three months. The child died in two days, despite having received top care at one of the best pediatric clinics in Germany. The physician had to undergo surgery and two nurses are laid up in the ICU. Nobody has been punished.The local press is forbidden to write about it, so we know about it through email. What would have happened to a German if he had stabbed a doctor and nurses with a knife? Or if he had flung his own syphilis-infected urine into a nurse s face and so threatened her with infection? At a minimum he d go straight to jail and later to court. With these people so far, nothing has happened.And so I ask, where are all those greeters and receivers from the train stations? Sitting pretty at home, enjoying their non-profits and looking forward to more trains and their next batch of cash from acting like greeters at the stations. If it were up to me I would round up all these greeters and bring them here first to our hospital s emergency ward, as attendants. Then, into one building with the migrants so they can look after them there themselves, without armed police, without police dogs who today are in every hospital here in Bavaria, and without medical help.Via: The Right Scoop | 0 |
8,956 | they said what find out what oliver platt alicia keys and tim cook have to say | email
it looks like presidentelect donald trump is wasting no time making his mark on washington hes already gotten to work appointing his new cabinet members and laying the groundwork for his new administration and if it wasnt already clear that things are going to be done trumps way for the next four years donald trump just whispered hope you like to make ham motherfucker to a white house executive chef
wow it looks like washington is going to be a very different place under president trump
those who witnessed the encounter say that during a recent visit to the white house trump caught sight of a highranking member of the white house kitchen waved him over and said come here let me talk to you a minute in a voice that was somehow both cordial and threatening when the chef got close to trump the presidentelect shook his hand pulled him close and began whispering that once he got sworn in the chef would be doing nothing but cooking him ham
members of the white house staff overheard the phrases ham is your life now idiot and i dont care what else you can cook i only want ham as trump whispered to the chef whose eyes grew wide with silent fear as he listened to what our nations newest president was telling him they also say that trump briefly smiled to wave to photographers before turning back to the chef with a dark and menacing expression on his face to continue whispering about ham
now thats the sign of a president who isnt afraid to shake things up
while many americans are deeply troubled by the bigoted rhetoric of trumps presidential campaign those who voted for him as a protest against the political establishment have got to be pretty happy about a story like this one no other president would grab a white house chef by the hand and whisper you live in ham world now motherfucker
and it seems as if presidentelect trump has a concrete plan in place as well trump didnt just tell the white house chef that he wanted ham in general he had specific types of ham that he wanted including baked ham smoked ham all the time and ham with frosting trump was also overheard telling the white house chef youre also going to be making something called a pork jackhammer which i just invented during the limo ride over here its incredibly dangerous to make and i want to eat it every day
it definitely looks like this is going to be a new era in washington you just know its not going to be business as usual in dc anymore when donald trump isnt afraid to look a white house chef right in the eye and say when i ask for chinese food that just means soy sauce on ham when i ask for sushi thats raw ham president trump will be eating barges of ham for breakfast lunch and dinner the moment i take the oath of office is the moment that your world becomes a porkfueled hellscape
people who voted for trump wanted a maverick and it looks like they got one
after about two minutes of whispering hamrelated threats trump stepped away from the chef and began smiling and waving at the surrounding press as if nothing had happened but his message was clear when donald trump becomes president hes going to play by his own rules and hes only going to eat ham if president trump has his way life in the white house might become completely unrecognizable | 0 |
8,957 | Speaker Paul Ryan’s Attack On Hillary Clinton Just Blew Up In His Face | Speaker Paul Ryan put on a public temper tantrum after FBI director James Comey came out and said he and his team did not believe that Hillary Clinton broke the law when she set up a personal email server.Ryan sent a request that instead of how presidential candidates are traditionally treated, that Clinton be denied intelligence briefings that are given once she becomes the official nominee of the Democratic Party.His petulant request has just been denied.Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told Ryan in a letter obtained Monday by CNN that he does not intend to withhold briefings from any officially nominated, eligible candidate. Ryan made the request after Clinton was severely criticized by the FBI for her email use, but not punished. Nominees for president and vice president receive these briefings by virtue of their status as candidates, and do not require separate security clearances before the briefings, Clapper wrote to Ryan. Briefings for the candidates will be provided on an even-handed non-partisan basis. Ryan s request is even more ridiculous when his own party s nominee is Donald Trump. Earlier in the year, intelligence experts expressed concerns that Trump would be given these briefings, as he has shown time and time again a complete disregard for how things are to be handled with sensitivity at the presidential level.The Speaker himself has expressed concerns on multiple occasions about Trump s temperament, admitting that his campaign sent an anti-Semitic tweet and that Trump s remarks about a Latino judge were racist. Yet Ryan has not raised any objections about Trump receiving intelligence briefings.Conservatives have repeatedly whipped themselves up into a frenzy, believing that investigations into the Benghazi attack would take down President Obama, and now Secretary Clinton. The probe into the email was an outgrowth of that frustration, and has now turned into a big zero. Again.Featured image via Flickr | 0 |
8,958 | Freeport Indonesia closes mine access road again after shooting | TIMIKA, Indonesia (Reuters) - The Indonesian unit of Freeport-McMoRan Inc closed the main access road to its giant copper mine in the eastern province of Papua on Tuesday for the second time in three days after another shooting incident. A Freeport vehicle was hit by gunfire while it was heading from Tembagapura to Ridge Camp, the company said in a statement, referring to an area where Freeport workers live. One passenger in the vehicle suffered a bullet wound to his thigh but was in a stable condition at a local clinic, according to the statement. Security apparatus were on the scene investigating the incident, it said. One source initially described the vehicle as a patrol car . The Freeport statement said it was a light armored vehicle . It is the second time the access road to the Grasberg mine has been closed since Sunday, and follows a string of shooting incidents since mid-August that have injured at least seven people and killed one police officer. The violence has escalated security concerns around the mine to their highest level in more than five years. The separatist West Papua National Liberation Army (TPN-OPM), a group linked to the Free Papua Movement, has said it is at war with police, military and Freeport. It was not immediately clear if TPN-OPM were behind the latest shootings. | 1 |
8,959 | Saudi banks freeze more than 1,200 accounts in probe, number still rising: sources | DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabian banks have frozen more than 1,200 accounts belonging to individuals and companies in the kingdom as part of the government s anti-corruption purge, bankers and lawyers said on Tuesday. They added that the number is continuing to rise. Dozens of royal family members, officials and business executives have been detained in the crackdown and are facing allegations of money laundering, bribery, extorting officials and taking advantage of public office for personal gain. Since Sunday, the central bank has been expanding the list of accounts it is requiring lenders to freeze on an almost hourly basis, one regional banker said, declining to be named because he was not authorized to speak to media. The banker did not name the companies affected but said they included listed and unlisted firms across many sectors. He added that if the freezes stayed in place for long, they could start to hurt day-to-day business activities such as paying staff and creditors or making other transactions. A second banker said, however, that most of the frozen accounts belonged to individuals rather than companies, and that banks were being allowed by the regulator to continue to fund existing commitments. A central bank spokesman was not available to comment. Among top business executives detained in the probe are billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, chairman of investment firm Kingdom Holding 4280.SE; Nasser bin Aqeel al-Tayyar, founder of Al Tayyar Travel 1810.SE; and Amr al-Dabbagh, chairman of builder Red Sea International 4230.SE. The stocks of all three companies, which have issued statements saying they continue to operate as normal, plunged between 9 and 10 percent on Tuesday. One of the bankers speaking to Reuters said the central bank had met with some foreign banks this week to reassure them that the freezing of accounts targeted individuals, and that firms linked to those people would not be damaged. | 1 |
8,960 | Thai rubber farmers plan protest over low prices, seek aid | BANGKOK (Reuters) - Rubber farmers in Thailand, one of the world s biggest exporters of natural rubber, threatened on Friday to protest in the capital Bangkok if the military government does not help to prop up falling prices of the commodity. Prices of Thai natural rubber have fallen from a peak of 179.25 baht ($5.41) per kg in 2011 to 47.75 baht on Friday. But Thai authorities said prices have similarly slumped in other major producers of the commodity. Protests are rare in the junta-ruled Southeast Asian country where a ban on public gatherings has been in place since a 2014 coup. The Natural Rubber Council of Thailand said farmers in the rubber-growing south were calling on the authorities for help. The price of rubber is now lower than the cost of production, Uthai Sonlucksub, president of the council, told Reuters. Some farmers from the south want to protest on Monday and accuse the Rubber Authority of Thailand, a government agency, of mismanagement, Uthai said. He did not give details on the kind of help the farmers want. Thailand, along with Indonesia and Malaysia, produce nearly 70 percent of the world s natural rubber. The three countries agreed last year to cut exports to boost market prices but their targets have not always been met. The Thai rubber authority denied the accusations of mismanagement. Rubber prices are currently low in all of the major rubber producing countries. We are doing our best, said Sunan Nuanphromsakul, the authority s deputy governor. Thailand s rubber farmers are politically powerful. In 2013, hundreds of farmers staged protests around the country, blocking roads and a regional airport in the south. Those demonstrations eventually turned into a bigger political movement that led to the ouster in 2014 of a civilian government led by then-Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. Thai benchmark unsmoked rubber sheet was quoted at 43.60 baht per kg on Thursday, less than half of this year s peak reached in January. | 1 |
8,961 | Trump on Twitter (August 10): Mitch McConnell | The following statements were posted to the verified Twitter accounts of U.S. President Donald Trump, @realDonaldTrump and @POTUS. The opinions expressed are his own. Reuters has not edited the statements or confirmed their accuracy. @realDonaldTrump : - Can you believe that Mitch McConnell, who has screamed Repeal & Replace for 7 years, couldn’t get it done. Must Repeal & Replace ObamaCare![0654 EDT] - Mitch, get back to work and put Repeal & Replace, Tax Reform & Cuts and a great Infrastructure Bill on my desk for signing. You can do it! [1240 EDT] -- Source link: (bit.ly/2jBh4LU) (bit.ly/2jpEXYR) | 1 |
8,962 | McCain: Obama budget request 'inadequate' to face security threats | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, took immediate issue on Tuesday with President Barack Obama’s budget request, saying it would leave the Defense Department with at least $17 billion less than it said it needed and planned for this year. “While the Committee will closely review the President’s defense budget request, it is already clear that this request is inadequate to address the national security threats we face and the growing demands they impose on our men and women in uniform,” McCain said in a statement. | 1 |
8,963 | French Socialists sell historic headquarters for $53 million | PARIS (Reuters) - France s struggling Socialist Party said on Tuesday it had agreed to sell its historic headquarters in Paris Left Bank for 45.5 million euros ($53.89 million), after a stinging electoral defeat this year left it strapped for cash. The mansion - in Socialist hands since 1980, just before Francois Mitterrand became the party s first leader to rise to the presidency - will be sold to French property developer Apsys. The center-left party won just 29 parliamentary seats in a legislative election this year, down from 280 previously in the 577-strong chamber, causing it to lose state subsidies. The Socialists also suffered an electoral drubbing in the presidential race in May, as centrist newcomer Emmanuel Macron took power, blowing apart France s traditional two-party system in the process. The center-left party s candidate limped into fifth place, after Francois Hollande, whose election five years earlier was hailed as a new dawn for French Socialists, did not seek re-election following an unpopular presidency. Center-left parties across Europe have struggled to win back voters in the wake of recessions and a global banking crisis that have spawned newer political parties and increased support in some cases for more radical forces on the left. Macron s upstart Republic on the Move party has now the largest number of seats in the lower house of parliament. Funds from the sale of the Socialist headquarters will partly be used for future campaigns. The party said it would not have to move out until next September. The Socialists are currently being managed by a committee and the party is due to hold a leadership contest next April. | 1 |
8,964 | White Catholic Schoolkids Threaten To Lynch Black Classmate (VIDEO) | An as yet unconfirmed number of white students of a Catholic school in California have been suspended after sending a video to a black student threatening a lynching.The Modesto Bee reports:A racist death threat video posted on social media by a Central Catholic High junior has led to the suspension of students involved and a criminal investigation, but an African American community group is calling for calm while police do their work. People are asking me, What can I do?, but I want to find out what s been done, first. Let the natural process take its course, said attorney Jacq Wilson, who is working with the family of the boy targeted in the video.Efforts to dismiss the incident as a high school prank fell on deaf ears in the community. As Wilson puts it: When has bullying ever been a joke? When has a death threat ever been a joke? Right now, with everything going on (nationally), what were they waiting for, for someone to die? The fact is that people are hurt. People are scared. It s a hate crime. It s possibly even a domestic act of terrorism. It s a criminal threat, It is also reassuring that Central Catholic High President Jim Pecchenino came out immediately with his own unambiguous statement on the matter. Students involved in that video have been suspended. They are not on our campus. We ll follow our process for discipline, he said. The whole video is despicable, every part of it. The noose, the gun going off, it s just unconscionable to view. It s very unsettling. The students remain on suspension while the matter is investigated further, with a view to pressing chimerical charges against those responsible. Featured image via Screengrab | 0 |
8,965 | PRICELESS! BILL MAHER CALLS Senator Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas” During Interview [VIDEO] | Bill Maher began his interview with the yawn-inducing Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren and the best hope for a presidential candidate in 2020, by hitting her with some bad news Democrats are losing. After she came out faking enthusiasm for the liberal California audience, Warren who is best known for lying on a job application to Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, where she checked the Native American box, starts out telling Maher, People all across this country are energized. (Is she talking about Antifa and basement dwellers who are collecting a paycheck from various George Soros groups for occasionally rolling out of bed, grabbing a face-mask and a baseball bat from their father s garage and going out to threaten the free-speech of Trump supporters?)Maher reminded her, They may be all energized but they don t have a Democratic governor, a Democratic senator or a Democratic parliament. The first 5 minutes of Warren s yawn-inducing interview is filled with whining about how her progressive agenda is being ignored and how capitalism needs to be addressed and taken down.Maher quickly reminds her that from 1980-2015 when many of the economy-killing regulations were implemented that many Democrats were responsible for passing. He asked her, Don t the Democrats bear some responsibility for that? At about the 6 minute mark, Bill Maher begins to whine about Trump s tax plan and reminds Pocahontas that Trump s fans are not with her. Warren tells Maher, Actually, I m gonna push back, I disagree. Maher interrupts her, His fans are not with you. They don t like you Pocahontas. Watch starting at the 6:00 minute mark: | 0 |
8,966 | No indication Russia wants positive relationship with U.S.: Mattis | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Monday there was no indication that Russia wanted a positive relationship with the United States, saying it had chosen to be a strategic competitor. “At this time ... I do not see any indication that Mr. Putin would want a positive relationship with us. That is not to say we can’t get there as we look for common ground,” Mattis told a House Armed Services Committee hearing, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “But at this point, he has chosen to be competitive, a strategic competitor with us and we will have to deal with that as we see it,” he said. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, added that the United States had an adversarial relationship with Russia. Russia and the United States have a number of diverging interests, including in Syria. Russia said on Saturday it had told the United States it was unacceptable for Washington to strike pro-government forces in Syria after the U.S. military carried out air strikes on pro-Syrian government militia. U.S. senators said on Monday they were close to an agreement on legislation imposing new sanctions on Russia, including a possible provision that would prevent the White House from easing sanctions without congressional approval. Democrats and Republicans on the Foreign Relations and Banking Committees have been negotiating for about a week on an amendment to an Iran sanctions bill that also would impose sanctions to punish Russia over issues including its alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region and support for the government of Syria in that country’s six-year-long civil war. | 1 |
8,967 | “BLACK SKIN PRIVILEGE” Why These Two Well Known Writers Say It’s A Real Thing [VIDEO] | If the title of this book was White Skin Privilege you would likely find it in just about every college campus library or school book store. Conversely, it s highly unlikely that you ll find the Black Skin Privilege and the American Dream book on any college or high school reading lists. After all, discrimination is a one-way street and as usual, the left gets to determine who s being discriminated against and who s guilty of discrimination In 2013, conservative writers David Horowitz and John Perazzo released a Kindle pamphlet titled, Black Skin Privilege and the American Dream, and today I want to give you an inside look courtesy Frontpage Magazine.In the pamphlet, the authors argued that, in their obsessive quest to find evidence of illusory white skin privilege, the left instead winded up creating black skin privilege. Its effects can be seen in the presumption of guilt on the part of innocent whites (think Duke lacrosse team) on the basis of their skin color, while guilty blacks (think O.J. Simpson) are often presumed innocent, the authors wrote.Think also of Mike Brown and Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson. The left turned Wilson into a bogeyman of alleged racial terror, while they portrayed Brown as an innocent gentle giant. Not surprisingly, the evidence eventually vindicated Wilson and proved without a doubt that the real villain had been Brown all along. Blacks can commit racist attacks on whites certain that civil rights activists who sift the news obsessively for black victims will either not notice or dismiss such attacks as a form of delayed justice for the historical oppression of black people, the writers added.Indeed. I try to cover as much racial crime as possible, but frankly, too many stories of blacks assaulting whites appear on my feed for me to legitimately address them. If you want to know more about such crimes, I suggest you follow Colin Flaherty on YouTube:https://youtu.be/tMsJ1wc7mTwHere is an excerpt from the book: The result of such prejudice there is no better word for it is the creation of an optical illusion of deeply embedded, if largely invisible, white racism that creates vast numbers of black victims when the social facts show quite a different situation, the authors added.According to FBI crime data released earlier this year, whites and Hispanics are far more likely to be killed by a black person than a black person is to be killed by either a white or Hispanic person.Alas, these sorts of facts are suppressed (or shrugged off) by the media and civil rights activists dedicated to creating a one-sided and propagandistic narrative of race in the United States. As a result, we live in an age where every black criminal is automatically assumed to be a victim, while every white victim is automatically assumed to be a perpetrator.It s sad, but it s all part of Obama s America Via: DownTrend | 0 |
8,968 | Trump poised to lift federal coal ban, other green rules: White House | (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will target a handful of Obama-era green regulations, including a federal coal mining ban and an initiative forcing states to cut carbon emissions, in an executive order as soon as next week, a White House official told Reuters on Wednesday. Trump and his fellow Republicans who control Congress are seeking to unravel former Democratic President Barack Obama’s initiatives to combat global climate change, which they say are costly for U.S. business and have hampered drilling and mining without providing any clear benefits. “Rescinding the federal coal leasing moratorium is part of that executive order, which has lots of different components, including the Clean Power Plan,” the White House official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters. The official said the order was scheduled to come next week. The Clean Power Plan is Obama’s centerpiece initiative to combat climate change, requiring states to slash emissions of carbon dioxide, but it was never implemented due to legal challenges launched by several Republican states. Legal experts have said Trump could begin the process of killing the regulation by having the Environmental Protection Agency ask the courts to return it to the agency for review, effectively ending its legal defense. Killing the coal mining ban would be easier. Trump could reverse the ban by asking the Department of Interior to lift it and resume its coal leasing program. Obama’s administration imposed the temporary ban on new federal coal leases in January 2016 as part of a broad environmental and economic review of the program aimed at ensuring lease deals account for coal’s contribution to global climate change and yield fair returns to taxpayers. But it angered some Western state lawmakers and people in the mining industry, who said it stymied development. Trump has already rolled back some Obama-era green regulations, including the Stream Protection Rule limiting coal mining waste dumping, and the Waters of the U.S. rule that expands the waterways under federal protection. (This version of the story was refiled to fix punctuation in paragraph one) | 1 |
8,969 | Mexico president leads government response in quake zone | JUCHITAN, Mexico (Reuters) - Mexico s president on Monday threw himself into areas badly hit by last week s devastating earthquake amid frustration at delays in getting food and water to stricken communities where at least 96 people died and 2.5 million were left in need of aid. Accompanied by several cabinet ministers, President Enrique Pena Nieto took on a busy schedule as he toured the battered southern state of Chiapas, seeking to inspire confidence in the government s relief effort. Pena Nieto s approval ratings have plumbed depths lower than any recent president, and his Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) faces a major struggle to retain power in presidential elections next July. The law bars him from seeking re-election. Speaking in the hard-hit city of Tonala, Pena Nieto urged construction companies to aid rebuilding efforts. If construction firms commit to showing solidarity by building a few homes ... construction efforts can be carried out quicker, he said. Don t let anyone take advantage of you, or take control of your affairs. The government is here. Mexican cement producer Cemex said on Monday it would donate $1 million worth of aid to reconstruction efforts. The final cost of the quake is likely to be far higher. Among those with Pena Nieto were Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong and Finance Minister Jose Antonio Meade, both potential PRI candidates for the presidency. The quake killed at least sixteen people in Chiapas and four others in Tabasco. The vast majority of deaths so far reported were the 76 in neighboring Oaxaca state. Many Oaxaca fatalities were in the town of Juchitan, where more than 5,000 homes were destroyed. Tens of thousands of others were damaged in the region. Government officials delivered bags of simple rations including water and canned food on Sunday, but many Juchitan residents complained about the slow pace of assistance. We don t have food or water, we re desperate, said Jesus Ramirez, 27, who works in a plastics factory. We re trying to eat whatever we can find, any kind of food. Much of Juchitan and its surroundings had no running water, and piles of rubble were still restricting access to streets. Electricity was returning, but residents complained officials were slow to conduct house-by-house damage assessments. Alfredo Jimenez, a 19-year-old engineering student, said he and neighbors banded together to help victims of seven flattened homes in the area, feeling unable to count on the government. We see government people passing by, the army and the marines, but they haven t offered us anything, he said. Margarita Lopez, 56, a domestic worker, lined up for assistance in one Juchitan neighborhood where nearly every house was severely damaged. Almost nothing has arrived from the government, and we don t know what else we can do, Lopez said. Thursday s 8.1 magnitude quake was the most powerful to hit Mexico in 85 years, surpassing a 1985 temblor that killed thousands in Mexico City and triggered public outcry over the government response. That disaster hurt the PRI s reputation and some analysts believe it contributed to its removal from power in a 2000 vote, ending 71 consecutive years of one-party rule. Under pressure to do more at home, the government on Monday withdrew an offer to help victims of Hurricane Harvey in Texas. Mexico has been coping with heavy rains and the impact from Hurricane Katia on the Gulf state of Veracruz. The quake struck off the coast of Chiapas, and Mexico s national seismological institute said more than 1,000 aftershocks have since been reported. State-run oil company Pemex said on Monday it has not restarted its Salina Cruz refinery due to the aftershocks. | 1 |
8,970 | Trump, Macron agree to work together on North Korea: White House | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron spoke by phone on Saturday and agreed to work together on a crisis on the Korean Peninsula, the White House said in a statement. “They discussed the need to confront the increasingly dangerous situation associated with North Korea’s destabilizing and escalatory behavior,” the White House said in a statement. In recent days, Trump and the North Korean regime have engaged in heated rhetoric about the Asian nation’s nuclear weapons program. | 1 |
8,971 | Trump's son met Russian lawyer for damaging information on Clinton | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s eldest son told Senate investigators on Thursday that he had set up a June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer because she might have had damaging information about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump Jr., in a prepared statement to Senate Judiciary Committee investigators for a meeting behind closed doors, said it was important to learn about Clinton’s “fitness” to be president. “To the extent they had information concerning the fitness, character or qualifications of a presidential candidate, I believed that I should at least hear them out,” said the statement, which was seen by Reuters. Trump also said the meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and others in Trump Tower in New York provided no meaningful information. The New York Times first reported the statement. Russia has loomed large over the Trump presidency. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded Moscow worked to tilt the 2016 presidential election in Trump’s favor. Several congressional committees and a special counsel are also investigating allegations of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow. The younger Trump’s testimony is believed to be the first by a member of the president’s family to congressional investigators, much of whose work has been conducted behind closed doors. Moscow denies meddling and Trump denies collusion by his campaign, while regularly denouncing the investigations as political witchhunts. When news of the meeting with the lawyer broke earlier this year, the younger Trump at first said that the main topic at the encounter was child adoption from Russia but then he released emails that showed his reason for attending the meeting was to receive possibly damaging information about Clinton. His statement on Thursday is further acknowledgment that he was willing to receive potential help from a Russian citizen to help his father’s campaign, when it was still not certain he was going to be the Republican presidential nominee. “The fact that Trump Jr. acknowledges taking the meeting along with two other top campaign officials ... during a time in which the nomination was to be contested at the convention, also highlights how significant the campaign viewed the promise of dirt on their opponent from the Russian government,” Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, said in a statement. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, now a senior White House adviser, and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort also attended the Trump Tower meeting. Congressional investigators have focused on the June 9, 2016, meeting, and what came of it, if anything, in terms of the relationship between Russians and the Trump campaign or Trump business interests. “As will become clear, I did not collude with any foreign government and do not know of anyone who did,” the statement said, promising to “set forth the sum and substance” of what happened at that meeting. Trump Jr. was questioned by Judiciary Committee staff for five hours. He left without speaking to reporters, and the meeting room entrance was shielded by a special partition that kept news cameras from recording his arrival and departure. A handful of mostly Democratic senators attended the meeting but said questioning was limited to staff. The session was not classified and Trump Jr. was not under oath. However, it is illegal to provide false information to Congress. Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal described the atmosphere in the room as “cordial.” He said the testimony made it clear there was more to discover. “There certainly are a lot of areas that are opening for future witnesses, and questioning,” he told reporters. Blumenthal also said he expected Trump Jr. would testify under oath later at a public Judiciary Committee hearing. Schiff said his panel looked forward to having many questions answered when he appeared before them. | 1 |
8,972 | May, Trump agree Russia should break ties with Assad: UK PM's office | LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May spoke on Monday to U.S. President Donald Trump and agreed that “a window of opportunity” exists to persuade Russia to break ties with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, May’s office said. A spokeswoman for the prime minister said Trump had thanked May for her support following last week’s U.S. military action in Syria against the Assad regime. The White House later on Monday said Trump had spoken with May and separately with German Chancellor Angela Merkel by telephone about the U.S. attack and thanked them for their support. It said in a statement that May and Merkel expressed support for the U.S. action and agreed with Trump on the importance of holding Assad accountable. In a shift in Washington’s strategy, U.S. missiles hit a Syrian air base last week in retaliation for what the United States and its allies say was a poison gas attack by Syria’s military in which scores of civilians died. The Syrian government has denied it was behind the assault. Trump had previously appeared disinclined to intervene against the Syrian leader and the attack raised expectations that he might now be ready to adopt a tougher-than-expected stance with Russia, Assad’s main backer. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is due to travel to Moscow this week and the spokeswoman for May said the two leaders had agreed during their conversation that the visit was an opportunity to make progress toward a solution. “The prime minister and the president agreed that a window of opportunity now exists in which to persuade Russia that its alliance with Assad is no longer in its strategic interest,” the spokeswoman said. “They agreed that U.S. Secretary of State Tillerson’s visit to Moscow this week provides an opportunity to make progress toward a solution which will deliver a lasting political settlement.” The spokeswoman said the two leaders had also stressed the importance of the international community, including China, putting pressure on North Korea to constrain the threat it poses. | 1 |
8,973 | Brazil detains Italian fugitive Battisti leaving country | BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazilian highway police on Wednesday detained Cesare Battisti, an Italian former left-wing guerrilla convicted of murder in his country, as he was attempting to cross the border into Bolivia in a taxi, federal police said. Battisti was apparently trying to leave Brazil after Italy reportedly asked Brazil s government to revoke his asylum status and extradite him to serve his prison sentence. He was stopped by highway police as he was about to cross the border in a Bolivian taxi and was held for possession of a significant quantity of undeclared foreign currency, the federal police said in a statement. Battisti faced life in prison in Italy, where he was convicted of four murders committed in the 1970s, when he belonged to a guerilla group called Armed Proletarians for Communism. He escaped from prison in 1981 and lived in France before fleeing to Brazil to avoid being extradited to Italy. Battisti s lawyer, Igor Sant Anna, told Reuters that he had sought a habeas corpus injunction last week due to the risk that President Michel Temer s government could agree to Italy s request. Habeas corpus is a legal procedure that keeps a government from holding a person without showing cause. The police statement said he was being held for breaking currency rules. O Globo newspaper reported last week that Italy had asked the Temer government to review the status of Battisti, who was granted refugee status by former leftist President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva on his last day in office in 2010. Lula had refused an Italian extradition request, a decision that upset relations between the two countries. | 1 |
8,974 | Obama: Trump displays ignorance, seeks tweets over solutions | ISE-SHIMA, Japan (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama disparaged U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Thursday, saying the billionaire seeks tweets over solutions and has “rattled” foreign leaders with his pronouncements. Obama accused the real estate mogul and former reality TV impresario of making cavalier comments for provocative effect, and he urged all presidential candidates to take the high road in a boisterous and harsh campaign. Weighing in on the race to succeed him with his strongest broadside yet against Trump, Obama said fellow leaders from the Group of Seven nations “are surprised by the Republican nominee”. “They are not sure how seriously to take some of his pronouncements but they are rattled by them,” the president told a news conference on the sidelines of a G7 summit in central Japan. “For good reason, because a lot of the proposals he has made display either ignorance of world affairs or a cavalier attitude, or an interest in getting tweets and headlines, instead of actually thinking through what it is that is required to keep America safe, secure and prosperous and the world on an even keel.” Many U.S. allies fear Trump will feed insecurity in countries worried about China’s growing power, embolden nationalists and authoritarians, and unravel Obama’s “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific. Trump has also been accused of racism and bigotry for saying he would build a wall to keep out illegal Mexican immigrants and would temporarily ban Muslims from the United States. He has also made comments considered demeaning to women. The race between Trump on the one hand and the Democratic candidates, front-runner Hillary Clinton, a former secretary of state, and Senator Bernie Sanders, for the Nov. 8 election has become increasingly bitter and personal. Trump this week took his use of accusations against Clinton to levels unprecedented in modern U.S. presidential campaigns, making incendiary statements that television networks cannot resist covering, giving him hours of free media and putting his opponents on the defensive. Obama said it was natural for journalists in such a campaign to elevate “every roll, blink, speed bump, conflict, trash talkin’”, but urged, instead, that candidates from both sides stick to the issues. “Grumpiness arises where folks feel that we’re not talking about issues but personalities or character.” Obama, a Democrat, issued his most extensive analysis to date of his own party’s race, while refusing to take sides. He rejected a suggestion that beating Trump would get more difficult as the two parties’ conventions approach in July, a period when the Democratic victor can focus on fighting Trump instead of the fellow Democrat, adding that the Democrat battle was tough. “Arguing against your friends is more draining than arguing against political opponents,” Obama said. He said there were no big ideological differences between Clinton, an establishment candidate who is a former First Lady and senator, and Sanders, a firebrand populist who identifies as a Democratic Socialist. The president said it was important that the race eventually end in a way “that leaves both sides feeling proud of what they’ve done.” | 1 |
8,975 | “This Is TOTALLY FAKE!” Tucker Loses His Temper on Russia Conspiracy Hack [Video] | Tucker Carlson debates the Russia conspiracy with Mustafa Tameez, former consultant for the Department of Homeland Security. Oh boy! It gets so heated but Tucker gets his point across to this political hack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4xzSKcArdcThe Democrats so desperately want to take down this president that it s getting out of control. Just listen to this former consultant and his spin on the firing of Sally Yates and the Russia investigation. The reason they fired her isn t really the reason they say they fired her? Huh? It s like they can t keep up with all of the made up conspiracy theories. Tameez claims Trump is intimidating the people investigating him Oy vey! Tucker goes off the rails after this political hack tries to pull the same Democrat talking points I m done! | 0 |
8,976 | watch up mission impossible against voter registration to make trump win starts from indiana | nanobots causing overwhelming depression not far off the end now page hello ats im subject to a fierce experiment or how it feels to me torture im not an expert on biology or how the brain works in detail so forgive me if this post is a little simplistic basically ive nanobots which supposedly dont exist in my brain and i assume they act on my brain chemicals in such a way as to cause chronic depressionsuicidal depression in fact to cut to the chase as you say in the usa they also electrocute my nerves all at once causing agonising pain the bots are remoteradio controlled by the english ss and they are very similar to the nazi ss in their treatment of me i think so basically i hear voices the ss again and am suffering from feelings that i want to die about my quite happy previous life before this happened i was just a young lad who e naonwanted career in computer programming and studied mathmaths to a high standard my tutor said i was doing the work of a professor and still lived at home bashing away at my computer to try and achieve my ambition as a lot of you will know though computing is a conspiracy theory too ie its not all it states it is so i suppose im doubly unlucky why they cant just use a monkey instead of driving me to my death i dont know i really dont anyways oh i forgotthe nanobots block the action of nearly all the psychoactive drugs ive tried liked antidepressants etc | 0 |
8,977 | UNREAL! HILLARY CLINTON Greeted By Sobbing Feminists After Event…Another Staged PR Stunt? [Video] | After the Reid event, Hillary Clinton greeted several Kaine staffers and young supporters, some of whom can be heard sobbing in this video pic.twitter.com/DRq0BApck1 Monica Alba (@albamonica) December 8, 2016 | 0 |
8,978 | White Supremacist PAC Launches Radio Ad Touting Trump As Champion Of Christians | Remember the pro-Trump white supremacist PAC that was placing robocalls on The Donald s behalf during the primaries? Yeah, well, they re back. And this time, they have unleashed a xenophobic radio ad touting Donald Trump as the champion of Christians.William Daniel Johnson, a Los Angeles attorney, was happy to foot the bill for the new ad via the super-PAC American National. The white nationalist PAC is not actually affiliated with the Trump campaign, but man, they just love the GOP nominee and his bigoted messages. Our country is at a crossroads and time is running out, the ad begins. It then throws in some good old-fashioned anti-brown people fearmongering and asks, Do you want a strong leader who will secure our borders and stop the flow of illegal aliens and radical Islamic terrorists? And follows up with a reminder that a vote for Trump is clearly a vote for Jesus, asking, Do you want a president who will safeguard the interests of Christians? So just who is William Johnson? Well, for starters, he a well-known white supremacist who says he wants to create a white ethno-state because that s the only way western civilization and the white race will survive. Johnson is also serving as the president of the American Freedom Party (AFP). According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the AFP was initially established by racist Southern California skinheads, and aims to deport immigrants and return the United States to white rule. There was an uproar when it was discovered that the Trump campaign had chosen Johnson to serve as a delegate. Following the backlash, the campaign claimed it was all a mistake due to a database error and Johnson stepped down. The AFP said it was no big deal because plenty of other of white supremacists were serving as Trump delegates.The robocalls Johnson sponsored during the primaries featured such phrases as, We don t need Muslims. We need smart, well-educated white people. In another call, an older woman identified herself as a proud member of the AFP and said, I am voting for Donald Trump because he will not only be presidential, he will put America first. Furthermore, he will respect all women and will help preserve Western civilization. Trump was pressured into giving one of his half-ass condemnations of the robocalls, but he followed it up by excusing the calls as simply the result of people being angry. So no harm, no foul.Johnson also set up a 24/7 hotline offering legal advice and emotional support to Trump fans who felt they had been bullied by one of Hillary s evil liberal minions.The radio ad is scheduled to air in Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Missouri, Nevada, Oregon, and Tennessee.Featured image via Christopher Gregory/Getty Images | 0 |
8,979 | KICK BUTT MOM Sends BRUTAL Message to Rioting, Crybaby Anti-Trump Punks: “If you’re on any government assistance…I would cut you off!” | This isn t the first time outspoken conservative grandmother Peggy Hubbard has offered her opinion on organized groups of thugs who disrupt cities, roadways and residential areas in an attempt to gain sympathy for their cause. Here she is 2 years ago giving the Ferguson rioters a piece of her mind: | 0 |
8,980 | Trump Adviser: Trump Should’ve Had A ‘Backdrop With A Burning Car’ To Appeal To Black Voters (VIDEO) | Donald Trump campaign senior advisor Jack Kingston appeared on CNN Friday to discuss Trump s efforts to reach out to voters of color. During the segment, Kingston said that maybe it would have been nice if he [Trump] went and had a backdrop with a burning car while speaking at a campaign event in Wisconsin in order to appeal to black voters. As a reminder, you are not reading The Onion those are the real words that Kingston said while on television for the entire world to hear.During the segment, CNN host Brianna Keiler attempted to explain to Kingston that it isn t a good idea to try and reach out to voters of color by speaking to a nearly entirely white community. She also questioned the decision to reach out to a voting bloc that overwhelmingly supports the Democratic challenger, Hillary Clinton. As per usual when talking to a Trump fan, Kingston says that Trump is doing far better with a group than polls show.Here s a transcript of the conversation:Keilar: He s polling right now at 2 percent with African-American voters. Is that the right way to attract a voting block that obviously favors Hillary Clinton much more than him?Kingston: Well first of all, our internal poll show us doing better than 2 percent, but the reality is he s going there and he s taking it to them. He s giving them a proposal. He s saying, You know what? I m interested, I went to Milwaukee, I m here tonight, I want to talk to you. And one of the things he actually said last night in North Carolina that kind of went uncovered, but he says I don t want to preside over another generation of children who are left out of the American dream. Keilar: I have to stop you because you said he s going there. He s not, he s in Diamondale, which is 93 percent white. When he was in Milwaukee the other day, it was part of Milwaukee that wasn t dealing I mean he, it s Kingston: Well yeah, but Brianna he went Keilar: It s almost completely white.Kingston: I mean, maybe it would have been nice if he went and had a backdrop with a burning car, but the reality is Keilar: No no no no no, I m not talking about a burning car. I m talking about meeting with black voters.Kingston: Well, he met with David Clarke, who as you know is the African-American Sheriff of Milwaukee, and he s engaged with him. And his rallies are open to the public. Last night in North Carolina, we saw a lot of African-Americans. I wasn t sure about the crowd content tonight, but the reality is Keilar: It s white. We checked.Wow. It s hard to imagine Trump s polling numbers being able to go down from a measly 2% from black voters. However, they might plummet to zero if they keep up with this pathetic voter outreach effort.You can watch the segment below, via Media Matters:Featured image from video screenshot | 0 |
8,981 | The White House and The Theatrics of ‘Gun Control’ | 21st Century Wire says All the world s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages. William Shakespeare Theatrics in politics is nothing new, but this latest TV drama was just a little over-the-top, even for this entertainer-and-chief. HIGH DRAMA: Obama s epic tears during his gun control rally on Tuesday.During President Barack Obama s landmark New Year s TV address on gun control he grew visibly emotional when invoking Newtown, with bountiful tears arriving in good measure.While right-wing commentators were incensed, left-wing media pundits were understandably blown away by his performance, and commented on it like it was a performance. In media terms, it was a very weird moment, to say the least.Of course, no one would dare accuse the President of producing tears on demand, after all that would be impossible to fake unless of course you re an extremely talented and trained actor and who would believe that our President would have received that sort of special coaching which is reserved for professional TV and film actors.The thought of it is simply preposterous, right? After all, this President is surely not an actor Nonetheless, it was high drama for sure, but there was something about what seemed incredibly staged that morning in the White House s East Room. Anyone who watched it on TV could see how the crowd clapped on cue, and laughed on cue. It was almost like a Democratic Party pep rally which is not what the East Room is for, but there you go.Watch the scene on Tuesday here: Still, after the usual vitriolic calls to save lives , Obama called for Smart Guns with high-tech biometric, personalized triggers. This seemed to be a bizarre over-simplification, as he compared firearms to iPhones, as was his strange comparison of a bottle of aspirin with a gun. If a child can t open a bottle of aspirin, we should make sure they can t pull a trigger on a gun, said Obama.Such dumbed-down rhetoric hardly inspires confidence in the President s grasp of the firearms issue and the 2nd Amendment.The only problem with the President s much anticipated Executive Action plan for gun control in America is that it will not be effective. In fact, nothing he is proposing would have stopped any of the supposed gun deaths constantly being bandied about by the establishment s and media s macabre list of high-profile mass shootings . So why do it then? Answer: this is an election year, and the Democratic Party is attempting to push the issue of Guns in America on to the list of institutionalized, classic American political wedge issues along with the usual balloons like abortion, immigration and gay marriage.Aside from all this, the President s executive action is illegal. In the US system of checks and balances, the President cannot write laws only Congress can. You d think the President, who claims to have taught constitutional law at Harvard, would know about checks and balances.The only real tangible result of the Administration s rhetoric on gun control and the politicization of mass shootings is that gun sales in America are skyrocketing. Shares of gun manufacturers like Smith & Wesson and Sturm Ruger were up on Tuesday morning after Obama s speech.One could easily argue here that this President has done more to help firearms sales and profits than any other person in history, more than Duck Dynasty, and even more than Charleton Heston.The White House s campaign has less to do with actually reducing gun crime, as it does increasing federal control over the lives of law-abiding Americans. Some critics believe that this new Executive Action on guns is part of a federal nudging strategy that s using federal mental health directives and changes in the state HIPAA laws to deny certain persons, including US veterans, of their 2nd Amendment rights. Make no mistake about it, there is an overall strategy at play here, only it s not being revealed to the public.So, once again, it s all theatre.The government-media complex is going fult-tilt again. Later today, together with its media partner CNN, the White House is co-producing a Town Hall TV special live from Virginia, entitled, GUNS IN AMERICA . The agenda for this program is self explanatory and will be hosted by CNN s top mocking jay, news actor and former CIA operative, Anderson Cooper, who a key operative in the mass media brainwashing that TV networks like CNN do on a daily basis promoting fear at home, and selling illegal wars abroad. OPERATION MOCKINGBIRD: Political-media operative Anderson Cooper.No doubt this political campaign program will feature all of the usual suspects from America s highest rated, high-profile mass shootings events including Sandy Hook, Roanoke, Isla Vista, Aurora, Lafayette, and San Bernardino to name only a few.In the days before the fall of Rome, as historians have often remarked, the Crisis of the Republic was not so much a crisis of the people of Rome, but rather, it was a Crisis of the Ruling Class, and of Rome s Elite Ruling Families. The Republic eventually lost its way and crumbled because of their misrule and institutional corruption. Like Shakespeare, they eventually lost the plot. In the end, of course, the Republic fell because as a system of government, it could not be separated from the individuals who wielded the most power within it. In 1995, Obama s Attorney General, then US Attorney for District of Columbia , Eric Holder, revealed the progressive agenda to subvert the Second Amendment and achieve gun control in America an agenda which is actually being played out right before our eyes today: . Create Your Own Crisis Barack Obama s former chief of staff and top Democratic Party insider, Rahm Emanuel, coined the mantra for our new government by crisis, saying crassly, You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before. Today, Thursday January 7th, is a very strange day, with a number of unsavory narratives aligned and assembled by the Mockingbird media. Aside from CNN s big budget political campaign stunt, there are a few other worrying events taking place today:Early this morning, CNN started running is programming for the one year anniversary of the infamous GLADIO-style, staged false flag Charlie Hebdo event in Paris. CNN also dispatched many of their top staff to Paris to remind us about the dangers of terrorism, and that we should remain afraid.Also happening today, members of the Bundy family, assorted Militia and public lands activists are presently holed-up at a federal wildlife refuge center outside of Burns, Oregon. There are many people in Washington and throughout the mainstream media establishment, who would like nothing more than to see government forces sweep in and deal with those people . What that entails is anyone s guess.Certainly, some high-profile mass shooting , or gun-related incident scheduled for today would dovetail perfectly with CNN and the White House s joint media messaging and socio-political narrative being rolled out today. Let s hope that does not happen, not today, and not ever READ MORE GUN CONTROL NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2nd Amendment Files | 0 |
8,982 | trump received by massive crowd in albuquerque new mexico | home news yikes catholic church announces a major warning against hillary yikes catholic church announces a major warning against hillary heisenberg mins ago news comments off on yikes catholic church announces a major warning against hillary
a san diego catholic church claims hillary is doing the devils work reuters reported a roman catholic church in san diego told its parishioners the devil works through politicians like democratic presidential candidate hillary clinton and warned that voting for democrats is a mortal sin according to local media and the churchs website the immaculate conception catholic church in old town made the statements in its weekly leaflet to churchgoers a copy of which remains on the churchs website the letter railed against issues like abortion and constraints on taxexempt organizations from certain political activity likening them to slavery satan has deceived many christians to convert to worldly values from christian ones the oct bulletin reads the devil does this through the tactics outlined by saul alinsky with the outcome as hillary clinton has stated and deepseated cultural codes religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed to draw us away from gods teachings | 0 |
8,983 | Hollywood Suffers Meltdown Over Trump’s Withdraw from Paris Climate Deal | Hollywood is having kittens over US President Trump s recent snub of the Paris Climate Agreement. Especially upset are the elite cadre of multi-millionaire celebrities, along with various and sundry billionaires like Elon Musk, who still believe the earth is heating up because of anthropogenic global warming, aka man-made Co2. Already, the EU has rejected Donald Trump s offer to renegotiate the Paris Agreement, opting instead to bypass Washington DC by working with US CEOs, city mayors and state governors to implement the climate accords.What Hollywood, Elon Musk, Bernie Sanders and the rest, will not tell you is that the earth is already entering a global cooling phase which could lead to a mini ice age. Unlike trace warming over a 500 year period, a cooling phase can radical alter the viability of normal life in the Northern Hemisphere, including frosts that will lead to the failure of large parts of the agriculture sector which can lead to severe food shortages which can make food scarce and much more expensive.More on this report from Lifezette .Leonardo DiCaprio on his private yacht, incredibly worried about global warming.Todd Barnes LifezettePresident Trump s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord has sparked widespread hysteria in juice bars and luxury spas across Hollywood.As a candidate, Trump vowed to cancel the Paris climate deal slamming what he called draconian climate rules. The Paris accord is very unfair at the highest level to the United States, the president told a gathering Thursday in the Rose Garden.House Speaker Paul Ryan praised the president s decision and thanked him for withdrawing from this bad deal. The Paris climate agreement was simply a raw deal for America, Ryan said. Signed by President Obama without Senate ratification, it would have driven up the cost of energy, hitting middle-class and low-income Americans the hardest. But some of Hollywood s most esteemed scientists fear the president s decision will put the nation on a slippery slope to the hothouse an apocalyptic future with melting igloos and polar bears unable to put their Coca-Colas on ice. If this is true he will have the death of whole nations on his hands, warned scientist-actor Mark Ruffalo. People will be looking to the USA for retribution for what they loose [sic]. I wonder which nation will be the first to spontaneously combust Iceland? Liechtenstein? Beauty and the Beast star Josh Gad took a break from playing make-believe to ponder our fate. Our children & our grandchildren have all just been handed a dark future because of a man who tweets at 3:00 AM & doesn t trust science, Gad tweeted.Cher, who apparently has some sort of graduate level degree in climatology, posted a bizarre rant, suggesting the nation has been held hostage by Insane DICTATOR. Don Cheadle, known for his esteemed role as a Juicy Burger s employee in the 1985 film Moving Violations, decided to bring Trump s little boy into the debate. Today, our planet suffered, declared Leo DeCaprio on Twitter. If you care about your kids maybe reconsider your #ParisAgreement decision. Barron will thank you when he sees you, whenever that is, Cheadle tweeted.Leonardo DeCaprio, who became a famous Hollywood star because of an iceberg, was devastated by the news. Today, our planet suffered, he declared on Twitter.Do you feel his pain, America? I suspect he will evacuate to some far-flung, exotic island in a private jet to mend his wounded psyche Continue this story at LifezetteREAD MORE CLIMATE CHANGE NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Climate Change FilesSUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 0 |
8,984 | Trump won't wait to act on trade pact vows: spokesman | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump will not wait for Congress to confirm his Cabinet positions to act on his vows to withdraw from the 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal and renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a spokesman for the president-elect said on Thursday. Trump, who takes office as president on Friday, declared in November he would give notice of U.S. intent to withdraw from the TPP on “day one” of his presidency, terming it “a potential disaster for our country.” Spicer told reporters Trump had said the moves would be made via executive order. “So I think you will see those happen very shortly,” Spicer added. “I don’t think he’s going to wait. He’s made it very clear that some of those things are huge priorities for him.” Trump’s nominee to run the Treasury Department, Steven Mnuchin, said on Thursday that Washington can renegotiate NAFTA, which was signed by the United States, Canada and Mexico in 1994, in a way that benefits both the United States and Mexico. “I think most people acknowledge NAFTA was negotiated a long time ago, that we should reopen this agreement,” Mnuchin told U.S. senators in his confirmation hearing. “I’m optimistic that we can renegotiate that deal (in a way) that’s both advantageous to us and advantageous to Mexico. That it’s a win-win for both countries.” An adviser to the Trump transition told Reuters last week that Trump would not revive TPP, which has yet to be ratified by the United States, but would quickly pursue bilateral trade agreements. The TPP has been the main economic pillar of the Obama administration’s “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific region in the face of a fast-rising China. Proponents of the pact have expressed concerns that abandoning the project, which took years to negotiate, could further strengthen China’s economic hand in the region at the expense of the United States. The trade minister of New Zealand, Todd McClay, said this week that it would be “interesting” to see whether momentum builds around the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), an Asian trade pact that includes China and India, if the United States pulls out of the TPP. | 1 |
8,985 | Kellyanne Conway Says All Intel On Russia Must Be Kept Secret To ‘Protect The Public’ (VIDEO) | Kellyanne Conway, Donald Trump s adviser, says that all information about Russia s interference in the U.S. presidential election and the president-elect s Russian ties should be kept secret. Not because Trump has something to hide, but to protect the public. Conway appeared on Fox and Friends Sunday morning and when she was asked about FBI Director James Comey, she spun the conversation around to whine that classified information should not be handed out to the public. In other words, she s upset the world found out about Trump s Russian pee pee party. I m always disappointed how public and sometimes political some of these figures can seem to be, Conway said. I m very concerned, very concerned. You realize it is the Trump team, only us at this time, that is not divulging what occurred in a classified briefing. Ladies and gentlemen, she continued. It s called a classified briefing for a reason. You had the vice president of the United States making a comment about it the other day. You have intelligence officials confirming or denying. This classified information, it s top secret. Why is it top secret? It s not top secret to keep it from the public, but to protect the public. That s right folks, you shouldn t know anything about Trump s Russian escapades. The American people should be kept totally in the dark about the foreign government meddling in the highest levels of our democracy. And it s for your own good, dammit!Conway then added that Trump is going to do all the things he promised to do, including building his stupid wall and snatching health care away from millions of Americans.Watch Conway insist we should keep Trump s pee party top secret to protect the public, here: Featured image via video screen capture | 0 |
8,986 | Trump Considering Firing Sessions And Replacing Him With Corrupt Trump Crony | On Saturday, amateur president Donald Trump whined that Republicans aren t protecting him from his own scandals, thus forbidding him from having a safe place in which to avoid being triggered. Trump wondered Monday morning why Attorney General Jeff Sessions hasn t investigated Hillarys [SIC] crimes and Russia relations in a classic case of projection. Just after winning the election, Trump no longer showed an interest in pursuing Clinton, though. Earlier this month, Trump raged against Sessions in a bizarre interview with the New York Times.Trump was upset that Sessions recused himself from anything regarding the Russia probe. After all, he did lie to the Senate Committee about meeting with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Trump revealed that he would have never chosen Sessions as his AG if he knew he would recuse himself.So now, it s come down to Sessions facing the ax at the ever-revolving door at the White house.During his early morning tweetstorm Monday, Trump referred to Sessions as a beleaguered A.G. Trump has raised the possibility of bringing back Rudolph Giuliani to head the Justice Department, according to West Wing confidants, Mike Allen of Axios reports.Allen revealed that Trump has been considering Giuliani even before the interview with the Times. Sessions, for all his loyalty to Trump, might be replaced with another loyalist.Trump has repeatedly suggested there will be a shakeup of staff, mostly when there s a leak, and this White House s leaks are more like a massive rainfall.As Axios points out, the Giuliani balloon may go nowhere because it could just be an empty threat.And then there s Newt Gingrich, a man who has been devoted to Donald Trump.As Axios reported Saturday, Newt Gingrich who also went all-in with the Trump campaign may take a more visible, frequent role as a defender as Trump girds for battle with special counsel Bob Mueller.But, this tweet Gingrich sent out touting Mueller as Special Counsel may come back to bite him in the a**. Robert Mueller is superb choice to be special counsel, Gingrich said. His reputation is impeccable for honesty and integrity. Media should now calm down. Robert Mueller is superb choice to be special counsel. His reputation is impeccable for honesty and integrity. Media should now calm down Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) May 18, 2017Giuliani and disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich would both have a difficult time getting 50 Republicans senators to vote in order to confirm him. On the other hand, Sessions, with all of his baggage, was confirmed.No matter how loyal someone is in the Trump administration, the former reality show star can turn on that person on a dime if he needs someone to blame for his own failings. That s not to say we feel sorry for Sessions. F*ck that guy!Flashback: This administration is running like a fine-tuned machine, Trump said in mid-February. Despite the fact that I can t get my Cabinet approved, and they are outstanding people. Photo by Zach Gibson/Getty Images. | 0 |
8,987 | CIA official tells jury about day 'all hell broke loose' in Benghazi | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A CIA operative told a jury on Tuesday about the terror he experienced in 2012 when militants attacked the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, and described how he recovered the body of U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens. The operative, who testified in what the judge described as light disguise under the pseudonym Alexander Charles, was the latest witness to appear in the trial of Ahmed Abu Khatallah, who is accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11, 2012, attack that killed Stevens and three other Americans. Charles said all hell broke loose shortly after he arrived at the CIA annex in Benghazi, which came under mortar fire. The mortars killed Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, and gravely injured two other Americans. You could feel the whole ground shaking, Charles said, describing the attack. Big blocks of cement (were) falling. He added that he thought it would be his last night on this Earth. Had the attacks continued, he said, he and the others would have been buried alive. Khatallah was captured in 2014 in Libya by a team of U.S. military and FBI officials and taken to the United States aboard a Navy vessel. The charges he faces include murder and providing material support to terrorists. Prosecutors say he helped organize the attacks, though he did not physically participate himself. He has pleaded not guilty. Since the trial opened last week, jurors have heard emotional testimony from State Department and CIA officials, offering a detailed behind-the-scenes look at what happened that night. A Bureau of Diplomatic Security agent last week told a harrowing story of how he tried to save Stevens and State Department staffer Sean Smith as they crawled on their bellies through thick black smoke. On Tuesday, Charles talked about how he helped put Doherty and Woods bodies onto a truck waiting outside the annex, and how they worked to save State Department staffer David Ubben, whose leg was nearly blown off. Because he spoke Arabic, Charles was also able to recover another American s body, after he said that by divine intervention, he overheard a Libyan security official who was standing nearby ask other revolutionaries: Should we tell him about the dead American in the hospital? Charles said he approached the man and asked who he was referring to. About 15 minutes later, a body was delivered via ambulance in a body bag. Charles said he unzipped the bag, looked down and saw the ambassador s face. | 1 |
8,988 | (VIDEO) JUDGE JEANINE FULL INTERVIEW WITH DONALD TRUMP BRINGS UP PAINFUL PERSONAL MEMORY | This is a great interview with some very personal info on Donald Trump. He also discusses Black Lives matter at around the 17:50 mark. | 0 |
8,989 | Senator Graham open to selling Boeing F-18 to Kuwait, Qatar | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the Republican party’s senior foreign policy voices, said on Thursday he would likely support the sale of advanced military equipment including Boeing F-18 fighter jets to Qatar and Kuwait, despite Israel’s concerns. Israel’s government worries that equipment sent to Gulf states could fall into the wrong hands and eventually be used against the Jewish state. “The Israeli argument is that you’ve seen regimes in the neighborhood change pretty quickly. Be careful of introducing new weapons into the region,” Graham told reporters following a trip to the region, citing the situation in Iraq. However, he said he thought it was important for such sales to go ahead despite those concerns, given instability in the region and threats including Islamic State militants. “I say to my Israeli friends, ‘We need partners. Partners without capability are paper partners.’ ... So I’ll probably be in the camp of pushing the increased capability of Gulf Arab states, understanding Israeli’s concern,” Graham said. He acknowledged that there was strong opposition in Congress toward arming some Gulf Arab states. “I don’t know how the votes go right now,” Graham said. Graham is a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees foreign aid. | 1 |
8,990 | U.S. lawmakers want Russia sanctions over hacking, Ukraine, Syria | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republican and Democratic senators said Tuesday they want to slap a wide range of sanctions on Russia over its cyber activities and actions in Syria and Ukraine, and force President Donald Trump to formally waive them if he has objections. Ten senators - Republicans John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, Ben Sasse and Rob Portman and Democrats Ben Cardin, Robert Menendez, Jeanne Shaheen, Amy Klobuchar and Richard Durbin - introduced the legislation and said they hoped to add more sponsors and push Senate leaders to allow a vote. A sanctions bill with similar provisions is being written in the House of Representatives, led by Democrats Eliot Engel, the Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member, and Gerald Connolly, a panel member. The measures could set up a showdown with the administration of Trump, a Republican who takes office on Jan. 20 and has repeatedly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and criticized intelligence officials for findings linking him to attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election. The Senate bill was introduced a day before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee holds its confirmation hearing for Trump’s nominee to be secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, who worked for years with Putin’s government as chief executive of Exxon Mobil. Cardin, the panel’s top Democrat, said Tillerson would be questioned about whether he would support the sanctions. “This is about protecting the security of America,” he told a news conference. The bill would impose visa bans and freeze the assets of people “who engage in significant activities undermining the cyber security of public or private infrastructure and democratic institutions” or those who aid such activities. It would also impose sanctions on those who engage with the Russian defense or intelligence sectors, which could affect international companies doing business with Russia. It also puts into law sanctions on Russia that President Barack Obama imposed via executive order late last month. U.S. lawmakers have long called for a tougher response to Russian annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region and intervention in the Syrian civil war on behalf of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Their impatience has increased since intelligence agencies released a report Friday saying Putin ordered a campaign to try to sway the 2016 U.S. election in Trump’s favor. “We have to respond to Vladimir Putin’s behavior and if we don’t, he will continue unchecked,” McCain said. The bill also sets new sanctions over Ukraine and Syria, including putting into law four executive orders from the Obama administration sanctioning Russia over its actions in Ukraine. Among other things, it would mandate sanctions on large investments in Russia’s ability to develop its petroleum and natural gas resources. It would let the president waive the sanctions, but only if he certified that Russia is making progress on complying with international agreements and improving its record on human rights. Graham said he would push Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to allow the measure to come up for a vote, predicting strong bipartisan support in the Senate. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer announced he supports the bill. “I’m not going to let 2017 go by and not challenge what Russia did. This is the best way to challenge them,” Graham said. A McConnell spokesman responded only that he had no scheduling updates. Lawmakers from both parties have raised questions about the decades Tillerson spent working with Russia’s government as an executive at the oil company, his ties to Putin and past criticism of U.S. sanctions on Russia. | 1 |
8,991 | Germany ties Iraq aid to peaceful resolution of conflict with Kurds | BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany on Monday said its continued support for Iraq and the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government was contingent on peaceful efforts by both sides to resolve their differences. The German government has provided more than 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) in humanitarian, development and stabilization aid to Iraq since 2014, making it one of the biggest international donors. Our support is for Iraq as a unified state, Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel told reporters after meeting with KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani in Berlin. We want to continue that, but the precondition is that Iraq solves its internal conflicts peacefully and democratically, and that we find a way out of the tense situation we are in now. Gabriel noted that Germany had warned the Kurdish region against holding the Sept. 25 referendum, in which Iraqi Kurds voted overwhelmingly to break away from Iraq, and said the goal was to restore dialogue between the two sides. The Kurdish vote was rejected by Baghdad and triggered an Iraqi military offensive that recaptured disputed areas of the north from Kurdish Peshmerga fighters. Gabriel said Berlin would push the government in Baghdad to respond to offers of dialogue by the KRG. Barzani urged Germany to play a stronger role in bringing us together . Barzani also thanked Germany for supporting his region s fight against Islamic State, and training Peshmerga fighters. The German parliament voted last week to extend its military mission in northern Iraq, around 150 strong, to the end of March to allow a new government to weigh a longer extension. But the rise in tensions between Kurds and Baghdad has raised concern in Germany about the mission s future. After failing to agree on a new government with two smaller parties, Chancellor Angela Merkel is now trying to rebuild the grand coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD) that has ruled Germany for the past four years. It is unclear if Gabriel, a former SPD leader, would stay on as foreign minister if the two blocs reach a deal. ($1 = 0.8480 euros) | 1 |
8,992 | Trump Screams About FAKE NEWS While Demanding Protection Money From Germany (TWEETS) | Uh oh, folks: that evil FAKE NEWS is after Donald Trump again, this time distorting his perfectly awesome visit with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Sure, Trump ignored Merkel when she asked him if he wanted to shake hands a clear example of his lack of respect for women and of course he accused a German reporter of FAKE NEWS when he was asked about his ridiculous lie that President Obama tapped his wires at Trump Tower but Trump says the visit went great no matter what the FAKE NEWS says. Despite what you have heard from the FAKE NEWS, I had a GREAT meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Trump tweeted Saturday morning. Nevertheless, Germany owes vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany! Despite what you have heard from the FAKE NEWS, I had a GREAT meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Nevertheless, Germany owes .. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2017 vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2017Naturally, the folks on Twitter had something to say about Trump s latest Saturday morning meltdown:@realDonaldTrump well the world saw you denying that handshake you serve your country not your ego ! respect other leaders already ? Lars Steinh fel (@LarsSteinhoefel) March 18, 2017@realDonaldTrump It certainly looks like Chancellor Merkel enjoyed the meeting with you as well pic.twitter.com/uqY7Or8DAG Rob Szczerba (@RJSzczerba) March 18, 2017.@realDonaldTrump @oppstn We watched it happen live. She looked at you like you're a crazy person. Jordan Uhl (@JordanUhl) March 18, 2017@realDonaldTrump Was your hand too tiny to shake her hand? Austin Braun (@AustinOnSocial) March 18, 2017@realDonaldTrump When you act like an ass on TV, the news media has nothing to do with Americans' perception of your embarrassing meeting. MatthewDicks (@MatthewDicks) March 18, 2017@realDonaldTrump We didn't hear it, The World saw you act like a child. pic.twitter.com/R9pDgYKMVx Wale Gates ???? (@walegates) March 18, 2017@realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/ykoUdp3dVe Joel Pavelski (@joelcifer) March 18, 2017@realDonaldTrump More Trump hypocrisy. pic.twitter.com/Xc2ne9IFe2 The Socialist Party (@OfficialSPGB) March 18, 2017@realDonaldTrump Fake news? You refused to shake her hand. We SAW IT. ON VIDEO. You acted like a petulant child instead of a statesman. MatthewDicks (@MatthewDicks) March 18, 2017If there was any doubt before this meeting with Merkel, there isn t anymore: Our President* is nothing but a petulant child one who cares nothing about facts, our reputation, or American citizens in general.Featued image via Twitter | 0 |
8,993 | U.S. condemns threat to ban Venezuela opposition from elections | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department on Monday condemned Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro s threat to ban opposition parties from participating in next year s presidential elections. The Venezuelan people deserve the right to express their views and consent to governance through a free and fair democratic process that is open to all candidates, the department said in a statement. After three opposition parties boycotted mayoral elections on Sunday, Maduro said on Monday they should be banned from participating in future elections. | 1 |
8,994 | Milo Goes Down In Flames As His Career At Breitbart Comes To A HUMILIATING End (DETAILS) | The fall of professional troll and far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos continues, as he has now resigned from the place that made him a young conservative star, Breitbart News. Milo began his time at Breitbart as a tech editor, and his antics eventually got him promoted to Senior Editor. Now, all of that is over as multiple videos surfaced of him defending pederasty. Said tapes also cost him a speaking slot at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and the deal with publishers Simon and Schuster for a provocative book he had written, entitled Dangerous.Milo released a statement saying the following of his resignation: Breitbart News has stood by me when others caved I would be wrong to allow my poor choice of words to detract from my colleagues important reporting, so today I am resigning from Breitbart, effective immediately. This decision is mine alone. The assertion that no one forced Milo s resignation is highly suspect, considering that there was reporting that at least half a dozen Breitbart employees had threatened to walk out if Milo wasn t removed from the site s employ. Of course, Breitbart is sticking by the idea that Milo is some kind of bastion of conservative thought, rather than the walking, talking, YouTube troll that he actually is. They released their own statement, saying: Milo Yiannopoulos s bold voice has sparked much-needed debate on important cultural topics confronting universities, the LGBTQ community, the press, and the tech industry. Milo notified us this morning of his decision to resign as editor of Breitbart Tech and we accepted his resignation. Milo insists that this is not the last we have heard of him, though, and says that he will be starting his own media company instead of using Breitbart as the platform his filth: I will be announcing a new, independently-funded media venture of my own and a live tour in the coming weeks. I don t intend to go head-to-head with Breitbart, but I intend to do more of the same, just not under the Breitbart banner. Hopefully, said venture is a colossal failure now that Milo is such a toxic presence to so many people. Literally any outside donor, network, or media company that touches him or his effort to re-brand will be immediately hit with boycotts and public scorn, and rightfully so. But we do live in the age over-saturation of news, so likely people will forget Milo s controversies after awhile, he ll rise from his swamp to spew his hate another day. Sad, but true.Featured image via video screen capture from YouTube | 0 |
8,995 | Hispanic claims victory in Harlem race to replace Rangel in U.S. Congress | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Dominican-born Adriano Espaillat claimed victory on Tuesday in the U.S. congressional race to succeed longtime Representative Charles Rangel, signaling change in the historically black neighborhood of Harlem that has grown increasingly Hispanic. Nine Democrats ran in the primary to select the party’s candidate for November’s general election. In a district where Democratic voters heavily outnumber Republicans, Tuesday’s winner will have a virtual lock on taking Rangel’s vacated seat in the House of Representatives. Espaillat, once an illegal immigrant, would be the first Dominican-American member of Congress. A state senator, Espaillat, held a 3-point lead on state Assemblyman Keith Wright, an African-American who was endorsed by Rangel and benefited from the political machine of a man who held the job for 46 years. With 98 percent of polling places reporting, Espaillat had 36.7 percent of the vote compared with 33.7 percent for Wright, a difference of nearly 1,300 votes. “The voters of the 13th congressional district made history tonight,” Espaillat, 61, said in a victory speech. “The voters ... elected a country boy from Santiago de los Caballeros in the Dominican Republic,” he said, mixing Spanish and English. Wright, however, refused to concede, telling supporters: “No candidate can declare victory tonight, not until every vote is counted.” The district is dominated by Harlem, long a leading cultural center, home to black political and commercial life, and an incubator for jazz. Harlem notably has grown more white with gentrification, but it also has become more Hispanic. Besides Harlem, the district also includes predominantly Latino neighborhoods further to the north where Espaillat has his base. Rangel, 86, a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, won his first congressional election in 1970, and since then Harlem voters routinely returned him to office every two years, even after his 2010 censure for ethics violations. Espaillat tried and failed to unseat Rangel in 2012 and 2014 primary elections. Gentrification emerged as a leading issue in the campaign, as a decade-long influx of affluent people, many of them white, has transformed Harlem’s once-blighted blocks of 19th century brownstone town houses. Change has muted the distinctive black identity of the area, the home of the Apollo Theater, the Cotton Club and other monuments of African-American culture. Once an upscale Dutch neighborhood named after the city near Amsterdam, Harlem drew African-Americans during the northward migration of former slaves in the late 19th Century and again between the world wars. In decades past, affluent New Yorkers avoided venturing too far north, or “uptown.” But soaring property values have turned Harlem into one of New York’s trendiest real estate markets. | 1 |
8,996 | Pathetic: Trump Actually Needs A General To Babysit Him Constantly | With Reince Priebus out as White House chief of staff, and General John Kelly in, Trump and others are probably hoping that things will quickly fall in line. But Kelly doesn t see his biggest job as managing the White House staff he sees it as managing Donald Trump. Specifically, one of his biggest jobs, in his view, is controlling Trump s Twitter habit.Trump uses his Twitter account to tweet everything from childish temper tantrums over the Russia probe and fake news, to lying in order to appear totally great and awesome and like he s the best person ever to walk the Earth, to creating actual policy. The most recent example of his problems with creating policy on social media is when he tried to reinstate the military s ban on transgender people serving via Twitter, catching the Pentagon off-guard despite his lie that he d come to that decision after heavy consultation with his military generals. In fact, lawyers from the Department of Defense had repeatedly tried to warn him off that ban while they worked on the best way to do things. Apparently, he was impatient and thought he would force the DoD to work faster if he just came out with it.He s also insulted our allies and made blatantly false accusations on Twitter. Despite that, Sean Spicer said back in early June that Trump s tweets are official White House statements. Some say that Trump is blurring the lines between opinion and policy whether he s making official statements or not.And this is what General Kelly sees as his biggest job reining this kind of behavior, or at least pushing his tweets in the right direction, as it was put to Politico. Kelly has given up on trying to keep Trump off of Twitter entirely, but he does believe he should work to keep Trump from using Twitter like a spoiled rotten toddler who s mad that he s not getting his way on everything.In other words, his biggest job is taking on the role of parent or babysitter working to limit what a poorly-behaved child can do. And he s taking on this role for a 71-year old man-baby.Kelly wants to know what Trump is going to tweet before he tweets it. He wants to put a system in place where aides and advisers don t find out about policy decisions via Twitter. But Trump s worst, most frustrated, and most damaging tweets often come late at night or early in the morning times Kelly says he can t monitor. So he s got his work cut out for him if he thinks he can rein in Trump s tweeting.Featured image via Chris Kleponis-Pool/Getty Images | 0 |
8,997 | BREAKING: At Least 14 US Coalition Military Officers Captured by Syrian Special Forces in East Aleppo Bunker | Syrian Army soldier holds up Al Nusra Front (al Qaeda in Syria) flag in the Umayyed Mosque, Old City, after government troops liberated terrorist-occupied East Aleppo this week (Image: Vanessa Beeley for 21st Century Wire) 21st Century Wire SPECIAL REPORTDAMASCUS According to two reports coming out of Aleppo today, at least 14 US Coalition military officers were captured this morning in an East Aleppo bunker by Syrian Special Forces.This story was quietly leaked by Voltaire.net, who announced, The Security Council is sitting in private on Friday, December 16, 2016, at 17:00 GMT, while NATO officers were arrested this morning by the Syrian Special Forces in a bunker in East Aleppo. Fares Shehabi MP, a prominent Syrian Parliamentarian and head of Aleppo s Chamber of Commerce published the names of the Coalition officers on his Facebook page on the 15th December (emphasis added):Mutaz Kano lu Turkey David Scott Winer USA David Shlomo Aram Israel Muhamad Tamimi Qatar Muhamad Ahmad Assabian Saudi Abd-el-Menham Fahd al Harij Saudi Islam Salam Ezzahran Al Hajlan Saudi Ahmed Ben Naoufel Al Darij Saudi Muhamad Hassan Al Sabihi Saudi Hamad Fahad Al Dousri Saudi Amjad Qassem Al Tiraoui Jordan Qassem Saad Al Shamry Saudi Ayman Qassem Al Thahalbi Saudi Mohamed Ech-Chafihi El Idrissi MoroccanListen to Fares Shehabi s interview on the Sunday Wire radio show: Liberation Aleppo In addition to Voltaire.net, the other original report was provided by Damascus-based Syrian journalist Said Hilal Alcharifi. According to Alcharifi, captured NATO officers were from a number of member states including the US, France, Germany and Turkey, as well as Israel. Here is his statement (translated from French): Thanks to information received, Syrian authorities discovered the headquarters of high ranking western/NATO officers in the basement of an area in East Aleppo and have captured them alive. Some names have already been given to Syrian journalists, myself included. The nationalities are US, French, British, German, Israeli, Turkish, Saudi, Moroccan, Qatari etc. In light of their nationalities and their rank, I assure you that the Syrian government have a very important catch, which should enable them to direct negotiations with the countries that have tried to destroy them. Although these initial reports describe the individuals in question as NATO officers, it s unlikely they would have been carrying NATO colors on a covert operation and might be more accurately labeled as US Coalition officers. Note that early reports suggest that these are not standard street rebel or jihadi terrorists but actual Coalition military personnel and field commanders.SEE ALSO: The REAL Syria Civil Defence Exposes Fake White Helmets as Terrorist-Linked Imposters21WIRE also received unconfirmed reports yesterday that militants had fired a missile into the Ramousa area and then tried, unsuccessfully, to get cars out of East Aleppo. It s possible this incident could be related to today reports of captured western operatives.This report from the Syrian Arab News Agency (emphasis added): The agreement on evacuating militants and weapons from the eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo city has been suspended after terrorist groups breached it, special sources told SANA correspondent in Aleppo.The sources said that the suspension of the agreement will remain in place until obtaining guarantees that oblige the terrorist groups to abide by all the agreement s provisions, stressing on the Syrian side s full adherence to the agreement and its keenness to end the bloodshed and restore security and stability to the entire city of Aleppo. Earlier, SANA reporter said that the terrorist groups have breached the agreement as they smuggled heavy weapons, including TOW missiles, heavy machineguns and kidnapped people via the buses and cars transporting terrorists and their families towards the southwestern countryside of Aleppo city.The reporter added that the terrorist groups fired shells and sniper bullets on the buses and ambulances at al-Ramousseh crossing, noting that the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) which are supervising the evacuation process had to withdraw all buses and cars from the crossing.Over the past 24 hours, some 8079 terrorists and members of their families were evacuated via busses and ambulances from the neighborhoods of Salah-Eddin, al-Ansari, al-Mashhad and al-Zibdiyeh to the southwest countryside of Aleppo city If true, this latest news would also mean that both the Syrian and Russian governments would have additional leverage going forward in any bilateral negotiations with the US-led Coalition.If, however, this story is kept under wraps by NATO member governments and is summarily blacked out by the US and European media outlets, then it might indicate that a deal has been struck, albeit behind the scenes, for the return of captured NATO operatives in exchange for other concessions.If today s report from East Aleppo is accurate, this might also help explain the hysterical behavior by the US State Department and western UN officials who have been demanding an immediate ceasefire despite the fact that 99% of East Aleppo has already been liberated by Syrian government forces.The western establishment hysterical reactions to Al Nusra s defeat in Aleppo have included wild claims that the Syrian Army had unleashed death squads, on its own residents in East Aleppo and were openly executing women and children in the street, and burning children in the street, as well what appear to be more fictional reports circulated in US media mainly by Michael Weiss of The Daily Beast via CNN, claiming that Syrian Army was committing mass rape against residents of East Aleppo. His article entitled, Women in Aleppo Choose Suicide Over Rape, Rebels Report, made a number of outlandish claims including: Activists and rebels in the besieged city say mass executions have begun and children are burned alive as Assad s Iranian- and Russian-backed forces move in. Not surprisingly, aside from unnamed UN sources , Weiss claims to have received his information from none other than the discredited US and UK-financed pseudo NGO known as the White Helmets.SEE ALSO: Tulsi Gabbard Introduces Bill to Stop US Government Funding and Arming Jihadist Terrorists in SyriaBack in September, numerous reports suggested that a western command center located behind terrorist-held lines had been targeted and destroyed by a Russian missile strike. Prof Michel Chossudovsky wrote: The US and its allies had established a Field Operations Room in the Aleppo region integrated by intelligence personnel. Until it was targeted by a Russian missile attack on September 20, this semi-secret facility was operated by US, British, Israeli, Turkish, Saudi and Qatari intelligence personnel. This report was neither admitted, nor was it denied by US Coalition sources at the time. However, one mainstream Israeli source, The Times of Israel, did report the incident.For anyone who has been paying close attention to the Syrian Conflict, seeing NATO special forces or contractors working with rebel or terrorist fighters inside of Syria is nothing unusual. Numerous reports have been filed of British soldiers assigned to fighting groups to help with training, strategy and logistics. In June 2016, The Telegraph admitted that British special forces were helping one rebel group, with logistics, like building defences to make the bunkers safe, said one rebel fighter. Other reports, including the LA Times which detailed CIA operations used to arm militants, including Al Nusra Front (al Qaeda in Syria) who were the terrorist force in charge in East Aleppo. Other revelations of US covert involvement include The New York Times, and also information on US (NATO by another name only) covert operations provided to the Wall Street Journal.South Front also notes: Earlier in December, SF already noted that the US despearate attempts to push a diplomatic solution in Aleppo could indicate that the Obama administration stalling for time to extricate US mercenaries and special service members from the Aleppo pocket: Considering that US-led coalition military advisers have been widely operating across Syria, training and assisting to the so-called moderate opposition openly linked with al-Qaeda, the recently appeared reports are likely true.For instance, British military advisers have officially arrived to Syria to restore combat capability of the moderate opposition, retreated from Aleppo 21WIRE can also point out that throughout fighting in the Donbass in eastern Ukraine, during the period of May 2014 to the present, numerous incidents have been reported where NATO military soldiers and operatives have been both spotted, and captured by rebel forces, and in most cases these reports have been muted, more than likely because of horse trading taking place as an extension of wider diplomacy.Contributors to this report were Patrick Henningsen and Vanessa Beeley.STAY TUNED FOR MORE UPDATES . READ MORE SYRIA NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Syria FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER@21WIRE.TV | 0 |
8,998 | WOW: Duck Dynasty Star Phil Robertson Offers Up The Worst Proof Ever That Jesus Was Real | No one can accuse Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson of being able to use the few brain his god saw fit to bless him with. Nobody can accuse him of not clinging so desperately to his faith that he literally can t see anything else, either. To that end, while speaking at the Western Conservative Summit in Denver, he put forth what he no doubt believes is ironclad proof that the son of his god, Jesus Christ, actually existed.What s his proof? It s definitely not scientific proof. It s also not even biblical proof. No his proof is so uniquely out there that it defies description: [The] calendar documents it is 2016 years since Jesus showed up, right? So don t tell me he wasn t here!By the way, if your calendar is dated of all the human beings who have ever walked on the Earth, and your calendar is dedicated and predicated to just one of em, evidently something rather large went down. Wow, he s really got us there.This is a good time to start scratching your head while wondering just what manner of derpiness this is. Our calendar, dedicated to just Jesus, simply because it s the year 2016? Don t make us laugh too hard. It hurts, especially considering that the names of most of the months are based on things that are so un-Christian they re blasphemy:Robertson could stand to read this little history lesson if he s going to make wild claims about our calendar, although it s entirely possible that he d call it all Satan s lies, or something like that. It s really hard to cure someone like him of willful ignorance; he d just come up with more willful ignorance.Featured image by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images | 0 |
8,999 | Republican Senator Daines says he will support tax bill -statement | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican U.S. Senator Steve Daines of Montana, one of several senators seen as pivotal to the fate of a Republican tax overhaul plan, said on Friday he would support the tax bill. “After weeks of fighting for Main Street businesses including Montana’s farmers and ranchers, I’ve decided to support the Senate tax cut bill which provides significant tax relief for Main Street businesses” Daines said in a statement. | 1 |
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