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9,200 | Beijing detains 18 after apartment fire: Xinhua | SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Police in Beijing have detained 18 people following a fire that killed 19 people and injured another eight on Saturday evening, the state news agency Xinhua reported late on Monday. The fire took place in three-storey apartment block in Beijing s southern Daxing district. A large refrigeration facility had been under construction in the building s basement, and preliminary investigations suggested the fire may have started there, Xinhua said late on Monday. Seven managers at the apartment block had been detained, along with seven electricity workers and four construction workers at the facility. None of the workers were properly qualified, it added, citing police. Beijing s Communist Party chief Cai Qi has already ordered a city-wide safety check, which will last four 40 days. The official China Daily said the inspections would cover warehouses, factories, wholesale markets, large residential areas and public places like supermarkets and tourist spots. | 1 |
9,201 | BOOM! WATCH DONALD TRUMP WIN The War Of Words With Barack Hussein Obama [Video] | Donald Trump doesn t seem the forgiving type, so it s no surprise he hasn t let Barack Obama s comments yesterday stand. Obama said Trump was unfit to be President so what did the Republican candidate have to say in response? He answered in the only way he knows how, by flinging mud back at the person who called him out. Here s what he said: What s also interesting about Trump s reply is his use of Obama s criticism about Trump s knowledge of foreign policy against him. Yesterday, Obama said Trump didn t appear to have basic knowledge around critical issues, in Europe, in the Middle East. Instead, Trump says, Obama should look at his own record before lashing out. That seems a particularly pertinent point the day after Obama s infamous red line was once again crossed in Syria. The Middle East is in turmoil, and whilst it s not entirely Obama s fault, his refusal to intervene has not helped.In his reply to Obama, Trump leaves the best bit to last though. After hitting out at Obama s record, he says: I think it just means he s concerned I m going to win It s difficult not to agree with Trump; after all, if he was such a no-hoper, why would Obama bother to speak out in the first place?Via: Spectator | 0 |
9,202 | U.S.-led anti-Islamic State coalition says Iraqi-Kurdish clash in Kirkuk is misunderstanding | BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S.-led anti-Islamic State coalition said an Iraqi-Kurdish clash in the region of Kirkuk where Iraqi army took control on Monday of Kurdish-held positions was a misunderstanding and urged both sides to avoid escalation. Coalition forces and advisors are not supporting Government of Iraq or Kurdistan Regional Government activities near Kirkuk, but are aware of reports of a limited exchange of fire during predawn hours of darkness, it said in a statement on its website. We believe the engagement this morning was a misunderstanding and not deliberate as two elements attempted to link up under limited visibility conditions, it added. | 1 |
9,203 | PRESIDENT TRUMP SLAM DUNKS Golden State NBA Punk Stephen Curry Who Bragged About Not Going To White House To Celebrate Championship | In June of 2017, it was reported that the newly-crowned NBA champions the Golden State Warriors were preparing a political statement by refusing an invitation to the White House to visit President Donald Trump.The Oakland-based basketball team, led by head coach Steve Kerr, decided immediately after Trump s election on November 9 that it would shun the new president if it won the NBA championship, according to Comcast SportsNet.Golden State Warrior player Kevin Durant bragged about not visiting President Donald Trump at the White House if the NBA champion Golden State Warriors are invited. Nah, I won t do that, said Durant, the 2017 NBA Finals MVP. I don t respect who s in office right now. Yesterday, Stephen Curry bragged about not visiting the White House. Stephen Curry doesn't hold back on whether he'll vote to visit White House. pic.twitter.com/n2PBAtYQdA Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) September 22, 2017Today, President Trump who is clearly sick and tired of all of these overpaid athletes spewing a completely bogus narrative about him being a racist or supporting racism, shot back and rescinded Stephen Curry s invitation to the White House. In his tweet, President Trump reminding Curry that it s a privilege to be invited to celebrate their victory with the President. Going to the White House is considered a great honor for a championship team. Stephen Curry is hesitating, therefore invitation is withdrawn! 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, 2017President Trump should have also reminded the petulant Stephen Curry that there s a high likelihood most of his fans couldn t care less about his political opinions, and that whining to the media about not wanting to go visit the President (who was elected by the majority of Americans) at the White House will probably not help his brand for future marketing gigs.If Americans are fed up with professional sports turning into political arenas, they can start by turning off so-called Sports networks like Disney owned ESPN, whose hosts are nothing more than political hacks promoting the hate and giving these overpaid athletes political views more attention than they deserve. Americans need to start turning off programs with controversial, race-obsessed hosts like Chris Hayes (who tweeted Curry s statement) and Trump-hating Jemele Hill who are more concerned about starting a race war in America than discussing sports. | 0 |
9,204 | Planned Parenthood sees brief reprieve after healthcare bill yanked | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Planned Parenthood, the national health organization that would have lost federal funding under sweeping healthcare overhaul legislation, views the withdrawal of the bill on Friday as a temporary reprieve, not the end of a threat to its existence. Officials of the organization - long a target of those who oppose its abortion services - anticipate further attempts by Republicans to curb its participation in federally funded public health programs, a major source of its funding. In a major setback for Republican President Donald Trump, U.S. House of Representatives leaders pulled the healthcare bill after a rebellion by Republican moderates and the party’s most conservative lawmakers left them short of votes. Democrats were unified against it. Planned Parenthood leaders will meet in Washington next week to plan their strategy for coming rounds in what they see as a protracted fight. “It’s one good night’s sleep, and then we have to see what they are going to cook up,” Chris Charbonneau, chief executive of Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest and the Hawaiian Islands, said in a phone interview. “They’re trying to find some vehicle that they could hook some Planned Parenthood defund(ing) to.” Many Republicans oppose the organization, some on religious grounds, because its healthcare services include abortions, although it receives no federal funding or reimbursement for abortions, as stipulated by federal law. The federal funding it receives is primarily through reimbursement via Medicaid and the Title X Family Planning grant program for its care for low-income patients. Abortion opponents said Republican leaders had promised for years to end federal reimbursement for Planned Parenthood, and that voters would continue to hold them to this. Before winning the presidential election in November, Trump had also promised to defund Planned Parenthood, and fought to get the healthcare bill passed. “I’m confident the Republicans in Congress and the president will move ahead and defund Planned Parenthood,” said Joe Pojman, executive director of the anti-abortion Texas Alliance for Life. The issue “is so dear to the electorate who put the Republicans and president in office,” he said after the bill was pulled. On the other side of the issue, Georges Benjamin, the American Public Health Association’s executive director, welcomed the withdrawal of the legislation, and said the renewed public attention on Planned Parenthood may make future efforts to limit its funding more difficult. “I think in many ways it’s going to be harder for them to go after Planned Parenthood, not that they won’t,” he said in a telephone interview. “I hope people recognize that Planned Parenthood did more than abortions, that they recognize it has a broader portfolio,” he said, referring to services such as cancer screenings provided by the organization. The proposed American Health Care Act (AHCA) would have repealed many parts of the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, which Democratic President Barack Obama signed into law in 2010. Charbonneau and other Planned Parenthood officials pointed to a widespread outpouring of public opposition to AHCA as one of the reasons that its moderate Republican backers could not reach a compromise with members of the conservative Freedom Caucus, who demanded a complete evisceration of Obamacare. “The irony is that the Freedom Caucus, which is very pro-life and against Planned Parenthood, allows P.P. to continue if they stop this plan!” Trump wrote in a message on Twitter on Friday morning.Public opinion polls found the AHCA bill was unpopular among Americans, including Republican voters, and that there was broad public support for funding some of Planned Parenthood’s work. In a Reuters-Ipsos poll conducted last month, almost half of 5,459 American adults surveyed said Planned Parenthood should receive federal funding; about a third said they should not. Even so, about 70 percent of those people said Planned Parenthood should get the money when they were asked about specific services such as free cancer screenings, contraception and prenatal care. Women were significantly more likely than men to think the organization deserved funding. The Planned Parenthood Federation of America had described the Republicans’ proposed law as containing a “long list of anti-women’s health provisions” in a statement earlier this week. The federation’s president, Cecile Richards, cheered its withdrawal on Friday. The organization said that 2.5 million men, women and children rely on Planned Parenthood for cancer screenings, medical testing, contraception, abortions and other healthcare services each year at around 700 health centers around the country. The warnings were echoed by two dozen national public health organizations, including the American Public Health Association, the American Nurses Association and the American College of Nurse-Midwives, in a letter to U.S. lawmakers in February. They argued that in some parts of the country, particularly rural areas, Planned Parenthood was the only nearby provider of health services. | 1 |
9,205 | Factbox: Humanitarian crisis in Bangladesh as 370,000 Rohingya flee Myanmar | (Reuters) - An estimated 370,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees have fled to Bangladesh to escape violence in neighboring Myanmar since late August, a spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency, Vivian Tan, said on Tuesday. At least 457,000 hungry and traumatized refugees have sought refuge in Bangladesh since October 2016. They have joined many thousands of refugees from previous violent episodes in Myanmar. Here are details gathered from U.N. sources working in the Cox s Bazar district of Bangladesh, on the Myanmar border, where many of the refugees end up. - The jump in the number of arrivals from Sunday to Monday was fueled by the movement of many refugees from so-called transit sites into new settlement areas, where they are counted. - Authorities have been broadcasting messages along crowded roads telling people to move to a proposed camp at a settlement called Kutupalong. - An area of about 1,500 acres (607 hectares) to 2,000 acres (809 hectares), north of Kutupalong, has been set aside for new arrivals. - A survey to identify children aged 4 to 14 has been started, so as to enroll them in learning centers. - People, in particular, children, are becoming susceptible to waterborne diseases due to an acute shortage of clean water and sanitation facilities, as well as the common cold and fever. - Facilities are improving gradually, for example, two 5,000-litre (1,100-gallon) water tanks have been installed at a settlement called Unchiprang. - Some rice is now being distributed, in addition to high-energy biscuits. - The World Food Programme (WFP) has provided more than 68,800 people with high-energy biscuits since Aug. 27 as they arrive seeking shelter in Cox s Bazar. - About 77,600 people have received warm meals through community kitchens run by aid agency Action Contre la Faim. These kitchens provide meals for about 5,300 people a day. - The WFP is especially concerned about women and children arriving hungry and malnourished. Nearly 3,000 pregnant women, new mothers and children under five have received a special, high-nutrient porridge made of wheat and soya flour. - Some families have taken children out of school, fearing they will get lost in the throng of people, but teachers are trying to reassure them. | 1 |
9,206 | SPECTACULAR! LEFTIST MEDIA MELTS DOWN When They Realize America Didn’t Buy Their Lies…Elected Trump Anyhow [VIDEO] | They pulled every trick in the book. From manufactured polls designed to discourage Trump supporters from going to vote on election day, to an all-out assassination attempt on his character, you ve gotta hand it to these propagandists, there wasn t a dirty trick they didn t try. Trump took abuse by the media like no other Presidential candidate before him. Even after our dishonest media was caught working behind the scenes with Crooked Hillary, her campaign and the DNC, they still came at Trump with a shameless vengeance like we ve never seen. What the media didn t understand however, was that every time we saw Trump alone in the ring against a mob of unruly leftist journalists fighting back with everything he had, it only strengthened our resolve.In Trump, Americans saw something that s been missing from our politicians for decades, we saw someone who was actually willing o fight for our nation on our behalf. We saw someone who wasn t going to concede to political correctness, or to give our lying media respect they didn t deserve. Every time he called them out for their dishonesty, Americans cheered. Every time they hit Trump with another lie, or worked in unison to impugn his character, he always managed to come back even stronger than before.Trump wasn t interested in playing by the media s rules, and they did everything in their power to punish him for not playing along. Along the way, he brilliantly exposed them as nothing more than an extension of Hillary Clinton s campaign. And so it is, with great pleasure we share with you some of the best liberal media meltdowns post-Trumpocalypse MSNBC s Rachel Maddow typically has a very arrogant way about her. Funny, the attitude seems to have disappeared:Yes, this is real life . https://t.co/NEU67a7U1o Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) October 8, 2016NBC s Chuck Todd and Lester Holt were two of Hilary s biggest cheerleaders. They just can t seem to figure out how they failed to convince America we needed Hillary as our next President:.@chucktodd on Trump: "He blew all of our predictions, and models, and you name it out of the water." #ElectionNight https://t.co/kt1fOMHXWu MSNBC (@MSNBC) November 9, 2016It s bad enough that MSNBC s Chris Matthews has to deal with a Republican President, but how will he EVER be able to deal with a xenophobic Republican majority House and Senate?What will a Trump presidency mean for the future of our immigration laws? https://t.co/KqtMftSfwU Hardball (@hardball) November 10, 2016Debate hack Martha Raddatz was in full meltdown mode:CNN s Dana Bash explains to Brooke Baldwin how people who voted for Trump really don t like him. | 0 |
9,207 | WATCH: Gabrielle Union Strongly CALLS OUT Trump And Kellyanne Conway On Their Bullsh*t | Actress Gabrielle Union did not hold back after the ladies of The View asked her to comment on Donald Trump s attack on Meryl Streep.Joy Behar wanted to hear what Union thought about Streep s speech at the Golden Globes, in which she called out you know who for attacking people.Union did not hold back. She talked about someone who openly mocked a disabled reporter, so if you weren t somebody that openly mocked a disabled reporter, you wouldn t have your panties in a bunch, she began. Somebody had their panties in a bunch because he openly mocked a disabled reporter and it was captured on video. He panders to hate and that s what she talked about. Union went on to say that Streep did not attack Trump, but simply shined a light on his terrible behavior. That s called being accountable for your actions. Indeed, Streep never mentioned Trump by name and merely called out his divisive and petty behavior. Yet, Trump accused Streep of attacking him and lied about mocking New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski on Twitter.Meryl Streep, one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood, doesn t know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes. She is a .. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2017Hillary flunky who lost big. For the 100th time, I never mocked a disabled reporter (would never do that) but simply showed him . Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2017 groveling when he totally changed a 16 year old story that he had written in order to make me look bad. Just more very dishonest media! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2017Union also put conservatives in their place for telling Streep that she should be making political statements because she s an entertainer, pointing out that Trump made political statements all the time while he was the star of a reality TV show. If you got a publicist and you care about the ratings of the Apprentice, you re in entertainment, Union said. So, you re one of us, honey. Then Union was asked what she thinks about Kellyanne Conway s insistence that we should ignore what Trump says and does and look at what s in his heart instead. You know, because Trump doesn t mean any of the bad things he says or does. I once looked into his heart, Union responded. It grabbed my butt. Here s the video via YouTube.Donald Trump and Kellyanne Conway are two of the worst people on the planet right now. He lies and hurls insults and she defends him. That s why we need people like Streep and Union to use their public platforms to call them out on their bullshit.Featured Image: Screenshot | 0 |
9,208 | SAY WHAT? Obama Gives Go Ahead For New UN “Regional Hub” In Washington DC…What They Plan To Use Center For Is Disturbing | If seven years ago, someone told Americans that the UN would be allowed to place a Regional Hub in our nations Capitol, they would have been dismissed as a tin foil conspiracy theorist. But then, who would ve imagined that it was possible we d have an anti-American community organizer as the President of our United States of America?EXCLUSIVE: The chief United Nations human rights agency, with the Obama administration s apparent blessing, is creating a new regional hub for itself in Washington, to use as a center for organizing against the death penalty, among other things, and for affecting the legal frameworks, policies, and strategies of American counterterrorism.In a management plan covering its activities through 2017, the agency, known as the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, or OHCHR, puts the U.S. in the same category for that counterterrorism alignment effort as countries like Iraq and Uganda.The fast-tracked human rights hub also has a number of more nebulous thematic objectives for the U.S., which include, according to an OHCHR information document, the establishment of national participatory bodies for reporting and implementing recommendations of human rights mechanisms and the aim of widening the democratic space with the aid of undefined National Human Rights Institutions. It may also involve, as OHCHR notes in its management plan, increasing advocacy for ratification of human rights treaties and withdrawal of treaty reservations meaning exceptional carve-outs that nations including those like the U.S., with a federal division of power can make to limit their acceptance of international agreements.In the case of the death penalty, for example, U.S. refusal to join in a U.N- sponsored global moratorium is based on the fact that such criminal justice measures also are the responsibilities of individual states.Nonetheless, as OHCHR s management plan notes, in addition to global efforts to abolish the death penalty by 2017, OHCHR expects to have contributed to a moratorium on the application of the death penalty or pending a moratorium, increased compliance with relevant international human rights obligations in countries such as Iraq, Kenya, Liberia, Libya, Palestine, Papua New Guinea, Somalia, South Sudan, the United States of America and other countries in Asia and the Americas. The OHCHR puts the U.S. in the same category for its counterterrorism alignment effort as countries like Iraq and Uganda.All of those themes, along with OHCHR s view of itself as the principal advocate for human rights within the U.N. system, seem likely to bring the U.S. into closer proximity to the U.N. s tangled, proliferating and often sweepingly contradictory notions of international human rights law and also, perhaps, to the notoriously dictatorship-riddled, 47-member U.N. Human Rights Council.Among other things, the Council, which has been far more enthusiastic about condemning alleged human rights transgressions in Israel than in any other nation, creates mandates for OHCHR, which also serves as the Council s bureaucratic support.The Obama administration reversed the policies of George W. Bush to join the Council in 2009, and served consecutive three-year terms that ended last month, claiming victories during that time in focusing the Council on gay rights and criticism of human rights practices in North Korea and Iran.While no longer on the Council, the administration now seems comfortable with bringing the U.N. s human rights approach into closer contact with U.S. legislators, lobbyists, human rights activists and, perhaps most importantly, financial appropriators, before it leaves office at the end of next year.Indeed, the OHCHR hub which will cover not just the U.S. but North America and the English-speaking Caribbean already has a warm advance welcome from the administration that also seems aimed at letting the new U.N. outpost arrive smoothly under Washington s political radar.Last month U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Pamela Hamamoto, wrote to tell the aggressively expanding human rights body that it didn t need any additional legal agreement to establish the Washington hub, complete with full legal privileges and immunities, since it already is covered by legal agreements for the U.N. headquarters in New York, where OHCHR maintains a strong presence.If OHCHR felt otherwise, Hamamoto said on behalf of the administration, we would be happy to discuss alternative ways in which we might accommodate OHCHR s specific requests. On the surface, the hub is part of a sweeping Change Initiative being promoted by the U.N. High Commissioner, Zeid Ra ad Al Hussein, which aims at decentralizing the Geneva-based organization, extending its outreach and human rights monitoring capability, and ostensibly improving its efficiency through, among other things, concentration on eight global hubs as focuses of activity.As it happens, the initiative is not that much of a change: six of the hubs already exist, including one in Panama City for Latin America. The only new ones are intended for Washington and Istanbul.According to Zeid, the initiative would mostly involve the reshuffling of existing personnel shipping them away from Geneva headquarters, where more than half of the agency s roughly 1,100 staff is located. Zeid says that exercise, including the establishment of the new Washington venue, would be revenue neutral. That assumption, however, was received skeptically by the U.N. s chief financial oversight committee, which called the calculation preliminary, and recommended against approving the restructuring until Zeid came back with a clear and detailed proposal with a lot more detail.Recommendations of the committee are usually adopted uncritically by the U.N. General Assembly s Fifth Committee, which approves financial measures.But Zeid has been lobbying the Fifth Committee energetically to break that tradition in his case in part because, as OHCHR s fact sheet observes, the 2016-2017 budget that the advisory committee was assessing will cover the majority of the remainder of the High Commissioner s [four-year] term of appointment. (Zeid was appointed in 2014.)The issue came up in so-called informal meaning closed discussions of the Fifth Committee earlier this week. Questions from Fox News to Zeid s spokesman about the discussions went unanswered.Questions to the State Department from Fox News about the issue were referred to the U.S. Mission to the U.N., headed by Ambassador Samantha Power.Questions from Fox News to the Mission about the discussion, and the overall U.S. government view of the hub, were not answered.Beyond the fact that his career clock is ticking, another reason for Zeid s gung-ho approach to the hub could be the possibility that no future U.S. President will be as enthusiastically multilateral as Barack Obama, giving a now-or-never urgency to the chance to bring the U.S. further under the U.N. human rights umbrella.And yet another reason might be that the reorganization could coincidentally help to bring down the curtain on a sensitive political problem for Zeid.As part of the Change Initiative, he has announced that one of OHCHR s important units, the Field Operations and Technical Cooperation Division, which deals with human rights issues at the country level and also incorporates human rights observation of U.N. peacekeeping operations, will be disbanded in Geneva and pieced off to the hubs.That division is headed by Anders Kompass, the senior human rights officer who kicked up a firestorm when he passed on an unredacted human rights report about alleged sexual abuse of children by non-U.N. peacekeepers in the Central African Republic to French authorities.For entire story: FOX News | 0 |
9,209 | House ethics panel launches wide-ranging probe into sexual harassment claims | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives ethics committee has begun a sweeping probe into possible sexual harassment and discrimination by the chamber’s 434 lawmakers and their staff, requesting on Friday a wide range of documents from the congressional office that handles employment disputes. In a letter to the office, Susan Brooks, the committee’s Republican chair, and Theodore Deutch, its senior Democrat, requested the congressional compliance office promptly share all its records “related to any claims of sexual harassment, discrimination, retaliation or any other employment practice.” Capitol Hill has been rocked this fall by news of possible sexual misconduct by lawmakers, and outrage that public money may have been paid to settle harassment suits against lawmakers. Most notably Representative John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, is under pressure to resign in light of sexual harassment allegations, which Reuters has not verified. U.S. media have reported Conyers used public funds to settle a claim with a woman, and the ethics committee is currently investigating if he “used official resources for impermissible personal purposes.” Conyers has acknowledged settling with a former staffer over her claims of harassment, but he has denied wrongdoing. Meanwhile, Texas Republican Representative Joe Barton recently decided not to seek re-election after a nude photo of him appeared on the internet. The committee had no comment beyond the letter. Pressure is mounting for it to ramp up its enforcement of congressional rules. It last took a disciplinary action on Aug. 1, determining Representative Ben Ray Lujan broke a rule on campaign communications but not imposing any sanctions. Along with resolving disputes and enforcing employment laws for more than 30,000 people working for Congress, the compliance office provides public money to confidentially settle claims against lawmakers. A bipartisan group of lawmakers is seeking to change that practice with legislation that would require prompt public disclosure of settlement awards. In a letter sent to House Administration Committee Chair Gregg Harper on Friday, the compliance office said that since 2013 it has paid settlements on two claims including sex discrimination allegations and one alleging sexual harassment. It paid $84,000 for one sexual harassment claim and $7,000 in one case alleging both sex and religious discrimination. Politico reported the harassment award was made on behalf of Texas Republican Blake Farenthold. “While I 100 percent support more transparency with respect to claims against members of Congress, I can neither confirm nor deny that settlement involved my office as the Congressional Accountability Act prohibits me from answering that question,” said Farenthold in a statement. In 2014 Farenthold’s former communications director Lauren Greene sued him, alleging a hostile work environment, gender discrimination, and retaliation, court documents show. Farenthold and Greene reached a mediated agreement in 2015 to avoid costly litigation, but the settlement’s details were confidential, according to a statement released at the time, where Farenthold denied engaging in any wrongdoing. | 1 |
9,210 | Possible sale of Boeing C-17 aircraft to India approved: Pentagon | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department has approved the possible sale to India of one Boeing C-17 transport aircraft, with an estimated cost of $366 million, a Pentagon agency said on Monday. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement it notified Congress on Monday of the sale, which includes four turbofan engines, a missile warning system, a countermeasures dispensing system and an identification friend or foe transponder. | 1 |
9,211 | Republican candidate Kasich's 'kitchen' comment draws scorn | (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John Kasich drew scorn on Monday after a video emerged in which he told a crowd that early in his career, he gleaned support from women who “left their kitchens” to campaign. The comments were made in reference to his 1978 run for Ohio’s state Senate, according to a spokesman, and not his current presidential campaign, in which he is running fifth nationally for the Republican nomination, Reuters-Ipsos polling shows. “We just got an army of people who, and many women, who left their kitchens to go out and go door-to-door and to put yard signs up,” Kasich says in footage of Monday’s event in Virginia. Kasich, 63, added his first campaign took place in an era in which “things were different.” “Now you call homes and everybody’s out working,” Kasich said. He apologized for the remark later on Monday. “Of course, I’m more than happy to say I’m sorry if I offended somebody out there but it wasn’t intended to be offensive and if you hear the whole thing, you’ll understand the context of it,” Kasich told CNN. In the video, an unseen audience member seems to criticize the Ohio governor for his comment. “I want to say, your comment earlier, about the women came out of the kitchen to support you: I’ll come to support you but I won’t be coming out of the kitchen.” The response on social media was swift and negative, with many Twitter (TWTR.N) users decrying Kasich’s anecdote as sexist. “It’s 2016. A woman’s place is...wherever she wants it to be,” wrote Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) on Monday, in a quotation retweet that refers to Kasich’s comments about his first campaign. Kasich press secretary Rob Nichols told Reuters the governor’s political campaigns “have always been homegrown affairs.” “Many of his early campaign teams were made up of stay-at-home moms who believed deeply in the changes he wanted to bring,” Nichols said. “He’s proud of that authentic support. To try and twist his comments into anything else is just desperate politics.” Some social media users compared Kasich’s comment to former Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s “binders full of women” moment from the 2012 presidential campaign, when he described receiving many resumes from women. The comment struck many at the time as tone deaf. “Mitt had binders full of women, and Kasich has kitchens full of women,” tweeted Chicago Jesus (@Patriot_Musket). (Reporting by Amy Tennery in New York; Additional reporting by Eric Beech in Washington; Editing by Andrew Hay and Peter Cooney) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production. | 1 |
9,212 | German conservatives reject 'United States of Europe' ahead of coalition talks | BERLIN (Reuters) - Senior members of German Chancellor Angela Merkel s conservatives on Saturday rejected the vision for a United States of Europe put forward by the Social Democrats (SPD), with whom they are hoping to form a governing coalition. SPD leader Martin Schulz said on Thursday his party, which suffered its worst post-war election result in September, would only gain support by providing a clear vision of Europe, and called for a United States of Europe by 2025. Merkel s conservatives, who lost voters to the far-right due to their liberal migrant policy, want the SPD to agree to a last-ditch alliance with them after talks on a tie-up with two smaller parties collapsed. Discussions on maintaining the conservative-SPD coalition, which has governed Germany since 2013, are due to start on Wednesday but the two parties look set to clash over the issue of Europe, which is likely to play a key role in talks. Senior conservative Volker Kauder said Schulz s European proposal posed a danger to the EU and citizens approval of Europe and Peter Altmaier, Merkel s chancellery chief, said the idea, and especially the timeframe, was unrealistic. An Emnid poll for Bild newspaper found less than a third of Germans (30 percent) supported Schulz s idea while almost half (48 percent) rejected it. Kauder told the Tagesspiegel newspaper it was necessary to strengthen Europe but also important to recognize that at the moment people longed for the reliability that they believe they can find in national states . He added: The proposal would also jeopardize the work of unification that is unique in the history of the world because the majority of member states certainly wouldn t participate in creating a united states. Altmaier told the Rheinische Post newspaper that Schulz s proposal had surprised him and it would be better to tackle specific problems in Europe such as unemployment, the protection of external borders and coordination of economic policy. The discussion about whether Europe should be a federal state, confederation or a united states is one for academics and journalists - not for German foreign policy, Altmaier said. A United States of Europe would transfer member states sovereignty to Brussels and there would not be a majority for that in many EU states, he added. Merkel has also been skeptical, saying on Thursday she would rather concentrate on more cooperation in defense by 2025, on employment and on innovation. The Christian Social Union (CSU) - the Bavarian sister party to Merkel s Christian Democrats (CDU) - also rejected Schulz s plan. Senior CSU member Markus Soeder told Welt am Sonntag his party did not want Germany becoming an administrative unit of the European Commission in a European superstate . But the SPD defended Schulz s plan, with Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel telling Deutschlandfunk radio it would ensure Europe s voice is heard on the global stage at a time when the influence of Asia, Latin America and Africa is growing. The SPD is stressing that the outcome of talks with the conservatives is still open but Schulz said on Saturday if the SPD had the chance to prevent old-age poverty, improve nursing care and affordable housing, it needed to take that opportunity. Other options are a Merkel-led minority government or new elections. The SPD has not ruled out either possibility, and newly elected SPD General Secretary Lars Klingbeil told Bild newspaper he would immediately start preparing for a possible election campaign. The SPD had initially planned to revamp itself in opposition after its poor election showing but agreed to talk to the conservatives when other coalition talks collapsed. An Emnid poll showed 61 percent of Germans thought joining another grand coalition would weaken the SPD further. Kauder said the conservatives would go into talks prepared to make compromises but added his party had some absolutely key demands like capping migration and suspending the right to family reunions for some asylum seekers. | 1 |
9,213 | poll trump pulls ahead in florida | wikileaks bombshells on hillary you need to know most explosive revelations that could keep clinton out of white house published mins ago about archive leo hohmann is a news editor for wnd he has been a reporter and editor at several suburban newspapers in the atlanta and charlotte north carolina areas and also served as managing editor of triangle business journal in raleigh north carolina print hillary clinton with top aide huma abedin
wikileaks has provided a treasure trove of inside information on what hillary clinton really thinks about important issues such as trade and immigration but clinton herself has chosen not to answer questions about the revelations
she has focused instead on criticizing the russians as the source of the hacks despite the fact there is no proof of russian involvement
the emails also shed light on how the clinton campaign interacts with wall street banks with friendly media and how it worked to undermine the candidacy of democratic rival bernie sanders with the help of the dnc
wikileaks says it has about emails from the private gmail account of john podesta a senior democratic party official who has served as white house chief of staff under president bill clinton and a senior adviser to president obama he was the author of obamas climate change policy john podesta
in february podesta moved seamlessly from the white house to become chairman of hillary clintons presidential campaign
here are some of the most explosive revelations from the wikileaks email dumps featuring podestas account and others
preference for muslim americans in when podesta served as cochair of presidentelect barack obamas transition team michael froman a former citibank executive sent podesta a list of african american latino and asian american candidates broken down by cabinetdeputy and underassistantdeputy assistant level plus a list of native american arabmuslim american and disabled american candidates the arab american list came with a special note to exclude arab christians they had to be both arab and muslimas new republic reports obamas eventual cabinet appointments ended up almost entirely as froman recommendedfroman ultimately became the recipient of the largest bailout from the federal government during the financial crisis
shielding obama in a march email to hillary clintons lawyer cheryl mills clintons eventual campaign chairman podesta asks if they should withhold email exchanges between clinton and president obama that were sent over clintons private serverthe day before podesta sent his email to mills the house benghazi committee privately told clinton to preserve and hand over all her emailsthe email from podesta to mills says think we should hold emails to and from potus thats the heart of his exec privilege we could get them to ask for that they may not care but it seems like they will an email exchange between podesta paul begala and clinton pollster gqrr shows the clinton campaign was pushing the muslim obama narrative back in january included was a survey of obama negative facts such as this one obama owebahmuhs father was a muslim and obama grew up among muslims in the worlds most populous islamic country the pollster writes we have reworked the obama message into the survey as requested
secret speeches to wall street hillary clinton was so enraged that bill clinton was forced to cancel a paid speech at wall street bank morgan stanley in that she needed a cool down period the email chain on march before she formally launched her campaign includes top aides to both hillary clinton and former president clinton and reveals that hillarys future campaign aides were concerned about the political impact of bill giving a speech to a wall street bank morgan stanley is coming down wrote robby mook in an email to top clinton aidestop aide huma abedin explained that hillary would not be happy about it writing hrc very strongly did not want him to cancel that particular speech i will have to tell her that bill chose to cancel it not that we asked hillary clintons paid speeches to goldman sachs and other financial firms a point of contention during this years primary were the subject of an email to podesta excerpts from some of the speeches had been flagged by clintons research team including the necessity of having both a public and a private position on issues it was just part of making sausage in the political arena she said that certain positions on issues needed to be kept hidden from the public some flags in hillary clintons paid speeches were noted in a jan email from campaign research director tony carrk to top clinton advisers including clintons declaration that my dream is a hemispheric common market with open trade and open borders some time in the future with energy that is as green and sustainable as we can get it powering growth and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere countless establishment media outlets parlaying themselves as fact checkers tried to downplay this email by saying it was mostly about trade not immigration as if the words open borders were never mentioned but the email exchange also shows how hillarys aboutface on the tpp trade deal was mere pandering to bernie sanders voters and had no basis in reality in terms of how she really feels about trade deals in a speech at goldmanblack rock on feb carrk pointed out clinton admitted shes kind of far removed from middleclass struggles due to the economic you know fortunes that my husband and i now enjoy clinton in other speeches boasted of her ties to wall street an issue primary opponent bernie sanders continually raised clinton still has refused to release transcripts of her paid speeches while blasting donald trump for not releasing his tax returns
working in tandem with friendly media wnd reported tuesday emails showing reporters editors and contributors not just advocating for hillary clinton but apparently colluding with the campaign univision chairman haim saban urged the clinton campaign to hit donald trump harder over immigration the boston globe tried to time a clinton opinion piece to do the most good in new hampshire cnbcs john harwood urged clinton campaign chairman podesta to watch out for thengop candidate dr ben carson democratic national committee official and cnn contributor donna brazile apparently tipped off the clinton campaign to a potentially difficult cnn townhall question on capital punishment during the democratic party primary season brazile adamantly denies it in a july email new york times reporter mark leibovich appeared to ask permission from hillary clintons communications director jennifer palmieri to use certain quotes of the presidential candidate in an article palmieri replied suggesting he remove a reference clinton made to sarah palin and delete clintons statement and gay rights has moved much faster than womens rights or civil rights which is an interesting phenomenon cnbc correspondent john harwood who was widely criticized for posing biased questions to donald trump as a primary debate moderator effectively served as an adviser to the clinton campaign emailing podesta with the subject line watch out the warning was regarding gop presidential candidate ben carson who could give you real trouble in a general election maggie haberman a former politico reporter who now works for the new york times was described in a january memo as having a very good relationship with the clinton campaign we have had her tee up stories for us before and have never been disappointed the memo said
demeaning catholics podesta discussed fomenting revolution in the catholic church with a progressive activist while hillarys nowcommunications director jennifer palmieri mocked catholics who speak out against the liberal social causes of the democratic party there needs to be a catholic spring in which catholics themselves demand the end of a middle ages dictatorship and the beginning of a little democracy and respect for gender equality in the catholic church sandy newman president and founder of the nonprofit voices for progress wrote podesta in february the email among the third batch released by wikileaks was titled opening for a catholic spring just musing podesta tells newman of progressive organizations he and his colleagues created to recruit members of the church who can lead a revolution when the time is rightwe created catholics in alliance for the common good to organize for a moment like this the clinton campaign chairman writes but i think it lacks the leadership to do so now likewise catholics united like most spring movements i think this one will have to be bottom up clinton who has accused trump of praising putin called the russian leader in a speech engaging and a very interesting conversationalist excerpts from clintons speeches were contained in a document emailed to podesta to point out quotes that could harm the campaign
collusion with doj clinton spokesman brian fallon alerted staffers that the justice department was proposing to publish clintons workrelated emails contending it showed collusion between the obama administration and clintons campaign fallon wrote that doj folks told him a court hearing in the case had been planned the day after hillary clinton testified in front of the house select committee on benghazi last october podesta met for dinner with a small group of wellconnected friends including peter kadzik a top official at the justice department lawyers also told the clinton campaign in emails that hillarys private email scandal smacks of acting above the law and it smacks of the type of thing ive either gotten discovery sanctions for fired people for etc
entanglements with foreign governments king muhammad iv of morocco made a million pledge to fund the clinton global initiative conference but only if the likely presidential candidate attended the event as a speaker hillarys top aide huma abedin wrote in a january email that if hrc was not part of it meeting was a nonstarter then she warned she created this mess and she knows it hillary ended up not attending but her husband bill did an email from hillary clintons account to podesta on aug said saudi arabia and qatar were providing clandestine financial and logistic support to isis and other radical sunni groups in the region critics have pointed out that the clinton foundation has received considerable funding from the two middle east nations in a leaked paid speech to the jewish united fund of metropolitan chicago hillary said jordan and turkey cant possibly vet all those refugees so they dont know if you know jihadists are coming in along with legitimate refugees two years later she called for a percent increase in the number of syrian refugees coming to the us largely from united nations refugee camps in jordan
insiders insider had sway over dnc a wikileaks email dump on july revealed that debbie wasserman schultz used her position as head of the dnc to work in concert with the clinton campaign to undermine the candidacy of sen bernie sanders dvt schultz was forced to resign over the emails issues used to undermine sanders campaign included his faith or lack thereof the clinton campaign tried to reschedule the illinois presidential primary to lower the chances a moderate republican would get a boost following the super tuesday primaries the clintons wont forget what their friends have done for them wrote robby mook who later became clintons campaign manager in the november email to podesta | 1 |
9,214 | U.S. court deals Trump a setback in poll-monitor fight | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a blow to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, a U.S. judge on Thursday upheld a Pennsylvania state law that could make it difficult for his supporters to monitor Election Day activity in Democratic-leaning areas. Trump has repeatedly said Tuesday’s presidential election may be rigged, without providing scant evidence, and has urged supporters to keep an eye out for signs of voting fraud in Philadelphia and other heavily Democratic areas. Democrats worry that could encourage Trump supporters to harass minority voters in a state that could determine whether Trump or his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, wins the presidency. Voting-rights advocates said they are already receiving reports of harassment. Democrats have launched a legal blitz of their own in an attempt to shut down Trump’s poll-watching efforts in Pennsylvania and three other battleground states, arguing in lawsuits that Republican monitoring efforts amount to “vigilante voter intimidation” that violates federal law. They filed a fourth lawsuit in North Carolina on Thursday. Democrats are also trying to stop the Republican National Committee from supporting the poll-watching efforts of the Trump campaign or state parties. Those cases have not yet been resolved. The RNC has said in legal motions that it is not involved in poll watching, which would violate a long-standing court order. State parties have argued that they are engaged in legitimate efforts to make sure the election is conducted accurately, while Trump’s vice presidential running mate, Mike Pence, and his campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, said they misspoke when they told media outlets that the campaign was working with the RNC on poll-watching efforts. In Pennsylvania, Trump’s poll-monitoring plan faces a significant hurdle because state law requires partisan poll watchers to perform their duties in the county in which they are registered to vote. That could make it difficult to recruit monitors in places like Philadelphia, where Democrats outnumber Republicans by a ratio of eight to one. The city has 120,000 registered Republicans and 1,685 voting locations. The Pennsylvania Republican Party sought to suspend that requirement so that poll monitors could come from anywhere in the state, which would enable them to bring in supporters from suburban and rural areas where Trump has stronger support. But U.S. District Judge Gerald Pappert said that would be too disruptive to change the law less than a week before Tuesday’s vote. The Republican Party of Pennsylvania did not respond to a request for comment. Republican training materials submitted as evidence in several cases show the party is instructing poll monitors not to interact directly with voters, but to contact officials if they see a problem. That appeared to be the message in southern Ohio as well, where Trump supporter Becky Covey said the observers she had recruited were told not to interfere with voting activity. “People think they’re going to be a watchdog, but that’s not their job,” Covey said. Those guidelines could have little influence on Trump supporters who decide to engage in anti-fraud efforts of their own on Election Day. The Oath Keepers, a paramilitary group, plans an undercover effort to monitor voting locations, while Trump ally Roger Stone is mobilizing supporters to conduct an exit poll to double-check election results. One right-wing group told the news website Politico that it has already installed hidden cameras in Philadelphia polling stations. With early voting underway, civil rights advocates said they were already receiving reports of intimidation and harassment. Palm Beach County, Florida, plans to station law enforcement officers at an early-voting site through Election Day after fielding complaints about bullhorn-wielding Trump supporters getting too close, according to ProPublica. Democrats in Nevada alleged that Trump supporters have yelled at voters and tried to block them from entering early-voting sites, while civil-rights groups in North Carolina and Texas said they have received reports of intimidating behavior at early voting sites. “We are seeing an uptick in the number of complaints compared to 2012,” said Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a watchdog group. | 1 |
9,215 | Prominent Russian journalist leaves country after threats | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Prominent Russian political commentator and writer Yulia Latynina has left Russia fearing for her life, she told a Moscow radio station. Latynina s car was set on fire at the beginning of September, weeks after unidentified assailants sprayed a poisonous substance on her house outside Moscow and the car. I m quite scared ... I m terrified that the people who did it were prepared for fatalities, Latynina said of the arson. I m abroad, my parents are also abroad. It s unlikely I ll be going to Russia soon, she told the Echo of Moscow radio station late Saturday. Latynina, who works as a columnist at the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, has been critical of the Kremlin s policy in the Chechnya republic in the Caucasus, as well as the local authorities. Last year, Latynina was attacked in the center of Moscow. | 1 |
9,216 | Trump says unlikely to have good relationship with UK's Cameron | LONDON (Reuters) - Donald Trump said he was unlikely to have a good relationship with David Cameron because the British prime minister cast the U.S. presidential candidate as “divisive, stupid and wrong” for proposing a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States. Cameron criticised Trump in the British parliament over his call for the ban on Muslims and suggested that the New York billionaire, who is now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, would unite Britain against him if he visited. “It looks like we’re not going to have a very good relationship, who knows?” Trump told Britain’s ITV television station in an interview aired on Monday when asked how ties would fare if he won the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 8. “Well number one, I’m not stupid, okay. I can tell you that right now. Just the opposite. Number Two, in terms of divisive: I don’t think I’m a divisive person. I’m a unifier, unlike our president right now,” Trump said, referring to Barack Obama. Cameron’s spokesman said the prime minister stood by his original comments. The United States is Britain’s closest ally. U.S. companies are the biggest foreign direct investors in Britain and the so- called ‘special relationship’ with Washington has been the cornerstone of British diplomacy since World War Two. Trump’s often controversial comments on everything from Muslims and women to the future of NATO and relations with Russia have drawn criticism from Berlin, Paris and other European capitals. But neither Germany’s Angela Merkel nor France’s Francois Hollande have gone as far as Cameron in chiding Trump who, if he wins in November, would be in charge of the world’s most powerful nation and largest economy from January 20 next year. Cameron will work with whoever is elected U.S. president and is committed to maintaining the special relationship, the prime minister’s spokesman said. “The PM has made his views on Donald Trump’s comments very clear. He disagrees with them,” the spokesman said. “He continues to believe that preventing Muslims from entering the U.S. is divisive, stupid and wrong. He stands by his comments.” The spokesman refused to answer questions on who Cameron would like to see win in November but said there was no telephone call or meeting planned with Trump, adding: “If one is proposed we will consider it.” On a more conciliatory note, Cameron has said Trump deserves respect for making it through the gruelling Republican primary process. The Times newspaper also reported last month Cameron had ordered diplomats to attempt to repair relations with Trump. “I hope to have a good relationship with him but it sounds like he’s not willing to address the problem either,” Trump told ITV. Trump also criticised London’s newly elected Muslim mayor Sadiq Khan for making “very rude statements”. Trump had initially welcomed Khan’s election and said he would make an exception in the event of a ban on Muslims for him entering the United States, drawing a sharp reply from Khan. “Donald Trump’s ignorant view of Islam could make both our countries less safe - it risks alienating mainstream Muslims around the world and plays into the hands of the extremists,” Khan said. Responding to this criticism in the ITV interview, Trump said: “He doesn’t know me, never met me, doesn’t know what I am all about. I think they are very rude statements. Frankly, tell him I will remember those statements. They are very nasty statements. It is ignorant for him to say that.” | 1 |
9,217 | WHOA! NEW EMAILS SHOW COMEY FBI LIED About Meeting Between Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch On Tarmac…Proves Media Colluded With Obama’s DOJ To Kill Story About Tarmac Meeting [VIDEO] | A new email dump from the FBI via a FOIA request by the ACLJ reveals what appears to be collusion between the media and the DOJ to squash the story about the 2016 meeting between Loretta Lynch and Bill Clinton on the tarmac in Phoenix, AZ.Also Comey reportedly said the FBI had no documents related to this meeting to fill a prior FOIA request. That apparently isn t true, given this new email dump. The Right ScoopWatch:From the ACLJ: We have just obtained hundreds of pages in our ongoing investigation and federal lawsuit on former Attorney General Loretta Lynch s tarmac meeting with former President Bill Clinton while the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI had an ongoing criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton s emails. The results are shocking.Watch Lynch s explanation of her meeting with Bill Clinton on the tarmac:First, the Comey FBI lied to us. Last July, we sent FOIA requests to both the Comey FBI and the Lynch DOJ asking for any documents related to the Clinton Lynch plane meeting. The FBI, under the then directorship of James Comey, replied that No records responsive to your request were located. The documents we received today from the Department of Justice include several emails from the FBI to DOJ officials concerning the meeting. One with the subject line FLAG was correspondence between FBI officials (Richard Quinn, FBI Media/Investigative Publicity, and Michael Kortan) and DOJ officials concerning flag[ing] a story . . . about a casual, unscheduled meeting between former president Bill Clinton and the AG. The DOJ official instructs the FBI to let me know if you get any questions about this and provides [o]ur talkers [DOJ talking points] on this . The talking points, however are redacted.Another email to the FBI contains the subject line security details coordinate between Loretta Lynch/Bill Clinton? On July 1, 2016 just days before our FOIA request a DOJ email chain under the subject line, FBI just called, indicates that the FBI . . . is looking for guidance in responding to media inquiries about news reports that the FBI had prevented the press from taking pictures of the Clinton Lynch meeting. The discussion then went off email to several phone calls (of which we are not able to obtain records). An hour later, Carolyn Pokomy of the Office of the Attorney General stated, I will let Rybicki know. Jim Rybicki was the Chief of Staff and Senior Counselor to FBI Director Jim Comey. The information that was to be provided to Rybicki is redacted.Also of note several of the documents contain redactions that are requested per FBI. It is clear that there were multiple records within the FBI responsive to our request and that discussions regarding the surreptitious meeting between then AG Lynch and the husband of the subject of an ongoing FBI criminal investigation reached the highest levels of the FBI.However, on October 21, 2016, the Comey FBI replied to our legal demands that No records responsive to your request were located. This is in direct contravention to the law, and we are preparing further legal action to force the FBI to come clean and turn over ALL documents related to this matter to us in a timely manner.Second, the hundreds of pages of (heavily redacted more on that below) documents paint a clear picture of a DOJ in crisis mode as the news broke of Attorney General Lynch s meeting with former President Clinton. In fact, the records appear to indicate that the Attorney General s spin team immediately began preparing talking points for the Attorney General regarding the meeting BEFORE ever speaking with the AG about the matter.Third, there is clear evidence that the main stream media was colluding with the DOJ to bury the story. A Washington Post reporter, speaking of the Clinton Lynch meeting story, said, I m hoping I can put it to rest . The same Washington Post reporter, interacting with the DOJ spin team, implemented specific DOJ requests to change his story to make the Attorney General appear in a more favorable light. A New York Times reporter apologetically told the Obama DOJ that he was being pressed into service to have to cover the story. As the story was breaking, DOJ press officials stated, I also talked to the ABC producer, who noted that they aren t interested, even if Fox runs with it. Two days after the meeting, DOJ officials in a chain of emails that includes emails to Attorney General Lynch herself stated that the media coverage of the meeting looks like all or most are FOX and that CBS . . . just says a few lines about the meeting. Fourth, DOJ bureaucrats have redacted all the talking points, discussions of talking points, a statement on the meeting that was apparently never delivered because there was not enough media coverage on the meeting, and its substantive discussions with the FBI on the matter. They absurdly claim the deliberative process exemption to FOIA, which is only supposed to apply to agency rulemaking processes.The ACLJ won t stop until justice is served on this matter:Discussions about Attorney General Lynch s ethically questionable meeting with former President Clinton during her investigation into Hillary Clinton clearly has nothing to do with any rule making process. We will be taking these redactions back to federal court. The law is on our side. We will keep pressing on with our investigation of former Attorney General Lynch until we get to the bottom of this.To donate to the ACLJ and help to fund the important work they re doing, click HERE.Here s James Comey discussing the Lynch and Clinton meeting on the tarmac:Here is Loretta Lynch s testimony before Congress regarding her meeting with Bill Clinton: | 0 |
9,218 | Swiss war crimes inquiry into Assad's uncle stalled, rights group says | GENEVA (Reuters) - Switzerland opened a war-crimes investigation into Rifaat al-Assad, an uncle of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, almost four years ago, but it has stalled despite compelling evidence , an activist group and lawyers said on Monday. The Geneva-based group TRIAL International said that it had brought the complaint against Rifaat al-Assad for alleged massacres in Tadmor in 1980 and Hama in 1982, and was joined by Swiss lawyers for six Syrian plaintiffs seeking justice. He was in command of the Defense Brigades the country s elite commando troops in the 1980s, the group said in a statement. Under his lead, the Brigades are suspected of participating in the massacre of several thousand people in Tadmor and Hama. Following TRIAL s complaint, an investigation of Assad - the uncle of Bashar al-Assad and the younger brother of his father, Hafez Assad, Syria s former president - began in 2013, the group said. But the criminal inquiry seems to be at a standstill , the plaintiffs lawyers, led by Damien Chervaz, said in a statement. The Swiss attorney general confirmed that an investigation into war crimes was opened in December 2013 against a Syrian national who was the alleged commander of a military unit in the 1980s, but declined to confirm his identity. Its investigations were time-consuming because of the complex nature of incidents that occurred long ago in another country, the attorney general s office said in a statement. A spokeswoman said it had no further comment on any criticisms. Marc Hassberger, Geneva lawyer for Rifaat, told Radio Television Suisse (RTS) on Monday night that his client rejected the accusations. He added: Obviously one must be wary of outrageous simplifications regarding a procedure that concerns facts which may have happened several decades ago and also thousands of kilometers away from here. A former Syrian vice president who was sent into exile in the 1980s, Assad lives in France, where he was put under investigation for tax fraud and money-laundering last year. In April, Spain confiscated property he owned, as part of a investigation into alleged money-laundering. Khaled Al-Khani, a Syrian artist who said that his father was tortured and killed in the crackdown on Hama in 1982, when he was a child, is a plaintiff in the Swiss case. If justice can be rendered to victims of Srebrenica or Rwanda, one must do the same for those whom we have lost, he told Swiss television. | 1 |
9,219 | Iran says Trump's U.N. remarks 'shameless, ignorant': Fars news agency | UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Iran denounced U.S. President Donald Trump s U.N. remarks as shameless and ignorant and said his speech on Tuesday showed his lack of knowledge about Tehran s fight against terrorism, the semi-official Fars news agency reported. Trump s shameless and ignorant remarks, in which he ignored Iran s fight against terrorism, displays his lack of knowledge and unawareness, Iran s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was quoted as saying. | 1 |
9,220 | Loser Donald Trump Ordered To Pay $300,000 By Judge In Florida Lawsuit | The only reality show Donald Trump should have ever been featured in is The Biggest Loser because he just got his ass handed to him in court.Two years ago, Trump National Doral Miami golf resort signed a contract worth $200,000 for a local business called The Paint Spot to provide paint used to renovate the golf course.Well, guess who tried to stiff The Paint Spot of the final $34,863 payment in the deal?Yeah, that would be Republican nominee Donald J. Trump.Trump and his company refused to honor the contract by not paying the final payment, saying that they ve paid enough for the paint. In other words, Trump negotiated a deal that ended up costing him more in the end, just like the kinds of deals he wants to negotiate for America with the rest of the world.Anyway, Paint Spot owner Juan Carlos Enriquez filed suit against Trump in court, and Judge Jorge Cueto just slapped Trump and his company with a $300,000 hit to cover The Paint Shop s attorney and court fees, nearly ten times more money than the $34,863 owed. And Trump STILL hasn t paid that debt, so how are we supposed to trust him to pay down the debt of en entire nation if he can t meet his own obligations? I m happy I have a judgment, Enriquez told the Miami Herald. But he [Trump] hasn t paid yet. You know how he says he ll surround himself with the greatest people if he is president? In this case, he might not be surrounded by the right people. This isn t even the first fine Trump has been ordered to pay this month.On the same day as his coronation as the Republican Party nominee last week, the National Labor Relations Board slapped Trump with an $11,200 fine for treating employees like shit because they tried to join a labor union.As it turns out, one employee was wrongfully fired and the other was retaliated against by denying them the promotion they had earned.For someone who claims to be the law and order candidate, Trump sure does break the law a lot.Featured Image: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images | 0 |
9,221 | WATCH: Obama CRUSHES Trump With Two Words In His BEST Speech Ever | President Barack Obama brought down the house on the third night of the 2016 Democratic Party Convention when he singled out Republican nominee Donald Trump and gave for the first time his unvarnished opinion of the GOP s party leader.Obama: Anyone who threatens values, "fascists or communists or jihadists or homegrown demagogues, will always fail." pic.twitter.com/DI77NXhlOI POLITICO (@politico) July 28, 2016Directly contrasting Trump s constant drumbeat of negative attacks against America, the President described the former reality TV star as simply a homegrown demagogue who stands opposed to basic American values.Specifically, Obama said: America has changed over the years, but these values that my grandparents taught me, they haven t gone anywhere. They re as strong as ever. Still cherished by people of every party, every race, every faith, they live on in each of us. What makes us American, what makes us patriots, is what s in here. Obama then pointed to his heart. That s what matters, he continued, and that s why we can take the food, and music, and holidays and styles of other countries and blend it into something uniquely our own. That s why we can attract strivers and entrepreneurs from around the globe to build new factories, create new industries here. That s why our military can look the way it does. Every shade of humanity forged into common service. That s why anyone who threatens our values whether fascist or communist or jihadists or homegrown demagogues will always fail in the end. The speech is already being described as one of the best Obama has ever given, and was a full throated endorsement of his former rival Hillary Clinton, singling her out as the only person in the race worthy of carrying on the baton from his administration.Obama ended the speech with a surprise appearance from Clinton in the arena. The audience, already cheering the President s final convention speech as the sitting commander-in-chief, clapped even louder as Clinton and Obama embraced and walked across the stage together in party unity.Featured image via Twitter | 0 |
9,222 | GOP Senator Just Smacked Down The Most Punchable Alt-Right Nazi On The Internet | The most punchable Alt-Right Nazi on the internet just got a thorough beatdown from Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) on Twitter during an epic tweetstorm. Richard Spencer, the Alt-Right leader who has become a human punching bag, just got the racism smacked out of him by the Republican Senator on Thursday after the white nationalist tweeted that only goober conservatives blame Russia for racial divisions in the United States. Spencer was responding to a tweet Sasse sent out on Wednesday.Sen. Ben Sasse had shared an article regarding Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), who explained that Russian internet trolls helped fuel divisions in a controversy which Donald Trump ignited over NFL athletes who choose to kneel rather than stand during the national anthem in protest of racial inequality and police brutality.No one loves American-vs-American fighting more than Putin. His intel agencies stoke both sides of every divide.https://t.co/H6BwjHzokH Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) September 28, 2017Spencer responded by writing, In the minds of goober conservatives, the Russians are to blame for racial divisions. In the minds of goober conservatives, the Russians are to blame for racial divisions. https://t.co/CzpGfL6u4M Richard ?Spencer (@RichardBSpencer) September 28, 2017Sasse tore into Spencer, calling him a clown and one of the brown-shirt-pajama-boy Nazis. 1/Oh let goobers & nongoobers agree on this: Racists like you are to blame. But Putin's agencies also love using you as their divisive tool https://t.co/DaD4XaNvI5 Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) September 28, 20172/Don t get me wrong: we ll always have brown-shirt-pajama-boy Nazis like you & your lonely pals stoking division. But here s America 101: https://t.co/SboVZmOuu2 Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) September 28, 20173/You don t get America. You said: You do not have some human right, some abstract thing given to you by God or something like that. https://t.co/ScXDGFcbGp Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) September 28, 20174/Actually, that's exactly what America declares we do have: People are the image-bearers of God, created with dignity& inalienable rights. https://t.co/d4orBrHJMw Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) September 28, 20175/Sadly, you don't understand human dignity. A person's skin, ancestry, and bank balance have nothing to do with their intrinsic value. https://t.co/5JsyVAKQRL Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) September 28, 20176/This declaration of universal dignity is what America is about. Madison called our Constitution "the greatest reflection on human nature" https://t.co/NQluVs1KvA Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) September 28, 20177/You talk about culture but don't know squat about western heritage which sees people not as tribes but as individuals of limitless worth https://t.co/VKNvDUXLtT Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) September 28, 20178/The celebration of universal dignity IS our culture, & it rejects your "white culture" crybaby politics. It rejects all identity politics https://t.co/Adlj9AvNPR Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) September 28, 20179/Sometime after moving back into your parents' basement, you knock-off Nazis fell in love with reheated 20th century will-to-power garbage https://t.co/XDTeATVGSe Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) September 28, 201710/Your "ideas" aren't just hateful, un-American poison they're also just so dang boring. The future doesn't belong to your stupid memes. https://t.co/bNHSlf1uOx Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) September 28, 201711/11Get a real job, Clown. Find an actual neighbor to serve. You'll be happier.Have a nice day. https://t.co/ToREd7VwDM Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) September 28, 2017Jake Tapper weighed in to say, Wherein a piece of garbage is thrown into a receptacle with grace and artistry. Wherein a piece of garbage is thrown into a receptacle with grace and artistry https://t.co/L09bBy8gHh Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) September 28, 2017This is how Donald Trump should have responded to the violent rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which, by the way, was organized by Richard Spencer.Spencer previously said that he felt proud after Trump blamed many sides for the violence at the hate-rally which resulted in the murder of Heather Heyer, and left at least 19 others injured. Spencer is one of Trump s very fine people who just got smacked down on Twitter by a Republican.You don t have to like his politics to admire that Sasse was among the Republicans who joined civil rights leaders and Democrats who reacted angrily when Trump said that he condemned this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides on many sides. Of course, if Sasse would call out Roy Moore over his bigoted remarks, that would be nice to see, too.Photo: Chip Somodevilla via Getty images. | 0 |
9,223 | David Duke Screams From The Rooftops That Trump Is In The Lead Because Of Him (VIDEO) | The white supremacist and former KKK Grand Wizard threw a temper tantrum during an interview on Newsmax, and bragged about helping Trump become the GOP front-runner.Even before the interview began, David Duke cried foul because host Steve Malzberg introduced Duke as a former KKK leader. Duke whined that former West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd was also in the KKK but he was never introduced as such, accusing the mainstream media of being controlled.However, while Duke is right that Byrd was in the KKK, Byrd did repeatedly renounce his KKK ties later in his career, calling it a mistake that he ll keep apologizing for over and over again. I know now I was wrong, Byrd said in 2005. Intolerance had no place in America. I apologized a thousand times and I don t mind apologizing over and over again. I can t erase what happened. In 1997, Byrd warned young people to steer clear of the KKK. Don t get that albatross around your neck, he said. Once you ve made that mistake, you inhibit your operations in the political arena. Byrd became a staunch supporter of civil rights and redeemed himself over time.This makes Byrd far different from Duke, who has not renounced his KKK past and his continued support of white supremacy. When asked about how he feels about Jews and black people, Duke had a hard time answering and then said that he is trying to turn the KKK into a political organization and fancies himself a human rights activist. Of course, the only human rights he cares about are those of racist white pricks like himself.Malzberg also challenged Duke with his own words, asking him about what he said about rape laws in 1975.According to the Wichita Sun Duke said, White people don t need a law against rape, but if you fill this room up with your normal black bucks, you would, because n***ers are basically primitive animals. Duke claimed he was taken out of context and that the Sun made up the quote, only to later brag about how the Republican Party has adopted his stance against immigrants.In the last part of the interview, Duke continued to talk about himself and how great he is, even going so far as to scream that Trump jumped ten points in the polls because he and his people (white racists) to support him.Here s the videos via YouTube.Trump has made it possible for white supremacists and their racist organizations to rise up in this nation once again. And should he win, those evil groups and their members will have an ally in the White House, which will only embolden them. At what point will Americans say enough is enough and counter this hate by overwhelmingly voting against it? Unfortunately, we will probably have to wait until November to find out.Featured Image: Screenshot | 0 |
9,224 | Clinton far ahead in Electoral College race: Reuters/Ipsos poll | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton maintained her commanding lead in the race to win the Electoral College and claim the U.S. presidency, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation project results released on Saturday. In the last week, there has been little movement. Clinton leads Donald Trump in most of the states that Trump would need should he have a chance to win the minimum 270 votes needed to win. According to the project, she has a better than 95 percent chance of winning, if the election was held this week. The mostly likely outcome would be 326 votes for Clinton to 212 for Trump. Trump came off his best debate performance of the campaign Wednesday evening but the polling consensus still showed Clinton winning the third and final face-off on prime-time TV. Trump disputes those findings. And some national polls had the race tightening a wee bit this week though others had Clinton maintaining her solid lead. But the project illustrates that the broader picture remains bleak for Trump with 17 days to go until the Nov. 8 election. Trump did gain ground in South Carolina where his slim lead last week expanded to seven points, moving it into his column from a toss-up. Unfortunately for him, he lost ground in Arizona, which is now too close to call. Additionally, he is facing a challenge for Utah’s six Electoral College votes from former CIA operative and Utah native Evan McMullin. The independent candidate is siphoning votes away from Trump in a state that is Republican as any in the nation. In some polls, McMullin is even leading. (The States of the Nation is not polling on McMullin.) Utah, like almost all of the states, is a winner-take-all contest. Clinton has also maintained a lead in Florida and Pennsylvania, which have a combined 49 Electoral College votes. Ohio remains too close to call. According to the project, lower voter turnout generally benefits Trump but his best hope for success is if Republican turnout surges and Democratic turnout is low. To examine these results and other scenarios, go to the States of the Nation project here . | 1 |
9,225 | Trump was wrong to retweet UK far-right group: British PM May's spokesman | LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump was wrong to have posted anti-Islam videos on Twitter that had originally been published by a leader of Britain First, a fringe, far-right party, a spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May said on Wednesday. “It is wrong for the President to have done this,” the spokesman said. “Britain First seeks to divide communities through their use of hateful narratives which peddle lies and stoke tensions. They cause anxiety to law-abiding people. “British people overwhelmingly reject the prejudiced rhetoric of the far-right which is the antithesis of the values that this country represents: decency tolerance and respect.” | 1 |
9,226 | Team Romney Joins GOP Establishment Fight Against Trump | If Mitt Romney and his former team have the energy to fight Trump s nomination, why didn t they take their fight to Obama when they had the chance? America was begging for Romney fight back, but he chose to back down from the challenge. Suddenly, he s found the will to take the fight to the GOP Presidential frontrunner Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump may have a new opponent in the race for the White House and he s not even running.A cadre of former Mitt Romney aides and advisers, some going back to 2002, have reportedly reunited to take on a new political mission: stopping the seemingly unstoppable freight train known as the Trump campaign. We are united, said one former Romney aide who did not wish to be identified, according to the Boston Globe. It s a common goal, and not just for Romney people, but for anyone invested in Republicanism, conservatism, and anyone who gives a flying [expletive] about what we re trying to do here. Even if you re not getting paid, this isn t good for anybody, he said. Fox & Friends Weekend co-host Tucker Carlson quoted the Boston Globe piece during a telephone interview with Trump Saturday. Well, I m disappointed in Mitt Romney, Trump replied. He is the one that s leading it, and he was a failure, Trump replied. This is pure Romney trying to get back in to politics.He called Romney s 2012 presidential run a disaster, adding that Obama won an election that should have been won by the Republicans. Watch the interview, via Fox News.Via: BizPac Review | 0 |
9,227 | Vexation gives way to pragmatism as Wall Street girds for Trump | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street power brokers may have rolled their eyes in private when ex-Goldman Sachs Group Inc banker Steven Mnuchin agreed to be Donald Trump’s national finance chairman, but now they are lining up to meet him. Financial lobbyists and their bosses are hoping that Mnuchin and others Trump has enlisted as advisers will help convey their views and act as interpreters of the president-elect’s so far at times confusing messages. “This is different from a lot of elections in the past where you could say, ‘If so-and-so wins, this will be good for that industry and bad for that one,’” said Scott Bok, chief executive of investment bank Greenhill & Co Inc. “It’s not like Trump laid out a clear set of policies where you can say, ‘This is good for these types of companies and bad for those.’” Bankers and their lobbyists are hoping their path to influence will become clearer in the coming weeks with Trump’s cabinet appointments. “It is a matter now of getting to the people who are coming in and convincing them of the benefits of some moderate deregulation to foster economic growth,” said one industry executive, who declined to speak publicly about Trump. During the presidential campaign, many people on Wall Street had supported his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton viewing her as a pragmatist and a stabilizing force. Despite castigating hedge fund managers for “getting away with murder” on their taxes and making a vague pledge to strip big banks of their profitable trading arms, Trump has surrounded himself with financiers including Mnuchin and hedge fund firm bosses John Paulson and Anthony Scaramucci. At the time some of their peers thought they were taking an opportunistic punt as they viewed Trump as unpredictable and populist and were vexed by his snipes at the industry. Six months later, government-relations executives for big banks are scrambling to secure meetings with them as well as key staffers on Capitol Hill’s important financial committees, in hopes they can provide a sympathetic ear for the industry. “That work begins immediately,” said one industry lobbyist who was not authorized to speak publicly. Trump’s lack of political experience and his scattershot pronouncements have made him a wild card for big business, making private contacts with his inner circle especially critical. On bank regulation, Trump has promised to repeal the Dodd-Frank financial reform law and implement a new, possibly tougher one, but offered few details on what it would look like. Although Trump’s outsider status helped him win, he has turned to some well-known Washington insiders when looking to fill vacancies at U.S. financial regulators including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Former Republican SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins, who founded and heads the regulatory consulting firm Patomak Global Partners LLC, is leading the transition team for financial regulation, according to a person familiar with the matter. Come January, Trump is expected to designate SEC Republican Commissioner Michael Piwowar as acting chair. It is unclear if Trump will make the role permanent or later tap someone new. SEC Chair Mary Jo White, an independent appointed by President Barack Obama in 2013, is expected to leave the agency when Obama’s term is over. Mnuchin is seen as the likely pick for Treasury Secretary. He did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. KBW policy analyst Brian Gardner predicts Vice President-elect Mike Pence will have a major influence on who gets appointed to key roles, and will choose “orthodox Republicans” who are equally familiar as some others in Trump’s circle. In an emailed statement, Scaramucci said Trump’s reputation for unpredictability was undeserved. “While spending time with President-elect Trump during the campaign I got to know a very analytical and compassionate person,” Scaramucci, founder and a co-managing partner of investment firm SkyBridge Capital, said. Several policy experts predicted Trump and the new Congress will water down some financial reform rules, such as the Durbin amendment that limits bank fees or the Volcker rule against proprietary trading. They uniformly expect diminished power, if not a gutting of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But the Trump administration may also propose regulations that are more problematic, such as extremely high capital requirements or a revival of the Depression-era Glass Steagall law that broke up big banks. Mnuchin, however, was cited by many as a ray of hope. Although he has not publicly expressed opinions on financial regulation or fiscal policy, bankers and lobbyists said they felt reassured by his experience on Wall Street. “I can’t imagine that his goal would be to destroy Goldman Sachs,” said the industry executive, “which is better than some.” | 1 |
9,228 | NYT Bombshell: Trump And McConnell Not Speaking; McConnell Questioning Trump’s GOP Future | Donald Trump has never been Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell s (R-KY) favorite person. That uneasy relationship deteriorated further in recent days and weeks, as Trump proceeded to openly mock and humiliate McConnell, blaming him for everything from the failed attempts to repeal Obamacare to the entire situation of the fractured GOP s stalled agenda. Now, since Trump had such a disgraceful response to the white supremacist violence in Charlottesville that resulted in the death of anti-racism activist Heather Heyer and the injuries of countless others, it seems that Trump and McConnell are engaged in what the New York Times is calling their own little, quote, cold war. According to the new bombshell report, Trump doesn t even talk to McConnell the one most important man in the legislative branch when it comes to getting his agenda passed. The New York Times reports: The relationship between President Trump and Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, has disintegrated to the point that they have not spoken to each other in weeks, and Mr. McConnell has privately expressed uncertainty that Mr. Trump will be able to salvage his administration after a series of summer crises.What was once an uneasy governing alliance has curdled into a feud of mutual resentment and sometimes outright hostility.The article further suggests that when Trump and McConnell were speaking, Trump didn t just keep his taunts to the usual juvenile derision via Twitter. No, apparently, on August 9th, McConnell and Trump had some kind of conversation, and Trump could not help going after McConnell to his face. There are no details regarding exactly what was said, but knowing Trump, it was likely pretty scathing and humiliating for McConnell, who seems to consider himself your typical dignified grown man. He is likely simply done with Trump s playground bully behavior and is no longer going to dignify Trump s ignorance and taunts with responses.It also doesn t help that McConnell s wife, Elaine Chao, is Trump s Transportation Secretary. She is an immigrant, and arrived from Taiwan as a child, speaking no English. Under Trump s new immigration plans, she would never have been allowed into this country. Further, to top it all off, Secretary Chao had to be humiliated standing next to Trump during his Charlottesville tirade, in which he defended white supremacists. Think about that how it must have made McConnell feel to see his wife being used that way in such a despicable, bigoted, and unhinged Trump rant.All of this has resulted in much more criticism than one would expect from Mitch McConnell in public, but, according to the Times, McConnell is much more angry with Trump than he is letting on, and he is even wondering if Trump will be the GOP s leader for much longer, given his recent behavior. Again, from the New York Times:Mr. McConnell has fumed over Mr. Trump s regular threats against fellow Republicans and criticism of Senate rules, and questioned Mr. Trump s understanding of the presidency in a public speech. Mr. McConnell has made sharper comments in private, describing Mr. Trump as entirely unwilling to learn the basics of governing.In offhand remarks, Mr. McConnell has expressed a sense of bewilderment about where Mr. Trump s presidency may be headed, and has mused about whether Mr. Trump will be in a position to lead the Republican Party into next year s elections and beyond, according to people who have spoken to him directly.All in all, those two might never speak again. The thing is, though, Donald Trump has severely underestimated Mitch McConnell s power. The GOP took a chance and hitched their wagon to this ignorant, incompetent orange fool because their voters left them no choice. However, they now clearly regret it and said regret just might be inching toward hastening Trump s removal from office.Featured image via Justin Sullivan/Getty Images | 0 |
9,229 | Cruz campaign vetting Fiorina as a possible VP pick: ABC News | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz’s campaign is vetting former business executive Carly Fiorina as a possible vice presidential pick, ABC News said on Friday. Earlier, Cruz’s campaign said it had narrowed its running mate options to a short list. Fiorina, a former CEO of Hewlett Packard, dropped out of the presidential race in February. | 1 |
9,230 | Florida Governor Uses Hurricane Matthew As Excuse To Try And Help Trump Win | Florida s Republican governor Rick Scott is not allowing the impending pressure of Hurricane Matthew to interrupt his partisan push on behalf of Donald Trump in his state. The storm is expected to disrupt day-to-day operations in the state at multiple levels, with multiple state and county agencies, as well as hundreds of private businesses, shutting down to ride out the weather event.The storm is sure to affect the impending deadline for voter registration on October 11. But when Democrats asked Governor Scott to extend the deadline as the population digs out from the storm, he decided to refuse.Republican Florida Governor Rick Scott on Thursday evening said the state will not extend an October 11 voter registration deadline. I m not going to extend it, Scott said at a news conference on the storm. Everybody has had plenty of time to register. I don t intend to make any changes. Scott is not a disinterested third party by any stretch. In addition to being a fellow Republican, Scott currently serves as the national chairman of a super PAC helping the Trump campaign, Rebuilding America Now.The governor s behavior is part of a long-standing election year pattern amongst many Republican officials, where they do whatever is in their power often as Secretary of State or Governor to ensure that as few Democrats as possible are eligibile to vote. In the south, particularly, a lot of these actions are targeted at counties with large black populations.The government of North Carolina was recently rebuked for designing a voter ID system that was designed from the ground-up to exclude voters from areas with black populations that were more likely to vote Democratic.Hurricane Matthew is expected to hit somewhere along the northern part of Palm Beach county and above, along Florida s east coast. That is an area of the state that leans more Democratic, and as such the storm path would impact that demographic.And it becomes very clear why the governor made the decision he has.Featured image via Flickr | 0 |
9,231 | palestine considers suing israel in international sports court | erbil while iraqi forces are advancing in mosul to free the city some iraqi officers were informed about new plan of terrorists of isis to use suicide dogs to restrain iraqi armys advance shares
fahmi abbas an officer in iraqi armored units had an interview with irna and said isis terrorists have equipped dogs with bombs and want to send them among iraqi army forces and explode them by remote control
as stated by this military official isiss intention is to hinder advance of iraqi army to the city center of mosul
this new plan was brought up when most of terrorists suicide attacks were neutralized by iraqi heatseeking missiles before reaching their aim
according to the statistics announced by iraqi army during the days since mosul liberation operation began terrorists of isis have performed suicide attacks in different regions although they didnt succeed in delaying the advance of iraqi forces
fahmi abbas stressed that all corps have been informed about terrorists new tactics and they wont be taken offguard
this iraqi military official also mentioned the possibility of using other animals for suicide attacks by the terrorists he said that isis is under siege and terrorists have nowhere to escape unless they surrender or get killed
on saturday th nov iraqi army entered hammam alalili in south of mosul and managed to free this part of city in the western bank of dijlah tigris river
recommended for you mosul civilians stormed city main prison and free isis prisoners iraqs alsumaria satellite television quote d an unnamed security source that claimed mosul residents on friday evening killed isis terror
by aht staff iraqi soldier battling isis in mosul reunited with his family after two years of estrangement its a heartwarming moment amid the carnage of the battle to liberate mosul an iraqi lieutenant part of the elite golden division spe
by aht staff isis executes iraqi civilians by firing squad north of mosul member of nineveh provincial council hossam aldin alabbar announced that the isis executed civilians and former security members
by aht staff isis executes civilians by electrocution in central mosul | 0 |
9,232 | California Governor Delivers HARSH Message To Donald Trump; He’s Messing With The Wrong State (VIDEO) | It s no secret that Californians aren t really fans of Donald Trump and Trump can t stand California. California rejected Trump during the election by a whopping 30 percent margin. In turn, Trump has called the most populous state in the union, out of control, and threatened to withhold money if they don t bend to Trump s will. California s governor, Jerry Brown, on Meet the Press on Sunday, said Trump would be picking a fight with the wrong governor.At specific issue is that fact that many of California s cities are sanctuary cities, which means it s safe for undocumented residents to report crimes without fear of deportation. Now, anyone with half a brain knows that people reporting crimes is one of the biggest weapons against criminals, but Trump tells his supporters that sanctuary cities are hotbeds of danger. They aren t. In fact because people can report crime, they are typically safer.California is not backing down to Trump s bullying. If he pulls funding from California, California is going to retaliate and that s the last thing Trump wants. We do have something called the ninth and the tenth amendment, he stated. The federal government just can t arbitrarily for political reasons punish the State of California, that s number one. Number two, California is America. We re 12 percent. We re a key part. The export capital going into the Pacific. We re the innovation capital, high tech, agriculture, 40 to 50 billion dollar industry. You don t want to mess with California because you re going to mess with the economy, and that could blow up in your face in a gigantic recession, and roll the Republicans right out of this town. Source: NBC NewsHere s the video: Brown isn t just talking out his you-know-what. Without California, the country is in a whole lot of hurt. Not only is it the largest state, it s also the 6th largest economy in the world. Its economy surpasses France and India. Or, if Trump voters need to see something a bit more tangible, let s just say that without California, the cost of food (if you can find it) will go through the roof.California produces a sizable majority of many American fruits, vegetables, and nuts: 99 percent of artichokes, 99 percent of walnuts, 97 percent of kiwis, 97 percent of plums, 95 percent of celery, 95 percent of garlic, 89 percent of cauliflower, 71 percent of spinach, and 69 percent of carrots (and the list goes on and on).Without California, supply of all these products in the United States and abroad would dip, and in the first few years, a few might be nearly impossible to find. Orchard-based products in particular, such as nuts and some fruits, would take many years to spring back.Price surges would eventually become the larger issue. Rising prices would force Americans to consume more grains, which are locked in a complicated price-dependent relationship with fresh fruits, vegetables, and meats. When the price of produce increases, people eat more grain. When the price of grain drops, people eat more fruits and vegetables. (In fact, in some parts of the world, wheat and rice are the only proven Giffen goods a product in which decreasing prices lead to decreasing demand.) Young people and the poor in America, more than others, eat less fresh food when prices rise.Source: SlateBeyond that, though, could you imagine, if just once, President Obama threatened to pull funding from, let s say, Texas a state which was consistently hostile to the Democratic President. Republicans and many Democrats would have had a fit and they would have been right. Donald Trump works for us, all of us, not just the people who voted for him. It s time he learn that and Jerry Brown is the perfect person to teach the lesson.Featured image via video screen capture. | 0 |
9,233 | Look At All The Trump Supporters At The Rally Today, There Must Be Tens Of ‘Em! (IMAGES/VIDEO) | The Trump administration was going to show Democrats a thing or two by touting a Pittsburgh, not Paris rally which is taking place at a park across from the White House. Meanwhile, at cities across the U.S., thousands rallied in the March for Truth . The exact numbers aren t in yet, by the way. Instead of attending the rally the Trump administration hyped, the former reality show star went to the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia on Saturday morning, according to Business Insider.While Trump is at his golf club, the Pittsburgh, not Paris rally has kicked off with dozens of Trump supporters who gathered to express their support for Trump s decision to pull out of the landmark Paris Agreement.If the US completes the withdrawal process from the climate deal, it will join Nicaragua and Syria the only other countries who have not signed the agreement.The Trump-Pence campaign announced a Pittsburgh Not Paris Event for President Trump on Saturday morning which was organized by the Fairfax County Republican Committee and the Republican Party of Virginia. The group asked those who planned to attend to dress in your most patriotic, red, white, and blue outfit. Look at em all. There must be tens of them.Looks likes today's pro Trump "Pittsburgh not Paris" Rally in Lafayette Park DC getting a bit spare attendance pic.twitter.com/TaKhVX4C5R Jeffrey Evan Gold (@jeffgoldesq) June 3, 2017Watch:This is the pro-Trump, anti-#ParisAgreement "Pittsburgh not Paris" rally outside the White House pic.twitter.com/Gx7lfbgKfx Alejandro Alvarez (@aletweetsnews) June 3, 2017Trump supporters are holding a "Pittsburgh not Paris" rally in Lafayette Park. The irony is thick as brie, and lost on them I fear. George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) June 3, 2017Tonight Pittsburgh's City County Building joins 174 US cities & the rest of the world supporting the Paris Agreement pic.twitter.com/omEyICLrQk bill peduto (@billpeduto) June 3, 2017Here s a side-by-side view of the events.March for Truth anti-#Trump rally in NYC via @MarchForTruth17 (left) and Pittsburgh, not Paris #Trump rally in DC via @edroso (far right). pic.twitter.com/pjXrhkeTTW Jeffrey Guterman (@JeffreyGuterman) June 3, 2017Pro-Trump "rally" vs #MarchForTruth pic.twitter.com/v9rAFRDPO1 jordan ? (@JordanUhl) June 3, 2017We demand an independent commission. #MarchForTruth pic.twitter.com/kTI7IsY7I3 #MarchForTruth (@MarchForTruth17) June 3, 2017Chicago:#MarchForTruth #chicago pic.twitter.com/gDTLmikHqU Archy Arch J (@ArchyArchJ) June 3, 2017.@MarchForTruth17 pic.twitter.com/erLI9wvzku ?Jordan Jackson? (@NeoKremlinology) June 3, 2017Pittsburgh:Meanwhile in actual Pittsburgh pic.twitter.com/FqYlvnQG9J Cris (@crisrice) June 3, 2017In Raleigh, N.C., I took this picture today.This is a really bad sign for Trump and his scandal-plagued administration. The White House has been in panic mode trying to contain the damage from the Russia-Trump scandal so some officials felt the best way to do that would be to hold more rallies. Meanwhile, Trump s approval rating is plummeting with even some supporters of the alleged president finding out that they are tired of all the winning that they were promised.At the March for Truth rally in Raleigh, a registered Republican who described himself as pro-life and an evangelical, said that he was diagnosed with cancer. He said, Thank God for Obamacare! then he ripped his party to shreds while taking aim at Ted Cruz. At the end of his speech, the anti-Trump crowd was chanting, Run for office, run for office! The crowd was just so happy to witness Republican who isn t spineless.Photo by Ralph Freso via Getty Images | 0 |
9,234 | Republican GOES OFF On Trump’s Border Wall In STUNNING No-Holds-Barred Rant (VIDEO) | Out of all the ridiculous, misguided ideas that have come up during his first 100 days, Donald Trump s border wall is definitely one of the least popular ones. Trump s border wall has not only been rejected by the majority of the American people, but politicians even Republicans are still strongly resisting the wall.Earlier today, Will Hurd (R-TX) went on Fox Business News to blast Trump and his beloved wall, unleashing a surprising and shocking rant that perfectly sums up why this border wall should not be created under any circumstances. Clearly stating that Trump s border wall is extremely ineffective and will cost way too much money, Rep. Hurd said: I ve been pretty clear on this idea of a wall, building a wall from sea to shining sea is the most expensive and least effective way to do border security.I spent nine and a half years as an undercover officer in the CIA chasing terrorists all over the world, nuclear weapons proliferators. And I have 820 miles of the border, more border than any other member of Congress. We need to be using additional technology and more manpower on the border you can t have a one size fits all solution for the border. Trump s border wall had come under fire recently as the incompetent POTUS tried to bully lawmakers into funding his wall before the government was forced to shut down. Trump s wall is going to be a disaster for U.S. taxpayers, considering that Trump refuses to accept the fact that Mexico isn t going to pay for the wall, or reimburse the United States like Trump says they will.Thankfully, there are at least some Republicans who understand what a disaster this border wall is. You can watch Hurd rip Trump and his wall apart below:Featured image via Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images | 0 |
9,235 | CNN Panelist Says Trump’s Campaign Wouldn’t Exist Without Roger Ailes (VIDEO) | On Sunday s broadcast of CNN s Reliable Sources, a panel discussed the role Roger Ailes legacy. The Fox News founder is retiring from his position as the network s CEO due to a massive wave of allegations from female employees of sexual harassment.The episode began with the show s host, Brian Stelter posing the question, When you take stock of Roger Ailes legacy, his impact on media, do you think we would have Donald Trump as the GOP nominee without Roger Ailes? Political analyst Jeff Greenfield wasn t ready to say that Trump would not be a political success if it were not Ailes. Roger Ailes did to the media what Donald Trump did to the political process. What Greenfield is saying is that both Ailes and Trump are spectacular at rallying hardcore right-wing conservatives to support whatever narrative they choose to promote.While Greenfield isn t ready to put the burden of Trump on Ailes shoulders, Jane Hall, a former regular guest on Fox News said that you would not have Donald Trump without Roger Ailes. It has been rumored that Ailes next major project besides the autobiography he is going to write would be to work on Trump s presidential campaign. Panelist and Trump supporter, Jeff Lord, didn t provide any more credibility to those rumors. That being said, he did mention that Ailes would be very useful on the Trump campaign trail.Fox News, right-wing extremism, and now Trump exist in a reinforcing feedback loop that has caused so much harm to the United States and the world. They have given megaphones to the biggest loons out there in the United States.You can watch the panel discussion below.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn3AgNq2QikFeatured image from video screenshot | 0 |
9,236 | Watch This NC HB2 Republican Spew Utterly VILE LGBT Hatred: ‘Keep Our State Straight!’ (VIDEO) | Republicans in the state of North Carolina really need to get a better hobby, because legislating hate and constantly disparaging the LGBT community is getting really tired. It s almost as if they have nothing better to do, and they believe hating on people is just so much darn fun.One of the ring leaders of all this hatred is Republican State Senator Buck Newton. He s very proud of the new discriminatory law HB2, which prohibits Transgender individuals from using the proper bathroom. He also doesn t care who thinks he s wrong about the law, because, you know, God. Because his Almighty would apparently want him to discriminate against others based upon misinformed opinions and personal distastes.Now, at a rally in Raleigh, NC, Newton is continuing the charge against the LGBT community. This time even being so bold as to say: Go home, tell your friends and family who had to work today what this is all about and how hard we must fight to keep our state straight. Yep, no beating around the bush, he just came out and said it. He doesn t want any LGBT people in the state of North Carolina.What s even scarier? Newton is the Republican nominee for attorney general.Newton also said: We all know that the folks that wave the rainbow flags and things like that are politically very upset about the way things are today. They re upset about the way things have always been in this state And they re bound and determined to try to change it, whether it s by winning elections in the city of Charlotte on their city council or whether it s wining elections in November in the General Assembly or whether it s winning elections in November for our governor. Good. Hopefully they do.Then, to reiterate his hatred and complete ineptitude of the Trans community, Newton said: Now it s been said that there are many, many, many, many more sexual predators on the sex offender list than there are transgender people. And we can all feel sympathy for folks who are having difficult times, because we all know folks that have a difficult time, whether folks are struggling with drugs, are struggling with their marriages, figuring out what it is that they re supposed to be doing in life. We can all have sympathy for that. But that does not mean that we should expose our wives and our sisters and our children to the sexual predators in the bathrooms. What an asshole. No, seriously. Transgender individuals are not sexual predators. However, you know what group of individuals has been caught time and time again with their pants down? Republican men.This hate-speech is merely going to fuel the fire of an already fiery war to combat HB2 and its legislated hatred of LGBT individuals. Businesses have already pulled out, performers refusing to perform, and the entire nation has its eyes on North Carolina and what they plan to do next.This man does not belong in public office, because he is not a public servant, but rather a self-serving prick who writes laws to spread his own fear and hatred. Disgusting.Featured image via video screen capture | 0 |
9,237 | TRUMP Wins Over Democrats and Independents In Akron, Ohio…THIS Is Diversity! [Video] | This is diversity! These people are awesome! | 0 |
9,238 | [Video] US VETERAN FINDS FLAG HE CARRIRED ON TOUR DESECRATED IN FRONT YARD | The war on the American flag continues.Retired mounted an American flag in front of his house, the same flag that he carried with him on duty across five continents.One morning last week, the vet woke up to find his car smashed with the flag pole and the flag desecrated with a marker. The message that I would like to say is America is still the greatest country in the world, Hernandez Garcia said on Fox and Friends Weekend. It s not something that we are just brainwashed with. We are still the greatest country. We got problems. Everybody does. The flag represents freedom. When you step on the flag, you really are stepping on those veterans that have really fought for you. And everybody else, including your own parents, grandparents and great-grandparents and so forth, Hernandez Garcia said. So, if you are watching this, I would like to tell you, come and talk to me. Let s talk about things. Let s not destroy things. Our country needs dialogue more than violence. He said that social media has a major influence on people, so maybe someone saw the recent stomp the flag challenge and was inspired.Tucker Carlson and Ainsley Earhardt revealed that America s Mighty Warriors, a group that helps support military families, will be paying for the damages to Hernandez Garcia s car and flagpole, plus paying for a weekend vacation for two. In addition to that, a flag will be flown over the U.S. Capitol in honor of his service.Via: Fox and Friends | 0 |
9,239 | Obama to name Scalia replacement in just over three weeks: Senator Reid | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said on Thursday he believes President Barack Obama will nominate a replacement for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in a little over three weeks. “I think it will be a little over three weeks,” Reid said in an interview on MSNBC, adding that he spoke to Obama about the nomination on Thursday. | 1 |
9,240 | FERGUSON FLAMETHROWER COMES OUT OF HIDING: Slams FBI Director For Blaming “Ferguson Effect” On Rise In Crime | Holder should be making his baseless remarks from behind bars but that s another story Retired Attorney General Eric Holder pushed back on statements made last week by FBI Director James Comey in which Comey suggested the so-called Ferguson effect might be responsible for a recent rise in crime in cities around the country.In a gathering with reporters Wednesday, Holder told the Huffington Post, I don t agree with the comments that he s made about, or the connection he s drawn, between the so-called Ferguson effect and this rise in crime. The Ferguson effect is a name given to a recent spike in crime in some, but not all, American cities this year. The idea is that police have taken note of the public mood and decided to hold back on more aggressive policing.Eric Holder told the Huffington Post the factors involved in the crime surge would be difficult to tease out, It s hard for us to understand why crime dropped to historic lows over the last 40 years. I think it s probably equally difficult or even more difficult to explain why crime has gone up in some places, violent crime has gone up in some places, over the past 12 months. But Holder then immediately discounted one possible explanation, saying, But I don t think it s connected to the so-called Ferguson effect. The comments by Eric Holder are part of an ongoing war of words within the Obama administration, which escalated last Friday when FBI Director James Comey seemed to endorse the Ferguson effect as an explanation during an address at the University of Chicago Law School.After ticking off a list of possible explanations for the recent crime surge, Director Comey said, I do have a strong sense that some part of the explanation is a chill wind that has blown through law enforcement over the last year. And that wind is surely changing behavior. Nobody says this on the record. Nobody says this in public, Comey told his audience last Friday, adding that it was, the one explanation that, to my mind, explains the calendar and the map. He was referring to both the widespread increase in crime in cities across the country and the timing of that increase this year.Former AG Eric Holder rejected the idea that police were holding back because of the public mood Wednesday, telling the Huffington Post, I frankly don t think police officers are laying down on the job. Via: Breitbart News | 0 |
9,241 | Woman Born In NAZI GERMANY Says Trump Doesn’t Remind Her Of Hitler….Rioting Leftists Trying To Shut Down Free Speech Does | A woman who was born in Nazi Germany says that what reminds her of Hitler more than anything else isn t Donald Trump, but the rioting leftists who are attempting to shut down free speech on college campuses.Ing Andrews lived in Dusseldorf, Germany during the Second World War and spent time hiding in air raid shelters and helping to clean up rubble from destroyed buildings. InfowarsIf anyone is in a position to have an opinion on the left s hysterical comparison of Donald Trump and Hitler, it s Inga. Here s what she told the Independent Review Journal | 0 |
9,242 | U.S. accuses Iran, Venezuela of human trafficking failings | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Saturday it had ordered that Iran, Venezuela and four African nations be added to a U.S. list of countries accused of failing to crack down on human trafficking, a step that further isolates them from the United States. The White House said it also was increasing restrictions on North Korea, Eritrea, Russia and Syria, which already were on the list, by constraining them from engaging in educational or cultural exchange programs with the United States. In addition, President Donald Trump s administration instructed the U.S. executive director of the International Monetary Fund and U.S. executive directors at other multilateral development banks to vote against extending loans or other funds to North Korea, Russia and Iran for fiscal year 2018, which begins on Sunday. Under a 2000 U.S. law called the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, the United States does not provide non-humanitarian, non-trade-related foreign assistance to any country that fails to comply with minimum standards for eliminating trafficking and is not making efforts to do so. The White House said in a notice that Iran, Venezuela, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Equatorial Guinea, South Sudan and Sudan had been added to the list of countries subject to these restrictions for the new fiscal year. The move came six days after Trump included Venezuela and Iran on a list of eight countries targeted for travel restrictions to the United States. The restrictions on Venezuela focused on government officials who the Trump administration blamed for the country s slide into economic disarray. The travel ban on Iranians was broader. That travel ban list lifted previous restrictions on citizens from Sudan. | 1 |
9,243 | Marco Rubio NAILS IT: Trump As President Would Have ‘Life And Death Consequences’ (VIDEO) | Florida Senator Marco Rubio has been going after presidential rival Donald Trump with a vengeance over the past few weeks, continuously calling out the Republican front-runner in every way possible from his lies to his spelling to his offensive and hateful rhetoric.On Friday, Rubio targeted Trump s anti-Muslim comments during an appearance on CNN s New Day , stating that Trump needs to tone down the Islamophobia because the rhetoric a president puts forth has life and death consequences. Rubio, who pretty much has no hope for becoming the GOP nominee, spoke some truth when he said: I know people like it that Donald Trump says whatever he wants and whatever they feel like saying. Presidents cannot say anything they want. Presidents have to understand that their words have consequences, often life and death consequences, for real people in the real world. Because of Trump s inflammatory, foul remarks, Rubio said what any level-headed American instinctively knows: that Trump wouldn t be a good commander-in-chief if he can t work with America s armed service in its entirety because many of those members are Muslims. Rubio posed this question: How are you going to face them as commander-in-chief, knowing you re going around saying all Muslims hate the United States? I don t think you re going to be able to be a good commander-in-chief. You can watch Rubio s criticism of the business mogul below:These statements from Rubio come just one day after Rubio slammed Trump during Thursday s Republican debate, stating that defending Muslims isn t about being politically correct after Trump insisted that Islam hates us. During the debate, Rubio made similar comments to his interview on CNN: I know that a lot of people find appeal in the things Donald says, because he says what people wish they could say. The problem is presidents can t just say anything they want. It has consequences, here and around the world. Stating that although there are dangers in the world in regards to radical Islam, it s wrong to generalize an entire religion. Rubio said: There is no doubt that radical Islam is a danger to the world. I can also tell you that if you go to any national cemetery, especially Arlington, you re going to see crescent moons there. If you go anywhere in the world, you re going to see American men and women serving us in uniform that are Muslims. Rubio s right, whether you agree with him as a presidential candidate or not and this goes way beyond Trump s feelings about the Islamic faith. He s demonstrated the same anger and insensitivity toward Hispanics, women and many other minority groups. Trump s inflammatory, hateful rhetoric has the power and influence to divide this nation instead of unify it. He s taken the most awful aspects of the Republican party and amplified them. Just by the way his rallies have transformed into fighting arenas, Trump has already demonstrated that he approves of violence and cares very little about peace and the well-being of Americans his bigotry doesn t support. He s dangerous behind comprehension, and his brand of ignorance threatens to destroy America.Featured image via Gage Skidmore | 0 |
9,244 | Atlantic City mayor terms N.J. takeover plan 'fascist dictatorship' | ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (Reuters) - Atlantic City’s mayor has called a state plan to cede control of the fiscally distressed gambling hub a “fascist dictatorship,” a sharp reversal of his previous position on the proposed takeover. Details of the proposed legislation, released last week, would deny residents their civil rights by stripping municipal powers from locally elected officials, Mayor Don Guardian said on Monday, echoing previous concerns from community activists. “The final piece of legislation that the state presented to us was far from a partnership,” Guardian said, addressing hundreds of residents and city workers at an outdoor news conference next to City Hall. “It was much worse. It was absolutely a fascist dictatorship.” The plan calls for the state to appoint an official who would have the power to make unilateral decisions about canceling collective bargaining agreements, selling city-owned assets, entering contracts, terminating employees and vetoing city council minutes, Guardian said. The mayor’s comments marked a fiery change of tone from just one month ago, when Guardian stood next to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and state Senate President Steve Sweeney in support of the intervention. However, that was before the bills had taken shape. City officials previously threatened to file for a municipal bankruptcy. But such a move would likely not be approved by the state, which already oversees the city’s budget. Nevertheless, officials raised the subject again on Monday, saying they might petition the state for a bankruptcy declaration if they cannot negotiate a settlement with the Borgata Casino Hotel & Spa. Atlantic City owes the Borgata, its most profitable casino, at least $160 million of property tax appeals. The city missed a recent deadline to pay a $62.5 million portion of that, prompting the Borgata to skip its $7.5 million tax payment for the first quarter of 2016. The parties are in 45-day court-ordered negotiations, Guardian said, but if there is no settlement the city could try to seek out bankruptcy. Atlantic City is on track to run out of money within two months. The latest legislative package would also include a less divisive bill that allows casinos to make fixed payments in lieu of taxes. That bill is aimed at stabilizing the city’s property tax base, which has shrunk dramatically because of gambling competition from neighboring states. Four of the city’s 12 casinos that shut in 2014 remain closed. | 1 |
9,245 | From Haider to Strache - the FPO's march to respectability in Austria | VIENNA (Reuters) - Founded by former Nazis six decades ago, Austria s far-right Freedom Party (FPO) long ago left the political fringes to establish itself as a mainstream party that could now return to power following a strong showing in Sunday s election. The anti-immigration and anti-Islam party is often associated abroad with its former firebrand leader Joerg Haider, who praised Hitler s employment policies. But the FPO under Heinz-Christian Strache - its leader since the ousting of Haider in 2005 - has broad support in Austria. It led opinion polls for months before Sebastian Kurz seized control of the conservative People s Party in May and rode it to victory in Sunday s parliamentary election. Kurz has not yet named his preferred coalition partner, but the FPO could well emerge as kingmaker. The FPO, which helps govern in two provincial and several local governments, says Kurz hijacked its hardline stance on immigration and curtailing social benefits for foreigners. One thing is clear: nearly 60 percent of the Austrian population voted for the FPO program, Strache said after winning more than a quarter of the vote to the conservatives nearly 32 percent, according to projections. The FPO s performance has worried leftist and liberal Austrians, some of the country s European Union partners - including German Chancellor Angela Merkel - and the World Jewish Congress, though the party today denies being anti-Semitic or anti-EU. The FPO today is much more radical than it was when it last entered government with the (People s Party) OVP in 2000, but as society as a whole has shifted to the right it is not that obvious, said Andreas Peham, analyst at the Documentation Center of Austrian Resistance that researches the far-right. In 2000, the EU imposed sanctions on Austria over the FPO s joining the government. Such a step seems unlikely today, given populist movements in Europe that drove Britain from the EU and put a far-right party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), into the German parliament. On Monday AfD leader Joerg Meuthen hailed the FPO s result, saying: Among European parties the FPO is certainly the one closest to us. ANTI-IMMIGRANT Like the AfD in Germany s Sept 24 election, the FPO benefited from public unease about a large influx of mostly Muslim migrants and asylum seekers into Europe. Austria took in about 1 percent of its population in asylum seekers in 2015, boosting support for the FPO even among long-time immigrants. The FPO is focusing on asylum policy, not on foreigners, said Margarethe Schramek, a 51-year-old nurse who said many of her friends from Poland and ex-Yugoslavia also voted for the far right in Sunday s election. You cannot ignore the people. You are not a Nazi just because you vote for the FPO, said Schramek. Strache has worked for years to sharpen the party s focus from broadly anti-foreigner to fiercely anti-Islam. Not every Muslim is a terrorist, but nearly every terrorist in Europe in years past was a radical Islamist, he has said. Strache insists that anti-Semites have no place in today s FPO, which routinely has to expel members who step over the line. He has visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem and has called anti-Semitism a crime. The FPO portrays itself as the only alternative to Austria s entrenched duopoly of the Social Democrats and conservatives, denouncing them as elitists unwilling to impose reforms. The FPO, savvy with social media, nearly got its candidate elected as Austria s president last year, but has lost some of its appeal since 31-year-old Kurz took control of the OVP. FPO supporters, until 1986 largely rural, have changed significantly, polls suggest. Like other populist parties in Europe, it has managed to mobilize less well-educated younger voters who feel left behind by globalization. The FPO s position towards the European Union has changed often. Its lawmakers voted against joining the EU in a 1994 referendum and suggested holding a referendum on Austria s continued membership after Britain s vote to leave last year. But it has since curbed its anti-EU rhetoric and now professes to be pro-Europe but wants Brussels to hand back more power to member states. It (the FPO) has no interest in an anti-EU policy in the medium term, said political analyst Peter Filzmaier. They know they wouldn t get any support for it in Austria, and they have no interest in being demonised internationally. | 1 |
9,246 | Pentagon chief, Saudi deputy crown prince discuss fight against Islamic State | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis met with Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Thursday and they discussed U.S.-Saudi military cooperation in the fight against Islamic State, the Pentagon said in a statement. Mattis and Prince Mohammed, who is the kingdom’s defense minister, also discussed “confronting Iran’s destabilizing regional activities,” the statement said. | 1 |
9,247 | top doctors chemotherapy one of dozens of procedures shown to give no benefit | did you know that cinnamon can boost intelligence
saturday october by amy goodrich tags cinnamon intelligence parkinsons disease naturalnews cinnamon is one of the worlds most consumed spices for thousands of years it has been prized for its medicinal properties and sweet warming taste aside from sprinkling cinnamon on top of your lattes or adding magic to grandmas apple pie researchers have found that consuming this tasty household spice also might enhance learning skillsscientists at rush university medical center in chicago found that increased ingestion of cinnamon significantly improved the memory of poor learning mice recently their findings were published in the journal of neuroimmune pharmacology in an article entitled cinnamon converts poor learning mice to good learners implications for memory improvementthe study was supported by grants from the national institutes of health the us department of veterans affairs and the alzheimers association how cinnamon affects the brain for the study lead researcher kalipada pahan a neurology professor at rush university medical center and his team zoomed in on two key proteins gabra and creb located in the hippocampus region of the brain the hippocampus is a small part of the brain that generates organizes and stores memory previous research has shown that lower levels of creb and higher levels of gabra occur in the brain of poor learnersto see if ground cinnamon could improve the memory of slow learners the researchers took a group of mice and placed them in a maze with holes the experiment was focused on watching the mice learn how to locate their target holewhen they tested the mice again after one month of cinnamon feeding the researchers found that the mice determined to be poor learners had significantly improved their memory and learning skills they could find their target hole twice as fastpahan and his team explained that when cinnamon is ingested the body converts it into sodium benzoate a chemical compound used to treat brain damage furthermore they discovered that when benzoate entered the mices brains it increased creb decreased gabra and stimulated hippocampal neurons which led to improved memory and learning skillswe have successfully used cinnamon to reverse biochemical cellular and anatomical changes that occur in the brains of mice with poor learning pahan saidhowever no significant improvements were seen in the mice that were considered good learners but pahan added that if these results could be replicated in slow learning students cinnamon could become one of the safest and easiest approaches to convert weaker students to good learners cinnamon may halt the progression of parkinsons disease pahan and his colleagues previously found that cinnamon had a positive effect on the brains of mice with parkinsons disease when cinnamon transforms into sodium benzoate it works to protect the neurons normalize brain cells and improve communication within the brain which slows down the progression of the diseasegiven their promising results pahan and his team supported by grants from the national institutes of health plan on moving forward with testing in human patients with parkinsons diseasethis could potentially be one of the safest approaches to halt disease progression in parkinsons patients pahan said it would be a remarkable advance in the treatment of this devastating neurodegenerative disease he addedbefore starting to add cinnamon to all your dishes know that not all cinnamon is created equal pahan explained that there are two major types of cinnamon available in the united states chinese or cassia cinnamon and ceylon cinnamon while both metabolize into sodium benzoate ceylon cinnamon is much better than chinese cinnamon chinese cinnamon contains coumarin a molecule that can damage the liver sources | 0 |
9,248 | UNREAL! Michelle Obama Gets $70 Million For Program To Empower Girls BUT Not American Girls | Unreal! Mooch gets millions for Pakistani girls? The American taxpayers should be outraged by this! Let Pakistan empower its own people! Michelle Obama has been traveling all over the world with the Let Girls Learn initiative as her pet project. The only thing is that most of the places she s traveled to have a great track record with educating girls. It s just one big around the world vacation for Mooch compliments of the American taxpayer. Judicial Watch s Tom Fitton had this to say about the trip: The Obama family continues to bill the taxpayers for costly tourism jaunts thinly disguised as humanitarian crusades EUROPEAN VACATION: MOOCH RUNS UP A HUGE TAB COMPLIMENTS OF THE TAXPAYERS Could someone please remind this woman that America is BROKE! As public schools around the United States suffer through a perpetual financial crisis, the Obama administration commits a breathtaking $70 million to help educate girls in a terrorist nation known as Al Qaeda headquarters. It s part of the First Lady s initiative (Let Girls Learn) to educate and empower an estimated 62 million girls in third-world countries who are not in school. A noble cause indeed, but it s costing American taxpayers huge sums while kids especially minorities in this country struggle in schools that aren t adequately funded, according to public education advocates. We know that countries with more girls in secondary school tend to have lower maternal mortality rates, lower infant mortality rates, lower rates of HIV/AIDS, and better child nutrition, according to the initiative s website. But too often, a girl who could change her world for the better is locked out of that future by the circumstances of her birth or the customs of her community. So it s Uncle Sam to the rescue. The government of Pakistan, which is included in the State Department s Country Reports on Terrorism, will get the $70 million to promote education among 200,000 girls and young women age 10-19. The announcement was initially made during a White House event this month with the wife and daughter of Pakistan s Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif. The program will serve as a platform and catalyst for broader political and social commitment to strengthen girls education and empowerment in Pakistan, according to a government announcement. Young women in Pakistan face barriers and lack of access to education opportunities from an early age due to poverty, cultural norms, and geographic isolation, the announcement states. The question remains; should American tax dollars go to this foreign education cause when public schools in this country have been hurting for years? Besides financial troubles, there s an epidemic of low-performing schools and dismal graduation rates around the country, especially in the nation s inner cities. They could probably use a few million to create programs that might help improve academic performance or perhaps empower needy students like the multi-million-dollar allocation is predicted to help empower girls in Pakistan. The public school district in the Obamas own hometown of Chicago could use some extra cash. By Thanksgiving as many as 5,000 teachers could be laid off unless the 367,499-student district Chicago Public Schools gets a $500 million bailout from the state. A recent editorial in the area s mainstream newspaper says that it has been a disastrous time for Chicago Public Schools. The piece is accompanied by an illustration of a yellow school bus with Corruption & Politics in our Schools plastered across the side. Districts across the nation are in similar situations. In Detroit, Michigan the public school system has a $515 million debt and among the nation s worst performing students. Read more: Judicial Watch | 0 |
9,249 | [VIDEO] OUR RACIST PRESIDENT INVITES MUSLIMS To Join Blacks In Victim Pool While Celebrating Ramadan at White House | As Americans we insist that no one should be targeted because of who they are, what they look like, who they love, what they worship. (Unless of course, you re a cop or a person who enjoys white privilege ).Doesn t Mooch target privileged white people every time she has a microphone placed in front of her? Whether speaking at a commencement speech or museum opening, Mooch doesn t miss an opportunity to point out how mistreated she and her husband, (the two-term elected President of the United States) are by dragging race into every speech. Why is that okay?Barack Obama hosted an Iftar dinner at the White House on June 22, 2015. He paid tribute to three Muslim students (victims killed by a white man) who were murdered in Chapel Hill, NC. He managed to tie the recent hateful act by another young white man who killed 9 innocent black church members in Charleston, SC into his speech. The Koran teaches that God s children should tread lightly above the earth and that when confronted with ignorance, reply peace. Where was your peaceful muslim speech following the attempt by two muslims in Texas to commit mass murder during Pamela Gellar s free speech event? | 0 |
9,250 | U.S. House Democrats seek info from Deutsche Bank on Trump accounts | (Reuters) - Democrats on a U.S. of House of Representatives panel have asked Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) to provide information on whether any accounts connected to President Donald Trump have ties to Russia, adding another dimension to probes into connections between Moscow and Trump. Democrats on the U.S. House Financial Services Committee said on Wednesday they had sent a letter the previous day to Deutsche Bank Chief Executive Officer John Cryan seeking details of internal reviews to determine if Trump’s loans for his real estate business were backed by the Russian government. The congressional inquiry also seeks information about a Russian “mirror trading” scheme that allowed $10 billion to flow out of Russia. “Congress remains in the dark on whether loans Deutsche Bank made to President Trump were guaranteed by the Russian government, or were in any way connected to Russia,” the Democrats wrote. “It is critical that you provide this committee with the information necessary to assess the scope, findings and conclusions of your internal reviews.” The Democrats requested the documents from the bank, but cannot compel it to hand over the information. The committee has the power to subpoena the documents, but that would require cooperation from committee Republicans who make up the majority of the panel because the party has control of the House. No Republicans signed on to the document request. Citing media reports, the Democrats called for the bank to hand over any documents tied to internal reviews of Trump’s personal accounts at the bank. They also said the bank should state publicly that it had reviewed both the “mirror trading” scheme and Trump’s accounts. Mirror trading involved buying stocks, for example, in Moscow in rubles, with related parties selling the same stocks shortly thereafter through a bank’s London branch. They also called on the bank to name an independent auditor to verify the results of the reviews, which should be turned over to the committee “as soon as reasonably practicable.” Renee Calabro, a spokeswoman for Deutsche, declined to comment. The House panel request to Deutsche comes as Trump is mired in controversy over FBI and congressional probes into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and potential collusion between the Moscow and the Trump campaign. Moscow has denied the allegations, and Trump has denied any collusion. | 1 |
9,251 | Pope ordains priests in Bangladesh ahead of meeting with Rohingya | DHAKA (Reuters) - Pope Francis celebrated a huge outdoor Mass on Friday to ordain new priests from Bangladesh on his first full day in the country where he is due to meet Muslim Rohingya refugees from Myanmar later in the day. More than 100,000 people attended the Mass in Dhaka s Suhrawardy Udyan Park, site of a memorial and museum of Bangladesh s independence from Pakistan in 1971, where Francis arrived in an open popemobile. Catholics make up less than one percent of the population of 169 million people in majority-Muslim Bangladesh. I know that many of you came from afar, for a trip for more than two days, the pope told the crowd in his homily. Thank you for your generosity. This indicates the love you have for the Church. At an inter-religious gathering later on Friday, the pope was due to meet 18 Rohingya refugees who have fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar where authorities have been accused of ethnic cleansing by the United States and United Nations. The government denies wrongdoing. In calls for peace in Myanmar, he did not use the word Rohingya to describe the refugees, which is contested by the Yangon government and military. The refugees were brought to the Bangladeshi capital from Cox s Bazar, to where 625,000 Rohingya from Myanmar s Rakhine state have fled. The exodus followed a Myanmar military crackdown in response to Rohingya militant attacks on an army base and police posts on Aug. 25. Scores of Rohingya villages were burnt to the ground, and refugees arriving in Bangladesh told of killings and rapes. On Thursday night, the pope called for decisive measures to resolve the political reasons that caused the refugee crisis and urged countries to help the Dhaka government deal with it. | 1 |
9,252 | House Republicans Just Introduced Bill To Slash Social Security | The Republican effort to let Social Security whither on the vine and die just became reality as Donald Trump prepares to take office and become their puppet.Last month, House Speaker Paul Ryan made it clear that he wants to privatize Medicare and phase it out. That means anybody who is on Medicare or hoped to be on it soon are shit out of luck because Ryan s plan gives Medicare to private insurance companies, which means higher costs to get insurance and paying more for healthcare, even if the government offers pathetic vouchers to help pay for it.But now Republicans have unveiled their plan to cut Social Security as well.On Thursday, GOP Rep. Sam Johnson of Texas introduced the Social Security Reform Act of 2016 or H.R. 6489.The bill claims to be saving Social Security even though it is fully solvent through 2034 and could be infinitely solvent by applying the payroll tax to all income over $100,000. Republicans, however, like to complicate things and punish Americans at the same time.The most important part of the Republican plan is that they intend to raise retirement age from 67 to 69 for anyone who is 49 or younger. The GOP cites longer life expectancy as their reason for this change. In fact, life expectancy actually dropped in this country for the first time since 1993.So this is really all about screwing Americans out of their Social Security longer by making them work longer. Let s call it the GOP s work till you drop dead plan.The Republican plan will also slow the growth of benefits by basically changing the inflation metric so that benefits do not keep up with inflation, which means the cost of living will go up, but Social Security benefits won t.Furthermore, Republicans want to eliminate taxes on income after retirement, which would only take away from Social Security revenues.And that doesn t mean Republicans have given up the idea of privatizing Social Security. After all, President Bush wanted to do exactly that. He didn t get to, but had he been successful Social Security would have been wiped out by the Great Recession in 2008.Donald Trump promised his supporters that Social Security and Medicare would not be touched if he was elected. But apparently they got duped again just like he has been duping them about everything else, and they are about to pay a hefty price for it. Republicans DO NOT care about the American people. They only care about themselves and destroying the government and any program designed to help people.Featured Image: Mark Wilson/Getty Image | 0 |
9,253 | London police advise people to avoid area near station incident | LONDON (Reuters) - British police on Friday advised people to avoid the area near Parsons Green, a west London underground station, after media reports of a blast on a train. Officers from the Metropolitan Police Service and British Transport Police are in attendance along with the London Fire Brigade and London Ambulance Service, London s police said in a statement. We would advise people to avoid the area. | 1 |
9,254 | In Flint, Sanders says water crisis should serve as wake-up call | FLINT, Mich. (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders told residents of Flint, Michigan, on Thursday their “horrific” water contamination crisis should be a wake-up call about the country’s crumbling infrastructure and required an emergency response. “If there is any silver lining out of this tragedy, it is my hope that the American people will look at Flint and say, ‘never again,’” Sanders said on his first campaign visit to the city, where a cost-saving decision to switch the water supply has led to a public health crisis from lead contamination. “We are looking at children being poisoned - if that is not an emergency, I just don’t know what an emergency is,” Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, told about 300 people jammed into a Flint church for a meeting that at times featured a freewheeling exchange with shouting residents. Sanders, who has made his call for a $1 trillion investment in U.S. infrastructure a key part of his campaign agenda, said Flint’s water crisis illustrated the need for a long-term commitment to rebuilding dilapidated water systems across the country. “While Flint may be the canary in the coal mine, there are a lot of other canaries all around the country. The truth is our infrastructure is collapsing,” Sanders said. “I hope that out of the tragedy will come fundamental changes.” Sanders’ Democratic campaign rival, Hillary Clinton, visited the predominantly black city weeks ago and frequently highlights the crisis as an example of racial inequity as the two candidates vie for African-American support. Sanders has called for the resignation of Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, a Republican, and met recently with some Flint activists during a visit to Michigan. He told the Flint crowd that hearing their stories of suffering was “horrific.” “Clearly this is part of a long-term trend of starving communities of color,” he said. The crisis was triggered when a city manager installed by Snyder switched the city’s water supply from Lake Michigan to the nearby Flint River. The change corroded Flint’s aging pipes and released lead and other toxins into the water supply. President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency in Flint in January, authorizing federal emergency management officials to coordinate relief efforts. Lawmakers in Congress have wrestled with the size of a federal funding package to replace aging pipes. Sanders and Clinton will return to Flint on March 6 for their next nationally televised debate ahead of the Michigan primary on March 8. (Editing by Tom Brown) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production. | 1 |
9,255 | Biden DESTROYS Trump After He Insults Veterans (VIDEO) | Donald Trump is on the receiving end of a gigantic tongue-lashing from Vide President Joe Biden after Trump made yet another set of offensive comments about American combat veterans.Speaking in front of veterans at an event organized by a right-wing PAC, Trump said veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder were perhaps weak.Trump Monday tried to praise his veteran-heavy audience as strong because they didn t have PTSD while he talked up getting more help to veterans. When people come back from war and combat and they see maybe what the people in this room have seen many times over, and you re strong and you can handle it, but a lot of people can t handle it, Trump told the Retired American Warriors PAC in Virginia.Almost right away, Trump received strong condemnation for his remarks, the latest major mistake from a presidential campaign that has been one screw-up after another.But the harshest words on Monday came from Biden, who was speaking at a rally in support of Hillary Clinton in Orlando.[ad3media campaign= 1030 ] Where in the hell is he from? Biden, who has been in and out of Afghanistan and Iran dozens of times, told the audience.Biden added that this country has only one sacred obligation : to care for those we send to war and to care for them and their family when they come home. What are the chances Trump honors commitment to those who are wounded? Biden said, at one point near shouting into the microphone. It s not just that he doesn t get it. He doesn t want to find out. The Vice President also spoke about the military service of his late son, Beau, who was an officer in the Army s Judge Advocate General Corps. Beau s unit was deployed to service in Iraq in 2008, while his father was first campaigning with Obama as his running mate.Featured image via screen capture | 0 |
9,256 | Obama officials work against time to wrap banking rules | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. officials are striving to put finishing touches on a slew of banking rules before President Barack Obama leaves office and hands regulatory power to Donald Trump who has vowed to rewrite the existing financial rule book. President-elect Trump will take over on Jan. 20 and his fellow Republicans will have control of Congress and government agencies, allowing the new administration to block or roll back many of the last-minute changes. But by completing far-advanced work on some banking standards in the next 10 weeks, Obama officials would raising the chances that some elements of the regulatory framework will survive. Some rules are meant to flesh out the Dodd Frank Act of 2010 designed to prevent the next global financial crisis. Trump campaigned on a pledge to scrap the law but now he says only some provisions must go to lighten the regulatory burden. The Federal Reserve is working on rules to govern matters such as executive pay, market stability and what investments Wall Street may hold. Last month, Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Mary Jo White said her agency would “in the near term” finish a rule on one thorny issue: how mutual funds manage derivatives. The SEC and bank regulators have also for years struggled to finalize a rule that would tie more banker pay to the long-term health of their firms rather than short-term performance of Wall Street firms. With only about 40 working days until the handover, it is not clear which, if any, of those standards will get across the finishing line. “Just look at the calendar,” said Tom Quaadman of the Chamber of Commerce. “These are intricate rules and there’s not much time.” The executive pay rule exemplifies the challenge. Six federal agencies have a say on the compensation standard meant as part of Dodd Frank and a final draft has not yet been offered, industry officials told Reuters. It would be nearly impossible to circulate a final rule and get the agencies to endorse it while still satisfying standards for clearing such paperwork, several lobbyists who have opposed the rule said. Banking regulators declined to comment on when the compensation rule might be completed. Simple logistics also pose a challenge. New federal rules come into force once they have been published in the Federal Register and employees there typically need several days to typeset a rule. That means Obama officials need to lodge paperwork with the Federal Register at the beginning of the inauguration week at the latest. Some sixteen copy editors are due to forego leave and be on hand in the coming weeks to process final rules expected from dozens of agencies, said an official familiar with the operation, but not authorized to speak to the media. “These days, people do not spend a lot of time hanging around the coffee maker,” he said. Some freshly-minted rules also face the prospect of getting erased under a 1996 law known as the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to block a regulation within 60 working days of being drafted. One such rule allows students who were defrauded by for-profit colleges to seek loan forgiveness. The Department of Education finalized it days before the Nov. 8 election, meaning Republicans who have raised objections to it will have a chance to block it. President George W. Bush was the first to trigger the Review Act when he block labor regulations that his predecessor Bill Clinton had enacted at the end of his term. | 1 |
9,257 | Sarah Palin’s #Brexit Response Is As Absolutely Crazy As You Knew It Would Be (IMAGE) | The world is reeling today as Britain just made the shocking decision to leave the European Union (EU). Yes, Americans and others around the world should care about this decision, as it affects us all. The world economy is already feeling the effects of it, and this vote could even have effects on the upcoming elections here in the States. Well, one person who really should keep her mouth shut on this and other world affairs has nevertheless weighed in: Sarah Palin.Palin showed her ignorance of foreign affairs during her infamously embarrassing run for the Vice President in 2008, so it should be no surprise that her response to Brexit is absolutely batshit insane. Palin posted to her Facebook (emphasis mine):When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another The UK knew it was that time. And now is that time in the USA.The Brexit referendum is akin to our own Declaration of Independence. May that refreshed spirit of sovereignty spread over the pond to America s shores!Congratulations, smart Brits. Good on you for ignoring all the fear mongering from special interest globalists who tend to aim for that apocalyptic One World Government that dissolves a nation s self-determination and sovereignty the EU being a One World Government mini-me.America can learn an encouraging lesson from this.It is time to dissolve political bands that connect us to agendas not in our best interest. May UN shackles be next on the chopping block. Sarah PalinThe thing is, the people who voted in favor of Brexit didn t ignore the fear mongering. Quite the opposite in fact they fell for it. They fell for squeals of nationalism, and taking their country back from the immigrants (one of the main parts of being a member of the EU is being able to travel freely across borders to other EU countries without Visas being required). You know, the same kind of right-wing fear mongering that we see here in America from conspiracy theorists warning that people like President Obama and Hillary Clinton are looking to build some kind of New World Order. Or something.This woman really needs to just be quiet. She s not a politician anymore, and she never should have been one in the first place. Go back under your bridge where you belong, Sarah, and let the grown-ups talk public policy. You re clearly not qualified to do so.Featured image via Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images | 0 |
9,258 | Top Canadian officials met Trump team for trade talks: paper | OTTAWA (Reuters) - Senior Canadian officials have met several times with advisers to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump in Washington in an effort to avert a possible trade war once he takes office this month, the Globe and Mail newspaper said on Monday. Trump vowed during his election campaign to either scrap or renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, saying the two-decade old deal had been bad for American workers. This could have disastrous consequences for Canada, which sends 75 percent of its exports to the United States. The Globe said Gerald Butts and Katie Telford - Prime Minister’s Justin Trudeau’s two top aides - had met Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his chief strategist, Steve Bannon, and believed they had established a decent relationship. The paper cited one official as saying the Trump administration “does not believe in free trade,” which could pose challenges for Canada. “They (the Trump team) think the basic problem in the world is that China has stolen a bunch of American manufacturing jobs that they are hell-bent on getting back,” the official said. Trudeau spokesman Cameron Ahmad, asked about the report, said “meetings have indeed been happening at every level” but gave no details. The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report. Canada’s trade minister, pressed about the potential impact of Trump’s presidency, said last Friday there was no question of separating the two nations’ economies. In a video address last week to the new U.S. Congress, Trudeau stressed the closeness of the links between the Canadian and U.S. economies. Trump, a Republican, won election in November and takes office on Jan. 20. | 1 |
9,259 | Israel's Netanyahu expresses hope for U.S. peace push in Middle East | LONDON (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday he hoped a U.S. peace initiative would work and praised President Donald Trump for taking a fresh approach to bringing the Israelis and Palestinians back to negotiations. For at least two decades, the goal of U.S.-led diplomacy has been a two-state solution , meaning an independent Palestinian state living side-by-side and at peace with Israel. But neither Trump nor his aides have publicly recommitted to a two-state solution, instead saying it is up to the two parties to work out in peace talks. Asked during a visit to London to commemorate the 1917 British declaration of support for a Jewish homeland if he felt now was the moment for peace in the region, noting Trump s involvement in peace efforts, he said: Hope so. What s being discussed now is an American initiative. Obviously we make our interests and our concerns known to Mr Trump. He s coming with a sort of refreshing can-do thing... they re trying to think out of the box, Netanyahu said at London s Chatham House think-tank. Netanyahu has previously expressed doubts about the Trump initiative, telling France s President Emmanuel Macron in July that it would be difficult to move forward quickly because he felt Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas may not be able to deliver on commitments he had made. But he said that more countries in the region were now beginning to engage constructively with Israel. The reason I draw hope from the moment is because of the larger shift in Arab-Israeli relations with the countries of the region. I cannot emphasize how dramatic that is, he said. The Palestinians seek to establish an independent state in the Israeli occupied West Bank, territory captured in the 1967 Middle East war and the Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Most Israelis want all of Jerusalem as their capital and reject a full return to 1967 borderlines as a threat to their security. | 1 |
9,260 | Sean Hannity Tries To Bash CNN Reporter But It Immediately Backfires | For Trump supporters, the only way to fend off critics of the amateur president is to lash out at the free press. There is no one who shamelessly sucks up to the former reality show star more than Sean Hannity. CNN s Jim Acosta has been questioning the blackout of the media at the White House lately. Most press briefings are now off-camera. Hannity, who works for the fake news network Fox News, responded by calling CNN fake news. He then called Acosta arrogant, combative and whiny. According to Hannity, Acosta is looking for ways to damage the President as if Trump needs any help. CNN s White House darling is really starting to become unhinged, Hannity said..@seanhannity Rips 'Unhinged' Jim @Acosta: 'He's Looking for Ways to Damage the President'https://t.co/BRq528lL9H Fox News (@FoxNews) June 28, 2017Acosta responded on Wednesday by mocking Sean Hannity s attacks on him, tweeting that the Fox News host needs a hug. Alternate headline: @seanhannity needs a hug. #hannityunhugged, Acosta tweeted.Alternate headline: @seanhannity needs a hug. #hannityunhugged https://t.co/84ZvxkEBiG Jim Acosta (@Acosta) June 28, 2017Acosta s tweet went viral.Yeah Jim, if you can stop asking questions and do some real journalism by sitting in a studio and screaming all day. That would be great. ;) Steve Mullis (@stevemullis) June 28, 2017Why is it that Sean Hannity can continuously come up with bogus stories and it's glossed over? CNN takes responsibility and it's a scandal? Brendan Steakelum (@steakelum) June 28, 2017He doesn't deserve a hug, but a kick in the balls would be great? CA Cramer (@CurtCramer1) June 28, 2017@seanhannity needs much more than a hug. Maybe start with a brain. Greg Martin (@jgregorymartin) June 28, 2017That pathetic headline and tweet from the biased @FoxNews makes me love you even more Jim!!! Keep fighting the good fight! Brian (@BrianSMcDonald) June 28, 2017Keep rocking Jim!! Tanja (@bambula) June 28, 2017You're doing something right Jim if a loser like Hannity is talking about you! William Smith (@WilliamCSmithbr) June 28, 2017Since ur his #1 topic today, it means ur doing ur job well! Keep prying and keep getting under their skin Jim. Make America Honest Again! American (@RealAmericanets) June 28, 2017You're my hero, @Acosta. I love this era where journalists give no fucks and the stoicism of the past dies. Give em hell. #hannityunhugged Dena P (@Holdensmama) June 28, 2017We all remember Mustard-gate. Barack Obama just took office and the big story at Fox News was that he used mustard on his hamburger. That was a story the network covered for nearly a week. Sean Hannity seemed to suggest that Obama is an elitist for using mustard.coming from a man who was unhinged when President O asked for Dijon mustard. Gerry (@geminiLAca) June 28, 2017Sean Hannity peddled the Seth Rich story AFTER his own company retracted it. CNN fired its employees for their mess up. Chris (@yeschrisyes) June 28, 2017Jim-keep up the great work Fox/Hannity/Trump are showing just how much you are getting to them with your dogged, dedicated reporting-thx!! Kati Angelini (@ktmoorestown) June 28, 2017??? Jim, you're the best! Jennifer Newell (@WriterJen) June 28, 2017Jim, You're the best! Keep at it! DianeW (@BellaLuna468) June 28, 2017It s odd that Hannity supports WikiLeaks, an entity who supposedly believes in the transparency of governments, yet the idea of a transparent Trump administration rattles him to the core. The Russia probe is not being reported accurately on Fox News and the network has begun losing its key demographics. Breitbart.com has fallen from 45th place to 281st place in news site traffic ratings as the right-wing site ignores Trump s massive scandals. Hannity, a conspiracy theorist, is using CNN to bash the press. Three journalists resigned and an inaccurate story was retracted. Meanwhile, Sean Hannity pushed the baseless Seth Rich murder conspiracy theory. That prompted advertisers to flee from his show. So, it s kind of cute that Hannity calls other outlets fake news. Photo by Jennifer S. Altman/Contour by Getty Images. | 0 |
9,261 | Russian riot police detain opposition protesters in St Petersburg: Reuters witness | ST PETERSBURG (Reuters) - Russian riot police detained at least 10 opposition protesters on Saturday in central St Petersburg as hundreds of anti-Kremlin activists marched towards the city s main street, a Reuters witness said. Police across Russia detained more than 100 opposition activists earlier on Saturday for taking part in a wave of protests in support of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny ahead of a presidential election in March. The authorities said most of the protests were illegal because they had not been officially approved beforehand. | 1 |
9,262 | Trump loves 'the poorly educated' ... and social media clamors | (Reuters) - U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump’s declaration of love for “the poorly educated” in his Nevada victory speech lit up social media on Wednesday, sparking a battle between those dumbfounded by the remark and those saying it had been taken out of context. After winning the vote of the state’s Republicans by a wide margin on Tuesday, the real estate billionaire rattled off a list of those groups who swept him to victory: “We won with young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated.” By Wednesday morning, the phrase “I LOVE THE POORLY EDUCATED” was trending heavily. On Twitter, it was tweeted roughly 15 times a minute, according to social media analytics firm Zoomph. "I am, by modern standards, poorly educated, and I think that Donald Trump is a threat to America," tweeted Aaron Camp (@AaronApolloCamp). Another Twitter user, Kat (@VTweddingPhoto), wrote, “This is an embarrassment. For the GOP and for us as Americans. The world is once again laughing.” Others said Trump’s remark was being taken out of context, as he also touted having won the support of “the highly educated.” "To be fair with Trump, he said 'I love the highly educated and the poorly educated'. Don't take it out of context," tweeted Super Bowl Champs (@Josh_D_Manning). Dan Slott (@DanSlott) was not swayed. “We won the poorly educated vote. I love the poorly educated” - Trump Not a joke. Not parody. Not out of context. Trump ACTUALLY said this.” Trump has won three of the four state-by-state Republican nominating contests, including Nevada, in the run-up to the party nominating convention in July and the Nov. 8 general election to succeed President Barack Obama. | 1 |
9,263 | Kremlin says reports Trump disclosed intelligence are 'nonsense' | MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin described as “complete nonsense” on Tuesday media reports that U.S. President Donald Trump had disclosed classified intelligence during a meeting with Russian officials. “It’s not a subject for us, it’s the latest piece of nonsense. We don’t want to have anything do to with this nonsense. It’s complete nonsense, not a subject to be denied or confirmed,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on a conference call with reporters. Two U.S. officials said on Monday that Trump had disclosed highly classified information to Russia’s foreign minister about a planned Islamic State operation, plunging the White House into another controversy just months into Trump’s short tenure in office. | 1 |
9,264 | House Committee Uncovers DAMNING BOMBSHELL – Russia PAID Michael Flynn To Appear With Putin | It s easy to think the whole brouhaha with Michael Flynn was over the moment he was forced from his post as Trump s national security adviser, but it s not. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has been investigating Flynn and his connections with Russia, and they just found something incredibly damning.RT, a state-run news network in Russia, paid Flynn to attend a gala in Moscow with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Rep. Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, released records that include checks, invoices and emails showing that RT literally paid Flynn nearly $34,000 to attend the function.And not too long afterward, he was busy advising Trump and his campaign in a voluntary capacity. Not only was he paid a speaking fee at the gala, but his company, Leading Authorities, received $11,250 from that gala. All told, Flynn was paid $56,250 to appear with Putin and do work for two Russian firms, all while he was acting in an advisory capacity with Donald Trump.Some of that involved a Russian company, Kaspersky Lab, which is a subsidiary of a Russian company that specializes in uncovering Western government spyware. In other words, evidence shows that he worked for a company that works against not just the U.S., but also against all our NATO allies. Kaspersky Lab claims it has no ties to any government, but is proud to collaborate with the authorities of many countries, in fighting against cybercrimes.Cybercrimes like hacking the DNC to help tilt our election to Trump s favor, maybe? If this isn t corruption by a foreign power, then what is? Democrats on the House Oversight Committee now want an additional investigation into these payments because the come from companies based in Russia.We already know Flynn was acting as a foreign agent in Turkey while working for Trump s campaign, and that he failed to disclose that until just recently. But now we see he was working with Russia, too. It s high time we learned just how deep this goes. It s not likely that Flynn was a solo actor here. The entire Trump administration must be thoroughly investigated we can t allow Flynn to serve as their scapegoat.Featured image by Andrew Harrer via Getty Images | 0 |
9,265 | SEC approves budget of independent accounting board | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday approved the budget for the auditing watchdog that oversees the work of leading U.S. accounting firms. The SEC staff recommended approving the budget of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) and SEC Commission Chair Mary Jo White and Commissioner Kara Stein endorsed the $257.7 million budget. Commissioner Michael S. Piwowar voted against, saying he was skeptical of the nearly 3 percent increase in the PCAOB budget from a year ago. He also said he was not persuaded that the additional burden on accounting firms and broker-dealers, which fund the PCAOB through fees, was merited. “The Commission represents the only safeguard to an otherwise unilateral ability to impose the accounting support fee on companies and broker-dealers,” said. The SEC controls the budget and assigns members of the PCAOB, which was conceived to prevent future accounting scandals like the one that brought down energy company Enron in 2001. The SEC has two vacant seats and the Senate Banking Committee is due on Tuesday to consider two nominees put forward by the White House. Commission Chair Mary Jo White has said she intends to wait until the agency once again has its full, five-member panel before moving forward to appoint a new PCAOB chief. Current PCAOB Chairman James Doty’s term expired last fall. | 1 |
9,266 | Explainer: Myanmar wields colonial-era law against Reuters journalists | (Reuters) - Myanmar has accused Reuters reporters Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, of breaching the country s Official Secrets Act, a little-used hangover from colonial rule. Sam Zarifi, secretary general of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), said the law can ensnare working journalists at any time . The two reporters were arrested on Tuesday evening after they were invited to meet police officers for dinner in the north of Yangon. The Ministry of Information said they had illegally acquired information with the intention to share it with foreign media , and published a photo of the pair in handcuffs standing behind a table with documents laid on it. The law dates back to 1923, when Myanmar, then known as Burma, was a province of British India. At the time British administrators worried that rival powers could seek to exploit anti-colonial unrest in its South Asian empire. The act, which amended earlier anti-spying legislation, was controversial in India even at the time, according to a history published in 2009 by the United Service Institution of India, a New Delhi-based think tank. British military officers pushed for the stronger law over concerns about an increase in Bolshevik activity , along with geopolitical threats including the possibility of racial war between Japan and the USA affecting India , the history said. The Official Secrets Act covers trespassing in prohibited areas, handling documents deemed secret and communicating with foreign agents . It carries a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison. Zarifi of the Geneva-based ICJ - a human rights group made up of 60 senior international judges, lawyers and legal academics - said the definition of an official secret in the act is incredibly broad . Just about anyone in possession of unpublished government documents could find themselves facing prosecution and the harsh penalties a conviction may carry, Zarifi said. Under this law many good journalists could be prosecuted at any time. In India, where the same law also remains on the statute book, courts have ruled that it even applies to parliamentary papers such as budget proposals if they are leaked before they are presented in the legislature. Legal experts say prosecutions under the act have been rare in Myanmar in recent decades. The military junta that ruled until 2011 frequently used other laws or the Penal Code - also inherited from the colonial era - to lock up its critics alongside common criminals. The sprawling code was drafted in 1860, and gives magistrates more than 500 sections under which to charge alleged offenders. In 1990, a military court sentenced two leaders of the then opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) to 10 years in prison under the Official Secrets Act after they passed an official letter to foreign embassies. The prosecution was part of a broad crackdown following an election won by the NLD that the junta ignored. They were freed in 1992, in an amnesty, according to a New York Times report at the time. Reports of at least two other cases brought under the act are recorded in the online archives of the Asian Human Rights Commission in 2009 and 2010. The first case involved a man jailed for trespassing on military land and recording video footage to allegedly send abroad. He had been helping a farmer file a land grab complaint against the military. The second concerned a former army officer who was jailed in 2010 for allegedly having secret information on his laptop that he passed to foreign news agencies. The most well-documented recent case involving the Official Secrets Act came in January of 2014, when the Yangon-based weekly, Unity Journal, published a front page article it said exposed a secret chemical weapons factory run by the military in central Myanmar. Police arrested the newspaper s CEO and four journalists involved in publishing the story, raided its offices, and attempted to seize all copies of the edition from newsstands. A civilian court in Pakkoku, near the alleged factory, sentenced them in July 2014 to 10 years in prison with hard labor - later reduced to seven years. The case was widely seen by the domestic media as a warning that military affairs remained off-limits even though direct military rule had ended. The Unity Five were released in an amnesty in April 2016, soon after the NLD, led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, had come to power following an election in 2015. The Unity Journal subsequently closed. Reuters was unable to reach government legal officials over the weekend and a Monday public holiday to request details of any other past cases in which the Official Secrets Act was used. Little is known of the allegations against the two Reuters journalists, other than that police said they were arrested for possessing important and secret government documents related to Rakhine State and security forces and are charged under Section 3 of the Official Secrets Act. Two policemen are also being investigated in the case, according to police. Section 3 covers entering prohibited places, taking images or handling secret official documents that might be or is intended to be, directly or indirectly, useful to an enemy . Human Rights Watch in 2016 said Section 3 defines the offence of spying extremely broadly . Where a military establishment is involved, section 3(2) of the statute effectively places the burden on the defendant to prove that they are not guilty, the group said. In May 2016, the month after Suu Kyi took power, the 1975 State Protection Act that had been used to keep her under house arrest for years was repealed. The Emergency Provisions Act, introduced in 1950 and frequently used against activists after the military seized power in a 1962 coup, was swept away in October the same year. But the Official Secrets Act and other laws, such as the 1908 Unlawful Associations Act, that have been used to jail journalists and activists, remain in force. Reuters was unable to reach Suu Kyi s spokesman to seek comment from Suu Kyi on the use of the Official Secrets Act to detain the two Reuters journalists. | 1 |
9,267 | Congo elected to U.N. rights council; Britain, U.S. unhappy | UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Democratic Republic of Congo was among 15 countries elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council for a three-year term on Monday, a moved criticized by Britain, the United States and rights groups after the vote by the 193-member General Assembly. While Congo was elected uncontested to the 47-member Geneva-based council, it still needed majority support. The country - beset by renewed political and militia violence since President Joseph Kabila refused to step down in December - won 151 votes. Political repression, civilian attacks, mass graves. What happened in DRC last year makes their election to the Human Rights council entirely disappointing, British U.N. Ambassador Matthew Rycroft posted on Twitter. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who has called for the Human Rights Council votes to be competitive, said Congo s election harmed the credibility of the body. Countries that aggressively violate human rights at home should not be in a position to guard the human rights of others, Haley said in a statement. The United States is reviewing its membership in the council. It is in the first year of a second term, but U.S. President Donald Trump s administration has called for reforms to eliminate what it called its chronic anti-Israel bias. Angola, Senegal, Slovakia, Ukraine, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Afghanistan, Nepal, Pakistan, Australia and Spain were also elected to the body on Monday, while Nigeria and Qatar won second terms. Their terms start on Jan. 1, 2018. To ensure geographical representation, states are nominated in five regional categories. Four slates were uncontested, while there were five candidates for four Asia Pacific seats in which Malaysia lost. Council members cannot serve more than two consecutive terms. The council is able to rebuke governments it deems as violating human rights and to order investigations. Human Rights Watch called for elections to be competitive. The Democratic Republic of Congo s election to the Human Rights Council is a slap in the face to the many victims of the Congolese government s grave abuses across the country, said Louis Charbonneau, U.N. director at Human Rights Watch. The violence in eastern and central Congo has displaced over 1.5 million in the past year and revived fears of civil war in a country where conflicts from 1996-2003 resulted in millions of deaths and spawned dozens of armed groups that prey on local populations and exploit natural resources. | 1 |
9,268 | Trump talks up 'New York values' as protesters demonstrate against him | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Republican front-runner Donald Trump on Thursday talked up “New York values” and urged his home state voters to give him a big win next week, but his rivals warned nominating Trump could lead to disastrous losses to the Democrats in the Nov. 8 election. The New York billionaire is in danger of being forced to try to capture the Republican presidential nomination through a contested convention because opposition from rivals Ted Cruz and John Kasich is chipping away at his lead. As protesters chanted outside and waved signs against Trump, Trump told the New York state Republican Party’s gala that he needs the momentum that a victory in the state’s primary would bring next Tuesday. “New York is so important,” Trump said, trying to regain the momentum he lost after Cruz defeated him in Wisconsin last week and captured all of Colorado’s delegates. Trump identified himself with “New York values” of hard work and compassion after Cruz charged Trump’s version of these values are basically Democratic positions. Whether Trump can win the 1,237 delegates he needs for the nomination is an open question as both Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas, and Ohio Governor Kasich, try to block him from getting enough delegates. They want to extend the fight to a contested convention in Cleveland when Republicans gather to formally choose their nominee in July. In his speech to the group, Kasich tried to raise questions about Trump without mentioning his name. He said Republican candidates across the country would be at risk with a candidate with a negative message at the top of the ballot. Trump has drawn many protests for policy positions that include building a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, deporting 11 million illegal immigrants and banning Muslims temporarily from entering the United States. “We risk losing everything from the White House to the courthouse to the state house if we don’t advance a positive, uplifting, unifying message to this country. That is what we need to do,” said Kasich, who spoke after Trump. Cruz, speaking after Kasich, continued the theme, pointing to polls showing Trump losing badly to Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton and getting far less support from women and minority voters. Cruz presented himself as a unity candidate who can bring the various wings of the party together. “If we nominate a candidate who loses to Hillary Clinton by double digits, who loses to women by 20 points, who loses Hispanics by 40 points, who loses young people, we cannot win in the general (election),” said Cruz. Before the event started in the Grand Hyatt hotel near Grand Central Station, a group of protesters stormed the hotel mezzanine with a banner that read: “NYC Rejects the Party of Hate.” Eleven of them were reported arrested. Outside the hotel, many anti-Trump demonstrators called the New York billionaire businessman a fascist or white supremacist. They even teased him about his signature hairdo. “We Shall Over Comb,” read one sign. Others said: “Deport Trump,” “No allegiance for Trump,” and “Black lives matter.” A series of speakers addressed the protest crowd with a loudspeaker. Police set up portable barriers to keep protesters separated from traffic and allow pedestrians to pass on busy 42nd Street. “Although Trump is from here, there is no place for him here,” said one of the speakers, Nabil Hassein, 27, of the group Millions March NYC. Kasich scored a victory with the endorsement of former New York Governor George Pataki, an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican nomination for the Nov. 8 election.The Trump campaign got some good news when a Florida prosecutor announced that Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, would not be prosecuted on a misdemeanor battery charge involving a reporter he was accused of grabbing at an event last month. | 1 |
9,269 | France sees U.S. strike on Syria as tool to push for peace talks: Hollande | PARIS (Reuters) - France and the rest of Europe must use last week’s U.S. missile strike on Syria as a tool to revive peace negotiations between warring parties, French President Francois Hollande said in a newspaper interview published on Wednesday. In the interview with Le Monde, Hollande said intelligence suggested that the nerve gas attack which prompted the U.S. missile strike was tactical in nature and launched from an aircraft. Major western powers and their Middle Eastern allies blame Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for the attack and have been pushing this week to try to isolate him over the attack on a rebel-held town last week that killed 87 people including 31 children. Pressure is also building on Russian President Vladimir Putin to break ties with Assad. | 1 |
9,270 | Panic on London's Oxford Street after reports of shooting | LONDON (Reuters) - Panic erupted among Christmas shopping crowds on London s Oxford Street on Friday evening as armed officers raced to respond to reports of shots being fired in the area, but police said later they had found no evidence of gunfire or casualties. Oxford Street, with its festive window displays and hundreds of overhead lights, was crammed with shoppers taking advantage of the Black Friday sales when the incident happened shortly after dusk. London s Metropolitan Police said in a statement they had found no evidence of gunfire, casualties or any suspects and that the incident, which lasted for just over an hour, had been stood down. Given the nature of the information received, the Met responded in line with our existing operation as if the incident was terrorism, including the deployment of armed officers, the police said in a statement. British Transport Police posted CCTV images of two men on Twitter, saying they believed that an altercation had erupted between the two men at the Oxford Circus underground station and said they would like to speak to the men, "who they believe may have information about the incident and the circumstances around the incident." bit.ly/2jkkVNT A Reuters witness said panicked shoppers had fled Oxford Street and the Oxford Circus underground station. The witness saw an elderly lady and a man carrying a child knocked over in the rush. There were people running in all directions. I didn t know which way to run, the witness said. The transport police said they had received a report of one woman suffering a minor injury in the panic. The capital s transport operator, Transport for London, said the Oxford Circus and Bond Street stations, which were briefly shut due to the incident, had later reopened. | 1 |
9,271 | Putin and Trump shake hands, exchange words at APEC summit: agencies | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump greeted each other at an APEC summit in Vietnam, shook hands and exchanged a few words, Russian news agencies reported on Friday. Trump approached Putin at a photo session of world leaders in the Vietnamese city of Danang and gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder, agencies reported. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was cited by the RIA news agency as saying that the two men had not held any talks yet however, something Moscow has been trying to set up for days. | 1 |
9,272 | LIBERAL LUNATIC CHRIS MATTHEWS Scolded By Piers Morgan for Trashing Trump Family [Video] | Who knew former CNN anchor Piers Morgan would criticize MSNBC s Chris Matthews! Matthews keeps comparing the Trump family to the former royal family of Russia the Romanovs.It s not just one passing comment but several! The Russian royal family lived a lavish life before being lined up and shot by the incoming communists. It s a horrific story and Matthews keeps comparing the Trumps to the tragic royal family. Liberal Lunacy!MORGAN RIPPED INTO THE LUNACY OF THE MATTHEWS THEORY ABOUT TRUMP: We re expected to believe that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin get together, and they plan the mass murder of children to make some kind of point that they re no longer best buddies. Really? Really? We think this a legitimate conspiracy theory flying? https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=pBP5-kRofEwThe video that Morgan is referring to of Chris Matthews comparing the Trumps to the Romanovs is below:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7kabB63sc4Piers Morgan went on to explain the history of the Romanov family. The Romanovs were all slaughtered at the start of what would become the communist Soviet Union. Whatever your view of the Romanovs, that s not really a comparison I don t think anyone in the American media should be making about the Trump family, he said. What are we supposed to deduce from that comment that, somehow, Jared, Ivanka, and Donald are all going to be murdered by communists? Hannity said the media is at a new low for how they portray Trump and his family, including his 10-year-old son Barron and wife Melania.Matthews has repeatedly compared the two families over the last couple months. Matthews likened President Donald Trump s daughter Ivanka and his son-in-law Jared Kushner s White House roles to the Romanovs last week. He also asked on Inauguration Day why the Trump family reminded him of the Romanovs.Via:WFB | 0 |
9,273 | Russian foreign ministry: Moscow ready to cooperate with U.S. on Afghanistan - RIA | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Moscow stands ready to cooperate with the United States on Afghanistan, Russia s Foreign Ministry official said in an interview with RIA state news agency published on Saturday. Russia maintains contacts with U.S. acting Assistant Secretary of State Alice Wells, said Zamir Kabulov, special representative to the Russian president on Afghanistan and the head of Asian region department at the Foreign Ministry. | 1 |
9,274 | Malaysian PM says Trump appealed to Americans who want less foreign interference | KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak congratulated U.S. president-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday, saying the Republican victor had appealed to Americans who wanted to see the United States less embroiled in intervention abroad. “His appeal to Americans who have been left behind – those who want to see their government more focused on their interests and welfare, and less embroiled in foreign interventions that proved to be against US interests – have won Mr Trump the White House,” Najib said in a statement. Najib said he looked forward to continuing a partnership with the United States under Trump’s presidency. | 1 |
9,275 | REPORT: TRUMP Set Brilliant “Fake News” Trap For Leakers… | According to the Associated Press on Friday, President Trump had plans to mobilize the National Guard to round up illegal aliens. Now, it appears, the memo was a ploy to find the White House information leak.White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer denied these rumors and called them absolutely false.Via Gateway Pundit: There is no effort to do what is potentially suggested, he said. Spicer called the AP report 100 percent not true, adding that there was no effort at all to utilize the National Guard to round up unauthorized immigrants. Sources are now saying that multiple memos were released, all with slight differences in order to smoke out the leak.Multiple sources within the WH have told me that the "memo" on the 100K National Guard soldiers was fake news designed to smoke out leaker. Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) February 17, 2017Same group who leaked the National Guard "memo" also created the fake news story about Flynn. @realDonaldTrump is FURIOUS. #BringBackFlynn https://t.co/JYsbs49R55 Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) February 17, 2017Give 10 different people 10 different copies of the "same" memo. Include 1 different words or typos in each. Oldest trick in the book. Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) February 17, 2017(Source: Gateway Pundit) | 0 |
9,276 | Ukraine president submits anti-corruption court law to parliament | KIEV (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has submitted a new draft law to parliament for the creation of an anti-corruption court, the parliamentary website showed late on Friday. Slow progress establishing an independent court to deal with corruption cases has been one of the main obstacles to the disbursement of loans under a $17.5 billion aid-for-reforms program from the International Monetary Fund. A committee will now need to review and approve the bill, before it can be voted on by parliament, the next session of which is in January. | 1 |
9,277 | SNARKY HILLARY AIDE EMBARRASSED BY Inconvenient “Fact” About Judge Who’s Forcing Hillary To Testify Under Oath [VIDEO] | There never seems to be a shortage of smug, know-it-all, self-righteous effeminate men supporting Queen Hillary. Maybe that s why there s a certain amount of pleasure Hillary s every day Americans derive when they see a member of the mainstream media call them out on national t.v Hillary Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said a federal judge s ruling that Clinton and her top aides should be questioned under oath about the candidate s private email server is part of the ring wing s effort to hurt her chances of becoming president he was then confronted with an inconvenient fact.Asked by CNN anchor Jake Tapper about the latest development in the months-long email scandal, Mook tried to dismiss the judge s ruling as a right-wing group s attempt to hurt Clinton s chances of becoming president.Tapper was quick to point out that Judge Emmett Sullivan, who sits on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, was appointed by Clinton s own husband, Bill Clinton. It s the judge s decision to make, Mook responded. My point is this was promulgated by a right-wing group. Indeed, Sullivan was appointed to his current position in 1994 by then-President Bill Clinton.He was previously tapped in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan to serve as associate judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. In 1991, he was appointed by President George H.W. Bush to serve as associate judge of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, before being elevated to his current job.Via:The Blazeh/t Weasel Zippers | 0 |
9,278 | Geraldo Rivera To San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz: ‘I Don’t See People Dying’ (VIDEO) | The way in which Donald Trump has handled the aftermath of Hurricane Maria s impact on Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States, has been nothing short of terrible and incompetent, leading many to question his ability to even locate Puerto Rico on a map. The only thing more disgusting than the actions of President Trump is the behavior of his blind followers and Fox News reporter and former talk show host Geraldo Rivera set the bar relatively low recently.San Juan Mayor Carmen Yul n Cruz reached out to Trump first by pleading in an interview for him to save us from dying, but to no avail. Cruz then tried in the only way proven effective, by taking to Twitter almost a week after Hurricane Maria, the strongest hurricane to make landfall in Puerto Rico since 1928, struck the country and left most of the population without power or fresh water. She began by retweeting the pleas of others and then attempted to get Trump s attention directly:Se or Presidente no eliminar las leyes de cabotaje es inmoral. Es un acto de opresi n financiera que solo lograr agravar nuestra crisis. pic.twitter.com/6UujyEUlTD Carmen Yul n Cruz (@CarmenYulinCruz) September 28, 2017Her first tweet to Trump was a plea to eliminate the Jones Act, an outdated and antiquated maritime law requiring all goods transported by water between US ports be carried on US-flag ships, constructed in the United States, owned by US citizens, and crewed by US citizens and US permanent residents, a law that is drastically holding up relief efforts. Cruz s tweet read in Spanish, Mr. President, not to eliminate the laws of cabotage is immoral. It is an act of financial oppression that will only aggravate our crisis. It is almost certain that Trump can t read Spanish or comprehend the fact that Cabotage is a real term to refer to coastal navigation and trade, so naturally, he saw this as an insult:The Mayor of San Juan, who was very complimentary only a few days ago, has now been told by the Democrats that you must be nasty to Trump. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2017 Such poor leadership ability by the Mayor of San Juan, and others in Puerto Rico, who are not able to get their workers to help. They . Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2017 want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort. 10,000 Federal workers now on Island doing a fantastic job. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2017While Trump put off visiting Puerto Rico for another week, Geraldo Rivera decided to make the trip on behalf of Fox News to see what Cruz was so concerned about. There are all people at all municipalities literally starving, dehydrating, Cruz told Rivera. We have had our hospital try to go back to speed but then the electricity goes off and we have to do all the bacteria testing, which takes three to four days. Geraldo wasn t convinced and felt the need to interject. But are people dying? he interrupted. I ve been traveling around, I don t see people dying. I spoke to the doctors, they say they saw 53 patients and they had a person who was septic, but nobody dying. Mayor Cruz tried her best to reason with the mustachioed one. Dying is a continuum, she explained. If you don t get fed for seven, eight days and you re a child, you are dying. If you have 11 people like we took out of a nursing home severely dehydrated, you are dying. Watch the madness unfold below and, in case you were wondering, the death toll in Puerto Rico due to Hurricane Maria stood at 16 as of Sunday with only nine hospitals connected to the electric grid.Featured image via screenshot | 0 |
9,279 | WATCH: THINGS GOT REALLY AWKWARD When NBC Sent Hoda Over To Help Spike Megyn Kelly’s Miserable Ratings | Buzzfeed reports, that, from the start, Megyn Kelly Today s Nielsen ratings have been down compared to the third hour of Today, which was cohosted by Al Roker and Tamron Hall last fall. The ultimate aim of Megyn Kelly Today was to challenge Live With Kelly and Ryan, which is syndicated by ABC, but the contest is not even close. In Megyn Kelly Today s first week, Live beat it by 14% among viewers and 17% in the 25-to-54 demographic. In the second week, the gap widened, with Live besting Megyn Kelly Today by 34% among viewers and 60% in the demo.We re not sure what they were thinking when they sent the wine-soaked Hoda from the Kathie Lee and Hoda show over to help make Megyn look more normal and approachable to her audience, but by bringing a likeable and relatable host from another (formerly) popular show on NBC, they only managed to shine a huge spotlight on Megyn Kelly s inability to connect with anyone who isn t holding a camera. By bringing Hoda Kotb over for a very awkward segment on Kelly s show, NBC managed to reinforce why nobody wants to watch the cringe-inducing host of Megyn Kelly Today.Watch:Hoda was on #MegynKellyToday this morning for no reason other than to fill time and I've never been so embarrassed. pic.twitter.com/wXUatEcPhY Kate Aurthur (@KateAurthur) October 19, 2017 | 0 |
9,280 | FBI director nominee Wray earned $9.2 million in law practice last year | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the FBI earned $9.2 million last year as a partner in an international law firm, where he worked for clients ranging from Credit Suisse Group and Wells Fargo to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Disclosure forms produced for the Office of Government Ethics show Christopher Wray is also expected to receive millions more in payments when he leaves the King & Spalding law firm on his confirmation as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The forms and a letter from Assistant Attorney General Lee Lofthus, a designated ethics official for the Justice Department, were made public ahead of Wray’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. Wray would succeed James Comey, whom Trump fired in May. Lofthus said in his letter that Wray would not receive a bonus, severance or contingency fees on leaving his firm but would receive a refund of his money in the firm’s capital account and a final partnership share distribution, unless he decided to forfeit it. To satisfy ethics concerns, Wray will not participate for one year in FBI matters that involve companies or people represented by his former law firm, Lofthus said in his letter. He also will not participate in matters involving his former clients for a year, unless he obtains a prior authorization. Wray’s financial disclosure forms show he provided legal services to a number of large international corporations, including Johnson & Johnson, Huntington Ingalls Industries, Georgia-Pacific and SunTrust Banks He also provided legal services to Christie during the “Bridgegate” scandal in which two of the Republican governor’s former associates were convicted of plotting to close down access lanes at the George Washington Bridge for nearly a week in 2013 in an act of political retribution. If he is confirmed, Wray will have 90 days to dispose of millions of dollars worth of stock he owns in firms ranging from Apple Inc and American Airlines to Wal-Mart and Exxon Mobil, Lofthus said. Wray served at the U.S. Justice Department from 2003 to 2005 under Republican President George W. Bush as an assistant attorney general in charge of its criminal division and oversaw the department’s Enron task force. | 1 |
9,281 | More than half of eligible Australians have so far voted in same-sex marriage ballot | SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia s Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday 9.2 million people, or 57.5 percent of eligible voters, have cast their votes in a ballot on whether same-sex marriage should be legalized. Australians began voting last month in the non-binding poll, conducted by post, to inform the government on whether voters wanted Australia to become the 25th nation to permit same-sex marriage. The results of the poll will be declared on Nov. 15. The first official update suggests a high turnout is likely despite the ballot being non-compulsory. Turnout levels will go a long way in determining whether Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull can finally resolve a topic that has dogged his tenure as leader and threatened to split his centre-right government along ideological grounds. Low turnout would have seen the issue continue to dominate the political discourse whatever the result, underpinned by questions of legitimacy in a country used to compulsory voting. The first official update on the progress of the same-sex marriage survey comes just a day after a Sky News ReachTel poll showed the yes vote on track for a comprehensive victory. More than 64 percent of those surveyed have sent back their ballot and voted yes , the poll showed, with a further six percent planning to support same-sex marriage. A widespread victory may do little, however, to heal a divided the nation of 24 million people, which has split along religious and generational lines and at times has threatened to turn nasty, prompting parliament to strengthen laws preventing hate-speech. | 1 |
9,282 | France's National Front number two quits; far-right opposition in turmoil | PARIS (Reuters) - The right-hand man of French National Front chief Marine Le Pen quit the party on Thursday, a split that opens the way for policy changes in the far-right party and shows the depth of internal feuding after Le Pen s presidential election defeat. The departure of Florian Philippot, for years Le Pen s closest aide and a key architect of efforts to detoxify the party s image while campaigning against the euro, had looked increasingly inevitable as the party bickered over who was to blame for a damaging electoral cycle. His exit is expected to allow Le Pen to refocus on core policies around immigration and French national identity, while perhaps softening her anti-euro tone, which many say contributed to Le Pen s resounding defeat in the presidential election run-off. While Philippot s departure is likely to increase turmoil in the party at first and others have already said they would follow him out the door, the FN has survived similar crises in the past and analysts expect it to do the same this time. Philippot is seen as too divisive within the far-right to create a party that would be a serious threat. Le Pen, who has shown a sometimes ruthless determination to hold on to power in the National Front, having already pushed out her father Jean-Marie, the founder of the party, withdrew Philippot s responsibilities within the movement late on Wednesday, leaving him with little choice about his future. I m not into being ridiculed, I m not into having nothing to do. And so yes, of course, I m quitting the National Front, Philippot, 35 and a graduate of France s elite administrative school ENA, told France 2 television. Le Pen, who just last year spoke of having an intellectual crush on Philippot, responded tersely that the FN would have no problems of getting over his departure. One should stop trying to bury the National Front, she told LCP television. Every time people have tried to do it, it came out better-structured, stronger and more powerful. The National Front, which has made major inroads in local, regional and European elections over the past decade without winning any major constituency, will hold a congress in March where internal differences since its defeat to Emmanuel Macron and his new party will come to a head. The far-right party has tried to portray itself as the main voice of opposition against Macron. But that mantle has so far been assumed by Jean-Luc Melenchon, the leader of the far-left France Insoumise (France Unbowed), who is calling for mass demonstrations against the president s economic reforms. FAR-LEFT THRILLED Appearing on France s RTL Radio on Thursday, Melenchon reveled in the turmoil on the far-right. Excellent, that s their business. It s perfect, he said in reaction to Philippot s departure. It s a party that counts for nothing. Those that were angry but aren t fascists, I urge them to turn their back (on the FN) and come and join us. J r me Fourquet, an expert on the far-right at polling group Ifop, said Philippot s exit would deprive the party of experienced policy writers. But he said any exodus was likely to be limited and short of those who quit when Bruno Megret left the party in 1988, when it was led by Jean-Marie Le Pen. Megret created his own party but it never attracted many votes. Those who leave the FN or are pushed out all end up being marginalized, Fourquet said. Philippot joined the party in 2011 and rose quickly to become Le Pen s chief adviser. He was instrumental in crafting her policies and her 2012 and 2017 election manifestos. Sophie Montel, one of Philippot s closest aides and an FN member for over 30 years, said on Twitter she was quitting the party. So did several other Philippot allies. But other more high profile figures rejoiced, including Le Pen s partner Louis Aliot. The FN will finally have some peace of mind away from a sectarian, arrogant, vain extremist who was trying to muzzle our freedom to debate, Aliot said on Twitter. He thinks he s right about everything and... for me he s an extremist, he said later, speaking to RMC. When you show him a poll that says 75 percent of the French people don t want to leave the euro, his reply is we don t give a damn, that s where we are going. Robert Menard, an FN ally and a mayor in southern France, was even blunter, saying: We need to stop with the anti-Europeanism and the Melenchon-type (economic) policies. Le Pen said the party would continue to fight the EU and wanted a return to monetary sovereignty. But after many flip-flops on the issue, she did not spell out precisely what that would entail. | 1 |
9,283 | Ex-Trump campaign chief Manafort wants probe of leaks | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, lashed out on Tuesday at reports he was wiretapped by federal authorities, and his spokesman sent out a statement demanding a leaks probe and suggesting the surveillance was politically motivated. The statement issued by spokesman Jason Maloni on behalf of Manafort came a day after CNN reported that a secret court had authorized surveillance of Manafort under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), under which Americans can be targeted if they are suspected of acting as an agent of a foreign country. Manafort became Trump’s campaign manager in June 2016 but was forced to resign two months later amid reports of his business relationship with the Kremlin-backed former Ukrainian leader, Viktor Yanukovich. Manafort is being investigated as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The court initially authorized FISA surveillance of Manafort in 2014 but that lapsed in 2016 for lack of evidence, CNN reported. FISA surveillance resumed later in 2016 and continued into 2017 as part of the FBI’s probe into ties between Trump campaign associates and Russian operatives, CNN said. “If true, it is a felony to reveal the existence of a FISA warrant, regardless of the fact that no charges ever emerged,” Maloni said in the statement on behalf of Manafort. “The U.S. Department of Justice’s Inspector General should immediately conduct an investigation into these leaks and to examine the motivations behind a previous administration’s effort to surveil a political opponent,” he said. The special counsel’s office and the FBI both declined to comment on Maloni’s statement. They also did not comment on CNN’s original report about surveillance of Manafort. Maloni urged the Justice Department to release any intercepts between Manafort and any non-Americans so people “can come to the same conclusion as the DOJ (Justice Department) - there is nothing there.” As part of the special counsel’s probe, federal agents with search warrants raided Manafort’s Virginia home in July. The New York Times, citing two people close to the case, reported on Monday that prosecutors later told Manafort they planned to indict him. CNN said interest in Manafort deepened because of intercepted communications between him and Russian operatives, and among the Russians. The government eavesdropping continued into 2017, including a period when Manafort was known to talk to Trump after he became president. CNN said it was unclear if Trump was picked up on the surveillance. | 1 |
9,284 | A Federal Judge Just Slapped Down One Of Mississippi’s Most Digustingly Bigoted Laws | Mississippi has been on a theocratic tear lately. When not giving churches the ability to create militias for God with the power to use deadly force and carry firearms, the state s largely conservative legislature has been busy attacking gay rights with something bordering on obsession.Mississippi s state Senate pushed through a vicious anti-gay bill that would:But if that wasn t enough, the bill also reinforced Mississippi s long-standing ban on same-sex couples from adopting children. The insane bigotry on display in Mississippi in the face of current trends towards LGBT rights has led to bizarre work arounds, including social workers asking same-sex couples to live in separate houses for at least six months so they could legally pretend to be single parents *wink wink* and not two loving ones who happen to be gay.A federal judge took one look at the case and concluded that Mississippi was violating a mountain of human rights.Written by U.S. District Judge Daniel Jordan III, the order argued that the state s law barring the adoptions obviously targets married gay couples and limits their rights. Furthermore, the court argued that the Department of Human Services policy violates the constitution s equal protection clause as the result of last year s landmark Supreme Court ruling that laws against same-sex marriage are unconstitutional.In short: You can t tell same-sex couples that they can t have children just because you don t happen to like same-sex marriage. It doesn t work that way.The fact of the matter is that Mississippi has absolutely no case other than unmitigated bigotry to justify its same-sex adoption ban. Study after study has shown that adopted children in same-sex households do just as well as their counterparts adopted by heterosexual parents. In one major study, researchers discovered that kids raised in same-sex households actually did better.In light of that research, preventing gay couples from adopting isn t just a major screw you to the potential parents, but also to the kids waiting in foster homes. Republican lawmakers may feel comfortable telling gay Mississippians that they aren t allowed to have children, but it takes a particularly heartless person to coldly explain to a child that they can t have a family because a few politicians in the Capitol find same-sex marriage icky. Thankfully, Judge Jordan s ruling isn t just good news for the people of Mississippi, but have far-reaching implications. As of now, the Department of Human Serves doesn t explicitly protect sexual orientation from adoption discrimination. Jordan called bullshit. According to his ruling, that policy is, in itself, discrimination and should be amended. That would mean Mississippi would be just the first of several Republican states to suddenly have their bigoted adoption policies dismantled.If it stands it means a lot of kids waiting for adoption are about to get some great news.Featured image via Wikipedia | 0 |
9,285 | U.S. calls on Pakistan to arrest recently freed Islamist leader | ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A U.S. official on Friday said Washington is deeply concerned at the release from house arrest of a Pakistani Islamist accused of masterminding a bloody 2008 assault in the Indian city of Mumbai. Hafiz Saeed, who had been under house arrest since January, was ordered freed by a Pakistani court this week and preached on Friday at a mosque in the eastern city of Lahore. U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Saeed s organization, Lashkar-e-Taiba, was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of civilians, including American citizens. The Pakistani government should make sure that he is arrested and charged for his crimes, Nauert said in a statement. | 1 |
9,286 | Danish PM's party dealt blow at local election, Social Democrats gain | COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen s Liberal Party suffered losses in Denmark s local elections, a possible bellwether for the next national election, which is to be held no later than mid-2019. The center-right Liberal Party received 23.1 percent of the votes in Tuesday s election, 3.5 percentage points less than in 2013. The Social Democrats gained 3 percentage points to 32.5 percent. The Social Democrats won the leadership of four of Denmark s five regions, and in at least 40 of the 98 municipalities, including the four largest cities. Coalition talks are still ongoing in some municipalities. The results are seen as a boost for Mette Frederiksen who took over the Social Democratic leadership after former Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt failed to extend her rule at the 2015 national election. The Danes have said that it is more important to take good care of our welfare, rather than to get tax cuts, Social Democrat spokesman Nicolai Wammen said, alluding to the government s plans to cut taxes next year. Rasmussen was relatively satisfied with the result, he told broadcaster TV2. A spokesman for his party said the election results were mainly driven by local agendas rather than national level politics. The support for government ally Danish People s Party fell 1.3 percentage points to 8.8 percent, contrary to some predictions ahead of the elections. | 1 |
9,287 | This Old Tweet From Trump Reveals The REAL Reason He’s Trying To Start A War | Donald Trump is not the negotiator he would like everyone to believe he is but he is accomplished in the art of deflection. But, for every instance of trying to deflect on an issue, such as his Russia scandal, there is an old tweet to confirm what the former reality show star is really up to. Trump is very sensitive about his dismal poll numbers and his unpopularity has affected him so much that in the past he s tried to claim that he won the popular vote. Trump is 200 days into his presidency and he s losing the support of his own base and his social media use isn t helping him. In January, 73 percent of Republicans strongly approved of Trump, but now it s down 59 percent, according to the latest poll. Trump is also losing the support of white Americans without a college degree.So, what s an amateur president going to do about it? He ll start a nuclear war on Twitter, of course.In late 2015, Trump tweeted, Polls are starting to look really bad for Obama. Looks like he ll have to start a war or major conflict to win. Don t put it past him! Polls are starting to look really bad for Obama. Looks like he'll have to start a war or major conflict to win. Don't put it past him! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 17, 2012Twitter users took notice of his old tweet.These tweets age so nicely. Like a fine scotch. Opinion Junkie (@brass_monkey_1) August 11, 2017Everything Trump accuses someone else of doing, he is actually the perpetrator. pic.twitter.com/p1DRZPdSmO MyDelayedRxn2Life (@BrainBriefs) August 11, 2017Fixed!Updated for 2017 #NostroTrumpus pic.twitter.com/maMpP7ikd1 305 Pirate ? (@305Pirate) August 11, 2017There's a hypocritical tweet for every one of @potus commentaries. Patriotic Moose&Lamb (@GinoKusa) August 11, 2017And then there s this old tweet coming back to haunt Trump.Nostradumb*ss pic.twitter.com/qQS9N8ijlv R. Saddler ? (@Politics_PR) August 10, 2017Trump tweeted recently that, Only the Fake News Media and Trump enemies want me to stop using Social Media (110 million people) but according to the latest CNN poll, his use of Twitter is alienating many Americans. A majority of respondents said that Trump s tweets are often misleading; 71 percent said that they are a risky way for a president to communicate and since that poll was taken, the former reality show star has tried to start a nuclear war, all because of his awful poll numbers.Featured image via Win McNamee/Getty Images | 0 |
9,288 | Sunday’s Massacre In Texas Bumped Columbine Out Of The Top Ten Deadliest US Mass Shootings | It s been more than 18 years, but anyone who was alive at the time will remember when they first heard the news that Eric David Harris, 18, and Dylan Bennet Klebold, 17, two students from Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, had shot and killed 12 of their fellow students, plus one teacher and wounded 21 additional people, before turning their guns on themselves in the school s library on that fateful morning of April 20, 1999. The pair were also packing almost 100 explosives in what USA Today described as a suicidal attack [that was] planned as a grand if badly implemented terrorist bombing. At the time it was almost impossible to conceive a greater tragedy, two lonely teenage outcasts feeling the need to take so many innocent young lives on just a regular day at school. Sure, there had been other mass-shootings of a greater scale, but Columbine is still the worst US high school shooting on record, was the second-worst mass-shooting on any school campus at the time behind the 1966 University of Texas massacre, and the fifth-worst mass-shooting on US soil.Fast-forward less than two decades later and the murder spree at Columbine High School no longer even cracks the top-10 when it comes to the worst single-day mass-shootings in modern US history. What makes the statistics even more terrifying is that the five worst mass-shootings in the United States and six of the top-10, have all occurred in the last 10 years. To make matters worse, three of the top-5 were in the past 18 months.Here are the 10 worst single-day mass-shootings in modern US history, counting victims only. In each instance, the shooter s death has been omitted.Which brings us to Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, and the Columbine High School massacre. To many, that is one of the worst tragedies the human mind can conjure up Just a couple of misunderstood teenagers who sought the justice of who they saw as their transgressors by running riot on their school and shooting at anyone in their path, resulting in 13 deaths, before killing themselves. This incident is no longer one of the 10 worst mass-shootings in modern US history, but something needs to be done before it drops any lower.Featured image via screenshot | 0 |
9,289 | Final tally in NZ election strengthens Labour in negotiation talks | WELLINGTON (Reuters) - A possible Labour-Green coalition narrowed the gap with the ruling National Party in New Zealand s final election tally, strengthening their position ahead of talks on Sunday with the small nationalist party which holds the balance of power. The final Sept. 23 election results released on Saturday showed National won 56 seats and Labour and Greens together took 54 seats, leaving them both reliant on New Zealand First s nine seats to meet the 61 seats needed for a majority in parliament in New Zealand s proportional representation system. National lost two seats to the Labour-Green bloc compared with preliminary results - a development which Labour leader Jacinda Ardern said buoyed their position at the negotiating table. We will continue our negotiations in earnest with potential support parties beginning this weekend, Ardern told reporters in Auckland. This now means that we have a strengthened mandate to negotiate and form a durable, stable coalition government. Ardern, 37, took over the Labour leadership nearly two months before the election, quickly drawing comparisons with youthful, cosmopolitan leaders like Canada s Justin Trudeau and France s Emmanuel Macron. She has almost single-handedly brought Labour to within reach of forming government. New Zealand First said in an emailed statement that it would hold discussions on Sunday with the National Party at midday and with the Labour Party in the afternoon. New Zealand First leader Winston Peters told local media that knowing the facts puts us in a better position to make judgements . Peters has said he would only make a decision on which party to back after the final tally and after the results become official on Oct. 12. Prime Minister Bill English told reporters in Queenstown that the final results did not change the nature of the negotiations, which would now likely focus on the economy. I don t think it weakens it significantly at all, he said, referring to National s negotiating position. The fundamentals haven t altered, and that is National has significantly more seats than Labour, we are larger than a Labour-Greens combination. If New Zealand First chooses to go with Labour, which are thought to have more in common in terms of policy, the gain in seats for the Labour-Greens bloc would make it easier for Peters to justify the move, analysts said. Both parties have said they want to curb immigration, renegotiate certain trade deals and adjust the role of the central bank albeit in different ways. If Labour, the Greens and NZ First had formed a government with a majority of one (seat)...that wouldn t have sat comfortably with many people, Richard Shaw, politics professor at Massey University, referring to preliminary results. A Labour, Greens, NZ First coalition would now hold a three-seat majority after the final tally. But some say Peters could be swayed to go to National given it would be a straightforward coalition between two parties. Peters, a veteran New Zealand politician who has now held the balance of power three times, has in past elections formed coalition governments with both the National Party and Labour. The National Party won 44.4 percent of the votes, the Labour Party 36.9 percent, New Zealand First 7.2 percent, the Green Party 6.3 percent. | 1 |
9,290 | Trump Insists His Muslim Ban Has Been ‘Going Smoothly’ (VIDEO) | Even though alleged president Donald Trump s executive order banning seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the U.S. has caused widespread panic, he told Fox News host Bill O Reilly on Sunday that the move was going smoothly. Trump s fake news facts failed to mention that his poorly worded order sent the world into chaos.When O Reilly asked the man-baby POTUS how the travel ban worked out following the executive order, Trump said, I think it was very smooth. You had 109 people out of hundreds of thousands of travelers and all we did was vet those people very, very carefully. Actually, that s not true and we re sure you re shocked. 60,000 visas were revoked following his Muslim ban.Press Secretary Sean Spicer also echoed Trump s claims previously that only 109 people were affected by his travel ban on the seven Muslim countries even though that claim was disproved.Facts matter:While DHS estimates suggest that around 375 travelers who were in transit were stranded or detained, thousands of refugees were put into limbo when Trump scuttled the U.S. refugee program.During the jaw-dropping interview in which even a Fox News host challenged him, Trump insisted multiple times that the executive order was implemented in a smooth fashion and only 109 people were affected.In that same interview, Trump was asked by the Fox News host why he respects Vladimir Putin. O Reilly said, He s a killer and the host was not lying. Still yet, Trump said, There are a lot of killers. You think our country s so innocent? Watch:President Trump Bannon also said he s against sanctuary cities.From there, Trump went into the same dangerous territory his team keeps venturing into. He wants to prove he won the popular vote, but he s doing so without proof. O Reilly told him he needs data to back him up his claim that 3 million people voted for in the 2016 U.S. presidential election illegally, Trump insisted that Mike Pence will set up a commission to investigate the widespread voter fraud which has already been debunked.Image via screen capture. | 0 |
9,291 | WATCH Trump’s Former Campaign Manager TOTALLY Forget That John Kerry Lost In 2004 | Corey Lewandowski is still beating the Trump drum on CNN, including defending Trump s campaign shakeup this late in the game. There s just one tiny problem he s doing so by comparing this shakeup to John Kerry s shakeup in 2004 and we all remember how that election turned out.The comments came just after now-former campaign chair Paul Manafort resigned from the campaign, which just strengthened all the talk that Trump is past the point of no return and cannot win this election no matter what he does. Lewandowski tried to counter that by saying: This campaign is not the first campaign to make staff changes. If you look at John Kerry s campaign, when he was running, he was making changes as late as Labor Day, and don t forget we re still in August No, I understand, but the change in 2004 that John Kerry made helped him actually do significantly better than what he was doing. So? Kerry still lost. There is no getting around that fact. Kerry lost by about 3 million votes and 35 electoral votes. Yes, it was a close election, but really? He still lost and we still got four more years of George W. Bush. It s hard to imagine that anybody of Lewandowski s age and background doesn t see that.This is the kind of ignorance that s pervading Trump s campaign. Things have gotten so pathetically bad that there are people saying the polls don t matter because his social media followings are huge and attendance at his rallies is huge. Tens of millions don t attend his rallies, and it should be patently obvious that his social media following is very heavily biased.Lewandowski is a perfect Trump proxy with his head full of cotton. The main difference between him and those currently on Trump s staff is that the cotton filling their heads is a little more coarse. Watch him completely screw up history below:Featured image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images | 0 |
9,292 | Republicans seek to question FBI officials in Clinton probe: letter | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two Republican lawmakers told the U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday that they want to question three senior FBI officials about an investigation of then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton over her handling of classified information while she was secretary of state. The lawmakers, who are leading a joint probe into the Clinton investigation, said in a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, that they wanted to speak with FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, FBI Chief of Staff Jim Rybicki and FBI counsel Lisa Page beginning on Thursday. The FBI declined to comment on the letter and referred reporters to the Justice Department. The request to meet the FBI officials for “transcribed interviews” was made after Republicans obtained more than 300 text messages sent last year between Page and FBI agent Peter Strzok critical of then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. The text messages called him an “idiot” and “a loathsome human,” among other things, according to copies reviewed by Reuters. Strzok later worked for Special Counsel Robert Mueller as part of the investigation into Russian efforts to interfere in the U.S. election and ties between Russian officials and the Trump campaign. Moscow denies U.S. allegations of election meddling and Trump denies any campaign collusion. Strzok, who helped lead the investigation of Clinton’s handling of classified material, was removed from Mueller’s team after the special counsel became aware of the texts critical of Trump. Republican lawmakers have attacked Mueller, expressing concern about potential bias among his investigators. But Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has testified to lawmakers that he was “not aware” of any impropriety by Mueller’s team. Representative Bob Goodlatte, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Representative Trey Gowdy, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, are conducting a joint review of the FBI’s handling of the Clinton investigation. In their letter to Sessions and Rosenstein, they said they were looking into several decisions by the FBI during the Clinton investigation, including then-FBI Director James Comey’s decision not refer Clinton’s case for prosecution. | 1 |
9,293 | YIKES! HILLARY CAMPAIGN In State Of Panic…Campaign Events Being Cancelled Due To Lack Of Volunteers [VIDEO] | The enthusiasm for Hillary is well underwhelming to say the least. Two of Hillary s campaign events in Akron, OH were cancelled today due to lack of volunteers (interest in her campaign).Watch: | 0 |
9,294 | life ways they truly were the greatest generation | email
for friends and family who loved him dearly the death of robert harkin in early august was sudden and unexpected but despite their sadness they can take comfort in knowing that his legacy will live on his sister karen has taken over his facebook page and honors her brother by continuing to share islamophobic rhetoric in his memory
absolutely beautiful
they rarely chose to talk about politics while he was alive but karen has been able to reconnect with her brother since his death by discovering his fear and hatred of islam its been a steep learning curve but in time shes been able to understand so much about what he cared about most and she now feels closer to him than ever the threat syrian refugees pose to our freedom the politicians who willingly turn a blind eye to the rising threat of islamic terrorismall of the bigoted beliefs that made robert who he was
since picking up the mantle of his facebook account karen has committed to maintaining the xenophobia that exemplified her brothers life when time magazine ran a story about a muslim woman who felt unsafe in america karen understood right away that robert would want to share the article with the comment maybe shed feel more safe if she moved to saudia arabia where she can practice sharia law with the rest of them sometimes a sister just knows
for those who were close to robert seeing a backwards misinformed post decrying the spread of radical islam is like being with him again his page is a place where those who knew him can come share a memory and talk about the spread of sharia lawexactly what robert would have wanted whenever she posts about the inherent violence in the muslim faith karen takes comfort in knowing that with every like and share her brother remains a vibrant part of peoples lives
in the wake of roberts death i think everyone was just looking for a place to see hateful rhetoric says karen who remembers her brother by spending two to three hours per day scouring the internet for signs of a larger islamic conspiracy i miss him every day but as long as i continue to invite his facebook friends to like a group whose mission is to block the construction of mosques in america its like hes still here
wow if only everyone had such a devoted sister wherever he is robert must be resting easy knowing his sister is there to share his hateful paranoid beliefs with the world | 0 |
9,295 | IS CONSERVATIVE NEWS BEING PUNISHED For Trump Win? FACEBOOK Developing Feature To Promote “Handpicked” News, Videos In Users News Feeds | Breitbart News is now reporting that Facebook is developing a feature that will promote content in people s news feeds from publishers specifically chosen by the company, according to a report from Business Insider.The feature, which will be known as Collections, will reportedly promote news stories, videos, and other content from publishers handpicked by Facebook.Business Insider, who say they have spoken to people involved in the project as well as seeing internal Facebook documentation, reports that Facebook are planning on approaching their preferred media companies in the coming weeks.As a result of the Collections system, partner companies chosen by Facebook will achieve a far greater reach to Facebook s 1.8 billion user base than they would normally.In the run up the election, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz gave over $35 million to left-wing causes in an attempt to defeat Donald Trump, whilst Hillary Clinton was the largest single beneficary of political donations from Facebook employees.The development comes following hysteria surrounding the rise of fake news, with many people blaming the role of social media, particularly Facebook, for the election of Donald Trump. The idea that fake news on Facebook, of which it s a very small amount of the content, influenced the election is a pretty crazy idea, Zuckerberg said at the time. Breitbart | 0 |
9,296 | iraqi forces score major gains south of mosul | on today at pm duterte wants foreign troops out of philippines in years october by andreo calonzo bloomberg philippines will survive without us help he says in japan no talks with china about military alliance duterte says logged | 1 |
9,297 | U.S. nuclear commander says assuming North Korea tested hydrogen bomb | OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE, Neb. (Reuters) - The U.S. general who oversees America s nuclear forces said on Thursday he was making the assumption that North Korea did in fact test a hydrogen bomb on Sept. 3, crossing a key threshold in its weapons development efforts. Although Pyongyang immediately claimed it successfully tested a hydrogen bomb, the United States had previously declined to characterize it. Air Force General John Hyten, head of the U.S. military s Strategic Command, however, said he had a responsibility, as a military officer responsible for responding to the test, to assume that it was a hydrogen bomb, based on the size of the blast. I m assuming it was a hydrogen bomb. I have to make that assumption as a military officer, Hyten told a small group of reporters who were accompanying Defense Secretary Jim Mattie on a trip to Hyten s headquarters in Nebraska. I m not a nuclear scientist, so I can t tell you this is how it worked, this is what the bomb was. ... But I can tell you the size that we observed and saw tends to me to indicate that it was a hydrogen bomb and I have to figure out what the right response is with our allies as to that kind of event. The North Korean nuclear test, its sixth and by far most powerful, prompted the U.N. Security Council to step up sanctions. It followed a series of North Korean missile tests, including one that flew over Japan and another that the U.S. assessed to be an inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM). South Korea s military said shortly after Hyten s remarks that North Korea fired an unidentified missile eastward from the Sunan district in its capital, Pyongyang. A hydrogen bomb usually uses a primary atomic bomb to trigger a secondary, much larger explosion. Such a weapon, with the first stage based on nuclear fission - splitting atoms - and the second on nuclear fusion, produces a blast that is much more power than traditional atomic bombs, or pure fission devices. The sheer destruction and damage that you can create with a weapon that size is significantly of a concern, Hyten said. Hyten said that despite the nuclear and missile tests, North Korea still had not demonstrated that it had a reliable ICBM that could deliver a nuclear warhead. But he noted it was only a matter of time before its scientists achieved that, given the pace of testing. It s just a matter of when, not if, he said, adding it could be months or years. Experts doubt that President Donald Trump, like his predecessors, will be able to force North Korea to abandon its nuclear program through economic or diplomatic pressure. Current and former U.S. officials have declined to comment on operational planning but acknowledge that no existing plan for a preemptive strike could promise to prevent a brutal counterattack by North Korea, which has thousands of artillery pieces and rockets trained on Seoul. That raises the question of whether the United States might be able to live with a nuclear-armed threat from North Korea. A senior Trump administration official, speaking to reporters last week on condition of anonymity, said it was unclear whether the Cold War-era deterrence model that Washington used with the Soviet Union could be applied to a rogue state like North Korea, adding: I don t think the president wants to take that chance. Hyten, who would command U.S. forces in a nuclear war, expressed confidence in the U.S. nuclear deterrent. Do we have the ability to deter North Korea from developing capabilities that could potentially threaten us? That s a different question, he said. But do I, U.S. Strategic Command, have the ability for the United States to deter an adversary from attacking the United States with nuclear weapons? Yes. Because they know the response is going to be the destruction of their entire nation. | 1 |
9,298 | Honduras opposition parties ask for disputed election to be annulled | TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - Honduras two main opposition parties on Friday presented formal requests to annul the results of the still-unresolved presidential election, deepening a political crisis that has roiled the poor, violent Central American nation. The Nov. 26 vote has been marred by accusations of electoral fraud, sparking protests, a widespread curfew and a growing chorus of international concern over the situation in Honduras, which has one of the world s highest murder rates. Opposition leader Salvador Nasralla, who trails conservative President Juan Orlando Hernandez by 1.6 percentage points according to the widely criticized official count, arrived at the election tribunal shortly before the midnight deadline to present his center-left coalition s request. We re asking for the result to be declared null at the presidential level, due to the scandalous fraud we have discovered, Nasralla said. Earlier, Octavio Pineda, the secretary of the third-placed Liberal Party, presented a similar document, saying the vote should be annulled due to a violation of constitutional norms. There have been violations since the president of the republic was allowed to participate in the electoral process when the constitution prohibited it, Pineda said. The Liberal Party s candidate, Luis Zelaya, has repeatedly said Nasralla won the election. Hernandez s bid for a second term, which was made possible by a 2015 Supreme Court decision on term limits, divided opinion in the coffee-exporting nation of 9 million people. The election has been plagued with problems since voting stations closed. The tribunal declared Nasralla the leader in an announcement on the morning after the vote, with just over half of the ballot boxes counted. However, it gave no further updates for about 36 hours. Once results then started flowing again, Nasralla s lead quickly started narrowing, sparking a major outcry. On Thursday, tribunal chief David Matamoros said there would be a re-count of 4,753 ballot boxes that arrived after the 36-hour pause, and which the opposition has claimed are tainted. The OAS, which on Wednesday said it may call for new elections if irregularities undermine the credibility of results, had previously called for a recount of those 4,753 ballot boxes. Marlon Ochoa, Nasralla s campaign manager, reiterated that the coalition wants a full recount of the complete 18,000-odd ballot boxes. On Wednesday, Nasralla said he no longer recognized the Honduran tribunal because of its role in the process. The tribunal has 10 days to respond to the requests. | 1 |
9,299 | After Pepsi Botched Its Ad Campaign, Heineken Gets Theirs Exactly Right (VIDEO) | A few weeks ago, Pepsi decided to try to bridge the racial divide with what someone must have thought was a great idea. They ran an ad featuring Kendall Jenner, who, in the ad, tried to show police and African-Americans that their lives matter by letting a cop drink Pepsi.Here it is:The internet hated it (which might have been the point):Within 48 hours the video got nearly 1.6 million views on YouTube (five times as many downvotes as upvotes), and Twitter and Facebook lit up with people pointing out just how gauche the whole thing was. Activist DeRay Mckesson called it trash, adding If I had carried Pepsi I guess I never would ve gotten arrested. Who knew? People made memes (some even reaching back and evoking Pepper Spray Cop). And, rightfully, many folks pointed out that using protest imagery in order to peddle soda particularly images that evoked the photo of Ieshia Evans facing down police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana last year was pretty tasteless. It was one of the few times the internet ever agreed on anything.Source: WiredWhether in response to Pepsi s ad that never should have been, or whether this began organically, Heineken beer had their own version of an ad that addresses the political divide, but they got it right.In an experiment, they had complete strangers who would hate each other under normal circumstances, and put them in situations that created bonding. Guess how it ends. Here it is:It won the internet..@Heineken just dropped an ad that actually brings people together Pepsi, take note #OpenYourWorld https://t.co/e72swZQQp6 Hayley Jones (@meetmissjoness) April 27, 2017Brilliant. @Heineken. https://t.co/9ZAe83adOx pic.twitter.com/gIWy1440gn Navid Mokhberi (@navidmg) April 27, 2017Watch Heineken School Pepsi on How To Advertise to Gen Z (It s A Lesson For Every Brand) https://t.co/BHkn7rv8I3 pic.twitter.com/orYR4q9OTg ?DENKYUU MEDIA? (@DenkyuuMedia) April 27, 2017Omg can we be a Heineken school instead of a Pepsi school stretched thin (@DomzNoriega) April 27, 2017Well done, @Heineken. Can we put a bar inside Congress, please? https://t.co/bKqS3CWI94 Ignacio Contreras (@IgnacioTechie) April 27, 2017It even got the attention of some celebrities:This is brilliant. This is what it s ALL ABOUT. Go @Heineken https://t.co/EdYp9opkmR Sarah Silverman (@SarahKSilverman) April 26, 2017Not everyone loved it, though.That heineken ad never ok to out a trans person. We could LITERALLY be assaulted, murdered, raped, lose jobs etc b/c you opened your mouth TheBlackDorianGray (@QueeringPsych) April 27, 2017Even with a few dissenters (we found one), the ad did what it set out to do bridge divides.Featured image via screen capture from embedded video | 0 |
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