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9,500 | Asian-American judges among Obama's options as he seeks to replace Scalia | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama has a number of likely options as he looks for a nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on Saturday. Within a few hours, Obama said he intends to make a nomination, despite Republicans stressing they opposed any appointment being made until after November’s presidential election. The Republican-controlled U.S. Senate would have to approve the nomination. If Obama’s nominee is not confirmed by the Senate, the White House could use the process to energize Democratic voters ahead of the presidential and congressional elections in November. If a Democratic nominee were to replace Scalia it would lead to a sizable shift in the ideological balance of the high court, which has had a conservative majority for decades. Here are some of the possibilities, including two prominent Asian-American judges: Sri Srinivasan Among those the administration could turn to is Sri Srinivasan, 48, who has served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since May 2013. He would be the first Indian-American on the court and has impeccable bipartisan credentials. The Senate confirmed him on a 97-0 vote three years ago. He was a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, now retired, a 1981 appointee of Republican President Ronald Reagan. At Srinivasan’s confirmation hearing, Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz, now a presidential candidate, described himself as a long-standing friend dating back to their time together as law clerks in the U.S. appeals court based in Richmond, Virginia. Cruz said Srinivasan had done a “very fine job” in answering the committee’s questions. During his nomination to the appeals court, prominent Republicans such as former U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson supported Srinivasan. At his 2013 investiture, leading lights of the legal establishment from both parties praised him. Federal appeals court judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, a Reagan appointee for whom Srinivasan was also a law clerk, called him “lightning smart.” So far on the appeals court, his rulings have not sparked controversy. Jacqueline Nguyen Other names the administration could consider include Jacqueline Nguyen, 50, a Vietnamese-American who has been a judge on the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals since May 2012. The first Asian-American woman to sit on a federal appeals court, she was confirmed by the Senate in 2012 by a 91-3 vote. When she was a child, Nguyen fled South Vietnam with her family toward the close of the Vietnam War in 1975, and then lived in a refugee camp in California. Nguyen was a federal prosecutor and district court judge in Los Angeles before she was elevated to the appeals court. Paul Watford An African-American who is also a judge on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Paul Watford is another possibility. He was an appellate litigator at the Munger, Tolles & Olson law firm before Obama nominated him to the appeals court in 2011. Watford, 48, clerked for 9th Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski, a libertarian-leaning Republican, and for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of Scalia’s colleagues on the Supreme Court. He was confirmed by a 61-34 vote, as some Republicans raised concerns about Watford’s work as a lawyer on immigration and death penalty cases. Jane Kelly Jane Kelly, a white woman and former public defender who has served on the St. Louis, Missouri-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals since April 2013. She was supported by Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the key committee that would review the nominee. Kelly, 51, clerked for now-retired Judge David Hansen, a friend of Grassley’s who served on the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. She was confirmed by the Senate on a 96-0 vote. | 1 |
9,501 | Bill Clinton portrays Hillary as 'change-maker' in speech to Democrats | PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Former President Bill Clinton portrayed his wife Hillary on Tuesday as a dynamic force for change and a longtime fighter for social justice as he made a case for her historic 2016 bid for the White House. The ex-president told the Democratic Party convention in Philadelphia that Hillary Clinton was “a natural leader” with an in-built sense of responsibility. “Hillary is uniquely qualified to seize the opportunities and reduce the risks we face, and she is still the best darn change-maker I have ever known,” he said. Earlier in the day, Hillary Clinton secured the Democratic Party’s nomination for the Nov. 8 election, coming back from a stinging 2008 defeat in her first White House run and surviving a bitter primary fight to become the first woman to head the ticket of a major party in U.S. history. Bill Clinton told the convention in a keynote speech that Hillary had been an activist for social justice since the couple’s early days as law students together. He told how she gave legal aid services to poor people and went undercover to expose a segregationist school in Alabama in the 1970s. After a tough battle with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders during the state-by-state nominating contests, Clinton is now the party’s standard-bearer against Republican nominee Donald Trump. Bill Clinton said Republicans led by Trump had made Hillary out to be “a cartoon” but the real thing was nothing like the their portrayal of her. “They’re running against a cartoon. Cartoons are two-dimensional, they’re easy to absorb. Life in the real world is complicated and real change is hard, and a lot of people even think it’s boring,” he said. Then speaking directly to the crowd, he said to cheers and applause: “Good for you because earlier today you nominated the real one.” President from 1993 to 2001, Bill Clinton, 69, left office with high approval ratings and is known as one of the most powerful political orators in the country. His speech offered an unusual twist to the warm spousal endorsement of a presidential candidate traditionally given in party conventions by a wife, not a man - let alone a former president of the United States. Hillary Clinton’s nomination was a milestone in America’s 240-year-old history. U.S. women got the right to vote in 1920 after ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. Supporters of Hillary Clinton say her Washington credentials show she has the experience needed for the White House during troubled times as the United States tries to speed up its economic recovery and faces security challenges abroad. Detractors view her as too cozy with the establishment and say she carries political baggage dating back to the start of Bill Clinton’s first White House term in the 1990s. | 1 |
9,502 | BREAKING: DOJ To Seek Death Penalty For Charleston Church Shooter | Almost a year ago, a deranged white supremacist went into an historic Black church in Charleston, South Carolina and killed nine people, including the pastor who was also a state senator. To make things worse, the gunman, Dylann Roof, sat with the parishioners at their Wednesday night Bible study and worshipped with them after they welcomed him into their midst. Then, he went on a bloody massacre after expressing that racist hatred was the reason for his carrying out the crime.Now, nearly a year later, federal prosecutors are looking to seek the death penalty against Roof for his deadly rampage. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said that her review of Roof s crimes was rigorous before she made the decision to attempt to have him executed. Lynch went on to say that the nature of the alleged crime and the resulting harm compelled this decision. Authorities say that the following factors make the case eligible for the ultimate punishment:The victims families were informed of the decision to move forward with the death penalty on the federal charges via a conference call. Steve Schmutz, who is the legal representative of three of those families, says of the decision: The families will support this decision. Really, I think the families have mixed emotions about the death penalty. But if it s ever going to be given, this case certainly calls for it. He is right, of course. Prior to going on his killing spree, Roof wrote a long, hate-filled, rambling manifesto that is arguably one of the most hateful documents ever posted on the internet. There s no doubt in anyone s mind as to what he did and why.Now, personally, I am usually 100% against the death penalty. State sanctioned killing is barbaric, and there have been too many botched executions to truly support it here. Murdering a murderer makes us no better than he is, especially if it is done in an inhumane and torturous way. However, if anyone deserves it, it is this piece of shit. This guy literally murdered people due to the color of their skin, and no other reason. Further, he picked the historic Emanuel AME Church so that he could magnify the societal impact of his horrific crime. He knew the history of Charleston with regards to the freeing of slaves and the liberation of Black people, and he knew the history of that church.This one is difficult for me. As a liberal, I don t support the death penalty. But, as a Black woman living in South Carolina, I know the level of racism present here. This is one time I really can t say that Loretta Lynch or anyone else is wrong.Rot in hell, Dylann Roof. It s definitely where you belong.Featured image via screen capture from Twitter | 0 |
9,503 | Obama visits a mosque to send pointed message to non-Muslims | CATONSVILLE, Md. (Reuters) - President Barack Obama made his first visit to a U.S. mosque on Wednesday, in an effort to allay the fears of Americans accustomed to pop-culture portrayals of Muslims as terrorists, and to reassure Muslim American youth about their place in the nation. Obama, declaring that attacks on Islam were an attack on all religions, decried the “inexcusable political rhetoric” against Muslims from Donald Trump and other Republican presidential candidates. “We have to understand that an attack on one faith is an attack on all our faiths,” he said at the mosque outside of Baltimore, which he said had received threats twice in the past year. “When any religious group is targeted, we all have a responsibility to speak up.” Trump, the Republican front-runner, called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States after authorities described a California couple who killed 14 people last December as radicalized Muslims inspired by Islamic State militants. Obama’s visit was aimed at showing Americans another side of Islam. Before he spoke, Cub Scouts who attend a school run by the mosque carried the American and Maryland state flags into the prayer hall, a plain room save for a three rows of window panes, 99 in all, each depicting one of the names of Allah in Arabic. “Think of your own church or synagogue or temple, and a mosque like this will be very familiar,” said Obama, who, following Islamic custom, took off his shoes to enter the hall. The children led the audience, with some men in prayer caps and most women in head scarves, in the Pledge of Allegiance. A man and a woman recited a verse from the Koran about tolerance and inclusion. Obama, a Christian, outlined the tenets of Islam, and gave a brief history of Muslims in America. He noted that founding father Thomas Jefferson specifically mentioned Muslims when he spoke about the American right to freedom of religion. “Thomas Jefferson’s opponents tried to stir things up by suggesting he was a Muslim, so I was not the first,” said Obama, who has long been accused of secretly being a Muslim, to a roar of laugher. “I’m in good company,” he said. Obama asked a row of Muslim American military service members to stand, as well as Ibtihaj Muhammad, a member of the U.S. fencing team who will be the first American Olympian to compete in a hijab, or head scarf, in this year’s Rio Olympics. The president touched on pop-culture depictions of Muslims as terrorists. “Our television shows should have some Muslim characters that are unrelated to national security, Obama said. Turning to extremist groups such as Islamic State and what he characterized as perverted versions of Islam portrayed by them, Obama urged regular Muslims to “show who you are. To use a little Christian expression - let your light shine.” Later, he told a crowd of cheering children, who had packed the mosque’s gymnasium to watch his speech on large screens, that one day they too could become president. Obama urged young Muslims not to embrace a worldview that required them to choose between faith and patriotism. “You fit in here. Right here,” he said. “You’re not Muslim or American. You’re Muslim and American.” | 1 |
9,504 | Senate Republicans gain moment on tax reform budget measure | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Republicans on Monday gained crucial support for a vote on a budget resolution that is vital to President Donald Trump’s hopes of signing sweeping tax reform legislation into law before January. Two Republican lawmakers, once seen as potential ‘no’ votes, said they would likely support the measure. A third, Senator Rand Paul, may vote ‘yes’ depending on what the final resolution looks like. “I am leaning ‘yes’,” Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska told reporters as the chamber prepared for what is expected to be a late Thursday vote on the fiscal 2018 spending blueprint. Senator Susan Collins of Maine announced on Sunday that she will likely vote ‘yes.’ Both the Senate and House of Representatives must agree on a budget resolution to unlock a legislative tool known as reconciliation that Republicans need to move tax legislation through the Senate without support from Democrats. After failing to overturn Obamacare earlier this year, Republicans must pass legislation to cut taxes for businesses and individuals or face a backlash from their constituents in next year’s congressional midterm election campaign. Though Murkowski said her final decision would depend on what amendments are added to the budget, her qualified support reduces the possibility of failure. Murkowski was one of three Republicans who sank the Senate healthcare bill in July. Paul of Kentucky told reporters there is a possibility he will vote yes. “We’re in discussions on it. We’re trying to get it to a document that we think represents what we stand for,” Paul said. Without a budget and reconciliation, Republicans would need 60 votes in the Senate, where they hold a 52-48 majority. Republicans usually can lose no more than two votes. But with Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi ill, their margin of error for the budget has shrunk to only one “no” vote. Earlier, the White House released a report saying middle-class Americans would eventually see their incomes rise more than $4,000 from the Trump plan to cut the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent. Democrats have lambasted the Trump tax plan as a giveaway for the wealthy. Trump fired back in a separate tweet on Monday: “The Democrats only want to increase taxes and obstruct. That’s all they are good at!” | 1 |
9,505 | Air strikes kill 69 in Syrian east since Sunday: Observatory | BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said air strikes likely to have been carried out by Russian warplanes have killed 69 people since Sunday near the Euphrates River in the eastern Syrian province of Deir al-Zor. The Russian defense ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on Tuesday s report by the Britain-based monitoring group. The Observatory, which identified the victims as civilians, said the air strikes hit civilian encampments on the western bank of the Euphrates and vessels crossing the river to the eastern side. Separately, Syrian state television said on Tuesday Islamic State militants have been using the river to flee the city of Deir al-Zor. With heavy artillery and machineguns, the Syrian army struck rafts carrying militants and crossing the Euphrates to the eastern side, it reported. Islamic State s only escape route out of the city is through rafts on the river, and, God willing, we will target them in the water before they get away, a field commander in Deir al-Zor told state TV. | 1 |
9,506 | Clinton names close confidants, Obama veterans to transition team | WASHINGTON/PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Hillary Clinton’s White House transition team, a mix of former advisers of President Barack Obama, close confidants, long-time colleagues and former elected officials, reflects the sense of careful organization the Democratic candidate has aimed to project in her presidential campaign. But her Republican rival, Donald Trump, could seize on the group to make the point that she is part of the establishment he aims to defeat in November’s election, and to reiterate his charge that a Clinton administration would be an Obama “third term.” The group, which the Clinton campaign named on Tuesday and which will lay the groundwork for her to take charge quickly if she wins, is evidence of Clinton’s long experience in Washington as a former secretary of state, U.S. senator and first lady. Transition teams aim to help the president-elect make key decisions during the period between the election and the inauguration, in this case from Nov. 8 to Jan. 20, so the new White House occupant can fill leadership posts quickly. “They are the names you would expect – people who have been advising her for a long time; people who have worked with her for a long time and people who are peers, who she respects,” Matt Bennett of the moderate Democratic group Third Way said of Clinton’s transition team. The group will be headed by Ken Salazar, a former interior secretary and U.S. senator. He will lead four co-chairs: former Obama national security adviser Tom Donilon; former Obama aide Neera Tanden, who now leads the progressive think tank the Center for American Progress; former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm and Maggie Williams, the director of Harvard’s Institute of Politics. Heather Boushey, the executive director of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, will be the chief economist. Two additional policy advisers from Clinton’s campaign, Ed Meier and Ann O’Leary, will also move full-time to the transition team, the campaign said in a statement. The transition team does not necessarily reflect future policy. “The job here is to give options, not just say there is one policy course you want to take,” said Democratic strategist Bob Shrum, who advised the presidential campaigns of Al Gore and John Kerry. Clinton would be the first woman elected to the U.S. presidency and Shrum said Clinton’s team “has got to be the first transition team in history where the majority of its members are women.” Shrum added that Clinton is largely following Obama’s template as he prepared for his transition after the 2008 election. Tanden, who played a key role in shaping Obama’s health care overhaul, is a member of Clinton’s tight-knit inner circle, and has also worked for her husband, former President Bill Clinton. Williams was the 1992 transition director for Clinton when she became first lady, and then her chief of staff in the White House. Clinton worked closely with Donilon when she led the State Department from 2009-2013. Granholm, the former governor, is also a former state attorney general and has years of experience in Democratic politics. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee applauded the selection of O’Leary and Boushey, praising their economic positions. The environmental group Greenpeace criticized Salazar for not curbing fracking in his home state of Colorado. The announcement of the team came as Clinton has gained momentum in the opinion polls, with the current RealClearPolitics average of national polls showing her 6.7 points ahead, at 47.7 percent to Trump’s 41 percent. Trump’s campaign has struggled after he made a string of controversial remarks since formally winning his party’s nomination last month. More establishment Republicans, alarmed by Trump’s inability or unwillingness to rein in his provocative remarks, have distanced themselves from the candidate in recent weeks. The Wall Street Journal, a leading conservative voice, said in an editorial on Monday that he should fix his campaign in the next three weeks or hand over to his running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence. Trump, a New York businessman who has never held elected office, picked New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to head his transition team in May. | 1 |
9,507 | FLASHBACK: NANCY PELOSI Makes Outrageous Claim About Trump And “Guns, God, And Gays [Video] | What a disgusting, out of touch racist she is. The Democratic Party does nothing other than play identity politics and further divide the country. | 0 |
9,508 | Nicaragua will join Paris climate pact, leaving U.S., Syria isolated | (Reuters) - Nicaragua is set to join the Paris climate agreement, according to an official statement and comments from Vice President Rosario Murillo on Monday, in a move that leaves the United States and Syria as the only nations outside the global pact. Nicaragua has already presented the relevant documents at the United Nations, Murillo, who is also first lady, said on local radio on Monday. It is the only instrument we have in the world that allows the unity of intentions and efforts to face up to climate change and natural disasters, Murillo said. U.S. President Donald Trump said in June he would withdraw the United States from the accord, and Nicaragua s decision to enter the pact means only two countries will now be outside it - the world s No. 1 economy and war-torn Syria. Nicaragua, a poor Central American nation that is often threatened by hurricanes, was the only nation to reject the agreement in 2015, and has argued for far more drastic action to limit rising temperatures. The Paris accord, agreed by nearly 200 countries two years ago, seeks to limit planetary warming by curbing global emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that scientists believe drive global warming. The administration of former U.S. President Barack Obama had pledged deep emissions cuts as part of the deal, but his successor, Trump, has said the accord would cost America trillions of dollars, kill jobs, and hinder the oil, gas, coal and manufacturing industries. Island nation Fiji will host the next round of U.N. climate talks from Nov. 6-17 in Bonn, Germany, where environment ministers from around the world will work on a set of international guidelines for the Paris accord. The latest round of negotiations take place after a string of powerful hurricanes ravaged Caribbean island nations and caused billions of dollars in damage along the Texas and Florida coastlines. Climate scientists have said warmer air and water resulting from climate change may have contributed to the severity of the storms. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has disputed such claims as an attempt to politicize natural disasters. | 1 |
9,509 | Sarah Palin Crushes Ted Cruz After He Correctly Identifies Her As An Idiot (IMAGE) | This GOP civil war just keeps getting more entertaining.Sarah Palin helped create Ted Cruz by endorsing him for the Senate in 2012 and now she is destroying him four years later after he called Trump supporters such as herself low information voters. Basically, he called Palin stupid and she threw a hissy fit about it. You know, because the truth hurts.Anyway, America s village idiot took aim at Cruz on her Facebook page in a rant shredding the Texas Senator with the same slams that have been used against her in years past. Calling GOP frontrunner supporters low information disengaged voters, Ted Cruz s insinuation reeks of all the reasons America knows the status quo has got to go , Palin wrote. The arrogance of career politicians is something at which the rest of us chuckle, but Cruz s latest dig strays from humorous into downright nasty. And then really let him have it. Where s information on any Cruz success whilst in his short, half-term U.S. Senate seat, proving his resume s advantage over another career politicians s lawyerly executive inexperience that includes never having created a single private sector job, but boasting of his constitutional law teacher creds? (Remember America experimented with that resume before; how d that work out for the country?) Then she proceeded to list even more reasons why Cruz is a bad candidate, including his association with Glenn Beck, her mortal enemy. She also threw Carly Fiorina in his face by quoting her word for word on how she felt about Cruz prior to endorsing him.Info on consistency with his big endorsement this week, as Carly tells it like it is so very recently? Ted Cruz is just like any other politician. He says one thing in Manhattan, he says another thing in Iowa. He says whatever he needs to say to get elected, and then he s going to do as he pleases. I think people are tired of a political class that promises much and delivers much of the same. Carly Fiorina 1/2/16Here s the full post via Facebook.// < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); // ]]>GOP Majority Voters in Primary are Wayyyyyy Beneath Cruz, So Says Posted by Sarah Palin on Thursday, March 10, 2016This hasn t been the best day for Ted Cruz. In the 24 hours, Cruz has been the butt of one of President Obama s jokes, called out as a liar by Donald Trump at the GOP Debate, and has now been trashed by the queen of the Tea party trailer park. I think we can all agree we need more popcorn if this feud continues.Featured image: Flickr/Flickr | 0 |
9,510 | European politicians wary on Republican convention over Trump | BERLIN (Reuters) - Britain’s Nigel Farage will be at the Republican convention in Cleveland next week to dole out lessons from his Brexit campaign. So will Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch Freedom Party, who sees Donald Trump as an ally in his crusade to prevent an “Islamization” of the West. But some mainstream European conservatives who have traveled to previous Republican gatherings admit in private to being horrified at the prospect of a Trump presidency and are boycotting this year’s spectacle, which runs from July 18-21. Many of the center-right politicians making the trip from Europe admit to secretly rooting for Trump’s Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. They are going not to support Trump, they say, but to witness “the Donald” in the flesh and experience what is shaping up to be one of the rowdiest, most unpredictable Republican conventions in decades. “We will see whether Trump can reinvent himself at the convention,” Guenter Krings, a senior lawmaker from German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives who will make the trip with just one other Bundestag colleague, told Reuters. “One can only hope so, but I have my doubts.” Politicians from around the world are invited every four years to attend the Republican and Democratic conventions as part of a formal visitors program that includes briefings with campaign managers, pollsters and foreign policy experts. They also spend time in the main convention hall. This year, nearly 120 politicians from center-right parties outside the United States are expected, roughly half of them from Europe. Trump’s candidacy has presented European parties with traditional links to U.S. Republicans with a dilemma. Many view his positions — on issues like immigration, security, trade and the divisive Brexit question — as closer to those of upstart far-right parties whose rise they are struggling to contain. Four years ago, when Mitt Romney was the Republican candidate, the center-right European People’s Party (EPP), the largest grouping in the European Parliament, sent a delegation of eight members to Tampa. This year there will be no EPP delegation because no-one from the group expressed an interest in attending. Despite the wariness, there is a reluctance to criticize the famously thin-skinned Trump too openly, in part out of fear he could win the election in November and punish his foreign critics, as he threatened to do when David Cameron, the recently departed British prime minister, slammed Trump’s proposal for a temporary U.S. ban on Muslims as “divisive, stupid and wrong”. While the conservative mainstream is leery, Europe’s array of nationalist, anti-immigration parties seem fascinated by Trump, even if some are uneasy about embracing the New York real estate businessman, who has vowed to “make America great again”. A spokesman for Britain’s UKIP party in Brussels confirmed that Farage would attend to “give them some lessons” on Brexit. And Wilders told Reuters that he would be in Cleveland and wanted to meet Trump there. “I hope Donald Trump becomes America’s next president,” Wilders said. “Such a victory would be good for Europe. America and Europe are threatened by the same danger of cultural relativism and Islam.” Austria’s far-right Freedom Party, France’s National Front and the Alternative for Germany (AfD) are not planning to send anyone to Cleveland, the parties said. “We are neutral,” Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache told Reuters when asked if he supported Trump. “He defends American interests. He is saying some things that need to be said.”Also absent will be Italy’s Northern League, whose leader Matteo Salvini describes himself as an enthusiastic Trump fan but learned earlier this year that the admiration was not necessarily mutual. Salvini traveled to Pennsylvania in April to attend a Trump rally. He was photographed shaking hands with the Republican candidate and his party said Trump had endorsed Salvini to become Italian prime minister. But a month later, Trump denied in an interview ever having met Salvini and said he had no interest in doing so. Eirik Moen of the International Democrat Union, which coordinates trips to the convention by center-right politicians across the world, said that numbers could be dented this year because countries like Britain, Spain and Australia are in the midst of political transitions, making it difficult for some to travel. Still, eight British Conservatives who sit in the European Parliament are expected to be in Cleveland. On the continent, France’s main center-right party, les Republicains, is not sending a delegation. And the contingent from Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) is unusually small. In Germany, political debate is conducted in a sober, reserved manner and personal attacks are rare, even during election campaigns. Hence the mix of shock and horror at the tone of the U.S. race. Trump has dismissed Merkel as “insane” for letting hundreds of thousands of refugees into the country. And his idea to build a wall along the Mexican border elicits shudders in Berlin, a city that was divided by its own wall for nearly three decades and will celebrate the 27th anniversary of its fall a day after U.S. voters cast their ballots on Nov. 8. “Many of Donald Trump’s positions — for example his stance toward Muslims, toward immigration from Mexico and gun ownership — are simply not compatible with the positions of the conservatives and other parties in Germany,” said Juergen Hardt, a CDU lawmaker who also acts as the government’s coordinator for transatlantic relations. Hardt said he is planning to go on vacation with his family next week and won’t be able to attend the convention. | 1 |
9,511 | Trump pledges to move quickly to name new FBI director | WASHINGTON/LYNCHBURG, Va. (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Saturday he will move quickly to nominate a new FBI director, after he sparked a political firestorm by firing the man investigating possible collusion between Russia and the Trump presidential campaign. Trump told reporters he might even be able to make his decision on who should succeed James Comey to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation before he leaves on his first foreign trip on Friday. “Even that is possible,” Trump said, speaking on Air Force One before departing for Lynchburg, Virginia, where he delivered a commencement address. “I think the process is going to go quickly,” he said, adding that the candidates under consideration were mostly well known. “They’ve been vetted over their lifetime essentially. But very well known, highly respected, really talented people. And that’s what we want for the FBI.” Critics have assailed Trump for abruptly dismissing Comey, who was leading the agency’s investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, and possible ties between Moscow and the Trump campaign.. Russia denies the claims and the White House says there was no collusion. Trump made the remarks to reporters prior to speaking to about 50,000 people at Liberty University in Lynchburg, where he did not mention Comey or the controversy his dismissal on Tuesday caused. It was Trump’s first public event outside the White House since Comey’s ouster. A White House official had said 11 people were under consideration - including acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, Republican Senator John Cornyn, New York Appeals Court Judge Michael Garcia and former Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher - to replace Comey as FBI chief. Two new names, however, emerged on Saturday: FBI special agent Adam Lee and U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson. A source familiar with the process said Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, had interviewed Hudson, Lee and five others on Saturday. The FBI Agents Association, which claims more than 13,000 active and retired agents as its members, on Saturday endorsed another candidate: former Representative Mike Rogers, who had also worked as an FBI agent. At Liberty, the nation’s largest Christian college, Trump peppered his remarks with the kind of anti-establishment rhetoric that fueled his maverick presidential campaign, telling graduates to challenge “entrenched interests.” He thanked the crowd for their support and repeatedly invoked his own unlikely election victory. “Relish the opportunity to be an outsider,” Trump said. “The more that a broken system tells you that you’re wrong, the more certain you should be that you must keep pushing ahead.” He also had strong words that seemed aimed at his critics. “No one has ever achieved anything significant without a chorus of critics standing on the sidelines explaining why it can’t be done,” Trump said. “Nothing is easier or more pathetic than being a critic, because they’re people that can’t get the job done.” Liberty’s president, Jerry Falwell, Jr., was a key early supporter of Trump during his campaign and helped rally support among religious conservatives. Trump, who has been preparing for his first foreign trip - one that will take him to the Middle East and Europe - also will deliver the commencement address to the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, on Wednesday. | 1 |
9,512 | Equifax two top technology executives leave company 'effective immediately' | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Equifax said on Friday that it made changes in its top management as part of its review of a massive data breach, with two technology and security executives leaving the company “effective immediately.” The credit-monitoring company announced the changes in a press release that gave its most detailed public response to date of the discovery of the data breach on July 29 and the actions it has since taken. The statement came on a day when Equifax’s share price continued to slide following a week of relentless criticism over its response to the data breach, Lawmakers, regulators and consumers have complained that Equifax’s response to the breach, which exposed sensitive data like Social Security numbers of up to 143 million people, had been slow, inadequate and confusing. Equifax on Friday said that Susan Mauldin, chief security officer, and David Webb, chief information officer, were retiring. The company named Mark Rohrwasser as interim chief information office and Russ Ayres as interim chief security officer, saying in its statement, “The personnel changes are effective immediately.” Rohrwasser has led the company’s international IT operations, and Ayres was a vice president in the IT organization. The company also confirmed that Mandiant, the threat intelligence arm of the cyber firm FireEye, has been brought on to help investigate the breach. It said Mandiant was brought in on Aug. 2 after Equifax’s security team initially observed “suspicious network traffic” on July 29. The company has hired public relations companies DJE Holdings and McGinn and Company to manage its response to the hack, PR Week reported. Equifax and the two PR firms declined to comment on the report. Equifax’s share prices has fallen by more than a third since the company disclosed the hack on Sept. 7. Shares shed 3.8 percent on Friday to close at $92.98. U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has built a reputation as a fierce consumer champion, kicked off a new round of attacks on Equifax on Friday by introducing a bill along with 11 other senators to allow consumers to freeze their credit for free. A credit freeze prevents thieves from applying for a loan using another person’s information. Warren also signaled in a letter to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency she helped create in the wake of the 2007-2009 financial crisis, that it may require extra powers to ensure closer federal oversight of credit reporting agencies. Warren also wrote letters to Equifax and rival credit monitoring agencies TransUnion and Experian, federal regulators and the Government Accountability Office to see if new federal legislation was needed to protect consumers. Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen and more than 30 others in a state group investigating the breach acknowledged that Equifax has agreed to give free credit monitoring to hack victims but pressed the company to stop collecting any money to monitor or freeze credit. “Selling a fee-based product that competes with Equifax’s own free offer of credit monitoring services to victims of Equifax’s own data breach is unfair,” Jepsen said. Also on Friday, the chairman and ranking member of the Senate subcommittee on Social Security urged Social Security Administration to consider nullifying its contract with Equifax and consider making the company ineligible for future government contracts. The two senators, Republican Bill Cassidy and Democrat Sherrod Brown, said they were concerned that personal information maintained by the Social Security Administration may also be at risk because the agency worked with Equifax to build its E-Authentication security platform. Equifax has reported that for 2016, state and federal governments accounted for 5 percent of its total revenue of $3.1 billion. Equifax, which disclosed the breach more than a month after it learned of it on July 29, said at the time that thieves may have stolen the personal information of 143 million Americans in one of the largest hacks ever. The problem is not restricted to the United States. Equifax said on Friday that data on up to 400,000 Britons was stolen in the hack because it was stored in the United States. The data included names, email addresses and telephone numbers but not street addresses or financial data, Equifax said. Canada’s privacy commissioner said on Friday that it has launched an investigation into the data breach. Equifax is still working to determine the number of Canadians affected, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada said in a statement. | 1 |
9,513 | Five migrants die when boat sinks, Libyan coast guard and German NGO blame each other | TRIPOLI (Reuters) - At least five African migrants died and more were missing off western Libya on Monday after a boat carrying about 140 people capsized and then some migrants refused rescue by the Libyan coast guard and tried instead to swim to a German rescue vessel. The migrants rubber boat overturned some 30 miles off the Libyan coast, said Libyan officials and rescue workers in Tripoli to where the coast guard brought some 45 survivors. A video obtained by Reuters showed how, during the rescue operation, some migrants tried jumping off the Libyan patrol boat which had rescued them to reach a ship of Seawatch, a German non-governmental organization, a few meters away. Some screamed to be allowed to leave the Libyan boat as the German vessel came closer. The Libyans tried to discourage the migrants from trying to reach the German boat, Seawatch said. The incident sparked mutual recrimination by Seawatch and the Libyan coast guard. At least five migrants had died, including a toddler, due to the violent and reckless behavior of (the) Libyan coast guards, Seawatch said on its Twitter feed, adding that 58 had been rescued. The so-called Libyan Coastguard forced as many as they could into their vessel to take them back to Tripoli, the German group added. The Libyan coast guard said an unknown number of people had died after their inflatable boat had sunk and Abu Ajala Amer Abdelbari, a coast guard commander, said the German NGO had undermined its rescue operations by approaching its boat. The Seawatch was approaching while we were rescuing migrants, he said. This was encouraging the migrants to swim to the Seawatch and a (nearby) French navy ship. The survivors brought to Tripoli were from West African countries including Nigeria and Senegal. I wanted to reach Italy. I don t know what to do now, said Dora Onoruyi, a 23-year old arts student from the southern Nigerian city of Benin known as hub for human traffickers to smuggle women to Italy where they often end up as prostitutes. I see no future in Nigeria, there are no jobs, she said, standing next to a group of weeping Nigerian survivors. Libya is the main departure point for migrants trying to travel by boat to Europe. But numbers crossing to Italy have fallen sharply since July due to a drop in people smuggling and increased activity by Libya s European-backed coastguard. | 1 |
9,514 | samantha bee says partial birth abortion is not a thing wrong | daily mail october as entertainment firms fight to stay ahead of virtual and augmented reality systems netflix ceo reed hastings is keeping tabs on hallucinogenic drugs at the wall street journal live conference on tuesday hastings discussed potential challenges the streaming service may face in the future including pharmacological competition the chief executive went on to describe a matrixlike scenario in which users could take a blue pill to experience hallucinatory entertainment and a white pill to come back to reality and says it could happen in the next twenty years
at the wsj conference hastings explained that the firm is working hard to draw users attention away from apps social media and other major competitors techcrunch reports | 0 |
9,515 | Top German conservative embraces Macron's EU proposals | BERLIN (Reuters) - The premier of Germany s most populous state has become the most senior member of Chancellor Angela Merkel s conservative bloc to throw his weight behind French President Emmanuel Macron s proposals for deepening and reforming the European Union. In an article for Thursday s Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper, Armin Laschet, premier of North Rhine-Westphalia, embraced proposals for a common European army, intelligence service and, in the long term, a common finance minister. The proposals could offer a basis for cooperation with the Social Democrats (SPD), who vote on Thursday on whether to enter talks on supporting a new conservative-led government. SPD leader Martin Schulz, a former European Parliament president, is an outspoken advocate of closer European integration. In a time of eurosclerosis , with (eurosceptic) populists inside Europe and instability on the periphery, Macron wants to work with us to overcome the crisis, wrote Laschet, his party s vice-president. Europe s crisis, forced by Brexit, offers the chance at last to confront the challenges. Merkel and most of her party colleagues have been more cautious in their reception of Macron s reform proposals, which include closer cooperation on defense, migration and a deeper integration of the euro currency zone. He was less specific in addressing Macron s proposals for changing the euro zone s governance mechanisms, saying only: We need better conditions for investment, and we need harmonization of corporation tax. Schulz has said that the SPD, reluctant to repeat the bruising experience of being deserted by voters after governing for four years with Merkel in coalition, will discuss Macron s proposals at its three-day party congress starting on Thursday. What are our possibilities, our options, our instruments for ensuring that Germany embraces these French ideas? Schulz asked earlier on Wednesday. France is making proposals and Germany is not engaging. This is not acceptable. | 1 |
9,516 | Hillary Just Responded To Trump’s Pre-Debate Bullsh*t On Twitter, And It’s EPIC (TWEET) | After the release of the videotape showing Trump not only use derogatory language about women, but also profess to be a sexual predator, we re starting to notice the Trump campaign in a bit of tailspin.Trump s getting so desperate, in fact, that he just dragged out some women who allege they re victims of sexual abuse from Bill Clinton. What people need to remember is that, no matter if any of those allegations are true, Bill is not who is running for president. Trump is acting out of fear because he knows he s about to have his orange ass handed to him.Hillary s Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri released the official statement from the Clinton campaign regarding Trump s desperation:The statement read: We re not surprised to see Donald Trump continue his destructive race to the bottom. Hillary Clinton understands the opportunity in this town hall is to talk to voters on stage and in the audience about the issues that matter to them, and this stunt doesn t change that. If Donald Trump doesn t see that, that s his loss. As always, she s prepared to handle whatever Donald Trump throws her way. However, it was what Clinton tweeted next that shows us exactly why she will be the next President of the United States. Instead of jumping back at all the crazy that is Donald Trump, she instead tweets this:Remember. #Debate pic.twitter.com/rlMbTt5WwY Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 10, 2016Which is exactly what she will do.Donald Trump is currently self-destructing before our very eyes, and he has no idea what to do next.Hillary will stick to the issues and what s best for the nation as Trump takes the low road and tries to mudsling himself into the White House.This election has certainly been an interesting one, and something tells me it s only going to get worse before it gets better, and by gets better I mean, when Hillary wins on November 8th.Featured Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images | 0 |
9,517 | GERMAN RESIDENTS FIGHT BACK: Anti-Islamic Song With No Words Knocks Adele Off Top Spot | Apparently these Germans are not interested in becoming another Sweden A wordless anti-Islamist hymn knocked chart-buster Adele off the top of the charts in Germany.A wordless hymn by the anti-Islamic group Pegida called Together we re strong has knocked pop diva Adele off the top of the Amazon singles chart.The song has been available to buy on Amazon since December 21st and has been among the top 100 best selling singles for four days.German media picked up on the songs emerging success on Tuesday when it was still at number 26 in the chart. Die Welt reported that despite widespread ridicule, the hymn, which contains no words, was selling well.Since then it has leaped up to overtake Adele s hit single Hello. It has also jumped above successful German recording artists Robin Schulz and Sido, who have been knocked down to places three and four, respectively.On YouTube the hymn has also clocked up over 100,000 views so far. However, most of the commentaries underneath ridicule it for its banality.A PEGIDA activist put video of the German anti-Islamist protester to the hymn by Peggy Sounds, Germainsam Sind Wir Stark. Via: Local h/t Gateway Pundit | 0 |
9,518 | polls are tightening but is the us presidential election rigged | rt october
top nato eu officials expressed anger at spains permit reportedly issued to a russian aircraft carrier group to take on fuel and supplies at ceuta a city with unclear political status spain says russias warships have been mooring there for years
a barrage of harsh statements followed when spanish media reported that russias naval battle group led by aircraft carrier admiral kuznetsov would make a stopover at the autonomous port of ceuta after passing the straits of gibraltar on wednesday
battle stations putins fearsome fleet locked loaded ready for war with britain or not
russian ships would moor in ceuta to take on fuel and supplies under a permit issued by spains foreign ministry spanish newspaper abc reported on tuesday also citing defense minister pedro morenes who said that there was a prior authorization for this particular case
guy verhofstadt former belgian prime minister and currently eu envoy for brexit talks with the uk expressed his outrage calling spains decision the harassment of eu and nato forces
in a facebook post he said that nato member spain provides assistance to a fleet which has one purpose adding that only last week this spanish government signed up to a statement from the european council accusing russia of war crimes against civilians in aleppo
later in the day nato secretary general jens stoltenberg made it clear that the bloc wants madrid to rethink the stopover permit a d v e r t i s e m e n t
we are concerned and i have expressed that very clearly about potential use of this battle group to increase russias ability and to be a platform for airstrikes against syria he said
this is something i have conveyed very clearly before and i repeat those concerns today and i believe that all nato allies are aware that this battle group can be used to conduct airstrikes against aleppo and syria
he then downplayed the rhetoric noting that its for each nation to decide whether these ships can get supplies and be fuelled in different harbors along the route towards the eastern mediterranean
late tuesday night the spanish foreign ministry said it was reviewing the decision the latest stopover requests are being reviewed at the moment based on the information we are receiving from our allies and from russian authorities the ministry said in a statement quoted by reuters
earlier in the day however the ministry told ria novosti that madrid allows russian ships to dock in spanish ports as routine navigation which effectively lies outside eu sanctions imposed on moscow
in the meantime a spokesman for the foreign ministry told the telegraph the requests from the russian navy are considered on casebycase basis stressing that russian navy vessels have been making calls in spanish ports for years
ceuta an autonomous spanish enclave on the tip of africas northern coast lies along the straits of gibraltar and borders morocco which also claims the territory as its own
although ceuta is part of the eu its status within nato is still unresolved since spain has rankled the bloc by allowing russian warships to refuel at the enclave
the mission of the admiral kuznetsov carrier group has already triggered a media frenzy across europe with british norwegian and dutch navies sending frigates and surveillance vessels to shadow the russian warships as they round european shores through international waters
once they reach syrian shores the ships will provide backup for russias naval standing group already deployed to the area according to the russian defense ministry this article was posted wednesday october at am share this article | 1 |
9,519 | WATCH: Fox Host Jeanine Pirro Just DESTROYED Karl Rove And GOP Chair Reince Priebus | The folks at Fox News are getting crazier on a minute by minute basis and although it s quite sad that this organization calls itself a news outlet, it s nonetheless quite entertaining watching Fox eat its own.In the latest of her rants, so-called judge and Donald Trump supporter Jeanine Pirro is ticked off at her cohort at Fox, nut-job extraordinaire Karl Rove and Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus for their recent statements about a contested Republican convention and Donald Trump.Watch video here:[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qINfdIhqzXM]Pirro usually reserves her outrageous statements for Democrats or Muslims, but this time she unleashed her fury on Rove and Priebus for their perceived anti-Trump stances. In response to Rove s suggestion that it would be acceptable for the Republicans to take the nomination away from Trump, even if he goes into the convention with the most delegates but not enough to secure the nomination, unhinged the Fox contributor. She said: The Republican establishment, desperate to stop Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, is still working to nullify our vote. If ever there were a time to not take away our vote, it s now at a time when more people than ever are invested and voting. You want to keep your status quo the one where one hand washes the other, and we pay for the soap. Pirro also reacted to Rove s remarks where he said a fresh face may be needed to beat Clinton in November. Pirro said: You want a fresh face? Aren t you the guy who kept bringing us one Bush after another? Continuing on her tangent, Pirro also attacked RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, calling him out for refusing to tell Sean Hannity whether the presidential nominee for Republicans will be one of the top vote-getters Trump or Cruz. Pirro said: Whatever happened to your vote matters? Not only is that infuriating, it is un-American. Watching all of these so-called conservatives and Republicans implode before our very eyes comes at just the right time as we head into the elections for November because it helps clarify that the GOP of today should not be in charge of this country. Featured image via video screenshot. | 0 |
9,520 | no title | i know hitlery and the dear leader are in full cover my a mode and so tense you couldnt drive a toothpick up their rears with a sledge hammer because they know there is provable crimes and corruption still to be released in those emails for me the vast difference in the rally crowds are the indicator of just how many of the american people believe anything hillary or this admnistration says | 1 |
9,521 | Judge rejects bid by 18 states to revive Obamacare subsidies | SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Wednesday refused to block President Donald Trump’s decision to end subsidy payments to health insurers under Obamacare, handing Trump a victory against Democratic attorneys general who have regularly challenged the president’s policies in court. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco said the federal government did not have to make the payments while litigation over the subsidies unfolds. Chhabria, appointed by former Democratic President Barack Obama, wrote that although the case appeared to be a close call, “it appears initially that the Trump administration has the stronger legal argument.” The Trump administration this month terminated the payments to the insurers, which help cover medical expenses for low-income Americans, as part of several moves to dismantle Obama’s signature healthcare law formally known as the Affordable Care Act. Democratic attorneys general have repeatedly opposed Trump in court this year over immigration, the environment and healthcare. After Trump’s decision to end the insurance subsidies, 18 states and the District of Columbia asked for an immediate order halting Trump’s move while the case is being litigated. They argued that terminating the payments harmed customers by raising insurance rates. In his ruling, Chhabria said the kind of emergency order requested by the states was not necessary. “The truth is that most state regulators have devised responses that give millions of lower-income people better health coverage options than they would otherwise have had,” Chhabria said. “This is true in almost all the states joining this lawsuit,” the judge added. U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman Lauren Ehrsam said the subsidy payments usurped Congress’ spending power and that the department was pleased with Chhabria’s ruling. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who is leading the lawsuit, said in a statement that Trump’s decision undermined payments that keep healthcare affordable. “Without an emergency order halting the Trump action, swift action in this litigation becomes even more compelling,” he said. U.S. Senator Patty Murray, a Washington state Democrat, said the ruling “only makes it more critical” that the Senate pass a bipartisan agreement she co-authored, which would authorize the subsidies. Earlier on Wednesday, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that the proposal would cut the U.S. deficit by $3.8 billion over the next decade. The subsidies were amounting to nearly $600 million a month. They were due to cost $7 billion this year and were estimated to grow to $10 billion for 2018, according to congressional analysts. With the beginning of enrollment for 2018 insurance policies on Obamacare exchanges set for Nov. 1, Chhabria suggested that the states focus on communicating the message that they have devised a response to the subsidy cuts that prevents harm to a large number of people. “If the states are so concerned that people will be scared away from the exchanges by the thought of higher premiums, perhaps they should stop yelling about higher premiums,” Chhabria wrote. Insurers say they do not profit from the subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, but pass them on directly to consumers to reduce deductibles, co-payments and other out-of-pocket medical expenses for low-income people. Premiums for Obamacare “silver” plans, generally the most popular type of health insurance plan on the individual health insurance market, rose 34 percent on average for 2018, according to an analysis published on Wednesday by Avalere Health, a research and consulting firm. | 1 |
9,522 | Saudi-led coalition opens Yemen border crossing; aid agencies warn of famine | ADEN/GENEVA (Reuters) - The Saudi-led military coalition fighting against Yemen s Houthi movement reopened a land border crossing, partly easing a blockade imposed earlier this week, but aid agencies warned of famine and a health catastrophe if other ports stay shut. The coalition said on Monday it would close all air, land and sea ports in Yemen to stem the flow of arms to the Houthis from Iran, after Saudi Arabia intercepted a missile fired toward its capital Riyadh. The al Wadea border crossing, linking Saudi Arabia with territory in eastern Yemen controlled by the Saudi-backed government, was reopened on Thursday, a Yemeni official and witnesses said, letting food and other supplies across. The United Nations has said that a total blockade of Yemen could cause a famine that could kill millions. The government-held southern port of Aden was reopened on Wednesday, but ports in Houthi-held areas are still shut. The Houthis, drawn mainly from Yemen s Zaidi Shi ite minority and allied to long-serving former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, control much of the country including the capital San aa. Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies have been waging war against them on behalf of the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, based in Aden. The Saudis and their allies say the Houthis get weapons from their arch-foe, Iran. Iran denies arming the Houthis and blames the conflict in Yemen on Riyadh. Yemen s stocks of fuel and vaccines will run out in a month unless the Saudi-led coalition allows aid into the blockaded port of Hodeidah and the airport at San aa, UNICEF s representative in the country said on Friday. Meritxell Relano, speaking by phone to reporters in Geneva, said fuel prices had risen 60 percent and there were urgent concerns about a diphtheria outbreak, as well as food shortages because of the port closure. The situation that was already catastrophic is just getting worse, she said. The impact of this is unimaginable in terms of health and diseases. After two years of civil war, Yemen has 7 million people on the brink of famine and has had 900,000 suspected cholera cases in the past six months. United Nations aid chief Mark Lowcock said on Wednesday that if the coalition did not allow humanitarian aid access to Yemen, it would cause the largest famine the world has seen for many decades, with millions of victims. The cholera epidemic had abated in recent weeks with the number of cases slowing amid a major push to fight the disease. But the World Health Organization said the progress could be reversed by the blockade. If the closure is not stopped in the coming days, we may see that the progress is stopped, WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib told a briefing in Geneva. We can see even more cases and more deaths as a result of not being able to get access to people. The closure of Hodeidah port prevented a ship setting sail from Djibouti with 250 tonnes of WHO medical supplies on Wednesday. Trauma kits in particular are running short. If the hostilities continue and the ports remain closed, we will not be able to perform life-saving surgeries or provide basic healthcare, Chaib said. Germany will double its aid to UNICEF for Yemen to 20 million euros this year to help deal with looming famine, bringing its total annual aid to Yemen to 70 million, a spokeswoman for the development ministry said on Friday. The suffering of the people in Yemen is inconceivable and it threatens to become much worse, Development Minister Gerd Mueller told Passauer Neue Presse newspaper. We must act now to prevent the death by starvation of millions of women, children and men. | 1 |
9,523 | weiner sings like a bird as dickileak provides exit as huma sequestered by fbi at mount weather after humas emails foundno longer together | source seemorerocks
november
john key channels nz taxpayers money to clinton foundation
this is information that every taxpayer or those that care should know about but our journalists are not doing their job
what with warships in our harbour and troops in iraq this government of john key is in lockstep with the most corrupt and warmongering part of the us government
no doubt key would approve of the clintons defrauding the people of haiti its his style
the cannabis party is calling on john key to explain why he gave over million of new zealand taxpayers money to the clinton foundation
legalise cannibis party
october
wikileaks raised serious ethical concerns about the clinton foundation when it published a hacked email send to clinton campaign chairman john podesta revealing blurred lines between the foundation and the personal financial interests of bill and hillary clinton
cannabis party leader julian crawford said if john key was serious about hiv prevention one of the clinton foundations supposed goals he should legalise medical cannabis in new zealand
hundreds of researchers have reported that thc was able to destroy the riv virus in monkeys that virus is nearly identical to the hiv virus found in humans he said
john key has a lot of explaining to do if the wikileaks revelations about the clinton foundation are true
former assistant director of the fbi thomas fuentes confirmed that the fbi has an intensive investigation ongoing into the clinton foundation
new zealands national business review has reported that john key will continue giving millions of dollars of taxpayers money to the foundation in the future despite the criminal investigation of hillary clinton
ive met her on lots of occasions had dinner with her at premier house a few times john key said
as secretary of state she was great very engaged with new zealand broadcaster duncan garner yesterday raised serious concerns about the ongoing payments to the clinton foundation known as paytoplay
we also give money to the clinton foundation yes we did gosh who didnt get a handout garner said
weve been feeding all these guys at the trough for years
paytoplay refers to operations where bill and hillary clinton rewarded big donors to their foundation with preferential access to the us government
the original article was in the neoliberal nbr behind a paywall
nz taxpayers will continue funding clinton foundations flagship | 0 |
9,524 | Romania senate backs bill seen in West as threat to judiciary | BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Romania s senate approved on Wednesday part of a judicial overhaul criticized by the European Commission, the United States and the country s own president as a threat to judicial independence. The bill passed by the assembly is one of three that have triggered street protests across the country, a European Union state ranked as one of the bloc s most corrupt, and drawn opposition from thousands of magistrates. The three bills jointly limit magistrates independence and set up a special unit to probe crimes committed by magistrates. This makes magistrates the only professional category with a prosecuting unit dedicated to investigating them. The proposed changes mean the country is joining its eastern European peers Hungary and Poland, where populist leaders are also trying to control the judiciary, in defying EU concerns over the rule of law. Lawmakers approved another bill on Tuesday, amending the definition of prosecutor s activity to exclude the word independent . A third bill is widely expected to be approved on Thursday. The Commission launched an unprecedented action on Poland on Wednesday, calling on other member states to prepare to sanction Warsaw if it fails to reverse judicial reforms it says pose a threat to democracy. Romanian President Klaus Iohannis said there were obvious risks that the Commission could do the same in Romania s case if the legal changes take hold. If someone imagines there will not be consequences, then they are from the moon, Iohannis told reporters. There will be consequences, the magnitude depends on the laws final form. It could be months before the bills are enforced. Opposition parties plan to challenge them in the Constitutional Court. The president could do the same, as well as send them back to parliament for re-examination, something he can do only once. He could also trigger a country-wide referendum on continuing the fight against corruption. Romania s ruling Social Democrats, which command an overwhelming majority in parliament together with their junior coalition partner, ALDE, have so far ignored the warnings. They are also working on changes to the criminal code that critics say will derail law and order. The country s prosecutor general, chief anti-corruption prosecutor and the head of the anti-organized crime unit have all criticized the proposed changes which they said will not only end the anti-graft fight but endanger general safety. Hundreds of magistrates protested in silence this week, lining the steps of courthouses across the country. Romania s anti-corruption prosecution unit has sent 72 members of parliament to trial since 2006. The speakers of parliament s lower house and senate are both currently on trial in separate cases. | 1 |
9,525 | Rights groups say outside monitors needed for Rohingya return to Myanmar | YANGON (Reuters) - Human rights groups called on Friday for international agencies to be allowed to monitor the planned repatriation of hundreds of thousands Rohingya Muslims from Bangladesh to the homes they have fled from in Myanmar over the past three months. The two governments signed a pact on Thursday settling terms for a repatriation process. They aim to start the return of Rohingya in two months in order to reduce pressure in the refugee camps that have mushroomed in the Cox s Bazar region of Bangladesh. But rights groups have expressed doubts about Myanmar, also known as Burma, following through on the agreement, and some have called for independent observers. The idea that Burma will now welcome them back to their smoldering villages with open arms is laughable, said Bill Frelick, refugee rights director at Human Rights Watch. Instead of signing on to a public relations stunt, the international community should make it clear that there can be no returns without international monitors to ensure security, an end to the idea of putting returnees in camps, the return of land and the rebuilding of destroyed homes and villages. More than 600,000 Rohingya sought sanctuary in Bangladesh after the military in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar launched a brutal counter insurgency across northern parts of Rakhine State following attacks by Rohingya militants on an army base and police posts on Aug. 25. The United Nations and United States have described the military s actions as ethnic cleansing, and rights groups have accused the security forces of atrocities, including mass rape, arson and killings. China has backed Myanmar over the crisis and blocked a stronger international response, however. Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday discussed the issue in Beijing with Myanmar s army chief, Min Aung Hlaing. While Myanmar s civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has said repatriation of the largely stateless Muslim minority would be based on residency and would be safe and voluntary , there were concerns that the country s autonomous military could prove obstructive. The memorandum of understanding signed by Myanmar and Bangladesh on Thursday said a joint working group would be set up within three weeks to prepare for the return of the refugees. But it gave scant details about the criteria of return and of what role, if any, the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, could play. The agency believed conditions in northern Rakhine are not in place to enable safe and sustainable returns of Rohingya and some refugees were still fleeing Myanmar, spokesman Adrian Edwards told reporters. It is important that international standards apply, and we are ready to help, he said, adding that the UNHCR had still not seen the repatriation agreement signed by the two countries. It s important that people don t end up being sent back to confinement and ghettos. Human rights monitors said other important points not addressed in the statements released separately by the two governments included the protection of Rohingya against further violence, a path to resolving their legal status and whether they would be allowed to return to their old homes. Suu Kyi s spokesman was not immediately available for comment on Friday, and had declined to comment on these concerns when contacted by Reuters late on Thursday. Charmain Mohamed, Amnesty International s director for refugee and migrant rights, said the United Nations and the international community have been completely sidelined and the talk of return was premature while the flow of Rohingya refugees to Bangladesh continued. China welcomed the agreement, saying it feels gratified at the current positive progress that has been achieved , Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters, adding that situation in Rakhine has obviously been alleviated . Humanitarian workers say, however, that hundreds of Rohingya are arriving in Bangladesh daily, driven out of Myanmar predominantly by chaos, starvation and fear. While the violence has mostly ceased, Rohingya say they have largely lost access to sources of livelihood such as their farms, fisheries and markets. We will go back if they don t harass us and if we can live life like the Buddhists and other ethnic groups. Our educated children should get government jobs like the others, said Sayer Hussein, 55, who arrived in Bangladesh two months ago. Thousands of Rohingya, most of them old people, women and children, are stranded on beaches near the border, waiting for a boat to take them to Bangladesh. Some independent estimates suggest there could still be a few hundred thousand Rohingya in Rakhine State. Thirty-six groups, including the International Commission of Jurists and Amnesty International, called for a U.N. Human Rights Council special session on the situation in Myanmar. Myanmar should immediately cease all human rights violations, including crimes against humanity , the groups said in an open letter to the U.N. council. | 1 |
9,526 | att secret spy program unveiled project hemisphere | posted by claire bernish
tony podesta brother of the nowdisgraced hillary clinton campaign chair john podesta whose files wikileaks has been publishing is not only a powerful democratic party lobbyist but a registered foreign agent receiving a hefty monthly paycheck from the nefarious government of saudi arabia
no as tinfoilhat conspiracy theorist as it might sound that scenario is the absolute truth
in john and tony podesta formed the podesta group and have used their bigwig partyinsider status to lobby and influence government policies while at various times simultaneously holding positions of power which has created a number of glaring conflicts of interest
according to the march filing made in accordance with the foreign agents registration act of tony podesta is an active foreign agent of the saudi government with the center for studies and media affairs at the saudi royal court and acts as an officer of the saudi arabia account
at this point the web of payforplay between the washington political heavyweights and foreign governments comes lurching into the spotlight
for starters the podesta brothers lobbying firm receives every month from the saudi government which in no uncertain terms and despite a status as privileged us ally wages a bloody campaign of censorship murder suppression human rights abuse and worse against its civilian population while bombing hospitals schools and aid convoys in neighboring nations
john podesta previously served as president bill clintons chief of staff founded the think tank center for american progress which ohsocoincidentally touts the need to reframe saudi arabias hopelessly tarnished image counseled president obama and now chairs hillary clintons campaign
tony podesta acts as a foreign agent for the kingdom of saudi arabia lobbying to influence government policy in favor of the kingdom while also contributing to and bundling for hillary clintons campaign
think about that for a moment
one brother uses the influence of money to both affect united states foreign policy and infuse the clinton campaign with cash while the other wields the influence of power as a political insider for the same entities
as the washington post reported months ago in july tony podestas lobbying efforts raised for the campaign and for the victory fund
the saudis hired the podesta group in because it was getting hammered in the press over civilian casualties from its airstrikes in yemen and its crackdown on political dissidents at home including sentencing blogger raif badawi to ten years in prison and lashes for insulting islam alternet reported since then tony podestas fingerprints have been all over saudi arabias advocacy efforts in washington dc when saudi arabia executed the prominent nonviolent shia dissident sheikh nimr alnimr causing protests throughout the shia world and inflaming sectarian divisions the new york times noted that the podesta group provided the newspaper with a saudi commentator who defended the execution
notably the saudis reputation has only worsened as further atrocities pile up concerning not only a record number of barbaric beheadings this year but suspiciously reckless and errant usbacked coalition bombings of civilian sites in several regions of active conflict
additionally tony podestas status as a registered foreign agent for saudi arabia is at least obliquely discussed in an email from april ironically revealed by wikileaks publishing of his brothers personal communiques in which former clinton foundation chief development officer and now campaign national finance director dennis cheng wrote to a small group of insiders
hi all we do need to make a decision on this asap as our friends who happen to be registered with fara foreign agents registration act are already donating and raising
i do want to push back a bit its my job i feel like we are leaving a good amount of money on the table both for primary and general and then dnc and state parties and how do we explain to people that well take money from a corporate lobbyist but not them that the foundation takes from foreign govts but we now wont either way we need to make a decision soon
to which general counsel to the clinton campaign attorney marc elias replied all errors original and emphasis added
responding to all on this i was not on the call this morning but i lean away from a bright line rule here it seems odd to say that someone who represents alberta canada cant give but a lobbyist for phillip morris can just as we vet lobbyists case by case i would do the same with fara while this may lead to a large number of fara registrants being denied it would not be a flat our ban a total ban feels arbitrary and will engender the same eyerolling and ill will that it did for obama
as the exchange continues how to precisely handle the campaigns image with potentially controversial donors while at all costs maintaining the flow of cash becomes even more apparent as strategist and campaign manager robby mook responds
where do we draw the line though
elias suggests a particularly intricate solution
if we do it case by case then it will be subjective we would look at who the donor is and what foreign entity they are registered for in judging whether to take the money we would consider the relationship between that country and the united states its relationship to the state department during hillarys time as secretary and its relationship if any to the foundation in judging the individual we would look at their history of support for political candidates generally and hillarys past campaigns specifically
put simply we would use the same criteria we use for lobbyists except with a somewhat more stringent screen
as a legal matter i am not saying we have to do this we can decide to simply ban foreign registrants entirely im just offering this up as a middle ground
mook eventually decides plainly
marc made a convincing case to me this am that these sorts of restrictions dont really get you anythingthat obama actually got judged more harshly as a result he convinced me soin a complete uturn im ok just taking the money and dealing with any attacks are you guys ok with that
all of this political wrangling appears to have had the desired effect despite increasing calls for the united states to either rein in or sever completely its support for the bloody saudi regime the us approved a stunning billion sale of smart bombs to the kingdom in november
tony podestas specific contract with the governmentrun center for studies and media affairs at the saudi royal court which will earn million by years end does indeed suggest the infusion of a prosaudi message into the us media propaganda machine
saudi arabia is consistently one of the bigger players when it comes to foreign influence in washington sunlight foundation spokesman josh stewart told the washington post that spans both what youd call the inside game which is lobbying and government relations and the outside game which is pr and other things that tend to reach a broader audience than just lobbying
that broader audience the american public has indeed been manipulated courtesy of at least the thoroughlycorrupt clinton campaign if not surreptitiously by the saudis as well
as the free thought project has repeatedly reported the evidence of collusion among the democratic national committee hillary clintons campaign and the mainstream presstitutes is indisputable including no less than socalled journalists listed by name in various leaks as darlings of the campaign
although this level of corruption and collusion would be considered intolerable in nearly any other nation on the planet and yet at the center of this shit storm of contention is an official nominee for the white house who will not be held responsible for any number of questionable and criminal acts
the system isnt rigged its performing exactly as intended and always will as long as the vote validates its existence dont forget to follow the dc clothesline on facebook and twitter please help spread the word by sharing our articles on your favorite social networks share this | 0 |
9,527 | Trump again vows to bring back U.S. jobs, but offers few details | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump told chief executives of major U.S. companies on Thursday he plans to bring millions of jobs back to the United States, but offered no specific plan on how to reverse a decades-long decline in factory jobs. In his first month in office, Trump has pressured a number of U.S. companies to hire in the United States but he has yet to publicly propose legislation tackling the big economic issues he campaigned on in 2016, including a job-boosting tax or infrastructure program. He will address a joint session of Congress on Feb. 28. In a meeting with some two dozen CEOs at the White House, Trump said the United States had lost about one-third of manufacturing jobs since it joined the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994 and asserted about 70,000 factories have closed since China joined the World Trade Organization 16 years ago. But the Bureau of Labor Statistics says the number of private sector manufacturing facilities in the United States has fallen less than that, from nearly 400,000 in 2001 to 344,000 last year. Lower wages, automation, foreign competition and other factors account for the steep decline in manufacturing jobs, experts say. Trump has promised to roll out proposals that he says could have favorable ramifications for companies, including a plan to overhaul the tax code and an infrastructure package that was part of his presidential campaign promises to create millions of jobs. He has declined to specify what he had in mind. “We’re going to find out how we bring more jobs back,” he told the CEOs. General Electric Co (GE.N) chief executive Jeff Immelt said after the meeting in a Twitter post that “tax reform a high priority for job creation. Business community will come together to help find a workable solution.” Ken Frazier, CEO of Merck & Co (MRK.N), told reporters “it is very clear the president is interested in lessening the tax burden.” Several of the CEOs who met Trump are part of a coalition that supports a so-called border adjustment tax, which would impose a 20 percent tax on goods that are imported into the country while providing write-offs for goods that are exported. In an interview with Reuters, Trump spoke favorably about the border adjustment tax proposal being pushed by Republicans in the U.S. Congress, but did not specifically endorse it. Trump is scheduled to dine at a Washington hotel on Thursday evening with members of The Business Council, a group of major U.S. company CEOs, including Immelt, Goldman Sachs’ Lloyd Blankfein and JP Morgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon. | 1 |
9,528 | Obama signs North Korea sanctions bill into law: White House | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Thursday signed into law legislation broadening sanctions to punish North Korea for its nuclear program, human rights record and cyber crimes, the White House said. | 1 |
9,529 | WATCH: KELLYANNE CONWAY Gives Dreaded Answer To Liberal Hack, “This Week” Host George Stephanopoulos’ Question About Trump’s Plans To Run In 2020 | ABC host George Stephanopoulos sat down with Kellyanne Conway for an interview this morning on This Week . Stephanopoulos started out the interview by mentioning the new jobs report and the explosion of the stock market under President Trump. He barely took a breath before he jumped directly to a poll that showed despite all of his many accomplishments, that Trump isn t very popular. Kellyanne Conway was quick to point out, that although Trump s poll numbers aren t as strong as she d like them to be, he s keeping his head down and focusing on his agenda. In other words, President Trump is laser focused on honoring the campaign promises he made to American people who elected him. What a novel idea One can only imagine the disappointment Stephanopoulos must have felt when he got the dreaded answer from Conway to his question about President Trump s plans to run in 2020. After all, who could forget when George Stephanopoulos wife promised (but of course, didn t follow through) that she would move her family to another country if President Trump won the election?Watch:Conway responded to Stephanopoulos question about Trump running in 2020: The president says privately and publicly, often, George that he ll be president for seven and a half more years, so he plans on being a two-term president. Last week, the New York Times article attempted to convince their readers that the Republican Party is divided and fractured and that many of the members of the party were attempting to convince Vice President Mike Pence to run for president in 2020.Pence was furious at the accusation that he was somehow involved in a potential coup against President Trump. So much for the wishful thinking of not very credible and very biased New York Times.And finally, it wouldn t be an interview with the mainstream media if they didn t ask about Trump s phony Russia connection. Kellyanne Conway didn t disappoint with her answer as she blasted Stephanopoulos for pushing the fake narrative: People just can t get over that election, George. It s corrosive to our body politic | 0 |
9,530 | Florida Supreme Court strikes down new death penalty law | TAMPA, Fla. (Reuters) - Florida’s Supreme Court overturned a new state death penalty law on Friday because it does not require juries to unanimously recommend capital punishment, a ruling with potential implications for ongoing prosecutions and 385 death row inmates. Executions in Florida, home to the nation’s second-largest death row, have been on hold since the U.S. Supreme Court in January struck down the state’s death penalty sentencing laws. Friday’s ruling by Florida’s high court marked another step towards death sentence recommendations becoming unanimous jury decisions in all U.S. states. The U.S. Supreme Court’s 8-1 ruling invalidated how a judge sentenced Timothy Hurst to death for the 1998 murder of a fried-chicken restaurant manager. It found Florida gave judges powers that juries should wield in determining death eligibility. In response, the Florida legislature this spring rewrote its death sentencing laws, requiring at least 10 of 12 jurors to support capital punishment, instead of a simple majority. That law “is unconstitutional because it requires that only ten jurors recommend death as opposed to the constitutionally required unanimous, twelve-member jury,” the state’s high court found, adding that the law could not be applied to pending prosecutions. “It’s big,” said Marty McClain, a prominent Florida death penalty attorney involved in one of the cases. “There is no constitutional death penalty statute in place until it’s fixed.” Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office said while it is “reviewing the ruling pending a possible rehearing, juries in current active capital trials must make unanimous decisions in capital cases as to the appropriateness of the death penalty,” a spokesman said in an email. Florida’s incoming House speaker, Republican Richard Corcoran, said his chamber would consider options and called the ruling an “effort to subvert the will of the people as expressed by their elected representatives.” Among U.S. states, only Alabama and Delaware also allowed for non-unanimous jury decisions at the time of the high court’s ruling. Delaware’s top court in August struck down its death penalty statute. The U.S. Supreme Court has directed a review in Alabama. “This is significant going forward,” said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, noting that non-unanimous juries in Florida and Alabama imposed a quarter of U.S. death sentences in recent years. Florida’s Supreme Court vacated Hurst’s death sentence and ordered a new penalty phase hearing. It did not address the retroactivity of its findings for other cases. “There will have to be searching scrutiny in nearly 400 cases,” Dunham said. | 1 |
9,531 | EU officials reach draft deal on more North Korea sanctions: sources | BRUSSELS (Reuters) - EU ambassadors have reached an initial agreement to impose more economic sanctions on North Korea, going beyond the latest round of UN measures, officials and diplomats said on Thursday. Today the PSC (EU member states ambassadors) agreed on a package of new autonomous measures, an EU official said. An EU diplomat said around eight new North Korean officials were likely to be added to the EU sanctions list. The decision is likely to be adopted by EU foreign ministers at their next regular meeting on Oct. 16. | 1 |
9,532 | BREAKING: GEN MICHAEL FLYNN RESIGNS After Close Friend Steve Bannon Reportedly Offered These 4 Words Of Advice | Michael Flynn resigned as President Donald Trump s national security adviser Monday night, amid a growing scandal over his contacts with Russian officials.The White House announced the resignation after days of uncertainty about Flynn s fate after reports that he d obfuscated the details of his conversations with Russian officials to Vice President Mike Pence and other administration officials.Trump administration officials, including chief White House counsel Don McGahn, were briefed last month on Flynn s apparent misstatements about his discussions with the Russians. Yates was dismissed a few days later after refusing to enforce Trump s travel ban executive order but a source familiar with the situation said her briefing on Flynn did not appear to play a role in her firing.The Washington Post was the first to report the briefing Monday. The White House announced Flynn s resignation shortly afterward. In the course of my duties as the incoming National Security Advisor, I held numerous phone calls with foreign counterparts, ministers, and ambassadors. These calls were to facilitate a smooth transition and begin to build the necessary relationships between the President, his advisors and foreign leaders. Such calls are standard practice in any transition of this magnitude, Flynn wrote in his resignation letter. I inadvertently briefed the Vice President Elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian Ambassador. I have sincerely apologized to the President and the Vice President, and they have accepted my apology, Flynn added.Keith Kellogg, the National Security Council chief of staff, will step in as the acting national security adviser and head of the National Security Council. Retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who has known Kellogg for decades, said early Tuesday that he is a good man who was among the earliest Trump loyalists.Flynn, long a controversial figure in the national security establishment, was widely disliked by Trump s more establishment aides, who said he fueled Trump s conspiracy theories and distrust of the intelligence community. But he had maintained Trump s support, as the president believed he was loyal and had insight into military affairs. He was also particularly close to Stephen Bannon, the president s top strategist and a philosophical and strategic adviser with a vast sway on the presidency.Over the weekend, Bannon pulled Flynn aside for a conversation, according to a White House official. Gannon, who had supported Flynn amid turmoil, told him he should do the right thing and resign, this official said.The White House has already begun canvassing for Flynn s permanent replacement. Retired Gen. David Petraeus is scheduled to meet with Trump at the White House on Tuesday, according to people familiar with the plans.Petraeus was briefly considered for secretary of state during the transition but was passed over in part because of his 2015 conviction for mishandling classified information.Trump has long admired Petraeus and sought his counsel. Trump likes him, he respects him, said a person close to Trump.Petraeus did not respond to an email seeking comment.For entire story Politico | 0 |
9,533 | NATO's Stoltenberg says North Korea's 'reckless behavior' requires global response | LONDON (Reuters) - North Korea s reckless behavior is a global threat and requires a global response, the head of the NATO military alliance said on Sunday. NATO has not been directly involved in the crisis, which saw Pyongyang carry out its sixth and most powerful nuclear test a week ago, but has repeatedly called on North Korea to abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. The reckless behavior of North Korea is a global threat and requires a global response and that of course also includes NATO, NATO head Jens Stoltenberg said in an interview with BBC television. Asked whether an attack on the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam would trigger NATO s Article 5, which requires each member of the alliance to come to the defense of any other, Stoltenberg said: I will not speculate about whether Article 5 will be applied in such a situation. We are now totally focused on how can we contribute to a peaceful solution of the conflict, he said. There is no easy way out of this difficult situation, but at the same time we have to ... continue to work for political solution, continue to press also the economic sanctions. The United States and its allies had been bracing for another long-range missile launch in time for the 69th anniversary of North Korea s founding on Saturday, but no fresh provocations were spotted while the North held numerous events to mark the holiday. Throughout last week, South Korean officials had warned the North could launch another intercontinental ballistic missile in defiance of U.N. sanctions and amid escalating tensions with the United States. British defense minister Michael Fallon also told the BBC he was very concerned about the situation. We are doing now what we can to bring about a diplomatic solution, what we have to avoid at all costs is this spilling over in to any kind of military conflict, he said. The U.S. is fully entitled to defend its own territory, to defend its bases and to look after its people but this involves us, London is closer to North Korea and its missiles than Los Angeles. Fallon said he did not believe North Korea currently had a missile capable of hitting London but said the missile program was accelerating and their range was getting longer and longer . We have to get this program halted because the dangers now of miscalculation, of some accident triggering a response are extremely great, he said. | 1 |
9,534 | coverup happening now remember remember the th of november warning | by peter koenig november
the elections may have been rigged probably by both sides as the elusive elite or whats also called the deep state may be divided it looks like the better rigger emerged as the winner the final popular vote count indicates a slight advantage of hillary over trump never mind the system was purposefully designed undemocratically in the th century by the founding fathers who never really had the intention to create a truly democratic united states of america of equal rights for all
by tony cartalucci november
the socalled alternative right is at least posing as holding its breath over the prospects of bushera neoconservative john bolton being appointed as us secretary of state however with the appointment of breitbarts steven bannon as chief strategist and senior counselor of the incoming administration of presidentelect donald trump bolton and his neoconservative agenda already has a solid foot in the door
by dr binoy kampmark november
in an age where many pundits and pollsters ought to be put out to an ignoble pasture predictions and astrology gazing on the us election continues while he did have a better sense of this election than most actually predicting the result michael moore has decided to essentially ignore it except in the negative
by carla stea november
natos preparation for and provocation of war with russia is evident in these un security council meetings this brinksmanship is a game of chicken or perhaps this perilous activity can be more aptly described as natos game of russian roulette with the lives of all humanity
by ellen brown november
donald trump was an outsider who boldly stormed the citadel of washington dc and won he has promised real change but his infrastructure plan appears to be just more of the same privatizing public assets and delivering unearned profits to investors at the expense of the people he needs to try something new and for this he could look to abraham lincoln whose bold solution was very similar to one now being considered in europe just print the money related | 0 |
9,535 | Few expect Trump's 15-percent corporate tax rate: Deloitte survey | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Only a small number of U.S. tax, finance and business professionals expect President Donald Trump’s 15-percent corporate tax rate to become reality as part of tax reform, according to a Deloitte Tax LLP survey released on Tuesday. The poll of more than 3,100 people offered a glimpse of private-sector expectations about tax reform that are less optimistic than public statements from Trump administration officials and lawmakers. Trump and his fellow Republicans are pushing to get the corporate income tax rate down from 35 percent to 15-20 percent, saying that doing so would drive U.S. economic growth and competitiveness in coming years. Just under half of the poll’s participants viewed a lower corporate rate as being the main economic driver of tax reform, but nearly 40 percent predicted the rate would end up at 25 percent, due to the political and budgetary challenges facing tax reform. Thirty-one percent of those surveyed by the professional services firm during a July 18 Deloitte webcast expected a corporate tax rate of 20 percent. Only 5.3 percent believed Trump’s 15 percent rate would become law. Republicans have pledged to enact the most sweeping tax overhaul since the Reagan era before year-end. An ambitious White House timeline calls for legislation to be unveiled in September and voted on in the House of Representatives and Senate before the end of November. Still, about 74 percent of those surveyed were doubtful or not at all confident that a comprehensive tax reform bill would be enacted in 2017. Less than 19 percent were confident or somewhat confident that it would happen this year. More than 63 percent believed compromise to be the necessary ingredient for Congress to succeed at tax reform, a quality that has proved elusive for Republican lawmakers so far this year. Trump’s leadership, public support and a sense of economic crisis were seen as essential by less than 10 percent of participants respectively. In terms of growth, about 16 percent identified tax code simplification as the feature most likely to boost the economy. International tax reform and accelerated expensing of manufacturing equipment each drew support in the single digits. | 1 |
9,536 | BREAKING: Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Reince Priebus, Sen. Jeff Sessions Travel To Mexico To Meet With President | Trump has invited an interesting and powerful line-up up guests to accompany him to Mexico for his historic meeting with Mexico s President. Could this be a sign that Trump considering former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani for his Secretary of Homeland Security?LifeZette has confirmed that GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump will travel to Mexico on Wednesday to meet with Mexican President Enrique Pe a Nieto.Sources, that include Mexican officials involved in the planning of the visit, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, stated the meeting would cover a broad variety of topics ranging from trade to security to immigration and the contentious issue of border enforcement.It is expected that Trump advisor and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus and Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, along with high-ranking Mexican officials, will attend the meeting.The meeting will occur, despite concerns from both Mexican security services and the U.S. Secret Service.Officials expect the two leaders to make some statement following the meeting, but do not expect a full press conference.The trip is particularly historic for Trump in that no previous non-incumbent presidential nominee of a major party has ever travelled to Mexico as part of his campaign.The stakes for both Donald Trump and the Mexican president are high.For Nieto, the meeting represents a tremendous opportunity to offer Trump, the potential next President of the United States, an olive branch. Nieto has made negative comments about Trump in the past, including a suggestion Trump was like a fascist dictator. The meeting will offer Nieto the chance to clear the deck with the potential next leader of a nation on which his own is almost entirely economically reliant and earn goodwill for himself and his country among Trump supporters.For Trump, the historic meeting comes at a time when the GOP nominee is ramping up a high-stakes bid to win over support from traditionally Democratic minority voters in the United States. Republican presidential nominees usually aren t bold enough to go into communities of color and take the case right to them, and compete for all ears and compete for all votes, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said in an August 28 interview with ABC, They ve been afraid to do that. So, Mr. Trump deserves credit for at least taking the case directly to the people. Trump surrogate Dr. Ben Carson laid out the key objectives Trump is pursuing in his outreach to minority communities. He wants to find out from a lot of different sources what people perceive the problems to be and what they perceive the solutions to be, Carson said in an interview with Michel Martin on NPR. He also wants to hear about things that have effectively moved people out of the position of dependency and put them on a ladder to success. Tying the ecomic message geared towards minority voters into the campaign s overall theme Carson said, you cannot be great if you have large pockets of people who are failing. Here s a message from a Latino Trump supporter from Oakland, CA:Democrats keep minorities voting for them by simply pulling out the race card. #Getwoke #Staywoke #LatinosForTrump pic.twitter.com/QNmQwPHO23 Oak-Town Unfiltered (@hrtablaze) August 11, 2016A new report from Gallup indicates Trump s effort may be finding success with U.S.-born Hispanic voters.The analysis of found Hispanics who were born in the United States, those who constitute most of the Hispanic demographic s total voters, only find view Clinton more favorably than Trump by a 14-point margin. To put that in context, 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney lost the Hispanic vote by a whopping 44 percent.For entire story: Lifezette | 0 |
9,537 | IRS EXEC LOIS LERNER DEMANDS SECRECY In Law Suit…Claims Death Threats Over Tea Party Targeting [Video] | This is rich! Lois Lerner wants her testimony in an upcoming class-action case to remain sealed. The former IRS official is accused of targeting hundreds of groups due to their conservative beliefs. This is all happening at the same time Republicans just filed charges against Lerner (see below)The Washington Times reported:Former IRS senior executive Lois G. Lerner told a federal court this week that she faces the possibility of death threats if her role in the tax agency s tea party-targeting becomes public, and asked a judge to forever seal her upcoming deposition in a class-action lawsuit brought by hundreds of groups that were targeted.Mr. Lerner and Holly Paz, another figure from the IRS tea party targeting, told the judge they ve already faced harassment and death threats before, and said they fear another media firestorm if their version of events from the tea party targeting were to become public.The two women said they are willing to testify, but said they could be putting their lives in serious jeopardy. Mss. Lerner and Paz have demonstrated that the public dissemination of their deposition testimony would expose them and their families to harassment and a credible risk of violence and physical harm, they said in documents submitted by their lawyer to Judge Michael R. Barrett.HOUSE REPUBLICANS To File Charges Against The IRS s Lois Lerner Who can forget when Lois Lerner sat smugly before the House panel and plead the 5th She sat there as cool as a cucumber and didn t answer about the IRS targeting of conservatives.Well, now it s time for her to finally be held accountable Truly accountable and NOT pleading the 5th.REMEMBER WHEN WE GOT A PEAK AT HER E-MAILS? YIKES! It s official! Lois Lerner is the bitter b*tch we all knew she was when she took the 5th before Congress. Who s not surprised that she targeted conservatives while she was at the IRS. Remember Lois Lerner? How could you forget. She s the former head of the IRS Exempted Organizations division who was caught using the agency to target Americans based on their political views.Well we now have snippets from some of her email conversations, and it becomes crystal clear that she targeted conservatives because, well, she really hates conservatives. Clearly the type of person who should be placed in a position of governmental power.From The Hill:Lois Lerner, the central figure in the IRS targeting controversy, called Abraham Lincoln the country s worst president in an email disclosed in a bipartisan Senate report, according to USA Today. Look my view is that Lincoln was our worst president not our best, Lerner wrote in an email dated March 6, 2014.Lerner, the former IRS director of Exempted Organizations, joked in one email that the 16th president should have just let the South secede, rather than fighting the Civil War. He should [have] let the south go, Lerner wrote in response to a friend who disparaged Texas as a pathetic state. We really do seem to have [two] different mind sets. And what is your mind set Ms. Lerner? That government officials should target American citizens if they hold political views you don t like?The report also highlighted emails written by Lerner calling conservatives crazies and a holes. Yes ladies and gentlemen, this is your government. Corrupt beyond belief, shady, unethical, dangerous and vengeful.So why is Lois Lerner not sitting in a jail cell for this clear abuse of power? Because oligarchy.Via: Zero Hedge | 0 |
9,538 | Fox Guest: The GOP Shouldn’t Bother With The ‘Black Vote,’ They’re ‘Slaves’ To The Democrats (VIDEO) | It is no secret that the Republican Party is incredibly racist. It s also no secret that the people over at Fox News frequently bring their token minorities on for interviews in the hopes that this will somehow justify their vitriol. That s exactly what they did on Monday when Crystal Wright, founder of the Conservative Black Chick blog, appeared on Fox & Friends. Hosts Steve Doocy and Anna Kooiman asked the blogger if she believes there is a GOP candidate who could steal the African-American vote (93 percent in 2012) from Democrats. Wright responded by saying that Donald Trump is that candidate because he is the only person running who is bothering to talk to black people and ask for their vote. She explained that his help would come in the form of mass deportation of the undocumented immigrants who are stealing jobs from black Americans.Nevermind the fact that there are few Americans of any race who are flocking to farms to harvest crops a job that is performed by-and-large by immigrants.As if that statement wasn t stupid enough, she went on to say: I think it s so sad when it comes to the black vote. Blacks have shown a slavish support for the Democrat [SIC] Party for over 50 years. And part of me wonders if the Republican Party should even bother asking for the black vote, Wright added, because black Americans seem to like being political dummies. We re the only race that has voted lock, stock and barrel for the same party for over 50 years. Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that the Democratic Party is the one who supported the Civil Rights Movement fifty years ago, while Republicans retreated into racism. (And please do not try to say that it was the GOP who wanted equal rights for all minorities, we all know about the Southern Strategy.)Wright s ignorance is breathtaking. If this is who Fox goes to for advice about the African-American community, it s no wonder the Democratic Party has secured their vote.Watch the rest of her interview below:Featured image via video screenshot | 0 |
9,539 | Warehouse fire sends huge clouds of smoke across London skyline | LONDON (Reuters) - A fire at an industrial estate sent clouds of smoke billowing across London on Thursday morning. London s fire brigade said 81 firefighters and 12 fire engines were battling the blaze at an industrial estate in Ponders End, northeast London. The smoke clouds could be seen against a clear blue sky from as far away as the Canary Wharf financial district in the east of the capital. There were no immediate reports of injuries. | 1 |
9,540 | Senator asks FBI if it warned Trump campaign about Russian meddling | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has asked the FBI whether it warned Donald Trump’s presidential campaign about alleged attempts by Russia to infiltrate the campaign. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley’s office said on Thursday he wrote to Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray asking whether the agency provided “defensive briefings” to Trump’s team given its ongoing investigation of Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager. “If the FBI did provide a defensive briefing or similar warning to the campaign, then that would raise important questions about how the Trump campaign responded,” Grassley wrote in the letter dated Sept. 20. If the FBI did not alert the campaign, Grassley said, that would raise “serious questions about what factors contributed to its decision and why it appears to have been handled differently in a very similar circumstance involving a previous campaign.” The senator said that according to press reports, U.S. intelligence had raised similar concerns with John McCain during the Republican senator’s 2008 presidential campaign. Grassley, however, did not ask the FBI about the possibility that it had offered Trump or campaign officials such a briefing but the offer was declined. After the 2016 election, two U.S. intelligence officers flew to New York to brief President-elect Trump on Russia, only to find when they arrived at Trump Tower that the briefing had been canceled, two senior U.S. officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. 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. Trump denies his campaign colluded with Russia and dismisses investigations into allegations of Russian interference in the election as witch hunts. Russia denies meddling in the U.S. election. | 1 |
9,541 | Activists to appeal new South African nuclear plant decision | CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - Greenpeace Africa and other NGOs intend to appeal against South Africa s decision to grant an environmental permit for a new 4,000 megawatt nuclear plant close to Cape Town, the activists said on Monday. Last month South Africa s department of environmental affairs granted authorization to state-owned power utility Eskom to build the new plant at Duynefontein, close to the continent s only existing nuclear site Koeberg. South Africa s nuclear regulator said in October that an installation site license for the plant would likely be granted in June, despite the finance minister saying construction of a new plant was unaffordable in a stagnant economy facing further credit downgrades. If this project goes ahead, it will infringe the environmental rights of both present and future generations. This authorization can and must be challenged, Penny-Jane Cooke, climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace Africa, said in a statement. South Africa s nuclear plans are shrouded in controversy and uncertainty, with local activists and the media raising concerns about transparency and costs as well as safety and environmental risks at a time when Pretoria is trying to reduce the economy s heavy reliance on coal power. Nuclear reactor makers including Rosatom, South Korea s Kepco, France s EDF and Areva, Toshiba-owned Westinghouse and China s CGN are eyeing the South African project, which could be worth tens of billions of dollars. | 1 |
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9,543 | China tightens regulation of religion to 'block extremism' | BEIJING (Reuters) - China s cabinet on Thursday passed new rules to regulate religion to bolster national security, fight extremism and restrict faith practiced outside organizations approved by the state. The document passed by Premier Li Keqiang updates a version of rules put into place in 2005 to allow the regulation of religion to better reflect profound changes in China and the world, the official Xinhua news agency reported. The rules released by Xinhua use strong and specific language about the need to protect China s national security against threats from religious groups. Religious affairs maintenance should persist in a principle of maintaining legality, curbing illegality, blocking extremism, resisting infiltration and attacking crime, the regulations say. Any group or individual must not create conflict or contention between different religions, with a single religion or between religious individuals and non-religious individuals, they say. President Xi Jinping has emphasized the need to guard against foreign infiltration through religion and the need to prevent the spread to extremist ideology, while also being tolerant of traditional faiths that he sees as a salve to social ills. The officially atheist ruling Communist Party says it protects freedom of religion, but it keeps a tight rein on religious activities and allows only officially recognized religious institutions to operate. The rules, which come into effect on Feb 2, 2018, also place new oversight on online discussion of religious matters, on religious gatherings, the financing of religious groups and the construction of religious buildings, among others. They increase existing restrictions on unregistered religious groups to include explicit bans on teaching about religion or going abroad to take part in training or meetings. Much of China s religious practice, which has seen a revival in recent decades despite being effectively banned in the 1960s during the Cultural Revolution, takes place in informal settings not recognized, though often tolerated, by the authorities. Religious education is also further brought under the umbrella of the state in the regulations, with explicit provisions on the establishment and registration of religious colleges. New provisions are included on the use and raising of religious funds and on taxation. Donations from foreign groups or individuals, for example, are banned, while donations over 100,000 yuan ($15,420) need to be reported to authorities. Fines for breaking the rules have also been increased in the new version and the organizers of unapproved events can now be subject to fines from 100,000 to 300,000 yuan, rather than the previous 1 to 3 times the amount spent on the event. | 1 |
9,544 | India struggles to rein in border flows of cattle and Rohingya | NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Stopping Rohingya refugees from crossing India s porous eastern border with Bangladesh is straining the resources of guards battling to halt a flow of smuggled cattle in the opposite direction, security officials say. More than half a million Muslim Rohingya, a stateless ethnic minority, have fled Myanmar for Bangladesh since violence erupted on Aug. 25, but it is not clear how many then sought to travel on to India. Last month India ordered its border guards to use rude and crude methods, such as chilli and stun grenades , to block their entry. But that directive clashes with another task India s Hindu nationalist government has set its border guards - to keep cows, seen by many Hindus as sacred, from being smuggled into Bangladesh for slaughter, in a trade worth $600 million a year. It s hard to stop cows and human beings at the same time, a senior official of India s Border Security Force (BSF), which has about 30,000 troops patrolling the frontier with Bangladesh, said in New Delhi, the capital. The collective duty to seize cattle and push Rohingyas is having a negative impact on the morale of our troops, added the official, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media. We have conveyed this message to the top government officials. He was one of four senior officials who told Reuters that Prime Minister Narendra Modi s government must decide which task should get priority. An official of the Indian home ministry told Reuters the authorities were working to tackle the concerns of the border guards, who have been successful in blocking entry of the Rohingya. India wants to deport about 40,000 Rohingya refugees who arrived in previous years, calling them a threat to national security, despite an outcry from rights groups. Since the violence in Myanmar, there has been a sudden rise in the number of cattle coming from India, said traders in Bangladesh, which considers the border trade legal. There are fewer obstacles to getting cattle from India right now, said Rabiul Alam, secretary of the Bangladesh Meat Traders Association, which has about 1,000 members. In July, India s top court suspended a government ban on the trade of cattle for slaughter, giving a boost to its meat and leather industries, worth more than $16 billion in annual sales, and run mostly by members of the Muslim minority. The slaughter of cows was already banned in most parts of India, but Hindu hardliners and cow vigilante groups have been increasingly asserting themselves since Modi s government came to power in 2014. Stopping the cattle smugglers is not easy. At least 400 border guards have been injured and six killed in such operations since 2015, BSF figures show. The guards often have to wade through fields and ponds, wielding bamboo sticks and ropes to deter smugglers and round up the cattle. Injuries to guards is almost a routine affair now, said R. P. Singh, a BSF official in West Bengal state, which shares a 2,216-km (1,375-mile) border with Bangladesh. | 1 |
9,545 | 'No-brainer' or no-no? Congress split on probing Trump tax returns | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congressional Democrats on Friday said the U.S. Congress should obtain President Donald Trump’s tax records to examine possible conflicts of interest, although Republicans showed little interest in taking action. “This is a no-brainer, for crying out loud,” said Democratic Representative Bill Pascrell, a House Ways and Means Committee Democrat who asked the panel this month to request Trump’s federal tax returns from the U.S. Treasury. The Ways and Means Committee is one of three panels with the authority to subpoena tax returns. Defying decades of precedent, Trump has refused to release his tax returns. This has made it harder for watchdogs to determine how his actions as president may affect his sprawling business empire, including his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, where Trump is hosting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe this weekend. Critics say disclosing tax returns would help settle concerns about possible conflicts of interest. While Democrats say tax committees in Congress should exercise their authority to request Trump’s federal tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service, Republicans who control Congress have shown little interest in doing so. “I don’t think we can roll all over people just because they’re in a position of government,” said Senator Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican who chairs both the Senate Finance Committee and the Joint Committee on Taxation, the two other panels with the authority to request tax records. The three committees do not need permission from Congress as a whole to review tax records behind closed doors, according to tax experts and congressional aides. However, they face a higher barrier if they want to make that information public. “There has to be a legitimate purpose for that disclosure. It has to be in the public interest,” said George Yin, a former Joint Committee on Taxation chief of staff who now teaches at the University of Virginia. Republicans have asked for an ethics review of one senior White House adviser’s promotion of Ivanka Trump’s products. Democrats say persistent concerns about Trump’s continued ownership of an international web of companies could eventually prompt lawmakers to take action. Pascrell said Trump’s tax returns will come up for debate as Congress moves to overhaul the U.S. tax code. “We certainly don’t want tax reform to benefit any particular group, including the president of the United States,” Pascrell told Reuters. “I ain’t going away.” | 1 |
9,546 | Trump feels 'totally vindicated' by Comey testimony: Trump attorney | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump is pleased that fired FBI Director James Comey confirmed in prepared congressional testimony that Trump was not under investigation in the probe of alleged Russian meddling in the U.S. election, Trump’s outside attorney said in a statement on Wednesday. “The President is pleased that Mr. Comey has finally publicly confirmed his private reports that the President was not under investigation in any Russian probe,” attorney Marc Kasowitz said. “The President feels completely and totally vindicated,” the statement said. | 1 |
9,547 | U.S. senator probes Pentagon on Russian source code reviews | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. senator on Tuesday asked the Defense Department to explain how it manages the risks when it uses software that has been scrutinized by foreign governments, saying the practice may represent a national security threat. Reuters reported earlier this month that Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co allowed a Russian defense agency to review the source code or inner workings of cyber defense software known as ArcSight, which is used by the Pentagon to guard its computer networks. “HPE’s ArcSight system constitutes a significant element of the U.S. military’s cyber defenses,” Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen wrote in a letter to Defense Secretary James Mattis seen by Reuters. Shaheen, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said disclosure of ArcSight’s source code to the Russian agency presented an “opportunity to exploit a system used on [Defense Department] platforms.” Shaheen questioned whether the Trump administration was pushing back on demands for source code from Russia and elsewhere that are imposed on U.S. companies as a condition for entry into foreign markets. Such reviews highlight a quandary for U.S. technology companies, as they weigh U.S. cyber security protections while pursuing business with some of Washington’s adversaries, including Russia and China, according to security experts. “I understand that individual businesses must make decisions weighing the risk of intellectual property disclosure against the opportunity of accessing significant overseas markets,” Shaheen wrote. “However, when such products undergird [Defense Department] cyber defenses, our national security may be at stake in these decisions.” The Pentagon and HPE did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the letter. Cyber security experts, former U.S. intelligence officials and former ArcSight employees said the review of ArcSight’s core instruction, also known as source code, could help Moscow discover weaknesses in the software, potentially helping hackers to blind the U.S. military to an attack. HPE has said in the past that such reviews, by a Russian government-accredited testing company, have taken place for years at a research and development center it operates outside of Russia. The software maker has also said it closely supervises the process and that no code is allowed to leave the premises, ensuring it does not compromise the safety of its products. A company spokeswoman said last week that no current HPE products have undergone Russian source code reviews. HPE was spun off from Hewlett-Packard Inc as a separate software company in 2015. Shaheen’s letter asked Mattis whether he foresaw risks associated with the disclosure of ArcSight’s code and whether the Pentagon was monitoring whether technology vendors share source code or “other sensitive technical data.” She also asked how frequently vendors disclose the source code of products used by the Pentagon to foreign governments. Shaheen recently led successful efforts in Congress to ban all government use of software provided by Moscow-based antivirus firm Kaspersky Lab, amid allegations the company is allied with Russian intelligence. Kaspersky vehemently denies such links. Tech companies have been under increasing pressure to allow the Russian government to examine source code in exchange for approvals to sell products in Russia. While many Western firms have complied, some, including California-based cyber firm Symantec, have refused. ArcSight was sold to British tech company Micro Focus International Plc in a deal completed in September. The company said last week that while source code reviews were a common industry practice, it would restrict future reviews by “high-risk” governments and subject them to chief executive approval. | 1 |
9,548 | White House vows to fight media 'tooth and nail' over Trump coverage | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House vowed on Sunday to fight the news media “tooth and nail” over what it sees as unfair attacks, with a top adviser saying the Trump administration had presented “alternative facts” to counter low inauguration crowd estimates. On his first full day as president, Trump said he had a “running war” with the media and accused journalists of underestimating the number of people who turned out Friday for his swearing-in. White House officials made clear no truce was on the horizon on Sunday in television interviews that set a much harsher tone in the traditionally adversarial relationship between the White House and the press corps. “The point is not the crowd size. The point is the attacks and the attempt to delegitimize this president in one day. And we’re not going to sit around and take it,” Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said on “Fox News Sunday.” The sparring with the media has dominated Trump’s first weekend in office, eclipsing debate over policy and Cabinet appointments. It was the main theme at the Republican president’s first visit to the CIA, at the press secretary’s first media briefing and in senior officials’ first appearances on the Sunday talk shows. Together, they made clear the administration will continue to take an aggressive stance with news organizations covering Trump. “We’re going to fight back tooth and nail every day and twice on Sunday,” Priebus said. He repeated White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s assertions on Saturday that the media manipulated photographs of the National Mall to make the crowds on Friday look smaller than they really were. Aerial photographs showed the crowds were significantly smaller than when Barack Obama took over as president in 2009. The Washington subway system said it had 193,000 riders by 11 a.m. (1600 GMT) on Friday, compared with 513,000 at that time during the 2009 inauguration. Spicer’s categorical assertion that “this was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration - period” was widely challenged in media reports citing crowd count experts and was lampooned on social media as well. Asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” why the press secretary was uttering provable falsehoods, White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway fired back. “If we are going to keep referring to our press secretary in those types of terms I think that we are going to rethink our relationship here,” she said. Conway responded to criticism that the new administration was focusing on crowds rather than on significant domestic and foreign policy issues by saying: “We feel compelled to go out and clear the air and put alternative facts out there.” Priebus and Conway focused on a press pool report that said the bust of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. had been removed from the Oval Office after Trump took office. The report on Friday night was quickly corrected, but Trump called out the reporter by name during a visit to the Central Intelligence Agency on Saturday. Spicer also berated the reporter later in the day. With the Nov. 8 election results shadowed by U.S. intelligence reports of Russian meddling on his behalf, Trump has bristled at reports suggesting his popular support is soft and that the election was not legitimate. Trump, who lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton by nearly 3 million votes, made no mention of Russia in his first visit to the CIA on Saturday. He praised his nominee to head the agency, Mike Pompeo, and ranted against the “dishonest” media, a favorite target during his presidential campaign. The president accused the media of fabricating his tensions with the U.S. intelligence community, despite his frequent posts on Twitter that derided the agencies. Trump drew criticism from Democrats as well as former CIA Director John Brennan for his remarks at the agency, where he spoke before a memorial wall with stars representing personnel killed in action. “President Trump ought to realize he’s not campaigning anymore. He’s president,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said on ABC’s “This Week.” “Instead of talking about how many people showed up at his inauguration, he ought to be talking about how many people are going to stay in the middle class and move into the middle class.” | 1 |
9,549 | Lawyers evasive about ex-U.S. House speaker's alleged sex abuse | (Reuters) - Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s lawyers declined on Saturday to directly address sexual abuse allegations from federal prosecutors, who asserted that he molested at least four boys decades ago when he served as a high school wrestling coach. Hastert, 74, faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison when sentenced later this month for his guilty plea in October to a federal charge of illegally structuring large bank withdrawals in small increments to evade currency-reporting rules. As part of that plea, the former Republican speaker of the House of Representatives admitted paying $1.7 million in cash to someone he had known for decades as hush money and compensation for unspecified wrongdoing toward that individual. Until this week, neither defense lawyers nor prosecutors had stepped forward to publicly reveal the underlying misconduct at issue. That changed on Friday, when prosecutors alleged in a court filing that Hastert had sexually abused at least four boys on the wrestling team he coached during his time as a teacher at Yorkville High School in the 1960s and ‘70s. Providing details of the alleged abuse, some of them quite graphic, the prosecutors said Hastert offered massages to students in a locker room, where he had set up an easy chair in view of the boys’ shower, and inappropriately touched some of the students. They also cited an alleged incident that occurred during a wrestling trip in a motel room. Although statutes of limitations bar sexual abuse charges against Hastert, “with this case the government seeks to hold defendant accountable for the crimes he committed that can still be prosecuted,” the court filing said. Asked by Reuters if Hastert or his lawyers would comment on the court filing, a pre-sentencing memorandum, Hastert attorney Thomas Green issued a statement that neither confirmed nor denied the allegations. Hastert “acknowledges that as a young man he committed transgressions for which he is profoundly sorry,” the statement said. “He earnestly apologizes to his former students, family, friends, previous constituents and all others affected by the harm his actions have caused.” The wording closely mirrored a similar expression of remorse contained in a pre-sentencing memo filed by the defense earlier this week. It differed, however, in expressly mentioning “former students.” The defense has asked the federal judge in the case to spare Hastert prison time, citing his deteriorating health, his remorse and years he “dedicated to public service.” Prosecutors have recommended a prison term of no more than six months. Sentencing is scheduled for April 27. | 1 |
9,550 | The Supreme Court Just Decided The Second Amendment Does NOT Apply To Everyone | The Supreme Court just decided that no, not everyone should have access to firearms, upholding the federal law that if you are a domestic abuser, you should not be able to possess a gun. Seems like a no-brainer, but if you re a domestic abuser, you ve already proven yourself to not have much cognitive ability.The case in question was about a Maine resident who was mad he lost his right to possess a firearm. According to CNN: Stephen Voisine pled guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge in 2004 against a girlfriend. Five years later, he was investigated for shooting a bald eagle and as part of the investigation he turned over a firearm to authorities. Seems like a real winner. Oh, and a bald eagle? Really? And he thinks he should be able to own a gun?Well, guess what, Mr. Voisine, and all you other domestic abusers out there, you don t get to own a gun.Justice Elena Kagan read the opinion of the Court: Federal law prohibits any person convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence from possessing a firearm. That phrase is defined to include any misdemeanor committed against a domestic relation that necessarily involves the use . . . of physical force. The question presented here is whether misdemeanor assault convictions for reckless (as contrasted to knowing or intentional) conduct trigger the statutory firearms ban. We hold that they do. Kagan then cited the gun law that was enacted by Congress two decades ago: Congress enacted some 20 years ago to close [a] dangerous loophole in the gun control laws. United States v. Castleman. An existing provision already barred convicted felons from possessing firearms. But many perpetrators of domestic violence are charged with misdemeanors rather than felonies, notwithstanding the harmfulness of their conduct. And [f]irearms and domestic strife are a potentially deadly combination. Accordingly, Congress added to prohibit any person convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence from possessing any gun or ammunition with a connection to interstate commerce. Guns and domestic violence are an incredibly lethal combination. Kudos to the Court for stepping up and doing the right thing. Not every Tom, Dick or Sally just deserves to have a gun just because of the Second Amendment. The amendment was written to arm standing state militias, that were to be trained and utilized by the federal government. It s pretty clear if you read the entire Constitution, especially Article 1 Section 8, and not just the Amendment added to arm the aforementioned militias.Hopefully this is just the beginning of the Supreme Court waking up and realizing guns are lethal and should be better regulated the whole way around. Maybe Congress can take a few notes.Featured Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Image | 0 |
9,551 | NEW YORK TIMES BUSTED: Undercover Video Exposes Editor for Bias Against Trump [Video] | Project Veritas latest installment in the American Pravda series takes aim at The New York Times, the supposed paper of record. In the first part of this series, Nicholas Dudich, Audience Strategy Editor for the Times extensive video library speaks candidly about how his left political bias influences his editorial judgement and reveals an unusual connection to former FBI Director James Comey, and a strange association with domestic terror group Antifa.Since this video came out, the New York Times released a statement saying they ve launched an investigation:This should have been done when hiring this former antifa thug who also worked for Clinton.RT reported:In the video, Dudich calls himself the gatekeeper for all the New York Times videos posted online, saying that his imprint is on every video we do. Any video that goes on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram I have a hand in that, Dudich said.When talking journalistic ethics, Dudich is captured sarcastically making air quotes while he said that he will be objective working for the Times before quickly admitting: no I m not. That s why I m there. According to the New York Times ethical handbook, employees must do nothing that might raise questions about their professional neutrality or that of The Times. As a journalist, I m not able to give any money to any political organization. I m not able to volunteer for any political organization. I m not able to work for any nonprofit or charity. Like, there s a lot of guidelines and ethics, Dudich said.However, before joining the Times, Dudich worked social media on the 2012 presidential campaign of former President Barack Obama and the 2016 presidential campaign of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.When asked how he was able to be politically active and still work as a journalist, Dudich said that he had to leave his job at ABC to take a job where he wasn t deemed a journalist anymore in order to work for the Clinton campaign.Dudich said he made the sacrifice in order to work against Trump, who he said was a threat. I saw the threat and I was like, I want to do something, Dudich said. Trump was a threat and still is a threat, right? Trump is a threat, the interviewer interjects. He s a threat. Oh, he s a threat to everything, Dudich added.Read more President/co-founder of The Dream Corps and CNN contributor Van Jones Rich Polk CNN s Van Jones calls Russia nothing burger video edited, right-wing propaganda At one point, Dudich explains his idea to make Trump resign or leave office by going after his businesses and his dumb f**k of a son, Donald Jr., and Eric. Target that. Get people to boycott going to his hotels, Dudich said. If you can ruin the Trump brand and you put pressure on his business and you start investigating his business and you start shutting it down, or they re hacking or other things. He cares about his business more than he cares about being President. He would resign. Or he d lash out and do something incredibly illegal, which he would have to. | 0 |
9,552 | Too little cash, too much politics, leaves UNESCO fighting for life | PARIS (Reuters) - In the modernist but faded headquarters of UNESCO, the U.N. s cultural agency on Paris s elegant Left Bank, more than a few diplomats wandered the corridors on Friday wondering if the organization has a future. The agency, founded in the ashes of World War Two to protect the common cultural inheritance of humanity, was due to elect a new head later in the day. But a sudden announcement that the United States was quitting over anti-Israel bias meant that whoever wins the top job would inherit a body in turmoil, with huge questions over its future funding and mission. I think it s a catastrophic decision, said Daniel Rondeau, a former French envoy to the body. It s a fracture that seriously jeopardizes the very nature of UNESCO - its universal dimension - and the very concept of multilateralism. Officially known as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO is best known for designating and protecting archaeological and heritage sites, from the Galapagos Islands to the tombs of Timbuktu. Most of its activities are uncontroversial, but when it comes to, say, resolutions about how religious sites should be run in Jerusalem, every word is studied for accusations of bias. For some of its diplomats, Washington s decision to quit represented a corner being turned, and puts even more pressure on whoever is elected to lead it. This is the most critical election. There can t be four more years like this, said a Western diplomat, bemoaning the leadership of outgoing director Irina Bokova of Bulgaria, whose critics say she failed to persuade member states to pay their dues and stop politicizing UNESCO s work. At the heart of its recent problems is a financing crisis since 2011, when UNESCO voted to admit Palestine as a full member state and Washington responded by halting payment of its annual $80 million in dues. The United States and Israel were among just 14 of 194 members to vote against Palestine s membership. Washington says it favors an independent Palestinian state some day, but it must arise from negotiations, and admitting the Palestinians to international bodies beforehand hurts the peace process. Since then, Israel has regularly complained over resolutions about cultural sites in the West Bank and Jerusalem, arguing that they are worded to delegitimize the Jewish state. Israel s foes say it uses U.S. support to deflect bona fide criticism. Without U.S. money, UNESCO, which employs around 2,000 people worldwide, has been forced to cut programs, freeze hiring and fill gaps with voluntary contributions. Its 2017 budget was about $326 million, almost half its 2012 budget. We need to do less with less. We ve spent too long trying to do too much without the means, said a UNESCO official, who declined to be identified. We need to sell ourselves better, but without funding it s difficult to change our image. Including the United States, which has some $542 million in arrears, the organization is owed almost $650 million, according to figures on its website. At this stage, UNESCO officials still don t know if the United States will make up its arrears before it officially exits on Dec. 31, 2018. Other major contributors such as Japan, Britain, and Brazil have also yet to pay their dues for 2017, sometimes citing objections to the body s policies. The fact is that UNESCO was all about solidarity and creating a climate for peace between countries, but nations now use their dues to influence programs, said a UNESCO-based diplomat. That needs to change. Japan, for example, has threatened to withhold dues over the inclusion of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre in the body s Memory of the World program. Russia and Ukraine have been at odds over Crimea, with Kiev accusing Moscow of trying to legitimize its annexation of the territory through UNESCO. Whoever takes over at the helm has to tackle this head on. They need to find ways of getting nations to talk these issues through, but if they can t, then the director-general needs to be able to say no and kill these texts, said a second UNESCO-based diplomat. Unlike at the U.N. Security Council, where five powers wield a veto, UNESCO takes decisions based on majority votes, either of its General Secretariat that includes all 195 nations, or of the 58-member Executive Board. Israel says this creates a built-in majority for states that are hostile to it. Big countries like the United States that provide most of the funding say their single votes give them little input into how their money is spent. Prior to Thursday s U.S. decision to withdraw, UNESCO s board had tried to evade confrontation by voting to postpone divisive Israeli-Palestinian texts until April, diplomats said. All the candidates running to head UNESCO have vowed grassroots reforms and efforts to de-politicize the institution. The final candidates are two former culture ministers from France and Qatar. But even the vote on a new boss is tinged with politics, since Egypt, which has also vied for the top post, and Qatar are on opposite sides in a diplomatic dispute in the Arab world. | 1 |
9,553 | PELOSI Lied About “Affordable” Healthcare And Now Threatens Republican “Cowards” For Ditching It: “You break it, you own it” [Video] | Via: WT | 0 |
9,554 | Russia's Lavrov, USA's Tillerson expected to meet at G20 summit: agencies | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and United States’ secretary of state Rex Tillerson would meet at the G20 summit in Germany next week, deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Thursday, Russian news agencies reported. The summit of the world’s largest economies will be held in Germany’s Hamburg on July 7-8. | 1 |
9,555 | Justice Dept. group studying national security threats of internet-linked devices | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department has formed a threat analysis team to study potential national security challenges posed by self-driving cars, medical devices and other Internet-connected tools, a senior official said. The new group’s goal is to secure the so-called “internet of things” from exploitation by “terrorist threats” and by others who might try to hack devices to cause loss of life or achieve political or economic gain, according to Assistant Attorney General John Carlin, head of the Justice Department’s national security division. The impetus for the team, which has been informally active for about six months, was an understanding that the internet is vulnerable to cyber attacks partly because it was not designed with security in mind, Carlin told Reuters, after announcing the group on Thursday at the Intelligence and National Security Alliance conference in Washington. Carlin said the group, a small team of about five to 10 people, did “not want to be alarmist” about new technologies such as self-driving cars, but that it wanted to identify and address security challenges presented by the internet of things before they are exploited. He cited the July truck attack in Nice, France, in which 86 people were killed, as an example of how automated driving systems could present a national security threat if they were remotely hijacked. “The internet on wheels ... clearly is going to present national security risks as this transformation takes place,” Carlin said. Transportation and public health experts say that self-driving cars could dramatically reduce auto fatalities and injuries, most of which are due to human error. Car hacking has grown as a cyber security concern in recent years. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued a bulletin in March warning that motor vehicles were “increasingly vulnerable” to hacking. In July 2015, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV recalled 1.4 million U.S. vehicles to install software after a magazine report raised concerns about hacking, the first action of its kind for the auto industry. Carlin said he has been to Detroit twice in the past six months on trips that included visits with auto industry executives to discuss national security issues surrounding smart cars. The group is being led by Adam Hickey, acting deputy assistant attorney general of the national security division, and will include industry experts and partnerships with other federal agencies, a Justice Department spokesman said. | 1 |
9,556 | state polls trump gains dramatically daily wire | the new york times is huffy over the fact that fbi director james comey announced the reopening of the fbi investigation into hillary clintons emails so theyre trying to compare him to jnbs | 1 |
9,557 | BREAKING NEWS: SECOND MUSLIM Doctor And Wife ARRESTED In MI For Genital Mutilation On 6-8 Yr Old Girls | The alleged genital mutilations were NOT performed by Dr. Nagarwala at the Henry Ford Hospital in Dearborn, MI. Authorities are saying the procedures took place at the Dr. Attar owned Burhani Medical Clinic in Livonia, MI.Now a second Michigan doctor and his wife have been arrested on charges of performing female genital mutilation on minors, according to breaking news from the U.S. Justice Department Friday.Fakhruddin Attar, 53, and his wife, Farida Attar, 50, of Livonia, were both arrested and have been charged with conspiring to perform female genital mutilations on minor girls out of Dr. Attar s medical clinic in Livonia.Authorities say Dr. Attar owned Burhani Medical Clinic in Livonia, which is where a Detroit emergency room doctor who was arrested last week is accused of performing FGM on minor girls. Authorities say Dr. Attar s wife is employed at Burhani Medical Clinic as an office manager. Authorities believe the husband and wife arranged and assisted in the FGM procedures performed by the Detroit doctor, Dr. Jumana Nagarwala.Authorities say Dr. Nagarwala never worked at Burhani Medical Clinic, therefore the office has no record of her billing for medical procedures there. Nargawala was arrested in Detroit on April 12.The FGM investigation at Burhani Medical Clinic has identified two young girls from Minnesota who have been operated on by Dr. Nagarwala. Other minor girls in Michigan may have undergone procedures as well.The defense argued, claiming no female genital mutilation took place, instead, a religious removal of a mucus membrane from the genitals which was wrapped up and given to the parents to bury a practice they say is performed by a small sect of Indian-based Islam called Dawoodi Bohra. FOX 2 Detroit | 0 |
9,558 | BOOM! WATCH TED CRUZ School Pro-Gun Control Liberal On The 2nd Amendment | Just another reason conservatives love Ted Cruz .Share this with everyone | 0 |
9,559 | Uber agrees to settle U.S. lawsuit filed by India rape victim | SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Uber Technologies Inc and a woman who accused top executives of improperly obtaining her medical records after a company driver raped her in India have agreed to settle a civil lawsuit the woman filed against Uber in June, according to a U.S. federal court filing on Friday. The Uber driver was convicted of the rape, which occurred in Delhi in 2014, in a criminal case in India. He was sentenced in 2015 to life in prison. The Indian woman had previously settled a civil U.S. lawsuit against Uber in 2015, but sued the company again in a San Francisco federal court saying that shortly after the incident, a U.S. Uber executive met with Delhi police and intentionally obtained plaintiff s confidential medical records. Uber kept a copy of those records, the lawsuit said. The woman was living in the United States when she filed the lawsuit. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed in the court document. A spokesman for San Francisco-based Uber declined to comment. An attorney for the woman could not immediately be reached for comment. The settlement comes as new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, who took the top job in August, is seeking to put several scandals behind the company following eight years of CEO Travis Kalanick s pugnacious leadership, which led to rule-breaking around the world. The lawsuit cited several media reports that said Kalanick and others doubted the victim s account of her ordeal. Uber executives duplicitously and publicly decried the rape, expressing sympathy for plaintiff, and shock and regret at the violent attack, while privately speculating, as outlandish as it is, that she had colluded with a rival company to harm Uber s business, the lawsuit said. A source with knowledge of the matter previously told Reuters that Kalanick had told other Uber executives he believed the incident had been staged by Indian ride-services rival Ola. In a prior statement, while Kalanick was CEO, Uber said: No one should have to go through a horrific experience like this, and we re truly sorry that she s had to relive it. A spokesman for Kalanick was not immediately available for comment on Friday. Uber s actions have led to a criminal probe by the U.S. Department of Justice of whether managers violated U.S. bribery laws, specifically the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the company said in June. The Justice Department did not say on what country or countries the investigation centered on. Bloomberg said it focused on activity in at least five Asian countries. Uber has also notified U.S. authorities about payments made by Uber staff to police officers in Indonesia, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters. Uber previously hired law firm O Melveny & Myers LLP to investigate how it obtained the medical records of the rape victim, Reuters reported in June. | 1 |
9,560 | These Charts Show Why We’re All Screwed Under The GOP Health Care Bill | During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump constantly made references to repealing and replacing the disaster that is Obamacare and Democrats collectively shuddered. We all knew that nothing good could come of this.Now after six months in office, despite discovering that nobody knew healthcare could be so difficult, President Trump is about to deliver on his campaign promise as the Senate returns from a one-week recess to get back to the task at hand; trying to come to an agreement on their new healthcare bill known as the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), one that they have predominately kept the public in the dark about.Things are looking bleak, however, as even the Republican party remains divided on a bill that is not only going to raise out-of-pocket costs and restrict access to services for many, but also cause tens of millions to lose their health insurance completely over the coming decade.These charts might be able to put the entire healthcare debacle into perspective:1. We All Know The Short-Term Medicaid Cuts Are Going To Suck: The new health care bill will save a ton of money, but roughly a quarter of those savings, or approximately $770 billion over the next decade, come from cuts to Medicaid. The result is that 15 million less people will be enrolled in Medicaid under the new GOP bill than compared to Obamacare:2. If You Thought That Was Bad, The Long-Term Effects Are Even Worse: The inflation rate for Medicaid spending beginning in 2025 is much slower, affecting those who rely on it the most, mainly children, the disabled, and the elderly. In fact, by 2036 federal Medicaid spending on children will be reduced by almost a third and by a quarter for the disabled and the elderly when compared to the current law according to an analysis by the health consulting firm Avalere Health:3. The Percentage Of Those Uninsured Will Rise In Every Single Age Bracket: That s right, under the BCRA 22 million people will lose their insurance (compared to 23 million under the version passed by the house) and every single age group will be affected, according to an assessment by the Congressional Budget Office:4. It Will Also Rise In Every State, Including Those Whose Overwhelming Majority Voted For Trump: Yes, the new bill will drive up the uninsured rate by at least 21% and even up to 300% in every state by 2022, a new study by the Urban Institute found:5. The Older and Poorer You Are, The More You Will Be Paying For Insurance Premiums If an analysis by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities is to be believed, health insurance premiums are going to go through the roof, but those hit the worst will be older Americans:6. The Older Middle Class Will be Hit Pretty Hard Too, As Their Tax Credits Will Go Through The Floor: The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities analysis also found that the tax credits that are available to help older people in the individual market afford health insurance are going to do just the opposite and plummet:7. Even Employer Plans Aren t Immune: The GOP s new bill cuts to Medicaid and individual market subsidies have given the 150 million Americans that receive their health insurance through their employer a false sense of security, but they re not safe, either. Not only will the new legislation bring back annual and lifetime limits in employer plans, as well as end penalties for companies that don t provide health insurance to their workers, but it will also allow employers to shift much of the cost of copays, deductibles and coinsurance onto their workers. The Center for American Progress calculated how many will feel the crunch:8. Hospitals Are Going To Feel The Crunch As Well: Hospitals aren t happy with the new bill and it is easy to see why, when you consider it will cause a large spike in uncompensated care for hospitals across all states: 9. Finally, The New Bill Will Cause Massive Job Loss, Particularly In The Health Care Sector: By 2026, more than 1.45 million jobs will be lost as a direct result of the BCRA go by the results of a report by the Commonwealth Fund and George Washington University. In fact, the report goes as far as to say that Every state except Hawaii would have fewer jobs and a weaker economy, however, it s not just health care employment that will be affected, but also retail and construction as well:So if you thought this latest rewrite of the GOP s health care legislation didn t affect you, you more than likely thought wrongly. Even if it isn t your health care that is directly affected, chances are you will still feel the ripple effects of the bill on the economy, both on a state and national level.Featured image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images | 0 |
9,561 | Border wall prototypes a first small step on Trump campaign promise | San Diego (Reuters) - Nine months after President Donald Trump took office, the first tangible signs of progress on one of the central promises of his campaign have appeared along the U.S. border with Mexico. A couple of miles (km) from the bustling Otay Mesa border crossing in San Diego, eight towering chunks of concrete and steel stand as high as 30 feet (9 meters) tall against the sky, possible models for what Trump has promised will one day be a solid wall extending the full length of the southern border, from California to Texas. Whether any of the eight different prototypes, constructed over the last month, become part of an actual wall remains highly uncertain. The U.S. Congress has so far shown little interest in appropriating the estimated $21.6 billion it would cost to build the wall. Still, border patrol officials on Monday welcomed the momentum on Trump’s pledge, which generated a groundswell of voter support that helped elect him to office. “Our current infrastructure is well over two decades old,” Roy Villareal, deputy chief patrol agent of the U.S. Border Patrol’s San Diego sector, said during a tour with media organizations on Monday morning. “Is there need for improvement? Absolutely.” Currently, 654 miles (1,052 km) of the 1,900-mile (3,058-km)border with Mexico is fenced, with single, double or triple fences. The second line of fencing in San Diego, about 18 feet (5.50 m) tall, has been breached nearly 2,000 times in the last three years, Villareal said. Even if Trump’s wall never gets funded, Villareal said, the border patrol might incorporate one or more of the new wall designs as it replaces worn sections of the existing fence. Six contractors from across the country were selected to build the eight prototypes, all of which will be completed this week. The builders paid attention to aesthetics in their bid to win lucrative contracts. One wall segment features deep-blue steel and another has a brick facade, standing in sharp contrast to the area’s existing border fence, a ramshackle structure of corrugated steel left over from the Vietnam War. In late November, a private company, which border patrol officials declined to name, will begin a 30- to 60-day process of testing the wall prototypes to determine how easy they would be to climb over or dig beneath. The final selection could be a combination of the prototype designs, Villareal said. While solid, concrete walls have a daunting presence, they might have an adverse effect on some border patrol activities, since agents would not be able to see potential crossers approaching the wall. “It’s not so much the size of the wall, it’s the ability to see whether it’s 10 people or 30 people with ... rifles,” said Rowdy Adams, a former border patrol agent who left the agency in 2011 after 30 years. “It’s important to see that and set your response plan in place.” Two of the eight prototypes have a see-through design. Environmentalists have warned that a solid wall would prevent wildlife, including a dwindling population of federally protected ocelots, from crossing. A concrete wall may also prove challenging to build without participation from some of the world’s largest concrete suppliers. Mexico’s Cemex and Switzerland’s LafargeHolcim told Reuters they were not participating in projects associated with the wall. | 1 |
9,562 | BREAKING CHARLOTTE: VIDEO Shows Young White Girl In Dress, Heels Being Sucker Punched In Face, Knocked To Knees By Mob Of #BlackLivesMatter Cowards | The unwarranted violence against innocent White people by Black Lives Matter protesters terrorists is getting out of control! This young girl in a dress and heels is walking down the stairs when she is approached by and angry mob of Blacks and is sucker punched in the face. Someone in the background can be heard yelling, Hey hey hey she didn t do anything! The point is they don t care if she did anything. This is the gut-wrenching, divisive legacy of our First Black President #CharlotteProtest Young woman struck down last night at @EpiCentreNC. See reply for streetview of staircase. #blacklivesmatter pic.twitter.com/Ttt6wTHSNw Queenie (@LibertarianQn) September 23, 2016The EpiCenter in Charlotte, where videos have captured unbelievable violence has announced they will be closing due to safety concerns for their patrons. Click HERE to see video of young White man who begged for mercy, as he was attacked entering the parking garage two days ago.pic.twitter.com/nz6LumJe8q EpiCentre Charlotte (@EpiCentreNC) September 22, 2016In other words: In response to the violent beatings of random White people by Black Lives Matter thugs, we will be closing until these acts of terror are under control | 0 |
9,563 | newsticker | donnerstag november oettinger ich habe nichts gegen schlitzaugen einige meiner besten freunde sind reisfresser wieder einmal hat günther oettinger cdu mit einer rede für aufsehen gesorgt dabei fiel im hinblick auf china unter anderem die formulierung schlitzaugen und schlitzohren im exklusiven postillon interview äußert sich der künftige euhaushaltskommissar nun detailliert zu seinen umstrittenen äußerungen postillon herr oettinger derzeit werden sie von vielen menschen kritisiert weil sie chinesen unter anderem als schlitzaugen bezeichnet haben viele haben das als rassistische äußerung aufgefasst oettinger das ist völlig falsch rübergekommen ich habe nichts gegen schlitzaugen einige meiner besten freunde sind reisfresser postillon ach ja wie heißen die denn diese besten freunde oettinger äh ich bin zum beispiel erst neulich sushiessen gewesen und habe dem kellner sogar ein trinkgeld gegeben der hieß wahrscheinlich tsching tschang tschong oder so keine ahnung die schauen doch alle gleich aus außerdem habe ich mal in thailand urlaub gemacht wo ich die kultur der gelbhäute aus erster hand erleben konnte postillon wie darf man ihre aussagen denn dann verstehen oettinger das war als kompliment gemeint ich habe nämlich unglaublichen respekt vor diesen chinamännern weil sie so unglaublich fleißig sind und das obwohl sie nur ein beschränktes sichtfeld haben und dazu noch so klein sind postillon haben sie eine botschaft an das chinesische volk oettinger ja ich sags am besten gleich so dass sie es verstehen räuspert sich liebe asiamännel hiel splicht günthel oettingel ich möchte mich auflichtig bei ihnen entschuldigen sollte jemand von ihnen so velweichlicht sein dass ich ihn mit meinen wolten velletzt haben könnte so tut mil das leid bitte investielen sie tlotzdem fleißig in ländel del eu und lassen sie sich ihlen hund schmecken postillon klare worte oettinger ja ich schätze nach diesel äh dieser entschuldigung sollte dann auch das ganze missverständnis ausgeräumt sein postillon was meinten sie genau als sie in ihrer rede von einer pflichthomoehe sprachen oettinger herrgott sind die tucken jetzt auch noch beleidigt dann entschuldige ich mich dafür eben auch noch sorry liebe hinterlader war echt nicht so gemeint also bitte beruhigen sie sich gehen sie shoppen schwuchteln sie herum was auch immer man halt so macht als sodomist postillon damit dürften sie wieder rehabilitiert sein kommen wir zu ihren beruflichen aussichten nach zwei jahren als eukommissar für digitalwirtschaft wechseln sie jetzt auf den posten des haushaltskommissars oettinger das kam tatsächlich überraschend immerhin habe ich mich gerade so langsam in den job als digitalkommissar reingefuchst ich habe sogar schon mit dem gedanken gespielt mir dieses internet selbst mal anzuschauen quasi im saiberschbäis zu sörfen wie profis das nennen das kann ich mir jetzt wohl sparen postillon wie haben sie reagiert als sie erfuhren dass sie haushaltskommissar werden sollen oettinger erst war ich stinksauer haushalt ist ja eigentlich frauensache ich habe nicht verstanden warum die da einen mann haben wollen aber dann hat mir wer erklärt dass haushalt was mit geld zu tun hat klar dass man das keine frau machen lassen kann postillon haben sie schon erste politische pläne oettinger nein ich hatte noch keine zeit mich mit den für meinen neuen aufgabenbereich zuständigen wirtschaftslobbyisten zu treffen was ich will kann ich ihnen erst danach sagen postillon vielen dank herr oettinger für dieses aufschlussreiche gespräch oettinger aber gerne doch für einen pressefritzen waren sie eigentlich ganz erträglich | 0 |
9,564 | endlich essotankstellen bieten jetzt auch veganes benzin an | freitag november gaagnagna zum babywort des jahres gewählt münchen dpo das babywort des jahres heißt gaagnagna das gab der langenscheidtverlag heute bekannt das kompositum aus gaaaa und gnagnagna meint in der babysprache jeden beliebigen menschen der sich über ein kind beugt und mit ihm interagiert auch gegenstände geräusche oder emotionen können als gaagnagna bezeichnet werden der begriff gaagnagna beschreibt punktgenau die selbstverständlichkeit vieler babys im umgang mit absolut beliebigen menschen oder gegenständen die ihr interesse wecken erklärt jurorin ulrike reichwein es hat sich damit absolut verdient gegen pfffrrtz und huwäääh huwäääh huwääh durchgesetzt im vergangenen jahr hatte die jury den begriff amamamama zum babywort des jahres gekürt machte b das rennen die kriterien für das babywort des jahres sind sprachliche kreativität originalität verbreitungsgrad sowie gesellschaftliche oder kulturelle ereignisse die die sprache der babys beeinflussen dan ssi foto shutterstock hinweis erstmals erschienen am an angepasst artikel teilen | 0 |
9,565 | Democrats eye gains in Pennsylvania trial on 'goofy' gerrymandering | LOWER MERION, Pa. (Reuters) - In Pennsylvania state Senator Daylin Leach’s bid to win a seat vital to the Democratic Party’s chances in 2018 elections of taking control of the U.S. Congress, his opponents may not be his biggest obstacle. Leach is running in one of the country’s most gerrymandered congressional districts, one with such a twisting, winding shape that it has earned the derisive nickname “Goofy Kicking Donald Duck.” The 7th congressional district has become a national poster child for critics of gerrymandering, the process by which one party draws district boundaries to ensure an advantage among voters. Democrats say the lines have helped Republicans like U.S. Representative Patrick Meehan, the four-term incumbent Leach seeks to unseat, to stay in office. That could soon change, however. On Monday in state court in Harrisburg, one of three lawsuits challenging those boundaries heads to trial. The outcome could shift several battleground districts in Pennsylvania and in turn boost the Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, where they last held the majority from January 2007 to January 2011. The 7th district is so precisely engineered that at one point it narrows to the width of a single seafood restaurant, snaking past two other congressional districts so it can link two far flung Republican-leaning areas. “Three congressional districts all converge on this spot,” Leach said from the parking lot at Creed’s Seafood and Steaks last week, as cars whizzed overhead on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. “This is the sixth; over there is the seventh; and down that road is the 13th,” he said, pointing in several directions. “This is what gerrymandering looks like on the ground.” Leach has at least four opponents to defeat in the Democratic primary before he would run against Meehan. A spokesman for the Republican did not respond to requests for comment on the trial over gerrymandering. Critics of gerrymandering say it helps explain why Pennsylvania has sent 13 Republicans and only five Democrats to the U.S. House since the 2011 redistricting, despite being a closely divided swing state. Republican legislators counter that the lines were drawn in accordance with the law and that their candidates have prevailed in elections thanks to superior policy ideas. The Democrats have targeted six Republican-held districts in the state as part of their quest to pick up the 24 House seats they need to overturn the Republicans, who also have a Senate majority and President Donald Trump in the White House. Democrats need to win the nationwide popular vote by at least 10 points in 2018 to do so, in part because of gerrymandered lines, according to Michael Li, a redistricting expert and lawyer at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice. “Pennsylvania is probably the most aggressive of the gerrymanders,” he said. “You look at some of the maps in the Philadelphia suburbs, and it looks like a 4-year-old just slapped paint around.” The non-partisan League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania sued the state in June, arguing the maps violate the state constitution by depriving residents of a meaningful vote. The litigation is part of a growing set of legal challenges to partisan redistricting, including a U.S. Supreme Court case out of Wisconsin that could for the first time establish a constitutional standard to measure the legality of such map-making. The high court is scheduled to decide that case by June 2018, five months before the midterm elections. “The politicians are not supposed to pick their voters; the voters are supposed to elect their leaders,” said Mimi McKenzie, an attorney with the Public Interest Law Center who represents the League of Women Voters and other Pennsylvania voters. Spokesmen for the state’s Republican legislative leaders, defendants in the case, said the redistricting followed the process laid out in the state constitution and that the U.S. Supreme Court has said political considerations can play a role. “They just can’t understand how Republicans can actually beat their candidates,” Stephen Miskin, a spokesman for Pennsylvania House Speaker Mike Turzai, said of the legal challengers. In addition to the state case, two pending federal lawsuits also challenge the district lines as unconstitutional. Legal observers consider the state lawsuit the most likely to succeed in time for the voting next November. The Democratic-majority state Supreme Court has ordered the presiding judge to render his decision by Dec. 31. The high court will then determine whether to accept his ruling or issue its own conclusions. The state lawsuit asserts the redistricting included numerous examples of blatantly partisan lines. Democrat-dominated Reading, one of the most economically depressed cities in the state, was carved out of the 6th district and placed into the reliably Democratic 13th, a move the plaintiffs said was intended to render the city’s votes meaningless. Montgomery County, where state senator Leach lives, has approximately 820,000 residents, slightly more than the 711,000 needed for a single congressional district, but has been sliced into five separate districts. Leach said he would make gerrymandering a campaign issue. “It’s theft of democracy,” Leach said. “This is horribly destructive.” The story was refiled to correct paragraph 4 to say that Democrats held majority in U.S. House of Representatives from 2007 to 2011, not 2009 to 2011 | 1 |
9,566 | Angry That Benghazi Panel Couldn’t Bury Hillary, Right-Wing Nuts Hilariously Turn On Trey Gowdy | The House Select Committee on Benghazi, which was actually just an attempt to smear Hillary Clinton all over the sidewalk, has pretty much concluded, and they found exactly nothing. Republicans should all hang their heads in shame and leave it alone now, particularly the conspiracy theorists. They aren t, though. Betrayed, the right-wing conspiracy nutballs are turning their anger over Benghazi to Trey Gowdy.Trey Gowdy, who was supposed to deliver a verdict that Benghazi happened because of Hillary, all wrapped up in a neat little package and tied off with a pretty pink bow. Trey Gowdy, who was supposed to be the only one who could successfully investigate Benghazi (because the other zillion investigations likewise turned up nothing and Republicans weren t satisfied with that). Trey Gowdy, who was supposed to be able to turn the heat up so high on Hillary and everyone else that they d crack under the strain and spill everything.Trey Gowdy, who is now disgraced in the eyes of Republicans and Democrats alike, albeit for very different reasons.Michael Savage, a far-right wing radio host that pushes conspiracy nonsense, actually said: Trey Gowdy should be impeached for wasting my time! He promised us a lot! Remember? He totally forgot the fact that members of Congress can t be impeached, they can just be kicked out entirely. That little tidbit aside, it was the House that voted for a new investigation and put Gowdy in charge. Shouldn t they all be thrown out now for wasting two years and millions of taxpayer dollars? Not to side with Gowdy here, but he hardly acted alone.The Citizens Commission on Benghazi, which is made up primarily of right-wing douchecanoes looking for anything they can find to topple Hillary, is likewise angry with Gowdy. During a meeting, retired Admiral James Lyons said: Chairman Gowdy is not a stenographer. . . . He was there to make findings and conclusions. He had the information. He copped out, which is consistent that we ve seen with all our congressional leadership. Retired General Thomas McInerney is likewise wheeling around on Gowdy: [T]he American people want to know from a group that spent almost two years on it what the conclusions are. That s what we pay you for, Mr. Gowdy. But perhaps the silliest, most ridiculous moment came when a woman from the crowd at that meeting asked a truly out-there question: Has someone in the GOP leadership gotten their fingers involved in watering down some of this to benefit Secretary Clinton? Because she can t possibly be innocent. They know things. Nobody on this commission argued that question.In fact, that less-than-reputable group has put together its own report full of inventive accusations, as the Washington Post s Dana Milbank put it. This report claims to know that Obama and Hillary both are in bed with al Qaeda, that the U.S. government submitted to Islamic law on slander, and that the Obama administration switched sides in the War on Terror.And since Gowdy couldn t deliver what they wanted in an official report, he s now solely to blame for the failure of what was supposed to be the investigation that would finally prove Hillary guilty. This is absolutely hilarious.Gowdy s career will probably end in disgrace. It s hard to feel sorry for him, though. He did everything he could, no matter how dishonest or unethical it was, to help the GOP bury Hillary.Featured image by Mark Wilson/Getty Images | 0 |
9,567 | Republican Governor Helped Kill 11 Elderly People By Deleting Their Messages Begging For Help | Hurricane Irma, one of the most powerful Atlantic storms ever recorded, was responsible for the deaths of at least 102 people, 44 of whom were in the Caribbean. Of the fatalities recorded in the mainland US, at least 50 were in Florida, 11 of which were due to the stifling conditions inside a South Florida nursing home after it lost power. Those 11 deaths could have possibly been avoided if Republican Florida Governor Rick Scott had heeded the emergency calls he had received about the worsening conditions in the home.A criminal Probe has been opened into the tragedy at the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hill, a nursing home in Hollywood, Florida, north of Miami, where five bodies were found inside the home itself, with more patients dying later in a nearby hospital. The Vice President of The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills, Natasha Anderson, attempted to contact Governor Scott by phone on four separate occasions in the two days leading up to the death of the first patient, leaving a message each time about the worsening conditions inside the home and asking for immediate assistance. When Scott s office was contacted in regards to the messages, a spokeswoman said, The voicemails were not retained. In what could amount to possible charges of criminal negligence against Scott, the spokeswoman wrote in an email: The voicemails were not retained because the information from each voicemail was collected by the Governor s staff and given to the proper agency for handling. Despite Anderson s claims that she requested immediate assistance, Scott has stated that nobody from the nursing home said the patients were in Danger or that the situation was at crisis level.Anderson called Florida Power and Light after the 152-bed facility lost power to its air-conditioning at around 3pm on September 10. FPL said they would have crews dispatched the next morning, but to no avail so on the evening of September 11, Anderson called a cellphone number provided by Scott during a conference call prior to the emergency in which he claimed they could contact him him if trouble arose, however, she was only able to get his voicemail. She tried three more times the following day, met with the same result. Patients at the home began to suffer from a variety of health problems between 3am and 6am on the morning of September 13, some of whom had body temperatures recorded as high as 109 . None of this changes the fact that this facility chose not to call 911 or evacuate their patients to the hospital across the street to save lives, a spokeswoman noted. I am going to work to aggressively demand answers on how this tragic event took place, Governor Rick Scott said in a statement. This situation is unfathomable. Every facility that is charged with caring for patients must take every action and precaution to keep their patients safe. The governor has since shut off the facility s Medicare and Medicaid funding.Featured image via Joe Raedle/Getty Images | 0 |
9,568 | Ted Cruz Birth Certificate Spawns Questions About Illegitimate Birth | On January 17, Dallas News published a copy of Ted Cruz s birth certificate. The fact that the Republican presidential hopeful was born in Canada is really no big surprise to anyone who has been following the Trump/Cruz birther frenzy.While Cruz s Canadian birth is not a surprise, the fact that his mother is identified as Eleanor Wilson on the candidate s birth certificate, rather than Eleanor Cruz, is.According to Dallas News, Wilson was the name of Cruz s mother s first husband. The couple had been divorced for about seven years at the time Cruz was born.It gets even more interesting when you learn that the former Ms. Wilson gave birth to another child, Michael, approximately three years after her divorce and three before she supposedly married Ted s father, right-wing pastor Rafael Cruz.The baby s name was Michael Wilson. He later died from crib death.In his book, A Time for Truth: Reigniting the Promise of America, Cruz claimed his mother s divorce from Wilson took place in 1965, two years later than the actual date. He also claimed that Michael was born the same year, in 1965, and that the child s death was what ultimately led to the divorce.Unfortunately for Ted, Dallas News verified that the divorce took place in 1963 and that Michael Wilson was born and died in 1966.Dallas News contacted Eleanor Cruz s former husband, Alan Wilson, who was born in Forth Worth Texas, but has lived in London, England since the 1960 s.During the interview, Wilson said he was not Michael Cruz s father, and he only learned that his ex-wife had given birth by chance. We were divorced and she was living on her own, said Wilson. He said that Eleanor asked him if she could use his last name on the birth certificate. When Michael Wilson later died, he said, I hadn t even met the baby. Alan Wilson said by chance he and Eleanor Wilson were being treated in the same hospital when she was pregnant when a nurse told his his wife was there startling the Fort Worthian. I didn t know she was pregnant. We were definitely divorced. It s interesting that while Rafael and Eleanor Cruz are reported to have married in Texas in 1969, the year before Cruz was born, the state s online public records site does not show a record of the couple s marriage. The exact date of Cruz s parents marriage remain a mystery.The couple divorced in 1997.As the drama over whether Ted Cruz is eligible to run for president began to unfold this month, numerous documents have been published, including Eleanor Cruz s (maiden name Darragh) birth certificate, showing that she was born in the U.S. state of Delaware.In addition to his mother s birth certificate, Talking Points Memo and Breitbart (among other media outlets) also published Ms. Cruz s Canadian voting records. Those records tell us two things. First they tell us that Ms. Cruz was registered to vote in Canada in 1974, a right the country reserves only for legal citizens. Second, the record tell us that the candidate s mother used the name of her second husband, Rafael Cruz on her Canadian voting record.So leaves us to wonder why she used the name of her first husband on Ted Cruz s birth certificate, if indeed she was married to Rafael Cruz at the time Ted was born.None of this would be considered fair game if the candidate wasn t running for the position of God s appointed King of America. It wouldn t be fair game if Ted and Rafael Cruz had not made ridiculous and insulting statements about single mothers and unwed mothers. It would not be fair game if Ted Cruz had not appointed himself as a spiritual dictator to the masses.Most importantly, though, the birther movement that viciously attacked President Obama throughout his first term as president used the word illegitimate, as a matter of routine, when referring to the leader of our country.Ted Cruz spent a lot of time catering to the right-wing extremists who viciously attacked the leader our country.Apparently he never expected any of that to catch up to him.But now a lot of people are not only asking if Cruz is able to be a legitimate president, they re asking if Cruz is even the legitimate son of the religiously insane Rafael Cruz.Maybe Ted should have read that Bible he likes to wave around in front of the crowd. After all, it does warn that eventually you will reap what you sow. Featured image credit: Gage Skidmore, via Flckr cc 2.0 | 0 |
9,569 | Democrat Takes Trump To The Woodshed In Fiery Speech Defending NFL (VIDEO) | Donald Trump is getting absolutely hammered for his recent attacks on NFL players who refuse to stand during the National Anthem in a stand against social injustice. Trump has tried his hardest to pass off those attacks as a defense of patriotism, but most Americans know that Trump is simply trying to mask what are obviously remarks fueled by his own racism and one Democrat is calling him out for it.Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., blasted Trump on the House floor on Monday and attacked the undeserving POTUS for his pathetic attacks on athletes such as Stephen Curry, Lebron James and the NFL players. In his powerful, fiery speech, Jeffries asked the question that most of us would like to know: How dare Donald lecture us on what s patriotic?! You can watch this epic speech below:Just defended @StephenCurry30 @KingJames @Kaepernick7 on House floor. How dare donald lecture us on what s patriotic?! pic.twitter.com/wfbtDajTLD Hakeem Jeffries (@RepJeffries) September 25, 2017And that s not the only time Jeffries has spoken out against Trump about the POTUS recent attacks on athletes. In an interview with CNN, Jeffries called Trump a racial arsonist and stated that Trump was causing controversy just to keep his dwindling conservative fan base happy and engaged. Jeffries said: He uses race to advance his own ends. We couldn t have said it better. It is no coincidence that Trump s fan base are practically just white supremacists who he has repeatedly failed to denounce because he doesn t want to lost the only support he has left. Trump knows that his fans are losing interest and patience after all of his broken campaign promises, so he creates these scandals and spews nonsense to distract everyone and remind his racist fans why they voted for him in the first place. Trump s remarks about the NFL are disgusting and deserve to be condemned again and again.Featured image is a screenshot | 0 |
9,570 | Two suicide attacks in Iraq's Kirkuk kill at least five | KIRKUK, Iraq (Reuters) - Two suicide bombers killed at least five people and wounded more than 20 in an attack on a Shi ite mosque in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Sunday, police and medical sources said. It was the first such attack since the central Iraqi government in Baghdad seized Kirkuk last month from Kurdish forces that had controlled the oil city of a million people for three years. Acting Kirkuk governor Rakan Saeed appealed to Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi after a meeting of the provincial security panel to send more troops to secure the city. Deployed forces from police and Counter Terrorism Service are not enough to cover all areas of Kirkuk. We need to double the troops, he said in a statement after chairing the meeting. The interior ministry confirmed the attacks on a mosque on Atlas Street in the center of Kirkuk and gave an initial casualty toll of one dead and 16 wounded. The central government in Baghdad recaptured the city in October along with other territory in northern Iraq claimed by both Baghdad and the Kurds following an offensive launched in retaliation for the Kurdish independence referendum. Iraqi security forces forced the Kurdish Peshmerga to withdraw from Kirkuk and their retreat also allowed Baghdad to take control of all the oilfields operated by the state-owned North Oil Company in Kirkuk s northern province. No group has claimed responsibility for Sunday s attacks but the suicide bombings are a trademark of Islamic State militants. Police sources said the attacks happened in quick succession and the death toll might rise because some of the wounded were in a critical condition. It s a crowded street and a place for street vendors. The terrorists wanted to kill a large number of people, said a police major in Kirkuk. In a separate incident, unknown gunmen opened fire with light weapons on a police patrol in eastern Kirkuk, without causing any casualties, police sources said. Iraqi security officials have said Islamic State is likely to wage an insurgency in Iraq after its self-proclaimed caliphate all but collapsed and the militants were dislodged from large areas of the west and north of the country. Iraqi security forces have recaptured nearly all the territories once controlled by Islamic State. Fighting is ongoing in the border areas with Syria where militants are entrenched in the small town of Rawa and nearby areas. | 1 |
9,571 | Petty North Carolina GOP Governor Signs Bills Crippling Power Of His Democratic Successor | This is the kind of power grab that justifies armed rebellion.The North Carolina gubernatorial race was a close win for Democrat Roy Cooper but a win nonetheless even though his Republican opponent Pat McCrory challenged the results in every way possible to hang onto power.And because Cooper won, Republicans in the state legislature called a special session in order to pass a bunch of petty bills designed to cripple his administration before it has even begun.Senate Bill 4 is designed to merge the ethics and elections boards into one body and would change the overall makeup of the combined board so that Republicans control the whole thing. Current law gives Democrats the majority because Cooper is going to be governor, and the governor is able to make the majority of the appointments to the board. McCrory had this power himself, but he signed SB 4 to strip it away from Cooper.Furthermore, Republicans also passed House Bill 17 requiring state Senate approval for Cooper s cabinet picks, which means the state of North Carolina will likely be denied leadership in various state agencies because Republicans will more than likely refuse to approve of anyone Cooper picks. McCrory has yet to make a decision about that piece of legislation.Republicans also gave McCrory the power to appoint a member of the Industrial Commission to a six-year term instead of his appointment only being allowed to fill the remaining term of a commissioner who resigned due to health issues. And he picked the wife of his chief-of-staff to fill the seat. The commission hears appeals of worker compensation cases, so McCrory s pick serves as a f*ck you to workers across the state.Furthermore, another bill would slash Cooper s staff from 1,500 employees to 300, a move that would cripple the governor s office.Protesters stormed the statehouse over the last two days to voice opposition to the power grab, which is basically a coup. But as usual, Republicans ignored the protests and passed the bills anyway because they are petty losers. You can bet that had McCrory won the race Republicans would not be passing or even proposing any of these bills. They are only doing it to sabotage Cooper.These petty moves by Republicans are unconstitutional and should be declared null and void by the courts. The people of North Carolina should be enraged by what has happened here, and if these new laws are allowed to stand Republicans had better prepare themselves for the retribution that will occur when Democrats retake the legislature. Because turnabout is fair play.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 0 |
9,572 | Activist: ‘This is where you can make the most impact’ | 21st Century Wire says If you ve been following the events outside of Burns, Oregon, you ll have seen 99% of the news coverage has been about the presence of armed militia and endless rumors of FBI Waco Siege plots and not about the core legal issues surrounding the Hammond family. These stories often start out as local issues, then quickly spin out of control and end up being managed and contested at the Federal level.Sunday Wire host Patrick Henningsen spoke to independent activist Jason Casella from PANDA UNITE and the Solutions Institute about his recent experience at the Oregon Standoff, and also about America s crisis of liberty , as well as some positive trends in activism today. Casella advocates getting closer to the sources of power and decision making in your local community: You have to make sure that your city council and county commission is acting on behalf of the people, and acting within the restraints of the Constitution, before you can ask somebody in DC, for example, or even at your state level of representatives. This is where you can actually have the most impact. Listen to the full interview with Jason Casella below.LISTEN TO MORE SUNDAY WIRE: Sunday Wire Show Archives | 0 |
9,573 | Factbox: Build a giant wall, cut Education Department. What a President Trump would do | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who scored a major victory in a series of Super Tuesday nominating contests, has been criticized by some in his party for being vague on policy specifics and heavy on rhetoric. Here is a closer look at what Trump has said he would do on trade, taxes, the economy, immigration, healthcare and defense should he become the nominee and win the Nov. 8 election. The policies are drawn from a review of his website, stump speeches, debates and town halls, and televised interviews. Trump has complained that China, Japan, Mexico, Vietnam and India are “ripping us off” by devaluing their currencies and keeping out some U.S. exports. He would not sign the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact and would renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Mexico and Canada. He would designate China a currency manipulator and impose countervailing duties on its exports. He also wants to pursue a World Trade Organization case on Chinese government programs that subsidize exporters. Trump has said he would put activist investor Carl Icahn in charge of negotiating a better trade relationship with China. Icahn has said he is happy to advise Trump, but would not seek a formal position if Trump were elected. Trump has said he would slap 35 percent tariffs on air conditioners made by United Technologies Corp’s Carrier in Mexico after the company decided to move production there from Indiana, and on Ford Motor Corp vehicles made in Mexico that are sold in the United States. Trump has pledged to cut and simplify taxes. Individuals making less than $25,000 per year and married filers earning less than $50,000 would not pay income tax. There would be three other brackets, down from seven currently, with a top marginal income tax rate of 25 percent, and a top rate for long-term capital gains and dividends of 20 percent. Charitable giving and mortgage interest deductions would remain unchanged. Other deductions would be trimmed in the highest tax brackets. He would eliminate the alternative minimum tax, the estate tax, and the carried interest tax break that allows investment fund managers to treat income as capital gains. The corporate tax rate would be cut to 15 percent, down from the current level of 35 percent. He would phase in a “reasonable cap” on deductions for business interest expenses and would cut other corporate loopholes. Trump would impose a one-time 10 percent “deemed repatriation” tax on deferred corporate overseas profits and would end deferral of income from foreign subsidiaries. The Tax Foundation, an independent policy research group, has said Trump’s plan would cost more than $10 trillion over the next decade. His campaign has said the plan is fully paid for. Trump has pledged to get rid of the $19 trillion deficit by boosting jobs, and cutting government waste, but he has not released a formal policy paper on how he would do this. He has said he would not cut the Medicare and Medicaid health care programs for senior citizens and low income Americans, nor Social Security retirement benefits. He would cut the Education Department and the Environmental Protection Agency. Trump has promised to build a high wall at the southern border to keep out illegal immigrants that he has said would cost $10 billion to $12 billion. Mexico would pay for the wall or face consequences, his campaign said. Trump would “impound” remittance payments to Mexico from undocumented workers, and increase visa and border crossing fees for Mexican workers. Applying tariffs on Mexican goods and cutting foreign aid are also “options,” his campaign has said on his website. He would deport the 11 million undocumented people living in America and end “birthright citizenship” for children born in the United States to illegal immigrants. He has called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States and would not allow refugees from Syria. Trump would triple the number of border agents and require all businesses to use the E-Verify database to ensure employees are in the country legally. He would withhold federal funding from “sanctuary cities” that decline to help the federal government deport illegal immigrants. Trump’s campaign has also said he would “pause” new green cards and require employers to hire American workers first. Trump has said he would repeal the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, and replace it with a system of health savings accounts. He would still require insurers to provide coverage to people with preexisting medical conditions, a key feature of Obamacare. He would move to allow insurance companies to sell plans across state lines to spur competition. Trump has said he could save the government $300 billion by negotiating better prices with drug companies. Trump has promised to “knock out” Islamic State quickly and said he is open to working with Russia to do so. He has said he would “bomb the oil” that helps finance the insurgent group and stop the “back channels of banking” used by the group. He has vowed to bring back the use of waterboarding, an interrogation technique that simulates drowning and has been banned as torture under U.S. law. He said he also supports other, unspecified techniques “a hell of a lot worse” than waterboarding. He would “take out” the family members of Islamic State militants and would like to shut down “areas” of the Internet to try to stop the group from recruiting members. He wants to build a “safe zone” for Syrian refugees in Syria. But Gulf states would have to pay for it. He has said the United States should first deal with Islamic State before addressing President Bashar al-Assad’s future, saying “We have to do one thing at a time.” He has questioned whether the United States should back opposition groups in Syria, saying “we have no idea who they are.” Trump has said he would increase the size and power of the U.S. military to make it “so strong, so powerful that nobody’s going to mess with us.” He says too much money is wasted buying equipment the military does not want. He wants Japan, Germany, South Korea and Saudi Arabia to bear more of the cost of military aid provided by the United States. “We can no longer defend all of these countries,” he said, citing the deficit. Trump would boost the U.S. military presence in the East and South China seas to “discourage Chinese adventurism,” according to his website. | 1 |
9,574 | U.S. judge orders unsealing of Clinton email probe search warrant | NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Monday ordered the unsealing of the application used to obtain a search warrant that allowed the FBI to gain access to emails related to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s private server before the Nov. 8 election. U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel in Manhattan directed the release by Tuesday of redacted materials used to obtain a search warrant after Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey informed Congress of newly discovered emails on Oct. 28. Comey’s letter drew new attention to a damaging issue for Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, and roiled the campaign 11 days before the Nov. 8 election, won by Republican Donald Trump. The search warrant materials’ release sought by Randol Schoenberg, a Los Angeles-based lawyer, who in court papers said transparency was crucial given the potential influence the probe had on the election’s outcome. Sources close to the investigation have said the emails were discovered during an unrelated probe into former Democratic U.S. Representative Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin. In his order, Castel said he would allow the redaction of the identities of two unnamed individuals, one of whom is subject to an “ongoing criminal investigation.” But he said the “strong presumption of access attached to the search warrant and related materials is not overcome by any remaining privacy interest of Secretary Clinton.” Lawyers for Clinton and Abedin did not immediately respond to requests for comment, nor did the U.S. Justice Department. A lawyer for Weiner had no immediate comment. Clinton used the server while she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. In July, Comey recommended no criminal charges be brought over Clinton’s handing of classified information in the emails, although he said she and her colleagues were “extremely careless” in handling such information. In his Oct. 28 letter to Congress, Comey said emails potentially related to the Clinton server probe had been discovered in an “unrelated case.” Sources close to the investigation have said the emails were discovered during an unrelated probe into Weiner following a media report that he engaged in sexually explicit cellphone and online messaging with a 15-year-old girl. Federal investigators got a warrant to examine the emails to see if they were related to the probe into Clinton’s private server. Only two days before the election, Comey disclosed that the emails did nothing to change his earlier recommendation. | 1 |
9,575 | This Anti-Gay, Anti-Science Creationist Could Soon Be Allowed To Rewrite School Textbooks | In the coming days, a creationist conspiracy theorist who thinks President Obama is a gay prostitute, could be in a position to rewrite school textbooks and decide what is taught in class.Mary Lou Bruner has promised voters that, if elected to the State Board of Education in Texas, she will promote conservative curriculum standards aligned with Texas values. The problem is, a quick look at what Bruner considers Texas Values make the proposition of putting her in a place to shape young minds utterly terrifying.Among Bruner s regular Facebook rants, she has claimed that:These are just the highlights. Statements that, in any right-thinking world would preclude a person from being elected to a position of authority within the State education system. Sadly, this is not the case in Texas.Far from being some outsider, no-chance candidate, she has been endorsed by none other than the Former Chairman of the Texas State Board of Education Gail Lowe, and a raft of others. She won 48 percent of the vote in the GOP primary on Tuesday, putting her well-above her opponents. She ll now face a run-off election, and she ll likely win.Bruner has every chance of being allowed a say in what goes in our children s textbooks and what they are taught in class. This racist, anti-gay, anti-science conspiracy theorist might very soon have a central role in shaping the minds of young Americans. If that doesn t care you, nothing will.Featured Image via Campaign Website | 0 |
9,576 | North Korea to release captured South Korea fishing boat Friday: KCNA | SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea said it will release a South Korean fishing vessel on Friday for humanitarian reasons after the boat was found illegally in waters under the North s control six days ago, North Korean state news agency KCNA said. The boat and its crew had been captured on Oct. 21 and they will be released at the designated waters of the military boundary line in the East Sea (38 39 20 latitude, 128 38 10 longitude) at 1800 on Oct. 27, the news agency report said. North Korea had reached its decision to release the South Korean boat after taking into account the fact that all the crewmen honestly admitted their offence, repeatedly apologizing and asking for leniency, the report said in English. An investigation by the North had proved the boat and crew had entered North Korean waters for fishing. North Korean fishing boats, because of age or low fuel, have been found drifting south of the maritime border between the two Koreas at times. Most North Korean crew are released to the North after interrogations by intelligence officials if they wish to return. It is more unusual for South Korean fishing vessels to be found under similar circumstances. The South Korean government could not be immediately reached for comment. | 1 |
9,577 | Regional crises, not human rights, to dominate Obama-Gulf talks | RIYADH (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama aired his human rights concerns with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman on Wednesday, but his talking points on that subject are expected to be get less attention when he meets Gulf Arab monarchs on Thursday. Activists have urged the American leader to push Saudi Arabia over its human rights record, but the region’s many geopolitical crises are likely to dominate a summit already overshadowed by strained ties between Washington and the Gulf. The president, who arrived on Wednesday, hopes to allay Gulf countries’ fears over Iranian influence and encourage them to try to douse sectarian tensions in the region in an effort to confront the threat posed by Islamic State. Most of the Gulf Arab monarchies have in private been sorely disappointed by Obama’s presidency, regarding it as a period in which the United States has pulled back from the region, leaving space for their archrival Iran to expand its influence. Human rights have not figured high on the list of issues straining the relationship. But Saudi Arabia has increasingly chafed at what it sees as a campaign of vilification by Western media, think tanks and rights groups. Rob Malley, Obama’s adviser on the Middle East, said rights issues would be raised, and deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes met human rights advocates at the White House just before the Riyadh visit to hear their concerns. During a two-hour meeting on Wednesday with the Saudi king and a group of top princes, Obama expressed his broad concerns about human rights issues, the White House said, without listing specific cases. But early signs were that disagreements over human rights would be relegated to the margins of Thursday’s talks. Obama has spoken of his desire to persuade Gulf states to arrive at a “cold peace” with Iran to ease sectarian tensions and allow all sides to focus on what he sees as a greater threat emanating from Islamic State. On Thursday, he will attend a summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which groups the monarchical states of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. Apart from Oman, they are ruled by Sunni Muslim dynasties that see revolutionary, Shi’ite Iran as a threat to their security and say its involvement in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen has fueled conflict and deepened sectarian divisions. The White House shares the view of Gulf Arab states that Tehran plays a destabilizing role. But its willingness to enter a nuclear deal between Iran and world powers last year caused fears in Riyadh that Washington was not listening to Gulf Arab concerns. Riyadh has come under fire in Western countries for its restrictions on women, suppression of freedom of expression, strict blasphemy rules and a judicial system that applies Islamic law and frequently beheads convicts. Rights groups are also pushing for Obama to press Saudi Arabia to end the war in Yemen, for which peace talks are due to take place in Kuwait this week, and where air strikes by a Saudi-led coalition have killed many civilians. “I urge you to take this final opportunity to speak out publicly on human rights issues inside the (Saudi) Kingdom,” Elisa Massimino, president of Human Rights First, a U.S. monitoring and activist group, wrote in an open letter. Saudi Arabia has said other countries should not interfere in its domestic affairs by criticizing its human rights record. It insists its Islamic legal system is its own business and that its courts are fair and independent. It says the war in Yemen was in support of its internationally recognized government and aimed at restoring stability. It says it has taken great care to avoid civilian casualties. | 1 |
9,578 | U.S. tells schools to give transgender students bathroom rights | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration told U.S. public schools on Friday that transgender students must be allowed to use the bathroom of their choice, upsetting Republicans and raising the likelihood of fights over federal funding and legal authority. Conservatives pushed back against the administration’s non-binding guidance to schools, the latest battleground in the issue of rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said the guidance “must be challenged.” “If President Obama thinks he can bully Texas schools into allowing men to have open access to girls in bathrooms, he better prepare for yet another legal fight,” Paxton, a Tea Party champion, said in a statement. Other Republican-led states joined calls to disregard the White House’s directive and accused the administration of overstepping its role. In North Carolina, Governor Pat McCrory labeled the move a “massive executive branch overreach” and called on federal courts and the U.S. Congress to intercede, while Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson said it was “offensive, intrusive and totally lacking in common sense.” The U.S. Education and Justice Departments, in a letter, told school districts nationwide that while the guidance carries no legal weight, they must not discriminate against students, including based on their gender identity. The guidance contained an implicit threat that school districts defying the Obama administration’s interpretation of the law could face lawsuits or be deprived of federal aid. The White House defended its actions, saying the guidance should not be viewed as a threat but instead as a set of “specific, tangible, real-world advice and suggestions” that many schools had sought and will welcome. “That’s what we’re looking for: solutions that protect the safety and dignity of every single student in school,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters at a daily briefing, adding that the idea was to prevent discrimination against a range of groups extending beyond the transgender community. The directive came as the Justice Department and North Carolina are battling in federal court over a North Carolina state law approved in March that prohibits people from using public restrooms not corresponding to their gender assigned at birth, while other states weigh similar measures. North Carolina’s law was the first to ban people from restrooms in public buildings and schools not matching the sex on their birth certificate. Mississippi has enacted legislation similarly viewed as discriminatory by civil and gay rights groups, and Tennessee and Missouri considered similar measures. The letter to the schools from Washington said that, to get federal funding under existing rules, a school has to agree not to treat students or activities differently on the basis of sex. That includes not treating a transgender student differently from other students of the same gender identity, officials said. The American Civil Liberties Union said the guidance would help make students “free to bring their whole selves to school.” In a sign of what defiant states may face, the Justice Department this week asked a U.S. District Court in North Carolina to declare the state in violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and order it to stop enforcing the ban. Americans are divided over which public restrooms should be used by transgender people, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed, with 44 percent saying people should use them according to their biological sex and 39 percent saying they should be used according to the gender with which they identify. A group representing U.S. school boards called the guidance “unsettled law.” “A dispute about the intent of the federal law must ultimately be resolved by the courts and the Congress,” the National School Boards Association said in a statement. Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, was less critical than many of his party in several television interviews, saying the issue should be left up to individual states. “Everybody has to be protected ... but it’s a tiny, tiny portion of the population,” Trump told Fox News. | 1 |
9,579 | life easy things you can do every day to boost your uh cremtine | email
time to say goodbye to politics as usual
in another stunning game changer that has further upended the political establishment presidentelect donald trump this morning announced the nomination of a mysterious cloaked man to serve as his secretary of the hook
yep trump promised change and right away hes appointing a nameless robed man to lead the department of the hook hows that for a shock to the system
the silent man whose face is completely shrouded within a thick hooded cloak is rumored to have topped the shortlist of candidates for secretary of the hook after emerging alone from a dense forest at night and immediately causing all greenery within the washington beltway to wilt
trump has already lauded his nominee as a wonderful man with an absolutely tremendous cloak whom he trusts do an unbelievable job discharging the duties of the position which include abiding by the hook interpreting the covenant of the hook and holding aloft the candle whose flame subtracts light from its surroundings
the man in the cloak is going to be a fantastic secretary of the hook just fantastic said trump who added that the secretary will be second in the presidential line of succession no one is better qualified to enforce the covenant than this man his cloak is dark he was born before christ i dont know his name he has the hook now and hes ready to fight for us
and dont look now but the presumptive secretary of the hook is already making waves at dawn this morning he led the zealots of the hook in a procession through the streets of washington toward the open entrance to the onyx pyramid an edifice by the lincoln memorial that residents could not remember ever having existed but that the cloaked man assured americans in a terse press release has always been and shall forever be
one things for sure this appointment signals a whole new political era in the nations capital we cant wait to see how this bold move turns out | 0 |
9,580 | Trump sharpens 'rigged' election allegations disputed by Republican lawyers | GREEN BAY, Wis./WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Monday cited studies he said showed rampant voter fraud, saying the Nov. 8 election was “rigged” against him even as Republican lawyers called his allegations unfounded. Trump, a New York businessman making his first run for public office, has sought to raise fears of a flawed election as he has fallen in opinion polls against Democrat Hillary Clinton. “They even want to try to rig the election at the polling place,” Trump told a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin. “So many cities are corrupt and voter fraud is very, very common.” Trump cited Pew Trusts research from 2012 that called for updates to the voter registration system because about 24 million registrations were inaccurate. (bit.ly/1HN4uTF) He also referred to a 2014 article by two political scientists in the Washington Post that said non-citizens who voted could have accounted for Democratic victories in a few close elections in 2008, although the authors acknowledged the sample size of their study was small. (wapo.st/1pX17Bf) Numerous studies have shown that voter fraud in U.S. elections is very rare. Republican campaign lawyer Chris Ashby said Trump’s charges could foment unrest and were “unfounded” and “dangerous.” “When you say an election is rigged, you’re telling voters, your supporters, their votes do not matter,” Ashby said in an interview. “I think some of Donald Trump’s comments could cause unrest at the polls.” Some Republicans have urged Trump to drop the assertions. Early voting and voting by mail have already begun in many states. Mark Braden, partner at Baker and Hostetler and former chief counsel for the Republican National Committee, said that any sort of election rigging at the national level “just is impossible,” citing the various systems in place that would make such an endeavor complicated and unfeasible. “Our system is principally a system based upon each side watching the other side,” Braden said in an interview. “Our system is dependent on local volunteer participation. Our system has worked very well because we have people who get involved in the process and perform these functions.” Trump also pounced on the release on Monday of Federal Bureau of Investigation documents that he alleged showed “felony corruption.” The documents cited an FBI official as saying a senior State Department official sought to pressure the bureau in 2015 to drop its insistence that an email from Clinton’s private server contained classified information.. Clinton’s decision to use a private server while secretary of state from 2009 to 2013 has drawn criticism that she was careless with national security. “This is worse than Watergate, what’s going on with this,” said Trump. He also proposed a package of ethics reforms, saying that if elected he would ban his administration officials from lobbying government for five years after leaving government. Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said Trump’s assault on the voting system was an act of desperation. “He knows he’s losing and is trying to blame that on the system. This is what losers do,” Mook told reporters. The RealClearPolitics average of national opinion polls shows Clinton currently leading Trump by 7.1 percentage points, at 46 percent to 38.9 percent. The country’s top elected Republican, House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, tried to counter Trump’s message about election fraud. Spokeswoman AshLee Strong said Ryan “is fully confident the states will carry out this election with integrity.” In the traditionally hard-fought state of Ohio, the top elections official, a Republican, said concerns about widespread voter fraud were simply not justified. “I can reassure Donald Trump: I am in charge of elections in Ohio and they’re not going to be rigged, I’ll make sure of that,” Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted told CNN. In a report titled “The Truth About Voter Fraud,” the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law cited voter fraud incident rates between 0.00004 percent and 0.0009 percent. An August study by the Washington Post found 31 credible cases of impersonation fraud out of more than 1 billion votes cast in elections from 2000 to 2014. Arizona State University studies in 2012 and 2016 found similarly low rates. A number of Republican-led states, citing the need to prevent voter fraud, have passed laws with stricter ID requirements. But several have been struck down by courts that ruled they were designed to hinder minority voting. Trump’s campaign has been shaken since the release 10 days ago of a 2005 tape showing him lewdly bragging about kissing and touching women without their permission. A series of women have since come forward with allegations about such behavior on his part, but he has denied those accusations. “They want to put nice sexy headlines up even though nothing happened,” Trump said, blaming the media for trying to “poison the minds of the voters.” On Monday, the allegations were in the headlines again after Trump’s wife, Melania Trump, spoke publicly for the first time about the “Access Hollywood” tape. A former model who has mainly stayed off the campaign trail, Trump told CNN she was surprised by her husband’s language and said she thought he had been “egged on” to “say dirty and bad stuff,” calling it “boy talk.” Melania Trump told CNN that the allegations of unwanted touching from women were “all organized from the opposition” and said media did not “check the background of these women.” In a separate interview with Fox News Channel, she said she had forgiven her husband for the comments in the tape. “Those words, they were offensive to me and they were inappropriate. And he apologized to me,” Melania Trump said in an excerpt released by Fox News Channel. “I accept his apology. And we are moving on,” she said. | 1 |
9,581 | ignoring the law to rig elections | illegal immigrants crossing the border to vote foreigners worried about a trump presidency the alex jones show october comments
even the mainstream dinosaur media is being forced to report on the flood of immigrants crossing the border and influencing the presidential election newsletter sign up get the latest breaking news specials from alex jones and the infowars crew related articles download on your mobile device now for free today on the show get the latest breaking news specials from alex jones and the infowars crew from the store featured videos expert trump has already won election see the rest on the alex jones youtube channel democrats plan to burn down us if trump elected see the rest on the alex jones youtube channel illustration how much will your healthcare premiums rise in infowarscom is a free speech systems llc company all rights reserved digital millennium copyright act notice flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with brain force the next generation of neural activation from infowars life httpwwwinfowarscomwpcontentuploadsbrainforceejpg httpwwwinfowarsstorecomhealthandwellnessinfowarslifebrainforcehtmlimstzrwuutm_campaigninfowarsplacementutm_sourceinfowarscomutm_mediumwidgetutm_contentbrainforce httpwwwinfowarsstorecomhealthandwellnessinfowarslifebrainforcehtmlimstzrwuutm_campaigninfowarsplacementutm_sourceinfowarscomutm_mediumwidgetutm_contentbrainforce brain force off flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with brain force the next generation of neural activation from infowars life httpwwwinfowarscomwpcontentuploadsbrainforceejpg httpwwwinfowarsstorecomhealthandwellnessinfowarslifebrainforcehtmlimstzrwuutm_campaigninfowarsplacementutm_sourceinfowarscomutm_mediumwidgetutm_contentbrainforce httpwwwinfowarsstorecomhealthandwellnessinfowarslifebrainforcehtmlimstzrwuutm_campaigninfowarsplacementutm_sourceinfowarscomutm_mediumwidgetutm_contentbrainforce brain force off flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with brain force the next generation of neural activation from infowars life httpwwwinfowarscomwpcontentuploadsbrainforceejpg httpwwwinfowarsstorecomhealthandwellnessinfowarslifebrainforcehtmlimstzrwuutm_campaigninfowarsplacementutm_sourceinfowarscomutm_mediumwidgetutm_contentbrainforce httpwwwinfowarsstorecomhealthandwellnessinfowarslifebrainforcehtmlimstzrwuutm_campaigninfowarsplacementutm_sourceinfowarscomutm_mediumwidgetutm_contentbrainforce brain force off flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with brain force the next generation of neural activation from infowars life httpwwwinfowarscomwpcontentuploadsbrainforceejpg httpwwwinfowarsstorecomhealthandwellnessinfowarslifebrainforcehtmlimstzrwuutm_campaigninfowarsplacementutm_sourceinfowarscomutm_mediumwidgetutm_contentbrainforce httpwwwinfowarsstorecomhealthandwellnessinfowarslifebrainforcehtmlimstzrwuutm_campaigninfowarsplacementutm_sourceinfowarscomutm_mediumwidgetutm_contentbrainforce brain force off flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with brain force the next generation of neural activation from infowars life httpwwwinfowarscomwpcontentuploadsbrainforceejpg httpwwwinfowarsstorecomhealthandwellnessinfowarslifebrainforcehtmlimstzrwuutm_campaigninfowarsplacementutm_sourceinfowarscomutm_mediumwidgetutm_contentbrainforce httpwwwinfowarsstorecomhealthandwellnessinfowarslifebrainforcehtmlimstzrwuutm_campaigninfowarsplacementutm_sourceinfowarscomutm_mediumwidgetutm_contentbrainforce brain force off flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with brain force the next generation of neural activation from infowars life httpwwwinfowarscomwpcontentuploadsbrainforceejpg httpwwwinfowarsstorecomhealthandwellnessinfowarslifebrainforcehtmlimstzrwuutm_campaigninfowarsplacementutm_sourceinfowarscomutm_mediumwidgetutm_contentbrainforce httpwwwinfowarsstorecomhealthandwellnessinfowarslifebrainforcehtmlimstzrwuutm_campaigninfowarsplacementutm_sourceinfowarscomutm_mediumwidgetutm_contentbrainforce | 0 |
9,582 | U.S. lawmakers reach deal for Senate vote on Russia sanctions | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers reached an agreement on Wednesday that paves the way for the U.S. Senate to pass a bill as soon as this week to impose new sanctions on Russia, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said, despite the objections of President Donald Trump’s administration. Senator Bob Corker, a Republican, said the Senate would move to approve sanctions on Russia and Iran it passed six weeks ago, and North Korea sanctions added to the legislation in the House. The sanctions package passed the House of Representatives by an overwhelming 419-3 on Wednesday and is expected to garner similar support in the Senate. That would easily overcome a veto by Trump. | 1 |
9,583 | Ireland eyes Northern Irish political breakthrough, warns on border | DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland s foreign minister said on Wednesday he hoped that talks to restore Northern Ireland s power-sharing government could reach a successful outcome by the end of the week after some further steps by the negotiating parties. Northern Ireland has been without a devolved administration since its collapse in January, raising the prospect of direct rule being reimposed from London, potentially destabilizing a delicate political balance in the British province. This week is an important week in the context of Northern Ireland and I hope we will have a successful outcome by the end of the week, Simon Coveney, Dublin s representative in the talks, told Ireland s upper house of parliament. Coveney said the parties were making progress but they still had some difficulties to overcome. The main impediment in the talks between Irish nationalists Sinn Fein and the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is disagreement over the rights of Irish language speakers. The prospect of Britain s exit from the European Union in 2019 has added extra urgency to the talks in Northern Ireland. Coveney warned London it would be impossible to avoid some form of hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland if Britain does not maintain a customs partnership with the EU. Direct rule (from London) would in my view be devastating for Northern Ireland, not just in the context of Brexit but in the context of community relations and the capacity to really find pragmatic and practical ways of reconciliation, he said. The restoration of the administration would give Northern Ireland a greater say in Brexit negotiations that are set to have a bigger impact on the province than on any other part of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland will be the UK s only land frontier with the EU after its departure and Dublin has proposed that Britain reach a bespoke customs union partnership with the bloc to eliminate the risk of a hard border returning to the island. The border issue is particularly sensitive given the decades of violence over whether Northern Ireland should be part of the United Kingdom or Ireland. Around 3,600 people were killed before a 1998 peace agreement. I find it very difficult to see how we can solve the border issues on the island of Ireland unless Britain, Ireland and the rest of the European Union are part of a shared customs union, you can call it whatever you want, Coveney said. There is simply no way of avoiding some border infrastructure if you are having to manage the movement of goods from one customs union to another. While Britain insists it will leave the EU s customs union, Coveney said the language around the issue has improved, citing a British proposal for a new customs partnership post-Brexit. I do think the British government is exploring ways in which we can try to discuss these things, he said. | 1 |
9,584 | Thai government takes action against monk over anti-Muslim views | BANGKOK (Reuters) - The Thai government said on Thursday it plans to take legal action against a radical Buddhist monk detained by police for posting anti-Islamic views on social media, and posing a threat to national security. Phra Maha Aphichat Punnajanto is based at a temple in Bangkok, but police detained him on Tuesday in southern Thailand, a region where Muslim separatist insurgents have been fighting for decades. A spokesman for Thailand s military-led government told Reuters that Aphichat had been warned in the past that his social media activities could spark religious conflict. His actions demean another religion and are considered inappropriate, Lieutenant General Sansern Kaewkamnerd said. The government now has to take legal action against him. The 31-year-old firebrand rose to prominence in 2015 when he urged Buddhists across the country to burn down a mosque as retribution for every monk killed in the insurgency. The outspoken monk has also been active in campaigning to make Buddhism a state religion of Thailand. Aphichat has voiced admiration for Ashin Wirathu, a monk in Myanmar well known for his anti-Muslim views, and sees his actions as a model for safeguarding Buddhism in Thailand. Police told Reuters that Aphichat was being detained at the Crime Suppression Division unit in Bangkok. Images appeared on social media on Wednesday evening showing Aphichat being disrobed in his temple. Thai Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan said on Thursday Aphichat had left his religious order voluntarily. Reuters was unable to reach Aphichat for comment. The Buddhist Association of Thailand issued a statement protesting the Aphichat s detention saying that it was disrespectful and breached personal rights. A monk from the same temple, who declined to be named, told Reuters that Aphichat had not breach any laws governing their order and he could not be defrocked. | 1 |
9,585 | No vote on healthcare bill this week in U.S. House | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House leaders have decided against holding a vote on a reworked healthcare system overhaul this week after failing to find the necessary support, congressional aides said on Thursday. White House officials had urged a floor vote on the legislation before President Donald Trump’s 100th day in office on Saturday, hoping to follow through on a campaign promise to repeal and replace the 2010 Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Advocates had hoped to raise enough support for the measure after a group of hard-line Republican conservatives endorsed an amended version on Wednesday. But by Thursday evening Republican leaders still had not collected enough votes from moderate Republicans whose backing was also needed for passage in the House, given united Democratic opposition. “We won’t vote this week,” said one House Republican aide, who asked not to be named. Next week was not ruled out, another indicated. “We’ll call a vote when we have the votes.” Representative Pete Sessions, a senior House Republican, also left the door open to a vote next week. Possibly referring to Trump, Sessions said that a lot of people had tried to rush the legislation to the floor, but House Republican leaders want to “allow the time to do it right. “I said it will find its time and I am satisfied we are moving at a pace, keeping people engaged,” he said at a late night session of the House Rules Committee he chairs. The Republican healthcare bill would replace Obamacare’s income-based tax credit with an age-based credit, roll back an expansion of the Medicaid government health insurance program for the poor and repeal most Obamacare taxes. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office had estimated 24 million fewer people would have insurance than under the original version. House leaders brought the bill to the floor last month after Trump demanded a vote, but yanked it after a rebellion by Republican moderates and the party’s most conservative lawmakers, in a major setback for Trump. An amendment drafted by Representative Tom MacArthur won over conservatives in the hardline Freedom Caucus this week, reviving some hopes that the bill could still pass. The amendment would allow states to seek waivers from some provisions. Among these are one mandating that insurers charge those with pre-existing conditions the same as healthy consumers, and that insurers cover so-called essential health benefits, such as maternity care. But a number of centrist Republicans still opposed the measure. “Protections for those with pre-existing conditions without contingency, and affordable access to coverage for every American, remain my priorities for advancing healthcare reform, and this bill does not satisfy those benchmarks for me,” Representative Ryan Costello of Pennsylvania said in a statement posted on social network Twitter on Thursday. Some outside groups like the American Medical Association weighed in against the legislation, saying it would cost millions their health care coverage. The bill’s future is further clouded in the Senate. | 1 |
9,586 | Nikki Haley Gets Crucified On Twitter After Bragging About Shameful Act | Donald Trump and the people in his administration have precious little to brag about nowadays, but you can t manage to convince them of this fact. The proof is in the pudding, so they say or in this case, in the tweets.Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina who Trump decided to promote to United Nations ambassador, took to Twitter on Wednesday to boast about something that is downright shameful: stripping half a billion dollars from the U.N. s peacekeeping budget. Just 5 months into our time here, we ve cut over half a billion $$$ from the UN peacekeeping budget & we re only getting started. pic.twitter.com/LA7IKqupff Nikki Haley (@nikkihaley) June 29, 2017Twitter was quick to let her know that this is nothing to brag about and that she probably should have kept her mouth shut.Yeah, who needs peacekeeping, anyway? Only liberal snowflakes care about preventing genocides and atrocities and human rights violations. Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) June 29, 2017I forget, which book has the part where Jesus says ignore others who need help so you can give a tax break to the wealthy ? Greg (@gwiss) June 29, 2017Blessed are the peacemakers, unless they cost @nikkihaley money in her quest to destroy the UN. Anita Creamer (@AnitaCreamer) June 29, 2017And this is something to be PROUD about?? Alp Ozcelik (@alplicable) June 29, 2017What the HELL is wrong with u??? Willie Garson (@WillieGarson) June 29, 2017Who needs peace anyway?! taylor nicholson (@taybytheway) June 29, 2017I have checked five times to see if this was a parody account. Kibblesmith (@kibblesmith) June 29, 2017Why is that something you d ever brag about? David Pepper (@DavidPepper) June 29, 2017No wonder you were booed.JFC, have you no shame, woman? What values do you have? Certainly not liberty and justice for all. Jessica ? (@NoFascistsPls) June 29, 2017To brag about cutting funding for PEACE KEEPING EFFORTS is horrific.You are truly unAmerican Jessica ? (@NoFascistsPls) June 29, 2017I can t believe how many morally treasonous people there are in the trump administration. And people support this shit. It is a disgrace Jessica ? (@NoFascistsPls) June 29, 2017Sweet. Let me know how the world instability and mass genocide translates to America s jobs, healthcare, and standing in the world. ? Marcia Gaines (@gainesm) June 29, 2017?Peace, huh, good god What is it good for Absolutely nothing Say it again ? Mark Zohar (@markzohar) June 29, 2017Today s sign of the apocalypse Dylan? (@dylanparks) June 29, 2017Or: You thought we already hated peace? You ain t seen nothing yet. Oreo (@OreoDCW) June 29, 2017.@nikkihaley Girl, I went to Vacation Bible School, and this statement would earn you one hot Jesus F. Ana Gasteyer (@AnaGasteyer) June 29, 2017pic.twitter.com/IRerzI17fn Meg Yarbrough (@meg_yarbrough) June 29, 2017Seriously, what kind of person thinks stripping funds from peacekeeping is a good thing? There is something very wrong anybody who can boast about something like this.Featured image via Twitter | 0 |
9,587 | Trump appoints Chatterjee to chair energy commission | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Thursday that President Donald Trump had appointed Neil Chatterjee as chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Last week the Senate confirmed Chatterjee and Robert Powelson as members of the FERC, restoring a quorum to the agency. Chatterjee had previously been an energy policy advisor to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican. | 1 |
9,588 | Over 60% of Republican Voters Are Embarrassed By ‘Childish’ Trump/Cruz Slap Fight | In an article aptly titled, Why some Republicans are feeling shame, The Washington Post s Sean Sullivan describes a party sinking into despair at the ridiculous spectacle of Donald Trump bickering with Ted Cruz:[Carlos] Gimenez is watching with disgust, as are many Republicans across the country, as his party s presidential race turns into a tabloid talk show. After a winter that featured anatomical insults, violent clashes at rallies, and fierce accusations of lying and dirty tricks, Republicans say the past week has been particularly dispiriting.Under normal circumstances, I would be cringing right along with them. In decades past, any presidential candidate that acted with such reckless disregard for civility would be shamed out of the public square. Even Karl Rove, the scummiest political operative in Washington D.C., always did his smears from a distance by using proxies that could not be directly linked to the Republican candidate.Those days are long gone as the two frontrunners really are just one thrown chair and a paternity test away from turning the Republican primaries into a full-blown Jerry Springer episode:The luridness has weighed not only on Republican elected officials but on voters as well. In a recent CBS News-New York Times poll, 60 percent of Republican primary voters said the campaign has made them mostly embarrassed for the party rather than mostly proud. The survey was conducted before the Cruz-Trump fight involving their spouses erupted.I imagine that number is closer to 70% by now and instead of cringing along with Republican voters, I can only point my finger and laugh. A lot.By the way, that was 60% of REPUBLICAN primary voters, the most faithful of the faithful. How do you think Republican moderates view the whole thing? Independents? Democrats? Yeah, when Trump wins the nomination, he s going to be utterly crushed in the general election no matter WHO the Democratic nominee is. How can I NOT laugh?It s even funnier to point out, You built that. And they did. So very very much. They fully embraced the incoherent rage and hate of the Tea Party because it won them elections. It didn t matter that your average Tea Partier was completely detached from reality and common decency as long as they voted Republican, attacked Obama and did it loudly. The conservative movement let the fringe take over because it was easier than admitting that the Bush years were a total disaster of their own making.And so the Tea Party dragged the level of discourse into the mud and buried it. They set the bar so low that it s now allowed Donald Trump to run the kind of campaign that used to be unthinkable, filled with vulgarity, violence and idiocy that is an international embarrassment. Even worse, the Democratic primary has been a model of civility between the candidates (if not their followers). It s like watching a family with two well-behaved children and then looking down at your two screaming neurotypical brats throwing temper tantrums. You want to be mad at that other family but all you feel is a burning shame that you failed as a parent somehow. Featured image via Getty Images | 0 |
9,589 | Republicans’ Benghazi Witch Hunt Just Went Up In Flames Thanks To Their Own Lawyer | Unless you re an idiot, you know that while the terrorist attacks in Benghazi were a tragedy, neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton were at fault for the attacks. Of course, Republicans have never exactly been the sharpest knives in the kitchen. For years, the Right has been waging a desperate war on Clinton, Obama, and sanity with their asinine Benghazi investigations. All across conservative media, we hear that Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, or both murdered four patriots with their bare hands while blaspheming God s name and murdering babies (or something; it s hard to understand what they are talking about at times).The Republican Benghazi scandal has been slowly going up in flames for quite some time now, but a letter from Trey Gowdy s former counsel has completely decimated any hope they have of getting anything useful out of the millions and millions of taxpayer dollars they wasted on this senseless exercise. Nevertheless, Republicans continue to claim that Obama and Clinton prevented the military from taking action that would have saved the lives of the Americans who died in the attacks. This is the drumbeat to which Republicans have goose-stepped as they attempted to railroad the Obama Administration in court but as much as they try to deny it, reality is a thing. Even more unfortunately for Republicans, their own former counsel in the matter was very clear that no one did anything wrong.On May 16, Rep. Elijah Cummings, the voice of reason in this mess, sent a letter to Gowdy to remind him that his own attorney disputed many of the GOP s claims:Unfortunately, your letter failed to include any statements from your own former Republican Chief Counsel a retired three-star general with more than 33 years of service in the United States Army who repeatedly commended the military s actions on the night of the attacks during closed interviews with Defense Department officials.For example, on January 8, 2016, the Select Committee conducted a transcribed interview with former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. During that interview, your former Chief Counsel stated:I think you ordered exactly the right forces to move out and to head toward a position where they could reinforce what was occurring in Benghazi or in Tripoli or elsewhere in the region. And, sir, I don t disagree with the actions you took, the recommendations you made, and the decisions you directed.Gowdy s former counsel also acknowledged that it was impossible, given time and distances, for military forces to arrive fast enough to make a difference:Your former Chief Counsel acknowledged that it is clear from the time and distances involved that none of the military forces could have gotten to Benghazi in time to save lives.He stated:And, again, sir, I don t mean to suggest that anything could have been done differently to affect the outcome in Benghazi, and I think you would agree with that.But most importantly, there was nothing that could be done at all:In addition, on January 13, 2016, the Select Committee conducted a transcribed interview with the Defense Department s former Chief of Staff, Jeremy Bash. During that interview, your former Republican Chief Counsel stated:I would posit that from my perspective, having looked at all the materials over the last 18 months, we could not have affected the response to what occurred by 5: 15 in the morning on the 12th of September if Benghazi, Libya. So let me start with that positing or that stipulation.Your former Chief Counsel also stated:I don t see any way to influence what occurred there. But what I am worried about is we re caught by surprise On 9/11, we ve got nothing postured to respond in a timely manner and you can debate what s timely, what s untimely, but nothing could have affected what occurred in Benghazi. The conclusions of your former Republican Chief Counsel match almost exactly the findings from more than two years ago of the House Committee on Armed Services, which conducted its own investigation into the attacks in Benghazi, Cummings wrote, noting that Rep. Buck McKeon, the Republican Chairman of the Committee who led the investigation at the time, was satisfied that given where the troops were, how quickly the thing all happened and how quickly it dissipated, we probably couldn t have done more than we did. There you have it. Barack Obama killed no one. Hillary Clinton killed no one. If anything, Republicans are trying to distract from their own responsibility in the matter. ThinkProgress reported in 2012 that Republicans had cut funding for embassy security because defending Americans abroad was not a priority :For fiscal 2013, the GOP-controlled House proposed spending $1.934 billion for the State Department s Worldwide Security Protection program well below the $2.15 billion requested by the Obama administration. House Republicans cut the administration s request for embassy security funding by $128 million in fiscal 2011 and $331 million in fiscal 2012 .[In 2011] Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that Republicans proposed cuts to her department would be detrimental to America s national security a charge Republicans rejected.[GOP vice presidential nominee Paul] Ryan, [Rep. Darrell] Issa and other House Republicans voted for an amendment in 2009 to cut $1.2 billion from State operations, including funds for 300 more diplomatic security positions. Under Ryan s budget, non-defense discretionary spending, which includes State Department funding, would be slashed nearly 20 percent in 2014, which would translate to more than $400 million in additional cuts to embassy security.These cuts occurred, of course, not long before the deadly attacks the GOP is so desperate to pin on their favorite enemies.Go figure.Featured image via Getty Images (Chip Somodevilla)/Getty Images (Eric Thayer) | 0 |
9,590 | Report: Trump Campaign Tried To Intimidate Third Party Candidate, Called His Family | Donald Trump s presidential campaign appears to be very worried about the prospect that a third-party campaign could eat into his votes, delivering the election victory to Hillary Clinton.Conservative writer and activist Bill Kristol has been trying to recruit a candidate to run against Trump and Clinton, for those on the right who have aligned themselves with the #NeverTrump movement. The #NeverTrump crowd opposes Trump s campaign but can t bring themselves to support the Democratic nominee. Kristol recently tried to stir up support for writer David French to get on the ballot, and that s when Team Trump freaked out.It was enough, apparently, to spook the Trump campaign. Sources say that on Wednesday, influential supporters of the campaign, prompted by the campaign itself, began reaching out to the Republican National Committee, to Kristol, and to French attempting to quash the bid. One Trump operative reached French s wife s family in Tennessee and told them, according to French, that he was instructed to call and deliver a message that the race would be very difficult for me. It was a pretty big assault that really put pressure on David that this not happen, says a source familiar with the communications.As recent stories have indicated, it is highly likely that this thuggish maneuver came directly from Trump himself at the top. He has shown an intense interest in micromanaging his campaign, while at the same time a paranoia about anyone who would oppose him (he recently speculated that his phone may be bugged).Eventually, French decided not to run, and #NeverTrump continues to flail as the Republican establishment backs Trump even with his insistence on running a racist presidential campaign.But now it is known that if someone decides to challenge Trump, especially directly from the right in a way that could hurt his already problematic campaign, he won t hesitate to reach out to their families for some old fashioned intimidation.Featured image via YouTube | 0 |
9,591 | LOL! DEMOCRAT CHEERLEADER Cokie Roberts Delivers Devastating News To ABC Comrades: “It is Going to Be Very Hard to Defeat” Roy Moore After Trump’s Endorsement [VIDEO] | Earlier today, President Trump tweeted about the Alabama Senate race where Republican candidate for Senate Judge Roy Moore has been the target of the left ever since he won in the GOP primary race in September, against the less conservative candidate, Luther Strange.The last thing we need in Alabama and the U.S. Senate is a Schumer/Pelosi puppet who is WEAK on Crime, WEAK on the Border, Bad for our Military and our great Vets, Bad for our 2nd Amendment, AND WANTS TO RAISES TAXES TO THE SKY. Jones would be a disaster! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 26, 2017Since the first day I took office, all you hear is the phony Democrat excuse for losing the election, Russia, Russia,Russia. Despite this I have the economy booming and have possibly done more than any 10 month President. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 26, 2017Unfortunately for the Democrats, their attempt at destroying the character of Roy Moore, by attempting to paint him as a sexual predator of teenage girls, continues to fall apart. Roy Moore s team is coming out and demanding that the high school yearbook used as evidence by one of Moore s accusers is more looked at by forgery experts after it was discovered that the signature doesn t match that of Roy Moore s and that two different colors of ink were used for the signature. The stepson of the woman who used what many are saying was a forged Roy Moore signature in her yearbook, has also come out to say his stepmother is lying about her encounter several decades ago with Roy Moore. Even the high-profile, leftist, media-whore lawyer, Gloria Allred, who represented the accuser with the yearbook, appears to have gone into hiding. Meanwhile, polls are showing that Roy Moore is ahead by anywhere from 5-15 points and that the left s shameful attempt at stealing the election from the popular conservative candidate in Alabama, is quickly falling apart.Now that President Trump has endorsed Roy Moore, the left appears to be giving up the ship Sunday on ABC s This Week, network analyst Cokie Roberts said now that President Donald Trump had supported Alabama GOP U.S. Senate hopeful Roy Moore, it will be very hard to defeat Moore in the December 12 special election.Roberts said, He doesn t have to go to Alabama. He s done plenty for Roy Moore. Moore can put it in his ads, which he s doing. He s clearly got the endorsement of President Trump. Without the endorsement of President Trump, he won the primary. I think with the endorsement of President Trump, it will be hard to defeat him in the general election. Breitbart News.@CokieRoberts tells @ThisWeekABC Roy Moore clearly has the endorsement of Pres. Trump: Without the endorsement, he won the primary. I think with the endorsement, "it is going to be very hard to defeat him." pic.twitter.com/Hyw6wSligG ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) November 26, 2017 | 0 |
9,592 | Senate Republican leader backs investigation into Russian hacking | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate’s top Republican broke with President-elect Donald Trump on Monday over whether Russian hacking during the U.S. election merited closer scrutiny, a fissure between Trump and his party that appeared to grow as lawmakers pressed for a special investigation into the matter. The divide raised the possibility of enduring clashes between Trump and Republicans during his presidency over how to handle Russian President Vladimir Putin, a leader long viewed by many in the party as a calculating, untrustworthy foe but whom Trump has repeatedly praised for his leadership. “The Russians are not our friends,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told a news conference. Calls on Sunday by two leading Republican foreign policy voices, Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, to investigate Russia’s hacking were buoyed on Monday by McConnell, who said Russia’s involvement needed further investigation. “Any foreign breach of our cyber security measures is disturbing, and I strongly condemn any such efforts,” McConnell said. “This simply cannot be a partisan issue.” McConnell said it “defies belief” that Republicans would be reluctant to investigate Russian actions. McConnell’s remarks contrasted with those of Trump and his staff, who scoffed at reports that the CIA had concluded the hacks and leaks of Democratic emails were carried out with the goal of helping Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton. Trump said the conclusion was “ridiculous.” Some lawmakers have called for a special committee to investigate the hacking, but McConnell did not back that idea, saying he has confidence in the Senate Intelligence and Armed Services committees. Cory Gardner, a Republican, said the Russian hacking reflected the need for a permanent committee dedicated to cyber security. It was not clear how the House of Representatives would respond to the hacking and calls for investigations. House committees have not announced plans for hearings, and Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan issued a statement criticizing Russia but blasting what he termed “exploiting the work of our intelligence committee for partisan purposes.” Though congressional Republicans support a probe of Russia’s involvement in the election, they have shied away from agreeing with the CIA’s assessment that the hacks were deliberately carried out to undermine Clinton. “It’s obvious that the Russians hacked into our campaigns,” McCain said Monday in an interview with Reuters. “But there is no information that they were intending to affect the outcome of the election, and that’s why we need a congressional investigation.” Separately on Monday, one Republican and nine Democratic electors led by the daughter of the House Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi, wrote to James Clapper, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, requesting a briefing on the hacking reports before the Electoral College formally decides the election on Dec. 19. John Podesta, chairman of Clinton’s presidential campaign, said in a statement that the campaign supported the electors’ letter, which raises “very grave issues involving our national security.” Clapper’s office did not respond to a request for comment about the letter. Charles Schumer, who will be the Senate Democratic leader next year, said he welcomed McConnell’s support for “a deep and thorough bipartisan investigation” with access to all relevant intelligence. Trump and his staff have repeatedly dismissed the reports as “ridiculous,” blaming them on Democrats unhappy that Trump won. “Can you imagine if the election results were the opposite and WE tried to play the Russia/CIA card,” Trump said on Twitter on Monday. “It would be called conspiracy theory!” A second tweet said, “Unless you catch ‘hackers’ in the act, it is very hard to determine who was doing the hacking. Why wasn’t this brought up before election?” White House press secretary Josh Earnest on Monday pointed to a public statement from the intelligence community in early October that concluded the hacking had been authorized by “Russia’s senior-most officials” and was aimed at sowing discord in the U.S. election. That statement stopped short of alleging that Russia wanted to help Trump. But Earnest suggested on Monday that may have been the intent. “You didn’t need a security clearance to figure out who benefited from malicious Russian cyber activity,” Earnest said. “The president-elect didn’t call it into question. He called on Russia to hack his opponent. He called on Russia to hack Secretary Clinton.” | 1 |
9,593 | Jimmy Kimmel Joins The Ladies Of ‘The View’ To Rip Trump To Shreds Over His ‘Publicist’ (VIDEO) | Ever since we ve heard the news of Donald Trump and his publicist John Miller, a character he seemingly created to brag about himself, pretty much anyone and everyone has been making fun of him for it, because it s pretty damn hilarious.Making an appearance on The View, comedian and television host Jimmy Kimmel was no exception. He, alongside the ladies of The View took Trump to task sarcastically and brilliantly bringing the real estate mogul down a few pegs.After Whoopi Goldberg asks Kimmel about the allegations surrounding Trump posing as his own publicist, Kimmel said: If Trump says that wasn t him, we have no choice but to believe him. He s never lied to us before. You could see and feel the sarcasm oozing out of the television.Kimmel adds: It s clearly him. He then suggests that Trump should just admit it was him and say it was a prank call.When asked why Trump would do such a thing and then deny it, Kimmel explained he s probably incredibly embarrassed. Why would he lie about it? Listen, if you were calling People magazine and telling them all the women that wanted to have sex with you, I think you would be embarrassed about it too, right? Kimmel also states that Madonna was allegedly one of the women, and that as vice president this is one of the big questions he will tackle.The worst part about all of this, is that this is clearly is a distraction away from the fact that Trump has no actual policy plans and isn t at all qualified for the job of Commander-in-Chief. A fact that needs to be discussed far more often.Watch the interview here:What does @JimmyKimmel have to say about Trump denying he s his own publicist? He s never lied to us before! https://t.co/sC9ioe1l4t The View (@TheView) May 16, 2016Featured image via video screen capture | 0 |
9,594 | ESPN Just Fired Curt Schilling For This Despicable Facebook Post (IMAGE) | ESPN just made an amazing stand against bigotry on the airwaves, by firing one of it s top name hosts for being anti-transgender. Curt Schilling just got handed his pink slip.Schilling has worked for the network since 2010 and is one of baseball s best-known commentators and analysts. But recently, Schilling decided to share a Facebook post in support of an antitransgender bill passed in North Carolina.The post insisted of an image, featuring a man in a wig, his T-shirt cut to expose breasts, and a bizarre black outfit of women s clothing. The image was accompanied by text which read: LET HIM IN! to the restroom with your daughter or else you re a narrow-minded, judgmental, unloving racist bigot who needs to die. Former player Schilling then added: A man is a man no matter what they call themselves. I don t care what they are, who they sleep with, men s room was designed for the penis, women s not so much. Now you need laws telling us differently? Pathetic. ESPN later issued a statement claiming Schilling s unacceptable conduct violated their policy of inclusiveness: ESPN is an inclusive company. Curt Schilling has been advised that his conduct was unacceptable and his employment with ESPN has been terminated. Of course, for those in conservative circles, this was another attack of political correctness which prejudices conservatives from exercising their rights of free speech. According to David Hookstead at The Daily Caller, Schilling s firing was part of some exodus of conservative media pundits:The former Red Sox pitcher has been very open about his conservative views in the past. He was previously suspended by ESPN for comparing ISIS to the Nazis.ESPN might have no problem getting rid of conservative pundits, but the network has tolerated extreme liberal positions in the past without firing anybody. ESPN employee Tony Kornheiser compared the Tea Party to ISIS and insinuated the Tea Party was attempting to establish a caliphate. Kornheiser is still cashing pay checks from ESPN.What Hookstead leaves out is that the Tea Party is a billionaire-backed political movement with the express goal of creating a theocracy in the United States that is federal and state law based on biblical law. On top of this, the vast majority of domestic terrorism in the US comes from white supremacists and Christian zealots. These groups have murdered LGBT people for being gay who have lynched non-whites and non-Christians. It is entirely comparable.However, using a caricature of a cross-dresser to invoke fear about transgender people using the gender identity appropriate bathroom is plain bigotry. One could just as readily argue the opposite, as transmen did en masse with the hashtag Using the hashtag #WeJustNeedToPee. Bearded transmen posted pictures of themselves in the women s bathroom, next to women entering cubicles and doing their makeup.Michael Hughes, from Minnesota, posted the picture below, asking: Do I look like I belong in a women s bathroom?Under the North Carolina law, Michael would be legally-compelled to use the women s bathrooms despite the fact that he would clearly cause some degree of confusion and worry by doing so.Surely the long term answer is to remove the gender apartheid from toilets altogether? Plenty of countries around the world do just fine using mixed bathrooms. Why not us? Featured image via Twitter/Facebook | 0 |
9,595 | Oil industry workers split between Trump and Clinton | NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. oil and gas industry workers have contributed only slightly more money to the campaign of Democrat Hillary Clinton than to Republican Donald Trump since the two clinched their parties’ nominations for the White House, according to Reuters’ review of federal disclosures. The nearly even support suggests ambivalence in the industry between two rivals who have put forward wildly different energy visions. Trump calls for a drastic reduction in regulations to bolster drilling, while Clinton advocates tougher environmental protections and more renewables. Employees in the industry gave Clinton $114,141 and Trump $99,302 since July 1, Reuters found in reviewing individual campaign contributions exceeding $200 and donations funneled through their joint fundraising committees. Both were officially nominated by their parties in mid-July. Several oil and gas industry employees reached by Reuters said they did not donate just because of the candidates’ energy policies. Most requested anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the election. “I am moved by the disturbing nature of what I see in Trump’s vision for America on trade, the economy and national security,” said American Gas Association head Dave McCurdy, who has contributed to Clinton’s campaign. He added, however, that he agreed with Clinton on reducing carbon dioxide emissions blamed for climate change and felt natural gas would play a role in that effort. The association has not endorsed a candidate. Continental Resources Inc Chief Executive Officer Harold Hamm, who has contributed repeatedly to Trump’s campaign, has argued in favor of the candidate’s energy policies. Hamm has said bolstering U.S. drilling would reduce dependence on Middle East oil, whose proceeds he says finance terrorist attacks. A Continental official did not respond to a request for comment from Hamm. An energy lobbyist based in Washington said he understood the industry’s ambivalence. “Clinton is pro-regulation, which hurts,” he said, requesting anonymity. “And Trump has no record in the industry, so there’s no evidence he understands the issues.” Clinton had far exceeded Trump in campaign contributions from industry employees during the primaries, but donations to the Republican side of the ledger were split among a much larger number of candidates than on the Democratic side. During the Republican primaries, the industry had taken an early liking to former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, giving him more than all his rivals combined, before he dropped out of the race in February. | 1 |
9,596 | Peru president, crying 'coup,' signals VPs would quit if he ousted | LIMA (Reuters) - Peru s President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski on Wednesday signaled both his vice presidents would resign if Congress forced him from office, calling an opposition bid to remove him a coup attempt that had to be resisted. The rightwing populist party that controls Congress, Popular Force, aims to oust Kuczynski in a vote on Thursday on grounds he is morally unfit to govern, after finding he once had business connections with a company at the center of Latin America s biggest graft scandal. Kuczynski, who denies anything improper or illegal, said Popular Force was misusing its majority to attempt a power grab. The constitution and democracy are under attack. We re facing a coup dressed in supposedly legitimate legal interpretations, he said in a late night speech on national television. This is a conviction that my two vice presidents share, because neither wants to be part of a government born of an unjust and anti-democratic maneuver, Kuczynski said. He was flanked by First Vice President Martin Vizcarra and Second Vice President Mercedes Araoz. If Kuczynski loses Thursday s congressional vote to remove him and his two vice presidents depart as well, new presidential and legislative elections would be called. A 79-year-old former Wall Street banker, Kuczynski has struggled to govern since winning last year s presidential election but only a small share of congressional seats for his center-right party. Popular Force says its efforts to remove him are well within the bounds of the constitution and key to its fight against corruption. He simply doesn t care about the country, Popular Force lawmaker Luz Salgado said after Kuczynski s address. Earlier this week, Salgado called for Vizcarra to govern the country through 2021, when Kucyznski s term ends. Vizcarra and Araoz both pledged their loyalty to the center-right president on Wednesday but declined to comment on whether that meant they would resign if he was removed from office. Araoz told Reuters on Sunday that she and Vizcarra would not quit. In recent days, Kuczynski s supporters have increasingly called for his vice presidents to refuse to replace him. They believe new elections would cost Popular Force its majority amid widespread contempt for elected officials as a graft scandal taints much of the country s political class. But investors worry a new ballot could sweep anti-establishment candidates to power in one of Latin America s most stable economies. Kuczynski s government does not think it will come to that, said a government source. It expects about a dozen opposition lawmakers to oppose the motion or abstain from voting, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Eighty-seven votes are needed to oust Kuczynski. Congress passed the motion to start presidential vacancy proceedings last week with 93 votes. On Wednesday, thousands of Peruvians marched in front of Congress to denounce what they saw as Popular Force s bid to exploit the crisis to sabotage country s democratic institutions, pointing to its recent efforts to also oust the attorney general and a justice in the Constitutional Court. Popular Force emerged from the rightwing populist movement started in the 1990s by former President Alberto Fujimori, who is serving a 25-year-sentence for graft and human rights crimes during his autocratic 1990-2000 government. The United States, where Kuczynski once held citizenship, said Peru was a strong democracy. We are confident that the Peruvian people and institutions will address this situation according to Peru s constitutional norms, the U.S. State Department s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs said. The political crisis stems from a disclosure by Brazilian builder Odebrecht [ODBES.UL], which has landed elites in jail from Colombia to the Dominican Republic since acknowledging bribing officials across the region for much of the century. Responding to a request by Congress, Odebrecht said it paid more than $4 million to consulting companies owned by Kuczynski or a close business associate for about a decade starting in 2004. Some deposits were made to a company Kuczynski owned while he was minister in a government that awarded Odebrecht lucrative contracts. Odebrecht said Saturday that there was no indication the transactions were part of its past corrupt dealings with politicians, which it can only discuss with prosecutors. Kuczynski once strenuously denied ever having any ties with Odebrecht. He has since apologized to Peru for not disclosing his connections with the company, blaming forgetfulness and poor organization of his personal records after decades of work in finance and public administration. But he said there was nothing improper about the payments. Being careless and sloppy is a defect but it is not...a tool for dishonesty and much, much less, for crime, Kuczynski said. Kuczynski had once raised hopes that his decades of finance and public administration experience would usher in a new period of investments to spur faster economic growth in the world s No.2 copper producer. But in a sign of how the crisis has engulfed his government, Peru postponed an auction of a $2 billion copper project, scheduled for Wednesday, until February. | 1 |
9,597 | Zimbabwe priest mediating potential Mugabe exit: sources | HARARE (Reuters) - A Catholic priest is mediating a potential political exit for Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, although the 93-year-old is insisting he can only be removed via a party leadership vote, political and intelligence sources said on Thursday. Separately, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who has been receiving cancer treatment outside Zimbabwe, returned to Harare late on Wednesday, a party spokesman said, fuelling speculation about a post-Mugabe political settlement. | 1 |
9,598 | Cruz seeks dismissal of case challenging U.S. presidential eligibility | AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Republican Ted Cruz asked a federal court in Houston to throw out a lawsuit questioning whether he is eligible to be president of the United States because he was born in Canada, saying the case against him “suffers from fatal deficiencies.” Lawyers for Cruz contend in the filing made on Monday that the U.S. senator from Texas meets the constitutional requirements to serve as president and that the Houston lawyer trying to have the court block his bid does not have standing to bring the case. “Senator Cruz is a ‘natural-born citizen’ eligible to serve as President of the United States,” the motion to dismiss said, adding, the “plaintiff is essentially implicating the Court in a political dispute that it lacks authority to adjudicate.” The lawsuit brought in January by Newton Schwartz, an 85-year-old self-described liberal, also cited Cruz’s stance on issues such as abortion rights, gay marriage and the Bible in a 27-page argument against the senator’s eligibility. The lawsuit filed in the Southern District of Texas is a class action, meaning others can join. It requests a ruling before the Nov. 8 presidential election. Lawyers for Cruz also argue he has yet to be the Republican Party’s nominee and it would be premature for a court to address the issue. “Nowhere does Plaintiff, who acknowledges that he is a Democrat ... explain how he is harmed by Senator Cruz’s presence on the Republican primary ballot,” the Cruz filing said. Billionaire Donald Trump, the front-runner in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, has repeatedly questioned whether Cruz is eligible and warned that his winning the nomination could throw the party into chaos and hand the election to the Democrats. Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta in 1970. At the time, his mother was a U.S. citizen and his father was Cuban. He has dismissed attacks on his eligibility and noted in the filing that 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain and 1968 Republican candidate George Romney also were born outside the United States but were considered eligible to be president. The U.S. Constitution says a president or vice president must be a “natural-born citizen” but does not say whether the term means the candidate must be born on U.S. soil or just be a citizen at birth. According to legal experts, any child born to an American mother or father, no matter where, is considered a U.S. citizen. The case is Schwartz v. Cruz, 4:16-cv-00106, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas (Houston). (Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Jonathan Oatis) 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 |
9,599 | Bill O’Reilly Plays Stump The Trump On Foreign Policy And Makes Him Look Like A Fool (VIDEO) | Donald Trump appeared on Fox News on Monday night, only to be embarrassingly stumped by Bill O Reilly.O Reilly wanted to know if Trump plans on taking military action against Iran if he becomes president, and Trump totally demonstrated his lack of foreign policy knowledge by dodging the question and ranting about things he really doesn t understand. If you re elected president are you going to take military action against Iran? O Reilly asked. Are you going to do something to that country? Well, I would want to help Saudi Arabia, Trump replied with what seems to be a reference to Iranians attacking the Saudi Arabian embassy in retaliation against a mass execution the Saudis recently committed on New Year s Day in which 47 were killed, including a Shiite cleric. I would want to protect Saudi Arabia, Trump claimed. But Saudi Arabia is going to have to help us economically Trump suggested that he might attack Iran if Saudi Arabia offered the right price but remained largely unwilling to say one way or another whether he would get America involved in yet another costly and bloody war in the Middle East.O Reilly continued to press Trump for an answer, calling him out for dodging the question.Trump then went on a tirade against the Iran nuclear deal, calling it a disastrous deal that Iran has already supposedly broken before claiming that Iran will have a nuclear weapon very soon. Clearly, Trump is not aware of the fact that Iran recently surrendered their entire stockpile of enriched uranium to the Russians, which is definitive proof that the Iran nuclear deal is a success because it is doing exactly what it was designed to do.The Iran nuclear deal stands as one of President Obama s greatest achievements, and should not be abandoned in favor of war when diplomacy is working. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia is nothing more than ISIS posing as a legitimate nation. They use Sharia law and behead so many people every year that ISIS leaders must be envious. The only reason our government has failed to call the Saudis out for their horrible human rights record is because they control the second largest oil reserves in the world.This is why it is not only important for the United States to reject military action in the Middle East, we need to become energy independent so that we no longer have to rely on Saudi Arabia for our energy needs. Frankly, the United States government should grow a pair and strongly condemn Saudi Arabia right now for behaving like a terrorist organization.The bottom line, however, is that Donald Trump is unfit to be commander-in-chief. He not only wants to send American troops to die needlessly in Iran, he wants to make Saudi Arabia pay for it. Basically, Trump would turn America into a puppet for the Saudis. But more likely, he would damage relations with both nations and put America squarely in the middle of a potential conflict that could easily turn into World War III.America does not need more war. We need peace. And as O Reilly pointed out, voters have the right to know what Trump plans to do, even if Trump thinks they have no right to know at all.Here s the video via YouTube.Featured image via video screen capture | 0 |
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