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Posted by Lindsay Hayward | Nov 4, 2016 | Breaking News Hillary Clinton says Trump is “unstable” to be president and will start a nuclear war. Former president, Bill Clinton, allowed rangers to die in Somalia because he wouldn’t send air support. There were actually 4,417 military deaths from 1993-1996 alone under the reign of Clinton. He obviously rubbed off on his wife for not having any respect at all for our brave men and women in uniform. How to turn $12,000 in retirement savings into $1.3 Millon over the next 5 years.... Read More Hillary also denied air support to soldiers in Benghazi who died horrific deaths while she was Secretary of State. Ambassador Chris Stevens was brutally beaten to death and murdered in Benghazi, his lifeless body dragged throughout streets of full-fledged violence, terrorists cheering and applauding. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton and President Obama did nothing . Except for blame the tragedy on a video at the victims’ military funeral ceremony as their coffins crossed in front of the stage, where Hillary Clinton stood. It was a terrorist attack- the attack came in two separate waves, including suicide bombers. WikiLeaks confirms that Hillary told her daughter that she knew it was not because of ‘some video’. So, how else does Bill influence Hillary? Does he encourage her to lie because it’s what he personally does? Or does lying simply come naturally for her? Over the past month, WikiLeaks has poured out incriminating evidence proving corruption within our liberal government. They’ve also released countless emails exposing the fraudulent activities tied to the Clinton Foundation, which is currently being investigated by the FBI. What other shocking lies have been revealed about the Clintons by WikiLeaks? “Instead of dark and divisive, it’s hopeful and inclusive. It’s big-hearted, not small-minded. It is about lifting people up, not putting them down,” Hillary Clinton stated in front of a “massive” crowd in Ohio, unveiled to be photo-shopped to include more people than were actually present by duplicating the ones that were already there. Hillary Clinton crowd in Ohio, photoshopping to make her rally look bigger “It’s a vision that says, and I believe this with all my heart, we are stronger together.” Concludes former Secretary of State. Words like “hopeful,””big-hearted,” and “lifting people up” are the same cliches she fed the people of Haiti. They bought what she was selling- Americans should not make this grave mistake. This will actually bring about the civil war she speaks of- instead of Haitian immigrants protesting in front of the Clinton Foundation office in NY, all Americans will be protesting in front of the White House in D.C.. Clinton warned that Trump could bring the nation to war “because of his unstable character,” which is hilarious. According to Breitbart , “Clinton specifically referred to the Civil War, suggesting that the country faced a similar threat of divisiveness from Donald Trump.” Breitbart continues, “Clinton warned that it would only take a few minutes of instability from Trump launching the United States into a full scale nuclear war.” How can she make a leader of another nation so distrusting of her after she sells them 20% of American uranium, aiding them in building the very nuclear technology she claims they will use? Putin hates her and she’s not even president! Hillary Clinton also said, “Abraham Lincoln understood a house divided against itself cannot stand, and that was over the greatest of challenges – the challenge posed by slavery – and we fought a civil war.” Crooked Hillary Clinton doesn’t reserve the right to quote the great Abraham Lincoln. She is the one with the track record of inflicting people to slavery backed by her actions in Haiti. She is full of hypocrisy, her lack of character is exhausting from what’s been provided by WikiLeaks via her own email correspondence. But her own words are what incriminate her the most. “It was called Hillarycare before Obamacare!” Then she claims she never supported Obamacare. “Chelsea was jogging at the twin towers when they were hit.” No, Hillary, Chelsea was just at home, in bed, cited by you after people called you out for lying. Hillary Clinton is a pathological liar. She lies about everything, it’s in her nature. Hillary Clinton is a sociopath that lies for no apparent reason. Speaking of lies, WikiLeaks also proved that the women suddenly accusing Donald Trump of sexual misconduct were paid by the Clintons. It doesn’t take the support of deleted emails to show that women suddenly coming forward (against the only other candidate) with just weeks left until a huge election are obviously meant to shift attention away from the real issues of Hillary’s email server. Trump has overcome lies and scandals perpetrated by Hillary Clinton, spewed by the mainstream media as well as our very own president and guess what? He has kept his cool. Donald J. Trump, American strength and integrity. Donald Trump has overcome adversity throughout this presidential campaign and shown incredible strength in his character. He’s had to humbly address obvious lies and falsely organized scandals, media slander, biased-coverage, rape-allegations by women he met once and the list just keeps going. Not once did President Donald Trump, I mean, republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, get enraged and act like a looney. With everything thrown at him over the past few weeks, he has handled these vicious attacks swimmingly well. “Imagine him in the Oval Office facing a real crisis,” she told her supporters. “Imagine him plunging us into a war because somebody got under his very thin skin.” We need a strong leader, one that is going to bring about change. We need someone who can remain calm when dealing with a crisis, not act petty or prioritize covering up corruption to saving lives. America needs Donald Trump as president. Hillary Clinton encourages our own people to fight with one another instead of come together. Vote for Donald Trump, let’s truly stand together as one, against the corruption Americans currently face. It’s time American citizens stopped sitting back, accepting another apology from Hillary Clinton for lying. We need to break up with her, not appoint her as leader of our nation. Let’s truly make America great again.

Donald Trump is set to take office as President of the United States in just 15 days, and one would think he d be making the final appointments to his cabinet and trying to make sure he is prepared to work for the American people on day one. However, this is Trump we re talking about here, so of course he isn t. What is he doing instead? Why, he s busy calling Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) a clown. Well, Schumer is clearly a lot smarter than Trump, and in the wake of the president-elect tweeting insults at him, Schumer decided to hit back in a much classier way.The newly elected Minority Leader was speaking with the press (something Trump has refused to do since July) regarding the GOP s ill-advised and partisan plan to immediately repeal the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, with nothing to replace it, when he addressed Trump s insults. Schumer said: I d say to president-elect that this is serious, serious stuff. People s health is at stake, people s lives are at stake. Now, we understand that President-elect Trump is in a difficult spot, that Republicans are in a difficult spot. They want to repeal the ACA, and they have no idea how to replace it. As for the insults, Schumer continued: Instead of calling names, [the] president-elect should roll up his sleeves and show us a replacement plan that will cover the 20 million Americans who gained coverage, that will cover students or post-college students, 21 to 26, who want to stay on their parents plan, that will show how we cover people with pre-existing conditions. So I d say to the president-elect and the Republicans that this is not a time for calling names. It s time for them to step up if they want to repeal, and show us what they replace it with. Indeed. The GOP clearly has no plan to replace Obamacare, though they ve had six years to come up with one. Instead, the incoming president-elect continues to spend his transition time insulting lawmakers, private citizens, and intelligence community instead of doing his damn job.Good luck, Congress. You ve gotta work with a nutcase now. Hope you have a mental ward somewhere up there on Capitol Hill. You ll be needing it with this guy.Featured image via Aaron P. Bernstein via Getty Images

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has filed a lawsuit against DynCorp International Inc alleging that it submitted inflated claims in connection with a U.S. government contract to train Iraqi police forces, the Justice Department said on Tuesday. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that DynCorp knowingly allowed one of its subcontractors to charge excessive rates for hotels, translator, security guard and driving services, and overhead expenses, and included these charges in claims it submitted under the State Department contract, the Justice Department said in a statement.

President-Elect Trump Invites An Excited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu To Come Visit “The bond between the U.S. and Israel is based on shared values, shared interests and a shared future. I am sure that President-elect Trump and I will continue to strengthen the unique alliance between Israel and the U.S. and we will bring them to ever greater heights,” he added. 16, 2016 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he is looking forward to working with President-elect Donald Trump on “the twin interests of peace and security.” “For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.” 1 Thessalonians 5:3 (KJV) EDITOR’S NOTE: After enduring 8 years of a pro-Muslim, anti-Israel president , you can well imagine Benjamin Netanyahu’s excitement at a Donald Trump presidency. At the same time, it will be Trump’s very support that God will use to usher in some dramatic fulfillment of end times events. As we have been telling you – warning you – for over a year now, when Trump moves the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Israel, get ready to fly. We here at NTEB believe that the move will trigger the Psalm 83 war, or worse, and that the Rapture of the Church will then be right around the corner. If you have something you want to get done for the Lord, do it now. In a satellite address to the Jewish Federations of North America ’s annual General Assembly in Washington on Tuesday, Netanyahu urged President Barack Obama to continue America’s “longstanding policy” of supporting direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, and not pursue other avenues. Israel is concerned that Obama will use his final days in office to push for a UN Security Council resolution that will impose a two-state solution to the conflict. “I, for one, find great encouragement in the fact that there’s this continuity of friendship,” Netanyahu said . “I very much hope that President Obama will continue the policy that he enunciated,” Netanyahu said, referring to comments made by the outgoing president at the beginning of his first term. “The only way you get a workable and enduring peace is to have the parties agree to it. This is what has happened with our peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan. PM Netanyahu Congratulates US President-Elect Donald Trump: “We’ve had convulsions in the Middle East, and yet these peace treaties hold because they were directly agreed to by the parties,” he added. “The reason we’ll object to any such effort is because it will harden the Palestinian position, and because it will harden the Palestinian position, it will push peace back.” Netanyahu added that he is hoping to nurture the recent “quiet diplomacy” Israel has had with Arab nations with the future Trump administration. The day after the Republican candidate rocked the world by winning the election, he invited Netanyahu to visit Washington at the “first opportunity.” The prime minister and president-elect “who have known each other for many years, had a warm, heartfelt conversation” over the phone, a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office said . Netanyahu responded by saying that he and his wife Sara were excited to visit the incoming commander-in-chief and his wife Melania. Netanyahu congratulated Trump earlier in the day, calling the president-elect “a true friend of the State of Israel.” Donald Trump vows to protect Israel: “We will work together to advance security, stability and peace in our region,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “The bond between the U.S. and Israel is based on shared values, shared interests and a shared future. I am sure that President-elect Trump and I will continue to strengthen the unique alliance between Israel and the U.S. and we will bring them to ever greater heights,” he added. The son of the late president Shimon Peres, Chemi Peres, also congratulated Trump in his speech to the Jewish Federations General Assembly. “I would like to wish President-elect Trump the best of luck,” he said. “I am sure he will maintain the unbreakable link between Israel and the U.S., at the core of which are the unwavering support of Israel’s security and the forever-extended hand for peace.” source SHARE THIS ARTICLE

Intelligence sources said the logs discovered by National Security Council staff suggested Rice s interest in the NSA materials, some of which included unmasked Americans identities, appeared to begin last July around the time Trump secured the GOP nomination and accelerated after Trump s election in November launched a transition that continued through January.The intelligence reports included some intercepts of Americans talking to foreigners and many more involving foreign leaders talking about the future president, his campaign associates or his transition, the sources said. Most if not all had nothing to do with the Russian election interference scandal, the sources said, speaking only on condition of anonymity given the sensitive nature of the materials.SUSAN RICE CLAIMS TO NOT HAVE A CLUE OF THE SPYING: I know nothing about this The question from Judy Woodruff is at the beginning of the video. The entire interview is interesting because of what we know now.Read more: Circa News

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Donald Trump speaks volumes in what he doesn’t say. The Republican presidential hopeful often fails to finish his thoughts during his speeches, abruptly breaking off a sentence or substituting a vague word for a more precise one. Those half-finished sentences aren’t throwaways. They’re enthymemes, a rhetorical device at the heart of a persuasive speaking style that has helped catapult the billionaire to the top of national polls ahead of the November 2016 election. To his supporters, Trump is a politician who doesn’t sound like one: He says what he thinks, happily insults rivals and can appear unscripted, particularly when he leaves his thoughts to trail off unfinished or peppers sentences with ambiguities. Take his comments during a recent Republican debate in which he defended his call for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States: “I talked about Muslims,” he said. “We have to have a temporary something, because there’s something going on that’s not good.” It was left up to the listener to decipher what Trump was saying. What this means in practice is that supporters can tailor his statements to their own beliefs, rhetoric professors said. It also allows Trump, consciously or not, to avoid boxing himself in with quotes that rivals can use against him. Strictly speaking an enthymeme is a form of argument in which at least one premise remains unstated. The concept isn’t new - it was described by the Greek philosopher Aristotle - and has been used in American politics in the past. In practice, enthymemes come in various forms, including dramatic pauses, unfinished sentences and the place-filling “somethings” Trump employs, according to the experts, who study U.S. public and political speech. In each case, listeners fill in the blanks. Trump has used enthymemes when taking on Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly and one-time rival Carly Fiorina; he has used them in describing his opposition to a New York City mosque; he routinely uses them in speeches when talking about subjects ranging from immigration to trade wars. In the case of Kelly, Trump, recounting a heated exchange between them during a televised debate, said she had “blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her - wherever.” His statement caused a furor among many who concluded Trump had meant Kelly was menstruating and hormonal and therefore irrational. Trump denied it and supporters came to his defense, pointing out he had never spoken the words. Trump’s habit of leaving listeners to fill in the blanks isn’t new; it’s apparent in recorded interviews done well before his presidential bid. And it’s not clear whether he does it consciously. His spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, called it a symptom of a racing mind. “People have said Mr. Trump’s speeches are like a game of chess - an intricate web of great genius,” she said.     Enthymemes can have a potent effect on listeners, said Baylor University rhetoric professor Martin Medhurst. “You have involved them psychologically and helped to persuade them by having them persuade themselves.” But the rhetorical device carries risks, especially in instances where the unfinished thought is so vague that listeners can complete it with either a positive or a negative statement. In a Jan. 29 speech, for example, Trump described his views that China is exploiting the United States. “They’ve taken our jobs, they’ve taken our base, they’ve taken our money, and I love China, they get along great with me, I told you I have all these people, I do business with China, they agree with me. They can’t —.” A clip of the statement was shown by Reuters to a group of students in a public policy class at New York’s Hunter College, who disagreed among themselves about what Trump’s next words would have been. One student, Alexandre Alvalade Ximenes, a freshman studying political science and philosophy, completed Trump’s unfinished thought this way: “They can’t believe how intellectually inferior we are.” Another, Matthew Locastro, also a political science major, filled in the blank with, “There’s no way they can disagree with him because of his working relationship with them.” Trump isn’t alone in using enthymemes to effect. In an interview last September with Rolling Stone, Trump mocked the looks of Fiorina. “Look at that face. Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?” To some listeners, Trump was communicating that he thought Fiorina was ugly. Trump later denied he meant that. Fiorina responded with her own enthymeme: “I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said.”

Harry Reid s disrespectful comments are just another example of a leftist Democrat who puts politics before honor every time.Sen. Harry Reid is fighting back against claims that Hillary Clinton was responsible for the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya by calling the most outspoken parent crazy. While speaking to reporters, Reid slammed Patricia Smith, the mother of Sean Smith, who died in the 2012 terrorist attack. At the national convention, they had that poor Smith woman some out and say, Hillary Clinton killed my son, Reid told reporters (wearing sunglasses inside). How crazy, he said.The Senate Minority Leader was referring to Smith s speech to the Republican National Committee in July. American MirrorHere s Hillary lying about a video being reason for the attack on the unsecured Benghazi compound, even though she ALWAYS KNEW (see email above) that it had NOTHING to do with the attack:Here s the speech Sean Smith s mother, Pat Smith gave at the RNC Convention. Who s the crazy one Harry?

terrorism , india , russia Opinion Indian Army soldiers leave the site of a gun battle in Pampore, on the outskirts of Srinagar, Kashmir. Source:AP The Indian experience in fighting against terrorism can be useful for Russia, while the Western experience is narrowly focused. Cooperation with New Delhi on this issue, therefore, is more important than such a dialogue with the West, said Yuri Nagernyak, General Director of “Humanism, Progress and the Rule of Law” Fund, an international foundation for the promotion of culture, science and education. “I think that the Indian direction, in terms of fighting against terrorism in Russia, is extremely important, and I dare say, more important than trying to organize such cooperation with Western countries,” he said during a Moscow-Delhi video bridge, organized by the MIA Russia Today. Nagernyak said Russia and India were connected by “deep interests”, and a common vision of the future, which make them “close partners”. Kadakin: Russia with India. Terrorism is greatest human rights violation Thus, “relations between the two countries, regardless of how the political situation develops, always remain at the highest level,” he explained. “In this sense, in cooperating with India, in terms of the fight against terrorism, we can, firstly, be sure that this cooperation will be real, and not merely declarative. Secondly, we can be confident in the stability of this cooperation. Third, and much more important, it seems to me, exchanges between our two countries will give us much more than cooperation in this sphere between Russia and the West,” believes Nagernyak. The reason for this, he said, is particularly because India is faced with different directions of terrorism. “The Indian experience in counter-terrorism , and terrorism in many of its different forms, is really beneficial to Russia, while the experience of the West – is actually a very narrow experience,” said Nagernyak. Andrey Kazantsev, Director of the Analytical Centre of the Institute of International Studies, MGIMO (University) MFA Russia, also noted that, “for Russia and India there exists a common interest in stabilizing the situation in such a wide region that includes Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia”. He believes “different formats of Russian-Indian dialogue need to be developed on this aspect of cooperation.” First published in Russian by RIA Novosti .

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump held his first-face-to-face meeting with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Thursday, and declared that they “get along great,” following an acrimonious phone call in January that strained ties between the two allies. “They said we had a rough phone call. We didn’t really have a rough phone call,” Trump said in dinner remarks. “It got a little bit testy. But that’s okay.” Dressed in tuxedos as they prepared to attend a dinner, the two leaders met on board the USS Intrepid, a World War Two aircraft carrier that is now a museum moored on Manhattan’s West Side. Joined by their wives, the two leaders later attended a gala to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea. Turnbull was one of the first foreign leaders Trump spoke to after taking office on Jan. 20. The Republican president became irritated that he was expected to honor an agreement made by his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, to accept as many as 1,250 refugees held in Australian processing centers on remote Pacific islands. Trump had broken off what was supposed to be an hour-long call after 25 minutes and later tweeted that the refugee agreement was a “dumb deal” and vowed to study it. The call aroused criticism and raised questions about his diplomatic skills. Vice President Mike Pence visited Australia in April and made clear that while Trump was not happy about the refugee agreement, the United States would honor it out of respect for Australia. Under the agreement, Australia is to resettle refugees from three Central American countries. Thursday’s get-together with Turnbull was delayed because of Trump’s hastily arranged White House celebration with Republicans from the U.S. House of Representatives after they narrowly passed a healthcare bill that would repeal and replace the 2010 Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare. The measure has yet to come before the Senate/ Trump and Turnbull were all smiles as they answered questions about the January phone call and the refugee deal during a picture-taking session. “We get along great. We have a fantastic relationship, I love Australia, I always have,” Trump said. Turnbull added: “We can put the refugee deal behind you and move on.” Trump said the refugee deal had been “worked out for a long time” and that reporters had exaggerated the phone call. “We had a great call,” he said, adding, “I mean, we’re not babies.” “Young at heart,” added Turnbull. Trump vowed to visit Australia as president, calling it “one of the great, great places” and noted he had many friends there. One such friend, pro golfer Greg Norman, was among the attendees at the Intrepid dinner. In dinner remarks after their meeting, Turnbull celebrated the unity of spirit that brought the two countries together against Japan in World War Two, and said Australia and the United States are united against North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs and are fighting together in Afghanistan. “Today and together, we condemn and we resist North Korea’s provocation,” he said. It was Trump’s first trip back to New York, his home and where he made his name and fortune, since the former real estate executive moved into the White House in January. His motorcade passed hundreds of protesters as it arrived at the Intrepid in the early evening. Trump did not plan to visit Trump Tower, his home in midtown Manhattan where his wife, first lady Melania Trump, and their young son Barron still live, but instead was to spend the weekend at his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey.

Amid the tumult of the 2016 presidential campaign, John Podesta is best known as Hillary Clinton s campaign chairman and the individual from whose private account WikiLeaks is presently publishing some 50,000 hacked emails.Released in daily batches, these documents have laid bare the inner workings and tensions of the Clinton campaign in an unprecedented way, while also offering insights into the operations of the Clinton Foundation and the State Department in the years when Clinton, now the Democratic presidential nominee, served as secretary of state.At that time, when Clinton was traveling to a record number of foreign countries, Podesta, a former White House chief of staff under President Clinton, held dual titles at the State Department: as a senior advisor entitled to an annual salary of $130,000 never paid him, the department maintains and as a member of a prestigious foreign policy advisory board Secretary Clinton created. Records obtained from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management show Podesta s tenure at State extended from Sept. 25, 2011 to Jan. 4, 2014.For several months in 2012, Clinton s final year as secretary of state, Raytheon, the leading defense contractor, hired Podesta s sister-in-law, Heather Podesta, as a lobbyist, federal records show.Raytheon was looking to enlarge its share of foreign military sales transfers of advanced weapons systems to other countries that are reviewed and approved by the Department of State, then implemented by the Department of Defense and was beefing up its lobbying operation to accomplish that goal before Secretary Clinton left office.On the LD-2 lobbying disclosure form completed by her company, Heather Podesta + Partners, LLC, in July 2012, the veteran lawyer and Democratic fundraiser listed in the space provided for a description of her lobbying activities, Engaged the Executive Branch on the economic benefits of foreign military sales. In the space requesting the specific locales of her lobbying, Ms. Podesta listed the White House and the State Department.At the same time, Raytheon retained two other lobbyists, John Merrigan and Matt Bernstein, both associated with the powerhouse D.C. law firm DLA Piper. All three of these lobbyists, including Ms. Podesta, were major donors or bundlers to Hillary Clinton s 2008 and 2016 campaigns. Federal records show they have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Clinton s campaigns and earned hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying her State Department.In the final three quarters of 2012, DLA Piper earned some $360,000 in lobbying fees from Raytheon, courting the State Department and other agencies, while Ms. Podesta, within that same time frame, received $100,000 from Raytheon for the same purpose.The gambit appears to have worked: Records maintained by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, the arm of the Defense Department that coordinates the transfers of weapons systems once they have received State s approval, show Raytheon as a prime contractor in at least seventeen foreign military sales in 2012, worth an estimated total of $26 billion. Of those contracts, three with the Gulf nation of Qatar for missile defense, Apache attack helicopters and other materiel accounted for $19 billion.READ MORE: FOX NEWS

PAUL VAN AUKEN, WSWS.ORG 28 October 2016 T he United Nations Security Council was the scene Wednesday of a bitter exchange over the ongoing war in Syria, with the Western powers indicting Russia for war crimes over its operations in the northern city of Aleppo. The UN aid chief and former Tory member of the British parliament Stephen O’Brien set the tone by declaring himself “incandescent with rage” over the inability of the Security Council to take action. “Aleppo has essentially become a kill zone,” he said. The fact that both Russian and Syrian warplanes have halted their strikes against the Al Qaeda-affiliated Islamist militias that control eastern Aleppo for the past 10 days was brushed aside by Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the United Nations, who represents the living embodiment of imperialist “human rights” hypocrisy. Clueless Americans’ tax dollars at work: Samantha Power doing her Neocon best to stir up further trouble for humanity. Taunting Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin, she declared. “You don’t get congratulations and credit for not committing war crimes for a day or a week.” Continuing her tirade, Power asked, “Does Russia believe that all of the children in eastern Aleppo are Al Qaeda members?” Such outrage over the fate of civilians and children is highly selective. None of the representatives of US imperialism and its allies evinced even a spark of rage over the killing of men, women and children in government-controlled western Aleppo, which is regularly bombarded by mortars and rockets provided to the Al Qaeda “rebels” by the Pentagon and the CIA. On Thursday, rocket fire claimed the lives of six children in the west of the city, where the vast majority of the population lives. Three Syrian children died at their school, where 14 other students were wounded. In a separate attack, three young brothers died when a rocket struck their home. Nor for that matter, as far as the human rights imperialists are concerned, can the slaughter of civilians in US air strikes elsewhere in Syria be compared in any way to the deaths caused by Russian bombs in Aleppo. Amnesty International issued a report Tuesday on 11 separate strikes by the US-led “coalition” in which it said some 300 civilians were killed. The Pentagon has acknowledged only one death in these bombing raids. Other monitoring groups have put the civilian death toll inflicted by the US air war in Syria at well over 1,000. All told, the Pentagon admits to killing only 55 civilians in two years. Power’s jibe that the Russians view every child in Aleppo as a member of Al Qaeda applies with equal force to the Pentagon, whose bombs apparently kill only members of ISIS. Power is herself a veteran practitioner of this kind of grotesque double standard. This crusader for human rights took the effective position that “every child in Gaza was a member of Hamas” during the 51-day Israeli siege of 2013 that killed over 2,100 Palestinians and wounded another 11,000. During this one-sided slaughter, the US ambassador used her post at the UN to relentlessly proclaim Israel’s right to “defend” itself. Waving the filthy imperialist human rights banner, she was also one of the leading proponents of the US-NATO war in Libya that killed tens of thousands and left the country in ruins, as well as the war for regime change in Syria, which has killed over 300,000 and driven millions from their homes. T he hypocrisy and double standard of the war crimes denunciations against Russia over Aleppo emerges most starkly in relation to the launching earlier this month of a US-led siege of the Iraqi city of Mosul, just over 300 miles to the east, which was overrun by ISIS in 2014. While the Russians are indicted for turning Aleppo into a “kill zone,” the Western media routinely refers to the American onslaught as the “liberation” of Mosul. To that end, US warplanes, rocket launchers and heavy artillery are relentlessly pounding the city of over a million, which analysts acknowledge will be reduced to rubble. The head of the US military’s Central Command, Gen. Joseph Votel, boasted in an interview with AFP that his forces had killed “800 to 900 Islamic State fighters.” He said not a word as to how many civilians had died under the US bombardment; nor has the US corporate media shown any interest in that subject. When one horrific incident did come to light—the bombing of a Shia mosque near Kirkuk last Friday in which 17 women and children lost their lives and scores were wounded—the Pentagon brushed it aside and the media largely ignored it. Even as US officials, parroted by the press, indict ISIS for using Mosul’s population as “human shields”—a timeworn alibi for the slaughter of civilians—they ignore and tacitly support Al Qaeda’s use of terror and violence to prevent civilians from fleeing from the besieged neighborhoods of eastern Aleppo. While the actions carried out by the Russian military against the civilians trapped in eastern Aleppo are no doubt reprehensible, they are not the real concern of those screaming about war crimes. Their fear is that the Al Qaeda-linked militias that serve as the principal proxy force in the war for regime change are facing a final rout. Power trying to dragoon the UN Russian delegate, V. Churkin. Encouraged and rewarded by their hypocritical masters, the empire’s goons know no limits to their audacious indecency. More fundamentally, the crimes of Russia[—such as they are, and that, in itself needs careful contextual examination— Editors] in Aleppo pale in comparison to those carried out by Washington in the region, and for that matter, around the globe. Have those who feign shock and rage over the Russian bombs dropped on Syria forgotten “shock and awe?” The US invasion and occupation of Iraq took an estimated 1 million Iraqi lives. Are these champions of human rights unaware of the ongoing slaughter in Yemen, where over 10,000 people have died under Saudi airstrikes carried out with US supplied bombs and missiles and made possible by extensive intelligence and logistical aid from the Pentagon? Why is there no rage over a war by the ruling monarchy of the Middle East’s wealthiest nation against the region’s poorest, in which the systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure and a blockade imposed with the aid of US forces is threatening the population with starvation? When it comes to war crimes, the Kremlin oligarchy represented by Vladimir Putin is in the minor leagues. Since the end of World War II, and the US atomic bombs that killed some 200,000 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, virtually every US president has engaged in wars of military aggression that entailed war crimes, many of them on a scale surpassed only by the atrocities carried out by Hitler’s Third Reich. The Korean War resulted in 3 million civilian deaths; in Vietnam, the US killed some 3 to 4 million civilians. Afghanistan’s tragic and protracted encounter with US imperialism, dating back to the CIA-orchestrated war of regime change of the 1980s, claimed the lives of between 1.5 and 2 million more. Meanwhile, Washington remains at war in at least seven different countries, where civilian deaths continue to mount daily: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Somalia. The source of the feigned rage and tears over Aleppo is the fact that the US war for regime change in Syria has turned into a debacle. Moscow launched its intervention in defense of the interests of Russia’s ruling capitalist oligarchy, not those of the Syrian masses. Nonetheless, it has presented an obstacle to the US drive to assert its hegemony over the entire oil-rich region of the Middle East. The unrelenting “human rights” propaganda and demonization of Russia over Aleppo stands as a warning. US imperialism is preparing a major escalation, not only of the US intervention in Syria, but of its confrontation with Russia itself, carrying with it the real and present danger of a nuclear war. —Bill Van Auken

LIMA (Reuters) - Former authoritarian leader Alberto Fujimori sought forgiveness from Peruvians from the bottom of my heart on Tuesday for shortcomings during his rule, and thanked President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski for granting him a Christmas pardon. In a video on Facebook, Fujimori, 79, vowed that as a free man, he would support Kuczynski s call for reconciliation, hinting that he would not return to politics. I m aware the results of my government were well received by some, but I acknowledge I also disappointed other compatriots, the ailing Fujimori said, reading from notes while connected to tubes in a hospital bed. And to them, I ask for forgiveness from the bottom of my heart. The remarks were Fujimori s first explicit apology to the Andean nation that he governed with an iron fist from 1990-2000. They came after two days of unrest as protesters slammed the pardon as an insult to victims and part of a political deal to help Kuczynski survive a scandal. The pardon cleared Fujimori s convictions for graft and human rights crimes during his leadership of the rightwing government. Late on Monday, Kuczynski, a 79-year-old former Wall Street banker, appealed to Peruvians opposed to the pardon to turn the page and defended his decision as justified clemency for a sick man whose government helped the country progress. I cannot keep from expressing my profound gratitude for the complex step that the president took, which commits me in this new stage of my life to decidedly support his call for reconciliation, Fujimori said.

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — The head of the Republican National Committee implored leaders of his sharply divided party on Friday to rally behind their eventual presidential nominee, suggesting that they ignore Donald J. Trump’s assault on the nominating process. Reince Priebus, the committee’s chairman, did not mention Mr. Trump by name when addressing the group’s members at the party’s spring meeting here, but he devoted much of his speech to the tensions created by the Republican . “Now I know our candidates are going to say some things to attract attention,” Mr. Priebus said, in a barely veiled reference to Mr. Trump’s attacks on what he has called “a rigged” and “corrupt” nominating process. “That’s part of politics,” Mr. Priebus said. “But we all need to get behind the nominee. ” Mr. Trump is not the nominee yet, but his considerable advantage in delegates and lead in overall votes has prompted some mainstream Republicans to come to terms with the likelihood that he is the favorite, however unthinkable it may once have been, to become their this fall. Yet the lingering split between those Republicans willing to accept Mr. Trump, however reluctantly, and those ferociously opposed to his nomination was on vivid display at the beachside resort where the party gathered. While Mr. Priebus was speaking to state chairmen and chairwomen and committee members in a ballroom, officials from the group were briefing reporters a floor below about its efforts to deny Mr. Trump delegates in the remaining contests and keep him from clinching a majority before the party’s convention in Cleveland in July. More to the point, Katie Packer, the chairwoman of the group, Our Principles PAC, rejected Mr. Priebus’s implicit suggestion that Mr. Trump was worthy of carrying the party’s banner. “We’re selling our soul as a party for what?” asked Ms. Packer, arguing that nominating Mr. Trump could imperil Republican control of Congress. “To lose our majorities for a generation?” Ms. Packer added, “I think it’s very clear he doesn’t live up to our standards as a party. ” To drive that point home, she came to the meeting with reporters brandishing the group’s latest mailing: a pamphlet featuring an image of a buxom blonde, a pug and a pig that read: “Bimbo. Dog. Fat Pig. This is how Donald Trump publicly refers to women. ” Whether the shock value of such language still has any resonance this deep into the nominating fight is an open question, however. Mr. Trump’s commanding victory in New York this week and his expected successes in a series of and Northeastern states this Tuesday has put a damper on the effort to stop him. It has also stoked concern among some that, if Mr. Trump falls just short of a delegate majority but comes close, the small universe of unbound delegates, wanting to end the party’s long and ugly nomination fight, will come his way to hand him the nomination on the first ballot. Some of these political free agents were at the party meeting, and Our Principles PAC distributed a page memo to them and the rest of the committee members, who are all delegates, making the case against Mr. Trump and arguing that it was not too late to stop him. “We believe they’ll follow their heart before they follow the herd and the pressure,” Ms. Packer said, adding that Mr. Priebus should not “make the decision, ‘Well, he got close, so we’re going to go ahead and give him the touchdown.’ ” But the party chairman, while pleading with Republicans to “rally around whoever becomes our nominee,” made clear in his remarks that the R. N. C. would be steadfast in not getting behind a candidate until they receive the needed 1, 237 delegates. “We aren’t going to hand the nomination to anyone with a plurality, no matter how close they are to 1, 237,” Mr. Priebus said. “You need a majority. ‘Almost’ only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. ” Trying to put the best face on a campaign that some Republicans say has been disastrous for the party, Mr. Priebus invoked Abraham Lincoln to note that Lincoln’s intraparty opponents in the election of 1860 joined his administration. “They didn’t just take their marbles and go home,” he said. But while some of Mr. Trump’s rivals for the nomination may endorse him, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, should he become the nominee, many in the party most likely will not. Many of the party’s strategists and staff members, as well as some its elected officials, have said publicly that they will not support Mr. Trump if he wins the nomination. And it was difficult to stroll through the lobby here without encountering Republicans who said privately that they were unlikely to vote for the candidate most likely to be their nominee. Some, but not all, of these feelings could subside should Republicans be faced with a choice between Mr. Trump and Hillary Clinton, the Democratic . But for now many of the committee members to whom Mr. Priebus was preaching unity remain uneasy with a candidate who is waging war against the party and its nominating process. “The proof will be in the pudding in the next couple of weeks,” said Matt Moore, the South Carolina Republican chairman, after meeting with Mr. Trump’s top campaign officials, who offered assurances that the candidate is not running against the R. N. C. “Thus far, Trump is attacking the party and Reince often,” Mr. Moore said, “and I’d like to see that significantly decrease. ”

WASHINGTON -- For four months, the Republican Party and its many presidential hopefuls have laid into likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton over donations to a family foundation. That these attacks contradict the GOP's broader stand on campaign finance -- and call into question their own weighty burden of donor conflicts -- hasn't troubled them at all. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) called contributions to the nonprofit Clinton Foundation “thinly veiled bribes.” The nation can’t afford the “drama” represented by those donations, according to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina asked Clinton to explain why contributions to the foundation “don’t represent a conflict of interest.” And the Republican National Committee has made the donations a central part of its campaign against Clinton. In embracing this critique of the Clinton Foundation, Republicans are investing in a view of money in politics that they have otherwise rejected in recent years: that spending money to gain influence over or access to elected or appointed officials represents a conflict of interest or an appearance of corruption or could even lead to outright corruption. Since 2010, the conservative Supreme Court majority has rejected this argument as a reason to regulate campaign finance in their Citizens United, McCutcheon and Williams-Yulee decisions. Most leading Republican federal officeholders now take the view that spending of any sort on campaigns should not be impeded by legal restrictions as fears of corruption are overblown. So the critical piling on Clinton Foundation donations creates a problem for Republicans, especially those running for president. If contributions to the foundation, a 501(c)(3) entity not involved in political campaigns, create a valid source of corruption concern, then what are we to make of the hundreds of millions of dollars in undisclosed donations to 501(c)(4) nonprofits that have worked to elect Republicans over the past three elections? Since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision opened the door for unlimited corporate, union and, ultimately, individual spending on elections, Republicans have maneuvered to use so-called dark money nonprofits to fund large portions of their electoral efforts. Dark money spending on federal races exceeded $400 million in the 2012 presidential election and $200 million in the 2014 midterms with the vast majority of those dollars going to aid Republican candidates, according to previous analysis by The Huffington Post. The public is not privy, however, to the sources of funds fueling a large part of the Republican electoral apparatus and a smaller part of Democratic efforts. Party leaders and wealthy donors have increasingly worked through nonprofits that are not required to disclose their funding sources. Republicans, including those now running for president, defend dark money groups as a means to protect what they argue is the First Amendment right of donors to engage in political activity without "retaliation." Perhaps, that retaliation would come in the form of stories informing the public about how those donors are seeking to influence public policy. The very limited record on dark money shows that those funding these groups -- just like those funding super PACs, which must identify their donors -- include many high-powered corporate and individual interests with well-connected lobbyists in search of favors. HuffPost reports have found that dark money groups tightly connected to congressional and party leadership, both Democratic and Republican, have received large sums from pharmaceutical, insurance, banking and online payday lenders seeking specific policy changes while retaining lobbyists previously employed by those very leaders. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has his Right to Rise Policy Solutions, which is playing an increasingly important role in his not-yet-declared, super-PAC-centered presidential campaign. Rubio's advisers run the Conservative Policy Solutions group in collaboration with an affiliated super PAC. And potential candidates like former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal are all running around the country fueled by funding from undisclosed nonprofit groups. In 2012, Walker faced a recall election after labor unions in his state rebelled over legislation gutting public employee union rights. His recall campaign coordinated with a band of nonprofit political groups, led by the Wisconsin Club for Growth, to promote Walker and his policies in a positive light. Walker aides worked closely with the outside groups, and the governor directly raised undisclosed contributions for the effort. John Menard Jr., considered the wealthiest man in Wisconsin, was another big donor to the save-Walker effort. The billionaire owner of the chain store Menards gave $1.5 million to the Wisconsin Club for Growth, according to a report by Yahoo News. During Walker’s term in office, Menard’s company received $1.8 million in tax credits from an economic development corporation led by the governor. He also received help in his battle with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources as Walker defanged the watchdog agency. The same failure to see their own conflicts applies to candidates elected since the Citizens United decision precipitated the dramatic rise in dark money. Both Paul and Rubio were elected to the Senate in 2010 with $2.3 million and $2.7 million, respectively, in allied spending by groups that do not disclose their donors, including the Karl Rove-founded Crossroads GPS and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Thanks to its bankruptcy filings, it is known that for-profit Corinthian Colleges made contributions to Crossroads GPS. While the dates and amounts of those donations are still hidden, Rubio’s strong support for Corinthian is well-established. In 2014, he pleaded with the Department of Education for leniency for the company as it faced a fraud investigation. No one doubts that huge sums of dark money will again be spent supporting presidential candidates in the 2016 election. While the public will be able to consider whether the corporations, billionaires and foreign governments that contributed to the Clinton Foundation would hold undue sway over a Clinton White House, they will not even know the identities of those pouring in the secret donations.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump appeared to have made inroads with evangelical voters after meeting with hundreds of conservative Christian leaders Tuesday, but not all Christians are in his corner. Religion News Service came out with a list of seven conservative Christian leaders who are not supporting Trump. Topping their list is Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. Moore referred to Trump's campaign as "reality television moral sewage." The report also named Denny Burk, a professor of biblical studies at Boyce College. Burk blogged in March, "I am not joking or being hyperbolic when I say that he is a Mussolini-in-waiting. He must never be allowed near the Oval Office. Ever." In a February blog, pastor and author Max Lucado wrote that Trump would not make it through the "decency interview" he requires for those who date his daughters. "Can we not expect a tone that would set a good example for our children?" he wrote. "We stand against bullying in schools. Shouldn't we do the same in presidential politics?" RNS also listed Thabiti Anyabwile, pastor of Anacostia River Church; conservative blogger Erick Erickson; Robbie George, McCormick professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University; and Alan Noble, editor of the website Christ and Pop Culture.

EXCLUSIVE: An email from a top Clinton adviser containing classified military intelligence information, and one from a top aide containing classified information about the Benghazi terror attack, were the documents that kick-started the FBI investigation into the mishandling of classified information, Fox News has learned. The emails, among thousands on Hillary Clinton's personal server, were released to the Benghazi select committee in May and have been widely discussed but Fox News for the first time has identified which Clinton aides sent them and the subject matter. The revelation came as the Democratic presidential candidate and former secretary of state tried to brush aside the burgeoning scandal, joking at a campaign event when asked by Fox News whether she had wiped her private server clean, "What, like with a cloth or something? I don't know how it works digitally at all." Clinton last week handed the FBI her private server, which she used to send, receive and store emails during her four years as secretary of state. Fox News has identified two of the Benghazi-related emails on the server that were deemed to contain classified information at the time they were sent. The first was forwarded by Clinton adviser Huma Abedin and contained classified material from military intelligence sources. The 2011 email forwards a warning about how then-Ambassador Chris Stevens was "considering departure from Benghazi" amid deteriorating conditions in a nearby city. The email was mistakenly released by the State Department in full, and is now considered declassified. The second was sent by Clinton aide Jake Sullivan and contained classified information as well as sensitive law enforcement information on Benghazi. The partly redacted November 2012 email detailed how Libyan police had arrested "several people" with potential connections to the terror attack. Abedin and Sullivan now work for the Clinton presidential campaign. A spokeswoman for the intelligence community inspector general confirmed to Fox News that the information was classified at the time it was sent. But Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon says the information was not classified at the time the emails were sent. In maintaining this position, the campaign pointed to the fact that the State Department shared this judgment, as the Abedin email was released in full by the State Department on its FOIA website. The campaign spokesman acknowledged there is disagreement with the intelligence community inspector general. The emails are now just a fraction of those under review by the intelligence community. On Tuesday, while Clinton joked about her server's apparently missing contents, Fox News has learned the FBI is aggressively trying to recover the data. An intelligence source familiar with the review told Fox News that FBI investigators are confident they may be able to recover some of the deleted files, a detail first reported by NBC News. Yet at the contentious press conference on Tuesday, Clinton insisted anything she did with her email server was "legally permitted." In the press conference following a Las Vegas town hall meeting Tuesday, Fox News' Ed Henry pressed the Democratic presidential candidate by pointing out that leadership is about taking responsibility. "Look, Ed, I take responsibility," Clinton replied. "In retrospect, this didn't turn out to be convenient at all and I regret that this has become such a cause celebre. But that does not change the facts. The facts are stubborn -- what I did was legally permitted." The FBI is holding Clinton's server in protective custody after the intelligence community's inspector general raised concerns recently that classified information had traversed the system. Clinton told reporters she was "very comfortable that this will eventually get resolved and the American people will have plenty of time to figure it out." When asked whether she oversaw the process to wipe the server clean, Clinton said, "my personal emails are my personal business. Right? We went through a painstaking process and through 55,000 pages we thought could be worth relating," she continued. "Under the law, that decision is made by the official. I was the official. I made those decisions." As she departed the room, a reporter asked whether the email scandal will ever end, Clinton turned to reporters shrugged and said, "Nobody talks to me about it other than you guys." Fox News' Ed Henry and The Associated Press contributed to this report. Catherine Herridge is an award-winning Chief Intelligence correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC) based in Washington, D.C. She covers intelligence, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Herridge joined FNC in 1996 as a London-based correspondent.

A heated social media battle between singer Chris Brown and rapper Soulja Boy will apparently now be settled in a reported $1 million celebrity boxing match. [“It’s going down! ,” Soulja Boy wrote on Instagram announcing the fight. “Signed my contract I’m leaving the fight with $1, 000, 000. ” Soulja Boy, whose real name is DeAndre Cortez Way, also said the fight is being promoted by world champion boxing great Floyd Mayweather Jr. and is being promoting by his Mayweather Promotions. It’s going down! Signed my contract I’m leaving the fight with $1, 000, 000 I got the best ever my big bro @floydmayweather training me damn😈👊🏾 #TMT #SODMG March in Vegas !! On TV, A photo posted by Soulja Boy (@souljaboy) on Jan 4, 2017 at 9:19pm PST, Brown confirmed the fight from his Instagram account. “Now that we have your undivided attention. Boxing match set. Legally,” the “Royalty” singer wrote. “We in the ring. Take your bets now. Challenged accepted. Earlier this week, rapper and professional boxing promoter 50 Cent encouraged Soulja Boy to settle his beef with Brown in the ring. “Tell Soulja I said stop apologizing,” 50 Cent wrote on Instagram. “Get the Draco out build up the hype for the fight. ” The New York rapper confirmed the event Wednesday in a Instagram post. “Mayweather promotions is gonna promote the fight. This is the shut up, or put the money up challenge. ” We talking money now, BIG MONEY CHAMP said he will take the bet. Mayweather promotions is gonna promote the fight. This is the shut up, or put the money up challenge. #wherethebagat, A video posted by 50 Cent (@50cent) on Jan 4, 2017 at 4:26pm PST, Maywheather shared a promotional digital flyer for the fight on Thursday. The graphic says the fight will to place in March in Las Vegas and will be available on . Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @JeromeEHudson

yOU HAVE TO DRAW THE LINE SOMEWHERE AND CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE HAS TO BE IT , GO HARD FBI NYPAD INSIDERS ITS YOUR TIME !!!! Get Those rotten scum .

When it comes to strategizing an offense against Donald Trump and the Republicans, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King s daughter Bernice King might just be on to something.While the words and actions of Trump are horrific all by themselves, it s important to remember that he is not working alone. He has the support of those working closely around him and the support of the Republican party. So far, they ve been backing his ideas and confirming all his nominations for his Cabinet.Here s what King has to say about all of this:Some Wise Advice Circulating:1. Use [Trump s] name sparingly so as not to detract from the issues. I believe that everyone, regardless of their beliefs, deserves the dignity of being called by their name. However, this is a strategic tactic. While we are so focused on him we are prone to neglect the questionable policies that threaten freedom, justice and fairness advanced by the administration.2. Remember this is a regime and he s not acting alone;3. Do not argue with those who support him and his policies it doesn t work;4. Focus on his policies, not his appearance and mental state;5. Keep your message positive; those who oppose peace and justice want the country to be angry and fearful because this is the soil from which their darkest policies will grow;6. No more helpless/hopeless talk;7. Support artists and the arts;8. Be careful not to spread fake news. Check it;9. Take care of yourselves; and10. Resist!Keep demonstrations peaceful. In the words of John Lennon, When it gets down to having to use violence, then you are playing the system s game. The establishment will irritate you pull your beard, flick your face to make you fight! Because once they ve got you violent, then they know how to handle you. The only thing they don t know how to handle is non-violence and humor. When you post or talk about him, don t assign his actions to him, assign them to The Republican Administration, or The Republicans. This will have several effects: the Republican legislators will either have to take responsibility for their association with him or stand up for what some of them don t like; he will not get the focus of attention he craves; Republican representatives will become very concerned about their re-elections. King posts this only one day after Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) got shut down by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on the Senate floor for reading Coretta Scott King s letter from 30 years ago condemning Jeff Sessions.It s time to remember that it s not only Trump we have the responsibility to hold accountable, but all Republicans, and this post from Bernice King is definitely a good start.Read more:Featured Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images

LUCEDALE, Miss (Reuters) - Mississippi’s vast flatlands, laced with the remains of a fading industrial base, are fertile ground for the incendiary populism of Donald Trump. For the insurgent presidential candidate, there’s plenty of voter outrage to tap into here and in a swathe of other southern states that could push Trump closer to securing the Republican presidential nomination in the coming weeks. Mississippi’s unemployment rate is among the highest in the nation: more than 75,000 manufacturing jobs have disappeared in the past 15 years; and white voters at the core of the state’s Republican Party fear the rise of immigrant workers. The deep economic dislocation felt by many in Mississippi, reflected in Reuters interviews with dozens of voters, explains how Trump is attracting broad-based support in southern states, including from many evangelical Christian voters prepared to overlook his past liberal positions on touchstone social issues. In South Carolina last weekend, exit polls showed Trump comfortably beat both his closest rivals Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio among evangelical voters, despite their more consistent appeals to Christian values. “Look at immigration, look at terrorism, look at the things that really matter,” said Heather Fox, a field director for the Trump campaign in Mississippi. “If we don’t have a country, it’s not going to matter about the Bible or the Constitution because we are going to be dead and gone,” she added during a recent gathering of Republican voters in a Holiday Inn conference room in Lucedale, southern Mississippi, that began with a prayer. Caleb Howell, a Baptist deacon, says even those with jobs often see little chance of promotion. “There are not many options,” he said, “even for preachers.” From the Mississippi coast through Alabama, Tennessee and the Appalachian coalfields of Kentucky, America’s economic recovery has been patchy if not outright elusive. The four-state region is the country’s least educated and least well paid, according to federal jobs data. Politically, the region has emerged as a bedrock of support for billionaire real estate mogul Trump, who has hammered home his pledge to return America to “winning” ways versus foreign competitors and foes. In polling conducted for Reuters by Ipsos, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky ranked among Trump’s top seven states nationally, with more than 40 percent of Republicans and independent poll participants backing him. (See this graphic on census data from Trump's heartland. here) Alabama and Tennessee vote on March 1 on “Super Tuesday”, along with 13 other states and territories in the heated race to select the Republican Party’s presidential candidate. Kentucky holds a Republican caucus on March 5 and Mississippians vote in their party primary on March 8. The 2007 to 2009 economic crisis fell particularly hard on Mississippi and neighboring states. The number of jobs fell faster than in much of the rest of the country, climbed back more slowly, and as of last year remained more than 200,000 short of where it was before the crisis, federal data show. Economic and cultural dislocation runs strong, whether it’s anger over Washington’s regulatory reach into industries like coal mining, the perceived threat to conservative values on issues like same-sex marriage, or the conviction that the economy no longer works for average Americans. A nation-leading 32 percent of the adult population in the four-state region has only a high school degree, a problem at a time when the fastest job and wage growth is in occupations that require a bachelor’s degree or more. Since 2000, jobs available in Mississippi for those with only a high school degree fell five percent, according to a Reuters analysis of federal occupational data.   Between 2000 and 2014, median household income fell nearly 12 percent in Mississippi, about twice as fast as the overall U.S. decline, adjusted for inflation. Income among white households fell slightly more than 12 percent, compared to a decline of less than five percent for all whites nationally. “We’re shipping out all the work and bringing in all the people that don’t want to work,” said Walter Wright, 46, who owns a real-estate company in Hurley, Mississippi. He said he supports Trump because of his tough build-a-wall approach to stopping illegal immigration and because “he is angry.” Although the region has the lowest share of foreign-born residents in the country, at fewer than four percent, and the lowest portion of Hispanic residents, whether born in the U.S. or elsewhere, the numbers have been growing. In Alabama and Mississippi, for instance, the Hispanic population more than doubled from 2000 to 2010. That’s coincided with a difficult economy. Mississippi, once a major builder of ships and furniture, has seen an exodus of thousands of jobs in both industries to China and Mexico over the past two decades. Mississippi’s manufacturers shed 75,738 jobs between 2000 and 2015, according to Manufacturers’ News Inc, a publisher and compiler of industrial directories and databases. “We have had way too many industries shut down and now they are in Brazil, they are in Mexico, they are in China,” said Fox. Trump has said he will bring back American jobs “from China, from Mexico, from Japan, from so many places.” He has proposed doing this by slapping tariffs on foreign goods and negotiating better trade deals. He has threatened a 35 percent tax on Ford Motor Corp vehicles made in Mexico that are brought back to the United States to be sold. Most economists doubt Trump can revive manufacturing on its former scale in Mississippi or elsewhere, especially for unskilled workers. His threats also risk a trade war that could backfire by raising costs and hurting American jobs. While trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement may have shifted some jobs abroad, the integration of global supply chains has also helped Tennessee stand out in the region with its booming auto industry, and drawn foreign companies like Airbus to Mobile, Alabama. Republican Party officials say Trump has strong support, especially in northwest Alabama where International Paper Co shut a 43-year-old plant in 2014, laying off 1,100 workers. “The day of putting on a suit and tie at 6 in the morning and getting a clean cut shave and taking your briefcase to an office somewhere, it’s gone,” said Blake Nash, 29, a Trump supporter whose mother was let go at the plant in 2006. In Nash’s town of Lexington, near the Tennessee border, red, white and blue Trump signs sprout from streets studded with Baptist churches, the only banners of any presidential candidate in the area. Nash, who has no health insurance and calls his university degree in health sciences worthless, recently applied for a job with a company that contracts work with Boeing Co and Lockheed Martin Corp, but was rejected because he didn’t have the right training. With good jobs at home scarce, he works on contract in other states such as Texas.    Many farmers in Lauderdale County, the location of the International Paper plant, relied on the factory for their primary income, said Charlie Thompson, a farmer who worked there for 34 years and lost his job in 2014. Thompson, 58, former president of the Lauderdale County Farmers Federation, estimates that about 15 percent of the sacked workers were farmers, further straining a county where the number of farms was already in decline. “If you can equate signs in the yard with being popular, I would say probably Trump is a front runner around here,” said Thompson. Still, a win is no sure thing.  At the Lucedale forum, Chris McDaniel, a Republican state senator in Mississippi and Cruz supporter, hammered at Trump’s inconsistency on conservative hot-button issues such as abortion. “How sure and solid has Trump been? Just a few years ago, he was pro-choice,” McDaniel said, referring to a television interview Trump gave in 1999 when he said “I’m very pro-choice” and that he would not ban partial-birth abortions. He has since said he is against abortion. “We are kind of afraid of what he has been in the past,” said Gussie Vise, 71, a retired teacher and wife of a local preacher. She is leaning toward Cruz but says of Trump,“we like him.” 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A recanvass of Kentucky’s Democratic presidential primary results found Hillary Clinton won the contest by 1,911 votes, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Grimes said on Thursday. Clinton’s rival for the party’s nomination, Senator Bernie Sanders, had requested a recount in the razor-close contest earlier this week. Grimes, in posts on Twitter, said the results of the recanvass would be certified by the state’s Board of Elections on May 31.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will be “pushing hard” to advance U.S. interests in his debut meeting with Group of 20 counterparts this week, including reaffirming commitments to avoid competitive currency devaluations, a senior Treasury official said on Monday.Mnuchin, who will attend a meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors from the G20 major economies on Friday and Saturday in Baden-Baden, Germany, also will press countries to help strengthen global growth, the official told reporters. “The G20 can play a helpful role in advancing U.S. interests. The secretary will be pushing hard to make that come to pass, whether it’s on macroeconomic policies, exchange rate policies etcetera,” the official said. The official said it was important to the Trump administration that previous G20 commitments to not target exchange rates to gain a competitive trade advantage be reaffirmed and fully implemented. But that explicit pledge, which has long been a part of past G20 communiques, was not included in an early draft of the statement to be issued at the Baden-Baden meeting. The early draft, which is subject to more revisions, simply stated “we reaffirm our previous exchange-rate commitments.” The early draft also dropped language to “resist all forms of protectionism” in favor of a pledge to “maintain an open and fair international trading system.” The U.S. Treasury official declined to discuss the language that would be in the final communique but said that the Trump administration was committed to “fair and open trade.” “I think that means a trading system that has a level playing field for our firms and our workers globally, and we’ll be encouraging policies that lead to that level playing field so that our firms and workers are not disadvantaged,” the official said. Trump officials have criticized China on a host of trade-related fronts related to its $347 billion trade surplus with the United States last year. These include President Donald Trump’s own charges that Beijing manipulates its yuan currency and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’ complaints about Chinese excess industrial capacity, unfair subsidies for state-owned enterprises and a lack of access for foreign firms to major sectors of China’s economy. The U.S. Treasury said in October that none of the U.S.’ major trading partners was manipulating its currency to gain advantage for its exports. Mnuchin has said he would not pass judgment on China’s currency practices until Treasury issues its semi-annual currency report in mid-April. China has announced plans to reduce some capacity in its steel industry in recent months and has urged the United States to move cautiously in pursuing anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases. The country’s ministry of commerce has denied U.S. charges that China’s aluminum industry is receiving unfair subsidies. Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro last week also said Washington needed bilateral engagement with Germany to reduce its $65 billion trade surplus with the United States. The Treasury official said that countries with a trade surplus have a role to play in helping to achieve the G20’s goals of maintaining “strong, sustainable and balanced growth.”

Didn t America have to suffer through a high profile perjury case for another Clinton not so many years ago? Oh yeah that was Bill Clinton who was actually IMPEACHED for LYING to a grand jury. Is there a more corrupt, self-serving power-driven couple in America? WASHINGTON, D.C. Today, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (UT-03) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (VA-06) sent a letter to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia requesting an investigation into whether former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton committed perjury and made false statements when testifying under oath before Congress.The letter states: The evidence collected by the FBI during its investigation of Secretary Clinton s use of a personal email system appears to directly contradict several aspects of her sworn testimony. In light of those contradictions, the Department should investigate and determine whether to prosecute Secretary Clinton for violating statutes that prohibit perjury and false statements to Congress, or any other relevant statutes. Background:During a July 5, 2016 hearing before the House Oversight Committee, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey stated the truthfulness of Secretary Clinton s testimony before Congress was not within the scope of the FBI s investigation. According to Director Comey the Department of Justice requires a criminal referral from Congress to initiate an investigation into Secretary Clinton s congressional testimony.Additionally, Chairman Chaffetz sent a letter to Director Comey requesting the FBI s full investigative file from its review of former Secretary Clinton s use of an authorized private email server.Chairman Goodlatte sent a letter to Director Comey pressing for more information about the FBI s investigation and also led a letter signed by over 200 members of Congress demanding answers from FBI Director Comey regarding the many questions surrounding his announcement that he does not recommend federal prosecution against former Secretary Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified information through private email servers.Full text of letter:The Honorable Channing D. Phillips U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia 555 Fourth Street NW Washington, D.C. 20530Dear Mr. Phillips:We write to request an investigation to determine whether former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton committed perjury and made false statements during her testimony under oath before congressional committees.While testifying before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on July 7, 2016, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey stated the truthfulness of Secretary Clinton s testimony before Congress was not within the scope of the FBI s investigation. Nor had the FBI even considered any of Secretary Clinton s testimony. Director Comey further testified the Department of Justice requires a criminal referral from Congress to initiate an investigation of Secretary Clinton s congressional testimony. We are writing for that purpose.The evidence collected by the FBI during its investigation of Secretary Clinton s use of a personal email system appears to directly contradict several aspects of her sworn testimony. In light of those contradictions, the Department should investigate and determine whether to prosecute Secretary Clinton for violating statutes that prohibit perjury and false statements to Congress, or any other relevant statutes.Thank you for your attention to this important matter. oversight.house.govWatch Hillary caught in lies during testimony in video here:Watch the impeachment of Hillary s serial sexual abuser husband, Bill for lying before a grand jury about his affair with young intern Monica Lewinsky:

As we all know, Trump told Access Hollywood host Billy Bush in 2005 that he made unwanted advances on a married woman and bragged that he walks up to beautiful women and just starts kissing them and grab them by the p*ssy. Seriously. It s all on tape. Had the tape been turned over to police they might have opened a sexual assault investigation.On Sunday morning, CNN anchor John King said that Trump should be in jail instead of being the Republican nominee for president.King began by playing part of the clip of Trump talking about how he pursued a married woman by taking her furniture shopping. And then he talks about moving on that b*tch. I said what you re about to see was some graphic language, King said. That s one of the tamest parts. And the point, if you go on in this tape, that s he s talking about making unwanted advances on a married woman. He also talks about conduct that is a crime. If he did it. People go to jail for the things that he was talking about doing, groping women. That was the dam opening. Indeed, it is a crime and that why many Republicans are desperately trying to distance themselves from Trump.The outrage was so bad that Trump was forced to apologize for the remarks, but King noted that it took Trump s aides hours to get him to actually do it. King proceeded to slam Trump for it and pointed out that what Trump said is not mere locker room talk. It s a confession to committing crimes. In his video released Saturday night, after it took his aides hours to convince him this was a big deal, that s important here too. He doesn t say in the video that I never did this. He never says he never did this. I m going to say it one more time: he s bragging about things that people go to jail for. I ve been to a lot of locker rooms. Men say stupid things in locker rooms. Men say inappropriate things in locker rooms. Men do not talk about committing crimes in locker rooms or, if anybody brings it up, the grown-up on the team pushes that guy against the locker and tells him to shut up. Here s the video via VidMe.In other words, Trump should have been investigated by law enforcement and should have been arrested, tried, sentenced to serve time in jail, and required to register as a sex offender. He certainly should never have been elevated to the leadership of a major political party and been allowed to get this close to becoming the most powerful person in the world. Republicans own this and they need to pay a price for it in November.Featured image via screenshot

Shocking surveillance video of two police officers ambushed by a gunman inside an Arizona Walmart has been release. It demonstrates how officers barely escaped death, yet stopped the assailant. [The video shows Chandler officers Joshua Pueblo and Daniel Colwell casually walking into a Walmart after being called about a suspicious person who was trespassing. Without warning, the suspect, who was lurking near the McDonald’s counter, opened fire, striking both officers, according to the Daily Mail. The suspect, later identified as Mitchell Oakley, is seen running past the officers to escape the store, but drops his gun and then Officer Colwell shoots him. In the video, Officer Pueblo is seen hitting the ground immediately after being shot in the face, while officer Colwell, who was shot twice at close range, is seen diving across the entryway, drawing his service weapon, and returning fire as the suspect runs by. After the suspect drops his firearm as he exits the store, Officer Colwell’s additional shots fell him as he scrambles back to retrieve his gun. Chandler police spokesman Seth Tyler said that the incident “sounds like an ambush to me. ” Officer Pueblo is on medical leave recovering from wounds to the face and arm, but officer Colwell was able to return to duty, presumably because his vest absorbed the blows he received from the killer’s firearm. Customers were shocked and badly frightened by the sudden storm of lead flying around the store. Walmart employees reported that customers were rounded up and led to the opposite side of the store for safety as police investigated the scene of the attack. This is not the only recent shooting in an Arizona Walmart. Two men were shot by an unknown attacker in a Glendale Walmart on December 7. Neither shooting victim sustained injuries. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com.

SYDNEY (Reuters) - The loss of a state election in Queensland has stepped up pressure on Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who risks losing control of parliament at a by-election next month. Three Australian prime ministers have been ousted by their own parties since 2010, and a splintering of the conservative base in Queensland has raised questions over how long Turnbull s premiership can survive. Opinion polls already show his popularity at a record low. Queensland s Liberal National Party (LNP), which replicates the federal coalition made up of Turnbull s Liberal Party and its partner the National Party, was hurt by voters, particularly in regional and rural areas, defecting to Pauline Hanson s right-wing, populist One Nation party. Vote counting is still underway, but the conservative divide has left the Labor Party on track to form the government in the coal-rich northeastern state. Smarting from this latest setback, Turnbull reminded voters on Monday that if they backed One Nation at the next federal election it could play into the hands of the center opposition. Everyone is entitled to cast their vote as they see fit but the voting for One Nation in the Queensland election has only assisted the Labor Party, Turnbull told reporters in the city of Wollongong, south of Sydney. The next federal election is due either in late 2018 or early 2019. But first up is the Bennelong by-election on Dec. 16. Should the Liberals lose the seat in Sydney s north, Turnbull would have to negotiate with independents and small parties to retain control of the House of Representatives, where the government is formed. It could heighten chances of deadlock between the two houses of parliament, which might force Turnbull to call an early election, just as he did last year. Regarded as a moderate, Turnbull has trouble holding on to voters leaking to the right following the resurgence of Hanson s anti-immigration party, according to Queensland University of Technology political science expert Clive Bean. In recent times Queensland has often been one of the states that has made the difference when it comes to whether the coalition wins government or not, said Bean. The seats that tend to bleed votes to One Nation do tend to be seats where the LNP is traditionally stronger. Forecast to win just one seat in Queensland, One Nation polled almost 14 percent of the vote, spoiling the LNP s chances of taking the state off Labor. At the federal level, the ruling coalition s fragility has been exacerbated by rules forcing lawmakers holding dual nationality, which is prohibited, to recontest seats. Bennelong is one such seat, and should defeat there lead to the coalition losing control over the House of Representatives it would immediately undermine the prime minister s efforts to stave off an inquiry into Australia s scandal-hit major banks. While Turnbull has distanced himself from the Queensland election result, maverick coalition member George Christensen tweeted an apology to voters who switched allegiance to One Nation, blaming the federal government for not standing up for conservative values. A lot of that rests with the Turnbull govt, it s (sic) leadership & policy direction, the tweet said.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny held a political rally on Sunday, hours after being released from jail and pledged to continue his presidential campaign despite the authorities saying he is ineligible to stand. Navalny, a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin, was detained by police in late September and sentenced to 20 days in jail on charges of repeatedly violating laws by organizing public meeting and rallies. It was the third time he had been jailed this year, part of what he says is a pattern of Kremlin harassment designed to thwart his political ambitions. Russia s central election commission has declared him ineligible to run for president next year due to a suspended prison sentence, which he says was politically-motivated. Shrugging off that ban, the 41-year-old lawyer held a campaign rally in the provincial town of Astrakhan in southern Russia on Sunday evening, hours after walking free from jail. He said after the rally he would continue to campaign and had the right to take part in next year s election. We have more right to take part in the elections than all the other candidates combined, Navalny wrote on his website. Putin, 65, has for months declined to say whether he will run for what would be his fourth stint in the Kremlin, but is widely expected to do so. Opinion polls suggest he would comfortably win. One candidate who has declared her hand is TV personality Ksenia Sobchak who said last week she planned to run, offering liberal voters unhappy with Putin s rule someone to back, though she has little prospect of winning. Some opposition activists fret she is a Kremlin project designed to split the opposition, something she denies. Last month, commenting on rumors that Sobchak would run, Navalny complained she was being used by the Kremlin as a safe lightning conductor for voters dissatisfaction. But he struck a more conciliatory note on Sunday with TV Rain citing him as saying that everyone, including Sobchak, had the right to take part in the March election.

Donald Trump just got caught lying about one of his biggest claims as the South Carolina primary approaches.Throughout his campaign, Trump has hammered Jeb Bush over his brother George W. Bush s terrible decision to go to war with Iraq, a war that cost America trillions of dollars and thousands of lives.He has even claimed to be the only candidate in the GOP field who opposed the war before we invaded and he did so again during the GOP Debate on Saturday night. I m the only one on this stage that said, Do not go into Iraq. Do not attack Iraq, Trump declared. Nobody else on this stage said that. And I said it loud and strong. And I was in the private sector. I wasn t a politician, fortunately. But I said it, and I said it loud and clear, You ll destabilize the Middle East. That s exactly what happened. Trump repeated himself again on Thursday night during the GOP Town Hall event, even going so far as to say that George H. W. Bush dealt with Iraq the right way when we went to war against Saddam Hussein in order to protect Kuwait in 1992.Up to this point, Trump s claims had gone unchallenged. But now an audio recording has popped up of a Trump interview with Howard Stern that blows both of Trump s claims about both wars in Iraq out of the water.As it turns out, Trump not only lied about his opposition to the Iraq invasion in 2003, he lied about believing that Operation Desert Storm was handled correctly. Are you for invading Iraq? Stern asked Trump point-blank back in 2002, a year before the first troops set foot in Iraq.TRUMP: Yeah, I guess so. I wish the first time it was done correctly. Here s the damning audio via Buzzfeed.And when Anderson Cooper asked Trump about the Stern interview on Thursday, here is what Trump had to say. I could have said that. Nobody asked me that. I wasn t a politician. It was probably the first time anyone has asked me that question. When you re in the private sector, you get asked things, and you re not a politician, and probably the first time I was asked. By the time the war started, I was against it, and shortly thereafter, I was really against. Note to Donald: It doesn t matter if you were a politician or not. A lie is a lie and your time in the private sector does not exempt you from being called out for it, nor does it excuse it. Featured image: Flickr

By Robert Parry The United States is so committed to the notion that its electoral process is the world’s “gold standard” that there has been a bipartisan determination to maintain the fiction even when evidence is overwhelming that a U.S. presidential election has been manipulated or stolen. The “wise men” of the system simply insist otherwise. We have seen this behavior when there are serious questions of vote tampering (as in Election 1960) or when a challenger apparently exploits a foreign crisis to create an advantage over the incumbent (as in Elections 1968 and 1980) or when the citizens’ judgment is overturned by judges (as in Election 2000). Presidents Richard Nixon, George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan photographed together in the Oval Office in 1991. (Cropped from a White House photo that also included Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.) Strangely, in such cases, it is not only the party that benefited which refuses to accept the evidence of wrongdoing, but the losing party and the establishment news media as well. Protecting the perceived integrity of the U.S. democratic process is paramount. Americans must continue to believe in the integrity of the system even when that integrity has been violated. The harsh truth is that pursuit of power often trumps the principle of an informed electorate choosing the nation’s leaders, but that truth simply cannot be recognized. Of course, historically, American democracy was far from perfect, excluding millions of people, including African-American slaves and women. The compromises needed to enact the Constitution in 1787 also led to distasteful distortions, such as counting slaves as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of representation (although obviously slaves couldn’t vote). That unsavory deal enabled Thomas Jefferson to defeat John Adams in the pivotal national election of 1800. In effect, the votes of Southern slave owners like Jefferson counted substantially more than the votes of Northern non-slave owners. Even after the Civil War when the Constitution was amended to give black men voting rights, the reality for black voting, especially in the South, was quite different from the new constitutional mandate. Whites in former Confederate states concocted subterfuges to keep blacks away from the polls to ensure continued white supremacy for almost a century. Women did not gain suffrage until 1920 with the passage of another constitutional amendment, and it took federal legislation in 1965 to clear away legal obstacles that Southern states had created to deny the franchise to blacks. Indeed, the alleged voter fraud in Election 1960, concentrated largely in Texas, a former Confederate state and home to John Kennedy’s vice presidential running mate, Lyndon Johnson, could be viewed as an outgrowth of the South’s heritage of rigging elections in favor of Democrats, the post-Civil War party of white Southerners. However, by pushing through civil rights for blacks in the 1960s, Kennedy and Johnson earned the enmity of many white Southerners who switched their allegiance to the Republican Party via Richard Nixon’s Southern strategy of coded racial messaging. Nixon also harbored resentments over what he viewed as his unjust defeat in the election of 1960. Nixon’s ‘Treason’ So, by 1968, the Democrats’ once solid South was splintering, but Nixon, who was again the Republican presidential nominee, didn’t want to leave his chances of winning what looked to be another close election to chance. Nixon feared that — with the Vietnam War raging and the Democratic Party deeply divided — President Johnson could give the Democratic nominee, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, a decisive boost by reaching a last-minute peace deal with North Vietnam. President Richard Nixon with his then-National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger in 1972. The documentary and testimonial evidence is now clear that to avert a peace deal, Nixon’s campaign went behind Johnson’s back to persuade South Vietnamese President Nguyen van Thieu to torpedo Johnson’s Paris peace talks by refusing to attend. Nixon’s emissaries assured Thieu that a President Nixon would continue the war and guarantee a better outcome for South Vietnam. Though Johnson had strong evidence of what he privately called Nixon’s “treason” — from FBI wiretaps in the days before the 1968 election — he and his top advisers chose to stay silent. In a Nov. 4, 1968 conference call , Secretary of State Dean Rusk, National Security Advisor Walt Rostow and Defense Secretary Clark Clifford – three pillars of the Establishment – expressed that consensus, with Clifford explaining the thinking: “Some elements of the story are so shocking in their nature that I’m wondering whether it would be good for the country to disclose the story and then possibly have a certain individual [Nixon] elected,” Clifford said. “It could cast his whole administration under such doubt that I think it would be inimical to our country’s interests.” Clifford’s words expressed the recurring thinking whenever evidence emerged casting the integrity of America’s electoral system in doubt, especially at the presidential level. The American people were not to know what kind of dirty deeds could affect that process. To this day, the major U.S. news media will not directly address the issue of Nixon’s treachery in 1968, despite the wealth of evidence proving this historical reality now available from declassified records at the Johnson presidential library in Austin, Texas. In a puckish recognition of this ignored history, the library’s archivists call the file on Nixon’s sabotage of the Vietnam peace talks their “X-file.” [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “ LBJ’s ‘X-File’ on Nixon’s ‘Treason. ’”] The evidence also strongly suggests that Nixon’s paranoia about a missing White House file detailing his “treason” – top secret documents that Johnson had entrusted to Rostow at the end of LBJ’s presidency – led to Nixon’s creation of the “plumbers,” a team of burglars whose first assignment was to locate those purloined papers. The existence of the “plumbers” became public in June 1972 when they were caught breaking into the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters at the Watergate in Washington. National Security Adviser Walt Rostow shows President Lyndon Johnson a model of a battle near Khe Sanh in Vietnam. (U.S. Archive Photo) Although the Watergate scandal remains the archetypal case of election-year dirty tricks, the major U.S. news media never acknowledge the link between Watergate and Nixon’s far more egregious dirty trick four years earlier, sinking Johnson’s Vietnam peace talks while 500,000 American soldiers were in the war zone. In part because of Nixon’s sabotage — and his promise to Thieu of a more favorable outcome — the war continued for four more bloody years before being settled along the lines that were available to Johnson in 1968. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “ The Heinous Crime Behind Watergate .”] In effect, Watergate gets walled off as some anomaly that is explained by Nixon’s strange personality. However, even though Nixon resigned in disgrace in 1974, he and his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, who also had a hand in the Paris peace talk caper, reappear as secondary players in the next well-documented case of obstructing a sitting president’s foreign policy to get an edge in the 1980 campaign. Reagan’s ‘October Surprise’ Caper In that case, President Jimmy Carter was seeking reelection and trying to negotiate release of 52 American hostages then held in revolutionary Iran. Ronald Reagan’s campaign feared that Carter might pull off an “October Surprise” by bringing home the hostages just before the election. So, this historical mystery has been: Did Reagan’s team take action to block Carter’s October Surprise? President Ronald Reagan, delivering his Inaugural Address on Jan. 20, 1981, as the 52 U.S. hostages in Iran are simultaneously released. The testimonial and documentary evidence that Reagan’s team did engage in a secret operation to prevent Carter’s October Surprise is now almost as overwhelming as the proof of the 1968 affair regarding Nixon’s Paris peace talk maneuver. That evidence indicates that Reagan’s campaign director William Casey organized a clandestine effort to prevent the hostages’ release before Election Day, after apparently consulting with Nixon and Kissinger and aided by former CIA Director George H.W. Bush, who was Reagan’s vice presidential running mate. By early November 1980, the public’s obsession with Iran’s humiliation of the United States and Carter’s inability to free the hostages helped turn a narrow race into a Reagan landslide. When the hostages were finally let go immediately after Reagan’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 1981, his supporters cited the timing to claim that the Iranians had finally relented out of fear of Reagan. Bolstered by his image as a tough guy, Reagan enacted much of his right-wing agenda, including passing massive tax cuts benefiting the wealthy, weakening unions and creating the circumstances for the rapid erosion of the Great American Middle Class. Behind the scenes, the Reagan administration signed off on secret arms shipments to Iran, mostly through Israel, what a variety of witnesses described as the payoff for Iran’s cooperation in getting Reagan elected and then giving him the extra benefit of timing the hostage release to immediately follow his inauguration. Then-Vice President George H.W. Bush with CIA Director William Casey at the White House on Feb. 11, 1981. (Photo credit: Reagan Library) In summer 1981, when Assistant Secretary of State for the Middle East Nicholas Veliotes learned about the arms shipments to Iran, he checked on their origins and said, later in a PBS interview: “It was clear to me after my conversations with people on high that indeed we had agreed that the Israelis could transship to Iran some American-origin military equipment. … [This operation] seems to have started in earnest in the period probably prior to the election of 1980, as the Israelis had identified who would become the new players in the national security area in the Reagan administration. And I understand some contacts were made at that time.” Those early covert arms shipments to Iran evolved into a later secret set of arms deals that surfaced in fall 1986 as the Iran-Contra Affair, with some of the profits getting recycled back to Reagan’s beloved Nicaraguan Contra rebels fighting to overthrow Nicaragua’s leftist government. While many facts of the Iran-Contra scandal were revealed by congressional and special-prosecutor investigations in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the origins of the Reagan-Iran relationship was always kept hazy. The Republicans were determined to stop any revelations about the 1980 contacts, but the Democrats were almost as reluctant to go there. A half-hearted congressional inquiry was launched in 1991 and depended heavily on then-President George H.W. Bush to collect the evidence and arrange interviews for the investigation. In other words, Bush, who was then seeking reelection and who was a chief suspect in the secret dealings with Iran, was entrusted with proving his own guilt. Tired of the Story By the early 1990s, the mainstream U.S. news media was also tired of the complex Iran-Contra scandal and wanted to move on. As a correspondent at Newsweek, I had battled senior editors over their disinterest in getting to the bottom of the scandal before I left the magazine in 1990. I then received an assignment from PBS Frontline to look into the 1980 “October Surprise” question, which led to a documentary on the subject in April 1991. PBS Frontline’s: The Election Held Hostage, co-written by Robert Parry and Robert Ross. However, by fall 1991, just as Congress was agreeing to open an investigation, my ex-bosses at Newsweek, along with The New Republic, then an elite neoconservative publication interested in protecting Israel’s exposure on those early arms deals, went on the attack. They published matching cover stories deeming the 1980 “October Surprise” case a hoax, but their articles were both based on a misreading of documents recording Casey’s attendance at a conference in London in July 1980, which he seemed to have used as a cover for a side trip to Madrid to meet with senior Iranians regarding the hostages. Although the bogus Newsweek/New Republic “London alibi” would eventually be debunked, it created a hostile climate for the investigation. With Bush angrily denying everything and the congressional Republicans determined to protect the President’s flanks, the Democrats mostly just went through the motions of an investigation. Meanwhile, Bush’s State Department and White House counsel’s office saw their jobs as discrediting the investigation, deep-sixing incriminating documents, and helping a key witness dodge a congressional subpoena. Years later, I discovered a document at the Bush presidential library in College Station, Texas, confirming that Casey had taken a mysterious trip to Madrid in 1980. The U.S. Embassy’s confirmation of Casey’s trip was passed along by State Department legal adviser Edwin D. Williamson to Associate White House Counsel Chester Paul Beach Jr. in early November 1991, just as the congressional inquiry was taking shape. Williamson said that among the State Department “material potentially relevant to the October Surprise allegations [was]a cable from the Madrid embassy indicating that Bill Casey was in town, for purposes unknown,” Beach noted in a “ memorandum for record ” dated Nov. 4, 1991. Two days later, on Nov. 6, Beach’s boss, White House counsel C. Boyden Gray, convened an inter-agency strategy session and explained the need to contain the congressional investigation into the October Surprise case. The explicit goal was to ensure the scandal would not hurt President Bush’s reelection hopes in 1992. C. Boyden Gray, White House counsel under President George H.W. Bush. At the meeting, Gray laid out how to thwart the October Surprise inquiry, which was seen as a dangerous expansion of the Iran-Contra investigation. The prospect that the two sets of allegations would merge into a single narrative represented a grave threat to George H.W. Bush’s reelection campaign. As assistant White House counsel Ronald vonLembke, put it , the White House goal in 1991 was to “kill/spike this story.” Gray explained the stakes at the White House strategy session. “Whatever form they ultimately take, the House and Senate ‘October Surprise’ investigations, like Iran-Contra, will involve interagency concerns and be of special interest to the President,” Gray declared, according to minutes . [Emphasis in original.] Among “touchstones” cited by Gray were “No Surprises to the White House, and Maintain Ability to Respond to Leaks in Real Time. This is Partisan.” White House “talking points” on the October Surprise investigation urged restricting the inquiry to 1979-80 and imposing strict time limits for issuing any findings. Timid Democrats But Bush’s White House really had little to fear because whatever evidence that the congressional investigation received – and a great deal arrived in December 1992 and January 1993 – there was no stomach for actually proving that the 1980 Reagan campaign had conspired with Iranian radicals to extend the captivity of 52 Americans in order to ensure Reagan’s election victory. Former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Indiana. That would have undermined the faith of the American people in their democratic process – and that, as Clark Clifford said in the 1968 context, would not be “good for the country.” In 2014 when I sent a copy of Beach’s memo regarding Casey’s trip to Madrid to former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Indiana, who had chaired the October Surprise inquiry in 1991-93, he told me that it had shaken his confidence in the task force’s dismissive conclusions about the October Surprise issue. “The [Bush-41] White House did not notify us that he [Casey] did make the trip” to Madrid, Hamilton told me. “Should they have passed that on to us? They should have because they knew we were interested in that.” Asked if knowledge that Casey had traveled to Madrid might have changed the task force’s dismissive October Surprise conclusion, Hamilton said yes, because the question of the Madrid trip was key to the task force’s investigation. “If the White House knew that Casey was there, they certainly should have shared it with us,” Hamilton said, adding that “you have to rely on people” in authority to comply with information requests. But that trust was at the heart of the inquiry’s failure. With the money and power of the American presidency at stake, the idea that George H.W. Bush and his team would help an investigation that might implicate him in an act close to treason was naïve in the extreme. Arguably, Hamilton’s timid investigation was worse than no investigation at all because it gave Bush’s team the opportunity to search out incriminating documents and make them disappear. Then, Hamilton’s investigative conclusion reinforced the “group think” dismissing this serious manipulation of democracy as a “conspiracy theory” when it was anything but. In the years since, Hamilton hasn’t done anything to change the public impression that the Reagan campaign was innocent. Still, among the few people who have followed this case, the October Surprise cover-up would slowly crumble with admissions by officials involved in the investigation that its exculpatory conclusions were rushed , that crucial evidence had been hidden or ignored , and that some alibis for key Republicans didn’t make any sense . But the dismissive “group think” remains undisturbed as far as the major U.S. media and mainstream historians are concerned. [For details, see Robert Parry’s America’s Stolen Narrative or Trick or Treason: The 1980 October Surprise Mystery or Consortiumnews.com’s “ Second Thoughts on October Surprise. ”] Past as Prologue Lee Hamilton’s decision to “clear” Reagan and Bush of the 1980 October Surprise suspicions in 1992 was not simply a case of miswriting history. The findings had clear implications for the future as well, since the public impression about George H.W. Bush’s rectitude was an important factor in the support given to his oldest son, George W. Bush, in 2000. President George W. Bush is introduced by his brother Florida Gov. Jeb Bush before delivering remarks at Sun City Center, Florida, on May 9, 2006. (White House photo by Eric Draper) Indeed, if the full truth had been told about the father’s role in the October Surprise and Iran-Contra cases, it’s hard to imagine that his son would have received the Republican nomination, let alone made a serious run for the White House. And, if that history were known, there might have been a stronger determination on the part of Democrats to resist another Bush “stolen election” in 2000. Regarding Election 2000, the evidence is now clear that Vice President Al Gore not only won the national popular vote but received more votes that were legal under Florida law than did George W. Bush. But Bush relied first on the help of officials working for his brother, Gov. Jeb Bush, and then on five Republican justices on the U.S. Supreme Court to thwart a full recount and to award him Florida’s electoral votes and thus the presidency. The reality of Gore’s rightful victory should have finally become clear in November 2001 when a group of news organizations finished their own examination of Florida’s disputed ballots and released their tabulations showing that Gore would have won if all ballots considered legal under Florida law were counted. However, between the disputed election and the release of those numbers, the 9/11 attacks had occurred, so The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and other leading outlets did not want the American people to know that the wrong person was in the White House. Surely, telling the American people that fact amid the 9/11 crisis would not be “good for the country.” So, senior editors at all the top new organizations decided to mislead the public by framing their stories in a deceptive way to obscure the most newsworthy discovery – that the so-called “over-votes” in which voters both checked and wrote in their choices’ names broke heavily for Gore and would have put him over the top regardless of which kinds of chads were considered for the “under-votes” that hadn’t registered on antiquated voting machines. “Over-votes” would be counted under Florida law which bases its standards on “clear intent of the voter.” However, instead of leading with Gore’s rightful victory, the news organizations concocted hypotheticals around partial recounts that still would have given Florida narrowly to Bush. They either left out or buried the obvious lede that a historic injustice had occurred. Former Vice President Al Gore. (Photo credit: algore.com) On Nov. 12, 2001, the day that the news organizations ran those stories, I examined the actual data and quickly detected the evidence of Gore’s victory. In a story that day, I suggested that senior news executives were exercising a misguided sense of patriotism. They had hid the reality for “the good of the country,” much as Johnson’s team had done in 1968 regarding Nixon’s sabotage of the Paris peace talks and Hamilton’s inquiry had done regarding the 1980 “October Surprise” case. Within a couple of hours of my posting the article at Consortiumnews.com, I received an irate phone call from The New York Times media writer Felicity Barringer, who accused me of impugning the journalistic integrity of then-Times executive editor Howell Raines. I got the impression that Barringer had been on the look-out for some deviant story that didn’t accept the Bush-won conventional wisdom. However, this violation of objective and professional journalism – bending the slant of a story to achieve a preferred outcome rather than simply giving the readers the most interesting angle – was not simply about some historical event that had occurred a year earlier. It was about the future. By misleading Americans into thinking that Bush was the rightful winner of Election 2000 – even if the media’s motivation was to maintain national unity following the 9/11 attacks – the major news outlets gave Bush greater latitude to respond to the crisis, including the diversionary invasion of Iraq under false pretenses. The Bush-won headlines of November 2001 also enhanced the chances of his reelection in 2004. [For the details of how a full Florida recount would have given Gore the White House, see Consortiumnews.com’s “ Gore’s Victory ,” “ So Bush Did Steal the White House ,” and “ Bush v. Gore’s Dark American Decade. ”] A Phalanx of Misguided Consensus Looking back on these examples of candidates manipulating democracy, there appears to be one common element: after the “stolen” elections, the media and political establishments quickly line up, shoulder to shoulder, to assure the American people that nothing improper has happened. Graceful “losers” are patted on the back for not complaining that the voters’ will had been ignored or twisted. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Al Gore is praised for graciously accepting the extraordinary ruling by Republican partisans on the Supreme Court, who stopped the counting of ballots in Florida on the grounds, as Justice Antonin Scalia said, that a count that showed Gore winning (when the Court’s majority was already planning to award the White House to Bush) would undermine Bush’s “legitimacy.” Similarly, Rep. Hamilton is regarded as a modern “wise man,” in part, because he conducted investigations that never pushed very hard for the truth but rather reached conclusions that were acceptable to the powers-that-be, that didn’t ruffle too many feathers. But the cumulative effect of all these half-truths, cover-ups and lies – uttered for “the good of the country” – is to corrode the faith of many well-informed Americans about the legitimacy of the entire process. It is the classic parable of the boy who cried wolf too many times, or in this case, assured the townspeople that there never was a wolf and that they should ignore the fact that the livestock had mysteriously disappeared leaving behind only a trail of blood into the forest. So, when Donald Trump shows up in 2016 insisting that the electoral system is rigged against him, many Americans choose to believe his demagogy. But Trump isn’t pressing for the full truth about the elections of 1968 or 1980 or 2000. He actually praises Republicans implicated in those cases and vows to appoint Supreme Court justices in the mold of the late Antonin Scalia. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. Trump’s complaints about “rigged” elections are more in line with the white Southerners during Jim Crow, suggesting that black and brown people are cheating at the polls and need to have white poll monitors to make sure they don’t succeed at “stealing” the election from white people. There is a racist undertone to Trump’s version of a “rigged” democracy but he is not entirely wrong about the flaws in the process. He’s just not honest about what those flaws are. The hard truth is that the U.S. political process is not democracy’s “gold standard”; it is and has been a severely flawed system that is not made better by a failure to honestly address the unpleasant realities and to impose accountability on politicians who cheat the voters. Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com ). Source: Consortium News Via: Global Research

By Sean Colarossi on Mon, Oct 31st, 2016 at 7:56 pm CNN has obtained audio of North Carolina GOP Senator Richard Burr joking about gun owners putting a "bullseye" on Hillary Clinton. Share on Twitter Print This Post CNN has obtained brand new audio of North Carolina Republican Senator Richard Burr joking about gun owners putting a “bullseye” on Hillary Clinton. The despicable comments come as Burr faces a close Senate race against Democratic opponent Deborah Ross. Both candidates are within a point of each other, according to RealClearPolitics. More of the CNN report : The North Carolina Republican, locked in a tight race for reelection, quipped that as he walked into a gun shop “nothing made me feel better” than seeing a magazine about rifles “with a picture of Hillary Clinton on the front of it.” “I was a little bit shocked at that — it didn’t have a bullseye on it,” he said Saturday to GOP volunteers, prompting laughter from the crowd in Mooresville, North Carolina. “But on the bottom right (of the magazine), it had everybody for federal office in this particular state that they should vote for. So let me assure you, there’s an army of support out there right now for our candidates.” This type of rhetoric is hardly uncommon when it comes to Republican leaders in 2016. As the campaign has gone on, the hateful and violent rhetoric, particularly from the man at the top of the Republican ticket, has become increasingly worse. At one point this year, Donald Trump suggested that “Second Amendment people” should take up arms against Clinton if she nominates a Supreme Court justices they don’t like. He also said that he’d like to “see what happens” if the Democratic nominee’s bodyguards were disarmed. As CNN notes, Trump has never issued a genuine apology for his dangerous language – or anything he’s ever said or done – but Burr quickly came out with a statement once the audio was revealed, although it does not excuse what he said. “The comment I made was inappropriate, and I apologize for it,” the Republican senator said, according to CNN. This type of imagery has no place in our politics, regardless of whether it’s being said in public or private, especially given the heightened level of anger and hatred toward Hillary Clinton from Trump supporters. Whether it’s Trump or Burr, voters should remember their irresponsible language when they go to vote in just one week.

Not many people can get under Donald Trump s skin like billionaire and Shark Tank investor Mark Cuban. Not only did Cuban become a massively outspoken supporter of Hillary Clinton during her presidential campaign, but he s blasted Trump more times than we can count. On Sunday, Cuban was back at it again as he called Trump the Zoolander president and made an announcement that s going to have Trump s little hands shaking.In an appearance at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, Cuban admitted that he d originally liked Trump that is, until he got to know him. Then, Cuban likened the undeserving POTUS to the incompetent, self-centered movie character Zoolander. Cuban also made fun of Trump s complete lack of intelligence as he joked: Just think how efficient he could be if he learned how to use a search engine. I love the guy because he s the only human being who trolls himself and doesn t know it. Here s a video of Cuban s comments:This recent attack follows a long history of others, each one carrying a sting strong enough to make Trump retaliate and embarrass himself. Last year, Cuban challenged Trump to a four-hour interview about policy, and even offered to donate $1o million to whatever charity Trump wanted and Trump obviously didn t have the courage to take him up on that. Instead, Trump went on Twitter and said Cuban wasn t smart enough to understand what s going on. Just last month, Trump tweeted that Cuban wasn t smart enough to run for president. Given the fact that Cuban supports policies that are much more grounded in reality, many of us would disagree. Cuban believes in climate change and environmental responsibility, and he is against Trump s immigration policies and thinks all Americans should have health care.Cuban also took another jab at Trump, stating that in the next election, we will need someone who can look forward, instead of acting like it s 1975. Cuban was asked if he would run for president in the future, and he said something that will truly terrify Trump: I ve got a lot of time to decide and we ll see what happens. Trump, who is delusional enough to think he ll actually serve eight years like former President Barack Obama, is NOT going to be happy about that! Featured image via Mike Windle and Drew Angerer / Getty Images

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is seeking a new era for Zimbabwe, the State Department s top official for Africa said on Thursday, implicitly calling on long-time President Robert Mugabe to step aside as a political crisis mounts. In an interview with Reuters, acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Donald Yamamoto appeared to dismiss the idea of Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe for 37 years, remaining in a transitional or ceremonial role. It s a transition to a new era for Zimbabwe, that s really what we re hoping for, Yamamoto said. Zimbabwe s army seized power this week, in an apparent effort to prevent Mugabe, 93, from handing power to his wife. He has not resigned or been formally deposed, however, and he was pictured on Thursday shaking hands with the military chief, Constantino Chiwenga. Yamamoto, speaking on the sidelines of a meeting with African Union officials at the State Department in Washington, described the situation in Zimbabwe as very fluid. The United States would discuss lifting multiple U.S. sanctions on Zimbabwe if it began enacting political and economic reforms, he said. In a message for Zimbabwe s political leaders, he said: Our position has always been that if they engage in the constitutional reforms, economic and political reforms, and move forward to protecting political space and the human rights, then we can start the dialogue on lifting sanctions. The United States has not given aid to Zimbabwe s government for many years, but provides development aid to nongovernmental groups, particularly for healthcare. Now whether we give to the government, that depends on what happens in Zimbabwe, Yamamoto said. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is due to meet on Friday in Washington with 37 African foreign ministers.

Every union member who believes the Democrats are looking out for them needs to remember, that President Bill Clinton signed the NAFTA agreement and Hillary defended the outsourcing of American jobs Ladies and gentlemen Here she is, the champion of the foreign worker in 2005: https://twitter.com/magnifier661/status/761359175716712448Is it any wonder Indian gave her a standing ovation?Here s the full gut-wrenching video:

MAPUTO (Reuters) - Mozambique has fired its head of intelligence and army chief of staff, two weeks after 16 people were killed in attacks in the north of the country, the presidency said on Tuesday. Lagos Lidimo was dismissed as director general of information and state security service; he will be replaced by Julio Jane, previously the commander of police, Mozambique President Filipe Nyusi said in a statement. Gra a Chongo has been dismissed as army chief, with no replacement named. The presidency did not provide reasons for the dismissals, which were effective immediately. Earlier this month, police and unidentified gunmen clashed in the Indian Ocean port of Mocimboa da Praia, leaving 16 people dead, two of them police officers. The motive for the attacks was not clear. Local media have reported that the attack was carried out by Islamists, but the government has not confirmed that.

Last night, the Republican primary went where no debate has ever gone before when it literally became a contest about penis size.This happened less than fifteen minutes into the eleventh GOP debate, when Trump addressed rival Marco Rubio s comments about his unnaturally small hands by assuring America that there was no problem with the size of his junk. No one could believe that a presidential debate could devolve into such an immature, petty discussion but you can always count on Trump to help the country sink to new lows.While many of us were probably stuck in a depressive state, wallowing over the fact that a nationally-televised event to vet the future president of the country has just been overtaken by a penis joke, Twitter swooped in to save the day. As soon as Trump made his ill-timed joke, Twitter was flooded with the most clever, hilarious reactions and gave everyone some much-needed perspective to keep us afloat as Trump continues to dominate the Republican polls.Here are some of the most amazing responses to Trump, to momentarily distract you from the fact that the guy who made a penis joke at the GOP debate might actually win the nomination:TwitterTwitterMany were anticipating what the media was going to do with this disastrous frat boy moment.TwitterThe New York Post and Huffington Post didn t disappoint:Twitter TwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterLast night s GOP debate was less about policy and the future of America than it was about Trump and his innate ability to made any serious political matter an absolute circus and spectacle. America cannot risk having someone like him fronting the GOP. Even though it would be an easy win for the Democrats, the fact that Trump has been able to gather the support of so many Americans is depressing. For most Americans watching the GOP debate last night, this tweet sums it up:Twitter Featured image via screenshot

When the Affordable Care Act was in deliberation, Republicans showed themselves at their most heartless. Essentially, their view is that healthcare is not a right and should only be available to the people who had the foresight to be born into a wealthy or near wealthy family.Despite the fact that overall, Obamacare has been wildly successful, even with Republicans putting up every obstacle possible, about 24 million people have health insurance and would lose it without the Affordable Care Act. Republicans don t care. One Republican, though, has a solution, but there are two small problems: it s not a solution at all and it s tantamount to child abuse.In an interview with MLive.com, Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-MI) regaled the reporter with a story of how he waited a night to take his son to the doctor, when his son had a broken arm. Somehow, Huizenga thinks that s a good thing. We weren t sure what was going on. It was in the evening, so I splinted it up and we wrapped it up, and the decision was, okay, do we go to the ER? We thought it was a sprain, but weren t sure, Huizenga said, adding that he and his wife took every precaution and decided to go in the next morning. When it [comes to] those type of things, do you keep your child home from school and take him the next morning to the doctor because of a cold or a flu, versus take him into the emergency room? If you don t have a cost difference, you ll make different decisions, he said.Here s the video:Yes, that s the Republican line. People should shop for healthcare. Of course, that s possible with some procedures, but for most, it s not at all. Besides, have you ever tried to pin down actual costs for medical procedures? It s not easy. Hospitals and doctor s offices aren t exactly known for offering full disclosure when it comes to pricing. Many people in this country aren t lucky enough to live in areas where there is even competition.Beyond that, though, waiting to treat a broken arm so you can save a few bucks is child abuse and for those who don t have health insurance, there s often no option but to go to the emergency room.Featured image via video screen capture.

Donald Trump is only one day into his Republican National Convention, and it s already not looking good for him. Not only did several delegates and a fundraiser walk out or resign from his convention, but he also got dissed by House Speaker Paul Ryan all in a matter of a few hours.According to The Hill, Ryan didn t mince his words when discussing Trump at a Wall Street Journal lunch in Cleveland, stating that the business mogul was not my kind of conservative. Ryan said: He s not my kind of conservative, but I come from a different part and wing of the party. I think he is a conservative. There are different kinds of conservatives, that s for darn sure. This is just another comment in a long list of critical remarks Ryan has made about Trump. Ryan has made a point to distance himself from Trump s hateful rhetoric as much as possible even when trying to get the GOP to stand behind the candidate. Previously, Ryan has slammed Trump for his textbook racist comments about Judge Gonzalo Curiel s Mexican heritage, tweeting anti-Semitic images and proposing an all-out ban on Muslims.Over and over, Ryan has made it clear that he disagrees with Trump s views so much that basically the only reason why he is (reluctantly) endorsing the disgraced candidate is that he thinks anything is better than handing the election over to a Democrat. In doing so, Ryan showed America that to him, furthering the Republican party s intolerant values and laws were more important than saving the country from an untrustworthy, dangerously unqualified reality TV star. At the same lunch, Ryan said: What I do know for sure is if we disunify, then we hand the left the country by default for another four years. I just don t want to be a party to that. I don t want to be complicit to that. So, instead, Speaker Ryan wants to be complicit to handing the country to an unqualified bigot. Got it.Featured image via video screen capture

(Reuters) - Michigan Treasurer Nick Khouri urged state lawmakers on Tuesday to move quickly on legislation to restructure the financially ailing Detroit Public Schools (DPS) before the district runs out of money. “Sometime this spring or early summer, unless legislation passes in some form, the district will not be able to make payroll, will not be able to pay vendors. Essentially they will be out of cash,” Khouri told the Michigan Senate’s Government Operations Committee. The committee has been holding hearings this month on bills supported by Republican Governor Rick Snyder to create two entities - the Detroit Community District to run the schools, and the current Detroit Public Schools to retire debt. Khouri said the legislation presents a better option for DPS and Michigan than a bankruptcy which would “not make sense” given much of the district’s debt is owed to the state. He added that bankruptcy could also take a year at a cost of as much as $100 million. Unlike the city of Detroit’s bankruptcy, a DPS filing would put the state on the hook for $1.45 billion over 11 years to pay off bonds issued for DPS through Michigan’s school bond loan fund, according to written testimony Khouri submitted to the committee. Under the governor’s plan, the new community school district would be provided with $715 million in additional state funding over 10 years to offset local property taxes, which would be tapped by the old district to pay off debt. Another $240 million in DPS pension debt could be shifted onto other school districts in the state-wide teachers’ retirement system. Detroit exited the biggest-ever municipal bankruptcy in December 2014, shedding about $7 billion of its $18 billion of debt. The Senate committee, which will continue its hearing on the legislation next week, also heard from teachers’ union officials and parents who contended Michigan should be responsible for paying off debt accumulated by DPS since it was placed under state oversight in 2009. They also called for an elected board to be in control of the schools. The legislation would create a financial oversight commission for the district.

The Times asserts that such censorship would be good for democracy and it surely is true that hoaxes and baseless conspiracy theories are no help to democracy but regulation of information in the manner that the Times suggests has more than a whiff of Orwellian totalitarianism to it. Robert Parry Consortium NewsIn its lead editorial on Sunday, The New York Times decried what it deemed The Digital Virus Called Fake News and called for Internet censorship to counter this alleged problem, taking particular aim at Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for letting liars and con artists hijack his platform. As this mainstream campaign against fake news quickly has gained momentum in the past week, two false items get cited repeatedly, a claim that Pope Francis endorsed Donald Trump and an assertion that Trump was prevailing in the popular vote over Hillary Clinton. I could add another election-related falsehood, a hoax spread by Trump supporters that liberal documentarian Michael Moore was endorsing Trump when he actually was backing Clinton.But I also know that Clinton supporters were privately pushing some salacious and unsubstantiated charges about Trump s sex life, and Clinton personally charged that Trump was under the control of Russian President Vladimir Putin although there was no evidence presented to support that McCarthyistic accusation.The simple reality is that lots of dubious accusations get flung around during the heat of a campaign nothing new there and it is always a challenge for professional journalists to swat them down the best we can. What s different now is that the Times envisions some structure (or algorithm) for eliminating what it calls fake news. Photograph published by the New York Times purportedly taken in Russia of Russian soldiers who later appeared in eastern Ukraine. However, the photographer has since stated that the photo was actually taken in Ukraine, and the U.S. State Department has acknowledged the error.But, with a stunning lack of self-awareness, the Times fails to acknowledge the many times that it has published fake news, such as reporting in 2002 that Iraq s purchase of aluminum tubes meant that it was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program; its bogus analysis tracing the firing location of a Syrian sarin-laden rocket in 2013 back to a Syrian military base that turned out to be four times outside the rocket s range; or its publication of photos supposedly showing Russian soldiers inside Russia and then inside Ukraine in 2014 when it turned out that the inside-Russia photo was also taken inside Ukraine, destroying the premise of the story.These are just three examples among many of the Times publishing fake news and all three appeared on Page One before being grudgingly or partially retracted, usually far inside the newspaper under opaque headlines so most readers wouldn t notice. Much of the Times fake news continued to reverberate in support of U.S. government propaganda even after the partial retractions.Who Is the Judge?So, should Zuckerberg prevent Facebook users from circulating New York Times stories? Obviously, the Times would not favor that solution to the problem of fake news. Instead, the Times expects to be one of the arbiters deciding which Internet outlets get banned and which ones get gold seals of approval.The Times lead editorial, following a front-page article on the same topic on Friday, leaves little doubt what the newspaper would like to see. It wants major Internet platforms and search engines, such as Facebook and Google, to close off access to sites accused of disseminating fake news. The editorial said, a big part of the responsibility for this scourge rests with internet companies like Facebook and Google, which have made it possible for fake news to be shared nearly instantly with millions of users and have been slow to block it from their sites. Facebook says it is working on weeding out such fabrications. It said last Monday that it would no longer place Facebook-powered ads on fake news websites, a move that could cost Facebook and those fake news sites a lucrative source of revenue. Earlier on the same day, Google said it would stop letting those sites use its ad placement network. These steps would help, but Facebook, in particular, owes its users, and democracy itself, far more. Facebook has demonstrated that it can effectively block content like click-bait articles and spam from its platform by tweaking its algorithms, which determine what links, photos and ads users see in their news feeds. Facebook managers are constantly changing and refining the algorithms, which means the system is malleable and subject to human judgment. The Times editorial continued: This summer, Facebook decided to show more posts from friends and family members in users news feeds and reduce stories from news organizations, because that s what it said users wanted. If it can do that, surely its programmers can train the software to spot bogus stories and outwit the people producing this garbage. Mr. Zuckerberg himself has spoken at length about how social media can help improve society. None of that will happen if he continues to let liars and con artists hijack his platform. Gray AreasBut the problem is that while some falsehoods may be obvious and clear-cut, much information exists in a gray area in which two or more sides may disagree on what the facts are. And the U.S. government doesn t always tell the truth although you would be hard-pressed to find recent examples of the Times recognizing that reality. Especially over the past several decades, the Times has usually embraced the Official Version of a disputed event and has deemed serious skepticism out of bounds.Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller, co-author of the Iraq aluminum tube story.That was the way the Times treated denials from the Iraqi government and some outside experts who disputed the aluminum tube story in 2002 and how the Times has brushed off disagreements regarding the U.S. government s portrayal of events in Syria, Ukraine and Russia. Increasingly, the Times has come across as a propaganda conduit for Official Washington rather than a professional journalistic entity.But the Times and other mainstream news outlets along with some favored Internet sites now sit on a Google-financed entity called the First Draft Coalition, which presents itself as a kind of Ministry of Truth that will decide which stories are true and which are fake. If the Times editorial recommendations are followed, the disfavored stories and the sites publishing them would no longer be accessible through popular search engines and platforms, essentially blocking the public s access to them. [See Consortiumnews.com s What to Do About Fake News. ]The Times asserts that such censorship would be good for democracy and it surely is true that hoaxes and baseless conspiracy theories are no help to democracy but regulation of information in the manner that the Times suggests has more than a whiff of Orwellian totalitarianism to it.And the proposal is especially troubling coming from the Times, with its checkered recent record of disseminating dangerous disinformation.*** Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).READ MORE MAINSTREAM MEDIA LIES AT: 21st Century Wire MSM Watch FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV

Donald Trump is running a campaign that does nothing but tap into the hateful underbelly of American populism. However, this time, it seems the guy has gone to a new low, when nobody believed it possible. Rachel Maddow took Trump to task for a disturbing campaign stop he made in Suffolk County New York which just happens to be where a Latino immigrant was murdered in an anti-immigrant hate crime. The crime happened in November 2008, just as we were electing President Barack Obama for the first time.Maddow says of Trump s decision to stop there: In presidential politicking, symbolism is a deliberate choice. And racial provocation is something with a deep and resonant history. It is one thing to do that as a small-fry politician; it is another thing to do it as a front-runner for a major party s presidential nomination. Being a presidential front-runner is a powerful thing. It can also be a dangerous thing if you want it to be. Trump chose to stop in Patchogue, New York, right near where 37-year-old Marcel Lucero was murdered by a gang of racist teenagers. One of the teens, Jeffrey Conroy, is currently serving 25 years in prison for manslaughter. The prosecution also got him convicted of a hate crime. Further, it was discovered, aftr Lucero s death and the reasoning behind it came to light, that it was just the most brutal in a long line of attack on Latino immigrants. Maddow continued: Patchogue s history of racist and fatal hate crimes against Latino immigrants is not necessarily a nationally-famous story. But it is a New York-famous story. Donald Trump has not yet won the Republican nomination he s still trying to win the New York primary but campaigning in Patchogue today on the street where Marcelo Lucero was murdered, it means something specific in New York. Now, considering what happened at that site and considering Trump s heavy, divisive, and dangerous anti-immigrant rhetoric, there can be no questions what kind of message the current GOP frontrunner was trying to send with that particular campaign stop, and it is a dangerous one.If even one immigrant winds up being attacked by a Trump supporter after this, The Donald himself needs to be held responsible.Watch the video below, courtesy of MSNBC. The Trump remarks start at 11:43.Featured image via video screen capture

BEIJING (Reuters) - Combining public bluster with behind-the-scenes diplomacy, China wrested a concession from the United States as the two presidents spoke for the first time this week, but Beijing may not be able to derive much comfort from the win on U.S. policy toward Taiwan. Several areas of disagreement between the superpowers, including currency, trade, the South China Sea and North Korea, were not mentioned in public statements on Thursday’s telephone conversation between Presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump. In getting Trump to change course on the “one China” policy, Beijing may have overplayed its hand. Trump had upset Beijing before he took office by taking a call from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, then casting doubt on the “one China” policy, under which Washington acknowledges the Chinese position that there is only one China and Taiwan is part of it. Trump changed tack and agreed to honor the “one China” policy during the call, prompting jubilation in China. Beijing had been working on diplomatic ways to engage Trump’s team and largely blaming Taiwan for stirring things up. [nL4N1FV21K] Laying the foundation for that call had been the low-key engagement of China’s former ambassador to Washington and top diplomat, the urbane and fluent English-speaking Yang Jiechi, with Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn. “China was pragmatic and patient. It made every effort to smooth out the relationship, and it paid off,” said Jia Qingguo, dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University, who has advised the government on foreign policy. But China also made very clear Taiwan was not up for negotiation, unleashing state media to threaten war and punishment for U.S. firms if that bottom line was breached. China has long described self-ruled Taiwan, claimed by Beijing as its sacred territory, as the most sensitive issue in Sino-U.S. relations. Its military had become alarmed after the Trump-Tsai call and was considering strong measures to prevent the island from moving toward independence, sources with ties to senior military officers told Reuters in December. [nL4N1ES0VR] A source familiar with China’s thinking on relations with the United States, speaking to Reuters last month, said China had actually not been too bothered with Trump’s Taiwan comments before he took office as he was not president then and was only expressing his personal view. “If he continues with this once he becomes president then there’s no saying what we’ll do,” the source said. Despite the U.S. concession, military tensions remain. On Saturday, the overseas edition of the ruling Communist Party’s People’s Daily placed a picture on its front page of Chinese warships about to embark on a new round of drills in the South China Sea, right next to an upbeat commentary about the Xi-Trump call. The paper’s WeChat account took a harsher line, saying that with Trump getting back with the program on “one China”, Taiwan had better watch out. “The heart of that Madame Tsai on the other side of the Taiwan Strait must at this moment be chilled to the core,” it said. One senior Western diplomat said China had been redoubling its efforts to win over the Vatican, one of a handful of countries to retain official ties with Taiwan. Taiwan says it hopes for continued U.S. support, and one ruling Democratic Progressive Party official told Reuters that the “one China” policy had not affected previous U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, even as U.S. presidents’ commitment to the island have waxed and waned. Xi has put great personal political capital into seeking a solution over Taiwan, an issue that has festered since 1949 when defeated Nationalist forces fled to the island after losing the civil war to the Communists. China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control. But in its relations with Washington, the risk for Beijing remains that its diplomatic win over “one China” will be short lived, as Trump will not want to be seen as having caved in. “What he’s shown the Chinese is he’s willing to touch the ‘third rail’ of U.S.-China relations,” said Dean Cheng, China expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington. “Beijing can’t predict what he’ll do next – and he’s only been in office three weeks. What is he going to do on trade and other economic issues?” U.S. officials said the affirmation of the “one China” policy was an effort to get the relationship back on track and moving forward. [nL1N1FV1RU] But Trump’s change of tack may be seen by Beijing as a climbdown, said Tom Rafferty, the China Regional Manager for the Economist Intelligence Unit. “Mr Trump is erratic and will not appreciate the suggestion that he has been weak.”

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump made some inaccurate claims during an NBC “commander-in-chief” forum on military and veterans issues: • Clinton wrongly claimed Trump supported the war in Iraq after it started, while Trump was wrong, once again, in saying he was against the war before it started. • Trump said that President Obama set a “certain date” for withdrawing troops from Iraq, when that date was set before Obama was sworn in. • Trump said that Obama’s visits to China, Saudi Arabia and Cuba were “the first time in the history, the storied history of Air Force One” when “high officials” of a host country did not appear to greet the president. Not true. • Clinton said that Trump supports privatizing the Veterans Health Administration. That’s false. Trump said he supports allowing veterans to seek care at either public or private hospitals. • Trump said Clinton made “a terrible mistake on Libya” when she was secretary of State. But, at the time, Trump also supported U.S. action that led to the removal of Moammar Gadhafi from power. • Trump cherry-picked Clinton’s words when he claimed Clinton said “vets are being treated, essentially, just fine.” Clinton had said the problems in the Department of Veterans Affairs were not as “widespread” as some Republicans claimed, but she went on to acknowledge problems, including the issue of wait times for doctors. The forum, sponsored by NBC News and the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, was held Sept. 7 at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York City. Today show host Matt Lauer, and members of the military and veterans in the audience, questioned the candidates separately. Trump said he “was totally against the war in Iraq,” while Clinton claimed that he supported the Iraq War before and after it started. The facts don’t support either candidate’s strong assertions. Our review of Trump’s statements before and after the Iraq War started found no evidence that Trump opposed the war before it started. In fact, he expressed mild support for invading Iraq when asked about it on the Howard Stern radio show on Sept. 11, 2002 — about six months before the war started. Stern asked Trump if he supported a war with Iraq, and Trump responded, “Yeah, I guess so.” In the NBC commander in chief forum, Trump cited an Esquire article that appeared in August 2004 to show his opposition to the war. But that article appeared 17 months after the war started. As for Clinton, who as a senator voted in October 2002 to authorize the war in Iraq, the Democratic nominee claimed that Trump “supported it before it happened, he supported it as it was happening and he is on record as supporting it after it happened.” But just as there is no evidence that Trump opposed the Iraq War before it started, the Clinton campaign offered no evidence that Trump supported the war “after it happened.” The Clinton campaign cited Trump’s interview on March 21, 2003, with Neil Cavuto of Fox Business just two days after the war started. Cavuto asked Trump about the impact of the war on the stock market. Trump said the war “looks like a tremendous success from a military standpoint,” and he predicted the market will “go up like a rocket” after the war. But Cavuto does not ask Trump whether the U.S. should have gone to war with Iraq or whether he supports the war, and Trump doesn’t offer an opinion. As early as July 2003, Trump expressed concern on Hardball with Chris Matthews about money being spent in Iraq rather than in the U.S. Two months later, Trump told MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, “I guess maybe if I had to do it, I would have fought terrorism but not necessarily Iraq.” Clinton invited her audience to read Trump’s comments on the Iraq War. They can read our timeline, “Donald Trump and the Iraq War.” Trump said President Obama set a “certain date” for withdrawing troops from Iraq, but that date was actually set by President George W. Bush. NBC’s Matt Lauer asked Trump about his tendency to respond, when pushed for details on his military proposals, that he’s not going to give details because he wants to be “unpredictable.” Trump responded, “Absolutely,” and went on to criticize Obama for revealing the withdrawal date. As we said then, Republicans and Democrats disagree on whether Obama or Bush is to blame for withdrawing all combat troops from Iraq at the end of 2011. But that date was set when Bush signed the Status of Forces Agreement on Dec. 14, 2008. It said: “All the United States Forces shall withdraw from all Iraqi territory no later than December 31, 2011.” In the NBC forum, Trump also called the withdrawal of troops “a terrible decision.” As we’ve explained before, Condoleezza Rice, Bush’s secretary of State, later wrote that Bush wanted an agreement for a residual force to remain, but Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki objected. Once Obama took office in January 2009, he had three years to renegotiate the deal, which his administration tried to do, to leave a residual American troop force. But Maliki still didn’t agree. Negotiations broke down in October 2011 over the issue of whether U.S. troops would be shielded from criminal prosecution by Iraqi authorities. Whether Obama did enough is a matter of opinion: His then defense secretary, Leon Panetta, later wrote that the president didn’t press hard enough for a deal. But some experts say Iraq was more closely aligned at the time with Iran and there wasn’t a deal to be made with Maliki. So, both presidents had a role in the withdrawal of troops. But Trump wrongly said that Obama was the one who set a “certain date” for withdrawal and let U.S. enemies know about it, when that date was set before Obama was sworn in. It’s worth noting that Trump said in a March 16, 2007, interview on CNN that the troops should be withdrawn quickly from Iraq. Trump said that Obama’s visits to China, Saudi Arabia and Cuba were “the first time in the history, the storied history of Air Force One” when “high officials” of a host country did not appear to greet the president. That’s not true. Other presidents have encountered similar low-key greetings on foreign trips aboard the presidential aircraft. Trump referred to the fact that Cuba’s president, Raul Castro, did not greet Obama at the airport on his historic visit to Cuba in March, that Saudi Arabia’s King Salman did not meet Air Force One at the start of Obama’s trip to Riyadh in April, and he referred to China’s handling of the president’s arrival in Hangzhou last Saturday for a Group of 20 meeting. Whether or not those arrivals constituted snubs of a U.S. president as Trump claims is a matter of debate. But Trump is wrong on the facts when he claims it has not happened before. It has. In 1984, for example, Ronald Reagan landed in Beijing and was received by China’s foreign minister rather than the president, whom he met only later. Similarly, on a 1985 trip to West Germany, Reagan was met by the foreign minister and not Chancellor Helmut Kohl. These and other examples were dug up by our friend Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post‘s “Fact Checker,” who researched a Trump claim in April that Cuba’s and Saudi Arabia’s handling of Obama’s visits were “without precedent.” Kessler said of Trump, “once again he’s wrong, wrong, wrong.” Kessler also noted that during Richard Nixon’s historic 1972 visit to China he was greeted at the airport by the country’s number two man, Premier Zhou Enlai. His boss, Chairman Mao, didn’t even agree to meet with Nixon until after he had arrived at a guest house. Clinton said that her plan to overhaul the Veterans Health Administration would not include privatization, which she said Trump supports. But Trump refuted that statement when it was his turn to discuss his plan to help veterans. “I would not do that,” Trump said, referring to Clinton’s claim that he supports privatization. Trump’s campaign published “The Goals Of Donald J. Trump’s Veterans Plan” on its website last October. It doesn’t call for the VA to be completely privatized. One of the biggest changes that plan would make to the current VA health care system is allowing veterans to get care at any non-VA medical center that accepts Medicare. “Under a Trump Administration, all veterans eligible for VA health care can bring their veteran’s ID card to any doctor or care facility that accepts Medicare to get the care they need immediately,” the plan states. “The power to choose will stop the wait time backlogs and force the VA to improve and compete if the department wants to keep receiving veterans’ healthcare dollars,” the plan says. Trump’s proposal would seemingly go further than the Non-VA Medical Care Program, which allows eligible veterans to access care outside of the VA under certain circumstances, such as when VA medical centers cannot provide services. The program requires pre-approval for veterans to receive care at a non-VA facility in non-emergency situations. Trump’s proposal would also go further than the bipartisan Veterans Choice Act of 2014 that President Obama signed into law, creating a temporary program, separate from the Non-VA Medical Care Program, that allows eligible veterans to receive health care at a non-VA facility if they would have to wait more than 30 days for an appointment at a VA medical center, or if they live more than 40 miles from the nearest VA hospital. Trump stuck to the idea of allowing veterans to choose between public and private hospitals when he released his most recent “Ten Point Plan To Reform The VA” in July. Point 10 of the plan says: “Mr. Trump will ensure every veteran has the choice to seek care at the VA or at a private service provider of their own choice. Under a Trump Administration, no veteran will die waiting for service.” Trump reinforced that part of his plan during the NBC News forum as well. To be clear, Trump supports giving veterans a choice between VA hospitals and private ones. That’s not the same thing as supporting the complete privatization of the system that provides care to veterans. Trump criticized Clinton for making “a terrible mistake on Libya” when she was secretary of State. But, at the time, Trump also supported U.S. action that led to the removal of Moammar Gadhafi from power. Trump made his claim in response to a question posed by Lauer on whether Trump will be “prepared on Day One,” if elected president, to tackle “complex national security issues.” This isn’t the first time Trump has ignored his past support for the U.S. intervention in Libya. During the 10th GOP debate, Trump said he had “never discussed that subject” when Sen. Ted Cruz called him out on supporting U.S. action in the country. But, as we wrote, Trump said in 2011 that the U.S. should go into Libya “on a humanitarian basis” and “knock [Gadhafi] out very quickly, very surgically, very effectively and save the lives.” Trump made that comment in a video posted to his YouTube channel in February 2011: Even though Trump now says Clinton’s support for intervention in Libya was a “terrible mistake,” it doesn’t change the fact that five years ago he supported Gadhafi’s removal. Trump twisted Clinton’s words when he claimed Clinton said “vets are being treated, essentially, just fine.” Clinton said the problems in the Department of Veterans Affairs were not as “widespread” as some Republican supporters of privatization of the VA claim, but she went on to acknowledge problems in the VA system — including the issue of wait times for doctors — and what she would do to address them. Trump highlighted the issue of wait times to see a doctor as “one of the big problems” in the VA, and then suggested Clinton doesn’t think the VA has problems. Lauer interrupted, noting that Clinton “went on after that and laid out a litany of problems within the VA.” Trump insisted his version was accurate, adding, “I’m telling you … she said she was satisfied with what was going on in the Veterans Administration.” That’s not accurate. The comments in question from Clinton came during an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Oct. 23, 2015. Maddow asked about talk among some Republicans of abolishing the VA and privatizing it. “The reason they are able to propose something that radical is because the problems at the VA seem so intractable,” Maddow said. Maddow asked if Clinton had any “new ideas for trying to fix” the VA. Here was Clinton’s response, with the part Trump is referring to in bold. Clinton accused Republicans of underfunding the VA because they “want it to fail” so they can privatize it. Clinton added, “But we have to be more creative about trying to fix the problems that are the legitimate concern, so that we can try to stymie the Republican assault.” Indeed, the Clinton campaign website states that Clinton wants to “fundamentally reform veterans’ health care to ensure access to timely and high quality care.” The campaign says Clinton “was outraged by the recent scandals at the VA, and as president, she will demand accountability and performance from VA leadership.” The site specifically mentions Clinton’s dissatisfaction that “[m]any veterans have to wait an unacceptably long time to see a doctor or to process disability claims and appeals” and promises she will “[b]uild a 21st-century Department of Veterans Affairs to deliver world-class care.” Trump cherry-picked the part of Clinton’s response that said problems in the VA have “not been as widespread as it has been made out to be,” to make the blanket claim that Clinton is “satisfied with what was going on in the Veterans Administration” and that “vets are being treated, essentially, just fine.” But Trump is leaving out the parts of Clinton’s answer that acknowledged problems in the VA — including the wait time issue Trump highlighted as one of his biggest concerns.

Hillary may have gotten away with lying to the public for decades, but what she underestimated this time around was the enormous power of Chicago thugs, Valerie Jarrett and Barack Hussein Obama. If the two of them decide they don t want you running for office, you likely won t stand a chance The tens of thousands of emails on Hillary Clinton s private server from when she was secretary of state could also be on a second device or server, according to news reports.The FBI now has the only confirmed private server, as part of a Justice Department probe to determine whether it sent of received classified information for Clinton when she was the country s top diplomat from 2009 to 2013.Platte River Networks, which managed Clinton s server and private email network after she left the State Department, has indicated it transfer or migrated emails from the original server in 2013, according to The Washington Examiner.However, Clinton, the front-running Democratic presidential candidate, has suggested that she gave the department 55,000 pages of official emails and deleted roughly 30,000 personal ones in January, which raises the possibility they were culled from a second device.Neither a Clinton spokesman nor an attorney for the Colorado-based Platte River Networks returned an Examiner s request for comment, the news gathering agency reported Saturday.The DailyMail.com on Aug. 14 was among the first to report the possibility of a second server.The FBI took the server last week, after a U.S. Intelligence Community inspector general reportedly found two Clinton emails that included sensitive information, then asked the FBI to further investigate.Platte River Networks has told news agencies that the server, now in New Jersey, has been wiped clean. But forensics experts still might be able to recover some information.There have been reports that some of the emails that Clinton turned over included classified information. Clinton maintains that she neither sent nor received classified data, which suggests the missives might have been marked after the fact as classified or with some other top-secret classification.The emails that Clinton gave to the State Department were on multiple storage devices. A Clinton lawyer turned over at least one thumb drive that reportedly included copies of the emails that his client has already given to the federal government.Clinton has maintained that she has done nothing wrong or illegal and says she will cooperate fully with the non-criminal investigations.Via: FOX News

There used to be a difference. Of all people, Chris Matthews should have known he was asking his party s chairman a trick question The chair of the Democratic National Committee was momentarily speechless after being asked an awkward question about her party and socialism on Thursday. What is the difference between a Democrat and a socialist? MSNBC host Chris Matthews asked Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D., Fla.). Uh, Wasserman-Schultz responded. I used to think there was a big difference, Matthews said. What do you think? The difference between the real question is what s the difference between being a Democrat and being a Republican, Wasserman-Schultz said.Matthews didn t let her off easily. Yeah but what s the big difference between being a Democrat and being a socialist? Matthews said. You re the chairwoman of the Democratic Party. Tell me the difference between you and a socialist. https://youtu.be/fkr7DsQTwno The relevant debate that we ll be having over the course of this campaign is what s the difference between being a Democrat and being a Republican, Wasserman-Schultz repeated.Via: WFB

Donnerstag, 24. November 2016 Vorbild Trump: AfD fordert ebenfalls Mauer an Grenze zu Mexiko Berlin (dpo) - Haben sie sich da etwa Donald Trump zum Vorbild genommen? Die AfD hat heute ebenfalls den Bau einer Mauer an der Grenze zu Mexiko gefordert. Offenbar hofft die Partei im Hinblick auf die Bundestagswahl im nächsten Jahr, bei einwanderungskritischen Wählern noch stärker zu punkten, indem sie antimexikanische Ressentiments bedient. "Die Mexikaner senden uns nicht ihre besten Leute", heißt es in einem AfD-Positionspapier unter dem Titel "Deutschland wieder großartig machen", das vorsieht, die Kosten für den Mauerbau an der deutsch-mexikanischen Grenze vollständig von Mexiko tragen zu lassen. "Sie bringen Drogen. Sie bringen Kriminalität. Sie sind Vergewaltiger. Und manche, nehmen wir an, sind gute Leute." Hat sich die AfD von ihm inspirieren lassen? Zwar betont die Partei in dem Schreiben, dass es sich bei dem Plan, eine Mauer zwischen Deutschland und Mexiko zu errichten, um ein völlig eigenständig entwickeltes Konzept handelt. Doch viele Beobachter hegen den Verdacht, dass die AfD vor allem deshalb mexikanische Einwanderer ins Visier nimmt, weil Donald Trump im US-Wahlkampf damit so beachtliche Erfolge erzielte. Auch wenn die AfD es offiziell abstreitet: Insidern zufolge ist die Forderung nach einer Mauer an der deutsch-mexikanischen Grenze nur ein erster Test, um herauszufinden, ob die Partei mit Trumps Methoden erfolgreich um Wählerstimmen werben kann. Im Optimalfall stünden dann bald weitere Wahlversprechen zur Diskussion wie etwa die Abschaffung von Obamacare, eine strafrechtliche Verfolgung von Hillary Clinton oder die Neuverhandlung des Atom-Deals mit dem Iran. ssi, dan; Foto [M]: Shutterstock, Foto unten: Gage Skidmore , CC BY-SA 2.0 Artikel teilen:

On Monday night, first lady Michelle Obama gave a heartfelt endorsement of Hillary Clinton at the Democratic National Convention, noting that Clinton engaged her husband in a fierce struggle for the nomination in 2008. "I trust Hillary to lead this country," she said in a speech that provided a parent's-eye view of the White House and its power. While Mrs. Obama has often avoided overt politics, her frustration with Trump's rise was evident. Without naming him, she warned that the White House couldn't be in the hands of someone with "a thin skin or a tendency to lash out" or someone who tells voters the country can be great again. "This right now, is the greatest country on earth," she said. CNN's Wolf Blitzer said Obama's speech was by far the best of the night. ABC's George Stephanopoulos called it "polished, passionate and personal." NBC's Tom Brokaw and Fox News' Juan Williams used the same phrase. "It was about as pitch-perfect an endorsement as you can get," Brokaw said. Williams said, "The framing of the speech in terms of her children was so pitch-perfect." Here's the full text of her speech: You know, it’s hard to believe that it has been eight years since I first came to this convention to talk with you about why I thought my husband should be president. Remember how I told you about his character and convictions, his decency and his grace, the traits that we’ve seen every day that he’s served our country in the White House? I also told you about our daughters, how they are the heart of our hearts, the center of our world. And during our time in the White House, we’ve had the joy of watching them grow from bubbly little girls into poised young women, a journey that started soon after we arrived in Washington. When they set off for their first day at their new school, I will never forget that winter morning as I watched our girls, just 7 and 10 years old, pile into those black SUVs with all those big men with guns. And I saw their little faces pressed up against the window, and the only thing I could think was, what have we done? See, because at that moment I realized that our time in the White House would form the foundation for who they would become and how well we managed this experience could truly make or break them. That is what Barack and I think about every day as we try to guide and protect our girls through the challenges of this unusual life in the spotlight, how we urge them to ignore those who question their father’s citizenship or faith. How we insist that the hateful language they hear from public figures on TV does not represent the true spirit of this country. How we explain that when someone is cruel or acts like a bully, you don’t stoop to their level. No, our motto is, when they go low, we go high. With every word we utter, with every action we take, we know our kids are watching us. We as parents are their most important role models. And let me tell you, Barack and I take that same approach to our jobs as president and first lady because we know that our words and actions matter, not just to our girls, but the children across this country, kids who tell us I saw you on TV, I wrote a report on you for school. Kids like the little black boy who looked up at my husband, his eyes wide with hope and he wondered, is my hair like yours? And make no mistake about it, this November when we go to the polls that is what we’re deciding, not Democrat or Republican, not left or right. No, in this election and every election is about who will have the power to shape our children for the next four or eight years of their lives. And I am here tonight because in this election there is only one person who I trust with that responsibility, only one person who I believe is truly qualified to be president of the United States, and that is our friend Hillary Clinton. That’s right. See, I trust Hillary to lead this country because I’ve seen her lifelong devotion to our nation’s children, not just her own daughter, who she has raised to perfection, but every child who needs a champion, kids who take the long way to school to avoid the gangs, kids who wonder how they’ll ever afford college, kids whose parents don’t speak a word of English, but dream of a better life, kids who look to us to determine who and what they can be. You see, Hillary has spent decades doing the relentless, thankless work to actually make a difference in their lives advocating for kids with disabilities as a young lawyer, fighting for children’s health care as first lady, and for quality child care in the Senate. And when she didn’t win the nomination eight years ago, she didn’t get angry or disillusioned. Hillary did not pack up and go home, because as a true public servant Hillary knows that this is so much bigger than her own desires and disappointments. So she proudly stepped up to serve our country once again as secretary of state, traveling the globe to keep our kids safe. And look, there were plenty of moments when Hillary could have decided that this work was too hard, that the price of public service was too high, that she was tired of being picked apart for how she looks or how she talks or even how she laughs. But here’s the thing. What I admire most about Hillary is that she never buckles under pressure. She never takes the easy way out. And Hillary Clinton has never quit on anything in her life. And when I think about the kind of president that I want for my girls and all our children, that’s what I want. I want someone with the proven strength to persevere, someone who knows this job and takes it seriously, someone who understands that the issues a president faces are not black and white and cannot be boiled down to 140 characters. Because when you have the nuclear codes at your fingertips and the military in your command, you can’t make snap decisions. You can’t have a thin skin or a tendency to lash out. You need to be steady and measured and well-informed. I want a president with a record of public service, someone whose life’s work shows our children that we don’t chase form and fortune for ourselves, we fight to give everyone a chance to succeed. And we give back even when we’re struggling ourselves because we know that there is always someone worse off. And there but for the grace of God go I. I want a president who will teach our children that everyone in this country matters, a president who truly believes in the vision that our Founders put forth all those years ago that we are all created equal, each a beloved part of the great American story. And when crisis hits, we don’t turn against each other. No, we listen to each other, we lean on each other, because we are always stronger together. And I am here tonight because I know that that is the kind of president that Hillary Clinton will be. And that’s why in this election I’m with her. You see, Hillary understands that the president is about one thing and one thing only, it’s about leaving something better for our kids. That’s how we’ve always moved this country forward, by all of us coming together on behalf of our children, folks who volunteer to coach that team, to teach that Sunday school class, because they know it takes a village. Heroes of every color and creed who wear the uniform and risk their lives to keep passing down those blessings of liberty, police officers and the protesters in Dallas who all desperately want to keep our children safe. People who lined up in Orlando to donate blood because it could have been their son, their daughter in that club. Leaders like Tim Kaine who show our kids what decency and devotion look like. Leaders like Hillary Clinton who has the guts and the grace to keep coming back and putting those cracks in that highest and hardest glass ceiling until she finally breaks through, lifting all of us along with her. That is the story of this country, the story that has brought me to this stage tonight, the story of generations of people who felt the lash of bondage, the shame of servitude, the sting of segregation, but who kept on striving and hoping and doing what needed to be done so that today I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves. And I watch my daughters, two beautiful, intelligent, black young women playing with their dogs on the White House lawn. And because of Hillary Clinton, my daughters and all our sons and daughters now take for granted that a woman can be president of the United States. So, look, so don’t let anyone ever tell you that this country isn’t great, that somehow we need to make it great again. Because this right now is the greatest country on earth! And as my daughters prepare to set out into the world, I want a leader who is worthy of that truth, a leader who is worthy of my girls’ promise and all our kids’ promise, a leader who will be guided every day by the love and hope and impossibly big dreams that we all have for our children. So in this election, we cannot sit back and hope that everything works out for the best. We cannot afford to be tired or frustrated or cynical. No, hear me. Between now and November, we need to do what we did eight years ago and four years ago. We need to knock on every door, we need to get out every vote, we need to pour every last ounce of our passion and our strength and our love for this country into electing Hillary Clinton as president of the United States of America! So let’s get to work. Thank you all and God bless.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Congolese President Joseph Kabila told the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations on Saturday that he would ensure those responsible for killing two U.N. investigators earlier this year would be punished. Michael Sharp, an American who was coordinator of an independent sanctions monitoring group, and Zaida Catalan, a Swede, were killed in central Congo on March 12 while carrying out investigations for a report to the U.N. Security Council. The bodies of Sharp and Catalan were found in a shallow grave two weeks later. We are determined to ensure that light is shed on the exact circumstances of this crime and to ensure that this horrendous act ... will not remain unpunished, Kabila said. This is exactly what open public court processes have been working toward for several weeks now following the arrest of the majority of the suspects of these crimes, he told the 193-member General Assembly. Congolese authorities have arrested nine suspects in the killings but some Western governments and rights groups are skeptical that the real masterminds have been identified. An internal U.N. inquiry found that Sharp and Catalan were murdered by a group of Congolese, likely militia members from central Democratic Republic of Congo, but an absence of evidence does not preclude the possibility that others are involved. At a U.N. Security Council meeting last month, the United States, Britain, France, Sweden and Japan urged U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to establish a follow-up investigation to determine responsibility. Guterres has said he planned to discuss the establishment of a follow-on mechanism to the board of inquiry with Congo officials and council members. The most effective would be the integration of independent experts into the Congolese system. I do not know whether it will be possible or not, Guterres told reporters last week. Otherwise, we will take our own initiative: our colleagues in the Department of Political Affairs are making all the necessary consultations to put in place the system that can be as effective as possible for the truth to be known, he said. In the central Congo Kasai provinces, where Sharp and Catalan were killed, an insurrection by the Kamuina Nsapu militia, which demands the withdrawal of Congolese forces from the area, has driven 1.4 million people from their homes and killed more than 3,000 since August last year. Kabila said the country had fallen victim to terrorist attacks and that a mystical religious tribal militia is using the civilian population, including children as a human shield. Kasai poses Congo s biggest security challenge and is the scene of a growing humanitarian disaster in a country where militia violence since Kabila refused to step down in December has raised fears of a slip back into civil war. Kabila also told the U.N. General Assembly that Congo had so far registered 42 million of 45 million voters and that the National Election Commision would soon publish the electoral calendar and timelines. Despite this progress, challenges in organizing elections in my country remain great, both on the logistical level, as well as on the financial, security and legislative one, he said. I can affirm that we are most certainly moving towards credible, transparent and peaceful elections. He did not say if the vote would take place this year, as required by a deal with Congo s opposition that allowed him to stay in power beyond the expiry of his mandate last December.

Leave a reply Kate Bartolotta – In this day and age where the constant use of social media demands that we label and define ourselves to others in every way possible, it’s important to understand the true meaning and use of the word introvert. A lot of people use the words “introverted” and “shy” interchangeably; they don’t mean the same thing. As someone who works with people all the time, you’d think I’d be an extrovert. I’m friendly. I’m not shy. But when I get close to my “people time” limit, it’s time to shut down, be quiet and hole up with a good book. I love helping people, but there’s a huge reason that I balance that type of work with work where I get to be quiet and dive in to working with words instead of being bombarded with interaction. It’s because—although I don’t fall into some of the old stereotypes—I’m an introvert. I spent years feeling guilty if I wanted to spend time alone instead of doing things with friends. I learned to make the best of it, and often pushed myself to be social—even when it felt exhausting. Many people do this, as extroversion tends to be prized in our society, while introversion is seen as a “second-class personality trait, somewhere between a disappointment and a pathology.” It is none of those things. It’s the way an estimated two-thirds to one-half of us are wired, and it can be our greatest asset. As I mentioned, being introverted isn’t the same thing as being shy (though there’s nothing wrong with being shy either) . Many shy people are also introverted, but one doesn’t really have much to do with the other. The best explanation I was ever given (and maybe one of the biggest “aha!” moments of my adult life) was that while extroverts are energized by connecting and spending time with others, introverts need inward-focused, alone time to recharge. Being introverted has nothing to do with lack of confidence. Many confident people are introverted, and gather their strength from the time they spend alone rather than from the input of others. In some ways, I believe that the ability to enjoy being by yourself says a great deal about your confidence. It isn’t that introverts don’t like social time—it’s that for us, social time is giving out energy rather than receiving energy. A lot of us fall somewhere in the middle between the two, and some interactions take more out of people than others. A few things to consider if someone you care about falls more on the introverted end of the spectrum: 1. Think of each of us as having a cup of energy available. For introverts, most social interactions take a little out of that cup instead of filling it the way it does for extroverts. Most of us like it. We’re happy to give and love to see you. When the cup is empty, though, we need some time to refuel. We aren’t mad. We don’t stop caring about you. We’ll be so happy to see you and talk to you again when we’ve had some time to decompress. 2. Silence isn’t a bad thing. Really. It’s not an insult. It’s the introvert’s way of conserving energy and restoring him or herself. If we can be quiet with you (and you can be content being quiet with us) it’s a huge compliment and a huge relief. Other times the quiet really does need to be spent alone. We come back when we’re ready. It’s worth the wait. 3. Just because someone is friendly, she isn’t necessarily an extrovert; just because someone is quiet doesn’t mean he’s an introvert. If you pay attention to people you care about, often you can see what energizes them and what drains them. If you aren’t sure, ask. If you notice a friend seems wiped out, ask if spending time together sounds like fun or if they’d like some down time. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve become almost giddy because plans were cancelled—even with people I love. When you know someone needs some space in order to re-energize, be respectful and give it to them. It isn’t rejection. 4. Text. Write letters. Email. We love it. There are times that you can’t beat a face to face conversation, I’d agree 100%. But for introverts, sometimes being able to stay connected and stay in touch in a less intense and less draining way is a huge help. Being in crowds is tough. Even long conversations can be tough if we’re already “peopled out.” Having the freedom to respond when we are ready is a great feeling. Sometimes, it’s right away. If it’s not, don’t be offended. (It’s not you…it’s me. Really!) 5. All of this really comes down to respect. Each of us has our own set of boundaries, our own way of communicating and our own needs. When you care about someone, you choose to communicate with him or her in ways that show you love and respect them. If your cup is filled by lots of interaction with others, go for it! Be in tune with your own needs, and enjoy the way that time with others energizes you. If someone you love is an introvert, and needs time to him or herself, tune into and respect that as well. We don’t do activities alone because we are sad, or negative or depressed; we do it because that’s what fills our cup back up. We’ll be even happier to see you when we come back. Kate Bartolotta –“One of the best things I’ve read on the subject was the book Quiet: The Power of Introverts by Susan Cain. The shorter 12-question quiz on her site can give you some good insights into your own personal introversion or extroversion that bypasses some of those long held stereotypes (P.S. I’m 12 for 12).” SF Source Dreamcatcher Reality

After watching their Republican nominee insult nearly every minority living in America, conservatives know just how dangerous the non-white vote is in this election. As minorities make up more and more of the general population, Donald Trump has put the Republican Party at an incredible disadvantage with his divisive, racist rhetoric.So when Fox News host Bill Hemmer celebrated some interesting news on Tuesday, it became more obvious than ever that the GOP considers the minority vote a major threat to the future of its party. Fox News host Bill Hemmer actually said that he had good news in Ohio, which was that more white people were voting in the state and the black share of the vote is down. At this point in the election, when Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton is beating Donald Trump by a landslide, Republicans are grasping at straws and desperately trying to find the silver lining in anything they possibly can. Hemmer said to RNC Communications Director Sean Spicer: I m looking at early voting. You have good news in Ohio, white share of the vote is up 3 points from four years ago, black share of the vote is down 7. Spicer seemed just as giddy about this news, and also noted that the Republican Party was leading in absentee ballots. He echoed Hemmer s excitement when he said, Our people are coming out. You can watch this despicable exchange below, in which two white men celebrate the fact that their data shows racists having the upper hand:[ad3media campaign= 1234 ]Republicans are going to be awfully disappointed at the end of this election, and November 8th can t come soon enough. Despite what conservatives want to believe, America isn t nearly as white as it used to be, and minority voters have great power now. It could very well be that minority voters save white people from making the biggest mistake of their lives letting Trump get into the White House.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republican presidential candidates took swipes on Tuesday at the lifting of sanctions against Iran, but they disagree on how they would to handle Tehran if they win the White House at the Nov. 8 election. Iran can expect an abrupt shift in relations with the United States to a more aggressive posture under a Republican president, a reversal of the warming trend nurtured by Democratic President Barack Obama. With only two weeks to go before the first nominating contest in the presidential race, Republican candidates have devoted large sections of their stump speeches to Iran, giving Tehran as much time as they devote to their condemnations of Islamic State militants, also known as ISIS. “I would say this,” Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Tuesday. “The convergence of an aggressive Iran in the region and ISIS are the two threats that we have to deal with and from day one we have to confront those ambitions.” Obama has carried out a 2008 campaign pledge to negotiate with Iran by striking an agreement last year to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. That deal was capped over the weekend when the United States along with other countries lifted sanctions against Iran, and Washington swapped prisoners with the Islamic Republic. While Republican condemnations of Obama’s Iran policy abound, there is a split among the candidates as to how far to go with Tehran. U.S. Senator Ted Cruz from Texas and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio say they would rip up the nuclear deal and start over, on the thinking that the United States would be able to persuade European allies to reimpose economic sanctions. “The Europeans are going to have to decide do they want to deal with the Iranian economy or the American economy,” said Cruz foreign policy adviser Victoria Coates. “That’s the choice we have to put to them.” A Rubio adviser said the Senator from Florida feels strongly that Iran had gotten the better of the Obama administration and that Rubio would only begin to discuss better relations with Tehran if it were willing to respect human rights and change its stance on Israel. “I am going to cancel that ridiculous deal,” Rubio said last week in Mount Pleasant, S.C. Other candidates like Ohio Governor John Kasich and front-runner Donald Trump are more cautious, preferring to wait and see what the situation is with Iran once the next president is sworn in on Jan. 20, 2017. Kasich told Reuters that the United States should be working with U.S. allies now to ensure Iran sticks to the deal reining in its nuclear program and only if there are any violations the sanctions should be quickly reimposed. “I think as time goes on it’s going to be harder because people are addicted to money,” he said. “I don’t know where we’re going to be in 10 months. No one knows where we’re going to be.” Trump has said it would be tough to rip up the agreement with Iran on its nuclear program but has vowed that if he were elected president he would “police that contract so tough they don’t have a chance.” Republican Senator John McCain, the party’s 2008 presidential nominee, told Reuters the argument over whether to stick to the Iran agreement is academic because he believes Iran will violate the nuclear deal. “I think the best thing to do is evaluate it on Inauguration Day,” he said. “You’re going to have between the election and the Jan. 20 swearing-in to evaluate whether they have adhered to it and make a judgment then. But I think it’s a very bad agreement.” (Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Alistair Bell) SAP is the sponsor of this coverage which is independently produced by the staff of Reuters News Agency.

A two-page letter from Hillary Clinton's doctor a year ago, declaring the former first lady, senator and secretary of state "fit to serve" as president has done little to quell doubts about her health amid a gruelling campaign. Photos of the Democratic presidential nominee being helped up stairs, frequent coughing bouts on the campaign trail and rumors that a 2012 concussion was worse than revealed have made the 68-year old's fitness a campaign issue. “Hillary Clinton lacks the judgement, the temperament and the moral character to lead this nation," Donald Trump said in a recent foreign policy speech. "Importantly, she also lacks the mental and physical stamina to take on ISIS, and all the many adversaries we face – not only in terrorism, but in trade and every other challenge we must confront to turn this country around.” Clinton’s health has been a matter of scrutiny since the concussion she suffered while serving as secretary of state. While being evaluated at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, doctors discovered a blood clot inside a vein in her head and prescribed blood thinners, she told ABC News’ Diane Sawyer in 2014. In part to quash speculation about Clinton’s health, the campaign released a summary of her medical records last summer. In the July 28, 2015 letter,  Dr. Lisa Bardack, an internist in Mount Kisco, N.Y., described Clinton “as a healthy 67-year-old female whose current medical conditions include hypothyroidism and seasonal pollen allergies.” Unlike 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain who invited reporters to review the full 1,173 pages of his medical records, Clinton released only a summary of her past issues, including an elbow fracture in 2009 and several episodes of deep vein thrombosis. Clinton’s chief strategist Joel Benenson said the campaign has no plans to release more detailed records, but his position is at odds with many Americans. A new Rasmussen Reports survey found that 59 percent of voters believe all major presidential candidates should release at least their most recent medical records to the public. That figure is up from 38 percent of Americans in May 2014, when questions about Clinton's health were first being raised. Thirty percent don’t think candidates should have to release their recent medical records and 11 percent were undecided. The people may want to see more medical records, but the Clinton campaign just sees right-wing conspiracy. A campaign spokeswoman blamed the health controversy on Roger Stone, a longtime conservative policeal operative who had a formal role as a Trump adviser until he was fired a year ago. Still an unabashed supporter of Trump, Stone is still working to get him elected, say critics. “Donald Trump is simply parroting lies based on fabricated documents promoted by Roger Stone and his right-wing allies," said campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri. "Hillary Clinton has released a detailed medical record showing her to be in excellent health plus her personal tax returns since 1977, while Trump has failed to provide the public with the most basic financial information disclosed by every major candidate in the last 40 years.” Requests for comment from the Clinton and Trump campaigns were not answered. Bardack’s office declined to comment. “I think the questions being raised are legitimate given that it impacts who leads our nation," said Dr. Jan Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. "As a physician, you cannot help but to ask questions. But given that our information is limited, it would be wrong for any physician to diagnose someone without seeing them themselves.” Orient said she has received both positive and negative responses to her recent column on the Association’s blog which asked whether Clinton is “medically unfit” to serve as president. Television personality Dr. Drew Pinsky told KABC radio this week that he was concerned about the “1950s level of care” that Clinton was receiving and not as much about her actual health. “It just seems like she’s getting care from somebody that she met in Arkansas when she was a kid,” he added. While agreeing that a candidate’s health is a serious issue for voters to consider, one Trump advisor warned against either side diagnosing the physical or mental health of the candidates. “I would be very cautious and would recommend the doctors for professional reasons to be very cautious when deciding you are going to analyze people,” said former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich on Fox & Friends.

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May will chair a meeting of Britain s emergency response committee later on Friday after an incident at a west London tube station, her office said in a statement. My thoughts are with those injured at Parsons Green and the emergency services who, once again, are responding swiftly and bravely to a suspected terrorist incident, May said in the statement. The meeting of COBR, the emergency response committee, will take place at 1200 GMT.

It was supposed to be Trump s one, big win. Now it s completely falling apart.The much-publicized deal to save American manufacturing jobs at the Carrier plant in Indianapolis is looking less like a feather in Trump s cap and more like a black eye. The latest details out of the plant paint a grim picture for the employees who were told just months ago that they had been saved by Trump. According to a report by CNBC:More than 600 employees at a Carrier plant in Indianapolis are bracing for layoffs beginning next month, despite being told by President Trump that nearly all the jobs at the plant had been saved. The deal, announced with great fanfare before Trump took office, was billed not only as a heroic move to keep jobs from going to Mexico but also as a seismic shift in the economic development landscape.Nearly seven months later the deal has not worked out quite as originally advertised, and the landscape has barely budged. The jobs are still leaving, said Robert James, president of United Steelworkers Local 1999. Nothing has stopped. Shortly after winning the election and eager for a publicity win, Trump had obsessed over the Carrier plant. In an effort to secure the publicity stunt, he ordered then-Indiana governor Mike Pence to hand over $7 million in tax breaks to the owners of Carrier in an effort to bribe the executives into keeping some jobs in the area. The Carrier executives gladly took the money (which came out of Indiana s taxes) then shipped the jobs to Mexico anyways.In perhaps the sickest twist in this sordid story, Carrier had secured the $7 million by promising to invest an additional $16 million in the factory. Trump never read the fine print. Carrier now says it will use that promised money to develop more automation which will enable the company to cut even more jobs down the road.That s one hell of a bad deal from Donald the dealmaker Trump.Unfortunately for Americans looking to understand how Trump might run the country and for the workers at Carrier, much of the mainstream media hailed the Carrier deal as an unequivocal success for Trump. The New York Times, for instance, praised Trump for the bribe, parroting his campaign rhetoric, writing that this deal proved Trump was a different kind of Republican, willing to take on big business. It s doubtful that the same media outlets will bother to retract their original praise or issue a follow-up documenting the ways in which the deal has fallen apart. Everyone has moved on. Many Americans might even still falsely believe Trump saved the Carrier jobs.Meanwhile an estimated 600 employees at Carrier will now be jobless. Plants will still open up in Mexico, right on schedule. And the only real winners were the owners of Carrier and Trump. But was there ever really any chance that it wouldn t turn out this way?Featured image via Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

WikiLeaks stated yesterday that only one percent of the CIA material leaked to the organization has been published so far. [A tweet posted from the verified WikiLeaks Twitter account on Wednesday stated, “WikiLeaks has released less than 1% of its #Vault7 series in its part one publication yesterday ‘Year Zero’. ” WikiLeaks has released less than 1% of its #Vault7 series in its part one publication yesterday ’Year Zero’. — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 8, 2017, Given the information found in the leaks so far, such as claims that the CIA has “lost control” of their hacking arsenal and had hoarded “zero day exploits” directly breaching commitments made by the Obama administration, many are speculating on what revelations could be on the way. WikiLeaks has made multiple tweets since the leak of Vault 7, including a comedic video ridiculing Former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden. Former CIA+NSA director Michael Hayden blames ”millenials” for CIA leak #Vault7 https: . pic. twitter. — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 8, 2017, WikiLeaks also held a live press conference which can be found here: WikiLeaks press conference on high quality audio recording https: . See also: https: . — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 9, 2017, Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan_ or email him at lnolan@breitbart. com

Trump protest feed: Clinton supporters take to the streets because their team didn’t win Trump’s sweeping win of the electoral vote was a stunning blow to Hillary Clinton supporters By Daisy Luther - November 10, 2016 All across the country, the election of Donald Trump is being protested with increasing fervor. Despite all odds ( since all the public odds were rigged ) Trump’s sweeping win of the electoral vote was a stunning blow to Hillary Clinton supporters. And they aren’t taking their loss gracefully. They’re shouting, swearing, crying, and, according to the most frequent word I’ve seen, absolutely terrified. They seem unaware of the irony that when they refer to Trump as a fascist, they’re actually the ones protesting a legitimately elected leader simply because their candidate didn’t win. Protests began last night within hours of the announcement . The First Amendment guarantees our right to peaceful assembly , but that isn’t what is happening. Injuries, obstruction of roadways, and destruction of property have begun to occur, and I strongly believe the violence will continue to escalate. If you can at all, stay home and away from areas with large gatherings – it doesn’t take much to turn a peaceful crowd into an angry mob. If you are unprepared for civil unrest on this scale, go here for guidance . We’re a small operation here at DaisyLuther.com , and there are just too many people having hissies because their team didn’t win the trophy. Since we can’t write a new article for each one, I’m putting them into one feed that will be updated frequently. Check back for the latest temper tantrums updates frequently. Wednesday, 10:00 pm CST

US abstains from UN vote calling for end to Cuban embargo Published time: 26 Oct, 2016 21:10 Get short URL U.S. President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro gesture after a news conference as part of President Obama's three-day visit to Cuba, in Havana March 21, 2016. © Carlos Barria / Reuters The US government abstained from the UN vote on a resolution calling for an end to the US economic embargo against Cuba, for the first time in 24 years. The 193-member General Assembly adopted the resolution with 191 votes in favor on Wednesday. The only other abstention, besides the US, was Israel. The vote is non-binding but it can have political weight. U.S. decision to abstain in UN vote condemning Cuba embargo is small but meaningful. The cold war is over, Congress must lift embargo pic.twitter.com/lvjq8JlvNE — Charles Rangel (@cbrangel) October 26, 2016 Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez described the abstention as a "positive step for the future of improving relations between the United States and Cuba," according to Reuters. In case you missed it: Full speech delivered by #Cuba FM at today's vote against #US blockade #YoVotoVsBloqueo https://t.co/EJnmmyvS8J — José Ramón Cabañas (@JoseRCabanas) October 26, 2016 Rodriguez said in September that the embargo cost Cuba $4.6 billion last year, and the full damage over the length of the 50-year embargo was estimated at $125.9 billion. When it was first announced that the US government would abstain from the vote, the entire General Assembly applauded. "Abstaining on this resolution does not mean that the United States agrees with all of the policies and practices of the Cuban government. We do not," Samantha Power the US Ambassador to the United Nations told the General Assembly on Tuesday. "We are profoundly concerned by the serious human rights violations that the Cuban government continues to commit with impunity against its own people," she said, according to AP. US abstains from UN vote to condemn Cuba embargo for the first time https://t.co/BMLy4VPAYm — The Guardian (@guardian) October 26, 2016 The Obama administration began normalizing relations with the Communist-run country in at the end of 2014, easing trade and travel restrictions. On July 20, 2015, diplomatic relations were restored, and embassies in the two countries were reopened. US approves airlines to fly to Cuba https://t.co/46qAzoxt6u pic.twitter.com/GN9lelYGcE — RT America (@RT_America) June 10, 2016 Lifting the full embargo will take the support of the Republican-run Congress, which remains critical of the administration’s efforts, arguing it offered too many concessions to Cuba and accepted little in return, especially on human rights and the restoration of expropriated property. ‘Making history’: First US cruise ship in nearly 40 years reaches Cuba (PHOTOS) https://t.co/xqu6jbAgBq pic.twitter.com/K9OE5OMaz4 — RT America (@RT_America) May 2, 2016 Obama made the first visit to Havana by a US president in 88 years in March.

It’s not often a mother tries to persuade her teenage son to attend a music festival with her. But Desert Trip is not your average festival. On Friday night, an team of classic rock veterans — the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, the Who and Roger Waters of Pink Floyd — will begin its first of two weekends on the same storied bill at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, Calif. Among the crowd will be Julie Varon, a mother of three from Seattle, who grew up on the rock ’n’ roll that once soundtracked and spurred the counterculture. Also taking part, though not entirely of his own volition: Ms. Varon’s son, Sam, who prefers modern country music and Coachella, the annual pop festival that shares an organizer and location with Desert Trip. “This is definitely a little bit of a twist,” Sam said a few days before the event. His mother chimed in: “A twist of the arm. ” She added: “It didn’t help that people started calling it Oldchella. But he gets it. ” Like many of the 150, 000 people expected at the festival, Ms. Varon, 59, saw Desert Trip as a historic event, a last chance to commune with these titans of rock. As a baby boomer, she also happens to be in the target demographic. By pairing such venerated acts with amenities of relative luxury (seating options, extra bathrooms, gourmet food) the promoters of Desert Trip have created a destination for an underserved festival audience with the time, means and inclination to go all out for what is seen as a singular occasion. Matthew Thirlwall, 60, a geology professor living outside London, spent $898 plus fees for a V. I. P. ticket that comes with the “culinary experience bundle,” on top of airfare and a camping pass. ( tickets topped out at $1, 599.) “I decided a year or two ago that life had much more to offer than working days, and decided to take part in early partial retirement,” Mr. Thirlwall said. Emboldened by a trip to Burning Man this year, he had decided to make Desert Trip his first rock festival. “One of my daughter’s friends at university said, ‘Oh, your dad’s so cool,’” he recalled. Simone Harle, 47, a journalist in Perth, Australia, also decided to cross oceans for the event. She called the trip to Indio — her first visit to the United States — “a pilgrimage” in honor of the music. “This is the soundtrack to my life,” she said, which made an overall cost of more than $5, 000 a . “It was an automatic reaction for me. I’ve got goose bumps all over my body and on my eyeballs just thinking about it. ” Others took the idea of a musical pilgrimage even further. Jon Langille, 55, spent a month riding an electric bicycle more than 1, 800 miles to the festival from British Columbia. “My wife and I couldn’t agree on what kind of trip to make this,” he said. “Her idea was to fly in and fly out. That’s all fine and dandy, but I really wanted to make an experience of it. ” He continued, “I’ve been a busy guy for 20 years and the opportunity to take a month off and be by myself, to meditatively pedal my bicycle 2, 000 miles to a rock concert, really appealed to me — especially for a thing like this. ” Ms. Varon was equally committed to attending, but went the crafty route instead: To ensure access to the show and save money, she sought a job on the Desert Trip grounds and was hired as a supervisor for the V. I. P. ushers both weekends. Her son Sam will be on staff as well. “He was available,” Ms. Varon said. At home, “he’s golfing, job searching and sitting on the couch — he’s having a good old time — but I was like, ‘This is kind of mandatory. ’” While the Indio area is known for its snowbirds, retirees and familial duos are not its typical festival audience. “I would never rent my house to the Coachella or Stagecoach people,” said Susan Andrews, who lives in nearby Indian Wells, of the annual events also held at the Polo Grounds. “They tell you it’s a group of four and it’s really a group of 15. ” For Desert Trip, however, Ms. Andrews opted to rent six of her time share properties to concertgoers, along with the three spare bedrooms in her home. “I have a doctor coming to stay,” she said. “These are older people — some of them went to Woodstock. They’ll be calm. ” Another local, Cheryl Craig, said she, too, expects a more tranquil crowd for Desert Trip, which she plans to attend both weekends. “This is the kind of music that I grew up on,” Ms. Craig, 57, said. “Just having lost Prince and David Bowie this year, you wonder: When is the last time you’re going to get to see these people?” Such reminiscence may prove inevitable for fans at a gathering with such weighty, last hurrah connotations. “These bands were a moment in my life a long time ago and they were very significant,” said Mr. Langille, the cyclist. “I, like probably them, have moved on past my heyday years, but it’s a great opportunity to revisit that time and those people. ” At the same time, being among peers “might be kind of refreshing,” not simply nostalgic, he said. At concerts geared toward younger audiences, “people in their 20s are us like we’ve just discovered rock music,” Mr. Langille said. “It drives me nuts. ”

GENEVA (Reuters) - The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen has given the United Nations permission to resume flights of aid workers to the Houthi-controlled capital on Saturday, but not to dock ships loaded with wheat and medical supplies, a U.N. spokesman said. The coalition fighting the armed Houthi movement in Yemen said on Wednesday it would allow aid in through the Red Sea ports of Hodeidah and Salif, as well as U.N. flights to Sanaa, more than two weeks after blockading the country. About 7 million people face famine in Yemen and their survival is dependent on international assistance. The coalition has given clearance for U.N. flights in and out of Sanaa from Amman on Saturday, involving the regular rotation of aid workers, said Jens Laerke, spokesman of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). We re of course encouraged by the clearance of this flight which may be followed soon by clearances of flights from Djibouti to Sanaa, Laerke told a news briefing on Friday. But no green light have been received for U.N. requests to bring humanitarian supply ships to Hodeidah and Salif ports, he said. We are particularly talking about one ship which is offshore Hodeidah with wheat from WFP (the U.N. World Food Programme) and another boat which is waiting in Djibouti with cholera supplies and that is also destined for Hodeidah, he said. We stress the critical importance of resuming also commercial imports, in particular fuel supplies for our humanitarian response - transportation and so on - and for water pumping, Laerke said. The largest fuel importing companies in Yemen have indicated they will no longer be able to supply the consumer market at the end of this week, OCHA said in a report dated Nov. 23. UNICEF is also waiting to send vaccines, aid sources said. The charity Save the Children said an estimated 20,000 Yemeni children under the age of five were joining the ranks of the severely malnourished every month, an average of 27 children every hour . The commercial blockade is aggravating the food crisis, leading to a significant increase in child deaths from acute malnutrition and preventable diseases , it said in a statement. The U.S.-backed coalition closed air, land and sea access on Nov. 6, in a move it said was to stop the flow of arms to the Houthis from Iran. The action came after Saudi Arabia intercepted a missile fired toward Riyadh. Iran has denied supplying weapons. Jan Egeland, a former U.N. aid chief who heads the Norwegian Refugee Council, speaking to Reuters in Geneva on Thursday, said of the blockade: In my view this is illegal collective punishment. After more than two weeks of blockade of these ports, there are various kinds of supplies essential for fighting famine, for fighting cholera and other types of humanitarian threats that millions of people are facing in Yemen today, Laerke said.

Liberal logic 101 The new superintendent for Detroit s public schools said he will recommend the school district no longer authorize charter schools and focus instead on improving its conventional schools, according to the Detroit Free Press. We have to get it right with traditional public schools and our focus, our energy, our resources need to be on that, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti told the Free Press.Hechinger Report Since 1994, there has been an extreme decline in Detroit Public Schools enrollment: 73 percent. This has had a huge impact on the financial stability of the district and the performance of its remaining schools. However, the expansion of charter schools is just one reason for the decline in enrollment. During that same time, the overall population in the city declined by 33 percent. In addition, the district lost a considerable number of students to inter-district choice programs with neighboring school districts, which enroll more students statewide than charter schools.ForTheRecord says: Two charter schools authorized by Detroit s public schools were rated as the best in the state, according to a report card published by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. The report card examined Michigan s middle and elementary schools and adjusted their rankings to reflect the impact of students economic background.Detroit s Martin Luther King Jr. Education Center Academy was the top rated elementary and middle school in the state. Ross/Hill Academy was the second-best.Ironically, Detroit s public schools have been rated as the worst large urban school district in the country. In 2009, 2011, 2013 and 2015, the National Assessment of Education Progress did assessments and Detroit was rated as the worst in each time.Washington Examiner According to a highly regarded study, in just one year Michigan charter school students earn an additional two months of learning gains over their traditional public school counterparts. For Detroit, charter students get an additional three months of learning in math and reading when compared to their traditional school peers.Most Michigan charter schools are authorized by state universities, and most conventional public school districts do not authorize any charters. Detroit is an exception, having authorized 14 charters. Michigan Capitol Confidential

WASHINGTON/HAVANA (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Tuesday expelled 15 Cuban diplomats to protest Cuba s failure to protect staff at the U.S. embassy in Havana from a mysterious spate of health attacks, spurring new tensions between the former Cold War foes. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the expulsions from Cuba s embassy in Washington were also intended to ensure equity in staffing levels, after he recalled more than half the U.S. diplomatic personnel in Havana on Friday. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez denounced the decision as unjustified, accused the United States of insufficient cooperation with Cuba s investigation of the health incidents and urged Washington to stop politicizing the matter. The steps taken by Republican President Donald Trump s administration delivers another blow to his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama s policy of rapprochement, including actions likely to erode the normalization of a relationship dominated for decades by mutual hostility and suspicion. The latest U.S. move was communicated to Cuban Ambassador Jose Ramon Cabanas on Tuesday, and the diplomats were given seven days to leave, a State Department official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Until the Government of Cuba can ensure the safety of our diplomats in Cuba, our embassy will be reduced to emergency personnel to minimize the number of diplomats at risk of exposure to harm, Tillerson said in a statement. We continue to maintain diplomatic relations with Cuba, and will continue to cooperate with Cuba as we pursue the investigation into these attacks, he added. The United States announced on Friday that it was sharply reducing its diplomatic presence in Cuba, as it warned U.S. citizens not to visit the Communist-ruled island because of the alleged attacks it says have caused hearing loss, dizziness and fatigue in 22 U.S. embassy personnel. The State Department had said the embassy was halting regular visa operations for Cubans seeking to visit the United States and would offer only emergency services to U.S. citizens. Cuba has denied involvement in any attacks and says it has reinforced security for U.S. diplomatic personnel. Rodriguez said lack of U.S. cooperation had stymied its own investigation into the matter. Authorities had not provided access to the injured people and the doctors who examined them, or to the homes where the attacks allegedly took place, he said, adding that evidence had been delivered late. Rodriguez urged the United States to cooperate more and said Cuba was also working with Canada on the investigation as Canadian diplomats have reported similar symptoms. So far, none of the probes have yielded any answers about how the alleged attacks were carried out or who was responsible. Several Cuban-American Republican lawmakers, including U.S Senator Marco Rubio and Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, had urged that Cuban diplomats be kicked out in retaliation for the Cuban government s failure to get to the bottom of the attacks. I commend the U.S. State Department for expelling a number of Cuban operatives from the U.S., Rubio, an influential voice on Trump s Cuba policy, said in a statement. But James Williams, president of Engage Cuba, a Washington-based pro-engagement lobbying group said: This decision appears to be purely political, driven by the desire of a handful of individuals in Congress to halt progress between our two countries. It looks like we are returning the threats and tensions of the 1960s, said Maria Fernandez, a 45-year-old office worker in Havana. This is madness by Trump. It s really sad, because we are so close, and yet so far away from a sincere rapprochement. Trump, who in June vowed to partially roll back the detente with Cuba agreed by his Democratic predecessor Obama after five decades of hostility, called the Cuban government corrupt and destabilizing in his address to the United Nations last month. Cuba described his comments as unacceptable and meddling. Rodriguez urged the United States not to continue politicizing this matter, which can provoke an undesirable escalation and could rarify and reverse even more bilateral relations. In Havana, U.S. diplomats frantically selling off their belongings at garage sales and on social media, said they were disappointed to be ordered to leave. In a message on Facebook, the embassy s top official, career diplomat Scott Hamilton, said he would also be leaving. I am an optimist and hope we will return one day, before too long, he wrote. Hasta la proxima Cuba.

ATHENS (Reuters) - Europe s top human rights court has faulted Greece for failing to fully investigate the death of a telecoms engineer in 2005 during a scandal over wiretapping of the country s political leadership. Costas Tsalikidis, 38, was found hanged in his apartment in Athens in March 2005, around the time that Vodafone Greece told authorities of widespread wiretapping of much of the government, including the prime minister, via Vodafone s network. Tsalikidis had worked for Vodafone. On two occasions, Greek judicial authorities ruled out foul play related to Tsalikidis s death. He did not leave a note and his family said he was not suicidal. They took the case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The Court considers that the national authorities failed to carry out an adequate and effective investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Mr Tsalikidis, the Strasbourg-based court said in a ruling dated Nov. 16. It ordered Greece to pay Tsalikidis s family 50,000 euros in damages for the state s failure to clarify circumstances surrounding his death. The Court observes, in particular, that the difficulty in determining whether there was any substance in the applicants claim that their relative was unlawfully killed rests with the failure of the authorities adequately to investigate the circumstances of the death, it said. A Greek prosecutor would investigate whether the case needed to be reopened, Greek court sources told Reuters on Friday. Then Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis and the foreign, defense and public order ministers were among about 100 people whose mobile phones were tapped for months around the time of the 2004 Athens Olympics. Unauthorized installed software allowed calls to and from scores of mobile phones to be recorded from June 2004 until March 2005. It stopped when Vodafone discovered the incident and reported it to authorities, Reuters reported at the time. Who was behind the wiretap is unclear. In 2006 and 2007, Vodafone Greece was fined a total of 95 million euros by Greek regulators for breaching privacy rules. A forensic expert contracted by Tsalikidis s family called the initial autopsy probe grossly inadequate , while a second investigation launched after exhumation in 2012 revealed inconsistencies which should have been investigated further, the ECHR said in its verdict. (The) Court notably bore in mind that the public prosecutor, during the initial investigation, had mentioned that the death had been causally linked to the wiretapping case. It had therefore been all the more important to take every measure necessary to investigate Costas Tsalikidis death, the court said. It noted Tsalikidis s family had at no point contended Greek authorities were responsible for his death or implied Greece was aware he was at risk.

Putin may be the one person Obama has absolutely no influence over. With Obama unable to use his Chicago thug-like political tactics on Putin, could this finally be the end of Hillary Clinton s career in politics? Hillary Clinton sits at the center of a raging firestorm concerning her arrangement of a private email account and server set up in her home from which top secret information may have been deleted. But despite Bernie Sanders apparent annoyance with the damn emails, the scandal just exponentially intensified, when Judge Andrew Napolitano revealed on Monday that Russia has possession of around 20,000 of Clinton s emails leaving open the possibility her deletions might not have been permanent after all. There s a debate going on in the Kremlin between the Foreign Ministry and the Intelligence Services about whether they should release the 20,000 of Mrs. Clinton s emails that they have hacked into, Napolitano told Fox News Megyn Kelly in an interview for The Kelly File.https://youtu.be/oounggTI-jkWith Clinton s repeated claims she employed the personal email server only for mundane communications and non-sensitive State matters having been proven outright lies, the deletions of 31,830 emails in the new context of Napolitano s statement have suddenly become remarkably relevant.As the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton s questionable email practices deepens, the question of who had access to what information previously located on the former secretary of state s server is now more critical than ever.One such individual, Romanian hacker Guccifer, who was abruptly extradited to the United States, revealed he had easily and repeatedly accessed Clinton s personal server and he wasn t the only one. For me, it was easy, the hacker, whose given name is Marcel Lehel Lazar, exclusively told Fox News; easy for me, for everybody. If Guccifer and Napolitano are right, Russia may, indeed, have possession of highly-sensitive information courtesy of Clinton s arrogant failure to adhere to the obligation to use a government email account during her tenure as secretary a situation worsened by the now-mendacious claim no sensitive information had been sent through the personal account.In fact, if Guccifer is to be believed as his extradition by the U.S. indicates news of the Kremlin having obtained potentially top-secret material may be the tip of a gargantuan iceberg. Using a readily available program, the Romanian hacker also claimed he observed up to 10, like, IPs from other parts of the world during sessions on Clinton s personal server. If just one of those unknown parties was connected to Russia, who the other nine might be could be central to the FBI s decision whether or not to charge Clinton for mishandling classified information.Adding yet another nail in the coffin case against Hillary on Thursday, the Hill reported conservative watchdog Judicial Watch revealed, pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request, frustration with technical difficulties in obtaining a secure phone line led the secretary to direct a top aide to abandon the effort and call her without the necessary security in place. I give up. Call me on my home [number], Clinton wrote in a February 2009 email from the newly-released batch on the also notoriously unsecured server to then-chief of staff, Cheryl Mills.Via: Zero Hedge

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department on Friday said it delivered documents to congressional committees responding to their request for information that could shed light on President Donald Trump’s claims that former President Barack Obama ordered U.S. agencies to spy on him. The information was sent to the House and Senate intelligence and judiciary committees, said Sarah Isgur Flores, a Justice Department spokeswoman. The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Republican Devin Nunes, said in a statement late on Friday that the Justice Department had “fully complied” with the panel’s request. A government source, who requested anonymity when discussing sensitive information, said an initial examination of the material turned over by the Justice Department indicates that it contains no evidence to confirm Trump’s claims that the Obama administration had wiretapped him or the Trump Tower in New York. The House Intelligence Committee will hold a hearing on Monday on allegations of Russian meddling in the U.S. election. Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers will testify and are expected to field questions on Trump’s wiretap claim. Leaders of both the House and Senate intelligence committees, including from Trump’s Republican Party, have said they have found no evidence to substantiate Trump’s claims that Obama ordered U.S. agencies to spy on Trump or his entourage. The White House has publicly offered no proof of the allegation. On Monday, the House panel sent the Justice Department a letter asking for copies of any court orders related to Trump or his associates which might have been issued last year under an electronic surveillance law or a wide-ranging anti-crime statute.

Click Here To Learn More About Alexandra's Personalized Essences Psychic Protection Click Here for More Information on Psychic Protection! Implant Removal Series Click here to listen to the IRP and SA/DNA Process Read The Testimonials Click Here To Read What Others Are Experiencing! Copyright © 2012 by Galactic Connection. All Rights Reserved. Excerpts may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Alexandra Meadors and www.galacticconnection.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of any material on this website without express and written permission from its author and owner is strictly prohibited. Thank you. Privacy Policy By subscribing to GalacticConnection.com you acknowledge that your name and e-mail address will be added to our database. As with all other personal information, only working affiliates of GalacticConnection.com have access to this data. We do not give GalacticConnection.com addresses to outside companies, nor will we ever rent or sell your email address. Any e-mail you send to GalacticConnection.com is completely confidential. Therefore, we will not add your name to our e-mail list without your permission. Continue reading... Galactic Connection 2016 | Design & Development by AA at Superluminal Systems Sign Up forOur Newsletter Join our newsletter to receive exclusive updates, interviews, discounts, and more. Join Us!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When billionaire investor Wilbur Ross salvaged two North Carolina textile mills from bankruptcy in 2003 and 2004, one of the first things he did was head to Washington to immerse himself in trade law and policy. China’s accession to the World Trade Organization had unleashed a flood of textile imports across U.S. borders, and Ross - now President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for commerce secretary - took an unusual hands-on approach, advocating for “safeguard” tariffs to help the ravaged domestic industry. “He was not the first outside investor to come into the industry and buy a major asset. He was the first and to my knowledge only major outside investor who took on that same sort of attitude that the more home-grown CEOs had,” said Auggie Tantillo, who has lobbied for textile makers in Washington for almost 40 years. Ross’ history owning and defending embattled steel and textile manufacturing companies that have relied on border duties to protect their industries means he will bring a unique approach to the commerce secretary job, departing from the traditional role of cheerleading for free trade and big business. In a questionnaire ahead of a U.S. Senate hearing to review his nomination - which had been slated for Thursday - Ross said he had owned or had a significant stake in more than 100 businesses over 55 years. Forbes has estimated his fortune at $2.9 billion. Ross has not yet provided the Senate with financial disclosures or an ethics agreement to prevent conflicts of interest. Late on Tuesday, the Senate Commerce Committee said it would postpone Ross’ hearing until Jan. 18 to give more time to ethics officials to do their work. Ross is one of three wealthy Trump picks to run into delays with the vetting process. Education nominee Betsy DeVos and Labor pick Andrew Pudzer have also had their Senate hearings pushed back. The Economist has called Ross “Mr. Protectionism,” a term Ross told CNBC he saw as “pejorative” and inaccurate because he said the threat of tariffs would be a used as a negotiating tool. If confirmed, Ross, 79, who is personally close to Trump, will be a lead player shaping U.S. trade policy, working alongside Robert Lighthizer, a lawyer known for his work with beleaguered U.S. manufacturers whom Trump has tapped as U.S. trade representative, and Peter Navarro, an economist and China hawk who will serve as a White House adviser. Free trade advocates worry the Trump trade triumvirate will be too quick to use tariffs to keep imports out, raising costs for manufacturers that rely on imported parts - or even sparking retaliatory trade wars. “The three of them - those guys put together - can create a lot of mischief,” said Dan Ikenson, a longtime trade policy economist now with the Cato Institute think tank. Ross did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for Trump’s transition team said Ross would draw on his experience “saving and creating” manufacturing jobs if confirmed, and would push to expand exports and reduce imports. Ross has worked with allies in labor unions and other industry groups hurt by imports to push for tariffs and quotas, even starting his own coalition in 2003. Although the coalition was short-lived, Ross’s trade rhetoric about the trade deficit and currency manipulation has remained consistent - and was echoed on the campaign trail by Trump. Ross called the 20-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada the “poster child for unbalanced trade and investment,” in a letter to The Wall Street Journal. He has accused Mexico of importing auto parts from China for vehicles it shipped duty-free into the United States. But his companies have also produced goods in Mexico. The 2007 annual report for his International Textile Group called NAFTA “advantageous to the company” because of its factories there. Ross supported the Central America Free Trade Agreement, saying he believed it fixed some of what he saw as loopholes in NAFTA. Ross has drawn an unusual endorsement - from the United Steelworkers union, which backed Trump’s Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, in the election. Leo Gerard, president of the USW, said in an interview last month that Trump’s team understood that trade remedy laws themselves needed to be modernized to make it easier to impose sanctions and duties before industries are hurt and jobs are lost. “We have a lot of suggestions for when there’s a new trade team,” Gerard told Reuters.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers said on Monday they did not know when legislation to impose new sanctions on Russia might come up for a vote in the House of Representatives, and the White House said it had concerns about the measure. The legislation passed the Senate by a nearly unanimous margin two weeks ago, looking like it might complicate President Donald Trump’s desire for warmer relations with Moscow, where officials have denounced new sanctions. A White House official said the Trump administration felt some provisions in the bill would interfere with its ability to use sanctions to try to influence Russia. “There are some provisions in the Senate bill that would unprecedentedly impair Treasury’s ability to wield its sanctions tools, risk endangering the transatlantic sanctions coalition, and weaken the State Department’s ability to credibly signal that we would calibrate our sanctions in response to Russian behavior,” the official said in an emailed statement, requesting anonymity. Republican Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a co-author of the legislation, said he hoped for progress within the next day or two on a procedural issue that has kept the House from taking up the Countering Iran’s Destabilizing Activities Act, which also includes the new sanctions against Russia. The measure must pass the House, where Trump’s fellow Republicans control a larger majority than in the Senate, before it can be sent for Trump to sign into law or veto. House Republican leaders said last week that the Senate bill violated a constitutional requirement that any bill affecting government revenues must originate in the House, something known as a “blue slip” violation. House aides also said leadership had not yet decided whether to vote on the Senate bill once the “blue slip” issue was resolved, or first refer it to House committees, which could further delay or change it. Democrats said they were skeptical about the “blue slip” explanation, noting that the issue had resolved very quickly in recent years for other bills. Corker said Senate Republicans remained solidly behind the legislation. “I’ve heard no one here have second thoughts, by the way” he told Reuters. “If you find one, please tell me.” White House spokesman Sean Spicer declined comment during a news briefing on Monday on whether the administration would support the sanctions bill.

PARIS (Reuters) - French police arrested nine people and another was arrested in Switzerland in coordinated counter-terrorism swoops that follow a spate of deadly attacks in Europe in recent years. Swiss officials said a 23-year-old Colombian woman was taken into custody after police raids there. A Swiss man aged 27 was among those arrested in parallel French police swoops linked to Islamist militant activity, they added. French police conducted simultaneous raids on premises on the eastern edge of Paris and in the southeastern region that borders Italy and Switzerland, taking nine people into custody, a source in the French judiciary said. Those arrested were aged from 18 to 65 years, said the French source, who spoke on condition of anonymity standard practice for most French officials on such matters. Le Parisien newspaper said it was possible the raids had thwarted an attack. The French judicial source spoke of suspected participation in a criminal terrorist network and of communications via the Telegram network that many militants use because messages can be encrypted. A Swiss statement cited suspected involvement in terrorist activity and banned Islamist militant groups such as al Qaeda and Islamic State. The arrests took place a week after France introduced tougher national security laws to permanently replace emergency powers given to police and intelligence services following deadly attacks by Islamist militants on Paris two years ago. More than 240 people have been killed in France since early 2015 in attacks by Islamist militants or assailants inspired by the Islamic State group, which has sought to establish a caliphate in Syria and Iraq and called for attacks on France. France is among countries contributing to military operations against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb, who says 32 attack plots have been thwarted in the past two years in France, played down the latest operation when asked about it during a visit to Berlin. It s part of operations which, sadly, are conducted relatively regularly, where we arrest a number of people we consider dangerous, he said.

Again, these are AMERICAN citizens he is talking about.If Donald Trump had treated Texas and Florida the way he is treating Puerto Rico right now, there would be riots in the streets and massive protests in front of the White House.But apparently, people don t seem to understand that the people of Puerto Rico are American citizens who should be given the same respect and treatment that Texans and Floridians received after hurricanes slammed their states.Trump has not done that so far. Not only was he too slow in responding because he focused more on trying to force NFL players to stand during the national anthem, he has not sent nearly enough troops or equipment or supplies to Puerto Rico. And he is insulting them to add insult to injury.Trump has taken to Twitter to constantly brag about the recovery operation despite his response being worse than President George W. Bush s response to Hurricane Katrina. Puerto Rico was devastated by two Category 5 hurricanes, yet less water and food has been sent to the island.When Trump s administration tried to frame the disaster as a good news story, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz fired back by pointing out that people are dying. Trump threw a temper tantrum in response and suggested that Puerto Ricans are lazy people who won t help themselves.On Sunday morning, Trump lashed out again. While bragging about the recovery effort as if it s the best recovery effort in history, Trump congratulated himself and called Puerto Ricans who criticize the weak effort ingrates. We have done a great job with the almost impossible situation in Puerto Rico. Outside of the Fake News or politically motivated ingrates, Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 1, 2017 people are now starting to recognize the amazing work that has been done by FEMA and our great Military. All buildings now inspected .. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 1, 2017 for safety. Thank you to the Governor of P.R. and to all of those who are working so closely with our First Responders. Fantastic job! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 1, 2017Again, Trump s response to the crisis in Puerto Rico could be much better and it s certainly not as good as he thinks it has been. Furthermore, Trump insulted Puerto Ricans again. While Mayor Cruz is working to save lives, Trump is busy golfing and rage-tweeting. He is enraged because he thinks brown people should be grateful for what little help he has provided. That s a totally unacceptable way to treat American citizens. Period.Featured Image: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Clifton Park, New York is the latest school to succumb to Muslim prayer rooms. We ve documented this trend across America of Islam creeping into the schools. The latest case in San Diego of Sharia Law being taught in the classrooms has ended up in court:FEDERAL LAWSUIT Filed Against San Diego School District s Pro-Islam, Pro-Sharia Law PolicyOne question should be asked with this infiltration of Muslim prayer in our schools: WHAT ABOUT ALL OF THE OTHER RELIGIONS THAT HAVE BEEN BANNED FROM DOING ANYTHING CLOSE TO PRAYING IN SCHOOL? The largest school district in Saratoga County says it will allow Muslim students to pray in rooms in at its high school.The Shenendehowa High School Principal says classrooms are being set aside so Muslim students can pray during Ramadan. Since then, we ve heard from parents who are against the move.One parent sent us a letter explaining her concerns saying: Since prayer for other religions was removed from school years ago, I feel as Shen has crossed the line on allowing this on campus. Some folks we talked to in Clifton Park agreed, like David Chapleau. You just can t bring religion into a public institution where were really trying to teach kids to the idea of opening their critical faculties, Chapleau said. The woman s outcry is in response to an email from the Shenendehowa High School Principal to students and parents. It addresses the month of Ramadan, a time of fasting and prayer for Muslims. It says, in part: Prayer occurs on a daily basis for practicing Muslims. This can be challenging in today s modern public high school. In an attempt to make reasonable accommodations for students and employees to meet their personal religious obligations, room 65 in High School West and room 109 in High School East have been set aside so students can incorporate this important aspect of their religion into their daily activities while at school. The letter explains two classrooms will be set aside for students to meet their religious obligations during school hours. A school spokesperson says the decision was made after the high school principal met with the leader of a local mosque in an attempt to improve the school s cultural proficiency. She says the school can t refuse a student s request to leave class for required prayer, and says the space allows Muslim students to return to class quickly after praying.READ MORE: CBS6LOCAL

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump is expected to name former Goldman Sachs partner and Hollywood financier Steven Mnuchin as his nominee for Treasury secretary, a source said on Tuesday, putting a Wall Street veteran in the top U.S. economic Cabinet post. Mnuchin, who was Trump’s presidential campaign finance chairman, could be named as early as Wednesday, said a Republican source close to the decision. Mnuchin was chosen over several high-profile candidates, including JPMorgan Chase Chairman Jamie Dimon and Republican U.S. Representative Jeb Hensarling, chairman of the powerful House Financial Services Committee. Mnuchin is the first person with extensive Wall Street experience to head the Treasury since his former boss, Henry Paulson, the former Goldman Sachs chief executive who served under President George W. Bush and steered Treasury through the chaotic initial stages of the 2008-2009 financial crisis. The current Treasury secretary, Jack Lew, worked for two years at Citigroup but has spent most of his career in government or academia. The selection of Mnuchin was first reported by The New York Times. A relatively little-known but successful private equity investor and hedge fund manager, Mnuchin spent 17 years at Goldman Sachs before leaving in 2002, when he launched Dune Capital Management. With Dune, Mnuchin has invested in movies produced by Rupert Murdoch’s 20th Century Fox and Time Warner Inc’s Warner Bros, including blockbusters “Avatar,” “Mad Max: Fury Road” and “Suicide Squad.” The son of a Goldman Sachs partner who became an art dealer, Mnuchin worked hard to step outside his father’s shadow and make a name for himself, former colleagues said, rising to become the firm’s chief information officer in 1999. “He wanted to prove that he was there on the merits,” said a former Goldman colleague, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Mnuchin’s experience running Goldman’s mortgage-backed bond trading desk would later prove valuable when an opportunity arose in 2009 to buy the deeply discounted assets of failed California mortgage lender IndyMac Bank from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation during the financial crisis. He assembled an investor group that included hedge fund manager John Paulson to buy the assets for $1.55 billion, and moved to Los Angeles. After rebranding the operation OneWest Bank, Mnuchin built it with other assets and professional sports team sponsorships into Southern California’s largest bank, with 73 branches and $23 billion in assets. His group sold OneWest to CIT Group Inc last year for $3.4 billion. The bank came under fire for its foreclosure practices as housing advocacy groups accused it of being too quick to foreclose on struggling homeowners. In 2011, dozens of demonstrators descended on Mnuchin’s $26.5 million home in the wealthy Bel Air neighborhood to protest OneWest’s eviction tactics, according to the Los Angeles Times. This month, two housing groups filed a complaint asking the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to investigate complaints that OneWest engaged in discriminatory “redlining” practices against black and Latino communities. Mnuchin must be confirmed by the Senate and the top Democrat on the chamber’s Finance Committee signaled he may be in for tough questioning. “Given Mr. Mnuchin’s history of profiting off the victims of predatory lending, I look forward to asking him how his Treasury Department would work for Americans who are still waiting for the economic recovery to show up in their communities,” Democratic Senator Ron Wyden said in a statement. Although Mnuchin has a reputation for being a behind-the-scenes player in Hollywood, he appears on screen in the 2016 film “Rules Don’t Apply,” according to the IMDB movie database. The drama, which opened in theaters on Nov. 23, stars Warren Beatty, who also wrote and directed the film.

Donald Trump might want to stop creating public polls it s never going to end well for him as he is the most hated POTUS in history.It s no secret that even before Trump stepped foot in the White House, the nation was mourning the loss of President Barack Obama, stunned and heartbroken that a truly great POTUS would be replaced by an incompetent reality television star.We re now several weeks into Trump s presidency and we still can t get over it. If the average American is upset about Trump being in the White House, you can only imagine what Obama s former officials feel, having worked closely with a truly great man and leader. Today, former Obama official Chris Lu gave us a look at some major resistance to the new president.Lu was Obama s top liaison to federal departments and agencies, and clearly showed that he was fiercely loyal to the former POTUS. Trump made the mistake of asking the public what agencies he should cut and it went horribly wrong thanks to Lu. Lu answered the question by proposing that Trump s White House be eliminated!Trump was looking for a way to make the Federal government more efficient, effective, and accountable to you and we can all agree that our government would be far more effective without Trump and his corrupt administration. Here s Lu s hilarious response to Trump:Lu wrote: The President seems more interested in visiting his own properties instead of fulfilling his constitutional duties. But if he wants to stay in office, he should disclose his tax returns, eliminate all conflicts of interest, and disclose who is visiting the White House. That s something we all could agree on. We have all seen how miserably Trump fails whenever he tries to get something done four years under this administration will be detrimental to the country.Featured image via Feng Li / Getty Images

Fox News host and Donald Trump cheerleader Sean Hannity got busted for trying to pretend that he is something that he s not.In the process of yet again defending Trump, this time after his disastrous debate appearance on Monday night, Hannity lashed out at the press: Now, my overpaid friends in the media, well, they have their chauffeured limousines, they like their fine steakhouses and expensive wine lifestyles. Based on that statement, you might think that Hannity was just a regular Joe Sixpack, toiling away for a middle-class income at best, trying to make ends meet while paying his mortgage, electric bill and keeping his family fed.But of course, as the host of a highly rated cable news show and a nationally syndicated radio show, Hannity is anything but underpaid.For his radio show alone, Hannity earns at least $20 million a year, and he has also signed a multi-million-dollar contract for his Fox News program.A few years ago, Hannity listed his waterfront home in New York for sale, asking $3.6 million for 4 bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms set on 2 acres of land on the Long Island Sound. Hardly the home of a middle class family.Almost immediately, journalists and political operatives and pundits started making fun of Hannity s weird statement on Twitter. The fact that Hannity, whose wealth is well-known, would attack journalists for being rich struck many as completely absurd. It was pointed out that he reportedly has a net worth of $80 million, has a private jet he s used to ferry politicians like former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich around, and even has done ads for the pricy steak house Ruth s Chris.Hannity thought he could get away with this white lie on Fox News, where this sort of thing happens all the time, but especially since he has attached himself to Trump, it isn t going to work anymore.Sean Hannity travels on a GD private jet. Sonny Bunch (@SonnyBunch) September 28, 2016This was once Hannity's house pic.twitter.com/QhArXKx1zJ Colin Jones (@colinjones) September 28, 2016Hannity is literally describing himself here. https://t.co/lQgEh4HMqe John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) September 28, 2016Hannity awakens in his mud hut, built with his own hands, before walking to Fox News (uphill both ways). He eats air & dresses in moonbeams. Ana Marie Cox (@anamariecox) September 28, 2016Finally, Hannity has clarified to me why I had to leave the media: I get carsick in big cars, I don't eat beef and I don't drink. Liz Mair (@LizMair) September 28, 2016Sean Hannity has a net worth of $80 million https://t.co/Plqx1kkpCv Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) September 28, 2016Never forget when zillionaire TV star Sean Hannity pretended to be scandalized by Obama having Dijon mustard https://t.co/GCfXpfvvVb https://t.co/cR2Qd45JE2 James Poniewozik (@poniewozik) September 28, 2016Fun fact about many right-wing talkers who rail against cocktail parties is that they attend many and usually do so as paid speakers. T. Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) September 28, 2016Private jets cost more than limos right? Or did they get cheaper? https://t.co/Nr0Ig6xYQV Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) September 28, 2016Yeah, I'm sure Hannity takes the LIR home https://t.co/bURPRNftAt andrew kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) September 28, 2016@oliverdarcy he used to do ads for Ruth Chris Tim Miller (@Timodc) September 28, 2016It will be priceless to see Hannity s reaction to getting called out in the next few days for sure. But, he brought it on himself.Featured image via YouTube

With Slovenia behind them and Austria just ahead, the asylum seekers shoved at the metal barriers blocking their path and chanted a plea into the smoky night air: “We want to go!” Nearly 1,000 people had been waiting all day for the border crossing to open, penned into a no-man’s land by twitchy troops armed with pistols and assault rifles who met requests for food or water with stern commands and glares icy enough to match the fast-falling temperature. “We’ve already spent two nights outside,” said Galia Ali, pointing to her severely disabled 8-year-old son, who lay shivering on a blanket near a dwindling fire. “If we’re still here in the morning, he’ll be dead.” [As human flood continues, Germany slaps controls on border with Austria] Hours later, the barriers were lifted, and the migrants surged into Austria. But up and down the route being traveled by a historic number of migrants this year as they seek new lives in Europe, pressure is building to close the continent’s cherished open borders for good. Hungary already has proved that it can largely insulate itself from the refugee crisis by deploying razor wire and threatening lengthy prison sentences for anyone who dares cross it. The country’s moves have shifted the burden of the refugee crisis to its neighbors — and are now tempting leaders in those nations to build their own fences. The U.N. refugee agency said Monday that a record 218,394 people crossed the Mediterranean to reach European shores in October — about as many as the total from all of last year. As the numbers rise, officials in countries across central and southeastern Europe are eyeing one another nervously, fearing that a sudden closure of any one border could unleash a domino effect across the region that would leave tens of thousands of people stranded and angry, far from their intended destinations in the continent’s north. The result would be chaos and violence, said Croatian Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic, who has coordinated his country’s response as more than 300,000 people have crossed through the small coastal nation since mid-September — including 8,400 on Sunday alone. “You really think you can stop these people without shooting?” Ostojic said. “You’d have to build a wall around Europe if you really wanted to stop these kinds of flows.” Rather than try to impede the movement of migrants, Croatia has sought to speed it up, arranging trains to ferry people from the Serbian border in the east to the Slovenian border in the west. But the country’s right-wing opposition, which is a slight favorite to win national elections Sunday, has proposed a different solution: a fence. Slovenia has said it is considering a fence of its own. Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec described that action as “a last resort” but added that he is “very much concerned” that other countries will erect barriers, leaving his tiny Alpine nation shouldering an unsustainable burden. Even now, he said, Slovenia is struggling to cope. “We cannot go on like this for a long time,” Erjavec said in an e-mailed response to questions. “We have received more than 100,000 migrants in just two weeks. This number represents 5% of our population. Our human, financial and material resources are limited.” Farther up the trail, Austrian officials said last week that they are planning barriers to better regulate the movement of migrants coming across from Slovenia. They quickly clarified that they have no intention of closing the border. But they also have said they will not be able to leave it open if Germany — the next stop after Austria and for many asylum seekers the final destination — decides it can no longer handle an influx that brought more than a half-million asylum seekers to the country during the first nine months of the year. As her poll numbers fall, calls are growing for Chancellor Angela Merkel to do exactly that. “Everyone is afraid of the moment when Germany decides it has had enough,” said Igor Tabak, a Croatian security analyst for the Web site Obris.org. The closure of borders, Tabak said, would not only undermine the principle of free movement at the heart of Europe’s post-Cold War identity, but it also could be deeply destabilizing in the Balkans, where countries that were in conflict with one another less than a generation ago are being forced to cooperate on the biggest challenge to confront the European Union in decades. Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia have spent weeks trading accusations of mishandling the crisis. Should a right-wing Croatian government opt to close the border with Serbia, Tabak said, the flow would probably shift to Bosnia, an ethnically divided nation that has struggled to hang together since its blood-soaked birth. “If you have an influx of a large number of migrants into such a fragile system, it’s easy to imagine the local institutions crumbling in Bosnia,” Tabak said. Ostojic, the Croatian interior minister, said coordination among the regional rivals has improved after an emergency meeting of Balkan nations in Brussels late last month. In recent days, trains have begun to speed migrants through the region as part of a trial program that is expected to be fully rolled out this week. The system replaces one that officials acknowledge was woefully unsuited to the scale of the crisis. In the first two weeks after Hungary closed its border with Croatia, forcing migrants to reroute through Slovenia, thousands of people slept in the open each night as rain poured and temperatures plummeted. Slovenia accused Croatia of sending migrants streaming across the border without warning. Croatia charged that Slovenia had failed to ready itself — a point that some Slovenian officials now concede. “Nobody had foreseen what was going to happen. The country was not prepared,” said Ivan Molan, mayor of Brezice, a handsome Slovenian town of red-tiled roofs and quiet lanes that has borne the brunt of the crisis. Molan said the new system of moving asylum seekers across borders by train could help to normalize life in a place where up to 10,000 people had been trekking each day through farmers’ fields and driving away the tourists who normally flock to Brezice for a dip at its thermal spas. But he fears that the Austrians will close their border, trapping frustrated migrants in Slovenia. The country, like others in the Balkans, has no recent history of welcoming refugees from outside the region and has little to offer them. “If that happens, this part of Slovenia will descend into a real crisis,” Molan said. At the other end of the country — a mere 75 miles to the north — refugees who were awaiting the chance to walk into Austria said they were desperate to leave a place that had brought them only grief. “I didn’t even know Slovenia existed before I came here,” said Sozdar el-Hassan, a 24-year-old from Damascus who stood pressed against an iron barricade while clutching her 22-month-old daughter. “It’s the smallest country, but it gave us the most problems.” On a journey that has become a race to beat both winter weather and the prospect of closed borders, Slovenia had badly stalled her family’s progress: They had crossed through five countries in four days, but Slovenia alone took another four. One night, they slept outside in the mud, with no blankets. For two days, they were housed in a crowded and filthy tent, with heavily armed police barring the exits. Hassan said they were forbidden to leave the tent to visit family members or even to use the toilet. “I asked one of the police, ‘Are we prisoners here?’ And he responded, ‘For this moment, you’re prisoners,’ ” said Hassan, a cheery and bright-eyed woman who said she learned English by watching Tom Hanks movies. “It was devastating.” Hassan said she dreams of studying accounting in Germany after her education was cut short by the war in Syria. But as she stood in the cold and rain waiting for the border to be opened, her exhausted daughter screaming in her arms, she conceded that she would settle for falling a little bit short. “At least I want to get to Austria,” she said. “I just don’t want to stay here.” Karla Adam in London contributed to this report. European railways become ground zero for the migrant crisis Black route: One family’s journey from Aleppo to Austria New U.N. report says world’s refugee crisis is worse than anyone expected Read The Post’s coverage on the global surge in migration

A no nation world, there's a novel idea. There would still have to be some order. Now, what should we call it? Travel is one thing, immigration is another. If we were helping other nations instead of impoverishing or bombing them, perhaps they'd be happier staying home. It's corporate influence seeking cheap labor, conglomerate take over of resources, market instability and bankers that are the real issue, not to mention politicians owned by us. Perhaps we should keep our political influence on our side of borders for a change.

21st Century Wire asks What really happened in the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia?With the United States deep in the throes of the 2016 presidential primaries, the sudden death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has provided a controversial backdrop to an already tense electoral race.Reports state that the 79-year-old conservative justice was found dead this past Saturday in his hotel room at Cibolo Creek Ranch, a luxury ranch located in Presidio County, Texas. NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN Several Hollywood films have been shot in the surrounding areas of Cibolo Creek Ranch, including the haunting motion picture No Country For Old Men. (Photo cctoaks.com)The San Antonio Express-News reported that ranch owner, John Poindexter, discovered Scalia s body three hours after first visiting the deceased jurist s hotel room at 8:30 in the morning on Saturday: We discovered the judge in bed, a pillow over his head. His bed clothes were unwrinkled, the Cibolo Ranch owner told reporters on Monday. He was lying very restfully. It looked like he had not quite awakened from a nap. As several days have now passed, various theories have surfaced in the aftermath of Scalia s death, causing Poindexter to further clarify his eyewitness account with the Daily News: There was a pillow over his head, not over his face, said Poindexter. The face was entirely clear. One of the most troubling aspects of Scalia s death, aside from lack of an autopsy being performed or that Presidio County Judge Cinderela Guevara pronounced the manner of his death over the phone without being present. Later, Guevara appears to have reversed her previous statement claiming that Scalia had died of a heart attack , revising the cause of death to natural causes . Resort owner and Democrat Party financier John Poindexter pictured with President Obama.It should also be noted that the resort owner, John Poindexter, is a prominent Democrat Party donor and Obama Award Winner.Another disturbing fact: Justice Scalia was a key vote in temporarily blocking the Clean Power Plan crafted by the White House, a set of new EPA climate regulations, as reported by The Atlantic: On Tuesday [February 9th], the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the rules should neither be implemented nor enforced until the high court itself heard their opponents case. This was itself unprecedented: Never before had the Supreme Court stayed a set of regulations before a federal court even heard the initial case about them. With the Clean Power Plan looming, there are several upcoming and potentially historic Supreme Court cases that could be impacted by Scalia s death.Over the years, some have questioned Scalia s various hunting trips and political connections as reported by the LA Times: Scalia engendered criticism in the past over his choice of partners on hunting trips. In 2001, he went on a pheasant hunting trip with the dean of a Kansas law school who was the lead attorney in two cases that were about to come before the Supreme Court. And in 2004, he went duck hunting with then-Vice President Dick Cheney flying with him on a plane that served as Air Force 2 while the high court was considering a case that challenged the secrecy of an energy task force led by Cheney. Many questions still remain in the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia which will no doubt prompt speculation well into the foreseeable future.No More Fake News reports below TIPPING THE BALANCE Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. (Photo dallasnews)By John RappoportLet s jump right in with quotes from the Washington Post, 2/15, Conspiracy theories swirl around the death of Antonin Scalia . The Post published extraordinary statements from the Facebook page of William O. Ritchie, former head of criminal investigations for D.C. police : As a former homicide commander, I am stunned that no autopsy was ordered for Justice Scalia. You have a Supreme Court Justice who died, not in attendance of a physician. You have a non-homicide trained US Marshal tell the justice of peace that no foul play was observed. You have a justice of the peace pronounce death while not being on the scene and without any medical training opining that the justice died of a heart attack. What medical proof exists of a myocardial Infarction? Why not a cerebral hemorrhage? How can the Marshal say, without a thorough post mortem, that he was not injected with an illegal substance that would simulate a heart attack Did the US Marshal check for petechial hemorrhage in his eyes or under his lips that would have suggested suffocation? Did the US Marshal smell his breath for any unusual odor that might suggest poisoning? My gut tells me there is something fishy going on in Texas. If this isn t enough, the Post goes on: Scalia s physician, Brian Monahan, is a U.S. Navy rear admiral and the attending physician for the U.S. Congress and Supreme Court. He declined to comment on Scalia s [prior] health when reached by telephone Monday at his home in Maryland. Patient confidentiality forbids me to make any comment on the subject, he said. When asked whether he planned to make public the statement he s preparing for [Texas Judge] Guevara, Monahan repeated the same statement and hung up on a reporter. As long as no law-enforcement investigation of Scalia s death is launched, the doctor is justified. Confidentiality applies, unless Scalia s family lifts it. But if such an investigation is opened, all bets are off. Confidentiality no longer applies.There are reports that, after Scalia s body was transported from the celebrity ranch in Texas, closely guarded and shielded by a bevy of marshals, it was rapidly embalmed. If so, that would apparently make toxicological tests far more difficult or impossible.As for a murder motive, try: upsetting the voting balance of the US Supreme Court. Try: a push to appoint a new Justice now, thus ensuring the appointee s political persuasion, regardless of the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election.Continue this story at No More Fake NewsREAD MORE ELECTION NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2016 Files

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe s top general said on Monday talks were planned between President Robert Mugabe and former vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa, whose sacking by the 93-year-old leader two weeks ago triggered a coup. General Constantino Chiwenga, head of the armed forces and leader of the takeover codenamed Operation Restore Legacy , told a media conference he was encouraged by contact between the two men and Mnangagwa would be back in the country soon. Thereafter, the nation will be advised on the outcome of talks between the two, he said, reading from a statement. Earlier, Zimbabwe s ruling ZANU-PF resolved to bring a motion in parliament on Tuesday to impeach Mugabe, after a noon deadline expired for the besieged leader to resign and bring the curtain down on nearly four decades in power. Impeachment could see Mugabe kicked out in days and would be an ignominious end to the career of the Grand Old Man of African politics, once lauded as an anti-colonial hero. In the draft motion, the party accused Mugabe of being a source of instability , flouting the rule of law and presiding over an unprecedented economic tailspin in the last 15 years. It also said he had abused his constitutional mandate to favor his unpopular wife Grace, 52, whose tilt at power triggered the backlash from the army that brought tanks onto the streets of the capital last week. Mnangagwa s removal was meant to boost her chances of succeeding her husband. On paper, the impeachment process is long-winded, involving a joint sitting of the Senate and National Assembly, then a nine-member committee of senators, then another joint sitting to confirm his dismissal with a two-thirds majority. However, constitutional experts said ZANU-PF, in revolt against Mugabe, could push it through quickly. They can fast-track it. It can be done in a matter of a day, said John Makamure, executive director of the Southern African Parliamentary Support Trust. Mugabe s demise, now apparently inevitable, is likely to send shockwaves across Africa. A number of entrenched strongmen, from Uganda s Yoweri Museveni to Democratic Republic of Congo s Joseph Kabila, are facing mounting pressure to step aside. Mugabe was once admired as the Thinking Man s Guerrilla , a world away from his image in his latter years as a dictator who proudly declared he held a degree in violence . As the economy crumbled and opposition to his rule grew in the late 1990s, Mugabe tightened his grip in the southern African country of 16 million, seizing white-owned farms, unleashing security forces to crush dissent and speaking of ruling until he was 100. ZANU-PF s action follows a weekend of high drama in Harare that culminated in reports Mugabe had agreed to stand down - only for him to dash the hopes of millions of his countrymen in a bizarre and rambling national address on Sunday night. Flanked by the generals who sent in troops last week to seize the state broadcaster, Mugabe spoke of the need for national unity and farming reform, but made no mention of his own fate. I am baffled. It s not just me, it s the whole nation, shocked opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai told Reuters. He s playing a game. Two senior government sources told Reuters Mugabe had agreed on Sunday to step aside and CNN said on Monday his resignation letter had been drawn up, with terms that included immunity for him and Grace. Two other political sources told Reuters on Monday Mugabe had indeed agreed to resign but ZANU-PF did not want him to quit in front of the military, an act that would have made its intervention last week look more like a coup. Another political source said Mugabe s opponents had hoped his televised speech would sanitize the military s action, which has paved the way for Mnangagwa, a former security chief known as The Crocodile, to take over. Moments after the address, war veterans leader Chris Mutsvangwa, called for a wave of protests if Mugabe refused to go. In London, a spokesman for British Prime Minister Theresa May said Mugabe had clearly lost the support of his people. Since last week, Mugabe has been confined to his lavish Blue Roof residence in Harare, apart from two trips to State House to meet the generals and one to a university graduation ceremony at which he appeared to fall asleep. Grace and at least two senior members of her G40 political faction are believed to be holed up in the same compound. On Saturday, hundreds of thousands took to the streets of Harare to celebrate Mugabe s expected downfall and hail a new era for their country, whose economy has imploded under the weight of economic mismangement. Inflation reached 500 billion percent in 2008. An estimated 3 million Zimbabweans have emigrated to neighboring South Africa in search of a better life. The huge crowds on the streets have given a quasi-democratic veneer to the army s intervention. Behind the euphoria, however, some Zimbabweans have misgivings. The real danger of the current situation is that, having got their new preferred candidate into State House, the military will want to keep him or her there, no matter what the electorate wills, former education minister David Coltart said. Others worry about Mnangagwa s past, particularly as state security chief in the early 1980s, when an estimated 20,000 people were killed in the so-called Gukurahundi crackdown by the North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade in Matabeleland. He has denied any wrongdoing but critics say Zimbabwe risks swapping one army-backed autocrat for another. The deep state that engineered this change of leadership will remain, thwarting any real democratic reform, said Miles Tendi, a Zimbabwean academic at Oxford University.

WASHINGTON/PHOENIX, Ariz. (Reuters) - U.S. Senator John McCain promised on Thursday he would return rapidly to Washington despite his newly diagnosed brain cancer, flashing the fighting spirit that has defined him since he was held in captivity as a Navy pilot during the Vietnam War. McCain, a veteran senator and former Republican presidential candidate known as a strong and sometimes fiercely independent voice on defense and security issues, was found to have an aggressive form of brain tumor, glioblastoma, after surgery last week for a blood clot above his left eye. The news, issued by his office late on Wednesday, drew a wave of support from across the political spectrum, and raised questions about how long McCain would be absent from the Senate, where Republicans have a narrow majority and are eager to notch up some legislative successes for President Donald Trump. “I greatly appreciate the outpouring of support - unfortunately for my sparring partners in Congress, I’ll be back soon, so stand-by!” McCain, 80, wrote on Twitter shortly before issuing a news release through his office related to Syria. McCain was making phone calls from his home in Phoenix, Arizona, to stay abreast of congressional matters. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one McCain’s closest friends in Congress, said the senator called him three times on Thursday morning. He wanted to discuss healthcare legislation that is at the center of the Senate’s attention, and a sprawling defense bill McCain would usher through as the Senate Armed Services Committee’s chairman, Graham said. Graham told reporters McCain admonished him, “‘No more woe is me.’ He is yelling at me to buck up. I’m going to buck up.” The son and grandson of admirals, McCain survived more than five years of captivity during the Vietnam War. As a lawmaker he has been a strong advocate for the U.S. military as well as being willing to cross the political aisle and work with Democrats. Among Republican lawmakers, he has been one of the most critical of Trump. Well-wishers included Democratic former President Barack Obama and Trump, who called McCain on Thursday to wish him well, the White House said. Senator Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, said the flood of “bipartisan respect and love for John McCain as he faces this cancer battle reminds us that, after all the meanness, there is a human side to politicians. Count this Democrat in John McCain’s corner.” Glioblastoma multiforme is the most common and most deadly form of brain and nervous system tumor, typically killing half its victims within a year. Patients rarely survive more than three years. Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy died of the disease in 2009. McCain’s doctors said he was recovering from surgery well, and praised his underlying health as excellent. His doctors told CNN on Wednesday that he had no sign of neurological impairment before or during his surgery. Treatment options include a combination of chemotherapy and radiation. McCain’s illness has potential policy implications for healthcare legislation and other agenda items in Washington. Republicans hold a narrow 52-48 seat majority in the Senate, and McCain’s absence has made it more difficult to gather the 50 votes needed to advance a healthcare bill. He has been recovering at his Arizona home since his initial surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix last week. It was not immediately clear when he would return to Washington. McCain has previously battled back from injuries suffered during his time as a prisoner of war, and has had non-invasive melanomas removed at least three times. McCain, who ran a failed White House race in 2008 against Obama, won a sixth six-year term in the U.S. Senate last November. If the senator were to retire or die before his term ends in January 2023, the state’s Republican governor would pick a Republican replacement, who would serve until a special election in November 2018. Whoever was elected would fill out McCain’s term. Arizona’s other senator, Republican Jeff Flake, is up for re-election next year. The state’s electorate is divided: one-third Republican voters, nearly one-third Democratic and one-third independent. Matt Roberts, spokesman for the Arizona Secretary of State’s office, said registered independents would soon exceed Republicans. But Republicans tend to turn out to vote on Election Day in stronger numbers than their counterparts. The Southwestern state is the birthplace of former Senator and 1964 presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, who some call the father of the Republican conservative movement.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany s Social Democrats vowed to return to the opposition and push themes of social justice as they remake their party after winning less than 21 percent of the vote in Sunday s election, the worst result in their post-war history. The SPD party swiftly announced it would quit the grand coalition in which it has served alongside conservative Prime Minister Angela Merkel for the past four years. Sunday s election gave Merkel a fourth term, but she faces difficult coalition talks after her own conservative bloc also won its smallest share of the vote since the 1940s. With nearly half of voters rejecting both of the main parties that have dominated Germany since World War Two, the SPD in particular faces a difficult task of winning back support. The party would continue its fight for democracy, tolerance and respect in opposition, leader Martin Schulz told cheering supporters, announcing the decision to pull out of the coalition. We are the bulwark of democracy, he said. Germany s oldest political party and one of the buttresses of the European left for 150 years, the SPD struggled to differentiate itself from Merkel s conservatives in coalition. The SPD has been collateral damage of the dissatisfaction with the current government, said Tyson Barker, an expert on German politics at the Aspen Institute. It was not able to draw bright lines of opposition to Merkel s CDU and paid the price in lack of enthusiasm. Tim Stuchtey of the Brandenburg Institute for Society and Security said he expected the SPD to move to the left after the election blowout, although he did not rule out the possibility it could change its mind about a coalition and return without Schulz if Merkel fails to find other partners. In becoming the biggest opposition party, the SPD s first task may be keeping a lid on the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD), which became the first far right group to win seats in the Bundestag since the 1950s. Thomas Oppermann, head of the SPD in parliament, told broadcaster Phoenix the center-left party would not shy away from legal options to block any racist statements by the AfD. The AfD opposes immigration but denies it is racist. The SPD had hoped for a resurgence under Schulz, a 61-year-old bookseller untainted by the coalition, having served in Brussels as head of the European Parliament rather than in the cabinet alongside Merkel. Schulz s nomination had briefly lifted the party to ratings of around 30 percent, sparking hopes it could win enough seats to form a leftwing coalition. But those gains evaporated steadily in ensuing months as the mild-mannered Schulz failed to drum up voter enthusiasm. Immigration has become a particularly polarizing issue in the two years since Merkel left Germany s borders open to around 1 million migrants mainly fleeing war in the Middle East. The SPD backed Merkel s stance of welcoming refugees. Schulz told supporters at the party s headquarters he would stay on to lead the party in its new role in opposition. He called the election result a bitter loss, but said the SPD s drive for social justice, equality and workers rights was more important than ever given the AfD s gains. He acknowledged that Germans were divided over the arrival of the migrants, but said the party would stick to its values. The main parties of Europe s traditional left have faced a crisis of confidence in recent years, leaving them cast out of power in all but a handful of countries. Some, such as Britain s Labour under Jeremy Corbyn, have tacked to the left to seek support among workers left behind by years of stagnant wages and government austerity policies. Elsewhere, such as in France and Spain, voters have deserted them for new parties led by centrists, populists or both. Jackson Janes, president of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, said the SPD had suffered from dissatisfaction affecting all mainstream parties, and from the particular perils facing the left. The party had lost track of their demographic core group among working class voters, he said. The SPD s whole infrastructure was built around the workers, but they don t have a grasp of how the economy has changed for people. Schulz said party officials would meet on Monday to start remaking the party, but said he was encouraged by the large number of young people who joined the party this year. Compared with other Social Democratic parties in Europe, we are still firmly grounded in the middle of German democracy, he said. 20 to 21 percent of the voters is not insignificant. The most pressing challenge for the SPD is an election on Oct. 15 in the state of Lower Saxony, it lost a one-seat majority with its coalition partners the Greens, and is now trailing the conservatives in the polls. The SPD already ceded power to conservatives twice this year in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein.

Buzzfeed reports, that, from the start, Megyn Kelly Today s Nielsen ratings have been down compared to the third hour of Today, which was cohosted by Al Roker and Tamron Hall last fall. The ultimate aim of Megyn Kelly Today was to challenge Live With Kelly and Ryan, which is syndicated by ABC, but the contest is not even close. In Megyn Kelly Today s first week, Live beat it by 14% among viewers and 17% in the 25-to-54 demographic. In the second week, the gap widened, with Live besting Megyn Kelly Today by 34% among viewers and 60% in the demo.We re not sure what they were thinking when they sent the wine-soaked Hoda from the Kathie Lee and Hoda show over to help make Megyn look more normal and approachable to her audience, but by bringing a likeable and relatable host from another (formerly) popular show on NBC, they only managed to shine a huge spotlight on Megyn Kelly s inability to connect with anyone who isn t holding a camera. By bringing Hoda Kotb over for a very awkward segment on Kelly s show, NBC managed to reinforce why nobody wants to watch the cringe-inducing host of Megyn Kelly Today.Watch:Hoda was on #MegynKellyToday this morning for no reason other than to fill time and I've never been so embarrassed. pic.twitter.com/wXUatEcPhY Kate Aurthur (@KateAurthur) October 19, 2017

Based #Trump supporters heckle @johnpodesta white @wolfblitzer tries to interview him. we got your emails, John Podesta! #MAGA pic.twitter.com/yblxHA9hOO MicroSpookyLeaks (@WDFx2EU7) October 19, 2016

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Major medical groups kept up the pressure on U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday to maintain funding Obamacare subsidies that are paid directly to insurers, warning that not doing so would destabilize the individual insurance markets that millions of people use to buy health insurance. America’s Health Insurance Plans, the American Medical Association, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and the American Academy of Family Physicians were among eight organizations that penned a letter to Trump. They urged him to “remove uncertainty about continued funding for cost sharing reductions,” the billions of dollars that are paid to insurers to help cover out-of-pocket medical expenses for low-income Americans. On Tuesday, the Trump administration said it had not yet made a decision on whether it would continue funding the subsidies. “The administration is currently deciding its position on this matter,” said Alleigh Marré, a national spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services. “No decisions have been made about how the administration will proceed,” she said. House of Representatives Republicans sued the Obama administration for funding the subsidies, which they argue have to be appropriated by Congress. A federal judge in May 2016 ruled in favor of the Republicans, prompting an appeal by the Obama administration. The case is pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Without the subsidies, the letter on Wednesday said, more insurers could leave the Obamacare exchanges, premiums for 2018 and beyond would rise, and providers would have additional uncompensated care costs, because they would not receive payments that help cover the costs of low-income patients. Insurers have to submit their rates for 2018 plans over the next several weeks and are grappling with whether they will receive the subsidies, which amount to about $7 billion a year.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Most Americans want the media to present facts in news stories without adding interpretation, a Pew Research Center survey said on Friday amid a debate in the media about its role in covering Donald Trump’s unconventional presidential campaign. Journalists face the issue of how much guidance they should provide to help their audiences make sense of the news. The question is especially keen after the 2016 election when the media grappled with challenging false statements made by Republican Trump in his campaign against Democrat Hillary Clinton. Fifty-nine percent of U.S. adults reject the idea of adding interpretation, saying that the news media should present the facts alone, the survey showed. Four in 10 favored adding some interpretation to the facts. “Although the public prefers the news media to present ‘just the facts,’ they may not even agree on what the facts are,” Pew said in a statement. In the same survey, 81 percent of registered voters said that most supporters of Clinton and Trump not only disagreed over plans and policies, but also disagreed on basic facts. Voters who supported Trump, now the president-elect, favored a “just the facts” approach by 71 percent to 29 percent. Clinton supporters were evenly split on the issue. The survey showed strong support for fact-checking by the media. The election campaign saw a proliferation of fake news sites and articles on social media competing with news published by traditional media, although this was not included in the survey. Eighty-one percent of those who prefer facts without interpretation believe fact-checking is a major or minor responsibility of the news media. Among those who prefer interpretation, 83 percent think fact-checking is a responsibility. The survey of 4,132 adults was conducted from Sept. 27 to Oct. 10, before Election Day. The margin of error is 2.8 percentage points.

GREENSBORO, N.C. (Reuters) - Hillary Clinton got back on the campaign trail on Thursday after taking three days off for pneumonia, and the Democratic presidential candidate faced a more challenging political landscape, with Republican rival Donald Trump rising in opinion polls. Senior Clinton aides said they always expected the race to the Nov. 8 election to be close. But it was clear from a raft of new polls that Trump had halted a summer swoon after taking steps to give a less freewheeling, more polished performance on the stump. Clinton, 68, appeared in good health on a visit to her campaign plane’s press cabin while flying to Greensboro, North Carolina, for a rally where she sought to refocus her campaign on the plight of the working class - which has turned out to be a potent theme for Trump. Leaving the stage to the tune of James Brown’s “I feel good,” Clinton told reporters she kept her pneumonia diagnosis last Friday quiet, telling only senior staff, because she thought she would be able to “power through” the illness and keep campaigning. “From my perspective, I thought I was going to be fine and I thought that there was no reason to make a big fuss about it,” she said. On Sunday, Clinton nearly collapsed while leaving a ceremony marking the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York. Her illness coincided with a mini-surge by Trump, who has drawn even or taken a slight lead in national polls. Polls in battleground states where the race is likely to be decided showed Trump now leading in Iowa, Ohio, Florida and Nevada, and tied in North Carolina. Following her appearance in North Carolina, Clinton was scheduled to appear at a Washington dinner. Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, said the candidate and her aides expected the contest to be close. “We always expected the race to tighten up, we still feel like we’re in a strong position with organizational advantage in Florida and Ohio,” Podesta told reporters on Thursday. “They call these states battlegrounds for a reason.” In a speech at the New York Economic Club, Trump stuck to his script, avoiding the more improvisational style that has produced a cornucopia of controversies. Trump pushed a package of tax cuts he said would help power the U.S. economy to an annual growth rate of 3.5 percent. The New York businessman said his goal would be 4 percent growth, a target originally championed by Republican primary rival Jeb Bush. Trump said the growth would generate 25 million new jobs. His economic package resurrected a decades-old debate on whether tax cuts can generate sustainable growth. But the overarching impression left by his speech was one of Trump talking about substantive issues and avoiding the frivolous. Bob Shrum, a Democratic strategist who managed 2004 candidate John Kerry’s unsuccessful campaign, said Clinton remained the favorite to win the White House, with demographic changes favoring her over Trump, who is heavily reliant on white voters. What has hurt Clinton, Shrum said, is not the time taken off from the campaign trail but rather her decision to keep her diagnosis secret until forced to disclose it - which reinforced a perception among voters that she has a penchant for secrecy. “Fairly or unfairly, what this was taken as was more evidence that she was not transparent and that’s what hurts her,” Shrum said. “She been far more transparent than Trump but she hasn’t gotten any credit for it.” Democrats have sought to pressure Trump to release his tax returns, but the Republican has said he will not release them until a federal government audit has been completed. Clinton has released her tax records. With the candidates’ health in the spotlight, Trump, 70, on Thursday released details of a recent physical examination, a day after Clinton released specifics on her medical condition. Trump’s campaign said the results of his physical showed the fast-food fan has normal cholesterol with the help of a statin drug, weighs 236 pounds (107 kg) and has normal blood pressure. In a not-so-subtle slap at Clinton, the Trump campaign said his medical report showed he “has the stamina to endure — uninterrupted — the rigors of a punishing and unprecedented presidential campaign and, more importantly, the singularly demanding job of president of the United States.” Trump also appeared on the “Dr. Oz Show” to discuss his health in an interview with host Mehmet Oz, a surgeon. Top Clinton aide Jennifer Palmieri said “one upside” of Clinton’s unplanned break was the chance to “sharpen the final argument Clinton will present to voters in these closing weeks.” “Our campaign readily admits that running against a candidate as controversial as Donald Trump means it is harder to be heard on what you aspire for the country’s future, and it is incumbent on us to work harder,” Palmieri said in a statement. Trump backers on Capitol Hill said they were heartened by the tightening race after a call on Thursday morning with his campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, who mapped out what the campaign was doing. She promised a more policy-driven approach from Trump in the race’s final stretch. “The poll numbers are just looking phenomenal as you move away from registered voters to likely voters,” Republican U.S. Representative Blake Farenthold of Texas said.

Donald Trump will probably want to dump his new favorite slogan now.The Republican nominee has for talking for weeks about how he should be elected so he can drain the swamp in reference to the lawmakers and federal employees who work in Washington D.C., which was a swamp prior to being drained and used as the site of our nation s capital.The phrase has become the centerpiece of Trump s effort to persuade voters to support him on Election Day.But Trump s slogan alienates members of his own party since Republicans control the Senate and the House. And Trump s own running mate Mike Pence was a congressman for 12 years, which doubles the number of years Trump says he wants to limit members of Congress to serving.Yep, Donald Trump is literally turning the old conservative line that government needs to be cleaned out against them.And Tharon Johnson couldn t help but point that out during an appearance on CNN on Sunday along with Trump supporter Paris Dennard.. A running mate who spent 12 years in the Congress, was one of the most divisive members of Congress, Johnson began before referencing Trump s Gettysburg speech. This guy was the sole person who led a crusade to try to defund Planned Parenthood. As my friend Paris said, before Donald Trump attempted to make a presidential statesman-like policy speech, he spent the first fifteen minutes attacking his accusers. So when he makes comments about how we should enforce term limits, term limits are left up to the voters. That s why most members of the House and Senate have elections two and six years. If someone is not effective then members will vote them out. And then Johnson took Trump s favorite new slogan and crushed it. Let me respond to this really comical comment about draining the swamp. It s so laughable to me. If you drain that swamp what you would find at the bottom of that swamp would be Donald Trump. You would see to the side of him his playbook of his campaign showing you how not to run a campaign to become president of the United States. Here s the video via YouTube.Sorry, Donald. But you just got owned.Featured Image: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

J.R. Smith 21st Century WireMuch has been made by Democrat Hillary Clinton and the White House s accusation that Russia is trying to influence US elections, although neither has presented any real evidence to back up this extraordinary claim. On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence documenting the CIA interfering and altering numerous foreign elections throughout history. This raises an interesting question: would the CIA ever try to interfere in an US election? Evan McMullin is a 40-year-old self-described conservative Mormon and former CIA operative. I enjoyed being a grey man, said McMullin of his 11 years in the CIA.On the wall in his Salt Lake City campaign offices is a poster which reads 007 for President. That s a bit worrying, if indeed McMullin fancies himself as a James Bond character, but in a way it really sums up what his presidential run is all about working in the grey areas, in back room meetings with GOP establishment luminaries, colored by private and public deception. It s what the CIA has specialized in for decades; manipulating and perverting hundreds of overseas elections all in the interest of transnational corporate elites (like Mitt Romney), and now it seems they have an inside man nested in another key position Oddly, the media often introduces him as a conservative columnist seemingly in an effort to distract from his total insider pedigree. McMullin is no newcomer or fresh face he is a career operative, inserted into special niches, including his most recent stint as Congressional director of GOP policy. Now he s come out of the shadows to play a key role in the US election on behalf of some very powerful interests.According to Real Clear Politics, McMullin describes his work as a clandestine operative for the CIA in both Iraq and Afghanistan, in all the war zones post-9/11 until 2010 and most of the other hostile environments . He admits his job was to penetrate insurgent and terrorist groups as well as foreign governments , recruiting agents to pass information to take these people off the battlefield either capture or kill them. Interesting skill set, penetrating governments. We can safely assume that also entails subverting elections overseas, or maybe using Saudi Arabian cash to buy weapons for Jihadi terrorist rebels in Syria.Not surprisingly, McMullin trumpets a loud anti-Putin and anti-Assad rhetoric which is almost perfectly in synchronization with that of Hillary Clinton s. Like Clinton, McMullin relies on a campaign of fear set against Russia and Syria in an attempt to try to bracket Trump togther with other overseas leaders currently under a demonization order by the Washington DC establishment. Donald Trump is an authoritarian just like Vladimir Putin, just like Bashar Al-Assad, just like the Communist regime in China. I have worked against and around authoritarians overseas and I know them when I see them. Donald Trump is one of them. He would bring the same kind of economic stagnation, internal turmoil and discord to our country that other dictators bring to their own. I m sure the Kremlin considers Donald Trump by far its most successful intelligence operation ever. It s very clear that Vladimir Putin and his regime have some control over Donald Trump. Trump s support for Putin is the only thing he has been consistent on. The following is straight off of McMullin s campaign website, under the heading of, America s Role in the World : Evan will impose tougher sanctions on Russia and increase America s military presence in the Baltics in order to deter and reverse Putin s aggression, rather than pretending that he is a partner for peace in Syria. Evan will stand up for the rights of American and allied ships to sail freely in international waters, rather than letting China dominate the Western Pacific. This statement could ve just as well have written by the CIA s office of forward information planning, or from the office of Hillary 2016, take your pick.The next line in his r sum should also throw up a big red flag: he s also a former operative at Goldman Sachs investment bank. So, CIA and Goldman Sachs. Aside from bank-rolling Bill and Hillary Clinton s political machine for the better part of the last 15 years, Goldman also backed Mitt Romney s failed 2012 presidential run.The connections here between all of these establishment players is undeniable with McMullin sitting comfortably in his CIA grey area.Stealing Utah for Hillary If we can send a strong message here from Utah, it will change the discussion in Washington and across this country, said McMullin.This is the problem with the contrived McMullin campaign: it will not impact the national political discussion.Since he announced his candidacy three months ago on August 8, 2016, his campaign has only really existed inside Utah, but conveniently amplified by an US corporate mainstream media and the very same media outlets that have been demonstrably pro-Clinton, anti-Sanders and anti-Trump since the very beginning of the presidential race.Evan McMullin s primary directive seems to be to steal Utah s 6 electoral votes away from Republican candidate Donald Trump who is currently enjoying a comfortable lead over Hillary Clinton in Utah. Recent polls show Trump and McMullin running neck and neck in Utah, at 30% and 29% respectively. In an already tight national race between Trump and Clinton, those 6 electoral votes could easily decide the national election in favor of Hillary Clinton.Aside from Utah, McMullin is also hoping to steal away Republic votes in key states with substantial Mormon populations like Arizona, Idaho, and Wyoming. McMullin is hoping to exploit Mormon voter blocks over the issue of Donald Trump s bolshy demeanor and alleged past sex scandals a negative which will resonate with conservative Mormon voters in places like Utah.Based on the incredible amount of national media access he s being given across all of the top establishment broadcast TV networks, it s pretty clear that the McMullin campaign is being engineered at the highest levels. For a candidate who appeared from nowhere in the last two months, he s enjoyed carte blanche airtime, including softball interviews on Meet the Press with Chuck Todd, The Week with George Stephanopoulos, as well as primetime slots on pro-Clinton media outlets CNN, CBS, NBC, and of course, on Democratic Party channel MSNBC.Here s his debutant spot on Morning Joe, where McMullin waxes on about how, George Bush kept this country safe after 9/11 , and other familiar platitudes: When McMullin speaks, you can almost hear the voice of Mitt Romney and the old GOP establishment. If the Republican Party can t make the changes, as wasn t able to do after 2012, the conservative movement will need a new political vehicle, said McMullin to Stephanopoulos.From these sort of statements, we can see that the object of McMullin s campaign is the same as Romney s to keep the Republican candidate from winning on November 8th.Establishment scion Mitt Romney (photo, left) and his Wall Street partners are desperate, and deathly frightened that if Donald Trump wins, he will build a new GOP power base one which is not based on a tight elite Wall Street investment bank circle that uses men like Romney as their intermediary to control govemnent affairs and fix markets but rather, real people power based on grassroots, working class and middle class voters.The other subtle piece of the McMullin deception is how he constantly spins in the mainstream media about how a Clinton victory is already a fait accompli. In other words: Trump has already lost, so cast your vote for me as a protest vote against the winner, Hillary Clinton. By applying that subtle spin, McMullin hopes to avoid being fingered as Mitt Romney s #NeverTrump tool.Getting on enough ballots in enough states requires money, and a political machine. Enter the Team Romney McMullin s ability to get on the ballot in 11 states, and also write-in access in 32 others, was financed and run by a 501c3 Not for Profit organization which, like McMullin, suddenly popped up this year. It s called, Better For America, said to be founded by GOP operatives John Kingston and Joel Searby.When asked whether or not he s backed by Mitt Romney, McMullin always says no , but the facts say otherwise. Here we can see clearly that McMullin is a creation of Mitt Romney s so-called #NeverTrump Movement. McMullin s primary backer in this project appears to be Kingston, who just happens to be a former GOP delegate from Massachusetts and donor to former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, as well as executive producer for the 2014 documentary, Mitt.In addition, McMullin s running mate is former Mitt Romney campaign staffer, Mindy Finn. Aside from working in the Bush Administration, Finn also worked for Twitter and Google, specifically building their tech networks with the Washington Beltway. Another total insider.McMullin has also been working with former Mitt Romney campaign strategist Stuart Stevens.Behind the patriotic rhetoric in Better For America s marketing spin is well-financed, laser focused operation to steal Utah from the Republican party. In public, the organization claims that: We deserve better than two candidates that are deeply unfavorable among a majority of the people they claim to represent. Together, we can give a voice to the millions of Americans who cannot in good conscience vote for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. If a third party candidate emerges, they need to know the support they have on the ground among the nearly two-thirds of Americans said they are willing to support an independent candidate. Better For America s claim is disingenuous at best, if not outright deceptive, not least because there were already third, and fourth party candidates Gary Johnson (Libertarian Party) and Jill Stein (Green Party), both of whom have been organizing in all 50 states. This casual ignorance of the other alternative candidates indicates an attempt to totally manipulate the electoral conversation.Very underhanded yes, but this is something a CIA operative would be doing overseas thrawrting elections and destablizing fledgling democracies in target nations. Romney and Goldman Sachs End GameBeyond engineering a narrow victory for Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney and the #NeverTrump conclave s last option is to steal the election after Nov 8th. It goes like this .Their final play would be if neither Trump nor Clinton receive the 270 electoral college votes required for an outright victory which would then send the election to the House of Representatives. This hasn t happened since 1825. At this point a Republican House of Representatives (many of whom are #NeverTrump supporters) would choose any of the top three candidates who had won a state. If McMullin wins Utah, then he would theoretically be in with a chance. But not as good a chance as Hillary Clinton would.Regardless, either scenario (although the Clinton scenario is more real) is predicated on Evan McMullin s role as a spoiler. McMullin admits this openly: It depends on the race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump being very, very close and it is not close now. For Clinton friends and campaign backers like Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and fellow Wall Street elites, a Donald Trump victory could mean an interruption in profits slowing down the financial organized crime and fiat paper fraud which has enriched them and the Clintons (and soon the Obamas too) ever since Bill Clinton gave Goldman and Co. the ultimate blank check when the outgoing US President repealed the Glass Steagall Act in 1999. With that one stroke of the pen, the Clintons set the stage for the 2008 Financial Collapse and bailout recipient Blankfein and the Goldman syndicate (and Romney too) made vast fortunes off other people s misery. Notice that Goldman and Wall Street have been stuffing money into the Clinton s pockets ever since with speaking fees, jobs, investments, and also bank-rolling Chelsea Clinton s husband Mark Mezvinsky s hedge fund.Blankfein and his ilk brought the US economy to its knees, and were paid handsomely for their effort.It s an incestuous ring of financial skull-duggery and you will not hear the righteous, self-styled liberty advocate Evan McMullin so much as mention any of this, let alone bad mouth his former employer and criminal financial institution and yet, this is the real story that everyone should really be talking about this election the seedy relationship between the likes of Goldman Sachs and the establishment s favored political candidates.READ MORE ELECTION NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2016 FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV

TIJUANA, Mexico — Even before President Trump decided to build the wall, this Mexican border city was already overwhelmed. So many Haitian migrants, traveling across the Americas, began arriving here last year with hopes of crossing into the United States that churches, community halls, programs, rehabilitation centers and private citizens have opened their doors to house, feed and clothe them. In one shelter, about 250 migrants — men, women and children — share two toilets and one shower. Four hundred are crammed into a church. A soup kitchen sleeps hundreds in hallways, a pantry and a lot out back. Now, some officials and advocates worry that Mr. Trump’s plan could spur immigration crises in towns and cities all along the border and, indeed, throughout Mexico. The Mexican government, they say, may not be able to handle it. Mr. Trump is seeking to tighten the border, restrict immigration and increase deportations from the United States. In announcing his actions this week, the president said they would “help Mexico by deterring illegal immigration. ” “Going to be very, very good for Mexico,” he declared. Yet some international officials and advocates envision a potential nightmare for the country. A growing number of people have been streaming north from Central America, fleeing violence and poverty in their homelands. Nearly 409, 000 were caught trying to cross the southwestern border of the United States illegally in the 2016 fiscal year, a 23 percent increase over the previous fiscal year, according to American government statistics. And the trend has continued over the past few months. As more migrants are blocked at the American border and more undocumented immigrants are deported from the United States, border communities in Mexico could be overwhelmed, migrant shelters could overflow, the ranks of the unemployed could swell, and Mexico will bear the strain, officials and advocates say. “It’s worrying us,” said Christopher Gascon, chief of the Mexico office for the International Organization for Migration. “How Mexico can handle that is going to be a whole new area of concern. I don’t think the absorptive capacity is there. ” Even before this week, Mexico was facing extraordinary migration pressures. The waves of Central Americans heading north were severely testing Mexico’s border patrol in the south of the country and led to a sharp increase in the number of people applying for asylum in Mexico, with applications more than doubling from 2015 to 2016. Mexican officials were also scrambling to develop a strategy in case Mr. Trump made good on his promises to increase deportations of undocumented immigrants, a population that includes millions of Mexicans. An intergovernmental group began on Monday to study ways to help integrate deportees into Mexican society. Beyond that, recent changes in American policy during the Obama administration had already contributed to the surge in Haitian migrants, as well as to a separate wave of Cuban migrants. Thousands of Cubans found themselves stranded in Mexico and Central America this month after the Obama administration ended a longstanding policy that favored Cubans. Under American pressure, President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico had been trying to stanch the flow of migrants heading through his country, starting the Southern Border Program in 2014 in an attempt to control the movement of people and goods crossing the border with Guatemala. The plan contributed to a doubling of deportations between 2013, before it was enacted, and 2016. Nearly all the deportees in recent years have been from Central America. But the country’s borders remain highly porous. The International Organization for Migration estimates that between 400, 000 and 500, 000 undocumented migrants transit through the country every year, about 90 percent of them Central Americans. Here in the state of Baja California, the migrant crisis has highlighted the Mexican government’s limited capacity to deal with the challenges. Haitian migrants, traveling from Brazil, began arriving in this border city last spring. For a while, the Haitians had little trouble crossing into the United States. In recognition of the troubles in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake there, American border officials allowed undocumented Haitians to enter under a humanitarian parole provision, with permission to stay for as long as three years. The migrants filled the handful of longstanding migrant shelters and cheap hotels in Tijuana while they waited, often for weeks, for their appointments with American border officials. Then in late September, the Obama administration suddenly announced that it was fully resuming the deportations of Haitians, hoping the policy change would dissuade more Haitians from migrating. Still, the Haitians kept coming. As the Haitian migrant population has ballooned — there are now about 4, 500 Haitians in Tijuana and elsewhere in northern Baja California — the Mexican authorities have resisted pleas to open a emergency shelter. More than 30 shelters are providing for the Haitians, yet none are . Most of the burden of sheltering, feeding, clothing and caring for the nonstop stream of Haitians has fallen to civil society groups and individuals, who have accused the government of doing too little too late. This month, a coalition of the main shelters in Tijuana and Mexicali sent a letter to Mr. Peña Nieto demanding a more robust federal “intervention” to address the crisis. The shelters have yet to receive a reply, they said. Advocacy and humanitarian groups in Tijuana filed a complaint this week with the National Human Rights Commission alleging that federal officials had violated the migrants’ human rights “in a widespread and repeated manner” by failing to address the crisis. Federal officials have rejected the criticism that they have been neglectful. “Is there room to do more? Yes,” Rodulfo Figueroa Pacheco, chief of the Baja California office of the federal migration agency, said in an interview last week, before the complaint was filed. “It’s been a struggle. ” “But,” he added, “it isn’t true that the governments have been unresponsive. ” The crisis, now in its ninth month, has been a crushing burden on the shelters. The migrant population at one longstanding shelter, Movimiento Juventud 2000, with capacity for about 25 people, soared to about 250, many of them living in donated tents in an adjoining lot that becomes a swale of mud when it rains. Iglesia Cristiana Embajadores de Jesus, a church situated in a denuded ravine on the western edge of Tijuana, was sheltering hundreds of people even though it was not connected to the municipal water supply and had to refill its tanks with a water truck. Administrators at Desayunador Salesiano Padre Chava, which had for years served as a soup kitchen, repurposed nearly the entire building, including corridors and the pantry, into a sprawling dormitory that at one point housed more than 500 people. Claudia Portela, coordinator of Padre Chava, which recently opened a smaller second shelter, estimates that donations have provided for 98 percent of their needs during the crisis. Government officials, while acknowledging that the bulk of the humanitarian assistance has come from civil society, insist that they have provided crucial services but have been sorely limited by budgets that were already under strain amid Mexico’s economic malaise. “Our deployment has been very, very small,” Mr. Figueroa said. “Institutional capacities are not as robust as we’d like. ” But despite the limitations, he said, government agencies had donated more than $280, 000, about 445, 000 meals, thousands of blankets, hundreds of mattresses and many other goods and services since late October. State and federal officials, he said, were still discussing the possibility of opening a shelter, but the proposal raised difficult practical and philosophical questions. “Will we be building something we can’t unbuild?” he said. Ad hoc networks of humanitarian groups have scrambled to help. “For me, the worst part is the omission of the federal government,” said Soraya Vazquez, one of nine women who run the Comité Estratégico de Ayuda Humanitaria Tijuana, a local group formed in September. “The government has to recognize it as a humanitarian crisis. ” On a recent morning, she and her colleague, Adriana Reyna, jumped into Ms. Reyna’s sport utility vehicle and took a tour of several shelters in Tijuana to assess their needs. At Iglesia Cristiana Embajadores de Jesus, the church in the ravine, a Haitian girl had fallen. Her parents worried she had fractured a bone. So the women drove the child and her father to a nearby clinic where they arranged for a free evaluation, then swung by a pharmacy to pick up some medicine to treat the pain and swelling. At another shelter, the women lined up doctor’s appointments for a man with an infected leg wound and for two migrants who were experiencing complications with their pregnancies. They also strategized about setting up a piñata workshop that would give migrants employment. A message arrived, saying that an cinema had about 30 pillows to donate. With a phone call, the women found a taker: a shelter in central Tijuana. At Iglesia Central del Nazareno, which had been converted into a shelter, the coordinator asked the women whether they had heard anything new about how Haitian migrants were being received at the United States border. Were they being deported? It was the day after Mr. Trump’s inauguration, and rumors were flying. “I hope they’ll all be able to cross. I hope they’ll be O. K.,” said the coordinator, Ruth Gaxiola, fighting back tears. She looked exhausted. Ms. Vazquez opened her arms, and the women embraced.

Stephen Colbert hit the nail right on the head and surely touched on some conservative nerves when he did a little ditty on the US Treasury s announcement they d be putting Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. Colbert starts by pointing out that to do that you first have to remove Indian stabber ummm Native American stabber Andrew Jackson.Jackson, who was considered a kind slave owner because he gave the nearly 300 human beings he kept shackled and owned a place to sleep and food and allowed the women to have children. The last one is a no-brainer if you own people babies are just free slaves. Jackson s rise to the presidency was also the beginning of the Democratic party that opposed Lincoln and ultimately seceded from the union.Colbert does quite a bit of poking fun at the founding slave owners, because, well they owned people. Jackson, in particular, was all about preserving the 3/5ths of a person slaves were counted as for census, which gave the South s big plantation enormous blocks of voting power within their state. And just how will Tubman feel being carried around next to the likes of Washington and Jefferson?Colbert also brought up the gender pay gap, noting that the $20 bill with a woman on it will now only be worth $17. Yet another dig at the conservatives who are at this moment trying to put out fires in racist back country congressional districts where they don t like to be left out of the decision-making process for such important things as denying African-Americans and their heritage any role in American history. Remember, these are the same people who oppose black history month, because why should they get their own month when whites only have the other 11?Racism, plain and simple, will be the thing people will remember most about Tubman s debut on the $20 bill. Sad but true.Featured image via screen capture

This is unbelievable! Donald Trump must be the next Nostradamus! One year ago, Donald Trump said something so profound that it is almost unbelievable. Take a look: #TRUMP was right again! — Trump Super PAC (@TrumpSuperPAC) October 28, 2016 On August 29th, 2015, just after news broke that Huma Abedin’s husband, Anthony Weiner, had been sexting young women, again, Trump said something that has turned out to be both profound and prophetic. “I only worry in that Hillary Clinton was careless and negligent in allowing Weiner to have close proximity to highly classified information.” He has also said: “Her No. 1 person, Huma Abedin, is married to Anthony Weiner, who’s a sleazeball and pervert,” Trump said, referring to the former New York congressman’s repeated scandals over lewd texts and direct Twitter messages he sent to other women. “I’m not saying that, that’s recorded history,” Trump continued. “I don’t like Huma going home at night and telling Anthony Weiner all of these secrets.” Trump intuitively knew that Hillary’s top aide, Huma Abedin, was a massive liability. Now look at what just happened today! The New York Times reports: The FBI is investigating illicit text messages that Mr. Weiner sent to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina. The Bureau told Congress on Friday that it had uncovered new emails related to the Clinton case – one federal official said they numbered in the thousands – potentially reigniting an issue that has weighed on the Presidential Campaign and offering a lifeline to Donald J. Trump less than two weeks before the Election.” Let that sink in. The FBI had closed the Hillary Clinton email investigation, and now has reopened it after finding emails on Anthony Wieners devices as part of a sexting scandal and investigation. Trump was right about Huma and Wiener! There are other scandals that intersect with this one, as well. The pay-for-play questions that have been raised about the Clinton Foundation are in play, as Huma Abedin worked daily with the Clintons on countless issues. Is this the issue that will take Hillary down for good? Time will tell.

2016 elections by BAR editor and columnist, Dr. Marsha Adebayo The “revolving, rigged system” that purports to be American democracy was revealed in all its corporate vulgarity on a Baltimore university stage, last week. Two U.S. Senate candidates of the duopoly parties pretended to support the Green Party’s candidate’s right to join the debate, but failed to protest when cops hauled her away. “This was their ‘Rosa Parks’ moment when they could have stood for integrity and democracy” -- but failed the test. Green Party’s Margaret Flowers Challenges US Senate Debate in Maryland as Undemocratic by BAR editor and columnist, Dr. Marsha Adebayo “ The corporate media and the political duopoly collaborated to ensure that the Green Party message would not be heard.” US corruption during this campaign season is on full display for the entire world to ponder. No one paying even scant attention can deny the thin veneer that is used to hide state sponsored police murder of Africans, structural poverty and the cozy relationship between the 1% rulers in the Democratic and Republican parties. Green Party candidates, such as Jill Stein, Ajamu Baraka and Margaret Flowers have forced sunlight’s disinfectant power to expose a rigged, racist and revolting political system that politically and economically devours communities of color, condones police murders of Black youth, intentionally exposes communities, like Flint, Michigan, to poisoned water, promotes drone warfare and the pilfering of the natural resources of Africa and South America. The system, however is finding it more difficult to block out the voices of dissent. Such was the situation this week at the University of Baltimore College of Public Affairs where Dr. Margaret Flowers, the Green Party candidate for the Maryland US Senate seat, was refused the opportunity to participate in the only televised debate alongside Democratic Congressman Chris Van Hollen and Republican state Del. Kathy Szeliga. The corporate media and the political duopoly collaborated to ensure that the Green Party message would not be heard. The sham excuse used to exclude Flowers was that her poll numbers had not reached 15%. But, of course it is difficult to reach the magic number of 15% in the polls when one is systematically excluded from debates and public events. This is the revolving rigged system that Black people know so well. “When the police came to escort her off the stage neither candidate provided a meaningful protest of the anti-democratic process unfolding.” When the rigged debate started, audience members called for Dr. Flowers to join Van Hollen and Szeliga. Shouts of “let her speak” could be heard from the audience. Responding to the audience, Dr. Flowers took her place on the stage shaking hands with both candidates. Standing on the stage, she turned her attention to the audience and said: “I think it’s important for voters to understand the differences between myself and Congressman Van Hollen and Delegate Szeliga.” With the police moving on stage to remove her, she said, …”I mean, you say you’re a public university and you want to educate the public, but without having a full public discussion, that doesn't actually happen.” While Van Hollen and Szeliga seemed to agree with Dr. Flowers participating in the debate, when the police came to escort her off the stage neither candidate provided a meaningful protest of the anti-democratic process unfolding. Delegate Szeliga noted that a third podium was available but both politicians remained silent while Dr. Flowers was forced to leave the stage. This was their “Rosa Parks” moment when they could have stood for integrity and democracy but Van Hollen and Szeliga, failed to show the smallest amount of courage, leadership and commitment to anything greater than their individual ambitions and desire for power. Margaret was escorted by police to a sidewalk outside the debate hall and that symbolically represents the state of US democracy. After church on Sunday, a sister said to me, “I know a lot of Black folks are going to vote for Hilary Clinton but I can’t vote for the lesser of two evils. I’ve decided to vote for Jill Stein. I’m going to vote my conscience!” My only response after agreeing with her analysis was to add, “Don’t forget to also vote for Margaret Flowers.“ Dr. Margaret Flowers of Green Party Interrupts Maryland Senate Televised Debate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ix98YXLWUJg Margaret Flowers Campaign Information: http://www.flowersforsenate.org Dr. Marsha Adebayo is the author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated: No FEAR: A Whistleblowers Triumph over Corruption and Retaliation at the EPA . She worked at the EPA for 18 years and blew the whistle on a US multinational corporation that endangered South African vanadium mine workers. Marsha's successful lawsuit led to the introduction and passage of the first civil rights and whistleblower law of the 21st century: the Notification of Federal Employees Anti-discrimination and Retaliation Act of 2002 (No FEAR Act). She is Director of Transparency and Accountability for the Green Shadow Cabinet and serves on the Advisory Board of ExposeFacts.com.

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday congratulated Donald Trump on winning the U.S. presidency and stressed the close friendship and ties between the two nations. Trudeau said in a statement that he looked forward to working very closely with Trump and his administration on trade, investment, international peace and security.

President Obama wants to accelerate by two years plans to acquire a new icebreaker and will ask Congress for money to build additional ones for the Coast Guard, in an effort to keep up with ship traffic that is increasing as the Arctic waters off Alaska grow warmer. The president also said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Coast Guard will map and chart waters of the Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort seas, for which existing maps and charts are nonexistent or outdated. The moves are nods toward Alaskan leaders — including Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan — who have been urging the administration to bolster the paltry ability of the Coast Guard to monitor the largest state’s 6,640-mile coastline. The announcement late Monday night was an acknowledgment that the United States has fallen behind other nations, especially Russia, which possesses 40 icebreakers and has plans to add at least 11 more. The White House said that after World War II, the United States had seven icebreakers in its fleet — four under the Navy and three under the Coast Guard. Today, the United States has only two fully functional icebreakers, and just one is a heavy-duty icebreaker. The acquisition of a new icebreaker would happen in 2020 instead of 2022. The announcements Monday night — after the president’s speech to senior ministers from Arctic nations — were also an acknowledgment that climate change is prompting a scramble for the rights to develop the Arctic’s largely untapped reserves of oil, natural gas and minerals. In 2014, the first unescorted commercial vessel to transit the Northwest Passage delivered to China a cargo of nickel ore mined in the Arctic off northern Quebec. Even if the United States does not permit large-scale mining or exploration in Alaska, the state’s shores could be threatened by spills, leaks or other accidents from the activities of other nations. “The growth of human activity in the Arctic region will require highly engaged stewardship to maintain the open seas necessary for global commerce and scientific research, allow for search and rescue activities, and provide for regional peace and stability,” the White House said in a statement. “Accordingly, meeting these challenges requires the United States to develop and maintain capacity for year-round access to greater expanses within polar regions.” Alaska’s leaders said Obama’s announcement will have to be judged by the amount of funding the president can line up. Murkowski said the $4 million in last year’s federal budget “doesn’t even buy you a porthole.” The current budget includes $8 million, she said. “Do we need icebreakers? Yes. Did we need them yesterday? Yes,” Murkowski said. The state of Alaska has a long wish list for the Obama administration. Sullivan, a freshman senator, said he has been pressing the Pentagon not to go ahead with a proposal to cut one of two 5,000-member Arctic combat brigades. Sullivan also wants federal agencies to speed up permit approvals for a much-discussed pipeline for natural gas, which can be liquefied and shipped to China or Japan. Some Alaskan lawmakers are seeking broadband access in small villages across the state. And Gov. Bill Walker, a longtime Republican who won election as an independent, has told Obama that four communities need to escape coastal hardships intensified by climate change. [Obama can rename Mount McKinley Denali — but he can’t stop its loss of ice] On Tuesday, Obama visited the Exit Glacier, which has receded 1.25 miles since 1815 — 187 feet last year alone. “This is as good of a signpost of what we’re dealing with it comes to climate change as just about anything,” the president said. Standing in front of a gravelly creek bed, he said that when glaciers melt, the water runs to the ocean and raises sea levels, altering the surrounding flora and fauna. “It is spectacular, though,” he said. “We want to make sure that our grandkids can see this.” He said his hike “beats being in the office.” Obama’s announcement about the icebreakers Monday night came after he finished an impassioned appeal to top officials from Arctic nations to do more about climate change. In his speech, he talked about a cycle of warming temperatures, melting permafrost and wildfires as a negative feedback loop, and he tried to infuse the audience with a sense of urgency. “The point is that climate change is no longer some far-off problem. It is happening here. It is happening now,” he said. “Our understanding of climate change advances each day,” he added. “The science is stark. It is sharpening. It proves that this once-distant threat is now very much in the present.” Obama did not, however, put forward any major new plans on the climate front, whether for Alaska or for world leaders. That disappointed Murkowski. “What do we do, and how do we do so in a way that would make a difference for the people of Alaska?” she asked after the speech. “What specifics do you have? We didn’t hear that. We just heard a call to action.” But it was a rousing call to action. Obama took aim at those who doubt that humans are spurring climate change, saying that they are “on their own shrinking island.” He also said people overestimate the damage that mitigation measures would do to their economies. “The notion is somehow this will curb our economic growth. And at a time when people are anxious about the economy, that’s an argument oftentimes for inaction,” he said. “The irony, of course . . . is that few things will disrupt our lives as profoundly as climate change. Few things can have as negative an impact on our economy as climate change.” He painted the future as grim if nations fail to moderate the climate trends. Among the results, he said: “Submerged countries. Abandoned cities. Fields no longer growing. . . . Desperate refugees seeking the sanctuary of nations not their own.” The president warned, “We will condemn our children to a planet beyond their capacity to repair.”

DETROIT/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican Donald Trump sought to regain momentum for his White House campaign on Monday by proposing sweeping tax breaks, cuts to federal regulations and a revival of the stalled Keystone XL oil pipeline project. The New York businessman used a speech on the economy in Detroit to try to turn the page after a week of missteps in which he came under heavy criticism, including from some in his own party, and rival Democrat Hillary Clinton surged ahead in opinion polls three months ahead of the Nov. 8 election. “I want to jump-start America,” Trump said, “and it won’t even be that hard.” Trump stuck to prepared remarks rather than the freewheeling style that often produces controversial comments at rallies. He kept his cool as some 14 protesters jumped to their feet and shouted at coordinated intervals as he spoke at the Detroit Economic Club. Trump’s remarks, which were repeatedly cheered by the crowd, appeared targeted at both an affluent business community and working people, in particular those who have suffered from a decline in U.S. manufacturing in cities such as Detroit. He dismissed Clinton as representing “the tired voices of the past.” “We now begin a great national conversation about economic renewal for America,” Trump said. “It’s a conversation about how to make America great again for everyone ... especially for those who have the very least.” Much of the speech reflected Republican talking points and critics said his proposals lacked detail. But Republican operatives and others who saw the speech praised Trump for turning his focus to policy and contrasting his ideas with Clinton’s. The question for Trump now is whether he will be able to keep his campaign on message as Republicans want him to do. Trump pitched a tax plan that mirrored traditional Republican thinking that lowering taxes and slashing regulation generates economic growth and jobs. He proposed lowering individual and corporate rates and a discounted 10 percent levy for businesses that bring back profits held overseas. Trump’s plan to create new tax deductions for childcare costs raised questions from economists about whether lower-income families would benefit. Many Republicans remain frustrated with his trade vision, which bucks party orthodoxy by calling for a rewrite of major agreements. “My response is good, bad and ugly,” said Lanhee Chen, who was policy director for the 2012 presidential campaign of Republican Mitt Romney. “I think the trade position remains pretty ugly,” he said. “But I understand why they did it. I think it’s a strong effort, at least, to meld elements of conservative economic policy with Trump’s more populist thinking.” Trump’s effort to shift focus came after what was widely seen as the worst week of his campaign, in which he sparred with party leaders and got entangled in a dispute with the parents of a Muslim U.S. soldier who was killed in the Iraq war. Republican Senator Susan Collins added her name on Monday to a growing list of Republican lawmakers who say they will not vote for Trump. Some frustrated Republicans plan to back a conservative alternative, former CIA officer Evan McMullin. On Monday, Trump waited for the frequent disruptions by protesters to end, smiling and refraining from his practice at campaign rallies of asking security to “get them out of here.” A group called the Michigan People’s Campaign took credit for the protests, which they said were aimed at Trump’s recent comments about sexual harassment. Clinton will outline her economic vision in Michigan on Thursday. In a statement issued before Trump’s speech, her campaign said his plan would give tax breaks to the wealthy and big companies and would hurt working families. At a rally on Monday in St. Petersburg, Florida, she derided a list of economic advisers Trump released last week as “six guys named Steve.” “Now, they tried to make his old, tired ideas sound new,” Clinton said. “He wants to basically just repackage trickle-down economics.” Trump’s rough week took its toll in opinion polls. A Washington Post-ABC News poll released on Sunday gave Clinton an eight-point lead, 50 percent to 42 percent. Trump, a real estate developer who has never held elected public office, touts his practical experience and potential to create jobs, blaming President Barack Obama for what he calls a weak recovery from the economic recession. On Monday, he said Clinton would rely on policies that have not worked. “She is the candidate of the past,” Trump said. “Ours is the campaign of the future.” Reaction from the crowd in Detroit was mixed. “I think he laid out a good bullet point on how he’s going to solve the economic problems with his trade policies,” said insurance executive Sal Giammursta. Others wanted more details. “People were looking for more substance,” said lawyer Al Rogalski. Trump called for a temporary moratorium on new regulations and repeated his pledges to rewrite the landmark North American trade deal that President Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton’s husband, signed in 1994, and to withdraw from the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership deal backed by Obama. But much of the reaction was to Trump’s tax plan. He again proposed lowering the corporate tax rate to 15 percent from the current 35 percent. And he proposed lowering income-based individual tax brackets to 12 percent, 25 percent and 33 percent. In 2015, Trump proposed a lower top rate of 25 percent. After criticism from budget experts who said such low rates would balloon deficits, he tweaked his proposal to be more in line with policies supported by Republicans in Congress. “It’s encouraging that Donald Trump appears to be modifying his tax plan,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the anti-debt Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The research group Tax Policy Center estimated in December that Trump’s original plan would reduce federal tax revenues by $9.5 trillion in the first decade. Steve Moore, an adviser to Trump, said the campaign believes it has made changes to bring the plan’s cost down to $2 trillion to $3 trillion. A campaign aide said Trump would give more detail in a later speech.

BEIJING (Reuters) - The former Communist Party boss of one of China s most important cities, the southwestern megalopolis of Chongqing, has been expelled from the party and will be prosecuted for corruption, state news agency Xinhua said on Friday. Sun Zhengcai, a senior official once considered a contender for top leadership, had been party chief of the city until an abrupt announcement in July that he had been replaced by a rising political star close to President Xi Jinping. He was put under investigation later in July.

Next Prev Swipe left/right The Harrod’s website has some hilariously posh titles in their [Mr/Ms] drop down box Our attention was drawn to the Harrod’s website where you can select your title from a huge drop down . Lah de bleedin’ dah – not just your average Mr & Mrs but Baron, Count and His Royal Highness too! Here’s all 41 of them Baron

(Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Thursday temporarily blocked the deportation of about 100 Iraqi nationals rounded up in Michigan in recent weeks who argued that they could face persecution or torture in Iraq because they are religious minorities. U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith in Michigan issued an order staying the deportation of the Iraqis for at least two weeks as he decides whether he has jurisdiction over the matter. Goldsmith said it was unclear whether the Iraqis would ultimately succeed. The arrests shocked the close-knit Iraqi community in Michigan. Six Michigan lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives urged the government to hold off on the removals until Congress can be given assurances about the deportees’ safety. The Michigan arrests were part of a coordinated sweep in recent weeks by immigration authorities who detained about 199 Iraqi immigrants around the country. They had final deportation orders and convictions for serious crimes. The roundup followed Iraq’s agreement to accept deportees as part of a deal that removed the country from President Donald Trump’s revised temporary travel ban. Some of those affected came to the United States as children and committed their crimes decades ago, but they had been allowed to stay because Iraq previously declined to issue travel documents for them. That changed after the two governments came to the agreement in March. A U.S. Department of Justice spokeswoman could not immediately be reached for comment on the ruling. Lee Gelernt, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union representing the Iraqis in Michigan, said: “The court’s action today was legally correct and may very well have saved numerous people from abuse and possible death.” The U.S. government has argued that the district court does not have jurisdiction over the case. Only immigration courts can decide deportation issues, which can then only be reviewed by an appeals court, it said. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has said that people with convictions for murder, rape, assault, kidnapping, burglary and drugs and weapons charges were among the Iraqis arrested nationwide. The ACLU argued that many of those affected in Michigan are Chaldean Catholics who are “widely recognized as targets of brutal persecution in Iraq.” Some Kurdish Iraqis were also picked up in Nashville, Tennessee. In a letter on Thursday, Tennessee Representative Jim Cooper, a Democrat, asked the Iraqi ambassador whether Iraq would be able to ensure safe passage for them if they were returned.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republican Senator Lamar Alexander said Tuesday that he would again consult with Democratic colleague Patty Murray on a bipartisan deal to repair Obamacare - a week after pulling out of those talks. Alexander, in a statement, said he would seek “consensus on a limited bipartisan plan that could be enacted into law to help lower premiums and make insurance available to the 18 million Americans in the individual market in 2018 and 2019.” Alexander and Murray had been working to protect payments made to insurers to compensate for discounts to low-income Americans enrolled in Obamacare. Alexander pulled out of the talks a week ago as a Republican bill to repeal Obamacare gained momentum, but support for that bill has now collapsed.

21st Century Wire says 21WIRE has always pointed out that the marketing facade of Barack Obama as the Nobel Peace Prize President is just that a facade. The facts simply do not support the myth. Defense OneThe Obama administration has approved more than $278 billion in foreign arms sales in its eight years, more than double the total of the previous administration, according to figures released by the Pentagon on Tuesday.Many of the approved deals most but hardly all of which have become actual sales have been to Mideast nations, including key allies in the campaign against Islamic State militants and countries that have been building up their defenses in fear of a nuclear Iran.Saudi Arabia has been the largest recipient, reaping prospective deals worth more than $115 billion, according to notices announcing the deals that were sent to Congress for approval. Nobody even comes close for the number of deals and total value, said William Hartung, director of the Arms Security Project at the Center for International Policy. Among the weapons approved for Riyadh: F-15 fighter jets, Apache attack helicopters, Blackhawk utility helicopters, missile interceptors, armored vehicles and bombs and missiles Continue this story at Defense OneREAD MORE OBAMA NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Obama FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV

The Inauguration was a beautiful day full of great images BUT the images of the hate coming from anti-Trump protesters will shake you. Inaugural ball attendees were spat upon and had water thrown at them. The people trying to just walk from one area to the next were assaulted. Bar patrons were even taunted with images of an ISIS beheading from a phone video. Sick! Is this what the Democrats represent? Anarchy and chaos rules the day for the lefty lunatics. One woman even tried to light another woman s hair on fire DC police are now asking for anyone to ID her so they can arrest her. Luckily, a man in the video was seen putting the fire out. Please watch the video below and hopefully someone will come forward: