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Today, the Presidential Inaugural Committee (PIC) released the schedule of official events for the 58th Presidential Inauguration. The official portion of the inaugural will begin with the President-elect and Vice President-elect laying a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery, continue with a welcome concert on Thursday, January 19th, and end with the National Prayer Service on Saturday, January 21st. The inaugural will carry the message of President-elect Trump s historic campaign, Make America Great Again! President-elect Trump is committed to unifying our country as we once again celebrate the foundation of our American system and the peaceful transfer of power, said PIC Chairman Tom Barrack. The 2017 inaugural celebrations will reflect President-elect Trump s eagerness to get to work in order to make our country safer and stronger. The Committee also released an extensive schedule of inaugural events to be held over a five day span starting Tuesday, including several dinners honoring the President-elect, Vice-President-elect, and cabinet secretaries, a concert celebrating the American people, the swearing-in, the inaugural parade, two inaugural balls and a ball saluting our armed forces and first responders.Many of the ticketed events will be available to the general public, and information can be found at the PIC website at www.58pic2017.org for those interested in obtaining tickets. Media credentialing information for inaugural events is available at https://www.58pic2017.org/press.Wreath Laying Ceremony Arlington National CemeteryMake America Great Again! Welcome Celebration Lincoln Memorial Ticket required for special viewing areas. No ticket required for general public viewing areas.Inaugural Swearing-in Ceremony US CapitolInaugural Parade Pennsylvania Avenue Ticket required for special viewing areas. No ticket required for general public viewing areas.Inaugural Balls Ticket required limited availability.National Prayer Service Washington National Cathedral | 0 |
TALLINN (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday European Union leaders agreed during a summit dinner that they should push ahead more quickly with reforms of the bloc. Macron used the dinner in Tallinn to expound a vision of faster, deeper EU integration which he laid out in a speech on Tuesday. He told reporters the meeting had been fruitful . Last night s discussions showed there s a common realization of a need for a leap forward in Europe, he said. Today we re all convinced Europe must move ahead faster and stronger, for more sovereignty, more unity and more democracy. | 0 |
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DETROIT — There are many reasons for the steady success of the three major American automakers in recent years, but none are bigger than the surging sales of pickup trucks. General Motors, Ford Motor and Fiat Chrysler dominate the segment in the United States market, and they rely on pickups for a sizable portion of their earnings in North America as a whole. But President Trump’s proposed border tax on imported vehicles could throw a wrench in the profit machine, particularly for G. M. and Fiat Chrysler, which build a large percentage of their pickups in Mexico. At the same time, Ford — which makes all of its pickups in American factories — would most likely benefit at the expense of its rivals. The Trump administration has pledged to levy tariffs of up to 35 percent on vehicles imported from Mexico and possibly elsewhere, primarily to prod automakers to increase production and jobs in the United States. In response, all three of the Detroit companies have announced plans for new investments in their American operations. Ford went a step further by canceling plans to build a $1. 6 billion plant in Mexico that had been criticized repeatedly by Mr. Trump. Yet the possibility of tariffs on trucks overshadows the so far between a new president determined to expand the American economy and automakers that count on pickups as a huge source of income. “There is an awful lot at stake with a border tax on trucks,” said Michelle Krebs, an analyst with Autotrader. com, a site. “These are the cash cows for Detroit. ” Pickup sales have been an important component of the consistent growth of the American auto market, which last year set a record with nearly 17. 5 million vehicles sold. The combination of low gas prices and a need by businesses to replace older trucks has stimulated demand, especially for pickups, more than 90 percent of which are made by the three Detroit companies. In January, the three vehicles in the nation were pickups: the Ford G. M.’s Chevrolet Silverado, and Fiat Chrysler’s Ram model. The companies earn an estimated $8, 000 to $10, 000 in profit on each truck sold — compared with $3, 000 on a passenger car — so Detroit’s financial fortunes inevitably rise and fall on the success of their truck products. Yet for G. M. and Fiat Chrysler, much of that success is dependent on truck production in Mexico, where labor costs are significantly lower than in unionized factories in the United States. Industry analysts estimate that of G. M.’s annual pickup production comes from its sprawling assembly plant in Silao, Mexico. And while Fiat Chrysler is expanding its American output of trucks, it still relies on its factory in Saltillo, Mexico, for 30 to 40 percent of its pickups, the analysts say. Ford, by contrast, makes its pickups at three plants in the United States. Automakers do not reveal profit margins on particular vehicles. But companies pay workers less than $10 an hour in Mexico, versus the top union wage of $29 in American plants. That differential makes Mexican trucks more profitable for G. M. and Fiat Chrysler than those produced in the United States. There are other costs associated with Mexican production, including shipping vehicles by rail or to American dealerships. But lower labor rates still make Mexico an attractive production option for automakers. A border tax would wipe out that cost advantage, and could prompt manufacturers to raise prices on vehicles. “Automakers could possibly eat the cost of a 5 to 10 percent tariff, but not a tax of 20 or 30 percent,” said Ron Harbour, an automotive analyst with the consulting firm Oliver Wyman. “They would probably have to pass some of that on to consumers. ” Higher prices could cool demand for pickups made by G. M. and Fiat Chrysler. The companies could also try to make up the cost of a border tax by spreading price increases across the breadth of their product lineups. While it is not uncommon to reallocate production among factories — for example, to make more trucks in American plants and shift less profitable small cars to Mexico — it is expensive and to do so. G. M. is also vulnerable to potential tariffs on imported parts for pickups made in its factories in Flint, Mich. and Fort Wayne, Ind. About 38 percent of the parts for all G. M. pickups are made in the United States and Canada, and 55 percent are produced in Mexico, according to statistics compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. About 56 percent of the parts in Fiat Chrysler’s pickups are made in the United States and Canada, and 29 percent are produced in Mexico. At Ford, about 70 percent of its pickup components are made in the United States and Canada, and 15 percent come from Mexico. For all three automakers, that mix of parts applies whether the truck is made in the United States or Mexico. It is not clear whether Mr. Trump’s vision of a border tax would apply to parts or only finished products. One industry analyst, Colin Langan of UBS Securities, singled out G. M. in a recent research report for its vulnerability to a tariff on pickups. “The border tax is a clear risk to G. M.’s pickup trucks,” Mr. Langan wrote. “The timing is also challenging as G. M. plans to retool its pickup facilities ahead of the 2018 pickup launch. ” G. M. executives declined to talk about the impact of a tariff on the company’s pickups during a conference call with analysts last week on its 2016 earnings. The company’s chief financial officer, Chuck Stevens, said it was premature to discuss the implications of a border tax. “There are a lot of moving parts,” he said. “We want to work with the administration to make sure what is best for the U. S. economy. ” G. M.’s chief executive, Mary Barra, stressed that about 80 percent of the products that the company sells in the United States are . As a member of Mr. Trump’s business advisory council, Ms. Barra said, she has outlined how difficult it is for an automaker to adjust production strategy on the fly. “I think that understanding has been well received,” she said of meeting with the president and his advisers. Other vehicles made in Mexico, such as Ford’s Fusion sedan and G. M.’s Cadillac SRX sport utility vehicle, could also be affected by a border tax. But because of their popularity and profits, pickups are the most vulnerable products. “A tariff on pickups would be a real challenge, especially for G. M.,” said Ms. Krebs of Autotrader. “Trucks are so important to their bottom line, and this is uncharted territory. ” | 0 |
Democrats staging a sit-in on the floor of Congress won t go hungry we spotted their food order on its way into the Capitol and it s pretty damn ironic. A couple carts full of Chick-fil-A food were toted in by Congressional interns. We get it protesters gotta eat, but consider this: The push for gun control legislation was prompted by Omar Mateen s heinous attack on a gay nightclub and Chick-fil-A s ownership has a long history of opposing LGBTQ rights. To be fair, the company s undergoing an image makeover, and has contributed tons of food and money to relief efforts in Orlando. Still odd choice. DC s a big city. Via: TMZWE THOUGHT A SIT IN WAS SUPPOSED TO JUST THAT A SIT IN! THIS LOOKS MORE LIKE A EAT IN OR FEAST IN! CHECK OUT ALL THE FOOD IN THE CLOAK ROOM: | 0 |
This woman s remarks exemplify the Me first and Everyone s a victim attitude we re seeing so much of today..A violinist is facing backlash for her heartless tweet following the Amtrak train derailment Tuesday. Jennifer Kim, a professional violinist and music professor, was on board Amtrak 188 when it went off the tracks in Philadelphia about 9:30 p.m., killing seven people so far and left 140 injured. After the crash, Kim sent out a tweet that caused a strong counter blast from people social media. @AmtrakNEC @Amtrak thanks a lot for derailing my train. Can I please get my violin back from the 2nd car of the train? she wrote. The vitriol sent her way was so great, she deleted her Twitter account soon after her tweet started going viral, but thanks to screenshots it will never go away. Not even if she gets her violin back.Via: BizPacReview | 0 |
If you want to watch a conservative throw a temper tantrum just mention slavery and grab your popcorn.Because when First Lady Michelle Obama talked about slavery and the great progress our country has made since the Civil War during an interview at the new Smithsonian Institution s National Museum of African American History and Culture, conservatives took to Twitter to whine.Mrs. Obama told Good Morning America host Robin Roberts about how she feels about visiting the museum, which opens this weekend. And one of the things that struck her the most is the fact that a lot of the history the museum presents happened during the lives of the three generations of her family who visited the museum that day. And she expressed astonishment at how fast progress has been made. When you think about the fact that my great-great grandfather was a slave and today I live in the White House, that progress is huge and it s fast, the First Lady said.Here s the video via Twitter.FLOTUS: My great-great grandfather was a slave and today I live in the White House. That progress is huge. https://t.co/A4RwUHYR5z pic.twitter.com/vvhgrtxoYu ABC News (@ABC) September 23, 2016But, of course, conservatives lost their shit and displayed their hatred in the comments.@ABC And the sooner that Mooch and Obummer get out of the White house and Trump gets in, the better! #TrumpPence16 #MakeAmericaGreatAgain Chantie Huffines (@LadyChantie) September 23, 2016@ABC But, you keep the narrative going that all white people, except Clintons, are racist. Deporable & watsit2u (@thumbug) September 23, 2016@ABC The country is more racist than ever since The Obamas entered the White House. They have a bitter resentment for White People Mike Van Patten (@MikeVanPatten4) September 23, 2016@ABC So why are the democrats trying to send race relations back to the sixties? Deplorable Voter (@Antone18) September 23, 2016@ABC Keep driving racial segregation down our throats, ABC. These types of post should sure give you more peaceful protest to cover. Ashton Allen (@Asherzz09) September 23, 2016@ABC MOVE OUT BIMBO Donna Coffey (@Dcoffey56Donna) September 23, 2016@ABC Lord Jesus said to do good as bondmen. John Stefanyszyn (@JohnStefanyszyn) September 23, 2016@ABC And we can thank the Republican Party for that. It certainly wasn t the Democrats. Bev Cross (@BevCross1) September 23, 2016@ABC then they managed to set us back decades by generating a racial divide n bringing anarchy among the people awesome job NOT #GOTRUMP Jane callaway (@janeewc) September 23, 2016And while it is true that the early Republican Party freed the slaves, it was at a time when Republicans were liberals and Democrats were conservatives. The two parties have flipped since then. Democrats have since become the defenders of Civil Rights who continue to fight for racial equality and social justice while Republicans pandered to white racists in the South and have become dominated by white supremacists who desperately want to roll back any and all progress African-Americans have made in this country.If Republicans have to go back 150 years to find one good thing the party did for African-Americans that s really embarrassing and says a lot about what the party has become.Featured image via Wikimedia | 0 |
The only state keeping the Republican Party viable at the national level in presidential races is the state of Texas. Texas and its 38 electoral votes help to form the backbone in any Republican quest for the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.Republicans have not lost Texas since 1976, when Jimmy Carter defeated Gerald Ford after Nixon resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal. Whether Republicans have won or lost the overall race, Texas has been blood red (Mitt Romney won by 16% there in 2012).But now with Donald Trump as the Republican nominee, suddenly the race has seriously narrowed in Texas.Donald Trump is still winning in the deep red state, but his advantage has dropped precipitously from double digits to under 5 percent in the last two weeks. The last three polls in the state show him ahead of Hillary Clinton by only 2 points in a Washington Post-SurveyMonkey poll, 3 points in a University of Houston poll and 4 points in a Survey USA/Texas Tenga poll.All of those most recent polls were conducted after the Oct. 7 release of a tape in which Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women. Polls conducted in the prior month show the GOP candidate leading by at least 12 and up to 22 points. A couple of earlier polls had signaled the race might be closer than expected, but there hasn t been consistent evidence until now.A Clinton win in Texas isn t required for there to be considered a major ground-shifting development. Even a single-digit Texas loss would be a huge step forward for Democrats there, and a shock to the system for Republicans.The growing Latino population in Texas has consistently raised Democratic hopes that the state could be tipped into their column like it has been in Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico. Democrats are also hoping for success in Arizona, where incumbent Senator John McCain recently denounced Trump for his crude comments with Billy Bush.Things are changing in the southwest, and they might change faster than anyone expected.Featured image via Flickr | 1 |
After a campaign in which he shamelessly pandered to the LGBT community, Donald Trump has betrayed them so completely that his prior rhetoric is all but unrecognizable. He is slated to speak at the Values Voters Summit on Friday, hosted by the hate group Family Research Council and their extremist president Tony Perkins, a man who believes that gays should be put to death.The speech Trump gave at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July 2016 came just one month after the deadly shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando Florida. That hate crime, sometimes referred to as a terrorist attack based on the religion of the perpetrator, claimed the lives of 49 mostly Latino gay club-goers and wounded 58 more. It was the first time Facebook s Safety Check feature was ever used inside the United States, with users marking themselves as safe to let family and friends know they were okay.Although witnesses at Pulse said they remembered the attacker being a patron of the bar perhaps a jilted lover, even Trump took the opportunity in that Cleveland speech to make a vow to his LGBT voters: As your president, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology. And what did those voters look like?Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesThey looked like kids who believed him.The man who became the first Republican to even mention the LGBT crowd at a national convention went on to reverse himself in every way possible.He had already said earlier that year that transgender people should use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate. At a Colorado rally in October, Trump waved a rainbow flag with the phrase LGBTs For Trump scrawled across the middle.But all of his promises, all of his platitudes, were meaningless.He unilaterally made the decision to expel transgender soldiers from the military, then lied about it, saying that he had consulted with military leaders about the issue. He revoked Obama-era bathroom guidelines that favored the community in public schools. He went so far as to remove the entire section on LGBTQ rights from the official White House website.Now that Trump s Justice Department, under the bigoted tutelage of notoriously anti-gay asshole Jeff Sessions, has asserted that it is legal to actually discriminate against transgender employees, you d think that Donald Trump would make sure the statement on the White House site in which he vowed to uphold protections for them would be taken down out of shame, or at least consistency. He can t be bothered.So what does it mean that Trump is the very first president to speak at the Values Voters Summit? It means that his hypocrisy has come full circle. It means that his lies are all finally exposed. It means that he is shameless enough to not only adopt religion in order to solidify his base, but to pander to even the extremist wing of that religion, even if they openly advocate for the persecution of the community Donald Trump once promised to protect.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 0 |
KABUL, Afghanistan — A suicide bomber struck a crowded gathering of Shiite Muslims in the Afghan capital on Monday, officials said, killing at least 30 people in the latest assault against religious minorities here to be claimed by militants loyal to the Islamic State. The suicide bomber detonated his explosives just as hundreds of worshipers had packed into the Baqir mosque, in western Kabul. They were commemorating Arbaeen, a Shiite observance of loss and grief that comes 40 days after Ashura, when a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad was martyred. The Islamic State had claimed an attack during that holiday as well, bombing another Shiite shrine in Kabul on the eve of Ashura, and killing at least 14. Sediq Sediqqi, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said that at least 30 people had been killed and at least 40 wounded. The blast was so powerful that the windows from all three floors of the mosque were blown away. The walls looked as if they had been hosed with blood. Human remains, shoes, bloodied copies of the Quran and broken prayer beads were scattered around the hall. The large pots of rice cooking in the yard to feed about 700 people after the event remained unopened. Salman Firuzi, one of the worshipers present at the mosque during the blast, said about 500 men were on the ground floor, where the bomber detonated his explosives, and a similar number of women were on the second floor. “We were offering the final prayer when we heard a big bang and saw a big flame,” said Mr. Firuzi, his clothes soaked with the blood of the bodies he had helped load into cars. “We personally transferred some 20 dead bodies to private vehicles that we had take them to hospital. ” Hours after a Taliban spokesman denied responsibility for the attack, the Islamic State issued a statement by its central Amaq news agency saying that the group’s affiliates in Afghanistan had been responsible for the assault. This was the third major attack against Shiites that the terrorist group had carried out in Kabul in the past three months, and the frequency of the assaults has many worried that the government is unable to protect vulnerable groups. That concern, and the outrage by minorities who say the government and its American allies are not doing enough, has further stoked sectarian and factional tensions that are roiling Afghanistan. The deadliest of the attacks claimed by the Islamic State targeted a protest by the Hazaras, who are mostly Shiite, in July, leaving at least 80 people dead. “This appalling attack on worshipers is an atrocity,” said Pernille Kardel, the United Nations secretary general’s deputy special representative for Afghanistan. She expressed “revulsion at this latest effort by extremists to stoke sectarian violence in Afghanistan. ” The Islamic State’s ability to strike the capital city with regularity has punctured the Afghan government’s assurances that the extremist group has been contained to small pockets in the east of the country. Since early 2015, the group has gained a foothold across several districts in Nangarhar Province, where it has wrecked havoc. Estimates for the number of Islamic State fighters in Nangarhar have ranged from 1, 500 to 4, 000, most of them former members of the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban. The Afghan government has maintained pressure on the group’s havens, allocating both ground and air resources, and backed up by American airstrikes. American military advisers have also been deployed to help, and have been killed in the fighting. But in recent months, officials have admitted that their operations have not rooted out the threat, with the Islamic State simply relocating to another district when pressed in one. Still, some officials have expressed doubt that the group of Islamic State fighters in Nangarhar was behind the latest urban attacks. One senior Afghan security official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence, said there was some doubt about whether the pocket of Islamic fighters in the east had the capacity or the networks to pull off such terrorist attacks. Shahgul Razaee, a member of the Afghan Parliament, said that the recent attacks in Kabul targeting Shiites “are a part of a systematic killing of a specific ethnic and religious group,” and that the government had proved unable to do anything about it. “What the government is doing by being careless is that it is leading people to ethnic divisions,” Ms. Razaee said. “It will increase the distance between the government and the people, and some people will think that the government belongs to a specific group and not all of the people. ” | 0 |
While speaking in front of United States servicemembers at a recent USO event with both President Obama and Vice President Biden, David Letterman made a joke that many of us would really like to be a reality. He played off his age and said that his mind seemed to be playing tricks on him. He claimed that by listening to the two men speak, he thought the president and vice president were running for a third term.Letterman told the USO crowd: I don t know, sometimes the mind plays tricks on a person, especially when you get to be my age. I was listening to the president speak. I was listening to the vice president speak. And, for a split second, my mind said to me, oh, that s nice, they re running again.' Which at first was received by laughter, and then uproarious applause and cheers.And while it s true that President Obama cannot run for a third term, if he could, he would likely win. History will be very kind to Obama as all of his accomplishments make him one of the greatest leaders in the history of the republic.Watch the clip here: USO Crowd Roars As David Letterman Jokes About by DailyPoliticsFeatured image via video screen capture | 1 |
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I was shot by militarized police WHILE interviewing a man on camera at #StandingRock …and here’s the footage. #NoDAPL https://t.co/FfWiSCbiKf pic.twitter.com/4DRwNPkfZ9
— Erin Schrode (@ErinSchrode) November 3, 2016
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doctors in training will now be permitted to work shifts lasting as long as 24 hours, eight hours longer than the current limit, according to a professional organization that sets work rules for graduates from medical schools in the United States. In setting the new standard, which goes into effect on July 1, officials at the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education said on Friday that they hoped to avoid confusion and disruptions in care that can result when a patient is handed off to one doctor from another whose shift is ending. The rules do not change for residents after the first year, who have been permitted to work shifts if necessary. The new rules also leave in place a requirement that all residents work no more than 80 hours a week. But the new guidelines roused the ire of critics who say that exhausted and inexperienced residents will be working too many hours to remain alert and focus on the critical decisions they make. The issue has been a focus of controversy for at least 30 years, after a patient named Libby Zion died under the care of residents in a New York hospital. “We know people can have impaired motor skills and their memory can deteriorate,” said Dr. Michael A. Carome, director of health research at Public Citizen, an advocacy group. Accreditation officials said they once believed as much, too, and had tried to protect students from working too many hours. In 2011, the council required that residents, unlike more experienced residents, work no longer than 16 hours in one stretch. The hope was that shorter shifts would improve patient care. Those hopes, the group wrote in a new report, “have not been realized. ” Instead, the council said, patient care was disrupted when residents’ shifts ended after 16 hours. residents do not have to work for 24 hours straight — their shifts can be shorter — but if needed they may be asked or may choose to continue to work for that length of time. Whether a longer shift can be better for patients, and for the training of young doctors, has been rigorously studied in two randomized trials, the accrediting council noted — one involving surgeons in training, and the other involving specialists in internal medicine. The study involving internal medicine residents is still underway, but the study of surgical residents, published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that shorter shifts had no effect on patient care. Continuity of care was also better with the longer shifts. Surgical residents in the study reported that they “strongly prefer” the option to work longer shifts, the council said. The task force held a meeting last year, about the time the randomized study was published, in which representatives of medical organizations told them what, if anything, they would like to change about the rules for residents. “Everyone agreed that the maximum was appropriate, but we heard from a large number of organizations that 16 hours was not successful,” said Dr. Rowen K. Zetterman, of the task force, referring to the maximum shifts for doctors. Such shifts have “had a significant negative impact on the professional education of the residents, and effectiveness of care delivery of the team as a whole,” the council wrote in its report, which also said that residents’ physical and mental health should be monitored carefully, as well. Dr. Anai Kothari, a surgical resident at Loyola University Medical Center who served on the task force, said he had had a maximum shift when he was a student, and much preferred the maximum for residents in subsequent years. “Most people want to be there for the patient if the patient needs them,” he said. No one, Dr. Kothari added, wants to leave in the middle of an operation. Dr. Stephen Evans, past chairman of the American Board of Surgery and chief medical officer for MedStar Health, a hospital system in the Washington area, also favored giving residents the option to work a longer shift. “If you are a pediatric resident taking care of a critically ill patient, and the child dies, do you just walk away from the family because the 16 hours are up?” he asked. Dr. Carome, however, said that if the problem is the handoff from a doctor whose shift is ending, then it is the procedure that needs fixing, not residents’ shifts and sleep. | 0 |
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Macau s mostly pro-democracy opposition made slight gains in legislative elections, as critics saw signs of public dissatisfaction with the pro-Beijing government after a deadly typhoon battered the Asian gambling hub a month ago. Results of Sunday s vote announced on Monday showed the opposition camp won five seats in the 33-seat legislative assembly, one more than at the last election four years ago, according to local media reports. Macau s political landscape has long been dominated by pro-establishment, pro-Beijing and casino industry interests, and critics viewed any improvement by the opposition as an achievement. Only 14 of the legislative seats were directly elected, a far lower proportion than in neighboring Hong Kong, also a China-ruled former colony, that has pushed much harder and wrested greater democratic freedoms than Macau, which returned from Portuguese to Chinese rule in 1999. Twelve other seats are indirectly elected in smaller constituencies, while another seven are appointed by Macau s Beijing-backed leader, Fernando Chui, making chances of opposition ever gaining a majority all but impossible. Among the winners was 26-year-old pro-democracy activist and outspoken government critic, Sulu Sou, who becomes the youngest ever Macau lawmaker. Sou was one of the young leaders that helped spearhead one of Macau s largest anti-government protests three years ago, when around 20,000 people rallied against a bill offering a generous compensation package to outgoing officials. Macau s leader, Chui, later withdrew it. In the past four years, people in Macau went through different battles, large and small, Sou wrote on his Facebook page after his victory. Today, people in Macau are using their votes to express their determination for change. Sou couldn t be immediately reached by Reuters for comment. Unlike neighboring Hong Kong, large-scale protests are rare and grassroot dissent is relatively muted in Macau, a former Portuguese colony which returned to Chinese rule in 1999 under a one country, two systems arrangement. The election took place less than a month after Typhoon Hato wrought havoc in Macau, killing ten people. The government s failure to warn people of the devastating storm, a lack of preparedness, along with widespread and protracted cuts to power and water supplies drew public anger and exposed Macau s inadequate infrastructure. While the opposition s gain was marginal, critics said the high 57 percent turnout rate and Sou s win should be a wake-up call for the government. It s an ideal result ... The people came out in greater numbers to support the opposition, Au Kam-sang, a veteran pro-democracy lawmaker who was re-elected, told Reuters. It reflects the incompetence of the Macau government and the aftermath of typhoon Hato, Au added. (This story corrects second paragraph to say previous election was four years ago, not five) | 1 |
By now, everyone is aware of how Donald Trump s openly white supremacist campaign and subsequent presidency has mainstreamed the most extreme of the fringe right-wing. Despite this fact, though, these people are hardly popular. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that as these freaks are holding what is sure to be one of their biggest rallies in a really long time likely more than ten years , they are desperate to make sure it s a hit. How are they planning to do this? By making it, quote, sexy. In bigoted alt-right language, though, that simply means, no fat people allowed. One of the organizers of the white supremacist Unite the Right rally that is to take place in Charlottesville, Virginia, Andrew Anglin, is the piece of sh*t who runs the white supremacist internet hole The Daily Stormer. He said, via a blog post, that he expects his fellow neo-Nazis to be sexy, and that they have to go to the gym. Anglin goes on to sternly warn against baggy clothes and other typical fat attire: The worst look ever is a baggy T-shirt. Wear fitted T-shirts, where the sleeve goes to the middle of your bicep. It should not hang lower than base of your member. Anglin then models an outfit in some sort of store mirror, with the following description of how his members should present themselves: Jean [sic] should also be fitted. Not tight, just fitted. In the photo those are actually shorts I would not wear pants that loose-fitting. And that s another thing: don t ever wear shorts. Serious men in serious situations are not wearing shorts.Americans have an obsession with this baggy stuff, and it always looks bad. No matter what, it looks bad. Even if everyone else is doing it. And in case his readers didn t get it the first couple of times, Anglin then goes all in, saying:Fat people should be allowed to join groups and be involved in rallies, but we need to create a culture where we don t necessarily shame people, but do look at them and expect them to get it together. We should help people get it together. I m working on my biggest diet guide ever, which I think will help the overweight and skinny alike, even if they ve minimal time for exercise.Continued obesity should not be tolerated.Surely, a lot of our target demographic is going to be out of shape, which is why we need a culture of fitness. People should go to the gym together. Help each other with diet.Do not look scraggly. I won t tell you how to cut your hair, but I do believe men s hair looks better short, and beards look better well-trimmed.On top of this, Anglin reveals himself to be extremely misogynistic, and insists that women be shunted to the side. He also says that he, himself, has, quote, problems with women. He does want to be appealing to the fairer sex, though, and wants his rank and file white supremacists to be the same:Look good.It is very important to look good.We must have Chad Nationalism. That is what will make guys want to join us, that is what will make girls want to be our groupies. That will make us look like bad boys and heroes. That is what we are going for here.I cannot stress the point hard enough I m hitting italics again we need to be extremely conscious of what we look like, and how we present ourselves. That matters more than our ideas. If that is sad to you, I m sorry, but that is just human nature. If people see a bunch of mismatched overweight slobs, they are not going to care what they are saying. Of course, Anglin and his disgusting cohorts will use the promise of hot women as a way to drag people into their despicable ideology.This is all an obvious and explicit message of , no fatties allowed, you make us look bad. Then again, it makes sense. People like Anglin and another prominent alt-right leader, Richard Spencer, are trying to rebrand the extreme, bigoted right. they cannot do that if they associate themselves with uneducated, fat, toothless, trailer park dwellers who most people think of when they think of the racist right.It doesn t make it right, and all of what they are doing and what they are about is as wrong as it comes. However, it seems that for a so-called movement that is still very unpopular and disgraceful even in many GOP circles, they d be trying to get all the numbers they can, no matter what the people attending look like.Then again, these people are white supremacists, and there is nothing rational about them or anything they do.Featured image via Facebook | 1 |
KIRKUK, Iraq (Reuters) - Two suicide bombers killed at least five people and wounded more than 20 in an attack on a Shi ite mosque in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Sunday, police and medical sources said. It was the first such attack since the central Iraqi government in Baghdad seized Kirkuk last month from Kurdish forces that had controlled the oil city of a million people for three years. Acting Kirkuk governor Rakan Saeed appealed to Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi after a meeting of the provincial security panel to send more troops to secure the city. Deployed forces from police and Counter Terrorism Service are not enough to cover all areas of Kirkuk. We need to double the troops, he said in a statement after chairing the meeting. The interior ministry confirmed the attacks on a mosque on Atlas Street in the center of Kirkuk and gave an initial casualty toll of one dead and 16 wounded. The central government in Baghdad recaptured the city in October along with other territory in northern Iraq claimed by both Baghdad and the Kurds following an offensive launched in retaliation for the Kurdish independence referendum. Iraqi security forces forced the Kurdish Peshmerga to withdraw from Kirkuk and their retreat also allowed Baghdad to take control of all the oilfields operated by the state-owned North Oil Company in Kirkuk s northern province. No group has claimed responsibility for Sunday s attacks but the suicide bombings are a trademark of Islamic State militants. Police sources said the attacks happened in quick succession and the death toll might rise because some of the wounded were in a critical condition. It s a crowded street and a place for street vendors. The terrorists wanted to kill a large number of people, said a police major in Kirkuk. In a separate incident, unknown gunmen opened fire with light weapons on a police patrol in eastern Kirkuk, without causing any casualties, police sources said. Iraqi security officials have said Islamic State is likely to wage an insurgency in Iraq after its self-proclaimed caliphate all but collapsed and the militants were dislodged from large areas of the west and north of the country. Iraqi security forces have recaptured nearly all the territories once controlled by Islamic State. Fighting is ongoing in the border areas with Syria where militants are entrenched in the small town of Rawa and nearby areas. | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Deeply divided Republicans squeezed their U.S. healthcare overhaul, backed by President Donald Trump, through a key House of Representatives panel on Thursday despite defections by three conservatives who consider it too similar to the Obamacare law it is intended to replace. Trump’s first major legislative initiative still faces an uphill battle in the full House and later the Senate despite ongoing efforts by the White House and Republican leaders to satisfy conservative opponents. The Budget Committee vote was 19 to 17, with Republican Representatives David Brat, Gary Palmer and Mark Sanford - all members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus - joining the panel’s Democrats in voting against it. The committee brought provisions approved last week by two other panels into a single bill, helping pave the way for a later vote on the House floor. Republicans, who control Congress and the White House, could not afford to lose more than three from their ranks on the committee for it to pass. “I don’t think we are anywhere near passage,” Brat said after the vote, noting that Republican conservatives as well as moderates had problems with the bill. The 2010 Affordable Care Act, the signature legislative achievement of former President Barack Obama, enabled about 20 million previously uninsured Americans to obtain medical coverage. About half of those were through the law’s expansion of eligibility and increased funding for the Medicaid government health insurance program for the poor. The close vote illustrated the problems Republican leaders may encounter in corralling enough votes in their party to win passage on the House floor amid unified Democratic opposition. The measure now goes to the Rules Committee before reaching the House floor. The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan congressional agency, forecast on Monday that the legislation would increase the number of Americans without health insurance by 24 million by 2026, while cutting $337 billion from federal budget deficits over the same period. The bill faces opposition from leading healthcare providers, including doctors and hospitals. “We are on track and on schedule,” House Speaker Paul Ryan, who unveiled the legislation last week and is its chief champion in the House, said after the committee’s vote. He added that while the main parts of the bill “are going to stay exactly as they are,” Republicans were making unspecified “improvements and refinements.” Ryan told a news conference that Trump was “deeply involved” and “helping bridge gaps” among Republican lawmakers to get a consensus plan. Conservatives were unmoved. “There’s no natural constituency for this bill,” said Republican Representative Raul Labrador, another Freedom Caucus member. “The Left is really mad about it. The Right is really mad about it. The middle is really mad about it. And so far it just seems to be a constituency of one, which is Washington insiders, people that are just trying to get something passed so they can get to the next issue.” Trump administration officials and House Republican leaders have said they hope to get the bill to the House floor by the end of the month so it can go to the Senate before lawmakers’ mid-April recess. Conservatives want a quicker end to the Obamacare Medicaid expansion, which the bill has set for 2020, and want to add work requirements for some Medicaid recipients. They also call the age-based tax credits to help people buy insurance on the open market an unwise new entitlement. The White House said it was discussing changes with House Republican leaders. Trump told a Fox News interviewer on Wednesday that much of the bill would still be negotiated, especially as it moves from the House to the Senate. Conservative advocacy groups praised the Republicans who voted “no.” Club for Growth President David McIntosh said it makes no sense for Ryan and Budget Committee chair Diane Black to force Republicans “to walk the plank and vote for a bad bill that they’ve already admitted needs to be changed.” Black asked fellow Republicans who had doubts not to “cut off the discussion” by voting no. After approving the legislation, the panel adopted four non-binding Republican recommendations for changes before it moves to the House floor, including one by the conservative Palmer on adding work requirements for able-bodied, childless Medicaid recipients. The other recommendations called for no longer encouraging people to sign up for insurance through Medicaid, giving states more flexibility in designing Medicaid programs, and changing the bill’s tax credits to help lower-income people more. Democrats have called the Republicans’ plan a blow to the elderly and the poor while giving tax cuts to the rich. Representative John Yarmuth, the committee’s top Democrat, said the legislation was “not a healthcare bill; it is an ideological document.” He said the bill imagined a “fantasy land where young people don’t get sick, and apparently they don’t grow old either, because they don’t have to worry about being priced out of the market.” | 0 |
Philip Haney is a lone Patriot in the war on exposing Obama and his administration s connections with radical Islam. Please listen to this man and share, share, share! | 1 |
Let us be clear: Republicans in the Senate are under no obligation to interview, vote on or confirm President Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court. It does not matter that the president has nominated Judge Merrick Garland, who is widely admired as a competent jurist. It is not about the person, it is about principle – but the GOP leadership has been remarkably inept at framing what that principle is and why they are in the right.
The point is this: President Obama has caused this conflict, by diminishing the role of the legislature and assuming unprecedented power for the executive branch. He has purposefully skirted Congress for the better part of seven years, instead pushing ahead on his mostly unpopular agenda through regulations and executive orders. As a result, the Court is being asked to act as referee, ruling on the legality of Obama’s “my way or the highway” presidency. You don’t change a referee in the middle of a contest.
This isn’t about Judge Robert Bork, or the “Biden Rule” -- this is a fight about President Obama undermining the checks and balances established in the Constitution.
For instance, President Obama has tried to essentially shut down our coal industry through new EPA regulations limiting carbon emissions. These rules would create a massive dislocation to our economy, which has long benefited from cheap energy, including abundant coal. That there is a significant cost to the economy is clear; Hillary Clinton recently said “We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.” How right, and how cruelly nonchalant that statement is. As reported in the New York Times, “The plan could transform the nation’s electricity system, cutting emissions from existing power plants by a third by 2030, from a 2005 baseline, by closing hundreds of heavily polluting coal-fired plants and increasing production of wind and solar power.”
Because of the sizeable cost to the economy, lower courts have ruled against the president’s anti-coal regulatory blitz. The Supreme Court, in an unprecedented move, issued a stay requested by 29 states and numerous other groups which prevents implementation of the carbon rule while a lower court assesses its legality. In effect, the courts will rule on whether the White House is allowed to unilaterally punish one of our heritage industries and tens of thousands of workers.
Another important issue before the Supreme Court is President Obama’s executive action allowing some 6 million people living in the country illegally to be protected against deportation. This unilateral effort to rewrite our immigration laws is opposed by a majority of Americans; but, it is a politically useful policy for Democrats hoping to win Latino votes. Because of possibly harmful consequences, 26 states sued to prevent the order from taking effect.
Last fall, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of those states, upholding an earlier injunction that blocked implementation of the president’s executive order. At the time, Ken Paxton, Attorney General of Texas, which is leading the suit, said, ““Today, the Fifth Circuit asserted that the separation of powers remains the law of the land, and the president must follow the rule of law, just like everybody else.” That’s the point.
For the Republican leadership, refusing to consider Mr. Obama’s nominee is a matter of principle, and also an opportunity to reward voters for having elected a Republican Congress. Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and others have come under heavy criticism for not effectively countering President Obama’s policies. In fairness, substantial resistance from Congress led the president to go his own way, using whatever tools he could find to pursue his “legacy” agenda. Many think those tools went beyond the rightful scope of the executive branch. Now, it is up to the Supreme Court to decide.
Because the Court will weigh whether Mr. Obama has overstepped, he cannot be allowed to put his thumb on the scale by adding another sympathetic jurist. This is the message that Republican leaders need to send to voters: the president has abused his authority, and we rely on the Supreme Court to reestablish the checks and balances that prevent an imperial White House. The GOP should not be cowed by the bloviating of the New York Times; they are on the right side of this battle.
Liz Peek is a writer who contributes frequently to FoxNews.com. She is a financial columnist who also writes for The Fiscal Times. For more visit LizPeek.com. Follow her on Twitter@LizPeek. | 0 |
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In an explosive interview, Newt Gingrich became completely unhinged, verbally attacking Fox News' Megyn Kelly for referring to Trump as a sexual predator. Throughout the interview, Newt Gingrich seemed to live in an alternate state of reality. He continued to discount polls that show Trump losing badly. He refused to acknowledge that all the tossup states are moving towards Clinton.
The interview was already contentious when a couple of words from Megyn Kelly turned it explosive. (Video here .)
"You want to know why Trump has had a rough time?" Newt Gingrich asked.
"If Trump is a sexual predator," Megyn Kelly said. "That is ..." - Advertisement -
"He is not a sexual predator," Newt Gingrich shouted.
"That's your opinion," Kelly said. "I am not taking a position on it."
"You could not defend that statement," an unhinged Gingrich shouted. "Now I am sick and tired of people like you, using language that's inflammatory, that's not true."
"Excuse me Mr. Speaker," Kelly interjected. "You have no idea whether it is true or not. What we know is that at least ..."
"Neither do you," Gingrich shouted. - Advertisement -
"That's right," Kelly replied. "And I am not taking a position on it unlike you. So what I said is incorrect?"
"Yes you are," Gingrich replied. "When you use the words you took a position. And that is very unfair of you Megyn. I think that is exactly the bias people are upset by."
"I think that your defensiveness on this may speak volumes, sir," Kelly replied. "What I said is if -- no, no, no, -- let me make my point and then I will give you the floor. What I said is if Trump is a sexual predator, then it is a big story. And what we saw on that tape was Trump himself saying that he likes to grab women by the genitals and kiss them against their will. That's what we saw. Then we saw ten women come forward after he denied actually doing it at the debate to say that was untrue. 'He did it to me. He did it to me.' We saw reporters. We saw people who had worked with him; people from Apprentice and so on and so forth. He denies it all, which is his right. We don't know what the truth is. My point to you is, as a media story we don't get to say the ten women are lying. We have to cover that story, sir."
Gingrich then went into full spin mode. He attempted to characterize the media as biased for covering more about the growing Trump sexual predator scandal than Clinton speeches to banks, a false equivalency. He then unleashed his anger and abuse again. | 1 |
There were a lot of memorable moments where Donald Trump looked like a moron during the presidential debate on Monday, but one of the greatest was definitely when Hillary Clinton zinged him for being so unprepared. Her exact words were, I think Donald just criticized me for preparing for this debate. And yes, I did. And you know what else I prepared for? I prepared to be president. If one thing was completely apparent during that debate, it s that Trump didn t invest any time in debate prep. And apparently, Trump s advisers have just confirmed that. According to The New York Times, several Trump advisers have come forward to say they d tried to get him to prepare for the debate, but Trump would get too bored and start talking about other things. The Times wrote: Mr. Trump s debate preparation was unconventional. Aides have introduced a podium and encouraged him to participate in mock debates, but he has not embraced them, focusing mostly on conversations and discussions with advisers. There were early efforts to run a more standard form of general election debate-prep camp, led by Roger Ailes, the ousted Fox News chief, at Mr. Trump s golf course in Bedminster, N.J. But Mr. Trump found it hard to focus during those meetings, according to multiple people briefed on the process who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. TwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTrump had apparently been so difficult to keep on track that Ailes abandoned the whole thing and instead began discussing his own problems, as well as recounting political war stories, according to two people present for the sessions. Basically, prep became a therapy session for Ailes because Trump doesn t have the ability to focus on more important things, like getting ready to lead a country.Trump s debate performance has been disappointing for his advisers, who say they spent time giving Trump responses to the attacks Clinton might make during the face-off. They d given him several talking points and suggestions, but Trump didn t use any of it something that his advisers say hurt him tremendously.So there you have it, America. A man who wants to be President of the United States doesn t even have the attention span or interest to prepare for such a critical position. We all know how undeserving Trump is of the White House, but this news should scare you. Trump is a ticking time bomb that has no idea what he s doing and he s not going to learn.Featured image via Spencer Platt / Getty Images | 1 |
During the Democratic National Convention, the Republican Party shared a popular meme to Twitter: a comic of a dog sitting at a table with a cup of coffee. The room is on fire. This is fine. The meme, derived from a webcomic by the illustrator K. C. Green, is a bit like those “Keep Calm and Carry On” posters, just with an absurdist twist. It is halfway between a shrug and complete denial of reality. “It’s a basic concept that can apply to a lot of differing situations,” Mr. Green wrote in an email on Wednesday. “That’s the whole idea behind memes and the like. ” Many memes, like “Dat Boi” or “Damn, Daniel,” exemplify the sort of nonsense that can briefly take over pop culture before vanishing. But a durable meme, like “Crying Jordan” or “This Is Fine,” allows people to use it as cultural commentary. “This Is Fine,” which is actually part of a larger comic created for Mr. Green’s webcomic series “Gunshow” in 2013, has inspired fan art and a number of derivative works on websites like Tumblr. The illustration reached the political mainstream with the G. O. P. ’s tweet, and what followed was a relatively unusual exchange between the political establishment and an artist. The Republicans had not compensated Mr. Green. (It’s common for musicians to criticize a political candidate’s use of their song, but a cartoonist criticizing the use of a meme derived from his art? That’s new.) “Having this comic and other images from my past works be made into memes before, this was really nothing completely new,” Mr. Green said of his reasoning for creating the elephant image. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t get to like some of the people who do use it, including the G. O. P. ” Slate saw the Republican tweet as a development: “The trouble with such tweets — whether they’re coming from left or right — is that they’re mostly going to make sense to people who will discard them as soon as they spread too far,” Jacob Brogan wrote. But another chapter appears to have given the meme new life: Mr. Green issued an update through The Nib, called This Is Not Fine, in which the dog wakes up from his stupor and panics. “I thought it would be more angry when I was writing,” he said, “but it turned into more just losing your cool in a situation, which reflects better, I think. ” In an email, Matt Bors, an editor of The Nib, said the update was commissioned because “2016 has been such a gross, depressing slog. ” He added: “You acclimate to the crazy, you think ‘this is fine.’ It’s not. We needed that dog to come back. ” In this case, with the staying power comes the merchandise: A Kickstarter campaign launched this week has raised more than $200, 000 to manufacture a plush This Is Fine toy. In the meantime, Mr. Green also continues to work on other projects: He writes and draws “He Is a Good Boy,” a webcomic about an acorn that explores themes of horror, gore and existentialism. This is fine. | 0 |
Iran agreed in principle to accept significant restrictions on its nuclear facilities for at least a decade and submit to international inspections under a framework deal announced Thursday after months of contentious negotiations with the United States and other world powers.
In return, international sanctions that have battered Iran’s economy would be lifted in phases if it meets its commitments, meaning it could take a year or less for relief from the penalties to kick in.
The framework agreement, a milestone in negotiations that began 12 years ago, is not a final deal. But it creates parameters for three more months of negotiations over technical details and some matters that remain unresolved. Any one of those issues could doom a comprehensive agreement. Among them is the pace at which sanctions will be suspended.
“The political understanding with details that we have reached is a solid foundation for the good deal we are seeking,” said Secretary of State John F. Kerry, sounding hoarse after an all-night negotiation session.
The key moments in the long history of U.S.-Iran tensions
The agreement includes almost all the restrictions on Iran’s nuclear facilities, laboratories, mines and mills that the United States had sought in recent months, although it initially aimed for even tougher restrictions.
But Iran would get several benefits that may make the deal more palatable to politicians and the public in Tehran. It would not have to close any of its three nuclear facilities, though it would be left with only one that would enrich uranium — at levels low enough to create fuel for power plants but not high enough to create weapons-grade material.
The limitations would produce a one-year “breakout” period, meaning it would take Iran a full year to build up enough material to build one nuclear warhead, compared with current estimates of two to three months, officials said.
Many sanctions initially would be suspended, rather than lifted permanently as Iran sought, so they could be “snapped back” into place if Iran was discovered to be cheating, the officials said.
Iran’s apparent acceptance of so many conditions sought by the United States could give the Obama administration a tool to fend off critics in Congress who want to impose new sanctions to wring more concessions from the Iranians.
The White House fears such steps could scuttle the talks and prompt Tehran to resume its nuclear program at full tilt. Iran claims its nuclear program is for peaceful, civilian uses.
While the negotiations will continue through June, much of the attention will now shift to the White House and its defense of the negotiations, both in classified briefings to Congress and in public arenas.
Obama hailed the agreement as a “historic understanding” and asked whether anyone really thinks that the deal is “a worse option than the risk of another war in the Middle East.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a persistent critic of the negotiations, told Obama by telephone that a final deal based on the parameters announced Thursday “would threaten the survival of Israel,” according to an Israeli statement.
Kerry’s predecessor at the State Department, Hillary Rodham Clinton, called the framework agreement an “understanding,” saying it was an “important step toward a comprehensive agreement that would prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and strengthen the security of the United States, Israel, and the region.”
The announcement of the agreement was made by weary-looking diplomats from Iran, the European Union, the United States and five other nations. Most had slept only one or two hours after the previous day’s talks, which stretched nearly through the night.
They sounded exuberant even before they arrived at a Lausanne school a few miles from the hotel where the last rounds of talks had been held. Many diplomats had been cautious after the negotiations failed to meet a March 31 deadline. But once the bargaining ended Thursday, there was a flurry of excited tweets.
“Big day,” wrote Kerry, who shouldered most of the direct negotiations with Iran.
Once the agreement was reached, the diplomats walked onto a stage bearing the flags of the nations involved in the talks — Iran, Germany, France, Britain, Russia, China and the United States.
Then Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister and chief negotiator in the talks, and the European foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, made statements.
Mogherini said Iran and the world powers were taking a “decisive step” before she listed the main parameters for an eventual deal in which Iran would be permitted to pursue the civilian use of nuclear technology.
[A step-by-step guide to what the Iran agreement actually means]
Under the agreement, Iran’s heavy-water reactor in Arak would be rebuilt so it could not produce weapons-grade plutonium. No nuclear fuel would be reprocessed, and spent fuel would be exported or diluted.
Iran’s underground plant at Fordow would be converted from a uranium-enrichment site into a nuclear physics and technology center. The site was built secretly deep inside a mountain near Qom and would be difficult to destroy by military attack.
As Mogherini was speaking, the State Department was
e-mailing reporters a “fact sheet” outlining more details that it said Iran had agreed to, though it could not immediately be confirmed that Iran was indeed on board with every item.
In one of the most significant points, the number of Iran’s centrifuges would be cut by two-thirds, to about 6,000, according to the statement. It said they would be first-generation machines, not the more advanced ones that Iran has sought. Keeping the old centrifuges is a key element in establishing the one-year breakout period, a red line for Washington.
The fact sheet said Iran further agreed not to enrich uranium above the level of 3.67 percent for at least 15 years. That level of low-enriched uranium is suitable as fuel for nuclear power plants but not as fissile material for nuclear weapons, which require uranium enriched to about 90 percent purity.
Iran has agreed to reduce its stockpile of about 10,000 kilograms (22,000 pounds) of low-enriched uranium to 300 kilograms (660 pounds) for 15 years, the fact sheet said.
The restrictions would be monitored through inspections conducted by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and some of them would last 25 years under the accord.
Zarif seemed to go out of his way to thank Kerry for investing so much time and effort in the negotiations, which he said had been conducted with “mutual respect.”
The preliminary agreement could foretell the beginning of a new chapter in Iran’s relationship with the world, and particularly the United States.
Though six nations negotiated with Iran, much of the heavy lifting was done in meetings between the United States and Iran. The countries have been hostile toward each other for decades, particularly since the 1979 revolution and the seizure of dozens of American diplomats who were held hostage in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
But the United States and Iran will remain at odds on many issues.
“We have serious differences with the United States,” Zarif said. “We have built mutual distrust in the past. . . . So what I hope is that through courageous implementation of this, some of that trust could be remedied. But that is for us all to wait and see.”
William Branigin in Washington contributed to this report.
The key moments in the long history of U.S.-Iran tensions
Transcript: Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif on the ‘framework’ for a nuclear deal
Another nation blazed the trail for Iran in developing a nuclear program | 1 |
Republican frontrunner Donald Trump does not lose gracefully. In the past, he s threatened riots and violence if he were to lose the GOP nomination, but now that Ted Cruz is starting to close in on him, the business mogul is upping the ante.After a humiliating loss in Colorado, where Cruz took every last one of the state s 34 delegates, Trump is whining about the crooked and corrupt way America chooses party nominees. Ever the sore loser, Trump cried foul because Cruz was able to get all of the delegates support, even though residents couldn t vote. Calling this perceived injustice the biggest story in politics , Trump complained that the people of Colorado had their vote taken away from them by the phony politicians. And of course, he made all of these accusations over his favorite news platform Twitter: This unusual nomination process in Colorado state was explained by The Denver Post last year: Colorado will not vote for a Republican candidate for president at its 2016 caucus after party leaders approved a little-noticed shift that may diminish the state s clout in the most open nomination contest in the modern era.The GOP executive committee has voted to cancel the traditional presidential preference poll after the national party changed its rules to require a state s delegates to support the candidate who wins the caucus vote.The move makes Colorado the only state so far to forfeit a role in the early nomination process, according to political experts, but other caucus states are still considering how to adapt to the new rule. But Trump really can t get over it. Trump complained even more while speaking to thousands at a rally in New York yesterday, insisting that the GOP nominee should be whoever wins the most votes, not delegates. Trump said: What they re trying to do is subvert the movement with crooked shenanigans. We should have won it a long time ago. But, you know, we keep losing where we re winning. This morning, Trump continued to b*tch and moan on Fox & Friends. He said: I ve gotten millions of more votes than [Sen. Ted] Cruz, and I ve gotten hundreds of delegates more, and we keep fighting, fighting, fighting, and then you have a Colorado where they just get all of these delegates, and it s not [even] a system. There was no voting. I didn t go out there to make a speech or anything. There s no voting. He also called some of the ways candidates try to win delegates crooked : They offer them trips they offer them all sorts of things, and you re allowed to do that. I mean, you re allowed to offer trips, and you can buy all these votes. What kind of a system is this? Now, I m an outsider, and I came into the system and I m winning the votes by millions of votes. But the system is rigged. It s crooked. Clearly, Trump has forgotten all about that time he bribed former candidate Ben Carson with a job so the retired neurosurgeon would endorse him. Talk about crooked. Whether Trump likes it or not, he s going to have to play by the rules and if he doesn t the nomination is going to keep slipping away from him. He s going to have to appeal to delegates instead of people like his easily influenced racist, misogynistic supporters. Trump delegate chief Paul Manafort reports that Trump is going to implement a strategy similar to what Cruz has been doing. Manafort said: A more traditional approach is needed and Donald Trump recognizes that. In order for Trump to get enough delegates to get the Republican nomination by June 7, he will still need to win 60% of the remaining delegates. Right now, Trump is winning 45%. According to the Associated Press, Trump has 743 delegates compared to Cruz s 545.Featured image via Gage Skidmore | 1 |
Hillary Clinton, who has kept a relatively low public profile since losing the presidential election two months ago, on Sunday showed up at the final performance of the Broadway revival of “The Color Purple,” reveling in the story of a beleaguered woman who triumphs over the oppressive men in her life (and, along the way, discovers a love for colorful pants). Mrs. Clinton, accompanied by her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and their daughter, Chelsea, received several ovations from the audience as she arrived, and then another round of applause when she was acknowledged by the cast after the show. “There’s a lot of really awesome famous and notable people here today,” the actress Patrice Covington, who gave the farewell speech on behalf of the cast after the show, said to the audience. “I’m not going to call all of them out — I know you already know them,” she said, before pausing, looking in Mrs. Clinton’s direction, and waving at her mischievously. At that, the audience erupted into a new, loud round of applause. The reaction was substantially warmer than the scattered booing and clapping that greeted the arrival of Vice Mike Pence when he attended “Hamilton,” just one block north, on Nov. 18. “We love you Hillary,” some audience members shouted. Several thanked Mrs. Clinton and told her, “God bless you. ” “God bless you,” Mrs. Clinton replied. Mrs. Clinton was besieged by before the show, at intermission and as she was ushered out a side door after the musical ended (“Whoa!” said her husband as they left.) Jordan Serpone, 33, an audience member from Boston, said that spotting Mrs. Clinton was a surprisingly moving experience for him. “I was having every emotion I’ve tried to get rid of over the past few weeks,” he said during intermission. He shook her hand, but said he is still filled with frustration over her loss. “She shouldn’t be here. She should be planning her cabinet,” he said. Because the Sunday matinee was the last performance for the acclaimed production, which won last year’s Tony award for best musical revival, the crowd was starry: Among those in the audience were Jonathan Groff, Mariska Hargitay, Gayle King, Debra Messing, Leslie Odom Jr. Billy Porter, Phylicia Rashad and Anna Wintour. Public sightings of Mrs. Clinton in the weeks since the election have been sufficiently rare that they create a stir on social media. Strangers have sought photographs with her at stores and in the woods near her home in Chappaqua, N. Y. But Mrs. Clinton has indicated that she and her husband plan to attend the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as president on Jan. 20. “The Color Purple” tells the searing story of a young black woman abused by her stepfather and her husband in rural Georgia in the early 20th century. The musical is an adaptation of a 1982 novel, by Alice Walker, which was awarded the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Steven Spielberg adapted the novel into a film in 1985, and Oprah Winfrey, who was featured in the film, went on to become an important champion, and of the musical. The musical has been one of the most successful at attracting black audiences to Broadway. It first opened on Broadway in 2005, and features a book by Marsha Norman and music and lyrics by Stephen Bray, Brenda Russell and Allee Willis. The revival, which opened in 2015 and was directed by John Doyle, featured a performance by the British actress Cynthia Erivo. She won a Tony award for best actress in a leading role in a musical. The last show took place on Ms. Erivo’s 30th birthday. | 0 |
(Reuters) - Highlights for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday: The United States drops a massive GBU-43 bomb, the largest non-nuclear bomb it has ever used in combat, in Afghanistan against a series of caves used by Islamic State militants, the Pentagon says. Trump says Pyongyang is a problem that “will be taken care of” amid speculation that North Korea is on the verge of a sixth nuclear test. Military force cannot resolve tension over North Korea, China warns, while an influential Chinese newspaper urges Pyongyang to halt its nuclear program in exchange for Beijing’s protection. The Trump administration is focusing its North Korea strategy on tougher economic sanctions, possibly including intercepting cargo ships and punishing Chinese banks doing business with Pyongyang, U.S. officials say. Trump says “things will work out fine” between the United States and Russia, a day after declaring U.S.-Russian relations may be at an all-time low. Trump signals he could be moving closer to the mainstream on monetary policy, saying he has not ruled out reappointment of Janet Yellen as Federal Reserve chair as he considers his choices for the U.S. central bank. [nL1N1HL14B] Trump signs a resolution that will allow U.S. states to restrict how federal funds for contraception and reproductive health are spent, a move cheered by anti-abortion campaigners. Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen presses Deutsche Bank to release information about issues including Trump’s debt and any bank meetings with Trump administration officials, saying he has “great concern” about possible conflicts of interest. EXPORT-IMPORT BANK Trump’s office says he plans to revive the hobbled Export-Import Bank of the United States, a victory for American manufacturers such as Boeing Co and General Electric Co that have overseas customers that use the agency’s government-backed loans to purchase their products. Top Wall Street bankers say they are having positive discussions about financial regulation in Washington, and downplay the idea U.S. policymakers may force their institutions to split up. The United States is pushing for trade to be a key issue in top-level economic talks with Japan, a source says, an unwelcome development for Tokyo, which is seeking to fend off U.S. pressure to reduce the bilateral trade imbalance. Trump’s administration has focused on one group of illegal immigrants more than others: women with children, according to eight Department of Homeland Security officials interviewed by Reuters about agency planning. | 1 |
ABUJA (Reuters) - President Muhammadu Buhari is to visit southeast Nigeria this week, his spokesman said on Monday, his first trip since taking office to a region formerly known as Biafra. Calls for secession have become increasingly loud in the last few months in parts of the southeast, where the president is deeply unpopular, prompting Buhari to say he will not allow Nigeria to be divided by separatist groups. A million people died in a 1967-70 civil war over the short-lived Republic of Biafra. Buhari, a 74-year-old former military ruler who took office in May 2015, fought in the war as a young soldier on the government side. The spokesman, Garba Shehu, said the president would, as part of his trip, visit the campaign run by his All Progressive Congress party in the state of Anambra ahead of gubernatorial elections in the next few days. Mr President will be visiting two southeast states of Ebonyi and Anambra, said Shehu. He said Buhari would leave the capital, Abuja, on Tuesday morning and return the following day. Tensions in the region rose following the release on bail of Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the region s best known secessionist group, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). The government designated the group as a terrorist organization in September, and deployed troops to the region to crack down on secessionists. Kanu, who was on bail after being charged with treason, has not been seen since Sept. 14, when IPOB says his home was raided by soldiers. The military has denied raiding Kanu s home and has said it is not holding him. We are yet to know our leader s whereabouts or that of his parents. (Buhari) is not the type of person any governor should be welcoming to their land, said an IPOB spokesman in a statement that urged the president to stay away . A Nigerian minister in September said secessionists in the southeast were sponsored by the government s political opponents. The government has repeatedly rejected the accusation that Buhari, a Muslim northerner, is opposed to the development of the mostly Christian southeast, where people are mainly from the Igbo ethnic group. Nigeria s 180 million inhabitants are split roughly equally between Christians and Muslims, and around 250 ethnic groups mostly live peacefully side by side. | 0 |
ABUJA (Reuters) - The trial of more than 1,600 people suspected of ties with Boko Haram was expected to begin in Nigeria on Monday behind closed doors, in the biggest legal investigation into the eight-year militant Islamist insurgency. More than 20,000 people have been killed and two million forced from their homes in northeastern Nigeria during the insurgency, contributing to what the United Nations has said is among the world s worst humanitarian crises. Nigeria s ministry of justice said last month the trial of around 1,670 people held at the Kainji detention facility would begin at the site, in the central Niger state, on Monday and would be presided over by four judges. A spokesman for the ministry did not respond to requests for confirmation that the trial had begun. A military spokesman declined to comment, saying questions should be addressed to the judiciary. The ministry has said that after the Kainji trials are completed, a further 651 people suspected of having links to Boko Haram and currently being held at prisons in Maiduguri, the capital of the northeastern state of Borno, would go on trial. Clement Nwankwo, a human rights lawyer based in the capital, Abuja, said the trials would provide a more effective deterrent if they were open to the media and public. On the Boko Haram issue, stories need to be told for the public to be made aware what has been going on and understand the nature of the crimes committed, said Nwankwo, adding that secrecy also made it hard to determine whether trials were fair. The Nigerian authorities have not been known to be diligent in investigating and properly prosecuting suspects, he said, warning that a sense of injustice could breed resentment among relatives that could yield future radicalization. However, Fatima Akilu - who headed the government s counter violent extremism program under the previous administration - said secrecy was needed to encourage witnesses and judges to take part in the trials because Nigeria does not have a witness protection program. A lot of witnesses were afraid to come forward, Akilu, who was based in the Office of the National Security Adviser from 2012 to 2015, said of previous efforts to pursue trials. She said judges and witnesses had previously been subjected to death threats. If the witnesses don t come forward there is limited evidence in terms of reaching a conviction, so I think there was little choice, she said, adding that there were no clear alternatives in the absence of an amnesty program. Nigeria s handling of thousands of people accused of ties with Boko Haram insurgents has previously attracted criticism. The legal process marks a steep escalation in the number of insurgency-related cases being handled by Nigerian authorities. The Ministry of Justice has said that, as of Sept. 11, only 13 terrorism cases had been concluded and nine convictions had been secured. The decision to start the trials is a response to persistent complaints by local and international human rights groups over thousands of persons detained without access to lawyers and without any specific charges, said Nnamdi Obasi, of International Crisis Group. | 1 |
Senate lifer John McCain was caught on tape complaining about what a Trump candidacy would do to hurt his chances for yet another reelection: | 0 |
Here s yet another example of the leadership in the Republican Party putting themselves and their political careers before the American people. Rep. John fleming of Louisiana is a good man and did the right thing in releasing the truth about the effort to to have a recorded vote. THIS is why the American people are 100% FED Up! with Washington!In yet another display of misplaced priorities, House leadership plans to fast-track the new debt restructuring bill for Puerto Rico in light of their $70 billion debt crisis. But what happened last night at a meeting held in the Natural Resources Committee, demonstrates a new degree of desperation.Earlier this afternoon, Rep. John Fleming (R-LA) released a statement divulging the details of that meeting. He said that members of the committee were asked by House leaders, which presumably includes the committee chairman, Rob Bishop (R-UT), to not ask for a recorded vote on the bill when it comes before the committee this evening. According to Fleming, they were told not to show up to the markup if they plan to request a recorded vote.The benefit of a voice vote is to push the quasi-bailout package to the floor by acclamation and protect vulnerable members from a divisive committee vote. Rob Bishop, for example, faces a primary challenge in his northern Utah district later in the spring.Here is the full statement from Rep. Fleming: In all my time in Congress, no one has ever asked me to do something quite like this, until last night. I was angry. To be asked to walk away to be told to miss a vote is a request that flies in the face of every member s conscience. Leadership had no business making such a request. I thought perhaps I was mistaken about what was really being asked of me. But when it was clear they were seriously asking members of the Committee to stand aside so the bill could pass without amendment or vote, I strongly objected along with some other members. This is the kind of go along politics Americans and I are tired of. Anytime we don t have full transparency we have a bad outcome. If the bill comes before the Committee as planned, I will insist on a recorded vote and I will do my best to defeat any bailout this Committee puts before us. Members weren t even given the discussion draft of the bill (H.R. 4900) until last night. Now they are voting on it less than 24 hours later and were told not to voice concerns about the legislation.Read more: CR | 0 |
The Washington Post reported: The patriarchs of this quiet island of millionaires threw up roadblocks when Donald Trump swooped in and turned its historic oceanfront Mar-a-Lago mansion into a private club.The town council, seeing Trump as an ostentatious outsider, handed him a list of restrictions as he sought to transform the property in the 1990s. Membership, traffic, party attendance, even photography all would be strictly limited.But Trump undercut his adversaries with a searing attack, claiming that local officials seemed to accept the established private clubs in town that had excluded Jews and blacks while imposing tough rules on his inclusive one.Trump s lawyer sent every member of the town council copies of two classic movies about discrimination: A Gentleman s Agreement, about a journalist who pretends to be Jewish to expose anti-Semitism, and Guess Who s Coming to Dinner about a white couple s reaction to their daughter bringing home a black fiance.The move infuriated council members, who said it was a distraction from their concerns that Trump s club would spoil a quiet street. But, in time, Trump got most of the restrictions lifted.In many ways Mar-a-Lago is the antithesis of the area s traditional WASP-y clubs the Beach Club, the Bath and Tennis Club, the Sailfish Club. The Everglades Club, Palm Beach s oldest and founded in 1919, is what Nicholas Golubov, research director for the Historical Society of Palm Beach, called a bastion of the old, Palm Beach elite. Trump s business model in Palm Beach, by comparison, has been a beacon of inclusion. As long as potential members had the $100,000 entry fee (bumped up to $200,000 in January), there was a good chance that they d be accepted. In a further departure from Palm Beach taste, Trump allowed non-members, as well as members, to rent spaces for bar mitzvahs, bat mitzvahs, weddings, and charity galas. Anyone can party at the new Winter White House, as long as they can afford it. I think it s the best thing Trump did in his whole life, said Laurence Leamer, the author of the book Madness Under the Royal Palms: Love and Death Behind the Gates of Palm Beach. He opened up this island. He also had Jews and gays and African Americans he even had the first gay wedding. Most Palm Beach clubs have unapologetically restrictive membership policies, but resist any notion that those policies have anything to do with race, creed, or color. That s an old-fashioned view, certainly of our club, said John Newman, general manager Sailfish Club. We have no discrimination in our club; members have to be sponsored by a current member, but we have all faiths in our club. (The Bath and Tennis, Beach, and Everglades clubs declined to comment for this article; Mar-a-Lago did not respond to requests for comment.) Bloomberg Palm Beach has a lot of rules: No whistling allowed on public streets after midnight. No Missing Dog or any sign posted on a tree. And no flag poles taller than 42 feet.In late 2006 Trump put up a giant American flag on an 80-foot pole. That led to a $1,250-a-day fine against him, drawing national headlines that Trump basked in. Tonight, Donald Trump does legal battle again, this time with a bunch of millionaires down in Palm Beach, Florida, who told Trump he s flying his flag too high, is how Nancy Grace started her CNN interview in January 2007 with Trump. Can you fly the American flag too high? she asked.Trump got fan mail as he said in a blizzard of interviews: No American should have to get a permit to fly the flag. I said, This is a dream to have someone sue me to take down the American flag, Trump said in the interview.Trump sued Palm Beach for $25 million in damages, arguing the flag was constitutionally protected free speech.Ultimately, Trump reached a settlement with the town. He would put a slightly smaller flag farther from the road and mount it on a 70-foot pole.Instead of paying any fines, Trump made a $100,000 donation to a veterans charity. | 0 |
In May, New Jersey s Collingswood Public School System adopted a new policy that required teachers to report all incidents of student misbehavior to police.According to Collingswood Police Chief Kevin Carey, the policy required police to respond to incidents they previously would not have investigated, including anything as minor as a simple name-calling incident that the school would typically handle internally. According to Carey, nearly every student report was forwarded to the New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency.Between the time the school adopted the new policy and the end of the school year, about a month later, police had been called on Kindergartners for arguing, second-graders for calling each other names like fat and short, a game of tag that was too rough, and much more.Police were called on an elementary school student who reportedly made a gun noise, and held his ukulele like a gun. Another elementary school student was reported to police for calling another student cheater, during gym class.Police were called over a picture drawn by a student at Tatem Elementary School. The student reportedly drew a zombie holding a gun.Two second-graders were also reported to police for roughhousing on their way to lunch.The list of minor infractions goes on and on. Philly.com reports that many of the incidents were not even witnessed by teachers, but were made in response to complaints from other students.A parent called the school to express concerns about a game of tag that she thought was getting too rough. The parent later said she just wanted the school to keep a better eye on the kids during recess. The school reported the call to police.The Inquirer obtained police reports for at least 22 police visits to Collingswood Schools during a one month time period. Links to reports made by each of the district s six schools can also be found here.The school district, police and prosecutor s office all worked together to create the new policy. Parents were not informed of the change to school policy until June 27, ten days after the school year ended. In all cases, the students were interviewed by police without a parent or guardian present.It seems that local officials were hoping to get an early start on the school-to-prison pipeline.Outraged parents demanded that the school get rid of the new policy. According to Philly.com, the school system will return to the former policy of reporting students to the police only if weapons, drugs, or sexual misconduct are involved.Image credit: Collingswood Police Department via Facebook | 1 |
Infowars uncovered a bombshell when they discovered the Facebook page of one of Judge Roy Moore s accusers, Debbie Gibson, who came out in a Washington Post article to accuse him of sexual misconduct that allegedly took place 36 years ago.Debbie Wesson Gibson says that she was 17 in the spring of 1981 when Moore spoke to her Etowah High School civics class about serving as the assistant district attorney. She says that when he asked her out, she asked her mother what she would say if she wanted to date a 34-year-old man. Gibson says her mother asked her who the man was, and when Gibson said Roy Moore, her mother said, I d say you were the luckiest girl in the world. Among locals in Gadsden, a town of about 47,000 back then, Moore had this godlike, almost deity status he was a hometown boy made good, Gibson says, West Point and so forth. Gibson says that they dated for two to three months, and that he took her to his house, read her poetry and played his guitar. She says he kissed her once in his bedroom and once by the pool at a local country club. Looking back, I m glad nothing bad happened, says Gibson, who now lives in Florida. As a mother of daughters, I realize that our age difference at that time made our dating inappropriate. Debbie Gibson hates Donald Trump, but that s not all, she s pretty fond of Judge Roy Moore s opponent, Doug Ross for US Senate In Alabama as well Here are a few anti-Trump posts that were found on Gibson s Facebook page: One of senatorial candidate Roy Moore s accusers is apparently a fervent Democrat who has worked for the DNC as a sign language interpreter for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, a revelation which the Washington Post never included in its original report.The accuser, Debbie Gibson, had also publically supported Moore s opponent Doug Jones before the accusations came to light.Gibson openly bragged about signing for Hillary during a campaign appearance. On a side note, we re not sure who she s signing for. The crowd behind Hillary, that is usually packed with the Democrats hand-picked diverse crowd, appears to be pretty thin.Here s a post from Gibson s page proving that she s supporting Judge Roy Moore s Democrat opponent for US Senate:She even posted a video of Moore s opponent, Doug Jones to promote him to her friends on Facebook. The screenshot below shows the post on her page. Interestingly, when attacking Moore ally Steve Bannon for suggesting the Washington Post was politically motivated in its reporting, the newspaper implied that Gibson wasn t down with Democratic propaganda, a statement which seemingly conflicts with Gibson s political activism:That s not what the photos say The Washington Post reported: According to campaign reports, none of the women has donated to or worked for Moore s Democratic opponent, Doug Jones, or his rivals in the Republican primary But notice the precise wording; it s lawyer-speak. It might very well be true that Gibson didn t donate or work for Doug Jones, but according to her Facebook profile, she did actively campaign for him, which doesn t help her credibility and it should have been reported yet the Washington Post conveniently left it out. | 1 |
Well, I don t know. When you have pipe bombs laying all over the floor, I don t think they re regular people.' That s not all Trump had a few things to say about the Terrorist s family and some common sense advice for people who see something they suspect may be tied to terrorism in their neighborhoods as well https://youtu.be/9Vddc8t655E | 1 |
( ANTIWAR ) Amnesty International has issued a new statement warning that the US needs to do more to prevent civilian casualties in its coalition airstrikes in both Iraq and Syria, and cautioned the US has dramatically under-reported the number of civilians killed in their air war. The new report centered on Syria, noting that the US-led coalition had killed at least 300 civilians in Syria, and had not admitted to the vast majority of those slain. They reported the US had killed around 250 civilians just in the city of Manbij and the surrounding area.
The US backed a Kurdish invasion of Manbij earlier this past summer, and conducted several major airstrikes in the surrounding areas, including some which killed scores of civilians. As Amnesty pointed out, the US has not officially included any civilians from the Manbij strikes on their official count, despite the incidents being well established.
Amnesty warned that the lack of official recognition raised concerns that the US had not made any corrections to their policy, and that this was particularly concerning with the ongoing invasion of the city of Mosul, which is many times larger and expected to be an even longer conflict.
The Pentagon has only acknowledged a few dozen civilian deaths in both Iraq and Syria combined. The Amnesty report, while drastically higher, is still considered very conservative, with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights putting the US-caused civilian death toll in Syria between 600 and 1,000. | 1 |
Iran's supreme leader vowed Wednesday he will not allow international inspection of Iran's military sites or access to Iranian scientists under any nuclear agreement with world powers.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told military commanders Wednesday that Iran will resist "coercion and excessive demands" from America and other world powers.
Negotiators from Iran and a six nation group — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — have launched a new round of talks in Vienna focused on reaching a final deal that curbs Iran's nuclear program in return for lifting economic sanctions. The two sides reached a framework agreement in March and hope to strike a final deal by June 30.
A fact sheet on the framework accord issued by the U.S. State Department said Iran would be required to grant the U.N. nuclear agency access to any "suspicious sites."
But Khamenei indicated that the Americans are increasing their demands that international inspection of Iran's military sites and interviews with Iranian scientists be included in the final deal.
"The impudent and brazen enemy expects that we allow them talk to our scientists and researchers about a fundamental local achievement but no such permission will be allowed," Khamenei told military commanders in Tehran Wednesday, in remarks broadcast on state TV. "No inspection of any military site or interview with nuclear scientists will be allowed."
Khamenei said interviewing Iranian nuclear scientists would be an affront to Iran's dignity.
"I will not allow foreigners to interview — which is tantamount to interrogation — the prominent beloved scientists and sons of this nation," he said.
Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Khamenei, was quoted by Iranian media this week as accusing the Americans of changing their position and toughening their stance as the deadline approaches.
"They insist on crossing (our) red lines. This turns into an obstacle," Velayati was quoted as saying | 0 |
People over profits The India-Russia Alliance Isn't Going Anywhere Because It's Underpinned by Values as Well as Interests
There have been hiccups in the relationship before but ultimately the countries are united by far more than they are divided by Originally appeared at The National Interest
With the international system in a state of flux, we are witnessing significant political changes between nations. U.S.-China relations have come under great strain, as evidenced by their adversarial stand with regard to the South China Sea. Russia is ceding space to China with regard to East Asia. There seems to be a return to Cold War–like dynamics between Russia and the United States. It is being reported that Russia has placed nuclear-capable Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad, which borders Poland and Lithuania. The missiles are capable of hitting targets as far away as Berlin. Their differing positions with regard to the crisis in Syria and ISIS underline the tension between the two.
To the surprise of many observers, India-Russia relations, which have stood the test of time, also appear to have been affected by this trend, with Russia apparently upping its security ties with Pakistan, India’s traditional rival. For many in India, Russia’s decision to go ahead with its Druzhba (Friendship) 2016 military exercises with Pakistan immediately after the Uri terrorist incident, and its reticence in fully backing India on terrorism emanating from Pakistan at the recently concluded eighth BRICS Summit in Goa, are seen as worrying developments. From the perspective of a stakeholder in this bilateral relationship, the questions that come to one’s mind are: How worried should one be about these developments in India-Russia relations? Also, what should be done to ensure that there is no fundamental realignment in the relations between the two nations?
If one disregards the almost seventy-year history of relations between the two nations, it would appear that the observation of Rajan Menon , a close follower of India-Russia relations, is being proven wrong: “The two countries have established substantial trust and understanding, a convergent worldview, and a stake in preserving a relationship that few countries can claim to have.” A perusal of the bilateral relation will show that is all not particularly well.
On the security front, the Russians have been stepping up joint military exercises with Pakistan since 2014. The two naval exercises, Arabian Monsoon 2014 and Arabian Monsoon 2015, were followed up by Druzhba 2016, which was a two-week long military exercise conducted in Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province involving seventy Russian service personnel.
While the naval exercises had combating crime groups and drug trafficking as their objective, Druzhba 2016 went a step further and had more conventional objectives, like training for combat in mountainous areas and taking on armed groups. India made its dislike of these military exercises known to Russia when India’s ambassador to Russia, Pankaj Saran, pointed out that “military cooperation with Pakistan which is a State that sponsors and practices terrorism as a matter of State policy is a wrong approach and it will only create further problems.”
Parts of Druzhba 2016 were to be held in the Gilgit-Baltistan province of Pakistan, an area India considers to be a part of Jammu and Kashmir, illegally occupied by Pakistan. The spokesperson of India’s Ministry of External Affairs, Vikas Swarup, told the press that “India repeatedly brought up its concerns about the venue of the exercise with Russia” and that the said province was “part of Indian territory.” This led the Russian embassy in New Delhi to issue a clarification that the military exercises would not be held in any “sensitive or problematic areas.” The exercises were subsequently held in Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province.
Additionally, Russia has been selling military hardware to Pakistan. It is believed that the two nations are in discussions regarding the possible sale of Russian Su-35 warplanes to Pakistan. Pakistan also bought four Mi-35 helicopter gunships from Russia in 2015. The Hindustan Times reports that over the last fifteen months, the army, navy and air force chiefs of Pakistan have visited Russia to explore other such military deals. Given the fact that Pakistan is the world’s seventh-largest importer of defense equipment, it could prove to be a lucrative market for Russian arms manufacturers. This could have serious consequences for India-Russia relations.
On the economic front, Russia has agreed to lend $2 billion to Pakistan for the construction of an 1,100-kilometer pipeline to transport liquefied natural gas from Karachi to Lahore. On the diplomatic front, Russia did mention Pakistan in the wake of the Uri attack when it stated , “We note with concern the resurgence of terrorist attacks near the Line of Control. It is alarming and according to New Delhi, the attack on military unit near the town of Uri was committed from the territory of Pakistan.”
However, its activity on the issue of terrorism in the context of the eighth BRICS Summit, held in Goa in October 2016, was less encouraging. Many in India feel that Russia was reticent in backing India’s demands and did not push for the inclusion of terms like “nurture,”“shelter” or “sponsor” in the Summit declaration. The inclusion of these terms would have implicitly pointed fingers in Pakistan’s direction. While the declaration called for action against UN-recognized terrorist groups, and named groups such as Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra, it did not name Lashkar-e-Taiba or Jaish-e-Muhammad.
According to Indian strategic expert Brahma Chellaney , “The result was that the declaration failed to mention the most potent form of terrorism in the world, which is state-sponsored.” In the face of opposition from China and its strategy of sheltering Pakistan from India’s diplomatic offensive, Russia simply didn’t stand up for India. This sentiment is illustrated by a headline printed in the Times of India on October 17: “BRICS Summit: China bulldozed India’s security concerns as Russia looked the other way.”
These developments are certainly worrying to those who support positive India-Russia relations. However, once one situates these developments in the context of almost seventy years of bilateral relations, one will realize that downturns and heartburn have occurred in the past as well, with relations stabilizing and returning to normal afterwards. The 1960s were testing times on this front, when Russia started inching closer to Pakistan. Menon points out that in the aftermath of the 1965 India-Pakistan war, Russia diluted its support to India on the Kashmir issue, and “even published material inconsistent with Indian territorial claims against Pakistan.”
Pakistani president Ayub Khan’s 1965 visit to Russia raised many an eyebrow in India. A Pakistani military delegation visited Moscow in 1966, to discuss the purchase of weapons from Russia. This discussion was furthered the following year when Pakistan’s foreign minister visited Moscow. An arms deal was finally clinched when Gen. Yahya Khan visited Moscow some time later. High-ranking Soviet officials also visited Pakistan around the same time period included a naval delegation and Alexei Kosygin, head of the Council of Ministers of the USSR.
It was not uncommon to hear voices of disgruntlement from Indians, including Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and President Zakir Hussain. Notwithstanding such tensions, the bilateral relation was put back on the rails. Hence, history suggests that the recent developments may just be a hiccup and that talk of bilateral relations fraying is nothing more than scaremongering and, possibly, hyperbole.
This optimistic interpretation is bolstered when one notes that India and Russia struck important defense deals on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Goa—such as a $5 billion deal for India’s purchase of the S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile system. Considered to be one of the most advanced antimissile systems in the world, it will be used to protect to high-value installations. The two countries also signed deals pertaining to India’s import and manufacture of Kamov Ka 226T light utility helicopters. The two countries will also be collaborating in the manufacture of four Admiral Grigorovich–class guided-missile stealth frigates.
Significantly, it was announced that India would also be leasing an Akula II–class nuclear-powered attack submarine from Russia for a sum of $2 billion. Writing in Business Standard, Ajai Shukla suggests that this would not be in addition to the existing nuclear submarine that was leased from Russia (and christened INS Chakra) in 2012. Instead, it will replace the INS Chakra and is expected to join the Indian Navy in 2020–21. Hence, for about two years, India will be in the possession of two such submarines, after which INSChakra will be sent back to Russia. In order to counter misgivings in India, and to underscore that the bilateral relations were built on trust and time-tested imperatives, a “top ranked Russian defense official” is reported to have remarked that “Russia is a friend, an ally and not a business partner. Russia stood by India during its darkest hours. Next year will mark 70 years of our relationship. It is a long time.”
A balanced, historically informed reading of the bilateral relation between India and Russia suggests that naysayers in India may be jumping the gun in harboring misgivings about threats to a time-tested relationship. However, one factor seems missing in the current bilateral relation that was present earlier, at least on the Indian side: admiration for the erstwhile USSR and some of the values it espoused. Indian-Soviet relations during the Cold War years were based on expediency and also on values. Some of the letters that Jawaharlal Nehru wrote to the chief ministers of the Indian states in 1955 (to be found in his Letters to Chief Ministers, Vol. 4) following his visit to the USSR make it clear that India’s engagement during the Cold War was based on his admiration of the USSR, even though he was aware of its failings. The fact that the “pull” worked both ways is made evident by Nehru, who writes, “I was astonished to find how popular some Indian films were. The names of several films were mentioned to me. The only two I remember now are Awara and Do Bigha Zamin.”
Given how central Nehru was to Indian politics, and his ability to shape the political discourse in the country, this sense of admiration for the USSR struck root in the Indian body politic. Bilateral relations based on expediency as well as values lived on, even after his death. As a result, when tensions did emerge between them, as was the case in the 1960s, the “glue” that bound India and Russia at a foundational level ensured that the drift was not permanent. The relationship encompassed the state and society on both sides. A dynamic that encompassed values ensured that things could be brought back on track should the narrower self-interest component of the relationship suffer.
International-relations scholars like Ian Hurd have pointed out that relations based purely on self-interest last as long as clear benefits accrue to the parties concerned. According to Hurd , “Actors are constantly recalculating the expected payoff to remaining in the system and stand ready to abandon it should some alternative promise greater utility.” Such relationships have a tendency to “defect” or have revisionism built into them. However, relationships based on something more than self-interest can check the tendency towards revisionism.
It is but natural that once the Cold War generation fades in India, the attraction and pull towards Russia and its ideals will also weaken. It would not be inaccurate to say that the current generation of Indians is much less enamored with Russia than the previous generation, which grew up in the Cold War years. In fact, the United States seems to have a greater following among the new generation of Indians than does Russia. According to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in 2015, 70 percent of Indians who were polled viewed the United States favorably, with 75 percent of those in the age bracket of 18–29 seeing the United States in a positive light. Russia trailed the United States, with 43 percent of Indians seeing it in a positive light. While 8 percent of Indians polled viewed the United States in a negative light, twice as many—16 percent—viewed Russia in a negative light.
Should decisionmakers in New Delhi and Moscow want to ensure that the bilateral relationship is not endangered significantly, they need to examine its softer, ideational element. To what extent do values still underpin bilateral relations, and what is the extent of the erosion of values? They need to identify and inject elements into the relation that will buttress the dimension of self-interest with a value-based one.
The challenge is made greater given that socialism is no longer the principal vocabulary in the relationship. Some have argued that in order to maintain the health of bilateral relations, scientific and technological relations have to be deepened, joint manufacturing given a boost, and a convergence of views on terrorism put in place. Whether these measures will be sufficient to sustain India-Russia ties in the twenty-first century needs to be pondered.
Should one doubt the efficacy of values in the politics among nations, given the depiction of international relations as the domain of amoral and self-interested conduct in the shadow of anarchy, one ought to pay heed to Henry Kissinger, and the arch-realist’s reasoning for the success of the Concert of Europe system. The Concert system was inaugurated in 1815, in the aftermath of the drawn-out French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.
It consisted of dialogue and negotiation among the great powers, a commitment to the status quo based on conservative values, and modifications of boundaries based on discussion and not the unilateral use of force. It is believed that the absence of systemwide great-power wars barring the Crimean War was due to the Concert system. In the face of increasing offensive capabilities of nations spurred on by the Industrial Revolution; leaders who accepted risk and were interested in pushing the limits of the status quo, such as Czar Nicholas I; and the slow onset of nationalism across Europe, peace in Europe largely held. This was no mean feat.
Kissinger argues in his book Diplomacy that even though the Concert was created in the name of the balance of power, it relied shared values among the great powers. According to him, “There was not a physical equilibrium but a moral one.” The power and value-based components of the Concert system was propped up by two separate arrangements: the Quadruple Alliance and the Holy Alliance. While the first alliance was based on balance of power principles, the second addressed the moral dimension of the Concert system and used religion as a glue to bind the great powers together.
The British were not impressed with the Holy Alliance, with Lord Castlereagh referring to it as “a piece of sublime mysticism and nonsense.” Notwithstanding this, it is believed that the Concert system managed to avert great-power wars for almost a century thanks to its two dimensions: self-interest based on balance-of-power calculations, and values. The injection of values through the Holy Alliance had the role of checking revisionist tendencies among the great powers, which was not only dependent on the accrual of benefits.
The fact that India-Russia relations will face setbacks is inevitable. Whether the setbacks will be seen as aberrations, or whether they will herald a sustained drift, will in many ways be determined by the salience of shared values between the two nations. | 1 |
Sorry Tiger, Hillary has a lot of influence but it s unlikely she can do anything for your golf game Adulterer and former golf star Tiger Woods donated between $25,001 and $50,000 to the Clinton Foundation in the first half of 2015, records show. The charitable organization was founded by adulterer and former President Bill Clinton. The two men are perhaps the most renowned philanderers in America, yet for whatever reason Clinton is far more respected in the public eye, and occasionally wins father of the year awards.Woods is one of more than 10,500 individuals and organization who donated to the Clinton Foundation in the first half of the year. That s a significant increase from the 8,800 donors who contributed during the same period last year, but it probably has nothing to do with the fact that Hillary officially announced her presidential campaign in April, because the Clinton Foundation is exclusively a charitable organization that does a lot of good in the world and is definitely not a slush fund for influence peddlers.Via: WFB | 1 |
(Reuters) - One person was shot at an anti-Trump demonstration in Portland on Saturday as protesters crossed the Morrison Bridge, police said. “Everyone needs to leave the area immediately,” police said on Twitter, and they asked witnesses to come forward. | 1 |
Not knowing how many members of ISIS and other terrorist groups have slipped undetected into our country is yet another serious consequence of Obama s open borders Several thousand New York City uniformed and plain clothes officers will patrol the city this weekend.7,000 closed circuit security cameras will be closely watched.Air and water patrol will be equipped with radiation detection.Police officers will also be equipped with special radiation detection monitors to be put on their belts to detect for dirty bombs. America faces the highest threat level ever this year for the 4th of July.https://youtu.be/Zflo1wizClUVia: Gateway Pundit | 1 |
TORONTO (Reuters) - A U.S.-Canadian couple freed in Pakistan this week, nearly five years after being abducted in Afghanistan, reunited with the husband s family on Saturday, the Associated Press reported. Joshua Boyle and Caitlan Coleman arrived with their three children late on Friday in Toronto, where the husband said one of his children was murdered and his wife had been raped. Citing an email from Boyle, the AP reported the family had reached the first true home that the children have ever known after they spent most of Friday asking if each subsequent airport was our new house hopefully. Boyle, a Canadian, and Coleman, an American were kidnapped while backpacking in Afghanistan in 2012 by the Taliban-allied Haqqani network. Pakistani troops rescued the family this week in the northwest of the country, near the Afghan border. The United States has long accused Pakistan of failing to fight the Haqqani network. The couple had three children while in captivity. Boyle opened his Friday media statement by saying he was delayed due to a medical emergency involving one of his children. AP, citing Boyle s email, said his daughter had a cursory medical exam and hospital staff were enthusiastically insistent that her chances seemed miraculously high based on a quick physical. Boyle made a brief statement at Toronto s Pearson International Airport late on Friday, calling on the Taliban to provide my family with the justice we are owed. God willing, this litany of stupidity will be the epitaph of the Haqqani network, he said. | 1 |
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany should learn from security shortcomings exposed by a deadly truck attack on a Berlin Christmas market a year ago and increase aid to survivors and families of victims, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday. Anis Amri, a failed Tunisian asylum seeker with Islamist links, hijacked a truck on Dec. 19, 2016, killed the driver and then plowed it into a crowded market place, killing 11 more people and injuring dozens of others. Merkel spoke on the anniversary of the attack at the unveiling of a memorial on the Breitscheidplatz square where it took place. The ceremony came amid criticism from families of the victims and from survivors about the government s handling of the incident. Today is a day for mourning but also a day for the determination of making things better that did not work (in the past), Merkel said. Merkel, who met victims and relatives of those killed at the chancellery on Monday, said she would meet the group again in a few months to provide updates on lessons learned from Germany s worst Islamist militant attack. Hundreds of people gathered with candles at the site after a church service at the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church that was also attended by Berlin mayor Michael Mueller and former German President Joachim Gauck. The church bells tolled for 12 minutes, one minute for each of those killed, at 8:02 p.m., the precise time when the attack occurred. The normally crowded Christmas market at the plaza remained closed all day on Tuesday. The memorial shows the names of the victims carved on the steps of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church near the scene of the attack. A long crack filled with metal and gold alloy runs through the steps and the Christmas market. President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said support for the victims of the attack came late and had not been sufficient. It s bitter that the state could not protect your relatives, Steinmeier said addressing the families. German Justice Minister Heiko Maas said the government had not been well enough prepared to avert such an attack. We can only apologize for the victims and the surviving relatives, Maas wrote in an article published in Tagesspiegel paper on Tuesday. The German government has agreed to increase compensation payments to victims families and survivors after complaints that the 10,000 euros ($11,820) compensation the German government had offered was insufficient, Kurt Beck, an advocate for victims and survivors said on Tuesday. Dozens of protesters rallied near the Breitscheidplatz, carrying signs expressing solidarity with the victims but warning against turning the tragic event into a rallying cry against Islam, as some far-right groups have sought to do. I m angry about the right wing s efforts to instrumentalize this, said Martin Pfaff, who organized the event. That s why we re making clear that racism cannot be an answer to terrorism. | 0 |
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Shelling killed around ten people, including five children at a school gate, in a besieged rebel enclave near Syria s capital Damascus on Tuesday, a day after a U.N. aid delivery to the area, a war monitor said. The shelling also injured 30 other people in the Eastern Ghouta area, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The Britain-based monitor said the ongoing shelling which began Tuesday morning hit the towns of Jisreen, Douma, Saqba, Mesraba, Harasta, Ain Terma, Hazza and Kafr Batna. On Monday a United Nations and Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) convoy delivered aid to the towns of Kafr Batna and Saqba. A tightening siege by government forces has pushed people to the verge of famine in the eastern suburbs, residents and aid workers said last week, bringing desperation to the only major rebel enclave near the Syrian capital. Syrian state television on Tuesday said shells had also hit parts of government-held Damascus, injuring at least five people. In July, Moscow and rebels in Eastern Ghouta signed a deal to make the area a de-escalation zone . The agreement raised hopes of open crossings and aid flows. The aid organisation International Rescue Committee said on Monday the de-escalation zone agreements with rebel areas across Syria were failing to protect civilians. The safety of civilians has not improved with the establishment of these so-called de-escalation areas. With so many armed groups not covered by ceasefire agreements, we have even seen periods of increased aerial bombardment, IRC s Middle East Director of Public Affairs Tom Garofalo said. | 0 |
NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Thursday that Hurricane Maria totally obliterated the U.S. island territory of Puerto Rico with its electrical grid destroyed. Trump told reporters during a meeting with Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko that he would visit Puerto Rico at some point. He did not specify a time. He described Puerto Rico as in very, very, very perilous shape and said U.S. emergency authorities were starting to work on helping in the recovery. | 1 |
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia s ruling United Russia party will support President Vladimir Putin if he decides to run for a new term in office, its leader, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, said on Thursday. Putin, 65, has so far kept silent on whether he plans to seek a fourth term in a presidential election due in March 2018. Our party, and I personally, will support him in this in every possible way, Medvedev said in an interview with Russian television channels broadcast live. Because we believe that he is a successful president who is leading our country. | 1 |
The newly elected US Senator Doug Jones (D-AL) just won the election by a small margin in a state where a Republican hasn t won for 25 years. Jones was pegged as a liberal and a pro-abortion by his opponents in the highly contentious race against the accused sexual predator, and ultra-conservative candidate, Roy Moore. Jones, however, is no dummy. In a deep-red state who voted overwhelmingly for President Trump in 2016, Jones knows that he will be a one-term senator unless he gets behind the wildly popular Donald Trump, and based on his first interview with the press, that s exactly what he plans to do.Senator-elect Doug Jones is already breaking with some prominent Democrats by refusing to call for President Trump to step down over ongoing sexual harassment allegations. I don t think that the president ought to resign at this point, Jones (D-Ala.) told CNN s State of the Union. In his first round of Sunday show interviews since securing a stunning victory in red state Alabama over accused sexual predator Roy Moore, Jones said he doesn t want to get bogged down in Trump s sexual harassment allegations and would rather work on real issues. I think we need to move on and not get distracted by those issues, Jones added. Let s get on with the real issues that are facing the people of this country right now. That s at odds with some high-profile Democrats like Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) and Cory Booker (NJ) who believe the president should step down because at least 19 women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct.Unlike other politicians who have stepped down, like Sen. Al Franken and Rep. John Conyers, Jones said the difference is the voters knew about these allegations and still elected Trump to the highest office. Those allegations were made and he was elected president of the United States, Jones said. I think the American people spoke. Jones said he s willing to work with Republicans on passing some of Trump s priorities like infrastructure investment said the sexual harassment allegations are not reason to get on Trump s bad side. We need to move on and try to work with some real issues that are facing the country and not worry about getting at odds with the president any more than we have to, Jones said.Gillibrand last week said Trump committed assault according to the very credible allegations and he should resign. Trump, who has routinely denied any wrongdoing, shot back at the junior senator with what was widely panned as a sexually suggestive tweet Tuesday the same day Democrats turned out in droves for Jones in Alabama to defeat a Trump-backed candidate. NYP | 1 |
A Georgia middle school science teacher and a paraprofessional got into a vicious classroom brawl in front of horrified students who captured the fight on video. The two women, who have not been identified, started throwing punches at one another May 19 at Stone Mountain Middle School. From what I think I know the teachers were arguing about a teacher, a male teacher, and they started arguing and it went on for about three to five minutes, a student told the network. Everyone was screaming like stop, stop, stop. Cellphone video shows one of the women repeatedly punching the other in the face as two students try to break up the fight, to no avail.The brawl eventually was broken up by school staff.The school sent a letter home to parents saying two women had engaged in a physical altercation that caused a major disturbance in a classroom and that both would be disciplined. The interaction and conduct in the video is completely unacceptable and contrary to our district s tenets and core principles, school officials said in a statement. Those staff members that participated in the conduct have been removed from the learning environment. Both women were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct in a public place.Shokingly, they will be allowed to keep their jobs pending the outcome of the school district s investigation. | 0 |
MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin said Russia was destroying its last supplies of chemical weapons on Wednesday, three years ahead of schedule, hailing the development as an historic event . In televised remarks broadcast by the Rossiya 24 TV channel, Putin also complained that the United States had not fulfilled its own obligations to destroy chemical weapons, saying it had put off doing so three times citing a lack of financial resources. | 1 |
Immigration reform used to be an issue that split both parties: Pro-business Republicans faced off against cultural conservatives, while within the Democratic Party Latino advocates faced off against labor.
But over the past 10 years, immigration has become a partisan issue.
This change isn't just a shift in where politicians take certain policy questions. It's also a change in whether Americans think that immigrants, in general, are a good thing for America:
To a certain extent, polarization on immigration in Washington and polarization among voters reinforce each other.
In 2005, when comprehensive immigration reform was a key priority of President George W. Bush, Republicans and Democrats were about equally likely to think that immigrants strengthened America. Once Bush's successor, Barack Obama, started stressing the need for comprehensive immigration reform, though, Republicans were much less likely to look favorably on immigrants — according to Pew's findings, Republican attitudes changed precipitously between late 2009 and summer 2010.
But this isn't the whole story, because the debate in Washington over comprehensive immigration reform has always had a tenuous relationship to how Americans actually feel about immigrants.
Historically, even the "anti-amnesty" politicians who opposed comprehensive immigration reform stressed that immigrants were welcome in America as long as they came (and stayed) legally. For most Americans, though, the difference that matters isn't between legal and unauthorized immigrants — it's between immigrants they find likely to assimilate into "American culture" and those who (they believe) cannot.
Americans are much more ambivalent about immigrants, in general, than you might expect from listening to politicians talk about immigration — or than you might guess by looking at polling for various immigration reform proposals.
For many white Americans over the past couple of decades, that ambivalence has hardened into a constellation of stereotypes: associating "immigrant" with "illegal immigrant," "illegal immigrant" with "Latino immigrant," and "Latino immigrant" with "criminal."
This is the genius of Donald Trump's presidential campaign: His rhetoric homes in directly on the things that actually worry many Americans about immigrants, rather than using economic or legal arguments as a way to gesture toward cultural fears.
But as the chart shows, Trump wasn't just exploiting a sentiment among American voters — he's exploiting a sentiment among specifically Republican voters.
The changes shown in the Pew chart don't just reflect Democrats or Republicans changing their minds about whether immigrants are good for America. (In fact, most of the people changing their minds are embracing immigrants; overall, the most recent Pew poll found 59 percent of Americans agree that immigration strengthens the country, which is the highest level of support in 20 years.)
They reflect changes in who identifies as a Republican or a Democrat.
Over the past 20 years, the Democratic Party has gotten markedly more ethnically diverse...
...as white voters have increasingly identified with Republicans:
Not all of the white voters who have switched parties are motivated by anti-Latino sentiment. But the voters who are motivated by anti-Latino sentiment are particularly likely to have switched parties.
Before 2000, there was a correlation between negative feelings toward Latinos and identifying as strongly Republican. But that was just a side effect; how people felt toward black Americans was a much better predictor of how strongly they identified with the GOP.
In the 21st century, the two have diverged. All else being equal — even sentiment toward African Americans — a white American in 2008 who felt negatively toward Latinos was likely to be more strongly Republican (one-third of a point on a seven-point scale from strong Republican to strong Democrat) than someone who felt positively toward them.
There's no indication that the trend has abated since 2008. Indeed, the Pew polling shows that sentiment toward immigrants among Republicans hit new lows in May 2015, with only 27 percent of Republicans saying immigrants strengthened America. That was just before Donald Trump launched his presidential campaign.
While Donald Trump didn't make Republicans wary of immigrants' effect on America, though, he does appear to have made the remaining skeptics in the Democratic Party embrace them.
In May 2015, on the eve of Trump's campaign launch, 62 percent of Democrats said that immigrants strengthened America. In March 2016, 78 percent said they did — a 16-percentage-point jump.
That's the biggest reason pro-immigrant sentiment is at a 20-year high: The Democrats who hadn't already embraced immigrants are doing so now.
If that holds, it will complete the last phase of the partisanization of immigration. Republican voters are already fairly united in their distrust of immigrants, and many Republican politicians are following their lead. Democratic politicians, meanwhile, are fairly united in their support of immigrants. And now, Democratic voters appear to be embracing their identity as the pro-immigrant party. | 1 |
According to ABC Eye Witness News, on Saturday, Nov. 5, 2016, in Newark, New Jersey, seven people were stabbed. The stabbing occurred shortly before 4:00 p.m. ET.
It has been reported some the victims have life-threatening injuries. So far the police have reported there is no clear motive for the stabbing, and there are no suspects in custody.
Updates on this story will be provided as they come available.
Another Stabbing Earlier This Year According to ABC Eye Witness News, on July 29, 2016, there was another stabbing. This victim was in critical condition was stabbed by her husband. Which lead to a standoff.
The 59-year-old victim was stabbed multiple times by the 64-year-old suspect. At the time of the stabbing, their nine-year-old grandson was in the home. He was not injured, and he was able to get help.
Neighbors came in and pulled the woman onto the grass until paramedics arrived. The suspect sat behind the front door of the home talking to police since about 11:20 a.m., and the standoff ended at about 3:40 p.m. with the man taken into custody.
During the standoff, the suspect threatened to commit suicide. Residents of the area were told to stay in their homes while officials negotiated with the suspect.
By Brady Combs
Edited by Cathy Milne
Sources:
ABC EyeWitness News: 7 People Stabbed inside Newark home; police searching for suspect
ABC EyeWitness News: Woman Stabbed by her husband in a Newark Home, police say
Image courtesy of ER24 EMS’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License stabbing | 1 |
HELSINKI (Reuters) - Four people were killed and several injured when a train crashed into an army truck during a military exercise in southern Finland on Thursday, police and the armed forces said. The accident occurred at an unguarded railway crossing near the city of Raasepori, 90 km (56 miles) west of the capital Helsinki, when two military vehicles were crossing the tracks on their way to a training site. The train and one of the vehicles collided, killing three soldiers aboard the truck and a passenger on the train, officials said. Road conditions were bad in the morning due to rain and snowfall. Inspector Ilkka Kantola told Helsingin Sanomat newspaper that the train had hit the truck at a speed of around 100 kilometres per hour. According to Kantola, the train driver had seen the truck but thought that it would stop as it was driving very slowly. The train put on the break but the speed did not necessarily slow down at all ahead of the collision, Kantola was quoted as saying. The soldier who had driven the truck will face charges for endangering traffic safety and manslaughter, he added. Four people were taken to Helsinki with severe injuries and seven others were treated at a local hospital for minor injuries. All patients were said to be in stable condition. Finnish Prime Minister Juha Sipila and President Sauli Niinisto both offered their condolences to the victims and their families. The young conscripts were there for their country. That their journey ends in many deaths and in serious injuries is a true tragedy, President Niinisto said in a statement. Military service is obligatory for men in Finland. | 1 |
Whoa! We asked the question yesterday in more of a tongue-and-cheek manner. That was before we saw the serious question that had just been asked of Hillary by reporters. Like everyone else who saw the video, we assumed someone had said something humorous that caused her to behave like she was having seizure. But after watching the actual question that was asked, just prior to what truly does appear to be some sort of seizure, we re having second thoughts about Hillary acting out.Watch the only Presidential candidate who travels with a full-time physician having what appears to be some sort of seizure You be the judge | 1 |
21st Century Wire says Trump protests are getting out of hand, yet again. This time in Portland Oregon. Liberal progressive protesters have taken to the streets in opposition to the President s latest controversial executive order instituting a 7 nation travel ban. Lets see how it turned out:Protesters surrounded Trump supporters outside the Portland airport and bullhorned in their faces bumper sticker slogans like, No Fear, No Hate! and then Peaceful Protest! Anyone who s not seen the full video at this point might still think this was a protest and not a violent mob bordering on a riot.The extreme left protestors chased the Trump supporters into the Portland airport and things got ugly. One of the Trump supporters was sucker punched, which seems to be an escalation of violence among protesters, similar to the recent sucker punch of Alt-Right leader, Richard Spenser in Washington DC last week.As the man who was assaulted hit the ground the protestors gathered around him and proceeded to continue to taunt, chant and ridicule the injured Trump supporter. Phrases like, That s how you talk to a Nazi! That s right! were said by anti-Trump activists, Your boy got knocked out! and Wooo! Hunt the Nazis! The victim of the assault, Grant Chisholm, 39 year old from Portland says that he was hit three times in the head with something metallic in the assault. They almost killed me tonight, said Chisholm.Chisholm claims he dropped in and out of consciousness while other protesters attempted to kick him, according to a report at Oregonlive.com, although this is not verifiable in the video footage.The extreme left has always claimed to be the tolerant and accepting of political identities, but look how they behave when they lose the election. Is this tolerance, acceptance of different views when their protests consist of violence, cowardly sucker punch assaults and hateful chants accusing anyone with a remotely conservative world view of being a Nazi?Watch the assault happen in the video below:. READ MORE TRUMP NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Trump FilesSUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 0 |
The governor of the small Russian region of Oryol is trying to convince people that Ivan the Terrible was not so bad. Legend has it that Ivan founded the region’s capital, also called Oryol, in 1566. Now Gov. Vadim Potomsky has commissioned a bronze statue of the former czar on horseback, wielding a sword and a cross, to be erected in front of the city’s children’s theater in honor of the city’s 450th birthday. The rehabilitation campaign builds on a move by Russia’s minister of culture back in 2014 to depict Ivan as the victim of Western disinformation. The minister suggested that the name in Russian, “Ivan Grozny,” would better be translated as “Ivan the Strict. ” Ivan’s more dubious deeds include founding the first version of Russia’s secret police and beating his own son to death. The death is the subject of one of the country’s most renowned historical paintings, by Ilya Repin, something Governor Potomsky dismissed as “a work of fiction. ” The governor told the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets that, for him, Ivan is part of a triumvirate of Russia’s “three great rulers,” along with Peter the Great and Joseph Stalin. “Each of them is a unique story,” he said, “but each made a great contribution to Russian sovereignty, its might. ” The public remains unconvinced. Even the anchor of the television program “News of the Week” said recently that Russia seemed to be suffering from a “maniacal obsession” with new statues, noting that neither the Romanovs nor Stalin himself ever erected a monument to the Terrible. Critics horrified by the very idea of the statue abhor even more Governor Potomsky’s planned location. Aleksander Mikhailov, artistic director of Oryol’s children’s theater, imagined parents having to explain to young ones that the czar killed his son. “He is too controversial and tragic a figure in Russian history,” Mr. Mikhailov said. Governor Potomsky initially waved off the criticism, then said he would delay the installation a month to consult with the public. Some people in Oryol, he told the newspaper, “complain about everything. ” | 0 |
LUXEMBOURG/LONDON (Reuters) - The European Union told Britain on Tuesday it must make more concessions in talks over its departure from the bloc, offering little hope of a breakthrough for Prime Minister Theresa May at a summit later this week. May traveled to Brussels on Monday for dinner with senior EU officials, hoping to nudge the Brexit talks forward to look at future ties which she says will help London make advances on calculating a financial settlement. But hours after the dinner, ministers from EU countries, even those such as the Netherlands that have much to lose if there is no Brexit deal, said May needed to go further on detailing how much Britain will pay when it leaves the bloc. After losing her governing Conservatives majority in a June election and struggling through the party s annual conference, May has little room for maneuver unable to increase her offer on the Brexit bill for fear of angering her own party. We, the 27 together, find it extremely important that substantial progress is made on all three areas, Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders told reporters. But he also said the EU would offer May an olive branch at their summit on Friday by saying they would start preparing among themselves for talks on a post-Brexit transition in order to be able to engage with Britain swiftly after London delivers. I hope that in the UK the reality comes in that this is a possibility to come to the next stage in December, Koenders said in Luxembourg where ministers were preparing for the summit this Thursday and Friday. After the Brussels dinner on Monday, May and European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said the pace of Brexit negotiations should be stepped up after they stalled largely over the size of the divorce bill. The EU s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier struck a note of caution on Tuesday. It takes two to accelerate, he told reporters as he arrived to brief EU ministers in Luxembourg. One step after another... We are not finished with the first step. Neither side signaled there would be much movement at the EU summit after five rounds of talks, and some EU ministers in Luxembourg on Tuesday said it was hard to negotiate with a prime minister under pressure from Brexit hardliners. Sometimes it s very difficult to see and understand what Britain really wants from these negotiations, said Finland s deputy minister, Samuli Virtanen. It seems that at the moment EU 27 is more unanimous than UK 1. With only 17 months before Britain leaves, the lack of progress in the talks have prompted companies to get ready not only for London leaving without a deal but also for a prolonged lack of certainty which makes investment decisions difficult. Britain s Brexit minister David Davis said separately that London had no plans to walk away from the negotiations and that he hoped the looming EU summit would build on the momentum and spirit of cooperation we now have. At the summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday, May is due to set out Britain s Brexit position and then leave the room as the other EU leaders discuss the progress of the talks to unravel more than 40 years of union. According to a draft of the conclusions for the summit, the EU are unlikely to agree with May that it is time to move the talks forward, but will instead suggest starting a discussion on transition among themselves. That comes after May also talked on the phone with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron in recent days, with sources saying both Paris and Berlin rebuffed her advances and stuck to the EU line. Foreign minister Boris Johnson told the British parliament on Tuesday he hoped our friends and partners in the EU would discuss the transition period, saying if we re going to get on to that kind of question, now is the time for them to do so . British officials have increasingly accepted that Friday will not bring the breakthrough they had hoped for, but believe an improved tone may mean that might not be too far off. The PM is pleased with how the dinner went, it was productive, it was a friendly discussion, a May spokesman said. We have been absolutely clear that we can only resolve the financial implications of the UK s withdrawal and other issues as part of the settlement of all the issues. But members of her party have reduced May s room for maneuver, with some Brexit campaigners saying if there was no progress on Friday, the prime minister should walk away. It s all about the money and if she ups the bid now, that is a really hard sell politically, a senior source in May s governing Conservative Party told Reuters. | 0 |
Obama's UN Ambassador: Cuba is Right About Our Human Rights October 29, 2016 Daniel Greenfield
You may remember Ambassador Samantha Power from the time she proposed invading Israel. Since then she's gone on to a glorious career of representing the Castro regime at the UN. Or is it the Obama regime. It naturally gets confusing when the US Ambassador to the UN sides with the enemy against her own country.
"For more than 50 years, the United States had a policy aimed at isolating the government of Cuba. For roughly half of those years, UN Member States have voted overwhelmingly for a General Assembly resolution that condemns the U.S. embargo and calls for it to be ended. The United States has always voted against this resolution. Today the United States will abstain. [Applause.] Thank you."
Under Obama, Power was told to abstain from opposing a resolution critical of the United States. And they say Obama is some sort of anti-American traitor. I don't see it. If he were, we would be seeing signs of it by now.
Anyway, Power then went on to audition for the job of the UN ambassador from Cuba by claiming that critiques from a brutal Communist dictatorship about our human rights are well-founded...
"Let me be among the first to acknowledge – as our Cuban counterparts often point out – that the United States has work to do in fulfilling these rights for our own citizens. And we know that at times in our history, U.S. leaders and citizens used the pretext of promoting democracy and human rights in the region to justify actions that have left a deep legacy of mistrust."
Somehow though siding with Communist dictatorships who are the enemy while betraying our allies in the region does not create any mistrust. Only opposing the left does. | 1 |
The Republican Party is panicking over Donald Trump s presidential campaign in a way most Americans have never seen, and certainly haven t seen in over fifty years. Political party conventions have evolved until recently into carefully stage-managed infomercials for the parties and their ideals, but now there is a very real shadow operation under way between Trump and the other campaigns to control the outcome of the actual delegate votes, in order to force or avoid a contested convention.In case you might, as many liberals have, assume that a lot of this is theater being put together by the party it isn t. The data Republican Party leaders are looking at has them reaching for their heartburn medication, because it forecasts an epic wipeout for the party of Lincoln.Statistical guru Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight put together what a presidential electoral map between frontrunners Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton would look like and the GOP loses even worse than they did in the 2012 and 2008 elections. In the electoral college it would be 374 Democrats, 164 Republicans:Here's what the map might look like in an election held today. Trump's Rust Belt strength would help him keep MO, IN pic.twitter.com/OYueYvWFpG Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) March 24, 2016Silver bases his data on recent polling of a head to head matchup between Trump and Clinton. Those numbers are also the thing of Republican nightmares.The two most recent nationwide electoral polls (Fox News, Bloomberg) show Clinton winning the race by 11% and 18%. The most recent poll before that, Quinnipiac, has her margin of victory at a still respectable 6%.If the margin of victory is between 10-11%, Silver s model shows states like Georgia and North Carolina flipping to Democrats and eating into the Republican hold on the South. It also shows Democrats winning Arizona (current polling there shows Democratic Senate candidate Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick tied with Sen. John McCain). It confines Republicans to the plains and most, but not all, of the Bible Belt states.Derailing Trump s nomination won t be easy to do, but for the GOP party establishment its preferable than what the numbers are currently forecasting: total disaster.Featured image via Flickr | 0 |
Posted on November 2, 2016 by WashingtonsBlog
By Robert Parry, the investigative reporter who many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. Originally published at Parry’s Consortium News (republished with permission).
If Ukraine becomes a flashpoint for World War III with Russia, the American people might rue the day that their government pressed for the 2014 overthrow of Ukraine’s allegedly corrupt (though elected) president in favor of a coup regime led by Ukrainian lawmakers who now report amassing, on average, more than $1 million each, much of it as cash.
The New York Times, which served as virtually a press agent for the coup in February 2014, took note of this apparent corruption among the U.S.-favored post-coup officials, albeit deep inside a story that itself was deep inside the newspaper (page A8). The lead angle was a bemused observation that Ukraine’s officialdom lacked faith in the country’s own banks (thus explaining why so much cash). Ukraine’s anti-Russian President Petro Poroshenko speaking to the Atlantic Council in 2014. (Photo credit: Atlantic Council)
Yet, Ukraine is a country beset by widespread poverty, made worse by the post-coup neoliberal “reforms” slashing pensions, making old people work longer and reducing heating subsidies for common citizens. The average Ukrainian salary is only $214 a month.
So, an inquiring mind might wonder how – in the face of all that hardship – the post-coup officials did so well for themselves, but Times’ correspondent Andrew E. Kramer treads lightly on the possibility that these officials were at least as corrupt, if not more so, than the elected government that the U.S. helped overthrow. Elected President Viktor Yanukovych had been excoriated for a lavish lifestyle because he had a sauna in his residence.
Kramer’s article on Wednesday tried to explain the bundles of cash as a sign that “many of the lawmakers and officials responsible for inspiring public trust in Ukraine’s economic and banking institutions have little faith that their own wealth would be safe in the country’s banks, according to recently mandated financial disclosures. …
“Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, for example, declared over one million dollars in savings in cash — $870,000 and 460,000 euros — apparently shunning Ukraine’s ever-wobbly banking system. The top official in charge of the country’s banks, Valeriya Gontareva, who is responsible for stabilizing the national currency, the hryvnia, maintains most of her money in American dollars — $1.8 million.
“A tally of the declarations filed by most of Parliament’s 450 members compiled by one analyst, Andriy Gerus, found that the lawmakers collectively held $482 million in ‘monetary assets,’ of which $36 million was kept as cold, hard cash. …
“Some politicians seem to have approached the declaration as a sort of amnesty, revealing everything they have earned from decades of crooked dealings, in an effort to come clean. … One minister reported a wine collection with bottles worth thousands of dollars each. Another official declared ownership of a church. Yet another claimed a ticket to outer space with Virgin Galactic. …
“Another theory making the rounds in Kiev — where people generally acknowledge the inventive, venal genius of their politicians — suggests that the public servants are padding their declarations,” so they can hide future bribes within their reported cash holdings and thus offer plausible excuses for luxury cars and expensive jewelry.
Accessing More Money
Ironically, passage of the law requiring the disclosures of what appears to be widespread corruption among Kiev’s officials unlocked millions of euros in new aid money from the European Union that then flowed to the same apparently corrupt officials. Ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
However, because the Ukraine “regime change” in 2014 was partly orchestrated by U.S. and E.U. officials around the propaganda theme that elected President Yanukovych was corrupt – he had that sauna, after all – the continued corruption in the post-coup regime has been a rarely acknowledged, inconvenient truth. Indeed, some business people operating in Ukraine have complained that the corruption has grown worse since Yanukovych was overthrown.
Yet, only occasionally has that reality been allowed to peek through in the mainstream U.S. media, which prefers to deny that any “coup” occurred, to blame Russia for all of Ukraine’s problems, and to praise the post-coup “reforms” which targeted pensions, heating subsidies and other social programs for average citizens.
One of the rare deviations from the happy talk appeared in The Wall Street Journal on Jan. 1, 2016, observing that “most Ukrainians say the revolution’s promise to replace rule by thieves with the rule of law has fallen short and the government acknowledges that there is still much to be done.”
Actually, the numbers suggested something even worse. More and more Ukrainians rated corruption as a major problem facing the nation, including a majority of 53 percent in September 2015, up from 28 percent in September 2014, according to polls by International Foundation for Electoral Systems.
So, as the hard lives of most Ukrainians got harder, the elites continued to skim off whatever cream was left, including access to billions of dollars in the West’s foreign assistance that has kept the economy afloat.
There was, for instance, the case of Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, who was regarded by many pundits as the face of Ukraine’s reform before departing last April after losing out in a power struggle.
Yet, Jaresko was hardly a paragon of reform. Prior to getting instant Ukrainian citizenship and becoming Finance Minister in December 2014, she was a former U.S. diplomat who had been entrusted to run a $150 million U.S.-taxpayer-funded program to help jump-start an investment economy in Ukraine and Moldova.
Jaresko’s compensation was capped at $150,000 a year, a salary that many Americans – let alone Ukrainians – would envy, but it was not enough for her. So, she engaged in a variety of maneuvers to evade the cap and enrich herself by claiming millions of dollars in bonuses and fees.
Ultimately, Jaresko was collecting more than $2 million a year after she shifted management of the Western NIS Enterprise Fund (WNISEF) to her own private company, Horizon Capital, and arranged to get lucrative bonuses when selling off investments, even as the overall WNISEF fund was losing money, according to official records. Ukraine’s former Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko.
For instance, Jaresko collected $1.77 million in bonuses in 2013, according to a WNISEF filing with the Internal Revenue Service. In her financial disclosure forms with the Ukrainian government, she reported earning $2.66 million in 2013 and $2.05 million in 2014, thus amassing a sizeable personal fortune while investing U.S. taxpayers’ money supposedly to benefit the Ukrainian people.
It didn’t matter that WNISEF continued to hemorrhage money, shrinking from its original $150 million to $89.8 million in the 2013 tax year, according to the IRS filing. WNISEF reported that the bonuses to Jaresko and other corporate officers were based on “successful” exits from some investments even if the overall fund was losing money.
Though Jaresko’s enrichment schemes were documented by IRS and other official filings, the mainstream U.S. media turned a blind eye to this history, all the better to pretend that Ukraine’s “reform” process was in good hands. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “ How Ukraine’s Finance Minister Got Rich .”]
Biden’s Appeal
Worried about the continued corruption, Vice President Joe Biden, who took a personal interest in Ukraine, lectured Ukraine’s parliament on the need to end cronyism.
But Biden had his own Ukraine cronyism problem because three months after the U.S.-backed overthrow of the Yanukovych government Ukraine’s largest private gas firm, Burisma Holdings, appointed his son, Hunter Biden, to its board of directors. Vice President Joe Biden.
Burisma a shadowy Cyprus-based company also lined up well-connected lobbyists, some with ties to Secretary of State John Kerry, including Kerry’s former Senate chief of staff David Leiter, according to lobbying disclosures.
As Time magazine reported , “Leiter’s involvement in the firm rounds out a power-packed team of politically-connected Americans that also includes a second new board member, Devon Archer, a Democratic bundler and former adviser to John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign. Both Archer and Hunter Biden have worked as business partners with Kerry’s son-in-law, Christopher Heinz, the founding partner of Rosemont Capital, a private-equity company.”
According to investigative journalism inside Ukraine, the ownership of Burisma has been traced to Privat Bank, controlled by the thuggish billionaire oligarch Ihor Kolomoysky, who was appointed by the U.S.-backed “reform” regime to be governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, a south-central province of Ukraine (though Kolomoisky was eventually ousted from that post in a power struggle over control of UkrTransNafta, Ukraine’s state-owned oil pipeline operator).
In a speech to Ukraine’s parliament in December 2015 , Biden hailed the sacrifice of the 100 or so protesters who died during the Maidan putsch in February 2014, which ousted Yanukovych, referring to the dead by their laudatory name “The Heavenly Hundred.”
But Biden made no heavenly references to the estimated 10,000 people, mostly ethnic Russians, who have been slaughtered in the U.S.-encouraged “Anti-Terror Operation” waged by the coup regime against eastern Ukrainians who resisted Yanukovych’s violent ouster. Nor did Biden take note that some of the Heavenly Hundred were street fighters for neo-Nazi and other far-right nationalist organizations.
But after making his sugary references to The Heavenly Hundred, Biden delivered his bitter medicine, an appeal for the parliament to continue implementing International Monetary Fund “reforms,” including demands that old people work longer into their old age.
Biden said, “For Ukraine to continue to make progress and to keep the support of the international community you have to do more, as well. The big part of moving forward with your IMF program — it requires difficult reforms. And they are difficult.
“Let me say parenthetically here, all the experts from our State Department and all the think tanks, and they come and tell you, that you know what you should do is you should deal with pensions. You should deal with — as if it’s easy to do. Hell, we’re having trouble in America dealing with it. We’re having trouble. To vote to raise the pension age is to write your political obituary in many places.
“Don’t misunderstand that those of us who serve in other democratic institutions don’t understand how hard the conditions are, how difficult it is to cast some of the votes to meet the obligations committed to under the IMF. It requires sacrifices that might not be politically expedient or popular. But they’re critical to putting Ukraine on the path to a future that is economically secure. And I urge you to stay the course as hard as it is. Ukraine needs a budget that’s consistent with your IMF commitments.”
However, as tough as it might have been for Ukraine’s parliament to slash pensions, reduce heating subsidies and force the elderly to work longer, that political sacrifice did not appear to extend to the officials making financial sacrifices themselves. | 1 |
(Reuters) - Bank of America Corp Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan on Wednesday played down the impact on the bank if Donald Trump is elected as the next president of the United States. Moynihan was put on the spot by billionaire investor Wilbur Ross at an annual fundraising dinner for the Japan Society in New York when he was asked about a possible Trump presidency. “I’ve made it my personal practice—because when you run a big company—I do not say ‘candidate A versus candidate B’ but what I think we need as we think about transition is we need a leader for the whole country,” Moynihan said. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for the 2016 presidential election, has faced criticism on a variety of issues, including his position on trade, immigration and foreign policy. “I have high confidence that the powers of office will be able to shape people into being what’s good for America. If they’re really answering that question I think at the end of the day Bank of America will be fine,” said Moynihan. Ross, who is Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer at Invesco Ltd subsidiary WL Ross & Co, interviewed Moynihan on stage for 20 minutes as guests ate the first course of cold smoked fish. | 0 |
(Reuters) - A New Jersey judge plans to decide by Friday whether to dismiss a citizen’s criminal complaint accusing Governor Chris Christie of a role in the “Bridgegate” lane-closure scandal. Prosecutors in Bergen County told Judge Bonnie Mizdol on Wednesday that the case should be tossed on procedural grounds because a different judge who permitted it to advance failed to give Christie’s lawyers an opportunity to speak at an earlier hearing. A lawyer for Christie also urged Mizdol to throw out the complaint filed by Bill Brennan, a retired firefighter and activist who recently announced a long-shot bid to succeed the governor in this fall’s election. Christie did not attend the hearing in Hackensack, New Jersey. Brennan has accused Christie of knowing about a scheme to shut down access lanes at the George Washington Bridge in 2013 to punish a local mayor for failing to endorse his reelection campaign. Two former Christie associates were convicted in November of federal charges for orchestrating the plot. Christie has denied any knowledge of or involvement in the plan, but U.S. prosecutors presented evidence at trial suggesting he was at least aware of the lane closures while they were happening. Brennan filed the complaint in municipal court in Fort Lee, where the closures occurred. In October, Judge Roy McGeady referred the complaint to prosecutors to determine whether enough evidence existed to support criminal charges against Christie. Christie’s lawyer, Craig Carpenito, said in a court filing that the matter should never have gotten that far, calling it “a political stunt from a now-declared candidate for governor.” Brennan has said he will refile his complaint if Mizdol, the top judge in Bergen County, decides to dismiss it. Last month, Mizdol denied Brennan’s request to have an independent prosecutor assigned to the case. “As of now the defendant controls the prosecutor,” Brennan said in an email after the hearing, “and that is a dangerous place for us to be standing.” Despite Christie’s denials, the scandal dogged his failed bid for the Republican presidential nomination. He was once seen as a possible cabinet appointee for U.S. President-elect Donald Trump until the conviction of his former allies prompted a fresh round of negative attention. Bridget Kelly, a former Christie chief of staff, and Bill Baroni, a former Port Authority of New York and New Jersey executive appointed by the governor, are trying to have their convictions overturned. | 0 |
DUNWOODY, Ga. (Reuters) - Democrat Jon Ossoff no longer talks about making President Donald Trump furious. But he may be on the verge of doing just that. Ossoff, a political newcomer who launched his congressional campaign in the Republican-leaning northern suburbs of Atlanta by urging supporters to “make Trump furious,” now speaks in the measured tones of a moderate consensus builder and rarely mentions the president by name. Local economic development and cutting wasteful government spending are Ossoff’s talking points in a race against Republican Karen Handel that has shattered records as the most expensive congressional contest in U.S. history. Polls show it is headed for a tight finish in Tuesday’s special election. An Ossoff victory would rattle Republicans already nervous about next year’s congressional midterm elections, and offer Democrats a template on how to campaign in suburban swing districts as they try to erase the 24-seat Republican majority in the House of Representatives. “It would send a very strong message across the country that we can win these kinds of seats,” said Representative Dan Kildee, a Michigan Democrat who campaigned with Ossoff in Georgia this week. Democrats have much riding on the outcome. On the surface, conditions seem ripe for a nationwide Democratic renaissance, with a historically unpopular Republican president entangled in an investigation for possible obstruction of justice and the Republican agenda largely stalled in Congress. But Democrats lost two special House elections earlier this year in conservative Kansas and Montana districts that Trump won by double digits last November. A failure in a more competitive district in Georgia, which Trump carried by just 1 percentage point, would be a morale killer for a party that has struggled to develop a coherent message beyond “We’re not the party of Trump.” Democrats have steadily lost ground in recent years in state and local races. Republicans not only control the White House and both chambers of Congress, but also hold 33 governor’s offices, the most in nearly a century. Infighting between grass-roots progressives and the party’s more mainstream wing has plagued Democrats, who have appeared increasingly vulnerable to Republican attacks portraying them as coastal elites out of touch with working-class Americans. Ossoff’s “Make Trump Furious” slogan quickly endeared him to national anti-Trump activists and pushed him well ahead of 17 rivals in polls in April’s non-partisan primary in a district represented by Republicans for decades. It wasn’t enough. The 30-year-old former congressional staffer and documentary filmmaker fell just short of a majority, and outright victory, forcing a closely watched run-off against Handel for the House seat vacated by Tom Price, the new secretary of health and human services who was first elected to the House in 2004. But the grassroots enthusiasm has made Ossoff a fundraising machine. He raised a stunning $24 million by the end of May, five times the amount raised by Handel, a former Georgia secretary of state. Republican outside groups have helped her make up some of the difference, spending nearly $9 million on her behalf, according to fundraising reports. Total spending has approached $40 million, obliterating the previous record of $30 million for a Florida congressional race in 2012. While he benefits from the grassroots anti-Trump fervor, Ossoff has deliberately avoided making the race a referendum on Trump. On the campaign trail and in ads, he promises to work with Republicans and focuses on his plans to bolster local economic development, protect access to healthcare, particularly for women, and cut wasteful spending to pay for new priorities. Ossoff said voters in the district are not demanding that he lead an anti-Trump resistance. “I think voters are more concerned with accountability and results than they are with political drama,” he said in an interview after a meeting with millennial supporters. While voters’ concerns about the administration have grown, he said, “Fundamentally what folks are looking for is representation that will work across the aisle to deliver a higher quality of life.” Handel, who also rarely mentions Trump and has argued that the race should be about who has the values and experience to best serve the district, says Ossoff is misrepresenting himself. “He’s trying to portray himself as something that he is not. He is Nancy Pelosi’s hand-picked candidate,” Handel told reporters this week after greeting diners at a local hamburger restaurant, repeating a line about House Democratic leader Pelosi that has featured prominently in attack ads against Ossoff by outside groups. “He is an ultra-liberal. His values do not align with this district,” she said. Some of her supporters agree. Terry Anderson, 67, a retired IT worker from Cobb County, said he did not believe Ossoff was sincere. “He sounds more like a moderate Republican all the time,” he said. But Brenda Carswell, 61, a retired American Express employee from the city of Tucker who said she typically has switched back and forth between Republicans and Democrats - “I’ve voted for some Bushes and I’ve voted for some Clintons” - said she is backing Ossoff. “He’s been mostly discussing issues that people care about. The problems in our area are more important than most of what they talk about in Washington,” she said. Trump, who visited Georgia to raise money for Handel in late April, is watching closely. On Twitter, he criticized Ossoff, and after Ossoff was forced into a runoff he crowed that Democrats “failed in Kansas and are now failing in Georgia.” Trump called the race “Hollywood vs. Georgia.” Several recent polls have given Ossoff a slight edge heading into Tuesday, while showing that there are few voters who are still undecided. Democrats say the increasingly diverse area exemplifies the sort of educated and affluent suburban district that Democrats will need to win to recapture the House. Georgia-based Democratic strategist Tharon Johnson said Ossoff’s non-ideological messaging should be a model for a party that needs moderates, independents and disaffected Republicans next year. “He’s done a good job of positioning himself as a sensible Democrat,” he said. “He doesn’t need to tell voters what is wrong with Trump - people see the drama and the problems every day.” | 1 |
WASHINGTON — Ever since he seized power in a military takeover nearly four years ago, President Abdel Fattah of Egypt has been barred from the White House. But President Trump made clear on Monday that the period of ostracism was over as he hosted Mr. Sisi and pledged unstinting support for the autocratic ruler. “We agree on so many things,” Mr. Trump said as he sat beside Mr. Sisi in the Oval Office. “I just want to let everybody know in case there was any doubt that we are very much behind President . He’s done a fantastic job in a very difficult situation. We are very much behind Egypt and the people of Egypt. The United States has, believe me, backing, and we have strong backing. ” In that one moment, Mr. Trump underscored a fundamental shift in American foreign policy since he took office. While his predecessors considered authoritarians like Mr. Sisi to be distasteful and at times shied away from them, Mr. Trump signaled that he sees international relations through a transactional lens. If Egypt can be a partner in the battle against international terrorism, then in Mr. Trump’s calculation, that is more important to the United States than concerns over its brutal suppression of domestic dissent. Nothing could have made Mr. Sisi happier. He arrived from Cairo with a list of financial, security and political requests, but effectively he got what he really wanted in the six minutes that news media photographers were permitted in the Oval Office to record the visit that President Barack Obama had denied him. The picture of the in the White House, hosted by an American leader lavishing praise on him, was the seal of approval he had long craved, the validation of a strongman on the world’s most prominent stage. That big hug was just what Mr. Sisi’s government sought, said Eric Trager, a scholar on Egypt at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “It wants to see the White House legitimate it, and set it on a new course. ” The scene provided a powerful counterpoint to Mr. Sisi’s many critics, in Egypt and abroad, who know him as the leader of the military takeover that removed an elected president, oversaw a vicious security operation in which hundreds of protesters were gunned down in the streets of Cairo and has cemented his authority by filling prisons with his opponents while strangling the free press. It was the first visit by an Egyptian president to Washington since 2009, when the guest was the autocratic former president Hosni Mubarak, then in the waning years of his rule — an era now viewed by many Egyptians as a time of relative freedom, prosperity and security. Mr. Mubarak was pushed out in 2011 by a wave of street protests and succeeded, in a democratic election, by the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi. Taking advantage of popular discontent with Mr. Morsi two years later, the military, led by Mr. Sisi, then a general, took power and Mr. Sisi became president in a pro forma election that awarded him 97 percent of the vote. Little of that seems to matter to Mr. Trump, though, who has showcased his determination to reshape America’s relationship with a number of Middle Eastern countries, regardless of human rights concerns. In his public remarks on Monday, Mr. Trump made no mention of such issues aides said he believed discussing them in private might be more effective. “I just want to say to you, Mr. President, that you have a great friend and ally in the United States and in me,” Mr. Trump told Mr. Sisi. Mr. Sisi responded in kind, sometimes in language mimicking a Trumpian sales pitch. “You will find Egypt and myself always beside you in bringing about an effective strategy in the counterterrorism effort,” he said. He also vowed to support Mr. Trump’s effort to negotiate peace between Israelis and Palestinians, calling it an effort to “find a solution to the problem of the century in the deal of the century. ” While Egypt has long been a crucial American ally in the Middle East, Mr. Trump’s admiration for Mr. Sisi seems to mirror in some ways his appreciation for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia as a fellow tough figure. After their first meeting in September, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly when Mr. Trump was running for president, he hailed Mr. Sisi as “a fantastic guy” and spoke admiringly of his methods. “He took control of Egypt. And he really took control of it,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with Fox Business Network. Mr. Sisi has rejected suggestions that he rules like a dictator. Speaking to The Financial Times in December, he said he was “building love between Egyptians, a wave of respect for the other that will start in Cairo and spread across the region. ” Yet as he was preparing to meet Mr. Trump on Monday, a court in Cairo sentenced 17 people to jail terms of five years each for taking part in street protests in January 2015. In Rome, the parents of Giulio Regeni, an Italian postgraduate student found dead in Cairo last year, held a news conference to press their longstanding accusations that Egyptian security officials had abducted, tortured and killed their son, probably on suspicion that he was a spy. The family’s lawyer, Alessandra Ballerini, said they had identified two Egyptian national security officials said to be implicated in the case, but declined to give further details. Beyond a shared love for harsh rhetoric warning against the dangers of jihadist Islam, Mr. Trump has striking similarities with Mr. Sisi’s brand of authoritarianism in Egypt, according to Middle East analysts. Both leaders came to power promising splashy projects derided by experts — an expensive extension of the Suez Canal for Mr. Sisi, and a giant wall along the Mexico border for Mr. Trump. In speeches, both leaders have been ridiculed for making exaggerated claims, embracing conspiracy theories and speaking in a limited rhetorical style. Egyptians also often mock Mr. Sisi for speaking in a rustic form of Arabic that contrasts with the formal version usually favored by national leaders. Mr. Trump has the grammar and vocabulary of a student, one study last year found. Both leaders are notoriously and project a sense of unfiltered . In recent months, Mr. Trump branded critics in the “fake news” media as the “enemy of the American people” last year, in a fit of exasperation, Mr. Sisi told Egyptians, “Please, do not listen to anyone but me!” Yet in many other ways there are vast differences between their styles. While Mr. Trump wrestles with a hostile media and recalcitrant factions in his Republican party, Mr. Sisi’s government has imprisoned dozens of journalists — fewer only than China and Turkey, according to press freedom groups — while the national Parliament is stuffed with his supporters. It remains far from clear what the two leaders can offer each other in concrete terms. Mr. Sisi has resisted loud appeals to release Aya Hijazi, an American aid worker imprisoned in Egypt, while Mr. Trump’s White House is considering slashing foreign aid to countries including Egypt’s $1. 3 billion in military assistance. The Trump administration also appears to have gone cold on proposals to designate the country’s Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. While human rights advocates criticized Mr. Trump, a lawyer for Ms. Hijazi said her supporters had been working with his administration to highlight her case and those of others held. “We are confident that the case is being prioritized at the highest levels of the United States government,” said the lawyer, Wade McMullen, managing attorney at Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, an advocacy center. One thing Mr. Sisi desperately wants, according to Western officials in Cairo, is for Mr. Trump to reinstate a military financing deal, suspended under Mr. Obama in 2015, allowing Egypt to effectively buy, on credit, the tanks, warplanes and other military items it desires. Such a deal would give Mr. Sisi something to bring home to his backers in the military. But experts say that while a military finance deal might please American defense contractors, it could frustrate American counterterrorism goals by making Egypt less likely to pour resources into smaller weapons that are better suited to battling Islamic State insurgents in Sinai. “If Trump is really interested in getting the Egyptians to fight radical Islam, giving them more tanks will not help our goals,” said Amy Hawthorne of the Project on Middle East Democracy, a Washington nonprofit that has been sharply critical of Mr. Sisi. Some experts worry that Mr. Sisi’s approach to Islamism — banning all forms of political Islam, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as fighting jihadist violence — could ultimately feed a new wellspring of radicalism that could blow back on the United States. “The authoritarian bargain the U. S. has struck with Egypt might seem to be the right thing, but it never pays off in the long run,” Ms. Hawthorne said. “It’s not just about being on the wrong side of history, but about in a regime that is fueling radicalization that will ultimately harm U. S. interests. ” | 0 |
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(CNN) World leaders opened pivotal climate talks Monday in Paris saying the stakes are too high to end the conference without achieving a binding agreement to help slow the pace of global climate change.
"A political moment like this may not come again," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told leaders gathered for the conference. "We have never faced such a test. But neither have we encountered such great opportunity."
The talks began with a moment of silence for victims of the November 13 terror attacks in Paris, and the tragedy served as a touchstone for world leaders urging unity and action.
"What greater rejection of those who would tear down our world than marshaling our best efforts to save it," President Barack Obama said in his speech.
French President Francois Hollande noted that "never have the stakes been so high because this is about the future of the planet, the future of life."
"And yet two weeks ago, here in Paris itself, a group of fanatics was sowing the seeds of death in the streets," he said.
Speaking aboard the papal plane on his way back to Rome, Pope Francis said that the time to do something was now or never.
"We are on the brink. We are on the brink of a suicide, to use a strong word, and I am sure that most of those at the COP have this conscience, and want to do something," he said.
Obama told the conference that the United States recognizes its role in creating climate change and its role in solving the issue.
But he said the agreement should be global in nature, assertive and flexible.
"Here in Paris, let's secure an agreement that builds in ambition, where progress paves the way for regularly updated targets," he said.
He also addressed economic issues associated with climate change, saying recent economic growth in the United States has come despite a lack of growth in carbon emissions, proving that climate advancements need not come at the expense of the economy or individual livelihoods.
"That's what we seek in these next two weeks -- not simply an agreement to roll back the pollution we put into the skies, but an agreement that helps us lift people from poverty without condemning the next generation to a planet that is beyond its capacity to repair," he said.
He also said developed countries must help island nations and others that have contributed little to climate change but are the first to be feeling its effects.
"Countries should be allowed to seek their own solutions, according to their national interest," he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called climate change "one of the greatest threats humanity is facing."
"Russia not only prevented the increase of greenhouse emissions, it has reduced them," he said, promising a 70% reduction in emissions from 1990 levels by 2030.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for a "comprehensive, equitable and durable agreement that leads us to restore balance between humanity and nature."
And German Chancellor Angela Merkel reminded the leaders of the "billions of people pinning their hopes on what we do in Paris."
"Let us do everything we can not to dash those hopes," she said.
Nevertheless, disappointed demonstrators turned out Sunday, and brief clashes erupted with police at the Place de la Republique, where peaceful protesters had placed rows of shoes and name tags to represent the crowds not allowed to show up.
Paris police Chief Michel Cadot said taking the candles and using them against police showed "an extreme lack of respect to those events."
Hollande called the clashes "scandalous." The French President said authorities knew "troubling elements" would arrive in Paris for the talks, and that is why "these sorts of assemblies were banned and some were ordered to stay home."
In many countries, people gathered to protest against human-made climate change Sunday. There is a broad consensus among scientists that global warming is driven by human activity, foremost the burning of fossil fuels.
A look at previous global climate change negotiations illustrates the challenge in achieving this year's goals, especially when it comes to the biggest greenhouse gas emitters.
The United States did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol and dropped out of it completely in 2001. Canada dumped it, too, and China, India and other developing countries were exempt from it. | 1 |
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You know, canoes? Those boats that you powered around the lake when you went to summer camp? Betcha didn’t know they were the epitome of evil — of white privilege, genocide, and a whole host more of crimes against social justice.
So saieth Misao Dean, professor of English at the University of Victoria in Canada, who shared her views on CBC Radio , which reveals in its intro that Dean wrote the book on the evils of canoe appropriation. Its title is “Inheriting a Canoe Paddle: The Canoe in Discourses of English-Canadian Nationalism.”
You can listen to the interview here , or if you have something more important to do (what could be more important?), be advised that Heat Street provides portions of the enlightening Q & A. For example, when asked whether we should look at the canoe as a non-controversial symbol or as a symbol of colonialism, Dean responds:
Absolutely a symbol of colonialism. It seems to me that this narrative we tell ourselves about the canoe about how canoeing makes us in touch with nature, how canoeing makes us in some way guiltless of the terrible things that the Canadian government and Canadians in general did to First Nations people.
If you prefer the dissenting view, scroll down to the comments section of the CBC Radio page, where reader Patrick Saunders opines, “Academia has become a sit-com. A not really funny, sad-in-a-car-crash-sorta-way sit-com.” Then there’s this from Kawartha Cottager:
As soon as the ice is out of the lake I am going to head to the cottage and burn down my boat house so myself and my family will no longer be tortured by those symbols of colonialism like my canoes, kayaks and worst of all my Laser sailboat, that other symbol of colonialism. Those Euros arrived on sailboats back in the 15th century after all. Once I am done that, I will head back up the hill behind the cottage and torch my outhouse so I can destroy that ultimate symbol of colonialism…..the toilet seat.
Well, garsh —if no one’s going to take this seriously, what’s a social justice warrior to do? | 1 |
On this Thanksgiving, I would like to address an open letter to the multimillionaire National Football League players who continue to take a knee when The Star-Spangled Banner is played.Dear kneeling brothers,As a proud Army veteran, mom and black American, I thank God that I live in the greatest nation on Earth. For me, Thanksgiving doesn t just come once a year. I m thankful 365 days a year.You make far, far more money than almost all Americans regardless of race. Kids look up to you as heroes. You appear on TV and in the media.Yet, you keep on protesting refusing to rise and respect our national anthem and respect the men and women like me who serve or have served in our military.I was willing to die for my country when I put on the Army uniform. And you re not even willing to stand up for a short song? This is too much of a sacrifice for you?One of the many lessons I ve learned along the way is that there is no place on the planet like America. She is not perfect, because we are not perfect. Yet, she is a consummate beacon of light, set upon a hill, for nations who look to her for hope, dignity and direction.You big guys should appreciate that and pause for a few moments to express your patriotism and love for our great nation when our national anthem is played and our flag flies before thousands of people who have paid good money to see you run around a field chasing a little ball.Let me tell you about me. I m not as big and strong as you, but I stepped forward to join the Army to fight for your right to play games in peace.Weeks before I graduated from the Army s basic training program, I had an epiphany: I could be deployed to war. Would I go? Would I put my life on the line for someone else?It didn t take me long to come to a resounding Yes! If called, I would go.But I gave myself an assignment. If I was going to potentially give life or limb to defend this great country, I would need to know what, exactly, I was defending. I am still learning.One of the lessons I ve learned about America is more of a personal lesson. I am not a victim. My two beautiful black babies are not victims. Black Americans are not victims.We are victors not so much because of anything we have done, but because of those who came before us. Slaves in chains, treated like farm animals, to be owned by others. And after Emancipation, those who endured the humiliation of drinking out of the dirty water fountain or taking their child into the colored restroom.Those who were spat upon or cursed out solely because they were deemed the wrong color. Those who had to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar to be eligible to vote, notwithstanding their college education.Those who were hosed down, billy-clubbed across the head or attacked by trained dogs just because they walked across a bridge.Those who were aroused from their sleep to see hate-filled men covered in white sheets, a cross burning in their front yard and their neighbor calling out for their son.Those who, oftentimes, paid the ultimate sacrifice not for their own benefit, but for the joy that was set before them.We, today, are the joy that was set before them. And, how do you repay them for their sacrifice to be treated as equal under the law? You have chosen to take a knee.If you followed the rhetoric we hear today, America is not far removed from those Jim Crow days of legalized discrimination against black people.If you closed your eyes and just listened to the blistering speeches coming from Antifa, the Black Lives Matter folks and many politicians, you would think we re not even 40 years removed from slavery itself.The narrative behind Hands Up, Don t Shoot perpetuates the storyline that around every street corner there s a police officer waiting to shoot a black man. It is these narratives that have given life to you NFL players kneeling during our national anthem.If there was truth behind these narratives, then I would readily support you black millionaire athletes using your national platform to shine a bright light on the systemic racism against the black community.But we re not living in 1850 or 1950. Racism is certainly not dead, but it s not the powerful monster backed by all the resources of government either. And you guys are not exactly downtrodden, going hungry, being shoved to the back of the bus, or used for target practice by Ku Klux Klansmen dressed up like cops.Allow me to make a few suggestions to you as an alternative to continuing to disrespect our country and flag. If you want to make a real difference that extends beyond getting your picture on a magazine cover, please consider doing the following.First, invest in black urban schools, to help them pay for the educational programs and enhanced learning opportunities that wealthy suburban schools have to help their students succeed.Second, commit to providing mentoring and college scholarships for 20, 10 or even just one child in the inner city, from elementary school through high school and into college. You will change their futures.Third, take $1 million or $2 million not all of your vast wealth and invest it into creating jobs, businesses and entrepreneurial internships to help black people achieve the American Dream. Find ways to personally take your millions directly into a distressed community and invest.Fourth, take a family out of the inner city by giving them a mortgage-free home. Consider the ripple effect of good this stand would have on the lives of an entire family for generations to come.Fifth, educate yourselves and then others on what the Democratic Party has done to the black community. I have yet to find an inner city run by conservatives. Yet I see one Democratic politician after another representing some of the most distressed communities. These politicians themselves usually do not live in those distressed communities and often live in expensive homes while their kids attend private schools.Teach yourselves and others to hold elected officials accountable. Be determined to no longer fall prey to their sleight-of-hand manipulations that only serve to distract you from their lack of effort to make real changes in the black community.Doing just one of these things would make an indelible imprint on any community, especially the black community.So instead of taking a knee, take a stand to stomp out poverty by investing in businesses, by creating an environment that promotes family stability, and by fanning the flames of hope, dignity and direction into the lives of some of our most depressed citizens.By the grace of God, I was never called into war during my Army service. I know many others who were. Some did not return whole. So, while I can t play pro football, I have two legs, two arms and a brain that tells me to appreciate and love the United States of America.For all this I am thankful, and I think you should be too.Happy Thanksgiving,Kathy Barnette | 0 |
MECCA, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - Saudi King Salman, receiving dignitaries attending the annual Muslim haj pilgrimage, said on Saturday the kingdom had made progress in eradicating terrorism aimed at attacking its holy sites, state news agency SPA reported. Saudi Arabia, which stakes its reputation on its guardianship of Islam s holiest sites and organizing the haj, has been hit by bombings in recent years and uncovered plots to carry out attacks in Mecca. The limbs of terrorism have sought to harm the holy cities, paying no attention to their sanctity, SPA quoted King Salman as telling foreign dignitaries at a reception he held in Mecca, where more than 2 million pilgrims are performing haj. But the kingdom, by the grace of God and in cooperation with its sisters and friends, has made big successes in eradicating terrorism and has worked decisively and with determination to dry its sources, he added, without elaborating. Salman also said Saudi Arabia had devoted all its material and human resources to ensure the safety of pilgrims who come from all over the world to perform the five-day ritual, a religious duty to be undertaken once in a lifetime by every able-bodied Muslim who can afford the journey. We are determined, with God s permission, to continue to provide the highest level of services for the two holy mosques ... to ensure the safety of those who seek the sacred house of God, he said. The pilgrimage has frequently been hit by stampedes and fires. In the most recent incident, hundreds of pilgrims were killed in a crush two years ago. | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrat Dianne Feinstein, the oldest current U.S. senator, said on Monday she was “all in” to run for re-election next year in her home state of California. In a post on Twitter, Feinstein, 84, said there is “lots more to do: ending gun violence, combating climate change, access to healthcare. I’m all in!” Feinstein, who was first elected to the Senate in 1992, is the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee and the first woman to hold that role. She is also a senior member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and was the first woman to lead that panel, from 2009 through 2015. Feinstein has been a leading advocate for stricter gun safety laws for decades, and last week introduced legislation that would ban so-called bump stocks. The devices, which were used in the attack that killed 58 people at an outdoor concert in Las Vegas on Oct. 1, enable some rifles to be used like automatic weapons. Feinstein is the oldest U.S. senator but among several octogenarians, including Republicans Chuck Grassley, Orrin Hatch, Richard Shelby, Jim Inhofe, Pat Roberts and John McCain. | 0 |
An anti-Trump protester screams no as Donald Trump is sworn in as the 45th US President pic.twitter.com/qmsaFmMSkr ITV News (@itvnews) January 20, 2017 | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s budget proposal, set to be unveiled on Tuesday, will include cuts to Medicaid and propose changes to other assistance programs for low-income citizens, the Washington Post reported on Sunday. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A Republican healthcare bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives in early May seeks to overhaul the national healthcare system and cut more than $800 billion over the next 10 years from Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor and disabled. The healthcare bill faces a difficult time in the Senate, where Democrats and some Republicans worry about its impact on costs for low-income Americans, among other issues. “In yet another broken promise to working people, President Trump’s budget pulls the rug out from so many who need help,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement, in response to the report. “This budget is taking the fast lane to rejection by the American people and both parties in Congress” The Post report said the White House would also give individual U.S. states more autonomy over a variety of anti-poverty poverty programs including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, the largest U.S. anti-hunger program, which was formerly called the food stamp program. More than 44 million Americans received benefits from the SNAP program in February, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. | 1 |
Fox News is not exactly known as an ally of the Obama administration, especially when it comes to disputes between Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, or disputes between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Yet two prominent Fox News hosts, Chris Wallace and Shepherd Smith, harshly criticized Boehner and Netanyahu on Friday for secretly arranging a Netanyahu speech to Congress that is transparently aimed at undermining President Obama, and set up without the White House's knowledge.
The White House, State Department, and many foreign policy observers, including prominent former US ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk, expressed outrage over the move. And, in a sign of just how many lines Boehner and Netanyahu crossed, so did the two Fox News hosts.
"I agree 100 percent," Wallace said when Smith read a quote from Indyk criticizing the Boehner-Netanyahu maneuver. Wallace went on:
And to make you get a sense of really how, forgive me, wicked, this whole thing is, the Secretary of State John Kerry met with the Israeli Ambassador to the United States for two hours on Tuesday, Ron Dermer. The ambassador, never mentioned the fact that Netanyahu was in negotiations and finally agreed to come to Washington, not to see the president, but to go to Capitol Hill, speak to a joint session of congress and criticize the president's policy. I have to say I'm shocked.
Smith said, "it seems like [Netanyahu's government] think[s] we don't pay attention and that we're just a bunch of complete morons, the United States citizens, as if we wouldn't pick up on what's happening here."
Wallace pointed out that Netanyahu might face political backlash in Israel over this "very risky political strategy," which could damage Israel's relationship with the United States.
Here is the backstory: On Wednesday, Boehner announced that he had invited Netanyahu to come speak to a joint session of Congress in late February (later pushed to early March) on Obama's nuclear negotiations with Iran, which both Boehner and Netanyahu oppose, and which Republicans are seeking to blow up by forcing new, deal-killing sanctions on Iran. What made this such a remarkable breach is that Boehner had reached over Obama to make the invitation, which he and Netanyahu kept secret from the White House. That is a major breach in US foreign policy, which is supposed to be unified; things like official visits by heads of state almost always go through the White House.
Perhaps worse, Republicans are letting a foreign leader use the floor of Congress to bash the American president, thus not just allowing but helping a foreign country meddle in American foreign policy. (This is not the first time either. Republicans invited Netanyahu to speak to Congress in 2011, an opportunity he also used to lambast Obama.)
For his part, Netanyahu is once again attempting to undermine the American president who is by far his most important ally, and is using Congress as a campaign stop on his own bid for reelection in Israel's March elections.
"Bibi and dermer might have finally gone too far"
While backlash was anticipatable, Netanyahu likely did not imagine it extending to Fox News.
"After watching this I think Bibi [Netanyahu] and [Israeli ambassador to the US Ron] Dermer might have finally gone too far," Lisa Goldman, the director of the Israel-Palestine Initiative at the New America Foundation, wrote on Facebook of the Fox News segment. "They miscalculated the American Zeitgeist and didn't realize that when a foreign power, even a favorite ally, shows a lack of respect for US institutions, a red line has been crossed."
To Goldman's point, both Smith and Wallace, in expressing outrage at Netanyahu, pointed out that the Israeli leader had defied President George W. Bush's demand that Israel cease settlement growth in the West Bank, and had resisted Bush's efforts at an Israel-Palestine peace deal. The issue, for them, was not principally one of partisan politics, but of this ostensible ally repeatedly mistreating the United States and its president, regardless of political party.
If the Netanyahu government and Ron Dermer's embassy are watching this, and they certainly should be, they should be alarmed that even this crucially important element of their American support base is beginning to see the Netanyahu government as less of an ally. | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said on Thursday he wants to craft changes to a just-passed tax overhaul bill to provide “additional tax incentives” that would help Puerto Ricans recover from Hurricane Maria. In a statement following passage in the House of a major tax bill, Ryan said he would try to insert unspecified provisions into the legislation that would grant new tax incentives “so that our fellow U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico can have all the possible resources to rebuild their lives and their economy.” Puerto Rico has been reeling from hurricane damage, which disrupted the U.S. territory’s power grid, contaminated water supplies and destroyed homes and businesses. | 1 |
On November Eighth, Americans will be voting for this 100-day plan to restore prosperity to our country, secure our communities, and honesty to our government, Trump says. This is my pledge to you and if we follow these steps we will once more have a government of, by and for the people and importantly we will make America great again. Believe me. Here is the list of the Contract with the American Voter policies detailed by Trump: Propose a Constitutional Amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress Institute a hiring freeze on all federal employees to reduce federal workforce through attrition (exempting military, public safety, and public health) Require for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated. Institute a five year-ban on White House and Congressional officials becoming lobbyists after they leave government service Create a lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government. Institute a complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections. Announce intention to renegotiate NAFTA or withdraw from the deal under Article 2205. Announce withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Direct Secretary of the Treasury to label China a currency manipulator. Direct the Secretary of Commerce and U.S. Trade Representative to identify all foreign trading abuses that unfairly impact American workers and direct them to use every tool under American and international law to end those abuses immediately. Lift the restrictions on the production of $50 trillion dollars worth of job-producing American energy reserves, including shale, oil, natural gas and clean coal. Lift the Obama-Clinton roadblocks and allow vital energy infrastructure projects, like the Keystone Pipeline, to move forward. Cancel billions in payments to U.N. climate change programs and use the money to fix America s water and environmental infrastructure. Cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama. Begin the process of selecting a replacement for Justice Scalia from one of the 20 judges on my list, who will uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. Cancel all federal funding to Sanctuary Cities. Begin removing the more than 2 million criminal illegal immigrants from the country and cancel visas to foreign countries that won t take them back. Suspend immigration from terror-prone regions where vetting cannot safely occur. All vetting of people coming into our country will be considered extreme vetting. Work with Congress on a Middle Class Tax Relief And Simplification Act.An economic plan designed to grow the economy 4% per year and create at least 25 million new jobs through massive tax reduction and simplification, in combination with trade reform, regulatory relief, and lifting the restrictions on American energy. The largest tax reductions are for the middle class. A middle-class family with 2 children will get a 35% tax cut. The current number of brackets will be reduced from 7 to 3, and tax forms will likewise be greatly simplified. The business rate will be lowered from 35 to 15 percent, and the trillions of dollars of American corporate money overseas can now be brought back at a 10 percent rate. Work with Congress on a End The Offshoring ActEstablishes tariffs to discourage companies from laying off their workers in order to relocate in other countries and ship their products back to the U.S. tax-free. Work with Congress on a American Energy & Infrastructure ActLeverages public-private partnerships, and private investments through tax incentives, to spur $1 trillion in infrastructure investment over 10 years. It is revenue neutral. Work with Congress on a School Choice And Education Opportunity ActRedirects education dollars to gives parents the right to send their kid to the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school of their choice. Ends common core, brings education supervision to local communities. It expands vocational and technical education, and make 2 and 4-year college more affordable. Work with Congress on a Repeal and Replace Obamacare ActFully repeals Obamacare and replaces it with Health Savings Accounts, the ability to purchase health insurance across state lines, and lets states manage Medicaid funds. Reforms will also include cutting the red tape at the FDA: there are over 4,000 drugs awaiting approval, and we especially want to speed the approval of life-saving medications. Work with Congress on a Affordable Childcare and Eldercare Act.Allows Americans to deduct childcare and elder care from their taxes, incentivizes employers to provide on-side childcare services, and creates tax-free Dependent Care Savings Accounts for both young and elderly dependents, with matching contributions for low-income families. Work with Congress on an End Illegal Immigration ActFully-funds the construction of a wall on our southern border with the full understanding that the country Mexico will be reimbursing the United States for the full cost of such wall; establishes a 2-year mandatory minimum federal prison sentence for illegally re-entering the U.S. after a previous deportation, and a 5-year mandatory minimum for illegally re-entering for those with felony convictions, multiple misdemeanor convictions or two or more prior deportations; also reforms visa rules to enhance penalties for overstaying and to ensure open jobs are offered to American workers first. Work with Congress on a Restoring Community Safety Act.Reduces surging crime, drugs and violence by creating a Task Force On Violent Crime and increasing funding for programs that train and assist local police; increases resources for federal law enforcement agencies and federal prosecutors to dismantle criminal gangs and put violent offenders behind bars. Work with Congress on a Restoring National Security Act.Rebuilds our military by eliminating the defense sequester and expanding military investment; provides Veterans with the ability to receive public VA treatment or attend the private doctor of their choice; protects our vital infrastructure from cyber-attack; establishes new screening procedures for immigration to ensure those who are admitted to our country support our people and our values Work with Congress on a Clean up Corruption in Washington Act.Enacts new ethics reforms to Drain the Swamp and reduce the corrupting influence of special interests on our politics.Via: Breitbart | 1 |
BUSHENYI, Uganda (Reuters) - When Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni returned to his home region to throw an Independence Day party last month, the uniformed security outnumbered the small crowd of bored spectators. Museveni slowly drove past the crowd, a mix of schoolchildren and farmers, in a top-of-the-range pick-up truck, giving them a wide smile and a thumbs-up, the ruling party symbol. He was met with blank stares. The apathy - on a continent where strongman rulers are traditionally feted in their home areas - reveals the slow leaching away of political support from one of Africa s longest-serving rulers. Now, as his party plans to extend his rule, the president is increasingly reliant on a military unit from his home area, the Special Forces Command, to quell dissent over collapsing public services, corruption, growing poverty and brutality by security services. We ve had enough of him, said butcher Steven Ruturukirira bluntly. In a lengthy speech, the 73-year-old Museveni studiously ignored the day s hot topic: a legislative plan to remove the 75-year age limit for the presidency, clearing the way to extend his leadership of the oil-rich nation. The pursuit of social and economic transformation of Africa is not a simple matter. It calls for visionary leadership, Museveni told the crowd. Relieved to see Uganda freed from the yoke of brutal dictators, the West has given Museveni an easy ride over the last three decades, glad of his support against radical Islam and his role as power broker in the volatile Great Lakes Region. Uganda has also welcomed foreign investors like France s Total, China s CNOOC and Britain s Tullow, who hope to start pumping 6.5 billion barrels worth of crude reserves through a planned $3.55 billion pipeline. But as the opposition makes inroads in urban areas, Museveni relies on support in rural heartlands, as well as his special forces, exacerbating ethnic tensions and potentially sowing the seeds for conflagration when he eventually leaves power. Currently, the age cap bars Museveni from standing in Uganda s next elections, scheduled for 2021. But last month a ruling party lawmaker introduced a bill to scrap the rule. The government gave each MP $8,000 to help them consult voters on the bill, provoking fury among ordinary citizens like quarry worker Ronald Malongo, 27, who is among a growing number of Ugandans who make less than a dollar a day. Museveni works only for his stomach and those around him, Malongo panted as he lifted a load of granite. We re trash to him. An opinion survey of 1,200 Ugandans by pollster Afrobarometer a year ago found three quarters opposed the bill. Some legislators trying to promote it were met with jeers or violence in their home constituencies, media reported. Protests have been crushed by riot police, killing two. Opposition lawmakers tried to filibuster the bill in September, but said they were forcibly ejected from parliament by the Special Forces Command (SFC), a loyalist military unit heavily staffed with soldiers from Museveni s Hima ethnic group. Several MPs sustained serious injuries, like Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda, who said SFC forces dragged him from the debating chamber and choked him in a nearby room. Uganda is gradually moving into some sort of a military regime, he said. I don t see Museveni turning back, he has a group around him that can t allow a change (because they are profiting from this). At the time, the police chief told television reporters he had invited sister security agencies into parliament, a euphemism usually used for the military. But military spokesman Richard Karemire denied soldiers had ejected legislators or strangled Nganda, telling Reuters: Uganda is not a military state ... it s a democracy. Estimated at about 10,000, SFC has evolved from a small presidential guard to a fully fledged branch of the military that enjoys better welfare and training and controls superior equipment. Soldiers in the SFC get an $80 per month food basket allowance that ordinary soldiers don t get. That s a powerful incentive when the number of Ugandans who spend less than a dollar a day has surged to 27 percent of the population, up from 20 percent five years ago, according to the statistics office. The starting wage for an ordinary soldiers is $105. The unit also gets better housing, training, and weapons than regular soldiers, two military officers told Reuters on condition of anonymity. It s an army within an army, one the officers said. It was formerly commanded by Museveni s son, Major General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, now a presidential adviser. Many believe he is being prepared to succeed his father after a military general, David Sejusa, wrote a widely published letter to the head of internal security in 2013. Sejusa, an old comrade of Museveni s, asked for an investigation into an alleged plot to assassinate top government officials opposed to the Museveni family project of holding onto power in perpetuity . Sejusa fled to the United Kingdom but returned to Uganda in 2014. He remains in the military, which bars him from politics, but has been sidelined from power. Kainerugaba s successor at the head of the SFC is also from the Hima ethnic group. Other prominent members include military chief David Muhoozi, and Museveni s wife, Janet, the education minister. SFC is ethnic, it s an army built on ethnic lines, said Nganda, a former member of a parliamentary committee that oversees the military. The danger with rewarding ethnic loyalists with favors and privileges is that beneficiaries will not sit back and watch power slide out of their hands, Uganda political analyst Nicholas Sengoba said. These people will try by hook or crook to maintain the status quo, he said. That is where you have potential for violence. | 0 |
(CNN) DNA from New York prison escapees Richard Matt and David Sweat has been found inside a burglarized cabin in upstate New York, a law enforcement source told CNN.
The discovery has re-energized the two-week-old search for the convicted killers, who staged a movie scriptworthy escape from Clinton Correctional Facility on June 6 and haven't been seen since -- at least not by authorities.
However, a witness on Saturday spotted someone running into the woods near a cabin in the Mountain View community, only 25 to 30 miles from the prison, according to acting Franklin County District Attorney Glenn MacNeill.
Investigators think the figure spotted Saturday could have been one of the fugitive prisoners, MacNeill said.
Since then, law enforcement authorities have flooded the rural community, swooping in on helicopters, cruisers and all-terrain vehicles to scour the region for the men. More state and federal teams are to be redeployed on Monday, the law enforcement source told CNN.
Briefing reporters Monday, New York State Police Maj. Charles Guess declined to get into specifics about what was found at the cabin for fear of jeopardizing the search.
"It's a confirmed lead for us," he said. "It has generated a massive law enforcement response, as you can see, and we're going to run this to ground."
The break-in suggests the men "need provisions and are desperate," a law enforcement source briefed on the investigation told CNN's Deborah Feyerick.
There's no evidence the fugitives have the kind of support network they would need to get away from the prison after their plan to get a ride from prison tailor Joyce Mitchell fell apart, the source said.
Are they listening to police radio traffic?
As part of the investigation into whether Matt and Sweat had help, police are reviewing months worth of hotel registries in the area, the source said.
Meanwhile, searchers are now working to contain the two men in the area, knowing they are running and on foot, the source said.
Authorities also are concerned that Matt and Sweat may be monitoring radio communications, the source said, without being specific on whether the men have radios or similar devices giving them the ability to monitor police communications.
Regardless, the sighting and DNA discovery explain the sudden shift in the search from an area near New York's border with Pennsylvania, some 260 miles to the southwest of the prison, where much of the weekend search had focused after somebody reported a possible sighting of the two fugitives.
That search wrapped up late Sunday, New York State Police said.
MacNeill urged residents in Franklin County to be alert for potential danger during the search for the escaped killers, whom authorities described last week as posing a "significant threat to anyone who may come into contact with them."
"Be inside with the doors locked and very diligent," MacNeill warned residents.
Investigators are looking into whether Mitchell convinced a prison guard to pass the meat to the inmates in a way that bypassed a metal detector, the source said. The two escapees were housed in an honor block where they were allowed to cook their own food.
Their escape set off a massive search for them and a probing investigation of employees and practices at the prison.
Mitchell has been charged with aiding the escapees, and a corrections officer has been placed on paid leave, authorities have said.
'When it's in your backyard, it's kind of crazy'
The troopers set up roadblocks just across the street, off county Highway 27, she said.
They set up a command post using ATVs. One trooper asked Pulsifer for a map of snowmobile trails in the area, which is near a winter ski resort and in an area criss-crossed with recreational trails.
"I'm kind of excited but nervous at the same time," Pulsifer told CNN, adding that her boss had told her to close the bar early because of safety concerns.
She said she'd followed the news of the manhunt as it unfolded previously in Cadyville, another town in the region.
"Now, when it's in your backyard, it's kind of crazy," she told CNN, saying she planned to go home and lock up with her gun.
Pulsifer's concerns are familiar to people in Friendship, the rural town near the Pennsylvania border where somebody reported seeing two men along a railroad line on Saturday.
Many residents spent the rest of the weekend holed up in their homes while around 300 law enforcement officers combed the area.
Gary Baker, 80, said he was terrified of the possibility that the killers could be nearby.
Baker is a caretaker at the town's Maple Grove Cemetery, right next to his home. But authorities blocked off the cemetery as search helicopters hovered overhead.
Baker was left to sit alone in his home, with all his doors locked and a rifle in his lap.
Franklin County and Friendship aren't the only communities where police have swarmed in the hunt for Matt and Sweat. The manhunt, now in its 17th day, has primarily been focused in the area around Dannemora, where the prison is situated.
Described by authorities as "very dangerous," the two killers have been added to the U.S. Marshals Service's list of its 15 most wanted fugitives. Reward money of $75,000 has been offered for information leading to the capture of either man.
As many as 800 law enforcement officers have participated in the manhunt, which has cleared nearly 200 abandoned buildings, hundreds of occupied homes and more than 600 miles of rural trails, officials said.
State police have asked hunters and homeowners with surveillance cameras to check their footage all the way back to the day of the prison break for any unusual activity.
The search has stretched to Canada and Mexico, with wanted posters of the escaped killers given out at both borders.
Authorities are still investigating how exactly Matt and Sweat managed to orchestrate their escape, which involved cutting through a steel wall and navigating a series of tunnels until the men emerged from a manhole outside the prison walls.
Mitchell, a prison tailor shop instructor, is accused of helping them by supplying tools like chisels and drill bits. She is in jail and has pleaded not guilty to the charges against her.
A source familiar with the investigation has told CNN that Mitchell, 51, had a sexual relationship with Matt.
Investigators are looking into whether other prison staff members or inmates played a role in the breakout.
Authorities said Friday that a male corrections officer was placed on paid administrative leave as part of the investigation into the escape.
State authorities haven't named the officer, but his attorney identified him Sunday as Gene Palmer, a 28-year veteran of Clinton Correctional Facility.
"Right now Mr. Palmer is fully cooperating with any or all questions that are being asked of him," attorney Andrew Brockway told CNN on Sunday. "He spent 14 hours yesterday and he was completely forthcoming."
Palmer knew Matt and Sweat and had received a painting done by Matt, but Brockway said he is sure his client did not know the inmates were planning an escape.
"He wants these two individuals to be caught, and anything that he can do to help law enforcement do their job, he's willing to cooperate," Brockway said Monday.
A retired sergeant at the prison, Jeff Dumas, said he is sure Palmer was not involved in any escape plot.
"I don't believe that he actually intentionally helped these guys," Dumas told CNN's "New Day."
He said Palmer was one of two corrections officers responsible for escorting inmates to and from work at the prison's industrial building and was always conscientious in his work.
"My gut feeling is that somehow they may have conned him or taken a shortcut somewhere along the way in procedures during an escort and that would be about it," Dumas said.
"These two people are psychopaths, they are master manipulators," Brockway said of Matt and Sweat. "They're obviously in prison for life so they have nothing but time to develop schemes to take advantage of innocent people." | 1 |
Clinton Gets Back In The Game After Blowout Loss To Sanders In N.H.
Just 48 hours after his landslide win in New Hampshire, Bernie Sanders was in Milwaukee, Wis., reminding everyone how far he had come in his quest for the presidency — and perhaps realizing how far he still has to go.
It was a night both candidates could feel good about. Hillary Clinton had more than ample opportunity to show off her mastery of policy, while Sanders' progressive passion was on display as well. As in the five previous meetings between the two, it was Sanders' big vision versus Hillary Clinton's store of knowledge. It was Sanders' idealism soaring and Clinton's realism bringing it to earth. It was his inspiration versus her preparation.
"The American people have responded to a series of basic truths," said Sanders in his opening statement. "We have today a campaign finance system which is corrupt, which is undermining American democracy, which allows Wall Street and billionaires to pour huge sums of money into the political process to elect the candidates of their choice."
Sanders said Americans understand that the economy is rigged, that ordinary workers are putting in longer hours for less pay and that income growth is going almost entirely to the top 1 percent of incomes.
Clinton stressed from the start that she wanted to "knock down all the barriers that are holding Americans back, and to rebuild the ladders of opportunity that will give every American a chance to advance, especially those who have been left out and left behind."
The packed house of Democratic activists on the campus of the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee was strongly supportive of one candidate or the other — and at least receptive to both. They loved Clinton's two potshots at the state's Republican governor, Scott Walker.
Clinton scored the governor for his battles with labor unions, especially those representing public employees, and said she doubted governors such as Walker would support Sanders' goal to provide free tuition for all at public colleges and universities. Both times, the local crowd of Democrats roared its approval.
And while Sanders had moments guaranteed to make his core supporters ecstatic, he did not dominate the evening as one might expect the 22-point winner of the first primary to do. Part of that was Clinton's persistent cool, which included her answer when asked why 55 percent of the women in New Hampshire had just voted for Sanders.
"I have spent my entire adult life working toward making sure that women are empowered to make their own choices — even if that choice is not to vote for me," Clinton said. "I believe that it is most important that we unleash the full potential of women and girls in our society."
Sanders also seemed the less disciplined of the two contenders. At one point, after Clinton had made a "once I'm in the White House" reference, Sanders shot back: "Well, Secretary Clinton, you're not in the White House yet." While it might have pleased his partisans, the remark drew some audible disapproval in the hall.
Sanders also indulged in several asides of a historical nature, tipping his hat to Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, and ripping into former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, whom Clinton had cited as someone she listened to.
Still another factor hovering over the proceedings was the coming shift in the demographics of the early-state primary voters. Both the upcoming Democratic contests (Nevada caucuses on Feb. 20, South Carolina primary on Feb. 27) have far more Latino and African-American voters than Iowa and New Hampshire. They also have fewer progressive activists and far less penchant for underdogs. Neither borders either candidate's home state.
The importance the candidates place on these more diverse constituencies was readily apparent in the answers and examples both gave on Thursday night. Sanders talked about the criminal justice system, the disproportionate incarceration of African-Americans and Latinos and the exaggerated difficulty of finding jobs in minority communities.
Sanders said that once he is able to increase taxes on Wall Street and other centers of wealth, he would be able to provide "jobs for millions of young people" and also education to equip them for those jobs. At that point, he said in response to a question, race relations in the U.S. would "absolutely" be better than they have been in the Obama era.
Clinton, for her part, cited the late Nelson Mandela, the legendary leader of South Africa, as her foreign role model in international affairs. But she also repeatedly used her relationship with President Obama as both a human shield and an advertisement for herself.
Questioned about accepting campaign contributions from Wall Street, she noted that Obama had done the same in 2008 and yet still enacted laws Wall Street opposed. When Sanders again dinged her for voting to authorize force against Iraq in 2002, she noted that Obama — like Sanders — had opposed the invasion, yet still tapped her for Secretary of State when he took office.
Clinton also attacked Sanders for praising a book that said Obama in office had disappointed progressives and suggesting someone from the left should challenge his re-nomination in 2012.
Sanders said any senator would have some disagreements with a president, but Clinton responded that Sanders' assessments of Obama as weak and failing the test of leadership were another matter. Sanders noted that Clinton herself had run against Obama in 2008.
The Sanders team also knows that before the next debate takes place, 11 states will have voted on March 1 — Super Tuesday — and another three states on March 5. By the time these two candidates take the stage together again, the race could look quite different.
Even now, the walloping Clinton took in the Granite State has barely cost her anything in the delegate count. She got a share of the delegates in both Iowa and New Hampshire. And she has been endorsed by a big majority of the so-called "superdelegates," the elected officeholders and party officials who will have about a fifth of all the votes at the convention in July in Philadelphia.
All of which makes it important for Sanders to build on his Iowa and New Hampshire performances and maintain his momentum in the 16 states weighing in between now and that next debate on March 6 in Flint, Mich. | 0 |
During the campaign, Trump had threatened to impose a large tariff to keep the jobs in the United States. | 1 |
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Her husband s overseas in the military, and she s home working in a local salon. She s the everyday American woman Hillary claims to be the champion for. There s only one problem she s doesn t believe that selfish Auntie Hillary should be anywhere the White House Hopeless Hillary Clinton s own family has turned against her and endorsed Donald Trump for president! In a bombshell world exclusive interview with RadarOnline.com, the only daughter of Bill Clinton s druggie brother, Roger, revealed she s voting for Hillary s Republican rival instead of her selfish aunt!Hairstylist Macy Smit has never met Hillary. Her father the former first lady s brother-in-law was a deadbeat dad who walked out on her mom when she was pregnant. Something tells me the Clinton side of the family looks at me and my mother as not good enough, but we re hard-working! Macy, 25, said from her home in Tampa, Fla. I support Donald Trump 100 percent! I have been a Democrat my entire life, but Trump is what we need right now somebody who is going to stand up for us. I think at this point Hillary just wants it for the history books to be the first woman president for selfish reasons. Macy works 10 to 12-hour days at a salon, while husband Derrick Smit, 25, is a meteorologist with the U.S. Air Force. He s on active duty in Kuwait, where he helps coordinate air operations into Iraq. He was deployed in July and will return in January. Last year, pregnant Macy suffered heartbreaking tragedy when she lost her baby. At the time, her husband was deployed and she claims she was abandoned by the Clintons.Macy said, They re not as good as everyone thinks they are. I went through some very personal things [without their support]. The Clintons are all talk! Macy s mother Martha, 50, told Radar. Hillary says she s all about family, but she s got a niece she s never met and never acknowledged. The Clintons have never helped us out. According to Macy, she has a distant relationship with her father. Although they talk regularly, Macy said Roger, 60, constantly makes promises he doesn t keep just like Hillary! Radar Online | 1 |
The way President-elect Donald Trump has treated the press during his presidential campaign, only to get far worse after winning the election, is nothing but terrifying. Trump has not only ditched press pools and created distrust for the media, but he has issued threats to punish or silence reporters for doing their jobs and holding him accountable. Trump has never sounded more like a dictator, and quite frankly we should all be very worried about what he s going to do once he gets into the White House.Fortunately, the press is fighting back. Editor in chief and publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review Kyle Pope has just written an open letter to Trump on behalf of the U.S. Press Corps, and it s a strong message to Trump that things aren t going to go the way he wants them to go. Pope wrote: In these final days before your inauguration, we thought it might be helpful to clarify how we see the relationship between your administration and the American press corps. Pope then expertly outlined several attacks Trump has made on the press which have made the relationship between Trump and journalists extremely tense. Pope said: You ve banned news organizations from covering you. You ve taken to Twitter to taunt and threaten individual reporters and encouraged your supporters to do the same. You ve advocated for looser libel laws and threatened numerous lawsuits of your own, none of which has materialized. But while you have every right to decide your ground rules for engaging with the press, we have some, too. Pope noted that even if Trump tried to prevent journalists from having access to him, the media would not back down. Pope warned the President-elect that the press would merely take it on as a challenge : We are very good at finding alternative ways to get information Telling reporters that they won t get access to something isn t what we d prefer, but it s a challenge we relish. Signaling that what Trump has really done by suppressing the media is unite it, Pope stated that the press would be working together to hold him accountable now, specifically pointing out a disgusting incident in which Trump belittled and attacked CNN reporter Jim Acosta at a press conference last week: We now recognize that the challenge of covering you requires that we cooperate and help one another whenever possible. So, when you shout down or ignore a reporter at a press conference who has said something you don t like, you re going to face a unified front. We ll work together on stories when it makes sense, and make sure the world hears when our colleagues write stories of importance. Pope made it perfectly clear that journalists were not going to play by his rules and have every intention of being involved in covering his presidency honestly and with transparency, no matter how much he hates it or threatens them. Pope said: We ve been around since the founding of the republic, and our role in this great democracy has been ratified and reinforced again and again and again. Enjoy your inauguration. This is EXACTLY what we needed our press to say to this tyrant, and we hope it terrifies him.Featured image via Drew Angerer / Getty Images | 0 |
Wilbur Ross spoke with WaPo about true tax reform He did a great job explaining his position on simplifying and cutting taxes. He said the W2 should be a one pager . He believes it takes entirely too long for the average employee to do taxes We say Amen to that!If Congress doesn t get in the way, tax cuts and simplification are a possibility. Ross is such a great pick for President Trump. he s another one who doesn t need this job at all but is doing it for America. Pretty awesome!MORE ON WILBUR ROSS:WILBUR ROSS ON NEIL CAVUTO: Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is one smart man when it comes to making an economic argument against the Paris Accord. He appeared on Neil Cavuto right before President Trump spoke and brilliantly discussed why we need to get out of this boondoggle that will drain America of trillions of dollars. We re so lucky he s our Commerce Secretary! He s apolitical and strictly looking at what s best for America financially.WILBUR ROSS TAKES ON MATT LAUER: Wilbur Ross, Secretary of Commerce, tells that President Trump s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord does not mean that the U.S. will do nothing to combat climate change. He says that President Trump is an environmentalist and that the decision will do nothing to damage America s national security. Yes, you can be an environmentalist and care about the planet BUT not be for this boondoggle! | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, will oversee the presumptive Republican U.S. presidential nominee’s search for a running mate, a campaign aide said on Tuesday. Lewandowski last week took over the vice presidential selection process and is drawing up a list of potential candidates and speaking with Republican Party figures, two top Republicans told the Washington Post, which first reported the move. The two Republicans said they expected lawyers or a law firm to help vet Trump’s short list of candidates, the Post reported. The Trump campaign aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Lewandowski is leading the effort but would not elaborate. Trump has said he is considering some of his former rivals for the Republican nomination. But some already have ruled themselves out or declared they will not support the billionaire businessman. One of those was U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who on Monday sought to quash speculation he might emerge as the running mate, saying he still has deep reservations about Trump. Trump has bristled at Republicans who publicly have taken themselves out of the running. The day after Rubio’s announcement, Trump wrote in a Twitter post, “It is only the people that were never asked to be VP that tell the press that they will not take the position.” Trump has said he plans to select a Republican with political experience as his choice for vice president. Lewandowski has been part of Trump’s inner circle since the beginning of his candidacy. Other Trump senior advisers, including Paul Manafort and Rick Wiley, will concentrate on the campaign’s national field operation and planning for the Republican National Convention in July, the Post said. Lewandowski has generated controversy during Trump’s campaign for president. He was hit in March with a misdemeanor battery charge relating to an incident involving a female reporter, but prosecutors in Florida’s Palm Beach County last month decided not to prosecute Lewandowski. | 1 |
A federal judge REJECTED the State Department s request of a JANUARY 2016 (right before the IOWA primary) release of Hillary Clinton s e-mails in one big batch. U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras (Obama appointee) announced Tuesday his plans to order a rolling production of the emails just hours after the State Department proposed that it not be required to make the records public until January 2016, a lawyer involved said.ORIGINAL POST:In response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed this year, the State Department said that reviewing 55,000 pages of exchanges from Mrs. Clinton s private email account would be labor-intensive and time-consuming.Noting the considerable public interest in the emails, the department is endeavoring to complete the review and production of them as expeditiously as possible, said John F. Hackett, acting director of the Office of Information Programs and Services at the State Department. The collection is, however, voluminous and, due to the breadth of topics, the nature of the communications, and the interests of several agencies, presents several challenges. The State Department is proposing a date of Jan. 15, 2016, for releasing the emails.The department is dividing the material into small batches, with plans to review about 1,000 emails a week. In addition to the State Department s Freedom of Information Act office, subject-matter experts within the department will review the emails before their release, as will other government agencies when relevant, including the Defense Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council. Currently, this project is staffed full time by a project manager and two case analysts, as well as nine FOIA reviewers who devote the entirety of their time at the State Department to this effort, plus other analysts and information technology specialists who provide collateral assistance to this review in addition to their regular duties, the filing stated. The team managing this project has met daily since early April to implement and oversee this large undertaking. Read more: PoliticoRead more: NYT | 0 |
Wow! These women are incredibly brave. Paula Jones, Juanita Broaddrick and Kathleen Willey are role models for women everywhere who are afraid to demand justice for their rapists. I hope they never go anywhere alone. And I m not kidding! | 1 |
KIEV/NOVOLUHANSKE, Ukraine (Reuters) - Fighting in eastern Ukraine has escalated to the worst level in months, officials monitoring the conflict said on Tuesday, after the shelling of a frontline village wounded eight civilians and destroyed or damaged dozens of homes. A Russia-backed insurgency erupted in 2014 and the bloodshed has continued despite a ceasefire deal that was meant to end a conflict in which more than 10,000 people have been killed, with casualties reported on a near-daily basis. The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which monitors the implementation of the peace agreement, said it had recorded 16,000 ceasefire violations between Dec. 11 and Dec. 17, a 35 percent increase on the week before. We note with concern a sharp deterioration in the security situation with ceasefire violations reaching levels not recorded since February this year, chief monitor Ertugrul Apakan said in a statement. In February, a surge of violence around the government-held industrial town of Avdiivka cut off power and water to thousands of civilians on the front line. Apakan said the latest escalation reflected an established trend in which a recommitment to the ceasefire by the sides was followed by a steady increase in the level of violence, culminating in fierce fighting . Apakan s comments followed warnings from aid agencies over the humanitarian situation in the eastern Donbass region, particularly given Monday s attack on the government-controlled village of Novoluhanske. The United Nations OCHA humanitarian arm said on Twitter heavy shelling near Novoluhanske was affecting 2,000 residents. People are fleeing the area in blizzard conditions, it said. Eight civilians were wounded and more than 50 buildings were damaged in the shelling, which also temporarily cut power supplies, the regional Kiev-controlled Donetsk administration said. A Reuters witness saw residents picking their way through the rubble of destroyed homes and surveying fire-blackened buildings. The U.S. State Department said the humanitarian situation was dire because of the shelling, which it blamed on Russian-led forces firing Grad multiple-launch rockets. The Ukrainian military on Tuesday accused pro-Russian separatists of deliberately firing more than 40 times from multiple-launch rocket systems at Novoluhanske. Meanwhile, the rebel command said attacks from the Ukrainian side had almost doubled in the past 24 hours, according to separatist news website DAN. Rebels deny attacking Novoluhanske and say the Ukrainian military fired at the village to justify their attacks on separatist-held civilian areas, according to DAN. The U.S. State Department also voiced concern about fighting around the Donetsk water filtration station, which has a system of pipes that carry chlorine gas. If those were to go off in this area, which is close to where people live, it could be potentially devastating, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told a briefing. She said civilian water workers were trapped in the station s bomb shelter and could not get out because of fighting. In an effort to end the deadlock, the international community, including the United States, has in recent months been advocating for the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers in the Donbass. Both Kiev and Moscow backed the idea but disagree on whether the troops should be positioned on the rebel-controlled part of the Ukraine-Russia border, so no decision was made. Russia denies accusations from Ukraine and NATO that it supports the rebels with troops and weapons. | 1 |
STEPHANIE RUHLE of MSNBC was on with a panel of liberals when she blurted out: I too have a pre-existing condition. I m a woman, Ruhle said to a panel that seemed to agree with her.The left has been broadening and redefining what a pre-existing condition is but this is ridiculous!Ruhle said that president Trump will have a hands-off approach to healthcare now because he got his win, but another panelist couldn t let that comment go as he claimed five times that this was not a win for the president. No, he didn t get a win. He got something he could claim is a win. It is so far from being a win; it is disgusting what he does by having a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden making it seem like he has a win but he s doesn t have a win. His win is not a reality. The anger and hate runs deep with this group https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=44&v=tWSH3JMVUaU SHE S BEEN IN HOT WATER BEFORE:OOPS! She had to apologize for saying FOX held their Christmas party at the Trump hotel. | 1 |
As if Donald Trump isn t paranoid and delusional enough on his own, one of the people who carries a lot of influence with 45 is one of the most certifiably insane (in my amateur opinion) people to ever hit the airwaves, rabid right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Jones is now advising Trump to use violence against those who oppose him, and the frightening thing is, Trump could listen.On his YouTube channel show on Monday, Jones fed into Trump s ridiculous conspiracy theory that his offices were wiretapped by President Obama.And I feel so sorry for people that can t see it, that have been caught by this weird demon spirit of the age, to just go along with evil and corruption and just thank god, Mr. President, that we re not the scumbag Obama, the loser of eight years, the failure. Now who thinks he can be the big community organizer down the street from you, who brags it s his plan to bring you down. Then The New York Times acts like it s not true. Codify the data each day, go after them with their own words. Hold up where they admit they were wiretapping your Trump Tower and then show The New York Times saying they re not doing it, just like you have been doing it, and they will fall.There were even more paranoid rantings, but the bottom line was that Trump should kill all his enemies before they take him down:They re going to destroy you, they re going to destroy Barron, they re going to destroy Eric, they re going to destroy Donald Jr., they re going destroy me, they re going to destroy Matt Drudge, they re going to destroy Ron Paul, they re going to destroy anybody like [White House senior adviser] Stephen Bannon that actually stood up for the little people, because that example can t be allowed. Because if you let one ant stand up, they might all stand up, and those little ants outnumber the parasites 1000 to one. If they want a war, let s let them have it. Now they re getting their ass kicked in the economy, your approval ratings are going up. Sir, they don t care. They re going to intimidate and pay off and roll people in your second-level operation to try to burn you. You must go on the offense. This is war. You think George Washington kicked the Redcoats ass just with information? No.Source: Media MattersThen, with no irony at all, he accused Trump s opponents of being funded by the Russians.Here s the audio:Most people would just dismiss Jones s words as the rantings of a lunatic, which they are, but Trump loves Jones. Along with Breitbart (where Trump got the wiretap story to begin with) and other assorted right-wing sources, Jones is one of the people Trump relies upon to get information.Featured image via Alex Wong/Getty Images | 0 |
By Hrafnkell Haraldsson on Mon, Oct 31st, 2016 at 12:20 pm Trump “refused 2 produce records sought by prosecutors for 6 months. Said under oath: Was destroying them whole time.” Share on Twitter Print This Post
Newsweek’ s Kurt Eichenwald has struck again, reporting that Donald Trump “refused 2 produce records sought by prosecutors for 6 months. Said under oath: Was destroying them whole time.”
The whole strategy, he writes at Newsweek in an article he swears was written before Comey’s announcement, was “deny, impede and delay, while destroying documents the court had ordered them to hand over.”
In 1973, he reveals, “the Republican nominee, his father and their real estate company battled the federal government over civil charges that they refused to rent apartments to African-Americans.”
Shortly after the government filed its case in October, Trump attacked: He falsely declared to reporters that the feds had no evidence he and his father discriminated against minorities, but instead were attempting to force them to lease to welfare recipients who couldn’t pay their rent.The family’s attempts to slow down the federal case were at times nonsensical. Trump submitted an affidavit contending that the government had engaged in some unspecified wrongdoing by releasing statements to the press on the day it brought the case without first having any “formal communications” with him; he contended that he’d learned of the complaint only while listening to his car radio that morning. But Trump’s sworn statement was a lie. Court records show that the government had filed its complaint at 10 a.m. and phoned him almost immediately afterward. The government later notified the media with a press release. […] Six months after the original filing, the case was nowhere because the Trumps had repeatedly ignored the deadlines to produce records and answers to questions, known as interrogatories….Finally, under subpoena, Trump appeared for a short deposition. When asked about the missing documents, he made a shocking admission: The Trumps had been destroying their corporate records for the previous six months and had no document-retention program. They had conducted no inspections to determine which files might have been sought in the discovery requests or might otherwise be related to the case. Instead, in order to “save space,” Trump testified, officials with his company had been tossing documents into the shredder and garbage.
So Trump can accuse Hillary Clinton of destroying emails – and he does, nearly every day – but only as a means of covering up and deflecting his own misdeeds in that regard.
“With false affidavits and ‘deny and delay” strategies,” writes Eichenwald, “Trump & his cos hid and destroyed records sought in court.”
Donald Trump is a world class liar and a man known for his deflection tactics, projecting his own guilt onto others. His Foundation in trouble? Point the finger at the Clinton Foundation. Sexual assault allegations? Point the finger at Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Once again, Kurt Eichenwald has dug into Donald Trump’s deplorable past and revealed the real Donald Trump. It’s not pretty. And each revelation from Eichenwald and David Fahrenthold shows Trump to be an even worse human being than the last.
It is no wonder his deplorables love him so much.
It Turns Out Trump Put off Investigators for 6 Months While He Destroyed Emails added by Hrafnkell Haraldsson on Mon, Oct 31st, 2016 | 0 |
Another positive step towards restoring our freedoms A federal court has decided that the National Security Agency s (NSA) bulk, warrantless collection of millions of Americans phone records is illegal.The decision from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday represents the second major court victory for opponents of the NSA, after a lower court decision called the program nearly unconstitutional six months ago.The phone records program exceeds the scope of what Congress has authorized, Judge Gerard Lynch wrote on behalf of the three-judge panel. The court did not examine the constitutionality of the surveillance program.Via: The Hill | 1 |
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Get short URL 0 23 0 0 The integration of Crimea into the Russian legal and administrative systems is a complex process, but the majority of the key issues have already been addressed, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday.
YALTA (Russia), (Sputnik) — During the All-Russia People's Front forum in Crimea, Putin said: "There are a lot of questions and small problems, which are invisible at first glance. The federal authorities try to do something themselves, but they do not know the local conditions… That's why the question of entering, as I said, the Russian legal and administrative framework has turned out to be a difficult process, but we have practically overcome the main issues."
The president also noted that one of the main impediments to progress has been the fact that local authorities, who have volunteered to oversee the integration, "do not know how the laws and the system of Russia are organized." Putin: Drinking Water Issue in Crimea No Longer Acute The two-day regional All-Russia People's Front forum, called the 'Forum of action. Crimea,' covered issues of energy, gas supplies, development of agricultural industry and other promising sectors of the economy.
Crimea , Russia's historical southern region, seceded from Ukraine to rejoin Russia in March 2014. Almost 97 percent of the region's population voted for reunification in a referendum. Sevastopol, which has a federal city status, supported the move by 95.6 percent of votes. The referendum was held after a coup in Ukraine in February 2014. ... | 1 |
Wow! What a nice family A man s parents flew out to Florida from their native India to help their son beat his wife for being disobedient, police say.Devbir Kalsi, 33, and his parents Jasbir, 67, and Bhupinder Kalsi, 61, were arrested after his wife Silky Gaind, 33, was found badly beaten and being held against her will at their Riverview home. Cops were called after Gaind called her own parents, back in India, to tell them she was being beaten by her husband and his family.When deputies arrived, they found the door blocked by Kalsi and heard the victim screaming inside for the deputy to save her and her child, the Hillsborough County Sheriff s Office said. The deputy burst in and arrested Kalsi before arresting his parents.Police report that Kalsi would regularly beat his wife and had called Jasbir and Bhupinder Kalsi asking them to fly over to help counsel and discipline Gaind for being disobedient .The beatings continued, while Gaind was locked in her room and had her cell phone taken from her.It escalated on Friday, when Devbir Kalsi and his wife got into an argument.The arrest report states that Kalsi struck her repeatedly and forcefully , and when Gaind attempted to defend herself, his parents began hitting her too, leaving bruises on her face, neck and torso.Gaind s young daughter, who was in her arms during the attack, was also struck in the face.Kalsi then allegedly held a kitchen knife to her throat and threatened to stab her.Devbir and Jasbir Kalsi may face charges of false imprisonment, child abuse and denying access to 911, according to the Tampa Bay Times.All three could also be deported back to India. They are currently being held without bail at Hillsborough County Jail. Daily Mail | 0 |
Country: Thailand Thailand is currently undergoing a sensitive period with the passing of the nation’s long-lived, revered head of state, King Bhumibol Adulyadej . Indeed, the mood across the country is somber, however, the actual business of the nation continues on with many Thais realizing that moving forward is the best way to honor their late king. And despite Thais continuing to work, factories continuing to produce, agricultural goods continuing to be cultivated, processed, and shipped domestically, regionally, and internationally, the Western media – driven by corporate-financier and political special interests – has attempted to upend confidence in the Thai economy by suggesting that somehow toned-down entertainment venues will overturn the entire economy. And some in the Western media have attempted to claim the one year of official mourning in Thailand could even affect the rest of Asia. But back in reality, sound economic fundamentals and actual political stability determine a nation’s positive economic outlook – and Thailand possesses both. The Financial Times in an article titled, “Can Thailand’s economy handle a year of mourning?,” claims that: Many Thais are putting off weddings, vacations and other “joyful events” as the country begins a one-year period of mourning. This is in addition to a 30-day ban on “entertainment” that has forced infamous bar districts, like Bangkok’s Soi Cowboy, to pull down their shutters out of respect for the late king. Although some bars have resumed operations with workers dressed all in black, the nighttime landscape of the capital remains dramatically quiet. Even after the entertainment ban is lifted, it is hard to say how quickly the nation’s mood will bounce back. While Thailand is noted for its tourist and entertainment venues, they contribute a relatively small percentage (9-16% of GDP) to Thailand’s overall economic activity. Most tourist destinations in Thailand continue to operate as normal. And while the nation’s more infamous entertainment industry is indeed expected to see a downturn, the total number of people employed by it represents at most, only 0.5% of the nation’s total workforce. Attempts to claim that the year of mourning may lead to political instability are also questionable. The king’s heir and his decision to postpone ascending to the throne until the end of the mourning period next year is in fact a sign of confidence that the nation can safely mourn, without rushing the succession process. If political stability in Thailand is compromised, it will be because of external forces. The nation’s political opposition are a spent force, and US attempts to stir up division and chaos by intensifying violence in the nation’s deep south have so far been unsuccessful. Both the opposition and prospects of violence in the south expanding depend entirely on the US’ ability to support them both – and both Thais and foreign observers alike have become increasingly adept at exposing this foreign support. Weaponizing Economic Outlooks The Financial Times is not the only Western media source attempting to portray Thailand as looking into an economic abyss. The entirety of the Western media has also attempted to perpetuate this narrative, not because careful analysis has helped them arrive at this conclusion, but because of a concerted effort to use Thailand’s moment of perceived sociopolitical weakness to undermine the current political order and help return to power Western-backed political parties – more specifically – those allied to ousted ex-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The “weaponizing” of economic outlooks has long been employed by the Western media. Portraying a nation’s economy as faltering helps spread panic across fickle investors, encouraging them to invest elsewhere and drawing away much needed capital to sustain economic growth. However, despite this, Asia finds itself in a position where the majority of its economic activity is done regionally. What Western papers and news channels say is increasingly irrelevant to the plans and ambitions of these regional players. As for Thailand’s economy in particular, the current government is on track, repairing the agricultural industry after gross mismanagement by Shinawatra’s administration, including a devastated rice industry. It is also investing in the increased use of technology and innovation across all sectors of the economy. Beyond that, Thailand still serves as an attractive nation for companies to build and operate factories, and Thailand itself sees its own domestic industry maturing and increasingly exporting goods of their own abroad. Agriculture, industry, energy, education, and service industries – which employ the vast majority of Thais – have basic fundamentals that will remain unaffected by the nation’s year of mourning. The superficial examples the Western media cites are cited specifically to prey on the ignorance and misconceptions their ill-informed audiences have regarding Thailand and its economy. Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “ New Eastern Outlook” . Popular Articles | 1 |
Obama's immigration initiative could protect some 5 million people from deportation. But a court ruled against the plan, with critics saying Obama overstepped his executive authority.
Uber in court: Is it a digital service, or an unlicensed taxi company?
Uber in court: Is it a digital service, or an unlicensed taxi company?
In Nov. 2014, President Obama speaks about immigration at Del Sol High School in Las Vegas. Obama's plan to protect from deportation an estimated 5 million people living in the United States illegally suffered another setback Monday, Nov. 9, 2015, in a ruling from a New Orleans-based federal appeals court. In a 2-1 ruling, the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Texas-based federal judge's injunction blocking the administration's immigration initiative.
President Obama wants to protect from deportation an estimated 5 million people living in the United States illegally but a federal appeals court said no.
The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Mr. Obama Monday in a 2-1 decision that upheld a Texas-based federal judge’s injunction blocking the immigration plan.
Obama's plan would defer deportation for some 5 million illegal immigrants, including children brought to the US illegally, parents of American children, and those with long-standing ties to the country.
Obama’s initiative has faced sharp criticism since it was announced in November 2014. Republican leaders have accused the president of overstepping his authority by taking executive action. Instead, they say, the president should be working with Congress and enforcing the immigration laws already in place.
"President Obama should abandon his lawless executive amnesty program and start enforcing the law today," Texas Governor Greg Abbott said in a news release. Gov. Abbott has been at the forefront of the opposition to Obama’s immigration plan, even leading a charge in suing the president to block the initiative.
At the heart of the issue is an overwhelming number of illegal immigrants. With an estimated 11 million people in the United States illegally, the Department of Homeland Security doesn’t have enough resources to deport them all.
As Judge Carolyn Dineen King wrote in a 53-page dissent to Monday’s decision, "Although there are approximately 11.3 million removable aliens in this country today, for the last several years Congress has provided the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with only enough resources to remove approximately 400,000 of those aliens per year.”
As such, she said, Obama’s action to defer deportations is "quintessential exercise of prosecutorial discretion.”
The basic concept of “prosecutorial discretion” is that there aren’t enough officers to enforce every law against every law breaker, so officials must set priorities. As such, Obama is “merely moving them to the back of a very long line of potential deportees,” not granting amnesty to illegal immigrants, The Christian Science Monitor’s Warren Richey wrote in November 2014.
"We strongly disagree with the 5th Circuit's decision," a White House official, who requested anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak publicly about a legal matter still underway, told the Associated Press. "The Supreme Court and Congress have made clear that the federal government can set priorities in enforcing our immigration laws."
Now, the Obama administration can request a re-hearing. But an advocacy group, National Immigration Law Center, is pushing for a Supreme Court appeal. Any chance at implementing Obama’s plan before he leaves office in 2017 could be slipping away.
Twenty-six states have challenged Obama’s immigration initiative in court. The coalition asserted in December 2014 that Obama overstepped his presidential authority. At the time, Mr. Abbott said the president’s job is to “execute the law, not de facto make law.”
“The president’s independent executive action tramples the U.S. Constitution and federal law,” Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning said in a news release then. “The president is ignoring his responsibility to enforce laws passed by Congress and attempting to rewrite immigration laws, which he has no authority to do.”
This isn’t the first time Obama has been accused of abusing executive power. While many of the high-profile accusations have centered around the Affordable Care Act, others include Obama’s recess appointments in 2012 and his denouncement of the Defense of Marriage Act.
This report includes material from the Associated Press. | 1 |
CARACAS (Reuters) - Former Argentine soccer great Diego Maradona has voiced fervent support for Venezuela s socialist President Nicolas Maduro and signed up to work for Caracas-based Telesur TV during next year s World Cup in Russia. Maradona, a World Cup winner in 1986 and longtime backer of leftist causes around the world, stated his loyalty to Maduro during a visit this week to Venezuela. Other sports and entertainment personalities this year have berated Maduro, who has faced down months of opposition protests and a chorus of international censure for alleged rights abuses. I am here to give my support to Nicolas ... long live Maduro! the 57-year-old Maradona said after a kickaround with the Venezuelan president late on Tuesday. A beaming Maduro, 54, gave Maradona a photo of his predecessor Hugo Chavez with the former player, as well as a Venezuelan national team shirt. Putting on this shirt means a lot for our Commander (Chavez), for Nicolas who has resisted so much battering by the opposition, Maradona said, kissing the picture and hugging Maduro. Maradona s support for Maduro comes after Venezuelan opposition supporters took to the streets this year in protests that led to at least 125 deaths and brought fierce criticism from personalities including the manager of the national soccer team. Maduro says he is facing a United States-led global right-wing conspiracy against him. Maradona on Monday signed up to work as a pundit for regional Telesur broadcaster, which is funded by Venezuela and other leftist governments in Latin America, during the World Cup in Russia in 2018. The popular Maradona, who delights in courting controversy with strong opinions on politics and soccer and has often crossed swords with soccer s global ruling body FIFA, also worked for Telesur during the Brazil World Cup in 2014. | 0 |
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nazar Naqvi has faithfully voted Republican for more than three decades. After Donald Trump’s feud with Muslim parents who lost a son in battle for the United States, he has vowed not a single Republican will get his vote. Naqvi, 69, a retired U.S. government engineer from Newburgh, New York, is a member of a small community of Muslims who are among America’s Gold Star families, those whose loved ones were killed while serving in the U.S. military. His son Mohsin Naqvi, who was born in Pakistan, enlisted in the U.S. Army four days after Sept. 11, 2001, and was killed in 2008 by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. Trump lashed out at Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the Pakistani American parents of slain U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan, after they appeared at last week’s Democratic convention in Philadelphia to criticize the Republican presidential hopeful for proposing a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country. “I’m going to vote for anyone but Republicans because of this one person, this man who has gone out of his mind,” Naqvi said this week. “Not any office should get our vote. He has been nominated not by one person - the Republican Party nominated him.” Naqvi said he was pressing his registered Republican friends to do the same. The Pentagon says that 3,939 active duty service members have identified themselves as Muslim, less than 1 percent of the 1.3 million active duty U.S. military troops, but a Pentagon spokesman said there is no record of how many Muslims have been killed in action. Reuters reached out to a dozen Muslim Gold Star families who lost a loved one in action after Sept. 11, 2001. The families are not organized as a group and some did not want to talk. But those who did agreed that Trump’s comments upended their political loyalties, and moved them to take action to register and motivate other voters to keep Trump out of the White House in November. Nooshin Razani, 43, an Iranian-American pediatrician in Oakland, California, whose 19-year-old brother Omead Razani died while serving as a U.S. Army medic in Iraq in 2004, said Trump’s comments sparked her to speak to the press for the first time. “When I saw there was this person who was willing to use religion in this negative way, I decided I’m coming forward,” said Razani. Trump rebuked Khizr Khan for suggesting that he should read the U.S. Constitution and said his wife Ghazala may have stood silently by her husband because she might not have been “allowed” to speak. Although Trump did call their son a hero and said his aim was to end radical Islamic terror, the ensuing uproar has caused many Republicans to distance themselves from him and to support the Khan family. Razani joined more than 20 Gold Star families in signing an open letter calling for Trump to apologize to the Khans and said she is going to volunteer to register voters, mainly because of Trump’s comments about Ghazala Khan, which she said insulted all Muslim women. “I want to be an active part of making sure people’s voices are heard. Even people Trump thinks don’t speak up,” Razani said. Trump’s ongoing dispute with the Khans has become a call to political action for Kevin Ahearn of Phoenix. His brother, Army Major James Ahearn, converted to Islam to marry a woman with whom he fell in love in Iraq, brought to the United States and with whom he had a daughter before he was killed by a bomb in Iraq in 2007. Kevin Ahearn, 48, said on Tuesday that he and his husband planned to go to Democratic Headquarters in Phoenix to volunteer for the first time. “It makes me all the more determined that he does not make it to the White House,” said Ahearn, whose Muslim niece now is 10. The soldier’s mother said she was shocked by Trump’s rhetoric and wishes she could talk to her late son about it. “He was always a staunch Republican because they backed the military. I can’t imagine how he would feel now,” said Constance Ahearn, 75, who lives in the San Francisco area. | 1 |
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who has been looking into investments of U.S. President Donald Trump and other matters related to the Trump administration, on Monday said he has hired two lawyers with federal government experience. In a memo to his staff on Monday, Schneiderman said he had hired former federal prosecutor Howard Master as senior enforcement counsel. Master was previously deputy chief of the criminal division of the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan. He left the U.S. attorney’s office on March 8. In addition, Eric Haren, chief counsel to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, will join the office as special counsel and senior adviser on Monday, the memo said. Feinstein is the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Master will lead “complex affirmative investigations and litigation as well as advise on important investigations and prosecutions in the criminal division,” Schneiderman wrote. A person familiar with the matter said that includes issues involving the Trump administration. Under U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, Master prosecuted public integrity cases, including the case against former New York assembly speaker Sheldon Silver on corruption charges. Bharara was fired by Trump earlier this month. Haren has experience in civil rights, constitutional law, data privacy, and security and criminal law, Schneiderman’s memo said. He will provide experience in federal law and the internal workings of Congress and federal agencies, according to the memo. Master did not return a call for comment and Haren could not be reached. A White House spokeswoman did not immediately comment Monday. Schneiderman last month told reporters in Washington that his office was researching Trump’s business investments. “As a general matter, it is not sustainable for him to refuse to divest from all of these vast holdings and refuse to disclose what those holdings are,” the attorney general said. “It is so far beyond the bounds of anything that anyone has ever attempted that people are having trouble coming up with a clear legal strategy to address it,” Schneiderman said.Schneiderman also has joined lawsuits against Trump’s travel ban, which temporarily bars the entry of people from six Muslim-majority countries and refugees to the United States. In addition, he has been probing Trump’s charitable foundation, which came under increased scrutiny following reports by The Washington Post of possible improprieties. In November, the foundation filed forms saying it violated a ban on so-called self-dealing. In 2013, Schneiderman brought a fraud case against Trump over “Trump University,” a series of real estate seminars. Trump agreed to settle that case in November. | 1 |
Our favorite conservative street artist Sabo crashed an anti-Trump art exhibition in Los Angeles Saturday night, displaying a work of art of his own to the astonished crowd:VIDEO: SABO HOISTS THE MAGA JOLLY ROGER AT SHEPARD FAIREY'S ART EVENT "DAMAGED." https://t.co/g4QbtnMqWh unsavoryagents (@unsavoryagents) November 13, 2017If you re not familiar with Sabo, he is a fearless artist whose edgy artwork gets the point across in a BIG way! The sign below reads: THE DEPLORABLES MAGA 2020Remember the artist, Shepard Fairey, whose optimistic Hope poster of Barack Obama went viral in 2008? There s no denying that the Fairey poster raised Obama s cool factor a few notches with the artsy LA crowd and the urban hipsters. We guess you can say that this artist is a little responsible for the HOPELESS 8 YEAR TERM OF OBAMA SABO CRASHES OBAMA ARTIST S NEW EXHIBITION:Well, he was debuting his new exhibition, Damaged, Saturday night in L.A. According to HuffPost, the show is his largest to date and features printmaking, sculpture, painting, mixed media, collage, and more.For a guy who preaches against capitalism, this Obama artist sure is making lots of dough Sabo even called him out on it in a series of tweets below. Fairey is milking his Obama-fame for every last drop he can get from the liberal elitists in Hollywood.Fairey reportedly created his We the People series specifically to protest President Trump: The state of our society is damaged, Fairey stated at a press preview of the exhibition on Friday. I know it sounds pretty dire, but acknowledging that we need to do better is the first step. Sabo, for one, believes Fairey needs to do better . MINE WAS THE ONLY REAL PUNK ART THERE, the street artist proclaimed on Twitter Sunday. He added that his MAGA flag was taken down after about 30 minutes. SABO SAD, he said. MAGA MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!! Sabo also tweeted: THERE WERE SO MANY D***** BAGS AT THE SHEPARD FAIREY SHOW LAST NIGHT. IF YOU HAD DROPPED A BOMB ON THE SHOW 3/4 OF THE YOUNG D***** BAGS IN LA WOULD HAVE BEEN KILLED. Fairey, a critic of the underpinnings of the capitalist machine, admitted to capitalizing off of his art. I critique capitalism yes, I am selling prints, but yes I am also giving some away, he said at a press event Friday.Via: PJMedia | 1 |
Sanders, an independent senator who caucuses with Democrats, has been inching towards a presidential run for months by traveling the country and speaking to liberal groups in critical presidential states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
Sanders' Senate office would not comment on his 2016 plans, but the source close to the senator said Sanders' Thursday announcement will likely be subdued. | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he “will absolutely do safe zones in Syria” for refugees fleeing violence in the war-torn country. Saying Europe had made a tremendous mistake by admitting millions of refugees from Syria and other Middle Eastern trouble spots, Trump told ABC News in an interview: “I don’t want that to happen here.” “I’ll absolutely do safe zones in Syria for the people,” he added, without giving details. According to a document seen by Reuters on Wednesday, Trump is expected to order the Pentagon and the State Department in coming days to craft a plan for setting up the “safe zones,” a move that could risk escalation of U.S. military involvement in Syria’s civil war. The draft executive order awaiting Trump’s signature signaled the new administration was preparing a step that Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, long resisted, fearing the potential for being pulled deeper into the bloody conflict and the threat of clashes between U.S. and Russian warplanes over Syria. “The Secretary of State, in conjunction with the Secretary of Defense, is directed within 90 days of the date of this order to produce a plan to provide safe areas in Syria and in the surrounding region in which Syrian nationals displaced from their homeland can await firm settlement, such as repatriation or potential third-country resettlement,” the draft order said. Creation of safe zones could ratchet up U.S. military involvement in Syria and mark a major departure from Obama’s more cautious approach. Increased U.S. or allied air power would be required if Trump chooses to enforce “no fly” restrictions, and ground forces might also be needed to protect civilians in those areas. Still, the document gave no details on what would constitute a safe zone, exactly where they might be set up and who would defend them. Jordan, Turkey and other neighboring countries already host millions of Syrian refugees. The Turkish government had long pressed Obama, without success, for creation of a no-fly zone in Syria on its border with Turkey. The draft raised the possibility of establishing those safe havens in neighboring countries but did not elaborate. Trump’s call for a plan for safe zones is part of a larger directive expected to be signed in coming days that includes a temporary ban on most refugees to the United States and a suspension of visas for citizens of Syria and six other Middle Eastern and African countries deemed to pose a terrorism threat. It represents a modified version of the blanket ban on Muslims entering the United States that Trump initially advocated on the campaign trail last year, sparking criticism from human rights groups and across the U.S. political spectrum. U.S. military officials had long warned that the creation of no-fly zones inside Syria would require a large number of additional resources beyond the fight against Islamic State and it would be difficult to ensure that jihadist insurgents did not infiltrate those areas amid the chaos of Syria’s civil war. Some Republican lawmakers have advocated the creation of such zones, especially to protect civilians fleeing the conflict against attacks by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. During and after the presidential campaign, Trump called for no-fly zones to harbor Syrian refugees as an alternative to allowing them into the United States. Trump accused the Obama administration of failing to properly screen Syrian immigrants entering the United States to ensure they had no militant ties. Obama’s aides have insisted the vetting was meticulous and none of the Syrian refugees allowed in have been implicated in any attacks. On the campaign trail, Trump gave no details as to how he might go about creating such havens, except to say that he would ask Gulf states to help pay. “All the questions of setting up a safe zone are still there,” a U.S. official said. “If you’re going to declare a safe zone, there’s a lot of other things” that would have to be analyzed and put in place before it becomes feasible. Among the biggest questions would be how to avoid confrontations with Russian forces in Syria helping keep Assad in power. Under the broader executive order, which the draft document says is intended to “protect the American people from terrorist attacks by foreign nationals,” Trump would impose a 30-day suspension of the entry of immigrants from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The temporary halt is aimed at giving the homeland security secretary, the secretary of state and the director of national intelligence enough time to determine what information is needed from each country to ensure visas are not issued to individuals that pose a national security threat, according to the draft. Countries that do not provide adequate information about their nationals will be required to do so within 60 days or risk being blocked from entering the United States. That would exclude diplomatic visas, NATO visas and visas for travel to the United Nations. It would also suspend the overall U.S. refugee program for 120 days so the government can study the process and determine if additional checks are necessary, but that could be waived on a case-by-case basis. It would completely stop refugee processing of Syrians until “I have determined that sufficient changes have been made” to the refugee program to ensure “its alignment with national interest,” the draft said. | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A former senior official in the Reagan administration and prominent Republican foreign policy insider told Reuters he provided input for the late-April foreign policy speech by Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. “I was asked to contribute material” for Trump’s April 27 speech at the Center for the National Interest, a Washington, D.C., think tank, said Richard Burt. Burt said he is not part of Trump’s campaign. “But I am happy to talk to people looking for advice on foreign policy issues,” said Burt, a managing director of McLarty Associates, a Washington-based consulting firm co-founded by former President Bill Clinton’s White House chief of staff and counselor Thomas “Mack” McLarty. Burt said he also would be willing to offer foreign policy advice to Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, if she asked for such advice, though he added, “She’s not going to.”Burt is also chairman of Global Zero, an independent group devoted to ridding the world of nuclear weapons. Trump told The New York Times in April that he was not sure it would be “a bad thing” for the United States if Japan had nuclear weapons, and has said the same about South Korea and Saudi Arabia. Burt said the main theme he talked about to Trump was the need for the United States to pursue a “more realist foreign policy,” in which the United States would avoid seeking “regime change” abroad, and instead make protecting the United States and its interests the main policy goal. Trump, who became the Republican’s presumptive nominee last month after the last of his challengers dropped from the party’s race, articulated this theme again in a campaign speech late on Tuesday, as he claimed victory in the last Republican nominating contests. Under Reagan, Burt headed the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs and then its European and Canadian Affairs bureau and served as U.S. ambassador to Germany from 1985 to 1989. Some of Burt’s contemporaries from the administrations of Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, have publicly denounced Trump’s foreign policy views or remained mute. Earlier this year, Trump met with a group of 11 foreign policy advisers, headed by Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, one of Trump’s most outspoken supporters. Reuters sought comment on the recent activities of Trump’s foreign policy team from several of its members and from a campaign spokeswoman. Most declined to comment, and the campaign did not immediately reply to a request for comment. One campaign team member, who asked for anonymity because he is not authorized to comment publicly, said that while the team had held several discussions since Trump’s speech, the candidate remains his own most important foreign policy adviser. | 0 |
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