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LONDON (Reuters) - British lawmakers on Tuesday voted in favor of the government s proposed timetable for debating legislation designed to sever political, financial and legal ties with the European Union. Many had complained that the eight days set out by the government for line-by-line scrutiny of the EU withdrawal bill was not long enough for such an important piece of legislation. But lawmakers voted by 318 to 301 to support the so-called program motion, which sets out the timetable for the remaining stages of the bill s progress through parliament s lower House of Commons. | 1 |
FBI Agents are coming forward now to voice their frustrations and concerns about FBI Director James Comey s inept policing of the FBI. Specifically, the Clinton email investigation was held up by Comey standing in the way. One of the specifics of the investigation that hindered it was that the Clinton house was never searched. The FBI always does a search of a household in an investigation. The New York FBI agents working the case were livid at the stonewalling in the Clinton case. FBI agents are now lawyering up and speaking up to tell what they know This is a textbook case where a grand jury should have convened but was not. That is appalling, an FBI special agent who has worked public corruption and criminal cases said of the decision. We talk about it in the office and don t know how Comey can keep going. DID ANYONE ELSE THINK THIS EXACT SAME THING:The agent was also surprised that the bureau did not bother to search Clinton s house during the investigation. We didn t search their house. We always search the house. The search should not just have been for private electronics, which contained classified material, but even for printouts of such material, he said. There should have been a complete search of their residence, the agent pointed out. That the FBI did not seize devices is unbelievable. The FBI even seizes devices that have been set on fire. Another special agent for the bureau that worked counter-terrorism and criminal cases said he is offended by Comey s saying: we and I ve been an investigator. The idea that the Clinton/e-mail case didn t go to a grand jury is ridiculous. According to Washington D.C. attorney Joe DiGenova, more FBI agents will be talking about the problems at bureau and specifically the handling of the Clinton case by Comey when Congress comes back into session and decides to force them to testify by subpoena. People are starting to talk. They re calling their former friends outside the bureau asking for help. We were asked to day to provide legal representation to people inside the bureau and agreed to do so and to former agents who want to come forward and talk. Comey thought this was going to go away. The most important thing of all is that the agents have decided that they are going to talk. Read more: Daily Caller | 1 |
Donald Trump is either really desperate to make it sound like everyone loves him or he s totally delusional.Because ever since inauguration day, millions of Americans have been participating in protests against him and his disastrous administration.The Women s March of Washington DC not only dwarfed Trump s inauguration crowd by a landslide, it was joined by people around the globe.And the protests haven t stopped.They continued outside the White House as Trump watched Finding Dory while worldwide chaos continued due to his Muslim ban. It s been two weeks since Trump took office and he has already been protested and hated by more people than any other president in history.But Trump took to Twitter on Friday morning to claim that all the protesters are just thugs who have been paid to protest him, suggesting that the protesters really love him and are only protesting to make some money.Professional anarchists, thugs and paid protesters are proving the point of the millions of people who voted to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 3, 2017And protesters responded by laughing at him..@realDonaldTrump I was in the march on D.C. , where national guard helped us; can you let me know where to get my check? ;-) pic.twitter.com/HUJH8A4f93 Dr. Craig Malkin (@DrCraigMalkin) February 3, 2017@realDonaldTrump yes, yes I know; it s all part of a George Soros conspiracy that no protestor seems aware of. Dr. Craig Malkin (@DrCraigMalkin) February 3, 2017@realDonaldTrump I protested peacefully this week. I did it because I despise your policies. Didn t know I could get paid. Will do it again. Matt Haig (@matthaig1) February 3, 2017@realDonaldTrump I ve said this before, but please let me know how we re getting paid, because so far I ve been doing this pro bono. Alex Zalben (@azalben) February 3, 2017@realDonaldTrump also, everyone I know is protesting you for free, spending large chunks of time to stop you and your anarchist agenda. Alex Zalben (@azalben) February 3, 2017@realDonaldTrump it s almost as if we just throwing it out there don t like you? Alex Zalben (@azalben) February 3, 2017@realDonaldTrump What qualifications to professional anarchists need and what s the pay like? Neil Claxton (@MintRoyale) February 3, 2017@realDonaldTrump great point! Let s talk votes and the millions more who voted against you. Just about 3M more than the votes for you ?? Jose Andrade (@jandrade) February 3, 2017.@realDonaldTrump You re letting the actions of a handful overshadow the legitimate concerns of the 65 million people who voted for Hillary? Jordan Uhl (@JordanUhl) February 3, 2017.@realDonaldTrump There were several hundred thousand if not a million people in your back yard for #WomensMarch.Zero arrests. Jordan Uhl (@JordanUhl) February 3, 2017.@realDonaldTrump So to make your case by handpicking a few bad actors out of the millions of protesters nationwide is disingenuous. Jordan Uhl (@JordanUhl) February 3, 2017@realDonaldTrump where did you get info they are being paid? Evan Rosenfeld (@Evan_Rosenfeld) February 3, 2017@realDonaldTrump so which of these tweets was a lie? pic.twitter.com/8tyVjCTDjx talia jane (@itsa_talia) February 3, 2017.@realDonaldTrump Hard to pay all the people at the Women s March. You remember, the one that had better attendance than your inauguration. Nick Jack Pappas (@Pappiness) February 3, 2017Donald Trump is a thug who brought a band of thugs to the White House with him to terrorize the American people and destroy our nation. He is an embarrassment who thinks protests and dissent should be silenced.And that s why we should turn up the heat by protesting him more.Featured image via Joe Raedle/Getty Images | 0 |
KARANGASEM, Indonesia (Reuters) - Indonesia kept the airport on Bali closed on Tuesday as ash from an erupting volcano swept the holiday island, leaving thousands of tourists stranded as authorities tried to persuade villagers living nearby to leave their homes. A total of 443 flights, both domestic and international, were affected by the closure of the airport, about 60 km (37 miles) from Mount Agung which is spewing smoke and ash high into the sky. Aircraft flight channels are covered with volcanic ash, the transport ministry said in a statement, citing aviation navigation authorities. The airport - the second-biggest in Indonesia - will be closed at least until 7 a.m. on Wednesday (2300 GMT on Tuesday), the ministry said. Frustration at the airport was starting to boil over, with an estimated 2,000 people attempting to get refunds and reschedule tickets. There are thousands of people stranded here at the airport, said Nitin Sheth, a tourist from India. They have to go to some other airport and they are trying to do that, but the government or authorities here are not helping. Others were more relaxed. No, there s not a lot of information ... very little. (But) it s all right. We re on holidays so it doesn t matter. We don t know what s going to happen but we can get back to the bar and have another drink, said Matthew Radix from Perth. The airport operator said 201 international flights and 242 domestic ones had been hit. Ten alternative airports had been prepared for airlines to divert inbound flights, including in neighboring provinces, the operator said, adding it was helping people make alternative bookings and helping stranded travelers. The airport on Lombok island, to the east of Bali, had reopened, authorities said, as wind blew ash westward, towards the southern coast of Java island. Agung towers over eastern Bali to a height of just over 3,000 meters (9,800 feet). Its last eruption in 1963 killed more than 1,000 people and razed several villages. On Tuesday, however, life went on largely as normal in surrounding villages, with residents offering prayers as the volcano sent huge billows of ash and smoke into the sky. Some villagers who fled in September, when the alert was last raised to the highest level, have gone home despite government warnings. On Monday, authorities said 100,000 residents living near the volcano had been ordered to get out of an 8-10 km (5-6 mile) exclusion zone, warning a larger eruption was imminent . While the population in the area has been estimated at anywhere between 63,000 and 140,000, just over 29,000 people were registered at emergency centers, said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman for the Disaster Mitigation Agency. Not all people in the danger zone are prepared to take refuge, he said. There are still a lot of residents staying in their homes. Indonesia s Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation Center has warned that an eruption of a size similar to that seen in 1963 could send rocks bigger than a fist flying a distance of up to 8 km (5 miles), and volcanic gas a distance of 10 km (6 miles) within three minutes. Monitoring has shown the northeastern part of Agung s peak had swollen in recent weeks indicating there is fairly strong pressure toward the surface , the center said. For interactive package on Agung eruptions, click: tmsnrt.rs/2hYdHiq For graphic on the Pacific Ring of Fire, click: tmsnrt.rs/2BjtH6l | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz on Tuesday attacked the party’s front-runner, Donald Trump, for suggesting that the United States lessen its support for NATO, saying Washington and NATO needed to destroy Islamic State together. “Donald Trump is wrong that America should withdraw from the world and abandon our allies ... NATO should join with the United States in utterly destroying ISIS,” Cruz told reporters. | 1 |
At Least 40 Killed Over Weekend, UN Reports
ISIS has been reported to be using a fleet of trucks and minibuses to transport the civilian population of the area around Mosul into the city itself, which officials are saying they believe is a sign that ISIS intends to use them as human shields.
While the human shields thing is purely speculative, what appears to be more certain is that those former Iraqi military personnel that ISIS is coming across in their forced busing are being executed, with reports that some 40 were killed over the weekend and thrown into the Tigris River .
This has been a recurring concern for ISIS since the Mosul battle began. ISIS executed some of their own fighters in the lead-up when they were claimed to be working with the Iraqi government, and have been desperate to purge any other potentially disloyal elements around the city.
While the UN was harshly critical of ISIS for forcibly relocating people around Mosul, they have so far been mum on government warnings that civilians in Mosul not attempt to escape the city, warnings which came amid announcements that the US intends to launch airstrikes against “fleeing ISIS fighters.” | 1 |
Donald Trump gets trumped in upset loss to Ted Cruz, while Bernie Sanders declares moral victory in fighting Hillary Clinton to the closest Democratic caucus result in Iowa history.
Tesla under Trump: How will electric cars fare under the next president?
That was the warning shot fired off by Iowa voters, both Republican and Democrat, in Monday’s caucuses – the kickoff to the 2016 presidential nomination process.
On the Republican side, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz won an upset victory over Donald Trump, with a state-of-the-art turnout operation that overcame the less-organized billionaire’s strength as a showman and lead in the polls. But together, their combined vote count – 52 percent – represented a win for outsiders who reject the status quo in Washington.
In the Democratic race, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton barely eked out a victory over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist. And as the prohibitive favorite among party regulars at the start of the campaign, Mrs. Clinton was deeply wounded by her inability to fend off Senator Sanders, allowing the populist outsider to declare a “moral victory.”
“Given the conventional wisdom going in, and if turnout was as high as it now seems, @HillaryClinton may have done well to escape with a tie,” tweeted David Axelrod, former political adviser to President Obama.
The way Democratic caucuses are run here, raw vote totals aren’t reported, just the number of county convention delegates won. The state Democratic Party declared Clinton the winner early Tuesday morning by 4/10ths of a percent, the closest Iowa Democratic caucus outcome in history.
The results of both caucuses showed a restive population, angry about stagnant middle-class wages, fearful over national security, and frustrated by Washington’s inability to break through gridlock.
That anger and frustration have been captured most pungently by Mr. Trump, a true outsider running in his first political campaign and relying on his considerable skill as a reality TV star to attract media and voter attention. But Trump went long on showmanship, staging big flashy rallies around the country, and short on the technology, data, and “boots on the ground” needed to get voters to turn out in sufficient numbers to win.
Suddenly, the man who campaigned on being a “winner,” based on polls and crowds, is now a loser. Cruz won 27.7 percent to Trump’s 24.3 percent – not a blowout by any means, but a loss is a loss.
Iowa State Sen. Brad Zaun, who endorsed Trump, said the billionaire’s fame made it difficult for him to campaign as a conventional candidate. Cruz, for example, visited all of Iowa’s 99 counties, appearing in coffee shops and community centers.
“Trump visited the four corners of Iowa, but it wasn’t realistic to do all 99 counties, because there weren’t enough venues large enough to accommodate his crowds,” said Mr. Zaun, in an interview outside Trump’s post-caucus event.
In his speech to supporters Monday night, Trump won praise for his gracious remarks as he congratulated Cruz. But now the real estate magnate heads into the next contest, the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 9, needing a comeback victory to get his winning narrative back on track.
Trump leads in New Hampshire with an average of 33 percent of the vote, well ahead of the rest of the pack. But post-Iowa, it’s not clear how likely Republican primary voters will react to the bursting of the Trump bubble. Before Iowa, some analysts predicted a profound impact.
“If Cruz wins Iowa, for New Hampshire it will be like taking a deck of cards and throwing them in the air,” said New Hampshire pollster Dick Bennett, head of American Research Group, last week. “Trump’s whole campaign is predicated on being a winner.”
Another winner Monday in Iowa was Sen. Marco Rubio (R) of Florida, who beat expectations with a solid third-place showing of 23 percent – well ahead of his pre-caucus average in the polls of 17 percent. The rest of the large GOP field scored in single digits.
But the playing field in New Hampshire will be considerably different. Cruz’s extensive outreach to evangelicals played well with Iowa Republicans, but in New Hampshire, the religiously minded are a much smaller audience.
It may make sense for Cruz to skip New Hampshire and focus on South Carolina and the Southern states of Super Tuesday (March 1), some analysts suggest. But Cruz, seeking to show that his Iowa success isn’t just proof that he’s a good niche candidate, like the last two winners of the Iowa caucuses, may opt to play hard in the Granite State. His pitch isn’t just to the faithful; it’s also as a rock-solid conservative known for his aversion to compromise.
If Cruz does fight hard in New Hampshire, he will face not only Trump’s big early lead, but also stiff competition from candidates who mostly gave Iowa a pass and have focused hard on a GOP electorate in New Hampshire that is more establishment-friendly. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush are all lying in wait.
So is Rubio, who has played in both “lanes,” courting both tea-party-oriented Evangelicals and more mainstream Republicans. Rubio’s stronger-than-expected showing in Iowa should give him momentum heading into New Hampshire, with hopes that voters there give him a second (or first) look.
The dynamic on the Democratic side is completely different. The race is now a pure head-to-head matchup between Clinton and Sanders, following former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley’s decision to drop out after a poor showing Monday night.
The Clinton-Sanders smackdown represents a stark choice for Democratic voters. Clinton is the ultimate establishment figure: former first lady, former US senator, and former secretary of State. Both Clinton and Sanders have spent decades in politics, but Sanders’s record comes with a big difference. He’s never been a member of the Democratic Party, marching to his own drummer as a champion of the lower and middle classes, fighting income inequality, Wall Street, and big money in campaigns.
The conventional wisdom has long been that Sanders’s high point in the campaign would be Iowa and New Hampshire, two states with large white liberal populations, and that Clinton would nail down the Democratic nomination through her deep ties to minority communities. Her “firewall” would be in the South.
But after Sanders’s near-coup in Iowa, Sanders’s campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, sees a new dynamic.
“As happens always in the Democratic primary process, early success has an influence on later states,” Mr. Weaver said in an interview. “I think people are going to look at this tremendous victory tonight and see that credibility and viability of Senator Sanders as a presidential candidate. You’re going to see people in later states moving toward him.”
As for Clinton’s early lead in “superdelegates,” the Democratic officials who make up an important part of the overall delegate count, Weaver also predicts that many of the superdelegates now supporting Clinton will give Sanders another look.
“A lot of people jumped on the Senator Clinton bandwagon before this race had even started to develop,” he says.
Analysts still believe Sanders faces an uphill battle in his effort to deny Clinton the nomination, as Obama did eight years ago. But it’s now clear that Clinton, the early prohibitive favorite, will not waltz to her party’s nomination.
Both parties, it appears, are headed for a long, grind-it-out primary season. | 0 |
(Reuters) - The U.S. Congress is expected to vote this week on sweeping, debt-financed tax legislation. Here are key parts of the bill. CORPORATE TAX RATE: Cuts corporate income tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent, beginning Jan. 1, 2018. PASS-THROUGHS: Creates a 20 percent deduction for the first $315,000 of qualified business income for joint filers of pass-through businesses such as partnerships and sole proprietorships. For income above that threshold, the legislation phases in limits, producing an effective marginal tax rate of no more than 29.6 percent. CORPORATE MINIMUM TAX: Repeals the 20 percent corporate alternative minimum tax, set up to ensure profitable corporations pay at least some tax. TERRITORIAL SYSTEM: Exempts U.S. corporations from U.S. taxes on most future foreign profits, ending the present worldwide system of taxing profits of all U.S.-based corporations, no matter where they are earned. This would align the U.S. tax code with most other industrialized nations, undercut many offshore tax-dodging strategies and deliver to multinationals a goal they have pursued for years. REPATRIATION: Sets a one-time mandatory tax of 8 percent on illiquid assets and 15.5 percent on cash and cash equivalents for about $2.6 trillion in U.S. business profits now held overseas. This foreign cash pile was created by a rule making foreign profits tax-deferred if they are not brought into the United States, or repatriated. That rule would be rendered obsolete by the territorial system. ANTI-BASE EROSION MEASURES: Prevents companies from shifting profits out of the United States to lower-tax jurisdictions abroad. Sets an alternative minimum tax on payments between U.S. corporations and foreign affiliates, and limits on shifting corporate income through transfers of intangible property, including patents. In combination, these measures with the repatriation and territorial system provisions, represent a dramatic overhaul of the U.S. tax system for multinationals. CAPITAL EXPENSING: Allows businesses to immediately write off, or expense, the full value of investments in new plant and equipment for five years, then gradually eliminates this 100 percent expensing over five years beginning in year six. INTEREST DEDUCTION LIMIT: Caps business deductions for debt interest payments at 30 percent of taxable income, regardless of deductions for depreciation, amortization or depletion. CLEAN ENERGY: Preserves tax credits for producing electricity from wind, biomass, geothermal, solar, municipal waste and hydropower. CARRIED INTEREST: Leaves in place “carried interest” loophole for private equity fund managers and some hedge fund managers, despite pledges by Republicans including President Donald Trump to close it. These financiers can now claim a lower capital gains tax rate on much of their income from investments held more than a year. A new rule would extend that holding period to three years, putting the loophole out of reach for some fund managers, but preserving its availability for many. BRACKETS: Maintains the current seven tax brackets, but temporarily changes most of the income levels and rates. For married couples filing jointly, effective Jan. 1, 2018 and ending in 2026, income tax would be: 10 percent up to $19,050, versus 10 percent up to $18,650 under existing law; 12 percent on $19,051 to $77,400, versus 15 percent on$18,651 to $75,900; 22 percent on $77,401 to $165,000, versus 25 percent on $75,901 to $153,100; 24 percent on $165,001 to $315,000, versus 28 percent on $153,101 to $233,350; 32 percent on $315,001 to $400,000, versus 33 percent on $233,351 to $416,700; 35 percent on $400,001 to $600,000, versus 35 percent on $416,701 to $470,700 37 percent above $600,000, versus 39.6 percent above$470,700. For single individuals, effective Jan. 1, 2018 and ending in 2026, income tax would be: 10 percent up to $9,525, versus 10 percent up to $9,325 under existing law; 12 percent from $9,526 to $38,700, versus 15 percent on $9,326 to $37,950; 22 percent on $38,701 to $82,500, versus 25 percent on $37,951 to $91,900; 24 percent on $82,501 to $157,500, versus 28 percent on $91,901 to $191,650; 32 percent on $157,501 to $200,000, versus 33 percent on $191,651 to $416,700; 35 percent on $200,001 to $500,000, versus 35 percent on $416,701 to $418,400; 37 percent above $500,000, versus 39.6 percent above $418,400. These brackets would expire after 2025. STANDARD DEDUCTION: In a change expected to end itemizing of deductions for millions of Americans, the bill for eight years beginning on Jan. 1, 2018 would increase the standard deduction - a fixed amount that can be subtracted from adjusted gross income to lower taxable income - to $12,000 from $6,350 for individuals, and to $24,000 from $12,700 for married couples. CHILD TAX CREDIT: Doubles the child tax credit to $2,000 per dependent child under age 17, with a refundable portion of $1,400. The refundable portion allows families to lower their tax bills to zero and receive a refund for the remaining value. PERSONAL EXEMPTION: Temporarily eliminates the $4,050 individual personal exemption. Under present law, taxpayers who earn below certain income caps can subtract this fixed dollar amount from their adjusted gross incomes to lower their taxable incomes. Generally, one exemption has been allowed per individual, spouse and child or other dependent. This would take effect Jan. 1, 2018, but then the personal exemption would return in 2026. INHERITANCES: Raises the exemption for estate and gift taxes to $10 million from $5 million per person and indexes the new exemption level for inflation after 2011. That means even fewer Americans would pay the estate tax, but it would stay on the books. MORTGAGES: For residences bought from Jan. 1, 2018, through Dec. 31, 2025, the bill caps the deduction for mortgage interest at $750,000 in home loan value. After Dec. 31, 2025, the cap would revert to $1 million in loan value. Suspends the deduction for interest on home equity loans from Jan. 1, 2018 until 2026. OBAMACARE MANDATE: Repeals a federal fine imposed on Americans under Obamacare for not obtaining health insurance coverage, a change expected to undermine the 2010 healthcare law. ANWR DRILLING: Allows oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. | 0 |
The popular conservative argument that George W. Bush "kept us safe" from terrorism has always been somewhat undermined by the fact that the vast majority of domestic terrorism deaths in American history occurred while Bush was in office. But it turns out that it took Donald Trump to offer an argument that Democrats have always shied away from, telling Bloomberg TV, "When you talk about George Bush, I mean, say what you want, the World Trade Center came down during his time."
As phrased by Trump, the argument is provocative to the point of poor taste, but in attempting to rebut it, Jeb Bush went and made exactly the explicit claim that the doctrine of "Bush kept us safe" has always avoided — that the period of time during which Bush kept us safe includes 9/11 itself.
Pre-Jeb, nobody made the argument in that way, because it's obviously ridiculous.
Instead, kept-us-safe-ism has tended to indulge in the fantasy that Bush was inaugurated in mid-September 2001 rather than early late January. Through this metaphysical sleight of hand, the events of 9/11 themselves neither refute nor bolster the notion that the Bush years were a time of safety. With his clumsy effort to parry Trump, however, Jeb has given away the whole game.
After all, "we" clearly were not safe on 9/11. | 1 |
There’s a wheelchair onstage at the Belasco Theater, and it’s drawing an abundance of attention. There’s also a wheelchair onstage at a small theater not far away, and it’s drawing practically no attention at all. The gulf between the two says quite a lot. At the Belasco, the Broadway house on West 44th Street, the wheelchair is one of the conspicuous elaborations the director Sam Gold has brought to his production of “The Glass Menagerie,” the beloved Tennessee Williams drama. The chair isn’t just a prop it’s a necessity for the actress playing Laura, Madison Ferris, who has muscular dystrophy. That bit of casting is, of course, a significant change from the shy girl with a limp that Williams called for in his play. And Mr. Gold’s staging leaves no doubt that Ms. Ferris is not some actress pretending to have a disability. He has her enter by painstakingly climbing stairs, one of several times that he takes her out of the wheelchair and confronts the audience with the difficulties of having severely limited mobility. Some leading critics have objected to the transformation of Williams’s subtle play about a family enveloped in denial into something more strident. The kindest objections say that Mr. Gold’s interpretation simply doesn’t mesh well with the text harsher ones on theater chat boards have called his use of Ms. Ferris exploitative. Perhaps these detractors are focusing on moments like the one in which Amanda, Laura’s mother, tells her: “You’re not crippled. You just have a little defect — hardly noticeable, even!” How can such a line make sense when there’s a wheelchair onstage? For one thing, this is a “memory play,” told through the recollections of Laura’s brother, Tom (played by Joe Mantello). And memory is an interpretation of the past, not a literal playback of it. But, more than that, to live with a child with a disability is to be both isolated — as this family is — and susceptible to what seems to others like an unreality. My own daughter, who has a serious disability called Rett syndrome, is just three years younger than the Laura. Is it easy for me to imagine a parent who sees a vastly different child than the outside world sees? You bet. As for the charge of exploitation, I read that as, “It was unpleasant to see Ms. Ferris pull herself along the floor by her arms I prefer that people with disabilities remain invisible, as they so often are. ” Broadway audiences are accustomed to seeing perfect bodies doing entertaining dance steps. Guess what, Broadway? One in five Americans has a disability, according to the census bureau. Nine blocks north and four blocks west of the Belasco, at the A. R. T. York Theaters, Theater Breaking Through Barriers has a program of shorts running through Sunday. The company, which has been around since 1979, stages productions using actors with disabilities as well as actors. The five plays on its current program include works by Neil LaBute and Bekah Brunstetter, a producer of the TV series “This Is Us. ” Nicholas Viselli, the company’s artistic director, has put quirky interstitials between the plays — a song, some monologues. Ryan Haddad, who is gay and has cerebral palsy, steals the show with a funny, deeply personal piece called “Hi, Are You Single?” This is the type of production that’s most likely to showcase actors with disabilities: intimate theater, small audience, $25 ticket. The program (which is called “The Other Plays: Short Plays About Diversity and Otherness”) is but it feels 1, 000 miles from the mainstream represented by the Belasco, where the best seat for “The Glass Menagerie” can set you back more than $200. Mr. Gold’s brashest stroke in a production full of them may be the bridging of that divide — taking a theatrical universe that has existed for some time on the outskirts and putting it on a Broadway marquee featuring the names of Mr. Mantello and Sally Field, who plays Amanda. He’s not the first to do so — think back, for instance, to the breathtaking Deaf West reimagining of “Big River” in 2003, featuring a lot of deaf and actors and sign language, or to the same company’s 2015 “Spring Awakening” (which also had an actor who uses a wheelchair). But it remains a rare occurrence, and as a result Broadway remains unrepresentative of the full range of humanity. So do television, film and most other forms, though inroads are being made there, too. Does the casting of an actor with cerebral palsy to play a character with cerebral palsy on the ABC sitcom “Speechless” seem manipulative? How about the coming introduction of a character with autism on “Sesame Street?” Sometimes, what seems a cheesy gimmick or instance of exploitation is really just the front edge of needed change. Some theatergoers were probably outraged the first time a black Juliet was cast against a white Romeo. Did that change how some of Shakespeare’s lines registered and imbue the play with new meanings? Sure. Is casting now widely accepted and the theatergoing experience richer for it? Yes. Mr. Gold’s production is hardly perfect. If you figure out that thing with keeping the house lights up for a third of the show, let me know. But at least with the Laura character, he has done what he intended. “I’m not very interested in pretend,” he has said. “I’m interested in putting people onstage. I want people. And I want a world that reflects the real world. ” It’s worth contemplating what that means from the audience’s perspective. On those chat boards, some writers have complained that Ms. Ferris isn’t very good. Here’s the thing: We have been conditioned to define good acting in terms of facial expressions, comic timing, physical bits. An actor with a disability, especially one involving muscle control or cognitive impairment, isn’t necessarily going to be able to give the kind of performance we’re used to. Will Ms. Ferris impress someone looking for that kind of performance? Probably not. But she gives the most realistic portrayal of a person with muscular dystrophy that I’ve ever seen. In any case, the overall package worked for me and showed me a different play, just as Deaf West did with “Big River,” one of my favorite musicals. The Amanda of this “Menagerie” is more in denial than other Amandas the gentleman caller, played by Finn Wittrock, who sees past Laura’s disability, is all the nobler. And — especially given the time frame of the play, an era before curb cuts and the Americans With Disabilities Act, Tom’s decision to leave his family is not so much a personal liberation as a cruel abandonment. I don’t really care whether this is what Williams intended. What I admire is the attempt, and the fact that this production has people talking about something other than whether Ms. Field’s Amanda is better or worse than Cherry Jones’s in 2013 or Jessica Lange’s in 2005. Debates like that are the product of a theater of complacency. Debates like the one Mr. Gold has unleashed are what keep theater vigorous and challenging. | 0 |
Nine years ago, Michelle Obama was a reluctant political spouse. The Chicago hospital executive made little secret of her distaste for the process as she stepped onto the national stage, calling partisan politics a cynical business. Her raw authenticity, at times, hurt her husband’s campaign for the presidency.
Today, the first lady is a fully evolved political superstar, hugely beloved within the Democratic Party and a force within popular culture. Handed a prime-time speaking spot at the Democratic National Convention on Monday, she has been tapped to serve as a crucial validator for Hillary Clinton among groups who may remain skeptical of the party’s nominee.
“I’m glad that she was selected to speak on the first night, the opening night of an historic convention,” said Donna Brazile, the longtime Democratic strategist. “The country trusts her. People know she’s authentic and will be honest, and [they] want to know what she thinks.”
In nearly eight years as first lady, she has deliberately avoided partisan issues — but in her address she will fully endorse Clinton. According to an official familiar with her written speech, she plans to talk about the role a president plays in the lives of the nation’s children, shaping their values and aspirations. She will also discuss why she thinks Clinton has the “character, temperament and experience” to be president, and how Clinton’s career reflects ideals such as “opportunity, equality, inclusion.”
Personally, it’s a big step: Mrs. Obama hasn’t been particularly close to the Clintons in the years since her husband’s bruising 2008 primary campaign against Hillary Clinton. But now, the legacy of President Obama’s administration rides on her victory.
[What kind of ex-president will Barack Obama be? POTUS plans for the future.]
“She is there, in part, to be a coda and also to be a bridge,” said Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University who studies political mobilization. “She’s there to wrap up the Obama administration and provide a transition to what a Clinton presidency could be.”
Her opening-night slot reflects more than just her steady popularity: Organizers also appreciate her unerring knack for making headlines — and capturing the attention of people who don’t otherwise follow the news cycle closely. Come Tuesday, there will be stories about everything from how warmly she spoke about Clinton to which fashion designer’s clothing she wore.
Even while absent from the action, she ended up at the center of the news last week when Melania Trump’s speech at the Republican National Convention turned out to have borrowed from her 2008 DNC speech, and the Trump campaign was forced to acknowledge that Melania is an admirer of Michelle’s. (She stayed mum throughout Melania’s ordeal.)
[How Michelle Obama’s team wrote the speech that sparked the Melania Trump controversy]
It was an ironic flub for the Trumps — after all, the decision to have the first lady open the convention for Democrats is not without peril. For all her popularity among party faithful and young pop-culture obsessives (57 percent of Americans viewed her favorably in a January 2015 Fox News poll), she may not be the most effective figure for wooing swing voters or peeling off Trump-skeptical Republicans.
While her predecessor Laura Bush was viewed warmly by many Democrats even as their disdain for her husband grew, many Republicans see Michelle Obama more unfavorably. In a 2014 Pew survey, 46 percent of Republicans rated their views of her as “very unfavorable.”
Conservative pundits have portrayed her advocacy for healthy food and exercise as a scolding, big-government intrusion into private lives; other critics have turned up their noses at her easy fluency in youthful hip-hop culture. Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan described the first lady’s appearance at the 2013 Oscars as “disquieting” and questioned “this White House’s lack of hesitation to insert itself into any cultural event anywhere.”
As it happened, Michelle Obama’s most visible appearance last week was her instantly viral “Carpool Karaoke” segment with “The Late Late Show” host James Corden, in which she sang along to Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” and rapped along to Missy Elliot’s 2001 hit “Get Ur Freak On,” accompanied by Elliot herself. Vanity Fair, upon seeing this, dubbed her the “Coolest First Lady.”
In her DNC remarks, though, she will attempt to connect her life story to broader political and policy themes. Her personal narrative of being reared in working-class Chicago shows up in nearly all of her speeches, and she probably will use it again to motivate the young people Democrats want to turn out to vote.
“The first lady takes a very active role in her speeches,” Tina Tchen, the first lady’s chief of staff, said in an interview earlier this summer. “She wants to communicate that ‘these are the circumstances under which I grew up, and I never dreamed I’d be in the White House, and now I am, and you can do that, too.’ That’s a theme woven through her speeches.”
Over nine years of telling and retelling her trajectory from the South Side to the Ivy League to motherhood and a legal career, her story has become more polished — thanks in part to the small cadre of White House speechwriters who have channeled her voice.
In 2007, she would try to connect with other women over their household duties, “doing a lot of juggling, a lot of balancing,” as she told a New Hampshire crowd: “For the most part, if a toilet overflows, we’re the one scrambling to change the meeting time to be there to meet the plumber. Can I get an ‘Amen,’ ladies?”
Stories like that have fallen away now that she is a globe-trotting first lady. She continues to describe her own family life as busy but affectionate. Yet it has been a long time since she sounded as if she was writing her own speeches.
Democrats have high expectations for what she will bring to this political moment, particularly after Clinton’s choice of mild-mannered Sen. Timothy M. Kaine of Virginia as her running mate, said Jamal Simmons, a Democratic strategist who served as DNC communications adviser during the Obama 2008 campaign.
Clinton is “going to need to create as much sex appeal around her candidacy as she can,” Simmons said. “People will be looking for some excitement.”
The big stage also provides an opportunity for Obama to foreshadow the role she hopes to play after January 2017. The first lady has spoken of the isolation she feels living in the Executive Mansion. While riding with Corden, she mentioned how rare it was for her to be riding in the front seat of a car, listening to music.
Clearly, she is ready to regain more control over her private life. But her speech may hint at her future as a public figure. | 1 |
Allegations of sexual harassment, theft, and assault by migrants on New Year’s Eve have emerged, more than a month after Frankfurt police announced that the night had passed off peacefully. [Angered by official reports that no incidents had occurred, one of the victims, backed by a bar owner and his staff, has come forward to tell Bild newspaper they were attacked in the early hours of New Year’s Day by a large group of Arab migrants on the Fressgass, an upmarket commercial street in the city centre. The alleged victim, Irina A. 27, told the paper: “I’m thankful I wore sheer tights. They grabbed me under the skirt, between my legs, my breasts, everywhere. “Me and my girlfriends. More and more of these guys came. Their hands were everywhere. ” The girls say they asked staff for help, but by 1 am the situation had spiralled out of control. Jan May, 49, owner of the First In bar where the attack occurred, said: “When I came in, the whole place was full with a group of around 50 Arabs. They did not speak German, drank our guests’ drinks and danced towards them. The women asked me for help because they were being attacked. The mood changed completely. ” May quickly called staff at his restaurant around the corner to help with the situation, including a Moroccan employee who tried to talk to the men. “They were highly aggressive, there was shouting and hand gestures,” he recounted. Police were called but by the time they arrived the group had moved on to another bar. May said tensions flared up again at 3 am. “The men had pushed their way into the Garibaldi and other bars — with pyrotechnics,” he said. “I was just in the Gibson when I was called and told ‘We’ve got problems with crowds of migrants’ again. I ran with three bouncers to the Fressgass. ” In a nearby café, “drunk North Africans threw bottles and chairs on guests and staff from the gallery” severely injuring owner Thomas A. who was beaten by a gang. Back in May’s bar “one of them grabbed a knife from the counter, wanting to go for us”. Again, the police were called but the migrants disappeared into the throngs of revellers. The police say they had no knowledge of the incidents, but are now looking into them. According to local paper the Frankfurter Neue Presse (FNP) the official line in early January was that the night had passed off peacefully with crowd numbers well down on previous years, in part thanks to stringent security measures including 600 officers — twice as many as in 2016. Concrete bollards and secure zones were also deployed to control the crowds. Reports at the time noted that a total of 114 people were stopped by Frankfurt police on New Year’s Eve, 57 were searched, and 18 were taken into custody. investigations were opened, including violations of the law on narcotics or weapons, but also bodily harm. Just one case of sexual harassment was reported — a young woman who was grabbed by an unknown assailant on the Iron Bridge, a popular spot for partygoers that evening. The immediately alerted a policeman, causing the suspect and four companions to be arrested while still on the bridge. Hundreds of migrants are said to have travelled into the city by train for the evening’s festivities, although precisely how many is unknown. Bild puts the figure at 900 and says they travelled in by train from Mittelhessen. The FNP puts it much higher, at 1, 900, “mostly North Africans”. Frankfurter Rundschau reported the gathered migrants as a “flashmob” and cited the federal police to put the number at 1, 860. May and his fellow who wanted to remain anonymous, say that they were moved to go public because they were angered at the way local politicians were claiming the security measures were a success. A waiter, Pedro, said: “I have not experienced anything like that. ” A colleague, Tony, said: “It was just bad. ” The named victim, Irina, added: “I did not dare go home alone. I was traumatised. ” | 0 |
LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May told President Donald Trump that she was “disappointed” by his decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord, Downing Street said after a call between the leaders on Thursday. “The Prime Minister expressed her disappointment with the decision and stressed that the UK remained committed to the Paris Agreement, as she set out recently at the G7,” Number 10 said. | 1 |
Region: Europe A recently published article titled with the words of a popular French song “ Marlbrough s’en va-t-en Guerre ” has attracted much attention around the background of Francois Hollande’s “achievements” Now that Donald Trump has been elected as the next President of the United States, a string of European politicians have started voicing their discontent, including the current French President. He has failed to hide such discontent with the decision Americans have made. However, he described Trump’s victory as a “lesson learnt,” the importance of which “goes far beyond the borders of the United States.” Little did he know, French politicians have interpreted this passage in their own reserved way. On November 10, the lower house of the Assemblée nationale has passed the vote to impeach Hollande, passing the bill with 152 votes out of the total of 199, resulting in the president of the Assemblée Nationale, Claude Bartolone, officially submitting a draft resolution for Hollande’s impeachment. The impeachment procedure has only been introduced in 2014 in accordance with Article 68 of the French Constitution. According to the laws of the Fifth Republic, a president can only be impeached if he blatantly ignored his duties. To start this procedure, one would have to obtain 58 votes in the Assemblée Nationale, where the Republicans are now holding a total of 193 seats. The demand for Hollande to leave was signed by a total 152 deputies, including the Republican Spokesperson in the Assembly, Christian Jacob and the former Prime-Minister Fran ç ois Fillon. The Right are convinced that Hollande should be held liable for disclosing state secrets in his book with the telling title “ A President Shouldn’t Say This “ (U n pr é sident ne devrait pas dire ç a …). They are convinced that a president should know better than putting down all the details of French secret service operations aimed at assassinating terrorist leaders abroad. If the draft is to be found valid, it will be handed over to a special judicial committee of the the lower house of the the Assemblée Nationale. Finally, when everything is said and done, the two houses will form the Republican High Court that will decide the fate of the sitting president. But regardless of how the impeachment procedure turns out in the end, this whole affairs has literally ended Hollande’s political career, since he has no chance to get reelected. Therefore, one could use the words of the above mentioned song : « Monsieur Malbrough est mort » ( Malbrough is now dead ). However, this wasn’t much of a surprise for anyone who has been following French politics, since, according to Le Figaro , Hollande’s approval rating has hit an all time low of 11%. No President in French history enjoyed less support from the population, with even the Socialist party reluctant to back up Hollande’s policies, with only 34% supporting him. However, it seems unlikely that Hollande will be the only European leader that will have to face the consequences of his mindless support of US President Obama’s warmongering policies that have, at the end of the day, inflicted serious damage to EU interests. Jean P é rier is an independent researcher and analyst and a renowned expert on the Near and Middle East , exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” Popular Articles | 0 |
Washington Post reporter took to Twitter to post an image of the venue where Trump was to appear in several hours. The only problem is, the Washington Post reporter didn t say the image was taken several hours before President Trump appeared on stage.Here is Dave Weigel s #FakeNews post, that he has since deleted:As someone who attended Trump s final campaign rally, the night before the election in Grand Rapids, MI, I can attest to the incredible amount of security Trump supporters must go through before entering the venue. Trump supporters were lined up for miles to get into the event we attended, and after several hours, many of his supporters were seen trickling in, hours after the event started, after waiting to get through security..@DaveWeigel @WashingtonPost put out a phony photo of an empty arena hours before I arrived @ the venue, w/ thousands of people outside, on their way in. Real photos now shown as I spoke. Packed house, many people unable to get in. Demand apology & retraction from FAKE NEWS WaPo! pic.twitter.com/XAblFGh1ob Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 9, 2017Here are a few of the pictures Trump posted in his tweet above to show the actual size of the crowd: After the Washington Post reporter was outed by President Trump, for lying on Twitter about the size of Trump s crowd at his rally, he apologized:Sure thing: I apologize. I deleted the photo after @dmartosko told me I'd gotten it wrong. Was confused by the image of you walking in the bottom right corner. https://t.co/fQY7GMNSaD Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) December 9, 2017President Trump responded to Dave Weigel s apology on Twitter. Trump called for his firing for pushing #FakeNews on Twitter..@daveweigel of the Washington Post just admitted that his picture was a FAKE (fraud?) showing an almost empty arena last night for my speech in Pensacola when, in fact, he knew the arena was packed (as shown also on T.V.). FAKE NEWS, he should be fired. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 9, 2017Many of Trump s supporters came to his defense on Twitter as well, posting images of a packed stadium for everyone to see:Here s what the line outside of the Trump rally actually looked like:HAPPENING NOW!Trump Rally Pensacola!pic.twitter.com/549Oq74upD TRUMP News 24/7 (@MichaelDelauzon) December 8, 2017Here are several shots of the Pensacola venue from inside:STADIUM PACKED at Trump Rally in Pensacola, Fl!We aren't going ANYWHERE! We are just getting started .again! Make America Great Again #ThingsITrustMorethanCNN #ResistanceIsImportant #TrumpRally pic.twitter.com/61RcSUG2dO Kambree Kawahine Koa (@KamVTV) December 9, 2017For those saying Pensacola Bay Center was empty tonight for Trump Rally pic.twitter.com/zZqVYK8xIf Bard Law (@TwoLameDucks) December 9, 2017Crowds gather for Trump Rally in Pensacola today!! pic.twitter.com/eRJy92nz6m ssd (@Pismo_B) December 8, 2017A video view from inside the Pensacola Trump rally tonight, as the president talked about illegal immigration pic.twitter.com/VoPbEBqijE David Martosko (@dmartosko) December 9, 2017 | 0 |
As part of the Democratic Party’s response to President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of congress, former Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear referred to himself as a “proud Republican. ”[Addressing the camera from a diner in Kentucky, former Gov. Beshear appeared to tangle his words, stating that “I’m a proud Democrat, but first and foremost, I’m a proud Republican, and Democrat, and mostly, American. ” Beshear went on to attack Trump on a number of issues, claiming that Trump planned to “rip affordable health insurance from Americans who must need it,” as Trump and Republicans formulate plans to fully repeal Obamacare. The former governor also accused Trump of being “Wall Street’s champion,” after one of Trump’s executive orders “makes it harder for families to even afford a mortgage,” while “rolling back rules that provide oversight of the financial industry and protect us against another economic meltdown. ” He also criticized Donald Trump’s cabinet picks, describing them as a “cabinet of billionaires and Wall Street insiders who want to eviscerate the protections that most Americans count on and help level the playing field. ” The tone of the response appeared to be a pitch to the working class Americans who helped propel Trump to victory last November, with the video set in a modest diner surrounded by people Beshear claimed were his neighbors, as well as a mix of both Democrats and Republicans. Donald Trump’s speech covered a number of issues, such as healthcare, defense spending, cutting the size of government, and the need for unity in a divided America. A CNN poll later found that nearly four out of five Americans had a “positive reaction” to the speech. You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart. com | 0 |
Taki's Magazine October 29, 2016
PALM BEACH, Fla.—Maybe you missed this little item, but last month Obama shut down 130 colleges in a single day.
That’s one-three-oh campuses in 38 states that failed to open for the fall semester even though everybody was already enrolled.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think anything even remotely similar to this has ever happened in the history of the Republic. Education is the religion of the country. It’s the one thing that all politicians put on their list of bromides (always saying we need more, not fewer, colleges). Education ranks right up there with sick babies and flogged pit bulls for things people will donate money to. If Obama had shown up in, say, Dayton, Ohio, in 2008 and said, “By the way, part of my platform is that I might shut down 130 colleges,” I think he would have needed a security escort to get out of the Wright Brothers Banquet Hall.
So why are there no riots?
Because the victims of this Orientation Day Surprise are all students at the ITT Technical Institute.
ITT Tech is one of those for-profit chains that offer degrees in rarefied skills like automobile mechanics and refrigeration repair and medical billing—they’re not afraid to get specific with their curriculum—but historically it’s the Oxford of that group. It grew out of an Indianapolis company called Howard W. Sams that was a publisher of electronics textbooks and service manuals. Sams Technical Institute was formed in 1963 to teach electronics to students who wanted to forgo the typical liberal-arts curriculum of the day and learn how to work with emerging technologies, usually in the service end of the business, and it proved so popular that STI soon merged with Teletronic Technical Institute in Evansville, Acme Institute of Technology in Dayton, and another Sams in Fort Wayne, before being acquired in 1966 by ITT, the diversified international conglomerate that got started in the ’20s by consolidating phone companies.
In the ’60s and ’70s these were sneered at as “trade schools” or “vo-tech schools,” but ITT turned them into actual colleges, a fact recognized in 1973 when the original ITT Technical Institute in Indianapolis became the first “nontraditional” school allowed into the federal tuition loan and grant program. It was considered good policy since these programs were extremely popular with Vietnam War veterans trying to re-enter society. ITT Tech expanded rapidly in the ’70s, pulled back slightly in the ’80s, expanded again in the ’90s, then became publicly traded after the Starwood hotel group bought ITT and decided it didn’t want to be in the education business. | 1 |
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump greeted each other at an APEC summit in Vietnam, shook hands and exchanged a few words, Russian news agencies reported on Friday. Trump approached Putin at a photo session of world leaders in the Vietnamese city of Danang and gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder, agencies reported. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was cited by the RIA news agency as saying that the two men had not held any talks yet however, something Moscow has been trying to set up for days. | 0 |
Buenos Aires (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Argentines marched through the rain in front of the presidential palace on Sunday to demand answers in the case of a young protester who went missing two months ago. Opposition and human rights groups believe state security forces took Santiago Maldonado, a 28-year-old craftsman, and allege President Mauricio Macri s government is covering up information on his whereabouts. Maldonado was last seen during an Aug. 1 operation by the National Gendarmerie to end a land occupation in Chubut province by the indigenous Mapuche. My intuition tells me the Gendarmerie have him. Where, I don t know, Maldonado s brother, Sergio Maldonado, told reporters at the rally in downtown Buenos Aires. Protesters marched carrying images of Maldonado s bearded face and signs that read may he appear alive now. Potential cases of abuse by security forces are sensitive in Argentina, where the 1976-1983 military dictatorship secretly detained, tortured and killed people in clandestine prisons. Rights groups say up to 30,000 people disappeared. Macri s government has said that there is no evidence that shows security forces detained Maldonado. | 0 |
John A. Boehner never landed the really big deal he craved. Not the $4 trillion tax-and-entitlement deal he reached for in 2011, not the repackaged version a year later and not the immigration overhaul he sought in 2014.
He most clearly learned the limits of his power midway through his nearly five-year tenure as House speaker when he scaled down his ambitions for “Plan B” — a tactical gambit aimed at forcing Democrats to preserve Republican tax cuts. Conservatives rebelled because those making more than $1 million would have faced tax increases, and Boehner (Ohio) was left reading the “Serenity Prayer” to his Republican colleagues.
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,” the speaker said.
That utter defeat left him unable to “go big,” as he liked to say, his effort to find a legacy-defining piece of legislation coming largely to a close. In the three years since, he mostly has been treading water.
This month, Boehner found himself in much the same position as before. But conservatives weren’t revolting over tax cuts or a farm bill or health-care legislation. This time, they were after his job.
On Friday, he decided to spare his party another fight, particularly one that was all about him. In the same basement room where he abandoned “Plan B,” he announced his resignation, ending a run as speaker that came to be defined by internal revolts and missed opportunities.
[What John Boehner told me the night before he was quitting]
On Sept. 17, Republicans swore in their 247th member, giving them their largest House majority since 1930. Yet Boehner could never please his most conservative members. Fiscal deals negotiated with President Obama produced more than $2 trillion in savings and made the GOP’s tax cuts permanent for 99 percent of workers, but the far right painted both deals as sellouts.
Despite his early years as an agitator, Boehner never overcame the image that the conservatives saw: a country club Republican who loved to play 18 holes of golf and drink merlot afterward while cutting deals. In an era of shouting and confrontation, on talk radio or cable TV, Boehner’s easygoing style did not fit.
“John was fighting the 21st-century battles with 1990s tools, and you can’t just do that with a president of either party who is willing to push the envelopes of executive power,” Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), one of the lead rebels, said after Boehner’s surprise announcement Friday morning.
Aside from a Quixotic effort to cajole support for immigration legislation, Boehner has been stuck with a caucus bitterly divided between those willing to accept incremental progress toward conservative goals and those, like Mulvaney, willing to blow up the normal courtesies and practices in Washington.
“It’s like the Marine Corps: You spend 90 percent of your time on 10 percent of your guys,” Rep. Duncan D. Hunter (R-Calif.), an Iraq war veteran who still serves in the Marine Corps Reserve, said Friday. “I think that’s what ended up happening with Boehner toward the end, the last year or two. There was so much time dealing with fractious stuff inside the conference that it took a lot of time away from doing other things.”
Boehner decided to retire, effective Oct. 30, after his emotional reaction to Pope Francis’s visit on Thursday to the Capitol. The speaker spent the night at an Italian restaurant on Barracks Row with close friends and then Friday morning at his regular diner two blocks from the Capitol, where he affirmed his decision.
It was a long fall from September 2010, when Boehner and his leadership team introduced the “Pledge to America,” their governing document touted in the final days of the midterm election campaign that delivered a Republican House majority.
[How speakers of the House became an endangered species]
That 2010 class — 87 Republicans strong — ushered Boehner into the speaker’s chair but brought with it dozens of lawmakers from deeply conservative districts that distrusted all of Washington, Republicans and Democrats alike. Dozens of the freshmen became loyal foot soldiers to leadership, but they also feared that their biggest political risk would come in a Republican primary, not from a Democrat in a general election.
That meant that when the most conservative members aligned themselves with outside conservative groups pushing for a harder line, these more moderate Republicans sometimes bucked Boehner out of fear.
The first warning sign for the new speaker came within weeks of him taking over, when Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the fiscal expert for the caucus, presented a proposal for cutting about $40 billion from the 2012 federal agency budgets. The freshmen revolted, citing the “Pledge to America” and its call for $100 billion in cuts. Never mind that the fiscal year was half over; they wanted deeper reductions.
Boehner gave in, sending his troops back to draw up greater cuts to appease the right flank.
That scenario played out repeatedly throughout his term, most dramatically in the summer of 2011 when Boehner and Obama — after a much-hyped round of golf at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland — entered into negotiations aimed at a $4 trillion fiscal package of spending cuts and entitlement reforms.
Some called it the “grand bargain,” but Boehner called it the “big deal.” During one bargaining session in the White House Cabinet Room, he grew frustrated about the inability to reach an agreement, as Obama sat to his left and his deputy, then-Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), was on his right.
“I didn’t want this job to have a big title. I want to do big things,” Boehner told the group, according to a Democrat in the room.
[The Fix: John Boehner just sacrificed his career for the good of the GOP]
But as the talks grew close, Boehner balked at a demand from Obama for more than $1 trillion in tax increases.
The two leaders traded blame in dueling news conferences. As often happened, the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell (Ky.), stepped into the breach to reach a compromise that left conservatives griping.
The pattern repeated with more negotiations and retreats later that year and, after another McConnell-brokered compromise passed in late 2012, the new Congress was sworn in. A ragtag group of Republicans moved to deny Boehner the speaker’s gavel for a second term — the first of what would become effectively three coup attempts against him.
With Democrats voting for their leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), the conservatives tried to get enough Republicans to deny Boehner the majority. They had no alternative, no real plan, and it fell apart after several members prayed on whether to spare Boehner.
“Gone are the days when the leaders decide what the conference is going to do,” Rep. Lynn Jenkins (Kan.), who has been a low-level member of GOP leadership, said in the spring of 2013.
Boehner thought of retiring at the end of 2014, but Cantor lost in a stunning upset to a conservative who has linked arms with others against Boehner. With no heir apparent, he soldiered on through another coup attempt during a speaker vote in January and, as he said Friday, he had decided privately to retire at the end of this year.
But those botched coup attempts also sowed the seeds of an idea that would haunt him: that if they ever got enough rebels together, they could force a vote to deny him a majority from the Republican side of the aisle.
No speaker had ever lost his gavel under such a scenario, and his friends said that Boehner never wanted to rely on Democratic votes to keep the job. As a fight unfolded over the past two months about federal funding for Planned Parenthood, it became clear that 30 or more Republicans may have been willing to oust him if he extended government funding without a fight over the group.
The institution would endure a grueling ballot, and members he liked would have to take tough votes on Boehner’s behalf. So on Friday morning, a day after Francis’s address to a joint meeting of Congress, in the same room where his other fights ended, Boehner turned to the “Prayer of Saint Francis” to announce his retirement.
“For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life,” he said. | 1 |
This is a story is for anyone who thinks these Muslim migrants are going to change their stone-age tactics because they are living at the expense of taxpayers in another country. Three young men from North Africa were arrested on Saturday in the western German city of Dortmund for stoning two transgender women.According to a report on Friday on television station SAT1.NRW, the men attacked Yasmine und Elisa, two transgender women, near the city s main train station. Within seconds we were tossed around and they took stones from a gravel bed on the corner and threw them at us, said Elisa.A police car appeared at the train station as the stoning attack unfolded and arrested the men.The German media as a general rule do not disclose the last names of victims to protect their privacy. The three men are between 16 and 18 years-old and are known to the authorities from theft and assault arrests.Dortmund police official Kim-Ben Freigang said the suspects told the police that such persons must be stoned. Yasmine installed a security camera at the residence where she lives with Elisa after the attacks. That was barbaric what they did. They are barbarians, Yasmine said.She added that she could not believe that such an act of shamelessness occurred. In 2016, in Germany, with stoning! According to the SATI.NRW report, Yasmine said it was the first time in 30 years she felt unsafe as a transgender woman.According to Yasmine and Elisa, the three young men propositioned them, but after they realized that Yasmine and Elisa are transgender women, they attacked them with stones.Stoning people to death is a penalty used in nine Muslim-majority countries. In November, a criminal court in Iran s northern province of Gilan sentenced a woman to be executed by stoning for alleged complicity in the murder of her husband, Arash Babaieepour Tabrizinejad. Via: Jerusalem Post | 0 |
BERLIN (Reuters) - Syrian refugees rejoiced on Sunday at the news that Angela Merkel had secured a fourth term as German chancellor, but said they were alarmed by the rise of the far-right AfD party, which they feared could push her to tighten asylum rules. We prayed that Merkel would win, said Fatima al-Haidar, a mother of two from Damascus. Allah answered our prayers. To us she represents wisdom and humanity. While Merkel s conservative bloc won most seats in parliament, the result was its worst since 1949 as voters turned en masse to smaller parties. The conservatives bled support to the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD), which entered parliament for the first time as the third-biggest party, cashing in on anger at Merkel s decision to welcome more than 1.3 million refugees. Merkel put her career on the line to help us, said Haidar s 55-year-old husband Ayman. We want to learn German and contribute to the success of this country through work, simply to prove that she was right and her opponents were wrong. Fatima and Ayman found out the election results from their 14-year-old son Zayd, who tuned in to the public broadcaster ZDF on his mobile phone to break the news to his parents and their friends as exit polls came in. When Zayd told us Merkel had won we did a zalghouta, said Roula Mohammad, referring to a tongue trill that Arab women perform during weddings. We need a wise woman like her in Syria to end the war. The Syrian refugees were having dinner at Al Dimashqi, a popular Arab restaurant on Sonnenallee, a long boulevard in Berlin s poor neighborhood of Neukoelln that refugees call Arab Street for its abundance of Arabic shop signs. The AfD s campaign appealed unashamedly to voters who feel that the influx of mainly Muslim migrants will undermine German culture, asserting that Islamic customs have no place in Germany. Merkel s conservatives and their Social Democrat coalition partners in the outgoing government quietly introduced stricter asylum rules last year after losing support to the AfD in regional elections. Refugees fear that the AfD s stunning showing of more than 13 percent of the vote on Sunday could spell even tougher immigration rules under the next Merkel-led government. She is less popular because of us, said Nabil Zainaldin, 32, from Aleppo. We totally understand that Germans are worried. All we can do to reassure them is to be law-abiding citizens. But we are also worried: what will the asylum policy of the new government be? | 0 |
Heseltine strangled dog as part of Thatcher cabinet initiation ceremony 01-11-16 LORD Heseltine has admitted strangling his mother’s dog for his initiation into Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet. The 83-year-old peer said that every member of Thatcher’s inner circle was forced to take a life and steal something irreplaceable from close family to prove they were outside bourgeois morality. He continued: “It’s an idea I believe she took from Aleister Crowley. I decided to get both my trials over with at once and choked the dog with my bare hands. “My mother never forgave me, of course, but I have to say it worked. From that moment on I had no sentimental respect for life, and human suffering was no longer any impediment to policy. “Of course, I was still terribly upset by what she did to Westland. That poor helicopter company. Still brings tears, even now.” The revelation follows Sir Geoffrey Howe’s admission that he threw a chimp from a moving train, Lord Tebbit’s boast of thrashing owls with a riding crop in the Cabinet Room, and Nigel Lawson’s confession that he hypnotised a swan to fly into a brick wall.
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Purchasing Loyalty with Foreign Aid By Jacob G. Hornberger
FFF " - A dispute that is taking place between Saudi Arabia and Egypt indirectly demonstrates the nature of U.S. foreign aid. After dumping a walloping $25 billion in foreign aid to help the Egyptian military dictatorships economic woes, the Saudis are hopping mad.
Why?
Because last month in the United Nations, contrary to Saudi Arabias wishes, Egypt voted in favor of a Russian resolution on Syria.
In the world of foreign aid, thats a super no-no. When a regime has received $25 billion from another regime, it is expected to vote the way its benefactor wants it to vote.
In a remarkable admission regarding foreign aid, at least in this particular case, the New York Times , in an article on the matter, wrote, The Saudis may have thought they were buying loyalty . The Times article pointed out that to punish the Egyptians for their independence, The state-owned Saudi oil company, Aramco, postponed a promised shipment of 700,000 tons of discounted oil in October, and the spokesman for Egypts oil ministry said the fate of Novembers shipment remains unknown.
Although the New York Times would probably be reluctant to describe U.S. foreign aid in the same way, thats precisely what it is a way to purchase loyalty from foreign regimes, including dictatorships. The U.S. government loves to put foreign regimes on the federal dole because once that happens, U.S. officials know that they have bought them, lock, stock, and barrel. Once a regime is on the dole, it inevitably becomes dependent on it.
The racket works like this: The IRS collects money from hard-pressed U.S. taxpayers, which U.S. officials use to send millions of dollars in foreign aid to foreign regimes.
The foreign regimes then use the money to buy weaponry to fortify their hold on power or to just to line the pockets of government officials.
It doesnt matter to U.S. officials what the tyrants do to people within their country. They can abuse them, incarcerate them, torture them, or kill them. None of that matters to U.S. officials.
What matters to U.S. officials is the international arena. Like votes in the UN. Or public support for U.S. invasions, coups, interventions, assassinations, kidnappings, and the like. Or joining coalitions of the willing. Thats when U.S. officials expect loyalty, in the form of blind support, which was what Saudi Arabia was expecting from the Egyptian tyrants.
And heaven help any nation that takes the wrong position. The U.S. will respond in the same way the Saudis have responded to the Egyptians. It will threaten to do very bad things to the nation that opposes a U.S invasion, coup, or resolution within the UN. When a nation is on the U.S. dole, U.S. officials expect loyalty.
Americans cant do anything about foreign aid by the Saudi government. But they can do something about U.S. foreign aid. What they should do is demand that it be ended, immediately.
Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. | 0 |
BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - Three workers, two of them Sudanese, died in an accident at Libya s Zelten oil and gas field on Saturday, an oil source said. They died after inhaling gas during maintenance works, the source said, adding that a fourth person was being treated in hospital. The nationality of the third dead was not immediately known. The field belongs to Sirte Oil Company and pumps between 35,000 and 40,000 barrels a day. | 1 |
PARIS — A historic crowd of more than a million people including more than 40 world leaders jammed the streets Sunday, proclaiming "Je suis Charlie," expressing solidarity against terrorism and paying homage to victims of last week's deadly attacks.
French President François Hollande, British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel were among the leaders who linked arms to start the march amid intense security. The U.S. representative was Jane Hartley, the ambassador to France.
The gathering brought together leaders of nations and causes often at odds, such as Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The emotionally charged rally came just days after 17 people and three Islamic extremist gunmen were killed in three horrifying days of terror in France.
France's Interior Ministry described the demonstration as the largest in the nation's history. More than 3.7 million marched throughout the country, including between 1.2 million and 1.6 million in the capital. The ministry said a precise number was impossible to determine given the enormity of the turnout.
"Today, Paris is the capital of the world," Hollande said. "Our entire country will rise up toward something better."
Hollande and Netanyahu later visited the Grand Synagogue in Paris, which for security reasons did not hold Sabbath services this weekend for the first time since World War II.
"Today I walked the streets of Paris with the leaders of the world to say enough terror -- the time has come to fight terror," Netanyahu said. He also stressed that the enemy is not Islam, but extremists.
The attackers' primary target was the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical weekly publication that has published spoofs of the Islamic prophet Mohammed. The slogan "Je suis Charlie" — I am Charlie — has swept across France and around the globe.
Twelve people were killed when brothers Said, 34, and Cherif Kouachi, 32, stormed the offices magazine's offices Wednesday. Two days later police tracked them to a printing house near Charles de Gaulle Airport where they were killed.
On Thursday, Amedy Coulibaly, 32, shot and killed a policewoman. On Friday he killed four people -- all Jewish -- at a kosher market and threatened more violence unless the police let the Kouachis go. He was killed later in the day during a police assault.
French prosecutors said Coulibaly is also linked to the shooting of a jogger on the same day as the Charlie Hebdo massacre. Video emerged showing Coulibaly pledging allegiance to the Islamic State and claiming he coordinated the attacks with the Kouachi brothers.
Sunday was a day for healing and for unity. Rallies in support of freedom of expression were held across France and in major cities around the globe.
In New York, the Empire State Building was lit in the colors of the French flag as a solidarity gesture. The lights were to be darkened at 8 p.m. ET in memory of those killed in the Paris attacks.
In Paris, the military and police were out in force, with more than 2,000 police officers patrolling the area, French officials said. Another 2,000 officers and 1,300 soldiers were protecting key buildings, landmarks, transportation hubs and Jewish sites.
The rally, featuring family members of those who died in the attacks, drew French celebrities, Christian, Jewish and Muslim community leaders, and politicians from across the French political spectrum.
Paris public transport operator RATP made travel on its metro, bus and tram network free to reduce traffic in the center of the capital. Crowds began gathering hours before the rally started at 3 p.m. local time (9 a.m. ET) in central Paris.
The boulevards and streets leading to Place de la Republique soon became blocked by the throngs, but a cheerful spirit pervaded among demonstrators. "Today is not the day to be grumpy Parisians," said one woman sporting a bright-red French beret.
Hawkers sold buttons and banners reading "Je Suis Charlie" as well as "Je Suis Ahmed" and "Je Suis Juif (Jewish)." Banners and signs in honor of those who died, cartoons drawn on posterboard and plastic, and mosaics on the ground made from pens, were also being sold.
The display of world leaders did not impress Reporters Without Borders, which issued a statement saying it was "appalled" by some of the countries represented in a rally so closely tied to freedom of expression.
"Journalists and bloggers are systematically persecuted (in) Egypt, Russia, Turkey and United Arab Emirates," the statement said. "We must demonstrate our solidarity with CharlieHebdo without forgetting all the world's other Charlies. ... We must not let predators of press freedom spit on the graves of Charlie Hebdo."
Some rallies kicked off earlier Sunday. In Dammartin-en-Groele, the small industrial town northeast of Paris where the Kouachi brothers were killed by police, tens of thousands of people came out and sang La Marseillaise, the French national anthem, and chanted "Je Suis Charlie."
Blandine Siet, 51, who lives in the Montparnasse neighborhood in south Paris, said she would join the capital city's rally with a group of friends and neighbors to protest the restrictions to freedom of expression that she fears may result from the attack onCharlie Hebdo.
"France is a free country with strong (democratic) values and I want it to stay that way," she said.
Meanwhile, thousands of people gathered Sunday for the funeral of Ahmed Merabet, the police officer shot as he lay wounded on the ground just after the Charlie Hebdo attack. Mourners waved signs reading "Thank you, Ahmed" and "Je Suis Ahmed."
Bacon reported from McLean, Va. Contributing: Jane Onyanga-Omara in London; Jabeen Bhatti in Berlin; the Associated Press | 1 |
Vladimir Putin: The United States continues to sleep with al-Nusra ‹ › South Front Analysis & Intelligence is a public analytical project maintained by an independent team of experts from the four corners of the Earth focusing on international relations issues and crises. They focus on analysis and intelligence of the ongoing crises and the biggest stories from around the world: Ukraine, the war in Middle East, Central Asia issues, protest movements in the Balkans, migration crises, and others. In addition, they provide military operations analysis, the military posture of major world powers, and other important data influencing the growth of tensions between countries and nations. We try to dig out the truth on issues which are barely covered by governments and mainstream media. Syrian War Report – October 27, 2016: Russian Strikes Destroyed Over 300 Terrorists’ Oil Facilities By South Front on October 27, 2016 …from SouthFront
In northeastern Aleppo, the Syrian army and Liwa al-Quds also continued operations against Jaish al-Fatah militants (mostly members of Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zenki). The main clashes took place inside the neighborhoods of Bustan Al-Basha and ‘Ard Al-Hamra. Pro-government forces argue that the Syrian military seized the whole ‘Ard Al-Hamra Neighborhood. However, this has not been confirmed. On October 27, the government forces also launched an offensive on the strategic Hanano Youth Housing Complex. Fierce clashes are ongoing there.
In southwestern Aleppo, the army and allies have repelled another attempt by militants to retake the Air Defense Battalion Base. 5 militants were killed. Local sources say that Iranian military servicemen were operating in the area along with Syrian troops.
The Kurdish YPG launched a series of attacks on the alliance of Turksih-backed militant groups known as the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in the area northwest of Al-Bab.
YPG units entered the villages of Til Madîq, Hecinê, Qarami, Jabal Na’i and Mişerefê. Some pro-Kurdish sources argue that some villages have been already taken.
The Syrian air strike allegedly killed one of the FSA highest ranking commanders in northern Homs – the Chief of Staff for the Free Syrian Army, Colonel Shouki Ayyoub – on October 26. Ayyoub had played an important role in creation a brand of the FSA.
The Syrian Army and the National Defense Forces (NDF) continued to attacks Jaish al-Islam militantsnear the strategic city of Douma in Eastern Ghouta. Fierce clashes took place in the area of al-Reihan and along a road connecting Tal Kurdi and Douma. The army also advanced near near al-Shifouniyeh town. The clashes resulted in killing of 22 militants and destroying of 3 technical vehicles with machine guns. The government forces lost some 8 fighters and a vehicle.
Actions of the Russian air grouping in Syria have resulted in a 70% decrease of the oil trafficking by the ISIS terrorist group, Vitaly Naumkin, President of the Institute of Oriental Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) said on October 26. According to the RAS’ information, the Russian Aerospace Forces have destroyed over 300 facilities involved in the production and transportation of oil and oil products.
Naumikn added that efforts of the Russian military allowed the government forces to liberate 568 settlements, including 150 towns. Some 3700 militants have surrendered to the Syrian government and 847 settlements jointed to the reconciliation process promoted by Moscow. Related Posts: No Related Posts The views expressed herein are the views of the author exclusively and not necessarily the views of VT, VT authors, affiliates, advertisers, sponsors, partners, technicians, or the Veterans Today Network and its assigns. LEGAL NOTICE - COMMENT POLICY Posted by South Front on October 27, 2016, With 425 Reads Filed under Military . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 . You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. FaceBook Comments One Response to " Syrian War Report – October 27, 2016: Russian Strikes Destroyed Over 300 Terrorists’ Oil Facilities " JohnZ October 27, 2016 at 8:29 am
300 facilities destroyed. Looks like Erdogman is going to have to take a loss on this. Too bad he can’t use the IRS profit/loss. Ha, ha. Now one of his mistresses will have to drive that Mercedes for another year and that worthless son of his is going to have to get a real job; one he is more suited for like street cleaning. Things just keep going from bad to worse for the RKM/NWO gangsters.
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Donald Trump has been poking China with a proverbial stick and his provocations haven t gone unnoticed. Now, Chinese state media is calling Trump and his disastrous excuse for foreign policy out.Trump did his best to kick off a diplomatic crisis with China when he accepted a congratulatory call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen. China views Taiwan as a rogue province and the U.S. agreed not to recognize their government as part of the One China policy. Naturally, Trump has no f*cks to give.Global Times, a state-run Chinese newspaper, published a scathing editorial on Monday slamming Trump for his remarks regarding the One China policy. They speculated that Trump may use the policy to force China to make a compromise on trade. The One China policy is not for selling. Trump thinks that everything can be valued and, as long as his leverage is strong enough, he can sell or buy. If a price can be put on the US Constitution, will the American people sell their country s constitution and implement the political systems of Saudi Arabia or Singapore?Trump needs to learn to handle foreign affairs modestly, especially the China-U.S. relationship. More importantly, a hard struggle against Trump is needed to let him know that China and other world powers cannot be easily taken advantage of. The piece then lays out the following threat, most likely in reference to North Korea: If Trump gave up the One China policy, publicly supported Taiwan independence and wantonly sold weapons to Taiwan, China would have no grounds to partner with Washington on international affairs and contain forces hostile to the U.S. In response to Trump s provocations, Beijing could offer support, even military assistance to U.S. foes. The One China policy has maintained peace and prosperity in Taiwan, notes the article, before adding that the U.S. has no control over the Straits, and Trump is na ve to think he can use the One China policy as a bargaining chip to win economic benefits from China. The editorial then offers Trump an out, because they do realize that he is a babbling idiot, saying, It s very likely that Trump may not have put too much thought into it. He is no geopolitical maniac, but just has little experience in diplomacy. He doesn t understand how dangerous it can be when he involves the U.S. in such an explosive game. After all, this requires some personal experience. But the piece then ends with a warning to the world: China needs to be fully armed and prepared to take a Sino-U.S. rollercoaster relationship together with Trump. And many others in the world will probably also need to fasten their seatbelts. China has filed an official complaint with the U.S. government regarding Trump s chat fest with the Taiwanese leader. They also sent a message on Monday by flying a bomber capable of firing long-range nuclear weaponry over contested territories located in the South China Sea. Trump is playing a dangerous game.Featured image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images | 1 |
CNN uses their go-to move when they don t like what someone is saying during an interview..they cut you off! A CNN broadcast Saturday cut off an African-American Trump supporter in the middle of answering a question about white guilt posed by a reporter. I have seen one shirt that said no white guilt, things like that. I mean, there have been some messages that might not be that open to folks from diverse perspectives. What would your message be to folks like that? Trump supporter Diante Johnson answered, When it comes to no white guilt, I I agree with that, I actually just made a post about it on my page and a video about it There are some White Americans that feel guilty for what their ancestors did, you know, this and that, and the thing about it is, they shouldn t have to feel guilty, this is America The video was then cut off.The reporter continued, Certainly, an interesting perspective there from an African-American who supports Donald Trump and is here today. The CNN video comes from coverage of a rally held on the National Mall Saturday.Johnson is president of the Black Conservative Federation.Via: Daily Caller | 0 |
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - If elected, Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will review oil contracts signed after historic reforms in the sector, the leftist politician said on Tuesday. The 63-year-old leads various polls ahead of next year s presidential election, and opponents looking to keep him out of office denounce him as a populist who would seek to emulate Venezuela s socialist government. Mexico opened up its energy sector with sweeping reforms in 2013 and 2014 to give investors the chance to participate in oil exploration and extraction. It has held auctions for sites on land as well as in shallow and deep water, in its efforts to boost energy production. We will intervene because we don t want to end up not producing petroleum, Lopez Obrador said in a speech at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. The fall in production must be stopped if not, we will end up buying crude oil, and we can t have that. We are going to intervene quickly and we are going to review the contracts. The leader and founder of the political party Morena did not specify the form of the intervention. But he said he would not trust those who had signed the contracts for Mexico and would ensure the pacts were favorable for the country. We are not going to act in an arbitrary way, we are going to be respectful of the law, but we will review the contracts, Lopez Obrador said. Everything related to Pemex must be public business - their profits are for the Mexican people and we must look after them. It is not an ideological matter, it is not a political matter. Mexican crude production hovers around 2 million barrels per day, off a height of 3.4 million in 2004. Authorities have said after the reform production would increase gradually over several years. The reform had not lived up to its promise, said Lopez Obrador, adding that his industry plan included a refining stimulus, through the modernization of six of state-run oil company Pemex s refineries in Mexico. He also called for two more refineries to be built so that Mexico would not have to continue importing more than half the gasoline it consumes. We sell crude oil and we buy gasoline, and it s necessary to pay a surcharge of 30 percent just for the freight, money that could be saved if the gasoline was made in Mexico, Lopez Obrador said. | 0 |
President Obama lifted the decades-long U.S. arms embargo against Vietnam on Monday in an apparent effort to shore up the communist country's defenses against an increasingly aggressive China – though he faced criticism that the move takes away U.S. leverage to press for human rights freedoms.
Obama announced the full removal of the embargo at a news conference in Hanoi alongside Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang. The president said the move was intended as a step toward normalizing relations with the former enemy and to eliminate a "lingering vestige of the Cold War."
The embargo was imposed in 1984. The United States partially lifted the ban in 2014, but Vietnam pushed for full access as it tries to deal with China's land reclamation and military construction in nearby seas.
Obama, in announcing the agreement Monday, said every U.S. arms sale would be reviewed on a case-by-case basis going forward. Vietnam has not bought anything, but removing the remaining restrictions shows relations are fully normalized and opens the way to deeper security cooperation.
"At this stage both sides have developed a level of trust and cooperation, including between our militaries, that is reflective of common interests and mutual respect," Obama said.
U.S. lawmakers and activists, though, had urged Obama to press for greater human rights freedoms in the one-party state before lifting the embargo. Vietnam holds about 100 political prisoners and there have been more detentions this year.
"In one fell swoop, President Obama has jettisoned what remained of U.S. leverage to improve human rights in Vietnam -- and (has) basically gotten nothing for it," Phil Robertson, with Human Rights Watch, said.
In Beijing, China's Foreign Ministry outwardly praised the move, with a spokeswoman saying China hoped "normal and friendly" relations between the U.S. and Vietnam would be conducive to regional stability. China itself remains under a weapons embargo imposed by the U.S. and European Union following 1989's bloody military crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations centered on Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
Obama said the United States and Vietnam had mutual concerns about maritime issues and the importance of maintaining freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. He said that although Washington doesn't take sides on the territorial disputes, it does support a diplomatic resolution based on "international norms" and "not based on who's the bigger party and can throw around their weight a little bit more," a reference to China.
Lifting the arms embargo will be a psychological boost for Vietnam's leaders as they look to counter an increasingly aggressive China, but there may not be a big jump in sales.
Obama was greeted Monday by Quang at the Presidential Palace, where Obama congratulated Vietnam for making "extraordinary progress." Quang praised the expansion in security and trade ties between "former enemies turned friends" and called for more U.S. investment in Vietnam.
Obama also made the case for stronger commercial and economic ties, including approval of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement that is stalled in Congress and facing strong opposition from the 2016 presidential candidates. The deal, which includes Vietnam, would tear down trade barriers and encourage investment between the countries that signed it.
Critics worry it would cost jobs by exposing American workers to low-wage competition from countries such as Vietnam.
Obama and Quang earlier attended a signing ceremony touting a series of new commercial deals between U.S. and Vietnamese companies valued at more than $16 billion. The deals included U.S. engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney's plans to sell 135 advanced engines to Vietnamese air carrier Vietjet, and Boeing's plans to sell 100 aircraft to the airline.
Obama is the third sitting president to visit Vietnam since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. Four decades after the fall of Saigon, now called Ho Chi Minh City, and two decades after President Bill Clinton restored relations with the nation, Obama is eager to upgrade relations with an emerging power whose rapidly expanding middle class beckons as a promising market for U.S. goods and an offset to China's growing strength.
The United States is eager to boost trade with a fast-growing middle class in Vietnam that is expected to double by 2020. That would mean knocking down auto, food and machine tariffs to get more U.S. products into Vietnam.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. | 1 |
Clinton Camp Desperate, Russia Trains for WWIII US media not letting the public know how tense Russia situation really is Infowars Nightly News
Russia is training millions domestically for WWIII, the Clinton campaign has gone to drastic measures to appear as if they are still alive, the spy state is taking another step forward and the possible answer to National Anthem protests is revealed. Download on your mobile device now for free. Today on the Show Get the latest breaking news & specials from Alex Jones and the Infowars crew. From the store Featured Videos FEATURED VIDEOS A Vote For Hillary is a Vote For World War 3 - See the rest on the Alex Jones YouTube channel . The Most Offensive Halloween EVER! - See the rest on the Alex Jones YouTube channel . ILLUSTRATION How much will your healthcare premiums rise in 2017? >25% © 2016 Infowars.com is a Free Speech Systems, LLC Company. All rights reserved. Digital Millennium Copyright Act Notice. 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force | 1 |
Has Nancy Pelosi been drinking? She repeated herself and giggled while ordering the crowd at an GLAAD function to clap on command bullying became bulleting? Wow! It s a little unsettling when a woman who is supposedly a leader in Congress giggles like a young girl over and over. If she s serious about the policy she s trying to promote then it s probably not the best idea to behave like this Ya think? This isn t the first time Pelosi has behaved this way in front of the cameras. We have a huge list of past gaffes and giggles from the California Rep:Nancy Pelosi: You Can t Cry Wolf in a Crowded Theater Not a day goes by that we have another gaffe from Nancy Pelosi Term Limits Please!.@NancyPelosi screws up the oath of office while lecturing reporters about the seriousness of her job. pic.twitter.com/hLGCxsqK4m Josh Caplan (@joshdcaplan) July 30, 2017 PELOSI: As you know, today we ll be debating what s called the minibus, minibus. Not an omnibus, everything, minibus. And it, on the subject of security, as you know, all of us, anyone who serves in government or civically involved takes an oath of office to protect and defend. Support and defend the Constitution of the United States. Our first responsibility is to protect the American people and our constitution. If people are not safe, how can we proceed in any other way? | 1 |
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Connecticut lawmakers on Thursday passed a two-year $41.3 billion budget, nearly four months after it was due, that is expected to help capital city Hartford avoid bankruptcy through state aid provisions. The budget for fiscal years 2018 and 2019 closes a $3.5 billion deficit over the two years, in part with tax and fee hikes on tobacco products, ride shares and low-income working families. It also raids a host of funds - for everything from school bus seats to clean energy and tobacco cessation - for money that will be swept into the general fund. The state Senate passed the nearly 900-page legislation early on Thursday morning, with the House following suit later in the day. It was not immediately clear whether Governor Dannel Malloy, a Democrat who has said he will not seek a third term in office, would sign it. He vetoed a previous budget a month ago. In a statement, Malloy spokeswoman Kelly Donnelly said the governor and his staff would analyze the bill but had “uncovered egregious problems” with a tax increase on hospitals that could knock the budget more than $1 billion dollars out of balance. Raising hospital taxes would allow the state to get more federal Medicaid reimbursement, with the tax revenues to be returned to the hospitals. “If there’s a problem, we’ll fix it,” said House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, a Republican, about the hospital tax in a televised press conference after the vote. The budget contains aid for Hartford, which has said it could file for bankruptcy without extra funding to help close its own $50 million shortfall. That funding would come with strings attached in the form of a fiscal oversight board. Connecticut’s towns, schools and nonprofit service providers have grappled for months with growing uncertainty as they wait for state funding that helps them operate. When the fiscal year began on July 1 without a budget, Malloy took control of spending through an executive order and enacted steep cuts. | 0 |
Now that they have someone they think is their lord and savior in the White House, House Republicans are starting to come together on their plans to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. They ve been bleating repeal and replace for six years, but the replace part of that has always been a secondary concern (as in, they never really tried to work on it). Now they re solidifying that with a repeal and delay plan.Or, rather, repeal and let the sh*t hit the fan plan. They still have no plan for replacing it, but they just have to repeal now so that s what they re going to do. Then they ll delay actually nullifying it because they think that will keep the whole of the country from descending a dark staircase into chaotic healthcare hell. Rep. Kevin Brady, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, even said: We are not going to rip health care away from Americans. We will have a transition period so Congress can develop the right policies and the American people can have time to look for better health care options. Because Congress can totally agree on everything that needs to happen for Americans to have decent access to decent healthcare. Their delusion on this is deep and complex, too. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy believes that, once it s officially repealed, fewer people will want to play politics and more will be willing to come to the table and support a Republican solution.Har de har har. The GOP s very narrow majority in the Senate could make that all but a pipe dream. No matter, the House has a plan for that too, according to Lamar Alexander, the chairman of the House s health committee: We re going to begin immediately to repeal Obamacare and reconciliation is the only way to do it. And I believe we will have 51 Republican senators or 52 to vote for that. No, Republicans aren t playing politics at all here.Is it really going to be so bad, though? Well, yes, actually, it probably will be. Experts are warning that this repeal and delay plan is going to cause massive chaos. Sabrina Corlette, who teaches at the Health Policy Institute at Georgetown, said: The idea that you can repeal the Affordable Care Act with a two- or three-year transition period and not create market chaos is a total fantasy. Insurers need to know the rules of the road in order to develop plans and set premiums. If there are problems, they ll just blame Democrats for stalling, for refusing to play ball, for obstructing, or whatever else they think the public will believe if spoon-fed to them. See? They ve solved everything! Except how to replace the ACA. Their only focus is on repealing right now. It s not likely they re actually thinking beyond being able to brag to the masses that they finally got rid of the ACA.Featured image by Zach Gibson via Getty Images | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s promised “big announcement” next week on overhauling the U.S. tax code, a top campaign pledge, will consist of “broad principles and priorities,” an administration official said on Saturday. The president unexpectedly said on Friday at a Treasury Department event that there would be “a big announcement on Wednesday having to do with tax reform.” In a Twitter message on Saturday, he wrote: “Big TAX REFORM AND TAX REDUCTION will be announced next Wednesday.” Asked for details, the administration official, who asked not to be identified, said, “We will outline our broad principles and priorities” on Wednesday. Trump has struggled as president to advance his domestic policy agenda, including on taxes, even though his Republican Party controls both chambers of Congress. With his 100th day in office only a week away, he has yet to offer any formal legislation or win passage of a major bill he favors. Most recent presidents had legislative wins under their belts by this time in their administrations. Under U.S. law, only Congress can make significant tax law changes, though the president often drives the tax agenda by offering legislation. The administration official said, “We are moving forward on comprehensive tax reform that cuts tax rates for individuals, simplifies our overly complicated system and creates jobs by making American businesses competitive.” As a candidate, Trump raised high expectations in financial markets and the business community for changes in the complex, loophole-riddled tax system. In his “Contract with the American Voter,” he vowed to work with Congress on tax legislation “within the first 100 days of my administration.” The action plan promised large tax cuts for the middle class and businesses, a reduction of tax brackets to three from seven, simplified tax forms and an offshore profits repatriation tax holiday. Since then, no legislation or formal tax plan has been presented by Trump. He has at times expressed support for a plan drawn up by House of Representatives Republicans, but his views are unclear on a section that deals with taxing imports. In February, Trump promised a “phenomenal” tax plan within a few weeks, without offering details. No plan followed. Last month when an attempt supported by Trump to repeal the healthcare law known as Obamacare collapsed in Congress, Trump said he would refocus on taxes. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Thursday he expected Congress to approve a tax plan this year. | 0 |
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Bomb threats forced thousands of people to evacuate Moscow s Bolshoi theater, Metropol hotel, GUM department store on the Red Square and other public places on Sunday, local media reported. A spate of anonymous phone calls have caused disruption at shopping centers, train stations and public buildings across Russia in the past two months. The calls have so far proved to be false alarms and there have been no claims of responsibility. RIA news agency, citing a source in the police, reported that as many as 5,000 people were evacuated from GUM and Metropol hotel. TASS and RIA, also quoting police sources, said the Bolshoi theater was also evacuated. A Reuters witness said police had cordoned off premises of Bolshoi and GUM. TASS said the evacuation was announced from Bolshoi before a performance was due to start at 1600 GMT. Alexander Bortnikov, the head of the FSB security service said last month the authorities knew the identities of those responsible, saying they four Russian citizens based abroad with accomplices inside Russia. | 1 |
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The special counsel appointed to lead a probe into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election should be granted full control of the investigation independent of Justice Department officials, the Democratic National Committee said on Friday. The DNC, in a statement, said Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who has authority over special counsel Robert Mueller, needs to recuse himself from the Russia probe and control of the investigation should not be given to another Trump appointee. | 1 |
If passed in its current form, the GOP’s Obamacare 2. 0 bill will impose brutal costs Americans still struggling to make it through a great recession — particularly President Donald Trump’s base — and risk handing Congress and the presidency back to Democrats. [1) The bill’s provisions increase healthcare costs for Trump voters in critical states. As an analysis conducted by the Washington Post shows, voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin will see their tax credits decrease under Obamacare 2. 0. “If you’re a making $75, 000 a year, you’re going to get a 75 percent or higher increase to your tax credits — a beneficial situation for you,” the Post explains. “If, however, you’re a making $30, 000 a year, you’re going to see a reduction in those tax credits (unless you live in Upstate New York or Massachusetts or parts of central Texas). ” In other words, senior citizens — who vote regularly in elections — will see their healthcare costs increase under the Republicans’ bill. Plus, Obamacare 2. 0 phases out credits for people who start earning more than $75, 000. Why? Because screw the voters and they’re on their own? What a great message to send to the middle class! Not only are Republicans hurting people struggling to make ends meet, they also punish you if you make too much money. Everyone loses, except perhaps insurance companies. 2) Meanwhile, the bill is “a gift to illegal aliens,” as conservative author Daniel Horowitz writes. Illegals can get health care through identity theft and fraud, because Obamacare 2. 0 makes it impossible to check enrollees’ immigration status. The bill incentivizes further illegal immigration by encouraging illegals to come to the U. S. to cut into programs meant for citizens. Poll after poll shows Trump’s immigration policies prioritizing Americans and their problems over foreigners and their wants are hugely popular with voters. Giving away health care to illegals, while ramping up the price for Trump’s core voters, is a slap in the face. 3) Obamacare 2. 0 will be labeled as “Trumpcare,” and Democrats and their media allies will highlight every hard case to attack Republicans for hurting the poor and elderly. Remember when a progressive group put out an ad showing Paul Ryan pushing a grandma in a wheelchair off a cliff? Obamacare 2. 0 gives the media and the Democrats a golden opportunity to walk away from their healthcare mess and blame Republicans, and amplify that message endlessly. 4) Republicans kicked things off with horrific messaging. In a condescending statement, Utah Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz told Americans they’ll have to “invest” in their health care instead of getting a new iPhone. “Americans have choices,” he said on CNN. “And they’ve got to make a choice. And so, maybe rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and they want to go spend hundreds of dollars on, maybe they should invest it in their own health care. They’ve got to make those decisions for themselves. ” Being forced to buy a product that doesn’t deliver adequate care and keeps increasing in price year after year isn’t an “investment,” for one. pointed out that Chaffetz was mocking poor people who get blindsided by a health crisis: “If families make the wrong series of choices, forcing them to choose between their health and their finances, that’s on them. How’s that for a winning message?” The Huffington Post immediately splashed a photo of Chaffetz pointing his finger at the viewer: Chaffetz later walked back his comments, but the damage was done. They sound especially bad in light of Obamacare 2. 0’s “continuous coverage” provision. 5) The arbitrary and crushing penalty for not enrolling during the period will hurt financially struggling voters already fighting to stay afloat. As Avik Roy writes in Forbes, the “continuous coverage” part inflicts a massive cost increase on those who go without paying for a plan for more than 63 days. “Worse still, the bill contains an arbitrary ‘continuous coverage’ provision, in which those who sign up for coverage outside of the normal open enrollment period would pay a 30 percent surcharge to the normal insurance premium,” Roy writes. And you have to pay this for an entire year — which will not go over well with people struggling to pay for rent, for childcare, for student loans. In other words, it’s not enough to pay a penalty if you forget to sign up for your Obamacare 2. 0 in time or choose to forgo insurance altogether. No, you have to pay 30 percent more, on top of rising costs, for a whole year. How is this supposed to help, say, parents with three kids paying a large monthly premium (not counting eye and dental, of course) with a high deductible? 6) This bill is going to unleash the kind of political fury on Republicans that will elect Elizabeth Warren in 2020. Part of what killed Hillary Clinton’s campaign was voters getting their massive Obamacare premium increases in the mail in October. Republicans seem eager to inflict that kind of fatal damage on themselves. The explosive reaction to Obamacare launched the Tea Party in 2010 and swept Republicans into Congress during the elections of 2014. The Left is furious and energetic under Trump. The 2018 midterm elections are right around the corner, and Democrats are going to launch a holy war against Trump during the 2020 election. The Left will rally around Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other progressives and portray the Democrats as the party of the forgotten man. The white, working class gave Trump a chance in 2016. They could easily begin voting Democratic again or drop out of the political process altogether after a healthcare betrayal. 7) It destroys political capital desperately needed for the rest of Trump’s first term, particularly immigration reform. Trump’s election victory wasn’t a election. It was or . Republicans have one, brief chance to correct the course the U. S. is heading down and bind up all of the wounds inflicted on Americans over the decades. There is a small window to end the era of cheap labor, low wages, mass immigration, communities, family disintegration, drug addiction, and suicide. Will Republicans take it and secure their party’s dominance for the next 50 years? Or will they throw it away? Sixty percent of adults are “hopeful and optimistic” about America’s future. That’s a precious opportunity, one that shouldn’t be wasted. “The issue now is about Americans looking to not get f — ed over. If we deliver, we’ll get 60 percent of the white vote, and 40 percent of the black and Hispanic vote and we’ll govern for 50 years,” White House Chief strategist Steve Bannon said during a November interview. “That’s what the Democrats missed … They lost sight of what the world is about. ” Will Trump continue to support Obamacare 2. 0 despite conservative and populist dissent? Read a series of articles on how to fix the U. S. healthcare system once and for all here. Email Katie at kmchugh@breitbart. com. | 0 |
Amateur president Donald Trump blasted rival Hillary Clinton while on the campaign trail as low energy. He said Clinton takes naps and added, No naps for Trump. I don t take naps. We don t have time! Since that time, Trump has taken three vacations, gone an a thank you tour and on Saturday, he held a rally less than a month after being sworn in. Trump is not handling the presidency very well. Adjusting to the most difficult job in the world hasn t been easy for the 70-year-old. This from a man who said in reference to ISIS, I alone can fix it. Perhaps Trump didn t really want the job. He did want adoration from his supporters, though.According to Axios Mike Allen s latest newsletter, a Trump adviser told him that Trump is experiencing cabin fever in the White House.Business Insider reports:Trump is reportedly experiencing headaches and frustration that he can t spend his evenings dining at restaurants like he could around Trump Tower in his old neighborhood in New York City.Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were both far more qualified for the job but Trump supporters thought bringing in a man with zero political experience was the way to go.Instead of doing his job, Trump held a campaign-style rally in Melbourne, Florida Saturday in which he filled his speech with lie after lie. That was just after he blasted the fake news media. By the way, he s given press credentials to a fake news site. Whatever Trump accuses someone of, he s guilty of that same thing.During the rally, Trump tried to defend his Muslim ban by fabricating a terror attack in Sweden which never happened.Allen writes that that blunder was partially about Trump management. That s three fake terror attacks team Trump has used to defend his travel ban of citizens from seven predominately Muslim countries, none of which committed an act of terror on U.S. soil.Trump is to spend Sunday interviewing candidates to replace Mike Flynn, the disgraced former national security adviser who was ousted over his conversations with a Russian ambassador about lifting sanctions.Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images. | 0 |
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India has approved a three-year budget for its flagship public health program almost 20 percent lower than what the health ministry said was needed, according to sources and previously unreported government documents reviewed by Reuters. The federal finance ministry in August renewed the National Health Mission with $20 billion of funding between 2017-20, against the health ministry s estimated requirement of $25 billion, the documents showed. Officials familiar with the plan said the finance ministry reduced planned funding because of other spending priorities and because of state governments poor track record of spending the health budgets they ve been allotted in the past. The finance and health ministries did not respond to several requests for comment. The National Health Mission is one of the world s largest health programs and forms the backbone of public services in India. It provides everything from free drugs to immunization services to millions of rural poor. Prime Minister Narendra Modi s government has hiked federal funding for the overall health budget this year as part of a plan to improve care and meet a 2025 goal of raising health expenditure to 2.5 percent of GDP from the current 1.15 percent. The National Health Mission typically accounts for about half of the federal health budget and officials said the lower spending approval would make achieving the government s 2025 target more difficult. NON-COMMUNICABLE DISEASES After focusing on maternal and child health for years, the program had planned to broaden its priorities to tackle the rising threat of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Faced with the lower funding, the health ministry has reduced its three-year allocation to tackle NCDs such as cancer and diabetes to $1.4 billion, close to half of the estimated need of $2.4 billion, the documents showed. The Lancet, a British medical journal, last week said NCDs caused a disease burden in India like never before . More than 60 percent of deaths in the country during 2016 were due to non-communicable diseases, up from about 38 percent in 1990, according to the publication. While funding for such diseases up to 2020 will be higher than in recent years, the lower-than-planned approved funding will slow government efforts to tackle these diseases, two government officials said. The cutbacks in NCDs (spending) are dangerous ... this can potentially stall the NCD screening and management plan, said Oommen C. Kurian, a health researcher at the New Delhi-based think-tank Observer Research Foundation. India this year introduced free NCD screening for patients in 100 districts, with plans to eventually cover the country. Beyond non-communicable diseases, spending on strengthening the health system - such as improving district hospitals and patient transport services - will be an estimated $4.3 billion between 2017-20, a third lower than the ministry s request. Planned funding for immunization will be $2.9 billion versus $3.2 billion requested. The spending breakdown for different schemes will be finalised once the health ministry is allocated funding in India s annual budget. Modi s government has taken steps to improve public healthcare including a 27 percent budget hike this year to $7 billion, accompanied by cuts to prices of critical medical devices and drugs. Shamika Ravi, a health expert at Brookings India, said Modi s government was also pursuing fundamental structural reforms to improve healthcare, such as the ranking of district hospitals and empowering state medical officers. There is a lot of background work happening, said Ravi, who is also on Modi s economic advisory council. However, critics say more needs to be done to address the underfunded and overburdened public health system. Some 900,000 children in India died before turning five in 2016, the highest in the world, The Lancet estimates. In March, health officials faced criticism from other government departments for the National Health Mission s inefficiencies and were asked to rework the renewal proposal for 2017-20 after they drew up spending estimates of $33 billion. The health ministry revised the cost to nearly $25 billion, but the finance ministry reduced estimates by another $5 billion while approving the plan, the documents showed. The estimates were pared back because Modi s government has other priorities and because the finance ministry wants to control spending as it seeks to balance fiscal deficit targets while boosting growth, several government officials aware of the process said. It s about political priorities - you have programs on roads, on infrastructure, on ports, said one of the officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The government is also concerned states do not have the governance capacity to spend large health budgets efficiently, officials said. A shortage of workers, bureaucratic bungling and slow procurement processes have plagued the states health systems. More than $1.4 billion in health budgets was unspent by states by 2015-16, India s federal auditor said earlier this year. | 0 |
Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke seems like he came right out of Donald Trump central casting. He s racist. He s so hard on alleged criminals that he even let some die in his jail cells. He is so committed to the idea of an Old West sheriff that he even wears a Stetson hat. Oh, and the icing on the cake is that Clarke is African-American, and to add a touch of bi-partisanship to Trump, Clarke is a Democrat (in all but words, deeds, and votes).He s a strong supporter of Donald Trump and he was allegedly under consideration for a cabinet position. Like Trump, Clarke is an authoritarian. While he s all for the militarization of law enforcement, his weapon of choice is old-fashioned intimidation and harassment, like he allegedly did toward an airline passenger who dared shake his head at the sheriff.Not surprisingly, Trump loves him, even though the whole job thing never panned out. Earlier in the week, Trump potentially violated ethics rules by tweeting a recommendation of Clarke s book.A great book by a great guy, highly recommended! https://t.co/3jbDDN8YmJ Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 27, 2017Just four days later, Clarke suddenly resigned his post with no notice.The Milwaukee County Clerk tells CBS 58 they received a resignation for Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke Thursday afternoon at 3:17 p.m. The resignation is effective immediately.Sheriff Clarke tweeted Thursday afternoon saying he was in Nashville.According to 1130 WISN Radio, Clarke is taking a non-government position.CBS58A lot of people are speculating that he s headed to the Trump administration, despite already being turned down by the Orange One.Headed for D.C.? Josh Canaday (@joshasylum) August 31, 2017He probably has a job in the Trump administration. SMH! Warrior Lovers (@little_one63) August 31, 2017Probably our next Secretary of State? Thatch (@thatchproof) August 31, 2017He finally getting that position he hoped for from *45, or did he just play himself out of a real job? YBM (@CommonSensai) August 31, 2017There are also rumors he s planning on running for a higher office.It s also highly likely that Clarke resigned because he s a sadist. Four people, including a baby, died in his jail cells within a one year period. One of the victims was mentally ill and he was deprived of water for a week. He died of dehydration.Despite being African-American, he seems to despise black people.Clarke, who grew up in a white neighborhood and attended a mostly white private high school, has said African Americans sell drugs because they re uneducated, they re lazy, and they re morally bankrupt. He calls Black Lives Matter Black Lies Matter and compared them to the KKK. He once claimed that police brutality ended in the 1960s. Clarke made an appearance in July at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, where RNC delegates gave him a standing ovation as he proclaimed Blue Lives Matter and celebrated the acquittal of a Baltimore officer charged in the death of Freddie Gray.Source: Huffington PostGiven his history, I d say there s a better than even chance he s resigning in front of a looming scandal.Featured image via Spencer Platt/Getty Images | 0 |
Obama s narcacism was in full swing on Saturday night at the 46th Annual Legislative Conference Phoenix Awards Dinner of the Congressional Black Caucus. He spoke for almost a half an hour about how good he has been for the country, and then he manages to tell the room that they need to vote for Hillary to keep from insulting his legacy! Oh, how the mighty have fallen. My name may not be on the ballot but our progress is on the ballot. Tolerance is on the ballot. Democracy is on the ballot. Justice is on the ballot. Good schools are on the ballot. Ending mass incarceration, that s on the ballot right now. And there is one candidate who will advance those things. And there is another candidate whose defining principle, the central theme of hos candidacy is opposition to all that we have done. There s no such thing as a vote that doesn t matter. It all matters, and after we have achieved historic turnout in 2008 and 2012, especially in the African-American community, I will consider it a personal insult, an insult to my legacy, if this community lets down its guard and fails to activate itself in this election. You want to give me a good sendoff? Go vote! H/T [ Breitbart ] | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. Attorney Debra Wong Yang is a top contender to head the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission under Republican President-elect Donald Trump, CNBC said on Tuesday. Yang, who was appointed by fellow Republican former President George W. Bush for California’s Central District, was scheduled to meet with Trump on Monday in New York. | 0 |
As reported extensively by Breitbart News, ESPN has suffered severe losses in cable subscriptions over the last few years, the repercussion of which will rear its ugly head in the form of significant cutting of talent in the near future. [According to comments made Thursday by ESPN’s Jim Miller on SI Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch, dozens of employees will soon join the unemployment lines. “The way that I’ve heard it — and I’ve kind of run the numbers on it, I think we’re looking at between 40 and 50 people,” Miller said. “And look, there’s a lot of uncertainty about who it’s gonna be and why. Remember, this is not quantum physics, so it’s not an exact equation. ” The plight of ESPN is no trivial matter for entertainment giant Disney, the parent company for the “Worldwide leader in sports entertainment. ” In February, The Wrap reported, “Cable networks, particularly ESPN, have been an albatross on Disney’s stock price even as the company’s two other major prongs, movies, and theme parks, continue to perform well. “As cheaper TV alternatives began to proliferate, ESPN hemorrhaged subscribers during the course of 2016 and is now at less than 88 million, compared with a peak of 100. 1 million in 2011. At an estimated $7 per subscriber, that dip has been a substantial hit to Disney, especially considering media networks made up 49 percent of Disney’s profits during fiscal 2016. ” Miller presented a potential revised line up for the beleaguered network: 6 a. m. — of Neil Everett and Stan Verrett’s SportsCenter from the night before, a. m. — Mike Greenberg’s newly announced show, which, as Miller points out, will feature only one personality, 10 a. m. — First Take, presumably still featuring Stephen A. Smith, Max Kellerman and Molly Qerim, p. m. — A widely rumored but show featuring Bomani Jones and Pablo Torre, p. m. — ”The normal kind of coverage of what they’re doing, and Around the Horn and PTI, 6 p. m. — SC6 with Jemele Hill and Michael Smith, Evening — Live sports, 11 p. m. — SportsCenter, Midnight — Scott Van Pelt’s SportsCenter show, 1 a. m. — Everett and Verrett’s SportsCenter show, Miller went on to say, “If you’re ESPN talent and you’re looking at a schedule that’s something like that, based on the commitments they’ve made, if you’re not on that, then you’re starting to feel a little shaky. ” But, he caveated, “That’s not to say everyone else is gone, but I think those are the people that should take a deep breath, and those are the people that should feel immune. ” Deitsch responded, according to his sources at ESPN, “If you are part of the SportsCenter unit right now but not one of the special talents where management has tapped on the shoulder and given the golden ticket, if I were one of those people I would be talking to my agent and my representation of how management thinks of me. ” Both Deitsch and Miller agreed that the most popular sportscasters will keep their jobs, however, they might be subject to substantial pay cuts. | 0 |
Videos Police Departments Refuse Participation In Dakota Access Pipeline Crackdown In addition to the general retreat of departments, two officers have already turned in their badges in support of the protesters. Members of the Stutsman County SWAT watch protesters demonstrating against the Dakota Access Pipeline near the Stand Rock Sioux Reservation, as they stand next to a police barricade on Highway 1806 in Cannon Ball, N.D., Sunday, Oct. 30, 2016.
Standing Rock, North Dakota — Widespread outrage over both the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline and violent police crackdowns rages on. That outrage is spreading even to police agencies now returning from deployment to the reservation. Two departments have already refused to return, citing personal and public objections. As if that wasn’t enough, an army of sympathizers is re-purposing social media to combat police efforts in Standing Rock.
Minnesota’s Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department is among that group. Lawmakers, according to MPR News , found police activities in Standing Rock “inappropriate”. It’s to the point where they’re considering rewriting legislation to avoid future deployments to incidents like the pipeline resistance.
Police officials, of course, declined to comment on their return from North Dakota or their feelings on what’s happening there. It’s also made the task of rebuilding trust with the community an even loftier uphill battle. “I do not support Sheriff Stanek’s decision to send his deputies to North Dakota”, says LT. Governor Tina Smith, “nor did we approve his decision to begin with. I do not have any control over the Sheriff’s actions, which I think were wrong, and I believe he should bring his deputies home if he hasn’t already.”
Smith’s comments split the state’s government, however, and she was targeted. Minnesota State Rep. Tony Cornish condemned Smith for prioritizing “the rights of protesters over the needs of law enforcement”, saying she should apologize to the cops.
Sheriffs from Wisconsin’s Dane County were more empathetic, pulling out and refusing to return. According to the Bismarck Tribune , Sheriff Dave Mahoney made the decision after a “wide cross-section of the community” decried the deployment. “All share the opinion that our deputies should not be involved in this situation”, says Mahoney. Dane County’s deputies were deployed to Standing Rock for around a week. Sources report Dane County wasn’t involved in recent arrests, a string of which scooped up an alderwoman from Madison Wisconsin.
Ald. Rebecca Kemble traveled to North Dakota as a “legal observer”, filming and participating in prayer ceremonies. When Morton County officers–if they cans till be called that–grabbed and arrested her for engaging in a riot. According to Kemble, no riot was happening. Other Wisconsin departments have been recalled, with at least one staying behind for a more couple weeks.
Many other citizens have been charged for trespassing and participating in non-existent riots, including journalists. One of the most renowned reporters who’s faced DAPL (Dakota Access Pipeline)- related charges was Amy Goodman of Democracy Now . Goodman’s team filmed dog attacks by DAPL contractors who lacked proper K9 licenses. The contractors have also been accused of unethical surveillance, intimidation, and sabotaging the movement by attempting to make authorities believe the protesters have finally turned violent.
Other journalists, including documentarian Deia Schlosberg, face decades in prison for filming climate activists at a separate oil project. Journalists from the independent outlet Unicorn Riot, who recently reported use of a sound cannon on water protectors, have also been arrested.
Thousands of opponents to the pipeline have flooded Standing Rock to repel construction and police brutality. More still have taken to the internet, spreading information in the form of writing, video, photography, and art. Among the renegade tactics is using Facebook to “check-in” at Standing Rock. According the Guardian , over a million people–even people I know–have joined the action.
It began with a Facebook post, disclosing that Morton County sheriffs are allegedly using Facebook check-ins to track protesters. “Checking in”–whether you’re at a friend’s, restaurant, or escalating resistance–pinpoints your location to a tee. Once you check in, a notification is sent out to, yes, your friends, but theoretically anyone who’s capable of watching. It’s yet another tool in the bag of tricks authorities have deployed against civilians, and are likely utilizing in Standing Rock.
Some detractors have dismissed the social media action as a waste of time. An editor at The Fifth Column challenged these in a Facebook post, narrating a debate on the subject he’d had. Editor Justin King pointed out that even if the check-in’s wasted two minutes of time, multiplied by hundreds of thousands, that equates to two months of wasted police work. Now imagine how ineffective the surveillance may be with millions continuously checking.
Morton County Sheriff’s, Guardian reports, called claims of police surveillance misguided “rumors”. Morton County, by their own account, isn’t “monitoring Facebook check-ins for the protest camp or any location for that matter.” Before you trust them, consider that Facebook access for water protectors was reported as “blocked’ during a military-style raid on a camp.
Data Collection Nationwide
Other police departments are similarly sketchy when pressured to speak on their surveillance technologies. Wisconsin’s Milwaukee PD hid the use of cell site simulators , or Stingrays, from courts for months. Stingrays mimic cellphone towers, thus tricking phones into providing all manner of user information and data
Nearby, the Wauwatosa Police Department , despite having admitting to “collecting and analyzing cell phone data” in its public reports, denied ever even coming close to a Stingray. It took the department 5 weeks to respond to that open records request, which is considered unusually long. It remains unknown how Wauwatosa PD, which has been blasted for lack of transparency before , collects cell phone data.
The Hand’s Fingers In Open Rebellion
In addition to the general retreat of departments, two officers have already turned in their badges in support of the protesters. North Dakota water protector Redhawk, MintPress reports , disclosed the revelation. The individual also pointed out “you can see it in some of them, that they do not support the police actions.” “Some are waking up”, they continued, “we must keep reminding them that they are welcome to put down their weapons and badge and take a stand against the pipeline as well.” Hints of shame could be seen in the faces of officers who confronted protesters as they blocked them from prayer grounds. As the protesters condemned officers , some of whom looked down or off to the horizon in shame.
The modern era of internet and technology gifts us with a plethora of ways to express ourselves, and help one another. Standing Rock is quickly becoming a stand out of that fact. Citizens, journalists, and activists are all using the internet to achieve their own goals. Whether that be spreading information being blocked, tracking police movements, sending food and rations or just voicing opinions. Standing Rock’s resistance is spreading globally, with protests occurring in Europe and elsewhere. As long as construction doesn’t stop, the movement won’t rest. | 1 |
The Clintons found more money $26 million more. They ve been using their positions in government to raise money but haven t been reporting it. Hummm, this just keeps getting worse but will they be held accountable for not reporting this money? That s the big question The Clinton Foundation reported Thursday that it has received as much as $26.4 million in previously undisclosed payments from major corporations, universities, foreign sources and other groups.The disclosure came as the foundation faced questions over whether it fully complied with a 2008 ethics agreement to reveal its donors and whether any of its funding sources present conflicts of interest for Hillary Rodham Clinton as she begins her presidential campaign.The money was paid as fees for speeches by Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton. Foundation officials said the funds were tallied internally as revenue rather than donations, which is why they had not been included in the public listings of its contributors published as part of the 2008 agreement.According to the new information, the Clintons have delivered 97 speeches to benefit the charity since 2002. Colleges and universities sponsored more than two dozen of these speeches, along with U.S. and overseas corporations and at least one foreign government, Thailand.The payments were disclosed late Thursday on the organization s Web site, with speech payments listed in ranges rather than specific amounts. In total, the payments ranged between $12 million and $26.4 million.The paid appearances included speeches by former president Bill Clinton to the Ni ger ian ThisDay newspaper group for at least $500,000 and to the Beijing Huaduo Enterprise Consulting Company Ltd., an investment holding company that specializes in the natural gas market, for at least $250,000. Citibank paid at least $250,000 for a speech by Hillary Rodham Clinton.The disclosures underscore how much the Clintons have leveraged their star power to draw more money not just for their personal enrichment but also for the benefit of their philanthropic work.Read more: wapo | 1 |
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. cities that refuse to step up efforts to focus on crimes committed by illegal immigrants will not be allowed to participate in a new crime reduction training program unveiled earlier this year by the Justice Department, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said on Thursday. In making the announcement, Sessions singled out four local police departments that had expressed interest in the new Public Safety Partnership Program, saying they first had to answer a list of questions by Aug. 18 confirming they do not have any “sanctuary” policies to shield illegal immigrants from possible deportation by ensuring they will allow federal immigration officials access to local jails. “Cities and states with so-called ‘sanctuary’ policies make all of us less safe,” Sessions said. The four police departments that must respond are Albuquerque, New Mexico; Baltimore, Maryland; and San Bernardino and Stockton, California. “Baltimore is a welcoming city. We do not enforce federal immigration laws,” said Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis, adding that when cities were initially selected for the program, there was no formal selection process and that Baltimore does not control the local jail. Jarrod Burguan, the police chief of San Bernardino, said his department first expressed interest in a similar program during the Obama administration, and remains interested in participating. He added San Bernardino is not a “sanctuary” city, it does not control the local jail, and he will answer the department’s questions. Representatives from the other two police departments did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Sessions’ announcement reflects part of a broader policy push by President Donald Trump to crack down on illegal immigration. He has urged Congress to support funding the building of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, and the administration has moved to dramatically widen the net of illegal immigrants targeted for deportation. The National Public Safety Partnership is a program launched in June that involves a three-year initiative geared toward areas with high rates of violent crime. Twelve cities were selected when it was first launched. Some municipalities have pushed back against the Trump administration’s immigration policies. A U.S. judge last month refused to remove a block on an executive order by Trump that would have withheld federal funds from sanctuary cities, which do not use municipal funds or resources to help advance the enforcement of federal immigration laws. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and acting Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez on Thursday called on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to stop making arrests in courthouses amid concerns it has a chilling effect on local policing and is sweeping up those with low-level misdemeanor cases. Rachael Yong Yow, an ICE spokeswoman, said the agency’s arrests are carried out “on a case-by-case basis.” | 1 |
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Well, Donald Trump certainly has cause for celebration today.
Despite having a multi-billion-dollar net worth, an international real estate company, and a primetime television show, Donald Trump’s ambitions were still set higher. The one trophy he’d spent his entire life trying to claim for his mantle of accomplishments had always evaded him—until today. By winning the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump is finally able to kick the nation’s most powerful black family out of their house.
One can only imagine the immense joy Donald’s wife and children feel for him today.
Trump has been preparing for this moment ever since the Trump Organization first started buying buildings throughout New York City and raising rent for African-Americans until he could toss them out for no longer being able to afford it. Now, after decades of practice and determination, the president-elect will see his magnum opus arrive in the form of booting the incredibly influential and powerful Obama family out of the home they’ve lived in for the past eight years.
Ejecting black people from their residences has been a lifelong passion for Donald. From practicing discriminatory housing policies that prevented black people from moving into Trump buildings to tagging black people’s rental applications with a separate sheet of paper marked “C” for “colored,” Donald has never lost focus on his goal. But that was all just warm-up for Trump, who clearly wanted to challenge himself by attempting to evict a wealthy black family of international renown. And when he sends President Obama, Michelle, Malia, Sasha, and all their boxed-up belongings packing from their house in January, Trump will have done just that.
What a truly stunning feat. With the biggest item on his bucket list now firmly checked off, Trump would be more than justified in resting on his laurels to soak in the consummation of all his dreams. It’s hard to imagine an even more powerful and famous black family Donald could evict, but knowing Trump, he will continue to push himself. Whatever his plans are now, the world will be watching in anxious anticipation. | 1 |
i actually think your on to something i looked at the rim of the crater and found what looks like a structure/base
28° 6’14.37″N 6°38’27.81″V | 1 |
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Former Zimbabwe finance minister Ignatius Chombo, who was among those detained by the military in an operation against criminals around ousted president Robert Mugabe last week, has been handed over to the police, a relative said on Friday. The relative, who wished to remain anonymous because of safety fears, said Chombo had been severely beaten while in military custody. Police spokeswoman Charity Charamba said she had no information about Chombo. | 1 |
Bob Beckel is gone from Fox News after he was terminated for a racist comment Who knew this Democrat was as nasty as this? Wow!Variety reported:Fox News human resources department was made aware of a complaint about what one person familiar with the situation characterized as a racially insensitive remark on Tuesday evening. Executives conducted an internal investigation, this person said, and decided to part ways with Beckel Friday morning.Douglas Wigdor, an attorney who represents several current and former employees who have alleged racial discrimination at Fox News in a lawsuit, said he is representing the employee who complained about Beckel. In a statement, Wigdor alleged Beckel stormed out of his office when an African-American information-technology employee came to service his computer, telling our client that he was leaving his office because he was black. Wigdor alleged Fox News executives tried to get the employee to withdraw the complaint. As with our other 22 clients, we intend on holding 21st Century Fox accountable for these actions and will be filing multiple other complaints in other matters next week, Wigdor said. | 1 |
Thursday, 10 November 2016 Maria Sharapova is returning between the "white lines" as an ambassador for drug runners!
Banned ex-tennis star and super grunt-er, Maria Sharapova, has been elected by the UN to represent a growing number of illegals whose extremely difficult and dangerous job it is supplying the world's drug consumers with fresh lines of produce.
The UN feels that "super-grunter" Sharapova has the necessary qualifications and experience to help Drug Runners breach frontiers, smuggle illegal drugs into all of the major global drug consuming cities, and be of assistance to top runners by keeping up their fitness levels (a necessary weapon in their armory whilst running from the cops!).
Maria will even have her own ban shortened by six-months because the UN feel that after yesterday's US election of Trump, life could become even harder for drug-runners, especially the Mexican ones.
Sharapova has also been studying the life of Pablo Escobar, Colombian gold medalist in drug-running, hoping to gain an insight into the minds and pockets of major drug-runners. In addition, her own personal runners have given inside tips and the UN are most happy with their new ambassador.
Donald Trump, president-elect, refused to comment on Maria's new status, but did mention the fact that forgotten, ageing, German soccer-star, Bastian Schweinsteiger's wife, Ana Ivanoviç, has the most beautiful rear-end he ever had the pleasure to smack his racket on!
Now where's my line Maria?? Make Jaggedone's day - give this story five thumbs-up (there's no need to register , the thumbs are just down there!) | 1 |
What could possibly go wrong?Rep. Mike Pompeo is a right-wing extremist who has no problem violating human and civil rights.But Donald Trump just picked the Kansas Republican to be the next director of the CIA, which should deeply disturb every American.In fact, it should worry everyone around the world because the Tea Party is now in charge of America s top intelligence agency. I am honored to have been given this opportunity to serve and to work alongside President-elect Donald J. Trump to keep America safe, Pompeo said in a statement. I also look forward to working with America s intelligence warriors, who do so much to protect Americans each and every day. But Pompeo isn t a reasonable man who will guide the CIA to success. He s going to lead them down a path that will erode the rights of American citizens and inflame the Muslim world.First, Pompeo supports the massive wire-tapping and information collecting being performed by the National Security Agency. I am convinced that intelligence collection actions are not only lawful and constitutional, but also consistent with the critical mission of defeating radical Islamic terrorism, Pompeo has said.Of course, these collection actions are totally unconstitutional because the NSA doesn t have warrants to spy on millions of Americans every day via phone, Internet, and surveillance.Second, Pompeo hates Iran and opposed the nuclear deal achieved by President Obama that has reduced Iran s capability to build nuclear weapons. If Pompeo had his way, the whole deal would be ripped up, which would give Iran another reason to hate us and resume their quest to obtain a nuclear weapon.And finally, Pompeo is a big fan of using torture against enemy combatants even though it s a crime against humanity that is banned under United States and international law. The information we learned from the enhanced interrogation program was important, and led directly to the capture of Osama bin Laden, Pompeo claimed in 2014. But that s a lie. Torture did not help us find Osama bin Laden.According to Mother Jones,CIA records indicate that: (1) the CIA had extensive reporting on [bin Laden courier] Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti (variant Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti), the UBL facilitator whose identification and tracking led to the identification of UBL s compound and the operation that resulted in UBL s death, prior to and independent of information from CIA detainees; (2) the most accurate information on Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti obtained from a CIA detainee was provided by a CIA detainee who had not yet been subjected to the CIA s enhanced interrogation techniques; and (3) CIA detainees who were subjected to the CIA s enhanced interrogation techniques withheld and fabricated information about Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti.In short, torture had nothing to do with finding bin Laden.If Pompeo and Trump authorize the CIA to use torture again it will only inflame the Middle East and give ISIS a recruiting message that will draw more fighters to their group. We want to weaken ISIS, not make them stronger. Using torture will only weaken our moral high ground and cause more terrorist attacks around the world and in the United States. Now more than ever we need a responsible CIA director who will gather intelligence the right way. Because if not, we could end up being led into more wars and a darker more dangerous world.Featured Image: Flickr | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will be “pushing hard” to advance U.S. interests in his debut meeting with Group of 20 counterparts this week, including reaffirming commitments to avoid competitive currency devaluations, a senior Treasury official said on Monday.Mnuchin, who will attend a meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors from the G20 major economies on Friday and Saturday in Baden-Baden, Germany, also will press countries to help strengthen global growth, the official told reporters. “The G20 can play a helpful role in advancing U.S. interests. The secretary will be pushing hard to make that come to pass, whether it’s on macroeconomic policies, exchange rate policies etcetera,” the official said. The official said it was important to the Trump administration that previous G20 commitments to not target exchange rates to gain a competitive trade advantage be reaffirmed and fully implemented. But that explicit pledge, which has long been a part of past G20 communiques, was not included in an early draft of the statement to be issued at the Baden-Baden meeting. The early draft, which is subject to more revisions, simply stated “we reaffirm our previous exchange-rate commitments.” The early draft also dropped language to “resist all forms of protectionism” in favor of a pledge to “maintain an open and fair international trading system.” The U.S. Treasury official declined to discuss the language that would be in the final communique but said that the Trump administration was committed to “fair and open trade.” “I think that means a trading system that has a level playing field for our firms and our workers globally, and we’ll be encouraging policies that lead to that level playing field so that our firms and workers are not disadvantaged,” the official said. Trump officials have criticized China on a host of trade-related fronts related to its $347 billion trade surplus with the United States last year. These include President Donald Trump’s own charges that Beijing manipulates its yuan currency and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’ complaints about Chinese excess industrial capacity, unfair subsidies for state-owned enterprises and a lack of access for foreign firms to major sectors of China’s economy. The U.S. Treasury said in October that none of the U.S.’ major trading partners was manipulating its currency to gain advantage for its exports. Mnuchin has said he would not pass judgment on China’s currency practices until Treasury issues its semi-annual currency report in mid-April. China has announced plans to reduce some capacity in its steel industry in recent months and has urged the United States to move cautiously in pursuing anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases. The country’s ministry of commerce has denied U.S. charges that China’s aluminum industry is receiving unfair subsidies. Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro last week also said Washington needed bilateral engagement with Germany to reduce its $65 billion trade surplus with the United States. The Treasury official said that countries with a trade surplus have a role to play in helping to achieve the G20’s goals of maintaining “strong, sustainable and balanced growth.” | 1 |
21st Century Wire says Last April, the UN general assembly met to discuss how the world s nations can combat the global drug problem. It was just the latest non-event in a long line of categorical failures, led by the United States. Ever since US president Richard Nixon declared the War on Drugs in 1971, the international narcotics trade has grown from strength to strength, in a black global market that is now worth hundreds of billions of dollars per year. After Nixon, other US presidents tried to champion the issue, from Reagan to Clinton, Bush and Obama. Each of them presided over one epic failure after another. However, where long-term data is available, it does point to systematic failures in drug policies. A study published in the British Medical Journal in 2013 found that despite efforts to limit the supply of these drugs, since 1990 prices have fallen while the purity of the drugs has increased. The trends were similar in the US and in Europe. The authors conclusion was clear: These findings suggest that expanding efforts at controlling the global illegal drug market through law enforcement are failing. (The Guardian)As a direct result of the policies of western governments led by the US, and their corrupt accomplices in the international banking, UN and NGO sectors in 2017, cheaper, newer and more deadly drugs continue to ruin families and communities, and millions of lives in the new western underclass and youth population Zero HedgeThe opioid crisis that is ravaging urban and suburban communities across the US claimed an unprecedented 59,000 lives last year, according to preliminary data gathered by the New York Times. If accurate, that s equivalent to a roughly 19% increase over the approximately 52,000 overdose deaths recorded in 2015, the NYT reported last year.Overdoses, made increasingly common by the introduction of fentanyl and other powerful synthetic opioids into the heroin supply, are now the leading cause of death for Americans under 50. And all evidence suggests the problem has continued to worsen in 2017. One coroner in Western Pennsylvania told a local newspaper that his office is literally running out of room to store the bodies, and that it was recently forced to buy a larger freezer.The initial data points to large increases in these types of deaths in states along the East Coast, particularly Maryland, Florida, Pennsylvania and Maine. In Ohio, which filed a lawsuit last week accusing five drug companies of abetting the opioid epidemic, the Times estimated that overdose deaths increased by more than 25 percent in 2016.In some Ohio counties, deaths from heroin have virtually disappeared. Instead, the primary culprit is fentanyl or one of its many analogues. In Montgomery County, home to Dayton, of the 100 drug overdose deaths recorded in January and February, only three people tested positive for heroin; 97 tested positive for fentanyl or another analogue.In some states in the western half of the US, data suggest deaths may have leveled off for the time being or even begun to decline. Experts believe that the heroin supply west of the Mississippi River, traditionally dominated by a variant of the drug known as black tar which is smuggled over the border from Mexico, isn t as easily adulterated with lethal analogues as the powder that s common on the East Coast Continue this story at Zero HedgeREAD MORE WAR ON DRUGS NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire War on Drugs FilesSUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 1 |
David Axelrod is CNN's senior political commentator and host of the podcast " The Axe Files. " He was senior adviser to President Barack Obama and chief strategist for the 2008 and 2012 Obama campaigns. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his.
(CNN) About a half century ago, a journeyman ballplayer named Rocky Bridges made his debut as the manager of the San Jose Bees, a desultory California League team.
The day was marred, however, when the hapless Bees missed signs, dropped balls and were generally routed.
"I managed good," a frustrated Bridges recalled in a Sports Illustrated profile, "but boy did they play bad."
All of this is to say: good luck to Donald Trump's new managers.
Trapped in what appears to be a political death spiral, the bilious billionaire has once again shuffled his leadership team.
Paul Manafort, a veteran political operative who took over in the spring from the loyal but volatile Corey Lewandowski, apparently has been shoved aside for a new ruling junta.
We're told that Manafort will also be part of the junta. But having been an adviser to deposed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and Philippines strongman Ferdinand Marcos, Manafort surely recognizes a coup when he sees one.
But in fairness, Trump's precipitous slide in the polls since the conventions in July could hardly be blamed on the manager.
Hours after the gavel fell at the Democratic convention, Trump kicked off a dizzying 10-day spasm of off-the-wall comments and tweets that seemed to confirm the thesis advanced by the Democrats in Philly: He's not ready for the nuclear codes.
I am certain that none of this came at the suggestion of Paul Manafort, though Manafort gamely defended his man in the ensuing uproar. But there really was no adequate defense.
Attempts by the campaign to tether Trump to a TelePrompTer and script provided only intermittent relief. Arming him with charts to discipline his presentations also failed.
Trump's appalling distemper following a well-executed Democratic convention transformed what had been, at least in polling, a relatively close race.
Now he has brought in a new management team, led by Stephen Bannon , a former Goldman Sachs banker and chairman of Breitbart News. Bannon has never run a campaign at any level, much less one for president, which is a highly complex and specialized challenge.
His new governing partner, Kellyanne Conway, has extensive campaign experience -- but as a pollster, not a manager.
Trump also reportedly is consulting Roger Ailes, the former CEO of Fox News who was recently forced out amid sexual harassment charges, to help coach him for the impending presidential debates.
Ailes is what the other new additions are not.
The brutal, negative ad campaign Ailes ran against Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis remains a classic of political advertising.
Ailes knows campaigns, television and presidential debates, which could be an asset to Trump. Stellar debate performances may now be his only chance.
But that would presume the candidate's ability to listen, work, study, internalize and execute, a capacity we have not seen in this campaign.
The presence of Ailes, whose edgy television channel became a rallying point for conservatives, and Bannon, whose right-wing news website is also notoriously pugilistic, portends a bloody fall campaign. And in the ever-combative Trump, they will find a willing deliverer of missiles.
The question with Trump is always, where will they land?
Even if Trump were adding the greatest political team in history, which he is not, the problem is not the campaign. The problem is the candidate, whose allergy to substance and impulse to react angrily -- and often tastelessly -- to any provocation has unnerved voters.
In the primaries, his "shoot first, ask questions later" style was enough to ignite his base, but that very quality has become a liability now that he has to expand beyond it.
Maybe "Trump Team Three" has the magic elixir.
More likely, however, they will be left shaking their heads like old Rocky Bridges as they watch their candidate play. | 0 |
The gay mafia has hijacked pretty much aspect of our lives. They apparently won t be happy until every trace of gender identity has been erased. When will Americans start fighting back? Two daycare workers have been fired for refusing to go along with the center s transgender agenda. Madeline Kirksey, one of the workers who is an author of a Christian book, says her religious liberty rights have been violated. The two were fired after refusing to call a little girl a boy.The two male parents of a six-year-old little girl told employees at the school to refer to their daughter as a boy, and to call her by a new masculine name. The little girl s hair had also been cut like a boy s.Kirksey told Breitbart Texas in an interview, that the problem was not so much with the transgender issue as it was with telling young children that the little girl was a boy when she was not, and with calling her John (not the name given) when that was not her name.She, and another worker who does not want to be identified, were fired from the Childrens Lighthouse Learning Center in Katy, Texas, a city just west of Houston.The school distributed guidelines to the teachers called How to Handle Transgender Students. The printed guidelines were obtained from the internet and can be read at this link.The guidelines and the instructions given the teachers included six rules, one of which was Help defend their dignity. Another, was to Educate yourself and your students. The Christian worker said she did not believe it was our job, to thrust the issue on the small children of other parents. She said the school should not force their beliefs on the children, or on her, or upon other parents.The author of the Christian book, In Pursuit of the Promise, said the other children should not be exposed at such an early age to the issue of transgender or gender identity, and felt that the two male parents were imposing the issue on their little girl. I don t think we should be talking to other people s children who are under the age of 18 about being transgender, Kirksey said in an interview with Fox26 in Houston. Both of the fired workers agreed on this point.Kirksey said that prior to this happening, she had been commended for the good work that she was doing at the school. After she refused to call the little girl by her new masculine name, and to tell the other children to do so, and to say that the little girl was a little boy, the daycare worker was written-up for alleged infractions that she did not believe were based in reality. She has worked at the school for over a year.The fired worker notified Child Protective Services that the little girl was being told that she is now a little boy. She believes that it is up to professionals to determine if the little girl is just confused, or if the new gender is being forced upon the little girl.Kirksey says sometimes the little girl refers to herself as a little boy, and sometimes she tells the other children to not call her a boy or to refer to her by her masculine name.The Childrens Lighthouse in Katy is just one of the school franchise s that are all over the country. The company is based in Fort Worth and according to its website, there are 37 learning centers in seven states. The school cares for children ages six weeks to twelve years old. Via: Breitbart News | 0 |
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday described U.S.-backed militias in eastern Syria as traitors , his office said in an online statement. In a meeting with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin at Syria s Hmeimim base, Assad also welcomed a United Nations role in Syrian elections as long as it was linked with Syria s sovereignty, his office cited him as saying. Assad has repeatedly vowed to take back all of Syria. A U.S.-led international coalition against Islamic State has given military support to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias that now controls nearly a quarter of Syria. The SDF said Assad s comments were no surprise, accusing his government of sowing strife and sectarianism. We assert once again that we will go forward without hesitation in chasing terrorism, it said in a statement. This regime ... is itself a definition of treachery that, if Syrians do not confront it, will lead to partitioning the country, which our forces will not allow in any form, the Kurdish-led SDF added. Rogozin was quoted by Russia s RIA news agency as saying after the meeting with Assad that Russia would be the only country to take part in rebuilding Syrian energy facilities. | 0 |
The New York Times reported Tuesday evening that President Donald Trump had a private conversation with former FBI director James Comey in which the president allegedly expressed his “hope” that Comey would “let go” of the investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Flynn had reportedly resigned the day before. [It turns out that Comey documented the conversation in a memorandum, “part of a paper trail” he reportedly created to release later to tell his side of the story in the event things went awry — which, as the world now knows, it did. (The White House has rejected Comey’s version of the conversation, which took place in the Oval Office.) The Times identifies its source as “one of Mr. Comey’s associates,” who did not provide a copy of the memo but read it aloud on the telephone. The Drudge Report calls the story “Comey’s revenge,” and thus it would seem to be. If anything justifies President Trump’s decision to fire Comey, it would be this effort to leak details of their private conversations to the media with the obvious intention of causing the maximum political damage to the president. But this dagger is a rather dull blade. It lacks any apparent “quid pro quo” — a sense that Trump was offering something to Comey in exchange for dropping the investigation. Trump had already suggested in January that he would keep Comey on in his job as FBI director the conversation in the memorandum happened in February. Moreover, the Times seems to oversell the story, interpreting the word “hope” as a request. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the Comey memo is accurate, what Trump says — “I hope you can let this go … I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go … He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go. ” — is never actually framed as a request at all. Yet the Times calls it a “request” and an effort to interfere in the investigation. That is a rather liberal (pun intended) spin on Trump’s words. Democrats, predictably, are pouncing on the story. But so far, is just the latest hysterical episode in their effort to deny the legitimacy of the November election. If this is the best that Comey’s “paper trail” can produce, his “revenge” may backfire, at least in political terms. Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. He is the of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak. | 0 |
In the face of mounting threats of terrorism and civil unrest in U.S. cities, President Barack Obama is arbitrarily prohibiting local police and sheriff departments from obtaining military surplus equipment from the Defense Department as part of what many law enforcement officers are calling his war on police.Beginning on Monday, Obama visited a number of high-crime areas especially those with large black populations to explain the need for his unilateral action, according to news sources on Monday.President Obama s spokespeople said Monday that the administration will no longer give local cops some types of protective gear and vehicles while putting stricter controls on other weapons and equipment distributed to law enforcement. The details were released prior to Obama s visit to Camden, News Jersey, Monday afternoon to give a speech on how he will address police officers allegedly using racist tactics based on racist departmental policies.Obama and his supporters view police wearing protective riot gear and using armored vehicles as being overly-aggressive in neighborhoods that are predominately black and Hispanic. The President even accused some departments of issuing bayonets, which is demonstrably untrue, according to one police officer who claims she voted for Obama in 2008. This President actually shows his dislike for local cops. I believe he wants to federalize policing and do away with local and state law enforcement. While the constitution prohibits that, when was the last time Obama cared about what the constitution says, said Iris Aquino, a former police detective.During Obama s speech in Camden, New Jersey, a city reputed to have the highest violent crime rate in the United States, not once did he mention the police officers who were gunned down by blacks or whites within the last few months, noted a New York City police official who has been active fighting against the anti-cop Mayor Bill de Blasio. That s because Obama like many liberal-left ideologues believe that police officers are the primary oppressors of minorities. The fact that Obama and the racial-division industry which includes the likes of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson keep blacks in a state of poverty in order to use their anger and resentment for their own political interests appears to escape the notice of the news media, another group that doesn t care about dead cops, he said.Originally police officers were led to believe that Obama would continue the Pentagon s military surplus program, however a panel of his sycophants warned that there is a propensity for misuse of equipment such as armored vehicles, high-powered firearms and camouflage. But not one example of police misusing an armored vehicle has been reported. I have not heard of one incident in which police misused an armored vehicle. These are defensive vehicles used by cops to protect themselves from gunfire, Molotov cocktails, explosives and weapons of mass destruction, said former law enforcement commander Jack McGowan. High-powered firearms? The police use nothing that even resembles a powerful firearm. And camo clothing is clothing. No one gets hurt from a shirt s design pattern, McGowan said.Besides cutting off the flow of equipment that would have gone to local law enforcement, the Obama government considering a recall of certain equipment that was already give to local police and sheriffs departments. I ll highlight steps all cities can take to maintain trust between the brave law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line, and the communities they re sworn to serve and protect, Obama said in his weekly address out Saturday.Obama believes law enforcement is a necessary evil, claim his opponents. He s never showed local cops any respect. He also doesn t trust any agency he doesn t directly control. This is an American leader who wants to federalize the law enforcement function and he has a lot supporters who trust big government over states rights, political strategist Michael Baker.Former New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani s Police Commissioner Howard Safir said he believes a war on police, exists in America, the anti-cop attitudes are being stoked up by Obama and his minions. After 20 years of incredible crime reduction accomplished by thousands of dedicated police officers, the public has become complacent now that they are safer, said Safir. They have let the anti-police pundits and talking heads convince everyone from the president to the attorney general that police are racist and brutal. Via: Examiner | 0 |
CAIRO (Reuters) - Former Egyptian prime minister Ahmed Shafik, whose family say was deported from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), arrived in Cairo on Saturday, airport sources said. In a surprise announcement from the UAE where he has been based, Shafik, a former air force commander, said on Wednesday he would run for president in an election set for around April 2018. | 0 |
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Amado Boudou, who had been former Argentine President Cristina Fernandez s economy minister and vice president, was arrested on corruption charges on Friday, becoming the second major official in her government to face detention. Police arrested Boudou and an alleged associate, Jose Maria Nunez Carmona, in an upscale neighborhood of Buenos Aires for racketeering and money laundering. Local television showed Boudou, grim-faced and wearing a plain black T-shirt, as he stood beside two bearded security officers. In other photographs broadcast on television, he was in handcuffs, standing in what appeared to be his home. Boudou s lawyer denounced the arrest on Friday, calling it arbitrary. We never had any problems, and overnight, just in the week that there is a complaint to the Magistrates Council, the arrest was ordered, attorney Eduardo Duranona said on local television. The 55-year-old economist faces three counts of illicit enrichment dating back to 2009, the year he was promoted from heading Argentina s social security administration to become Fernandez s economy minister. He became vice president in 2011, when Fernandez won reelection. But he was largely absent from public view during that four-year term as accusations of corruption mounted against him. He and Carmona developed their criminal schemes at least since the start of August 2009, when Amado Boudou took charge of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, until the month of December 2015, when he finished his term as vice president, according to the arrest warrant. Fernandez s former planning minister, Julio De Vido, was arrested on Oct. 25, just three days after current President Mauricio Macri s Cambiemos, or Let s Change, coalition swept Argentina s Oct. 22 midterm elections. Fernandez herself is facing corruption allegations stemming from her eight years as president. She will, however, be immune from arrest after being elected to the Senate under Argentina s list system despite coming in second to Macri s candidate. Fernandez was indicted last year on charges that she and her public works secretary, Jose Lopez, embezzled money meant for road projects. Lopez was arrested in June 2016 while trying to stash bags of cash in a Catholic convent. In a statement on Friday afternoon, Fernandez s Citizens Unity party accused Macri of using the judicial system to persecute political opponents, putting Argentine democracy at risk. The deprivation of the former vice president s freedom has nothing to do with the case being investigated. It is a clear maneuver to intimidate, extort, and discipline union leaders and the political opposition, the party wrote. | 0 |
BLANCHESTER, Ohio — A life of farming taught Roger Winemiller plenty about harsh twists of fate: hailstorms and drought, ragweed infestations and jittery crop prices. He hadn’t bargained on heroin. Then, in March 2016, Mr. Winemiller’s daughter, Heather Himes, 31, died of an opioid overdose at the family farmhouse, inside a bathroom overlooking fields of corn and soybeans. Mr. Winemiller was the one who unlocked the bathroom door and found her slumped over, a syringe by her side. Nine months later, Mr. Winemiller’s older son, Eugene, 37, who once drove trucks and tractors on the family’s farm, overdosed at his mother’s home. Family members and medics had been able to revive him after earlier overdoses. Not this one. Overdoses are churning through agricultural pockets of America like a plow through soil, tearing at rural communities and posing a new threat to the generational ties of families like the Winemillers. Farm bureaus’ attention to seed, fertilizer and subsidies has been diverted to discussions of overdoses. heroin support groups are popping up in rural towns where clinics and drug treatment centers are an hour’s drive away, and broaching public conversations about addiction and death that neighbors and even some families of the dead would prefer to keep out of view. And at the end of a long gravel driveway, Mr. Winemiller, 60, has been thinking about the uncertain seasons ahead. His last surviving son, Roger T. Winemiller, 35, spent years using prescription pain pills, heroin and methamphetamines, and was jailed for a year on drug charges. He is now in treatment and living with his father. The son dreams of taking over the farm someday. The father is wary. “Would I like to have one of my kids working the farm, side by side, carrying my load when I can’t?” Mr. Winemiller said. “Yes. But I’m a realist. ” Mr. Winemiller and a cousin inherited the farm in 1993 when an uncle died, and they own and run the business together. His surviving son has not used drugs for two months and says he is committed to recovery. But Mr. Winemiller says his first priority is “to keep the land intact. ” He worries about what could happen to the business if he turned over his share of the farm and his son relapsed — or worse — a year or a decade down the line. He also keeps a pouch of nasal spray in the living room now, just in case. The Winemillers live on the eastern edge of Clermont County, about an hour east of Cincinnati, where a suburban quilt of bedroom towns, office parks and small industry thins into woods and farmland, mostly for corn and soybeans. Apple orchards and pumpkin farms — now closed for the season — are tucked among clusters of small churches, small businesses and even smaller brick houses. Every so often, the roads wind past the gates of a big new mansion or subdivision being built in the woods. Jobs have returned to the area since the recession, and manufacturing businesses are popping up along the freeway that circles Cincinnati. The county’s unemployment rate is only 4. 1 percent, and every morning, the lanes of skinny country roads are packed with people heading to work. But the economic resilience has done little to insulate the area from a cascade of cheap heroin and synthetic opiates like fentanyl and carfentanil, an elephant tranquilizer, which have sent overdose rates soaring across much of the country, but especially in rural areas like this one. Drug overdoses here have nearly tripled since 1999, and the state as a whole has been ravaged. In Ohio, 2, 106 people died of opioid overdoses in 2014, more than in any other state, according to an analysis of the most recent federal data by the Kaiser Family Foundation. In rural Wayne Township, where the Winemillers and about 4, 900 other people live, the local fire department answered 18 overdose calls last year. Firefighters answered three in one week this winter, and said the spikes and lulls in their overdose calls gave them a feel for when particularly noxious batches of drugs were brought out to the countryside from Cincinnati or Dayton. They get overdose calls for people living inside the Edenton Rural School, a shuttered brick schoolhouse where officers have cleared away signs of meth production and found the flotsam of drug use on the floors. “I don’t think we’re winning the battle,” said David Moulden, the fire chief. “It gives you a hopelessness. ” Mr. Moulden is a good friend of Mr. Winemiller’s and responded to the 911 calls last March, then again last December, when Heather and Eugene died of overdoses. He was also on the call 10 days before Eugene’s death, when medics revived him using a dose of naloxone, which blocks the brain’s opiate receptors. “Sooner or later, you know they’re going to be found too late,” Mr. Moulden said. It was a rainy Wednesday, 9 a. m. Time for the drive to take the younger Roger to the probation office, then a more to take him to his drug treatment clinic. The men sank into the leather seats of Mr. Winemiller’s Chevy Tahoe and skimmed along the wet roads. The younger Roger’s driver’s license had been revoked, so this was now the routine. And, experts say, it is part of what makes addiction treatment so complicated in rural areas: Counseling centers and doctors who can prescribe medications are often an hour’s drive away, in communities with little public transportation. “Even if you realize you’ve got a problem and are interested in seeking treatment, the treatment centers have not been there, the professionals have not been there,” said Tom Vilsack, the Agriculture Department secretary under President Barack Obama. Last year, he led an administration effort to grapple with rural opioid use. “You don’t have access to A. A. meetings seven days a week,” he said. “You’re lucky if you’ve got one a week, or you’ve got to drive 25 miles to get to one. ” Spring was coming, and Mr. Winemiller would soon be receiving the seeds for the year’s soybean crop. His days were looser now, but soon he would be leaving the house at 5 or 6 a. m. and returning at 11 p. m. “Once I get busy in the field, I ain’t going to have time for this stuff,” he said. “Hopefully I get my license back,” the younger Mr. Winemiller said. “If not, I’ll have to find a way up there. ” He added, a bit ruefully, “Set you up for failure. ” The younger Mr. Winemiller said that being back in the farmhouse had helped save his life by yanking him away from old patterns and temptations. He started working on the farm when he was 12, driving tractors even though his father had to attach pieces of wood to the pedals so his legs would reach. “I want to get back to it. That’s the whole idea,” he said. “It’s in my blood. It’s the family name. I’ve done enough to disgrace our name. I want to do everything I can to mend it. ” Death has pulled the men closer, but at home, arguments erupt over whether each understands what the other is going through. The son says he is grieving just as much as his father. The father says he is in recovery just as much as his son. Quietly, apart from his son, Mr. Winemiller worries about leaving him alone in the farmhouse when his days in the fields resume. “I hate to say this, but because of his past, I don’t trust him,” he said. They pulled into the Clinton County Adult Probation offices for the son’s drug test, then set out again for the drive to a new treatment center where he gets counseling and doses of buprenorphine, which can help addicts stay off opioids by keeping them from experiencing cravings and withdrawal. The son was starting to feel anxious and queasy. He cracked open the car window. “I’m going to get carsick,” he said. “I’ve got to take my medicine soon. ” He slipped one of the tiny strips into his mouth. Better. Their conversation curled like a river as they drove. Mr. Winemiller was concerned about the low prices of crops like soybeans and corn. His son talked about an intervention the two of them had staged just down the road a few nights earlier — talking about their own losses and the younger Roger’s treatment — after a neighbor overdosed at his family’s home. The younger man pointed at the red sign of a budget motel: “I used to buy drugs there. ” He said he had bought from dealers who drove out to the countryside for a day and set up “trap houses” in trailers or apartments where they would sell to all comers. He and his father talked about motorbikes, weather and politics. The elder Mr. Winemiller, who was among the 68 percent of voters in the county who supported Donald J. Trump for president, was rankled by scenes of political protest on the news. He saw only disorder and lawlessness. “There are too many people who are too wrapped up in their lives. All they want to do is go out, bitch and complain,” he said. “My view on Donald Trump, he’s what this country needed years ago: someone that’s . ” He likes the toughness. After his son and daughter died, he began meeting with sheriffs and politicians at forums dedicated to the opioid crisis, urging harsher penalties, such as manslaughter charges for people who sell fatal hits of opioids. As they drove, from the probation office to McDonald’s for breakfast, from Blanchester to Wilmington to Xenia, the men talked less about the past and the grief that shadows their days. The three siblings grew up in the countryside and went straight to work after high school. Each had yearslong drug problems, cycling through stretches of using and sobriety. The younger Mr. Winemiller said he and Eugene had been best friends who shared everything, drug habits included. They drank and smoked pot in high school and used methamphetamines, painkillers after operations and injuries, and ultimately heroin. “We all partied together,” he said. The older Mr. Winemiller said his daughter’s drug use was rooted in anxieties, stresses and an academic and social tailspin that began in high school. She had been in recovery for about three years when she began to use again early last year, he said. She came to stay at the farmhouse on March 26, a day after three acquaintances of hers were arrested on heroin charges at a motel in the nearby town of Hillsboro. He said he went to the garage to get her a Coke, she excused herself to the bathroom, and he was overcome by a terrible dread when he sat back down in the living room. “I knocked on the door, and there was no answer,” he said. At her funeral, the younger Mr. Winemiller said, the two brothers stood by the coffin, “telling each other how we had to make it for our parents. ” Paul Casteel, the senior minister at the Blanchester Church of Christ, conducted the services at Eugene Winemiller’s funeral. The next day, he led another funeral for another man who had died of an overdose. People live here because they like knowing their neighbors and raising their children close to extended families, Mr. Casteel said. But heroin has turned that closeness on its head. “When somebody ends up into drugs, you’re going to know them,” he said. “You know everybody. To be honest, I wanted to stay out of it, just concentrate on the church. But we just kept getting hit. ” By early afternoon, the father and son, done with their appointments, climbed into the Tahoe and headed home down State Route 380. They smoked and listened to contemporary country play softly on the radio, and made plans for their next trip to the probation office in two days’ time. | 0 |
How can you be prosecuted for something that isn t true? The climate scam folks in California are planning on strong-arming Americans into complying with climate change thought. This is fruit-loops!A landmark bill allowing for the prosecution of climate change dissent effectively died Thursday after the California Senate failed to take it up before the deadline.Senate Bill 1161, or the California Climate Science Truth and Accountability Act of 2016, would have authorized prosecutors to sue fossil fuel companies, think tanks and others that have deceived or misled the public on the risks of climate change. The measure, which cleared two Senate committees, provided a four-year window in the statute of limitations on violations of the state s Unfair Competition Law, allowing legal action to be brought until Jan. 1 on charges of climate change fraud extending back indefinitely. This bill explicitly authorizes district attorneys and the Attorney General to pursue UCL claims alleging that a business or organization has directly or indirectly engaged in unfair competition with respect to scientific evidence regarding the existence, extent, or current or future impacts of anthropogenic induced climate change, said the state Senate Rules Committee s floor analysis of the bill.Read more: WT | 0 |
Listen:After creating a video that included a vile, beheaded bloody head of President Donald Trump, the not-so-funny comedian Kathy Griffin has watched her career falling apart. In true liberal form, Griffin is blaming Donald Trump and his children for destroying her life, even though much of the outrage from the Trump children and his wife Melania was over Griffin s stated goal of wanting to beat down Trump s 11-year old son Barron. Even CNN and CNN s Anderson Cooper, who once considered himself a friend of Griffins have alienated themselves from the ISIS inspired comedian. No worries though, the man who loves to impersonate Donald Trump on SNL, and who berated his own 11-year old daughter, actor Alec Baldwin has Kathy Griffin s back.The 59-year-old actor, who played President Donald Trump on last season of Saturday Night Live, took to Twitter on Friday to defend Griffin amid the backlash over her controversial photo shoot. Kathy .baby I ve been there, Baldwin wrote before referencing his own political drama in 1998, when he joked about then-Representative Henry Hyde on Late Night with Conan O Brien. The whole Henry Hyde thing w Conan, where we bring out an oxygen mask at the end? A joke, he recalled. That s what I thought. That s what we intended. No one walked out of the studio and said, No, we re serious! No one. But all your gutless, weasels in the GOP insisted I actually threatened Hyde. They played the victim beautifully. FOX NewsSorry Alec but when you start making jokes about our current president being beheaded and actually create visuals to make your point that s when you cross the line from humor to inhumanity. Not that we care, but you re not doing your flailing career any favors by defending ISIS Kathy. | 1 |
With less than two weeks to go before the National Security Agency surveillance program's authority expires, House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell -- who both stress the need for the program -- are at odds over how to renew it.
The disagreement centers on whether it should be the responsibility of the government or telecommunications companies to store phone records. McConnell wants to see the current law extended as it is. Boehner, however, favors the USA Freedom Act, a law overwhelmingly passed by the House last week that would have the companies hold onto the data, which could only be accessed by intelligence agencies through authorization from special courts.
Both Democratic and Republican proponents of the law admit that they aren't confident the dispute will be resolved in time to avoid a disruption in the program that was put in place after the 9/11 attacks.
"The House had an overwhelmingly large vote for the USA Freedom Act. It's time for the Senate to act," Boehner said Tuesday after he was asked about McConnell's opposition to the law. "I don't try to suggest what the Senate should or shouldn't do. But the Senate needs to act, and when they act, we'll get the next step."
Boehner sidestepped a question on whether he would support a short-term extension of the current law or another compromise proposal, repeating that the Senate needed to deal with the issue. It's an argument being echoed by Senate Democrats. New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the third highest-ranking Senate Democrat, said McConnell was "alone on an island" and that the broad support for the USA Freedom Act in the House was like a "boat" being offered to McConnell to get off that island. Minority Leader Harry Reid also pointed to the strong bipartisan vote for the reform bill in the House and called the path in the Senate "extremely clear." Reid also referred to the current law as "illegal," a reference to a recent federal appeals court ruling that Congress had not specifically authorized the data collection program when it approved the Patriot Act in the wake of the 2001 terror attacks. "We should reform the NSA's illegal spying powers. Extending an illegal program would be deeply irresponsible, especially when bipartisan reform is on the table," Reid said. "One hundred and ninety Republicans voted for it in the House. How can Republicans over here say that's not good enough?" McConnell said Tuesday there would be a vote on the USA Freedom Act in the Senate this week, but while Schumer said "almost all the Democrats" would vote for the legislation, it is not clear the bill can get the 60 votes needed to clear the chamber. McConnell has put forward a bill to extend the current law as is for 60 days, a move supported by top Senate Republican leaders, but it is not clear whether that bill has enough support to pass, either. Sen. Mitch McConnell speaks to members of the media after a weekly Senate Republican Policy Luncheon in December 2014 in Washington. For 30 years, McConnell has represented Kentucky in the Senate, and this year he went from minority leader to majority leader after the GOP swept to power in the midterm elections. Click through to see other moments from McConnell's political career. Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, left, McConnell, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Senate Minority Leader Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, pose for photos at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on March 3, the day of Netanyahu's controversial speaking engagement before a joint session of Congress. President Barack Obama sits beside McConnell before a meeting in the Cabinet Room at the White House on January 13. A voter gives a thumbs-down as McConnell votes in the midterm elections in November 2014 in Louisville, Kentucky. McConnell waves to a crowd while riding with his wife, Elaine Chao, in the Hopkins Country Veterans Day Parade in November 2014 in Madisonville, Kentucky. McConnell and Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, his Democratic opponent in the 2014 election, sit with "Kentucky Tonight" host Bill Goodman before their debate in October in Lexington. McConnell talks with supporters at a campaign rally in Hindman, Kentucky, during a two-day bus tour of the eastern part of the state in August 2014. McConnell walks with "America's Got Talent" contestant Jimmy Rose to a news conference on the economic ramifications of the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed power plant rules in July 2014. McConnell and Chao wave to supporters at a victory celebration following McConnell's victory in the Republican senatorial primary on May 20, 2014, in Louisville, Kentucky. McConnell carries a musket onstage before his speech during the American Conservative Union's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland, in March 2014. McConnell and fellow Republican Rand Paul, Kentucky's junior senator, attend an event in the East Room of the White House in July 2013. McConnell points to a stack of papers representing what he says are the regulations associated with the Affordable Care Act as he speaks at the 2013 CPAC in National Harbor, Maryland. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, and McConnell listen during a dedication ceremony of the statue of former President Gerald Ford at the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in May 2011. McConnell answers questions from reporters at the Capitol in September 2007. McConnell introduces then-President George W. Bush at a National Republican Senatorial Committee Reception in Washington in October 2006. Then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, center, is flanked by McConnell, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and then-Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Texas, as he speaks to reporters after a Senate vote in May 2005. McConnell poses with wife Elaine Chao at the 128th running of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs in Louisville in May 2002. McConnell, left, Sen. Trent Lott, R-Mississippi, Vice President Dick Cheney, President George W. Bush, Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-South Carolina, and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Illinois, are pictured during Bush's inauguration to his first term on January 20, 2001. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Connecticut, and McConnell hammer the "first nails" into a piece of wood during a nail-driving ceremony in December 2000 on Capitol Hill. Both senators participated in the ceremony to signify the beginning of construction of the 2001 Inaugural platform on the West Front Terrace of the U.S. Capitol. Sen. Robert Byrd, D-West Virginia, and McConnell enter the "Old Senate Chamber" in January 1999 to attend a bipartisan caucus to possibly establish rules and guidelines for the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton. House leaders say they plan to wrap up work and leave town Thursday for a week-long recess for the Memorial Day holiday, potentially before the Senate votes. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr said Monday he is trying to find a compromise that would keep the data in the hands of the government for now but eventually transition it to the phone companies. He said if the Senate passes that bill or a separate short-term extension, the House could approve it when it reconvenes June 1 and not cause significant disruption to the surveillance program. Such a plan is not likely to sit well with House members, who feel their big vote last week was a clear signal of what the House feels should become law. "They ought to take the House-passed bill, which was passed overwhelmingly in bipartisan fashion, and pass that bill," said Maryland Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer, the second highest-ranking House Democrat. But he said he didn't believe the Senate would be able to pass any NSA bill this week, citing a threat from Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul to filibuster an extension. Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, who supports a clean extension of the Patriot Act, downplayed Paul's ability to block the bill. "He'll get a lot of publicity for a day or so, but it won't affect the process overall," he said. McCain was also asked what the split over the issue says about the Republican Party. "It says that we ought to get our act together," McCain replied. John Boehner has been the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives since 2011, making him second in line for the presidency, behind the vice president. On September 25, Boehner told colleagues he's stepping down as speaker and will leave Congress at the end of October. Look back at his career in politics so far. Pope Francis walks with Speaker Boehner and Vice President Joe Biden after delivering a speech to Congress in Washington on September 24. Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani (right) expresses his country's gratitude for America's fiscal commitment and military sacrifices during an address to a joint meeting of the United States Congress with Vice President Joe Biden (left) and Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol March 25 in Washington. U.S. President Barack Obama walks with Speaker of the House John Boehner as they depart the annual Friend's of Ireland luncheon on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 17. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House John Boehner await the arrival of President Barack Obama for the State of The Union address on January 20 in the House Chamber of the Capitol. The image of the Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) is displayed in a monitor of a camera as he talks with reporters in his office in the Capitol in November 2014 in Washington. Boehner blasts conservative groups during a press conference in December 2013 after passing a compromise budget deal aimed at removing the threat of another government shutdown. Fed up with criticism from conservative advocates, Boehner said they were "misleading their followers." He followed up with: "Frankly, I just think that they've lost all credibility." Reporters question Boehner as he arrives at the U.S. Capitol as the government stalemate continued in October 2013. President Obama signed a bill on October 17 that ended the 16-day shutdown and raised the debt ceiling. Boehner speaks to the media after a meeting with President Obama at the White House in October 2013, the second day of the federal government's recent shutdown. The White House squared off with Republican rivals in Congress over how to fund federal agencies, many of which were forced to close, leaving a fragile economy at risk. Boehner is sworn in as the speaker of the House after his re-election in January 2013. Boehner presents golfing legend Arnold Palmer with the Congressional Gold Medal at a special ceremony in the Rotunda of the Capitol in September 2012. On January 5, 2011, Boehner wipes away tears as he waits to receive the gavel from outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, during the first session of the 112th Congress. Boehner hugs his wife, Debbie, after addressing the crowd at the NRCC Election Night watch party on November 2, 2010, when Republicans took back control of the House of Representatives. Boehner met his wife in college, and they have been married since 1973. Boehner voices his concerns about the health care reform bill championed by Obama during a news conference in Washington on October 29, 2009. Boehner, an avid golfer, talks with Tiger Woods while golfing at the Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland, in 2009. Boehner, center, looks on as President Barack Obama speaks with then-House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer in the East Room of the White House on February 23, 2009. Boehner and Obama have butted heads over the years. Boehner, center, and fellow Republican House members sing Boehner's birthday song during a news conference on Capitol Hill on November 17, 2006. Boehner served as the House Minority Leader from 2007 to 2011. Boehner answers questions during an interview with Bloomberg in Washington on June 29, 2005. President George W. Bush signs into law the federal education bill No Child Left Behind at a high school in Hamilton, Ohio, in 2002. The law offered the promise of improved schools for the nation's poor and minority children and better-prepared students in a competitive world. Boehner, second from right, backed the bill. Boehner and House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, listen to House Speaker Newt Gingrich at a 1997 news conference with entrepreneurs promoting the GOP tax relief plan. Boehner dumps out coal, which he called a Christmas gift to President Clinton, during a news conference about the federal budget on December 21, 1995. Many government services and agencies were closed at the end of 1995 and beginning of 1996 as a Republican-led Congress battled Clinton over spending levels. Boehner at a Capitol Hill news conference on February 6, 1995. He has had a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1990. Before that he was a member of the Ohio State House of Representatives for six years. Boehner, R-Ohio, holds a copy of the Constitution on Capitol Hill in Washington on May 7, 1992, as Sen. Don Nickles, D-Oklahoma, looks on. Both men proclaimed it was a historic day when the Michigan House ratified the 27th Amendment to the Constitution, which would require that any Congressional pay raises not go into effect until after the next election. | 1 |
(Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday stood by his criticism of pay TV and wireless company AT&T’s deal to buy movie and TV show maker Time Warner Inc, which the Justice Department has sued to stop. “I’m not going to get involved in litigation, but personally I’ve always felt that that was a deal that’s not a good deal for the country,” the president said on the lawn of the White House as he left for Florida. “I think your pricing’s going to go up, I don’t think it’s a good deal for the country.” The case will be more closely watched than other merger challenges because Trump has been a vocal critic of Time Warner’s CNN, and opposed AT&T’s purchase of Time Warner on the campaign trail last year, saying it would concentrate too much power in AT&T’s hands. Until Tuesday, he had not repeated that criticism. The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday sued AT&T, arguing that it would use Time Warner’s content to force rival pay-TV companies to pay “hundreds of millions of dollars more per year for Time Warner’s networks.” The Justice Department pushed back any suggestion that the decision to sue was done because of “political considerations.” “This is a law enforcement decision, not a political one. The DOJ has reached the end of a year-long investigation by a large, capable staff of expert lawyers and economists,” a Justice Department spokesperson said in an email comment. “The division concluded on the merits that the merger is illegal under the antitrust laws because it will hurt competition.” AT&T has vowed to defend the $85.4 billion deal in court. The Department of Justice’s move to block it was “foolish” because the deal posed no threat to consumers, the wireless carrier’s trial lawyer, Dan Petrocelli, told CNBC on Tuesday. "We want to go to court as soon as possible," Petrocelli told CNBC, saying the burden of proof was on the government. cnb.cx/2AjiOVw AT&T will ask the court for an expedited trial next week, a source familiar with case said. The case has been assigned to Judge Richard Leon, a senior judge on the District of Columbia District Court, who was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2002. Time Warner shares went higher when Leon’s assignment was announced as investors bet the judge would be more likely to allow the deal to proceed. Republican-appointed judges are generally, but not always, more business-friendly than those appointed by Democrats. Shares of Time Warner closed up 2.1 percent at $89.56 on Tuesday, signaling that investors believe the deal has a better chance of being approved. AT&T closed down less than 1 percent at $34.33. The merger challenge is unusual since the two companies do not compete directly. The Justice Department has not successfully litigated to stop a vertical deal - where the merging companies are not direct competitors, as is the case with AT&T and Time Warner - since the 1970s, when it prevented Ford Motor Co from buying assets from spark-plug maker Autolite. | 1 |
Only 38 states to go. Obama is going to do more damage to the fabric of America in his final 7 months in office than any other President in history The ink was barely dry on President Obama s guidance regarding gender-neutral bathrooms the administration told U.S. public schools on Friday to let transgender students use bathrooms and locker rooms according to gender identity when opposing voices started shouting.And at least 7 of those voices in 6 states so far belonged to high-ranking state officials, beginning with North Carolina, where HB2 brought the controversy to the forefront:North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory (R) Says the U.S. Justice Department is displaying overreach by warning legal action and withholding federal funds unless HB2 which limits bathroom/locker room use to the gender on an individual s birth certificate is scrapped.Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) Has declared that he will be working closely with North Carolina s governor in opposing the federal guideline.I announced today that Texas is fighting this. Obama can't rewrite the Civil Rights Act. He's not a King. #tcot https://t.co/vDgfQPZXjR Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) May 13, 2016Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick (R) Has stated that Texas does not want any dirty money tied to policies that amount to extortion:Texas Lt. Gov. @DanPatrick on Obama administration guidance on transgender bathrooms: "We will not be blackmailed" https://t.co/28tFsicoo8 CNN Newsroom (@CNNnewsroom) May 13, 2016Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson (R) Advised schools in his state to ignore the guidance:As Gov., I recommend that school districts disregard @POTUS's guidance on gender identification in schools. >> https://t.co/mFxgtOcbml Gov. Asa Hutchinson (@AsaHutchinson) May 13, 2016Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange (R) Says the issue should be decided by parents, teachers, and principals not by federal bureaucrats.Alabama AG Luther Strange vows to fight 'absurd' Obama order on transgender school bathrooms https://t.co/VnCUcZ6jSz AL.com (@aldotcom) May 13, 2016Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin (R) Released a statement saying that the federal government had no authority to interfere in local school districts bathroom policies.Our statement regarding Obama's proposed bathroom rules for public schools: https://t.co/50Zg6PqXOY Matt Bevin (@MattBevin) May 13, 2016Missouri Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder (R) Released a statement saying that Obama was abusing his power, and that America needs guidance and prayer.Via: Independent JournalUPDATE: Six more states have joined in protest against Obama s unlawful transgender bathroom decree, they are: West Virginia, Arizona, Kansas, Nebraska, Utah, and Maine. The number of states who will fight back will certainly increase, as the public becomes more and more active, contacting their legislators and governors, demanding they stand up to King Obama. | 0 |
A Trump supporter proclaimed that there s no such thing as facts before getting humiliated by facts.During an appearance on NPR s The Diane Rehm Show, Trump mouthpiece Scottie Nell Hughes attacked facts and characterized them as lies the media, scientists, and liberals tell. Well, I think it s also an idea of an opinion, Hughes said in response to The Atlantic s James Fallows remark that Donald trump is peddling lies to gullible people. And that s on one hand I hear half the media saying that these are lies, but on the other half there are many people that go, no, it s true. And so one thing that has been interesting this entire campaign season to watch is that people that say facts are facts, they re not really facts. Everybody has a way, it s kind of like looking at ratings or looking at a glass of half-full water. Everybody has a way of interpreting them to be the truth or not true. Hughes went on to say that there s no such thing facts and then turned around and said that only conservatives have facts to back up their claims. There s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore of facts. And so Mr. Trump s tweet amongst a certain crowd, a large a large part of the population, are truth. When he says that millions of people illegally voted, he has some in his amongst him and his supporters, and people believe they have facts to back that up. Those that do not like Mr. Trump, they say that those are lies, and there s no facts to back it up. Hughes comments did not sit well with Politico correspondant Glenn Thrush, who proceeded to school her. First I ve got to pick my jaw up off the floor here, he began. There are no objective facts? I mean, that is that is an absolutely outrageous assertion. Of course there are facts. There is no widespread proof that three million people voted illegally. It s been checked over and over again. We had a Pew study that took place over 15 years that showed people had more likelihood of being struck by lightning than voting illegally in an election. Facts are facts. I m sorry you don t like the facts. Indeed, while conservatives are using edited videos and things they heard on social media as proof of their claims, fact-checking organization Politifact did their homework and found exactly where Donald Trump got his claim that three million people voted illegally. It turns out he got it from conspiracy theorist Alex Jone s InfoWars, which got their numbers from some guy who claimed to be affiliated with VoteFraud.org. But there is no report from that organization and the guy refused to provide evidence to support his dubious claim, which was rated false by Politifact.So Hughes was talking out of her ass when she attacked facts. Thrush, on the other hand, was absolutely right. A comprehensive study of voter fraud found only 31 cases out of 1 billion votes cast from 2000 to 2014. Donald Trump is wrong. Conservatives are wrong. And Scottie Nell Hughes should be ashamed of herself.Featured Image: YouTube | 1 |
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada imposed sanctions on Friday against 30 Russian officials whom it said were complicit in the 2009 prison death of Sergei Magnitsky, an anti-corruption lawyer who was jailed after alleging a massive tax fraud. The measures which freeze the assets of the officials and bar them from visiting Canada were enacted through a new law giving the government the right to penalize those it says are guilty of human rights violations, the foreign ministry said in a statement. Among those targeted are Alexander Bastrykin, Russia s top investigator and a close aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The United States blacklisted him in January 2017, citing Magnitsky s death. Today s announcement sends a clear message that Canada will take action against individuals who have profited from acts of significant corruption or who have been involved in gross violations of human rights, said Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland. Moscow said last month it would retaliate if Canada banned individuals under the new law. The Russian embassy in Ottawa later issued a statement denouncing the sanctions as absolutely pointless and reprehensible . Canada has repeatedly condemned Moscow over Russia s 2014 annexation of Ukraine s Crimea region and imposed sanctions along with other Western nations. The United States adopted a law in 2012 freezing any U.S. assets of Russian investigators and prosecutors said to have been involved in the detention of Magnitsky. In retaliation, Moscow barred Americans from adopting Russian children. In addition to penalizing the 30 Russians, Canada also imposed sanctions on 19 officials from Venezuela and three from South Sudan. | 1 |
MADRID (Reuters) - Spain s government will take control of Catalonia and rule it directly if Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont does not drop a bid to split the region from Spain by Thursday at 1000 a.m. (0800 GMT), deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said. Mr Puigdemont still has the opportunity to start resolving this situation, he must answer yes or no to the declaration (of independence), Saenz de Santamaria said. Madrid had given Puigdemont until Monday 10:00 a.m. (0800 GMT) to clarify his position on independence with a Yes or No , but the Catalan leader did not directly answer the question. | 1 |
Donald Trump appeared on Fox News on Monday night, only to be embarrassingly stumped by Bill O Reilly.O Reilly wanted to know if Trump plans on taking military action against Iran if he becomes president, and Trump totally demonstrated his lack of foreign policy knowledge by dodging the question and ranting about things he really doesn t understand. If you re elected president are you going to take military action against Iran? O Reilly asked. Are you going to do something to that country? Well, I would want to help Saudi Arabia, Trump replied with what seems to be a reference to Iranians attacking the Saudi Arabian embassy in retaliation against a mass execution the Saudis recently committed on New Year s Day in which 47 were killed, including a Shiite cleric. I would want to protect Saudi Arabia, Trump claimed. But Saudi Arabia is going to have to help us economically Trump suggested that he might attack Iran if Saudi Arabia offered the right price but remained largely unwilling to say one way or another whether he would get America involved in yet another costly and bloody war in the Middle East.O Reilly continued to press Trump for an answer, calling him out for dodging the question.Trump then went on a tirade against the Iran nuclear deal, calling it a disastrous deal that Iran has already supposedly broken before claiming that Iran will have a nuclear weapon very soon. Clearly, Trump is not aware of the fact that Iran recently surrendered their entire stockpile of enriched uranium to the Russians, which is definitive proof that the Iran nuclear deal is a success because it is doing exactly what it was designed to do.The Iran nuclear deal stands as one of President Obama s greatest achievements, and should not be abandoned in favor of war when diplomacy is working. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia is nothing more than ISIS posing as a legitimate nation. They use Sharia law and behead so many people every year that ISIS leaders must be envious. The only reason our government has failed to call the Saudis out for their horrible human rights record is because they control the second largest oil reserves in the world.This is why it is not only important for the United States to reject military action in the Middle East, we need to become energy independent so that we no longer have to rely on Saudi Arabia for our energy needs. Frankly, the United States government should grow a pair and strongly condemn Saudi Arabia right now for behaving like a terrorist organization.The bottom line, however, is that Donald Trump is unfit to be commander-in-chief. He not only wants to send American troops to die needlessly in Iran, he wants to make Saudi Arabia pay for it. Basically, Trump would turn America into a puppet for the Saudis. But more likely, he would damage relations with both nations and put America squarely in the middle of a potential conflict that could easily turn into World War III.America does not need more war. We need peace. And as O Reilly pointed out, voters have the right to know what Trump plans to do, even if Trump thinks they have no right to know at all.Here s the video via YouTube.Featured image via video screen capture | 1 |
(Reuters) - Hurricane Irma was about 110 miles (175 km) southeast of Key West, Florida, and heavy squalls carrying tornadoes were sweeping across south Florida, the National Hurricane Center said on Saturday. The storm had maximum sustained winds 120 miles per hour (195 kilometers per hour). The center said the core of Irma will continue to move near the north coast of Cuba for next few hours and should be near the Florida Keys on Sunday morning. | 0 |
Dinesh D Souza s Hillary s America will debut in theaters in July. Clinton Cash is a documentary that investigates donations made to the Clinton Foundation by foreign entities, paid speeches made by Bill and Hillary Clinton, and the Clintons personal enrichment since leaving the White House in 2001. It also debuts this summer. And now, Weiner exploring the life of a world class narcissist who just happens to be married to Hillary s top aide and special friend who is also tied to Hillary s email scandal investigation, Huma Abedin. With so many scandalous movies surrounding the life of Corrupt Hillary debuting this spring and summer, it s hard to know what to see first. We only have one question. Did filmmaker, Mr. Kriegman credit Andrew Breitbart for exposing (pun intended) the truth about Anthony Weiner?Mr. Kriegman s careful chronicling of Mr. Weiner s campaign is poised to prompt a much broader reassessment of a tabloid-tarred politician. Weiner, a feature-length documentary by Mr. Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg, will be released on May 20, amid one of the most contentious presidential elections in memory, and it may be the most intimate and provocative portrait of a political race since The War Room. Mr. Weiner whose moth-to-the-flame instinct toward exposure led in part to his resignation from Congress in 2011 after admitting he had lied about online liaisons with women granted extraordinary access to Mr. Kriegman, in exchange for the occasional use of his footage during the campaign. The filmmaker agreed to step out of the room whenever Mr. Weiner asked.And yet there is Mr. Kriegman in the back of a sport utility vehicle, filming as Mr. Weiner tries to persuade his wife, Huma Abedin, to appear at a primary-night party where Sydney Leathers, Mr. Weiner s erstwhile sexting partner, is lurking outside. Mr. Kriegman is inside the couple s apartment at breakfast time as Ms. Abedin, a frozen smile on her face, confides to the camera that she is living a nightmare. There are startling moments of Mr. Weiner analyzing his own transgressions (he calls them the things ) and facing teary-eyed staff members. Hours after Mr. Weiner s campaign is stricken by revelations of new online infidelities, the film finds husband and wife alone in a conference room, staring at each other for what may be the longest and most painful onscreen marital silence this side of an Ingmar Bergman film. The door closes, and I m filming, and I m riveted by what s happening, Mr. Kriegman recalled in an interview last month. But I m definitely thinking to myself: I can t believe I m standing here right now. He almost never got the chance. Mr. Kriegman had known Mr. Weiner for years, serving as chief of staff in his district office. After a decade in politics, he began pursuing a film career, earning credits on MTV and PBS. He and Ms. Steinberg, who are both 36, and previously collaborated on a documentary about prison reform, came to view Mr. Weiner as an ideal subject.Via: NYT s | 0 |
Donald Trump Jr slammed Kathy Griffin for playing the victim after the huge backlash to her beheading Trump photo. saying she deserves whatever she gets. To run and claim victimhood, she deserves everything that s coming to her, Donald Trump, Jr., said Tuesday on ABC s Good Morning America. Griffin initially apologized for posing with the disturbing image, and CNN dropped her from her annual New Year s Eve special alongside Anderson Cooper.However, she reversed course with a Friday press conference alongside civil rights attorney Lisa Bloom, where she tearfully said the Trump family was bullying her and broke her. Griffin s erratic demeanor was widely panned; USA Today said it was a D-list showing, and Salon called it mad and looping. | 0 |
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish authorities issued detention warrants on Monday for 106 people believed to have worked as matchmakers for a network accused of orchestrating last year s failed military coup, a spokesman for the Istanbul police said. Sixty-two of the suspects had been detained in the operation centered in Istanbul and spread over 20 other provinces, he said. Operations to locate the rest were ongoing. The suspects were marriage officials for supporters of the U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, who the Turkish government says was behind the failed July 2016 coup, the spokesman said. Gulen denies any involvement in the coup attempt. They were believed to have helped set up arranged marriages for some of Gulen s followers, he said. Turkish officials say the Gulen network closely monitored the personal and professional lives of some supporters, including their education, careers and marriages. Turkish police and state intelligence officials identified the suspects in a joint operation using conversations traced on ByLock, an encrypted messaging application commonly used by Gulen s supporters, the spokesman said. Turkey has identified 215,092 users of ByLock and has launched investigations into 23,171 of them, the interior minister said last month. More than 50,000 people, including security officials, military personnel and civil servants, have been detained in the aftermath of the coup. The crackdown has alarmed Turkey s Western allies and rights groups, who say President Tayyip Erdogan is using the coup as a pretext to muzzle dissent. The government says the measures, taken under emergency rule that was imposed after the coup, are necessary due to the security threats Turkey faces. | 0 |
The week of Donald Trump s election, white nationalists celebrated.In the bowels of the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, three blocks from the White House, members of the so-called alt-right movement gathered for what they had supposed would be an autopsy to plot their grim future under a Clinton administration. Instead, they celebrated the unexpected march of their white nationalist ideas toward the mainstream, portraying Mr. Trump s win as validation that the tide had turned in their fight to preserve white culture. It s been an awakening, Richard B. Spencer, who is credited with coining the term alt-right, said at the gathering on Saturday. This is what a successful movement looks like. Source: NY TimesWhile they still agree with Trump s agenda, or at least what they think Trump s agenda is, they aren t celebrating anymore. They aren t happy with many of Trump s cabinet picks. Right after the election, I think it was euphoria, says Kevin MacDonald, a retired evolutionary psychology professor at California State, Long Beach and another white nationalist mainstay. But as we get into it now, there s more trepidation. MacDonald says Trump s appointments also have rattled the movement, especially his propensity for tapping rich Wall Street bankers. These are globalists in general. They love free trade, they love immigration big red flags for us, he says.Source: NPRSo odd that a businessman who brags about his international business ventures would hire globalists. Who could have seen that coming? Anyone who paid attention, that s who, but cheer up our neo-nazi brethren, there s hope for you still (just not for the rest of us). Trump still has his (bad pun ahead) Trump card: Jeff Sessions, who s been tapped for Attorney General. They also like Rex Tillerson, Trump s pick for Secretary of State.MacDonald hopes Sessions, Trump s nominee for attorney general, will clamp down on immigration. White nationalists also like the nominee for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, who s seen as being close to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, a darling of the alt-right.While Trump s cabinet might be a little too globalist for these mouth breathers, there s still plenty for them to love. There s little chance under this Republican government that anyone other than white men will make any sort of advances.Featured image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images | 0 |
President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro took questions over human rights and the U.S. economic embargo during an unprecedented joint news conference Monday, putting the Cuban leader in the hotspot in front of a public not used seeing to their leader being questioned.
Obama continued to press the Communist leader on human rights issues.
"We continue, as President Castro indicated, to have some very serious differences, including on democracy and human rights," said Obama said. The U.S. president planned to meet with Cuban dissidents Tuesday.
But when an American reporter asked about political prisoners in Cuba, Castro pushed back, denying such prisoners even existed.
"What political prisoners? Give me a name or names," Castro said.
Castro also blasted the long-held American embargo, which he called "the most important obstacle" to his country's economic development. Obama has called on Congress to lift the blockade, but lawmakers have not held a vote on the repeal.
"The embargo is going to end," Obama said. "When, I can't be entirely sure, but I believe it will end."
Despite the tensions, Obama heralded a "new day" in the U.S.-Cuba relationship, saying "part of normalizing relations means we discuss these differences directly."
Earlier, with his hand placed on his heart Obama began his first full day in Cuba at Revolution Square, listening to a band as it played the American National Anthem. He is hoping his historic visit will push relations between the two countries forward.
The president placed a wreath at the memorial to Cuban revolutionary Jose Marti. At 11:30 AM, Obama ventured to Havana's Palace of the Revolution for the one-on-one meeting with Cuban President Raoul Castro.
While the president does not expect immediate political change, he knows Castro's economic reforms have opened the door to American investment and opportunity on the island nation.
"It's a historic opportunity to forge new agreements and commercial deals, to build new ties between our two peoples and for me to lay out my vision for a future that's brighter than our past," the president told staffers at the U.S. Embassy in Havana.
U.S. companies are eager to do business with Cuba's 11 million people, and Google will be among the first to take advantage of the changed relationship.
Obama has announced the technology giant will expand Wi-Fi and broadband Internet access on the island. So far, only about 5 percent of Cubans enjoy such access.
But only hours before the president arrived in Cuba and toured old Havana with his family, police clashed with human rights protestors. At least 50 demonstrators were arrested.
Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz tweeted support for the Cuban people and criticized the visit.
"Political prisoners languishing in dungeons across the island will hear this message: Nobody has your back. You're alone with your tormentors. The world has forgotten about you," he wrote in Politico.
"There will be no mojitos at the U.S. Embassy for them," he continued. "Raul Castro denies their very existence."
GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump said he supports a new relationship with Cuba, but suggests President Castro should have greeted the president when he arrived.
"There was nobody there to greet him. Folks, what are we doing, what are we doing? Now here's how a thing like that is supposed to work. Number one, he has his people call up and say, 'Who is going to be greeting the president?' If they say nobody, you don't go until somebody's there because you don't want to look like a fool," Trump insisted.
But not everyone is critical. American Alan Gross, who was released from a Cuban prison a year ago, told CBN News' Gary Lane the president's visit is a courageous move.
"You sat in a prison cell for five years. Is it the right course?" Lane asked.
"Well, absolutely," Gross replied. "If we had had diplomatic relations 55 years ago, 50 years ago, 45 years ago, six years ago, I might not have had to forfeit five years of my life."
"The whole idea of constructive engagement helps to avoid circumstances like this," he continued. "And people who are critical of the process that we've recently gone through really need to take a look at that."
Obama's visit will conclude Tuesday with a televised speech to the Cuban people, attendance at a baseball game, and a possible meeting with political dissidents. | 1 |
The BBC has run a series of online and radio segments claiming the “great meme war has travelled to France” implying Internet jokes could swing the French election for the Front National as the broadcaster alleges they did for Trump and Brexit in the UK and U. S.[“A group of anonymous keyboard warriors who claim they helped Donald Trump win his presidency have moved their fight to Europe and are trying to help elect a leader for France,” the radio programme’s description reads. “In 2016 politically and racially charged memes and symbols started spreading from U. S. and UK accounts,” opens the accompanying video on BBC Trending’s Facebook page. “Far right activists claim the results of the U. S. presidential elections demonstrated their influence,” the film says. Front National denies any role in ‘Great Meme War’ A glass of half full milk is code for white supremacy … and other shocking racially charged memes, Posted by BBC Trending on Monday, 10 April 2017, The BBC presenter says meme “activities” miraculously “stopped” in November 2016, after the election of President Donald J. Trump, with the “same accounts” becoming active again in January 2017, “this time targeting France”. According to the BBC, the “operation” has generated 50, 000 tweets so far, with right wing activists organising in online gaming chat rooms “like their U. S. counterparts”. The prospect that memes are merely the result of unorganised and unlinked individuals amusing themselves online is not seriously considered. “The ‘Great Meme War’ symbols and memes have travelled to France. But their influence cannot yet be quantified,” concludes the film. The BBC does little to explain how such memes could influence elections, other than implying right wing politicians use them to “connect” with young voters. The example of Florian Philippot is given, a of the Front National and advisor to Marine Le Pen, who used a meme on his YouTube channel. He flashed the ‘Risitas’ or ‘Spanish laughing guy’ meme at the end of a video, which has been used by both left and right wing activists. Mr. Philippot’s spokesman responded to the BBC’s insinuation that using the meme might be racist. “El Risitas is not a symbol with a racist connotation that echoes the ideology of the far right. It is just funny,” he said. | 0 |
When Donald Trump falsely accused President Obama of wiretapping him he committed an impeachable offense.That s what Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe wrote in response to Jonathan Turley on Tuesday after Turley claimed that Trump can t be impeached for posting bad tweets. During an appearance on Morning Joe, Turley claimed that Trump could not be impeached for accusing President Obama of wiretapping him because the Constitution was written before Twitter was invented. There s no penalty to the president for bad tweets, the George Washington University law professor claimed. There s no impeachment for bad tweets, he continued, arguing that the impeachment clause doesn t apply because Twitter postdated the impeachment clause. Basically, Turley is saying that the Constitution only applies to society as it was in the 18th century, which is the kind of bullshit that conservative originalists use as an excuse to block progress.Well, Tribe was watching on Tuesday and he fired off a series of tweets slamming Turley. Using power of W[hite] H[ouse] to falsely accuse predecessor of impeachable felony does qualify as an impeachable offense whether via tweet or not, Tribe concluded.1/On @JoeNBC @JonathanTurley says Trump s false claim that 44 wiretapped him cdn t be impeachable because #Twitter didn t exist when the Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) March 7, 20172/Impeachment Cl. was written in 1787. What s he mocking? Stupid versions of originalism? The gravity of T s abuse of power? POTUS himself? Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) March 7, 20173/Using power of WH to falsely accuse predecessor of impeachable felony does qualify as an impeachable offense whether via tweet or not Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) March 7, 2017In fact, Trump is not only abusing his power by falsely accusing a former president of a crime, he opened himself up to a defamation lawsuit.Just as a reminder, here is what Trump wrote about President Obama on Saturday.Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my wires tapped in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017Trump offered absolutely no proof to back up his claims and he still hasn t offered any. FBI Director James Comey and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper have both strongly refuted Trump s claim.The bottom line is that the Constitution absolutely applies here because it would be meaningless if it only applied to the world as it existed in 1787.Featured image via Aude Guerrucci-Pool/Getty Images | 1 |
LONDON (Reuters) - British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson issued a second, fuller apology on Monday for remarks about an Iranian-British aid worker jailed in Iran that critics said might have prompted Iran to extend her prison sentence. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was sentenced to five years after being convicted by an Iranian court of plotting to overthrow the clerical establishment. She denies the charges. Johnson told a parliamentary committee on Nov. 1 that she had been teaching people journalism before her arrest in April 2016, contradicting her and her employer, who said she had been on holiday visiting her family. It was my mistake. I should have been clearer. I apologize for the distress and anguish that has been caused to Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her family, Johnson told lawmakers on Monday. Our priority now is to do everything we can to get her out of Iran on humanitarian grounds. On Nov. 7 Johnson said in the course of an exchange with an opposition MP in parliament that I am sorry if any words of mine have been so taken out of context and so misconstrued as to cause any kind of anxiety for the family. Opposition British lawmakers had said the remarks could land the aid worker a longer term in jail. Johnson, whose job has come under pressure over the case, said he would meet Zaghari-Ratcliffe s husband this week, adding that the issue was casting a shadow over relations with Iran. I shall travel to Iran myself later this year to review the full state of our bilateral relations and to drive home the strength of feeling in this House and in the country at large, Johnson said. Earlier on Monday, the government said it was considering granting diplomatic protection to Zaghari-Ratcliffe as part of an effort to secure her release from jail. It is unclear how such protection could be offered retrospectively to a dual Iranian-British citizen, or whether such a move could help to secure her release, but a spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May said it was one option being considered. The prime minister has been involved with this case from the outset, she s raised it with the Iranian president on at least two occasions, the entire government is working towards securing her release as quickly as possible, he said. A legal opinion prepared for the human rights charity Redress on Zaghari-Ratcliffe s case said the British government could grant her diplomatic protection as she is predominantly a British citizen who has been denied a fair trial. It is unclear how Tehran would view such a step, which would explicitly make Zaghari-Ratcliffe s fate an issue in state-to-state relations rather than a purely consular case. Zaghari-Ratcliffe s fate become a major political issue in Britain after Johnson made remarks on Nov. 1 that appeared to cast doubt on statements from her employer. The Thomson Reuters Foundation, a charity organization that is independent of Thomson Reuters and operates independently of Reuters News, said she had been on holiday and had not been teaching journalism in Iran. Iranian state television said Johnson s comments showed Zaghari-Ratcliffe s guilt and that she was involved in spying. Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, said the case had become a bargaining chip for Iran in its relations with Britain, and that it would not be helpful for Johnson to resign. He has asked to come with Johnson on a trip to Tehran planned for later this year and called for her to be given diplomatic protection. Nazanin is being held because she is British and is being used as a bargaining chip against the UK, now justified by your words, he said in an article in the Evening Standard newspaper. Nazanin is no longer simply a consular case as she has been endangered in a deeper way, he wrote. He added the uncertainty had affected his wife s health and she had gone to hospital for tests after finding lumps on her breasts, which the specialist thought were benign and stress-related. British ministers have rallied round Johnson but one of his allies, Environment Secretary Michael Gove, was accused of muddying the waters in a television interview on Sunday when he said he did not know what Zaghari-Ratcliffe was doing in Iran. | 0 |
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TECH giant Apple has today kindly offered to relocate over 1,500 refugee children who were left behind at a Calais campsite, and to give them full-time work as general operatives in their many factories littered across the world.
The opportunity will help clear the remaining refugees from the ‘Calais Jungle’, while French authorities continue to demolish it from existence, like a red wine stain from a woollen rug.
It is understood the children will begin a series of in-house training courses before taking to the Apple floor to make phones, iPads and MacBook computers.
“I have always loved Apple’s sleek product design,” 9-year-old Hafez Mohammed, who was born in the same week as the first ever iPhone release, “I cannot wait to start work making such cool products with them as my father and mother are missing and I have no idea where they are”.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said he was more than happy to offer the children this fantastic opportunity as founder Steve Jobs was also Syrian, and believes he would have only been delighted to help out his fellow countrymen and women get through this difficult period of their lives.
“Who knows, we may have the next Jobs in one of the 1,500 new employees,” Cook told WWN.
The Apple offer could not have come at a better time as British Prime Minister May rejected a personal demand from Francois Hollande for Britain to accept 1,500 child migrants yesterday, leaving only child sex traffickers to pick up the tab. | 0 |
Former Republican Party chairman and U.S. Senate candidate Michael Steele, who is black, has made some interesting revelations about what it s like to be a black Republican running for office. Steele spoke to The Huffington Post for their series Candidate Confessional, where past candidates reveal the inner workings of their campaigns.Steele notes that while he was the party chairman the RNC took back the house in 2010, but a series of controversies ensured that he would not be re-elected to the position, now held by Reince Priebus who remains party chairman even after the RNC lost in a major way against President Obama in 2012. During his time at the RNC, Steele says members of the committee told him You sound too black. Steele also explains that it was a problem for members of the party that his chief of staff was black. I had a black chief of staff and everyone threw a hissy fit, didn t know how to deal with the brother, Steele said. I m like, Dude, he s a political operative like everybody else. He s a chief of staff. Just deal with him. But that was a problem. In 2006, Steele attempted to run for Senate in Maryland, eventually losing by 10% to now-Senator Ben Cardin. In that run, Steele was picked to be pushed by the party because he was a black candidate in a state with a large black population. But they had problems finding black staffers for his campaign.Steele, for example, said he knew there d be questions about why there weren t any African Americans on his campaign staff. The reason was easy to explain. The [Republican] party s never taken the time to actually groom blacks to be political operatives, to be campaign managers, political directors, communication directors, finance directors, Steele said. So when I have to go as a candidate into a statewide campaign, or even if I m running for local sheriff, what pool of talent am I gonna pull from? I m gonna pull from the established talent that has been developed by the white infrastructure, which is largely white males. In the almost post-Obama era, Steele s revelations almost feel quaint. After the post-2012 election that warned the GOP that they need to appeal to minority voters in order to be a viable presidential party, the GOP has gone even more anti-minority, expressed in the campaign of current Republican front runner Donald Trump, who has egged his supporters on to beat up black protesters while himself smearing the Black Lives Matter movement. Featured image from Wikimedia Commons | 1 |
Sputnik and Jill Stein Want A Vote Recount
Apparently the Russian news site and the Green Party candidate want a vote recount that could remove “peace with Russia” Trump and install “nuclear war with Russia” Hillary.
https://sputniknews.com/us/201611241047810414-stein-sputnik-interview-election-recount/
The post Sputnik and Jill Stein Want A Vote Recount appeared first on PaulCraigRoberts.org . | 1 |
Warsaw (AFP) — Fourteen men and women in their twenties on Friday slaughtered a sheep and took their clothes off at the former Nazi German death camp according to the museum at the site in southern Poland. #Auschwitz shuts down after nude protesters slaughter sheep, chain selves to ’Arbeit Macht Frei’ gatehttps: . — Jack Mendel (@Mendelpol) March 24, 2017, | 0 |
If you ve spent much time on social media, you might notice that almost regardless of the subject, a string of anti-Hillary memes seems to just automatically show up. That s not a coincidence. It s all part of a highly coordinated shitposting designed by billionaire and Oculus founder, 24-year-old Palmer Luckey.Luckey is best known as a boy genius who invented his version of virtual reality goggles, called the Oculus Rift. Facebook bought Luckey s company in 2014 for $2 billion. Forbes estimates that he s worth about $700 million.The epicenter of his trolling seems to come from Reddit, where he uses the pseudonym NimbleRichMan. Luckey is a backer, likely the key backer of a pro-Trump 501(c)(4) charitable social welfare organization that s dedicated to backing Trump. If you think that sounds seriously sketchy, you d be right. According to the IRS, a 501(c)(4) is not supposed to have politics as its primary activity, and any politicking it does is not tax exempt. The Daily Beast published an expose on Thursday, which says in part:Nimble America says it s dedicated to proving that shitposting is powerful and meme magic is real, according to the company s introductory statement, and has taken credit for a billboard its founders say was posted outside of Pittsburgh with a cartoonishly large image of Clinton s face alongside the words Too Big to Jail. We conquered Reddit and drive narrative on social media, conquered the [mainstream media], now it s time to get our most delicious memes in front of Americans whether they like it or not, a representative for the group wrote in an introductory post on Reddit.People on Reddit aren t happy. In fact, the biggest pro-Trump subreddit, r/The_Donald, refused to believe that Luckey was NimbleRichMan, but Luckey insisted that he s just the money behind the idea and well, he did it for a lark because, you know, screwing with the future of the free world is fun! I ve got plenty of money, Luckey added. Money is not my issue. I thought it sounded like a real jolly good time. He prides himself on putting out memes that are so bad that even the Trump campaign wouldn t promote them.Before you think he s a Millennial who is still angry that Bernie Sanders didn t win, think again. He has zero problems with money in politics. The American Revolution was funded by wealthy individuals, NimbleRichMan wrote on Saturday. Luckey confirmed to The Daily Beast he penned the posts under his Reddit pseudonym. The same has been true of many movements for freedom in history. You can t fight the American elite without serious firepower. They will outspend you and destroy you by any and all means. Luckey isn t just spending money on anti-Hillary memes. He s spending money to support Trump.As an early supporter of @Oculus this makes me sick to my stomach. This is the org @PalmerLuckey is backing Cc @TechCrunch @UploadVR pic.twitter.com/athqtwol7e Cody Brown (@CodyBrown) September 23, 2016This is a message from @PalmerLuckey, the founder of @Oculus. pic.twitter.com/CWlAA8ugMx Cody Brown (@CodyBrown) September 23, 2016Luckey has apparently been banned from Twitter, but that doesn t mean that Nimble America, along with the backing of white supremacist and Breitbart propagandist, Milo Yiannopoulos. They plan on releasing more memes and purchasing billboards.It s not clear if Luckey has maintained any sort of relationship with Facebook or if he has pull with the organization. Let s hope not. While 4Chan, who is responsible for many of the anti-Hillary paid trolls throughout social media, is also associated with r/The_Donald, there s no evidence, at this point, that Luckey is behind financing that movement. Stay tuned, though.Featured image via Bryan Steffy/Getty Images. | 1 |
a reply to: kruphix Theocracy? Tim Kaine? In September 1980, as violence and civil war erupted throughout Central America, a quiet American left Harvard Law School to volunteer with Jesuit missionaries in northern Honduras. Around him, the United States-backed military dictatorship hunted Marxists and cracked down on the Catholic clergy for preaching empowerment to peasant farmers. But some locals also looked warily on the bearded and mop-haired Midwesterner in their midst. Just a few hours south, the Central Intelligence Agency was using Honduras as a staging ground in its covert war against Latin American communism, with right-wing forces training for operations in El Salvador and Nicaragua. “Some of the people were wondering what’s going on, who is this guy?” Tim Kaine, then a 22-year-old volunteer and now the Democratic nominee for vice president, said in an interview. He understood why. His mentors in the priesthood had also urged him to be wary of friendly American faces. Continue reading the main story Advertisement Continue reading the main story “It was a time of such intrigue and suspicion,” Mr. Kaine said. Far from being a C.I.A. operative, Mr. Kaine was a young Catholic at a crossroads, undergoing a spiritual shift as he awakened to the plight of the deeply poor in Honduras. In its far-flung pueblos, banana plantation company towns and dusty cities, Mr. Kaine embraced an interpretation of the gospel, known as liberation theology, that championed social change to improve the lives of the downtrodden. In Honduras, his recitation of the traditional Catholic mealtime blessing changed to “Lord give bread to those who hunger, and hunger for justice to those who have bread.” Honduran military leaders, American officials and even Pope John Paul II viewed liberation theology suspiciously, as dangerously injecting Marxist beliefs into religious teaching. But the strong social-justice message of liberation theology helped set Mr. Kaine on a left-veering career path in which he fought as a lawyer against housing discrimination, became a liberal mayor, and rose as a Spanish-speaking governor and senator with an enduring focus on Latin America. | 1 |
WATCH: Susan Rice insists I leaked nothing to nobody https://t.co/kAsbu4VJDN MSNBC (@MSNBC) April 4, 2017 I know nothing about this. I was surprised to see reports from Chairman Nunes on that count today. What she says is a lie but who is surprised by this? We know that Susan Rice lied 5 times on 5 different morning shows the morning after Benghazi. Why wouldn t she try and cover this spying up to protect herself and others including Obama.Susan Rice is also giving conflicting stories on what she did so it might be a good idea for her to lawyer up right now. She claimed ignorance of the unmasking and spying but today she spoke about doing it. Yes, red flags are everywhere on this! The reality and truth is this was more of a political attack to destabilize the Trump presidency and embarrass him:Andrew McCarthy said it best: The national-security adviser is not an investigator. She is a White House staffer. The president s staff is a consumer of intelligence, not a generator or collector of it. If Susan Rice was unmasking Americans, it was not to fulfill an intelligence need based on American interests; it was to fulfill a political desire based on Democratic-party interests. The bottom line is that laws were broken when the names were unmasked Someone s in BIG trouble! | 0 |
BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday congratulated U.S. Republican Donald Trump on his election victory and offered to work closely with him on the basis of the values of democracy, freedom, respect for the law and for the dignity of people. “Germany and America are bound together by values - democracy, freedom, respecting the rule of law, people’s dignity regardless of their origin, the color of their skin, religion, gender, sexual orientation or political views,” Merkel said. “On the basis of these values, I am offering to work closely with the future President of the United States Donald Trump,” she added. Merkel said working with the United States remained a key pillar of Germany’s foreign policy. | 0 |
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IioEIUmawRo | 1 |
James Kallstrom is the former Assistant Director of the FBI who is no fan of former FBI Director James Comey. We ve reported several times on Kallstrom s very blunt take on the politicization of the intelligence community (see below). Check out his awesome take on how Comey folded Wow!Kallstrom tells it like it is in his latest interview: James Comey, the notion that Barack Obama was going to let Hillary Clinton was going to be indicted that was obvious to anybody who knows anything at the very beginning Unfortunately, it turns out he was a political hack I think he maybe started out in an honorable way. His opinion of himself is sky high. Unbelievable guy. Just an arrogance about him I think he thought he was Superman and found out he wasn t. The dogs are always going to bite you on your heels when you re dealing with the Clintons. Look how long the American people have been dealing with the crime syndicate known as the Clinton Foundation We got all these major crime things bubbling All of which are 20 times bigger than Watergate! And nothing seems to be happening The Attorney General is in a coma! James Kallstrom, former FBI Assistant Director, said he is glad it happened. Daily CallerKallstrom endorsed Donald Trump for president He said he feels like America is going down the tubes . We should listen to this man! He s been in the belly of the FBI beast and knows the truth. | 0 |
Amid the hand-wringing over the gutter-level sexual exchanges between Trump and Cruz, it doesn’t hurt to remember that it has been ever thus in American politics.
The innuendos flying back and forth between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump about the mutual sexual peccadillos of the candidates and their wives has elicited an abundance of hand-wringing over how such mud-slinging has dragged presidential politics into the gutter. Actually, it has returned it to the steamy, if seamy, flow of American history that harkens back to the Founding Fathers. The only surprise is that pundits affect to be surprised by this turn of events. In fact, sexual indiscretion and its consequences are an indelible part of our nation’s political tradition
The issue is not whether our forbears who attained, or aspired to, the White House were plaster saints but, rather, how the times in which they lived responded to their behavior. The ink had hardly dried on the Constitution in 1791 when our first secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, entered into a liaison with Maria Reynolds, whose scoundrel of a husband, James, blackmailed Hamilton in return for his silence, further implicating Hamilton in corruption charges. It wasn’t until six years later that Hamilton’s political enemies exposed the affair. Hamilton responded by coming clean, admitting that he’d slept with the lady but denying the corruption charges. His response won him points for candor but the mud never quite came unstuck.
Ted Cruz might not want to follow the path pursued by Andrew Jackson, who killed Charles Dickinson in a duel in 1806 for impugning the reputation of Jackson’s wife, Rachel. The duel did nothing to mar Jackson’s reputation, as evidenced by his being elected president two decades later. The more notorious sexual scandal of Jackson’s political career occurred during his presidency when he insisted on defending the virtue of Peggy Eaton, the wife of his War Secretary, John Eaton. Peggy, a local tavern keeper’s daughter disparaged in Washington society for her allegedly easygoing ways, was shunned by the wives of Jackson’s cabinet. What started out as a contretemps of social snubs soon grew into a full-blown political schism. Eaton eventually resigned, but Jackson revenged himself on his recalcitrant cabinet members by dismissing several of them. Jackson won the battle but at a cost that contributed to a growing schism in the Democratic Party.
A different set of circumstances entirely arose from two men who entered the White House as bachelors: James Buchanan (1857-1861) and Grover Cleveland, who served two terms in the Gilded Age. There, their similarities end. Buchanan was rumored to have had a homosexual friendship with William Rufus King, himself a former vice president, whom Jackson disparagingly referred to as “Miss Nancy.” The real scandal of Buchanan’s tenure was his virtual abdication of executive responsibility as the nation unraveled in the months leading up to the Civil War.
Grover Cleveland was another story. Running as a reforming Democrat in 1884, he was vilified by his Republican enemies as the father of an out-of-wedlock son whom he’d sired during an earlier sojourn in Buffalo. The GOP, which had run the bribe-receptive Sen. James G. Blaine against Cleveland, sought to detract from their own candidate’s turpitude by sullying Cleveland’s reputation. Cleveland was mocked with the chants of “Ma, ma, where’s my Pa?” accompanied by cartoons lampooning the errant father who’d abandoned his illegitimate son. Cleveland turned the tables on his tormenters by acknowledging responsibility for the boy and providing for his welfare, although he never fully owned up to admitting paternity. The exposure may have dented his campaign but didn’t derail it as he went on to win the White House.
Then there was Warren Harding, the first president to be elected with the women’s vote, who displayed his fondness for the ladies by maintaining a long-term affair with his best friend’s wife, Carrie Phillips, when he was elected in 1920, and, for good measure, embarking on a second liaison in the White House with the youngish Nan Britton. Their trysts led to the birth of an illegitimate daughter, Elizabeth. Monthly payments to the parties involved assured their discretion. Harding’s tenure was ushered in by Prohibition and the ensuing Jazz Age. But his teetotaling supporters came to have greater concerns than rumors of randy hijinks in the Executive Office when the Teapot Dome scandal blew the roof off the GOP White House.
The age of Democratic ascendancy, which roughly stretched from the New Deal through the Great Society, provided an Era of Good Feeling where the human lapses of our Chief Executives were overlooked by a forgiving press. It was only after their tenures that a more prurient, or judgmental, posterity examined their private affairs more closely. Thus, the discreet indiscretions of Franklin Roosevelt with Lucy Mercer and Missy LeHand (or, for that matter, Eleanor with Lorena Hickock), Jack Kennedy’s serial philandering, or LBJ’s randy ways, were all suppressed by a media that was more concerned with presidential policies than peccadillos.
With the sexual abandon of the Cultural Revolution came a new approach to residents of the Oval Office or aspirants for the job. Those who sought or won the post, for the most part, had the same human frailties as their predecessors. The difference was in the Anything Goes approach of the media, whetted by the success of exposing the Watergate scandal and abetted by a technological revolution that made what was once the province of intimacy the source of prurient interest under the rubric of “the public’s right to know.” Watergate, whatever its virtues, made the president fair game and encouraged an “investigative” journalism that devolved from monitoring public malfeasance to invading what had once been considered private affairs.
So by the 1988 campaign, when Democratic Sen. Gary Hart’s presidential hopes and political career became caught in the maw of tabloid journalism and left to the mercies of reporters on the scent of sexual scandal, the quest for the presidency had become an adjunct of the entertainment industry. The Oscars for this spectacle went to the Clinton impeachment proceedings.
Donald Trump took it to the next logical step from turning a candidate into a celebrity to simply making a celebrity a candidate. Americans love a circus and the circus has now come to town, or rather the electronic Town Hall of social media, digital dazzle, squawk radio, and cable wrestling that passes for discourse in our political arena. The unrestrained passions of partisan politics and party faction that Washington futilely warned against were there from the beginning. They have simply been amplified by technology. The list cited above is a short one. | 1 |
CHAMAN/QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Thousands of Pashtun tribal people who for decades ignored the invisible line that bisects their dusty villages and demarcates the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier are bracing for a Berlin Wall-style divide of their neighborhoods. Pakistan, worried by Islamist attacks, is building a fence to prevent militants criss-crossing the porous 2,500 km (1,500 mile) frontier along the disputed colonial-era Durand line drawn up by the British in 1893. The fence, which Kabul opposes, will run down the middle of so-called divided villages where few people have passports and Pashtun tribal loyalty often trumps allegiance to the state. Seven such villages are dotted around Chaman district, home to the bustling border-crossing town of Chaman in Pakistan s southwestern province of Baluchistan. Other divided villages are believed to exist further north in the restive Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Pakistani officials in Baluchistan are now working on shifting Pakistani citizens in the divided villages to their side of the fence and say security worries override concerns that it will break up communities. (A border wall) was there in Germany, it is in Mexico. It is all over the world why not in Afghanistan and Pakistan? said Col. Muhammad Usman, commander of Pakistan s Frontier Corps paramilitary force in Chaman. These tribals have to understand that this is Pakistan and that place is Afghanistan. Yet scepticism about the fence abounds. Pakistan s previous attempts to build one failed about a decade ago and many doubt whether its possible to secure such a lengthy border. The appeal of erecting physical border barriers waned after the Berlin Wall was torn down in 1989. But in recent years, several populist leaders have advocated building walls to curtail movement of foreigners, most notably U.S. President Donald Trump, who wants a wall along the entire border with Mexico. Hungary s right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban recently fenced the border with Serbia to prevent Syrian refugees and other Muslim migrants from entering the eastern European country that acts as a gateway to the European Union. Pakistan, in anticipation of the fence, plans to build more than 100 new border posts and Islamabad is recruiting in excess of 30,000 soldiers to man them, according to a senior military source. Trump is doing as per requirements of America; we are doing as per requirements of Pakistan, added Usman. Tense relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan boiled over in two divided villages in May during Pakistan s census survey. More than 10 people were killed when Afghan border troops, objecting to the census, clashed with the Frontier Corps in Killi Jahangir and Killi Luqman villages near Chaman. Kabul and Islamabad accuse each other of sheltering militants and providing safe havens for Islamist groups who carry out cross-border attacks. Many residents in Killi Jahangir and Killi Luqman welcome the fence in the hope it will prevent bloodshed. But others are concerned it will hurt business and separate them from friends and family. There will no infiltration of terrorists or suspects from Afghan areas... but my own small business, which I was doing with Afghan people, will be affected, said Abdul Jabbar, a Pakistani owner of a small enterprise in Killi Jahangir. Pakistani officials have long struggled to impose security in the Pashtun tribal heartland. The area stretches for hundreds of kilometers, including rugged mountainous terrain, and has been a hotbed of arms and heroin smuggling for decades. U.S drone strikes have also targeted militants from al Qaeda and other groups in the region. For the likes of taxi driver Abdul Razzaq, 30, having peace of mind offsets the loss of business due to the fence. Now I can sleep in my home without any fear, he said. | 1 |
One man was set to testify against the Clinton Foundation next week. That man was 50 year old former Haitian government official Klaus Eberwein. He was found dead in his Miami home with a gunshot to the head that s been ruled a suicide by the Miami-Dade s medical examiner records supervisor. (Think Vince Foster)Klaus Eberwein, a former Haitian government official who was expected to expose the extent of Clinton Foundation corruption and malpractice next week, has been found dead in Miami. He was 50.Eberwein was due to appear next Tuesday before the Haitian Senate Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission where he was widely expected to testify that the Clinton Foundation misappropriated Haiti earthquake donations from international donors.Eberwein, who had acknowledged his life was in danger, was a fierce critic of the Clinton Foundation s activities in the Caribbean island, where he served as director general of the government s economic development agency, Fonds d assistance conomique et social, for three years.According to Eberwein, a paltry 0.6% of donations granted by international donors to the Clinton Foundation with the express purpose of directly assisting Haitians actually ended up in the hands of Haitian organizations. A further 9.6% ended up with the Haitian government. The remaining 89.8% or $5.4 billion was funneled to non-Haitian organizations. The Clinton Foundation, they are criminals, they are thieves, they are liars, they are a disgrace, Eberwein said at a protest outside the Clinton Foundation headquarters in Manhattan last year.The former director general of Haiti, who also served as an advisor to Haitian President Michel Martelly, was also a partner in a popular pizza restaurant in Haiti, Muncheez, and even has a pizza the Klaus Special named after him.According to the Haiti Libre newspaper, Eberwein was said to be in good spirits , with plans for the future. His close friends and business partners are shocked by the idea he may have committed suicide. It s really shocking, said Muncheez s owner Gilbert Bailly. We grew up together; he was like family. Your News WireAmericans were warned about the crooked dealings of the Clinton Crime family when in September of 2016, former Senate President of Haiti, Bernard Sansaricq, shocked a large crowd at a Trump campaign event in Little Haiti, FL. Sansaricq stood up during the public event and relayed his account of the Clinton s dirty dealings in Haiti while he was still in office. To his credit, candidate Donald Trump allowed Sansaricq to speak his mind, and to expose the crimes of the Clinton s, who were attempting to scratch and claw their way back into our White House.Sansaricq claimed he begged the Clinton Administration not to invade Haiti. His request was followed up with a visit by an anonymous messenger from the White House who encouraged him to side with the Clinton Administration and he would be the richest man in Haiti. He also demanded that Hillary Clinton disclose the audit of all money related to the Haiti earthquake crisis, as he claimed they scammed the poorest citizens of Haiti out of BILLIONS of dollars through the Clinton Foundation. Not even 2% of that money went back to Haiti. So Mr. Trump, we are asking you, begging you, the Haitian community will side with you if one day, you ask Hillary Clinton publicly to disclose the audit of all of the money they have stolen from Haiti in 2010 after the earthquake. Haiti is a very poor country. Haiti needs defenders. You said you would champion our cause. We welcome you sir and we will work with you. Ask Hillary Clinton publicly, during your next debate for an audit of all of the money they have stolen from Haiti. Go to the 5 minute mark of the video to see Sansaricq s comments to candidate Trump: | 0 |
A teen opened fire at an elementary school in Townville, S.C., wounding a teacher and two students after allegedly killing his father. The shooter is in custody, and the sheriff s department gave a brief press conference as per usual for shootings like this. However, when discussing whether this could be called terrorism, Captain Garland Major gave a frankly disgusting reason for why this couldn t be terrorism: The students were both white males. The teacher was a white female. The shooter is a white male. There is no racial undertone, no terrorism involved. Oh really. It s only terrorism when it s, who, Muslims? Brown people in general? Them, in other words? Whether a violent act is terrorism depends partly on the reason it was carried out, not who carried it out. This shooter was 14 years old with no known relationship to his victims. Was it terrorism? We don t know, but it s racist as all hell to say they were white, so it s not terrorism. Watch below, via Crooks and Liars:The fact is that domestic terrorists in the U.S. tend to white men. They also tend to be right-wing extremists and they re a bigger threat than ISIS, according to law enforcement. For a white sheriff s deputy to claim this can t be terrorism because everyone involved is white is abhorrent in the extreme.Featured image via screen capture from embedded video | 1 |
Fox News Martha Maccallum SHREDS Hillary’s RUSSIAN Theory in ONE TWEET Fox News Martha Maccallum SHREDS Hillary’s RUSSIAN Theory in ONE TWEET Politics By Amy Moreno November 4, 2016
As the Wikileaks emails start getting more and more damaging the Clinton campaign is doubling down on their Russian conspiracy theory by now suggesting the Russians are writing FAKE emails.
Que?
However, Fox News’ Martha MacCallum pointed out a rather YUGE flaw in the logic of the Hillary camp claiming Russians created “fake” emails to try and interfere with the election.
In one recently released email, Clinton campaign chair John Podesta writes that they needed to “dump emails.”
After that had hit the news, Podesta tried explaining that by “dump” he meant the emails should be made public.
Ha ha ha….O….K, pal.
Afterward, Martha tweeted out a tweet that pretty much destroys the “Russians made fake email” story. Once you start haggling over what you meant in an email, the idea that it was written by the Russians kind of goes out the
— martha maccallum (@marthamaccallum) November 2, 2016 This is a movement – we are the political OUTSIDERS fighting against the FAILED GLOBAL ESTABLISHMENT! Join the resistance and help us fight to put America First! Amy Moreno is a Published Author , Pug Lover & Game of Thrones Nerd. You can follow her on Twitter here and Facebook here . Support the Trump Movement and help us fight Liberal Media Bias. Please LIKE and SHARE this story on Facebook or Twitter. | 1 |
Yesterday, a cowardly recipient of America s generosity, via a broken chain migration policy, walked through the busy subway terminal near the Port Authority Transit hub, where he planned to use a homemade bomb strapped to his body as a weapon to terrorize as many people as possible. The chain migration terrorist claims he chose the Port Authority site because the poor little radicalized Muslim who America welcomed with open arms, was triggered by the Christmas posters that hung in the hallways of the terminal. The chain migration terrorist, who was inspired by ISIS, failed miserably.The media will show their true colors when they ignore the ease with which radical Muslims from hotbed terror nations have been allowed to enter the United States, and will instead, will focus on Ullah s statement about wanting to punish President Trump for recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The media will also ignore the fact that we wouldn t even be having this conversation if Ullah was not allowed to enter the United States during Obama s presidency. It was actually during Barack Hussein Obama s second term in 2014, that Ullah began to explore ways to commit acts of terror against Americans, as a way to show his allegiance to the cowardly terror group, ISIS. (See paragraph f. )Port Authority bomber Akayed Ullah wanted to send a message straight to the White House: Trump you failed to protect your nation. Here is a screenshot of the complaint filed by Assistant United States Attorneys:That s what the 27-year-old ISIS adherent wrote on his Facebook page while on his way to blow himself up at the bustling transit hub Monday morning, according to the federal complaint filed Tuesday.He had also written in his passport: O AMERICA, DIE IN YOUR RAGE. The charges also reveal that the 27-year-old Bangeldesh-born cabbie s online radicalization began in 2014, and he began researching how to build bombs a year ago although he only constructed his crude explosive device at his Brooklyn home a week ago.Ullah built the bomb for maximum damage, federal prosecutors charge filling it with metal screws and performed the bombing on a workday because he believed that there would be more people. NYP | 1 |
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Joanne Liberato had noticed a few unusual things about her son Eddie. He seemed to bruise more easily than his older brother, and his cuts took too long to heal. However, nothing seemed worthy of panic until the day when a minor fall turned into a major injury.
If Joanne hadn't followed her instincts, her toddler might have died. Image Credit: Flickr CC/ Damien Ayers
According to Kidspot , it was eighteen-month-old Eddie's penchant for copying his older brother that led to the accident. Although neither boy was allowed to play on the couch, three-year-old Joel often did so anyway.
When Eddie climbed up there himself, his mom called out for him to stop and ran to grab him. Unfortunately, she was too late to catch his fall. She tells Kidspot:
“It was a heart-stopping moment, but then he started crying a second later and I thought he must be okay, people always say if they cry it means they’re okay.”
To Joanne's relief, Eddie didn't seem to have any injuries. However, his cries and the slight swelling she noticed on his head made her uneasy, so the worried mom followed her intuition and took her son to the hospital. Loading Facebook Post...
At first, it seemed as though she had overreacted. After being under observation for four hours, Eddie seemed fine and his mother was ready to take him home. But when the toddler began vomiting, a doctor ordered a CAT scan. Suddenly, Joanne was extremely grateful they hadn't left the hospital earlier. She tells Kidspot:
“They said he had bleeding on the brain and he had to be flown to Lady Cilento Hosptial in Brisbane for emergency surgery. All I could think was, 'what if I had gone home?' I could have lost him.”
After Eddie's emergency surgery, doctors were disturbed to see that excessive bleeding was preventing his wound from healing properly. That's when Joanne told the doctors about her son's tendency to bruise and have cuts that bled for too long.
The mom's recollection spurred new tests that revealed Eddie had hemophilia, a rare disorder that prevents blood from clotting. The discovery saved his life :
“If they didn't stop the bleeding he would have passed away.”
Unfortunately, that was only the beginning of the complications the courageous boy would face. Two successive infections required an operation to remove a portion of infected skull. This was followed by multiple blood transfusions and forty stitches in his head.
Now, Eddie has to wait several months for surgery that will put a plate on his skull to protect his brain. In the meantime, a GoFundMe page has been set up to help the family with his medical costs. Loading Facebook Post...
Eddie must wear a helmet to protect his fragile head and avoid rough play. His mother tells the Sunshine Coast Daily that keeping the active toddler safe can be stressful:
“It's very hard for him, he just wants to run around with his brother and have fun. I'm living on tenterhooks watching over him.”
Still, after everything her son has been through, Joanne says it's amazing how well Eddie has coped with his injuries. She tells Kidspot:
“He’s just an absolute trooper, I’m really proud of how he’s handled everything.” | 1 |
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