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| Mike Huckabee appeared on FOX s Hannity show where Kimberly Guilfoyle was filling in for host Sean Hannity. Guilfoyle congratulated the former Governor Mike Huckabee s daughter Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders for her handling of the hypocritical press. Guilfoyle talked about the media and how they attacked President Trump for retweeting a hilarious video made to look like he was body-slamming CNN, while ignoring the Central Park play where President Trump was stabbed to death on the’stage in front of thousands.Huckabee told Kimberly Guilfoyle he was proud of his daughter and how she’s handled the constant attacks by the media. Huckabee gave a hilarious example of why he believes his daughter is able to handle the leftist media so well: I think my daughter is handling this very well because she has three preschoolers at home. So she’s used to dealing with petulant children who ask the’same question over and over hoping to get a different answer, the one that they want. And so maybe that s part of the reason she’s able to stay flat-footed, look those folks in the eye and handle it. |
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| New Zealand Green Party leader James Shaw said on Thursday he was confident of reaching an agreement with Labour and New Zealand First to provide support for the formation of a coalition government. Shaw said a final decision would be made on Thursday evening and he was very confident of a change in government after nearly a decade of center-right National governments. The incoming Labour-New Zealand First coalition needs the Greens to commit to a confidence and supply agreement in parliament to ensure they have a majority. |
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| You seriously can’t make this up. This Democrat run city is officially out of control. We reported before that the EPA knew about this crisis long before they told anyone, yet the media and the Left continues to try to pin the blame squarely on Michigan s Republican Governor. This latest threat is just another black eye for the officials handling the Flint, MI water crisis As the water crisis in Flint deepens, it is becoming apparent that the effects of the lead-infested water are not just a health hazard, but the’situation has the potential of ruining many more lives outside of the poison issue. There is no denying that the water in Flint is undrinkable and that it is contaminated with lead and other substances, and it is clear that the government of Flint is responsible for the problem.However, the city s government continues to charge people for the poison water and then threatening to foreclose their home or take their children if they’refuse to pay. Michigan law states that parents are neglectful if they’do not have running water in their home, and if they chose not to pay for water they can’t drink anyway, then they could be guilty of child endangerment.Activists in Flint say that some residents have already received similar threats from the government if they’refuse to pay their bills.Flint residents have recently filed two class action lawsuits calling for all water bills since April of 2014 to be considered null and void because of the fact that the water was poisonous. We are seeking for the court to declare that all the bills that have been issued for usage of water invalid because the water has not been fit for its intended purpose, said Trachelle Young, one of the attorneys bringing the lawsuit, in court. Essentially, the residents have been getting billed for water that they cannot use. Because of that, we do not feel that is a fair way to treat the residents, Young added.Recent estimates have indicated that it could take up to 15 years and over $60 million to fix the problem, and the residents will be essentially forced to live there until the problem is solved. Despite the fact that the issue is obviously the government s responsibility, they have made it illegal for people to sell their homes because of the fact that they are known to carry contaminated water. Meanwhile, residents are still left to purchase bottled water on their own, in addition to paying their water bill.Although this problem is finally getting national media attention in Flint, they aren’t the only city with contaminated water supplies. In fact, a recent report published by The Guardian showed that public water supplies across the country were experiencing similar issues.This crisis highlights the many dangers of allowing the government to maintain a monopoly on the water supply and calls attention to the fact that decentralized solutions to water distribution should be a goal that we start working towards.Via: DC Clothesline |
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| Rattled by rising tensions with North Korea, South Korea is taking extra measures to try to ensure the safety of the 2018 Winter Games, including setting up a crack cyber defense team and doubling the number of troops, according to officials and documents reviewed by Reuters. The Games take place next February in the mountainous resort town of Pyeongchang, just 80 km (50 miles) from the heavily fortified border with North Korea. They come after a series of missile and nuclear tests show the North making rapid advances in its weapons program and as inflammatory rhetoric between Pyongyang and Washington stirs up concerns about another conflict on the Korean peninsula. South Korea s Defense Ministry will deploy some 5,000 armed forces personnel at the Games, double the 2,400 on duty during the 2002 World Cup, which South Korea co-hosted with Japan, according to government officials and documents reviewed by Reuters. Pyeongchang s organizing committee for the 2018 Games (POCOG) is also selecting a private cyber security company to guard against a hacking attack from the North, tender documents show. The committee is seeking to fast-track the selection as tensions rise in the wake of South Korea s controversial deployment of the U.S. THAAD anti-missile system, and as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un tests weapons at an unprecedented rate. Cyber threats have increased due to external factors such as the THAAD deployment and recent North Korean missile launches, the committee said in the document. The committee will make all-out efforts to ensure the Pyeongchang Olympics are the safest ever, it said. We strongly believe we can host the Olympics successfully as we have invested a lot and prepared well for cyber security, it said in a statement in response to queries from Reuters. South Korea has blamed the North for a series of hacking attempts in the last few years, including a 2013 cyber attack against South Korean banks and broadcasters that froze computer systems for more than a week. Pyongyang denied any responsibility. While South Korea faces unique challenges with its hostile and nuclear-armed neighbor, the level of threats and security to counter them have escalated globally since South Korea last hosted a major international sporting event. The POCOG is hiring a private security contractor, stipulating the firm should be capable of running around 500 personnel to operate X-ray screening each day during the event, a separate document seen by Reuters shows. It has earmarked 20 billion won ($17.6 million) for the screening security measures and another 1.3 billion won for the cyber security protection, according to the documents. An official from the National Intelligence Service, South Korea s spy agency, is in charge of security operations, working with the government s anti-terrorism center, the organizing committee s spokeswoman told Reuters. South Korea has also created a new Special Weapons and Tactics team to guard against terrorism around the Games, Asia s first Winter Olympics outside Japan. We will search Olympic venues to check for bombs, protect athletes and visitors, and guard against any attempts to assassinate key figures, Jin Jeong-hyeon, a police inspector from the SWAT team, told Reuters. In late August, the POCOG held a two-day briefing with major Olympic sponsors including McDonald s Corp (MCD.N) and Coca-Cola Co (KO.N) to talk about the measures being put in place, according to a government statement. It gave them a look at emergency evacuation facilities during the briefing, though further details were not disclosed. While some observers view Pyongyang s threats as bluster, others point to instances of North Korean aggression during the 2002 World Cup and ahead of the 1988 Seoul Olympics as reasons to be concerned. In June 2002, as South Korea prepared to play Turkey in the playoff for third place at the World Cup, North Korean patrol boats crossed the disputed maritime border and exchanged fire with South Korean vessels, killing six South Korean sailors. In November 1987, just nine months before South Korea was set to host the Summer Games in Seoul, North Korean agents detonated a bomb on Korean Air Flight 858, killing all 104 passengers and 11 crew. One of the agents later told investigators the order had come from North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and one of the aims had been to frighten international athletes and visitors from attending the Seoul Olympics. Other Olympics have also been affected by violence, most notably the killing of 11 Israeli athletes by Palestinian militants at the 1972 Munich Games. Mexican police and military killed hundreds of civilians during a protest just days before the Mexico City Olympics in 1968. South Korea s sports minister Do Jong-whan said this week Seoul was very concerned about aggressive remarks traded between Pyongyang and Washington but did not believe Kim would risk a war against countries participating at the Olympics. The International Olympics Committee is encouraging the participation of North Koreans as athletes, judges or wild cards to help ensure the safety of the Olympics, Do added. Chang Ung, North Korea s IOC member, said earlier this month that the Pyeongchang Olympics will not be affected by the escalating crisis on the peninsula and North Korea will hopefully be able to send athletes. Figure skating, short track speed skating and Nordic skiing could potentially feature North Korean athletes, he said. Despite the heightened security measures, there isn t a lot South Korea can do to reassure participants, said Lee Soo-hyuck, a former foreign affairs presidential secretary. This issue is more about whether North Korea would decide to carry out hostile actions or not. |
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| This is Barack Obama s Justice Department and Loretta Lynch is just taking orders. This is a BIG development!The Justice Department has granted immunity to the former State Department staffer who worked on Hillary Rodham Clinton s private email server, a sign the FBI investigation into possible criminal wrongdoing is progressing.A senior U.S. law enforcement official said the FBI had secured the cooperation of Bryan Pagliano who worked on Clinton s 2008 presidential campaign before setting up the’server in her New York home in 2009.As the FBI looks to wrap up its investigation in the coming months, agents will likely want to interview Clinton and her senior aides about the decision to use a private server, how it was set up, and whether any of the participants knew they were sending classified information in emails, current and former officials said.Read more: Washington Post |
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| During a live CNN interview with Rudy Giuliani, host Chris Cuomo held the former New York Mayor s feet the fire over his justification for Donald Trump’s most recent controversial remarks. Giuliani asserted, like Donald did, that Hillary Clinton will abolish the Second Amendment. That s not legally possible but Giuliani ran with it.At one point, Cuomo asked Giuliani if Trump becomes President of the United States, is that going to be your position, is that he goes out, he ll says things and then you ll come on and say what he actually meant? Cuomo then brought up Trump’s recent jaw-dropping claim that President Obama and Hillary Clinton founded ISIS. That remark is peculiar in more than one way. Trump is featured in at least two ISIS recruitment videos.However, Giuliani called Trump’s claim legitimate political commentary. Cuomo responded, saying, But it s not true, then went on to compare Trump’s remarks to his Second Amendment people threat toward Hillary Clinton. It s part of a pattern, Cuomo said. I don’t control what comes out of his mouth. The man has blacklisted me, won’t come on this show because he doesn’t like answering questions about what he’says. It s a pattern of the press exaggerating what he’says, Giuliani said, likely attempting to blame the Liberal Media . He s saying my coverage is rigged, Cuomo said. Do you think my coverage is rigged? I think a lot of coverage is rigged, Giuliani responded. How is it rigged? Cuomo said. This comes out of his mouth and you have to apologize for it. I m telling you he didn’t say words of violence! Giuliani declared. You say things in a lot of ways. This is what the man does, Cuomo remarked. He says things that are either casual or hyperbolic to impress the crowd. And then they go too far and he refuses to apologize and blames the media. It s happened at least 10 times that I can name right off the top of my head. Raw Story uploaded a few of the clips.[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAEnSJcAJJY][youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ijfm4SXc94][youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctK2taY5SH0]Giuliani said that Donald not releasing his taxes is a problem but not much of an issue compared to Hillary Clinton s handling of emails. Cuomo countered that, too, with facts Giuliani disregarded by making accusations which he could not back up. Giuliani, throughout the whole interview, stammered while trying to justify his candidate s appalling rhetoric.Donald does not have the ability to apologize and move on. That prompts each of his controversial remarks to linger on in the media. When he’s held accountable for the words that come out of his mouth, he then blames the media for quoting him verbatim.Featured image via screenshot |
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| The European Commission added to mounting confidence in Brussels that it is set for a Brexit deal with London when it scheduled talks with EU lawmakers ahead of a crunch meeting on Monday with Theresa May. However, EU officials and diplomats cautioned on Sunday that it was still unclear that a deal would be struck with the British prime minister when she meets the EU executive. Two hours before they sit down for lunch with May in Brussels, Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and his Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier will brief Guy Verhofstadt and his European Parliament Brexit team, an official said. Verhofstadt and his colleagues wrote to the EU negotiators last week to sound an alarm at what they said were stalled talks on EU demands that the rights of EU citizens in Britain be guaranteed directly by the European Court of Justice after Britain leaves the European Union. They also voiced concern about Northern Ireland. Parliament must ratify any treaty on Britain s withdrawal from the European Union before Brexit in March 2019 in order to create the smooth transition period May wants, and so it will be vital to both sides to keep the legislators on board. Senior EU officials and diplomats said work was continuing on Sunday. One person close to the discussions said the situation was delicate . It s still quite fluid, said a second person involved. Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister and strong critic of Brexit, declined to comment. The German leader of the center-right group in the EU parliament warned that lawmakers were not yet satisfied. On Brexit negotiations, money is one of the problems, but it is not the biggest one, Manfred Weber said in a statement. We are much more concerned about the fact that so far negotiations are stalled on the protection of EU citizens rights after Brexit and on the Irish case, he said. The EU wants outline accords on three critical divorce terms before it will open negotiations on the transition and a future free trade pact that would follow. May s lunch on Monday is a deadline for the EU to have her final offers before EU leaders consider whether to agree at a Dec. 15 summit to launch Phase 2. Britain and the EU aim to sign a joint declaration setting out progress toward final deals which the Commission, as the EU executive, would say was sufficient for opening trade talks. EU officials say terms have been agreed for a financial settlement long resisted by hardline supporters of Brexit. The Irish prime minister said on Saturday that would essentially cover all the 60 billion euros the EU had demanded. On the second key issue of a deal to avoid a hard border on land between Britain and the EU across the island of Ireland, diplomats say the joint document will set out rules for reaching a border deal aimed at avoiding disruption to peace in the north but leaving open many of the details. The third issue, of citizens rights, has long seemed the least problematic, but the European Parliament s concerns were a reminder of how far the insistence on the ECJ having the final say in whether London was respecting the withdrawal treaty conflicts with British demands to be free of EU courts. It was not immediately clear what compromise, if any, has been found. EU governments had also been pressing London to give better terms to EU expatriates on bringing in future family members and on moving social welfare benefits across borders. One suggestion in Brussels has been to limit clearly any ECJ involvement as a last resort and clearly only available to those EU citizens who choose to go on living in Britain before Brexit, not to any who arrive later. There are 3 million of them today. Looking to show skeptical pro-Brexit allies that she has secured something in five months of negotiation that seem set to end with London broadly accepting the EU s original terms, May has insisted that Brussels make a simultaneous and reciprocal commitment to transition and trade talks if she accepts a deal. That seems set to be the case with the joint declaration. Everyone knows we have to honor politically what the Brits have accepted on money, a senior EU diplomat said. So on Monday they will sign this document. If all goes to the plan, 27 EU leaders would give the official green light on Dec. 15, a day after May has joined them for a routine summit on other EU business.. The deliberately vague concept of sufficient progress gives the political leaders the option to leave plenty of room for future negotiation. The key thing for many in Brussels is that it should mark the establishment of trust that both sides are willing to work for a separation that is not too disruptive. |
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| The amount of corruption we have seen in Donald Trump’s rise and presidency has been alarming, and it s not going to stop anytime soon.Even after suspiciously firing his FBI Director during an explosive investigation and having several high profile personal lawsuits, scandals and conflicts of interest, the Republican Party still has yet to hold Trump accountable for his faults. Whenever the GOP has had a chance to distance itself from Trump and do the right thing, spineless Republicans have failed to stand up and put their country first.In a Friday column in The New York Times, columnist Paul Krugman brilliantly pointed out the Republican Party s failing during Trump’s presidency. Krugman states that today s GOP has become more about tax cuts for the rich than anything else, and conservatives will defend it at all costs. Arguing that Republicans no longer care about their country or its Constitution, Krugman wrote: This structure rewards, indeed insists on, absolute fealty. What this means is that nearly all Republicans in today s Congress are apparatchiks, political creatures with no higher principle beyond party loyalty. We ve certainly seen this play out in the way that Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and other prominent Republicans refuse to hold erratic Trump accountable even as his scandals and behavior put the country at risk. But even if Trump were to be impeached, Krugman warns, the threat to the Republic will be far from over. Krugman states that Trump’s idiocy may have actually helped the country stay away from more sinister Republican values: In a perverse way, we should count ourselves lucky that Trump is as terrible as he is. The point is that given the character of the Republican Party, we d be well on the way to autocracy if the man in the White House had even slightly more self-control. Trump may have done himself in; but it can still happen here. We hate to say it, but he’s probably right.Featured image via Mark Wilson / Getty Images |
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| The White House said on Thursday it would respond to Iran’s ballistic missile test and other hostile actions, a day after President Donald Trump’s national security adviser put Tehran on “notice,” but it stopped short of providing any details. “We will have further updates for you on those additional actions, but clearly (national security adviser Michael Flynn) warned to make sure that Iran understood that they are on notice that this is not going unresponded to,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters. |
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| Just before the sun dipped into the Mediterranean on Saturday, rescuers spotted a tiny wooden boat on the horizon. It turned out to contain five young Libyans fleeing violence and turmoil who were waving their arms for help. The crew of the Seefuchs plucked them from the old fishing boat, gave them water and couscous and one of the men, 26-year-old Hamza Tekbali, explained why they had fled their country. Libya is terrible, Tekbali told Reuters as he waited to be transferred to an Italian coast guard vessel. In Libya, if you do not kill, they will kill you, he said, adding that he feared he would be sent straight back home. The Seefuchs, a ship operated by the humanitarian group Sea-Eye, carried the men to Catania, Italy, on Wednesday along with 16 other Libyans picked up on Sunday. Already this year some 800 Libyans have reached Italy by sea, more than double the number for the whole of 2016, according to data collected by the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR). The number is a fraction of the more than 100,000 non-Libyan migrants who have come to Italy from the country since January, but it suggests that the situation is deteriorating for Libyans in their own country. Migrants traveling through Libya from elsewhere in Africa en route to Europe already face terrible conditions. For the past few months we have seen more Libyans, said Marco Rotunno, who monitors migrant arrivals for UNHCR in Sicily. They mostly point to a lack of security as their reason for leaving. They talk about fighting, kidnappings, ransom and armed robberies. Conditions in Libya have deteriorated sharply since a 2011 uprising that ousted Muammar Gaddafi. Gangs frequently kidnap people for ransom, power and water outages are common, health services have been crippled and residents often have to line-up for days to withdraw cash from banks due to a liquidity crisis. The United Nations is making a new push to end the conflict that has opened the way for Islamist militants and armed smuggling groups who have sent hundreds of thousands of migrants to Europe. In mid-September, fighting erupted in Sabratha, a people smuggling hub on the Western coast, after an armed group clamped down on migrant boat departures, prompting a cross-town rival to retaliate. As of Friday, at least 26 civilians and combatants had been killed and 170 wounded. Islamic State militants conduct attacks in Libya as well, including one on Wednesday that killed at least four people and wounded 39. UNHCR says there are still more than 217,000 internally displaced people in Libya and more than 278,000 who have recently returned home and who are considered people of concern. Tekbali abandoned his hometown of Kikla, which is located southwest of Tripoli and said it was too dangerous to return. His friend Rafat, who did not give his last name, said he was fleeing Libya after having been kidnapped by a militia in 2016. He was released after nine days when his father paid a ransom of 120,000 dinar ($87,600) but said he feared a repeat. A third man, 24-year-old Alaa, said he was persecuted in Libya because his father had fought in Gaddafi s military. Tekbali said the five friends planned their voyage for a month and set out from a beach between Sabratha and Zuwara after paying 5,000 euros ($5,888) to smugglers for the boat and the small outboard engine. |
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| The United States and Iran quarreled over how Tehran s nuclear activities should be policed at a meeting of the U.N. nuclear watchdog on Monday, in a row sparked last month by Washington s call for wider inspections. Key U.S. allies are worried by the possibility of Washington pulling out of a 2015 landmark nuclear deal under which Iran agreed to curb its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions against it being lifted. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley last month called for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect a wider range of sites in Iran, including military ones, to verify it is not breaching its nuclear deal with world powers. Her remarks were rejected by a furious Tehran. We will not accept a weakly enforced or inadequately monitored deal, U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry told the IAEA General Conference, an annual meeting of the agency s member states that began on Monday. He did not say whether he thought the deal was currently weakly enforced. The United States ... strongly encourages the IAEA to exercise its full authorities to verify Iran s adherence to each and every nuclear-related commitment under the JCPOA, Perry added, referring to the deal by its official name the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Perry was speaking shortly after the General Conference formally approved the appointment of Yukiya Amano, a 70-year-old career diplomat from Japan, to a third term as IAEA director general. U.S. President Donald Trump has called the accord the worst deal ever negotiated and has until mid-October to make a decision that could lead to Washington reimposing sanctions on Iran. Iran s nuclear chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, told the meeting in Vienna that Washington had made a host of unjustifiable peculiar demands with regard to the verification of our strictly peaceful nuclear program . We remain confident that the (IAEA) will resist such unacceptable demands and continue to execute the agency s ... role with strict objectivity, fairness and impartiality, he said. Salehi also criticized what he called the American administration s overtly hostile attitude The IAEA has the authority to request access to facilities in Iran, including military ones, if there are new and credible indications of banned nuclear activities there, but diplomats say Washington has yet to provide such indications. Amano often describes his agency s work as technical rather than political and has declined to comment on Haley s remarks about inspections. In a speech on Monday, however, he defended the deal as an important step forward. The nuclear-related commitments undertaken by Iran under the JCPOA are being implemented, Amano said. Iran is now subject to the world s most robust nuclear verification regime. |
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| The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued waivers on certain federal requirements for the sale, production and blending of gasoline to avoid supply shortfalls in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Harvey and as Hurricane Irma approaches Florida, the agency said Thursday. The EPA said winter-grade gasoline will be allowed to be sold through September 15 in most states in the country other than those on the West Coast and in the Rocky Mountains. It also temporarily waived federal requirements covering the production and blending of winter gasoline through September 26, it said. |
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| Thank you DC Leaks! It s about time George Soros Open Society organization was hacked!DC leaks had this to say about Soros:George Soros is a Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, philanthropist, political activist and author who is of Hungarian-Jewish ancestry and holds dual citizenship.He drives more than 50 global and regional programs and foundations. Soros is named as the architect and sponsor of almost every revolution and coup around the world for the last 25 years. Thanks to him and his puppets USA is thought to be a vampire, not a lighthouse of freedom and democracy. His slaves spill blood of millions and millions people just to make him even more rich. Soros is an oligarch sponsoring Democratic party, Hillary Clinton, hundreds of politicians all over the world.This website is designed to let everyone take a look at restricted documents of George Soros Open Society Foundation and related organisations. It represents workplans, strategies, priorities and other activities of Soros. These documents shed light on one of the most influential network operating worldwide.Information is available online at DC LeaksThere are tons of files available to look over The Goals of Soros group are listed and target groups listed too: |
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| U.S. Republican Senator Marco Rubio said on Wednesday that tax legislation is likely to include an expanded child tax credit, adding that any reform without such a change would not truly provide relief for the middle class. “My sense is it will be in the underlying bill,” Rubio told reporters, adding that he would try to ensure that the credit could be refunded against payroll taxes, not just federal income taxes. “It looks like it’s settling back to about $2,000 and that’s about as low as we can go.” |
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| The majority of small businesses and non-corporate enterprises known as “pass-throughs” would see a significant tax cut under the Republican tax plan, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Friday. “Ninety-eight percent of the number of pass-throughs have $500,000 or less of income ... those people will get substantial reductions,” Mnuchin said in a CNBC interview after a key Republican senator earlier this week objected to the current plan over the issue. On Thursday the House of Representatives approved a broad package of tax cuts. |
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| This new information just adds more validity Trump’s argument, that the US needs to take a more serious look at the way we’vet immigrants if we want to protect our national security While State Department and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service branch of the Department of Homeland Security do ask if immigrants have been involved in terrorism, the most well known of over a dozen terrorist groups aren’t listed in applications, according to the analysis from homeland security expert Mark A. Sauter.The form asks if the applicant has ever belonged to a terrorist group, but neglects to ask if they currently belong to one. How hard would that be to update? He said that federal officials told him that the questions about terror group involvement are required by federal law, meaning that congressional action is needed to include modern-day threats in the written questions.However, detailed written questions are asked about Nazi cooperation, as are questions about whether applicants are drunks, polygamists, or Communists. One survey does single out Colombian terror organizations in the written questions, though they have never attacked inside the U.S. The lack of specific questioning about the biggest threat to the United States as the country eyes thousands in line from Syria, Afghanistan, Iran and elsewhere seeking residency raises new questions about how immigrants are vetted, and gives ammunition to Republicans like presidential candidate Donald Trump who has called for extreme vetting to weed out likely terrorists. The Examiner |
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| The green criminals who re working on how to distribute your money to those in far away places had a splendid meal last night in Paris. Could someone tell Obama we’re broke?As working dinners go, President Obama s meal Monday night in Paris with French President Francois Hollande, Secretary of State John Kerry and others wasn’t too shabby.No cartons of takeout instead, the gang fueled up after a long day of climate talks at L Ambroisie, the three-Michelin-starred temple of gastronomie in the Marais neighborhood.Per the Michelin Guide, the ornately be-chandelier-ed dining room is known for incomparable classicism and an immortal feast for the’senses. Perhaps worried that Obama would create an international faux pas by ordering a burger or a margarita (two of his faves), a reporter asked what he planned to eat. Obama was, appropriately, diplomatic: I will get recommendations from the president, he answered, nodding in Hollande s direction.According to the AP, Obama cracked a joke about the opulence of the’setting. Don t break the chandelier, he warned as a reporter s microphone got just a little too close to the crystal. You can’t afford it. |
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| The moment Donald Trump is sworn in as president, Congress could begin impeachment proceedings and they could win. It could easily happen, and as much as we can’t stand Trump, that would be horrible.Before you shake your head and dismiss this as just another conspiracy theory, here are some facts from a Utah law professor, Christopher Lewis Peterson, who wrote a 22 page article telling us how and why Congress can and should impeach Trump. Clearly, we won’t reprint all of the 22 pages, but here s the abstract, which by itself is pretty compelling:In the final weeks of the 2016 Presidential campaign Donald J. Trump faces three lawsuits accusing him of fraud and racketeering. These ongoing cases focus on a series of wealth seminars called Trump University which collected over $40 million from consumers seeking to learn Trump’s real estate investing strategies. Although these consumer protection cases are civil proceedings, the underlying legal elements in several counts that plaintiffs seek to prove run parallel to the legal elements of serious crimes under both state and federal law. This essay provides a legal analysis of whether Trump’s alleged behavior would, if proven, rise to the level of impeachable offenses under the presidential impeachment clause of the United States Constitution. This essay begins with a summary of the evidence assembled in the three pending Trump University civil lawsuits. Next, it describes the legal claims involved in each matter. Then, this essay summarizes the applicable law of presidential impeachment under the United States Constitution and analyzes whether Trump’s actions in connection with Trump University are impeachable offenses. Finally, I offer concluding thoughts, considering in particular the policy implications of a major presidential campaign with simultaneously pending legal complaints of fraud and racketeering.Now, why would a Republican Congress impeach a Republican President? Well, as you’recall, the vast majority of the GOP wing of Congress only reluctantly supported Trump.Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, was perhaps the most vocal reluctant supporter, saying that he was sickened by Trump’s rhetoric, but would support him anyway.Most thought Ryan was sticking with Trump as a matter of political expediency. After all, they share the exact same voter base, but perhaps Ryan, who s not stupid, had something up his sleeve. Trump’s VP pick, Mike Pence, is tailor made to help elevate Paul Ryan s agenda. He s ber conservative and ber Christian. While Trump is a wildcard, Pence is someone who Ryan can Trust. Pence won’t squawk while Ryan strips senior citizens of Social Security or the poor of food. Trump might not squawk, but he’s not predictable, either.While both Ryan and Pence (and most Republicans in Congress) are social conservatives who want to set back rights for LGBT people and women, again, Trump is a wildcard. Trump used to be pro-choice and despite the fact that his campaign was built on hate, he’said very little about LGBT people. It s highly doubtful that Trump will defend the rights of gay people or abortion rights, but that s not a chance Ryan or Republicans in Congress want to take.The Trump University lawsuit is set to start at the end of the month. It s a civil suit, but it will highlight that voters elected a con man. It will certainly be enough to make the most anti-Trump members of Congress talk and it could give us a President Pence. Yes, that s frightening.Featured image via Mark Wilson/Getty Images. |
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| Harvard is agreeing to erase the history of their Law School founder to satisfy individuals or groups who don’t agree with him. Didn t we see something similar to this happening in the Middle East? It wasn’t that long ago that ISIS destroyed all symbols of Christianity in Iraq and other countries because they’represented the history of Christ and was offensive to the Islamic terrorists. Did Americans think that was okay? This politically incorrect nonsense needs to stop before every ounce of history has been sanitized from our public and private schools, colleges and universities Harvard University has decided to drop its famous law school emblem after a handful of students said it was racist because it was tied to an 18th-century family of slave holders.The Harvard Corporation, the body that governs the university, voted in favor of a Harvard Law School committee recommendation to drop the’seal. Harvard s president, Drew Faust, told the dean of the law school, Martha Minow, he approved the idea, Reuters reported.The emblem has been around since 1936. It shows three sheaves of wheat with the motto, Veritas, the Latin word for truth, scrolled across the top.The image comes from the coat of arms used by the family of Isaac Royall, a man the media paints as the’son of an Antiguan slaveholder who was also the endower of the first law professorship at the university, Reuters said. Via: WNDThe university denied it was revising history.Maybe they were just caving to threats or threatening behavior like this protest that took place on campus. Students can be seen here protesting at Harvard University over death of thug, Michael Brown:Harvard protestors crowd at the Law School to rally against the #Ferguson decision, yelling "no justice, no peace." pic.twitter.com/cHMSaM1KNY Meg Bernhard (@meg_bernhard) December 1, 2014 In light of recent events, Drew Faust shows her support. pic.twitter.com/p8ej81vxZa Harvard University (@Harvard) December 11, 201412-11-14 Harvard President Drew Faust declared via Twitter that black lives matter. Harvard s official Twitter account posted an image Wednesday of Faust wearing a t-shirt with the movement s slogan and the’statement, In light of recent events, Drew Faust shows her support. In November, 2015, Portraits of black Harvard Law School faculty members were defaced on a day after a campus rally for black students, according to the law school. Several portraits were discovered Thursday with black strips of tape placed diagonally over the black faculty members faces. The portraits were on the first floor of Wasserstein Hall, which houses two hallways with more than 180 framed portraits of law professors.Harvard Law School Dean Michele Minow said in a statement The Harvard University Police Department is investigating the incident as a hate crime. Harvard Law School students started a Facebook page with the following stated mission: We are a movement of students calling for the decolonization of our campus, the’symbols, the curriculum and the history of Harvard Law SchoolHere is a post from that page: While we accept the request to change the’shield, we do so on the understanding that the’school will actively explore other steps to recognize rather than to suppress the realities of its history, mindful of our shared obligation to honor the past not be seeking to erase it, but rather by bringing it to light and learning from it, Faust said, Reuters reported. Via: WNDIn the end, we can’t help but wonder how much this former Harvard Law School student, turned Commuity Agitator in Chief had to do with their decision to erase history at Harvard: |
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| MSNBC s Mika Brzezinski had a snarkfest with AP reporter Julie Pace during a series of questions that culminated in her saying that President Donald Trump’s actions on Obamacare made him look like an idiot. These two just brought journalism to a new low with this exchange:Pace was speaking about the reasons why Republicans were unable to pass a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare. Pace said that the White House had people connected on Capitol Hill who knew that the bill was in trouble. Trump expressed confidence in the bill s passage as late as Monday afternoon.Brzezinski asked: Who s talking to the president before he gets out in front of the cameras at the White House with the vice president behind him saying This is going to be good an hour before this goes down in flames? Does the right hand know what the left is doing, at all? Is anybody speaking truth to this president? It s not even truth to power. Are they telling him what s going on so he doesn’t look like an idiot? WHAT S PRESIDENT TRUMP SUPPOSED TO DO WITH SNAKES LIKE McCONNELL AND OTHERS? NOT TO MENTION THE DEMOCRATS WHO REFUSE TO WORK WITH THE PRESIDENT! This is where the AP reporter gets snarky on the president s moves. She’s referring to the tweets Trump’sent about Mika in this next exchange: I think that you know this better than anybody. You can say anything to the president that you want, you can’try to speak truth to power, and he will get up there and say something completely different if he feels that way. PRESIDENT TRUMP TWEETED: |
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| Prime Minister Theresa May failed to clinch a deal on Monday to open talks on post-Brexit free trade with the European Union after a tentative deal with Dublin to keep EU rules in Northern Ireland angered her allies in Belfast. The British leader had sat down to lunch with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker hoping that a last-minute offer to the Irish government of regulatory alignment on both sides of a new UK-EU land border would remove a last obstacle to the EU open talks next week on future trade. Yet as May and Juncker spoke in Brussels and the pound rose on prospects of free trade and perhaps a very soft Brexit , Northern Ireland s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) issued an uncompromising reiteration of its refusal to accept any divergence from rules on the British mainland. Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar cancelled a news conference and the pound fell back, losing a cent against the dollar, as May and Juncker emerged to say there was still not sufficient progress on divorce terms to move ahead. May agreed with Juncker that a deal could be reached in a few days before the EU summit on Dec. 14-15, but that promise did little to stem recriminations at home, where Brexit campaigners want Britain to become what one called a free agent and set its own rules. Varadkar shared the view of some officials in Brussels that it was an opportunity missed. I m surprised and disappointed that the U.K. government appears not to be in a position to conclude what was agreed earlier today, he told a news conference in Dublin. I accept that the British prime minister has asked for more time and I know that she faces many challenges and I acknowledge that she is negotiating in good faith but my position and that of the Irish government is unequivocal. The Irish border has emerged as a defining issue for Brexit, one of the thorniest of three main issues, which include how much Britain should pay to leave and protections for expatriate citizens rights, to be settled before moving talks forward. With time running down after Britain triggered the two-year divorce process in March, May is keen to push the talks to a discussion of future trade to try to offer nervous businesses some certainty over their investment decisions. All sides say they want to avoid a return to a hard border between EU member Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland, which might upset the peace established after decades of violence. But they have found it difficult to find the right wording on guaranteeing the unguarded border as set out in the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement that will suit all sides. Dependent on the support of lawmakers in the DUP for a majority in parliament, May must keep them on board and has repeated that she wants to maintain the economic integrity of the United Kingdom in any Brexit deal. By suggesting May would settle for continued regulatory alignment if there was no alternative way, some in the DUP and in her own party fear Northern Ireland could get a kind of special status that could draw it away from the mainland. A DUP source said the party s leader, Arlene Foster, had spoken to May while she was in Brussels. The phone call took place shortly after Foster told supporters she would not allow a Brexit deal that created regulatory divergence . The leaders of Scotland and Wales, and the mayor of London, also announced that they would want to follow suit if special terms were agreed for Northern Ireland. We haven t decided to dismantle the United Kingdom and give in to the demands of the Irish government, said pro-Brexit lawmaker Jacob Rees-Mogg after a Conservative Party meeting in London. May s aides were sanguine, saying expectations had been too high for what some had billed as a crunch meeting in Brussels, and they played down any involvement of the DUP in sinking the deal. One EU official even said the last-minute hitch may have been stage-managed to give the British prime minister some scope for saying she had fought hard for her position with the EU. Juncker hailed May as a tough negotiator . May added: We will reconvene before the end of the week and I am also confident that we will conclude this positively. But European Council President Donald Tusk, who met May and who will chair next week s summit in Brussels, said that he had been ready to send draft negotiating guidelines for a free trade pact to EU leaders on Tuesday. It is now getting very tight but agreement at December (summit) is still possible, Tusk tweeted. |
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| Florida Governor Rick Scott is not holding anything back. He is angry that Obama has made the Second Amendment the enemy while ignoring ISIS. We need a President who says my number one job right now is, on top of turning the economy around is to destroy ISIS. |
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| The race between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders for the U.S. Democratic presidential nomination - once a civil affair - has taken a sour turn, with mud-slinging from both camps over the former secretary of state’s win in the Nevada caucuses. Sanders’ supporters are alleging that foul play by casino managers helped Clinton out in Saturday’s contest, while Clinton’s camp has blasted - in at times vulgar terms - the Vermont senator’s assertion he took the state’s Latino vote. The tensions reflect the tight battle between the two heading into next Saturday’s South Carolina primary. Sanders, who had surged in recent months to challenge front-runner Clinton, is trying to maintain momentum against her in a part of the United States where she wields an advantage among minority voters. The angrier tone also marks a turn from what has been a mostly civil race on the Democratic side, in contrast with the noisy insult-hurling that has characterized much of the Republican race. . While Sanders and the former first lady have publicly clashed on their approaches to healthcare and regulating Wall Street, they have frequently emphasized their common ground on social issues. Sanders has also refused so far to join in Republican attacks on Clinton’s record as secretary of state. “Let’s talk about the real issues facing America,” he said during one televised debate. The tone soured after Nevada. Officials with National Nurses United, which endorsed Sanders, have said there were irregularities at casino caucus sites - such as casino managers wearing Clinton paraphernalia - which they said amounted to intimidation of casino employee voters. “From what nurses observed in Nevada Sanders campaign should call for UN observers to protect democracy,” the union said in one Twitter post on Sunday. Neither Clinton nor Sanders’ campaigns immediately responded to requests for comment on the allegations. Meanwhile, both campaigns have argued about what the polling from the Nevada caucuses show. One set of entrance and exit poll results conducted by CBS News showed Sanders took 53 percent of Latino votes in the state. This is a critical group for Sanders as he seeks to broaden his support base after his early results - a very narrow loss and a decisive win - in Iowa and New Hampshire, which have overwhelmingly white voter populations. “I don’t typically like to swear on Twitter, but by all accounts so far this is complete and utter bullshit,” Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill wrote on Twitter, referring to a Sanders’ campaign press release asserting he took the Latino bloc in Nevada. Clinton has been expected to find easier territory as contests move into the south in the state-by-state battles to pick a party presidential nominee for the November general election. Her backers say minority voters are her “firewall” against Sanders’ popularity among young voters who dislike establishment politics and are attracted by his vows to take on Wall Street excesses and high college fees. She won Nevada, which is nearly a quarter Latino, by just over 5 points. Sanders’ camp, meanwhile, has disputed Clinton camp assertions that she drew the lion’s share of the union votes in the Nevada contest, accusing her campaign of inventing figures. “They do have a tendency to make stuff up,” Sanders’ spokesman Michael Briggs said in an email. The American Federation of Teachers issued a press release on Monday listing 23 unions that back Clinton. (Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Frances Kerry) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production. |
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| Tune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room tonight 6:00 PM PST | 8:00 PM CST | 9:00 PM EST for this special broadcast. Join us for uncensored, uninterruptible talk radio, custom-made for bar fly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher and Spore along side Andy Nowicki the Nameless One & the gang for the hundred and twenty eighth episode of BOILER ROOM. Turn it up, tune in and hang with the ACR Brain-Trust for this weeks boil downs and analysis and the usual gnashing of the teeth of the political animals in the’social reject club.This week on the’show the ACR Brain-Trust is back with another meeting of the Social Reject Club in the No Friends Left Zone and the gang is discussing the outcome of Free Speech Week at Berkeley, #KneeGate, a Jim Carrey follow up and much more.Direct Download Episode #128 Please like and share the program and visit our donate page to get involved! Reference Links, for your consideration and research: |
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| A Texas federal judge appointed by Obama has again rejected the 2011 Texas voter ID law, stating that the legislators meant to discriminate against minority voters.Tucker Carlson interviewed one of the lawyers involved in the case. The reasoning is beyond flawed! The only people being discriminated against are the LEGAL voters of this nation! Why is this activist judge assuming that minorities are being discriminated against? You will find her reasoning to be biased and racist. The Court of Appeals even came back with this statement: some of the evidence used by the judge wasn’t relevant. U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos made this same ruling in 2014, which forced an appeal. The Fifth Circuit issued a stay against the order. The Supreme Court stepped in and allowed Texas to use the voter ID law.But last July the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans asked the judge to re-examine the decision since the judges found that some of the evidence used by the judge wasn’t relevant. The two sides reached a deal for the 2016 election, which allowed a voter to sign a declaration swearing that he or she has had a reasonable difficulty that prevented obtaining one of the accepted forms of photo identification. Ramos went back to the drawing board but came to the’same conclusion.The Texas Tribune reported:After weighing the evidence again, she came to the’same conclusion, according to Monday s ruling. Her decision did not identify what some have called a smoking gun showing intent to discriminate, but it cited the’state s long history of discrimination; virtually unprecedented radical departures from normal practices in fast-tracking the 2011 bill through the Legislature; the legislation s unduly strict terms; and lawmakers shifting rationales for passing a law that some said was needed to crack down on voter fraud. The Court holds that the evidence found infirm did not tip the’scales, Ramos wrote. Civil rights groups and others suing the’state offered evidence that established a discriminatory purpose was at least one of the’substantial or motivating factors behind passage of SB 14, she added.The law requires a voter to use one of seven forms of identification when they vote. The voter can use a driver s license, concealed handgun license, military ID, passport, or a state-issued personal ID card.Democrats and civil rights activists claimed the Republican legislators departed from procedural norms in passing the law, including classifying it as emergency legislation, cutting debate short and bypassing the ordinary committee process in both chambers. But Republican officials, which includes Governor Greg Abbott, insists the law stops voter ID and strengthens the integrity of elections.From The New York Times:They said that the law was aimed at preventing voter fraud and that the departures from the normal legislative process were made to prevent Democratic lawmakers from manipulating procedural rules to thwart passage. They maintained that opponents had turned up no evidence that any legislator had intended to discriminate against blacks and Hispanics.Texas lawmakers have not announced how they ll respond, but they can choose to appeal again.Fox News reported:Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton did not immediately react to the ruling, although the’state could once again appeal, which is what one of Paxton s top deputies appeared to suggest would happen while testifying to lawmakers just as the ruling came down. Brantley Starr, a deputy first assistant attorney general, acknowledged that Texas could be dragged back under preclearance but noted there was little precedent. It s possible. It s our belief that you’d have to have multiple instances of discriminatory purpose, he’said. |
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| It looks as though Republicans are hellbent on obstructing President Obama from doing his constitutional responsibility of nominating a new Justice to the Supreme Court to replace the recently departed Justice Antonin Scalia. They keep touting the line that we should wait until the next president is elected, that way the people can weigh in on who they’d like as a replacement, not quite realizing the people did weigh in (twice) when they elected and reelected President Obama. However, they know that Justice Scalia was the most conservative voice on the Court and knowing that Obama has the chance to nominate a liberal terrifies them to no end.No greater example of this fear was demonstrated than by Republican presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio while on Meet the Press with Chuck Todd. Rubio said: We have an obligation to do it, but not now. This term of the Supreme Court, they just started it. But it s not all year long. The court can function with eight justices, it does it all the time, especially when justices have to recuse themselves. For example, Kagan had to recuse herself early in her term because she had just left the administration.We re going to have an election in November where this vacancy is going to be an item of debate and voters are going to get their weigh in. So I just don’t think it s wise. And there s precedent for this, for a president nearing the last few months of his administration, to put someone on the court that may be there for 30 years. If you squint, you ll be able to see Rubio reach down his pants to pull that statement out of his ass. And knowing that line is absolute poppycock, and listening to Rubio try to justify himself, Chuck Todd snaps back: Do presidential terms end after three years? That s what I don’t understand, is why not go through the advice and consent? You don’t have to approve it. You can reject it. That s what happened in 68. But why not go through this process? And BOOM goes the dynamite. Todd was quite visibly perplexed and couldn’t quite seem to be able to wrap his head around the fact that Rubio was actually saying the words that were coming out of his mouth.However, Rubio wasn’t done. Squirming in his Underoos after that question, he’said: There comes a point in the last year of the president, especially in their second term, where you stop nominating. You basically say, at this point, with a few months left in your term, no accountability from the ballot box on the appointment you’re going to make on a lifetime appointment. But Todd interrupts this malarkey: We re Eleven months .! Declaring the amount of time left in Obama s term as Commander-in-Chief, and insinuating the president has every right to nominate someone new.Squirming some more, Rubio keeps denying the fact that Obama has every right to nominate a new Justice, because he thinks that he’s going to be president and he wants to nominate a conservative just like Scalia.What Rubio needs to understand is, President Obama can, should and will nominate someone to replace Scalia. Republicans are showing their fear and it s ugly. They are proving they are constitutionalists until they actually have to abide by the constitution, as per usual.Let s hope Obama nominates someone amazing, and nominates them soon.Watch the interaction here: Video: NBC Featured image: Screen Capture |
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| Hurricane Irma poses a bigger menace to power supplies in Florida than Hurricane Harvey did in Texas because Irma is packing near 200 mile-per-hour winds (320 km/h) that could down power lines, close nuclear plants and threats to leave millions of homes and businesses in the dark for weeks. Irma s winds rival the strongest for any hurricane in history in the Atlantic, whereas Harvey s damage came from record rainfall. Even as Houston flooded, the power stayed on for most, allowing citizens to use TV and radio to stay apprised of danger, or social media to call for help. When Harvey made landfall in Texas it made it fully inland and weakened pretty quickly. Irma, however, could retain much of its strength, said Jason Setree, a meteorologist at Commodity Weather Group. Irma has killed several people and devastated islands in the Caribbean. Current forecasts put almost the entirety of the Florida peninsula in the path of the storm, which made landfall in the Caribbean with wind speeds of 185 mph (295 km/h). The threat of the Category 5 storm, at the top of the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, is grave enough that electricity generator Florida Power & Light (FPL) plans to shut its two nuclear power plants in the state, and officials warned that it may have to rebuild parts of its power system, which could take weeks. Most Florida residents have not experienced a major storm since 2005, when total outages peaked around 3.6 million during Hurricane Wilma. Some of those outages lasted for weeks. Setree compared the projected path of Irma to Hurricane Matthew in 2016, which knocked out power to about 1.2 million FPL customers in October. FPL, a unit of Florida energy company NextEra Energy Inc, restored service to most customers affected by Matthew in just two days. But FPL spokesman Chris McGrath said: With a storm as powerful as Irma, we want customers to prepare for damage to our infrastructure and potentially prolonged power outages. He said it was too soon to speculate on the number and location of customers Irma could affect. In a statement this week, FPL estimated about half of its near five million customers - particularly in the trio of populous southeast counties Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Broward - had not experienced a major hurricane since 2005. Should Irma s worst fears be realized, our crews will likely have to completely rebuild parts of our electric system. Restoring power through repairs is measured in days; rebuilding our electric system could be measured in weeks, FPL Chief Executive Eric Silagy said. FPL, Florida s biggest power provider, said it had invested nearly $3 billion since 2006 to strengthen its grid, including placing 60 main power lines underground and installing nearly five million smart meters and other devices. Other publicly traded utilities in the Sunshine State, including units of Duke Energy Corp, Southern Co and Emera Inc, said in statements that they had also invested in intelligent, self-healing devices. Smart meters allow utilities to see outages as they occur, rather than waiting on customer calls, and utilities also use automated devices that can reenergize lines without damage that were taken offline because of contact with trees or other objects, said Jay Apt, director of the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center in Pittsburgh. Olivia Ross, a spokeswoman for CenterPoint Energy, which serves the greater Houston area, said these devices helped the utility keep the lights on for more people in the aftermath of Harvey as some issues were resolved remotely. But such devices can only do so much. Harvey s outages were limited to 312,000 customers, of which CenterPoint was responsible for about 109,000, as it quickly lost force after landfall and turned into a tropical storm. By contrast, Ross noted, Hurricane Ike in 2008 caused 2.1 million of CenterPoint s customers to lose power when it hit the Texas coast near Houston. |
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| Negotiators from Canada, Mexico and the United States kick off an ambitious first round of trade talks on Wednesday as the countries try to fast-track a deal to modernize the North American Free Trade Agreement by early next year. Following are significant moments in the history of the deal: * June 10, 1990: U.S. President George H.W. Bush and Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari issue a statement endorsing a new, comprehensive free trade pact between the two neighbors, ordering talks to begin. Canada would join the talks in 1991, paving the way for three-way negotiations. The United States and Canada inked a bilateral free trade deal in 1988. * Nov. 3, 1992: Running as an independent for president in the United States, Ross Perot claims the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), would lead to a “giant sucking sound” of jobs rushing to Mexico. Bill Clinton wins the election, defeating incumbent Bush. Perot wins 19 percent of vote to place a strong third. * Dec. 17, 1992: NAFTA is signed by outgoing Bush, Mexico’s Salinas de Gortari and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, creating the world’s largest free trade area. The timing was, in part, aimed at making it harder for President-elect Clinton to pursue major changes; Clinton had endorsed the deal but insisted on environmental and labor side agreements. * Jan. 1, 1994: NAFTA comes into effect, and a Mayan Indian guerrilla army in southern Mexico launches an armed rebellion against “neo-liberalism” and explicitly against the free trade deal. The declaration of war against the Mexican government leads to days of fighting and dozens of deaths before the rebels retreat into the jungle. * Nov. 30, 1999: Tens of thousands of anti-globalization protesters converge on the U.S. city of Seattle, leading to widespread rioting coinciding with a ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization, which was seeking to launch new international trade talks. The protests underscore growing, if scattered, opposition to free trade deals like NAFTA. * July 16, 2004: Senior trade officials from Canada, the United States and Mexico issue a joint statement touting a decade’s worth of expanded trade in North America. Three-way-trade more than doubled to reach $623 billion while cumulative foreign direct investment increases by over $1.7 trillion compared to pre-NAFTA levels. * Dec. 11, 2001: China formally joins the World Trade Organization, integrating the Asian giant more deeply into the global economy. Easing trade with China intensifies a trend that had been seen since NAFTA came into effect as the U.S. trade deficit soared to more than $800 billion by 2006. * Jan. 1, 2008: NAFTA is fully implemented as the last of its polices come into effect. In many sectors, NAFTA stipulates that trade barriers would only gradually be phased out, which was designed to smooth economic shocks in vulnerable industries. By this time, trade within the three North American nations has more than tripled since NAFTA began. * July 19, 2016: Billionaire businessman and political outsider Donald Trump formally clinches the Republican presidential nomination, winning the traditionally pro-free-trade party’s nod in part by denouncing NAFTA, calling it “the worst trade deal ever.” * Aug. 16, 2017: High-stakes talks aimed at “modernizing” NAFTA kick off in Washington, with both U.S. and Mexican officials aiming to conclude a new pact in early 2018 before elections later in the year in both nations might derail negotiations. A second round of talks is due to take place in Mexico in September. |
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| For a man who has spent his entire life fat-shaming women, bulbous orange blob Donald Trump is certainly a little let’s just say plump. Many Americans noticed that that the’same guy who feels J. Lo s ass is too fat and who told Chris Christie to stop eating Oreos because of his massive size also spends his time stuffing his face filled with well-done steaks slathered with ketchup and bucketfuls of fried chicken and gave him a taste of his own medicine during the election and now even the Pope is joining in on the fun.As BLOATUS was meeting with Pope Francis, the latter joked through a translator to Melania, What do you give him to eat, potizza? Potizza is a Slovenian pasty that is loaded with sugar, butter, ricotta cheese, and other fattening ingredients (it it also delicious). Basically, it is the equivalent of someone in America asking her if she’shovels cheeseburgers down his gullet all day.Naturally, this was not lost on the fine people of Twitter:@Corrynmb You know the Pope is calling him fat right? He's not giving him a compliment ??? Mario Velarde (@MarioV7) May 24, 2017@Corrynmb This is funny! Look at Trumps face priceless (@KKcline123) May 24, 2017@Corrynmb Potizza is a Slovenian pastry, very fattening marija dragovic (@marijadragovic5) May 24, 2017@Corrynmb ????The Pope just Fat Shamed Trump????Not that it s normally funny in regular situations but in this one it is Peter-John (@ipeterjohn) May 24, 2017@Corrynmb The way the Pope looks back at Trump. ? Chinz (@KDogPeele) May 24, 2017At this point, Trump is so mockable that even the Pope, who is normally reserved in his remarks, is just throwing his hands in the air and saying f*ck it. Watch it below the look on Trump’s face as he’seems to get the joke is priceless:Pope Francis jokes with First Lady Melania via translator, What do you give him to eat, potizza? (referring to a local pastry?) pic.twitter.com/8dF4wxGkiB Corryn Mobley?? (@Corrynmb) May 24, 2017Featured image via screengrab |
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| An Egyptian activist who is under criminal investigation for his human rights work on Tuesday dedicated an international rights award to the thousands of Egyptians he said had been tortured or imprisoned since veteran ruler Hosni Mubarak was overthrown. Mohamed Zaree, 37, the Egypt office director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, won the Martin Ennals Award, a prize given each year by a jury of 10 global rights groups. He is banned from traveling abroad so could not collect the award in person in Geneva, but spoke to the audience on Tuesday by video conference. I do not view this honor as recognition of my work alone, Zaree said. Instead, this award belongs to the tens of thousands of Egyptian citizens who have been tortured, imprisoned, disappeared or killed over the last six years for nothing more than standing up to corruption and tyranny through peaceful means. Egyptian rights activists accuse President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of erasing freedoms won in the 2011 Arab Spring uprising that ended Mubarak s 30-year rule. Last year authorities reopened an investigation into non-governmental organizations that document abuses, which the government accuses of receiving foreign funding to spread chaos Since seizing power in mid-2013 from the Muslim Brotherhood, Sisi has presided over a crackdown on his Islamist opponents that has seen hundreds killed and many thousands jailed. But the dragnet has since widened to include secular and liberal activists at the forefront of the 2011 uprising. Egypt says the measures are necessary for national security and that hundreds of soldiers and police have been killed. Zaree s seat was empty in the audience but his wife, Shymaa Abd El Aziz, and two school-age daughters received the award presented by Kate Gilmore, United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, on his behalf. He faces charges that could carry a life in prison sentence for receiving funds from foreign entities to harm national security and has been banned from travel since May 2016. His wife tearfully said the last time he was interrogated they lied to their daughters and said he was going somewhere for work. She said that him winning the award gave them the courage to tell them the truth if he was arrested. Within the context of the renewed crackdown on Egyptian human rights organizations, he has become a leading figure in Egypt s human rights movement, the awards jury said. Government pressure forced the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies to relocate its headquarters to Tunisia in 2014. The runners-up for the Martin Ennals Award were Karla Avelar, who founded El Salvador s first organization of transgender women, and FreeThe5KH, five Cambodian human rights activists who were recently released. The award s first recipient in 1994 was Chinese dissident Harry Wu. |
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| Zuo Aining has always been a striver, always making plans. After excelling in high school in the rustbelt city of Changchun, in northeast China, she was exempted from the country s dreaded college entrance exam when a leading business university in Beijing offered her early acceptance. After graduating from the school, University of International Business and Economics with a degree in business English, she got to work on her next plan. Zuo dreamed of going abroad to study, an increasingly common path for the children of the affluent families that have proliferated in China after years of breakneck growth. She applied to George Washington University in Washington, D.C., which her parents - her father is an accountant, her mother a technician for electronic instruments - were able to afford. She was accepted, and earned a Master s degree in accounting, which landed her a job as a tax consultant in Washington. Her plans to stay on in the United States were threatened after she failed to get a coveted U.S. work visa for two straight years in the annual lottery. That meant Zuo had to sign up for expensive MBA courses at a night school to keep her legal status as a student. At the same time, she worked full time for an accounting firm, until she finally got her visa last year in her third attempt. But now, after achieving her dream, Zuo - the granddaughter of former soldiers in the People s Liberation Army - has been looking wistfully at her homeland. She has always had clear career goals, but also a strong sense of pride in her country. In college, she spent the summer of 2009 marching with schoolmates in preparation for a huge parade that October in Beijing s Tiananmen Square to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People s Republic of China. Zuo and her marching cohort only flashed on TV screens around the country for a few seconds, among the tens of thousands of others also participating. But it was a proud moment for her and her parents. Now, as she watches China s rise with equal pride, she wonders if it s time to go back. Many industries in China are developing rapidly, it is likely that China might surpass the U.S. in terms of technology and market one day, she said. Relaxing in a park in Beijing, where she returned this autumn to take care of some official paperwork, Zuo said she was stunned by the changes she saw in China. The advances in financial technology, fast rendering Chinese cities cashless, were surprising. Things like app-linked bike sharing, which has become ubiquitous in Chinese cities, amazed her. Something new started gnawing at her. This time back in China the feeling that I have is one of worry that it would be very easy to be left behind if I return to the U.S., she said. That might make her recalibrate her plans, she said. My life is going as I planned five years ago, she said thoughtfully. But, if there is a better platform and opportunity for me to do what I want to do, I will come back without any hesitation. |
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| Myanmar and Bangladesh signed an accord on Thursday over terms for the return of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who have fled to Bangladesh, both governments said, amid concern that Myanmar s powerful army could prove obstructive. Rights groups have accused the military in mostly Buddhist Myanmar of carrying out mass rape and other atrocities during a counter-insurgency operation launched in late August in retaliation for attacks by Rohingya militants in Rakhine State. On Wednesday, the United States said the military operation that drove 620,000 Rohingya to seek sanctuary in neighboring, largely Muslim Bangladesh, amounted to ethnic cleansing , echoing an accusation first leveled by top U.N. officials in the early days of the humanitarian crisis. Myanmar is seeking to ease international pressure by striking an initial agreement on returns, while Dhaka wants to ensure overstretched refugee camps that have mushroomed in the Cox s Bazar region don t become permanent. The return of the refugees should start in two months, the pact says. A joint working group will be set up in three weeks and a specific bilateral arrangement for repatriation will be concluded in a speedy manner, the Bangladesh foreign affairs ministry said in a statement. We are ready to take them back as soon as possible after Bangladesh sends the forms back to us, Myint Kyaing, a permanent secretary at Myanmar s ministry of labor, immigration and population, told Reuters, referring to forms the Rohingya must complete with personal details before repatriation. The signing took place after a meeting between Myanmar s civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and Bangladesh foreign minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali in Naypyitaw. In its statement, Myanmar said the deal was based on the 1992-1993 repatriation pact between the two countries that followed a previous spasm of violence in Myanmar. Although Western countries and the world Muslim body, the Organisation for Islamic Cooperation, portrayed the matter as an international issue, Myanmar said it was resolved via two-way talks based on friendly and good neighborly relations . Issues that emerge between neighboring countries must be resolved amicably through bilateral negotiations, Suu Kyi s office said. On the basis of the 1992-1993 agreement, Myanmar would accept those who could present identity documents issued to the Rohingya by governments in the past, Myint Kyaing said. Acceptable identity documents include the currently distributed national verification cards, the now-withdrawn white cards , and receipts the Rohingya received for the return of white cards , he said. The refugees have to provide names of family members, previous addresses in Myanmar, birthdates and a statement of voluntary return in the forms they fill out, he added. Diplomats have said key deal elements will be the criteria of return and the participation of the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR. Other important points include safeguards for the Rohingya against further violence, a path to resolving their legal status and whether they would be allowed to return to their own homes and farms. Myint Kyaing declined to elaborate on those points. Speaking at a military event in Dhaka, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said she was calling on Myanmar to start taking back soon their nationals from Bangladesh . However, there was little enthusiasm for the deal among Rohingya refugees in the camps in Bangladesh s Cox s Bazar area near the Myanmar border. We will go back to our country if our demands are met, said one of them, Salimullah, who arrived in Bangladesh 15 days ago. Our demands are that we are given citizenship. They also have to give us back our land, he told Reuters Television. Suu Kyi, whose stature as a Nobel peace prize winner was tarnished by the crisis, has said repatriation of the largely stateless Muslim minority would be based on residency and that it will be safe and voluntary . But her civilian administration, which is less than two years old, has to share power with the military that ruled Myanmar for decades, and the generals have appeared less enthusiastic about the prospect of Rohingya returning. Russia s ambassador to Myanmar criticized the U.S. stance, saying that using the term ethnic cleansing was unhelpful and could aggravate the situation. On a visit to Beijing on Wednesday, Myanmar s commander in chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, was told by a senior Chinese general that China wanted stronger ties with Myanmar s military. Humanitarian workers told Reuters they were particularly concerned about a statement by Min Aung Hlaing last week. The situation must be acceptable for both local Rakhine ethnic people and Bengalis, and emphasis must be placed on wish of local Rakhine ethnic people who are real Myanmar citizens, Min Aung Hlaing said. His use of the term Bengali for the Rohingya implies they are from Bangladesh, and Buddhists in Rakhine are largely opposed to their presence. Min Aung Hlaing, over whom Suu Kyi has no control, also said the returnees would be scrutinized and re-accepted under the 1982 Citizenship Law and the 1992 Myanmar-Bangladesh bilateral agreement . The 1982 law, passed during the junta s long rule, ties Myanmar citizenship to membership of recognized ethnic groups, an official list that excludes the Rohingya. Senior U.N. officials based in Myanmar told Reuters they feared that security personnel in key positions may not cooperate over the return of Rohingya. |
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| We can’t be certain, but it almost looked like Megyn had blood coming out of her eyes during her interview with the’soft-spoken and sensible Dr. Ben Carson Megyn Kelly pressed Dr. Ben Carson to explain why the Khan family should apologize to Donald Trump, instead of the other way around.Carson said that the Khans said things that are false, like that Trump had never read the Constitution.When Kelly said that Khizr Khan was stating his opinion, Carson said that was unreasonable. Kelly said that she knew Carson as an empathetic and kind man, and asked him if he really believe that this Gold Star Family should apologize to Donald Trump that has sacrificed their son to protect this nation, that were viciously attacked by the presidential nominee that they owe him an apology? Carson responded that society has gotten itself into a tug of war where people try to demonize each other, and that Trump and the Khans need to realize that they are on the’same side. Via: Fox News |
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| Patrick Henningsen 21st Century WireWhat s up with the millennials? The Clinton campaign may have felt a jolt after seeing the front page headline from this morning s Wall Street Journal which read, Millennials Have Cooled on Hillary Clinton, Forcing a Campaign Reset. Traditionally, the 21 to 35 year old age bracket (born 1980-1993 in our epoch) has been a bastion of the Democratic Party. According to a recent Quinnipiac poll, Hillary Clinton s lead over Republican Donald J. Trump among under 35 s plummeted in the month of August from 25 points down to only 5 points. Pretty shocking, but even more so in a week that has seen a Hillary health scare, resulting in Trump’surging ahead of Clinton in multiple national polls, and also in perennially pivotal electoral patches like Florida and Ohio.So what s up? Why can’t Hillary chill with the millennials, like Barack once did?Back when she was battling Bernie Sanders in the primaries, Clinton pulled out all the’stops for the millennials even promising America s students a debt free college experience including free university tuition. Somehow, Hillary s sizzle has failed to produce the Bern with this crucial demographic. As much as they would love for it to be true, even the most optimistic of students knows that free tuition for all is nothing more than pie in the’sky, with some left feeling patronized in a way that voters have come to expect from desperate politicians making increasingly desperate promises on the campaign trail these days. What s really being overlooked by Democrat Party elites here though, is the uncomfortable truth that the old party ways simply aren’t working anymore, and the Clinton campaign is not viewed as transformative (as Colin Powell calls it) and thus, millennials are finding it difficult to get behind it.So if they are no longer with Hillary, where are they going? Definitely not to the GOP. Trump is a non-starter when it comes to millennials, many of which are already registered Democrats. No offense to Trump’supporters, but that s just the way it is there s simply not enough young deplorable jugend to go around. Both Trump and Clinton are two of the oldest potential president elects ever to face off in a general election, at 70, 69 yrs old respectively. Instead, a sizeable number of young swing(ing) voters are flocking to Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, who is currently polling at around 9% nationally, and also to Green Party candidate Jill Stein who is polling around 4%.One aspect worth noting here is that, unlike their generational predecessors, 21st century millennials are not afraid to take a risk on what they might view as a political start-up like the Libertarian or Green party. While traditional two-party system dinosaurs dream of squeezing rich donors at fundraising dinners, millennials dream of Podemos and crowdfunding the next revolution. But digital Jerusalem is still a ways off, and here is where idealism inevitably clashes with hard-core political reality: with the Trump-Clinton race in a near dead heat, millennials who have migrated into those alternative Johnson and Stein camps will indirectly decide the 2016 Election in much the’same way that Independent candidate Ralph Nader did in 2000 and to a lesser extent in 2004, although it s not so easy to calculate between Clinton and Trump exactly who will be the chief beneficiary from that alternative displacement vote. CHILLERY: Clinton is struggling to excite the millennial voters (Illustration: TrumpNews)There is another spanner in the Democratic machine which no one is talking about, and one which could certainly hurt Hillary Clinton, and help Donald Trump on November 8th. One pronounced crimp in the Clinton juggernaut came as a result of the Wikileaks DNC email leaks which revealed how, in its effort to shoe-in Clinton ahead of this past summer s party convention, the Democratic Party conspired to railroad the Bernie Sanders campaign effectively killing its mercurial millennial phenomenon. Old party hacks might not understand why this is so important because they are so wrapped up in time-honored Tammany Hall traditions, but to young idealistic millennials, this party betrayal would not only be viewed as unfair, but also as undemocratic, and rightly so. As a result, a nationwide write-in campaign for Sanders as President has begun to pick up steam. If this pulls in 2%, or even 1% away from Hillary s tally, especially in the key battleground states like Pennsylvania, Arizona or Michigan, then the race becomes even tighter still, and more unpredictable.This excerpt from the Reason report (below) should be the most sobering of all for Democrats, and it reveals the’source of their fatal disconnect:A Reason-Rupe poll of millennials in 2014 found 66 percent of them believing government was wasteful and inefficient even as many said they planned to vote Democrat in that year and in 2016. The drop off in support for Democrats is unsurprising, given that the rhetoric about government that Democrats deploy does not match the reality on the ground.In other word: the Democrats are as addicted to lying as any other political organization, and this cannot be fixed it s an institutional thing.In order to shore-up the millennial gap, the Democratic Party has dispatched its cohort of rock stars to college campuses across the country in order to woo millennials. Michelle Obama, Elizabeth Warren, and even Sanders (how Bernie could go out stumping after the DNC Leaks is pretty amazing in itself) have been sent like missionaries to the four corners of the country, in order to try and win back those millions of lost liberal souls, and lead them back into the party flock.To millennials, Bernie Sanders primary election loss dashed their hopes in much the’same way Ron Paul supporters felt in 2012 betrayed by a collusion between party mob bosses and the mainstream media. In both cases, aside from the obvious corruption, what was really dashed was the idealistic view that their generation had a real and meaningful stake in US politics and could even elevate its own candidate in a national election. Millions of previously disengaged voters finally found an original voice that resonated with their generation, and to see that voice crushed by political insiders and media operatives is a bitter pill to swallow. In America s winner-take-all system of Presidential elections, there is only room for one party winner a reality which will continue to frustrate young voters going forward, many of whom are well aware of parliamentary systems in other nation states, and systems which appear to allow more plurality when it comes to choosing a viable political leader. Like it or not, managing those global expectations in terms of party and leadership choice is a reality that America will have to contend with in the future.With so many free radicals still orbiting this election, it will be tricky to project a clear winner. Shades of 2000 perhaps, but this year there will be no hanging chads, but maybe something worse. Half the voters will be blaming either Obama (vote rigging), or Putin (vote hacking), as a reaction to any perceived electoral stitch-up (see #HashTagHell).It s a tricky year for the bookies, but one thing you can bet on is a serious fall-out after election day. So brace yourself, because in case you haven’t noticed, many Americans are viewing this election as a true do or die moment.In a United States already polarized along very pronounced partisan lines, whichever the result, one side will be baying for blood. That s just the way it is this year.Author Patrick Henningsen is journalist and geopolitical analyst for 21WIRE and host of the SUNDAY WIRE weekly radio show and also ON THE QT podcast@21WIRE.TV. Here s more useful analysis on the 2016 millennial dynamic from Ed Krayewski at Reason ReasonA number of new polls show Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson doing very well with millennials and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton underperforming with the’same demographic that helped President Obama build winning coalitions in 2008 and 2012.A New York Times/CBS poll shows 26 percent of voters under the age of 29 supporting Johnson and a further 10 percent supporting Green presidential nominee Jill Stein. Similarly, a Quinnipiac poll shows Johnson at 29 percent of young voters, and Stein at 15. In that poll, Clinton barely edges out Johnson among young voters, getting 31 percent. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is at 26 percent among that demographic in the poll. Further, a Global Strategy Group poll of millennials in 11 battleground states found 73 percent of millennials saying that Trump was a racist, and just 38 percent supporting Clinton in a 4-way matchup.The results have yielded unsurprising hand-wringing from older liberals who feel the vote of millennials belongs to them. Clara Jeffrey, editor-in-chief of Mother Jones, tweeted that she has never hated millennials more in response to the NYT/CBS poll, which earned refreshing responses from millennials Continue this story at ReasonREAD MORE ELECTION NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2016 Files |
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| Donald Trump has dismissed fellow White House hopefuls as liars, journalists as disgusting people and Mexican immigrants as rapists with a belligerent public speaking style that has helped catapult him to the front of the Republican pack. The verbal tactics, on display in Thursday night’s debate in Detroit, have given the billionaire real estate developer front-runner status in early primary contests and opinion polls of U.S. Republican voters. But they would not last long on an academic debate stage, according to high school and college competitors and their coaches. “He would last one tournament and then be removed from the team,” said Eric Di Michele, coach of the speech and debate team at Regis High School in New York, one of the country’s top-ranked teams. “This kind of ‘ad hominem’ attack followed by insults, I’ve never seen it.” “Ad hominem” attacks, a Latin phrase meaning directed at a person rather than an idea, have long been a staple of the U.S. campaign trail where candidates are selling themselves as much as their ideas to voters. Referring to his closest rivals to be the Republican presidential nominee in November’s election, Trump has repeatedly called U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas a “liar” and dismissed Senator Marco Rubio of Florida as “little Marco.” His wins in the early nominating contests have prompted some of his rivals to take a similar approach. Cruz has labeled Trump “profane” and “vulgar.” Rubio has poked fun at Trump’s tan, suggested he urinated in his pants and rolled out a sexual double entendre about the size of his hands. With a flourish, Trump kicked back at that on Thursday night, flashing his hands at the audience and asking, “Look at those hands. Are they small hands?” before dismissing any suggestion he might be small elsewhere. “I guarantee you there is no problem.” Di Michele called it “a surreal moment.” “In 34 years of coaching debate, I’ve never seen any debater reference the size of any part of his anatomy,” he said. Asked in Thursday’s debate about his own use of personal attacks, Rubio argued, “For the last year, Donald Trump has basically mocked everybody ... If there’s anyone who’s ever deserved to be attacked that way it’s Donald Trump.” Of the remaining Republican candidates, Ohio Governor John Kasich has steered away from the personal, sticking doggedly to policy amid Thursday night’s sometimes chaotic exchanges. Trump’s language, admired by his supporters as frank, has drawn wide criticism for its crude insults. Republican 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney attacked Trump’s style as well as his policies in a speech on Thursday, citing “the bullying, the greed, the showing off, the misogyny, the absurd third-grade theatrics.” In schools, the campaign antics have inspired academic debaters to become more civilized. “That sort of coarse language has made people more critical of the political parties,” said Charlie Barton, a 17-year-old Regis senior debater. “What we’ve seen is a greater shift away from that sort of rhetoric.” NO LINCOLN-DOUGLAS HERE Academic debating, also known as forensics, has a long history in the United States and takes much of its form and inspiration from politics. Indeed, one style of debating is named after the storied 1858 debates between Abraham Lincoln and U.S. Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois, which put the future president on the national stage. But the judging in academic debating is relentlessly focused on facts; students study examples and background before making their cases. The discipline can bear as much resemblance to current televised presidential debates as Greco-Roman wrestling does to chair-throwing WWE spectacles. “They are less like politicians and more like lawyers, because they are not necessarily going for a vote on personality, they are arguing that their case is correct,” said Derek Yuill, the speech and debate coach at Gabrielino High School in San Gabriel, California, a top-ranked U.S. forensics team. Some young debaters have watched the Republican matchups more as an example of what not to do. “I really wish I could take on Donald Trump in some kind of debate round, because he especially among the candidates would not fare well in academic debate,” said Jacqueline Dang, a 17-year-old senior at Gabrielino. “He doesn’t seem to have any kind of evidence or numbers to substantiate his claims, other than his poll numbers.” College debaters have also been watching Trump’s performance with bemusement, said Connie Lee, 18, the president of Dartmouth College’s Parliamentary Debate Team. “The name-calling and the ad hominem attacks get made fun of” at debate-watching parties, Lee said. She said that while many collegiate debaters are politically liberal, they still respect skilled oratory from conservatives when they see it. Cruz, who holds a spot on Princeton University’s debate hall of fame, is admired for his abilities. “There are jokes about ambitious debaters being the next Ted Cruz,” Lee said. A Trump spokeswoman said the campaign had no doubts about his debating ability. “According to all the online polls, Mr. Trump has performed exceptionally well and won all the debates,” spokeswoman Hope Hicks said by e-mail. Despite giving poor marks for Trump’s debate performances, Gabrielino’s Yuill said he does tell his students to note how well Trump gets into the spotlight to convey his message: “That’s what I tell them, how important it is to get their attention.” (Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Frances Kerry) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production. |
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| It s becoming increasingly clear that when TLC decided to promote a story of the fundamentalist Christian Duggar family, they weren’t just idolizing right-wing anti-gay bigots, they were legitimizing a toxic cult that for years had lived in the’shadows and now thanks to increasing exposure has begun to fester and grow. Quiverfull, the fundamentalist movement run by a man named Vaughn Ohlman, works to silence and control women in ways that wouldn’t seem entirely out of place in regions controlled by the Taliban. Its pitch is that women should be subservient to their husbands, and relied on primarily for household chores and churning out babies. (The full quiver in the name is a nod to the number of children each family is encouraged to have as many as possible.)But if mature women are reduced to home- and baby-makers, then girls are seen as less than that.Enter Ohlman s brand new retreat designed specifically for Christian dads to meet up and plan who they will give their daughters to, particularly troublesome ones who may be nearly out of high school and haven’t found a husband yet.Called the Get Them Married! retreat, the group s announcement is deeply disturbing.We at Let Them Marry Ministries are excited to finally be able to announce our plans for the Get Them Married Retreat. We ve set our plans and are accepting applications. Pending sufficient signups and barring unforeseen contingencies, we will be hosting the first Get Them Married Retreat this fall. Unforeseen contingencies might include the fact that nowhere in Let Them Marry Ministries lengthy post is the consent of the children ever acknowledged. Let them marry really means let us marry them off. This is made explicit in the rules :For the purposes of this conference we ask that a young man who is interested in a young woman approach her father (mother, brother, etc.) before approaching her. In the case where he is interested in a young woman who is not accompanied, we ask that the young man speak privately to one of the retreat staff members.As Raw Story points out, Ohlman is very big on the idea that children should be married as soon as possible. His criteria for when a girl is ready is between the ages of 13 and 20 (they claim they take a hard stand against 12-year-olds getting married. That is their red line). The’specifics are even more disturbing:How much will this retreat set you back? Depends. If you want a family sized cottage, be prepared to spend around $1200. If you just want to send your older, marriageable kids to a gender-specific bunkhouse with other older, marriageable kids, they can stay for as low as $130.That gets you a bed, meals, and a schedule full of lectures, activities and what they call intentionally blank spots for networking. So the next time you come across a Duggar (and yes, they’re back on TLC, despite everything), remember that the family values and longing to return to the good old days means this sort of theocratic nightmare. They have a very specific vision, and it s not pretty.UPDATE: The Salvation Army, which had originally agreed to host the retreat on their property in Wichita, Kansas, has reportedly backed and quite possibly ran away from this incoming disaster. The group will now have to find a new place to hold their child marriage swap.Featured image via YouTube screengrab |
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| 21st Century Wire says A small miracle a rare moment of truth on the mainstream media. Buried below all of the’salacious and sensational headlines and faux Russian intrigue in Washington over the last week, FOX News host Tucker Carlson delivered a stunning short interview with Theo Padnos, an American journalist who was held captive for two years (2012 2014) by US-UK and GCC-backed terrorists from Al Nusra Front aka Al-Qaeda in Syria.During the last 6 years under president Barack Obama, failing US officials like Hillary Clinton and John Kerry have been whitewashing the true nature of the co-called moderate rebels in Syria repeatedly attempting to characterize them as righteous freedom fighters striving for an embryonic democracy in Syria. Padnos obliterates the institutional US government and media deception on this subject, and sets the record straight about the wanton savagery of so-called rebels , many of whom are not even from Syria: They re murdering people in the’streets, they’re employing children as torturers. They are destroying the’society over there. Some of them are interested in money, some of them are interested in power, some of them love their guns. They re having a wonderful time during the Jihad ( ) They have the keys to these cool pick-up trucks, they have free food They re constructing a real prison archipelago over there full of prisoners, and full of anyone they’really don’t like. Survivor: Theo Padnos An incredible axis of power to many young men who have had none for most of their lives it s a dangerous scenario that s unfolding over there in parts of the country that the government doesn’t control. The host then asked Padnos what he thought of the Assad government in Syria. The answer was not something you will ever hear from any of the experts on CNN or NBC who have been all-out for regime change since hostilities broke out in 2011: The Assad regime? Right now, there is approx 16 million people who are living in safety. The’schools function, the universities function, hospitals function, there s traffic police in the’streets. Listen, it s not Switzerland it s not a perfect society I think they themselves recognize this. Anybody who wants peace in Syria will acknowledge and respect the peace that they have at the moment and not degrade and damage it somehow which the Obama Administration has done by sending missiles and all kinds of weaponry to the rebels which I thought was disgraceful because it destroyed such peace, as there was. There remains a situation in which there are rebel enclaves and these rebel enclaves are not peaceful, of course not. They are being destroyed. Look, it s a civil war. The rebel enclaves just a minority of the population lives there, the majority of Syrians are living a relative peace under the Assad regime. Yes, that is preferable to the bombings and the crucifixions in the’streets that we are seeing, and the murdering of citizens, the torturing and the imprisoning of random which is what they [the rebel terrorists] are doing. Watch Tucker Carlson stunning segment with Theo Padnos here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dksPBRg5tGQ . READ MORE WIKILEAKS AT: 21st Century Wire WIKILEAKS FilesSUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV |
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| Mexican authorities on Wednesday arrested a former high-ranking official of President Enrique Pena Nieto s party in a corruption investigation in the northern state of Chihuahua, the state s governor said. The arrest extends a streak of corruption allegations dogging the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), with four former governors arrested on such charges this year. Entrenched corruption is expected to be a key issue in the runup to Mexico s next presidential election in 2018. Alejandro Gutierrez, who was the adjunct secretary to the presidency of the PRI, was arrested in a joint operation by state and federal police, Chihuahua Governor Javier Corral wrote in a post on Facebook. The Chihuahua prosecutor s office accused Gutierrez of participating in a sophisticated scheme to divert public funds of 250 million pesos ($13 million) earmarked for educational programs in 2016. Gutierrez will present himself before a judge early Thursday, the office said in a statement. This week, Mexican newspaper Reforma published reports on an alleged Chihuahua corruption scheme to funnel the money into the PRI s campaign fund, through avenues such as fake contracts for workshops for parents and expensive software. The reports were based on testimony to prosecutors by former state finance minister Jaime Herrera that the paper obtained. Gutierrez arrest took place in Coahuila. This week, he rejected allegations against him in an interview with Mexican newspaper Vanguardia, saying he was considering suing for defamation. I am thinking, I will have to look into it, if I initiate some legal proceeding, he said. I do not know, I repeat to you, I did not know not even one official, nor ex-official, of finances... I see things that are absolutely false. Gutierrez arrest contributes to the clearing up of the crimes of political corruption that have been attributed to the former governor, C sar Duarte J quez, said Corral, of the National Action Party. The government is determining whether others should be held responsible for the funneling of funds to PRI coffers in 2016, Corral added. In March, a Mexican judge issued an arrest warrant for Duarte on suspicion of embezzlement. Corral has said he is a fugitive from justice. A spokesman for the PRI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The PRI was routed in 2016 regional elections, losing several of its bastions, including the states of Veracruz, Tamaulipas and Quintana Roo, as voters expressed discontent over a series of graft scandals. |
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| German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Friday that she wanted European Union sanctions against Russia lifted, but only once peaceful conditions had been achieved in eastern Ukraine. Speaking at an election campaign rally in the eastern town of Strasburg, Merkel said Russia s grave violations of international law made sanctions necessary. I spend much of my time working to achieve reasonable, good relations with Russia, Merkel said, adding that she was trying, along with France, to achieve peaceful conditions in eastern Ukraine, where Moscow-backed separatists are fighting a war against the Kiev government. The moment we get that, we will also lift the sanctions, she said, adding that Russia s annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine and its backing for separatists were against the principles that we have had in place since World War Two . If Russia s actions were allowed to stand, there was a risk they would be repeated, Merkel said. |
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| Brilliant conservative and American Thinker contributor, Patricia Dickson tweeted a portion of a file that was released today in the JFK files. Her tweet showed a document that appears to prove that former Democrat President Lyndon B. Johnson was a member of the Klan in Texas during the early days of his political career. The JFK Files reveal that Democrat President LBJ was a member of the Klan. pic.twitter.com/NoOJLWAlDp Patricia Dickson (@Patrici15767099) October 27, 2017Dinesh D Souza was quick to respond to Dickson s tweet, saying: If this is true, LBJ becomes the third Democratic President to be either a member or avid supporter of the Ku Klux Klan. If this is true, LBJ becomes the third Democratic President to be either a member or avid supporter of the Ku Klux Klan https://t.co/2gX4i6fDc0 Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) October 28, 2017In Dinesh D Souza s movie, Hillary s America , the ugly truth was revealed about the Democrat Party, and how throughout the history of the United States Democrats have been responsible for slavery and for much of the racism blacks have experienced in America.In his movie, D Souza interviewed Vanderbilt professor Carol Swain. Swain made her own video about the Inconvenient Truth about The Democratic Party that s been viewed 1.8 million times. When you think about racial equality and civil rights, which political party comes to mind, the Republican s or the Democrat s? Most people would probably say the Democrats. But that answer isn’t correct.Since its founding in 1829, the Democratic Party has fought against every major civil rights initiative, and has a long history of discrimination. The Democratic Party defended slavery, started the Civil War, opposed reconstruction, founded the Ku Klux Klan, imposed segregation, perpetrated lynching and fought against the Civil Rights Acts of the 1950 s and 1960 s. In contrast, the Republican Party was founded in 1854 as an anti-slavery party. Its mission was to stop the’spread of slavery into the new western territory with the aim of abolishing it entirely. Dickson reminded Twitter users that the Republican Party was formed for the’sole purpose of ending slavery.No Republican owned slaves because the Republican Party was formed for the’sole purpose of ending slavery. https://t.co/vv3jaQ62QJ Patricia Dickson (@Patrici15767099) October 28, 2017 |
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| The party of Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar appears to be preparing for an imminent general election, the head of the opposition Fianna Fail party said on Friday. The government looked set to collapse after Fianna Fail submitted a motion of no confidence in the deputy prime minister in violation of a three-year support agreement. I took it from last night that Fine Gael wants a general election and is preparing for one, Fianna Fail s Micheal Martin told state broadcaster RTE. |
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| President Donald Trump will seek quick progress toward a bilateral trade agreement with Japan in place of a broader Asia-Pacific deal he abandoned this week, when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visits the White House next month, an official in the Trump administration said on Thursday. “I see Abe’s visit being more about finding a follow-through, a replacement for TPP,” said the official, referring to the Trans-Pacific Partnership that Trump ditched on Monday. “Given the domestic political capital (Abe has) expended on TPP, there’s going to be an effort to work with him on a follow-on,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Trump, who took office last Friday, reiterated on Thursday he would strike numerous bilateral deals, as opposed to multilateral accords like the TPP. He said they would include clauses to allow a 30-day termination notice if the United States was not treated fairly. The TPP, which took years to negotiate among 12 countries, has often been described as being, at its core, a deal between the United States and Japan, the world’s largest and third-largest economies respectively. Trump called it bad for American jobs, but proponents worry that abandoning the project could further strengthen China’s economic hand in the region. Japanese media have said Abe is expected to meet Trump in Washington on Feb. 10, although no official announcement has been made as to the timing of the trip. The administration official said it “was clear what the outlines and the contours” of a deal with Japan would be, but did not go into details. “I don’t know if there needs to be this protracted long-term negotiation, and there may be some initial steps that are implemented prior to an official Free Trade Agreement,” he said. “It’s pretty clear what the problems are on the trade side and it’s pretty clear what the opportunities are. I don’t think it’ll be particularly difficult to get some movement on a couple of different aspects of the trade side relatively quickly.” The White House declined comment on the official’s remarks. “We look forward to Prime Minister Abe’s upcoming visit and a productive relationship with Japan,” a White House official said. Abe has touted TPP as an engine of economic reform and a counterweight to a rising China but said on Thursday it was possible Tokyo and Washington could hold bilateral free trade talks. “Japan will continue to stress to the U.S. the importance of the TPP but it is not totally unfeasible for talks on EPA (Economic Partnership Agreement) and FTA (Free Trade Agreement)” with the United States, Abe told parliament after being asked about trade talks between the two nations. Japan’s Kyodo news agency said Abe also suggested Japan would advocate retaining some form of tariffs on rice and four other key agricultural products in any trade negotiations with the United States. “We will thoroughly protect what we should protect...I want to carry out bilateral negotiations properly, based on the thinking that agriculture is the foundation of this country,” it quoted him as saying. |
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| The Left is all about gun control unless of course, they’re talking about shooting someone who disagrees with phony man-made climate change Thought: in wartime, people deliberately spreading lies and misinformation get shot. Why not do the’same with climate change deniers? Daniel Rendall (@danielrendall) October 30, 2015h/t Weasel ZippersJust in case they’remove this Tweet, we’ve taken a screen shot here: |
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| Illinois’ Republican governor, Bruce Rauner, has ordered lawmakers to return to work starting next Wednesday to pass a budget as the clock ticks down to the July 1 start of a new fiscal year. But there is no sign in the Democratic-led legislature that a breakthrough in the 23-month impasse could be imminent. Rauner warned on Thursday that the inability to pass a budget could bring “devastating and long-lasting ramifications” for the nation’s fifth-largest state. Those include possible “junk” credit ratings, a halt to state-funded road projects, and suspension from national lotteries. Illinois is limping toward the June 30 end of an unprecedented second-straight fiscal year without a complete spending plan due to an impasse between Rauner and Democratic leaders. Rauner said he would sign into law a bill package unveiled by Republican legislators on Wednesday that includes a $36 billion budget, a school funding revamp, and several measures he has sought such as a local property tax freeze, term limits for top state officials and cost-saving changes to the system that compensates injured workers. The bills require three-fifths majority votes for passage instead of a simple majority. “It is a true compromise – and one I hope the majority in the General Assembly will accept,” the governor said in a Facebook video posted on Thursday. Rauner and Democrats continued to blame each other for the budget crisis. “House Democrats will continue our work on the budget from Springfield, but as Governor Rauner has met each of our attempts to date with refusal, it’s clear that the onus is on the governor to show that he is finally serious about working in good faith to end the crisis he has manufactured,” House Speaker Michael Madigan said in a statement. If Illinois still lacks a budget when the new fiscal year dawns, the consequences could be big. The state’s credit ratings could sink to “junk,” a first for any U.S. state, leaving some investors unable to buy the state’s debt and others to demand even fatter yields. The state will be suspended from participating in the Powerball and Mega Millions lotteries due to the lack of fiscal 2018 appropriations to pay winning ticket holders, Illinois Lottery spokesman Jason Schaumburg said. The games have generated about $240 million in sales in Illinois so far in fiscal 2017. With no money to pay road contractors, Illinois’ transportation department is shutting down about 700 ongoing projects that carry a price tag of $2.3 billion, according to department spokeswoman Gianna Urgo. The budget impasse has ballooned Illinois’ pile of unpaid bills to $15 billion as of Wednesday, fueling litigation by unpaid vendors and others. A U.S. judge has set a June 20 deadline for Illinois to start paying more of the $2 billion it owes Medicaid providers. |
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| Good news everyone! All crime in Texas has been solved. How do we know this? Because Fort Bend County Sheriff Troy E. Nehls has announced that he’s going on a crusade against protected political speech.Apparently, the Sheriff saw someone s anti-Trump’sticker he placed on his truck and decided to take action pleasing the tortured little snowflakes who contacted him about it but also showing that not only he but an unnamed prosecutor is corrupt as f*ck. I have received numerous calls regarding the offensive display on this truck as it is often seen along FM 359. If you know who owns this truck or it is yours, I would like to discuss it with you, the Sheriff posted on Facebook Wednesday. Our Prosecutor has informed us she would accept Disorderly Conduct charges regarding it, but I feel we could come to an agreement regarding a modification to it. Yes, disorderly conduct. For a sticker. Because it s anti-Trump.Sorry, Sheriff. No agreement is necessary, as it is not a crime to criticize the President or people who voted for him. Naturally, Americans stopped by to laugh at the’sheriff who claims that saying mean things about Trump constitutes an immediate breach of the peace : Unfortunately for the Sheriff, this matter was decided in the 1971 Supreme Court case, Cohen v. California. A man was convicted for disturbing the peace by wearing a f*ck the draft jacket, but the Supreme Court told those who would abuse the justice system by punishing protected political speech to f*ck off.Unfortunately, the goal here isn’t to successfully prosecute someone. It s to make sure that the owner of the truck pays for being mean to Trump.Featured image via screengrab |
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| You ve honestly got to be a special kind of stupid to go into the Bronx in your effort to try to win New York, and then double-down on putting New Yorkers down for their supposed values. However, there Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz was, in all his creepy glory, again going after New York values. When asked to elaborate on what he meant, he’said: Those are the values, the values of the New York liberal politicians that have been hammering the people of this great state. And he especially went after New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, saying: Every time there is a confrontation between criminals and cops he’sides with the criminals, looters and rioters instead of the police officers. Which is just a flat-out lie, but he’s clearly trying to cater to a crowd outside of New York, and completely giving up on any chance as winning the’state over Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump. However, Cruz did take the opportunity to try to bash Trump when he’said, If you want to know what liberal democratic values are, follow Donald Trump’s checkbook. Donald Trump has been funding those liberal democratic politicians. Which may very well be true, but those liberal politicians keep winning, because they are clearly favored over smarmy, pretentious, wannabe Christian conservatives who think they’ve been appointed by God to run the nation. Conservatives like Cruz.One protester, clearly fed up with the arrogance and idiocy of Cruz even being there said, You re running on an anti-immigrant platform, and you’re speaking in the Bronx. You should not be here. The Bronx, of course, being home to thousands of immigrants, and has been for over a century.Not liking to be interrupted, Republican staffers had this protester removed, but according to the NY Daily News, it seems the protester got his fair share of applause for speaking up.Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. said: Ted Cruz is a hypocrite. He not only offended New Yorkers, he offended Bronxites, and now he’s here today in New York and in the Bronx looking for money and votes. We in the Bronx know how offensive he’s been. We know the truth about our borough. Cruz just being there is an insult in and of itself. Who the hell does he think he is to come into the Bronx seeking support, but then continue to put New Yorkers down? That protester was absolutely right, he’shouldn’t have even been there.Featured Photo by Kyle Rivas/Getty Images |
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| NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) thinks he’s the boss of you! He banned all non-essential travel to Mississippi after the’state passed a religious liberty bill that he called a hateful injustice against the LGBT community. Can you believe this guy? The bill, known as House Bill 1523 or the Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act, was signed into law by Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (R) Tuesday and will go into effect July 1.The legislation guards against the discrimination of individuals, religious organizations and certain businesses who have sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions that marriage should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman. Under the law, religious leaders can decline to solemnize any marriage or provide wedding-related services based on religious or moral objections. In addition, Mississippians can decided whether or not to hire, terminate or discipline an individual whose conduct or religious beliefs are inconsistent with their own ideals.After the passage of the new law, Cuomo issued an order Tuesday that requires all New York State agencies, departments, boards and commissions to immediately review all requests for state funded or state sponsored travel to Mississippi.Last month, Cuomo did the’same thing for travel to North Carolina.Read more: The Blaze |
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| Talk radio hosts went nuts with the news of Gore s visit to Trump Tower today. Michael Savage was very disappointed but Rush Limbaugh gave the best comment: I m gonna tell you something, said Limbaugh. If Trump goes south on climate change, that is just gonna be deeply disappointing and alarming because of what climate change is to the left. It s everything, it s everything they want and everything they believe and it s almost everything they can get to achieve it, to accomplish it. We couldn’t agree more with Rush! It s just upsetting that they would even want to speak with the phony who claims global warming is real Yikes! |
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| Trump voters are stupid enough to defend him no matter what he does. As Trump himself has pointed out, he could shoot someone in public and not lose a single vote. This is something Monty Python s John Cleese has noticed over the course of the election and on Friday morning he voiced his frustration on Twitter.After watching a loyal Trump voter step in to defend The Donald s comment that he greets women he finds beautiful with a kiss and pussy-grab, he couldn’t take it anymore. True stupidity, he writes. A Trump’supporter,defending his awful taped remarks,said He would never have said that if he d know he was being recorded. True stupidity a Trump’supporter,defending his awful taped remarks,said "He would never have said that if he'd know he was being recorded" John Cleese (@JohnCleese) October 21, 2016No f*cking sh*t. People even Trump generally avoid being recorded saying horrible things. Naturally, his Twitter followers joined in the mockery:@JohnCleese "I want a president who's only a sexual predator behind closed doors." Thor Benson ? (@thor_benson) October 21, 2016@JohnCleese On November 8 we take a census of American imbeciles. Lee Conway (@klausvoigt) October 21, 2016.@JohnCleese Pretty sure @IvankaTrump’said it, too. They forget that character is how you behave when you think nobody's watching. Myles Standoffish (@DrSchadNFreude) October 21, 2016@JohnCleese Well of course not, he only says bigoted things out loud in public. The’sexually gross stuff is for persecuting women in private Tesla (@MANX38) October 21, 2016@JohnCleese It implies that there are things Trump would never say in public, which is a mind-boggling thought considering what he does say Henear Kryxerad (@TyphonBaalAmmon) October 21, 2016Cleese has been no stranger to tearing Trump apart, which he has been doing for at least months. Here are some of his best:If Trump is elected,I shall purchase a house in the US.But after four years,when the property prices have bottomed https://t.co/lhocooUpQ3 John Cleese (@JohnCleese) May 31, 2016Good news ! Trump and the GOP have buried the hatchet..And now, the bad news : They buried it in the’skull of the United States of America John Cleese (@JohnCleese) May 13, 2016I learn many of my twits are Trump’supporters,who tell me I should hear his speeches So far I've only heard his tapes sorry John Cleese (@JohnCleese) October 14, 2016Trump and the other Republicans panickers are doing exactly what ISIS are hoping for.And they pretend they are being 'tough' No,just stupid John Cleese (@JohnCleese) December 20, 2015Fascinating ! Trump's ego has hit a wall. Reality has created a tiny crack in his delusional world. Whatever comes next is going to be good John Cleese (@JohnCleese) August 6, 2016This conspiracy is WORLDWIDE ! The WHOLE PLANET'S media regard Trump as a coarse,narcissistic,bullying,rambling megalomaniacI forgot Putin John Cleese (@JohnCleese) October 16, 2016In a recent interview, Cleese called Trump a complete clown with a dead squirrel adorning his head, saying the billionaire GOP presidential nominee could have been a character on Monty Python. That confidence that he has which really comes from a lack of awareness that is what people are drawn to, the actor says of Trump. We have some fairly stupid politicians in England, but we don’t approach your scale of stupidity. I m more relaxed now but if I look at the world, I don’t think it s ever been in a worse situation. I look at what s going on and there isn’t much to be cheerful about, Cleese says. I look at Trump, and I see a narcissist, with no attention span, who doesn’t have clear ideas about anything and makes it all up as he goes along. The actor is exactly right. Trump and his supporters are terrible but his people will surely be motivated to vote in November. Make sure you get your butt to the polls.Featured image via Getty Images(Matt Cardy/Spencer Platt) |
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| Censorship is alive and well in Obama s America DCLeaks, a website that releases information on powerful political figures, has had part of its website taken offline after releasing a cache of documents on billionaire donor George Soros. The @DCLeaks Twitter account has also been suspended from Twitter for reasons unknown:The website had previously released 2,500 internal Open Society Foundation (OSF) documents in order to shed light on one of the most influential networks operating worldwide. OSF is one of Soros networks of organizations.The leaked documents had resulted in several damaging reports about the organization. OSF had previously confirmed that the documents were legitimate.Read more: Daily Caller |
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| A move that would surely cause now deceased Christian Chick-Fil-A founder, S. Truett Cathy to roll over in his grave In 2012, the fast-food restaurant Chick-fil-A came under intense criticism from homosexual groups and their supporters after CEO Dan Cathy said he was guilty as charged for supporting traditional marriage. Christians overwhelmingly gave their support, filling restaurants with new customers who turned out, not only for the food, but to make a statement. That may all be about to change. Chick-fil-A is now listed as a sponsor for Level Ground, a faith-based LGBT film festival, reports Christian News Network a discovery that has sparked an online petition demanding the company clarify its corporate stance regarding previously stated Christian values on marriage and stewardship. According to Level Ground s website, the group creates safe space for dialogue about faith, gender, and sexuality through the arts. The group s film festival started as a student-run event in 2013. It has since expanded and hosted programming in six cities across the U.S., billing itself as the world s first film festival connecting lesbian, gay and transgender sexuality with faith and evangelical Christianity. Baptist Press reported participants in Level Ground s most recent film festival, held Oct. 8-10 in Nashville, Tennessee, included former contemporary Christian artist Jennifer Knapp, who came out as a lesbian in 2005, and Karen Swallow Prior, a Liberty University English professor and research fellow for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. Gracepointe Church, an evangelical church in Franklin, Tennessee, that came out in January in support of same-sex marriage was also a sponsor. Pryor tweeted her appreciation to Chick-fil-A for its support in Nashville: While the restaurant has had an outpost in New York University s food court with limited access and menu items for more than a decade, the new restaurant will be the first of two slated for the Big Apple. The chain plans to open another location near Rockefeller Center at 46th Street and 6th Avenue. The nation s eighth biggest chain by sales, Chick-fil-A grew its sales 14.4 percent last year and its unit count 6.3 percent domestically, according to market research firm Technomic. This makes it the largest chicken chain in the country, beating out Yum Brands KFC unit. In private hands since its founding in the early 1960s, Chick-fil-A has expanded more quietly that publicly traded competitors like KFC or Bojangles . Via: wnd |
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| POTUS AND FLOTUS visited the Israeli PM residence and got a very warm welcome! The video below is a rare behind the’scenes look at the visit. The Netanyahu family greeted the First couple and then enjoyed a visit with the family including the’son. You can hear the Netanyahu s son when he meets President Trump. He says, I m a Big League fan of both of you. Melania replies that Mrs. Netanyahu is fantastic . PM Netanyahu and Mrs Sara Netanyahu welcome @POTUS Donald Trump and @FLOTUS Melania Trump to the Prime Minister's Residence in Jerusalem. pic.twitter.com/1HIOUmCJvd PM of Israel (@IsraeliPM) May 22, 2017 Lots of mutual respect and admiration was visible between these two families. Wow1 What a difference between Obama and Trump! |
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| While Hillary doubles down on her false claim that the rules were clarified AFTER she left the State Department, we’ve got the 5 top rules she broke. But first we need to listen to the masterful liar herself:Hillary Clinton doubles down on defending her email practices: Rules were not clarified until after I had left. https://t.co/ggH7XtU5Qo ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) May 26, 2016 That investigation is ongoing, but the report identifies five other laws or regulations that Clinton circumvented or failed to follow. They contradict the Clinton campaign s repeated claims that Clinton s email practices at the State Department complied with all relevant rules regarding federal records and information security.Retaining agency records after leaving Departing officials and employees [may] not remove Federal records from agency custody 36 C.F.R. 1222.24Clinton s personal email address, which she used exclusively as secretary of state, was housed on a private email server in her Chappaqua, N.Y. home. That meant her emails, which are considered federal records, were never in federal custody while she’served as secretary. She didn’t just retain records after leaving the State Department; those records were never in the department s possession in the first place.Properly archiving agency records Agencies that allow employees to send and receive official electronic mail messages using a system not operated by the agency must ensure that Federal records sent or received on such systems are preserved in the appropriate agency recordkeeping system. 36 C.F.R. 1236.22(b)Clinton claims that the fact she was sending emails to federal employees using official email accounts meant that those emails were being archived properly. The IG rejected that explanation and concluded that Clinton had violated rules on the preservation of federal records. Secretary Clinton should have preserved any Federal records she created and received on her personal account by printing and filing those records with the related files in the Office of the Secretary, the IG wrote.Preserving federal records from loss or destruction All Department employees are required by law to preserve documentary materials meeting the definition of a record under the Federal Records Act [and are] responsible for creating, using, maintaining, preserving, and disposing of the Department s information and records. State Department Foreign Affairs ManualClinton has said that she deleted roughly 30,000 emails stored on her server that she deemed of a personal and non-official nature. Neither the State Department nor the records agency has ever seen those emails. We now know that they included messages that were official in nature.The IG report identified a number of such emails to Gen. David Petraeus. The Department of Defense provided to OIG in September 2015 copies of 19 emails between Secretary Clinton and General David Petraeus on his official Department of Defense email account. None of those 19 emails were turned over to the State Department.Other deleted Clinton emails included dispatches about the Libyan civil war and the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in the country.Use of department-approved computing devices It is the Department s general policy that normal day-to-day operations be conducted on an authorized AIS, which has the proper level of security control to provide nonrepudiation, authentication and encryption, to ensure confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the resident information. State Department Foreign Affairs ManualAccording to the inspector general, Clinton never received department approval to conduct official agency business on her private email server. She never consulted with the proper authorities before doing so. If she had, her email arrangement would have been rejected. According to the current CIO and Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security, Secretary Clinton had an obligation to discuss using her personal email account to conduct official business with their offices, who in turn would have attempted to provide her with approved and secured means that met her business needs, stated the IG report. However, according to these officials, DS and IRM did not and would not approve her exclusive reliance on a personal email account to conduct Department business, because of the restrictions in the FAM and the’security risks in doing so. Handling of sensitive-but-unclassified (SBU) information Where warranted by the nature of the information, employees who will be transmitting SBU information outside of the Department network on a regular basis to the’same official and/or most personal addresses, must contact the [information security officials] for guidance in implementing a secure technical solution for those transmissions. State Department Foreign Affairs Manual Emails exchanged on [Clinton s] personal account regularly contained information marked as SBU, but she never obtained the required approval for the handling of such information on a personal computing device. Because a security review never occurred, Secretary Clinton never demonstrated that her private server or mobile device met minimum information security requirements. Information security officials from Clinton s time at the agency told the IG that they were not asked to approve or otherwise review the use of Secretary Clinton s server and that they had no knowledge of approval or review by other Department staff. These officials also stated that they were unaware of the’scope or extent of Secretary Clinton s use of a personal email account, though many of them sent emails to the Secretary on this account. Read more: WFB |
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| Thailand s government on Friday announced $2.2 billion in loans and handouts to help stabilize prices for rice farmers, a politically influential group whose heartland is in regions where opposition to the military junta is strongest. Thailand s staple food has long been a factor in its politics. The announcement by the commerce ministry came a week after former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra fled into exile ahead of a court verdict in a criminal negligence case over a rice subsidy scheme that cost billions of dollars. The ministry said it would provide $1.57 billion in handouts to farmers and $633 million in loans that will cover 3.7 million households. The program will span the seasonal harvest from the start of November this year to the end of February 2018. This is to help take 2 million tonnes of rice from the market, Nuntawan Sakuntanaga, head of the commerce ministry s department of internal trade, told reporters. The government introduced similar short-term loans and cash handouts for rice farmers last year that cost the state $2.3 billion to cover 4 million households during the same period. This subsidy program is essentially similar to past rice subsidies introduced by previous governments, said Somporn Isvilanonda, a senior fellow at the Knowledge Network Institute of Thailand who is critical of subsidies. The bottom line is these cash handouts create more debt for farmers, Somporn said. After hitting a four-year high earlier this year, the price of benchmark Thai 5-percent broken white rice has tumbled by nearly 20 percent over the last two months to $372.50 per tonne, its lowest since April. Thailand s main rice-growing areas are the northeastern and central regions, which have traditionally been strongholds of support for the populist Shinawatra movement of Yingluck and her brother Thaksin, who was overthrown in a 2006 coup. |
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| Senior Boeing (BA.N) executive Patrick Shanahan is U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee to take over the No. 2 role at the Pentagon as deputy U.S. defense secretary, the White House announced on Thursday. The White House also announced plans to nominate: * David Norquist to become Under Secretary of Defense, Comptroller. Norquist is a partner with Kearney and Company, a Certified Public Accounting firm. * David Joel Trachtenberg to become Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, Policy. Trachtenberg is president and CEO of Shortwaver Consulting, LLC, a national security consultancy. * Kenneth Rapuano to become Assistant Secretary of Defense, Homeland Defense and Global Security. Rapuano is senior vice president and director of the studies and analysis group at the ANSER Corporation. |
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| Former Representative Gabby Giffords has made a remarkable recovery after suffering a gunshot wound to the head five years ago, but now she is possibly being sued by her attacker.On January 8, 2011, Giffords was speaking to a group of her constituents outside of a Safeway in Casas Adobes, Arizona when Jared Lee Loughner began firing on the crowd. Loughner s bullets killed six people and injured thirteen, including Giffords. The’shooter was detained by people at the event and later pleaded guilty to 19 charges related to the’shooting he is currently serving seven consecutive life sentences in prison.However, although he admitted to his crimes and was sentenced accordingly, a lawsuit has allegedly been filed by Loughner against the former congresswoman for $25 million for psychological and emotional distress. It claims claims that he is innocent and was hand-picked to be an assassin. My incarceration is illegal. I am actually innocent. I was Framed. I am a victim of project mk-ultra the govt. put a chip in my head to control my mind .Gabby Giffords is in the Illuminati and I have evidence of this I was handpicked illegally to be a sleeper assassin. MY HEAD is full of chips and this evil empire govt is controlling me within. The lawsuit claims all sorts of other insane things, as well. It says that he has been waterboarded repeatedly during his incarceration by the ATF, NSA and CIA. The’suit also alleges that his attorney is a global spy who forced him to plead guilty and that authorities are making him sick from microwave testing and chemtrails. It even accuses Giffords of funding the San Bernardino shooters.The timing of this lawsuit has made some people think that it is a hoax. Just days before it was filed, a similar lawsuit was filed in Michigan against Uber, supposedly by the Kalamazoo mass shooter, Jason Brian Dalton. That lawsuit turned out to be fake and apparently the Giffords suit looks a lot like the Dalton suit. Tucson News reports:The envelopes of both the alleged Loughner lawsuit and the fake Dalton lawsuit have very similar characteristics.Both have the’same three stamps in the top right corner, have similar handwriting and are postmarked in Philadelphia, PA.The envelopes, do indeed look very similar and when you’read Loughner s alleged lawsuit there seems to be a whole lot of crazy crammed into it. Almost an unbelievable amount, in fact.Addicting Info will keep you updated on this story as it develops.Read the Loughner complaint HERE.Featured image via Justin Sullivan/Getty Images |
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| This video proves why every American needs to know and understand our laws as they pertain’to voter fraud. The average American would see this woman registering people to vote in a parking lot with a Trump’sign on her billboard and think nothing of it. Many people would be afraid to confront her. Kudos to the guy filming this incident for knowing and understanding how this woman was clearly violating voter registration laws and for videotaping it and using it as an educational tool.It would be a bonus if the woman committing voter fraud is found and punished accordingly. Remember every vote a Democrat steals is a vote stolen from a legal registered voter. The Democrat machine will be out in full force from now until election time. Stay alert America. This is our country. Millions have fought and died for our nation and we should never allow it to be stolen by people with bad intentions. If you see something say something. Take a picture, film it, and get it out for everyone to see. The only way to stop this criminal behavior is to shine a light on it .The words written in Spanish at the bottom of her ILLEGAL anti-Trump poster is an especially nice touch.The video was first published on YouTube on August 20th and it shows the type of voter fraud that the Clinton campaign is willing to commit in order to steal the upcoming election.Recent tweets on the net have identified the Hillary fraudster as Susan Berman who is the President of Impact Research International.On the organization s site Berman is noted as having an approachable style and warm personality .A list of her clients from the website shows the following Susan Berman s profile underscores honesty and integrity in her profile at Impact Research. Sorry Susan, but that s not what this video of you holding the anti-Trump poster while registering voters in a state other than CA shows us. Here s the Nevada law that prohibits Susan Berman from doing exactly what she was doing in a parking lot in Nevada:Under Nevada Revised Statute 293.505(10), while registering a voter, a field registrar shall not:(a) Solicit a vote for or against a particular question or candidate;(b) Speak to a voter on the’subject of marking his or her ballot for or against a particular question or candidate; or(c) Distribute any petition or other material concerning a candidate or question which will be on the ballot for the ensuing election.Via: Gateway Pundit |
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| U.S. President Donald Trump went around and over the “Great Firewall” of China in a late-night tweet in Beijing as he thanked his hosts for a rare tour of the Forbidden City and a private dinner at the sprawling, centuries-old palace complex. Many Western social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook are banned in China. A sophisticated system has been built to deny online users within China access to blocked content. That was not an issue for Trump, known for tweeting to his 42.3 million followers at any hour of the day, on Wednesday, the day he arrived in Beijing. “On behalf of @FLOTUS Melania and I, THANK YOU for an unforgettable afternoon and evening at the Forbidden City in Beijing, President Xi and Madame Peng Liyuan. We are looking forward to rejoining you tomorrow morning!” Trump even changed his Twitter banner, uploading a photograph of himself and Melania with Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan, during a Chinese opera performance at the Forbidden City. The Twitter banner upload did not go unnoticed by Chinese state media, with state broadcaster CCTV flashing screenshots of the photograph on Thursday. Trump’s visit was also the third-most talked-about topic on Chinese social media platform Weibo over the last 24 hours, trailing only the birthday of a singer in a Chinese boy band and a weekly Asian pop song chart. Many people wondered how Trump managed to evade China’s tough internet controls. “I guess he must have done it via wifi on a satellite network,” said a user on Weibo. Many foreigners log on to virtual private networks (VPNs) to access content hosted outside of China. Another option is to sign up for a data-roaming service before leaving one’s home country. “The president will tweet whatever he wants. That’s his way of communicating directly with the American people. Why not?” a White House official said ahead of Trump’s arrival in Beijing on Wednesday. When asked whether China considers Trump’s use of Twitter to be in breach of Chinese law, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said there were many means of communication with “the outside world”. “In China, people have many channels to communicate, it’s just that they communicate in different ways,” Hua said at a regular ministry briefing. “For example, some people use WeChat, some people use Weibo. Some people use Apple phones, some people use Huawei phones.” Trump tweeted again on Thursday afternoon, posting an ABC News video montage of the “incredible” welcome parade at the Great Hall of the People, where he was greeted by a military band and jumping, flag-waving children. In his tweet, Trump embedded a link to a photograph of his Beijing visit on Instagram - also forbidden in China. Not all of Trump’s tweets in China were bright and cheerful. “NoKo has interpreted America’s past restraint as weakness,” he tweeted about reclusive North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats. “This would be a fatal miscalculation. Do not underestimate us. AND DO NOT TRY US.” |
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| Rahul Gandhi, the scion of India s most fabled political dynasty, will within weeks be crowned leader of the Congress party, handing him a freer rein to prove if he can mount a credible challenge to the dominance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The great-grandson of India s founding prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, has struggled to convince voters - and many in his party - that he is leadership material, especially after a drubbing in the 2014 general election. Modi s depiction of the 47-year-old as an undeserving prince has helped sideline Gandhi since the last national vote, during which time Congress has suffered some of its worst ever local election results. But this year the economy has stumbled, and Congress politicians hope a round of state elections, beginning in Modi s home state of Gujarat, offer them - and their leader - a shot at revival ahead of the next national poll in 2019. Gandhi will soon take over as Congress president from his 70-year-old mother, Sonia Gandhi, a symbolic promotion that three Congress officials said they hoped would free his hand to shift the narrative from a clash of personalities - which Modi has so far resoundingly won - to a debate about policies. You will see many changes and every change will be a reaffirmation of what Congress s core beliefs are, said party MP and senior leader Jyotiraditya Scindia, who works closely with Rahul Gandhi. The right time has come to strike a chord with the masses against Modi s governance style, and we will not miss it. Congress insiders acknowledge their leader has sometimes made it easy for Modi s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to question his commitment to politics. The key problem with Rahul Gandhi has been his lack of consistency, said a senior party figure, who declined to be identified. He frequently takes a break after few roadshows and it is this inconsistency that has been a huge issue. But Congress officials say Gandhi has recently been finding his stride criticizing Modi for failing to create jobs, while the party has won a handful of recent by-elections. Gandhi is traversing Gujarat, the western state where Modi made his name, to fire up his party workers. He has ditched some of the party rallies for one-on-one meetings with trade unions, dairy workers and small traders - a traditional Modi powerbase that has been hit hard by recent economic reforms championed by the prime minister. Modi has taken notice. Last week he told workers from his Hindu nationalist BJP that the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty would destroy Gujarat . His party president, recently dispatched to the Gandhi family heartland in northern India, said this month that Gandhi needed to swap his Italian glasses for Gujarati spectacles to see the economic development the BJP had brought to the region, in a jibe at his Italian-born mother s roots. BJP would love it to be a war of personalities. Congress has to frame it as a war of two different approaches, even ideologies, said Sandeep Shastri, a political scientist and Congress expert at Jain University. Gandhi, who rarely talks to the media, declined a Reuters interview request. Rahul s father, grandmother and great-grandfather were all prime ministers in post-independence India. But critics deride Gandhi as a political lightweight who depends on his family name for power. Bursts of political energy have been followed by lengthy absences. In 2015 he took nearly two months of leave, prompting Modi s party to accuse him of holidaying while parliament was in session. Congress now governs states home to less than 10 percent of India s 1.3 billion population, its powerbase shriveled under the onslaught of Modi s popularity. Congress insiders acknowledge the party is unlikely to win the December election in Gujarat, but cutting into the BJP majority in the state would send a powerful signal that Congress under Gandhi has a fighting chance against a still-popular Modi. Gandhi has set up a new social media team in New Delhi to work on his image, and officials say he has been forging better ties with regional parties that are often key powerbrokers in India politics. On a recent tour of Gujarat, Gandhi reached out to the frustrations of the state s powerful business community with a new tax regime, including small traders such as those selling dry fruits. Different tax rates on almonds and cashews, imposed under a new national sales tax Modi s government launched in July, had left traders confused and damaged sales during the peak festival season. We have to show him as the face of the party before Gujarat elections, said a close aide, who declined to be named. BJP leaders say they are untroubled, and that any small bounce in Gandhi s standing will die down once the economy strengthens. Modi has called the slowdown a blip. What does his claim to fame rest on?, said Nalin Kohli, a national spokesman for the BJP. Two months of campaigning does not make him an active politician. |
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| Ivanka Trump enjoys what someone from that family would consider the finer things in life: vacationing with a Russian dictator s rumored girlfriend, taking creepy and inappropriate photos with daddy, probably f*cking the 2016 GOP nominee (seriously), and Lady Grey brand ear cuffs, apparently. Unfortunately for her, Lady Grey doesn’t much like her.Trump ordered a gold-plated ear cuff, a piece of jewelry that makes it appear that the wearer gets fashion tips directly from Xena the warrior princess, from the popular indie brand. Upon receipt of Ivanka s order for the $84 ear shield, the company worked diligently to fulfill the order, even including a special little gift for The Donald s daughter: a classy handwritten note from the company s founders. Dear @ivankatrump, #thanksbutnothanks #payitFORWARD A photo posted by Lady Grey Jewelry (@ladygreyjewelry) on Aug 16, 2016 at 12:15pm PDT Dear Ivanka, Thank you so much for your web order! the note begins. Then it quickly turns biting: We re happy to let you know that the proceeds of your sale have been generously donated to the American Immigration Council, the Everytown for Gun Safety organization, and the Hillary Clinton campaign. We hope you enjoy your new Lady Grey #helixearcuff. Best, Jill + Sabine. The note was included in her package and shipped last week directly from our studio in Brooklyn., Martinelli told The Cut. While we were flattered to receive an order from Ivanka Trump, our social and political views couldn’t be further from those of the Trump campaign. When we’received her order, we instantly felt compelled to take the money and donate it to a few organizations that were more aligned with our ideals. Hopefully, Ivanka enjoys her piece of ear jewelry. We re sure Everytown and the American Immigration Council are happy with the money.Featured image via Instagram/Getty Images(Jeff J. Mitchell) |
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| Peru proposed new talks to ensure the U.S.-proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership will be implemented after Donald Trump vowed to withdraw the United States from the sweeping trade deal on the first day of his administration. Trade Minister Eduardo Ferreyros, who last week urged the world not to “box in” Trump on his campaign stance toward the TPP, said the U.S. President-elect’s comments on Monday had “dramatically changed the panorama.” “But in my opinion it doesn’t kill it. We can work on it, change it” so its implementation does not hinge on U.S. ratification, Ferreyros said in an interview late on Monday with local TV channel Canal N. The TPP, signed by the United States, Peru and 10 other Pacific rim countries early this year, was written so it cannot go into effect without ratification from the United States, which has framed the pact as a way to counter China’s rise in the fast-growing Asia Pacific. “We can modify that clause and also take advantage to modify other clauses that might be uncomfortable for us,” said Ferreyros. Asked if China could join the TPP, Ferreyros said yes but that Beijing would have to show interest first. China has been promoting a rival regional free trade deal, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), that includes India but is not expected to include steep tariff reductions or strong protections for workers, the environment or intellectual property, according to the administration of outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama. Beijing said Sunday that high standards in multilateral trade deals discourages participation from developing economies. On Tuesday, Peru announced it had signed a memorandum of understanding with China to work on an update of their 6-year-old bilateral free trade deal, which currently excludes textile and garment sectors. Trump, who has described multilateral free trade deals as bad for U.S. manufacturing jobs, on Monday formally declared his intent to withdraw from the deal on his first day in office, appearing to open a path for China to assume the leadership mantle on trade and diplomacy in Asia. |
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| Congressman Steve King (R-IA) is pretty much the most openly racist person sitting in Congress. He recently came under fire for tweeting openly white supremacist sentiments about western civilization and not being able to restore it with somebody else s babies. Here is that awful tweet:Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies. https://t.co/4nxLipafWO Steve King (@SteveKingIA) March 12, 2017Now, he is giving Donald Trump a warning about sidelining white supremacist Steve Bannon in the White House in favor of more left-leaning advisers like Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner. This warning comes because word on the’street is that there is a battle brewing between Bannon and Kushner, and it seems that Bannon is losing big time. In fact, Bannon may indeed be on his way out.Well, this is not sitting well with the white supremacists who have championed Trump’so long and so hard, and indeed were instrumental in putting him into the White House. They even deliberately trended #FireKushner to send a message to Trump about where his priorities should lie. Rep. King chimed in with similar sentiments Sunday night, tweeting at Trump:@RealDonaldTrump Steve Bannon is the lynchpin to your energized base. Conservatives are an endangered species in your White House. Steve King (@SteveKingIA) April 10, 2017So, in other words, King is warning Trump that if he gives in to what the alt-right (read: white supremacists) call Ivanka and Jared s globalist leanings and policies, he’s finished and his base will turn on him. This is probably true. However, the idea that Trump would pick Bannon in a showdown between the former Breitbart head and his daughter and son-in-law is downright laughable. So, suck it, Steve King. You won’t be getting your way on this one.If the Bannon v. Kushner feud continues, Bannon will be pushed out, and there will be marginally more reasonable people who have Trump’s ear. The’side effect will be a betrayed and outraged alt-right and conservative base, which will ensure Donald Trump’s defeat in 2020, along with his feuding with the Republicans on Capitol Hill who will surely not bow to his daughter and son-in-law s largely Democratic policies.So, bad for Republicans and Trump world, great for America.Featured image via Scott Olson/Getty Images |
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| Of course he’s a racist for defending legal American citizens Unlike Obama, Trump’s not looking to make friends with illegal aliens. Legal American citizens will reward his dedication to defending our borders with their votes Donald Trump, business mogul and current Republican front-runner, has reiterated his stand on the issue of illegal immigration, saying that he would deport up to 11 million illegals and then build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.Trump has taken plenty of heat from Democrats and his Republican challengers, some of whom tried to get him to back down from his non-politically correct views. The Donald will have none of it.In nearly every recent public appearance, and in the’second Republican debates on Sept. 16, Trump noted that the number of illegals is likely much higher than 11 million, and that he would deport the lot of them forthwith.Specifically, Mr. Trump’said he could facilitate the mass deportation and rid the U.S. of nearly all illegal immigrants within two years, and possibly as fast as 18 months. Saying We have to get them out, and We are a nation of laws, Trump employed his typically colorful language when he concluded that he would deport the illegals so quickly, Your head will spin. Trump’s 2-year plan would deport, on average, 15,068.4 illegal immigrants per day in order to reach the 11 million mark successfully.Until now, one of the’starting points in most debates about illegal immigration, especially among moderate Republicans and Democrats, has been the notion that there are so many undocumented immigrants in the U.S., it would be impossible to deport them all.Trump proposes a fast deportation plan followed by the building of a massive border wall to keep future illegal crossers from coming over. Further, the candidate s proposal includes a provision whereby those who are deported can apply to re-enter the U.S., but they must follow the formal, legal procedures already in place.The formal entry process is lengthy, involves a significant amount of paperwork, and is intended to keep criminals and unsavory characters (like potential terrorists) out of the country. In fact, most developed nations have more stringent immigration policies than the U.S. does. Mexico, for example, is quite strict about its own southern border, where many Central American immigrants attempt to sneak into the country without proper documentation. Typically those illegal entrants are caught, jailed, and then quickly deported.Trump’s views are not lost on African Americans, many of whom responded to a recent SurveyUSA poll about their preferences in the upcoming general election. One-fourth of the respondents said they would choose Trump over Hillary Clinton if that were the matchup in November 2016. In most national elections, blacks vote for the Democrat candidate about nine-to-one over the Republican. Many blacks see illegal immigration as one of the reasons for the exceedingly high unemployment rate in their communities. Via: US World Report |
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| Melania Trump’s big night at the Republican National Convention failed to draw bumper television audiences despite networks boosting their coverage of the gathering and husband Donald Trump promising a “showbiz” feel to the week. According to Nielsen ratings data on Tuesday from seven leading broadcast and cable networks, an estimated 23 million people watched Monday evening’s highlight during the 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. hour when Melania Trump, the wife of Republican White House contender Donald Trump, delivered her speech. The focus of the convention initially shifted on Tuesday from the formal anointing of Trump to accusations that sections of Melania Trump’s speech were strikingly similar to an address by Michelle Obama at the Democratic convention in 2008. The early viewing figures were similar to those for the first night of the Republican convention in 2012, which attracted an audience of 22.3 million, according to Nielsen. U.S. television networks have boosted coverage of the Republican convention this year after Trump, a New York businessman, drew huge audiences during the 2016 presidential debates during the state nominating contests. Trump, the former star of “The Apprentice” TV show, has promised to throw out traditional political convention scripts and “put some showbiz” into the mix. Media analysts predicted that viewership for Trump’s acceptance speech this week for the Republican presidential nomination could surpass the record 38 million who watched Barack Obama address the Democratic convention in 2008. In 2012, the Democratic convention generally drew more nightly TV viewers than the Republican gathering, when Mitt Romney was running for the White House. On Monday, the Fox News cable channel, as expected, got the most viewers for its convention coverage, averaging 6.4 million in the 10 p.m. hour. Among the mainstream networks, NBC led with 3.9 million. However, the biggest single program audience of Monday night was for reality show “The Bachelorette,” which was seen by some 6.6 million on ABC. About 3 million people turned off when ABC switched to the convention. |
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| Finnish police reprimanded a man for traveling in a car boot to hide his meeting with Prime Minister Juha Sipila during a government crisis last summer, saying this was breach of the traffic code. A police statement did not name the man in the boot, but in effect indicated the traveler was State Secretary Samuli Virtanen, who is also the deputy to Foreign Minister Timo Soini. The meeting took place in June, a day after Virtanen s co-ruling Finns party had elected anti-immigration hardliners as its new leaders. The government was close to collapse until a group of politicians, including Virtanen and Soini, in the following week walked out of the Finns party and announced they would form a new group. The Finns party was thrown out of the government and the new Blue Reform group kept its cabinet seat. Virtanen has not commented on the case, but lawmaker Tiina Elovaara from Blue Reform said in a blog that Virtanen climbed into the boot to keep the meeting secret at a critical moment. He avoided media attention when the situation was most serious, and the risk of leakage about the parliamentarians transition was too big, Elovaara said. Police said that the man had traveled a few tens of meters in the back of the car, failing to use a safety belt. He had admitted the act to the police. The road from the Prime Minister s residency has little traffic, and only the man was at risk of harm, the police said. The given notification is considered as a sufficient sanction, Inspector Pekka Seppala said. He added that the police had been asked to investigate the case based on information in media reports. |
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| President Donald Trump’said his administration would be announcing a big league tax cut that would lower the burden on businesses within the next two or three weeks.The revelation saw the Dow Jones industrial average rise around 115 points to a record, with Goldman Sachs contributing the most gains. Lowering the overall tax burden on American business is big league, that s coming along very well, Trump’said at the top of a White House meeting with airline industry executives Thursday. We re way ahead of schedule, I believe. And we’re going to be announcing something I would say over the next two or three weeks that will be phenomenal. The president s comment had an immediate effect on the value of the U.S. dollar against other currencies.The administration had gotten pushback a day earlier from conservative web site proprietor Matt Drudge, an influential media figure who Trump regularly lauded during the campaign. Republican party should be sued for fraud. NO discussion of tax cuts now. Just lots of crazy. Back to basics, guys! Drudge tweeted, on a day filled with fallout from the Senate effort to silence liberal Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.Tax reform has also been a top priority for House Speaker Paul Ryan and others in the GOP congressional majority, which has been anxious to slash taxes and regulations now that it finally has an ally in the White House.Trump has pledged to cut the top corporate tax rate from 35 per cent to 15 per cent, but he offered no details on what his proposal might be. The value of the dollar against the Japanese yen jumped by 1 percentage point after the president s comments, Reuters reported. Airline stocks also spiked after the meeting. All three major market indexes jumped on news of the tax cut timetable. Daily Mail |
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| Shawn Helton 21st Century WireYears before allegedly carrying out a truck rampage on Halloween, the man named in New York s most recent act of terror was already well-known to the United States Department of Homeland Security. This latest supposedly homegrown ISIS-inspired attack produces yet another known wolf with ties to suspected terrorists as well as authorities. According to officials, 29 year-old Sayfullo Saipov, the man charged in a deadly Manhattan vehicular assault on October 31st, was previously questioned over suspected ties to terrorism in 2015 by the US Department of Homeland Security. Saipov reportedly became a permanent legal resident upon arriving in the US on a diversity lottery visa in 2010. Since that time, the’suspected terrorist moved from Ohio, Florida, and most recently to New Jersey, where he was interviewed by DHS in 2015.As media attention on this case is focused on immigration laws, terror propaganda and security protocols America s latest terror tragedy reveals much more below the’surface KNOWN WOLF There s a distinct pattern with acts of terror committed on Western soil. (Photo Illustration 21WIRE s Shawn Helton)Another American Known Wolf Suspected terrorist Sayfullo (Habibullaevic) Saipov, who bounced across America, committed only minor traffic violations before his alleged involvement in the New York truck attack.Over the past 24 hours, the’suspected truck attacker Saipov, was said to have driven a Home Depot rental truck from New Jersey to the Manhattan area, where it is believed he deliberately targeted pedestrians and cyclists on a bike path alongside the Hudson River according to police reports. Shortly after the vehicular attack authorities state that Siapov brandished a pellet gun and paintball gun prior to being shot by NYPD and taken into custody. All told, at least eight people were said to have been killed, while nearly a dozen others were injured in the high-profile terror incident.Reports state that Saipov became radicalized in America, allegedly taking ques from ISIS terror propaganda. However, Saipov, originally from Tashkent, the capital city of Uzbekistan, was supposedly from a modest and secular family that did not go to mosques, making this yet another suspicious terror-related case that paints a murky portrait on the way towards extremism. SUSPECT The alleged New York truck attacker was apparently a registered driver for popular car services Uber and Lyft. (Image Source: twitter)Rather intriguingly, in a published report at ABC News we’re told Saipov, had been the’subject of a deeper counter-terror investigation back in 2015: Sayfullo Saipov, who has been charged with killing eight people in a vehicle attack on the West Side of Manhattan on Tuesday, was interviewed in 2015 by federal agents about possible ties to suspected terrorists but a case was never opened against him, law enforcement officials tell ABC News. Continuing, the article outlined the following: Saipov was listed as a point of contact for two men who were listed in a Department of Homeland Security counterterrorism database and later overstayed their tourist visas, a federal official told ABC News. One was flagged after arriving from a so-called threat country, while the other vanished and was being actively sought by federal agents as a suspected terrorist. Incredibly, in less than 24 hours after the deadly vehicular assault in New York, FBI authorities have located the’suspected terrorist who supposedly vanished from the gaze of authorities said to be linked to Saipov.Today FBI investigators released an alert regarding 32 year-old Mukhammadzoir Kadirov, a person of interest, who authorities also believe is linked to the recent attack.CNN reported the following background information regarding Siapov:In a recently published report from the NY Times, elements of a recent FBI probe into a suspected terror cell charged in Brooklyn over the past two years was revealed: Over the last two years, a terrorism investigation by the F.B.I., the Department of Homeland Security, the New York Police Department and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn resulted in charges against five men from Uzbekistan and one from Kazakhstan of providing material support to ISIS. Several of the men have pleaded guilty. It is unclear whether Mr. Saipov was connected with that investigation. QUESTION: Will the FBI eventually reveal that Saipov and Kadirov were on their radar prior to the New York truck attack? Only time will tell This latest act of terror in America may well prove to be similar in scope to many other known wolf cases in recent history, as readers might recall the alleged New York bombing suspect 28 year-old Ahmad Khan Rahami, had been known to the FBI for years prior to supposedly carrying out plots in New York and New Jersey in the fall of 2016.According to The Washington Post, the FBI had already known Rahami since 2014, which only added to the’strongly suspicious event: The FBI s probe into Ahmad Khan Rahami, the 28-year-old named as the only suspect in the bombings, was launched based on comments his father had made. An official said his father later recanted his comments. Agents conducted interviews, checked with other agencies and looked at internal databases, none of which revealed ties to terrorism, the bureau said in a statement. DARK DAYS The crime scene of the recent New York truck attack. (Image Source: twitter)HAND IN HAND: Terror & Security QUESTION: Is it possible the FBI or any intelligence agency played some part in the latest New York City attack plot whether inadvertently or otherwise?In the’search for answers regarding the investigative tactics of various intelligence agencies that have come into question, there s none perhaps more dubious than the FBI s Newburgh sting operation that resulted in the entrapment four men who participated in a fabricated event created by the bureau.Here s a 2011 passage from The Guardian describing how a FBI informant named Shahed Hussain coerced four others into a fake terror plot: The Newburgh Four now languish in jail. Hussain does not. For Hussain was a fake. In fact, Hussain worked for the FBI as an informant trawling mosques in hope of picking up radicals.Yet far from being active militants, the four men he attracted were impoverished individuals struggling with Newburgh s grim epidemic of crack, drug crime and poverty. One had mental issues so severe his apartment contained bottles of his own urine. He also believed Florida was a foreign country.Hussain offered the men huge financial inducements to carry out the plot including $250,000 to one man and free holidays and expensive cars.As defence lawyers poured through the evidence, the Newburgh Four came to represent the most extreme form of a controversial FBI policy to use invented terrorist plots to lure targets. There has been no case as egregious as this. It is unique in the incentive the government provided. A quarter million dollars? said Professor Karen Greenberg, a terrorism expert at Fordham University. The reputation of the FBI has suffered greatly in the recent past as well as over the past couple of decades. Following the 1993 WTC bombing, the FBI was revealed to have been handling Emad A. Salem, a former Egyptian army officer who was a prized undercover operative thrust into confidential informant status and person who played a key role in the bomb plot.QUESTION: Will authorities reveal that Siapov may have also had ties to informants or other known wolves?Here at 21WIRE, we’ve kept a running report on known wolf actors involved in many attacks on Western soil. Take a look below at an updated version that includes other suspicious intelligence informant and terror cases that have held that distinction over the years:Tamerlan Tsarnaev (see his story here) Buford Rogers (see his story here) Jerad Miller (see his story here) Naji Mansour (see his story here) Quazi Mohammad Nafis (see his story here) Mohamed Osman Mohamud (see his story here) Timothy McVeigh (see his story here) Salim Benghalem (see his story here) Michael Adebolajo (see his story here) Daba Deng (see his story here) Elton Simpson (see his story here) Man Haron Monis (see his story here) Abu Hamza (see his story here) Haroon Rashid Aswat (see his story here) Mark Vicars (see his story here) Glen Rodgers (see his story here) Omar Mateen (see his story here) Tashfeen Malik (see her story here) Djamel Beghal (see his story here) Anjem Choudary (see his story here) Cherif Kouachi (see his story here) Said Kouachi (see his story here) Amedy Coulibaly (see his story here) Hayat Boumeddiene (see her story here) Salah Abdeslam (see his story here) Michael Zehaf-Bibeau (see his story here) Nidal Malik Hassan (see his story here) Abdelhakim Dekhar (see his story here) Abdelhamid Abaaoud (see his story here) Samy Amimour (see his story here) Isma l Omar Mostefa (see his story here) Mohamed Lahouij Bouhlel (see his story here) Anis Amri (see his story here) Esteban Santiago-Ruiz (see his story here) Abdulkadir Masharipov (see his story here) Khalid Masood (see his story here) Khuram Butt (see his story here) Youssef Zaghba (see his story here)Since 9/11, the city of New York has dedicated a massive amount of resources to anti-terror training, with a police department larger than the’standing armies of 84 countries. It is a city that has done more than any other American city as far as terror readiness yet, it continues to be plagued by a series of plots and attacks over the last 16 years.Following America s previous most deadly mass shooting in Orlando were reports revealing that the FBI had a close relationship with the’suspected attacker through the use of a well-known confidential informant. Similarly, recent reports state that FBI, court filings have revealed how the agency allowed an alleged home grown ISIS attack to take place in Garland, Texas. 21WIRE previously uncovered suspicious elements regarding the cartoon event in Garland when the attack occurred.QUESTION: How is it that federal agencies continue to let known wolves slip through the cracks?As we’ve stated before, mass media injects their own formula for laying out a familiar series of polarizing political points in the aftermath of any tragic event. Appearing to purposefully redirect the public to look at a ready-made laundry list of hateful rhetoric, social media declarations and random writings as an ironclad motive for a crime. The aftermath in the recent terror case of New York is no different, as it has already rapidly descended into a barrage of politically motivated theorizing.The’story of a Uzbekistan truck attacker also recalls the the’suspicious terror case involving the Turkish nightclub shooting at the’start of the year on New Year’s Eve.To unravel future cases, it s important to keep a watchful eye on any links to past plots 21WIRE associate editor Shawn Helton is a researcher and writer, specializing in forensic analysis of high-profile crime scene and counter terrorism investigations, and the deconstruction and analysis of the mass-media coverage surrounding those cases. He has compiled an extensive body of work covering a number of high-profile events since 2012.READ MORE DAILY SHOOTER NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Daily Shooter FilesSupport our work by Subscribing and become a Member @21WIRE.TV |
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| Donald Trump’seems to go out of his way to do exceedingly dumb things. It s almost as if he is doing them on purpose. On Friday, Trump’s moronic action of the day was to break the law. Again. This time, with his Twitter account.Trump just couldn’t wait to jump onto his favorite social media platform and brag about his great jobs report not even for one measly hour to comply with the law. A mere 15 minutes after the job report was released, Trump was bragging about it on Twitter:Excellent Jobs Numbers just released and I have only just begun. Many job stifling regulations continue to fall. Movement back to USA! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 4, 2017Here s the problem. According to a federal rule, executive branch officials have to wait one hour after this type of information is released before publicly commenting on it. The’specific rule, the Office of Management and Budget s Statistical Policy Directive No. 3, has been in place since 1985 and states: Except for members of the’staff of the agency issuing the principal economic indicator who have been designated by the agency head to provide technical explanations of the data, employees of the Executive Branch shall not comment publicly on the data until at least one hour after the official release time. Well, okay. Trump’s a dumbass. We all know this. You can’tell from his vocabulary that he isn’t the brightest crayon in the box. So, maybe he just didn’t know that he was supposed to keep his big mouth shut for a whopping 60 minutes? Yeah, well, no. He knew. We know he knew because his administration has gotten themselves in trouble before for breaking this very same rule in the very same way.Back in March, Sean Spicer was too excited to wait that hour when the February jobs report was released and couldn’t stop himself from tweeting about it after only 22 minutes.Great news for American workers: economy added 235,000 new jobs, unemployment rate drops to 4.7% in first report for @POTUS Trump Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) March 10, 2017And everybody cried foul when this happened five months ago, so it isn’t like no one ever told them about this rule. They knew. Trump knew. He just didn’t care because he is convinced that the rules don’t apply to him.Featured image via Win McNamee/Getty Images |
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| Russia will be the only country to take part in rebuilding Syrian energy facilities, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Monday, after holding talks in Syria with President Bashar al-Assad, the RIA news agency reported. Rogozin was speaking a week after President Vladimir Putin ordered a significant part of Moscow s military contingent in Syria start withdrawing, declaring their work largely done. His comments offered a glimpse of how Moscow hopes it can be involved in Syria s economy, which has been badly damaged by six years of conflict. The Syrian leadership would like to only cooperate with Russia ... in rebuilding all of the country s energy facilities, RIA quoted Rogozin as saying. Mr. President Bashar al-Assad said today that Syria has no desire to work with companies from countries which betrayed Syria at a certain moment, he was cited as saying. The Interfax news agency also quoted Rogozin as saying that Russia and Syria would create a joint company to exploit a Syrian phosphates deposit, while RIA cited him as saying that Moscow planned to use Syrian sea ports to import Russian grain for Syria and other countries like Iraq. These are very important agreements which will allow us to win this war, Interfax quoted Rogozin as saying. |
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| On Wednesday, Donald Trump took a step no previous president had ever dared to consider. He has declared that the United States now officially recognizes the city of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and announced plans to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to the holy city.The only problem is, the city isn’t just holy to the country of Israel.While Trump indicated that he wasn’t taking a position on any contested land, that s really a misleading statement, since declaring Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in effect gives the city to the Israelis, a position that essentially declares the debate on who all of the land belongs to over.Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator in the peace process, was quick to respond, saying that Trump had destroyed any possibility of peace and that he was pushing this region towards chaos [and] violence. Mustafa Marghouti, an independent Palestinian politician, told Al-Jazeera that: This is not a single act. This US administration that did not speak even once about a two-state solution. This American administration did not say or mention the words Palestinian state once. This American administration has failed to exercise any pressure on Israel on the issue of settlements, although Israel has enhanced settlement activities in the occupied territories by no less than 100 percent since President Trump was elected. Many expect to see outrage across the Middle East as news of the decision comes in.The European Union, for their part, insists that their position has not changed, and issued a statement almost immediately declaring that they intended to continue working toward recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of two distinct states Israel AND Palestine.Just as he does here at home, Trump’seems to be uniting people against him, even some that seem to be unlikely pairings. Both the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and King Abdullah II of Jordan warned that ignoring the Palestinian, Muslim, and Christian rights in Jerusalem will only fuel further extremism and undermine the war against terrorism. But the decision does make Trump’s evangelical supporters in America happy. Their desire to hasten the end of days has been a constant source of bafflement for those seeking to understand the’strange relationship between the Jewish state and evangelicalism. According to Christian traditions, the Jews will all die in the Apocalypse, as will everyone who doesn’t share their specific beliefs.No wonder they’re mostly Republicans.Watch Trump’s announcement here:Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images |
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| On Sunday, Rudy Giuliani appeared on Fox News Sunday, where he decided to push the right-wing conspiracy theory that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is suffering from severe health problems. The right-wing myth was pushed heavily by Fox News Sean Hannity.Despite the fact that the conspiracy was debunked almost immediately, Giuliani insisted that Clinton is in fact at death s door with some kind of illness. He alleged that there is vast media conspiracy out to silence those who want to expose the truth about Clinton s health. She doesn’t need to campaign. She has The New York Times, she has the [New York] Daily News, she has ABC, she has CBS, she has NBC. She has an entire media empire that constantly demonizes Donald Trump and fails to point out that she hasn’t had a press conference in 300 days, 200 days, 100 days, I don’t know how long, Giuliani said. Fails to point out several signs of illness by her. All you got to do is go online. All you have to do The’show s host Shannon Bream interrupted Giuliani to say: Which her campaign and a number of people defending her saying there s nothing factual to the claims about her health, and that that s speculation at best. Here s where Giuliani really goes off the rails. He asks for viewers to look up videos from Clinton health truthers, rather than listen to what is reported on in the news. Go online and put down Hillary Clinton illness and take a look at the videos for yourself, Giuliani insisted.You can watch the’segment from the broadcast below.Featured image from video screenshot |
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| COULD IT BE THAT EXPERT BOMB MAKER Ibrahim al-Asiri is trying to use an electronic device to take down a jet?Ibrahim al-Asiri has a long track record of bombing including trying to blow up a Detroit-bound jet using explosives in underwear. Remember that? The underwear bomber was thankfully caught but these people are constantly trying to discover new ways to terrorize people.Advanced bomb-making techniques, such as those taught by Mr Asiri, have alarmed security services in the past. In July 2014, the US requested enhanced security checks on all direct flights to the US, in response to a credible threat . Security experts say that the warning was triggered by a fear that some of al-Qaeda s sophisticated bomb-making expertise, such as that pioneered by Mr Asiri, had proliferated out of Yemen to Syria.For more information on al-Asiri: Profile: Al-Qaeda bomb maker Ibrahim al-AsiriThe US has announced a ban on electronic devices from cabin baggage on flights from eight mainly Middle Eastern and North African countries.The measure will affect nine airlines operating out of 10 airports.Large electronic devices will only be allowed on board in checked baggage. Phones are exempt from the new rules.US officials said the airlines had been given 96 hours, beginning at 07:00 GMT on Tuesday, to ban devices bigger than a mobile phone or smartphone from cabins. They said the ban had no end date.The airports affected are:Queen Alia International, Amman, Jordan Cairo International Airport, Egypt Ataturk Airport, Istanbul, Turkey King Abdulaziz International, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia King Khalid International, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Kuwait International Airport Mohammed V International, Casablanca, Morocco Hamad International, Doha, Qatar Dubai International, United Arab Emirates Abu Dhabi International, United Arab EmiratesThe nine airlines are:Royal Jordanian Egypt Air Turkish Airlines Saudi Arabian Airlines Kuwait Airways Royal Air Maroc Qatar Airways Emirates Etihad AirwaysHomeland Security Secretary John Kelly called members of Congress over the weekend to explain’the’security issues behind the ban, congressional aides said.The restrictions had been under consideration for several weeks, US media said.In February 2016 an aircraft operated by the Dubai-based carrier Daallo was damaged by an explosion shortly after take-off from the Somali capital, Mogadishu.Investigators said a passenger who was sucked out of the plane had been carrying a laptop bomb. The pilot managed to land and the alleged bomber was the only fatality. Had the device gone off at cruising altitude, the plane would almost certainly have been destroyed.The Islamist militant group al-Shabab, which is linked to al-Qaeda, claimed that it was responsible. The possibility of further such attacks is apparently what is now concerning American spies .Read more: BBC |
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| Apparently, the fact that 70 percent of women view Donald Trump unfavorably is making Republicans think that what he needs is a running mate who also treats women like shit.A top Republican consultant thinks Trump and former disgraced Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich would make the perfect political pair because their six wives combined means they understand women better than anyone else. I think Newt is lobbying to be the vice president, and I think their people are paying a lot of attention to him, Ed Rollins told the National Review on Monday. It d be a ticket with six former wives, kind of like a Henry VIII thing. They certainly understand women. Wow. Just wow.Republicans are facing an unprecedented opposition from female voters and their solution to fix that is to double down on the whole let’s nominate someone who disrespects women idea.Donald Trump is on wife number three. And given his history, you can bank on him eventually seeking wife number four when Melania is no longer a 10 in his eyes.He cheated on his first wife with the woman who became his second wife and was quick to start a relationship with the third Mrs. Trump during the’separation.And that relationship history is probably why Trump is so keen to count Gingrich as one of his top allies.Let s not forget that Newt Gingrich also cheated on his first wife with his second wife and callously asked for a divorce while she was recovering from cancer surgery in the hospital. Then he cheated on his second wife with the woman who would become his current wife. In 1993, Gingrich began an affair with House of Representatives staffer Callista Bisek and divorced his second wife after she refused to grant him the open marriage he wanted. Keep in mind, this hypocrisy unfolded as Gingrich and Republicans sought to impeach President Bill Clinton for his affair with Monica Lewinsky.And so, Trump has included Gingrich on his short list of vice-presidential candidates and some Republicans are thrilled because they think their six marriages make them experts when it comes to women and that they ll somehow be able to make women flock to their campaign.Frankly, it s insulting.If Republicans really think this is their best strategy to persuade women to vote for the GOP in November they truly never understood women at all. Just the idea that being like Henry VIII, who had two of his wives executed, would make them somehow more appealing to women demonstrates perfectly just how terribly Republicans have treated women. They literally think emulating a womanizing 16th century English king is the best way to deal with women in the 21st century. If anything can make MORE women hate Trump and the GOP, this is it.Featured Image: Wikimedia |
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| The 400,000 civilians besieged in the Syrian enclave of Eastern Ghouta face complete catastrophe because aid deliveries are blocked and hundreds of people need urgent medical evacuation, U.N. humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland said on Thursday. Seven people have died because they were not evacuated and 29 more were at imminent risk including 18 children, he told reporters in Geneva after a regular meeting of the U.N. humanitarian taskforce on Syria. I feel as if we are now returning to some of the bleakest days of this conflict again, Egeland said. Nowhere is it as bad as in Eastern Ghouta, he said of the area, which is surrounded by the army. The area east of Damascus had been completely sealed off since September, leaving U.N. aid convoys and evacuations as a potential lifeline facing a bureaucratic wall of inaction . We cannot continue like that. If we only get a fraction of what is needed it will be a complete catastrophe, he said. What about a ceasefire now in this area and a green light to all medical evacuations? As well as people wounded in the fighting, there were a growing number of acutely malnourished children, which meant they were very close to dying, he said. Why men in their 50s and 60s like me stop women and children from getting the medical service that would save their lives is beyond my imagination. It can change tomorrow. Russian, Syrian and U.N. officials had met in Damascus to try to break the deadlock, both for Eastern Ghouta and for about 55,000 civilians stranded on the Jordanian border in a desolate area known as the Berm. The first meeting still hasn t produced at all the concrete results that were needed but it is our strong feeling that the Russian Federation wants us to get the access and wants to help us so we are hopeful that this trilateral mechanism will yield results. The Berm had not received an aid distribution since June, but the United States, Russia and others had worked out a detailed plan to supply aid from Damascus. Despite diplomatic efforts to set up de-escalation zones there was still fighting in many areas, including Aleppo, Idlib, Raqqa, Deir al-Zor and Hama, and civilians were being caught in the crossfire. He said the war had lasted longer than the Second World War, and supplies were depleted, so that the coming winter could be the toughest of the war even if it is the last. This is a man-made disaster, it can end, Egeland said. |
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| Shawn Helton 21st Century WireEarlier this week Apple CEO Tim Cook publicly rejected an unprecedented US Federal Court order that would force the company to decrypt an iPhone linked to one of the San Bernardino shooters a move that would have vast implications PRIVACY & PROTECTION: Apple CEO Tim Cook challenges FBI court order to unlock private data of users (Image Source: Iphoneitalia)Breaching Public Privacy In a published open letter entitled, A Message to Our Customers, Apple CEO Tim Cook strikingly opposed a recent federal court ruling that would unlock a phone that s been connected to the San Bernardino Mass Shooting case.The FBI ruling stipulates that Apple must provide access for one time only. However, cyber security experts and technology companies insist this is a virtual impossibility and a guarantee that cannot be made.In theory, the decryption of the phone would be opened via a newly created operating system that would give the FBI a backdoor into the device. But according to many skeptics, this type of backdoor feature could set a very dangerous precedent, while possibly making it much easier for invaders (either government, or hacker) mining for data well into the future.In addition, the new iOS (not yet in existence) proposed in the wake of the San Bernardino shooting would give US law enforcement agencies broader access to consumer communications and other private information according to many in the tech industry. This reality was confirmed by Apple s chief executive Cook, who outlined the’staggering privacy implications this past Tuesday: The FBI wants us to make a new version of the iPhone operating system, circumventing several important security features, and install it on an iPhone recovered during the investigation. In the wrong hands, this software which does not exist today would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone s physical possession. In essence, the FBI s court order demand appears to bypass basic privacy rights, and when seen in a bigger picture outside of the San Bernardino case, it could be viewed as a violation of the public s 4th Amendment.Challenging The RulingOver the past 48 hours, there s been a social media frenzy, as Facebook, Twitter and Google have all expressed their support for Apple s court battle with federal authorities. This has also included the often entertaining if not perplexing, self-proclaimed cybersecurity legend John McAfee of McAfee Inc., who wrote an op-ed published with Business Insider, that dissects the potential fallout of the federal court ruling in similar fashion to that of Cook.Here s some of what the controversial cyber guru turned libertarian presidential hopeful had to say about the dire security circumstances facing Apple and the world at large: Using an obscure law, written in 1789 the All Writs Act the US government has ordered Apple to place a back door into its iOS software so the FBI can decrypt information on an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters. It has finally come to this. After years of arguments by virtually every industry specialist that back doors will be a bigger boon to hackers and to our nation s enemies than publishing our nuclear codes and giving the keys to all of our military weapons to the Russians and the Chinese, our government has chosen, once again, not to listen to the minds that have created the glue that holds this world together. Continuing, cyber expert McAfee, offered up a glimpse what could transpire in the event of a blackmail scenario if such a digital backdoor were to exist: In spite of the FBI s claim that it would protect the back door, we all know that s impossible. There are bad apples everywhere, and there only needs to be in the US government. Then a few million dollars, some beautiful women (or men), and a yacht trip to the Caribbean might be all it takes for our enemies to have full access to our secrets. ANTIVIRUS PIONEER John McAfee, well-known American computer programmer. (Photo businessinsider) McAfee then summarized his op-ed with a ready-made-solution to the FBI s demands by offering his services, I will, free of charge, decrypt the information on the San Bernardino phone, with my team, over a three-week period.On the’surface, a sensational gauntlet has been thrown down, calling for the court of public opinion to weigh in on a very important topic concerning privacy rights. But there s much more to it This latest privacy crisis might be viewed through a more cynical lens, should readers choose to view this drama as a story featuring controlled opposition especially when considering the pedigree of those supposedly opposed to the FBI s recent court order.Is it possible that Apple and others have staged opposition to this court decree as a way to bolster their public image, before eventually allowing the rights of private citizens to be abused? Both Cook and McAfee have direct links to companies plagued with security baggage such as Lockheed Martin and IBM, both of which have had their ethics put to question over the years.While there is nothing conclusive here, the public should consider this other side to the’story and eliminate inconvenient possibilities in an effort to find the reality of the present circumstances, even if high profile tech leaders may appear to be saying the right things in public, purportedly in the interest of the general population.In an article featured here at 21WIRE from January of 2015, we learned of another privacy threat that should concern the public regarding biometric IDs as facial and emotional recognition software has already been rolled out without public consent: More Orwellian technology is being rolled out, not just to make you into more of a commodity than you already are, but also to profile your emotions. With no regulation on this issue, corporations are basically writing the privacy rules as they go along. Do you trust them? Where is this really heading? In realty, they have no control over how third parties using their software might use images of people s faces and digital signatures of your emotions , storing, sharing and selling that data across macro platforms. Sure, it s just another new wing of Big Data. Even social media data trawlers like Facebook has already begun moving into facial recognition of their users. So while it is compelling, and quite welcome to hear tech giants calling out the FBI s overreach, it appears that many in the technology sector have already pledged support for a growing police state apparatus by virtue of developing privacy invading software. For the moment though, it appears technology innovators Cook and McAfee, along with other social media companies, seem to be working on behalf of the public s interest, even though it could be out of concern for marketability rather than true worry about where the field of technology has been heading.Apple s iPhone and tablets introduced a biometric ID system with its thumb print login scan in 2013 a system which will store millions of biometric identifiers on Apple cloud servers. It wasn’t long after the’system was launched before hackers cracked the’security for this biometric entry point, exposing another unspeakable privacy breach.If nothing else, it has caused a sharp debate over this pressing subject. DIGITAL DANGER The battle for consumer privacy hangs in the balance over the recent FBI court order. (Photo vibratingupdate)Problem, Reaction, SolutionAccording to the Guardian: For months, the FBI searched for a compelling case that would force Apple to weaken iPhone security and then the San Bernardino shooting happened. This carefully planned legal battle has been months in the making, US officials and tech executives told the Guardian, as the government and Apple try to settle whether national security can dictate how Silicon Valley writes computer code. This past December, those of us at 21WIRE, pointed out a number of inconsistencies relating the heavily dramatized San Bernardino shooting attack. In fact, the media driven shooting attack said to have taken place at the Inland Regional Center had a laundry list of details that didn’t add up.After a week of whitewashed reports regarding the’shooting, a media scripted ransacking of the alleged shooters home (tampering with a potential crime scene) and eyewitness accounts that directly contradicted the official narrative from law enforcement, we learned that in the very room where 14 people were reportedly killed (along with 21 injured) at the Inland Regional Center, there was an active-shooter training drill/rehearsal, involving some of the victims almost a year before December s attack to place.Incredibly, a critical component that should be mentioned in the encryption battle involving Apple and the FBI, is that there were multiple eye-witness accounts that directly contradicted the terror-tale blamed solely on Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik. In other words, we have an event largely hinged on a barrage of convoluted and conflicting accounts concerning the San Bernardino attack.The eye-witness accounts near the’scene of the’shooting, never mentioned anything about seeing a female shooter, which 21WIRE also noted this past December: In fact, authorities did apprehend a third suspect but that aspect of the case, has seemingly gone down the memory hole, as has the very detailed eye-witness testimony from Sally Abdelmageed, (an Inland Regional Center employee) in a CBS interview with Scott Pelley, which clearly states that there were three white men in tactical gear dressed in black involved in the’shooting event. Abdelmageed s account, echoed that of Juan Hernandez, who was interviewed shortly after the’shooting incident by a local NBC affiliate, where it was described that three white men in military fatigues, had fled the’scene in black Chevy Impala or SUV. Despite all of this, CNN, ABC, FOX and all other media outlets on the’scene all pivoted, in unison, to validate authorities (the FBI) revised official Jihadi Bonnie & Clyde story of only 2 shooters a husband and wife . Additionally, a close colleague from Inland Regional Center, Chris Nwadike, stated that Farook had been acting normal and that he was quiet, and that he had not had a disagreement with anyone at the center the day of the’shooting. Furthermore, the FBI themselves revealed that both Malik and Farook had not posted radical messages on social media which had previously been reported by authorities (and dutifully repeated across the mainstream media).Even though the media eventually admitted that there were no radical posts , the idea of social media postings became a central story line suggesting that Malik had somehow influenced Farook into participating in the attack. Regardless of what really happened, it seems that the FBI had the opening it needed to try to force open direct access into personal devices.Is it also possible the’security agency wants access to the encrypted phone so they can plant an additional back story to a shooting case that never made any sense?Food for thought to chew on in today s digital age As the privacy vs. security battle moves forward, Reuters news agency reports: The U.S. Department of Justice filed a motion on Friday seeking to compel Apple Inc (AAPL.O) to comply with a judge s order to unlock the encrypted iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters, portraying the tech giant s refusal as a marketing strategy. The future of privacy hangs by a thread, as more and more divide and rule policies are being implemented at the expense of public freedoms.More to come on this story here at 21WIRE READ MORE SCI-TECH NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Sci-Tech FilesREAD MORE DAILY SHOOTER NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Daily Shooter Files |
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| NATO ally Turkey is not seeking to antagonize the U.S.-led alliance by purchasing Russian S-400 surface-to-air missiles and is in talks with France and Italy to buy similar weapons, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said. Ankara s decision to buy the Russian system has been seen in some Western capitals as a snub to the alliance, given tensions with Moscow over Ukraine and Syria, while the deal raised concern because the weapons cannot be integrated into NATO defense. But Stoltenberg said it was a sovereign decision and that he had talked it through with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan. There hasn t been any request from Turkey to integrate the S-400 into NATO air defense system, Stoltenberg told Reuters in an interview on a Belgian military plane returning from Romania late on Monday. I spoke with President Erdogan when I met him in September. I said that the kind of capabilities different nations want to acquire is a national decision, he said of the S-400 system that Turkey has made an advance payment for and hopes to see delivered in 2019. Stoltenberg stressed that top Turkish officials, as well as Erdogan, had told him Ankara remained a strong NATO ally. That was despite the S-400 issue and a dispute with Germany over Erdogan s arrest of German nationals as part of a mass purge following last July s failed coup bid. Stoltenberg said Ankara was ready to brief its allies in the U.S.-led 29-member bloc on the reasons behind its decision to buy the S-400 system. Erdogan has blamed NATO countries for failing to propose a viable alternative to the long-range Russian missiles, but Stoltenberg said Erdogan was now talking to Paris and Rome for similar systems, a move the alliance chief welcomed. He told me that Turkey is in dialogue with France and Italy on possible delivery of air defense systems from them ... on top of the S-400, Stoltenberg said. Stoltenberg did not give more details but said Turkey was familiar with the so-called SAMP-T missiles developed because Italy had stationed them in Turkey as part of NATO efforts to help protect Ankara from rocket attacks. Such weapons are designed to protect battlefields and strategic sites such as airports and sea ports against airborne threats, including cruise missiles and aircraft. The SAMP-T system is produced by Italian-French consortium Eurosam, a joint venture between European missile maker MBDA and Thales. Russia uses different technology, as well as know-how that Moscow is unlikely to be willing to share, experts say. For NATO, the important thing is interoperability, Stoltenberg said, speaking on his return from the launch of a NATO force aimed at deterring Russia in the Black Sea region. We encourage, facilitate allies to develop systems, acquire and operate systems together that will reduce costs and strengthen the defense industries within the alliance, he said. As part of NATO s collective defense pledge, the allies integrate their ships, planes and weapons systems to make them work together, as well as sharing command across the alliance. Some eastern European allies that were once under Soviet rule still rely on Russian-made planes, but integrating Russia s most advanced ground-based missile system would also be highly complicated for political reasons. While Stoltenberg, a former Norwegian prime minister, took up the NATO post three years ago with a more conciliatory tone toward Moscow than his Danish predecessor Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Russia s Crimea annexation in March 2014 had already badly damaged East-West ties. In the latest dispute, Stoltenberg said Moscow had given misleading information about the size of its war games, known as Zapad, or West, last month. Our assessment so far shows that the scale and geographic scope of the Zapad exercise significantly exceeded what was announced, he said, although he said so far there were no signs Russia had left behind troops or weapons in Belarus during the exercises, as some Baltic nations had feared. Russia said Zapad involved some 13,000 troops and has accused NATO allies of exaggerating the size of the drills. |
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| Meet Abby Johnson. Abby Johnson is a pro-life feminist and she has the most thankless job in the world: She’s trying to move the anti-abortion movement away from rabid, regressive Christianity and closer to thoughtful, life-affirming feminism. And she’s failing. Miserably.Johnson is one of those rare creatures; a pro-lifer that actually cares more about life than control. In other words, where most pro-lifers couldn’t care less about the baby they’re supposedly Saving AFTER it s born, Johnson is fighting to make abortion unnecessary in the first place. As her fellow spitter-in-the-wind, Serrin Foster, the leader of Feminists For Life, says, There are three key reasons for the feminization of poverty: Lack of education, lack of workplace accommodation and paternal support. Do that, three-fourths of the reasons that women have an abortion are over. And she’s not wrong. But that s why the effort to emphasize the life in pro-life is doomed to failure. Talk to most any conservative anti-abortion person and ask them if they support comprehensive sex education, free contraceptives, pre-natal care, post-natal care, food, clothes and housing for the women and babies they’re so worried about. The overwhelming majority of them will absolutely refuse. For them, pregnancy is simple a means to an end: Punishing women for having sex.They spend a lot of time crying crocodile tears for the innocent lives being lost but have zero interest in preventing unwanted pregnancies or getting women the’support they need to care for a baby they can’t afford. It s about control and punishment. And is always has been. A fact that Johnson and her fellow feminists are finding out the hard way:While issues such as expanding family leave requirements and access to child care could be an area of consensus for self-identified pro-life and pro-choice feminists whatever their reasons for supporting them there seemed to be little enthusiasm at the conference for working with pro-choicers on these causes.When Johnson asked who the abortion movement was united behind, an audience member yelled out, the devil! (The answer was Planned Parenthood.) The Devil. Clearly, these are rational people who can’think clearly about the best way to prevent abortions. And when Johnson discussed Hillary Clinton, a woman that has spent decades fighting for women s rights? That didn’t go so well with the crowd of concerned women Johnson was speaking to:While Clinton has the clearly better record on policies supporting mothers policies that speakers like Foster and Jacobson said help dissuade women from choosing abortion the only positive references to presidential candidates at the event were allusions to Donald Trump’s promises to pick Supreme Court justices who would roll back Roe v. Wade. Anti-choice leaders as a whole have rallied behind Trump, who besides vowing to cherish women and appoint anti-choice judges, has not offered any serious plans for improving the lot of women in the workforce or helping women out of poverty.As long as the anti-abortion movement overwhelmingly views an unwanted pregnancy as a punishment for women, they will NEVER stop trying to make abortion illegal in the United States. In a perfect world, Johnson would be leading an army of women to Washington to pass laws giving women everything they need to raise a unplanned child in safety and good health, thus ending almost all need for an abortion. Instead, she’s going to waste her time trying to convince women who clearly hate other women that they should really be pro-life instead of pro-control.Good luck with that.Photo by Pete Marovich/Getty Images |
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| The Obama administration announced a broad expansion on Tuesday of a program to let people fleeing violence in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras enter the United States as refugees, and said Costa Rica agreed to temporarily shelter some of those with no other recourse. Under the plan, Costa Rica will host up to 200 applicants at a time deemed too vulnerable to remain in their homelands while the U.S. Department of Homeland Security evaluates them for possible resettlement, which could take up to six months. The United States will also expand a program for child refugees and allow some people to apply for refugee status in their home countries. The steps, after months of criticism of President Barack Obama’s handling of the crisis, are modest in comparison to plans announced by Secretary of State John Kerry in January to open several refugee processing centers in the region. “Our current efforts to date have been insufficient to address the number of people who may have legitimate refugee claims,” Amy Pope, deputy homeland security adviser at Obama’s National Security Council, told a telephone briefing for reporters. Many details, including how the program would be financed or how many people might be eligible, were unavailable. Advocates said they were pleased the administration was moving to provide the migrants, especially children, with an alternative to staying home with their lives at risk or relying on smugglers for the dangerous journey through Mexico. “It’s really the way the program should have been established from the start, but even belatedly we’re happy to see that this is the direction that they’re taking it,” said Bill Frelick, director of the refugee rights program at Human Rights Watch. Since October, nearly 80,000 children and families from the three countries have been apprehended at the U.S. border with Mexico. The crisis has fueled heated debate on the campaign trail over whether to welcome migrants fleeing violence or build a wall to keep them out, a centerpiece of Republican Donald Trump’s run for president. Republican Representative Bob Goodlatte, chairman of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, called the plan an abuse of the law. “Today’s expansion of the Obama Administration’s policy is simply a continuation of the government-sanctioned border surge,” he said in a statement. The program also met resistance in the region. Guatemalan government officials rejected the description of those seeking to leave the country as refugees. The administration also will expand its Central American Minors program, which allows those under 21 with a parent in the United States legally to seek refugee status. The program will now allow siblings, care givers or another parent to do so. Only 267 minors have entered the United States since the program began in December 2014. Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said 2,880 applicants have been approved and are awaiting resettlement. The New York Times reported in January that the United States planned to admit up to 9,000 Central American refugees. Costa Rican Minister of the Presidency Sergio Alfaro told a news conference in San Jose the government reserved the “explicit right” to ask for more information if there were doubts about those granted the six-month humanitarian visas. Carlos Maldonado of the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) said the UNHCR and International Organization for Migration would handle costs incurred as applicants were processed in Costa Rica. If approved, they would most likely head to the United States, but could go to Canada, Sweden, Argentina, Brazil, Chile or Uruguay. Convincing countries to host a center has been difficult amid concern slow processing would lead to a backlog of people with nowhere to go, U.S. sources said. Nearly 8,000 Cubans migrating to the United States were stuck in Costa Rica recently when neighboring Nicaragua closed its border. Costa Rica’s location is also a challenge. Salvadorans, Hondurans and Guatemalans seeking to move to the United States must travel south, across Nicaragua, to get there. |
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| The Trump administration’s combative view of traditional news media as the “opposition party” and “fake news” is turning out to be the best hope in 2017 for newspapers struggling to attract more digital readers and advertisers. The New York Times (NYT.N), the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and Gannett Co are building on the online readership they gained during the 2016 presidential election by marketing unbiased reporting as a sales strategy. The risk, however, is whether those new readers will attract advertising dollars to the newspapers, some of which have been criticized for having political leanings. An Edelman survey of more than 33,000 people in 28 countries shows trust in the media is at an all-time low at just 35 percent. So far, there is reason for optimism among newspaper executives and investors. The New York Times, which President Donald Trump has referred to as “failing” in his Twitter messages, added a record 276,000 digital news subscribers in the last quarter and sees digital ad revenue up 10 to 15 percent in the current quarter. The company said it expects to add 200,000 digital subscriptions to its news products in the first quarter. The Wall Street Journal added 113,000 digital subscriptions in its latest quarter, an almost 12 percent jump. The company said that January’s numbers were even higher, but it declined to provide figures. Financial Times digital subscriptions jumped 6 percent in the fourth quarter to 646,000, while digital subscriptions at the 109 local newspapers across the country that make up the Gannett’s USA Today Network, grew 26 percent to 182,000 in the fourth quarter. Meanwhile USA Today, which is part of the USA Today Network, and not subscription based, saw revenue grow 1.4 percent, the company said. It said 68 percent of USA Today’s advertising revenue in the fourth quarter came from digital. In addition to the proliferation of "fake news" websites that publish false stories for propaganda purposes, another challenge for traditional media is hostility from Trump who has on occasion described their reporting as "fake news." Republican Trump's close adviser, Stephen Bannon, told The New York Times in an interview in January: "The media's the opposition party" and not the Democratic Party. To win over advertisers and readers’ trust, The Wall Street Journal ran ads online and in print during the election. One featured a pin ball machine with the tagline, “No Tilt. Campaign coverage that’s on the level.” The paper has run ads after the election to highlight its content as “created, curated and checked in a real newsroom.” The New York Times, which is focused on increasing its subscriber revenue, in January launched its “Truth” campaign consisting of online ads urging readers to sign up because, “Truth. It needs your support.” The newspaper sees an opportunity in making sure readers understand that it is fair and accurate and plans to launch another marketing campaign in coming weeks, Chief Executive Officer Mark Thompson said on the company’s last earnings call. The Financial Times is running its “Facts. Truths.” campaign promoting its coverage of the election and now the Trump administration. Gannett, which rebranded its publications under the “USA Today Network,” has used the election to highlight it has journalists at local newspapers across the United States, said Andy Yost, chief marketing officer at Gannett. Divisiveness stirred by the election campaign has made brands avoid publications that appear to be politically aligned, said Natalie Prout, a strategist at Phenomenon, a Los Angeles-based branding agency. For example, there is a heightened understanding in the wake of November’s election that if a brand buys an ad in The Huffington Post, for example, it could be perceived as supporting a liberal agenda, Prout said. Brands are also worried about their ads showing up in what is perceived as “fake news,” so they are exercising more caution when using programmatic advertising, where they automatically buy digital ad spots through a third party. Instead of listing which sites they do not want their ads showing up on, more advertisers are choosing which sites they do want to see their ads, said Barry Lowenthal, president of The Media Kitchen, a New York-based media buyer. Despite the recent bump in subscribers, newspapers still are facing major headwinds, said newspaper analyst Ken Doctor. “Print advertising is in free fall,” Doctor said. “The fundamentals haven’t changed.” But growing digital subscribers can help attract advertisers to other areas, such as conferences, said Suzi Watford, chief marketing officer of Dow Jones, which includes The Wall Street Journal. “The more we are able to bring in people, the more we are able to build and maintain a healthy ad business,” Watford said. For a graphic on online newspaper subscriptions click here |
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| The crowd went wild when President Trump and the First Lady arrived at the National Guard Armory in Louisiana:FAKE MEDIA BLACKOUT!Louisiana Crowd goes wild & chants USA, USA, USA, when our @POTUS Arrives at National Guard Armory! #Respect pic.twitter.com/JTCQIiCULs Amy Mek (@AmyMek) September 3, 2017Don t let the mainstream media fool you! The people love President Trump and our beautiful First Lady Melania Trump. Did you see any of this on the main stream media? We doubt it! This is what America looks like!Crowds are lined up ready to salute President Trump: THIS IS AMERICA!So much SPIRIT in LA! Thank you to all of our HEREOS who saved many lives. An honor to spend time w/ @NationalGuard, #LEOs & the #CajunNavy! pic.twitter.com/7PEtSL6RKF Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 3, 2017THE PEOPLE AREN T FOOLED BY THE FAKE MEDIA THEY CARE ABOUT OUR PRESIDENT:President Donald Trump & First Lady Melania Trump Arrive in Chennault International Airport in Louisiana to Survey Flood Damage from Hurricane HarveyA visit to the National Guard Armory to say thanks:PRAY FOR LOUSIANA AND TEXAS! PRAY FOR OUR PRESIDENT AND FIRST LADY! |
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| The United States is very disappointed that Russia on Tuesday cast a veto at the United Nations Security Council against renewing a mandate to continue an investigation into who was responsible for the use of chemical weapons during Syria s civil war. We are disappointed, we are very disappointed that Russia put what it considered to be political considerations over the Syrian people who were so brutally murdered, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told a regular briefing. |
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| Construction of the Dwight D. Eisenhower National Memorial kicked off symbolically on Thursday after years of opposition to the late U.S. president’s $150 million monument by critics who balked at its cost and size. Gilded shovels flashed as lawmakers, architect Frank Gehry and Eisenhower family members turned a trough of earth at a ceremonial groundbreaking for the four-acre (1.6-hectare) memorial to the 34th president and World War Two Allied commander. “At last, at last, we’re building at last,” said Republican U.S. Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, the head of the memorial’s commission, as he held up the monument’s building permit. “Let’s get the job done.” Dedication of the monument just off the National Mall and near the National Air and Space Museum is anticipated for May 8, 2019, the 75th anniversary of the surrender of Nazi Germany in World War Two. Congress approved the memorial in 1999, but opposition to Gehry’s plans stalled it for years. Criticism focused on eight-story-high columns supporting a steel tapestry portraying the Kansas prairies where Eisenhower grew up. In 2014, a House of Representatives’ committee report referred to the memorial as a “five-star folly” plagued by rising costs, construction delays and design flaws. The Republican president’s family dropped its objections last year after Gehry reduced the size and changed the tapestry’s image from Kansas farmland to Normandy beaches - the scene of the Allies’ 1944 D-Day invasion of France - to better reflect Eisenhower’s international stature. Susan Eisenhower, the president’s granddaughter, on Thursday downplayed the hurdles the memorial had faced and noted that the one to President Franklin Roosevelt had taken 43 years from conception to its opening in 1997. “I’d say we’re way ahead of the timeline,” she said to laughter from onlookers, who included a handful of World War Two veterans. Gehry’s plan got final approval from Washington’s planning and arts commissions this fall, and the site will be known as Eisenhower Park. Some critics remain. “It’s a national embarrassment that we are building a grandiose, inscrutable and ugly memorial that virtually no one likes,” Justin Shubow, president of the National Civic Art Society, said in an email. Congress, which had long refused to fund the project, allocated $45 million for construction in the current fiscal year. Republican President Donald Trump’s administration is asking for another $40 million next year, and the memorial’s commission also is halfway to its goal of raising $25 million in private funds. |
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| Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman met on Thursday to discuss bilateral relations and international security issues, TASS news agency cited Russia s defense ministry as saying. The meeting took place at the ministry, the agency reported, giving to further details. |
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| It s well known by now that Trump unsuccessfully pressured Comey to end the FBI s investigation into Michael Flynn and Russia. Many might think that his attempts to pressure authorities to end that investigation ended with Comey, or maybe Attorney General Jeff Sessions. They didn’t. A new report from the Washington Post details how Trump went after his newly confirmed Director of National Intelligence, Daniel Coats, on this same subject. [Trump] then started complaining about the FBI investigation and Comey s handling of it, said officials familiar with the account Coats gave to associates. Two days earlier, Comey had confirmed in a congressional hearing that the bureau was probing whether Trump’s campaign coordinated with Russia during the 2016 race The interaction with Coats indicates that Trump aimed to enlist top officials to have Comey curtail the bureau s probe. After that, Trump’spoke to Coats again and asked him to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion between his campaign and Russia. He made a similar request of Mike Rogers, the director of the National Intelligence Agency. Both of them refused to do what Trump wanted them to do.Trump is likely upset that he can’t control every part of the executive branch like he no doubt thought he would. Nominating and confirming people who have a modicum of integrity, as well as knowledge of how the intelligence community and White House should behave with respect to each other, has only served to push Trump into a very uncomfortable corner.While Trump and his allies continue to deny that anything ever happened, up to and including lying through their teeth, we have to ask one question: If Trump knows he’s innocent, why try to interfere in the investigations this way? Why behave like there s a cover-up? Once again, none of this is the behavior of an innocent man. It s the behavior of someone with something to hide.Featured image via Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images |
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| If anyone wonders how the Reverend Al Sharpton got started in the’shake down business look no further than this loud mouth who blames everyone but his own community for their situation. We live in a free market society. The black man in this video is free to apply for a business loan and open a business in his community. The thing is, no one stopping any black member in any urban community from opening a local business.To blame someone else for the’state of his community is only deflecting from the real problems crime-ridden neighborhoods across America are facing. Perhaps his anger should be directed at our first black President who has been at the helm while black unemployment numbers and crime have skyrocketed to an all time high. |
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| A caller to British radio host Katie Hopkins whose name is Jessica, called into Katie s show to relay a story to her about her formerly bleeding heart liberal husband who has come to have a hatred of a certain demographic after helping migrants who are arriving in migrant rescue boats. Jessica told Hopkins, My husband is turning into a man I don’t recognize anymore because of what he has physically seen. Jessica added that it was the way male migrants behaved in particular, that led to his change of heart.She told Katie: It was a really, really traumatic time for him. He was doing three-week stints and they were picking bodies out of the’sea. Babies, women, it was awful. But at the’same time, he’said they were processing men, adults, in their 30s who all had phones with Isis stuff on the phones, they were being separated. When they were being handed over to the authorities with the information explaining that these guys had all this on their phones, and what their ages were, and they were just being processed through. There was nothing, they were just being separated out, they just all went through with everything else, it broke his heart, because he was dealing with families who were in such a terrible state with young babies who so clearly needed rescuing. And yet you had adult males that were pushing women and children to the back of the queue they felt that they were more important. It s just an awful situation, and this was last year. He can’t handle the way these women and children are treated by these men. There were hundreds and hundreds of women, children, men who were being picked out of the’sea. Not all of them were refugees. He came home heartbroken. Absolutely heartbroken, because he’s saying I don’t know how Europe is going to cope .She continued: How are we supposed to process that as individuals? You know, he’still has images that he has to deal with over a year later. We forget about the medics who deal with this, the’soldiers that are dealing with this. The people that are processing these people. It s not just how are we going to process all these people, but how are we going to deal with the trauma of having to process these people? Having to make these decisions? Who do you treat first? A special thank you to Paul Joseph Watson for this video: Man who helped rescue refugees said many were men with ISIS content on phones who shoved women & children out of the way. pic.twitter.com/wH08TLf4xY Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) May 3, 2017Katie asked the caller how her husband is doing currently after seeing the vast number of migrants rescued this year already.Jessica said: My husband is turning into, it s why I stopped him doing it, he’s turning into a man I don’t recognise anymore. Because my family think I m a bleeding heart liberal, and you know, I would just wave everyone in and say come on, we ll help , and my husband was of a very similar opinion that people needed help. He s now turning into someone I don’t recognise, because of what he has physically seen. He is starting to say this is not all people looking for help, there are people here who are out for their own self interest. She added: It s just awful. And now he is building a hatred of a certain demograph[ic], that he has been exposed to because he’s seen the way they behave. LBCIs it too late for Europe? Have they allowed this unabated invasion of migrants from majority Muslim nations to their once culturally distinct nations for too long? What will these bleeding heart nations look like in 5 years? How long will Americans sit back and allow bleeding heart liberals to call them racists or xenophobes because they’don’t want to see the fundamental transformation of the United States that Barack Obama promised would happen if we elected him as our president. Can President Trump’stop this nightmare without the help of a Republican majority in both the House and Senate? |
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| Congressman Sean Duffy and Tucker Carlson are both rising stars in the conservative movement. They discuss the’slow walk of vote counting by bitter liberals in Wisconsin:Congressman: Dems Stalling Recount in Wisconsin to Steal Electoral Votes From Trump https://t.co/leDP4gyh5V pic.twitter.com/rgfJJHjBZL Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) December 2, 2016 |
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| Turkey said on Friday that a huge banner of jailed Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Ocalan unfurled in central Raqqa by U.S.-backed Kurdish forces would further harm already fraught relations between Ankara and Washington. The banner of Ocalan was raised on Thursday at a ceremony to mark Raqqa s capture from Islamic State in a campaign spearheaded by Kurdish Syrian YPG fighters, with military support from the United States. Turkey considers the YPG to be an extension of Ocalan s Kurdistan Worker s Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency in Turkey s southeast and is designated a terrorist organization by the United States, European Union and Turkey. Ankara says that weapons supplied to fighters in Syria have ended up in PKK hands, threatening Turkish security. I wonder what more evidence the U.S. needs to accept that the ... YPG is a terrorist organization, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told reporters as he left a mosque in Istanbul. Displaying a photograph of the PKK terrorist leader damages U.S.-Turkey relations very seriously. With this move, the U.S. is not only cooperating with terrorists, but they are endangering the future of Syria. The banner of Ocalan was raised on Thursday by an all-female Kurdish militia. Kurdish YPG commanders and fighters were also shown chanting Long Live Apo! , as Ocalan is known by his followers, in a video of celebrations distributed by the YPG press office. President Tayyip Erdogan echoed Yildirim s condemnation. How can the U.S. explain the poster of Ocalan in Raqqa? Is this the way they are cooperating with us in the struggle against terror? he said. You are not standing by us against terrorism. You wouldn t allow this if you were. Ocalan has been in jail in Turkey since 1999 on a treason conviction. He negotiated a truce from his prison cell, but the ceasefire broke down two years ago and thousands have died in mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey in renewed violence since then. The banner incident comes amid a diplomatic spat between Ankara and Washington over the detention of a Turkish employee of the U.S. consulate in Istanbul that has seen the two countries suspend visa services for each other s citizens. |
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| 21st Century Wire says The’scandal emerged after it was revealed that Flynn had a conversation with a Russian Ambassador, Sergey I. Kislak, during the transition period before Trump took office, supposedly over the issue of US sanctions against Russia. It is believed that Flynn had misled Vice President Mike Pence by not disclosing the full nature of these conversations.Flynn stated in a letter: In the course of my duties as the incoming National Security Advisor, I held numerous phone calls with foreign counterparts, ministers, and ambassadors, Flynn wrote. These calls were to facilitate a smooth transition and begin to build the necessary relationships between the President, his advisors and foreign leaders. Such calls are standard practice in any transition of this magnitude. Unfortunately, because of the fast pace of events, I inadvertently briefed the Vice President Elect and others with the incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian Ambassador. I have sincerely apologized to the President and the Vice President, and they have accepted my apology. This indiscretion was seen by many as an extreme beach of protocol and a risk to national security. However, according to RT, Russian President Putin s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated on Monday that Flynn and Kislyak did not discuss lifting sanctions.In addition to the potential of a protracted scandal on the White House side of this issue, there is also another potentially more important issue about the fact that agents working the Obama Administration were tapping Flynn s telephone and also that agencies leaked related information which formed the press narrative of this scandal. If so, this would amount to a covert attack on the White House from inside the US government.Flynn s departure could interrupt positive headway made on the bilateral START nuclear treaty with Russia which Flynn had been working on up until this week.In the interim, Trump has named a retired Lt. General, Joseph Keith Kellogg Jr, as Acting National Security Advisor, although it is believed that Vice Adm. Robert Harward, a former deputy commander at US CENTCOM in Tampa, FL is Trump’s likely choice to replace Flynn.Another name in play is also General David Petraeus, although it s not certain’that his record will be able to endure the aggressive media pressure that is certain’to follow if appointed.The following a copy of Flynn s resignation lette r:Breaking: text of Flynn's resignation letter pic.twitter.com/KGue1cJFzL Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) February 14, 2017READ MORE TRUMP NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Trump Files |
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| This morning, Trump’s former campaign manager was indicted for conspiracy against the United States, a.k.a. treason (among other things you can read the full list of charges here), and ordered to turn himself in to the FBI. As he did so, every news outlet was busy covering it, reporting on the’situation as it developed. Except for Fox News. They must have needed some time to decide on their spin because they were reporting on candy and hamburger emojis while the’story on Paul Manafort unfolded.Seriously. They were reporting on Halloween candy and some kind of hamburger emoji crisis at Google as the first indictment in Robert Mueller s Russia investigation was unsealed and handed down.8:30AM: CNN, Bloomberg, MSNBC, Fox pic.twitter.com/zfbo4PriSo Rogue CPI (@RogueCPI) October 30, 2017As of 8:41, Fox has moved on to real issues. pic.twitter.com/DwGqgthW5R Rae Whitlock (@RaeWhitlock) October 30, 2017This is FOX News currently pic.twitter.com/4yInN7exr5 Josh S nchez (@jnsanchez) October 30, 2017CNN: Paul Manafort to turn himself in to FBI today MSNBC: Manfort Told to Surrender Fox News: Important story on hamburger emojis ??? pic.twitter.com/AQ8GxpAh8N StrictlyCovfef ? (@christoq) October 30, 2017Everybody else is talking about the Paul Manafort arrest, @foxnews is talking about cheeseburger emojis. #MuellerMonday pic.twitter.com/Y8vqPcIMYG CarrieTBow (@CarrieTBow) October 30, 2017They did start talking about Manafort, and even published an opinion piece from contributor Erick Erickson, who is trying to spin this news into nothing by saying that it looks like the charges against Manafort have nothing to do with Trump. He is, of course, calling the whole thing a conspiracy in which Mueller comes up completely empty on the collusion story.Har de har har. Manafort is a slimeball. Unless Trump has something serious on him (and what could be more serious than the charges already against him?), Manafort will probably place his own ass above Trump’s.Featured image via Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images and Twitter |
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| During an uncharacteristically blistering hot day, San Francisco residents noticed a surprising sight on Friday morning. There was smoke spewing out of the Russian Consulate that s scheduled to close and it s something Special Investigator Robert Mueller might want to look into.Temperatures on Friday barely escaped triple digits and it was a Spare the Air day in San Francisco, meaning that residents weren’t allowed to burn their fireplaces (as if they’d want to). Still, neighbors and the fire department were surprised to see black smoke coming from the chimney at the Russian Consulate.When the fire department arrived at the’scene, they were turned away after allegedly being told that there wasn’t a problem and that they were burning unidentified items in a fireplace.Mindy Talamadge, a spokeswoman from the San Francisco Fire Department, said the department received a call about the’smoke and sent a crew to investigate but determined the’smoke was coming from the chimney. They had a fire going in their fireplace, she’said.Talmadge said she did not know what they were burning on a day when normally cool San Francisco temperatures had already climbed to 95 degrees by noon. It was not unintentional. They were burning something in their fireplace, she’said.Source: SF ChronicleRemember, this is the consulate that Donald Trump ordered closed in retribution for Vladimir Putin s kicking diplomats out of Russia. Saturday is the deadline for the consulate to be closed.While the closure of the consulate and two diplomatic annexes might sound like a strong stance against Russia, it s a token measure, at best. Not a single diplomat is being kicked out of the country and the main consulate in Washington, D.C. will remain open.Saturday is the deadline for the oldest Russian consulate in the United States to close its doors. According to Russian propaganda Times, U.S. security services are set to search the facility on Saturday and it certainly appears that there s something in the San Francisco consulate that the Russians don’t want Americans to find, or perhaps there s something that Trump doesn’t want Americans to find.Update: Smoke was also seen outside the Russian consulate in Washington, D.C.EXCLUSIVE: Here's the fire in back of about to-be-closed DC Russia trade rep building. @janawinter on the’scene. pic.twitter.com/oKoKX2OIBv Foreign Policy (@ForeignPolicy) September 1, 2017 Featured image via Justin Sullivan/Getty Images |
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| REAL journalism hit Washington today! One of our favorite citizen journalists went at the main stream media full force. The video below is what happens when you turn the tables on the press they freak out. They can’t handle it. Notice how the reporters in the video below are a little shocked when the tables are turned and someone yells a question to them. You ll love the question too! This is a classic!WASHINGTON The journalist who scooped the establishment media and unmasked Susan Rice as a key figure in the Obama administration spying scandal turned the tables Monday and grilled White House reporters about how they are doing their jobs.Or not doing them As soon as Press Secretary Sean Spicer concluded his daily briefing and left the room, documentary filmmaker Mike Cernovich addressed reporters and loudly asked, Why will nobody here cover the violence against Trump’supporters? A confused hush fell over the room as reporters, unaccustomed to being on the receiving end of shouted questions, tried to figure out what was going on.But Cernocivh immediately continued, And why won’t you’demand that leaders of the Democrats disavow the violence by Antifa the way you’demanded Trump disavow violence from his supporters? He then answered his own question by telling the room: This has been completely covered up. You have no answer. Are you a journalist? asked April Ryan, White House correspondent and Washington bureau chief for American Urban Radio Networks. I am, madame. I am a reporter, I am a documentary filmmaker, he repliedAfter today's press briefing was compete, a journalist asked about political violence by the left. Real journalism, finally! pic.twitter.com/EjLuBk3dZR Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) May 1, 2017THEN THE ATTACKS CAME FROM THE ANGRY LEFTTHE TYPICAL NAME CALLING YOU D EXPECT FROM THE LEFT She must be one of Liz Warren s Nasty Women Read more: wnd |
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| Italy s parliament will be dissolved between Christmas and the New Year, a parliamentary source said on Wednesday, opening the way for national elections in early March that look unlikely to produce a clear winner. The source said the most likely date for the vote was March 4 but added that March 11 remained a possibility, with a final decision due shortly. A national election must be held by May, but most political parties are keen to hold elections as soon as possible, with the last major piece of legislation, the 2018 budget, scheduled to be approved before the end of the year. A vote on March 4? That would be excellent. The sooner we go to the polls the better, said Matteo Salvini, head of the far-right Northern League party. Italy s 10-year bond yield rose to a two-week high on the election reports, with investors concerned about political uncertainty in the euro zone s third biggest economy. Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi s center-right alliance is seen winning the most seats at the forthcoming ballot, opinion polls say. But he looks unlikely to secure enough votes to hold an absolute majority. The anti-establishment 5-Star Movement is predicted to emerge as the largest single party in the next parliament, but it has repeatedly ruled out joining any coalition. Berlusconi said at a book presentation on Wednesday that Italy should return to the polls if the vote produces no clear majority, with current Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni carrying on for at least three months during a new election campaign. The often fractious alliance between Berlusconi and Salvini creaked on Wednesday when Salvini threatened to break off talks after Berlusconi s Forza Italia (Go Italy!) party declined to back a League proposal to toughen sanctions for violent crime. The two parties have no common platform and have not settled on a commonly agreed candidate for prime minister. Support for the ruling center-left Democratic Party (PD), headed by former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, has fallen steadily in recent months, with the group heavily penalized by deep schisms and personality clashes. The parliamentary source, who was in contact with President Sergio Mattarella, said the head of state would almost certainly dissolve both houses after Gentiloni had held a traditional end-of-year news conference, set for Dec. 28. Gentiloni will remain as a caretaker prime minister until a new government is formed, helping to guarantee political stability in the interim. Italy s economy is finally pulling clear of years of recession and is expected to post growth of 1.5 percent this year and next still lagging most of its euro zone peers. Employers association Confindustria warned on Wednesday that the recovery could be jeopardized by political uncertainty. The next elections will be very important, placing the country at a crossroads, with one path leading to a continuation of reforms and the other leading nowhere, it said in a report, warning parties against pursuing demagogic measures . Political leaders have already made a rash of promises that economists warn could damage the country s fragile finances, including pledges of generous handouts for pensioners and large tax cuts. |
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| Socialism sounds great until you’realize the money government takes from you goes to whomever they choose (like family members) Bernie Sanders constantly says that he wants big money out of politics, it s one of the central pillars of his presidential campaign.While it hasn’t been reported by any major media outlets during this election cycle, the fact is that Sanders has used campaign funds to enrich members of his family in the past.This report appeared in the Vermont Guardian in 2005:Nepotism crosses party linesWASHINGTON The news that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-TX, paid his wife and daughter $473,801 as campaign staff members was just the beginning. At least 38 other members of Congress, including Vermont Rep. Bernie Sanders, have paid spouses, children, or other relatives out of campaign funds, or have hired companies in which a family member had a financial interest, according to news reports.Since 2000, Sanders has used campaign donations to pay his wife and stepdaughter more than $150,000, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission.His wife Jane O Meara Sanders received $91,020 for consultation and to negotiate the purchase of television and radio ads. Approximately $61,000 of that was pass through money used to pay for the ads, O Meara Sanders told the Bennington Banner. She kept about $30,000 as pay for her services.Her daughter Carina Driscoll, Sanders stepdaughter, earned $65,002 from the Sanders campaign between 2000 and 2004, records show.A similar report appeared in the Times Argus of Vermont:Sanders campaign paid family membersMONTPELIER Rep. Bernard Sanders wife Jane was paid about $30,000 from 2002 to 2004 for work on his campaigns, while his stepdaughter Carina Driscoll got about $65,000 over a five-year period ending last year, a Sanders aide said Wednesday.The issue resurfaced in 2006 and was covered by Roll Call:GOP Hits Sanders on Wife s BusinessSanders, who is seeking the Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.), is fighting back, saying that his likely Republican opponent, millionaire businessman Richard Tarrant, is lying.The Tarrant campaign has resurrected news stories revealing that Sanders wife, Jane O Meara Sanders a former professional media buyer was paid $30,000 for working on Sanders 2002 and 2004 House campaigns and his step-daughter, Carina Driscoll, had been paid about $65,000 over a five-year period.What Sanders did is technically not illegal, but it s astonishing that someone campaigning on the removal of big money in politics used campaign funds to pay large sums of money to members of his own family. Via: Progressives Today |
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| President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that a military strike against North Korea designed to destroy its nuclear and missile program might not succeed because Pyongyang could have hidden military facilities that nobody knows about. Russia is strongly opposed to the idea of such a strike, an idea U.S. President Donald Trump has floated, favoring a mixture of diplomacy and economic incentives instead. But Putin, speaking at an energy forum in Moscow, mused on the subject on Wednesday, making it clear he had serious doubts about the military efficacy of such a move, as well as other political and moral concerns. Can a global strike against North Korea be launched to disarm it? Yes. Will it achieve its aim? We don t know. Who knows what they have there and where. Nobody knows with 100 percent certainty as it s a closed country. Putin said Russia had more reason than most to be concerned by Pyongyang s missile program, saying that North Korea s nuclear testing range was located just 200 kilometers (124.27 miles) from the Russian border. The Russian leader also reiterated his call for diplomacy to be allowed to run its course and for all sides to dial down the bellicose rhetoric. He also said he thought Trump was listening to Russia s views on the crisis. More sanctions were the road to nowhere, Putin told the same forum, saying around 40,000 North Korean citizens were currently working in Russia. Such workers are known to regularly send back part of their wages to the North Korean authorities. |
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| When Ken Nwadike, founder of Free Hugs Project, attended both a Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders rally in order to offer free hugs to attendees he inadvertently summed up the core difference between the two.In an effort to make America love again, Nwadike provided his free hugs at the Wisconsin rallies of both candidates. At the Trump rally, his offers were met with hostility, flagrant racism, and even threats of physical violence.One woman shouts at him: White is better! A man tells him: I don’t want any drugs as if that could be the only thing on offer from a young black man in America.When one man tells Nwadike he hates him, Nwadike responds that the feeling is not mutual explaining that he has love in his heart for all people, even those who don’t agree with him. The man responds: First of all there is no love in this world. Really? You have to wonder how he feels about his parents, his friends, his community no love? Really?Another woman yells: Are you for Trump? I will punch you if you are not! She pulls her arm back and balls her fist, in preparation to launch a genuine punch.The whole scene is very scared, very angry, very hateful people unwilling and unable to engage with affection, compassion, and understanding. Whipped into a despairing, disgusting mob by their candidate. It is sad, and hopeless.Things looks quite different at the Bernie Sanders rally. Nwadike can barely keep up with the demand for hugs. Men and women, boys and girls, all fly at him enthusiastically, keen to reach out and accept the love and affection of another human being. The attendees are visibly much more racially diverse, open, communicative and frankly, happy. The mood is joyful, hopeful, and there are smiles and welcomes going around like wildfire.The video serves as a window into two Americas:Featured image via screencapture |
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| U.S. Representative Bob Goodlatte, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said on Thursday he will not seek re-election next year. “This is a natural stepping-off point,” Goodlatte said in a statement. The announcement came on the heels of Tuesday’s elections in Virginia, where Democrats won the governor’s office and triumphed in local races in some Republican strongholds. Goodlatte has represented Virginia’s 6th congressional district for 25 years. He joins a string of Republican lawmakers who have announced their retirements from Congress in recent weeks. Two other House committee chairmen, Representatives Lamar Smith and Jeb Hensarling, both of Texas, said last week they would not seek re-election. Hensarling leads the House Financial Services Committee, while Smith leads the Science, Space and Technology panel. |
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| Never mind that the Trump’s had a previous engagement it s just a great excuse for the left to justify their false claims that our President is an Islamaphobe President Trump broke with 20 years of White House tradition by opting not to host a dinner to mark the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting and reflection.Instead of a dinner commemorating the religious holiday Eid al-Fitr, the president and first lady Melania Trump released a statement on Saturday offering warm greetings. Muslims in the United States joined those around the world during the holy month of Ramadan to focus on acts of faith and charity, they said. Now, as they commemorate Eid with family and friends, they carry on the tradition of helping neighbors and breaking bread with people from all walks of life. The past three administrations Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama have held traditional iftar dinners that often included members of Congress and prominent members of the Muslim community. NYPPresident Trump and First Lady Melania Trump instead attended Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin s third wedding to actress Louise Linton.First lady fashion: Melania Trump wears pink to Washington wedding https://t.co/mT7c0gZpeH pic.twitter.com/Y0IgJlQQRk Newsco Inc. (@newscoinc) June 25, 2017 |
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| While US citizens are outraged over the removal of Christ from pretty much every aspect of our lives, including Christmas, Democrat members of Congress are working fast and furiously to implement America s first Sharia Law...If they get their way They will be stripping us of our basic rights, and we need to be prepared for their TERRIFYING hope and get Americans aware of what is happening!On December 17, Democrat Congressmen quietly sponsored House Resolution 569, a resolution that asks lawmakers to condemn violence, bigotry, and hateful rhetoric towards Muslims in the United States. The resolution specifically mentions Muslims, no other religious groups, and will serve as a test by which further criminalizing of Islamophobia may be introduced.Democrats have shamelessly lumped together hate speech with violence in an effort to compare criticism of Islam to physically harming Muslims. H. Res. 569 threatens to restrict our right to even report facts that tarnish Islam s reputation, a law that all Sharia-governed countries already have in place.According to Congress.gov, the resolution reads: Now, therefore, be it resolved, that the House of Representatives denounces in the’strongest terms the increase of hate speech, intimidation, violence, vandalism, arson, and other hate crimes targeted against mosques, Muslims, or those perceived to be Muslim; urges local and Federal law enforcement authorities to work to prevent hate crimes; and to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law those perpetrators of hate crimes Muslims are slaughtering innocent people more than any other religious groups combined, all while refusing as a whole to condemn this barbaric Islamic terrorism, yet we are working to ensure these silent, consenting moderates have special protection protection that they have never allowed religious minorities in their own countries.In another passage, Democrats laughably purport that Muslims have contributed to the fabric of American society, but we’re assuming they’don’t mean terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, countless frivolous CAIR lawsuits, whitewashed Islamic education in public schools, or whining about pork products and a lack of taxpayer-funded prayer rooms. Whereas this Muslim community is recognized as having made innumerable contributions to the cultural and economic fabric and well-being of United States society Still, the bill is purposefully vague in that it mentions prosecuting the perpetrators of hate speech, yet gives no definition for what it considers hate speech. Of course, we who have spoken out about the intolerant fundamentals of Islam understand that this means uttering anything critical of Islam or its followers, regardless of facts or relevance to the Quran.In conclusion, the bill ridiculously compares criticizing Islam as a violation of Muslims civil rights, as if disagreeing or even openly mocking someone s beliefs is unconstitutional. Our forefathers had exactly political and religious mockery in mind when they penned our amendments, having experience the violation of limited speech and worship by their own King George III.Indeed, free speech was never intended to defend inoffensive speech, because inoffensive speech needs no protection. Freedom of speech is solely for the offensive, meant to prevent those who would limit it because of their opposing beliefs. Via: RWN |