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12,126 | 'Fierce and formidable' Dlamini-Zuma eyes South Africa's presidency | Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is a fierce campaigner against racial inequality whose hostility to big business has rattled investors in South Africa. She is also one of two front runners to be the country s next president. The 68-year-old is vying to succeed her ex-husband, President Jacob Zuma, as leader of the ruling African National Congress at a party vote this weekend, an outcome that would make her favorite for the presidency after a parliamentary election due in 2019. A medical doctor and former chair of the Commission of the African Union, a pan-continental grouping, Dlamini-Zuma has pledged during her campaign to radically tackle the racial inequality that persists in South Africa 23 years after the end of white minority rule. Backers of her main rival, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, say she is peddling populist rhetoric and would rule in the mould of her former husband, whose decade in power has been plagued by corruption scandals. Dlamini-Zuma declined to be interviewed for this story. The choice between Dlamini-Zuma and Ramaphosa will influence South Africa s economic policy trajectory, as well the country s role in Africa and beyond. Graphic: ANC election in South Africa - here Graphic: South African economy - here Investors are worried by Dlamini-Zuma s hostility toward international companies, which she says form part of a white monopoly capital cabal dominating South Africa s wealth. A Dlamini-Zuma victory would signal a sharp rhetorical shift toward more leftist economic policy, said John Ashbourne, an Africa-focused economist at Capital Economics. A further credit ratings downgrade would be almost inevitable. Yet Dlamini-Zuma s supporters point to a commitment to changing the lives of South Africa s black majority. Lynne Jones, a psychiatrist and author who lived with Dlamini-Zuma when they were students together in the English city of Bristol in the 1970s, says her determination to fight injustice is rooted in her own personal story. Jones remembers a day four decades ago when Dlamini-Zuma lay on her bed and wept after being forced to miss her brother s funeral because the apartheid-era security services had hounded her out of South Africa. She was fiercely intelligent and determined, said Jones. Here was someone who had put their whole life on the line and given up home and family for what they believed. It was eye-opening. The race between Ramaphosa, a unionist-turned-millionaire businessman, and Dlamini-Zuma is too close to call, political analysts say. Her campaign team told Reuters in written comments it was confident she would be elected ANC leader. Ramaphosa, who is popular among swathes of the ANC disillusioned with Zuma, is promising to end corruption, boost a flatlining economy and deliver jobs to the poor in a country where more than a quarter of the population is unemployed. Dlamini-Zuma, by contrast, is an African nationalist and has the support of the influential ANC youth and women s leagues, which both tend to support socialist policies. Known for her fierce temper and hostility toward the West, she was described in one 2001 U.S. diplomatic cable on WikiLeaks as a truculent and petulant foreign minister . Another cable to Washington suggested she could be charming. Belying her reputation as fierce and formidable, the Minister was soft spoken and smiling in this meeting - articulate but gentle, candid but warm, Donald Gips, then U.S. ambassador to South Africa, wrote in 2010. The most common criticism of Dlamini-Zuma is that she is beholden to Zuma and his powerful patronage network. Zuma has publicly endorsed her. She is bold and you can t fool her. She is someone you can trust, Zuma told a rally recently. The couple met in Swaziland in the 1980s, when they were both in the ANC underground. They were married for more than a decade and have four children together. In a rare interview last month, Dlamini-Zuma challenged her opponents to find any evidence of corruption in her long political career. I don t loot government coffers. I ve never done so, and I will not do so, she told ANN7 television. But for some senior figures in the ANC, she has not done enough to distance herself from the corruption scandals that have dogged President Zuma. She has not said anything on state capture , ANC chief whip Jackson Mthembu told Reuters, using a South African term to describe private interests unduly controlling government funds. Dlamini-Zuma says accusations that she is piggy-backing off Zuma are insulting given her career, first as a doctor to ANC leaders fighting apartheid and then as a cabinet minister under every South African president since 1994. As health minister in Nelson Mandela s cabinet, she laid the foundations for free public healthcare for the poor, took a hard line on smoking and made medicines more accessible. As foreign minister she fostered friendships with African countries and emerging economies like China, even when this angered the West. But she also made errors of judgment. In 1996, Dlamini-Zuma awarded a contract for more than $3 million to a friend for a play, Sarafina II, to raise awareness about AIDS and was later found to have ignored tender rules. Political analyst Ralph Mathekga said that paled in comparison to recent government malpractice. He said: 14 million rand in the Sarafina scandal now seems like peanuts when compared with the looting under Zuma. | worldnews | December 16, 2017 | 1 |
1,712 | State Department describes plans for cuts, offers few specifics: sources | State Department officials briefed Senate staff on Friday on plans to cut up to $10 billion from the department’s budget over five years, but offered few specifics to ease concerns that the administration risked weakening U.S. standing in the world. The plan is the result of an ongoing assessment of the department ordered by President Donald Trump’s secretary of state, Rex Tillerson. It includes broad goals such as “maximizing the impact of foreign assistance” and “improving governance” for information technology platforms, according to a copy of the presentation seen by Reuters. Members of Congress have been vying with the Trump administration for more influence over foreign policy. In particular, many lawmakers, including some of Trump’s fellow Republicans, worry about his plans to slash the State Department budget to help boost military spending. The Republican-led Senate Appropriations Committee issued a blistering report last week accompanying its spending plan for State, accusing the Trump administration of pursuing a “doctrine of retreat” on foreign policy. Last week, the committee voted 31-0 for legislation allocating more than $51 billion for the State Department and foreign operations next year, nearly $11 billion more than the Trump administration’s request. The presentation was more specific as it listed what State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) did not intend to do. That list said there is no plan to dismantle State and USAID, eliminate the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, or concentrate power in Tillerson’s hands. A Senate aide who attended said both Republicans and Democrats seemed frustrated at the lack of specifics. “It was tense in the room at times, with staff from both parties asking for specifics and warning the State Department officials that it would be difficult to defend this given the lack of specificity and the ongoing problems with early, consistent Congressional consultation on a range of issues,” the aide said. Tillerson wants to eliminate more than 2,000 positions at State, out of some 75,000 worldwide. At a news conference this week, Senator Lindsey Graham, the Republican chairman of the subcommittee that oversees State Department spending, spoke of his opposition to such cuts to diplomacy and foreign aid. “I fear that we’re going to get caught blindsided without a robust State Department,” Graham said, saying that ensuring national security requires soft power as well as a strong military. | politicsNews | September 15, 2017 | 1 |
17,517 | Macron assures Iran's Rouhani of France's commitment to nuclear deal | French President Emmanuel Macron assured Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Friday of France s commitment to the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, Macron s office said. Macron told Rouhani that the U.S. decision not to certify the agreement would not end it and that France and its European partners would keep carrying out their commitments in regard to the deal, a statement said. Macron also spelled out in a phone conversation the conditions Iran must comply with, including strict respect of the deal. | worldnews | October 13, 2017 | 1 |
4,675 | Trump ally Stone offers to testify in Russian meddling probe | Roger Stone, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, said on Sunday he has offered to testify before a congressional committee investigating possible Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and ties to the Trump campaign. Stone, an informal adviser to Trump, told ABC’s “This Week” he had not received a reply from the House of Representatives intelligence committee on his offer of public testimony. Along with former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, who has also offered to appear before the panel, Stone was among the Trump associates whose communications and financial transactions were being examined by the FBI and others as part of a larger investigation into possible links with Russian officials, according to a Jan. 20 report in the New York Times. Without citing any names, FBI Director James Comey confirmed at the committee’s public hearing last week that the FBI was investigating possible Russian ties to Trump’s campaign as Moscow sought to influence the 2016 election. Stone said he was anxious to testify in public. “I reiterate again, I have had no contacts or collusions with the Russians,” he told ABC, adding later, “There is no collusion, none, at least none that I know about, in Donald Trump’s campaign for president.” At Monday’s intelligence committee hearing, Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the panel, cited concern over Stone’s communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Guccifer 2, who claimed responsibility for hacking the Democratic groups. Stone said he had spoken to Assange through an intermediary and to Guccifer on Twitter in an exchange he made public. Stone also cast doubt on whether Guccifer was a Russian agent. “Just because the intelligence services say something, as we know from history, does not make it true,” he said, reflecting the doubts that Trump himself has sown about U.S. spy agencies. Carter Page, another Trump campaign adviser whose contacts with Russians were mentioned by Schiff at Monday’s hearing, also has offered to appear before the committee, according to multiple media reports. The U.S. intelligence community has concluded that Russia sponsored the hacking of Democratic Party groups during the 2016 campaign to benefit Republican Trump over Democrat Hillary Clinton. Russia has denied the allegations of meddling. Trump has dismissed the idea of any coordination between his campaign and Russia and has accused Democrats and the media of using the issue to attack him. The House committee investigation was marred on Wednesday after its Republican chairman, Representative Devin Nunes, announced to the public and briefed Trump that U.S. intelligence may have swept up communications by Trump associates before telling the committee. Nunes apologized to the intelligence panel the next day. However, he further alienated Democrats on the committee on Friday when he canceled a hearing with intelligence officials from former Democratic President Barack Obama’s administration in order to have a classified briefing with the directors of the National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation. The committee’s top Democrat, Adam Schiff, suggested the cancellation came after pressure from the White House. Schiff and other Democrats said last week’s actions raised more doubts about whether Nunes, a Trump ally who served on the president’s transition team, can conduct a credible investigation. “I think the chairman has to make a decision whether to act as a surrogate of the White House as he did during the campaign and the transition or to lead an independent and credible, investigation,” Schiff told CBS’ “Face the Nation.” | politicsNews | March 26, 2017 | 1 |
15,353 | Factbox: EU's vision of post-Brexit transition and future ties with Britain | The European Union wants a post-Brexit transition in which Britain would no longer have a say in the bloc but would still fall under EU laws, according to EU documents and diplomats of the bloc s 27 remaining states. Here is a summary of the EU s vision of both the immediate period after Britain leaves the bloc and its future trade relationship, as outlined in the documents seen by Reuters ahead of a meeting of the 27 on Wednesday. The EU plans to engage with Britain on these two issues only after the first, ongoing round of divorce talks advances enough to merit new negotiations with London on what comes after Brexit. The current, slow-moving talks have focused mainly on matters surrounding Britain s actual split from the bloc, namely the exit bill, safeguarding expatriate rights and the future Irish border. The EU is waiting for Britain s moves on these key issues before it agrees to open talks about the transition and future ties. That may happen in December but is not a given. * Crucially, the EU is determined to ensure Brexit does not leave Britain better off economically or otherwise, as this could create a precedent undermining the bloc s purpose and existence in the future. A discussion document for the Wednesday meeting in Brussels hence says that a non-member of the Union, that does not live up to the same obligations as a member, cannot have the same rights and enjoy the same benefits as a member. * Britain s request for a transition period of about two years in which the status quo would be largely preserved would require a temporary application of Union law to and within the United Kingdom together with... regulatory, budgetary, supervisory, judiciary and enforcement instruments and structures, it reads. * EU 27 will look further into how such a temporary arrangement would impact the bloc s cooperation with third countries, including on trade, fisheries or air transport. * The bloc will also seek to ensure Britain adheres to EU rules - including any changes - during transition, and the possible avenue for communication with London since it would no longer be represented in the EU institutions and participate in the decision-making process. * For any agreement on the future ties with London, the EU expects safeguards to preserve financial stability and rules out British participation in parts, but not all, of its single market. * The bloc is keen to protect itself against unfair competitive advantages through... tax, social, environmental and regulatory measures and practices. * Beyond trade, the EU is keen to maintain cooperation with Britain on security - including fighting terrorism and international crime - defense and foreign policy. * The bloc seeks a balance of rights and obligations for Britain and is determined to preserve the indivisible four freedoms of its single market - of goods, capital, services and labor. * Inside the bloc, the EU wants to preserve the role of the top European Court of Justice, from whose jurisdiction London wants to remove itself. * After Britain leaves, no agreement between the EU and UK would apply to Gibraltar without a separate accord between London and Madrid. * In preparing their own stance on transition and future ties, the 27 will bear in mind the UK position. | worldnews | November 8, 2017 | 1 |
16,695 | U.S. mulls South Sudan pressure, cutting aid may not work: U.N. envoy | The United States is considering how to pressure South Sudan s President Salva Kiir into peace, but withdrawing aid may not work, U.S. envoy to the United Nations Nikki Haley said ahead of a visit to South Sudanese refugees in Ethiopia on Tuesday. Haley plans to visit Gambella in western Ethiopia, where nearly 350,000 refugees have flooded across the border from South Sudan since the country spiraled into civil war in 2013, just two years after it gained independence from Sudan. You have to really think hard before you pull U.S. aid because President Kiir doesn t care, Haley said. He doesn t care if his people suffer and that s the concern we have as we don t know that will make a difference. That s a conversation we will have and we will try and see exactly what will move President Kiir so that he does ... start to really look at creating a safe position for his people, she told reporters in Addis Ababa late on Monday. Haley will this week be the most senior member of U.S. President Donald Trump s administration to visit South Sudan, where she is due to meet with Kiir. But first, she will see how the conflict has threatened to spillover through deadly cross-border raids into Gambella, Ethiopia by gunmen from South Sudan. Trump s new aid administrator, Mark Green, visited South Sudan last month, telling Kiir that Washington was reviewing its policy toward his government. He called on Kiir to end the violence and implement a real ceasefire. The war in South Sudan was sparked by a feud between Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar. It has plunged parts of the world s youngest nation into famine and forced a third of the population - some 4 million people - to flee their homes. Machar fled and is now being held in South Africa to stop him stirring up trouble, sources told Reuters in December. A fragile peace deal broke down last year amid gun battles between soldiers and rebels in the capital Juba. International efforts to bring warring sides to new talks have not succeeded. We can t see any more deaths, we can t see anymore famine, we ve got to start seeing the situation start to get better and I think that the pressure is only going to continue until President Kiir makes a difference, Haley said. The Trump administration last month imposed sanctions on two senior South Sudanese officials and the former army chief for their role in the conflict, atrocities against civilians and attacks against international missions in South Sudan. | worldnews | October 23, 2017 | 1 |
18,845 | CAMPING NIGHTMARE: Machete Wielding Refugee Drags 23-Yr Old Woman From Tent…Forces Boyfriend To Watch The Unthinkable | A refugee from Ghana has been arrested for dragging a young woman from her tent and raping her while she was on a camping holiday with her boyfriend.The young couple were on a camping trip in the Siegaue Nature Reserve, north of the former German capital of Bonn, when they were approached by a machete-wielding man at about 12.30am on Sunday last week.The boyfriend was forced to watch as the attacker violated his 23-year-old lover.The boyfriend, 26, who had also been threatened by the man, contacted police and medical responders took her to hospital. A photofit picture of the attacker led to his arrest on Saturday and DNA testing confirmed his guilt, according to police.He tried to flee when police moved in to arrest him, flinging a rucksack at one officer. Daily Mail | left-news | Apr 9, 2017 | 0 |
12,190 | Despite failed round, U.N. Syria talks only viable peace effort, France says | France on Friday firmly backed U.N.-led peace talks on Syria in Geneva and said the responsibility of the failed negotiations since the end of November fell entirely on the government delegation. A round of Syria peace talks that ended on Thursday was a big missed opportunity, but there may be more talks in January if ideas can be found to encourage President Bashar al-Assad s government to engage, U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura said on Thursday. There is no alternative to a negotiated political solution agreed by both parties under the auspices of the United Nations, deputy foreign ministry spokesman Alexandre Georgini told reporters in a daily briefing, reiterating Paris support for de Mistura. We deplore the attitude of the Syrian regime, which has refused to engage in the discussion. The Syrian regime is responsible for the lack of progress in the negotiations, he said. | worldnews | December 15, 2017 | 1 |
413 | Trump HUMILIATES Republicans In Latest Hissy Fit After Siding With Democrats On Debt Ceiling | Donald Trump sure knows how to add insult to injury.Republicans in Congress must be seriously regretting their decision to endorse Trump now after they were totally humiliated on Thursday at the White House.During a meeting inside the Oval Office to discuss debt ceiling proposals, Trump stunned Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell by taking a deal offered by the Democrats which increases the debt ceiling for three months and provides Texas with Hurricane Harvey relief with no strings attached. Republicans were hoping for an 18 month increase and wanted to hold hurricane relief hostage in order to get concessions from the Democrats on other issues.But Trump pulled the rug out from under them because he knows that Republicans are incapable of governing even with majority control of the House and Senate.And that s why Trump kicked Republicans while they were down on Friday morning, suggesting he took the Democrats offer because of Republican failures to pass legislation. He then whined about the filibuster and asked Republicans to work on tax reform and get it done before the end of the month.Republicans, sorry, but I ve been hearing about Repeal & Replace for 7 years, didn t happen! Even worse, the Senate Filibuster Rule will . Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 8, 2017 never allow the Republicans to pass even great legislation. 8 Dems control will rarely get 60 (vs. 51) votes. It is a Repub Death Wish! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 8, 2017Republicans must start the Tax Reform/Tax Cut legislation ASAP. Don t wait until the end of September. Needed now more than ever. Hurry! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 8, 2017Republicans are not going to get tax reform done by the end of the month. They have even passed the debt ceiling bill with Hurricane Harvey relief yet. The GOP is a fractured party right now, the majority of whom are controlled by an extremist base.Trump would be better off working with the Democrats. He d not only get things done, he would be able to sign legislation that is far better for the country.Featured Image: Alex Wong/Getty Images | News | September 8, 2017 | 0 |
11,703 | Turkey says U.S. isolated on Jerusalem, issuing threats | Turkey said on Wednesday the United States has isolated itself by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel s capital and accused it of threatening countries that might vote against it on the matter at an emergency U.N. General Assembly session. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, whose country has led Muslim opposition to Washington s stance on Jerusalem, was speaking before leaving Istanbul with the Palestinian foreign minister to attend Thursday s gathering in New York. With his Dec. 6 decision, President Donald Trump reversed decades of U.S. policy, and upset an international consensus enshrined in U.N. resolutions, that treated Jerusalem s status as unresolved. Israel captured East Jerusalem in a 1967 war and Palestinians want it as the capital of a future state they seek. Trump s move stirred outrage among Palestinians and in the Arab world, and concern among Washington s Western allies. On Monday, the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council draft resolution calling on it to withdraw its declaration. Thel 14 other council members, including close U.S. allies such as Japan and four European Union countries, backed the draft. On Thursday there ll be a vote criticizing our choice, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Twitter. The U.S. will be taking names. Cavusoglu said that was a threat, and called on Washington - a NATO ally of Turkey - to change course. We expect strong support at the UN vote, but we see that the United States, which was left alone, is now resorting to threats. No honorable, dignified country would bow down to this pressure, Cavusoglu told a news conference held together with his Palestinian counterpart Riyad al-Maliki. We want America to turn back from this wrong and unacceptable decision, Cavusoglu said earlier in the Azeri capital Baku, where he met Iranian and Azeri ministers. God willing, we will push through the General Assembly a resolution in favor of Palestine and Jerusalem, he said. The rare emergency session of the 193-member U.N. General Assembly was called at the request of Arab and Muslim states. Palestinian U.N. envoy Riyad Mansour has said the General Assembly would vote on a draft resolution calling for the U.S. declaration to be withdrawn. Such a vote is non-binding, but carries political weight. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has lambasted Trump s move, and hosted a summit of Muslim leaders last week which called for East Jerusalem to be recognized as the capital of Palestine. Israel calls Jerusalem its indivisible and eternal capital. From now on we will be more active in defending the rights of Palestinians. We will work harder for the international recognition of an independent Palestinian state, Cavusoglu told reporters in Baku. | worldnews | December 20, 2017 | 1 |
18,261 | UK top court seeks clarity on how to handle EU rulings after Brexit | Britain s Supreme Court would like clearer guidance from parliament on how it should deal with European Union court judgments after Brexit, its new president said on Thursday. The issue of what weight, if any, judgments of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) will have in British law after the United Kingdom leaves the European Union is one of many thorny areas in the Brexit negotiations. Brenda Hale, who was sworn in as president of the Supreme Court on Monday after serving as one of its justices for 13 years, said she and her colleagues were looking for guidance from parliament on the issue. We hope that the European Union Act, when it s eventually passed, will tell us what we should be doing - giving us the power to take into account, or saying we must take into account, or saying we must ignore, she told reporters. Whatever parliament decides we should do, we would like to be told because then we ll get on and do it. A government policy paper issued in August said Britain wished to leave the direct jurisdiction of the ECJ while also recognizing that future civil judicial cooperation would need to take into account regional legal arrangements such as the ECJ. The European Union says that for certain issues, such as the rights of EU citizens in Britain, the ECJ must continue to have its say - a stance strongly rejected by the most ardent advocates of Brexit. Hale said the government policy papers issued over the summer were at quite a high level of generality and described them as aspirational. But she praised the formulation used by Prime Minister Theresa May in a major speech on Brexit in Florence on Sept. 22. May said that where there was uncertainty around EU law, she wanted UK courts to be able to take into account ECJ judgments. Take account is quite useful because it does give one the power to take it into account, but also the power to say for the following good reasons, we think something else, said Hale. Her deputy, Jonathan Mance, said the form of words used in the EU Withdrawal Bill currently going through parliament was a weaker formula . The bill says that British courts need not have regard to anything done on or after exit day by the European Court ... but may do so if it considers it appropriate to do so . | worldnews | October 5, 2017 | 1 |
20,816 | WATCH: HILARIOUS AD Calls Into Question Health Of Aging Clinton Crime Family Bosses | After watching this telling video, you ll wonder if instead of working so hard to get back into the White House, Hillary s time would be better spent looking into an assisted living situation for her and Bill | left-news | Mar 24, 2016 | 0 |
7,288 | Putin, Trump speak by phone, aim for cooperation: Kremlin | Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Monday agreed to work toward “constructive cooperation”, including on fighting terrorism, the Kremlin said. In their first phone call since Trump won the Nov. 8 election, they agreed to “channel” relations between Russia and the United States and “combine efforts to tackle international terrorism and extremism”. “The importance of creating a solid basis for bilateral ties was underscored, in particularly by developing the trade-economic component,” the Kremlin said in its statement. It added that the countries should “return to pragmatic, mutually beneficial cooperation, which would address the interests of both countries as well as stability and safety the world over.” Trump’s team issued a statement saying Putin called to offer congratulations. The statement said Trump told Putin he was looking forward to a strong and enduring relationship with Russia and its people. The two men will maintain contact by phone and seek to meet each other in person, the statement said. Trump will succeed President Barack Obama on Jan. 20. Obama’s relations with Putin have become tense over issues that include Syria and Ukraine. | politicsNews | November 14, 2016 | 1 |
15,918 | FBI INFORMANT Blows The Whistle on Obama DOJ’s Intimidation Tactics [VIDEO] | A former FBI informant who blew the whistle on a high-profile bribery case involving a Russian energy company was intimidated by Obama administration lawyers into dropping a civil suit against the government last year, his attorney says.WATCH: @BillHemmer's full interview w/ Victoria Toensing, the attorney for @FBI informant allegedly threatened by the Obama Administration. pic.twitter.com/MkBlH7Ilq0 Fox News (@FoxNews) October 27, 2017Victoria Toensing spoke to Bill Hemmer This Morning regarding threats to the FBI informant from Obama s DOJ: President Obama thought it was just okay to threaten a witness who wanted to give information about corruption. Fox News Updated: LIBERTY AND REPUTATION IN JEOPARDY Victoria Toensing, the lawyer for the informant, told The Daily Caller s Vince Coglianese that Obama Justice Department lawyers told her client that his reputation and liberty [was] in jeopardy if he did not drop a lawsuit against the government.On Wednesday, the Trump Justice Department released the informant from a confidentiality agreement, clearing the way for him to testify before several congressional committees about his undercover work at Uranium One, a Canada-based energy company that has ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton and their family foundation.In 2010, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), an inter-agency governmental committee that reviews applications for foreign purchases of companies, granted the Russia-owned energy company Rosatom the right to purchase Uranium One. Via: Daily Caller | Government News | Oct 27, 2017 | 0 |
15,214 | (Video) Hilarious! Donald Trump on Jimmy Fallon Interviews Himself | Trump handles this in a great way! Pretty funny! | politics | Sep 12, 2015 | 0 |
11,199 | GOP LAWMAKER: Susan Rice Should Be Hit With Criminal Charges [Video] | WHAT DO YOU THINK? WE D LIKE TO KNOW!WATCH: Susan Rice insists I leaked nothing to nobody https://t.co/kAsbu4VJDN MSNBC (@MSNBC) April 4, 2017 I know nothing about this. I was surprised to see reports from Chairman Nunes on that count today. What she says is a lie but who is surprised by this? We know that Susan Rice lied 5 times on 5 different morning shows the morning after Benghazi. Why wouldn t she try and cover this spying up to protect herself and others including Obama.Susan Rice is also giving conflicting stories on what she did so it might be a good idea for her to lawyer up right now. She claimed ignorance of the unmasking and spying but today she spoke about doing it. Yes, red flags are everywhere on this! The reality and truth is this was more of a political attack to destabilize the Trump presidency and embarrass him:Andrew McCarthy said it best: The national-security adviser is not an investigator. She is a White House staffer. The president s staff is a consumer of intelligence, not a generator or collector of it. If Susan Rice was unmasking Americans, it was not to fulfill an intelligence need based on American interests; it was to fulfill a political desire based on Democratic-party interests. | politics | Apr 5, 2017 | 0 |
17,959 | UK's May says Brexit talks must focus on future relationship | British Prime Minister Theresa May said negotiations with the European Union on leaving the bloc needed to be focused on the long-term future relationship between the two after a limited implementation period. We should concentrate our negotiating time and capital on what really matters: the future long-term relationship we will have with the EU after this temporary period ends, May told parliament. | worldnews | October 9, 2017 | 1 |
4,620 | Republicans on Obamacare repeal: 'We're going to get it done' | House of Representatives Republican leaders said on Tuesday they still intended to repeal and replace Obamacare after their White House-backed bill failed to get enough support and collapsed last week. “The fact that our conference is more resolved than ever to repeal this law is very encouraging and we’re not going to stop until we get it done,” said House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy after a closed meeting. House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters he would not give a timeline on any new attempt to pass healthcare legislation “because we want to get it right.” | politicsNews | March 28, 2017 | 1 |
21,158 | [VIDEO] GERMAN MAYOR Blames Victims Of Mass Rape, Sexual Assault By Muslim Migrants For Not Defending Themselves | Because blaming the Muslim migrants who raped and sexually assaulted an untold number of women on New Years Eve would be politically incorrect and certainly not very hospitable A political scandal is developing in Germany as ordinary citizens wake up to the scale of the migrant crime cover-up, and the callous reaction of the mayor of Cologne to mass-sex crime on new year s eve.The Mayor of Cologne has spoken out about the attacks, but her carefully chosen words are unlikely to delight many. Rather than addressing the root causes of the violence unlimited mass migration and a totally failed system of integration the newly elected pro-migrant mayor instead blamed the victims of the sexual abuse for having failed to defend themselves against the immigrant attackers.Here is a video of the shocking chaos that took place on New Years Eve:Speaking on live television this afternoon mayor Henriette Reker, who was near-fatally stabbed in the run up to October elections by an anti mass migration campaigner, said in future women would have to be better prepared in her city to deal with migrants.She remarked: The women and young girls have to be more protected in the future so these things don t happen again. This means, they should go out and have fun, but they need to be better prepared, especially with the Cologne carnival coming up. For this, we will publish online guidelines that these young women can read through to prepare themselves .What form this guidance will take is presently unclear, the mayor could take inspiration from young victim whose modest clothes protected them from the worst consequences of walking at night in areas controlled by migrant men. The woman said: Fortunately I wore a jacket and trousers. a skirt would probably have been torn away from me .Despite her words of warning towards women in the city they could prepare for more violence against them, she refuted the suggestion there was any link between the attacks and migrants, contradicting her own chief of police.An opposition council member has today sounded the alarm bell on the deteriorating state of control the local government has over the city of Cologne, and in an official letter from the council group has warned those planning to come to the famous Cologne council next month the city and the police are unable to guarantee the safety of locals and tourists .Council group leader and lawyer Judith Wolter said in her letter to the people of Cologne today: I want as a member of the Cologne City Council to submit a travel warning for the carnival time in Cologne city centre. Especially the area in and around the central station, the cathedral and the adjoining area towards the banks of the Rhine for tourists (and locals) is no longer considered even in normal times as safe. For months, there is in these areas numerous thefts, open drug dealing, robberies and harassment of all kinds Dozens of women were sexually harassed in public and there was at least one rape. Neither the city nor the police are able to guarantee in the territory described the safety of tourists and locals. Especially for women it must be assumed that a high security risk is here in the evening and night hours. At New Year s Eve there was a legal vacuum and a no-go area for women. With the climax of the Carnival season it is unfortunately expected to be a similar situation .German police have admitted to losing several urban areas to migrant gangs as so-called no-go zones, but this is possibly the first time a public square in the centre of a European city has been acknowledged by officials as having been lost to criminality, and out of the control of police at night.News of the attacks was suppressed for days, with just short reports of isolated incidents in Cologne city centre making it to local outlets on New Year s Day.The Kolnifsche Rundschau described the scene at the railways station as largely peaceful and made no effort to describe those who attacked the young women, one of which told press she had fingers on every orifice after she was stripped near naked.Only after nearly 100 victims of assault and abuse came forwards to police, and stories of attacks started circulating on social media did the truth of the situation start to slowly emerge, forcing local police to hold a press conference on Monday afternoon.Despite the chief of police admitting the enormous scale of sexual assault and confirming the attackers were of North African and Arab origin, much of the mainstream media is still in damage control mode, either trying to shift the focus from migrants, or avoiding the events completely. Via: Breitbart News | left-news | Jan 6, 2016 | 0 |
19,259 | New Zealand National leader says will speak with kingmaker Peters in the next few days | New Zealand National Party leader Bill English said on Saturday the nationalist New Zealand First Party would play a role in determining the next government after a hotly contested parliamentary election. National, which was set to win the largest share of the vote, would start speaking with New Zealand First in the next few days , English said from his party s campaign function in Auckland. Votes cast for the National Party reached 46.1 percent with 98.6 percent of results counted by the Electoral Commission, while the opposition Labour Party won 35.8 percent support. Each Party would likely need New Zealand First s support to form a government, based on those results. The final result that includes overseas votes will not be released until Oct. 7. | worldnews | September 23, 2017 | 1 |
23,172 | America’s Primal Scream: David Icke Explains Reason for Trump’s Election Result | 21st Century Wire says Author David Icke talks about the US election shocker and what it says about the relationship between society and big government.In the end, Trump s success was an expression of a complete rejection of the political establishment and the two party system. Like BREXIT, Trump s surprise electoral result represents a much bigger social and spiritual tremor happening beneath the establishment s feet one that the mainstream are prepared to admit. Watch: SUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | Middle-east | November 10, 2016 | 0 |
5,419 | U.S. Labor Dept nominee Puzder withdraws, in blow to Trump | In a blow to President Donald Trump as he tries to assemble his administration, his nominee for labor secretary, Andrew Puzder, withdrew his name from consideration on Wednesday amid concerns that he could not garner enough Senate votes to be confirmed. Puzder’s decision to withdraw is yet another setback this week for a White House still grappling with fallout from Monday night’s abrupt resignation of national security adviser Michael Flynn, after less than a month in the job. Puzder, the chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants Inc, which franchises fast-food chains including Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr, has been at the center of a swirl of controversies, complaints and potential conflicts. He admitted earlier this month that he and his wife had employed an undocumented person as a housekeeper. He faced a flurry of complaints and legal cases brought in recent weeks and months by workers against his business and its franchises. Most recently, a decades-old Oprah Winfrey tape raising allegations of domestic abuse by his ex-wife resurfaced, though those allegations had been withdrawn. “After careful consideration and discussions with my family, I am withdrawing my nomination for Secretary of Labor,” Puzder said in a statement. Puzder’s withdrawal came one day before his scheduled confirmation hearing. At least seven Republican senators, including Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, declined to publicly back Puzder in advance of the confirmation hearing. For weeks now, Republican senators have been telling Senator John Cornyn, the second-highest ranking Republican, that they believed some of their colleagues would join Collins and Murkowski in opposing Puzder, according to a senior Senate Republican aide. The Labor Department oversees compliance with federal laws that mandate safe working conditions, a minimum hourly wage, overtime wages and prohibit employment discrimination. As labor secretary, Puzder would have shaped the department’s approach to these issues, including whether to defend an Obama administration rule expanding overtime pay to millions of workers that has been challenged in the courts. Earlier this month, Puzder admitted he and his wife had employed an undocumented person as a housekeeper and had to pay back taxes as a result. Workers at some of CKE’s restaurants have filed claims in recent weeks alleging they were victims of wage theft or victims of sexual harassment in the workplace. Another possible problem were allegations dating back to 1986 that Puzder had physically abused his now ex-wife, Lisa Henning, now known as Lisa Fierstein. Fierstein filed for divorce in 1987 and later retracted her allegations, but not before appearing anonymously as a victim of domestic abuse on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” Last week, the OWN Network released a copy of that tape to the Senate committee so both Democratic and Republican members could view it, according to an aide. Democrats on Wednesday cheered over the news of Puzder’s withdrawal. “From the start, it’s been clear that Puzder is uniquely unqualified to serve as secretary of labor,” said Patty Murray, the ranking member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. | politicsNews | February 15, 2017 | 1 |
12,386 | Fatal crash closes Swiss Gotthard road tunnel for hours | The Gotthard road tunnel under the Alps in Switzerland was closed for hours on Wednesday after a truck and a passenger car collided, killing two people and damaging the key transit route, police said. Police in the canton of Uri said four people were also hurt in the head-on crash in the 10-mile (16.9-km) tunnel, a main north-south route for Europe. It said the driver of a car with German number plates crossed the center line for unknown reasons and collided with the truck around 09:15 local time (0815 GMT). The tunnel reopened around 1430 GMT, police said. In October 2001, a head-on collision in the tunnel between two trucks caused a massive fire, killing eleven and injuring many others. | worldnews | December 13, 2017 | 1 |
6,533 | Fired from 'Apprentice,' Omarosa may get Trump White House job | Omarosa Manigault, best-known for repeatedly being fired on the TV show “The Apprentice,” is being considered for a job in Donald Trump’s White House, a member of the president-elect’s transition team said on Tuesday. A lecturer on branding and marketing at Howard University and a former Mrs. America pageant contestant, Manigault, 42, was one of Trump’s more visible African-American supporters during his successful election bid. The Youngstown, Ohio, native also worked at the White House during the Clinton administration, in Vice President Al Gore’s office. Trump won national attention by hosting the first 14 seasons of the NBC TV game show “The Apprentice,” in which contestants vied to demonstrate their business skills and win a job running one of his companies. Typically, Trump would eliminate one hopeful each week with his trademark phrase, “You’re fired.” | politicsNews | January 4, 2017 | 1 |
12,848 | WIKILEAKS Posts NEW Document…Shows Hillary Reportedly Asked: ” Can’t we just drone this guy [Julian Assange]?” | Hillary Clinton is the last person you want placing a target on your back the list of people who ve paid a heavy price for betraying her is pretty long Julian Assange announced Sunday he was cancelling his much anticipated announcement on leaked Clinton documents. Assange said he was cancelling the planned speech due to security concerns.To Silence Wikileaks, #HillaryClinton Proposed Drone Strike on Julian Assange report https://t.co/S7tPrl2QCZ WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 3, 2016Assange was going to make the announcement on Tuesday. Obviously, Julian Assange is concerned about his safety.Julian Assange announced in August: The Most Interesting and Serious Wikileaks Info On Hillary Clinton Yet to Be ReleasedNow this Wikileaks posted a document this morning that reportedly shows Hillary wanted to drone bomb Julian Assange.Via: Gateway Pundit | politics | Oct 3, 2016 | 0 |
12,166 | Forgetful ministers keep Mugabe's name alive at Zimbabwe congress | Zimbabwe s Robert Mugabe may have been deposed as president, but some of the ruling party s senior officials are struggling to stop mentioning the man who dominated their country for 37 years. Two government ministers were left embarrassed at a party congress on Friday when they used the name of the veteran leader when referring to the man who replaced him after last month s de facto coup, new president Emmerson Mnangagwa. Energy Minister and ZANU-PF spokesman Simon Khaya-Moyo chanted Forward with President Mugabe! in the native Shona language before hastily correcting himself to Forward with President ED Mnangagwa . Mnangagwa, who was sworn in as president of the southern African country on Nov. 24, initially sat stony-faced before breaking into a smile when another official whispered to him. Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa also started referring to Mugabe as the party s candidate for elections due in 2018 before correcting himself. Mnangagwa was endorsed as the ZANU-PF leader and candidate for the top job for the vote which he said on Thursday said could be sooner than expected. Mugabe himself was out of the country. Sources said he visited a hospital in Singapore this week, apparently for medical checks. | worldnews | December 15, 2017 | 1 |
13,633 | COMEDY GOLD! Clinton Gaffe While Reading Off Of The Teleprompter Is Darn Funny [Video] | Hillary reads off of the teleprompter an emotion that was meant to be a sigh and not the word sigh too funny! | politics | Jun 25, 2016 | 0 |
20,261 | May's Conservatives win vote to bolster party's numbers on committees | British lawmakers voted on Tuesday in favor of handing the governing Conservatives greater say on committees that scrutinize laws, a move denounced by the opposition as an attempt to rig parliament . The government won by 320 votes to 301, a day after lawmakers passed legislation to sever ties with the European Union. May lost the Conservatives majority in a June election, forcing her government to rely on the support of a small Northern Irish party to pass laws. | worldnews | September 12, 2017 | 1 |
6,141 | Trump invites Netanyahu to Washington for visit: White House | President Donald Trump invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to visit Washington in early February during a phone call in which they discussed the importance of strengthening the U.S.-Israeli relationship, the White House said on Sunday. In his first call with Netanyahu since taking office on Friday, Trump stressed his “unprecedented commitment to Israel’s security.” “The president and the prime minister agreed to continue to closely consult on a range of regional issues, including addressing the threats posed by Iran,” the White House said in a statement. Trump also said peace between Israel and the Palestinians could only be negotiated between the two parties, but that the United States would work with Israel to achieve that goal. Relations between Israel and the Obama administration ended on a contentious note, when the United States declined to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a halt to Israeli settlement-building. The readout from the White House did not include any mention of moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, an action that would likely spark anger in the Arab world. Earlier on Sunday, the White House said it was only in the early stages of talks to fulfill Trump’s campaign pledge to relocate the embassy. “We are at the very beginning stages of even discussing this subject,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer said in a statement. Aides said no announcement of an embassy move was imminent. Washington’s embassy is in Tel Aviv, as are most foreign diplomatic posts. Israel calls Jerusalem its eternal capital, but Palestinians also lay claim to the city as part of an eventual Palestinian state. Both sides cite biblical, historical and political claims. Any decision to break with the status quo is likely to prompt protests from U.S. allies in the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt. Washington relies on those countries for help in fighting the Islamic State militant group, which the new U.S. president has said is a priority. The U.S. Congress passed a law in 1995 describing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and saying it should not be divided, but successive Republican and Democratic presidents have used their foreign policy powers to maintain the embassy in Tel Aviv and to back negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians on the status of Jerusalem. In early December, then-President Barack Obama renewed the presidential waiver on an embassy move until the beginning of June. It is unclear whether Trump would be able to legally override it and go ahead with relocation of the embassy. U.S. diplomats say that, despite the U.S. legislation, Washington’s foreign policy is in practice broadly aligned with that of the United Nations and other major powers, which do not view Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and do not recognize Israel’s annexation of Arab East Jerusalem after its capture in the 1967 Middle East war. Israel approved building permits on Sunday for hundreds of homes in three East Jerusalem settlements in expectation that Trump will row back on the previous administration’s criticism of such projects. | politicsNews | January 22, 2017 | 1 |
17,734 | DIRTY COP WHO LEAKED Charges Against Former Trump Campaign Manager To CNN From SEALED Grand Jury Information Is Revealed | On June 15, 2016, President Trump warned Americans that we were witnessing the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history-led by some very bad and conflicted people! You are witnessing the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history led by some very bad and conflicted people! #MAGA Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 15, 2017Boy, was Trump ever correct!GP Robert Mueller continued with his now widely reported corrupt and criminal activities last night by leaking information sealed by the courts to CNN. This is just another corrupt and criminal act in Mueller s corrupt and criminal career.Last night we found out from information leaked to CNN that the Mueller investigation has filed charges in the ongoing superfluous investigation into President Trump and the far out possibility that he colluded with Russia in the 2016 election. CNN reported that:A federal grand jury in Washington, DC, on Friday approved the first charges in the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller, according to sources briefed on the matter. The charges are still sealed under orders from a federal judge.In typical bad cop form, former FBI Head and current Special Counsel Mueller proved again that he is as dirty as it gets.Trump came out today after the crooked deep-state with these series of tweets:Never seen such Republican ANGER & UNITY as I have concerning the lack of investigation on Clinton made Fake Dossier (now $12,000,000?), . Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2017 the Uranium to Russia deal, the 33,000 plus deleted Emails, the Comey fix and so much more. Instead they look at phony Trump/Russia, . Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2017 "collusion," which doesn't exist. The Dems are using this terrible (and bad for our country) Witch Hunt for evil politics, but the R's Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2017 are now fighting back like never before. There is so much GUILT by Democrats/Clinton, and now the facts are pouring out. DO SOMETHING! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2017Finally, President Trump insinuates that this phony Russian collusion talk is coming out as a distraction, when the Republicans are making their big push for historic Tax Cuts and Reform. Is this coincidental? NOT! All of this "Russia" talk right when the Republicans are making their big push for historic Tax Cuts & Reform. Is this coincidental? NOT! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2017Mueller s career is littered with numerous investigations of major scandals and likely crimes that he did not meaningfully investigate as FBI Director resulting in no arrests and no consequences. All of these resulted in the Clintons and/or Obama Administration getting away with criminal activities:IRS Targeting (2010-2013): the IRS intentionally selected and then delayed or denied tax-exempt 501(c)(3) applications from conservative groups to prevent them from participating in the 2012 election, followed by IRS agent Lois Lerner invoking her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. (No charges have been filed of any wrong doing by any government officials in this case.)Fast and Furious (2010): this ATF program, which seems to have served no rational purpose, allowed over 2,000 guns to be purchased illegally inside the United States and then walked into Mexico for use by criminals, one of which was later used in the 2010 murder of Border Agent Brian Terry by the member of a Mexican cartelAssociated Press Spying (2012): the Department of Justice illegally seized the communications of AP reporters made during April and May 2012, allowing the DOJ to unmask journalists confidential sourcesClinton Foundation Pay-for-Play (2009-2013): during the period in which Hillary Clinton held the office of Secretary of State, the Clinton Foundation and Bill Clinton received millions of dollars in paid speaking fees and a million dollar gift from countries involved in matters with the State Department, many of which had ties to terrorism and human rights abuses; some of these funds were apparently diverted from charitable causes to personal expenses, such as Chelsea Clinton s 2010 wedding.Russian Uranium Deal (2009-2013): Hillary Clinton s State Department approved a deal allowing a Russian company to control 20% of the uranium mining production capacity inside the United States, which was followed by millions of dollars in donations to the Clinton Foundation from people associated with the transaction. This past week information was reported that prior to the Obama administration approving the very controversial deal in 2010 giving Russia 20% of America s Uranium through the approved sale of Uranium One, the FBI had evidence that Russian nuclear industry officials were involved in bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering in order to benefit Vladimir Putin, says a report by The Hill. Mueller was the head of the FBI at this time! He was even hand picked by Hillary Clinton to hand over uranium to Russia on an airport tarmac at this time.Clinton Private Email Server (2009-2013): during her entire tenure as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton dodged Freedom of Information Act requirements by using a private email server to conduct official government business, as well as sent and received classified information that was Top Secret over an unsecured system an extremely reckless (and obviously illegal) act. Mueller s acceptance of the lead role in the investigation into Russia is another obvious example of his corrupt and criminal tendencies. Based on numerous accounts he has obvious conflicts of interest and even liberal publications like the USA Today have called for Mueller to step down as special prosecutor because of his conflicts of interest with the investigation he is carrying on. Now we know he took over the investigation in spite of his criminal activities in covering up the FBI investigation into Uranium One. A person of integrity would easily have seen his conflicts of interest and would recuse himself.Independent UK Donald Trump s former campaign Paul Manafort has said he has not been informed of any possible criminal charges against him, after it was reported the first indictments had been filed by the team investigating Russia s alleged meddling in the 2016 election.Reports said a grand jury working with Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller, had approved the first charges to result from the ongoing probe that is looking at possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. The reports, which have not specified what the charges are or who they were filed against, said a suspect could be taken into custody as soon as Monday.CNN, which broke the news, said the charges were filed on Friday and placed under a seal by a federal judge. Yet, that has not stopped a flurry of speculation as to who may be the focus of Mr Mueller s charges and the nature of them. | left-news | Oct 29, 2017 | 0 |
16,025 | PRESIDENT Promotes Made in America: Omaha Steaks Owner “Wanted to Kiss Me” for Reopening Trade with China [Video] | President Trump was sporting a Commemorative Stetson hat today when he introduced the Made in America week starting with Omaha Steaks. He has a great one-liner in the video below this one about opening the beef trade again with China: The gentleman who was in charge of Omaha Beef. They do beef. He hugged me and he wanted to kiss me so badly. OPENING REMARKS:President Trump says Omaha Steaks CEO wanted to kiss me so badly for opening beef trade in China https://t.co/LQEanwTWY8 NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) July 17, 2017President Trump admiring a Made in America baseball bat:President Trump admires a baseball bat during Made in America event: It s so beautiful I love to play baseball https://t.co/zvYjE7EG1e NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) July 17, 2017President Trump mentioned Senator John McCain: We hope John McCain gets better very soon. We miss him. He s a crusty voice in Washington, plus we need his vote. https://t.co/ZSpibzJlG2 NBC News (@NBCNews) July 17, 2017 | Government News | Jul 17, 2017 | 0 |
13,154 | OBAMA STONEWALLING ON Why He Sent 13 Payments Of $99,999,999.99 To Iran…Where Was Congress? | Leave it to the one and only Andrew McCarthy to put together a fantastic case against Obama and his lying administration when it comes to the latest race on the Treasury. This time it was a raid on a Treasury slush fund to give $1.3 billion to Iran. The Iran Deal is a great example of just how corrupt and dysfunctional our government is. Please take the time to read this incredible overview of the inner workings of giving billions to Iran It s UNREAL!The structured transfers of $1.3 billion from a Treasury slush fund remain shrouded in mystery. Confidentiality ? Yes, that s the State Department s story on why the Obama administration is stonewalling the American people regarding the president s illegal and increasingly suspicious Iransom payoff. The administration refuses to divulge any further information about the $1.7 billion the president acknowledges paying the world s leading state sponsor of terrorism.Grilled on Wednesday about how Obama managed to pay the final $1.3 billion installment particularly given the president s claim that it is not possible to send Tehran a check or wire-transfer State Department spokesman Mark Toner decreed that the administration would continue withholding this information in order to protect confidentiality. Whose confidentiality? The mullahs ? That of the intermediaries the president used? Whose privacy takes precedence over our right to know how Obama funneled our money to our enemies?The closest thing to an answer we have to the latest round of questions comes courtesy of the perseverance of the investigative journalist Claudia Rosett. (You weren t expecting the Republican Congress to be minding the purse, were you?) Recall that we have been asking about the $1.3 billion payment since the first revelations about this sordid affair. After all, if, as Obama and his toadies maintain, the payment is totally on the up and up just a routine legal settlement involving Iran s own money then why won t they answer basic questions about it? Why are such matters as the administration s process in tapping a congressionally appropriated funding source for the settlement a settlement Congress did not approve and seems to be in the dark about paying for being treated as if they were state secrets so sensitive you d need have a Clinton.mail account (or be a Russian hacker of a Clinton.mail account) to see them?Generally speaking, the State, Treasury, and Justice Departments cannot issue press releases fast enough to salute themselves over legal settlements that supposedly benefit taxpayers by billions of dollars at least according to the same math that brought you all those Obamacare savings. How is it that, in what is purportedly a completely aboveboard legal case, we are not permitted to know how our own money was transferred to the jihadist plaintiff?With the administration taking the Fifth, it was left to Claudia to crawl through Leviathan s catacombs. In her New York Sun report on Monday, we learned that she hit pay dirt: stumbling upon a bizarre string of 13 identical money transfers of $99,999,999.99 each yes, all of them one cent less than $100 million paid out of an obscure Treasury Department stash known as the Judgment Fund. The transfers were made to whom, it is not said on January 19, just two days after the administration announced it had reached the $1.7 billion settlement with Iran. They aggregate to just 13 cents shy of $1.3 billion, the same amount the State Department claims Iran was owed in interest from the $400 million that our government had been holding since the shah deposited it in a failed arms deal just prior to the Khomeini revolution. So, stacked atop of the pallets of $400 million in foreign cash that Obama arranged to shuttle from Geneva to Tehran as ransom (or, as the administration prefers, leverage ) for the release of American hostages via an unmarked cargo plane belonging to Iran Air, a terrorist arm of the mullahs terrorist coordinator, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps we now have a second whopping money transfer that (a) violates federal criminal laws against providing things of value to Iran and (b) looks like it was conceived by Nicky Barnes.Read more: NRO | politics | Aug 27, 2016 | 0 |
6,560 | Obama sanctions Russia for intervening in 2016 election | President Barack Obama on Thursday authorized a series of sanctions against Russia for intervening in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and warned of more action to come. “These actions follow repeated private and public warnings that we have issued to the Russian government, and are a necessary and appropriate response to efforts to harm U.S. interests in violation of established international norms of behavior,” Obama said in a statement. “These actions are not the sum total of our response to Russia’s aggressive activities. We will continue to take a variety of actions at a time and place of our choosing, some of which will not be publicized,” he said. Obama said a report by his administration about Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 election would be delivered to Congress in the coming days. | politicsNews | December 29, 2016 | 1 |
22,067 | The Demise of Progressive Democrats: ‘Resist and Submit, Retreat and Surrender’ | 21st Century Wire says The US 2016 Presidential Election was a watershed point in 21st century western politics. With the defeat of Hillary Clinton and the near collapse of the Democratic Party, it seems that America s progressive left has lost the ability to relate to much of the working and the middle classes. During the Obama Administration, the party was taken over by the billionaire donor class ruled by Wall Street interests, Silicon Valley svengalis, and the unelected commissariate the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Their failed strategy of total reliance on identity politics at home, and backing Islamist extremism and a New Cold War with Russia abroad has spelled abject failure for the US electorate. Still, the vanguard of the progressive left is still in denial of these realities. However, a new shake-up on the left may already be underway.Last month, America s latest progressive icon, Bernie Sanders had this to say Sanders: "The Democratic Party is an absolute failure." (June 11, 2017)See also: https://t.co/cnrVTiKUnn pic.twitter.com/mJxrguyMyM WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) July 9, 2017While his candid depiction of a broken political party certainly rings true, it seems that Sanders is avoiding some of the more fundamental aspects of his party s rapid disintegration, namely the left s role in compromising America s reputation internationally by caving in to a largely Neoconservative and globalist foreign policy agenda, as author James Petras explains James Petras Information Clearing House Over the past quarter century progressive writers, activists and academics have followed a trajectory from left to right with each presidential campaign seeming to move them further to the right. Beginning in the 1990 s progressives mobilized millions in opposition to wars, voicing demands for the transformation of the US s corporate for-profit medical system into a national Medicare For All public program. They condemned the notorious Wall Street swindlers and denounced police state legislation and violence. But in the end, they always voted for Democratic Party Presidential candidates who pursued the exact opposite agenda.Over time this political contrast between program and practice led to the transformation of the Progressives. And what we see today are US progressives embracing and promoting the politics of the far right.To understand this transformation we will begin by identifying who and what the progressives are and describe their historical role. We will then proceed to identify their trajectory over the recent decades.We will outline the contours of recent Presidential campaigns where Progressives were deeply involved.We will focus on the dynamics of political regression: From resistance to submission, from retreat to surrender.We will conclude by discussing the end result: The Progressives large-scale, long-term embrace of far-right ideology and practice.Progressives by Name and PostureProgressives purport to embrace progress , the growth of the economy, the enrichment of society and freedom from arbitrary government. Central to the Progressive agenda was the end of elite corruption and good governance, based on democratic procedures.Progressives prided themselves as appealing to reason, diplomacy and conciliation , not brute force and wars. They upheld the sovereignty of other nations and eschewed militarism and armed intervention.Progressives proposed a vision of their fellow citizens pursuing incremental evolution toward the good society , free from the foreign entanglements, which had entrapped the people in unjust wars.Progressives in Historical PerspectiveIn the early part of the 20th century, progressives favored political equality while opposing extra-parliamentary social transformations. They supported gender equality and environmental preservation while failing to give prominence to the struggles of workers and African Americans.They denounced militarism in general but supported a series of wars to end all wars . Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson embodied the dual policies of promoting peace at home and bloody imperial wars overseas. By the middle of the 20th century, different strands emerged under the progressive umbrella. Progressives split between traditional good government advocates and modernists who backed socio-economic reforms, civil liberties and rights.Progressives supported legislation to regulate monopolies, encouraged collective bargaining and defended the Bill of Rights.Progressives opposed wars and militarism in theory until their government went to war.Lacking an effective third political party, progressives came to see themselves as the left wing of the Democratic Party, allies of labor and civil rights movements and defenders of civil liberties.Progressives joined civil rights leaders in marches, but mostly relied on legal and electoral means to advance African American rights.Progressives played a pivotal role in fighting McCarthyism, though ultimately it was the Secretary of the Army and the military high command that brought Senator McCarthy to his knees.Progressives provided legal defense when the social movements disrupted the House UnAmerican Activities Committee.They popularized the legislative arguments that eventually outlawed segregation, but it was courageous Afro-American leaders heading mass movements that won the struggle for integration and civil rights.In many ways the Progressives complemented the mass struggles, but their limits were defined by the constraints of their membership in the Democratic Party.The alliance between Progressives and social movements peaked in the late sixties to mid-1970 s when the Progressives followed the lead of dynamic and advancing social movements and community organizers especially in opposition to the wars in Indochina and the military draft.The Retreat of the ProgressivesBy the late 1970 s the Progressives had cut their anchor to the social movements, as the anti-war, civil rights and labor movements lost their impetus (and direction).The numbers of progressives within the left wing of the Democratic Party increased through recruitment from earlier social movements. Paradoxically, while their numbers were up, their caliber had declined, as they sought to fit in with the pro-business, pro-war agenda of their President s party.Without the pressure of the populist street the Progressives-turned-Democrats adapted to the corporate culture in the Party. The Progressives signed off on a fatal compromise: The corporate elite secured the electoral party while the Progressives were allowed to write enlightened manifestos about the candidates and their programs . . . which were quickly dismissed once the Democrats took office. Yet the ability to influence the electoral rhetoric was seen by the Progressives as a sufficient justification for remaining inside the Democratic Party.Moreover the Progressives argued that by strengthening their presence in the Democratic Party, (their self-proclaimed boring from within strategy), they would capture the party membership, neutralize the pro-corporation, militarist elements that nominated the president and peacefully transform the party into a vehicle for progressive changes .Upon their successful deep penetration the Progressives, now cut off from the increasingly disorganized mass social movements, coopted and bought out many prominent black, labor and civil liberty activists and leaders, while collaborating with what they dubbed the more malleable centrist Democrats. These mythical creatures were really pro-corporate Democrats who condescended to occasionally converse with the Progressives while working for the Wall Street and Pentagon elite.The Retreat of the Progressives: The Clinton DecadeProgressives adapted the crab strategy : Moving side-ways and then backwards but never forward.Progressives mounted candidates in the Presidential primaries, which were predictably defeated by the corporate Party apparatus, and then submitted immediately to the outcome. The election of President Bill Clinton launched a period of unrestrained financial plunder, major wars of aggression in Europe (Yugoslavia) and the Middle East (Iraq), a military intervention in Somalia and secured Israel s victory over any remnant of a secular Palestinian leadership as well as its destruction of Lebanon!Progressives followed Clinton s deep throated thrust toward the far right, as he outsourced manufacturing jobs to Mexico (NAFTA) and re-appointed Federal Reserve s free market, Ayn Rand-fanatic, Alan Greenspan.Like a huge collective Monica Lewinsky robot, the Progressives in the Democratic Party bent over and swallowed Clinton s vicious 1999 savaging of the venerable Glass Steagall Act, thereby opening the floodgates for massive speculation on Wall Street through the previously regulated banking sector. When President Clinton gutted welfare programs, forcing single mothers to take minimum-wage jobs without provision for safe childcare, millions of poor white and minority women were forced to abandon their children to dangerous makeshift arrangements in order to retain any residual public support and access to minimal health care. Progressives looked the other way.Progressives repeatedly kneeled before President Clinton marking their submission to the Democrats hard right policies.The election of Republican President G. W. Bush (2001-2009) permitted Progressive s to temporarily trot out and burnish their anti-war, anti-Wall Street credentials. Out in the street, they protested Bush s savage invasion of Iraq (but not the destruction of Afghanistan). They protested the media reports of torture in Abu Ghraib under Bush, but not the massive bombing and starvation of millions of Iraqis that had occurred under Clinton. Progressives protested the expulsion of immigrants from Mexico and Central America, but were silent over the brutal uprooting of refugees resulting from US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or the systematic destruction of their nations infrastructure.Progressives embraced Israel s bombing, jailing and torture of Palestinians by voting unanimously in favor of increasing the annual $3 billion dollar military handouts to the brutal Jewish State. They supported Israel s bombing and slaughter in Lebanon.Progressives were in retreat, but retained a muffled voice and inconsequential vote in favor of peace, justice and civil liberties. They kept a certain distance from the worst of the police state decrees by the Republican Administration.Progressives and Obama: From Retreat to SurrenderWhile Progressives maintained their tepid commitment to civil liberties, and their highly leveraged hopes for peace in the Middle East, they jumped uncritically into the highly choreographed Democratic Party campaign for Barack Obama, Wall Street s First Black President .Progressives had given up their quest to realign the Democratic Party from within : they turned from serious tourism to permanent residency. Progressives provided the foot soldiers for the election and re-election of the warmongering Peace Candidate Obama. After the election, Progressives rushed to join the lower echelons of his Administration. Black and white politicos joined hands in their heroic struggle to erase the last vestiges of the Progressives historical legacy.Obama increased the number of Bush-era imperial wars to attacking seven weak nations under American s First Black President s bombardment, while the Progressives ensured that the streets were quiet and empty.When Obama provided trillions of dollars of public money to rescue Wall Street and the bankers, while sacrificing two million poor and middle class mortgage holders, the Progressives only criticized the bankers who received the bailout, but not Obama s Presidential decision to protect and reward the mega-swindlers.Under the Obama regime social inequalities within the United States grew at an unprecedented rate. The Police State Patriot Act was massively extended to give President Obama the power to order the assassination of US citizens abroad without judicial process. The Progressives did not resign when Obama s kill orders extended to the mistaken murder of his target s children and other family member, as well as unidentified bystanders. The icon carriers still paraded their banner of the first black American President when tens of thousands of black Libyans and immigrant workers were slaughtered in his regime-change war against President Gadhafi Continue this article at Information Clearing HouseREAD MORE POLICE STATE NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Police State FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | US_News | July 14, 2017 | 0 |
3,509 | Time Magazine Makes Trump Their ‘Person Of The Year’ And Promptly Gets WASTED By Twitter (TWEETS) | If you haven t heard, Donald Trump has joined Adolf Hitler as the latest Deplorable to become Time s Person of the Year. Beating out Hillary Clinton, the Flint, Michigan whistleblowers, Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, Mark Zuckerberg, and others who have actually accomplished something that didn t involve fraud, racism. Aside from her numerous other documented accomplishments, Hillary Clinton snagged the second-highest popular vote numbers in history and became the first to ever do that without also winning the election.When Time posted the announcement Wednesday, the internet just couldn t handle granting this honor to someone like Trump:@TIME pic.twitter.com/9nKga5Ke6o Bill Jansen (@TheBillJansen) December 8, 2016@TIME you are biased and what you have done is pathetic. You just lost credibility with me not good. Dianna Rice (@diannarice64) December 8, 2016@TIME @TIME What do you mean, "Behind " There is no backstory here. This person conned his way all the way to the top. Stupid in every way Fohtohgirl (@fohtohgirl) December 8, 2016@TIME $5 says Trump will have stacks of signed copies in the Oval Office to give out to diplomats and heads of state. Chad Brockman (@chadbrockman) December 8, 2016@TIME remember when you made Hitler times person of the year in 1938? What is wrong with you Hannah Mackay (@hamack3) December 8, 2016But the real fun began when they attempted to explain themselves.See why Donald Trump was chosen as TIME's Person of the Year 2016 #TIMEPOY https://t.co/31cskE6fmU pic.twitter.com/19d9R7H9jg TIME (@TIME) December 8, 2016@TIME pic.twitter.com/OF6iOqpnAt Jose Fdo Cuartas (@JoseFCuartas) December 8, 2016You made an admitted sexual predator Person of the Year. You have no credibility. Delete your account. @TIME Diana Prince (@hantavirus) December 8, 2016@TIME uh because you're trash and you're trynna tell me he's on the same level as Obama??? pic.twitter.com/SBq0VJ7DmH Ya Girl (@_mdiaz19) December 8, 2016@TIME Because you're afraid of him. sarcasticbitch (@dippelkellie1) December 8, 2016@TIME I had asked Santa for a subscription to Time; thanks for this announcement, request cancelled. I'd rather get coal than read this. Pat Nasta (@mainer91) December 8, 2016@TIME who fkn cares why. U gave an egotist more reason to be one. Why reward xenophobia? It's sickening Hillary 4 Real (@Hillary4Realz) December 8, 2016@TIME WTF TIME?!! How about Putin? Maybe Assange? Jesus, TIME sucks. Will never buy another issue, ever. JD (@EclecticArts2) December 8, 2016@TIME because so was Hitler. It just made sense right. @peacebw/u (@lbridges1212) December 8, 2016@TIME You have lost me as a reader and supporter of your magazine for your decision to choose a bigot, racist and woman abuser, like Trump!! John Mac Intyre (@JayMac8500) December 8, 2016Time explains that for better or worse, Trump was named Person of the Year because he had the greatest influence over the news this year:The revolution he stirred feels fully American, with its echoes of populists past, of Andrew Jackson and Huey Long and, at its most sinister, Joe McCarthy and Charles Coughlin. Trump s assault on truth and logic, far from hurting him, made him stronger. His appeal part hope, part snarl dissolved party lines and dispatched the two reigning dynasties of U.S. politics. Yet his victory mirrors the ascent of nationalists across the world, from Britain to the Philippines, and taps forces far more powerful than one man s message.We can scarcely grasp what our generation has wrought by putting a supercomputer into all of our hands, all of the time. If you are reading this, whether on a page or a screen, there is a very good chance that you are caught up in a revolution that may have started with enticing gadgets but has now reshaped everything about how we live, love, work, play, shop, share how our very hearts and minds encounter the world around us. Why would we have imagined that our national conversation would simply go on as before, same people, same promises, same patterns? Perhaps the President-elect will stop tweeting but only because he will have found some other means to tell the story he wants to tell directly to the audience that wants to hear it.Time is correct that Trump has perhaps had the greatest impact on the news, but one must wonder why they would choose to reward the bigotry and hate he encouraged and continues to encourage in their annual marketing gimmick. Normally, this would be a run-of-the-mill honor, even for a dictator (Time called Hitler the greatest threatening force that the democratic, freedom-loving world faces today in their 1938 article), but Trump thrives off of the attention and Time should have made the decision not to enable him.Featured image via Time | News | December 8, 2016 | 0 |
7,657 | Strong economic report welcome boost for Clinton, Trump calls it 'dismal' | A stronger-than-expected U.S. economic report on Friday came at a good time for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, although Republican contender Donald Trump’s campaign blasted the numbers as “dismal.” The Commerce Department reported that the economy grew at a 2.9 percent annual rate in the third quarter, its fastest pace in two years and higher than the expected 2.6 percent, thanks to a surge in exports and a rebound in investment. With just 11 days to go before the Nov. 8 election, the report bolstered Clinton, who has positioned herself as the best candidate to continue years of economic expansion under President Barack Obama. More Americans say jobs and the economy are their No.1 priority when they decide who to vote for than any other issue. Trump argues that as a successful businessman and political outsider, he is the best person to take a new approach to rebuilding an economy that has sent too many jobs overseas and left many Americans struggling to find decent jobs. His campaign said the figures are still not good enough. “America can do better than the modest growth of 2.9 percent recorded for the 3rd quarter and the dismal growth of 1.5 percent for the past year,” Dan Kowalski, Trump’s deputy policy director, said in a statement. “Growth hasn’t risen above 3 percent for a full year in any year of the Obama presidency,” he said. While many voters do not follow economic indicators closely, outside experts said the release was still a good one for Clinton. She is seeking to solidify her lead in opinion polls as the Democratic Party works to win as many seats as possible in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, where Republicans now control majorities. “Today’s release will likely improve the perception of economic conditions in the U.S. and slightly increase the odds of a Democratic president remaining in the White House,” said Brian Schaitkin, senior economist at the Conference Board. Clinton’s camp said Friday’s report showed “real progress” since Obama took office in 2009, when the country was struggling to emerge from economic recession. “With more than 15 million jobs created since early 2010 and real median incomes growing more than 5 percent last year, it’s clear we’ve made real progress coming back from the crisis,” Clinton senior policy advisor Jacob Leibenluft said in a statement. But he added that there is still more that can be done. Clinton was campaigning on Friday in Iowa, where polls show she and Trump running neck-and-neck, and in Michigan, a traditionally Democratic state hit hard by the movement offshore of many formerly well-paying American manufacturing jobs. Trump was holding rallies in Iowa as well as in another closely contested swing state, New Hampshire, and in Maine, where his campaign sees a chance to grab one of four electoral votes. In the last weeks of the campaign, Clinton has dramatically widened her advantage over Trump in ad spending, amid questions over the celebrity businessman’s pledge to contribute more than $100 million of his own money. He spent $56 million through the end of September, and only $31,000 since, according to filings. Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said on Fox News reports that the candidate has stopped putting his own money into his campaign are not true. “He has said publicly many times he is in for $100 million and he is happy to invest in his campaign,” she said. | politicsNews | October 28, 2016 | 1 |
15,703 | Tension in South Sudan capital after bid to disarm detained ex-army chief | South Sudan s government has sought to disarm the bodyguards of detained former army chief Paul Malong on fears he might escape and launch a rebellion, his wife said on Saturday, highlighting tensions within the leadership. Malong - the man who has led President Salva Kiir s campaign against rebels - has been under house arrest since May after Kiir sacked him following a string of military resignations by senior generals alleging abuses and ethnic bias. Malong had initially fled the capital Juba with a convoy of vehicles for his home state of Aweil following his dismissal - raising fears he might join opposition forces, before returning to the capital. On Saturday, his wife Lucy Ayak told Reuters security officials arrived at their home late on Friday with specific orders from Kiir. They came carrying the order from the president and told General Malong that they had been ordered to disarm his bodyguards, she said, adding that they also tried to take his phone and said his family members would not be allowed to visit. The government is thinking that General Malong might take the country back to war. The tension is still high ... we do not know if they might come back and arrest him by force if he resists. Residents in Juba told Reuters heavily-armed soldiers have blocked the main road leading to his house. Media outlets from Juba also reported that a senior commander in the army who is allied with Malong has also defected with the aim of launching a rebellion. President Kiir s press secretary Ateny Wek Ateny declined to comment, saying the issue was purely an army matter . South Sudan won independence from Sudan in 2011 but plunged into civil war in 2013 after Kiir fired his deputy Riek Machar. The conflict, largely fought along ethnic lines, has pitched parts of the oil-producing country into severe hunger, paralyzed public services and forced a quarter of the population - three million people - to flee their homes. | worldnews | November 4, 2017 | 1 |
8,713 | Trump Gets Booed Off The Stage In Front Of The Tea Party – Yells Back At Them (VIDEO) | Donald Trump practically got booed off the stage talking to a bunch of Tea Party activists on Saturday after he started talking about Ted Cruz in a negative light. Shortly after getting a taste of his own medicine (i.e. throwing people out of his events, simply because he doesn t like them) Trump suddenly called it a night and ended his speech. He must not have liked the booing very much.Here s what Trump started saying before the commotion started: You give a campaign contribution to Ted Cruz, you get whatever the hell you want. And he s a very nice guy but you have to get right? As soon as these very words left the crevice of Trump s mouth, the booing immediately commenced. Let s just say this, Mr. Entertainer didn t seem to like it very much. He quickly snapped back, saying a lot of the same things over and over very nervously while trying to maintain his composure: Excuse me, excuse me. He didn t report his bank loans. Say whatever you want. He didn t report his bank loans. He s got bank loans from Goldman Sachs. He s got bank loans from Citigroup. And then, and then, he acts like Robin Hood. Say whatever you want but it doesn t work that way. Right now Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are locked in an intense battle for the top spot in the Republican party. Their so-called truce earlier on in the primary season is essentially over if the last Republican debate is any indication. But, that s to be expected. This is when the crazy season begins; the Iowa caucuses are only two weeks away.Trump plans on hitting Ted Cruz more on his alleged birther status, and Cruz will still pretend to like Trump as long as his poll numbers continue to rise. That s the thing it all goes back to the polls. Republican candidates worship those numbers more than the Bible. They ll do whatever works to win this thing.Expect Trump to keep on saying negative things in an attempt to drive up his numbers. With Ted Cruz rising in popularity that only means the possibility of more booing for Trump.Featured image via screen capture. | News | January 17, 2016 | 0 |
19,120 | WATCH THE FIREWORKS! NAACP President FREAKS When He’s Asked If He’d “Be Okay With A Congressional White Caucus? [VIDEO] | Watch NAACP s Cornell William Brooks, who was at loss for words Thursday after he was asked a hypothetical question about allowing a Congressional White Caucus to be formed during a debate on CNN s Anderson Cooper 360.The racially charged exchange began during a discussion of President Trump having asked an African-American reporter from a black-focused new radio outlet if she knew the leadership of the Congressional Black CaucusThe best part of the video comes when Cornell William Brooks DEMANDS an apology from Lord for using KKK member David Duke to make a perfectly logical analogy of how dividing our lawmakers down racial lines could get very ugly if it s allowed to continue. Frankly I used to think the Congressional Black Caucus, when it was first formed, was a good thing, Lord began. I changed my mind on this. I don t think there should be any caucuses in the House of Representatives that are divided by race. I mean, heaven forbid, if David Duke got elected and wanted to form a Congressional White Caucus, that would be appalling, he said, explaining his change of heart. Sir, Jeffrey, that is I m looking for a word here. Beyond it s completely preposterous. To compare the Klan to the Congressional Black Caucus, Brooks smilingly replied, visibly upset by the analogy his fellow panelist drew. You would be okay with a Congressional White Caucus? Really? Lord shot back, interrupting Brooks explanation of the Black Caucus s purpose. I didn t say that, was Brook s immediate reply. Daily Caller | left-news | Feb 18, 2017 | 0 |
13,280 | Australian former deputy prime minister returns to parliament | Australia s former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce will return to parliament after he won an essential by-election for his seat, just over a month after he was kicked out over a dual citizenship crisis that cost the conservative coalition government its majority. Joyce, who was widely expected to win, said he was utterly humbled by his sizeable victory in the rural New South Wales seat of New England, in which he looks likely to increase his primary vote by an additional 10 points. ABC election analyst Antony Green reported that Joyce is on track to achieve a primary vote of about 64 percent, a significant increase on his 52.3 percent primary at the last federal election in 2016. The win gives the government and its embattled prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, some much-needed breathing space, as it restores its slim one-seat majority. The government is already claiming the victory as a vote of confidence of its performance, despite a series of polls showing its growing unpopularity. This has been a stunning victory, Turnbull told supporters as he joined Joyce at a pub in the town of Tamworth to celebrate the win. Exit polls were predicting the largest swing to the government in the history of by-elections in Australia , Turnbull said, adding it was a sign of confidence in his government. Joyce added that he was completely and utterly humbled , after winning from a record field of 17 candidates. I say to the people of New England, that I never take anything for granted, and for every person who voted for us and voted for us for the first time, he said, the ABC reported. Joyce was one of the Citizenship Seven whose eligibility to sit in parliament was thrown into doubt when it was found they were dual citizens, a status that is barred for federal politicians under Australia s constitution to prevent split allegiances. The High Court ruled on Oct. 27 that Joyce, along with four of the seven other lawmakers, was ineligible to remain in parliament, forcing a by-election. Joyce was found to be a dual citizen of New Zealand, a status he has since rescinded. A by-election occurs outside of the usual three-year election cycle, usually when a representative decides to leave parliament early or dies. The deputy leader position, traditionally held by a member of the junior coalition partner, the National Party, has remained vacant since the High Court ruling. The result comes at a difficult time for Turnbull, who earlier this week was forced into an embarrassing reversal of his long-standing position against a Royal Commission into the country s scandal-hit banking and financial sector amid mounting political pressure. The last day of campaigning for the by-election was marred by a call from New South Wales Nationals state leader and deputy premier John Barilaro for Turnbull to step down as a Christmas gift to the nation. The comments were quickly rebuffed by Liberal Party lawmakers and Joyce, who said they were very unhelpful and insulting. It was the latest of a long line of internal turmoil to hit the coalition throughout the year, which has contributed to its poor performance in polls throughout the year. | worldnews | December 2, 2017 | 1 |
8,381 | Literally NOBODY Is More Upset About Trump’s Defeat In Iowa Than Ann Coulter (TWEETS) | Christian Conservative extremist and blowhard Ann Coulter took to Twitter after Donald Trump s surprise defeat in Iowa on Monday night, with a lengthy and hysterical rant that suggest literally nobody is more upset about this loss than her.Poor Ann Coulter. She s been having a fabulous time riding on Trump s coat tails these last few months, and then out of nowhere, defeat. Let s face it, her last brain cell died of loneliness some considerable time ago and she simply has neither the real nor emotional intelligence to deal with such a shock to the system. Plus, she has access to Twitter. Let the lunacy commence.She sowed a little lie ahead of time, just in case Trump did get a drubbing. Apparently, Fox News are trying to keep Trump out of the White House. You know, those liberal hippies at Fox!GOPs just show up & vote. Fox trying to suppress Trump vote by telling 1st time caucusers that GOPs bicker all nite. https://t.co/9UTwAGYpdf Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) February 2, 2016Then she spent some considerable time attacking Marco Rubio for coming such a close third to Trump. With Trump on 24% and Rubio on 23%, there was just 1% in it. Coulter refers to the son of Cuban immigrants as the sweaty little Mario .Fox is slyly denigrating Cruz by ignoring him. IT APPEARS HE'S ABOUT TO WIN. But it's all hands on deck for the sweaty little Mario. Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) February 2, 2016But although Trump lost, he won to the only people who matter to Ann Coulter. First, the evangelical Christians. Coulter wants a Christian Conservative champion in the White House, hence her denigration of Rubio and her reluctant acceptance of Ted Cruz as Plan B.CNN's John King just explained that TRUMP is winning the most heavily Evangelical areas of the state! GO CHRISTIANS! Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) February 2, 2016Not just Christians that Coulter prefers though is it? No, Coulter seems to think the ethnicity of voters makes the vote more powerful too.Trump is the leading GOP vote-getter tonight, among natural-born-American candidates. Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) February 2, 2016Who are these natural-born-American candidates? The likes of Trump and Huckabee of course. To a thoroughbred racist like Coulter, Rubio, Carson and Cruz might well make themselves Evangelical enough, but they will never make themselves white enough. They just aren t good old-fashioned European immigrants to the United States, like the other children of immigrants in the race.So after a quick outburst of vitriol against Ted Cruz for winning and being a bit too Cuban and Canadian Has Cruz stopped speaking yet? I went out to get a sandwich 40 minutes in. Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) February 2, 2016 she turned on the caucus itself.Yes, I can barely remember Reagan, Bush, McCain & Romney all lost Iowa caucus, then became nominee (i.e. 1st!). https://t.co/o292AWWymj Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) February 2, 2016Finally this morning she was reduced simply to tweeting seemingly random numbers. To which some Twitter users had some brilliant responses.@AnnCoulter The number of babies you've eaten? Donald J. Trump (@Re_lDonaldTrump) February 2, 2016 @AnnCoulter pic.twitter.com/Hj2DSD6Rk5 neilsaavy7099 (@714_319) February 2, 2016@AnnCoulter Is that the number of times you've pegged Hannity or the caliber of handgun you're going to use on yourself when Sanders wins? Duke St. Rollins (@DukeStRollinsv2) February 2, 2016Sadly, not much sympathy around for Ann Coulter or her patron Donald trump this morning. But despite Coulter s bleating, choosing a Republican in this race is like choosing death by hanging, gas chamber or firing squad. You might have a personal preference, but every one of them is going to be fatal. The GOP s domination by extremist candidates is a death sentence, whichever candidate carries it out. Featured Image via Gage Skidmore (Flickr Creative Commons)/Gage Skidmore (Flickr Creative Commons) | News | February 2, 2016 | 0 |
4,328 | Paul Ryan Officially Hands What’s Left Of His Spine To Donald Trump (IMAGE) | It took Speaker of the House Paul Ryan quite a while to endorse GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. This is understandable; after all, the relationship between Ryan and Trump has been frosty at best. In fact, when the endorsement finally came, it was under cover a huge speech that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton was giving. Further, since said endorsement Ryan has yet to appear on stage in public with Trump, and has avoided speaking about his party s vulgar, bombastic presidential nominee if at all possible. Before Trump took the nomination officially, Ryan called him out for many of his more inflammatory remarks particularly his call to ban Muslims from entering the United States, and his apparent inability to immediately disavow David Duke and The Ku Klux Klan. However, with Hillary steadily pulling ahead of Trump, Ryan is biting the bullet and caving under pressure of the Republican National Committee and the goons at the Trump campaign, and will finally appear in public with Trump.Ryan s office released a document to the press on Thursday, saying that Ryan would be at an event in his native Wisconsin. The memo is called, Paul Ryan to Attend Annual Fall Fest in Walworth County. Along with Ryan, there s a list of other Republicans who will be there. And, buried under all the political talk, almost at the very end, the document confirms the worst: Trump will be there with bells on, too. Here is a screen capture of the document, via the Huffington Post:And pay special attention to the last line: All questions related to Mr. Trump should be directed to the Trump campaign. That right there goes to show that Ryan still can t stand the idea of talking about Trump, yet he has somehow been bullied into appearing in public with him.Speaker Ryan, you have NO SPINE LEFT. You have handed the battered bits of it that were left to the courier who delivered it on a silver platter to Trump Tower. It s Trump s party now, and you helped make that happen. The GOP is dead, and so is your political career. If you had stood up to your travesty of a nominee, if you had put country before party as any real leader would, you might have been able to avoid this situation.Good riddance, you sniveling, cowardly, Eddie Munster lookalike. I hope you not only lose your speakership in November, but your seat in Congress as well. After all, regardless of political party, real leaders have a spine.Featured image via Mark Wilson/Getty Images | News | October 6, 2016 | 0 |
970 | Obama blasts 'politics of division' on return to campaign trail | Former President Barack Obama, back on the campaign trail on Thursday for the first time since he left the White House, called on voters to reject a growing “politics of division” that he said was corroding American democracy. Without mentioning Republican President Donald Trump by name, Obama told campaign rallies in New Jersey and Virginia that voters could send a powerful message about the type of politics they want by backing Democrats in Nov. 7 elections in the two states. “What we can’t have is the same old politics of division that we have seen so many times before, that dates back centuries,” Obama told a cheering crowd in Newark, New Jersey, that chanted: “Four more years.” “Some of the politics we see now, we thought we put that to bed. That’s folks looking 50 years back,” Obama said. “It’s the 21st century, not the 19th century.” At a later stop in Richmond, Virginia, Obama said modern politics increasingly did not reflect basic American values of inclusiveness and were driving people away from the process. “We’ve got folks who are deliberately trying to make folks angry, to demonize people who have different ideas, to get the base all riled up because it provides a short-term tactical advantage. Sometimes that feels frustrating,” Obama said. Many of Obama’s comments appeared to be thinly veiled swipes at Trump, whose combative style and inflammatory rhetoric have led to frequent controversy and stoked political tensions. Obama made the remarks just hours after former President George W. Bush, a Republican, also took an indirect swing at Trump with a speech decrying “bullying and prejudice” while defending immigrants and trade. Obama’s appearances were aimed at driving up Democratic turnout in New Jersey and Virginia, the only two states holding elections for governor this year. Democrats hope Obama can bring some of the young, minority and infrequent voters who powered his two elections to the White House out to the polls in off-year elections. The two contests will be closely watched to see if Democrats can convert the grassroots resistance to Trump into electoral wins after falling short earlier this year in four competitive special congressional elections. The governor’s races, and a special election in December for a U.S. Senate seat in Alabama, could offer clues to the national political mood ahead of next year’s congressional elections, when all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 33 of the Senate’s 100 seats will be up for grabs. Republicans currently control both chambers. Since leaving the White House in January, Obama has frequently been forced to defend his record as Trump and Republicans have tried to gut his signature healthcare law and roll back his immigration and environmental policies. While he has rarely spoken out about politics in the past nine months, Obama said it was critical that supporters get their friends and families to vote. In Newark, he said no one should assume victory just because opinion polls show Phil Murphy, a former investment banker and U.S. ambassador to Germany, has a comfortable lead on Republican opponent Kim Guadagno, the state’s lieutenant governor. “I don’t know if you all noticed that, but you can’t take any election for granted,” he said in a reference to Democrat Hillary Clinton’s surprise loss last year in the presidential race. In the political battleground of Virginia, polls show a close contest between Democrat Ralph Northam, the state’s lieutenant governor, and Republican Ed Gillespie, a former Republican National Committee chairman who has been endorsed by Trump. Obama carried Virginia in both 2008 and 2012, and Democrat Hillary Clinton won the state over Trump by 5 percentage points in 2016. | politicsNews | October 19, 2017 | 1 |
10,577 | No breakthrough in Supreme Court dispute between Obama, Republicans | Republican leaders of the Senate on Tuesday rebuffed President Barack Obama’s appeal for hearings and a vote on his U.S. Supreme Court nominee during a face-to-face meeting that failed to budge them from their vow to block any nominee he offers. Obama, planning to name a replacement for the late Justice Antonin Scalia in the coming weeks, huddled with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley in the White House Oval Office for less than an hour. “Senator Grassley and I made it clear that we don’t intend to take up a nominee or to have a hearing,” McConnell told reporters after the meeting. The meeting failed to produce any progress on how to proceed with finding a replacement for Scalia, a long-serving conservative justice who died on Feb. 13. McConnell and Grassley are insistent that Obama not pick a nominee and leave the decision to his successor, who takes office next January after the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election. Obama is insistent that it is the Republican-led Senate’s constitutional duty to act on his nominee. “They made clear in their meeting with the president that they’re not going to change their mind just because the president says so,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said of the Republicans. Earnest said Obama still believes it was worthwhile to consult with the lawmakers before making his nomination. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said Obama stated during the meeting he would be willing to consider candidates for the Supreme Court proposed by the Republicans, but McConnell and Grassley offered no names. “We killed a lot of time talking about basketball and other stuff,” said Reid, who attended along with the Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat, Patrick Leahy. Under the Constitution, the president nominates Supreme Court justices and the Senate must confirm them. Without Scalia, the court has four conservative and four liberal justices, meaning any potential Obama nominee could tip the court to the left for the first time in decades. McConnell and Grassley have said allowing the next president to pick the new justice would let voters have a say in the selection when they elect a new president. “Whether everybody in the meeting today wanted to admit it, we all know that considering a nomination in the middle of a heated presidential campaign is bad for the nominee, bad for the court, bad for the process and ultimately bad for the nation,” Grassley said in a statement. | politicsNews | March 1, 2016 | 1 |
17,413 | Austria's conservatives show few qualms about teaming up with far right | With conservative leader Sebastian Kurz winning Austria s parliamentary elections on Sunday with around 32 percent of votes, many of his supporters see little reason to shy away from forming a government with the far right Freedom Party (FPO). Amid servings of sausages, beer and white wine spritzer, Kurz s acolytes at the People s Party (OVP) election celebrations sounded enthusiastic about working with the anti-immigration Freedom Party, which got around 26 percent, within a whisker of the Social Democrats. OVP-FPO is better than anything else, even if it s not perfect, said Kurz fan Florian Zierler, a 21-year-old software developer. Kurz said he would talk to everyone. Freedom Party chief Heinz-Christian Strache is now as close as he has ever been to joining the national government. He has accused Kurz of stealing his policies ranging from tough anti-immigration policies to tax cuts for companies and reduced social services for refugees. The economic program of the FPO is similar to that of the OVP but they (FPO) are still hammering foreigners hard in their statements and that s not in order, Zierler said. Meanwhile at Freedom Party celebrations, its general secretary and strategist Herbert Kickl, 48, said the ball was now in the court of the conservatives and Social Democrats, sounding a confident note after one of the best election results for his party in its 60-year history. For us it s not crucial whether we ll go into opposition or into government. The main factor for us is the position from which we can achieve the change that s needed. Freedom Party supporter Andreas Weiss, enjoying a smoke-filled party looking out over Vienna with the parliament building in the foreground, echoed Kickl. It actually doesn t matter who will be our coalition partner. Our demands must be realized, he said. Five women in their 40s, dancing and singing at the FPO party, said they had no doubt their party would enter government with the OVP. According to pollster SORA the biggest chunk of OVP voters, 40 percent, also want the FPO in government. Among FPO supporters, 60 percent want the OVP as a partner. Centrist coalitions between the Social Democrats and the conservatives have dominated Austrian politics since World War Two, but many are deeply frustrated with the lack of progress in tax, pension, education and administrative reform. The reds (the Social Democrats) are so fossilized and encrusted, said 79-year-old Heinrich Kohlmann, attending Kurz s party clad in traditional Austrian costume and clutching two glasses of beer. For him, the Freedom Party is the better partner for the changes he wants. I hope that we can reduce the strength and power of Brussels, Kohlmann said. Both Kurz and Strache have called for a slimmed-down European Union and a return of many powers to national governments. For the Freedom Party, forming a coalition with the conservatives would be a milestone in Europe where its sister parties, Germany s AfD and France s National Front, can only dream of joining the cabinet. When the Freedom Party last entered government in 2000, also with the conservatives, the EU imposed sanctions on Austria. I hope that many (in the European parliament) will understand that the topics we are running with have strong support among the population, said Harald Vilimsky, the FPO s most prominent EU parliamentarian. But even for Kurz supporters like Florian Kahl who are concerned by the Freedom Party s euroscepticism - which it has toned down since making it into the runoff of last year s presidential vote - the far right is still the best partner. I think (an OVP-FPO) government would mean the most positive change for Austria, said the 36-year-old civil servant. Amid a crowd dominated by men in suits and slicked back hair and women wearing designer handbags and jewelry in turquoise - the color Kurz chose for his campaign - Pavlina Hristova, a 55-year old launderette worker with broken German seemed ill at ease. But she shared the same views as other Kurz supporters. It s scarcely possible now (to work with the Social Democrats). It would probably work with the FPO. | worldnews | October 15, 2017 | 1 |
2,171 | Factbox: Trump on Twitter (August 15) - Luther Strange, Manufacturing Council | Senator Luther Strange, who is doing a great job for the people of Alabama, will be on @foxandfriends at 7:15. Tough on crime, borders etc. [0630 EDT] - Big day in Alabama. Vote for Luther Strange, he will be great! [0808 EDT] - For every CEO that drops out of the Manufacturing Council, I have many to take their place. Grandstanders should not have gone on. JOBS! [1121 EDT] -- Source link: (bit.ly/2jBh4LU) (bit.ly/2jpEXYR) | politicsNews | August 15, 2017 | 1 |
18,132 | #CHARLOTTESVILLE’S Vice-Mayor Disrespects Trump…Here’s Why He Refuses to Call Him President Trump [Video] | How in the world did this racist thug get elected? He s disgusting! He kept calling POTUS 45 then Chris Cuomo asked why he was doing that His answer is idiotic and disrespectful: That s just what I call him. I believe that when he begins to act as if he deserves to be in that office, and leads in terms of unifying people, then he will deserve the name of President Trump. But at this point, I believe that he has not done the things in regards to bringing this country together. CHRIS CUOMO: Do you believe the president helped with what he said yesterday?WES BELLAMY: I believe that 45 did make some strides in regards to specifically condemning the white supremacists and the KKK . . . I would love to move away from the remarks and comments of 45 and focus more on what s going on here on the ground in Charlottesville . . . So again, I m not as concerned with what 45 is doing, I m more concerned with us progressing as a community.CHRIS CUOMO: Wes, quick question. Why do you refer to the president as 45? Yes, he is the 45th president, but is that intentional, or is that just a quick term.BELLAMY: Well, that s just what I call him. I believe that when he begins to act as if he deserves to be in that office, and leads in terms of unifying people, then he will deserve the name of President Trump. But at this point, I believe that he has not done the things in regards to bringing this country together, he has not done the things in regards to making us a more unified place. Nor has he decided to condemn the individuals in a rapid pace, or as he should, or speak out in the way we believe he should. But again, I m not here to talk about 45.BELLAMY IS A KNOWN RACIST BUT CBS IS COMPLICIT WITH THEIR DESIRE TO CENSOR BELLAMY S RACIST TWEETS: CBS reporter Jan Crawford interviewed BELLAMY in her April 13 Evening News segment about the Robert E. Lee statue at the center of Charlottesville controversy. Crawford downplayed the racist comments and made no mention of Bellamy s punishment for the disgusting tweets he sent (see below) His past tweets suggest that he was part of the race problem. But CBS purposefully minimized his history, shifting the blame onto the vice mayor s opponents. Supporters of the statue unearth crude tweets written by Bellamy as a younger man, Crawford noted, and he also was targeted with death threats, but Bellamy feels his fight is justified. Just what kinds of crude things did Bellamy say? There were racist tweets, such as his comment in 2009: I DON T LIK WHIT PEOPLE SO I HATE WHITE SNOW!!!!! FML!!!! And his 2010 tweet: I really #hate how almost 80% of the black people here talk white. There were inappropriate and crude tweets. The same year, he tweeted: ALRIGHT. My phone goin ham. Lol. THERE IS A DIFF BETWEEN ASS& EATIN PUSSY!!! I repeat THERE IS A DIFF BETWEEN ASS& EATIN PUSSY! There were also sexist posts. I m all for equal opportunity..but a Female Principal with a school full of female teachers is fkn a sure fire way to fk our lil boys up smh, he tweeted in October 2011.THIS IS THE BEHIND-THE-SCENES INFO OF THE FIGHT BETWEEN BELLAMY AND KESSLER (ORGANIZER OF THE MARCH TO PROTEST THE REMOVAL OF THE STATUE): | left-news | Aug 15, 2017 | 0 |
9,448 | India's Modi to meet Obama, address Congress next month | U.S. President Barack Obama will meet with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Washington next month to discuss security and other issues and the Indian leader will be granted the rare honor of addressing both houses of Congress. The White House said Obama and Modi will discuss economic growth, climate change, clean energy, and security and defense cooperation during their June 7 meeting. It will be Modi’s fourth trip to the United States since he became prime minister in 2014. “The visit will highlight the deepening of the U.S.-India relationship in key areas,” the White House said in a statement on Friday. The two countries’ partnership is seen as critical in Washington, which is seeking to counterbalance China’s increasing power. Modi will address a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress, an opportunity extended to few foreign leaders, the day after the White House meeting, U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a tweet. The invitation is a sharp turnaround for Modi, who was once barred from the United States over massacres of Muslims. Last year there were only two joint addresses to Congress - by Pope Francis and by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, another important U.S. ally in Asia. In 2005, then-U.S. President George W. Bush’s administration denied Modi a visa, citing a 1998 U.S. law barring entry to foreigners who have committed “particularly severe violations of religious freedom.” More than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in sectarian riots in Gujarat in 2002 when Modi had just become the state’s chief minister. Modi has denied any wrongdoing, and India’s Supreme Court in 2010 ruled there was no case. Obama, who has adopted a “pivot to Asia” strategy and is keen to encourage a greater Indian military role in East Asia, quickly dismissed the issue by inviting Modi to the White House as soon as he called to congratulate him on winning the 2014 election. The United States is also keen to encourage greater business and trade with India. Progress has been only gradual, but in late March, the chief executive of U.S. nuclear reactor maker Westinghouse Electric said he expected to sign a deal in June to build six reactors in India after marathon negotiations that began more than a decade ago. The deal would be the first nuclear commercial power project since the United States and India agreed in 2008 to cooperate in the civil nuclear arena. Westinghouse is owned by Japan’s Toshiba Corp. | politicsNews | May 20, 2016 | 1 |
8,904 | U.S. report on civilian drone casualties expected Friday: White House | A U.S. report on the number of civilian casualties from American counterterrorism strikes will be issued later on Friday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters. President Barack Obama has long promised to increase transparency about his administration’s use of drones. His administration said in March it would publicly release an assessment of combatant and noncombatant casualties from U.S. counterterrorism strikes in areas outside active war zones since 2009. The drone campaign has come under criticism by human rights groups and others who say the strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya have caused civilian casualties. Human rights groups, which accuse the Obama administration of not being forthcoming about the precise guidelines that govern drone strikes, have welcomed the expected report amid their calls for greater transparency about the impact from such strikes. | politicsNews | July 1, 2016 | 1 |
22,395 | Trump vs Clinton 2016: Mickey Mouse vs Cruella de Vil | Patrick Henningsen 21st Century WireToday America will choose its next president. What can you say that hasn t already been said in this, the most over-analyzed political contest in history?No matter which side of this salacious Vaudeville ticket you are on, everyone will agree this has been the most raucous and divisive contest in electoral history. No matter who wins today, half the nation will be in pain, not least of all the Founding Fathers who have been rolling in their graves for the last 18 months.More than ever, America is a nation divided. An increasing number of people are now completely immersed in hyper-active social media environments, and so it s very easy to get caught up in one s respective partisan echo chambers; our way is the best way, our side is right, the other side is bad for America, we are the true party of the people etc. Many individuals simply will not venture off of their assigned party or pseudo-ideological reservations, much less talk to anyone whose views seem to oppose theirs. In public, partisan Americans will only huddle with those who share the same team colors, and in private each flees to his or her prefabricated partisan media outlet or social networking group. This virtual political matrix is now systematically divided in this way. There is nothing in between: no middle ground, no real commons, and no respite from the onslaught of partisan media. Herein lies the fundamental problem in 2016 politics and why the fall-out from this election will be ongoing long after the results are announced tomorrow morning.To make matters even worse, this election season has featured two highly flawed candidates in Donald J Trump and Hillary Clinton. Many commentators contend that these are the two worst US presidential candidates ever. Essentially it boils down to Mickey Mouse vs Cruella de Vil.Let s quickly profile the two candidates:Since the 1990 s the Clintons have been synonymous with one word: scandal. The 90 s was a dodgy decade for the First Family: Bill, Monica, Whitewater, the Arkancide epidemic, and selling White House s Lincoln Bedroom for 50 grand a night. Take your pick. None of this has helped Hillary in terms of public trust, where she s polling even lower than Donald Trump. On top of all the old Clinton baggage, you have two huge new scandals originating from her tenure as Obama s Secretary of State including becoming the latest member of her family to lie under oath to Congress (way to go Bill), this time over Hillary s private email server cover-up, and multiple pay-to-play corruption allegations at the Clinton Foundation.As result, Hillary Clinton embodies the avatar of Cruella de Vil Her campaign breaks down like this: Fighting for Woman and Children If you support Hillary Clinton then you believe your candidate represents the ascendency of the female species, and especially all women who have been held back by the cruel customs of an American patriarchal society. You also recognize her brand: Clinton. She s the wife of the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, which leads you directly into the second half of the campaign pitch: She has the experience, having been around the White House for 8 years. Since the beginning of her first campaign in 2008, Clinton the woman was the main identifier and the primary reason why she should be president. Instead it was the first black President, so she had to wait 8 years. At the age of 69, she s past her prime, but she d still be the first woman president and therefore, we re told, an inspiration to women everywhere as the marketing slogan says. She is also the champion of all minorities, as well as the poor which are also traditional Democratic Party staples, although the poor point is hard to square, seeing that the Clinton s have amassed a net worth in the hundreds of millions in the short space of 15 years primarily by monetizing their time in public office through enormous speaking fees and scraping off expenses and lifestyle extras from their billion dollar Foundation slush fund (a whole other scandal). Regardless, her supporters see her as their champion, rallying around a familiar set of leftwing social issues: inequality/redistribution of wealth, pro-choice/abortion, amnesty for undocumented/illegal immigrants, and man-made global warming/climate change.The novelty of Trump is like no other before him. At first, it could be explained like this: for some strange reason, it s a tradition in America that a certain number of people each year will cast a write-in vote for Mickey Mouse on their ballot. This is regarded as the ultimate protest vote a vote for Mickey is a vote against the establishment. So it should be no surprise that when he arrived on the electoral scene in June 2015, his support base was already waiting for him Trump was their 70 year old, 6 foot 3 inch, 236 lbs Mickey Mouse Trump s campaign breaks down like this: Make America Great Again If you support Trump, then you believe this is the story of a true underdog, the consummate outsider taking on the political elites a man with absolutely no experience in political office (other than writing cheques for nearly all them), uncorrupted by corporate money (because he has his own) and shunned by the self-serving political and media establishment who have done nothing for the country s working class and rapidly disappearing middle class. While some of this is true, as a reality TV icon, a billionaire property magnate and career playboy, Trump is certainly no man of the people in the Horatio Alger sense. Despite all that, judging by most major polls, nearly half of the United States population is behind him. To them, he is their champion. He ll lower taxes and bring back the jobs from overseas, rebuild the military, and most importantly, he doesn t want any money from corporate lobbyists. When crowds chant, Drain the swamp! referring to Washington DC, he s the man they want to hire to do that job. Trump s response to them is simple: I only work for one special interest group, and that s you the American people. In this sense, Trump has run the most unconventional political campaign ever.Love him or loath him, that message resonates and for good reason. The door to the cess pit is now open and many are horrified at what they see. Through the incredible WikiLeaks Podesta Email trove, many Americans have been able to peek inside the rude, incestuous and outright nasty elite political scene that controls Washington DC. Clinton was hit pretty hard by the WikiLeaks revelations, as was the already shaky credibility of the Clinton Foundation. This exposed a lot of the corruption around her and the party. Also, ten days before the election FBI Director James Comey through a grenade into the Clinton juggernaut by announcing the FBI would reopen Hillary s email case because of data discovered through her chief aid Huma Abedin s estranged sex-pest husband Anthony Weiner. This put a timely dent into Clinton s lead. With the help of the US media though, she battled though it and emerged from that m l e.Although he faced much less in terms of real institutional corruption scandals, Trump did not fair as well in public relations terms as Clinton did. Part of the reason for this was that Trump and the establishment media are like chalk and cheese. He s too unconventional for the bland gatekeepers. One of the reasons media operatives hated Trump was because he could generate his own gravity, and this posed a direct challenge to state-oriented propaganda machines like CNN who are busy spoon-feeding their own artificial version of reality to the American people. So, after a brief primary honeymoon, the media (aside from FOX News) declared all-out war on Trump. With each passing week, he was hamstrung by an endless string of media traps, Twitter gaffes and internal campaign tedium. Dogged by the media and his opponents, Trump couldn t hold his tongue or stay off of Twitter, and so his retaliatory tirades turned into negative headlines. For intelligent pundits and moderate supporters, the constant gaffes and distractions made it almost impossible to consider Donald Trump as a serious candidate. To the casual observer, it would appear that The Donald was nothing but a stalking horse for Hillary.The same could be said for Democratic primary challenger Bernie Sanders (photo, left). Up until the moment he entered the contest in July 2015, party favorite Hillary Clinton was essentially running unopposed. It s almost as if Sanders was drafted into the race at the last minute in order to make it look like a real race, and then at an opportune moment he would pledge his allegiance to the party favorite. That s exactly how it played out. Early on Sanders chances were practically DOA because of the Democratic Party s pre-rigged Super Delegate system. Still, he fought on and pulled bigger crowds than Hillary. Then the real bomb dropped when it was revealed through the Democratic National Committee (DNC) email leaks how party chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Shultz along with party elites, conspired to railroad the Bernie Sanders campaign. That s right, Bernie was shot down by his own party in order to make way for Hillary s coronation. Not very democratic of the Democrats. Wasserman-Shultz even resigned as a result. Sanders didn t seem to mind (in public anyway) and voluntarily capitulated, and Hillary enjoyed a steady climb afterwards. From this we can deduce that the Clinton-Sanders contest was likely a contrived affair from the onset, although one WikiLeaks email shows that Sanders may even have been blackmailed into bowing down to Clinton. It seems that the DNC and Clinton never expected Sanders to capture the imagination of the nation s youth like he did, which also speaks volumes about the acute lack of enthusiasm for Clinton s White House run even within her own party. Sanders was a rock star, Clinton was a pop star. That s a big difference in the eyes of millennials who place a lot of value on authenticity.Then came the debates. The first one broke all ratings records for a political debate with an estimated near 100 million total viewers. It was Gladiator meets Jerry Springer. Then the New York Times leaked some of Trump s tax returns and the media had a field day. Later in October, a barrage of bombshells would besiege the Trump campaign, one after another, ranging from allegations of groping on a first class flight in the 1980 s, to a porn star upset over Trump s manly advances each of them suddenly appearing in the media right before the election to complain about being sexually harassed by Trump. After the first debate, a rather lurid, leaked off the record audio conversation from Access Hollywood in 2005 appeared which nearly upended his campaign, immediately followed by a new string of women coming forward with more allegations sexual abuse. This devastated Trump in the polls, and became the 24 hour obsession for Democratic Party-linked networks like CNN and MSNBC. Amazingly, every one of the accusers has since disappeared from the scene. The damage was done though, and this became the basis for the Clinton campaign, her TV ads and her surrogates anti-Trump message. Just like with Hillary s Podesta emails, it was non-stop media chaos. The attacks and counter attacks were many too many to mention here.Somehow, he crawled out of that pit and rebounded in the polls.Trump was also being attacked in the media for proffering that the system is rigged . In all seriousness, does anyone not believe this? Still, critics have called this extremist rhetoric from Trump. From a media standpoint however, America s democracy is rigged and clearly in favor of the Democratic Party. WikiLeaks proved through the release of Clinton Campaign Chair John Podesta s emails starting with the corruption between DNC acting chair Donna Brazile who cheated the debate process by passing questions from the network CNN directly to Hillary Clinton. If that wasn t bad enough, it was later revealed how the DNC tried to provide CNN anchor Wolf Blizter with questions to ask Donald Trump, and how DNC staffers offered CNN s Jake Tapper questions to ask during another interview on the network. CNN s chief political correspondent Gloria Borger was also exposed as one of many so-called journalists in private contact with the Clinton campaign. The online journal Politico s editor Glenn Thrush was also caught stage-managing coverage with the Clinton campaign. As yet, none of these media operatives have been fired, or have resigned which says a lot about the corrupt culture of the mainstream media in the United States today. There were many other incidents covered by WikiLeaks, too many to list here. Total collusion between the so-called press and the Democratic Party. So, yes, the system is rigged. This is no longer debatable, and the fact that the public now understand this should haunt media operative long after this election. When They Go Low, We Go High While this election may have been bad for the American people, it s been great for one groups of insiders: elite advertising agencies and the TV networks who sell ad space to the campaigns. The Clinton campaign combined with the pro-Clinton Super PACs spent upwards of $200 million on TV ads the majority of which were negative ads characterizing her competitor as a racist xenophobic womanizing misogynist. By doing so, the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party effectively made their pitch to voters as a referendum on political correctness. In other words, we can t allow this disgusting human being to win this election. The other big Clinton TV ad buy was, We can t let Donald Trump get his hands on the nuclear codes. This ad was based on the ridiculous premise that a US President could just walk into the Oval Office one day and start launching ICBM warheads around the world for no reason a completely bogus thesis if there ever was one, but apparently the campaign thought the public was stupid enough to believe this fictional scenario. As result of the all the negative campaigning, Clinton spent very little if any, substantial time speaking or debating the details of domestic issues and her chequered foreign policy record, particularly regarding the horrendous failures of Libya and Syria. Instead, on numerous occasions, especially during the debates, she would refer people to my website as if that s what people really wanted. Normally, people want to hear it from the candidates mouth, but the internet has offered a nice respite for politicians who prefer not to get tangled in discussing real issues in the flesh.It should be noted that from the beginning, the gender argument has been pervasive in all Clinton messaging, almost to the point of entitlement. It s about time for woman to become president. We re going to make history with the first woman in the White House. For many Americans, however, this message based purely on identity politics tends to push discussion of the candidate s credentials and policies to the background. It is also used to fend of any criticism or inquiry into policy specifics. Not surprisingly, Clinton has mostly steered away from specifics or making any promises unlike her predecessor Obama did when he promised everything imaginable for his first 100 Days in order to attract votes including closing the offshore eyesore, Guantanamo Bay Prison, and bringing the troops home from Iraq on his first day. None of this actually happened, which fuelled a lot of disenchantment and skepticism from younger voters this time around. Clinton s gender platform has also been augmented by a racial plank, and the campaign constantly reminds its supporters that blacks and other ethnic minorities should have common cause with women, inferring that their liberal cohorts have also been held back by the cruel customs of a white male-dominated, Anglo-Saxon patriarchal society. In 2016 Democrats have also reintroduced the topic of slavery as a major talking point, resulting in even more tension. Clinton s slogan is Stronger Together, but one could argue that it s possible the Democratic Party s obsession with promoting identity politics has done more to foster new political and social divisions (and subdivisions), rather than to unite all of society under a common national identity. This is a debate which should happen, but few dare to challenge the political left on that issue. Some food for thought: a recent Rasmussen Poll concluded that race relations in the US have deteriorated under President Obama, the highest dissatisfaction mark since he was elected eight years ago up 18 points since 2014. Why have race relations gone down hill? This poll result appeared for a reason, and it s probably not just because white America was upset they elected a black president in 2008, although this is what Democrats insist when you show them this particular poll. It could also be related to the caustic, relentless confrontational identity politics agenda being pushed by agents of change in the new radical left. Or maybe it simply reflects a fundamental failure of a political leadership which only panders to its own side of the aisle and shuns the other. America will remain divided unless both Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives can figure one how to overcome this flaw.Although Bill might be his wife s greatest asset, he is also her biggest Achilles heal. Hillary has built her entire political career on the back her two-term husband with the former First Lady slipping seamlessly into brand Clinton and a ready-made political legacy. After Hillary unleashed the misogynist card on Trump, Bill soon came under fire over his own sordid history of sexual deviance. After that, Bill was used sparingly in pubic. Instead, the Clinton camp relied heavily on the White House to do its campaigning for them. As a result, the First Lady, Michelle Obama and the President did many of the big campaign stops in Hillary s absence. Collectively, it seemed as if Hillary s VIP surrogates did more campaigning than she did herself. Multimillionaire celebrity surrogates lined up to stump for Hillary, including Katie Perry (image, above), Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Robert DeNiro, Jennifer Lopez, Madonna, Leonardo DiCaprio, Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, Jay Z, Beyonce and even LeBron James.Looking cool with the kids. So Clinton is being backed by the billionaire Hollywood entertainment wing of the Establishment.Even with all of that celebrity power though, Trump still attracted vastly bigger crowds on his own. But how? Why would a minimum of 15,000 at every stop turn out just for Trump?With more than a touch of irony, the one person who articulated this phenomenon better than anyone else was a radical left-wing icon, filmmaker Michael Moore. He recently filmed a one man show entitled TrumpLand where Moore s said this: I know a lot of people in Michigan that are planning to vote for Trump and they don t necessarily like him that much, and they don t necessarily agree with him. They re not racist or rednecks, they re actually pretty decent people, and so after talking to a number of them I wanted to write this:Donald Trump came to the Detroit Economic Club and stood there in front of Ford Motor executives and said, if you close these factories as you re planning to do in Detroit and build them in Mexico, I m going to put a 35% tariff on those cars when you send them back and nobody s going to buy them. It was an amazing thing to see. No politician, Republican or Democrat, had ever said anything like that to these executives, and it was music to the ears of people in Michigan and Ohio and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin the Brexit states. You live here in Ohio, you know what I m talking about. Whether Trump means it or not, is kind of irrelevant because he s saying the things to people who are hurting, and that s why every beaten-down, nameless, forgotten working stiff who used to be part of what was called the middle class loves Trump. He is the human molotov cocktail that they ve been waiting for. The human hand grande that they can legally throw into the system that stole their lives from them.And on November 8, Election Day, although they lost their jobs, although they ve been foreclosed on by the bank, and next came the divorce and now the wife and kids are gone, the car s been repoed, they haven t had a real vacation in years, they re stuck with the shitty Obamacare Bronze Plan where you can t even get a fucking percocet. They ve essentially lost everything they had, except one thing the one thing that doesn t cost them a cent, and is guaranteed to them by the American constitution: the right to vote. They might be penniless, they might be homeless, they might be fucked over and fucked up it doesn t matter, because it s equalized on that day a millionaire has the same number of votes as the person without a job: one. And there s more of the former middle class than there are in the millionaire class.So on November 8, the dispossessed will walk into the voting booth, be handed a ballot, close the curtain, and take that lever or felt pen or touchscreen and put a big fucking X in the box by the name of the man who has threatened to upend and overturn the very system that has ruined their lives: Donald J. Trump. They see that the elite who ruined their lives hate Trump. Corporate America hates Trump. Wall Street hates Trump. The career politicians hate Trump. The media hates Trump, after they loved him and created him, and now hate. Yes, on November 8, you Joe Blow, Steve Blow, Bob Blow, Billy Blow, all the Blows get to go and blow up the whole goddamn system because it s your right. Trump s election is going to be the biggest fuck ever recorded in human history and it will feel good. Reading that, you can t help but feel that Moore has some real anger issues. Nonetheless, he inadvertently delivered the best pro-Trump speech of the election.For many, including Michael Moore, Trump might not be the ideal vehicle for such a profound movement, and yet, he is that vehicle.Granted, half of the American population have been conditioned to hate Trump for various reasons. But many of them are missing the key point in the Trump story, just like they did in the Sanders story. Trump offered millions of voters something profound: the idea that even in today s insulated political fortress that is Washington DC, anything is still possible in American politics where an outsider can come in and shake up a stale and corrupt ruling class.This concept should not be underestimated. It s a fundamental tenet of the American culture. As flawed an individual as he might be at this moment in time, Donald Trump is the avatar who embodies this idea of opportunity and hope.In today s political reality show and infotainment media environment, timing is everything and America loves a comeback. Trump s late October surge in the polls certainly reflected that public sentiment and overall enthusiasm. Trump has flown more miles and visited more cities than any other presidential candidate in memory so he s not leaving much on the table in terms of energy. Will this translate into votes in key swing states? We ll see Sure, when it all started, Donald Trump was Mickey Mouse, but somewhere along the way, the novelty has transformed into a bona fide movement. The fact that Trump, a candidate with zero political experience, bested a total of 16 other GOP primary candidates all of whom were seasoned, career politicians revealed just how profoundly unpopular establishment party stalwarts are with the general electorate. No amount of TV advertising can gloss over this realty. What began as a protest vote for so many who no longer trust or feel any affinity with elite politicians, has since morphed into a powerful mandate for change.Trump s victory during the GOP primaries was also historic it signalled an outright rejection of the party establishment, of the constant banal Republican bickering over who is the most conservative, and the traditional construct of the polished politician. Trump smashed all of this. He has done exactly as Reagan did in the 1980 s he pole vaulted over a stiff, entrenched establishment and took his message directly to the people.On the Democratic Party slate, the exact same phenomenon unfolded, with candidate Bernie Sanders gathering tens of millions of anti-establishment and anti-war voters in the 12 months preceding the Democratic Party Convention. In modern media terms Sanders couldn t be any less appealing with his unkept hair, the dandruff flaking off of the shoulders of his dodgy suit coats, and a semi-hunchback look. His supporters couldn t care less. The legions of college aged students didn t seem to care about the looks or the lack of Clintonesque cleverly scripted sound bites. Sanders could rattle off facts and issues without a teleprompter, and he did it with genuine conviction something Clinton still struggles with. Regarding the wars, as Sanders rightly pointed out, unlike Hillary Clinton, he voted against the Iraq War in 2003. This also resonated with the grassroots base. Additionally, unlike his opponent, Sanders was not pandering to Wall Street and accepting large sums of money from elite financial interests.To his base, Sanders was the real deal and for the same reasons that Trump s base is still behind him. The political and media establishment have gone to great lengths to conceal this reality, but in doing so they are only delaying their eventual demise.This is a long tail trend which is not going to reverse itself, and it s not confined to the US either it s international. We saw this to some extent with the BREXIT vote this past summer which defied the political media establishment s version of consensus reality. Political stalwarts and generational glad-handers will try their hardest to ignore it, but it s a clear public mandate away from the carefully controlled establishment model of politics. Last year in Britain, millions of voters shunned the Labour Party establishment and mainstream media favorites, and instead threw massive support behind the current Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Like Sanders, Corbyn is not a media poster boy. Before this year, you d have been hard-pressed to spot the aging Corbyn clean-shaven, or wearing a suit, much less a tie. This political shift confounded all of the experts and has triggered a tectonic shift in the Labour Party itself, as acolytes and devotees of former Prime Minister Tony Blair have all but thrown their toys out of their prams over the Corbyn issue. Like with Sanders, the people gathered in droves behind a brazenly anti-establishment and antiwar leader who was cast aside by the party establishment and media operatives.In Italy, a similar populist movement is well under way with the Five Star Movement, originally launched in 2011 by Italian comedian and entertainer Beppe Grillo. Five Star are now in Parliament. The term Five Star symbolizes five key issues for the party: public water, sustainable transport, sustainable development, right to internet access, and environmentalism. Similarly, Spain has recently seen the world s first crowd-funded political party with Podemos (translated We Can ). This is the future.As far as the lesser of two evils is concerned, the corruption issue weighs heavier with Clinton. While Trump s scandals derive from his private and business life, Clinton s scandals are from her time in public office, and involve current and past Democratic political operatives and appointees and so they deserve more scrutiny and accountability as they were done on taxpayer time, and bound by supposed strict codes of conduct. In stead, the media has worked hard to equate various mini-scandals from Trump with the mega-scandals of the Clintons when clearly these are two different things. Sp far, Clinton seems to have been able to remain above the law which has done a lot to fuel resentment against her, the White House and a highly politicized Department of Justice..On paper, America has a stark choice. Donald Trump seems to be an anti-globalist, anti-TPP, free market oriented, populist nationalist. Hillary Clinton seems to represent equality for all, but more than that she represents the status quo, a continuation of Barack Obama and his failing Obamacare legacy, an establishment elitist globalist agenda with a radical leftist bent.But how much will either candidate s presidency actually resemble their campaigns?If Clinton wins you can expect a huge celebrity-studded Gala Ball in Washington DC, followed by 18 months of Congressional hearings, indictments, impeach hearings and general gridlock. Expect the usual cast of suspects in her Cabinet, surrounded by all the usual insiders. Expect Bill to be named Hillary s Economic Tsar. In the Democratic tradition, Hillary will raise taxes and increase spending. This is why Wall Street loves Clinton (and why she accepts their money), because like with Obama, Clinton s Washington will certainly sink further into debt and Wall Street profits from this debt. Also, expect the Clintons net worth to sky rocket. Still, with so many scandals already on the boiler, it will get ugly, and it will stay ugly. There will be gridlock well into 2020. Like Obama did with the issue of race, Clinton will certainly make gender the defining issue of her presidency, as well as continue hammering home the idea that America has a race problem. The culture wars will continue and America will become a cultural Marxist battleground. Hillary Clinton s America will be a sectarian America. So expect those Rasmussen numbers to continue on their present trajectory. Expect Trump supporters to call foul on vote rigging too.There will be some vote rigging, as there has been in many US elections. Just this past week, there have been multiple cases of voter fraud in the US (and these are only the cases where people have actually been caught). . With Hillary, sooner than later, you can also expect an escalation of rhetoric and ill-informed talk of No Fly Zones in Syria and military a confrontation with Russia, and possibly even Iran. Lots of wars and proxy wars. This is why the Neocons love Hillary.If Trumps wins, the mainstream media will be in a state of shock, followed by a state of panic, followed by a state of chaos. Sure, Trump may wish to unite America, but this is a near insurmountable task now after 8 years of Sharpton-Obama political agitation and other artificial divisions constructed through hundreds of progressive front organizations funded by social engineers like billionaire George Soros. If Trump wins, expect the likes of Soros and MoveOn.org to unleash wave after wave of flash mobs, who will protest, riot, smash and burn their way on to CNN s 24 hour news rotation. Expect Occupy 2.0, and #BlackLivesMatter to rage. You can also be certain that Clinton, the Democrats and their media operatives at CNN, MSNBC and others, will blame Vladimir Putin and the Russians for hacking the US election in favor of Trump. Although Trump may cut taxes, like Reagan he will likely balloon federal spending. It is also unlikely Trump will make any significant dent in the national debt which is currently hovering around $10 trillion. However, with Trump, there is a chance to de-escalate the aggressive posturing this current White House and Hillary Clinton have take against Russia. This would be an important benefit of a Trump presidency a chance for a positive relationship between the US and Russia.Regardless of which person wins, expect FBI director Jim Comey to resign after this election.Expect both candidates to prosecute their war on ISIS , their war on poverty , their war on drugs and their war on domestic extremism. The election result is only the beginning. The real battle will take place afterwards.Expect a heavily divided and half bitter nation.Expect serious political party alternatives to emerge, building on the mild successes of the Libertarian and Green parties.Tomorrow, history will be made by either the outsider Trump, or the insider Clinton.When you re talking about the outsiders though, whether it s Trump, Sanders, Corbyn or Grillo, no matter how pious or forthright, they will ultimately get caught in the gears of government, with all its trappings of nepotism and institutional corruption. The outsider eventually becomes the insider. Resisting that pressure is the age-old challenge to any reformer.If there s one lesson to be learned by this year s US presidential race, it s certainly an old lesson by now. Depending on what your view of communism is, Karl Marx is either a villain or a hero of social engineering, but he left us some interesting quotes. Marx did get one thing right when he said, Elections give the people the right every few years to choose which member of the ruling class will misrepresent them. It s still true today.Or as someone once said, No matter who you vote for the government always gets in. We ll see which government gets in tomorrow.READ MORE ELECTION NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2016 FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | US_News | November 8, 2016 | 0 |
1,150 | White House says Trump's check to military family has been sent | The check has been sent. That was the message from the White House on Wednesday after the father of a slain U.S. Army sergeant said a generous offer from President Donald Trump had not materialized. Chris Baldridge told the Washington Post that Trump offered his family $25,000 after the death of his 22-year-old son at the hands of an Afghan police officer in June. But he told the newspaper the money never arrived. A White House spokeswoman said on Wednesday the media was advancing a “biased agenda” by following up on the Baldridge story. “The check has been sent,” White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said in an email. “It’s disgusting that the media is taking something that should be recognized as a generous and sincere gesture, made privately by the president, and using it to advance the media’s biased agenda.” The issue added to controversy over Trump’s response to military families who have lost loved ones. On Monday, Trump said some of his predecessors “didn’t do anything” to console relatives of fallen soldiers, drawing widespread criticism. Trump offered no evidence to back up his claim, which was immediately shown to be false. On Wednesday, Trump denied an account by Representative Frederica Wilson of Florida that he had told the widow of Sergeant La David T. Johnson, who was killed in a firefight in Niger, that the man knew “what he signed up for.” “I didn’t say what that congresswoman said,” Trump told reporters earlier in the day. “I had a very nice conversation with the woman, with the wife who ... sounded like a lovely woman,” he said. Sergeant Johnson’s mother, Cowanda Jones-Johnson, told The Washington Post on Wednesday that she was present during Trump’s call to her son’s widow and she supported the congresswoman’s account of Trump’s comment. “President Trump did disrespect my son and my daughter and also me and my husband,” Jones-Johnson said. | politicsNews | October 18, 2017 | 1 |
18,468 | Philippine police chief says won't stop cops from seeking church sanctuary | The Philippines top police commander on Tuesday said he would not prevent officers involved in the country s bloody war on drugs from seeking church protection and testifying to their alleged abuses, providing they told the truth. Police chief Ronald dela Rosa was reacting to a statement from a senior Catholic prelate expressing willingness to grant accommodation, shelter, and protection to police involved in unlawful killings during the 15-month-old crackdown. More than 3,800 people have been killed during President Rodrigo Duterte s ruthless campaign, in what police say are anti-drugs operations during which suspects had violently resisted arrest. Human rights group believe that figure, provided by the Philippine National Police (PNP), misrepresents the scale of the bloodshed, pointing to large numbers of killings by shadowy gunmen. The PNP denies allegations that assassins are operating in league with some of its officers to kill drug users. The pill may be bitter but we can swallow the bitter pill if that pill is true, dela Rosa told reporters, adding that he had no information that any PNP members had approached the church and wanted to speak out. Even if we are at the receiving end, we can take it as long as it is the truth, not just fabricated. The truth is important. The PNP and Duterte have been on the defensive in recent weeks as scrutiny intensifies over the conduct of mostly plain-clothes officers during what the PNP calls buy bust sting operations. Duterte has several times stated that he has never told police to kill, unless in self defense. His critics, however, accuse him of inciting murder in his frequent, truculent speeches. The killings by police of two teenagers during August is the subject of an ongoing Senate inquiry. Opinion polls released in recent days, which were compiled in June, show doubt among Filipinos about police accounts. [nL4N1MD2U8] [nL4N1M82HN] Archbishop Socrates Villegas, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), on Monday said some police sought church help and were struggling to come to terms with their actions. He did not identify them, or say how many sought protection. He said the church would gauge their sincerity and honesty and establish their motives for coming forward. Priests would help within the bounds of church and civil laws , but would not influence them to testify. Their consciences are troubling them, Villegas said. They have expressed their desire to come out in the open about their participating in extrajudicial killings and summary executions. Some Senators applauded the bishops move and urged police to testify. I welcome the willingness of these involved policemen to finally speak about their actual involvement in the extrajudicial killings, Grace Poe said in a statement. I laud the church in opening its arms wide to provide sanctuary for them. Priests are among the most influential dissenters to take on Duterte, having initially been silent when the drugs killings started. Some churches have given sanctuary to drug users and witnesses of killings, while some priests have denounced the bloodshed during sermons and called for bells to be rang nightly in protest. [nL4N1M32IY] | worldnews | October 3, 2017 | 1 |
7,190 | Bernie Sanders Sums Up The Disastrous GOP Presidential Race In One Brutal Sentence (VIDEO) | Democratic Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders appeared on MSNBC s The Rachel Maddow Show this week and summed up the entire disastrous GOP race for President in one glorious sentence: the Republican Party today now is a joke, maintained by a media which really does not force them to discuss their issues. In a show that aired on Wednesday night, Maddow invited Sanders to comment on Trump s comments to fellow MSNBC host Chris Matthews that there should be some kind of punishment for women who have abortions. Sanders recoiled at the comments, stating unequivocally: Shameful is understating that position. First of all, to me, and most Americans, women have the right to control their own bodies. But to punish a woman, for having an abortion, is beyond comprehension. One would have to say: what is on Donald Trump s mind? I don t know what world this person lives in. The interview continues with Sanders crushing each pillar of the Republican race, one after another. Until finally, Maddow asks Sanders how he feels about the GOP seeming to split, with the potential for the convention to refuse to endorse the winner of the Primaries. It s worth seeing Sander s full reply, which absolutely nails the crisis at the heart of the GOP and conservative media today: Well, uh, first of all, I don t necessarily take at value face value what they say. I think at the end of the day, they probably will come together.But the other point, I think the more the deeper point, Rachel, is the Republican Party today has moved very, very far to the right. Uh, they are way out of touch with where the American people are.And I think if we had a media in this country that was really prepared to look at what the Republicans actually stood for rather than quoting every absurd remark of Donald Trump, talking about Republican Party, talking about hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks for the top two tenths of 1 percent, cuts to Social Security and Medicare, Medicaid, a party which with few exceptions, doesn t even acknowledge the reality of climate change, let alone do anything about it, a party which is not prepared to stand with women in the fight for pay equity, a party that is not prepared to do anything about a broken criminal justice system or a corrupt campaign finance system, I think, to be honest with you and I just don t, you know, say this rhetorically, this is a fringe party. It is a fringe party. Maybe they get 5, 10 percent of the vote.What you really need in this country is a progressive party standing with the working class and the middle class of this country. And yes, a conservative party that, you know, has, you know, is more fiscally conservative. That is where we should be as a country.But the Republican Party today now is a joke, maintained by a media which really does not force them to discuss their issues.So that that s my two cents on that. The Republican Party is in crisis. It s candidates have pulled so far to the right that even Ann Coulter is having a wobble, and it s hard to see how they could possibly gain the support of the wider American public in time for Election 2016.While the candidates daily horrifying comments might be making lots of front page news, they would be foolish to expect this press attention to turn into votes at least, not for them. There is such a thing as bad press. The revulsion by the majority of common sense Americans at the GOP parade of bigotry, sexism and theocratic zealotry could well crush the party come voting day and the party will be left in tatters. It s grassroots to the right of Ghengis Khan, while the nation is moving far enough in a progressive direction that a democratic socialist like Bernie Sanders is able to maintain a solid campaign. Something has to give, and as yet the GOP has no answer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vQP7Hy42z8Featured image via screencapture | News | March 31, 2016 | 0 |
18,156 | #CHARLOTTESVILLE While Media and Politicians Stir the Pot…Are We Missing the Elephant in the Room? | A tweet caught my eye after exploring all of the hate and violence posted from Charlottesville. Did you dig deeper and do you know: Who Paid For Helmets, Bus Rentals, Body Armor on both sides in Charlottesville? Are we missing the elephant in the room? Is this event being used for political purposes (see VA Gov. McAuliffe video below) to shut down free speech and to denounce President Trump who has NO CONNECTION to any of these radical groups? George Soros must be so proud right now What s missing in all of the news reports is that the group that got permission to rally (we don t agree with them but they got permission to rally) was infiltrated by bussed in Black Lives Matter and Antifa thugs who are very violent. Remember Berkeley? The rally then became a violent mob Was this the plan by the left when they bussed in hundreds in opposition? A perfect scenario for the left Something isn t right here George Soros of MoveOn.org was advertising for protesters too:Antifa is paid by DNC funder George Soros but not one Democrat is being asked to condemn them for Charlottesville Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) August 12, 2017The Truth is that Trump supporters and most Americans on both sides reject this violence! It s being used as a tool to destroy the Trump supporters and Trump!Doesn t matter what evil it is. Remember the media rule. Every story must be twisted around so that Donald Trump is the villain. MARK SIMONE (@MarkSimoneNY) August 12, 2017My feelings were confirmed when Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe waisted no time in denouncing white nationalists but this sounds more like a political stump speech than anything else. Notice how he didn t denounce BLM or Antifa:I just asked @GovernorVA if he wanted to condemn antifa as well as neo Nazi groups. He heard. Refused to answer. pic.twitter.com/W7vcH4fSI0 Raheem (@RaheemKassam) August 12, 2017MCAULIFFE IS IN FULL POLITICIAN MODE HERE: It s sickening! I told President Trump that there has got to be a movement in this country to bring people together. .@GovernorVA on #Charlottesville protests: I told @POTUS that there has got to be a movement in this country to bring people together. pic.twitter.com/HUNCmubv4q Fox News (@FoxNews) August 12, 2017 | left-news | Aug 12, 2017 | 0 |
6,556 | Mormon Tabernacle Choir member resigns rather than sing for Trump | A member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir has resigned over its plan to sing at the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, and more than 22,000 people have signed a petition opposing the choir’s participation. Jan Chamberlin resigned after five years with the choir, which originates from Utah, over the Jan. 20 ceremony, saying it “will appear that (the) Choir is endorsing tyranny and fascism by singing for this man.” With three weeks to go before Trump is sworn in, teen classical singer Jackie Evancho is the only celebrity to have unequivocally embraced her role in an inauguration ceremony marked by soul-searching by larger invited groups, and fan backlash. The 1960s pop group, The Beach Boys, is considering an invitation to perform but has yet to make a final decision, a spokesman for the band said on Friday. “I simply cannot continue with the recent turn of events. I could never look myself in the face again,” Chamberlin wrote in a resignation letter that she posted on Facebook on Thursday. A separate petition on change.org started by Randall Thacker, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had gathered more than 22,000 signatures on Friday. The petition says the participation of the Tabernacle Choir in Trump’s inauguration does not reflect the Church’s values and would harm its worldwide image. The Church says taking part in the inauguration is voluntary, and notes that the Tabernacle Choir, which hails from Salt Lake City, Utah, has sung at such celebrations for five previous Republican presidents. Church spokesman Eric Hawkins said on Friday public response to the inauguration plans “has been mixed, with people expressing both opposition and support. The Choir’s participation... is not an implied support of party affiliations or politics. It is a demonstration of our support for freedom, civility and the peaceful transition of power.” Some dancers in the Radio City Rockettes were also unhappy at performing. “We do a lot of events, but there have been no events that could cause trauma. And doing this would cause trauma for some people,” one Rockettes dancer said this week, speaking anonymously with Marie Claire magazine. Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli suffered a fan backlash on social media after reports that he was planning to sing for Trump. Bocelli and country singer Garth Brooks both backed out of performing at the inauguration. Organizers have denied they are struggling to recruit big names for the ceremony. “This is not Woodstock,” Trump aide Boris Epshteyn told CNN this week. “It’s not about celebrities. As Donald Trump tweeted himself, it’s about the people.” | politicsNews | December 30, 2016 | 1 |
7,182 | Trump’s Spokeswoman FLIPS OUT On CNN: ‘It Was A Complete Misspeak!’ (VIDEO) | Donald Trump ignited a firestorm on Wednesday when he told MSNBC s Chris Matthew s that abortion should be banned and women should be punished for having them. When he realized that people were flipping their lids, he backtracked and said he meant doctors should be punished. Now his campaign spokeswoman, Katrina Pierson, is adding to the controversy after she yelled at CNN anchor Alisyn Camerota Thursday morning for repeating Trump s words verbatim.During the interview, Pierson became visibly angry when Camerota asked her about Trump wanting to ban abortions. She told the host that her boss never called for a ban on abortion. Actually, he did. Several times during his interview with MSNBC, and Camerota pointed that out by repeating his exact words: He said, I would ban it. Katrina, You are mincing words here. Pierson responded: This is a misspeak, Alisyn. No Alisyn, there was a misspeak here, and you have a presidential candidate that clarified the record. Not once, but twice. Although he did clarify his abortion position, his clarification was just as, confusing. First, he said it should be up to the state. Then he said At this point Pierson completely lost it, cutting the host off, she shouted: No, they weren t confusing! Because the first thing was about a ban. That s correct and that s correct, it should be down to the states because that s what the potential ban was talking about. Unfazed by her anger, the CNN host continued to repeat Trump s words back to her, demolishing her it was about the states talking point. She also muses that it is a window into Trump s mind and asks the spokeswoman if he has even bothered to sit down with policy advisors and discuss this issue. After about a minute of back and forth with the CNN host refusing to let Pierson glass over the fact that he said women should be punished if they terminate a pregnancy, the Trump puppet repeated: It was a misspeak! How many times do I have to say that? This was a complete misspeak during a conversation over a hypothetical concept and there was a clarification issue. Here s the problem with this it was a misspeak nonsense: Trump has obviously never considered the ramifications of his pro-life stance and Matthews shone a glaring light on that. The entire point of the question was to see whether or not the blustering tough guy had actually sat down and laid out a concrete agenda on the issue of women s rights, his response showed that he clearly has not. Furthermore, Trump and his people can say that he isFurthermore, Trump and his people can say that he is pro-life all they want, but nobody actually believes that. He did not just change his mind this year, he has always been pro-choice, but he isn t saying that because he wants to appease the right-wing s base. It s actually pretty ironic, someone who puts on this big show of not caring what other people think and refusing to be politically correct is too afraid to stand up for his own beliefs. And if he can t do that for himself, what makes Republicans think he could do it for the country?Watch the interview below: Featured image via video screenshot | News | March 31, 2016 | 0 |
14,983 | BREAKING: Leaked DHS Memo Tells Of Obama’s Plan To Defy Federal Court On Amnesty | Let s face it, we have a president who s going rogue and defying the rule of law at every turn. This is not your mama s lame duck presidency, but a stealth effort to do everything possible to push the agenda at all costs. The big question is that if Obama continues to defy the rule of law like this, shouldn t Congress finally take action against him? Who ll stand up? I ve got a pen and I ve got a phone. And I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions King Obama A newly leaked internal DHS memorandum produced for an off-the-record agency conclave reveals that the Obama administration is actively planning to circumvent a federal court injunction that suspended part of last November s deferral-based amnesty initiative. The document, apparently prepared as follow-up from a DHS Regulations Retreat last summer, appears sure to re-ignite concerns in Congress as well as federal judges in the Fifth Circuit. The Administration has already been criticized from the bench for handing out work permits to hundreds of thousands of deferred action beneficiaries, in direct violation of a district court s order. With the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals deciding any day now whether to deny the Administration s request to reverse that injunction, this public leak has come at a critical juncture for U.S. enforcement policy. Last June, four months after Texas federal judge Andrew Hanen s order to freeze President s DAPA and Expanded DACA programs disclosure: the Immigration Reform Law Institute has filed briefs in these cases DHS s immigration policy makers apparently held a Regulations Retreat to discuss different options for open market Employment Authorization Document (EAD) regulatory changes. EAD is the statutory term for work permits. From a memo recording these discussions, we now know that the Obama DHS has, rather than pausing to allow the courts to assess the constitutionality of its enforcement nullification initiatives, been gearing up to roll out one or more of four plans drawn up at the meeting, each one designed to provide EADs to millions of nonimmigrants, including those lawfully present and visa overstayers, crippling the actual employment-based visa system on the federal statute-book. Read more: The Hill | politics | Nov 3, 2015 | 0 |
18,964 | ILLEGAL? THUG WITH 30 PRIOR ARRESTS Steals Ambulance…Runs Over EMT Killing Mother of 5 [Video] | The blood is on DeBlasio s hands! Career criminals are walking the streets with a violent history and sealed arrest records. THAT IS PROOF that the administration is NOT doing what is best for the civilian population. Is he an ILLEGAL being protected by politicians who support sanctuary cities?THIS MOTHER OF 5 DESERVES ANSWERS: The body of FDNY EMT Yadira Arroyo being carried into the Medical Examiner s Office by fellow FDNY EMT s:The body of FDNY EMT Yadira Arroyo being carried into the medical examiner Office by fellow FDNY EMT s. pic.twitter.com/HWXgu2MVt0 BMR Breaking News (@BMRBreakingNews) March 17, 2017 The NYPD identified Jose Gonzalez, 25, as the suspect who was operating the emergency vehicle and slammed into 14-year FDNY EMT veteran Yadira Arroyo and her partner Thursday night. Arroyo, a mother of five, later succumbed to her injuries and died at Jacobi Medical Center.Gonzalez, who has an extensive arrest history, faces murder, grand larceny and operating a motor vehicle impaired by drugs charges, police said. Moments before, Jose Gonzalez was going door to door begging for money:Moments before he s alleged to have run over a @FDNY EMT, Jose Gonzalez was going door to door begging for money https://t.co/eJAJaTQGxi pic.twitter.com/fx9pWzE5Wz Myles Miller (@MylesMill) March 17, 2017Read more: pix11 | left-news | Mar 17, 2017 | 0 |
6,410 | WATCH: Tom Brokaw And Morning Joe BURN Sarah Palin For Threatening Paul Ryan | The legendary newsman appeared on MSNBC to slam the media for not holding Donald Trump accountable for what he says and does, but also had time to laugh at Sarah Palin.As a guest on Morning Joe on Monday, Tom Brokaw criticized the media for not doing their jobs when it comes to Donald Trump, whose violent and hateful rhetoric has helped him become the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. In the course of the campaign, [Trump has] said some things that were just blatantly not true. He s never been held accountable for it, so many of them, and the things that he s said. Having said all of that, he did touch a big nerve out there and he ran a campaign that no one at this table or in the political world expected him to do as well as he has. But all factors in life are about how do you adjust to the reality of where you are next, how you re going to deal with the next phase of this. And we re now in the next phase. And if he keeps punching out the people in his own party in the way that he has, I don t see how that s going to help him. I just don t. But earlier on in his remarks, Brokaw talked about how Donald Trump has been treating House Speaker Paul Ryan and mentioned how Sarah Palin declared that Ryan s career will be over if he doesn t support Trump. Brokaw s mentioning of Palin immediately drew laughter from Joe Scarborough, who made a hilarious observation of his own that caused the rest of the panel to laugh as well.BROKAW: For him to just punch out Paul Ryan the way that he has. To have Sarah Palin to be saying that Paul Ryan has no career now, that it s over for him SCARBOROUGH: Says someone who has no career now. Here s the video via Media Matters.Sarah Palin just got burned by Joe Scarborough and Tom Brokaw and it was hilarious because what they said is true.Indeed, Sarah Palin has no career of her own. The closest she came was as governor of Alaska before she quit halfway into her term. Ever since then, she has become a professional grifter who swindles gullible supporters out of money in any way she can, including jumping on the Trump bandwagon to get more attention. Make no mistake, Sarah Palin is a joke and people should laugh at her.Featured Image: Mark Wilson/Getty Images | News | May 12, 2016 | 0 |
18,707 | UK court agrees to extradite suspect in Italy model kidnap plot | A man accused of being part of a plot to kidnap a British model in Milan should be extradited from Britain to Italy, a London judge ruled on Friday. Model Chloe Ayling, 20, has told Italian police she was lured to a photo shoot in Milan in July, abducted and held captive for six days. Her lawyer said the plot was to sell the model for sex in an online auction unless a ransom was paid. In a ruling at London s Westminster Magistrates Court, Judge Paul Goldspring said Polish-born Michal Herba, 36, the brother of the model s alleged kidnapper, should be extradited to face charges in Italy. I find that the request is both proportionate and in compliance with your Convention rights and is not an abuse of process. I therefore order your surrender, Goldspring said. Herba s lawyer George Hepburne Scott said there was no evidence against his client, who denied any involvement and would appeal against the ruling. The main suspect in the case, Herba s brother Lukasz, 30, was arrested by Italian police in August. British police arrested Michal in central England shortly afterwards. Florence Iveson, the prosecutor acting on behalf of the Italian authorities, said the two brothers were accused of abducting, kidnapping and detaining Ayling between July 11 and 17 and demanding a ransom of 300,000 euros ($352,000). Since returning to Britain, Ayling has given a number of media interviews in which she said she was drugged, gagged, bound, stuffed into a bag, put into the boot of a car and driven to a village near Turin in northwest Italy. She also denied suggestions the kidnapping was a hoax after it was reported she had gone on a shopping trip with her alleged captor. Herba s lawyer had told the extradition hearing on Monday that there was reason to suspect the case was a publicity stunt. There were a unique set of anomalies in the case which may lead to the conclusion that the Italian authorities have been duped and that their process had been abused , he said. After the verdict on Friday, the lawyer said Herba had offered to give evidence to Italian investigators via videolink but this had been rejected. This case has attracted unprecedented media attention is being played out in the media across the globe, Hepburne Scott said. The world has become fascinated with the riddle and mystery of this case. To many it is an enigma; to Michael Herba it is simply a nightmare. Herba has seven days to launch an appeal to London s High Court. | worldnews | September 29, 2017 | 1 |
19,720 | Syrian army sends more troops across Euphrates, near U.S.-backed forces | Syrian troops crossed to the eastern side of the Euphrates in Deir al-Zor on Monday, state media and a monitoring group said, increasing their presence in an area where U.S.-backed militias have also advanced. The rival forces are conducting offensives against Islamic State and have generally stayed out of each other s way, with the river often acting as a dividing line. However, incidents this year have raised tension between the government side, backed by Russia, and the U.S.-backed forces. Talks have been under way to extend a formal demarcation line, officials have said. A commander in a militia of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) confirmed Syrian army units had crossed and said his fighters were ready to drive them back. If there are clashes between us and them - we re ready for those if the forces of the regime don t go back to the other bank, Ahmed Abu Khawla of the SDF s Deir al-Zor military council said. Russia s foreign ministry said on Friday Syrian government forces crossed the river for the first time in their offensive against the jihadist group in Deir al-Zor province. Monday s crossing took place near a southern suburb of the city seized by the army on Saturday, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Syrian state news agency SANA said heavy fighting took place against Islamic State in the area. The militant group said via its online Amaq news agency that it had deployed at least two suicide car bombs against government forces. The convergence of the Syrian army offensive from the west and the SDF operation from the east has led to increased tensions. The SDF said they came under attack from Syrian forces and Russian jets backing them on Saturday, after Abu Khawla said they would not allow the army to cross the river and would consider shots fired in their direction as an attack. The SDF has advanced to within kilometres of the river, while the Syrian army has retaken much of the city, most of it on the western side. President Bashar al-Assad has vowed to recapture all of Syria. Assad controls the main urban centres in the west of the country. The SDF, dominated by the Kurdish YPG militia, controls much of Syria s northeast. Syrian rebel groups which have fought against Assad since 2011 hold pockets of territory in western Syria. Islamic State s shrinking territory includes much of oil-rich Deir al-Zor province. | worldnews | September 18, 2017 | 1 |
9,536 | JUST IN: Former DNC Chair Donna Brazile Accuses Hillary of CHEATING To Win Election, Laundering Money Through DNC…Drops Major BOMBSHELL About “CANCER” Barack Obama | After months of lying about passing debate questions to Hillary before the presidential debate that was hosted by her employer, CNN, the former DNC Chair Donna Brazile, finally came clean. During an interview with Trevor Noah of the Daily Show, Brazile arrogantly excused her dishonest behavior by telling Noah: Well, first of all, I didn t have my hands in the cookie jar. I m an operative, I m a strategist, and part of what my role was, in addition to being a political pundit, was to help advance the cause of justice and equality Today s a new day, however, and Donna Brazile has decided to emerge from the shadows to promote her new bombshell, tell-all book that is sure to ruffle a few feathers in the Democrat Party Her book is about the chaos at the DNC during the 2016 campaign. On Thursday, she revealed a section of it at Politico. What emerges from the excerpt is a picture of Brazile as a heroine (of course), Hillary Clinton as the villainess, Debbie Wasserman Schultz as incompetent and lazy, and Barack Obama as the unnamed cancer that ate away at the center of the party.Ouch.In Brazile s book, she claims that Obama cleaned out the Party. Brazile writes that by the time she took over, the Democratic Party was broke and $2 million in debt. According to Brazile, Obama left the party $24 million in debt hey, sort of like the country! and his campaign wouldn t pay off that debt until election year. Furthermore, Wasserman Schultz had grown staff and allowed the DNC to pick up the check for Obama consultants.Brazile also claims that Hillary ran the Party. Hillary used that debt to pick up power they pledged to fill in the funding gap for the DNC so long as they got to run operations. Gary Gensler, CFO of the Hillary campaign, apparently described the party as fully under the control of Hillary s campaign, which seemed to confirm the suspicions of the Bernie camp. The campaign had the DNC on life support, giving it money every month to meet its basic expenses, while the campaign was using the party as a fund-raising clearinghouse. Hillary Essentially Laundered Campaign Money Through The DNC. Hillary raised an enormous amount of money for the DNC, but virtually all that money went to Hillary s campaign. Less than half of 1 percent of all money Hillary raised from her fundraisers went to the states. Brazile explains:When the Politico story described this arrangement as essentially money laundering for the Clinton campaign, Hillary s people were outraged at being accused of doing something shady. Bernie s people were angry for their own reasons, saying this was part of a calculated strategy to throw the nomination to Hillary.The party ran as an adjunct to the Hillary campaign long before the primaries, meaning that Bernie was at a severe disadvantage. Brazile admits as much:The funding arrangement with HFA and the victory fund agreement was not illegal, but it sure looked unethical. If the fight had been fair, one campaign would not have control of the party before the voters had decided which one they wanted to lead.For entire story: Daily Wire | politics | Nov 2, 2017 | 0 |
992 | Republican Senator Just Had A Priest Thrown In Jail For Protesting Trumpcare (VIDEO) | Protests against Trumpcare are ramping up now that the Congressional Budget Office has released their assessment of the bill. And not surprisingly, Republican senators are sinking to all-time lows to avoid the angry constituents begging for the GOP not to take away their health care. Last week they were dragging people out of wheelchairs to haul them off to jail and this week they re throwing priests behind bars.Six protesters were arrested on Monday for protesting the repeal of Obamacare at Sen. Shelley Moore Capito s office in Charleston, WV, who has yet to decide how she will vote on the bill. One of the protestors who ended up in handcuffs was Rev. Jim Lewis. For the party that claims to be all about Christian values, it sure is ironic that they having a man of God arrested because he asked them not to kill the poor and sick. Just saying.The Washington Journal reports:So, for six hours, several dozen West Virginians stood outside the office calling for their Junior Senator to protect their healthcare, while six went into Capito s office and staged a sit-in. At 5:30 pm, protesters inside were told that the office was closing and they would be arrested if they did not leave.The videos below, livestreamed on Facebook, show the protesters calmly and peacefully explaining their cause and the disaster they were committed to avoiding. Police officers seemingly with reluctance, if not sympathy told them they would be charged with trespassing and taken to jail if they did not leave.Committed to the moral imperative that is stopping Trumpcare, the protesters made clear that if the choice was between jail or backing down, the decision was easy.Gary Zuckett, executive director of the West Virginia Citizen Action Group which helped organize the event along with West Virginia Citizen Action Group, Rise Up West Virginia and Kanawha Valley Democratic Socialists of America, said they were there to try to get through to Capito just how many of her constituents will be hurt if this bill becomes law. The idea is, we need to send a message to Sen. Capito that this is not an acceptable direction for our country to be going, he said. It s going to hurt West Virginia, it s going to hurt our economy, it s going to put a lot of the rural health clinics at risk, it may close some rural hospitals. It s definitely going to harm her constituents when they lose their health care coverage, especially with the Medicaid expansion. You can watch video of a GOP senator having a priest arrested here:Featured image via Charleston Gazette-Mail | News | June 28, 2017 | 0 |
17,874 | PARKS and REC and JIMMY FALLON Writer Thinks Trump Supporters Should Drink Bleach…Hopes Trump Gets Cancer | When they go low we go high. Michelle Obama famously used this quote to explain the difference between Democrats and Republicans at the DNC convention. Sadly, the Democrat Party has proven time and time again, that nothing could be further from the truth.Television writer Jen Statsky tweeted Saturday the people who support President Trump should have their children taken away.light reminder that being president of the US means nothing anymore, if you support Trump you should have your children taken away, etc etc Jen Statsky (@jenstatsky) October 1, 2017Yesterday s tweet by the woman who writes for the Parks and Rec show as well as The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, was not the first time she ventured into the bowels of humanity to come up with a vile comment in order to satisfy her angry and vile base of leftist supporters. Here are a couple of examples, starting with the time she thought touring the country looking for fistfights with people who voted for Trump might be a good use of her time.A tour of the country where I fistfight people who voted for Donald Trump, is that a good use of my time? Jen Statsky (@jenstatsky) January 10, 2017To which, one of her fans replied with an image of a boxing glove lined with barbed wire. How very tolerant. This tweet only confirms what we already know, using violence to fight anyone who disagrees with them is one of the first tenants of being a Democrat:Only if you wear these pic.twitter.com/JXVaR0PMGb Drew Brown (@brewdrown) January 10, 2017In this tweet, Statsky wishes cancer on Donald Trump, husband, father of 5 and grandfather to 9 grandchildren, and oh yeah, the man most of America chose as their leader.I know things seem grim right now, but let's remain optimistic: maybe Trump will get cancer? Jen Statsky (@jenstatsky) July 25, 2016Once again, Statsky s classy followers didn t disappoint with their responses:The most luxurious tumors you've ever seen. Cod dependence (@geoffglaab) July 25, 2016In this tweet, Statsky suggests that if you voted for Trump, you should drink bleach .quick reminder that if you voted for Trump you should drink bleach Jen Statsky (@jenstatsky) May 15, 2017This classy fan suggests Trump supporters could follow up the bleach with a draino chaser . For anyone who didn t catch it, Drano is spelled incorrectly, but we re pretty sure you already knew anyone who would respond in such a manner isn t the sharpest knife in the drawer anyhow.With a draino chaser emmalu (@emmalu) May 15, 2017And one last ignorant response from the guy who uses the disgraced pedophile Democrat Anthony Weiner as his profile pic, who just wants to clarify that Statsky is, in fact, wanting us to put bleach in their drinks for them, right? He goes on to call it what it is, poison terrorism suggesting they could poison Trump supporters at those fly-over Old Country Buffets. One has to wonder if this guy shouldn t be getting a visit from law enforcement:u want us to put bleach in their drinks for them, right? Inciting poison terrorism at those fly-over country Old Country Buffets SuperSparky (@SuperSparky101) October 1, 2017h/t Daily Caller | left-news | Oct 1, 2017 | 0 |
5,359 | Third Woman Accuses Donald Trump Of Sexual Assault | On Wednesday, right smack dab in the middle of the Republican National Convention and Donald Trump s coronation as the party s nominee, another woman accused him of sexually assaulting her. She is the third woman to come forward with claims of the billionaire s sexually aggressive behavior.Jill Harth, a makeup artist, kept silent about the assault for 20 years. But when he announced he was running for president, it didn t take long for the lawsuit she had filed in 1997 accusing him of attempted rape, to be discovered. It was his response after the suit was revealed to the public that convinced her to speak out. He called her a liar and pressured her to recant her story. However, she said the topper was when Ivanka claimed that her father was not a groper. Harth said: He didn t have to say anything. For once, he should have closed his mouth. He didn t have to comment. We were on great not great, I ll take that back we were on good terms, friendly terms. He didn t he started this. What is happening now is of his own making, OK? I was quiet. Of course, Trump took to Twitter to trash the New York Times and Jill Harth:@realDonaldTrump @nytimes I didn't lie. You did. stop having your daughter lie for you. You don't give a dam what damage this caused me Jill Harth (@jillharth) June 24, 2016Harth said she first met Trump in 1992 when she and George Houraney, her business partner and boyfriend at the time, were trying to recruit the billionaire as a partner in their beauty pageant. She claims the unwanted advances began at their very first meeting. Donald Trump stared at me throughout that meeting. He stared at me even while George was giving his presentation In the middle of it he says to George, Are you sleeping with her? Meaning me. And George looked a little shocked and he said, Well, yeah. And he goes, Well, for the weekend or what?' According to the complaint, they had dinner with Trump at the Plaza Hotel the next night and his inappropriate behavior only escalated. Throughout the evening, Trump repeatedly groped her under the table, violating her physical and mental integrity by attempting to touch [her] private parts. Harth said that Trump continued to call her and tried repeatedly to convince her to come to his home for private late-night business meetings. Finally, he insisted that she and Houraney on having a meeting at his Mar-A-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. During the meeting, Trump took the group on a tour. Then, Harth said he forcibly pulled her away from the group and cornered her in one of his children s rooms. He tried to make his move. He pushed me up against the wall and had his hands all over me and tried to get up my dress again. And I had to physically say, What are you doing? Stop it. It was a shocking thing to have him do this, because he knew that I was with George. He knew they were in the next room. And how could he be doing this when I m there for business? If it s not consensual and somebody pushes you up against a wall and is all over you? If I hadn t pushed him away, I m sure he would ve just went for it. He was aggressive. And he has a sense of entitlement. And he thinks everybody s in love with him every woman. I ve heard him say things like this. Harth dropped her suit after Trump settled an outstanding business lawsuit with Houraney, in which they claimed the real estate tycoon broke their contract when he backed out of the American Dream festival.Harth said that the fact that everyone was rushing to defend Trump, the man who attacked her, was a large part of what convinced her that it was time to speak out. Nobody was defending me, that s why I m talking, Harth said. You can believe it or not, but I went through hell and I still have to relive this again. And I just, I m horrified that I have to think about this again. Naturally, Trump has denied these accusations, but it is not the first time a woman has come forward with these kinds of claims. In June, a woman filed a complaint against Trump alleging that he had violently raped her during a party at the home of Jeffrey Epstein. A witness, identified only as Tiffany Doe corroborated her claims. The first accusation of rape against the Republican nominee came from his first wife, Ivanka.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | News | July 23, 2016 | 0 |
17,831 | BYE-BYE HARVEY! WEINSTEIN’S WIFE, Mother of His Young Kids Is LEAVING…Here’s What She’s Saying To The Victims | Harvey Weinstein s wife, Georgina Chapman, has announced that she is leaving the movie mogul after a string of woman claimed that he had sexually harassed or assaulted her. My heart breaks for all the women who have suffered tremendous pain because of these unforgivable actions. I have chosen to leave my husband, she told People. Caring for my young children is my first priority and I ask the media for privacy at this time. To my wonderful husband #happyfathersday #weloveyou A post shared by Georgina Chapman (@georginachapmanmarchesa) on Jun 18, 2017 at 7:49pm PDTAt the same time as Chapman made the announcement, Weinstein made a departure of his own to Europe, by private jet. There he will undergo therapy for sex addiction and behavioral issues, TMZ reported.Weinstein also hopes that he will still be able to serve the Weinstein Company, from which he was fired by the board on Sunday, in some capacity.His legal team are in talks with the company, and according to an insider, he wants to come back with fresh, new ideas . Chapman, 41, met Weinstein, 65, in 2003 and they married four years later, going on to have two children, India Pearl, seven, and Dashiell Max Robert, four.She is also the co-founder of high-end women s fashion line Marchesa and before the announcement of her split from Weinstein, sources said that she was struggling to save the brand from being tarnished by her husband s allegations. But leaving him might present other problems for the beleaguered British designer. Another day playing dress up on @projectrunwayallstars..,Channeling a little Ginger #sharonstone #casino #projectrunwayallstars #bighairA post shared by Georgina Chapman (@georginachapmanmarchesa) on Aug 25, 2017 at 4:59pm PDTA source told People that she is terrified that the line, which is loved by many of the women who have starred in her husband s films, will founder without his help. Glam squad .action! #projectrunwayallstars #bighair #glammakeup #marchesaA post shared by Georgina Chapman (@georginachapmanmarchesa) on Aug 24, 2017 at 5:18pm PDTThat s because he as one of the heaviest hitters in Hollywood has access to the A-list stars that can keep the brand in the public eye.Chapman posted this gorgeous picture of Nicole Kidman wearing her a dress from her fashion line: Wow the gorgeous @nicolekidman in the @hollywoodreporter!!! #marchesa #hollywoodreporterA post shared by Georgina Chapman (@georginachapmanmarchesa) on Jun 7, 2017 at 3:34pm PDTHollywood icon Bette Midler is seen wearing Marchesa here: Thank you thank you @bettemidler for looking absolutely divine in custom #marchesa at the opening night of @hellodollybway!! #bettemidler #hellodollyA post shared by Georgina Chapman (@georginachapmanmarchesa) on Apr 21, 2017 at 6:34pm PDTA TV fashion source said: Harvey is the one with all the friends. It s going to be a tough time for her and Marchesa . Shades of pink Thank you darling @sophiabush and @normancook for looking stunning in #marchesa at tonight's @sagawards!!! #sags #sophiabush #kaleycuocoA post shared by Georgina Chapman (@georginachapmanmarchesa) on Jan 29, 2017 at 7:58pm PSTA New York fashion publicist who did not want to be named told the Hollywood reporter: No star is ever going to want to wear the brand again. Another gorgeous shot of The Duchess in #marchesanotte The look is available on @farfetch!!! #duchessofcambridgeA post shared by Georgina Chapman (@georginachapmanmarchesa) on Apr 4, 2017 at 3:02pm PDTWeinstein is good friends with Vogue editor Anna Wintour and the two have co-hosted fashion and Democratic political fundraising events.Chapman s departure will likely come as a shock to Weinstein, who had boasted last week that his wife was standing by me 100 percent .He has also said she will be one of the people to kick my a** and help him become a better man.The couple was yesterday said to be holed up in a Los Angeles hotel together.The Weinstein controversy showed no signs of winding down on Tuesday, as several new actresses came forward to detail how Weinstein had assaulted them.Angelina Jolie said that in 1998, when she was just 23 and promoting her film Playing By Heart , Weinstein made unwanted advances on her in a hotel room. Daily Mail | left-news | Oct 10, 2017 | 0 |
5,978 | Meryl Streep Impersonated Donald Trump, And It Was Absolutely PERFECT (VIDEO/TWEETS) | Meryl Streep has certainly proven herself capable of playing any role, regardless of whether the character is a woman or a man, but her latest performance is a little bit different from what she usually does.Streep s latest use of her talents include a costume of ridiculous blonde hair, a fat suit and some horribly-applied orange self-tanner in other words, she s become Donald Trump! At the annual Shakespeare in the Park Public Theater Gala on Monday, the award-winning actress impersonated The Donald as she performed onstage with fellow actress Christine Baranski, who was performing as Democratic front runner Hillary Clinton. The two actresses delighted the audience as they sang a parody version of Cole Porter s song Brush Up Your Shakespeare, a number from the musical Kiss Me Kate all while keeping in character.Zeroing in on Trump s misogynistic nature, Streep imitated Trump and showed everyone why she s been routinely called the best actress of her generation. During the skit, she bellowed: You ll let me know why it is all the women say no. Baranski replied: Brush up your Shakespeare and the women you will wow. Just declaim a few lines from Othello, and they ll think you re a hell of a fella. The skit was hilarious, and fans were quick to pull out their phones and start taping the show. Here s a clip and some tweets to show just how much everyone loved it:More of Meryl and Christine Baranski doing Trump and HRC pic.twitter.com/t7jgNsf74d Jacob Bernstein (@BernsteinJacob) June 7, 2016TwitterTwitterStreep s mockery of The Donald makes all the sense in the world, considering that she s been a strong supporter of Clinton. To make this performance even more epic, it just happened to fall on the same evening that the real Hillary Clinton made history by becoming the first woman to clinch the presidential nomination of a major political party. There s no better way to celebrate that than by bashing Donald Trump.Featured image via Twitter | News | June 7, 2016 | 0 |
19,532 | Tanzania shuts down another 'days numbered' newspaper | Tanzania s government has closed a critical newspaper for the second time in three months, banning the weekly MwanaHalisi for two years after accusing it of inciting violence. Another newspaper Mawio was banned in June over articles it published linking two former presidents to alleged improprieties in mining deals signed in the 1990s and early 2000s. The moves appear to cement President John Magufuli s pledge in January that the days of newspapers his government viewed as unethical were numbered a statement that triggered concerns about censorship. The government has suspended publication and circulation of the weekly MwanaHalisi newspaper for 24 months ... due to repeated unethical reporting, publishing fabricated and inciting articles and endangering national security, the state-run Tanzania Information Services said in a statement. The body said MwanaHalisi published a series of inciteful articles about Magafuli and that its editors had refused to apologize for their reporting. Magufuli, nicknamed the bulldozer , has won some praise from Western donors for an anti-corruption drive and cutting wasteful public spending. But opponents accuse him of increasingly undermining democracy by curbing dissent and stifling free speech. Tanzania has one of the most highly diverse media industries in Africa, with over 450 registered newspapers and journals, as well as 180 radio and television stations. In November, Magufuli signed into law a bill that journalists said was aimed at muzzling freedom of the press. The Media Services Act of 2016 gives officials powers to shut down media organizations that violate their licenses and requires newspapers to apply for an annual license. | worldnews | September 20, 2017 | 1 |
4,844 | Highlights: The Trump presidency on March 19 at 6:50 p.m. EDT | Highlights of the day for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Sunday: U.S. House Republicans are working on changes to their healthcare overhaul bill to provide more generous tax credits for older Americans and add a work requirement for the Medicaid program for the poor, House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Sunday. With warm words from Chinese President Xi Jinping, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson ends his first trip to Asia since taking office with an agreement to work together with China on North Korea and putting aside trickier issues. Despite a long list of potential pitfalls, Tillerson’s visit to China, the first by a senior member of the Trump administration, passed off relatively smoothly although there were no tangible gains to show. German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen rejects Trump’s claim that Germany owes NATO and the United States “vast sums” of money for defense. Trump criticizes North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, saying he is “acting very, very badly.” U.S. lawmakers from both parties say they have seen no proof to support the claim by Trump that his predecessor, Barack Obama, had wiretapped him last year, adding pressure on Trump to explain or back off his repeated assertion. A detailed version of Trump’s budget to be released in May will lay out plans to eventually erase U.S. deficits, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney says. Trump may begin his overhaul of the U.S. tax code as early as late spring, White House spokesman Sean Spicer has told Ireland’s Sunday Independent newspaper. A 29-year-old man who was arrested near the White House late on Saturday falsely told the U.S. Secret Service he had a bomb, according to a police report. | politicsNews | March 19, 2017 | 1 |
8,748 | The Winner Of The GOP Debate Is…Bernie Sanders (AGAIN) | If a debate is won according to who generates the most buzz, Bernie Sanders has once again kicked Republican ass on twitter. According The Hill, Sanders had two of the most retweeted tweets during the debate with a pair touting his position in polls and going after GOP front-runner Donald Trump s proposal to ban Muslims from the U.S. Both got more than 5,000 retweets. The Republicans seem to think they could beat our campaign. They haven t seen the polls. #GOPDebatepic.twitter.com/XitW9T28Vq Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) January 15, 2016I love the little frowning Republican faces; they so perfectly capture the frustration they must be feeling at losing in the polls, badly, to a *GASP* Socialist! Republicans are, of course, all for socialism but only as long as it s the rich that benefit and not all of the dirty lower classes that Bernie represents. Privatize the rewards, socialize the cost. It s the American way.Sanders also hit Trump over his naked appeals to racism and bigotry:I have a message for Donald Trump: No, we re not going to hate Latinos or Muslims. We are going to stand together. #GOPDebate Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) January 15, 2016The problem with running on hate is that it only gets you so far. Once you get past the angry white old person demographic, no one else is interested.But what makes it even more remarkable that Sanders continues to outshine Republicans on twitter during their own debate is that Sanders only has 1.14 million followers compared to Trump s 5.69 million. Although if we follow Trump s track record, there s a good chance a lot of those are paid for followers. I have a hard time believing that the average Trump supporter is smart enough to turn on a computer, much less use social media.While Trump did pick up more new followers than Sanders during the debate, that s of little comfort to the Republican Party. They may fear a Sanders presidency, but they fear a Trump presidency even more. Sanders will move the country to a place where the rich won t be AS rich and everyone else will get richer. Trump will turn America into the laughingstock of the world and cost Corporate America far more money than that dastardly Socialist Sanders ever could.Faced with that kind of choice, Republicans may not have a choice but to go all in for Bernie.Featured image via twitter | News | January 15, 2016 | 0 |
17,072 | CASTRO IGNORES DISASTROUS COMMUNIST POLICIES That Destroyed Cubans: Blames World Leaders At UN Assembly For Allowing Millions To Go Hungry | If Obama had a communist friend he d be this poor victim Raul Castro the champion of human rights and justice What a dog and pony show.Cuban leader Raul Castro used his first speech before the United Nations General Assembly to lash out at the international body, saying Monday that member states have failed to produce much beyond an illusion of the human rights, justice and development promised in the charter.Castro made scant mention of last summer s landmark restoration of ties with the United States after a five-decade break, instead delivering a searing indictment of world superpowers for allowing millions to remain hungry, illiterate and at risk of death by curable illnesses while annual military expenses worldwide amount to more than $1.7 trillion. Barely a fraction of that figure could resolve the most pressing problems afflicting humanity, Castro said.Castro received warm applause and scattered cheers when he made his U.N. debut, and several Latin American and African leaders gave him a standing ovation at the end of his remarks, in apparent approval of his narrative that Western colonialism and imperialism are at the roots of today s conflicts. He didn t name names, but his allusions to the United States and its allies were clear as he criticized invasions and overthrows, the selective and discriminatory approach to human rights, and the threat of climate change stemming from an irrational and unsustainable consumerism. There have constantly been wars of aggression and interference in the internal affairs of the states, the ousting of sovereign governments by force, the so-called soft coups and the recolonization of territories, Castro said.Via: McClatchyDC | Government News | Sep 29, 2015 | 0 |
7,594 | In America's 'Rust Belt,' more voters trust Clinton on trade: Reuters/Ipsos poll | Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s promise to restore American jobs by renegotiating international trade deals appears to be failing him in states most affected by outsourcing, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. Voters in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania - three competitive states in the Nov. 8 election that form the bulk of a region dubbed the Rust Belt for its swaths of shuttered factories - favor Trump’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, on the issue of trade, according to the polling, with some respondents citing how international trade can bring down prices. The results underscore the uphill battle the New York businessman faces on Election Day, when he needs to sweep a broad array of battleground states to win the White House. “Trump has made a strong effort to portray Clinton as favorable to trade policies that he has labeled ‘a disaster’ for the United States,” said Thomas Nelson, a political science professor at Ohio State University. In the automaking state of Michigan, which has voted reliably for Democratic candidates in recent presidential elections but which Trump has fought hard to win, some 40 percent of likely voters believed Clinton would be better equipped to address trade, compared with 36 percent for Trump. In Ohio, known for its aerospace, steel and rubber industries, 45 percent said Clinton would be better on trade, compared with 38 percent for Trump. In Pennsylvania, long a steel and heavy manufacturing center, 45 percent favored Clinton on trade, compared with 38 percent for Trump, according to the polling, conducted in mid-October. Clinton is leading Trump in all three states among likely voters, with advantages of 4 points in Michigan, 3 points in Ohio and 6 points in Pennsylvania, according to the Reuters/Ipsos polling. But other polls show the race tightening in those states. RealClearPolitics, which averages data from most major polls, shows Clinton leading Trump by 6.6 points in Michigan and 5.1 points in Pennsylvania, and Trump leading Clinton by 2.7 points in Ohio. Officials for Trump’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Poll respondents reached by Reuters who favored Clinton on trade mainly gave two reasons - first, that international trade deals can help people by lowering prices for goods; and second, they doubt Trump can deliver on his promise to restore the U.S. manufacturing sector. “We all like to have inexpensive items,” Ronald Lane, 56, of Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, who plans to vote for a third-party candidate next week as a protest against both Trump and Clinton. “I think it’s important to save American jobs which have already gone overseas, but I don’t believe there is much that can be done to bring them back,” he said. Christina Ledesma, of Grand Rapids, Michigan, a Clinton supporter, said she also disagreed with Trump that the economy would suffer a lasting negative effect from trade deals. “Our unemployment rate is lower than it’s been since 2008. What jobs are you bringing back?” she said. Michigan’s unemployment rate was 4.6 percent in September, below the national average of 5 percent. Ohio’s was at 4.8 percent and Pennsylvania’s at 5.7 percent. Trump has called the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico one of the worst deals ever struck and blames it for manufacturing jobs being moved to Mexico. He also opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would open markets in East Asia. Trump argues that the deal, which must be ratified by Congress, would motivate more U.S. companies to move their production overseas. Last week while campaigning, he called outsourcing “the greatest job theft in the history of the world”. “The jobs theft will end … the day I start the presidency. It’s going to be America first again,” he said. Clinton has offered a more tempered approach, saying she would seek to re-evaluate NAFTA if elected and that there were problems with some aspects of the TPP. The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online in English from Oct. 6 to Oct. 17 in Michigan and Pennsylvania, and from Oct. 6 to Oct. 12 in Ohio. It included 1,370 likely voters in Michigan, 1,467 in Pennsylvania, and 1,200 in Ohio. All three state polls had a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 3 percentage points. | politicsNews | November 3, 2016 | 1 |
13,941 | WHOA! ROCK LEGEND Roger Daltrey Rips EU For “Raping” Southern European Countries With IMMIGRATION Nightmare | WHO knew legendary rocker Roger Daltrey was such a patriotic guy? The Who s lead singer, Roger Daltrey feels very strongly about what s happening with the dysfunctional EU and he s making sure everyone knows how he feels about the leaders who ve pushed immigration at the peril of the citizens.Roger Daltrey wants Britain to quit the undemocratic, highly dysfunctional EU which he claims is raping southern European countries.The Who frontman backed Brexit in an exclusive interview with The Sun, labelling our membership a disaster .The legendary rocker said: The only way we re going to get the Europe that we want is to get rid of this bunch of f***ing useless w***ers that are running it. He said it was set up by a bunch of crooks , adding: It s like these things on the internet where they tell you to read the conditions no one s going to bloody read the conditions! But that s how they did this, we all thought we were voting for a common trade area. Blasting the impact on our own sovereignty he said: What it s done to our Parliament is put them down to level of Parish Council. Hitting out at the unnecessary layers of Government it has created, he added: Because there are so many politicians we get so much useless f***ing law. Attacking the way the EU has impacted on people s lives, he said: That s the biggest issue for me, it s undemocratic, highly dysfunctional, I mean you name me one area of Europe that s functioning really well at the moment. They talk about the immigration thing being the number one issue and I think it is a big issue for our country because we are an island. But no one talks about the other side of that immigration issue which is the fact that all those southern European countries have been robbed of their youth, the countries have been raped. Their youth have had to leave to get work, so how are they going to rebuild their futures? Read more: The SunWill anyone ever forget the passionate performance Roger Daltrey gave in NYC at the Garden to show his support for America right after 9/11? His legendary band played for the first responders. Here s a clip from the 9/11 show just in case you didn t see it: PART ONE: | politics | May 10, 2016 | 0 |
13,826 | Italy's 5-Star, stung by fake news claims, calls for OSCE election monitors | Italy s anti-establishment 5-Star Movement wants international observers to monitor next year s national election campaign to help ward off fake news , party leader Luigi Di Maio said on Sunday. His comments came after the ruling Democratic Party (PD) accused 5-Star supporters of using interlinked internet accounts to spread misinformation and smear the center-left government. Di Maio, who was elected 5-Star leader in September, said his party was often misrepresented by the traditional media and said the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) should oversee the forthcoming election. The problem of fake news exists and we think it is necessary to have the OSCE monitor news and political debate during the election campaign, Di Maio said on Facebook. Such a request is unlikely to gain traction with 5-Star s opponents, who allege that the maverick group is to blame for some of the most egregious smear campaigns. Last week unofficial Facebook accounts that back 5-Star published a photograph purportedly showing a close ally of PD leader Matteo Renzi attending the funeral of Mafia boss Salvatore Riina. In fact it was a photo taken in 2016 at the funeral of a murdered migrant. Di Maio says he wants to call up OSCE monitors. Why doesn t he call up U.N. peacekeepers and the Red Cross, and while he is at it, why not telephone (his associates) who are continuing to post this filth, Renzi told a conference on Sunday. The sharing of false or misleading headlines and mass postings by automated social media bots has become a global issue, with accusations that Russia tried to influence votes in the United States and France. Moscow has denied this. Some PD leaders called this weekend for legislation ahead of the elections, which are due by May, to crack down on the spread of false news. Renzi ruled that out on Sunday, but said his party would release twice-monthly reports on web abuses. We do not want to shut down any website, but we want accountability, Renzi said. The 5-Star party complains that it is unfairly treated by mainstream media, saying state broadcaster RAI is under the sway of the government, while the largest private media group is controlled by the family of former center-right prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. Italy s leading newspapers, which are owned by large industrial concerns, have also been highly critical of 5-Star, which has promised a campaign against corruption and is seen as unfriendly to big business. Latest polls show 5-Star has built a stable lead over other parties, with support of around 28 percent against 24 percent for the PD and 15 percent for Forza Italia. A new electoral law which encourages coalition building ahead of the vote, means Berlusconi s center-right bloc should emerge as the single largest political force, albeit without a clear parliamentary majority. | worldnews | November 26, 2017 | 1 |
3,939 | Republican lawmakers shift to 'yes' on healthcare bill with changes | Three U.S. Republican House lawmakers threw their support behind their party’s healthcare overhaul plan on Wednesday after crafting changes to provide $8 billion over five years to shore up coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. Representatives Fred Upton and Billy Long, who had rejected an earlier bill to roll back the 2010 Affordable Care Act, told reporters after a meeting with Trump at the White House that they could now vote for the plan with their proposed changes. Upton said the revised bill could come up for a vote on Thursday, although both he and Long said they did not know whether there were enough votes to pass it. Representative Michael Burgess also said he could back the legislation. | politicsNews | May 3, 2017 | 1 |
20,859 | Factbox: Humanitarian crisis worsens in Bangladesh as many Rohingya flee Myanmar | About 146,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh since violence erupted in Myanmar in late August, U.N. workers said on Wednesday. This has brought to 233,000 the number of Rohingya who have sought refuge in Bangladesh since October 2016. The exodus has put pressure on aid agencies and communities already helping hundreds of thousands of refugees from previous violence in Myanmar. Following are some details on the crisis gathered from U.N. sources working in the Cox s Bazar district of Bangladesh, on the Myanmar border. *Landmine injuries occurred on Sept. 5 with two children brought in for treatment at the Gundum border area. *The influx of refugees via marine routes has increased, with a sharp increase noted in Shamlapur from 1,090 individuals on Sept. 4 to 12,500 on Sept. 5. *Around 33,000 refugees have gathered at three new spontaneous settlements that have sprung up at Unchiprang, Moinar Ghona and Thangkhali. There are acute humanitarian needs in these rapidly expanding settlements, especially for emergency health, safe water, food and shelter support. *Four mobile medical teams are being deployed to different locations, and two more are planned. *No deliveries were performed by the midwives in the last two days for new arrivals, indicating that many may have delivered outside of available health facilities. *Strengthened family tracing mechanisms are needed for unaccompanied children and other separated families. Most children have arrived with their mothers as their fathers are missing or arrested. *A total of 177 incidents of gender-based violence have been reported in the refugee camps since Aug. 27. Eighteen survivors of this violence have been referred for life-saving medical care. About 240 women and 60 men, including survivors of gender-based violence, attended stress management sessions. *The community clinic in Kutupalong is overwhelmed with patients, resulting in long lines for waiting and inefficient service provision for survivors of gender-based violence seeking emergency health services. The cost of transport prohibits beneficiaries from travelling to health facilities where emergency sexual and reproductive health services are available, including clinical management of rape. | worldnews | September 6, 2017 | 1 |
7,171 | Watch How Trump Just Screwed Every Republican By Saying He’d Punish Women For Abortions (VIDEO) | Trump s latest fiasco is so bad that it s bleeding over into other GOP presidential campaigns. Not only that, but there s every reason to think this could land on House and Senate Republicans in 2016 as well. You can see the perfect example of it already happening in the videos below.It all started with Trump saying, during a town hall interview with Chris Matthews, that he feels there should be a punishment for women who get abortions. This is how he suggests you enforce a theoretical law that would either ban abortion altogether or punish certain abortions that happen outside of limitations like rape and incest.The backlash to this came swiftly from pro and anti-abortion advocates alike. Despite both sides disavowing it, though, the damage to Republicans has already been done. Now, Republicans other than Trump ones who bragged hugely about how they would do everything they can to ban abortion in an effort to out-pro-life each other are being asked a very uncomfortable question while the cameras are rolling; What kind of punishments would you seek for women who get abortions? Here is the first of two reasons why this might be the worst thing to happen to the Republican party since Trump:.@JohnKasich reacts to Trump s abortion comments: Of course, women shouldn t be punished for having an abortion https://t.co/bLyaNPVGoE MSNBC (@MSNBC) March 30, 2016Remember, John Kasich is the grown up in the room and he can t even answer the freakin question properly. How would you punish women is not answered by there s exceptions for rape, unless you think literally every pregnancy is caused by rape in America, which I doubt he does. And, admitting you wouldn t punish them is going to political suicide.But wait, it gets even worse.Here is how it will go down. Republican voters finally heard a Republican presidential candidate say they would actually go after women who get abortions with criminal penalties . This is the answer to their prayers literally. Now the smell of blood is in the air and Republicans will not take no for an answer to the question of will you punish women who get abortions? Below is the second reason and a perfect example of the sh*tstorm that Trump has started:Trump may have single-handedly taken the entire pro-life movement to a place from where it won t easily be able to recover. Logically speaking, it s difficult to ban a thing without criminal penalties associated with violating the ban. Republican voters want sooooo badly for there to be criminal penalties for women who murder babies along with the doctors and whoever else they can blame for it. The logical outcome of this is obvious.In the space of one day being pro-life was made uncool for Republicans. Now you need to be pro-punishment to satisfy your rabid voter base. Bravo Donald, you just helped Democrats more than you will ever know.Featured image via youtube screen capture Featured image via video screen capture | News | April 1, 2016 | 0 |
11,483 | OUTRAGEOUS! CNN Uses Unauthorized Video Taken From Outside Oval Office to Make Up Story About Feud Between Bannon and Trump [Video] | This video from CNN has been blasted to Daily Mail and to other main stream fake news sources. This is so WRONG! The press continues to actively try and destroy President Trump!Listen to the anchor speak about this like CNN has first-hand knowledge of what happened. Then check out the screen shot below: | politics | Mar 5, 2017 | 0 |
18,147 | WHERE WAS MEDIA OUTRAGE After This WOMAN DELIBERATELY Plowed Car Into Las Vegas Crowd…Killing One, Injuring 35 Others? [VIDEO] | The media has been giving wall-to-wall coverage of the horrific and violent act that took place in Charlottesville, VA. By now, every American has seen the face and name of the 20-year old man, James Alex Fields, Jr., who was allegedly part of a group of white supremacists, that smashed into a large crowd of protesters on the street.JUST IN: Booking photo of James Alex Fields, Jr. @NBC29 pic.twitter.com/9nxtsvqNmt Henry Graff (@HenryGraff) August 13, 2017As a result of the horrific accident, one woman was killed and several others were injured. Of course, the media is blaming Donald Trump for the horrific accident that he clearly had nothing to do with. As a side note, does anyone remember the media blaming former President Barack Obama when the city of Ferguson, MO was burned to the ground by Black Lives Matter rioters? Yeah, either do we.But what about the black woman who INTENTIONALLY drove her car into a crowded street on the strip in Las Vegas with her 3-year old toddler in the back seat? Does anyone even remember this happening?In December 2015, Las Vegas police say a 24 year old woman, with her 3 year old toddler in the back seat, intentionally drove her vehicle into a crowded Las Vegas strip with the intention of running people over. Here s the story MSNBC published that was written by the Associated Press. The AP doesn t waste any time attempting to gain sympathy for the driver, and in only the third paragraph of the story, the AP want to make it perfectly clear that the reader knows she may not be guilt of intentional homicide. They re quick to quote the murderer s defense lawyer who told them, Just because she s charged, doesn t mean she s guilty From the AP article:A woman accused of intentionally plowing a car carrying her child through crowds of pedestrians on a Las Vegas Strip sidewalk is distraught and overwhelmed, her defense attorney said after she briefly appeared in court for the first time.Lakeisha Nicole Holloway, 24, pursed her lips and blinked as she was led in shackles into a courtroom. She was not asked to enter a plea but nodded to acknowledge that she would remain in jail through the holidays while both sides investigate Sunday s crash that killed an Arizona woman and injured dozens of others. This is sad and tragedy for everybody involved, defense lawyer Joseph Abood said after the hearing, adding, Just because she s charged, doesn t mean she s guilty. A woman with her 3-year-old daughter in the car smashed into crowds of visitors on the Las Vegas Strip, then drove to a hotel and told a valet to call 911 after killing a woman from Arizona and injuring at least 35 others, including at least five Canadians, police said.People jumped on the car and banged on its windows, but Lakeisha N. Holloway, 24, would not stop driving on the sidewalk, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo told reporters. Video appeared to show the crash in front of the Paris and Planet Hollywood casino-hotels was intentional, he said.The 1996 Oldsmobile sedan was fully on the sidewalk twice Sunday night, including once when it traveled for 200 feet, police said. The child in the car was not hurt.The 24-year-old told police told she was homeless and tired, and denied using drugs or alcohol. Holloway also told police she had been unable to rest or sleep because security officers kept running her and her daughter and her car off casino properties.Here s a look at how MSNBC s parent company NBC covered the horrific Charlottesville incident yesterday. By the third paragraph in the part of the article that describes the accident, MSNBC interviews a witness from the other side of the protest (not the alleged perpetrator s defense lawyer, like in the story above) who clearly states there is no question about the motive or of the driver s guilt: It was very clearly intentional. NBC: Described as a group of anti-racist protesters by a witness who took video of the crash, the group of marchers was packed close together at the end of a street near the intersection of Fourth and Water streets in downtown Charlottesville when the car struck.Brennan Gilmore, a 37-year-old who works for a start up, shot the footage and said he heard tires squealing before he saw a car build up speed and ram the crowd. It hit a number of people before plowing into the bumper of another car. It was very clearly intentional, Gilmore told NBC News. From the far end of the street it accelerated, slowed down right before the crowd and then slammed on the gas through the crowd sending bodies flying. And then it reversed back into the street dragging bodies and clothes. And then boom the TRUMP tie-in (which was not really a tie-in at all):Fields mother, Samantha Bloom, told The Associated Press on Saturday night that she knew her son was attending a rally in Virginia but didn t know it was a white nationalist rally. I thought it had something to do with Trump. Trump s not a white supremacist, Bloom told the AP. (The last sentence that includes Fields mother s statement about Trump NOT being a white supremacist [bold], was omitted from many mainstream media sources, as it didn t fit their narrative.)In February 2017, Holloway was found mentally competent to stand trial after nearly a year committed at Lakes Crossing maximum security psychiatric facility. Holloway then pleaded not guilty in the case. Nearly 3 years later, her case has still not been tried. Lakeisha Holloway faces 71 felony counts in connection to the Dec. 20, 2015 incident that left a woman dead and injured 34 others. Her trial is scheduled to begin on Feb. 5, 2018.If you want to learn more about this case, you ll have to look for updates in local Las Vegas news sources. You won t likely find it being covered by the mainstream media. | left-news | Aug 13, 2017 | 0 |
21,160 | Frankfurt to evacuate thousands as huge WWII bomb defused | Frankfurt city officials have warned that Germany s financial capital could grind to a halt on Monday if residents don t heed orders to vacate their homes to allow the defusing of a massive World War Two bomb. On Sunday, the city will evacuate some 60,000 people in the nation s biggest such maneuver since the war while officials disarm the British bomb discovered on a building site this week in Frankfurt s leafy Westend, where many wealthy bankers live. Fire and police chiefs, at a hastily called press conference on Friday, said they would use force and incarceration if necessary to clear the area of residents. An uncontrolled explosion of the bomb would be big enough to flatten a city block, Frankfurt fire chief Reinhard Ries told reporters. This bomb has more than 1.4 tonnes of explosives, he said. It s not just fragments that are the problem, but also the pressure that it creates that would dismantle all the buildings in a 100-metre (yard) radius. . The HC 4000 bomb is assumed to have been dropped by Britain s Royal Air Force during the 1939-45 war. Such finds are not unusual, but rarely are the unexploded bombs so large and in such a sensitive position. The compulsory evacuation radius of 1.5 km (roughly a mile) around the bomb includes police headquarters, two hospitals, transport systems and Germany s central bank storing $70 billion in gold reserves. Officials on Friday called on Frankfurt s residents to clear the area by 8 a.m. on Sunday and warned the effort could take at least 12 hours. Police said they couldn t begin defusing the bomb until they were sure everyone had left the area. They would ring every doorbell and use heat-sensing technology from overhead helicopters to help them identify stragglers, they said. Roads and transport systems, including the parts of the underground, will be closed during the work and for at least two hours after the bomb is defused, to allow patients to be transported back to hospitals without traffic. Air traffic from Frankfurt airport could also be affected if there is an easterly wind on Sunday, air traffic control told Reuters on Friday. Also, small private planes, helicopters and drones will be banned from the evacuation zone, they said. Frankfurters can spend the day at shelters set up at the trade fair and the Jahrhunderthalle convention center, police have said. In addition, most museums are offering Frankfurt residents free entry on Sunday, and a few of them will open their doors earlier in the morning than usual, the city said on its website. | worldnews | September 1, 2017 | 1 |
20,021 | Saviors or profiteers? Bangladesh fishermen rescue Rohingya, for a price | For tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims, an informal fleet of small wooden fishing boats has meant deliverance from what they say is an indiscriminate assault on their villages by the Myanmar army. Deliverance, however, comes at a price. Some refugees told Reuters they paid as much as 10,000 taka ($122) per adult to boatmen to make the five-hour crossing from Myanmar s coast to ports in southern Bangladesh. While the fishermen say they have a moral obligation to help desperate fellow Muslims escaping persecution, Bangladeshi officials accuse them of profiteering. Ordered to stamp out what they call human trafficking, they have made arrests and even set fire to fishing boats. Of course we want to keep going back to rescue more people. Our Muslim brothers and sisters are in a bad situation, so I have to go and bring them, said Mohammed Alom, 25, a fisherman in the Bangladeshi village of Shamlapur. Around 400,000 Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh in less than three weeks and people are still coming, by land as well as by sea, after attacks by Rohingya militants sparked a fierce counteroffensive by Myanmar s army. Senior United Nations officials have described the violence as ethnic cleansing . The influx is placing huge strain on authorities in southern Bangladesh, one of the poorest parts of a poor country. Don t say rescuers. The rescuers should be going and they should rescue people, not in terms of money, said Lieutenant Colonel Ariful Islam, Border Guards Bangladesh commander in Teknaf on the country s southern tip, referring to the fishermen bringing refugees ashore. These people are very poor, it s just extorting from them whatever they have. We are helping those who arrived, but we re trying to insist that no human trafficking should take place. Reuters interviewed three Rohingya fishermen and two Bangladeshi boat owner-operators, all of whom had made at least two visits to Myanmar in recent weeks. The men didn t believe the profits they made detracted from what they saw as a rescue mission. Shaif Ullah, 34, a Bangladeshi, who co-owns a fishing boat, said he made 100,000 taka ($1,220) rescuing the family of a Rohingya in Malaysia who paid him via BKash, a popular mobile money service, after he returned to Bangladeshi shores. People from Malaysia and Saudi Arabia call me and tell me to go there to get their family, he said. They are crying for my help. I take money from them, yes, but it s also a humanitarian act. Two refugees have told Reuters their family members were detained by fishermen or brokers in Bangladesh when they could not pay for the journey. Several also complained they had to hand over gold and other jewelry to boat operators. We had no chance to negotiate with the boatmen, said Ali Johar, 75, an elder from his village in southern Maungdaw, just across the Naf river that forms the border between Myanmar and Bangladesh, now staying in Shamlapur. He handed over his wife s gold necklace and a gold ring, in addition to 7,000 taka for the rescue of him and about 30 members of his extended family, including young children, he said. But we are grateful to the fishermen for bringing us here, he said. There were so many people trying to get here. If they didn t bring us, we would be stuck. Pronay Chakma says it was a stroke of fate that thrust him into a key role in Bangladesh s response to the crisis. The 31-year-old administrator arrived in Teknaf to start a new job as sub-district assistant commissioner for land on Aug. 23, two days before northwestern Myanmar exploded into violence. The thing is that, yes, the fishermen can go there, no problem, but if they demand money from the pain of stricken people, is it humanitarian? No, he said. Chakma - a Buddhist member of the Chakma tribe who live scattered throughout South Asia - is an executive magistrate, which means he can hand down jail terms in simple criminal cases. He interrupted an interview with Reuters to sentence a man to three months for possession of five methamphetamine tablets. Chakma and another local official have sentenced at least 100 people to terms of up to six months for continuing to charge Rohingya refugees for ferrying them to safety. Each and every time we are warning them, he said. Yes, you can do that, but not in exchange of money. He pointed to the deaths of women and children who, unable to swim, have died after their boats capsized near Bangladeshi shores. Fishermen and local residents told Reuters that authorities have also broadcast messages in their villages by loudspeaker ordering them not to pick up Rohingyas. At least five boats caught bringing refugees in exchange for money have been set on fire on the beach by officials. The boatmen Reuters spoke to said they were cautious about operating in bad weather and rejected allegations of coercion or detaining refugees. Tens of thousands of people may still be waiting to cross the mouth of the Naf river, according to estimates by refugees, fishermen and rights groups. I would like to go back to bring these people, because Muslims are suffering, said Bangladeshi boat owner Moni Ullah, 38. For me, it s hard to sit here and not go there, because I have seen so many people crying on the beach. ($1 = 81.9300 taka) | worldnews | September 15, 2017 | 1 |
2,242 | U.S. government seeks comments for fuel-economy standards review | The U.S. government is seeking public comments for a review of tough U.S. vehicle fuel-efficiency standards put in place by the Obama administration, the Department of Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency said on Thursday. The review was ordered by Republican President Donald Trump earlier this year. It is widely seen as a preamble to loosening fuel standards, handing a victory to the auto industry. Rules set by the EPA may, however, take a back seat to consumers demanding vehicles that guzzle less gas and automakers having to meet strict standards if they want to sell cars overseas, according to auto industry analysts. “We want to increase public participation, listen to those impacted directly by our regulations and use the best available information and data to inform our regulatory actions,” EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said in a statement. The Obama administration’s rules, negotiated with automakers in 2012, were aimed at doubling average fleetwide fuel efficiency to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, although the real-world mileage figures would be lower. The review covers vehicle model years 2022 to 2025. The EPA is also seeking comments on whether fuel standards for the 2021 model year “are appropriate.” The public comment period will be open for 45 days. Environmental and consumer groups criticized the ongoing process to review the Obama-era standards. “If automakers are allowed to slack off on making cars run more efficiently, Americans will be forced to spend thousands of dollars more on gas, instead of on their families,” Jack Gillis, public affairs director of the Consumer Federation of America, said in an emailed statement. | politicsNews | August 10, 2017 | 1 |
8,428 | Clinton told FBI Colin Powell suggested she use private email: NYT | Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Hillary Clinton told federal investigators that former Secretary of State Colin Powell suggested she use a personal email account, the New York Times reported late on Thursday. Clinton has for over a year been dogged by questions about her use of a private email account while she was the nation’s top diplomat. The newspaper said the information came from notes the Federal Bureau of Investigation delivered to Congress on Tuesday, which contained details from a more than three hour interview the agency conducted with Clinton over her private email use. The Times also cited an upcoming book that described a dinner conversation where Powell told Clinton to use her own email except for classified information. The newspaper also reported that Clinton asked Powell in a 2009 email exchange about his use of email while serving under former president George W. Bush. Reuters could not independently verify the report. Representatives for Clinton could not be immediately reached late on Thursday. Colin Powell’s office in a statement said he could not recall the dinner conversation. He did recall describing the system he used to her, but the statement did not say he suggested Clinton do the same. “He did write former Secretary Clinton an email memo describing his use of his personal AOL email account for unclassified messages and how it vastly improved communications within the State Department,” the statement said. “At the time there was no equivalent system within the department.” He used a secure department computer to manage classified information, the statement said. Powell has said he had no choice besides using his private account as the department did not have a fully functioning email system of its own when he joined in 2001. Republicans have repeatedly hammered Clinton over the issue, helping to drive opinion poll results showing that many U.S. voters doubt her trustworthiness. FBI Director James Comey announced last month that no criminal charges would be filed over Clinton’s use of private email servers while secretary of state, but rebuked her for “extremely careless” handling of classified information. | politicsNews | August 19, 2016 | 1 |
2,737 | U.S. health insurers want Cruz proposal dropped from Senate bill | Two major U.S. health insurance groups on Friday called on Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell to drop from a healthcare bill a provision proposed by Senator Ted Cruz that allows insurers to offer stripped-down, low-cost healthcare plans. “It is simply unworkable in any form and would undermine protections for those with pre-existing medical conditions, increase premiums and lead to widespread terminations of coverage for people currently enrolled in the individual market,” America’s Health Insurance Plans and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association said in a letter to McConnell and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. | politicsNews | July 15, 2017 | 1 |
16,382 | Strike brings Athens Metro to a standstill, streets gridlocked | The Athens Metro came to a standstill on Thursday when workers in the Greek capital began a 24-hour strike to oppose the possible privatization of the rail operator. The strike disrupted the daily commute for thousands of Athenians and caused gridlock on streets leading to the city center. Metro workers are protesting the transfer of Attiko Metro operator and other state-owned enterprises to a sovereign wealth fund set up under the latest international bailout with the EU and the IMF. Proceeds from the fund, known as the Hellenic Corporation of Assets and Participations, will help Greece cut its debt burden and fund investments. Privatizations have been a pillar of Greek bailouts since 2010 but have reaped poor revenues so far amid bureaucracy and opposition by politicians and unions. Greece is aiming for 5.5 billion euros from state asset sales by 2018, when its bailout expires. Big tickets this year include the sale of a 66 percent stake in the natural gas grid DESFA and a 67 percent stake in the port of Thessaloniki. | worldnews | October 26, 2017 | 1 |
22,661 | BOILER ROOM – EP #44 – Dig, Dug, Dirt! | Tune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room starting at 6 PM PST | 9 PM EST every Wednesday.Join us for uncensored, uninterruptible talk radio, custom-made for barfly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher, & Spore along with Andy Nowicki from Alt Right Blogspot, Daniel Spaulding from Soul of the East, 21Wire & ACR contributor Randy J and Boiler Room Presidential Candidate select: Stewart Howe. In this broadcast listeners will be hearing us go around the BOILER ROOM on a veritable feast of topics including Cloppers, GOP Politics, Donald Trump, Hunting with Dick Cheney, Fat Shaming and the Golden Corral, the 5th anniversary of the NATO sacking of Libya, TX arresting people for outstanding student loan debt, the death of Supreme Court Justice Scalia, Glen Beck telling listeners that Ted Cruz will get them through the rapture, Mark Levin calling Donald Trump a kooky truther, Jim Baker selling buckets of Food and more. If you want to participate, bring something interesting to throw into the boiler Join us in the ALTERNATE CURRENT RADIO chat room.BOILER ROOM IS NOT A POLITICALLY CORRECT ZONE! LIVE ACR PLAYER BELOW Show goes live at 6 PM PST: | US_News | February 19, 2016 | 0 |
2,611 | Twitter TRASHES Draft Dodger Donald Trump After Disgusting Attack On John McCain (TWEETS) | On Wednesday, Senator John McCain responded to White House Press Secretary s claim that the massively failed raid in Yemen that left 30 civilians and a Navy SEAL dead, didn t achieve its primary objective, and managed to recover copies of three videos that have been on YouTube for about a decade, a huge success. According to Spicer, any criticism of the raid which Trump authorized over dinner without adequate planning, preparation, or backup after his staffers goaded him with claims that Obama would not have the cajones to do it is a disservice to the dead. The life of chief Ryan Owens was done in service to his country and we owe him and his family a great debt for the information we received during that raid, Spicer said. Any suggestion otherwise is a disservice to his courageous life and the actions he took. Full stop. McCain disagrees: Sen. McCain should not be talking about the success or failure of a mission to the media. Only emboldens the enemy! Trump tweeted. He s been losing so long he doesn t know how to win anymore, just look at the mess our country is in bogged down in conflict all over the place. Sen. McCain should not be talking about the success or failure of a mission to the media. Only emboldens the enemy! He's been losing so . Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2017 long he doesn't know how to win anymore, just look at the mess our country is in bogged down in conflict all over the place. Our hero.. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2017..Ryan died on a winning mission ( according to General Mattis), not a "failure." Time for the U.S. to get smart and start winning again! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2017You know what emboldens the enemy? Failing to kill him. While he did manage to mow down women and children wholesale, Trump s raid missed al Qaeda leader Qassim al-Rimi, the primary target. Since the raid, al-Rimi has been taunting and mocking Trump in his propaganda videos. Our hero Ryan died on a winning mission ( according to General Mattis), not a failure.' Trump concluded triumphantly. Time for the U.S. to get smart and start winning again! It is probably past time for us to get smart and start winning again, but it seems that we will need to wait four years for that. The raid killed about double the number of civilians as it did militants, the important, game-changing intelligence recovered turned out to be decade-old YouTube videos, he missed his primary target, and Yemen revoked our permission to conduct anti-terrorism operations within their borders.If this is winning in Trump s America, it is time for all of us to be frightened. Fortunately, The Internet is here to let Trump know what they think of his new, GREAT America where losing is winning and the Ku Klux Klan is not an extremist group.This won t be the last time Trump gets people killed with his impulsive ego-driven mistakes. @realDonaldTrump https://t.co/fmu26DyHHI Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) February 9, 2017.@realDonaldTrump ryan died because you screwed up. his blood and the blood of the american girl who died is on your hands. you did that. Oliver Willis (@owillis) February 9, 2017.@realDonaldTrump Donald, maybe if you pay attention during briefings instead of tweeting about Ivanka's shoes fewer people will die. Bess Kalb (@bessbell) February 9, 2017@realDonaldTrump There is no greater tribute to a fallen US soldier than for the idiot who got him killed to use his name in a Twitter fight Jon Bershad (@JonBershad) February 9, 2017@realDonaldTrump Jesus Christ. These tweets make you look like a fucking lunatic. BenDavid Grabinski (@bdgrabinski) February 9, 2017@realDonaldTrump you consider the death of one of your soldiers a "win"? Brilliant. Ben Pearce (@BenPearceDJ) February 9, 2017@realDonaldTrump Ryan may have acted heroically but the mission (u decided to send him on over dinner) was an awful failure. https://t.co/m2eb2fpcv2 Tim Guinee (@TimGuinee) February 9, 2017@realDonaldTrump Winning! pic.twitter.com/UAP0CLThAN Letters of Note (@LettersOfNote) February 9, 2017Someone died. Have some humanity. Stop using him as a prop piece for your rhetoric. @realDonaldTrump PORP (@TheOfficialPORP) February 9, 2017@realDonaldTrump Just imagine if Hillary had called Benghazi a "winning mission" BenDavid Grabinski (@bdgrabinski) February 9, 2017@realDonaldTrump how dare you politicize the death of a fallen hero I already had a low opinion of you but I'm absolutely disgusted Rob Gorski (@The_Autism_Dad) February 9, 2017@realDonaldTrump how dare you not even use his full name, show some respect. You killed Chief Petty Officer William Ryan Owens. coganut (@Coganuts) February 9, 2017.@realDonaldTrump my god, if that's what's considered "winning" or "successful" I think the whole world would prefer you to stop, NOW! Eloise-at-midnight (@moonatmidnight) February 9, 2017@realDonaldTrump There is nothing as shameful as a lying draft dodger sending a hero to his death strictly to feed his ego. You disgust us. Stupid Should Hurt? (@stophrtngusa) February 9, 2017@realDonaldTrump STOP. TWEETING. YOU sent Ryan on a bad mission. It's on you now when our heroes die. J Throw (@mamathrow) February 9, 2017@realDonaldTrump nah man you killed a soldier, 30 civilians, and got banned from the country Dolly Doldrums (@_Philosophica) February 9, 2017@realDonaldTrump While you were asleep in bed. Your incompetence got a Seal killed and you couldn't care enough to be in Situation Room. ECMadTown (@ECmadtown) February 9, 2017And to think @realDonaldTrump signed the order at dinner, never monitored op from SitRoom, and was in bed tweeting when it went down. LOSER! D E V I N (@DevinMillington) February 9, 2017@realDonaldTrump an 8 year old was shot in the neck and bled out because of you Derek: Dream Hipster (@AnarchistPrince) February 9, 2017.@realDonaldTrump You killed 30 civilians, including an American citizen, AND slaughtered an American soldier AND MISSED YOUR TARGET! Liar Carl Allan Salonen (@CarlASalonen) February 9, 2017@realDonaldTrump How was that a winning mission? You missed your target, who is now mocking you, & we lost a soldier. You failed #WhyIResist FarmersCubed (@FarmersCubed) February 9, 2017William Ryan Owens was a hero exactly the sort of hero who deserves a Commander-in-Chief who cares about the lives of our men and women in uniform, a leader who will not place them in unnecessarily dangerous scenarios just to satisfy his ego. If this is winning, there is only one solution: we need to stop winning. Now.Featured image via Getty Images (Pool)/screengrab | News | February 9, 2017 | 0 |
23,228 | How the FBI Creates ‘Domestic Terror’ in the United States | 21st Century Wire says This is a bit of an oddity as far as TED talks go Investigative journalist Trevor Aaronson actually delivers a TED presentation which calls out the FBI for being the party responsible for creating the majority of so-called domestic terror and Islamic terror busts in the US since 9/11.Just this week, the FBI are boasting of a high level domestic extremist terror bust of a militia group in Kansas, but when you read the fine print of the case, it features several FBI confidential informants, no doubt helping to egg-on and steer their prey into a preconceived trap.21WIRE has been saying this for years, and it s refreshing to see what is normally a bland, mainstream talking shop like TED actually allow a speaker to present a real anti-establishment subject like this one.In truth, the FBI s shady record in this area stretched back well before 9/11, when FBI informants (under FBI supervision) helped to organize the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing. Despite this, idiotic mainstream media and politicians in the US still claim that the 1993 WTC event was linked to al Qaeda. NOTE: The following speaker Trevor Aaronson claims that both the Boston Bombing and the attempted Times Square car bombing. This statement is very likely to be incorrect. It has already been confirmed that the FBI s lead suspect in Boston, Tamerlan Tsarnaev was being active recruited by the FBI for at least two years prior to the event in question, as well as being associated with a CIA front org called the Jamestown Foundation. Similarly, the alleged Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, appeared to have fled to Pakistan with a handler who has connections to the CIA and MI6. Otherwise, we welcome this topic raised by journalist Aaronson.Brasscheck TVGuess who is behind more terrorist incidents in the US than al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab and ISIS combined?The FBI and when given the change to set the record straight, they don t dispute it.As law enforcement scams go, this is one of the most reprehensible. The FBI finds mentally ill people, puts ideas into their heads, works up plans for them and then gives them the money to carry them out an then arrests them for terrorist plots.They then declare victory in the war on terror. Domestic anti-terrorism efforts cost $100 billion a year or $1 trillion per decade.And you, your kids and grand kids pay for all this in the form of a reduced standard of living to make sure this useless anti-American scum get nice big paychecks and bloated tax-payer guaranteed pensions for their years of service. Watch:. READ MORE DAILY SHOOTER NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Daily Shooter Files | Middle-east | October 15, 2016 | 0 |
15,422 | PENTAGON REQUEST DENIED: [Video] ARMED CITIZENS DEFENDING RECRUITMENT CENTERS WON’T STAND DOWN | Ordinary citizens (many of them are proud veterans) are filling a breach left by our federal government US Navy veteran Tim Keown has been standing guard outside a recruitment center in Kentucky for a week now.Tim made the decision to guard the local recruitment center after an Islamic terrorist murdered five servicemen in Chattanooga last week. Keown also helped organize other armed guards at recruitment centers across the country.Citizen guards protect a recruitment office after the Chattanooga terrorist attack.The Pentagon released a statement on Friday asking citizens not to stand guard at the unprotected recruiting offices. But the Pentagon has no plans on changing policy that forbids servicemen and women from carrying weapons at the centers. Evidently, five dead servicemen is not enough to force change in Pentagon policy.Tim Keown says his group will remain outside the recruitment offices until the US soldiers and Marines are protected: If our government is not going to protect these men and women, who is? Who s going to protect these gentlemen and women if we don t? All I m asking is why can t recruiters arm themselves and protect themselves? Via: Gateway Pundit | politics | Jul 25, 2015 | 0 |
20,119 | Japan's Abe says U.N. resolution must force change in North Korea | Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday called for strict enforcement of a U.N. resolution against North Korea over its latest nuclear test, saying the world must force a change in Pyongyang s policies. Abe made the remarks during a visit to India aimed at deepening economic and defenses ties to balance the weight of a rising China. New Delhi stood with Tokyo in its resolve for a firm response to Pyongyang, he said. I d like to appeal to the world, together with Prime Minister Modi, that we need to have North Korea change its policy through the thorough implementation of the newly adopted Security Council resolution by the international community. Prime Minister Modi and I are in full agreement on this, he said. The 15-member Security Council voted unanimously on a U.S.-drafted resolution and a new round of sanctions against North Korea on Monday in response to its latest and most powerful test, banning North Korea s textile exports that are the second largest only to coal and mineral, and capping fuel supplies. | worldnews | September 14, 2017 | 1 |
4,876 | Trump to name New York lawyer to lead Justice Dept. civil unit: source | President Donald Trump is expected to nominate New York lawyer George T. Conway III to lead the U.S. Justice Department’s civil division, a source briefed on the matter said on Friday. Conway, the husband of Trump’s senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, is a partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. He has represented Philip Morris International Inc, Cardinal Health Inc and the National Football League among many corporate clients. He did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. The White House and Justice Department also declined comment. As head of the civil division, Conway would be in charge of defending government actions, including Trump’s revised executive order banning citizens from six Muslim-majority nations from traveling to the United States. This week, judges in Hawaii and Maryland blocked implementation of Trump’s order that retains a 90-day ban on travel to the United States by citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen that was part of an earlier order blocked by the courts. Conway was one of a team of lawyers who drafted a legal brief on behalf of Paula Jones who sued President Bill Clinton for sexual harassment, according to numerous media reports. Conway wrote in a 1994 Los Angeles Times op-ed that Clinton should not have immunity from Jones’ lawsuit “because it would place presidents above the law. It would enable a president to take out a mortgage on a summer home, refuse to make payments and yet be immune from foreclosure for four or eight years.” The civil division defends U.S. agencies against thousands of lawsuits filed annually over government policies, laws, domestic and foreign operations, entitlement programs, law enforcement and military actions, and counter-terrorism efforts. The division also sues on behalf of the government to recoup money lost through fraud, loan defaults and the abuse of federal funds, especially involving Medicare. | politicsNews | March 17, 2017 | 1 |
8,303 | Bill Maher Slays Ted Cruz And GOP Science Deniers With Amazingly Hilarious Groundhog Day Ad (VIDEO) | There s been a meme spreading across social media that says Only in America do we accept weather predictions from a rodent but deny climate change evidence from scientists. Sadly, that meme is more accurate than Punxsutawney Phil could ever hope to be as conservatives continue to deny climate science outright as they flock to see if a groundhog sees his shadow or not to predict an early spring or more winter.Of course, groundhogs are not scientifically accurate at all. It s a complete myth that they can forecast the weather. This is explained particularly well by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who put together a nice chart comparing Phil s predictions with the actual temperatures that occurred following them. From 1988-2015, NOAA found that, The table shows no predictive skill for the groundhog during the most recent years of this analysis. While Groundhog Day is a way to have a little fun at mid-winter, climate records and statistics tell us that winter probably isn t over. Climatologically speaking, the three coldest months of the year are December, January, and February, so winter typically still has a bit to go when the groundhog comes out in search of his shadow on February 2. And that s why Bill Maher had a field day on Friday mocking conservative climate science deniers with a hilarious attack ad aimed particularly at Ted Cruz.Maher noted that Groundhog Day fell on the same day as the Iowa caucus vote, and said that because Punxsutawney Phil predicted warmer weather, naturally, conservatives now think that Punxsutawney Phil is in the tank with the liberals on global warming. They re crazy about this issue, Maher said, which is why he introduced an ad mocking climate science deniers in which conservatives attack Phil for being just another scientist propped up by liberal media. The ad also took a masterful shot at Iowa winner Ted Cruz.Here s the video via YouTube:Conservatives probably are crazy enough to believe that a groundhog can predict weather and they are certainly crazy enough to attack the groundhog for predicting warmer weather. But not believing actual science is truly crazy and it s the kind of crazy that is dangerous as Republicans continue to ignore that many of our coastal cities are going to be under water if we don t act. Featured image via screenshot | News | February 6, 2016 | 0 |
2,009 | Mueller seeking testimony from PR executives with Manafort ties: NBC | Special Counsel Robert Mueller has issued grand jury subpoenas seeking testimony from public relations executives who worked on an international campaign organized by former Trump campaign adviser Paul Manafort, NBC News reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. This is the first indication that Mueller, who is investigating possible collusion between President Donald Trump’s campaign team and Russia, is beginning to compel witness testimony before the grand jury, NBC said. Russia’s government has denied interfering in the election and the president has denied collusion took place. One executive whose firm received a subpoena told NBC Mueller’s team is looking at the lobbying campaign, which ran from 2012 to 2014. Some of the firms involved in the campaign received subpoenas for documents weeks ago, and Mueller’s team is now seeking testimony, NBC quoted him as saying. Manafort, whose Virginia apartment was raided by FBI agents last month, is a key figure in the Mueller probe. The longtime political consultant and lobbyist is being investigated for possible money laundering and has been targeted as someone who might testify against former colleagues, two people familiar with Mueller’s work have said. | politicsNews | August 25, 2017 | 1 |
13,198 | “Without Coal, This State Is Nothing”…WEST VIRGINIA COAL MINERS SPEAK OUT…SUPPORT TRUMP | We re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business. Hillary ClintonYes, that s exactly what Hillary Clinton said in March about the coal industry. She was following the Obama policy of shutting down the coal industry at all costs. She has since said she would spend federal dollars to retrain coal miners to do another job. The problem is that these men don t want to do that. The American people and voters in West Virginia had better realize what the loss of the coal industry would mean THIS IS PART OF A PIECE FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES SO READER BEWARE OF LIBERAL SPIN AND LIES HERE AND THERE POWELLTON, W.Va. Deep in the belly of an Appalachian mountain, a powerful machine bored into the earth, its whirring teeth clawing out a stream of glistening coal. Men followed inside the Maple Eagle No. 1 mine, their torches cutting through the dank air. One guided the machine with a PlayStation-like controller; others bolted supports in the freshly cut roof.They were angry. The coal industry that made West Virginia prosperous has been devastated. Every day, it seemed, another mine laid off workers or closed entirely. Friends were forfeiting their cars, homes and futures.For these men, this season s presidential campaign boils down to a single choice. I m for Trump, said Dwayne Riston, 27, his face smeared in dust. Way I see it, if he wins, we might at least stand a chance of surviving. Few places in America offer such a simple electoral calculus as the rolling, tree-studded hills of West Virginia.Even as Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, lags badly in crucial swing states and loses his grip on white male voters over all, he remains on solid ground here with his promise to bring back coal. The fact that his Democrat opponent, Hillary Clinton, said in March, We re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business, has helped, too.But this is not just about economics. West Virginia s coal country is part of the broader white, working-class vote that has coalesced around a single candidate, Mr. Trump, like never before. His support here stems from a profound, decades-in-the-making sense of political and cultural alienation that has left people feeling distant from their leaders, and even from fellow Americans. I kind of feel that people are looking down on us, said Neil Hanshew, a miner, voicing a common sentiment. They re looking at us like we re a bunch of dumb hillbillies who can t do anything else. Read more: NYT | politics | Aug 22, 2016 | 0 |
1,019 | Trump Confirms He Thinks GOP Healthcare Bill Is ‘Mean,’ Accuses Obama Of Stealing The Term (VIDEO) | Trump got into a bizarre pissing match with former President Obama during his interview with Fox News. For reasons known only to him, Trump decided to admit that he does, in fact, think the Republican healthcare bill meant to repeal Obamacare is mean and accused Obama of using his term.Obama "actually used my term, MEAN. That was my term." Trump, on Fox, confirming he called House health care bill "mean" in private mtg Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) June 25, 2017This is a pretty stunning admission coming from the guy who celebrates the passage of the mean bill by a highly-publicized Rose Garden ceremony and speech.Just to remind ourselves, here was Trump just weeks ago when Republicans in Congress rammed through the AHCA without support of Democrats, the Congressional Budget Office, or the American people. Notice his giant grin:(Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)Former President Obama recently joined millions of Americans in condemning the bill, along with its equally vicious counterpart in the Senate, which seems to have bugged Trump. It s long been noted that Obama s popularity and reputation infuriate Trump who has neither and knows it. Watching Obama label the bill mean was apparently enough to get Trump into full-on jealousy mode. Even though it makes him look like a monster, Trump needed the country to know that he came up with the word mean to describe his own bill faster than Obama. He wins!After his confession, Trump went on to claim he would like to see a bill with heart get passed. He doesn t expand on what that would look like. He also doesn t explain why he is ferociously supporting the Republican healthcare bill which even many Republicans believe will be a complete disaster. Healthcare experts have taken it even further, arguing the Senate bill, in some ways, is even meaner than the House s version. They took a bad bill and somehow made it worse.Trump s interview on Fox was meant to be a softball lobbed over the plate so he could hit it out of the park. The conservative network, long operating as a talking point factory for Republicans, has been reduced to the role of state media in Trump s America. This was never going to be anything but an opportunity for Trump to promote himself and his agenda: Instead he confessed on cable television that he thinks his own healthcare bill is evil.You can t learn that kind of stupid, that s all natural.Featured image via CNN | News | June 25, 2017 | 0 |
4,161 | U.S. sees increased activity by Chinese bomber aircraft: officials | The United States is aware of a higher-than-usual level of activity by Chinese bomber planes, signaling a possible heightened state of readiness, U.S. officials told Reuters on Thursday, but downplayed concerns and left open a range of possible reasons. None of the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, suggested alarm or signaled that they knew the precise reason for such Chinese activity. Those possibilities include defensive exercises or Chinese concerns over North Korea. U.S. officials have long speculated that North Korea could soon stage another nuclear test or carry on with missile tests. The comments to Reuters came before U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday cited, without explanation, “some very unusual moves” that he said had been taken over the last two or three hours. It was not immediately clear what he was referring to. Trump was speaking about Chinese activities to put pressure on Pyongyang when he said: “Some very unusual moves have been made over the last two or three hours and I really have confidence that the (Chinese) president will try very hard. We don’t know whether or not they’re able to do that but I have absolute confidence that he will be trying very very hard,” Trump said. Trump has taken a hard line with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who has rebuffed admonitions from sole major ally China and proceeded with nuclear and missile programs in defiance of U.N. Security Council sanctions. | politicsNews | April 20, 2017 | 1 |
556 | Haitians in U.S. malign Trump decision to send them back home | Haitian immigrants on Tuesday decried a U.S. decision to end a program that granted 59,000 Haitians temporary visas after the 2010 earthquake, saying they would be sent back to a country that has yet to recover from that disaster and others since. The United States offered Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, to Haitians after the January 2010 earthquake killed some 300,000 people and devastated a country that has long been the poorest in the Americas. The administration of former President Barack Obama extended the program several times, finding that conditions in Haiti were too dire to send the beneficiaries home. President Donald Trump’s administration, after previously granting a six-month extension, announced on Monday that it would end TPS for Haiti in July 2019. Any Haitian who cannot obtain another kind of U.S. visa will be subject to deportation back to the Caribbean nation, where some earthquake victims are still homeless and the country is wobbling from Hurricane Matthew, a cholera outbreak and political instability. “We’re just left in a void,” said Sebastian Joseph, 26, a Haitian immigrant living in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn where Haitians and other Caribbeans are concentrated. He said virtually all Haitians want to stay in the United States, where they have carved out a niche in construction and healthcare services such as caring for the elderly and sick. “America has been the home of the free for 200 years or more. Everybody wants to come to America,” Joseph said. “A lot of people will go back to nothing.” Trump’s supporters note that the visa program was always meant to be temporary and that Trump ran a 2016 presidential campaign promising restrictive immigration policies. At least one Haitian TPS recipient in Brooklyn accepted that eventually she must return. “If they say I have 18 months and that’s it, I say thank God, and then I will go,” said Margaret Etienne, who gave birth to a 3-year-old son here who is now a U.S. citizen. “It’s my country. I love my country,” she said after buying takeout from a Haitian restaurant with her son on a stretch of Church Avenue that is also called Bob Marley Boulevard, after the late Jamaican musician. In ending the TPS designation, acting Secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke said she had determined that the “extraordinary but temporary conditions caused by the 2010 earthquake no longer exist.” Some critics dispute that Haiti has recovered and question how Duke reached such a conclusion. Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, the state with the most Haitians, urged Trump to extend TPS, warning in a column he wrote for the Miami Herald that “Haitians sent home will face dire conditions, including lack of housing, inadequate health services and low prospects for employment.” Fifty-nine percent of Haiti’s population lives below the poverty line of $2.41 per day, according to the World Bank. “It’s not going to be good for me. I don’t know what I would do,” said Ives Joseph Laforgue, 63, an unemployed Haitian immigrant in Flatbush who said he had open-heart surgery in 2014 and lives off the charity of Brooklyn’s Haitian community. Still, he said he would have even less in Haiti. Haitian community leaders and pro-immigration politicians in New York on Tuesday pledged to pressure the Trump administration to extend TPS. Among them was U.S. Representative Nydia Velazquez, a Democrat who introduced legislation that would protect from deportation immigrants who have TPS and Deferred Enforced Departure (DED), another program subject to presidential discretion that was extended by Obama but is due to expire in March 2018. Ricot Dupuy, station manager of Radio Soleil, a Haitian-themed broadcaster in New York, said he thinks the decision is racially motivated. “This pressure to send immigrants back home ... The idea is to whiten America,” Dupuy said from his Brooklyn studio. “The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is not stupid. They know that TPS holders, it’s good for this country. The business community knows it’s good for them. And eventually they may have the last word.” | politicsNews | November 22, 2017 | 1 |
2,390 | Connecticut lawmakers approve labor pact with pension concessions | Connecticut lawmakers narrowly approved a new labor contract with public employees on Monday that is expected to save the state at least $1.2 billion - largely through pension concessions - and could clear the way for lawmakers to agree on a past due budget. The total savings are combined over five years, from fiscal 2017 through 2021, according to a report from the legislature’s office of fiscal analysis on Monday. The house approved the deal last week. On Monday evening Lieutenant Governor Nancy Wyman, a Democrat who acts as president of the Connecticut Senate, broke a tie so the measure could pass 19 to 18. The state missed its July 1 deadline to pass a biennial budget for the current and next fiscal year, leading Governor Dannel Malloy, a Democrat, to take over state spending and slash costs. The labor pact is “a key piece toward adopting a budget for our state,” Malloy said in a statement after the vote. “I am urging legislative leaders on both sides of the aisle to work with our administration on finding a solution on this as possible so that the most vulnerable populations do not suffer long-term consequences.” Pension and healthcare provisions were also extended until 2027 in the deal, which Malloy said would ultimately save $24 billion over 20 years. Labor costs have been one sticking point in budget talks as lawmakers differed with each other and Malloy over how to close a $5.1 billion shortfall over two years. Through the State Employee Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC), which covers about 42,000 members in 15 different unions, public employees ratified the deal on July 17. They negotiated with Malloy, who said the agreement would shave $1.6 billion off of the current deficit. This fiscal year alone contains the biggest savings of any other year at $371.8 million, the legislative analysis said. The largest concessions come from changes to public pensions and retiree healthcare. Employees will contribute more towards their pensions, and annual cost of living adjustments will be tied to the consumer price index. Wages will also be frozen for the three years ending fiscal 2019 but will be raised 3.5 percent in each of the following two years. Republican critics said that concessions did not go far enough, that taxes would have to rise to pay for it and that the deal squandered an opportunity for a broader restructuring of public pensions and benefits. | politicsNews | August 1, 2017 | 1 |
4,515 | Warner's opposition to Trump court nominee gives Democrats 41 'no' votes | Democratic Senator Mark Warner on Monday announced opposition to President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, meaning Democrats potentially have the votes needed to block a U.S. Senate confirmation vote to give Neil Gorsuch the lifetime job. Warner’s announcement put the number of Democrats opposing Gorsuch at 41, the tally needed to use a procedural hurdle called a filibuster that requires 60 votes to allow a confirmation vote in the 100-seat Senate. It remained unclear, however, if all 41 senators who have voiced opposition would back a filibuster. Republicans control the Senate 52-48. If Democrats amass the 41 votes to block a confirmation vote that Senate Republicans have planned for Friday, the Republicans would then be expected to try to change the chamber’s long-standing rules and allow confirmation by a simple majority, a move backed by Trump that is sometimes called the “nuclear option.” | politicsNews | April 3, 2017 | 1 |
5,461 | Trump national security aide Flynn resigns over Russian contacts | President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn, resigned late on Monday after revelations that he had discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia with the Russian ambassador to the United States before Trump took office and misled Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations. Flynn’s resignation came hours after it was reported that the Justice Department had warned the White House weeks ago that Flynn could be vulnerable to blackmail for contacts with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak before Trump took power on Jan. 20. Flynn’s departure was a sobering development in Trump’s young presidency, a 24-day period during which his White House has been repeatedly distracted by miscues and internal dramas. The departure could slow Trump’s bid to warm up relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Flynn submitted his resignation hours after Trump, through a spokesman, pointedly declined to publicly back Flynn, saying he was reviewing the situation and talking to Pence. Flynn had promised Pence he had not discussed U.S. sanctions with the Russians, but transcripts of intercepted communications, described by U.S. officials, showed that the subject had come up in conversations between him and the Russian ambassador. Such contacts could potentially be in violation of a law banning private citizens from engaging in foreign policy, known as the Logan Act. Pence had defended Flynn in television interviews and was described by administration officials as upset about being misled. “Unfortunately, because of the fast pace of events, I inadvertently briefed the vice president-elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian ambassador. I have sincerely apologized to the president and the vice president, and they have accepted my apology,” Flynn said in his resignation letter. Retired General Keith Kellogg, who has been chief of staff of the White House National Security Council, was named the acting national security adviser while Trump determines who should fill the position. Kellogg, retired General David Petraeus, a former CIA director, and Robert Harward, a former deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, are under consideration for the position, a White House official said. Harward was described by officials as the leading candidate. A U.S. official confirmed a Washington Post report that Sally Yates, the then-acting U.S. attorney general, told the White House late last month that she believed Flynn had misled them about the nature of his communications with the Russian ambassador. She said Flynn might have put himself in a compromising position, possibly leaving himself vulnerable to blackmail, the official said. Yates was later fired for opposing Trump’s temporary entry ban for people from seven mostly Muslim nations. A U.S. official, describing the intercepted communications, said Flynn did not make any promises about lifting the sanctions. But he did indicate that sanctions imposed by President Barack Obama on Russia for its Ukraine incursion “would not necessarily carry over to an administration seeking to improve relations between the U.S. and Russia,” the official said. Flynn, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general, was an early supporter of Trump and shares his interest in shaking up the establishment in Washington. He frequently raised eyebrows among Washington’s foreign policy establishment for trying to persuade Trump to warm up U.S. relations with Russia. A U.S. official said Flynn’s departure, coupled with Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and Syria and Republican congressional opposition to removing sanctions on Russia, removes Trump’s most ardent advocate of taking a softer line toward Putin. Flynn’s leaving “may make a significant course change less likely, at least any time soon,” the official said. Another official said Flynn’s departure may strengthen the hands of some cabinet secretaries, including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. However, the second official said, Flynn’s exit could also reinforce the power of presidential aides Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, whom he described as already having the president’s ear. Congressional Democrats expressed alarm at the developments surrounding Flynn and called for a classified briefing by administration officials to explain what had happened. “We are communicating this request to the Department of Justice and FBI this evening,” said Democratic representatives John Conyers of Michigan and Elijah Cummings of Maryland. U.S. Representative Adam Schiff of California, ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said Flynn’s departure does not end the questions over his contacts with the Russians. “The Trump administration has yet to be forthcoming about who was aware of Flynn’s conversations with the ambassador and whether he was acting on the instructions of the president or any other officials, or with their knowledge,” Schiff said. The committee’s chairman, Republican Devin Nunes, thanked Flynn for his service. “Washington D.C. can be a rough town for honorable people, and Flynn — who has always been a soldier, not a politician —deserves America’s gratitude and respect,” he said. | politicsNews | February 13, 2017 | 1 |
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