Datasets:

k3w15hu8h

/

MissBert-Data

like 0

President Barack Obama selected Merrick Garland for the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, choosing a centrist judge meant to win over recalcitrant Senate Republicans whose leaders wasted no time in spurning the Democratic president. A bruising political fight is brewing over the nomination, which also promises to figure in the already contentious campaign for the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election. The Republican-led Senate’s leaders have vowed not to hold confirmation hearings or an up-or-down vote on any Obama nominee. Garland, 63, was picked to replace long-serving conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on Feb. 13. A Chicagoan like Obama, he serves as chief judge of the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and is a former prosecutor who in the past has won praise from both Republicans and Democrats. Wasting no time in pressing its case for Senate confirmation, the administration is dispatching Garland to Capitol Hill on Thursday to huddle with Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the senior Judiciary Committee Democrat and then with Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada. Such meetings are aimed at shoring up Senate support for the nominee and generating media coverage. The lifetime appointment to the high court requires Senate confirmation. Obama’s announcement prompted a flood of reaction from private groups that will work to advance or kill the nomination. The UAW, representing automobile, aerospace and some agricultural workers, call Garland “a distinguished, moderate judge with more federal judicial experience than any other Supreme Court nominee in history.” National Rifle Association Executive Director Chris Cox said, “A basic analysis of Merrick Garland’s judicial record shows that he does not respect our fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense.” Republicans, hoping a candidate from their party wins the presidential election, are demanding that Obama leave the seat vacant and let his successor, to be sworn in next January, make the selection. Billionaire businessman Donald Trump is leading among Republicans for the nomination. Obama’s former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, is the front-runner for the Democrats. Obama said Republican senators should give Garland a fair hearing. He said that failing to do so “will not only be an abdication of the Senate’s constitutional duty, it will indicate a process for nominating and confirming judges that is beyond repair.” Such a move, he said, would also undermine the reputation of the Supreme Court and faith in the American justice system. “Our democracy will ultimately suffer as well,” Obama added, as he introduced Garland at a White House Rose Garden ceremony. Scalia’s death left the nine-member Supreme Court evenly split with four liberals and four conservative justices. Obama’s nominee could tilt the court to the left for the first time in decades, which could affect rulings on contentious issues including abortion, gun rights, the death penalty and political spending. Obama said the Supreme Court was supposed to be above politics and it should remain so. Obama said that with politics in the United States so polarized, “this is precisely the time when we should play it straight, and treat the process of appointing a Supreme Court justice with the seriousness and care it deserves.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky swiftly reiterated that the Senate will not consider the nomination by the president. A McConnell spokesman said the senator had spoken by phone with Garland and would not hold a “perfunctory meeting” with him. John Cornyn of Texas, the second-ranking Senate Republican, added, “This person will not be confirmed, so there’s no reason going through some motions and pretending like it will happen, because it’s not going to happen.” Some cracks began appearing in McConnell’s strategy of completely shutting out the nominee. A handful of Republican senators including Susan Collins of Maine, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Jeff Flake of Arizona, Mark Kirk of Illinois and Rob Portman of Ohio said they would be willing to meet with Garland. Collins said the Senate Judiciary Committee should hold confirmation hearings. Judiciary Committee member Orrin Hatch, whose past support of Garland was cited by Obama, said the pick does not change his view “at this point” that no Obama nominee should be considered. Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, who is in a tough re-election battle, said, “Should Merrick Garland be nominated again by the next president, I would be happy to carefully consider his nomination.” Garland is the oldest Supreme Court nominee since Republican Richard Nixon in 1971 nominated Lewis Powell, who was 64. Presidents tend to pick nominees younger than that so they can serve for decades and extend a president’s legacy. Obama may reason that the choice of an older nominee might also entice Senate Republicans into considering his selection. Garland would become the fourth Jewish member of the nine-member court. There are five Roman Catholics on the court. Obama considered but passed over Garland when he made two prior Supreme Court appointments. With solid Republican support, the Senate voted in 1997 to confirm Garland to his present job in a bipartisan 76-23 vote after he was nominated by Democratic President Bill Clinton. Garland is widely viewed as a moderate. He is a former prosecutor who served in the Justice Department under Clinton. He oversaw the prosecution in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing case including securing the death penalty for the lead defendant, anti-government militant Timothy McVeigh. In his current post, he is known for narrow, centrist opinions and rhetoric that is measured rather than inflammatory even when in dissent. Standing in between Obama and Vice President Joe Biden during the Rose Garden ceremony, an emotional Garland referred to the Oklahoma City bombing case, saying, “Once again, I saw the importance of assuring victims and families that the justice system could work.” Obama said he fulfilled his constitutional duty by naming a nominee and said it was time for the Senate to do its job. “Presidents do not stop working in the final year of their term. Neither should a senator,” Obama said. Obama, in office since 2009, has already named two justices to the Supreme Court: Sonia Sotomayor, who at 55 became the first Hispanic justice in 2009, and Elena Kagan, who was 50 when she became the fourth woman ever to serve on the court in 2010. Democrats praised his latest choice. “If Merrick Garland can’t get bipartisan support no one can,” Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York said. Hillary Clinton called Garland “a brilliant legal mind,” urging the Senate to move ahead with the confirmation process. Trump said it was critical for Republicans to take back the White House to avoid Democrats shaping the Supreme Court for decades to come.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is considering outgoing Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire for the post of defense secretary, the Washington Post reported on Friday, citing two sources familiar with the discussions. Other people on the list include retired Army Lieutenant General Joseph “Keith” Kellogg, former Defense Intelligence Agency Director General Mike Flynn and Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the Post said.

@gideonstrumpet @TheXclass @WesleyLowery @mattderienzo this is true

WASHINGTON — The White House is considering giving the Pentagon more independent authority to conduct counterterrorism raids as part of an effort to accelerate the fight against the Islamic State and other militant organizations, administration officials said on Thursday. Such a step would allow military commanders to move more swiftly against terrorism suspects, streamlining a process that often dragged on under the Obama administration, frustrating Pentagon officials. The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, called the proposal “a philosophy more than a change in policy. ” He said that “the protocol is not changing in terms of what has to be signed off,” but added that Mr. Trump believed “these are the experts in the field. ” Critics say that giving the military more authority could lead to more problematic outcomes like the Special Operations raid in January in Yemen, which left a member of the Navy’s SEAL Team 6 dead, as well as about two dozen civilians. It could also leave the Pentagon to take the blame when things go wrong. But one Defense Department official pointed to comments by President Trump about the Yemen raid as a sign that military commanders would be held responsible for botched operations whether the president signed off on them or not. Mr. Trump and Defense Department officials have maintained that the January raid — the first such operation approved by the new president — was successful, saying that valuable intelligence was collected. Military officials have been advocating an increase in raids in Yemen in particular. On Thursday, the United States resumed its air attacks on targets in Yemen, conducting strikes against several suspected Qaeda sites across the part of the country. The coordinated series of attacks occurred in three Yemeni provinces — Abyan, Shabwa and Baydha — that have been linked to terrorist activity, according to the Pentagon. The strikes were conducted against targets that had been developed before the January raid, a senior official said. On Monday, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis presented the White House, under Mr. Trump’s directive, with a series of options for accelerating the fight against the Islamic State. Pentagon officials say that while much of the proposal would continue what the United States was doing under President Barack Obama, Mr. Mattis and senior military commanders want to target not just the Islamic State, but also Al Qaeda and other extremist organizations in the Middle East. The proposal on counterterrorism raids, first reported by the Daily Beast, is the latest step in Mr. Trump’s increased reliance on military commanders to run American national security policy. Mr. Trump has become increasingly reliant on Mr. Mattis, a retired Marine general, upon whom he consistently lavishes praise. He has also appointed Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster as his national security adviser, to replace a retired general, Michael T. Flynn. His Homeland Security secretary is yet another retired general, John F. Kelly. “We’re at a point now in our nation where general officers have an outsize role in the direction of the country,” said Andrew Exum, a retired Army Ranger and a Defense Department official in the Obama administration. Still, Mr. Trump has already shown himself willing to blame the generals when things go wrong. On Tuesday, he told Fox News that the Jan. 29 Yemen mission that led to the death of the Navy SEAL team member, Senior Chief Petty Officer William Owens, known as Ryan, “was a mission that was started before I got here. ” He added that “my generals are the most respected that we’ve had in many decades, I believe, and they lost Ryan. ” Jon B. Alterman, the director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that the administration faced a delicate calculation over how much authority to cede to the generals. “One extreme,” he said, is “giving in the White House veto power over generals in the field. ” That should be avoided, he said. “At the same time,” he added, “if you’re going to target and kill someone, there needs to be some kind of process to ensure that it serves a strategic purpose. We shouldn’t be comfortable with the other extreme, essentially handing out death sentences without much deliberation. ” Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said that the strikes on Thursday in Yemen, which numbered more than 20, were “conducted in partnership with the government of Yemen and were coordinated” with President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi. Captain Davis said the attacks had targeted Qaeda militants, equipment and infrastructure. After the January raid, Mr. Hadi’s government had withdrawn permission for the United States to conduct Special Operations ground missions, a decision prompted by anger at the civilian casualties incurred in the raid. Computers and cellphones seized during that raid offered clues about attacks that Al Qaeda might be planning, including insights into new types of hidden explosives that the group is making and new training tactics, American officials said. But it is still unclear how much the information advances the military’s knowledge of the plans of Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, and some intelligence and congressional officials have questioned how significant the information analyzed so far really is. “There are obvious contradictions about the relative value of intelligence,” said Senator Kamala D. Harris, a California Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, who added in an interview this week that she would be seeking more explanations from intelligence officials. According to a Yemeni military official, the airstrikes on Thursday in the Abyan mountains began around 3:30 a. m. local time. The local news media reported that at least three people suspected of being Qaeda members were killed in Shabwa Province. Residents near the scene in the Saeid region said an airstrike had destroyed a house used by Qaeda operatives. The death of Chief Owens came after a chain of miscues and misjudgments that plunged the elite forces into a ferocious firefight with Qaeda militants in a mountainous village in central Yemen. Three other Americans were wounded, and a $75 million aircraft was deliberately destroyed. A month later, the mission remains under intense scrutiny, with questions unabated over the casualties, how Mr. Trump and his aides approved the raid over a dinner meeting at the White House five days into his presidency, and the value of the information collected from the raid. “It is reasonable for the White House to determine which decisions they need to be part of and which ones they are comfortable deferring to the Pentagon,” said Derek Chollet, an assistant secretary of defense in the Obama administration. “But a president has to think very carefully about this, because he may choose to delegate authority, but he cannot absolve himself of responsibility. ”

The Zika virus caught the world’s attention last year after experts noticed that a small percentage of women carrying the virus in Latin America were giving birth to children with microcephaly, a defect that causes malformed heads and severely stunts brain development. The virus is now endemic there, and scientists fear that caseloads may spike again during the hot, wet months of the Southern Hemisphere’s summer, which begins in December. But although the Zika strain circulating in Latin America is originally from Asia, health experts know little about its history on that side of the Pacific. “We know the virus has been circulating in the region for the better part of 70 years, but we don’t know how extensively,” said Duane J. Gubler, an emeritus professor at the Medical School in Singapore. Zika may have been understudied for decades because there were no routine tests for it until recently, scientists say, and perhaps also because the symptoms resemble those of mild dengue fever. Another possibility, they say, is that women carrying the Zika virus gave birth to microcephalic children at home. Microcephaly was first noticed in Brazil only because doctors in neonatal intensive care units of several hospitals realized that they had far more children with the problem than they normally did, and many of the mothers reported having Zika symptoms months earlier. But the Zika scare in Latin America has prompted a recent surge in awareness and monitoring of the virus in Asia. Health ministries across the region have reported hundreds of new infections in recent months. And in October, the World Health Organization said that the Western Pacific region was “highly likely” to report more cases — and possibly new outbreaks. Humans are primarily infected with Zika through the bites of mosquitoes from the Aedes genus — the same ones that carry dengue, yellow fever and other illnesses. Zika can also be transmitted sexually, although scientists have not yet determined how long the virus lingers in semen or vaginal fluids. The majority of people who contract Zika never experience symptoms, and the symptoms that do appear — including fever, rash, joint pain and conjunctivitis — are often mild. But Zika can cause microcephaly and other birth defects in infants born to women who are infected during pregnancy. Scientists also believe that Zika infections are linked to the prevalence of syndrome, a rare disease of the nervous system that can cause muscle weakness and even paralysis. A Zika vaccine is being developed, but the process may take years. In February, as microcephaly and cases that scientists believed were linked to Zika appeared in Latin America and the Caribbean, the World Health Organization declared the Zika epidemic a public health emergency. The agency announced an end to that emergency this month but cautioned that the disease should now be viewed, like malaria and yellow fever, as a continuing threat. By 75 countries had reported Zika transmissions for the first time since 2007, with nearly half of the new transmissions occurring this year alone. In Southeast Asia, Singapore and Thailand have reported many of the cases this year, with hundreds each. Thailand also reported Southeast Asia’s first two cases of microcephaly in infants in late September, and Vietnam reported what it said was probably its first microcephaly case in late October. The United States Centers for Disease Control said in a September memo that pregnant women should “consider postponing nonessential” travel to 11 Southeast Asian countries because the virus is linked to birth defects. But the number of reported Zika infections and infant malformation cases with likely links to Zika in the region is still significantly lower than the number in Latin America and the Caribbean. (More than 2, 000 babies have been born with microcephaly in Brazil, far more than in any other country.) The C. D. C. has also said that recent reports of new Zika cases in Southeast Asia may simply reflect increased awareness or monitoring, rather than increasing transmission. Scientists say that tropical Asian countries’ long experience with diseases may help their response. Girls who contract Zika are believed to be immune when they reach their childbearing years, meaning they cannot give birth to microcephalic babies. People who live in countries that are “hyperendemic” to dengue — including Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines — also carry natural antibodies that some scientists say may help them to suppress or protect against Zika infections. Dr. Sutee Yoksan, a dengue expert at Mahidol University in Thailand, said that theory is now being tested through research projects in multiple countries. (Other scientists, by contrast, worry that dengue antibodies may make Zika infections worse.) Southeast Asian officials so far appear relatively sanguine about the risks that Zika poses to their citizens, and dengue remains a greater threat, said Tikki Pang, a former director of policy research at the World Health Organization. But those officials probably would feel political pressure to respond to Zika more aggressively, he added, if it became clearer to them that the virus posed a risk to unborn children. Asia’s experience with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, and other infectious diseases has prompted increased coordination among its countries’ health ministries since the early 2000s, health experts said in interviews, and that coordination may come in handy if Zika transmission surges in the region. But officials may be underestimating Zika’s spread in Southeast Asia, in part because some countries lack the resources to test for Zika infections on a large scale, the experts said. The fight could also be hindered by a chronic lack of political will in the region to address diseases with investments in vaccine development, public education and new technologies, they said.

RALEIGH, N. C. — There is no doubt that officers surrounded him. That they shouted at him. That they shot him. But a crucial question about the fatal confrontation between Keith L. Scott and police officers in Charlotte, N. C. has always been whether Mr. Scott was wielding a gun. On Wednesday, in a news conference that at times took on the feel of a courtroom argument, R. Andrew Murray, the district attorney for Mecklenburg County, laid out a case that Mr. Scott, who was black, had a gun in his hands and had not heeded warnings to drop it when he was shot and killed. “It’s a justified shooting based on the totality of the circumstances,” Mr. Murray said. No charges, he said, will be filed against the officer, Brentley Vinson, who is also black. Mr. Murray made his case with an elaborate presentation of videos, enhanced digital images and other evidence, a reflection of the increasing sophistication of prosecutors who must also sway a public skeptical of police accounts of fatal shootings. The Sept. 20 shooting of Mr. Scott was one of several deadly police interactions with that have sparked waves of street demonstrations and an impassioned national conversation about race and the use of deadly force by police officers. Mr. Murray’s announcement came as a jury in Charleston, S. C. about a drive southeast of Charlotte, was preparing to hear closing arguments in the case of Michael T. Slager, a former North Charleston police officer who was on duty when he shot and killed Walter L. Scott, a black man who was not related to Keith Scott, during a traffic stop and foot pursuit. In Charlotte, North Carolina’s largest city, the shooting of Keith Scott set off days of protest, some of it violent, and led to immense public pressure on the police to release dashboard and body camera recordings of the episode. Members of Mr. Scott’s family had claimed he had no gun at the time of the shooting, or they were unaware that he owned one. And when the recordings were released, they did not conclusively show whether Mr. Scott had a gun, as the police had asserted. But on Wednesday, Mr. Murray laid out the most detailed case yet that Mr. Scott, 43, was armed when officers confronted him while he was in his parked S. U. V. at his apartment complex in Charlotte’s University City neighborhood. Mr. Scott’s gun, a Colt . 380 semiautomatic, fell to the ground after he was shot, Mr. Murray said. It was later determined that the gun was cocked, with the safety off. Subsequent analysis found Mr. Scott’s DNA on the weapon. Mr. Murray said the authorities traced the gun and discovered that it had been stolen from a home and then illegally sold to Mr. Scott 18 days before the shooting. At the news conference, Mr. Murray exhibited a Facebook conversation he described as involving the gun’s seller and a third person, and said that the seller appeared to admit the transaction had occurred. The authorities, Mr. Murray said, also found records at a sporting goods store that suggested Mr. Scott had purchased a magazine and ammunition for a . 380 caliber handgun. Mr. Murray said some ammunition was found stuffed in a cigarette box in Mr. Scott’s vehicle. Mr. Murray also played a surveillance video that showed Mr. Scott outside a convenience store just before the shooting, with a bulge in his pants near the ankle. Mr. Murray said it was consistent with the officers’ assertion that Mr. Scott was wearing an ankle holster. In an investigative report released Wednesday, prosecutors noted that “every officer present reported seeing Scott holding a gun” after several of them surrounded his car. They had intended to investigate Mr. Scott after one officer saw him with a marijuana cigarette and a handgun. The videos of the episode show them yelling at Mr. Scott to drop the weapon. Mr. Murray said that Mr. Scott never raised the gun at officers. But in a letter to the State Bureau of Investigation and the Charlotte police, Mr. Murray said that an officer, like any other person, is “justified in using deadly force if he reasonably believed, and in fact believed, that he or another person was in imminent danger of great bodily injury or death. ” “Someone with a gun in his hand who does not comply with police commands to drop the gun can be reasonably considered to be an imminent deadly threat to officers,” Mr. Murray wrote, “and studies show that a person can raise his gun and harm or kill officers before an officer could react to the threat. ” Mr. Scott’s family released a statement on Wednesday that thanked Mr. Murray and other officials for meeting with them, and explaining how they decided not to charge Officer Vinson, who was placed on administrative leave after the shooting. The family also said they were “profoundly disappointed” that Officer Vinson was not criminally charged. “All our family wanted was justice and for these members of law enforcement to understand that what they did was wrong,” the family statement said. Geoffrey Alpert, a criminology professor at the University of South Carolina, said on Wednesday that prosecutors most likely felt the available evidence would not earn a criminal conviction. “It’s a very high standard to indict a police officer for a criminal action in the line of duty,” he said. “But that has nothing to do with the righteousness or appropriateness of the shooting. ” A successful prosecution would be even more difficult, Dr. Alpert said, because the evidence indicated that Mr. Scott was armed, and that he did not comply with orders from the police to drop his weapon. But Dr. Alpert said he expected there would be a lawsuit, in which the legal standard is lower — a preponderance of evidence in civil actions versus evidence beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal cases. While the issue of criminality has been resolved, Dr. Alpert said questions remained. “Should they have called him out of the car? Should they have taken cover? What did they know about him at the time?” he said. “The question becomes: At what point does the officer feel threatened?” Susanna Birdsong, the policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina, said the decision not to bring charges pointed to the need for policies to ensure that officers “employ tactics, avoid implicit bias and take into account how mental disabilities can affect a person’s behavior. ” Lawyers for Mr. Scott’s family held a separate news conference in Charlotte on Wednesday. They called for peace in the streets and said they hoped to eventually obtain justice for Mr. Scott. “We’re still in the process of investigating this case,” said Eduardo Curry, one of the lawyers. On Wednesday night, dozens of protesters gathered outside the Police Department’s headquarters and marched to the center of the city. Three protesters were arrested on charges that they obstructed traffic, the police said on Twitter. Just after the shooting, several people in the apartment complex gave accounts that differed from the police officers’ version. In some cases, they shared their versions of events with the news media. Some of the witnesses said Mr. Scott was shot by a white officer. Some of them said Mr. Scott was reading a book at the time he was confronted. Mr. Murray said subsequent interviews showed that a number of these witnesses had not, in fact, seen the shooting. He also said there was no evidence of a book. Mr. Murray also noted that Mr. Scott’s wife, Rakeyia, had said that she was “certain” her husband did not have any guns after January 2016. “However, text messages between Mr. and Mrs. Scott the month before the shooting included an argument about a gun in Mr. Scott’s possession,” Mr. Murray said.

“@TruthfulOrator: There's a dangerous socioecon war occurring. We MUST join voices & #VoteBlue. #UniteBlue #Ferguson http://t.co/B8lSH2JqBs”

Hillary Clinton on Thursday derided Donald Trump’s praise of Vladimir Putin as “unpatriotic” and “scary” and suggested the Republican nominee’s coziness with the Russian president could represent a threat to national security. In a press conference at an airport in Westchester, New York, her first such formal event in 278 days, Clinton discussed Trump’s remarks at a “commander-in-chief forum” hosted by NBC and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America in New York on Wednesday night, in which the nominees drew sharp contrasts on foreign policy and national security in back-to-back appearances that previewed their first debate later this month. “Bizarrely, once again he praised Russia’s strongman Vladimir Putin – even taking the astonishing step of suggesting that he prefers the Russian president to our American president,” Clinton said on the airport tarmac, in front of her campaign plane. “Now, that is not just unpatriotic and insulting to the people of our country as well as to our commander-in-chief – it is scary.” On Wednesday night, Trump insisted his praise for Putin was deserved because the Russian president has an “82% approval rating”. “I think when he calls me brilliant, I’ll take the compliment, OK?” Trump said. Trump has exchanged compliments with Putin, though critics have said Russia is meddling in the US election in order to tip the scales in Trump’s favor. Until recently, Trump’s campaign was run by Paul Manafort, who previously worked in Ukraine on behalf of a pro-Russia candidate. Clinton and her campaign have suggested Russia is using cyber-attacks to meddle in the US election, after a hack of the Democratic National Committee led to the resignation of the DNC chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, just before the party’s convention in Philadelphia in July. Trump has downplayed the severity of the intrusion and even invited – sarcastically, he claimed – Russia to hack Clinton’s own emails. On Thursday, the House speaker, Paul Ryan, distanced himself from Trump’s remarks, accusing Putin of conducting state-sponsored cyber-attacks “on what appears to be [the US] political system”. “Vladimir Putin is an aggressor who does not share our interests,” Ryan told reporters at a press conference in Washington. “Vladimir Putin is violating the sovereignty of neighboring countries. He is acting like an adversary.” Ryan, who has endorsed Trump, grew frustrated by questions about the Republican nominee’s remarks. He did not watch the forum event, he said, and did not wish to respond to every comment Trump makes. “I’m not going to stand up here and do a tit-for-tat on what Donald said last night,” Ryan said. In New York, Clinton also criticized Trump’s remarks about US generals, who he said had been “reduced to rubble” under the leadership of President Obama, to a degree that is “embarrassing for our country”. “What would Ronald Reagan say about a Republican nominee who attacks America’s generals and heaps praise on Russia’s president?” Clinton said. “I think we know the answer.” Clinton challenged Republicans to denounce Trump’s comments. “Every Republican holding or seeking office in this country should be asked if they agree with Donald Trump about these statements,” she said. In the forum, Clinton and Trump diverged on whether the US should deploy ground troops to Iraq. Clinton restated her opposition to sending a contingent of troops into Syria and said she would not deploy ground troops to Iraq “ever again”. Trump disagreed. “We would leave a certain group behind and they would take the various sections where they have the oil,” he said, regarding a policy apparently meant to prevent terror groups such as Islamic State from gaining command of such a vital resource. On Thursday, Clinton denounced this approach. “The United States of America does not invade other countries to plunder and pillage,” she said. “We don’t send our brave men and women around the world to steal oil. “And that’s not even getting into the absurdity of what it would involve – massive infrastructure, large numbers of troops, many years on the ground. Of course, Trump hasn’t thought through any of that.” After the press conference, Clinton departed for Charlotte, North Carolina, where she was due to hold a rally on Thursday afternoon.

50 TV Conversation Starters for When Your Thanksgiving Dinner Gets Awkward

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan accepted just three refugees in the first half of 2017 despite receiving a record 8,561 fresh asylum applications, the government said on Tuesday, highlighting the nation s reluctance to accept foreigners. Only four refugees were accepted in the first half of 2016, when fresh asylum applications totaled 5,011, the Justice Ministry said. The Human Rights Watch in January described Japan s record on asylum seekers as abysmal . Unlike other industrialized nations, which have accepted or even encouraged immigration to refresh their labor force, Japan has remained unwelcoming, even though its shrinking, aging population is a key reason behind the economy s slow growth. Supporters of Japan s tough asylum process argue that the small number accepted is a consequence of a surge in bogus applications due to changes made to rules in 2010 allowing applicants to work after six months until a decision is made on their claims. There appears to have been an increase in the number of people who are abusing the refugee status process, said Yasuhiro Hishida, an official who reviews applications at the Justice Ministry.

Suspected cartel gunmen killed another journalist. This year, reporters exposing drug cartels and their ties to Mexican politicians have become targets with five murders taking place in 2017. [Mexico’s Rio Doce confirmed the murder of its founder, Javier Valdez, an investigator and author who had been reporting on Mexico’s organized crime. Valdez was driving a red Toyota Corolla along a city street in Culiacan, Sinaloa, when unidentified gunmen shot him, Rio Doce reported. The local print weekly and online publication is one of the few news outlets that continues to carry out investigations in Mexico exposing the deep ties between Mexican politicians and drug cartels. Valdez’s murder comes just weeks after cartel gunmen murdered respected journalist Maximino Rodriguez Palacios in Baja California Sur as he drove with his wife to a shopping center, Breitbart Texas reported. The murder remains unsolved. Just days before the murder of Rodriguez, cartel gunmen from the La Linea faction of the Juarez Cartel killed journalist Miroslava Breach, Breitbart Texas reported. Breach’s death occurred after her work exposed how the of one of the La Linea leaders was going to be running for mayor in the state of Chihuahua. Mexico’s Network of Journalists from the Northeast expressed their condemnation and demanded that Mexico’s government stop turning a blind eye to the escalating violence. “We come once again and as many times as necessary to harshly demand that authorities carry out their duty of protecting citizens from criminals and punish criminals according to the Rule of Law,” a prepared statement from the network revealed. Ildefonso Ortiz is an journalist with Breitbart Texas. He the Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and Stephen K. Bannon. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. Brandon Darby is managing director and of Breitbart Texas. He the Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and Stephen K. Bannon. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart. com. This article has been updated to reflect the correct first name spelling for the murdered journalist, Javier Valdez.

Will China Trigger the Next Global Recession? Current debt level causes grave concern Jing Jin | Mises.org China’s debt growth rate has become the focus of some discussions and, fair enough, from comparing the outright levels, it may seem that China can collapse at any moment. Daniel Fernandez suggested this in his article “ Has China Reached Its Debt Limit? ” in Mises Wire . In response to the government’s monetary expansion stimulus plan after the 2008 financial crisis, China’s corporate sector did indeed leverage up quickly, followed by an equally fast pace of leveraging in the household sector. However, in order to avoid comparing apples with oranges, we need to take a closer look by putting these numbers into perspective. Using the same data source as used by Fernandez, we find that China’s total debt as a percentage of GDP was 254 percent by the end of 2015. Debt-to-GDP ratio of corporate, government, and household sectors stood at 170 percent, 44 percent, and 40 percent respectively. For government and household sectors, both started from considerably low levels until the last administration kicked in a four-trillion yuan (RMB) stimulus plan in 2009. Government debt-to-GDP ratio, which was kept in the mid 30s in the first decade of this millennium, now stood at 44 percent by the end of 2015. Household’s debt-to-GDP ratio was at 11 percent in 2006 and almost doubled to 19 percent in 2007 and then doubled again to 40 percent by the end of 2015. The leveraging up of households happened exactly as the Chinese society was undergoing rapid urbanization as well as when the government launched its 2009 stimulus. Apart from the demand for urban housing, Chinese households, with their high savings rate and extra cash in hands, invested in in real estate as a hedge against future inflation. Furthermore, as the stimulus package allowed for easier lending, household debt increased dramatically. However, we must note that although the debt growth rate was high, the absolute debt level of household is still considerably low versus global peers. The most disturbing trend is found in the corporate sector, with the debt-to-GDP ratio increased from approximately 110 percent prior to 2009 to 170 percent by the end of 2015. First of all, the level of corporate debt (mostly in the form of bank loans) was high to start with, but is by no means out of the norm for a financial system dominated by the banking sector, whose funding source is mostly deposits. Two figures from Jonathan Anderson’s How To Think About China series provide some insights: 1 An international comparison of assets of banking system vs. domestic saving rate: Breakdown of assets of China’s financial system: This point can be further demonstrated by comparing financial asset structures, for example, between the US and China. Obviously bank loans are the dominant funding source of the corporate sector in China, whereas in the US the role of bank loans is far from prominent in comparison with its enormous capital markets, where the corporates can raise both equities and bond financing easily. Financial asset structure: US vs. China (2015): Data source: The World Bank, Federal Reserve Bank, Shanghai Stock Exchange, Shenzhen Stock Exchange, China Central Deposit and Clearing, Co. Ltd. (CCDC), SIFMA It is, therefore, not surprising that the leveraging up as a response to government’s stimulus plan manifested itself mostly in the credit extension through the banking system. China’s Flat Yield Curve The large role of the banks can also be seen in China’s bond market yields, and one manifestation of this is a flat yield curve . The reason for this is simple: deposits. When banks have more deposits to manage than they can lend out, they invest these deposits into the bond market and usually on the long end to boost yields. This investment strategy (or asset-liability management scheme) bids up the bond prices on the long end, hence pushing down the long-term yields. In addition, between allocating deposits to these two types of assets (bonds vs. loans), banks sometimes have incentives to invest in bonds, rather than lending, due to the balancing considerations of corporate demand, credit risks, market liquidity, and yields (that are also subject to interest rate controls that are at final stage of liberalization and the lending rate was completely liberalized only in early 2016). So the yield spread, at current stage, reflects more of the combination of China’s financial structure and capital flows rather than being a good indicator of economic fundamentals. As the government flooded the market with four trillion RMB from the stimulus plan in 2009, bond yields faced downward pressure, more so at the long-term end. Please see the yields of Chinese government treasury bonds at maturity (10 years vs. 1 year) and the spread thereof in the below figure. Wealth management products channel a considerable amount of deposits out of the banking system to capture higher yields outside of banking-sector supervision (in form of trusts, for example), but the amount is still not pivotal enough to change the above explained pattern in a fundamental manner. Data source: WIND, CCDC China didn’t open up to the outside world until the very late 1970s. Now China provides half of the manufacturing goods and close to half of electronic products in the world and the economy is still growing at around 6 percent. Obviously a good part of China’s production structure has been configured to export, mostly to the developed economies, which are dominated by the service sector. As the global demand in the developed economies lost its momentum, China faces the necessity of reconfiguring its economic structure to better serve its domestic consumers (which stands at 4 times the number of US consumers). This reconfiguration process is surely painful as demonstrated by the empty factories in the traditional export production oriented cities. But to me, this is more of a textbook case of Austrian economics at work. Capital and labor have to be freed up for those productions currently being demanded by the market. And this takes time. Moreover, quick capital formation in the past three decades lifted labor productivity, with which the manufacturing sector needs to be upgraded and the tertiary sector needs to be expanded to serve a more affluent society comparing with more than 30 years ago, so that Chinese consumers don’t have to go to Japan to buy hi-tech toilet lids . A Healthier Skepticism of “Stimulus” Needless to say, the current debt level causes concern and the deeper concern is whether debt growth trajectory will continue. Ultimately, whether or not the debt will grow at the rate of post 2008 stimulus phase is a function of how fast the Chinese government runs the money printing press. A recent article on the People’s Daily — the mouthpiece of China Communist Party (CCP) — quoted the diagnosis from an “authoritative figure” on the Chinese economy and its cure. This “authoritative figure” suggested there should be no more money printing to stimulate the economy and that the Chinese should be prepared for a lower growth rate (comparing with its own historical average of 10 percent). Anyone with an understanding of China’s political messaging system would not be mistake it for anything but an opinion handed down from the very top of Chinese leadership. This can be considered a concluding remark on the policy swings for the past several years. The Xinhua News Agency, the mainstream media group, recently followed with a commentary suggesting resistance to the use of stimulus plans in the face of slowing growth. Xinhua also warned of a disastrous result if its advice is not followed. Messages like these are refreshing to hear nowadays among the mantra of the stimulus chorus around the world. How China’s policy direction is to be implemented remains to be seen, but at least the insidious effects of stimulus is well recognized by those at the top of the regime and openly represented by mainstream media. In addition, a series of measures to lower tax burdens for corporate and households alike are also being introduced, and the central government is pushing hard for business-friendly deregulations and increasing economic freedom. China has its problems; tons of them. China may or may not be the first to blow up in the coming wave of crises, as many people say. No matter whichever the case, I am more convinced that China will be among the first ones to revive — because it has high savings to invest, it has a well-trained labor force with one of the most vibrant, if not the most complete, manufacturing chain, and the manufacturing sector still contributes to over 40 percent of its GDP. It is still in the middle of a rapid urbanization process. It is not yet a welfare state. Chinese people are fully aware of the fact that their safety net is the result of their own frugality rather than government promises. China has the biggest potential market of 1.3 billion people with a rising middle-class that is still increasing in numbers and share in population. Serving them well is one of the biggest business opportunities in the 21st century. Jing Jin is Associate Dean at the China Economics and Management Academy in Beijing. NEWSLETTER SIGN UP Get the latest breaking news & specials from Alex Jones and the Infowars Crew. Related Articles

Princess Eugenie to marry long-term boyfriend Jack Brooksbank

The simmering dispute over media access to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign erupted again Monday when a reporter for DailyMail.com was told by the campaign he couldn’t attend her events in New Hampshire. David Martosko, a reporter for DailyMail.com, a website affiliated with the Daily Mail in London, said the Clinton camp said his newspaper wasn’t part of the official group -- known as the print pool -- that covers the White House on a rotating basis. As a result, he was blocked Monday from covering her events in person for the pool. "I got there when I was told to get there," Martosko told Fox News' Megyn Kelly Monday night. "Quarter to eight in the morning, I showed up in the parking lot, told them who I was, and they said 'No, you can't come.' "This happened twice today," Martosko told Kelly later in the interview. "I just came right over here from an evening event where Mrs. Clinton was the keynote speaker ... I showed up again and said 'I'm the designated pool reporter' and I was told 'you need to leave.' I find that unacceptable and offensive, and I think most of my journalistic colleagues do as well." The campaign said it is trying to resolve the issue. However, it denied any suggestion that Martosko was denied access because of his newspaper’s critical coverage of Clinton. “The Daily Mail can sensationalize [the incident] as they see fit for their readers, but that's what happened," a Clinton aide told Fox News. Major media organizations in Clinton’s traveling press pool issued a statement Monday night defending Martosko and rejecting any attempt by the Clinton campaign to “dictate” who covers the candidate. “We haven't yet had a clear explanation about why the pool reporter for today's events was denied access,” said the statement signed by the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Tribune Publishing, as well as the Daily Mail and others. “But any attempt by the campaign to dictate who is in the pool is unacceptable.” "The pool in general is tight-knit organization," Martosko told "The Kelly File" Monday night. "And to a man and woman, they all said, 'No. The Clinton campaign does not get to choose who covers them.'" Most presidential campaigns essentially follow the procedures outlined by the White House Correspondents Association. To accommodate the frequent media crush, a newspaper reporter, a photographer and a TV crew, known as the pool, covers an event. Then the details are widely shared via email to reporters and others. However, in covering Clinton, a group of 14 news organizations, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, have formed to cover events and share the information on a limited basis. Group members argue that those who don’t share the expenses of covering a campaign shouldn’t have immediate access to the information, or “pool reports.” Still, this is not the first time a member affiliated with the foreign press has complained about being excluded from covering Clinton up close. “My feeling is that some people have established the rules and that we haven’t been part of the discussion,” a reporter for the French TV network Canal Plus recently told The Post. “I went to Iowa to cover [Clinton’s] first event. I only saw her van. … I am fighting for equality and access for all.” The Clinton camp on Monday also said: "We have been working to create an equitable system, and have had some concerns expressed by foreign outlets about not being a part of the rotation.” A DailyMail.com spokesperson on Monday afternoon confirmed that Martosko was denied access to the Clinton event and kept from boarding a van that her campaign is using to transport pool reporters around New Hampshire. However, the campaign has yet to provide a full explanation, considering Martosko was scheduled to be the designated print pool reporter, the spokesperson also said. Martosko tweeted: “For those of you asking: What I've seen online re: today is accurate, and I intend to report here whether they want me to or not."

Kylie Jenner named her baby Stormi, and revealed her last name

Lebanon s parliamentary speaker said on Monday it was too early to talk about the country s government having resigned or the formation of a new government after Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri said at the weekend he would stand down. President Michel Aoun said on Sunday he will not decide whether to accept or reject the prime minister s resignation until Hariri returns to Lebanon from Saudi Arabia, from where he made the announcement. Speaker Nabih Berri said in a televised statement he agreed with Aoun s statement.

At Trump hotel site, immigrant workers wary

PARIS (Reuters) - Edinson Cavani silenced his critics when he scored four goals in Paris St Germain’s 6-0 victory at Caen in Ligue 1 on Friday. The Uruguay striker, who wasted a handful of chances in the French champions’ 1-1 home draw against Arsenal in the Champions League on Tuesday, found the back of the net four times before the break in a one-sided encounter. The result meant that PSG, who had bagged only one point from their last two league encounters, move to the top of the standings with 10 points from five games. Monaco, Girondins de Bordeaux and Nice, among others, could take over at the top depending on Saturday’s results. Cavani opened the scoring after 12 minutes when he latched onto a Maxwell cross from the left and doubled the tally from the penalty spot after Syam Ben Youssef fouled Lucas in the box. Maxwell again set up Cavani for the third, the forward tapping in from a cross at the near post seven minutes from the break. Cavani added a fourth on the stroke of halftime, poking the ball home from Thomas Meunier’s cross. Unai Emery’s side’s domination continued after the break as Lucas fired home from just outside the box in the 67th. Forward Jean-Kevin Augustin added a sixth, converting Adrien Radiot’s assist 11 minutes from time. Monaco take on Stade Rennais and Bordeaux host Angers on Saturday.

CAYENNE (Reuters) - French president Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that he was fully supportive of Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, regarding the crisis taking place in Catalonia. The Spanish government moved to impose direct rule over Catalonia, stripping the region of its autonomy less than an hour after its parliament declared independence in a stunning show of defiance. I have always said that I have one interlocutor in Spain, it is Prime Minister Rajoy, Macron told journalists on the sidelines of a visit to French Guiana. There is a rule of law in Spain with constitutional rules. Mariano Rajoy wants these rules to be respected and he has my full support, Macron added. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who was accompanying Macron, also said it was important to avoid any splits and fractures in the European Union bloc. I do not want a situation where, tomorrow, the European Union is made up of 95 different states. We need to avoid splits, because we already have enough splits and fractures and we do not need any more, said Juncker. The president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, also voiced support to Rajoy earlier on Friday.

Mandy Moore explains how divorce gave her confidence

Has Bill O Reilly really not learned what he says on video stays on video?Because he clearly thought he could blatantly lie during an appearance on the Today Show on Tuesday morning and get away with it.After being asked by Savannah Guthrie if he regretted defending Roger Ailes when Gretchen Carlson accused the Fox boss of sexually harassing her, O Reilly claimed that he never did such a thing, and that he only commented about Ailes as a boss. My comments were made to Seth Meyers about what kind of a boss Roger Ailes was, not about the case. I don t know anything about the case, OK? Nothing. So he was a good boss, best boss I ve ever had, and that s what I said to Seth Meyers. That s all I ve said. And I m not going to say anything else because I work for this company and I don t really have any insight into anything, so for once in my life I m going to keep my big mouth shut. Here s the video via Media Matters.But as Raw Story points out, Bill O Reilly blatantly lied to Guthrie s face, because footage of O Reilly s appearance with Seth Meyers exists and clearly shows that the fibbing Fox host defended Ailes by calling Carlson s lawsuit frivolous and that he stands by Ailes 100 percent. In this country, every famous, powerful, or wealthy person is a target. You re a target, I m a target. Anytime, somebody could come out and sue us, attack us, go to the press, or anything like that. Until Amer and that s a deplorable situation Until the United States adopts the British system of civil law, whereby if you file a frivolous lawsuit and you lose, the judge has a right to make you pay all court costs. Until we adopt that very fair proposition, we re going to have this out of control tabloid society that is tremendously destructive. Here s the video via YouTube:Now that it has been established that Bill O Reilly is a liar, it s time for Fox News to take Andrea Tantaros lawsuit that specifically names O Reilly more seriously.Featured Image: Dangerous Minds

This is the planet Post Article Comment These discussions are not moderated. We rely on users to police themselves, and flag inappropriate comments and behavior. In accordance with our Guidelines and Policies , we reserve the right to remove any post at any time for any reason, and will restrict access of registered users who repeatedly violate our terms. OpEdNews welcomes lively, CIVIL discourse. Personal attacks and/or hate speech are not tolerated and may result in banning. Comments should relate to the content above. Irrelevant, off-topic comments are a distraction, and will be removed. By submitting this comment, you agree to all OpEdNews rules, guidelines and policies.

New York Times journalists are in the field in central and northern Iraq to assess the humanitarian impact of battles between the government and Islamic State fighters. TIKRIT, Iraq — Udbais Musa says he punched his son and threatened to disown him when the announced last year that he was leaving home to join the Islamic State. Ultimately, Mr. Musa lost both his son and his house. To punish the son, Iraqi security forces evicted Mr. Musa and his family from their home on Tikrit’s outskirts on Jan. 4. He said they had been transported by military truck to a windswept displaced persons camp with only the clothes they were wearing and a few tattered personal papers. Under a new collective punishment policy by the provincial government here, at least 345 families accused of ties to the Islamic State have been evicted and confined to Al Shahama camp outside Tikrit this month, according to provincial leaders. Officials said about 200 other families had been evicted and held in a school and at a separate camp called Rubaidha. Mr. Musa, 60, now shares a tent with nine family members whose only crime was to have a relative who had joined the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh. Several women evicted from their homes and trucked to the Shahama camp said Iraqi security forces demolished their houses with explosives after accusing their sons or husbands of joining the terrorist group. The authorities of Salahuddin Province say the punishment against the families of ISIS members is intended to force the group’s recruits to pay a painful personal price. “Our aim is to defy the terrorists and send a stern message to the families,” Amar Hekmat, the deputy governor, said inside the barricaded provincial government center. But the evictions have set off a rancorous dispute between officials in Tikrit and politicians in Baghdad. Prime Minister Haider in a letter to the provincial governor last week, sharply criticized the removals and ordered provincial and Baghdad officials to resolve the issue. The tensions raised by the Salahuddin officials’ actions cut to the heart of sectarian grievances across the whole country, where tens of thousands of Sunni families have been displaced either by the Islamic State or by government offensives against the group. Even as Mr. Abadi’s national government has tried to address reports of abuses by the security forces and their militia allies, deep distrust persists in Iraq’s Sunni communities. In an interview, Mishan a member of Parliament from Salahuddin Province, accused the provincial security commander of human rights violations against “the innocent and the repressed. ” The Salahuddin operations commander, Brig. Gen. Juma Enad Sadoon, called critics like Mr. Jiboori “barking dogs and mercenaries” and said they should not interfere in security matters in Tikrit. In an interview, General Sadoon did not indicate whether the removals would be halted. The evictions have evoked unwelcome comparisons to collective punishments, including home demolitions, imposed by Israel against families of Palestinians accused of attacks. Collective punishment is prohibited under the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions and is generally considered illegal under international law. Officials in Tikrit cited extraordinary security concerns for the evictions. “This is a very difficult situation for us because of the terrible suffering caused by Daesh,” Mr. Hekmat said. “We are under great pressure to rebuild our city and impose civil order” after almost a year under Islamic State occupation in 2014 and 2015, he said. Khazhal Hamad, the province’s first deputy governor, said the removals protected families from retaliation by neighbors who lost family members to ISIS attacks. “There are hostile feelings toward these people, and these feelings can affect the civil peace we are trying to achieve,” Mr. Hamad said. The Tikrit evictions are perhaps a prelude to postcombat frictions in the city of Mosul, 140 miles north, if government forces can uproot Islamic State forces there. Tikrit is a potent symbol of Sunni dominion in central Iraq. Saddam Hussein was born in Awja, just outside Tikrit, and his palaces still tower over the landscape here. Yet Shiite Muslim militias, backed by Iran and known as popular mobilization forces, led the charge to evict the Islamic State from the city in April 2015. The main highway into Tikrit is now festooned with posters featuring the faces of Shiite militiamen killed in battle and images of the revered Shiite imams Hussein and Ali. Some of the posters are mounted next to Iraqi government military compounds. But local Sunni militiamen, along with Iraqi security forces, have themselves carried out some of the evictions — all targeting Sunnis. Thousands of Sunni tribal fighters had joined the fight against ISIS in Tikrit. Today, pockets of Islamic State fighters remain in Tikrit districts west of the Tigris River. Security officials said the small militant cells occasionally fired mortars from Sunni neighborhoods where many of the evictions have occurred. Hussein Ahmed Khalaf, director of the Shahama camp, said none of the 345 evicted families — 1, 111 people — had been permitted to return home. All will undergo security screenings to determine their fates, he said. Several of those evicted said security forces had confiscated their cellphones and interrogated them about family members’ ties to the Islamic State. They said they had not been told when, or whether, they would be allowed to return home. Several acknowledged that fathers or sons had joined ISIS, but they insisted that they supported the Iraqi government. They said their children had been removed from school and compelled to endure a harsh existence in the forlorn Shahama camp. “What is the guilt of my children? They don’t know anything about Daesh,” said Eman Khalil Hamad, 34. She said she and her seven children had been evicted and their home demolished to punish her husband, an Islamic State fighter she said she had not seen for months. Ms. Hamad said the family had suffered under the Islamic State’s harsh social codes. But now, she said, she was abused by security forces who slapped and insulted her as she was forced onto a military truck this month. Hussein 55, a Sunni Muslim tribal sheikh and a commander of a Sunni militia force that helped restore Tikrit to government control, said collective punishment was counterproductive. “It will only turn people away from the government and strengthen Daesh,” said Mr. Gibory, who wore combat fatigues with military insignia of the popular mobilization forces — the collective name for militia forces in Iraq. He said authorities should use “social rehabilitation” to convince families of Islamic State members that “Daesh is more dangerous than a nuclear bomb. ” “We are tribal people,” Mr. Gibory said. “We should turn to dialogue rather than dragging women and children from their homes. ” Mr. Musa, the father of the ISIS fighter, said he felt betrayed by his government. He said he had alerted the tribal sheikh in his village, on Tikrit’s west side, after his son joined the group, and disavowed both his son and the Islamic State. The sheikh signed and stamped a letter attesting to Mr. Musa’s innocence. But the security forces who evicted him refused to read the document, Mr. Musa said, clutching the worn letter inside his camp tent. Hadia Ibrahim, 44, a mother of 11 children, said two of her sons — one an Iraqi police officer — had been killed by the Islamic State. But she said she and her four daughters were now confined to the Shahama camp after her husband joined ISIS in 2014, she said. When security forces descended on her home three weeks ago, Ms. Ibrahim said, they told her, “You are the family of Daesh — leave!” Mr. Hamad, the first deputy governor, said evicted families ultimately might be moved to other areas, or even other provinces. “That is to be determined by security agencies,” he said. Some families with Islamic State relatives have fled Salahuddin Province altogether to avoid evictions, Mr. Hamad said. “Those people,” he said, “will never be allowed to come back. ”

A Facebook post suggests that China has created the new coronavirus in order to kill 1% of its population.

@AJENews @AJEnglish We stand united with France, Islamic monsters will fry in hell. Islam brings nothing but evil, and death, ban it

Ukrainian experts and the government do not serve the interests of the Ukrainian people, they serve the American [energy] interest. The latter wants to sell liquefied gas, to worsen the situation in Europe and to put it on its knees using gas and political methods. And in order to accomplish this they have lit up Ukraine [with the Euromaidan revolution in 2013-2014] and have divided the European continent.

PARIS — A Bastille Day fireworks celebration was shattered by death and mayhem Thursday night in the southern French city of Nice when a large truck barreled for more than a mile through an enormous crowd of spectators, crushing and maiming dozens in what France’s president called a terrorist assault. It came eight months after the Paris attacks that traumatized the nation and all of Europe. Officials and witnesses in Nice said at least 84 people, including children, were killed by the driver of the rampaging truck, who mowed them down on the sidewalk. He was shot to death by the police as officers scrambled to respond on what is France’s most important annual holiday. Graphic television and video images showed the truck accelerating and tearing through the crowd, dozens of victims sprawled in its path, and the windshield of the vehicle. Municipal officials and police officers described the truck as full of weapons and grenades. “The horror, the horror has, once again, hit France,” President François Hollande said in a nationally televised address early Friday. He said the “terrorist character” of the assault was undeniable, and he described the use of a large truck to deliberately kill people as “a monstrosity. ” “France has been struck on the day of her national holiday,” he said. “Human rights are denied by fanatics, and France is clearly their target. ” Mr. Hollande, who only hours earlier had proclaimed the impending end of a state of national emergency on July 26, said that the measure would be extended by three months and that additional soldiers would be deployed for security. Prime Minister Manuel Valls said Friday morning that France would observe three days of national mourning, starting on Saturday. Flags will fly at at all government buildings. “We would like to tell the French people that we will never give in,” he said in a statement outside the Élysée Palace, in Paris. “We will not give in to the terrorist threat. The times have changed, and France should learn to live with terrorism. ” As French officials quickly concluded that terrorism was the likely motive and the scope of the slaughter grew clear, the use of a large commercial truck as the principal weapon of death raised new questions about how to prevent such attacks. The officials warned residents to stay indoors and canceled all further scheduled festivities in Nice, a seaside city of 340, 000, including a jazz festival and a concert on Friday night by Rihanna. “There are numerous victims,” said Brandet, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, on BFM Television. “It’s a tragic, exceptional situation. ” Witnesses described scenes of pandemonium, with conflicting accounts on social media, including a false report of in Nice. “We were enjoying the celebrations when we suddenly saw people running everywhere and tables being pushed down by the movement of panic,” said Daphne Burandé, 15, who was at a bar near the beach to watch the fireworks. “No one explained to us what was happening, and I heard some gunshots not very far away,” she said. “I waited at the bar for more information because I thought it was a false alert. But then, people were still running. ” There was no immediate claim of responsibility, and the identity of the driver was not immediately clear, but the newspaper Nice Matin reported early Friday that he was a Frenchman of Tunisian origin. Christian Estrosi, the president of the d’Azur region of France, which includes Nice, expressed outrage, sympathy and frustration in an interview with on Friday morning, pointedly noting previous attacks on a satirical newspaper in Paris in January 2015 the coordinated series of attacks in and around Paris in November that included a music hall, the Bataclan, among its targets and the attacks this year in Brussels. “Questions are raised,” he said. “As I try to comfort the families, I also try to contain my anger I can’t hide to you that I feel a deep anger. How is it possible in our country that, after everyone said there was a state of emergency, a state of war, we forgot it after Charlie Hebdo, and then there was the Bataclan. After the Bataclan, we forgot, and then there was Brussels. After Brussels, we forgot and there was Nice. ” “There are questions that need to be answered,” he said. Mr. Estrosi said that the families needed time to mourn, and added that it was “our duty” to support them. But he also asked how it was possible that an individual was apparently able to breach security, and he said that he expected an answer from Bernard Cazeneuve, the interior minister. “I don’t want to hear the usual, ‘We are going to carry out an investigation,’ ” he said. The attack amounted to a to a nation that was struggling to restore some sense of normalcy and had begun to drop its guard. Hours after Mr. Hollande said during Bastille Day festivities in Paris that “we cannot prolong the state of emergency eternally,” a massive white truck came crashing through in Nice. The main strip through Nice was littered with bodies, one after the other. “Whatever the nature of what happened in Nice, the threat of terrorism is particularly high,” Mr. Brandet, the Interior Ministry spokesman, said on the iTele television station. He added that security forces were on high alert in the area and in cities around France. Dozens of people were seriously injured, and many more were psychologically shocked, Mr. Brandet said. The region has activated a White Plan, put in place during the Nov. 13 Paris terrorist attacks that killed 130 people, to open all emergency rooms to receive victims, he added. The Islamic State, the militant group that asserted responsibility for the attacks in Paris, did not make any immediate claims for the assault in Nice. It typically takes the Islamic State several hours, and sometimes up to one and even two days, to assert responsibility for attacks in Western countries. It typically does so through its Amaq channel on the encrypted telephone app Telegram, which serves as the group’s news wire. However, as in the hours immediately after the Paris, Brussels and Orlando attacks, there was a now familiar celebration on channels run by groups that support the Islamic State, as well as on at least one channel affiliated with the group, also known as ISIS and ISIL. They cheered the carnage. On a channel created on Thursday, called the United Cyber Caliphate, run by a group that has previously tried to carry out cyberattacks in the Islamic State’s name, a message included a single word — France — followed by a smiley face. The channel of an Islamic State member, Aswarti Media, which has repeatedly been shut down and claims 1, 987 members, was posting the phrase “Allahu akbar. ” Yet another channel suspected of being for the Islamic State showed an image of the Eiffel Tower going up in flames. The attack in Nice took place just as the Euro 2016 soccer tournament had concluded. France had hosted the tournament, and the entire country had been on high alert. There had been reports that suspects linked to the attacks in Paris and the Brussels assault in March had planned an attack during the tournament. With tens of thousands of people gathered at stadiums and in designated “fan zones” during the games, the police and private security took extraordinary measures to try to secure the sites. It was difficult to know if the measures were successful or if in fact there were no plans to attack the soccer tournament. One question people will be asking is whether the security forces, as well as civilians, let their guard down once the tournament was over thinking that the danger had passed. Several witnesses spoke on iTele. A man who gave his name as Michel, working at the Voilier Plage restaurant in front of the Promenade des Anglais, said that around 10:30 p. m. a large white truck drove into a crowd that had gathered near the beach. “A huge number of people started running, then there was a lot of gunfire,” he said. Another witness who owns a restaurant nearby, whom iTele did not identify, said that when the truck plowed into the crowd, it “crushed everyone in its path. ” French television showed footage of a panicked crowd running from the scene. On Twitter, witnesses posted grim photographs of bodies lying in a pile on the asphalt.

Two U.S. senators from both parties are close to finalizing a bipartisan deal to shore up the health insurance exchanges created under Obamacare, the chamber’s top Democrat said on Thursday. The move, which Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said was “on the verge” of completion, would stabilize the market for individuals who buy their own insurance plans on the federal or state-based exchanges. The potential agreement comes after Republicans have repeatedly failed to carry out their years-long pledge to repeal and replace the 2010 Affordable Act, former Democratic President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare overhaul. Schumer said Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander, a Republican, and ranking Democrat Patty Murray had resurrected a bipartisan approach, which had been cast aside amid the latest near-vote on a repeal bill. Alexander and Murray had been working to protect the government payments made to insurers to help reduce medical expenses for low-income Americans enrolled in Obamacare. Alexander also wanted states to have more flexibility to design insurance plans under the program. “They both inform me that they’re on the verge of an agreement, a bipartisan healthcare agreement to stabilize markets and lower premiums,” Schumer said on the Senate floor on Thursday. The pact could buoy health insurance companies, which came out forcefully against the Republican repeal effort and have faced uncertainty since the November election of Republican President Donald Trump, who vowed to sink the law. While the majority of insured Americans receive coverage through their employers or government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, more than 10 million people have individual plans through the online exchanges, and about 11 million are expected to sign up next year. Most of these consumers receive income-based tax credits and subsidies to reduce costs. Insurers have filed their premium rates for 2018, many of which are expected to rise at least 20 percent because of uncertainty that the government will continue paying some of those subsidies. Despite those worries, insurers on Wednesday signed contracts with the government that will result in every U.S. county having at least one company selling Obamacare plans. Trump has signaled that his administration would take other action to unwind the law, and on Wednesday said he would sign an order next week allowing people to buy insurance coverage across U.S. state lines. Republican Senator Rand Paul, who has been pushing for the move, says Trump can do this by legalizing nationwide health associations that individuals could then join.

dr david duke and prof kevin macdonald on dukes overwhelming victory in the debate november at am dr david duke and prof kevin macdonald on dukes overwhelming victory in the debate today dr duke talked about his senatorial debate last night including the attempt by black lives matter activists to attack him and his police escort and the socalled moderator debating with him despite him being the target of attacks from all sides dr duke was judged the winner by of the respondents to the nbc online poll professor kevin macdonald then joined the show and talked about the significance of the debate and the election this is an amazing show that you dont want to miss our show is aired live at am replayed at et pm eastern and am eastern click on image to donate and please spread this message to others

A French priest was attacked in Avignon last Monday by a North African person, but there was no information in the media.

iQ media Clip Player

While (Chris Christie) talks about job creation, we dont see jobs being created in this state.

Grammy Winner Pink Graces the Cover of PEOPLE's Beautiful Issue with Her Two Kids

NEW DELHI: Companies having not less than 300 workers will soon be allowed to hire and fire workers without seeking prior government permission, with the labour ministry proposing changes to rules in a bill introduced in Lok Sabha on Saturday.The proposal, which was the bone of contention between the ministry and trade unions, is part of the Industrial Relation Code Bill 2020.Currently, only those industrial establishments with less than 100 employees are permitted to hire and fire their staff without permission of the government.The bill was introduced by labour minister Santosh Gangwar amid opposition from Congress and few other parties.The Industrial Relation Code Bill 2019 was introduced in Lok Sabha last year and subsequently sent to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Labour. This bill was withdrawn on Saturday.An earlier draft bill circulated by the labour ministry for discussion had also proposed the criteria that companies having not less than 300 employees can hire and fire without the government's permission. However, this provision faced stiff opposition from trade unions and was not included in the 2019 bill.Earlier this year, the Parliamentary committee also made a case of allowing companies having less than 300 workers to go for retrenchment of staff or closure without government permission.States like Rajasthan have already increased the threshold to 300 workers, which according to the labour ministry has resulted in an increase in employment and a decrease in retrenchment, the committee had pointed out in its report.With regard to the threshold, the government has proposed Section 77(1) in the The Industrial Relation Code 2020.According to the Section, the provisions of "this Chapter (lay-off, retrenchment and closure in certain establishment) shall apply to an industrial establishment (not being an establishment of a seasonal character or in which work is performed only intermittently) in which not less than three hundred workers, or such higher number of workers as may be notified by the appropriate Government, were employed on an average per working day in the preceding twelve months".Apart from this code, two others- Occupational Safety, Health And Working Conditions Code, 2020 and the Code On Social Security, 2020- were also introduced by the minister in Lok Sabha.Among others, Congress leaders- Manish Tewari and Shashi Tharoor- opposed the introduction of the three bills.Tewari noted these three bills are fundamentally changed versions of their earlier forms and urged the minister to withdraw them and hold wider consultations before introducing them.These bills are also a blow to the rights of workers, he added.With respect to the industrial relations code, Tharoor said it severely restricts the right of workers to strike and also allows state or central governments to amend the threshold for applicability relating to layoffs and retrenchment.In Lok Sabha, Gangwar said that over 29 labour laws have been merged into four codes and that one of them has already been passed.The Code on Wages Bill, 2019 was passed by Parliament last year.Gangwar noted that the government engaged in wider consultations over these bills with various stakeholders and that more than 6,000 comments were received online on the bills.These bills were later sent to a standing committee and 174 of its 233 recommendations have been accepted, the minister said.

The Senate confirmed Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to be the next administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, on the Friday before Congress leaves for a Presidents Day recess. [“As I come here to the floor: I chaired the committee, the Environment and Public Works Committee, on Scott Pruitt’s nomination,” said Sen. John Barrasso (R. .) in the minutes before the bipartisan vote that saw two Democrats joining the Republican majority, West Virginia’s Sen. Joseph Manchin and North Dakota’s Sen. Heidi Heitkamp. One Republican voted against the nomination, Maine’s Sen. Susan Collins. “I listened to six and a half hours of testimony,” Barrasso said. “I listened and read through responses that he gave to 1, 200 questions being asked of him. He gave thorough answers. Perhaps not the answer the Democrats wanted to hear but answers that I felt were responsive. ” Barrasso took the nomination out of his committee by invoking a special rule approved by the Senate parliamentarian office, because Democrats boycotted the committee’s vote on Pruitt, which robbed the committee of a quorum. The chairman said despite the opposition from Senate Democrats, Pruitt was an excellent choice to run the EPA. “He is a nominee who, as Attorney General in Oklahoma, protected the environment, worked to strengthen the economy, and stood up for state’s rights, which continues to be most crucial. ” Outsider businessman Sen. David Perdue (R. .) said 0n the Senate floor Pruitt is the key man for lifting the regulatory burden off the private enonomy. “Scott Pruitt will return some sanity to the EPA, which over the past eight years has overzealously issued thousands of regulations with little environmental benefit, all while ignoring the high economic cost,” he said. “I look forward to working with Mr. Pruitt and President Trump to scale back the EPA and provide farmers, businesses, and the American people with some relief after eight years of blatant overreach,” he said. Senate Democrats did not have the votes to defeat Pruitt’s nomination, but they exercised the option to use all 30 hours of debate allotted to each confirmation, as they have with most of the other nominees. To eat up the clock, Senate Republicans have extended the chamber’s sessions and scheduled votes in the early morning hours, if that was when the debate time was running out. When senators came to Capitol Hill Friday morning, they were armed with news that a judge ordered Pruitt to turn over thousands of emails as part of an Open Records Request by an Oklahoma television station. Minority Leader Sen. Charles Schumer (D. . Y.) held a press less than four hours before the vote, where he and other Senate Democrats demanded that the Pruitt confirmation vote be delayed until Feb. 27. Rhode Island Democrat Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse said the delay was necessary to fully understand Pruitt’s relationship with the industry figures in his home state. “Time will tell and facts will come out, but I believe our Republican friends will rue the day that they had this nomination rammed through the Senate on the very day that the emails were being litigated in Oklahoma, in order to get ahead of any . ” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R. .) — at his own press conference after Schumer’s — dismissed any calls for delay as more of the same. ”My overarching goal will be to lead in a way that our future generations inherit a better and healthier environment.” — Scott Pruitt, @EPA pic. twitter. — Senate Republicans (@SenateGOP) February 17, 2017, The Pruitt vote was scheduled for 1 p. m. but at 12:30 p. m. Sen. Al Franken (D. .) took to the floor to challenge the language used by Barrasso earlier in the day. Barrasso was making the point that Democratic tactics were not sincere. “These delays are all about obstruction,” the Wyoming senator said. “They’re all about denying President Trump his cabinet — that’s what this all about. It’s about pretending that their candidate, Hillary Clinton, didn’t lose the election in November. ” Franken said this characterization was a violation of Senate Rule XIX, which forbids senators from questioning the motives or impugning the character of another senator. This was the same rule Republicans used to call out and silence Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D. .) during the floor debate for Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ confirmation. Unlike Warren, Franken did not force a vote after the presiding officer denied his point of order. But Fraken did walk from his own desk in the back rows to the well of the chamber to hash it out with Barrasso and McConnell. Americans believe that a great country deserves safe drinking water, clean air, and a hospitable environment. That’s where @EPA comes in. pic. twitter. — Sen. Al Franken (@SenFranken) February 17, 2017, Barrasso was clearly ticked off, and Franken gestured with his index finger at Barrasso, saying that it was not right to say that the Democrats were acting as if Clinton won the election. Before the exchange between the two senators got more serious, McConnell told Franken that he had lost his sense of humor. This brought Franken to a . Then, smiling broadly, he told McConnell: “Don’t tell me Mr. Majority Leader that I have lost my sense of humor. That is not impugning my motives — that is impugning my career!” With the point of order resolved, Franken then made a motion requesting the debate on the Pruitt confirmation extend another 248 hours — through the recess. That vote went down on party lines, . Sen. John McCain (R. .) and Sen. Joseph Donnelly (D. .) were not at the Capitol. When senators return Feb. 27, they are scheduled to vote on the nomination of businessman Wilbur Ross for Commerce Secretary.

I don't want another bigot getting in my TL saying it's not abt race, when's the last time a white kid has been MURDERED by police #Ferguson

This is how it ends for Alex Rodriguez? With a whimper instead of an public relations war? Hard to believe. For the moment, let’s not. It is possible that Rodriguez — at 41 and having been, as he put it, “to hell and back” — talked himself into being “at peace” about walking away after Friday night’s game against Tampa Bay at Yankee Stadium. But after a long and tumultuous career fueled by what even amateur psychologists could positively diagnose as a chronic inner turbulence, we suspect this was merely acceding to the franchise’s wishes to move beyond him without stirring up memories of his contentious and litigious past. Four home runs short of 700, 18 shy of Babe Ruth, this and man, once photographed kissing his reflection in the mirror, is going to retire just because Hal Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman decided it was time? “Of course, I think I can play baseball,” Rodriguez said. “You always think you have one more hit in you. That wasn’t in the cards. That was the Yankees’ decision, and I’m at peace with it. ” All of that rang true except the last part. That is why no one should be surprised if another team reaches out in the next couple of weeks or for next season and Rodriguez’s tenure as a Yankees organizational adviser has the staying power of a Trump news cycle. Understand that the Yankees are great at selling history but are not exactly in the business of overdoing sentimentality. Cashman, above all, was once ready to run off Derek Jeter in the middle of a contract squabble. He was not about to yield to Rodriguez’s wishes for a steady diet of when he couldn’t produce as the designated hitter and the Yankees had finally come to grips with the recurrence of 1965. For those not versed in pinstriped lore: with the realization that their roster was old, broken down and overdue for disassembly. As rode the bench these last few weeks — “painful and embarrassing,” he said — and Manager Joe Girardi bristled at reporters’ questions of why, anyone who knows Cashman could imagine his hardening feelings about a player the Yankees welcomed back in 2015 after a suspension for being snared in the net of the Biogenesis drug scandal. Yes, Rodriguez was necessarily contrite and no longer a provocative clubhouse presence. More important, he produced, against all odds and expectations, on the way to 33 home runs. The image enhancement reached the point where the Yankees celebrated his 3, 000th hit with a commemorative day in September, an event unimaginable when Rodriguez was suing or defaming everyone but the talk radio host Mike Francesa in a attempt — wisely abandoned — to avoid suspension by Major League Baseball. But more than any singular story line, Rodriguez’s Yankees career was characterized by unpredictable twists and turns. By his special day, wouldn’t you know that his bat had slowed and the fastball had become an unhittable blur? His return season was nonetheless hailed as a triumphant character reconstruction. He was no longer an albatross with a capital A — until he resumed flailing away this season and the unsparing Cashman had to ask himself, besides $21 million in 2017, how much do we owe this guy? Rodriguez had no more leverage in New York, and what was the point of making a fuss? He went along tamely with the Yankees’ wishes and provided more behavioral assurance for any team that might seriously weigh his explanation on Sunday for why he couldn’t hit a lick after returning from time on the disabled list in May. “Mechanically, I never felt like I caught up,” he said, suggesting that it was more an issue of timing than the intervention of Father Time. If the phone doesn’t ring — a good possibility — then Rodriguez will at least wear the redemptive aura into his playing afterlife as he contemplates a continued association with the game. But who is naïve enough to think he won’t be burning for one last shot? “As far as 700, or any of those type of milestones, I would have had an unbelievable, fun time going after them,” he said, perhaps a flare to anyone in need of a marketing tool while playing out a lost season? What we can be certain of is that the timing of the departure from the Yankees’ bench — one night before Jeter and the 1996 World Series champions return to the Stadium to take another bow — was no coincidence. So many of Rodriguez’s machinations with the Yankees were painfully contrived, especially the $275 million deal that tethered him to the team past the point where the marriage was played out. Remember how word happened to get out during the 2007 World Series that Rodriguez was intending to leave the Yankees as a free agent? As a commodity, he had juice back then, the Yankees capitulated and the deal was officially announced on the very day baseball released the Mitchell report, detailing an entrenched steroid culture we would soon learn Rodriguez was part of. For timing so transparently tacky, it was easy to say, in the flurry of headlines to follow, that and the Yankees deserved each other. All due respect and good cheer aside, that part of the narrative will never change.

On Tuesday night, in a scenario that has only occurred four times in American history, the presidency was won by a candidate who lost the popular vote . Comment on this Article Via Your Facebook Account Comment on this Article Via Your Disqus Account Follow Us on Facebook!

The Forever 21 x Taco Bell Collection

Full UFO Disclosure Is Inevitable Nov 18, 2016 7 0 What is coming can’t be stopped. The truth is out there and we know it. While some believe that a partial disclosure of the truth on the UFO/E.T. phenomena will be pulled off, the reality is that any attempts to subvert or spin the truth of this monumental truth will ultimately backfire. “The truth is out there.” According to whistle-blower Corey Goode , the banking and political cabal (some call it the NWO) is bent on releasing the truth about the UFO and extraterrestrial existence, but have that truth spun in a way where this cabal continues to maintain it’s power. In the end, the would not serve the greater interests of humanity, as this cabal would still try to keep several of it’s methods of enslavement over humanity going. However, this scenario is extremely unlikely due to the amount of people who know the truth. It is also unlikely due to the kind of information that is continuing to come out regarding the existence of other beings in our universe. Credible Insiders Going back to late 2013, former Canadian Prime Minister and Defense Minister Paul Hellyer said in a TV interview with RT , that he knows for a fact that UFOs are real and that they’ve been visiting our planet for thousands of years. He also said that there are at least 4 different species that he knows of and that they want to help us create a peaceful world. He also said they have the technology to completely transform our world for the better. If there would be one interview to send to someone skeptical of this subject, this would be it. Paul Hellyer gave an eye-opening interview. In another interview that opened even more eyes was in early 2013 when former NASA Astronaut and Princeton Physics Professor Dr. Brian O’ Leary told the world: “There is abundant evidence that we are being contacted and that civilizations have been visiting us for a very long time…” In the interview he also discusses free energy technology that these beings use. Another famous quote from Dr. O’Leary regarding free energy technology is: “These concepts have been proven in hundreds of laboratories all over the world, yet never see the light of day. If the new energy technologies were set free world wide the change would be profound. It would affect everybody, it would be applicable everywhere. These technologies are absolutely the most important thing that have happened in the history of the world.” Another prominent figure who has openly spoken about the UFO and free energy reality is former NASA Astronaut Edgar Mitchell. Mitchell was brought back into focus a little over a month ago when Wikileaks revealed emails that Mitchell sent to John Podesta , chairman of the Clinton campaign. It is urgent that we agree on a date and time to meet to discuss Disclosure and Zero Point Energy, at your earliest available after your departure. My Catholic colleague Terri Mansfield will be there too, to bring us up to date on the Vatican’s awareness of ETI (Extraterrestrial Intelligence). Remember, our nonviolent ETI from the contiguous universe are helping us bring zero point energy to Earth. They will not tolerate any forms of military violence on Earth or in space. Though these are just three cases of well-known, credible insiders revealing the truth, there are literally thousands more that have come forward over the years. For further insider testimony, take a look at The Disclosure Project video where in 2001, over twenty military, intelligence, government, corporate and scientific insiders came forward and testified what they know about the UFO and E.T. subject. It Won’t Stop There As truths like this continue to come out, much of what we’ve been taught on this planet will need to be addressed and revised. Almost every area of our world has been compromised by this secret cabal. JFK put it best when he openly stated opposition to “secret societies, secret oaths and to secret proceedings.” As well as opposition to “a ruthless conspiracy…a highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.” Indeed, almost everything we see around us has been built on secrecy and lies. Full disclosure is more than just the truth about UFOs and other beings visiting our world. It is also more than the free energy technologies that have been intentionally suppressed. Full disclosure will also include learning about these “secret societies” that JFK talked about. It will include learning about how a group of “elites” controlled the media, the schools, the religions, the miltaries, the financial systems as well as controlling the weather (HAARP technology), controlling the food supply and attempting a mass eugenics project through genetically modified foods. It will also include learning about the subversion of the scientific method to push their destructive agenda into the health and medical fields. It will include revealing how pharmaceuticals have been used to numb and slowly degrade biological activity within the human body. Full disclosure will include learning about the use of chemical weapons on it’s own people through what is known as chemtrails. Even the CIA Chief has admitted they are engaging in such geoengineering practices. We could also call this stratospheric aerosol injection. Full disclosure will also reveal how the elite’s have stolen and have been abusing the global collateral accounts . These accounts were intentionally created to fund massive humanitarian projects and are the real reason JFK was murdered. Full disclosure will reveal the true history behind these accounts and all of the banks, governments (registered corporations) and other corporations (like the United Nations) that have been illegally using these accounts. We will also learn about how the 9/11 false flag is connected to these accounts. We will also learn about how our birth certificates have been turned into securities that are being traded on the New York Stock Exchange. We will also learn about how almost every “government” in this world is actually a registered corporation . We do not have governments running our country. We have masquerading corporations. We’ll also learn about mind control operations that have been used both on the public, as well as on certain politicians, bankers and celebrities. This is most commonly known as MK Ultra. We will also learn about the massive child-trafficking, pedophile ring that the elites have been involved in. Even so, there will still be much more that will be revealed. Full Disclosure Now While some want to create a partial disclosure, such a scenario is nearly impossible. The reason this is so is that there are many, many scientific, military, political and intelligence related people who know an incredible amount of information, but stay silent to either preserve their life or preserve their job. Once the door cracks open, we will see a few major figures come forth and reveal what they know. Once that happens, we will see the floodgates open. Dozens and then hundreds of people who know the truth on a wide range of topics, such as those listed above, will no longer have the threat of death held against them. They will be free to speak about what they know. The world is becoming more ready each day thanks to the internet and information like that contained in this article reaching even more people. The world is awakening to the truth and we know that we already have the technology to turn this planet into a paradise. We know that there are peaceful beings living on other planets and in other dimensions. This is reality. You can join the growing Facebook group who is pushing for full disclosure here . Lastly, take a look at the words from David Wilcock , NYT Best-Selling author, researcher, lecturer and UFO expert from just a couple days ago : “I will say that the fight for Disclosure and the defeat of the Cabal is now at a “Red Hot” level, based on multiple insider testimonies. The scope, power and speed of changes we might see are anyone’s guess, but it definitely appears that things are going to get a lot more interesting.”

October 30, 2016 In what is being described as another ‘bizarre’ attempt to sabotage her own campaign, Hillary Clinton has desecrated a series of beloved US symbols, including punching a bison, setting fire to the Stars & Stripes and spitting at Jerry Seinfield. The Presidential hopeful seems determined to make a series of unprovoked errors, not least of which was agreeing to Bill hosting a sleepover for a group of Girl Guides. Short of dressing the Statue of Liberty in a Burka, Mrs Clinton has lurched from one PR blunder to another. Commented one journalist: ‘The Presidential race is entering the final furlong and if Mrs Clinton was horse – and before you can say Benghazi – she’s gone from bookie’s favourite to an ingredient at the local glue factory’. Having already become the unwitting focus of various health scares and FBI investigations, Mrs Clinton’s campaign is as orderly as a Marx Brothers movie. Her lead in the polls has been cut as video emerges of her lighting a cigar with a rolled up Bill of Rights, then proceeding to take a dump on the White House lawn. Hillary’s erratic behaviour has seen her sing the Star-Spangled Banner in Korean, dress as Oprah Winfrey for Halloween and pebble-dash Mount Rushmore. Remarked a flummoxed advisor: ‘She keeps doing the unthinkable – like making Donald Trump electable’. Share this story...

What next? Under a Sacramento, California program, public housing residents are getting FREE zip cars .We now have pretty much everything free for people living in government housing free phones, free food, free debit card loaded with money, low-cost housing and now a car to use to zip around in Oy vey!It s no wonder refugee from all over the world want to come to the US. We have the MOST GENEROUS FREEBIES!This program was funded by a grant from the state of California. It s basically a Rob Peter to Pay Paul program The program is funded through a $1.3 million grant from the California Air Resources Board using cap-and-trade funds that businesses pay to offset their carbon emissions. This should be interesting Residents can use the cars on a first come, first served basis. They will be limited to three-hour windows three times per week.Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said the cars will help people get to doctors appointments, job interviews and school.Residents at three public housing areas now have a mini-fleet of free Zipcars to make their way around Sacramento.On Friday, Sacramento launched a pilot program that put eight shared electric Kia Souls at public housing sites. Up to 300 residents can apply for on-demand access to the vehicles, with no charge for maintenance, insurance or juicing up the battery.The program is funded through a $1.3 million grant from the California Air Resources Board using cap-and-trade funds that businesses pay to offset their carbon emissions.Local leaders said it will provide green transportation options to disadvantaged areas where even simple tasks like getting groceries can be a challenge. Not having a car it can be a real strain to get places safely, said Thomas Hall, spokesman for the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District, which is running the program in partnership with car-share company Zipcar and other governmental agencies.The cars are owned and maintained by Boston-based Zipcar, which has car-sharing operations in dozens of cities and on college campuses. Two cars are located at each of four sites: Alder Grove Housing Complex off Broadway, Edgewater apartments downtown, Mutual Housing at Lemon Hill in south Sacramento and the Sacramento Valley Station.READ MORE: SACRAMENTO BEE

John Stamos gets engaged to Caitlin McHugh at Disneyland

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.

The West has unleashed a war in Syria to send the Daesh fighters to conquer Russia.

Cover Story: Meghan Markle, Wild About Harry!

"Almost all of the polls that have come out suggest that I am a much stronger candidate against the Republicans than is Hillary Clinton."

The vast majority of interactions between police officers and civilians end routinely, with no one injured, no one aggrieved and no one making the headlines. But when force is used, a new study has found, the race of the person being stopped by officers is significant. The study of thousands of episodes from police departments across the nation has concluded what many people have long thought, but which could not be proved because of a lack of data: are far more likely than whites and other groups to be the victims of use of force by the police, even when racial disparities in crime are taken into account. The report, to be released Friday by the Center for Policing Equity, a New think tank, took three years to assemble and largely refutes explanations from some police officials that blacks are more likely to be subjected to police force because they are more frequently involved in criminal activity. The researchers said they did not gather enough data specifically related to police shootings to draw conclusions on whether there were racial disparities when it came to the fatal confrontations between officers and civilians so in the news. The study’s release comes at a particularly volatile time in the relationship between the police and minority communities after fatal police shootings of men this week in Louisiana and Minnesota prompted widespread outrage. Portions of the episodes, both captured on video and released publicly, have intensified calls for police reform as many departments across the nation have been slow to deploy body cameras or to mandate changes in officer training standards after the deaths of a number of at the hands of police officers in the past two years. activists who have demanded greater police accountability since the 2014 fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. set off days of rioting, said Thursday that the study was critical to the conversation, but far from surprising. “It’s kind of like, ‘Is water wet? ’” said Aislinn Sol, organizer of the Chicago chapter of Black Lives Matter. “But what we gain with each study, each new piece of information is that we are able to win people over who are on the fence. The evidence is becoming overwhelming and incontrovertible that it is a systemic problem, rather than an isolated one. ” The organization compiled more than 19, 000 incidents by police officers representing 11 large and midsize cities and one large urban county from 2010 to 2015. It is the sort of data the Obama administration and the Justice Department have been seeking from police departments for nearly two years, in many cases, unsuccessfully. The report found that although officers employ force in less than 2 percent of all interactions, the use of police force is disproportionately high for — more than three times greater than for whites. The study, “The Science of Justice: Race, Arrests, and Police Use of Force,” did not seek to determine whether the employment of force in any particular instance was justified, but the center’s researchers found that the disparity in which were subjected to police force remained consistent across what law enforcement officers call the continuum — from relatively mild physical force, through baton strikes, canine bites, pepper spray, Tasers and gunshots. “The dominant narrative has been that this happens to because they are arrested in disproportionate numbers,” said Phillip Atiba Goff, a founder and president of the Center for Policing Equity, based at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “But the data really makes it difficult to say that crime is the primary driver of this. In every single category, the disparity persists. ” The study found that the overall mean rate for all black residents was 273 per 100, 000, which is 3. 6 times higher than the rate for white residents (76 per 100, 000) and 2. 5 times higher than the overall rate of 108 per 100, 000 for all residents. For those who were arrested, the mean rate of use of force against blacks was 46 for every 1, 000 arrests, compared with 36 per 1, 000 for whites. The Obama administration has been nudging police departments to adapt tactics and to fix broken relationships with poor and minority communities across the nation, which typically experience far more intensive policing because of what are frequently higher crime rates. But because police departments often refuse to release data that would illustrate such trends, the federal government has had a difficult time in determining whether police departments are employing force less often. The federal government cannot generally compel police departments to hand over such material, and many local agencies say they do not require officers to submit reports. Other departments say they lack the resources to collect such information, and others acknowledge privately that they fear that the release of their data would subject them to unwanted scrutiny from the public and the federal government. But when the Justice Department has had the ability to review records, it has found evidence of abuse. In Seattle, federal investigators found that one out of every five episodes had been excessive. In Albuquerque, the Justice Department determined that most police shootings from 2009 to 2012 had been unjustified. Researchers for the center said Thursday that the compilation of the material after years of failed efforts to determine whether racial bias was present represented a significant success. The data is so closely held by police departments that the agencies that cooperated with the project did so anonymously. Though the 12 municipalities that provided data were not named, they represented a large urban county in California and 11 cities spanning the nation with populations that range from less than 100, 000 to several million, with an average population of 600, 000. The center said that given the diversity of the municipalities — six are predominantly white, one is predominantly black or Latino, and five have populations in which no single racial or ethnic group represents 50 percent or more of the population — that the findings are likely to hold true for most other cities. Cameron McLay, the police chief of Pittsburgh, said his agency had been among those to share its data. He said use of force by his officers had decreased in recent years, but acknowledged that there remained concerns about disparities in use of force when it came to . “We are responsible for not just bringing down the crime rate, but for making people feel safe in their communities,” he said.

LIMA, Peru — A former Peruvian president is a fugitive, charged with taking bribes. In Colombia, prosecutors say its president’s campaign accepted dirty money. And intelligence agents in Venezuela arrested journalists and researchers looking into scandals there. Latin America’s biggest corruption scandal is shaking the continent’s political establishment. It can all be traced back to Odebrecht, the Brazilian construction company, which has built major projects throughout the region and late last year settled with the United States, Brazil and Switzerland for up to $4. 5 billion under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for an elaborate bribe scheme involving $800 million in payoffs in exchange for lucrative contracts. It was the largest anticorruption settlement in history. Prosecutors said the company paid bribes on 100 projects in more than a dozen countries, from Mexico to Angola, in one case buying a local bank branch to hide the transactions, and even opening a division specifically dedicated to payoffs. Throughout Latin America, the company built bridges, dams, power plants, roads and stretches of a highway to link Brazil and Peru that went more than four times over budget. Nearly three years of investigations have resulted in 77 Brazilian Odebrecht executives signing plea deals, and the company’s former chief executive, Marcelo Odebrecht, is in prison. Now the charges are cascading across the region. “Once you start opening these cases, it’s a Pandora’s box — it could go on for years,” said Shannon K. O’Neil, an analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations. Yet she called it a positive development for the region, showing “the anticorruption movement in Latin America is gaining ground. ” Perhaps the most spectacular case so far involves Alejandro Toledo, the president of Peru from 2001 to 2006, and a wanted man since a judge issued an arrest warrant last week on charges that he had accepted up to $35 million in bribes. Mr. Toledo’s whereabouts was unknown, and Peruvians have been captivated. On Sunday night, he surfaced on Twitter, where he posted a statement attesting to his innocence and denied that he was hiding out. “I never fled from anything. When I left Peru, there were no Odebrecht charges against me, but they call me a ‘fugitive,’ ” he wrote, saying nothing of his location. The current Peruvian president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, has asked President Trump to extradite Mr. Toledo should he be found in the United States. In Lima, the capital, the legacy of Odebrecht is hard to miss. A statue of Christ with arms outspread that overlooks the city’s coast was donated by the company. But Odebrecht has also reaped the benefits of its connections to the country. The Interoceanic Highway, for example, begun under Mr. Toledo’s administration, cost $4. 5 billion, four times over budget. The overruns were approved by an official who is also under investigation by prosecutors. Under Ollanta Humala, Mr. Kuczynski’s predecessor, Odebrecht began a $7 billion natural gas pipeline to connect the Amazon to the coast by cutting through the Andes Mountains. Another former president, Alan García, oversaw the bidding for a subway line in Lima, which Odebrecht won and constructed. If Mr. Toledo is apprehended and convicted, he would be the second Peruvian president behind bars, after Alberto K. Fujimori, the country’s former dictator, who was convicted of human rights abuses. “For Peru, like any other country, even the possibility of having two presidents as prisoners is an embarrassment,” Marisol Pérez Tello, the country’s justice minister, said in an interview. But she added, “I think this is an important moment to think about our ability to institutionalize the fight against corruption. ” Farther north, in Colombia, leaders were on the defensive as prosecutors said they had evidence that Odebrecht had donated $1 million to President Juan Manuel Santos’s campaign in 2014. Speaking to reporters last week, the country’s attorney general said a former lawmaker, Otto Bula, had funneled Odebrecht money through an intermediary to the campaign. Mr. Bula is currently under arrest on charges of having paid about $4. 6 million in bribes for various projects in Colombia, including a road linking the country’s interior to the Magdalena River and Caribbean highway known as the Ruta del Sol. Mr. Santos had said he did not do anything wrong and is interested in a full investigation of the case. Roberto Prieto, Mr. Santos’s campaign manager, said in a statement last week he had not met Mr. Bula, “not even for a coffee. ” Investigators are also looking into dealings involving other politicians’ campaigns, including Oscar Iván Zuluaga, a candidate for president in the 2014 election. Ivan Garzón, a political scientist at Colombia’s University of La Sabana, said Odebrecht had shown how easy it was to hijack the country’s elections for its own gain. “It shows that the problems of exorbitant campaign costs, ones so high the candidates are ready to make a pact with the devil,” he said. In Venezuela, the authorities seem to be taking a different tack toward the revelations: cracking down on outsiders trying to investigate them. Hugo Chávez, the former president of Venezuela, was one of Odebrecht’s principal patrons, steering $11 billion toward Odebrecht for infrastructure projects, including public housing, that undergirded his revolution. But many of the projects, from bridges to agricultural buildings, were never finished. On Saturday, two researchers from Transparency International and two Brazilian journalists were arrested by Venezuelan intelligence agents while looking into an unfinished bridge Odebrecht was meant to construct over Lake Maracaibo, one of the company’s biggest projects. Jesús Urbina, one of the researchers, said they were questioned but not harmed. The Brazilian journalists were later deported. Juan Guaidó, an opposition lawmaker involved in investigating bribes, said the country’s secret police, controlled by President Nicolás Maduro, fears any attempts to document the unfinished projects. “I think the images of the projects as they look now with nothing done would leave them looking naked,” he said of the government.

— Nathan Wurtzel (@NathanWurtzel) October 28, 2016 Let’s get to it: — Alex Leary (@learyreports) October 28, 2016 Of course. @learyreports @marcorubio There you go! Just got the first square in my "Predictable MSM Story Reaction" Bingo chart covered. Thanks, man! — Shane Styles (@shaner5000) October 28, 2016 Inevitable? Of course. But that doesn’t make it any less obnoxious. There it is- Republicans always "pounce" on scandal involving a Democrat. https://t.co/rMqilpw6pc — Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) October 28, 2016 When will the MSM get some new material? They should be concerned about being this predictable.

President Donald Trump on Thursday said he did not ask former FBI Director James Comey to back down on investigating Security Adviser Michael Flynn. [“No. No. Next question,” he said at a joint White House press conference, in response to reports that said Comey wrote a memo alleging that he did. In his first press conference since he fired Comey, Trump defended his decision to do so, saying he thought it would actually draw bipartisan praise. “When I made that decision, I actually thought that it would be a bipartisan decision. Because you look at all of the people on the Democratic side, not only the Republican side, that were saying such terrible things about Director Comey,” he said. Democrats had slammed Comey’s “poor” handling of the Clinton email investigation as recently as this month, but then later decried his firing as an attempt to stymie the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the elections and any collusion with Trump’s campaign. Trump said Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had recommended Comey’s firing due to his “very poor” performance at a Senate hearing earlier this month. “That was a poor, poor performance,” Trump said. “So poor, in fact, that I believe … that’s why the deputy attorney general went out and wrote his very, very strong letter. ” He referenced Comey’s misstatement that Hillary Clinton adviser Huma Abedin had forwarded “hundreds and thousands” of emails to her husband Anthony Weiner, when FBI officials said it was only a “handful” of emails. “I thought that was something that was terrible. We need a great director of the FBI. I cherish the FBI. It’s special,” he said. “We’re going to have a director who’s going to be outstanding, I’ll be announcing that director very soon. And I look forward to doing it. I think the people in the FBI will be very, very, very, very thrilled. Trump also vigorously denied there has been any collusion and said he respected Rosenstein’s decision to appoint Robert Mueller as a special counsel to take over the investigation. “I respect the move but the entire thing has been a witch hunt,” he said. “There is no collusion between certainly myself and my campaign, but I can always speak for myself and the Russians, zero. ” Trump said the issue is dividing the country and he wanted to get to work running the country. “We look forward to getting this whole situation behind us so that, when we go for the jobs, when we go for the strong military, when we go for all of the things that we’ve been pushing so hard and so successfully, including health care,” he said. “We need health care. We need to cut taxes. We’re going to cut taxes. If I get what I want, it’ll be the biggest tax cut in the history of our nation. And that’s what I want. It’s going to bring back companies. It’s going to bring back jobs. We lost so many jobs and so many companies,” he added. “There was no collusion. And everybody, even my enemies, have said there is no collusion,” he said. “So, we want to get back and keep on the track that we’re on, because the track that we’re on is . And that’s what we want to do is we want to break very positive records. ”

Show biz: Business and breakthroughs Exclusive: Vanessa Frank learns what makes or breaks members of film industry Published: 1 min ago Vanessa Frank About | | Archive Vanessa Frank has been involved in the film industry first as an actress and then in production, distribution and international sales. At 31, she directed her first film, “Let The Lion Roar,” starring Oscar nominated Eric Roberts, Stephen Baldwin, Kevin Sorbo and Grammy nominated singers Jaci Velasquez, Tim Rushlow and Jamie Grace. The film was an indie distribution success, with sales in 52 nations. Print About Film Talk Film Talk podcasts takes you inside the minds of some of the brightest filmmakers in the world. Learn from award-winning filmmakers as they teach the secrets to their success – the daily habits, routines and practices they employ to be the best in their industry. Guests include Oscar winners, Emmy Award winners, and Golden Globe winners. You can access the archive of all Film Talk podcasts here . Making independent films happen with Atit Shah Atit Shah is a film producer with five films releasing within the next 12 months, including “Jekyll Island” starring Oscar-nominated Minnie Driver, Emmy Award-winner John Leguizamo, AnnaSophia Robb and Ed Westwick, and “Money” starring Kellan Lutz. He is the CEO of Create Entertainment, and is represented by UTA. Breaking through as a female director with Melanie Aitkenhead Melanie Aitkenhead is the director of the reboot of “Mother, May I Sleep With Danger?”, Oscar-nominated James Franco’s retelling of the 1996 classic film of the same name. The film stars Tori Spelling, with a cameo by Franco and premiered on Lifetime. She’s also the director of the film adaption of James Franco’s popular novel “Actors Anonymous,” which explores the lives of young actors in Hollywood and stars Franco alongside Oscar-nominated Eric Roberts, Keegan Allen and Scott Haze. Building the franchise with Scott Mitchell Rosenberg Scott Mitchell Rosenberg is the CEO of Platinum Studios, one of the world’s largest independent libraries of comic book characters. Scott has played an integral role in creating one of the largest bibles in comic book history: the Platinum Studios “Macroverse,” which includes anchor titles such as “Cowboys & Aliens.” A constant innovator, Scott established Platinum in 1997, following a successful career as the founder of Malibu Comics, which sold to Marvel in 1994. At Malibu, Scott led many successful comic spinoffs into toys, television and feature films, including the billion-dollar film and television mega-hit, “Men in Black.” The art of entrepreneurship with Kent Speakman Kent Speakman is a producer and entrepreneur at the intersection of entertainment and technology. Examiner.com has called him “one of the most influential entrepreneurs in the entertainment industry.” He has won the iMedia Entertainment Marketing award for “Best Digital Campaign” and “Best Mobile Entertainment Startup,” and he was awarded Evan Carmichael’s “Top 100 Entrepreneurs to Follow” in 2013 preceded by the “iMedia Top Ten Digital Marketers” in 2009. Kent founded KONNECT – a digital, mobile and experiential agency that works with startups, brands and entertainment properties – before he co-founded FAMEUS, a new social network that connects members of the entertainment industry in innovative ways with a unique technology and that was listed on the Huffington Post’s “Top 10 Startups in LA” in 2015. Kent has an international network of professionals and influencers, having orchestrated a variety of film and technology projects in Canada, the US, the United Kingdom, Asia and India. He has produced hundreds of events across Canada and the US, whilst working with clientele ranging from A-list celebrities, to tech mobile startups. The Legal Aspect of Filmmaking with Dan Satorius Dan Satorius is a world-class entertainment lawyer, with a practice that focuses principally on transactions, intellectual property, business structuring and financing. Furthermore, he is a nationally regarded attorney on clearance issues including Fair Use. His clients include Academy Award, Emmy Award, Independent Spirit Award, and Peabody Award-winning independent producers, writers and broadcasters in the film and television industry. After graduating from film school and law school, Dan produced award-winning documentaries and short dramatic films. His graduate thesis film was selected as a finalist for a student Academy Award. In addition to practicing entertainment law for more than 25 years, Dan has been an adjunct professor at William Mitchell School of Law where he taught Entertainment Law. Dan is an active member of the American Bar Association’s Forum on the Entertainment and Sports Industries, Co-Vice Chair of the Film and Television Division, and a member of the Governing Committee.

@condeHRW @hrw Mate, could you remind Obame about this & ask him to let Asaange & Snowden go.

The following statements were posted to the verified Twitter accounts of U.S. President Donald Trump, @realDonaldTrump and @POTUS. The opinions expressed are his own. Reuters has not edited the statements or confirmed their accuracy. @realDonaldTrump : - The approval process for the biggest Tax Cut & Tax Reform package in the history of our country will soon begin. Move fast Congress! [0728 EDT] - I will be traveling to Florida tomorrow to meet with our great Coast Guard, FEMA and many of the brave first responders & others. [0734 EDT] - With Irma and Harvey devastation, Tax Cuts and Tax Reform is needed more than ever before. Go Congress, go! [0836 EDT] - China has a business tax rate of 15%. We should do everything possible to match them in order to win with our economy. Jobs and wages! [1022 EDT] - Crooked Hillary Clinton blames everybody (and every thing) but herself for her election loss. She lost the debates and lost her direction! [1047 EDT] - The “deplorables” came back to haunt Hillary.They expressed their feelings loud and clear. She spent big money but, in the end, had no game! [1052 EDT] -- Source link: (bit.ly/2jBh4LU) (bit.ly/2jpEXYR)

Video shows that the world is ruled by secret oligarch groups, currently based in Switzerland. That is why most of the international congresses takes place there and why Hitler did not attack it. His rulers lived there.

A North Dakota man was arrested Wednesday after having driven to Washington, DC with one goal in mind getting himself a new dog. But the crazed ammosexual didn t want just any dog he wanted Bo, the First Dog of the United States. Responding to a tip from the Secret Service, police tracked the would-be dog-napper down at a Hampton Inn near the Washington Convention Center.Scott D. Stockert, 49, of Dickinson, N.D., told police that he was armed, directing them to his pickup truck where he kept a 12-gauge pump shotgun and a bolt-action .22-caliber rifle. In addition, police found a billy club, a machete with a 12-inch blade, and 350 rounds of ammunition. He was arrested and charged with carrying a rifle or shotgun outside his home or business, which is illegal in the District of Columbia.After his arrest, Stockert told police that he was Jesus Christ, that he was the son of John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe, and expressed displeasure with the Affordable Care Act. Stockert or Jesus, depending on whether or not you believe him says that he was in town to a.) kidnap Bo and b.) to announce his planned run for President and a $99 per month insurance plan. You picked the wrong person to mess with, he told agents as he was arrested. I will f*ck your world up. On Friday at Jesus preliminary hearing, a judge ordered him released into a high-intensity supervision program pending a court date to be set later. Stockert is not permitted to possess any weapons real or imitation or to go near the White House or Capitol.Court documents don t specify why he wanted to kidnap the dog, but one thing is for certain Bo is safe for another day. As for Stockert s presidential campaign Well, he s already had more ideas than the entire Republican field combined. Maybe he can be the man to oust Trump as the frontrunner. After all, has The Donald tried to kidnap Obama s dog? Think about it, Trump fans.Featured image via JustJared

“This godless shrieking malcontent… This walking cadaver.” – Huma Abedin describing Hillary September 03, 2016 at 8:57 pm. Huma Abedin @ yahoo.Com wrote: Sorry for my late reply, Hassan. Yes, let me tell you about her. The woman is so odd, so starved for validation, so tormented and vain it is a constant surprise to me that anyone takes her seriously. Everyone on the team knows how unwell she is, but they’re more determined than ever to see her win. This woman that has a dozen seizures a day. This godless shrieking malcontent passed out in her medical van. This walking cadaver. She’s nonfunctional. Hassan, nobody cares. We sober her up for speeches and indulge the press corps with cheap sentiment. The first female president. The last glass ceiling, etc. They trip over themselves lining up behind her. Surely they know it is not her they’re getting. It’s the one in the corner, the quiet helper, your sister Huma. You asked me once how I did it. How did I take the castle? Hassan, I didn’t take it, they gave it to me. Yes, there was a cost. I will admit, subjecting myself to AW (Anthony Weiner) and WJC (William Jefferson Clinton) is mortal torture. But I do it gladly, brother, everything they ask of me, however sick and depraved. I do it, and I smile, rejoicing at the thought of whose glory I serve.” “…whose glory I serve.” Folks, she’s not talking about serving the living God. She’s serving Alah, AKA the devil. Huma is revealing her motives, her long game, in her service to Hillary Clinton. She is crawling into power to hand us over to islam. A friend who is deeply connected and has followed Huma closely for a number of years told me this morning that Huma is slated for a very powerful position in our government if Hillary wins. This makes sense when considering the Appointments Obama made during his presidency. ♞

Because George Holding doesnt live in the congressional district hes running for, he doesnt experience the same things that we are all experiencing.

“@WSJ: “The paper will continue because they didn’t win.” #CharlieHebdo vows to continue publishing. Good for them. We must not let them win

Politics Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair says UK voters ‘have to build the capability to mobilize and to organize’ against Brexit. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair says Britain should keep its “options open” on whether or not to leave the European Union until after Brexit talks with the bloc are completed. During an interview on Friday with BBC Radio 4's “Today” program, Blair described the EU referendum as “a catastrophe” and said UK voters should be given the option of a second EU referendum. Britain should not withdraw from the EU until it becomes clearer how Brexit would impact UK’s economic, social and cultural future, Blair said. "The bizarre thing about this referendum is that we took a decision but we still don't know the precise terms,” he said. “There’s got to be some way, either through parliament, or through an election, possibly through another referendum, that people express their view.” The former premier, who was in office from 1997 until 2007, said it should be possible for the public to switch their verdict if it becomes clear the alternative negotiated by Prime Minister Theresa May is going to be worse. Blair’s argument contrasts sharply with that of May, who has repeatedly said that “Brexit means Brexit” and that she’ll respect the referendum result. Blair had argued that Britain should stay in the EU before the referendum. Economic growth in the UK is expected to slow significantly next year, due to uncertainty over of the Brexit vote. Experts have warned that leaving the EU will severely hurt London’s position as a financial hub, unless the UK decides to keep its access to the single EU market by loosening its stance on immigration. If the UK loses its access to the EU’s single market, the resulting increase in the costs of doing business and exporting to the EU would hurt Britain’s competitive position in Europe. Loading ...

"As governor, in the face of partisan attacks, (Charlie Crist) had the courage to save jobs and lead his state into economic recovery."

Mike Pence tweeted about how he was looking forward to attending a Colts game with his wife Karen today. His excitement was quickly extinguished, however, by the unpatriotic behavior of the Indianapolis Colts, who ve put their social justice causes before honoring our flag and our great nation.Looking forward to cheering for our @Colts & honoring the great career of #18 Peyton Manning at @LucasOilStadium today. Go Colts! pic.twitter.com/C3aCYUNpqG Vice President Pence (@VP) October 8, 2017Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen left Sunday s Indianapolis Colts game against the San Francisco 49 ers after several players on the 49 ers team reportedly took a knee during the national anthem.Immediately following the national anthem, Pence tweeted: I left today s Colts game because @POTUS and I will not dignify any event that disrespects our soldiers, our Flag, or our National Anthem. I left today's Colts game because @POTUS and I will not dignify any event that disrespects our soldiers, our Flag, or our National Anthem. Vice President Pence (@VP) October 8, 2017Pence later tweeted, At a time when so many Americans are inspiring our nation with their courage, resolve and resilience, now more than ever, we should rally around our Flag and everything that unites us. now, more than ever, we should rally around our Flag and everything that unites us Vice President Pence (@VP) October 8, 2017Vice President Pence was quick to defend the players right to free-speech but suggested that he doesn t think it s too much to ask NFL players to respect the Flag and our National Anthem.While everyone is entitled to their own opinions, I don't think it's too much to ask NFL players to respect the Flag and our National Anthem Vice President Pence (@VP) October 8, 2017Finally, Vice President Pence tweeted a picture of he and his wife Karen standing proudly for our national anthem from the stands of the Colts Lucas Oil Arena:We were proud to stand with all our @Colts for our soldiers, our flag, and our National Anthem pic.twitter.com/mkZiKMkPDD Vice President Pence (@VP) October 8, 2017It looks like VP Pence and President Trump are not alone in their opinions about the NFL players who continue to disrespect our flag. Public opinion about the NFL and its players has taken a huge hit since President Trump tweeted about his disgust for the lack of respect the players have shown for our flag. NFL ratings continue to be in the basement.Sporting News The alarming fall in NFL TV ratings this season is partly because of fan anger over on-field protests by Colin Kaepernick and other players of the American flag/national anthem, according to pollster Rasmussen Reports.Nearly one-third (32 percent) of adults say they re less likely to watch NFL game telecasts because of the Kaepernick-led player protests against racial injustice, according to Rasmussen s telephone/online survey of 1,000 American adults conducted Oct. 2-3.Only 13 percent said they were more likely to watch an NFL game because of continuing protests by Kaepernick and supporters such as Antonio Cromartie of the Colts (who was cut only two days after raising a fist during the playing of The Star-Spangled Banner in London on Sunday).

Washington (CNN) Even before the debris from the Paris terrorist attacks was swept away, politicians began sounding the alarm that Syrian refugees could be a national security threat to the United States. The issue has dominated the U.S. political conversation during the week since gunmen and suicide bombers terrorized Paris on a Friday night. All Republican presidential candidates called on President Barack Obama to renege on his pledge to admit 10,000 refugees fleeing Syria's brutal civil war into the U.S. and argued instead for a full stop, fearing terrorists could infiltrate their ranks. Thirty-one governors have declared Syrian refugees unwelcome in their states and on Thursday the House passed a bill to bar refugees from Syria and Iraq from entering the U.S. Nearly 50 Democrats joined 242 Republicans to pass the bill, which the White House has threatened to veto. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican presidential candidate, suggested the U.S. only accept Christian refugees . Ben Carson, another candidate, likened refugees to "rabid dogs" threatening the neighborhood. But those responses ignore one very important fact: the refugee program is quite simply the toughest way for a foreigner to legally enter the United States. There are other security gaps that would be easier for would-be terrorists to exploit. Were any of the Paris attackers refugees? As of now, none of the Paris attackers have been confirmed as having entered Europe as refugees. In fact, most of the Paris attackers were European citizens born in France or Belgium. Two of them appear to have entered Europe through Greece although it doesn't appear that they came in through a refugee program. Perhaps more importantly, the European refugee admission system is dramatically different from the U.S. system for Syrians, in large part because the U.S. is geographically separated from Syria. The U.S. has the opportunity to do far more vetting before refugees arrive on their shores. How does a refugee get into the U.S.? Refugees must undergo an 18- to 24-month screening process, minimum, that the United Nations' refugee arm oversees. And that's before individual countries even begin to consider a refugee's application and conduct their own additional interviews and background checks. The screening process generally includes multiple interviews, background checks and an extensive cross-referencing process that tests refugee's stories against others and accounts from sources on the ground in their home country. Throughout that process, U.N. officials and local government officials in temporary host countries like Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon look to determine the legitimacy of asylum seekers' claims and ensure that they meet the criteria of a refugee, including that they are not and have not been involved in any fighting or terrorist activities. Refugees also have their retinas scanned and have their fingerprints lifted. Christopher Boian, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, called the process "stringent" and "long and complex." "If at any stage in that process there is ever the slightest shadow of a doubt or the slightest whisper of suspicion, they are removed from the process. That is that," Boian said. "The very, very few Syrian refugees who are accepted and referred for consideration for resettlement in another country -- there simply is no more closely scrutinized population on earth these days," he added. That's because other countries have so far pledged to resettle just 159,000 of the more than 4 million Syrian refugees -- setting an extremely high bar for resettlement. And refugees aren't automatically considered for resettlement: only the most vulnerable refugees -- such as torture victims, female heads of household, people with serious medical conditions and other especially vulnerable groups. So after they go through that process by the U.N., the U.S. does an additional screening? That's right. After a rigorous screening process and several interviews carried out by the U.N. refugee agency, refugees the U.S. agrees to consider for resettlement have to undergo an additional interview, medical evaluation and security screening. According to one U.S. government official, there's an additional layer of vetting that's specific to Syrian applicants, including special briefings for interviewers and information from the U.S. intelligence community. The security screening involves checks against several government agencies' databases and terrorist watch lists using biographic and biometric information. It's a process Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman, recently called "the most stringent security process for anyone entering the United States." And Syrian refugees get an additional, more targeted layer of screening involving the U.S. Intelligence agency, according to a government official. Sounds pretty rigorous. How does the refugee process stack up to other ways of getting into the U.S.? The refugee program is simply the toughest way for any foreigner to enter the U.S. legally. For most people, getting a tourist visa to enter the United States is much easier, but still requires an in-person interview and involves a typical background check. The process takes anywhere from a few days to a couple months. But there's an even easier way to get into the U.S. if you're a citizen of one of 38 mostly European countries, including France and Belgium. As a sign that the Obama administration agrees that there are gaps that need closing, one of the U.S. officials said, in the coming days the administration expects to announce plans for additional steps to be taken with European countries that participate in the visa waiver program. Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine who sits on the intelligence committee, said it "would be much harder" for a terrorist to get into the country through the refugee program than with a passport from one of the 38 countries in the visa waiver program. "(The refugee process) would take 18 months to two years. Under the visa waiver program, it could take 24 hours," King told CNN in a phone interview. "The target of our work should be strengthening the visa waiver program." "We do need to pay attention to whether the terrorists could infiltrate the refugee flow. I don't think it's something we should ignore, but the amount of vetting that goes on there already is very through," King added. So is that program getting strengthened? A bipartisan proposal to do just that is gaining momentum on Capitol Hill. Noting that 20 million people each year use the visa waiver program to visit the United States, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, said in a Thursday news conference that a bill she is proposing with Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Arizona, would help guard against terrorists trying to exploit the program. "Terrorists could exploit the program, could go from France to Syria, as 2,000 fighters have done, come back to France, use the visa waiver program and without further scrutiny come into the United States," said Feinstein, a senior member of the intelligence committee. The Feinstein-Flake bill, which is set to be formally introduced after Thanksgiving, would keep foreigners who've traveled to Syria or Iraq in the last five years from using the visa waiver program. It would also mandate fingerprinting for all travelers entering the U.S. from visa waiver countries and requires all foreigners from those countries to have a modern passport that has an embedded e-chip that is more secure and includes an individual's biometric information and other data. Flake, the bill's Republican sponsor, told reporters Thursday the refugee program could be strengthened to include better tracking of refugees once they arrive in the country, but said touted the rigorous process as something that shouldn't be a source of concern. "On the front end, it is a very thorough vetting that they get. So of all the things that we ought to be concerned about, that is not at the top of the list," he said.

In a U.S. Senate race rocked by allegations of sexual misconduct against Republican candidate Roy Moore, some women in his hometown said they were sticking by the embattled nominee while others said prayer would guide their votes on Tuesday. Caroll Norman, a retired middle school teacher in Gadsden, said she did not know if she would vote for a Democrat for the first time in her life or write in another name on her ballot. Perusing a candle shop downtown Monday evening, the Trump supporter said not even the president’s vocal backing of the embattled Republican nominee had swayed her. “I’ll have to pray about it and make a decision in the morning,” the 64-year-old Republican said. Reuters spoke to more than a dozen women in the religious, working-class city of about 36,000 people an hour from Birmingham. Gadsden landed in an unwelcome spotlight after multiple women came forward last month to accuse Moore of pursuing them when they were teenagers and he was a local prosecutors in his 30s. One accuser said he tried to initiate sexual contact with her when she was 14. Moore denounced the allegations as political attacks and refused to heed national Republicans’ calls to leave the race. Reuters has not independently confirmed any of the accusations. Norman said there were inconsistencies in the women’s stories, as well as in some of Moore’s responses. Nearby at a bus stop downtown, where Christmas music played from speakers on light poles, Republican Sara Teet, 35, said she also remained conflicted. “I just don’t know what to believe,” she said. “I don’t know what to do.” But at the Gadsden Mall, Republican Debbie Handy said she was voting for “the judge,” as many locals refer to Moore, a former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice. “I’ve known him a long time and he’d never have anything to do with those women,” Handy, 40, said. “He’s a man of integrity. He’s a strong Christian.” Handy said she also liked Moore because he supports Trump, who last year won 73 percent of the presidential vote in Etowah County, where Gadsden is the county seat. “Trump and Moore will bring America back to what it should be,” she said. Robin Gibson, 61, a store clerk and self-described liberal Democrat, said she knew one of Moore’s accusers and she believed the allegations against him. Her vote on Tuesday for Democrat Doug Jones would have nothing to do with thwarting Trump or trying to erode the slim margin Republicans hold in the Senate, she said. “This isn’t a race about Trump’s plans for our country. It’s about who represents my state,” Gibson said. Around town, where there were noticeably few campaign signs for either candidate, many voters echoed the sentiments of Pat Miller in the final hours of the race. “We’ve had CNN and the Washington Post and some fellas from New York City all over the place,” said Miller, 54, as she walked out of the Gadsden Variety Café with a bowl of hot chili. “All I can say is that we all can’t wait for this to be over.”

@AntonioFrench @shugnice It isn't a real march until the marchers are ARMED...

When supporters of the Democrat Party start using ads that appear to be inspired by Islamic acts of terror, you know they are not the party your parents and grandparents supported, and they re certainly not the party that most Americans want to be affiliated with. When the Latino Victory group released a disgusting video (see below) a couple of days ago, many thought that it was made to resemble terror attacks that have become all too common in European nations. Sadly, today, that concept of using a truck as a weapon to kill innocent people became a reality in New York City, as an Islamic terrorist driver used a rented Home Depot truck as a weapon to kill 9 innocent people and to injure dozens more.Note to Democrats: Creating a terror-inspired ad with a man chasing down innocent kids in a truck through their neighborhood is not funny, and it s definitely not a clever way to get people to vote for your candidate. According to FOX News Democratic candidate for Virginia governor Ralph Northam is not distancing himself from the controversial ad suggesting supporters of Republican candidate Ed Gillespie are seen as Confederates who attack minority children.The new opposition ad titled American Nightmare was released Monday by Democratic group Latino Victory Fund (LVF) and is scheduled to run through Election Day. The opposition ad shows minority children seemingly being chased by a driver in a pickup truck, decked out with a Confederate flag, a Gillespie for governor bumper sticker and a Don t tread on me license plate.The driver makes his way toward the scared children who shout, Run! Run! Run! when they see the truck. The ad concludes with a scene of a Charlottesville-like rally, with a narrator asking: Is this what Donald Trump and Ed Gillespie mean by the American Dream? The Latino Victory group tweeted the video that was so violent, that Twitter has now suspended their account. Here is what their tweet said:Ed Gillespie and Donald Trump promise the American dream, but can only deliver an American nightmare. No more. Vote @RalphNortham. #GameOnVA pic.twitter.com/mwpWXM47HZ Latino Victory (@latinovictoryus) October 30, 2017Northam s campaign told Fox News Tuesday that the ad was not shocking based on Gillespie s campaign. Independent groups are denouncing Ed Gillespie because he has run the most divisive, fear-mongering campaign in modern history, Northam campaign spokeswoman Ofirah Yheskel said in a statement to Fox News. It is not shocking that communities of color are scared of what his Trump-like policy positions mean for them. But Gillespie said the ad was an attack on his supporters, whom he calls good decent hardworking Virginians who love their neighbors. - FOX NewsMaking an ad that depicts a white man with a confederate flag flying from his pick-up truck, sporting an Ed Gillespie (Republican candidate for Governor) bumper sticker on the back, chasing minority kids around their neighborhood is not only sick, it is hateful and divisive. It s ironic that the end of the ad, the words REJECT HATE are flashed across the screen with a message asking, Is this what Donald Trump and Ed Gillespie mean by The American dream ?

@WesleyLowery @tasha_paige this is why we need diversity in the newsroom people

RT @_westwest_yall: Never forget the original relationship between the police and blacks... #wearetargets #Ferguson http://t.co/Hbd4J61Va7

Says Hillary Clinton won "health care for 8 million children."

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Britain and Ireland clashed over Brexit on Friday with Dublin saying it was not ready to allow talks to move on to trade issues next month and London ruling out the much longer transitional period preferred by its neighbour. The border between EU-member Ireland and Northern Ireland, which will be the UK s only land frontier with the bloc after its departure, is one of three issues Brussels wants broadly solved before it decides in December whether to move the talks onto a second phase about trade, as Britain wants. Meeting in Dublin, Britain s Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and his Irish counterpart Simon Coveney struck an amicable tone but remained far apart on several key aspects. Yes we all want to move onto phase two of the Brexit negotiations but we are not in a place right now that allows us to do that, Coveney said. We have very serious issues, particularly around the border, that need more clarity. He said Ireland s preference was that Britain as a whole would share the same regulations as the EU post-Brexit but if that was not possible, then London effectively needed to commit to allowing a tailor-made solution for Northern Ireland In the absence of that, from an Irish persecutive, there is a sense of jumping into the dark, Coveney said. Speaking before a meeting with his counterpart on the sidelines of a European Union summit in Sweden, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said Dublin would need those assurances written into the conclusions of phase one. What we want to take off the table before we even talk about trade is any idea that there would be a physical border, he told reporters. Once those parameters are set, then we d be happy to move onto phase two, provided the other issues are resolved as well. However Johnson said talks would have to move onto the next stage before the border issue could be resolved as many of the questions around it were bound up with Britain s future customs arrangement with the European Union. While he said London has absolutely no interest in seeing any kind of hard border, any room for compromise is complicated by the fact that his government are propped up by Northern Ireland s pro-Brexit Democratic Unionist Party, which responded on Friday by saying Dublin was trying to block the talks. It is clear now that the Irish government are fully signed up with the European establishment to thwart the referendum result in the United Kingdom to leave the EU, DUP MP Sammy Wilson said in a statement. Johnson added that he understood why Ireland wants a four to five-year post-Brexit transition period for Britain to allow businesses in Ireland time to adjust to any new arrangements, but said this was possible within a much tighter timescale.

Check Out Our Avengers: Infinity War Premiere Photo Gallery!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Tuesday nominated Neil Gorsuch for a lifetime job on the U.S. Supreme Court, picking the 49-year-old federal appeals court judge to restore the court’s conservative majority and help shape rulings on divisive issues such as abortion, gun control, the death penalty and religious rights. The Colorado native faces a potentially contentious confirmation battle in the U.S. Senate after Republicans last year refused to consider Democratic President Barack Obama’s nominee to fill the vacancy caused by the February 2016 death of conservative justice Antonin Scalia. The Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, indicated his party would mount a procedural hurdle requiring 60 votes in the 100-seat Senate rather than a simple majority to approve Gorsuch, and expressed “very serious doubts” about the nominee. Liberal groups called for an all-out fight to reject Gorsuch while conservative groups and Republican senators heaped praise on him like “outstanding,” “impressive” and a “home run.” Gorsuch, the son of a former Reagan administration official, is the youngest nominee to the nation’s highest court in more than a quarter century, and he could influence the direction of the court for decades. He is a judge on the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and was appointed to that post by Republican President George W. Bush in 2006. Announcing the selection to a nighttime crowd in the White House East Room flanked by the judge and his wife, Trump said Gorsuch’s resume is “as good as it gets.” Trump, who took office on Jan. 20 and has sparked numerous controversies, said he hopes Republicans and Democrats can come together on this nomination for the good of the country. “Judge Gorsuch has outstanding legal skills, a brilliant mind, tremendous discipline, and has earned bipartisan support,” Trump told an audience that included Scalia’s widow. “Depending on their age, a justice can be active for 50 years. And his or her decisions can last a century or more, and can often be permanent,” Trump added. Gorsuch is considered a conservative intellectual, known for backing religious rights and writing against euthanasia and assisted suicide, and is seen as very much in the mold of Scalia, a leading conservative voice on the court for decades. “I respect ... the fact that in our legal order it is for Congress and not the courts to write new laws,” Gorsuch said, as Trump looked on. “It is the role of judges to apply, not alter, the work of the people’s representatives. A judge who likes every outcome he reaches is very likely a bad judge, stretching for results he prefers rather than those the law demands.” A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the choice of Gorsuch was seen by the White House as a significant departure from Supreme Court nominations from the recent past, given that many justices have come from the eastern United States. Gorsuch lives in Boulder, Colorado, where he raises horses and is a life-long outdoorsman. The official said a screening committee helped in the selection process that included Vice President Mike Pence, White House counsel Don McGahn, chief of staff Reince Priebus and top strategist Steve Bannon. Gorsuch became the youngest U.S. Supreme Court nominee since Republican President George H.W. Bush in 1991 selected conservative Clarence Thomas, who was 43 at the time. Gorsuch was in the same 1991 graduating class from Harvard Law School as Obama. The selection of Gorsuch, who was on a list of about 20 judges suggested by conservative legal activists, unified Republicans in a way not seen since Trump’s Nov. 8 election victory, with even critics within the party such as South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham singing the nominee’s praises. Trump made his choice between two U.S. appeals court judges, Gorsuch and Thomas Hardiman of the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, according to a source involved in the selection process. The Senate confirmed Gorsuch for his current judgeship in 2006 by voice vote with no one voting against him. Democrats signaled it may not be easy this time. “Judge Gorsuch has repeatedly sided with corporations over working people, demonstrated a hostility toward women’s rights, and most troubling, hewed to an ideological approach to jurisprudence that makes me skeptical that he can be a strong, independent justice on the court,” Schumer said. Trump got the opportunity to name Scalia’s replacement only because the Republican-led Senate, in an action with little precedent in U.S. history, refused to consider Obama’s nominee for the post, appeals court judge Merrick Garland. Obama nominated Garland on March 16 but Republican senators led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell denied Garland the customary confirmation hearings and vote. “This is the first time in American history that one party has blockaded a nominee for almost a year in order to deliver a seat to a president of their own party. If this tactic is rewarded rather than resisted, it will set a dangerous new precedent in American governance,” Oregon Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley said. McConnell said on Tuesday he hoped the Senate would show Gorsuch “fair consideration and respect the result of the recent election with an up-or-down vote on his nomination, just like the Senate treated the four first-term nominees of (Democratic) Presidents (Bill) Clinton and Obama.” A rally outside the Supreme Court building staged by liberal groups drew hundreds of demonstrators against Gorsuch. Michael Keegan, president of the liberal advocacy group People for the American Way, described Gorsuch as an “ideological warrior who puts his own right-wing politics above the Constitution.” Gorsuch is the son of Anne Burford, the first woman to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She served in Republican President Ronald Reagan’s administration but resigned in 1983 amid a fight with Congress over documents on the EPA’s use of a fund created to clean up toxic waste dumps nationwide. Trump’s selection was one of the most consequential appointments of his young presidency as he moved to restore a conservative majority on the Supreme Court that had been in place for decades until Scalia died at age 79 on Feb. 13, 2016. Trump’s fellow Republicans hold a 52-48 Senate majority, meaning some Democratic votes would be needed to confirm his pick under current rules. Trump said last week he would favor Senate Republicans eliminating the procedural move that Democrats have promised, called a filibuster, for Supreme Court nominees if Democrats block his pick. Such a change has been dubbed the “nuclear option.” Trump has said his promise to appoint a conservative justice was one of the reasons he won the Nov. 8 presidential election, with Christian conservatives and others emphasizing the importance of the pick during the campaign. If confirmed, Gorsuch would expand the court’s conservative wing, made up of John Roberts, Anthony Kennedy Samuel Alito and Thomas. Kennedy long has been considered the court’s pivotal vote, sometimes siding with the liberals in key cases such as the June 2016 ruling striking down abortion restrictions in Texas. The court’s restored conservative majority likely would be supportive toward the death penalty and gun rights and hostile toward campaign finance limits. Scalia’s replacement also could be pivotal in cases involving abortion, religious rights, presidential powers, transgender rights, voting rights, federal regulations others. Gorsuch boasts Ivy League credentials: attending Columbia University and, like several of the other justices on the court, Harvard Law School. He also completed a doctorate in legal philosophy at Oxford University, spent several years in private practice and worked in George W. Bush’s Justice Department. Gorsuch joined an opinion in 2013 saying that owners of private companies could object on religious grounds to a provision of the Obamacare health insurance law requiring employers to provide coverage for birth control for women. As long as Kennedy and four liberals remain on the bench, the court is not expected to pare back abortion rights as many U.S. conservatives fervently hope. The Supreme Court legalized abortion in the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. In June, the justices ruled 5-3 to strike down a Texas law that restricted abortion access, with Kennedy and the liberals in the majority. The current vacancy is the court’s longest since a 391-day void from 1969 to 1970 during Republican Richard Nixon’s presidency. After Abe Fortas resigned from the court in May 1969, the Senate voted down two nominees put forward by Nixon before confirming Harry Blackmun, who became a justice in June 1970. Aside from that one, no other Supreme Court vacancy since the U.S. Civil War years of the 1860s has been as long as the current one. Trump may get to make additional appointments. Liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who Trump called upon to resign last July after she called him “a faker,” is 83 while Kennedy is 80. Stephen Breyer, another liberal, is 78. (Corrects disciple to discipline in paragraph 6)

We don t want to jump to any conclusions, so we ll just wait to find out if Victor Alonzo Majia Nunez is a legal US citizen (or not). For some strange reason, it always seems to take days, or even weeks for the media to find out whether or not the suspect in a crime is a legal US citizen A suspect is under arrest after police say a Roswell officer was shot at during a patrol early Friday morning.Officer Brian McKenzie was in the area of Old Roswell Road and Commerce Parkway when police say a passing vehicle fired a shot at the McKenzie s patrol car. He noticed a vehicle slow down and then heard what he thought was either gunfire or fireworks. He looked over and realized it was gunfire coming towards him, said Roswell police official Zachary Frommer.McKenzie was not hit.Frommer says McKenzie chased 21-year-old Victor Mejia Nunez, but the Riverdale man crashed the stolen SUV he was driving. Detectives have been speaking to him. He s been less than forthcoming so we don t know motive or anything like that, Frommer said.Frommer says in light of the attacks on police in Dallas, officers here were already on high alert. Then something like this happens and it just perks us up even more, Frommer said.Mejia Nunez is facing several charges, including aggravated assault on a police officer. He was in an SUV stolen out of Sandy Springs. Via: WSBTV

San Diego (Reuters) - Nine months after President Donald Trump took office, the first tangible signs of progress on one of the central promises of his campaign have appeared along the U.S. border with Mexico. A couple of miles (km) from the bustling Otay Mesa border crossing in San Diego, eight towering chunks of concrete and steel stand as high as 30 feet (9 meters) tall against the sky, possible models for what Trump has promised will one day be a solid wall extending the full length of the southern border, from California to Texas. Whether any of the eight different prototypes, constructed over the last month, become part of an actual wall remains highly uncertain. The U.S. Congress has so far shown little interest in appropriating the estimated $21.6 billion it would cost to build the wall. Still, border patrol officials on Monday welcomed the momentum on Trump’s pledge, which generated a groundswell of voter support that helped elect him to office. “Our current infrastructure is well over two decades old,” Roy Villareal, deputy chief patrol agent of the U.S. Border Patrol’s San Diego sector, said during a tour with media organizations on Monday morning. “Is there need for improvement? Absolutely.” Currently, 654 miles (1,052 km) of the 1,900-mile (3,058-km)border with Mexico is fenced, with single, double or triple fences. The second line of fencing in San Diego, about 18 feet (5.50 m) tall, has been breached nearly 2,000 times in the last three years, Villareal said. Even if Trump’s wall never gets funded, Villareal said, the border patrol might incorporate one or more of the new wall designs as it replaces worn sections of the existing fence. Six contractors from across the country were selected to build the eight prototypes, all of which will be completed this week. The builders paid attention to aesthetics in their bid to win lucrative contracts. One wall segment features deep-blue steel and another has a brick facade, standing in sharp contrast to the area’s existing border fence, a ramshackle structure of corrugated steel left over from the Vietnam War. In late November, a private company, which border patrol officials declined to name, will begin a 30- to 60-day process of testing the wall prototypes to determine how easy they would be to climb over or dig beneath. The final selection could be a combination of the prototype designs, Villareal said. While solid, concrete walls have a daunting presence, they might have an adverse effect on some border patrol activities, since agents would not be able to see potential crossers approaching the wall. “It’s not so much the size of the wall, it’s the ability to see whether it’s 10 people or 30 people with ... rifles,” said Rowdy Adams, a former border patrol agent who left the agency in 2011 after 30 years. “It’s important to see that and set your response plan in place.” Two of the eight prototypes have a see-through design. Environmentalists have warned that a solid wall would prevent wildlife, including a dwindling population of federally protected ocelots, from crossing. A concrete wall may also prove challenging to build without participation from some of the world’s largest concrete suppliers. Mexico’s Cemex and Switzerland’s LafargeHolcim told Reuters they were not participating in projects associated with the wall.

(This January 3 story was corrected to remove reference in paragraph 8 to ConocoPhillips, which is not an integrated oil company) By David Morgan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Big Oil could be in a unique position to protect its interests against a Republican proposal to tax imports, given that President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet is studded with oil champions sensitive to the risk of higher gasoline prices. Trump’s emerging leadership includes Exxon Mobil Corp Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson as secretary of state, former Texas Governor Rick Perry as energy secretary and Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as Environmental Protection Agency administrator. Trump himself has made no secret of his support for the energy sector. And in Congress, both Republicans and Democrats have close industry ties, including House tax panel chairman Kevin Brady, a Texas Republican whose district takes in the northern Houston suburbs. House Republicans want to adopt a sweeping tax reform that would sharply reduce tax rates for corporations and end the taxation of U.S. corporate overseas profits. But a provision known as border adjustability is stirring up controversy. Though intended to boost U.S. manufacturing by exempting export revenues from tax, the provision worries some industries because it would also tax imports. Because U.S. oil refiners import about half the crude oil they use to make gasoline, diesel and other products, analysts say the change could lead to higher gasoline prices and potentially undermine economic growth. Integrated oil companies such as Exxon, Chevron Corp, BP Plc and Royal Dutch Shell Plc could also be hit, depending on whether they are net importers. But the industry’s allies would likely move to soften any rough edges, analysts say. “I don’t see this mix of leadership figures in the House, Senate and the White House, doing something that has the effect of raising gasoline prices,” said Peter Cohn, an energy analyst with Height Securities, a Washington-based investment firm. The danger is that a move to protect the oil refiners could open the door to assistance for other industries, including retailers and automakers, which would also face higher costs if no longer able to deduct the cost of imports from their taxable income. Such a knock-on effect could prevent border adjustability from raising an expected $1 trillion in revenues to help pay for lower tax rates over the next decade. “We hope that raising these concerns early in the process will allow members of Congress to consider the issues carefully,” Chet Thompson, president of the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers trade group, said in a statement. Brady said earlier this month that his committee was sensitive to the impact on specific businesses and “listening very closely to how we can make sure we smooth that out.” Moreover, some economists dismiss industry worries about higher import costs, saying the dollar’s value would rise in response to such sweeping tax changes and ultimately reduce the cost of imports. Currency markets would adjust to higher oil prices by lowering the dollar value of crude, they predict. “This argument by the oil industry is, frankly, all wrong,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, who now heads the American Action Forum think tank. “Refiners are going to be basically held harmless. They’ll have a lower dollar price of oil. Net cost is the same. And they go about their business. I’m unsympathetic,” he added. Height Securities’ Cohn said Trump and his advisers could look for ways to soften any blow to refiners and their customers: “Trump doesn’t want to have refineries closing on his watch.” Oil already benefits from several tax code provisions in place for decades that would be eliminated under the House Republican plan. But they stand to gain more than they will lose. For instance, an existing tax deduction for domestic production lets oil producers shave down their corporate tax rate to 32 percent from the top headline rate of 35 percent. Under the congressional Republicans’ plan, the corporate rate would be cut to 20 percent; under Trump’s plan, to 15 percent. Similarly, companies that now write off intangible drilling costs or get a tax allowance for asset depletion would be able to immediately expense capital investments. Then there is a tax credit oil companies claim for fees from foreign countries. Congressional Republicans would eliminate foreign taxes altogether, while Trump would maintain taxation at a substantially lower rate.

Senator Elizabeth Warren continued her crusade against Donald Trump on Monday and she she did not hold back.Upon voting to exit the European Union last week, Britain sparked a $2.1 trillion loss across global markets as the Republican nominee cheered. And Warren did not like that one bit, because the financial downturn will affect ordinary Americans more than it affects him.So during a stop in Ohio with Hillary Clinton, Warren tore into Trump in defense of all the Americans who may experience setbacks of their own due to the Brexit vote. Donald Trump says he ll make America great again, she began. It s stamped on the front of his goofy hat. You wanna see goofy, look at him in that hat. When Donald Trump says great, I say, Great for who, exactly? For millions of kids struggling to pay for an education? For millions of seniors barely surviving on Social Security? For families that don t fly to Scotland to play golf? she asked rhetorically. When he says Make America Great he means make it great for rich guys just like Donald Trump. Great for the guys who don t care how much they ve already squeezed from everyone else. Great for the guys who always want more. Because that s who Donald Trump is, the guy who wants it all for himself. And watch out, because he will crush you into the dirt to get what he wants. And then she blasted him for being happy about financial crises that hurt millions of Americans. Donald Trump cheered on Britain s current crisis which has sucked billions of dollars out of your retirement accounts because he said it might bring more rich people to his new golf course. He cheered on the 2008 housing crash because he could scoop up more real estate on the cheap. And he cheered on students desperate enough to sign up for his fake university so he could bleed them dry and turn a profit for himself. What kind of a man does that? What kind of a man roots for people to lose their jobs, to lose their homes, to lose their life savings? I ll tell you what kind of a man. A small insecure, money-grubber who fights for no one but himself. A nasty man who will never become President of the United States. She then introduced Hillary Clinton to thunderous applause, thus making it clear that she would be a great choice if she is picked as Hillary s vice-presidential running mate.Here s the video via YouTube.Hillary Clinton would be wise to choose Warren as her VP. Not only would it be an all-female ticket, it would help solidify her status among progressives who haven t fallen in line to support her. And if this speech foreshadows anything it s that Donald Trump is about to get his ass handed to him in November by two women instead of just one.Featured image via screenshot

I guess we re not the only ones who are 100% FED UP with our marxist president Following the influx of illegal immigrant minors from Central America, an official at the federal agency charged with protecting public health describes Barack Obama as the worst pres we have ever had, an amateur and Marxist, according to internal emails obtained by Judicial Watch.JW got the records as part of an investigation into the Center for Disease Control s (CDC) activation of an Emergency Operations Center (EOC) to deal with the barrage of illegal alien minors last summer. Tens of thousands of Central Americans came into the United States through the Mexican border and contagious diseases many considered to be eradicated in the U.S. became a tremendous concern. The CDC, which operates under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), responded by opening an emergency facility designed to monitor and coordinate response activities to eminent public health threats. This special emergency division was created after the 2001 terrorist attacks and has responded to more than 50 public health threats, including hurricanes, food borne disease outbreaks, the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic and the Haiti cholera outbreak. Scientists from across the CDC are brought together to analyze, validate, and efficiently exchange information during a public health emergency and connect with response partners. The EOC also coordinates the deployment of CDC staff and the procurement and management of all equipment and supplies that agency responders may need during their deployment.[ ]It s a major and costly operation that can stick American taxpayers with a huge tab. That s why JW launched a probe when the Obama administration took in the illegal immigrants, initially coined Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC), with open arms last summer. JW has sued the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for planning records involving the border crisis as well as information relating to the solicitation of on-demand escort services for the 65,000 UACs that remain in the U.S. Last year JW also reported that the illegal immigrant minors have brought in serious diseases, including swine flu, dengue fever, possibly Ebola virus and tuberculosis.The CDC records obtained by JW this week include email exchanges between agency officials directly involved in the activation of the EOC to handle the health threats created by the influx of illegal alien minors last summer. In an email dated June 9, 2014, CDC Logistics Management Specialist George Roark wrote to CDC Public Health Advisor William Adams that no country in the world would allow the influx. Adams replies that in ten years or less, they ll all be voting Commander s intent Roark fires back by describing Obama as the worst pres we have ever had he truly is the amateur but a Marxist too. Via: Judicial Watch

We have almost 68,000 Georgia students who are required by law to attend a chronically failing school.

@DavidMcIntyre22 @MohammadMTuqan @guardian this crime is nothing to do with Islam and being a Muslim. If you really would like to know ++

After comedian Kathy Griffin posed with a bludgeoned severed head of President Donald Trump, social media has exploded with reactions to the controversial photo. [The image of Griffin, obtained by TMZ, depicts a gory, severed version of Trump’s head, as the former Fashion Police host stands with a cold expression on her face. Now, social media users have gone online to express their disgust for the image: Of course CNN will probably keep Kathy Griffin on the payroll for their annual New Years Eve coverage, cuz they want Trump dead too. Sad. — Mark Dice (@MarkDice) May 30, 2017, ”Get over the Kathy Griffin picture you ❄️ what’s the matter? It’s just a photo” — people hysterical over a peeing dog statue this morning, — Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) May 30, 2017, Hey @CNN do you condone Kathy Griffin’s views? Will she be hosting New Year’s Eve Live again with @AC360? pic. twitter. — Nick Short (@PoliticalShort) May 30, 2017, NOT FUNNY: Kathy Griffin ’Beheads’ Trump … https: . — DRUDGE REPORT (@DRUDGE_REPORT) May 30, 2017, When did Kathy Griffin join ISIS? https: . — Brittany Pettibone (@BrittPettibone) May 30, 2017, These people are Satanic. Does @andersoncooper perform death rituals with his good friend and Kathy Griffin? Or even sicker stuff? https: . — Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) May 30, 2017, Imagine the meltdown if a conservative celebrity had posed with a of Obama’s decapitated head. https: . — Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) May 30, 2017, Hey @andersoncooper and @cnn — why do you associate with a person who wants to behead Trump? https: . — toddstarnes (@toddstarnes) May 30, 2017, Feminists: ’Peeing pug’ is misogynist extremism, Same Feminists: ’Kathy Griffin beheading Trump is empowering, edgy art’ pic. twitter. — Chet Cannon (@Chet_Cannon) May 30, 2017, If you’re CNN, you announce immediately that Kathy Griffin will no longer be hosting your New Year’s Eve special right now hesitation. https: . — Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) May 30, 2017, . @maggieNYT, will you ask @kathygriffin to go easy on @realDonaldTrump because he has a young son? Or do you only do that for pedophiles? — John Cardillo (@johncardillo) May 30, 2017, Does @donlemon support this Satanism? What does he and his Kathy Griffin do? @andersoncooper pic. twitter. — Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) May 30, 2017, Meanwhile, mainstream media reports downplayed the photo of Griffin, shifting the conversation to another topic: Trump is gonna tweet about kathy griffin isn’t he, — Asawin Suebsaeng (@swin24) May 30, 2017, No promises, but I’m hoping to keep @TheAtlantic free of news about both Chuck Woolery and Kathy Griffin. — Jeffrey Goldberg (@JeffreyGoldberg) May 30, 2017, btw, here’s what one person from who is active on 4chan just sent me re: the Kathy Griffin photo and giving the right ammo : pic. twitter. — Charlie Warzel (@cwarzel) May 30, 2017, Is Kathy Griffin the Leader of the Democratic Party? — Tim Dotcom (@timothypmurphy) May 30, 2017, ”Why don’t more libs condemn Kathy Griffin? !” Prob same reason more cons didn’t condemn Nugent? Bc they’re dumb fodder for dumb outrage. — Andrew Kirell (@AndrewKirell) May 30, 2017, I’m already exhausted by the amount of disingenuous moral outrage this will drum up https: . — eve peyser (@evepeyser) May 30, 2017, Griffin has forced her way into the mainstream, hosting CNN’s New Year’s Eve special for the last few years with Anderson Cooper. The spokesperson also enjoyed a long run on Andy Cohen’s Bravo network as the star of the reality show My Life on The . Representatives for CNN and Griffin did not immediately respond to Breitbart News’ request for comment.

For months, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign labored listlessly under a cloud of doubt after revelations that she had a private e-mail server during her time as secretary of state. Then, Republicans, as they so often do, overreached on their Clinton attacks and handed the Democratic front-runner a message and momentum that she had struggled mightily to build on her own. First, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) went on Fox News and, floundering to prove his conservative bona fides to be speaker of the House, said this to Fox News host Sean Hannity: “Everybody thought that Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping.” Then there was the hearing last week — more than two years in the making (Clinton last testified before Congress on Benghazi in January 2013) — that flopped mightily for Republicans. Eleven hours worth of questions left the GOP looking small and Clinton looking calm, cool and collected. Even Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, admitted in the hearing’s wake, “I don’t know that [Clinton] testified that much differently today than she has the previous time she testified.” For longtime Clinton watchers — and I count myself in that category — the pattern was remarkably familiar. Republicans, handed a potent issue (and the controversy over Clinton’s private e-mail server is one), try to knock the Clintons out and instead swing, miss and fall on their collective face. Think back to the late 1990s, when, after admitting to an extramarital affair with a White House intern, Bill Clinton found himself more popular than ever — particularly among Democrats — after congressional Republicans tried to impeach him despite the public’s skepticism about whether such a punishment was warranted. Eerie similarities echo between that moment and this one for Republicans in Congress. Unquestionably, the revelation that Clinton exclusively used a private e-mail address and server while she was the nation’s top diplomat had damaged her front-running campaign for the Democratic nomination. Her lead over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) had shrunk, and large majorities of the public said she was neither honest nor trustworthy. Most important for Clinton was that establishment Democrats began to openly fret that perhaps she simply wasn’t up to the race and that someone else — such as Vice President Biden — needed to step into the breach. McCarthy’s comments provided Clinton with overwhelming proof (at least to Democrats) that the Benghazi committee was effectively political theater designed to damage her chances of winning in 2016. The hearing itself allowed Clinton a platform that was perfectly suited to her strengths — preparation and a remarkable tirelessness — and on which she, unsurprisingly, shined. Clinton looked in control, poised and smart. The majority of her Republican interrogators looked outmatched. Democrats noticed. The hour after the end of the committee hearing — 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. Eastern time Thursday — was the most lucrative 60 minutes of fundraising in Clinton’s campaign. And suddenly Clinton wasn’t the boring candidate of the status quo anymore. She was the target of — wait for it — a vast right-wing conspiracy aimed at, yet again, playing politics in hopes of hurting her chances of being elected to office. The campaign is — and this is so obvious that it is probably not worth saying — far from over. The Iowa caucuses aren’t for about 100 more days, and the general election is a year away. Lots can, and will, change. It is also obvious that the past two weeks have been the best two weeks of Clinton’s campaign. She has gone from flagging front-runner to rejuvenated fighter — a much better look if you want to, you know, win. Not all of the Clinton renaissance can be credited to or blamed on Republicans. Her strong performance in the first Democratic presidential debate was all her doing, and Biden’s decision not to run seems only tangentially tied to her strengthening of late. But the Clintons have always been at their best when under fire from the other side; Hillary Clinton, in particular, is a better counter-puncher than a first-strike player. For some reason, Republicans have never learned that lesson. Over the past month, they have pulled off a trick that Clinton never could seem to do herself: They have turned her into a sympathetic and more appealing figure for Democrats and lots of independents — whom she will need in a general election. If she wins the White House in November 2016, Clinton should send thank-you notes to McCarthy, Gowdy and the rest of the House Republicans. They may have saved her candidacy.

@_umalynx @McFaul its not shameful to speak opinion freely, but stupidity is quite shameful

@kharyp @bcarrz They like the white guy more?

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian judge on Wednesday ordered Igor Sechin, the head of Russian oil giant Rosneft and a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, to appear as a witness in the bribery trial of former economy minister Alexei Ulyukayev. Ulyukayev was dismissed and put under house arrest a year ago over allegations that he took a $2 million bribe from Rosneft. He denies the charges. RIA news agency quoted a court secretary as saying the hearing where Sechin would testify would take place on Monday, Nov. 13. Rosneft declined to comment. Ulyukayev, who has already accused Sechin in court of framing him, was detained on Nov. 14 last year at Rosneft s Moscow headquarters, moments after Sechin handed him the cash in a late-night meeting that, according to prosecutors, was designed to catch the minister in the act of accepting a bribe. Analysts say the case is politically charged because Sechin represents a powerful faction in the Kremlin which favors greater state control over the economy and has clashed with a group of economic liberals in the government that included Ulyukayev.

'This Week' Transcript: Biden

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Banks, credit card issuers and other financial companies will be able to block customers from banding together to sue over disputes, after the U.S. Senate on Tuesday narrowly killed a rule banning the firms from using “forced arbitration” clauses. Republican Vice President Mike Pence appeared on the Senate floor at 10:11 p.m. EDT (0211 GMT) to cast the tie-breaking vote as the chamber’s president and approve the most significant roll-back of Obama-era financial policy since President Donald Trump took office vowing to loosen the leash on Wall Street. The final count was 51 to 50. The Republican-dominated House of Representatives has already passed the resolution repealing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) rule released in July. The resolution also bars regulators from instituting a similar ban in the future. After a signature from Trump, expected soon, the resolution will abruptly end a years-long fight that has included multiple federal regulators, consumer advocacy groups, and financial lobbyists. CFPB Director Richard Cordray, a Democrat appointed by former President Barack Obama, rarely comments on congressional action but on Tuesday night said “Wall Street won and ordinary people lost.” “This vote means the courtroom doors will remain closed for groups of people seeking justice and relief when they are wronged by a company,” he added. Customers must agree to the clauses as a condition of opening accounts, saying they will take any disputes to closed-door arbitration instead of joining class-action lawsuits, where complainants band together to share litigation costs. The clauses are used for nearly every U.S. consumer product and service since the Supreme Court ruled them legal in 2011. Victims of the Equifax Inc. (EFX.N) hack were outraged last month when the company included forced arbitration fine print in offering them free credit monitoring. The company later removed the clauses. At the same time, Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N) customers whose identities were used in last year’s phony accounts scandal have had difficulty suing the bank because they are bound by arbitration clauses in contracts they signed for legitimate accounts. The CFPB rule, set to go into effect next spring, was not retroactive and would not have helped Equifax or Wells customers. Members of Trump’s administration have relentlessly assailed the regulation, and on Monday the Treasury Department laid out arguments against it in a special report. Acting Comptroller of the Currency Keith Norieka said on Tuesday the Senate’s action stopped a rule “that would have likely increased the cost of credit for hardworking Americans and made it more difficult for small community banks to resolve differences with their customers.” Meanwhile, major bank lobbying groups who sued last month to block the rule cheered the resolution’s passage. One of the groups, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said congress had reined in the “overgrown and unaccountable” CFPB, an independent agency created to protect individuals’ finances that conservatives say consistently reaches beyond its authority in its rulemaking. Critics of the rule had said class actions only benefit trial lawyers and arbitration generally wins larger settlement awards for customers. Supporters said forced arbitration harms customers by putting companies in control of the process and taking away the right to sue enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. The CFPB created its rule after conducting a five-year study that found customers struggle to have banks open arbitration cases about their complaints, but that those few cases have led to slightly higher individual awards than class actions. “The Senate today prevented a cash grab that would have transferred wealth from consumers to the pockets of wealthy attorneys,” said Ted Frank, director of the center for class-action fairness at the free-market group Competitive Enterprise Institute. Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, the most senior Democrat on the Banking Committee, meanwhile, said Tuesday’s vote “will make the rich richer, and the powerful more powerful.”

@YomnaELGerzawy1 @froomkin shutting up your mouth in fear of terrorists is living on your knees.

@alicesperi @vicenews I hope everyone see they are young boys and not just young black boys..(cuties!)

Zelenskyy has begun distancing himself from Donald Trump, although all previous Ukrainian presidents demonstrated the highest possible loyalty to the US. It is clear that Zelenskyy has joined the worldwide resistance against Donald Trump organised by the mighty Clinton clan. Zelenskyy's resistance to Trump's attempts to normalise relations with Russia should be seen in this light. For the Clinton clan, Russia is a key enemy of the ideal world where preschool children are waving LGBT flags. .

The disclosure that Clinton Chair John Podesta transferred his shares in Putin-backed Joule Unlimited to an anonymous holding company when he joined the Obama Administration is extremely concerning Hillary Clinton s campaign chairman John Podesta s membership on the executive board of an energy company, Joule Unlimited, which received millions from a Putin-connected Russian government fund, also included 75,000 common shares, according to an email exchange uncovered by the Wikileaks hacks. In the newly-uncovered email exchanged under the subject Podesta Outstanding Docs for Joule, Eryn Sepp, who was an assistant to Podesta at the Center for American Progress, forwarded a message to Podesta from Mark C. Solakian, who was Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Joule Unlimited Technologies, Inc. It is my understanding that John transferred the resulting 75,000 common shares from the option exercise to the Leonidio LLC., Slovakian wrote in a January 2014 email, referencing the Delaware-based holding company. As such, we would need to edit the Transfer of Share Agreement to reflect the transfer of 75,000 common shares to the LLC. Podesta s membership on the board of directors of Joule Unlimited was first revealed in research from Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large and Government Accountability Institute (GAI) President Peter Schweizer.In the report, tilted, From Russia with Money: Hillary Clinton, the Russian Reset, and Cronyism, it s revealed that Podesta joined the Joule Unlimited board in June 2011.Read more: Breitbart

Chris Pratt Is Our Generation Award Recipient

There are no Russian troops in Donbas, Ukraine, and there were never any troops at all.

The Trump administration is still reviewing a policy set in 2012 by U.S. President Barack Obama that protects from deportation nearly 600,000 immigrants brought into the country illegally by their parents, known as “Dreamers,” a White House spokesman said on Friday. “No final determination has been made,” said the spokesman, who asked that his name not be used. Rescinding the policy known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, would anger those who have said President Donald Trump is already too tough on immigration enforcement. But leaving it in place would conflict with a promise Trump made on the presidential campaign trail. There was confusion over whether the policy would remain in place late Thursday after the Department of Homeland Security published a notice that it would rescind another Obama-era immigration policy. The other policy, known as Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, or DAPA, was written in 2014 to protect illegal immigrant parents with children who are U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents. The policy never went into effect because federal courts put it on hold. The head of the Department of Homeland Security, John Kelly, said on Friday that the agency only rescinded the policy that had faced legal challenges. DAPA “was immediately enjoined by the courts and it languished in limbo for two or three years, so my action yesterday was just a little housecleaning,” Kelly said at a meeting in Miami with Latin American leaders on security in Central America. “DACA that applies to students has not been changed,” Kelly said. The DHS statement also said DACA “will remain in effect.” The White House spokesman said the statement was only meant to clarify that the rescission of the program for parents would have no impact on the program for immigrants who arrived as children. Trump had pledged on the campaign trail to rescind all of Obama’s executive orders on immigration, including DACA. But as president, he has said his administration was devising a policy on how to deal with individuals covered by DACA. No formal changes have been announced.

Says she got unions to agree to about $10 million in reduction of salaries and health benefits while serving as Dane County executive in Wisconsin.

President Donald Trump lost California by a wide margin in November. Yet the state was crucial to his surprise victory overall — thanks to the large number of Californians on his team, and to the specific issues he highlighted on the trail. [A new profile by Scott Lucas of Politico, “How California Gave Us Trumpism,” highlights these factors — as well as the unique role played by Breitbart California in coverage of the shocking murder of Kate Steinle on July 1, 2015: The signal California moment for the marriage of Claremont constitutionalism and Breitbart spectacle came in July 2015, not long after Trump had launched his presidential campaign. On that day, Juan Francisco an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who had been deported five times, allegedly fired three shots from a handgun while walking along the waterfront in San Francisco. One of those bullets ricocheted off the pavement and struck a passerby named Kathryn Steinle in the back. She died two hours later in a nearby hospital. Breitbart feasted on the story, which it depicted as the ultimate proof of California’s decline and, more broadly, the grievous consequences of unconstitutional immigration run amok. San Francisco’s city leaders were criticized for prioritizing sanctuary city policies in a play for Latino votes, rather than carrying out their basic public safety functions. Mass immigration, the erosion of constitutional norms and liberal politicians all played a role in Steinle’s death, Breitbart argued. From “Unchecked Immigration: A Greater Threat to The USA Than ISIS” and “SF Supervisors Refuse to Answer Questions About Steinle’s Death,” the site published more than 100 news and opinion articles about Steinle’s death. On the campaign trail, Trump quickly held up the incident as the epitome of a broken immigration system. “My heartfelt condolences to the family of Kathryn Steinle. Very, very sad!” the candidate tweeted days after the killing, adding “We need a wall!” Less than a week later, Breitbart News reported that Trump had surged in a poll of its readers, climbing to second place in the GOP primary field, behind Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. “Trump’s message about illegal immigration may resonate even more” after the shooting, the site reported, presciently. Lucas correctly identifies the Kate Steinle moment as a turning point in the campaign. As Breitbart News explained in September 2016, it was Trump’s effort to highlight the plight of the victims of crimes by illegal aliens that shifted the entire Republican primary race. As “Blue State Blues: The Graph That Explains Donald Trump’s Surge” recounted: On July 10, 2015, former Florida governor Jeb Bush was the frontrunner, at 16. 3%. Donald Trump was a distant seventh, with just 6. 5% of the vote. Keep in mind that Trump had been running against illegal immigration since he launched his campaign more than three weeks before, with his infamous remarks about illegal aliens from Mexico. None of that had resonated much. And then, on July 1, Kate Steinle was shot and killed in San Francisco while strolling along a pier with her father. The murderer, Juan Francisco had been deported five times before, and had been convicted of seven felonies. He later told a local journalist that he had specifically come to San Francisco because it was a “sanctuary city” that would not cooperate with federal immigration officials or enforce immigration laws. Breitbart News focused on that story in the days that followed. Breitbart California’s Michelle Moons, who had covered the protests in Murietta against illegal alien children who had surged across the Mexican border exactly a year before, wrote a series of articles about Steinle. She used her extensive sources in the law enforcement community, as well as among families who had lost loved ones to crimes by illegal aliens, to build the details of the story and place it in a broader context. That was when Trump began to show an interest in meeting with those families, who had reached out to him in the days after the Steinle murder. He met with them on July 10 in Los Angeles, and the enduring image of that event was of the Donald Trump standing silently as he listened to the families pouring out their grief. … From that moment, Trump took off in the polls, and almost never looked back. From seventh place in the RealClearPolitics average on July 10, Trump shot to first by July 19. His dramatic rise is all the more surprising given that only 7 percent of Americans called immigration the “most important problem” facing the country in a Gallup poll taken over the same period. By listening to the families, and giving them a voice, Trump was no longer speaking of illegal immigration in the abstract, but in a concrete, human way. In so doing, he connected with others who had been victimized, or ignored, by their own government on so many issues, from trade to Obamacare. That September 2016 article concluded: “The question now is whether Trump can convince enough voters by November 8 to trust him, as the victims’ families do. ” Of course, we now know the answer. Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. His new book, How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

Germany has no evidence that Saad al-Hariri is being held against his will by Saudi Arabia and believes that the Lebanese prime minister who resigned last week enjoys freedom of movement, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said on Friday. We have no evidence that Hariri is being detained in Riyadh and we assume that he chooses where he goes, the spokeswoman said during a regular government news conference. A government spokesman said Germany shared Saudi Arabia s concerns about Iran s interference in Yemen and its support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Lebanese group Hezbollah.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Good preparations should be made by China and the United States to ensure that U.S. President Donald Trump s visit to China later this year is a success, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi told U.S. Vice President Mike Pence. Trump will likely visit China in November as part of a trip that will take him to an ASEAN summit in the Philippines and an APEC summit in Vietnam. The two sides should make good preparations for the visit to ensure its success so that concrete achievements can be obtained and conditions can be created for good prospects, giving fresh impetus to bilateral ties, Wang said, according to the official Xinhua news agency on Thursday. Close communications between Xi and Trump have meant a smooth transition and a good start in China s relationship with the United States under the new administration, he said. A stable and healthy relationship between the two countries is good for both countries and the international community, Wang told Pence on the sidelines of the annual general debate of the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, Xinhua reported. China s relationship with the United States has been strained by the Trump administration s criticism of China s trade practices and by demands that Beijing do more to pressure North Korea to halt its nuclear weapons and missiles programs. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump met for the first time in person at Trump s Mar-A-Lago estate in Florida in April. Trump has since played up his personal relationship with Xi, even when criticizing China over North Korea and trade. The two sides launched a 100-day economic plan at that meeting, including some industry-specific announcements such as the resumption of American beef sales in China. There has since been limited progress on trade relations, especially after Trump began to launch trade investigations into Chinese practices via the World Trade Organization. Trump s administration has also repeatedly called on China to do more to rein in North Korea and has threatened new sanctions on Chinese banks and other firms doing business with Pyongyang. China says it is already doing all it can to pressure North Korea and that those countries directly involved in the stand-off on the peninsula should take responsibility for resolving tensions.

"Our state has fewer science, technology, engineering and math graduates than any neighboring state."

Says Donald Trump’s polling numbers show that he’s "the highest with Hispanics that any Republican has ever been."

@NajdPlateau @LouiseMensch Grow up you backward Pillock. Its 2015 not 1015. You tell em Louise