While on the campaign trail for Hillary Clinton in Ohio, Vice President Joe Biden was talking about the dangers of a Donald Trump presidency and what that would do to the average citizen.However, while speaking, a protester started shouting at Biden about the Iraq War. And while he could have simply ignored this protester or let the crowd drown him out with chants of Hillary! Biden instead hushed the crowd to field his question.After Biden answered the question, the protester, still upset, let the vice president know that his friend had died. This is when Biden says: So did my son. It was a poignant moment and one that let the protester know that Biden understands what it s like to lose someone so close to you. And in an additional gesture of empathy, Biden told the protester that if he s serious about asking questions in regard to Iraq and his friend, that he can come backstage and will answer his questions.This is why we love Joe Biden. He s a man of the people.Watch the moment here:Video: Biden stumping for Clinton in OH when man protests over Iraq War: My friend died! Biden: So did my son. https://t.co/zl5VPFBBUq Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) September 1, 2016


Real Disclosure! Secret Alien Base Found In Moon's Tycho Crater # Grey 52  Real Disclosure is where you find something on the lunar surface that cannot possibly exist unless someone built it. NO WAY it's a natural formation --- SOMETHING constructed that ---- 90° angles are just not possible without alien/man-made interaction. More 'smoking gun' irrefutable proof of intelligence from abroad. Tags


Donald Trump's looming nomination has spurred some leaders of the conservative movement — for generations, the backbone of the GOP — to break free from a Republican Party now being rapidly reshaped by the New York billionaire's incendiary tone and unorthodox populism. The extraordinary resistance of many figures on the right this past week to Trump has not been prompted merely by objections to his temperament and fears about his electability in November. At the core has been a calculation by self-identified "movement conservatives" that they would rather preserve their entrenched ideological project than promote a nominee who they believe would violate their creed and ethos. [Video: The 10 Republicans who hate Donald Trump the most ] "It's a crisis," said Al Cardenas, a former chairman of the American Conservative Union who is withholding support for Trump. "If we do away with the fundamental strength of the conservative movement, which is our ideas and values and principles, then you don't have anything left but politics. A movement can survive the loss of an election cycle, but it can't survive the loss of its purpose, and that's what we're battling here." The moment potentially marks the closure of a historic half-century in Republican politics in which conservatives have accrued dominant influence — on Capitol Hill, in gubernatorial mansions, at think tanks, on talk radio and in the grass roots. Since Barry Goldwater's unsuccessful but edifying 1964 presidential run, the conservative movement has been at the crux of Republican campaigns, from Ronald Reagan's 1980 sweep to the 1994 revolution to the tea party's rise in 2010. Yet, by taking a stand they see as a stroke of moral clarity, conservative leaders are at risk of separating their coalition from a Republican Party in which voters coast to coast have effectively shifted the center of gravity by choosing Trump as their standard bearer. In the primaries, Trump defeated a string of classically conservative candidates by peeling away many of the movement's core supporters: evangelical and working-class white voters. There is talk in various quarters about a potential independent challenge to Trump and likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, though there is no consensus candidate, and a third-party bid would be exceedingly difficult for anyone to mount at this late stage. Freshman Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) is a vocal proponent, but he is not offering himself as a candidate. Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, is involved in discussions to draft an independent conservative and huddled last week with Mitt Romney, though the former Massachusetts governor repeatedly has ruled out another White House bid. Erick Erickson, a prominent conservative commentator, is among those urging a third-party candidate. "One of the silver linings that can come from this is that the conservative movement as an entity pulls back away from the Republican Party," Erickson said. "During the Bush administration, it became a subsidiary of the Republican Party. This gives us a good opportunity as conservatives to stand on our own two feet." The conservative resistance was expressed most prominently last week by House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, the country's top-ranking elected Republican, who announced that he could not support Trump until the business mogul demonstrated his conservative bona fides and offered a more inclusive vision. Trump snapped back with a retort that neatly underscored his belief that movement conservatives should no longer dictate the GOP mission and platform: "I am not ready to support Speaker Ryan's agenda." "If there's an ideological leader of our party right now, it's Paul Ryan," said former senator Judd Gregg (R-N.H.). "He's not part of the shouting crowd; he's part of the doing crowd. But the party's voters have gone with the shouting crowd. It's reflective of the failure of the doer crowd to get things done." [Ryan says he is 'not ready' to back Trump, deepening GOP divide] Indeed, Trump and Ryan are miles apart. Ryan is the architect of sweeping proposed changes to Medicare and Social Security; Trump has pledged not to touch either. Ryan supports a muscular foreign policy; Trump is proudly non-interventionist. Ryan champions free trade; Trump is an avowed opponent. Ryan defends religious freedom; Trump wants to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the country. Ryan advocates bipartisan immigration reform and opposes mass deportation; Trump wants to build a wall at the Mexican border and deport the roughly 11 million immigrants who are living in the United States illegally. Ryan and his conservative allies in elected offices nationwide still have a firm grip on the party's governing playbook and institutions. But Trump has forced a heated debate over Republican identity and whether it is synonymous with conservatism — a threat to the authority of movement conservatives. "The Ryan agenda isn't just about Paul Ryan, but it's what conservatives have agreed on as the best way forward — and Trump is deviating from that in so many ways," said Lanhee Chen, a fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution who served as Romney's policy director during his 2012 presidential bid. "The big question really is, to what extent is the Trump phenomenon an aberration in policy versus some more fundamental shift?" Chen asked. "I tend to think of it as an aberration." Republican National Chairman Reince Priebus has sought to broker an accord between Trump and Ryan with a planned meeting Thursday in Washington, but Trump's public comments suggest that changes by him are unlikely. Trump has said he would meet with Ryan, "before we go our separate ways." [Trump agrees to meet with Paul Ryan 'before we go our separate ways'] Some conservative movement figures have warmed to Trump, expressing confidence that he would surround himself with advisers of their ilk — such as Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), who has become a trusted confidant of the candidate's — and that, if Trump is elected, Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) would serve as checks on his power. "The deals he's going to cut will have in the room Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, and the three of them have to agree. I sleep well at night," said Grover Norquist, president and founder of Americans for Tax Reform, who for decades has convened conservative leaders and activists. A group of House Republicans, including several top leadership supporters, have wondered whether Ryan and other conservative leaders have fully recognized what they see as a striking shift in the electorate. A pair of committee chairmen — Reps. Bill Shuster (Pa.) and Jeff Miller (Fla.) — endorsed Trump shortly before he became the presumptive nominee. "It's not the time to be out there demanding all of these things, trying to get Trump to suddenly become Reagan," said William J. Bennett, a Ryan mentor and prominent conservative commentator. "Now is the time to surround him with good people and work with him at the convention." Norquist, who attended and praised Trump's foreign-policy address last month, said he sees limits to Trump's long-term influence on conservatism. "You're not picking a direction for the modern Republican Party or the conservative movement with one presidential candidate," he said. "There isn't some Trump wing of the party. What is Trumpism? You don't see senators and governors running under Trumpism. There's just Trump." [Trump's apostasies put him at odds with decades of Republican beliefs] Especially anxious about Trump's success are conservatives who prioritize social issues and fear he would weaken the party's moral tilt. Though Trump says he is against abortion and same-sex marriage, the New Yorker rarely talks about those issues — and until only a few years ago, he held opposite positions. "I haven't heard him frame things in moral terms," Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said. "I don't hear him speak about the Constitution. It's hard to believe he has any sort of deep conviction on life and marriage. I don't see him being guided by constitutional principles. He doesn't speak about them, ever. That's what's troubling everyone. He's not even speaking in the same language, politically, that we speak." King, who had supported Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) and has no plans to endorse Trump, said he and other conservative leaders would "keep watch" at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland to protect the party's platform from being revamped. "We run the risk of the underpinnings of our convictions being disregarded," King said. Numerous Republicans fret that this divide could lead to certain electoral defeat for the party, up and down the ticket. Those like Gregg — a fiscal conservative who backed former Florida governor Jeb Bush and then Ohio Gov. John Kasich in the primaries and said he is in the "listening" phase of considering Trump — see hope for a coming together by finding areas of consensus. "At the center of Republican philosophy is market economy and fiscal responsibility, and Trump is very much in tune," Gregg said. "I expect in the end that's what will draw people into a unified effort."


Speaking at a joint press conference Thursday morning at the White House with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, President Obama makes extended comments regarding the 2016 election, and its unprecedented political polarization.     "I have been blamed by the Republicans for a lot of things," the president said. "But to be blamed for their primaries and who they are selecting is... novel."    "I'm not going to validate some notion that the Republican crackup that's been taking place is a consequence of actions that I've taken," he said.     "I don't think I was the one to prompt questions about my birth certificate, for example," he said. "I don't recall saying, 'Hey, why don't you ask me about that.'"    "It's not as if there's a massive difference between Mr. Trump's position on immigration and Mr. Cruz's. Mr. Trump may be more provocative in terms of how he sighs, but says them, but they're not that different."


As federal agents prepare to scour roughly 650,000 emails to see how many relate to a prior probe of Hillary Clinton s email use, the surprise disclosure that investigators were pursuing the potential new evidence lays bare building tensions inside the bureau and the Justice Department over how to investigate the Democratic presidential nominee:The Justice Department official was very pissed off, according to one person close to Mr. McCabe, and pressed him to explain why the FBI was still chasing a matter the department considered dead.Metadata found on the laptop used by former Rep. Anthony Weiner and his estranged wife Huma Abedin, a close Clinton aide, suggests there may be thousands of emails sent to or from the private server that Mrs. Clinton used while she was secretary of state, according to people familiar with the matter. It will take weeks, at a minimum, to determine whether those messages are work-related from the time Ms. Abedin served with Mrs. Clinton at the State Department; how many are duplicates of emails already reviewed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and whether they include either classified information or important new evidence in the Clinton email probe.The new investigative effort, disclosed by FBI Director James Comey on Friday, shows a bureau at times in sharp internal disagreement over matters related to the Clintons, and how to handle those matters fairly and carefully in the middle of a national election campaign.Even as the previous probe of Mrs. Clinton s email use wound down in July, internal disagreements within the bureau and the Justice Department surrounding the Clintons family philanthropy heated up, according to people familiar with the matter.The latest development began in early October when New York-based FBI officials notified Andrew McCabe, the bureau s second-in-command, that while investigating Mr. Weiner for possibly sending sexually charged messages to a minor, they had recovered a laptop with 650,000 emails. Many, they said, were from the accounts of Ms. Abedin, according to people familiar with the matter.Those emails stretched back years, these people said, and were on a laptop that hadn t previously come up in the Clinton email probe. Ms. Abedin said in late August that the couple were separating.The FBI had searched the computer while looking for child pornography, people familiar with the matter said, but the warrant they used didn t give them authority to search for matters related to Mrs. Clinton s email arrangement at the State Department. Mr. Weiner has denied sending explicit or indecent messages to the teenager.In their initial review of the laptop, the metadata showed many messages, apparently in the thousands, that were either sent to or from the private email server at Mrs. Clinton s home that had been the focus of so much investigative effort for the FBI. Senior FBI officials decided to let the Weiner investigators proceed with a closer examination of the metadata on the computer, and report back to them.FAST FORWARD TO EARLY LAST WEEK: STUNNING!At a meeting early last week of senior Justice Department and FBI officials, a member of the department s senior national-security staff asked for an update on the Weiner laptop, the people familiar with the matter said. At that point, officials realized that no one had acted to obtain a warrant, these people said.Mr. McCabe then instructed the email investigators to talk to the Weiner investigators and see whether the laptop s contents could be relevant to the Clinton email probe, these people said. After the investigators spoke, the agents agreed it was potentially relevant.Mr. Comey was given an update, decided to go forward with the case and notified Congress on Friday, with explosive results. Senior Justice Department officials had warned Mr. Comey that telling Congress would violate policies against overt actions that could affect an election, and some within the FBI have been unhappy at Mr. Comey s repeated public statements on the probe, going back to his press conference on the subject in July.The back-and-forth reflects how the bureau is probing several matters related, directly or indirectly, to Mrs. Clinton and her inner circle.New details show that senior law-enforcement officials repeatedly voiced skepticism of the strength of the evidence in the bureau s investigation of the Clinton Foundation, sought to condense what was at times a sprawling cross-country effort, and, according to some people familiar with the matter, told agents to limit their pursuit of the case.That led to frustrations among some investigators, who viewed FBI leadership as uninterested in probing the charity, these people said. Others involved disagreed sharply, defending FBI bosses and saying Mr. McCabe in particular was caught between an increasingly acrimonious fight for control between the Justice Department and FBI agents pursuing the Clinton Foundation case.It isn t unusual for field agents to favor a more aggressive approach than supervisors and prosecutors think is merited. But the internal debates about the Clinton Foundation show the high stakes when such disagreements occur surrounding someone who is running for president.The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Mr. McCabe s wife, Jill McCabe, received $467,500 in campaign funds in late 2015 from the political action committee of Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a longtime ally of the Clintons and, until he was elected governor in November 2013, a Clinton Foundation board member.Mr. McAuliffe had supported Dr. McCabe in the hopes she and a handful of other Democrats might help win a majority in the state Senate. Dr. McCabe lost her race last November, and Democrats failed to win their majority.A spokesman for the governor has said that any insinuation that his support was tied to anything other than his desire to elect candidates who would help pass his agenda is ridiculous. Dr. McCabe told the Journal, Once I decided to run, my husband had no formal role in my campaign other than to be supportive.In February of this year, Mr. McCabe ascended from the No. 3 position at the FBI to the deputy director post. When he assumed that role, officials say, he started overseeing the probe into Mrs. Clinton s use of a private email server for government work when she was secretary of state.FBI officials have said Mr. McCabe had no role in the Clinton email probe until he became deputy director, and by then his wife s campaign was over.But other Clinton-related investigations were under way within the FBI, and they have been the subject of internal debate for months, according to people familiar with the matter.Early this year, four FBI field offices New York, Los Angeles, Washington and Little Rock, Ark. were collecting information about the Clinton Foundation to see if there was evidence of financial crimes or influence-peddling, according to people familiar with the matter.Los Angeles agents had picked up information about the Clinton Foundation from an unrelated public corruption case and had issued some subpoenas for bank records related to the foundation, these people said.The Washington field office was probing financial relationships involving Mr. McAuliffe before he became a Clinton Foundation board member, these people said. Mr. McAuliffe has denied any wrongdoing, and his lawyer has said the probe is focused on whether he failed to register as an agent of a foreign entity.In February, FBI officials made a presentation to the Justice Department, according to these people. By all accounts, the meeting didn t go well.Some said that is because the FBI didn t present compelling evidence to justify more aggressive pursuit of the Clinton Foundation, and that the career public integrity prosecutors in the room simply believed it wasn t a very strong case. Others said that from the start, the Justice Department officials were stern, icy and dismissive of the case. That was one of the weirdest meetings I ve ever been to, one participant told others afterward, according to people familiar with the matter.Justice Department officials told the FBI at the meeting they wouldn t authorize more aggressive investigative techniques, such as subpoenas, formal witness interviews, or grand-jury activity. But the FBI officials believed they were well within their authority to pursue the leads and methods already under way, these people said.About a week after Mr. Comey s July announcement that he was recommending against any prosecution in the Clinton email case, the FBI sought to refocus the Clinton Foundation probe, with Mr. McCabe deciding the FBI s New York office would take the lead, with assistance from Little Rock.Director James Comey testified before the House Judiciary Committee in September on a variety of subjects including the investigation into former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton s email server. The Washington field office, FBI officials decided, would focus on a separate matter involving Mr. McAuliffe. Mr. McCabe had decided earlier in the spring that he would continue to recuse himself from that probe, given the governor s contributions to his wife s former political campaign.Within the FBI, the decision was viewed with skepticism by some, who felt the probe would be stronger if the foundation and McAuliffe matters were combined. Others, particularly senior officials at the Justice Department, felt that both probes were weak, based largely on publicly available information, and had found little that would merit expanded investigative authority.According to a person familiar with the probes, on Aug. 12, a senior Justice Department official called Mr. McCabe to voice his displeasure at finding that New York FBI agents were still openly pursuing the Clinton Foundation probe, despite the department s refusal to allow more aggressive investigative methods in the case. Mr. McCabe said agents still had the authority to pursue the issue as long as they didn t use those methods.The Justice Department official was very pissed off, according to one person close to Mr. McCabe, and pressed him to explain why the FBI was still chasing a matter the department considered dead. Are you telling me that I need to shut down a validly predicated investigation? Mr. McCabe asked, according to people familiar with the conversation. After a pause, the official replied, Of course not, these people said.Mr. McCabe s defenders in the agency said that following the call, he repeated the instruction that he had given earlier in the Clinton Foundation investigation: Agents were to keep pursuing the work within the authority they had.Others further down the FBI chain of command, however, said agents were given a much starker instruction on the case: Stand down. When agents questioned why they weren t allowed to take more aggressive steps, they said they were told the order had come from the deputy director Mr. McCabe.Others familiar with the matter deny Mr. McCabe or any other senior FBI official gave such a stand-down instruction.For agents who already felt uneasy about FBI leadership s handling of the Clinton Foundation case, the moment only deepened their concerns, these people said. For those who felt the probe hadn t yet found significant evidence of criminal conduct, the leadership s approach was the right response.In September, agents on the foundation case asked to see the emails contained on nongovernment laptops that had been searched as part of the Clinton email case, but that request was rejected by prosecutors at the Eastern District of New York, in Brooklyn. Those emails were given to the FBI based on grants of partial immunity and limited-use agreements, meaning agents could only use them for the purpose of investigating possible mishandling of classified information.Some FBI agents were dissatisfied with that answer, and asked for permission to make a similar request to federal prosecutors in Manhattan, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. McCabe, these people said, told them no and added that they couldn t go prosecutor-shopping. Not long after that discussion, FBI agents informed the bureau s leaders about the Weiner laptop, prompting Mr. Comey s disclosure to Congress and setting of the furor that promises to consume the final days of a tumultuous campaign.


People trying to lose weight — or not gain weight — are frequently advised to "lay off the booze. " Although organizations like Weight Watchers offer ways to drink wisely within their plans, alcohol, with seven calories a gram and no compensating nutrients, is commonly thought to derail most efforts at weight control. After the winter holidays, I often hear people blame alcohol for added pounds, not just from its caloric contribution but also because it can undermine and stimulate the appetite and desire for fattening foods. Yet you probably know people who routinely drink wine with dinner, or a cocktail before it, and never put on an unwanted pound. Given that moderate drinkers tend to live longer than teetotalers, I'd love a glass of wine or a beer with dinner if I could do so without gaining, so I looked into what science has to say about alcohol's influence on weight. Despite thousands of studies spanning decades, I discovered that alcohol remains one of the most controversial and confusing topics for people concerned about controlling their weight. I plowed through more than two dozen research reports, many with conflicting findings on the relationship between alcohol and weight, and finally found a thorough review of the science that can help people determine whether drinking might be compatible with effective weight management. The review, published in 2015 in Current Obesity Reports, was prepared by Gregory Traversy and Chaput of the Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute in Ottawa, Ontario. The reviewers first examined studies, studies that assessed links between alcohol intake and body mass index among large groups of people at a given moment in time. The most common finding was that, in men on average, drinking was "not associated" with weight, whereas among women, drinking either did not affect weight or was actually associated with a lower body weight than among nondrinkers. Their summary of the findings: Most such studies showed that "frequent light to moderate alcohol intake" — at most two drinks a day for men, one for women — "does not seem to be associated with obesity risk. " However, binge drinking (consuming five or more drinks on an occasion) and heavy drinking (more than four drinks in a day for men, or more than three for women) were linked to an increased risk of obesity and an expanding waistline. And in a departure from most of the other findings, some of the research indicated that for adolescents and (alas) older adults, alcohol in any amount may "promote overweight and a higher body fat percentage. " Prospective studies, which are generally considered to be more rigorous than studies and which follow groups of people over time, in this case from several months to 20 years, had varied results and produced "no clear picture" of the relationship between alcohol and weight. Several found either no relationship or a negative relationship, at least in women, while others found that men who drank tended to risk becoming obese, especially if they were beer drinkers. The conclusion from the most recent such studies: While heavy drinkers risked gaining weight, "light to moderate alcohol intake is not associated with weight gain or changes in waist circumference. " The studies Dr. Chaput ranked as "most reliable" and "providing the strongest evidence" were controlled experiments in which people were randomly assigned to consume given amounts of alcohol under monitored conditions. One such study found that drinking two glasses of red wine with dinner daily for six weeks did not result in weight gain or a greater percentage of body fat in 14 men, when compared with the same diet and exercise regimen without alcohol. A similar study among 20 overweight, sedentary women found no meaningful change in weight after 10 weeks of consuming a glass of wine five times a week. However, the experimental studies were small and the "intervention periods" were short. Dr. Chaput noted that even a very small weight gain over the course of 10 weeks can add up to a lot of extra pounds in five years unless there is a compensating reduction in food intake or increase in physical activity. Unlike protein, fats and carbohydrates, alcohol is a toxic substance that is not stored in the body. Alcohol calories are used for fuel, thus decreasing the body's use of other sources of calories. That means people who drink must eat less or exercise more to maintain their weight. Dr. Chaput said he is able to keep from gaining weight and body fat despite consuming "about 15 drinks a week" by eating a healthy diet, exercising daily and monitoring his weight regularly. Big differences in drinking patterns between men and women influence the findings of alcohol's effects on weight, he said. "Men are more likely to binge drink and to drink beer and spirits, whereas women mostly drink wine and are more likely than men to compensate for extra calories consumed as alcohol. " Genetics are also a factor, Dr. Chaput said, suggesting that alcohol can be more of a problem among people genetically prone to excessive weight gain. "People who are overweight to begin with are more likely to gain weight if they increase their alcohol intake," he said. Furthermore, as I and countless others have found, alcohol has a "disinhibiting" effect and can stimulate people to eat more when food is readily available. "The extra calories taken in with alcohol are stored as fat," he reminded drinkers. Here's the bottom line: Everyone is different. The studies cited above average the results among groups of people and thus gloss over individual differences. Even when two people start out weighing the same and eat, drink and exercise the same amount, adding alcohol to the mix can have different consequences. The critical ingredient is : weighing yourself regularly, even daily, at the same time of day and under the same circumstances. If you're a moderate drinker and find yourself gradually putting on weight, try cutting down on, or cutting out, alcohol for a few months to see if you lose, gain or stay the same. Or, if you're holding off on drinking but gradually gaining weight and have no medical or personal reason to abstain from alcohol, you might try having a glass of wine on most days to see if your weight stabilizes or even drops slightly over the coming months. You might also consult a reliable source on the sometimes surprising differences in calorie content among similar alcoholic drinks. The Center for Science in the Public Interest recently published such a list, available at www. nutritionaction. com. Search for "Which alcoholic beverages have the most calories?" While you'll find no difference in calories between white and red wines, depending on the brand, 12 ounces of beer can range from 55 to 320 calories.


SKOPJE, Macedonia — A freakishly violent rainstorm that Macedonia's top weather official called a "water bomb" ravaged Skopje during the weekend, collapsing streets, inundating vehicles and drowning trapped motorists and homeowners, most of them caught by surprise. At least 21 people were killed and 77 injured in what officials described on Sunday as the worst flooding disaster in a to hit Skopje, the Macedonian capital and a city of more than a people in the central part of the Balkan Peninsula. Officials said the death toll could rise because many people were still missing after the storm, which hit with shocking ferocity on Saturday night. The police, army units and firefighters rescued more than 1, 000 people from the raging water that flooded streets, buildings, houses, clinics and schools. Traffic in much of the city was paralyzed. The Gazi Baba area, in the eastern part of Skopje, was particularly hard hit, with hundreds of homes losing power. Underpasses throughout the city became instant lakes, completely submerging vehicles. The National Hydrometeorological Service said it had issued a warning about an impending storm earlier on Saturday, but the intensity of the storm was a shock. "The clouds seem to have stopped immediately and dropped the water on this very small part of Skopje, in what can be described only as a water bomb," Oliver Romevski, the director of the service, said Sunday. "We are all shaken from this phenomenon and from what it has caused. " Koce Trajanovski, Skopje's mayor, who announced financial aid for the families of the dead, said many victims had been caught off guard because the rain started so rapidly on Saturday evening. "Most of the casualties were people returning home from work or travel," he said. Mr. Romevski said the storm had dumped nearly four inches of rain on the Gazi Baba area, while other parts of Skopje received far less. Heavy rain was also reported in the western Macedonia city of Tetovo. Volunteers established a center in central Skopje on Sunday to accept donations for victims, who needed food, drinking water and hygiene supplies. The government was expected to declare a state of emergency later. But many local residents accused the municipal authorities of an utter lack of preparedness. Mayor Trajanovski rejected the criticism, saying that the storm was a natural catastrophe and that no system could handle such volumes of rainfall in such a short period. Nikola Todorov, the minister of health, said the last such flooding that Skopje residents could recall was in 1962, when more than 5, 000 houses were flooded. Showers and thunderstorms were forecast to hit Skopje again on Sunday evening, and many feared they would exacerbate the crisis. "We don't expect showers with the same intensity as those from yesterday," the National Hydrometeorological Service said in a statement. "But we already have quite saturated soil," it said, and in such situations, "even smaller rainfalls can cause problems. "


21st Century wire says The FBI recently released new documents regarding the bizarre and still forensically critiqued Sandy Hook elementary school shooting tragedy. SANDY HOOK Many questions still remain in this perplexing case. (Photo Illustration 21WIRE s Shawn Helton)KEY POINT: It s important to remember that even though the events at Sandy Hook were said to have been carried out by a deranged lone gunman named Adam Lanza, initial reports on several CBS and ABC affiliates following the Sandy Hook mass shooting stated there was a second shooter who was apprehended at the scene.We should also be reminded that mainstream media reportage of the Sandy Hook tragedy took audiences down several rabbit holes of their own making, eventually implicating an unlikely suspect (left photo) with Asperger s syndrome, in an apparently motiveless crime.Not since the forensically questionable Columbine High School shooting massacre, had the corporate media been so fixated on a tragic shooting, focusing their efforts on politicizing the apparent crime, while investigators offered very little in terms of evidence in their official story.On March 28th of 2013, a few short months after the Sandy Hook shooting, an article entitled Newtown Killer s Obsessions, in Chilling Detail was published by the NY Times. In that article, the public learned that the Lanza s were unknown to authorities and that there were never any disturbances at the family residence that would have prepped law enforcement prior to the school shooting: Two law-enforcement officials who were initially involved in the investigation said in recent interviews that the Newtown police had never been called to the Lanza home for any disturbances, and that before the shootings the family was basically unknown to the authorities.They said they believed that Mr. Lanza had spent most of his time in the basement of the home, primarily playing a warfare video game, Call of Duty. This aspect of the story had remained virtually unquestioned until the recent release of FBI information this week.Earlier this week, an NBC affiliate in Connecticut published an article disclosing the newly released FBI documents regarding the Sandy Hook case. Here s a short passage of that article: The documents include reports by FBI agents who interviewed people about Lanza. Large portions of many of the documents were redacted, including the names of the people who spoke to the agents.The documents also offer a window into the early days of the investigation, as agents chased false leads and gathered evidence of Lanza s isolation.A year after the massacre, state police released a final investigative document that concluded Lanza was obsessed with firearms, death and mass shootings, but that the motive may never be known. While the article continued by placing a heavy emphasis on the media crafted stage-like persona of the alleged shooter Adam Lanza, we re told for the first time of his alleged sexual perversions, as the video game/gun obsessed millennial, apparently also spent time analyzing mass shooting crimes.This murky portrait of the Sandy Hook shooter finally emerges nearly five years after the media sensationalized school shooting. But perhaps the most shocking claim has come from an unnamed Newtown resident alleging that Lanza may have already been well-known to the FBI or possibly the CIA prior to the Sandy Hook school massacre occurring: A Newtown resident told the FBI that Nancy Lanza said Adam had once hacked into a government computer system and federal authorities either FBI or CIA agents showed up at their door.Nancy Lanza told the person that she had to convince the agents that her son was just very intelligent and was challenging himself to see if he could hack into a government system. She said agents told her that if Adam was that smart, he could get a job with their agency someday. QUESTION: Why is the public just now learning that Lanza may have already been known to authorities via his government computer hack and why wouldn t various intelligence agencies continue to monitor his behavior after committing an illegal act that may have been a national security concern?The troubling Sandy Hook saga continues to have more questions than answers READ MORE DAILY SHOOTER NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Daily Shooter FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @ 21WIRE.TV


Armed militants killed at least 30 policemen in a shootout during a raid on a suspected militant hideout in Egypt s Western desert, security sources said on Friday. A number of suspected militants were also killed and security forces are combing the area, a statement by the Interior Ministry said. Egypt is facing an Islamist insurgency concentrated in the Sinai peninsula from two main groups, including an Islamic State affiliate, that has killed hundreds of security forces since 2013. Islamist militants have launched several major attacks, most recently targeting churches in Cairo and other cities with the loss of dozens of lives. The security sources said authorities were following a lead to a hideout deep in the desert thought to house eight suspected members of Hasm, a group which has claimed several attacks around the capital targeting judges and police since last year. A convoy of four SUVs and one interior ministry vehicle was ambushed from higher ground by militants firing rocket-propelled grenades and detonating explosive devices, a senior source in the Giza Security Office said. The number of dead was expected to rise, two security sources said. Two security sources said eight security personnel were injured in the clashes, while another source said that four of the injured were police and four others suspected militants. Egypt accuses Hasm of being the militant wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group it outlawed in 2013. The Muslim Brotherhood denies this. The Islamist insurgency in the Sinai peninsula has grown since the military overthrew President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood in mid-2013 following mass protests against his rule. The militant group staging the insurgency pledged allegiance to Islamic State in 2014. It is blamed for the killing of hundreds of soldiers and policemen and has started to target other areas, including Egypt s Christian Copts. (This version of the story was refiled to say policemen in first paragraph from police officers as the rank of the dead was not immediately known)


President Barack Obama's trade agenda has cleared a key Senate hurdle to move toward a final vote. The Senate has topped the 60 votes needed to begin substantive action on Obama's bid for "fast track" negotiating authority. The vote was 62-38. Obama says fast track authority will improve prospects for a trade treaty with 11 other Pacific-rim nations. Labor unions and other groups vital to Democrats strongly oppose Obama's trade agenda. They say free-trade deals cost U.S. jobs. Obama says U.S. producers need broader access to foreign markets.


Donald Trump wasn t the only presidential candidate whose campaign was boosted by officials of a former Soviet bloc country.Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.The Ukrainian efforts had an impact in the race, helping to force Manafort s resignation and advancing the narrative that Trump s campaign was deeply connected to Ukraine s foe to the east, Russia. But they were far less concerted or centrally directed than Russia s alleged hacking and dissemination of Democratic emails.The Ukrainian antipathy for Trump s team and alignment with Clinton s can be traced back to late 2013. That s when the country s president, Viktor Yanukovych, whom Manafort had been advising, abruptly backed out of a European Union pact linked to anti-corruption reforms. Instead, Yanukovych entered into a multibillion-dollar bailout agreement with Russia, sparking protests across Ukraine and prompting Yanukovych to flee the country to Russia under Putin s protection.In the ensuing crisis, Russian troops moved into the Ukrainian territory of Crimea, and Manafort dropped off the radar.Manafort s work for Yanukovych caught the attention of a veteran Democratic operative named Alexandra Chalupa, who had worked in the White House Office of Public Liaison during the Clinton administration. Chalupa went on to work as a staffer, then as a consultant, for Democratic National Committee. The DNC paid her $412,000 from 2004 to June 2016, according to Federal Election Commission records, though she also was paid by other clients during that time, including Democratic campaigns and the DNC s arm for engaging expatriate Democrats around the world.A daughter of Ukrainian immigrants who maintains strong ties to the Ukrainian-American diaspora and the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, Chalupa, a lawyer by training, in 2014 was doing pro bono work for another client interested in the Ukrainian crisis and began researching Manafort s role in Yanukovych s rise, as well as his ties to the pro-Russian oligarchs who funded Yanukovych s political party.In an interview this month, Chalupa told Politico she had developed a network of sources in Kiev and Washington, including investigative journalists, government officials and private intelligence operatives. While her consulting work at the DNC this past election cycle centered on mobilizing ethnic communities including Ukrainian-Americans she said that, when Trump s unlikely presidential campaign began surging in late 2015, she began focusing more on the research, and expanded it to include Trump s ties to Russia, as well.She occasionally shared her findings with officials from the DNC and Clinton s campaign, Chalupa said. In January 2016 months before Manafort had taken any role in Trump s campaign Chalupa told a senior DNC official that, when it came to Trump s campaign, I felt there was a Russia connection, Chalupa recalled. And that, if there was, that we can expect Paul Manafort to be involved in this election, said Chalupa, who at the time also was warning leaders in the Ukrainian-American community that Manafort was Putin s political brain for manipulating U.S. foreign policy and elections. POLITICONow Ukraine President Poroshenko is scrambling to repair the damage:Russia s meddling has sparked outrage from the American body politic. The U.S. intelligence community undertook the rare move of publicizing its findings on the matter, and President Barack Obama took several steps to officially retaliate, while members of Congress continue pushing for more investigations into the hacking and a harder line against Russia, which was already viewed in Washington as America s leading foreign adversary.Ukraine, on the other hand, has traditionally enjoyed strong relations with U.S. administrations. Its officials worry that could change under Trump, whose team has privately expressed sentiments ranging from ambivalence to deep skepticism about Poroshenko s regime, while sounding unusually friendly notes about Putin s regime.Poroshenko is scrambling to alter that dynamic, recently signing a $50,000-a-month contract with a well-connected GOP-linked Washington lobbying firm to set up meetings with U.S. government officials to strengthen U.S.-Ukrainian relations. Revelations about Ukraine s anti-Trump efforts could further set back those efforts. Things seem to be going from bad to worse for Ukraine, said David A. Merkel, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who helped oversee U.S. relations with Russia and Ukraine while working in George W. Bush s State Department and National Security Council.Merkel, who has served as an election observer in Ukrainian presidential elections dating back to 1993, noted there s some irony in Ukraine and Russia taking opposite sides in the 2016 presidential race, given that past Ukrainian elections were widely viewed in Washington s foreign policy community as proxy wars between the U.S. and Russia. Now, it seems that a U.S. election may have been seen as a surrogate battle by those in Kiev and Moscow, Merkel said. Politico


"Do I know the risk involved in reporting on such things?" Reporting? I think you need to refresh yourself of that word's definition.


Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday demanded a halt to Israeli settlement expansion in occupied territory and said he was committed to a two-state solution to the conflict with Israel after U.S. President Donald Trump suggested he could be open to alternatives. Abbas's office issued a statement after Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at a news conference in Washington before a meeting. At the news conference, Trump said to Netanyahu: "I'd like to see you pull back on settlements for a little bit." But Trump also dropped U.S. insistence on a two-state solution, a longstanding bedrock of Middle East policy, upending a position embraced by successive administrations and the international community and a U.S. commitment to the eventual creation of a Palestinian state. Abbas said he agreed with Trump's call for Israel to refrain from settlement building in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. "The presidency demands that (Israel) agree to (Trump's call), and that of the international community, to halt all settlement activities including in occupied East Jerusalem," the statement said. But the Palestinians stressed that they wanted the two-state option. "The Palestinian presidency stressed its commitment to the two-state solution and to the international law and international legitimacy in the way that secures ending the Israeli occupation and establish the Palestinian State with East Jerusalem as its capital." Giving a convoluted response to a question on whether he backed a two-state solution, Trump suggested that he could abide by whatever the two parties decided. "I'm looking at two states and one state, and I like the one both parties like," he said as he stood alongside Netanyahu. "I can live with either one." Abbas' statement added that the Palestinians affirmed their "readiness to deal positively with the Trump administration to make peace". Talks have been frozen since 2014. The Palestinians seek to establish an independent state in the Israeli occupied West Bank, territory captured in the 1967 Middle East war and the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by Islamist Hamas, with East Jerusalem as its capital.


The White House published what they claim is Donald Trump s 2005 tax information 25 minutes before Rachel Maddow aired it on her show Tuesday night.BREAKING: We've got Trump tax returns. Tonight, 9pm ET. MSNBC.(Seriously). Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) March 14, 2017Speaking on background, a White House official said, You know you are desperate for ratings when you are willing to violate the law to push a story about two pages of tax returns from over a decade ago. Before being elected President, Mr. Trump was one of the most successful businessmen in the world with a responsibility to his company, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required, the official continued. That being said, Mr. Trump paid $38 million dollars even after taking into account large scale depreciation for construction, on an income of more than $150 million dollars, as well as paying tens of millions of dollars in other taxes such as sales and excise taxes and employment taxes and this illegally published return proves just that. Despite this substantial income figure and tax paid, it is totally illegal to steal and publish tax returns. The dishonest media can continue to make this part of their agenda, while the President will focus on his, which includes tax reform that will benefit all Americans. Daily Caller


NATO Announces Largest Troop Deployments Against Russia Since Cold War By Alex Lantier November 09, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " WSWS " - NATO will place hundreds of thousands of troops on alert for military action against Russia in the coming months, top NATO officials told the Times of London on Monday. The US-led military alliance is planning to speed up the mobilization of forces numbering in the tens of thousands and, ultimately, hundreds of thousands and millions that are to be mobilized against Russia. Beyond its existing 5,000-strong emergency response force, NATO is tripling its "incumbent response force" to 40,000 and putting hundreds of thousands of troops on higher alert levels. The Times wrote, "Sir Adam West, Britain's outgoing permanent representative to NATO, said he thought that the goal was to speed up the response time of up to 300,000 military personnel to about two months. At present a force of this size could take up to 180 days to deploy." NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said, "We are addressing what we call the follow-on forces. There are a large number of people in the armed forces of NATO allies. We are looking into how more of them can be ready on a shorter notice." According to the Times , Stoltenberg explained that NATO is looking broadly at methods for "improving the readiness of many of the alliance's three million soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines." The target of these deployments, the largest since the dissolution of the Soviet Union by the Stalinist bureaucracy and the end of the Cold War a quarter century ago, is Russia. "We have seen a more assertive Russia implementing a substantial military build-up of many years, tripling defence spending since 2000 in real terms; developing new military capabilities; exercising their forces and using military force against neighbours," Stoltenberg said. "We have also seen Russia using propaganda in Europe among NATO allies and that is exactly the reason why NATO is responding. We are responding with the biggest reinforcement of our collective defence since the end of the Cold War." These statements show how NATO planning for a horrific war against Russia has continued behind the backs of the people throughout the US presidential election campaign. Military deployments and war preparations by the Pentagon and the general staffs of the various European countries are set to go ahead, moreover, whatever the outcome of the election in the United States and those slated for 2017 in the European NATO countries. Stoltenberg's vague attack on Russian "propaganda" in Europe is an allusion to the instinctive opposition to war that exists in the European and international working class and popular distrust of the anti-Russian propaganda promoted by NATO officials like Stoltenberg and West. Last year, a Pew poll found broad international opposition to NATO participation in a conventional war against Russia in Eastern Europe, even in a scenario that assumes Russia started the conflict. Under these hypothetical conditions, 58 percent of Germans, 53 percent of French people, and 51 percent of Italians opposed any military action against Russia. Opposition to war in the poll would doubtless have been higher had pollsters mentioned that NATO's decision to attack Russian forces in Eastern Europe could lead to nuclear war. This opposition is rooted in deep disaffection with the imperialist Middle East wars of the post-Soviet period and the memory of two world wars in Europe in the 20th century. The arguments Stoltenberg presented against it are politically fraudulent. The primary threat of military aggression and war in Europe comes not from Russia, but from the NATO countries. Over the past 25 years, the imperialist powers of NATO have bombed and invaded countries in Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Within Europe, they bombed Serbia and Kosovo in the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, pushed NATO's borders hundreds of miles to the East, and backed a violent, fascist-led putsch to topple a pro-Russian government in Ukraine in 2014. The aggressive character of NATO policy emerged once again last Friday, when NBC News reported that US cyber warfare units had hacked key Russian electricity, Internet and military networks. These are now "vulnerable to attack by secret American cyber weapons should the US deem it necessary," NBC stated. Russian officials denounced the activities highlighted in the report and the Obama White House's silence on the matter. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, "If no official reaction from the American administration follows, it would mean state cyber terrorism exists in the US. If the threats of the attack, which were published by the US media, are carried out, Moscow would be justified in charging Washington." The geo-strategically disastrous consequences of the Stalinist bureaucracy's dissolution of the Soviet Union and restoration of capitalism in Eastern Europe are ever more apparent. With NATO troops or proxy forces stationed in a geographic belt extending from the Baltic republics to Poland, Ukraine and Romania—either a short distance from or on Russia's borders—NATO is now poised for a major war against Russia that could escalate into a nuclear conflagration. An examination of Stoltenberg's remarks shows that NATO's plans are not defensive preparations to counter a sudden conventional invasion of Europe by the Russian army. In such a scenario, Russian tank columns would overrun the few thousand or tens of thousands of troops in NATO's various emergency response forces, depriving the broader ranks of NATO "follow-up" forces the 60 to 180 days they need to mobilize. Rather, the plan for mobilizing successive layers of "follow-on forces" is intended to allow NATO to threaten Russia in a crisis situation by gradually bringing to bear more and more of its collective military strength, which, although split between 28 member states, outweighs that of Russia. Russia's population of 145 million is far smaller than that of the NATO countries, at 906 million. The aggressive character of NATO's agenda is illustrated by a report issued last month by the CIA-linked Rand Corporation think tank on the military situation in the Baltic republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. The small military forces NATO has posted in the Baltic republics, Rand wrote, are "inviting a devastating war, rather than deterring it." They calculated that Russian forces, if they actually invaded, could overrun these countries in approximately 60 hours. On this basis, the think tank called for launching a vast NATO military build-up in the Baltic republics, virtually at the gates of St. Petersburg. It wrote that it would take "a force of about seven brigades, including three heavy armored brigades—adequately supported by air power, land-based fires, and other enablers on the ground and ready to fight at the onset of hostilities to prevent the rapid overrun of the Baltic states." This would cost the NATO countries $2.7 billion each year. As the NATO countries intensify their threats against Russia, there are increasingly bitter conflicts among the NATO imperialist powers themselves. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi bluntly opposed new sanctions on Russia as called for by Washington at last month's European Union summit in Brussels, and there are deepening tensions between Germany and the United States as officials in Berlin and Paris call for an independent EU military. Prospects of increased US-led military provocations against Russia are sharpening tensions within Europe. In an article titled "Whether Clinton or Trump wins, for Germany things will get uncomfortable," German news magazine Der Spiegel warned of the long-term implications of an aggressive US-led policy against Russia, which it assumed would continue regardless which of the two candidates secured the White House. The magazine wrote, "The motto will be: If you want (nuclear) US protection from Putin, you must either pay us more money or re-arm yourself." Copyright Š 1998-2016 World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved


While Republicans and their NRA puppet masters refuse to acknowledge it, we have a gun violence problem in America today. Almost like clockwork, anytime there is a shooting the right twists themselves into pretzels to blame anything but the easy availability of guns to, shall we say, crazy people.Each time, for instance, a pro-gun Republican shoots up a building, conservatives will fallaciously claim that he was a Black Lives Matter protester, or ignore their raving-mad right-wing rants and love of weapons, or claim the shooter was a Progressive because he was formerly employed by an insurance company by that name, or even say that a man who shot up a Planned Parenthood in an effort to stop abortion was a transgendered leftist activist who was trying to rob a bank. They spend so much time focusing on inventing stories that they completely miss the one trait all of these attacks share: the weapon used was a gun.While they ignore the issues, the right bellows that the solution is more guns, not fewer. But a recent study the largest of its kind to date puts that assertion largely to rest. A research team reviewed 130 high-quality studies conducted in ten countries over six decades and found that the tyrannical attempts by those of us on the left who want to restrict crazy people s access to guns because we are sick of seeing dead children on a daily basis, aren t at all misguided, as conservatives often claim.While researchers stopped short of saying they have proved conclusively that firearm restrictions reduce deaths, the study provides plenty of evidence to suggest this is the case. Across countries, instead of seeing an increase in the homicide rate, we saw a reduction, lead researcher Julian Santaella-Tenorio from Columbia University told Vox. The study analyzed law changes in the United States, Australia, Austria, Brazil, South Africa, and other countries. No new data was collected. Instead, the researchers observed the big picture by taking a look at what the data says when all the studies are examined together. Santaella-Teonorio explained: The simultaneous implementation of laws targeting multiple firearms restrictions is associated with reductions in firearm deaths. The findings do not note one specific law that has caused gun violence to decrease like an assault weapon ban, or a ban on high-capacity magazines, because the diversity among countries makes this difficult. However, in countries that overhauled their firearm regulations broadly, the changes shared similar characteristics, according to the researcher:South Africa s Firearm Control Act of 2000, for example, contained all three of these measures, and a study of five South African cities found a 13.6 percent reduction in firearm homicides each year for the next five years. Reductions in nonfirearm homicides were also observed, the researchers say, although not as pronounced as the ones observed for firearm homicides. To combat mass shootings, Australia passed similar legislation in 1996. Thanks to the new laws, firearm homicide rates decreased by 4.8 percent, and suicides by 9.9 percent. There have only been two mass shootings in the country in the two decades since.But even the smallest changes, such as background check requirements and storage regulations, can have a huge impact. Laws restricting the purchase of (e.g. background checks) and access to (e.g. safer storage) firearms are also associated with lower rates of intimate partner homicides and firearm unintentional deaths in children, respectively, the researchers write.Of course, the weakening of firearm laws can have an impact as well. Following Missouri s decision to eliminate common-sense laws requiring people to have a permit to purchase a firearm, the state saw a homicide rate increase of 25 percent. No other changes in the law explain this increase. Stand Your Ground laws do nothing to reduce gun violence, but instead increase it (especially among white men): Stand your ground laws were associated with a 6.8% increase in homicide rates, mainly driven by increments (14.7%) in homicide rates among white males. While this can t be considered conclusive evidence that gun control helps limit fatalities, the study certainly provides enough evidence to give any Republican who can manage to operate a toaster without an adult supervising the operation pause to consider that maybe, just maybe, laws limiting firearms to people who aren t criminals, who aren t insane, and who aren t going to misuse them or act irresponsibly are in everyone s best interest even the most staunch Second Amendment supporter.


The presidents of the United States and Mexico spoke by phone on Friday after relations between the neighboring countries frayed further over Donald Trump's border wall plan, with the U.S. leader calling the talk friendly but still demanding reworked trade and other ties. The call between Trump and Enrique Pena Nieto came a day after the Mexican president scrapped a meeting set for next week at the White House over Trump's demand that Mexico pay for a multibillion-dollar wall along the lengthy southern U.S. border with Mexico. Mexico insists it will not pay for it. Both countries issued statements saying Trump and Pena Nieto recognized their clear differences of opinion on the payment demand, and agreed to settle the matter as part of a broader discussion on all aspects of the two nations' relationship. Financial markets took news of the call as a sign that the crisis in U.S-Mexican relations just days after Trump took office had eased. Mexico's peso rose on the news. Mexico's government statement said Trump and Pena Nieto agreed not to talk publicly for now about payment for the wall. The White House did not immediately clarify whether Trump had agreed not to publicly discuss how the wall would be paid for. During a joint news conference at the White House with visiting British Prime Minister Theresa May after the call, Trump did not mention the wall even as he spoke expansively about U.S. relations with Mexico. "As you know, Mexico - with the United States - has out-negotiated us and beat us to a pulp through our past leaders. They've made us look foolish," Trump told the news conference. "We have a trade deficit of $60 billion with Mexico. On top of that, the border is soft and weak, drugs are pouring in," added Trump, who during the U.S. presidential campaign accused Mexico of sending rapists and other criminals into the United States. The United States had a $58.8 billion trade deficit with its southern neighbor in the 11 months ending last November. Trump called his hour long talk with Pena Nieto "very, very friendly," said he has a "very good relationship" with him and expressed "great respect for Mexico." Mexico and the White House both called the meeting productive and constructive. Nevertheless, Trump showed no signs of backing off pledges to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Mexico and Canada and slap high tariffs on American companies that have moved jobs south of the border. Mexico sends 80 percent of its exports to the United States, and about half of Mexico's foreign direct investment over the past two decades has come from its northern neighbor. "We are going to be working on a fair relationship and a new relationship" with Mexico, Trump told the news conference with May. "But the United States cannot continue to lose vast amounts of business, vast amounts of companies and millions and millions of people losing their jobs. That won't happen with me." Trump said the United States will renegotiate trade deals and other aspects of America's relationship with Mexico, adding, "And in the end I think it will be good for both countries." U.S. congressional leaders said on Thursday they would take up legislation to provide $12 billion to $15 billion to pay for the wall. Trump, who has insisted that Mexico will reimburse the United States for the entire cost, signed a directive on Wednesday for the wall to proceed, part of a package of measures aimed at curbing illegal immigration. The wall plan has angered Mexicans, and Trump's policies toward Mexico have put Pena Nieto on the defensive. The Republican president views the wall, a major promise during his election campaign, as part of a package of measures to curb illegal immigration. Mexico has long insisted it will not heed Trump's demands to pay for the construction project. On Thursday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer sent the Mexican peso falling when he told reporters that Trump wanted a 20 percent tax on Mexican imports to pay for the wall. Spicer gave few details, but his comments resembled an existing idea, known as a border adjustment tax, that the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives is considering as part of a broad tax overhaul. Trump said in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network on Friday that there were options besides an import tax that could be "much more positive" for both countries. The White House said Friday's call also covered "the importance of the friendship between the two nations, and the need for the two nations to work together to stop drug cartels, drug trafficking and illegal guns and arms sales." Mexico's government said the U.S. trade deficit also came up. In Mexico City, billionaire Mexican businessman Carlos Slim said a united Mexico was ready to help the government negotiate with Trump and called on all political parties to support Pena Nieto in his discussions with the U.S. president. In a rare news conference by the generally media-shy mogul, Slim said Mexico needed to negotiate from a position of strength, noting that Trump, who he called a "great negotiator," represented a major change in how politics will be conducted.


U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday it was important for President-elect Donald Trump to send signals of unity after a bitterly fought campaign. At a news conference, Obama declined to comment on Trump's selection of conservative provocateur Steve Bannon as his White House chief strategist. But the Democratic president said he privately told the Republican Trump in an Oval Office meeting last week that because of the "bitterness and the ferocity of the campaign that it's really important to try to send some signals of unity and to reach out to minority groups, to women and others that were concerned about the tenor of the campaign."


Ukrainian lawmakers voted through a long-delayed overhaul of the health system on Thursday that the state s Western backers say will raise standards and tackle a culture of bribe-taking in surgeries and hospitals. The European Union and the International Monetary Fund have been pressing for faster reform is a country where lives are more than five years shorter than the European average, according to the World Health Organization. But opponents of the changes, including many opposition MPs, say the more Western-style system will force patients to pay for their medicines for the first time, leaving the poorest with no healthcare. The legislation lets patients choose their own doctor, rather than have one foisted on them - a move the government said would encourage medics to improve service and give them less opportunity to demand kickbacks for treatment. The bill also sets out which medicines are paid for by the state and which ones patients will have to buy themselves. Backers have said it would be clearer than the present system, where medicines are in theory covered by the state, but patients often have to pay to get hold of pills when supplies run short. The government s task is to provide a quality medical system for citizens rather than do nothing and tolerate the misery that we have in Ukrainian hospitals, Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman told parliament after the vote passed. The government has been pushing for closer links to the European Union since a popular uprising ousted pro-Russian former president Viktor Yanukovich in 2014. Ambassadors from the G7 leading powers released a statement saying the legislation was a sign that Ukraine is ready and committed to moving forward with its vital reforms . The legislation, which was steered by the United States-born acting Health Minister Ulana Suprun, has undergone 893 amendments and faced repeated criticism, including from Olga Bogomolets, the head of the parliamentary healthcare committee. Bogomolets said on Facebook on Thursday the changes would result in hospital closures and fewer doctors and medicines in rural areas, calling them tantamount to genocide . Supporters of the changes say vested interests who benefit from corruption in the current system spread scare stories about the reform. Protesters camped outside parliament this week accusing President Petro Poroshenko of stalling on other legislation, including the creation of special anti-corruption courts and a move to strip lawmakers of automatic immunity.


Former Zimbabwean finance minister Ignatius Chombo was admitted to hospital on Friday with injuries sustained from beatings he received in military custody after the army s intervention against Robert Mugabe a week ago, his lawyer said. Lovemore Madhuku said Chombo had injuries to his hands, legs and back and was blindfolded throughout his week in custody. He was being accused of corruption and abuse of power relating to his time as local government minister more than a decade ago, Madhuku added. It was a very brutal and draconian way of dealing with opponents, he told Reuters.


TMZ caught up with Mavericks owner and Hillary supporter Mark Cuban yesterday to ask what he thought of President Donald J. Trump. Arizona citizens must be thrilled to hear billionaire Mark Cuban who has personal security surrounding him talk about how ridiculous Trump s efforts to secure our borders and keep our nation safe from foreigners who sneak in with actual refugees with a goal of doing harm to our nation.WATCH CUBAN S SOUR GRAPES INTERVIEW HERE:Well, that s not exactly what happened now is it Cuban?Here s what REALLY happened to the stock market after Trump s election: Market Watch U.S. stocks rallied Wednesday, with the Dow industrials jumping 257 points, led by a surge in financial, health-care and industrial stocks, as investors bet on the infrastructure spending policy promised by President-elect Donald Trump.The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +1.40% gained as much as 316 points, briefly surpassing the all-time closing high set in August. The index closed 256.95 points, or 1.4%, higher at 18,589.69, its highest level since Aug. 18. Pfizer Inc. PFE, +7.07% and Caterpillar Inc CAT, +7.70% led the gains, rallying more than 7%.Way to go Cuban you just reminded us of how little you know about economics or choosing the right candidate for President Keep up the great work Mark. You re really helping out your brand.


By Brandon TurbevilleCNN is in full panic mode with the recent resumption of the Syrian government assault on terrorist-held East Aleppo. The discredited news agency is now reduced to rehashing tired and disproven propaganda against the Syrian government and claims that Assad is killing his own people by bombing head-chopping terrorists in East Aleppo.You have to hand it to CNN for consistency at least. Cutting edge propaganda, however, is not the corporation s strong suit, since every time it has tried to deliver a major blow, it has resulted in an epic fail RECYCLED IMAGE: Yesterday, CNN used this recycled, staged image to sell its story, allegedly from a hospital in Aleppo used across US media last month.[Watch CNN reporter Will Ripley s propaganda video here, complete with staged imagery from the US, NATO Member-funded White Helmets and Aleppo Media Centre regime change NGOs]This time, the propaganda of choice is the same tired line that every bomb (excuse me, every barrel bomb ) being dropped on East Aleppo has been dropped intentionally on top of civilians for the purpose of killing them all because . . . . well, that part has never been explained. But, for the average CNN reader, just know that Assad is a bad guy and that the rebels who demand veiled, silent, women and full adherence to Sharia law under pain of death are good guys and democracy-loving freedom fighters. The regime s siege of rebel-held neighborhoods has triggered a humanitarian catastrophe as food, water and medical supplies run low, says CNN.Obviously, the humanitarian conditions in East Aleppo have nothing to do with savages and pre-historic bearded freaks running rampant and demanding that their ridiculous interpretation (or should I say Saudi interpretation) of their religion be enforced by the blade of a dull knife. It couldn t be because the terrorists have prevented aid from reaching civilians and have actively prevented civilians from leaving East Aleppo to flee to the (*gasp!!) government-held areas. It couldn t be because of the Western sanctions on Syria. It couldn t be because the United States and its treacherous allies funded a proxy army of extremists to destroy the country.No, it s because the Syrian military dared bomb foreign terrorists in East Aleppo. CNN uses interesting logic, indeed.SEE ALSO: RESCUE REDUX: Are Syria s White Helmets Recycling its Child Victims?The article laughably uses the notorious terrorist support group known as the White Helmets as its source relaying all the horrors of the Assad regime. This has been typical of the corporate press in the West ever since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, i.e. using terrorist organizations to cite claims against the Syrian government. Generally speaking, these terrorists are labeled activists when a quote is needed but, in the case of the White Helmets, the label of humanitarian organization is tossed around, a much more effective propaganda technique.But what is even more deceitful is that CNN also labels the White Helmets and the Syria Civil Defense as the same organization, an absolute fallacy as Vanessa Beeley, the individual who is probably most responsible for exposing this propagandistic terrorist organization, can personally attest to, having met with members of the real Syria Civil Defense in Syria and hearing their stories about the terrorism of the White Helmets. Beeley has also interviewed a doctor with the Aleppo Medical Association who was responsible for assessing East Aleppo refugees who stated clearly that, despite being widely popular in the U.S., the people in East Aleppo simply don t know who the White Helmets are. For them, White Helmets are just another terrorist group.None of this matters to CNN, however, since the corporation is nothing but a mouthpiece for the U.S. State Department, Wall Street, and international corporations. It is, in fact, nothing more than a propaganda site.Perhaps CNN was one of the fake news sites that Obama was whining about during his latest trip to Germany . . . .Brandon Turbeville article archive here is the author of seven books, Codex Alimentarius The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 andvolume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President. His website is BrandonTurbeville.com He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.This article may be freely shared in part or in full with author attribution and source link.READ MORE SYRIA NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Syria FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV


Just in case anybody s wondering just how dangerous Trump s love of Putin is, here s a little reminder: When Putin was running for election in 2011, he hosted a big, lavish banquet where he spoke to a variety of leaders on a variety of topics. When he addressed the Americans there, he said that the only reason the U.S. was interested in a relationship with Moscow was because Russia could destroy the U.S. in a half hour or less. That s according to two authors of The Russia-China Axis, who concluded from Putin s thinly-veiled threat: It would be difficult to find a statement more revealing about Putin s true position regarding the United States. This is a man that Donald Trump repeatedly praises as a strong leader, and over whom he fawns because Putin likes him. Putin and Trump are two of a kind in terms of demagoguery, but it s never been a secret that Putin isn t a fan of the U.S. It seems the only way he ll become a fan of us is if Trump is elected.Why?He likely believes he can pull Trump s puppet strings. Trump might think that Putin is just a good negotiator, but he fails miserably at understanding the naked fact that Putin sees us as his number one enemy.If Putin is actively working to undermine our democratic process (and there is credible evidence suggesting exactly that), then a President Trump is very likely to just hand us over, knowingly or unknowingly, to a hostile leader who believes he can destroy us on a whim.Russia has a squillion nuclear weapons that s never been a secret. We have roughly 4,100 of the damn things that aren t awaiting dismantlement while Russia has roughly 2,700 in that state. In total, we have 7,100 while Russia has 7,300. However, Russia has managed to negotiate cuts in our arsenal while they work to strengthen theirs. Some reports say that their military exercises center around nuclear strikes now.In other words, their nuclear arsenal might be a bigger threat than ours, and they are more prepared for a nuclear war than we are. Compare all of that to North Korea s eight and Iran s nonexistent nuclear arsenal, and one has to wonder why our leaders seem to focus all our energy on those two countries when Russia is currently led by a man who said he could destroy us in a half hour, and we have a presidential candidate who is in love with that man.This is so frightening to many in the GOP that some feel they re in the awkward position of having to rationalize Trump s love affair with Vladimir Putin while quietly quaking in their boots. But others aren t fooled, like Lindsey Graham: Other than destroying every instrument of democracy in his own country, having opposition people killed, dismembering neighbors through military force and being the benefactor of the butcher of Damascus, he s a good guy. And the ghostwriter of Trump s best-selling Art of the Deal, Tony Schwartz: To undecided voters: Trump wants to be Putin, a despot & dictator. The world may not recover. Save your children and grandchildren. Yeah. Putin s a great guy. So s Trump. Two peas in a pod. Anybody who thinks we ll be safe with Trump as president has their head buried up their buried up an ass full of sand.Featured image by Dennis Grombkowski/Getty Images


ZERO HEDGE  With furious Democrats - and the Clinton Campaign - now openly blasting the FBI's reopened investigation (as Republicans take delight for once in having a government agency reinforce their side of events), the question turns to just what emails were found on Weiner's laptop, and how damaging their contents are for the FBI to take the unprecedented step of "intervening" in a major political event just days before the national election.  We first laid what was the most likely explanation yesterday , when we showed several examples of Huma Abedin emails being sent from her work email account to her personal account at , courtesy of a Judicial Watch FOIA release. Of the more than 160 emails in the latest Judicial Watch release, some 110 emails – two-thirds of the total – were forwarded by Abedin to two personal addresses she controlled. The Washington Times reported in August 2015 that the State Department had admitted to a federal judge that Abedin and Mills used personal email accounts to conduct government business in addition to Clinton's private clintonemail.com to transact State Department business.  One email from May 15, 2009, was sent by Abedin from her State Department email to her personal email. Abedin was archiving in her personal email account an email Hillary Clinton sent her from Clinton's private email server at . Abedin was asked to print out attachments to an email Mills sent via a private address the previous day to Clinton involving "timetables and deliverables" for her review via Alec Ross, a technology policy expert who then held the title of senior adviser for innovation to Secretary Clinton.  However, while forwarding Hillary's emails to her personal email server for "convenience" is one thing, what is more troubling is the amount of redaction involved in these emails which migrated to the open email account, which as we now know ended up in Anthony Weiner's computer: in the above example, the two pages of timetables and deliverables attached to the email were 100 percent redacted, with "PAGE DENIED" stamped across the first redacted page.  An argument can be made that the extensive redaction confirms confidential material was part of the transmission.  This is a nuanced point being pushed by Hillary Clinton supporters such as Newsweek's Kurt Eichenwald, who in an article yesterday tried to make a case citing "sources" (even though the FBI said that nobody has seen the content of the Weiner/Abedin emails), that " no emails being examined by FBI were to or from Clinton ." No emails being examined by FBI were to or from Clinton. All of this has to do with procedures followed by an aide. https://t.co/mcsBi7j7XU — Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) October 29, 2016  It remains to be seen just what is in the emails, although whether Hillary sent emails with confidential content herself, or directed, or simply allowed her closest aide, Huma Abedin to forward such emails to her outside unsecured email address (where they subsequently ended up on Anthony Weiner's notebook), is what this latest case will be all about and how it will be defended and prosecuted in the media, by the water coolers and perhaps, in court.  However, we do know one thing: according to the NYT , the number of Huma emails that made their way to Weiner's PC was staggering:  The F.B.I. is investigating illicit text messages that Mr. Weiner, a former Democratic congressman from New York, sent to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina. The bureau told Congress on Friday that it had uncovered new emails related to the Clinton case — one federal official said they numbered in the tens of thousand  Which brings up two more critical questions: i) when she was questioned by the FBI over the summer, did Huma reveal and admit the existence of these "thousands" of emails located on a personal, home computer, and ii) will the FBI be able to comb through everything in the next 10 days ahead of the election? If the answer to the second question is no, will the US presidential election really take place with one candidate currently under FBI investigation, one which could potentially lead to impeachment proceedings within weeks or days of her being elected president?  Still, the biggest irony in this latest debacle is that it was largely predicted by Donald Trump himself back in August of 2015. It came out that Huma Abedin knows all about Hillary's private illegal emails. Huma's PR husband, Anthony Weiner, will tell the world.


We love these ladies! YouTube sensations Diamond and Silk tell 100% FED UP Americans how to ditch the Democrats and switch to the Republican Party.They re not afraid to show their love for Trump, and now they re taking it one step further. They re pulling a trick from the Democrat Party playbook and teaching their viewers how easy it is to switch your party affiliation.Watch here:


It s really interesting to hear this panel go ballistic over Nikki Haley finally standing up for America.MSNBC s Morning Joe panel on Friday lashed out at U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley for her speech before the U.N. General Assembly the prior day in which she criticized countries that supported a resolution condemning President Donald Trump s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel s capital.Haley castigated the U.N. on Thursday after the international body backed a non-binding resolution to reject the U.S. decision on Jerusalem. The United States will remember this day in which it was singled out for attack in this assembly, she said, threatening to cut off funding to the U.N. We will remember it when we are called upon to once again make the world s largest contribution to the U.N. and when other member nations ask Washington to pay even more and to use our influence for their benefit. The Morning Joe panel took issue with Haley s remarks We think she stood strong and put these freeloading nations on notice. We say BRAVO!


Ivory Coast will cut its armed forces by about 1,000 troops by the end of the year, the government spokesman said on Wednesday, in a bid to rationalize a costly and sometimes unruly military. Government spokesman Bruno Kone told reporters after a cabinet meeting that the 997 soldiers had accepted voluntary retirement this year as part of an initiative to conform to accepted standards , partly by reducing the ratio of non-commissioned officers to lower ranks. Ivory Coast does not give details on the size of its military, but security sources estimate there are more than 25,000 troops in a country with a population of about 24 million. Francophone West Africa s biggest economy suffered two army mutinies this year that damaged its reputation among investors and forced the government to agree to costly pay rises. The distribution of Ivory Coast s army is out of step with the standards accepted in modern armies, Kone said. The former French colony, once known as one of the most stable states in West Africa, is still recovering from a brief civil war fought after President Alassane Ouattara won a disputed election in 2010 but incumbent Laurent Gbagbo refused to step down. Ouattara has struggled to assert his authority over the army, which was cobbled together in an uneasy merger of the northern New Forces rebels who supported him and the professional troops who had fought against him. The soldiers being taken out of action included three senior officers, 634 non-commissioned officers and 354 regular foot soldiers, Kone said.


Share on Twitter The Wildfire is an opinion platform and any opinions or information put forth by contributors are exclusive to them and do not represent the views of IJR.  Following Monday's release of the Project Veritas video in which Democrat operatives are seen discussing Hillary Clinton's personal involvement in a stunt to embarrass Donald Trump for not releasing his tax returns, James O'Keefe began to troll Hillary on Twitter over his next release—a "birthday surprise." Today is Hillary's 69th birthday. — James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) October 26, 2016  O'Keefe also tagged Americans United for Change director Brad Woodhouse, whom he taunted yesterday about the pending video release. If you notice @woodhouseb is nervous & losing his temper on TV. Stay tuned tomorrow Brad, because you're going to have a busy busy day. pic.twitter.com/P63xAhMlB7 — James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) October 25, 2016 Hi, @HillaryClinton & @woodhouseb . When you were coordinating, did you take money from a bank in BELIZE and then return it AFTER first vid? — James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) October 26, 2016  Independent Journal Review will update this post as soon as Hillary Clinton's "birthday gift" drops. And... here it is.


The U.S. Senate confirmed Rex Tillerson as President Donald Trump's secretary of state on Wednesday, filling a key spot on the Republican's national security team despite concerns about the former Exxon Mobil Corp chief executive officer's ties to Russia. The vote, mostly along party lines, was by far the closest in at least half a century. Fifty-six senators backed Tillerson, and 43 voted no. Every Republican favored Tillerson, along with four members of the Democratic caucus, Senators Heidi Heitkamp, Joe Manchin and Mark Warner as well as Angus King, an independent. Democratic Senator Chris Coons did not vote. Tillerson's predecessor in the position, John Kerry, was confirmed by 94 to 3. Condoleezza Rice, the last secretary of state nominated by a Republican, was confirmed by 85-13. Senate Democrats had tried, but failed, to delay the vote on Tillerson because of Trump's executive order banning immigration from seven mostly Muslim countries and temporarily halting the entry of refugees. They said they wanted to ask Tillerson more questions about the issue after Trump signed the order on Friday, prompting protests and chaos at airports across the country and uncertainty and disruption for travelers around the world. But Republicans hold a majority of 52 seats in the 100-member Senate, and so far have confirmed all of the six Trump nominees who have come up for votes. Senators had also expressed concerns over Tillerson's ties to Russia after the executive spent years there working for the oil company. Some faulted him for failing to promise to recuse himself from matters related to Exxon Mobil businesses for his entire term as secretary of state rather than only the one year required by law. Tillerson, 64, retired as chairman and chief executive of Exxon Mobil at the end of 2016 after a four-decade career at the company. Republicans and other Tillerson supporters said they thought he would be a strong leader as the country's top diplomat, citing his experience running a giant corporation operating on six continents. They also said it was important to finalize Trump's national security team quickly, to address international crises and reassure allies wondering about the new president's "America First" foreign policy.