For someone who promoted his management skills and campaigned as an "organizational genius," as Anderson Cooper of CNN put it, it has been a rocky White House debut for Donald J. Trump, the first president to go directly from the executive suite to the Oval Office. "Chaos" seems to be the word most often invoked, closely followed by "turmoil. " (One exception: the White House spokesman, Sean Spicer, who said he preferred " . ") In less than two weeks, Mr. Trump created upheaval at the nation's borders, alienated longtime allies, roiled markets with talk of a trade war and prompted some of the largest protests any president has faced. The conservative editorial page of The Wall Street Journal bemoaned a refugee policy "so poorly explained and prepared for, that it has produced confusion and fear at airports, an immediate legal defeat, and political fury at home and abroad. " Even the top House Republican, Speaker Paul D. Ryan, who had released a statement praising the immigration order, later distanced himself, saying, "It's regrettable that there was some confusion with the rollout. " All new presidents undergo a learning curve. But Mr. Trump promised a seamless transition and, with a real chief executive in charge as opposed to a career politician, an administration that would function as a machine. So it doesn't seem premature to ask some leading management experts for an assessment of Mr. Trump's first weeks, purely from the viewpoint of organizational behavior and management effectiveness, as I did this week. The unanimous verdict: Thus far, the Trump administration is a textbook case of how not to run a complex organization like the executive branch. "This is so basic, it's covered in the introduction to the M. B. A. program that all our students take," said Lindred Greer, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. By all outward indications, Mr. Trump "desperately needs to take the course," she said. Jeffrey Pfeffer, professor of organizational behavior at Stanford and the author of "Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don't," said Mr. Trump's executive actions as president "are so far from any responsible management approach" that they all but defy analysis. "Of course, this isn't new," he told me. "His campaign also violated every prudent management principle. Everyone including our friends on Wall Street somehow believed that once he was president he'd change. I don't understand that logic. " Wall Street did take notice. After months of cheering the prospect of tax reform and infrastructure spending, investors sold stocks after a weekend of chaos at the nation's airports connected to the president's executive order on immigration. On Monday, the Dow industrials experienced the biggest decline since the election, fueled by worries that a dysfunctional White House wouldn't be able to execute Mr. Trump's policies. "If you thought immigration was bad, just wait for health care," Mr. Pfeffer warned. The White House did not respond to requests for comment. There is an enormous amount of literature and data exploring what constitutes effective management of complicated organizations. "The core principles have served many leaders really well," said Jeffrey T. Polzer, professor of human resource management at Harvard Business School. "It's really common sense: You want to surround yourself with talented people who have the most expertise, who bring different perspectives to the issue at hand. Then you foster debate and invite different points of view in order to reach a solution. " This is often easier said than done. It "requires an openness to being challenged, and some and even humility to acknowledge that there are areas where other people know more than you do," Mr. Polzer continued. "This doesn't mean decisions are made by consensus. The person at the top makes the decisions, but based on the facts and expertise necessary to make a good decision. " Mr. Trump has already violated several of these core principles. The secretary of Homeland Security, John F. Kelly, was still discussing a proposed executive order restricting immigration when Mr. Trump went ahead and signed it. Nor was Jim Mattis, the defense secretary, consulted he saw the final order only hours before it went into effect. Not to consult thoroughly with top cabinet officers before deciding on the order "is insane," since they "have the expertise and should be on top of the data," Ms. Greer said. "Ignoring them leads to bad decisions and is also incredibly demoralizing. " And there's another reason to consult, Mr. Polzer said: "When people are genuinely involved in a decision and their input is heard and valued and respected, they are more likely to support and buy into the decision and be motivated to execute to the best of their abilities, even if the decision doesn't go their way. " Conversely, people who aren't consulted feel they have no stake in a successful outcome. Far from encouraging and weighing differing views as part of the process, Mr. Trump appears to view dissension as disloyalty. After career State Department officers circulated a draft cable questioning the effectiveness of the immigration ban, Mr. Spicer responded, "They should either get with the program or they can go. " "Debate and dissent are essential to reaching any thoughtful outcome," Ms. Greer said. Comments like Mr. Spicer's "will discourage anyone from speaking up. You end up with group think, an echo chamber where people only say what they think the president wants to hear. " And while it's understandable that the president was eager to act swiftly to follow through on his campaign promises — he had made a long list of actions to be carried out on "Day 1" — his directives came across as needlessly hasty and poorly thought through. Some had to be reframed (talk of a Mexican border surcharge) or significantly modified and clarified after the fact (immigration policy). I asked the management experts to ignore their views about the merits of Mr. Trump's policies, but all said that execution and substance are inextricably linked. "When you're on the receiving end of a policy decision, the merits of the decision and the execution go hand in hand," Mr. Polzer said. "If either one is done poorly, the outcomes will be bad. Even good plans that are poorly rolled out aren't going to work well. " For many people, the Affordable Care Act was indelibly tainted by the computer malfunctions that plagued its start. Similarly, for many Americans, the enduring image of Mr. Trump's immigration policy will be that of a tearful Iraqi immigrant who was detained at Kennedy International Airport after risking his life working as a translator for the American military over a period. (He was released after lawyers intervened on his behalf.) That prompted even Mr. Ryan to say, "No one wanted to see people with green cards or special immigrant visas, like translators, get caught up in all of this. " Some Trump defenders have said that the president thrives on chaos, and it has proved to be an effective management approach for him in the past. But every expert I consulted said there is no empirical data or research that supports the notion that chaos is a productive management tool. "I'm not aware of anyone who advocates that," Mr. Polzer said. "I don't really know what's going on in the White House, so I don't feel comfortable commenting on that specifically. But I can say in general that in organizational settings, less chaos is a good thing. " Everyone agreed that there was still time for Mr. Trump to right the ship. Other administrations have had course corrections and personnel . But having to reorganize only weeks into a first term is not promising. If this were the private sector, "someone would be fired," Ms. Greer said. That seems highly unlikely, since Mr. Trump has not even acknowledged a problem, instead blaming the media for an impression of upheaval in the White House. That is a fundamental problem, Mr. Pfeffer said. "No good business makes decisions that are based on falsehoods," he said. "My sense is that Trump takes no one's counsel but his own. That's bad management, period. "


Meanwhile, in virtually every media outlet across America, Trump Trump Trump and Russia Russia Russia!Evidence shows that John Roberts, chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, was hacked by a Deep State surveillance operation overseen by Obama administration CIA director John Brennan and Obama director of national intelligence James Clapper.Roberts, the Bush appointee who made the decisive vote to uphold the constitutionality of Obamacare before the 2012 election, was allegedly the victim of the same Deep State surveillance program that spied on President Donald Trump.Tapes released by Federal Judge G. Murray Snow preserved on a Whistleblower Soundcloud page show real estate billionaire Timothy Blixseth explaining Brennan and Clapper s surveillance program to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and detective Mike Zullo. The existence of this surveillance program has been corroborated by Wikileaks Vault 7 release and by the public comments of former CIA and NSA contractor Dennis Montgomery, who says he worked on the program for Brennan and Clapper.Montgomery has gone public with his claims exposing how the program was used to spy on President Donald Trump when he was a private citizen. Montgomery has gained immunity and desperately wants House Intelligence Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes or other lawmakers to call him to testify about what he knows.On the explosive tapes, Blixseth walks Arpaio and Zullo through the details of the program on a computer screen. At one point, the three begin pulling up specific names of targeted individuals.LISTEN TO TAPES (at the 18 minute mark HERE) You know who that guy is? That s the head of the FISA court they hacked into, Reggie Walton, Blixseth tells the investigators. John Roberts, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, was hacked, Blixseth tells Arpaio and Zullo.Insiders have always been skeptical of Roberts motives for siding with President Obama on the 2012 Obamacare case. While there s still no available evidence that Roberts was blackmailed, the allegation that he was hacked by Obama officials provides some more context into the justice s controversial career.As Big League Politics reported, former FBI director James Comey seized and buried volumes of information that demonstrated this wide-ranging government surveillance operation targeting Donald Trump before he became president.


Hollywood Icon And Superstar Sylvester Stallone gave an interview with Variety to pump his latest project Creed now in theaters. The only thing the libs didn t count on was Stallone s total support for Trump. He really likes a fighter but who s surprised about that. Rambo!!!Stallone told Variety, I love Donald Trump. Variety reported:Although he s been called a Republican, for supporting John McCain s 2008 presidential run, Stallone says he s not a member of the GOP. May the best fighter win, he said. I don t think you can be totally one-sided forever. Then you close your mind to all sorts of possibilities. It s just, Who comes along better at that time for what the planet is going through? Right now, it s pretty confusing on every side. What does he think of the Republican frontrunner? I love Donald Trump, he said. He s a great Dickensian character. You know what I mean? There are certain people like Arnold, Babe Ruth, that are bigger than life. But I don t know how that translates he let out a laugh to running the world.


A Senate panel on Tuesday approved legislation to renew the National Security Agency's internet surveillance program, while other lawmakers pushed a competing measure seeking to end the ability to search for data on Americans without a warrant. The competing plans were likely to complicate congressional renewal of that law, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, due to expire at the end of the year. The Trump administration supports a permanent renewal of the program without any changes. The Senate Intelligence Committee voted 12-3 to advance legislation renewing Section 702 until Dec. 31, 2025. The panel voted privately, meaning it did not immediately share the bill text, a common practice for the committee. Senators Richard Burr and Mark Warner, the panel's Republican and Democratic leaders, said in a statement the bill would protect national security while improving privacy protections for Americans and adding transparency requirements about who can be targeted. The three no votes came from Democrats, including Senator Ron Wyden, an author of the alternative measure. U.S. intelligence officials value Section 702, calling it a vital tool for fighting national and cyber security threats and helping protect American allies. It allows U.S. intelligence agencies to eavesdrop on and store vast amounts of digital communications from foreign suspects living outside the United States. The panel unanimously adopted an amendment from Warner, requiring the Federal Bureau of Investigation to send any queries it makes for U.S. data to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, according to a source familiar with the vote. The court would have two days to review the query for legality, the source said. Privacy advocates have blasted the bill, saying it does not contain enough safeguards. Some complained that a version of the bill that had leaked might even expand the U.S. government's surveillance powers. Fourteen other senators introduced legislation that would require the NSA to obtain a warrant for queries of data on Americans under an internet surveillance program. The effort, led by Wyden and Republican Rand Paul, would reform other aspects of the warrantless program. The surveillance program, classified details of which were exposed in 2013 by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, also incidentally scoops up communications of Americans, including if they communicate with a foreign target living overseas. Those communications can then be subject to searches without a warrant, including by the FBI. The USA Rights Act authored by Wyden and Paul would end that practice. The measure was introduced with support from more than 40 civil society groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and FreedomWorks. A companion bill was introduced in the House of Representatives. It would renew Section 702 for four years with additional transparency and oversight provisions, such as making it easier for individuals to raise legal challenges against the law and expand the oversight jurisdiction of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, a government watchdog. Earlier this month, a bipartisan group in the House introduced separate legislation to add privacy protections to Section 702, including partially restricting the FBI's ability to access U.S. data when investigating a crime. Privacy groups criticized that plan as too narrow.


Robert Dear, the accused terrorist who shot up the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, CO, is speaking out about his rampage and still sounding like anti-choice activists on the right.Dear spoke to the Colorado Gazette newspaper, and was not ashamed of what he did.The accused Planned Parenthood shooter spoke to The Gazette on Friday at the El Paso County jail, saying he had no remorse for killing three people at the clinic on Nov. 27. I killed three and I saved 3,000 3,000 babies or more, said Robert Lewis Dear Jr., referencing abortions conducted at the clinic.Dear s shooting spree followed the release of several videos deceptively edited to make it seem as if workers at Planned Parenthood clinics were breaking the law and selling fetal body parts. Those videos were created by activists at the group Center for Medical Progress and their leader David Daleiden, who was recently indicted in Texas for tampering with government records and other charges.Despite this, attacks on Planned Parenthood have become a part of the Republican mainstream. Presidential candidates have said they would defund the organization to varying degrees, citing the hoax videos as evidence.Meanwhile congressional committees have previously and continue to harass and attack Planned Parenthood but have been unable to point to any crimes that haven committed.Similarly, numerous state attorney generals including Republicans have investigated Planned Parenthood but have been completely unable to bring up evidence of crimes on their behalf.The attacks have continued, even after Dear s murder spree. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) recently promised to ramp up investigations of Planned Parenthood while vowing to give Daleiden a pardon for his crimes.In conservative media like Fox News Channel, viewers have been fed a steady diet of anti-abortion, anti-Planned Parenthood on a regular basis. Those outlets have told their viewers that Planned Parenthood is doing illegal, horrific things with baby parts, and have thought nothing of the consequences of those lies on the public and people like Dear.


U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders brought his strategy of trying to reenergize the Democratic Party by lending his star power to lower-level races to a small city just outside Boston on Monday, with a stop to endorse candidates for alderman and city council. Sanders, an independent who ran for the Democratic Party nomination in the 2016 presidential election, announced his support for a dozen candidates backed by "Our Revolution" a group formed by supporters of Sanders' campaign to boost progressive, liberal candidates. It is unusual for a politician with Sanders' profile to weigh in on races with no serious Republican contenders, political observers said. "The local level, more than any other level, is a way to involve people in the political process," Sanders said in Somerville, Massachusetts, a city of 80,000 people. Sanders last week pointed to the appearance as one of a series to try to build enthusiasm for lower-level elections. Sanders served four terms as mayor of Burlington, Vermont, before being elected to the Senate. His remarks on Monday mirrored his 2016 stump speeches, without directly addressing the candidates he was supporting in Somerville and neighboring Cambridge. Political observers said Sanders, and the candidates he endorsed, will face a challenge in translating the enthusiasm his campaign generated into votes for lower-level races. In the city's last municipal election that followed a presidential race, one-in-four registered voters, some 10,241 people, cast ballots. Three out of four who voted in last year's Hillary Clinton-Donald Trump presidential matchup. "Sanders envisioned his candidacy as a launching pad for nothing short of a revolution within the Democratic Party," said Jeffrey Berry, a professor of political science at nearby Tufts University. "The energy is more around 'How do we fight Trump' than it is 'How do we create a Democratic Party in the image of Bernie Sanders.'" Sanders may not need to tip too many voters to influence the typically low-turnout city races. In the 2013 ward races, just two candidates secured more than 1,000 votes and the four closest races were decided by an average of 166 votes. "It's definitely a draw and I think it's important that he is supporting local candidates," said Ellora Derenoncourt, a 30-year-old graduate student who was out to show her support for alderman candidate J.T. Scott, a gym owner in his first race. The event did attract some undecided voters who said Sanders' endorsement would sway their picks among fields of Democratic candidates. "Our country has moved so far to their right since the mid-90s that just being a Democrat doesn't necessarily qualify you as a liberal or progressive," said Pamela Massey, 59, of Cambridge. Nina Turner, a former Ohio state senator who serves as president of Our Revolution, acknowledged that the group faced a challenge in drumming up enthusiasm for down-ticket races. "We have to try," Turner said. "We have to remind people that they have an obligation to participate and so often the level of vitriol that is put out the national level can have a negative effect."


Media Bias Has Become Mental Illness Media Bias Has Become Mental Illness 31 am by Cliff Kincaid Leave a Comment 0  Accuracy in Media  Aware that their credibility is shot with the American people, the publisher and executive editor of The New York Times sent a "To our readers" note on Friday, saying, "we aim to rededicate ourselves to the fundamental mission of Times journalism."  This was another way of saying, "Sorry, we blew it," without being honest with readers.  Those familiar with the paper's "journalism" understand this to be media bias. But Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. and Dean Baquet were suggesting something else—that something had gone wrong and they don't quite know what happened, but don't worry because the Times will get back to its mission of reporting truthfully.  Beating around the bush, they said Trump's victory was "the biggest political story of the year," which had "reached a dramatic and unexpected climax late Tuesday night…"  The word "unexpected" means that the paper's predictions were wrong.  Then they said that the paper's newsroom had covered the campaign "with agility and creativity," which are terms for incompetence and bias. Some people cling to the old-fashioned idea that a paper should report events objectively.  Pretending to reflect on the poor coverage, they finally got to the problem without saying so directly. They asked, "Did Donald Trump's sheer unconventionality lead us and other news outlets to underestimate his support among American voters?" and "What forces and strains in America drove this divisive election and outcome?"  In other words, Trump's "sheer unconventionality" caused the paper to misreport what was happening. He had appealed to mysterious "forces and strains," terms that apparently refer to the voters.  Sulzberger and Baquet insisted that the Times will "report America and the world honestly, without fear or favor, striving always to understand and reflect all political perspectives and life experiences in the stories that we bring to you."  In other words, they blew it during the 2016 campaign and will try to do better next time. But nothing is really changing at the paper. Nobody is being fired. And nobody is being hired who has an understanding of the conservative electorate.  The paper, they said, will "hold power to account, impartially and unflinchingly."  But who will hold The New York Times accountable?  In a real howler, they then claimed, "We believe we reported on both candidates fairly during the presidential campaign. You can rely on The New York Times to bring the same fairness, the same level of scrutiny, the same independence to our coverage of the new president and his team."  This is another indication that the paper is hopelessly liberal, and that nothing will really change.  The business as usual attitude was reflected in the front-page headline in the Times after Trump won: "Democrats, Students and Foreign Allies Face the Reality of a Trump Presidency."  As Accuracy in Media Chairman Don Irvine noted , the headline was even funny to various MSNBC personalities, because it focused on the disappointment of liberals at Trump's victory, rather than the victory itself.  Mark Halperin commented, "If a Democratic candidate who was thought to have a 10 percent chance of winning by The New York Times that ended up winning, and winning red states as Trump won blue states, I don't think that would have been the headline. And I'll just say again, the responsibility of journalists is to not report on their biases. It's to go out and understand the country through the prism of the election and say, 'Why are people feeling the way they're feeling?'"  Of course, the Times was not alone.  Consider the story in Politico headlined , "Insiders: Clinton would crush Trump in November." It began, "In the swing states that matter most in the presidential race, Donald Trump doesn't have a prayer against Hillary Clinton in the general election."  In a story headlined, "The Democrat Media Complex Will Never Understand What Happened Tuesday Night," Stephen Kruiser at PJ Media commented that the talking heads want desperately to avoid the topic of the "overwhelming lack of political and intellectual diversity in their ranks," but that the problem of their liberalism is compounded by their laziness.  This is a fact, as reflected in my analysis of Post "journalist" Dana Milbank, who got caught asking Democratic Party officials for help on an anti-Trump column.  For his part, Milbank crafted another anti-Trump column after the Trump victory, in the form of a letter to his daughter. "This is a sad day for our country," he told her . "I want you to know that I did everything I could to prevent this from happening. My efforts and those of many others came up short."  Those "many others" were in the media and the Democratic Party, for whom Milbank worked. Perhaps Post owner Jeff Bezos ought to ask the Democrats to pay Milbank's salary.  Milbank told his daughter, "You are going to be okay."  That's more than what we can say about Milbank. He is not okay. He is more than just a lazy liberal who gets the Democratic Party to help write his columns. He is completely out of touch with the America he claims to be writing about.  Like those at the Times, Milbank and others at the Post will never change. They are elitists whose hatred for their fellow Americans borders on mental illness.  Like other liberals, they claim to be on a crusade for "the children," in his case his daughter. It's frankly despicable that he would use his kid as a political prop. She needs our prayers. Cliff Kincaid  Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at cliff.kincaid@aim.org. View the complete archives from Cliff Kincaid . 0


It hasn't been a good year for the troika that dominates soft drink sales, PepsiCo and Dr Pepper Snapple. The public's attention on the health effects of sugary sodas has continued to increase, slowing growth and increasing political pressure. This year, soft drink companies and their lobbying group, the American Beverage Association, spent $38 million to defeat proposals to impose taxes on sugary drinks in four cities: San Francisco, Oakland and Albany in California, and Boulder, Colo. The companies lost all of those fights. Now, seven cities around the country have a soda tax. One way the companies have tried to get ahead of the tax efforts is by vowing to reduce the calories in their products. In September 2014, they committed to reducing calories 20 percent nationwide by 2025 and focus on 10 communities where rates of obesity, heart disease, hypertension and diabetes are among the highest. The effort has been underway for about a year now, and as the beverage association prepared to release research about the efforts, it invited a handful of reporters to see what had been done to encourage consumption of healthier beverages in three stores in the neighborhood in Brooklyn, one of the 10 sites the companies promised to focus on. Here are the findings and observations, which suggest that the companies have a long way to go to meet their goal. The average American consumed an estimated 199 calories a day from beverages in 2014, when beverage companies made their pledge, and that fell to 198. 7 calories a day the next year, according to research by Keybridge Public Policy Economics, an independent firm paid by the beverage association to conduct the study. That is a decline of less than 1 percent, far off the pace need to reach a 20 percent drop over a decade. To achieve their 2025 goal, the companies must reduce calories to 159. 2 calories per person per day. Americans actually increased the volume of beverages they consumed by 2. 2 percent from 2014 to 2015, largely because they drank more water. Consumers drank less soda, but substituted bottled coffee and tea, sports drinks and energy drinks, according to Robert F. Wescott, president of Keybridge. "The increase in water — it's not replacing something else," he said. The companies are offering several alternatives to traditional soda, and have retooled older products to reduce calories. This has often been done quietly, with subtle changes to the drinks. "Consumers won't buy something if you tell them you've changed it," said Michael Morel, sales director for Brooklyn at the Bottling Company of New York. Pepsi, for instance, reformulated nine varieties of Brisk, an iced tea and juice line it owns together with Unilever. Using a combination of caloric and noncaloric sweeteners, PepsiCo lowered calories in the drinks by as much as 44 percent. "There was a dramatic decrease in calories in Brisk — but not in sales," Mr. Wescott said. "Calorie decreases like that need to accelerate to meet the 2025 target. " More additions are coming. The Dr Pepper Snapple Group has nearly doubled sales of seltzers over the last several years as part of its effort to encourage greater consumption of drinks. On Tuesday, the company announced it was paying $1. 7 billion for Bai Brands, a maker of enhanced waters with just five calories, thus expanding its portfolio of drinks. The companies have also renegotiated their agreements with grocery chains and bodegas in to give better placement to drinks. For instance, Coke Zero and other drinks from are now standing cheek by jowl with traditional Powerade and other beverages on shelves at the Ideal Food Basket in . "We didn't sell any of those products here before," said Kamau Brown, 's director of sales and operations for the New York City metro region. and the other beverage companies have also persuaded retailers to let them to add racks and cardboard display cases, which effectively create additional shelf space for the products. This ensures that stores don't lose revenue from sweetened products until products demonstrate solid sales, Mr. Brown said. For instance, 33. bottles of Smart Water, which has no calories, were displayed on a wire rack at a price of four for $5. A cardboard display of different flavors of Aloe Gloe, a new enhanced water line from Coke, offered two small cardboard "bottles" for $4. But the products are not far away. Separating the Smart Water and Aloe Gloe displays were two shopping carts filled with bottles of ginger ale and Pepsi Wild Cherry, on sale for $2. 99. The companies are using a variety of promotions designed to encourage greater sales of and drinks. At the deli, for instance, PepsiCo's drinks are sold for 99 cents. had a variety of "buy one, get one free" offers on displays that encouraged consumers to get an of small 7. cans of Coke Zero if they bought the same size pack of classic Coke. All three big beverage companies have signs that read, "Balance what you eat, drink and do" and show images of some products. Pepsi's, for instance, shows bottles of Gatorade and Aquafina, its water brand. But a small bottle of classic Pepsi is also featured front and center. Moussad Elghandour, a Yemeni immigrant who owns the Utica Express Deli in said that the promotions were driving sales — but that sugary drinks were also selling well. Changing demographics in the neighborhood, he said, noting specifically a higher number of white residents, were also responsible for the changing mix of drinks he's selling. "Some people care about themselves, their health. Some people don't," Mr. Elghandour said.


Despite what many racists say and regardless of the hand-picked statistics of the federal government in an effort to demonize black people, the rate of white-on-white crime in the United States is far higher than that of African-Americans victimizing white citizens.In a report published last Thursday by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) on Race and Hispanic Origin of Victims and Offenders 2012-2015, some staggering figures emerged. Research conducted over a four year period during which U.S. residents experienced 5.8 million violent victimizations each year found that the rate of white-on-white violent crime (12.0 per 1,000) was almost four times higher than black-on-white violent crime (3.1 per 1,000).However, even when the facts are blatantly obvious and staring them right in the face, there is no swaying some Republicans who still subscribe to the idea that African-Americans are still the largest threat to themselves and others. Case in point: former White House advisor Sebastian Gorka in this interview last Monday:On a Sinclair station, Gorka refers to "black African crime on black African crime" & says black men are killing each other "by the bushel" pic.twitter.com/Cbtqm39tTd Yashar Ali ? (@yashar) October 24, 2017Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill, an African-American himself, shares the same sentiments as Gorka. One of the most dramatically difficult things to fathom in this country is the amount of lives lost black lives lost as a result of black-on-black violence, Hill said on Saturday. In the same year that we experienced about 259 police officer shootings of blacks in 2015, there were 6,000 black lives lost to murders from black people. However, contrary to what both Mr. Gorka and Mr. Hill believe, black men aren t killing each other by the bushel. In fact, according to the report, black-on-black violence has decreased exponentially in the last two decades, by almost the exact same rate as white-on-white violence. From 1994 to 2015, white-on-white violence and black-on-black violence declined at a similar rate. White-on-white violence declined 79 percent (from 52.5 to 10.8 victimizations per 1,000 white persons). Black-on-black violence declined 78 percent (from 66.6 to 14.5 victimizations per 1,000 black persons). Information on Hispanic origin of offenders was not collected prior to 2012, the report stated.It s time that the U.S. government started to report the facts when it comes to the issue of race, instead of dividing the country.


Wednesday on MSNBC's "Hardball," host Chris Matthews said President Donald Trump's "boasts and bragging" was "simian," adding it was like a "monkey banging with a stick. " Matthews said, "The ego here is — well it's something. By the way, his teeth come out like it's simian almost. It's simian, like a monkey banging with a stick, You know, 'I'm the biggest. I'm the biggest.' Pounding his chest. It does have a simian quality to it, I mean primordial, I should say. " Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN


Taya Kyle, the widow of infamous American Sniper Chris Kyle, attended CNN s Guns in America town hall Thursday, where she grilled President Obama on his executive actions regarding gun control and safety. Mrs Kyle, who received the thank you right-wingers said would never come from the president for her husband s service, took to the moment like a champ, managing to squeeze every conservative talking point possible into a few short minutes.A somewhat bizarre moment came when she told the president we can t outlaw murder. She presumably meant that there s no way to stop all murders from happening, so why bother trying if it will inconvenience someone with a 10-minute background check: The thing is that the laws that we create don t stop these horrific things from happening, right and that s a very tough pill to swallow. We want to think we can make a law and people will follow it, but by the very nature of their crimes they are not following it. By the very nature of looking at the people who hurt our loved ones here, I don t know any of them would have been stopped by the background check and yet, I crave that desire for hope, too. Part of it is we have to recognize that we cannot outlaw murder, because the people who are murdering, right, are they are breaking the law but they also don t have a moral code that we have, so they could do the same amount of damage with a pipe bomb. Mrs. Kyle and those who think like her probably thought her point was some form of a slam-dunk that the president wouldn t be able to answer. That turned out to not be the case, as her argument is based in NRA myths and lies and not in the reality that we all live every day.She does make some interesting points about the direction the country has been traveling when it comes to violent crime but stops short of reasonable when she says we should be celebrating the dropping murder rates in our country. The president agreed that we don t put enough emphasis on the good that we ve done, but that s because there s still so much horror happening every day.He s right. We can t simply say, hooray for us, we kill fewer people than we did in 1985, let s stop worrying about it! We have to remain vigilant and continue to institute policies that will bring the violent crime rates even lower over the NEXT 2 decades as well. The president s actions are a part of that plan and a part of his ongoing commitment to make America safer.Watch the entire exchange between President Obama and American Sniper widow Taya Kyle below:


The U.S. Senate is under no obligation to consider President Barack Obama's nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican, said on Wednesday. "This has never been about who the nominee is. It is about a basic principle. Under our Constitution, the president has every right to make this nomination, and the Senate has every right not to confirm a nominee," Ryan said. Ryan said he supported Senate Republican leaders' decision not to move forward with the confirmation process after Democrat Obama sent his nomination of Garland to the Senate on Wednesday.


Turkey, Iran and Iraq may hold a trilateral meeting to discuss the Iraqi Kurdish independence referendum, Turkey s Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Thursday. Yildirim also said he agreed with his Iraqi counterpart Haider al-Abadi to coordinate economic and trade relations with the central government in Baghdad, after Abadi s government took control of border crossings with Turkey.


European Union ministers on Monday congratulated Austria s Sebastian Kurz on his election victory but some were uneasy about the far-right, eurosceptic party that may enter the new government and has clashed with the bloc before. The Freedom Party (FPO) got around 26 percent of votes in Sunday s parliamentary vote, boosted by a European migration crisis in 2015 that affected Austria and also led Kurz to campaign on an anti-migration platform. I don t have a problem with Sebastian Kurz as a person. We re not following the same line politically, that has never been the case and it never will be, Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said on arriving to talks with his EU peers. He listed pro-European Austrian politicians as role models for Kurz and warned Vienna not to side with migration hardliners, including Hungary, whose government is also eurosceptic. Austria became a member of the European Union in 1995 after voting in favor of joining the bloc with a two-thirds majority. Recent opinion polls suggest three quarters of Austrians want the country to stay in the bloc. While the FPO had been a member of socialist-led governments in the 1980s, the anti-immigrant rhetoric of party leader Joerg Haider led to fierce criticism from EU neighbors when his party joined a government with the Christian Democrat OVP in 2000. The EU s 14 other member states at that time reduced bilateral cooperation with Austria until a report by senior diplomats found that the country s respect for human rights had not been diminished since the FPO joined the government. The party demanded a referendum only last year to exit the EU, as Britain is doing now. The FPO has toned down its anti-EU rhetoric in recent months but continues to call for weaker members to leave the euro zone and Austria to pay less into the common EU budget. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, entering the same talks in Luxembourg in which Kurz would normally also take part, said the 31-year-old Austrian conservative was his friend. We are happy that a sister party of ours won the elections ... and we are happy that their candidate has won who in many cases represented similar positions regarding migration to the Hungarian government, Szijjarto told reporters. Szijjarto expected that the anti-immigration eastern EU states - Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic - to work more closely with Austria now, which would only deepen the east-west divides weakening the bloc s unity. As Austria turns to the right, the bloc s top official dealing with EU s ties vis- -vis its neighbors, Commissioner Johannes Hahn of Austria, sought to ease concerns that Vienna may become a new enfant terrible in the bloc. One should not forget that only a year ago Austria elected the first Green president and now it looks as if the Greens will be kicked out of parliament. There is a huge volatility among voters, Hahn said in Luxembourg. Each government will have a very pro-European agenda because all the major political parties are very much committed to the European Union, he added.


Foreign ministers from NATO and European Union nations are concerned about comments on NATO that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump made in a newspaper interview published on Monday, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said. "I've spoken today not only with EU foreign ministers but NATO foreign ministers as well and can report that the signals are that there's been no easing of tensions," Steinmeier told reporters when asked about Trump's interview with Bild newspaper and the Times of London. In the interview, Trump said he viewed NATO as obsolete because it had not defended against terror attacks.


Outspoken broadcaster Katie Hopkins is parting ways with LBC Radio "immediately" following a controversial tweet in which she called for a "final solution" to Islamic terrorism. [Hopkins amended the tweet to read "true solution" soon after posting it on Tuesday, explaining that she had found the "typo" to be "disrespectful" to the victims of the attack on the Manchester Arena on Monday which killed 22 people. But fellow Twitter users were quick to make the connection to the holocaust, labelling Hopkins a "Nazi". 22 dead — number rising. Schofield. Don't you even dare. Do not be part of the problem. We need a true solution. #ManchesterArena, — Katie Hopkins (@KTHopkins) May 23, 2017, @KTHopkins How come you changed this from "final solution" to "true solution"? Come on, stand by those nazi words, nazi. pic. twitter. — (@JohnSeaborn) May 23, 2017, @JohnSeaborn I stand by my tweet. I find the typo disrespectful to the survivors in Manchester, — Katie Hopkins (@KTHopkins) May 23, 2017, Later the same day Hopkins was accused of inciting racial hatred after she tweeted "Western men. These are your wives. Your daughters. Your sons. Rise up. Demand action. Do not carry on as normal. Cowed. " Both tweets were reported to the police for hate speech. The Met's Contact Centre Twitter account confirming that complaints had been received and would be "assessed by specialist officers". This is the response from the Met Police to the slaughter of our children in Manchester pic. twitter. — Katie Hopkins (@KTHopkins) May 23, 2017, This is not the first time Hopkins' tweets have landed her in trouble. In March, she was ordered to pay £24, 000 in damages and £107, 000 in costs to social justice activist Jack Monroe after wrongly accusing her of vandalising war memorials. Hopkins had meant to direct her tweet to New Stateman columnist Laurie Penny, who had shown indifference to a memorial to the Women of World War II being sprayed with graffiti reading "Fuck Tory scum". On Friday morning, LBC Radio appeared to have reached breaking point with Hopkins, announcing via Twitter that she would no longer be hosting her two hour slot, "effective immediately". LBC and Katie Hopkins have agreed that Katie will leave LBC effective immediately. — LBC (@LBC) May 26, 2017, The station refused to either confirm or deny that Hopkins had been sacked. A spokesman probed for further details responded: "That's all we're saying. " The BBC's Amol Rajan has reported that there were "massive cheers and applause" from the station's newsroom when her departure was announced.


President Donald Trump on Thursday stood by his belief that both sides were to blame for violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, between white supremacists and counterprotesters last month. Trump had drawn criticism for not initially condemning white supremacists who organized the event on Aug. 12, with even some of his fellow Republicans expressing dismay at his opinion. Trump spoke to reporters aboard Air Force One a day after a meeting with South Carolina Republican Senator Tim Scott, an African-American who had expressed concern about Trump's comments. "We had a great talk yesterday," he said of his meeting with Scott. "I think especially in the light of the advent of antifa, if you look at what's going on there. You have some pretty bad dudes on the other side also. And essentially that's what I said." Trump said anti-fascist groups known as the "antifa" must share blame for neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan fighting with anti-racism protesters in the streets. One woman was killed when a suspected white nationalist crashed his car into demonstrators. On Thursday, the president also signed a resolution sent to him by Congress that condemned the violence in Charlottesville and opposed "hatred, bigotry, and racism in all forms." "No matter the color of our skin or our ethnic heritage, we all live under the same laws, we all salute the same great flag, and we are all made by the same almighty God," Trump said in a statement regarding the resolution. In Berkeley, California, violence erupted on Aug. 27 when a small group of masked antifa and left-wing protestors attacked right-wing demonstrators. "Now, because of what's happened since then with antifa, you look at really what's happened since Charlottesville. A lot of people are saying, in fact a lot of people have actually written, 'Gee, Trump might have a point,'" he said.


Federal appeals courts in the states of Washington and Virginia are set to hear arguments this week on the legality of President Donald Trump's most recent travel ban, which sharply limits visitors and immigrants from eight countries, six of them Muslim-majority. Challengers, including the state of Hawaii and immigrant advocacy organizations and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), argue the ban is discriminatory and violates the U.S. Constitution. The Trump administration says it is necessary to protect the United States from terrorist attacks. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is based in San Francisco, will hold a hearing in Seattle, Washington on Dec. 6 and the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has its hearing on Dec. 8. Soon after taking office in January, Trump signed an order temporarily barring all refugees and visitors from seven predominately Muslim countries. The decision led to chaos at airports and numerous legal challenges and the administration eventually replaced it with a second, somewhat narrower order. When the second ban expired in September, Trump replaced it with a presidential proclamation indefinitely restricting travel from Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Chad, North Korea and barring certain government officials from Venezuela. The administration said the restrictions were put in place after a worldwide review of each country's ability to issue reliable passports and share data with the United States. After the most recent order was issued, the same challengers who sued to stop the earlier bans went back to court. They said the new version still discriminated against Muslims in violation of the U.S. Constitution. The lawsuits did not dispute the restrictions placed on Venezuela and North Korea. All refugees were temporarily barred as part of Trump's first order but were not addressed in the latest ban. Instead, under a separate directive issued Oct. 24, refugees from 11 countries mostly in the Middle East and Africa now face additional security screening. The 9th circuit appeals court on Nov. 13 ruled the ban could go partially into effect for everyone without close family relationships to people in the United States. The White House has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to lift those partial restrictions while the cases are moving forward in lower courts so that the ban would apply to everyone. The government argues the president has broad authority to decide who can come into the United States, but detractors say the expanded ban violates a law forbidding the government from discriminating based on nationality when issuing immigrant visas. The administration has repeatedly said the ban is not discriminatory and pointed out that many Muslim-majority countries are unaffected by it. Trump has made statements, however, that his legal opponents say reinforce their contention that his actions are based in anti-Muslim sentiments. Last week, for example, the president shared on Twitter anti-Muslim videos posted by a far-right British party leader. In response to the tweet, Neal Katyal, attorney for the State of Hawaii Tweeted: "Thanks! See you in court next week." The ACLU said in a letter sent to the Supreme Court on Monday that the group planned to file a motion that would expand the record to include the recent statements by the President.


This item has been updated. House Republican leaders abruptly dropped plans late Wednesday to vote on an anti-abortion bill amid a revolt by female GOP lawmakers concerned that the legislation's restrictive language would once again spoil the party's chances of broadening its appeal to women and younger voters. In recent days, as many as two dozen Republicans had raised concerns with the "Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act" that would ban abortions after the 20th week of a pregnancy. Sponsors said that exceptions would be allowed for a woman who is raped, but she could only get the abortion after reporting the rape to law enforcement. A vote had been scheduled for Thursday to coincide with the annual March for Life, a gathering that brings hundreds of thousands of anti-abortion activists to Washington to mark the anniversary of the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. But Republican leaders dropped those plans after failing to win over a bloc of lawmakers, led by Reps. Rene Ellmers (R-N.C.) and Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.), who had raised concerns. The House will vote instead Thursday on a bill prohibiting federal funding for abortions -- a more innocuous anti-abortion measure that the Republican-controlled chamber has passed before. A senior GOP aide said that concerns had been raised "by men and women Members that still need to be worked out." The aide, who wasn't authorized to speak publicly about the plans, said in an e-mail that Thursday's vote will help "advance the pro-life cause" and that GOP leaders "remain committed to continue working through the process [on the Pain Capable bill] to make sure it too is successful." Other aides said that leaders were eager to avoid political fallout from a large number of female Republicans voting against an abortion bill in the early stages of the new GOP-controlled Congress. The dispute erupted into the open in recent days and once again demonstrated the changing contours of the expanded House Republican caucus. The 246-member caucus is seeing rifts on issues where it once had more unity. That's because there are now more moderate Republicans from swing districts who could face tough reelections in 2016 when more Democratic and independent voters are expected to vote in the presidential election. Already this month, a large bloc of moderate Republicans voted against a spending bill that would repeal President Obama's changes to immigration policy enacted by executive action. More than two dozen Republicans from metropolitan areas with large immigrant populations also voted against an amendment to the bill that would end temporary legal protections to the children of illegal immigrants. The abortion bill pulled Wednesday night was strongly opposed by Democrats and women's rights groups. But a similar version of the bill easily passed the GOP-controlled House in 2013 and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had vowed to bring it up for a vote. Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), the bill's lead sponsor, had predicted Wednesday that his proposal would easily pass because it "has overwhelming support among the American people." But Ellmers and Walorski had withdrawn their support and voiced concerns during meetings at the annual Republican policy retreat in Hershey, Pa. Ellmers did so again Wednesday at a closed-door House GOP meeting in the basement of the Capitol, according to several people who attended. Seeking to rebut growing criticism from conservatives, Ellmers said on Facebook Wednesday evening that she would vote for the bill: "I have and will continue to be a strong defender of the prolife community," she wrote. But she had recently asked leaders to reconsider holding the vote, noting that Republicans had faced harsh criticism from Democrats in recent years for mounting a "war on women" by passing restrictive abortion legislation and other similar bills. "The first vote we take, or the second vote, or the fifth vote, shouldn't be on an issue where we know that millennials—social issues just aren't as important [to them]," she said in an interview with National Journal. The opposition set off a scramble Wednesday among top GOP leaders concerned about how several "no" votes could be perceived by their party and the general public. With word of the opposition spreading, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) conferred nervously off the House floor after a midday vote. From there, Scalise headed to a meeting in his office suite with Ellmers, Walorski, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) -- a lead co-sponsor of the bill -- and several other women. In a caucus dominated by men, a meeting with top leaders requested and attended almost exclusively by women is a rare sight. One-by-one they exited the meeting and remained tight-lipped. Walorski said the dispute "is no different" than conversations that occur before votes on other legislation. When pressed to explain her specific concerns, she rushed off: "I can't. I can't." Others seen exiting included Reps. Kristi Noem (R-S.D.), Diane Black (R-Tenn.), Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.), Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.), Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), Barbara Comstock (R-Va.), Susan Brooks (R-Ind.) and Ann Wagner (R-Mo.). Hartzler had already signaled her support for the bill to reporters. The other women declined to comment. The impasse prompted Tony Perkins, who leads the conservative Family Research Council, to visit the Capitol Wednesday to meet with Scalise. He cited "a lot of misconceptions" for causing last-minute disputes with the bill. "We're talking about a measure that would limit abortions after five months," he said. "America is only one of four nations that allows abortions throughout the entire pregnancy." Women's rights groups and Democrats have denounced the legislation as dangerous and unconstitutional. In a message to group members, the National Organization for Women cited federal statistics showing that just 35 percent of rape victims report the incident to police -- and said that the bill will do nothing to increase the rate of reporting. Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, cheered the decision of GOP leaders. "I never thought I would see the day that the Tea Party-led House of Representatives would wake up to the fact that their priorities — outright abortion bans — are way out of touch with the American people," she said in a statement. "The GOP drafted a bill so extreme and so out of touch with the voters that even their own membership could not support." The 22 women in the House GOP caucus are well aware that many of their male colleagues have earned the ire of Democrats and women's rights groups for talking about rape and women's rights. At the same closed-door retreat two years ago, Republican pollsters implored GOP lawmakers to stop discussing rape on the campaign trail and on Capitol Hill. The warnings came after several candidates faced heat in 2012 -- including former congressman Todd Akin (R-Mo.), who said a woman could terminate a pregnancy resulting from a "legitimate rape," and Richard Mourdock, a GOP candidate for an Indiana Senate seat, who said that babies resulting from rape were a "gift from God." Franks, who is an ardent antiabortion activist, has been known to take an aggressive stance on the issue in the past, often clashing with Democrats opposed to his proposals. But on Wednesday, he took a notably softer tone as he acknowledged the concerns of his colleagues. "I've maintained an open heart, because I realize that all of the people involved have sincere perspectives and have knowledge and experiences and information that I don't have," he said. "So my heart is open – my desire here is not a political victory, it is to try to somehow be part of catalyzing an awakening in America to where we finally see the humanity of these little victims and the inhumanity of what's happening to them."


Two people were injured on Thursday, police said, after a report of an explosion near the Scottish town of Glasgow. The blast was reported inside a building in Wishaw, southeast of Glasgow, and police said they had evacuated nearby buildings as a precaution. Emergency services are at the scene and two injured parties are being treated by ambulance, Lanarkshire Police said on Facebook. Scotland s Fire and Rescue Service said it too was at the scene. We are in attendance at Bonkle Road, Wishaw tackling small fire following small explosion in commercial building, it posted on its Twitter feed.


Hey Bernie how s that whole Queen of Wall Street/ Democrat mob boss endorsement working out for you?Wikileaks has released another batch of emails. One of those emails is likely from Joel Johnson, the Managing Director of The Glover Park Group, a Washington DC firm specializing in strategic communications and government relationsThe email was sent on Feb. 2, 2016 to John Podesta with the subject matter: Friendly advice. No mercy. From:Joel@gpg.com To: john.podesta@gmail.com Date: 2016-02-22 00:09 Subject: Friendly advice. No mercy.Bernie needs to be ground to a pulp. We can t start believing our own primary bullshit. This is no time to run the general. Crush him as hard as you can. Other than that, hope all is well and congrats on Nevada!Only 4 days ago, The Hill named GPG s Joel Johnson as one their Top Lobbyists or Hired Guns for 2016:Joel Johnson, The Glover Park GroupClients have a trusted guide in Johnson, a former Clinton administration official who leads the advocacy efforts of the public relations powerhouse.Buzzfeed In September 2015, Susan Brophy, managing director of the Glover Park Group, emailed top Clinton aide Cheryl Mills on Oct. 4, 2011, telling her that a planned speech before a joint session of Congress by the Korean president was running into some hurdles. Brophy suggested that the State Department could move things along in Congress.The only problem was, Brophy was representing a country she wasn t registered to represent.Foreign Agent Registration Act rules require individual lobbyists to register the clients they represent, and lobbying firms are required to file their contacts on behalf of those clients.Brophy is a former Clinton White House official, and has raised money for Ready for Hillary, a pro-Clinton super PAC that shut down when the former secretary of state announced her presidential campaign. The Clintons attended her wedding to lawyer and diplomat Gerald McGowan in 1998.The speech by then-president Lee Myung-bak did proceed and took place on Oct. 13, 2011.Joel Johnson, a managing director for Glover Park Group, told BuzzFeed News that Brophy had in fact been on the team working on the South Korean account and that she should have been listed as doing so in their FARA documents. She absolutely was working on the account and had been throughout, and the fact that she had somehow not been listed directly as the principal working on the account was an administrative error, Johnson said.Johnson also said that Brophy should have reported that that contact had been made to the State Department and for whatever reason that was not included in our list of activities and it should have been, and I ll go back and make sure we do whatever is appropriate to amend that. Blah blah blah Is anyone else sick and tired of the Clinton s and anyone attached to the Clinton s not having to follow the same rules and laws the rest of America is expected to follow, or face the consequences of our actions? We take these reporting requirements seriously and we are as diligent as we ever can be, but in that case there s no question that the email she sent to [Mills] have been included in the list of contacts Glover Park Group had made on behalf of South Korea, he said.Yep So are we to believe you took Grounding Bernie to a pulp seriously?


After all of the conspiracy theories and lies Sean Hannity has peddled over the years, he definitely does NOT deserve an award.But the right-wing Media Research Center is rewarding Donald Trump s top propagandist with a William F. Buckley Jr. Award for Media Excellence anyway, and a New York Times columnist is having none of it.Bret Stephens is a conservative columnist for the Times, and he thoroughly ripped Hannity in a recent column pointing out exactly why he is unworthy of the award. If we have reached the point where rank-and-file conservatives see nothing amiss with giving Hannity an award named for Buckley, then surely there s a Milton Friedman Prize awaiting Steve Bannon for his insights on free trade, Stephens wrote. And maybe Sean Spicer can receive the Vaclav Havel International Prize for Creative Dissent for his role in exposing fake news. The floor s the limit. Or, in Hannity s case, the crawl space beneath it. Stephens went on to point out that Buckley once expressed his disgust about Donald Trump, calling him a demagogue and a narcissist. He warned Americans to not fall into Trump s trap. But conservatives fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Hannity fell even harder for it, going so far as to lob softball questions at him and then defend him on a daily basis. Hannity even committed hypocrisy by defending Trump for doing all of the things he complained about President Obama doing. When Hannity peddles conspiracy theories about Seth Rich, the young Democratic National Committee staffer murdered in Washington last year, that s an echo of John Birch, Stephens continued. And so we reach the Idiot stage of the conservative cycle, in which a Buckley Award for Sean Hannity suggests nothing ironic, much less Orwellian, to those bestowing it, applauding it, or even shrugging it off. The award itself is trivial, but it s a fresh reminder of who now holds the commanding heights of conservative life, and what it is that they think. Well, that set Hannity off on a Twitter rage in which he whined and bragged about himself just like Trump does.For the first time in my life I partly agree with @BretStephensNYT I do not deserve the WFB award. I also never deserved the 2 Marconis .. Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) July 7, 2017Nor do I deserve the Radio Hall of Fame, Free speech awards from Talkers or the R&R tall host of the year awards I have won. Nor do I care Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) July 7, 2017To my audience that has given me the honor of 30 years on radio 22 years on Fox, I thank you. You mattter, Faith, family Country matter Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) July 7, 2017As long as you honor me with these opportunities I will continue to fight hard for the things I truly believe in. Not what WFB, Media, NYT s Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) July 7, 2017Believes in. I m not Buckley, Rush, Mark, or anybody else. I m myself. I will fight for limited Govt, lower taxes, less regulation, Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) July 7, 2017Energy independence, school choice, balanced budgets, secure borders, defeating Isis and radical Islam. And will battle a corrupt media. Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) July 7, 2017I will also fight for the forgotten men and woman in America left behind, in poverty, on food stamps, and out of work. That matters to me. Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) July 7, 2017So @BretStephensNYT I ll say to you and the @nytimes (Fake News) I do not care what u think. God bless America. Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) July 7, 2017Can ANYONE think of just ONE memorable thing @BretStephensNYT has written? WFB was on my show numerous times, would WFB trust the @nytimes ? https://t.co/r0NnuDidUZ Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) July 7, 2017Except that Sean Hannity is the face of corrupt media. He spends so much time kissing Trump s ass that he might as well give him a blow job while he is down on his knees.22 years on Fox News is 22 years too many. He should never have been hired and he certainly should be fired now, especially after pushing the Seth Rich conspiracy theory in defense of Trump for as long as he did.William F. Buckley was an intellectual conservative. He was a graduate of Yale and he served this country as a United States Army officer. Hannity, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. There is nothing intellectual about Hannity. He s a college dropout who pretends to be a tough guy. He has made his money duping conservatives into believing his propaganda bullshit, which he peddles while offering little or zero evidence of his claims.Not only should Hannity by booted off the air, he should not receive a media award. A fake media award would be more appropriate.Featured Image: Rob Kim/Getty Images


Thursday on Fox News Channel's "Fox Friends," former United Kingdom Independence Party leader Nigel Farage said it was time to ignore 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton on the heels of her remarks at a tech conference in California criticizing voters. Farage called Clinton a "sad and pathetic" and a "bad loser" now worthy of being ignored. "I mean, Hillary said the same things about me when I came across and supported Donald Trump in his campaign," he said. "I don't think it's worth getting angry about Hillary. I just think she looks sad and pathetic. There is nothing worse in life than a bad loser, nothing worse than somebody who blames absolutely everybody else for their own failings. And let's face it, you know, she represented an establishment. She almost appeared as if it was her right to become the president and I'm very pleased she didn't. I'll tell you what — let's just from now ignore her. " Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor


George Zimmerman, the infamous neighborhood watchman/violent wannabe cop who murdered unarmed black teen Trayvon Martin is in the news again, and as usual, it is for nothing good. Showing once more that he has absolutely zero remorse regarding the fact that he killed an unarmed teenage boy who was carrying nothing but Skittles and a can of iced tea, Zimmerman is now auctioning off the gun he used to kill Martin for more fame and money.However, Zimmerman s efforts to sell the murder weapon have been quite rocky. First he tried to use a gun dealer called Gunbroker.com to sell the Kel-Tec PF-9 that he used to gun the teen down in cold blood, but the site has now removed the advertisement, in which bidding for the gun started at $5,000. Don t be too happy with Gunbroker.com just yet, though. This is the same website that allowed targets that strongly resembled Trayvon Martin available when the controversial shooting was still in the news. The social media sites of Gunbroker.com are now down, including their Facebook and Twitter, because they know how wrong they are for allowing Zimmerman to list this gun in the first place. The listing on the site now reads, Sorry, but the item you have requested is no longer in the system. As if this cowardice isn t bad enough, another gun dealer has taken up the cause of allowing George Zimmerman to continue to profit from his murdering without remorse of an unarmed child. A site called United Gun Group has taken up Zimmerman s fame-whoring, murderous, money-making cause, and they have released the following statement regarding the listing of Zimmerman s weapon, via TMZ: A spokesperson for unitedgungroup.com says he got in touch with Zimmerman through a mutual friend once the initial listing was removed. He tells us unitedgungroup.com s stance on the controversial item is if it s legal, they have no objections and it comes down to a moral decision for George to do what he wants with his property. But, as we are all well aware, acquittal and/or legality does not always = justice. Then again, we really can t expect gun nuts to know or care anything about these simple facts, or about the crazy and unjust law that allowed this goon to literally get away with murder. George Zimmerman is a murderer, and he has profited without remorse for being a murderer, and these events show that he continues to do so.Shame on anyone who helps this despicable excuse for a human being continue to get rich quick and rub salt in the wounds of Trayvon Martin s grieving family.


The villagers said the soldiers came first, firing indiscriminately. Then came civilians, accompanying the soldiers, to loot and burn. Now in Bangladesh, 20 Muslims and Hindus gave interviews in which they recounted how they were forced out of their village of Kha Maung Seik in Myanmar s Rakhine State on Aug. 25. The military brought some Rakhine Buddhists with them and torched the village, said Kadil Hussein, 55. All the Muslims in our village, about 10,000, fled. Some were killed by gunshots, the rest came here. There s not a single person left. Hussein is staying with hundreds of other new arrivals at the Kutapalong refugee settlement, already home to thousands of Rohingya who fled earlier. Nearly 150,000 Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh since Aug. 25, when insurgents of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army launched attacks on security forces in Rakhine State. Reuters interviewed villagers from Kha Maung Seik and neighboring hamlets, who described killings and the burning of homes in the military response to the insurgent attacks. Reuters has been unable to verify their accounts. Access to the area has been restricted since October, when the same insurgent group attacked police posts, killing nine. Myanmar says its forces are in a fight against terrorists . State media has accused Rohingya militants of burning villages and killing civilians of all religions. Myanmar does not recognize the 1.1 million Rohingya as citizens, labeling them illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. The refugees from Kha Maung Seik, and from numerous other villages across the north of Rakhine State, say Myanmar forces and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists are intent on forcing them out. One refugee, Body Alom, 28, said he hid in forest with thousands of others when the soldiers arrived. He waited for hours before emerging to look for his family. He says he saw corpses in paddy fields, and eventually found his mother and brother dead with gunshot wounds. Two other villagers said they saw bodies in the fields. It wasn t safe, so I just left them, he said. I had no chance to give them a burial. A military official denied that Buddhist civilians were working with authorities and instead accused Muslims of attacking other communities. The military arrived at the village later but did not find any bodies, said the military source, who declined to be identified as he is not authorized to speak to media. Another military source in the state capital, Sittwe, said Kha Maung Seik was in the conflict zone and clear information about what happened had yet to emerge. The main village of Kha Maung Seik was home to a mixed community, with Rohingya Muslims in the majority along with about 6,000 Rakhine Buddhists, Hindus and others. The village is known to the Rohingya as Foira Bazar for its market of about 1,000 shops where everyone did business. But relations have been strained for some time. A government plan to grant Hindus citizenship, violence in the state in 2012 and October, and an identity card scheme that the Rohingya rejected as it implied they were foreign, all contributed to tension, the refugees said. Since October, more soldiers were posted near the village, with border police. Patrols went house-to-house arresting anyone suspected of having militant links, they said. Abu Kalam, 31, showed Reuters welts on his back, arms and legs, and what he said were cigarette burns on his arms. He said he was detained by the military last month, before the attacks, as he was working in his vegetable patch with a knife. After October, the military told us not to have knives. When they saw me using one they arrested me, he said, adding he was kept in a barracks for six days. They regularly tortured me, asking are you connected with al-Yaqin? , he said, using another name for the rebels. Villagers in Kha Maung Seik say they heard shooting at 2 a.m. on Aug. 25. A military source in Maungdaw town and two Muslim residents said militants attacked a police post near the village that night. According to the military source, the rebels attacked with grenades then turned their attention to a Hindu neighborhood. Four Rohingya villagers separately gave Reuters accounts of how, at about 5 a.m., soldiers entered the village, firing indiscriminately. Thousands fled. I was at the front of a big group running for cover, but I looked back and could see people at the back getting shot, said Abul Hussein, 28. Later, grenades and mortar bombs were fired into the forest, according to Hussein and three other villagers. I saw a mortar hit a group of people. Some died on the spot, he said. From the forest, residents watched military and civilians loot and burn houses. Civilians helped gather bodies, according to Body Alom and two other villagers. They collected the bodies, searching for belongings, said Body Alom. They took money, clothes, cows, everything. Then they burned the houses. Members of Myanmar s small Hindu community seem to have been caught in the middle. The military source said some Hindus from Kha Maung Seik were unaccounted after the militant attack. A group of Hindu women refugees in Kutapalong said they saw eight Hindu men killed by Buddhist Rakhines after they refused to attack Muslims. They asked my husband to join them to kill Rohingya but he refused, so they killed him, said Anika Bala, 15. Six months pregnant, she said Muslims helped her get to Bangladesh. After seeing their homes burned, Kha Maung Seik s Muslim leaders decided it was too dangerous to stay. We thought we might be able to return and live with other types of people, said Mohammed Zubair, 30, assistant to the village chairman. But we realized that s not possible. About 100 men decided to stay and fight, Body Alom said. One said to me If I have to die, I will die here .


President Obama got real and raw with CNN s Anderson Cooper during a televised town hall meeting on gun violence..@POTUS addresses the "conspiracy" that "we are creating a plot to take everybody's guns" https://t.co/AFzFmmsvGC https://t.co/p611SWIrgk CNN (@CNN) January 8, 2016Obama was speaking about the right-wing conspiracy that he is in favor of mass confiscation of guns when Cooper interrupted him and asked, Is it fair to call it a conspiracy? A lot of people believe this deeply. That stopped the President in his tracks, and he angrily turned to the anchor. I m sorry Cooper, yes, it is fair to call it a conspiracy. What are you saying? Are you suggesting that the notion that we are creating a plot to take everybody s guns away so that we can impose martial law is not a conspiracy? Yes, that is a conspiracy. I would hope that you would agree with that. For years President Obama has had to keep his emotion in check, knowing that flashes of anger and outbursts would instantly give his political opponents fodder for tired, old lines of attack about the angry black man. But Cooper s indulgence of the right wing myth of gun confiscation came at the wrong time in Obama s presidency. He has a year left in office, with no more elections left to fight without the need to soothe the egos of those spinning wild yarns without any connection to reality.While Anderson Cooper isn t a right-winger like the figures littering the airwaves on Fox News, his invocation of a both sides talking point was almost as bad. Obama s actual actions and proposals on guns bear no resemblance to the right s ongoing characterization of them as a gun grab, and even less so the idea that Obama supports gun confiscation. The people promoting that idea the NRA, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and other figures on the right are simply pushing a conspiracy theory on par with the idea that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were an inside job or that the government is covering up alien abductions. It is patently absurd for Cooper to give credence to this wild-eyed assertions, and Obama understandably was put off by Cooper giving it credibility on-air.


State lawmakers on Friday reached a deal to conclude the 2016 legislative session that included a modest ethics package, state funding for supportive housing for the homeless, and a extension — with major caveats — of Mayor Bill de Blasio's control of New York City schools. Consensus on the ethics reform seemed to come quickly on Friday, the day after the last official day of the legislative session. The deal would, among other things, strip state pensions from public officials convicted of corruption and strengthen prohibitions on political campaigns' ability to coordinate with independent expenditure committees. But a similar consensus kept lurching out of reach on the issue that mattered most to Mr. de Blasio: mayoral control. In the end, he ceded significant concessions to his Albany antagonists in exchange for an extension of a single year, down from the three years he had hoped for. Bowing to demands from the State Senate majority leader, John J. Flanagan, a Republican who is not disposed to be helpful to a mayor who has openly worked to flip control of the chamber to the Democrats, the mayor and his allies in the Assembly agreed to disclose more information about city school districts' spending and to accept a change to the oversight structure for more than half the city's charter schools. A extension, with few or no caveats, had seemed all but cemented when lawmakers went to bed on Thursday evening. But the morning found Mr. Flanagan pushing for the funding transparency requirement, followed by the provision in the afternoon. It would effectively create a parallel system of charter schools within the city, allowing " charter schools in good standing" to switch to join the State University of New York umbrella or the Board of Regents of the State Education Department. City Hall gritted its teeth. "This extension is a recognition of the unprecedented progress and achievements mayoral control has delivered for our school system," Austin Finan, a spokesman for the mayor's office, said in a statement. For people outside city education circles, however, there was plenty of meat in the agreement that Mr. Flanagan Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat and the Assembly speaker, Carl E. Heastie, a Democrat, announced on Friday evening. Lawmakers also agreed to require school districts to test for lead in drinking water, with the state paying for some of the testing costs. The adoption of the lead testing bill was a victory for Assemblywoman Catherine T. Nolan, a Queens Democrat, who heads the Education Committee and who had been criticized for blocking a previous bill that she considered too broad. Under the new bill, schools would be required to periodically test for lead — though some already do — and notify parents in the event the dangerous element is discovered. The state will also provide an additional $50 million in capital funding for SUNY and the City University of New York. But the governor's announcement that the state would release $570 million in state resources to build and operate 1, 200 units of supportive housing for the homeless was immediately dissected and dismissed by advocates for the program, who said it fell far short of Mr. Cuomo's initial commitment to pay for 20, 000 units. "Tonight's plan would appear to be a betrayal of the most vulnerable New Yorkers and the latest broken promise from a governor who makes sweeping announcements that lead to paltry results," the Campaign 4 Housing, a supportive housing group, said in a statement. Mr. Cuomo and the legislative leaders had already agreed to funding for 6, 000 units over five years as part of the state budget passed in March, but another deal was required to release the first infusion of money for spending. The $570 million figure included only $150 million of new state funding, said Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi, the chairman of the Assembly's Social Services Committee, with the rest coming from existing capital funds and tax credits. "In January, it was 20, 000 units," he said. "In April, it was 6, 000 units. Now it's 1, 200 units and it's only $150 million in new money. All the rest is smoke and mirrors. " Early Saturday morning, the lawmakers were in the process of passing the new legislation. At about 2:15 a. m. the Legislature finished its last remaining substantive task: the Senate passed a bill to legalize daily fantasy sports, which had been considered illegal gambling in New York. The Assembly had approved the measure on Friday afternoon. Other bills won both houses' backing on Friday. The Legislature passed a bill that aims to ensure equal access to legal representation for the poor by reimbursing counties for indigent legal services, drawing praise from the New York Civil Liberties Union. The hotel industry in New York City cheered the passage of legislation that would keep people from advertising stays shorter than 30 days in unoccupied homes, a measure that the bill's supporters said would restrict commercial operators of illegal hotels, but that Airbnb — the company that prompted the bill — said would affect regular city residents. It is already illegal in New York to rent out an empty apartment for less than 30 days at a time. The Legislature also passed bills that would increase penalties for using software known as ticket bots to scoop up large numbers of tickets to concerts, games or other events, a practice that the state attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, highlighted in a recent report. Doing so is already illegal, but the bill would make it a misdemeanor. The agreement on Friday, which came after a flurry of deals at the March budget deadline, including an increase in the minimum wage and the establishment of a paid family leave program, did not please corporate leaders like Heather Briccetti, the president of the Business Council of New York State, who called it devoid of any "major or cost reduction measures. " Nor did it mollify government watchdogs and other advocates of ethics reforms who had high hopes that the convictions last year of Sheldon Silver, the former Assembly speaker, and Dean G. Skelos, the former Senate majority leader, would finally shame the Legislature into acting to prevent corruption. But of all the measures on ethics that lawmakers did discuss this session, pension forfeiture, a straightforward and broadly popular measure, was the only prominent one to survive. Mr. Cuomo had proposed but failed to win support for more ambitious proposals that included eight different bills for closing a loophole that allows limited liability companies to donate to political candidates up to the limit for individual contributors, rather than for businesses. In order for pension forfeiture to become a constitutional amendment, two consecutively elected legislatures must approve it before voters consider the measure on the ballot. The announcement about the ethics agreement highlighted what were called strong protections against the independent expenditure committees empowered by the Citizens United ruling, the Supreme Court's 2010 campaign finance decision. The governor had made a push to tighten restrictions on such committees over the past few weeks. The ethics package will also require political consultants who simultaneously advise elected officials or candidates and work with companies that have business before the state to register with the state and disclose their clients. It strengthens disclosure requirements for lobbyists and for nonprofits that lobby the state to disclose financial support from other nonprofits that are not supposed to engage in political activity. Blair Horner, the executive director for the New York Public Interest Research Group, said the deal was a "smorgasbord of elections, ethics and lobbying reforms" that nonetheless was "not focused at the heart of what's wrong with Albany," including the nearly unchecked flow of money through multiple limited liability companies. That said, Mr. Horner said the move to define coordination between independent expenditure committees and candidates was an improvement. "No one has defined what that means," he said. "And this does. " The greatest source of friction on Friday appeared to be the mayoral control issue. There was concern within City Hall that the charter school provision would significantly change how such schools in the city run. Charter schools can be authorized by three agencies — the State Education Department, the city's Education Department and SUNY — but all operate according to the same state law. Although the announcement of the agreement did not offer details, the Senate's proposal would exempt SUNY schools from the usual state standards and free to set their own rules, two officials with direct knowledge of the negotiations said. There are 111 charters authorized by SUNY in the city. Another 55 are authorized by the city's Education Department, and 39 by the state department.


President Donald Trump compared his current job as to his days spent in business before he became president in an interview Sunday. ["Here, everything, pretty much everything you do in government involves heart, whereas in business most things don't involve heart," Trump told the Associated Press. "In fact, in business you're actually better off without it. " The interview comes as Trump approaches 100 days serving as president and Congress debates legislation that would keep the government funded. Trump stressed that there is a "human responsibility" that comes with the job. He provided an example of that human responsibility to the AP when he explained how much risk went into the decision to strike Syrian President Bashar 's military. "When it came time to, as an example, send out the 59 missiles, the Tomahawks in Syria," he said. "I'm saying to myself, 'You know, this is more than just like 79 (sic) missiles. This is death that's involved because people could have been killed. This is risk that's involved. '" Trump is expected to hold a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, April 29 on the 100th day of his presidency, the same night as the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Trump is also looking to cement his legacy in the first 100 days even further, saying in a joint press conference with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni that he expects both health care and government funding to pass this week.


A group of Democratic senators hopes to ban a pesticide the U.S. government has greenlighted for use, according to a bill unveiled on Tuesday in a challenge to Republican President Donald Trump's push to loosen environmental regulations. The bill, introduced by Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico, would outlaw chlorpyrifos, an agricultural insect-killer that has been found to cause brain damage in children. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency denied a petition to ban the chemical on March 29, and a federal appeals court on July 18 denied a petition by green groups to force the agency to reverse its decision and enact the ban. The bill is called the Protect Children, Farmers and Farmworkers from Nerve Agent Pesticides Act of 2017. Seven other senators are co-sponsoring it: Ben Cardin of Maryland, Kamala Harris of California, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Richard Durbin of Illinois and Ed Markey of Massachusetts. Chlorpyrifos, produced by a variety of manufacturers, including a subsidiary of Dow Chemical, is listed as a neurotoxin by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. "Current regulatory safety standard for chlorpyrifos rests on five decades of experience in use, health surveillance of manufacturing workers and applicators, and more than 4,000 studies and reports examining the product in terms of health, safety and the environment," a Dow spokesman said on Tuesday. "Authorized uses of chlorpyrifos products, when used as directed, offer wide margins of protection for human health and safety." The EPA considered whether to ban it for roughly a decade before Trump appointed EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, a Republican from Oklahoma, to lead the agency. In denying the petition to ban chlorpyrifos, Pruitt said the EPA had previously relied on "novel and uncertain" scientific study methods to conclude the substance was dangerous. The agency said it was still reviewing the chemical's registration. "EPA will continue to evaluate the potential risks posed by chlorpyrifos as part of the ongoing registration review," said EPA spokeswoman Amy Graham. Trump and Pruitt have vowed to roll back environmental regulations they say are harming business growth in the United States. Philip Landrigan, a pediatrician who is dean for global health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, said three long-term, independently funded studies showed the substance was toxic. "Chlorpyrifos has been shown beyond any shadow of a doubt to damage the brains of children, especially those of fetuses in the womb," he said. Udall's bill also calls for the EPA to conduct a broad review of the use of other pesticides similar to chlorpyrifos to determine which groups are most vulnerable to their harmful effects. If the review shows any people are being exposed to harmful levels of the chemicals, called organophosphates, the EPA administrator must take "appropriate regulatory action" within three months by either suspending or revoking the their registration or lowering the amount that can legally be used. "Congress must act because Administrator Pruitt has shown that he won't," Udall said in a statement on Monday.


The British government announced plans on Tuesday to crack down on voter fraud by requiring voters to show official identification at polling stations, tightening rules on absentee ballots and preventing political activists from handling absentee ballots. While some critics argued that fraud was not widespread and that the plans would hit the opposition Labour Party and the poor the hardest, the government minister in charge, Chris Skidmore, said that the new measures would "protect anyone who is at risk of being bullied, undermined or tricked out of their vote, and their democratic right. " The government had commissioned a report on fraud after a scandal in Tower Hamlets, a borough in East London, where the elected mayor was stripped of his office last year and found guilty of corrupt practices involving voting fraud. The report was compiled by a former cabinet minister, Eric Pickles, who called Tower Hamlets a " call" when introducing it. "There are sometimes challenging issues over divisive community politics and polarization, but this is no excuse for failing to enforce British law and protect the integrity of our democratic process," he concluded in the report. In his report, he cited research suggesting that certain Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities could be more vulnerable to fraud. He suggested that "kinship" traditions emphasized collective over individual rights and made it more likely that people would "hand over" their vote to others. Ken Livingstone, a former London mayor and a member of the Labour Party before being suspended for comments, said the new checks would make life more difficult for many to vote. "The real problem is the people most likely not to have a passport or a driving license are going to be the poorest and that I suspect will basically hit the Labour Party," he told the BBC on Tuesday. Some suggested that the changes, to be used first for local elections in 18 areas in May 2018, would most affect Britain's Asian communities, which tend to vote Labour. Among those areas considered most susceptible to fraud are Birmingham and Bradford, which have large Muslim communities. Cat Smith, the Labour member in charge of voter engagement and youth affairs, said the party as a whole supported the changes. But she criticized what she called Conservative Party moves in general to reduce the electoral rolls. A new requirement that students, once automatically registered by their schools, register individually is thought to have cut voter turnout in the June referendum on leaving the European Union, also known as "Brexit," which young people generally opposed. Mr. Skidmore said that the trial in 2018 was partly intended to see what kinds of proof of identity were best in a country without a national identity card, unlike most of Europe. It is possible that other proof of address like utility bills or proof of voter registration may be used as well as documents with photographs, like driving licenses and passports. Mr. Skidmore also rejected the accusation that electoral fraud was associated with any one community, although he said racial and cultural sensitivities might have discouraged the police from earlier investigating the case of Tower Hamlets. After absentee ballots were made available to any registered voter in 2000 under the prime minister at the time, Tony Blair, there was evidence that some political activists were "harvesting" them from old addresses and filling them out, or collecting them in bulk from some voters. Voters in Northern Ireland, with a long history of electoral pressure in a divided community, have had identity checks at polling stations since 1985, and since 2002 have had to bring photographic IDs, since other forms of documentation were too easily forged. The Electoral Reform Society, a lobbying group, criticized the government's plan as a "sledgehammer to crack a nut," arguing that voting fraud was not widespread in Britain and that "the government should think very carefully before introducing barriers to voting," said its chief executive, Katie Ghose. "Raising barriers to democratic participation could just put people off voting — and evidence from the U. S. shows that it's generally those already most excluded from the political process that are worst affected by strict ID laws," she said. "The government should think again and look at all the evidence on voter ID before deciding to use this blunt instrument. " The group had previously criticized the referendum to leave the European Union for "glaring democratic deficiencies," in particular because voters had been so since "misleading claims could be made with total impunity. " Separately, the Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, reacted angrily to comments by President Obama — made in the same interview in which he said he would have defeated Donald J. Trump — that seemed to suggest that the Labour Party had lost its footing. Asked if, after Hillary Clinton's election defeat, the Democrats could undergo "Corbynization" and "disintegrate" like Labour, Mr. Obama said he was not concerned. "I don't worry about that, partly because I think that the Democratic Party has stayed pretty grounded in fact and reality," he said. A party spokesman said that Mr. Corbyn "stands for what most people want" and suggested that the American Democratic Party needed to "challenge power if they are going to speak for working people and change a broken system that isn't delivering for the majority. "


The way he's doing business there seems he'll be a daisy pusher before to long. Just say'en. I mean as one poster here said a while back, only so much the drug cartels will tolerate before they retaliate.