Soccer leagues such as England s Premier League and Germany s Bundesliga won a reprieve on Friday when EU ambassadors agreed to exclude them from the scope of a copyright reform that would help make content more easily available online. The entertainment and sports industries have been fiercely lobbying against the European Commission s proposed reform of EU copyright law to make films and TV program more available across borders, arguing it would undermine the financing model of the whole sector. Films and TV program are often financed by selling exclusive distribution rights on a country-by-country basis. Rights to show sports, such as Premier League soccer matches, can fetch billions of pounds. The Commission has said it is not seeking to force anyone to make content more available online, but merely to make it easier for broadcasters to obtain the necessary rights. EU member states agreed on Friday to exclude all sports events, TV program co-produced by broadcasters and other third parties, as well as content licensed to a broadcaster by a third party. That means that only content produced and financed entirely by the broadcaster will be able to be shown online across the EU after the rights are obtained in the home country. That mostly includes TV shows made by public broadcasters for home audiences, as opposed to blockbuster TV shows such as Game of Thrones . At issue is the so-called country of origin principle , which allows satellite broadcasters to acquire the rights for content in their home country rather than in every country where the program is received by satellite. Under the Commission s proposal broadcasters could choose to make their catch-up TV and live streaming services available online across the EU after securing the rights in their home country. The agreement is not final and means EU member states can enter into negotiations with the European Parliament to strike a final deal. The Parliament had restricted the scope of the reform even further, limiting it to just news and current affairs program. The Commission has pointed to the large number of European citizens living abroad who may want to watch content from their home country online without resorting to piracy. It says 67 percent of all films are only shown in one EU country and that its proposal could help free up over 50 percent of own productions from broadcasters like the BBC, should they choose to make it available.


We all know how much conservatives love to whine about how persecuted they are for their mainstream beliefs, and continue promoting their completely skewed perception of what it s really like to be discriminated against.On Saturday during a speech in Iowa, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump revisited his previous comments where he d proposed that all Muslims be banned from coming into the United States, offering up a completely out of touch alternative scenario. Trump actually had the audacity to say that he would have had less difficulty if he had suggested a ban on Christians from coming into America instead of Muslims! The business mogul said to his audience at Dordt College, a Christian school: If I said that about Christians, and if I said banned, I m telling you I would have had less difficulty. And that s pretty sad, because we re Christians. I m Protestant. I m Presbyterian. Trump s faith has been questioned before especially since he d recently said he doesn t like asking God for forgiveness. Now doing damage control, he s embracing the religious right full force. He said: I m a true believer. And you re many true believers I hope all is everybody a true believer in this room? I think so. But Christianity is under tremendous siege. The Donald also lamented that Christians weren t using their full power and political influence in the United States and that they should step it up. The nonsense he s spewing is actually pretty terrifying: The power of our group of people together, I mean, if you add it up it could be 240, 250 million. And yet we don t exert the power that we should have. Now, I think some of the churches are afraid of their tax status, to be honest.But you know the fact is that there is nothing the politicians can do to you if you band together. You have too much power. But the Christians don t use their power. We have to strengthen. Because we are getting if you look, it s death by a million cuts we are getting less and less and less powerful in terms of a religion, and in terms of a force. Trump pulled out all of the stops, even touching on one of the far-right s biggest religion-based complaints the supposed War On Christmas . Complaining that big department stores were not using Merry Christmas during the holiday season, he said: When they don t want to say merry Christmas in department stores anymore. I won t shop at places that don t say merry Christmas. Guess what? I don t too much shopping. No, no, it s true. When I see these stores, and they have a red wall and they have nothing on it. They don t want to say merry Christmas anymore. I say, Why don t you say merry Christmas?' I ll tell you one thing: I get elected president, we re going to be saying merry Christmas again. Just remember that. And by the way, Christianity will have power, without having to form. And as if Trump being president wasn t terrifying enough, his promise to giving Christians more power should have everyone running out to the polls to prevent this nightmare from actually happening. He added: Because if I m there, you re going to have plenty of power. You don t need anybody else. You re going to have somebody representing you very, very well. Remember that.


The Pentagon said on Monday it was reviewing adjustments in arms for the Syrian Kurdish forces that have angered Turkey, but it stopped short of halting weapons transfers, suggesting such decisions would be based on battlefield requirements. Turkey said on Friday U.S. President Donald Trump told President Tayyip Erdogan he had issued instructions that weapons should not be provided to the Syrian Kurdish fighters, which Ankara views as threat. We are reviewing pending adjustments to the military support provided to our Kurdish partners in as much as the military requirements of our defeat-ISIS and stabilization efforts will allow to prevent ISIS from returning, said Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon, referring to Islamic State, which U.S. and U.S.-backed forces are battling in Syria. Earlier on Monday Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag said Friday s call between Trump and Erdogan was a turning point in strained ties between the two countries, but Washington must honor a pledge to stop providing weapons to the Syrian Kurds. The We will not give weapons remark from a U.S. president for the first time is important, but it will lose value if it is not implemented. It would be deceiving the world, Bozdag said. The Syrian Kurdish YPG spearheads the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias fighting Islamic State with the help of a U.S.-led coalition. A spokesperson for the coalition said on Sunday that it was looking at adjustments to the support it provides to the SDF, ranging from the number of advisers to training and artillery. Weapons provided to Syrian YPG have been limited and mission specific, the spokesperson added. Ankara has been infuriated by Washington s support for the YPG militia, seen by Turkey as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a decades-long insurgency in Turkey and is designated a terrorist group by Ankara, the United States and European Union.


Trump administration officials will likely meet in May to reach a final decision on whether the United States should stay in the Paris climate deal, after holding an initial meeting on Thursday at the White House, an administration source said. The group of advisers, which includes Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and national security adviser H.R. McMaster, was on track to make the decision before a Group of Seven summit on May 26, the source said. President Donald Trump made canceling the Paris agreement part of his 100-day plan for energy policy. He later said he was open to staying in the pact if Washington got better terms. Tillerson, the former head of Exxon Mobil Corp and Perry have said the country should remain in the agreement. McMaster shares that view, a source outside the administration said. Opponents of the pact include Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt, the former attorney general of oil-producing Oklahoma, and White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. Nearly 200 countries struck the Paris agreement to limit climate change by cutting carbon dioxide emissions and making investments in clean energy. Many companies such as BP Plc and Microsoft Corp have urged the United States to stay in the agreement to protect their competitiveness. In addition, a group of nine Republican lawmakers urged Trump to stick to the pact, but to weaken the U.S. pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Representative Kevin Cramer of oil-producing North Dakota and eight other Republican House of Representatives members sent a letter to Trump urging him to use the country's "seat at the Paris table to defend and promote our commercial interest, including our manufacturing and fossil fuel sectors." If the United States is to stay in the 2015 agreement, Washington should present a new emissions cutting pledge that "does no harm to our economy," said the letter from Cramer, who advised Trump on energy and climate during his presidential campaign. Trump's Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, had pledged a 26 percent to 28 percent cut in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels, by 2025. Most scientists say the world needs to curb greenhouse gas emissions to limit the effects of climate change, including rising seas, deadly heatwaves, and severe storms and droughts. The Republican lawmakers also said Washington should retain its seat on the Green Climate Fund, which aims to tackle climate change in poor countries, but not make additional transfers to it. Obama pledged $3 billion to the fund in 2014, and gave $1 billion to it, with the last $500 million payment coming in his last days as president.


The Brexit agreement on the Irish border that assures Northern Ireland will remain aligned with the European Union s customs union and single market puts a floor under what is possible in negotiations on trade after Britain leaves the EU, Ireland s foreign minister said. What it means is any deal that is done has to be better than the default position, otherwise we won t be able to agree it, Simon Coveney told national broadcaster RTE after the deal was struck early on Friday. I think what that does is, it puts a floor under what is possible in terms of the outcome that we can t fall below, so Ireland obviously has a huge interest in the phase two negotiations.


Programming Alert:Tune in to the FOX Business Network's GOP Debate on Thursday, January 14, beginning at 6 P.M. ET The good people of Charleston, South Carolina, divide themselves into two groups – SOBS (folks living south of Broad Street) and SNOBS (those on the northern side). Worse things have been said of the current crop of presidential hopefuls, nearly all of whom invade the Holy City the next few days – Thursday's GOP debate, sponsored by the Fox Business Network; Sunday's Democratic debate, carried by NBC. If you're counting at home, this marks the sixth time the GOP field has gathered on one stage, the second time that the Fox Business Network (FBN) has done the honors and, with only seven candidates in the main event (watch live at 9 pm ET), it could be the first time an evening with the Republicans might not descend into pouting, posturing and crosstalk. How best to anticipate this debate? The debate's venue, the North Charleston Coliseum and Performing Arts Center, is less than 10 miles from the Emanuel AME church, the scene of last June's mass shooting. Gun control won't go undiscussed, what with President Obama bringing it up in Tuesday's State of the Union Address and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley revisiting the incident in her Republican response. It's a short walk from Emanuel AME to the Cooper River and a bustling container-ship and car-carrier operation that's converted Charleston from a Navy town to a thriving hub of maritime commerce (BMW and Volvo use the seaport to ship autos made elsewhere in the right-to-work state). There's no better tie-in for a few questions about the global economy. Those ships dock upriver from Fort Sumter and were the site of a louder anti-Washington protest than anything the Tea Party's imagined. Will Donald Trump tell America it's time to party like it's 1861? What else to expect from the Republicans? In the Low Country spirit of sippin' bourbon and whiskey concoctions, six things: 1. Rebel Yell. Before we get into what divides the Republican field, here's what unites it – multiple opportunities to yell President Obama post-State of the Union. Expect strong words on the President's omission of the situation on Farsi island, his post-San Bernardino emphasis on guns and not domestic terrorism, his invoking the word "Muslim" only in conjunction with hate crimes, plus his insistence that America's global influence isn't in decline. 2. Canadian Club. The knock against Ted Cruz is that most folks who've worked with him don't like him. Let's see if that carries over onto the debate stage should Trump resume the questions about Cruz's Canadian birth. Will any other candidate intervene, or will they let Cruz and Trump slug it out? Then there's also the matter of the Goldman Sachs undisclosed million dollar loan… As for Cruz, does he laugh off these lines of attack, or continue to return fire as he's just begun to do in New Hampshire? 3. Southern Comfort. To the adage about South Carolina's quirkiness ("too small for a republic and too large for an insane asylum," said the anti-secessionist James L. Petrigu), there's this reality: it's the most conservative of the four stops on the February primary circuit. How many of the seven contenders will cater to the local electorate, versus those who play to the more moderate Yankees up in New Hampshire? For the latter, keep an eye on Chris Christie, John Kasich and this guy . . . 4. Johnny Walker. That's "Johnny", as in John Ellis "Jeb" Bush, and "Walker" as in Walker's Point, the family's summer compound where the family assembles to celebrate wins and lick wounds. Historically, South Carolina has been invaluable to Bush presidential causes – both father and brother used it as a "firewall" in their respective winning candidacies. But that's not so with Jeb. The Palmetto State doesn't fit into a strategy that's finish strong in New Hampshire or bust. 5. Wild Turkey. Not to suggest that Trump is poultry, but as usual he's the wild card in the two hours he has to bond with the six other Republicans who trail him in national surveys. Do we assume Trump is the aggressor, in attacking Cruz? Or does he go easy on Cruz and go back to his favorite pincushion: the Clintons? 6. Old Fashioned. Not a brand of booze, but a cocktail (bourbon, splash of soda, bitters, sugar, orange wheel, cherry). The "old fashioned" candidate in this debate? It might be the decidedly youthful Marco Rubio, who suddenly seems less the futuristic GenXer and more a traditional Republican (convening a constitutional convention, berating Hillary Clinton for wanting higher taxes and bigger government). The last guy to popularize this cocktail: "Mad Men's" Don Draper, who knew a thing or two about marketing and salesmanship. That show lasted eight years on television – the same goal as everyone mixing it up in North Charleston. Bill Whalen is a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, where he analyzes California and national politics. He also blogs daily on the 2016 election at www.adayattheracesblog.com. Follow him on Twitter @hooverwhalen.


On the Tuesday edition of Breitbart News Daily, broadcast live on SiriusXM Patriot Channel 125 from 6AM to 9AM Eastern, Breitbart Alex Marlow will continue our discussion of the Trump administration's agenda. [Gary Miliefsky, the CEO of SnoopWall, Inc. will discuss the recent global ransomware cyberattacks. Breitbart's Joel Pollak and Matt Boyle will discuss the latest deep state leak plaguing President Trump. Breitbart Legal Editor Ken Klukowski will discuss the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals hearing arguments on Trump's revised travel ban. Live from London, Rome, and Jerusalem, Breitbart correspondents will provide updates on the latest international news. Breitbart News Daily is the first live, conservative radio enterprise to air seven days a week. SiriusXM Vice President for news and talk Dave Gorab called the show "the conservative news show of record. " Follow Breitbart News on Twitter for live updates during the show. Listeners may call into the show at: .


U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he has not given any thought to the possibility of firing special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Speaking to reporters at his New Jersey golf club, Trump also said he was surprised by the FBI raid last month of his former campaign manager Paul Manafort, adding that it sent a "strong signal."


From the first piece headlined James Comey is damaging our democracy : First, the FBI director, James B. Comey, put himself enthusiastically forward as the arbiter of not only whether to prosecute a criminal case — which is not the job of the FBI — but also best practices in the handling of email and other matters. Now, he has chosen personally to restrike the balance between transparency and fairness , departing from the department's traditions.  From the second piece by notorious mud-slinger Dana Milbank: I've long believed in Comey's integrity. But if he doesn't step forward and explain his October Surprise, he may inadvertently wind up interfering in the political process — perhaps even reversing the outcome of a presidential election — in a way that would have made J. Edgar Hoover gape.  And the third strike : FBI Director James B. Comey's stunning announcement that he has directed investigators to begin reviewing new evidence in the Clinton email investigation was yet another troubling violation of long-standing Justice Department rules or precedent, conduct that raises serious questions about his judgment and ability to serve as the nation's chief investigative official .  Back to the July 7 editorial: "It appears damage is being done to the rule of law," Mr. Ryan said. He's right, but the FBI director isn't doing the damage. The wreckers are those who cast baseless aspersions on U.S. law enforcement in the service of their partisan goals .  I for one believe that Comey was wrong in July and is right today. He should have pressed for charges against Clinton early on. Using a "secret" private email server for confidential state business is not legal and would have been out of bounds for anyone else. Now possible new evidence was found and must be investigated. It is not Comey's job to ask if the timing of a renewed investigation is convenient for the potential culprit. He also had to inform Congress because he had reasonably promised to do so. (He also needed to save his ass before anyone else in his department talked to the media.)  The so called "election" of a U.S. president is always a sorry show. But this season's version has at least some amusing moments. Seeing the hypocrites at Fred Hyatt's Funny Pages™ squirm is one of them. It makes me smirk. Posted by b on October 30, 2016 at 08:37 AM | Permalink


When the S. U. V. was recovered, two days after it was stolen, everything inside was gone, a long and bizarre list. More than 100 Brioni neckties. A fur coat that had been a gift from the Onassis family. Two bronze urns that had been in the trunk, and their precious contents. And a 1977 New York Yankees World Series ring, a personal gift from George Steinbrenner. It was inscribed, "To my friend, Bill White. " That would be Bill White, the philanthropist and former chief executive of the Intrepid Sea, Air Space Museum. The same Bill White who hosted a with President Obama in his home in 2014. Guests included Rosie O'Donnell, Aretha Franklin and Mark Wahlberg. He spoke on Tuesday by telephone from the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, where he was attending the Clinton campaign's events, the outcome still unknown. But amid the excitement Mr. White, 49, sounded like just another New Yorker angry at himself. "This is the tale of three idiots, and I'm all three of them," he said. "I get it. " On Nov. 2, Mr. White had parked the truck outside his building in Manhattan around 2 a. m. after having dinner with his husband, Bryan Eure. He had loaded a lot of property and memorabilia, like photographs of Barbara Walters with Yitzhak Rabin aboard the Intrepid, into the G. M. C. Yukon to take to his office later that day. And the vehicle contained something more precious, he said: the cremated remains of his parents, inside those bronze urns. The vehicle's windows were tinted, and everything inside was covered, so he felt it was safe to leave his belongings there for the trip the next morning. "Like an absolute idiot," he said. "I've left my car on the street for 15 years and never had it broken into. " A familiar figure in social and political circles in the city, Mr. White guided the Intrepid through financial troubles during his five years as president. He resigned abruptly in 2010, and was under investigation by Andrew M. Cuomo, then the state attorney general, for his role in for Alan G. Hevesi, the former state comptroller. That same year, he settled and agreed to pay $1 million to the state. He knows a lot of people. When he had seen that the S. U. V. was gone that morning, Mr. White picked up the phone and called the police. Sort of. "I called Commissioner Bratton," he said, referring to the city's former police commissioner, William J. Bratton. "And Ray Kelly," who was Mr. Bratton's predecessor. "I even texted my friend Bill de Blasio. " The vehicle was recovered on East 89th Street in Canarsie, Brooklyn. It was taken to a police lot for processing and fingerprinting. "I said, 'You've got to tell me, what's in the car? '" Mr. White said. "They said, 'A sock.' That's when I lost it. " "I'm just trying to get my parents back," Mr. White said. "The other stuff, you can live without. " The police released an image from a surveillance camera of a man stepping out of the Yukon, but it showed no sign of the property. Did he stop along the way and dump it somewhere? What could he have done with the urns? "I think he thought it was gold," Mr. White said. "He opened it and saw dust. " Mr. White's father, William J. White, died in 2015 and was cremated. His son, an only child, said they were very close and had spoken every day, and that it continued after the father's death. "People will think that's weird, and I don't care," Mr. White said. "I used to drive him around. " He kept the remains in the trunk area, out of sight. His mother, Patricia White, died in September. Mr. White placed her remains beside her husband's. "Until I think about what to do with them, I want them to be with me," he said, "and I'm in the car a lot. " He planned to have both urns placed under a memorial bench with his parents' names inscribed on it, in a park in Point Lookout, N. Y. where they had lived. The thief can keep the rest, he said. Even the ring. Once, in 2008, Mr. White was talking on his phone when a stranger approached and asked, "Where the hell did you get that ring?" It was Reggie Jackson, who said, "I was on that team, my friend, and you definitely were not. " Mr. White just wants the urns. His parents' names are inscribed on them. "I'm in a state of depression over it," he said. "If he's just returning the urns, then I will not press charges, and if he wants $25, 000, I'll give it to him," Mr. White said. He said goodbye, and returned to the Clinton event.


Show up at the polls and vote for Donald Trump. Make sure your vote is cast for Donald Trump not being switch by Soros voting machines. This could be our last chance our children and grandchildren to enjoy a Republic called America. TRUMP/PENCE. 2016


Ever get the feeling your life circles the roundabout rather than heads in a straight line toward the intended destination? [Hillary Clinton remains the big woman on campus in leafy, liberal Wellesley, Massachusetts. Everywhere else votes her most likely to don her inauguration dress for the remainder of her days the way Miss Havisham forever wore that wedding dress. Speaking of Great Expectations, Hillary Rodham overflowed with them 48 years ago when she first addressed a Wellesley graduating class. The president of the college informed those gathered in 1969 that the students needed "no debate so far as I could ascertain as to who their spokesman was to be" (kind of the like the Democratic primaries in 2016 minus the terms unknown then even at a Seven Sisters school). "I am very glad that Miss Adams made it clear that what I am speaking for today is all of us — the 400 of us," Miss Rodham told her classmates. After appointing herself Edger Bergen to the Charlie McCarthys and Mortimer Snerds in attendance, the bespectacled in granny glasses (awarding her matronly wisdom — or at least John Lennon wisdom) took issue with the previous speaker. Despite becoming the first to win election to a seat in the U. S. Senate since Reconstruction, Edward Brooke came in for criticism for calling for "empathy" for the goals of protestors as he criticized tactics. Though Clinton in her senior thesis on Saul Alinsky lamented "Black Power demagogues" and "elitist arrogance and repressive intolerance" within the New Left, similar words coming out of a Republican necessitated a brief rebuttal. "Trust," Rodham ironically observed in 1969, "this is one word that when I asked the class at our rehearsal what it was they wanted me to say for them, everyone came up to me and said 'Talk about trust, talk about the lack of trust both for us and the way we feel about others. Talk about the trust bust.' What can you say about it? What can you say about a feeling that permeates a generation and that perhaps is not even understood by those who are distrusted?" The "trust bust" certainly busted Clinton's 2016 plans. She certainly did not even understand that people distrusted her. After Whitewater, Travelgate, the vast conspiracy, Benghazi, and the missing emails, Clinton found herself the distrusted voice on Friday. There was a load of compromising on the road to the broadening of her political horizons. And distrust from the American people — Trump edged her 48 percent to 38 percent on the question immediately prior to November's election — stood as a major reason for the closing of those horizons. Clinton described her vanquisher and his supporters as embracing a "lie," a "con," "alternative facts," and "a assault on truth and reason. " She failed to explain why the American people chose his lies over her truth. "As the history majors among you here today know all too well, when people in power invent their own facts and attack those who question them, it can mark the beginning of the end of a free society," she offered. "That is not hyperbole. " Like so many people to emerge from the 1960s, Hillary Clinton embarked upon a long, strange trip. From high school Goldwater Girl and Wellesley College Republican president to Democratic politician, Clinton drank in the times and the place that gave her a degree. More significantly, she went from idealist to cynic, as a comparison of her two Wellesley commencement addresses show. Way back when, she lamented that "for too long our leaders have viewed politics as the art of the possible, and the challenge now is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible possible. " Now, as the big woman on campus but the odd woman out of the White House, she wonders how her current station is even possible. "Why aren't I 50 points ahead?" she asked in September. In May she asks why she isn't president. The woman famously dubbed a "congenital liar" by Bill Safire concludes that lies did her in — theirs, mind you, not hers. Getting stood up on Election Day, like finding yourself the jilted bride on your wedding day, inspires dangerous delusions.


November 23: Daily Contrarian Reads By David Stockman. Posted On Wednesday, November 23rd, 2016 My daily contrarian reads for Wednesday, November 23rd, 2016. You need to login to view this content.  David Stockman's Contra Corner isn't your typical financial tipsheet. Instead it's an ongoing dialogue about what's really happening in the markets… the economy… and governments… so you can understand the world around you and make better decisions for yourself.  David believes the world -- certainly the United States -- is at a great inflection point in human history. The massive credit inflation of the last three decades has reached its apogee and is now going to splatter spectacularly.  This will have lasting ramifications on how governments tax and regulate you… the type of work you and your family members will have available and what you get paid… the value of your nest egg… and all other areas comprising your quality of life. Login  David Stockman's Contra Corner is the only place where mainstream delusions and cant about the Warfare State, the Bailout State, Bubble Finance and Beltway Banditry are ripped, refuted and rebuked. Subscribe now to receive David Stockman's latest posts by email each day as well as his model portfolio, Lee Adler's Daily Data Dive and David's personally curated insights and analysis from leading contrarian thinkers.


Al Franken returned to DC this week after a series of bombshell allegations of sexual harassment by several women. He claims to be tremendously sorry for his serial groping incidents but can t seem to recall them Yes, you ll love this Clintonesque tactic where you just claim you have no idea how this happened Daily Caller reported:The Minnesota Democrat has faced more and more outcry, even from within his own party, as the allegations continue to stack. In total, four women have now accused Franken of inappropriately touching or groping them without consent. Many in progressive circles are now calling for Franken s resignation. To date, Franken s office has said he will not resign and instead has issued controversial apologies to the women. The apologies issued by Franken range in length and content, however there is one very disturbing trend that each of them has in common.WHEN YOU READ THE FOUR APOLOGIES BELOW, WHAT IS THE COMMON THREAD? Franken is unaware that he is sexually assaulting women. Franken regularly states in his apologies that he is unaware that his groping was offensive and often does not remember if it even happened.2. I take thousands of photos at the state fair surrounded by hundreds of people, and I certainly don t remember taking this picture. I feel badly that Ms. Menz came away from our interaction feeling disrespected. 3. It s difficult to respond to anonymous accusers, and I don t remember those campaign events. 4. I take a lot of pictures in Minnesota, thousands of pictures, tens of thousands of people, those are instances that I do not remember. It has from the stories it has been clear that there are some women and one is too many who feel that I have done something disrespectful at that assert them and for that I am tremendously sorry.


The failed Presidential candidate attacked her aides with a potent mix of exhaustion and exasperation after the embarrassing loss to her rival Bernie Sanders in March last year.Clinton s top staff said she was visibly, unflinchingly p***ed off at us and blamed them for making her look vulnerable .During another tirade Bill Clinton took over and gave aides an a** chewing on the phone and told them to do their d**n jobs .The details of the rows show the tensions at the top of Clinton s presidential campaign, tensions that she did her best to keep quiet during the election.They are revealed in Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton s Doomed Campaign , which is out next week and delivers the scathing verdict that her campaign was living in denial .The book says that neither Clinton nor her husband could accept the simple fact that Hillary had hamstrung her own campaign and dealt the most serious blow to her own presidential aspirations . Daily MailAn extract of the book was published by The Hill which said it showed that Clinton s campaign was plagued by bickering : We Got An Ass-Chewing Hillary was so mad she couldn t think straight. She was supposed to be focused on the prep session for that night s Univision debate in Miami, but a potent mix of exhaustion and exasperation bubbled up inside.She d been humiliated in the Michigan primary the night before, a loss that not only robbed her of a prime opportunity to put Bernie Sandersdown for good but also exposed several of her weaknesses. How could she have been left so vulnerable? She knew or at least she thought she did. The blame belonged to her campaign team, she believed, for failing to hone her message, energize important constituencies and take care of business in getting voters to the polls. And now, Jake Sullivan, her de facto chief strategist, was giving her lip about the last answer she d delivered in the prep session. That s not very good, Sullivan corrected. Really? Hillary snapped back.The room fell silent. Why don t you do it? The comment was pointed and sarcastic, but she meant it. So for the next 30 minutes, there he was, pretending to be Hillary while she critiqued his performance.Every time the Yale lawyer and former high school debate champ opened his mouth, Hillary cut him off. That isn t very good, she d say. You can do better. Then she d hammer him with a Bernie line.It wasn t just Sullivan in her crosshairs. She let everyone on her team have it that day. We haven t made our case, she fumed. We haven t framed the choice. We haven t done the politics. She was visibly, unflinchingly pissed off at us as a group, said one aide who was in the room for the humiliating scene. And she let us know she felt that way. Hillary had been up into the wee hours the night before, agitating over her loss. This is because we made poor choices about where we traveled, she thought. She emailed Robby Mook to tell him she believed she d spent too much time in the cities of Detroit and Flint and not enough in the working-class white suburbs around them. Sensing just how angry she was, Mook responded by putting together a morning conference call so that Hillary could vent. But that didn t settle her; if anything, it left her more perplexed and angry, as her debate-prep team witnessed firsthand.Her aides took the browbeating one of several she delivered in person and on the phone that day in silence. They had a lot of their own thoughts on what went wrong, some of which echoed Hillary s assessment: her message was off for Michigan, and she had refused to go hard against trade; Mook had pinched pennies and failed to put organizers on the ground; the polling and analytics were a touch too rosy, meaning the campaign didn t know Bernie was ahead; she had set up an ambiguous decisionmaking structure on the campaign; and she d focused too heavily on black and brown voters at the expense of competing for the whites who had formed her base in 2008. The list went on and on.The underlying truth the one that many didn t want to admit to themselves was the person ultimately responsible for these decisions, the one whose name was on the ticket, hadn t corrected these problems, all of which had been brought to her attention before primary day. She d stuck with the plan, and it had cost her.Months earlier, Hillary Clinton turned her fury on her consultants and campaign aides, blaming them for a failure to focus the media on her platform.In her ear the whole time, spurring her on to cast blame on others and never admit to anything, was her husband. Neither Clinton could accept the simple fact that Hillary had hamstrung her own campaign and dealt the most serious blow to her own presidential aspirations.That state of denial would become more obvious than ever to her top aides and consultants during one conference call in the thick of the public discussion of her server. Joel Benenson, Mandy Grunwald, Jim Margolis, John Anzalone, John Podesta, Mook, Huma Abedin and Dan Schwerin were among the small coterie who huddled in Abedin s mostly bare corner office overlooking the East River at the campaign s Brooklyn headquarters. Hillary and Bill, who rarely visited, joined them by phone.Hillary s severe, controlled voice crackled through the line first. It carried the sound of a disappointed teacher or mother delivering a lecture before a whipping. That back end was left to Bill, who lashed out with abandon. Eyes cast downward, stomachs turning both from the scare tactics and from their own revulsion at being chastised for Hillary s failures Hillary s talented and accomplished team of professionals and loyalists simply took it. There was no arguing with Bill Clinton.You haven t buried this thing, the ruddy-cheeked former president rasped. You haven t figured out how to get Hillary s core message to the voters. This has been dragging on for months, he thundered, and nothing you ve done has made a damn bit of difference. Voters want to hear about Hillary s plans for the economy, and you re not making that happen. Now, do your damn jobs. We got an ass-chewing, one of the participants recalled months later.Hillary came back on the line to close the lecture. It was hard to tell what was worse getting hollered at by Bill or getting scolded by the stern and self-righteous Hillary. Neither was pleasant. You heard him, she admonished. Get it straight. The above excerpt was adapted from Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton s Doomed Campaign, which will be released on April 18. Copyright 2017 by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes. Published by Crown, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC.


Go back to Africa is a phrase one would expect to hear someone tell an African-American at a Trump rally, but it s also something one can expect to hear pretty much anytime the Obama family is referenced. On Sunday, USA Today reported that the First Lady and her daughters are on their way to Liberia and Morocco as part of the Let Girls Learn initiative, a program the President and Michelle started last year to educate the more than 62 million girls worldwide who don t attend school.While there, Michelle Obama plans to meet with President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, the first female elected head of state on the continent of Africa, as well as speak to local teenage girls. This is very important, as nearly two-thirds of Liberia s school-aged children do not attend class. In Morocco, 85% of girls are enrolled in primary schools but that number drops as low as 14% by high school.This is, of course, a very important problem and an admirable initiative so, naturally, conservatives have a problem with it. The comment section of USA Today quickly flooded with racist remarks, with conservatives demanding that the Obamas stay there with many gleefully declaring that they are going home and demanding that they take other black people with them. And, of course, the not-racists seized upon the opportunity to call them monkeys: It s not just USA Today; Everywhere we have looked at this story, the comment section is the same. Take news station WKYC, for example: It s almost like the Obama family can t do anything without being subjected to racist hatred. When Malia Obama graduated high school, conservatives everywhere congratulated her by calling her a n*gger and other unsavory terms. When she got into Harvard, the racist hatred was so horrific that Fox News was forced to close down the comment section. When Sasha Obama turned 15, she was subjected to a barrage of bigotry. They even periodically dredge up old sources of their outrage to relive their opportunity to bash the Obama children.It s important to remember that each and every one of these racist dickbags will be voting in November. Make sure you re there and voting BLUE to counter that.


Eight suspects have been placed under formal investigation in France following their arrest in joint counter-terrorism raids with Swiss authorities, a judicial source said on Saturday. The suspects were among 10 detained on Nov. 7 by French and Swiss police as the result of a four-month investigation into a group of young Islamists thought to have been radicalized by a Swiss imam, who was among those detained. [nL5N1ND33T] Following the arrests, French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb told French lawmakers the group was believed to have been planning attacks but had not yet chosen specific targets. Seven of the eight suspects placed under formal investigation have been remanded in custody, the judicial source said. A ninth person arrested in the French swoop was released without charge.


China called on U.S. officials on Tuesday not to let Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen pass through the United States en route to Guatemala next month, days after President-elect Donald Trump irked Beijing by speaking to Tsai in a break with decades of precedent. The U.S. State Department appeared to reject the call, saying that such transits were based on "long-standing U.S. practice, consistent with the unofficial nature of (U.S.) relations with Taiwan." China is deeply suspicious of Tsai, whom it thinks wants to push for the formal independence of Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing regards as a renegade province. Her call with Trump on Friday was the first between a U.S. president-elect or president and a Taiwanese leader since President Jimmy Carter switched diplomatic recognition to China from Taiwan in 1979. Tsai is due to visit Guatemala, one of Taiwan's small band of diplomatic allies, on Jan. 11-12, its foreign minister, Carlos Raul Morales, told Reuters. Taiwan's Liberty Times, considered close to Tsai's ruling Democratic Progressive Party, reported on Monday that she was planning to go through New York early next month on her way to Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador. Taiwan has not formally confirmed Tsai's trip but visits to its allies in the region are normally combined with transit stops in the United States and meetings with Taiwan-friendly officials. The trip would take place before Trump is inaugurated on Jan. 20 to replace Democrat Barack Obama and Tsai's delegation would seek to meet Trump's team, including his White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, the Liberty Times said. An adviser to Trump's transition team said he considered it "very unlikely" there would be a meeting between Tsai and Trump if she were to go through New York. China's Foreign Ministry said the one-China principle, which states Taiwan is part of China, was commonly recognized by the international community and that Tsai's real aim was "self-evident." China hopes the United States "does not allow her transit, and does not send any wrong signals to 'Taiwan independence' forces," the ministry said in a statement sent to Reuters. U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said on Monday he had no information whether Tsai would meet U.S. officials if she stopped in transit but said Taiwanese presidents did stop over periodically. He said the transits were "based on long-standing U.S. practice, consistent with the unofficial nature of our relations with Taiwan." A spokeswoman repeated the position on Tuesday when asked to comment on the Chinese call. In a meeting with American reporters on Tuesday, Tsai played down the significance of her conversation with Trump, saying it was to congratulate the president-elect. "I do not foresee major policy shifts in the near future because we all see the value of stability in the region," she told the reporters. U.S. Vice President-elect Mike Pence told the Fox News Channel on Tuesday that Trump did not regret taking the call. "(The) president-elect was fully aware of the one-China policy," Pence said. "He's also very aware that the United States has sold billions of dollars in arms to Taiwan. "We have a unique relationship with that country that's been defined over the decades since we've reopened relations with the People's Republic of China but I think he think he felt it would be rude not to take the call." Taiwan has been self governing since 1949 when Nationalist forces fled to the island after defeat by Mao Zedong's communists in China's civil war. Taiwan's Presidential Office said media reports about a January trip were "excessive speculation." El Salvador's government said it was working with Taiwan on plans for a visit by Tsai in the second week of January but gave no specific dates. The Nicaraguan government had no immediate comment. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega is to be sworn in for a third consecutive term on Jan. 10, however, so Tsai's trip to Guatemala would dovetail with that ceremony. The White House said on Monday it had sought to reassure China after Trump's phone call with Tsai, which the Obama administration warned could undermine progress in relations with Beijing.


Former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino has an explanation of the hometown identity of politicians and how it leads to an insider swamp creature like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.Bongino defended President Trump and dismissed criticism by former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper who questioned Trump s fitness for office following a rally in Phoenix, Arizona. They just don t understand Trump. He s a Queens guy, Bongino said on Fox & Friends Thursday.OUR PREVIOUS REPORT ON JAMES CLAPPER TRYING TO SLAM TRUMP S FITNESS FOR OFFICE : Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper was way out of line and way too political last night when he showed his cards BIGTIME on President Trump. He followed the latest leftist line that Trump isn t fit to serve Yes, the loony left has a new play book that makes the false claim that somehow Trump is unfit to be president.We ve reported on clapper before but his not wittingly comment before the Senate is legend. Remember when he was asked if the NSA spies on Americans and he replied not wittingly ? Yes, well, that was perjury.More recently Clapper bashed President Trump during a discussion on national security and the Trump/Russia fake scandal.It s clear that Clapper is a political pawn who is out to try and make our president look bad. This is serious Deep State stuff.We re sure this isn t the end of James Clapper s involvement in the opposition to President Trump.


President Trump ignites a lot of fights, but his failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the biggest defeat in his short time in the White House, was the result of something else: a Republican civil war that humbled a generation of party leaders before he ever came to Washington. A president who believes that Washington's usual rules do not apply to him, Mr. Trump now finds himself shackled by them. In stopping the repeal of President Barack Obama's proudest legacy — the Republican Party's professed priority for the last seven years — from even coming to a vote, the rebellious far right wing Mr. Trump, taking on and defeating the party establishment with which it has long been at war and which he now leads. Like every one else who has tried to rule a fissured and fractious party, Mr. Trump now faces a wrenching choice: retrenchment or realignment. Does he cede power to the wing of his party? Or does he seek other pathways to successful governing by throwing away the partisan playbook and courting a coalition with the Democrats, whom he has improbably blamed for his party's shortcomings? "It's really a problem in our own party, and that's something he'll need to deal with moving forward," said Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, an ally of the Tuesday Group, which stuck with Mr. Trump in the health care fight and earned the president's praise in the hours after the bill's defeat. "I think he did a lot — he met with dozens and dozens of members and made a lot of accommodations — but in the end, there's a group of people in this party who just won't say yes," Mr. Cole said. "At some point, I think that means looking beyond our conference. The president is a deal maker, and Ronald Reagan cut some of his most important deals with Democrats. " Mr. Trump is not there yet. Before becoming a presidential candidate, he seemed to have little fixed ideology. But as president, he has operated from the Republican playbook, embracing many of the positions of Speaker Paul D. Ryan and the party establishment. While he is angry and thirsty for revenge, he seems determined to swallow the loss in hopes of marshaling enough Republican support to pass spending bills, an unformed tax overhaul and a $1 trillion infrastructure package — legislation that could attract considerable Democratic support but has the potential to split the party. On Friday evening, a somewhat shellshocked president retreated to the White House residence to grieve and assign blame. In a search for scapegoats, he asked his advisers repeatedly: Whose fault was this? Increasingly, that blame has fallen on Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, who coordinated initial legislative strategy on the health care bill with Mr. Ryan, his close friend and a fellow Wisconsinite, according to three people briefed on the president's recent discussions. Despite the public displays of unity with the speaker, Mr. Trump and his team now regret outsourcing so much of the early drafting to Mr. Ryan. One aide compared doing that to a developer's staking everything on obtaining a property without conducting a thorough inspection. And they were stunned by his inability to master the politics of his own conference. Mr. Trump, an developer with a lifelong indifference toward the mechanics of governance, made a game effort to negotiate with members of the Freedom Caucus, even if it seemed to some members of that group, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, that he did not have the greatest grasp of health care policy or legislative procedure. He told one adviser late Friday that his loss — a legislative debacle foreshadowed by the intraparty fight that led to the 2013 government shutdown — was a minor bump in the road and that the White House would recover. In an interview with The New York Times on Friday, Mr. Trump asserted that the administration was "rocking. " The problem, he suggested, was divisions among Republicans. There are "a lot of players, a lot of players with a very different " Mr. Trump said. "You have liberals, even within the Republican Party. You have the conservative players. " But his advisers were more realistic. Mr. Trump's chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, according to people familiar with White House discussions, described the president's decision to withdraw the health care bill in the face of its defeat as a failure that could inflict serious damage on this presidency — even if Mr. Bannon believes Congress, not Mr. Trump, deserves much of the blame. Mr. Bannon and the president's more legislative affairs director, Marc Short, pushed Mr. Trump hard to insist on a public vote, as a way to identify, shame and pressure "no" voters who were killing their best chance to unravel the health care law. One Republican congressional aide who was involved in the negotiations said Mr. Bannon and Mr. Short were seeking to compile an enemies list. Mr. Ryan repeatedly counseled the president to avoid seeking vengeance — at least until he has passed spending bills and a increase needed to keep the government running. In the end, the president decided to back down. But Mr. Trump's advisers worry about the hard reality — the developer with the veneer was steamrollered by factions in the Republican Congress. As the dust settled on the health care debacle, it was clear that Mr. Trump's lieutenants in the Republican civil war had been divided on how they thought the health care fight should have been handled, which does not augur well for the political battles to come. Mutual disgust with the Freedom Caucus seems to be pulling Mr. Ryan and, despite his misgivings, Mr. Trump, together, at least for now — just as it briefly united President Barack Obama and John A. Boehner, Mr. Ryan's predecessor, during their doomed effort to reach a "grand bargain" on a tax overhaul in 2011. Until the very end, Mr. Trump's team was deeply divided over whether he should fully commit to a hard sell on a bill they viewed as fundamentally flawed, with Vice President Mike Pence pointedly advising the president to label the effort "Ryancare," not "Trumpcare," according to aides. A Pence spokesman denied that the vice president tried to tie the bill to the speaker. Many on Mr. Trump's team disengaged from the process even as he dug in. Gary D. Cohn, Mr. Trump's top economic adviser, had originally been tasked with playing a large role in shepherding the legislation from the White House side. But Mr. Cohn had grown leery of the bill, and the White House recognized that Mr. Cohn, a former president of Goldman Sachs and a Democrat, was not a good messenger to deal with recalcitrant conservatives. Mr. Trump's Jared Kushner, a key adviser, had said for weeks that he thought supporting the bill was a mistake, according to two people who spoke with him. But he was on a family skiing trip in Aspen, Colo. last week, and did not return to Washington until Friday — much to the annoyance of Mr. Trump, who thought he should have been in Washington in the whole week, according to two Republicans close to the White House. But Mr. Trump brushed aside those concerns in the last few days and embraced the conventional role as leader of his party. He has one speed when he decides to shift to sales mode, aides said, and he had trouble modulating his tone, issuing superlatives like "wonderful" to describe an ungainly bill his aides described as anything but. After it was all over, the president dutifully blamed the Democrats, a party out of power and largely leaderless, after turning his back on their offers to negotiate on a bipartisan package that would have addressed shortcomings in the Affordable Care Act while preserving its core protections for poor and patients. Aides advised him the argument was nonsensical, according to a person with knowledge of the interaction. For Mr. Trump's Republican opponents, here was revenge served cold. As a candidate in 2016, he initially scoffed at signing a Republican loyalty pledge, at times behaving more like an independent invading the Republican host organism than like a typical presidential candidate. As president, Mr. Trump has left dozens of critical administration jobs unfilled, rejecting stalwart Republican applicants deemed insufficiently loyal to him — and now he is decrying the disloyalty of the 20 to 30 conservative members who outmaneuvered and overpowered him on health care. "We all learned a lot — we learned a lot about loyalty," a solemn Mr. Trump told reporters late Friday. The dynamic that led to his defeat is bigger than Mr. Trump, despite his tendency to personalize every win or loss. Republicans who gained power by savaging Washington are in full control and cannot agree on a path forward. "We were a opposition party," Mr. Ryan said in assessing the defeat late Friday. "Being against things was easy to do. " Former Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Trump supporter, said after the health bill was pulled that he was "getting some déjà vu right now. " "Do you think Donald J. Trump goes home tonight, shrugs and says, 'This is what winning looks like'?" Mr. Gingrich added. "No! But this is where the Republican Party is right now, and it's been this way for years. " But Mr. Trump put on his best face on Saturday morning. "ObamaCare will explode and we will all get together and piece together a great healthcare plan for THE PEOPLE," he said on Twitter. "Do not worry!"


Irrespective of whether Mexico's decision to extradite drug kingpin Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman aimed to honor outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama or appease his successor, Donald Trump, law enforcement from both countries say it bodes well for security cooperation. Guzman, the feared boss of the Sinaloa cartel who shot to international stardom after two jailbreaks, was extradited from a prison in northern Mexico to New York on Thursday, the eve of Trump's inauguration. While some Mexican government officials believed Guzman's removal served as a valediction for Obama's presidency, others saw it as an opening gambit in what are likely to be fraught trade negotiations with a seemingly unfriendly Trump administration. But current and former law enforcement officials on both sides of the border said the move would boost security cooperation and could even upgrade relations. "What happened today is something that's a victory for both Mexico and the United States," said Leo Silva, who worked for the Drug Enforcement Administration in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey until 2015. "This will obviously improve things." According to a senior U.S. law enforcement official based in Mexico, both U.S. and Mexican security forces were already "three steps ahead" in identifying the next Chapo. "From the Mexico side, they work with us a lot, a lot more than people think," said the official, who was not authorized to speak with press. "They think they're going to get more support from us, they're on line and I really don't see a huge change. If anything, an improvement." Security cooperation has not always run smoothly, and Mexico, with its proud, nationalist leanings, has often chafed at what it views as U.S. intrusion in its affairs. Silva said after Vicente Fox became president in 2000, Mexico gave less access to U.S. law enforcement. However, Fox's successor, Felipe Calderon, was more willing to accept U.S. help, and Silva said he could even pick up the phone and call then-Attorney General Marisela Morales. The election of the Institutional Revolutionary Party's Enrique Pena Nieto in 2012 represented a fresh set-back, with U.S. officials initially kept at arm's length and a new attorney general appointed, Jesus Murillo Karam, who Silva called "standoffish." Nonetheless, after a rocky start, relations soon warmed and U.S. intelligence, particularly the U.S. Marshals who track fugitives, became a key component in many of the high-profile busts that have taken place under Pena Nieto. "It's similar to what we were doing and receiving under Calderon, except that this current administration doesn't talk about it or publicize that they're working together," said one former DEA agent who worked on Mexican cases. After the victory of Trump, who has threatened to rip up the North American Free Trade Agreement, slap tariffs on U.S. firms manufacturing in Mexico and deport millions of illegal immigrants, some speculated years of hard-won security cooperation would fray as Mexico sought to show it wouldn't be pushed around by the brash New Yorker. But behind the bluster, law enforcement officials from both countries said that was unlikely to happen, and that the situation could even improve if Trump, a law-and-order Republican who has repeatedly voiced his support for police and soldiers, focused more on combating Mexican cartels. "The crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential," Trump said during his inauguration speech on Friday. "This American carnage stops right here and stops right now." A Mexican anti-corruption official swatted away the notion that Mexico could shut out the United States on security issues. "The government is going to continue the policy that it has always had of combating organized crime," he said. Vito Guardino, who worked for the DEA for 30 years, said the U.S. government used extradition as a yardstick to measure other countries' willingness to cooperate. But if the United States didn't get what it wanted, he said, it found ways of forcing other nations to play ball, a reality unlikely to be lost on Mexico, which is heavily reliant on U.S. trade. For example, Guardino said that when Colombia stopped extraditing drug traffickers to the United States in the late 1980s, the U.S. government used a carrot-and-stick approach, threatening sanctions while drawing up the multibillion-dollar Plan Colombia. By that metric, Chapo's removal represents a calculated show of faith on the part of Mexico, which has also signaled to Trump's team it is open to reinforcing the northern border to curb drug smuggling and illegal migration. The high-stakes political tensions were, however, only one way of looking at things, Guardino and many others said. Relationships with foreign law enforcement officials often take years to build and rely on trust in dangerous circumstances.


President Barack Obama's legal defense of some key initiatives including his signature healthcare law is collapsing as courts put cases on hold until after President-elect Donald Trump, hostile to the policies, assumes office on Jan. 20. The pending conservative legal challenges could undo important elements of Obama's presidential legacy if Trump, as expected, opts not to defend the Obama policies in court or simply ditches the initiatives that are under attack. Since Trump's election on Nov. 8, various courts have delayed action in three groups of cases that will not be resolved before Obama leaves office and blocked an administration regulation from going into effect in another. They include a challenge by House of Representatives Republicans to an important provision in the Obamacare law, and cases concerning religious objections to that law's mandate that employers provide health insurance coverage for birth control. They also include Obama's executive action, put on hold by the Supreme Court in June, to spare from deportation millions of immigrants in the country illegally, and his administration's bid to extend overtime protections for workers. Republican-governed states like Texas were behind some of the biggest challenges to Obama policies. "We have a host of cases pending against the federal government due to the Obama administration's overreach," said Marc Rylander, a spokesman for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican who has sued the administration on various issues including immigration. Rylander said Texas officials "will continue to pursue all of these cases and look forward to working with a new administration." The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Monday put on hold the House Republican Obamacare challenge until at least Feb. 21. Trump and Republican congressional allies have said they plan to repeal and replace the law, meaning the case could become moot. The Obama administration opposed the delay in that case, but agreed to put on hold its effort to revive Obama's 2014 immigration plan. The administration and the states that challenged the plan filed a joint motion on Nov. 18 saying the case should be put on hold "given the change in administration." Trump has vowed to crack down on immigrants in the country illegally and is expected to abandon Obama's blocked policy. The series of cases pending in lower courts concerning efforts by Christian groups to obtain an exemption to a provision of the Obamacare law requiring employers to provide health insurance coverage for contraceptives are also in a holding pattern. The Supreme Court sent the cases back to lower courts in May, throwing out several rulings in favor of the administration. The lower courts are now awaiting the change in administrations. In one of the cases, before the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, lawyers for some of the religious groups said in court papers that a delay "will afford the newly-inaugurated president and new administration an opportunity to take a fresh look at this litigation and consider potential resolutions acceptable to all sides." In the labor case, a federal judge on Nov. 22 prevented Obama's regulation to extend mandatory overtime pay to more than 4 million salaried workers from going into effect on Dec. 1 as scheduled. That will give Trump leeway to change course when he takes office. So far, courts have not delayed action on several other cases involving key Obama policies, including a state and industry challenge to rules to curb greenhouse gas emissions mainly from coal-fired power plants. An appeals court in Washington heard oral arguments in September but has not yet issued a ruling. Trump has said he plans to rescind the regulation. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has agreed to decide a major transgender rights case that hinges in part on the Obama administration's policy position in support of a female-born transgender high school student named Gavin Grimm, who identifies as male and sued in 2015 to win the right to use the school's boys' bathroom. The court has not yet scheduled oral arguments in the case. It is due to rule by the end of June.


A member of the Oakland Raiders Super Bowl winning team told Breitbart News at the Conservative Political Action Conference that it is time for to reclaim their traditional conservatism. ["Today's generation has been trained to think differently from my generation. We would stand for the flag in a heartbeat — because we realized the opportunities we had," said Burgess Owens on Thursday. Owens was an safety at the University of Miami, who was drafted by the New York Jets in 1973 and played for the Jets until joining the Raiders for their run at Super Bowl XV. Owens was at CPAC to discuss with people his new book "Liberalism or How to Turn Good Men into Whiners, Weenies and Wimps" and attend a book signing. "Today's generation came from BET group — the BET has been talking down our country for the longest time. " Black Entertainment Television is the top cable channel focused on the community. Today's young have been twisted up by BET, he said. "They tend to be more racist. They tend to be more " he said. "I was the third black American to be recruited by the University of Miami and I remember going down there — my goal was not to fail," he said. "That was really what allowed our community to think," he said. "We didn't want to leave our families down. We didn't want to let our race down. We would work as hard as we could, so we would not fail. " Owens said that when he was coming of age in the late 1960s, there was always a racial consciousness that was trying to break through and disrupt the traditional ways of life. In those times in his hometown of Tallahassee, Florida, the black community was stronger than most other communities, black or white, he said. "The community as that time was totally committed to the family," he said. "We had the highest percentage of men committed to marriage. We had the fastest growing in the country. " Conservatism, with its emphasis on work, entrepreneurship, and faith traditions, is a natural fit for but somehow the narrative got switched up. Owens said he wrote his book because politics and policies have destroyed thriving black communities, but no one else seemed to want to talk about it. "Back in 1910, the NAACP, started by 21 white Marxist, socialist, atheist Democrats, began to intertwine the thought of liberalism into my community," he said. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is the most prominent of the civil rights organizations. "We started to pull away from the pillars that always made our country great and towards being and feeling like victims," he said. "They taught our race that the real value was in being with the white race, instead of what we were doing at the time," the father of six said. "I would say to a young man: Recognize who you are, let's . Take the rolls you are supposed to take. Take care of your family. Respect women — big time — and we will be a great country again," he said. His message to white Americans: "Don't apologize anymore for who they are. We have a great society with great ancestors, who did their best. "


Ken Thompson, the Brooklyn district attorney, said on Tuesday that he had recently learned he has cancer and would take a sick leave. Mr. Thompson said in a statement that his chief assistant, Eric Gonzalez, would take over as interim district attorney during "the absences occasioned" his "treatment and recovery. " "As a man of intense faith, I intend to fight and win the battle against this disease," Mr. Thompson said. "I humbly seek your sincere prayers as I confront this challenge and respectfully ask that you honor my family's need and wish for privacy during this time. " Mr. Thompson has been absent from his office for about two months, and had received the cancer diagnosis around August, according to colleagues who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Neither his spokesmen nor several of his friends would disclose what type of cancer Mr. Thompson has. The news of his illness comes three years after he was elected, becoming Brooklyn's first black district attorney. He defeated Charles J. Hynes, an incumbent of more than 20 years who had been weakened by accusations of favoritism toward political supporters in Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish community, and of allegations of improprieties. Mr. Thompson, 50, a Democrat, had previously had a successful private law practice he represented Nafissatou Diallo, a Manhattan hotel housekeeper who, in 2011, accused the French politician Dominique of sexually assaulting her in a case that was eventually dropped by the Manhattan district attorney's office. Mr. Thompson had also worked as a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn and delivered a memorable opening argument at the trial of Justin Volpe, a police officer who pleaded guilty in 1999 to torturing a Haitian immigrant, Abner Louima, with a broken broomstick in a Brooklyn station house. Having run on an agenda of reform and racial justice, Mr. Thompson, once in office, earned a reputation as both an advocate for minority communities in a section of the city known for its divisions between black and white residents and, simultaneously, as a tough officer who concentrated on cracking down on gun crimes and violent street gangs. Brushing aside the resistance of the New York Police Department, he announced in July 2014 that his office would stop prosecuting most marijuana arrests. He also put in place an amnesty program for people with outstanding warrants. Among his efforts was the creation of one of the country's most robust internal units dedicated to reviewing wrongful convictions, which in the past two years has exonerated 20 defendants. Perhaps the biggest case of his tenure was the prosecution of Peter Liang, a former police officer who was found guilty in February of manslaughter in the shooting of an unarmed black man, Akai Gurley, in the stairwell of a Brooklyn housing project. The shooting, which took place just days before a Staten Island grand jury elected not to indict an officer involved in the choking death of Eric Garner, placed enormous pressure on Mr. Thompson, who had to balance his campaign promises to Brooklyn's black neighborhoods with his close working relationship with the Police Department. Though he did not shy away from mounting an aggressive case against Mr. Liang, after the trial was over Mr. Thompson decided, in Solomonic fashion, to seek no prison time for the former officer, a move that enraged Mr. Gurley's family and led to bitter protests by reform activists. One took place early in the morning outside Mr. Thompson's home in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. For weeks, Mr. Thompson's illness had been a closely guarded secret, known only to a small circle of friends and associates. On Tuesday, public officials such as Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo issued statements wishing him well. In an email on Tuesday, Douglas H. Wigdor, the of Mr. Thompson's private practice, said, "As Ken's former partner for over 15 years, I have no doubt that he will tackle his illness with the same determination that he has shared with his clients, the people of Brooklyn and, most importantly, his family. " Another close friend, Arnold N. Kriss, a lawyer who has served as an adviser to Mr. Thompson over the years, said: "Ken is doing a remarkable job rebuilding the Brooklyn D. A.'s office. There is no doubt he will successfully continue to fight his illness and, at the same time, fight for the people of Brooklyn. "


A low buzz fills the air as an army of mortgage bankers, perched below floating canopies in a kaleidoscope of vivid pinks, blues, purples and greens, works the phones, promising borrowers easy financing and low rates for home loans. By the elevators, nobody blinks when an employee wearing a pink tutu bustles past. On any given day, a company mascot, Simon, a bespectacled mouse, goes on the hunt for "gouda," or good ideas, from the work force. A visit to the headquarters of Quicken Loans in downtown Detroit may seem like a trip to a place where "Glengarry Glen Ross" meets Seussville. But the whimsical, irreverent atmosphere sits atop a business in a field — the selling of the American dream — that has changed drastically since an earlier generation of mortgage lenders propelled the economy to near collapse in 2008 by issuing risky and even fraudulent loans. In the years since the crisis, many of the nation's largest banks pulled back their activities. Quicken Loans pushed in. Today, it is the retail mortgage lender, originating $96 billion in mortgages last year — an eightfold increase from 2008. Privately held Quicken, like some of America's largest banks before it, has also landed in regulators' cross hairs. In a federal lawsuit filed in 2015, the Department of Justice charged that, among other things, the company misrepresented borrowers' income or credit scores, or inflated appraisals, in order to qualify for Federal Housing Administration insurance. As a result, when those loans soured, the government says that taxpayers — not Quicken loans — suffered millions of dollars in losses. Quicken Loans today is the F. H. A. insurance program's largest participant. Executives at Quicken Loans deny the charges, maintaining, among other things, that the government " " a small number of examples to build its case. In an aggressive move, the company sued the Department of Justice, demanding a blanket ruling that all of the loans it had originated met requirements and "pose no undue risks to the F. H. A. insurance fund. " Quicken's suit was dismissed. But it reflects the style of Quicken Loans' founder and chairman, Dan Gilbert, the billionaire who once publicly excoriated the N. B. A. superstar LeBron James for leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers, in which Mr. Gilbert has a majority stake. He also owns significant chunks of central Detroit, where Quicken Loans is based. Mr. Gilbert, who founded the company in 1985, sold it to the business software company Intuit in 1999, before buying it back with other investors in 2002. He is working to rectify the city's downtrodden image with streetcars, upscale cafes and boutiques, and data, making him a hometown hero. Late last year, Quicken Loans won a motion to move the Department of Justice case to a federal courthouse roughly three blocks from its Detroit headquarters. Sitting on the edge of a chair in his office, the Motor City's skyline a steel gray in the November sun, Mr. Gilbert said that his company has been unfairly targeted. "You want to know what this case is about?" he said. "Somebody probably put up a whiteboard and said, 'Here are the 10 largest F. H. A. lenders, now go and collect settlements from them, regardless of whether they did anything wrong. '" In court documents, Quicken argues it has the lowest default rates in the F. H. A. program. It projects the government will reap $5. 7 billion in net profits from the insurance premiums for loans made from 2007 to 2013, after paying out any claims. A spokesman for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which is home to the F. H. A. program at the center of the case against Quicken, declined to speak about the lawsuit. Late last year, Donald J. Trump named a former Quicken Loans lobbyist, Shawn Krause, to his H. U. D. transition team. A Trump spokeswoman did not respond to an email asking about potential conflicts of interest. In an emailed statement, Quicken Loans said the fact that Ms. Krause had come from the largest F. H. A. lender in the country "bodes well for the positive impact she has, and will, make on H. U. D. " In the years since the financial crisis, Quicken has emerged as a leader in the nation's system, a network of nonbank financial institutions that has gained significant ground against its more heavily regulated bank counterparts in providing home loans to Americans. Increased regulation and decreased profits sent the nation's banks packing. Nonbanks, like Quicken, have filled that gap. Today, Quicken is the nation's retail residential mortgage lender, behind Wells Fargo, but ahead of banking giants like J. P. Morgan, Bank of America and Citigroup, according to Mortgage Daily. Considered by many to be a visionary leader, Mr. Gilbert often strikes a pugnacious stance. When Mr. James, the N. B. A. star, announced he was leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2010 to join the Miami Heat, Mr. Gilbert — who not only has a majority stake in the Cavaliers, but also operates Quicken Loans Arena, where they play — penned a public tirade against the "cowardly betrayal," in a letter written in the typeface Comic Sans. Mr. James is again playing for the Cavaliers. A call to his agent seeking comment was not returned. The year before, Mr. Gilbert got into an altercation at a bar mitzvah, punching a former colleague, David Hall, in the head before he was escorted out by security, according to interviews conducted by the Birmingham Police Department in Michigan. In police documents, Mr. Gilbert's lawyer said Mr. Hall filed the complaint in order to pressure Mr. Gilbert into paying $2 million to buy out Mr. Hall's investments in Mr. Gilbert's companies. The Birmingham city attorney ultimately denied a warrant in the case on the grounds that the charges were not "supported by probable cause. " Mr. Hall did not return an email seeking comment. In an email statement, a Quicken Loans spokesman said Mr. Gilbert "defended himself in a minor confrontation that was instigated by a former employee who was the aggressor. " On a more trifling scale, after sending text messages about this article to a reporter at The New York Times but not receiving a response — Mr. Gilbert was texting her landline number by accident — he followed up with an email accusing the reporter of disconnecting her mobile phone to avoid him. The phone "likely is one of your temporary numbers that you deploy for the surreptitious work that you do," he wrote. When alerted to the misunderstanding, Mr. Gilbert apologized "for any of it that was caused on my end. " When Mr. Gilbert was asked in an email if he "often strikes a 'combative stance' or 'frequently attacks his critics,'" a Quicken Loans spokesman responded in an email, "It's interesting that when someone with as long and successful career as Mr. Gilbert is forced to defend his integrity and honor from old insignificant already rehashed incidents and accusations from a media source as credible as The NY Times, you would imply that doing such is 'frequently attacking' his critics. " These days, Mr. Gilbert appears to be itching for a fight with the Justice Department. In court filings, Quicken argued that the government investigation was based on 55 " " loans out of nearly 250, 000. Quicken also argued that a longstanding F. H. A. process to resolve loans that did not meet its requirements, through either the repurchase of the loan or by indemnifying F. H. A. from any losses, was retroactively discontinued for Quicken. Since 2011, Mr. Gilbert has spent more than $2. 2 billion on downtown Detroit, buying up 95 decrepit properties and rehabilitating them in an effort to lure new tenants. Nike opened a store there last year. The New York burger chain Shake Shack is coming in 2017, as is the sports retailer Under Armour. Mr. Gilbert also notes that he has leased space downtown to several local businesses. That sort of presence makes downtown Detroit today seem a bit like a company town, a sort of Quickenville. That's because Quicken Loans is just one of more than 100 closely knit companies that is owned or controlled by Mr. Gilbert with a footprint in the area. Through his commercial real estate properties, Mr. Gilbert can decide which tenants fit into his vision for downtown Detroit, and which don't. Rocket Fiber, an idea developed by three former Quicken Loans technology employees and financially backed by Mr. Gilbert, has brought internet to downtown Detroit. For a $15 million donation, Quicken received the naming rights for the QLine, a streetcar that is expected to start running through downtown Detroit this spring. Mr. Gilbert sits on the board of the streetcar project. Lines of bicycles in downtown Detroit are available free for all employees of Mr. Gilbert's companies. And visitors can bet at the tables at Jack Detroit Greektown, a gambling venture controlled by Mr. Gilbert. The Quicken Loans family also includes one of the largest title companies in the United States, an appraisal firm, a call center and Realty, which says on its website that it is the "preferred real estate partner" of Quicken Loans. Mr. Gilbert, who was busted in college for running a football betting ring (the charges were dismissed and his record was expunged) plays on a big stage. Back in 2010, he guaranteed that the Cavaliers would win the N. B. A. championship before LeBron James would. They didn't, but the team, led by Mr. James, did win the title last year, and this season's team has the highest payroll in the league. With Quicken Loans, Mr. Gilbert has built a company in the industry. Former executives describe Quicken Loans as a technology company that sells mortgages. But the heart that keeps Quicken's blood moving is the 3, 500 mortgage bankers who work its phones. Many new employees come in with little to no background in financial services. One employee joined after delivering pizzas to the Quicken Loans office and becoming interested in working there. employees typically make hundreds of calls a day, trying to get potential customers on the phone. Not unlike the assembly lines that put together cars in Detroit, the call is immediately handed off to a licensed mortgage banker, who completes the loan application, then quickly passes it to processing so that he or she can focus on the next loan application. Mr. Gilbert said clients are able to close more quickly on loans when specialists focus on each stage of the loan process. He and other Quicken executives note that the company has repeatedly made Fortune magazine's list of Best Places to Work For and has earned top marks in J. D. Power client satisfaction surveys. Quicken defines its culture and philosophy through a number of "isms," created and curated over the years by Mr. Gilbert: "Yes before no. " "A penny saved is a penny. " "We eat our own dog food. " At the same time, several former employees and executives in interviews described a demanding work environment, with staff members expected to work long hours and weekends to hit targets. In recent years, Quicken and its affiliated companies have faced at least four lawsuits filed by former mortgage bankers seeking overtime. Quicken won one of the overtime cases, but court documents indicate others were directed into settlement negotiations. An email to the various plaintiffs' lawyers was not returned. And in early 2016, a National Labor Relations Board judge ruled that Quicken and five of its related companies issued an employee handbook with rules that violated workers' right to engage in various activities, including ones. Quicken has appealed the ruling, calling the policies "common, rational and sensible. " When asked about criticisms of the work environment, Mr. Gilbert and other executives defended the company, noting that mortgage bankers work an average of 44 hours per week and are compensated well. It is possible for team members, Mr. Gilbert said, to earn over $85, 000 in their second year, more than double the median household income for Wayne County, Mich. Quicken Loans' growing role in parts of the mortgage market may make it a lightning rod for critics. Proponents say that nonbanks like Quicken or PennyMac in California — which was started by former executives of Countrywide, the mortgage machine in Southern California that was a hotbed of toxic mortgages in the 2008 crisis — are filling an important void. They argue that they serve people with low to moderate incomes or lower credit scores whom the big banks shun. The big banks, they say, focus instead on jumbo mortgages, or mortgages of more than $424, 100, the maximum amount that can be backed by enterprises like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. "The large banks want to go after the business," said Guy D. Cecala, the chief executive and publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance. Thanks to low interest rates, home sales are booming and the mortgage market was expected to top $2 trillion in originations in 2016. That's a far cry from the frothy height of $3. 8 trillion that was hit in 2003. Moreover, many other parts of the mortgage machine that were in place leading up to the financial crisis have been dismantled. Still, critics say today's shadow banks, by focusing on the riskier end of the mortgage market, may be revving up the same parts of the engine that resulted in defaults and foreclosures in the past. Nonbanks, which are typically less capitalized and may have more difficulty reimbursing the government for bad loans, now dominate F. H. A. mortgage loans, according to data from the American Enterprise Institute's International Center on Housing Risk. In September 2012, banks originated 65 percent of the loans insured by the F. H. A. according to the data. Today, that number has more than flipped: Nonbanks originate 73 percent of the loans, with banks' share dropping to 18 percent. The figures are more spectacular for refinanced mortgages, where nonbanks now make up 93 percent of loans. "The market has moved to the nonbanks because the nonbanks' appetite for risk is much higher," said Edward J. Pinto, a director of the Center on Housing Risk. He has argued that the F. H. A. is not only failing to help communities with its programs, but is actually weakening them with imprudent loans. Mr. Gilbert disputed any "false narrative" that claims Quicken faces less regulatory scrutiny, is lightly capitalized or makes risky loans. He said that the average credit score of a Quicken borrower is one of the highest in the nation that the parent company's assets "are larger than that of 93 percent of all F. D. I. C. depositories" and that the company is regulated by 50 states, multiple municipalities and numerous federal agencies. Quicken Loans is privately held, and it is unclear what its assets are worth. In an email response to questions, Mr. Gilbert added, "Quicken Loans underwriting and production is one of the highest, if not the highest, quality production in the entire country. "


Ten people went on trial in Germany on Friday for alleged failures in planning the Love Parade music festival in 2010 when 21 people were killed and more than 650 injured in a stampede. Prosecutors have charged the defendants, four employees of the company that planned the event in the industrial city of Duisburg and six from the local authority, with negligent manslaughter and bodily harm. The defendants have denied wrongdoing in the disaster. Eight foreigners from Spain, Bosnia, the Netherlands, Australia, Italy and China were among those killed on July 24, 2010, when panic broke out in a packed underpass that was the only entrance route to the venue for the techno music festival. The trial has been moved to a congress center in the nearby city of Duesseldorf as the court rooms in Duisburg were too small for what is expected to be one of the biggest trials in postwar Germany, with dozens of lawyers and plaintiffs. The trial is expected to take until at least the end of next year. But there is a ticking clock on proceedings as the statute of limitations runs out in July 2020.


Protesters outside a luxury hotel in Hong Kong shouted anti-racism slogans on Tuesday ahead of a speech by former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon at an investor conference organized by a unit of China s largest brokerage. The far-right architect of U.S. President Donald Trump s 2016 election victory, Bannon is the latest controversial figure invited to address a forum hosted by CLSA, a subsidiary of state-backed Citic Securities. Bannon, whose views on immigration, climate and trade helped shape Trump s election campaign and his first months in office, was fired by the Republican president last month in a push to end factional fighting within the White House. No Bannon, no racism, chanted the group of about 15 demonstrators, who also held up a large black banner carrying the words, Nazis are not welcome here . One protester wearing a mask of Trump held up a placard depicting the U.S. president in the shape of a chicken, with the words, Toxic nationalist , on its belly. CLSA initially said Bannon s speech would be open to some print media but reversed its decision a day later, without citing a specific reason, although a CLSA spokeswoman said the event was meant for invited clients only. We reserve the right to open or close sessions as we see fit, she wrote in an emailed response to Reuters. The CLSA Investors Forum provides an agnostic platform for diverse views and opinions from people who influence policy, economies and markets. Mr Bannon is one of these, hence our decision to invite him. Past speakers at the forum have ranged from actors George Clooney and Arnold Schwarzenegger to boxer Mike Tyson, who was convicted of rape, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, and former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who revealed secret details of U.S. surveillance programs. In a recent interview with the CBS program 60 Minutes, Bannon predicted Republicans could lose control in the House of Representatives next year because of a looming battle over what to do about immigrants brought illegally to the United States as children. (This story has been refiled to update paragraph 9 descriptions of previous speakers)


Granting Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont political asylum in Belgium would be not unrealistic if he asks for it, the Belgian migration minister said, underlining his country s position as a contrarian voice in the Spanish standoff. The Madrid government sacked the Catalan leader and dismissed the region s parliament on Friday, hours after it declared itself an independent nation [nL8N1N280L]. Spain s constitutional court has also started a review of Catalonia s independence vote for prosecutors to decide if it constituted rebellion. While there was no indication Puigdemont was hoping to come to Belgium, the country is one of few members of the European Union where EU citizens can ask for political asylum. It is not unrealistic if you look at the situation, Belgium s migration minister, Theo Francken, told Belgian broadcaster VTM. They are already talking about a prison sentence, Francken, a member of Flemish nationalist party N-VA, said. The question is to what extent he would get a fair trial. It would be difficult for Spain to extradite Puigdemont in such a case, he said. While most European leaders have refrained from commenting on the Spanish crisis, saying it was an internal matter and the country s constitution should prevail, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel called for dialogue between Madrid and Barcelona[nL8N1MD34Z]. Michel, a centrist from French-speaking Wallonia, has governed in coalition with the N-VA since 2014, a period during which the party toned down its calls for more independence for Belgium s Dutch-speaking North. The relationship between Belgium and Spain soured over a similar issue in the 1990s and 2000s, when the country refused to extradite a Spanish couple wanted over alleged involvement with the Basque militant group ETA.


The United Nations human rights office called on Australia on Friday to restore food, water and health services to about 600 interned refugees and asylum seekers in Papua New Guinea, which Canberra cut off three days ago. The detainees in the Manus Island Centre have defied attempts by the governments of both Australia and PNG to close the camp, saying they fear violent reprisals from the local community if they are moved to other transit centers . We call on the Australian government ... who interned the men in the first place to immediately provide protection, food, water and other basic services, U.N. rights spokesman Rupert Colville told a news briefing. Australia has an obligation to do so under international human rights law and the 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention, he said. There was no immediate comment from Australia or its representatives in Geneva. Its government has said the camp had been ruled illegal by PNG authorities and it had committed to supply other sites for 12 months. Colville joined the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in warning of an unfolding humanitarian emergency in the center where asylum seekers began digging wells on Thursday to try to find water as their food supplies dwindled. The remote Manus Island center has been a key part of Australia s disputed immigration policy under which it refuses to allow asylum seekers arriving by boat to reach its shores, detaining them instead in PNG and Naura in the South Pacific. We repeat our overall concerns about Australian offshore processing centers which are unsustainable, inhumane and contradictory to its human rights obligations, Colville said. Around 500 of the men have still not had their asylum claims processed, he said. And obviously the sooner the better, some of them have been there I think for four years, Colville said. So that s a very long time to sit in effectively a detention center disguised as a regional processing center without your case being processed. The alternative accommodation being proposed is not finished or adequate to meet their needs, including security, he said. We have conveyed to the Australian government and to the local government of Papua New Guinea as well that until the time the accommodation is ready, refugees should not be moved there, UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch said. But also we have urged Australia and PNG to de-escalate the situation, resume basic services - water, electricity, medical services as well, he said. The last food distribution was on Sunday, he said. Australia s policy of deterrence by rescuing people at sea, mistreating them and abandoning them has become a notion of cruelty, Baloch said.


On the Wednesday edition of Breitbart News Daily, broadcast live on SiriusXM Patriot Channel 125 from 6AM to 9AM Eastern, Breitbart Alex Marlow will continue our discussion of President Trump's first 100 days. [Breitbart Legal Editor Ken Klukowski will discuss President Trump's Supreme Court nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch. We'll also hear from Congressman Steve King ( ) on President Trump's SCOTUS nominee and recent executive orders. Congressman Louis Gohmert ( ) will also weigh in on the SCOTUS pick, as well as the Senate Democrats' efforts to block Trump nominees. Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy will discuss President Trump's executive order temporarily barring immigration from seven countries while a review of the vetting process is completed. Live from London, Rome, and Jerusalem, Breitbart correspondents will provide updates on the latest international news. Breitbart News Daily is the first live, conservative radio enterprise to air seven days a week. SiriusXM Vice President for news and talk Dave Gorab called the show "the conservative news show of record. " Follow Breitbart News on Twitter for live updates during the show. Listeners may call into the show at: .


Comments  A new story about the cyber attack on Democratic National Committee headquarters is giving rise to new questions. We have to stress that as of right now, it's a single source exclusive report from Mother Jones , which comes from unnamed DNC sources who are quoted on background only. MJ reports that the Democratic Party's outside security company found signal intelligence indicating that a cellular interception device was being deployed to intercept DNC, and that that information and technical details were turned over to the FBI for investigation.  In an episode reminiscent of Watergate, the Democratic Party recently informed the FBI that it had collected evidence suggesting its Washington headquarters had been bugged, according to two Democratic National Committee officials who asked not to be named by Mother Jones :  The second sweep, according to the Democratic officials, found a radio signal near the chairman's office that indicated there might be a listening device outside the office. "We were told that this was something that could pick up calls from cellphones," a DNC official says. "The guys who did the sweep said it was a strong indication." No device was recovered. No possible culprits were identified.  The DNC sent a report with the technical details to the FBI, according to the DNC officials. "We believe it's been given by the bureau to another agency with three letters to examine," the DNC official says. "We're not supposed to talk about it."  The FBI did not respond to a request for comment  Of course, would not the first time that Democratic National Committee headquarters have been targeted for bugging to intercept the information contained within those walls.  We already know that the DNC's emails have been compromised already, which itself IS a second Watergate incident not materially different than stealing memos from a filing cabinet.  However, we cannot stress enough that the Mother Jones report may be inaccurate because is not supported by a major disclosure of the underlying facts, named sources or other corroborating media reports.  Yet.