Datasets:

AlexanderHolmes0

/

true-fake-news-v2

like 0

0true

The White House is interviewing five potential nominees for the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy created by the death last month of Justice Antonin Scalia, a source familiar with the process told Reuters on Wednesday. The source said those under consideration were federal judges Sri Srinivasan, Jane Kelly, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Paul Watford and Merrick Garland. The five have been reported to be on the short list of potential nominees, but the source said they were the only ones currently under consideration. Outside groups have said that President Barack Obama is likely to consider someone who is a woman or a member of a racial minority and was previously confirmed to a judgeship by a strong majority in the U.S. Senate. The process of filling the spot that was held by Scalia, one of the court's most conservative justices, has ignited a partisan battle in Washington. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would not hold hearings on anyone nominated to the Supreme Court by Obama, a Democrat. Republicans who control the Senate do not want to see the court shift ideologically to the left and say the next justice should be picked by the winner of the Nov. _NUMBER_ election. Senate Democrats are demanding a vote on Obama's nomination. Kelly, who worked as a lawyer in Iowa, is considered a strong candidate because she has been supported by Republican Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which holds hearings on potential nominees.

0true

Agriculture leaders including lawmakers from President Donald Trump's Republican Party on Thursday criticized his planned _NUMBER_ percent cut to discretionary spending at the U.S. Department of Agriculture , saying it could take a toll on the rural communities that helped elect him last November. Trump has proposed slashing the USDA's discretionary budget by _CUR_4.7 billion to _CUR_17.9 billion by halting funding for rural clean water initiatives and rural business services, reducing some USDA statistical services and cutting county-level staff. The president has already vowed to alter trade deals that have largely boosted farm incomes and targeted health care policies that have particularly benefited the rural poor. "America's farmers and ranchers are struggling, and we need to be extremely careful not to exacerbate these conditions," said House Agriculture Committee Chairman Michael Conaway. Farm incomes are down _NUMBER_ percent from four years ago, he added. Opposition is already building in Congress. "I strongly oppose the Trump administration's proposed budget cuts to programs that are critical to farmers, ranchers and families in small towns across America," Debbie Stabenow, ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee. The American Farm Bureau Federation , the country's largest organization representing farmers, said county-level USDA staffing cuts and reduced statistical services could hurt members. "A lot of farmers and growers rely on USDA's statistical capabilities to make a lot of marketing and risk management decisions and planting decisions," said John Newton, AFBF director of market intelligence. The proposal did not give details of which services could be cut. Trump's blueprint aims to save _CUR_498 million by eliminating a program that helps fund clean water and sewer systems in small communities. The budget proposal would also eliminate a food aid program, which had _CUR_182 million in funding earmarked for fiscal _NUMBER_. Its planned _CUR_6.2 billion for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children is about _CUR_150 million less than fiscal _NUMBER_. Under former President Barack Obama, the program was reduced by _CUR_273 million between fiscal _NUMBER_ and _NUMBER_. The plans for USDA spending were part of Trump's budget blueprint, a broad outline of spending proposals for the fiscal year ahead. It does not cover "mandatory" spending established by law, like farm subsidies, only "discretionary" programs where lawmakers can adjust spending. The White House has said it plans to release a traditional full budget in mid-May. The USDA oversees agriculture, rural communities and nutritional programs, including funding for school lunches. The agency also publishes closely watched global farming production statistics.

1fake

Does anyone else notice there are never a shortage of moderate Muslims watching these heinous acts committed by ISIS against the infidel? As soon as Obama gets back from campaigning around the world for his next job as UN Secretary General, and from fighting his dangerous war on global climate change, he'should probably focus on the growing threat of radical Islam Images have emerged of a heavily-built executioner ramming a knife through the chest of a man deemed to have committed crimes against the caliphate .The victim, named by news agency ABNA as Abdulhadi Essa al-Salem, was stabbed in the heart before being shot in the head in the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa, Syria.Shocking photos, posted on Twitter by Syrian activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, show the victim then being crucified in public. Via: Express UK

0true

Kurdish President Massoud Barzani condemned the vote by Iraq's parliament to remove the governor of Kirkuk from office on Thursday, according to local media reports. Speaking at a pro-referendum rally in Zakho, a city in Iraq's autonomous region of Kurdistan, Barzani said that Baghdad had left no room for negotiations over the independence referendum, according to Kurdish TV channel Kurdistan _NUMBER_. The decision to remove the governor, Najmaddin Kareem, comes after Kirkuk - an oil-rich province claimed by both the central government in Baghdad and the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq - voted to take part in a referendum set for Sept. _NUMBER_ on Kurdish independence. The governor has said he will stay in office.

1fake

Residents in Florida who work at a Pizza Hut were told by the manager that workers would be disciplined if they evacuated due to the deadly hurricane that barreled down on the'state. A photo quickly circulated on Twitter of a memo posted for employees in one Jacksonville Pizza Hut location, which included a list of instructions for employees according to the Washington Post. To all Team members, the memo begins, then lays out a policy that dictates that employees cannot evacuate more than _NUMBER_ hours before the'storm, and then must return within _NUMBER_ hours. Failure to show for these shifts, regardless of reason, will be considered a no call/no show and documentation will be issued, it states. After the'storm, we need all TM's available to get the'store up and running and serve our communities as needed. Pizza Hut wants its minimum wage employees to risk their lives for corporate profits. _URL_ Jacobin September _NUMBER_, 2017We re not sure how drivers can deliver pizza during or following a storm, even for a whopping _CUR_7.91 per hour, which is totally worth risking your life for. After all, you're a team member. Obviously, a backlash ensued on Twitter, probably because most people don't want to see Pizza Hut employees die.@pizzahut why do you threaten workers who flee Irma?This is sick! brucewayne September _NUMBER_, _NUMBER_@pizzahut You guys are closed on Christmas, but sending delivery drivers to their death for a hurricane? What's up with that? Avery September _NUMBER_, 2017This is sick Serena Vega September _NUMBER_, 2017Because the first thing I'm concerned about in a Cat _NUMBER_ storm is whether or not I can get a stuffed crust pizza delivered. Josva Oedon ?? September _NUMBER_, 2017Pizza Hut has been taking a lot of flak and issued a statement. We are uncompromising in our commitment to the'safety and well-being of our team members, the'statement begins. All locations in the path of Irma are closed and will remain closed until local authorities deem the area safe. We absolutely do not have a policy that dictates when team members can leave or return from a disaster, and the manager who posted this letter did not follow company guidelines. We can also confirm that the local franchise operator has addressed this situation with the manager involved, it concludes while confirming that the manager of the'store did indeed tell his or her employees that they would be disciplined for fleeing from a deadly hurricane.But not all Pizza Hut restaurants are bad. A Pizza Hut in the Houston area participated in relief efforts and handed out free pizza pies to Hurricane Harvey victims. One Pizza Hut manager, Shayda Habib, took it upon herself to use a kayak in order to deliver free pizza to people who were stuck in flooded homes. By the way, Ms. Habib is pregnant.Photo via Ulrich Baumgarten/Getty Images.

1fake

Donald Trump is going to get us in a war, and based on his rhetoric, it's going to be nuclear. Multiple sources confirm that Donald Trump just stated that if North Korean threats continue as they have for years, with smart leaders downplaying the relatively impotent rage of the rogue nation-state and using diplomacy to de-escalate they will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. See below:BREAKING: Trump: If NKorea escalates nuclear threat, 'they will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.' The Associated Press August _NUMBER_, _NUMBER_.@POTUS warns North Korea over continued threats, per TV pool: "They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen." Mike Memoli August _NUMBER_, 2017Trump'said that NK threats will be met with "fire and fury like the world has never seen". That sounds like something Kim Jong-Un would say. Roland Scahill August _NUMBER_, _URL_ Mark Curtis August _NUMBER_, 2017Read more:Featured image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images

0true

Russian opposition activist Ivan Skripnichenko died after being attacked by a man angry he opposed Vladimir Putin. Over a month later, nobody has been arrested, his family can t see his autopsy, and authorities say he probably died of heart disease. The assault on the _NUMBER_-year-old father-of-two is one of a growing number of vicious attacks on opposition figures in the run-up to a presidential election in March which Putin, the incumbent, is widely expected to contest. Most activists do not believe that Putin or the Kremlin have a hand in the attacks, which have included caustic liquid being thrown in a victim's eyes, a car being set alight, and, in one case, an activist being bashed over the head with an iron bar. But critics say the way the authorities have handled the cases - it's rare for anyone to be arrested and a nationalist group which says its carries out such attacks openly boasts about its activities - shows that they are at best turning a blind eye, and at worst tacitly condoning the violence. Yulia Latynina, a journalist critical of the authorities, was forced to flee Russia this summer after having faeces thrown at her, her car torched, and noxious gas pumped into her home. For her, Skripnichenko's death is part of a dangerous trend, and she has accused the authorities of losing control of the violent extremists responsible. When you splash antiseptic in people's faces, pour shit over people, beat up activists, puncture their tires, or burn something, sooner or later someone will be burned alive or die in a fight, Latynina said on her own radio show. And that's murder. According to Skripnichenko's family, an unidentified man accosted him late on Aug. _NUMBER_ as he stood by a makeshift memorial to slain opposition leader Boris Nemtsov on a Kremlin bridge, a rallying point for government critics. Nemtsov had been shot dead on the same spot in _NUMBER_ by a Chechen gunman in one of modern Russia's most high-profile killings. Don t you love Putin? the man asked Skripnichenko. Is Putin a girl that I should love him? the activist parried. The man knocked Skripnichenko's cap to the ground, and, as his victim rose after picking it up, punched him hard in the face, breaking his nose. Skripnichenko hit his head on the pavement as he fell. His attacker then kicked him as he lay prone. Mikhail Silich, an activist who was with Skripnichenko at the time of the attack, confirmed the family's account. After the attack, Skripnichenko left hospital and told other activists he thought he would be OK. His family say he went to a different hospital a week later to get his nose reset, and began to feel unwell in the canteen. When he didn t come home that day, they phoned the next morning to be told he had died. His family and activists say the authorities are not investigating his death properly. Investigators have neither identified nor arrested Skripnichenko's attacker, have not opened a criminal case, and the dead man's family say they can t obtain his autopsy report. Citing procedure, Moscow's Investigative Committee, which is handling the matter, told Skripnichenko's widow Olga that she would need to wait _NUMBER_ days to get such a report. The committee did not respond to a Reuters request for comment on progress in the case. Despite the attack taking place in sight of the Kremlin's walls on the same spot where Nemtsov was gunned down two and a half years earlier, investigators say there is no CCTV footage. Ilya Novikov, the family lawyer, says that's hard to believe. The cause of death is in question too. Investigators preliminary conclusion was that he had died of heart disease. Skripnichenko's sister Nastya says doctors who examined her brother said he did not appear to have suffered serious head wounds. Yet she is skeptical he died of heart problems and suspects the attack triggered problems that took time to unfold. My brother never complained about heart problems, she told Reuters, saying doctors had given him a clean bill of health in a check-up as recently as this spring. My brother was into cross-country skiing, flew a glider, did parachute jumps, and cycled at a semi-professional level. I absolutely link my brother's death with the attack. Russia's liberal opposition has no seats in parliament and scant hope of mounting a serious challenge to Putin next year, though Alexei Navalny, an opposition leader who doesn t fit the traditional liberal mould, is trying to make a run. But in a country under Western sanctions because of its _NUMBER_ annexation of Ukraine's Crimea and support for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, pro-Kremlin politicians often cast anyone critical of the authorities as the enemy within . Critics say such rhetoric is fuelling attacks against the opposition and that those who carry them out feel a sense of impunity because they are rarely punished. Navalny became temporarily blind in one eye in April after having caustic liquid thrown at him. Soon afterwards, a pro-government TV channel broadcast footage of Navalny's attacker running away from the scene, but blurred out his face. Opposition activists identified the man as a member of a radical group; investigators said there was not enough evidence for a prosecution. In another incident, Nikolai Lyaskin, a Navalny ally, was hit over the head with an iron bar in Moscow last month, an assault Navalny said was designed to turn him into an invalid. Police detained a suspect and opened a criminal case, but they then issued a statement saying the suspect had told them that Lyaskin, the victim, had paid his assailant to stage an attack on him. Police released the suspect after _NUMBER_ hours on conditions which were not disclosed. The spot where Skripnichenko was attacked is a favorite target for nationalists who dislike the makeshift shrine there to Nemtsov. For them, the former deputy prime minister turned Putin critic is a pro-Western traitor. They have sometimes trashed his shrine and picked fights with its defenders. SERB, a radical nationalist group, has vandalized the memorial several times. At an apartment block in Moscow where Nemtsov once lived, SERB's leader Igor Beketov tore off a plaque that activists had hung honoring Nemtsov. A state TV report about the incident complained the opposition was using Nemtsov's name for various purposes and gave Beketov air time to explain his grievances. Outside the apartment block, Skripnichenko family lawyer Novikov became embroiled in a fist fight with Beketov after SERB members ripped up a photo of Nemtsov. SERB pelts its targets with faeces, antiseptic and urine. It has smashed cake into Navalny's face, but denies the caustic liquid attack. It has also hinted it threw faeces at Latynina. Tamara Lugovykh, an activist who knew Skripnichenko, said she fears the authorities will do everything not to link his death to politics. In interviews with Reuters, seven activists said the attack chimed with the regular intimidation they face. They saw parallels with the investigation into Nemtsov's murder, which convicted a group of Chechens but failed to identify who ordered the killing and why. Real blood has been spilled on the same spot a few meters apart, said activist Andrei Margulev. At the bridge shrine, a portrait of Skripnichenko is now on display next to that of Nemtsov. Ivan had plans to have children with his wife, Sergei Kireyev, an activist who knew him, said. But anything can happen on the bridge. There are no rules.

0true

Democrat Hillary Clinton held a five percentage point lead over Republican rival Donald Trump, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Monday, down only slightly since the FBI said last week it was reviewing new emails in its investigation of the former secretary of state. Some _NUMBER_ percent of likely voters said they would support Clinton, while _NUMBER_ percent said they would support Trump, according to the Oct. _NUMBER_-_NUMBER_ survey. Clinton had held a _NUMBER_ point advantage over Trump in the five-day tracking poll last Thursday. Other polls have shown Clinton's lead slipping more sharply. Real Clear Politics, which averages the results of most major polls, shows that Clinton's lead has declined from _NUMBER_ points on Friday to _NUMBER_ points on Monday. Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey told Congress in a letter made public on Friday that his agency was looking into new emails that may be connected to Clinton, who had been probed by the FBI over her use of a private server and how she handled classified information while America's top diplomat. The FBI has revealed very little to the public about the new emails under investigation, except that they were uncovered during an unrelated investigation into the estranged husband of a top Clinton aide. In July, Comey concluded that Clinton and her staff were "extremely careless" with their handling of classified information, but that there was not enough evidence to bring criminal charges. On Friday, Comey told Congress, "We don't know the significance of this newly discovered collection of emails." In a separate poll that included alternative-party candidates, _NUMBER_ percent supported Clinton, while _NUMBER_ percent supported Trump, _NUMBER_ percent supported Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and _NUMBER_ percent supported Jill Stein of the Green Party. The polling determines likely voters according to a number of factors including voting history, registration status and stated intention to vote. It assumes that _NUMBER_ percent of eligible Americans will vote. The result of the _NUMBER_ election will vary greatly depending on how many voters actually cast a ballot. Currently, Clinton leads Trump in both high and low turnout scenarios, according to the latest poll. Her advantage holds at _NUMBER_ points if _NUMBER_ percent of eligible voters participate, and it rises to _NUMBER_ points if _NUMBER_ percent of Americans cast a ballot. The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online in English in all _NUMBER_ states. It included _NUMBER_ people who were considered likely voters under the assumption that _NUMBER_ percent of eligible voters would participate. The poll has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of _NUMBER_ percentage points.

1fake

If you'didn't know that Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson was once a neurosurgeon, you would never believe he had any hint of intelligence just from the idiotic things he'says.Today, Ben Carson was quoted in a New York Times interview painting an extremely solemn picture of what public housing will look like under the Trump administration. As Carson has said several ridiculous things during his own failed presidential campaign and while he was helping with Trump's campaign, this should hardly be surprising but it will still infuriate you.Carson defended disabled and elderly people who might need public housing, and said we can't expect to do a great deal to take care of themselves. But when it came to others who did not fall into those two categories but still needed public housing, Carson had something else to say. He said: There is another group of people who are able-bodied individuals, and I think we do those people a great disservice when we simply maintain'them. The Times reported:Compassion, Mr. Carson explained in an interview, means not giving people a comfortable setting that would make somebody want to say: I ll just stay here. They will take care of me. It's safe to say that most of us have been taught a VERY different meaning of the word compassion , and Carson's definition clearly does not fit. Carson has been traveling all over the United States to get a scope of public housing in places like Detroit and Miami. While he was in Ohio, Carson visited a facility for drug abusers and reportedly said: We are talking about incentivizing those who help themselves. Carson's attitude toward public housing is disgraceful, and ABC's Sunny Hostin was right to slam him immediately:Featured image via Joe Raedle / Getty Images

0true

Arabs denounced President Donald Trump's plan to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem as a slap in the face but few thought their governments would do much in response. Trump phoned allies in the Middle East late on Tuesday to tell them the United States would acknowledge Jerusalem as the capital of Israel on Wednesday and prepare to move its embassy there. It incites feelings of anger among all Muslims and threatens world peace, said Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, Imam of Egypt's al-Azhar mosque, one of Islam's most important institutions. The gates of hell will be opened in the West before the East, he added, warning of the possible reaction. Israel's sovereignty over East Jerusalem, which it seized in the _NUMBER_ war, is not recognized internationally, and under the U.S.-brokered Oslo accords of _NUMBER_ the city's status was to be decided in negotiations with Palestinians. Arab governments issued statements of concern or condemnation and emergency meetings of both the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation have been called. But the U.S. decision has been taken. In a bitterly divided region, backing for Palestinians is often seen as a unifying position, but it is also often a source of internal recriminations over the extent of that support. A cartoon in al-Arabi al-Jadeed, a London-based Arabic news website, showed Trump raising a hand against an Arab as if to slap him, wearing a large glove marked with the Israeli flag. In Lebanon, the Daily Star newspaper ran a full page photograph of Jerusalem on its cover with the headline No offense Mr. President, Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine . Around the Arab world - including Egypt and Jordan, its only two countries to recognize Israel - and across the bitter divide between allies of regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, people denounced the move. Neither I nor my children nor my children's children will give up our right to Palestine and Jerusalem, said Hilmi Aqel, a Palestinian refugee born in Jordan's al-Baqaa camp after his family fled the fighting that accompanied Israel's creation. America does what it wants because it's powerful and thinks it won t feel the consequences ... Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine, not of Israel. It never can be, said Nada Saeed, _NUMBER_, a property broker in Cairo. This is a provocation for the Arabs, said Mahdi Msheikh, _NUMBER_, a taxi driver in Beirut's Hamra district. However, few people Reuters interviewed on Wednesday expected their governments to take any real action. What saddens me most about this is that Palestine in the past was an ultimate rights cause for us as Syrians and Arabs ... Palestine has retreated from our priorities, said a lecturer at Damascus university, who asked not to be named. Saudi Arabia, home to Islam's holiest sites, pushed a plan in _NUMBER_ offering Israel peace with all Arab countries in return for a Palestinian state including east Jerusalem. But a recent newspaper report suggested it was willing to compromise on several areas that are regarded by Palestinians and some other Arab countries as red lines. Riyadh has denied that and called on Trump not to move the embassy. The current events on the world stage and especially in the Gulf help Trump take this step because the most important thing is that Saudi Arabia is not against it, said Adnan, a _NUMBER_-year-old trader in Beirut. The kingdom's top clergy issued a mild statement saying Saudi Arabia supported Jerusalem, but did not explicitly denounce Trump's move. Many Saudi Twitter users posting under the hashtag Jerusalem is the eternal capital of Palestine , shared a film clip of the late King Faisal, who launched the _NUMBER_ Arab oil embargo against the West, pledging never to accept Israel. But one Twitter user posting with a common Saudi family name said that while Muslims and Arabs would be provoked by the move, its top royals would not be. Instead, they would suppress any move or call to jihad against the Zionist enemy , he wrote. In Cairo, Khaled Abdelkhalik, a lawyer, said: We paraded Trump as an ally of the Arabs, but he turned out dirtier than his predecessors. Jordan, which agreed peace with Israel in _NUMBER_ while the peace process with the Palestinians still seemed on track, held a special session of parliament. I call on my colleagues to tear up the treaty of humiliation and shame, said MP Yahya Saoud, referring to the peace deal. Jordan, like Lebanon, is home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees. This is a conspiracy that is denying us our rights, the first of which is to return. They think we are a branch of thorns that they can step on and break, said Fadia, a social worker with two daughters in Lebanon's Burj al-Barajneh Palestinian refugee camp. But we are a bomb. If they step on it, it explodes, she said. In Israel, analysts said that despite such warnings, they expected little violence or opposition. The moderate camp in the Arab world needs the United States as well as Israel in order to face their main threat, which is Iran, said Efraim Inbar, president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies. We may see some public announcements maybe denouncing the American decision, but in substantive terms I don t think much will change.

1fake

21st Century Wire says When the UN released its summary of their chemical weapons report on August 30th, the usual suspects led by the US, UK and France, immediately rushed to their media pulpits to claim that this was proof that Syria, under the leadership of President Bashar al Assad, was somehow guilty of the charge of using chlorine bombs against its own people. This latest UN report was the result of a year-long joint inquiry with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Before the full report was even released, western officials and their media surrogates began hysterically claiming that it was imperative for the UN Security Council to move for more sanctions against Syria, to impose a Safe Zone and to possibly give more license to increasing US-led military intervention in Syria. When confronted with the'summary of the yet-to-be released report, Russian Ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, came straight out of the gates, stating it was wrong to jump to conclusions before actually reading the report, replying simply, There are a number of questions which have to be clarified before we accept all the findings of the report. Russian Ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin.This week the full report was finally released, and as it turns out Russia's Churkin was _NUMBER_% correct. The report, as with many other US-led attempts to fabricate cases of weapons of mass destruction against governments it wishes to depose, seems at the very least to be sexed-up, and at most a completely fraudulent assessment of events on the ground in Syria. The only real conclusive findings in this report point to ISIS using sulfur mustard gas in Syria. Once again, the West, led by the United States, has attempted to position what appears to be another fabricated case against the Syrian government and place that in the'same report next to real findings of a malicious ISIS chemical weapons attack in a somewhat crude attempt to conflate the two in the court of public opinion.Even worse than attempting to falsely attribute chemical weapons attacks to Syria and Assad, the UN is also guilty of ignoring witness testimonies that have said chlorine attacks were in fact staged by western-backed rebels . POWELL & POWER: Same WMD fraud, different target nation. You could tell that a desperate agenda was in play judging by the over-the-top and leading statements made by US, UK and French representatives before the report was released two weeks ago.Of course, leading the charge, with a her summary of the yet-to-be released fraudulent assessment in hand, was R2P hawk and US Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, who insisted that Syria must pay a price . She added, It is incumbent on the council to act swiftly to show that when we put that Joint Investigative Mechanism in place we were serious about there being meaningful accountability. Once again, just like Colin Powell before her, and as with Iraq the west brazenly touts another dodgy dossier, custom-made for yet another humanitarian stitch-up. British UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft also joined-in the diplomatic pantomime, saying the UK is calling for the imposition of a sanctions regime and some form of accountability within international legal mechanisms. French UN Ambassador Francois Delattre demanded a quick and strong security council response and said, We need a resolution with teeth. Back in August _NUMBER_, Western and Saudi-backed rebels launched an elaborate media-driven WMD hoax also designed to assign blame to the Syrian Government for sarin gas attacks in East Ghouta, Damascus. Western newspapers ran photos of Assad with headlines like, Now They re Gassing Their Own Children . On the back of that stunt, both the US and the UK even went so far as to press for a declaration of war vote in both their parliaments. Unfortunately for their military industrial complexes, the public did not buy it, but that hasn't discouraged them to keep on trying.What's more shocking however, is why the United Nations would allow its name to be attributed to such a fraudulent and misleading document one that is clearly designed to bolster another bogus case for western military intervention. In the end, this type of self-interested abuse and manipulation by certain UN Security Council members only serves to damage the credibility of the UN as an international arbiter and the institution as a whole .Verdict: The evidence presented in the UN report derives hearsay reporting only from activists and rebels , in effect, lowering the bar so that absolutely no burden of proof is required by accusing parties.Considering what is at stake, and knowing full-well just how the US, UK, France and its NATO allies have demonstrated they are willing to conjure any report of chemical attacks by the regime and will hold this up as a violation of Barack Obama and Washington's ethereal Red Line this is leads immediately to calls to mount another humanitarian intervention.Joining in the party also, are the West's new instruments of war: high-profile human rights charities with links the US State Department. One such organization, Human Rights Watch, whose CEO Ken Roth has already been seen on multiple occasions tweeting fake Syria images in order to build the case for regime change , called on the UN Security council to renew its resolution referring Syria to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Louis Charbonneau, UN director at Human Rights Watch stated, Russia and China don't have a leg to stand on by continuing to obstruct the Security Council, he'said, The Security Council diminishes its importance if it doesn't take strong action against demonstrated use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government. To learn more about Human Rights NGOs are being used to support western imperial objectives read 21WIRE's detailed report on this subject:AN INTRODUCTION: SMART POWER & THE HUMAN RIGHTS INDUSTRIAL COMPLEXMore on the Washington's latest dodgy dossier from award-winning journalist Robert Parry Robert Parry Consortium NewsUnited Nations investigators encountered evidence that alleged chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian military were staged by jihadist rebels and their supporters, but still decided to blame the government for two incidents in which chlorine was allegedly dispersed via improvised explosives dropped by helicopters.In both cases, the Syrian government denied that it had any aircraft in the areas at the times of the purported attacks, but the U.N. team rejected that explanation with the curious argument that Syria failed to provide flight records to corroborate the absence of any flights. Yet, if there had been no flights, there would be no flight records.The U.N. team also dismissed out of hand the possibility that jihadist rebels who had overrun some air bases and thus had operational helicopters at their disposal might have used them as part of a staged event designed to incriminate the Damascus regime and thus justify U.S. or other outside military intervention.Another problem with the U.N. team's findings is that the home-made chlorine bombs had minimal military value, inflicting relatively few casualties and only a handful of deaths.Why the Syrian government, which was under intense international pressure regarding alleged chemical weapons use and was in the process of surrendering its stockpile of such weapons, would have jerry-rigged a handful of homemade bombs and dropped them for no discernible military effect makes little sense.However, since Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been thoroughly demonized over his harsh reaction to an uprising that began in _NUMBER_, pretty much any accusation against him no matter how unlikely or implausible is widely accepted in the mainstream Western media and political circles. In other words, the U.N. team was under pressure to reach a guilty verdict.Accusations of StagingYet, the evidence from at least one of the incidents examined by the U.N. team suggests that an attack on Al-Tamanah on the night of April _NUMBER_-_NUMBER_, _NUMBER_, might well have been staged by rebels and then played up by activists through social media. Seven witnesses stated that frequent alerts had been issued, but in fact no incidents with chemicals took place, the U.N. report stated. While people sought safety after the warnings, their homes were looted and rumours spread that the events were being staged. hey had come forward to contest the wide-spread false media reports. Accounts from other people, who did allege that there had been a government chemical attack on Al-Tamanah, provided suspect evidence, including data from questionable sources, according to the U.N. report.The report said, Three witnesses, who did not give any description of the incident on _NUMBER_-_NUMBER_ April _NUMBER_, provided material of unknown source. One witness had second-hand knowledge of two of the five incidents in Al-Tamanah, but did not remember the exact dates. Later that witness provided a USB-stick with information of unknown origin, which was saved in separate folders according to the dates of all the five incidents mentioned by the FFM . Another witness provided the dates of all five incidents reading it from a piece of paper, but did not provide any testimony on the incident on _NUMBER_-_NUMBER_ April _NUMBER_. The latter also provided a video titled site where second barrel containing toxic chlorine gas was dropped tamanaa _NUMBER_ April _NUMBER_ Some other witnesses alleging a Syrian government attack offered curious claims about detecting the chlorine-infused barrel bombs based on how the device sounded in its descent.The U.N. report said, The eyewitness, who stated to have been on the roof, said to have heard a helicopter and the very loud sound of a falling barrel. Some interviewees had referred to a distinct whistling sound of barrels that contain chlorine as they fall. The witness statement could not be corroborated with any further information. As in other cases that were investigated, the U.N. team demanded that the Syrian government provide flight records to support its denial that any of its aircraft were in the air in that vicinity at the time of the attack. The Government of the Syrian Arab Republic stated that no military activities were conducted from land or air in Al-Tamanah on the dates of the incidents, but did not provide any records of flight operations to support this statement, the U.N. report said.In the Al-Tamanah case, the U.N. team judged the evidence insufficient to reach a firm judgment regarding who was responsible. However, in two other cases, in Talmenes in April _NUMBER_ and Sarmin in March _NUMBER_, the U.N. team accused the Syrian military of dropping chlorine-infused barrel bombs. Investigative LimitationsYet, regarding all eight cases that were examined, the U.N. team acknowledged significant limitations on its ability to investigate.The report said, As was the case with the Fact-Finding missions, the lack of access to the locations under investigation due to the dire security situation on the ground affected the manner in which the Mechanism was able to conduct its investigation. Visits to certain locations would have facilitated the ability of the Mechanism to confirm and access specific locations of interest; collect comparative environmental samples; identify new witnesses; and physically evaluate the material of interest to the Mechanism . Other challenges and constraints include the following factors: the time period that had elapsed since the incident ; the lack of chain of custody for some of the material received; the'source of information and material was of secondary or tertiary nature; some of the information material, including those depicting the'size and nature of the incident, were misleading; finding independent sources of information that could provide access to individuals and information material proved difficult; and the impact locations were not preserved and were compromised by the time they were recorded . In other words, the U.N./OPCW investigation was compromised by its inability to conduct an effective on-the-ground assessment and was forced to rely on witnesses who were often allied with the rebel forces or sympathetic to the political opposition to President Assad.This problem is reminiscent of what happened inside the U.S. Intelligence Community in the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq when some _NUMBER_ witnesses supposedly defectors from Saddam Hussein's regime became walk-ins who presented claims about the Iraqi government's supposed weapons of mass destruction.CIA analysts debunked some of these bogus claims and traced some of the deceit to the machinations of the pro-invasion Iraqi National Congress , but given the political-and-media hatred of Saddam Hussein the CIA analysts were under intense pressure to accept some of the dubious accounts that were then incorporated into U.S. intelligence products and used to justify a war under false pretenses.As with Iraq where the U.S. government had helped fund anti-regime groups such as the INC a similar situation exists inside Syria where U.S. officials have assisted the opposition in organizing politically and mastering propaganda skills. So, the means and opportunity for depicting regime atrocities through social media are there, along with the motive.These activists as well as the radical jihadists and other armed rebels have become increasingly desperate to induce the United States to intervene militarily against the Syrian army and thus make their desired regime change possible. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Aug. _NUMBER_, _NUMBER_, claims to have proof that the Syrian government was responsible for a chemical weapons attack on Aug. _NUMBER_, _NUMBER_, but that evidence failed to materialize or was later discredited. Obama's Red LineThe emphasis on creating a chemical weapons casus belli increased when President Barack Obama set the Syrian government's possible use of such weapons as a red line that might cause him to intervene directly with U.S. forces.That comment and the political pressure for instituting another Mideast regime change were the backdrop for the'sarin gas attack outside Damascus on Aug. _NUMBER_, _NUMBER_, which anti-Assad activists, the mainstream U.S. press, and the U.S. State Department immediately blamed on government forces.In the ensuing days, Obama came to the edge of authorizing a retaliatory military strike before hearing from U.S. and other Western intelligence services that they had doubts about who had actually pulled off the attack.Since then, the'sarin case against Assad has largely collapsed . The evidence now appears to indicate that radical jihadists released the'sarin with the goal of goading Obama into joining the war on their side, i.e., a false-flag operation.As the'sarin case fell apart in _NUMBER_, the U.S. government shifted its emphasis toward chlorine-gas allegations. I first encountered this bait-and-switch tactic when I pressed a senior State Department official to back up or back off the increasingly discredited sarin gas claims.While sidestepping the'sarin case, the official asserted that the Syrian government almost surely was responsible for the more recent chlorine-gas incidents, citing the bombs delivery by helicopter and arguing that only the Syrian government possessed such aircraft.According to the U.N. report, however, that belief regarding the government's monopoly of helicopters may not be true, since rebel forces had captured air bases where operational helicopters were present. That means, at least theoretically, the jihadists could have staged the night-time attacks complete with prior alarms spread by activist first-responders, known as white helmets, about the imminent arrival of government helicopters with chlorine bombs.But the more nettlesome question, which the U.N. report does not address, is why would the Syrian government launch these strange attacks while realizing that any chemical weapons incident could prompt U.S. military intervention that could tip the war in favor of the jihadists and other rebels, especially since the chlorine attacks had virtually no military value.Few FatalitiesWhile the makeshift chlorine bombs may have sent scores of civilians to get medical attention, very few of the casualties were fatal, according to the U.N. report. By contrast, the Aug. _NUMBER_, _NUMBER_ sarin attack killed hundreds, with the U.S. government putting out an even higher number of _NUMBER_ dead Continue this report at Consortium NewsREAD MORE SYRIA NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Syria Files

0true

President Donald Trump is planning to issue a directive targeting a controversial Dodd-Frank rule that requires companies to disclose whether their products contain "conflict minerals" from a war-torn part of Africa, according to sources familiar with the administration's thinking. Reuters could not learn precisely when the directive would be issued or what the final version would say. However, a leaked draft that has been floating around Washington and was seen by Reuters on Wednesday calls for the rule to be temporarily suspended for two years. Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of the document. The sources spoke on Tuesday on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record about the plan. The _NUMBER_ Dodd-Frank law explicitly gives the president authority to order the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to temporarily suspend or revise the rule for two years if it is in the national security interest of the United States. The conflict minerals rule was endorsed by human rights groups that want companies to tell investors if their products contain tantalum, tin, gold or tungsten mined from the Democratic Republic of Congo in the hope that such disclosures would curb funding to armed groups. Business groups opposed to the measure have contended that it forces companies to furnish politically charged information that is irrelevant to making investment decisions and that it costs too much for companies to trace the source of minerals through the supply chain. In the leaked draft memo seen by Reuters, the Secretary of State and Secretary of the Treasury were asked to propose a plan for addressing human rights violations and the funding of armed groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo and report back within _NUMBER_ days. The memo also lays out a justification for suspending the rule, saying that while it has helped discourage some American companies from purchasing materials in the region, it has also led to "some job loss." It also cited _NUMBER_ SEC estimates about the costs imposed on companies, which entailed upfront costs of _CUR_3 billion to _CUR_4 billion, and _CUR_200 million per year thereafter. Carly Oboth, a policy adviser at human rights group Global Witness, said in a statement on Wednesday that she was deeply concerned about Trump's planned executive action. "This law helps stop U.S. companies funding conflict and human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of Congo and surrounding countries," she said. "Suspending it will benefit secretive and corrupt business practices. Responsible business practices are starting to spread in eastern Congo. This action could reverse that progress." A White House executive order last week took aim more broadly at the Dodd-Frank rules that were put into place after the _NUMBER_-_NUMBER_ financial crisis. That order did not single out a particular rule, but called on the Treasury Secretary to consult with other regulators, including the SEC, and come back with a report outlining possible regulatory changes and legislation. The conflict minerals rule is one of several disclosure regulations in Dodd-Frank that are unrelated to the financial crisis. Another Dodd-Frank SEC disclosure rule that required oil, gas and mining companies to disclose payments to foreign governments was repealed by the Republican-controlled Congress last week. In _NUMBER_, a U.S. appeals court struck down part of the conflict minerals law after the Business Roundtable, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers sued the SEC over it. The court found part of it violated free speech rights of companies by forcing them to publicly state that their products were not conflict free. The rest of the rule was left intact and companies are required to conduct due diligence and report the details of those inquiries in public reports filed with the SEC. The SEC cannot repeal the rule without a law passed by Congress. It can, however, use its broad exemptive powers to scale back some of the requirements or stop enforcing the rule entirely. Last week, acting SEC Chair Michael Piwowar took steps toward doing that by announcing that he had asked SEC staff to reconsider how companies should comply with it and whether "additional relief" was warranted. House Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling, meanwhile, is planning to reintroduce his Financial CHOICE Act bill, which contains a provision to repeal the conflict minerals rule.

0true

North Korea and the United States clashed at a U.N. forum on Tuesday over their military intentions towards one another, with Pyongyang's envoy declaring it would never put its nuclear deterrent on the negotiating table. Japan, well within reach of North Korea's missiles, said the world must maintain pressure on the reclusive country to rein in its nuclear and missile programs and now was not the time for a resumption of multi-party talks. North Korea has pursued its weapons programs in defiance of U.N. Security Council sanctions and ignored all calls, including from major ally China, to stop, prompting a bellicose exchange of rhetoric between the North and the United States. North Korea justifies its weapons programs, including its recent threat to fire missiles towards the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam, by pointing to perceived U.S. hostility, such as military exercises with South Korea this week. U.S. disarmament ambassador Robert Wood told a U.N.-sponsored Conference on Disarmament in Geneva U.S. President Donald Trump's top priority was to protect the United States and its allies against the growing threat from North Korea and America was ready to use the full range of capabilities at its disposal. The path to dialogue still remained an option for Pyongyang and it had the choice between poverty and belligerence on the one hand and prosperity and acceptance. North Korea's envoy told the same forum the North's nuclear deterrent would never be up for negotiation, echoing Pyongyang's regular denunciation of U.S. aggression . The measures taken by the DPRK to strengthen its nuclear deterrence and develop inter-continental rockets is justifiable and a legitimate option for self-defense in the face of such apparent and real threats, diplomat Ju Yong Chol told the forum, referring to constant nuclear threats by the United States. DPRK stands for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Regarding joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises that began on Monday, he warned: The ongoing military adventure would certainly add gasoline to the fire, driving the current tense situation to further deterioration. Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono said pressure must be maintained until the North demonstrated it would give up its nuclear program. It's not the time to discuss six-party talks, Kono said, referring to stalled negotiations involving both Koreas, the United States, Russia, China and Japan. It's time to exert pressure, he told reporters. The head of the U.S. military's Pacific Command said diplomacy was key. Admiral Harry Harris was in South Korea to observe annual joint military drills with the South Korean military, which the North called a step towards nuclear conflict masterminded by war maniacs . So we hope and we work for diplomatic solutions to the challenge presented by Kim Jong Un, Harris told reporters at a U.S. air base in Osan, about an hour from Seoul, referring to the North Korean leader. He said diplomacy was the most important starting point in response to the North's threat, when asked what actions by North Korea might trigger a preemptive U.S. strike against it. As far as a timeline, it would be crazy for me to share with you those tripwires in advance. If we did that, it would hardly be a military strategy, he said. The United States and South Korea began the long-planned exercises on Monday, called the Ulchi Freedom Guardian, which the allies have said are purely defensive. The drills involve tens of thousands of troops as well as computer simulations designed to prepare for war with a nuclear-capable North Korea. The United States and South Korea are technically still at war with the North because their _NUMBER_-_NUMBER_ conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. Delegations from about _NUMBER_ countries spoke at the four-hour U.N. session, including Britain, France, Australia and South Korea, all of which criticized North Korea. I would like to repeat the appeal to the DPRK to listen to the fact that there is no alternative to stopping the different provocations and to return to dialogue, South Korean ambassador Kim Inchul said. We have never threatened the DPRK with any attacks and we have never promoted the use of force.

0true

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday said he felt "almost obliged" to say sorry for verbal attacks on Mexico in the U.S. presidential campaign, in which Republican front-runner Donald Trump has labeled Mexican migrants rapists and drug runners. Speaking alongside Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto during a visit to Mexico City, Biden never mentioned Trump, who nonetheless loomed large over the proceedings. "There's been a lot of damaging and incredibly inaccurate rhetoric, and I would argue, I feel almost obliged to apologize for some of what my political colleagues have said ... about Mexico, about the Mexican people," said Biden, a Democrat. Property mogul Trump, who has built up a big early lead in the race to become Republican nominee, has vowed to make Mexico pay for a wall to seal off the United States from its southern neighbor, prompting widespread criticism in both countries. "I just want you to know, Mr. President, that the most heated rhetoric you've heard from some of the competitors for the nomination for president, is not who we are as the American people .... It's the exact opposite," Biden added. Without naming Trump, Pena Nieto also weighed in, saying "building walls is just isolating oneself." The _NUMBER_ U.S. presidential election is on Nov. _NUMBER_. At an event earlier on Thursday, Biden had expressed concern about what the election race said about views held in the United States, calling some of the Republican campaign language "dangerous, damaging and incredibly ill-advised." "The message that is coming out of the United States as a consequence of the presidential campaign, about American attitudes toward Mexicans and Mexico generally, the entire hemisphere and our place in the world, is disturbing," he said. Trump, _NUMBER_, has vowed to deport the _NUMBER_ million migrants living illegally in the United States, a position shared by his younger Republican rival, the Texas Senator Ted Cruz. For more on the _NUMBER_ presidential race, see the Reuters blog, "Tales from the Trail" . This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production.

0true

Kazakhstan is to change its official alphabet for the third time in less than _NUMBER_ years in what is seen in part as symbolic move to underline its independence. President Nursultan Nazarbayev ordered his office on Thursday to prepare for a switch to a Latin-based alphabet from a Cyrillic one, distancing itself, at least graphically, from Russia. The oil-rich former Soviet republic of _NUMBER_ million has very close ties with Moscow, its main trading partner, but is also wary of Russia's ambitions to maintain its political influence throughout the region. Kazakh, a Turkic language, used to be written in Arabic script until the 1920s when the Soviet Union briefly introduced a Latin alphabet for it. This was later replaced by a Cyrillic one in _NUMBER_, based on the Russian alphabet. Part of the latest switch relates to modern technology. The currently used Cyrillic alphabet has _NUMBER_ symbols, making it cumbersome to use with digital devices - a standard Kazakh keyboard utilizes almost all number keys in addition to letter and punctuation keys. The latest version of the proposed Latin alphabet works around that by using apostrophe signs to modify letters. The country's official name would thus be spelled as Qazaqstan Respy blikasy. According to a statement published by Nazarbayev's office, he has ordered his chief of staff to draft an executive order introducing the new alphabet. The switch will be gradual, it said. Alhough Kazakh has been the state language since Kazakhstan became independent in _NUMBER_, only _NUMBER_ percent of the population said they were fluent in both written and spoken Kazakh during a the most recent national census in _NUMBER_. Russian is more widespread with _NUMBER_ percent claiming fluency in the same census. Russian is recognized as an official language in Kazakhstan. Several other Turkic nations, including Turkey itself, ex-Soviet Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, have also switched to Latin alphabets.

1fake

Sen. Richard Blumenthal was deeply disturbed by James Comey's testimony that Attorney General Jeff Sessions was hiding a third meeting with the Russians. During an interview with CNN's Erin Burnett on Thursday, Blumenthal said that if what Comey revealed is true, it could be perjury. I can't confirm what may have been provided in a classified setting, but with a third meeting, even without it, what we have is a pattern of contacts with the Russians by Flynn, by Sessions, by Kushner secret and then concealed, Blumenthal said.It could be perjury, he added.Following the open hearing, Comey testified behind closed doors where he was able to discuss classified information. In this closed door hearing, Comey revealed that Sessions had met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak a third time during the campaign and concealed it.Blumenthal said that Sessions is emerging more and more as a key figure in the investigation into Russia's interference in our presidential election. Not only because of his problematic contact with Russians, he'said, but also because he failed to safeguard and protect the FBI as part of the Department of Justice when he learned about the meeting in which the President of the United States in effect had inappropriate conversations with Director Comey. No wonder Comey didn't feel comfortable going to the Department of Justice with his concerns that Trump was trying to stop him from continuing the Russia investigation. Sessions hands are turning out to be just as dirty as Trump's and Mike Flynn's and Paul Manafort's and Carter Page's and Jared Kushner s. Blumenthal sees the pattern here. I clearly see it. Even my grade schooler can see it. How the f*ck are Republicans still managing to stay so willfully ignorant?You can watch Blumenthal's interview here, via CNN: What we have is a pattern of contacts w the Russian secret and then conceleaed could be perjury _USER_ _URL_ OutFrontCNN June _NUMBER_, 2017Featured image via video screen capture

0true

South Korea President Moon Jae-in said he hoped a visit by U.S President Donald Trump would be a turning point in efforts to defuse tensions over North Korea's nuclear program as the two leaders met in Seoul on Tuesday. The state visit in the South Korean capital was billed as an opportunity for Trump and Moon to present a united front, despite differences over how to confront North Korea's nuclear threat, as well as Trump's complaints over the two countries trade agreements. Besides vowing to prevent North Korean leader Kim Jong Un from developing nuclear weapons and missiles that can effectively strike the mainland United States, Trump has also threatened to pull out of a free trade pact between the two countries.

0true

Democrat Doug Jones' surprise victory over Republican Roy Moore in this month's special U.S. Senate election will be certified on Dec. _NUMBER_, Alabama state officials said on Friday. Jones will be the first Democrat sent to the Senate from Republican stronghold Alabama in a quarter century. When he takes office, Republicans' majority in the chamber will narrow to _NUMBER_ of the _NUMBER_ seats. Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, Attorney General Steve Marshall and Secretary of State John Merrill will meet to certify Jones' win, Merrill's office said in a statement. Jones' margin of victory was _NUMBER_ percentage points. Moore has not conceded defeat in the Dec. _NUMBER_ vote, despite being urged by President Donald Trump to do so. Calls and emails to Moore's campaign spokeswomen were not immediately returned on Friday. Moore was a controversial candidate whose campaign was beset by allegations that he sexually assaulted or pursued teenage girls while he was in his 30s. He denied the misconduct allegations, saying they were a result of "dirty politics."

1fake

21st Century Wire says Just _NUMBER_ hours after the release of Vault _NUMBER_, Zero Day , Wikileaks has claimed that less than _NUMBER_% of Vault _NUMBER_ has been released so far . This is surely to generate not only excitement amongst security analysts, researchers, software engineers and hackers alike, but considerable dread within the intelligence community. Wikileaks dump of Vault _NUMBER_ has already caused a flurry not only within the mainstream media but noticeable reactions of companies mentioned within Zero Day cache'such as Apple, Google, Telegram, Signal, Samsung, and Microsoft, whom back in February called for a Digital Geneva Convention .More on this report from RT RTWikiLeaks data dump on Tuesday accounted for less than one percent of Vault _NUMBER_ , a collection of leaked CIA documents which revealed the extent of its hacking capabilities, the whistleblowing organization has claimed on Twitter. WikiLeaks has released less than _NUMBER_% of its _TAG_ series in its part one publication yesterday 'Year Zero'. WikiLeaks March _NUMBER_, _NUMBER_ Year Zero , comprising _NUMBER_ documents and files, was released unexpectedly by WikiLeaks. The organization had initially announced that it was part of a larger series, known as Vault _NUMBER_. However, it did not give further information on when more leaks would occur or on how many series would comprise Vault _NUMBER_ Continue this story at RTREAD MORE WIKILEAKS AT: 21st Century Wire WIKILEAKS FilesSUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER _USER_.TV

1fake

Apparently free housing, food and spending money wasn't enough for this murderous thug posing as a helpless refugee A Somali pirate who was in jail in France for seven years has been jailed for another eleven years in Germany after murdering a fellow African while pretending to be an asylum seeker in a Berlin invader camp.The astonishing story of the _NUMBER_-year-old African invader has been revealed in the Potsdam, Berlin-based M rkische Allgemeine newspaper.The Somali who has still not been named, apparently by court order provided an astonishing story which dramatically illustrated how hordes of fraudsters have taken advantage of deluded European liberals to invade and parasite off Europe.He entered Germany in May this year and joined in the general rush to claim asylum, the M rkische Allgemeine reported.The German liberals immediately gave him housing, food, and welfare money. He received an apartment which he'shared with another African asylum seeker from Somalia in a building on the Potsdamer Strasse in Teltow .He fell out with his flatmate, a _NUMBER_-year-old, and in a murderous frenzy, stabbed him nineteen times, cutting his carotid artery. The _NUMBER_-year-old fled the'scene, but was easily spotted on the'streets a few blocks away not only because of his skin color, but also because he was drenched in his murder victim's blood.The Potsdam regional court found him guilty of the latest murder and rejected his plea of manslaughter, saying that the nature of the victim's wounds showed clear premeditation. He was sentenced to eleven-and-half-years in jail.During the court proceedings, his pretrial statements to the police were read out, and his incredible story emerged. In these statements, the Somali admitted to the police that he had previously been jailed in France for seven years after being convicted of piracy off the horn of Africa.In addition, he'said, he had killed another inmate while in prison in France, and upon his release, he had simply crossed the border into Germany, thrown away his identification papers, and joined the asylum queue in Berlin.The lack of identification papers is also the reason why the court has not ordered his name to be released because they'do not know his real name or even his actual age.The court found that he had documents which gave two different birth dates, and he himself had claimed a third, while he had been registered in the German asylum system under three different names.The latter maneuver is an old trick used by Third World swindlers in Europe to triple their welfare benefits, and is a growing problem with the latest wave of incomers.Nonetheless, the Somali's successful exploitation of the asylum system wrecked only by his murderous behavior serves as a perfect case study in the criminal nature of the Third World invasion and of the'stupidity of leftist Europeans in allowing the asylum racket to continue. Via: Maz-online and New Observer

0true

The World Health Organization began distributing _NUMBER_ doses of cholera vaccine on Tuesday in Bangladesh's camps for Rohingya refugees fleeing from Myanmar, as authorities rush to prevent a major outbreak of the deadly disease. More than _NUMBER_ cases of diarrhea have been reported in the past week alone, the WHO said. Doctors in two clinics have told Reuters that there have been several cases of patients with the symptoms of cholera, a virulent diarrhea that kills within _NUMBER_ hours if not treated. Cholera has not been identified in testing of patient samples by Bangladesh's health ministry, although clinics say they are waiting for results for some samples sent last week. There is a clear risk for cholera, said Dr N. Paranietharan, the WHO's representative in Bangladesh. Sporadic cases are inevitable we are not expecting a major outbreak like Yemen, he said. War-torn Yemen is in the grip of a cholera crisis, with more than _NUMBER_ sufferers afflicted by the bacteria, which is spread when contaminated faeces is ingested by humans, usually through the water supply. The cholera vaccination campaign in Bangladesh, the second largest in history, will be crucial to containing any outbreak, said Paranietharan. More than _NUMBER_ people will fan out across the sprawling camps on the southern tip of Bangladesh that are home to more than _NUMBER_ Rohingya Muslims. The Rohingya fled Buddhist-majority Myanmar when government forces launched a ferocious offensive, denounced by the United Nations as ethnic cleansing, in response to a series of Rohingya militant attacks on security posts on Aug. _NUMBER_. In pounding heat and stifling humidity, traumatized and malnourished refugees are crammed into bamboo and canvas huts packed across muddy hillsides. Faeces lies in lanes that flood in the pouring rain. More than _NUMBER_ latrines have been installed but many overflow and sit above pools and creeks where refugees bathe. Many new wells for drinking water are shallow and have become contaminated by sewage, said Paranietharan. While we are doing this vaccination, it is not an alternative to fixing the water, sanitation and hygiene intervention, it just buys us time, he said. Sanitary facilities and hygiene promotion have still not met the standards. They need to be improved quickly. In a dysentery clinic in Kutupalong camp run by the Medical Teams International group, patients with severe diarrhea lie motionless, moaning as intravenous fluid flows into them. I believe we are facing a tsunami. We just don t know if it's going to be _NUMBER_ feet or _NUMBER_ feet, said Bruce Murray, a physician at the clinic. Cholera is known to be endemic in Bangladesh and now we are bringing in half a million people in squalid conditions and it's got to be inevitable. It's a matter of when it hits, rather than if, he said. Murray said there could be tens of thousands of victims in an outbreak. Paranietharan said his organization had the capacity to handle _NUMBER_ cholera cases. As well as a handful of clinics, mobile teams are ready to go to inaccessible parts of the camps with oral rehydration salts that can save cholera patients if they can t get access to intravenous fluids. Aid workers worry they lack the staff to get the vaccines out quickly, while the WHO says it urgently needs _CUR_10.2 million to do the job properly. The first round of the vaccination campaign will cover _NUMBER_ people aged one year and older. A second round will target _NUMBER_ children aged between one and five with an additional dose for extra protection.

0true

Turkey has sent a note to U.S. authorities inquiring about the condition of gold trader Reza Zarrab, held in the United States awaiting trial on charges of evading U.S. sanctions on Iran, Turkish Foreign Ministry sources said on Wednesday. Following media reports about Reza Zarrab, our Washington Embassy has officially requested information from U.S. authorities, and have not yet received an answer, the ministry spokesman's office said. We will follow up the issue. There was speculation in Turkish media after the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons website showed that Zarrab was released from prison on Nov. _NUMBER_. However a spokesman for Acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim in Manhattan said on Monday that Zarrab remained in federal custody. The information that Zarrab was released is not factual, Zarrab's lawyer Seyda Yildirim told Hurriyet newspaper on Wednesday. He might have been moved to a different section. We haven t been informed in five days, we are unable to receive any information. Zarrab has pleaded not guilty to the charges of sanctions evasion. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said U.S. prosecutors have ulterior motives in the case, by including references to him and his wife in court papers.

1fake

The drip drip drip of communism Leftists are stealing our rights and freedom while Americans can't be bothered with politics because they're too busy watching the Kardashians The Florida High School Athletics Association recently denied a request by two Christian schools to broadcast a prayer before a championship game at Orlando's Citrus Bowl Stadium.Cambridge Christian School in Tampa and the University Christian School out of Jacksonville are playing in the District _NUMBER_-A high school football championships today and coaches from both teams submitted a request to ensure a _NUMBER_-second prayer over the loudspeaker before kickoff, Bay News _NUMBER_ reports.But Roger Dearing, director of the Florida High School Athletics Association, denied the request for two main reasons. The facility is a public facility, predominantly paid for with public tax dollars, makes the facility off limits under federal guidelines and precedent court cases, Dearing wrote in an emailed response to the teams. In Florida Statutes, the FHSAA is legally a State Actor, we cannot legally permit or grant permission for such an activity. Cambridge head of school Tim Euler doesn't agree with Dearing's ruling. We ve played _NUMBER_ football games this year, he told Bay News _NUMBER_ We ve prayed before every one of them. Here's the problem, Euler told WTSP. The Florida Legislature is opened up with prayer in a building that is paid by tax dollars. What is the difference? If they can pray there, we can pray here, and I want them to be able to pray there and I want us to be able to pray here, he added. So I think reasoning is flawed at the core of it. Euler said Friday morning, hours before the game's _NUMBER_ p.m. start time, that it's unlikely the teams would be able to reverse the decision, but believes it's important to highlight the problem, nonetheless. What we'really want to do is raise awareness, he told Bay News _NUMBER_. All we're asking for is an opportunity for two Christian schools to pray. WTSP attempted to contact the Florida High School Athletic Association about the ruling, but the agency ignored its request.WTSP reporter Mike Deeson posted about the controversy on Facebook. I was disappointed the Florida High School Athletic Association didn't return our calls, he wrote. I wanted to know how the legislature opens with a prayer in a taxpayer owned building with state employees, yet FHSAA maintains a prayer couldn't be said in a taxpayer funding facility the Citrus Bow that was sanctioned by state employees, members of FHSAA. Something doesn't make sense when you compare the two but they NEVER returned our calls, Deeson posted. In my opinion that was a BAD PR MOVE! Readers, of course, were enraged by the FHSAA's decision. I think it's absolutely ridiculous that they will not let two Christian schools pray before their game, Mary Salvatore posted to Facebook. And you wonder why we have so many mass shootings across the country! So PC and so tolerant that you become intolerant, Robert Rosengarten added. Let them pray, who gives a f. If they want to pray to Jesus, Allah, the flying spaghetti monster, let them, who cares. Who's to stop them? Daniel Suarez questioned. What if both teams come together before the game and pray? What if all in the'stands begin to pray? Who would it hurt? Via: EAG News

1fake

James Fallows has been a journalist since _NUMBER_ and he covered the Watergate scandal so he knows what he's talking about.And when Fallows says that Donald Trump's ongoing and ever-growing Russia scandal is WORSE than Watergate, every American should take notice.That's exactly what Fallows did in a new article for The Atlantic published on Friday.Fallows remembers the Watergate scandal clearly despite the fact that it unfolded _NUMBER_ years ago.The'scandal is known as the Watergate scandal because some of President Richard Nixon's goons broke into the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate hotel.Nixon tried to cover up the crime by repeatedly lying and refusing to cooperate with investigations. He went so far as to fire Archibald Cox, the'special prosecutor assigned to the investigation. Cox wanted Nixon to release White House recordings and Nixon refused. Nixon wanted Cox to back off but Cox refused. Nixon then fired him. After that, it was all downhill for Nixon. The Supreme Court ordered him to release the tapes and they were so damning that Nixon resigned before he could be impeached.But Trump's Russia scandal is worse. Based simply on what is known so far, this scandal looks worse than Watergate, Fallows wrote. Worse for and about the president. Worse for the overall national interest. Worse in what it suggests about the American democratic system's ability to defend itself. Fallows points out that Watergate was a mere burglary in an effort to find information on Nixon's political opponents. Trump's scandal, on the other hand, is:Nothing less than attacks by an authoritarian foreign government on the fundamentals of American democracy, by interfering with an election and doing so as part of a sustained effort that included parallel interference in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and elsewhere. At worst, such efforts might actually have changed the election results. At least, they were meant to destroy trust in democracy. Not much of this is fully understood or proven, but the potential stakes are incomparably greater than what happened during Watergate, crime and cover-up alike.Fallows then compared Nixon's firing of Cox to Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey.While Nixon paid lip-service to the concept of due process and checks-and-balances and at least acted like he was sticking to some recognizable rules, Trump's has openly disdained and flouted the rules. Nothing Donald Trump has done, on the campaign trail or in office, has expressed awareness of, or respect for, established rules, Fallows continued. Nixon's private comments could be vile, but nothing he'said in public is comparable to Trump's dismissing James Comey as a showboat, or the thuggishly menacing tweet that Trump'sent out today. The tweet Fallows referenced is a clear threat from Trump aimed at Comey in an effort to keep him from speaking to the press.James Comey better hope that there are no tapes of our conversations before he'starts leaking to the press! Donald J. Trump May _NUMBER_, 2017And while Nixon was a dark and complex person who was deeply knowledgeable and publicly disciplined and possessed political and strategic intelligence, Trump has repeatedly proven that he is impulsive, and ignorant, and apparently beyond the reach of any control, even his own. And what's also worse about Trump's Russia scandal is the way Republicans have circled the wagons around Trump and have made attempt after attempt to bury any investigations into his misconduct.While Republicans like Jason Chaffetz, Mitch McConnell, and Devin Nunes have all tried to sabotage investigations on Trump's behalf, it was Republicans like Charles Wiggins, Barry Goldwater, and Howard Baker who put their country before party and sided against Nixon.The Republicans who turned against Nixon will be remembered for doing the right thing when their country needed them most. Today's Republicans will only be remembered for doing nothing while their country burned to the ground. Fallows even points out that all it would take is three brave Republicans in the Senate to join Democrats to get a truly independent investigation rolling.The question is whether they actually care about their country, the Constitution, and the integrity of the office of the presidency enough to do so.Our country needs heroes now more than ever. Republicans could be those heroes if they would just stop being cowards and stop being Trump's puppets.Featured Image: Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images

0true

Russia's foreign ministry said on Wednesday it was working to establish the nationality and whereabouts of two people Islamic State said were Russian soldiers who it had captured in Syria, RIA news agency reported. Islamic State released a video on Tuesday that it said showed two soldiers captured by its fighters in the Syrian city of Deir al-Zor, where Russia has been backing the Syrian military against militants.

0true

New Zealand accounting software firm Xero Ltd said on Thursday that its chairman, Chris Liddell, would resign after accepting a position as an assistant to U.S. president-elect Donald Trump. The company has appointed Graham Smith, its current director, to replace Liddell. Xero said Liddell had informed them that his new job required him to step down as chairman, a position he held for the past three years. "We wish him all the best in his exciting new role," Xero Chief Executive Officer Rod Drury said in a written statement. Several New Zealand customers had said on social media this week that they were considering cancelling their subscriptions due to Liddell's appointment, announced by Trump on Wednesday. Drury had responded in local media that the company had no political view. The changes will take place on Jan. _NUMBER_, the day of Trump's inauguration. Shares in Xero were trading up _NUMBER_ percent in the wake of the announcement, just below their _NUMBER_-week high. Xero dominates the market for accounting software for small businesses in New Zealand, where it is headquartered, as well as in Britain. It is currently trying to grow its presence in the United States.

1fake

Michael Conger was arrested by Eustis police once on a violation of a probation warrant and Jeremy Robertson had never been arrested by the Marion County Sheriff's Dept., They only knew of Robertson's whereabouts after a tip came in to inform them that he was in the area and had a criminal history. Based on their past history with this particular Sheriff's Department, it's easy to see why they had a bone to pick with them or maybe they just caught the F*_TAG_ the police fever? Thanks for placing a bullseye on the backs of our law enforcement officers Barack Marion County sheriff's deputies seized _NUMBER_ firearms after receiving a tip that a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and missiles would be used against Eustis police, St. Mary of the Lakes Catholic Church and a local Elk's Club.The weapons, along with several containers of black powder, marijuana, powdered and crack cocaine, prescription pills, scales, other drug paraphernalia and two bulletproof vests were found in a Marion County shed, authorities said Monday.Deputies said they'received information that the occupants of the'shed intended to use the rocket launcher on the Eustis Police Department on Monday because of recent run-ins with officers.Eustis Police Chief Fred Cobb told Local _NUMBER_, however, that he was blindsided by the threat because his department had little to no contact with two men arrested in the case.https://youtu.be/OjuOydtNJD4Cobb said Christopher Michael Conger was arrested by Eustis police on a violation of probation warrant. Cobb said that his department knows about Jeremy Robertson only because his staff received a tip notifying them that he was in the area and was known to carry drugs and weapons. It's a reminder for the public that we serve that this is a dangerous profession, Cobb said. Even in small-town U.S.A., Eustis, Florida. Via: Click Orlando

1fake

There are seldom those moments in life that seem so poetic, but the people sharing the'space where the Republican congressional retreat is being held is pretty much the perfect metaphor for the embodiment of the GOP party platform.It's all happening at the Marriott Hotel at the Baltimore Harbor, and right down the hall from where Republicans are trying to put together strategies for the coming year that is where the Mid-Atlantic Monument Builders Association is holding their annual summit. And within the room where the Monument Builders are meeting, there is a huge sampling of headstones.How is this the perfect metaphor for the Republican party? So glad you asked.The GOP has spent nearly the past thirty years trying to make sure people have a rougher go at life than they could if they had a government that actually worked in their best interest. Instead of fighting for people to have greater access to health care, they've been mercilessly fighting against broadened access and affordable coverage. They ve also been trying for decades to privatize social security instead of strengthen our existing government pension program that guarantees income for senior citizens who worked hard all their lives. They d prefer a system that relied on an unsteady market where people could, quite literally, lose everything. The GOP has also consistently tried to make it harder for low-income citizens to have access to Medicaid and food assistance programs. Not to mention the GOP's love for war and lust for sending American lives to die for causes still unknown.So, to see gravestones just steps away from where congressional Republicans are talking about ideas is absolutely perfect. Their ideas and plans for the people of this nation would lead to the early demise of several citizens. Kudos to whoever chose that space to hold the event, it's very telling of GOP policy. Video/Featured image: ABC

1fake

Some illegal immigrants receive money from Uncle Sam even after they are deported back to their home country, a new report said Thursday.According to Sen. Rand Paul's annual airing of grievances, a report that documents the most extreme cases of government waste from the previous year, the Obama administration is using a taxpayer-funded program to provide business support to undocumented immigrants from El Salvador that were deported from the U.S.The Republican from Kentucky also chairs a Senate subcommittee on federal spending oversight.The annual document cites a report first published on Jan. _NUMBER_, which found that the Obama administration has given _CUR_50,000 in taxpayer money to illegal immigrants who were deported from the U.S. back to their home country of El Salvador.

1fake

Philadelphia's archbishop Charles Caput is accused of using mafia-like tactics against a state lawmaker who stands in support of child victims of sexual abuse.In an email to Pennsylvania state representative Jamie Santora, the archbishop accused the elected official of betraying the church. The email went on to say that Santora would suffer consequences for supporting legislation designed to provide victims of child sexual abuse with the justice they'deserve.The bill which provoked the vicious message from Caput would extend the amount of time that child sexual assault victims have to bring claims against their abusers.Under the'state's current law a victim of sexual assault only has until his or her 30th birthday to file a claim against the abuser. The legislation, which passed the'state's lower house in April, would extend the deadline until the victim's 50th birthday.According to The Intellectualist, Caput is heading up a lobbying effort against the bill.The email provoked the wrath of state lawmakers on both sides of political aisle.Republican state legislator Mike Vereb, who is also a Catholic, accused the archbishop of using mafia-like tactics against lawmakers, saying: This mob boss approach of having legislators called out, he really went right up to the line. He is going down a road that is frankly dangerous for the'status of the church in terms of it being a non-profit. The Catholic church has no business engaging in any type of lobbying activity. In order to maintain its tax-exempt status, a church is strictly prohibited from engaging in political activity.The letter that Caput sent out is a prime example of the kind of religious bullying the Establishment Clause was put in place to prevent.Given the Catholic Church's history of child sexual abuse, Caput's email accusing Santora of betraying the church would indicate that the church is aware that many more victims exist.It seems clear that the church would prefer those victims never receive the justice they'deserve.Image credit via Michal on Flickr

0true

Parents who immigrated illegally to the United States and now fear deportation under the Trump administration are inundating immigration advocates with requests for help in securing care for their children in the event they are expelled from the country. The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles advocacy group has been receiving about _NUMBER_ requests a day from parents who want to put in place temporary guardianships for their children, said spokesman Jorge-Mario Cabrera. Last year, the group said it received about two requests a month for guardianship letters and notarization services. At the request of a nonprofit organization, the National Lawyers Guild in Washington D.C. put out a call this week for volunteer attorneys to help immigrants fill out forms granting friends or relatives the right to make legal and financial decisions in their absence. In New Jersey, immigration attorney Helen Ramirez said she is getting about six phone calls a day from parents. Last year, she said, she had no such calls. "Their biggest fear is that their kids will end up in foster care," Ramirez said. President Donald Trump's administration has issued directives to agents to more aggressively enforce immigration laws and more immigrants are coming under scrutiny by the authorities. For parents of U.S. citizens who are ordered removed, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency "accommodates, to the extent practicable, the parents' efforts to make provisions" for their children, said ICE spokeswoman Sarah Rodriguez. She said that might include access to a lawyer, consular officials and relatives for detained parents to execute powers of attorney or apply for passports and buy airline tickets if the parents decide whether or not to take the children with them. Randy Capps of the Migration Policy Institute , a Washington-based non-profit that analyzes the movement of people worldwide, said that while putting contingency plans in place is a good idea, he does not think the level of fear is justified. During the previous administration of President Barack Obama, a Democrat, the likelihood of both parents being deported was slim, Capps said. He doubts there will be a huge shift under Republican Trump toward deporting both parents. "The odds are still very low but not as low as they were – and this is just the beginning of the administration," he said. About five million children under the age of _NUMBER_ are living with at least one parent who is in the country illegally, according to a _NUMBER_ study by MPI. Most of the children, _NUMBER_ percent, were U.S. citizens, the study found. In the second half of _NUMBER_, ICE removed _NUMBER_ parents who said they have at least one U.S.-born child, according to ICE data. Obama was criticized for being the "deporter in chief" after he expelled more than _NUMBER_ people in _NUMBER_, the most by any president in a single year. In _NUMBER_, the Obama administration began focusing on a narrower slice of immigrants, those who had recently entered the country or committed serious felonies. Trump has said he would still prioritize criminals for deportation. In rural New Jersey, Seidy Martinez and her husband Jose Gomez have begun the difficult conversations with their _NUMBER_-year-old daughter about what would happen if her parents were deported. Martinez, a house cleaner, and Gomez, who works on a horse farm, are both from Honduras. They entered the United States illegally, and do not have papers, unlike their daughter, who has been granted asylum, and their _NUMBER_-year-old son, a U.S. citizen. "Now we are worried all the time. We don't have anything that would allow us to stay here," said Martinez. "Our main concern is what will happen to our children." She has told her daughter that she could live with her aunt in Miami and is considering drafting paperwork that would give her relative some legal rights if she and her husband are deported. The _NUMBER_-year old tries to comfort her mother. "She tells me, 'Mami, tranquila. Don't be afraid, I am scared too but don't worry everything will be OK.'" Rebecca Kitson, an immigration attorney in Albuquerque, New Mexico, says she advises her increasingly nervous clients to have the kind of conversations Martinez and her husband are having with their children. She said she urges parents to be specific in their instructions. "If Mom doesn't come home by a specific time, who do call?" said Kitson. Immigration groups are offering low-cost services. CHIRLA, for example, offers a free sample letter and help filling it out, which then must be notarized at a cost of about _CUR_10. But some parents here illegally say they have had trouble finding affordable help. Melvin Arias, _NUMBER_, a New Jersey landscaper from Costa Rica who entered the United States illegally _NUMBER_ years ago, said he decided after hearing news of stepped-up immigration enforcement to take legal precautions for his five-year-old son and six-month old daughter, who are both U.S. citizens. But when he asked for help from two different lawyers, Arias was told preparing legal documents would cost him between _CUR_700 and _CUR_1,250. He is looking for a cheaper way to obtain the paperwork he needs. "If there comes a time when both of us have a problem, I want there to be a responsible person who can come and get for us, to take them to wherever we might be," Arias said.

1fake

Barack Obama implored members of Congress to have the courage not to repeal the Affordable Care Act Sunday night.The former president made his first public remarks about the proposed health care legislation just days after House Republicans voted to pass the measure _NUMBER_ to _NUMBER_. If it passes the Senate, it would repeal and replace major parts of Obamacare.During his speech, Obama also lauded the Democratic members of Congress who voted in favor of the Affordable Cart Act in _NUMBER_ and then lost their seats because of it. These men and women did the right thing, the hard thing, and theirs was a profile in courage, and because of that vote, _NUMBER_ million people got health insurance that didn't have it before. Daily Caller

0true

Four of Washington's largest business lobby groups urged Congress in a letter on Wednesday to settle their differences on government spending so they can move forward on overhauling the U.S. tax code in the next year. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable, the National Association of Manufacturers and the National Federation of Independent Businesses penned a joint letter calling for lawmakers to adopt a budget for next year that would allow them to begin work on changing the tax code. "In our view, given the historic opportunity before Congress, no other reforms under consideration rise to the importance of pro-growth, comprehensive tax reform," the letter states. The budget process hit a delay this week after conservative Republicans in the House continued to demand billions of dollars in cuts to the spending outline. Passing a budget is vital to begin the process of rewriting the tax code because it permits a procedural maneuver that will allow Republicans to pass a tax bill without the support of Democrats. President Donald Trump has made tax reform a key goal for this year. Additionally, Congress has become bogged down in trying to repeal Obamacare, a process that was delayed again this week and has been blamed for the inability to move on to tax reform. The joint letter urged Congress not to let other fights, alluding to health care, prevent tax reform from being completed this year.

1fake

Gut-wrenching behavior from a party who hasn't been challenged for the betrayal of their party in decades. You don't even have to be a fan of Trump's to find this story disturbing on so many levels There are so many intriguing twists in this NYT story about behind-the-scenes efforts to stop Trump that you ll save time by skipping this post and reading it yourself. This is the'showstopper, though:While still hopeful that Mr. Rubio might prevail, Mr. McConnell has begun preparing senators for the prospect of a Trump nomination, assuring them that, if it threatened to harm them in the general election, they could run negative ads about Mr. Trump to create space between him and Republican senators seeking re-election. Mr. McConnell has raised the possibility of treating Mr. Trump's loss as a given and describing a Republican Senate to voters as a necessary check on a President Hillary Clinton, according to senators at the lunches.He has reminded colleagues of his own _NUMBER_ re-election campaign, when he won comfortably amid President Bill Clinton's easy re-election. Of Mr. Trump, Mr. McConnell has said, We ll drop him like a hot rock, according to his colleagues. I don't know where to begin. For starters, the fact that McConnell thinks Trump losing to Hillary is a given explains a lot about why Republicans got caught so flat-footed by Trump in the primary. It's not a given. He may lose but he won't get blown out. If we've learned nothing else over the eight years, we've learned that there's no such thing as an easy race for Hillary Clinton. Trump will start the campaign as an underdog with poisonous favorables but he's superb at staying on offense, as we've seen over the past _NUMBER_ hours and he ll have endless attacks to pursue against Hillary to fuel the offensive. His alpha-male shtick may get a long look from centrist Democrats too, especially men who are worried about having a woman commander-in-chief for whatever reason.Beyond that, let me blow your minds by gently countering some bedrock conservative conventional wisdom: The media will not cut off Trump's insta-access to their airwaves the day after he clinches the nomination in the name of helping Hillary. The idea that they will is treated as the most elementary fact among righties I know, but there's nothing the media loves more than a circus and Trump is just one big orange-y circus. Their coverage will turn more skeptical, surely, and he might not get quite the'same amount of anytime-day-or-night call-in opportunities that he has now, but you're kidding yourself if you think Joe Scarborough will turn down a request from the Republican nominee to spend an hour of airtime gladhanding him. Trump is the ultimate shiny object. He delivers ratings. Hillary will need to figure out a way to counter that.So no, it's not a given that he ll lose. But even if it were, how would an incumbent GOP senator whose seat is up benefit from alienating Trump fans by running attack ads against the party's own nominee? That's insane. Via: Hot Air

1fake

Donald Trump has frequently been compared to authoritarian leaders, but this recent comparison by Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe is just the thing we need to hear after Trump's horrendous performance on Monday night's presidential debate.Radcliffe happens to know a lot about evil leaders, having become an expert on them in Harry Potter. Especially after spending a lot of time with the film's own Lord Voldemort, the villain who is hellbent on putting non-magical humans in servitude forever. Hmm that sounds an awful lot like a horrible time period in American history that Donald Trump would like to return this country to In an interview with the U.K.'s Sky News, Radcliffe actually compared Trump to Voldemort, stating that the Republican nominee has a lot in common with the Dark Lord however, there are also big differences. And as a matter of fact, that's actually a BAD thing for Trump. It turns out, Radcliffe thinks that Trump is worse than Voldemort. The actor said: I sort of think Donald Trump might not be as ideologically pure as Voldemort. My thing on Trump is that he feels like more of an opportunist, like I don't know how much of this stuff he's saying he actually really, really believes. Radcliffe also called out Trump's racism, stating that Trump is an opportunist that uses his divisive rhetoric to gain power. You can watch the interview below:Daniel Radcliffe has revealed why Donald Trump and Voldemort aren't so similar to _USER_'s Craig Dillon _URL_ Sky News September _NUMBER_, 2016Hilariously, this isn't the first time that Trump has been compared to a fictional villain. It turns out that Trump is almost a dead ringer for Immortan Joe from Mad Max: Fury Road! I mean, these two could really be the'same guy:TwitterFeatured image via Joe Raedle and Harry Potter

0true

Former NBC television host Billy Bush accused U.S. President Donald Trump of "indulging in some revisionist history" for reportedly telling allies it was not his voice making lewd remarks as the men waited to film a segment for "Access Hollywood" in _NUMBER_. "He said it. 'Grab 'em by the pussy,'" Bush wrote in an editorial published in the New York Times on Sunday. The New York Times reported last month that Trump has been privately telling aides and allies, including at least one U.S. senator, that the voice on the recording was not his. That would be a reversal from his immediate acknowledgement of responsibility after the tape surfaced weeks ahead of the _NUMBER_ presidential election. Trump said: "I said it, I was wrong, and I apologize." Reuters has not been able to verify the Times report that he has been privately telling allies a different story. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Bush's remarks. But White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders played down the Times report at a White House briefing on Nov. _NUMBER_. "The President hasn't changed his position. I think if anything that the president questions, it's the media's reporting on that accuracy," Sanders said. Bush laughed on the video as Trump spoke and he lost his job as a host of NBC's flagship morning "Today" show after the tape was leaked to the media in October, upending Trump's campaign to become president.

0true

The state of Hawaii on Thursday asked a federal judge in Honolulu to clarify a U.S. Supreme Court ruling this week which reinstated parts of President Donald Trump's revised travel ban. In a court filing, the state of Hawaii said the U.S. government intended to violate the Supreme Court's instructions by improperly excluding from the United States people who actually have a close family relationship to U.S. persons.

1fake

A strikingly high percentage of refugees to the United States use some form of public assistance, according to a government report to Congress.The Office of Refugee Resettlement's Annual Report to Congress for FY2013 reveals that nearly _NUMBER_ of _NUMBER_ refugees were on food stamps.Additionally, nearly half were on some form of cash assistance and more than a half were on medical assistance. More than _NUMBER_ percent were on Supplemental Security Income, more than _NUMBER_ percent were in public housing and nearly _NUMBER_ percent were on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families .The report noted that many households received more than one type of assistance and the data dealt with refugees who arrived in the U.S. between March _NUMBER_, _NUMBER_ to February _NUMBER_, _NUMBER_.To be sure, assistance use varied among region of origin.Refugees from Africa and the Middle East were the heaviest users of cash assistance at _NUMBER_ percent and _NUMBER_ percent respectively. Latin American refugees only used cash assistance at a rate of _NUMBER_ percent and South Asia used about _NUMBER_ percent. Data for Europe and the former Soviet Union was not available.The use of food stamps or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program also varied with _NUMBER_ percent of refugees from Africa, _NUMBER_ percent of Middle Eastern refugees, the Middle East, _NUMBER_ percent of South Asia, and _NUMBER_ percent of Latin American refugees using the benefit.Overall, according to the report just _NUMBER_ percent of refugee households in the five year window were self-sufficient. Approximately _NUMBER_ percent of all sampled refugee households in the _NUMBER_ survey were entirely self-sufficient , the report reads. About _NUMBER_ percent lived on a combination of public assistance and earned income; another eight percent received only public assistance. Via: Breitbart News

0true

The U.S. Ambassador to Moscow, John Tefft, has "expressed his strong disappointment and protest" over Russia's decision to cut U.S. diplomatic staff in Moscow and seize a dacha compound and warehouse used by American diplomats, a State Department official said on Friday. Russia's moves came a day after the U.S. Senate voted to slap new sanctions on Russia, putting President Donald Trump in a tough position by forcing him to take a hard line against Moscow or veto the legislation and anger his own Republican Party. "We have received the Russian government notification," a State Department official said on condition of anonymity. "Ambassador Tefft expressed his strong disappointment and protest."

0true

A British tourist who caused a security scare at a Donald Trump campaign rally in Las Vegas in June by trying to grab a gun from a police officer pleaded guilty on Tuesday to charges of illegal weapon possession and disorderly conduct, court papers showed. Michael Steven Sandford, _NUMBER_, admitted as part of his plea deal with prosecutors that he had approached a policeman at the event, saying he wanted an autograph from the presidential candidate, then tried to pull the officer's gun from his holster with both hands, the papers said. Sandford, who had by then overstayed his tourist visa by about _NUMBER_ months, was immediately arrested and removed from the rally. He also acknowledged having visited a Las Vegas gun range the day before the June _NUMBER_ incident at the Treasure Island casino-hotel, to take shooting lessons with a rented Glock handgun, firing _NUMBER_ rounds at a paper target, court papers showed. No mention was made in the plea agreement about whether Sandford intended to harm Trump, then the presumptive Republican nominee in the U.S. presidential race. In the initial June _NUMBER_ criminal complaint stemming from the incident, prosecutors said Sandford had told a U.S. Secret Service agent he had driven to Las Vegas from California with the aim of shooting Trump. On June _NUMBER_, Sandford was charged with felony counts of being an illegal alien in possession of a firearm and disrupting government business, but he was not accused of plotting to kill Trump. At Tuesday's hearing in federal court in Las Vegas, Sandford pleaded guilty to those two charges, each of which carry a maximum penalty of _NUMBER_ years in prison and a _CUR_250,000 fine, the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a statement. Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. _NUMBER_. Brenda Weksler, one of Sandford's federal public defenders, declined to comment.

0true

The chairman of the Republican National Committee sought on Friday to tamp down talk among some Republicans about the possibility of running a third-party candidate who would give party supporters a choice beyond Donald Trump. In an interview, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said a third-party candidate would have no hope of actually winning the Nov. _NUMBER_ presidential election but would instead ensure victory for the Democratic nominee. "They may as well jump off the top floor of a building because that's what we'd be doing by having a third party," Priebus said. Priebus has been a vocal advocate for party loyalists to get over their concerns about Trump and support him since he is on track to become the presidential nominee and stands as the only real option for Republicans to win the White House. He brought Trump together with House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan for a meeting in Washington on Thursday to try to ease Ryan's concerns about backing the billionaire. Ryan stopped short of endorsing Trump but said the session was productive. Priebus said the two men have opened a dialogue. "My guess is they may even be talking today and through the weekend ," he said. Priebus said a Democratic victory would allow Democrats to reshape the conservative majority on the Supreme Court. If Republican donors sit on the sidelines, Democrats could also take over control of the U.S. Senate, he said. "If you don't participate in the presidential election you might as well kiss away the Senate as well," Priebus said in a message directed at Republican donors unenthusiastic about Trump. "The Senate goes as the presidential race goes. They're inextricably intertwined." Some Republicans continue to hold out hope that a leading figure in the party could be persuaded to run for president as a third-party candidate to give party voters uncomfortable with Trump a candidate to rally around. Some speculation has centered around _NUMBER_ nominee Mitt Romney, who has been a frequent critic of Trump. Just this week Romney said Trump should release his tax records, a public disclosure move that Romney made in _NUMBER_ but which Trump has been resisting. Some Republicans have been urging Romney to launch an independent bid for the presidency. He discussed the issue last week with William Kristol, editor of the conservative-leaning Weekly Standard magazine, a source close to Romney said.

1fake

It's Fox News, but that doesn't mean that everyone is blindly following Donald Trump. Anchor Megyn Kelly fell off the Trump train right about the time of the first Republican presidential debate of the'season, after which Trump accused Kelly of having blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever, all because she dared ask about Trump's history of sexism.It's been more than a year since that debate, and in that time, Trump the'sexist has come front and center, especially after Trump was caught on a hot mic, saying that he likes to grab women by the pussy, and to confirm Trump's own words, nearly a dozen women are now accusing the'self-described billionaire of sexual misconduct.Kelly, when interviewing Trump'surrogate Newt Gingrich, suggested that Trump is a sexual predator. At that point, the interview went off the rails. Gingrich became very angry and said to Kelly,Kelly responded in the best way possible, I m not fascinated by sex, but I am fascinated by the protection of women and what we are getting in the oval office. Every woman knows that when a man tells a woman she's fascinated by sex, he's not saying it in a way that means she d be welcome in Trump's locker room not at all. When a man tells a woman she's fascinated by sex, especially in an argumentative context, he's calling her a whore. While that statement might not have the'same bite in _NUMBER_ that it might have had when Gingrich was young, the intent is there. Gingrich is trying to discredit Kelly in the exact same way that Trump is trying to discredit his alleged victims. A woman liking sex is still used as a defense in rape trials. While men grabbing pussy, or talking about grabbing pussy, is just boys being boys. Women talking about sex is taboo and any woman who dares talk about sex deserve whatever they have coming to them.Believe it or not, that exchange was the most rational part. In the now familiar Trump tactic of I know you are but what am I, Gingrich went on to call Bill Clinton a sexual predator. He even tried subtly bullying Kelly into say the words, Bill Clinton sexual predator.' Kelly went on to say that on her show, they've covered the Bill Clinton story and that she's interviewed Kathleen Willey, who has accused Clinton of rape .Here's the video:Gingrich has a grudge against Clinton, to be sure. If you'recall, the former Speaker of the House was one of architects of the Clinton impeachment, which only served to boost Clinton's popularity while it seriously hurt Congress s.Ironically, Gingrich and the other two Speakers who presided during the impeachment investigation and trials, were all sexual predators. Dennis Hastert molested boys while a wrestling coach in Illinois and Bob Livingston had a string of affairs. Gingrich was cheating on his second wife. Before that, though, Gingrich earned the title of sexual predator, at least that's what he's accused of:One former aide describes approaching a car with Gingrich's daughters in hand, only to find the candidate with a woman, her head buried in his lap. The aide quickly turned and led the girls away. Another former friend maintains that Gingrich repeatedly made sexual advances to her when her husband was out of town. On one occasion, he visited under the guise of comforting her after the death of a relative, and instead tried to seduce her. In certain circles in the mid-1970s, Gingrich was developing a reputation as a ladies man.Source: SalonOh, and he also served his first wife her divorce papers while she was recovering from cancer surgery. Yes, he and Trump are a perfect match.

0true

The Democratic leader in the U.S. House of Representatives said on Friday there was no question President Donald Trump abused his power in interactions with former FBI Director James Comey but she said it remained to be see if he had obstructed justice. Speaking to reporters a day after Comey testified to the Senate intelligence panel, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said it was "beyond the pale" that Trump had asked Comey, then head of the independent law enforcement agency, for his loyalty. "There's no question he abused power," Pelosi said. "Whether he obstructed justice, remains for the facts to come forward, and that's what we want are the facts."

1fake

Less than _NUMBER_ hours after Trump's press secretary Sean Spicer said the president was extremely confident that his accusations against Obama for wiretapping Trump Tower would be proven correct, the House Intelligence Committee scheduled a press conference to say they found zero evidence that this happened. Absolutely zero.House Intel Chair Devin Nunes has been a strong Trump'supporter and has repeatedly flirted with launching a full-fledged investigation into Trump's claims that Obama spied on him. Instead, after a week of complete nonsense, Nunes said he and his committee are confident there was not an actual tap of Trump Tower. This directly contradicts Trump's unfounded accusation:How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad guy! Donald J. Trump March _NUMBER_, 2017Despite repeated calls to provide evidence, Trump has not done so. Nunes said in light of the lack of evidence, he isn't buying it.GOP House Intel Chair on Trump's claim: We don't have any evidence that took place I don't think there was an actual tap of Trump Tower _URL_ Bradd Jaffy March _NUMBER_, 2017Trump has failed to provide any details about the allegations he made against Obama. According to a timeline of events and also staffers within the White House, Trump got his information which would implicate Obama in a major felony from a story run on white nationalist website Breitbart, which, in turn, had lifted the conspiracy theory almost verbatim from a conservative radio host named Mark Levin. Neither Breitbart nor Levin bothered to offer any proof for these allegations. So it's painfully obvious that Trump is a unrepentant liar, but being a Republican hack meant Nunes couldn't let it go at that. He had to try to paint Obama as sinister in other ways. Rather than admit his president is a liar who made these allegations without a shred of proof, Nunes expanded his definition of spying to include the incidental collection of Americans that were possibly tied to Trump's campaign. He hoped this would mean Americans would see that as an intrusion of Trump's privacy.Which is extremely weird because that only goes to show the uncomfortable relationships between Trump and the Russians during the campaign. The very fact that their were incidental collections of information on Trump's staffers was because those staffers were communicating with Russian operatives who were under surveillance. This would be like having a chat with an ISIS leader then being mad that the CIA listened in.Ironically, that makes Trump and his goons look much worse than either Obama or the CIA.So how does Nunes sleep at night knowing he's supporting a president who is at best a pathological liar? He said he's not sure Trump was being literal when he accused Obama of the worst political crime since Watergate:House Intel Chair Devin Nunes: Are you going to take the tweets literally? And if you are, then clearly the president is wrong. via _USER_ _URL_ Kyle Griffin March _NUMBER_, 2017Featured image via Twitter

0true

The war in the Philippine city of Marawi saw Islamist insurgents execute civilians or use them as human shields, while military air strikes killed non-combatants and may have been used in excess, an Amnesty International report said on Friday. The investigation by the rights group on the bloody five-month battle was based on interviews with _NUMBER_ witnesses from September until early November and called for an independent inquiry. The conflict in Marawi, the only predominantly Muslim city in the mainly Catholic Philippines, was the country's biggest and longest battle since World War Two. More than _NUMBER_ people, mostly insurgents, were killed, including _NUMBER_ soldiers and _NUMBER_ civilians, according to the authorities. At least _NUMBER_ people were displaced and large parts of Marawi have been decimated by air strikes. Witnesses described at least _NUMBER_ separate incidents where at least _NUMBER_ people were executed by the Muslim extremists because they were Christians. Amnesty described those as war crimes. It also said _NUMBER_ hostages may have been killed in a single bombing run by the armed forces, and said an independent inquiry should include an assessment as to whether the air strikes were proportionate to the threat. They must initiate a prompt, effective and impartial investigation into whether its bombings of civilian neighborhoods was proportional under international humanitarian law, Tirana Hassan, Amnesty International's crisis response director, said in a statement. The Philippine authorities must bring those responsible for torture and other violations to justice and ensure that the victims receive adequate reparations. Major-General Restituto Padilla, armed forces spokesman, said the military was aware of the report and would respond in full later. He said troops were given strict instructions to observe and respect international humanitarian law and human rights. We will not tolerate and condone these abuses and will act on them, he told a regular news briefing on Friday. The _NUMBER_-page report, The Battle of Marawi: Death and destruction in the Philippines , quotes a survivor who said he was spared by rebels because he could recite the shahada , a statement of Islamic faith, but a Christian ambulance driver was shot dead because he could not do the same. Other survivors said hostages were executed or physically abused, forced into labor and used as human shields. Some hostages who escaped alleged they were detained and tortured by security forces who suspected them to be militants. Amnesty said it talked to eight men, including seven Christians, who said they were badly treated by the authorities. I was punched and kicked. They tied our hands and feet with electrical wire, the report quoted one survivor as saying. The military was angry because _NUMBER_ of their men were killed. Last month, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis praised the Philippine military for ending the war without a single credible human rights abuse allegation. Amnesty noted that the military was responding to concerns about looting by soldiers but must follow through on promises of compensation .

1fake

1fake

CNN anchor Don Lemon got snarky during reporting on Republican Karen Handel's win in Georgia's 6th District. He made a claim that this is pretty much no big deal. That's funny The Democrats spent _NUMBER_ million dollars and went all in on this election but are now downplaying or making excuses for the loss. Lemon should do his homework: Donald Trump won'the 6th District by slim margins in the _NUMBER_ election. This was a HUGE win for Republicans!_URL_ said, What's interesting is that, breaking news, a Republican wins in Georgia, it shouldn't be breaking news. This is the way it should happen. But the fact, David, that it was so close, at least it appeared in the polling and in the results, as well. The results are actually really close. He then asked, What does this say about the'state of affairs, especially the Trump is there a mandate for Donald Trump? Will he keep his support? Will it stay the'same? Are Democrats looking at this as necessarily a loss, or they got close and maybe there's hope for them in the midterms? THE DEMOCRAT DELUSION CONTINUES

0true

U.S. gas exporters and traders are aiming to grab a bigger chunk of the lucrative, growing business of exporting gas to China, the world's third-largest buyer, when they accompany Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to China next month. But the talk may all be hot air if the U.S. suppliers can t compete with bargain prices agreed on long-term deals with rivals Australia, Qatar and Malaysia. According to a list seen by Reuters, _NUMBER_ of the _NUMBER_ companies traveling with Ross and U.S President Donald Trump are involved in energy and gas. Among them are Cheniere Energy Inc, which operates the only U.S. LNG export terminal and Freepoint Commodities, founded and run by David Messer, who led power utility Sempra's vaunted commodities division. Their presence underscores the U.S. ambition to sell more of its excess gas abroad as the U.S. shale revolution threatens to upset the global LNG market. China's appetite has soared as it embarks on an audacious bid to heat millions of homes across the north by gas for the first time this winter and switch tens of thousands of industrial boilers to the cleaner fuel as part of its push to clear the skies. Without sufficient domestic output to meet growing demand, imports have surged this year, offering huge potential for major exporting nations such as the United States. We re on the mission to talk to Chinese companies to get something signed up, said Frederick Jones, founder and chief executive of Delfin Midstream LLC, which is building floating LNG vessels that would sit _NUMBER_ miles off the coast of Louisiana. He's heading to Beijing on the trip scheduled to begin on Nov. _NUMBER_ with his chief financial officer Matthew Weil. Delfin has no customers yet for its new terminal, but hopes to showcase the company to state-owned and large private companies. Delfin has been in talks with Chinese buyers for potential offtake deals as well as funds for financing, according to a person with knowledge of the exchanges. A Chinese oil trading executive involved in discussions ahead of the trip expected the delegation to yield several short-term supply deals. In May, the United States and China agreed to boost trade under the _NUMBER_-day trade talks aimed at reducing a U.S. trade deficit with China that reached _CUR_347 billion last year. Among the agreements is one allowing Chinese buyers to purchase long-term supplies from the United States directly. Current long-term contracts with Qatar and Australia signed between _NUMBER_ and _NUMBER_ will expire around _NUMBER_/_NUMBER_, but China will need to top up imports to meet growing demand. Uncertain when the global LNG market will bottom out, Chinese buyers are cautiously avoiding lining up new long-term contracts, but rather are looking at signing five-year or even shorter-term deals based on spot prices, sources said. U.S. imports of LNG have exploded this year. In the first nine months of the year, shipments hit almost _NUMBER_ tonnes, ranking the United States as the sixth largest LNG importer, leap-frogging Nigeria and Peru. The average price China paid for U.S. LNG was _CUR_7.62 per million of British thermal units over the past _NUMBER_ months on a delivered basis, compared to _CUR_6.54 for Australia, according to Reuters calculations based on monthly customs data. In _NUMBER_, China imported just under _NUMBER_ tonnes of LNG, up from _NUMBER_ tonnes in _NUMBER_. China expects that gas demand will rise to between _NUMBER_ and _NUMBER_ billion cubic metres per year by _NUMBER_. The increase is the equivalent of the annual consumption of Japan, Asia's second-largest gas consumer after China.

1fake

Even though the media and the their allies in the Democrat Party are maniacly focused on doing whatever it takes to bring down the popular Alabama GOP Senate candidate, only one month before the election, Judge Roy Moore still has a sizable lead in the most recent polls.Accusations from four decades ago, by women that range from a woman who worked for Hillary and promotes Democrat candidate for Senate, Doug Ross on Facebook, to a woman who has a history of accusing several pastors of sexual misconduct are suddenly coming out of the woodwork.One of Moore's accusers, Leigh Corfman apparently has a history of claiming pastors made sexual advances on her.Purportedly Moore's main accuser Leigh Corfman has had three divorces, filed for bankruptcy three times, and has been charged with multiple misdemeanors.Posts on Moore's FB page indicate that Corfman, has claimed several pastors at various churches made sexual advances at her. James Hirsen November _NUMBER_, 2017Another one of Moore's accusers Debbie Wesson Gibson wasn't clever enough to delete postings from her Facebook page that show she's a Hillary supporter, she hates President Trump and oh yeah, she asks her friends to vote for Moore's Democrat opponent, Doug Ross.Today, leftist media whore, Gloria Allred marched another accuser, Beverly Young Nelson, out in front of the cameras with a four decades old story about how she was sexually assaulted by Roy Moore. This time, however, Roy Moore, and his wife Kayla are not just sitting back and watching his reputation be destroyed by the liberal machine. Watch, as Moore and his wife come out swinging, at the lies being told by the latest accuser. Roy Moore tells the crowd of his supporters and the media, I don't even know the woman. I don't even know where the restaurant was or is. :Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore and his wife, Kayla Moore, react to new sexual misconduct allegations brought against him by an Alabama woman, Beverly Young Nelson, who claims Moore assaulted her when she was _NUMBER_ years old _URL_ Breaking911 November _NUMBER_, 2017Moore's wife Kayla, who is planning to sue the Washington Post, reminded her friends on Facebook that the media whore lawyer Gloria Allred tried the'same stunt with Donald Trump only months before the election:Gloria Allred is currently under two separate bar investigations for alleged misconduct:Anti-Trump Celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred is under two bar investigations _URL_ via _USER_ Jim Hoft November _NUMBER_, 2017Yesterday, this letter was published by dozens of pastors, who came to the defense of Judge Roy Moore:Pastor's LetterDear friends and fellow Alabamians, For decades, Roy Moore has been an immovable rock in the culture wars a bold defender of the little guy, a just judge to those who came before his court, a warrior for the unborn child, defender of the'sanctity of marriage, and a champion for religious liberty. Judge Moore has stood in the gap for us, taken the brunt of the attack, and has done so with a rare, unconquerable resolve. As a consequence of his unwavering faith in God and his immovable convictions for Biblical principles, he was ousted as Chief Justice in _NUMBER_. As a result, he continued his life pursuit by starting the Foundation for Moral Law, which litigates religious liberty cases around our Nation. After being re-elected again'to Chief Justice in _NUMBER_, by an overwhelming majority, he took another round of persecution for our faith as he'stood up for the'sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman. You can know a man by his enemies, and he's made plenty from the radical organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center and the ACLU to the liberal media and a handful of establishment politicians from Washington. He has friends too, a lot of them. They live all across this great State, work hard all week, and fill our pews on Sunday. They know him as a father, a grandfather, a man who loves God's Word and knows much of it by heart, a man who cares for the people, a man who understands our Constitution in the tradition of our Founding Fathers, and a man who deeply loves America. It's no wonder the Washington establishment has declared all-out war on his campaign. We are ready to join the fight and send a bold message to Washington: dishonesty, fear of man, and immorality are an affront to our convictions and our Savior and we won't put up with it any longer. We urge you to join us at the polls to cast your vote for Roy Moore. In your service, Dr. Tom Ford, III, Pastor, Grace Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama Pastor Stan Cooke, Kimberly Church of God, Kimberly, Alabama Pastor Jonathan Rodgers, Dothan, Alabama Pastor Joseph Smith, Pine Air Baptist Church, Grand Bay Alabama Dr. David E. Gonnella, Pastor, Theodore, Alabama Pastor Mike Allison, Madison, Alabama Dr. Terry Batton, Christian Renewal and Development Ministries, Eufaula, Alabama Pastors Tim and Elizabeth Hanson, Smiths Station, Alabama Pastor Mark Liddle, Dominion Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama Pastor Steve Sanders, Victory Baptist Church, Millbrook, Alabama Dr. Richard Fox, retired Baptist pastor Dr. Randy Cooper, Pastor, Warrior, Alabama William Green, Minister, Fresh Anointing House of Worship, Montgomery, Alabama Maurice McCaney, Victory Christian Fellowship Church, Florence, Alabama Pastor Jamie Holcomb, Young's Chapel, Piedmont, Alabama Pastor Paul Elliott, Young's Chapel, Piedmont, Alabama Pastor Rodney Gilmore, Covenant Christian, Gadsden, Alabama Pastor Mark Gidley, Faith Worship Center, Gadsden, Alabama Pastor Bill Snow, Edgewood Church, Anniston, Alabama Pastor Michael Yates, Webster's Chapel, Gadsden, Alabama Pastor Mark Holden, Webster's Chapel, Gadsden, Alabama Pastor Joshua Copeland, Pleasant Ridge Baptist Church, Anniston, Alabama Pastor Bruce Jenkins, Young's Chapel, Piedmont, Alabama Pastor Keith Bond, Young's Chapel, Piedmont, Alabama Pastor Jim Lester, Fannin Road Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama Pastor Thad Endicott, Heritage Baptist Church, Opelika, Alabama Bishop Fred and Tijuanna Adetunji, Fresh Anointing House of Worship, Montgomery, Alabama Pastor David Floyd, Marvyn Parkway Baptist Church, Opelika, Alabama Pastor Bruce Word, Freedom Church, Gadsden, Alabama Pastor Paul Hubbard, Lakeview Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama Rev. Carl Head, Lakeview Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama Pastor Duwayne Bridges, Jr., Fairfax First Christian Church, Valley, Alabama Rev. Edwin Roberts, Adams Street Church of Christ, Enterprise, Alabama Pastor John McCrummen, Open Door Baptist Church, Enterprise, Alabama Rev. Mickey Counts, Open Door Baptist Church, Enterprise, Alabama Rev. Alex Pagen, Open Door Baptist Church, Enterprise, Alabama Pastor Glenn Brock, Eufaula, Alabama Rev. Tim Head, Montgomery, Alabama Pastor/Elder Ted Phillips, Christ Church, Odenville, Alabama Tim Yarbrough, Elder, Trinity Free Presbyterian, Trinity, Alabama Pastor Myron Mooney, Trinity Free Presbyterian, Trinity, Alabama Jerry Frank, Elder, Trinity Free Presbyterian, Trinity, Alabama Pastor Jim Nelson, Church of the Living God, Moulton, Alabama Pastor Earl Wise, Millbrook, Alabama Rick and Beverly Simpson, Summit Holiness Church, Alabama Pastor Lane Simmons and Margie Dale Simmons, First Assembly of God, Greenville Alabama Rev. Charles Morris, Pastor Grace Way Fellowship, Evergreen Alabama Dr. George Grant, Pastor, Parish Presbyterian Church Pastor David Whitney, Cornerstone Church Dr. Peter and Roseann Waldron, St. Francis Anglican Church Pastor Franklin and Mrs. Pamela Raddish, Capitol Hill Independent Baptist Ministries Dr. Michael Peroutka, Institute on the Constitution Reverend Bill Owens, Coalition of African American Pastors **Church names are listed for identification purposes onlyAfter the dust settles around what appears to be a coordinated assault by the left to destroy a man who they fear will take Jeff Sessions Senate seat in December, the voters in Alabama will have to decide who they believe.

1fake

What's a million dollars between friends? To hell with human rights violations Hillary's got a campaign to win!A major Clinton Foundation donor regularly arrests dissidents and brutally tortures them to extract confessions, according to a new report from Amnesty International.The New York Times reports that despite promises of reform, the Moroccan government continues to use violent interrogation tactics to crush dissent. Moroccan King Mohammed VI recently hosted Bill and Chelsea Clinton at a Clinton Global Initiative conference in Marrakech, where guests were chauffeured across the city to an opulent _NUMBER_-room palace that boasts a private collection of Arabian horses, overlooks the'snow-capped Atlas Mountains and serves a fine-dining menu of biolight cuisine, according to the Washington Post. During the conference Bill cited Morocco's longstanding friendship to my family, and thanked the king, who pledged as much as _CUR_500,000 toward the construction of the Clinton Library, as well as the OCP Corporation, a government-owned phosphate mining company that has donated at least _CUR_1 million to the Clinton Foundation. In interviews with POLITICO, former OCP miners described witnessing verbal and physical abuse doled out by the government against member of a minority advocating for independence in Western Sahara.Amnesty International secretary general Salil Shetty blasted the Moroccan government in a statement, saying: Morocco's leaders portray the image of a liberal, human-rights-friendly country. But as long as the threat of torture hangs over detention and dissent that image will just be a mirage. According to the report, Moroccan dissidents are repeatedly subjected to beatings, stress positions, asphyxiation, simulated drowning, psychological and sexual violence, as a means of securing confessions for alleged crimes against the'state. One tactic, known as the roast chicken, involves suspending detainees from an iron bar by their wrists and knees. It is not known whether Bill Clinton met with any Moroccan detainees while hobnobbing at the Clinton Foundation event, which featured a lavish palm-tree-lined golf resort with a cocktail reception featuring Moroccan hors d oeuvres and a saxophonist serenading about _NUMBER_ donors. Via: Washington Free Beacon

0true

Boxy Russian-built Lada automobiles still rattle around Cuba, growing more decrepit by the year, a reminder of vanished Soviet patronage for the Communist-led island. But next month, more than _NUMBER_ shiny new Ladas are slated to roll onto Havana's potholed streets, the first in more than a decade. Their manufacturer Avtovaz, Russia's biggest carmaker, says it hopes to ramp up exports, thanks to financing from Russian government development bank VEB. Flush with state funding, Avtovaz and other Russian companies are once again increasing sales to the Caribbean isle. It is part of a broader move by Moscow to renew commercial, military and political ties just as the U.S. government is retreating from Cuba under Republican President Donald Trump. Russian exports to Cuba jumped _NUMBER_ percent on the year to _CUR_225 million in the January-September period, official Russian data shows. That is just a quarter of the exports of Cuba's chief merchandise trading partner, China, but growing fast. Russian state oil major Rosneft in May resumed fuel shipments to Cuba for the first time this century. The company's head met with Cuban President Raul Castro in Havana on Saturday, the latest sign the two countries are readying a major energy agreement. The nations in the past have discussed increased deliveries of Russian oil to the island and development of Cuba's offshore oil fields. That would be a major assist for Cuba amid slumping shipments of cheap fuel from its troubled socialist ally Venezuela. Last month, private Russian company Sinara delivered the first of _NUMBER_ locomotives worth _CUR_190 million ordered by Cuba in _NUMBER_. Russia's largest truck maker KAMAZ has also stepped up exports to Cuba. Negotiations for rail lines and other infrastructure are in the works. We can call this period a renaissance, Aleksandr Bogatyr, Russia's trade representative in Cuba, said in an interview. He forecast bilateral trade could grow to _CUR_350 million to _CUR_400 million this year, one of its highest levels in nearly two decades, up from _CUR_248 million in _NUMBER_. Russia's Cuba offensive comes as Trump has halted efforts by his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama to normalize U.S.-Cuba ties and ease the decades-old U.S. trade embargo. In June, Trump ordered tighter travel and commercial restrictions again, disappointing U.S. businesses that had hoped to capitalize on the detente. In September, his administration slashed U.S. embassy staffing in Cuba. Moscow is seizing on that rollback as a way to undermine U.S. influence in its own backyard, some foreign policy experts say. Russia sees it as a moment to further its own relationship with Cuba, said Jason Marczak, Director at the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center. The more the Russian footprint increase in Cuba, the more that will reinforce hardened anti-U.S. attitudes and shut out U.S. businesses from eventually doing greater business in Cuba. Throughout the Cold War, Moscow propped up Fidel Castro's revolutionary government, providing it with billions of dollars worth of cheap grain, machinery and other goods. Those subsidies disappeared with the _NUMBER_ collapse of the Soviet Union. Trade plunged. Under Russian President Vladimir Putin, who longs to return his nation to superpower status, Moscow over the past decade has sought to revive relations with Latin America, particularly with countries wary of U.S. influence. The turnaround with Cuba got a boost in _NUMBER_ when Russia forgave _NUMBER_ percent of Cuba's _CUR_35 billion Soviet-era debt. It also started providing export financing to Russian companies looking to sell to the cash-strapped island. The help has been cheered in Cuba, where Raul Castro is due to step down next year, marking the departure of the generation that led the _NUMBER_ Cuban Revolution. Russia may lie half a world away from Cuba, but traces of its historic ties with the Caribbean's largest island are everywhere. Older generations learned Russian and studied in the Soviet Union. At a recent trade fair in the capital, Cubans spontaneously sung along to the folk music played at the opening of Russia's pavilion. Moskvich and Lada cars, Ural motor-bikes and Kamaz trucks chug along the streets. Most Cuban farm equipment is from the former Soviet Union. That legacy alone has sustained some Russian trade. We sell spare parts for ground transport, some planes, agriculture, construction, said Russian businessman Igor Leonov. He set up his import company, Ces Co. Ltd, in Cuba nearly thirty years ago and says there is plenty of demand. The decades-old U.S. trade embargo has also forced Cuba to remain loyal to some Russian manufacturers. The island upgraded its Soviet-era fleet in the 2000s with Russian-built Tupolev, Antonov and Ilyushin planes. Nadezhda Lesova, an executive at the Russian Export Center in Moscow, said her organization regarded Cuba as a strategic region. She said the center is providing support for exports to Cuba, including insurance, loans and subsidies, worth around _NUMBER_ million euros . Some major deals are under discussion. State-owned monopoly Russian Railways is negotiating to upgrade more than _NUMBER_ km of Cuban railroads and install a high-speed link between Havana and the beach resort of Varadero, in what would be Cuba's biggest infrastructure project in decades. It is expected the deal will be worth _NUMBER_ billion euros and will be signed by the end of the year, Oleg Nikolaev, Deputy Chief Executive Officer at the RZD subsidiary RZD International, told Reuters. In October, oil firm Rosneft said it was looking at modernizing the island's Cienfuegos oil refinery. But the optimistic talk could be overblown. Venezuela and China have announced investments in Cuba that came to naught, largely due to the complications of doing business in Cuba. Some Russian companies are already smarting from Cuba's cash crunch. Ces Co. Ltd, the parts importer, said Cuba was behind on _CUR_9 million in payments. And it is unclear how long Russia will continue to finance exports, with its own economy struggling amid low oil prices and Western sanctions. Russia's economic constraints are one reason analysts are dubious that Moscow will make good on recent proposals to re-open a former base in Cuba. Shuttered in _NUMBER_, the so-called Lourdes base was used for electronic surveillance of the United States. Still, U.S. military experts are concerned that Russia could leverage increased economic influence in Cuba to step up its military and espionage activities on the island. Sixteen high-ranking military officers wrote an open letter to the Trump administration in April asking it to continue Obama's opening with Cuba for national security reasons. If Russia is willing to offset oil supplies from Venezuela and some other things, maybe Cuba doesn t have much of a choice but to let them re-establish political warfare operations there, retired U.S. Army Brig. Gen. David L. McGinnis, one of the signatories, said in an interview with Reuters. Paul Hare, a former British ambassador to Cuba, sees Russia's renewed interest in Cuba as geostrategic. It's hard to see a business interest, as Cuba can t pay, said Hare, who now lectures at Boston University's Pardee School of Global Studies. The Russians will do just as much as they want to prop up Cuba so as to be a nuisance to the United States.

0true

President Donald Trump's commission investigating voter fraud may request voter roll data from U.S. states, a federal judge ruled on Monday, in a setback for groups that contend the effort could infringe on privacy rights. The judge said a lawsuit by the Electronic Privacy Information Center watchdog did not have grounds for an injunction in part because the collection of data by the commission was not technically an action by a government agency so was not bound by laws that govern what such entities can do. Washington-based U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly also pointed out that the commission was an advisory body that does not have legal authority to compel states to hand over the data. Most state officials who oversee elections and election law experts say that voter fraud is rare in the United States. Trump, who set up the commission by executive order on May _NUMBER_, has charged without evidence that millions voted unlawfully in the November presidential election. Republican Trump won the Electoral College, which tallies wins in states and determines the presidential winner. But he lost the popular vote to his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. "We look forward to continuing to work with state election leaders to gather information and identify opportunities to improve election integrity," the commission's vice chair Kris Kobach said in a statement after Monday's ruling. Kobach is the secretary of state for Kansas and a high-profile advocate of tougher laws on immigration and voter identification. Civil rights groups and Democratic lawmakers have said the commission could lead to new ID requirements and other measures making it harder to vote. The panel, chaired by Vice President Mike Pence, met for the first time last week. It ran headlong into controversy when Kobach asked states to turn over voter information. The data included names, the last four digits of Social Security numbers, addresses, birth dates, political affiliation, felony convictions and voting histories. Some states refused, and others said they needed to study whether they could provide the data. The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a separate lawsuit against the commission to ensure that it follows open government laws. "The commission's efforts to gather personal data should not escape judicial review," EPIC's senior counsel Alan Butler said in a statement, adding the group would closely watch what the commission does next.

0true

President Donald Trump on Monday responded to charges against former campaign manager Paul Manafort by saying the allegations predated his tenure on Trump's _NUMBER_ presidential campaign, but the indictment states the activities continued into _NUMBER_. "Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul Manafort was part of the Trump campaign. But why aren't Crooked Hillary & the Dems the focus?????" Trump wrote, referring to his former Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. The indictment says Manafort and associate Rick Gates conspired to defraud the United States "from in or about and between _NUMBER_ and _NUMBER_."

0true

Assailants detonated a car bomb outside the Yemeni Finance Ministry offices in the southern city of Aden on Wednesday, killing at least two people, hospital officials and residents said. They said the force of the blast shook the Khor Maksar area of Aden, the temporary capital of the internationally recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, and causing severe damage to the six-storey building. The force of the blast also shattered windows of adjacent houses, they said. Ambulances were seen racing to the scene, as sounds of gunfire were heard in the area, they said. No one has claimed responsibility for the explosion. An official at the city's main government-run Jumhouriya hospital said that two people have arrived dead to the hospital, while three others were in critical condition. He said that medics have said they believe that more casualties were at the scene of the blast, but no one could reach them due to an exchange of gunfire that was taking place in the area.

1fake

FOX News Catherine Herridge exposes the dirty tactics of Barack Obama and his secretive efforts to undermine President Trump No EX-POTUS in _NUMBER_ yrs has set up a _TAG_ & gone to such length to undermine his successor _TAG_ _TAG_ _TAG_ _URL_ Brian Fraser March _NUMBER_, 2017h/t Brian Fraser Twitter: _USER_

0true

An earthquake of magnitude _NUMBER_ struck off the Pacific Ocean nation of Papua New Guinea on Monday, the U.S. Geological Survey said. There were no immediate reports of any damage or injuries from the quake, which struck _NUMBER_ km east of the town of Rabaul, at a depth of _NUMBER_ km .

0true

Facebook said on Monday it would partner with _NUMBER_ broadcast stations, print and online publications for an Election Day live video blitz, as the social media company aims to build on the momentum of its popular Facebook Live video streaming service. The move comes as Facebook and rival sites like Twitter increasingly embrace live video to draw in users and boost traffic. Facebook warned last week that revenue growth would slow this quarter because of "ad load," or the number of ads that Facebook can put in front of customers without alienating them, offsetting strong earnings that handily beat Wall Street estimates. Each outlet partnering with Facebook will publish a _NUMBER_-minute live video centered on the presidential election in one of the _NUMBER_ states. The content will be featured on Facebook's "Election _NUMBER_" site on Tuesday and include the hashtag #50states. While Facebook is not selling ads on the Election Day livestreams, it could generate more visits to the site, bolstering its reputation as a destination for live news and pushing back against Twitter, where users often "live-tweet" major events. Asked whether the Facebook Live initiative was a response to the popularity of "live-tweeting" events among social media users, Jason White, manager of U.S. news media partnerships at Facebook, said Facebook Live was something that "works really well on our platform." "I think for us we really wanted to give the news media and especially local something to raly around on Election day," said White, regarding the _NUMBER_ States project. He said the company is exploring the possibility of including advertising breaks in live video in the future but said that no specific plans had been made yet. Frank Mungeam, vice president of digital content for broadcast and digital media firm TEGNA, told Reuters that six of his company's local broadcast stations, one each from Colorado, Washington state, Minnesota, Idaho, Maine and South Carolina, were participating. Mungeam, who said Facebook was not paying his company for the content, added: "Facebook's platform offers an extended reach." Twitter said last week its government-focused handle, _USER_, would provide election information to users via direct message, while Snapchat on Sunday featured a photo filter encouraging people to vote. Facebook launched Facebook Live for selected public figures in _NUMBER_ and made it available to all users in April _NUMBER_, allowing members to broadcast video live from their smartphones. Social media sites have been seizing on live video content to attract users. In September, Twitter broadcast its first National Football League game, attracting generally positive feedback. It launched its livestreaming app, Periscope, in March _NUMBER_. Asked about live-streaming video and social media in general, Stefan Sideris, director of global social media operations at Amobee, a digital marketing technology company, said he saw a clear trend toward bigger companies adopting the technology. "Brands and media companies are interested in connecting and engaging with consumers to bring the conversation together over live video," Sideris said. "Live will ultimately drive a lot of social activity."

0true

A U.S. Senate committee will soon consider legislation on the country's commodities and derivatives regulator that is intended to keep financial-sector restrictions in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law from applying to farmers and ranchers because their derivatives trading helps them manage operational risks. On Thursday, the Agriculture Committee will mark up legislation reauthorizing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which oversees the _CUR_400 trillion U.S. swaps market as well as trading in agriculture, metals and energy. Republicans, who are the majority in Congress and lead the committee, unveiled the bill late on Monday. A congressional source familiar with the legislation said lawmakers were open to negotiation and the bill could change before Thursday. The central aim of the Senate committee's bill is to allow farmers, ranchers and energy providers to hedge their operational risks with derivatives, while maintaining regulation of financial swaps trading. The source said it was not an attempt to affect position limits that the CFTC sets on contracts or options. The _NUMBER_ Dodd-Frank law strengthened oversight of swaps in order to prevent a repeat of the risky bets that contributed to the financial crisis. Republicans have said that rules the CFTC put in place to carry out the law have spread regulation into areas outside of finance, which Congress did not intend. Nonetheless, the Senate bill would address some financial elements such as requiring electronic confirmation of customers' account balances at banks and preventing firms from moving funds among accounts without notifying regulators. It would also strengthen protection for proprietary information submitted to the CFTC as part of required disclosures and create a judicial review process for the commission's rulemaking. The bill unveiled on Monday would also require the commission to review and take action on the London Metal Exchange's application to register as a foreign board of trade. The CFTC has had to operate on year-by-year funding since the end of _NUMBER_ because Congress has not passed a new authorization for it. Lawmakers say this has created uncertainty in many markets. The House of Representatives passed its version of the CFTC authorization in June. Parts of that legislation that stirred controversy, such as a cost-benefit analysis requirement, were not included in this bill.

0true

The U.S. military will fight Islamic State in Syria as long as they want to fight, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Monday, describing a longer-term role for U.S. troops long after the insurgents lose all of the territory they control. As U.S.-backed and Russian-backed forces battle to retake the remaining pockets of Islamic State-held terrain, Mattis said the U.S. military's longer-term objective would be to prevent the return of an ISIS _NUMBER_. The enemy hasn t declared that they re done with the area yet, so we ll keep fighting as long as they want to fight, Mattis said, speaking to reporters at the Pentagon about the future of U.S. operations in Syria. He also stressed the importance of longer-term peace efforts, suggesting U.S. forces aimed to help set the conditions of a diplomatic solution in Syria, now in its seventh year of civil war. We re not just going to walk away right now before the Geneva process has traction, he added. U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin affirmed joint efforts to stabilize Syria as its civil war wanes, including with the expansion of a July _NUMBER_ truce in the southwestern triangle bordering Israel and Jordan. Mattis said he believed the southwestern zone was working, and spoke hopefully about additional areas in the future that might allow for more refugees to return home. You keep broadening them. Try to one area then another and just keep it going, try to do the things that will allow people to return to their homes, he told reporters at the Pentagon. He declined to enter into specifics about any future zones. Russia, which has a long-term military garrison in Syria, has said it wants foreign forces to quit the country eventually. Turkey said on Monday the United States had _NUMBER_ bases in Syria and Russia had five. The U.S-backed Syrian YPG Kurdish militia has said Washington has established seven military bases in areas of northern Syria. The U.S.-led coalition says it does not discuss the location of its forces. One key aim for Washington is to limit Iranian influence in Syria and Iraq, which expanded during the war with Islamic State.

0true

President Donald Trump is expected this week to delay relocating the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, U.S. officials and a diplomatic source said on Wednesday, despite his campaign pledge to go ahead with the controversial move. With a deadline for a decision looming, Trump is likely to continue his predecessors' policy of signing a six-month waiver overriding a _NUMBER_ law requiring that the embassy be transferred to Jerusalem, an action that would have complicated his efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, the sources said. Trump has yet to make his decision official but is required by law to act by Friday, according to one U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Barring a last-minute surprise, Trump is expected to renew the waiver. His administration intends to make clear, however, that Trump remains committed to the promise he made during the _NUMBER_ presidential campaign, though it will not set a specific timetable for doing so, officials said. Asked whether Trump would sign the waiver, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters on Wednesday: "Once we have a decision, we'll put it out," adding there would be "something very soon on that." While there have been divisions among Trump's aides on the issue, the view that appears to have prevailed is that the United States should keep the embassy in Tel Aviv for now to avoid angering the Palestinians, Arab governments and Western allies while the president seeks to nurture peace efforts. Trump avoided any public mention of a potential embassy move during his visit to Israel and the West Bank in May. Despite that, most experts are skeptical of Trump's chances for achieving a peace deal that eluded other U.S. presidents. The status of Jerusalem is one of the major stumbling blocks. Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem during the _NUMBER_ Middle East war and later annexed it, a move not recognized internationally. Israel considers all of the city its indivisible capital. PRO-ISRAEL RHETORIC The Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. Jerusalem is home to holy sites of the Jewish, Muslim and Christian religions. Shifting the U.S. Embassy would be widely seen as Washington's recognition of the Israeli position on Jerusalem's status, which successive U.S. administrations have said must be decided in negotiations between the two sides. Former President Barack Obama renewed the waiver in December, setting off a six-month clock for Trump. CNN was first to report that Trump was expected to sign the waiver. On the campaign trail, Trump's pro-Israel rhetoric raised expectations that he would act quickly to move the embassy. But after he took office in January, the issue lost momentum as he met Arab leaders who warned it would be hard to rejuvenate long-stalled peace efforts unless he acted as a fair mediator. Some of Trump's top aides have pushed for him to keep his campaign promise, not only because it would be welcomed by most Israelis but to satisfy the pro-Israel, right-wing base that helped him win the presidency. The State Department, however recommended against an embassy move, one U.S. official said. "The president is still committed to moving the embassy," one U.S. official said. "It's not a question of whether but when it will be done." The Jerusalem Embassy Act passed by Congress in _NUMBER_ mandating relocation of embassy to Jerusalem allows the president to waive the requirement in accordance with U.S. national security interests.

1fake

Tune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room starting at _NUMBER_ PM PST | _NUMBER_ PM EST for this special broadcast. Join us for uncensored, uninterruptible talk radio, custom-made for barfly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher, & Spore along with Andy Nowicki of Alt Right Blogspot, Jay Dyer from jaysanalysis.com, Jamie Hanshaw Randy J, and hopefully Daniel Spaulding. Tonight the Boiler Gang is talking about Birlfriends and Bothfriends , Spore takes Red Hot Chilli Pepper's Flea to task for his SJW oriented remarks against Clint Eastwood, Daniel Spaulding brings a clip of former CIA Director, Michael Morell, saying that We need to Kill Russians and Iranians to a smug Charlie Rose, the absurdity of the main stream media and left wing establishment kettle calling pot black with regards to Trumps supposed connections to Russia and much more on this August 11th edition of Boiler Room.Please like and share the program and visit our donate page to get involved!BOILER ROOM IS NOT A POLICTALLY CORRECT ZONE! LISTEN TO THE SHOW IN THE PLAYER BELOW ENJOY!Reference Links:

1fake

Hillary's campaign has been working in coordination with the mainstream media for months to hide Donald J. Trump's popularity with the everyday Americans Hillary claims to be a champion of. Pennsylvania is one state the Democrat Party would never have believed would be in jeopardy only one month before the election, but then again, they never expected the mass appeal Trump would have with middle America who want their country back and the jobless who want to be contributing members of our society again. We all basically want the'same thing, to make America great again and that is why the Democrats are about to lose PA Nearly _NUMBER_ Pennsylvania Democrats have switched to Republican since the beginning of the year.What's more: The Pennsylvania Republican party says more than _NUMBER_-thousand new voters have joined the party since last November.The'state Republican party says that the'surge in Republican registrations is nearly twice the number of newly registered Republicans compared to both the _NUMBER_ and _NUMBER_ numbers combined.Combine this stunning development with the emergence of the Amish vote and the coal miners who are supporting Trump after Hillary promised to take away their jobs, and you've got a blue state that has a very high probability of turning red! PittsburghCBS

0true

U.S. Democrats unveiled an economic platform on Monday that included plans to address unfair market competition, rising pharmaceuticals costs and stagnant wages. Democrats proposed new standards that companies must meet to complete large mergers and enhanced post-merger reviews, singling out the airline, telecommunications, beer, food and eyeglass industries as areas of concern in the proposal dubbed "A Better Deal" for working Americans. Last year, Republicans proposed legislative goals with a similar title: "A Better Way." The Democrats' platform is a move to regroup ahead of the _NUMBER_ midterm congressional elections, after Hillary Clinton's loss to Republican President Donald Trump in _NUMBER_. Republicans control both the House and the Senate. Senator Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the U.S. Senate, accused Trump of running a populist election campaign and then abandoning working people for special interests once in the White House. "We can't delude anyone that this Congress will begin passing our priorities tomorrow but we have to start presenting our vision for the country's future," Schumer said at a kickoff event in the town of Berryville, Virginia. Accompanying Schumer was House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Chris Van Hollen and Amy Klobuchar, and Representatives Hakeem Jeffries and David Cicilline, among others. Democrats want to create an independent government agency that would crack down on drug companies that raise prices excessively. They also want to allow Medicare, the government health insurance program for the elderly, to negotiate prices with manufacturers. Additionally, drug companies would need to justify big price hikes to the government. Policy proposals provided to reporters singled out a few companies by name, including Turing Pharmaceuticals and Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. One document criticized United Continental Holdings Inc for the "brutal assault" of a United passenger who was already seated on an overbooked flight and refused to give up his seat for a crew member. Separately, if AT&T Inc's purchase of Time Warner Inc succeeds, it would allow the "resulting behemoths" to "unfairly discriminate" against smaller distributors, one document stated. When Anheuser Busch InBev, the world's largest beer maker, purchased SABMiller, the second-largest beer company, it put smaller brewers at a disadvantage, the documents said. Mergers between Dow Chemical Co and DuPont, Monsanto Co with Bayer AG and Syngenta AG with ChemChina "threaten the safety of food and agriculture in America," one document said. Democrats will also propose doubling federal support for apprenticeship programs, a tax credit for employers that hire and train workers that make a liveable wage, and encouraging partnerships between companies and public high schools and community colleges.

1fake

On March _NUMBER_, _NUMBER_ Barkley had this to say about Obama: Listen, you people in America who are upset that President Obama did a bracket why don't ya ll just go say you'don't like him because he's black. He continued, Cut through all the BS don't say he take too many vacations just say, We don't like him because he's black.' Via: TMZLess than a month ago, Charles Barkley said anyone who disagrees with Obama does so because they are discriminating against him because he is black. And now, according to the all-knowing former NBA star, anyone who believes the religious rights of business owners should be protected is discriminating against gays. What about white Christians Charles? Are they entitled to any protections, or do you have to fall into some sort of minority category in order to have any rights or protections in the new progressive America? Charles Barkley wants to move All-Star game due to 'Anti-LGBT' lawhttps://t.co/P0hK7FpJFo FOX & friends April _NUMBER_, 2016Retired professional basketball player and NBA analyst Charles Barkley has been bringing politics into this year's March Madness tournament left and right.His latest comments center around Indiana's Religious Freedom Act, the left's latest punching bag. Discrimination in any form is unacceptable to me, Barkley said Friday in a statement released through his agent to USA Today. As long as anti-gay legislation exists in any state, I strongly believe big events such as the Final Four and Super Bowl should not be held in those states cities. The Religous Freedom Act prevents Indiana state and local governments from substantially burdening a person's ability to exercise their religion unless the government can show that it has a compelling interest and that the action is the least-restrictive means of achieving it, according to the Indianapolis Star.The legislation, which will take effect July _NUMBER_, makes no specific mention of sexual orientation, but it was quickly dubbed anti-gay by opponents.Barkley also turned the popular basketball tournament political when he made comments about President Obama's March Madness bracket. He said that people were criticizing Obama for filling out a bracket because he's black. Via: Red Alert Politics

1fake

You can probably expect Donald Trump to continue his seemingly endless string of tweets about the fake news from a baker's dozen intelligence agencies that says that he and his friends may have been involved in some rather unethical actions involving a certain Russian dictator, Trump's campaign staff, and possibly a whole mess of Russian lady pee.McClatchy DC reports that the FBI and five other law enforcement agencies, including the CIA, the National Security Agency, the Justice Department, the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, and representatives of the Director of National Intelligence, are investigating whether the Kremlin took efforts to secure victory for The Donald. And apparently, Israeli spies were correct when they said that things were a lot worse than some nice escorts draining the'swamp on Trump's bed. McClatchy's report says:Investigators are examining how money may have moved from the Kremlin to covertly help Trump win, the two sources said. One of the allegations involves whether a system for routinely paying thousands of Russian-American pensioners may have been used to pay some email hackers in the United States or to supply money to intermediaries who would then pay the hackers, the two sources said.The informal, inter-agency working group began to explore possible Russian interference last spring, long before the FBI received information from a former British spy hired to develop politically damaging and unverified research about Trump, according to the'sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the'sensitive nature of the inquiry.Trump, who will be handed the nuclear launch codes and all of our country's secrets on Friday, has spent quite a bit of time praising, quoting, and agreeing with Vladimir Putin while attacking the intelligence agencies who are doing their jobs and attempting to bring a criminal him to justice. For his part, Trump has called the allegations against him a political witch hunt and a complete and total fabrication, and Americans who care about whether he colluded with the Kremlin stupid people and fools. Trump may have screamed that Hillary Clinton should be locked up, but it may be that he is the one who will end up behind bars.Featured image by Scott Olson via Getty Images

1fake

BELOW ARE TWO EXAMPLES OF THE PRO-CUBA SENTIMENT BY THE LEFTY MEDIA:Travel to Cuba is the NEWEST thing among the pseudo-cool useful idiots:Sanders noted how many of those on board were eager to get to the island before it was spoiled by capitalism: The Cuba they will see has many Americans anxious to get here before it all changes. Passenger Sedrick Tydus quipped: I want to get there before Burger King shows up. Sanders laughed and repeated line: Before Burger King shows up. After the Obama administration granted a full roster of concessions to the communist regime, we are bombarded with hype on Cuba travel. The Kardashians are even getting into the mix-ugh!Romanticizing the poverty and crumbing architecture of Cuba is pretty sickening to most people. We see past the'slick promotions and see the'suffering of the people of Cuba first .Chris Tarrant: Extreme Railway Journeys. Episode _NUMBER_ Slow Train'to Guantanamo Bay: The problem with Tarrant's love for commie Cuba is that the railway is broken down and only goes _NUMBER_ mph.NBC Reporter Giddy With Excitement Aboard Cruise to Cuba: A Pinch-Me Moment : Not so sure anything will change in Cuba even though the lefty media would like you to think so Sanders noted how many of those on board were eager to get to the island before it was spoiled by capitalism: The Cuba they will see has many Americans anxious to get here before it all changes. Passenger Sedrick Tydus quipped: I want to get there before Burger King shows up. Sanders laughed and repeated line: Before Burger King shows up. Via: Faustasblog

0true

The European Union's chief Brexit negotiator said on Thursday he was worried by Britain's plans for the border arrangement with Ireland after it leaves the EU and urged London to come up with creative proposals . The comments from Michel Barnier highlighted the gulf between the two sides on one of the trickiest issues thrown up by Brexit - how it will affect the currently seamless movement of people and goods between the Republic of Ireland, which is an EU member, and British-ruled Northern Ireland. Britain said last month that there should be no border posts or immigration checks along the _NUMBER_ km frontier after Brexit. Some _NUMBER_ people make the crossing each day, and businesses from farming to brewing depend on easy movement of goods between north and south. While Brussels and Dublin also say they want to keep an open border, they say Britain has failed to explain how it would square this with its stated intention to leave the EU's customs union. What I see in the UK's paper on Ireland and Northern Ireland worries me, Barnier told a news conference in Brussels. The UK wants the EU to suspend the application of its laws, its customs union and its single market at what will be a new external border for the EU, and the UK wants to use Ireland as a kind of test case for the future EU-UK customs relations. This will not happen, Barnier said. The EU is also concerned that Britain could use the border between the two Irelands as a way to circumvent tariffs that could be imposed in a post-Brexit EU-UK trade deal. Barnier's remarks coincided with the publication of a set of principles from the European Commission, the EU's executive, on how the Irish issue should be dealt with. It explicitly stated that the onus to propose solutions on Ireland fell on Britain. The paper also made it clear that a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland should be avoided to protect peace on the island. It said that any physical border infrastructure should be ruled out, but that required flexible and imaginative solutions . Nearly three months into Brexit talks, EU and Britain negotiators have made little progress on the Irish border and the other issues - expatriate citizens rights and the bill that London should pay its EU partners to settle existing financial commitments - that Brussels wants broadly solved before talks on a future trading relationship can start. The Irish government called on Britain to make substantive commitments and provide workable solutions . Prime Minister Leo Varadkar reiterated that for all sides to achieve their aim of avoiding a hard border, Britain needed to stay in the customs union or in a similar arrangement for at least a post-Brexit transition phase. Britain seized on the EU comments about the need for an open border as evidence that British and EU objectives were closely aligned . In particular the commitment to avoid any physical infrastructure at the border is a very important step forward, a government spokesman said, adding that the position papers from both sides clearly provide a good basis on which to continue to make swift progress.

0true

The United States accused Iran on Tuesday of supplying Yemen's Houthi rebels with a missile that was fired into Saudi Arabia in July and called for the United Nations to hold Tehran accountable for violating two U.N. Security Council resolutions. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said information released by Saudi Arabia showed the missile fired in July was an Iranian Qiam, which she described as a type of weapon that had not been present in Yemen before the conflict. Saudi-led forces, which back the government in neighboring Yemen, have been targeting the Iran-allied Houthis in a more than two-year war. Saudi Arabia's crown prince on Tuesday described Iran's supply of rockets to the Houthis as direct military aggression that could be an act of war. Haley said that by providing weapons to the Houthis, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp's had violated two U.N. resolutions on Yemen and Iran. She said a missile shot down over Saudi Arabia on Saturday may also be of Iranian origin. We encourage the United Nations and international partners to take necessary action to hold the Iranian regime accountable for these violations, Haley said. It was not immediately clear what action the United States was calling for. Saudi U.N. Ambassador Abdallah Al-Mouallimi echoed Haley's call for U.N. action against Iran in a letter to the U.N. Security Council and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres later on Tuesday, seen by Reuters. He said the missile fired on Saturday may amount to a war crime and that Saudi Arabia was taking appropriate measures to respond to these terrorist acts. Iran's U.N. Ambassador Gholamali Khoshroo also wrote to the Security Council and Guterres on Tuesday, rejecting the accusations by Saudi Arabia as baseless and unfounded. Iran calls for self-restraint and wisdom instead of provocation and threat that may bring further instability to this already volatile region, Khoshroo wrote in the letter, seen by Reuters. Under a U.N. resolution that enshrines the Iran nuclear deal with world powers, Tehran is prohibited from supplying, selling or transferring weapons outside the country unless approved in advance by the U.N. Security Council. A separate U.N. resolution on Yemen bans the supply of weapons to Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, two Houthi commanders, Yemen's former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, his son, and those acting on their behalf or at their direction. The United States could propose people or entities to be blacklisted by the Security Council's Yemen sanctions committee, a move that would need consensus approval by the _NUMBER_-members. Or it could put forward a new Security Council resolution to impose sanctions on Iran. To pass, a resolution needs nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the United States, Britain, France, China or Russia.

0true

Three suspected al Qaeda militants were killed in a drone strike in southern Yemen late on Thursday, a local security official and residents said. The strike in Mudiyah district in Abyan province on the Arabian Sea coast had targeted a motorcycle which the suspected militants were riding, the official said. Abyan is one of several provinces in central and southern Yemen where Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and its local affiliate Ansar al-Sharia operate. AQAP has taken advantage of a more than two-year civil war between the Iran-aligned Houthi group and President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi's Saudi-backed government to strengthen its position in the impoverished country. The United States has repeatedly attacked AQAP with aircraft and unmanned drones in what U.S. officials say is a campaign to wear down the group's ability to coordinate attacks abroad. The Saudi-led coalition supporting Hadi has also launched thousands of air strikes against the Houthis which control Yemen's capital and much of the country's north. The Houthis have in turn fired rockets towards Saudi cities and villages. They say their attacks are in response to Saudi strikes on Yemeni cities and villages. The coalition spokesman said on Thursday that a Saudi pilot had died a day earlier when his plane crashed in the southern province of Abyan due to technical failure , the Saudi news agency SPA said. The war has killed more than _NUMBER_ people.

1fake

Can you blame her for losing her cool with Crooked Lying Hillary? Share this with all of your undecided friends!_URL_

0true

The Bavarian sister party of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union has said her conservative bloc must agree policies on immigration, pensions and healthcare before opening coalition negotiations with two other parties. Leaders of Bavaria's Christian Social Union - stung by a drop in support of more than _NUMBER_ percent in the Sept. _NUMBER_ election - have redoubled their push for a _NUMBER_ per year cap on immigration, a demand that Merkel has rejected, complicating her efforts to form a new government. Merkel's bloc of the CDU and CSU, which have worked as partners for decades, hung onto their position as the largest group in parliament after a Sept. _NUMBER_ vote, despite seeing their combined support fall to its lowest since _NUMBER_. They must find coalition partners to build a government, with the most likely path toward a majority being an alliance with the pro-business Free Democrats and the Greens. CSU leader Horst Seehofer said the conservative allies could not begin negotiating with the other parties until they resolved their own position on major issues, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reported on Monday. It quoted the Bavarian premier, who is fending off calls for his own resignation, as saying the two parties faced their biggest challenge since _NUMBER_ - when his predecessor Franz-Josef Strauss threatened for weeks to break up the alliance. Seehofer, whose biggest challenger is Bavarian finance minister Markus Soeder, a hardliner on immigration, will meet Merkel and other top officials on Sunday, with top officials in Merkel's CDU split on the need for a rightward shift. The conflict inside the conservative camp is straining Merkel's already difficult task of bringing together parties with big differences on energy, Europe, migration and taxes. Armin Laschet, premier of Germany's most populous region, North Rhine-Westphalia, told the Handelsblatt newspaper that the migrant cap sought by CSU leaders was unacceptable. But he suggested a compromise could be found that included some ballpark figures. Laschet also said the Greens would have to step back from some of their hardline environmentalist demands. The CDU's leader in the eastern state of Thuringia on Monday argued against the rightward shift demanded by the CSU and the conservative premiers of two states - Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt - where the far-right Alternative for Germany party made big gains in Sunday's national elections. Our job is to fence ourselves off against the left and the right, Mike Mohring told Reuters. Manfred Weber, deputy leader of the CSU and head of the center-right group in the EU Parliament, told Deutschlandfunk radio it was important to avoid setting red lines before the coalition talks, given the urgent need to win back AfD voters. Weber said he expected all mainstream parties to focus on preventing the anti-immigrant AfD from gaining a permanent foothold in the German parliament. He said a three-way coalition among conservatives, Greens and the FDP, dubbed a Jamaica coalition since the parties colors match those of the Black, Green and Yellow Jamaican flag, offered a chance to build consensus on other issues such as energy and agriculture. Jamaica offers us a chance ... to embark on a new start, he said. The CSU is ready to do that. Merkel has sought to keep the door open for a renewal of her grand coalition with the Social Democrats that has ruled for the past four years, but the SPD is determined to stay in opposition after suffering its worst result since _NUMBER_. We got _NUMBER_ percent of the vote. That is not a mandate to govern, SPD Secretary General Hubertus Heil told broadcaster ARD on Monday. He accused the other parties of stalling coalition talks until after a state election due on Oct. _NUMBER_ in Lower Saxony. They want to govern, now they should govern, he said. A new poll by the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper showed the CDU and SPD nearly tied in Lower Saxony, with _NUMBER_ percent and _NUMBER_ percent, respectively.

0true

Belgium will set up an English-language commercial court to deal with disputes between international companies to make the most of Britain's plan to leave the European Union. The Brussels International Business Court will seek to take on cases that are so far handled by British courts or international arbitration tribunals, the Belgian government said on Friday. Cases in Belgium's regular courts are heard in French or Dutch. The government said the demand for arbitration was likely to grow because of Brexit. The same Brexit means moreover that going to a court in London might not be an appropriate option, it said, without giving a date for the start of the English-language hearings. BIBC will be presided over by sector specialists and parties will have to agree in advance to let the court settle their differences. They will not be able to appeal against the decisions. The development of the European Union cannot be slowed down by Brexit. Our country uses this opportunity to offer a new judicial instrument, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said in a statement. Some companies, such as Lloyd's of London, the world's largest specialty insurance market, have already picked Brussels as their European base in order to retain access to the EU market after Britain leaves the bloc in _NUMBER_.

1fake

Freedom is not a gift from government. It is a gift from God. President Donald J. Trump, May _NUMBER_, 2017The Little Sisters correctly insist that sterilizations, abortifacient chemical birth control and artificial contraception are all immoral. They are not only against the teaching of the'scripture and Christian tradition but, as Catholics, the Sisters also maintain'that they violate the Natural Moral Law.The Obama administration has asked the Court to compel these Little Sisters of the Poor to do indirectly what they'refuse to do directly. They asked the Court to force Catholic nuns to sin, to act against conscience, to pursue an immoral course of action. The nuns were placed in a situation reminiscent of other times in the history of the Church when unjust rulers sought to compel the Church to bend the knee to Caesar.Here are what the Little Sisters Of The Poor are all about. One look at these lovely women who have devoted their lives to God and to helping others in need, and you will see why President Trump made helping them live their faith without fear of persecution a priority:President Donald Trump'signed a religious liberty executive order today that would protect Christian organizations like the Little Sisters of the Poor from being forced to pay for abortions.Today is the National Day of Prayer and the White House is celebrating the occasion with Christian leaders by scheduling the order signing today. The order is a promise to respect religious rights and could pave the way for the Trump administration dropping the lawsuit the Obama administration was fighting against the Little Sisters and dozens of Christian entities not wanting to pay for abortions or abortion-causing drugs.The order indicates the Trump administration will provide regulatory relief for religious objectors to Obamacare's burdensome preventive services mandate, a position supported by the Supreme Court decision in Hobby Lobby. Family Research Council President Tony Perkins was at the White House for the'signing ceremony of an executive order protecting religious liberty. He told LifeNews.com that the new order ensures the freedom of all Americans to believe and act in accordance with their beliefs. The executive order makes clear that the administration will pursue policies that protect and vigorously promote religious liberty. The President's executive order is a clear reflection of his campaign promise to protect the religious freedoms of Americans. President Trump is taking a significant first step to defending religious liberty. In working with the Trump administration, it is clear that they both recognize and understand the dangers of the anti-faith policies of the previous administration and are therefore committed to undoing those policies and restoring true religious freedom, he'said. The freedom to live out faith in all areas of society without government punishment or intimidation is what has made America great. Life NewsWatch here:

0true

A senior Russian lawmaker said on Tuesday it was clear that U.S. President Donald Trump's national security adviser, Michael Flynn, had been forced to resign in an effort to damage relations between Russia and the United States. Flynn resigned late on Monday after revelations he had discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia with the Russian ambassador to the United States before Trump took office and misled Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations. "It's obvious that Flynn was forced to write the letter of resignation under a certain amount of pressure," Leonid Slutsky, head of the lower house of parliament's foreign affairs committee, was quoted as saying by the RIA news agency. "The target was Russia-U.S. relations, undermining confidence in the new U.S. administration. We'll see how the situation develops further," he said.

1fake

This morning President Trump called for a meeting of his inner circle in order to figure out how to respond to yesterday's news that a special prosecutor has been appointed by the FBI.Reportedly, he called together Steve Bannon, Hope Hicks, Kellyanne Conway, Reince Priebus, and his son-in-law Jared Kushner. At the meeting, Mr. Kushner begged the president to go on the attack, pleading with him to fight back against special prosecutor and former FBI Director Robert Mueller. Immediately after the meeting, Trump took to Twitter to start trying to discredit Mueller, whining about how unfair it was that his corrupt presidency is being investigated.This is the'single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history! Donald J. Trump May _NUMBER_, 2017He referred to unnamed illegal acts in the Obama administration without clarifying what he might have meant. With all of the illegal acts that took place in the Clinton campaign & Obama Administration, there was never a special counsel appointed! Donald J. Trump May _NUMBER_, 2017Trump's strategy, as it always is, seems to be to attack everyone else for his incompetence. Unfortunately Mr. Mueller is widely respected by both parties, so Trump may find it hard to make his smears stick.This is unspinnably bad for Trump.Mueller is serious, and a good man. This also signals that the FBI isn't playing games. Rick Wilson May _NUMBER_, 2017GOP operative Rick Wilson immediately recognized how much trouble Trump is in. He was joined by the Republican rank and file, who are losing patience in a hurry.@realDonaldTrump as an American who for some reason voted for you. I now know I let my county down _NUMBER_-_NUMBER_-_NUMBER_ May _NUMBER_, _NUMBER_@realDonaldTrump I am starting to regret that I had voted for you. Meeting was close doors with Russia press only. You becoming a shame to everyone Hank Salmons May _NUMBER_, 2017President Trump'seems to agree with his son-in-law that the best way out of this mess it to go on the offensive. Reportedly, word has gone out to all Trump'surrogates to start discrediting the messenger since they can't attack the message. Whether or not this strategy will work remains to be seen, but administration officials have already gotten their marching orders. Sources say that Sean Spicer, who has been absent from his podium since yesterday, is being briefed extensively about the president's plan for replying to these allegations. This is reportedly his last chance with the administration, and if he doesn't play ball, he's out. Photo by Win McNamee via Getty Images.

1fake

A new report has just revealed that Fox News patriarch Rupert Murdoch was so horrified by the idea of Donald Trump becoming president that he instructed former CEO Roger Ailes to do all he could to swing the election in favor of anyone but Trump even Hillary. The revelation came during an interview with Ailes that took place before his death, which was recently published in Hollywood Reporter to mark the one-year anniversary of Ailes firing from the network due to his long history sexual harassment.Michael Wolff reports the following in the Hollywood Reporter article, published on Wednesday:It was Ailes tacit support of Trump that, in part, made his removal from Fox all the more urgent for the Murdochs. And it was not just the liberal sons who were agitated by Ailes regard for Trump, but also the father, whose tabloid, the New York Post, helped create Trump, but who found him now, with great snobbery, not of our conservative class. Murdoch instructed Ailes to tilt to anyone but Trump, Ailes confided to me before he was fired, even Hillary. Wolff's report also reveals that after Trump's surprise win on election night, Murdoch had no choice but to fall in line and kiss Trump's a**.After the election, a confounded Murdoch had to call on his ex-wife Wendi's friends, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, to broker a rapprochement with the disreputable Donald. Now, to Trump's great satisfaction, a humbled Murdoch is a constant caller.Republicans have all done the'same as Murdoch. Even those Never Trumpers who openly opposed him throughout his campaign have all silently accepted their fate since his win. And it seems that no matter what he does now, even cozying up to Putin as the Russia scandal continues to heat up, conservatives still can't seem to find the guts to kick his orange derriere out of the White House.Featured image via Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

1fake

Donald Trump woke up this morning, sleepily grabbed his phone off his nightstand, saw one of his supporters had tweeted an anti-Jeb Bush picture at him, and hit Retweet. Unfortunately, that supporter happened to be a racist neo-Nazi with the account name WhiteGenocideTM. Seriously.The love for Trump from racist xenophobes is startling, but not exactly surprising. Trump's current presidential run quite literally started with a racist screed against Mexicans, and has been sustained by a torrent of anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant smears. His rallies regularly feature his supporters beating people of color who come to protest his ugly rhetoric.You can almost feel the'sense of excitement in the racist, Nazi-loving dark corners of the country: Finally, a candidate for us! And even better if you happen to be a toxic racist Trump won't hesitate to give you free publicity if you just tweet something to stoke his ego.It would have taken all of two seconds for Trump to realize that the man he was tweeting was a despicable monster. If the WhiteGenocide name based on the racist belief that white people are being systematically edged out of American society by minorities didn't give it away, the account's biographical details should have.Even worse, just scrolling through the account's tweets shows a pattern of racist filth. Some of it advocates for the deaths of political figures, particularly those on the left. Last week, for instance, he tweeted a picture of Trump in a Nazi uniform with Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders inside a gas chamber.As of this writing, and more than an hour after he retweeted this scumbag, Trump'still has the tweet up, including a link to WhiteGenocideTM's account, giving him more exposure.Donald Trump has surged in the Republican polls, with even many of what we consider mainstream conservatives applauding his appalling comments. At the root of his support, however, is a thriving neo-Nazi and white supremacy contingent that believe Trump might be the leader they were looking for. Just hinting at racist ideology wasn't enough for them, they like a guy who will openly admit to it and never apologize.Certainly Trump will eventually excuse the tweet and, likely, blame a young intern for the mistake. We shouldn't let him get off the hook that easily. This is a pattern of disgraceful behavior that puts real lives at jeopardy. It is extremely telling that the most toxic, violent people in society are cozying up to Trump. Clearly, what he's saying is right up their alley. Trump may try to excuse his behavior, but his actions and followers speak louder than his words ever will.Featured image via Twitter

0true

U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has privately acknowledged he may need to recuse himself from matters relating to the Russia probe, given that he could become a potential witness in the investigation, ABC News reported on Friday, citing unnamed sources. ABC said Rosenstein told Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand she would have authority over the probe if he were to step aside. Rosenstein appointed special counsel Robert Mueller to investigate alleged Russian meddling in the _NUMBER_ U.S. election, and has told lawmakers he would only fire him with good cause.

1fake

0true

There is more work to be done to unlock Brexit talks, British Prime Minister Theresa May was told on Friday, as the European Union repeated an early December deadline for her to move on the divorce bill and border with Ireland. May met fellow leaders on the sidelines of an EU summit in Gothenburg, Sweden, to try to break the deadlock over how much Britain will pay on leaving the bloc in _NUMBER_ months. She signalled again that she would increase an initial offer that is estimated at some _NUMBER_ billion euros, about a third of what Brussels wants. But without any immediate plans to detail which financial commitments Britain was planning to cover and with a growing row with Ireland over their shared border, European Council President Donald Tusk, who coordinates Brexit for the bloc's other _NUMBER_ leaders, concluded Britain must take further steps. He increased the pressure on May to make progress by early December, in time for the EU to react at a summit on Dec. _NUMBER_-_NUMBER_, or risk losing a chance to push the talks to a discussion of future trade ties, something London desperately wants so it can offer some certainty to nervy businesses. Asked about Brexit minister David Davis complaining that Britain had made all the running in finding compromises on the third key divorce issue the rights of expatriate citizens, Tusk said pointedly: I can say only that I really appreciate Mr. Davis's English sense of humour. He told the news conference: While good progress on citizens has been made, we need to see much more progress on Ireland and on the financial settlement. In order to avoid any ambiguity about our work calendar, I made it very clear to prime minister May that this progress needs to happen at the beginning of December at the latest. It was an echo of the ultimatum issued by the EU's chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, who a week ago gave Davis until the end of the month to detail the British approach to the financial settlement and effectively increase the money on the table. But Tusk, who met May earlier on Friday, added another demand - more progress on the future status of the border between EU member Ireland and Northern Ireland, which Britain says is almost impossible to make without discussing the future trade deal as that would determine the kind of customs needed. Under pressure at home from members of parliament in her own party who are concerned she is preparing for Britain to walk away with no deal and from the EU, May has tried to gloss over the differences and emphasise how far the talks have come. We ve agreed that good progress has been made. More does need to be done. But we re clear, and I m clear, that what we need to do is move forward together and that is how we can ensure that we are going to get the best deal for the United Kingdom and the European Union, May told reporters. But a growing row with Ireland broke into the open on Friday, with Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney saying Dublin was not ready to allow the talks to move onto a discussion of future trade next month. Prime Minister Leo Varadkar went further. I can t say in any honesty that it's close on the Irish issue or on the financial settlement, he told Sky News. After _NUMBER_ years of marriage, most of them good, now Britain wants a divorce but an open relationship the day after. With German Chancellor Angela Merkel absent from the summit because of government formation talks in Berlin, it was left to French President Emmanuel Macron to speak for the heavyweight powers which are taking a tough line with London: We won t change the agreed process in any way, and we won t open talks on the future relationship as long as the conditions set in the first phase have not been met, he said Sweden. But May, weakened after losing her Conservative Party's majority at a June election she did not need to call, has little room for manoeuvre. Some of her team of ministers are pressing her to hold off from naming a figure, seeing it as one of the few levers Britain has to press for better trade deal. Despite the tough language, Tusk offered some hope. I feel much better, safer after my meeting with Theresa May, everything is possible, the former Polish premier said. There was very visibly goodwill on both sides. We still have a chance to achieve our first goal to achieve the finalisation of the first phase of negotiations. I am very cautious. But optimistic.

0true

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder said on Friday he wants officials to focus on solving problems around lead-contaminated drinking water in the city of Flint instead of laying blame as he said some have been doing. "There are a number of folk out there that are spending their time mainly on the political side and the blame side," he said at a meeting in Flint of local and state officials responding to the crisis. Snyder's comments came a day after liberal group Progress Michigan released emails showing high-ranking state officials knew about an increase in Legionnaires' disease in Genesee County, where Flint is located, and a possible link to the contaminated water almost a year before the governor said he got information about the outbreak. Snyder, who has repeatedly apologized for the state's poor handling of the crisis, previously said he did not learn of the rise in Legionnaires' cases until last month. The governor and state officials have been criticized for not catching the contaminated water sooner, with some calling for Snyder to resign. Later on Friday, Snyder's office said the former head of the state Department of Environmental Quality's Drinking Water and Municipal Assistance unit, Liane Shekter Smith, was fired. She and a second employee were suspended last month, and a state spokesman cited a civil service rule allowing for termination due to failure to do one's job. A second DEQ employee, environmental manager Stephen Busch, remains on suspension and no decision has been made on his status, state officials said. Flint, near Detroit, was under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager when it switched the source of its tap water from Detroit's system to the Flint River in April _NUMBER_ to save money. It switched back last October after tests found high levels of lead in samples of children's blood. The more corrosive water from the river leached more lead from the city pipes than Detroit water did. Lead can damage the nervous system. On Friday, lawmakers on a U.S. House of Representatives panel said they plan to hold a hearing next month to address Flint health and infrastructure issues. The energy and commerce panel did not have details on the date or who would testify. This week, Congress held its first hearing into the Flint crisis. The House Oversight Committee did not invite Snyder, a Republican, to testify, something Democrats on the panel complained bitterly about.

0true

London's police force said on Friday that they had stood down after an incident in the heart of London's shopping district that they initially responded to as if it could have been terrorist-related. Our response on _TAG_ has now been stood down, the Metropolitan Police said on its official Twitter account. Given the nature of the info received we responded as if the incident was terrorism, including the deployment of armed officers, police added. The police said they had found no evidence of previously reported gunshots, and that there were no casualties.

0true

A failed Republican effort to replace Obamacare raised new concerns on Tuesday for U.S. health insurers over whether the government will continue to fund billions of dollars in medical benefit subsidies. The healthcare bill under consideration in the U.S. Senate would have settled the funding question, but was scrapped after Republican leaders were unable to rally enough party members to win approval. Its demise will test the ability of Republicans and Democrats to stabilize an insurance market serving some _NUMBER_ million Americans in time for _NUMBER_. Republican President Donald Trump has suggested several times that he could eliminate the so-called cost-sharing reduction subsidies, which help pay for consumers' out-of-pocket healthcare expenses. The administration could do so as early as August. Insurers have braced for an end to these payments, in many cases raising proposed premium prices for _NUMBER_ more than _NUMBER_ percent to make up for the lost funding. Insurers said on Tuesday they would like Congress to appropriate the funds for these payments. If that does not happen, and the Trump administration takes further measures to undermine Democratic former President Barack Obama's healthcare law, more insurers may pull out of markets for next year ahead of a late September deadline. That could force consumers to change plans or insurers - or leave them with no options at all. "Our members and all Americans need the certainty and security of knowing coverage will be available and affordable for them," said Justine Handelman, senior vice president in the Office of Policy and Representation at the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, which represents insurers nationwide. "We have consistently urged that there be immediate, certain funding for the cost-sharing reduction program, which helps those most in need with out-of-pocket costs when they access medical care." Molina Healthcare Inc , which provides Obamacare health plans to more than _NUMBER_ million people, said the fate of cost-sharing subsidies is one of its top concerns. The Trump administration could take other steps on its own to undermine Obamacare, including refusing to enforce the individual mandate, which requires Americans to have health insurance or pay a fine. Trump has repeatedly said Obamacare, formally known as the Affordable Care Act, is collapsing, and on Tuesday suggested letting it "fail" to force Democrats to work on a healthcare fix. Earlier this year, the administration backed off more strictly enforcing the individual mandate and pulled ads that encouraged people to sign up for health insurance. Uncertainty over the government's next steps on Obamacare weighed on insurer shares on Tuesday, with Anthem Inc down _NUMBER_ percent and Aetna Inc off _NUMBER_ percent. UnitedHealth Group , which pulled out of the Obamacare individual insurance business, rose _NUMBER_ percent after reporting a better-than-expected quarterly profit. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate would vote in the coming days on a full repeal of Obamacare with no replacement, but he did not appear to have the necessary support to push it through. Some Republicans and Democrats say they should attempt a joint fix, but the deep divisions between the two parties were on display over the subsidies on Tuesday. Democratic Senator Patty Murray said that bipartisan work can begin by having Congress fund the cost-sharing subsidies. "We know that's what needs to be done," she said in an interview. "It would send a very strong message to the market." Several Republican senators were quick to deride the payments. "Those who will be interested in moving an insurance bailout later this year should be ready to explain how they want to pay for it," said Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

0true

German police have launched an investigation into the theft of at least _NUMBER_ inscribed metal memorial stones embedded in the pavement in Berlin to commemorate Nazi victims. The stones, called Stolpersteine , bear the names of the victims and are set in the ground in front of the last address where they lived before being murdered or detained by the wartime regime. It's upsetting and it hurts, Cologne artist Guenter Demnig said on Tuesday, the day after the thefts were made public. Demnig said some _NUMBER_ stones had been stolen out of the total _NUMBER_ laid across Europe since he launched the project in _NUMBER_. Police said it was not clear who was behind the thefts, though a local politician blamed members of the far right linking the action to the approaching anniversary of the _NUMBER_ Kristallnacht pogrom of Jews in Germany and Austria. A similar theft in the eastern city of Greifswald four years ago also took place on the eve of the anniversary of the attacks when government-backed mobs looted Jewish property, set fires and killed dozens of Jews. If someone makes the effort to remove them, systematically picking out each stone, then they have political motives, said a spokesman for Berlin politician Fritz Felgentreu, pointing to what he said was a strong far-right presence in the neighborhood where the thefts took place.

1fake

Donald Trump's Second Amendment threat just took a more frightening turn.National outrage ensued after the Republican nominee suggested on Tuesday that gun owners do something to stop Hillary Clinton from nominating judges to the Supreme Court. If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks, Trump'said. Although the Second Amendment people maybe there is, I don't know. This statement prompted the Secret Service to take the unprecedented step of responding to an assassination threat by a presidential candidate against an opposing candidate, whom the Secret Service is charged with protecting and would be in the line of fire should a right-wing gun nut answer Trump's dog whistle.And it appears that at least one gun nut is interpreting Trump's dog whistle call as a call for armed insurrection if Hillary Clinton becomes president and doesn't pick who they want her to pick as a Supreme Court Justice.Greg from Michigan called into C-SPAN on Wednesday morning and while he denied that Trump was calling for Hillary to be shot and killed he frighteningly declared that Trump was actually calling for a bloody armed revolt if conservatives don't get their way. Number one, Mr. Trump was not threatening assassination of Hillary. But what he was implying and could happen is if Hillary got her way and did do away with Second Amendment rights, there are a lot of us who are gun owners who are going to object to that very strongly. And since we do have firearms, it might if it comes down to it be us having to defend our rights with those guns, just as the revolutionaries did in the Revolutionary War. Here's the video via C-SPAN:Trump's rhetoric just took a scary turn and his supporters are taking him seriously. Republicans have talked about Second Amendment remedies before but American voters have been consistent in rejecting candidates who spew such rhetoric. The idea of using guns to force your political agenda on the country is a threat to our democracy and has no place in this country. It's time for voters to once again reject this rhetoric by defeating Trump by a landslide. Republicans need to learn once and for all that threats of gun violence is not a political strategy and is a sure way to lose elections.Featured Image: YouTube

0true

Yemen's Houthi forces denied detaining a U.S. citizen and said he had been kidnapped by unknown gunmen in the capital Sanaa, a statement from the movement said. Colleagues of Danny Lavon Burch, an engineer who had been working in Yemen since the late 1980s, said on Monday that Houthi forces had detained him in Sanaa. The Iran-aligned Houthis and their ally former president Ali Abdullah Saleh control much of northern Yemen, including Sanaa, and are battling a Saudi-led coalition that is trying to restore the internationally recognized government. An armed gang was behind the criminal and cowardly act of kidnapping Burch, a statement carried by the Houthi-controlled state news agency SABA said late on Wednesday. The security services are tracking the perpetrators of the kidnapping and they will be brought to justice, it said. His wife, Nadia Burch, told Reuters earlier this week that her husband had been seized on Saturday after taking their children to school. He has worked in Yemen since the late 1980s, currently with the oil company Safer, said Burch, a Yemeni. He has no problems or disputes with anyone, which is why he didn t leave as others did, she said. I ask for the release of my husband and his safe return to me. She said the kidnappers had not contacted her and she was unsure of their identity. A U.S. State Department official said they were aware and concerned about the report of Burch's disappearance. More than _NUMBER_ people have been killed in Yemen's civil war. It began in March _NUMBER_ when the Houthis advanced on the interim headquarters of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi in the southern port city of Aden, forcing him to flee the country and seek Saudi help.

0true

A third of Republican voters who support Donald Trump could turn their backs on their party in November's presidential election if he is denied the nomination in a contested convention, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. The results are bad news for Trump's rivals as well as party elites opposed to the real estate billionaire, suggesting that an alternative Republican nominee for the Nov. _NUMBER_ presidential race would have a tougher road against the Democrats. "If it's a close election, this is devastating news" for the Republicans, said Donald Green, an expert on election turnout at Columbia University. The Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted March _NUMBER_ to April _NUMBER_ asked Trump's Republican supporters two questions: if Trump wins the most delegates in the primaries but loses the nomination, what would they do on Election Day, and how would it impact their relationship with the Republican Party? Sixty-six percent said they would vote for the candidate who eventually wins the nomination, while the remaining third were split between a number of alternatives such as not voting, supporting a third-party candidate, and switching parties and voting for the Democratic nominee. Meanwhile, _NUMBER_ percent said they would remain with the Republican Party. Another _NUMBER_ percent said they would leave it, and _NUMBER_ percent said they did not know what they would do with their registration. The online poll of _NUMBER_ Republican Trump supporters has a credibility interval of _NUMBER_ percentage points. Trump has topped the national polls throughout most of the race for the Republican nomination, and has won more delegates than any other Republican so far. A Reuters/Ipsos online poll from April _NUMBER_-_NUMBER_ showed that _NUMBER_ percent of Republicans support Trump, compared with _NUMBER_ percent for U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and _NUMBER_ percent for Ohio Governor John Kasich. Cruz and Kasich have both said their paths to victory rely on winning at least enough votes to block an outright win for Trump and force a decision at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. But Trump, whose supporters have remained loyal even as he rankled women, Hispanics, Muslims, veterans and others with his fiery rhetoric on the campaign trail, predicted last month there would be riots outside the convention if he was blocked. "If they broker him out, I'll be fed up with the Republicans," said Chuck Thompson, _NUMBER_, a Trump supporter from Concord, North Carolina, who took the poll. Thompson, a lifelong Republican, said he admires Trump's independence from big campaign donors and takes that as a sign that the front-runner will be able to think for himself if he were to become president. If Trump loses the nomination, Thompson said he would quit the party. "The people want Donald Trump. If they can't deal with that, I don't need them," he said. Green said the departure of even a small number of Republicans would make it tough for the party to prevent the Democrats from winning the White House, especially if the election is again decided by razor-thin margins in a handful of battleground states. In _NUMBER_, President Barack Obama won Florida by less than _NUMBER_ percentage point and Ohio and Virginia by less than _NUMBER_ percentage points. "The Republicans don't really have any margin of error," Green said. Trump and Cruz both trail Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton among likely general election voters in a hypothetical general election matchup, but not by much, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos polls. Generally, a convention battle is a bad sign for the health of a political party, said Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of the book, "Primary Politics: How Presidential Candidates Have Shaped the Modern Nominating System." "When a party gets to a point when it has a contested convention, it almost always hurts them," Kamarck said. "It's a confirmation of some really deep fissures within the party that were unable to be dealt with during the primary season." Trump supporter Elizabeth Oerther, _NUMBER_, of Louisville, Kentucky, said she would switch parties and vote for the Democratic nominee if the Republicans denied Trump the nomination. "If you don't give it to him, I'm going to vote against them," said Oerther, who took the poll. "They want to take away the choice of the people. That's wrong."

1fake

Professor Olga Cox, who teaches Human Sexuality at Orange Coast College, told her class in December that the election of Donald Trump was an act of terrorism. Despite this, Cox was recently nominated and selected by her fellow faculty members for the Professor of the Year award.According to students, it is an Orange Coast College tradition for the recipient of the annual Professor of the Year award to be the keynote speaker at the'school's graduation ceremony each year. It's an act of terrorism, Professor Cox said to her class in December regarding President Trump's election. One of the most frightening things for me, and most people in my life, she continued, is that the people committing the assault are among us. It is not some stranger from some other country coming in and attacking our sense of what it means to be an American and the things that we stands for. And that makes it more painful. Here's the video that captures Professor Olga Cox's disgusting remarks:Her comments were videotaped by OCC student Caleb O Neil, who was suspended by the'school for allegedly unlawfully recording the indignant professor until the'school retracted its punishment in the face of backlash.The'selection for the Professor of the Year award is made by a committee that consists of faculty, staff, and administrators, and is based on a rubric that takes into account multiple factors including teaching, service to the campus, and community involvement. Despite the nationwide negative attention and condemnation from the community in the wake of these incidents, this committee recommended Professor Cox as their choice to receive Professor of the Year and the OCC administration accepted the committee's nomination.Doug Bennett, the Executive Director of College Advancement for OCC, confirmed to Red Alert Politics in an email that Professor Cox had won'the nomination for Professor of the Year award but declined to accept it. A member of the campus community nominated Professor Cox for the award, the committee selected her through the rubric, but the award isn't being made because she has declined, says Bennett. Red Alert Politics

1fake

Every time Trump makes lemons from lemonade, the crowd loves him even more. The Left needs to give it up. They re only shining a light on the dirty tactics they're willing to use to ensure they keep the dream of socialism alive GOP frontrunner Donald Trump doesn't miss a beat as the lights go out in the middle of his speech at a packed convention center in Atlanta.The Trump'supporters lined up three hours early to get inside the Georgia World Congress Center.A far left protester cut the electricity at the Trump Rally on Sunday.The protester reportedly reached over and pulled the wire when the technician stepped away from the control panel.This could have been a dangerous situation but instead of being angry GOP frontrunner Donald Trump made the most of it. They didn't pay the electric bill. Oh, I like that much better. Oh, those lights were brutal. Did they come from the dishonest press? Oh, don't turn them on. Better huh? Don t turn them on. Plus we save on electricity. Right? And because the lights didn't work I won't pay the rent. So we get better lighting and we don't pay the rent, right?The crowd goes wild Via: Gateway Pundit

1fake

Comedian Dave Chappelle has been prepping for his November _NUMBER_ hosting slot on Saturday Night Live with a series of surprise shows at The Cutting Room in New York. On Friday night, he'shocked the crowd with a _NUMBER_-minute set largely devoted to slamming Hillary Clinton.He was particularly agitated about what he believes was Clinton's role in leaking a surreptitiously recorded conversation between Republican nominee Donald J. Trump and TV personality Billy Bush. What I heard on that tape was gross, Chappelle said. But the way I got to hear it was even more gross. You know that came directly from Hillary. He stated this had put him off a candidate he had already known was not right. He likened voting for her to a hypothetical situation of actress Halle Berry breaking wind in his face during sexual relations. I m still going to go for it, he'said. But I wish she hadn't done that thing. Chappelle further shocked the New York crowd by defending Trump. He took issue with the media stating as fact that Trump had admitted committing sexual assault in the recorded conversation. Sexual assault? It wasn't. He said, And when you're a star, they let you'do it. That phrase implies consent. I just don't like the way the media twisted that whole thing. Nobody questioned it. The comedian stated that Trump's resilience in the face of the leak had impressed him. Comparing Trump to The Terminator, Chappelle said, That would have devastated anybody else. Chappelle added that Trump's handling of the debate immediately following the controversy had won him over. Referring to Anderson Cooper and Martha Raddatz's hostile questioning, he'said, Something about this was backward. A gay white man and a white woman asking a multi-billionaire how he knows the'system is rigged and insisting it's not. Does that sound right to you? It didn't seem right to me. And here's how you know Trump is the most gangsta candidate ever. They asked him how he knows the'system is rigged and he'said, Because I take advantage of it. He may as well have flashed his membership card for the Illuminati right then. Noting that he voted early in rural Yellow Springs, Ohio before heading to New York, Chappelle said he didn't feel good about voting for Clinton. She's going to be on a coin someday. And her behavior has not been coin-worthy, he'said. She's not right and we all know she's not right. Chappelle noted that he d been present at a late October going-away party at the White House, sponsored by BET. Everyone there was black everyone except Bradley Cooper, he'said. Chappelle listed attendees including Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayer, singer Usher, DNC chairwoman Donna Brazile, and DJ D-Nice, who performed at the hush-hush soiree. He claimed that, at the end of the night, he grabbed the mic and waxed lyrical about Frederick Douglass, concluding that even though the current election has been gross, he'still loves the United States of America.The comedian wasn't feeling so much love for women's rights, gay rights, and transgender rights activists, saying, They should not be having that conversation in front of black people. You go ahead and feel something about your rights. But if you're putting sexism and homophobia and transphobia in front of racism, you should be ashamed of yourself. Chappelle still slammed North Carolina legislation stating that transgender people must use the public restroom that aligns with the'sex stated on their respective birth certificates. If you need to show your birth certificate to take a dump at a Wal-Mart in North Carolina, that's insane. Chappelle noted he would rather not have a woman with a dick stand next to him at a urinal. He also said he wasn't happy about rumors that Caitlyn Jenner would pose nude for Sports Illustrated. Sometimes I just want to read some stats. Chappelle is slated to host SNL on November _NUMBER_, but said, You know there's a pool going on whether or not I show up. I got _CUR_100,000 that says I won't. Observer

0true

Russian hacking of the _NUMBER_ U.S. election included sophisticated targeting of state officials responsible for voter rolls and voting procedures, according to a top secret U.S. intelligence document that was leaked and published this week, revealing another potential method of attempted interference in the vote. The month-old National Security Agency document outlined activities including impersonating an election software vendor to send trick emails to more than _NUMBER_ state election officials. Analysts at the NSA believed the hackers were working for the Russian military's General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU, according to the document. The document's publication on Monday by The Intercept, a news outlet that focuses on security issues, received particular attention because an intelligence contractor, Reality Leigh Winner, was charged the same day with leaking it. U.S. intelligence agencies have previously said the Kremlin tried to influence the election outcome in favor of Republican candidate Donald Trump through leaks during the campaign of hacked emails from Democratic Party officials, aimed at discrediting Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. The new revelations suggest that U.S. investigators are also still probing a more direct attempt to attack the election itself, and a federal official confirmed that is the case. However, there is no evidence that hackers were able to manipulate votes, or the vote tally. The document says at least one employee of the software vendor had an account compromised but does not cover whether any of the elections officials were also successfully compromised. If they did compromise the officials, hackers could have planted malicious software, then captured proof of the infection to suggest that there had been fraud on Clinton's behalf, had she won the Nov. _NUMBER_ election, experts said. "If your goal is to disrupt an election, you don't need to pick the winner or actually tamper with tally result," said Matt Blaze, a University of Pennsylvania computer science professor who has written on the security of voting machines. Simply casting doubt on the legitimacy of the results could achieve the goals of a government-sponsored hacking campaign, he said. U.S. intelligence officials had previously stated that Russian intelligence had won access to "multiple" election officials but had said that compromised machines were not involved with vote tallies. But they had not said how sophisticated and extensive the effort was or how it worked. Russian President Vladimir Putin has strongly denied Russian government involvement in election hacking, though he said last week that "patriotic" Russians could have been involved. Trump has denied any collusion. SPEAR-PHISHING ON ELECTIONS OFFICIALS The newly leaked NSA report said the hackers used so-called "spear-phishing" techniques on election officials, trying to convince targets to click on links in emails that seemed to come from legitimate correspondents. The report describes just one phishing campaign, which hit state officials a week before the election, but does not give any locations or say if it was successful. Although there may have been many others, security experts said one coming so late in the game would be more likely to be about sowing chaos than trying to alter vote counts. The report did not say what the hackers were trying to accomplish, and any investigation of the computers of people who were targeted would be the jurisdiction of the FBI. An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment Tuesday, as did the office of the special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating possible collusion between Trump campaign officials and the Russian government. The "bait" used in the spear-phishing campaign involved software for managing voter registration rolls. The hackers might have been considering deleting some records and forcing officials to turn legitimate voters away, said elections technology security expert Alex Halderman, of the University of Michigan. There were no wide reports of mass rejections of voters, so perhaps that plan was abandoned or proved too hard to execute, he said. It is also possible that the idea was to get onto the machines of officials who oversaw both registration and voting software. Elections are run by counties in the United States. "Depending on the county's configuration and security practices and what is separated from what, they could have access to potentially every aspect, from lists of registered voters, to voting machines, to firmware on those machines, to the ballots that are presented, to the software that controls the final tally," Blaze said. "This is the holy grail of what an attacker would want to compromise." Members of Congress said they hoped to learn more about the hacking attempts. "It's important that the American people understand that the Russian attempts to break into a number of our state voting processes - we talked about this in the fall - was broad-based," Democrat Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence committee, told reporters. "It's my hope in the coming days that we can get more information out about that."

1fake

When asked by the other hosts on the'show, Where would you go? Whoopie pauses, then realizes there really is no better country on the earth, as she'sheepishly replies, I don't know, I ve always been in America. There's usually a good reason that people don't give up their citizenship Whoopie. There's probably a reason so many people are willing to break the law and illegally enter our country. Despite the drivel you and your cohorts push on The View, every American doesn't believe they're somehow a victim, and most Americans agree with Trump that we shouldn't be willing to give up all that makes America great just because the Left wants to shore up their voting block. If you wanna know what is really getting under Whoopie's skin, it's the idea that no one in the media can control Trump. That's what's really got the girls on The View freaking out Wednesday on ABC's The View, co-host Whoopi Goldberg said Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump needs to stop blaming others for the problems in America and threatened to move out of the country.https://youtu.be/NwE2ZvcpKUsGoldberg said, People don't like being the butt of the jokes and now that people say, listen, you can't make me the butt of your jokes, I don't like it. You can't use me as some sort of stereotype. I don't like it. That's the PC people are talking about. And the bottom line is this find a different way to say what you're going to say. People are not going to take it anymore. So if that's what's pisses you off, you're going to stay angry. Co-host Joy Behar said, A lot of it has to do with their pocketbook. They re not making as much money as they used to make, that particular group of people. Maybe jobs are overseas, maybe technology has taken over, they'don't have the background for it. They re ticked off. Goldberg interjected, But then you can't blame immigrants for that. Behar continued, That's scapegoating. It's as old as the hills. What do you think World War II is all about? You know that. It's all about blaming the Jews. Now it's the Mexicans and the Muslims. Blame everybody but yourself. Later in the'segment, Goldberg continued her rant. Listen, he can be whatever party he wants to be, she'said. What he can't be is he can't be the guy that says it's your fault stuff isn't working. That's not the president I want. Find a way to make stuff work. Stop blaming everybody because all of this, as American citizens, this is our we did all of this. We ve allowed all this stuff, so we have to fix it. But you can't say, Oh, you're Lebanese or you're black or you're Mexican or you're a woman. Stop blaming everybody. Let's fix the crap. Let's just fix it. If you can fix it, I will listen to what you have to say. The minute you start pointing and saying that person is a rapist and a murderer, it pisses me off because I ve been part of that when they just use a blanket statement to talk about black people or when they use a blanket statement to talk about white people or women or any other group. I don't think that's America. I don't want it to be America. Maybe it's time for me to move, you know. I can afford to go, she added. I ve always been an American, and this has always been my country and we've always been able to have discussions. And suddenly now it's turning into, you know, not them, not them. And you know, we have a lot of friends whose parents saw this already. They don't want to relive this So I need all the candidates to get it together. Get back to American values. Behar said, I must be naive maybe but I do believe that at the end of the day the American people will not vote for that type of xenophobia. The fact that they voted twice for President Obama, twice for President Clinton, people like that. I really do believe they will come to their senses. You know what, he can't win without _NUMBER_ percent of the Hispanic vote and he has alienated the Hispanics. Via: Breitbart News

1fake

Katrina Pierson does a fantastic job with this CNN anchor

1fake

The Republican Party is truly screwed if Fox News is thinking like this.During an appearance on the O Reilly Factor on Friday night, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace delivered a scathing analysis of the GOP Debate held on Thursday, calling it an embarrassment for the Republican Party. Let me just say first of allbig picture- I thought it was an embarrassment for the Republican party. There were a lot of shots taken, a lot of shots scored, but there was precious little vision. Almost no serious discussion of issues, you know, what are are you going to do, how are are you going to improve people's lives? If you saw someone acting presidentially on that stage, you got better eyesight than I do. Here's the video via YouTube:Indeed, the GOP Debate was a complete circus that saw every candidate sniping at each other with ridiculous attacks. Clearly, Trump brought Cruz and Rubio down to his level of gutter politics.Here's a clip demonstrating the debate in a nutshell:// < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA]>_TAG_ In A NutshellIn case you couldn't watch the laughable mess that was the GOP debate, here's the clip that really showcases what it came down to. Do ANY of them seem presidential? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. Want to make it extra fun? Tag your favorite Republican friend and ask them to explain'this.Like Americans Against The Republican Party for more!Posted by Americans Against The Republican Party on Thursday, February _NUMBER_, 2016It truly was a pathetic display that should horrify the Republican Party and the American people. And Republicans only have themselves to blame because they welcomed crazy extremists into the mainstream of the party years ago when they sold out to the Tea Party in _NUMBER_. Now it's coming back to bit them in the ass so hard that not even Fox News can spin them out of it.Featured Image: Screenshot

1fake

There are two different Donald Trump's Here's why the politically incorrect Dr. Ben Carson is throwing his support behind Donald Trump:_URL_

0true

Some key U.S. senators still had concerns about the Republican tax bill in the Senate, as a procedural motion to formally open debate on the measure was approved on Wednesday. Here is a list of Republicans pivotal to the bill's fate. The moderate senator from Maine has qualms about Republicans' plan to include in the tax bill a repeal of a federal fee imposed on people who do not comply with Obamacare's "individual mandate." The fee is meant to encourage young, healthy people to get health insurance so that premiums are affordable for old, sick people. Collins and others fear repealing the fine would drive up insurance premium costs, canceling out tax-cut gains that many of their constituents might get from the tax bill. Collins said Republican leaders had promised her to take up two healthcare provisions before the end of the year to help mitigate the impact of repealing the fee. Those provisions would help insurers cover expensive patients and continue Obamacare subsidy payments for low-income people for two years. Collins has also prepared an amendment to the tax bill to make state and local property tax deductible up to _CUR_10,000, a provision that is part of the House of Representatives' tax bill. Both the Senate and House bills end deductibility of state and local tax income and sales tax. Unlike the House bill, the Senate bill ends property tax deductibility too. Collins sidestepped a question on whether she would vote for the tax bill. She said: "We're doing this one step at a time." The senator from Alaska will vote for the tax bill, she wrote on Twitter on Wednesday evening. Murkowski said a number of the bill's features were "very attractive," noting that it would lower tax rates, double the child tax credit and double the standard deduction. She said it also included a provision she had written, to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, to oil and gas drilling. Murkowski said it was important to enact reforms separately to help stabilize the individual market in health insurance. The Montana Republican has concerns about the bill's treatment of "Main Street" businesses. He said on Wednesday he had secured an agreement to increase a _NUMBER_ percent deduction for owners of pass-through businesses to _NUMBER_ percent. The senator from Wisconsin also has demanded more favorable treatment for "pass-through" businesses, which include sole proprietorships and partnerships, as a condition of his support. Corker, a deficit hawk from Tennessee, said on Tuesday he had the outlines of a deal adding a tax snap-back provision to the bill that would raise taxes automatically if economic growth targets are not hit in the future to offset a higher deficit. Corker said that arrangement would satisfy his concerns that the tax cuts could add too much to the national debt. As of Wednesday evening, the details had not been announced. The snap-back proposal also became a target of growing criticism among conservative Republicans and lobbyists. The tax bill was expected to add _CUR_1.4 trillion to the _CUR_20 trillion national debt over _NUMBER_ years. The Arizona conservative said on Wednesday he was more comfortable with the tax bill because of indications there would be provisions in it to protect against ballooning the deficit. Flake told National Public Radio he was concerned about "gimmicks," but liked other parts of the bill, especially the corporate tax cut. The Arizona maverick and former presidential nominee sidestepped questions on Monday about how he would vote on the tax bill, telling reporters in the hallway to "stay tuned." Like Corker and Flake, Oklahoma's Lankford questions whether tax revenues from economic growth will compensate for the expected increase in the national debt under the tax plan. He has been working with them to "trigger" more revenues if needed. The Kansas lawmaker is also wary of the impact on the national debt, pointing to his own state's recent experience of fiscal problems following tax cuts.

0true

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Tuesday that the United States' response so far to Russia orchestrating hacks during the _NUMBER_ presidential campaign was just the start. "Some responses have been made. I think you should regard that as a start and not the end," Carter said during a news briefing at the Pentagon alongside the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine General Joseph Dunford. Last month, President Barack Obama ordered the expulsion of _NUMBER_ Russian suspected spies and imposed sanctions on two intelligence agencies over their involvement in hacking U.S. political groups in the _NUMBER_ presidential election. The Kremlin has said the U.S. hacking allegations are "reminiscent of a witch-hunt."

0true

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Monday he expects to select a running mate in the "next three to four days" and that he was leaning toward someone with political rather than military credentials, The Washington Post reported. Trump told the Post in an interview that he had five people under consideration, including retired Lt. General Michael Flynn.

0true

The Office of Brazil's Prosecutor-General Rodrigo Janot asked the Federal Supreme Court on Thursday to convert the temporary detention of billionaire beef tycoon Joesley Batista into preventative detention, a person with knowledge of the situation said.

1fake

The math for the election is very simple: The more black voters, the worse the results will be for the Republican Party and the party's presidential nominee, Donald Trump. As a result, the Republicans have a perverse incentive to keep black voter numbers as low as possible.And now it appears that Trump's running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, may be doing his part to emulate the Jim Crow south and bar black voters from being registered.Connie Lawson, the Secretary of State for Indiana, sent a letter to state election officials telling them that Patriot Majority USA, a group trying to register black voters were nefarious actors operating in the'state. Lawson told officials to snitch to authorities if they'received voter registration forms from the group. Combined with state police executing a search warrant against the group, it gave the appearance of vote suppression, according to Craig Varoga, the group's president.The publicity surrounding the actions taken by Lawson and Indiana's state police have cast a shadow over the nonprofits, with many stories accusing them of voter fraud.Varoga said the Oct. _NUMBER_ police action prevented the group from registering _NUMBER_ to _NUMBER_ additional voters ahead of Indiana's Oct. _NUMBER_ voter registration deadline. He's worried that clerks won't count some of the _NUMBER_ applications the group had already collected.Republicans, as they often do in election years, have mounted an assault on voter registration drives and mobilization efforts. They have particularly targeted these efforts to minority communities. North Carolina Republicans were recently rebuked by the federal courts when the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals declared most of a _NUMBER_ law invalid, since documents revealed that it was designed specifically to target minority voters with a voter ID law, and by banning same-day registration, early voting, and out-of-precinct voting.The judge in that case, Diana Gribbon Motz, wrote, The State's very justification for a challenged statute hinges explicitly on race specifically its concern that African Americans, who had overwhelmingly voted for Democrats, had too much access to the franchise. In Indiana, the Pence regime seems to be working to do the'same deed.Featured image by Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA _NUMBER_ via Flickr