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RNC Spokesman EXPLODES On MSNBC Host For Asking Why He Doesn’t Trust CIA On Russia Hacking (VIDEO)

The Republican Party has been nervous as hell ever since the CIA released reports that Russia had meddled in the U.S. election in order to sway it toward Donald Trump. This tension within the GOP couldn t have been more obvious than when Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer had a fullblown meltdown over his distrust of the CIA.While being interviewed by MSNBC on Monday, host Kate Snow brought up the recent reports about Russia s interference, and Spicer was quick to deny the truth. Spicer said that any evidence that the Kremlin was trying to help Trump win is based on the fact that the RNC was hacked, and it was not hacked. He said: That does call into question the intelligence and the conclusions they came to. Snow then asked Spicer to clarify whether or not he is saying he doesn t believe the CIA and that s when Spicer devolved into a toddler (obviously taking hints from Trump) and began throwing a temper tantrum. Spice yelled: Stop doing that! That s not what I said, no! You keep Snow jumped in and said, I m just asking a question. Are you saying you don t trust the CIA? Because just a moment ago you said three letter agencies with unnamed sources, that s why I m asking. Do you not trust Spicer continued on with his angry rant, making it clear that he doubted the validity of the CIA s reports. He shouted: No, no. Tell me someone in the CIA, give me a name, publish a report and we ll deal with it. Right now, you guys start saying that you read these reports, you have no name behind it. It should be noted that there are even members within the Republican party that wholeheartedly trust the CIA and are backing an investigation into this matter. Snow responded that the CIA has a high degree of confidence that the Kremlin was behind Trump s win. Snow asked Spicer, I m asking, do you not believe that? Spicer continued to snap, growing more angry with each question. He fired back: Can I answer the question? They ve now walked that back in the course of the last 48 hours. So my point to you is this: the facts that we were initially presented with are clearly not accurate and so it does call into question [the legitimacy of those reports]. And I find it interesting that you guys aren t asking them to provide further proof of this. Spicer ended his rant by insulting news networks like the one he was on, stating that news organizations were not doing a good job in getting more evidence of Russian interference.You can watch Spicer go insane below:Featured image via screenshot

Trump has 'friendly' call with Mexican leader but he demands change

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

Most Clinton emails to be released after election: WSJ

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Most of the emails the FBI recovered during its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email system while secretary of state will not be made available until after the Nov. 8 presidential election under a timetable set by a judge on Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported. The judge ordered the U.S. State Department to finish processing 1,050 pages of material for release by Nov. 4, just days before Americans go to the polls, the Wall Street Journal said. The paper said that material was out of what could be as much as 10,000 pages. Under the schedule set by the judge, there will be also be pre-election releases on Oct. 7 and Oct. 21, and the State Department will process 500 pages per month after that, the Wall Street Journal reported. The State Department is responding to dozens of lawsuits brought over Clinton’s use of a private, home-based email system while she was the agency’s top diplomat from 2009 to 2013. The timetable announced on Friday was in a lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch, a conservative group that has filed multiple lawsuits to obtain government records related to Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state. “The State Department voluntarily agreed to produce to Judicial Watch any emails sent or received by Secretary Clinton in her official capacity during her tenure as Secretary of State which are contained within the material turned over by the FBI,” agency spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.

This Man Just Exposed A Sorry Truth About A Vital Part Of Trump’s Campaign

We ve been drowning in the final stretch of this presidential election cycle since August. At three weeks out, both candidates should have their ground games well-established, and even be working overtime in a lot of cases, to reach as many voters as possible. Apparently, though, none of this is true for Trump. Like his outward campaign, his ground game has no cohesion or organization at all, and what few volunteers there are don t seem to care about the actual business of campaigning for a presidential candidate: [T]hese people cared more about the reality show Trump had created, then [sic] the reality of the campaign itself. That s what Scott David Shapiro, who maintains a news blog on Medium, said after he embarked on a suicide mission to see if Trump s ground game was as big league as he was making it sound.First things first it took Trump forever to open up local campaign offices a move especially perplexing in swing states where he needs a ground game and Shapiro wanted to see just what was going on after he heard that such offices were finally opening.His first stop was in Mesa, Arizona. Not quite a swing state, but in play because Trump is so awful. He immediately ran into problems when he got there. He had an address, but no phone number and the Arizona Republican Party didn t have a number either. Strange. Shapiro soldiered on with the info he had, and this is what happened: [W]hen I arrived at 1234 S. Power Road, I found a large office complex with no cars in the parking lot. This struck me as odd considering the office was supposed to be open 7 days a week. But I pressed on, finding myself standing in front of Suite 251.This was supposed to be the Trump Victory Office, but I stood there confused as there was nothing on door indicating it as such. Then, I peered through the half-drawn blinds, noticing a ceiling fan was spinning inside. So, I took a deep breath, reached for the handle and opened the door walking right into a COMPLETELY EMPTY ROOM. WTF? He went on to say that he finally found someone in there, but that one, single person could only say, I think you re in the wrong place. Um. What?Anyway. Strike one, and Shapiro was off to find the next office, which had just opened up in Long Beach, CA, at the Cambodian Cultural Center. Hokay, then. That sounds like a really odd place for a presidential campaign s local office, but minority outreach, maybe?Shapiro had to go there TWICE to actually find the office, and when he did: [T]here was no big-league ground game to be found. This office was strictly the minors. Neither of the tiny, two staff operation had ever run a campaign office before. And it showed they were selling yard signs for 25 bucks a pop when they should be given out for free for fuck s sake!I told them I had previous campaign experience, and they practically rolled out the red carpet for me. Completely unvetted, they placed me at the front desk, where I sat by my lonesome for an hour. In this office, he was very quickly tapped to participate on a three-person debate the debate panel when nobody even knew his name. He volunteered there for two weeks, astonished that all the bluster from Trump supporters and campaign staff had amounted to a severe lack of anything resembling a ground game.Finally, a friend of Shapiro s in Tampa mentioned a Trump Victory Office there, and oh my god! Trump is opening these offices all over Florida, right where they need to be! So Shapiro packed his bags again and headed down to Florida: [W]hen I arrived at the Trump Victory South Tampa office, I realized there was nothing to fear but fear itself. Unbelievably, this office had even less going on in it then freaking Long Beach! Sure, there were more staff members, but volunteers were few and far between Day after day, the excuses for the lack of bodies started to pile up, ranging from Republicans were too busy because they had JOBS to Hurricane Matthew s imminent arrival. But the hurricane came and went with nary a raindrop in Tampa. And then the Access Hollywood tape that proved Trump is a sexual predator came out, and the office just ground to a halt, according to Shapiro. Excuses for why people weren t coming in to volunteer turned to great weather and sports, but the fact was that the boots on the ground that Trump implied were everywhere just weren t anywhere.It s not just Shapiro s blog post. He tweeted about his progress throughout this project, and also found someone else who was trying to locate Trump s ground game. Yet, when it came to debate parties, turnout was yuuuuge, showing Shapiro that Trump s supporters are all talk and no action. This was true even for the second debate, which was after the Access Hollywood tape came out. They re there for the glitz and glamour, but when it comes to doing real work, they avoid it like the plague.Featured image by Kena Betancur via Getty Images

Five North Carolina Sheriff's deputies disciplined over Trump rally

(Reuters) - Five North Carolina Sheriff’s deputies have been disciplined over their behavior at a rally for Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump where a white supporter sucker punched a black protester, officials said on Wednesday. The Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office said three deputies were demoted and suspended for five days each without pay for their unsatisfactory performance at last week’s rally while the two others were suspended for three days. “The actions of the deputies and their failures to act in situations such as that which occurred during the Trump rally at the Crown Coliseum have never been and will not ever be tolerated under the policies of this office,” Sheriff Earl “Moose” Butler said. Following the rally in Fayetteville, John McGraw, a 78-year-old white Trump supporter, was arrested on a misdemeanor assault charge after he was seen on video punching a 26-year-old black protester in the face. Video of the incident recorded by bystanders showed deputies pinning the assaulted protester to the ground, prompting social media criticism on why swift action was taken against him instead of his assailant. All five of the deputies were admonished for their behavior and have been placed on probationary status for the next 12 months, the Sheriff’s Office statement said. Sheriff’s officials on Monday decided against criminally charging Trump or his campaign with “inciting a riot” at the rally. Trump has rejected suggestions that his language was to blame for recent clashes at his rallies. The 69-year-old New Yorker leads a field of three Republican candidates vying for the party’s presidential nomination. (This version of the story corrects paragraph four to show that the Trump supporter was arrested the after rally.)

iraqi forces continue to advance on mosul

palestine palestinians check the flat of amjad aliwi after israeli authorities demolished it in the northern occupied west bank city of nablus on october photo by afp a new report has revealed that the number of palestinian homes demolished by israeli authorities in the largest division of the occupied west bank since the beginning of the current year stands at more than israels hebrewlanguage haaretz newspaper reported on friday that a total of palestinian homes have been demolished in area c of the west bank which constitutes about percent of the territory and is under full israeli military control since january leaving people homeless that compares to demolitions in the area last year which left palestinians without any place of residence the newspaper noted that a total of palestinian homes have also been destroyed in east jerusalem alquds since the start of the year up from last year the demolitions affected palestinians in the region marking an increase from the previous year the revelations came only two days after israeli military forces razed three palestinian homes in the beit hanina and silwan neighborhoods of east jerusalem alquds displacing at least people including minors international bodies and rights groups argue that israels sustained demolitions of palestinian homes and structures in the occupied west bank and east jerusalem alquds are an attempt by the tel aviv regime to uproot palestinians from their native territories and confiscate more land for expansion of illegal settlements more than half a million israelis live in over illegal settlements built since the israeli occupation of the palestinian territories of the west bank and east jerusalem alquds the presence and continued expansion of israeli settlements in occupied palestinian lands have created a major obstacle for the efforts to establish peace in the middle east the palestinian authority wants the west bank as part of a future independent palestinians state with east jerusalem alquds as its capital loading

Trump says Amazon.com has 'a huge antitrust problem'

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Thursday that Amazon.com, the world’s biggest online retailer, has “a huge antitrust problem.” In an interview on Fox News, Trump also said Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos, who owns the Washington Post, is using the newspaper to influence politicians in Washington to help Amazon on taxes. “This (Washington Post) is owned as a toy by Jeff Bezos, who controls Amazon. Amazon is getting away with murder tax-wise. He’s using the Washington Post for power so that the politicians in Washington don’t tax Amazon like they should be taxed,” Trump said. “He’s using the Washington Post ... for political purposes to save Amazon in terms of taxes and in terms of antitrust,” Trump said. “He thinks I’ll go after him for antitrust. Because he’s got a huge antitrust problem because he’s controlling so much, Amazon is controlling so much of what they are doing,” Trump said. Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

FIRST LADY MELANIA TRUMP Just Set Alec Baldwin Straight On His Lie About Her

MELANIA TRUMP never hesitates to call someone on the carpet for lying about her Alec Baldwin knows now that he can t mess with the First Lady!A spokesperson for the first lady fired back at the actor after he claimed that she loves my impersonation of President Donald Trump. That is not true, which is why Mr. Baldwin has no actual names to go with his bizarre assertion, the spokeswoman told The Hill on Monday.The Saturday Night Live star had made the remarks on WYNC s The Brian Lehrer Show Monday.The 59 year-old actor claimed the first lady told this person, very high up in the White House brass there, that, That s exactly what he s like. Baldwin has been doing his impersonation of Trump for well over a year now on NBC s late-night sketch comedy show and won an Emmy Award in September for his portrayal of Trump.The president is not a fan, however, tweeting last year that the impression just can t get any worse and calling the show unwatchable. in a tweet from December of last year:Just tried watching Saturday Night Live unwatchable! Totally biased, not funny and the Baldwin impersonation just can't get any worse. Sad Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016THE BIG LIE FROM BALDWIN: Apparently, Trump is horrified and beside himself that his wife actually thinks it s funny, Baldwin claimed Monday.The 30 Rock star was promoting his new book, You Can t Spell America Without Me: The Really Tremendous Inside Story of my Fantastic First Year as President Donald J. Trump. (A So-Called Parody). READ MORE: BPR

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Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign chief, drops legal team

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, has tapped a new legal team to represent him as government lawyers examine possible Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, his spokesman Jason Maloni said. Law firm WilmerHale had been speaking on Manafort’s behalf to investigators, but that relationship has ended, Maloni said. “As of today, WilmerHale no longer represents Mr. Manafort,” Maloni said in a statement. “Mr. Manafort is in the process of retaining his former counsel, Miller & Chevalier, to represent him in the office of special counsel investigation,” read the statement. Miller & Chevalier’s Richard Hibey has previously represented Manafort. His other clients have included CIA officer Clair George, who was convicted in 1992 of making false statements to Congress about the Reagan administration’s secret arms sales to Iran. Earlier this week, sources confirmed that FBI agents had raided Manafort’s Virginia home and seized documents and other material as part of the probe.

Britain's May 'deeply concerned' over reports of sexual harassment in parliament

LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May is deeply concerned by media reports about the alleged misconduct of staff in parliament and believes any unwanted sexual behavior is completely unacceptable , her spokesman said on Monday. She is deeply concerned at the recent media reports regarding the alleged mistreatment of staff by some members of parliament, her spokesman told reporters. She has been clear that any unwanted sexual behavior is completely unacceptable in any walk of life and she strongly believes it s important that those working in parliament are treated properly and fairly.

Bulgarian court sentences three Syrians on terrorism charges

SOFIA (Reuters) - A Bulgarian court on Thursday sentenced three Syrians to six years in jail on terrorism charges. The Speciliased Criminal Court convicted the three men for entering the Balkan country aiming to carry out terrorist actions abroad, but acquitted them from charges of being members of Islamic State and Muslim Brotherhood. The three men, aged 20, 22 and 25, were arrested last February while trying to enter Turkey from Bulgaria and accused of attempting to join Islamic State in Syria. They have been in custody since then. The three men, who had obtained refugee status in Germany, denied any wrongdoing. Their lawyers said they will appeal the sentence.

Whoopi Goldberg FURIOUS Over Trump’s John Lewis Attacks, GOES OFF In PERFECT Pre-Inauguration Rant (VIDEO)

As the majority of Americans are completely depressed and worried sick over what is going to happen to this country after President-elect Donald Trump is officially in charge, The View came through to perfectly point out just why Trump is such a concern.On Tuesday, co-host Whoopi Goldberg brought up a topic that most of us are still extremely upset about, especially right after Martin Luther King Day Trump s vicious attacks on civil rights leader and Democratic Congressman John Lewis. Tearing Trump a new one for throwing a temper tantrum just because Lewis said he didn t consider Trump a legitimate president (face it, most of us don t), Goldberg reminded Trump that he himself has been raising questions and conspiracy theories about President Barack Obama s legitimacy for years. Urging Trump to grow the hell up and get yourself right , she pointed out just how thin-skinned Trump is when she said: You can t do it for eight years and then be pissed off that someone does the same thing to you, comrade. Look, that s what America is built on, man. And if you re going to be the president you ve got to get yourself right, because people are going to be coming at you because now there are questions about your presidency. Maybe the same kind of BS questions you might have had if you d been thinking, had you thought about this. The women on The View also made sure to note that Lewis, the man that Trump accused of being all talk, talk, talk no action or results, had suffered a fractured skull while marching with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Selma. Meanwhile, Trump had dodged the draft and has no examples of ever being of service to others. Clearly, we all know who the real bullsh*tter is here.Railing against Trump for his complete meltdown in the form of various Twitter attacks not only on Lewis, but on CIA director John Brennan and Alec Baldwin (and others), Goldberg said what most of us have been thinking the whole time: You ve got too much time on your hands, man. You better be trying to figure out what to do! Exactly. You can watch the women of The View rip Trump apart in the two-part series below:Featured image via screenshots

WATCH: Alec Baldwin Teaching A Young Fan How To Impersonate Trump Is The Best Thing Ever

No one gets under alleged president Donald Trump s skin more than Alec Baldwin. Well, possibly with the exception of Sesame Street. During the premiere of Baldwin s new film Boss Baby, a young fan had an interaction with the actor whose acclaimed parody of Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live has entertained the masses.A video shows Baldwin teaching the child how to impersonate Trump. Fantastic, so fantastic, Baldwin says while imitating Trump s hand gestures. Baldwin shared some of Trump s phrases and gestures with the young boy while the child gave it a try. You got it! Baldwin can be heard saying.Watch:.@AlecBaldwin teaches a young kid how to properly do a @realDonaldTrump impersonation #BossBaby premiere pic.twitter.com/v8On6ZMxYt Joanna Preston (@JoPrestonTV) March 20, 2017 Saturday Night Live is enjoying its best ratings in decades thanks in part to Alec Baldwin and Melissa McCarthy, the latter of which does a dead-on impersonation of White House press secretary Sean Spicer.As much fun as one might think it would be to tick off the thin-skinned amateur president, Baldwin admitted in February that it s not. Playing him is not a lot of fun because he s tense, he s angry, he s pissed off, and that s not always fun to play, Baldwin told Extra correspondent Hilaria Baldwin, who is Alec s wife, on the set of SNL, AOL reported.Still yet, Baldwin s impersonation has gotten quite a lot of feedback from Trump.In January, Trump tweeted, @NBCNews is bad but Saturday Night Live is the worst of NBC. Not funny, cast is terrible, always a complete hit job. Really bad television! .@NBCNews is bad but Saturday Night Live is the worst of NBC. Not funny, cast is terrible, always a complete hit job. Really bad television! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2017In early December, Trump called the show unwatchable. Just tried watching Saturday Night Live unwatchable! Totally biased, not funny and the Baldwin impersonation just can t get any worse. Sad, he tweeted.Just tried watching Saturday Night Live unwatchable! Totally biased, not funny and the Baldwin impersonation just can t get any worse. Sad Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016And yet, Trump can t stop watching the show. We hope the young boy grows up to do incredible impersonations of Trump after the impeachment in which the alleged president will inevitably say, I am not a crook! Gosh, we hope this kid doesn t have a Twitter account. Donald Trump is not a nice person.Image via screen capture.

Buckeye targets normal operations at Bahamas oil terminal on Tuesday

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Buckeye Partners LP said it aims to resume normal operations its Bahamas crude oil and fuel terminal, also known as Borco, on Tuesday after Hurricane Irma rampaged through the Caribbean as one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes on record. The terminal, located in Freeport, on Grand Bahama Island, has no reported injuries, incidents or damage and restart activities began on Monday afternoon, the company said. While power is still out at the terminal, Buckeye expects terminal and marine operations to return to normal on Tuesday depending on weather conditions. The Borco terminal is Buckeye s largest and has the capacity to store about 26.2 million barrels of oil, fuel oil, gasoline and other products. It is also the largest fuel storage terminal in the western hemisphere, the Buckeye Global Marine Partners website said. Buckeye was forced to shut the terminal due to Irma on Sept. 7, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters last week. Irma has killed nearly 40 people in the Caribbean and at least six in Florida and Georgia and hammered energy infrastructure in those regions, even as recovery operations from storm Harvey were under way. It will likely dissipate from Tuesday evening, the National Hurricane Center said. Buckeye s terminals in Puerto Rico have returned to normal, a spokesman told Reuters in an email. The U.S.-based midstream company had closed the 4.6 million-barrel Yabucoa oil terminal in Puerto Rico last week. The company also said it aims to return some Florida terminals and pipelines to limited service on back-up power in 12-48 hours. All employees at Tampa and in the Miami area are all reported safe and accounted for, Buckeye said. Nustar Energy LP said on Monday it had put damage assessments of its terminal on the Caribbean island of St. Eustatius on hold as it prepared for Hurricane Jose. Several tanks and other equipment at the 13.03 million-barrel crude and product storage terminal was damaged by Irma last week. The National Hurricane Center was monitoring Hurricane Jose, which was spinning in the Atlantic about 700 miles (1,130 km) west of Florida.

OPRAH DROPS MIC When Asked How She Keeps On-Set Harassment Away…Wait! Wasn’t She Buddies With Weinstein?

Oprah has a mic-drop moment when asked about how she keeps on-set harassment away. The only problem is she was big buddies with Harvey Weinstein OPRAH HAS DISTANCED HERSELF FROM WEINSTEIN EVEN THOUGH HE TRIED TO DRAG HER INTO HIS SCANDAL:According to TMZ, Weinstein said that the queen of all media personally called him to say she was ready to publicly declare her support of him. However, Oprah s people have responded to his claims, clarifying that they hold absolutely no truth.The site reports that Weinstein told his team and friends on multiple occasions that Oprah called him earlier this week urging him to speak out and defend himself, and once he did that, she would come out and support him. While he claimed that several powerful figures in Hollywood have voiced their support of him, he repeatedly highlighted Oprah. WE DON T WANT ANY A HOLES AROUND US Oprah Winfrey doesn t want any sexual harassment problems on the sets of her OWN shows.When asked how she ensures her staff and actors are protected, Winfrey told People, We don t want any a holes around us. She then went into detail sharing the process by which actors and crew are chosen to pluck out any unwanted folks. First of all, starting with all-female directors, Winfrey, 63, said. Ava DuVernay casts from the spirit of the person and looks for skill and talent. You re casting with the very idea of surrounding yourself and when you re looking at casting you re looking at Does this guy fit with this woman? Does this little boy fit? Could those two people have had that boy? And how do we make this family? Winfrey adds it s a truly a combination of everything. We re looking at those things and not just looking at who s gonna be the star and take the lead but looking at how does it all integrate so that we can evolve into something bigger, she added.The media mogul s comments come on the heels of more than 50 women accusing Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault, harassment and rape. Via: Page Six

This Staggering Ruling Makes It Legal For Cops To Kill Unarmed, Homeless People (VIDEO)

A 43-year-old Cameroonian immigrant man was barely surviving on LA s infamous Skid Row when he was brutally gunned down by cops last year. Despite the victim being unarmed and vulnerable, the LA Police Commission has ruled this killing justified. Coming as it does, among a string of such killings, it seems it is now legal for LA cops to shoot unarmed, homeless people with impunity.Last March, Charly Keunang died after being shot six times by the LAPD. Officers claimed he was reaching for one of their guns, but a bystander video undermines this story. The LA Police Commission refuses to release their body-cam footage of the shooting, and the ruling seals the footage from public view permanently.As can be seen in the bystander footage, several cops charge into Keunangs tent while he is sleeping and begin swinging at him. He was known to be in a poor state of mental health, and it is little surprise at all that such a traumatic incident would have terrified him and provoked a fight or flight response. How might you react if you awoke with several men in your face who were hitting and dragging you? The cops then reacted to a crisis of their own creation.Members of the man s family are now suing the LA for $20 million.One would hope that a case like the horrific death of Charly Keunang would be unique. However, it is all too commonplace in LA. In September of the very same year, 37-year-old mentally ill homeless woman Norma Angie Guzman was gunned down by the LAPD too. Again, a mental health crisis was turned into target practice session by the LAPD.And it s not just LA. Over in Albuquerque, New Mexico, city police shot and killed 38-year-old homeless man James Boyd for the crime of camping in an unauthorized area of local foothills.In the same month, a cop in Miami shot and killed a homeless man in a public park. The man was well-known and liked by regulars of the park, and a maintenance worker at the park found it almost impossible to believe the officers account. He stated that the deceased man was a regular feature in the park with a routine: To sit down and go to the library and use the computer, read the newspaper, that s his thing every morning and wait for me to open up the door, he said. Man, for that to happen to a guy like that, no I don t understand that. This really is where the issues of under-investment in public services, and police brutality combine to create a perfect storm. Millions of dollars has been stripped form LA s homeless services budgets in the last five years, while homelessness has risen 12 percent in just the last two years. At the same time, mental health support services have also been cut. This means more people are on the streets, with less support, and when a crisis occurs the police are getting called instead of mental health professionals.So while this is a problem for the police, it is also a matter for legislators and voters. If we want our streets to be safe, it serves us all to invest in the proper treatment and support of vulnerable people. While police and some civilians may perceive a homeless or mentally ill person as the threat, they are far more likely to become a victim of violence than to commit violence. Either from ruthless policing, or unscrupulous passersby. Featured Image via Screengrab

EMAIL REVEALS UNIV Of Pittsburgh Telling Professors To Give Students “Extra Credit” For Protesting Trump [VIDEO]

Just imagine how many brilliant young American minds could benefit from their education if their teachers and professors put as much effort into actually teaching their students as they do indoctrinating them with their liberal web of mistruths and distortions An email encouraging extra credit for student participation at a liberal protest has prompted a conservative backlash at the University of Pittsburgh and an explanation from school officials.The email, sent out by a Student Services Specialist with the university s School of Social Work, was first made public by the university s Pitt Maverick newspaper on Thursday.Watch:The University of Pittsburgh is giving extra credit to students who attend an anti-trump protest! pic.twitter.com/Cyz2ZPn5Sa FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) November 23, 2016In the email, the administrator urges students and faculty to sign up for A People s Agenda for Change: National Day of Action rally slated for downtown Pittsburgh on Nov. 29. The email incorrectly contained the suggestion that extra credit be offered for attendance, Miksch wrote. The school does not allow this practice. That language was to have been removed from the communication before it was sent, but was not. The controversy comes at a politically sensitive time for the University of Pittsburgh and academic institutions across the nation. This as protests, arrests and even accusations of hate crimes continue to roil campuses on the heels of president-elect Donald Trump s victory.On Thursday, 2 were arrested when a Pitt protest aimed at Trump and other social issues saw clashes between the demonstrators and police. PennLive

Scuffles, flares as Albania picks interim prosecutor

TIRANA (Reuters) - Opposition lawmakers threw a flare at Albania s interim prosecutor general as she took the oath of office in parliament on Monday while their supporters scuffled with police outside. Several protesters and policemen were hurt as the crowd tried to get inside the chamber, egged on by one lawmaker. It later dispersed. Arta Marku, 41, was elected as interim prosecutor general with 69 votes from the ruling Socialist Party. Albania is rebuilding its judiciary to enable it to fight corruption but the body to elect a prosecutor general has yet to be set up because the reform has dragged on. Under pressure from the European Union to crack down on crime and graft, the Socialists chose to elect an interim prosecutor. The opposition was enraged because it says a prosecutor should be installed once some 800 judges and prosecutors are vetted and elected with three-fifths of votes in parliament. Democratic Party head Lulzim Basha accused Prime Minister Edi Rama of a constitutional putsch in an effort to protect corrupt officials, including his former interior minister. We shall not become the facade of this criminal autocracy, Basha told the crowd. He called for protests in January. The Socialists say the opposition Democrats rejected dialogue despite several offers this month. Electing a prosecutor with our votes was legitimate, constitutional, and this was confirmed by the U.S. and EU teams assisting the reform of the judiciary, Rama told reporters. The European Commission has made it clear to Albania it wants to see results in the fight against crime and corruption before asks its members to approve accession talks with Tirana.

Iran upholds death sentence for Iranian academic with Swedish residency

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Iran s Supreme Court has upheld a death sentence against an Iranian academic with Swedish residency convicted of espionage, Amnesty International and his family said on Tuesday. Ahmadreza Djalali, a doctor and lecturer at the Karolinska Institute, a Stockholm medical university, was accused of providing information to Israel to help it assassinate several senior nuclear scientists. Djalali was arrested in Iran in April 2016 and later convicted of espionage. He denied the charges, Amnesty said. At least four scientists were killed between 2010 and 2012 in what Tehran said was a program of assassinations meant to sabotage its efforts to develop nuclear energy. Western powers and Israel said Iran aimed to build a nuclear bomb. Tehran denied this. The Islamic Republic hanged a man in 2012 over the killings, saying he had links to Israel. Djalali s lawyers were told on Saturday that the Supreme Court had considered his case and upheld his Oct. 24 sentence in a secret process without allowing them to file defense submissions, London-based Amnesty said. This is not only a shocking assault on the right to a fair trial but is also in utter disregard for Ahmadreza Djalali s right to life, Magdalena Mughrabi, Amnesty s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement. Vida Mehrannia, Djalali s wife, said the whole family were in shock at the decision and that they had informed the Swedish government about the latest development in the case. The judicial process was not fair and legal from the beginning. None of the court sessions was held in public and the interrogators imposed their decision on the judges, she told Reuters by telephone from Stockholm. The Iranian judiciary could not be reached for comment. Amnesty said in October that the court verdict against Djalali stated he had worked with the Israeli government which then helped him obtain a Swedish residency permit. Djalali was on a business trip to Iran when he was arrested and sent to Evin prison. He was held in solitary confinement for three months of his detention and tortured, Amnesty said. It said Djalali wrote a letter inside Evin last August stating he was being held for refusing to spy for Iran. Sweden condemned the sentence in October and said it had raised the matter with Iranian envoys in Stockholm and Tehran. Seventy-five Nobel prize laureates petitioned Iranian authorities last month to release Djalali so he could continue his scholarly work for the benefit of mankind . They said Djalali has suggested it was his refusal to work for Iranian intelligence services that led to this unfair, flawed trial . The United Nations and international human rights organizations regularly list Iran as a country with one of the world s highest execution rates. Rights groups have criticized Iran for its regular resort to capital punishment.

White House proposes rule to welcome immigrant entrepreneurs

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration proposed a rule on Friday aimed at attracting thousands of immigrant entrepreneurs to start companies in the United States. The rule, proposed by the Department of Homeland Security, would ease the ability of startup founders to build companies if they have significant funding from U.S. investors. The administration hopes the rule will be completed before President Barack Obama’s term ends on Jan. 20. The proposed rule is part of Obama’s commitment to “attracting the world’s best and brightest entrepreneurs to start the next great companies here,” Tom Kalil, a technology policy adviser at the White House, told reporters in a call. Kalil said immigrants have co-founded as many as one in four high-tech startups across the United States and more than half of all startups in Silicon Valley. Immigration has been a crucial issue in the 2016 presidential campaign ahead of the Nov. 8 election. Republican candidate Donald Trump has vowed to toughen immigration policies, while Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton has proposed creating an office of immigrant affairs to expand Obama’s efforts to help immigrants integrate better into the country. Under the rule, DHS would issue temporary permission for entrepreneurs to live in the United States if they have at least 15 percent ownership in startup companies formed in the country within the past three years. The companies must have investment of at least $345,000 from qualified U.S. investors. The administration expects about 3,000 immigrants would apply for the temporary permission, known as parole. Max Levchin, a co-founder of PayPal and other companies who was born in Ukraine, said the proposed rule is a “great, concrete step toward creating more jobs in America and more success stories.” Many entrepreneurs are educated at prestigious U.S. universities, but find themselves unable to stay in the country because they lose visa lotteries or can’t afford to sponsor themselves through an existing investor visa program. “We lose and will continue to lose talented, skilled, well educated scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs because they are simply not allowed to stay and work after we educated them to very high standards,” Levchin said. “It makes very little sense.”

Gangs Involved In Huge Biker Brawl Have “toned down their threats” After Warning Police Of Retaliation And Threat To kill “anyone in uniform”

We would encourage biker groups to stand down. There s been enough bloodshed. Waco Police Sergeant W. Patrick SwantonPolice in Texas are on alert after two biker gangs involved in a deadly shootout in Waco over the weekend allegedly issued orders to shoot and kill uniformed law enforcement officers.State and federal authorities distributed memos to local police warning that the Cossacks and Bandidos motorcycle gangs had been told to arm themselves and head to North Texas in the wake of last weekend s bloody shootout. Nine people were killed and 18 injured in the gun fight, which erupted at a Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco on Sunday.Police made more than 170 arrests and confiscated guns and other weapons after the fight, which is believed to have involved up to five different biker gangs.https://youtu.be/4VV7gdwoJk8Sunday s bloody chaos consumed the Twin Peaks restaurant and spilled into its parking lot where bikers turned their weapons on police. Police returned fire, killing four bikers, CNN reported.The Bandidos are one of the largest motorcycle gangs in the world. Only the Hells Angels are bigger These outlaws ride Harley s, traffic drugs, carry weapons and run prostitution rings. 2,500 strong, the Bandidos rule the roads in the US and stretch across the globe from Europe to Asia and Australia. San Antonio, TX is the hub of the gangs activity:Law enforcement officers across Texas received memos Monday warning of possible retaliation. A bulletin posted by the Del Rio Sector Border Patrol said members of the Cossacks and Bandidos biker gangs had been instructed to shoot and kill law uniformed law enforcement officers, according to a CBS affiliate that covers the Dallas-Fort Worth area.Other law enforcement memos obtained by the station warned of escalating violence and said that members of the rival gangs, both of which originated in Texas in the 1960s, had been ordered to arm themselves and head to North Texas.A warning distributed by the Texas Department of Public Safety said the bikers were told to ignore orders from police they encountered on the way.Waco police told CNN that they had known the Twin Peaks restaurant was a hotspot for bikers, and that uniformed officers regularly patrolled the area closely in the months leading up to the deadly melee. But police presence wasn t enough to dissuade the bikers from violence. We wanted our presence to be known, Waco Police Sergeant W. Patrick Swanton told CNN Wednesday. They knew we were seconds away and going to respond. That mattered not to them We would encourage biker groups to stand down. There s been enough bloodshed. In a news briefing Tuesday, Swanton noted that gangs toned down their threats for reprisal, although they remain a worry for law enforcement, according to Reuters.According to The New York Times, the biker meet-up over the weekend was originally intended to discuss bikers rights and how to work on issues of mutual concern, but instead collapsed into violence, with a long-standing feud between the Bandidos and the Cossacks as the backdrop.If convicted, the gang members accused in the shooting could face the death penalty. Via: The Huffington PostHere is an ariel view of the police investigation following the gangs shooting spree:https://youtu.be/rDIDr8MJTbc

the plenary meeting of iraqi sunnis ended by stressing on unanimity and unity against threats

email britain has been providing military training to the saudi arabian air force while the country is carrying out atrocities in neighboring yemen a report says the uks liberal democrats revealed that the british government is providing the training in both saudi arabia and britain itself the independent revealed on saturday the partys foreign affairs spokesman tom brake obtained a parliamentary letter from uk defense secretary michael fallon in which he acknowledged that the british government provides the training to saudi pilots bombing civilians in yemen brake denounced the move as shameful calling on the ministry of defense to end the training immediately the government must end its complicity in this murderous campaign he said it is shameful that the uk government is not only arming saudi pilots it is training them as well saudi arabia has launched a war in yemen on march in a bid to undermine the houthiansarullah movement and restore power to saudibacked former president abdrabbuh mansur hadi since the beginning of the aggression almost people including over children have been killed the liberal democrats also wanted to know what the instructions and advice had been given by the british government on authorizing military operations and the targeting of aerial operations over the last year the indiscriminate bombing of innocent civilians by saudi arabia in yemen in clear breach of international humanitarian law is now well documented blake added in response fallon claimed the government helps the saudi air force in order to improve their targeting processes and to support international humanitarian law ihl compliance fallon said the uk had delivered two training sessions in saudi arabia on the process for investigating alleged international humanitarian law violations under a joint incident team it supported he however said that the government has not provided any specific operational advice to the kingdom of saudi arabia for operations in yemen and has not provided training on political authorization of military operations the liberal democrat party also insisted that the latest revelation requires an urgent action by uk foreign secretary boris jonson who personally signs off any arms sales to countries such as saudi arabia london which has been one of the biggest suppliers of weapons to riyadh for years has come under fire for its continued sales of weapons to the kingdom during its war on yemen charity group oxfam accused the british government of being in a state of denial and disarray over its arms supplies to riyadh earlier this year amnesty international found a banned britishmade cluster bomb used by the saudis in yemen the undetonated bomb which was found in a remote village in northern yemen was bl cluster bombs

Libyan forces suffer casualties as fighting drags on in Benghazi

BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - Libyan forces fighting in Benghazi have lost four men and seen 10 wounded so far in December, five months after declaring victory in a campaign to control the eastern city, a medical source said on Monday. Three of the dead from the Libyan National Army (LNA) were killed by snipers and one by a landmine as it faces resistance from a group of fighters in the Benghazi district of Khreibish. There have been daily clashes in the area and occasional air strikes. LNA commander Khalifa Haftar declared victory in a three-year military campaign against an array of Islamist militants and other fighters in Benghazi in early July. The fighting is part of a broader conflict that developed following the 2011 fall of strongman Muammar Gaddafi. Haftar has opposed a U.N.-backed government based in the capital, Tripoli, as he has gradually strengthened his position on the ground.

China says no intention of using currency devaluation to its advantage

BEIJING (Reuters) - China said on Friday it had no intention of using currency devaluation to its advantage in trade, responding to U.S. President Donald Trump’s description of the Asian giant as the “grand champions” of currency manipulation. Trump said in an interview with Reuters on Thursday he had not “held back” in his assessment that China manipulates its yuan currency, just hours after his new treasury secretary pledged a more methodical approach to analysing Beijing’s foreign exchange practices. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said he hoped the United States could “fully and correctly” view the exchange rate issue. “China has no intention of seeking foreign trade advantages via an intentional devaluation of the renminbi. There is no basis for the continued devaluation of the renminbi,” he told a daily media briefing in Beijing. “If you must attach the label ‘grand champion’ to China, then I think China is a grand champion. But we are the grand champions of economic development,” Geng added. The Foreign Ministry has no say in currency policy, but it is the only Chinese government department that holds a daily briefing that foreign reporters attend. The central People’s Bank of China did not respond to a request for comment. In a commentary, the official Xinhua news agency said criticising China for manipulating its currency to prop up trade was a “major myth that has been circulating in Washington for quite a long time”. “Since July 2005, China has decided to unpeg the yuan against the U.S. dollar, and allow it to fluctuate against a basket of currencies so as to better reflect the market changes. Over the years, the renminbi has appreciated substantially against the dollar,” it said. Trump has frequently accused China of keeping its currency artificially low against the dollar to make Chinese exports cheaper, “stealing” American manufacturing jobs. But he did not act on a campaign promise to declare China a currency manipulator on his first day in office. The yuan fell 6.6 percent against the dollar in 2016, its biggest annual drop since 1994, as it was pressured by worries about slowing Chinese growth and more recently by a resurgent dollar, which has spurred capital outflows from many emerging markets. Chinese authorities have taken numerous steps in recent months to curb capital flight to support the weakening yuan currency, while trying to bring in more foreign investment. Geng said there was no basis for the continued devaluation of the Chinese currency and he hoped “the relevant side can fully and correctly view the renminbi exchange rate issue”. But China’s foreign exchange regulator said this month the economy still faced weak global demand and financial market volatility caused by expectations of further interest rate rises by the U.S. Federal Reserve.

LEFTY COMMUNIST Calls Trump-Supporting High School Students ‘White Supremacists’. Hilarity Ensues! [VIDEO]

If you haven t discovered Austen Fletcher yet, please check him out on twitter and YouTube He goes in and opens up lefty brains with shocking facts He s awesome!Communist calls Trump supporting high school students 'white supremacists'. Hilarity ensues! #FleccasTalkshttps://t.co/M7VCVpmEUV pic.twitter.com/JHpygavsZw Austen Fletcher (@fleccas) November 2, 2017The entire video is below:Students at Cal State Fullerton attempted to shut down Milo Yiannopoulis right to free speech. They end up looking like idiots!Townhall covered the idiocy:Halloween Night at Cal State Fullerton, I got to engage the crowd of students who would be protesting free speech absolutist and conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos. I didn t want to hear him. I wanted to meet the students, see the force of outrage against his presence on the campus, and start changing some minds.In the beginning, I noticed that some protesters were wearing masks. Law enforcement surrounded and arrested one of them. Later that night, another Antifa thug got taken down after pepper-spraying others. Perhaps it s time for local law enforcement to deputize the law-abiding citizens to arrest those who wear masks and menace peace-loving protesters.Like many others in the student quad, I came in my own custom: Arthur, i.e. Arthur Reed the cartoon anteater (or Aardvark). It works, don t you think? Other costumes included Hugh Hefner, a pirate wrapped in rainbow feather boas, and a snowflake liberal. The last one was a young man wearing bubble wrap all over his body. Funny stuff!As soon as I arrived at the square, reporters and student journalists rushed towards me. One guy asked me which was worse, feminism or cancer. I said both . Other students wanted to know why I was there, including the mainstream media reporters. I want free speech restored and respected on college campuses, and I want to debunk the lies and mythologies about President Trump.Within minutes, a crazed black woman later identified as Keyanna Celina roared at me: White Supremacist! Get out of here! My friend Genevieve Peters tried to calm the situation. Instead, Celina swiped at her, then beat her around the head multiple times before someone in the crowd fired pepper spray to stop Celina.Right on cue, the anti-Milo, anti-free speech fascists started chanting Fascists go home! Fascists go home! Instead of running away, I stood right in front of their protest, turned the cameras on them and shouted with them: Fascists go home! Trick or treat!Full disclosure: I am no Milo fan. But so what? He has every right to speak at a college, and no one should prevent him! Besides, I was more interested in listening to students, to find out why they were protesting, to get their views on key issues, and to stump for President Trump. Some students accused me of starting fights. I soon realized they were merely trying to silence me. After deftly casting accusations aside, I began to realize why abject liberalism had taken hold on many of these young people. Obviously, they don t hear other points of view, and thus anyone with a difference of opinion is wrong. As I feared, most students are told what to think, not how to think. Another problem was the sloppy misuse of terms. One man claimed that 75% of the businesses in socialist dystopia Venezuela are privately owned. Uh Nope! Why would he believe this? Because he didn t see the clear synonym between nationalization and socialization.

WHY TRUMP’S NEW CEO Will Be The Left’s Worst Nightmare

No one understands the dirty Democrat underbelly better than Stephen K. Bannon. He s been in the trenches fighting with the underdog conservative movement for years. He was a close friend of Andrew Breitbart s and he understands better than anyone what we re really up against with Hillary and how the Left will stop at nothing to win. Trump didn t need another go-along to get-along RINO as his CEO. The New York Times described Bannon today as a Media firebrand. He needed someone who doesn t think voter fraud is some made up right-wing conspiracy. Bannon s studied the Occupy movement, he even directed a film exposing the players, the organizers and the future of the radical leftist movement. Donald Trump s second overhaul of his presidential campaign staff in as many months is an effort to remake his organization more in his own image, after trying and struggling to conform to the role of a traditional politician guided by political operatives.Some Republicans welcomed the addition of new senior staff to Mr. Trump s team, hoping it would bring a dramatic change to his faltering trajectory in opinion polls against Democrat Hillary Clinton. But some in the GOP also said they were worried that Mr. Trump couldn t recover lost ground by choosing a provocative media entrepreneur who has never run a campaign to lead his team.In keeping with his expressed desire in recent days to be himself, Mr. Trump has brought in as his campaign s CEO Stephen Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News, a conservative media outlet that delights in bashing the GOP establishment, among others. I m going to do whatever it takes and do it the way I think will win, Mr. Trump said in a Tuesday night interview with The Wall Street Journal.When the Occupy movement began a year ago, many initially dismissed it as a gathering of harmless college students. But the late Andrew Breitbart saw in the movement professional left-wing anarchists and radicals who sought to use the Occupy protests to violently overthrow the United States government, then destroy its institutions and the free market system.Breitbart s friend, Stephen K. Bannon, was one of those who had initially not taken the Occupy movement seriously until he saw occupiers shut down the Brooklyn Bridge. He knew then Breitbart was right, and immediately started a project with Breitbart that would turn into Occupy Unmasked, a movie that opened nationwide in theaters this week that systematically dismantled the notion that the Occupy movement was good-natured and peaceful.Here s a clip from Bannon s Occupy Unmasked movie, directed by Trump s new CEO, Stephen K. Bannon:The lessons from the movie Occupy Unmasked are important to keep in mind as liberal intellectuals again try to mainstream a radical and violent movement to breathe life into something that, for now, has faded. The movie documents all the violence, filth, rapes, and systemic coordination between left-wing radicals and labor unions like the SEIU that was the real story behind the Occupy movement.In glorifying the Occupy movement and looking ahead to the its future, liberals revealed that a potential second coming of Occupy could be even more dangerous and violent than the first.Enter Obama s Black Lives Matter terror movement which is really nothing more than a second Occupy Movement, inspired and cheered on by our very own President of the United States. Today, the Occupy Movement has a bigger umbrella. It s no longer just made up of misfits and anarchists, the movement now has shifted to appeal to the raw emotions of Blacks living in Democrat ruled ghettos. The Left has taken the focus off the Democratic politicians who intentionally keep these citizens dependent on the government, and made them believe that the only chance they have of escaping the poverty that traps them in violent neighborhoods, is to target the cops who bravely patrol their neighborhoods. Young white students have been inspired by radical educators to join the violent, chaotic movement as a way to cleanse them of their perceived racist sins. Leftist radicals like George Soros are helping to fund the movement and keep the chaos going at least through the election. Voter fraud efforts will be kicked into high gear, as the GOP elite sit back and scoff at people like Steve Bannon who know the real score, and are truly ready to take on the fight we will need to win this #WAR (Breitbart s rally cry for conservatives to join the fight against the Left and take back our country) against Hillary s radical machine.Stephen K. Bannon is exactly who this nation needs at this exact time in our history, and we believe Trump couldn t have chosen a better General in this #War against the radical Left.Mr. Bannon will take a leave of absence from Breitbart News, which has adopted an antiestablishment stance on the conservative right and has cheered Mr. Trump s call for more restrictive immigration policies and his rebukes of GOP leaders such as House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. We don t really believe there is a functional conservative party in this country, and we certainly don t think the Republican Party is that, Mr. Bannon said at a National Press Club conference in 2013.For his part, the former Goldman Sachs investment banker, naval officer and documentary filmmaker recently wrote and produced the movie Clinton Cash, based on a book about the Clinton family s personal wealth.

WATCH: CNN Panel EXPLODES After Rick Santorum Gives DISGUSTING Defense Of Trump’s Racism

There s one thing that Trump s surrogates all share, and that s a ridiculously blind loyalty to Trump. They can t see his evils, and their minds automatically twist any evil he says or does into something good.Such was the case on CNN, where Rick Santorum spoke up on Trump s trashing of civil rights icon John Lewis, who is also a Democratic representative from Georgia, and who said Trump is an illegitimate president.Trump has taken a lot of flak, especially given that he did it so close to Martin Luther King, Jr. s birthday. Former presidential adviser David Gergen was talking about why Trump was wrong to go after Lewis the way he did: This was an attack on [Lewis ] life, what he stands for, what he did for this country and marching across that bridge. Then former Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter weighed in with: When will the person who will be president act like a grownup and serious person, not always take the bait? Show some restraint, show some dignity. There is no bottom to the depth that he will go to argue with anyone, and cause disdain. Donald Trump was wrong. John Lewis is an icon. He can say whatever he wants. When Santorum got a chance to speak, he said he and most other people in politics would have handled Lewis comments much differently. Then he put forth this obscene gem: Donald Trump is the president because he did things like this. Which just speaks to how low Trump s voters really are. If anyone can defend Trump s pettiness that way, or in any way, they are just as ridiculous as he is.Watch the fireworks below:Featured image via screen capture from embedded video

Zimbabwe's vice president, possible Mugabe successor, says he was poisoned

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa said late on Thursday he had been hospitalized in August because he had been poisoned, raising the political temperature in the fight to succeed 93-year-old President Robert Mugabe. Mnangagwa, a former intelligence chief nicknamed the Crocodile , is the leading candidate to succeed Mugabe, the only leader Zimbabwe has known since independence in 1980. He did not say who he believed was responsible for trying to kill him, and his main rival for the top job, First Lady Grace Mugabe, swiftly denied having anything to do with it. Hours earlier, she told a public gathering at a nearby hotel on Thursday night that Mnangagwa and his allies were plotting a power grab that was tantamount to a coup, according to an audio recording of her speech. Mnangagwa was airlifted to Johannesburg after falling ill in August. At a news conference late on Thursday open only to state media, he said doctors had concluded that poisoning was to blame for his illness, and not inadvertent food poisoning. The medical doctors who attended to me ruled out food poisoning but confirmed that indeed poisoning had occurred and investigations were in progress, Mnangagwa said, reading from a statement. He provided no further details or proof. Mnangagwa, 75, became vice-president in 2014, putting him at the front of the pack to succeed Mugabe. However over the last 18 months he has met fierce opposition from Grace and a faction of the ruling party backing her. The first lady denied having anything to do with his illness and accused him of lying about it to get public sympathy. Why should I kill Mnangagwa? Who is Mnangagwa on this earth? Grace Mugabe said in footage aired on Friday on state television. Killing someone who was given a job by my husband? That is nonsensical. Veterans of Zimbabwe s 1970s independence war have publicly backed Mnangagwa to step into Mugabe s shoes and last year described the nonagenarian ruler as a dictator, a jolting rebuke that laid bare the fissures within the ruling ZANU-PF party. In her hotel address on Thursday evening, Grace said Mnangagwa was plotting to force ZANU-PF to support him as Mugabe s successor - a scheme she said must be resisted. We are being threatened day and night that if this one does not become president, we will kill you, she said without stating the origin of the threats. No, we will not bow down to that pressure, never. You will have to arrest all of us and throw us in prison before you can rule. According to a trove of hundreds of documents from inside Zimbabwe s Central Intelligence Organization (CIO) reviewed by Reuters in September, Mnangagwa and other political players have been positioning themselves for the day Mugabe either steps down or dies, with the tacit backing of some of Zimbabwe s military and former colonial power Britain. The ruling party s next leadership congress is due in 2019 and Mugabe, who plans to context next year s elections, has said he is staying put for now.

U.S. Supreme Court leaves key campaign finance restriction in place

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday turned away a Republican challenge to a federal campaign finance restriction that prevents political parties from raising unlimited amounts of cash to spend on supporting candidates. The Republican Party of Louisiana had argued that a provision of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act violates free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution. But the justices let stand a lower court’s ruling that rejected the Republican challenge. The brief order noted that conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch favored hearing the case. The conservative-leaning court in recent years has rolled back campaign finance restrictions. In 2010, the court paved the way to unlimited outside spending on elections in a case called FEC v. Citizens United that concerned corporate spending. In 2014, the court struck down limits on the total amount individuals can donate during the federal two-year election cycle. Both those decisions eroded sections of the 2002 law. The measure is commonly known as the McCain-Feingold law after the two senators who sponsored it, Republican John McCain and Democrat Russ Feingold. It barred state and local parties from taking unlimited donations for any activities concerning federal elections. Such donations are often called “soft money” because they are unregulated. They were a key target of the 2002 law. The Supreme Court has previously turned down similar cases challenging party campaign finance restrictions, including one in 2010 just after the Citizens United decision that focused on the national parties and was brought by the Republican National Committee.

White House promises welfare overhaul details early next year

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration will provide details of its plans to overhaul welfare in the first few weeks of 2018, a White House spokeswoman said on Monday. “This is something that the president has a great deal of interest in and I think you can count on probably the first part of next year seeing more specifics and details come out on that,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told a press briefing when asked about Trump’s comment earlier on Monday that “people are taking advantage of the system.”

South Koreans practice in case of North Korea attack, but with little urgency

SEOUL (Reuters) - Traffic was halted, movie screenings interrupted and hundreds of thousands of people across South Korea were directed to underground shelters on Wednesday as part of a civil defense drill to practice in case of an attack by North Korea. But South Koreans are familiar with such preparations, having seen many over the decades since the height of Cold War tension with a neighbor it is still technically at war with, and many people have become inured to the danger. This time, the government tried to inject some urgency and get more people taking part amid a surge of tension over North Korea s weapons programs, and an exchange of dire warnings of nuclear war by both it and its sworn enemy, the United States. We need to practice because we re still at war with North Korea and people are insensitive to threats, said Hwang Jae-min, a 30-year-old prison guard who happened to be watching a movie at a Seoul cinema complex when a siren heralded the beginning of the drill. Hwang was one of about 50 moviegoers led underground to take shelter from an imaginary North Korean air raid. The siren sounded around the country and government officials and police flagged down traffic and tried to shepherd pedestrians to the nearest shelters. But skeptics doubted such an orchestrated exercise would be much use if and when it came to a real war. I do strongly believe we need this drill but it doesn t seem to be working properly, said Choi In-sook, a 45-year-old housewife strolling down a city street when the siren went off. She did not run for cover. It needs to be performed like it s a real war, she said. The drill was part of an annual joint military exercise conducted by South Korean and U.S. forces that began on Monday and will run until Aug. 31, and which North Korea denounced as a reckless step toward nuclear war. North Korea routinely denounces military exercises by U.S. and South Korean forces that it regards as thinly disguised preparations to invade it. South Korea s state run television broadcast scenes from the 20-minute drill live for the first time in two years in the hope of drumming up some enthusiasm. Jung Han-yol, director of the Ministry of Public Affairs and Safety s civil defense division, conceded that the fact that participation was voluntary meant the drill might lack some credibility. Cho Won-cheol, emeritus professor of civil and environmental engineering of Yonsei University in Seoul, said there was always a problem with getting people involved in government preparations for a war few people believe will happen. The reason why the drill is not working well is the country s civil defense drill has always been practiced mostly by the government or civil officials, not by the civilians, Cho said. South Korea and is main ally the United States are technically still at war with the North because their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

WATCH: Not A Single Woman Will Vote Trump After Seeing This Video

A new ad from a conservative super PAC absolutely destroys Donald Trump, and it uses his own words to do the job. The commercial comes from Our Principles PAC, and it showcases ordinary everyday women reading a series of horribly sexist and misogynist quotes from current Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump.A few choice quotes from the ad include:These are the sorts of quotes that have terrified the Republican establishment about what Trump would do to the party in the general election. Even with candidates without misogynist comments like these on the ballot, Republicans have struggled to convince female voters. In 2012, 55 percent of women voted for Barack Obama, a number that was almost the same at 56 percent in 2008. Even when John Kerry lost the election in 2004, he still got 51 percent of the women s vote.You can hear the audio of Trump himself making many of these sexist comments in a story compiled by Buzzfeed. They went through Trump s appearances on radio shows like Howard Stern:Trump appeared upwards of two dozen times from the late 90s through the 2000s with the shock jock, and BuzzFeed News has listened to hours of those conversations, which are not publically available. The most popular topic of conversation during these appearances, as is typical of Stern s program, was sex. In particular, Trump frequently discussed women he had sex with, wanted to have sex with, or wouldn t have sex with if given the opportunity. He also rated women on a 10-point scale.This Super PAC ad is designed to derail Trump s path to the Republican nomination, but it may be too late for that. But a similar ad, broadcast from coast to coast by Democrats and their affiliated super PACs would likely be extremely devastating.Featured image via YouTube

It’s Not Over Yet: Jill Stein Files Federal Lawsuit Over Pennsylvania Recount

Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein has filed a lawsuit in federal court over the recount efforts in Pennsylvania. According to the complaint filed by Stein, Pennsylvania elections are a national disgrace. Voters are forced to use vulnerable, hackable, antiquated technology banned in other states, then rely on the kindness of machines, the complaint reads. There is no paper trail. Voting machines are electoral black sites: no one permits voters or candidates to examine them. Stein filed her lawsuit on Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The suit questions if votes in the Keystone State were counted accurately and alleged that electronic voting machines in the state had serious cyber security problems. In the 2016 presidential election, rife with foreign interference documented by American intelligence agencies and hacks of voter rolls in multiple states, voters deserve the truth, reads the lawsuit.Stein was forced to drop her original bid for a recount in Pennsylvania on Saturday when a judge attached a $1 million price tag after Donald Trump requested a $10 million bond. Petitioners are regular citizens of ordinary means. They cannot afford to post the $1,000,000 bond required by the court, Stein s attorney wrote in a court filing.On Sunday, Stein tweeted that she was not done yet, though.On Monday, I will escalate #Recount2016 in PA and file to demand a statewide recount on constitutional grounds. The people deserve answers. Dr. Jill Stein (@DrJillStein) December 4, 2016Recounts in Wisconsin are already underway and early Monday morning, U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith ordered recounts in Michigan to begin at noon.Trump won all three of these battleground states by narrow margins. Despite the fact that the recounts are unlikely to change the outcome of the election, Trump has fought against them vehemently, making many people wonder what the hell he is so afraid of. Trump unleashed multiple Twitter rants railing against Stein s push for recounts, and in one of these, he managed to unwittingly make the case for the recount efforts by claiming voter fraud. Sad.Featured image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images

YIKES! WHAT THE HECK Did Hillary Just Cough Up Into Her Glass?…And Why Is There An Ambulance In Her Motorcade? [VIDEO]

Hillary was seen passing up a bottle of water in the midst of another one of her coughing fits in front of her press cheerleaders on her new campaign plane yesterday. Passing up a bottle of water in the middle of a coughing fit would seem strange, but what was even more strange is that she passed up a bottle of water for a glass of water that was handed to her by someone on her staff from behind the curtain. Pretty much everything Hillary does is done from behind a curtain so the idea that Hillary is likely hiding a serious illness like say .Parkinson s Disease is not really all that far fetched.DOES HILLARY HAVE PARKINSON S DISEASE?As a neurological disorder, Parkinson s disease (PD) has been shown to affect motor skills in the limbs, inhibit muscle coordination, and sometimes contribute to dysphagia.1 Dysphagia is the medical term for difficulty swallowing. Thickened liquids are often used in the management of dysphagia to improve bolus control and to help prevent aspiration. A range of starches and gums has historically been used to thicken liquids. Although thickened liquids improve swallow safety, they appear to have a great potential for unintended physiological consequences.What the heck did Hillary just cough up into her glass during her speech in Cleveland?https://twitter.com/NolteNC/status/773264547813744648Meanwhile a very interesting addition was spotted in Hillary Clinton s motorcade yesterday. There s a probably a perfectly good explanation for an ambulance being added to her motorcade. Maybe it s in case Hillary falls off the stage. She has been stumbling quite a bit and has been seen grabbing on to railings, chairs, tables, or pretty much anything she can get her hands on that helps to keep her upright. But it s only her health and she is only running for President of the most powerful nation on earth so, what difference does that make right?Watch the great coverage of Hillary s pathetic rally in Cleveland yesterday by this young InfoWars reporter. The ambulance appears at the 6:40 mark:In case you missed it Watch Hillary spit something eeeeewww!back into her glass of of water and whatever else is mixed in with the water:

France to raise minimum food prices, limit bargain sales

PARIS (Reuters) - France will on Thursday announce a plan to raise regulated minimum food prices and limit bargain sales in supermarkets as part of a wider field-to-fork plan aimed at increasing farmers income, a government official said. The measures are part of a wider review promised by President Emmanuel Macron to appease farmers, an important constituency in French politics, who have long complained of being hit by squeezed margins and retail price wars. In October Macron said the government would raise minimum prices retailers can charge on food products only if each sector proposed detailed organization plans by the end of the year. Most of these plans arrived late last week, the official said. The government will propose that threshold below which retailers cannot sell food products will rise by some 10 percent while prices on promotional offers could not be discounted by more than 34 percent and no more than 25 percent of a product s volume could be sold in a promotional offer, the official said, in line with a proposal reported by daily Le Figaro. The new rules, aimed at limiting sales at losses that pressure suppliers down the chain, would be applied for a trial period of two years. Macron had delayed until year-end the proposal by retailers to raise regulated minimum prices as he sought guarantees it would meet his promise to boost farm income while minimizing retail inflation. The measures will be included in a new law, set to be approved in the first half of next year, which will also tackle price renegotiation in case of a wide swing in commodity prices and create a reversed contract starting from farmers production costs to food processors and to retailers. Company and industry representatives, unions, non-governmental organizations and officials, have gathered at the so-called Food Convention since the summer to discuss topics ranging from food quality to farm income and export strategy.

Nate Silver’s Election Autopsy And Reason For Hillary’s Loss Will INFURIATE Everyone (TWEET)

Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com is pretty accurate when it comes to election reports. He has also tweeted just why Hillary Clinton lost the White House: James Comey s email letter. Just eleven days out from the election, the wind was at Hillary s back. Trump was still grappling with his issues with women after the infamous grab em by the p*ssy tape, and people weren t focused on anything else. However, according to Silver, once Comey inserted himself and his baseless email nonsense into the picture, it was a turning point in the wrong direction. Silver says: Comey had a large, measurable impact on the race. Harder to say with Russia/Wikileaks because it was drip-drip-drip. Comey had a large, measurable impact on the race. Harder to say with Russia/Wikileaks because it was drip-drip-drip. https://t.co/LgJkfYpZCk https://t.co/9FYMNz763b Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 11, 2016Silver then tweeted a graphic that broke it all down, basically saying that Comey tipped the last minute undecideds to Trump:There's more evidence, too: Late-deciding voters broke strongly against Clinton in swing states, enough to cost her MI/WI/PA. pic.twitter.com/8r801ahDQO Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 11, 2016Silver went on to opine: I ll put it like this: Clinton would almost certainly be President-elect if the election had been held on Oct. 27 (day before Comey letter). This is nothing short of criminal. Comey and the entire FBI should be investigated. He inserted himself into the middle of what is perhaps the most consequential election of our lives, and tipped it to a literal madman. Of course, it won t happen, because Trump and the GOP don t care HOW they won, just that they did. To that end, we re stuck with President Trump, and all of the people who put their thumbs on the scale for Trump be it the FBI, Russia, or James Comey himself will be free to do the same in four years.Featured image via Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

FBI detects breaches against two state voter systems

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Bureau of Investigation has found breaches in Illinois and Arizona’s voter registration databases and is urging states to increase computer security ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election, according to a U.S. official familiar with the probe. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Monday that investigators were also seeking evidence of whether other states may have been targeted. The FBI warning in an Aug. 18 flash alert from the agency’s Cyber Division did not identify the intruders or the two states targeted. Reuters obtained a copy of the document after Yahoo News first reported the story Monday. Accessing information in a voter database, much of which is publicly accessible, does not necessarily suggest an effort to manipulate the votes themselves. When registering, voters typically provide their names, home addresses, driver’s license or identification numbers, and party affiliations. But U.S. intelligence officials have become increasingly worried that hackers sponsored by Russia or other countries may attempt to disrupt the presidential election. Officials and cyber security experts say recent breaches at the Democratic National Committee and elsewhere in the Democratic Party were likely carried out by people within the Russian government. Kremlin officials have denied that. An FBI spokeswoman would not comment on the alerts but said the agency “routinely advises” on “various cyber threat indicators observed during the course of our investigations.” The intrusions come amid repeated unsubstantiated claims by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump that the U.S. election system is “rigged.” Trump has cited emails leaked from the DNC that indicated the party leadership favored Hillary Clinton over rival candidate Bernie Sanders as reason to cast doubt on the electoral process in general. David Kennedy, chief executive officer of information security consulting company TrustedSec, said the attacks referenced in the FBI alert appeared to be largely exploratory and not especially sophisticated. “It could be a precursor to a larger attack,” he added. Citing a state election board official, Yahoo News said the Illinois voter registration system was shut down for 10 days in late July after hackers downloaded personal data on up to 200,000 voters. State voter systems are often targeted by hackers, and 200,000 is a relatively small number compared to other recent incidents. An independent computer security researcher uncovered in December of last year a database on 191 million voters that was exposed on the open Internet due to an incorrect configuration. The Arizona attack was more limited and involved introducing malicious software into one state employee’s computer, said Matt Roberts, communications director for the Arizona secretary of state’s office. That office publicly reported a cyber incident in June after being contacted by the FBI, which led to it temporarily shutting down its election site to deal with the potential threat. Roberts said he was uncertain if the FBI advisory was in reference to that same June incident, during which investigators found no evidence of any data exfiltration. In that episode, the FBI told Arizona officials the hackers were believed to be Russian and described it as an “eight out of 10” on a threat severity scale, Roberts said. Arizona will hold Republican and Democratic primaries for congressional races on Tuesday.

U.S. will admit up to 45,000 refugees next year -Trump

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will admit a maximum of 45,000 refugees during the 2018 fiscal year, President Donald Trump said in a memorandum to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and released by the White House on Friday. The cap, the lowest in decades, was proposed by the administration in a report to Congress on Wednesday. Refugee advocates say the lower limit ignores growing humanitarian crises around the world that are causing people to flee their native countries in greater numbers, and represents a departure from U.S. global leadership. The Trump administration says the lower cap is necessary so that U.S. officials can address a growing backlog of people applying for asylum inside the United States, and to do better vetting of refugees. In its report to Congress, which was reviewed by Reuters, the administration said it may assess refugees on their "likelihood of successful assimilation and contribution to the United States." (tmsnrt.rs/2yHEKpk) An assimilation standard for refugees would be a departure from recent practice but on its face is not inappropriate, said Joseph Cassidy, a fellow at the Wilson Center and former State Department official. “The particular concern is that assessments could be made, not on the basis of individual cases, but might be biased against certain religions or nationalities,” Cassidy said.

HOW TRUMP’S LATEST MOVE COULD Give America 4 Years Of Bernie Or Hillary

In nine months, Americans will choose between a leader who will turn back the clock, and work diligently to undo the enormous amount of damage Barack Hussein Obama has done to our nation, or they will choose a candidate who will continue down the same reckless path. Until yesterday, I truly believed we had a fighting chance to restore pride, honor and dignity to the office of the President of the United States and more importantly to the people of our nation who deserve so much more. We have our favorite candidates, but in the end, there isn t a person left standing on the GOP stage who we wouldn t rather see in office than the corrupt, marxist, gun-grabbing, pro-amnesty, everyone s a victim and voters rights for everyone candidates on the Democrat Party s side.2016 GOP presidential frontrunner Donald J. Trump tells reporters here that his pledge to support the eventual GOP nominee is now void because the Republican National Committee, along with local and state GOP factions, is stacking debate audiences with donor class officials. The RNC is in default, Trump said at the press conference. Just so you understand, the RNC is in default. When somebody is in default, that means the other side can do what they have to do. The RNC is in default. Trump s point is that the RNC has defaulted through its actions against his candidacy on the pledge he signed earlier in the cycle, and his point is that because they have defaulted he can do whatever he wants. Trump is signaling he may not support the eventual GOP nominee in 2016 if that nominee is not him.The significance of this development can t be understated. The entire GOP presidential primary election has focused on this question, which was launched to the center of discussion by the first question at the first GOP debate in Cleveland, Ohio, back in August, 2015. That question, by Fox News s Bret Baier, asked all the candidates on stage to raise their hands if they would support the eventual GOP nominee. Trump was the only one who didn t raise his hand. That, and several other unseemly questions from Fox s Megyn Kelly about Trump and women, catapulted into public view a then-private war between Trump and Fox that has lasted publicly to this day.In the coming weeks, the RNC eventually negotiated it out with Trump to get him to sign a pledge to back the eventual nominee. He signed it. But Trump is now arguing that the RNC hasn t been fair, and he says that means that the RNC, in his words, has defaulted on their end. So Trump says he can do whatever he wants if he doesn t win the nomination. Of course, all of this could end up being a moot point should Trump win the nomination, as he s fairly heavily favored to do at this point. But if he does lose, a world of possibilities has now opened up. The RNC gave all the tickets to special interests that represenSen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)97% and Rubio, Trump said at the press conference, explaining how and why the RNC defaulted on their pledge.They walked on stage, the place went crazy. It s sort of interesting. One guy s got like very low in the polls, the other one is very low in the polls. I m very high in the polls. There s nobody there for me except my wife and my kids because I don t have donors. I don t have donors and I don t have special interests. But I think the RNC did a very poor job. We ve warned them twice, because this happened twice before, and they don t [fix it].All of this leads Trump to believe that the RNC, like his opponents, is controlled by special interests and high-dollar donors who don t have the well-being of the American public in mind. That, Trump says, is why Republicans have lost presidential elections in 2008 and 2012 and will lose in 2016 if the nominee isn t the right person. I think the RNC is controlled, Trump said. The bottom line is the RNC is controlled by the establishment and the RNC is controlled by the special interests and the donors, and that s too bad. And that s why the Republican Party has lost for president for so long. Overall, Trump added, he s very disappointed in the RNC. I m very disappointed in the RNC, Republican National Committee, Trump said.I m very disappointed in the RNC because for three debates now the room has been stacked with special interests and donors as you know, as the press knows. As an example, I gave two judges who were very conservative judges. I was met with nice applause. Bush got up and stumbled through an answer and the place went crazy. I said, What are they doing? And then I realized all of these people many of the people in that room I know, some are friends of mine. Some are waving to me and booing. They re waving like this and they re booing they re having fun. I get it. Some of them are friends of mine. They are special interests. They re lobbyists. And that shouldn t be. They have total control over the people I m running against. Total, absolute control. I bring up the drug thing because the drug companies are going to go to competitive bid. Whether we save $100 billion a year or $350 billion a year, we re going to competitive bid. These people can t say that because the drug companies give them a fortune to run for office.Via: Breitbart News If Donald Trump has what it takes to be our next Commander In Chief, he ll stay true to his word and won t run third party. If he loves his country more than his ego, he wouldn t even consider it. If Donald Trump could put his desire to have the RNC support him aside for just two seconds, he would see that he doesn t need them win. He has enough support from so many cross-sections of America that he will likely win the election in a landslide. The real irony is, the spineless RNC is the reason Trump is consistently polling so high against the traditional establishment candidates. His voters are anti-establisment and could care less if the RNC stacks the debates with Bush or Kasich supporters. In fact, the obvious favoritism the RNC has shown for candidates polling in single digits will likely backfire and will cause more people to become actively engaged in the Trump, Cruz or Carson campaigns.

Britain to detail Brexit bill when EU agrees to move talks forward

LONDON/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May will only detail how big a divorce settlement Britain is willing to pay the EU when the bloc gives a commitment to moving talks forward, according to a plan rubber-stamped by even her most pro-Brexit ministers. The Brexit bill has become one of several hurdles to talks to unravel more than 40 years of union, with London reticent to offer too much too soon on what officials consider to be one of its strongest bargaining chips. In Brussels, British media speculation that May has won the backing of Brexit hardliners to offer more cash prompted talk among EU diplomats that a deal to unblock talks on future trade relations could be in the making ahead of a crunch Brussels summit in three weeks. At a meeting on Monday, May s Brexit committee - made up of some of her top ministers - backed the long-held strategy that Britain would honor commitments made when it was a member of the European Union. But the government will only offer any specifics when the bloc s negotiators give a commitment that talks will move to a discussion of the future relationship. We are ready to move onto phase two, to see those talks about a deep and special partnership with the EU for the future, a comprehensive trade agreement with the EU, May said on Tuesday. I think that s in the interests of the UK and in the interests of the remaining EU-27. I think it s also important that the UK and the EU step forward together, she added, a turn of phrase a source said expressed her desire for coordination. In public, Brussels is standing firm on the need for Britain to first make clear not a concrete euros and cents offer but a commitment to pay a share of EU spending for some items after Brexit - one of three key conditions the EU has set for opening trade talks. Asked if the EU was ready to give a promise to start those talks as soon as London offers more money, European Commission deputy head Frans Timmermans told CNN: I hear them saying that. But as far as the EU27 is concerned, ... if we tackle the three issues ... if we deal with that satisfactorily, we can move to the next stage. And that s been crystal clear since Day One. Nonetheless, EU negotiators are willing to help May with at least the appearance of cutting a deal. They could help fudge the amount of cash being handed over. And the EU already has an outline of a transition and free trade accord, which May could point to as something she had secured in exchange. We are ready to present the exit bill in a way that would make it easier for the Brits to sell at home, one diplomat said. He added that EU officials had looked at whether Britain might forgo its roughly 50-percent rebate on EU budget payments during a two-year transition period after Brexit, so reducing the gross amount Britain would otherwise hand over in advance. With only 16 months until Britain leaves the bloc, May is under increasing pressure not only from EU officials to move on the money, but also by businesses to provide certainty by early next year so they can make investment decisions. But she has a tightrope to walk. Many in her governing Conservative Party want Britain to quit the talks, feeling the EU is holding the country hostage over money, which they want to spend at home rather than abroad. Her spokesman said no figures were discussed at Monday s meeting and other ministers gave no details of what was discussed. Local media reported that she could increase the sum to 40 billion pounds ($53 billion), more than double the initial estimated offer of 20 billion euros ($23.5 billion). The Commission has cited a figure of 60 billion euros but EU officials have long said that is up for negotiation. For many in May s own party, however, the suggestion of any increase in how much Britain will pay at a time when talks had failed to move forward for five months was unpalatable. I need to be able to look my voters in the eye and be able to say that I have backed a deal that is in the interests of Britain, Conservative lawmaker Andrew Bridgen told Reuters. If I can t do that, I will vote against a deal and we will go to WTO rules of trade, rules with which we already trade with most of the world successfully.

LIFETIME VICTIMS of Injustice, MICHELLE and BARACK OBAMA Are Looking To Buy $15 Million Piece Of Land From Caroline Kennedy On Martha’s Vineyard

Remember when Michelle Obama told an adoring crowd at the DNC Convention how she had to suffer through living in the White House that was built by slaves ?Remember in 2015, when President Barack Obama used the n word during an interview where he talked about racism in America, and actually tried to convince the host that blacks are victims of racism today, as much as they were 200-300 years ago.Barack Obama invoked the most charged racial slur in American society during an interview published on Monday, as part of an argument that while the US has made great strides toward equality, racism still pervades the nation. Racism, we are not cured of it. And it s not just a matter of it not being polite to say nigger in public. That s not the measure of whether racism still exists or not, Obama told comedian Marc Maron, who interviewed the president for his popular podcast on Friday and released their conversation online on Monday. It s not just a matter of overt discrimination. Societies don t, overnight, completely erase everything that happened 200 to 300 years prior. The legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination in almost every institution of our lives, he continued, that casts a long shadow and that s still part of our DNA that s passed on. Watch:Well, it appears that lifetime victims, Barack and Michelle Obama have finally broken the chains of oppression that have been holding them back since they moved from their mansion in Chicago in 2008, to the White House, and then to their multi-million pad in DC, as they set their sites on 2 separate pieces of VACANT land on Martha s Vineyard valued at $12 million and $15 million each.Word around the island is that the Obamas, who ve rented a place on the Vineyard for the past several summers, are looking to buy. The former first family has many friends on Martha s Vineyard Harvard professors Henry Louis Skip Gates and Charles Ogletree, and former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, to name just a few and they would like to own a place of their own on the island.The 44th president and his wife, Michelle, are believed to be focused up island, looking at homes or buildable lots in the rural communities of Aquinnah, Chilmark, and West Tisbury. (It s worth noting that the Obamas have always rented up island, including for a two-week stay this summer.)No one s talking, least of all realtors, but we re told that one property that may be getting a long look is a magnificent waterfront outpost in Aquinnah owned by Caroline Kennedy and her husband, Edwin Schlossberg. A few years ago, the couple, who inherited from Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis the 377-acre Red Gate Farm overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, subdivided the property and put two parcels on the market.Both are still available but they don t come cheap. Sotheby s International Realty is listing a 75-acre parcel for $15 million, and a second 40-acre parcel for $12 million.The listing broker, George Ballantyne of Gibson Sotheby s International Realty, declined to talk to us. The properties appear on multiple sites, including Hancock Real Estate and Sand Piper Realty, which are both located on the Vineyard. Boston Globe

Could Newt Gingrich Save The Republican Party By Becoming Speaker Of The House?

He d like to build a giant wall, deport illegals, defund Planned Parenthood and deal with our debt crisis. These are all issues Newt Gingrich believes need to be dealt with. Given his past history as Speaker, he may just be the guy to get the job done Newt Gingrich told Breitbart Editor-in-Chief Alexander Marlow on Saturday that if he had the votes in congress to reclaim the Speaker of the House position, he would accept.Gingrich acknowledged that if he had 218 house members backing him as Speaker, who approved of his strategy on the continuing resolution, and his strategy on dealing with the debt ceiling, he would have a moral obligation to serve the country. Gingrich, who served as Speaker in the 90 s during the Clinton Administration, initially made light of this provocative possibility by reminding listeners to Breitbart News Saturday on Sirius XM Patriot radio, channel 125, of the time when conservative icon William F. Buckley was asked while running for Mayor of New York: if he was elected, what would he do? Buckley said that the first thing he would do is demand a recount.Later in the interview, the consummate historian side of Gingrich emerged. He waxed more philosophical, relating that George Washington never sought elected office, but when called upon to serve, he did so.The architect of the Contract with America in 1994, which proposed ten policies the GOP promised to a vote on during the first hundred days of the new Congress, cautioned current house members to slow down when picking their next Speaker. Gingrich asserted that the House chamber must break down into lengthy conferences among themselves and vet candidates not on personality, but on their ability to articulate strategy.The former Speaker asserted that House leadership needs to have a sound strategy on how to deal with the continuing resolution that comes up in December and the debt ceiling. Unless they have a strategy in dealing with these kind of issues, they will just rapidly undermine the next speaker and be right back in the middle of a bitter internal fight that they don t need, he said.Marlow asked Gingrich his position on funding Planned Parenthood and the possibility of a government shutdown. I would have a hard time voting for a bill that funded it, he replied. Even if it meant a shutdown? inquired Marlow. Let me repeat myself. I would have a very hard time voting for a bill that funded Planned Parenthood, Gingrich replied.Gingrich said that Republicans have to make it clear that they are not defunding women s health. Here is the money, we are not defunding women s health, needs to be expressed. He recommends that congress apply the exact same dollars for women s health to other organizations, including religious groups, but not to be complicit in a process that cuts up babies. We should say how can the president of the Unites States defend cutting up babies, and if Obama wants to close the government over his commitment to cutting up babies, then I would say let s have the fight. Regarding immigration, Gingrich told Marlow that he just came back from Israel. You can t spend time in Israel and not believe that fences work. People who say you can t build a fence are just wrong, he maintains. He added that Trump is right on this, and that building 95-story sky-scrapers is more complicated than building fences.The ten time re-elected congressman from Georgia stressed that there must be a strong e-verify network in place, but it would be implausible to round up and deport all who came across American borders illegally. We are not going to deport 11 million people. We are not going to go into neighborhoods, we re not going to tear up churches, not going to tear up families. No American system could tolerate that level of personal and dehumanizing process. Gingrich does think, however, that America could aggressively deport criminals. People in neighborhoods would be grateful that you got rid of the criminals, he insisted. MS13 Gang from El Salvador, which is now in 70 cities, should be utterly, totally unacceptable to every American. The conservative icon added that he finds that when he meets with legal immigrants across the nation, they are the strongest supporters of insisting on legality. Because they paid their dues; they did the right things. They followed the law. They would like to see an America insisting on returning to that. Gingrich maintains there should be a pathway to legality, but rejects offering them citizenship before those waiting patiently who apply legally. There could be exceptions for some who would enter the military. If one is willing to risk their lives for America, extenuating circumstances may apply in that case, Gingrich believes. Via: Breitbart

South Africa's Ramaphosa, Dlamini-Zuma formally nominated to run for president of ANC

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa s ruling African National Congress formally nominated Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and former cabinet minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as the only candidates to run for the presidency of the party at a conference on Sunday. The official nominations, announced by an election official, come after months of campaigning across Africa s most industrialized economy set the stage for the start of voting by 4,776 delegates in the tight race between the two candidates.

Robert De Niro Attends Charity Event, Tears Into That ‘Motherf***er’ Donald Trump

Acclaimed actor Robert De Niro doesn t hold back when it comes to former reality show star Donald Trump and last night was no different. While appearing at the Annual Hudson River Park Gala in Manhattan, New York, the event saw the esteemed actor honored and a bench dedicated to him, according to The Independent. The seven-time Academy Award nominee, who also won two Oscars, tore into that lowlife Donald Trump and that was just the beginning. One of my pleasures will be keeping people off my bench who don t deserve a view of the park like Donald Trump, he said during a speech. F k you, Donald Trump. It s a horror with this motherf er. The Good Fellas actor then went on to describe Trump as a low life. Former Mayor Mike Bloomberg deadpanned about the famously shy actor, according to the Daily News. It took me years before I finally got a sentence out of Bobby. He s not a big talker. Well, Mr. De Niro isn t shy anymore. During the 2016 campaign, he said, I d like to punch Donald Trump in the face and called him blatantly stupid. Earlier this year, Mr. De Niro called Trump a flat-out blatant racist , and added, If he was smart, he d be even more dangerous. He s dangerous as it is. He s not wrong. Trump has tried on several occasions during his usual Twitter outbursts to start a war with North Korea while throwing any attempts of diplomacy out the window. The Paris Accord? Pfft! He s consistently done away with anything that has President Barack Obama s name attached to it even if it s to the detriment of our country and/or the world. Trump s profound jealousy of his predecessor was obvious long before he started his campaign and now that he was elected by conservatives touting Pepe the Frog memes in their avatars, Trump is guided solely by his feeling of inadequacy toward Obama.Good on you, Mr. De Niro. Sometimes things just have to be said.Photo by William D. Bird/Getty Images

White House says government shutdown always a possibility

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As the U.S. Congress worked to reach agreement on a short-term spending measure to keep the federal government open, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said on Tuesday a shutdown could still happen. “It is always a possibility but it’s certainly not what we hope for,” she said at a media briefing, adding that the top Democrats in Congress, Senator Charles Schumer and Representative Nancy Pelosi, would meet with Trump this week.

WOW! NEW Batch Of Emails Show Hillary’s State Department Was “CORRUPTION CENTRAL” For Obama Regime…Reveals Favors Huma Did For Clinton Foundation Insiders

A nonprofit legal watchdog claimed Thursday that newly unearthed documents show Hillary Clinton sent and received more classified information on her private server than previously known, and that the papers also show top aide Huma Abedin did favors for Clinton Foundation insiders.Judicial Watch released more than 2,000 pages of documents it obtained pursuant to a May 5, 2015 court order, after filing a lawsuit against the State Department for failing to comply with a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.The new documents included 115 Clinton email exchanges that were not previously turned over by the State Department.According to Judicial watch, on Dec. 6, 2010, Clinton shared classified information with non-U.S. government employees Justin Cooper, an aide to former President Clinton, and Clinton Foundation Director Doug Band. The email allegedly shows Clinton instructing her aide to print the correspondence, which involved allegations of theft by Bangladeshi banker and Clinton Foundation donor Muhammad Yunus.Yunus was accused of embezzling $100 million from the Grameen Bank, which he founded.Judicial Watch s new emails appear to show multiple Abedin email exchanges from an unsecured server. They also appear to show that Clinton s then-scheduler, Lona Valmoro, forwarded Clinton s daily Secretary of State schedule to top Clinton Foundation officials, along with a number of favors that were requested.In a May 10, 2010 email between Abedin and Band, Abedin said she hooked up people from the Russian American Foundation with the right people at the State Department. The Russia-American Foundation was then staffed by Clinton political supporters, according to Judicial Watch.Additional documents allegedly show that Chelsea Clinton emails, an email sent by Clinton to Abedin saying she did not wish to fly on the same plane with former First Lady Michelle Obama to Betty Ford s funeral, and an email chain between Clinton staffers showing they drafted a doctors statement as to why Mrs. Clinton fainted due to dehydration causing her to hit her head and suffer a concussion in December 2012. Judicial Watch s email shows that the same group, including Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin, Jake Sullivan and Philippe Reines, prepared a discharge statement when she was released from the hospital. FOX News

In Brexit poker, clock narrows transition options

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Nerves are fraying in the Brexit talks, negotiators are trying to work out if the other side is bluffing about walking away, and a ticking clock is fast narrowing British options come March 2019. Philip Hammond, Britain s finance minister, echoed recent EU assertions when he said that a transition period to some new relationship was a wasting asset , the value of which would diminish significantly for both sides if its form remains unclear to businesses much after the start of the new year. As negotiators in Brussels make little progress before Prime Minister Theresa May meets EU leaders next week, a warning about a breakdown in talks from a minister seen strongly to favor a business-friendly bespoke transition out of the EU came a day after the EU summit chair spoke of a similar new year deadline. Donald Tusk said on Tuesday that if London fails to settle divorce terms by December, and so unlock talks on the transition and future trade pact, then the EU would reconsider its objectives. That reflects mounting doubts across Europe that any legal exit deal can be struck. The longer the stand-off goes on, EU negotiators said, the more Britain s choice come March 30, 2019, will be between the hard Brexit by which it will simply quit all EU systems and be treated like, say, Australia, and a virtual status quo, staying in most EU systems, without voting rights, rather like Norway. The closer we get, the less there is to discuss about a transition and the more it just goes to a standstill transition, with Britain still in everything, but without a vote, one said. Pretty soon, said another, It will be Norway or nothing. While all such commentary reflects the sides jockeying for negotiating advantage, the evidence this week is that they remain far apart and are getting tetchy. May and the EU traded jabs over whose court the ball is in after the prime minister made concessions in a speech at Florence on Sept. 22. Behind closed doors, British negotiators voiced outraged surprise that her offer was seen as insufficient to launch talks on the future relationship. It s hard to say it was genuine, one EU official said of the show of emotion. It s a form of pressure. Brexit Secretary David Davis and EU negotiator Michel Barnier are due to give a news conference around noon (1000 GMT) on Thursday to give an update on the week s progress. Businesses are sounding the alarm. A German industry federation warned members to start preparing for a very hard Brexit . A senior representative of London s financial services industry told a Brussels audience this week that a legal transition agreement must be reached by the end of this year. Most importantly, it must reflect the status quo, said Catherine McGuinness of the City of London Corporation. There is no feasibility in asking firms to transition to a transition. If uncertainty continues, businesses will vote with their feet. Hammond ruled out budgeting yet for more customs and border facilities, and few on the continent believe threats of a walkout they say would hurt Britain more than them. So leaders will watch May s struggle to unite her government and sit tight. One senior EU diplomat said British counterparts were in such a weak position that sometimes I feel sorry them . For many in Brussels, that makes a virtual status quo after Brexit the increasingly likely outcome: In March 2019, Britain will formally leave, said another EU official. But de facto most of the existing arrangements will remain ... They will have their celebration of independence and then we will sit down to talking business again. May insists a two-year transition period is enough to agree a new free trade pact, but many question that. John Bruton, the former prime minister of Ireland, has recommended an alternative to either no deal at all or a virtual status quo transition just keeping Britain fully in the EU for four years beyond 2019. Arguing that the two-year deadline set by Article 50 of the EU treaty raises the risk of talks collapsing, and that agreeing first a transition and then another accord is complex, Bruton said this week that Britain and the EU should agree to a six-year negotiating period, with Britain only leaving in 2023. Neither wants any extension. But Bruton warned: The present tight time frame ... increases the likelihood of miscalculation and of the UK leaving the EU with no deal at all.

U.S. opposes changing NJ Senator Menendez's corruption trial schedule

(Reuters) - Federal prosecutors on Friday opposed a last-ditch effort by New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez to allow periodic delays in his federal corruption trial in Newark, New Jersey, next month so that he can travel to Washington to cast critical Senate votes. U.S. District Judge William Walls on Tuesday had rejected Menendez’s request, saying the Democrat was free to “absent himself” from testimony but did not deserve special treatment, being “no worse and no better than any other defendant.” In a filing on Thursday, Menendez said his “constitutional obligations” to his constituents justified altering the trial schedule so he could vote on raising the debt ceiling to avoid a government shutdown, rewriting the tax code and renewing the soon-to-expire National Flood Insurance Program. Republicans have a narrow Senate majority, and Menendez said July’s failed effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act showed his absence from any vote could be “potentially determinative.” The trial is scheduled to begin on Sept. 6. Prosecutors on Friday said the scheduling conflicts resulted from Menendez’s lengthy, failed pursuit of a meritless argument that the Constitution immunized him from prosecution. “No defendant should receive special treatment based on power or privilege,” prosecutors said. “This court should reject defendant Menendez’s effort to let politics in Washington dictate the trial schedule in Newark.” Menendez later countered that U.S. Supreme Court precedents and “common sense” justified an accommodation. It is unclear when the judge will rule on Menendez’s request. The senator was charged with accepting campaign donations and gifts, including a stay at a Caribbean villa and private jet flights, from co-defendant Salomon Melgen in exchange for lobbying on the Florida eye doctor’s behalf. Both men have pleaded not guilty to fraud and bribery. Jury selection was completed on Wednesday. If Menendez were found guilty and removed from the Senate before New Jersey Governor Chris Christie completes his term on Jan. 16, 2018, then Christie, a Republican, could name a replacement. Christie’s successor could fill any subsequent vacancy. The case is U.S. v. Menendez et al, U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey, No. 15-cr-00155.

Uber, Grab to tighten up on deliveries in Philippines amid drug concerns

MANILA (Reuters) - Ride-hailing platforms Uber [UBER.UL] and Grab have agreed to stop their drivers from delivering unchecked packages on behalf of customers, in response to government concerns they could unwittingly become couriers of illegal drugs. The decision followed an advisory from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) about some illicit drugs in packages reportedly being delivered via the ride-hailing services. President Rodrigo Duterte s 15-month-old administration has been waging a brutal war on drugs, the centerpiece of his election campaign, with thousands of people killed during what police say are anti-narcotics operations. Duterte insists narcotics are at the root of the country s rampant crime problem and says as many as four million Filipinos are using drugs. Uber and Grab representatives who met this week with officials of PDEA and the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) said they would order drivers not to take unchecked packages without passengers. Uber services here are for passengers only, Yves Gonzales, in charge of government relations and public policy at Uber Philippines, said during the meeting, in comments aired on news channel ANC on Friday. Leo Gonzales, Grab Philippines public affairs head, sought an assurance that Grab drivers would not be penalized by the regulator for refusing customers who wanted packages to be delivered. Its delivery service, Grab Express, would require customers to open the packages and show the contents to drivers first, then complete identification forms, ANC reported. The LTFRB said in a statement it would make drug testing mandatory for all drivers of public utility vehicles and ride-hailing services, and would ban those showing positive results. Representatives of Uber and Grab did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

NSA chief on Russia-U.S. cyber unit: Now is 'not the best time'

ASPEN, Colo. (Reuters) - National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers on Saturday rebuffed the prospect for a U.S.-Russia cyber unit, a proposal which has been greeted with incredulity by several senior U.S. lawmakers and which President Donald Trump himself appeared to back down from after initially indicating interest. U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election by hacking Democrats’ emails and distributing online propaganda to help Trump win the election over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. Moscow has denied any interference, and Trump has said that his campaign did not collude with Russia. A Russian presidential envoy said this week that Moscow and Washington were in talks to create a joint cyber security working group. Asked whether it was a good idea to set up a cyber security cell with the Russians, Rogers told the annual Aspen Security Forum: “I’m not a policy guy here. .... I would argue now is probably not the best time to be doing this.” Trump said earlier this month that he had discussed the idea of creating such a group with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg. Senior Republicans criticized the idea, saying Moscow could not be trusted, and Trump later appeared to back away, saying in a post on Twitter: “The fact that President Putin and I discussed a Cyber Security unit doesn’t mean I think it can happen. It can’t.” Widespread concern and confusion about the possible cyber working group reflects the Trump administration’s struggles to articulate a clear approach to international cyber security issues amid inconsistent statements by the president and ongoing personnel changes. Rogers said such a unit was “something that you might want to build over time were we to see changes in (Russia’s) behavior.” (Story refiled to amend dateline)

Bristol Palin Throws MASSIVE Hissy Fit Because A-List Singers Won’t Perform At Trump’s Inauguration

Apparently, Bristol Palin thinks musicians have no right to have their own opinions or choices.Ever since Election Day, Donald Trump and his team have been desperately trying to find an A-list artist to perform at his inauguration in January. But none of them want anything to do with him.In response, Trump posted a pathetic tweet claiming that all A-list celebrities are asking him for tickets to the inauguration and that he s the one rejecting THEM.The so-called A list celebrities are all wanting tixs to the inauguration, but look what they did for Hillary, NOTHING. I want the PEOPLE! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2016Trump is making it sound like he s insanely popular among relevant celebrities even though it s been clear for over a month that they despise him.And Sarah Palin s hypocritical abstinence-only crusader daughter decided to throw a temper tantrum about it on her blog.If Donald Trump were still just a regular old billionaire and threw a party at Trump Tower in New York City, celebrities would be lined up out the door, and the most famous artists would be pining for a chance to perform. But because he will be inaugurated as the next Republican president in January, these same mega-celebrities, who would normally drool over an invitation to sing for the president, want no part of it.Trump s inauguration team sought out some of the world s greatest musicians, but nearly all of them have refused for fear of backlash or to stand against him politically.Isn t it amazing how not cool it is to be conservative in the public eye? Either Hollywood is that far off or we have so many sissies we have in the spot light too scared to stand for what they believe in!Except Trump isn t just a reality TV star with a big mouth anymore. Throughout his campaign, he used divisive hateful racist sexist language and called for policies that go completely against what many celebrities stand for. So by refusing to attend and perform at his inauguration, these celebrities are making it clear that Trump will not be able to use them to claim that they somehow support him.When Trump threw parties in the past, things were different. He was just a businessman with money. But now he is threatening everything America stands for. Also, just because certain celebrities clamored to sing at President Obama s inauguration doesn t mean they ll automatically perform for Trump. Bristol Palin is acting like Trump is entitled to be adored and admired by everyone and that celebrities should just kiss his ass.But that s not the way the world works. In fact, Republicans made that clear by the way they have treated President Obama over the last eight years. The level of disrespect was unbelievable and no conservative crybaby can honestly say that any right-wing celebrity like Ted Nugent would have respectfully performed at one of Obama s inaugurations if they had been asked, especially since they said so many nasty things about the Obama family.But Bristol went even further by listing the names of celebrities who have refused or allegedly refused to perform for Trump. It appears she wants them to be punished. The problem is that these top entertainers have fan bases so large that they can easily say good riddance to conservative fans and not see much change in their star power and revenue stream.Speaking of revenue streams, clicking through the rest of Bristol s rant means you will be bombarded with pleas to buy her books and her mommy s books. Because being grifters is the Palin family profession and there are a lot of gullible conservatives out there to fleece.The bottom line is that Bristol Palin doesn t matter and she never will. She s just the spoiled brat of America s village idiot who refuses to let go of the fact that America rejected her ignorant unqualified mom eight years ago.Featured image via Inquisitr

The Reuters Graphic: North Korea's show of force

(Reuters) - North Korea’s latest display of its military hardware at a parade this month focused more on new missiles and less on tanks and artillery, suggesting it was trying to project the image of a country with advanced capabilities in warfare. The Reuters graphics team has analyzed the weapons shown during the five major parades staged in North Korea under its current leader Kim Jong Un, who took power in 2011 after the death of his father. Here is a link to the interactive graphic (tmsnrt.rs/2ox2IgH) The analysis shows there has been a gradual decline in tanks and artillery pieces on display since 2012, Kim Jong Un’s first parade as leader, and a move to more long-range missiles. “This shift might indicate North Korea wants to redefine the outside world’s perception of its military capabilities from masses of troops and tanks to more advanced weapon systems,” said David Schmerler, a research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation. Weapons analysts said they believed some of the missiles on display were new types of intercontinental ballistic missiles. The North has said it has developed and would launch a missile that can strike the mainland United States but officials and experts believe it is some time away from mastering all the necessary technology.

Facebook Just Confirmed Russia Spent At Least $100k On Ads To Influence Election

Earlier today, Facebook representatives told Congress something that should shake every American to their core: A shady Russian company bought thousands of dollars worth of ads specifically targeting American voters. $100,000, to be exact. In other words, Russian actors actively sought to influence the outcome of our election.Facebook has traced the ads back to what they re calling a Russian troll farm, which is known to spread propaganda friendly to the Kremlin. Some mentioned both Trump and Hillary by name, while most merely worked to stoke fears about gun rights, immigration, and other issues the same fears that Trump himself stoked during his campaign.With all the brouhaha surrounding fake news, and the question of how big a role social media played in the dissemination of fake news that may have unduly influenced our electoral outcome, this is a massive revelation indeed.NBC News posted Facebook s official statement on the matter to their Twitter account. It reads, in part: We have found approximately $100,000 in ad spending from June of 2015 to May of 2017 associated with roughly 3,000 ads that was connected to about 470 inauthentic accounts and Pages in violation of our policies. Our analysis suggests these accounts and Pages were affiliated with one another and likely operated out of Russia. Read their full statement below:Facebook statement: 470 inauthentic accounts likely operated out of Russia bought roughly $100,000 in ads between June 2015 and May 2017 pic.twitter.com/XZqvUKB0gG NBC News (@NBCNews) September 6, 2017How utterly convenient that these ads started popping up right as Trump formally announced his candidacy. This was even before the primary season really got underway, and the GOP field was crowded. At that point, we weren t going to know for months who the GOP candidate would be. Yet, when combined with all the other evidence against Trump and his campaign, such as meetings between Don Jr. and a Russian lawyer, the Trumps financial connections in Russia, and more, the dark picture of Russian meddling starts becoming a little clearer.Here s the thing: While the amount these Russians spent is just a tiny fraction of overall spending during the campaign cycle, and most of the ads didn t actually reference our election, the targeting was more specific than it ought to have been. That brings up questions about whether these Russian operators had help from within the U.S. when it came to targeting their ads.If they did indeed have help from inside our borders, where did the help come from? Russians already here? Or people close to some of the candidates (like, oh, say, Donald Trump and his family)? Facebook can t determine that, but hopefully investigators will be able to uncover some information about it soon.Featured image via Spencer Platt/Getty Images

China's big money trumps U.S. influence in Cambodia

(Story corrects to million from billion in paragraph 12 of September 11th version.) By Prak Chan Thul and Matthew Tostevin PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Accused of plotting treason with Cambodia s detained opposition leader, the U.S. embassy posted a picture of a red herring on its Facebook page. The cryptic suggestion that the accusations were false - a mystifying reference for many Cambodians - was followed by further posts on Monday showing how U.S. aid was helping to preserve temples and forests. Those posts also underscored the big difference between aid from the United States and aid from China, whose greater support for big ticket projects has helped allow Prime Minister Hun Sen to brush off criticism over the arrest of election rival Kem Sokha. Not only is China vastly outspending the United States in a country once destroyed by Cold War superpower rivalry, but its money goes on highly visible infrastructure projects and with no demands for political reform. U.S. aid goes more towards social projects and trying to build democracy - unwanted interference for the government of a prime minister who has ruled for over 30 years. Taking aid doesn t mean they can order us to do what they want. We aren t their ally. We aren t their slave, government spokesman Phay Siphan told Reuters. The Chinese always support us in economic growth and they never interfere in our decisions. The U.S. embassy made no immediate comment. Cambodia has dismissed U.S. and Western criticism of the Sept. 3 arrest of opposition leader Kem Sokha. China has backed Hun Sen. To ensure the security of Cambodia, China will cooperate with Cambodia in all circumstances, Wang Jiarui, vice chairman of China s national assembly, said in Phnom Penh last week, according to the official Cambodian record. The support doesn t only run one way. China relies on Cambodia in Southeast Asian meetings on issues such as its claims in the South China Sea. In Cambodia, China s military has also gained a strategic foothold. Figures from Cambodia s overseas development aid database show how important China has become. It accounted for nearly 36 percent of $732 million listed in bilateral aid for 2016 - nearly four times as much as from the United States. Most of the rest is from other Western countries, whose protests have also been dismissed. The disparity is even starker in investment. China provided nearly 30 percent of investment capital in Cambodia last year - more than Cambodians themselves. The United States accounted for only just over three percent. Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump s proposed aid cuts have pointed to a possible 70 percent reduction in U.S. assistance to Cambodia from 2018, according to a draft proposal. What Cambodia gets from the United States and China is very different. Chinese projects include roads, bridges, irrigation systems, electrical transmission infrastructure and dams. The list of U.S. projects is much longer, but they are much smaller: in education, health, conservation as well as efforts to build democracy which grate on the government. The U.S. funded National Democratic Institute (NDI) pro-democracy group was expelled last month and accused of conspiring to help bring down Hun Sen - a charge rejected by the NDI and the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP). The fact the government has been criticized by Western donors over the recent crackdown just means Cambodia is becoming more dependent on China, said Ou Virak of the Future Forum think tank. The United States is a much bigger export market than China, particularly for Cambodia s garment factories, but the United States has not publicly suggested it could use trade to bring pressure for democratic change. Kem Sokha s deputy, Mu Sochua, said aid that did not include conditions on human rights did not serve Cambodia well. Cambodia needs China, it needs America, it needs democracy to pull it out of many years of poverty, she told Reuters. But Cambodia depends much less on aid than it did. This year will mark the seventh year of near 7 percent growth or above - a fact Hun Sen often points to in a country he took over after the devastating killing fields genocide committed by the Khmer Rouge, in which he was once a commander. World Bank figures show overseas development assistance fell from over 120 percent of central government expenditure in 2002 to barely 32 percent in 2015. Per capita gross domestic product rose from less than $340 in 2002 to nearly $1,300 last year. Dismissing U.S. interference in a speech on Monday, Hun Sen threatened a possible ban on the opposition party. Then he took a plane for Beijing where he said he would seek money for the health sector - an area dominated by Western donors until now.

Trump slow to implement Russia, Iran, North Korea sanctions law: senators

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two months after signing it, President Donald Trump has not begun enforcing a law imposing new sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea, Senators John McCain and Ben Cardin said in a letter seen by Reuters on Friday. Also, with just two days to go, his administration has not provided information related to Russia’s defense and intelligence sectors required under the measure by Sunday, they said. White House officials did not respond to a request for comment on the letter from McCain, the Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Cardin, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee. Later on Friday, the White House issued a presidential memorandum taking the first step toward implementation by designating different agencies to start the process putting the law into effect. Trump grudgingly signed the “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act” on Aug. 2 after Congress overwhelmingly approved the measure despite Trump’s reservations about how it might affect his desire for improved relations with Moscow. The White House had hedged for weeks, as the legislation worked its way through Congress, over whether the president would sign it or use his veto power. Although his fellow Republicans control Congress, it passed both the Senate and House of Representatives by near-unanimous margins large enough to override a veto. Trump’s opposition to the law had raised questions about how enthusiastically his administration would enforce it. “Congress’ swift and united action, and your signature, sent a strong message to our allies and adversaries alike, and particularly to those such as Russia, who have sought to undermine our democracy,” said the letter, dated Thursday. “Now, as critical deadlines are approaching, it is imperative that your Administration implement the law to its fullest extent to uphold and protect American interests,” it said. The law imposed stiff new sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea over issues including Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election, which Russia denies, as well as Iran’s ballistic missiles program and North Korea’s nuclear weapons development. The administration in particular opposed a provision that would not let Trump, or any president, ease or lift sanctions on Russia without Congress’ approval. The letter also noted the Oct. 1 deadline for the administration to issue “regulations or other guidance” to identify anyone who is operating on behalf of the Russian defense and intelligence sectors for potential sanctions.

Support for German SPD slumps to lowest this year: poll

BERLIN (Reuters) - Support for Germany s center-left Social Democrats (SPD) has slumped to its lowest level this year just 10 days before an election in which conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel looks set win a fourth term, a poll showed on Thursday. The weekly survey, conducted by Infratest dimap for ARD television, showed support for Merkel s CDU/CSU bloc unchanged at 37 percent, with the SPD dipping one percentage point to 20 percent. That was the SPD s lowest level since January, when it also scored 20 percent. The party has not polled a lower level in the Infratest dimap survey. The anti-immigration, euro-hostile Alternative for Germany (AfD) came in at 12 percent, up one point, making it the third-strongest political force. The business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP) followed with 9.5 percent. The radical Left party scored 9 percent, and the environmentalist Greens were on 7.5 percent.

Merkel says looking forward to meeting Trump in Washington: paper

BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a newspaper she was looking forward to meeting U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington on Friday. “It’s always better to talk with each other than about each other,” Merkel told regional newspaper Saarbruecker Zeitung. Asked if both sides were curious, Merkel said: “There’s definitely curiosity. And also pleasure at meeting each other. At least from my side.” Merkel was on her way to the airport on Monday to fly to Washington for her first meeting with Trump when he rang her to postpone the trip due to the approach of a winter storm. Merkel said she wanted to speak with Trump, who was elected in November, about security and economic issues as well as about future international cooperation. Regarding concerns about a trade war between the United States and Germany or Europe, Merkel said: “Our countries benefit when we work together well and fairly.” The United States has repeatedly criticized Germany’s large current account surplus, but Merkel said there was also a lot of direct German investment in the United States. Carmaker BMW’s U.S. plant exports “more cars than GM and Ford together” from the United States, Merkel said. “I’ll make that clear,” she added.

PRESIDENT AND FIRST LADY SHINE AT G7 Opening Ceremony in Ancient Greek Theatre

President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump made a splash at the G7 with Melania s incredible fashion sense and Trump s bold leadership style. The First Lady has been en pointe and President Trump has been successful at keeping the summit topic off of the climate change and on terrorism and trade.First Lady Melania Trump arrived in Sicily in a beautiful floral jacket by Italian designers Dolce & Gabanna stunning!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4CbneabCsYTHE FIRST LADY DITCHED THE FLORAL JACKET WHEN SHE MET WITH OUR MILITARY:Thank you to the @usarmy 1-214th Aviation Regiment for getting me & my staff to our mtgs safely! #G7 #Catania #Italy pic.twitter.com/UtfjAKFBtC Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) May 26, 2017At the ancient Greek Theater in Taormina, Italy. G7 leaders, their spouses and other EU officials attended a sunset concert by La Scala Philharmonic Orchestra:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MlJiN9WXCQINCREDIBLE!Gorgeous evening #G7Taormina #Italy #Potus&Flotus pic.twitter.com/vpDLHFFPB8 Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) May 26, 2017This trip has been a success at bringing America back as a world power. Having an alpha male president is a good thing. No more leading from behind for us!

Trump administration will uphold election system's designation as critical infrastructure

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly on Tuesday said he backed a decision in the Obama administration’s final days to designate elections systems as critical infrastructure in order to boost their cyber defenses, after the government concluded Russian hackers tried to influence the 2016 presidential race. Some conservative states, such as Georgia, had expressed concerns that the Obama administration move amounted to a federal takeover of elections traditionally run by state and local governments. The designation means voting machines, voter registration systems, polling places and other assets important to holding elections are eligible for priority cyber-security assistance from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). “I believe we should help all of the states ... to make sure that their systems are protected in future elections,” Kelly told the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Homeland Security in response to a question from Democratic U.S. Representative Cedric Richmond. “I would argue that, yes, we should keep that in place.” Last month, two weeks before then-President Barack Obama, a Democrat, left office, DHS said it was designating state election systems part of the nation’s critical infrastructure, a move that broadened the options the federal government has to protect voting equipment from cyber attacks. Other sectors considered critical infrastructure include communication and transportation systems, the banking industry and the energy grid. The 2016 presidential campaign was marred by the hacking and subsequent leaking of Democratic emails that U.S. intelligence agencies concluded were carried out by Russia in order to help now-President Donald Trump, a Republican, win. U.S. officials determined Russian hackers also targeted more than 20 states’ voter registration systems during the election but that there was no evidence that tallies were altered when ballots were cast on Nov. 8. Some Republican-controlled states had argued against the change, saying elections in the United States have always been carried out by state and local officials and that the federal government should not play a direct role in them. Separately on Tuesday, Republicans on the House Administration Committee voted to eliminate the federal Election Assistance Commission, which is charged with ensuring that voting machines meet security standards. The commission was itself penetrated by a Russian-speaking hacker last year after the Nov. 8 U.S. elections, according to security firm Recorded Future. The full House and the U.S. Senate would need to pass the legislation in order for it to become law.

study swift birds fly nonstop for months every year

on today at pm aig quadruples limits for terrorism insurance to billion october by sonali basak bloomberg aig seeks to respond to terrorist attacks worldwide insurer has hired more than engineers to manage risk logged

Reuters News Agency Declares War On Trump In The Most PERFECT Way, Trump HUMILIATED

Donald Trump s treatment of journalists is so bad that the Reuters news agency is now advising reporters to treat Trump like they would treat a foreign dictator.On Tuesday, Trump and his team announced that they will no longer send surrogates to appear on CNN, an escalation of the war Trump has been waging against the news network, which he calls fake news because they won t promote his agenda.Trump has even praised Fox New s biased reporting as something CNN should copy.Furthermore, Trump and his team have repeatedly threatened and tried to intimidate journalists for doing their jobs just because they aren t writing puff pieces that kiss Trump s ass.Well, Reuters is doing something about it.For 165 years, Reuters has been bringing us news from around the world. They ve been in the most peaceful and democratic places, but they ve also been in war zones and reported on the most dangerous and tyrannical regimes in world history.In a message to staff on Tuesday, Reuters Editor-in-Chief Steve Adler advised his reporters to start dealing with Trump the way they have dealt with brutal dictators in the past. It s not every day that a U.S. president calls journalists among the most dishonest human beings on earth or that his chief strategist dubs the media the opposition party, Adler wrote. It s hardly surprising that the air is thick with questions and theories about how to cover the new Administration. Adler then revealed his solution for how reporters should handle Trump.So what is the Reuters answer? To oppose the administration? To appease it? To boycott its briefings? To use our platform to rally support for the media? All these ideas are out there, and they may be right for some news operations, but they don t make sense for Reuters. We already know what to do because we do it every day, and we do it all over the world.To state the obvious, Reuters is a global news organization that reports independently and fairly in more than 100 countries, including many in which the media is unwelcome and frequently under attack. I am perpetually proud of our work in places such as Turkey, the Philippines, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Thailand, China, Zimbabwe, and Russia, nations in which we sometimes encounter some combination of censorship, legal prosecution, visa denials, and even physical threats to our journalists. We respond to all of these by doing our best to protect our journalists, by recommitting ourselves to reporting fairly and honestly, by doggedly gathering hard-to-get information and by remaining impartial. We write very rarely about ourselves and our troubles and very often about the issues that will make a difference in the businesses and lives of our readers and viewers.We don t know yet how sharp the Trump administration s attacks will be over time or to what extent those attacks will be accompanied by legal restrictions on our news-gathering. But we do know that we must follow the same rules that govern our work anywhere.If Donald Trump thinks his relationship with the media is going to get better because he attacks them, he should think again. Reuters is coming for him and he should be scared, especially if other news organizations follow their example.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The People's Princess, Britons work to keep memory alive

LONDON (Reuters) - Abdul Daoud spilt most of the cappuccino into the saucer the first time he served Princess Diana, his nerves getting the better of him. Almost 20 years on since she was killed when her car crashed in a Paris tunnel, he still works surrounded by pictures of the woman he calls the princess of the people in his cafe, named Diana, his very personal attempt to keep her memory alive. My promise to her is to put this place as a tribute for her, he said of his cafe, set up in 1989, near London s Kensington Gardens, home to the palace where Diana used to live. For him, celebrating her life is business as usual at the cafe where visitors can eat Diana salads or Diana burgers and where he said she used to stop by regularly. She is the princess of the people, always, he said, adding that he does not believe she will ever be forgotten. But many younger Britons said that while they can understand the fascination with the princess, whose struggles to fit in to the royal household played out in the full glare of the media, they don t feel it themselves. I think she maybe meant more to my mother, said Stephen Butler in the west London area Diana used to live. When she died I remember my mother shaking me awake and being quite devastated about it. Student Shermine Grigorius was three-years-old when Diana died but after being told stories about the Princess of Wales by her mother, sees her as a symbol of kindness . While the royals have always been dutifully charitable, Diana was known for going beyond her in-laws, or even any celebrity at the time, in her philanthropy. Whether in charity work or in royal life, she earned a reputation for being a rebel who defied convention: from campaigning for a worldwide ban on landmines despite opposition from the British government to flouting royal protocol to speak candidly about her experiences with bulimia and infidelity. She bought a different side to the whole monarchy, said Anika Wijuria, a 30-year-old project manager. They were quite stiff and she was quite liberal. At the Da Mario restaurant, Marco Molino remembers another side of Diana, describing a down to earth woman who liked to eat Italian dishes with her sons, Princes William and Harry, or friends. Her personality was very normal, very down to earth, very friendly, he said near an oil painting of Diana on the wall. I think that s what she really wanted - a bit of normality ... Here was one of the places where she could achieve that. Ronald van Bronkhorst, who has lived above Da Mario since the 70s, also said she never made flashy entrances. Her legacy will never leave ... You think about her all the time, especially in the area we live in.

PRICELESS! HOME DEPOT FOUNDER Zings Liberal Press In Epic Response That Puts Them In Their Place [Video]

Home Depot co-founder Kenneth Langone: The fake news media hates President Trump because he makes them irrelevant Where They Belong Langone supports President Trump all the way and isn t shy about saying so:Ken Langone, co-founder of Home Depot, said Monday on CNBC that he thinks President Donald Trump could go down as one of our greatest presidents ever, and has guts, and great people around him. This guy has got guts, Langone said on Squawk Box. And he s got great people around him. He added that White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway s husband is one of his lawyers.Trump has the potential to go down as one of our greatest presidents ever, Langone later argued. Home Depot co-founder @KennethLangone The #FakeNewsMedia Hates #PresidentTrump @POTUS Because He Makes Them Irrelevant,Where They Belongs pic.twitter.com/OrilTVHPRK TRUMP ANOMALY (@ANOMALY1) May 16, 2017

Trump rhetoric shows need to remake case for trade: Zoellick

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Embarrassed by Donald Trump’s rhetoric against Mexico, former World Bank President Robert Zoellick said on Wednesday it is time to “remake” the case for free trade in the United States. The U.S. presidential race has been peppered with promises to rework trade policy in the United States’ favor, and many of the strongest attacks have been against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a trade accord between the United States, Mexico and Canada that took effect in 1994. Regarded by Mexican policymakers as a milestone in the country’s economic modernization, NAFTA has been vilified by Republican front-runner Trump and Democratic hopeful Bernie Sanders as a job-killing betrayal of U.S. industry. Zoellick, a Republican who also served as U.S. Trade Representative under President George W. Bush, said Mexican officials had understandably been unsettled by Trump’s rhetoric and flagging U.S. congressional support for free trade. “The bigger issue in the U.S. will be a need to remake the case for trade,” he said in a phone interview. That meant more than the traditional corporate lobbying in Congress, said Zoellick, who was World Bank chief from 2007-2012. “This is now going to need a broader public push. Part of this will be a challenge to get the Facebooks, the Googles the Apples and others to not only make the case in Washington, but actually use social media, use big data resources and others to explain this to coming generations of Americans,” he said. While noting that some Americans had good reason to feel concern about the pace of change and unfettered immigration, Zoellick said Mexico, a “significant, modernizing economy”, ought to be integrated further into U.S. thinking. “If it were up to me, I would bring Canada and Mexico into the TTIP negotiations with Europe,” he said, referring to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, a planned trade deal between the United States and the European Union. After China and Canada, Mexico is the United States’ third biggest trade partner, accounting for bilateral commerce worth around $500 billion annually. The United States is also home to an estimated 35 million people of Mexican origin. Claiming Mexico is “killing” the United States on trade and sending rapists and drug runners north, Trump has threatened to impose tariffs against Mexico and vowed to build a wall to stop illegal immigrants crossing the border. To make Mexico pay for the wall, he has threatened to block billions of dollars in remittances sent home by Mexicans in the United States, a plan Zoellick described as “outrageous.” “As an American, frankly, I’m embarrassed by his statements,” he said. However, he noted the Mexican government had to “walk a fine line” in countering Trump without stoking more tensions. A number of serving and former Mexican officials believe their government could have been more active in persuading U.S. businesses and politicians to make the case that both countries will lose out if Trump’s talk becomes reality. Zoellick said, however, it was a shared responsibility. “Depending on one’s perspective, this is really ... the U.S.’s burden to bear. And so while I concur that one would welcome assistance from Mexico, in some ways we’ve got to get our own act cleaned up in the U.S. first,” he said.

Senate leader McConnell says 'nobody wants terrorists to have firearms'

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday that “nobody wants terrorists to have firearms” and that he was open to suggestions from experts on legislation that could address the problem, following the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. McConnell, a Republican, made his remarks amid blistering attacks by Democrats on the lack of action in Congress on legislation to prevent suspects on “watch lists” from purchasing guns or explosives. While there was no firm evidence of Republicans and Democrats in either the Senate or House of Representatives moving toward a compromise, there were hints they at least might be willing to talk. “Maybe we can find some middle ground. I hope so,” said Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat. The debate in Congress over firearms was reignited on Sunday after a gunman in Orlando, Florida, armed with an assault rifle killed 49 people at a gay nightclub and injured 53 others before he was shot to death by law enforcement officers. The assailant, New York-born Omar Mateen, had been investigated by the FBI for 10 months in 2013 and 2014 over possible connections he had to foreign militant groups. Democrats are pressuring Republicans in the Senate and House to quickly bring up legislation closing a loophole that allows those on “no fly” watch lists to purchase weapons in the United States. The Democrats are targeting a Justice Department appropriations bill this week, hoping to add an amendment prohibiting such gun sales. A similar effort last December failed. “There’s no excuse for allowing suspected terrorists to buy guns,” said Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid. McConnell took a swipe at the Democrats, saying: “Our suspicion is this is basically a politically motivated effort that we’re likely to see” on the Justice Department spending bill. The Republican leader added, however: “We’re open - nobody wants terrorists to have firearms - we’re open to serious suggestions from the experts as to what we might be able to do to be helpful.” On Wednesday, senators from both parties will have an opportunity to speak directly to some experts when Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson are scheduled to brief them on the Orlando attack. The officials briefed House members on Tuesday and several House Democrats brought up the watch list issue. “There was some question about procedures going forward,” said Representative Jan Schakowsky, a Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee. But House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the No. 2 Republican in that chamber, told reporters that law enforcement was already being notified if people being investigated for terrorism try to buy firearms. “If you listen, they are being notified.” Durbin said he and his colleagues might pursue other gun-related amendments as well, including tougher background checks on gun buyers, closing some gun show loopholes and possibly new limits on assault rifles like the one used in Orlando.

THE DEEP STATE SPEAKS: Clapper and Brennan Threaten Trump During Aspen Institute’s Lefty Gaggle [Video]

Nice threat to POTUS: The intelligence community will continue to convey truth to power even if power doesn t necessarily listen. This entire video is disturbing but eye opening. THEY FEEL THREATENED BY TRUMP and this is clearly an effort to hurt President Trump. This coming from two men who ok d spying on Americans and who lied under oath:How convenient that CNN s Wolf Blitzer is the host for this bashfest of the current administration under President Trump. How ironic is it that two men who lied under oath are speaking truth to power FYI: John Brennan literally voted for the Communist party in the 1970s during the height of the Cold War now they re lecturing us about Russia.These two men define the deep state This talk was really all about creating doubt on Trump and to defend themselves post Obama. Can you imagine if the tables were turned and this vitriol was directed at Obama? Shameful!All you have to do is listen to Clapper lie before Congress and you know he has ZERO credibility to speak:Remember the famous moment when US NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE CHIEF James Clapper was testifying about the NSA surveillance of Americans when he let slip a sign he was not being truthful. Of course, we knew this was all a smoke and mirrors show. Clapper later said he misspoke last we checked it s pretty much the same thing as lying NOT WITTINGLY JAMES CLAPPERHere s the video below where he parses words in his testimony: REMEMBER WHAT CLAPPER SAID RECENTLY ABOUT TRUMP:Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper says the United States political institutions are currently under assault both externally and internally, in the wake of President Donald Trump s firing of ex-FBI Director James Comey. The developments of the past week are very bothersome, very disturbing to me, Clapper said on CNN s State of the Union on Sunday. I think in many ways our institutions are under assault, both externally and that s the big news here, the Russian interference in our election system and I think as well, our institutions are under assault internally, When asked if he meant if those institutions were under assault internally by the president himself, Clapper said exactly and added that he believed Trump was undermining the checks and balances inherent to the U.S. political system.

pakistan army says indian troops killed two civilians in kashmir

us lost cause north korea policy to be reviewed thu oct pm us secretary of state john kerry listens during a trilateral meeting discussing north korea with his south korean and japanese counterparts both unseen in new york september photo by afp frank smithsouth korea press tv american japanese and south korean officials met in tokyo this week to coordinate their policies toward north korea suggesting they will continue with their policy of sanctions and pressure against pyongyang meanwhile a leading us intelligence chief says washingtons pressure policy on north korea needs to be revised as its no longer effective

FBI Agents Are Doing Something Unusual In The Wake Of Comey’s Firing

Prior to the Nov. 8 election, the FBI was, more or less, Trumpland. They wanted Trump to win. They neither trusted nor approved of Hillary Clinton. And that anti-Hillary attitude led to a number of anti-Hillary leaks to the press from the agency. They were angry with James Comey s decision not to indict Hillary over her emails.Now, though, the FBI is wracked with shock, anger and grief over Comey s sudden firing. According to the Daily Beast, one agent said his abrupt dismissal was like a death in the family. Another said that they re basically sitting shiva, which is a Jewish ritual of mourning just after a funeral.And some of them are doing something very unusual for a situation like this: They re posting pictures of themselves with Comey on social media, and even changing their profile pics to those of Comey. That s a gesture generally reserved for someone who dies.Acting Director Andrew McCabe told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Comey was well-liked and had broad support throughout the bureau. In other words, when Trump said that Comey had lost the trust and respect of his rank and file, he was either not speaking for the majority of the rank and file, or he was flat-out lying.Rank-and-file agents were also very suspicious of the timing of Comey s firing, wondering whether it had anything to do with the Russia probes. Various officials phones were ringing off the hook. FBI headquarters in D.C. was more or less locked down and not answering the flood of phone calls coming in.One agent told the Daily Beast that there s likely to be serious distrust of whoever Trump puts into Comey s place: No matter who gets the job, there will be a cloud of suspicion because the President is unpopular with much of the [U.S.]. That bad faith will make it harder to do my job. Trump undermined the public s trust in the FBI more than Comey ever could. The new director is going to face a tough confirmation, with much of the Senate viewing Trump with suspicion, too. That makes possible picks like Rudy Giuliani out of the question he s going to have to tread very carefully with Comey s replacement. In the meantime, McCabe has assured the Senate that he ll let them know immediately if the White House tries to interfere with the Russia probes in any way at all.Featured image by Zach Gibson via Getty Images

House Democrats expect to see intelligence documents soon

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congressional intelligence committee Democrats said on Tuesday they would soon be allowed to view documents at the center of a political firestorm surrounding the investigation of possible links between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia. Representative Adam Schiff, the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee’s ranking Democrat, said documents that officials at the White House provided to the panel’s chairman, Republican Devin Nunes, would be made available to all the members of his committee and their Senate counterparts. “This action is long overdue and follows an inexplicable series of events in which the White House played a role in selectively and surreptitiously providing the documents to our chairman,” Schiff said in a statement. “If the White House had any concerns over these documents, or any other documents, they should have provided them to our committee weeks ago,” he said. Congressional committees and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are investigating what U.S. intelligence has concluded were attempts by Moscow to influence the U.S. election in Trump’s favor. They are also looking at links between Russia and Trump. Russia denies such allegations. Trump and his allies have mounted an aggressive defense. Most recently, they have focused on unsubstantiated reports that Susan Rice, former President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, disclosed the names of Trump aides swept up by surveillance of foreign targets. Rice dismissed the reports as “absolutely false” in an interview with MSNBC. The day after FBI Director James Comey confirmed the FBI investigation of potential ties between Russia and the Trump campaign last month, Nunes announced to reporters that the communications of members of Trump’s transition team were caught up in the surveillance. He said the information came from documents obtained from a source he would not identify. Nunes, a close Trump political ally, discussed the matter with the Republican president before consulting committee Democrats. After reports Nunes got the documents from White House aides, Schiff called for him to recuse himself from the inquiry, saying his actions compromised the panel’s ability to complete a credible, bipartisan investigation. Republican Senator Richard Burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, whose leaders have insisted they can conduct a bipartisan investigation, said on Tuesday he was open to looking into the Rice allegations, if they proved true. Democrats underscored the gravity of the investigation. “I wouldn’t be surprised after all of this is said and done that some people end up in jail,” Representative Joaquin Castro, a House Intelligence member, told CNN.

Republican senator wants Democrats to testify on Trump dossier

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Susan Collins, a Republican member of the Intelligence Committee, said Democrats should be called again to testify about reports that their party and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign paid for parts of a dossier that detailed accusations about President Donald Trump’s ties to Russia. The Washington Post reported last week that Marc Elias, a lawyer for 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Clinton, used campaign funds to hire Fusion GPS, the firm behind the dossier. Committees in both chambers of Congress have been investigating the origin and contents of the document. John Podesta, who was Clinton’s campaign chairman, and U.S. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was the head of the Democratic National Committee at the time, as well as Elias “absolutely need to be recalled” to testify,” Collins said in an appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “It’s difficult to imagine that a campaign chairman, that the head of the DNC would not know of an expenditure of this magnitude and significance,” Collins said. “But perhaps there’s something more going on here. But certainly, it’s worth additional questioning of those two witnesses. And the lawyer; absolutely, he more than anyone.” It has been widely reported that supporters of Republican Jeb Bush, a primary opponent of Trump, initially paid for the firm’s research. Perkins Coie, Elias’ law firm, confirmed on Tuesday that it had hired Fusion GPS in April 2016. The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative online publication backed by billionaire Republican megadonor Paul Singer, said on Friday it was the original funder of the Fusion GPS project to compile opposition research on multiple Republican presidential candidates, including Trump. Known as the Steele dossier because it was compiled by former MI6 officer Christopher Steele, the document identified Russian businessmen and others who U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded are Russian intelligence officers or working on behalf of the Russian government. Representative Trey Gowdy, a Republican who runs the House Oversight Committee, said in an appearance on “Fox News Sunday” that he was more interested in whether the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the Department of Justice used the dossier in conducting their own probes. “I don’t expect the (Democratic National Committee) to be objective,” Gowdy said. “Almost by definition, opposition research is not objective. “The next thing that House Intel is trying to find out is whether or not the U.S. government relied on it.”

Russia says Iraqi Kurds must act in concert with Baghdad

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia respects the desire of Iraqi Kurdistan to assert its identity but this must be done in dialogue with the Iraqi government, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday at talks with his Iraqi government counterpart. Relations between Iraqi Kurdistan and the central government in Baghdad have been in crisis since the region held an independence referendum last month. The Iraqi military took back the oil-rich Kirkuk area from Kurdish forces last week. We understand the hopes of the Kurdish people as it concerns their striving to strengthen their identity, their self-awareness, Lavrov said at a news conference with Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. However, we believe it is correct to realize those desires, those hopes exclusively via the Iraqi government and taking fully into account the significance the Kurdish question has on a regional scale, and taking into account the need to avoid additional sources of instability in the region. Lavrov was meeting Jaafari days after Russian state oil major Rosneft agreed to take control of Iraqi Kurdistan s main oil pipeline. Iraqi oil minister Jabar al-Luaibi said on Saturday he had sought clarification from Rosneft. Lavrov said Russia would continue its economic ties with Iraqi Kurdistan, as it does with other constituent parts of Iraq. He said Russia was not closing its consulate in Erbil, the main city in Iraqi Kurdistan, but said the mission was subordinate to the Russian embassy in Baghdad. (This version of the story corrects paragraph four to show Lavrov said instability , not stability )

Georgian president vetoes new constitution draft

TBILISI (Reuters) - Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili on Monday vetoed a draft new constitution and sent it back to parliament with his objections which included opposing its call for an end to direct elections for president. Parliament, which is dominated by the Georgian Dream Party, adopted the new draft last week over objections from Margvelashvili and the opposition. Under this new proposed new constitution, direct elections for president would be abolished from 2024, the country would transfer to full proportional parliamentary representation and the system of electoral blocs would be scrapped. In a televised statement, Margvelashvili, who was elected in 2013 for a five-year term, said he remained in favor of direct presidential elections rather than a system in which the president would be appointed by parliament. He said he had proposed to the parliamentary majority to allow parties to form electoral blocs for the next parliamentary elections in 2020. He said he also supported scrapping the voting bonus system under which votes of parties that failed to muster enough support to enter parliament would be transferred to the winner of the election. He also supported a switch to a proportional electoral system in 2020. I will send my justified objection to the parliament today, Margvelashvili said. The next presidential election in Georgia is to be held in 2018 and it is not clear whether Margvelashvili, who is at odds with the ruling party on several issues, will stand again. MPs from the Georgian Dream said after adopting the new constitution that they would give ground on only two of the president s objections allowing the parties to form electoral blocs and scrapping the voting bonus system. The ruling party has a constitutional majority at the parliament, allowing it to overcome the president s veto.

Exclusive: Iran's Revolutionary Guards arrest more dual nationals

LONDON (Reuters) - Iran s Revolutionary Guards have arrested at least 30 dual nationals during the past two years, mostly on spying charges, according to lawyers, diplomats and relatives, twice as many as earlier reported by local or international media. The number marks a sharp rise since 2015, when an international nuclear deal raised hopes of detente with the West. In the years before that the number of dual nationals detained at any given time was in single figures. It also points up a new trend as a majority of those arrested since then, 19 out of the 30, have citizenship in Europe. Previously most of the detainees were Iranian Americans. Detainees relatives and lawyers said the Guards were using them as bargaining chips in international relations and to put off European firms that sought business in Iran after the government agreed the deal with world powers to lift sanctions. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has vast business interests as well as being Iran s most powerful security force and has criticized the government for handing contracts to foreigners. The Guards did not respond to several requests for comment. The Iranian government referred Reuters to the judiciary, which also did not respond to repeated approaches. Iranian authorities have previously denied holding detainees for ransom and accuse Western governments of holding Iranians on trumped-up charges. Relatives of dual nationals detained in Iran, their lawyers and Western diplomats shared information such as name, date of arrest and any charges, on condition neither they nor the detainees were identified, citing fear of repercussions. Iran does not routinely announce arrests or charges and does not recognize dual nationals, whose rights to consular assistance are enshrined in the U.N. Vienna Convention. In all cases, the sources said the detainees had not carried out any espionage and were arrested only because of their second citizenship. They explained their willingness to share details by saying they had been kept in the dark by both the Iranian authorities and Western governments. Several governments argue that maintaining a low profile is in the best interests of the detainees. This is very much what guides our approach, a UK government source said. Dutch Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Daphne Kerremans said identifying detainees could get the prisoners into trouble . Some relatives only break their silence once their initial hopes have been dashed. The wife of Ahmadreza Djalali, a Swedish-based Iranian scientist arrested in 2016 after attending a conference in Tehran, decided to speak out in February. We were all hopeful that he would be released soon. He was calling us from jail, saying he had not been officially charged. They had told him that he would be released after answering a few questions, Vida Mehrannia said by telephone from Stockholm. I made the case public to media after nine months when he was threatened with a death sentence by a prosecutor and went on a hunger strike, she added. Djalali was sentenced to death in October on espionage charges. Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom said at the time: We will point out that this will affect the relationship with the EU, and this in a time when Iran and the EU need to cooperate, not least with the nuclear deal we have with Iran. The deal to lift sanctions in return for curbs on Iran s nuclear program was international, but significant U.S. restrictions remained in place. Official confirmation of new arrests sometimes emerges indirectly. Records of a session of the European Parliament in June 2017 showed three Dutch-Iranian nationals were in jail in Iran. Only one case has been reported. Asked about the two unknown cases, Dutch Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Kerremans told Reuters the individuals were arrested in November 2012 and January 2016 and said government actions were mostly aimed at ensuring an honest trial, not demanding release . It is very difficult for the Dutch government to lend support since Iran does not recognize the Dutch nationality of the prisoners, and gives little to no information about them, she said. In January 2016, then-British Prime Minister David Cameron raised the issue of three dual UK-Iran nationals held in Iranian prisons in a phone call with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, according to a transcript posted on the Downing Street website. Only two of those cases were known to the public at the time. Contacted for comment, a UK foreign ministry spokesman declined to specify how many British-Iranian dual nationals had been arrested. London raised all cases with Iran at every available opportunity, he said. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, an Iranian-British aid worker employed by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was arrested in April 2016 while on holiday in Iran and later charged with plotting to overthrow Iran s clerical establishment. The foundation and her family have repeatedly denied the accusations. The only thing that as a family we can do is to point out the injustice of this, said her husband Richard Ratcliffe. He and others said this week that Foreign Minister Boris Johnson had made inaccurate comments about her to members of parliament that had been seized on by the Iranian judiciary and used to frame her. Johnson had said, she was simply teaching people journalism. He subsequently said the UK government has no doubt that she was on holiday in Iran and that his comments could have been clearer . My point was that I disagreed with the Iranian view that training journalists was a crime, not that I wanted to lend any credence to Iranian allegations that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been engaged in such activity, he said. In 2016, Iran released five U.S. citizens in a prisoner exchange as the nuclear deal was implemented. One remained behind and six American citizens or permanent residents have been arrested since, their lawyers or relatives have told media, of whom one has been freed on bail. A U.S. State Department official confirmed three cases, did not comment on two others and mentioned another detainee, Nizar Zakka, saying he was unjustly held and calling for his release without clarifying his U.S. status. Asked for more details about Zakka and other detained US citizens and legal residents, the official said the safety and security of U.S. citizens abroad was a top priority, adding: Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment. In an October 25 letter to the U.N. Secretary General seen by Reuters, Zakka s lawyer Jason Poblete said his client was a U.S. permanent resident and is being held as a hostage, as are other innocent persons, to exact political concessions from the United States and other governments , including on sanctions. For its part, Iran says its nationals are detained unjustly in the West. Kazem Gharibabadi, deputy head of Iran s Council for Human Rights, part of the judiciary, has said more than 56 Iranians are imprisoned in the United States and an unspecified number in other countries. Some of those are detained under baseless charges, including bypassing sanctions, he was quoted as saying by state media on Sunday. U.S. Department of Justice spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle declined to comment on Gharibabadi s figure, saying the Justice Department does not track prosecutions by nationality and the U.S. government s Bureau of Prisons does not track how many inmates have Iranian nationality. He said inmates in U.S. federal prison are serving sentences handed down by federal judges after thorough due process of law .

Trump sold all his shares in companies in June: spokesman

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump sold all of his shares in companies in June, aides said on Tuesday, a move that likely raised substantial cash ahead of the presidential election and could now ease some concerns about potential conflicts of interest. Trump’s stock portfolio included shares of companies including Apple Inc, Microsoft Corp, JPMorgan Chase & Co and a host of others, according to a financial disclosure form filed in May. Trump spokesman Jason Miller said in an email that Trump sold all of his shares, but he did not respond to questions about what Trump did with the sales proceeds or whether he withdrew from any other investments at the same time. The Republican’s transition team did not provide documentation of the sales. Trump will not have to file a new financial disclosure form until May 2018, according to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. Presidents typically provide some such information voluntarily during their first year in office. Selling his shares would reduce some potential for conflicts for the businessman-turned-politician as he prepares to take over the White House from Democratic President Barack Obama on Jan. 20. It would not address concerns about Trump’s personal and family business activities, which include hotels and golf resorts from Panama to Scotland. Trump has said he will step back from running his business, but he has not given any detail about the arrangements. During the presidential campaign, Trump indicated he had pulled back from the stock market. “I did invest, and I got out, and it was actually very good timing,” he told Fox Business in an August interview. The issue arose after Trump urged the government to cancel an order with Boeing Co for a revamped Air Force One presidential plane. The New York real estate developer, who defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in the Nov. 8 election, said, without citing proof, that costs for the aircraft were out of control. Trump had previously said he owned Boeing shares. Asked earlier on Tuesday whether the president-elect still owned them, Miller said Trump sold all his shares in June, but it was not clear at the time whether he was speaking only about Boeing stock.

Painfully Stupid Trump Fan Thanks God And ‘Trumpcare’ For Her Lower Healthcare Costs Under Obamacare

A Tennessee Trump supporter is ecstatic that Obamacare has dramatically lowered her family s insurance costs, but she doesn t credit the Affordable Care Act for her family s good fortune she says God and Trump are responsible.Charla McComic says that her son recently lost his job and, thanks to Trumpcare, his premium dropped from $567 per month to $88 a blessing from God and a gift from her fuhrer Donald Trump, she says. I think it was just because of the tax credit. The Washington Post notes that the price change was actually thanks to a subsidy made possible by former president Barack Obama s Affordable Care Act, which is still in place, not by the tax credits proposed by Republicans as part of the health-care bill still being considered by Congress. Sure, the ACA was passed before Trump even considered running for President and his own health care law one that would strip coverage from millions of low-income families who need coverage the most and, of course, her son s. We said: Who else would we do this for, besides Trump? McComic, who campaigned for Trump during the 2016 election, says, apparently because she is one of the poorly educated The Donald loves so much. We agreed on the Lord. We would stand here for the Lord, but that s about it. So far, everything s been positive, from what I can tell, she said while waiting for the first elected leader since Adolf Hitler to still hold rallies to begin speaking on Wednesday night. I just hope that more and more people and children get covered under this new health-care plan. Contrary to McComic s beliefs, Trump himself knows and freely admits that his supporters will be hurt the most by his plan. Counties that voted for you, middle class and working class counties, would do far less well under this bill, Fox News host Tucker Carlson recently told Trump. Yeah. Oh, I know that. It s very preliminary, Trump replied.Sorry, Ms. McComic: Trump doesn t care about you, and the President you hated is responsible for your family s good fortune.Featured image via Facebook

Boiler Room #89 – Island of Misfit Toys

Tune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room starting at 6:00 PM PST | 8:00 PM CST | 9:00 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 and Spore along with Andy Nowicki host of The Nameless Podcast for the 89th episode of BOILER ROOM. Water the plants, put the kids to bed and get your favorite snuggy out so you can drop deep into the Boiler Room with the ACR brain-trust.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! Listen to Boiler Room #89 Island of Misfit Toys on Spreaker.Reference Links:

Democratic Senator Franken faces pressure to resign, announcement looms

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrat Al Franken faced intense pressure from members of his own party on Wednesday to resign from the U.S. Senate over accusations of sexual misconduct. Minnesota Public Radio reported Franken would resign on Thursday. Franken’s office said in an email that no final decision had been made and that the senator was still discussing the issue with his family. After accusations began surfacing three weeks ago, Franken said he would remain in office and work to regain the trust of voters in Minnesota, the state he represents. But on Wednesday, calls for him to resign came from the majority of his Democratic colleagues in the Senate, including Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and almost all of the Democratic women in the chamber, putting great pressure on him to quit. “I consider Senator Franken a dear friend and greatly respect his accomplishments, but he has a higher obligation to his constituents and the Senate, and he should step down immediately,” Schumer said in a statement. Franken said on Twitter that he would make an announcement on Thursday, but he offered no details. In its report, Minnesota Public Radio cited a Democratic official who had spoken to the senator and aides. Late on Wednesday, news website Politico reported that Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton was expected to appoint Democratic Lieutenant Governor Tina Smith to take Franken’s seat if he resigned. She would hold the seat until a special election in 2018. That move would leave the Minnesota race wide open because Smith would not run in the special election to finish Franken’s term, which goes through 2020, Politico said, citing people familiar with Dayton’s thinking. Franken is one of a number of prominent American men in politics, media and entertainment who have been accused in recent months of sexual harassment and misconduct. Another accusation against Franken surfaced on Wednesday when Politico reported that a congressional aide said Franken had tried to forcibly kiss her in 2006, before he was first elected as a senator. Franken denied the allegations, Politico reported. Franken’s office did not reply to a request for comment on the report. The calls on Wednesday marked the first time Franken’s Democratic colleagues had publicly pressed for him to step down since the accusations surfaced. The party’s chairman, Tom Perez, also pressed for him to resign. Schumer called Franken immediately after the Politico story was published and told him that he needed to relinquish his Senate seat, according to a person familiar with the situation. “I’ve struggled with this decision because he’s been a good senator and I consider him a friend,” Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii wrote on Twitter. “But that cannot excuse his behavior and his mistreatment of women.” Franken apologized for his behavior after earlier accusations and said he would cooperate with a Senate Ethics Committee investigation. Reuters has not independently verified the claims against him. Democrats are seeking the moral high ground in the wake of sexual misconduct accusations against numerous public figures, including Republican Roy Moore of Alabama, who is running for the Senate, and Democratic Representative John Conyers, who resigned on Tuesday. Both of those men have denied the accusations against them. Several Republican lawmakers initially called on Moore to step out of the race, but have since said the decision is ultimately up to Alabama voters. President Donald Trump has endorsed the candidate. The election is Tuesday. Franken, a former comedian who rose to national prominence as a cast member on the long-running television program “Saturday Night Live,” had been considered a rising star in the Democratic party since he was first elected in 2008. Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who was among those saying Franken should resign, told reporters that Democrats had been “having conversations” about Franken for a while. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell joined the groundswell against Franken, saying in a statement, “I do not believe he can effectively serve the people of Minnesota in the U.S. Senate any longer.” Franken’s Minnesota colleague, Senator Amy Klobuchar, wrote on Twitter, “Sexual harassment is unacceptable. This morning I spoke with Senator Franken and, as you know, he will be making an announcement about his future tomorrow morning. I am confident he will make the right decision.”

Here Are Five LGBTQ Protections Trump Will Have A VERY Hard Time Reversing

One of the most devastated and vulnerable communities under a Donald Trump administration will be the LGBTQ community. The 2016 GOP platform is easily one of the most explicitly anti-LGBTQ in history. They plan to do all they can to discriminate openly, and with control of the entire federal government, they have no one to stop them.However, there are a few things that happened on President Obama s watch that the Republicans will find that their hands are tied on. Firstly, the bigots like Mike Pence and others in Trump s administration can gnash their teeth all they want, but the Supreme Court already ruled on marriage equality. It s done.The only potential caveat here is that, with the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, there s a vacant seat that the GOP obstructionists refused to allow President Obama to fill, though it was rightfully his. Even so, it takes a 60-vote majority for the Senate to confirm a SCOTUS justice, and no way will the Democrats go for some right-wing, homophobic nut on that one. They could try the nuclear option, of course. To that end, let s just make sure we keep Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg in tip-top shape until we get rid of Trump, Pence, and their cabinet of horrors.Secondly, President Obama was forceful with the issue of repealing Don t Ask, Don t Tell. The United States Armed Forces now has openly LGBTQ soldiers serving in all branches, and transitions for transgender folks are covered as well. President Obama famously told his military chiefs that they could step down if they had issues with his repeal. This is a done deal, and what are they going to do, waltz in and kick all the gay soldiers out? Didn t think so. Even Pence can t be that stupid.Next is the fight for transgender rights. While a lot of the legal stuff was by executive order, and Pence will likely DEMAND that it all be undone immediately, what they cannot undo is public perception. If this extremist administration goes aggressively after transgender people who are easily the most vulnerable in our society they will face swift and immediate backlash. Trump is already entering office as the least popular president in modern history, with the scandal of an investigation into his ties to Russia already hanging over his head. He isn t going to want to make himself even less popular by going after a group of people whose issues are front and center for the first time in history.President Obama also made a point of appointing hordes of openly gay judges to federal judgeships. These folks will smack down anything unconstitutional done against us in the name of Trump and Pence s bigotry, and there isn t a damn thing they can do about it. Absent violating the law, federal judges stay on the bench as long as they damn well please.Lastly but perhaps most importantly President Obama s open support of LGBTQ people pushed our issues to the forefront and changed public perception of us. The bigoted views of the people in Trump s cabinet of extremists are far outside the mainstream. We have President Obama to thank for that. He aggressively promoted equality here at home and on the world stage. He wasn t afraid to call out the bigotry of politicians in the United States, nor those abroad. He deliberately sent gay United States delegates to Russia s Sochi Olympics, in a blatant rebuke of Vladimir Putin s campaign of hate against LGBTQ citizens. He also smacked down the Kenyan president over his country s brutal homophobia. And, in a last nod to our community, President Obama made clear his feelings on the brutal treatment of transgender prisoners by commuting Chelsea Manning s sentence on the way out the door.Thank you, President Obama, for protecting our community. Who knows where we d be without you? We re going to miss you so much.Featured image via screen capture from Twitter

Former Libyan prime minister freed after abduction in Tripoli

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Former Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan has been released after being abducted during a visit to the capital, Tripoli, and held for nine days by an armed group, a relative said on Wednesday. Zeidan was prime minister from 2012-2014, a period when Libya slid deeper into the political turmoil and armed conflict that has plagued the country since Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown six years ago. He has since been living in Germany with his family. It is not clear why Zeidan traveled to Libya or why he was abducted. He was being held by a group aligned with the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli, though he faced no judicial charges, a source said. The U.N.-backed government has not commented on the case. Tripoli is controlled by a number of the armed groups that have held power in the capital since 2011. Some have been given semi-official status by successive governments, but the groups remain unaccountable and involved in criminal activity. A lawyer for Zeidan, Moussa Al-Doghali, told France 24 Arabic TV channel that his client was released without explanation and that he did not know the circumstances of his arrest and detention. Zeidan was in good health and was staying in a Tripoli hotel following his release, Doghali said. In October 2013, Zeidan was briefly abducted from a Tripoli hotel room by an armed group allied to the parliament that sacked him just over a year later.

Russia says U.S. Iran sanctions undermine nuclear deal

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.S. unilateral sanctions on Iran undermine the Iran nuclear deal, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday. Using unilateral sanctions ... is illegitimate and undermines the collective nature of international efforts. Everyone is witnessing with alarm today the newer and newer restrictions by the U.S. against Iran, Lavrov told the U.N. General Assembly annual gathering of world leaders. They threaten the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, he added, referring to the 2015 international accord between Iran and six world powers.

Senator McCaskill drafts bill in response to Allergan patent maneuver

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Democratic U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill on Thursday said she drafted a bill stating that tribal sovereign immunity cannot be used to block U.S. Patent and Trademark Office review of a patent. Drugmaker Allergan Plc made a deal to transfer some of its patents to a Native American tribe two weeks ago in order to shield them from review. McCaskill’s response follows a bipartisan U.S. House of Representatives committee decision to investigate the deal earlier this week and previous calls by Democratic Senators for a probe. “Any thinking person would look at what this company did and say, ‘That should be illegal.’ Well, I agree,” McCaskill said in a statement. “Congress never imagined tribes would allow themselves to be used by pharmaceutical companies to avoid challenges to patents, and this bill will shut the practice down before others follow suit.” Allergan was not immediately available for comment. Allergan said last month that it was transferring patents on its blockbuster dry eye medication Restasis to New York’s Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe, which agreed to exclusively license them back to the company in exchange for ongoing payments. The Tribe issued a statement expressing outrage at McCaskill’s move and accused the senator of engaging in double standards. It said the proposed legislation “specifically targets Indian tribes, yet exempts state universities and other sovereign governments engaged in the very same IPR (inter partes review) process.” Allergan has argued that the legal maneuver is aimed at removing administrative patent challenges through inter partes review by the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board, and not challenges in federal court. The drugmaker said it believes that the patents should not be subject to the IPR process - which Allergan has called flawed and broken - because of the tribe’s sovereign immunity. The company still faces a challenge to the patents in federal court.

Duterte regrets Obama comments came across as personal attack

VIENTIANE (Reuters) - The Philippines said on Tuesday that President Rodrigo Duterte regretted comments he made about U.S. President Barack Obama came across as a personal attack and led to the cancellation of a meeting between the leaders of the allied nations. “President Duterte explained that the press reports that President Obama would ‘lecture’ him on extrajudicial killings led to his strong comments, which in turn elicited concern,” the Philippines said in a statement released at a summit in Laos. “He regrets that his remarks to the press have caused much controversy,” it added.

Spain says most potential voting stations for Catalan vote closed

MADRID (Reuters) - Most public buildings that were intended to be used as polling stations in Sunday s disputed referendum on Catalan independence have been closed, Spain s Interior Ministry said on Saturday. Only some potential voting stations were being occupied by people bent on obstructing police efforts to enforce a court order barring public buildings from being used for Sunday s planned vote, the ministry said in a statement.

Trump praises Saudi purge, voices confidence in King, Crown Prince

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday endorsed a move by Saudi Arabia s future king that tightened his grip on power through the arrests of royals, ministers and investors in an anti-corruption purge. The endorsement cemented a U.S.-Saudi relationship that has improved dramatically under Trump s presidency, partly because of both leaders vision of confronting Riyadh s arch-rival Iran more aggressively in the region. Trump tweeted on Monday that he had great confidence in King Salman and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia following the mass arrests - the biggest such purge of the kingdom s affluent elite in its modern history. Trump also tweeted that they know exactly what they are doing, adding: Some of those they are harshly treating have been milking their country for years. The purge was the latest in a series of dramatic steps by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MbS as he is commonly referred to in Western circles, to assert Saudi influence internationally and amass more power for himself at home. A U.S. official who declined to be named told Reuters that MbS has become the primary driver of Saudi policy-making. He has moved aggressively to sideline opponents, concentrate decision-making authority, and establish himself as the undisputed heir to the al Saud legacy. He seeks to reinvigorate the public s confidence in the Saudi monarchy by diversifying the economy, loosening religious restrictions, and carrying out wide ranging social reforms, the official said. Trump s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the president s senior adviser, who has cultivated a close relationship with MbS, recently returned from Saudi Arabia, fuelling speculation on whether he may have had wind of MbS plans. The White House said at the time the trip was reported that it was within the context of Kushner s efforts on Israeli-Palestinian peace conversations. Among those arrested were billionaire investor Alwaleed bin Talal, who is one of the kingdom s most prominent businessmen and whose investments in companies like Twitter make him the most recognized Saudi name on Wall Street. It s an impressive feat to have basically neutered virtually all of the sources of potential opposition, dissent rivalry, whether it s religious, media, political, military, said Rob Malley, vice president for policy of the International Crisis Group. On the other hand... it s always risky to make too many enemies at the same time. It s not clear how those enemies can react, said Malley, a former senior adviser on Middle East affairs under President Barack Obama. Also detained was Prince Miteb bin Abdullah, who was replaced as minister of the National Guard, a pivotal power base rooted in the kingdom s tribes. That recalled a palace coup in June that ousted Mohammed bin Nayef as heir to the throne. A former senior U.S. intelligence official cautioned that given the National Guard s loyalties, MbS could face a backlash. I find it difficult to believe that it (National Guard) will simply roll over and accept the imposition of new leadership in such an arbitrary fashion. ANTI-IRANIAN CONFRONTATION U.S.-Saudi ties had been strained under Obama, who Riyadh felt considered their alliance less important than negotiating the Iran nuclear deal. But the Trump administration has vowed to confront Iran much more aggressively in the region, where it shares the Saudi view that Tehran is fomenting instability via a number of proxies in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen among other countries. Tehran denies the allegations. Events in Saudi Arabia in recent days appeared to open the prospect for a sharper confrontation with Iran and its proxies. Saudi Arabia accused Lebanon on Monday of declaring war against it because of what it called aggression by the Iran-backed Lebanese Shi ite group Hezbollah. Saudi-allied Lebanese politician Saad al-Hariri quit as prime minister on Saturday, announcing his resignation from Riyadh and blaming Iran and Hezbollah in his resignation speech. Also on Saturday, Saudi Arabia s air defense forces intercepted a ballistic missile fired from warring Yemen over the capital, Riyadh. The Pentagon praised Saudi Arabia for exposing Iran s role in Yemen and Tehran s provision of missile systems to Houthi militia fighting there. Between that (Hariri s resignation) and the missile launch on Riyadh ... the coincidence of those two does mean that the prospect of some escalation, some strike either against Hezbollah or against Iran or against both is more likely, certainly than it was a few days ago, Malley told Reuters.

Dem Rep. Calls Out GOP, Urges More Of Them To Rebuke Sexist Trump (TWEETS)

We all know that Donald Trump is a misogynistic sexual predator. That s the kind of public life he has led, and it is the kind of so-called presidential campaign he ran. However, now that he is sitting in the Oval Office and representing America as our Head of State, his words matter. Therefore, his disgusting, sexist attacks on Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski are all the more gravely disturbing. Thankfully, people are calling him out. However, that isn t enough. The entire GOP needs to rebuke Trump for what he is doing on Twitter, and one Democratic Congresswoman is pointing that out, Rep. Barbara Lee of California.Taking to Trump s favorite medium of communication, Twitter, Rep. Lee called on her GOP colleagues to stop excusing Trump s behavior and standing by him, for his words are having a terribly negative impact on the impressionable children of America. Rep. Lee tweeted:I want my GOP colleagues to explain to my 3 granddaughters why they think these viciously sexist comments are acceptable from our President. https://t.co/C0C4GJaYks Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) June 29, 2017She went on to remind everyone that this isn t about Trump anymore. It is also about the Republican Party s crazy tolerance and even acceptance of open and overt misogyny.This isn t just about Trump. We already knew he has no respect for women. It s also about the GOP which continues to defend & support him. Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) June 29, 2017Then again, the GOP has long been an anti-woman party. It is there in their policies, in their refusal to vote for the protection of domestic violence victims or in favor of equal pay for women, and their constant and unending stream of assaults on women s reproductive healthcare. In a way, that makes Trump the perfect standard-bearer for their party.Besides all of that, the party is largely made up of old, craven, white men, who couldn t care less about the well-being of women. The radio silence from the GOP side is in no way surprising, considering all of this.Featured image via Win McNamee/Getty Images

WATCH: Joe Scarborough Fears Trump Will Murder Journalists And Political Rivals Like Putin Does

Donald Trump s admiration of Vladimir Putin and the tyrannical way he runs Russia is very worrying to Trump s friend Joe Scarborough.The Morning Joe host strongly advised that Trump to put out a statement condemning the killing of journalists and political opponents. Because if he doesn t, his recent statements in two separate interviews over the course of the last year are even scarier. He s running his country, and at least he s a leader, Trump said in December 2015 when asked about Putin murdering journalists and political rivals. Unlike what we have in this country. But again: He kills journalists that don t agree with him, Scarborough replied.Trump then stunned Scarborough by excusing Putin s crimes. I think our country does plenty of killing, also, Joe, so, you know. There s a lot of stupidity going on in the world right now, Joe. A lot of killing going on. A lot of stupidity. And that s the way it is. And just as in that interview, Trump basically repeated himself during an interview with Bill O Reilly that aired prior to the Super Bowl on Sunday. There are a lot of killers, Trump said in defense of Putin. You think our country s so innocent? And that makes Joe Scarborough wonder if Trump will start emulating Putin. If Donald Trump keeps being asked to criticize Vladimir Putin for assassinating journalists, and Donald Trump refuses to criticize Vladimir Putin for assassinating journalists, and say, well, we do it, too, in a sense, does that suggest that he thinks that it s OK to assassinate journalists? Does that suggest that it s OK to jail political opponents, to assassinate political opponents? Scarborough then condemned Trump for defending Putin and advised him to issue a statement against killing journalists and political rivals to make it clear that he does not support doing these things. If you don t condemn after being asked repeatedly to condemn these actions, at some point you go back to the he who does not deny admits story, and it suggests that he does. I suggest somebody at the White House get him to write a very strong statement letting the world know that he condemns the assassination of journalists and political rivals, because he suggests in the two interviews with O Reilly and us that he does not How do you compare a country whose leader assassinates journalists, a country s leader who assassinates political rivals we saw one found dead in the street across from the Kremlin a year ago who jails economic rivals, who has an authoritarian regime that has put everybody on notice, he s plundered his country. Many people estimate that Putin is worth $200 billion that he has stolen from the Russian people, and yet this desire to keep preaching moral equivalency continues and it is baffling. It was disturbing enough a year ago, it is baffling now, as president of the United States, that he s still doing this. Here s the video via MSNBC.Donald Trump is a threat to our individual liberties and our lives. His obsession with wanting to be buddies with Putin is frightening and the fact that he is actually defending murder is sickening and un-American.Featured image via screenshot

WATCH “ARCHITECT” OF OBAMACARE Lie And Spin His Way Out Of Taking Responsibility For Failure…A Real PUTZ! [Video]

Listening to Zeke Emanuel, awkward brother of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, is always a study in the absurdities of politics. This guy is supposedly the architect of Obamacare but he s just one big jackwagon.Can you believe we ve had people like this determining the healthcare policy for all Americans? He s now providing cover for the failing Obamacare exchanges. Aetna is the latest to essentially withdraw from all but four of the state exchanges for which it had been providing health insurance under Obamacare. Not a success but you wouldn t know it from all the finger pointing going on with this putz.HERE S ZEKE TRYING TO BLAME HIS FAILURE ON POLITICS NICE TRY BUT WE RE NOT BUYIN IT:

Senate panel approves Obama's pick to lead forces in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Senate committee approved on Thursday President Barack Obama’s pick to lead U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan. Lieutenant General John Nicholson’s approval by the Senate Armed Services Committee came during a hearing with the outgoing U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General John Campbell. Nicholson said in testimony to the committee last week that he aimed to review a plan that would cut American troop levels by nearly half by the start of next year, as he acknowledged deteriorating security in the country.

Senate confirms Trump's pick to run Medicare, Medicaid

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s pick to run the government health program for the elderly, poor and disabled on Monday, filling a critical role as Republicans fight to repeal and replace Obamacare.     The Senate voted 55-43 to approve Seema Verma to run the $1 trillion Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Verma is the owner of SVC Inc, a healthcare consulting firm, and has helped redesign Medicaid programs in several states, including Indiana when Vice President Mike Pence was governor.     Verma will report to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price. Price and Verma are expected to make changes to many of the Medicaid and Medicare programs that were implemented under the signature legislation of former Democratic President Barack Obama, the 2010 Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare.     Republicans unveiled their plan to repeal and replace much of Obamacare last week. The proposal would roll back an expansion of the Medicaid program for the poor and replace Obamacare’s income-based tax credits with flat, age-based credits. The bill passed two House committees last week and goes to the House Budget Committee this week. A study of the Republican healthcare measure released on Monday by the nonpartisan U.S. Congressional Budget Office found that 14 million Americans would lose medical insurance by next year if the program is approved. It said 24 million more people would be uninsured by 2026 under the program. Price told reporters at the White House that the administration strongly disagreed with the findings, saying the CBO had not looked at the full plan to reform Obamacare.     If the Republican healthcare bill passes the House and Senate and is signed into law by Trump, Verma will play a major role in implementing the law, called the American Health Care Act.     Verma worked in Indiana to expand Medicaid to include thousands of additional low-income residents. Those residents are required to make small monthly payments toward their care through health savings accounts.     Verma’s confirmation was not without controversy early on. In an initial committee hearing, Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon said that while helping manage the state of Indiana’s health program, her firm was being paid by companies that were providing services and products to the program.     Verma has denied wrongdoing and said she would divest her financial interest in SVC within 90 days of confirmation.

Push by evangelicals helped set stage for Trump decision on Jerusalem

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An intense and sustained push by U.S. evangelicals helped drive President Donald Trump s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel s capital and eventually relocate the U.S. embassy there, activists said on Wednesday. While Trump had long pledged to move the embassy, the Republican president s conservative Christian advisers repeatedly pressed the case in regular meetings at the White House, the conservative activists said. I have no doubt that evangelicals played a meaningful role in this decision, said Johnnie Moore, a California pastor who serves as a spokesman for a council of leading evangelicals that advises the White House. I don t believe it would have happened without them. The White House did not respond to requests for comment. Many U.S. evangelicals have expressed strong solidarity with conservatives in Israel and feel a connection rooted in the Bible to the Jewish state. Conservative Christians have long argued that formally recognizing Jerusalem, home to sites holy to the Muslim, Jewish and Christian religions, was long overdue following a 1995 congressional mandate to move the embassy from Tel Aviv. In Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, they found their most sympathetic audience. Activists efforts included an email campaign launched by the group My Faith Votes. The group is chaired by Mike Huckabee, the former Republican presidential candidate and father of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary. The group posted a form on its website and urged people to contact the White House to press for recognition of Jerusalem as the capital. Another evangelical group, American Christian Leaders for Israel, which includes conservative activists Gary Bauer and Penny Nance, sent a letter to Trump warning that time was of the essence in moving the embassy. Trump s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital was criticized by Palestinian leaders and others in the international community, who fear it will spark unrest in the region. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. No other country has its embassy in Jerusalem. In June, Trump, like Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama before him, signed a waiver delaying the embassy move to Jerusalem in the hope of boosting his nascent efforts at brokering a peace accord between Israel and the Palestinians. With a deadline approaching for another such waiver, evangelical advocates saw a window to increase the pressure. American Christian Leaders for Israel, in the letter to Trump posted on its website, said they were gravely concerned that with every passing day it will become more difficult to move the embassy and if you do not do it now, it may never happen. Trump first convened a circle of evangelical advisers during his presidential campaign, and he was the overwhelming favorite of white evangelical voters in last year s election. Moore, a member of the evangelical group advising the administration, said a prominent Christian conservative was in the White House just about every day. Much of the access comes through the Office of Public Liaison and its deputy director, Jennifer Korn, whose portfolio includes faith groups. I ve sat in many meetings with evangelicals in the White House since the administration began, and I can tell you this issue came up again and again and again, Moore said. He said evangelicals made it clear to the White House that it was a priority of theirs and they wanted action soon. Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University and a close Trump adviser, said he had never talked to the president about the issue but had received emails from other leading evangelicals in the past several days asking me to support this or tweet that, and try to get the word out. The faith community has talked to the administration for months and months about the need to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, said Robert Jeffress, pastor at First Baptist Church in Dallas and an evangelical adviser to Trump. But the fact is, we didn t have to do any convincing of this administration. This was a campaign promise that President Trump was happy to keep because he feels that way, Jeffress said in a telephone interview with Reuters on Wednesday.

Trump adds nuance to pro-Israel approach ahead of Netanyahu visit

WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - During his 2016 election campaign, Donald Trump signaled his presidency would be a boon for Israel and tough on Palestinians. The U.S. Embassy would move to Jerusalem, he would name an ambassador who backs Israeli settlements on land Palestinians seek for a state and there would be no pressure for peace talks. But as Trump prepares for his first White House meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his administration has not only toned down its pro-Israel bravado but also taken the first tentative steps toward a more cautious Middle East diplomacy, including consultations with Sunni Arab allies and U.S. lawmakers, according to people familiar with the matter. While any strategy is still far from complete, there is growing consensus in the White House that tackling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could require gentle nudging of Israel together with assurances to the Arab world that Trump will be more even-handed than his campaign rhetoric suggested. “This is a case where campaign promises run head-on into geopolitical reality and they have to be adjusted accordingly,” said a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity. As a result, relocating the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem – a step world leaders including Jordan’s King Abdullah warned against and which would probably inflame the Muslim world - has been put on hold for now. At the same time, the White House has adopted a more measured stance on Israeli settlement-building in occupied territory than candidate Trump appeared to advocate. Even so, there is little doubt that when Netanyahu meets Trump on Wednesday, he will find a Republican president determined to show more warmth to Israel than his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, with whom he had an acrimonious relationship. Social media exchanges have suggested a budding “bromance” between Netanyahu and Trump, who has pledged to be the “best friend” Israel has ever had in the White House. As a result, Palestinians fear their leaders will be frozen out and their statehood aspirations pushed aside. One White House aide cautioned that the administration is still in “listening mode” on the issue. Since taking office on Jan. 20, Trump has spoken by phone to Egyptian, Saudi and United Arab Emirates leaders and heard Abdullah’s concerns in person. All of these countries have growing contacts with Israel, mostly behind the scenes and centered on a shared desire to counter Iran, a point that Netanyahu has often cited as among the grounds for his country’s eventual thaw with the Arab world. Signaling an emerging view that U.S. Arab allies could be helpful on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, assigned to a senior role in Middle East diplomacy, has met Arab officials, including the UAE’s ambassador to Washington, the New York Times reported. In his talks with Trump, Netanyahu is expected to try to keep the focus on forging a common front against Iran, Israel’s regional enemy and a target of Trump’s ire. The Israeli-Palestinian dispute will nonetheless be on the agenda, especially after Israel’s parliament drew international condemnation for approving a law retroactively legalizing 4,000 settler homes built on privately owned Palestinian land. Barring a curve ball from the sometimes unpredictable U.S. president, Trump is unlikely to use the talks to press Netanyahu for concessions toward the Palestinians in the way Obama did. But neither can Trump afford to be seen to abandon the U.S. commitment to a two-state solution, the bedrock of Washington’s Middle East policy since the 1993 interim peace accords and a principle embraced internationally. A White House statement on Feb. 2 set forth a more nuanced position, backing away from a longstanding U.S. view of settlements as an “impediment” to peace but instead saying new settlements or the expansion of existing ones beyond current boundaries “may not be helpful” to that goal. That shift transpired just hours after Trump met briefly with King Abdullah on the sidelines of an event in Washington. Even so, the emerging shape of Trump policy remains more accommodating toward Israel than at any time since Republican George W. Bush occupied the White House. “It seems we are headed for a new policy with this administration that is different from its predecessor in how it deals with the Palestinian leadership and the Palestinian cause,” said Wasel Abu Youssef, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee. There has been no contact between the Palestinian leadership and the Trump administration so far, Palestinian officials said. Moderate, Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was among the first world leaders Obama called on his first full day in office in 2009. A White House official insisted, however, that the administration intends to develop a relationship with the Palestinian Authority. All the same, many Israeli officials do not read the White House’s settlements statement as a warning to Israel or a reining-in of Netanyahu. Not only does it conclude that settlements do not block peace prospects, it also says construction within established settlements is acceptable to Washington. “Bibi will be happy,” said an Israeli diplomat, using Netanyahu’s nickname. “He can put new settlements on hold and hold off the right wing by pointing to Trump. At the same time, he can build as much as he wants within existing settlements.” In that regard, the lines drawn by the White House help Netanyahu fend off demands from the far right in his coalition for sweeping steps, like annexing portions of the West Bank. Palestinians would be especially alarmed if Trump decided to proceed with moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, essentially recognizing the city as Israel’s capital despite international insistence that its status must be decided in negotiations. The Palestinians want East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in a move not recognized internationally, as the capital of their future state. Trump and his aides have played down the prospects for a quick embassy move since he took office. Some experts see a moderating influence in Trump’s national security team. It has members such as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, a former Exxon Mobil chief executive with extensive contacts among Gulf Arab governments, and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a retired Marine general. They will have to deal with other, sometimes ideologically driven advisers with close personal ties to Trump. David Friedman, Trump’s former bankruptcy lawyer and now nominee as ambassador to Israel, has raised funds for a West Bank settlement and voiced doubt about Palestinian statehood. Kushner’s family has donated tens of thousands of dollars to the same settlement. Aides may be moving circumspectly also in hope of keeping the door open if Trump – who has touted his skills as a master dealmaker – decides to seek what he has called the “ultimate deal”: Israeli-Palestinian peace. To pursue such an initiative, the United States needs to be seen as an even-handed mediator, while also overcoming the rigid disputes that have scuppered so many peace efforts over the years: settlements, borders, the status of Jerusalem, what to do with Palestinian refugees, and Palestinian political divisions. The last, U.S.-brokered round of peace talks collapsed in 2014. It remains to be seen whether the Trump administration will be inclined to devote much attention to the Israeli-Palestinian issue at a time when it is distracted by other priorities. In the Middle East alone, the fight against Islamic State and countering Iran are higher on the agenda.  However, if Trump at some point does opt to wade in where so many of his predecessors have failed, for Netanyahu – who is looking for a reset of U.S.-Israeli relations – it might be a case of “be careful what you wish for”.

Donald Trump Jr. Expects Us To Believe He Has ‘Zero Contact’ With His Father

Donald Trump Jr. apparently expects the world to believe that he has had zero contact with his father since he was sworn into office. So no need to worry about all that pesky conflict of interest stuff. Nothing to see here, folks!Speaking at a GOP fundraiser in Dallas on Saturday, Trump Jr. told the crowd that he no longer has any real communications with his dad now that he is the president. I basically have zero contact with him at this point, Trump Jr. claimed with a straight face.Trump s son said he believed that he would be out of politics and could just return to his regular life once the election was finally over. But I couldn t, he said. Deals are still exciting, he added. But when you re the sort of guy out there every day, 24-7 fighting in this thing it s like a great fight. Trump supposedly gave all control of his businesses to his two adult sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, when he became president and his assets were to be placed into a trust. But so far, he has offered nothing to prove that he has actually done any of this. The closest he has come to verifying that he has divested himself from his business interests is a stack of folders he pointed to at a press conference that supposedly held the proof.The Office of Government and Ethics (OGE) has cried foul over this arrangement from the very beginning, saying Trump s entire plan is wholly inadequate when it comes to resolving his many conflicts of interest.After claiming that they just don t have the time to talk to one another anymore, Trump Jr. also took the opportunity to stroke his daddy s ego during this weekend s fundraiser. I m watching more take place in two months than I saw in two terms before, he said.Featured image via Jeff Vinnick/Getty Images

Clinton opens up double-digit lead over Trump nationwide: Reuters/Ipsos poll

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton has opened up a double-digit lead over Republican rival Donald Trump, regaining ground after the New York billionaire briefly tied her last month, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Friday. The shift in support comes as Clinton steps up her attacks on the real estate mogul’s policy positions, and as Trump fends off criticisms of his eponymous university and the pace at which he doled out money that he raised for U.S. veterans. Some 46 percent of likely voters said they supported Clinton, while 35 percent said they supported Trump, and another 19 percent said they would not support either, according to the survey of 1,421 people conducted between May 30 and June 3. Trump had briefly tied Clinton in support among likely U.S. voters in mid-May, raising expectations for a tight race between the two likely contenders in November's presidential election. Trump has all but sealed the Republican nod after a string of big wins in state nominating contests forced his party rivals to drop out, while Clinton is still fending off a long-shot bid for the Democratic spot on the ballot by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Clinton is hoping to seal the nomination next week, when a slew of big states including New Jersey and California will hold primaries, allowing her to consolidate her party’s support ahead of a general election matchup against Trump. Clinton’s polling surge comes as Trump is been harangued by criticisms over his Trump University, the target of a trio of lawsuits that claim it misled thousands of people who paid up to $35,000 for seminars to learn about Trump’s investment strategies. Trump has defended the school and said he will relaunch it once the litigation ends. Trump this week also outlined the recipients of millions of dollars in donations he raised at an event in January for veterans’ groups, in a bid to end speculation that he had not yet handed over all of the money. On Thursday, Clinton used a foreign policy speech in California to paint Trump’s policy platform as “dangerously incoherent” and cast her Republican rival as both a frightening and laughable figure. Trump responded by saying she lied about his positions and by ripping her record as secretary of state, which he says was marred her handling of government emails and the death of a U.S. ambassador in Libya.

‘There’ll be boots on the ground’: US making noises about ‘doing more’ in Syria and Iraq

21st Century Wire says Various parties in Washington are quietly laying down the rhetorical tarmac for an increased US military operation in Syria.Recent remarks by US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter (see report below) in Davos appear to dovetail with similar words yesterday from US Vice President Joe Biden who stated, We are prepared to have a military solution for this operation, and taking out Daesh (ISIS). The following was reported by Press TV yesterday, but as yet, we cannot corroborate the story: The United States denies its special operations troops have taken over an airfield in northeastern Syria, near the country s border with Iraq and Turkey. A spokesman of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) said Friday that the military denied that US forces have taken control of any airfield in Syria . However, a spokesperson for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) told Al Jazeera earlier this week that the US special operations forces had taken over the airfield near the city of Rmeilan in Syria s Hasakah province to support Kurdish fighters against the Daesh (ISIL) Takfiri group. Regardless, don t think for one second that the Pentagon doesn t already have some boots on the ground inside Syria DELTA FORCE: According to a report at Friends of Syria, US Delta Force units are already on the ground in southern Syria near Jordanian border (Image Source: South Front)RTSecretary of Defense Ash Carter has reiterated US plans to increase its military presence in the campaign to retake Mosul and Raqqa from Islamic State, but urged other members of its coalition like Turkey to contribute more to the war effort. We re looking for opportunities to do more, and there will be boots on the ground I want to be clear about that but it s a strategic question, whether you are enabling local forces to take and hold, rather than trying to substitute for them, Carter told CNBC from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. I don t think we or anybody else can substitute for them, but there s a lot we can do to enable them, including being on the ground with them. US to increase number of troops in Iraq; Carter discusses 'accelerating' ISIS campaign https://t.co/cub1ZQ50Vi pic.twitter.com/FZBqbeBk3M RT (@RT_com) January 21, 2016There are currently about 3,600 US military staff in Iraq, in training and military support roles, with US officials announcing earlier this week that hundreds, not thousands more will be on their way shortly, though Carter himself vowed on Thursday that the numbers would increase greatly as the momentum of the effort increases. The reason for the uptick is the planned offensive against Raqqa, Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) headquarters in Syria, and Mosul, Iraq s second biggest city also overrun by IS Continue this story at RT READ MORE PENTAGON NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Pentagon Files

Conservatives Are Now Threatening The Family Of The Journalist Who Released Trump’s Taxes (TWEETS)

It was obvious this was going to happen, but if you were holding out hope that David Cay Johnston could release Donald Trump s tax returns without facing harassment from his supporters, you will be sad to know that Trump fans are just as horrible as ever. Ever since he broke the story, Johnston says that cowardly Trump supporters have been threatening his wife and one of his children. Trump fans call & harass my wife & 1 of my children after I break story White House confirmed. Sad! Johnston wrote on Twitter. Let s have open debate, not threats. Trump fans call & harass my wife & 1 of my children after I break story White House confirmed. Sad! Let's have open debate, not threats. David Cay Johnston (@DavidCayJ) March 15, 2017Johnston added that he is not intimidated by Trump fiends attempts to intimidate him, but that the calls to family are out of bounds, a disturbing sign of how Trump damages civil debate. To be clear, folks, I don't intimidate. But calls to family are out of bounds, a disturbing sign of how Trump damages civil debate. David Cay Johnston (@DavidCayJ) March 15, 2017On top of that, he says, Trump and his less-stupid-than-Eric-but-still-stupid son have been lying to the American people about the exact taxes The Donald has paid.Trump WH confirms my report, but fakes numbers. Trump paid $36.5m income tax, not $38 & not $40m Don Jr. claims. False WH statements. Sad! David Cay Johnston (@DavidCayJ) March 15, 2017The release of Trump s taxes did not, ultimately, reveal much (in fact, the very fact that The Donald paid any taxes at all was a positive for him), but one thing is very telling: Trump s attempt to do away with the Alternative Minimum Tax is definitely centered around saving himself money:But for AMT, which Trump wants to scrap, he'd have paid a lower tax rate than the poorest of Americans under 3.5% on $152.7 million David Cay Johnston (@DavidCayJ) March 15, 2017It s unclear why Trump s followers would go after Johnston and his family over this, but once again it is the norm for the sort of person who would still support Trump.Featured image via Twitter/Getty Images (Pool)/screengrab

WHAT? DEMOCRAT CONGRESSWOMAN Calls Violent Riots At Berkeley A “Beautiful Thing” [Video]

Here s just one video from last night that will tell you all you need to know: We have seen demonstrations and I think you already talked about that around the country. Young people at Berkeley protesting against this unconstitutional order. And I heard it say earlier that we need to get involved on the local and state level. But what concerns me is that the strain that has been placed on local government, particularly local law enforcement dealing with an order that is unjust and proper. And so as we encourage our young people to get involved I thought it was a beautiful site as we encourage people to get involved, what direction and instructions and how can we have a more organized effort so that they can be a major tool in moving our agenda forward? Anyone who feels that they can answer this question? Thank you.

DEATH OF A NATION BY EXECUTIVE ORDER: Who Voted To Bring 33 MILLION Immigrants To America?

With 25% of Mexico now living in America Americans should be demanding our President tell us why he allowed these illegal aliens to cross our southern border and who will pay for their health care and education? Americans pride ourselves on being people who have a government. But these days, it more often seems as if we ve got a government that has people.And that government is even selecting who its people will be, having within a generation essentially imported a state s worth of new people through immigration.Since 1970, the number of Hispanics of Mexican origin in the U.S. has jumped from fewer than 1 million to more than 33 million. If all these Mexicans were a state, it would be the second largest in population in the country, trailing only California.Did you vote to approve that immigration policy? Did anyone? In fact, the federal government allowed it to happen without any voter input. That s by design.In recent years, Congress has attempted to draft legislation to deal with illegal immigration. And while the controversial Gang of Eight bill passed the Senate in 2013, it died in the House after one of its authors withdrew his support. Immigration is a difficult topic, one that will require difficult discussions.Instead, the Obama White House would prefer to short-circuit the political discussions. America cannot wait forever for them to act. That s why today I am beginning a new effort to fix as much of our immigration system as I can on my own, without Congress, President Obama warned last summer. After the November elections, he acted to grant amnesty to millions of illegals.In February, a federal judge put a hold on that policy while he determined its legality. The administration admits it went right on ahead, issuing 2,000 more waivers. Now, an appeals court has upheld the stay. But the White House says it will press ahead. [T]he administration s enforcement priorities, including our focus on deporting felons and not families, and many other executive actions on immigration continue to move forward, White House spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters this week. It would be a shame if an issue so critical like this became mired in a political dispute. But Schultz has it exactly backward. If our representative system of government means anything, it should mean that the people have a say in the big issues facing our country.It s precisely because the issue is so important that it deserves to be a subject of political disputes. It s through the political process in the presidential and congressional elections of 2016 that voters can finally have a say in the nation s immigration policy. We ve already waited far too long.Via: Breitbart News

Britain sets Monday as latest deadline for Northern Ireland political talks

BELFAST (Reuters) - Britain will have to bring in legislation to set a budget for Northern Ireland if the province s political parties cannot reach an agreement to restore their power-sharing government by Monday, a British government spokesman said. Northern Ireland has been without a regional administration since its collapse in January, raising the prospect of direct rule being reimposed from London, potentially destabilizing a delicate political balance in the British province. The British minister for the region, James Brokenshire, said last week that talks had stalled with the Irish nationalist Sinn Fein party and the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) stuck over the rights of Irish language speakers. If a deal is struck by Monday, Brokenshire would return to London to begin the processes required to form a new Northern Ireland Executive, the spokesman added. However, if a budget is imposed by London, it would be the closest Northern Ireland has come to a return to direct rule in a decade. Brokenshire has warned the parties that they are on a glide path to greater and greater UK government intervention . The DUP and Sinn Fein shared power in the previous devolved administration under a system created following a peace deal which ended three decades of violence in the province. The head of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), one of the region s smaller parties, has said that handing over budgetary responsibility to London effectively constitutes direct rule and cannot be painted any other way . Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams said a new phase of talks would begin if an agreement could not be struck by Monday. If there is no deal done by the time the British minister brings forward a budget, that will signify that this phase of the talks - and there will obviously have to be other phases - has been exhausted, Adams told Irish national broadcaster RTE. Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney, who is co-facilitating the talks with Brokenshire, has said reverting to direct rule would be a devastating blow for reconciliation in the region. Coveney has also urged the parties to reach a deal so that Northern Ireland can have a greater say in Britain s talks to leave the European Union, set to have a bigger impact on the province than on any other part of the United Kingdom.

LOL: Putin Is Angry Now Because Trump Gets More Media Coverage In Russia Than He Does

Vladimir Putin is super pissed because Russian media is covering Donald Trump more than him, and he only has himself to blame.Over the course of the election, Putin ordered Russian state media to endorse and positively cover Trump s campaign in an effort to help Trump win against Hillary Clinton.Putin wanted a puppet in the White House, and he basically got one. After all, Russia is preparing for war in Europe in anticipation of Trump weakening NATO by pulling American support. Russia has also been getting really aggressive by simulating air attacks on a United States Navy destroyer and they have a spy ship parked really close to our shoreline. Russia has also deployed cruise missiles in violatio of a treaty. And if that s not enough, Trump is still expected to lift sanctions placed on Russia.The Kremlin is currently enjoying the fact that Trump has a bunch of pro-Russia staffers in his administration and Russian media loves that fact as well. So they have continued lavishing Trump with the kind of praise and ego-stroking that American media outlets refuse to provide.But Russian media won t be doing nearly as much now because Putin is reportedly tired of waiting for Trump to do his bidding and he is jealous of the media coverage Trump has been receiving.That s right. The honeymoon appears to be coming to an end between Trump and Putin, at least when it comes to how much Russian media covers him.According to Bloomberg, In January, Trump received more mentions in the media than Putin, relegating the Russian leader to the No. 2 spot for the first time since he returned to the Kremlin in 2012 after four years as premier, according to Interfax data. And so Putin has apparently ordered the Russian media to tone down their coverage of Trump so that Putin can get more coverage for himself. They won t pour buckets of criticism on Trump, they just won t talk about him much, Russian journalist Konstantin von Eggert told Bloomberg. The fate of Russia-American relations is much less predictable than it was just a few weeks ago. Indeed, a few weeks ago it looked certain that Trump would be able to get away with helping his buddy Putin take advantage of the United States. Now that Michael Flynn has busted Trump s connections with Russia wide open and Congress continues to discuss investigating the ties, Putin is not as confident Trump is the puppet he was looking for.But Americans should remain vigilant. Donald Trump is still in office, and until he is ousted permanently he will continue to be a threat to our national security. Putin could merely be making it appear like he and Trump are having a spat. He could be simply working behind the scenes or waiting until Trump s Russia scandal dies down.However, it s still damn hilarious that Putin is jealous of the media coverage his BFF is getting in his own backyard. Apparently, Putin is an attention-seeking snowflake just like Trump.Featured image credit photo of Donald Trump by Joe Raedle/Getty Images. Photo of Vladimir Putin by Thierry Chesnot/Getty Images