What Exactly Are Poll Watchers? Here's The Cliff Notes Version (VIDEO) By Natalie Dailey on October 29, 2016 Subscribe  For months, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has been whining that the election is rigged against him.  He urges people to go to the polls and look out for voter fraud. Watching for fraud is not illegal by itself. If you actually try to force someone to vote a certain way, that is illegal. Sending out false information about the election is also illegal in Ohio. In most states, intimidating voters like that is illegal. According to 18 U.S. Code § 594 : "Whoever intimidates, threatens, coerces, or attempts to intimidate, threaten, or coerce, any other person for the purpose of interfering with the right of such other person to vote or to vote as he may choose."  The states are allowed to regulate election procedures, so the rules vary widely. Some states allow poll watchers to help out by simply being in the room. They watch for any specific suspicious behavior. What Are Poll Watchers?  For example, in Florida, each candidate is allowed to have one poll watcher at each polling place. They have to be approved by the state beforehand.  The poll watcher's job is to make sure that the votes are counted correctly and to make sure there aren't any weird voting schemes going on.  Also in Florida, the poll watchers are allowed to challenge someone's identity if they find a problem with the person's identification or if the voter doesn't show up on local voter rolls. If the issue isn't resolved on-site, then the person can fill out a "provisional" ballot.  This ballot won't get counted until the problem with the voter's identity is cleared up, and only if the vote numbers are close enough for provisional ballots to make a difference. Unfortunately, they often don't get counted at all and if they do, not until after the vote would've been useful. Who Are The Poll Workers?  The poll workers are usually a combination of state employees, temporary contractors, or volunteers. They are trained to answer your questions, and they handle disputes with the poll watchers.  You are allowed to ask who poll workers are and who they represent. If you have a problem while voting, you'll report it to the poll workers.  Poll watchers and poll workers are not allowed to intimidate voters or suppress voting based on race, gender, national origin, or religion. They also can't question you, and they can't film you without your approval.  Stay safe on election day, November 8!  Donald Trump has gotten himself in some hot water for calling for poll watchers:


Another day, another situation where a Catholic priest is caught being a pervert. Monsingor Lawrence McGovern is the head of the Presentation Parish in Stockton, California. He also clearly has a proclivity for gentlemen. McGovern allegedly sent photos of his penis to an unnamed man who takes care of the swimming pool at the parish. The man complained about McGovern s sexual harassment to the police, and the parish, in true Catholic fashion, fired him.Vince Vinaldi is a lawyer for the fired pool man, and he says of the situation: It s extremely disturbing that the person s who is head of this parish would be sending text with photographs of his exposed genitals. Someone s who s engaging in that type of conduct has very, very serious credibility issues and issues with judgement. Finaldi also says that the pool man approached McGovern about the explicit material that he was receiving, and also pointed out that Catholic priests are supposed to be completely celibate. The perverted priest simply responded, Oh, that just means that you re not married. Last I checked, celibacy in modern times refers to abstaining from sexual activity, not marriage.The Stockton Parish suspended McGovern once the allegations hit the news, and issued the usual generic statement regarding a supposed internal investigation: Today the Diocese of Stockton learned for the first time of employment related allegations against Monsignor Lawrence McGovern, the Pastor of Presentation Parish in Stockton. In accordance with the Canon Law of the Church, Bishop Stephen Blaire has placed Monsignor McGovern on administrative leave pending a full and complete investigation. Vince Finaldi, however, has a much more appropriate reaction than that of the local diocese: That person has no business being in a parish and head of a school where there are numerous young children walking around everyday. Unfortunately, Mr. Finaldi, if all of these pedophiles and other assorted perverts were to be dismissed as they should be, there would be very few priests left in the Catholic Church worldwide, and there s no way the Church would allow for that. Likely, McGovern will just be shuttled away to a different parish after the media storm dies down, free to sexually harass another day.Watch a news report on the developing situation, via local station Fox 40:


But even though it is ultimately an egalitarian ruler, wreaking havoc on the old, young, good and bad alike, Time seems to hold a special grudge against Loretta Lynch, the woman who, after an unprecedented delay, was finally sworn in on Monday as the 83rd attorney general in the history of the United States. The first indication that Time has it in for Lynch was also the most obvious: the Senate's 167-day-long dawdle. But while it was obviously wrong to make the first African-American woman ever nominated for the post wait so absurdly long to be confirmed (only two of Lynch's 82 predecessors waited longer), I'm hesitant to throw the fault entirely on Time's shoulders. The attack was launched by Republicans, after all; Time was merely their weapon. But the second piece of evidence that Time may be holding a particular grudge against the attorney general was more palpable: the riots that convulsed Baltimore this weekend and paralyzed the city on Monday. Because although Lynch obviously had nothing to do with the disorder, the riots' fires show with blinding clarity that Lynch's first goal — which is "improving police morale," according to the Times — is entirely premature. The wanton destruction of property cannot be legitimated; but simply criticizing anarchy and praising law enforcement won't bring the mayhem to an end. And it won't provide justice. In many ways, the chaos in Baltimore is just the latest iteration of one of America's saddest and longest-running stories. It is another example of what Martin Luther King once called "the language of the unheard." King was speaking then of the riots that traumatized much of the country during the summer of 1966. But the social ills he described as kindling for the riot's fire — poverty, police brutality and malign neglect — are, despite the nearly 49 years that followed, still powerful forces in America today. For this particular moment, though, it's Baltimore Police Department's documented history of lawless violence that's been identified as the riots' inspiration. Protestors and rioters — who, it's worth noting, are usually not the same — cite as their catalyst the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old African-American man and Baltimorean. On April 12, Gray was arrested by officers from the BPD. When police detained Gray and put him in a van for transportation, he was walking; by the time the trip was over, he had a broken neck. He died on April 19th. No one yet knows for sure exactly what happened to Gray during that trip and in that van. There are reports that he was taken out at one point and beaten, but an autopsy showed no injuries except for those to his spinal cord and neck. The BPD has already admitted that its officers did not provide Gray with the necessary medical care. But the main question — Why was he able to run from the police in the morning, but struggling to breathe by nightfall? — has gone unanswered, though an increasing number suspect the widespread, grotesque practice of giving "a rough ride" is to blame. Yet the fact that such a thing could happen, and only become a major story after the activism of peaceful protesters (and the destructive hijacking of violent rioters), is exactly the problem. The fact that the BPD's reputation is such that many Baltimoreans heard Gray's story with weary outrage rather than shock or indignation is exactly the problem. The fact that the BPD rank-and-file evidently feels so comfortable with extralegal brutality, and are so accustomed to wielding it, that demands for accountability has left them panicking — that, too, is exactly the problem. I'm quite certain that, at least to some extent, Attorney General Lynch would agree. But that's why it's so unfortunate that news of her interest in "finding common ground between law enforcement and minority communities" came when it did. Because once the last stone is thrown, the fires are put out, and the state of emergency in Maryland is lifted, what Baltimore and the countless places in the U.S. like it will need is not another conversation. And finding "common ground" won't be what America needs from its attorney general or its Department of Justice. What will be needed instead is for the authorities in Baltimore, Maryland and D.C. to stop pandering to the police unions who demand carte blanche in the field and an endless line of officials singing about their valor. What will be needed instead are signs that the authorities take fears of the rise of the "warrior cop" and police militarization seriously, and that they will no longer see the deaths of people like Gray as "tragic." Because they're not cosmic acts of injustice; they're crimes. To suspend (with pay) the officers who may be responsible is not enough — and Lynch needs to make clear that she understands that, and that her predecessor's groundbreaking report on Ferguson, Missouri, was no aberration. What will be needed, in short, is for the people most apt to use "the language of the unheard" to feel that someone who matters is finally listening. And that those in public office prove with actions that they believe it when they say an African-American life is worth no less than a cop's. Now is not the time for Lynch to focus on making law enforcement happy. Now is the time for her to promote equal justice. Improving police morale can wait.


Part Three of a series … In Part One we saw how the gospel of globalism inspires its believers to disdain, even despise, nationalists — that is, the people who voted for Donald Trump. And in Part Two we saw how the Deep State, one of the many weapons in the globalist arsenal, is now targeting Trump and his agenda for America. Here in Part Three, we will focus on how one Trump opponent is seeking to pick off a key member of the new presidential staff. 1. Fake News: "Bannon vs. Trump" Attacks on Stephen K. Bannon, the former executive chairman of Breitbart, slated to become the top strategist in the Trump White House, are nothing new. Just since the election, Mother Jones magazine has called him "worse . . . than a racist," Joy Behar labeled him "a fascist," and former Vermont governor Howard Dean insisted, against all evidence, that he is "a Nazi. " You get the idea. Okay, these assaults haven't gotten very far they were tried, too, during the 2016 campaign, and Bannon's standing within Trump world has never wavered. And yet, of course, the assaults keep coming. And so to help keep track of them all, perhaps we should assign them into categories. For example, in an earlier article, not part of this series, Virgil cited the ways in which "argument from authority" — argumentum ad verecundiam — can be used and, more often these days, misused. So now we can add a second, slyer, category of media falsehood. We can call this one the "assertion of a false conflict," declaratio contra falsum. This one is a version of the familiar attempt to stir the pot, whipping up hard feelings between people: Hey, did you hear what he said about you? And here's Brooks' description of the gist of Bannon's speech: Humane capitalism has been replaced by the savage capitalism that brought us the financial crisis. National democracy has been replaced by a network of global elites. Traditional virtue has been replaced by abortion and gay marriage. Sovereign are being replaced by hapless multilateral organizations like the E. U. Decadent and enervated, the West lies vulnerable in the face of a confident and convicted Islamofascism, which is the cosmic threat of our time. So that's how Brooks characterizes Bannon's beliefs. And Brooks is just warming up. He then goes on to compare Trump to Vladimir Putin, and Bannon to a conservative Russian political figure in Putin's orbit, Alexander Dugin. Yet after making these dark comparisons, Brooks offers his readers a ray of light: The dark he predicts, will fail. Why? Because, Brooks chortles, Trump is such a lazy, egocentric, lightweight that he will lose interest in these Bannonite topics and so will drift over to the side of the globalists. A question leaps immediately to mind: Did Brooks get some scoop as to Trump's thinking? Some revelatory interview? The answer, Brooks indicates, is "no. " It's just his hunch: I'm personally betting the foreign policy apparatus, including the secretaries of state and defense, will grind down the populists around Trump. David Brooks has enjoyed a good career in the MSM. Born in 1961, he's nominally a conservative, having worked variously at National Review, The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, and, since 2003, as a opinion columnist for The New York Times. And along the way, he has expressed some interesting ideas for example, in 2006, he opined that Sens. John McCain and Joe Lieberman should form their own third party, based mostly on their shared neoconservatism and globalism. Needless to say, nothing ever came of Brooks' suggestion. Over his career, Brook has been notable for three things: first, a book published in 2000 that celebrated the luxe lifestyle second, a fervent advocacy of the 2003 Iraq War and third, his journalstic love affair with Barack Obama. In other words, he's the perfect sort of housebroken "conservative" for Washington, DC, just the sort of fellow who gets that gig on the PBS NewsHour. Okay, so let's consider Brooks' track record on Donald Trump. We can sum it up with two points: First, he hates Trump and second, he is not a good forecaster. In March of last year, the headline of his column was "No, Not Trump, Not Ever. " In that piece he harumphed, "Donald Trump is epically unprepared to be president. He has no realistic policies, no advisers, no capacity to learn. " Then Brooks really got going: Trump is perhaps the most dishonest person to run for high office in our lifetimes. All politicians stretch the truth, but Trump has a steady obliviousness to accuracy. And since Trump was so terrible in Brooks' mind, it was hard for him to imagine that anyone else could like him. Thus in June 2016, he predicted that in the November election to come, Hillary Clinton would beat Trump. As he put it, "People will be sick of Donald Trump, and they will go for her. " To cap it off, in a column published on November 4, four days before the 2016 general election, Brooks doubled down on his endorsement of Clinton, describing her as "the bigger change agent. " Then he went on to describe Trump as "solipsistic, impatient, combative, unsubtle and ignorant," all the while insisting that Clinton was "better suited to getting things done. " Amusingly, among the things Clinton would get done, Brooks told his readers, was developing a plan to "secure the border. " Perfectly expressing the Times' view of the world, Brooks added, "Any sensible person can distinguish between an effective operating officer [Clinton] and a whirling disaster who is only about himself [Trump]. " Okay, so Brooks, along with 99. 9 percent of the rest of the Times, liked Clinton and didn't like Trump. We get that. Yet further details of that column are revealing — revealing, that is, about Brooks. Here's how the piece starts: A few weeks ago I met a guy in Idaho who was absolutely certain that Donald Trump would win this election. He was wearing tattered, soiled overalls, missing a bunch of teeth and was unnaturally skinny. He was probably about 50, but his haggard face looked 70. He was getting by aimlessly as a handyman. We might linger over some of those snobby word choices: "tattered, soiled overalls . . . missing a bunch of teeth. " Virgil might pause to ask: Since the 1972 movie Deliverance, has has there ever been a more profoundly perfect stereotype of how a posh Easterner looks down his nose at the rubes in the rest of the country? In the piece, Brooks, himself blissfully confident that Hillary was going to prevail, then goes on recount how he tried patiently to explain to the man that he was wrong in his thinking. And yet, Brooks writes with a sigh, "It was like telling him a sea gull could play billiards. " One might think that the actual election results, four days later, would have humbled Brooks a bit, but they haven't — not at all. Since the election, he's been as strongly as ever. And, amazingly, he's still in the game of making predictions for Times readers, "The guy will probably resign or be impeached within a year. " As for Steve Bannon, he has views that can only be described as Trumpian, and he has held them for a long time. So of course the globalists hate him, too. Since Bannon only rarely gives interviews, some might be curious to know more about his thinking — that is, looking beyond the nasty canards hurled at him by the likes of Mother Jones, Behar, and Dean. In fact, Bannon has been articulating his vision for a long time since 2004, he has produced no fewer than 16 documentaries. Yet a more direct and personal window into Bannon's thinking can be found in his 2014 speech to the Vatican that's the one that Brooks ripped in his January 10 column. So, without Brooks' "help," let's take a closer look: Bannon begins by saying that he believes, strongly, that there's "a crisis" in our time — that is, "a crisis of our faith, a crisis of the West, a crisis of capitalism. " And so he begins with the spiritual question yes, many today are well off, but the question they should be asking themselves is deeper than money: What is the purpose of whatever I'm doing with this wealth? What is the purpose of what I'm doing with the ability that God has given us, that divine providence has given us to actually be a creator of jobs and a creator of wealth? He continues in this vein: It really behooves all of us to really take a hard look and make sure that we are reinvesting that back into positive things. Yes, we should invest in positive things, things of faith and belief, which money can't buy. Thus the "crisis of faith. " So now we come to Bannon's "crisis of the West. " Here, we need only look to Angela Merkel's Germany it's the richest country in Europe, and yet it is now in deadly danger of demographic dissolution — and threatens to take the whole continent down with it. Indeed, Bannon's words from 2014, before Merkel foolishly chose to open her borders while subsidizing permanent dependence, now look prescient. He warned then that the threat from jihadi Islam is "going to come to Europe . . . it's going to come to the United Kingdom. " Moreover, in his talk he took note of a tweet that very day from ISIS, promising to turn the United States into a "river of blood. " Yes, a crisis of the West, indeed. Hawkins summarized Bannon's Vatican speech, in which Bannon argued that in recent decades, capitalism seems to have come mostly in two forms, both at least somewhat pernicious: First, there's the "crony capitalism" that we saw in the scandalous 2008 bailouts and second, there's the "Ayn Rand influenced . . . libertarian capitalism, which he sees as commoditizing people into mere producers and products. " This latter kind, Hawkins continued, weakens "our collective moral strength. " The answer, Hawkins concluded, is "enlightened capitalism" — that is, the capitalism in which capitalists think about the fate of their country, not just their bank account. As Hawkins put it: It was this enlightened capitalism that gave the — through wide asset ownership — strong middle class and an aspirant and affluent working class which provided the moral and economic foundations for the West to defeat Nazism in 1945 and support Ronald Reagan in to and defeating the Soviet Union during the Cold War. And now this has been corrupted and in turn weakened the West itself and Bannon believes the West now faces losing everything it has gained across more than 2000 years. [emphasis added] Hawkins ended his essay with these hopeful words: With Bannon, Trump and "Trumpism" the US and the West has an opportunity for economic, moral and political renewal — a new enlightenment. Okay, so Hawkins ably describes the problem, and outlines the ultimate desired outcome. And yet we might ask: How, exactly, does America get there? How do we get from the crisis of 2017 to a better place — as soon as possible? For the answer, we might return to Bannon's 2014 talk, in which he called for aggressively building "a populist movement," the heart of which should be: . . . the middle class, the working men and women in the world who are just tired of being dictated to by what we call the party of Davos. Interestingly, that seems to have happened in the last three years! We can also pause to note that "Davos," of course, is shorthand for the World Economic Forum, a conclave of billionaire globalists and their courtiers, meeting every year in Davos, Switzerland. And so Bannon's reference to "the party of Davos" speaks to the reality that global high finance seems to have conquered most of the politics, and most of the parties, of most of the world — and as a result, the America middle class, now sinking in the globalist broth, has been made worse off. It might be worth noting that the next Davos meeting is just a few days away, on January 17 to 20. And since this is the first session since the November election, there's going to be some — and a lot more attempted . And yet Davos Men, and Davos Women will not be giving up so easily. For instance, one of the scheduled "chats" at Davos will be between Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook and Meg Whitman of HP together they will offer their audience their thoughts on shaping "a positive narrative for the global community. " That is, a "global community" that's safely profitable for Facebook and HP, wherever in the world they might choose to operate. Will these efforts at spinning globalism succeed? Will the globalists be permitted to keep inflating their financial bubbles — and keep getting bailed out when they pop? The Davosians surely hope so, but it's possible, after Trump (and before Trump, Brexit) that the jig is up. But wait! There's still hope for the globalists. The new American president might not think much of Davos, but the president of the People's Republic of China, Xi Jinping, thinks differently. Indeed, he is scheduled to speak at Davos in a few days it will the appearance by a Chinese head of state. We can assume, of course, that Xi, picking up the torch from, say, Barack Obama, will offer a defense of globalism after all, globalism has been very, very good for his country. 4. Trump's Moment, In the meantime, the eyes of the world are on the 45th president. As noted in Part One, Trump's energetic economic activism is already making itself felt: And the good news has continues to pour forth: Just on January 12, Amazon announced that it would commit to creating 100, 000 new jobs in the US. Moreover, on January 13, Lockheed, which had earlier been chastised by Trump for announced that it would pledge not only lower costs for its fighter, but also an additional 1800 jobs in Texas. As Virgil also noted earlier, it's astonishing that past presidents didn't engage in this sort of economic patriotism perhaps they didn't know how, or perhaps they didn't care. In any case, Trump does know how, and he does care. And the American people are noticing. According to a January 10 Quinnipiac Poll, 47 percent of Americans believe that Trump's economic policies will help the economy, while only 31 percent say they will hurt. In other words, Trump has already built for himself a advantage on that question. And his presidency has not yet even begun. To be sure, in the next few years, Trump, and his team, will be tested again and again. And while it's impossible to predict the future, it would be foolish to bet against them.


The Supreme Court is trying hard to reach common ground in the wake of the vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February. But some justices are trying harder than others. A burst of 11 decisions issued in just over a week in late May provided one telling snapshot of a court divided over the value of consensus. A series of public remarks last week from three justices delivered another. The court seems to have split into two camps, with the four justices at its ideological center working diligently to deliver unified opinions. The remaining members of the court seem less committed to that project. The recent run of rulings, accounting for more than a quarter of all decisions in argued cases so far this term, tells the story. The court's most conservative members — Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. — wrote eight concurrences or dissents. Its two most liberal members — Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor — wrote four. The remaining justices make up the new center of the court. Three of them — Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Elena Kagan — voted together in every case, and Justice Stephen G. Breyer cast a single dissenting vote. None wrote a concurrence or dissent. Two members of that core group offered public reflections last week on the court's current state, declaring themselves satisfied. "I try to achieve as much consensus as I can," Chief Justice Roberts said at a judicial conference in White Sulphur Springs, W. Va. "We kind of have to have a commitment as a group. I think we spend a fair amount of time — maybe a little more than others in the past — talking about things, talking them out. It sometimes brings you a bit closer together. " The resulting decisions can be narrow or nonexistent, as when the court unanimously returned a major case on access to contraception to the lower courts. That effectively deferred a Supreme Court ruling on the matter for at least a year and probably much longer. The chief justice acknowledged, "It's been subject to some criticism that you can put things off. " "Some people think that's bad," he said. "I think it has something to do with judicial philosophy. I think we should be as restrained in when we decide the issues when it's necessary to do so. I think that's part of how I look at the job. " The contraception opinion was unsigned, but some sophisticated observers suspect that Justice Breyer played a major role in setting it in motion. He did not address the case directly in remarks at an awards ceremony last week, but he took issue with the idea that the Supreme Court is diminished when it fails to rule in significant cases. "If you believe the Supreme Court should decide all the major issues for the country, you'd like them all decided," he said. "I happen not to believe that. " Justice Ginsburg, the leader of the court's liberal wing, sounded less content with the current state of affairs on Thursday at a judicial conference in Saratoga Springs, N. Y. "Eight, as you know, is not a good number for a multimember court," she said. In his own remarks, Justice Breyer said an court was capable of deciding most cases, supporting the point with statistics from recent terms. "We're unanimous 50 percent of the time," he said. "Twenty percent of the time we're and half of those are kind of random, not what the press would call the usual suspects. " That was just about correct, though the fraction of decisions that split along the usual ideological lines in recent terms was more like . But Justice Breyer's larger point was true: There is no reason to think the court is likely to deadlock all that often. The number of closely divided decisions was never large, and Justice Scalia was not the decisive vote in all of them. In the term that ended last June, he was in the majority in six of 19 decisions decided by a vote. The recent run of 11 decisions followed the general pattern. None were deadlocks. Five were authentically unanimous, while a sixth was unanimous about the bottom line but divided over the rationale. One split 5 to 3, another 6 to 2. The three remaining decisions were 7 to 1, with Justice Thomas in dissent every time. One case concerned prosecutors' exclusion of all black potential jurors from the trial of a black defendant facing the death penalty. Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority, said a prosecutor's explanation for striking a black potential juror was "nonsense. " But it was good enough for Justice Thomas, the member of the court least interested in consensus. That same day, the four more quarrelsome justices issued dueling concurrences in a series of cases about offenders sentenced to die in prison. The court itself had done nothing more than return the cases to lower courts for reconsideration in light of a January decision that had seemed to give the prisoners a fresh shot at eventual release. Justices Thomas and Alito, in separate concurrences, said there were still reasons to sustain the sentences. Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ginsburg, said lower courts should grant relief in all but the rarest cases. John P. Elwood, a lawyer with Vinson Elkins, wrote on Scotusblog that he was struck by the level of discord. "That's a lot of disagreement," he wrote, "for people who agree on the disposition of a case. "


People travelling to the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro should avoid visiting impoverished and overcrowded urban areas to prevent catching the mosquito-borne Zika virus, which has been linked to birth defects, the World Health Organization said on Thursday. Athletes and visitors should also consult a health worker before travelling, use insect repellent and clothing on as much of their body as possible, and practice safe sex or abstain during their stay and for at least four weeks after their return, it said. They should also choose air-conditioned accommodation. Pregnant women should avoid travelling to areas with Zika transmission, including Rio de Janeiro, the WHO said.


A U.S. Senate committee advanced legislation Tuesday that would ease financial rules for banks for the first time since the 2007-2009 financial crisis. The Banking Committee advanced the legislative package by a vote of 16 to 7, where it now heads to the full Senate for consideration. The bill would ease regulatory requirements for banks with under $250 billion in assets, among other changes to rules imposed by the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law. The bill is supported by nearly every Republican in the Senate and at least 12 Democrats, making its passage extremely likely. The high likelihood the changes may become law has led to intense lobbying by industry groups eager to see legal changes included in the measure that they view as beneficial. Over 100 amendments were proposed to the bill, primarily by Democrats looking to trim favorable provisions for banks and boosting consumer protections. But the four moderate Democrats on the committee joined with the panel's 12 Republicans to oppose any changes to the compromise package, which was first announced in November. While the bill seems likely to pass the Senate, its path forward remains unclear. Lawmakers are facing a busy December schedule, including efforts to finalize a tax cut package and the need to pass a funding bill to avert a government shutdown. "Financial regulation should promote safety and soundness while enabling a vibrant and growing economy," said committee Chairman Mike Crapo. "The bill we are marking up today is the product of a thorough, robust process, and honest, bipartisan negotiations." Proponents argue the bill would help spur the economy by encouraging lending. But critics argue it increases the risk of future crises while aiding banks that already enjoy record profits. "This bill is about helping the banks, including the largest of the largest," said Senator Sherrod Brown. The legislation makes a number of changes to heightened financial rules enacted as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law, with the relief aimed primarily at smaller banks and credit unions. However, there are a handful of provisions beneficial to larger banks, most notably exempting some larger banks from heightened regulatory scrutiny as "systemically important" financial institutions. The bill raises the threshold by which banks face those stricter rules from $50 billion in assets to $250 billion. Banks with assets between $50 billion and $100 billion would be exempt once the bill is enacted, while those with assets between $100 billion and $250 billion would be exempted 18 months later. The Federal Reserve would have flexibility to release banks from stricter rules sooner, or reinstate them for scrutiny under certain conditions as part of the legislation. The bill also exempts banks with less than $10 billion in assets from several regulatory requirements, including the "Volcker Rule" ban on proprietary trading.


Dogged by combustible smartphones and recalls of other devices, Samsung Electronics is hoping to find a path to product redemption. The South Korean company on Wednesday introduced the Galaxy S8, its first major smartphone release since the scandal over its Galaxy Note 7 smartphones, which were discontinued last year after some of the devices spontaneously caught fire. "It's been a challenging year for Samsung," said D. J. Koh, the company's head of mobile devices, adding that Samsung was ready to start anew. The Galaxy S8 features a large 5. screen without adding bulk to the device. The company said it made room for the screen by reducing the size of the bezel — or the forehead and the chin — on the face of the device. Samsung also made the home button into a virtual button and shoved it under the display. With the Galaxy S8, Samsung also rolled out its virtual assistant, Bixby, to rival Apple's Siri, Google's Assistant and Amazon's Alexa. Similar to previous virtual assistants, Bixby responds to voice commands. Time — and sales — will tell whether the Galaxy S8 will restore confidence in Samsung's smartphones. Last year, after the company received dozens of complaints about the Galaxy Note 7 overheating, and in some cases exploding, the company recalled the phones. But replacement phones continued to catch fire, and the company had to recall the devices a second time before killing the product altogether, sacrificing billions of dollars in revenue. The Galaxy Note 7 may still make a reappearance. On Monday, Samsung said that it might sell refurbished versions of the phone. Jan Dawson, an independent analyst for Jackdaw Research, said the Galaxy S8 could help Samsung recover as long as the product worked reliably. "Note 7 definitely did some damage to the Samsung brand, especially for people who had little or no personal experience with Samsung devices," he said. "But as long as the S8 does well and doesn't suffer from any of the same problems, the memories of the Note 7 issues will fade and Samsung will recover well." Samsung last year also issued a separate recall for 2. 8 million washing machines in the United States. The machines were prone to detaching from the washing machine chassis, posing a risk of injury. The Galaxy S8 will arrive in stores next month with a starting price of $750.


President Barack Obama chastised supporters at a rally for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in North Carolina on Friday, as tensions spiked when a supporter of Republican opponent Donald Trump began protesting. But that didn't stop Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, campaigning a few states away at the time, from telling a completely opposite version of what happened, condemning Obama for screaming at the protester. The incident happened in clear view of reporters covering the rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina, where a predominantly African American crowd was jammed into a gym at a state university to hear Obama stump for Clinton. Obama had just said Trump was unfit to lead the country when he was interrupted by a white-haired white man in a beret and suit jacket with what appeared to be military patches, who stood up in the stairwell of the bleachers, waving a Trump campaign sign. The crowd turned its attention to the protester, screaming and booing at the man. Obama repeatedly told the irate crowd to "focus" and to "settle down." "Everybody sit down and be quiet for a second!" Obama said. "You've got an older gentleman who is supporting his candidate," he said as the protester was led away. "We live in a country that respects free speech," he said. "It looks like he might have served in our military – we've got to respect that." In Trump's version, Obama scolded the protester, not the crowd. "He was talking to the protester, screaming at him, really screaming at him," Trump said. "By the way, if I spoke the way Obama spoke to that protester they would say, 'He became unhinged,'" Trump said.


U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday left open the possibility of meeting with Taiwan's president if she visits the United States after he is sworn in on Jan. 20 and also expressed continued skepticism over whether Russia was responsible for computer hacks of Democratic Party officials. In remarks to reporters upon entering a New Year's Eve celebration at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Trump said, "We'll see," when pressed on whether he would meet Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan's president if she were to be in the United States at any point after he becomes president. Taiwan's president will be in transit in Houston on Jan. 7 and again will be in transit in San Francisco on Jan. 13. Trump, citing protocol, said he would not meet with any foreign leaders while President Barack Obama is still in office. Beijing bristled when Trump, shortly after his Nov. 8 victory, accepted a congratulatory telephone call from the Taiwan leader and has warned against steps that would upset the "one-China" policy China and the United States have maintained for decades. Talk of a stop-over in the United States by the Taiwan president has further rattled Washington-Beijing relations. On another foreign policy matter, Trump warned against being quick to pin the blame on Russia for the hacking of U.S. emails. The Washington Post also reported on Friday that Moscow could be behind intrusion into a laptop owned by a Vermont electric utility. U.S. intelligence officials have said that they are confident Russia was behind the hacks of political figures, which could have played a role in Trump's defeat over Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. "I think it's unfair if we don't know. It could be somebody else. I also know things that other people don't know so we cannot be sure," Trump said. Asked what that information included, the Republican President-elect said, "You will find out on Tuesday or Wednesday." He did not elaborate. But he said that any computer is subject to hacks. "It's very important. If you have something really important write it out and have it delivered by courier the old fashioned way," Trump said, adding, "No computer is safe, I don't care what they say." Trump tried to end the year on a positive note, however, despite questions about the future of U.S.-Russia relations because of escalating tensions between Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as Trump's promise to crack down on China's trade practices, which he says unfairly target American workers. "Hopefully we're going to have great relationships with many countries and that includes Russia and that includes China," Trump said. But he criticized U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry for earlier this week offering a stark assessment of Israel's policies in the Middle East, which he said could threaten the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state co-existing with Israel. Trump called Kerry's speech "very unfair." As he wrapped up a four-minute informal chat with reporters, Trump also was asked what his 2017 new year's resolution was. "Make America great again," he said.


Can Israelis And Palestinians Change Their Minds? What makes people change their minds? About the really hard stuff. Covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the past three years, I've often wondered if people here ever do. This conflict is frequently described as "intractable," with neither side willing to give up their historical perspective or their entrenched positions to end it. And it does not take many interviews to hear repetitions of the same sweeping narrative repeated on each side. Palestinians from different places cite the same historical events to back their views. Israelis who have never met each other use similar turns of phrase. "People have a lot of [psychological] resources invested in what they believe about the conflict," says Thomas Zeitzoff, a political scientist at American University in Washington, D.C., who has researched Israeli and Palestinian attitudes. He says the high political stakes and emotional involvement make it hard for Israelis and Palestinians to change their minds. But there have been certain shifts – in public opinion and in individual beliefs - during the 68 years of Israel's existence and almost half-century of the Israeli military control over Palestinian territories. Why? Experts list a range of influences that – to varying degrees – can move or even flip deeply held views. "You can point to major events, either in the world or people's lives, changes in their social context, as well as changes in the kind of messages they get from politicians and other elite sources," says Brendan Nyhan, an assistant professor at Dartmouth College who researches politics and misperceptions. Other factors include repeated exposure to a new idea, whatever the source, scientific research, and direct personal experience. Four people – two Israeli and two Palestinian – told me their stories of personal, radical belief change related to the conflict. They not only changed their minds, but, a higher hurdle, their behavior. Here are some triggers that led these people to see the world differently than they had before, even in the midst of a larger impasse. Many groups supporting co-existence advocate for exposure to the other side. Knowledge develops empathy, they say, which can broaden an individual's perspective as well as pique curiosity. Maayan Poleg is a Middle East program director for the group Seeds of Peace, which brings Palestinian and Israeli teens together for summer camp in Maine. She says the group does not advocate a particular political position and is not directly aiming to change minds. But time together, deliberately discussing the conflict, humanizes the enemy, she says, and helps participants question their assumptions, as well as navigate the onslaught of opinions from politicians, family and media to clarify their individual beliefs. "They become open to accepting the fact that what they know as truth is a narrative. That's a huge step," Poleg said. "People spend a lot of time defending a specific fact. And it takes them a long time to understand that their fact is actually a narrative. It doesn't mean that it's wrong. It just means that there's another way to view it." Palestinians and Israelis used to interact with some regularity, often in the workplace or the marketplace. But over the past 15 years, they have been increasingly separated physically. They now spend very little time together. But one Palestinian who went from throwing stones at Israeli soldiers to teaching non-violence says he began to change his mind about violence while in an Israeli prison. While behind bars, he learned Hebrew, saw his first movie about the Holocaust, and got to know Israeli prison guards. "It's a process," says Bassam Aramin, who became one of the co-founders of Combatants for Peace, a group of former Israeli soldiers and Palestinian ex-militants. "You never wake up in the morning and say, 'Oh my God, we are wrong. The Israelis are right. I give up fighting.'" He remembers the first time he and other ex-combatants – Israeli and Palestinian - sat down together. He was scared. "We don't trust them. I think they're from the Israeli intelligence. Maybe they are coming to arrest us," Aramin recalls. He saw fear in the eyes of the Israeli men who sat down with him. "It's the first time they're coming to meet a Palestinian terrorist. And they have this fear of maybe one of us will kidnap them and kill them." Trust did build trust over time and many conversations. They built an organization that teaches empathy and understanding. But empathy is also vulnerable to a change of heart. Many Israelis and Palestinians reached out to each other eagerly after leaders signed their first-ever peace plan back in 1993. People were hopeful, and more open than ever to the idea they could live together peacefully, says Palestinian sociologist Nader Said. "It was highly euphoric and highly exciting times," he remembers. But that peace deal, the Oslo Accords, did not deliver on its promise. Violence returned with a vengeance when the second Palestinian uprising, or intifada, broke out in September 2000. Said, who has polled Palestinians since the mid-1990s, says by then Palestinian support for co-existence had already begun to fall, as people grew disillusioned by the gap between expectations and reality. "While they felt [Israeli] settlement activity would decline, settlement activity has increased," he says. "They felt maybe they'll have more access to Jerusalem, they have less access now." Palestinian Abla Masrujeh is part of this societal shift. Now 54, she invested her time, money and reputation in joint projects with Israelis in the 1990s. She organized Israeli visits to her hometown of Nablus, in the West Bank, where they shared meals and visited Palestinian homes. She helped present a Tel Aviv exhibition of handcrafts done by women from both sides. But when violence broke out once again, she felt her new Israeli friends did not understand her experiences as Israeli soldiers swept through the West Bank, or her point of view. "All this made me rethink my position and my opinion of Israelis," Masrujeh says. Israelis went through the same reversal of hope, says pollster Tamar Hermann. "The repeated failures in achieving something tangible, and then the huge waves of terror, this made people think maybe it's not workable," she says. "People started to doubt whether the cognitive change which opened the door for the two-state solution was justifiable." Many Israelis cite repeated suicide bombings, in cafes and on buses during the second intifada, from 2000 to 2005, as the beginning of a national shift in attitudes toward Palestinians. American social psychologist Jay Van Bavel says accumulated experience often leads to change. "Like a rat pressing a lever. If it gets a pellet, it will press the lever again. People are the same way," he says. Over a decade, Israeli Tamar Asraf's mind and lifestyle turned 180 degrees around. She describes the process not as repetitive feedback, but as digging deeper. Once secular and opposed to Israel's West Bank settlements as an obstacle to peace, Asraf is now religious and a spokesperson for Eli, a growing settlement in the central West Bank. "It works like this. You get more connected to yourself, you get more connected to your private roots, then you get more connected to your national roots," Asraf says of her journey. Exposed to religious Jews during her army service, Asraf began to feel her secular upbringing left huge gaps. When she began to study Judaism, her sense of connection to biblical places in the West Bank grew, trumping Palestinian claims to the same land. Israel's political power base has shifted to the right over the past two decades, says Avi Dgani, an Israeli expert in mapping social and political dynamics. But even though identity politics, magnified by frequent violence and international attention, play a large role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Dgani says big personal swings such as the one Asraf experienced aren't all that common. That's because many people don't deeply question their personal beliefs, or, subsequently, their politics, Dgani says. He cites last year's re-election of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an example. A third of Netanyahu backers chose him simply because "me and my father and my forefather, we always voted right," Dgani says. Once people change their minds, one of the most powerful ways to maintain that new belief is to find new friends who share it. Asraf moved to a settlement because the people there followed the same religious practices she had recently adopted. Once there, she started voting for right-wing leaders, as do most of her neighbors. Another Israeli, Noam Chayut, shifted to the left politically. He says small jolts shook his beliefs briefly along the way, but real change took off when he found like-minded people. Chayut wrote a book, The Girl Who Stole My Holocaust, about his change from Zionist soldier to co-founder of Breaking the Silence, an organization of former soldiers who share anonymous stories critical of Israel's military occupation of the West Bank. Time and a great deal of reflection were key to Chayut's realization that his core beliefs had changed. "Soldiers get orders, they obey," he says. "You just do things. But reflecting on it, I did things that were close to my moral boundary." People can be pushed to change their minds when they sense a clash between their beliefs and actions has become too strong. But change is hard because people protect themselves against internal dissonance, especially in situations as emotionally and politically laden as this conflict, says Thomas Zeitzoff, the American political scientist who has studied how narratives can change here. "We think people engage in what psychologists would call 'motivated cognition,'" says Zeitzoff. "To avoid things that may threaten our own view of selves or others, maybe motivated in a benign way to remember certain facts more than others, and selectively ignore things that contradict beliefs." And that's just one of the reasons it's so hard to change.


Vice President Mike Pence spoke at the 13th National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, DC, Tuesday about President Trump's commitment to the faith community. Pence reiterated the administration's goal to advance Catholic causes, such as religious freedom and protecting the unborn. ["I had the honor to stand by President Trump as he signed an executive order to restore religious liberty in the public square," Vice President Pence said to a standing ovation. "This administration hears you. This administration stands with you," he continued. "Remember to bow the head and bend the knee to pray in these challenging times. Not so much pray for a cause but as for our country. " Pence's remarks were well received by those attending and speaking. "I was very encouraged to hear the vice president, to express his faith overtly and to exhort us here to pray for our country," former Ambassador to the Vatican R. James Nicholson told Breitbart News. "Nobody knows President Trump better than Vice President Pence, and when he affirms the president's commitment to the sanctity of life, it's very encouraging. " "The vice president is sending the right message in the right moment. Unity is important, and it is promoted by faith. Embracing God, we will be one nation," said Mario E. Dorsonville, the auxiliary bishop of Washington and the event's invocation speaker. One attendee, Kevin Francis, voiced the overall attitude of the gathering, emphasizing that "it's very encouraging that [Pence is] supportive of the sanctity of life and religious freedom, which is fundamental to not just being an American but being a person as well. In fact, I think that religious freedom is one's most fundamental right. With that in mind, it's also important that [Pence] expressed solidarity with all persecuted religious minorities everywhere, including imperiled Christians in Iraq and Syria. "


(AFP) — Some 300 migrants stormed the border between Morocco and Spain at Ceuta on Monday, authorities said, days after hundreds more forced their way over the frontier. [The young migrants climbed over the high border fence into the Spanish North African territory, ecstatic to have finally crossed into a European Union state. Their arrival comes just days after nearly 500 migrants made it over the fence on Friday, one of the biggest entries since the border barrier was reinforced in 2005. Ceuta and Melilla, also a Spanish territory in North Africa, have the EU's only land borders with Africa, so are entry points for migrants who either climb the border fence, swim along the coast or hide in vehicles. The enclave has been ringed by a double wire fence eight kilometres (five miles) long. The high fence also has rolls of barbed wire.


How can it possibly be legal for these terrorists to lock arms and block innocent shoppers from entering these stores? The Miracle Mile, located in the city of Chicago draws tens of thousands of shoppers every year at Christmas time. Imagine the faces of families of every ethnicity when they find out the City of Chicago is allowing these terrorists to prevent them from entering these stores? Roughly 3,000 demonstrators have shut down a large portion of Michigan Avenue in Chicago the Magnificent Mile in the middle of Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year, to protest the shooting of black teenager Laquon McDonald.The 17-year-old was killed in October 2014, and was apparently armed with a knife at the time. Video of the shooting released on Tuesday, however, shows that he was walking away from police at the time he was shot 16 times by Officer Jason Van Dyke.Turnout was strong despite 39-degree weather and rainy conditions. Demonstrators shouted 16 shots! and No justice, no shopping! The march started at Michigan and Wacker Drive and began walking north. They include demonstrators from the Nation of Islam, which is marching under the banner of Justice of Else ; RevCom, the Revolutionary Communist Party, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson s Rainbow PUSH coalition.100 Percent FED UP: Here, the terror groups can be seen (without any visible resistance from the police) chanting about shutting down the Apple Store, located on the Miracle Mile:Apple Store on Michigan just locked its doors. #LaquanMcDonald #BlackFriday @TouchVisionTV pic.twitter.com/y97WaHTQVT Lauren Mialki (@laurenmialki) November 27, 2015Shutting down Tiffany's over #LaquanMcDonald "No diamonds today" pic.twitter.com/ygHQdLKaUL Kathryn Pensack (@katpen6) November 27, 2015The #LaquanMcDonald protest is on the move, heading north on Michigan Avenue https://t.co/2E4mcauYv0 Whitney Dawn Carlson (@whitneydawn) November 27, 2015And of course, what would a #BlackLivesMatter protest be without pro-communism supporters?Old, White Communists Lead Anti-Cop Protests In Chicago Over McDonald Death: https://t.co/gVpflUqm6M #LaquanMcDonald pic.twitter.com/29PKqhcQ0A The Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) November 27, 2015Yesterday, we shared a story about BLM terrorists attempting to rip down the iconic Christmas tree on Miracle Mile. Click HERE for the full story.The latter group is marching slowly, while the other groups have pushed ahead, effectively taking up five city blocks along Michigan Ave., with hundreds of Chicago Police Department officers lining the streets.Various groups begin marching down Michigan Ave in protest of Mayor @RahmEmanuel s handling of #LaquanMcDonald vid.Various groups begin marching down Michigan Ave in protest of Mayor @RahmEmanuel's handling of #LaquanMcDonald vid. pic.twitter.com/FF0XbYMOZ0 The Chicago Reporter (@ChicagoReporter) November 27, 2015 The Chicago Reporter (@ChicagoReporter) November 27, 2015Protesters are attempting to gain access to major department stores and shopping malls. Police turned them away at the entrance to Water Tower Place, but they continue to try to enter other shopping areas with the intention of blocking commerce from taking place. As of noon, the protesters were walking toward the John Hancock tower.Update 1:00 p.m.: Several stores have been blocked and effectively shut down, including Macy s, H&M, and others over six blocks. Shoppers are either stuck inside the stores or cannot enter. Some shuffle by, as protesters shout at them. Michigan Avenue itself, normally filled with traffic, is empty.)Photo- Lee Stranahan, Breitbart NewsIn conversations with demonstrators, Breitbart News has learned that the groups plan to target the Chicago Board of Trade, one of the world s most important commodities exchanges, in future demonstrations. The aim is to do as much economic damage as possible while drawing attention to perceived racism and abuse by the Chicago Police Department. The police have struggled to manage the city s rise in crime in recent years, and now labor under new suspicions of prejudice and political corruption.


How does the old saying go? The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Which is exactly the strategy the Clinton campaign is utilizing to move forward against Donald Trump.Hillary Clinton just released a new ad throughout all her social media channels to deliver the message that not only do she and her fellow Democrats want to defeat Trump and believe he is bad news, but so does a majority of the Republican Party.As Trump likes to claim that he is a unifier, the opposite actually seems to be true. His divisive rhetoric is toxic, and any Republican who values their career, and any conservative voter who values human decency, would be wise to distance themselves as far away as possible from the real estate mogul/reality television star.The ones who have backed Trump have likely done so as a gamble that Trump will win and they can ride his coattails into his administration. What they don t seem to realize is, they re going to go down in history as backing the guy who called Mexican s rapists, told Muslims they shouldn t be allowed to enter the country, and calls women every name in the book.Trump cannot be allowed to step foot into the Oval Office, and many Republicans agree, as pointed out in this brilliant video put out by the Clinton campaign. If we re going to unify, we need to do so as a nation to prevent Trump from winning. For the good of all humanity.Here s the video:"President Trump" is a dangerous proposition.Mitt Romney, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio agree.https://t.co/fUkISvgaXC Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) May 4, 2016Featured Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images


Donald Trump s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel s capital will hasten the country s destruction, Iran s defense minister said on Monday, while a top Revolutionary Guards commander phoned two Palestinian armed groups and pledged support for them. Leaders of Iran, where opposition to Israel and support for the Palestinian cause has been central to foreign policy since the 1979 Islamic revolution, have denounced last week s announcement by the U.S. president, including a plan to move the U.S. embassy to the city. The Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. (Trump s) step will hasten the destruction of the Zionist regime and will double the unity of Muslims, Iran s defense minister, Brigadier General Amir Hatami, said on Monday, according to state media. The army s chief of staff, General Mohammad Baqeri, said Trump s foolish move could be seen as the beginning of a new intifada, or Palestinian uprising. Iran has long supported a number of anti-Israeli militant groups, including the military wing of Lebanon-based Hezbollah, which the deputy commander of Iran s elite Revolutionary Guards, Brigadier General Hossein Salami, said was stronger than the Zionist regime. Similarly, Qassem Soleimani, the head of the branch of the Guards that oversees operations outside of Iran s borders pledged the Islamic Republic s complete support for Palestinian Islamic resistance movements after phone calls with commanders from Islamic Jihad and the Izz al-Deen Qassam brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement, on Monday according to Sepah News, the news site of the Guards. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday stepped up efforts to rally Middle Eastern countries against U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel s capital, which EU foreign ministers meanwhile declined to support.


A tale of a mother and the dangerous religion of progressivism Putting her radical liberal ideology before the safety and well-being of her own children A Swedish mother decided it would be a good idea to open up her home to a male refugee from Eritrea, and so she kicked her daughter out of her room to make space. That refugee then decided to sexually assault her 10-year-old daughter.In the summer of 2015, a mother of three children in Sweden brought two third world asylum seekers into her home. To make space, she decided to move her daughter Emma into her own room.On the eve of Aug. 18, 2015, Emma awoke to find Isaac squeezing her chest. She suffered breast pain after the incident and didn t want to tell anyone, as she was afraid her mother would get in trouble. Emma couldn t even look at Isaac because he looked scary to her. The story came out after Emma finally told a friend of hers, and eventually after several people became aware of the situation, Isaac was confronted.He protested he would never sexually assault Emma, since he has a girlfriend back in Eritrea. But after further questioning, he finally admitted to groping Emma s breasts. When the police questioned him, Isaac changed his testimony and denied he had ever touched her.Isaac meanwhile maintains he s only 15, since he started school in Eritrea when he was 10 and then went to school for an additional seven years. He finished school two years ago, which according to him, makes him only 15.The Lund District Court finds this sort of calculation bizarre, but the judge has decided to move forward with the case under the assumption that he is, in fact, just 15. The judge sentenced Isaac on Friday based on the charge of juvenile sexual assault, which means he ll be sent to counseling.In the counseling process, he ll apparently learn to control his impulses and process through past experiences in his life that may have caused him to act out the way he did.Meanwhile, Emma s brother says he s never seen his sister so distraught. She cries often, even though according to her brother, she s very strong.Yet, despite what Isaac did, he ll be able to stay in Sweden.


Army says 2-star general committed suicide 10/31/2016  MSN  The Army said Friday it has determined that suicide was the cause of death of a two-star general who was found dead in his home on a military base in Alabama.  Maj. Gen. John Rossi was found dead July 31 at Redstone Arsenal, two days before he was to assume command of Army Space and Missile Defense Command.  He is the first Army general to commit suicide on active duty since record-keeping began in 2000, according to the Army. Military suicides soared earlier this decade and remain a major source of concern; they typically have affected lower-ranking military members.  Rossi, a West Point academy graduate and an air defense artillery officer by training, had just moved onto Redstone Arsenal and was scheduled to be promoted to lieutenant general when he took command of Space and Missile Defense Command.  A written statement by the Army on Friday made no mention of what might have prompted Rossi to take his own life.  The Rossi family issued a statement through the Army expressing thanks for wide support and urging those who may need suicide-prevention help to seek it immediately.  "To the Army, he was Maj. Gen. Rossi," it said. "To us, he was John — husband, dad."  "We ask for the time and space to grieve in private, and for the Army to continue to better understand suicide, and to help and treat those in need," the family statement added. "For our family, this has been an incredibly painful time, and we ask that you continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers. To all the other families out there, to the man or woman who may be facing challenging times, please seek assistance immediately. Compassionate and confidential assistance is available."


Republican U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Monday formally announced Retired General John Kelly, a 45-year military veteran, as his choice to lead the Department Of Homeland Security. Trump's transition team said in a statement that Kelly would "spearhead the urgent mission of stopping illegal immigration and securing our borders" as well as streamline the Transportation Security Administration and improve ties between U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies.


21st Century Wire says One TV personality Trumps another TV personality.While GOP front runner Donald Trump was on his way to another resounding win, this time at the Nevada Caucus primary, he continued to rewrite the political rule book by making an unscheduled stop at a competitor s rally. It couldn t have happened to a better entertainer (not Donald) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCEtRKGsGQc . Eliza Collins PoliticoDonald Trump crashed the Nevada caucus location at which conservative talk show host Glenn Beck was speaking Tuesday night on behalf of Ted Cruz.MSNBC was broadcasting a live look at the caucus site, Palo Verde High School in Summerlin, when Trump suddenly showed up and made an impromptu speech of his own. We are going to have hopefully a historic night, Trump said. I appreciate everybody being here. I wanted to be here myself and say a few words. The billionaire informed his Twitter followers he would be at various caucus sites throughout Nevada on Tuesday, but didn t specify where.Afterward, MSNBC asked Trump about his allegation that Cruz is a liar. Ted is gonna start telling the truth people have gotten wise to him, Trump said, pointing to Cruz s third-place finish in South Carolina on Saturday as a problem for the Texas senator. When he lifts his hands up high, I think he s going to be very happy. Continue this story at PoliticoREAD MORE 2016 ELECTION NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2016 Files


A member of the House Republican team trying to win support to pass a bill dismantling Obamacare said on Friday the "next few votes" needed would be the toughest to secure. "The next few votes that we need to get are going to be the toughest," Representative Rodney Davis told MSNBC. Asked if Republican leaders might pull the bill if they do not get enough votes for passage, Davis said: "That's not something that we're discussing right now. We fully intend to have that vote today and we fully intend to make sure that vote passes."


Hillary Clinton s campaign charged up to a hundred thousand dollars for fundraisers in L.A. she may well not attend.It s a big deal the rich and famous were expecting to rub elbows with Hillary at Seth MacFarlane s home. There was also an intimate dinner with Hillary at billionaire Barry Diller s estate. For lunch at the Family Guy creator s pad donations start at $5k $10k gets you co-host status with preferred seating and for a whopping $33,400 you get a photo with HRC. Dinner at the home of Barry and Diane von Furstenberg s a tad steeper $100k per couple. The campaign said Monday Hillary will be back on the campaign trail by the middle or end of the week and it s likely she ll miss the 2 fundraisers due to pneumonia. We re told the donors have already shelled out the money and received Secret Service clearance. There s buzz Bill Clinton could end up showing up You know he doesn t want to miss out on the LA babes


A very pregnant Kerry Washington appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday, and crushed Donald Trump in a way only a mother could.The Republican nominee is hoping that women will vote for him because he introduced a child care initiative that supposedly gives paid maternity leave to new mothers. The big problem is that Trump doesn t even offer paid maternity leave to his own employees, forcing them to use vacation days and sick days as their unpaid leave. Furthermore, Donald Trump himself is not a fan of pregnancy, once calling it an inconvenience. So when Washington sat down at the table, she was ready to rip Trump a new one. There s been a lot of talk about it being insulting to women, but I actually think it s insulting to families and to workers because there s no paternity leave, there s no family leave! Washington said. For Hillary Clinton, these issues and these policies are not about women s policies. this is about economic policy, because we understand in this country that if families are able to take care of each other, we do better as a nation. I choose that candidate over the guy who brags about having never changed a diaper. He has literally bragged about never having changed a diaper! That s crazy. Indeed, Trump made it clear in 2005 that he has never changed a diaper for any of his five kids and claimed that it s because husbands shouldn t do that sort of thing. There s a lot of women out there that demand that the husband act like the wife, and you know, there s a lot of husbands that listen to that. So you know, they go for it. If I had a different type of wife I probably wouldn t have a baby, ya know, cause that s not my thing. I m really, like, a great father, but certain things you do and certain things you don t. It s just not for me. In fact, Trump would rather not do anything to take care of children except provide money. I mean, I won t do anything to take care of them, he added. I ll supply funds and she ll take care of the kids. Washington wasn t finished with Trump yet, however, going on to explain that voting for him would against our best interests. There s a bigger problem, which is right now, we are in a political climate where we are being led by the media no offense to vote for the loudest candidate and the meanest, bulliest candidate in the playground, and that we are voting based on a cult of personality or a cult of celebrity rather than voting in our own best interest. I think if we really look at policy, voting for Trump is voting against our best interests as Americans as workers, as people of color, as women. Not voting is voting against ourselves. She also explained why she supports Hillary Clinton. I would rather vote for the candidate who is willing to address mistakes, address issues, take responsibility, be accountable, be a part of a changed solution rather than a candidate who continues to perpetuate fear and hate in the present moment. Here s the video via YouTube.Donald Trump can t be trusted do what he says he will do for the country when he can t even be bothered to do those things for the people who work for him.