The U.S. Federal Communications Commission wants to rollback landmark media ownership regulations that prohibit owning a television station and newspaper in the same market and making it easier to acquire additional TV or radio stations, Chairman Ajit Pai said on Wednesday. If approved at the FCC's November meeting, the move would be a win for newspapers and broadcasters that have pushed for the change for decades, but was criticized by Democrats who said it could usher in a new era of media consolidation. The FCC in 1975 banned cross-ownership of a newspaper and broadcast station in the same market, unless it granted a waiver, to ensure a diversity of opinions. The rule was made before the explosion of internet and cable news and Republican President Donald Trump and Pai have vowed to reduce government regulation. "We must stop the federal government from intervening in the news business," Pai told a congressional panel, noting that many newspapers have closed and many radio and TV stations are struggling. Pai moved earlier this year to make it easier for some companies to own a larger number of local stations. Pai said the marketplace no longer justifies the rules, citing Facebook Inc (FB.O) and Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) dominance of internet advertising. "Online competition for the collection and distribution of news is greater than ever. And just two internet companies claim 100 percent of recent online advertising growth; indeed, their digital ad revenue this year alone will be greater than the market cap of the entire broadcasting industry," Pai said. FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, a Democrat, said at the hearing Wednesday the move would lead to further consolidation in the media business and should be opposed. There are three Republicans and two Democrats on the panel. Pai also proposes to make it easier for companies to own multiple TV and radio stations in the same market and he would allow two local stations among the top four in a market to petition the FCC to merge. The Pew Research Center said in June total weekday circulation for U.S. daily newspapers fell 8 percent in 2016, marking the 28th consecutive year of declines, while Sunday circulation declined to 38 million, the lowest levels since 1945. Newspaper ad revenue in 2016 fell to $18 billion, down from $49 billion in 2006. News Media Alliance Chief Executive David Chavern said newspapers need economies of scale to complete. He praised Pai's move, saying the current rules "do not make sense, particularly when newspapers compete with countless sources of news and information every day." The National Association of Broadcasters said it backs Pai's plan, noting that policymakers have approved numerous "mega-mergers" among phone, cable and satellite programmers "while at the same time blocking broadcast/newspaper or radio/TV combinations in single markets." The group added "this nonsensical regulatory approach has harmed the economic underpinning of newspapers, reduced local journalism jobs, and punished free and local broadcasters at the expense of our pay TV and radio competitors." Free Press, an advocacy group, said the proposal would make it easier for Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc (SBGI.O) to complete its $3.9 billion acquisition of Tribune Media Co (TRCO.N) with fewer divestitures. The "disastrous proposal is tailor-made for Sinclair and other giant broadcast chains that push often slanted or cookie-cutter content over the public airwaves," the group said.


Donald Trump s Twitter feed is always a goldmine of crazy. Unfortunately, since the orange overlord is now squatting in the Oval Office, those nutty tweets tend to have the ability to derail important policy initiatives, and can therefore have disastrous effects for the nation and sometimes the world. Case in point the fact that he insisted upon attacking Democratic leaders that he had a meeting with regarding the debt ceiling, the Children s Health Insurance Program, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and other important domestic policy initiatives. Apparently, Trump saw fit to take to Twitter to accuse his old pals Chuck and Nancy of not being strong enough on crime and immigration, and therefore doesn t see a way to make deals with them:Meeting with Chuck and Nancy today about keeping government open and working. Problem is they want illegal immigrants flooding into our Country unchecked, are weak on Crime and want to substantially RAISE Taxes. I don t see a deal! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 28, 2017Given this out-of-the-blue attack, Democratic Minority Leaders Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) released a joint statement promptly pulling out of the meeting, which reads: Given that the President doesn t see a deal between Democrats and the White House, we believe the best path forward is to continue negotiating with our Republican counterparts in Congress instead. Leader Pelosi then took to Twitter herself to take Trump on:Given that the President doesn t see a deal between Democrats and the White House, we believe the best path forward is to continue negotiating with our Republican counterparts in Congress instead. Nancy Pelosi (@NancyPelosi) November 28, 2017Rather than going to the White House for a show meeting that won t result in an agreement, we ve asked @SenateMajLdr & @SpeakerRyan to meet this afternoon. Read my full statement w/ @SenSchumer here: https://t.co/v17WhoEJFU Nancy Pelosi (@NancyPelosi) November 28, 2017It s likely best that the Democrats don t go meet with Trump anyway. He is clearly becoming more and more unhinged by the day. There was absolutely no reason for him to attack these leaders who had set up a time to meet with him in good faith. Then again, we re led by a crazy man, and there s not much sense in anything at all anymore.Look for that government shutdown, folks. It s coming.Watch a video on the situation, below:


The United States and Germany called on China to immediately release a prominent human rights activist who was jailed for eight years on Tuesday for subversion, the harshest sentence passed in a recent crackdown on activism. Wu Gan, a blogger better known by his online name Super Vulgar Butcher , regularly championed sensitive cases of government abuses of power, both online and in street protests. He was detained in May 2015 and charged with subversion. In a separate case, also on Tuesday, rights lawyer Xie Yang avoided criminal punishment despite being found guilty of inciting subversion, because he admitted to his crimes. We call on the Chinese authorities to release Wu immediately, the U.S. and Germany embassies in China said in a joint statement. As Xie has been exempted from punishment, we urge China to allow Xie to resume his professional activities without preconditions and be free of any restrictions. China s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but Beijing frequently denounces foreign concern about rights cases as an interference in internal affairs and says China is a country with rule of law. Wu, in a statement released by his lawyers late on Tuesday, said he considered the sentence an honor as it proved that he had not become a slave or accomplice to the China s autocracy . I got eight years, but I feel no grief or despair. This was my choice, because opposing autocracy means you are already on the road to jail, Wu said in the statement. I call on the international community to pay attention to China s deteriorating human rights situation, he added. Wu s sentence was the most severe in what rights groups have called an unprecedented attack on rights activists and lawyers, known as the 709 crackdown, which began in full force on July 9, 2015. The hardline approach has shown no sign of softening as President Xi Jinping enters his second five-year term in office, and has drawn widespread concern in Western capitals. Germany has been particularly outspoken, to China s irritation. Speaking at a daily news briefing on Wednesday, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying expressed displeasure at comments last week by the German ambassador on China s failure to set up a previously agreed upon cyber consultation mechanism. China had, in fact, invited Germany to send representatives to talks, but the Germans kept putting China off, Hua told reporters. China hoped the ambassador stops saying such irresponsible remarks , she added.


U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said on Thursday he would stay out of any probe into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election but maintained he did nothing wrong by failing to disclose he met last year with Russia's ambassador. Sessions, a longtime U.S. senator who was an early and high-ranking player in President Donald Trump's campaign before becoming the country's top law enforcement official, announced the decision after several fellow Republicans in Congress suggested the move would be appropriate. "I have recused myself in the matters that deal with the Trump campaign," Sessions told reporters at a hastily arranged news conference. Sessions said he had been weighing recusal - ruling himself out from any role in the investigations - even before the latest twist of the controversy over ties between Trump associates and Russia that has dogged the early days of the Trump presidency. The president backed Sessions, saying Democrats had politicized the issue and calling the controversy a "total witch hunt." Sessions' announcement did nothing to quell concerns among congressional Democrats, a number of whom called for Sessions to step down. Trump and Republicans who control Congress are trying to move past early administration missteps and focus on issues important to them, including immigration, tax cuts and repealing the Obamacare healthcare law. U.S. intelligence agencies concluded last year that Russia hacked and leaked Democratic emails during the election campaign as part of an effort to tilt the vote in Trump's favor. The Kremlin has denied the allegations. Sessions denied he had contact with Russian officials when he was asked directly during his Senate confirmation hearing to become attorney general whether he had exchanged information with Russian operatives during the election campaign. He told reporters he was "honest and correct" in his response, although he acknowledged he "should have slowed down" and mentioned he had met with the ambassador in his role as a senator. "I never had meetings with Russian operatives or Russian intermediaries about the Trump campaign," Sessions said, adding he felt he should not be involved in investigating a campaign in which he had had a role. In a statement on Thursday night, Trump said Sessions "did not say anything wrong. He could have stated his response more accurately, but it was clearly not intentional." Sessions' meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak were disclosed on Wednesday night by the Washington Post. Sessions received Kislyak in his Senate office in September and also met him in July at a Heritage Foundation event at the Republican National Convention that was attended by about 50 ambassadors. Trump fired national security adviser Michael Flynn last month after disclosures that Flynn had discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia with Kislyak before Trump took office and that Flynn misled Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations. The recusal means Sessions, a powerful member of Trump's inner circle, will not be briefed on details of any probe. Should the Federal Bureau of Investigation decide to move forward with charges, Sessions would not be in a position to weigh in on whether the Department of Justice should take the case. House of Representatives Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi urged Sessions to resign and said "his narrow recusal and sorry attempt to explain away his perjury" were inadequate. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said Sessions' explanation for failing to tell the Senate about his meetings "is simply not credible." He called on Sessions to step down and said the Justice Department should name an independent prosecutor to investigate Russian interference. Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee asked the FBI to launch a criminal investigation into Sessions' statements to Congress about his communication with Russian officials. Sessions is one of many "subjects" of a government investigation of any contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia, two U.S. officials familiar with the probe said. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Sessions was not now a "target" of the probe by the FBI, the Treasury Department, the CIA and the National Security Agency. The investigation, one of the officials said, had a number of subjects because of the numerous contacts between associates of Trump, including Flynn, and the Russian Embassy in Washington as well as Russian and some Ukrainian businessmen and companies. At least two other officials in Trump's campaign said they also spoke with the Russian ambassador at a conference on the sidelines of the July convention last July, USA Today reported on Thursday. Trump's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner also met with Kislyak in December at Trump Tower in New York, an administration official said on Thursday, confirming a report in the New Yorker. While there is nothing legally wrong with such meetings, the reported contacts raise questions about the White House's repeated statements that it knew of no further contacts with Russian officials beyond those by Flynn. Trump has accused officials in former Democratic President Barack Obama's administration of trying to discredit him with questions about Russia contacts. The White House dismissed the disclosure of the Sessions meetings as a partisan attack, saying his contacts with the ambassador had been as a member of the Armed Services Committee. Trump called frequently during his campaign for improved relations with Russia, drawing criticism from Democrats and some Republicans. Ties with Russia have been deeply strained in recent years over Moscow's military interference in Ukraine, military support for President Bashar al-Assad in Syria and President Vladimir Putin's intolerance of political dissent. With his administration on the defensive over Russia, Trump's enthusiasm seems to have cooled, and his top foreign policy advisers have begun talking tougher about Moscow. The Russian Embassy in Washington, shrugging off the uproar, said on Thursday it was in regular contact with "U.S. partners."


Join Patrick every week here at 21WIRE.TV for news, views and analysis on all top stories domestically and abroad THIS WEEK: Episode 4 The New World Order Did Great Britain regain control of its former American colonies by stealth? From Cecil Rhodes and his Round Table, to H.G. Wells, to Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski many have worked to steer the world beyond the modern nation state and into Technetronic Era of global government. But to what end?Host Patrick Henningsen talks to Sean Stone, author of the new book, New World Order: A Strategy for Imperialism. Listen: END 927 Download Link START 999 Download Link Download this podcast END 999 Download Link This program broadcasts LIVE every Wednesday night from 8pm to 9pm MST, right after the Savage Nation, on Independent Talk 1100 KFNX over the terrestrial AM band across the greater Phoenix and central Arizona region, and live over global satellite and online via www.1100kfnx.com.READ MORE NWO NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire NWO Files


CNN cut away from a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday morning, seconds after Sen. Lindsey Graham ( ) raised concerns that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had hired a former Clinton Foundation attorney to assist with the probe into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. [Graham was questioning Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who was sitting in for Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Democrats have long accused the Trump campaign of colluding with Russia, though no evidence has emerged. There is also speculation that Special Counsel Mueller will probe allegations of obstruction of justice against President Donald Trump. Earlier this week, reports emerged that Mueller had hired attorneys for his investigative team who had donated to Hillary Clinton in the past, and one in particular who had represented the Clinton Foundation in its effort to block Freedom of Information Act requests for on Clinton's private server. Graham: Is giving political donations a reason to disqualify somebody for serving in the Special Counsel's office? Rosenstein: No, Senator, it is not a disqualification. It is not. Graham: As a matter of fact, many states, the judges and prosecutors are actually elected. Donations are a part of that system, is that correct? Rosenstein: Yes, that's true. Graham: Would it be a disqualification for somebody in the Special Counsel's office who had represented Mrs. Clinton in the past to serve? Rosenstein: You know, Senator, it would depend on facts and circumstances. As a general matter, I think the answer is no. Graham: Isn't that much closer to a conflict of interest? Rosenstein: I don't want to answer a hypothetical, Senator. Everybody needs to make a determination based on the facts and circumstances of the individual case. Graham: How would you get it before the Special Counsel? What process could a member of the Senate use to inform the Special Counsel that you'd have a concern about hiring someone that represented Clinton? Rosenstein: We have a process within the Department of Justice, Senator, so I would encourage you, if you have those concerns, to raise them with [former] Director Mueller or to raise them with me, and I'll make sure — Graham: So should I do it to you or to him? Rosenstein: Well, you could do it to both. Graham: Okay. That's fair enough. Rosenstein: And we have career — Graham: And I don't know if I'll do that, but I've read some things that were — I don't think donations are disqualifying at all, but if you represented the Clinton Foundation or Clinton herself, that would be disturbing to me, but I'll take care of that. CNN cut back to the studio shortly after that, while Graham was still questioning Rosenstein. Earlier, Graham had asked Rosenstein whether there was "any reason, for cause, to fire Mr. Mueller. " Rosenstein had said he did not know of any reason. Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the "most influential" people in news media in 2016. He is the of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.


Brazil s Army commander dismissed a general s suggestion that members of the Army s High Command endorse some sort of military intervention if high courts fail to stem political corruption, the online services of Brazil s two biggest newspapers said. At a gathering of freemasons in Bras lia last Friday, General Antonio Hamilton Mour o had suggested his fellows at the High Command think the current timing is not favorable for military intervention but that it could eventually take place through successive steps, Folha de S. Paulo said. Either institutions sort out the political problem, through the judiciary branch of power and withdrawing from public life all those elements involved in illicit acts, or then we will have to impose that, Mour o was quoted as saying by O Estado de S. Paulo newspaper on Sunday. Army Commander Eduardo Villas B as dismissed Mour o s comments by saying there is no possibility of a military intervention in Brazil. B as told Estado that since 1985, when a 21-year military dictatorship came to an end, the military was not responsible for any source of turmoil in the nation s life, and it will continue to be like that. While Mour o, currently the army s head of finance, hinted that there could come a time when the army would have to impose military action, he said it would not be to take power from civilians, Folha said. An action would aim at telling people, Beware, let s fix this now so the country can move forward and not continue the way it is, the newspaper quoted him as saying. The army command did not immediately respond to request for comment. Mour o could not be found by Reuters to comment on his remarks. Mour o, in the army since 1972, was discharged from Brazil s South Military Command and transferred to the federal capital of Bras lia in 2015 for administrative work after publicly criticizing former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. Rousseff was impeached last year after she was found guilty of doctoring budget accounts. Her fall was accelerated by a three-year corruption scandal known as Operation Car Wash, which has ensnared top members of her Workers Party and her ruling coalition in bribery and graft acts.


WikiLeaks Initiates Phase 3: The Dump That Will Take Hillary Down Dawn Parabellum Corrupt democrat, Hillary Clinton  WikiLeaks is putting Hillary Clinton and the corrupt Democrats who surround her on notice. With a warning sounded last night about the initiation of "phase 3" from the website, which has been leaking devastating emails about Hillary's insiders, the "election dump" promises to be the one that brings her to her knees.  Wikileaks announced on Twitter that it would soon launch "phase three of [its] election coverage." The tweet also asked those who wish to see more dumps to donate to the site to assist with their funding. The tweet read, "We commence phase 3 of our US election coverage next week." We commence phase 3 of our US election coverage next week. You can contribute: https://t.co/MsNZhrTzTL @WLTaskForce pic.twitter.com/XferJnMGux  — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 30, 2016  This dump is supposed to be even more damaging to the already flailing political career of Hillary Clinton. Wikileaks supporters now include a number of disgruntled Republican voters and Bernie Sanders supporters.  Immediately after the site announced this dump, several WikiLeaks followers replied with tweets expressing hope that phase three would ultimately damage Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton 's campaign for good. However, some expressed concern that it could be too little, too late. @wikileaks @WLTaskForce by next week, I assume you mean tomorrow, and not 3 days before the election. Near 30%+ in some states already voted  — Mel (@melimel521) October 30, 2016  New archives of emails released to the public would definitely devastate the Clinton campaign even further, and after the FBI's announcement that they will reopen the investigation against Hillary, it could be the straw which breaks the camel's back.  So far, no amount of corruption or criminal activity has gotten devout Democrat voters to see Hillary for who she is: a power hungry sociopath. She has been caught rigging elections across the globe and cheating to get the Democrat nomination. It's even been proven, thanks to WikiLeaks, that she cheated during the debates against Donald Trump .  There is some speculation that the emails released this time won't all be Hillary Clinton related, eluding to the possibility of even more Democrats and their corruption being exposed. Hillary Clinton's rigged podium helped her cheat during the debates with Donald Trump  Hackers who have taken responsibility for the hacks of John Podesta's emails may have more up their sleeves. Guccifer 2.0, who claims to be a lone Romanian male, was also involved in the hack on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.  Hopefully, these leaks will finally get Democrat voters to realize who they have been bowing down to over the past few years. Accessing the leaked emails is not difficult, in fact, I personally check the new dumps daily. If Democrats cared half as much about honesty and integrity as they did about making sure we have the first female president, Hillary would already be no more than a stain on American history.


The Democratic National Committee apologized to Senator Bernie Sanders on Monday after leaked emails suggested the party's leadership had worked to sabotage Sanders' presidential campaign. "On behalf of everyone at the DNC, we want to offer a deep and sincere apology to Senator Sanders, his supporters, and the entire Democratic Party for the inexcusable remarks made over email," the DNC said in a statement released on the opening day of the party's convention in Philadelphia. It said the emails did not reflect the committee's "steadfast commitment to neutrality during the nominating process."


A mother is outraged after her autistic daughter came home in tears because another parent told her that her mom doesn t want to cure her autism.If you are a parent with a heart and a brain, you re going to be just as pissed off as this little girl s mom.According to a Facebook post provided by A Science Enthusiast, a parent actually had the audacity to tell a little girl that her mother doesn t want to cure her of her autism, and then gave the child a brochure advertising a natural cure company.So, the little girl s mom took to Facebook to give the anonymous parent a deserved severe tongue-lashing. To the PARENT who today told my daughter with autism that is can be CURED- through specific diet, avoiding chemicals (IDIOT) and essential oils. FUCK YOU. My brilliant science minded, but incredibly naive child who embraces her individuality, came home extremely upset and confused as to why I m not trying to cure her. THIS BITCH gave my kid a brochure for a direct sales company that sells natural and organic foods and spices and told her give it to your mom if she s interested in learning more about a cure. The mother destroyed the brochure, but The Science Enthusiast did provide an image from the company website.After reading about Wildtree, it s clear that they do not claim to be able to cure autism or any other disorders. Wildtree is simply a company that offers organic meals to people who have dietary restrictions due to medical conditions or to those who just want to eat more healthy. So it appears the parent who spouted this nonsense about a cure for autism either misread what the company is about or is truly just an idiot.But that doesn t make this mom any less angry about what this other parent did. My kid now wonders if I m PURPOSELY keeping her sick. I want to beat the shit out of this psycho. My arthritis be damned. Here s the full post via Facebook.// < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); // ]]>This is so fucked up.Posted by A Science Enthusiast on Wednesday, March 9, 2016This is one of the most evil things to tell a child and this so-called parent should be investigated and kept as far away from kids and civilization as possible.For the record, there is no cure for autism. But there are treatments available such as therapies and behavioral interventions that have proven to be a great help to autistic adults and children.


Mohammad Dahlan, who played a key backroom role in a major new effort for Palestinian unity, has said a two-state peace agreement with Israel was impossible and healing wounds from a civil war that split Palestine was now a priority. Once of the fiercest foes of Hamas, the Islamist group that seized the Gaza Strip in a civil war in 2007, Dahlan, a member of the rival mainstream Fatah party, spoke to Reuters after a unity cabinet held its first meeting in the enclave in three years. The internal Palestinian situation is more sacred, is more important and is more useful now than the so-called negotiation, the veteran politician said of talks with Israel that collapsed in 2014 over issues such as Israeli settlement-building in occupied territory and Fatah-Hamas reconciliation. A former peace negotiator with Israel who speaks Hebrew and who was born in a refugee camp, Dahlan, 56, noted Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas captured in a 1967 war and which Palestinians seek along with Gaza for a future state. There is a complete Judaisation of the West Bank, not only of Jerusalem. It has become impossible for the two-state solution to be implemented, therefore, there is no political horizon, he said in the rare interview. Israel has built about 120 settlements in the West Bank. About 350,000 settlers live there and a further 200,000 in East Jerusalem, among about 2.6 million Palestinians. Fatah, led by the secular heirs of Yasser Arafat, runs the West Bank, heads the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority and has been responsible for negotiations with Israel. Its rival Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, drove Fatah forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas from Gaza and has run the tiny coastal strip that is home to two million people. Relations eased on Monday, when Hamas handed over control of Gaza to a unity government. Although it agreed to the deal three years ago, the decision to implement it marks a striking reversal for Hamas, considered a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and most powerful Arab countries. Officials on both sides of the Palestinian divide and in other Arab countries say Dahlan, based since 2011 in the United Arab Emirates, was behind an influx of cash to prop up Gaza, and a detente between Hamas and Arab states including Egypt that led the group to dismantle its shadow government last month. It was an honor for us ... that we succeeded to have those understandings between Hamas and Egypt, Dahlan said by telephone from Abu Dhabi. The former Gaza security chief said he had kept silent during mediation efforts but decided to speak out now that they have borne fruit. Dahlan said Egypt, which has accused Hamas of aiding an Islamist insurgency in the Sinai peninsula across the border from Gaza, held meetings with senior officials of the group, which denies aiding the militants. Both sides agreed to shore up security along the border and prevent militants from crossing. Without reconciling with Hamas and without Hamas understanding the needs of the Egyptian national security there can be no serious (Palestinian) reconciliation, and no one but Egypt is capable of playing an effective role, Dahlan said. Cairo will host Hamas and Fatah officials next Tuesday for further talks on power-sharing and the holding of Palestinian elections long-delayed by the internal rift. A first sign of discontent surfaced with Hamas criticizing Abbas s decision to await the outcome of the talks before lifting sanctions he has imposed on Gaza. In the interview, Dahlan called on Hamas to show more patience because all the good things are on the way thanks to Egyptian mediation. He dismissed any notion that Egypt, with the UAE and Saudi Arabia, was pursuing Palestinian reconciliation as part of any wider U.S.-initiated push for a regional peace deal with Israel. The chances of the so-called deal of the century is zero because (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu does not want peace and he imposed a reality of 700,000 settlers in the West Bank and in Jerusalem that made it impossible for the two-state solution to be implemented, Dahlan said. Netanyahu on Tuesday warned Palestinians against engaging in bogus reconciliations under which Hamas kept its military arm in Gaza which bristles with hundreds of its rockets. Turning to Palestinian politics, Dahlan, who recently formed the Fatah Reformist and Democratic Party to challenge Abbas - now in the 12th year of a four-year term - accused him of committing crimes and mistakes but said he was ready to reconcile with the 82-year-old leader to reunite the Fatah movement. The ball is in his court and we are ready whenever he is, said Dahlan, in exile since 2011 after quarrelling with Abbas. Ambitious and charismatic, he has long been suspected of harboring designs to succeed Abbas. Dahlan said his strong ties with the UAE helped him to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in aid for Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the past 10 years. A recent poll by the West Bank-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey showed that those who still support Fatah in Gaza are shifting loyalty to Dahlan. His popularity among Gazans has risen over the past nine months from nine to 23 percent. Dahlan said he was not obsessed by opinion polls and a decision on whether he would run for a president would await until an election date is set.


While Paris was still reeling under a state of emergency, President Obama took to the stage at the G-20 conference in Turkey to declare his policy to defeat ISIS a success. He had no plans to change course and no time to deal with critics who disagreed. Just days after ISIS ratcheted up their ambitions to conduct mass casualty attacks against the West, the president persisted in claiming his policy was working. President Obama continues to show a stunning and willful blindness to the tragedies all around him. Meanwhile, the Russians and the French have started fighting back, launching airstrikes against the ISIS capital. As the days go on, more and more nations feel radical Islam's sting and struggle with how to respond. The world is screaming out for U.S. leadership, but the president just isn't up to the job. It is slowly dawning on the West that radical Islam is the existential threat of our times, as fascism was in World War II, as communism was in the Cold War. We can't cooperate with it, we can't convert it and we can't contain it. We must defeat it. But so far we have no Churchill or FDR, no Reagan or Thatcher or Pope John Paul II. Obama has made it abundantly clear that he's not budging. He says the U.S. will not send troops into the region, and he uses that as an excuse to do nothing. He says critics have suggested things he's already doing. He says if anybody has a better plan, he hasn't seen it. Mr. President, here is what a better plan looks like. It's the same plan that won World War II and the Cold War. The U.S. led in both victories, and the U.S. is the only country than can lead this time. Those victories were multifaceted and multinational. To defeat radical Islam, the United States should bring together all of Western civilization, combining our economic, political, ideological and diplomatic weapons, our intelligence and cyber capabilities, and our armed forces. No one country acting alone can defeat radical Islam. Everyone has his own role to play. But it won't happen without America taking the lead. First, assemble an alliance of nations that are threatened by radical Islam. We may have to hold our noses and work with leaders and countries we have differences with, as we did with the USSR during World War II. But we can put aside those differences temporarily to deal with the immediate threat. Putin, Assad, even the hacktivist group Anonymous could play a role. The president insists the U.S. won't send ground forces back to the Middle East. But this is still a military campaign. There is collateral damage in war. We can try to minimize it, but not at the expense of losing this war. Second, cut off ISIS' funding. Bomb their oil fields and refineries. Destroy the pipelines, trucks and tankers taking ISIS oil to market. Use the U.S. banking system to track and freeze ISIS' assets and sanction any country and company doing business with them. Third, get tough with our Arab allies. Many Gulf Arab states have wealthy citizens who support radical Islamist groups. Tell those leaders they should police their own and shut down the funding streams. If they don't, we won't lift a finger to help them when radical Islamist groups bring the fight to their lands. Fourth, launch a propaganda war to win the hearts and minds of those whose minds are still open. Use social media for disinformation campaigns. Counter every ISIS video of beheadings with videos showing jihadists blown to bits. -- Showing terrorists committing unspeakable acts of violence doesn't turn recruits off, it attracts them. The only way to discourage new followers is to show ISIS as weak, confused and in decline. Fifth, encourage Islam's leading clerics to speak out against the extremists. Two of the most respected and important leaders in Islam, the Grand Imam of Al Azhar University and Cairo's Grand Mutfi, have taken strong stands. We can help spread their messages. Sixth, launch cyberwarfare against ISIS. Invade their safe havens on the Internet. Disrupt their networks. Radical Islam has dominated this space while we play catch-up. Even worse, we have tried to conduct our efforts with one hand tied behind our back. Seventh, arm our allies. We should give anyone willing to stand up and fight ISIS whatever he needs. Arm the Kurds and the Anbar Sunni tribes directly. Give weapons and aid to Jordan, Egypt and Israel. Eighth, discard political correctness. We reacted to September 11 by treating everyone alike. The grandmother traveling with her grandkids to Disney World was given the same level of scrutiny as the young man with multiple visits to North Waziristan who traveled without luggage on a one-way ticket he paid for in cash. A better way to use our resources efficiently is to profile for terrorist behavior patterns. If we focus on everyone, we focus on no one. Ninth, Don't accept refugees we can't vet. ISIS has already announced it will hide terrorists among the hordes of refugees flooding Europe and hoping to enter the U.S. The directors of the FBI, the CIA and the National Intelligence Agency have all issued warnings about the difficulty of vetting refugees headed for the U.S. Americans can help best by offering humanitarian assistance to keep refugees in the region, helping those of fighting age to stand and fight ISIS. And finally, 10th, accept that we will constantly need to adapt our strategies and tactics to deal with radical Islamists. President George W. Bush tried to destroy radical Islam by sending in hundreds of thousands of troops to fight in Iraq, and failed. Obama tried withdrawing from the region, and that failed, too. Yet the threat continues to grow. It has taken different forms over the years – Al Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram, al Nusra front – and it will no doubt wear other faces in the years ahead. But it's the same enemy: religious fanatics driven by the core belief that they have been chosen by Allah to establish a caliphate that rules the world. They will kill any and all who stand in their way – Christians, Jews, Muslims – in the Middle East and worldwide. Since they're convinced they will prevail in the inevitable clash of civilizations, they're not worried about the scope of the battle, or the levels of destruction, or even dying in the process. In fact, they are eager to bring on the end times, since they believe their triumph over the infidels is preordained. We can laugh at the absurdity of their goals, or dismiss them as the "JV team," or try to win their hearts and minds, or divert their anger with a jobs summit. This is an enemy we can defeat. But our efforts need a leader. It can't be Putin, and it can't be Hollande. America is the only nation with the bandwidth, clout and power to assemble Western civilization and unite us in this long war. Now all we need is a leader who is up to the task. Kathleen Troia "K.T." McFarland is a Fox News National Security Analyst and host of FoxNews.com's "DefCon 3." She served in national security posts in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations


CNN s Alisyn Camerota did something on Wednesday that s almost unheard of from CNN: She called out Donald Trump on his many, many scandals and in particular, the pay and play scandal involving Trump s bribing of Florida s Republican Attorney General Pam Bondi, who, after receiving a donation from Trump, dropped an investigation into Trump University.This isn t an allegation. Trump paid the donation, and he paid an IRS fine of $2,500 for breaking the law. Still, the media generally only talks about the Clinton Foundation or Clinton emails, both of which have amounted to absolutely nothing.Trump s entire narrative, when it comes to Hillary Clinton, is to paint her as crooked Hillary, a moniker that, despite sounding like it comes from a third grade bully who s been held back a few times, is sticking. That nickname is pure projection, though. It s Trump who s crooked and Camerota pointed it out: Congressman, Camerota said, don t you think the American public cares about breaking the law? Well, these are technicalities in many cases, (Rep. Chris Collins R-NY) Collins said, as he pointed out on the recent Bondi one. He was solicited for a donation, he told his clerk to do it. She wrote it out of the wrong checking account. Source: Raw StoryThen, back to crooked Hillary, Collins tried to make the claim that she did it too, which is completely untrue, since while some donors to the Clinton Foundation did ask for meetings, most were told to go through regular channels. With Trump and Bondi, however, it was clear quid pro quo. He gave her money and she dropped the case against him. For that, both parties should be in jail.Camerota pressed on: Let s look back, she said, pointing out that in 1985, Trump was caught exceeding legal campaign donation limits by funneling funds through 18 subsidiary companies, which is technically legal, but is essentially a corporate version of the crime that sent right-wing provocateur Dinesh D Souza to federal prison.Cameron went on to describe actual illegalities that Trump has been fined for. Isn t this the very definition of payola? Camerota asked. Payola is the practice of bribing someone to use their influence to promote your particular interest. How does this differ? Collins kept on with his both sides do it argument until Camerota astutely mentioned the one key difference: what Trump did was illegal. What Clinton did wasn t. Who s the crooked candidate again?Here s the interview:GOP Rep. Chris Collins says Clinton has always been someone with her hand out for donors https://t.co/dH2DDZP72k pic.twitter.com/YuxTgFpbcm CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) September 7, 2016If only we could get the rest of the media, or for what that s worth, the rest of CNN, to do their jobs. If you notice, even the tweet from CNN tried to make Clinton the criminal subject of the interview, not Trump. In other words, don t hold your breath for a better CNN, but Camerota was a breath of fresh air.


A chief proponent of Republican tax reform in Congress urged the business community on Thursday to avoid a battle over coveted tax breaks next year if companies hope to achieve reforms that lower tax rates to boost economic growth and productivity. "There's incredible pressure in Washington not to change a thing, for everyone to keep every special provision there is," said Representative Kevin Brady, chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives tax committee. "That tax code is dragging our economy down, wasting billions of dollars in compliance costs and hurting salaries and jobs and growth." Brady was speaking to reporters after a speech on tax reform at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank, where he promoted his own plan to lower the corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent and repatriate an estimated $2.6 trillion in U.S. corporate profits stashed overseas. The House plan, released in June, closely parallels the latest tax reform proposals from President-elect Donald Trump, and the two sides are working to hammer out an agreement on tax reform legislation that could move forward early next year. The Republican plan would pay for tax cuts by eliminating hundreds of tax breaks, including one that allows businesses to deduct net interest costs on debt, a policy heavily favored by Wall Street investors. In addition to a sharply lower tax rate, it would provide businesses with other advantages, including the ability to immediately write off the cost of capital investments. The plan would also end taxation on revenues from exports and impose a new tax on imports. Brady says the approach would result in more buoyant economic growth and a vastly simpler tax code. "While some would like to have fights over individual provisions in the tax code, the debate we're looking for in America is whether Americans want something this fair and this simple and this understandable and are willing to make the trade-offs," he told his Heritage Foundation audience. "The ability to buy those new buildings, equipment, software, technology and items that not just grow the economy but grow productivity and wages for workers - we think that's awfully important." Brady said the staff of his Ways and Means Committee has begun writing tax reform provisions for next year but added that the panel will also accept feedback from the business community and other taxpayers through the end of 2016.


Out with the old Future No. 1, in with the new Future No. 1. This week, the prolific Atlanta rapper Future has become the first artist in the history of the Billboard album chart to replace himself in the top spot with new albums. "HNDRXX," his newest, opens at No. 1 with 48, 000 sales and 93 million streams in the United States in its debut week it bumps last week's biggest seller, "Future," to No. 2. Both albums were released by Epic. But Ed Sheeran is hot on his trail. After releasing two singles in early January that instantly became popular on streaming services, Mr. Sheeran on Friday issued his latest album "÷" (pronounced "divide") which looks destined for No. 1 on next week's chart, with yet more huge streaming numbers. (The accounting week for music sales runs Friday through Thursday.) Spotify announced that around the world, songs from "÷" racked up nearly 57 million streams on its first day, a record for that service. Also on this week's chart, Bruno Mars is No. 3 with "24K Magic" (Atlantic) the country band Little Big Town opens at No. 4 with its new album, "The Breaker" (Capitol Nashville) and the soundtrack for "Trolls" (RCA) is in fifth place.


U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan tried to tamp down the furor on Wednesday over reports that President Donald Trump asked former FBI Director James Comey to quash part of his Russia investigation, saying "we need the facts" and adding he has confidence in the president. "I'm sure we're going to want to hear from Mr. Comey if this happens as he allegedly describes; why didn't he take action at the time? So there are a lot of unanswered questions," Ryan told reporters. "What I told our members is: now is the time to gather all the pertinent information." Asked if he had confidence in Trump, Ryan said, "I do."


Apparently New England Patriots defensive end Chris Long got a bit fed up with the attacks launched against him for his decision to skip the White House meeting the team earned by winning the Super Bowl LI. Long jumped to his Twitter account to slam fans disappointed over his decision. [After announcing that he would be one of at least six Patriots players who will not attend the White House meeting, Long was hit with a wave of tweets by fans upset over his move. Some of the criticism appears to have stuck in the player's craw and he took to Twitter to strike back with a series of disjointed, sometimes childish, other times sensible attacks on the fans. Of all his tweets, one stood out as a common sense note about what these White House events really are. "You should go talk to trump if you want change" I'm skipping a photo op, not a congressional hearing. — Chris Long (@JOEL9ONE) February 17, 2017, Indeed, the event is just a photo op. But, if it is that meaningless, why make such a big statement by skipping it? In any case, Long unleashed a tweetstorm of other responses to fans to explain his decision and in many cases responding directly to their complaints. Sorry dude. I appreciate your support of me as a football player, but I just don't get this tweet. https: . — Chris Long (@JOEL9ONE) February 17, 2017, Heard it all this week … if you don't want to hear about some of the dumb shit I've heard … mute away, but it's good. Rapid fire time, yeah? — Chris Long (@JOEL9ONE) February 17, 2017, "Respect the office" Ok birther theory guy, — Chris Long (@JOEL9ONE) February 17, 2017, "Stick to football" you don't look like a state senator yourself there bud. — Chris Long (@JOEL9ONE) February 17, 2017, "I hope they cut you" I'm a free agent. — Chris Long (@JOEL9ONE) February 17, 2017, "stop being self important. I'm no longer a fan" I'm self important but you thought this was important enough to bring to my attention, eh? — Chris Long (@JOEL9ONE) February 17, 2017, "You just wanna be a cool lib" Actually I'm well aware the minute I believe something they don't, libs will hit me w this GIF pic. twitter. — Chris Long (@JOEL9ONE) February 17, 2017, "You just wanna be a cool lib" As a football player, liberals thought I was a living, breathing piece of steak before I agreed with them. — Chris Long (@JOEL9ONE) February 17, 2017, "You hate the troops" The secondary focus of my foundation (out of two causes) is veteran support. Do your research. Also, not relatable. — Chris Long (@JOEL9ONE) February 17, 2017, "You hate white people" You realize all humans that live in America should be concerned? Also that assumption says something about you. — Chris Long (@JOEL9ONE) February 17, 2017, "Stop believing the media." Dude I just saw you retweet Fox News. — Chris Long (@JOEL9ONE) February 17, 2017, I think that's it but check this gem out. Bye for now! pic. twitter. — Chris Long (@JOEL9ONE) February 17, 2017, So I've listened to it all week. And it's sparse really. Most people aren't ridiculous. Thought y'all may enjoy that thread. — Chris Long (@JOEL9ONE) February 17, 2017, Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com.


WE NEED A REVOLUTION: Overcoming Fascism with a Movement of Love Sabine Lichtenfels negotiating with a general, "Grace Pilgrimage" in Colombia, 2008 By Martin Winiecki / terranovavoice.tamera.org  November 9th, the day after the U.S. election, will be a peculiar anniversary. On this day in 1938 more than 1000 synagogues and 7000 Jewish businesses were burning all over Germany, set ablaze by the Nazis. Going down in history as "Kristallnacht" or the "Night of Broken Glass," this dreadful event marked the beginning of the Holocaust, resulting in six million Jews killed in less than seven years.  History reverberates in an eerie manner these days. In the United States, the anger and hatred that has long been boiling in millions of people has now found its political outlet.  No matter whether or not he will be elected president, Trump's success has been unprecedented and overwhelming. His simple message resonates in large parts of the American society, in people who have long felt betrayed, abused and disenfranchised by an alienated "establishment." Trump wins against all reasoning of decency because he recklessly breaks what his supporters most despise: "political correctness." He understands how to play the emotional piano of the masses; he's the ultimate caricature of a society teeming with universal corruption and sexual perversion.  The rise of fascism always seems to hit the world by surprise. Yet what we are now witnessing has not begun with Trump, just as German fascism had not begun with Hitler. Wherever people are prohibited to express their basic emotional and energetic drives, wherever they grow up and live in conditions of fear, mistrust and violence, the danger of fascism looms. Suppressed life energy dams up and turns into constant aggression. When the container of the bourgeois order crumbles, when people lose their jobs, voices and prospects – as it has gradually happened in this era of expanding corporate dominance – and the state no longer succeeds in controlling violence, the monstrous force of bottled-up emotions breaks free. Once they have a strong paternal authority telling them whom to blame, declaring them to be a collective that will now exact revenge, people get together in wild exaltation. Finally they have a channel and they develop a threatening force.i We must not despise or ridicule these people, but understand how they have gotten into the desperate state they are in. Thereby fascism is no longer a thing of "the others"; it's something that concerns us all. The psychoanalyst Dieter Duhm writes, "Latent fascism is present everywhere; it is the cancer of humanity… It develops in the subconscious of our human relationships. In the emotional substrata of a misguided civilization lie the horrible powers that led to Nazi Germany and which currently lead to very similar atrocities in many countries on Earth."ii  On the eve of the election, armed militias across the United States are preparing themselves to, as they say, "take back their country" in case their opponent will "rig" the elections. People call for boycotting companies who employ refugees from Muslim countries and threaten the people running them. Attacks on people of color, other religions and political ideologies have steeply increased in the time leading up to the election. People no longer see any prospect for the future. They no longer have anything in this world they can believe in. Unable of loving, retaliation is what gives them strength. Similar explosions of hatred are occurring all over the world. When we witness what political prisoners in Turkey (neglected by our Western leaders) or the civilians trapped inside the besieged cities of Aleppo and Mosul are now facing, we know that this global culture has come to a turning point.  Yet the aggression now explicitly exploding among white lower-class Americans is only a miniature version of the ruthless warfare systematically orchestrated by this country's elites for many decades. War is an essential component of our entire economic system – one without which this system would instantaneously collapse. While "decent" Americans show themselves outraged about Trump, their candidate for President has her blueprints ready for expanding military interventionism around the world. Democratic President Obama has already bombed seven Islamic countries and ordered the drone assassination of thousands of innocent children and women abroad, but he is considered "moderate" in terms of warfare compared to Hillary Clinton. In the current escalation with Russia and China there no longer seems to be any limit. We mustn't be surprised by what is now erupting inside America. Similar to how it was in the late Roman Empire, the American Empire is entering a phase of self-destruction as it is being eaten up by the very violence it has used to establish itself in the first place. And with it goes the entire capitalist world order this country has essentially shaped.  Trump is nothing other than a mirror for the world to look into, a call to awaken before it's too late. It is silly to blame the mirror for what you see in it. Trump is not the enemy; he is merely the symptom of a culture worshipping power, violence and greed. If you are afraid of Trump, what you are actually afraid of is this culture. Stopping fascism isn't achieved through ideological battles; it is rather a matter of building a new and humane culture. This is nothing short of a global revolution. A revolution from bottom up, on all levels of society.  We need a revolution that establishes new foundations for human life on Earth, new foundations for our coexistence with each other and nature. A revolution that allows us to remember the sacredness of life and of all living beings. We need a revolution for solidarity and trust; "a revolution," as Dieter Duhm says, "whose victory will create no losers because it will achieve a state that benefits all."iii  On November 9th 2005, Sabine Lichtenfels initiated the "Global Grace Day" at the separation wall in Israel-Palestine. At the time, the peace activist and co-founder of the Tamera peace research center in Portugal led a group of 50 Israelis, Palestinians and internationals on a "Grace Pilgrimage" through the Middle East – a form of political activism rooted in reclaiming the depth of our humaneness. The activists committed themselves to overcoming hatred and divide by addressing the human being trapped behind the masks of world views and traumatization.iv This allowed for "miracles" to happen – encounters between former enemies invoking the vision of a reunited land. No matter whether it is a dispossessed farmer, a soldier, a fanatic resistance fighter or ourselves, whether it is a fascist, a banker, a liberal or an anarchist – there is something identical in all of humanity running far deeper than our ideological denominations: a universal longing to be accepted and seen, a longing to love and be loved, to belong to a community and to express oneself in trust and freedom; and there is a similarly universal trauma stemming from the suppression of these essential human needs. What we need is a revolution that acknowledges and follows human longing and establishes societal conditions where they can finally be met.  This new revolution will not be achieved by shifting political power from one party to another, but by establishing forms of coexistence which allow the human being to liberate himself from all disguises and reconnect in trust. Every fascist will transform into a loving person, every terrorist into a caretaker for life, if he or she can find home in a community that allows closed hearts to open again. This is not a matter of therapy, but of the social, sexual, ethical we live in. Building a movement based on communities of trust would not only be a genuine alternative to the fascist threat emerging everywhere; it may also set the foundations for the new global culture we as humanity need in order to have a future worth living on this planet. November 9th is a day of both despair and hope. In 1989 it was the day the Berlin Wall was opened. This year it can be a day for opening the wall of despair—exercised by people who find their determination to collaborate for a world of solidarity and trust.  Works cited


Europe s big four continental powers and three African states agreed a plan on Monday to tackle illegal human trafficking and support nations struggling to contain the flow of people across the desert and Mediterranean sea. The 28-nation European Union has long struggled to reach a coherent answer to the influx of migrants fleeing war, poverty and political upheaval in the Middle East and Africa, and the crisis is testing cooperation between member states. After hosting the leaders of Germany, Italy, Spain, Chad, Niger and Libya, French President Emmanuel Macron said it was time for greater coordination. We must all act together - from the source countries to Europe and passing by the transit countries, especially Libya - to be efficient, he told reporters. It s a challenge as much for the EU as for the African Union. While the meeting was sparse on concrete details, the leaders agreed on the principle of setting up a mechanism to identify legitimate migrants who are fleeing war and persecution, and to use the United Nations to register them in Niger and Chad so as to prevent them being exploited by traffickers. At the core of it, it s all about fighting illegal migration, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a news conference. She said that Berlin was willing to increase its efforts. If we want to stop human traffickers, then this can only be achieved through development aid, she said. The migrant crisis has put Paris and Rome at odds. Italy has accused France and other EU states of not sharing the migrant burden and has also asked the EU Commission for more budget flexibility to help it tackle the crisis. Nearly 120,000 migrants, including refugees, have entered Europe by sea so far this year, according to the International Organization for Migration. More than 2,400 have drowned while making the dangerous journey, often without enough food or water in overcrowded dinghies run by people smugglers. We are all committed to reducing the damage, the death of Africans in the desert, the death of Africans crossing the Mediterranean, Chad President Idriss Deby said. The fundamental problem will always remain development. We need resources, he said. The informal meeting did not outline any new specific financing and the leaders repeated that stabilizing chaotic Libya, where thousands of migrants end up before embarking on a perilous Mediterranean sea journey to Europe, would be key to any long-term solution.


As a black man and a lifelong resident of this city, Ray Kelly has been stopped by the police more times than he can count. And as a community organizer who tried to document police bias after the death of Freddie Gray, Mr. Kelly, 45, had always expected that a federal investigation would uncover a pattern of racial discrimination. Even so, the scathing report that the Justice Department unveiled here on Wednesday — a indictment of how Baltimore police officers have for years violated the Constitution and federal law by systematically stopping, searching (in some cases ) and harassing black residents — gave him a jolt. "Hearing the actual numbers, like on the traffic stops, is blowing my mind," Mr. Kelly said. Release of the report, at a packed City Hall news conference here, was another wrenching moment of in this majority black city. Even as Mayor Stephanie and the police commissioner, Kevin Davis, accepted the findings — both vowed to turn the Baltimore Police Department into a ''model for the nation'' — there was relief, but also rage and skepticism among black residents here who wondered if anything would change. "Mere words by officials mean little when it's people on the ground who are living with these material conditions every day,'' said the Rev. Heber Brown III, a Baptist pastor who was among a small group of community leaders who met privately last year with Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch. "From the streets to the suites, everybody is skeptical and furious. '' In one stark statistic after another, the department's report helped validate the experiences of Mr. Brown, Mr. Kelly and countless others in poor neighborhoods who regard the police as an occupying force. Many wanted to know what took so long. "It's like a huge taste of 'too little, too late,'" said Brandon Scott, 32, a member of the Baltimore City Council, who said he ran for office to correct police abuses that have been going on since before he was born. In Baltimore, a city that is 63 percent black, the Justice Department found that 91 percent of those arrested on discretionary offenses like "failure to obey" or "trespassing" were . Blacks make up 60 percent of Baltimore's drivers but account for 82 percent of traffic stops. Of the 410 pedestrians who were stopped at least 10 times in the five and a half years of data reviewed, 95 percent were black. "Seeing it all collected and pulled together really hit me in the solar plexus,'' said Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, who lived here for 15 years while teaching law at the University of Maryland. But what most infuriates her, she said, is that city leaders — including a series of black mayors — have ignored the problem for decades. " have not been silent about this,'' she said. "It's so rampant, it's so widespread, this kind of harassment of the community in a city that's majority that you really have to ask yourself, Why did it take this?" The report is a first step toward a negotiated settlement, known as a consent decree, in which police training and practices will be overhauled under court supervision. The city has already entered into an ''agreement in principle,'' the mayor said, adding, "We have a very long journey ahead of us. '' Mr. Davis, who described himself as "very, very concerned" by the findings, said he had already fired six officers who had engaged in misconduct uncovered by Justice Department investigators. "Those who choose to wear this uniform and choose to blatantly disregard someone's rights absolutely should be uncomfortable," he said, "because we are not going to tolerate it. " The report took 14 months the mayor invited the Justice Department in after the April 2015 death of Mr. Gray, a black man who sustained a fatal spinal cord injury in police custody, set off riots. As the inquiry has progressed, she said, Baltimore has worked closely with the department to change police practices. City officials have revised 26 policies, she said, including the one governing use of force, and officials are engaged in ''active discussion'' about giving residents a role in determining how officers are punished — a central demand of civil rights advocates. The city has also retrofitted its transport vans — officials say Mr. Gray was injured while riding unbuckled in a van — and has begun issuing body cameras to officers. But none of the steps can substitute for the wholesale change in culture that people here agree is required. Mr. Brown could barely contain his rage as he cited one anecdote from the report — about a teenage boy who reported having been in front of his girlfriend. The officer denied the teenager during a drug arrest, and the charges were later dropped for lack of evidence. After the teenager filed a complaint, he told investigators that he was again by the same officer who, he said, then grabbed his genitals. "What that officer did is not just violate a body, but he injured a spirit, a soul, a psyche,'' Mr. Brown said. "And that young boy will not easily forget what happened to him, in public with his girlfriend. It's hard to really put gravity and weight to that type of offense. '' Tensions over race and policing here date to at least 1980, when the N. A. A. C. P. called for a federal investigation into police brutality, and they continued with a strategy known as " policing," which was singled out by the Justice Department. "People say, 'driving while black, walking while black,'" Mr. Scott, the city councilman, said. "When you're talking about zero tolerance, it's breathing while black. " Baltimore is now among nearly two dozen cities that the Obama administration has investigated after they were accused of widespread unconstitutional policing. Once Baltimore reaches a settlement, an overhaul of the Police Department will take years and will cost millions Ms. and her aides put the price tag at $5 million to $10 million a year for five to 10 years. Jonathan Smith, a former Justice Department official who supervised a similar inquiry in Ferguson, Mo. said reports like the one issued Wednesday were a required step toward community healing. "I've often thought of the reports as a necessary cathartic moment, maybe an act of witness, where you give voice to people who wouldn't otherwise have a voice," Mr. Smith said. Mr. Kelly, the head of the No Boundaries Coalition, an advocacy group in the West Baltimore neighborhood where Mr. Gray grew up, agreed. After Mr. Gray died, his organization convened hearings and conducted dozens of interviews for a report, "The People's Findings," that he submitted to the Justice Department. He was among those providing testimony. "You are just hoping that you don't get arrested for loitering or something crazy like that, and you get 23 hours in central booking for something that never even makes it to a courtroom," he said. "That's been routine my whole life. I can't remember a time when that wasn't the way it was. "


Manchester, New Hampshire (CNN) It was the revenge of the governors as Republicans met for their final debate before the Granite State's primary on Tuesday. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie knocked the rising Florida Sen. Marco Rubio down several pegs, while former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush went toe-to-toe with billionaire businessman Donald Trump and equaled or got the better of his nemesis. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, meanwhile, stayed with his positive game and seized opportunities to tout his own record. Here are five takeaways from Saturday night's debate on ABC as the primary clock counts down. After a stronger-than-expected third-place finish in Iowa -- and taking a clear lead over other "establishment" candidates -- Rubio knew he'd be wearing a big target Saturday night. But whether he was over-rehearsed or under-prepared, Rubio was off-key as he responded to the attacks. The opponent responsible for most of them: Christie. From the debate's outset, he pestered Rubio. "You have not been involved in a consequential decision where you had to be held accountable," he said. But he then opened up a brutal line of attack in suggesting that the Florida senator only knew how to turn a phrase rather than accomplish something. "Marco, the thing is this," Christie said. "When you're president of the United States, when you're a governor of a state, the memorized 30-second speech where you talk about how great America is at the end of it doesn't solve one problem for one person." In answering Christie, Rubio consistently turned to the same talking point, casting President Barack Obama as calculating rather than incompetent, and intent on changing America for the worse. The fourth time he invoked Obama, though, the audience turned on him, booing the answer. And then moderator David Muir drove in the knife, saying: "The governor wasn't talking about the President." Rubio rebounded a bit near the debate's end, when he hammered Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for supporting abortion rights -- and won applause from the audience for it. Of Democrats, Rubio said: "They are the extremists on the issue of abortion, and I can't wait to expose them in a general election." Christie, Kasich and Bush know that since they're all competing for the same pool of more moderate voters, there probably aren't enough tickets out of New Hampshire's primary for all three. But the trio were still happy to unite in attacking the senators in the race (and, in Bush's case, Trump). The only mild governor-on-governor criticism came from Christie, who noted that Kasich had increased the number of Ohio's government employees. But that followed praise of Kasich's job performance, with Christie saying he'd "done a great job in Ohio." And Bush, in arguing that money and authority should shift from the federal government to the states, said: "I trust Kasich and Christie to build the roads in their states." All three turned in strong performances Saturday night -- and their timing couldn't have been better, given Rubio's on-stage struggles and New Hampshire's reputation for voters who make their decisions at the last minute. Kasich played up his time as the House's lead budget-writer during the surpluses of the 1990s and his record in turning a deficit into a surplus in Ohio. Bush effectively traded blows with Trump, lighting into him on eminent domain with a brutal response to the real estate mogul's accusations that Bush wanted to sound tough: "How tough is it to take property from an elderly woman?" And Christie, who risked coming across as a bully in order to knock Rubio down early in the debate, was moving when he talked about drug addiction, linking his position on helping addicts to his stance opposing abortion, saying he wants to support kids after they're born as well as before. "I'm pro-life when they get out, and it's a lot more complicated," he said. Still, there are two big questions: Is it too little, too late? And on a Saturday night, how many New Hampshire voters were watching? 3. Trump vs. Cruz: The fight that didn't happen They've bashed each other on the campaign trail in recent days, but Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Trump -- the two top-finishing candidates in Iowa's caucuses -- seemed to want nothing to do with each other on the debate stage. It was one fight that was conspicuously absent Saturday night, and it contributed to Rubio's awful night. The Florida senator might have been hoping that those two would bash each other -- but it didn't happen, and he clearly was Enemy No. 1. Cruz had a revealing answer when asked who he expects will win the Super Bowl: "With an eye toward February 20, Carolina," he said, alluding to the South Carolina primary. Why it matters: New Hampshire's more moderate electorate means it's not a state where Cruz is likely to shine. He could, though, win in South Carolina -- and his campaign's strategy largely relies on racking up delegates in Southern states with March primaries. Trump's answers were revealing in their own way, demonstrating that his support isn't about an ideological opposition to big government as much as a desire for strength and a sense that the government is incompetent. At one point, he defended eminent domain, a practice he's used as a real estate developer. Later Trump backed the role of government-sponsored health care, saying: "You're not gonna let people die sitting in the middle of the street in any city in this country." Trump was restrained for most of the night -- with the exception of a bit of audience-taunting when, during an exchange with Bush, he dismissed those booing as his donors, and with a single shot at Cruz during his closing statement (more on that later). Cruz made false claims about CNN's caucus-night reporting -- and the network immediately called him on it. As caucus-goers were still voting in Iowa, Cruz's staffers had wrongly cited CNN in playing up the idea that former neurosurgeon Ben Carson was dropping out of the race. "My political team saw CNN's report breaking news and they forwarded that news to our volunteers. It was being covered on live television," Cruz said Saturday. He said CNN reported that Carson was suspending his campaign "from 6:30 p.m. to 9:15," and "didn't correct that story until 9:15 that night." "What Senator Cruz said tonight in the debate is categorically false," CNN responded in a statement put out while the debate was in progress. "CNN never corrected its reporting because CNN never had anything to correct. The Cruz campaign's actions the night of the Iowa caucuses had nothing to do with CNN's reporting. The fact that Senator Cruz continues to knowingly mislead the voters about this is astonishing." CNN had reported that Carson would continue campaigning after taking a break at home in Florida. His next stop, reporter Chris Moody said, would be Washington, D.C., for the National Prayer Breakfast. Carson passed on the opening to go after Cruz directly Saturday night: "I'm not going to use this opportunity to savage the reputation of Sen. Cruz." But he did say he was "very disappointed that members of (Cruz's) team thought so little of me" that they would believe he was dropping out after all the effort his campaign put into the race. He pointed to his dedicated volunteers and noted that "one even died" -- a reference to an auto accident in which one of his supporters was killed. Trump, who'd avoided Cruz all night, did take one shot at him at the debate's end. After Cruz cited his victory in Iowa during his closing statement, Trump said: "That's because you got Ben Carson's votes, by the way." Thought the 2016 debate season couldn't get any weirder? Think again. At the start of ABC's broadcast Saturday night, Carson -- the second man due to appear on stage -- seemed not to hear his name. So he lingered behind the curtain as other candidates, confused, walked past him. Soon, Trump -- who apparently had the same problem -- joined Carson in waiting. And Kasich wasn't introduced at all, until the moderators were told they'd missed the Ohio governor. Moderator Martha Raddatz defused the situation by pointing to a loud and rowdy audience that made it difficult to hear. But on television, it was baffling: The names of the candidates came through loud and clear. Carson -- late to the stage -- quickly disappeared on it. And while he got supportive chuckles from the audience for his cracks about not getting enough air time -- "I thought maybe you thought already I had dropped out," he said -- that's not the way to climb above his fourth-place finish in Iowa.


Democrat Ralph Northam won a bitter race for Virginia governor on Tuesday, dealing a setback to President Donald Trump with a decisive victory over a Republican who had adopted some of the president's combative tactics and issues. Northam, the state's lieutenant governor, overcame a barrage of attack ads by Republican Ed Gillespie that hit the soft-spoken Democrat on divisive issues such as immigration, gang crime and Confederate statues. Trump, who endorsed Gillespie but did not campaign with him, had taken a break from his Asia trip to send tweets and record messages on Tuesday supporting the former chairman of the Republican National Committee. But after the outcome, Trump quickly distanced himself from Gillespie. "Ed Gillespie worked hard but did not embrace me or what I stand for," Trump tweeted. "With the economy doing record numbers, we will continue to win, even bigger than before!" At his victory party, Northam told supporters the sweeping Democratic win in Virginia sent a message to the country. "Virginia has told us to end the divisiveness, that we will not condone hatred and bigotry, and to end the politics that have torn this country apart," Northam said. The Virginia race highlighted a slate of state and local elections that also included a governor's race in New Jersey, where Democrat Phil Murphy, a former investment banker and ambassador to Germany, defeated Republican Kim Guadagno for the right to succeed Republican Chris Christie. Murphy had promised to be a check on Trump in Democratic-leaning New Jersey. Guadagno, the lieutenant governor, was hampered by her association with the unpopular Christie. Murphy's win and the Northam victory in Virginia, a state Democrat Hillary Clinton won by 5 percentage points in the 2016 presidential election, provided a much-needed boost for national Democrats who were desperate to turn grassroots resistance to Trump into election victories. Democrats had already lost four special congressional elections earlier this year. But a strong turnout in the Democratic-leaning northern Virginia suburbs of Washington helped propel Northam, who in the end won relatively easily. With nearly all precincts reporting, he led by a 53 percent to 45 percent margin. Exit polls in Virginia showed that one-third of the voters went to the polls to oppose Trump, and only 17 percent went to support him. Democrats also swept the other top statewide Virginia races, winning the offices of lieutenant governor and attorney general, and gained seats in the Virginia House of Delegates. Democrat Danica Roem beat a long-time Republican incumbent to become the first transgender person to win a state legislative race. "This is a comprehensive political victory from statehouse to courthouse. Thank you Donald Trump!" Democratic U.S. Representative Gerald Connolly of Virginia told Northam's supporters at a victory party in northern Virginia. In Virginia, Democrats had worried that if Gillespie won, Republicans would see it as a green light to emphasize divisive cultural issues in their campaigns for next year's elections, when all 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and 33 of the U.S. Senate's 100 seats come up for election. Republicans now control both chambers. Gillespie, speaking to crestfallen supporters in Richmond, Virginia, said he had run a "very policy-focused campaign." But voters in Arlington County - a suburban Democratic stronghold bordering Washington - said national politics were important to their votes. "Trump talks about draining the swamp, but Gillespie kind of is the swamp," said Nick Peacemaker, who works in marketing and considered himself a Republican until Trump won the party's presidential nomination. Peacemaker said Gillespie seemed to shift closer to Trump's policies after securing the Republican gubernatorial nomination. In local races across the country, Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio in New York and Marty Walsh in Boston both easily won re-election. Voters were also picking mayors in Detroit, Atlanta, Seattle and Charlotte, North Carolina.


American Conservative Union President Matt Schlapp hosted a conversation with White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and White House strategist Steve Bannon on Thursday at CPAC 2017. [Priebus began by declaring that President Trump, who will also speak at CPAC, would become known as "one of the greatest presidents that ever served this country. " Schlapp noted that Trump will also be the first president to address CPAC during his first year in office since Ronald Reagan in 1981, and he congratulated Trump for assembling "the most conservative Cabinet we've ever seen, according to our CPAC ratings. " When Schlapp asked for the "biggest misconception about what's going on in the Donald Trump White House," Priebus replied: "In regard to us two, I think the biggest misconception is everything that you're reading. " Priebus and Bannon said that contrary to media reports about friction between them, they're working very well together. "It's actually something that you all helped build," Priebus told the audience. "When you bring together, and what this election showed, and what President Trump showed — and let's not kid ourselves, I mean I can talk about data and ground game, and Steve can talk about big ideas, but the truth of the matter is, Donald Trump, President Trump brought together the party and the conservative movement. " The President's chief of staff went on to say, prompting a burst of applause: And I've got to tell you, if the party and the conservative movement are together — similar to Steve and I — it can't be stopped. And President Trump was the one guy, he was the one person — and I can say it after overseeing 16 people kill each other — it was Donald Trump that was able to bring this party and this movement together. Steve and I know that, and we live it every day. Our job is to get the agenda of President Trump through the door, and on pen and paper. Bannon, formerly a Breitbart News executive, argued that the mainstream media has been consistently wrong in how it portrayed the Trump campaign, the transition, and now the administration during its first months. "If you remember, the campaign was the most chaotic, by the media's description, most chaotic, most disorganized, most unprofessional, had no earthly idea what they were doing — and then you saw them all crying and weeping that night on the Eighth," he recalled. Bannon agreed with Priebus that President Trump's ideas, energy, and vision were the key to galvanizing a broad coalition of supporters around him. "A lot of people have strong beliefs about different things, but we understand that you can come together to win, and we understood that from August 15th," Bannon said. "We never had a doubt, and Donald Trump never had a doubt that he was going to win. " Priebus and Bannon both emphasized how much of Trump's agenda is clearly laid out in his speeches, going all the way back to his appearance at CPAC 2011. "What all of us were starving for the whole time, because we're so sick of politics and politicians — in spite of the fact that we love being here, we actually hate politics — but what we were starving for was somebody real," Priebus contended. "Somebody genuine, somebody that was actually who he said he was. " "If you want to see the Trump agenda, it's very simple: it was all in the speeches," said Bannon. "He went around to these rallies with those speeches that had a tremendous amount of content in them. I happen to believe, and I think many others do, he's probably the greatest public speaker in those large arenas since William Jennings Bryan. " "Remember, we didn't have any money," Bannon pointed out. "Hillary Clinton and these guys had over $2 billion. We had a couple of hundred million dollars. It was those rallies and those speeches. All he's doing right now is he's laid out an agenda with those speeches, to the promises he made, and our job every day is just to execute on that, to simply get a path to how those get executed. " Bannon testified that President Trump's response to advice that he should deviate from his agenda for political benefit has been, "No, I promised the American people this, and this is the plan we're going to execute on. " "That's why you've seen the executive orders, the way he's gone through the Supreme Court, and by the way the other 102 judges that we're eventually going to pick," he said. "It's just methodical, and that's what the mainstream media won't report. Just like they were dead wrong on the chaos of the campaign, and just like they were dead wrong on the chaos of the transition, they are absolutely dead wrong about what's going on today, because we have a team that's just grinding it through on what President Donald Trump promised the American people. The mainstream media had better understand something: all of those promises are going to be implemented," Bannon promised. Priebus said the most urgent task for the administration was confirming Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. He explained: Number One, we're not talking about a change over a period. We're talking about a change of potentially forty years of law. But more important than that, it established trust. It established that President Trump is a man of his word. We always knew that. But when he said here's twenty names on a piece of paper back in July, remember, and he said, 'I'm going to pick my judge out of these twenty people that are on this piece of paper,' and he did it — that's number one, because Neil Gorsuch represents a conservative, represents the type of judge that has the vision of Donald Trump, and it fulfills the promise that he made to all of you, and to all Americans across the country. Priebus said the second item on the president's agenda was deregulation. He argued that Trump hasn't been given enough credit for imposing a consistent process of deregulation by ordering that "for every regulation presented for passage, that Cabinet secretary has to identify two that that person would eliminate. " The third priority identified by Priebus was immigration — "protecting the sovereignty of the United States, putting a wall on the southern border, making sure that criminals are not part of our process. " "These are all things that eight percent of Americans agree with, and these are all things that President Trump is doing within thirty days," he declared. Bannon divided the White House agenda into three categories: national security, economic nationalism, and the deconstruction of the administrative state. He said: I think one of the most pivotal moments in modern American history was his immediate withdrawal from TPP. Got us out of a trade deal and let our sovereignty come back to ourselves. The people in the mainstream media don't get this, but we're already working in consultation with the Hill, people are starting to think through a whole raft of amazing and innovative bilateral relationships, bilateral trading relationships with people that will reposition America in the world as a fair trading nation, and start to bring jobs — high value added manufacturing jobs — back to the United States of America. "The rule of law is going to exist, when you talk about our sovereignty and you talk about immigration," he stated, linking the president's trade positions with national security. He said the defense budget and Secretary of Defense James Mattis's plan for defeating ISIS would also be part of that imperative. Bannon made the interesting point that business leaders have been telling the White House that slashing regulations is at least as important as cutting taxes to get the economy moving faster. "If you look at these Cabinet appointees, they were selected for a reason, and that is the deconstruction — the way the progressive left runs is that if they can't get it passed, they're just going to put it in some kind of regulation in an agency. That's all going to be deconstructed, and that's why I think this regulatory thing is so important," he said. Schlapp brought the conversation back to media coverage of the new administration. Priebus said he thought there was hope for improvement. "I"m personally so conditioned to hearing about why President Trump isn't going to win the election, why a controversy in the primary is going to take down President Trump I lived through it as chairman of the party," he said, recalling his time as chairman of the Republican National Committee during the 2016 election. "It really hit me because it was maybe the summer of 2015, and you remember the media was constantly pounding President Trump, and the polling kept getting better and better for President Trump. But it was when I went home and got out of this town, and I went back to Kenosha, and I talked to my neighbor. And I said, 'Bob, what do you think?' He goes, 'Man, I really love that Trump.' I said, 'Sandy, what do you think?' 'We're for Trump. '" "You all lived through it too, because you all had different people you were for, but you kept running into your neighbors, and you kept running into people that you know, and what did they keep telling you? They kept telling you, 'Trump, Trump, Trump,'" he said, unintentionally sparking a chant of the president's name from the audience. He said it was clear the country was hungry for something much bigger than a single issue campaign, or a modest course correction from the previous administration. Bannon took his turn at the microphone to disagree with Priebus about whether media coverage of the Trump administration would improve. He argued that it was likely to get worse. "They're corporatist, globalist media that are adamantly opposed to an economic nationalist agenda like Donald Trump has," Bannon argued, recalling how that message resonated everywhere from previous CPAC appearances by Trump to small town hall meetings. He predicted media coverage would therefore get worse as Trump continues to "press his agenda, and as economic conditions get better, more jobs get better, they're going to continue to fight. " Bannon warned: If you think they're going to give you your country back without a fight, you are sadly mistaken. Every day it is going to be a fight, and that is what I'm proudest about Donald Trump. All the opportunities he had to waver off this, all the people who have come to him and said, 'Oh, you've got to moderate.' Every day in the Oval Office he tells Reince and I, 'I commited this to the American people, I promised this when I ran, and I'm going to deliver on this.' Priebus stressed the importance of Republicans sticking together through the coming years. "I think what you've got is an incredible opportunity to use this victory that President Trump and all of us, and you, and everyone that made this happen put together, and work together, continue to communicate," he said, adding: Some of the core principles of President Trump are very similar to those of Ronald Reagan. When you look at peace through strength and building up the military — I mean, how many times have you heard President Trump say, 'I'm going to build up the military, I'm going to take care of the vets, I'm going to make sure that we don't have a Navy that's decimated and planes that are nowhere to be found?' Peace through strength. Deregulation. You think about the economy and the economic boom that was created. Some of it is going to take a little time — to get the jobs back, to get more money in people's pockets. Those things are going to happen. In the meantime, we have to stick together and make sure that we've got President Trump for eight years. He's somebody that we know that we're going to be very proud of as these things get done. But it's going to take all of us working together to make it happen. Bannon saw a "new political order" continuing to take shape, noting that populists, conservatives, libertarians, and economic nationalists could be found in the CPAC audience. "We have wide and sometimes divergent opinions, but I think the center core of what we believe — that we're a nation with an economy, not an economy just in some global marketplace with open borders, but we are a nation with a culture and a reason for being," he said. "I think that's what unites us, and I think that is what's going to unite this movement going forward. " "We're at the top of the first inning on this. It's going to take just as much fight, just as much focus, and just as much determination, and the one thing I'd like to leave you guys today with is that we want you to have our back … but more importantly, hold us accountable. Hold us accountable to what we promised, hold us accountable for delivering on what we promised. " Modertor Matt Schlapp, in acknowledgment of the unique nature of their joint appearance, asked the Honorable Gentlemen what they appreciated about one another. Priebus lauded Bannon for being "very dogged in ensuring that every day, the promises that President Trump has made are the promises that we're working on," for being "incredibly loyal," and for being "extremely consistent. " "As you can imagine, there are many things hitting the president's ear and desk every day, different things that come to the president that want to move him off his agenda, and Steve is very consistent and very loyal to the agenda, and is a presence that I think is very important to have in the White House," he said. He added that he thought of Bannon as a dear and cherished friend. "I can run a little hot on occasions," Bannon allowed. "And Reince is indefatigable. It's low key, but it's determination. The thing I respect most, and the only way this thing works, is Reince is always kind of steady … his job is by far one of the toughest jobs I've ever seen in my life. "


Republican leaders are aiming to send their tax bill to President Donald Trump for his signature by the end of the year. To do that, negotiators from the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate will need to iron out differences between their two versions of the legislation. Here are some of the main points they will need to address. The Senate bill repeals a provision of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, that levies a penalty on taxpayers who do not purchase health insurance. The House bill did not repeal the mandate's penalty but leaders there have indicated they would be open to doing so it if the Senate could pass it. The House bill consolidates seven individual income tax rates into four but keeps the top rate at 39.6 percent. The Senate version keeps seven brackets and sets the top rate at 38.5 percent. PASS-THROUGH BUSINESSES The House legislation capped at 25 percent the tax rate on 30 percent of pass-through business income, with the remaining 70 percent taxed at individual wage rates. The House excluded taxpayers in professional services, who would continue paying individual tax rates on all income. The Senate bill leaves all pass-through income in the individual system but establishes a deduction for 23 percent of pass-through income. The Senate version allows those in services professions to use the deduction if their income is less than $250,000 per year, or $500,000 for a married couple. Pass-through businesses include partnerships and other companies not organized as public corporations, encompassing most American business enterprises from mom-and-pop concerns to large financial and real estate organizations. The House bill repeals the deduction for medical expenses that exceed 10 percent of a taxpayer's annual income. The Senate version retains the deduction for two years and drops the threshold to 7.5 percent of income. The House bill repeals the individual and corporate alternative minimum taxes, or AMT, which are intended to make sure high-income taxpayers do not unduly lower their tax liabilities by combining numerous credits and deductions. The Senate bill repeals the individual AMT but keeps the 20 percent corporate AMT. By also cutting the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent, some corporations have said this means they would not be able to use popular tax breaks such as the research-and-development credit. The House bill limited a popular individual tax deduction to interest on home mortgages of $500,000 or less. The Senate bill would allow taxpayers to deduct interest on mortgages of $1,000,000 or less. The House bill would allow companies to fully deduct the value of machinery and equipment and other costs for five years. The Senate bill allows businesses to do the same but then phases it out over five years.