After another challenging day in Washington, President Donald Trump flew to West Virginia to a field full of 40,000 chanting and cheering Boy Scouts, telling them he was happy to leave Washington behind. "Who the hell wants to speak about politics?" Trump boomed, telling the boys he wanted to talk about how to achieve their dreams. But politics proved too hard for Trump to resist on a day he spent pleading for Republican senators to vote to advance his long-promised health care overhaul and watching his son-in-law Jared Kushner being grilled on Capitol Hill about contacts with Russia. It did not take long for Trump to veer from inspiration to denigration. The teenaged boys loved it, cheering wildly at each sick burn, hooting and hollering like they were at a wrestling match. "Tonight we put aside all of the policy fights in Washington, D.C. you've been hearing about with the fake news and all of that," he told the teenaged boys, sitting state by state in brightly colored t-shirts. "You know, I go to Washington and I see all these politicians and I see the swamp and it's not a good place," said Trump. "In fact, today I said we ought to change it from the word 'swamp' to the word 'cesspool' or perhaps to the word 'sewer.' It's not good. I see what's going on and believe me, I'd much rather be with you, that I can tell you," Trump said. He told the boys that the media were dishonest and would not show the size of their jamboree on television. "Fake media, fake media," Trump said, eliciting a chorus of boos and cheers. Trump recounted his election night victories, state by state, the boys from Wisconsin cheering when they heard their state mentioned, the boys from Michigan doing the same. But the most sustained round of cheers and jeers came when Trump mentioned his predecessor President Barack Obama, who had declined invitations to speak to the scout gathering while he was in office. "By the way, just a question: did President Obama ever come to a jamboree?" Trump said. Trump said he has 10 former Boy Scouts serving in his cabinet and White House, and brought a few on stage as examples of Boy Scout leadership in action, including Tom Price, his health secretary. "Hopefully he's going to get the votes tomorrow to start our path toward killing this horrible thing known as Obamacare," Trump said, referring to Obama's signature health care legislation, as the boys booed. "He better get them, otherwise I'll say, 'Tom, you're fired!'" he said, borrowing the catch phrase from his reality television show, "The Apprentice."


Rick Perry, President-elect Donald Trump's pick to run the U.S. Energy Department, said during a Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday that global warming caused by humans is real, but that efforts to combat it should not cost American jobs. The comment marks a shift for the former Texas governor, who had previously called the science behind climate change "unsettled" and a "contrived, phony mess." It also clashes with Trump's statements during his campaign for the White House that global warming is a hoax meant to weaken U.S. business. "I believe the climate is changing. I believe some of it is naturally occurring, but some of it is also caused by man-made activity. The question is how do we address it in a thoughtful way that doesn't compromise economic growth, the affordability of energy or American jobs," Perry said. Perry's 3-1/2-hour hearing before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources was one of the shortest and least contentious in a long list of sessions to vet Trump Cabinet nominees since last week. The committee has not yet scheduled its vote on Perry's nomination. As energy secretary, Perry, 66, would oversee a substantial chunk of Trump's energy portfolio. He would lead a vast scientific research operation credited with helping trigger a U.S. drilling boom and advancements in energy efficiency and renewable energy technology, and would also be in charge of maintaining the United States' nuclear weapons arsenal. Trump, who will be sworn in as president on Friday, has promised to bolster the U.S. oil, gas and coal industries, in part by undoing federal regulations curbing carbon dioxide emissions. He has also suggested pulling America out of a global climate change pact signed in Paris in 2015, calling it expensive for U.S. industry. He sees Perry, who was governor of Texas from 2000 to 2015 and whose nomination has the support of the energy sector, as someone who can help usher in jobs growth. Perry added during his hearing that he regrets having previously called for the department's elimination - a proposal he made during his failed bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. That proposal, which has become known as his "oops" moment, came during a presidential candidate debate when he could not initially remember all of the three Cabinet-level departments he wanted to eliminate: Commerce, Education and Energy. "After being briefed on so many of the vital functions of the Department of Energy, I regret recommending its elimination," he said in his opening remarks. Democrats on the committee expressed worry that Perry would weaken the Energy Department's functions and potentially target its army of scientists focused on climate research. Perry sought to assuage them. "I am going to protect the men and women of the scientific community from anyone who would attack them," he said in response to a question from Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington state about whether he would cut the department's climate science budget. When pressed on whether there would be budget or staff cuts to key research programs at the department, Perry said: "I will be an advocate (for the programs) ... but I'm not sure I'm going to be 1,000 percent successful." He distanced himself from a questionnaire the Trump transition team sent to the department in December demanding names and publications of employees who had worked on climate issues. After an uproar by critics who said it amounted to a witch hunt, the team disavowed the survey. "I didn't approve it. I don't approve of it. I don't need that information," Perry said. Perry said much of his focus running the department would be on renewing the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal. More than half of the department's $32.5 billion budget goes to maintaining nuclear weapons and cleaning up nuclear waste. "As a former Air Force pilot during the days of the Cold War, I understand the deterrent value of our nuclear weapons systems, and the vital role they play in keeping the peace," he said. Perry said he was generally supportive of a state's right to block the siting of nuclear waste dumps, like Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but fell short of ruling out the federal government's power to impose them over state objections in some cases. Nuclear waste disposal is one of the top hurdles to growth in the U.S. nuclear power industry. Department leadership under Perry would represent a pivot from being run by learned scientists to a person who is known for close ties to energy interests. The current energy secretary, Ernest Moniz, is a nuclear physicist who led technical negotiations in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, while the previous head, Steven Chu, is a Nobel Prize-winning physicist. Perry recently resigned from the board of directors of Energy Transfer Partners LP, the company building the Dakota Access Pipeline opposed by Native Americans and environmentalists.


Facing slumping poll numbers and a shakeup of his team, U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump takes a detour from the campaign trail this week to visit his golf resorts in Scotland. Trump leaves Thursday on a three-day trip centered on the grand reopening of Trump Turnberry, which the New York businessman bought in 2014 and renovated at an estimated cost of $290 million. He will also visit his other Scottish golf property in Aberdeen. His visit to Scotland, the birthplace of his mother, comes as Britain votes on Thursday on whether to remain in the European Union. Trump has said Britain would probably be better off if it left the EU. He will hold a news conference on Friday when he will doubtless be asked to respond to the vote. Trump's trip abroad comes at an unusual time given the political calendar. With less than a month left until the Republican convention in Cleveland where he is to be formally nominated, Trump is lagging in fundraising and campaign organization and taking heavy fire from Democrat Hillary Clinton, his likely opponent in the Nov. 8 election. He is under pressure to adopt a more presidential demeanor and strengthen his campaign organization after a rocky period in which he criticized a U.S.-born federal judge as unfair because of his Mexican heritage and took fire for his response to the killing of 49 people at an Orlando, Florida, nightclub. Just this week, he fired campaign manager Corey Lewandowski at the urging of family members alarmed at the direction of his campaign. It also emerged that he had only $1.3 million in cash on hand at the end of May to fund his campaign, compared with Clinton's war chest of $42 million. His poll numbers have also dropped. After sealing the nomination seven weeks ago, Trump was basically tied in national polls with Clinton. But she has crept ahead in many polls in the past two weeks. Trump and his aides see the Scotland visit as a chance to showcase his far-flung business empire and job-creating abilities. Aides said the trip also reinforced his ancestral ties to Scotland and his love of family, with his children playing an important role in his business dealings. But many Republicans see Trump's trip to Scotland as a waste of valuable time. "It has nothing to do with running for president," said Republican strategist Rick Tyler, who was a spokesman for former presidential candidate, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. "It speaks to the non-seriousness of the campaign when you're taking time off the campaign trail to leave the country for a place where there are no voters." Trump's golf properties are among his proudest business possessions and he is particularly proud of Turnberry, where the British Open has been played four times, including the famed "Duel in the Sun" in 1977 when Tom Watson edged Jack Nicklaus by one stroke. Limiting the trip to his golf properties means there are likely to be fewer chances for missteps like 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney's gaffe-filled trip to London, Jerusalem and Poland four years ago. But it offers little chance for Trump to burnish his foreign policy credentials. "Traditionally, nominees take overseas trips to build their foreign policy chops," said Republican strategist Scott Reed. Trump is not meeting British Prime Minister David Cameron, who has denounced Trump as divisive for his proposed Muslim ban and anti-immigrant rhetoric.


A leading US senator: US Supporting War in Syria A leading US senator said the war in Syria would have been over by now if the US had put an end to its intervention when Russia entered the war-ravaged country. "If the United States had just stayed out of it at that point, the war would be over by now; people would be rebuilding, refugees would be returning back to Syria, but the United States rushed anti-Tank missiles, and we used these so-called moderate rebels as a conduit to supply al-Nusra Front (also known as Fatah al-Sham Front), which is al-Qaeda in Syria," republican member of the Virginia State in US Senate, Richard Hayden Black said in an exclusive interview with Press TV. "If we were not supporting the war in Syria, I believe that the Syrians, combined with their allied forces from Iran, Lebanon and Russia… would move very steadily and restore the borders of Syria." The senate member, who visited Syria in April, refused to distinguish between militants and terrorists fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad, saying, the two are "thoroughly integrated." "They really are one and the same, they're part of the same army," he said, citing a US defense intelligence agency's investigation in 2013, which showed Washington's ties with the terror group. The outspoken state senator referred to plans by the CIA to transfer arms from Libya to Turkey and from there to Syria to supply the militants, noting that the move "evolved into an indiscriminate program of supplying all militant groups, including specifically ISIL and al-Qaeda." "We do it indirectly because it's unlawful to do it directly," he said, adding that the US keeps "extremely violent organizations… off the terrorist watch list because these are the agents that take our weapons and then distribute them to ISIL and al-Qaeda." In response to a question on why Iran and Russia are portrayed as the "bad guys," while they are the ones really fighting terrorism there, as put recently by GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, Black said the Republican candidate has a "clear understanding of what's happening over there." "Sometimes, his rhetoric has to match the political mood of the moment… but I know a number of his advisers and they believe that our determination to topple the government in Syria is suicidal, that it threatens not only the entire Middle East but literally the entire world." He further warned that the US itself could be "threatened," arguing that, "if Syria falls, it will be dominated by some al-Qaeda-related organization; Lebanon will fall; Jordan will fall and the entire area will be destabilized." The Vietnam war veteran also elaborated on his personal definition of the Middle East "axis of evil," naming Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and "particularly" Turkey over their support for terrorism. "Probably, three quarters of the rebels are not Syrian at all, they are mercenaries recruited by Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia," he asserted, describing the three countries as "the primary force behind the terrorist movement." "Turkey has invaded Iraq and Syria with heavy military forces. Turkey has really become a rogue nation," he added, referring to a 1923 treaty that set the border between Turkey and Greece, saying that was even being questioned by President Rececp Tayyip Erdogan. "And now you see this emerging threat against Western Europe by Turkey," he noted, further adding that Erdogan "has made it clear that he looks to resurrection of the Ottoman Empire." "He has become more and more aggressive; he's crushed the military, the free press; every powerful institution of the Turkish government has come under his iron fist and he's now a total dictator. He's a man who has said that he wants the constitution amended so that he will have power similar to those of Adolf Hilter… This is our great ally; we're allied with a man who would be Hitler." He also blasted Washington's alliance with Saudi Arabia, "where women are not allowed to walk out in the front yard to pick up the newspaper without a man's permission; they can't drive a car!" "Somehow, this is part of the liberalization that we seek to impose on the Middle East," he said ironically, calling it "bizarre." He also praised the resistance against the Saudi aggression by the people of Yemen, saying, "God bless them! The Yemenis are giving the Saudis a bloody nose," despite being a "tiny little, poor nation." "I think the world recognizes that Saudi Arabia has just embarked in massive war crimes in Yemen," he said, voicing regret over the US support for the monarchy. "We don't pay too much attention to them while engaged in war crimes because they're our good allies," he said, concluding that Washington is on a "suicidal course of action." "Saudi money pays the very top politicians in many Western nations. And they really have co-opted the American military into acting as mercenaries for Wahhabism."Black referred to the Western media's portrayal of Iran as a supporter of terrorism, saying, "The fact of the matter is that if you really look at global terrorism, it all emanates from Saudi Arabia." He exemplified various terrorists attack, including the 9/11, the Boston bombing, and the Brussels attacks, noting that they are all a "reflection of the Wahhabi philosophy."


Trump wins big in New Hampshire in what is an anti-establishment revolt of epic measures America is 100% FED Up! with the status quo in Washington.The latest results (CNN) from the New Hampshire primary:


Votes cast for New Zealand s ruling National Party reached 46.3 percent with 31.4 percent of results counted in the country s general election on Saturday, while support for the opposition Labour Party was 36 percent, according to the Electoral Commission. The nationalist New Zealand First Party had 7.1 percent of the vote so far, tipping it as a likely kingmaker in the German-style proportional representation system. Votes for the Green Party reached 6.2 percent. A record 1.2 million ballots were cast before the day of the election, accounting for about a third of the 3.3 million New Zealanders enrolled to vote. In past elections, advanced votes were indicative of final results.


Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley's staff has indicated the senator is willing to meet with Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland after a two-week Senate recess, the White House said on Thursday. "That obviously is something that we believe is entirely appropriate," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. "It certainly is the most basic expectation that people would have for a Senate Judiciary chairman when a consensus Supreme Court nominee has been put forward." President Barack Obama nominated the centrist judge on Wednesday to replace conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on Feb. 13. Garland began meeting with senators on Thursday. Earnest said he hopes that, despite political differences, Grassley will work with the White House to schedule a meeting.


President Barack Obama met on Monday with a team of national security advisers to discuss U.S. efforts to combat Islamic State following last week's attacks on Brussels, the White House said. "The President was briefed that there is currently no specific, credible intelligence of any plot to conduct similar attacks here in the United States," the White House said. Obama was told of expanded U.S. efforts to share threat information with international partners, and he directed his team to ensure the United States is doing everything possible to disrupt any plots by Islamic State, the White House said.


Catherine Engelbrecht, president of True the Vote, talked with Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Raheem Kassam on Friday regarding President Trump's executive order establishing the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which will investigate voter fraud and offer recommendations. [Engelbrecht said of voter fraud in America, "We are, in my opinion, on the verge of a systemic crisis for a lot of reasons. The first is, we are not evaluating the people that we are allowing to register to vote. We are not doing any sort of reconciliation for identity, residency, citizenship. … We don't know that these people are who they say that they are. " Engelbrecht added that with the data and technology available today, "there's no reason that we wouldn't have a better handle on that. " "We have willfully chosen to let our voter rolls run amok," she said. Engelbrecht continued, "We will soon have a major outcome where we cannot trust the outcome, and at that point, you can't unring that bell. At that point, things start to crumble and crumble fast. " Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern.


Sometimes you just need to let people talk and they ll eventually say what you have been saying the whole time. Albeit, it may be accidental. And in this case, liberals should take what they can get when it comes to Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) giving a the perfect argument for Medicare for all. They should also not let him forget it.While trying to make the Affordable Care Act look bad, Ryan accidentally made the perfect argument for Medicare for all.Ryan tweeted out: With another insurer leaving the Iowa insurance market, more Americans will be left without a choice when it comes to their health care. With another insurer leaving the Iowa insurance market, more Americans will be left without a choice when it comes to their health care. https://t.co/4agdcFoqLz Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan) April 8, 2017Then follows it up with this: Five Iowa counties will now be left with just two health insurers, while the rest will only have one option. This is unacceptable. Five Iowa counties will now be left with just two health insurers, while the rest will only have one option. This is unacceptable. Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan) April 8, 2017Now, first of all, if Iowa had set up Obamacare properly, they d have their own health exchange and not put you to the national website. This would have also subsequently given Iowa insurers the ability to work directly with the state. Secondly, when for-profit companies are given the ability to mess with people s care for the sake of profit and to try to prove a point that something isn t working they will do so.Thus, when all is said and done, this is the perfect argument for Medicare for all, OR at least a public option. A public option would provide a guaranteed option for citizens of any state, as well as provide competition in the for-profit world of health insurance, which would then drive down costs across the board (yay, true capitalism and not a manipulative market!). Medicare for all would be ideal, yet not as realistic at the moment, and would provide care to every single American. Imagine that! Taxes being used for tax payers!When all is said and done, we can thank Paul Ryan for this perfect meme to use against him time and time again. Well done, Speaker!Featured Photo by Olivier Douliery/Getty Images


Britain urgently needs a standstill deal to keep its ties with the European Union unchanged in a post-Brexit transition period, and will probably need an adaptation phase after that for sectors such as financial services, a group of lawmakers said. A transition agreement - which is widely expected to last for two years - must be done with Brussels in a matter of weeks to stop companies from moving more operations away from Britain, the cross-party Treasury Committee said. It is highly likely that, for certain sectors, including financial services, the standstill transition period will have to be followed by an adaptation period, the committee said on Thursday in a report, summing up its work so far on Brexit. Many companies are drawing up contingency plans ahead of Britain leaving the EU in March 2019, given the lack of clarity about their future access to the bloc which accounts for nearly half of Britain s exports. Banks have previously said they want a deal to bridge the period between the end of a Brexit transition phase and the start of Britain s new, permanent relationship with the EU in order to phase in changes to the way they operate. At this stage, the committee makes no recommendations about the design or duration of this subsequent period, except that, unlike the standstill period, it need not involve the UK applying the existing framework of EU rules across all sectors, the committee said. Prime Minister Theresa May last week secured a deal with Brussels that will pave the way for talks on a transition deal and for negotiations about the future permanent UK-EU trade relationship after Brexit. Nicky Morgan, a lawmaker from May s Conservative Party who chairs the Treasury Committee, said time was of the essence and London should accept EU terms for a transition deal, including temporarily remaining subject to the European Court of Justice. Delays to agreements caused by arguments over arcane points of principle could damage the economy, Morgan said. The government should be prepared to accept the terms on which transition is offered by the EU-27. Some Brexit supporters have said Britain must no longer be bound by ECJ rulings after Brexit. But under last week s initial divorce deal, Britain will enable its judges to ask the court to weigh in on issues affecting EU citizens for eight years. The committee also warned the government against assuming that last-minute deals would be reached to avoid disruption in areas such as aviation. The history of international trade diplomacy is replete with examples of short-sighted political considerations prevailing over economic self-interest, it said. And the conclusion of such agreements may come too late for firms that are intending to activate their contingency plans in the first quarter of 2018.


The left is really great at eating its own. Feminists think Starbucks has a special drink that s racist and they re going after the coffee house because of it. No, we didn t make this up. Just listen to Tucker Carlson s dismay at how ridiculous this is:WEIRDEST CLAIM EVER: PUMPKIN SPICE LATTE = WHITE SUPREMACY: Pumpkin spice just doesn t taste as good when you add a shot of racism, a feminist leader explained as the fall flavor began to pop up in coffee shops around the country. This is a shockingly weird claim, but it shouldn t be surprising.In an editorial published last month, we wrote about the Left s effort to broaden the boundaries of concepts such as white supremacy and racism in a way that impugns the conduct of well-meaning people. Now, a feminist nonprofit is running a campaign to convince festive imbibers of Pumpkin Spice Lattes they re unknowingly boosting the cause of white supremacy.The co-founder of UltraViolet issued the shot of racism statement Sept. 6. I knew Starbucks had a secret menu, but the baristas must really be keeping these racism shots on the down low.A social media post from the group informed readers: That favorite fall drink of yours is funding rent payments to white supremacy. Given the severity of the campaign s language, one may assume profits from sales of Starbucks beloved PSLs are being surreptitiously redirected to the Klan or neo-Nazi groups. In fact, UltraViolet s actual complaint is that a couple of Starbucks 24,000 locations happen to be in properties owned by the Trump Organization.According to UltraViolet s logic, by patronizing any of Starbucks thousands of stores, average consumers of the signature fall beverage are directly boosting the cause of white supremacy. How increased latte profits to the Trump Organization (not even the White House) impact the president s policies on racial matters is left unclear.


Why Trump Won and Why Clinton Lost Hillary Clinton's stunning defeat reflected a gross misjudgment by the Democratic Party about the depth of populist anger against self-serving elites who have treated much of the country with disdain By Robert Parry November 10, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " Consortium News " - In the end, Hillary Clinton became the face of a corrupt, arrogant and out-of-touch Establishment, while Donald Trump emerged as an almost perfectly imperfect vessel for a populist fury that had bubbled beneath the surface of America. There is clearly much to fear from a Trump presidency, especially coupled with continued Republican control of Congress. Trump and many Republicans have denied the reality of climate change; they favor more tax cuts for the rich; they want to deregulate Wall Street and other powerful industries – all policies that helped create the current mess that the United States and much of the world are now in. Further, Trump's personality is problematic to say the least. He lacks the knowledge and the temperament that one would like to see in a President – or even in a much less powerful public official. He appealed to racism, misogyny, white supremacy, bigotry toward immigrants and prejudice toward Muslims. He favors torture and wants a giant wall built across America's southern border. But American voters chose him in part because they felt they needed a blunt instrument to smash the Establishment that has ruled and mis-ruled America for at least the past several decades. It is an Establishment that not only has grabbed for itself almost all the new wealth that the country has produced but has casually sent the U.S. military into wars of choice, as if the lives of working-class soldiers are of little value. On foreign policy, the Establishment had turned decision-making over to the neoconservatives and their liberal-interventionist sidekicks, a collection of haughty elitists who often subordinated American interests to those of Israel and Saudi Arabia, for political or financial advantage. The war choices of the neocon/liberal-hawk coalition have been disastrous – from Iraq to Afghanistan to Libya to Syria to Ukraine – yet this collection of know-it-alls never experiences accountability. The same people, including the media's armchair warriors and the think-tank "scholars," bounce from one catastrophe to the next with no consequences for their fallacious "group thinks." Most recently, they have ginned up a new costly and dangerous Cold War with Russia. For all his faults, Trump was one of the few major public figures who dared challenge the "group thinks" on the current hot spots of Syria and Russia. In response, Clinton and many Democrats chose to engage in a crude McCarthyism with Clinton even baiting Trump as Vladimir Putin's "puppet" during the final presidential debate. It is somewhat remarkable that those tactics failed; that Trump talked about cooperation with Russia, rather than confrontation, and won. Trump's victory could mean that rather than escalating the New Cold War with Russia, there is the possibility of a ratcheting down of tensions. Repudiating the Neocons Thus, Trump's victory marks a repudiation of the neocon/liberal-hawk orthodoxy because the New Cold War was largely incubated in neocon/liberal-hawk think tanks, brought to life by likeminded officials in the U.S. State Department, and nourished by propaganda across the mainstream Western media. It was the West, not Russia, that provoked the confrontation over Ukraine by helping to install a fiercely anti-Russian regime on Russia's borders. I know the mainstream Western media framed the story as "Russian aggression" but that was always a gross distortion. There were peaceful ways for settling the internal differences inside Ukraine without violating the democratic process, but U.S. neocons, such as Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, and wealthy neoliberals, such as financial speculator George Soros, pushed for a putsch that overthrew the elected President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014. Putin's response, including his acceptance of Crimea's overwhelming referendum to return to Russia and his support for ethnic Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine opposing the coup regime in Kiev, was a reaction to the West's destabilizing and violent actions. Putin was not the instigator of the troubles. Similarly, in Syria, the West's "regime change" strategy, which dates back to neocon planning in the mid-1990s, involved collaboration with Al Qaeda and other Islamic jihadists to remove the secular government of Bashar al-Assad. Again, Official Washington and the mainstream media portrayed the conflict as all Assad's fault, but that wasn't the full picture. From the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011, U.S. "allies," including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Israel, have been aiding the rebellion, with Turkey and the Gulf states funneling money and weapons to Al Qaeda's Nusra Front and even to the Al Qaeda spinoff, Islamic State. Though President Barack Obama dragged his heels on the direct intervention advocated by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Obama eventually went in halfway, bending to political pressure by agreeing to train and arm so-called "moderates" who ended up fighting next to Al Qaeda's Nusra Front and other jihadists in Ahrar al-Sham. Trump has been inarticulate and imprecise in describing what policies he would follow in Syria, besides suggesting that he would cooperate with the Russians in destroying Islamic State. But Trump didn't seem to understand the role of Al Qaeda in controlling east Aleppo and other Syrian territory. Uncharted Territory So, the American voters have plunged the United States and the world into uncharted territory behind a President-elect who lacks a depth of knowledge on a wide variety of issues. Who will guide a President Trump becomes the most pressing issue today. Will he rely on traditional Republicans who have done so much to mess up the country and the world or will he find some fresh-thinking realists who will realign policy with core American interests and values. For this dangerous and uncertain moment, the Democratic Party establishment deserves a large share of the blame. Despite signs that 2016 would be a year for an anti-Establishment candidate – possibly someone like Sen. Elizabeth Warren or Sen. Bernie Sanders – the Democratic leadership decided that it was "Hillary's turn." Alternatives like Warren were discouraged from running so there could be a Clinton "coronation." That left the 74-year-old socialist from Vermont as the only obstacle to Clinton's nomination and it turned out that Sanders was a formidable challenger. But his candidacy was ultimately blocked by Democratic insiders, including the unelected "super-delegates" who gave Clinton an early and seemingly insurmountable lead. With blinders firmly in place, the Democrats yoked themselves to Clinton's gilded carriage and tried to pull it all the way to the White House. But they ignored the fact that many Americans came to see Clinton as the personification of all that is wrong about the insular and corrupt world of Official Washington. And that has given us President-elect Trump. Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America's Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com . Š 2016 Consortium News


Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe testified today in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee. When asked if the rank and file employees of the law enforcement agency, he said, Director Comey enjoyed broad support within the F.B.I. and still does to this day. The vast majority of F.B.I. employees enjoyed a deep and positive connection to Director Comey, McCabe went on to say, It has been the greatest privilege and honor of my professional life to have worked with him. When asked about the current investigation into any ties between the Trump campaign, McCabe said that the agency considers this investigation to be very important and serious. As to what impact Comey s firing will have on the investigation, he said, The work of the men and women of the FBI continues despite any changes in circumstances, he said in response to a question from Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida. There has been no effort to impede our investigation to date. Simply put, you cannot stop the men and women of the FBI from doing the right thing. Given what the White House has said this week, both areas are important. Yesterday, White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders told the press that the reason Comey was fired was because, among other things, that he had lost the confidence of the agents there. One reason many believe President Trump fired Comey, and no one believes anyone but Trump made this decision, because he thought it might slow down the investigation. It now appears neither of those ideas are true.


Raymond Smullyan, whose merry, agile mind led him to be a musician, a magician, a mathematician and, most cunningly, a logician, died on Monday in Hudson, N. Y. He was 97. His death was confirmed by Deborah Smullyan, a cousin. Professor Smullyan was a serious mathematician, with the publications and the doctorate to prove it. But his greatest legacy may be the devilishly clever logic puzzles that he devised, presenting them in numerous books or just in casual conversation. Sometimes they were and sometimes they were embedded in longer narratives to explain mathematical concepts, such as Boolean logic, as he did in "The Magic Garden of George B and Other Logic Puzzles" in 2015 or retrograde analysis, as he explored in the "The Chess Mysteries of the Arabian Knights" in 1981. He was also a character. With his long white hair and beard, Professor Smullyan resembled Ian McKellen's wizard, Gandalf, from the "Lord of the Rings" film series. He was lanky, hated exercise and loved steak and eggs. He studied Eastern religion. He told corny jokes and performed magic to anyone near him. He played the piano with passion and talent into his 90s. (A career in music had been derailed by tendinitis when he was a young man.) And he was fond of his philosophical, if silly, sayings, such as, "Why should I worry about dying? It's not going to happen in my lifetime!" Melvin Fitting, a retired professor of mathematics, philosophy and computer science at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, recalled Professor Smullyan's demeanor as his teacher at Yeshiva University in the 1960s while Professor Fitting was pursuing his doctorate. "He'd be smiling in anticipation of the many beautiful things he was going to show you," the professor said in an interview. Professor Smullyan saw beauty in the puzzles that he created, seemingly nonstop, over the decades, and viewed them as tools to spread the gospel of mathematics. In his 1982 book "The Lady or the Tiger? And Other Logic Puzzles," he wrote about the greater popularity that Euclid's "Elements" would have achieved had the Greek mathematician framed it as a puzzle book. He wrote: "Problem: Given a triangle with two equal sides, are two of the angles necessarily equal? Why, or why not?" His puzzles were so much a part of his identity that he posed one on his first date with his future wife, Blanche de Grab. What he posed to her was a statement that, in the way he framed it, could only result in a kiss from her. Reminiscing about it, he wrote that it was a "pretty sneaky way of winning a kiss, wasn't it?" Jason Rosenhouse, a mathematics professor at James Madison University, who edited a book in 2015 celebrating Mr. Smullyan, said the clarity of his puzzles could unveil the beauty of math to those who could not previously grasp it. "It was like fooling a kid into eating his vegetables," Professor Rosenhouse said in a telephone interview, adding, "Raymond took something like Gödel's incompleteness theorems and used a string of logic puzzles as a device for presenting them. " Martin Gardner, himself a renowned math puzzler, compared Professor Smullyan to the Oxford logician Charles Dodgson, who also was an author better known by his pen name, Lewis Carroll. Professor Smullyan paid tribute to Carroll in his 1982 book "Alice in : A Carrollian Tale for Children Under Eighty. " In one chapter, Professor Smullyan wrote, Alice thinks to herself about how confusing, yet remarkably logical, Humpty Dumpty is. "I wonder," she says, "how he manages to be both confusing and logical?" There was, it would seem, some confusing logic in the zigzagging path of Mr. Smullyan's life. Raymond Merrill Smullyan was born in Far Rockaway, Queens, on May 25, 1919. His father, Isidore, was a businessman his mother, the former Rosina Freeman, a homemaker. His education was peripatetic and eclectic. He attended both Pacific University and Reed College in Oregon, then studied mathematics and logic on his own. He learned magic. He created chess puzzles that were more concerned about moves that had been made than the ones that should be made. He put together a magic act, and performed under the stage name Merrill at nightclubs like the Pump Room in Chicago, where he worked for tips. He went on to get his bachelor's degree in mathematics from the University of Chicago and a Ph. D. from Princeton. He taught at Princeton, Yeshiva, Lehman College of the City University of New York and Indiana University. His philosophy of teaching was a little puzzling. "My policy is to teach the student as much as possible and to require from him or her as little as possible," he told Donald Albers and Gerald Alexanderson, the authors of "Mathematical People: Profiles and Interviews" in 2008. But, he added, the impact of his apparent lenience was that many of his students worked harder in his course than in any other. Professor Smullyan is survived by his stepson, Jack Kotik six and 16 . His wife Blanche, a pianist and music educator, died in 2006. His first marriage ended in divorce. Mr. Kotik recalled being with his wife at the Smullyans' house in Elka Park, N. Y. and listening to a radio report about the high salaries of professional athletes. His mother, Blanche, said they were excessive. Professor Smullyan said that to be paid so much was unfair. "I said, 'Raymond, isn't it true that you're more intelligent than most people?' " Mr. Kotik said during a phone interview. " 'Yes,' he said. So I said, 'I think that's unfair. We should take out part of your brain and distribute it to people who could use it.' "He was silent for a minute, and finally he said, 'I can't give you any reason, but I wouldn't do it.' " Puzzles were an essential part of Mr. Smullyan's patois — a logician's way of greeting and testing people. When he met his most recent editor, Rochelle Kronzek, he asked her to solve some problems. "It intimidated me at first, but I came up with creative answers," Ms. Kronzek, the executive editor of World Scientific Publishing, said in an interview, "and more than once he smiled because he liked the way I was thinking. He got a lot of joy out of seeing how other people thought. "


— Susan? (@GaetaSusan) October 27, 2016 WikiLeaks: Former State Dept. Official Coordinated with Team Clinton on Uranium One Scandal Pushback One month before former State Department official Jose Fernandez defended then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's decision to sign off on the transfer of 20 percent of U.S. uranium to Russia, Fernandez told John Podesta that he was eager to "do all I can to support Secretary Clinton," according to purported emails uncovered by WikiLeaks. On March 30, 2015 — weeks before the explosive book Clinton Cash was released, and nearly a month before the New York Times published a 4,000 word story detailing the Uranium One transaction that multiple donors to the Clinton Foundation made millions from — Jose Fernandez wrote an email to Podesta in hopes that the pair could meet.  On April 17, Fernandez writes to Podesta, again, thanking him for their meeting and said, "I would like to do all I can to support Secretary Clinton, and would welcome your advice and help in steering me to the right persons in the campaign."  http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/10/26/wikileaks-former-state-dept-official-coordinated-with-team-clinton-on-uranium-one-scandal-pushback/ If The Media Investigated Hillary Like They Did Watergate, We Wouldn't Need WikiLeaks Today, mainstream publications have become willing accomplices in suppressing the same type of information they worked so tenaciously to expose all those years ago.  It has now been more than four decades since the Washington Post and New York Times led the charge to bring down Richard Nixon and his administration's massive web of corruption and political subterfuge schemes. They did so by aggressively and tirelessly seeking out the truth, and reporting back to the American people clearly and comprehensively.  Today, both publications have become willing accomplices in suppressing the same type of information they worked so tenaciously to expose all those years ago. By openly and unapologetically acting as institutional surrogates for the Clinton campaign, these same institutions, and nearly every other mainstream media outlet in America, have gone hands-off in exposing what may very well turn out to be the most explosive and damaging corruption scandal in American politics since "Tricky Dick" was reelected back in '72.  Not by coincidence, Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have stepped in to fill the void. And boy, are the "truth seekers" mad about that! My, How Times Have Changed  On June 17, 1972, five men were arrested for breaking and entering the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, both reporters for the Washington Post at the time, unflinchingly pursued the complete truth behind the break-in. Little did they know that summer how vast was the network of lies and corruption their investigation would eventually uncover.  The editors at the Post initially put the story on the back burner, while the Nixon administration deftly stonewalled the reporters' probes. By September, though, the Post and New York Times were fully on board with the investigation, and the administration had gone into full cover-up mode. Even though the FBI had confirmed that the administration had conducted a political sabotage conspiracy, it was not enough to keep Nixon from being reelected in a landslide in November. But the die was cast. The American press made it clear this story would not end until all the facts were in and Nixon and his henchmen were fully exposed.  Fast-forward to 2016. We are now two weeks away from the general election, and once again a potentially devastating story appears to be developing, related to a web of corruption and deceit that could eventually rival the Watergate scandal. Just like 1972, the Post and the Times are fully engaged. Except this time, the "two lions of journalism" have little interest in covering the avalanche of revelations pouring forth against the Clinton campaign. Instead, both publications are working around the clock to bring the Democratic nominee to power. That's not all. Nearly every other mainstream media outlet in the country has jumped on the bandwagon.  It would be incorrect to think that until now the mainstream media has been a relatively objective source for news. This has been going on for a long time. Few could argue that back in the '70s, editors Ben Bradlee at the Post and Abe Rosenthal at the Times were not absolutely salivating at the chance to bring Nixon down. But they achieved this objective in relentless pursuit of the facts, not the willing suppression of the same.  One would think, given the self-inflicted meltdown the Donald Trump camp finds itself in right now, the media might at least feign some level of balanced reporting, but they've made it very clear they're not taking any chances. They're going to keep digging dirt on Trump, and they're going to continue to minimize, to the best of their ability, a story that may well have historic and damaging implications, both for the nation as a whole and our entire political system moving forward.  Although this may prove to be a very successful political tactic for this year's presidential election, it is likely to forever damage the reputation of mainstream American journalism, and it most certainly will continue to encourage the American public to look elsewhere for the unvarnished truth. President Obama's brother calls for @POTUS to pardon Assange https://t.co/BjtaY2wrJ1  Assange & Kenya, background: https://t.co/BQ8EqCXTqD


Republicans are hypocrites.And Ohio state GOP Rep. Wes Goodman proved it this week after he got caught having an affair with a man.Normally, having an affair with a man would not be a big deal. After all, same-sex marriage is legal and relationships with men is no longer the scandal it once was. But Goodman is a conservative Christian Republican who is married to a woman, so his affair with a member of the same sex is absolutely scandalous.So scandalous, in fact, that Goodman resigned from his post on Wednesday. We all bring our own struggles and our own trials into public life, Goodman said in a statement. That has been true for me, and I sincerely regret that my actions and choices have kept me from serving my constituents and our state in a way that reflects the best ideals of public service. For those whom I have let down, I m sorry. As I move onto the next chapter of my life, I sincerely ask for privacy for myself, my family, and my friends. Sorry, Mr. Goodman. But you don t get privacy nor can you expect to not be mercilessly mocked.Goodman preached family values and thinks same-sex marriage should be illegal and that gay people should be punished for being gay. He even bragged about being committed to natural marriage on his own campaign website.Ohio House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger accepted Goodman s resignation after he confirmed the allegations during a meeting. I was alerted to details yesterday afternoon regarding his involvement in inappropriate behavior related to his state office, Rosenburger said. I met with him later in the day where he acknowledged and confirmed the allegations. It became clear that his resignation was the most appropriate course of action for him, his family, the constituents of the 87th House District and this institution. Frankly, affairs like this shouldn t matter as long as the relations were consensual. But the fact that Goodman was fiercely anti-gay and carried on the affair in his taxpayer funded office makes it newsworthy and even more explosive.Here s a report on the story via YouTube.Featured Image: Screenshot


A ruling by Massachusetts' top court could influence other state courts to rule that police cannot detain illegal immigrants solely to give federal authorities time to take them into custody, state Attorney General Maura Healey said on Wednesday. Healey, a Democrat who has been part of a loose coalition of state officials mounting court challenges to President Donald Trump's administration, said the Monday ruling on civil immigration detainer requests, the first to cover a full state, showed the power of state-level challenges. "We may see in other courts efforts to draw from that," Healey said in a interview in her office. "In this age of some really adverse actions and a lot of fear-mongering, frankly, by Donald Trump and (U.S. Attorney General) Jeff Sessions and others, it is important to make clear what the law here is and that no one is above the law." The Trump administration has stepped up immigration enforcement, threatening to deport the estimated 12 million people who have entered the country illegally, contending they raise crime rates and drain government resources. The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has asked local police and courts to hold illegal immigrants who enter the justice system for up to 48 hours after their cases conclude to allow them to be taken into custody. Massachusetts' Supreme Judicial Court ruled that because the detainer requests are civil, rather than criminal, the detentions amount to unconstitutional arrests. ICE said it was determining what next steps it might take after the ruling, saying it "weakens local law enforcement agencies' ability to protect their communities." Healey said her office is preparing instructions for court officials and local law enforcement on responding to the detainer requests. She dismissed the idea that the decision endangered public safety, saying the state continues to hold illegal immigrants who are wanted for criminal proceedings. Keeping up federal focus on the issue, Sessions said on Tuesday the Justice Department would block federal grants to sanctuary cities that do not cooperate with immigration agents, including detainer requests. Healey said the move would not change state policy. "It's wrong, it's unlawful and we'll see them in court if they intend to proceed on this front," she said. "This reflects a callous disregard for the rule of law and for governance and for what it takes to run our cities our states and indeed our country."


English patriotism is on the rise, with increasing numbers of people identifying as predominantly English rather than British, a survey has found. [According to the recent YouGov poll, nearly of those questioned described themselves as English instead of British — a rise of 5 per cent on 2015 figures. Last year, just 18 per cent of those surveyed said they felt only British or more British than English, but 35 per cent said they were English not British or more English than British. The number of people saying they feel equally English and British rose from 35 to 38 per cent between 2015 and 2016. Numerous polls during and after the European Union (EU) referendum showed that those who felt mostly English were more likely to vote for Brexit. Speaking to The Telegraph shortly after his election, UKIP leader Paul Nuttall described how he aimed to appeal to this renewed sense of Englishness, particularly following the devolution of other UK nations. "The next big issue that's going to come up in British politics beyond Brexit is Englishness," he said. Adding: "There is a value that unites that vast majority of British people away from the small metropolitan clique, and that value is patriotism. " The former Labour cabinet minister John Denham, who now heads the University of Winchester's Centre for English Identity and Politics, led the study. He said he found a growing correlation between identity and political behaviour. "Voters who most strongly identify as English are much more likely to reject Labour as a party and key Labour messages, like support for the EU," Mr. Dunham explained. "Without a change in Labour's appeal, rising English identity may make attracting key groups of voters even harder. " On Tuesday, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn attempted to appeal to patriotism, claiming he was not "wedded" to the principle of EU free movement. However, he refused to say he would limit numbers and insisted that current levels of migration were not too high. His only solution was to say that labour reforms would "probably" reduce the incentive to come to the UK.


When Sofia Richie chopped her hair and visited a doctor's office recently, Us Weekly was there. Not to be outdone, People heralded Mindy McKnight as "the voice for millennial moms. " And In Touch offered an "adorable" picture of Sarah Wright Olsen's infant napping next to a plush rabbit. Meet the striving celebrity underclass that has risen to dominate the gossip machine. Aspiring models, reality show stars, actors, YouTube vloggers and viral news subjects can now all curry coverage just by replenishing their social media accounts with photos of their babies, their butts or both. These are people you've probably never heard of — or have a nagging suspicion you might have, but don't quite know why. For the record, Ms. Richie is a teenager best known for appearing on Justin Bieber's Instagram account (not to mention being Lionel Richie's daughter). Ms. McKnight films hair tutorials on YouTube. And because In Touch didn't bother to explain who Ms. Wright Olsen even is, I Googled it. Turns out that after a supporting role on the NBC sitcom "Marry Me," she now runs a parenting blog. These have crept onto our radar through our supermarket tabloids and Facebook news feeds, and a crop of publications has emerged to cover them, whether sincerely or satirically. The relentless Instagram gossip outpost The Shade Room airs their dirty laundry, the deliciously absurd podcast "Who? Weekly" pokes fun at their claims to fame, and Time Inc. 's shiny new digital celebrity site, Instant. me, hopes to build on their brands. It used to be that the only way a person could land in the pages of the glossy celebrity magazines was to lose 100 pounds, serve as some heartwarming testimony to American values, or be murdered. But in the early aughts, the magazines started diversifying their coverage of Hollywood's leading Jens and Bens with stories on the romantic dupes and plastic surgery nightmares of reality television. Now, as the rise of social media demolishes the leverage that celebrity tabloids once had over their most famous subjects, the gossip industry keeps defining celebrity downward. (After all, no magazine can match the reach of Taylor Swift's more than 90 million Instagram fans or Kim Kardashian West's 47 million Twitter followers.) When Ms. Kardashian West first rose to prominence, commentators sneered that she was "famous for nothing. " The accusation seems quaint now: Tabloids have moved on from covering reality television stars like Ms. Kardashian West to following reality TV supporting characters, former reality TV stars, friends and exes of former reality TV stars — even people who post their own family dramas straight to YouTube. These days, gossip sites are also fueled by figures largely famous for doing nothing much. Jeremy Meeks, whose image went viral when Twitter swooned for his hot mug shot, has popped up on the websites of Us Weekly and People since his release from prison earlier this year. Instagram models like Ms. Richie, Sahara Ray and Bronte Blampied can milk months of coverage out of a couple of shots of themselves posing with Mr. Bieber. And Refinery29 recently ran a spread on the "Gucci Gang," a group of four stylish Parisian girls whose central accomplishment is attracting a combined 50, 000 Instagram followers. As the de facto crew leader, Angelina Woreth, put it, "It's easy to hate us, actually, because we are not doing something, we're not really doing anything. " Across the web, a new gossip press further enables these lesser celebrity castes. Drama generated by the young stars of YouTube, Vine and Musical. ly churns through nimble aggregation centers like Superfame and Trending All Day. The freewheeling Guru Gossip forum cuts through the glittery facade of online beauty gurus, while Get Off My Internets deflates the egos of the set. And The Shade Room, a gossip site focusing on black celebrities, pulls in 6. 1 million Instagram followers. While it posts plenty of news on known quantities (Beyoncé, Drake, Kevin Durant) it recognizes that some of the juiciest material comes from the smaller players (Tameka Harris, Karlie Redd, Keke Wyatt) who keep their names circulating on Twitter by spilling their guts on Instagram. Then there is "Who? Weekly," the cutting podcast in which the hosts, Lindsey Weber and Bobby Finger, guide listeners through celebrity's confounding new frontier. The podcast's name derives from the typical reaction of a layperson to reading a noncelebrity's name in the news. As the hosts explained in a handy primer published in July, "the subjects of gossip coverage can be divided into two categories: Whos (as in: *furrows brow* Who?) and Thems (as in: 'Oh, them. ')" On a recent episode, they take on Brittany Farrar, the of Aaron Rodgers's little brother, Jordan Rodgers (who is now dating the "Bachelorette" star JoJo Fletcher) who recently accused Jordan of cheating in a series of Instagram posts. "Why are we still hearing about her?" Ms. Weber asked. Mr. Finger replied: "Because she wants us — she did her due diligence in making sure we talked about her. " And just like that: A Who was born. Legacy media companies are dancing as fast as they can to keep up. In May, Time Inc. debuted Instant. me, dedicated to covering the foot soldiers of social media. Instant sells its subjects — a constellation of YouTube creators, Snapchat fitness models and pets — as "The New Famous. " It's illustrated with a Tumblr aesthetic (dancing pizzas, glimmering diamonds, waving koalas) and littered with emoji. The institutional voice is synergetic like: "We're hungryyyyyy and these slow cooker chicken tamales from Cooking Light sound amazinggggg. " (Cooking Light is a Time Inc. property.) The site is sponsored exclusively by Degree, and every few minutes, Instant. me's social stars jump eagerly into a deodorant ad. Instant's prerogative is to constantly surface social faces (the recurring segment "Who to Follow" offers dossiers on emerging talents) while inspiring Instant viewers to join their ranks ("Just the Tip," another segment, gives advice on how to build your own social fandom). A can watch Instant. me for hours without seeing a recognizable name, and that's kind of the point. "The goal with Instant is for my grandmother to be able to go onto the site and enjoy herself and get caught up," Kirstin Benson, Instant's editorial director, told Adweek in July. Time Inc. has started a kind of publication on the just as the internet has atomized celebrity into a zillion tiny fandoms. Few people are typically energized by the generic category of "social media figure. " They get their kicks by closely following a select few of their favorite stars, the stars' friends and family, and a network of (often infighting) fans. The obsessive monitoring of all these channels drums up sufficient drama to create an enduring story line, even if only a few thousand people can manage to follow along. Plus, the setup provides fans the illusion of power in determining which Whos become Thems (Blac Chyna, a rap video vixen engaged to Rob Kardashian, is on her way toward recognition) and which seem destined to fade into permanent obscurity (I'm sorry, Sarah Wright Olsen). But these modern fandoms produce grist for too. There's something deliciously surreal about monitoring the online movements of the barely famous, a class of people who are just unpolished, desperate and savvy enough to act mad, sloppy and sexy. The fact that publications like People and Us Weekly are covering it with a straight face adds another absurd layer. Besides, these people are assaulting our social feeds every day whether we like it or not. Outlets like The Shade Room and "Who? Weekly" have managed to extract bits of hilarity, delight and shame out of that arid media landscape. They have intuited what the traditional tabloids don't quite get: The pursuit of celebrity has emerged as a grand tabloid narrative in and of itself.


Britain s main opposition Labour Party said on Tuesday it could not vote for the government s legislation to sever ties with the European Union unless it was amended to prevent ministers from grabbing powers from parliament. Parliament will begin debating the EU withdrawal bill on Thursday and there will be a vote on Monday, testing Prime Minister Theresa May s deal to shore up her majority with the support of a small Northern Irish party. Labour fully respects the democratic decision to leave the European Union ... and backs a jobs-first Brexit with full tariff-free access to the European single market, Labour said in a statement. But as democrats we cannot vote for a bill that unamended would let government ministers grab powers from parliament to slash people s rights at work and reduce protection for consumers and the environment.


The Kurdish Regional Government s proposal to freeze its push for independence is an important step but does not go far enough, Turkey s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Thursday. Cavusoglu was speaking a day after Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who visited Ankara on Wednesday, insisted that last month s Kurdish independence referendum be declared void.


What could Hastert have done so wrong to have to pay someone from his past $3.5 million? He was a teacher and a wrestling coach before he go involved in politics so my question is who was extorting money from him? WE HAVE AN UPDATE ON THIS STORY:Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert paid a man to conceal sexual misconduct while the man was a student at the high school where Hastert taught, a federal law enforcement official told NBC News on Friday.The official spoke on condition of anonymity. Tribune newspapers reported earlier in the day that two unnamed federal officials said that Hastert paid a man from his past to conceal sexual misconduct.YORKVILLE, Ill. J. Dennis Hastert, the longest-serving Republican speaker in the history of the U.S. House, was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury on charges that he violated banking laws in a bid to pay $3.5 million to an unnamed person to cover up past misconduct. Hastert, 73, who has been a high-paid lobbyist in Washington since his 2007 retirement from Congress, schemed to mask more than $950,000 in withdrawals from various ac counts in violation of federal banking laws that require the disclosure of large cash transactions, according to a seven-page indictment delivered by a grand jury in Chicago.The indictment did not spell out the exact nature of the prior misconduct by Hastert, but it noted that before entering state and federal politics in 1981, Has tert served for more than a decade as a teacher and wrestling coach at Yorkville High School in Illinois.In 2010, confronted about the prior misconduct, the former speaker agreed to pay $3.5 million to the person to compensate for and conceal his prior misconduct against Individual A, prosecutors alleged.That person, whose identity was shielded by prosecutors, has known Hastert most of his or her life, growing up in Yorkville, the city next to Hastert s home town of Plano, in the exurbs west of Chicago. Prosecutors said the actions occurred years earlier than the 2010 meeting that sparked the payments.


KIEV IN PANIC: Tymoshenko declares Third Maidan, emergency govt committee prepares martial law November 14, 2016 - Fort Russ News - RusVesna - translated by J. Arnoldski - Ukrainian law enforcement and security agencies are preparing for possible protest actions in the country. A headquarters for responding to a surge of protest activities has been established at the base of the National Security and Defense Committee of Ukraine. This has been confirmed by Ukrainian journalists close to the headquarter's structures. Among the planned measures is a crackdown on protest actions and the introduction of martial law in Kiev if the situation deteriorates to armed confrontation. The headquarters is headed by the national security committee's secretary, Alexander Turchynov. According to insider sources, the special structure also includes Defense Minister Arsen Avakov, General Prosecutor Yuri Lutsenko, Chief of General Staff Viktor Muzhenko, SBU and intelligence representatives, and also people's deputy Sergey Pashinsky. The first meeting of the headquarters took place on Sunday at the presidential administration. Several resolutions were adopted. The police have been ordered not to allow vehicles transporting protesters into the capital. Kiev authorities and law enforcement have been ordered to by all means prevent equipment and tents from being set up on the Maidan. The municipality is supposed to seek a court ban on holding mass actions in the center of the capital in order to enact this. MP's from the coalition factions in parliament (the Petro Poroshenko Bloc and People's Front) have been suggested to organize private security detachments out of athletes and staff to help security forces disperse actions if necessary. Intelligence services and the SBU have been tasked with investigating evidence of a "Russian trace" in the planned protests. They have also been instructed to look into shutting down TV channels and blocking internet sites. If all of these measures do not have the desired effect and protests are held on a large scale with the blockade of administrative buildings, then security forces could receive the order to disperse protests and arrest their leaders. Detachments of the National Guard, Armed Forces, and SBU special forces have been proposed to carry out such operations. At the headquarters meeting, the National Security and Defense Committee of Ukraine was instructed to prepare draft legislation on the imposition of martial law and a curfew in Kiev, sources have reported. The most likely pretext for protests will be the so-called "shock bills", according to which as of October new prices are to be introduced for heating. Earlier, the Cabinet of Ministers raised them by 75-90%. Now, heating a two-bedroom apartment costs approximately 1,500 hryvnia, while the average salary is in the range of only 5,000 hryvnia. Earlier, authorities also raised the prices for electricity, gas, and cold water. Videos taken by locals have captured columns of military vehicles moving in the direction of Kiev. **** Novorossiya - translated by J. Arnoldski - Yulia Tymoshenko has urged Ukrainians to take to the streets on November 15th for an indefinite protest action in the center of Kiev. She stated this on Monday, November 14th, during a speech in the Verkhovna Rada. According to Tymoshenko, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and the National Bank have become a bastion of corruption and the head of state has appointed his business partners to key positions in the country. "Today only the people can restore justice and put the government in its place. Tomorrow morning, citizens, including pensioners, will go out for an indefinite protest against the devaluation of the hryvnia, the increase in utility costs, and for returning their bank deposits," she announced. Tymoshenko also added that the government is calling protesters "the hand of the Kremlin", while in fact "people are just fed up." "Officials hide behind the war, but they themselves are corrupting and robbing the country. Either the people will unite or the government will simply destroy the Ukrainian nation and Ukrainian state," she emphasized. Information that Tymoshenko was preparing a new Maidan appeared as early as late September. It was reported that public organizations with links to her had purchased from 300 to 500 tents for use in mass actions. Tymoshenko recently stated that even Western Ukraine is starting to think positively about the country's former president, Viktor Yanukovych. "If they think so in Galicia, then you can only imagine what thoughts people from other regions are having," she warned. Follow us on Facebook!


U.S. President-elect Donald Trump held meetings in New York on Monday as he worked to fill administration positions ahead of his inauguration on Jan. 20. Below are people mentioned as contenders for senior roles. See end of list for posts already filled. * Steven Mnuchin, former Goldman Sachs Group Inc executive and Trump's campaign finance chairman * Jeb Hensarling, U.S. representative from Texas and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee * Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase & Co chief executive officer * Tom Barrack, founder and chairman of Colony Capital Inc * Jonathan Gray, global head of real estate at the Blackstone Group * Mitt Romney, 2012 presidential nominee and former Massachusetts governor * Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City * Nikki Haley, governor of South Carolina * John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush * Bob Corker, U.S. senator from Tennessee and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee * Zalmay Khalilzad, former U.S. ambassador to Iraq * James Mattis, retired Marine general * David Petraeus, former CIA director and retired general * Tom Cotton, U.S. senator from Arkansas * Jon Kyl, former U.S. senator from Arizona * Duncan Hunter, U.S. representative from California and early Trump supporter, member of the House Armed Services Committee * Jim Talent, former U.S. senator from Missouri who was on the Senate Armed Services Committee * Kelly Ayotte, outgoing U.S. senator from New Hampshire and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee * Rick Perry, former Texas governor * Tom Price, U.S. representative from Georgia who is an orthopedic surgeon * Rick Scott, Florida governor * Rich Bagger, former pharmaceutical executive and former top aide to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie * Bobby Jindal, former Louisiana governor * Michael McCaul, U.S. representative from Texas and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee * David Clarke, Milwaukee county sheriff and vocal Trump supporter * Joe Arpaio, outgoing Maricopa County, Arizona, sheriff who campaigned for Trump * Kris Kobach, Kansas secretary of state * Jeff Holmstead, energy lawyer, former EPA official during George W. Bush administration * Robert Grady, venture capitalist, partner in private equity firm Gryphon Investors * Leslie Rutledge, Arkansas attorney general * Carol Comer, commissioner of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management * Harold Hamm, Oklahoma oil and gas mogul, chief executive of Continental Resources Inc * Kevin Cramer, U.S. Representative from North Dakota * Robert Grady, venture capitalist, partner in private equity firm Gryphon Investors * Larry Nichols, co-founder of Devon Energy Corp * James Connaughton, chief executive of Nautilus Data Technologies and a former environmental adviser to President George W. Bush * Rick Perry, former Texas governor * Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor, 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee * Jan Brewer, former Arizona governor * Forrest Lucas, founder of oil products company Lucas Oil * Harold Hamm, Oklahoma oil and gas mogul, chief executive of Continental Resources Inc * Robert Grady, venture capitalist, partner in private equity firm Gryphon Investors * Mary Fallin, Oklahoma governor * Ray Washburne, chief executive of investment company Charter Holdings * Wilbur Ross, billionaire investor, chairman of Invesco Ltd subsidiary WL Ross & Co * Linda McMahon, former World Wrestling Entertainment executive and two-time Senate candidate * Admiral Mike Rogers, director of the National Security Agency * Ronald Burgess, retired lieutenant general and former Defense Intelligence Agency chief * Robert Cardillo, director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency * Pete Hoekstra, former U.S. representative from Michigan * Kelly Ayotte, outgoing U.S. senator from New Hampshire and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee * Richard Grenell, former spokesman for the United States at the United Nations * Peter King, U.S. representative from New York * Tulsi Gabbard, a war veteran and Democratic U.S. representative from Hawaii * Dan DiMicco, former chief executive of steel producer Nucor Corp * Andrew Puzder, chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants * Victoria Lipnic, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission commissioner and former Labor Department official during the George W. Bush administration The Trump transition team confirmed he would choose from a list of 21 names he drew up during his campaign, including U.S. Senator Mike Lee of Utah, and William Pryor, a federal judge with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. * Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus * Steve Bannon, former head of the conservative website Breitbart News * Jeff Sessions, Republican U.S. senator from Alabama and senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee (subject to Senate confirmation) * Republican U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo from Kansas (subject to Senate confirmation) * Michael Flynn, retired Army lieutenant general and former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency


A Maricopa Country judge has finally stood up to the vile, crooked, racist Sheriff Joe Arpaio and charged him along with three of his top cronies with being in contempt. His crime? He hasn t stopped his illegal and unconstitutional racial profiling of Hispanics.Thanks to that darn liberal activist group the ACLU, Arpaio will be in hot water if he continues to practice his clearly racist policies.Judge G. Murray Snow, after a lengthy yearlong investigation after the ruling in Ortega Melendres v. Arpaio, concluded that Arpaio was in contempt on one charge while Chief Deputy Jerry Sheridan was found in contempt on two counts, and retired Chief Brian Sands and Lt. Joe Sousa each were found in contempt of one.In the 162-page ruling, Judge Snow wrote:In short, the Court finds that the Defendants have engaged in multiple acts of misconduct, dishonesty, and bad faith with respect to the Plaintiff class and the protection of its rights.The three contempt charges stem from three requests from Judge Snow that Arpaio and his band of thugs refused to comply with:According to ArizonaCentral:Snow found that deputies had detained and turned over to federal authorities at least 157 individuals who had not committed state crimes, in violation of his order.Snow said both Arpaio and Sheridan made numerous misstatements under oath.Not only did Sheriff Joe and his deputies knowingly fail to comply with a court ruling, they openly flaunted it and thought that they were above the law.Now the Department of Justice is getting involved. After slapping down Sheriff Joe last year over his racial profiling, the DOJ will work closely with Snow to implement proper sanctions. Should Snow feel so inclined, he may refer the case to criminal contempt. Perhaps jail time might await the Sheriff? One can only hope.But while we wait for this monstrosity to be put in prison, the people of Arizona are faced with another option: voting him out of office. This is an election year, and Sheriff Joe is running. Every election his support shrinks. In 2000, Arpaio won with 66 percent of the vote. In 2012, he garnered only 51 percent.With Trump on the rise as the GOP s newest face, Hispanic voter registration has spiked all across the southwest, including Arizona something that should scare Arpaio and his cronies to their core. This is what happens when you rule with fear instead of the common good.Now it s 2016, and this man s reign of terror and shame must come to an end. Let the courts deal with him in court, and let s have the voters throw the bum out of office once and for all.


We took a very hard look at these numbers, and we did find that Minnesota has a very high rate of gun ownership one of the highest in the country but it has a relatively low rate of violent crime, revealed Minneapolis station WCCO reporter Pat Kessler in a segment Thursday.He added that in 2017, Minnesota set a new record for firearms background checks, processing 473,975 checks on permits, 94,383 checks on handguns and 125,516 checks on long guns.Watch:In other words, more people attempted to purchase weapons in the state last year than ever before. Minnesota set another 2017 record, too, his report continued. The State Department of Public Safety reports 283,188 Minnesotans now have permits to legally carry firearms in public. Conservative Tribune


Republican leaders in the House of Representatives on Wednesday dismissed U.S. President Barack Obama's proposed $10.25 per barrel tax on oil, saying the increase would translate into higher gasoline prices for consumers. "The president's tax proposal is dead on arrival at the House. It will not happen," House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican, told reporters. House Speaker Paul Ryan also rejected the idea. The tax, to be phased in over five years, was part of Obama's proposed budget for fiscal year 2017 released on Tuesday.


Three of the five candidates running for U.S. president - Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders - have said they supported initiatives that would subject the Federal Reserve's policymaking to greater scrutiny or change its policy framework.[L3N16W46S] Here are details of the candidates' views and the two proposed bills: * DONALD TRUMP, the Republican front-runner, tweeted in February, "It is so important to audit The Federal Reserve" - a reference to an "Audit the Fed" Senate bill that the central bank fiercely opposes. He has said the Fed played a role in stoking asset bubbles and predicted a "very massive recession." A spokeswoman declined to elaborate on Trump's views on Fed independence. Last year, before the Fed raised rates in December, Trump accused the central bank of keeping rates low at the bidding of President Barack Obama, something the White House has denied. "Janet Yellen is highly political and she's not raising rates for a very specific reason: because Obama told her not," Trump told a news conference in November. "He doesn't want to see a big bubble burst during his administration." * TED CRUZ, the No. 2 Republican candidate, supports Fed audits and a commission to consider a monetary rule tied to gold rather than discretion, according to spokeswoman Catherine Frazier. The United States dropped the gold standard in 1933. In a Republican debate in October, Cruz said: "I think the Fed should get out of the business of trying to juice our economy and simply be focused on sound monetary policy and monetary stability, ideally tied to gold." * BERNIE SANDERS, the No. 2 Democratic candidate who as senator backed Audit the Fed, said in an emailed statement that such an annual policy review would help make the Fed "a more democratic institution that is responsive to the needs of ordinary Americans rather than the billionaires on Wall Street." He also opposes Fed payments to banks on excess reserves. In a New York Times column published in December, Sanders wrote: "To rein in Wall Street, we should begin by reforming the Federal Reserve... The sad reality is that the Federal Reserve doesn't regulate Wall Street; Wall Street regulates the Fed." Sanders also criticized the way Fed officials are selected: "Banking industry executives must no longer be allowed to serve on the Fed's boards and to handpick its members and staff," he wrote. "Board positions should instead include representatives from all walks of life — including labor, consumers, homeowners, urban residents, farmers and small businesses." Today, bankers and heads of business, industry, unions, and community groups and organizations serve as district Fed directors. Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, and the third-place Republican Kasich have not commented publicly on Fed policy independence. * The Federal Reserve Transparency Act, known as "Audit the Fed", was introduced by Republican Senator Rand Paul early last year. It would instruct the Government Accountability Office, a non-partisan congressional watchdog agency, to review and evaluate the Fed's monetary policy decisions, repealing a decades-old firewall between the GAO, which now reviews other Fed activities including bank regulation, and policy decisions on interest rates. The bill has struggled to gain Senate support and was referred to a committee. * The Fed Oversight Reform and Modernization Act (FORM), sponsored by Republican Representative Bill Huizenga, passed the House in November. Among other changes to Fed structure and bank supervision, the bill would tie policy decisions to a single "directive" rule. An audit could be launched or congressional testimony called if the GAO determined the Fed strayed from the rule. The bill was sent to the Senate and also referred to its banking committee. * GAO Managing Director Orice Williams told Reuters that, were either of the bills to become law, the agency would take a non-partisan approach and hire experts as needed to do the job.


Bernie Sanders got his sweetest endorsement yet on Monday when one of the founders of Ben & Jerry's unveiled an ice cream flavor for the Democratic presidential hopeful, inviting Sanders' backers to enjoy a spoonful of "Political Revolution." The flavor named "Bernie's Yearning" is mint ice cream topped with a solid chocolate disk, to reflect Sanders' campaign theme of economic inequality, according to Ben Cohen, co-founder of Vermont-based Ben & Jerry's. "The chocolate disc represents the huge majority of economic gains that have gone to the top 1 percent since the end of the recession. Beneath it, the rest of us," according to the label, which suggests eaters smash up the chocolate and mix it with the ice cream. "Nothing is so unstoppable as a flavor whose time has finally come. #FeelTheBern #BerniesYearning," Cohen said on both Twitter (@YoBenCohen) and his Facebook page. Cohen launched the flavor on his own using "Ben's Best" branding and said it is not an endorsement by Ben & Jerry's, now a unit of Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch consumer products maker. Sanders represents Vermont in the U.S. Senate. Cohen has made just 40 pints of the new ice cream and is giving 25 of them to the Sanders campaign, he said on social media. The rest will be awarded in a drawing among those who register at www.berniesyearning.com by Feb. 3. Sanders is polling strongly in Iowa and New Hampshire against rival Hillary Clinton in the bid for the 2016 Democratic nomination. The first voting will take place in one week at the Iowa caucuses. By late Monday afternoon, #BerniesYearning was a top-trending hashtag on Twitter. Earl Fando (@earlfando) tweeted: "Ben & Jerry's have released an ice cream flavor named Bernie's Yearning. Needless to say, people are reading the ingredients very carefully." Christine Odunlami (@christineodun) tweeted: "Not only can you #FeelTheBern, you can now #TasteTheBern." Others took advantage of the opportunity to take a jab at the Sanders campaign. Wired-Up Patriot (@ADHDPatriot) posted: "#BerniesYearning ice cream: 1. Must wait in long lines to get 2. Very limited amount 3. Extremely expensive or for short, like #BernieCare." (Reporting by Gina Cherelus; Editing by Dan Burns and Andrew Hay) SAP is the sponsor of this coverage which is independently produced by the staff of Reuters News Agency.


William Pryor, in urging the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003 to uphold a Texas law banning gay sex, argued against the notion that the U.S. Constitution should safeguard a person's choice of partners. Pryor, who then was Alabama's attorney general and now serves on a federal appeals court, was one of 11 conservative jurists who presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has named as people he would consider nominating to the Supreme Court, if elected. "A constitutional right that protects 'the choice of one's partner' and 'whether and how to connect sexually' must logically extend to activities like prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia," Pryor said in a legal filing to the Supreme Court. Pryor has a record of provocative remarks, as do some others on Trump's list. But many have established solid conservative judicial records that likely would appeal to Republicans in the Senate, which has the power to confirm Supreme Court nominees, and have steered clear of inflammatory rhetoric. Trump's list, unveiled on Wednesday, included judges who have indicated support for various conservative causes, range in age from 41 to 58 and hail primarily from conservative and Republican-governed states. The eight men and three women all are white. The list's release seems to have reassured some conservatives who may have doubted Trump would name a genuine conservative to the high court, which has a vacancy following the February death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia. "I've heard nothing but positive about this. People in the Senate say this is going to relieve a lot of people," said Republican Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a key Trump supporter in the Senate. The Republican-led Senate has refused to consider Democratic President Barack Obama's nominee, Merrick Garland, arguing the winner of the Nov. 8 election to determine Obama's successor should get to fill the post. Scalia's replacement could tip the ideological balance of the court, now evenly divided with four conservative justices and four liberals. Don Willett of Texas is one of five state supreme court judges on the list. His job is an elected one. "Don Willett helped defend the right of Texas to display the (Bible's) Ten Commandments and fought the liberals who tried to remove the words 'under God' from our pledge" of allegiance, his campaign said in a 2012 advertisement. Before becoming a judge, Willett was part of Texas' legal team that won a Supreme Court battle to display the Ten Commandments on a monument in the state Capitol despite opponents' concerns that it amounted to government endorsement of a religion. During Pryor's stint as Alabama attorney general from 1997 to 2004, he described the 1973 Supreme Court ruling legalizing abortion nationwide as "the worst abomination in the history of constitutional law." Some of the judges on Trump's list have ruled against abortion and birth control rights. Federal appeals court judges Diane Sykes, Steven Colloton and Pryor all ruled in favor of Christian objections to the mandate under Obama's healthcare law that health insurance covers birth control for women. Federal appeals court judge Raymond Gruender wrote a 2012 ruling upholding a South Dakota law that requires doctors to inform patients that women who have abortions are more likely to commit suicide. Colloton, who sits on the same court, joined the opinion. As on abortion and contraception, the U.S. Supreme Court is closely divided on the scope of the individual right to bear arms under the Constitution's Second Amendment. In a 2013 case, Thomas Hardiman, another federal appeals court judge, dissented when the majority on his court upheld a New Jersey law regulating the possession of handguns in public. Hardiman endorsed a broad reading of Second Amendment gun rights that would protect carrying weapons outside the home for self-defense. The list also includes David Stras, a member of Minnesota's Supreme Court. In 2014, that court waded into the contentious subject of when a person who is incapacitated may be taken off life support and allowed to die. The court ruled, in the case of a 57-year-old man with irreversible brain damage, that a guardian who was given medical-consent power could authorize the removal of life-sustaining treatment when "interested parties" agreed it would be in the incapacitated person's best interest. Stras dissented, writing that because the man had already died when the case was heard, the matter was moot and the court should have stayed out of it.


Pakistani authorities ordered private television channels to go off air on Saturday during a police and paramilitary crackdown on Islamist protesters in the capital. The suspension was ordered by the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority for violating media regulations showing live coverage of a security operation, a statement from the regulator said. State-run Pakistan Television continued to broadcast, but aired a talk show discussing politics. Pakistani police used tear gas and watercannon and fought running battles with stone-throwing Islamist activists, as they moved to clear a protest by the religious hard-liners who have blocked main routes into Islamabad for more than two weeks.


Good morning. Welcome to California Today. Is there such a thing as a child prostitute? Campaigners have for years tried to erase the phrase from the law, arguing that if a juvenile cannot legally consent to sex with an adult, neither can she willingly sell her body. She is a victim of rape, they say, not a prostitute. Last week, the movement won perhaps its biggest victory as Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation that bans law enforcement from arresting minors involved in the sex trade, except when their safety may be at risk. Instead, they will be treated as victims, and directed toward social services. "This is a really big deal," said Kim Biddle, the executive director of Saving Innocence, a group that counsels sexually exploited youth. The governor also signed a law that allows adult victims to have charges against them dropped if they can show they were coerced into selling sex. Together, the measures represent a shift in prosecutions away from children and young women and toward the pimps and criminal enterprises running the industry. Fifteen other states have passed similar laws that shield sexually exploited boys and girls from being charged with prostitution, according to Rights4Girls, a human rights organization that has fought for the changes. The police and outreach groups say sex trafficking in California has grown rapidly in recent years — concentrated mostly in San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco — as websites like Backpage and Craigslist have made transactions simpler than ever. Detective Lina Teague, a coordinator of the Los Angeles Police Department's Human Trafficking Unit, said that many people, falsely, tend to view the sale of sex as a voluntary exchange. "But the reality of street prostitution today is that minors and young women are being sexually exploited out of some type of duress, fear or some type of coercion," she said. Ms. Biddle, of Saving Innocence, cited a case in North Hollywood that involved a girl, 13, who was caught with a man. She was handcuffed and charged with prostitution he got a citation, Ms. Biddle said. "Now, we're able to view these children correctly under the law," she added, "as victims. " See reporting in The New York Times on the Nov. 8 ballot initiatives: Proposition 51 (a new school bond) | Proposition 56 (cigarette tax) | Propositions 62 and 66 (death penalty questions) | Propositions 65 and 67 (on banning plastic bags). And dig into analyses of all 17 statewide measures by the Legislative Analyst's Office, CALmatters and Ballotpedia. • Residents of a logging town are battling a timber company for the rights to water that has been piped to houses for more than a century, writes Thomas Fuller, our San Francisco bureau chief. [The New York Times] • Even as water restrictions have eased for the rest of California, Catalina Island is being hammered by drought. [Orange County Register] • Tensions flared in a South Los Angeles neighborhood after the police fatally shot an armed teenager on Saturday. [Los Angeles Times] • Fox Searchlight wants its film "The Birth of a Nation" to inspire but not incite. [The New York Times] • Anxious about the earthquake alert? What you can do to be prepared. [Los Angeles Times] • California regulators have opened a pathway for the public to get cars that have no steering wheels or pedals. [The Associated Press] • Tech conferences in San Francisco are apparently a good way for checking out what's new in corporate paranoia. [The New York Times] • As San Diego's zoo turns 100, it faces a swirling public debate about the treatment of animals in captivity. [San Diego Tribune] • The Farallon Islands are only 26 miles off San Francisco but feel remote. A boat trip offers views of seals and whales. [The New York Times] • The Federal Trade Commission's chairwoman has brought hints of her West Coast background to an office in Washington with views of the Capitol. [The New York Times] • On Tuesday in San Francisco, Google is expected to unveil its answer to the Echo, Amazon's artificially intelligent assistant, alongside new smartphones and tablets. • During San Francisco Fleet Week, now through Oct. 10, visitors can tour Navy ships. The Blue Angels put on shows Saturday and Sunday. • Carpinteria hosts the California Avocado Festival starting Friday. The free event will host more than 75 bands and the "world largest vat of Guacamole. " • Desert Trip, a music festival in the Coachella Valley featuring the likes of Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and Neil Young, starts on Friday. Vin Scully, the Dodgers broadcasting great, called his final game before a sellout crowd in San Francisco on Sunday. The Giants clinched a berth with a victory. (Next up: a showdown against the Mets.) After 67 seasons behind the microphone, Mr. Scully signed off by telling the fans, "I have said enough for a lifetime, and for the last time, I wish you all a very pleasant good afternoon. " What's next for Mr. Scully? More time with his wife, Sandi, who has been by the broadcaster's side for much of his career. Richard Sandomir, a sports columnist for The Times, writes about the couple's marriage. As Scully heads into retirement, admirers in recent days and weeks have offered tributes to his legacy. Check out a short selection. Bill Plaschke, Los Angeles Times sportswriter: George Will, Washington Post columnist: Bob Costas of NBC Sports: Kevin Costner, actor: California Today goes live at 6 a. m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: CAtoday@nytimes. com. The California Today columnist, Mike McPhate, is a Californian — born outside Sacramento and raised in San Juan Capistrano. He lives in Davis. Follow him on Twitter. California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and attended U. C. Berkeley.


The remaining 11 countries in the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal will discuss a proposal for an agreement in principle to proceed after the withdrawal of the United States, Japanese Economy Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said on Thursday. Ministers from the 11 countries are meeting in the resort of Danang in Vietnam on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. We have collectively reached the stage where we can discuss a proposal for a final package for an agreement in principle of the TPP, Motegi told ministers from the other countries. I would like to emphasize once again the importance of reaching an agreement in principle right here.