Donald J. Trump will allow corporations and wealthy individuals to make large donations to fund the activities surrounding his inauguration, complicating his promise to eliminate special interests from influencing his government. Mr. Trump plans to ban money from registered lobbyists, whom he has purged from his transition team and barred from working for his administration. But the restrictions will be lighter on corporations and individuals — the groups that have traditionally provided a vast majority of funding for the festivities surrounding the transfer of power. The restrictions, which members of the Presidential Inaugural Committee cautioned have yet to be finalized, represent a continued march back from standards set in 2009, when Barack Obama banned gifts from lobbyists, political action committees and corporations, and put a cap of $50, 000 on individuals. Mr. Obama relaxed his own rules in 2012, after what was then the most expensive presidential campaign in history had depleted his donor base, lifting the ban on corporate gifts and restrictions on the size of those from individuals. Mr. Trump, who like Mr. Obama campaigned on reducing the influence of money in politics, appears poised to relax them further. Officials planning the inauguration said Mr. Trump would solicit corporate donations up to $1 million and allow money to be transferred from political action committees on a basis. The inaugural committee has not reached a decision on where to cap gifts from individuals, if at all. All told, Mr. Trump hopes to raise roughly $65 million to $75 million to fund the parade, balls and other festivities surrounding his as president, according to several people involved in the planning efforts. Such a total, if it materializes, would easily surpass the $43 million Mr. Obama's team raised for his 2013 inauguration and the $53 million, a record, that it raised for his first inauguration in 2009. Thomas Barrack Jr. a private equity investor who is heading the committee responsible for planning the events surrounding Mr. Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20, said the decision to limit donations from certain groups was "in line with the 's thoughts on ethics reform. " But campaign finance experts said the restrictions left much to be desired, targeting groups that traditionally provide little funding for the occasion while seemingly letting bigger donors — including corporate interests that Mr. Trump took aim at on the campaign trail — off the hook. "For the most part, they are illusory, because they are restricting money that doesn't really play any significant role in funding the inauguration," said Fred Wertheimer, a longtime advocate of campaign finance overhaul, referring to the restrictions on lobbyists and foreign interests. The corporate and individual money that does traditionally play a significant role, he added, would be allowed to flow more or less unabated, leaving the potential of undue influence in place. "You can't have a more ideal opportunity to buy influence and ingratiate yourself with a new administration than by giving a huge contribution to pay for their inauguration," Mr. Wertheimer said. Bob Biersack, a senior fellow at the Center for Responsive Politics, was more forgiving toward Mr. Trump, but he said it would take a fundamental change in the way inaugurations were funded to meaningfully root out special interests. "I don't find it fundamentally inconsistent with what he is saying," he said. "I just think the rhetoric and the reality are different. " Presidential transition committees, which coordinate and finance most of the festivities that surround the federally funded ceremony, face few of the restrictions campaigns do, and their practices vary from president to president. President George W. Bush did not restrict who could support his inaugural festivities, but he put caps on gifts. The committee is still in the early stages of assembling what will be an operation employing hundreds of people responsible for planning dozens of events. As of Wednesday morning, the packages that are typically used to solicit donations were still being vetted by lawyers, and subcommittees were still taking shape to handle issues like security and entertainment. "It's like putting on the Olympics in 61 days," Mr. Barrack said, adding that the committee was racing to finalize plans by the end of the week. Two people working with the committee said it planned to roll out tiered giving packages next week, most likely ranging from $25, 000 to $1 million, that will reward donors with progressively more access to more intimate events with Mr. Trump and his team. The committee is planning to hold two official balls, according to two people involved in the planning. By comparison, Mr. Obama attended 10 official balls in 2009. Mr. Trump is not expected to donate to the festivities himself, as he did to the campaign, according to members of the committee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss plans that had not been finalized. Sara Armstrong, a longtime Republican National Committee official who helped plan the Republican National Convention in Cleveland this summer, has been appointed chief executive and is leading the team that Mr. Barrack said would eventually total 350 people out of an office building just off the National Mall. As of Wednesday, the committee had hired about 100 people, he said. The committee includes generous donors to Mr. Trump's campaign, like Woody Johnson, the owner of the New York Jets Gail Icahn, the wife of the investor Carl Icahn and the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam. Several stalwart backers of Republican causes, like Stephen A. Wynn and Lewis M. Eisenberg, are on the committee, as is Brian Ballard, Mr. Trump's longtime Florida lobbyist. The overall cost of the inauguration and related festivities is likely to run to as much as $200 million. Most of that burden will fall on taxpayers, though, who fund everything from security to the ceremony and inaugural luncheon organized by a joint committee of Congress. Mr. Trump's team said it was expecting two million to three million people to flood Washington for the ceremony, a crowd that could surpass the 1. 8 million estimated to have been on hand for Mr. Obama's first inauguration, which was a record. Planners are also expecting more protesters than usual around the event. Mr. Barrack said Mr. Trump had instructed him to plan events tailored to the political moment. "It's one of the greatest opportunities that this president has to put his fingerprints on bridging the divide," Mr. Barrack said on Wednesday. Mike Litterst, a spokesman for the National Park Service, which controls the Mall and other public spaces where the inauguration will take place, said on Monday that the Park Service did not expect to meet with officials from the group until after Thanksgiving. But across Washington, the physical preparations for Jan. 20 are well underway, even as the city's political establishment is struggling to come to terms with the election outcome. Capitol architects have been hammering away since September on the more than inaugural platform overlooking the Mall. And outside the White House, Park Service staff members are at work on the presidential reviewing stand where Mr. Trump will review his inaugural parade.


Wednesday's broadcast of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" declined to discuss comedian Kathy Griffin taking and apologizing for a photo depicting her holding up President Trump's severed head on the grounds that it is "too gross. It's just not worth doing. " The show then teased discussion of President Trump's "covfefe" tweet. During a discussion on Americans going out to lunch less often, the Griffin news came up. Brzezinski remarked, "We're not talking about it. " She added, "I'm sorry, it's too gross. It's just not worth doing. " Brzezinski then teased the show's next hour by previewing discussion of Trump's "covfefe" tweet. ( Mediaite) Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett


If cities want to try and help their workers get paid sick leave, the Arizona state government will punish them with harmful budget cuts.Most sane people agree that it makes sense for workers to have paid sick leave. After all, who wants to eat food prepared by a worker who has the flu but came to work anyway because they can t afford to take an unpaid day off?The minimum wage in Arizona is $8.05 an hour, one of the lowest in the nation. And of course, Arizona is controlled by Republicans who couldn t give a flying f*ck if their citizens are so underpaid that they have to go to work sick or risk not being able to pay the rent that month.Cities once attempted to raise the minimum wage for workers, but Arizona Republicans shut them down with a law forbidding them to do so. But the people got pissed and overturned the law via referendum, which angered Republicans so much that they tried to pass another law limiting minimum wage. You know, because serfs shouldn t be able to rise up against feudal lords. But once again, the people of Arizona got the law struck down in court which has caused Republicans to hold a grudge against the peasants ever since.So when Tempe, Arizona made an effort to pass a mandatory paid sick leave law, Arizona Republicans in the state legislature reacted immediately to make sure big corporations don t have to pay a cent to help the workers who work so hard to make the company rich.Bloomberg reports:Arizona s House passed a bill on March 1 specifying that cities aren t allowed to require private employers to provide paid sick leave or vacation. The state Senate has passed companion legislation that would cut state funds, used to pay for services like police and firefighting, for cities that try to supersede state laws.Arizona Republicans are literally threatening cities across the state with critical budget cuts that fund critical services if they dare lift a finger to help workers. Governor Doug Ducey also supports the legislation so it could very well become law.And if you aren t quite pissed off enough yet, just wait till you read what Arizona GOP Senator Andy Biggs had to say about his party s effort to make workers feel like slaves.According to Biggs, cities think that they re an independent and sovereign entity from the state, which is not true they re a creature of the state. You can t put a municipality in jail, nor would we. What we re really seeking to do is provide a deterrent effect. Yeah, the kind of deterrent that says Republicans are flaming hypocrites when it comes to saying they support small government. Instead of cheering on local governments for making decisions themselves, Arizona Republicans have declared that the state is a mini-tyranny where only the state gets to make the rules and good luck getting any money for your city or town to protect yourself against bands of thieves, killers, and fires if you rebel against King John in an effort to help the working poor.Seriously, where s Robin Hood when you need him?


Citing an "erosion of human rights guarantees" and corruption in Venezuela, President Obama issued an executive order Monday imposing sanctions on members of the country's military and intelligence services. The White House says the executive order builds on the Venezuela Defense of Human Rights and Civil Society Act of 2014, part of a response to a violent crackdown on government protests. Obama also invoked his emergency powers to declare "a national emergency with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by the situation in Venezuela." U.S. relations with Venezuela are currently in tatters, even as it attempts to forge new ties to Cuba. As NPR's Parallels blog reported Sunday, "President Nicolas Maduro accuses the U.S. of plotting a coup against him, and is expelling most U.S. diplomats from Venezuela. He is also demanding that Americans secure visas to enter the country." President Obama's executive order freezes the assets of seven individuals, ranging from Gustavo Enrique González López, the director general of Venezuela's national intelligence service, to the head of Venezuela's Bolivarian National Police, Manuel Eduardo Pérez Urdaneta. Like several others on the list, the two men are charged with being involved with "significant acts of violence or conduct that constitutes a serious abuse or violation of human rights." The White House's list also includes prosecutor Katherine Nayarith Haringhton Padron, who is accused of charging members of Venezula's opposition with crimes such as "assassination/coup plots based on implausible — and in some cases fabricated — information."


European banks have rushed to cut deals with prosecutors over longstanding claims that they pushed toxic mortgage securities in the years before the financial crisis. The payouts are steep: Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse said that they would disgorge nearly $13 billion combined to settle with the United States Justice Department. But with the clock ticking before Donald J. Trump takes over, there appears to be an eagerness in Washington to conclude cases before a new, potentially more sympathetic, administration begins. As a result, these banks may have benefited from paying billions less than once proposed. The $7. 2 billion settlement with Deutsche Bank was a relief on Friday to its investors, who were rattled when it emerged in September that prosecutors were seeking a penalty of as much as $14 billion. Shares of Deutsche Bank rose as much as 5 percent in Frankfurt, before settling up 0. 8 percent. A smaller player in the securities market, the British bank Barclays, appears to be willing to take its chances under the administration of Mr. Trump. Barclays said on Thursday that it would "vigorously defend" itself in court against a complaint brought by the Justice Department after settlement talks collapsed. Its shares fell 0. 9 percent in London trading as investors weighed the legal risk. The government says that Barclays, which like Deutsche Bank has significant operations in New York, sold more than $31 billion in mortgage securities that turned out to be "catastrophic failures. " A decade ago, bundling and structuring mortgages on American homes into securities to be sold to investors around the world was a hugely profitable business for Wall Street banks, American and European. But as risky mortgages began tumbling into default, the securities turned toxic, and the resulting panic led to a global financial crisis in 2008. Holding the banks accountable for that meltdown continues to be debated in political campaigns, books, articles and movies like "The Big Short. " The crackdown on banks for those tainted securities was the Obama Justice Department's biggest and most prominent legal effort by far. Banks, most of them American, have paid more $100 billion in settlements with the government. Yet the Obama administration has been criticized for allowing banks to write big checks to settle claims and for not prosecuting Wall Street executives. Now, as the end of the administration nears, recent legal setbacks may have emboldened Barclays. (The Swiss bank UBS and the Royal Bank of Scotland remain in settlement talks with the Justice Department.) In May, a federal appeals court overturned a $1. 27 billion penalty against Bank of America over the sale of troubled mortgages to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The appeals panel found that prosecutors did not provide sufficient evidence that either the bank's Countrywide unit or a former Countrywide executive had committed fraud in a loan program known as "the hustle. " For its fight with the Justice Department, Barclays is bringing in a team of lawyers from Williams Connolly who represented Bank of America in that case. Barclays will also rely on its usual counsel at Sullivan Cromwell. Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse have been eager to move past their troubled legal legacies and overhaul their respective banks. Credit Suisse said on Friday that it would pay $5. 3 billion over its role in mortgage securities. For Deutsche Bank, a settlement lifts a cloud that had been hanging over the bank, and making it all the more difficult for its leader to break with its past. In recent years, its legal woes have surpassed mortgage securities to include manipulating benchmark interest rates and allegations of Russian money laundering. Since taking over in John Cryan, Deutsche Bank's chief executive, has been trying to undo this legacy. But the settlement does not dispel doubts about whether Mr. Cryan can retain membership among the world's top investment banks. Especially in the United States, Deutsche Bank's ability to compete with Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase is likely to be hampered by the costly settlement. And no institution can call itself a global investment bank without a strong presence on Wall Street. "It's the most important market for investment banking," said Ingo Speich, a fund manager at Union Investment in Frankfurt. "If they want to offer investment banking services globally, they can't get around the U. S. " One American tie of Deutsche Bank has drawn attention lately. In a financial disclosure form filed in 2015, Mr. Trump said that the wealth management division of the bank was among the firms that managed his stock investments. His transition team has since said it had sold the 's stock holdings. In that same filing, Mr. Trump said that his businesses have loans or mortgages from Deutsche worth as much as $125 million. Some critics have suggested that Mr. Trump's business and personal dealings with Deutsche Bank could pose a conflict of interest. As for Mr. Cryan, he is trying to pull off several transformations. He has been hacking away at a catalog of charges of wrongdoing and litigation that, in the bank's most recent quarterly report, required more than eight pages to explain. Other charges include violating international embargoes against countries like Iran and manipulating currency markets. In addition, Mr. Cryan has been trying to infuse the bank with a stronger sense of ethics to avoid future scandals. He also has been shrinking the bank's assets — the sum of its outstanding loans, derivatives and other holdings — to reduce its need for capital and meet stricter regulatory requirements. And he has been trying to cut costs and improve efficiency, including laying off thousands of workers and bringing order to the bank's Balkanized information technology systems. As Deutsche Bank made acquisitions over the years to expand its services, it acquired a variety of computer systems that were never properly integrated. American regulators have criticized Deutsche for not being able to provide information because of antiquated technology. Most important, Mr. Cryan has been trying to convince investors and demoralized employees that Deutsche Bank can find new sources of profit and growth despite its setbacks. Only then can it avoid the fate of European rivals that have slashed their investment banks, like Credit Suisse. Deutsche Bank's supporters say it still has many strengths. It ranks among the top currency traders. With its operations in Frankfurt and London, the bank could benefit as clients shift financial operations to the Continent because of Britain's vote to leave the European Union. The bank may also be well positioned to take advantage of growth in Europe's corporate bond markets. Companies in Europe tend to rely on traditional bank loans, but increasingly are turning to debt markets, as is already the case in the United States. Deutsche Bank is a leading issuer of corporate debt. And some clients are wary of the dominance of the big American investment banks and are eager to do business with a European bank instead. But efforts to capitalize on those opportunities are likely to be hampered for years by past errors. "The question is how many risks are still in the pipeline," Mr. Speich of Union Investment said. "It's too early to say the worst is over. "


When it comes to Europe's lengthy investigations into Google, Margrethe Vestager, the region's competition chief, is hoping that the third time's a charm. Ms. Vestager announced on Thursday a new round of antitrust charges against the company — the third set since early 2015 — claiming that some of the company's advertising products had restricted consumer choice. The efforts are part of her continuing push to rein in Google's activities in the European Union, where the Silicon Valley company has captured roughly 90 percent of the region's online search market. "Google's conduct, based on our evidence, is harmful to consumers," Ms. Vestager told reporters in Brussels on Thursday. "Google's magnificent innovations don't give it the right to deny competitors the chance to innovate. " The announcement represents a setback for Google, which vigorously denied any wrongdoing in two previous European antitrust charges linked to Android, its popular mobile operating system, and some of its dominant online search services. It also comes at a difficult time for Europe's competition authorities, which have been unable to land a knockout punch against Google's perceived abusive activities in the region, despite investigations that date back to 2010. The stakes are high. Google could face fines of up to 10 percent, or about $7 billion, of its global annual revenue if it is found to have broken Europe's tough competition rules. For months, both sides have been jockeying for position, with Google already filing lengthy legal arguments about why it believes its European activities are lawful. Ms. Vestager's antitrust charges are just one of a number of regulatory challenges to Google's activities in Europe, ranging from tax investigations in France and Spain to concerns that Google does not fully protect people's online privacy rights. The company denies any wrongdoing. Other Silicon Valley technology companies, including Amazon, Apple and Facebook, have also faced regulatory investigations in Europe, raising questions over whether the region's lawmakers are specifically focusing on these American giants, which have come to dominate much of the digital world. European officials deny any such bias. Google said in a statement on Thursday that it would provide a detailed response to Europe's latest charges, but it added, "We believe our innovations and product improvements have increased choice for E. U. consumers and promote competition. " The company has until the fall to respond. American competition officials have also reviewed claims that Google abused its market position to favor its services over those of rivals, though the Federal Trade Commission has yet to find any violations. Europe's new antitrust charges represent a further ratcheting up of the region's often frosty relationship with Google. In particular, European antitrust officials are taking aim at some of the company's online advertising tools — the main engine for Google's $75 billion in annual revenue. They say that the company may have abused its dominant market position when offering some of its search products on companies' websites. These businesses — including publishers and online retailers — can use Google's search engine on their sites so that people can find information like newspaper articles or promotions. Such agreements with companies, which date to 2006, also include showing advertising next to search results, often provided by Google. Ms. Vestager said on Thursday that the technology company may have abused its dominance — it holds roughly an 80 percent market share in this type of niche search — by forcing companies to sign onerous contracts that limited competition and reduced consumer choice. Since 2009, Google has made it easier for advertising rivals to show their offerings alongside its services. But Europe's competition chief said that Google still required companies to show a minimum number of ads on their site. The Silicon Valley company also requires businesses using the service to ask for approval on where some rivals' ads may be shown on their websites. "All these restrictions allowed Google to protect its market share and stifle competition," Ms. Vestager said. Europe's antitrust authorities have also doubled down on a previous competition charge, announced last year, which claimed that Google had diverted traffic from competitors in favor of its own site. On Thursday, Ms. Vestager said her team had found new evidence to buttress their claims, adding that because of Google's actions, European consumers may not have access to the most relevant search results when looking online for goods and services. Yet when asked about the failure of European antitrust authorities to order fines or changes to the way Google does business, despite several years of investigations, Ms. Vestager said she aimed to ensure the charges against the company stood up in European courts. "Speed is of the essence," but "the other side of that coin is quality," Ms. Vestager said on Thursday. "Sometimes that kind of quality comes at the cost of speed. "


Sarah Sanders hit back at criticism that General Kelly was fabricating his account of Rep. Frederica Wilson grandstanding during an event to dedicate a new FBI office in Texas. The press was all over Sanders who clarified that Rep. Wilson made comments during the event about how she got the funding for the FBI office by picking up the phone and calling Barack. She was grandstanding and making the event about her, according to Kelly. The fake news is saying Sanders said the press couldn t speak to Kelly but when you listen to what she said it s clear she said to go ahead if they want to challenge Kelly. She NEVER said the press couldn t talk to him.In case you missed the wonderful message from Chief of Staff Kelly:White House Chief of Staff John Kelly says he was stunned to learn that Congresswoman Frederica Wilson listened in on the president s call to a fallen soldier s wife. He came into the White House press briefing and let the press have it too. He goes through the steps of what happens when someone in the military is killed. He says that the members of our military are the best 1% of our population. He said he was brokenhearted when he found out what a member of congress did. This is a heartfelt moment that is amazing:KELLY DOES A GREAT JOB OF CUTTING THROUGH THE BS FROM THE PRESS:The retired general who lost his own son in Afghanistan said the call to Sgt. La David T. Johnson s wife should have been sacred. It stuns me that a member of congress would have listened in on that conversation. Absolutely stuns me. I thought at least that was sacred, he said.The White House official found himself at the center of a charge that President Barack Obama didn t make calls to the families of fallen soldiers this week after President Trump claimed that Obama didn t call Kelly when his son Robert died.Kelly said Thursday at a White House news conference that it s true but he wasn t offended.In fact, Kelly says he counseled Trump not to call Gold Star families and to instead write letters.


What we all should be doing first thing in the morning A simple, cheap and effective way to jump start your metabolism, weight loss and improve your health  What if I told you that by doing this every day, making it part of your morning routine just like brushing your teeth, would help you to lose weight, flush out toxins, hydrate your body and skin, improve brain function, give you more energy and decrease your appetite, would you do it?  Drinking water upon rising in the morning can have huge health benefits! Some people call it water therapy and has its origination in Ayurvedic medicine. It is purported to help with numerous diseases such as cancer, asthma, high blood pressure, arthritis, diabetes and migraines.  To reap the benefits, drink the water upon waking (ideally 45 minutes before you eat) and make it part of your morning routine. Most us are walking around in a dehydrated state. So, start your day off the right way!  Ideally filtered water that is void of chemicals and fluoride is best. I personally like the Berkey filter system as this is affordable for many instead of a whole house system. Most water pitchers are ineffective for removing most of the chemicals in our water but there are a couple good ones out there such as the "Clearly Filtered" pitcher. But even if you don't have a water filter system, it does not mean you should not drink up.  For most people 16 oz. of water in the morning is the right amount. Others say to drink double this amount. This may be a lot of water to consume for most people first thing in the morning. My suggestion would be to start out with 8 oz. and slowly work your way up to the higher amount and see how you feel. Moderation is key as too little or too much water is never a good thing.  The 8 glasses filled with 8 oz. of water is a myth and no science behind this reasoning. Another simple rule is to divide your body weight in half and drink this amount in ounces. But if you are a large person, this may feel like you are spending your day drinking water!  Instead focus on getting that glass of water first thing in the day and then add in water, herbal teas, fruits and vegetables during the day. If your urine is very pale yellow throughout the day, then you are hydrated. If it is a bright yellow to orange, drink up! Riboflavin, a B vitamin can make your urine a bright yellow. Benefits to drinking water first thing in the morning It can jump start your metabolism  It can increase your metabolism by 24% for the first 90 minutes after consuming that glass of water. Another study showed that it can increase your metabolic rate by 30% for the next 40 minutes after the water is consumed. Hydration This is more important that you think. When dehydrated, we may experience brain fog, lack of energy and metal clarity. Hydrating in the morning can increase the flow of oxygen which is energizing. Hydrating will also help the skin to look younger. Flushes out toxins  Support your kidneys by helping them to flush out toxins and give your body the water it needs first thing in the a.m. Speed up the detox process by adding a tablespoon of lemon juice to your morning water. This is best done prior to brushing your teeth in the morning as the film on your teeth will protect the enamel from the acidity in the lemon juice. Support brain health  Your brain tissue is 75% water. Not having enough water can make you feel tired, drained and can cause mood swings. Prevent you from overeating Just by drinking water you feel full. Studies show that those who consume water before every meal lost an average of 4.5 pounds over a three-month period. That's with no dieting, not changing your eating habits-just adding in water. Less colds and Flu  Staying hydrated helps to maintain the health of your lymphatic system which also affects how your body fights off infection.  If you are looking for a simple, cheap and effective way to improve your health and stimulate weight loss, then this is it!  Sources  Bauman, E. & Friedlander, J. (2014) Therapeutic Nutrition. CA: Bauman College.  Carroll, A. (8/24/15) No, you do not have to drink 8 glasses of water a day. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/25/upshot/no-you-do-not-have-to-drink-8-glasses-of-water-a-day.html


The commander of the Taliban s special forces branch, known as the Red Unit, was killed last week in Helmand province by Afghan forces, according to Afghanistan s main intelligence agency. The National Directorate of Security (NDS) said Mullah Shah Wali, also known as Mullah Naser, was killed in an air operation in Helmand. The province is a Taliban stronghold in the heartland of Afghanistan s lucrative drug trade. Wali became the commander of the Taliban s Red Unit as well as deputy shadow governor of Helmand province three years ago and was directly involved in Taliban offensives, the statement said. The Red Unit is thought to be equipped with advanced weapons, including night vision scopes, 82mm rockets, heavy machine guns and U.S.-made assault rifles, according to the Afghan military. Wali was killed alongside a suicide bomber and two other Taliban commanders in Helmand s Musa Qala district, according to the NDS. The United States has worked hard to build up Afghan air support and attack capabilities since they were found inadequate after most foreign forces withdrew three years ago.


California gained an embassy in Russia last weekend, at least in the eyes of those who have promised to seek a statewide vote on secession, nicknamed Calexit, in 2018.Louis Marinelli, a San Diego resident who is the leader of the group promoting an effort to turn the state into an independent country, organized the Moscow event that was publicized on social media. We want to start laying the groundwork for a dialogue about an independent California joining the United Nations now, he said in an email Monday.


A Syrian fighter pilot who was detained after crashing in southern Turkey in March has returned to Syria after a Turkish court released him on Friday, Syrian TV reported. The pilot, Mehmet Sufhan, faced trial in Turkey charged with espionage and violating border security after he crashed in the border province of Hatay. He was found by a search team, treated at a local hospital and detained. Turkish media said on Friday that a criminal court in Hatay had released him, but that legal proceedings were continuing. Several hours later Syrian TV reported that Sufhan was back in Syria, saying his return was the result of vigorous attempts and intensive efforts. It was not immediately clear whether Sufhan would come back to Turkey for his trial, which was set for Oct. 25, according to Sufhan s attorney, Anil Cevahir Can. Sufhan s release will hopefully help rebuild bridges of friendship between Syria and Turkey, Can added.


Tune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room starting at 6 PM PST | 9 PM EST for this special broadcast. Join us for uncensored, uninterruptible talk radio, custom-made for barfly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher, & Spore along with Jay Dyer from jaysanalysis.com, Jamie Hanshaw author of Weird Stuff, Branko Mali of Kali Tribune, Randy J of 21Wire 72nd episode of BOILER ROOM. Dim the lights, dawn the headphones and indulge in some Boiler Room with the crew. .Please like and share the program and visit our donate page to get involved!BOILER ROOM IS NOT A POLICTALLY CORRECT ZONE! LISTEN TO THE SHOW IN THE PLAYER BELOW ENJOY!Reference Links:


The United States will transfer an observation blimp to the Philippines to help it track maritime activity and guard its borders amid rising tensions in the South China Sea, a U.S. diplomat said on Monday. Philip Goldberg, U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, said Washington would give Manila, its oldest Asia-Pacific security ally, $42 million worth of sensors, radar and communications equipment. "We will add to its capability to put sensors on ships and put an aerostat blimp in the air to see into the maritime space," Goldberg said in an interview with CNN Philippines, The blimp is a balloon-borne radar to collect information and detect movements in the South China Sea, a Philippine military official said. China claims almost the entire South China Sea, believed to have huge deposits of oil and gas. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims to parts of the waters, through which about $5 trillion in trade is shipped every year. U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter visited the Philippines last week to reaffirm Washington's "ironclad" commitment to defend Manila under a 1951 security treaty. China has been expanding its presence on its seven artificial islands in the Spratly archipelago and on Monday landed a military plane for the first time on one of them, Fiery Cross Reef. It comes ahead of a planned U.S. freedom of navigation patrol this month near the Spratlys. Carter's visit also signals the start of U.S. military deployment in the Philippines, with 75 soldiers to be rotated in and out of an air base north of Manila. Goldberg said the two allies had agreed to set up a system for "secure and classified communications" as part of a five-year, $425 million security initiative by Washington in Southeast Asia. Manila will receive some $120 million in U.S. military aid this year, the largest sum since 2000 when the American military returned to the Philippines for training and exercises after an eight-year hiatus. They signed a new deal in 2013 allowing increased U.S. military presence on a rotational basis and storage of supplies and equipment for maritime security and humanitarian missions.


British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said on Tuesday that his remarks about a jailed aid worker in Iran could have been clearer, after opponents said his comments might provoke the Islamic Republic to hand the dual national a longer jail term. As Prime Minister Theresa May heads toward a 2019 EU divorce that will shape Britain s prosperity and global influence for generations, her minority government has stumbled into several controversies that risk undermining her remaining authority. In the latest misstep, Johnson came under pressure to retract remarks made on Nov. 1 that Iranian-British aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been teaching people journalism before her arrest in April 2016. Zaghari-Ratcliffe s employer, the Thomson Reuters Foundation, said Johnson s comment was incorrect, while opposition British lawmakers said the remarks could land the aid worker a longer term in jail. Johnson called Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Tuesday to discuss the case, and made clear that he had been seeking to make the point that he condemned the Iranian view that training journalists was a crime, a spokesman said. The UK government has no doubt that she was on holiday in Iran when she was arrested last year and that was the sole purpose of her visit, Johnson told parliament. My point was that I disagreed with the Iranian view that training journalists was a crime, not that I wanted to lend any credence to Iranian allegations that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been engaged in such activity, he said. I accept that my remarks could have been clearer in that respect and I am glad to provide this clarification. Johnson said he would travel to Iran in the coming weeks and discuss all consular issues there, and would try to meet Zaghari-Ratcliffe while there. May s spokesman expressed confidence in Johnson, adding that the he was doing a good job . Monique Villa, Thomson Reuters Foundation CEO, said Zaghari-Ratcliffe was a project manager in the media development team. Villa said Zaghari-Ratcliffe was not a journalist and had never trained journalists in Iran. We welcome UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson s clarification of his comments, Villa said. It s time now for the Foreign Secretary to meet Nazanin in jail. Johnson is not the only one distracted. At the weekend, May s deputy, Damian Green, denied an allegation made in The Sunday Times newspaper that police found pornography on one of his computers in the Houses of Parliament in 2008. On Monday, international development minister Priti Patel apologized for failing to disclose meetings with senior Israeli officials during a private holiday. Besides her government s sometimes contradictory signals on Brexit, May has faced criticism from opponents for her handling of other issues: from a deadly apartment block fire in June to a sexual harassment scandal in parliament that prompted Michael Fallon, her loyal defense secretary, to resign. In my lifetime, I have never experienced a British government which seems to be so shambolic, said Simon Hix, a professor of political science at the London School of Economics. They are in the midst of one of the greatest challenges of the last 50 years Brexit and they have sexual harassment scandals in parliament, the Paradise Papers and then now on top of that the behavior of May s ministers. On Tuesday, Johnson came under pressure from opponents to retract his comments about Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who is serving a five-year jail sentence after being convicted of plotting to overthrow Iran s clerical establishment. She was brought again into court on Saturday, three days after Johnson s remarks, and accused by a judge of spreading propaganda against the regime . The British Foreign Office quoted Zarif as saying that Johnson s comments had nothing to do with the weekend court appearance. The charges against Zaghari-Ratcliffe were denied by her family and the Foundation, a charity organization that operates independently of Reuters News. By suggesting Nazanin was in Iran teaching people journalism , Boris Johnson has endangered the cause to secure her release, Tulip Siddiq, a lawmaker for the opposition Labour Party, said.


A Los Angeles County sheriff s deputy accidentally shot himself while chasing a suspect on February 10.According to the Los Angeles Times, the unnamed deputy sustained a gunshot wound to the calf. He was taken by ambulance to a local hospital, where he received medical treatment for non-life threatening injuries.According to the L.A. Times, the officer attempted to stop a vehicle at around 4:00 in the morning, when the driver fled the scene. The deputy ran after the suspect and accidentally shot himself. Police have not released further details on how the shooting took place.Here s more on the story from KTLA.Just over a week ago, the L.A. County Sheriff s Department mistakenly released a murderer.According to Fox 11, 37-year-old Steven Lawrence Wright was accidentally released from jail at about 1:00 in the afternoon, on Saturday, January 30.Wright was arrested on murder charges and was awaiting trial.The Sheriff s department finally realized that Wright had been mistakenly let out of jail at 9:30 pm on January 31, more than 32 hours later.Wright was finally recaptured on February 8, nine days after he was first allowed to walk out of the jail. Not surprisingly, the accused murderer had fled the state of California. He was taken into custody in Boulder City, Nevada.But ineptitude isn t the only thing that is troubling the L.A. County Sheriff s Department this week.The department has been under intense public scrutiny over the past several years. A five-year-long federal investigation has resulted in the convictions of more than a dozen officials on a wide-range of brutality, abuse and corruption charges.Those convicted include Undersheriff Paul Tanaka and former Captain William Thomas Carey, along with a list of other former department officials and deputies.On February 10, the L.A. Times reported that former sheriff Lee Baca, who retired in 2014 during the height of the abuse and corruption scandal, pled guilty to making false statements to investigators.Baca struck a plea agreement with prosecutors, who promised to drop additional charges in exchange for the guilty plea. Under the agreement, he will serve no more than six months in prison for his crimes.The almost unbelievable ineptitude and corruption in the L.A. County Sheriff s Department should serve as a warning to all of us.Police are not infallible. Sometimes they make stupid mistakes, like accidentally shooting themselves in the leg or mixing up their prisoner list. Sometimes they abuse their power and violate the nature of their oath.We don t do our society any favors when we put cops on a pedestal or automatically assume that having a gun and a badge makes them infallible. Featured image from screen capture via KTLA


This news should be enough to end Hillary s obsession with becoming our next President. The Democrats may be willing to ignore all of her criminal and immoral activities, but are they willing to accept Hillary and Bill turning our White House into an assisted living facility? Is Hillary Clinton fit to be president?Putting aside her various scandals and shoddy record as secretary of state, what about her health? Is she physically up to the job?In my new book, Unlikeable: The Problem With Hillary, I devote five pages to Hillary s health. As far as I can tell, however, I am the only journalist who is interested in this important subject.Given the immense stress and strain of being president, Hillary s health is an issue that demands a thorough exploration.Last July, Hillary s longtime personal physician, Dr. Lisa Bardack, released a short, two-page letter that appeared to give Hillary a clean bill of health. She does not smoke and drinks alcohol occasionally, Bardack wrote. She does not use illicit drugs or tobacco products. She eats a diet rich in lean protein, vegetables and fruits. She exercises regularly, including yoga, swimming, walking and weight training. According to Dr. Bardack, Hillary had completely recovered from the fainting spell, concussion and blood clot in her brain that she suffered while she was secretary of state.But Dr. Bardack s letter was hardly a detailed medical history. According to sources close to Bill and Hillary Clinton, the letter wasn t the full story then and it s not the full story now.To this day, Hillary still suffers from many of the troubling symptoms that I wrote about in Unlikeable: blinding headaches, exhaustion, insomnia, and a tremor in her hands. As a precaution against the spectacle of fainting in public, which could easily doom her candidacy, Hillary now travels with a personal physician on all her major campaign trips.There have been several incidents in which she has nearly collapsed. For example, after her 11-hour testimony before the Trey Gowdy Benghazi committee, Hillary swooned as she walked to a waiting car. She had to be supported in the arms of her aides and helped into the back seat.Tension headaches continue to plague her and often make it hard for her to maintain her grueling schedule. Huma Abedin, deputy chief of staff and her closest adviser, frequently orders campaign aides to alter Hillary s schedule at the last moment so the candidate can catch her breath and take out time for naps. This may explain why Hillary is often as much as two hours late for a campaign appearance. She no longer has the stamina for 18-hour campaign days that she was once capable of doing, said a source close to Hillary.


The Comedy Central roasts of celebrities are well known and hilarious, for the most part. While it doesn t look like the roastees know what s going on, and that everything is entirely off-the-cuff, the truth is that there is a lot of preparation ahead of the actual roast. Roastees get some input, even getting to tell the comedy writers what subjects are off-limits for jokes, but, beyond that, they don t dictate very much.And then there s Donald Trump. Putting his roast together seems to have been one long, horrific chore for the Comedy Central team assigned to it. In fact, that roast is perhaps some of the strongest evidence we ve got that Trump is unconscionably thin-skinned, and will continue to be after the election. Roastees for the Comedy Central roasts know what s involved. They know they re going to be skewered. If they don t like the idea, they don t have to do it.It makes us want to look at Trump and say, DUH! At Comedy Central, Trump apparently wanted to dictate everything, all the way down to the level of beauty in the women who were to escort him on stage. According to the stage manager: The proposed woman [who would take his coat onstage], Trump said, was not somebody he wanted to be associated with at that moment, Ferkle recalled. In other words, she was not pretty enough. To appease Trump, Comedy Central moved the actress elsewhere on the stage, Ferkle said. The show went on. That s fairly typical Trumpian misogyny, so not all that surprising. What s perhaps more surprising were the other ways that Trump drove the staff up the wall. For instance, he was apparently giving the show s writers and producers hell over whether jokes about his hair were allowed. The lead writer, Ray James, tried working with Trump on why hair jokes were a necessary part of the roast. Trump resisted, because of course he did: I had to explain to him why he needed to have some jokes about his own hair. I said, You have to own it. If you have a great hair joke, you will be impervious to hair jokes.' Instead, Trump kept nixing the hair jokes, and wanted to replace one of them with a simple, Look how great [my hair] looks. Because that s just hilarious. But perhaps the most annoying thing was that the writers had to draft multiple rebuttals for Trump. The rebuttal comes at the end of the roast, when the roastee gets up and turns it all back on his or her roasters. Trump was returning scripts marked up entirely with black Sharpies, including blacking out punchlines.Nobody blacks out punchlines, according to the roast s producers and writers. One writer, Jesse Joyce, said: I have done this a long time and nobody blacks out punchlines. [Scrapping punchlines represents] a classic lack of an understanding of how a joke works. And Trump couldn t be consistent about his edits (if, indeed, they can be called that), either. He took out some opportunities to be crass while wallowing in others. He also changed some of the jokes from funny to not funny; again, showing a fundamental unwillingness to even try and understand what was being put before him: Trump made a few lackluster attempts at cracking wise. He changed a joke meant to slam [Seth] MacFarlane from: The only way you ll ever draw a crowd is with a pencil. Trump s revision: The only crowd you ll attract is flies.' He also wanted to roast the entire dais at once by, well, being entirely himself. How this is even a joke is beyond us, since everything he does is to feel superior to everyone on the planet: Their [sic] all losers and I like associating with loser because it makes me feel even better about myself. It got to the point where Ray James just wanted to destroy Trump in any way possible: I begged any writer to get on board, James said. Let s write jokes about this guy having a small cock. I wanted to destroy this man and expose him as having a tiny penis because that will hurt him more than any jokes about his family or orange skin.' That didn t work. Furthermore, given the fact that Trump just had to talk about his penis size in response to Rubio s jab about his tiny hands during a televised debate, it s likely the dick jokes probably wouldn t have made it in anyway. If they had, he probably would have lost it up onstage.The entire roast was classic Trump. He sat on the stage with a tight smile, not really responding, much the same way he did at the 2011 White House correspondents dinner when Obama roasted him. Despite knowing what was coming, he couldn t take anyone making fun of him and probably relished trying to hurt them back.Comedy Central s president sees the roast as prophetic of what s happening today: It is impossible to not see how absurd the whole thing is. If you go back and watch the roast, there re probably a lot of oddly prophetic things being said that are relevant today. But just the idea that someone who did a Comedy Central Roast [is] a major party [nominee] for president is pretty shocking. Especially when that person couldn t handle being criticized, teased, or otherwise treated as anything other than the god he thinks he is.Featured image by Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images


If not for the second amendment, this woman would be dead pic.twitter.com/QKLST51VaF Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) September 23, 2016


The Republican presidential candidates and the far-right echo chamber have made "politically correct" an all-purpose dismissal for facts and opinions they don't want to hear. Take Donald Trump's claim that when the World Trade Center towers collapsed on 9/11, "I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. Thousands of people were cheering." The Post's Fact Checker columnist, Glenn Kessler, found no evidence to support Trump's claim and gave him Four Pinocchios, reserved for the most baldfaced lies. PolitiFact gave the statement a Pants on Fire rating, denoting extreme mendacity. But when ABC's George Stephanopoulos pressed the GOP front-runner to explain himself, noting that "police say it didn't happen," Trump resorted to what has become a familiar dodge. "I know it might not be politically correct for you to talk about it, but there were people cheering as that building came down," Trump said. Ben Carson, running second in the national polls, is even more fond of the political-correctness allegation — so much so that it could be considered a central theme of his campaign. It is unclear whether he actually knows or cares what "political correctness" means. The phrase is just more verbal romaine to add to the word salad that is Carson's discourse. He used it when challenged on his stance that a Muslim should not be president, even though the Constitution explicitly states there can be no "religious test" for public office. "Political correctness is imposed by the secular progressives and those who wish to fundamentally change our society," he said. "Therefore, they make things off-limits to talk about, but you know what? I'm going to talk about it anyway." In other words, he considers the framers of the Constitution a bunch of "secular progressives," since they're the ones who put a candidate's faith off-limits. That's not the loopiest thing Carson has said (his attempts to discuss financial reform are in a class of their own) but it's in the top 10. The renowned neurosurgeon took the same route Sunday when Stephanopoulos — who had a busy morning — asked him to react to Trump's call for the United States to resume harsh interrogation techniques for terrorism suspects, including waterboarding. "I agree that there's no such thing as political correctness when you're fighting an enemy who wants to destroy you and everything that you have anything to do with," Carson said. "And I'm not one who is real big on telling the enemy what we're going to do and what we're not going to do." But Carson is a medical doctor who took an oath to heal and alleviate suffering. Or maybe he believes that Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, was just another PC lemming, blindly following the secular progressives who are leading us to our collective doom. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, asked about his view that the United States should accept no Syrian refugees, said we should not bow to "political correctness, the elites in Washington or the editorial pages of major newspapers." Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.), asked this summer whether he thought the term "anchor baby " was offensive, told reporters "we need to stop this politically correct nonsense." Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, after making a joke about transgender people that some found offensive, responded that "everybody wants to be politically correct, everybody wants to be loved by the media and loved by the left and loved by the elitists." And it's not just GOP candidates who have the anti-political-correctness bug. Many conservative commentators have been quick to condemn the "politically correct" Princeton University students who demand that the school remove symbols honoring Woodrow Wilson — a onetime Princeton president — because of his racism. These critics ignore the historical fact that Wilson was racist not just by today's standards but by those of his time. He wrote that African Americans were an "ignorant and inferior race." He lavishly praised the Ku Klux Klan and pined for the Confederacy. As president of the United States, he ordered that integrated federal government workplaces be segregated; NAACP founder W.E.B. Du Bois wrote of one black clerk who "had a cage built around him to separate him from his white companions." Yes, I'm being politically correct. But also truthful. Read more from Eugene Robinson's archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. You can also join him Tuesdays at 1 p.m. for a live Q&A.


Below are people mentioned as contenders for senior roles as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump works to form his administration before taking office on Jan. 20, according to Reuters sources and media reports. Trump has already tapped a number of people for other top jobs in his administration. For a list of posts already filled, see. * Mitt Romney, 2012 Republican presidential nominee and former Massachusetts governor * Rudy Giuliani, Republican former mayor of New York City * Bob Corker, Republican U.S. senator from Tennessee and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee * David Petraeus, retired general and former CIA director who pleaded guilty to mishandling classified information that he shared with his biographer, with whom he was having an affair * Jon Huntsman, former Republican Utah governor and ambassador to China under President Barack Obama, ran for Republican presidential nomination in 2012 * James Stavridis, retired Navy admiral * John Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush, foreign policy adviser to 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney * Rex Tillerson, president and chief executive officer of Exxon Mobil * Joe Manchin, Democratic U.S. senator for West Virginia * Dana Rohrabacher, Republican U.S. representative of California and senior member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs * Michael McCaul, Republican U.S. representative from Texas and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee * David Clarke, Milwaukee County sheriff and vocal Trump supporter * Retired Marine Corps General John Kelly, former leader of the military's Southern Command * Joe Arpaio, who lost his bid for re-election as Maricopa County, Arizona sheriff, and has campaigned for Trump * Kris Kobach, Kansas secretary of state * Frances Townsend, who was homeland security and counterterrorism adviser to President George W. Bush * 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, Republican Arkansas attorney general * Carol Comer, commissioner of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management * Scott Pruitt, Republican Oklahoma attorney general * Kevin Cramer, Republican U.S. representative from North Dakota * Robert Grady, venture capitalist, partner in private equity firm Gryphon Investors * Heidi Heitkamp, Democratic U.S. senator from North Dakota * Joe Manchin, Democratic U.S. senator from West Virginia * Gary Cohn, president of Goldman Sachs Group Inc * Larry Nichols, co-founder of Devon Energy Corp * James Connaughton, CEO of Nautilus Data Technologies and a former environmental adviser to President George W. Bush * Rick Perry, Republican former Texas governor * Forrest Lucas, founder of oil products company Lucas Oil * Heidi Heitkamp, Democratic U.S. senator from North Dakota * Robert Grady, venture capitalist, partner in Gryphon * Cathy McMorris Rodgers, U.S. representative from Washington state and House Republican Conference chair * Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee * Jan Brewer, former Republican Arizona governor * Mary Fallin, Republican Oklahoma governor * Ray Washburne, CEO of investment company Charter Holdings * Navy Admiral Mike Rogers, director of the National Security Agency * Ronald Burgess, retired U.S. Army lieutenant general and former Defense Intelligence Agency chief * Robert Cardillo, director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency * Pete Hoekstra, Republican former U.S. representative from Michigan * Rudy Giuliani, former New York mayor * Debra Wong Yang, former U.S. attorney for California's Central District, appointed by former President George W. Bush * Ralph Ferrara, a securities attorney at Proskauer * Paul Atkins, Republican former SEC commissioner Paul Atkins who is heading Trump's transition team for independent financial regulatory agencies, including the SEC * Daniel Gallagher, Republican former SEC commissioner * John Allison, a former CEO of regional bank BB&T and former CEO of the Cato Institute * Paul Atkins, former SEC commissioner * Thomas Hoenig, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp vice chairman * Dan DiMicco, former CEO of steel producer Nucor Corp * Robert Lighthizer, a Washington trade attorney and former deputy U.S. trade representative during the Republican Reagan administration * Andrew Puzder, CEO of CKE Restaurants * Lou Barletta, Republican U.S. representative from Pennsylvania * Victoria Lipnic, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission member and former Labor Department official during the George W. Bush administration * Gary Cohn, Goldman Sachs Group Inc president * Mick Mulvaney, Republican U.S. representative from South Carolina * David Malpass, former chief economist with investment bank Bear Stearns and a senior Trump adviser who also served in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush presidential administrations * Scott Brown, former Republican U.S. senator from Massachusetts * Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor * Jeff Miller, former Republican U.S. representative from Florida who was chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee The Trump transition team confirmed the president-elect would choose from a list of 21 names he drew up during his campaign, including Republican U.S. Senator Mike Lee of Utah and William Pryor, a federal judge with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.


Republican Donald Trump trails Democrat Hillary Clinton by 10 points in the 2016 presidential campaign, according to a poll released on Tuesday, showing little change from a week ago and suggesting his comments about a Mexican-American judge had yet to affect his standing in the race. The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll came after several days in which Trump faced sharp criticism over his insistence that a federal judge who was born in Indiana to Mexican parents was biased in a case involving the celebrity billionaire. But the fallout from Trump's comments appeared to have done little to help Clinton build her lead over the presumptive Republican nominee. The online survey showed that 44.3 percent of likely voters said they would vote for Clinton, compared with 34.7 percent who would support Trump. A further 20.9 percent said they would not vote for either candidate. The results were little changed from last week's survey. The poll was conducted from Friday to Tuesday, starting shortly after Trump's first comments about U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is overseeing fraud lawsuits against Trump University, the New York businessman's defunct real estate school. Trump has suggested that Curiel's heritage is influencing the judge's opinion about the case because of Trump's campaign rhetoric about illegal immigration. U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan called Trump's comments textbook racism on Tuesday, while Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Trump should stop attacking minority groups. Bowing to pressure from fellow Republicans, Trump said on Tuesday he would no longer talk about the judge, adding that his previous remarks about Curiel had been misconstrued. Other events, including news that Clinton had secured enough delegates and superdelegates to become the first female presidential candidate of a major U.S. political party, occurred toward the end of the poll. The poll included 1,261 respondents and had a credibility interval of 3.2 percentage points. See the poll results in Reuters' Polling Explorer. [polling.reuters.com/#poll/TM651Y15_13/filters/LIKELY:1/dates/20160401-20160607/type/day] For most of the year, Clinton has maintained an edge over Trump in the Reuters/Ipsos poll of likely voters. That edge briefly disappeared in May after Trump's remaining rivals for the Republican nomination dropped out and party leaders started to line up behind his campaign. Trump's level of support has since eroded as he sparred with his party's leadership and continued to be dogged with questions about Trump University. The Reuters/Ipsos poll differs from others that are often days removed from when their data was collected. As a result, the Reuters/Ipsos poll often detects shifts in opinion well ahead of other surveys. <^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Polling Explorer (Clinton versus Trump) polling.reuters.com/#poll/TM651Y15_13/filters/LIKELY:1/dates/20160401-20160607/type/day ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>


U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday made a passionate case for mobile devices to be built in a way that would allow the government to gain access to personal data if needed to prevent a terrorist attack or enforce tax laws. Speaking at the South by Southwest festival in Texas, the president said he could not comment on the legal case in which the Federal Bureau of Investigation is trying to force Apple Inc. to allow access to an iPhone linked to San Bernardino, California, shooter Rizwan Farook. But he made clear that despite his commitment to Americans' privacy and civil liberties, a balance was needed to allow some government intrusion if necessary. "If technologically it is possible to make an impenetrable device or system where the encryption is so strong that there is no key, there's no door at all, then how do we apprehend the child pornographer, how do we solve or disrupt a terrorist plot?" he said. "What mechanisms do we have available to even do simple things like tax enforcement because if in fact you can't crack that at all, government can't get in, then everybody is walking around with a Swiss bank account in their pocket." Last month, the FBI obtained a court order requiring Apple to write new software and take other measures to disable passcode protection and allow access to Farook's iPhone. Apple, which declined to comment on Obama's remarks on Friday, has not complied. It said the government request would create a "back door" to phones that could be abused by criminals and governments, and that Congress has not given the Justice Department authority to make such a demand. Obama's comments were his most expansive on the subject since the dispute. He acknowledged skepticism about the government in the wake of the revelations about U.S. surveillance programs by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. But he pressed his point that a compromise that respected civil liberties and protected security had to be found. That solution would likely be a system with strong encryption and a secure "key" that is accessible to the "smallest number of people possible" for issues that were agreed to be important. "Setting aside the specific case between the FBI and Apple ... we're going to have to make some decisions about how do we balance these respective risks," Obama said. "My conclusion so far is you cannot take an absolutist view." Adding to his argument, the president listed airport security and stops for drunk drivers as examples of measures that were intrusive but accepted. He also warned against "fetishizing" phones. "This notion that somehow our data is different and can be walled off from those other tradeoffs we make I believe is incorrect," he said. Top White House officials have lobbied the industry aggressively to work with the government on the issue, which was brought to a head by the California shootings. The FBI says Farook and his wife were inspired by Islamist militants when they shot and killed 14 people on Dec. 2 at a holiday party in California. The couple later died in a shootout with police.


PALM BEACH, Fla. — The Trump administration is planning to roll out its first concrete measures against China on trade, administration officials said on Thursday, hardening its position toward America's largest trading partner just as President Trump welcomed President Xi Jinping of China to his seaside club here for their first meeting. Sometime after Mr. Xi leaves the United States, these officials said, Mr. Trump plans to sign an executive order targeting countries that dump steel into the American market, an aggressive measure aimed mainly at China. It is unclear exactly what the order would do or how harsh it would be, but it would be designed to begin to make good on Mr. Trump's promise during the campaign to redress China's huge trade surplus with the United States. In addition, an official said, the White House is moving out a senior economy policy official, Andrew Quinn, who had helped negotiate the Partnership, former President Barack Obama's signature trade initiative. Mr. Quinn had become the subject of a battle between two camps in the White House: economic nationalists, who wanted him out, and more mainstream backers of free trade, who defended him. Taken together, these developments constituted a potentially significant victory for the coming off a string of setbacks in their efforts to persuade the president to deliver on the most combative planks of his presidential campaign. But the ultimate outcome of this policy debate is still far from clear, several officials said. Mr. Trump does not plan to confront Mr. Xi with the most aggressive of his campaign threats: a 45 percent tariff on Chinese goods. Nor is the United States likely to designate China a currency manipulator, something he promised to do as a candidate. Holding back those moves suggests Mr. Trump is also heeding the more moderate voices among his advisers, who argue that the United States cannot afford to ignite a trade war with China. "The nativist and nationalist forces certainly have influence," said Nicholas Lardy, an expert on the Chinese economy at the Peterson International Institute for Economics. "But it looks like it's dwindling rapidly. " Mr. Lardy said cases on steel were mostly symbolic, since American imports of steel from China accounted for only a few percentage points of the trade deficit. The Obama administration filed multiple cases with the World Trade Organization. Still, the pitched battle over trade policy, on the eve of Mr. Trump's meeting with Mr. Xi, injected an unpredictable note into an encounter that has been billed mostly as a session for the two leaders. Mr. Trump made it clear the informal setting would not prevent him from confronting his guest with the chronic imbalances between the United State and China. "We have been treated unfairly and have made terrible trade deals with China for many, many years," he said to reporters on Air Force One. "That's one of the things we are going to be talking about. " Mr. Xi arrived in Florida on Thursday afternoon, stepping off his Air China flight into the humid air of Palm Beach. On Thursday evening, he attended a formal dinner at Mr. Trump's estate. A series of meetings were scheduled for Friday morning, followed by a working lunch. Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson greeted Mr. Xi and his wife, who walked on a red carpet, flanked by an honor guard carrying flags of both countries. Mr. Trump, who arrived from Washington later, greeted Mr. Xi in an arrival ceremony at the front steps of the estate. Speaking to reporters afterward, Mr. Tillerson said the president was prepared to demand an "economic relationship that is fair on both sides" and said the chief goal of the nation's trade policy would be fashioned after the president's "America First" credo. "To that end," he said, "we will pursue economic engagement with China that prioritizes the economic of the American people. " For weeks leading up to this meeting, China has served as a kind of proxy for Mr. Trump's advisers to play out their clashing worldviews. The contingent — led by the president's chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, and the director of the National Trade Council, Peter Navarro — squared off against the more traditional group, which included two former Goldman Sachs executives, Gary D. Cohn, the director of the National Economic Council, and the Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin. Mr. Mnuchin, one official said, has gravitated in recent days toward a tougher line on China. Mr. Bannon, officials said, pushed hard for the removal of Mr. Quinn, a special assistant for international trade, investment and development. Mr. Quinn had the support of his boss, Mr. Cohn, a Democrat who has emerged as an influential voice with Mr. Trump on economic policy. But he was unable to save Mr. Quinn, who will return to his previous post with the Office of the United States Trade Representative. In a conciliatory gesture, the two countries are expected to announce they will continue to hold an annual dialogue on strategic and economic issues, which began during the George W. Bush administration and continued under Mr. Obama, though there has been some talk of elevating the session to the level of Vice President Mike Pence. Among the sensitive topics that may come up is American concern about the possibility that Chinese investors might seek to purchase the nuclear power business of Westinghouse Electric Co. Westinghouse, once a symbol of America's leadership in nuclear energy, was forced to file for bankruptcy in late March, in the face of mounting losses. Though many of its wounds were — a disastrous deal for a construction business proved too costly — broad market and industry forces have also changed the economic calculus for nuclear energy. American officials are profoundly concerned about the potential national security implications of a purchase of Westinghouse by interests with ties to the Chinese government, including the danger that a sale could deliver sensitive nuclear secrets to that nation. A White House official said Thursday that the administration is watching the potential sale closely but declined to comment on options that the United States government might have to block the sale to Chinese interests. Bloomberg News first reported about the government's concern about the sale. Discussions about the issue are underway among top American officials at the Department of Energy, the State Department and the Treasury Department. Even before the bankruptcy, Westinghouse's Japanese parent was already moving away from the business of building nuclear power plants, focusing instead on maintaining existing reactors and developing reactors. It follows a broad pattern in the business, as big companies reassess the viability of nuclear and the field of players shrinks. General Electric has pared its nuclear operations, while the French builder Areva is going through a major restructuring. China has been moving to fill the void, as it increasingly develops its nuclear abilities and pushes homegrown players to look for opportunities beyond their borders. But China's increasing presence in nuclear energy has raised security concerns in some countries.


The U.S. government on Friday said it was temporarily waiving a law that limits the availability of cargoes on the U.S. coasts, a step that will ensure enough fuel reaches emergency responders during Hurricane Irma and in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. The Jones Act mandates the use of U.S.-flagged vessels to transport merchandise between U.S. coasts. The Department of Homeland Security waived the requirement for one week. This will allow oil and gas operators to use often cheaper, tax-free, or more readily available foreign-flagged vessels. Harvey, which hit Texas with record floods, had a wider effect of disrupting fuel distribution across Florida, Georgia and other Southeastern states by shutting refineries and pipelines. With Hurricane Irma, one of the most powerful Atlantic storms in a century, expected to hit Florida in days, the region will experience one of the largest mass evacuations in American history and see historic levels of restoration and response crews, said Elaine Duke, acting secretary of Homeland Security. Waiving the Jones Act will ensure there is fuel to support lifesaving efforts and restore services and infrastructure in the wake of the storm, Duke said.


Russia-US Plutonium Deal No Longer In Effect 11/02/2016  RUSSIA TODAY President Vladimir Putin has signed an act suspending a 2000 agreement between the US and Russia on reprocessing weapons-grade plutonium extracted from decommissioned warheads.  The bill has already been published on Russia's official legal information website, meaning it's now in force.  It mentions that a decision to restore the agreement can only be made by Russia's president.  The deal between Moscow and Washington was ratified in 2000. As a means to safely utilize weapons-grade plutonium, it suggested a specific procedure to turn it into nuclear plant fuel. Starting from 2018, it was planned to reprocess 34 tons (68,000 pounds) of plutonium, which would have been enough to produce thousands of nuclear weapons, RIA Novosti reported.  Yet, while Russia has prepared the infrastructure necessary for the process, the US said it found the procedure too costly and instead opted for mixing plutonium with special dilutants to store it indefinitely.  Russia suspended the deal " due to drastic changes of circumstances, the rise of threat to strategic stability as a result of hostile actions of the US towards the Russian Federation and the inability of the US to provide for the accepted obligations to utilize the excess weapons-grade plutonium in accordance with the agreement ," the new bill read.  For the agreement to be resumed, Washington should reduce the US military presence on the territory of NATO members that joined the bloc after 2000, cancel its Magnitsky Act which bans entry to the US to a list of Russian citizens, as well as lift other anti-Russian sanctions and compensate the loss Moscow suffered as a result of such policy.  The bill on suspension – which is a " forced measure ," according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov – was first submitted by the president's office earlier this month and then approved by parliament.  Commenting on the suspension of the deal, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has said that it would not affect any of Moscow's other commitments related to international nuclear security and does not interfere with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.


Who knew the Middle East had a prestigious school for fake inventors who bring fake bombs to school on 9-11? Clock kid Ahmed Mohamed and his family announced Tuesday in a news release that they will move to Qatar, less than 24 hours after the 14-year-old met with President Barack Obama at the White House. Our family has been overwhelmed by the many offers of support we have received since the unfortunate incident of Ahmed s arrest. From the White House to Sudan, to Mecca, we have been welcomed by a variety of individuals, businesses and educational institutions, which have all provided Ahmed with real encouragement and the ambition to continue to work hard, the family said in a statement. After careful consideration of all the generous offers received, we would like to announce that we have accepted a kind offer from Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF) for Ahmed to join the prestigious QF Young Innovators Program, which reflects the organization s on-going dedication to empowering young people and fostering a culture of innovation and creativity, the family continued. This means that we, as a family, will relocate to Qatar where Ahmed will receive a full scholarship for his secondary and undergraduate education, the family concluded.Mohamed said he was really impressed with everything that Qatar Foundation has to offer and the campuses are really cool. I got to meet other kids who are also really interested in science and technology, he said after accepting the scholarship. I think I will learn a lot and also have lots of fun there.


The Donald Trump campaign is relying heavily on a 12 year old to help open a field office in one of the most important counties in the swing state of Colorado. You read that right. A 12-year-old is being relied upon to ensure that the thin-skinned man-baby candidate obtains keys to the White House.Weston Imer is co-chair of the campaign in Jefferson County, but his mother, the official field coordinator, said that she gave her son the bulk of the work in order to help teach him responsibility.Weston sits in the office instructing volunteers on what to do, as well as making phone calls to Trump supporters. Get involved kids need to be educated, Weston said, according to KDVR. Parents have the responsibility to educate their kids, Laurel Imer said.Weston will be at the field office every day until he has to start school in September. At the tender age of 12-years-old, Weston is likely in the 7th grade. Do you want to be President of the United States one day? a reporter asked Weston. Definitely, 2040 watch for me and Baron Trump if you re watching. I ll take ya as my running mate, Imer said.Watch:[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn9Zx8yUkXY]The 12-year-old would like to become President of the free world one day. We re pretty sure that Donald, his idol, never dreamed he would get this close to the White House since he s done everything possible to discourage that.Donald trails Hillary Clinton by ten points in Colorado, according to a Fox News poll. Again, we re talking about a Fox News poll. It s not exactly surprising since Donald s campaign doled out $7.7 million to his family and Trump-owned companies. Instead of increasing spending on staff or organizing like in crucial states such as Colorado the campaign spent $1.8 million on hats and other merchandise.It s commendable that Mrs. Imer wants to teach her child responsibility but this is a presidential election in important battleground territory. Aside from that, educating her child while using Donald as a model for responsibility is counterproductive. Donald is a scam artist, nothing more.Image via screen capture.


The authorities in Florida said Friday that Omar Mateen, whose June 12 rampage at an Orlando nightclub left 49 other people dead, was shot at least eight times by police officers who responded to the deadly mass shooting. The Orange County medical examiner's office released its report of Mr. Mateen's autopsy on Friday, the same day local officials began to distribute their findings about the victims of the attack, during which Mr. Mateen pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State. The 32 death reports released on Friday were the first time that the authorities so publicly cataloged and detailed the injuries of the dead. The medical examiner's office said in a statement that it had begun notifying family members on Thursday that the reports would be released under the state's public records law. The office said it expected to publish all of its assessments by Wednesday night. Officials reported their findings about the deaths of 28 men, including Mr. Mateen, and four women. The youngest victim whose autopsy was published was an woman the oldest was a man. Most of those who were killed died of multiple gunshot wounds, the autopsies showed. The placing of the shots varied some people were wounded in the head, while others were shot in the torso, and still others were struck in their arms, neck or lower extremities. It was not clear on Friday whether anyone besides Mr. Mateen had been killed from police gunfire. Citing the continuing inquiry, a spokeswoman for the Orlando police referred a request for comment to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which did not respond to a message. But Orlando's police chief, John Mina, left open the possibility in June, when he said, "That's part of the investigation, but here's what I will tell you: Those killings are on the suspect. " The reports had a certain uniformity — each person's death, for instance, was declared a homicide — but the scores of pages also carried small hints about individual lives. One man had been wearing two beaded bracelets when he was gunned down, while another young woman had worn "an elaborate yellow metal necklace" to Pulse. Another person had carried his photo identification from the Y. M. C. A. Mr. Mateen, his autopsy report noted, had been dressed in tan pants, a holster attached to a black belt. He was struck by gunfire in several places, including the chest, the abdomen and the foot. Mr. Mateen died after a protracted standoff with the police, who feared that he would set off explosives, as he had threatened to do. Once the authorities gained access to the nightclub with the aid of an armored vehicle, officials traded gunfire with Mr. Mateen, who was 29. The medical examiner's office said Friday that it would not discuss individual cases. But in an interview in June, the county's chief medical examiner, Dr. Joshua D. Stephany, said it appeared that all of the victims had died quickly. "It doesn't appear anyone suffered," he said. "Everyone went down where they were. I don't think anyone had prolonged suffering. "


Apple is rethinking what it plans to do about cars, just as other big tech companies appear ready to plow ahead with competing efforts. In a retrenchment of one of its most ambitious initiatives, Apple has shuttered parts of its car project and laid off dozens of employees, according to three people briefed on the move who were not allowed to speak about it publicly. The job cuts are the latest sign of trouble with Apple's car initiative. The company has added resources to the project — Titan — over the last two years, but it has struggled to make progress. And in July, the company brought in Bob Mansfield, a highly regarded Apple veteran, to take over the effort. Apple is not the only big tech company pursuing autonomous driving technology. Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has tested cars on the road for years, but its focus has been on designing the underlying software and systems to make that technology work. Tesla has a feature within its cars that has come under scrutiny in recent months after a fatal accident was connected to its use. Separately, Uber, in a limited test in Pittsburgh next week, plans to start picking up passengers in cars. Last month, Uber also acquired the Otto for about $700 million, a purchase that brought with it some of the top minds in robotics and autonomous technology. And automakers like Ford, General Motors and Fiat Chrysler have all said they expect to put a number of vehicles on the road in five years or less. But Apple has stood out from the others mainly — as is often the case with the company — for its secrecy. Apple has never acknowledged that it is working on a car, though Timothy D. Cook, Apple's chief executive, has said the automotive industry is undergoing a drastic change and, earlier this year, he seemed to confirm the existence of the car project at its annual shareholders meeting. "Do you remember when you were a kid, and Christmas Eve, it was so exciting, you weren't sure what was going to be downstairs?" Mr. Cook said at the meeting. "Well, it's going to be Christmas Eve for a while. " Apple employees were told that the layoffs were part of a "reboot" of the car project, the people briefed on it said. An Apple spokesman declined to comment. Under Mr. Mansfield, Apple changed the focus of the project, shifting from an emphasis on designing and producing an automobile to building out the underlying technology for an autonomous vehicle. Bloomberg earlier reported the strategy change. Electric cars rely not on the internal combustion engine, but on technologies more prevalent in the consumer electronics world: batteries, sensors and software. In addition, cars could change the traditional notions of public transportation and car ownership. Apple started looking seriously into building an electric car about two years ago. It expanded the project quickly, poaching experts in battery technology and machine vision, as well as veterans from the automobile industry. The team also pulled in staff members from other divisions across Apple, growing to more than 1, 000 employees in about 18 months. But as the project grew rapidly, it encountered a number of problems, and people working on it struggled to explain what Apple could bring to a car that other companies could not, according to the people briefed on the project. Steven Zadesky, a longtime Apple employee initially charged with heading the car effort, left the company for personal reasons this year. His departure opened the door for Mr. Mansfield, who worked closely with Apple's Steve Jobs, but left the company's executive team in 2013. He had all but retired from Apple except for the occasional visit to the company's headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. He was coaxed into coming back to oversee the project, which could represent a new market for Apple as sales of its flagship iPhone are slowing. Apple has also made some headway in the space. The company has a number of fully autonomous vehicles in the middle of testing, using limited operating routes in a closed environment, according to people briefed on the company's plans. Like other companies in the space, that technology is likely a number of years away from seeing mainstream consumer use, they added.


The police raided dozens of sites across Belgium and brought in 40 people for questioning in an operation to interrupt a terrorist plot to attack fans gathering to watch a televised soccer match between the Belgian and Irish national teams, government officials said on Saturday. Three Belgians were charged with an attempt to commit terrorist murder and participation in the activities of a terrorist group, the Belgian federal prosecutors' office said. The others brought in for questioning were released by Saturday evening. Prime Minister Charles Michel did not provide specifics in his comments after an emergency national security meeting. But Justice Minister Koen Geens and Deputy Prime Minister Kris Peeters, questioned by the Flemish broadcaster VRT, confirmed that the police had learned of a plot to attack fans gathering to watch the game Saturday on large screens in Brussels's squares or at bars. The police did not turn up guns or explosives, a statement said, and spectators watched the game without incident. Belgium won the game, in Bordeaux, France. The scale of the raids and arrests, three months after the attacks in Brussels that killed 32 people, suggested in part that the Belgian authorities were working to dispel doubts about their dedication to rooting out potential terrorists. It also suggested that they believed they were in a race to prevent attacks. An earlier statement from the prosecutors' office on Saturday said the situation required "immediate intervention. " Investigations are continuing into the Brussels attacks on March 22 and those in and around Paris in November, which killed 130 people and wounded hundreds. The plot to attack soccer fans, however, did not appear to be related directly to the Paris and Brussels attacks. The prosecutors' office identified each of the three arrested suspects by his given name and an initial for his surname: Samir C. 27 Moustapha B. 40 and Jawad B. 29. Before the raids Friday night, the most recent detention in Belgium had come earlier in the week, when federal prosecutors announced the detention and investigation of a man identified as Youssef E. A. 30, in connection with the March attacks in Brussels. He was charged on Friday with "participation in a terrorist group, terrorist murders and attempted terrorist murders as a perpetrator, or accomplice. " This month, another man, Ali E. H. A. 31, was similarly charged. The broadness of the charges in both cases suggests that the authorities have yet to determine what role the two men may have played. After the Paris attacks, the Belgian authorities were accused of being insufficiently vigilant when it emerged that the attacks had been planned in Belgium and that the explosives had been manufactured there. Most of the attackers were Belgian or French citizens. Adding to the pressure on the Belgian authorities was information disseminated this month by the Belgian Coordinating Body for Threat Analysis. That government body, which evaluates intelligence and other information, sent an alert to the police saying extremists who had fought in Syria were headed for Belgium and France. While the warning was based on "raw intelligence," according to the Belgian authorities, its wide distribution to police services and its leak to a Belgian newspaper suggested that it was being taken very seriously. In the course of questioning detainees thought to be connected to the Paris and Brussels attacks, investigators in Belgium have picked up several references to the possibility of attacks during the Euro 2016 soccer tournament in France, which lasts through July 10. Both France and Belgium are on high alert. Meanwhile, in the case of a police officer and his female companion who were stabbed to death in France on Monday night, the prosecutors' office announced that it had opened an investigation and placed two people in preventive detention: Aberouz and Saad Rajraji. Both men had been sentenced along with the presumed killer of the couple — Larossi Abballa, who was fatally shot — in a 2013 terrorism case but were released from prison. They are facing preliminary charges of participation in a terrorist group that intended to commit one or many crimes.


Donald Trump, in his speech on immigration in Phoenix on Wednesday, pressed his approach to illegal immigration, even as he backed off a previous pledge to forcibly remove 11 million immigrants here illegally. • Build the wall. • End the catch and release policy for undocumented immigrants and instead return them to their country of origin. • Have zero tolerance for undocumented immigrants who have committed a crime, and deport them. • Triple the number of deportation officers at the department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. • Repeal President Obama's executive orders that temporarily protected undocumented immigrants from deportation and authorized them to receive work permit • Stop issuing visas to any country where "adequate screening cannot occur" that might endanger national security. • Ensure foreign countries take back deported immigrants from the United States (Mr. Trump said 23 countries refuse to do so). • Complete a biometric entry and exit visa tracking system under development. "It will be on land, it will be on sea, it will be in the air," he said. • Mr. Trump made the case that Washington elites and the media have put the focus, wrongly, on the plight of an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country, rather than the Americans impacted by their presence. "Anyone who tells you that the core issue is the needs of those living here illegally has simply spent too much time in Washington. Only the out of touch media elites think the biggest problems facing American society today is that there are 11 illegal immigrants who don't have legal status. " • Trump ticked through the names of three Americans who were killed by undocumented immigrants. These are staples of his speeches and familiar to his audiences at this stage of the campaign. He has held them up as examples of an immigration system run amok with tragic consequences. • Comparing himself to Hillary Clinton, who he maligned throughout the speech, Mr. Trump asked: "What do you have to lose? Choose me. " It was an echo of a much mocked question he asked black voters recently. • "Maybe they'll be able to deport her. " Mr. Trump wondered provocatively, whether it's possible to send Mrs. Clinton out of the country. • A memorable passage from this speech: "Our message to the world will be this: You cannot obtain legal status or become a citizen of the United States by illegally entering our country. Can't do it. This declaration alone will stop the crisis of illegal crossing. You can't just smuggle in, hunker down and wait to be legalized. Those days are over. " • Mr. Trump invited onto the stage the mothers and fathers of Americans whose children were killed by undocumented immigrants. He asked each to describe their children and how they died. He then kissed many of them on the cheek. It was the most emotional moment of the speech. "If you don't vote Trump, we won't have a country," one of the mother told the audience. Mr. Trump, first reading slowly from a statement and then speaking more freely in response to a question, said he now considered Mr. Peña Nieto a friend and heaped praise on Americans of Mexican descent. Mr. Trump said, were "beyond reproach" and "spectacular, people. " But Mr. Trump said he also told Mr. Peña Nieto directly that he felt Mexico had benefited disproportionately from its trade agreements with the United States, and that he had described illegal immigration as a problem for both countries. Mr. Trump said the two did not discuss the issue of forcing Mexico to pay for a border wall — one of the signature promises of his campaign. Mr. Peña Nieto did not challenge the idea during the news conference but later posted on Twitter that, during his meeting with Mr. Trump, he had made it clear that Mexico wouldn't pay for the wall. Mr. Peña Nieto pushed back in the gentlest of terms on several of Mr. Trump's claims on Nafta, citing U. S. Chamber of Commerce statistics to argue that free trade had been beneficial for both countries and stressing the economic importance of easy movement across the border. Without mentioning specific remarks by Mr. Trump, Mexico's president said that hurtful comments had been made. "Mexican nationals in the United States are honest people, working people," he said, adding, "Mexicans deserve everybody's respect. " But Mr. Peña Nieto stopped well short of scolding Mr. Trump on the international stage. On the contrary, he expressed optimism that they could work together if Mr. Trump was elected president, "even though we do not agree on everything. " The showing was something of a surprise, considering the sense of betrayal among many Mexicans, who feel that their president sold them out to the worst possible person. By the start time of 11 a. m. there were dozens of journalist but only a few protesters. A later, the number of protesters — at least those being vocal and carrying signs — seemed stuck at four, including a guy wearing a Mexican wrestling mask, while the number of journalists topped 50. By 12:30 p. m. there were no more than 10 demonstrators, while the journalist pack continued to balloon. Still, the protesters did their best to represent the anger and disappointment that many Mexicans have expressed toward Mr. Trump as well as toward Mr. Peña Nieto, who is struggling with low approval ratings and a string of scandals. He has spoken out sharply against Mr. Trump in the past, saying in a television interview last month that there was "no way" Mexico would pay for a border wall, and earlier comparing Mr. Trump's campaign to the rise of Hitler. "The president didn't represent the Mexican people, he didn't consult with us," said the demonstrator in the wrestling mask, who called himself "Maldito Perro" — Damned Dog — though later said his real name was Diego Garcia. He admitted to being disappointed by the anemic turnout. Social media activity, he lamented, seemed to be replacing the tradition of the street protest.