Things India should do to improve its Olympic performance Posted on Tweet (Image via catchnews.com)  In August 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had formed a task force to plan for the next three Olympics. This was followed by our mainstream media writing the usual " 10 things the task force should do to improve Indian sports ", " 7 ways India can ensure a better showing at Tokyo 2020 Olympics ", " How to win 20 Olympic medals by 2020 " or " India can get you 10 medals in 2020 if you spend Rs 480 crore " kind of stuff. Two months down the line, all is forgotten.  Since we are not a satire site but a serious website, it was against our ethos to jump the gun and write such an article. Instead we have done painstaking research for the last 2 months and come up with our suggestions.  Here are our suggestions:  (A) Due to our colonial mindset, cricket dominates the sporting scene in India. Cricket in its purest form was meant for the aristocratic families of England who had nothing better to do with their time and wanted a game which would keep them occupied for days. It is not suitable for common working class Indians who have to earn a living. India was once the superpower in hockey and there is no reason why we cannot be once again.  Our Verdict: Create a social media campaign to boycott cricket. Force organizations who sponsor cricket to donate at least 5 Crore rupees for sponsoring other sports. Impose hefty fines on cricket commentators. Force Ravi Shastri to do commentary for hockey and kabaddi matches.  (B) It is common to find people in Delhi and the surrounding NCR region flaunting their power and influence. One has often heard the phrase "Tu Janta hai mera baap kaun hai?" flaunted by these folks. This craving for recognition through power has prompted several impressionable kids in the NCR Region to take up aggressive sports to flaunt their power. Just look at the number of Olympic medalists from the NCR region who have won Olympic medals in aggressive sports:  Abhinav Bindra(2008) – Shooting Sushil Kumar (2008 and 2012) – Wrestling Yogeshwar Dutt (2012) – Wrestling Sakshi Malik(2016) – Wrestling  Further, Gagan Narang who won the bronze in shooting in 2012, was brought up in Chennai and Hyderabad but his parents hail from the NCR region which explains it.  The ripple effect from NCR is so strong that even Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore from neighboring Rajasthan won silver medal for shooting in 2004.  Poor Saina Nehwal found it difficult to practice a non-aggressive sport like badminton in NCR and had to shift to Hyderabad to become a champion and win a bronze medal in 2012 Olympics.  Our verdict: Channelize the aggressive and power flaunting energy of the NCR kids early on and we can be assured of a few medals from here in every Olympics.  (C) Eastern and southern India has produced many Olympic medalists like Karnam Malleswari in Weightlifting, Mary Kom in Boxing, Leander Paes in Tennis and P. V. Sindhu and Saina Nehwal in badminton along with the likes of Dipa Karmakar who show a promise in a sport where India was never in the reckoning.  Our verdict: Just provide encouragement and things will improve.  (D) Our intellectuals and elites attribute the poor showing of India to poverty. But then what explains western India's poor show considering that it has two of the most prosperous states, Gujarat and Maharashtra.  The last medal a person from Maharashtra won at the Olympics was Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav in Wrestling in 1952. But then Maharashtra is home to cricket legends like Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar and of course the cricket commentary of Ravi Shastri. This explains it.  But what about Gujarat then? We are not mainstream media and we do not claim to have expertise on everything and we admit we do not have the answer. But the mainstream media which questioned Modi on everything else has kept quiet about this. Why?  Our verdict: We do not have an answer to this. But we will not keep quiet like the mainstream media. Why did Gujarat not produce a single Olympic medal winner? Will Modi answer?  (E) Given that the elites blame the lack of facilities in our country for our poor show in Olympics, what stops the kids of these elites from excelling at sports? With cheap skilled manpower to help, they should have done well. Unfortunately, the Indian elites believe in a sense of entitlement and are not willing to work hard. Sport is a meritocratic activity and only performance matters. That is the reason sport is one stream in India which is dynasty free, except for brave exceptions like Rohan Gavaskar who are willing to fight against all odds.  A friendly media and intellectuals' ecosystem can make a failed politician look successful, a failed actor a superstar or a news trader a journalist. But this ecosystem cannot make a cricket duck look like a cricket century.  This explains why the son of one of India's greatest cricketers, Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, who captained Indian cricket team despite having vision in only one eye, chose his mother's profession rather than his father's. His biggest sporting achievement to date remains winning a 100 meters sprint in an Amul Macho ad.  Now, you also know why the daughter of Prakash Padukone chose acting or why the son of Dilip Sardesai chose journalism.  Of course, there are exceptions like Leander Paes who went on to become a tennis star despite his father being a member of Indian hockey team and mother being member of Indian basketball team. He is also wise in that he choose tennis over hockey or basketball. Given his ability to get in trouble with his doubles partners, may it be Mahesh Bhupathi, Rohan Bopanna or Sania Mirza, one wonders how he would have fared in basketball or hockey which has a team of more than 2 players.  Our verdict: Lack of facilities is not an excuse, at least for the Indian elites.  (F) Every other Indian boy wants to become a cricketer. For those boys who look beyond cricket, analysis of Indian Olympic winners show that men have only won in hockey and aggressive sports like shooting, boxing and wrestling, except for Norman Pritchard in 1900 who was anyway born to British parents and moved to Britain soon after winning the medals.  Of course Leander Paes is an exception but we already told you why he did not play hockey and also how aggressive he is even towards his partners.  Our verdict: Do not expect anything from Indian men beyond hockey and aggressive sports.  (G) Compared to Indian men, Indian women have won medals in a variety of sports and have been very inclusive, such as Karnam Malleswari in weightlifting, Saina Nehwal and P. V. Sindhu in badminton, Mary Kom in boxing and Sakshi Malik in wrestling. The fact that women got opportunity to train and win in sports like boxing and wrestling that are considered the domain of men show how fake the propaganda of the feminist intellectuals is.  These feminists intellectuals will form stereotypes based on their opinions and peddle it as facts. Being into responsible journalism, we cannot do that. So we decided to explore an angle we thought was a cause for concern. While it's true that this decade has seen the rise of likes of P. V. Sindhu and Sakshi Malik, what concerned us was, "Why is there no one to carry forward the legacy of P. T. Usha and Anju George? Why is Indian falling backwards in women's athletics?"  We did some investigative journalism and the results will shock you. The reason is not patriarchy but colonial hangover. All of India's women medal winners have won in indoor sports like boxing, wrestling, badminton and weightlifting. As per our investigation, small school girls are interested in participating in difficult indoor games like gymnastics but they are scared to play any outdoor games for fear that it will darken their skin. Naturally, India is falling behind in women's athletics.  Our verdict: Ban fair skin creams. This single action will ensure India wins more medals. Change the slogan "Beti bachao, beti padhao" to "Beti bachao, beti padhao, gorepan ka dabaav na dalo."


While rock band U2 s Bono has had a career of being politically outspoken, his priorities have generally been focused primarily on improving living conditions in underdeveloped countries. Heck, the liberal Bono even found common ground with George W. Bush. There s no common ground to be found with Donald Trump, though, who the U2 singer called potentially the worst idea that every happened to America. In an interview with CBS This Morning, Bono gave credence to the idea of American exceptionalism, but he feels that Trump destroys that. In fact, Bono says, Trump could destroy the very idea of America: Look, America is like the best idea the world ever came up with, Bono, whose real name is Paul David Hewson, told CBS This Morning in an interview broadcast Tuesday. But Donald Trump is potentially the worst idea that ever happened to America. Potentially. Bono pointed to nations like Ireland and Great Britain as great countries but suggested that America is different because it s an idea, one that Trump is trying to hijack. That idea is bound up in justice and equality for all equality and justice for all, you know, he continued. I think he s hijacked the party. I think he s trying to hijack the idea of America. And I think it s bigger than all of us. I think it s it s this is really dangerous. Source: PoliticoHere s the video:Say what you want about the often controversial Bono, but he has seen the world and he s right. The idea of America, as a melting pot, as a place where with hard work, anyone can be a success, is not completely incompatible with Donald Trump s ideas. Trump is a xenophobe. He and his supporters want to turn our nation into a solitary island. That s never been what our nation is about.


U.S. President Donald Trump is looking for ways to defend American-made products by certifying legitimate U.S. goods and aggressively going after imported products unfairly sporting the "Made in America" label, the White House said on Tuesday. Trump, who campaigned on reviving the U.S. manufacturing sector, vowed on Monday that his administration would crack down on "predatory online sales of foreign goods" hurting U.S. retailers. On Wednesday, Trump will discuss with small- and medium-sized manufacturers how to certify their products and keep out foreign counterfeits, a senior administration official told reporters. Their products include gutter filters, flags and pillows. "There's just too many examples of foreigners slapping on 'Made in America' labels to products and the worst insult is when they do it after they have actually stolen the product design," the official said. The United States loses about $300 billion a year to theft of intellectual property ranging from semiconductors to jeans, the official said. In March, Trump signed an executive order that gave customs officials more authority to stop pirated and counterfeit items, the official told reporters. The White House plans to work with the private sector on the new certification and verification system rather than create new regulations or spend taxpayer money, the official said, citing as a model the LEED system used to rate the environmental sustainability of building projects.


Remember back in May when Donald Trump said he d make California, New York and Maryland compatible (and that he d win them)? Well it s now mid-October and he can barely hang on to red states Utah, Georgia, Arizona and even Texas the latest poll out of the Lone Star state has him leading by three points. Romney won Texas by 19 points in 2012.There is one state in particular that is leaning towards Hillary Clinton Arizona.The Grand Canyon state, home to Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Jan Brewer, and the god-awful SB 1070, should be a dead set win for Trump, whose anti-immigration rhetoric has propelled him to where he is today. However, recent polling out of the state suggests that Clinton has the upper hand, and for good reason.According to a new Arizona Republic/Morrison/Cronkite News poll released just before the third presidential debate, Hillary Clinton is leading Donald Trump by five points, 39-34 percent. Gary Johnson took six percent while Jill Stein took one percent. Twenty percent remain undecided.However, when pressed on how those who lean one way or the other would solidly vote, as of right now, both Clinton and Trump expand their lead:When including leaners in the sample, the number of undecideds drops to 8.1 percent. Clinton s support rises to 43.3 percent while Trump s support increases to 37.8 percent. Johnson gets 6.5 percent while Stein gets 4.3 percent. The margin of error for the sample including the leaners is plus or minus 4 percentage points.In Nate Silver s FiveThirtyEight general election projection, Clinton has a 58 percent chance of winning Arizona s 11 electoral votes, compared to Trump s 42 percent chance. In the last 48 polls conducted in the state, Clinton holds the edge in 26, Trump in 19, and a tie in three.It is because of these shocking poll results that the Clinton campaign is pumping more than $2 million in advertising in the state and sending a slew of high profile surrogates including First Lady Michelle Obama and Senator Bernie Sanders all across the state.The last time Arizona went blue was in 1996, when voters chose Bill Clinton over Senator Bob Dole by 2 percent.Imagine if Arizona, a state most affected by illegal immigration, stuck it to Trump on election day? Arizona is proving to have a rich, culturally diverse electorate, buoyed by Latino and Hispanic voters who don t take too kindly to Trump s xenophobic, racist tones.Ana Navarro was right if Trump thought insulting Mexicans and Hispanics was the right move, he s going to have one hell of a wake up call in November.


The president of the open borders group known as La Raza is comparing President Donald Trump's immigration orders to a number of historic atrocities, including the slave trade, in a new Washington Post . [The piece by National Council of La Raza President Janet Murguía, claims Trump's plan to deport criminal illegal immigrants build a wall along the southern border and crack down on sanctuary cities will "similarly tarnish our nation's character" like the slave trade did: Some of the darkest chapters in U. S. history have involved forcibly relocating minority populations: the slave trade, the Trail of Tears, Operation Wetback and the internment of citizens and noncitizens of Japanese descent during World War II. Each was considered legal and justified in its time. Now they are condemned as assaults on the values that define our nation. President Trump's first executive order on immigration and the draft enforcement memos signed by Secretary of Homeland Security John F. Kelly promise to similarly tarnish our nation's character. The memos call for expanding the nation's deportation forces by 15, 000 to round up, detain and deport the undocumented immigrants living among us. Instead of focusing on criminals, they make all undocumented people priorities for enforcement, and through a process called "expedited removal," they severely reduce due process protections. Murguía says Trump's immigration orders through the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are based entirely "on falsehoods" about illegal aliens, arguing that illegal immigration is down and it does not pose as much of a threat as the Trump Administration purports. The La Raza president also parroted the talking points that illegal aliens help grow the economy by paying taxes every year: And the cost of the undocumented? Their contributions to the economy far outweigh their burden. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, undocumented immigrants pay $11. 6 billion in taxes each year. According to the Social Security Administration, undocumented workers contribute $15 billion annually to the fund, but only withdraw an estimated $1 billion. This claim has been repeatedly debunked by groups like the Federation for Immigration Reform (FAIR) which found in a comprehensive study that illegal immigration costs American taxpayers a whopping $113 billion, as Breitbart Texas reported. Murguía also claims that there is "little evidence that most undocumented immigrants pose a threat to national security. " But, in documents released by the Senate Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest back in 2016, research found that there have been 580 individuals convicted of terrorism in the U. S. since the September 11th attacks, with 380 of those individuals being terrorists, as Breitbart News reported. Murguía refers to the recent deportation of Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos, an illegal immigrant living in Phoenix, Arizona, with her two children for 20 years. "A woman who was a resident of Phoenix for 20 years was also deported, leaving behind her two U. S. children," Murguía writes in the piece. "They are hardly security threats, but will be 'enforcement priorities' under Homeland Security's new policy. " Nonetheless, Murguía did not mention that Garcia de Rayos had been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in 2008 after she was found to be illegally using a Social Security number to work at a theme park, as Breitbart Texas reported. In 2013, a judge ordered Garcia de Rayos to return home to Mexico, but she instead was required to periodically meet with immigration officials due to lax enforcement policies under former President Obama. Murguía goes on to claim that the Trump administration has "declared war" referring to ICE's efforts to deport criminal illegal immigrants as "stalking people leaving church or going to the movies. " Murguía's piece concludes with a plea for the rest of the open borders lobby and amnesty advocates to continue to try to hold up deportation processes by the Trump Administration, writing "we're deploying every tool we've got to oppose this policy — in the media, in the courts and in peaceful protests in the streets. " John Binder is a contributor for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.


mothers. fathers. Disapproving elders. Parents who warn about regrets. Others whose financial limits were a statement of their values. A week ago, I asked you to send me the best questions you've ever asked, or answered, about money, and published seven queries to start the conversation. Of the five best new ones that arrived in the last week, every one came with a story about a parent like the ones described above. This shouldn't come as an enormous surprise. After all, what we spend, save and give says a lot about who we are. Value and values are just a letter apart, and given how much influence our parents often have on the latter, it makes perfect sense that we think of them when we ponder our financial situations as well. So consider the following five questions, or adapt them to your own financial forks in the road as needed. And if your parents are alive, ask them, too, though you may already know what they will say. Where are we staying in Florida? When Jan Even was in second grade in River Forest, Ill. many of her classmates discussed their pending spring break plans. Some were going to Fort Lauderdale. Others were headed to Sarasota. "I just kind of thought that we were going, too, and that my parents hadn't told me yet," she recalled. But they weren't going, and when she asked about the family's destination, here's how her mother replied: It's more important for you to be able to go to college at age 18 than it is for us to go to Florida now. Ms. Even's family had enough money that this wasn't a so much as a conscious choice. Both her parents grew up during the Depression, and her mother told stories of people coming to the back door of their farmhouse looking for food and Ms. Even's grandmother feeding them dinner. Children make many assumptions about their lives and the lives of others based on where we choose to raise them. So you can't fault Ms. Even, who is now 66 and lives in Redmond, Ore. for wondering aloud when she was young. Nor can you fault her parents for enforcing a bit of artificial deprivation. "Maybe they really were concerned about the money, but I think it was more an expression of their values," she said. They did eventually take her to Florida — but not until senior year in high school, when the college fund was safe and she was six months away from starting at Northwestern University. Can you accept the fact that we can't live the same life that you do? Plenty of parents hope that their children will climb at least one rung up the social class ladder once they are adults, and many more will fight hard to keep their children from slipping even a bit. So it can be jarring for parents when their adult children don't strive for the same things they do. A reader in Baton Rouge, La. who did not want to use her name because she didn't think her relatives would appreciate her sharing the story publicly, wrote in to describe the pressure she and her husband once felt to buy and spend and own and live the way that other, more established family members did. They ran up credit card debt before realizing they couldn't keep up and didn't really want to, either. Then, they had to gently explain to their family how they felt. "Sometimes, I think it's easier to talk about sex with your parents than money," she told me via email. "We choose a simple life. Experiences over possessions. " Her note reminded me of one of the most haunting things I've ever read about families and money. In her book "A Wealth of Possibilities," Ellen Miley Perry described the "centrifugal force" of abundance that swirls around financially successful families. And she described an acquaintance who summed up her relationship with her father this way: "He can't accept the smallness of my dreams. " What would you do if you weren't afraid? In 2001, Daniel L. Anderson and his family were living in Reno, Nev. and loving the easy access to the outdoors, the low cost of living and the good schools. But he was slowly growing bored with his real estate job. He posted his résumé online and soon had a promising job offer in Houston. He also sought advice from his old mentor, who eventually offered him a different job in San Francisco, and then put that pointed question to Mr. Anderson when he wavered. The Houston company had a reputation as a terrific place to work. The word on the San Francisco employer was much more mixed. "His question caused me to my situation to make sure I wasn't doing what was easy and comfortable," Mr. Anderson recalled, adding that he had to get over a bit of macho denial about his own fear before he could really think it through. There were also the stories his mother told him about all of her retired friends who talked about their regrets over the roads not taken. "I did not want to be that person," he said. Which is how he ended up moving to Walnut Creek, Calif. where his family thrived. And how he turned down the attractive offer from a company called Enron. What good is having a lot in the bank if you've never let yourself live? Lisa and Janice Woolery both grew up in families that didn't have much money, and in their life together as a couple, they have been fairly careful. There is no mortgage on their home in Des Moines, and they've saved money for retirement. "But when you do some of those rather extensive retirement planning programs online, you just feel defeated," Lisa said. "You start saying, 'I'm going to die someday, and I want to live in a way that lets me do things that I have been putting off. '" For the two of them, both 55, that means travel of the sort that might have felt fiscally irresponsible in previous years. New Zealand is high on their list. In an interview this week, I asked Lisa whether they'd been able to answer their big question in a way that had allowed them to put a trip like that on the calendar. "Not in the next year or two, yet," she said. "But. " Then a long pause. "It's a … " Then a deep sigh. "The safe answer is the answer I know to use," she said finally. "Low to no risk. But at what point do you say that low to no risk isn't living?" As I was writing this column, she followed up with an email. They'd booked a couples getaway to San Francisco, a place that holds fond memories for them from travel earlier in their relationship. It's a good start. What is the most satisfying thing you've spent money on? By the time she'd scraped her way through college and graduate school, Trudelle Thomas recognized that she had inherited some heavy generational baggage from the Great Depression. So Ms. Thomas, an English professor at Xavier University, went to work on herself to see if she could derive more joy from the money that she chose to spend. When she finally persuaded herself to buy a new car, she didn't draw much additional satisfaction from it. Nice meals out were often unhealthy and expensive. What she enjoyed much more, however, was the money she spent on and with others. She tithes and has contributed to the National Alliance on Mental Illness for a long enough period to feel as if she has been part of important policy changes. Another regular habit: taking her students, many of whom could not afford it, out for lunch in the campus cafeteria. And a few years ago, she took a niece, who otherwise might not have been able to travel, on a trip to California. She liked to dote on people, as she put it, and she reminded me that "thrive" is the root word of thrift. "My niece could think of me as her rich aunt," she said. "But I want her to think of me as her thrifty aunt who splurges on her. "


Microsoft founder Bill Gates called for a robot tax to offset the loss of jobs done by humans as a result of advancements in automation during an interview with Quartz. ["Certainly there will be taxes that relate to automation. Right now, the human worker who does, say, $50, 000 worth of work in a factory, that income is taxed and you get income tax, social security tax, all those things," declared Gates. "If a robot comes in to do the same thing, you'd think that we'd tax the robot at a similar level. " "There are many ways to take that extra productivity and generate more taxes. Exactly how you'd do it, measure it, you know, it's interesting for people to start talking about now," he continued. "Some of it can come on the profits that are generated by the efficiency there. Some of it can come directly in some type of robot tax. I don't think the robot companies are going to be outraged that there might be a tax. It's OK. " Gates added that "you ought to be willing to raise the tax level and even slow down the speed of that adoption somewhat to figure out, 'OK, what about the communities where this has a particularly big impact? Which transition programs have worked and what type of funding do those require? '" "You cross the threshold of of certain activities all sort of at once," Gates concluded. "So, you know, warehouse work, driving, room cleanup, there's quite a few things that are meaningful job categories that, certainly in the next 20 years, being thoughtful about that extra supply is a net benefit. It's important to have the policies to go with that. " Billionaire and entrepreneur Mark Cuban also claimed robots are going to "cause unemployment," posting, "Automation is going to cause unemployment and we need to prepare for it," to Twitter on Sunday. Last week, Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk warned that deep A. I. could potentially be dangerous to the human race, who he described as already . "One of the most troubling questions is artificial intelligence. I don't mean narrow A. I — deep artificial intelligence, where you can have AI which is much smarter than the smartest human on earth," proclaimed Musk during the World Government Summit in Dubai. "This is a dangerous situation. " "Pay close attention to the development of artificial intelligence," he continued. "Make sure researchers don't get carried away. Scientists get so engrossed in their work they don't realize what they are doing. " In November, Musk also predicted that automated robots would lead to mass unemployment, which he claimed could eventually create a universal wage from the government. Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook.


A Cambodian court on Saturday charged two journalists with espionage for filing news reports to a U.S.-funded radio station, which can carry a prison term of up to 15 years. Prime Minister Hun Sen, the strongman who has ruled Cambodia for more than three decades, has taken a strident anti-American line in an increasingly tense run-up to a 2018 election and there has been a crackdown on critics, rights groups and independent media. The United States announced it was ending funding for the election, and promised more concrete steps , after the Supreme Court dissolved the main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) on Thursday at the request of the government, on the grounds it was plotting to seize power. The party denied the accusation. The two journalists, Uon Chhin and Yeang Sothearin, had in the past worked for the Washington-based Radio Free Asia (RFA) which broadcast in the Khmer language until it shut down in September. The two were charged with providing information that is destructive to national defense to a foreign state , when they were caught filing stories to RFA, said Ly Sophana, a spokesman at Phnom Penh Municipal Court. They will be sent to an investigating judge for further procedures, Ly Sophana told Reuters. RFA has said it had no ties to the two journalists since it shut its Phnom Penh office in September. In charging two former RFA journalists with espionage, Cambodian authorities have opened the door to more serious forms of intimidation worthy of despots and dictators, RFA spokesman Rohit Mahajan said in emailed comments. A lawyer for the two said the charges were too serious and they had merely been doing their jobs as journalists. This is not dangerous to the country, said the lawyer, Keo Vanny. The charges carried up to 15 years in prison if the men were convicted, he said. Hun Sen has been fighting a deepening war of words with the U.S. embassy and State Department over his government s crackdown on the opposition. CNRP leader Kem Sokha was arrested on Sept. 3 and charged with treason for an alleged plot to take power with U.S. help. He denied any such pot. The U.S. State Department called on Friday for Cambodia to release him and reverse the decision to ban his party. Western countries, which for decades supported Cambodia s emergence from war and isolation, have shown little appetite for sanctions in response to the government s crackdown, but the European Union has raised the possibility of Cambodia losing vital trade preferences.


You've probably been cleaning your hands all wrong. They must be filthy. Scientists have found that a common technique for applying hand sanitizer, one that is even recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is inferior to an alternative method with twice as many steps. The C. D. C. way: Step One: Apply the sanitizer to one palm. Step Two: Rub both palms together. Step Three: Rub product over your hands until dry. In a study published in the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, scientists in Scotland found that an alternative technique, recommended by the World Health Organization, was significantly more effective in reducing the median bacteria count on participants' hands. It was also more . The C. D. C. method takes 35 seconds on average to complete the alternative, 42. 5 seconds. You may notice that while the instructions include applying the sanitizer and allowing your hands to dry, the technique ignores both actions. (The diagramed W. H. O. method actually contains 11 intensive steps. The study only counted Steps 2 through 7.) Here's how you do it the (much more laborious) W. H. O. way: Step One: Rub palms together. Step Two: Rub each palm front to back over the back of the other hand, interlacing fingers. Step Three: Twist palms with fingers interlaced, and rub between fingers. Step Four: Interlock your fingers, (thumbs should be on opposite sides) and twist again, this time, backs of fingers against palms. Step Five: Clasp your left thumb in your right hand and move thumb in circular motion — then switch thumbs. Step Six: (Still with us?) Press your right fingers together and rub them in a circular motion on your left palm, then switch. You're done! Jacqui Reilly of the Glasgow Caledonian University, the lead author of the study, which focused on workers, stressed that the way the steps were counted emphasized the precision of the superior W. H. O. technique. "The difference between them is that the W. H. O. guidance gives you six maneuvers to do, instead of just saying, 'Apply it all over your hands,' " she said. Hand hygiene, she added, remained "the single most important intervention that you can do to prevent health infection but also to protect yourself and your family from infections and viruses. " Certain antibacterial soaps may do more harm than good, experts say. Some have come under scrutiny for using chemicals like triclosan. The Food and Drug Administration has recommended using hand sanitizers that contain at least 60 percent alcohol if soap and water is unavailable. Dr. Reilly said that while her study focused only on hand sanitizer, the technique applied equally well to hand washing with soap and water. O. K. so maybe you have been persuaded but are reluctant to memorize and do all those new steps? You're not alone. According to the study, even the professionals who participated had trouble with all the steps. Nearly a third of them were unable to complete the entire process despite "having instructions on the technique in front of them and having their technique observed. "


The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said an Islamic State attack on Thursday cut off the main road between Deir al-Zor city and Palmyra, but a Syrian military source denied this. The Observatory, a Britain-based war monitor, said Islamic State seized the town of al-Shoula on the road, as Syrian troops and their allies battled around it with heavy air cover. But the Syrian military source said the army thwarted the attack and denied that Islamic State fighters had taken the town and cut off the route. The militants tried to mount an attack from territory they control southeast of Deir al-Zor city, near the border with Iraq, the source added. They received a blow and did not succeed, the source said. The road, which the army and its allies seized in recent weeks, serves as a major supply route from government territory into the eastern city. With Russian air power and Iran-backed militias, the Syrian army reached Deir al-Zor city last month, breaking an Islamic State siege of an enclave there that had lasted three years. The towns along the Euphrates river, downstream of the city, have fast become the last major IS footholds in Syria and a focus of the multi-sided war. Islamic State militants have been on the back foot in both Iraq and Syria, where they have lost vast territory to different enemies this year. With U.S.-led jets and special forces, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias is also battling Islamic State on the river s eastern bank. The separate offensives have both advanced as they race to capture swathes of Deir al-Zor province. IS media unit Amaq said on Thursday that the militants took al-Shoula and a nearby village as they waged an attack that included suicide bombers, capturing two Russian forces. The Russian defense ministry denied any military personnel were taken hostage, RIA news agency said citing a Russian military official at the Hmeimim air base in Syria. There were no incidents with capturing or losing Russian servicemen in Deir Al-Zor province and other Syrian provinces, the official said. Islamic State leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi exhorted his followers on Thursday to stand fast and keep fighting, in his first purported audio communication in almost a year.


The leaders of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee asked Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Friday to investigate any involvement of U.S. interrogators at secret prisons in Yemen where inmates have reportedly been tortured. The Associated Press published a report on Wednesday that nearly 2,000 men have disappeared into a secret network of prisons in Yemen run by the United Arab Emirates or Yemeni forces trained by the Gulf nation, where they have been abused and tortured. The UAE denied the allegations in a statement to AP. The AP report said U.S. forces have been involved in interrogations of detainees, citing senior American defense officials. The U.S. officials denied any participation in or knowledge of human rights abuses, but obtaining intelligence that may have been extracted by torture inflicted by another party would violate the International Convention Against Torture. Senators John McCain, the Senate committee's Republican chairman, and Jack Reed, its ranking Democrat, asked Mattis to conduct an immediate review of the alleged abuses, including of U.S. support to the forces involved. McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, has been a leader of anti-torture efforts in Congress. In the letter, he and Reed argued that any suggestion the United States is complicit in torture hurts national security. They also asked Mattis to assess what, if anything, U.S. forces knew about the alleged abuses and to provide a briefing to the committee as soon as possible. "We are confident that you find these allegations as extremely troubling as we do," McCain and Reed wrote.


U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew on Monday called on the Senate to take immediate action this week to address Puerto Rico's $70 billion debt crisis before the critical July 1 deadline for the island territory's next debt payments. "The Senate should take up the matter immediately," Lew said in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. "Delay will only jeopardize the ability of Congress to conclude its work before July 1, a critical deadline Puerto Rico's leadership has publicly highlighted for months." If no action is taken, the crisis there will only ratchet higher, he said in the letter. Puerto Rico faces a deadline on Friday to pay off $2 billion of its debts. Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said later in a floor speech that the vote would take place on Wednesday. "I really do think that we can go ahead and support the bill," he said. A senior Republican aide could not confirm that a vote would take place on Wednesday. The financially ailing island is staring down $70 billion worth of debt that it says it cannot repay in full, adding to its 45 percent poverty rate and rising emigration to the U.S. mainland that is also cutting into its economic growth. The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives already passed legislation to address Puerto Rico's debt before leaving Washington for the July 4 holiday break. The Senate is expected to recess at the end of this week. The House bill, a rare piece of bipartisan legislation, would establish a federal oversight board to negotiate various debt restructurings while seeking to institute balanced budgets on the island, a U.S. territory with 3.5 million residents. Lew called on senators to also pass the House measure - the "Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act," or PROMESA - this week to get it to President Barack Obama to sign into law before Friday's payment deadline. The Senate, also controlled by Republicans, is expected to debate the measure this week, but Democrats have said they want changes - a move that could complicate its passage. A vote is expected this week.


A proposal by a U.S. Senate committee to cancel the Defense Department position of acquisition chief could lead to an increase in costs, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Tuesday. The Senate Armed Services Committee's version of the National Defense Authorization Act aims to cancel the position of under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics because it slows innovation. The committee is proposing to divide the responsibilities between a new office in the Pentagon that deals with research and another which would address business management. If the acquisition chief position, currently held by Frank Kendall, was cut, it would separate research and engineering from manufacturing and could derail progress made on lowering growth in contract costs over the last three decades, Carter said at the Sea-Air-Space conference. "Separating these functions makes no sense, as procurement and sustainment costs are controlled by decisions made during development," Carter said. The proposal still has to take a number of steps before it becomes law. The Senate version of the defense bill must be reconciled with the House's version before being voted on in both chambers. If passed, that version would be sent to the White House for President Barack Obama's signature, or veto. On Monday, the White House said it would veto the House's version of the bill because it would shift $18 billion of wartime Overseas Contingency Operations, or OCO, funds to avoid automatic budget cuts to military programs.


Guatemala s Congress on Monday voted overwhelmingly to preserve President Jimmy Morales immunity from prosecution after the attorney general submitted a request to investigate him over suspected financing irregularities during his 2015 election campaign. The vote to protect Morales from possible prosecution was lopsided, with only 25 of the 158 members of Congress voting to strip Morales of his legal protections. Presidential immunity can only be lifted with the backing of at least two-thirds of the chamber, or 105 members. Backers of Morales argued their vote to stop the probe from advancing favored political stability in the Central American nation. Democracy isn t built by changing the president every two years, said Congressman Raul Romero, head of the Fuerza party, referring to the corruption cases that led to the 2015 resignation of Morales predecessor, Otto Perez Molina. The vote in Congress was a blow to the U.N.-backed International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), which was pushing to determine the origin of some $800,000 in funds Morales managed as secretary general of the conservative National Convergence Front (FCN) party he led from 2015 to 2016. It was widely believed that those in favor of stripping Morales of his impunity would struggle to win enough support in Congress to green light an eventual prosecution as CICIG is also investigating all the major parties in Guatemala over suspected illegal financing. Members of Congress are making a pact of corrupt officials now that they are afraid of being investigated themselves for illegal electoral financing, said Alvaro Montenegro, head of the anti-corruption organization Justicia Ya. Morales, who has denied any wrongdoing, issued a statement late on Monday praising the vote as a sign of the country s unity and democratic maturity of its institutions. I call for an end to the political and ideological confrontations and together we ll continue to build the Guatemala we all desire, the statement said. The congressional vote reversed the recommendation of a Guatemalan congressional committee on Sunday that Morales immunity be revoked. Last month, Guatemala s attorney general and CICIG jointly sought to investigate Morales, a former comedian, over the illegal financing allegation. Two days later, Morales declared the head of the U.N. body persona non grata. Under the leadership of Ivan Velasquez, a veteran Colombian prosecutor, CICIG has caused problems for Morales, first investigating his son and brother, and then training its sights on him. The Guatemalan president won office in 2015 running on a platform of honest governance after Perez Molina was forced to resign and imprisoned in a multi-million dollar graft case stemming from a CICIG investigation.


Third of Four Parts … A Defining Event in Everyone's Healthcare Let's start with the central moment of healthcare as experienced by most Americans. The patient goes to a medical office and says, "Please, doctor, I have this ache, pain, or lump. Is there anything you can do to help me?" We can quickly see that this healthcare experience — including, also, seeking advice for wellness and overall longevity, for oneself or for a loved one — almost always comes prior to any consideration of paying the bill. Instead, one's instinctive and immediate focus is on health that is, we are more naturally interested in the fruits of medical science — is there anything you can do? — than in the of accountancy finance. To put the issue another way, the patient regards his or her problem as, first and foremost, a health issue and then, and only then, a financial issue. After all, the reason for going to the doctor in the first place is not to wrangle over the eventual bill that might come later. In the here and now, the purpose of the visit, of course, is to get better. We can observe that this is basic human nature: If you're in a theater and someone yells "Fire!" your first instinct is flight, to survive worrying about getting a refund on your ticket can wait till you've escaped the danger. Thus the implicit science of a medical situation — can the doctor help me or not? — is prior to the finance flesh, blood, and pain take priority over money, debt, and numbers on a ledger. "Healthcare Policy Is a Loser for Whichever Party Is in Charge" The Value of Hanging Out with a Better Crowd, So is there hope that a Republican Cure Strategy will emerge? We'll have to wait and see, of course, but it certainly seems that the cures approach — as highlighted by Trump and Cruz, and as legislated by Upton and Wicker — offers Republicans more upside and less downside. In the meantime, we only know this much: The fusion of science, technology, and vision has worked in the past to promote progress, and it can be made to work, yet again, in the future. Why so optimistic? We'll take up that question in the next installment.


A visa program aimed at diversifying the U.S. immigrant population came under attack from President Donald Trump on Wednesday after he learned that the man accused of killing eight people in New York City on Tuesday used it to enter the country. Sayfullo Saipov, who was charged in Tuesday's truck attack, immigrated to the United States from Uzbekistan in 2010 after winning a lottery enabling him to obtain a so-called "diversity visa," two government officials confirmed to Reuters. The program, established by Congress and coordinated by the State Department, has its roots in efforts to bring more Irish and Italian immigrants into the United States. Citizens of countries that send relatively few immigrants to the United States can enter a lottery that grants winners permanent U.S. residency. Applicants must have at least a high school education or its equivalent, or relevant work experience. Just under 11.4 million applicants entered the 2016 lottery for 50,000 slots available to winners and their close family members, according to State Department figures. The visa program has succeeded in diversifying the mix of immigrants that come into the United States each year, but has also drawn criticism for being vulnerable to fraud and for posing national security risks. Trump said on Wednesday he would ask Congress to "immediately" initiate efforts to kill the program, and Republican House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, who has long called for an end to diversity visas, said in a statement that they pose "a threat to the safety of our citizens." Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer helped create the program in 1990 when he was a member of the House of Representatives. But he was also part of a group of lawmakers in 2013 who crafted a bipartisan immigration bill that would have done away with the program. That bill was passed by the Senate but was killed by the Republican-led House. Top congressional Democrats on Wednesday defended the program, saying it subjects all visa recipients "to the same stringent vetting as all other immigrant visa programs." The only other known instance of a diversity visa beneficiary carrying out a deadly terrorist attack in the United States occurred in 2002. That year, an Egyptian man who had received a diversity visa through his wife years earlier shot and killed two people in a Los Angeles airport. The man had earlier sought asylum in the United States but was rejected. Ultimately, he was allowed to stay in the country after his wife won the lottery. As early as 2004, the State Department's then-deputy inspector general, Anne Patterson, told Congress her office believed the diversity program "contains significant vulnerabilities to national security" and that terrorists could "attempt to use it to enter the United States as permanent residents." The agency watchdog recommended barring citizens of countries that sponsor terrorism from the program. Over the years, government audits have exposed sophisticated fraud schemes targeting the program, including extortion rackets, sham marriages and the use of fake identification documents. In 2007, Congress's Government Accountability Office issued a report noting that federal law enforcers "believe that some individuals, including terrorists and criminals, could use fraudulent means to enter or remain in the United States." The report found, however, "no documented evidence" that diversity visa immigrants "posed a terrorist or other threat." A September 2013 State Department inspector general report found that "organized fraud rings masquerading as travel agencies" had hijacked the diversity visa program in Ukraine. Under the scheme, Ukrainians were entered in the lottery without their consent, and then held up for money in exchange for the chance to claim a visa or encouraged to enter into sham marriages if they won.


Stephen K. Bannon, former Breitbart News executive chairman, founding host of Breitbart News Daily, and now chief strategist for the incoming Trump White House, made a special appearance on the final live show of 2016. ["I'm only doing this because of the great audience we've got here and your producing team, led by Caroline Magyarits — and you, Matt, that you're hosting the thing. So, glad to be on," Bannon told SiriusXM host Matt Boyle. "This was the most amazing year we've seen, both here in the United States and overseas," Boyle said, describing those events as a "revolt of the working class. " "It's pretty amazing," Bannon agreed. "As you know, with the website, with Breitbart and with the radio show, particularly the weekend show and then the daily show, we've been following this and reporting on it for years. " "It's something we saw build up particularly in Europe, with the great team we've got over in London, led by Raheem and James Delingpole," he said, referring to Breitbart London chief editor and frequent Breitbart News Daily host Raheem Kassam. "That led ultimately to Brexit, after all the different European Parliament votes they had and everything that UKIP kind of led. " "And then here in the United States, where we saw it build up in the primaries, and then in the general election," he continued. "I think we've lived through an historic time. I think we'll talk about what happened in this year politically for many, many decades to come. It was exciting to live through it, and very exciting to be at SiriusXM, you know, the Patriot Channel with the show, and at Breitbart to actually see and report on it and comment on it. " Bannon said, "The best thing we ever had was both the comments section at Breitbart and the callers, the great audience we've got here at SiriusXM, to call and share every day what their feelings were. " "We used to tease, after John McCain made that speech that time, that called our audience 'hobbits,' it was always great to hear what the hobbits had to say because at the end of the day what they had to say was what mattered most," he said. Bannon's message to the hobbits and "deplorables" — to quote Hillary Clinton's memorable slander of Trump voters — was to keep in mind that it's only the "top of the first inning" for their movement. "You've got to stay engaged," he advised, pleased to see high levels of engagement in "traffic at all the different sites, and the activity you see, the comments sections at the various sites you see, and how great the radio show is doing. " "The Trump administration, I think it's three weeks from the day exactly is when President Trump will take the oath of office. So let's hold people accountable and stay engaged. There will be a lot of exciting activity over the next couple of years," he promised. "Stay engaged. Stay on top of stuff. I think '17 will be actually more exciting than '16 was. " "So continue to go to various sites that are out there, where you get your news and information, and then obviously continue to listen to the various shows on the Patriot Channel. You've got so many great shows — you know, David Webb, Wilkow, Sean Hannity. You've got really a whole raft of great guys, Mark Levin, and of course the Breitbart News Daily and Breitbart Weekend shows," he recommended. Bannon anticipates that 2017 will be as much of an "exciting time" as 2016 was. "We don't like to try to guess what's going to happen in the future, but I've got to tell you, I think people were very engaged in this election, and I think will be very engaged as time goes forward. The key is to hold people accountable. The hobbits, or the deplorables, had a great run in '16. Everybody mocked them and ridiculed them, and now they've spoken. I think '17 is going to be a very exciting year," he predicted. "I noticed on Breitbart over the last month or two, as either certain appointments were made or certain things were done that didn't comport with behavior that the deplorables or the hobbits thought were correct, it was interesting to see some of the articles written on the site, and the intensity in the comments," said Bannon. "I think that's great," he said. "People are engaged. They feel like they have a voice. Just continue on. I know that on the show, you guys have been doing a great job every day with the production team and the great folks at SiriusXM. So it's just going to be a great year. Let's just stay engaged. " He concluded by applauding Boyle for doing a great job and said to the Breitbart News audience and callers, "I really miss you guys. Have a great New Year, and look forward to talking with you guys early in 2017. " Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. LISTEN:


Bryan Pagliano is in hot water with this and he knows it. Is water boarding an option here? Seriously, they need his testimony but he s obviously not going to incriminate himself so he pleads the fifth.The State Department IT worker who managed Hillary Clinton s private email server while she was secretary of state will plead the Fifth Amendment if called to testify about his work on the Democratic presidential candidate s mysterious email setup, his attorney informed the House Select Committee on Benghazi this week. The committee subpoenaed Bryan Pagliano on Aug. 11, according to The Washington Post. In addition to testifying on Sept. 10, committee chairman Trey Gowdy asked Pagliano to produce documents related to the servers he managed on behalf of Clinton. Pagliano worked on Clinton s 2008 presidential campaign before moving over to the State Department in May 2009, several months after Clinton took office. He left the agency at the same time as Clinton, in Feb. 2013. But in a letter to the Benghazi Committee on Monday, Mark MacDougall, Pagliano s attorney, said that his client would assert his constitutional right against self-incrimination if called to testify. Pagliano is one of numerous Clinton aides that Gowdy s panel intends to interview. Two of Clinton s top aides will testify this week. Clinton herself is scheduled to publicly testify next month.


I'm not horrified she's with the Washington Post. She's typical of what you get with that paper. Left wing bias. I'm glad O'rilley called her out.


THE UPDATE TO THIS NEBRASKA DEMOCRATIC PARTY OFFICIAL S DISGUSTING COMMENTS: PHIL MONTAG HAS BEEN FIRED!The Democrats just aren t getting the message that America is leaving their Party in droves because of violent rhetoric! Who wants to be associated with anyone who is happy that someone got shot?A Nebraska Democratic Party official is now in hot water. An audio recording was posted on YouTube Thursday with Phil Montag, a technology chairman, voicing how glad he was that House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., got shot last week at a GOP baseball practice. Nebraska Democratic Party Chairwoman Jane Kleeb confirmed to FOX 42 News Thursday it was really his voice:Nebraska Democrat Party official caught on tape saying I m glad that motherfucker [Scalise] got fucking shot, I wish he was fucking dead! pic.twitter.com/yFJ32PqT77 Josh Caplan (@joshdcaplan) June 23, 2017 His whole job is to get people, convince Republicans to (expletive) kick people off (expletive) health care. I m glad he got shot, said Montag in the audio recording.Montag is now looking for a new job; Kleeb let him go after the recording became public. I wish he was (expletive) dead, said Montag in the recording. We obviously condemn any kind of violence, whether it s comments on Facebook or comments in a meeting, said Kleeb when reached by phone Thursday.


This past Sunday, the latest ABC/ Washington Post poll showed a 12-point national polling in favor of Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. This poll, along with various other recent polls from the Washington Post , Reuters, and ABC, has shown a 9-percentage point sampling bias toward registered Democrats , causing an uproar of speculation. Keep in mind, we are neither Trump supports nor Hillary Supporters. The website Zero Hedge reported : "METHODOLOGY – This ABC News poll was conducted by landline and cellular telephone Oct. 20-22, 2016, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 874 likely voters. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3.5 points, including the design effect. Partisan divisions are 36-27-31 percent, Democrats – Republicans – Independents." These small sampling details shouldn't be taken so lightly, as they can change the results of the poll immensely, as well as shift people's perceptions of their candidate's likelihood of winning. This in turn can deter people from voting altogether. There may be a few more registered Democrats, but they certainly don't have a 9-point registration average, which the latest sampling polls have shown. Furthermore, the media organizations involved are pulling a certain demographic sampling to get the results they have. Zero Hedge put it into perspective by noting: As a quick example, the ABC / WaPo poll found that Hillary enjoys a 79-point advantage over Trump with black voters. Therefore, even a small "oversample" of black voters of 5% could swing the overall poll by 3 full points . Moreover, the pollsters don't provide data on the demographic mix of their polls which makes it impossible to "fact check" the bias…convenient. The many recent WikiLeaks documents have exposed Hillary Clinton's scandalous behaviour, including the release of the contents from her private e-mail server. One of them in particular revealed the close ties the Clinton campaign has had with polling organizations, creating speculation that the campaign is paying the organizations to push the polls in Clinton's favor. With media organizations using specific demographic sampling details to rig the results of polling, more dismay, confusion, and anger over the possible, if not absolute, corruption that occurs in the U.S. presidential election can be the only result. And to really expose just how rigged the polls are, the latest Podesta emails, which were just released by WikiLeaks , show in disturbing detail just how to "manufacture" the hoped-for results from a certain poll. The email correspondence exposes the request for recommendations regarding "oversamples for polling" in order to "maximize what we get out of our media polling." One email said, "I also want to get your Atlas folks to recommend oversamples for our polling before we start in February. By market, regions, etc. I want to get this all compiled into one set of recommendations so we can maximize what we get out of our media polling." And among some of the most damaging materials was an attachment of a 37-page guide. One instance revealed that, in Arizona, the oversampling of Hispanics' and Native Americans' populations was highly recommended: "Research, microtargeting & polling projects – Over-sample Hispanics – Use Spanish language interviewing. (Monolingual Spanish-speaking voters are among the lowest turnout Democratic targets) – Over-sample the Native American population" And in Florida, the report discusses "consistently monitoring" samples for ensuring they're "not too old" and "has enough African American and Hispanic voters." The report even acknowledges that national polls over sample "key districts/regions" and "ethnic" groups "as needed." "– General election benchmark, 800 sample, with potential over samples in key districts/regions – Benchmark polling in targeted races, with ethnic over samples as needed – Targeting tracking polls in key races, with ethnic over samples as needed" Many of the Podesta emails give clear insight into why the mainstream media has refused to report on the most damning allegations against Clinton — with this latest revelation simply affirming the reality that the "consent of the governed" is, in reality, nothing more than manufactured consent by one group that holds total power. Ultimately, these elections are a mere distraction, and as John F. Hylan, among others, told us: The real menace of our Republic is the invisible government, which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy legs over our cities, states and nation … The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the United States government for their own selfish purposes. They practically control both parties … [and] control the majority of the newspapers and magazines in this country. They use the columns of these papers to club into submission or drive out of office public officials who refuse to do the bidding of the powerful corrupt cliques which compose the invisible government. It operates under cover of a self-created screen [and] seizes our executive officers, legislative bodies, schools, courts, newspapers and every agency created for the public protection. ( source )( source ) These are the ones we should be focusing our attention on.


Barack Obama implored members of Congress to have the courage not to repeal the Affordable Care Act Sunday night.The former president made his first public remarks about the proposed health care legislation just days after House Republicans voted to pass the measure 217 to 213. If it passes the Senate, it would repeal and replace major parts of Obamacare.During his speech, Obama also lauded the Democratic members of Congress who voted in favor of the Affordable Cart Act in 2010 and then lost their seats because of it. These men and women did the right thing, the hard thing, and theirs was a profile in courage, and because of that vote, 20 million people got health insurance that didn t have it before. Daily Caller


The campaign group Human Rights Watch on Friday condemned the arrest by Saudi authorities of some 30 clerics, intellectuals and activists this week as a coordinated crackdown on dissent , and Amnesty International echoed the sentiment. The arrests were made after exiled opposition figures called for demonstrations following Friday s afternoon prayers, which did not appear to attract much support amid a heavy security deployment. Activists this week circulated on social media lists of people detained. They included prominent Islamist preacher Salman al-Awdah, as well as some people with no clear links to Islamist activity or obvious history of opposition. The detentions come amid widespread speculation, denied by officials, that King Salman, 81, intends to abdicate in favor of his son, Crown Prince Mohammed, who dominates economic, foreign and domestic policy. There are also growing tensions with Qatar over its alleged support of Islamists, including the Muslim Brotherhood, which is listed by Riyadh as a terrorist organization. These apparently politically motivated arrests are another sign that Mohammed bin Salman has no real interest in improving his country s record on free speech and the rule of law, said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. The New York-based group said the arrests fitted a pattern of human rights violations against peaceful activists and dissidents, including harassment, intimidation, smear campaigns, travel bans, detention and prosecution. Crown Prince Mohammed has rocketed to the pinnacle of power in the kingdom, pushing a reform agenda called Vision 2030 aimed at weaning the country off oil and introducing social reforms. Critics say he is not doing enough to liberalize politics in a country where the king enjoys absolute authority. Amnesty International also denounced the crackdown, urging the authorities to reveal the whereabouts of the detainees and give them access to families and lawyers. In recent years we cannot recall a week in which so many prominent Saudi Arabian figures have been targeted in such a short space of time, said Samah Hadid, the group s director of campaigns in the Middle East. It is clear that the new leadership under Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman is sending a chilling message: freedom of expression will not be tolerated, we are coming after you. A government spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. All public protests are banned in Saudi Arabia, as are political parties. Labor unions are illegal, the media are controlled and criticism of the royal family can lead to prison. Riyadh says it does not have political prisoners, but senior officials have said monitoring of activists is needed to maintain social stability. The al-Saud family has always regarded Islamist groups as the biggest internal threat to its rule over a country in which appeals to religious sentiment cannot be lightly dismissed and an al Qaeda campaign a decade ago killed hundreds. Islamist movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood, which originated in Egypt and briefly held power there after the 2011 Arab Spring, represent an ideological threat to Saudi Arabia s dynastic system of rule. The Brotherhood-inspired Sahwa movement agitated in the 1990s to bring democracy to Saudi Arabia and criticized the ruling family for corruption, social liberalization and working with the West, including allowing U.S. troops into the kingdom during the 1991 Iraq war. The Sahwa were weakened by a mixture of repression and co-optation, but remain active. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt cut diplomatic and transport links with Qatar in June over its alleged support for Islamists including the Brotherhood a charge Doha denies. At a mosque in central Riyadh that protest organizers had identified as one of several potential gathering spots, the imam warned worshippers against demonstrating. All the groups that exist today and call for political action or aspire to rule they are all misguided, deviant groups headed by the Muslim Brotherhood, he said. Most people seemed to heed that message, with no demonstrations reported across the kingdom.


Autry Pruitt, board member of FAIRtax. org spoke with Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Friday regarding tax day rallies planned to take place across America, including in front of Trump Tower in NYC. [Said Pruitt, "FAIRtax. org is holding a rally tomorrow and we're holding the rally to help remind President Trump of what he promised. Our fear after watching the recent events in Syria, our fear after watching what occurred with Obamacare is that President Trump is going to be urged, he's going to get a push from the media, to turn tax reform over to the establishment. " "And that's exactly what we do not want," he continued. "So, we felt that at this time it is imperative that all the people who voted for him, who's sweat and I believe your previous guest who talked about having blood coming from their feet as they marched for him, we believe that it's imperative that we remind President Trump we were there for you. We got you there. When nobody else said you could, we said you can and you will. " Pruitt also authored a book titled Planes, Steak Water: Defending Donald J. Trump in September of 2016. Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern.


By now, we re all sick and tired of hearing Donald Trump whine about fake news, especially when he s team is a major creator of it.Earlier today, Trump went on one of his routine Twitter rants about fake news and unfavorable coverage, targeting unwatchable MSNBC and CNN for their conspiracy theories and blind hatred. To top it off, Trump happily endorsed Fox News, which has been proven to be the most dishonest media outlet there is.While Trump was whining about networks that tell the truth about how awful he is, CNN s Chris Cuomo hit back and completely shut him down. Cuomo pointed out that for someone who hates CNN, Trump is one of their most loyal viewers. Cuomo said: The president, as we know, watches New Day. We appreciate that viewership. He does not want to talk to us, but he does want to talk about us, and yet, this situation is different. He has said nothing to rebut the facts of this situation. On top of that, Cuomo and his colleagues spent the entire morning reporting on the details that Trump s senior advisors had been in constant communication with Russian intelligence during Trump s presidential campaign making Trump look like a complete idiot.Cuomo also pointed out that fact that Trump hasn t been able to give an answer regarding Russia s involvement in the election or General Michael Flynn s communications with Russia that have now caused him to resign just 24 days after beginning his role as national security advisor. Cuomo said: Who knew? The idea that Flynn had to resign because he was soloing with this unique agenda with Russia that nobody else knew about, nobody had told him to do and nobody participated in is hard to believe and goes without good answer from the White House. Cuomo s attack on Trump is perfect, and hopefully it ll shut him up for a while so he can actually do his job:


A federal judge in Manhattan has ordered the partial unsealing of a government search warrant and supporting documents stemming from a federal inquiry into emails belonging to Huma Abedin, a top aide to Hillary Clinton. The judge, P. Kevin Castel of United States District Court, ordered on Monday that the documents be posted on the court's docket at noon on Tuesday unless his decision is appealed and stayed or modified by a federal appeals court. The emails were discovered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation during an unrelated investigation of Anthony D. Weiner, the former congressman and estranged husband of Ms. Abedin. Mr. Weiner has been under investigation by federal prosecutors in Manhattan over allegations that he exchanged illicit text messages with a girl. The emails, which the F. B. I. director, James B. Comey, revealed to Congress on Oct. 28, jolted Mrs. Clinton's presidential campaign and led to broad criticism of his handling of the investigation. On Nov. 6, Mr. Comey told Congress that the bureau's review of the emails had not changed its conclusion: Mrs. Clinton should face no charges over her handling of classified information. The requested unsealing of the warrant and related materials was made by E. Randol Schoenberg, a lawyer who has criticized Mr. Comey's handling of the investigation and who has written that Mr. Comey's actions cost Mrs. Clinton the presidency. Mr. Schoenberg argued in a court filing that access to the materials "that provided the basis for the investigation are of the utmost public importance. " Last week, a Justice Department lawyer, Jennie L. Kneedler, said the government objected to the unsealing request, but Judge Castel made it clear that he was leaning toward releasing the materials, with some redactions. He asked the government to provide the documents and proposed redactions to him under seal. In his ruling, the judge noted that the government, in its filing, "effectively" withdrew its opposition to Mr. Schoenberg's request and asked that the documents be unsealed with redactions. In ordering the unsealing, the judge said Mrs. Clinton had little "privacy interest in the release of documents identifying her as the subject of this investigation. " "The strong presumption of access attached to the search warrant and related materials is not overcome by any remaining privacy interest of Secretary Clinton," the judge said. Although Ms. Abedin and Mr. Weiner are not mentioned in the ruling, their names appear to be among the redacted information, along with portions related to the investigation of Mr. Weiner. Mrs. Clinton had taken no position on the request, Mr. Schoenberg's lawyer, David B. Rankin, said in a court filing last week. Mrs. Clinton's lawyer, David E. Kendall, declined to comment on the ruling, as did Arlo a lawyer for Mr. Weiner, and lawyers for Ms. Abedin. The Justice Department also declined to comment.


For months Republican presidential candidates traded insults such as "dummy," "jerk" and "loser." Then, party front-runner Donald Trump repeated a supporter's description of Ted Cruz as a "pussy." With the contest for the party's nomination moving into South Carolina and the stakes rising, it is possible the most disparaging discourse of the Nov. 8 election campaign is yet to come. The epithets may be characteristic of schoolyard bullies, but there is some evidence that candidates are reveling in the attention they draw. The harshest attacks elicit the biggest responses at rallies, on the Internet and on cable TV. Trump, the billionaire former reality TV star, sent a New Hampshire rally into a frenzy on Monday when he repeated the term "pussy" shouted by a person in the crowd, effectively questioning Cruz's manliness. Trump went on to win the state's primary the next day, ahead of the third-place Cruz by a 3-to-1 margin. "It's one of the reasons I won. You have to be yourself," Trump said in a television interview on NBC's Today show. Trump later promised to clean up his foul language and to be more presidential. History suggests the language could turn even more coarse in the run-up to next Saturday's Republican nominating contest in South Carolina. It was there that U.S. Senator John McCain of Arizona was accused in 2000 of fathering an illegitimate African-American child, and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney in 2008 of supporting polygamy. "These adults are acting like elementary children," Leslie McRobbie, a former fifth-grade schoolteacher from New Hampshire, said of this year's Republican contenders. President Barack Obama, a Democrat, this week spoke of the snark that characterized a Republican race of the past when he recalled that Ronald Reagan was described by rivals as an "unshapely man" and a "yahoo" before his election as president in 1980. Coming off the first nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, the seven remaining candidates for the Republican nomination are under pressure either to break away from the crowd or prevent others from doing so. Insults can foster that. Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, mocked more than once by Trump as a "low-energy" candidate, has since retaliated by tweeting that Trump was "not just a loser," but also a "liar and a whiner." The put-down was re-tweeted nearly 3,000 times and "liked" by more than 4,000 users. Cruz, responding to Trump's decision to skip a Fox News-hosted Republican debate, branded his rival "Ducking Donald" and sponsored a special edition filter on picture-sharing app Snapchat that featured a blond-haired duck with an exaggerated pout meant to represent the real-estate mogul. "When we create so much of the modern campaign around the characters that are running, and not on the subjects, the natural byproduct of that is calling people names," said political scientist Michael Artime. Artime said that while bickering and name-calling have always existed in elections, this cycle has seen a notable uptick in the negative. "In the past, if somebody would've said what Trump said the other night, that would have been a very damaging thing to their campaign," Artime said. "The kind of politics we get is kind of the politics we deserve," he said. While many have gleefully or indifferently watched as candidates hurled barb after barb, others have condemned it. "Bullying can be highly instrumental and used for social climbing," said Bob Faris, associate professor of sociology at University of California-Davis, who studies aggressive behavior in adolescents. "And it works," he said, "provided that kids target the right kids." For Trump, perhaps the most blustery of the candidates, the target is constantly changing, his numbers remaining constant in the opinion polls while he assails rivals for being "stupid," "weak" and "pathetic." "He does look like a bully," Faris said. "Donald is a whole new development. I can't think of a candidate like him." Presidential historian Mike Purdy, however, cites a precedent in the late Republican President Theodore Roosevelt. "Roosevelt loved more than anything else to be the center of attention, and he had a huge, huge ego," Purdy said. "They both have a certain amount of ego. They both have trouble controlling their mouths," Purdy said, likening Roosevelt to Trump. Purdy said Roosevelt called his onetime ally William Howard Taft a "fathead" during the 1912 presidential campaign, and went on to say then-rival Taft, seeking re-election at the time, had the "brains of a guinea pig." Neither won the race. Purdy noted the attacks also came at the expense of substantive political discourse. "They're incredibly personal attacks, and they're not just attacks just on somebody's position, they're attacks about personal characteristics," he said. "That is part of the civility I think we need to recapture." On Friday, Trump suggested he agreed. "I do this for effect," Trump said of his foul language in an interview with WOR Radio in New York. "As we get closer, you will be shocked at how presidential I will be. You will be very proud of me." (Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Howard Goller) SAP is the sponsor of this content. It was independently created by Reuters' editorial staff and funded in part by SAP, which otherwise has no role in this coverage.


The Washington game now requires that any unindicted politician with a bit of ambition — even 75-year-old Jerry Brown — let it be known that he is thinking about maybe, just possibly running for president. But here's the flip side: the media culture now demands to know whether these pols are quietly plotting a White House bid — and treats it as sort of strange if the answer is no. What do you mean you're not feverishly plotting a presidential bid three years before the next election? Is there something wrong with you? I guess we don't like to take no for an answer. Take Paul Ryan. A natural leader of the conservative movement. The Republican VP nominee last year. A man who can translate Beltway jargon into Main Street concerns. The Wisconsin congressman is in the spotlight because he just hammered out a budget agreement with Patty Murray that passed the Senate yesterday with 64 votes—three fewer than supported a cloture vote—after winning bipartisan approval in the House. The modest deal is noteworthy mainly because it temporarily ends the Washington gridlock and threats of shutdown and default. But it also brought sniping from more militant conservatives who see Ryan as selling out to the Democrats. The dustup triggered a spate of Whither Paul Ryan pieces in the press. Is he running? Is he not running? It's 2013 already — we have to know! "In interviews The Hill conducted with more than two dozen House Republicans from across the ideological spectrum over the last couple of weeks, many of Ryan's colleagues said they are doubtful he will run for president in 2016. Most believe that concerns for his young family will lead him to lay claim to the job he's always wanted: chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee." Ryan wants to be a Hill poohbah and not move into the White House. "Ryan on Tuesday told The Wall Street Journal that he plans to lead the Ways and Means Committee in the next Congress. Ryan and his wife Janna have three children, and his friends say that his concern about the hardship of an 18-month presidential campaign is a genuine factor in his consideration." This is the human factor that journalists rarely pause to consider. Running for president is a meat grinder that chews people up, and Ryan got a taste of that as Mitt Romney's running mate. I don't know whether Ryan is being coy, or whether, with the highest positive rating among Iowa Republicans, he'll change his mind and jump into the race. But I do think the press ought to take him at his word until there's evidence to the contrary. I guess it wasn't a big story when John Podesta compared the Republicans to a suicide cult. But now that Podesta is joining President Obama's inner circle, Politico is asking: "Can John Podesta Save Him?" (Boy, that's a tall order.) In its profile of Podesta, who is stepping down as head of the Center for American Progress, this incendiary quote was slipped into the narrative without comment. White House officials, said Podesta, "need to focus on executive action given that they are facing a second term against a cult worthy of Jonestown in charge of one of the houses of Congress." Podesta was comparing John Boehner to Jim Jones, who led his followers to kill themselves? Didn't that set off any alarm bells? But the quote caused a stir now that the former Bill Clinton chief of staff is joining the White House, and he tweeted an apology: "In an old interview, my snark got in front of my judgment. I apologize to Speaker Boehner, whom I have always respected." Click for more from Media Buzz. Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz.


Allow me to begin by saying former DNC chair Howard Dean is the f*cking man. After tweeting that Donald Trump might be on cocaine a reasonable observation based on the GOP s actions during the first presidential debate he could have backed down under scrutiny. He could have caved and apologized. Instead, he made his case.Dean, a physician who is qualified to speculate though in his own words not diagnose without examining Trump in person responded to criticism of his remarks on MSNBC. I don t make diagnosis on the television, it s medically improper, he told Kate Snow Tuesday, a subtle jab at Trump and his legion of Fox News doctors feverishly trying to diagnose Clinton with every neurological disorder under the sun because she coughed that one time and contracted pneumonia the other. But I don t think this was a ridiculous idea. Something funny was going on with Trump last night. Something ridiculous was indeed going on. Trump spent his evening screaming about ridiculous conspiracy theories, attacking his opponent s stamina based on a minor illness, interrupting Clinton constantly, guzzling water, sweating profusely, and other things that would be expected from his meth-addled Twitter followers rather than a serious presidential candidate. Here s the interesting constellation: he sniffs during the presentation, which is something that users do. He also has grandiosity, which is something that accompanies that problem. He has delusions, I m not talking about being crazy, but for example when he told everybody he was very smart not to pay taxes and then denied that he said after he said it it in front of 100 million people, Dean said. He thinks somehow he s not going to get caught, that is delusional. He has trouble with pressured speech, the former Vermont governor added. He interrupted, as you pointed out, Hillary Clinton twenty-nine times. He couldn t keep himself together. Do I think at 70 years old he has a cocaine habit? Probably not, Dean concludes. But it s something that I think would be interesting to ask him, to see if he ever had a problem with that. Asked for clarification if he thinks Trump has a cocaine habit, Dean replied I don t think he has a cocaine habit, placing special emphasis on the word habit. In other words, it might be a stretch to say Trump is addicted to cocaine, but it is possible that he used it to pep himself up before the debate.In an effort to deflect from the allegation, Trump assured the public that he just had a cold, but Stephen Colbert put it best when he said The Donald sounded like he was trying to get over a cold using cocaine. We can t know for sure if Trump has ever been treated for addiction, as he refuses to release his records and since Trump should be held to the same standards to which he holds Hillary Clinton, it s not unreasonable to question if he has been using cocaine (especially given the crazy, whacked-out bonkers stuff he says in public).Watch Dean SLAY this interview below:


Every once in a while, the perfect pun comes along. You know them when you see them. They re so good, you have to come back and use them again and again. And in situations of discomfort, or fear, or even danger, a pun can be a lifesaver, or an icebreaker, or just something to remind everyone that not everything is serious all the time.Donald Trump presents America with those situations every day. And although there are plenty of good jokes and puns about his hair or his complexion or the likelihood that he has, um, nether regions that match his abnormally tiny hands, none of those are actually perfect. They re physical digs, and those are a dime a dozen.No, the funniest jokes about Donald Trump have to do with ironic things he does, like owning a brand of steaks and famously eating them in a way that makes Mr. Creosote himself, well, sick.But the funniest one of them all rolls right off the tongue because it s already a part of our everyday vernacular. We say Trump s ties to Big Oil, and Trump s ties to Putin s Russia, but really we could just stop at Trump s Ties: They re f*cking hilarious. And nothing is funnier than taking something that s already funny and making it even better. So today we re revisiting a Twitter account that popped up back in February specifically for the purpose of making Donald Trump s neckties even funnier than they already are:Here s Trump ruminating over the fact that the Russia investigation had by this time reached the money laundering stage.pic.twitter.com/tF0DpZ2iUP Trump's Ties (@TrumpsTies) August 31, 2017Trump, Pence, and the notoriously filthy Paul Ryan engage in some three-way bondage.pic.twitter.com/L1M6mbO8VU Trump's Ties (@TrumpsTies) September 2, 2017A secret affair between Trump and a top Democrat? Only the tie knows.pic.twitter.com/vy45es2nKT Trump's Ties (@TrumpsTies) September 8, 2017 Florida can t be as wet as my tie right now, am I right guys? Guys? pic.twitter.com/OFUJB2XFah Trump's Ties (@TrumpsTies) September 14, 2017 Trump Fires Underage Gardener For Mowing Over His Signature Power Tie pic.twitter.com/TBnpyIGsb6 Trump's Ties (@TrumpsTies) September 15, 2017 No, Mister F*cking President, the Hanoi Hilton is not a hotel. pic.twitter.com/4rgDh0Hnil Trump's Ties (@TrumpsTies) September 22, 2017It s too bad Pence didn t take a knee, he would ve jerked Donnie right out of the 400 level of Lucas Oil Stadium.pic.twitter.com/Py4WQ4Wy5P Trump's Ties (@TrumpsTies) October 9, 2017Trump teaches Mitch that little trick Paul Ryan showed him.pic.twitter.com/9dbBaNaP7r Trump's Ties (@TrumpsTies) October 16, 2017We don t know exactly who s behind the genius Twitter account, but we at least have a clue that it s a woman. After the social media giant suspended Rose McGowan s account on October 11. a hashtag surfaced called #WomenBoycottTwitter, and @TrumpsTies was among those participating in the blackout:Have a good Friday, friends. See you on the flip side. #WomenBoycottTwitter Trump's Ties (@TrumpsTies) October 13, 2017Whoever it is, I m following her. I keep checking back, because everyone knows in the age of Trump, we can all use a laugh.


There will be no planned announcement on Friday of U.S. President Donald Trump's nominee for FBI director, the White House said. Trump fired the former director James Comey on May 9 in a surprise announcement that sparked days of political turmoil. On Thursday, the president said he was close to choosing a replacement.


A bomb planted by Kurdish militants ripped into a military vehicle, killing four soldiers and wounding four more, as they traveled in southeast Turkey near the border with Iran on Wednesday morning, local authorities said. Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants were behind the attack, which occurred in the Yuksekova district of Hakkari province, the provincial governor s office said in a statement. Security sources said a large number of armored vehicles were sent to the site of the blast. The governor s office said the wounded were being treated at a nearby hospital. More than 40,000 people have been killed since the PKK launched its separatist insurgency in 1984. It is designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union. The collapse of a peace process between the state and the PKK brought an end to a ceasefire in July 2015 and thousands have been killed in renewed fighting since then across mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey.


The following statements were posted to the verified Twitter accounts of U.S. President Donald Trump, @realDonaldTrump and @POTUS. The opinions expressed are his own. Reuters has not edited the statements or confirmed their accuracy. @realDonaldTrump : - We should have a contest as to which of the Networks, plus CNN and not including Fox, is the most dishonest, corrupt and/or distorted in its political coverage of your favorite President (me). They are all bad. Winner to receive the FAKE NEWS TROPHY! [0905 EST] -- Source link: (bit.ly/2jBh4LU) (bit.ly/2jpEXYR)


0 comments  Megyn Kelly seems to think that she can get away with anything she says or does. Rupert Murdoch gave her a rude awakening when he told her that there are tons of other qualified people that would kill to take her spot.  Rupert Murdoch is making Fox News' salary negotiations with Megyn Kelly very public by granting an interview to one of the newspapers his company News Corp. owns, The Wall Street Journal. In the interview, Murdoch said that keeping Kelly is a priority, but that he has other hosts who could take over the program should she try and go to a rival network.'[W]e have a deep bench of talent, many of whom would give their right arm for that spot,' said Murdoch. Kelly, who is said to be making $15million this year, is reportedly looking to make more than $20million when she renegotiates her contract next July. She declined a request to comment on the story.  Kelly's star has continued to rise over the past year, and next month she will be releasing her first book, Settle For More. It has also been revealed that Kelly will be appearing Live With Kelly! the day after the election, marking the first time she is set to appear on Ripa's morning show as a co-host.  Her popularity is one of the main reasons Murdoch says he wants to get her contract signer 'very soon.'  He added however that whether or not Kelly stays at the network is 'up to her.' It is unclear where Kelly might land if she does not stay with Fox News, but CNN seems like a very likely possibility for the popular host. Kelly also has a huge fan in CNN head honcho Jeff Zucker, who called her a 'tremendous anchor' earlier this year. And former CNN president Jon Klein applauded Kelly for not backing down to Donald Trump in the first Republican debate when she questioned him about his treatment of women, this despite the fact that her then boss Roger Ailes was a supporter of the Republican nominee.'To be able to stand up and ask tough questions to your boss's choice of president shows a certain steeliness,' said Klein. The article also points out that Kelly also separated herself from other Fox News anchors during the internal investigation into Ailes' alleged sexual harrassment by speaking with the lawyers hired to look into the claims being made by former host Gretchen Carlson. That revelation about Kelly's speaking with investigators was confirmed by people who were familiar with the matter. Some have said that Kelly is set to be the center of Fox News after the exit of Ailes, but Murdoch shot down those claims saying: 'We're not changing direction … that would be business suicide.' Murdoch also said that he wants to make sure Bill O'Reilly also resigns with the network when his contract is up next month. One rival news executive told Vanity Fair in August that the rivalry between Kelly and O'Reilly has devolved to the point that one of them will likely leave when their contracts expire. O'Reilly shot down reports of a feud between himself and Kelly in June however, telling The Hollywood Reporter: 'Oh, that's all fabricated. She's in a totally different part of the building. The last time I saw Megyn Kelly was in Detroit in March [at the Fox News GOP debate].' Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Fox News said: '[Fox News President] Bill Shine and [Executive Vice President, Programming & Development] Suzanne Scott have maintained a close relationship with Bill and Megyn for years and have helped both of them in many instances, all while co-existing under the same roof.' Kelly has previously hinted that she would be willing to leave the network where she has worked for the last 12 years  'There's a lot of brain damage that comes from the job. There was probably less brain damage when I worked in the afternoon. I was less well known. I had far less conflict in my life,' Kelly said in an interview with Variety earlier this year.'I also have three kids who are soon going to be school from 8am to 3pm I come to work at 3:30. I like to see my children.' Kelly says she's thought about hosting her own talk show but isn't sure 'what the market looks like for that in 2016' and just doesn't think 'that's the perfect thing for me'. As for co-hosting a morning show like Today, Kelly said she's tried that before and she's not much of a morning person.'You have to wake up so early. The alarm goes off at 3:30am,' said Kelly.'When I did America's Newsroom, which started at 9am, I remember saying to the makeup artist at the time, "If you could only know the afternoon me, you'd like me so much better.'" She then added: 'Listen, this is a fickle business. What if they called me and fired me tomorrow? I have to keep my options open.'  Everybody is replaceable, even you Megyn!! Related Items


The Republican-controlled U.S. Senate on Tuesday confirmed President Donald Trump's nominee to serve as his administration's top advocate before the U.S. Supreme Court, overcoming united Democratic opposition. Noel Francisco, a Washington lawyer with strong conservative credentials who previously worked in Republican former President George W. Bush's administration, was confirmed by the Senate as U.S. solicitor general on a vote of 50-47. All the Senate's Democrats voted against him except for New Jersey's Robert Menendez, who is currently on trial facing corruption charges in Newark. Francisco takes up his new position as the Supreme Court prepares to begin its new term on Oct. 2. The court has several potential blockbuster cases on its docket, including the challenge to Trump's travel ban on people from six predominantly Muslim countries entering the United States. That case will be argued before the justices on Oct. 10. Francisco, who previously worked at the Jones Day law firm, will now be overseeing the Justice Department's defense of the ban and other major policy initiatives that are challenged in court. He has argued three cases at the Supreme Court. Most recently, he represented Republican former Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell in a successful attempt to throw out corruption convictions. The justices ruled in favor of McDonnell last year in an 8-0 ruling that could make it tougher to prosecute politicians for corruption. Francisco served as a White House lawyer from 2001 to 2003 and spent another two years in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel from 2003 to 2005. He previously worked as a clerk for the late Supreme Court conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.


Five candidates will be on stage Tuesday at the first Democratic presidential debate of the 2016 race in Las Vegas. Here's what each needs to do to come away in a better position at the end of the evening: