The leaders of the U.S. intelligence community on Thursday pressed Congress to renew the National Security Agency's expiring surveillance law, warning in a rare public statement that national security may be endangered if lawmakers let it lapse. The message from the intelligence chiefs sought to apply pressure on lawmakers who appeared to abandon an effort this week to pass legislation that would have reauthorized for several years the NSA's warrantless internet spying program, which is due to expire on Dec. 31. That plan cratered late on Wednesday amid objections from a sizable coalition of Republicans and Democrats who want to have more privacy safeguards in the program, which chiefly targets foreigners but also collects communications from an unknown number of Americans. Instead, House Republicans unveiled a stopgap funding measure on Thursday that includes an extension of the surveillance law until Jan. 19. The law, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, is considered by U.S. intelligence agencies to be vital to national security. "There is no substitute for Section 702," Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and the directors the NSA, FBI and CIA wrote in the joint statement, adding that failure to renew the authority would make it easier for foreign adversaries to "plan attacks against our citizens and allies without detection." Section 702 allows the NSA to collect vast amounts of digital communications from foreign suspects living outside the United States. But the program incidentally gathers communications of Americans for a variety of technical reasons, including if they communicate with a foreign target living overseas. Those communications can then be subject to searches without a warrant, including by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Some lawmakers in both parties want to eliminate or partially restrict the U.S. government's ability to review data of Americans collected under Section 702 without first obtaining a warrant. The intelligence chiefs also criticized the current plan to temporarily extend the program, saying short-term extensions "fail to provide certainty and will create needless and wasteful operational complications." U.S. officials recently acknowledged the end-year deadline may not matter much because of a belief the program can lawfully continue through April due to the way it is annually certified. In their statement, however, the intelligence chiefs warned that the surveillance program would need to begin "winding down" well in advance of the April date.


Their leads, however, are all within the margin of error, indicating a tight race in the three key early nominating states. In New Hampshire, Bush leads the pack with 18 percent support among potential Republican primary voters. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker takes 15%, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul takes 14% and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie draws 13% support. Huckabee takes 17% support from potential GOP caucus-goers in Iowa, barely edging Bush, who nabs 16% support. Walker again draws the support of 15% of respondents, while Christie takes 9% and Paul draws 7%. In South Carolina, Graham draws 17% support, while Bush takes 15% and Walker takes 12% support. Huckabee and neurosurgeon Ben Carson tie with 10% of respondents. The surveys, though early in the nominating contest, may be most troubling for Bush. They suggest despite being well-known as the son and brother of two former presidents, and though he's emerged as the preferred candidate of the GOP establishment, Bush hasn't yet convinced the party's primary voters to get on board. The South Carolina results, too, suggest even Graham's constituents are lukewarm about his presidential aspirations. On the Democratic side, the contest looks far more settled — former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton leads the field by 45% or more in all three states. NBC and Marist did not poll the preferred candidate of progressives, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, because she's repeatedly said she won't run. The New Hampshire survey was conducted from Feb. 3-10 among 381 potential GOP primary voters and has a margin of error of 5%; the Iowa survey was conducted over the same period, among 320 potential GOP caucus-goers, and has a margin of error of 5.5%; and the South Carolina poll was conducted over the same period among 450 potential GOP primary voters and has a margin of error of 4.6%.


The Black Panther Party was founded 50 years ago in Oakland, Calif. on Oct. 15, 1966. Within two years, it had chapters across the country. The Times is marking the occasion by exploring the Black Panthers' legacy through their iconography and how they were covered in our own pages. Fifty years later, images from the Black Panther Party's heyday still flicker in our national memory. With their leather jackets, black berets and lock step formations, these youthful revolutionaries were for media coverage — and for posterity. With the heroic era of the civil rights movement glimmering to a close in 1966, the Black Panthers showed that a more radical struggle for racial justice could be photogenic, even if it was less palatable to the mainstream. An ironic tension emerged in the way the press treated the Black Panthers: Journalists were at once fascinated and frightened by them. And The New York Times was no exception. "At the same time the newspaper was dubious and skeptical of them, it also gave them a tremendous amount of coverage," said Jane Rhodes, a professor of studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the author of "Framing the Black Panthers: The Spectacular Rise of a Black Power Icon. " "The media, like most of white America, was deeply frightened by their aggressive and assertive style of protest," Professor Rhodes said. "And they were offended by it. " When Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party, their first goal was to confront what they saw as an epidemic of police brutality. They took to the streets with rifles, standing guard over policemen on patrol. The California Assembly responded quickly, proposing a law to ban the open carrying of firearms. So the Panthers, fully armed, marched into the California state Capitol to protest the bill. The national news media took notice. The Times's first article on the Panthers was a wire report, "Armed Negroes Protest Gun Bill," published on May 3, 1967. The piece began, "With loaded rifles and shotguns in their hands, members of the antiwhite Black Panther party marched into the state Capitol today. " What the article did not explicitly say, though it was reported later by others, was that the Panthers had read a statement that afternoon calling "upon the American people in general" — not just — to help them in their push for rights. The Times sent its own reporter a few days later to write a profile of Mr. Newton, the party's young . That article was no more measured than the first. It barely mentioned police brutality, instead lavishing attention on the fact that the Panthers had weapons. "Political power comes through the barrel of a gun," Newton was quoted as saying. To some degree, the Panthers were responsible for presenting themselves as a legion. "This is how the Black Panther Party wanted to be seen," said Todd Gitlin, a professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University. "The Panthers and The Times were taking part in a coproduction. " And in subsequent articles, The Times did investigate the Panthers' broader goals a bit more closely. A Times Magazine article by Sol Stern argued that "to write off the Panthers as a fringe group of little influence is to miss the point. The group's roots are in the desperation and anger that no legislation or poverty program has touched in the ghetto. " But as tensions with law enforcement escalated into increasingly violent clashes, the press focused with increasing intensity on violence between the Panthers and the police — especially Newton's violent with a police officer in October 1967, which led to a murder trial the next year. There was far less attention paid to the party's critique of law enforcement. What went largely unreported was the fact that these conflicts stemmed not just from the Panthers, but also from the federal government. With chapters springing up in dozens of cities, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar Hoover, mounted a covert operation to discredit the group and create strife within it. He declared the Panthers "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country. " It was not until years later that the Senate's Church Committee would show how pervasively the F. B. I. worked against the Panthers and how much it influenced press coverage. It encouraged urban police forces to confront Black Panthers planted informants and agents provocateurs and intimidated local community members who were sympathetic to the group. The conflict that inevitably followed played directly into the narrative that had been established: that the party was a provocative, dangerous organization. This was never more apparent than in 1969, when the F. B. I. 's campaign to undermine the party reached its peak. Black Panthers in New York, known as the Panther 21, were charged with plotting to set off bombs throughout New York City. A surge of media coverage followed, with The Times among those outlets leading the way. Almost two years later, all the defendants were cleared, after it became clear that the charges stemmed almost entirely from the provocations of three three undercover operatives with the New York City Police Department who had embedded themselves within the organization. Internal documents made public during a lawsuit brought by Dhoruba bin Wahad, one of the defendants, show that the F. B. I. had used the press — particularly the New York news media — to create strife within the party and to convey the impression that it was a volatile group. Agents wrote of "an effort to obtain news media publicity highlighting friction between east and west coast BPP leadership personnel," according to one F. B. I. memo procured in the 1980s by Mr. Wahad's legal team. Another discusses "distributing copies of a critical article on the BPP which appeared in the 'New York Times. '" As The Times focused on the trial and other conflicts between the Panthers and the police, the party was organizing a slate of service programs for in New York. But they went relatively unnoticed. "We didn't get covered by any of the media when we were doing these types of things, really — only when some of us would get arrested," Mr. Wahad said in an interview. Beginning in late 1968, fatigued by constant conflict and what they saw as sensational coverage, the Panthers refocused their efforts away from policing the police and toward providing health care and other services to the urban poor. They began in California's Bay Area with a breakfast program for school children, and eventually developed initiatives around education and housing advocacy. The Times did eventually report on some of these programs, but often with a tone of skepticism. An article on Dec. 7, 1968, mentioned the party's free breakfast program, but only to suggest that it was part of a ploy to indoctrinate . The article, "Black Panthers Growing, but Their Troubles Rise," suggested that as the party grew, it was intimidating residents and struggling to formulate a coherent direction. When it did mention the breakfast program, the article called it merely "a means of improving its image. " The Times painted a slightly different picture the following June, when it ran a full feature on the breakfast program, nearly nine months after the party's official newspaper, The Black Panther, announced the initiative. But mostly, the programs were treated as publicity stunts, or worse. The fact that The Times did respond, to some degree, to the organization's change of focus was largely because of a growing cadre of reporters. In July 1969, Earl Caldwell, who is black, wrote an article, "Panthers' Meeting Shifts Aims From Racial Confrontation to Class Struggle," and followed it with a piece for the Week in Review section, "Panthers: They Are Not the Same Organization. " "One thing The Times figured out was that the Panthers were selling newspapers," Professor Rhodes said. "The coverage of the Panthers was attracting a younger audience, maybe more of a black audience. " "Black reporters were able to do much better reporting because they had greater credibility and greater access," she said. But that was becoming a moot point: By 1969, the party was being torn asunder, its East and West Coast factions rived by distrust, largely because of the F. B. I. And in the court of public opinion, the Panthers had already lost. A Harris Survey showed that in April 1970, just 10 percent of Americans thought that "a fairly sizable number of Black Panthers have been shot and killed by law enforcement officers" because law enforcement officers were trying to wipe out the Panthers — exactly what Hoover privately said his mission was. of the country said that police shootings of Panthers were due to violence started by the Panthers themselves. Just 16 percent perceived the Panthers as doing good work for disadvantaged youth. Looking at contemporary news coverage, Professor Rhodes said progress has been made when it comes to covering race and activism. "I see organizations like The Times making a much more sustained effort at deeper coverage," she said. But articles still tend to emphasize the conflict between the police and protesters, she said, without addressing the core principles guiding social movements such as Black Lives Matter: greater investment in public education, community control of law enforcement and economic justice. "There's a lot of examples to be learned from the example of the Black Panthers, in terms of taking a look at not just rhetoric and styles of protest, but also looking for some understanding of what protest means and what it intends," she said.


A day before they killed Yemen s former president, gunmen from the Iran-aligned Houthi militia group overran one of Ali Abdullah Saleh s fortified compounds in Sanaa. Ransacking the villa, they snapped photos of liquor flasks and vodka bottles and posted them online. This is how the traitor (Saleh) and his family lived during a time of war, siege and cholera, Hamid Rizq, a senior Houthi official, said on his official Twitter account. The Houthi gunmen acted fast and mercilessly to punish the 75-year-old Saleh for having appeared to switch sides in Yemen s three-year civil war - a proxy battle for influence between regional powers Iran and Saudi Arabia. Allied with the Houthis for three years, Saleh had called on Saturday for a new page in relations with Saudi Arabia. The murder is a setback for Riyadh, which had hoped the backing of Saleh and his loyalist army units in northern Yemen - would help close a war that has killed 10,000 people and caused one of the world s most acute humanitarian crises. Saudi Arabia fears the Houthis will become as powerful a force in the Middle East as Lebanon s Iran-backed Hezbollah. The Houthis are holding their ground despite air strikes by Saudi Arabia and its allied forces and a naval blockade that has prevented food, medicine and fuel from arriving in Houthi-controlled northern areas, bringing the region to the brink of famine. Last month, the Houthis fired a ballistic missile into Riyadh. Now, the Saudis are turning their hopes to Saleh s son Ahmed Ali and his good ties with Saudi ally United Arab Emirates to do the job his father couldn t. Photos of Ahmed Ali, a military leader admired by thousands of soldiers in Houthi-run lands, appeared on the front page of UAE newspapers on Wednesday meeting the UAE s de-facto leader Mohammed bin Zayed. Saleh s death caps a 40-year political career that charts Yemen s tragic modern history. A country with few natural resources, awash in weapons and fractured along tribal and religious lines, Yemen has long been buffeted by its powerful neighbors, particularly Saudi Arabia. Saleh was the first leader of a unified Yemen in 1990. But he shifted loyalties various times - fighting the Houthis in the 2000s, for example - as the plates of influence shifted in the Middle East. In this latest geopolitical drama, the UAE is emerging as playmaker in the Yemen crisis. The UAE has been financing and training armed groups that have been pushing toward the Red Sea port of Hodeida, a Houthi stronghold and entry point for supplies getting to millions of civilians in northern Yemen. The Saleh family has long enjoyed good relations with the wealthy Gulf state, which had over the decades funded infrastructure projects in Yemen before becoming a key member of the Saudi-led coalition. Hamza al-Houthi, a top Houthi leader, said the Houthis had suspected the Saleh family s allegiance to the Saudi-held coalition for some time and that tensions had been brewing since August. Al-Houthi said his troops had intercepted UAE arms shipments bound for Saleh s family late last month. As punishment, the Houthis killed his nephew Tareq on Monday. Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group said the latest events mean the war in Yemen is likely to escalate. The Houthis, while an important military force, are not particularly adept at politics or governance. Their reach...in the population is limited, and over time that will play into their opponents hands. But that won t happen anytime soon, so it looks like the conflict will worsen. Saleh s relationship with Saudi Arabia and its allies has been marked by politics and prayer. Over the past few decades, Riyadh has tried, in succession, to quash an anti-royalist revolution, Marxism and al Qaeda militancy in Yemen. Riyadh backed Saleh, an Arab nationalist strongman, between 1978 and 2012 to help him quash those ideologies before they could seep next door to Saudi Arabia. But as Arab Spring protests rocked Yemen swept through the Middle East, Riyadh realized Saleh was no longer strong enough for the job and backed a transition to his deputy Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. When the Houthis attacked Sanaa in 2014 and swept Hadi into Saudi exile, Riyadh began the bombing campaign that continues today. At that time, Saleh took one of the riskiest gambles of his turbulent career, allying himself to the Houthis, heirs to a theocratic sect that ruled Yemen for a thousand years. Saleh s Yemeni military which had jets, tank brigades and long-range missiles had fought the Houthis in six wars over ten years at the time Saleh had allied himself with Saudi and Western powers. With Saleh s experience administering the country and cultivating a strong military, the Houthis made major military gains around the country and together their forces withstood thousands of Saudi-led air strikes. But the Houthi-Saleh entente cracked in August when a Houthi leader passed over a trusted Saleh confidante for a key military position, according to people in the General People s Congress Party, the grouping of technocrats and tribal grandees that did Saleh s bidding throughout his rule. Saleh loyalists itched for revenge, they said. Fearing disloyalty, the Houthis restricted Saleh to his fief in Sanaa s political district. Gerald Feierstein, a former U.S. ambassador to Yemen of the Middle East Institute in Washington, said the Houthis then waged their war largely without him. Saleh was largely a spent force by the time he died in a weekend s fighting, wrote Feierstein in a policy brief. On November 29, tensions exploded. Rumors swirled in the city of Sanaa that the Houthis were planning to paint the domes of a giant mosque and palace that Saleh had built and named after himself in their trademark green. When Houthi militia neared the palace, Saleh s guards fired. The Houthis, experts in mountain guerrilla warfare, overran the palace with grenades and seized it. The Houthis wanted Saleh to hand over his weapons and disarm his fighters, a senior Saleh party official told Reuters. He refused. Another party official said that, contrary to reports that Saleh was in his car trying to flee when he was killed on Dec. 4, the former president had been executed with a gunshot to the head after making a last stand at his house. Now, the Saleh associate says he and his colleagues are afraid the Houthis will turn against all of them. The Houthis want to kill us all. For a graphic on Yemen's stalemated war, click tmsnrt.rs/2zqGyq9


The head of a congressional committee investigating contacts between Donald Trump's campaign and Russia said on Monday the panel had not seen evidence of inappropriate communications, prompting the panel's top Democrat to insist it was too early to make such a determination. Devin Nunes, Republican chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, also said there was no need for a special prosecutor and dismissed a suggestion that Trump should release his tax returns to clear up allegations he has business ties to Russia. "What are we going to appoint a special prosecutor to do, exactly?" he asked reporters. Nunes, who was a member of Trump's presidential transition team, said U.S. intelligence officials had not yet presented the committee with evidence of contacts between Trump campaign staff and Russian intelligence. "It's been looked into and there's no evidence of anything there," Nunes told a news conference, called after a weekend report by the Washington Post that the Trump administration asked him and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr to call journalists to knock down reports about possible collusion. The story fueled concerns about whether congressional committees led by Trump's fellow Republicans would conduct a serious investigation of the politically charged allegations. Nunes acknowledged that the White House had given him a reporter's number, but said the administration had not asked him to knock down reports. He said his communications with news organizations was intended to promote transparency. Underscoring the partisan divide, Representative Adam Schiff, the intelligence committee's top Democrat, told his own news conference later on Monday that a non-partisan investigation would be most effective, insisting it was too early to comment on any evidence. "When you begin an investigation, you don't begin by stating what you believe to be the conclusion," he said. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said Nunes' remarks raised "serious questions about stonewalling." Potential contact between Trump's presidential campaign and Russia, and possible Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election on Trump's behalf, have prompted Democrats to demand a select committee or special prosecutor. Most of Trump's fellow Republicans in Congress have resisted such suggestions, prompting Democrats to contrast their approach with their multiple investigations of 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, including her use of a private email server. Republican Representative Darrell Issa broke with the party line by calling for an independent review. "I want the Trump administration to be successful and that starts with embracing high standards for openness and transparency," he said in a statement. Schiff said he was not confident that James Comey, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, would provide investigators with all the information they would need. Comey, a Republican, drew furious criticism from Democrats for saying just before the election that he was looking at emails related to Clinton's use of a private server. Nunes said he did not want U.S. citizens to be hauled before Congress because of news reports about their potential ties to Russia. "We can't have McCarthyism back in this place," he said, alluding to the notorious 1950s Senate hearings into Americans' potential ties to Communism.


U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that Obamacare was "exploding" after Republican lawmakers shelved legislation that would have dismantled the healthcare law. That's not going to happen this month. Probably not even this year. The more than 12 million people who bought 2017 health insurance plans on HealthCare.gov and other websites the law created are not in danger of losing their healthcare or having their premiums go up right now, experts say. But 2018 is another story. Republicans could choose to pass a budget that defunds Obamacare's cost-sharing subsidies, which help low-income people cover out-of-pocket and other medical costs. But that would be highly unpopular among consumers who would likely blame the president and Congress for skyrocketing healthcare costs, experts said. "That is one of the ways that is available to monkey wrench the Affordable Care Act," said Morgan Tilleman, an associate with the law firm Foley & Lardner, who represents insurers. Obamacare, former Democratic President Barack Obama's signature legislation created by the Affordable Care Act of 2010, has had a tough beginning. The mix of sick and healthy customers has been worse than expected, and premium rates on the individual insurance market went up 25 percent this year. Other parts of the law, like the expansion of Medicaid to enhance coverage for the poor, and changes to allow young people to stay on their parents' health plans, have been popular. And the defeat of the bill is a win for the hospitals that have benefited from those increased Medicaid dollars. But many counties across the country have only one insurer, after Humana Inc, Aetna Inc and UnitedHealth Group Inc pulled out after reporting hundreds of millions of dollars of losses. The insurers who are left, Anthem Inc and other BlueCross BlueShield insurers across the country, as well as smaller players like Centene Corp and Molina Healthcare Inc need to decide in the next few months where to sell insurance and how much to charge. And that is where the market's slow burn takes off, with insurers leaving and premiums rising. Jeff Jonas, a portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds who focuses on health care, said that for consumers, 2018 looks uncertain, with a "death spiral" of decreasing competition and increasing premium rates ramping up. After the failed Republican effort to push through the bill, insurers are looking at changes to help 2018, America's Health Insurance Plans spokeswoman Kristine Grow said. That includes the market's cost-sharing subsidies as well as other government payments for sicker-than-usual customers and finalizing a rule the Trump administration proposed that addresses issues insurers say drives up costs. The Trump administration could do some of that itself if it wants to, such as using its regulatory authority to adjust the formula for how it compensates insurers for the sickest people, Elizabeth Carpenter at healthcare consultancy and research firm Avalere Health said. But it is unknown if the administration will try to work within the law's existing framework or take actions to undermine it and blame the Democrats for its failure. "If they fail to act and they don't act in an appropriate way, that will further destabilize the marketplace," Dr. Mario Molina, CEO of Molina Healthcare, said. Molina's enrollment ballooned to 1 million exchange enrollees this year and the company is weighing if it will submit plans for next year. The administration could also decide to not enforce the individual mandate, which requires that everyone purchase health insurance or pay a fine. It already took steps to erode that provision last month, when it backed off implementing tougher oversight that was due to go into effect for 2016 taxes. Experts said the individual mandate still cost less than purchasing insurance, but as it increases each year more young and healthy people would have incentive to join the healthcare market, helping to offset the cost of sicker patients. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that 14 million more people would be uninsured under the Republican bill next year, with most of the increase coming from the repeal of the penalty associated with the individual mandate. It's unclear what the Republicans will do. Trump said this bill had been shelved but that Republicans would end up with a "great" healthcare bill in the future, but for now that they are moving onto tax reform. Until they do that, they will have to work within the 2010 Affordable Care Act. It can also undercut the healthcare law through regulatory authority at the Department of Health and Human Services.


Saturday on MSNBC's "AM Joy," MSNBC terrorism analyst Malcolm Nance argued that President Donald Trump "never promised democracy" in the election, and instead "always promised autocracy. " "Vladimir Putin views Donald Trump as an ally because he intends to establish a series of global autocracies and link the world through autocracy, not through the old communism that he was brought up with," Nance said to host Joy Reid. He added, "Donald Trump never promised democracy in this election. If you go back, he's always promised autocracy. In fact, you could argue that … Donald Trump is the closest thing we've ever had to King George III and they're very, very much alike. " Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent


The U.S. Supreme Court sided with the Obama administration on Thursday in rebuffing a bid by 20 states to halt an Environmental Protection Agency rule to curb emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from power plants. The action came about a month after the high court put on hold federal regulations to curb carbon dioxide emissions mainly from coal-fired power plants, the centerpiece of President Barack Obama's strategy to combat climate change. Chief Justice John Roberts denied a petition made last week by the states, led by Michigan, to put the rule on hold after a federal appeals court decided in December to leave it intact while the EPA reassessed costs of implementing the regulation. The states had argued that a stay was necessary because the Supreme Court had "already held that the finding on which the rule rests is unlawful and beyond the EPA's statutory authority." The Supreme Court ruled last June that the EPA should have considered compliance costs when it decided to limit emissions of mercury and other hazardous air pollutants mainly from coal-fired power plants, and returned the case to the appeals court. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit subsequently said the regulations could remain in place while the government responds to the high court's June ruling. The appeals court gave the EPA until April 15 to come up with compliance costs. The EPA rule, which went into effect last April, applies to about 1,400 electricity-generating units at 600 power plants. Many are already in compliance. EPA spokeswoman Melissa Harrison said the agency was "very pleased" with Roberts' action, noting that power plants are the largest source of mercury pollution in the United States. "These practical and achievable standards cut harmful pollution from power plants, saving thousands of lives each year and preventing heart and asthma attacks," Harrison said. Environmental groups and 15 other states that had asked the court to reject the stay request applauded Roberts' action and called on the attorneys general in the group of states led by Michigan to end their legal challenge to the rule. The rule is "safeguarding millions of American children from poisons such as mercury, arsenic and acid gases," said Vickie Patton, general counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund anti-pollution advocacy group, a party to the case.


The traditional markers of adulthood, such as independence, marriage, children, and homeownership, show that the millennial generation is greatly lagging behind baby boomers, according to a new study comparing statistical data over the past 35 years. [Researcher Lydia Anderson of the National Center for Family and Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University compared U. S. Census data from 1980 with the most recent American Community Survey data from 2015. Comparing to in 1980 with the same age group today, Anderson found that far fewer millennials are married, live away from their parents, have children of their own, or own their own houses than the baby boomers of the same age group the year Ronald Reagan was elected president. In 1980, for example, more than (68 percent) of to were already married, whereas in 2015, just two in five millennials (41 percent) in the same age group were married. Only 20 percent of baby boomers of these ages had never been married, while more than half (53 percent) of millennials have never married. In simple terms, in 1980 a majority of baby boomers were married, while in 2015, a majority of millennials have never married, the study found: Anderson considers early baby boomers to be those U. S. citizens born between 1945 and 1955, while early millennials refers to those born between 1980 and 1990. Other common indicators of adulthood followed suit, Anderson found, such as what the study termed "residential independence," or living away from one's parents or grandparents. In the intervening 35 years from 1980 to 2015, the share of young adults still living with parents or grandparents more than doubled, from nine percent in 1980 to 22 percent in 2015. While 59 percent of young adults in 2015 lived in independent households, the figure was 84 percent in 1980, or a full 25 percent more: Home ownership follows a similar pattern. A majority (60 percent) of young adults in 1980 owned their own homes, while in 2015, less than half of young adults (43 percent) were homeowners. A final indicator of adulthood, which Anderson describes as "living with a biological child," revealed a similar difference, although in this case it was somewhat less striking. In 1980, more than (68 percent) of young adults aged lived with their biological children, while the figure was just over half (55 percent) for adults of the same age in 2015. Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome


The U.S. Senate on Thursday voted to advance the nomination of President Donald Trump's pick to run the Environmental Protection Agency and a final vote could occur on Friday. The Senate voted 54 to 46 to advance Scott Pruitt, the attorney general of oil and gas producing Oklahoma. Pruitt has come under criticism from many lawmakers for suing the agency he intends to run 14 times on behalf of Oklahoma. One Republican, Senator Sue Collins, said this week she would not vote for Pruitt in the final vote.


At least 65 media workers around the world have been killed doing their jobs this year, media freedom organization Reporters Without Borders said on Tuesday. Among the dead were 50 professional journalists, seven citizen journalists and eight other media workers. The five most dangerous countries were Syria, Mexico, Afghanistan, Iraq and the Philippines. Of those killed, 35 died in regions where armed conflict is ongoing while 30 were killed outside of such areas. Thirty-nine of those killed were targeted for their journalistic work such as reporting on political corruption or organized crime while the other 26 were killed while working due to shelling and bomb attacks, for example. It s alarming that so many journalists were murdered outside of war zones, said Katja Gloger, a board member of Reporters Without Borders. In far too many countries perpetrators can assume they ll get off scot-free if they re violent towards media professionals, she added. The organization said more than 300 media workers were currently in prison, with around half of those in five countries, namely Turkey, China, Syria, Iran and Vietnam.


China and the United States have created a "miracle" as companies from the world's two largest economies signed deals worth some $253.4 billion over the past two days, China's Commerce Minister Zhong Shan said at a briefing on Thursday. "This is truly a miracle," said Zhong on the second day of U.S. President Donald Trump's state visit to China.


Conservatives efforts to recruit a candidate to compete against Donald Trump may have only been able to come up with David French, a National Review writer, who is merely contemplating the possibility of running. But last week, a new potential candidate stepped up to the stage, if not for this race, possibly for a future one. Dwayne Johnson, the actor formerly known by his professional wrestling moniker The Rock, told British GQ that hes considered a different kind of career. Ill be honest, I havent ruled politics out. Im not being coy when I say that, but at the moment I am not sure, Johnson said. I cant deny that the thought of being governor, the thought of being president, is alluring. And beyond that, it would be an opportunity to make a real impact on peoples lives on a global scale. But there are a lot of other things I want to do first. The prospect of yet another former reality-television star running for higher office may feel improbable at best and horrifying at worst, given Trumps performance in the 2016 campaign thus far. And I cant vouch for Johnsons position on the issues though hes registered as a Republican and has appeared at the Republican convention to boost voter registration,* hes generally talked less about actual policy and spent more time flashing his famously winning smile: But just as I was an early champion of Johnsons acting abilities hes fascinating as a gay, closeted driver in Be Cool, mesmerizing as a an amnesiac who is not doing well in the post-apocalypse in Southland Tales and one of the funniest parts of Michael Bays wildly underrated Pain & Gain Ive long thought that Johnson had a weirdly plausible path to a political career. He grew up all around the country because of his fathers job but makes his home in Florida, an important state in presidential election years and the place where he played football for the University of Miami. (The locker room was named for him after he made a major donation). Since his pivot to movie stardom, Johnson has become one of the most consistently likable celebrities in America, as measured by the Q Scores Company; hed begin any race not just with high name recognition, but also with high favorable ratings. Johnson is even descended from James Bowles, a free black man who fought with the British during the Revolutionary War when the kingdom offered land and freedom to black Americans who joined their side. (His mothers side of the family is Samoan.) For a Republican Party that was desperate to woo nonwhite voters before Donald Trump tossed his toupee in the ring, and will be even harder-pressed to woo them once our present mess is over, Johnson could be the sort of person the GOP tries to renovate into a viable candidate. If he doesnt have policy or issue bona fides, Johnsons relative silence on substance also means he doesnt have a record that can be used to tar him as some sort of flip-flopper. And he could also make a series of carefully selected charitable and political donations designed to start building a record of positions. Its easier to teach talking points than charisma, as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) experienced earlier this year. Of course, if he really was going to try to follow Ronald Reagans path to the presidency, Johnson would certainly have to run for something else first. And he could do it as early as this year: Johnson has until June 24 to get on the primary ballot in Florida and join the candidates who are competing for the Senate seat Marco Rubio decided to vacate when he ran for president. The prospect of The Rock sitting through committee hearings might be vaguely ridiculous, and a governorship would probably require him to take fewer potentially damaging votes. But the lesson of this year in American politics is that stranger things can always happen. And Trump is proof that if our politics are turning into reality-television competitions, the results could always be worse.


Hey America Are you ready for a leader who says, NO to unvetted refugees? ****WARNING****GRAPHIC VIDEO*** German Chancellor Angela Merkel has recently admitted that terrorists have managed to infiltrate Europe by passing themselves off as refugees. She said that in part, the refugee flow was even used to smuggle terrorists. This comes as no surprise to those critics of Europe s massive influx of Muslim immigrants. Indeed, upon hearing the news, many are no doubt jumping out of their seats yelling, we told you so! Just this last May, Neue Osnabr cke Zeitung, a German news source, reported that Germany s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) has received 369 tip-offs on possible links between refugees and Muslim extremists. German police announced that at least forty asylum seekers were being investigated for alleged terrorism links. It was reported that Germany s spy chief, Hans Georg Maassen, said that Germany s domestic intelligence agency had obtained strong evidence that 17 people have arrived under Islamic State instructions. [Emphasis added.] Furthermore, last month, German authorities announced that 499 Islamists were under surveillance, ostensibly because there is credible evidence that they pose a threat. It is not clear if this figure also includes homegrown Islamists.So we now know for certain that some Islamist terrorists have taken advantage of the massive influx of refugees and have successfully infiltrated Europe and on ISIS orders. Furthermore, there are undoubtedly even more pending investigations, and it is certain that many Islamist terrorist cells with refugee connections are operating within Europe as of this writing.The largely Muslim migrants have brought no shortage of problems with them: there have been refugee-caused sexual assaults across European cities, increased radicalization of Muslim circles, a lack of assimilation, persecution of Christian migrants, etc. These problems serve to exasperate the assimilation problems that already plague many second-generation Europeans whose parents are from Muslim-majority countries. Given that European birthrates are generally below replacement levels, and that the massive influx of immigrants is, although stemmed in some quarters, still occurring, these problems will unfortunately only become more acute as time goes by. The late Libyan President Mu amar al-Gaddafi once said, alluding to Muslim immigration to Europe, that the Islamization of Europe would happen without the need for the sword. But he surely didn t expect it would happen as fast as we are witnessing now.Since the vast majority of the refugees are Muslims whose culture clashes with native European ones on several well-known fronts, this influx has naturally resulted in growing anti-Islamic sentiment in Europe. It is reported that nationalist and rightist groups are gaining ascendency With the increase in the number of Islamic terrorist acts happening all around the world, including in the heart of the European Union, Europeans certainly have a right to be worried any encroaching Islamism.


Republicans at the University of North Carolina have gone completely off the rails and are now literally threatening transgender women who use the women s restrooms on campus with the penalty of death.Sadly, there is no amount of exaggeration in that statement. College Republicans have already made direct threats to the life of one transgender female on campus and are asserting that they will defend their daughters and sisters, with equal force against anyone else they declare a threat.The student who received the threats posted the exchange to Reddit while redacting her name. College Republicans have completely denied that the exchange occurred, which is not surprising.Portions of the attack, taken from the thread, are listed below: First of (sic), you are a mentally-ill man, no amount of surgery or hormones will change that. Second, if a tranny like you goes into the women s restroom, then what about the rights of them? If you value your life, you shouldn t have made this sick choice and settled with the gender God gave you. Playing into your delusions would make us no better than someone who tolerates pedophiles. You will never be a woman, and so you should stick with the man s room, as that is what you are, a mentally-ill man. you are sick and disgusting for mutilating your own God-given body, so a tranny like you find no pity with us. If you ever dare to set foot into the women s room I will make sure to give you a lesson not to harass our women, you freak of nature. We will make sure that you trannies do not molest our daughters and sisters. This comes on the heels of North Carolina passing a license-to-bigot law, otherwise known as a religious freedom law. Among the usual mundane items of people being protected from the sin of baking gay wedding cakes, it also places restrictions on transgender individuals forcing them to use the bathroom that is associated with their physical genitalia.The UNC College Republicans released a statement denying everything about the incident, claiming that it s a fake story and they never threatened her. Yeah, I m sure that it s far more likely a transgender student decided to make death threats against herself, rather than just simply pee and go on with her business.The law, despite its utter failures on so many levels, seems to have had its desired effect. It has now legitimized every phobia and bit of hate that the good moral Christian right-wingers had inside themselves. They now think that they are within their rights to use deadly force to defend their women. Thanks, Republicans. We couldn t have gone full-Christian Sharia in America without you.


Report on the phone call held between President's Putin and Obama says that was discussed that the much feared time for the "Apocalypse Equation" may be now, not later. The "Apocalypse Equation" refers to report authored by one of the most secretive women in US intelligence circles named Audrey Tomason who is Obama's Director for Counterterrorism suggesting that it would be more humane for our world to undergo a "planned and controlled genocide" rather than to see it descend into the abyss of chaos it is now entering. The Apocalypse Equation, (technically called a "stochastic equation," because it describes the relationship of probability to time) shows what nuclear weapons ultimately mean for "civilization." If each of a large number of nuclear missiles existing today has even a small probability of being launched, over time the probability of a launch (APocalypse) approaches certainty. The more missiles, the shorter the time before a launch. Unless nuclear weapons are deactivated, and nonviolent means developed to take the place of military violence for achieving justice and peace, civilization is doomed .  WATCH THE VIDEO:  Disclose TV SOURCE


November 3, 2016 at 10:20 pm  well clinton is a fool if she does not seek to restore relations with russia ASAP…they seem to be forgetting about ''the dead man's switch" it's an actual system implimented by russia as a warning to it's enemies of nuclear retaliation….why the fuck is america's citizens letting their leaders destroy peaceful relations with russia.. even if russia would lose a war against usa the problem is the aftermath….we're talking millions dead if not billions and nuclear fallout on a global scale


Donald Trump thought bringing Juanita Broaddrick to the second presidential debate would be a good idea.For people who might have forgotten, in the early 1990s, when President Bill Clinton was running his first campaign, Broaddrick went public with her accusations that Clinton had raped her in the 1970s while running for governor and that Hillary had intimidated her into silence.As expected, it created a media circus. No such accusation had ever been thrown at a presidential candidate in such a manner.However, years after the accusations surfaced, Broaddrick, in a sworn affidavit in December 1998, during the Paula Jones scandal, admitted that President Clinton had never made any un-warranted sexual advances towards here.As obtained by the Washington Post:3. I met President Clinton more than twenty years ago through family friends. Our introduction was not arranged or facilitated, in any way, by the Arkansas State Police. I have never been an Arkansas state employee or a federal employee. I have never discussed with Mr. Clinton the possibility of state or federal employment nor has he offered me any such position. I have had no further relations with him for the past (15) years.4. During the 1992 Presidential campaign there were unfounded rumors and stories circulated that Mr. Clinton had made unwelcome sexual advances toward me in the late seventies. Newspaper and tabloid reporters hounded me and my family, seeking corroboration of these tales. I repeatedly denied the allegations and requested that my family s privacy be respected. These allegations are untrue and I had hoped that they would no longer haunt me, or cause further disruption to my family. 5. . Specifically, I do not have any information to offer regarding a nonconsensual or unwelcome sexual advance by Mr. Clinton, any discussion offer or provision of state or federal employment or advancement in exchange for sexual conduct, or any use of state troopers to procure women for sex. Requiring my testimony at a deposition in this matter would cause unwarranted attorney s fees and costs, disruption to my life and constitute an invasion of my right to privacy. For these reasons, I have asked my attorney to advise Ms. Jones s counsel that there is no truth to the rumors they are pursuing and to provide her counsel with this sworn affidavit.Known as Jane Doe #5 at the time, Broaddrick admitted, to law enforcement and to the courts of this country (six years after the initial accusation), that President Clinton never raped her.And if Bill didn t rape her, how would Hillary Clinton have intimidated her into silence?Seems as though the Trump campaign didn t so their research. Sad!Considering Broaddrick lied, could one see why Hillary Clinton wouldn t take too lightly to such awful and shameful accusations that were never true to begin with? That s why women take her side on these issues.The fact that Donald Trump used a liar as a prop to deflect from his own sexual prowess shows how desperate and pathetic him and his whole campaign is.


Indonesia s foreign minister will fly to Bangladesh on Tuesday for talks following her visit to Myanmar where she urged national leader Aung San Suu Kyi to end ongoing violence against the Rohingya Muslim minority there. Bangladesh s foreign secretary, Shahidul Haque, told Reuters Retno Marsudi will meet Bangladeshi officials in Dhaka. Nearly 90,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since Aug. 25, following an army crackdown triggered by attacks by Rohingya insurgents in Buddhist-majority Myanmar s northwestern Rakhine state. The Rakhine violence has killed at least 400 people, most of them Rohingya insurgents, according to the Myanmar government, leading to the exodus of Rohingya to neighbouring Bangladesh that is struggling to cope with the influx. Muslim-majority countries such as Indonesia and Turkey, who are trying to pressure Nobel peace prize winner Suu Kyi to end the crisis, are also offering help to Bangladesh deal with the massive inflow of people from across its 271 km (168 mile)long border with Myanmar.


Video of a passenger being violently dragged from a United Airlines flight has gone viral, and now Congress wants answers.Audra D. Bridges, who filmed the shocking video and posted it to social media, told the Courier-Journal that passengers were informed that the flight was overbooked at the gate. The airline originally said that one person would need to give up their seat. After everyone had boarded the plane, they were told that four passengers would have to give up the seat they had paid for so that airline employees would be able to fly instead.They asked for volunteers and even offered money and hotel accommodations to sweeten the deal. But when no one offered to leave the plane, they randomly selected passengers to kick off the flight. When the man they had chosen to boot out of the seat he paid for said he didn t want to leave because he was a doctor and had patients he had to care for in the morning, United Airlines called the police.In the video, you can see the cops forcefully grab the doctor and violently drag him off the plane while he screams out in pain. Other passengers were horrified. He was eventually allowed back on the plane, bleeding mouth and all.Now, Washington, D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), a senior member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, is demanding answers. Norton is calling for a congressional hearing into the incident. I deplore the violent removal of a passenger from a United Airlines flight this weekend. Airline passengers must have protections against such abusive treatment. I am asking our committee for a hearing, which will allow us to question airport police, United Airlines personnel, and airport officials, among others, about whether appropriate procedures were in place in Chicago and are in place across the United States when passengers are asked to leave a flight, Norton said in a statement.Norton said that she will be following up with a letter to committee chairman Rep. Bill Shuster (R-PA) and Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-N.J.), chairman of the aviation subcommittee, to request a hearing to investigate this incident and others like it.You can watch the disturbing video below:@United overbook #flight3411 and decided to force random passengers off the plane. Here s how they did it: pic.twitter.com/QfefM8X2cW Jayse D. Anspach (@JayseDavid) April 10, 2017


Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is officially in for the 2016 presidential race, telling the Associated Press that he feels he is "uniquely qualified" to run and serve. And Rubio is nothing if not unique in today's GOP. He's young (43 years old) in an increasingly old party, he's Hispanic in a party that is hemorrhaging Latino votes, he's a very good communicator in a party that struggled to find one in 2012, and he has ties to both the tea party and the party establishment in a party that is very much split between the two. And as we've argued before, he has more upside than just about anybody in the 2016 race -- Republican or Democrat. He's also putting a lot more on the line than just about anybody else. For a few reasons: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is also running for president and, like Rubio, is up for reelection in 2016. But because Paul comes from a red state and the filing deadline for his seat isn't till late January 2016, he could potentially revert to staying in the Senate if his presidential campaign doesn't catch fire. Rubio doesn't have that luxury. He comes from Florida, a big swing state in which you need to be focused on that race from day one. Democrats already have a solid contender in Rep. Patrick Murphy, and other Republicans are already looking at running for Rubio's seat. The filing deadline in Florida isn't till May 2016, so Rubio could conceivably attempt what Paul is doing -- he hasn't quite ruled it out, though he came close -- but national Republicans can't really afford to let Democrats get that much of a head start in a very important state while Rubio figures out whether he can win the GOP presidential nomination. All the other GOP hopefuls either aren't up in 2016 -- Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), for instance -- or are out of office altogether. Rubio, as the youngest GOP hopeful in the field, is the only one giving up a bird in hand for the possibility of two in the bush. Well it doesn't matter if he doesn't win the nomination, you might say, because he's got a really good shot at becoming the vice presidential pick. This makes complete sense; with Republicans likely to nominate another white man and likely to face the potential first female president, getting some diversity on their ticket will be key. And nobody fits the bill better than Rubio. Some are even joking about Rubio running for VP: But the idea that Rubio could run for president with being VP as a backup plan took a significant hit the day Jeb Bush started running for president. That's because the fellow Floridian is perhaps the likeliest (if not likely, period) nominee, and the Constitution basically precludes him from picking Rubio as his running mate. It says that no state can cast its electoral votes for a ticket that includes to people from their own state. And given Florida's 29 electoral votes are, well, kind of important, it's really hard to see Bush picking Rubio -- unless one of them conveniently established residency outside the Sunshine State. In short, at this point Bush seems like the most likely nominee, and Rubio the most likely vice presidential pick, but Bush won't pick Rubio. 3) He has a lot more time Rubio's youth also means he has more time to wage a political comeback, yes. But there are no guarantees in a state like Florida, and winning office is much more difficult than holding an office you already inhabit. What's more, the Republican bench in Florida is teeming with ambitious young pols, by virtue of the GOP dominance of the state. The GOP controls all statewide offices and about two-thirds of the state legislature. No, Republicans haven't exactly fielded the greatest candidates in recent years (Connie Mack, much?), but there are lots of new faces these days. That means that, if this whole 2016 thing doesn't pan out, Rubio can't count on returning to statewide office in Florida any time soon. Rubio would certainly be a frontrunner, but he would probably have to fight for it. Time works both ways. Yes, Rubio would have years to mount a comeback. But it also means he has time to wait for another presidential campaign -- one in which he wouldn't have to give up his seat in the Senate to run. And yet, he has chosen to strike while the iron is semi-warm and risk his political future on running for president. What's clear is that he doesn't enter into it lightly. Update: Longtime Florida political reporter Adam Smith tells our own Fix Boss about the reasoning for Rubio's move:


The company owned by the family of senior White House aide Jared Kushner will skip roadshow events in China this weekend seeking money from local investors for a real estate project in exchange for a shot at U.S. immigrant visas, a company spokesman said. Nicole Kushner Meyer, Jared's sister, appeared at marketing events last weekend in Beijing and Shanghai in an effort to raise $150 million from Chinese investors through the controversial EB-5 visa-for-investment program. According to marketing materials from one of the organizers of the roadshow, sales events for the project are scheduled in the southern cities of Shenzhen on Saturday and Guangzhou on Sunday. "No one from Kushner Companies will be in China this weekend," James Yolles, spokesman for the firm, said. The company and KABR Group are raising money for a two-tower apartment complex in New Jersey called One Journal Square, marketing materials showed. Kushner Companies earlier this week apologized for Meyer having mentioned Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law, in discussing the project. The company said Meyer had done so only in an attempt to make clear that her brother was not involved. "Kushner Companies apologizes if that mention of her brother was in any way interpreted as an attempt to lure investors. That was not Ms. Meyer's intention," it said. In addition to Meyer, Laurent Morali, president of Kushner Companies, was included in marketing materials online for the China road show. Jared Kushner, whose White House portfolio includes relations with China, sold his stake in Kushner Companies to a family trust early this year. The EB-5 program allows wealthy foreigners to, in effect, buy U.S. immigration visas for themselves and families by investing at least $500,000 in certain development projects. A member of the audience at the marketing event in Shanghai said Meyer spoke for about 10 minutes during last Sunday's event and described her family's humble roots. According to the New York Times, in Beijing on Saturday she told the audience of about 100 people the project "means a lot to me and my entire family".


Detroit Public Schools' emergency manager Darnell Earley is stepping down later this month, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder said on Tuesday. Earley, who has drawn criticism from the teachers union and black state lawmakers for the crumbling state of the city's schools, will leave the school district on Feb. 29, the governor said in a statement. Earley, who had formerly presided over the city of Flint and its now lead-contaminated water system, has served as manager of the Detroit schools since January 2015. The school system is drowning under $3.5 billion of debt, including $1.7 billion of bonds backed by property taxes. Detroit Public Schools is suffering from declining enrollment. Heavy pension and debt obligations have left the district in danger of running out of cash in April. The governor said if the state Senate passes legislation reorganizing the school and tackling the debt soon, the school system could revert to some form of local control. If the debt is not addressed, the system will be "virtually insolvent" by April, Snyder said. A November report by Earley said a bankruptcy by Detroit's school system could shift liabilities for pensions and bonds to the state and local governments. The governor, whose approval is needed for the system to file for bankruptcy, is unlikely to support such a move. Snyder said on Tuesday that Earley has done a "very good job under some very difficult circumstances," restructuring the school system, cutting costs and working to stabilize student enrollment. The governor said he will appoint a transition leader before the end of the month to set in place his plan to restructure the system to address the district's academics and finances. The Michigan black legislative caucus last week asked Snyder to fire Earley. Also last week, the union for Detroit public school teachers sued the district, demanding Earley's immediate removal and a return of local control with a plan to repair the district's crumbling buildings. Ivy Bailey, interim president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, called Earley's departure a "step in the right direction." Under Earley's leadership as emergency manager of Flint, the city switched its water supply from Detroit to the Flint River in April 2014. It switched back last October after tests found high lead levels in blood samples from Flint children. Lead is a neurotoxin that can damage the brain and cause other health problems. Earley has said he is not to blame for the problem since the decision was made before his tenure.


By Warren Woodward Everyone knows that wireless "smart" meters communicate via microwaves. What was unknown until now is that additional frequencies are transmitted in the 2 to 50...


The Russian response to Barack Obama s announcement that he was expelling 35 diplomats over the alleged cyber attack on the US election, was fast, and in some cases, rather amusing:The Russian response to Barack Obama s announcement that he was expelling 35 diplomats over the alleged cyber attack on the US election, was fast, and in some cases, rather amusing.As officials in Moscow said that US diplomats would be ordered to leave in a tit-for-tat response, the Russian Embassy used Twitter to make its point with little panache.


You know all that buzz you are hearing about a likely Hillary Clinton FBI indictment? This may be the shocker of all shockers, but it s completely made up.Before right-wing pundits popped the corks on their champagne bottles, this lie was uttered by Fox News Bret Baier, who claimed that two separate sources with intimate knowledge of the FBI investigations ha confirmed not only that the Clinton Foundation investigation is far more expansive than anybody has reported so far but that there is a lot of evidence and that the sources say it will end in likely an indictment. This would be a bombshell revelation if it were true. On Thursday, however, Baier explained that his claims were inartful :MARTHA MACCALLUM (CO-HOST): The FBI sources that you spoke with suggest that an indictment is likely. That would prove go ahead.BRET BAIER: I want to be clear I want to be clear about this, and this was came from a Q and A that I did with Brit Hume after my show and after we went through everything. He asked me if, after the election, if Hillary Clinton wins, will this investigation continue, and I said, yes absolutely. I pressed the sources again and again what would happen. I got to the end of that and said, they have a lot of evidence that would, likely lead to an indictment. But that s not, that s inartfully answered. That s not the process. That s not how you do it. You have to have a prosecutor. If they don t move forward with a prosecutor with the DOJ, there would be, I m told, a very public call for an independent prosecutor to move forward. There is confidence in the evidence, but for me to phrase it like I did, of course that got picked up everywhere, but the process is different than that.That s his way of saying he was lying. The next time one of your right-wing friends (if you have any left at this point) parrots his ridiculous claims, show them his retraction that their absolute best argument against Hillary Clinton is based on a lie.Watch it below:


Prosecutors allege that bone cement manufactured by Norian and its parent company, Synthes, was used to conduct human experimentation, resulting in a string of deaths over the past several years.As Fortune reports here, the deaths were the result of spinal injections of a product called Norian XR, described as a cement that has the unique capacity to turn into bone when injected into the human skeleton. Norian XR was never approved by the FDA for use in the human spine. To the contrary, the FDA required the company to mark the product as not approved for such use.Experiments conducted at the University of Washington exposed the dangers of using the bone cement to treat human spine injuries as early as 2002. When tested on pigs, the Norian XR caused severe blood clotting, resulting in the deaths of the animals.Synthes had acquired the California-based Norian Corporation with the intention of altering Norian XR for use in spinal treatments. Nothing was going to stand in the way of company profits.Prosecutors say that the company launched a scheme specifically designed to get around FDA approval.As The Dallas Morning News reports here:CEO Hansjorg Wyss directed a few sites to perform 60 to 80 procedures in spinal surgeries using the Norian bone cement and to publish clinical results. He recruited surgeons to test-market the product on patients, court records show.The patients who were exposed to the experimental treatment were never told that the product was not approved by the FDA.By 2010, a string of deaths had been attributed to the company s human experimentation.Lois Eskind, age 70, was injected with Norian XR while a company salesperson watched. The Dallas Morning News reports, The product leaked into Eskind s veins and led to the clotting that killed her. The company did not inform the FDA of Eskind s death. They continued to experiment on human beings without their knowledge or consent, causing the deaths of many other people, including Reba Golden and Joan Bryant.In 2010, Synthes and Norian, along with four top executives, were convicted of conducting unauthorized clinical trials on humans. Norian paid a $22.5 million penalty, while Synthes paid $669,800 fine. The executives went to prison.The families of Golden and Bryant recently filed a civil suit against Dr. Jens Chapman, Synthes, Norian, the University of Washington, Harborview Medical Center and Washington state. The first trial is set to begin in June.The crimes committed by these companies are a chilling example of the risks we take in allowing our healthcare system to be controlled by profit-motivated corporations like Synthes.


More than 180,000 civilians, mostly Kurds, have been displaced by the conflict between the Iraqi central government and the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, humanitarian organizations said on Thursday. Last month Iraqi forces captured Kirkuk and other territories from Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, in retaliation for a referendum on independence held by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) on Sept. 25 in northern Iraq. As of 2 November, over 183,000 people are displaced in the disputed areas, including 79,000 from Kirkuk city, the Office of the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq said in a statement, giving no breakdown by ethnic or religious group.


Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Monday will propose a five-year ban on executive branch officials lobbying after they leave government if he is elected, according to excerpts of a speech on fixing ethics problems in Washington. Trump also will say he plans to ask Congress to impose its own five-year ban on former lawmakers and their staff lobbying as well as set a lifetime ban on senior executive branch officials lobbying for foreign governments.


Email  Donald Trump's plans for his first 100 days in office are raising eyebrows around the world, but of all the items on his agenda it is the reopening of the 9/11 investigation that will provide the greatest earthquake for the establishment. Via Yournewswire  Trump believes that 9/11 has not been properly investigated and he plans to get to the bottom of it. "First of all, the original 9/11 investigation is a total mess and has to be reopened," Trump said. SPONSORED LINKS  The election of Donald Trump has rocked the establishment and things are only going to get rockier for them during his first term. There is a reason George W. Bush didn't vote for Trump in the election, leaving the presidential line blank and voting Republican down-ballot. Trump has pledged to investigate 9/11 in a way it has not been investigated before.  For the first time 9/11 will be investigated by someone who isn't part of the establishment, with skin in the game and plenty to lose.  "First of all, the original 9/11 investigation is a total mess and has to be reopened" Trump announced to supporters. "How do two planes take out three buildings in the same day? I never got my head around the fact that nothing is mentioned about the destruction of Building 7 in the 585 page document," he explained, talking about World Trade Center 7 which also collapsed – inexplicably – during the September 11 attacks.  Donald Trump has also taken cracks at former president George W. Bush. There will be no covering up for former presidents on Trump's watch. "The World Trade Center came down during the reign of George Bush," he said in a February debate. "He kept us safe? That is not safe. That is not safe."  "Why did the administration at the time not take legal means against Saudi Arabia? Weren't 19 of the high-jackers from Saudi Arabia? Americans deserve answers and I will definitely request a new investigation so that this horrible tragedy never happens again."  Donald Trump and the 9/11 Truth movement  While Trump might be railing against the establishment in reopening the 9/11 investigation, he has received support on this issue from a number of public personalities who have demanded the case be revisited – and not behind closed doors.  Former Senator Bob Graham has been demanding a new, transparent investigation "For years I have been campaigning for the release of the 2002 Joint Congressional Intelligence Committee 9/11 Inquiry's report, to no avail" explains the former Governor of Florida. "These missing pages point to the direct involvement of the government of Saudi Arabia. Why are these being kept secret? Who has to gain from these games of secrecy?" he asks.  "I have read these documents myself and if the American public knew what was in these documents, there would be a revolution tomorrow in the streets of America" he acknowledged during a radio interview. "Americans deserve to know the truth" he concluded, visibly angered by the whole affair.  Since 2002, the release of a number of 9/11 Commission Report documents is hindered because they are congressional records, hence they are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).  The long withheld 28 pages were partially released to the public this year – heavily redacted – and the Saudi government claimed the release proved they were not responsible for supporting or financing the attacks. But it's not as simple as that. There are direct ties to the Saudi hierarchy in the 28 pages. There are a lot of questions that need answering, and they were never going to be addressed under a Clinton presidency with all her ties to Saudi Arabia.  But with President Trump's executive powers, everything has changed. The establishment are on edge. More than half the country doesn't believe the official version of what happened that day. There is now a renewed belief that this biggest of lies and cover ups is about to be dismantled. The establishment did all it could to destroy Trump the outsider's election chances at election. Now they are on edge.


A parliamentary committee on Thursday accused British Prime Minister Theresa May s government of giving ministers excessively wide powers in new bill to transfer EU law into British law. The bill in question sets out the government s plan for transposing European Union law into the British statute book as part of Brexit. But it creates scope for ministers to alter legislation without full parliamentary scrutiny in order to make sure laws works properly once transferred. The bill gives ministers excessively wide legislative powers beyond what is necessary to ensure UK law works properly when the UK leaves the EU, said a statement accompanying a report by a committee of lawmakers from parliament s unelected upper chamber, the House of Lords. The government has said the powers created by the bill are strictly limited to what is needed to allow for a smooth transition - something they say is necessary to give businesses certainty over the rules they will face when Britain s EU membership ends in March 2019. Nevertheless, May, whose Conservative Party does not have an outright majority in parliament, could be forced into making concessions to ease concerns from across the political spectrum to clear the remaining lawmaking stages. Thursday s critical report by the House of Lords Delegated Powers Committee set out an alternative proposal that would allow more rigorous scrutiny of changes that the government wants to make when transposing EU law. The report offers a taste of the resistance May can expect to find in the House of Lords, where her Conservatives peers are significantly outnumbered by rivals from other parties. The Lords will have to approve the withdrawal bill before it can become law. Earlier this month the government cleared the first of many parliamentary hurdles, winning a vote on crucial legislation known as the EU withdrawal bill despite criticism that it amounted to a government power grab.


Donald Trump declared on Wednesday that Russia's Vladimir Putin had been a better leader than U.S. President Barack Obama, as the Republican presidential nominee used a televised forum to argue he was best equipped to reassert America's global leadership. Trump suggested at the event in which he and Democratic rival Hillary Clinton made back-to-back appearances that U.S. generals had been stymied by the policies of Obama and Clinton, who served as the Democratic president's first secretary of state. "I think under the leadership of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton the generals have been reduced to rubble. They have been reduced to a point that's embarrassing for our country," Trump said at NBC's "Commander-in-Chief" forum in New York attended by military veterans. It was the first time Trump and Clinton had squared off on the same stage since accepting their parties' presidential nominations in July for the Nov. 8 election. Clinton was grilled over her handling of classified information while using a private email server during her tenure at the State Department. FBI Director James Comey had declared her "extremely careless" in her handling of sensitive material but did not recommend charges against her. "I did exactly what I should have done and I take it very seriously, always have, always will," she said.Trump's praise of Putin and his suggestion that the United States and Russia form an alliance to defeat Islamic State militants could raise eyebrows among foreign policy experts who feel Moscow is interfering with efforts to stem the Syrian civil war. "If he says great things about me, I'm going to say great things about him," Trump said of the Russian president. "Certainly in that system, he's been a leader, far more than our president has been." Trump had called Obama "the founder of ISIS," an acronym for Islamic State, in stump speeches several weeks ago. The statement drew broad criticism, prompting him to take a more disciplined approach to campaigning. He has since picked up ground on Clinton in national opinion polls. Trump also flirted with revealing what he had been learning in classified intelligence briefings given to him by U.S. officials because he is the Republican nominee. "There was one thing that shocked me," Trump said. "What I did learn is that our leadership, Barack Obama, did not follow what our experts ... said to do, and I was very, very surprised. ...Our leaders were not following what they recommended." Earlier on Wednesday, Trump pledged to launch a new U.S. military buildup, saying America was under threat like never before from foes like Islamist extremists, North Korea and China. The event offered a prelude to how Clinton and Trump will deal with questions on national security issues in their three upcoming presidential debates later in September and in October. Clinton began the forum saying her long experience in government as a U.S. senator and secretary of state made her uniquely qualified to serve as president. She said she had "an absolute rock steadiness" to be able to make tough decisions, a not so subtle dig at Trump, who Democrats say is temperamentally unfit for the White House. Moderator Matt Lauer doggedly pressed her about her handling of emails from a private server while secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. The issue has raised questions about whether she can be trusted to serve as president. Clinton said none of the emails she sent or received were marked top secret, secret or classified, the usual way such material is identified. Appearing in the second half of the hour-long show, Trump faced questions about his fitness for office. Asked if he would be prepared on Day One to be commander in chief, Trump said: "One hundred percent." Trump quickly abandoned Lauer's entreaties to avoid attacking his opponent and focus on what he would do if elected president in November. "She's been there for 30 years," Trump said. "We need change, and we need it fast." The event brought together the meticulously prepared Clinton, 68, the wife of former President Bill Clinton, and Trump, 70, a New York businessman whose brash, freewheeling style has allowed him to dominate the headlines during his campaign. Clinton said she regretted her decision as a U.S. senator from New York to vote in favor of the much-criticized 2003 Iraq war and that Trump had been in favor of it as well. Trump has condemned the war during his campaign and said he would avoid lengthy conflicts in the Middle East. On the U.S. intervention in Libya in 2011, Clinton rejected Trump's criticism of her support for the effort as secretary of state. "Permitting there to be an ongoing civil war in Libya would be as threatening and as dangerous as what we are seeing in Syria," she said. Trump said Clinton's handling of Libya proved disastrous. Republicans have made much of the fact that the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, was killed in an Islamist attack in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012. "She made a terrible mistake in Libya," said Trump. Clinton said U.S. policies under her leadership at the State Department had helped promote security. "We made the world safer," she said.


Sworn Donald Trump enemy John McCain admitted Wednesday that he passed the dossier of claims of a Russian blackmail plot against the president-elect.The Arizona senator issued a public statement amid mounting questions of his exact role in the affair and how a document riddled with errors and unverifiable claims came to be published. Late last year, I received sensitive information that has since been made public, he said. Upon examination of the contents, and unable to make a judgment about their accuracy, I delivered the information to the Director of the FBI. That has been the extent of my contact with the FBI or any other government agency regarding this issue. But the 2008 Republican loser, who disowned his party s candidate weeks before the election, may have been far more intimately involved than that.The chain of how the document reached the FBI is not officially known.However Carl Bernstein, the Watergate reporter who contributed to the first story about its existence, published by CNN on Tuesday afternoon, suggested that McCain was handed it by a former British ambassador to Moscow. Arizona Senator who disowned Trump before election admits he handed document outlining claims of Kremlin blackmail to FBI Brief statement claims that he received it and gave it directly to FBI Director James Comey because he was unable to make judgment about accuracy But Washington reporter Carl Bernstein says former British ambassador to Moscow handed it to McCain Ambassador has not been named and author of report also gave to FBI agent he knew at its station in Rome months ago Report was apparently paid for first BY Republican enemies of Trump then by DemocratsBernstein told CNN: It came from a former British MI6 agent who was hired from a political opposition research firm in Washington who was doing work about Donald Trump for both republican and democratic candidates opposed to Trump. They were looking at Trumps business ties, they saw some questionable things about Russians, about his businesses in Russia, they in turn hired this MI6 former investigator, he then came up with additional information from his Russian sources, he was very concerned by the implications of it, he then took it to an FBI colleague that he had known in his undercover work for years, he took it to this FBI man in Rome who turned it over to the bureau in Washington in August. And then, a former British ambassador to Russia independently was made aware of these findings and he took the information to John McCain Senator John McCain of Arizona in the period just after the election, and showed it to McCain additional findings. McCain was sufficiently disturbed by what he read to take it to FBI director James Comey himself personally, they had a five minute meeting the two men, very little was said, McCain turned it over to him and is now awaiting what the FBI s response is to that information. The identity of the former British ambassador has not been disclosed.Only one former British ambassador to Moscow remains in UK government service, Sir Tim Barrow, who went on to be Foreign Office political director and is now Britain s ambassador to the European Union.The new information, which has not been independently verified, claims that Russian officials also gathered highly damaging information on Trump, but only released the details attacking Clinton through the WikiLeaks website.The Kremlin has denied all of the allegations, while Trump tweeted: FAKE NEWS A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT .Buzzfeed followed up a report by CNN which disclosed the existence of the explosive dossier, but only gave a brief outline of the contents.The 35-page document, which had been collated by a former British Secret Intelligence Service agent had initially been handed over to the FBI in August.Buzzfeed s Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith wrote an email to his staff shortly after publishing the document.Buzzfeed is one of the radical publications on the internet. It is known for pumping out hateful and negative Trump stories almost with a vengeance to its young readers on a regular basis. The release of this FAKE NEWS should surprise NO ONE! Daily Mail


For those searching for a soul mate, the website WikiHow offers an plan that could be of help. It tells the lovelorn about fruitful places to look for a mate and instructs them to do things such as make a list of the traits sought in a partner and to "start looking. " But here at The New York Times, we have a better plan, and ours has only two steps: 1. Put on a sweater emblazoned with a cat wearing a Santa hat on the front. (Any kind of cat — calico, Siamese, Abyssinian — will do.) 2. Stand next to an elevator. (It wouldn't hurt to put on some perfume or cologne this plan needs all the help it can get.) Then, boom! Mr. or Ms. Right will pop up. We can't swear by this, because our data is admittedly scant. But in two wedding stories published in The Times this year, sweaters have led to love. And in three others, sightings in elevators led to marriages. O. K. we get it that the ugly Christmas sweater craze may have run its course. But you can't argue with success, which is why these couples lead the list of the most unusual stories for 2016. The catless among us fared just as well, however. Here is our list: Cat People Our cat lovers are Caitlin Taylor Landy and Brandon Travis Ponder, who were married Aug. 27 in Rye, N. Y. and Sarah Callaway and John Rader, who were married July 23 in Birmingham, Ala. Mr. Ponder wore his Christmas cat sweater for the picture he posted on his Tinder profile in summer 2014, and Ms. Landy was intrigued by his sense of humor. Mr. Rader and Ms. Callaway met in December 2013 in Nashville when Mr. Rader and a friend (who was wearing a Christmas cat sweater) were hailing the same cab as Ms. Callaway (who was also wearing a cat sweater) and her friend. "Meow," Mr. Rader's friend said to Ms. Callaway, but she wound up with Mr. Rader. Asked recently to explain the romantic allure of sweaters, Mr. Rader said a number of factors came into play. "But No. 1 would be the actual girl wearing the sweater," he said. "In addition to her, it's a celebration of the most beautiful and wonderful time of the year, and to have a cat wearing a Santa hat is just something that is friendly and welcoming and cheerful all wrapped into one. " Which Floor for Love? Our elevator couples are Alyssa Carbone and Jeremy Kees, who married March 19 in Montclair, N. J. Nadia Gaya and Timothy Martin, who were married April 30 in Manhattan and Kaci Lindhorst and Adam Sokoloff, who were married June 18 in New York. Ms. Carbone remembered seeing her future husband in the elevator of their Philadelphia apartment building. "He looked charming, handsome and dapper in his nice suits," she said. Then the two got the chance to chat when an fire alarm rousted the pair and their fellow tenants and temporarily left them outside. Ms. Gaya recalls hitting the button on her elevator in her Brooklyn apartment building and out walked Mr. Martin. "I said to myself, 'That's the hottest guy I've ever seen. '" They were introduced by the woman showing an apartment to Mr. Martin, but she did not get his last name. A few months later, they again met at the elevator and began to get better acquainted. Ms. Lindhorst did not actually spot Mr. Sokoloff in the elevator. But her roommate, a natural matchmaker, had. Ms. Lindhorst, with encouragement from her roommate, then sent a Facebook friend request to "the really attractive guy" she saw there. What is so enticing about an elevator? Jodi Hynes, communications manager of Otis Americas, the elevator company, has given it some thought. "You are instantly put into an intimate setting from the moment you step inside, then the doors close and you can't help but make eye contact and start talking to the person standing next to you," Ms. Hynes said. "Where that leads may not always be what you intend, but it forces you into an otherwise unexpected conversation. " Loving the Wait Anh Tu Dang and Josh Mankiewicz, who were married May 16 in Los Angeles, met while engaged in the most frustrating of activities: waiting in an airport security line. When Mr. Mankiewicz saw Ms. Dang in 2008 at Los Angeles International Airport, suddenly the wait didn't seem so long. "Standing ahead of me was this stunning woman," Mr. Mankiewicz, a correspondent for "Dateline NBC," recalled. "I was staring at her. She didn't notice. Finally we started talking. Actually, I started talking and she responded. " A Better View Kelly McKanna and David Hirsch, who were married July 30 in Palo Alto, Calif. had just met and had been chatting briefly at a San Francisco music festival in 2011 when he offered her a perch on his shoulders for a better view. She told him he should sit on hers instead. He hopped on, her back didn't crumple, and love ensued. The Man Without a Face After Meegan Brooks connected online with Michael Kimiecik, she communicated with him for weeks on end without the benefit of seeing his face. His profile photo was sort of obscure. At one point, she asked him outright to post a more recent photo, and he sent a photo of himself wearing ski goggles and a hood that covered most of his face. She finally got the chance to see him up close when she flew to Michigan, and he picked her up at the airport — without anything covering his face. "He was incredibly handsome," she said. They were married Aug. 6 in Carmel Valley, Calif. Love at First Shout The first time Akino Brown heard Dr. Dionne Hoskins, she was giving him a good at a Big Lots store in Savannah, Ga. Sparks flew — but not good ones — when she overheard Mr. Brown and a discussing the firing of another employee. Incensed by this breach in protocol, Dr. Hoskins proceeded to tell Mr. Brown just that. He was distracted, though: "All I heard was, 'Blah blah blah,'" he said. "I drifted off, thinking about how good she looked. " Rod Serling Would Approve Perhaps the most Twilight of our 2016 involved Allison Gans and Brian Fischer, who were married Sept. 24 in Los Gatos, Calif. The two thought they had first met on JDate in 2013, but when Ms. Gans began looking through her future husband's childhood photos, she discovered that they had both been in the same large group that had traveled to Israel in 1997 for bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies. More digging revealed a video had been taken of a ceremony there in which a rabbi took a candle held by Ms. Gans and gave it to Mr. Fischer. The future bride and groom, though standing just inches apart, scarcely noticed each other.


Erica Garner blasts Clinton campaign over discussions staffers had about Eric Garner page: 1 One Podesta email has Clinton Campaign people discussing the death of Eric Garner in ways his Daughter Erica dislikes. She went on Twitter and gave them a piece of her mind. Seems they saw a newspaper story that may have been interpreted as a liability. This exposure could hurt the Campaign. The whole Campaign is based on political profits and losses, not Human dignity. Erica Garner blasts Clinton campaign over discussions staffers had about her father's death in WikiLeaks emails Erica Garner, the daughter of police chokehold victim Eric Garner, ripped the Hillary Clinton campaign in a series of tweets Thursday after new campaign emails released by WikiLeaks showed how the Democratic nominee's staffers discussed the death of her father. "I'm troubled by the revelation that you and this campaign actually discussed 'using' Eric Garner … Why would you want to 'use my dad?" Garner tweeted along with a link to emails released by WikiLeaks. "These people will co opt anything to push their agenda. Police violence is not the same as gun violence. "I'm vey (sic) interested to know exactly what @CoreyCiorciari meant when he said 'I know we have an Erica Garner problem' in the #PodestaEmails19," added Garner. "I know we have Erica Garner issues but we don't want to mention Eric at all? I can see her coming after us for leaving him out of the piece," Clinton's traveling press secretary Nick Merrill wrote in a March 17 email. edit on Oct-27-2016 by xuenchen because: politicalmoneyisntgreen