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Pence: Trump will focus fast on tax, healthcare, immigration: WSJ(Reuters) - The Trump administration plans to move quickly on its goals to overhaul taxation, healthcare and immigration laws, Vice President-elect Mike Pence said in an interview published by the Wall Street Journal on Friday. President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, is preparing 100-day and 200-day plans aimed at fulfilling his campaign promises and stimulating economic growth, Pence said. The administration’s first priorities would include curbing illegal immigration, abolishing and replacing Obama’s signature healthcare program, nominating someone to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court and strengthening the military, he told the newspaper. Pence was interviewed after introducing Trump at a rally in Cincinnati on Thursday. It was the start of what Trump aides have billed as a thank-you tour of battleground states that helped the Republican defeat his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton on Nov. 8. The Trump administration would work with congressional leaders by next spring “to move fundamental tax reform” meant to “free up the pent-up energy in the American economy,” Pence was quoted as saying by the Journal. This would include lowering marginal tax rates, cutting the corporate tax rate “from some of the highest in the industrialized world” to 15 percent and repatriating corporate cash held overseas, Pence told the newspaper. Both chambers of the U.S. Congress are controlled by Republicans. “I think the only thing that will surprise them is that Washington, D.C., is going to get an awful lot done in a short period of time,” Pence told the newspaper when asked what might surprise voters about the Trump administration.

Parents Unhappy With New Jersey High School Over Removal Of Trump References From YearbookWall Township High School in Wall, New Jersey, has recently come under fire from the parents of three students for erasing references to Donald Trump in the school s most recent yearbook.Whether it was cropping or photoshopping items of clothing with Trump s campaign slogan in student photos or refusing to print statements by the president submitted by another student as her yearbook quote, the parents of those affected are claiming their children s first amendment rights have been violated, although they are acting more like it was they themselves who have been silenced. The school has not only been accused of censorship, but the parents of three students want the yearbooks to be reprinted with an apology or, at the very least, an explanation.One such student is Grant Berardo, a junior at Wall High, who wore a TRUMP: Make America Great Again t-shirt for his school photo, only for the slogan to be digitally removed from his yearbook picture. He was disappointed. This was the first election he has been interested in, said Grant s father, Joseph Berardo. I want the yearbooks to be reissued and I want a letter from the administration explaining why they are reissuing the yearbook Grant Berardo was probably only interested in an election for the first time simply due to his age and it also sounds like his father is trying to push his own political agenda, but Grant wasn t the only student affected. Another junior, Wyatt Dobrovich-Fago, had his photo cropped so the Trump logo on his vest was cut out and his sister, Montana, had a Trump quote removed from her photo as freshman class president. Montana Dobrovich-Fago wanted to have printed under her picture the Donald Trump quote, I like thinking big. If you are going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big, but when she opened the yearbook, the space below the photo was blank. I want to know who thought it was okay to do this, said Janet Dobrovich-Fago, mother of the two teenagers and another parent who appears to be living vicariously through her kids. I want the school to seek disciplinary action and to be held accountable. Parents received a letter from Wall Township Public Schools Superintendent Cheryl Dyer on June 9, stating that she was looking into the matter because, although the school s dress code does prohibit references to illegal activities such as drugs, alcohol, and weapons, there is nothing stating that students can t show political affiliation.Featured image via Wall High School/Joseph Berardo

WATCH: FORMER DNC CHAIR Suggests President Trump Will Be Taken Out Before 2020 ElectionFormer Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean hinted that President Donald Trump would not make it through his first term Friday on MSNBC s Morning Joe. Discussing Sen. Jeff Flake s (R., Ariz.) remarks that Trump could be inviting a 2020 Republican primary challenger with his conduct in office, Dean suggested Trump could no longer be president by then anyway.Watch: Who knows if Trump is going to be around in 2020? Of his own volition, I think it s unlikely he ll be impeached, even if the Democrats take over [the House], although [Robert] Mueller could unearth some stuff that could lead to that, Dean said. I think this is unpredictable. WFB

Day before Comey appearance, U.S. intel chiefs to testify on surveillanceWASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top U.S. intelligence officials will testify before a Senate panel next week on the law governing the collection of foreign intelligence, parts of which are due to expire at the end of the year, the Senate Intelligence Committee said on Friday. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers and Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will appear before the committee in both open public and closed-door hearings on Wednesday to discuss the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, the committee said in a statement. The next day, former FBI Director James Comey, who was fired by President Donald Trump last month, is scheduled to testify before the same committee. Comey had been overseeing an FBI investigation into Russian interference during the 2016 presidential election and possible collusion between Moscow and Trump associates, and the Senate panel is conducting a parallel probe. A part of FISA known as Section 702 will expire on Dec. 31 unless Congress votes to reauthorize it. The statute allows the NSA to collect digital communications of foreigners believed to be living overseas whose communications pass through American phone or internet providers. For technical reasons, it also incidentally collects data on Americans, a practice that privacy advocates have said evades Constitutional protections against warrantless searches. FISA and U.S. surveillance practices have come under increased scrutiny in recent months amid unsubstantiated assertions by President Donald Trump and other Republicans that the White House under former President Barack Obama improperly spied on Trump or his associates. A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers in the House of Representatives is working on legislation that would renew Section 702 but with additional transparency and oversight, among other changes, though it remains unclear if it would have enough support to pass Congress and be signed by Trump. A White House official told Reuters in March the administration supported the law’s renewal and did not want to alter it.

Dublin rejects British proposal for post-Brexit Irish borderTALLINN (Reuters) - Ireland dismissed British proposals for the Irish border after Brexit as unconvincing on Friday, a day after the EU chief negotiator said they amounted to a demand the bloc suspend its laws for Britain. But British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, speaking at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Tallinn, said a solution was not beyond the wit of man . The border between the Irish Republic and the British province of Northern Ireland is currently open to free flow of goods, being an internal EU frontier. But when Britain leaves the bloc, it will become subject to EU customs regulation. Establishment of a physical border could revive security concerns, 20 years after a peace deal involving Dublin that ended a long civil conflict in Northern Ireland and led to the end of army and police checkpoints. Britain has proposed an invisible border without border posts or immigration checks between the two after Brexit, but given no firm proposals how the customs frontier between Northern Ireland and the Republic would be monitored. EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said on Thursday British proposals would undermine the bloc s single market. He said Britain in effect wanted the EU to suspend the application of its laws as a test case for broader EU-British customs regulations. This will not happen. Ireland s Foreign Minister Simon Coveney told Reuters on Friday: The maintenance of an invisible border on the island of Ireland would be a lot easier if Britain were to remain in the customs union. That is something Prime Minister Theresa May has said would not happen, though her cabinet is split on the issue and some have floated the idea of a transition period after Brexit that would still leave Britain in the EU customs union. Britain is the one leaving, they have an obligation to try and design unique solutions.... We cannot have a physical border on the island of Ireland again that creates barriers between communities, Coveney said. We cannot and will not support that and nor will the European Union, he said, adding that Britons wanted to avoid a hard border too. The problem is that the solutions to actually get us there so far haven t been convincing. Negotiations to extricate Britain from the EU have seen a slow start and Brussels has repeatedly warned that time is running out to answer complex questions before Britain is due to leave in March, 2019. The bloc, which will have 27 member states after Brexit, wants to solve key exit issues before opening talks about any future trade cooperation with Britain. London says divorce talks should run in parallel with discussions about future ties. But, with slow progress on agreeing Britain s divorce bill, ensuring expatriates rights and deciding on the Irish border, the EU now doubts it will give a green light in October for starting talks about the post-Brexit order, as had been planned. The EU worries London may try to use the Irish border as a template for a broader trade pact with the EU after Brexit. It believes Britain s proposals risk affecting the bloc s single market and customs union. The European Parliament s chief Brexit speaker, Guy Verhofstadt, dismissed Britain s plans for an invisible border as surreal. We are nowhere on border issues, one senior EU official said. But, asked if he was confident that Britain would get a deal with the EU, Johnson said in Tallinn: Absolutely, with rock solid confidence. He reiterated London s stance that the divorce talks should run together with discussion about the post-Brexit relationship. Article 50 makes it very clear that the discussion about the exit of a country must be taken in context with discussion of the future arrangements. And that s what we re going to do, he said.

THE TRUTH About Alicia Machado BLOWS UP…Backfires BIG-TIME On Hillary’s Dirty Campaign! [Video]Hillary should have done her homework before she chose this former Miss Universe to disparage Trump s character

TERRIFIC! PRESIDENT TRUMP Takes On The United Nations With Latest Executive OrderTHE US PROVIDES 22% OF THE BUDGET FOR THE UNITED NATIONS!Donald Trump is preparing executive orders that would dramatically reduce US funding of the United Nations, as well as other international organizations that do not meet certain criteria.The executive order plans to repeal certain multilateral treaties too, officials told the New York Times, which would likely include treaties on climate change.The first order, called Auditing and Reducing US Funding of International Organizations , will take away funding for any United Nations agency or international body that meets criteria, including: organisations that give full membership to the Palestinian Authority or Palestine Liberation Organisation; support abortion and any group that circumvents sanctions on Iran or North Korea.Funding will be taken away from any organization that is controlled or substantially influenced by any state that sponsors terrorism or is behind the persecution of marginalised groups or systematic violation of human rights.The order has singled out peacekeeping, the International Criminal Court and the United Nations Population Fund. The UNPFA targets violence against women, fights to keeps childbirth and abortion, where it is legal, safe, and was a key presence in safeguarding women in Haiti following Hurricane Matthew.The order demands decreasing US funding towards international organizations by at least 40 per cent.Earlier reports revealed that Congress was planning legislation to stop funding the UN after it voted to condemn Israeli settlement building in the Occupied Territories.Read more: The Independent

Yes, Rick Santorum Asked People To ‘Google’ Him Despite The Frothy Definition Of His Name (TWEETS)During Thursday night s undercard debate on Fox Business Channel, candidate Rick Santorum, who s somehow still in the race, asked viewers for a very special favor.The former Pennsylvania senator said, Go and Google Rick Santorum and Hillary Clinton. You ll see a five-minute debate. I ll let you decide who won the debate. He continued, I ll tell you who won, I know I m out of time, I m going to take some of Rand Paul s time here for a second. Yes, Rick Santorum wants us to Google him. Why is this so goddamn funny?There was a time when the absolute last thing Rick Santorum ever wanted you to do was to Google him. Not too long ago, LGBT commentator Dan Savage produced one of the greatest political pranks of all time. In response to Santorum saying publicly that same-sex marriage will lead to man-on-dog sex, Savage re-defined the word Santorum to mean the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex. Worse, enemies of Santorum rigged it so that googling the Republican s name would only produce results that led to that definition. Hence, Santorum probably didn t spend much time asking people to Google him.Until Thursday night. Brave of him because, fortunately, Google no longer produces the new definition as a search result. But people who despise the Republican haven t forgotten. Twitter erupted with reactions to the inadvertent reference to Google.Historic moment: Rick Santorum just told people to go Google Rick Santorum. Daniel Dale (@ddale8) January 14, 2016People who should never say Google me -Rick Santorum, and well, me. ? Sydney Leathers (@sydneyelainexo) January 15, 2016 Hi, I m Rick Santorum. Please don t Google me. Andrew Katz (@katz) September 16, 2015 Go and Google Rick Santorum nooooooooooooo Brett LoGiurato (@BrettLoGiurato) January 14, 2016DO NOT GOOGLE SANTORUM T. Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) January 14, 2016Hi I m Rick Santorum. I don t need to introduce myself. Just google me. Just make sure your kids aren t in the room. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaIdTromp) September 16, 2015Couldn t happen to a nicer guy, huh?Featured image via video screen grab.

MEDIA IGNORES Time That Bill Clinton FIRED His FBI Director On Day Before Vince Foster Was Found DeadIn its 109-year history, only one F.B.I. director had been fired until Tuesday, when President Trump fired James B. Comey. In July 1993, President Bill Clinton fired William S. Sessions, who had been nominated to the post by President Ronald Reagan in 1987. Mr. Clinton said his attorney general, Janet Reno, reviewed Mr. Sessions s leadership and concluded in no uncertain terms that he can no longer effectively lead the bureau. Mr. Sessions had been cited for ethical lapses, including taking free trips on F.B.I. aircraft and using government money to build a $10,000 fence at his home. Mr. Sessions was asked to resign, and was fired when he refused to do so. Despite the president s severe tone, he seemed to regret having to force Mr. Sessions from his post, The New York Times wrote about his dismissal:WASHINGTON, July 19 President Clinton today dismissed William S. Sessions, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who had stubbornly rejected an Administration ultimatum to resign six months after a harsh internal ethics report on his conduct.Mr. Clinton said he would announce his nominee to replace Mr. Sessions on Tuesday. He was expected to pick Judge Louis J. Freeh of Federal District Court in Manhattan; officials said Judge Freeh had impressed Mr. Clinton favorably on Friday at their first meeting.Mr. Clinton, explaining his reasons for removing Mr. Sessions, effective immediately, said, We cannot have a leadership vacuum at an agency as important to the United States as the F.B.I. It is time that this difficult chapter in the agency s history is brought to a close. Defiant to the EndBut in a parting news conference at F.B.I. headquarters after Mr. Clinton s announcement, a defiant Mr. Sessions his right arm in a sling as a result of a weekend fall railed at what he called the unfairness of his removal, which comes nearly six years into his 10-year term. Because of the scurrilous attacks on me and my wife of 42 years, it has been decided by others that I can no longer be as forceful as I need to be in leading the F.B.I. and carrying out my responsibilities to the bureau and the nation, he said. It is because I believe in the principle of an independent F.B.I. that I have refused to voluntarily resign. Mr. Clinton said that after reviewing Mr. Sessions s performance, Attorney General Janet Reno had advised him that Mr. Sessions should go. After a thorough review by the Attorney General of Mr. Sessions s leadership of the F.B.I., she has reported to me in no uncertain terms that he can no longer effectively lead the bureau. Similarly, Mr. Trump fired Mr. Comey on the recommendation of his attorney general, Jeff Sessions. (No relation to William S. Sessions.) There are no United States statutes that discuss the president s authority to remove the F.B.I. director. NYT s Vince Foster: What the Media Won t Tell You Major media outlets reported Wednesday on the Supreme Court hearing of California lawyer Allan Favish s case that government photographs of Vincent Foster s death scene be released for public viewing. The media report that no fewer than five investigations have found that Foster committed suicide because he was depressed. But despite 10 years of denial by the major media, the Foster case has not closed as the Supreme Court hearing Wednesday demonstrated. The case won t close because of the failure of authorities to make full disclosure and to conduct a full investigation into the case, including a complete autopsy.Vince Foster was not only deputy White House counsel but also the personal attorney to Bill and Hillary Clinton.On the night of Foster s death, top Clinton aides made a frantic effort to enter and remove documents from his West Wing office. In the days that followed, federal investigators were stymied in their investigation of Foster s office and strange death.Since Foster s July 1993 death, the facts of his death have been obfuscated by friends of Bill and Hillary in the major media, but here s the undeniable truth:There weren t five investigations into Foster s death, as the media report. The Park Police, best known for their meter and horse patrols around Washington, were put in charge of the initial death inquiry of the most important federal official to die suspiciously since President Kennedy. The Park Police, contradicting standard procedure, declared the death a suicide before launching their inquiry.Later, Robert Fiske, selected by Clinton s counsel Bernie Nussbaum and Janet Reno, quickly confirmed the Park Police probe as a suicide.But when Ken Starr entered the investigation, he reopened the case. His chief prosecutor in the case, Miquel Rodriguez, later quit the Starr investigation, claiming that Starr s staff was engaging in a cover-up of Foster s death.Rodriguez, a Harvard-educated federal prosecutor, argued that one of the Polaroid photos taken of Foster at the crime scene indicated an additional wound on Foster s neck never noted on the autopsy report. Favish s suit before the Supreme Court is seeking to release this photo, among others.No fewer than three of the paramedics on the scene indicated in reports or testimony that the crime scene was consistent with a murder scene, not a suicide.A careful FBI microscopic investigation of Foster s shoes found not a trace of soil or grass stains on them, though he supposedly walked several hundred yards through wooded Fort Marcy Park to where his body was found. [Years later, Starr s investigation found plenty of soil and grass stains. Rodriguez charged that the shoes were tampered with to produce such evidence. ]According to the FBI report on Vince Foster s death (below) blonde hairs were found on the body of Vince Foster, but were never investigated:Foster was found with little blood around his body and despite claims that he fired the gun into his mouth, practically no blood was found on the front of his shirt.Foster was found with a 1913 revolver no one in his family could claim, with two serial numbers, made from the parts of three or more guns. None of Foster s fingerprints were found on the gun.For years, detail after detail emerged questioning the official ruling.Significant questions were raised about the unusual gun a .38 Colt revolver made from the parts of three guns with two serial numbers found conveniently in Vince s hand.The Park Police said one of the serial numbers indicated the gun was vintage 1913 and had no pedigree.Foster family members insisted neither Foster nor his father ever owned the old revolver.The NCIC keeps records of all law enforcment inquiries of serial numbers.On March 23, 2001, the FBI responded to requests made by a man names Craig Brinkley:Serial number 356555, one of the numbers on the gun, was never searched, not by the FBI, the Park Police or by that investigation by Ken Starr.Serial number 355055 was found on the frame of the gun. Brinkley believes that was the gun s real nnumber.That number was indeed searched by the Park Police, on the evening of Foster s death, more exactly at 22:45 EDT on July 20, 1993.Interestingly, searches were conducted on the same serial number no fewer than three times earlier that year, before Foster s death, on March 3, March 7 and April 29.Was someone checking to see that this gun had a clean predigree and was untraceable?The bullet from the gun that supposedly killed Foster was never found, despite intensive searches.Despite claims to the contrary, no one who knew Foster, including Hillary, Web Hubbell and his own wife, saw signs of depression.A so-called suicide note was found in an office briefcase that had been searched and found to be empty after Foster s death. The note was torn into 27 pieces. Yet an FBI examination found no trace of Foster s fingerprints on the note and a top Oxford handwriting expert found the note to be an obvious forgery.Despite the enormity of the case, Foster s autopsy lasted an astounding 45 minutes. The coroner in the case had previously been overruled in other cases he declared suicides that were later found to be murders.All of the X-rays taken during the autopsy are missing.Complete crime scene photos don t exist. The Park Police said all the photos were accidentally overexposed. A series of close-up Polaroids, which Favish is suing for, remain. This is just a brief summary of the dozens of inconsistencies in the case. Two New York homicide investigators who looked into the case concluded that Foster s body had been moved to the crime scene and that murder could not be ruled out.Despite overwhelming evidence of a cover-up, the media won t question the official ruling.Ken Starr, who could find no criminal wrongdoing on the part of the Clintons during his intensive probe, confirmed a ruling of suicide. Starr even hired O.J. Simpson s defense expert to prove his case.On August 23, 2016, The Daily Mail revealed that FBI agents reported interviews documenting that Hillary Clinton s stinging humiliation of her friend and mentor Vince Foster in front of White House aides triggered the suicide of Vince Foster were missing from where they should be filed at the National Archives.On the first visit, archivist David Paynter provided the box of records that he said contained the FBI reports of interviews conducted by FBI agents on Foster s death. On a second visit, archivist James Mathis provided what he said were those same documents.While the box contained dozens of FBI reports concerning Foster s death including interviews with the medical examiner, U.S. Park Police officers, and White House aides about the contents of Foster s office the reports on Hillary Clinton s role in his death were absent.After filing a Freedom of Information request with the National Archives, Martha Murphy, the archives public liaison, reported that she directed a senior archivist to conduct a more thorough review of the relevant FBI files, including those that had not been previously made public in response to FOIA requests. He examined all eight boxes but found no interviews by any investigator that detail either a meeting between Hillary Clinton and Vince Foster or the effects of a meeting between Hillary Clinton and Vince Foster on Vince Foster s state of mind, Murphy reported in an email.After firing Republican FBI Director William S. Session, President Bill Clinton temporarily replaced him with Floyd I. Clarke and then on September 1, 1993 he Louis Freeh became the FBI Director. Right from the start, the Freeh FBI was drenched in controversy. The screw-ups were legion from the exposure of fraudulent FBI crime lab results to the wrongful blaming of an innocent man for the bombings at the Atlanta Olympics to the bloody standoff and shootout at Ruby Ridge.

Like Father, Like Son: Trump Jr. Wakes Up Tweeting Desperate Nonsense About The Press And DemocratsWe re all used to seeing insane, nonsensical tweets from Donald Trump Sr, the so-called president. However, now that it is his son and namesake, Donald Trump Jr., who is in the hot seat at the moment.Over the weekend, the New York Times dropped several bombshells regarding a shady meeting with a Russian lawyer that Trump Jr., first son-in-law Jared Kushner, and former campaign manager and Kremlin toadie Paul Manafort engaged in during the height of the 2016 presidential campaign. The whole thing resulted in Trump Jr. eventually admitting that the whole purpose of the meeting was to get dirt from the Russians on Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.After all of this, it seems that Trump Jr., is following in his father s footsteps and watching coverage of himself on cable news. As Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the Ranking Member on the Intelligence Committee in the House of Representatives was making an appearance on Morning Joe, Trump Jr. was tweeting about what he was talking about with hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski and their guests. Obviously irritated, Trump Jr. said:Of course, this is just the sort of thing his father would tweet when the news cycle is focused on something unsavory regarding this travesty of a presidency. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that Jr. is doing the same thing. After all, the whole family seems like some kind of crazy, Children of the Corn carbon copy of their crazy father.The walls are closing in and they don t know what to do. The free press is still operating and speaking truth to power, despite the constant bullying of this autocratic, kleptocratic administration. They know it, too after all, if you want to see desperation in action, just check the Twitter feeds of Donnie #1 and Donnie #2. The more aggravated the tweets, the better things are for the nation.Featured image via David Becker/Getty Images

Bodies of ambushed travelers found in eastern Congo: chiefGOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) - The bodies of 26 people believed killed after an ambush last week in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have been discovered, most of them with their hands tied and their necks broken, a local chief said on Sunday. The victims disappeared a week ago after they were ambushed by militants on a main road in North Kivu s restive Beni territory, where more than 800 people were killed in dozens of massacres between 2014 and 2016. The attack, which followed a lull this year, has revived questions about the state s ability to impose order over eastern borderlands wracked by ethnic tensions and competition for mineral resources. Congolese authorities and U.N. officials initially believed that about 20 civilians had disappeared after being attacked by armed assailants and were likely to have been killed. They were unable to locate the bodies for days, however, due to intense fighting. A group including officials from Congo s U.N. mission MONUSCO, the army, the Congolese Red Cross, and Congolese authorities traveled to the scene of the killings on Sunday. In total, 26 people three women, 22 civilian men and one Congolese soldier were tied up and killed by breaking their necks, Saambili Bamukoka, chief of Beni s Watalinga chiefdom, told Reuters. A Congolese military spokesman had earlier confirmed that the bodies had been discovered near the road, but did not know how many there were. Bodies were found in a state of decomposition, said local army spokesman Mak Hazukay, adding that the road remained closed to civilian traffic. We must first have the time to secure the surrounding area. The day after the attack on the travelers, militants assaulted two nearby military bases, killing two U.N. peacekeepers and injuring 18 others. The army and U.N. peacekeeping mission blamed the raids on the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Ugandan Islamist group active near the border. Authorities have also accused the ADF of carrying out nearly all the massacres of the past three years. But independent and separate U.N. experts say several armed groups as well as national army commanders have been involved in the killings as they vie for influence in Congo s lawless eastern borderlands. Millions died in regional wars that ravaged eastern Congo between 1996-2003 and spawned dozens of armed groups that continue to prey on local populations.

YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHO DEFEATED A BILL IN JUNE TO ARM OUR SOLDIERS AT RECRUITING CENTERS AND BASESEven though he s a RINO THIS is a shocker! In June, Nevada s Republican Sen. Dean Heller tried to get the Pentagon to change its practice of banning arms from our soldiers on bases and in recruiting centers here in America. Unfortunately for our soldiers, John McCain was the principle foe of the move and helped to defeat the arming of our soldiers, a decision that recently had deadly consequences in Tennessee. Last week Nebraska Senator Dean Heller appeared spoke to radio host Kevin Wall on KKFT AM in Carson City, NV, to talk about his amendment and noted that John McCain himself defeated the move to arm our soldiers.Here is a transcript of what Heller to the radio station: Dean Heller: So I submitted an amendment in the Department of Defense Authorization bill to allow this to happen. Now this was of course six weeks ago before Chattanooga. And the chairman of the committee wouldn t support it by the way, chairman was John McCain did not want the amendment as part of the bill and wouldn t accept it. Here is what Heller said on his website about the bill: Today, U.S. Senator Dean Heller sent a letter to the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, requesting that National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) conferees include his amendment to give military base commanders the authority to allow service members to carry personal firearms on base for their personal protection and force protection. In June, Senator Heller offered this amendment during the Senate s consideration of the Fiscal Year 2016 NDAA. In addition, Senator Heller introduced stand-alone legislation to address this issue critical to the safety of our nation s service members. John McCain made sure that the Marines who died in Chattanooga and all their brethren would not be able to fire back and save lives when a terrorist attacked. How s THAT from a war hero ? Granted, even if the amendment had been included in the Pentagon budget bill and passed, it isn t too likely that the change would have been made quickly enough to have allowed the Marines in Tennessee to protect themselves against an ISIS terrorist s rampage. But that isn t the point, here. The point is McCain saw no reason to even allow them to be able to defend themselves. In the terror attacks on the two Chattanooga recruiting facilities we now see just how wrong McCain is.Via: publiusforum

Trump tries to rally support for healthcare billWASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump tried to rally Republican lawmakers behind a plan to dismantle Obamacare on Tuesday as U.S. stock markets showed their worst one-day performance since the November election. Trump is trying to win the first major legislative battle of his presidency. Pressure is growing on the businessman-turned politician to deliver as investors become worried that a failed healthcare push could also portend trouble for promised tax cuts and relaxed regulation that have propelled the market to record highs in recent months. In one of the few visits he has made to the U.S. Capitol since taking office two months ago, Trump told fellow Republicans in the House of Representatives on Tuesday morning they would face “political problems” for opposing the bill that takes apart Obamacare and partially replaces it. Later in the day, Trump hosted roughly a dozen lawmakers in the Oval Office to listen to their concerns. “The president was really clear: He laid it on the line for everybody,” House Speaker Paul Ryan, the leading proponent of the bill, told reporters. “We made a promise. Now is our time to keep that promise. ... If we don’t keep our promise, it will be very hard to manage this.” The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average lost over 1 percent in their worst one-day performances since before Trump’s election victory on Nov. 8. The S&P financial index sank 2.87 percent, its biggest daily fall since June. “You have this back and forth in Congress with the new healthcare plan and you have this belief that if the healthcare plan can’t pass, then they can’t move on to taxes. There’s this feeling that if things don’t get done, then maybe what the market has been anticipating gets held up,” said Mark Kepner, managing director at Themis Trading in Chatham, New Jersey. Some conservative lawmakers believe the healthcare bill does not go far enough, while moderate Republicans worry that millions of Americans will be hurt by the dismantling of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, Democratic former President Barack Obama's signature healthcare legislation. (For a graphic on how U.S. healthcare stacks up under the ACA and AHCA click tmsnrt.rs/2n0ZMKf) Party leaders hope to move the bill to the House floor for debate as early as Thursday. But the administration and House leadership can afford to lose only about 20 Republican votes or risk the bill failing since Democrats are united against it. Republican Representative Mark Meadows, chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said the roughly three dozen members have decided not to vote as a bloc. As many as 21 currently plan to vote no on the legislation, according to a CNN report. Republican Representative Walter Jones said Trump told lawmakers in the closed-door meeting at the Capitol that if the Republican bill does not pass, they would face “political problems.” Jones said he thought Trump meant lawmakers could lose their seats. Repealing and replacing Obamacare was one of Trump’s main campaign promises and has been a goal of Republicans since it was enacted. While Trump predicted that Republicans could face challenges in primary contests ahead of the 2018 midterm elections if they do not gut Obamacare, there is also danger to them in doing so. If the Republican bill is passed, millions of voters might lose their healthcare coverage. The Congressional Budget Office said last week that 14 million people would forfeit coverage under the House bill over the next year, although that number could change based on the most current version of the legislation. Nancy Nielsen, associate dean for health policy at the University at Buffalo’s Jacobs School of Medicine, said Republican leaders were in a tough spot. “It is a not-so-delicate balancing act, as they have to win over the most conservative House and Senate members without causing an outrageous backlash from voters now or in the next election,” Nielsen said. Democrats oppose the Republicans’ plan, saying it would hurt the elderly, poor and working families while giving tax cuts to the wealthy. Republican leaders tweaked the bill this week to try to satisfy critics, mainly from their own party. Republican chairmen for two key committees said late Monday they proposed more funding for tax credits, which conservatives have opposed, that would give the Senate flexibility to help older people afford health insurance. Additionally, Obamacare’s taxes would be eliminated in 2017 instead of 2018. The amendments also addressed Medicaid, which is the country’s largest health insurance program and covers about 70 million people, mostly the poor. The changes would allow states to implement work requirements for certain adults, an idea championed by many conservatives, and to decide how they receive federal funds. Congressman Dan Donovan, who attended the Oval Office meeting on Tuesday, said Trump did “more listening than directing.” There was some “political talk” but “no threats,” he said. Donovan, who has not announced whether he will support the bill, cited people losing Medicaid and the defunding of women’s healthcare provider Planned Parenthood as concerns in his New York district. The Club for Growth, an influential conservative lobby group, said it would spend at least $500,000 for ads on television and digital platforms urging Congress members to defeat the bill. The Senate also will vote on the legislation, and more changes could be made. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that if the House approved a healthcare bill, he would try to bring it to the Senate floor next week.

WATCH: RACIST RAPPER WHO HUNG WHITE KID In Latest Video Gets Cold-Cocked On StageRapper XXXTentacion released a controversial video for his singles, Look at Me and Riot, on Tuesday, which featured the hanging of a young white child, but he wasn t able to do much against a grown man.Video from June showed the raper XXXTentacion got sucker punched onstage and knocked out cold during his show in San Diego which turned into an all-out brawl that left one person stabbed.Go HERE for black conservative Terrence Williams take on the horrific video showing a white kid being hung in front of a black kid.The video of the attack is insane XXX was up on the mic performing Wednesday night when the attacker socked him out of nowhere. Security scrambled and beat the piss out of the unidentified puncher.While all the attention was on the nasty rapper who got knocked out, the person who cold-cocked him on stage was pummeled by security. Is it part of the security detail s job to mob beat anyone who harms the performer they ve been hired to protect, or is it their job to capture and detain him until the proper authorities have arrived? Let s hope this guy who jumped on stage and gave this disgusting rapper a little dose of karma has a good lawyer because he needs to sue those security guards for using excessive force XX was eventually carried offstage. One of his tour managers tells us he was unconscious for at least 2 minutes. We re also told XXX and his camp believe the attacker was hiding backstage.Cops say another fight broke out later in the parking lot as well. Fans at the venue seemed to blame rapper Rob Stone for the melee they chanted his name as soon as the fight started, but it s unclear if he s really involved. Conservative Fighters

BREAKING: Shooter Targets Congressional Republicans At Baseball Practice, Steve Scalise ShotAs the divisions in the nation bubble over, it seems that one person has snapped, and done the unthinkable: opened fire on a baseball practice full of Congressional Republicans in Alexandria, Virginia. Reports are steadily coming in, and it has been confirmed that House Majority Whip Steve Scalise has been shot. He is currently en route to a nearby hospital and is said to be in stable condition. There are also reports that Capitol Hill police officers and possibly Congressional aides have been injured as well. There is currently no reporting available on their condition. Reports suggest that the shooter was either taken down by Capitol Hill police or taken into custody.The really sad thing about this incident is that this practice was in preparation for a bipartisan baseball game that is supposed to promote unity between the two parties. Further, things would have been much worse if Rep. Scalise had not been there because Capitol Police would not have been present without a member of leadership in attendance.This is seriously the work of someone truly sick. No one should be killing anyone, for any reason, but certainly, this targeting of lawmakers at a baseball practice that was designed to help the nation take a break from ugly partisan politics is truly beyond the pale. Political violence is never acceptable, period.If this isn t proof that we really need to turn down the temperature when it comes to the rhetoric and divisions in this nation posthaste, I don t know what is.This is a developing story. Stay tuned to Addicting Info for continued updates.Here is the live feed monitoring this tragedy, via CNN:Featured image via Alex Wong/Getty Images

Catalan separatists seen in position to keep majority in election: exit pollMADRID (Reuters) - Pro-independence parties in Catalonia are seen in a position to keep their absolute majority of seats in regional elections on Thursday, according to an exit poll published by La Vanguardia newspaper as polling stations closed. The separatist parties were seen getting 67-71 seats in the 135-seat assembly, the poll showed. No official results have yet been published and it was unclear if final results would match the poll. Opinion polls before the vote had shown separatists and unionists running neck-and-neck in the wealthy Spanish region. The first official preliminary results are expected around 2100 GMT and final results after midnight.

Mexicans' positive view of the U.S. collapses in Trump era: pollMEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexicans positive image of the United States has fallen to its lowest level since at least 2002, with about two-thirds of people viewing the country led by President Donald Trump unfavorably, according to a poll released on Thursday. The U.S.-based Pew Research Center s findings reveal a drastic about-face in Mexicans views of their northern neighbor. In 2015, 66 percent had a positive view of the United States. By 2017, 65 percent of people disapproved of the world s top economy, Pew said. Unsurprisingly, few Mexicans approve of Trump s proposed border wall, with 94 percent of people opposing it. But Mexicans also fret about Trump s international footprint. Only 5 percent have confidence in him to do the right thing regarding world affairs, Trump s lowest rating among 37 nations polled in 2017, according to the poll. The survey is also grim reading for Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, his ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the rest of Mexico s political class, less than a year before voters pick a new president in July. Mexicans favorable view of Pena Nieto has steadily fallen since Pew began measuring it in 2011, dropping from 61 percent six years ago to his current level of 28 percent. An often-large majority disapproves of how Pena Nieto has handled issues like the economy, graft, crime and U.S. relations, Pew said. The PRI was the most unfavorably viewed of the parties polled by Pew, with the conservative National Action Party enjoying the most positive views, albeit with relatively high negative perceptions. The leftist National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), led by current presidential front-runner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, was the second most positively viewed party, and also the least badly perceived. The vast majority - 85 percent - of Mexicans are unhappy with the way things are going in their country. Seventy percent of Mexicans believe the economy is going badly, with 35 percent saying the economy is going very badly. Mexicans main concerns are crime, political graft and drug violence, Pew found. Anxieties over those three issues had all risen compared with the finding in 2015. Although Mexicans harbor increasingly negative views of the United States, 55 percent said those that move north enjoy a better life, up from 2015. However, only 13 percent of people said they would live and work in the United States illegally, down from 20 percent in 2015. The survey was based on 1,000 face-to-face interviews in Mexico between March 2 and April 17, with a margin of error of 4.4 percent.

Pennsylvania Church Demonstrates How To Deal With A Child-Molesting PastorWhile many churches defend pastors who have raped or molested children in their congregations, a church in Pennsylvania is showing them what doing the right thing looks like.35-year-old youth pastor Wesley Ryan Blackburn is currently in jail waiting to be tried on 84 felony counts of statutory sexual assault, 84 misdemeanor counts of indecent assault and one felony count of corruption of minors, according to The Tribune-Democrat.Blackburn worked at Faith Brethren Bible Church in New Paris until last week when he admitted to his wife and state troopers that he impregnated a 15-year-old girl who was a member of the youth group he was teaching.The so-called man of God admitted his crimes to his wife after she confronted him about his misconduct. He then told her he didn t love her anymore and demanded a divorce.Blackburn s wife immediately called pastor James Espenshade and told him about her husband s misconduct with the teen girl.But unlike other churches that have stood by pastors who commit sex crimes, the Faith Brethren Bible Church did the right thing and straight up fired Blackburn and called the police. We didn t even care what he had to say, Espenshade told WAJC. We don t tolerate this kind of stuff it s inappropriate, it s reprehensible. There was never a discussion of anything else. We had to do what was right. Police questioned Blackburn while he was packing up his office and he was arrested and charged.The way this church handled Blackburn stands in sharp contrast to the way Columbia Road Baptist Church in North Olmsted, Ohio handled a similar situation.When youth pastor Brian Mitchell, a married man with three kids, was arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison for raping a teen girl, the church not only didn t fire him after discovering inappropriate texts he had been sending her, they continued to stand by him even after he went to prison by blaming the victim and demanding that she apologize to Mitchell s wife.Like Mitchell, Blackburn will probably receive a similar sentence. But Faith Brethren Bible Church deserves praise for calling the police upon learning of Blackburn s misconduct and for immediately terminating his employment. They also deserve praise for not blaming the teenage victim for Blackburn s actions. This is the way churches should handle these situations, but sadly, far too many of them do not.Featured image via Wikimedia

Fox’s Uncle Tom Sheriff: Hillary’s Hot Sauce Love Is Racist To Blacks (VIDEO)Fox News loves Wisconsin s Sheriff David Clarke. That man is the biggest Uncle Tom ever, and they capitalize on his love of the GOP and their network as proof that they aren t flaming racists. Sheriff Clarke sat down on Wednesday with the hosts of the ultimate team of ignorant morons the good folks at Fox and Friends. His reason for being there? To make sure people believe that Hillary Clinton is a racist.You see, there are many stereotypes surrounding food when it comes to black people. Watermelon, fried chicken, grape soda, and, of course, hot sauce. The last item on that list is Sheriff Clarke s supposed proof of Hillary Clinton s racism. Now, Clinton has a long and well-documented history of loving to put the fiery condiment all over her food. So much so, in fact, that she carries it with her. And she said so in an interview with New York s Power 105.1 s Breakfast Club radio show when they asked her a question about what she always carries with her. That doesn t stop right-wing rags from insisting that she only said that she likes hot sauce to pander to black people, especially since there s a line about it in Beyonce s Formation song, which is clearly a racial empowerment anthem.As per usual, though, facts don t matter to Sheriff Clarke or Fox and Friends hosts. Clarke lit into Clinton over the answer, saying: I m surprised she didn t say watermelon. just go all the way. You know, this stuff is dehumanizing. It s embarrassing, it s disgusting. Clarke went on to opine that black people would vote GOP if we knew the history of the racism of the Democratic Party, conveniently leaving out the fact that in the post civil rights era, the parties have switched places when it comes to the promotion of racism and other forms of bigotry. But, again, facts do not matter to these people.To his credit, host Brian Kilmeade did point out the obvious in this scenario regarding which party actually tries to help black people and end marginalization, and reminded the sheriff that it isn t the GOP. Kilmeade said: No Republican is legitimately going for the black vote. That s also an insult, isn t it? Clarke doubled down, though, and insisted that the GOP does care about the black vote, despite all evidence to the contrary. He told Kilmeade: There s a strategy to make that happen. It s going to take some time. First of all, you have to reconnect black people to their history. That s what the Democrats have done over the last, I would say 30-40 years, is they have gone into these area and erased the history books about who really supported the move to abolish slavery as an institution in America. Lincoln freed the slaves. And then the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it s was Democrats that were standing in the way. And it took a yeomen s effort by Republicans to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That s why I say if we reconnect black people with their history, they ll open their eyes and they ll know what to do. Well, you can t fix stupid or make the ignorant accept facts that do not toe the line of enforcing their own beliefs. Shameful, but true.Watch the video below, via Raw Story:Featured image via video screen capture

THE MOST UNCOURAGEOUS PRESIDENT EVER Receives A Courage Award…Proceeds To Whine About Current PresidentThere has never been a more UNCOURAGEOUS person in the White House than Barack Obama. He never faced a decision on foreign affairs without backing down. Yes, he s the one who gave Iran the opportunity to have nuclear capability. Remember the red line with Syria?When his horrible policies didn t work out, he never took the blame but pointed at anyone and everyone for his idiotic decisions. Who could forget the Stimulus, the boondoggle of Solendra and Obamacare He never took responsibility for his failures like a COURAGEOUS man would.So what did he do when he received the Profile in Courage Award? He begged Congress to keep Obamacare and trashed our current President .Courage? Meh!We couldn t have voiced our outrage better than Katie Pavlich: This frickin guy Former President Barack Obama returned to the spotlight Sunday to accept an award for political courage from the John F. Kennedy family, days after House Republicans won passage of a bill dismantling much of his signature health care law.The Democrat has made few public appearances since leaving office in January, and has avoided mention of his Republican successor in the White House, even as President Donald Trump has criticized the previous administration numerous times while moving to undo many of Obama s initiatives.Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama arrived at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum for a dinner and ceremony to accept the annual Profile in Courage award, named for a 1957 Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Kennedy that profiled eight U.S. senators who risked their careers by taking principled though unpopular positions.Among the long line of guests who made their way down the red carpet into the library for the event Sunday night were members of the Kennedy family, members of Congress, former Obama staffers and celebrities including former late-night talk show host David Letterman.David Letterman? Who s that?Read more: NYP

Ouch! Trump Hammers Bush In The Brawl Of The Night [Video]Jeb takes a swipe at Trump and Trump hammers him: He doesn t really believe I m unhinged. He said that because he has failed in this campaign. It s been a total disaster. Nobody cares. And frankly, I m the most solid person up here. I ve built a tremendous company and all I want to do is make America great again. .@realdonaldtrump: With Jeb s attitude, we will never be great again https://t.co/2cXmVJqD3m #GOPDebate https://t.co/tHxzrB3PIe CNN (@CNN) December 16, 2015Round Three:

DETROIT’S AL SHARPTON WANNABE Attempts To Bully NAACP Award Winning Artist, Kid Rock Into Ditching Confederate Flag [VIDEO]Never mind the fact that Kid Rock fought for and won full custody of his black son, whom he raised by himself.Never mind that Kid Rock was chosen to recieve the Detroit chapter of the NAACP s highest award for service to the black community. He s still a racist because a flag makes him one Right little Al?None of that matters to the race hustling crowd who make a living by shaking down citizens for violating their special set of rules. These shake down artists should be in prison, but you re more likely to find them discussing strategy at the White House or attending a Democrat party fundraiser. In the land of the left, these race baiters play an important role in the victim business, and as we all know, the victim business brings in votes. Watch the Reverend Charles Williams II in action:Megyn Kelly of FOX News delivered a message to her viewers during her show from Kid Rock to Al Sharpton wannabe, Reverend William Charles II:https://youtu.be/Sic7tNLtxkQ

China air force again flies round Taiwan, over South China SeaBEIJING (Reuters) - China s air force has again flown bombers and other warplanes through two strategic channels near Taiwan and also over the disputed South China Sea during training drills, state media said on Thursday. Numerous H-6K bombers and other jets recently flew through the Bashi Channel between Taiwan and the Philippines and the Miyako Strait in Japan s south, and also over the South China Sea on a combat patrol , the official Xinhua news agency said, citing Air Force spokesman Shen Jinke. Shen did not say when the drills began but said all planes had finished their patrols on Thursday, which were intended to improve maritime real combat capabilities and forge the forces battle methods . China has been increasingly asserting itself in territorial disputes in the South and East China Seas. It is also worried about Taiwan, run by a government China fears is intent on independence. Beijing has never ruled out the use of force to bring proudly democratic Taiwan under its control, and has warned that any moves towards formal independence could prompt an armed response. China is in the midst of an ambitious military modernization program that includes building aircraft carriers and developing stealth fighters to give it the ability to project power far from its shores. Taiwan is well armed, mostly with U.S. weaponry, but has been pressing Washington to sell it more high-tech equipment to better deter China.

REDUX 1963? The Deep State vs Donald TrumpPatrick Henningsen 21st Century WireWatching this week s Senate cabinet confirmation hearings was one of the most uncomfortable sights I have ever witnessed in politics. One self aggrandizing US Senator after another, each spouting out half-truths and speaking in innuendo and supposition as if it were historical fact. The level of ignorance about world events was breathtaking. Key foreign policy cabinet nominees were Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State, General James Mattis for Defense Secretary, and Mike Pompeo for CIA director. All three men were grilled by a pride of chickenhawks and self-styled foreign policy experts like Senator Roger Wick (R), Marco Rubio (R), Bob Menendez (D) and of course, by Washington s twin neoconservative ventriloquists, John McCain (R) and Lindsey Graham (R).Particularly disturbing was the chicken-hawkish bullying by Marco Rubio of Tillerson, where the Florida Senator demanded that a future Secretary of State adopt the bellicose language of the war-monger when describing the Russian President. YOU MUST COMPLY: Nominee Rex Tillerson is trolled by Senator Marco Rubio.Regarding events in Syria that Rubio believes are war crimes, but of which there is zero evidence, Rubio asked, Is Vladimir Putin a war criminal? Tillerson replied, I would not use that term. Rubio went on to list things he s seen on the internet and CNN about Putin s attacks on civilians and accused the Russian leader of killing political opposition leaders and journalists.Tillerson replied saying, I would want to have much more information before reaching a conclusion, and he called Rubio s accusations, very serious charges. That would be the mature answer. But Rubio wanted Tillerson to comply. I find it discouraging your inability to cite that, which I think is globally accepted, Rubio replied.It was a disgusting display of arrogance and propaganda laundering by Rubio, like the other trolling Senators demanding that Russia must be our enemy and we must retaliate to a election hack which never happened. In this new environment of irrationality and avarice, if you resist, and if you choose diplomacy and base your views on facts, then you are un-American. This seems to be the current culture in Washington and the mainstream media: compliance to group think and these Senate hearings showed just how far US officials are willing to go to enforce compliance on all major issues complying on Israel, on Putin, and on the supremacy of the intelligence community. One of the only voices brave enough to speak up about the sordid scene in the Senate was California Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R), who said during a recent radio interview that warmongers like Rubio are sabotaging potential future relations with Russia by calling Putin a war criminal. All of this follows the other regressive trend the crypto-fascist talking point that has been advanced in recent weeks by the likes of Wolf Blitzer and other mainstream news anchors, all of whom have insinuated that if Trump or anyone else does not swallow the entire DNI Intelligence Assessment on the Russian Hack then they are somehow disrespecting the institution of the CIA or any other so-called intelligence body, or even worse, that they are unpatriotic. Why won t the President-Elect accept the findings of the intelligence community?! crowed CNN s Blitzer and other practically brow-beating guests who appeared on the network. It s as if the only acceptable answer was total submission. For those who are old enough to remember, this is a repeat of the Iraq War deception in 2003. Low and behold, the same media operatives and political demons have been deployed to police a similar group-think regime in 2016. That should be a clue to anyone pay attention, that we are witnessing another scam.The following commentary may seem a bit far-fetched on the surface, but when you consider everything that has already gone down over the last 4 months in US politics, then the probability of another black swan event doesn t seem so far-flung. It s important to put this into historical context, and do a comparative analysis with John F Kennedy s Bay of Pigs defeat a seminal event in US geopolitics and a major set-back for the Deep State at the time, and one that was blamed on JFK s inability to facilitate a CIA win in Cuba. A number of prominent historians and researchers have credited that defeat, along with Kennedy s desire to break-up the CIA as a primary motive for JFK s assassination. When you consider this against the present day back-drop of President Obama s 5 year failure of a proxy war to overthrow the Syrian government a war which Hillary Clinton herself instituted, there are a number a striking parallels between then and now. More striking yet, is Donald Trump s public calls to reorganise the intelligence agencies a move which threatens the very fabric of the contemporary Deep State which runs Washington and the Atlanticist alliance.In so many ways, Trump might be viewed as a moral enemy of the Deep State that has been allowed to reign unhindered by any real oversight, and accountable only to itself.The danger seems palatable, so much so that some establishment journalists are breaking ranks by talking openly about the Deep State a topic previously reserved for the fringes of political and geopolitical commentary and certainly not acceptable for debate on a mainstream broadcast TV network. The Intercept s Glenn Greenwald has recently written a piece which outlines this very scenario where the Deep State has declared war on Donald Trump, and if Trump continues to push back against these institutions, the consequences could be dire. Greenwald focused on the recent fake Trump-Russia dossier which he stated was the work of the Intelligence Community. Looking at these last two weeks, it is clear that such a progression of events has been advanced already: The serious dangers posed by a Trump presidency are numerous and manifest. There is a wide array of legitimate and effective tactics for combating those threats: from bipartisan congressional coalitions and constitutional legal challenges to citizen uprisings and sustained and aggressive civil disobedience. All of those strategies have periodically proven themselves effective in times of political crisis or authoritarian overreach. But cheering for the CIA and its shadowy allies to unilaterally subvert the U.S. election and impose its own policy dictates on the elected president is both warped and self-destructive. Empowering the very entities that have produced the most shameful atrocities and systemic deceit over the last six decades is desperation of the worst kind. Demanding that evidence-free, anonymous assertions be instantly venerated as Truth despite emanating from the very precincts designed to propagandize and lie is an assault on journalism, democracy, and basic human rationality. And casually branding domestic adversaries who refuse to go along as traitors and disloyal foreign operatives is morally bankrupt and certain to backfire on those doing it. By demonizing Russia, and then tying Donald Trump to that country, the establishment has accomplished its mission in ruining the so-called peaceful transition of power. Interestingly, this bizarre phrase was really only introduced by US media operatives this past fall, and for a reason. Now we can see why.Consider what we are seeing to play-out right now a political free-for-all, where the level of hate and irrational vitriol which has been intentionally built-up over, and is unprecedented in modern history.Based on the events we have seen over the past two months the Democrat-organized street protests and call to abolish the Electoral College, Democrat intimidation of electors, the pseudo recount by the Democratic Party and their willing agent Jill Stein, the evidence-free DNI Report on the alleged Russian Hack, and the fake Trump-Russia Blackmail dossier, as well as radical left-wing plans to shut down next week s inauguration and block the transfer of power in Washington you can be absolutely certain that the losing party will not give up and have yet to unveil some more audacious plans designed to disrupt and possibly unseat the new 45th President of the United States, Donald J Trump. The campaign to delegitimize this incoming President has been carefully coordinated through multiple actors; the corporate media (led by CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, Washington Post and The Guardian), the Hillary Clinton campaign, the Democratic Party, Soros-funded NGOs like MoveOn.org, the McCain-Graham faction, and quietly helped along by the White House. Theoretically speaking, and taken into context with the previous paragraph the level of Anti-Trump public hate is so over-the-top and intense right now that (heaven forbid) should some untimely incident, either accidental or intentional, befall the new President then the American left and its cadre of stakeholders are certain to celebrate openly and gleefully. Such an incident would invariably be followed by the proverbial, Oh well, he had it coming. This is a high stakes game much bigger in fact than any one man, or political party. Everything is at stake: NATO, the military industrial complex, the CIA, and the existence and primacy of a globalist Deep State that has ruled the US and the world since WWII. In short, the World Order, as seen by those who control the transatlantic system of international geopolitics, trade and commerce.This should be viewed as a very sensitive matter. It goes without saying that such an incident and its predictable, engineered left-wing reaction would inevitably trigger the beginnings of bona fide civil war in the United States.Will Trump be able to hang a wonderful new sign in the window at Pennsylvania Ave which reads, Change of Management ? Not if Congress and the Deep State prefers the old management.The following analysis by Zero Hedge, featuring a segment with Tucker Carlson and Glenn Greenwald expands on this possibility, and provides a number evidence points which mark what could be seen as a progression of events leading to a dystopic conclusion . Zero Point NowJournalist Glenn Greenwald, who is not a fan of President-elect Trump, appeared on Tucker Carlson tonight to discuss the dangerous ongoing effort among powerful anti-Trump factions within the US Government s Deep State, who have collaborated with members of the Democratic Party and the traditionally liberal media to inflict maximum damage on the incoming President. Recall Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer s ominous six ways from Sunday comment from 10 days ago.Greenwald, an accomplished litigator, journalist, and author, does a masterful job illustrating the players, motives, and potential fallout from this dangerous effort within the US Government s intelligence apparatus. Greenwald goes deep, discussing how Trump s election ruined the plan for regime change in Syria, specifically mentioning, among other things, that the deep state was waiting for Obama to leave office before executing their plan: The number one foreign policy priority of the CIA over the last four to five years has been the proxy war they re waging in Syria to remove Bashar Al Assad and Hillary Clinton was quite critical of Obama for constraining them. She wanted to escalate that war to unleash the CIA, to impose a no-fly zone in Syria to confront Russia, whereas Trump took the exact opposite position. He said we have no business in Syria trying to change the government, we ought to let the Russia and Assad go free and killing ISIS and Al Qaeda and whoever else they want to kill. He [Trump] was a threat to the CIA s primary institutional priority of regime change in Syria. Beyond that, Clinton wanted a much more confrontational and belligerent posture towards Moscow, which the CIA has been acrimonious with for decades, whereas Trump wanted better relations. They viewed Trump as a threat to their institutional pre-eminence to their ability to get their agenda imposed on Washington. What you re seeing is actually quite dangerous. There really is at this point obvious open warfare between this un-elected, but very powerful faction that resides in Washington and sees Presidents come and go on the one hand, and the person that the American democracy elected to be elected on the other. There s clearly extreme conflict and subversion taking place. This really is a must-watch, and goes hand-in-hand with Tucker s interview with Dr. Stephen Cohen this week: .This is overt, and Schindler also just more or less outed Washington Post s David Ignatius as a CIA mouthpiece (along the same vein as Deep Throat, perhaps we can refer to Ignatius s source as Golden Shower?).READ MORE RUSSIAN HACK NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Russian Hack FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER@ 21WIRE.TV

NEW DATA RELEASED: OBAMA ADMIN “Accidentally Collected Info” On Americans During ElectionDid you catch that? Information accidentally collected I think it is alarming. There seems to be a universal trend toward more surveillance and more surveillance that impacts Americans privacy without obtaining a warrant -Lawyer for the ACLU During his final year in office, President Barack Obama s team significantly expanded efforts to search National Security Agency intercepts for information about Americans, distributing thousands of intelligence reports across government with the unredacted names of U.S. residents during the midst of a divisive 2016 presidential election:Barack Obama s top aides routinely took advantage of rules their boss relaxed starting in 2011 to help the government better fight terrorism, espionage by foreign enemies and hacking threats. Dozens of times in 2016, those intelligence reports identified Americans who were directly intercepted talking to foreign sources or were the subject of conversations between two or more monitored foreign figures.The data, made available this week by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, provides the clearest evidence to date of how information accidentally collected by the NSA overseas about Americans was subsequently searched and disseminated after President Obama loosened privacy protections to make such sharing easier in 2011 in the name of national security. A court affirmed his order.The revelations are particularly sensitive since the NSA is legally forbidden from directly spying on Americans and its authority to conduct warrantless searches on foreigners is up for renewal in Congress later this year. And it comes as lawmakers investigate President Trump s own claims his privacy was violated by his predecessor during the 2016 election.Read more: Circa

Australian military probes 'rumors' of possible war crimes in AfghanistanMELBOURNE (Reuters) - Australia s military watchdog has issued a public plea for information regarding rumors of possible war crimes committed by Australian troops in Afghanistan. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported in July on an alleged cover-up of the killing of an Afghan boy as well as hundreds of pages of leaked defense force documents relating to the secretive operations of the country s special forces. On Friday, the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force released a statement saying it was conducting an inquiry into rumors of possible breaches of the Laws of Armed Conflict by Australian troops in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016. The inquiry would like anyone who has information regarding possible breaches of the Laws of Armed Conflict by Australian forces in Afghanistan, or rumors of them, to contact the inquiry, the statement read. Australia is not a member of NATO but is a staunch U.S. ally and has had troops in Afghanistan since 2002. As recently as May, Australia recommitted to the 16-year-long, seemingly intractable war against the Taliban and other Islamist militants by sending an additional 30 troops to Afghanistan to join the NATO-led training and assistance mission. That brought Australia s total Afghan deployment to 300 troops.

Obama says hopes Trump can stand up to Russia when neededBERLIN (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday said he hoped President-elect Donald Trump could stand up to Russia when needed, and would take a constructive approach to cooperating with Moscow where interests aligned. “In order for us to solve many big problems around the world, it is in our interest to work with Russia,” Obama told a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “My hope is that the president-elect coming in takes a similarly constructive approach, finding areas where we can cooperate with Russia where our values and interests align, but that the president-elect also is willing to stand up to Russia when they are deviating from our values and international norms,” Obama said. He added it was important for sanctions imposed against Russia over its actions in eastern Ukraine to remain in place until Moscow complied with the Minsk peace agreement. Obama, asked if he thought Merkel should run for a fourth term as chancellor, said he considered her an outstanding leader and would vote for Merkel, if he were a German citizen.

IMF's Lagarde warns against Trump-style protectionism: FTWASHINGTON (Reuters) - International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde warned in an interview published on Thursday that anti-trade policies like those championed by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump risked a protectionist movement that could severely damage global growth. Lagarde told the Financial Times that with Britain’s vote to leave the European Union already casting a shadow over global growth, the imposition of new trade barriers in another larger economy could have “disastrous” effects. “I think it would be quite disastrous, actually. Well I don’t think I should say disastrous because that is an excessive word and I should refrain from excessive words. But it would certainly have a negative impact on global growth,” she told the FT in response to a question about such policies. The newspaper said that while Lagarde made clear her negative views of anti-trade rhetoric and policies, she refrained from referring to Trump by name or singling out any politician. Lagarde also told the FT that she doubted that a prolonged period of uncertainty over Britain’s exit, without triggering formal separation negotiations, would be politically sustainable. “We want to see clarity sooner rather than later because we think that a lack of clarity feeds uncertainty, which itself undermines investment appetites and decision making,” Lagarde told the newspaper. In a separate interview with Agence France Presse, Lagarde said Brexit was unlikely to cause a world recession, adding that the immediate effects would hurt the UK, with some spillover to the euro area. She told AFP that proposals in Britain to cut corporate tax rates to 15 percent from 20 percent to counter the damage caused by the UK’s EU divorce was a “race to the bottom” that would hurt other economies.

THE LEFT GOES BONKERS After Bill O’Reilly Says Maxine Waters Wears A “James Brown Wig” [Video]Maxine is the worst enemy of the black community and Americans! She needs the struggle to continue so she can be reelected. Wouldn t it be dangerous to her reelection if Donald Trump was successful at helping the black community? The fear mongering is how she gets reelected! Remember the housing crisis? Maxine was responsible for much of the crash in housing yet she s never taken responsibility for it. She and Barnie Frank pushed and pushed to get home loans for people who should have never owned a home! The black community should run this woman out of town! In the period 1989-2008, topping the list of recipients of contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Sen. Dodd (D-Connecticut), who received $165,400. Second on the list is Sen. Obama (D-Illinois), receiving $126,349 with only three years in the Senate. Rep. Frank (D-Massachusetts), received $42,350.February 1990Madeline Talbott, a well-known radical ACORN leader and banking industry agitator, challenged the merger of a Chicago thrift, Bell Federal Savings and Loan Association, who responded that they were being bullied into irresponsible affirmative-action lending policy. 1991ACORN interfered with a House Banking Committee meeting for two days protesting a move to bring CRA reform.1992Enforcement of CRA was sporadic, as the Washington Times notes, until a Federal Reserve Bank of Boston study asserted that there were substantially higher denial rates for black and Hispanic applicants than for white applicants. Co-author Lynn Browne was approached by co-author Alicia Munnell to do the study because community activists were complaining that mortgage loans were not being made in minority communities. According to the Times, however, the study had mishandled statistics on minority default rates. When the errors were accounted for, the same study showed no evidence that nonwhite mortgage applicants were being discriminated against. Frank Quaratiello, writing in the Boston Herald, cites Stan Liebowitz, My guess is that they were interested in finding a particular result. Said Liebowitz, Richard Syron was head of the Boston Fed at the time. He went on to be the head of Freddie Mac. They were looking for mortgage discrimination and they found it. According to Quaratiello, Syron became Freddie Mac CEO and chairman in 2003 and faced increasing pressure to buy up more and more risky mortgages, some of which the Boston Fed s guide had, in effect, served to legitimize. Regarding Syron s total compensation in 2007 of $18.3 million, Liebowitz reportedly quipped, Nice reward for presiding over unprofessional research behavior, bankrupting Freddie Mac and crippling our financial system, all in the name of politically correct lending. September 1992The Chicago Tribune described the ACORN agenda as affirmative action lending. And, writes Kurtz, ACORN was issuing fact sheets bragging about relaxations of credit standards that it had won on behalf of minorities. October 1992Congress, enacting the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992, allowed legislation to amend and extend certain laws relating to housing and community development. The Act created the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) within HUD to ensure that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are adequately capitalized and operating safely. It also established HUD-imposed housing goals for financing of affordable housing and housing in central cities and other rural and underserved areas. Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa) warned about the impending danger non-regulated GSEs posed. As the Washington Post reports, his concern was that Congress was hamstringing the regulator. Complaint was that OFHEO was a weak regulator. Leach worried that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were changing from being agencies of the public at large to money machines for the stockholding few. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) countered, as the Post reports, the companies served a public purpose. They were in the business of lowering the price of mortgage loans. September 1993The Chicago Sun-Times reports an initiative led by ACORN s Talbott with five area lenders participating in a $55 million national pilot program with affordable-housing group ACORN to make mortgages for low- and moderate-income people with troubled credit histories. Kurtz notes that the initiative included two of her former targets, Bell Federal Savings and Avondale Federal Savings, who had apparently capitulated under pressure.July 1994Represented by Obama and others, Plaintiffs filed a class action lawsuit alleging that Citibank had intentionally discriminated against the Plaintiffs on the basis of race with respect to a credit transaction, calling their action racial discrimination and discriminatory redlining practices. November 1994President Clinton addresses homeownership: I think we all agree that more Americans should own their own homes, for reasons that are economic and tangible and reasons that are emotional and intangible but go to the heart of what it means to harbor, to nourish, to expand the American dream. . . . I am determined to see that you have the opportunity and together we can make that opportunity for the young families of our country. I am committed to a new and unprecedented partnership between industry leaders and community leaders and Government to recommit our Nation to the idea of homeownership and to create more homeowners than ever before. June 1995Republicans had won control of Congress and planned CRA reforms. The Clinton Administration, however, allied with Rep. Frank, Sen. Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) and Rep. Waters (D-California), did an end-around by directing HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo to inject GSEs into the subprime mortgage market.As Kurtz notes, ACORN had come to Congress not only to protect the CRA from GOP reforms but also to expand the reach of quota-based lending to Fannie, Freddie and beyond. What resulted was the broadening of the acceptability of risky subprime loans throughout the financial system, thus precipitating our current crisis. The administration announced the bold new homeownership strategy which included monumental loosening of credit standards and imposition of subprime lending quotas. HUD reported that President Clinton had committed to increasing the homeownership rate to 67.5 percent by the year 2000. The plan was to reduce the financial, information, and systemic barriers to homeownership which was amplified by local partnerships at work in over 100 cities. Kurtz concludes, Urged on by ACORN, congressional Democrats and the Clinton administration helped push tolerance for high-risk loans through every sector of the banking system far beyond the sort of banks originally subject to the CRA. So it was the efforts of ACORN and its Democratic allies that first spread the subprime virus from the CRA to Fannie and Freddie and thence to the entire financial system. Soon, Democratic politicians and regulators actually began to take pride in lowered credit standards as a sign of fairness and the contagion spread. Attorney General Janet Reno, with a number of bank lending discrimination settlements already, sternly announces, We will tackle lending discrimination wherever it appears. With the new policy in full force, No loan is exempt; no bank is immune. For those who thumb their nose at us, I promise vigorous enforcement, reiterated Reno.1997HUD Secretary Cuomo said GSE presence in the subprime market could be of significant benefit to lower-income families, minorities, and families living in underserved areas . . . 1998By falsifying signatures on Fannie Mae accounting transactions, $200 million in expenses was shifted from 1998 to later periods, thereby triggering $27.1 million in bonuses for top executives. James A. Johnson received $1.932 million; Franklin D. Raines received $1.11 million; Lawrence M. Small received $1.108 million; Jamie S. Gorelick received $779,625; Timothy Howard received $493,750; Robert J. Levin received $493,750.April 1998HUD announced a $2.1 billion settlement with AccuBanc Mortgage Corp. for alleged discrimination against minority loan applicants. The funds would provide poor families with down payments and low interest mortgages. Announcing the Accubank settlement, Secretary Cuomo said, discrimination isn t always that obvious. Sometimes more subtle but in many ways more insidious, an institutionalized discrimination that s hidden behind a smiling face. October 2003Fannie Mae discloses $1.2 billion accounting error.November 2003Council of the Economic Advisers Chairman Greg Mankiw warned, The enormous size of the mortgage-backed securities market means that any problems at the GSEs matter for the financial system as a whole. This risk is a systemic issue also because the debt obligations of the housing GSEs are widely held by other financial institutions. The importance of GSE debt in the portfolios of other financial entities means that even a small mistake in GSE risk management could have ripple effects throughout the financial system, from a White House release.Mankiw explains that any legislation to reform GSE regulation should empower the new regulator with sufficient strength and credibility to reduce systemic risk. To reduce the potential for systemic instability, the regulator would have broad authority to set both risk-based and minimum capital standards and receivership powers necessary to wind down the affairs of a troubled GSE, says a White House release.February 2004Fiscal Year 2005 Budget again highlights the risk posed by the explosive growth of the GSEs and their low levels of required capital, and called for creation of a new, world-class regulator: The Administration has determined that the safety and soundness regulators of the housing GSEs lack sufficient power and stature to meet their responsibilities, and therefore . . . should be replaced with a new strengthened regulator, reports a White House release.Mankiw cautions Congress to not take [the financial market s] strength for granted. Again, the call from the Administration was to reduce this risk by ensuring that the housing GSEs are overseen by an effective regulator, says a White House release.June 2004Deputy Secretary of Treasury Samuel Bodman spotlights the risk posed by the GSEs and called for reform, saying We do not have a world-class system of supervision of the housing government sponsored enterprises (GSEs), even though the importance of the housing financial system that the GSEs serve demands the best in supervision to ensure the long-term vitality of that system. Therefore, the Administration has called for a new, first class, regulatory supervisor for the three housing GSEs: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banking System, the White House reports.September 2004OFHEO reported that Fannie Mae and CEO Raines had manipulated its accounting to overstate its profits. Congress and the Bush administration sought strong new regulation and authority to put the GSEs under conservatorship if necessary. As the Washington Post reports, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac responded by orchestrating a major campaign by traditional allies including real estate agents, home builders and mortgage lenders. Fannie Mae ran radio and television ads ahead of a key Senate committee meeting, depicting a Latino couple who fretted that if the bill passed, mortgage rates would go up. Again, GSE pressure prevailed.October 2004Rep. Baker again warned about the coming crisis in the Wall Street Journal: Then there s the lesson of a company, Frankenstein-like, seemingly grown so powerful that it can intimidate and arrogantly flout all accountability to the very government that created it. Baker adds, Although their bonds bear the disclaimer not backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government, the market does not believe it and looks right past the companies risk strategies to the taxpayers pockets. In a subcommittee testimony, Democrats vehemently reject regulation of Fannie Mae in the face of dire warning of a Fannie Mae oversight report. A few of them, Black Caucus members in particular, are very angry at the OFHEO Director as they attempt to defend Fannie Mae and protect their CRA extortion racket.Chairman Baker (R-Louisiana): It is indeed a very troubling report, but it is a report of extraordinary importance not only to those who wish to own a home, but as to the taxpayers of this country who would pay the cost of the clean up of an enterprise failure. . . . The analysis makes clear that more resources must be brought to bear to ensure the highest standards of conduct are not only required, but more importantly, they are actually met. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California): Through nearly a dozen hearings where, frankly, we were trying to fix something that wasn t broke. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California): Mr. Chairman, we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and particularly at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines. Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-New York): And as well as the fact that I m just pissed off at OFHEO, because if it wasn t for you I don t think that we d be here in the first place, and now the problem that we have and that we re faced with is: maybe some individuals who wanted to do away with GSEs in the first place, you ve given them an excuse to try to have this forum so that we can talk about it and maybe change the, uh, the direction and the mission of what the GSEs had, which they ve done a tremendous job. There s been nothing that was indicated that s wrong, you know, with uh Fannie Mae. Freddie Mac has come up on its own. And the question that then presents is the competence that, that, that, that your agency has, uh, with reference to, uh, uh, deciding and regulating these GSEs. Uh, and so, uh, I wish I could sit here and say that I m not upset with you, but I am very upset because, you know, what you do is give, you know, maybe giving any reason to, as Mr. Gonzales said, to give someone a heart surgery when they really don t need it. Rep. Ed Royce (R-California): In addition to our important oversight role in this committee, I hope that we will move swiftly to create a new regulatory structure for Fannie Mae, for Freddie Mac, and the federal home loan banks. Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Missouri): This hearing is about the political lynching of Franklin Raines. Rep. Ed Royce (R-California): There is a very simple solution. Congress must create a new regulator with powers at least equal to those of other financial regulators, such as the OCC or Federal Reserve. Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-New York): What would make you, why should I have confidence? Why should anyone have confidence, and uh, in, in you as a regulator at this point? Armando Falcon, OFHEO Director: Sir, Congressman, OFHEO did not improperly apply accounting rules. Freddie Mac did. OFHEO did not fail to manage earnings properly. Freddie Mac did. So this isn t about the agency engaging in improper conduct. It s about Freddie Mac. Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Connecticut): And we passed Sarbanes-Oxley, which was a very tough response to that, and then I realized that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac wouldn t even come under it. They weren t under the 34 act, they weren t under the 33 act, they play by their own rules, and I and I m tempted to ask how many people in this room are on the payroll of Fannie Mae, because what they do is they basically hire every lobbyist they can possibly hire. They hire some people to lobby and they hire some people not to lobby so that the opposition can t hire them. Rep. Artur Davis (D-Alabama): So the concern that I have is you re making very specific, what you have correctly acknowledged, broad and categorical judgments about the management of this institution, about the willfulness of practices that may or may not be in controversy. You ve imputed various motives to the people running the organization. You went to the board and put a 48-hour ultimatum on them without having any specific regulatory authority to put that kind of ultimatum on em. Uh, that sounds like some kind of an invisible line has been crossed. Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Connecticut): Fannie Mae has manipulated, in my judgment, OFHEO for years. And for OFHEO to finally come out with a report as strong as it is, tells me that s got to be the minimum not the maximum. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts): Uh, I, this, you, you, you seem to me saying, Well, these are in areas which could raise safety and soundness problems. I don t see anything in your report that raises safety and soundness problems. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California): Under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines, everything in the 1992 Act has worked just fine. In fact, the GSEs have exceeded their housing goals. What we need to do today is to focus on the regulator, and this must be done in a manner so as not to impede their affordable housing mission, a mission that has seen innovation flourish from desktop underwriting to 100% loans. Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Missouri): I find this to be inconsistent and a and a rush to judgment. I get the feeling that the markets are not worried about the safety and soundness of Fannie Mae as OFHEO says that it is, but of course the markets are not political. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts): But I have seen nothing in here that suggests that the safety and soundness are at issue, and I think it serves us badly to raise safety and soundness as kind of a general shibboleth when it does not seem to me to be an issue. Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Illinois): Mr. Raines, 1.1 million bonus and a $526,000 salary. Jamie Gorelick, $779,000 bonus on a salary of 567,000. This is, what you state on page eleven is nothing less than staggering. Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Illinois): The 1998 earnings per share number turned out to be $3.23 and 9 mills, a result that Fannie Mae met the EPS maximum payout goal right down to the penny. Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Illinois): Fannie Mae understood the rules and simply chose not to follow them that if Fannie Mae had followed the practices, there wouldn t have been a bonus that year. Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Connecticut): And you have about 3% of your portfolio set aside. If a bank gets below 4%, they are in deep trouble. So I just want you to explain to me why I shouldn t be satisfied with 3%? Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae CEO: Because banks don t, there aren t any banks who only have multifamily and single-family loans. Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae CEO: These assets are so riskless that their capital for holding them should be under 2%. January 2005-July 2006Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska), co-sponsored by Sens. Sununu and Dole and later Sen. McCain, re-introduced legislation to address GSE regulation. The bill prohibited the GSEs from holding portfolios, and gave their regulator prudential authority (such as setting capital requirements) roughly equivalent to a bank regulator. In light of the current financial crisis, this bill was probably the most important piece of financial regulation before Congress in 2005 and 2006, reports the Wall Street Journal.Greenspan testified that the size of GSE portfolios poses a risk to the global financial system. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to bail out the lenders [GSEs] . . . should one get into financial trouble. He added, If we fail to strengthen GSE regulation, we increase the possibility of insolvency and crisis . . . We put at risk our ability to preserve safe and sound financial markets in the United States, a key ingredient of support for homeownership. Greenspan warned that if the GSEs continue to grow, continue to have the low capital that they have, continue to engage in the dynamic hedging of their portfolios, which they need to do for interest rate risk aversion, they potentially create ever-growing potential systemic risk down the road . . . We are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk. Bloomberg writes, If that bill had become law, then the world today would be different. . . . But the bill didn t become law, for a simple reason: Democrats opposed it on a party-line vote in the committee, signaling that this would be a partisan issue. Republicans, tied in knots by the tight Democratic opposition, couldn t even get the Senate to vote on the matter. That such a reckless political stand could have been taken by the Democrats was obscene even then. April 2005Treasury Secretary John Snow again calls for GSE reform, Events that have transpired since I testified before this Committee in 2003 reinforce concerns over the systemic risks posed by the GSEs and further highlight the need for real GSE reform to ensure that our housing finance system remains a strong and vibrant source of funding for expanding homeownership opportunities in America. . . . Half-measures will only exacerbate the risks to our financial system, from a White House release.May 2005At AEI Online, Wallison warned that allowing Fannie and Freddie to continue on their present course is simply to create risks for the taxpayers, and to the economy generally, in order to improve the profits of their shareholders and the compensation of their managements. It is a classic case of socializing the risk while privatizing the profit. January 2006Chairman Greenspan, in a letter to Sens. Sununu, Hagel and Dole, warned that the GSE practice of buying their own MBS creates substantial systemic risk while yielding negligible additional benefits for homeowners, renters, or mortgage originators. He stated, . . . the GSEs and their government regulator need specific and unambiguous Congressional guidance about the intended purpose and functions of Fannie s and Freddie s investment portfolios. March 2006Sens. Sununu and Hagel introduced an amendment to a Lobbying Reform Bill directing GAO to study GSE lobbying and requiring HUD to audit the GSEs annually.May 2006After years of Democrats blocking the legislation, Sens. Hagel, Sununu, Dole and McCain write a letter to Majority Leader William Frist and Chairman Richard Shelby expressing demanding that GSE regulatory reform be enacted this year to avoid the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the Housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole. May 2006Sen. McCain (R-Arizona) addressed the Senate, Mr. President, this week Fannie Mae s regulator reported that the company s quarterly reports of profit growth over the past few years were illusions deliberately and systematically created by the company s senior management. . . . Fannie Mae used its political power to lobby Congress in an effort to interfere with the regulator s examination of the company s accounting problems. . . . OFHEO s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay. McCain stressed, If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole. I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform legislation. April 2007Sens. Sununu, Hagel, Dole, and Mel Martinez (R-Florida) re-introduced legislation to improve GSE oversight.April 2007In A Nightmare Grows Darker, the New York Times writes that the democratization of credit is turning the American dream of homeownership into a nightmare for many borrowers. The newfangled mortgage loans called affordability loans represent 60 percent of foreclosures. September 2007President Bush: These institutions provide liquidity in the mortgage market that benefits millions of homeowners, and it is vital they operate safely and operate soundly. So I ve called on Congress to pass legislation that strengthens independent regulation of the GSEs . . . the United States Senate needs to pass this legislation soon. 2007-2008The housing bubble began to burst, bad mortgages began to default, and finally the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac portfolios were revealed to be what they were, in collapse. And the testimony is evident as to why. As Wallison noted, Fannie and Freddie were, I would say, the poster children for corporate welfare. September 2008Rep. Arthur Davis, whose testimony is found above in October 2004, now admits Democrats were in error: Like a lot of my Democratic colleagues I was too slow to appreciate the recklessness of Fannie and Freddie. I defended their efforts to encourage affordable homeownership when in retrospect I should have heeded the concerns raised by their regulator in 2004. Frankly, I wish my Democratic colleagues would admit when it comes to Fannie and Freddie, we were wrong. Today 2008The narrative is of another socialist experiment failed, this time a massive federal effort, imperiling the whole US banking industry. Facing this economic disaster, will an informed American people put their trust Obama s socialist ideology to bring remedy? To do so is to trust in an acetylene torch to put out the fire. Read more: AMERICAN THINKER

Frida the rescue dog emerges as hero of Mexican earthquakeMEXICO CITY (Reuters) - For a country still in mourning and counting its dead from Tuesday s devastating earthquake, Frida the Navy rescue dog has emerged as a source of inspiration and pride in the search for survivors. Known for her custom-made doggy goggles and boots, the 7-year-old yellow Labrador has become a social media star, appearing on one man s tattoo and the unofficial image of a 500-peso note. Some posts have wildly exaggerated her feats. In her career, Frida has located 12 people alive beneath the rubble plus more than 40 others dead, more than any other Mexican rescue dog, the Navy said. She has put her nose to work in disasters such as an earthquake in Ecuador last year, another one in southern Mexico two weeks ago, a landslide in Guatemala in 2015 and a Mexico City gas explosion in 2013. Her credits for the most recent disaster has not been tallied yet, said Navy Captain Armando Segura, because she is still busy trying to save lives. The 7.1-magnitude quake has killed nearly 300 people, and rescuers were still digging through some of the 52 buildings that collapsed in Mexico City alone. Frida has spent most of her efforts at a school in southern Mexico City where 19 school children and six adults died, but 11 more children were rescued. As one of the of the country s most trusted institutions, the Mexican Navy has a wider role than most armadas, including a canine unit that has two other dogs, a pair of 18-month-old Belgian shepherds, Echo and Evil. Mexico s army also has rescue dogs digging through the debris of damaged buildings, and a dog named Maya from the Jalisco state government was credited with finding two dead bodies on Thursday. The United States and Chile have also brought rescue dogs for the Mexican quake. None can match the fame of Frida. It s a source of pride to work with Frida. She s a very, very special dog, said Israel Arauz, her handler for the past two years. Frida only has about a year left as a life-scent dog before her olfactory senses are expected to decline, after which she will retire to live with Arauz.

HILLARY GOT DESTROYED By Chris Wallace On FOX News…But That Wasn’t The End Of It…Laura Ingraham Followed Up With A KNOCK Out Punch [VIDEO]Hillary shouldn t be on FOX News giving interviews She should be in jail! Queen Hillary didn t quite get the same treatment from FOX News Chris Wallace as she gets when she visits MSNBC s Chris Matthews!Hillary Clinton acknowledges that Americans have a legitimate concern about her trustworthiness, particularly related to her email scandal and the Benghazi terror attacks, but criticized those who have attempted to undermine her Democratic presidential campaign and make a caricature out of her, in an exclusive interview with Fox News Sunday. I think that it s fair for Americans to have questions, Clinton said, in an interview taped Saturday. Every time I run for an office, though, oh my goodness, all of these caricatures come out of nowhere. And people begin to undermine me because when I left office as secretary of state, 66 percent of Americans approved of what I do. FOX Newshttps://youtu.be/G0XAt7aPYBsLaura Ingraham commented on Hillary Clinton s stunning interview on Fox News Sunday.Ingraham said Clinton has an astonishing ability to look into Chris Wallace s eyes and claim that FBI Director Jim Comey confirmed her statements on her email scandal were truthful. That comment earned Clinton four Pinocchios from the Washington Post s fact-checker.Ingraham said Clinton s aside about her mother loving Fox News was all well and good, but the fact of the matter is, this is about her tenure as secretary of state. If she didn t know that you couldn t put a government server in your bathroom, then what does Hillary Clinton really know about basic issues of foreign policy? Ingraham added that Clinton apparently can lie with impunity to most people in the press, other than some of the folks at Fox News. Fox News

China welcomes Myanmars efforts to alleviate situation in RakhineBEIJING (Reuters) - China s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China welcomes the measures taken by Myanmar s government to alleviate the situation in Rakhine state. Wang made the comments in New York on Thursday on during a meeting on the sidelines of the annual United Nations General Assembly with Myanmar officials, according to a Foreign Ministry statement. More than 400,000 Muslim Rohingya have fled from Rakhine across the border to Bangladesh following a counter-insurgency offensive by Myanmar s army in the wake of militant attacks on security forces. U.N. officials have described Myanmar s strategy as ethnic cleansing .

CONFIRMED: High-Level Trump Campaign Staff Was In ‘Constant Touch’ With The Russian Government (VIDEO)Donald Trump may want to rethink his wall idea because his entire presidency is crumbling down around him. With Kellyanne Conway on her way out the door because she advertised his daughter s goods during a Fox News interview and Michael Flynn getting caught secretly talking sanctions with the Russian ambassador and Sean Spicer just being Sean Spicer, The Donald is already dealing with a lot but now CNN reports that his campaign staff was in constant touch with high-level government officials in Russia.According to multiple current and former intelligence, law enforcement and administration officials, high-level advisers to candidate Trump raised red flags with U.S. intelligence because they were apparently calling each other more often than a middle school couple who has been dating for three days (that s a lot):Intelligence officials say they are still determining the intent of the frequent communications, but they are concerned that Trump associates were coordinating with Russian intelligence to release information that would damage Hillary Clinton. If that were the case, then that would escalate things, one official briefed on the investigation told CNN.More than a baker s dozen intelligence agencies have previously confirmed that Vladimir Putin personally spearheaded a massive hacking and propaganda/ fake news campaign targeting Clinton in an effort to get Donald Trump elected.Since assuming office, Easy D has been nothing but friendly to Russia, even easing sanctions that targeted the very intelligence agencies that hacked our election and constantly praising Putin (including on the same day that Flynn spoke to his ambassador friend). Trump also may have disabled the recording during his first phone call as President with Putin.Things are not looking good for President Asterisk, and they seem to get worse by the day. It s time for Republicans to put country before party and get this lunatic out of office before he gets us all killed.Watch CNN s report on this new development below:Featured image via Getty Images

Here’s The Most Scathing Indictment Yet Of The Anti-LBGT Hate That Caused The Orlando MassacreThere are too many people in our society who find the idea of two people of the same gender kissing, holding hands, and even being in love just too disgusting for words. These would be our bigots the ones who are working feverishly on keeping the LGBTQ community down by dehumanizing them, and painting them as an evil in our society.These people s hatred led to Omar Mateen killing 49 people in the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. A Facebook post, which ends with, You weren t the gunman, but you re the culture that built him. You re the bullets in his gun, is the sheer, naked truth of the situation.There are those who are angry about the politicization of Orlando. If those people would wake up to what s really happening, they d see that it was political from the start.Why? Because we have all of this bigotry coming from our very own lawmakers, pundits, and analysts, who want that bigotry codified in law so they can stay on top of their golden pedestals. We have pastors and other religious leaders who are celebrating what happened in Orlando. And they think they haven t contributed to this? Here are the faces of some of those people, complete with a simple phrase that adds to the power of the above post:Furthermore, the LGBTQ community has been assaulted over and over, by the same cold-blooded fuckery that caused Orlando, with GOP presidential candidates opposition to marriage equality, too: I support same sex civil unions but to me, and millions like me, marriage is a religious service not a government form. Ben Carson I have already introduced a constitutional amendment to preserve the authority of elected state legislatures to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and also legislation stripping the federal courts of jurisdiction over legal assaults on marriage. Ted Cruz Throughout the millennia and in every religion in the world, marriage has a very specific meaning. Marriage is a institution [sic] grounded in spirituality. It is the union of a man and a woman, and from that union comes life, and life is a gift from God. Carly Fiorina We must resist and reject judicial tyranny, not retreat. This ruling is not about marriage equality, it s about marriage redefinition. This irrational, unconstitutional rejection of the expressed will of the people in over 30 states will prove to be one of the court s most disastrous decisions, and they have had many. Mike Huckabee [Obergefell] will pave the way for an all out assault against the religious freedom rights of Christians who disagree with this decision. This ruling must not be used as pretext by Washington to erode our right to religious liberty. Bobby Jindal I am disappointed the Supreme Court today chose to change the centuries old definition of marriage as between one man and one woman. I m a firm believer in traditional marriage, and I also believe the 10th Amendment leaves it to each state to decide this issue. I fundamentally disagree with the court rewriting the law and assaulting the 10th Amendment. Rick Perry We have to reclaim marriage as an institution that s not about two adults or more than two adults. That it s about children. Marriage has always been about children. Rick SantorumAnd last, and we certainly wish least, Donald Trump: I would strongly consider [appointing justices to overrule the decision on same-sex marriage.] Then there s North Carolina s bathroom law, and Governor Pat McCrory, who defended it by saying it was a privacy issue. Yes, privacy for everyone except transgender people. One has to wonder if residents of North Carolina have to carry their birth certificates with them now.There was also Florida governor Rick Scott, who refused to acknowledge Orlando as an anti-LGBTQ hate crime in addition to an act of terrorism. He said Florida s LGBTQ community can engage in the oh-so-effective practice of prayer if they want to be safe.We had Kim Davis, who refused to abide by the Obergefell decision and who the religious community celebrated for standing up for the right to discriminate. The same is true of Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore. They re seen as champions of religious freedom, rather than the purveyors of hate they really are.What all of this does is tell ordinary citizens that it s just peachy keen for them to be hateful and evil towards the LGBTQ community. It also causes severe self-loathing in people who try to subscribe to those beliefs, but are LGBTQ and still in the closet. When these things reach the breaking point and explode, they do so violently, as they did in Orlando. You re the bullets in his gun. Yes, they all were. They don t have to be Mateen, or anybody else who commits a hate crime against the LGBTQ community, to be responsible for this.Featured image by Gerardo Mora/Getty Images

BOMBSHELL: U.S.DEFENSE SECRETARY ADMITS Obama Regime Led Iran To U.S. Navy Boats [VIDEO]No wonder Obama didn t offer up a prayer, or utter a single word about the arrest of our US Sailors before, during or after his embarrassing SOTU speech It doesn t matter if the 3 a.m. phone call comes in the middle of the day. Not only will the Obama administration not answer it, but they ll aid our enemies instead.First came the fact that President Barack Obama refused to address the arrest of 10 of our sailors by the Iranian military after their boats had mechanical trouble at sea. Then came news that the Obama administration had offered the Iranians an apology for the release of the sailors.Now comes the disturbing revelation, apparently delivered by Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, that the Obama administration tipped off the Iranians that our soldiers were lost at sea and requested their aid.The news came from Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, during an interview on TheBlaze s Dana Loesch shortly after Iran s arrest of the sailors had come to light. I understand that (Secretary of State) John Kerry has indicated, look, when he got word, he and Ash Carter called the Iranians to help take care of our Navy guys, because they had some mechanical problems, Gohmert said. When our Navy ships have problems, we don t call Iran. We call the rest of the Navy. We can call the Air Force, the Army, the Marines, Coast Guard. We don t call Iran, Gohmert said.Via: Conservative TribuneEither Col. Ralph Peters was right about Obama, or we have a bonafide traitor in the White House

TRUTH! Sara Carter is a Gem of a Reporter: “No Evidence of Trump or Trump Team Collusion and Russia or Russia Hacking” [Video]

Trump: U.S. has 'no choice' but to deal with North Korea arms challengeWASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump unveiled a new national security strategy on Monday, calling for Pakistan to take decisive action against terrorism and saying Washington had to deal with the challenge posed by North Korea s weapons programs. In a wide-ranging speech, Trump said his security strategy for the first time addresses economic security and would include a complete rebuilding of U.S. infrastructure as well as a wall along the southern U.S. border. Trump said the United States wanted Pakistan to take decisive action to help fight extremism, and that Washington had no choice but to deal with the challenge posed by North Korea s nuclear and missile programs. Trump said the security strategy would also end mandatory defense spending limits, frequently called sequester, but did not mention if he had consulted with members of Congress about a possible bill to end the caps established in 2013 budget legislation. We recognize that weakness is the surest path to conflict and unrivaled power is the most certain means of defense. For this reason, our security strategy breaks from damaging defense sequester, Trump said. We re going to get rid of that.

BOOM! TX Governor Will CUT FUNDING To County Where Sheriff Of Sanctuary City Refuses To Cooperate With Feds [VIDEO]Soon after newly elected Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez announced she would be scaling back her department s cooperation with federal immigration agents, Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted that his office will cut funding for Travis County adopting sanctuary policies. The Governor's Office will cut funding for Travis County adopting sanctuary policies. Stiffer penalties coming. https://t.co/yYxeXql3xL Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) January 20, 2017 Stiffer penalties coming, his tweet says.This week, the American-Statesman reported that she had notified the county that it would soon no longer be complying with federal agents requests in many cases. The county consequently could lose up to $1.8 million in grants because the governor s office requires compliance in order to receive grants.Gov. Greg Abbott said via Twitter in response to the Statesman s report, I m about to up the ante. No more sanctuary cities in Texas. Texas Governor Greg Abbott warned he would cut off aid to Sheriff Hernandez if she refused to cooperate with the Federal immigration agencies:https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=DXPmp2XIizk&pbjreload=10The Travis County sheriff s office has a $169 million budget, according to the county s budget website. The $1.8 million would represent 1 percent of that budget.Earlier: In a major policy shift that is already being met with controversy, Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez on Friday announced that she is scaling back the amount of aid her department provides federal immigration agents in detaining suspects who may be in the country illegally.Traditionally, the county has honored nearly all requests by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hold a suspect booked into jail when agents have wanted to investigate their status further. However, effective Feb. 1, sheriff s officials will honor so-called immigration holds or detainers placed by federal authorities only when a suspect is booked into the Travis County Jail on charges of capital murder, aggravated sexual assault and continuous smuggling of persons. Otherwise, federal agents must have a court order or arrest warrant signed by a judge for the jail to continue housing a person whose immigration status is in question, according to Hernandez s policy, which she released Friday. The public must be confident that local law enforcement is focused on local public safety, not on federal immigration enforcement. Our jail cannot be perceived as a holding tank for ICE or that Travis County deputies are ICE officers, Hernandez said in a video announcement. My Statesman

UNIV Of GA PROFESSOR Allows Students To CHOOSE THEIR OWN GRADES To Help Alleviate StressA University of Georgia professor has adopted a stress reduction policy that will allow students to select their own grades if they feel unduly stressed by the ones they earned.According to online course syllabi for two of Dr. Richard Watson s fall business courses, he has introduced the policy because emotional reactions to stressful situations can have profound consequences for all involved. As such, if students feel unduly stressed by a grade for any assessable material or the overall course, they can email the instructor indicating what grade [they] think is appropriate, and it will be so changed with no explanation being required. If in a group meeting, you feel stressed by your group s dynamics, you should leave the meeting immediately and need offer no explanation to the group members, the policy adds, saying such students can discontinue all further group work with their remaining grade being based totally on non-group work. Similarly, when it comes to tests and exams for Watson s Data Management and Energy Informatics courses, all will be open book and open notes and designed to assess low level mastery of the course material (the Stress Reduction section has been removed from both syllabi, but an archived version of the Data Management syllabus has been provided here).Finally, for in-class presentations, Watson will allow only positive comments to be made, while comments designed to improve future presentations will be communicated by email. For entire story: Campus ReformPerhaps someone should give the good professor a ticket to Afghanistan so he can spend time with some of our young, brave, college-age troops who don t get to chose their next assignment because it might be too stressful for them.Parents of these students need to start speaking up. We are raising a generation of marshmallows who will have no idea how to handle stress in real life situations. We as a nation, will have no one to blame but ourselves for raising an entire generation of coddled snowflakes with absolutely no coping skills.

HOW FAILED DEMOCRAT LEADERSHIP IS TAKING NYC BACK TO PRE-[Rudy] GILLIANI ERAMiss him yet?Here s an up-close look at a quality-of-life offense the City Council wants to decriminalize.This urinating vagrant turned a busy stretch of Broadway into his own private bathroom yesterday an offense that would result in a mere summons if Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and her pals get their way.Wrapped in rags and a Mets blanket the hobo wandered into traffic at around 10:30 a.m. and relieved himself as cabs, cars and buses whizzed by between West 83rd and 84th streets on the Upper West Side.He finished his business at a nearby garbage bin, then strolled back to the front of a Victoria s Secret store at Broadway and 85th Street, where he camped out for the rest of the day.Mark-Viverito in April announced plans to decriminalize public urination along with five other low-level offenses: biking on the sidewalk, public consumption of alcohol, being in a park after dark, failure to obey a park sign and jumping subway turnstiles. Police Commissioner Bill Bratton who in the early 90s implemented a broken windows approach to policing to dramatically cut crime is against the new plan, saying such offenses lead to more serious crimes.Bill Caprese, 38, who lives on 82nd Street with his 6-year-old daughter, was appalled by the street urinator. It s absolutely a failure of government. It s a total abject failure, he said. The mayor could fix it. The governor could fix it. We need asylums. Unfortunately for NYC, radical socialist Mayor DeBlasio turned his back on the NYPD, whose job it is to control the crime. An employee at the Victoria s Secret, where the homeless man often lounges, said he drives away business. He curses people out, threatens lives, said the employee, who works in the lingerie chain s loss-prevention department. Customers complain about him all the time. And the growing problem isn t solely on city streets. Transit hubs, including Penn Station, are plagued by surging numbers of homeless people who publicly masturbate, harass bystanders and demand free food as the city looks the other way, commuters complain. It reminds me of the pre-[Rudy] Giuliani era, said Jim Hoover, 60, who has been commuting through Penn Station since 1986. The police aren t chasing them away anymore. Just outside the Port Authority Bus Terminal, a homeless man drunkenly knocked a woman to the floor while stumbling around the sidewalk.The bum, who goes by Monk, was arrested by a cop at the scene and taken away by an FDNY ambulance. He s going to get a hospital bed and a slap on the wrist, said Timothy Arroyo, who was watching from a crowd that gathered. He ll be back out here tomorrow. A PA source said there has been a noticeable uptick in vagrants at the terminal in recent months.Via: NYP

Trump names China critic Lighthizer as U.S. trade representativeWASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday named Robert Lighthizer, an official in the Reagan administration and harsh critic of China’s trade practices, to be his chief trade negotiator, responsible for better deals aimed at reducing U.S. trade deficits. Trump, who promised during his presidential campaign to renegotiate international trade deals like NAFTA and punish companies that ship work overseas, said in announcing his choice that Lighthizer would help “fight for good trade deals that put the American worker first.”Lighthizer is a former deputy U.S. trade representative under former Republican President Ronald Reagan who helped to stem the tide of imports from Japan in the 1980s with threats of quotas and punitive tariffs. His return to the agency follows nearly three decades as a lawyer representing U.S. steelmakers and other companies in anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases. Lighthizer has argued that China has failed to live up to commitments made in 2001 when it joined the World Trade Organization and that tougher tactics are needed to change the system, even if it means deviating from World Trade Organization rules. “Years of passivity and drift among U.S. policymakers have allowed the U.S.­-China trade deficit to grow to the point where it is widely recognized as a major threat to our economy,” Lighthizer wrote in 2010 congressional testimony. “Going forward, U.S. policymakers should take these problems more seriously, and should take a much more aggressive approach in dealing with China,” he wrote. Lighthizer is regarded as an experienced tactician with an intimate knowledge of trade tools that were widely used before the WTO was created in 1995, including “Section 301” tariffs used to stem a tide of imports of Japanese steel and vehicles in the 1980s. During his tenure, Reagan struck the 1985 Plaza Accord currency deal with Japan, Germany and other major trading partners that brought down the dollar’s value and encouraged more foreign companies to set up U.S. manufacturing plants. “Bob Lighthizer is very smart, very strategic and totally fearless,” said a Washington attorney who has worked with him for three decades but asked not to be named. “You can expect him to use every tool available to create leverage to get China and anyone else to stop the cheating. He is no fan of the WTO.” Still, Lighthizer is not expected to be the Trump administration’s leading voice on trade policy. Last month, Trump’s team said that task would fall to the U.S. Commerce Secretary nominee, billionaire investor Wilbur Ross.. Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, has also named Peter Navarro, an economist and adviser who has urged a hard line against China, as the head of a newly formed White House National Trade Council.

'No doubt' Russia behind hacks on U.S. election system: senior DemocratWASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior Democratic lawmaker said Sunday he had “no doubt” that Russia was behind recent hacking attempts targeting state election systems, and urged the Obama administration to publicly blame Moscow for trying to undermine confidence in the Nov. 8 presidential contest. The remarks from Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the intelligence committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, come amid heightened concerns among U.S. and state officials about the security of voting machines and databases, and unsubstantiated allegations from Republican candidate Donald Trump that the election could be “rigged.” “I have no doubt [this is Russia]. And I don’t think the administration has any doubt,” Schiff said during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week.” Schiff’s call to name and shame the Kremlin came a week after Trump questioned widely held conclusions made privately by the U.S. intelligence community that Russia is responsible for the hacking activity. “It could be Russia, but it could also be China,” Trump said during a televised debate with Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. “It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds.” On Saturday, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said hackers have probed the voting systems of many U.S. states but there is no sign that they have manipulated any voting data. Schiff said he doubted hackers could falsify vote tallies in a way to affect the election outcome. Officials and experts have said the decentralized and outdated nature of U.S. voting technology makes such hacks more unlikely. But cyber attacks on voter registration systems could “sow discord” on election day, Schiff said. He further added that leaks of doctored emails would be difficult to disprove and could “be election altering.” The National Security Agency, FBI and DHS all concluded weeks ago that Russian intelligence agencies conducted, directed or coordinated all the major cyberattacks on U.S. political organizations, including the Democratic National Committee, and individuals, a U.S. official who is participating in the investigations said on Sunday.     However, the official said, White House officials have resisted naming the Russians publicly because doing so could result in escalating cyberattacks, and because it is considered impossible to offer public, unclassified proof of the allegation. Schiff and Senator Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the U.S. Senate intelligence committee, said last month they had concluded Russian intelligence agencies were “making a serious and concerted effort to influence the U.S. election.”

Spain's constitutional court suspends Catalan referendum law: court sourceMADRID (Reuters) - The Spanish Constitutional Court has suspended a referendum law that was approved on Wednesday by the Catalan parliament, blocking the way for an Oct. 1 ballot on independence from Spain, a court source said on Thursday. The law will be suspended while judges consider arguments that the vote breaches the country s constitution. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said earlier on Thursday he had appealed to the court to declare the referendum illegal. The constitution states Spain is indivisible.

Melania Trump's RNC speech produces so-so TV audience(Reuters) - Melania Trump’s big night at the Republican National Convention failed to draw bumper television audiences despite networks boosting their coverage of the gathering and husband Donald Trump promising a “showbiz” feel to the week. According to Nielsen ratings data on Tuesday from seven leading broadcast and cable networks, an estimated 23 million people watched Monday evening’s highlight during the 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. hour when Melania Trump, the wife of Republican White House contender Donald Trump, delivered her speech. The focus of the convention initially shifted on Tuesday from the formal anointing of Trump to accusations that sections of Melania Trump’s speech were strikingly similar to an address by Michelle Obama at the Democratic convention in 2008. The early viewing figures were similar to those for the first night of the Republican convention in 2012, which attracted an audience of 22.3 million, according to Nielsen. U.S. television networks have boosted coverage of the Republican convention this year after Trump, a New York businessman, drew huge audiences during the 2016 presidential debates during the state nominating contests. Trump, the former star of “The Apprentice” TV show, has promised to throw out traditional political convention scripts and “put some showbiz” into the mix. Media analysts predicted that viewership for Trump’s acceptance speech this week for the Republican presidential nomination could surpass the record 38 million who watched Barack Obama address the Democratic convention in 2008. In 2012, the Democratic convention generally drew more nightly TV viewers than the Republican gathering, when Mitt Romney was running for the White House. On Monday, the Fox News cable channel, as expected, got the most viewers for its convention coverage, averaging 6.4 million in the 10 p.m. hour. Among the mainstream networks, NBC led with 3.9 million. However, the biggest single program audience of Monday night was for reality show “The Bachelorette,” which was seen by some 6.6 million on ABC. About 3 million people turned off when ABC switched to the convention.

Trump debate flap throws Republican party into deeper chaosDES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - As seven Republican presidential contenders squared off here for the final debate before voters begin winnowing the field, Donald Trump presided over his own, separate rally a mile away in front of a packed house of cheering supporters. It would be hard to find a more ideal metaphor for the forces tearing asunder the Republican Party. For months, Trump has chosen to operate in his own political universe, violating the conventional wisdom that governs presidential campaigns, thumbing his nose at conservative institutions ranging from the Fox News Channel to the National Review and advocating policies at odds with party orthodoxy. And whether he wins the Iowa caucuses on Monday, Trump’s candidacy promises to continue to upend the established political order as the presidential race intensifies ahead of the Nov. 8 election. Most national opinion polls have him with more than 30 percent of the Republican primary electorate — and those voters are showing little sign of switching to anyone else. “I think he will have made a permanent impact on the process,” Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and a 2012 presidential candidate, told Reuters. Trump’s campaign, he said, “is one of those great disruptions that reshapes everything.” Tensions within the Republican Party between grassroots conservatives and the Washington establishment have been simmering since the Tea Party movement arose during President Barack Obama’s first term, catapulting presidential contenders Senators Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul to office, among others. But Trump’s insurgent candidacy has carved new fissures into the party, splitting conservative talk-radio hosts, religious leaders, and Washington pundits, with some sounding the alarm while others implore the party to respond to the anger toward Republican incumbents among voters who are fueling Trump’s rise. The billionaire businessman has mounted his campaign on the notion of the fading American working-class, arguing they are under threat by both free trade deals favored by Republicans that encourage companies to send jobs overseas and by waves of illegal immigrants that work for low wages. “People are upset. People believe that promises made have not been promises kept. There comes a point when you’ve had it,” said Iowa Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann, who has appeared at Trump rallies. Trump’s candidacy threatens to scramble the Republican coalition built since the presidency of Ronald Reagan, one that worked to unite evangelical Christians and other social conservatives, economic conservatives, and military hawks behind a standard-bearer. The New York real estate tycoon and former reality TV star does not check many of those boxes. He shocked evangelicals here when he told them he has never asked God for forgiveness and spends little time on issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage. He has threatened to slap tariffs on imported goods to protect American jobs and raise taxes on hedge-fund managers. He has decried the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and has sounded reluctant to deeply involve U.S. forces in the conflict in Syria. “He is attracting people of all kinds of backgrounds who have never thought of themselves as Republicans,” Gingrich said. “I think it’s very hard for traditional political observers to understand (what’s happening).” Early during Thursday’s debate in Des Moines, it seemed that the seven Republicans on the stage worked collectively to try and wean voters in Iowa and elsewhere off of Trump, with some dismissing him as an entertainer and others blasting his policy stances. His absence loomed over the entire event. And Trump demonstrated the sway he holds over the race when it was revealed that Fox News executives had made an 11th-hour pitch to woo him back onto the debate stage, handing him a rhetorical victory of sorts even as his rivals seemed to relish his absence. He also was joined at his event in Des Moines by two other Republican presidential candidates, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum — perhaps an acknowledgement that Trump’s campaign may be a juggernaut now that may not be able to be stopped and that it might be time to climb aboard. Without Trump, Fox News’s debate was the second-lowest rated of the Republican match-ups so far, CNN reported on Friday, citing early data from measurement company Nielsen. But it still had higher viewership than Trump’s counter-event. Cruz alluded at the debate to the need to bring order to what has been a chaotic campaign. “Anyone who is able to win in the Republican Party has to be able to bring together the disparate elements of the Reagan coalition,” he said. “You’ve got to be able to bring together conservatives and evangelicals and libertarians, and stitch together a winning majority.” But Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist who is not aligned with any candidate, said Cruz may be too beholden to the conventional ways to win the nomination. “What resonates (for voters) is not just Trump’s bravado, it’s that the everyday man thinks he’s fighting for him,” O’Connell said. “Cruz assumes being a conservative means an ideological checklist. For a lot of others in the party, or for some who have left the party, it’s more of a feeling.” Even as the seven candidates argued among themselves about who is best positioned to challenge Trump for the nomination, analytics provided by Google during the debate showed Trump eclipsed all of them in terms of number of searches. And if Trump loses next Monday in Iowa — he is locked in a close race with Cruz in the state — polls show him with large leads in New Hampshire and South Carolina, the next states to hold nominating contests. “This is not something that fits into some nice little tight box. That is the beauty of Trump,” O’Connell said. “I think he could be the nominee. And I think he could actually win the presidency.” (Additional reporting by Emily Stephenson; Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Richard Valdmanis and Alistair Bell) SAP is the sponsor of this coverage which is independently produced by the staff of Reuters News Agency.

Factbox: May's Brexit plan passes parliamentary test, more to comeLONDON (Reuters) - Legislation underpinning the government s plan to leave the European Union passed the latest stage in its journey through parliament on Wednesday, but still faces weeks of scrutiny before it becomes law. After eight days of debate, the legislation completed its Committee Stage , where lawmakers debate the bill line by line and try to make changes to the government s proposed wording. Formally known as the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, the legislation will now face other stages of approval in the lower house of parliament, and must then make its way through a multi-stage process in the upper house. Both chambers must agree on the wording before it can become law. What is the bill and what does it do? The legislation serves two main functions: 1. Repealing the 1972 European Communities Act which made Britain a member of the European Communities, forerunner to the European Union. This effectively ends Britain s EU membership. 2. Transferring the existing body of EU law into British law. This is designed to provide legal certainty about the complex process of leaving. Why is it controversial? The bill has faced criticism from opposition lawmakers, campaign groups and members of May s Conservative Party. Brexit is still divisive in Britain after a referendum in June last year, and many people, including some lawmakers, want to retain as much of the country s current EU membership as possible. Others would like to reverse the vote altogether. The most significant objections so far have focused on several different parts of the bill: 1. The power for the government to amend EU laws as they are brought onto the British statute book. 2. The extent to which parliament will be given a say on the final exit deal. 3. The government s intention to fix March 29, 2019 in law as Exit Day . May runs a minority government, which has a slim 13-seat working majority in the 650-seat parliament thanks to a deal with a small Northern Irish party. Only seven Conservative lawmakers could be required to rebel to defeat the government. What has happened so far? The threat of rebellion has forced the government to make several concessions on its plans, including Wednesday s compromise to allow the date of Brexit to be changed in exceptional circumstances. Ministers also agreed to greater scrutiny in parliament of the process of transposing EU law. May suffered one embarrassing defeat, when 11 Conservatives sided with the opposition to successfully demand stronger guarantees that parliament will have a meaningful vote on the country s final exit agreement. Ministers fought off, or bargained their way out of other disagreements on issues like the powers government will have to change EU laws as they are transposed into British law, and the government s intention not to transfer across the EU s Charter of Fundamental Rights. The bill cleared its first parliamentary hurdle in September when, after two days of debate, lawmakers voted 326 to 290 in favor of the principles of the bill. What happens next? The debate will continue in the lower house of parliament next year at a date which has yet to be set. This so-called Report Stage is a new opportunity to add amendments. Immediately after report stage, the bill is given a Third Reading . It usually lasts an hour and is a general discussion of the bill followed by a vote. No amendments can be made. If approved, the bill will then pass to the upper chamber of parliament, where the Conservatives do not have a majority. The entire process will take months to complete, and there is no target end date. House of Lords: Once the bill passes to the unelected upper chamber of parliament, the House of Lords, Lords can put forward their own amendments, each of which will be discussed and decided on in turn. If the lords agree to any amendments, the bill passes back to the House of Commons for its approval. Ping Pong: If the bill passes back to the commons, they debate and vote on the lords amendments. No new amendments can be introduced. In theory the bill can continue passing back and forth between the lords and commons until the final bill is agreed upon. Royal assent: Once the bill has been agreed by both houses of parliament, it is given royal assent, when the queen formally agrees to make the bill into an Act of Parliament.

DISTURBING TRUTH ABOUT How The UN Decides Which Muslim “REFUGEES” Will Be Your New Neighbor [VIDEO]Every American should know the corrupt UN has been, and will continue to be, the one organization who decides which Muslim refugees will be flooding your hometown Who picks the Syrian refugees that resettle in the U.S.? Homeland Security? No, the United Nations, in concert with a global Islamist group. And they re sending more than 15,000, not the widely reported 10,000.In fact, Washington has no role in selecting the thousands of Syrian refugees coming to your hometown. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees is really behind the effort, and he s referred an additional 5,000-plus Syrian nationals here.A new State Department report reveals that the U.S. already has accepted at least 15,000 Syrian refugee referrals from the UNHCR. The United States is one of 28 countries that have agreed to accept referrals from UNHCR as part of its ambitious international effort to secure permanent or temporary resettlement for 130,000 Syrian refugees by the end of 2016, the State Department said in Proposed Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2016. As of mid-2015, UNHCR has referred more than 15,000 Syrian refugees to the United States, the 71-page report adds. And these individuals are being screened to determine whether they are eligible. Of course, that security screening is a joke, as the FBI director and his top counterterrorism aide, as well as the Homeland Security and National Intelligence chiefs, have all testified.State notes in its report that security checks include biographic name checks for all refugee applicants and biometric (fingerprint) checks for refugee applicants. Only Syria is a failed state, and there are no fingerprint databases to check applicants against.The Islamic State has publicly vowed to use the refugee program to invade Europe and America, and allegedly has already infiltrated some 4,000 warriors among the flood of Syrian refugees.The Obama administration insists that it will catch any terrorist infiltrators through its interviewing process.But, the State Department report said, In some countries, such as Syria, Yemen and Eritrea, Department of Homeland Security adjudicators have been unable to travel to interview applicants for several years. That s not all. The UNHCR is working hand in hand with an international Islamist group of 57 Muslim nations the Organization of Islamic Cooperation whose founding charter seeks to propagate legitimate jihad and the norms of Islamic Shari ah. Saudi-based OIC, in fact, is tied to the radical Muslim Brotherhood. We are delighted to work with the OIC, said U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres.So it s really the U.N. and radical Islamists who are choosing your new Muslim neighbors.While the U.N. calls its project refugee resettlement, the Islamists call it hijra, or immigration jihad. Via: IBD

'Gates of Hell': Iraqi army says fighting near Tal Afar worse than Mosul (Story corrects third paragraph to show Mosul fell in July, not June, after nine, not eight, months of urban warfare in August 29th instance.) By Ahmed Rasheed BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi forces battling to retake the small town of al- Ayadiya where militants fleeing Tal Afar have entrenched themselves, saying on Tuesday the fighting is multiple times worse than the battle for Mosul s old city. Hundreds of battle-hardened fighters were positioned inside most houses and high buildings inside the town, making it difficult for government forces to make any progress, army officers told Reuters. Iraqi government troops captured the town of Mosul from Islamic State in July, but only after nine months of grinding urban warfare. But one Iraqi officer, Colonel Kareem al-Lami, described breaching the militants first line of defense in al- Ayadiya as like opening the gates of hell . Iraqi forces have in recent days recaptured almost all of the northwestern city of Tal Afar, long a stronghold of Islamic State. They have been waiting to take al- Ayadiya, just 11 km (7 miles) northwest of the city, before declaring complete victory. Tough resistance from the militants in al- Ayadiya has forced the Iraqi forces to increase the number of air strikes, as well as bring in reinforcements from the federal police to boost units from the army, air force, Federal Police, the elite U.S.-trained Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) and some units from the Shi ite Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). Up to 2,000 battle-hardened militants were believed to be defending Tal Afar against around 50,000 government troops last week. Military intelligence indicated that many militants fled Tal Afar to mount a staunch defense in al- Ayadiya. Many motorcycles carrying the Islamic State insignia were seen abandoned at the side of the road outside al- Ayadiya. Though the exact numbers of militants on the ground in al- Ayadiya was still unclear, al-Lami, the Iraqi Army colonel, estimated they were in their hundreds. Daesh (Islamic State) fighters in their hundreds are taking positions inside almost every single house in the town, he said. Sniper shots, mortars, heavy machine guns and anti-armored projectiles were fired from every single house, he added. We thought the battle for Mosul s Old City was tough, but this one proved to be multiple times worst, al-Lami said. We are facing tough fighters who have nothing to lose and are ready to die. Two army officers told Reuters that no significant advances had yet been made in al- Ayadiya. They said they were waiting for artillery and air strikes to undermine the militants power. The extra Federal Police troops that were called in said late on Tuesday that they had controlled 50 percent of the town, deploying snipers on the high buildings and intensified shelling the militants headquarters with rockets, a federal police spokesman said in a statement. Tal Afar became the next target of the U.S.-backed war on the jihadist group following the recapture of Mosul, where it had declared its caliphate over parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014.

CrossTalk: WikiLeaks Vault 7 with Guests Patrick Henningsen, Larry Johnson, Suzanne Nossel21st Century Wire says Vault 7: what does it mean to America, and the expectations of of rights and privacy for the average citizen? Is the CIA s covert hacking program an affront to the US Constitution? Are we at as dark place in western a society?CrossTalk: Wikileaks strikes again. On full display are the CIA s spy tools and methods. Snowden provided a briefing book on U.S. surveillance, but the CIA leaks could provide the blueprints. And your Samsung TV and iPhone are a big part of this. Host Peter Lavelle is CrossTalking with Larry Johnson, Suzanne Nossel, and Patrick Henningsen: SUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV

From batons to barbecues, Catalan vote exposes police divisionsSANT PERE DE TORELLO, Spain (Reuters) - As Spanish police wielded batons and fired rubber bullets at crowds attempting to vote in Catalonia s banned independence referendum on Sunday, the region s own police force gave many voters a much gentler reception. In Catalonia s pro-independence heartland, among the farming towns of Osona county north of Barcelona, the Catalan force made little attempt to remove people from polling stations despite being tasked with the same court order to shut them down. Local courts received several complaints on Sunday against the Catalan police accusing them of inactivity and failing to close polling stations, despite the court order, the region s High Court said in a statement. In Sant Pere and Osona s capital of Vic, crowds waited in orderly queues and cast their ballots in school halls, though the mood was jittery as photos of bloodied voters circulated via social media from the cities of Barcelona and Girona. More than 840 people were injured during Sunday s police crackdown, Catalan officials said. Spain s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, however, praised the police for carrying out their duties and upholding the law. In Sant Pere, children ran along the street playing tag, young people passed around barbecued kebabs and flagons of red wine, and pensioners at a retirement home nearby sat by windows and waved Catalan flags. If we don t win today, we will never be able to do it. This is the opportunity, Ramon Jordana, a 92-year-old former taxi driver said as he dropped his vote into a ballot box that organizers had smuggled into the town in the dead of night. At the polling station in Sant Pere, a town of some 2,500 people close to the Pyrenees which symbolically declared independence from Spain in 2012, voters arrived before sunrise and Jordana cast the first vote at 9 a.m. Officers from Catalonia s regional police, the Mossos d Esquadra, had tried to enter Sant Pere and Vic s polling stations before voting began but crowds clustered around the entrances to stop them. They withdrew to applause and cheers. We won t use force to enter, but we ll stay outside all day in case at some point we can, one of the officers in Sant Pere told Reuters afterwards. He asked not to be identified. The two officers in Sant Pere chatted casually with locals outside the polling station, and one of them posed with a child for a photo. After a second attempt to enter the voting center, the crowd resisted and they retreated around a street corner. In Osona s overwhelmingly separatist-controlled municipalities, opinion polls show support for independence tops 80 percent on average, around double the overall support among Catalonia s 7.5 million population. The referendum has been declared illegal by Rajoy s central government in Madrid, which says the constitution states the country is indivisible, and it has dispatched police across Catalonia to seize ballot boxes and prevent people voting. However, national police and the Mossos have taken very different approaches, despite Spain s state prosecutor telling Mossos recently that they had been put under a single chain of command reporting directly to the interior ministry in Madrid. The Mossos are held in great affection by Catalans, especially after they hunted down Islamists accused of staging coordinated attacks in Barcelona in August which killed 16 people. In contrast, the Civil Guard national police were branded Rajoy s thugs on Twitter on Sunday. National police unions said officers had carried out an impeccable intervention to preserve the constitution and called the Mossos inaction scandalous . The national police are disappointed and indignant ... The Mossos presence has been insufficient, deliberately weak and embarrassingly neutral, the unions said in a statement. In Sant Pere, before voting got underway, the town s mayor, Jordi Fabrega, asked a crowd of about 200 people to guard the booth s entrance all day and to resist peacefully any attempt by police to enter. The moment we leave it unguarded, they will come, Fabrega said. The first count of Sant Pere s vote showed 80 percent turnout with 97 percent of voters supporting independence. High turnout will be key to legitimizing a yes vote, which the Catalan government says would lead to a declaration of independence from the regional parliament within 48 hours. Locals blocked streets with vans and construction trucks as word spread that national police, who have been drafted into Catalonia in their thousands, were en route to raid the polling station. If the police really want to get the ballot boxes, they will get them, said one Sant Pere voter, 66-year-old Carles, who declined to give his surname as he was worried the Spanish government would come after him. In the end, no national police turned up. Organizers said it had been no easy task to get to this point. Joan Vaque Casas, Sant Pere s head coordinator, said he had received a text message at about 2 a.m. to meet at a secret location to pick up the ballot box and voting papers.

REVEALED: Trump Illegally Violated Embargo Against Cuba, Putting Money In ‘Killer’ Fidel Castro’s HandsThe law and order candidate broke the law again.Donald Trump recently declared that he would reverse President Obama s deal with Cuba to reopen diplomatic relations between our two nations after 50 years. All of the concessions that Barack Obama has granted the Castro regime were done with executive order, which means the next president can reverse them, Trump said earlier this month. And that is what I will do unless the Castro regime meets our demands. Those demands include freeing political prisoners and expanding religious liberty.That s funny, because the Republican nominee certainly didn t give a shit about either of those things when he violated the United States embargo against Cuba back in 1998.A Newsweek investigation revealed:A company controlled by Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, secretly conducted business in Communist Cuba during Fidel Castro s presidency despite strict American trade bans that made such undertakings illegal, according to interviews with former Trump executives, internal company records and court filings.Trump s company spent a total of $68,000 for the trip to meet with government officials, bankers, and businessmen in order to gain a foothold on the island just in case the American government ended the embargo. But Trump broke the law and he tried to cover up his crime by funneling the money to a consulting firm and making it look like a charitable effort.In 1999, Trump traveled to Miami for the first day of his presidential run as the Reform Party candidate and hypocritically told the Cuban-American crowd that he would keep the embargo in place because any money spent there goes to Fidel Castro. He s a murderer. He s a killer. He s a bad guy in every respect, and, frankly, the embargo must stand if for no other reason than, if it does stand, he will come down. And so, Donald Trump admitted that he gave $68,000 to a murderer and a killer who is a bad guy in every respect. Now to make things clear, President Obama only reopened diplomatic relations with Cuba, which is within his executive power. The embargo is still in effect. But Republicans have whined about Obama s Cuba policy ever since.So what will they say about Trump s blatant violation of the embargo itself and the fact that he spent $68,000 on the trip, money that dictator Fidel Castro must have appreciated?If Republicans don t condemn Trump for this they will be committing hypocrisy at the highest level. It will make it clear for every American that they don t care about law and order as much as they care about power. Donald Trump broke the law and tried to make a deal with Fidel Castro s Cuba and he was merely a businessman. Just imagine what laws he could violate and get away with as president.Featured image via Spencer Platt / Getty Images

Not again! German media bemoan grand coalition scenario after limp TV duelBERLIN (Reuters) - A mood of pre-election apathy rippled through German media on Monday, as commentators concluded Angela Merkel s rival for chancellor had blown his best chance of depriving her of fourth term in office. With three weeks to go until polling day, several national newspapers taking stock the morning after a lackluster two-way televised debate concluded that a re-run of the grand coalition of Merkel s conservatives and challenger Martin Schulz s Social Democrats (SPD) was likely. Angela Merkel and Martin Schulz barely showed any differences in their only direct face-off. Why don t we just set the grand coalition up again now? magazine Der Spiegel said on its website, adding the debate would not have changed voters existing preferences. That would be a continuation of the team that has governed Germany for the last four years. But that combination has in the past been viewed as a last resort, and surveys suggest a three-way coalition between the conservatives, Greens and the Free Democrats (FDP) as an alternative option. Polls over the past three months have consistently shown Merkel s conservatives holding a double-digit lead over the SPD - but the gap has never stretched so far as to give her CDU/CSU alliance a parliamentary majority. Polls showed Merkel was also the winner of Sunday s duel - a disappointment for Schulz, who had hoped he could use his only direct clash with her to turn his party s fortunes around. We re at risk of another grand coalition, read the headline in mass-selling Bild newspaper. It said while Schulz had tried to attack the eternal chancellor , he had done so with velvet gloves, pointing out that he often said he shared Merkel s opinion. Bild said the pair had failed to differentiate themselves. There were two professional politicians speaking and you just couldn t shake off the suspicion that both of them could work together in government without much friction, it added. Local newspaper Berliner Zeitung newspaper s front page showed a scorecard that read 0:0 - a draw for both candidates. It was supposed to be the first climax in the race for the chancellery ... But substantive accents were missing. Undecided votes were likely unconvinced by either of the candidates, it said. The rivals body language was also telling, it said, with Schulz smiling a lot while Merkel often looked as though she was witnessing something that she didn t quite like. Newspaper Handelsblatt said Schulz had not really attacked the incumbent chancellor, adding: Martin Schulz doesn t want to be chancellor in September apparently but rather Angela Merkel s office manager. But Berlin s Tagesspiegel newspaper said Schulz had scored points for taking more decisive positions on Turkey, pensions and the need to punish the German automotive industry for the diesel emissions scandal. When it came to showing hard edges, Martin Schulz was more convincing, it said, adding, this evening may have changed things.

Cambodian PM threatens opposition party will be dissolvedPHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen threatened on Monday that the main opposition party, the Cambodia National Rescue Party, would be dissolved if it continues to back detained leader Kem Sokha, who has been charged with treason. Kem Sokha was arrested on Sept. 3 and accused of plotting against the government with the help of the United States. If the political party continues to blockade and defend this traitor, it means the party is also a traitor so there is no time to let this party operate in Cambodia s democratic process anymore, Hun Sen told a graduation ceremony in Phnom Penh. He said that, if the act of treason involved the whole party, it would be disciplined by law, which means the dissolution of the party .

White Supremacist GOPer’s Democratic Opponent Receives So Many Death Threats That She QuitsUntil recently, Iowa Democrat Kim Weaver was running a promising campaign against noted white supremacist, GOP Rep. Steve King.Weaver raised $100,000 in four days following King s racist claim that we can t restore our civilization with somebody else s babies just one of his many, many bigoted outpourings.This, of course, made him very popular with the alt-Right (the modern term for Nazis).The 15 Words:[C]ulture and demographics are our destiny. We can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies. Richard ? Spencer (@RichardBSpencer) March 12, 2017Steve King -> 2024 (finish the job)? ? ?????? https://t.co/7nZsetoYvY David Duke (@DrDavidDuke) March 12, 2017Since he gained popularity with the worst our society has to offer, it s unsurprising what happened next.Weaver received so many death threats from King s Nazi followers that she feels she can not continue to run against him:(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));Over the last several weeks, I have been evaluating personal circumstances along with the political climate regarding Posted by Kim Weaver on Saturday, June 3, 2017 One consideration has been raised again by recent events at my home. Beginning during my 2016 campaign, I have received very alarming acts of intimidation, including death threats, Weaver explains on Facebook. While some may say enduring threats are just a part of running for office, my personal safety has increasingly become a concern. King, almost following a script that seems to be read every single time the Right threatens someone into submission, claimed that the death threats likely didn t happen but a fabrication. I wanted #KimWeaver IN the race-not out. Democrats drove her out of the race-not R's. Death threats likely didn't happen but a fabrication. Steve King (@SteveKingIA) June 4, 2017This is how fascism works: those who resist are threatened into submission or worse.Featured image via screeengrab

WATCH: Sexist Tucker Carlson Gets His A** Handed To Him By Teen Vogue WriterRemember when Jon Stewart humiliated Tucker Carlson on his own show many years ago? Well, this time it was Teen Vogue writer Lauren Duca doing the humiliating.During an appearance on Fox News on Friday, Duca refused to let Carlson talk over her and misrepresent what she has said.Earlier this week, a man confronted Ivanka Trump on a JetBlue flight and yelled at her. The man was removed from the plane and Trump supporters immediately threw a hissy fit because someone dared criticize Trump s daughter in public.Despite conservative whining, a majority of people sided with Ivanka in the moment because it s pretty damn rude to approach someone, especially a mother who is with her kids, and yell at them.Duca is also against yelling on airplanes but warned people not to let Ivanka off the hook because of this rude incident.Ivanka Trump is poised to become the most powerful woman in the world. Don t let her off the hook because she looks like she smells good. Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) December 23, 2016And, of course, Fox host Tucker Carlson took that tweet the wrong way.He accused Duca of supporting what the man did to Ivanka, but that s not what she said at all and let Carlson know it.Duca conceded that many of Ivanka Trump s qualities are admirable but the fact that she enable her racist sexist father despite appearing to be a feminist is concerning.Tucker Carlson was unable to grasp what Duca was calmly explaining to him. Apparently, she needed to speak more slowly.But the interview grew more contentious as Carlson acted smug and repeatedly tried to prevent Duca from speaking to defend herself, causing her to refer to him as a partisan hack. Carlson even repeatedly focused on Ivanka being accosted on the plane, which forced Duca to once again explain to Carlson that she is firmly against yelling at people on planes.Once that issue was settled, Carlson moved on to mocking Duca for being a writer at Teen Vogue. That didn t go down so well for Carlson either.And once he finally stopped being an asshole about where Duca works, he attacked her for defending religious freedom, telling her that she should stick the thigh-high boots all while laughing at her before cutting her off before she could respond.Here s the video via YouTube.Seriously, Tucker Carlson was rude and out of line and he owes Duca an apology.But Duca responded later on Twitter..@TuckerCarlson is an enemy of rational discourse. In this fraught moment, his bully tactics are profoundly damaging, and achieve nothing. Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) December 24, 2016So not only did Duca completely OWN Carlson throughout the interview, Carlson embarrassed himself by acting like a douchebag.Featured image via screenshot

DRUNKS and EMPTY SEATS: Crooked Hillary Panders To Patrons At Florida Bar…Speaks To Empty Seats In Ft Lauderdale Baptist Church [VIDEO]The woman whose criminal investigation has been reopened by the FBI is speaking to a sparsely populated black church in Ft. Lauderdale Florida. We are only 9 days away from the election people and this woman still can barely fill a phone booth with legitimate supporters Hillary Clinton at mount olive baptist church Fort Lauderdale pic.twitter.com/czgRUBR9sn Amy Sherman (@AmySherman1) October 30, 2016Maybe the attendance was low because good Christian people probably have better things to do on a Sunday then go to church to listen to a sociopathic liar or maybe blacks just don t like being insulted by Hillary, like in this email released by Wikileaks.BOMBSHELL Racist Hillary Clinton Calls " Blacks, Muslims and Rom*** Never Do Wells " !!#PodestaEmails #TrumpTapes pic.twitter.com/7nJL2fZWjz STOCK MONSTER (@StockMonsterUSA) October 8, 2016Hillary Clinton has just arrived at New Mount Olive Baptist Church in Fort Lauderdale, FL for Sunday church service (of course) pic.twitter.com/McRUE3mCmR Liz Kreutz (@ABCLiz) October 30, 2016Her speech in church followed an early afternoon stop at a local bar where Hillary was drumming up support from drunks:https://twitter.com/NCSBM/status/792759839495639041

Thai government takes action against monk over anti-Muslim viewsBANGKOK (Reuters) - The Thai government said on Thursday it plans to take legal action against a radical Buddhist monk detained by police for posting anti-Islamic views on social media, and posing a threat to national security. Phra Maha Aphichat Punnajanto is based at a temple in Bangkok, but police detained him on Tuesday in southern Thailand, a region where Muslim separatist insurgents have been fighting for decades. A spokesman for Thailand s military-led government told Reuters that Aphichat had been warned in the past that his social media activities could spark religious conflict. His actions demean another religion and are considered inappropriate, Lieutenant General Sansern Kaewkamnerd said. The government now has to take legal action against him. The 31-year-old firebrand rose to prominence in 2015 when he urged Buddhists across the country to burn down a mosque as retribution for every monk killed in the insurgency. The outspoken monk has also been active in campaigning to make Buddhism a state religion of Thailand. Aphichat has voiced admiration for Ashin Wirathu, a monk in Myanmar well known for his anti-Muslim views, and sees his actions as a model for safeguarding Buddhism in Thailand. Police told Reuters that Aphichat was being detained at the Crime Suppression Division unit in Bangkok. Images appeared on social media on Wednesday evening showing Aphichat being disrobed in his temple. Thai Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan said on Thursday Aphichat had left his religious order voluntarily. Reuters was unable to reach Aphichat for comment. The Buddhist Association of Thailand issued a statement protesting the Aphichat s detention saying that it was disrespectful and breached personal rights. A monk from the same temple, who declined to be named, told Reuters that Aphichat had not breach any laws governing their order and he could not be defrocked.

Jenner uses women's restroom at Trump propertyCaitlyn Jenner posted a video on Wednesday (April 26) of herself using a women’s bathroom at Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s New York hotel. Published on her Facebook page, Jenner’s video shows her walking along the street, entering the Trump International Hotel and Tower and making her way to the restrooms. The video was spurred on by Trump, who, during an appearance on The Today Show last week, said in an interview that he would not care if Jenner used the women’s room at his properties. His comment came following the trending topic of so-called “bathroom bills,” like the one passed in North Carolina, which prohibits transgender people from using bathrooms consistent with their gender identity.

China foreign minister says wants to manage disputes with U.S.BEIJING (Reuters) - China wants dialogue with the new U.S. administration to manage disputes and promote bilateral relations, but only on the basis of respecting each other’s core interests, like the “one China” principle, China’s foreign minister said. U.S. President Donald Trump, who was inaugurated on Friday, upset Beijing before taking office by casting doubt on the “one China” principle, under which Washington acknowledges Beijing’s position of sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan. China views Taiwan as a wayward province, to be brought under its control by force if necessary. However, proudly democratic Taiwan has shown no interest in being ruled by Beijing. Speaking at a reception for the upcoming Chinese Lunar New Year, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the future direction of Sino-U.S. ties had “attracted attention”. “We are willing, on the basis of strictly abiding by the ‘one China’ principle and respect of each other’s core interests, to have dialogue with the new U.S. government,” Wang said, in comments posted on the ministry’s website late Tuesday. China is willing to “increase mutual trust, focus cooperation, manage and control disputes and promote the healthy development of China-U.S. relations, to bring even greater benefits to both peoples”, he added. Separately, state news agency Xinhua quoted Chinese ambassador to Washington, Cui Tiankai as saying that while the Trump administration has yet to formulate a China policy, the general trend of China-U.S. cooperation cannot be reversed as it is “the only right choice” for both. In any trade war, both countries would suffer, he added. “Currently, the world economy needs a strong engine to lead to stronger development and faster growth, it’s inescapable responsibility for China and the United States to do this, rather than heading toward a trade war,” Cui said. With Trump’s decision to quit the Transpacific Trade Partnership (TPP), Cui said China cannot take over the U.S. role as the global leader who makes trade rules. “I think this is a misleading notion, because international trade rules cannot be made by the United States or China alone, and rather, they should be made and implemented by all nations in the world,” Cui said.

In stinging attack, France's Macron says Poland isolating itself in EuropeVARNA, Bulgaria/WARSAW (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday Poland was isolating itself within the European Union and Polish citizens deserve better than a government at odds with the bloc s democratic values and economic reform plans. Macron said Warsaw, where a nationalist, eurosceptic government took office in 2015, was moving in the opposite direction to Europe on numerous issues and would not be able to dictate the path of Europe s future. Poland rejected the accusations, saying Macron was inexperienced and arrogant. Europe is a region created on the basis of values, a relationship with democracy and public freedoms which Poland is today in conflict with, Macron said in Bulgaria on the third leg of a trip to central and eastern Europe to generate support for his vision of a Europe that better protects its citizens. He described Poland s refusal to change its stance on a revision of the EU s directive on posted workers - cheap labor from eastern countries posted temporarily to more affluent western countries - as a mistake. Macron has said the practice leads to unfair competition. In no way will the decision by a country that has decided to isolate itself in the workings of Europe jeopardize the finding of an ambitious compromise, he said. In a scathing attack that could drag relations between western EU powers and the European Commission in Brussels on one side and Poland s Law and Justice Party (PiS) government on the other to a new low, he said the Polish people deserved better. Poland is not defining Europe s future today and nor will it define the Europe of tomorrow, Macron said at a joint press conference with Bulgarian President Rumen Radev in the Black Sea resort city of Varna. In response, Poland s Prime Minister Beata Szydlo said Macron, 39, a former investment banker elected in May as France s youngest president, lacked political experience and accused him of undermining the EU. I advise the president that he should be more conciliatory ... Perhaps his arrogant comments are a result of a lack of (political) experience, Szydlo said in a statement emailed to Reuters. I advise the president that he should focus on the affairs of his own country. Perhaps he may be able to achieve the same economic results and the same level of security for (French) citizens as those guaranteed by Poland. Her comments were an indirect reference to her government s insistence that it will not accept migrants from the Middle East, despite pressure from Brussels, because it believes they pose a threat to national security. France has been hit hard by deadly Islamist militant attacks in recent years. The Polish Foreign Ministry said in a statement it had urgently summoned the French charg d affaires to express the Polish government s indignation about the arrogant words of Macron. It quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Marek Magierowski as saying Poland expects that France will abandon language that is divisive and which damages the unity of the EU . Relations between Szydlo s Law and Justice (PiS) party and the French government deteriorated soon after it won election in late 2015. In October 2016, Poland abruptly canceled a nearly $4 billion military procurement deal with Airbus. Macron s election deepened the rift, with the French globalization advocate fanning worries in Warsaw that his vision of a multi-speed Europe would undermine Polish influence within the European Union. French officials have expressed concerns about Poland, and Hungary, drifting towards authoritarianism and said Macron would also make a defense of the rule of law and democratic principles one of the priorities of his mandate on the European stage. On his three-day tour Macron sought backing for his plans to tighten EU rules on the employment abroad of labor from low-pay nations. Poland strongly opposes this initiative. While posted workers comprise less than 1 percent of the EU work force, it is a political hot potato that has exacerbated the divide between the bloc s poor east and rich west for years. Macron managed to enlist the broad support of Czech Republic and Slovakia, and the lukewarm backing of Romania, all countries which fear being sidelined in a multi-speed EU, whereas Poland and Hungary remain defiant of what they see as an out-of-touch EU elite based in Brussels and Western capitals. Poland is at loggerheads with the European Commission, the Brussels-based EU executive, over issues ranging from its refusal to accept EU migrant relocation quotas to the ruling conservatives tightening grip on the judiciary and media. Macron shunned both Poland and Hungary on his trip through the region. He said he wanted Bulgaria - like Poland, Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia a former communist state that joined the EU much later than western counterparts - to be at the negotiating table on European integration. On the posted worker rules, Bulgaria s Radev said the EU needed to balance the interests of countries in the rich west and the poor east. It is important that changes are made in a way that unites rather than divides Europe, he said. Current EU rules allow workers to be posted from low-salary countries to other EU states on contracts that must guarantee the host country s minimum wage, but under which taxes and social charges are paid in the home nation. Poland and Hungary say increased restrictions on such contracts would flout the principles of the European single market and cost hundreds of thousands of jobs.

IT’S TIME TO STOP THE LIES! ARE YOU SICK AND TIRED OF THE FALSE “Hands Up Don’t Shoot” NARRATIVE?Only one journalist has made it his mission to set the record straight about what really happened in Ferguson, MO on the day that Michael Brown was shot by Officer Darren Wilson. Every American needs to know about this man who faux journalists fear. Phelim McAleer is not a household name in America but he should be. He s challenged Matt Damon, Susan Sarandon and Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon on the false narrative they were promoting about the dangers of fracking in America.Watch Phelim bravely confront Susan Sarandon, Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon here:Watch Phelim expose the truth about who was helping to fund Matt Damon s anti fracking movie:While America was fixated on Jodi Arias murder trial for the stabbing death of her boyfriend, Phelim McAleer was focused on another trial that was taking place simultaneously that involved the most prolific serial killer of our time, abortionist Dr. Kermit Gosnell. The mainstream media intentionally ignored the story of Kermit Gosnell because the truth about the crimes he committed would surely harm the reputation of the coveted abortion industry. Phelim, along with his wife Ann McElhinney and Magdalena Segieda raised over $2.2 million on Indiegogo that is being used to finance the production of a made for TV movie that will tell the true and horrific story of Kermit Gosnell.Phelim has bravely gone against the tide on so many issues the left has been either lying about or hiding for years. Because the mainstream media fears him however, it s likely you ve never even heard his name. Our goal is to change that.Phelim s latest project, Ferguson will be a live play that was written by journalist and documentary filmmaker Phelim McAleer and will be directed by Nick DeGruccio. Ferguson will run from April 26-29 at Los Angeles s Odyssey Theater. The reenactment of the controversial killing of Michael Brown on stage will allow Americans to actually view the facts based on the Grand Jury testimony. McAleer told the Washington Times: It s going to be a dramatized stage reading. Witnesses are going to describe what happened, just as they described it in the grand jury room. We re going to have cast at least 13 people, playing 20 different characters. The documents that accompany the testimony will be on a large screen. The audience will act as the jury and their votes will decide whether or not Ferguson officer Darren Wilson should have been indicted.YOU CAN HELP PHELIM MCALEER TELL THE TRUTH about what happened in Ferguson by contributing to the production of his play Ferguson by clicking here.FERGUSON will be the first dramatization of the controversial shooting that prompted public outcry and riots, with protesters claiming that white police officer Wilson shot black teenager Brown as he was surrendering with his hands up. Ferguson is certain to confound and frustrate the leftist mainstream media who believes they have already cemented the hands up don t shoot narrative in the minds of Americans, regardless of the facts. I want to bring the truth about what happened that day to the stage, explains McAleer, a celebrated journalist and filmmaker. I think audience members will be very surprised, even shocked, when they hear the clear and unaltered truth about the events that took place on Aug. 9, 2014. There are a lot of myths and half-truths circulating about the shooting. FERGUSON is a chance to dispel these once and for all. Because the subject matter is so controversial, McAleer is launching the play as an independent production financed by crowdfunding. I know people want the truth to be told, so now they can be part of that process by going to FergusonThePlay.com to help make that happen, he says.Helmed by multiple award-winning director Nick DeGruccio (The Laramie Project at both Laguna Playhouse and the Colony Theatre), FERGUSON will be staged as an evening of verbatim or truth theater, modeled on Tricycle Theatre s wildly popular Tribunal Plays series that has been a staple in London for over two decades. Verbatim theater is defined as a play constructed from the precise words spoken by people interviewed about a particular event or topic. In this case, the audience will hear unaltered witness testimony, exactly as the Ferguson grand jury heard it.Concludes McAleer, who covered numerous crime scenes and court cases while reporting on the troubles in Northern Ireland for The Irish News and UK SundayTimes, I ve always been fascinated with the truth and with reexamining facts once the controversy and grief have abated. That is what I want to bring to the stage with FERGUSON. McAleer is also a producer and director of documentaries, including FrackNation, about fracking ( meticulously researched provocative The New York Times; briskly paced [a] mischievous pic. Variety); Not Evil Just Wrong, examining the devastating consequences of global warming hysteria; and Mine Your Own Business, exploring campaigns by foreign environmentalists against large scale mining projects in the developing world, which the UK Guardian described as A Michael Moore-style documentary [that] casts the green movement as the influential villain of a worldwide campaign to block development and deny people the chance of jobs and a decent life. As a foreign correspondent with the Financial Times and The Economist, McAleer covered the post communist chaos in Eastern Europe, and he is a regular columnist for the New York Post. He has appeared on BBC, CNN and Fox News, among others.The provocative nature of McAleer s projects make traditional financing difficult. With FrackNation, McAleer bypassed traditional funding methods and instead turned to Kickstarter, a crowd-funding website. It was one of the most successful documentary campaigns in Kickstarter history: in just 60 days, 3,305 backers donated $212,265. His Indiegogo campaign for Gosnell was the site s most successful ever, with over 26,500 people contributing $2.25 million in 45 days. FERGUSON is also being financed through crowdfunding. For more information, or to make a contribution, go to FergusonThePlay.com.

Civil rights activists arrested protesting Trump's Attorney General pick(Reuters) - Police in Alabama arrested six civil rights activists staging a sit-in at Senator Jeff Sessions’ office on Tuesday to protest his nomination for U.S. Attorney General, criticizing his record on voting rights and race relations. Sessions, 70, has a history of controversial positions on race, immigration and criminal justice reform. Members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) had vowed to occupy Sessions’ Mobile, Alabama office until the conservative Republican lawmaker either withdrew as a candidate or they were arrested. In the end, Cornell Brooks, president and CEO of the NAACP, and Stephen Green, national director of the youth division of the NAACP, were among those arrested, according to a post on the Twitter page of the civil rights organization. The other four protesters arrested by police included Benard Simelton, president of the NAACP’s Alabama state conference, according to local news outlet AL.com. A spokesman for Mobile police could not be reached for comment late on Tuesday. The six protesters were charged with misdemeanor criminal trespassing, according to CNN. Brooks before his arrest had posted a photo on Twitter of protesters in suits occupying the senator’s Mobile office. “Senator Sessions has callously ignored the reality of voter suppression but zealously prosecuted innocent civil rights leaders on trumped-up charges of voter fraud,” Brooks said in a news release. A spokeswoman for Sessions called the NAACP’s criticisms “false portrayals.” “Jeff Sessions has dedicated his career to upholding the rule of law, ensuring public safety and prosecuting government corruption,” spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said in a statement. “Many African-American leaders who’ve known him for decades attest to this and have welcomed his nomination to be the next Attorney General.” President-elect Donald Trump in November named Sessions to lead the Justice Department and the FBI, and his history could come under scrutiny from fellow senators during a confirmation process. Sessions was a U.S. prosecutor in 1986 when he became only the second nominee in 50 years to be denied confirmation as a federal judge. This came after allegations that he made racist remarks, including testimony that he called an African-American prosecutor “boy,” an allegation Sessions denied. Sessions denied he was a racist and said at his hearing that groups such as the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union could be considered “un-American.” He also acknowledged calling the Voting Rights Act of 1965 “intrusive legislation.”

EU leaders proclaim European social standards to woo votersGOTHENBURG, Sweden (Reuters) - European Union leaders proclaimed a set of 20 social rights on Friday in an attempt to make the EU more appealing to voters and counter rising eurosceptic sentiment across the bloc. The set of social rights, supported by all EU governments and institutions, spells out what the EU believes are the foundations of fair and well-functioning modern labor markets and welfare systems. It encompasses principles ranging from equal access to jobs and fair working conditions and wages to social protection and unemployment benefits and training. Our Union has always been a social project at heart. It is more than just a single market, more than money, more than the euro. It is about our values and the way we want to live, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said. Today we assert our common values and commit ourselves to a set of 20 principles and rights. From the right to fair wages to the right to health care; from lifelong learning, a better work-life balance and gender equality to minimum income, he said. Recent elections in Germany, France, Austria and the Czech Republic, in which populist parties have performed well, have shown citizens have lost confidence in governments or in the European Union. There is certainly a need to respond, a senior EU official said. Britain s decision last year to leave the EU served as a wake-up call for the bloc and made it reflect on the way forward, including putting more emphasis on social policies. I think people believe there s been maybe an excessive focus in recent years on economic matters, banking, and we want to re-fire the engine of social Europe, advancing things like equality, workers rights, pension rights and other things, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said. Juncker and Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven will now produce a report that will allow leaders meeting again next month to see how the principles should be followed. Some eastern European countries are wary that the push for social rights could be used by some nations to undermine current rules that allow their citizens to work elsewhere in the EU at salaries lower than the local labor force. The proclaimed set of rights - known as the European Pillar of Social Rights - says everybody has the right to quality education throughout their lives and that men and women must have equal opportunities in all areas and be paid the same. The unemployed have the right to personalized, continuous and consistent support , while workers have the right to fair wages that provide a decent standard of living . Minimum wages should be ensured to satisfy the needs of workers and their families, the leaders agreed. While the rights would not be directly enforceable by the EU, except where they already exist in national laws and therefore subject to national courts, they establish a common EU standard and language for discussion of social issues. Trade unions and business associations backed the set of European social rights, saying a particular effort was needed to boost the employment chances of young people. We want Europe to continue to have the most highly developed social systems in the world, the business and trade union organizations said in a joint statement.

$110K STOLEN FROM ‘At Risk Kids’ Fund By DC City Council To Fund Obama’s Inaugural BallAren t the kids already suffering enough by being forced to eat Mooch s slop for lunch? Isn t it always all about the kids for the unions and Dem s? When the Washington D.C. City Council pleaded for $110,000 in funding for a program for at risk kids they cried that it was for the children. But not long after the money was given to the city, officials decided to use it to fund a big party for Obama s 2009 inaugural. Now one official has been sentenced for this theft.Former DC official Neil S. Rodgers was sentenced this week for the theft and six others have pled guilty in separate cases for the misappropriation of the funding.Neil S. Rodgers, a former D.C. government official, was sentenced Tuesday for his role in the misappropriation of $110,000 earmarked for D.C. s Children at Risk and Drug Prevention Fund to cover a deficit for the 51st State Inaugural Ball for President Obama s inauguration in 2009. Rodgers, found guilty of fraud in March, was sentenced to 36 days (served on weekends) plus two years of probation. Rodgers must also repay the entire $110,000 as restitution for his crime. In 2008, as arrangements were underway for inauguration celebrations, the Washington City Paper reported on former council member Harry Thomas Jr. s early plans for the 51st State Inaugural Ball, noting that there would have to be a plan to raise funds for the event, and security and cleanup concerns would also have to dealt with. Thomas says all that will be taken care of; he says he plans to seek private donations to cover the difference between the event s cost and the revenues raised by the $51 ticket cost. Donations, however, came up short. Justice Department officials described Rodgers s role in the misappropriation scheme in a Tuesday press release.Via: Right Wing News

PRESIDENT TRUMP SHOCKS PRESS CORP…Makes Unannounced Trip With Ivanka TrumpPresident Trump bolted from the White House Wednesday afternoon aboard Marine One to make a trip that was unannounced, and shocked the Press Corps but turns out it s be a very somber occasion. The President was with Ivanka Trump when he left, and reporters had no idea where he was going.The trip was not on Trump s public schedule. A small group of journalists traveled with Trump on the condition that the visit was not reported in advanceAbout 20 minutes after he lifted off in the chopper the White House revealed he was flying to Dover Air Force Base to greet the plane bringing back the remains of U.S. Navy Chief Special Warfare Operator William Ryan Owens.Chief Special Warfare Operator William Ryan Owens, a 36-year-old from Peoria, Illinois, was the first known U.S. combat casualty since Trump took office less than two weeks ago. Three other Americans were wounded in the operation, which was planned by former President Barack Obama s administration but approved by Trump.The White House says the ceremony will be held in private.

CITIZEN JOURNALIST Enters WH Press Room Yells Questions To Press…Liberals Have A Hissy Fit! [VIDEO]REAL journalism hit Washington today! One of our favorite citizen journalists went at the main stream media full force. The video below is what happens when you turn the tables on the press they freak out. They can t handle it. Notice how the reporters in the video below are a little shocked when the tables are turned and someone yells a question to them. You ll love the question too! This is a classic!WASHINGTON The journalist who scooped the establishment media and unmasked Susan Rice as a key figure in the Obama administration spying scandal turned the tables Monday and grilled White House reporters about how they are doing their jobs.Or not doing them As soon as Press Secretary Sean Spicer concluded his daily briefing and left the room, documentary filmmaker Mike Cernovich addressed reporters and loudly asked, Why will nobody here cover the violence against Trump supporters? A confused hush fell over the room as reporters, unaccustomed to being on the receiving end of shouted questions, tried to figure out what was going on.But Cernocivh immediately continued, And why won t you demand that leaders of the Democrats disavow the violence by Antifa the way you demanded Trump disavow violence from his supporters? He then answered his own question by telling the room: This has been completely covered up. You have no answer. Are you a journalist? asked April Ryan, White House correspondent and Washington bureau chief for American Urban Radio Networks. I am, madame. I am a reporter, I am a documentary filmmaker, he repliedAfter today's press briefing was compete, a journalist asked about political violence by the left. Real journalism, finally! pic.twitter.com/EjLuBk3dZR Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) May 1, 2017THEN THE ATTACKS CAME FROM THE ANGRY LEFTTHE TYPICAL NAME CALLING YOU D EXPECT FROM THE LEFT She must be one of Liz Warren s Nasty Women Read more: wnd

“THANK YOU BABY”…YES, FEMINISTS WILL GO NUTS: President Trump Uses Endearment To Refer to Kellyanne Conway In Thank You Speech [Video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LNyx_DWzzA

GENERATION GAP: China's one-child generation grows up(Reuters) - The Class of 2012 grew up with more than their parents or grandparents could dream of more food, more clothing, more comfort, more opportunities as China s economy surged during their childhood. They did not have to struggle like previous generations, or eat bitterness , giving them a generally positive outlook. Their lives have also been shaped by the one-child policy, which since the 1970s has aimed to control a swelling population. Here is what they think about the generation gap. Wu Qiong, who works in international settlements at a foreign bank: When I was getting to know this world, this world had already changed and become relatively developed. I have watched it get better and better, not just become OK or be re-built. I didn t see it being built, I saw it changing. "We really haven't eaten bitterness." Hu Ruixin, a computer technician, speaking of the optimism of his generation: I think this is related to the age of our generation. Our parents lived hard lives, but our generation are all only children so our lives are not bad. We should stay positive. Fu Shiwei, an assistant university teacher, who is confident about her generation s prospects when it takes up leadership roles in companies and across the country: One rather large difference is that I think my generation is braver than the previous one when making choices, and is more open minded. Zhang Yulin, a married video game designer: The pressure on our generation is fairly large. We are all only children , pretty much. The pressure of taking care of parents and the like is very big. The two of us need to support four parents. Housing prices are also extremely high now. As for work, competition is fierce. If I don t work hard, I will be knocked out. Zheng Yue, an interior designer: Only children are different in terms of their temperament. They only think of themselves. They don t have that caring-for-others state of mind, that sense of responsibility. This society is too shallow ... The so-called spiritual root now is money. With money many people have peace of mind, but it s not a spiritual root. Qi Jing, a township leader for the Communist Party Youth League, who grew up in Wuhan: When I had great pressure around the time of the college entrance exam, my mom would tell me stories about my dad s business. When he first came to Wuhan he had no one to lean on, five yuan in his pocket, and with no place to live, he slept in a park.

This GOP Debate Answer Exposes How Much The Right Hates Women (VIDEO)A strange answer offered by Governor Chris Christie during the Republican presidential debate showed how deeply hostile the conservative base is towards women.Asked to name one thing that the federal government does now that it should not do at all in order to cut spending so that the budget can be balanced, Christie made a strange reach and called for cutting off funding to Planned Parenthood.Christie was then pressed on whether he d cut anything bigger than that, since Planned Parenthood receives just $528 million annually; a miniscule sum compared with the kind of cuts needed to balance the budget. When you see thousands upon thousands upon thousands of children being murdered in the womb, I can t think of anything bigger than that, he said in response.The current budget deficit is a projected $474 billion. The funding for Planned Parenthood accounts for 0.11% of the deficit and an even smaller 0.01% of the $3.9 trillion budget for the country. Considering the women the organization helps, and their families, Christie should be praising the value taxpayers get for their spending on the organization.His follow-up response, designed to elicit sympathy from conservative Christian voters in Iowa, is even more ridiculous when you realize that Planned Parenthood is banned from spending any of its federal money on abortion services in the first place.Thanks to rules put in place by the right and kept there by Democrats, none of the abortion services can be funded with federal money, and Christie definitely knows this, he was just too busy pandering.But the answer and the positive reaction to it by voters at the debate, shows how deep-seated GOP animosity towards women s reproductive health is. They would cheer for a candidate vowing to eliminate a group supporting women s health, whose federal receipts are less than a rounding error on the balance sheet, all to satisfy their ongoing desire to control a woman s body.Featured image via YouTube

WATCH JOHN KERRY’S FEAR MONGERING ON IRAN DEAL SUPPORT: “Profound and damaging implications” if denied by CongressIf denied by Congress it would have profound implications for us It would be extraordinarily damaging . Is Kerry trying to say that if not for this deal with Iran we would be attacked by Iran?

Former Trump security aide was Russia blackmail risk: ex-U.S. officialWASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates said on Monday she warned the White House in January that then-national security adviser Michael Flynn had been compromised and could have been vulnerable to blackmail by Russia. Yates testified at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing that focused primarily on Flynn, and did not shed much light on other aspects of investigations of allegations that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. election and whether there was collusion between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Moscow. Yates repeatedly declined to discuss details of the investigation in a public forum. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who also testified, said he stood by past assertions that he had not seen evidence of such collusion but also declined to comment on classified matters. Yates briefly led the U.S. Justice Department until Trump fired her on Jan. 30 for declining to defend his travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries. She told White House counsel Don McGahn on Jan. 26, less than a week into Trump’s presidency, that Flynn had not been telling the truth about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to Washington. Making her first public statements about the issue, Yates said she feared Moscow could try to blackmail Flynn because it also knew he had not been truthful about conversations he had with Ambassador Sergei Kislyak about U.S. sanctions on Russia. Flynn, a retired general once seen as a potential Trump vice president, has emerged as a central figure in the Russian probes. Russia has repeatedly denied any meddling in the election and the Trump administration denies allegations of collusion with Russia. Yates told the hearing she had been concerned that “the national security adviser essentially could be blackmailed by the Russians.” “Logic would tell you that you don’t want the national security adviser to be in a position where the Russians have leverage over him,” she said. Trump, who continued to praise Flynn, waited 18 days after Yates’ warning before Flynn’s forced resignation for failing to disclose the content of his talks with Kislyak and then misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations. Several Democratic senators questioned Trump’s delay. Yates said that in her meetings, McGahn “demonstrated that he understood this was serious. .. If nothing was done, certainly that would be concerning.” During that section of the hearing, Clapper described as accurate a report in the Guardian newspaper that British intelligence officials became aware in late 2015 about suspicious interactions between Trump advisers and Russian agents, and that the information was passed on to U.S. intelligence agencies. “Yes, it is (accurate), and it’s also quite sensitive,” Clapper said. Yates was a holdover from the administration of President Barack Obama. Obama had warned Trump, then president-elect, not to give the post of national security adviser in his administration to Flynn just after the Republican’s surprise victory in the Nov. 8 election, a former Obama aide said. The warning, first reported by NBC News, came up during a discussion of White House personnel. White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters Obama had communicated concerns about Flynn. It “shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, given that General Flynn had worked for President Obama, was an outspoken critic of President Obama’s shortcomings,” Spicer said. Obama pushed Flynn out in 2014 from his job as director of the military’s Defense Intelligence Agency, or DIA. Congressional committees began investigating after U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered hacking of Democratic political groups to try to sway the election toward Trump. The main investigations are being conducted by congressional Intelligence Committees, although Democrats have clamored for a special prosecutor or independent committee. They argue that congressional committees are too partisan to conduct credible probes. After Monday’s hearing, Trump took to Twitter to bash the media and deny any collusion. “Director Clapper reiterated what everybody, including the fake media already knows- there is ‘no evidence’ of collusion w/ Russia and Trump,” he said. And in another tweet, the president seemed to denounce the hearings. “The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax, when will this taxpayer funded charade end?” he asked. FBI Director James Comey testified in the House on March 20 that the agency was investigating potential links between Trump associates and Moscow’s attempts to tilt the election. Trump had also used Twitter before the hearing to insinuate that Yates had leaked information on Flynn to the media. Yates and Clapper both swore under oath that they had never leaked classified information. Questioning on Monday often broke along party lines. Some Republicans veered away from Russia to focus on issues such as whether the Obama administration had improperly revealed the names of Trump associates contained in surveillance records. Senator John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, was one of a handful who grilled Yates about her objections to Trump’s travel ban. Trump fired Yates after she defied the White House on the travel ban, a policy that Trump said would help protect Americans from Islamist militants.

Look Out, Big Oil: ‘Job Creation’ No Longer An Argument As Solar Outpaces OilWhile jobs in the solar energy sector account for 39 percent of all world-wide energy employment (while oil accounts for 50 percent), Fortune magazine reports that for the first time in quite a while, there are more openings for solar jobs than oil.Think about that. While the world burns for the next barrel of oil, green energy jobs are outpacing the status quo dirty energy that pulled the United States into a massive war.As Fortune finds:This [trend] corresponds with a recent report by The Solar Foundation that highlighted the rapid growth of the U.S. clean energy sector. By the end of this year, the solar sector should have 240,000 workers under its wings, and currently employs around 77% more workers than the coal mining industry.So why is this happening? Well, since the price of oil has plunged by 60 percent in the last 18 months has caused the world s largest oil and gas companies to cut jobs at an alarming rate. BP has announced it will cut 9 percent of its workforce while Chevron says it will cut 10 percent.This comes as reports show that global investment in renewable energy, most of which has come from China and India, heavy polluters, was more than twice that of coal and gas combined from last year s numbers.Tara Sinclair, chief economist of Indeed, issued a warning to those in the energy industry: see out renewable jobs, not oil.The decline in oil prices has not just rocked that industry, but jobs linked to both fossil fuels and renewable energy. Whether or not solar overtakes oil on Indeed, energy workers would do well to position themselves for work in renewable fields such as solar, wind, and hydroelectricity.With Clinton s pledge to build 600 million more solar fields and a promise to rebuild ravaged coal country with renewable energy, the amount of green workers could surge within the next several years (should she win).Is the country, and the world, moving towards a greener economy? Hopefully, it does and will send a powerful and destructive industry packing.Featured image via Wikipedia

EU must retaliate if hurt by U.S. sanctions on Russia: German business groupBERLIN (Reuters) - Europe must be prepared to respond in kind if the United States’ proposed new sanctions against Russia end up hurting its companies, an influential German industry association said on Thursday. U.S. lawmakers reached an agreement on Wednesday paving the way for the U.S. Senate to pass a bill as early as this week to impose the new sanctions on Russia and bar President Donald Trump from easing them without Congress’ approval. The European Union fears the new U.S. restrictions could be an obstacle to its companies doing business with Russia and threaten the bloc’s energy supply lines, but the 28-country bloc is divided over how to respond. The head of the German Committee on East European Economic Relations said potential damage to European energy sector companies with business interests in Russia could justify counter-sanctions. “It’s the last thing we want, but we must keep the option open,” Michael Harms told a news conference in Berlin. “The sanctions they want against pipeline projects seem designed to boost U.S. energy exports to Europe, create U.S. jobs and strengthen U.S. foreign policy.” Unlike the United States, whose growing production of shale gas has slashed its reliance on energy imports, much of Central Europe depends on imports of Russian gas through a vast latticework of pipelines. “Imposing sanctions that hit a third party, namely Europe, and at the same time promoting the American economy with the slogan ‘buy American gas’ - that’s pretty striking,” said Kurt Bock, chief executive of Germans chemicals giant BASF , which drills for gas in Russia. The EU has imposed its own sanctions against Russia over its role in the Ukraine crisis, and Germany has taken a particularly tough stance towards Moscow. Last week Reuters reported that Germany was urging Brussels to add four more Russian nationals and companies to its blacklist over Siemens gas turbines delivered to Ukraine’s Crimea region, annexed by Moscow in 2014. German economy minister Brigitte Zyries complained on Thursday that Washington had abandoned the “common line” it has maintained with Europe over Russia. But despite the EU sanctions and Europe’s criticism of Moscow on other fronts as well as Ukraine - including allegations that Russian spies are meddling in Western elections - Russia remains a crucial business partner for Germany. On Thursday, the Committee raised to 20 percent its forecast for growth in German exports to Russia in 2017, compared to 10 percent in its previous forecast.

Pentagon's Mattis again seeks to reassure U.S. alliesWASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Jim Mattis travels to the Middle East and eastern Europe next week to play the increasingly familiar role of reassuring allies that the United States is committed to them despite mixed messages from President Donald Trump. Mattis will visit Jordan, Turkey, and Ukraine to address concerns about the fight against Islamic State and give a message that Washington will not tolerate Russia’s annexation of eastern Ukraine. The informal portfolio of soothing traditional U.S. friends upset by Trump’s often sharp comments and tweets on foreign policy is one that the retired Marine general is becoming used to. “There is no-one in the administration, maybe with the exception of Vice President Mike Pence, that has to shoulder the responsibility of Trump’s rhetoric more than Mattis,” said Joshua Walker, a former U.S. diplomat and current fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a think tank. Earlier this month, Trump said that a U.S. military option was being considered for Venezuela as the country is torn by political and economic upheaval. Within a few hours, the Pentagon publicly announced that it had not received any orders on Venezuela, lowering the temperature slightly. Mattis, along with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, sent a conciliatory message to North Korea last weekend in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal after Trump had threatened “fire and fury” if Pyongyang tried to attack the United States. The two officials wrote that the United States “has no interest in regime change or accelerated reunification of Korea,” addressing some of North Korea’s fears that Washington ultimately intends to replace its leadership. “It is certainly true that to some extent if you look at both Mattis and Tillerson, who travel a lot, they are both explainers and people who both manage to moderate and reassure,” said Anthony Cordesman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. Mattis served as the head of U.S. military’s Central Command from 2010 to 2013, and foreign leaders, especially in the Middle East, trust him, said Cordesman. On a trip to Iraq earlier this year, Mattis grabbed headlines when he said the U.S. military was not there to “seize anybody’s oil.” That was an attempt to calm Iraqi worries after Trump had told CIA staff in January, when referring to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003: “We should have kept the oil. But okay. Maybe you’ll have another chance.” Trump has also upset NATO allies by demanding they increase their defense spending and by seeking better relations with Russia. “I do think that Secretary Mattis finds himself spending time, putting President Trump’s statements into a broader context... in some cases that does mean defining them more narrowly, or more precisely as to what they mean,” Christine Wormuth, a former number three at the Pentagon, said. On the trip that starts this weekend, Mattis will make the first visit to Ukraine by a U.S. secretary of defense since 2007. He will try to reassure Kiev that the United States remains committed to restoring Ukraine’s sovereignty after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. Questions were raised when Tillerson said in June that the Trump administration did not wish to be “handcuffed” by the 2015 Minsk accord to end fighting in Ukraine. That agreement, signed by Russia and Ukraine, calls for a ceasefire, the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the front line and constitutional reform to give eastern Ukraine more autonomy. While it is not a close U.S. ally, Ukraine has counted on American support against Russia since a pro-Western government took power following street protests in 2014 that ousted a Kremlin-backed president. Trump’s comments during the election campaign last year, from praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin to appearing to recognize Crimea as part of Russia and contemplating an end to U.S. sanctions on Moscow, stoked fears in Kiev that Trump would mend ties with Russia at Ukraine’s expense. The Pentagon is awaiting White House approval for a proposal to send “defensive” weapons to Ukraine, including anti-tank missiles, a U.S. official said. Michael Carpenter, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the region, said the trip would be important because it would send a signal to Kiev that the United States remained committed and the approval of the lethal weapons would be a tangible sign of that. “Mattis believes that this is a security issue that goes beyond Europe, that this is about international norms, sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Carpenter said. The Pentagon says Mattis will also emphasize the commitment of the United States to Turkey and help Ankara “address its legitimate security concerns- including the fight against the (Kurdistan Workers Party).” However, Mattis will have to address a number of differences, including the Pentagon’s decision to arm Kurdish YPG fighters to support an operation to retake the Syrian city of Raqqa from Islamic State. Ankara views the YPG, fighting within a larger U.S.-backed coalition, as the Syrian extension of the Kurdish PKK militant group, which it is fighting in southeastern Turkey.

Bernie Sanders Goes After Trump’s Tax Scam, Trump PISSED (TWEETS)Just because Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is no longer in the presidential race does not mean he s stopped going after Republican nominee Donald Trump.Since his campaign ended, Sanders has been a major supporter of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, and has been urging his massive following to get behind the former Secretary of State. But that s not all he s doing to save America from Trump Sanders recently announced his plan to introduce legislation that will make it impossible for Trump continue to take advantage of tax loopholes.Trump s taxes have been a major topic throughout this entire campaign, as the business mogul continues to hold them hostage from the American people. However, the truth has been coming out little by little. Recent reports have stated that in 1995, Trump claimed a loss of almost one billion dollars on his tax returns, which may have enabled him to use legal tax loopholes to avoid paying federal income tax for 18 years! On Tuesday, Sanders said he would put an end to this: Special tax breaks and loopholes in a corrupt tax code enable billionaires and powerful corporations to avoid paying their fair share of taxes while sticking the burden on the middle class. It s time to create a tax system which is fair and which asks the wealthy and powerful to start paying their fair share of taxes.I will be introducing comprehensive legislation at the beginning of the next session of Congress to do just that. TwitterTwitterSanders believes his legislation will take care of the following loopholes that have been taken advantage of by people like Trump:For Trump, who bragged about how smart he was for not paying any taxes during the first presidential debate last week, this will be devastating.Featured image via Drew Angerer and David McNew / Getty Images

Trump Is HOPING People Won’t See This Video That PROVES He’s Lying About Voter FraudCNN talked to the man who conducted the study Donald Trump cited as proof that 3 million people voted illegally in the 2016 Election and Trump will not like what he said.During an interview with Wolf Blitzer, political science professor Brian Schaffner absolutely shattered Trump s claim that he only lost the popular vote because over 3 million people voted illegally.Trump s claim has been debunked multiple times and even many Republicans are embarrassed by it enough that they are begging him to stop repeating such a blatant lie.Blitzer asked Schaffner about the data his team collected in a 2014 study which found that 14 percent of non-citizens said they were eligible to vote. Schaffner has since called the study unreliable because his team went back to talk to the participants and found that none of them actually voted. As it turns out, they merely clicked the wrong button when answering the question.SCHAFFNER: Well, what the authors did was essentially use a question on our survey that asked people whether or not they were a citizen. What we did was actually go back and ask those people again whether or not they were a citizen, and a lot of people had just basically erroneously clicked on the wrong button, and the people who we could actually confirm were actually noncitizens, they were basically no voters among that group.BLITZER: Either so, what you re saying, that no non-citizens voted as far as your study, your data was concerned, in those elections?SCHAFFNER: That s right. We could find of the people who we were sure were noncitizens, we could not find any who had actually cast a vote.So Trump is literally citing an unreliable study as evidence of his claims, something that Schaffner finds absolutely frustrating. It s very frustrating, Schaffner said. The data certainly do not show that. We published a study basically showing that the study that the data that uses our data to say that, is wrong. That study has been widely cited by news outlets to basically say what the administration is saying is false.And the notion that millions of people could vote illegally and no one would have any data to be able to show this is the case is just absurd. It s absurd that millions of people, millions of noncitizens, would have voted in 2016. It s just it s just not even plausible. Schaffner went on to concede that a handful of non-citizens may have voted in the election, but the scale of voter fraud Donald Trump is talking about is impossible.Here s the video via Media Matters.Indeed, Trump claimed that massive voter fraud was being committed during the campaign, only to be refuted by Ohio s Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted. Our institutions, like our election system, is one of the bedrocks of American democracy, Husted said in October. We should not question it or the legitimacy of it. It works very well. The idea of widespread voter fraud would require some systemic problem in our system, and so if there s a systemic problem, please identify it. Don t just make an allegation on Twitter. Tell me, tell the secretaries of state around the country what the problem is so that we can fix it. But right now we re not aware of any systemic problems in our voting system. Are there cases of voter fraud? Absolutely, there are cases of voter fraud. But it s rare, and we catch these people. Most times we catch them before their vote is even counted. And that goes for every state across the nation. Trump should be embarrassed and ashamed. And if he really thinks our election was rigged then we should hold a brand new election immediately and give him something to really cry about when the American people reject him.Featured Image: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

South Africa's Zuma appoints permanent police commissionerJOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African President Jacob Zuma appointed General Khehla Sitole as national police commissioner on Wednesday, filling the position on a permanent basis for the first time in nearly three years. South Africa has been without a permanent head of police since Zuma suspended Riah Phiyega in 2015 pending an investigation into her role in the killing of 34 platinum miners by officers during a violent strike over pay in 2012. South Africa has one of the highest murder rates in the world, while burglary and car theft are common. Tackling violent crime is a top political priority for much of the public. Zuma has been criticized by opposition parties and civil society for previously appointing civilians rather career police officers to the top posts in the service. Sitole had grown through the ranks of the police having joined the service as a constable until his promotion as a Lieutenant General in 2011, Zuma s office said in a statement. General Sitole brings a wealth of operational as well as management experience to the SA Police Service. Zuma appointed his third police minister in under three years in March, drawing further criticism that he has failed to build a stable team to tackle crime.

Donald Trump Vows To Start His Administration With A Vacation; The Internet ERUPTSWhile Donald Trump officially assumes the office of President on Friday, he says he ll be leaving the Oval Office chair empty until Monday. According to Trump, he ll spend the weekend partying instead of presidenting.In an interview with the Times of London, Trump said, One of the first orders I m gonna sign day one which I will consider to be Monday as opposed to Friday or Saturday. Right? I mean my day one is gonna be Monday because I don t want to be signing and get it mixed up with lots of celebration, but one of the first orders we re gonna be signing is gonna be strong borders. Note, this is the same man who once said about President Obama, It was reported today he played 250 rounds of golf and he s going to be in Hawaii, I think did they say for three weeks? Trump said. Two hundred and fifty rounds, that s more than a guy who plays in the PGA Tour plays. He played more golf last year than Tiger Woods. We don t have time for this. We have to work. While 250 rounds might sound like a lot, over eight years, that amounts to less than one round every 10 days. Historically, though, 250 rounds is a tiny blip. Woodrow Wilson played nearly 1,200 rounds during his administration and George W. Bush had Obama beat in vacation time.Trump s announcement probably won t sit well with his sycophants whose hopes hung on the 21 things he promised he d do on day one. Day three, day four, what s one more day for the leader of the free world?The internet, of course, exploded:The same people who spent 8 years counting POTUS every round of golf now have no problem w/ Trump taking his FIRST weekend off. Amazing. April (@ReignOfApril) January 17, 2017He told us months ago he plans to go home for the weekends.. of course he s taking his first weekend off. https://t.co/0GZPOOp0FS The Anti-Trump (@IMPL0RABLE) January 17, 2017Leave it to Trump to kick off MLK weekend by attacking civil rights icon John Lewis, reminding us what the orange face of hate looks like. Bill Madden (@activist360) January 14, 2017Somebody needs to tell the Idiot in Chief that the presidency isn t a part time job. #notmypresident #TheResistance https://t.co/yx2T8kIQKg America s Idiot (@_AmericasIdiot) January 17, 2017In fairness, everything won t get *really* bad until Monday because Trump said he s taking the weekend off. Not even joking. https://t.co/xmCug6ADvV Matt Novak (@paleofuture) January 17, 2017Trump is taking the weekend off.I suppose he ll need time to heal once the Bible bursts into flame after places his hand on it.#resist Steve Marmel (@Marmel) January 17, 2017After inauguration on Friday, Trump to take weekend off for celebrations and pony rides and face painting. https://t.co/FmXGEzjcwG Writer in Residence (@MikeCullen73) January 17, 2017Trump really think he gets the weekend off? Someone please explain to him its not that type of gig https://t.co/6NFYZWbG3B Insanul Ahmed (@Incilin) January 17, 2017Of course, there is no explaining anything to Trump. He plans to make the Office of the President whatever he wants it to be, no matter how bad it is for the American people.Featured image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images

BUSTED! DEM TX REP PLAYS RACE CARD, LIES ABOUT TREATMENT BY COP…Uncovered Dash Cam Shows Truth [VIDEO]The race card thing is getting old fast The Austin County Sheriff s Office released the dash camera video of a July 14 traffic stop of State Representative Garnet Coleman Tuesday to refute claims Coleman made last week about being disrespected and treated like a child. Coleman, as the chair of the Committee on County Affairs, held a hearing last Thursday in Austin as the first public inquiry into the arrest and death of Sandra Bland in Waller County. In that hearing, Coleman recounted his own history of being pulled over in traffic stops and gave this account of an I-10 traffic stop that happened just two weeks ago. He talked to me like I was a child, he said of the sheriff s deputy who pulled him over for speeding. He was so rude and nasty. Even when he found out I was a legislator, he became more rude and nasty. And I didn t understand why this guy was continuing to go on and on and treat me like a child. And basically like I m saying is treat me like a boy. I want to be very clear about that, Coleman said in the committee hearing. Via: Breaking 911KHOU The Texas Municipal Police Association, the Harris County Deputies Organization, the Houston Police Officers Union and the Dallas Police Union all issued demands for Coleman to apologize for his fabrication of the events in the traffic stop. Sheriff Brandes asked Coleman to apologize for his remarks about the sheriff s deputy. Instead, Coleman seemed to double down on the race card boy word. They may not have [thought it was rude], Coleman told KHOU. But they weren t sitting in my seat. And, if you know the history of my people, you know that being treated like a child or a boy is not something that we accept very well. The Houston Police Officers Union (HPOU) issued a strong rebuke to Coleman. Our organization has supported Representative Coleman during his tenure in the Texas Legislature, however, since Representative Coleman refuses to own up to the fact that his statements in committee regarding the stop were in fact not true and completely out of line, we have no choice but to discontinue our support of him. Via: Weasel Zippers Black Democratic Texas State Rep Claims Mistreatment By Police During Traffic Stop, Video Shows Anything But

Turkish security forces kill five Kurdish militants in southwestern Turkey: NTVANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish security forces killed five Kurdish militants in the southwestern province of Mugla on Thursday, broadcaster NTV said, marking a rare clash in an Aegean coastal region popular with foreign tourists. Security forces carried out an operation against a group of seven militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Mugla s Koycegiz district, NTV said. Two of the militants were still being sought, it said. On Wednesday, security forces captured four Kurdish militants and three others helping them near Mugla s Seydikemer district, NTV said. Mugla is the site of major tourist destinations, including Bodrum and Marmaris on Turkey s southwest coast. Nearly all of the fighting with the PKK happens in the mainly Kurdish southeast on the opposite side of the country. On Wednesday Mugla hosted the highest profile case related to last year s abortive putsch, in which the court found 42 former soldiers guilty of trying to kill President Tayyip Erdogan. It was not immediately clear if the militants presence in Mugla was related to that case. The autonomy-seeking PKK, considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state. More than 40,000 people have died in the conflict.

BOILER ROOM – EP #48 – Agenda 2030 and Beyond with Branko Malić, Patrick Henningsen & Mike RobinsonTune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room starting at 6 PM PST | 9 PM EST every Wednesday. Join us for uncensored, uninterruptible talk radio, custom-made for barfly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher, & Spore along with Branko Mali of Kali Tribune, Mike Robinson from UK Column and Patrick Henningsen of 21stcenturywire. In this broadcast listeners will be hearing us go around the BOILER ROOM on the encroaching UN Agenda 2030, the European migrant crisis, the US political climate and a variety of other topics on this special edition of THE BOILER ROOM. If you want to participate, bring something interesting to throw into the boiler Join us in the ALTERNATE CURRENT RADIO chat room.BOILER ROOM IS NOT A POLICTALLY CORRECT ZONE! LISTEN TO THE SHOW IN THE PLAYER BELOW ENJOY! REFERENCE LINKS:

Boiler Room EP #111 – Build-a-World-Order-BurgerTune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room tonight 6:00 PM PST | 8:00 PM CST | 9:00 PM EST for this special broadcast. Join us for uncensored, uninterruptible talk radio, custom-made for bar fly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher and Spore along with Jay Dyer from Jays Analysis, Randy J (21WIRE & ACR contributor), Andy Nowicki of Alt-Right Novelist and Basil Valentine (21WIRE & ACR contributor) for the hundred and eleventh episode of BOILER ROOM. Turn it up, tune in and hang with the ACR Brain-Trust for this weeks boil downs and analysis and the usual gnashing of the teeth of the political animals in the social reject club.This week on the show we re talking about Builderberg 2017, Zbigniew Brzezinski s role in social engineering, Feminists galloping around Stockholm as horses (in protest of we re not really sure what) and breaking news of the death of Noriega.Direct Download Episode #111Please like and share the program and visit our donate page to get involved! Reference Links:

WHY COLLEGE GRADS CAN’T GET JOBS: List Of Most Ridiculous Courses At Some Of America’s Most Elite (Expensive) CollegesThis is why American kids who are graduating from schools where tuition is over $60,000 per year can t find a job America s elite colleges offer plenty of ridiculous courses. Many are taught by hilariously leftist professors straight out of central casting. Other classes transcend politics and exist on their own fabulous plane of stupidity. Many of them cost a ton of money.For The Daily Caller s list of pathetic college classes for 2015, the course descriptions are reprinted here exactly as they appear in the colleges course manuals.Cornell University, Physical Education: Tree Climbing. Whether you are a rain forest canopy researcher, an arborist, or just a kid at heart, everyone loves to climb trees. Recall the excitement and your sense of adventure when you first crawled into the branches to look inside a bird s nest. Then you swung from limb to limb without a thought of ropes and harnesses. But what about that big tree down the street you always wanted to climb, but couldn t reach the first branch? Cornell Outdoor Education s Tree Climbing course will teach you how to get up into the canopy of any tree, to move around, even to climb from one tree to another without touching the ground. This course will teach you how to use ropes and technical climbing gear to reach the top of any tree, to move around, and even to climb from tree to tree without returning to the ground. All equipment is included in the course fee. Total cost for a year at Cornell: $64,164.Brown University, English: On Being Bored. This course explores texts/films that represent and formally express states of non-productivity or non-desire. Beginning with the Enlightenment and romantic periods, we will reflect on narratives with neither progress nor plot, characters that resist characterization, and poems that deny assertion and revelation. Authors include: Kleist, Kant, Rousseau, Coleridge, de Quincey, Keats, Blanchot, Levinas, Beckett, Ashbery, Schuyler. Total cost for a year at Brown: $65,380.University of Pennsylvania, English: Wasting Time On The Internet. We spend our lives in front of screens, mostly wasting time: checking social media, watching cat videos, chatting, and shopping. What if these activities clicking, SMSing, status-updating, and random surfing were used as raw material for creating compelling and emotional works of literature? Could we reconstruct our autobiography using only Facebook? Could we write a great novella by plundering our Twitter feed? Could we reframe the internet as the greatest poem ever written? Using our laptops and a wifi connection as our only materials, this class will focus on the alchemical recuperation of aimless surfing into substantial works of literature. Students will be required to stare at the screen for three hours, only interacting through chat rooms, bots, social media and listservs. To bolster our practice, we ll explore the long history of the recuperation of boredom and time-wasting through critical texts about affect theory, ASMR, situationism and everyday life by thinkers such as Guy Debord, Mary Kelly Erving Goffman, Betty Friedan, Raymond Williams, John Cage, Georges Perec, Michel de Certeau, Henri Lefevbre, Trin Minh-ha, Stuart Hall, Sianne Ngai, Siegfried Kracauer and others. Distraction, multi-tasking, and aimless drifting is mandatory. Total cost for a year at Penn: $66,800.Oberlin College, Contemporary American Studies: How to Win a Beauty Pageant: Race, Gender, Culture, and U.S. National Identity. This course examines US beauty pageants from the 1920s to the present. Our aim will be to analyze pageantry as a unique site for the interplay of race,gender, class, sexuality, and nation. We will learn about cultural studies methodology, including close reading, cultural history, critical discourse analysis, and ethnography, and use those methods to understand the changing identity of the US over time. This course includes a field visit to a pageant in Ohio. Total cost for a year at Oberlin: $66,174.Occidental College, Critical Theory & Social Justice: Stupidity. Stupidity is neither ignorance nor organicity, but rather, a corollary of knowing and an element of normalcy, the double of intelligence rather than its opposite. It is an artifact of our nature as finite beings and one of the most powerful determinants of human destiny. Stupidity is always the name of the Other, and it is the sign of the feminine. This course in Critical Psychology follows the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, Gilles Deleuze, and most recently, Avital Ronell, in a philosophical examination of those operations and technologies that we conduct in order to render ourselves uncomprehending. Stupidity, which has been evicted from the philosophical premises and dumbed down by psychometric psychology, has returned in the postmodern discourse against Nation, Self, and Truth and makes itself felt in political life ranging from the presidency to Beavis and Butthead. Total cost for a year at Occidental: $63,194.Pitzer College, Asian American Studies: Tattoos, Piercing, and Body Adornment. This course Introduces students to various body modification practices, with particular focus on regional developments in Asia, Pacific, and America. Key issues include: identity and community formation, agency, power, and social control; colonialism and post-colonialism; cultural property and appropriation; global circulations of bodies, aesthetics, and labor. Total cost for a year at Pitzer: $63,880.Rutgers University New Brunswick, Women s and Gender Studies: Women, Culture, and Society: Pop Culture Politics. In this class we will analyze mainstream U.S. media and discuss everything Pop Culture from memes to advertising, music videos, TV shows, news, sports and reality TV: What are we being told to believe? We will talk about ideas as trivialized (and political) as sex, love, war and freedom; and we will explore how the field of gender studies can transform our understandings of knowledge, power, history and -ultimately- what we ve come to call society. Yup! You guessed it. This will not be your everyday class. There will be no papers and no final, so active participation is key. We will read a little and watch lots of media for example, check out Beyonc s awesome video Grown Woman, AXE s 2014 Super Bowl Commercial, and Shit Girls Say to inquire what it means to stop for a minute, look around, and ask why. Total cost for a year at Rutgers for New Jersey residents: $29,875.Georgia State University, English: Kanye Versus Everbody! [sic] Kanye West has been talking your head off. Over the past several years especially, the variously prolific rapper has been waxing poetic, making a series of public proclamations and postulations regarding aspects of his own aesthetic genius and the plight of the black creative mind today all while tussling with paparazzi (literally and figuratively) in an effort to be accurately understood. The designer and defender of his own celebrity, Kanye expresses an intellectual stance and an extreme sense of agency that arguably exemplify the critical perspective of our latest generation of public thinkers. But where does this conversation about cultural production and artistic temperament actually begin? And where is the discourse heading? Total cost for a year at Georgia State for Georgia residents: $24,448.University of Iowa, American Studies: The American Vacation. Vacations are more serious events than you might think. One hundred years ago a vacation might have been beyond your grasp now we take them for granted. Explore Coney Island, Atlantic City, Lake Okoboji, Yellowstone, Disney World and more. Total cost for a year at Georgia State for Iowa residents: $21,010.Skidmore College, Sociology: The Sociology of Miley Cyrus: Race, Class, Gender, and Media (Summer 2014). From Disney tween to twerking machine, Miley Cyrus has grown up in the public eye, trying on and discarding very different identities onscreen and off. She provides rich examples for analyzing aspects of intersectional identities and media representation, including: The rise of the Disney Princess; gender stratification and the hyper-commodification of childhood; transitions to Disney stars as they age (see Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and more); Allies and appropriation; uses of culture across race, class, and gender; bisexuality, queerness and the female body. Ongoing media frenzy focused on Miley Cyrus s public image, music and body highlights the ways in which intersectional identities are shaped by pop culture and mass media. In this special topics course, we will explore core issues of intersectionality theory, looking at race, class, and gender, as well as issues of taking feminist critique of media, using Miley as a lens though which to explore sociological thinking about identity entertainment, media, and fame. Total cost for a year at Skidmore: $62,042.And of course, no college experience would be complete without exploring the benefits of having an abortion:University of California, San Francisco, Online course: Abortion: Quality Care and Public Health Implications. In this six-week course, over twenty faculty from various institutions and multiple disciplines will place abortion within the context of public health and fill in the gaps left by its exclusion from mainstream curricula in health professions. Each week s lectures will incorporate the stories of women who seek abortion in order to better portray abortion significance and rationale. Other topics will include a brief history of abortion, the clinical aspects of medication and procedural abortions in and after the first trimester, an overview of patient-centered abortion-care, the basics of abortion counseling, the professional obligations of health care practitioners to ensure that women have access to safe abortion care, and the maze of restrictions that make safe abortion care inaccessible to many women. In addition to video lectures, there will be weekly quizzes, peer assessments, and optional additional content and reading for learners who want to explore the topic further. This course is an online course from Coursera.For entire list: Daily Caller

Yale Psychiatrists Issue DIRE Warning Of The Dangers Of Allowing Trump To Continue As POTUS (DETAILS)Donald Trump is not fit to be president. Most of the nation knows this. However, psychiatrists at Yale University actual experts have a warning for the United States Congress and the nation and world at large: Trump is mentally ill, and dangerously so.At a conference at the esteemed university, expressing this professional opinion was seen as a duty by this group of psychiatrists. They have described Trump as paranoid and delusional, and that their statements were to warn of the dangers of allowing Trump to continue to sit in the Oval Office. Dr. John Gartner, who spoke during the gathering at the School of Medicine at Yale, declared of Trump: We have an ethical responsibility to warn the public about Donald Trump s dangerous mental illness. Dr. Gartner is a member of a newly-formed organization of mental health experts called Duty to Warn. Their sole purpose is to convince as many people as possible that Donald Trump is mentally ill and must be removed from office before he does something truly dangerous to the nation and the world. Dr. Garten used Trump s ravings about his crowd sizes at his inauguration as just one piece of proof that he is too crazy to lead. He said of those statements: Worse than just being a liar or a narcissist, in addition he is paranoid, delusional and grandiose thinking and he proved that to the country the first day he was President. If Donald Trump really believes he had the largest crowd size in history, that s delusional. Dr. Bandy Lee, who teaches in the psychiatry department at Yale and headed up the conference where these statements were made, said of Trump: As some prominent psychiatrists have noted, [Trump s mental health] is the elephant in the room. I think the public is really starting to catch on and widely talk about this now. New York University psychiatrist James Gilligan had an even darker image of Trump to portray to the American people: I ve worked with some of the most dangerous people our society produces, directing mental health programs in prisons. I ve worked with murderers and rapists. I can recognize dangerousness from a mile away. You don t have to be an expert on dangerousness or spend fifty years studying it like I have in order to know how dangerous this man is. These are people who know what they are talking about. Sure, they may be violating the so-called Goldwater Rule meaning the unofficial rule that mental health professionals should not diagnose political figures in public but they know what they see, and they must see something that is enough of a threat to the nation and world to speak out.Dr. Gartner has actually started a petition on the internet specifically for mental health professionals that requests that Congress exercise their Article I powers to get Trump out of the White House. It says: We, the undersigned mental health professionals (please state your degree), believe in our professional judgment that Donald Trump manifests a serious mental illness that renders him psychologically incapable of competently discharging the duties of President of the United States. And we respectfully request he be removed from office, according to article 4 of the 25th amendment to the Constitution, which states that the president will be replaced if he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office . Hopefully, someone with the sense to listen to these people does something about Trump before it is too late.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

First Time in 30 Years: US Deploys B-52 Bombers to Qatar to bomb… ISIS?21st Century Wire says Is Washington preparing to carpet bomb Raqqa? If so, what will be the trigger for this boldly adroit military maneuver to deploy B-52 Bombers to the Middle East?Back in Dec 2015, GOP contender Ted Cruz vowed he would carpet bomb ISIS if elected president (and to hell with any collateral damage). He recently repeated that call on FOX network s Kelly File show. If I am elected president, we will defeat radical Islamic terrorism, and we will utterly destroy ISIS, he said. And yes that means carpet bombing them into oblivion. But it s not Cruz ramping up the Pentagon s military footprint it s Barack Obama who is the international aggressor, but he s leading from behind safely in the background in order to preserve his party s fast-diminishing dovish allure in a delicate election year.Regardless, the U.S. are desperate to save face in the Middle East after 5 years of failed policy and arming terrorists in Syria and northern Iraq while acting as if they were forming a Coalition to defeat the terrorists a totally fraudulent narrative (yes, you read that correctly, and the evidence is now in).Is this a sign of thing to come..?In a conventional conflict, the B-52 can perform air interdiction, offensive counter-air and maritime operations. During Desert Storm, B-52s delivered 40 percent of all the weapons dropped by coalition forces. It is highly effective when used for ocean surveillance, and can assist the U.S. Navy in anti-ship and mine-laying operations. Two B-52s, in two hours, can monitor 140,000 square miles (364,000 square kilometers) of ocean surface. All B-52s are equipped with an electro-optical viewing system that uses platinum silicide forward-looking infrared and high resolution low-light-level television sensors to augment the targeting, battle assessment, flight safety and terrain-avoidance system, thus further improving its combat ability and low-level flight capability. (U.S. Air Force photo) RTAmerican B-52 Stratofortress bombers have been sent for their first Middle East operational deployment since the 1991 Gulf War 26 years ago. The aircraft are flying from Qatar to bomb Islamic State targets.An undisclosed number of B-52s have arrived at the Al Udeid Air Base on Sunday, the US Air Force said. The B-52 will provide the coalition continued precision and deliver desired airpower effects, Lt. Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., commander, US Air Forces Central Command said in the statement.The B-52 is a long-range multi-purpose heavy bomber. The Central Command last used them during Operation Desert Storm against Saddam Hussein s Iraq, when the aircraft flew sorties from Saudi Arabia.The deployment is meant to replace a contingent of B-1 Lancer swing-wing bombers which departed the Middle East in January for maintenance and a series of upgrades, the US Army s Stars and Stripes reported. The B-52 demonstrates our continued resolve to apply persistent pressure on Daesh and defend the region in any future contingency, Brown said, referring to Islamic State by its Arabic-language acronym.The deployment comes shortly after Russia used its long-range Tupolev Tu-22, Tu-95 and Tu-160 bombers to strike terrorist targets in Syria. The Russian aircraft flew from their home bases over the Caspian Sea, Iran and Iraq to reach the Syrian territory.READ MORE PENTAGON NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Pentagon Files

WATCH: Ben Carson’s Excuse For Violence Of Trump Campaign STUNS CNN HostsWhen Dr. Ben Carson was in the race for the Republican nomination, Donald Trump unleashed a barrage of accusations against the neurosurgeon, going after him aggressively and even comparing him to a pedophile. That s why many were bewildered when Carson endorsed Trump after he dropped out of the race for the nomination. Yet, not only has Carson endorsed Trump s candidacy, he defends Trump and his vile campaign even at the worst of moments.In the latest of a series of bizarre moves, Carson defended Trump s campaign manager Corey Lewandowski during a CNN interview on Thursday, saying that being charged with assault against a female reporter did not make Lewandowski evil. Carson said, I don t see any reason, quite frankly that we should demonize him. If you can come up with a good reason, I ll listen to it. Co-host John Berman pointed out, Well, look, he s been charged with misdemeanor assault. A lot of people think that is a reason. Carson then went on a bizarre tangent saying, A lot of people have been charged with various things. You ve probably been charged with with something too. Maybe with a misdemeanor or something. It doesn t mean that you are an evil horrible person. The stunned Berman responded, I actually haven t been charged with anything. You have to ask what in the world did Trump offer Carson to make him sell himself in such a manner? We have to keep in mind that Carson is not only defending Trump, who has spewed racism and bigotry throughout his campaign but in this particular case, he s defending someone who committed assault on camera.The adage if you can t beat them then join them is clearly on display here but nothing is worth the price of selling your soul, something Carson has clearly done in this case. Watch video here: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwrIcJ9MgAM] Featured image via screencapture

AWESOME! SEAN SPICER Gives Trump’s Salary Away At Press Briefing [Video]Zinke and Brandyburg accompanied Spicer to the podium on Monday where the White House Press Secretary announced that President Donald Trump was donating the salary from his entire first quarter as president to the National Parks Service. It is my pleasure, on behalf of the President of the United States, to present a check for $78,333, to the Secretary of the Interior Ron Zinke, and superintendent of the Harpers Ferry Park Sites, superintendent Brandyburg, Spicer said.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRaLJumoAGoVia: Mediate

Watch The Harrowing Video of The Israeli Military Executing A PalestinianTwenty-year-old Palestinian Mohammad Abu Khalaf was shot multiple times by Israeli occupation police in Occupied East Jerusalem on Friday, in what witnesses and a video from the incident show was an execution of the young man.Watch Video Here:https://www.facebook.com/aljazeerachannel/videos/10154110984474893/An Al-Jazeera crew said that Abu Khalaf had tried to stab an occupation policeman when soldiers shot him with two rounds. Abu Khalaf then fell to the ground and was incapacitated and bleeding. But, as the video shows, occupation police then pumped 50 bullets into Khalaf. The graphic video shows Abu Khlaf s body only moving as a result of the bullets sprayed into him. He was clearly dead. The soldiers then removed the journalists and declared the area a closed military zone. Al-Jazeera anchor Elias Karram said: The scene was terrifying, we barely escaped with our lives. The soldiers fired so many live rounds at this young man, they could have killed us all, every person who was there was in direct danger. What happened was the execution of the young man. The border police officers lined-up and opened fire although they could have easily arrested the man, especially since he was already injured. Karram and his crew were filming in the historic Palestinian neighborhood of Bab al- Amoud in Jerusalem when they witnessed the stabbing attempt followed by the execution. Here is a graphic picture of Abu after the 50 bullets entered his body.Israel s occupation of Palestinian East Jerusalem is illegal under international law and the majority of countries, including the United States, don t recognize Israel s sovereignty of the holy city. Yet, Israel has been ethnically cleansing the native Palestinian population for decades, annexing the city, ghettoizing its Palestinian neighborhoods, and has jailed, or as is the case with Abu Khlaf and thousands of others, killed anyone who resists its draconian policies and its professional killers.Featured image from video screen capture.

After Alabama upset, Democrats see new prospects in U.S. SouthWASHINGTON (Reuters) - The solidly Republican South suddenly looks a little less solid. Tuesday’s upset win by Democrat Doug Jones in Alabama, coupled with last month’s Democratic sweep in Virginia, has given the party new optimism about its 2018 prospects in the South and other conservative, heavily rural regions where Republicans have dominated for decades. Jones, a former federal prosecutor, took advantage of the controversy over sexual misconduct allegations against his Republican opponent Roy Moore to become the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate in Alabama in a quarter-century. The Jones campaign also offered a template for how Democrats can win in the South, strategists said: Field a strong candidate, crank up turnout among the region’s sizable bloc of African-American voters, keep the liberal national party brand at arm’s length and compete hard in every county and region. Add in the grass-roots energy of the liberal resistance to President Donald Trump, the disaffection of moderate suburbanites turned off by Trump and a conservative wing sapped of enthusiasm by Republican infighting, and Democrats see an opportunity for a brighter future in the South starting in next year’s midterm elections. “You can hear that Republican wall in the South cracking. Doug Jones and Virginia are just the beginning,” said Phil Noble, a Democratic business and technology consultant who is running for governor in South Carolina. Republicans are not convinced, citing years of still unrealized Democratic predictions that demographic changes would turn Republican-dominated conservative states like Georgia and Texas into toss-ups. “Democrats still have issues with their brand in large swaths of the country. They are the party of Nancy Pelosi, and that image is cemented in many voters’ minds,” said Brian Walsh, a former strategist for the Republican party’s Senate campaign committee, referring to the House of Representatives Democratic leader, a liberal from San Francisco. In the fight for control of Congress next year, wins on once hostile Southern turf could be crucial to the Democratic cause. In the Senate, where Republicans’ already narrow majority will be shaved to 51-49 once Jones is seated, Democrats will have to defend 26 seats, including 10 in states won by Trump. They would need to pick up two more Republican-held states to reclaim control. Nevada and Arizona had been viewed as the only Republican-held seats vulnerable to a takeover next year. But Democrats now see possibilities in Tennessee, where popular former Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen has jumped into the race for the seat of retiring Republican Bob Corker, and Mississippi, where incumbent Republican Roger Wicker could face a bruising primary challenge. In the House of Representatives, Democrats need to gain 24 seats to win a majority. Their target list of 91 districts includes one each in Alabama, Arkansas and Kentucky, two in Georgia and four in North Carolina. “If the election were held today, I do think you could see Democrats winning in some areas of the country where Democrats haven’t won in the last decade,” said Zac McCrary, a Democratic pollster based in Alabama. In addition to the congressional races, governors’ contests in Georgia and South Carolina and state legislative races across the region will give Democrats a shot to compete in areas where they once dominated local politics but are now a minority party defined by liberal views on cultural issues such as abortion and gay rights. McCrary said Jones and Democrat John Bel Edwards, who won the Louisiana governor’s office in 2015, have shown it is possible to build a winning coalition in the South by energizing African-American voters while also appealing to white swing voters, soft Republicans and independents. In Alabama, Jones made inroads with voters in Shelby County, the Republican suburbs of the state’s biggest city, Birmingham, outpolling the results of Hillary Clinton there in last year’s presidential election by about 20 percentage points. That should be a warning sign to Republicans after Trump’s weak performance in wealthier, more educated suburban districts in 2016 and Democrat Jon Ossoff’s strong, though ultimately losing bid in a special election earlier this year for a congressional seat in a suburban Atlanta district that has been long held by Republicans, said David Hughes, a professor at Auburn University-Montgomery in Alabama. “If Democrats want to get out of the ditch they are in in Alabama and the South, they will do it in the suburbs,” said Hughes, an expert on Southern politics and judicial elections. In the nine states that form the political backbone of the Republican-dominated South - Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and South and North Carolina - Republicans will hold 17 of the 18 Senate seats once Jones takes office as well as 56 of the 70 House seats. Democratic Party Chairman Tom Perez acknowledged on Wednesday that the national party kept a low profile in Alabama even as it pumped money into turnout efforts targeting blacks and young voters because it knew that publicity about its involvement would not help Jones. But Perez said the victory showed that the party, which has launched a 50-state organizing effort aimed at electing candidates at the local and state levels, can compete in the South and elsewhere. “We can win in every zip code in America,” Perez told reporters. Democrats in Alabama said the party can start by learning lessons from Jones, who campaigned in every corner of the state and portrayed himself as a bridge builder who would listen to voters’ concerns and work across the aisle to help Alabama. “This is what we need to be doing more of, and not just at election time,” Thomas Jackson, a black Alabama state representative, said at a fish fry attended by Jones in rural Alabama last month. “We can get a lot accomplished if we just sit down and talk with people more.”

MUSLIM FAMILY Swindles Millions From Taxpayers…Federal Policy Gives “Lighter Sentence”Undisputed Facts:An Oak Creek woman and her son have been indicted on allegations of stealing $3 million from the federal government through a benefits program intended to help the poor, according to court records.The indictment, released late Wednesday, says the fraud was committed at Family Super Saver store, 2301 W. Hopkins St., from 2009 to 2014. The indictment was handed down by the grand jury Tuesday.Elham M. Brenda Abdul Rahim and Ahmad Zaki Abdul Rahim were both indicted on a count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Elham Rahim also was indicted on counts of fraud and unauthorized use of food stamps, while Ahmad Rahim was also indicted on a count of lying to investigators from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.The conspiracy count carries up to 20 years in prison, but the defendants are likely to get much less time in prison under federal sentencing guidelines if they are convicted.Ahmad Rahim said Wednesday he didn t know that he and his mother had been indicted and he denied being involved in any fraud. He said his father, who has since died, used to run the store and he could not account for how he ran the operation.According to the indictment:The Rahims used the store to exchange Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program cards for cash. Through the program, recipients get a debit card. The defendants would swipe the card for a certain amount, say $400, and give half the amount to the recipients in cash and keep the rest. The store would charge the government for the entire $400.Via: jsonline

RARE INTERVIEW WITH WHITE HOUSE SECRETARY: Bill Clinton Had Affairs With “thousands of women”…”Monica Lewinsky is alive today because of choices I made”This is a mind-blowing interview that confirms much of what many of us suspected about the Clintons. For some, it may be even worse than what they believed to be true. Kudos to Linda Tripp for agreeing to do this interview. People who cross the Clinton s do usually fare too well In a rare interview, Linda Tripp, a pivotal figure in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, revealed on Sunday it was common knowledge while she worked in the West Wing that Bill Clinton had affairs with thousands of women. Speaking on Aaron Klein Investigative Radio, Tripp for the first time divulged that she personally knew another White House staffer aside from Lewinsky who was also having an affair with Clinton. That unnamed staffer was mentioned by Tripp in various depositions but she has not spoken about it publicly.She charged that Hillary Clinton not only knew about her husband s exploits, She made it her personal mission to disseminate information and destroy the women with whom he dallied. Tripp says she cringes at the sight of Clinton presenting herself as a champion of women s rights worldwide in a global fashion, and yet all of the women she has destroyed over the years to ensure her political viability continues is sickening to me. Tripp documented evidence of Lewinsky s phone calls about her relationship with Bill Clinton and submitted the evidence to independent counsel Kenneth Starr, leading to the public disclosure of the affair. She explained to Klein that she did so because she believed her own life and Lewinsky s were in danger, saying that Lewinsky was threatening Clinton with outing the relationship.Tripp also used the interview to criticize what she says is the news media s unwillingness to investigate the Clintons. She singled out and thanked Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report, declaring that without him things would have been very, very different. Drudge s website was the first media outlet to break the Lewinsky scandal after Newsweek sat on the story.Tripp had unique access to the Clintons because her office was directly adjacent to Hillary s second floor West Wing office for the entire time she served in the Clinton White House from 1993 to the summer of 1994 with the exception of the first three months of the Clinton administration, when she sat just outside the Oval Office.Tripp s nonpartisan position was a carryover from the George H. W. Bush administration in which she served. Monica Lewinsky is alive today because of choices I made She told Klein that her role in the Lewinsky case followed years of alarm at what I had seen in the Clinton White House, particularly Hillary and the different scandals, whether it was Filegate, Travelgate, Whitewater, Vince Foster. All of the scandals that had come before and were so completely obliterated in the mind s eye of the American people because of the way all of them were essentially discounted. So I watched a lying President and a lying First Lady present falsehoods to the American people. So my dismay predated the January 1998 period when the Monica Lewinsky scandal surfaced. To me it was very important that the American people see what I was seeing. My years with the Clintons were so disturbing on so many levels. Tripp maintains that she went public with the Lewinsky evidence to ensure the intern s safety as well as her own.She told Klein:I say today and I will continue to say that I believe Monica Lewinsky is alive today because of choices I made and action I took. That may sound melodramatic to your listeners. I can only say that from my perspective I believe that she and I at the time were in danger, because nothing stands in the way of these people achieving their political ends.I think that had it not become public when it did, particularly in light of the Paula Jones lawsuit, which was coming to a head with President Clinton s deposition, that we may well have met with an accident. It s a situation where unless you lived it as I did you would have no real framework of reference for this sort of situation.Tripp said the young Lewinsky, 21-years-old when she entered the White House as an intern, was unaware of the danger that she faced.She described Lewinsky as a young girl, smart, clever but in this one area she was blinded and she fancied herself in love. He fancied himself entitled. It was nothing more than a servicing agreement. She romanticized that there was an affair. And when it didn t pan out the way she had hoped it would he had promised her he would bring her back to the White House as soon as the 1996 election campaign had finished. When he didn t, she essentially lost her mind and started acting in erratic and frightening ways. Threatening the president.There came a point in July of 1997 when she not only threatened to expose the affair, as she referred to it. But also she at that time informed him that I knew all about it. So at that time it became dangerous for Monica and for me. This was something that absolutely could never see the light of day. And she never realized the implications of threatening a president or her behavior. And I did.Tripp told Klein that the biggest fallacy that most people believed is that this was a unique occurrence. Monica was somehow special. And regrettably that s the farthest thing from the truth. She said, Everyone knew within the West Wing, particularly those who spent years with him, of the thousands of women. Now most of your listeners might find that difficult if not impossible to believe. And I can tell you in the beginning I felt the same way. But let me be clear here. This is a pattern of behavior that has gone on for years. And the abuse of women for years. Asked whether Clinton was having affairs with others in the West Wing, Tripp replied, I know that to be true. One in particular who I will not name told me this herself. But as to the hundreds or thousands, remember I worked closely with the closest aides to the president. And it was a loosey-goosy environment so there was not a lot of holding back. So it was common knowledge, let s put it this way, within the West Wing that he had this problem. It was further common knowledge that Hillary was aware of it. Tripp described the tense West Wing atmosphere between what she characterized as two almost diametrically opposed Clinton camps.The dynamic between the two groups the Bill Clinton people and the Hillary Clinton people. It was as though they were almost opposing forces. But I can tell you that the one with the power and the one that instilled the fear in the other was the Hillary camp.And the [Bill] Clinton people would cower if she were coming into the area, just as an example, of the Oval without notice. There would be scurrying around to make sure there was no one in the wrong place at the wrong time, shall we say. It was a fascination to see the amount of energy that was expended covering up his behavior. It was horrifying.Tripp said Hillary personally targeted Bill s female conquests and accusers, with the future presidential candidate exhibiting behavior that is egregious and it s so disingenuous. In my case, for instance, right after the Lewinsky story broke, she was heard directing her staff to get anything and everything on Linda Tripp. So the defamation of character and the absolute assurance that my credibility would be destroyed began right away. And it happens with any woman who is involved in any way, either with him in a physical relationship or an assault or anything that can endanger their political viability.Tripp recalled Hillary s January 27, 1998 appearance on NBC s The Today Show in which she was seen as standing by her husband while blaming the Lewinsky scandal on a vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president. She didn t do it in an honest way, said Tripp of Clinton s NBC interview. Instead she lied, which didn t surprise me. And I will give her credit. She is enormously effective. And became a victim. A wife who was betrayed. This is someone who had no real personal problem with any of this behavior. The problem was in it becoming public. They had to continue to become electable She was the more aggressive one in ensuring that the political viability was not endangered in any way. Tripp told Klein that Hillary does not possess integrity on any level. I just wish that your listeners could know the person that I knew. Because if they did there is not a chance she would be elected president. Tripp s ringside seat afforded her rare insight into the scandals of the 1990s and perhaps alleged wrongdoings to come, with the West Wing employee personally witnessing behavior that may have foreshadowed Clinton s email scandal, in which she is accused of sending classified materials through her personal server.Tripp said she noticed major differences in the manner in which classified material was handled by both the Clinton and Bush administrations in which she served.President George H.W. Bush s administration had a completely different way of operating on every level, including on classified and secret material, she said.She continued:All the regulations were followed, right down to a cover sheet being essential if the document had had any sort of classifications. The securing of classified documentation in safes. The burn bags that were used if any sensitive material was to be disposed of. All of this was familiar to me and followed every security protocol that I had experienced in the past.When the Clintons came in this was one of the things that I found appalling right from day one. And it went hand and hand with the disdain for the military. The military was present in the White House in the form of presidential aides. The aide that carried the nuclear football, just as an example. And in the Bush White House they were respected, as they should be. In the Clinton White House, they were disdained. To see it treated this way and to see these people treated this way was disturbing.Tripp referred to Clinton s private mail woes as classic Hillary Clinton in a nutshell. She gets to decide what she does. Look, the rules don t apply to the Clintons. If you understand that basic premise you understand the Clintons. For Tripp, Clinton s use of a private server was all about control. She has a need to control every single aspect of her life. And you know anyone in government knows that any key stroke on a keyboard within a government agency belongs to the government it is not up to the employee on any level to control what happens to it for posterity. FOR ENTIRE INTERVIEW, CLICK HERE: Breitbart News

DIRTY JOBS’ MIKE ROWE: Great Opportunities Out There That People Don’t Know Exist [Video]

Swiss president wants a vote to clarify country's EU positionZURICH (Reuters) - A referendum in Switzerland to clarify the country s relationship with the European Union would be helpful, Swiss President Doris Leuthard said on Sunday, after ties between the two sides cooled this week. Switzerland s frictions with the EU, of which it is not a member, arise as Britain negotiates its withdrawal from the bloc following a referendum in June last year and seeks a new trading relationship with its closest neighbors. Talks on securing a new framework treaty to govern the Swiss-EU relationship have been underway for some time, with Brussels wanting to replace the more than 100 bilateral accords which regulate its relationship with Bern. But relations soured this week when the EU granted Swiss stock exchanges only limited access to the bloc, prompting Swiss threats of retaliation for what it called discrimination. The bilateral path is important, Leuthard told Swiss newspapers Sonntags Blick. We therefore have to clarify our relationship with Europe. We have to know in which direction to go. Therefore a fundamental referendum would be helpful. Talks on the an all-encompassing agreement made headway last month after Switzerland agreed to increase its contribution to the EU s budget. Such a deal would ensure Switzerland adopts relevant EU laws in return for enhanced access to the bloc s single market, crucial for Swiss exports. But a deal would be opposed by the anti-EU Swiss People s Party (SVP), currently the biggest group in parliament. Leuthard, who steps down as president at the end of the year, said the latest row had not overshadowed her year in the rotating office. Of course, the differences with Brussels are now in focus. Here our attitude is clear - for the EU to link such a technical thing like stock exchange equivalency with a political question like the framework treaty, that is not possible, She said some countries were putting Switzerland in the same category as Britain, while others wanted to strengthen their own financial centers at Switzerland s expense. Others think we are cherry pickers who benefit too much from the single European market, they want to increase pressure for a framework agreement, Leuthard said. Pressure from outside would did not contribute to a beneficial climate in Switzerland over a potential agreement, she said. She said she understood Swiss scepticism towards the EU, but there was no alternative to finding an accommodation with the bloc which generates around two thirds of Swiss trade. We can strengthen the cooperation with India and China, but the EU remains central. We need a mechanism and regulated relationship with the EU, that would also prevent political games like we are having at the moment, Leuthard said.

WOW! LOOSE CANNON HILLARY Leaked Major Nuclear Secret To World During Final Debate [VIDEO]Is it not enough that Hillary has compromised our national security with her unsecured email server that contained top classified security emails? In her rush to prove how much more she knows that Donald J. Trump when it comes to national security, Hillary just committed treason when she revealed damning information that could compromise the safety and security of our nation Is this treasonous, loose cannon the person Democrats want representing our nation simply because it s her turn or because she has the proper genitalia? She s been accused during sworn testimony of disrespecting security agents and putting them in danger.She abaonded her friend Ambassador Chris Stevens and left him to the Islamists who slaughtered him in Benghazi.Tonight during the final presidential debate Hillary Clinton leaked more national security secrets.Hillary said it took four minutes between the nuclear order and nukes flying. GPCareless Hillary told the WORLD the US 'Nuclear Response' Time!! REALLY??#ChrisWallace #debatenight @seanhannity @realDonaldTrump #Trump pic.twitter.com/grOKowwVQI John T. Miller (@cyvault) October 20, 2016https://twitter.com/WDFx2EU7/status/788945122176081920

POLICE UNION Threatens 49er’s With BOYCOTT: TAKE ACTION Against Bench-Warmer Kaepernick’s “Inappropriate Behavior” Or We May Choose To “Not Work At Your Facilities”Dear San Francisco Police Union: We wanted you to know that if you decide to boycott the 49er s, America supports you 100%. If the 49er s are unable to speak out against this sickening bench-warmers anti-american,and anti-law enforcement antics, they can figure out how to protect themselves at their next home game. Maybe they could ask the Black Panthers or Black Lives Matter thugs to patrol the stadium I m sure the fans would love that idea LOL!The union for police officers who work San Francisco home games says its members may boycott policing the stadium if the 49ers don t discipline Colin Kaepernick for refusing to stand during the national anthem and for his statements about law enforcement.A letter from the Santa Clara Police Officers Association sent to the 49ers was obtained Friday by KNTV-TV, the NBC affiliate in San Jose.It says that Kaepernick s protest has threatened our harmonious working relationship with the 49ers. About 70 officers from the Santa Clara Police Department patrol Levi s Stadium when the 49ers play there. If the 49ers organization fails to take action to stop this type of inappropriate behavior it could result in police officers choosing not to work at your facilities, the letter reads. The board of directors of the Santa Clara Police Officer s Association has a duty to protect its members and work to make all of their working environments free of harassing behavior. It also criticized what it called anti-police statements made by Kaepernick, calling them insulting, inaccurate and completely unsupported by any facts. ABC News

BOOM! SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS Sets Media Straight On Difference Between Trump Volunteer’s Meeting and Clinton-DNC Paying Millions For Fake Russian DossierDaily Caller The revelation on Monday that former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos has plead guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian operatives thrust the little-known energy consultant into the national spotlight.Few details have been reported about the 30-year-old Papadopoulos, including how he ended up on the Trump campaign.Gateway Pundit reports that Papadopoulos was a volunteer whose repeated attempts to set up meetings between Trump s camp and Russians were outright rejected.The Washington Post reported back in August that Papadopoulos attempted to set up several meetings with Russia and all were rejected by Trump s camp.Watch Sarah Huckabee Sanders break down the difference between a Trump volunteer and Hillary and the DNC, who all of a sudden seems to have a renewed interest in Russian collusion again, after ignoring the bombshell revelation that Hillary and the DNC paid millions of dollars to create a phony Trump-Russia dossier. Sanders tells CBS News Major Garrett, The big difference here is you have a meeting that took place versus millions of dollars being sent to create fake information to actually influence the election. You compare those two, those are apples and oranges.What the Clinton campaign did, what the DNC did, was actually exchange money. They took a meeting. Those are far different. And one is pretty common practice in any campaign to take a meeting. The other one is actually paying money for false information. That s a big deal and a big difference. Sarah Sanders doing what she does best making a mockery of Obama's stenographers aka the imbeciles in the WH press corps.#MuellerMonday pic.twitter.com/yaEDNwHgcW HailToTheCovfefe (@MichelleRMed) October 30, 2017Sanders went on to say there is nothing in the indictment today changes nothing, and that The real collusion has everything to do with the Clinton campaign. Sarah Sanders: "The real collusion has everything to do with the Clinton campaign." pic.twitter.com/Og4ibRAeHC Axios (@axios) October 30, 2017Sanders best line of the day was when she told rabid, anti-Trump, nut-job Jim Acosta of CNN to finish your monologue. Love the bit where Sarah Sanders sez to @Acosta, "Oh, finish your monologue " on VOLUNTEER George Papadopoulos! https://t.co/3e4ggYXhfA Boston Bobblehead (@DBloom451) October 30, 2017The adviser, George Papadopoulos, offered to set up a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump, telling them his Russian contacts welcomed the opportunity, according to internal campaign emails read to The Washington Post.The proposal sent a ripple of concern through campaign headquarters in Trump Tower. Campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis wrote that he thought NATO allies should be consulted before any plans were made. Another Trump adviser, retired Navy Rear Adm. Charles Kubic, cited legal concerns, including a possible violation of U.S. sanctions against Russia and of the Logan Act, which prohibits U.S. citizens from unauthorized negotiation with foreign governments.The NY Daily News even reported that Manafort put the kibosh on the Russia meetings as well. We need someone to communicate that DT is not doing these trips, Manafort told his business partner Rick Gates, an account his spokesman Jason Maloni confirmed to the Daily News Monday evening.The Gateway Pundit also reported that Papadopoulos was looking for a book deal just a few weeks ago.According to a screen shot of Papadopoulos s Facebook page tweeted by Guardian UK reporter Jon Swaine, the former aide sought book publisher recommendations three weeks ago. Interested in meeting with a prominent publisher. Recommendations welcome, wrote Papadopoulos.Meanwhile Hillary s camp paid MILLIONS of dollars for a Russian dossier, a fraudulent document that most likely prompted a FISA warrant and ultimately led to the unmasking of Trump and his associates.

GEORGIA MOM FURIOUS Over Sexual ‘Identify’ Homework Given to Her 12-Year Old [Video]Lithonia, Georgia mom Octavia Parks was left dumbfounded after discovering her 12 year old daughter s health class homework.The sixth grade student from Lithonia Middle School in Lithonia, Georgia was given an assignment last week asking students to name sexual identity terms such as gay, lesbian and transgender based on their definitions.The Identity Definitions assignment defined the terms as follows:A woman who is attracted to women [answer: lesbian] A man who is attracted to men [answer: gay] A person who is attracted to men and women [answer: bisexual] When the person s gender identity doesn t match the sex (male or female) the doctor said they were when they were born [answer: transgender] We re talking about a sixth-grader who still watches Nickelodeon, Parks told FOX 5 Atlanta WAGA-TV. Why are they teaching that in school? What does that have to do with life? Parks told WAGA she opted her daughter out of the health class. I m not ready to explain what these words are nor what they mean, continued Ms. Parks.READ MORE: FOX 5 ATLANTA

Turkey opens military base in Mogadishu to train Somali soldiersMOGADISHU/ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey opened its biggest overseas military base on Saturday in Somalia s capital, cementing its ties with the volatile but strategic Muslim nation and building a presence in East Africa. More than 10,000 Somali soldiers will be trained by Turkish officers at the base, a senior Turkish official said ahead of a ceremony in Mogadishu attended by Turkish military chief of staff Hulusi Akar. The opening of the $50 million base signals ever-closer ties between Turkey and Somalia. Turkey s relations with the Horn of Africa date back to the Ottoman Empire, but President Tayyip Erdogan s government has become a close ally of the Somali government in recent years. At the opening ceremony on Saturday, Somali Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire thanked the Turkish government for opening the training school and said it would help the government reconstruct its national force not based on clan...not from a particular place, but well-trained forces that represent the Somali people. He noted that the military school was Turkey s biggest overseas. The facility can train and house 1,000 soldiers at a time and also has sports courts and a running track. Erdogan, whose roots are in political Islam, is an outspoken defender of Muslims, particularly those in need of humanitarian aid, such as Syrian refugees and Myanmar s Rohingya. Analysts say that, in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, as Turkey s foreign policy forays close to home have floundered, Ankara has found a willing partner in Somalia. It s a country where Turkey could make a difference without necessarily having to compete with regional or global powers, said Sinan Ulgen, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Ankara s initial focus on aid, as opposed to security assistance or overt backing of political parties, helped build trust, he added. Turkey s vast aid effort at the height of the 2011 famine endeared it to many Somali people, and it has continued to pour in aid, much of it from private companies. It has built schools, hospitals and infrastructure and provided scholarships for Somalis to study in Turkey. Erdogan has visited Mogadishu twice, and when he made his first trip there in 2011 he became the first non-African leader to visit the war-ravaged nation in 20 years. Rapidly growing trade between the two nations has followed. In 2010, Turkish exports to Somalia totaled just $5.1 million. By last year, they had ballooned to $123 million. In the space of six years Turkey has gone from Somalia s 20th-largest source of imports to its fifth-largest. Turkey really has won the hearts and minds of Somali people, Information Minister Abdirahman Omar Osman told Reuters this month. Somalia s government has also been a vocal backer of the Erdogan government in its bid to quash Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen s influence abroad. The Somali cabinet immediately ordered schools and a hospital in Mogadishu linked to Gulen to be shut in the aftermath of last year s failed coup, which Erdogan has repeatedly blamed on the cleric. Gulen denies involvement. Somalia s government has a number of foreign backers, including the United Nations, the African Union, and the United States, who are assisting it in building a functional national army capable of taking on the fight against the militant al-Shabaab group. The militants were driven out of Mogadishu in 2010, but their deadly attacks remain one of the main obstacles to stability in the chaotic Horn of Africa country, which lies along one of the world s busiest shipping routes. The Somali government has praised Turkish investment for improving infrastructure in the country, and the information minister singled out Turkey s new move into security support. We are very happy they are giving us modern facilities for our security forces, he said. This is something that Somalia has never seen even though countries like the U.S. and UK are giving us millions. The difference is the camp Turkey built is an institution that will remain for the next 50 or 100 years. The Turkish official who spoke to Reuters before the opening said the base was in line with Ankara s priority of expanding its weapons sales to new markets .

Democrats renew efforts to link banks, Trump and RussiaFRANKFURT/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Some Democratic members of the U.S. Congress have renewed efforts to find possible links between banks such as Germany’s Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE), U.S. President Donald Trump and Russia. Investigations are being conducted in the United States into possible collusion between Trump’s campaign team and Russia during the presidential election campaign in 2016. The White House and the Kremlin have denied there was any interference in the election. Maxine Waters, ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, told reporters she had filed a resolution of inquiry demanding the U.S. Treasury Secretary hand over documents in his possession, “relating to President Trump’s financial connections to Russia, certain illegal financial schemes, and related information”. The resolution asked for any records of loans or credit from a number of banks - including Deutsche Bank and Russian lenders Sberbank (SBER.MM) and Gazprombank (GZPRI.MM) - to Trump, and 22 of his closest associates, including family members and top White House and campaign advisers. Specifically, the group is seeking documents that may have been unearthed by the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network that could show any ties between Trump’s finances and Russia. A resolution of inquiry is a legislative tool by which the House can request information from the administration. Waters filed the resolution with the Financial Services Committee, which now has 14 legislative days to address it, either by debating it or voting it down. If the committee, chaired and dominated by Republicans, ignores the resolution, it could head to the floor of the broader House. Waters and four other colleagues have been especially interested in learning more from Deutsche Bank, which government ethics disclosures list as one of Trump’s biggest lenders. Deutsche Bank’s lawyers have rejected requests for information, citing privacy laws. Waters asked Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen at a hearing on Wednesday whether the U.S. central bank had uncovered anything about Trump in its Deutsche regulatory work. Yellen said the Fed had not looked into it.

JUST IN: RAND PAUL ASSAULTED By Democrat Doctor…Here’s What We Know About The AttackerAnother unhinged Democrat has been arrested for attacking someone with political views that are in opposition to his yawn Kentucky State Police have arrested a person accused of assaulting Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) at his home in Kentucky, the senator s office confirmed on Saturday. Senator Paul was blindsided and the victim of an assault, Kelsey Cooper, a spokeswoman for Paul, said in a statement. The assailant was arrested and it is now a matter for the police. Senator Paul is fine. The suspect was identified as 59-year-old Rene Boucher of Bowling Green, Kent., according to a statement from Kentucky State Police reported by the Bowling Green Daily News. True PunditBoucher is an anesthesiologist and pain specialist. He got his medical degree from Des Moines University College of Osteopathic Medicine after being pre-med at Providence College in Rhode Island, according to Doximity. Boucher has practiced medicine in since 1982 and attended high school in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Between 1985 and 1993, Boucher was pain management specialist at the Letterman Army Medical Center in San Francisco where he also did his residency.In 2005, Boucher appeared on QVC marketing a rice-filled vest that was designed to alleviate back pain, reported the Bowling Green Daily News. The vest retailed at $30 and had to be microwaved before use. The website for Therm-a-Vest is no longer active. WAVE reports that Boucher retired in 2015.In May 2017, Boucher shared a story on Facebook about Republican Congressman Greg Gianforte assaulting The Guardian s Ben Jacobs in Bozeman, Montana. The assault was described as a body slam at the time. Boucher writes in his Facebook bio that he is in a relationship. The Bowling Green Daily News article about Boucher s pain relieving vest saw him city his wife, Lisa, as a reason for its success.Boucher is a registered Democrat. Since Trump s ascendency to the president, Boucher has been severely critical the GOP on Facebook. Boucher is shown to be an advocate for gun control and healthcare reform. There does not seem to be any posts that target Senator Paul. Heavy