Story 1: President Trump Rocks at Make America Great Again Rally in Las Vegas Nevada — Build The Wall With $25 Billion in Funding and Balance The Budget — We Need More Republicans — Videos —
President Trump EXPLOSIVE Speech at MASSIVE Rally in Las Vegas, Nevada – September 20, 2018
Watch Live! Trump Rally in Las Vegas, NV!
Trump pushes for border wall funding during rally in Las Vegas
Trump goes one-on-one with Hannity at Las Vegas rally
‘He’s been there’: Trump stumps for vulnerable Sen. Heller
PUBLISHED: 23:10 EDT, 20 September 2018 | UPDATED: 08:00 EDT, 21 September 2018
His own political fortunes intrinsically linked to his party holding control of Congress, President Donald Trump on Thursday offered full-throated support for the most vulnerable incumbent Republican senator, while unleashing a torrent of grievances against Democrats and the news media and claiming they are sabotaging his administration.
Trump, appearing at a boisterous rally in Las Vegas, defended his embattled Supreme Court justice nominee, touted the booming stock market, cited progress in talks with North Korea and pledged to build his long-promised border wall, while also making the pitch for Nevada to re-elect Sen. Dean Heller. The president noted that he and Heller – who once said he “vehemently” opposed Trump – did not always get along.
“We started out, we weren’t friends. I didn’t like him, he didn’t like me!” said Trump to laughs. “But as we fought and fought and fought, believe it or not we started to respect each other, than we started to like each other, then we started to love each other.
President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally, Thursday, Sept. 20, 2018, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
“Ever since I won the election, he’s been there for us,” said Trump, who urged Heller’s re-election because the Republican majority in the Senate is so slim, 51-49, that the GOP would lose its advantage if “someone had a cold.” The president also bestowed one of his signature nicknames on Heller’s opponent, Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen, dubbing her “Wacky Jacky.”
Heller returned the praise: “Mr. President, I think you just turned Nevada red today,” he said. Trump narrowly lost Nevada to Hillary Clinton in 2016 despite his deep ties to Las Vegas – he has a golden-hued hotel just off the famed Strip – and repeatedly campaigning in the state.
Trump in particular focused his pitch for Heller on the need to confirm more conservative judges, in particular his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, whose seat on the bench had been thrown into question by allegations that he sexually assaulted a young woman while in high school more than 30 years ago.
Kavanaugh has denied the allegations.
While negotiations continued over whether his accuser, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, would testify next week, Trump, who has taken pains not to criticize Ford in recent days, appeared to break from that strategy in a pre-rally interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on the convention center floor.
“I think it’s a very sad situation,” said Trump, asking: “Why didn’t somebody call the FBI 36 years ago? … What’s going on?” While he said Ford should “have her say,” he made clear he was done waiting: “I don’t think you can delay it any longer. They’ve delayed it a week already.”
Trump remained on message at the rally. He did not utter a critical word about Ford, but defended Kavanaugh, saying he was “a great intellect” and “a great gentleman with an impeccable reputation.”
“We have to let it play out but I have to tell you, he is a fine, fine person,” Trump said of the Senate confirmation process. “I think everything is going to be just fine.”
There was one local topic Trump avoided. The Las Vegas rally was held three miles from the Mandalay Bay hotel where a gunman opened fire just over a year ago, killing 58 people and leaving 851 injured.
Trump made no mention of the shooting, though he assured Heller would vote in favor of the Second Amendment.
The rest of the rally was red meat for the crowd, which repeatedly roared its approval for the president but did not quite fill the room at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
As usual, Trump went after the media and many who attended the rally followed his lead. One man stood behind the president’s traveling press corps, repeatedly yelling the word “traitors” at the journalists.
At one point reading from a list of his administration’s accomplishments, Trump spent much of the rally focused on what advisers believe is his – and his party’s – best issue, the strong economy. He took credit for the stock market’s gains and the nation’s low unemployment rate and bragged about boosting the military, while accusing Democrats of doing their best to foster division and stall the growth.
“They are lousy politicians and their policies are terrible,” said Trump, in only his second rally as president in a state he lost two years ago, “but they are good at sticking together and resisting, that’s what they do. You see the signs ‘Resist, Resist.'”
With the chances of Republicans keeping control of the House of Representatives looking increasingly dismal, the White House has fixated on keeping the Senate as a bulwark against any Democratic effort to impeach and then remove Trump from office. Though the Senate midterm map favors Republicans, a few states, including Tennessee and perhaps Texas, could slip away from the GOP.
But no Republican-held seat is considered more endangered than the one in Nevada. The only Republican running for re-election in a state Hillary Clinton carried in 2016, Heller has been locked in a tight race in an increasingly blue-leaning state.
Though he fervently tried to wrap his arms around the president Thursday, Heller’s relationship with Trump has been tumultuous. Weeks before the 2016 election, Heller infamously said that he was “100 percent against Clinton, 99 percent against Trump,” a remark the president has not forgotten.
Heller drew the president’s ire a year ago when he held up Republican efforts to repeal former President Barack Obama’s signature health care law. But Trump saved Heller from a costly and damaging primary battle earlier this year by persuading a very conservative primary challenger, Danny Tarkanian, to drop out of the Senate race and instead seek a House seat.
Heller is now in a close race with Rosen, a first-term congresswoman who stands to benefit from a wave of Democratic and female activism fueled by opposition to Trump. And the senator, at times, has struggled to strike a balancing act of praising the president, who remains popular among Republicans, while distancing himself from Trump’s scandals and provocative positions.
“Eighty percent of what this president has done has been very, very good, very positive,” Heller told reporters last week. “The other 20 percent … he has a reality show. I get it. It’s a reality show.”
___
Associated Press writer Michelle Price contributed to this report. Colvin reported from Washington.
___
This story has been corrected to show the Senate is divided 51-49, not 50-49.
President Donald Trump gives a thumbs-up as he arrives at McCarran International Airport for a campaign rally, Thursday, Sept. 20, 2018, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Donald Trump takes the stage during a campaign rally Thursday, Sept. 20, 2018, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally, Thursday, Sept. 20, 2018, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
President Donald Trump meets with supporters during a campaign rally, Thursday, Sept. 20, 2018, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally Thursday, Sept. 20, 2018, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally, Thursday, Sept. 20, 2018, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Donald Trump waves as he arrives for a campaign rally, Thursday, Sept. 20, 2018, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Story 2: Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 Hits An All Time High — Videos —
Markets soar to new records under Trump
Nightly Business Report – September 20, 2018
Dow Jones And S&P Rally For New Record Highs
What Do “Points” On The Dow And S&P 500 Actually Mean?
Dow, S&P 500 close at record highs as bull shrugs off trade worries
Adam Shell, USA TODAYPublished 11:09 a.m. ET Sept. 20, 2018 | Updated 5:19 p.m. ET Sept. 20, 2018
Nothing it seems can slow down the Wall Street bull, not trade fears, not natural disasters or any other perceived market risks.
The U.S. stock market notched fresh records Thursday, with the Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index both closing at new all-time highs, adding to gains in what is already the longest bull run in Wall Street history.
Investors appear to be shrugging off any worries related to the ongoing fight between the U.S. and its trading partners, including the escalating tit-for-tat tussle between President Donald Trump and China, the world’s second-biggest economy. Even though Trump hit China with a 10 percent tariff on $200 billion in additional goods this week, the levy came in lower than the 25 percent Wall Street feared.
Instead, investors are focusing on an American economy that is performing well, with the help from fiscal stimulus such as tax cuts, says Lindsey Bell, investment strategist at CFRA, a Wall Street research firm. The government Thursday said the number of Americans filing for jobless benefits fell to its lowest level in 49 years in the week ending Sept. 15.
“The new highs are being driven mostly by solid economic data,” Bell says. “The market seemingly priced in a much more dire situation with regards to tariffs, and given the lower-than-expected tariff rate, the market is moving higher.”
At the market close Thursday, the blue-chip Dow was up nearly 1 percent, or about 251 points, to a record 26,656.98, eclipsing its prior closing all-time high of 26,616.71 from Jan. 26. The large company S&P 500 finished at a record 2930.75.
The S&P 500 is up nearly 10 percent this year, and the Dow is about 8 percent higher.
The bullish outlook for businesses and consumers has investors again betting on U.S. companies posting strong earnings when the third-quarter profit-reporting season gets underway in early October. Analysts forecast companies in the S&P 500 stock index to grow earnings at a 22 percent clip in the July through September quarter.
Rising interest rates, which historically have been a trigger for market downturns, haven’t yet caused investors to fear an economic slowdown. The Federal Reserve, which has raised short-term rates twice this year to a range of 1.75 percent to 2 percent, is almost certain to increase rates another quarter of a percentage point at its Sept. 26 meeting.
Odds for a similar-sized rate hike at the central bank’s December meeting have risen to nearly 79 percent, according to CME Group data.
Better performance from some slivers of the market that had not been faring well earlier in the year is also providing the market with a lift, says Bell. She notes that shares of industrial companies are 3.4 percent higher this month, while the materials sector and financials are up 1.5 percent and 1.3 percent, respectively.
While acknowledging the U.S. economy is in good shape thanks to Trump’s growth-friendly policies, which “dwarfs all other issues,” Greg Valliere, chief global strategist at Horizon Investments, warns the biggest risk to the market right now might be too much optimism.
“I would worry if a mood of euphoria takes hold – that’s traditionally a warning sign,” Valliere told USA TODAY.
PUBLISHED: 17:00 EDT, 20 September 2018 | UPDATED: 17:15 EDT, 20 September 2018
U.S. stocks closed broadly higher Thursday, driving the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 index to all-time highs.
The Dow beat the mark its set in January, while the S&P 500 eclipsed the peak it set last month. Big technology and health care companies led the broad rally. Banks also rose. Energy stocks declined.
On Thursday:
The S&P 500 index rose 22.80 points, or 0.8 percent, to 2,930.75.
The Dow gained 251.22 points, or 1 percent, to 26,656.98.
The Nasdaq composite climbed 78.19 points, or 1 percent, to 8,028.23.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies picked up 17.25 points, or 1 percent, to 1,720.18.
For the week:
The S&P 500 is up 25.77 points, or 0.9 percent.
The Dow is up 502.31 points, or 1.9 percent.
The Nasdaq is up 18.19 points, or 0.2 percent.
The Russell 2000 is down 1.53 points, or 0.1 percent.
For the year:
The S&P 500 is up 257.14 points, or 9.6 percent.
The Dow is up 1,937.76 points, or 7.8 percent.
The Nasdaq is up 1,124.84 points, or 16.3 percent.
The Russell 2000 is up 184.67 points, or 12 percent.
Story 3: Free U.S.-Led Uncensored Internet and Authoritarian Chinese-Led Censored Internet — Breaking Up Is Hard To Do — Videos
Report: Google working on a censored search engine for China
Google employees revolt against China project
Could the Internet Split in Two?
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt Predicts Internet Split: American vs. Chinese
Breakin’ Up Is Hard To Do – Neil Sedaka
Former Google CEO predicts the internet will split in two — and one part will be led by China
Speaking at a private event hosted by Village Global VC yesterday night, tech luminary and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt predicted that the internet will bifurcate into Chinese-led and US-led versions within the next decade.
Under Sundar Pichai’s leadership, Google has explored the potential to launch a censored version of its search engine in China, stirring up controversy internally and outside the company.
Eric Schmidt, who has been the CEO of Google and executive chairman of its parent company, Alphabet, predicts that within the next decade there will be two distinct internets: one led by the U.S. and the other by China.
Schmidt shared his thoughts at a private event in San Francisco on Wednesday night convened by investment firm Village Global VC. The firm enlists tech luminaries — including Schmidt, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Diane Green — as limited partners, then invests their money into early-stage tech ventures.
At the event, economist Tyler Cowen asked about the possibility of the internet fragmenting into different sub-internets with different regulations and limited access between them in coming years. “What’s the chance, say, 10 to 15 years, we have just three to four separate internets?”
Schmidt said:
“I think the most likely scenario now is not a splintering, but rather a bifurcation into a Chinese-led internet and a non-Chinese internet led by America.
If you look at China, and I was just there, the scale of the companies that are being built, the services being built, the wealth that is being created is phenomenal. Chinese Internet is a greater percentage of the GDP of China, which is a big number, than the same percentage of the US, which is also a big number.
If you think of China as like ‘Oh yeah, they’re good with the Internet,’ you’re missing the point. Globalization means that they get to play too. I think you’re going to see fantastic leadership in products and services from China. There’s a real danger that along with those products and services comes a different leadership regime from government, with censorship, controls, etc.
Look at the way BRI works – their Belt and Road Initiative, which involves 60-ish countries – it’s perfectly possible those countries will begin to take on the infrastructure that China has with some loss of freedom.”
The Belt and Road is a massive initiative by Beijing to increase China’s political and economic influence by connecting and facilitating all kinds of trade, including digital trade, between China and countries in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
Schmidt’s predictions come at a time when his successor at Google, CEO Sundar Pichai, has stirred up controversy around the company’s strategy in China.
Reportedly, Google has been developing “Project Dragonfly,” a censored version of its search engine that could appease authorities in China. The project allegedly included a means to suppress some search results, booting them off the first page, and a means to fully block results for sensitive queries, for example, around “peaceful protests.”
Pichai has said that Google has been “very open about our desire to do more in China,” and that the team “has been in an exploration stage for quite a while now,” and considering “many options,” but is nowhere near launching in China.
In a separate discussion last night between Schmidt and several start-up founders, he lauded Chinese tech products, services and adoption, especially in mobile payments. He noted that Starbucks in China don’t feature a register. Customers order ahead online and pay with their phones before picking up their lattes.
Former Google CEO claims internet will split between U.S. & China
Eric Schmidt, who has been the CEO of Google and executive chairman of its parent company, Alphabet, predicts that within the next decade there will be two distinct internets: one led by the U.S. and the other by China.
Schmidt shared his thoughts at a private event in San Francisco on Wednesday night convened by investment firm Village Global VC. The firm enlists tech luminaries — including Schmidt, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Diane Green — as limited partners, then invests their money into early-stage tech ventures.
At the event, economist Tyler Cowen asked about the possibility of the internet fragmenting into different sub-internets with different regulations and limited access between them in coming years. “What’s the chance, say, 10 to 15 years, we have just three to four separate internets?”
Schmidt said:
“I think the most likely scenario now is not a splintering, but rather a bifurcation into a Chinese-led internet and a non-Chinese internet led by America.
If you look at China, and I was just there, the scale of the companies that are being built, the services being built, the wealth that is being created is phenomenal. Chinese Internet is a greater percentage of the GDP of China, which is a big number, than the same percentage of the US, which is also a big number.
If you think of China as like ‘Oh yeah, they’re good with the Internet,’ you’re missing the point. Globalization means that they get to play too. I think you’re going to see fantastic leadership in products and services from China. There’s a real danger that along with those products and services comes a different leadership regime from government, with censorship, controls, etc.
Look at the way BRI works – their Belt and Road Initiative, which involves 60-ish countries – it’s perfectly possible those countries will begin to take on the infrastructure that China has with some loss of freedom.”
The Belt and Road is a massive initiative by Beijing to increase China’s political and economic influence by connecting and facilitating all kinds of trade, including digital trade, between China and countries in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
Schmidt’s predictions come at a time when his successor at Google, CEO Sundar Pichai, has stirred up controversy around the company’s strategy in China.
Reportedly, Google has been developing “Project Dragonfly,” a censored version of its search engine that could appease authorities in China. The project allegedly included a means to suppress some search results, booting them off the first page, and a means to fully block results for sensitive queries, for example, around “peaceful protests.”
What’s next for Google’s Eric Schmidt? Sree Sreenivasan weighs in
Pichai has said that Google has been “very open about our desire to do more in China,” and that the team “has been in an exploration stage for quite a while now,” and considering “many options,” but is nowhere near launching in China.
In a separate discussion last night between Schmidt and several start-up founders, he lauded Chinese tech products, services and adoption, especially in mobile payments. He noted that Starbucks in China don’t feature a register. Customers order ahead online and pay with their phones before picking up their lattes.
A business development leader with Facebook, Ime Archebong, asked Schmidt if large tech companies are doing enough good in the world.
Schmidt replied: “The judge of this is others, not us. Self-referential conversations about ‘Do I feel good about what I’m doing?’ are not very helpful. The judge is outside.”
At several points in the private discussion, Schmidt urged entrepreneurs to build products and services that are not merely addictive, but valuable. He also said not enough companies “measure the right things.” Too many focus on short-term revenue growth and satisfying shareholders, rather than what’s best for their users, society and the long-term health of their companies.
Schmidt was the CEO of Google from 2001, when he took over from co-founder Larry Page, through 2011, when Page reclaimed the reins. He remained as executive chairman of Google and then Alphabet until earlier this year.
Correction: Eric Schmidt did not specify a date by which he believed the internet would bifurcate. He was responding to a question from Tyler Cowen which specified “in the next 10 to 15 years.”
GOOGLE BOSSES HAVE forced employees to delete a confidential memo circulating inside the company that revealed explosive details about a plan to launch a censored search engine in China, The Intercept has learned.
The memo, authored by a Google engineer who was asked to work on the project, disclosed that the search system, codenamed Dragonfly, would require users to log in to perform searches, track their location — and share the resulting history with a Chinese partner who would have “unilateral access” to the data.
The memo was shared earlier this month among a group of Google employees who have been organizing internal protests over the censored search system, which has been designed to remove content that China’s authoritarian Communist Party regime views as sensitive, such as information about democracy, human rights, and peaceful protest.
According to three sources familiar with the incident, Google leadership discovered the memo and were furious that secret details about the China censorship were being passed between employees who were not supposed to have any knowledge about it. Subsequently, Google human resources personnel emailed employees who were believed to have accessed or saved copies of the memo and ordered them to immediately delete it from their computers. Emails demanding deletion of the memo contained “pixel trackers” that notified human resource managers when their messages had been read, recipients determined.
The Dragonfly memo reveals that a prototype of the censored search engine was being developed as an app for both Android and iOS devices, and would force users to sign in so they could use the service. The memo confirms, as The Intercept first reported last week, that users’ searches would be associated with their personal phone number. The memo adds that Chinese users’ movements would also be stored, along with the IP address of their device and links they clicked on. It accuses developers working on the project of creating “spying tools” for the Chinese government to monitor its citizens.
People’s search histories, location information, and other private data would be sent out of China to a database in Taiwan, the memo states. But the data would also be provided to employees of a Chinese company who would be granted “unilateral access” to the system.
To launch the censored search engine, Google set up a “joint venture” partnership with an unnamed Chinese company. The search engine will “blacklist sensitive queries” so that “no results will be shown” at all when people enter certain words or phrases, according to documents seen by The Intercept. Blacklisted search terms on a prototype of the search engine include “human rights,” “student protest,” and “Nobel Prize” in Mandarin, said sources familiar with the project.
According to the memo, aside from being able to access users’ search data, the Chinese partner company could add to the censorship blacklists: It would be able to “selectively edit search result pages … unilaterally, and with few controls seemingly in place.”
That a Chinese company would maintain a copy of users’ search data means that, by extension, the data would be accessible to Chinese authorities, who have broad powers to obtain information that is held or processed on the country’s mainland. A central concern human rights groups have expressed about Dragonfly is that it could place users at risk of Chinese government surveillance — and any person in China searching for blacklisted words or phrases could find themselves interrogated or detained. Chinese authorities are well-known for routinely targeting critics, activists, and journalists.
“It’s alarming to hear that such information will be stored and, potentially, easily shared with the Chinese authorities,” said Patrick Poon, a Hong Kong-based researcher with the human rights group Amnesty International. “It will completely put users’ privacy and safety at risk. Google needs to immediately explain if the app will involve such arrangements. It’s time to give the public full transparency of the project.”
ON AUGUST 16, two weeks after The Intercept revealed the Dragonfly plan, Google CEO Sundar Pichai told the company’s employees that the China plan was in its “early stages” and “exploratory.” However, employees working on the censored search engine were instructed in late July, days before the project was publicly exposed, that they should prepare to get it into a “launch-ready state” to roll out within weeks, pending approval from officials in Beijing.
“It will completely put users’ privacy and safety at risk.”
The memo raises new questions about Pichai’s claim that the project was not well-developed. Information stored on the company’s internal networks about Dragonfly “paints a very different picture,” it says. “The statement from our high-level leadership that Dragonfly is just an experiment seems wrong.”
The memo identifies at least 215 employees who appear to have been tasked with working full-time on Dragonfly, a number it says is “larger than many Google projects.” It says that source code associated with the project dates back to May 2017, and “many infrastructure parts predate” that. Moreover, screenshots of the app “show a project in a pretty advanced state,” the memo declares.
Most of the details about the project “have been secret from the start,” the memo says, adding that “after the existence of Dragonfly leaked, engineers working on the project were also quick to hide all of their code.”
The author of the memo said in the document that they were opposed to the China censorship. However, they added, “more than the project itself, I hate the culture of secrecy that has been built around it.”
The memo was first posted September 5 on an internal messaging list set up for Google employees to raise ethical concerns. But the memo was soon scrubbed from the list and individuals who had opened or saved the document were contacted by Google’s human resources department to discuss the matter. The employees were instructed not to share the memo.
Google reportedly maintains an aggressive security and investigation team known as “stopleaks,” which is dedicated to preventing unauthorized disclosures. The team is also said to monitor internal discussions.
“More than the project itself, I hate the culture of secrecy that has been built around it.”
Internal security efforts at Google have ramped up this year as employees have raised ethical concerns around a range of new company projects. Following the revelation by Gizmodoand The Intercept that Google had quietly begun work on a contract with the military last year, known as Project Maven, to develop automated image recognition systems for drone warfare, the communications team moved swiftly to monitor employee activity.
The “stopleaks” team, which coordinates with the internal Google communications department, even began monitoring an internal image board used to post messages based on internet memes, according to one former Google employee, for signs of employee sentiment around the Project Maven contract.
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Google’s internal security team consists of a number of former military and law enforcement officials. For example, LinkedIn lists as Google’s head of global investigations Joseph Vincent, whose resume includes work as a high-ranking agent at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s Homeland Security Investigations unit. The head of security at Google is Chris Rackow, who has described himself as a former member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s hostage rescue team and as a former U.S. Navy SEAL.
For some Google employees, the culture of secrecy at the company clashes directly with the its public image around fostering transparency, creating an intolerable work environment.
“Leadership misled engineers working on [Dragonfly] about the nature of their work, depriving them of moral agency,” said a Google employee who read the memo.
Google did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
The tech industry and consumer groups are gearing up for a fight as lawmakers begin considering whether to draft a national privacy law.
The push to get Congress to enact federal privacy standards is gaining new urgency after California passed what is seen as the nation’s toughest privacy law this June. The measure forces businesses to be more transparent about what they do with consumer data and gives users unprecedented control over their personal information.
But the California law has sparked worries within the tech industry, which fears having to comply with a patchwork of varying state regulations.
Now industry groups are pushing Congress to pass a national privacy bill that would block states from implementing their own standards.
Privacy advocates are skeptical of the industry proposals and concerned that internet giants will co-opt the process in order to get protections that are weaker than the California standard implemented across the country.
“They do not want effective oversight. They do not want regulation of their business practices, which is really urgently needed,” Jeff Chester, the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), told The Hill. “They’re going to work behind the scenes to shape legislation that will not protect Americans from having all of their information regularly gathered and used by these digital giants.”
“They see federal law as an opportunity to preempt stronger rules,” he added.
Next week, executives from Google, Apple, AT&T and other major technology and telecommunications companies will testify before the Senate Commerce Committee as the panel’s Republican chairman, Sen. John Thune (S.D.), prepares to introduce a new privacy law.
Consumer groups are concerned that only industry voices will be heard at the hearing and that internet companies will have an outsized role in shaping the legislation. They are now demanding a seat at the table.
On Wednesday, a coalition of public interest groups including the CDD, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Privacy Information Center sent a letter to Thune asking him to ensure that consumers have a voice in the process.
“While we have no objection to the participation of business groups in Senate hearings on consumer privacy, the Senate’s first instinct should be to hear from the American public on these important issues,” the letter reads.
Frederick Hill, a spokesman for the committee, told The Hill in an email that the panel will hold more hearings on the issue.
“For the first hearing, the committee is bringing in companies most consumers recognize to make the discussion about privacy more relatable,” Hill said. “We expect there will be opportunities for other voices at future hearings on the subject.”
A source familiar with the committee’s plans told The Hill that it could hold a hearing for privacy advocates to testify in the coming weeks.
The stakes are high for all sides in the privacy debate after a year which saw Facebook rocked by a massive data scandal.
The company disclosed earlier this year that a data firm had accessed the personal data of over 80 million Facebook users. The revelation sparked a firestorm that saw CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifying before Congress in a pair of marathon hearings to address lawmakers’ concerns.
Overseas, Europe has already passed its own tough privacy law, which took effect this year.
Whether Congress can actually get behind a national privacy framework, though, is an open question. Lawmakers have tried before, unsuccessfully.
In 2012, the Obama White House unveiled a “Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights” that it hoped to enact into law. The debate dragged on for several years and the process was eventually derailed by contentious disagreements between business and consumer groups.
As Congress gears up to try again, industry groups in recent weeks have been pushing wish lists for what they hope to see in a federal privacy framework. Lobbying groups including the Chamber of Commerce, the Internet Association and BSA | The Software Alliance have all released their own sets of privacy principles.
The industry proposals include calls for codifying transparency rules that require businesses to disclose their collection practices and giving consumers the right to request copies of their data and request that some data be deleted.
Shaundra Watson, BSA’s policy director, said the group’s privacy principles were not a response to the new California law but the result of a discussion among their members, including companies like Apple and Microsoft, of how to codify the consumer protections they already offer.
“Our companies really are responsible for personal data, and so they not only want to continue to embrace those practices but look more broadly to see what protections should be in place across the board and concluded the best way to do that is a [federal] law,” Watson told The Hill.
But privacy advocates remain skeptical. After a series of data scandals, many tech critics believe that any effective privacy framework needs to restrict the data collection practices that companies like Facebook and Google rely on as a business model.
Chester, who says public interest groups are banding together to come up with their own legislative principles, believes the frameworks being pushed by industry lobbyists don’t go far enough.
“What has to happen is the basic business practices have to change,” he said. “We believe there need to be restrictions on how these companies engage in data collection.
“These so-called principles are really principles to undermine privacy, not to protect it,” he said.
Story 1: President Trump: “United States Will Not Be a Migrant Camp” and not be “A Refuge Holding Facility” — “We Want Safety and We Want Security For Our Country” — Blames Democrats For Obstructing Immigration Law Reform and Separating Children From Parents — Videos —
President Trump: “The United States will not be a migrant camp…” (C-SPAN)
President Trump: US ‘Will Not Be A Migrant Camp’ 6/18/18
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Rand Paul – Immigration
Published on Jul 24, 2013
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Ronald Reagan’s amnesty legacy
Ronald Reagan – “I Believe in Amnesty for Illegal Aliens”
George H. W. Bush And Ronald Reagan Debate On Immigration In 1980 | TIME
Trump Warns U.S. Could Follow Path of Germany on Immigration
President wants to meet with members of both parties on matter, spokesman says
President Donald Trump on Monday used Germany’s immigration problems to defend his own hardline policies. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call file photo)
Updated 10:05 a.m. | President Donald Trump on Monday appeared to defend his administration’s policy of separating migrant families by warning that Germany’s and Europe’s immigration issues could be replicated here.
He used several tweets Monday morning to blast not only German and European immigration laws, but also Democratic lawmakers. The GOP president claimed anew that the opposition party is withholding the votes needed to pass a sweeping immigration overhaul measure that would address a list of unresolved matters.
Trump criticized Democrats for refusing to “give us the votes to fix the world’s worst immigration laws” as one of his deputy press secretaries, Hogan Gidley, was on the White House’s North Lawn calling on Democratic members to meet with Trump to come up with a broad immigration bill.
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump
Why don’t the Democrats give us the votes to fix the world’s worst immigration laws? Where is the outcry for the killings and crime being caused by gangs and thugs, including MS-13, coming into our country illegally?
“Ask the Democrats this question: We can’t deport them, we can’t separate them, we can’t detain them, we can’t prosecute them. What they want is a radical open-border policy that lets everyone out into the interior of this country with virtually no documentation whatsoever,” Gidley said. “They could come to the table and fix this immediately. They’ve chosen not to do that.”
“Next steps, hopefully, is getting some congressional members over to the White House, the president have an open conversation with them. Everyone needs to put down their swords and stop political grandstanding getting ready for the midterms and instead focus on actually fixing their problems,” Gidley said. “They could go back to their districts and say, ‘We stood up for you guys and we fixed the problem.’ But they won’t do that.”
Republicans and Democrats alike are objecting to or questioning the administration’s decision in recent weeks to separate migrant families, sending parents for prosecution and children to be held at detention centers where Democratic lawmakers and experts say they are being kept, in some cases, in “cages.”
But White House officials’ comments Monday morning gave no indication they are considering altering the policy.
Administration officials, however, have been inconsistent in their messaging about the policy. White House immigration hard-liner Stephen Miller is touting the “zero-tolerance policy,” while Trump says he is no fan of the separations but claims — falsely — that it is the result of a Democratic-only law. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said her agency has no separation policy.
The president also tweeted that children “are being used by some of the worst criminals on earth as a means to enter our country,” and said crime in Central and South American countries is at historically high levels. “Not going to happen in the U.S,” he added.
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump
Children are being used by some of the worst criminals on earth as a means to enter our country. Has anyone been looking at the Crime taking place south of the border. It is historic, with some countries the most dangerous places in the world. Not going to happen in the U.S.
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Trump on Monday also implied such policies are necessary, and all indications are Republicans and Democrats intend to make immigration a part of their midterm campaign messages.
The president used tweets to claim that flaws in U.S. law could trigger problems resembling those in Europe.
“We don’t want what is happening with immigration in Europe to happen with us!” the president wrote in one tweet.
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump
We don’t want what is happening with immigration in Europe to happen with us!
The U.S. president appeared to stoke political tensions in Germany, saying German citizens are “turning against their leadership as migration is rocking the already tenuous Berlin coalition,” also saying there was a “Big mistake made all over Europe in allowing millions of people in who have so strongly and violently changed their culture!”
Angela Merkel’s German government faces an uncertain fate. She has been criticized for her policy of allowing in refugees.
Trump also used that tweet to claim crime is “way up” in Germany, implying it is because of Merkel’s immigration policies. But German government data suggests the opposite is true.
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump
The people of Germany are turning against their leadership as migration is rocking the already tenuous Berlin coalition. Crime in Germany is way up. Big mistake made all over Europe in allowing millions of people in who have so strongly and violently changed their culture!
President Trump on Saturday called on Democrats to end a “horrible law” that he says separates children from their parents when they come across the southwest border.
(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Trump on Saturday called on Democrats to end a “horrible law” that he says separates children from their parents when they come across the southwest border. “Put pressure on the Democrats to end the horrible law that separates children from there [sic] parents once they cross the Border into the U.S,” he said in a Twitter post.
But Democrats and others argue the Trump administration’s own policies are responsible for more family separation.
“Separating children from parents- as a matter of new policy to discourage asylum seekers – is just the latest outrage from this Administration when it comes to immigrants. This is inconsistent with who we say we are as a nation,” said Eric Holder, a former attorney general in the Obama administration, in a tweet Saturday.
Earlier this month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the Homeland Security Department would refer “100 percent of illegal southwest border crossings“ to the Justice Department for prosecution, as arrests at the border have increased in recent months.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen signed a memo that directs the department to refer all suspected border-crossers to the Justice Department.
A 2008 bipartisan law meant to combat child trafficking, signed by President George W. Bush, requires children apprehended at the border to be classified as unaccompanied minors if their parents are prosecuted and detained for criminal charges.
The law, the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, prohibits the government from quickly deporting children who enter the U.S. illegally and alone if they are not from Mexico or Canada. Under the law, those classified as unaccompanied minors have to be transferred from Homeland Security custody to the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Parents, if children came with them, are handled separately.
An agency of the Department of Health and Human Services, the resettlement office provides shelter to the children and finds a guardian to care for them while they await hearings in immigration courts.
Former President Barack Obama cited the law as a barrier when his administration was confronted with a surge of unaccompanied minors crossing the border illegally from Central America in 2014, because he could not quickly deport them.
More prosecutions of people suspected of illegally crossing the border, as the new Trump administration policy demands, would likely make family separations more common.
“This Administration’s immigration policies are outrageous, cruel, and inhumane. Proactively working to break up immigrant families is putting these kids’ lives in danger. We need to put a stop to this,” Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., said Saturday on Twitter.
“It is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart,” says former first lady Laura Bush of the Trump administration policy of “zero tolerance,” under which the children of illegal migrants are being detained apart from their parents.
“Disgraceful,” adds Dr. Franklin Graham.
“We need to be … a country that governs with a heart,” says first lady Melania Trump. “No one likes this policy,” says White House aide Kellyanne Conway, even “the president wants this to end.”
And so it shall – given the universal denunciations and photos of sobbing children being pulled from parents. Yet striking down the policy will leave America’s immigration crisis still unresolved.
Consider. Since 2016, some 110,000 children have entered the U.S. illegally and been released, along with 200,000 Central American families caught sneaking across the border.
Reflecting its frustration, the White House press office declared:
“We can’t deport them, we can’t separate them, we can’t detain them, we can’t prosecute them. What (the Democrats) want is a radical open-border policy that lets everyone out into the interior of this country with virtually no documentation whatsoever.”
Where many Americans see illegal intruders, Democrats see future voters.
And with 11,000 kids of illegal immigrants in custody and 250 more arriving every day, we could have 30,000 in custody by summer’s end
Story 2: Families that Stay Together Should Be Deported Together — Change The Law — Videos
Homeland Security Secretary Nielsen comments on immigration crisis at border
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen speaks about the immigration crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border and children being separated from their parents. She insists that it is not part of the administration’s policy.
Ingraham: Separating parents from kids and fact from fiction
Families separated at the border: what’s really going on?
Kirstjen Nielsen, Head Of Homeland Security, Defends Controversial Immigration Policy | TIME
VIDEO: White House discuss Trump administration’s policies on separating migrant families.
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The Truth about Separating Kids
By RICH LOWRY
U.S. Border Patrol agents with illegal immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border near McAllen, Texas, May 9, 2018. (Loren Elliott/Reuters)
Some economic migrants are using children as chits, but the problem is fixable — if Congress acts.The latest furor over Trump immigration policy involves the separation of children from parents at the border.
As usual, the outrage obscures more than it illuminates, so it’s worth walking through what’s happening here.
For the longest time, illegal immigration was driven by single males from Mexico. Over the last decade, the flow has shifted to women, children, and family units from Central America. This poses challenges we haven’t confronted before and has made what once were relatively minor wrinkles in the law loom very large.
The Trump administration isn’t changing the rules that pertain to separating an adult from the child. Those remain the same. Separation happens only if officials find that the adult is falsely claiming to be the child’s parent, or is a threat to the child, or is put into criminal proceedings.
It’s the last that is operative here. The past practice had been to give a free pass to an adult who is part of a family unit. The new Trump policy is to prosecute all adults. The idea is to send a signal that we are serious about our laws and to create a deterrent against re-entry. (Illegal entry is a misdemeanor, illegal re-entry a felony.)
The criminal proceedings are exceptionally short, assuming there is no aggravating factor such as a prior illegal entity or another crime. The migrants generally plead guilty, and they are then sentenced to time served, typically all in the same day, although practices vary along the border. After this, they are returned to the custody of ICE.
If the adult then wants to go home, in keeping with the expedited order of removal that is issued as a matter of course, it’s relatively simple. The adult should be reunited quickly with his or her child, and the family returned home as a unit. In this scenario, there’s only a very brief separation.
The clock ticking on the time the government can hold a child will almost always run out before an asylum claim is settled. The migrant is allowed ten days to seek an attorney, and there may be continuances or other complications.
This creates the choice of either releasing the adults and children together into the country pending the ajudication of the asylum claim, or holding the adults and releasing the children. If the adult is held, HHS places the child with a responsible party in the U.S., ideally a relative (migrants are likely to have family and friends here).
Even if Flores didn’t exist, the government would be very constrained in how many family units it can accommodate. ICE has only about 3,000 family spaces in shelters. It is also limited in its overall space at the border, which is overwhelmed by the ongoing influx. This means that — whatever the Trump administration would prefer to do — many adults are still swiftly released.
A few points about all this:
1) Family units can go home quickly. The option that both honors our laws and keeps family units together is a swift return home after prosecution. But immigrant advocates hate it because they want the migrants to stay in the United States. How you view this question will depend a lot on how you view the motivation of the migrants (and how seriously you take our laws and our border).
2) There’s a better way to claim asylum. Every indication is that the migrant flow to the United States is discretionary. It nearly dried up at the beginning of the Trump administration when migrants believed that they had no chance of getting into the United States. Now, it is going in earnest again because the message got out that, despite the rhetoric, the policy at the border hasn’t changed. This strongly suggests that the flow overwhelmingly consists of economic migrants who would prefer to live in the United States, rather than victims of persecution in their home country who have no option but to get out.
Children should not be making this journey that is fraught with peril. But there is now a premium on bringing children because of how we have handled these cases.
Even if a migrant does have a credible fear of persecution, there is a legitimate way to pursue that claim, and it does not involve entering the United States illegally. First, such people should make their asylum claim in the first country where they feel safe, i.e., Mexico or some other country they are traversing to get here. Second, if for some reason they are threatened everywhere but the United States, they should show up at a port of entry and make their claim there rather than crossing the border illegally.
3) There is a significant moral cost to not enforcing the border. There is obviously a moral cost to separating a parent from a child and almost everyone would prefer not to do it. But, under current policy and with the current resources, the only practical alternative is letting family units who show up at the border live in the country for the duration. Not only does this make a mockery of our laws, it creates an incentive for people to keep bringing children with them.
Needless to say, children should not be making this journey that is fraught with peril. But there is now a premium on bringing children because of how we have handled these cases. They are considered chits.
Some migrants have admitted they brought their children not only to remove them from danger in such places as Central America and Africa, but because they believed it would cause the authorities to release them from custody sooner.
Others have admitted to posing falsely with children who are not their own, and Border Patrol officials say that such instances of fraud are increasing.
If someone is determined to come here illegally, the decent and safest thing would be to leave the child at home with a relative and send money back home. Because we favor family units over single adults, we are creating an incentive to do the opposite and use children to cut deals with smugglers.
4) Congress can fix this. Congress can change the rules so the Flores consent decree will no longer apply, and it can appropriate more money for family shelters at the border. This is an obvious thing to do that would eliminate the tension between enforcing our laws and keeping family units together. The Trump administration is throwing as many resources as it can at the border to expedite the process, and it desperately wants the Flores consent decree reversed. Despite some mixed messages, if the administration had its druthers, family units would be kept together and their cases settled quickly.
The missing piece here is Congress, but little outrage will be directed at it, and probably nothing will be done. And so our perverse system will remain in place and the crisis at the border will rumble on.
What’s Really Happening When Asylum-Seeking Families Are Separated?
An expert on helping parents navigate the asylum process describes what she’s seeing on the ground.
BY
Central American asylum seekers wait as U.S. Border Patrol agents take them into custody on June 12, 2018, near McAllen, Texas. The families were then sent to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing center for possible separation.
John Moore/Getty Images
Everyone involved in U.S. immigration along the border has a unique perspective on the new “zero tolerance” policies—most notably, the increasing number of migrant parents who are separated from their children. Some workers are charged with taking the children away from their parents and sending them into the care of Health and Human Services. Some are contracted to find housing for the children and get them food. Some volunteers try to help the kids navigate the system. Some, like Anne Chandler, assist the parents. As executive director of the Houston office of the nonprofit Tahirih Justice Center, which focuses on helping immigrant women and children, she has been traveling to the border and to detention centers, listening to the parents’ stories. We asked her to talk with us about what she has been hearing in recent weeks.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Texas Monthly: First, can you give us an overview of your organization?
Anne Chandler: We run the Children’s Border Project, and we work with hundreds of kids that have been released from ORR [Office of Refugee Resettlement] care. We are not a legal service provider that does work when they’re in the shelters. To date, most of our work with that issue of family separation has been working with the parents in the days when they are being separated: when they’re in the federal courthouse being convicted; partnering with the federal public defenders; and then in the adult detention center, as they have no idea how to communicate or speak to their children or get them back before being deported.
TM: Can you take me through what you’ve been seeing?
AC: The short of it is, we will take sample sizes of numbers and individuals we’re seeing that are being prosecuted for criminal entry. The majority of those are free to return to the home country. Vast majority. We can’t quite know exactly because our sample size is between one hundred and two hundred individuals. But 90 percent of those who are being convicted are having their children separated from them. The 10 percent that aren’t are some mothers who are going with their children to the detention centers in Karnes and Dilley. But, for the most part, the ones that I’ve been working with are the ones that are actually being prosecuted for criminal entry, which is a pretty new thing for our country—to take first-time asylum seekers who are here seeking safe refuge, to turn around and charge them with a criminal offense. Those parents are finding themselves in adult detention centers and in a process known as expedited removal, where many are being deported. And their children, on the other hand, are put in a completely different legal structure. They are categorized as unaccompanied children and thus are being put in place in a federal agency not with the Department of Homeland Security but with Health and Human Services. And Health and Human Services has this complicated structure in place where they’re not viewed as a long-term foster care system—that’s for very limited numbers—but their general mandate is to safeguard these children in temporary shelters and then find family members with whom they can be placed. So they start with parents, and then they go to grandparents, and then they go to other immediate family members, and then they go to acquaintances, people who’ve known the children, and they’re in that system, but they can’t be released to their parents because their parents are behind bars. And we may see more parents that get out of jail because they pass a “credible fear” interview, which is the screening done by the asylum office to see who should be deported quickly, within days or weeks of arrival, and who should stay here and have an opportunity to present their asylum case before an immigration judge of the Department of Justice. So we have a lot of individuals who are in that credible fear process right now, but in Houston, once you have a credible fear interview (which will sometimes take two to three weeks to even set up), those results aren’t coming out for four to six weeks. Meanwhile, these parents are just kind of languishing in these detention centers because of the zero-tolerance policy. There’s no individual adjudication of whether the parents should be put on some form of alternative detention program so that they can be in a position to be reunited with their kid.
TM: So, just so I make sure I understand: the parents come in and say, “We’re persecuted” or give some reason for asylum. They come in. And then their child or children are taken away and they’re in lockup for at least six weeks away from the kids and often don’t know where the kids are. Is that what’s happening under zero tolerance?
AC: So the idea of zero tolerance under the stated policy is that we don’t care why you’re afraid. We don’t care if it’s religion, political, gangs, anything. For all asylum seekers, you are going to be put in jail, in a detention center, and you’re going to have your children taken away from you. That’s the policy. They’re not 100 percent able to implement that because of a lot of reasons, including just having enough judges on the border. And bed space. There’s a big logistical problem because this is a new policy. So the way they get to that policy of taking the kids away and keeping the adults in detention centers and the kids in a different federal facility is based on the legal rationale that we’re going to convict you, and since we’re going to convict you, you’re going to be in the custody of the U.S. Marshals, and when that happens, we’re taking your kid away. So they’re not able to convict everybody of illegal entry right now just because there aren’t enough judges on the border right now to hear the number of cases that come over, and then they say if you have religious persecution or political persecution or persecution on something that our asylum definition recognizes, you can fight that case behind bars at an immigration detention center. And those cases take two, three, four, five, six months. And what happens to your child isn’t really our concern. That is, you have made the choice to bring your child over illegally. And this is what’s going to happen.
TM: Even if they crossed at a legal entry point?
AC: Very few people come to the bridge. Border Patrol is saying the bridge is closed. When I was last out in McAllen, people were stacked on the bridge, sleeping there for three, four, ten nights. They’ve now cleared those individuals from sleeping on the bridge, but there are hundreds of accounts of asylum seekers, when they go to the bridge, who are told, “I’m sorry, we’re full today. We can’t process your case.” So the families go illegally on a raft—I don’t want to say illegally; they cross without a visa on a raft. Many of them then look for Border Patrol to turn themselves in, because they know they’re going to ask for asylum. And under this government theory—you know, in the past, we’ve had international treaties, right? Statutes which codified the right of asylum seekers to ask for asylum. Right? Article 31 of the Refugee Convention clearly says that it is improper for any state to use criminal laws that could deter asylum seekers as long as that asylum seeker is asking for asylum within a reasonable amount of time. But our administration is kind of ignoring this longstanding international and national jurisprudence of basic beliefs to make this distinction that, if you come to a bridge, we’re not going to prosecute you, but if you come over the river and then find immigration or are caught by immigration, we’re prosecuting you.
TM: So if you cross any other way besides the bridge, we’re prosecuting you. But . . . you can’t cross the bridge.
AC: That’s right. I’ve talked to tons of people. There are organizations like Al Otro Lado that document border turn-backs. And there’s an effort to accompany asylum seekers so that Customs and Border Patrol can’t say, “We’re closed.” Everybody we’ve talked to who’s been prosecuted or separated has crossed the river without a visa.
TM: You said you were down there recently?
AC: Monday, June 4.
TM: What was happening on the bridge at that point?
AC: I talked to a lot of people who were there Saturdays and Sundays, a lot of church groups that are going, bringing those individuals umbrellas because they were in the sun. It’s morning shade, and then the sun—you know, it’s like 100 degrees on the cement. It’s really, really hot. So there were groups bringing diapers and water bottles and umbrellas and electric fans, and now everyone’s freaked out because they’re gone! What did they do with them? Did they process them all? Yet we know they’re saying you’re turned back. When I was in McAllen, the individuals that day who visited people on the bridge had been there four days. We’re talking infants; there were people breastfeeding on the bridge.
TM: Are the infants taken as well?
AC: Every border zone is different. We definitely saw a pattern in McAllen. We talked to about 63 parents who had lost their children that day in the court. Of those, the children seemed to be all five and older. What we know from the shelters and working with people is that, yes, there are kids that are very young, that are breastfeeding babies and under three in the shelters, separated from their parents. But I’m just saying, in my experience, all those kids and all the parents’ stories were five and up.
TM: Can you talk about how you’ve seen the process change over the past few months?
AC: The zero-tolerance policy really started with Jeff Sessions’s announcement in May. One could argue that this was the original policy that we started seeing in the executive orders. One was called “border security and immigration enforcement.” And a lot of the principles underlying zero tolerance are found here. The idea is that we’re going to prosecute people.
TM: And the policy of separating kids from parents went into effect when?
AC: They would articulate it in various ways with different officials, but as immigration attorneys, starting in October, were like, “Oh my goodness. They are telling us these are all criminal lawbreakers and they’re going to have their children taken away.” We didn’t know what it would mean. And so we saw about six hundred children who were taken away from October to May, then we saw an explosion of the numbers in May. It ramped up. The Office of Refugee Resettlement taking in all these kids says that they are our children, that they are unaccompanied. It’s a fabrication. They’re not unaccompanied children. They are children that came with their parents, and the idea that we’re creating this crisis—it’s a manufactured crisis where we’re going to let children suffer to somehow allow this draconian approach with families seeking shelter and safe refuge.
TM: So what is the process for separation?
AC: There is no one process. Judging from the mothers and fathers I’ve spoken to and those my staff has spoken to, there are several different processes. Sometimes they will tell the parent, “We’re taking your child away.” And when the parent asks, “When will we get them back?” they say, “We can’t tell you that.” Sometimes the officers will say, “because you’re going to be prosecuted” or “because you’re not welcome in this country” or “because we’re separating them,” without giving them a clear justification. In other cases, we see no communication that the parent knows that their child is to be taken away. Instead, the officers say, “I’m going to take your child to get bathed.” That’s one we see again and again. “Your child needs to come with me for a bath.” The child goes off, and in a half an hour, twenty minutes, the parent inquires, “Where is my five-year-old?” “Where’s my seven-year-old?” “This is a long bath.” And they say, “You won’t be seeing your child again.” Sometimes mothers—I was talking to one mother, and she said, “Don’t take my child away,” and the child started screaming and vomiting and crying hysterically, and she asked the officers, “Can I at least have five minutes to console her?” They said no. In another case, the father said, “Can I comfort my child? Can I hold him for a few minutes?” The officer said, “You must let them go, and if you don’t let them go, I will write you up for an altercation, which will mean that you are the one that had the additional charges charged against you.” So, threats. So the father just let the child go. So it’s a lot of variations. But sometimes deceit and sometimes direct, just “I’m taking your child away.” Parents are not getting any information on what their rights are to communicate to get their child before they are deported, what reunification may look like. We spoke to nine parents on this Monday, which was the 11th, and these were adults in detention centers outside of Houston. They had been separated from their child between May 23 and May 25, and as of June 11, not one of them had been able to talk to their child or knew a phone number that functioned from the detention center director. None of them had direct information from immigration on where their child was located. The one number they were given by some government official from the Department of Homeland Security was a 1-800 number. But from the phones inside the detention center, they can’t make those calls. We know there are more parents who are being deported without their child, without any process or information on how to get their child back.
TM: And so it’s entirely possible that children will be left in the country without any relatives?
AC: Could be, yeah.
TM: And if the child is, say, five years old . . .?
AC: The child is going through deportation proceedings, so the likelihood that that child is going to be deported is pretty high.
TM: How do they know where to deport the child to, or who the parents are?
AC: How does that child navigate their deportation case without their parent around?
TM: Because a five-year-old doesn’t necessarily know his parents’ information.
AC: In the shelters, they can’t even find the parents because the kids are just crying inconsolably. They often don’t know the full legal name of their parents or their date of birth. They’re not in a position to share a trauma story like what caused the migration. These kids and parents had no idea. None of the parents I talked to were expecting to be separated as they faced the process of asking for asylum.
TM: I would think that there would be something in place where, when the child is taken, they’d be given a wristband or something with their information on it?
AC: I think the Department of Homeland Security gives the kids an alien number. They also give the parents an alien number and probably have that information. The issue is that the Department of Homeland Security is not the one caring for the children. Jurisdiction of that child has moved over to Health and Human Services, and the Health and Human Services staff has to figure out, where is this parent? And that’s not easy. Sometimes the parents are deported. Kids are in New York and Miami, and we’ve got parents being sent to Tacoma, Washington, and California. Talk about a mess. And nobody has a right to an attorney here. These kids don’t get a paid advocate or an ad litem or a friend of the court. They don’t get a paid attorney to represent them. Some find that, because there are programs. But it’s not a right. It’s not universal.
TM: What agency is in charge of physically separating the children and the adults?
AC: The Department of Homeland Security. We saw the separation take place while they were in the care and custody of Customs and Border Protection. That’s where it was happening, at a center called the Ursula, which the immigrants called La Perrera, because it looked like a dog pound, a dog cage. It’s a chain-link fence area, long running areas that remind Central Americans of the way people treat dogs.
TM: So the Department of Homeland Security does the separation and then they immediately pass the kids to HHS?
AC: I don’t have a bird’s-eye view of this, besides interviewing parents. Parents don’t know. All they know is that the kid hasn’t come back to their little room in CBP. Right? We know from talking to advocates and attorneys who have access to the shelters that they think that these kids leave in buses to shelters run by the Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement Department of Unaccompanied Children Services—which, on any given day there’s like three thousand kids in the Harlingen-Brownsville area. We know there are eight, soon to be nine, facilities in Houston. And they’re going to open up this place in Tornillo, along the border by El Paso. And they’re opening up places in Miami. They’re past capacity. This is a cyclical time, where rates of migration increase. So now you’re creating two populations. One is your traditional unaccompanied kids who are just coming because their life is at risk right now in El Salvador and Honduras and parts of Guatemala, and they come with incredible trauma, complex stories, and need a lot of resources, and so they navigate this immigration system. And now we have this new population, which is totally different: the young kids who don’t hold their stories and aren’t here to self-navigate the system and are crying out for their parents. There are attorneys that get money to go in and give rights presentations to let the teenagers know what they can ask for in court, what’s happening with their cases, and now the attorneys are having a hard time doing that because right next to them, in the other room, they’ve got kids crying and wailing, asking for their mom and dad. The attorneys can’t give these kids information. They’re just trying to learn grounding exercises.
TM: Do you know if siblings are allowed to stay together?
AC: We don’t know. I dealt with one father who knew that siblings were not at the same location from talking to his family member. He believes they’re separated. But I have no idea. Can’t answer that question.
TM: Is there another nonprofit similar to yours that handles kids more than adults?
AC: Yes: in Houston it’s Catholic Charities. We know in Houston they are going to open up shelters specific for the tender-age kids, which is defined as kids under twelve. And that’s going to be by Minute Maid Stadium. And that facility is also going to have some traditional demographic of pregnant teenagers. But it’s going to be a young kid—and young kids are, almost by definition, separated. Kids usually do not migrate on their own at that age.
TM: That’s usually teens?
AC: Teens. Population is thirteen to seventeen, with many more fifteen-, sixteen-, and seventeen-year-olds than thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds. They’re riding on top of trains. You know, the journey is very dangerous. Usually that’s the age where the gangs start taking the girls and saying “you’re going to be my sex slave”–type of stuff. I’ve heard that it’s going to be run by a nonprofit. ORR does not hold the shelters directly. They contract with nonprofits whose job it is to provide essential food, mental health care, caseworkers to try to figure out who they’re going to be released to, and all those functions to nonprofits, and I think the nonprofit in charge of this one is Southwest Key.
TM: So how long do the kids stay in the facility?
AC: It used to be, on average, thirty days. But that’s going up now. There are many reasons for that: one, these facilities and ORR are not used to working with this demographic of young children. Two, DHS is sharing information with ORR on the background of those families that are taking these children, and we’ve seen raids where they’re going to where the children are and looking for individuals in those households who are undocumented. So there is reticence and fear of getting these children if there’s someone in the household who is not a citizen.
TM: So if I’m understanding correctly, a relative can say, “Well, I can pick that kid up; that’s my niece.” She comes and picks up the child. And then DHS will follow them home? Is that what you’re saying?
AC: No. The kid would go to the aunt’s house, but let’s just imagine that she is here on a visa, a student visa, but the aunt falls out of visa status and is undocumented and her information, her address, is at the top of DHS’s files. So we’ve seen this happen a lot: a month or two weeks after kids have been released, DHS goes to those foster homes and arrests people and puts people in jail and deports them.
TM: And then I guess they start all over again trying to find a home for those kids?
AC: Right.
TM: What is explained to the kids about the proceedings, and who explains it to them?
AC: The Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement goes through an organization called the Vera Institute of Justice that then contracts with nonprofit organizations who hire attorneys and other specialized bilingual staff to go into these shelters and give what they call legal orientation programs for children, and they do group orientation. Sometimes they speak to the kids individually and try to explain to them, “This is the process here; and you’re going to have to go see an immigration judge; and these are your rights before a judge; you won’t have an attorney for your case, but you can hire one. If you’re afraid to go back to your country, you have to tell the judge.” That type of stuff.
TM: And if the child is five, and alone, doesn’t have older siblings or cousins—
AC: Or three or four. They’re young in our Houston detention centers. And that’s where these attorneys are frustrated—they can’t be attorneys. How do they talk and try to console and communicate with a five-year-old who is just focused on “I want my mom or dad,” right?
TM: Are the kids whose parents are applying for asylum processed differently from kids whose parents are not applying for asylum?
AC: I don’t know. These are questions we ask DHS, but we don’t know the answers.
TM: Why don’t you get an answer?
AC: I don’t know. To me, if you’re going to justify this in some way under the law, the idea that these parents don’t have the ability to obtain very simple answers—what are my rights and when can I be reunited with my kid before I’m deported without them?—is horrible. And has to go far below anything we, as a civil society of law, should find acceptable. The fact that I, as an attorney specializing in this area, cannot go to a detention center and tell a mother or father what the legal procedure is for them to get their child or to reunite with their child, even if they want to go home?
And my answer is, “I don’t think you can.” In my experience, they’re not releasing these children to the parents as they’re deported. To put a structure like that in place and the chaos in the system for “deterrence” and then carry out so much pain on the backs of some already incredibly traumatized mothers and fathers who have already experienced sometimes just horrific violence is unacceptable.
The Trump administration has an intentional and explicit policy of separating migrant children from their families if caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border without permission. Long before that, however, the administration of Barack Obama ramped up a program with a sometimes similar effect.
Since 2008, the United States has had a policy known as the Alien Transfer Exit Program (ATEP), or Lateral Repatriation. This program focuses on detaining male migrants of Mexican descent.
Here’s how it works: Once an immigrant is caught attempting to cross the border without documentation, they are detained, flown or bused across the United States and then shown the exit at another segment of the U.S.-Mexico border–thousands of miles from their original point of entry.
The Los Angeles Times described a typical use of Lateral Repatriation in a story about Luis Montes. The Times noted:
Montes was put on a plane, flown halfway across the country and bused to the California-Mexico border. At 2 a.m. Tuesday, U.S. border authorities took off his handcuffs and escorted him to a gate leading to the desert city of Mexicali. Montes was back in Mexico, but about 1,200 miles away from where he started.
Luis Montes was sanguine about his dire situation, but the ATEP program often leads to migrants being placed in completely unfamiliar surroundings where they are then subject to crime and abuse, according to libertarian outlet Reason.
Sparingly used upon inception, the Obama administration drastically increased the use of ATEP in 2011, responding to a perceived increase in attempts at immigration into the United States by Mexican nationals.
But immigrants’ rights activists had long cautioned that Lateral Repatriation breaks up families. The reason is fairly simple: many male Mexican nationals who are detained trying to cross the border often come with their families in tow. When ATEP is used, the men are captured and taken thousands of miles away, while their wives, partners and children are placed in immigrant detention centers.
Eventually, the men are released into vastly different parts of Mexico than where they originally hailed from, while their families are likely to be deported near the original point of attempted entry. Mothers and older female relatives were typically given the option of staying with their children. Typically this meant being housed in a “family detention center,”most of which are located in Texas or Pennsylvania.
[T]hese places are tortuous: policies include banning mothers and children from sleeping together and turning lights on/off every hour to ensure this…guaranteeing sleep deprivation, this aside from your other standard physical/sexual abuse in ICE custody.
Single Mexican fathers or men who traveled without an adult female companion while attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border with children, when subject to ATEP, had their children separated from them. Unaccompanied minors would then be placed into the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Such custody is supposed to be temporary and ORR is supposed to release children to an identified family member or sponsor.
The Arizona-based group No More Deaths, along with various other human rights organizations, refers to ATEP as “a form of cruel and unusual punishment” and a fact sheet released by the group noted, “Very often, families are separated and sent to cities far away from each other. They are never told where to find their loved ones, and humanitarian organizations often have to go through the Mexican Consulate to get information about family members.”
Additionally, No More Deaths says the practice of Lateral Repatriation, used by Customs and Border Protection, is largely shrouded in secrecy and operates largely without accountability. The group notes:
The Government Accountability Office released a report in 2010 criticizing several DHS programs for lack of public accountability. The report mentioned ATEP, in the context of other programs that do not have any measurement mechanisms in place. DHS largely dismissed such concerns, saying of performance measures that it “did not believe such action was appropriate,” according to the GAO.
Because of Homeland Security’s dismissal of the need for accountability, it’s unclear exactly how many children were separated from their families under this Obama-era policy.
To be clear: the Obama administration’s use of ATEP was not intended to break-up families–that was an occasionally expected side effect–while Trump’s recently-confirmed policy is expressly directed toward that end in the name of “deterrence.”
Story 3: President Trump Places A Priority On Outer Space in Addressing The Nation Space Council And Directs Pentagon To Create A New Military Branch — Space Force — Videos
Trump announces plan to establish new “Space Force”
US Space Force: Here’s what we know (CNET News)
‘Space Force’ – Trump Directs Pentagon to Create New Military Branch
Trump announces new “Space Force” military branch
President Trump Just Created A Space Force… No I’m Not Joking
President Trump Meets with the National Space Council
Vice President Pence Meets with the National Space Council
Trump’s plans for space travel could be game changer for NASA
2001 Space Waltz
2001: A Space Odyssey, Mission to Jupiter, Gayane Ballet Suite
Trump directs Pentagon to create military Space Force
President Donald Trump signs an executive order as Vice President Mike Pence and several members of the Cabinet look on during a meeting of the National Space Council at the White House June 18, 2018. President Trump signed an executive order to establish the Space Force, an independent and co-equal military branch, as the sixth branch of the U.S. armed forces.
ALEX WONG / GETTY IMAGES
Last Updated Jun 18, 2018 6:09 PM EDT
President Trump officially directed the Pentagon to establish a sixth branch of the U.S. military in space on Monday. Speaking at a National Space Council meeting at the White House, Mr. Trump called for a “space force” to ensure American dominance on the high frontier.
The president also signed his administration’s third Space Policy Directive, calling for establishment of new protocols and procedures to manage and monitor the increasing numbers of satellites in low-Earth orbit and the tens of thousands of pieces of space junk and debris that pose an increasing threat to costly spacecraft.
The directive follows on the heels of two other major space policy initiatives being implemented by the National Space Council, one calling for returning humans to the moon before eventual missions to Mars and another aimed at streamlining the federal space bureaucracy to reduce red tape and streamline licensing and oversight of commercial space activity.
In remarks that ranged over a variety of unrelated topics, Mr. Trump began by saying current U.S. employment levels were the best “in recorded history” and blaming current immigration problems on the Democrats, saying “we have the worst immigration laws in the entire world” and that ongoing issues could be resolved “very quickly if the Democrats come to the table.”
“Everybody wants to do it,” he said. “We want to do it more than they do. If they come to the table, instead of playing politics, we can do it very, very quickly.”
Turning his attention to space, the president praised the National Space Council and its chairman, Vice President Mike Pence, for its work re-focusing national space policy, saying “for too many years, our dreams of exploration and discovery were really squandered by politics and bureaucracy. And we knocked that out.”
“My administration is reclaiming America’s heritage as the world’s greatest space-faring nation,” he went on. “The essence of the American character is to explore new horizons and to tame new frontiers. But our destiny, beyond the Earth, is not only a matter of national identity, but a matter of national security.”
He said when it comes to defending America, “it is not enough to merely have an American presence in space. We must have American dominance in space.”
“Very importantly, I’m hereby directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a space force as the sixth branch of the armed forces. … We are going to have the Air Force, and we are going to have the Space Force, separate but equal.”
Vice President Mike Pence speaks during a meeting of the National Space Council in the East Room of the White House on June 18, 2018.
ALEX WONG / GETTY IMAGES
Turning to Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mr. Trump said “it is going to be something. So important. Gen. Dunford, if you would carry that assignment out, I would be very greatly honored. … Got it?”
“We got it,” Dunford replied.
Space is a critical element in U.S. military operations, providing satellite-based intelligence, secure communications, weather forecasting and weapons command and control. Protecting those space-based assets also is critical given the development of anti-satellite weapons by China and Russia.
The idea of a space force that would oversee those efforts as a stand-alone Pentagon entity has surfaced several times in the past, but the Pentagon has resisted such calls, leaving it to U.S. Air Force Space Command to oversee such efforts.
Mr. Trump provided no details and no timetable, but the establishment of a new branch of the military would be a major undertaking requiring extensive debate and congressional support.
The Pentagon’s chief spokesperson Dana W. White issued a statement suggesting the process will take some time.
“We understand the President’s guidance. Our Policy Board will begin working on this issue, which has implications for intelligence operations for the Air Force, Army, Marines and Navy. Working with Congress, this will be a deliberate process with a great deal of input from multiple stakeholders.”
In a letter to lawmakers last year, Defense Secretary James Mattis “strongly” urged Congress to reconsider a proposal to establish a separate “Space Corps,” saying it was “premature” to set up a new organization “at a time I am trying to reduce overhead.”
“The creation of an independent Space Corps, with the corresponding institutional growth and budget implications, does not address the specific concerns nor our nation’s fiscal problems in a responsive manner,” The Hill quoted Mattis.
Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat who once flew aboard a space shuttle and who is running for re-election, was quick to object Monday, tweeting his take on Mr. Trump’s remarks before the National Space Council meeting even ended.
“The president told a US general to create a new Space Force as 6th branch of military today, which generals tell me they don’t want,” he wrote. “Thankfully the president can’t do it without Congress because now is NOT the time to rip the Air Force apart. Too many important missions at stake.”
The president told a US general to create a new Space Force as 6th branch of military today, which generals tell me they don’t want. Thankfully the president can’t do it without Congress because now is NOT the time to rip the Air Force apart. Too many important missions at stake. https://t.co/uYzqg1W8nE
— Senator Bill Nelson (@SenBillNelson) June 18, 2018
In any case, Mr. Trump signed Space Policy Directive 3 and then left the room, leaving Pence to manage the third public meeting of the National Space Council.
Wilbur Ross, the Secretary of Commerce, reported good progress reducing regulatory overhead and red tape in the commercial space market and Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao said her department is making major changes to speed up licensing of commercial launches and landings to encourage private-sector development of low-Earth orbit, including space tourism.
Jim Bridenstine, NASA’s new administrator, told the council the civilian space agency is working to implement Space Policy Directive 1, which calls for astronauts to return to the moon as the nation’s next major space objective.
NASA is developing concepts for an orbital “gateway” space station circling the moon that would serve as a base of operations, a technology testbed and a jumping off point for future flights into deep space.
“The goal is sustainability,” Bridenstine said. “We do not want this to be ‘Lucy and the football’ again. When we go to the moon, we’re going, as the president said in his speech, this time we’re going to stay. The gateway gives us that great opportunity.
“It’s also important to note that as NASA develops these capabilities, each one of these capabilities feeds forward. The reason we go to the moon is we want to land Americans on the surface of Mars. The technologies, the capabilities, the in situ resource utilization that we develop for the moon will ultimately get us to Mars.”
The council then heard from two panels of experts who all agreed with the current plan to send astronauts back to the moon as the immediate goal of America’s human space program. But Terry Virts, a veteran shuttle astronaut and space station crew member, argued against building a gateway similar in concept to NASA’s current space station.
“It essentially calls for building another orbital space station, a skill my colleagues and I have already demonstrated on the ISS,” Virts said. “Gateway will only slow us down, taking time and precious dollars away from the goal of returning to the lunar surface and eventually flying to Mars.”
“Most importantly,” he added, “any future exploration plan must be bipartisan. Unless these efforts are truly bipartisan, from the beginning, they will be doomed to eventual cancellation. You see, getting back to the moon and eventually to Mars does not depend on rocket science. It depends on political science.”
The National Space Council is a body within the Executive Office of the President of the United States that was created in 1989 during the administration of George H.W. Bush, disbanded in 1993, and re-established in June 2017 by President Donald Trump. It is a modified version of the earlier National Aeronautics and Space Council (1958–1973).
This section is missing information about why the NASC was abolished in 1973. Please expand the section to include this information. Further details may exist on the talk page.(July 2015)
Established by the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, the NASC was chaired by the President of the United States (then Dwight Eisenhower). Other members included the Secretaries of State and Defense, the NASA Administrator, the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, plus up to four additional members (one from the federal government and up to three from private industry) chosen at the President’s discretion.
The Council was allowed to employ a staff to be headed by a civilian executive secretary. Eisenhower did not use the NASC extensively during the remainder of his term, and recommended at the end of his last year in office, that it be abolished. He did not fill the post of executive secretary but named an acting secretary on loan from NASA. Shortly before assuming office, President-elect John F. Kennedy announced that he wanted his Vice President, Lyndon Johnson, to become chairman of the NASC, requiring an amendment to the Space Act.[1]
Edward Cristy Welsh was the first executive secretary of the NASC, appointed in 1961 by PresidentJohn F. Kennedy. Welsh, who as a legislative aide to Senator Stuart Symington (D-Missouri) helped draft the 1958 legislation that created NASA and the NASC, spent the 1960s as the principal advisor to the White House on space issues. He also assisted in the development of the legislation that created the Communications Satellite Corporation (COMSAT). After his retirement in 1969, he remained active as an advisor to NASA.
On February 12, 1992, friction between the largely astronaut-based management at NASA and the National Space Council led to Richard Truly, then NASA Administrator and a former astronaut, being forced out. Truly was forced out after Vice President Quayle and the space council’s executive director, Mark J. Albrecht, enlisted the aid of Samuel K. Skinner, the White House chief of staff, in urging Pres. Bush to remove Truly. Quayle and the council staff made the move because they felt Truly would impede a new plan to restructure and streamline many aspects of the space program, including the space agency administration.[2]
In August 2008, when campaigning for president, Barack Obama promised to re-establish the National Aeronautics and Space Council.[4] However, he completed two terms as president without having done so.[5]
Revival
In October 2016, Robert Smith Walker and Peter Navarro, two senior policy advisers to GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, wrote in an op-ed in SpaceNews that if elected, Trump would reinstitute a national space policy council headed by the vice president.[6] In the first year of the Trump administration, Vice-President Mike Pence indicated that the space council would be re-established, and would have a significant involvement in the direction of America’s activities in space.[7] On June 30, 2017, President Trump signed an executive order for such a reestablishment.[8][9][10][11] Following its re-institution, the council met for the first time on October 5, 2017 at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.[12]
The revived National Space Council consists of the following members:[13]
On February 20, 2018, Vice President Mike Pence, Chairman of the National Space Council announced the candidates selected to serve on the National Space Council Users Advisory Group. Pending official appointment by the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the selected members of the Users Advisory Group will serve to fulfill President Trump’s mandate to “foster close coordination, cooperation, and technology and information exchange” across our nation’s space enterprise. The announcement was made on the eve of the second meeting of the National Space Council. “Moon, Mars, and Worlds Beyond: Winning the Next Frontier” includes testimonials from leaders in the civil, commercial, and national security sectors about the importance of the United States’ space enterprise.[14]
Selection to the National Space Council Users Advisory Group:
Story 1: President Trump: no collusion between me and my campaign and the Russians — Videos —
President Donald Trump: James Comey Is ‘A Showboat’ (Excerpt) | NBC Nightly News
President Trump Full Interview with Lester Holt NBC 5/11/17
Napolitano: Many FBI agents felt demeaned by Comey’s actions
Trump Interview With Lester Holt: President Asked Comey If He Was Under Investigation
byALI VITALI andCORKY SIEMASZKO
President Donald Trump, in an exclusive interview Thursday with NBC News’ Lester Holt, called ousted FBI chief James Comey a “showboat” and revealed he asked Comey whether he was under investigation for alleged ties to Russia.
“I actually asked him” if I were under investigation, Trump said, noting that he spoke with Comey once over dinner and twice by phone.
“I said, if it’s possible would you let me know, ‘Am I under investigation?’ He said, ‘You are not under investigation.'”
“I know I’m not under investigation,” Trump told Holt during the 31-minute White House interview.
It would be highly unusual for someone who might be the focus of an FBI probe to ask whether he was under investigation and to be directly told by the FBI director that he was not.
I Was Going to Fire Comey Anyway, Trump Tells Lester Holt in Interview 2:34
The president also reiterated his claim that he had been planning to fire Comey even before he received Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s recommendation to do so.
“He’s a showboat, he’s grandstander, the FBI has been in turmoil,” Trump said of Comey in his wide-ranging interview with Holt. “You know that, I know that. Everybody knows that. You take a look at the FBI a year ago, it was in virtual turmoil, less than a year ago. It hasn’t recovered from that.”
Trump said he never tried to pressure Comey into dropping the FBI probe of the Trump campaign and insisted, “I want to find out if there was a problem in the election having to do with Russia.”
Asked by Holt if by firing Comey he was trying to send a “lay off” message to his successor, Trump said, “I’m not.”
“If Russia did anything, I want to know that,” he said.
But Trump also insisted there was no “collusion between me and my campaign and the Russians.”
“Also, the Russians did not affect the vote,” he said.
Holt’s interview with the president came as Washington was still reeling over Trump’s removal of Comey on Tuesday. And Trump’s revelation that he would have fired Comey even without Rosenstein’s input was not what his top officials had told reporters earlier this week.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders explained Thursday that she had spoken with the president on Tuesday night and didn’t ask him directly if he’d already made the decision to terminate Comey before seeing the Rosenstein memo, which she had earlier told reporters was the reason Trump ousted the FBI chief.
But Trump, in his talk with Holt, also contradicted Vice President Mike Pence’s account of how his boss came to his decision to fire Comey on the recommendation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Rosenstein.
When asked if Pence too had been kept in the dark, Sanders retorted “nobody was in the dark” and accused the media of creating a “false narrative.”
Play
WH: Trump Asking Comey About Investigation Not Inappropriate 0:37
On Wednesday, Trump claimed he canned Comey because “he was not doing a good job” and the White House on cited the FBI chief’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation as the reason they were firing the veteran G-man.
The Democrats, many of whom believe that Comey’s intrusion into the election helped Trump win the presidency, immediately denounced the move and called for the appointment of a special prosecutor as New York Senator Charles Schumer suggested a “cover-up” was underway.
“The timing of Director Comey’s dismissal to me and many committee members on both sides of the aisle is especially troubling,” Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, said Thursday at the opening of a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing.
“He was leading an active counterintelligence investigation into any links between the Trump campaign and the Russian government or its representatives, and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts to interfere in our election,” he said.
Asked whether he agreed that Comey was “showboat,” Senator Richard Burr (R-North Carolina) called him “one of the most ethical, upright, straightforward individuals I’ve had the opportunity to work with.”
“Sure there were FBI employees that disagreed with how he handled the Clinton email announcements,” Burr said. “The lion share of FBI employees respect the former director and it shows the professionalism that he brought to the role that he was in.”
Story 2: Democrats and Big Lie Media Having Nervous Breakdown Over President Trump Firing of Comey — Trump Derangement Syndrome Exposes Phony Hypocrites — ‘They’re coming to take me away’ — My Ding-A-Ling — Videos —
Liberal Left SPIN Comey Firing by Trump! Political Hypocrisy & Media BIAS! GOWDY for FBI Director
Maxine Waters Flips Her Wig After Confronted About Comey Flip-Flop
NBC Reporter Takes Maxine Waters to Task on Comey Hypocrisy
Sarah Huckabee Sanders Lists all the Democrats’ Flip-Flops on Comey
WHITE HOUSE Points Out Hypocrisy With Democrats And Firing Of James Comey (FNN)
Conway: Democrats trashed Comey then made him a martyr
Ari Fleischer: Hypocrisy from Democratic Party is appalling
Michelle Malkin: Hypocrisy over Comey firing is overwhelming
Gingrich: Liberals will move on to Martian conspiracies next
Acting FBI Director There Has Been No Effort To Impede The FBI’s Work To Date
Washington Post Rosenstein was asked to write up the justification for Comey’s firing by Trump
Trump Derangement Syndrome
Mark Levin: Schumer is undermining the Constitution
Dr. Gorka: Comey’s last testimony was the ‘last straw’
Democrats Hated James Comey Until Donald Trump Fired Him, And Now They Are His Defense Attorneys
“How The HELL Would You KNOW That??” Tucker Rips Journalist for Comey Hysteria
Napoleon XIV: ‘They’re coming to take me away’
Allan Sherman – Hello Muddah Hello Faddah (1963)
Chuck Berry – My Ding-A-Ling (1972)
CHUCK BERRY LYRICS
“My Ding-A-Ling”
When I was a little bitty boy
My grandmother bought me a cute little toy
Silver bells hanging on a string
She told me it was my ding-a-ling-a-ling, ohMy ding-a-ling, my ding-a-ling
I want you to play with my ding-a-ling
My ding-a-ling, my ding-a-ling
I want you to play with my ding-a-ling You know, then mama took me to Sunday school
They tried to teach me the golden rule
Everytime that choir would sing
Watch me playin’ with my ding-a-ling-a-ling, oh My ding-a-ling, my ding-a-ling
I want you to play with my ding-a-ling
My ding-a-ling, my ding-a-ling
I want you to play with my ding-a-ling Once I was climbing the garden wall
I slipped and had a terrible fall
I fell so hard, I heard bells ring
But held on to my ding-a-ling-a-ling, oh My ding-a-ling, my ding-a-ling
I want you to play with my ding-a-ling
My ding-a-ling, my ding-a-ling
I want you to play with my ding-a-lingOnce, I was swimmin’ ‘cross Turtle Creek
Man, them snappers all around my feet
Sure was hard swimmin’ ‘cross that thing
With both hands holdin’ my ding-a-ling-a-ling, ohMy ding-a-ling, my ding-a-ling
I want you to play with my ding-a-ling
My ding-a-ling, my ding-a-ling
I want you to play with my ding-a-lingThis little song, it ain’t so sad
The cutest little song you ever had
Those of you who will not sing
You must be playin’ with your own ding-a-lingMy ding-a-ling, my ding-a-ling
I want you to play with my ding-a-ling
My ding-a-ling, my ding-a-ling
I want you to play with my ding-a-lingYour own ding-a-ling, your own ding-a-ling
We saw you playin’ with your own ding-a-ling
My ding-a-ling, everybody sing
I wanna play with my ding-a-ling
I wanna play with my ding-a-ling
Inside Trump’s anger and impatience — and his sudden decision to fire Comey
Every time FBI Director James B. Comey appeared in public, an ever-watchful President Trump grew increasingly agitated that the topic was the one that he was most desperate to avoid: Russia.
Trump had long questioned Comey’s loyalty and judgment, and was infuriated by what he viewed as the director’s lack of action in recent weeks on leaks from within the federal government. By last weekend, he had made up his mind: Comey had to go.
At his golf course in Bedminster, N.J., Trump groused over Comey’s latest congressional testimony, which he thought was “strange,” and grew impatient with what he viewed as his sanctimony, according to White House officials. Comey, Trump figured, was using the Russia probe to become a martyr.
Back at work Monday morning in Washington, Trump told Vice President Pence and several senior aides — Reince Priebus, Stephen K. Bannon and Donald McGahn, among others — that he was ready to move on Comey. First, though, he wanted to talk with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, his trusted confidant, and Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, to whom Comey reported directly. Trump summoned the two of them to the White House for a meeting, according to a person close to the White House.
The president already had decided to fire Comey, according to this person. But in the meeting, several White House officials said Trump gave Sessions and Rosenstein a directive: to explain in writing the case against Comey.
The scene in Washington after FBI Director Comey was fired
View Photos
President Trump’s firing of James B. Comey consumed Capitol Hill’s attention. Democrats slowed committee business in the Senate to protest the lack of an independent investigation into Russia’s election meddling, and Republicans saw rifts emerge as more questioned the president’s decision.
The pair quickly fulfilled the boss’s orders, and the next day Trump fired Comey — a breathtaking move that thrust a White House already accustomed to chaos into a new level of tumult, one that has legal as well as political consequences.
Rosenstein threatened to resign after the narrative emerging from the White House on Tuesday evening cast him as a prime mover of the decision to fire Comey and that the president acted only on his recommendation, said the person close to the White House, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Justice Department officials declined to comment.
The stated rationale for Comey’s firing delivered Wednesday by principal deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was that he had committed “atrocities” in overseeing the FBI’s probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state, hurting morale in the bureau and compromising public trust.
“He wasn’t doing a good job,” Trump told reporters Wednesday. “Very simple. He wasn’t doing a good job.”
But the private accounts of more than 30 officials at the White House, the Justice Department, the FBI and on Capitol Hill, as well as Trump confidants and other senior Republicans, paint a conflicting narrative centered on the president’s brewing personal animus toward Comey. Many of those interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to candidly discuss internal deliberations.
Trump was angry that Comey would not support his baseless claim that President Barack Obama had his campaign offices wiretapped. Trump was frustrated when Comey revealed in Senate testimony the breadth of the counterintelligence investigation into Russia’s effort to sway the 2016 U.S. presidential election. And he fumed that Comey was giving too much attention to the Russia probe and not enough to investigating leaks to journalists.
The known actions that led to Comey’s dismissal raise as many questions as answers. Why was Sessions involved in discussions about the fate of the man leading the FBI’s Russia investigation, after having recused himself from the probe because he had falsely denied under oath his own past communications with the Russian ambassador?
Why had Trump discussed the Russia probe with the FBI director three times, as he claimed in his letter dismissing Comey, which could have been a violation of Justice Department policies that ongoing investigations generally are not to be discussed with White House officials?
And how much was the timing of Trump’s decision shaped by events spiraling out of his control — such as Monday’s testimony about Russian interference by former acting attorney general Sally Yates, or the fact that Comey last week requested more resources from the Justice Department to expand the FBI’s Russia probe?
In the weeks leading up to Comey’s firing, Trump administration officials had repeatedly urged the FBI to more aggressively pursue leak investigations, according to people familiar with the discussions. Administration officials sometimes sought to push the FBI to prioritize leak probes over the Russia interference case, and at other times urged the bureau to investigate disclosures of information that was not classified or highly sensitive and therefore did not constitute crimes, these people said.
Over time, administration officials grew increasingly dissatisfied with the FBI’s actions on that front. Comey’s appearances at congressional hearings caused even more tension between the White House and FBI, as Trump administration officials were angered that the director’s statements increased, rather than diminished, public attention on the Russia probe, officials said.
In his Tuesday letter dismissing Comey, Trump wrote: “I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation.” People familiar with the matter said that statement is not accurate, although they would not say how it was inaccurate. FBI officials declined to comment on the statement, and a White House official refused to discuss conversations between Trump and Comey.
‘Essentially declared war’
Within the Justice Department and the FBI, the firing of Comey has left raw anger, and some fear, according to multiple officials. Thomas O’Connor, the president of the FBI Agents Association, called Comey’s firing “a gut punch. We didn’t see it coming, and we don’t think Director Comey did anything that would lead to this.’’
Many employees said they were furious about the firing, saying the circumstances of his dismissal did more damage to the FBI’s independence than anything Comey did in his three-plus years in the job.
One intelligence official who works on Russian espionage matters said they were more determined than ever to pursue such cases. Another said Comey’s firing and the subsequent comments from the White House are attacks that won’t soon be forgotten. Trump had “essentially declared war on a lot of people at the FBI,” one official said. “I think there will be a concerted effort to respond over time in kind.”
While Trump and his aides sought to justify Comey’s firing, the now-canned FBI director, back from a work trip to Los Angeles, kept a low profile. He was observed puttering in his yard at his home in Northern Virginia on Wednesday.
In a message to FBI staff late Wednesday, Comey wrote: “I have long believed that a President can fire an FBI Director for any reason, or for no reason at all. I’m not going to spend time on the decision or the way it was executed. I hope you won’t either. It is done, and I will be fine, although I will miss you and the mission deeply.”
He added that “in times of turbulence, the American people should see the FBI as a rock of competence, honesty, and independence.”
Sam Nunberg, a former political adviser to Trump, said the FBI director misunderstood the president: “James Comey made the mistake of thinking that just because he announced the FBI was investigating possible collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign, he had unfettered job security. In my opinion, the president should have fired Comey the day he was sworn in.”
George Lombardi, a friend of the president and a frequent guest at his Mar-a-Lago Club, said: “This was a long time coming. There had been a lot of arguments back and forth in the White House and during the campaign, a lot of talk about what side of the fence [Comey] was on or if he was above political dirty tricks.”
Dating to the campaign, several men personally close to Trump deeply distrusted Comey and helped feed the candidate-turned-president’s suspicions of the FBI director, who declined to recommend charges against Clinton for what they all agreed was a criminal offense, according to several people familiar with the dynamic.
The men influencing Trump include Roger J. Stone, a self-proclaimed dirty trickster and longtime Trump confidant who himself has been linked to the FBI’s Russia investigation; former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, a Comey critic who has been known to kibbitz about the ousted FBI director with like-minded law enforcement figures; and Keith Schiller, a former New York police officer who functioned as Trump’s chief bodyguard and works in the West Wing as director of Oval Office operations.
“What Comey did to Hillary was disgraceful,” Stone said. “I’m glad Trump fired him over it.”
In fact, it was Schiller whom Trump tasked with hand-delivering a manila envelope containing the president’s termination letter to Comey’s office at FBI headquarters Tuesday afternoon. Trump’s aides did not appear to know that Comey would be out of the office, traveling on a recruiting trip in California, according to a White House official.
A chaotic response
Within the West Wing, there was little apparent dissent over the president’s decision to fire Comey, according to the accounts of several White House officials. McGahn, the White House counsel, and Priebus, the chief of staff, walked Trump through how the dismissal would work, with McGahn’s legal team taking the lead and coordinating with the Justice Department.
Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, and her husband, Jared Kushner — both of whom work in the White House — have frequently tried to blunt Trump’s riskier impulses but did not intervene to try to persuade him against firing Comey, according to two senior officials.
Trump kept a close hold on the process. White House press secretary Sean Spicer and communications director Michael Dubke were brought into the Oval Office and informed of the Comey decision just an hour before the news was announced. Other staffers in the West Wing found out about the FBI director’s firing when their cellphones buzzed with news alerts beginning around 5:40 p.m.
The media explosion was immediate and the political backlash was swift, with criticism pouring in not only from Democrats, but also from some Republicans. Trump and some of his advisers did not fully anticipate the ferocious reaction — in fact, some wrongly assumed many Democrats would support the move because they had been critical of Comey in the past — and were unprepared to contain the fallout.
When asked Tuesday night for an update on the unfolding situation, one top White House aide simply texted a reporter two fireworks emoji.
“I think the surprise of a great many in the White House was that as soon as this became a Trump decision, all of the Democrats who had long been calling for Comey’s ouster decided that this was now an awful decision,” Dubke said. “So there was a surprise at the politicization of Democrats on this so immediately and so universally.”
Trump’s team did not have a full-fledged communications strategy for how to announce and then explain the decision. As Trump, who had retired to the residence to eat dinner, sat in front of a television watching cable news coverage of Comey’s firing, he noticed another flaw: Nobody was defending him.
The president was irate, according to White House officials. Trump pinned much of the blame on Spicer and Dubke’s communications operation, wondering how there could be so many press staffers yet such negative coverage on cable news — although he, Priebus and others had afforded them almost no time to prepare.
“This is probably the most egregious example of press and communications incompetence since we’ve been here,” one West Wing official said. “It was an absolute disaster. And the president watched it unfold firsthand. He could see it.”
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich said Trump bears some responsibility for the turmoil because he kept the decision secret from some key aides.
“You can’t be the quarterback of the team if the rest of the team is not in the huddle,” Gingrich said. “The president has to learn to go a couple steps slower so that everyone can organize around him. When you don’t loop people in, you deprive yourself of all of the opportunities available to a president of the United States.”
For more than two hours after the news broke, Trump had no official spokesman, as his army of communications aides scrambled to craft a plan. By nightfall, Trump had ordered his talkers to talk; one adviser said the president wanted “his people” on the airwaves.
Counselor Kellyanne Conway ventured into what White House aides call “the lions’ den,” appearing on CNN both Tuesday night and Wednesday morning for combative interviews. “Especially on your network, you always want to talk about Russia, Russia, Russia,” Conway told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Wednesday.
Sanders went Tuesday night to the friendly confines of Fox News Channel, but Wednesday parried questions from the more adversarial hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
Spicer, meanwhile, threw together an impromptu news conference with reporters in the White House driveway, a few minutes before he taped a series of short television interviews inside the West Wing, where the lighting was better for the cameras. The press secretary stood alongside tall hedges in near darkness and agreed to answer questions with the cameras shuttered.
“Just turn the lights off,” Spicer ordered. “Turn the lights off. We’ll take care of this.”
Devlin Barrett, Jenna Johnson, Damian Paletta and Matt Zapotosky contributed to this report.
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Study: Media jobs, salary, soar 38% in DC, crash 22% nationally
by Paul Bedard | May 11, 2017, 6:49 AM
In the latest sign that Washington operates in an alternate economy, journalism jobs around the country dove 22 percent in the last 10 years, but they spiked a whopping 38 percent in the nation’s capital, according to a new economic study. What’s more, salaries for Washington journalists rose 7 percent while diving nationally.While 12,000 reporting jobs were eliminated in most markets in the last decade, the Washington journalism market expanded from 2,190 to 3,030. That is more than five journalists for every single House and Senate member.
In New York, by comparison, the drop was historic, from 5,330 jobs in 2005 to just 3,478 in 2015, said the study from Apartmentlist.com.
The study reviewed rents in major cities and showed how rents have spiked while the salaries of reporters hasn’t. That gap may be responsible for the shift by reporters, even award-winning journalists, to better paying public relations.
“Our analysis illustrated that reporter salaries are growing slower than rents in most metros. Nationwide, reporter salaries declined by 7 percent over the past decade while rents increased 9 percent. If this trend continues, publications will struggle to hire and retain talent,” said the report provided to Secrets.
The jobs number was a small part of the study, but a stunning one.
The highlights:
— The number of journalists in the U.S. fell 22 percent over the past decade. In D.C., the number of journalists increased 38 percent during the same period.
— Since 2005, journalists’ salaries fell 7 percent while rents rose 9 percent. In D.C., salaries grew 7 percent more than rents.
— In 2015, there were 3,030 reporters in the D.C. metro, compared with 2,190 ten years prior. Some smaller metros are left with as few as 40 journalists.
— Denver, Atlanta and Phoenix have seen the biggest growth in news jobs in mid-sized cities.
— The 50 state houses have just 1,592 reporters covering them, half of those in Washington.
The report concluded, “The decline in employment of reporters affects metros of all sizes and in all regions, but coverage in smaller metros is affected the most. Large national publications may need to play a role in adding coverage to smaller metros, perhaps sacrificing some depth in DC for greater breadth across the country. As with our teachers, society benefits when reporters can live and work in the communities that they serve, and an increased focus on local coverage can help reduce the divide between rural and urban Americans.”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com
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The Green Papers
2016 Presidential Primaries, Caucuses, and Conventions
Republican Convention Presidential Nominating Process Debate – Fox – Cleveland, Ohio: Thursday 6 August 2015 Debate – CNN – Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California: Wednesday 16 September 2015 Debate – CNBC – Boulder, Colorado: Wednesday 28 October 2015 Debate – Fox Business News – Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Tuesday 10 November 2015 Debate – CNN – Las Vegas, Nevada: Tuesday 15 December 2015 Debate – Fox Business Channel, Charleston, South Carolina: Thursday 14 January 2016 Debate – Fox – Iowa: Thursday 28 January 2016 Debate – CBS – South Carolina: February 2016 (presumably) Debate – NBC/Telemundo – Texas: Friday 26 February 2016 Debate – CNN – TBD: March 2016 (presumably) Debate – Salt Lake City, Utah (announced 20 February 2016): Monday 21 March 2016 41st Republican National Convention: Monday 18 July – Thursday 21 July 2016
Popular vote total includes AK,AL,AR,AZ,CA,CT,DC,DE,FL,GA,HI,IA,ID,IL,IN,KS,KY,LA,MA,MD,ME,MI,MN,MO,MP,MS,MT,NC,NE,NH,NJ,NM,NV,NY,OH,OK,OR,PA,PR,RI,SC,SD,TN,TX,UT,VA,VI,VT,WA,WI,WV.
2,472 total delegates – 560 base at-large / 1,305 re: 435 congressional districts / 168 party / 439 bonus
Democratic Convention Presidential Nominating Process Debate – CNN – Nevada: Tuesday 13 October 2015 Debate – CBS/KCCI/Des Moines Register – Des Moines, Iowa: Saturday 14 November 2015 Debate – ABC/WMUR – Manchester, New Hampshire: Saturday 19 December 2015 Debate – NBC/Congressional Black Caucus Institute – Charleston, South Carolina: Sunday 17 January 2016 Debate – Univision/Washington Post – Miami, Floria: February – March 2016 (presumably) Debate – PBS – Wisconsin: Monday 1 February – Thursday 31 March 2016 (presumably) Automatic selection of unpledged delegates: Tuesday 1 March 2016 47th Democratic National Convention: Monday 25 July – Thursday 28 July 2016
Popular vote total includes AK,AL,AR,AS,AZ,CA,CO,CT,DA,DE,FL,GA,GU,HI,ID,IL,IN,KS,KY,LA,MA,MD,MI,MN,MO,MP,MS,MT,NC,ND,NE,NH,NJ,NM,NY,OH,OK,OR,PA,PR,RI,SC,SD,TN,TX,UT,VA,VI,VT,WI,WV and excludes IA,ME,NV,WA,WY.
4,765 total delegate votes – 2,650 district / 910 at large; 491 Pledged PLEOs; 714 Unpledged PLEOs
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At Least $1.9 Million In Donations Trump Collected For Vets Was Sent Last Week
May 31, 20162:29 PM ET
BARBARA SPRUNT
ARNIE SEIPEL
DON GONYEA
Donald Trump reads a list of donations he says were made to veterans groups following a fundraiser he held in Iowa back in January.
Richard Drew/AP
This post was updated at 5:30 p.m. EDT.
At least $1.9 million of the donations to veterans groups that presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump reported on Tuesday came in last week, after Trump began responding to intense media scrutiny of his earlier claims about raising in excess of $6 million for veterans. Trump said on Tuesday that his efforts raised a total of $5.6 million.
NPR reached out to all 41 of the groups Trump listed as receiving donations. Of those, 31 responded. One group, the Navy SEAL Foundation, said it does not disclose details of its donations. The other 30 confirmed the amounts Trump reported Tuesday, accounting for $4.27 million of the $5.6 million total.
The donations came in from a combination of sources, including the Donald J. Trump Foundation, various groups and individuals who cited Trump’s efforts along with their donations, and Trump himself.
The candidate gave a $1 million check to the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation on May 24, as questions from the Washington Post and other news outlets about Trump’s prior claims regarding these donations accelerated.
Prior to Tuesday, only about $4 million of the fund had been accounted for as paid to veterans charities and service organizations through reporting by various news organizations, chiefly the Post.
Trump engaged in a social media battle over the issue with that publication, saying he is being attacked for trying do to something for veterans, always adding that raising millions of dollars was something he didn’t have to do. “I have never received such bad publicity for doing such a good job,” Trump complained.
Tuesday, in his most combative news conference yet, in a campaign where he has set a new standard for a contentious relationship with the news media, Trump finally addressed the matter before reporters.
Speaking at his namesake Trump Tower in New York City, he continued to attack journalists for even asking questions about where the money went.
Trump grudgingly released the list of organizations that he says got the money. He predicted the $5.6 million total that he cited will continue to grow, to eventually top the $6 million figure he claimed back at the event where he first solicited donations to veterans, in Des Moines, Iowa, on Jan. 28.
A list of veterans groups Donald Trump says received donations due to his fundraising efforts.
But Trump continued to attack the press for asking for accountability about the money.
He called reporters “extremely dishonest,” “sleazy,” “biased,” “nasty,” “not good people” and more.
He added, “The press should be ashamed of themselves. On behalf of the vets they should be ashamed of themselves.”
Trump also asserted that all of the money had gone to the groups, and that “zero dollars” went to administrative costs.
Finally, he offered reasons for the delay in releasing the list of recipients. Trump said organizations needed to be vetted to ensure their legitimacy and their nonprofit status. “We needed to vet the vets.” Plus, he insisted that he wanted to do all of this privately, that he “didn’t want credit.” One reporter asked, if Trump didn’t want credit, then why repeatedly remind people at events and on television that he’d raised $6 million for veterans? Isn’t that “taking credit” the reporter added? Trump responded, “It’s not.”
One shouted question was, “Don’t you believe you should be accountable?” Trump responded, “I’m totally accountable. But I didn’t want credit for it.”
At another point Trump said simply, “I don’t think it’s anybody’s business if I want to send money to the vets.”
He was asked why he resents the mere act of verifying the contributions. Trump said, “Because I wanted to make this out of the goodness of my heart. I didn’t want to do this where the press was involved.”
And, from a Fox News journalist, “Is asking a question an attack?”
Trump shot back, “From the political press it is, I see the stories they write.”
It went on like this for 40 minutes. Reporters probing and pushing for information. Trump making no attempt to hide his contempt for them. One questioner wondered if this is what it would be like when a President Trump meets with the White House Press Corps.
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LAS VEGAS, NV – OCTOBER 13: (L-R) Democratic presidential candidates Jim Webb, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Hillary Clinton, Martin O’Malley and Lincoln Chafee take the stage for a presidential debate sponsored by CNN and Facebook at Wynn Las Vegas on October 13, 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The five candidates are participating in the party’s first presidential debate. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
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Emails Show Clinton Worked With George Soros To Run Shadow Gov’t
The real scandal surrounding Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton’s private email system may be that she was running, in concert with a private consulting firm tied closely to George Soros, an outsourced and parallel State Department answerable only to her and not President Obama, the Congress, or the American people.
Who Won The First Democratic Debate In Terms Of Body Language?
Carol Kinsey Goman
The major story of the first televised presidential debate in 1960 became the photogenic appeal of John F. Kennedy versus the sickly look of his opponent, Richard Nixon, who refused to wear makeup although his recent illness had left him with a pallid complexion. In addition, Kennedy looked directly at the camera when answering questions (rather that at the journalists who asked them), which made viewers see him as someone who was talking right to them and giving straight answers. To make matters worse, the cameras caught Nixon wiping perspiration from his forehead while Kennedy was pressing him on the issues.
When the debate ended, a large majority of television viewers recognized Kennedy as the winner. Radio listeners, who heard the debate but hadn’t seen it, gave the victory to Nixon.
Never again would politicians under estimate the importance of physical appearance and body language – especially when appearing on television. Today’s political figures are fully aware of, and heavily coached on, the impact of nonverbal communication.
And when it comes to nonverbal cues, everything matters: Gender, age, skin color, hair style, attractiveness, height, clothing, facial expressions, hand gestures, posture — audiences judge it all. Superficial? Maybe. But this potent (and often unconscious) process is also hardwired in the human brain.
There are two sets of nonverbal signals that are especially important for candidates to project: warmth and authority. Warmth cues project likeability and candor and authority cues denote power and status. The most appealing politicians (at least from a body language standpoint) are those whose behaviors encompass both sets of signals.
Which brings me to the first Democratic debate of the 2016 election cycle — and how I would grade the body language of the debaters.
Hillary Clinton, former secretary of state
Grade: A-
How she did it: Clinton is often described, by both supporters and critics, as strong, tough, and aggressive. So it was no surprise to see those qualities exhibited in her body language through expansive gestures, erect posture, and well-prepared responses.
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But Clinton’s body language won the debate by doing more than displaying authority. She successfully “warmed up” her image, with smiles, head nods in agreement/support of other’s comments, and (at one point) even laughter.
Visually, being the only woman on stage was also to her advantage. The contrast between Clinton and the rest of the (white, male) candidates was visually striking – especially for someone who wants to show how she would be different from previous presidents.
Bernie Sanders, senator of Vermont
Grade: B+
How he did it: Unlike Clinton, who (for better or worse) is a known national figure, Sanders needed to give the audience a clear picture of who he is and what he stands for – and he was very effective doing so last night. Sanders was animated and used gestures (like finger pointing and palms rotated down) to effectively emphasize his resolve – although at times, his movements were a bit jerky, instead of smooth. And for those who were wondering if a 74-year old could keep his energy high for two hours, the answer was a resounding “yes.”
Sanders nonverbal negatives include his leaning too often on the lectern (as if he needed physical support) and in his lack of warm cues. He is much more expressive when showing anger, disgust, and impatience – but rarely does he display joy or express optimism.
Martin O’Malley, former governor Maryland
Grade: C
How he did it: While he never had the “break through” moment his campaign was hoping for, nonverbally O’Malley had a significant nonverbal advantage: He looked fit and athletic – and he was the tallest person in the line up. Don’t discount the effect of these seemingly trivial facts. We are biased toward attractive, healthy people, and we unconsciously attribute leadership characteristics to tall people. (The effects of this are seen not only in politics, but in business. For example, in the U.S. population, 14.5% men are 6’ tall and over, but with CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, that statistic climbs to 58%.) But his softer, slower communication style often lacked the energy and passion needed to support his rhetoric. And his deadpan, almost angry expression when other candidates were speaking was tweeted about as the “death stare” – not a good look for someone who is usually seen as upbeat and happy.
Jim Webb, former senator of Virginia
Grade C-
How he did it: Webb is known as being “gruff” and “stiff,” and both of those qualities were displayed nonverbally: Outside of a slight lean backward and a shoulder shrug now and then, he rarely moved his body – adding to his stoic image.
Lincoln Chaffee, former governor of Rhode Island
Grade: D
How he did it: Chafee’s body language was filled with nervous facial gestures (lip licking was especially prevalent) and conflicting nonverbal messages, the most noticeable being a smile with tightened or compressed lips that made the otherwise warm signal look forced and inauthentic.
The only missing contender in last night’s debate was Vice President Joe Biden, who hasn’t declared his intention to run. Too bad. He is passionate and expressive. He would have been interesting to watch.
EVIDENCE SHOWS CLINTON RAN A PARALLEL, OUTSOURCED STATE DEPT.
Clinton received help from George Soros to run shadow gov’t
The real scandal surrounding Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton’s private email system may be that she was running, in concert with a private consulting firm tied closely to George Soros, an outsourced and parallel State Department answerable only to her and not President Obama, the Congress, or the American people.
The media has tried to separate two dubious operations of Mrs. Clinton while she was at the State Department. The first is the private email server located in her Chappaqua, New York residence. The second is the fact that her government-paid State Department personal assistant, Huma Abedin, wife of disgraced New York “sexting” congressman Anthony Weiner, was simultaneously on the payroll of Teneo, a corporate intelligence firm that also hired former President Bill Clinton and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair as advisers. Abedin has been linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, which has recently buried the hatchet with longtime rival Saudi Arabia and common cause against the Assad government in Syria, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and Iran.
It is clear that Mrs. Clinton used her private email system to seek advice on major foreign policy issues, from her friend and paid Clinton Foundation adviser Sidney Blumenthal providing private intelligence on Libya’s post-Qaddafi government and possible business ventures to Clinton friend Lanny Davis seeking favors from Mrs. Clinton. It should be noted that Davis was a paid lobbyist for the military junta of Honduras that overthrew democratically-elected President Manuel Zelaya in 2009. It also should be noted that Mrs. Clinton voiced her personal dislike for the late Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, when, after he was assassinated by U.S.-armed jihadist rebels, boasted, “We came, we saw, he died!”
It was highly unusual for Abedin to receive a U.S. government paycheck while also receiving a consultant’s salary from Teneo. Teneo was founded in 2011 by Doug Band, a former counselor to Bill Clinton. Teneo, which is as much a private intelligence firm as it is an investment company and “governance” consultancy, has its headquarters in New York and branches in Washington DC, Brussels, São Paulo, London, Dublin, Dubai, Hong Kong, Beijing, and Melbourne. With the exception of its investment arm, Teneo closely resembles the former CIA-connected firm where Barack Obama worked after he graduated from Columbia, Business International Corporation (BIC). Teneo’s marketing claims match those made by BIC during its heyday: Teneo works “exclusively with the CEOs and senior leaders of many of the world’s largest and most complex companies and organizations.”
Teneo has staked a position in the international news media with its recent purchase of the London-based firm Blue Rubicon, formed in part by the former home news editor for Channel 4 News in the United Kingdom. Teneo also recently acquired London’s Stockwell Group, which provides consultancy services to the National Bank of Greece and Pireaus Bank. It appears that Mrs. Clinton’s friends are cashing in on the global banking austerity being levied against Greece.
The head of Teneo Intelligence is Jim Shinn, a former assistant secretary for Asia for the Defense Department. What is troubling is that Teneo has been offering statements to the media designed to heighten tensions between NATO and Turkey on one side and Russia on the other over Russia’s military attacks on the Islamic State in Syria. Shinn’s intelligence chief in Teneo’s London office, Wolfgango Piccoli, who has worked for the Soros-linked Eurasia Group consultancy, told CNN that Russia’s “reinforcement of the Assad regime and the consolidation of separate areas of control is more likely to prolong the conflict by forcing a stalemate.” The Teneo statement came in a CNN report that suggests members of the Bashar al Assad government in Syria and Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government could be charged by international or “national” tribunals for war crimes in a manner similar to those convened on members of the Yugoslavian and Serbian governments.
The entire International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague and in Africa has fallen under the control of George Soros and his operatives. Soros has made no secret of his support for overthrowing Assad and Putin and he has resorted to a “weapon of mass migration” of Syrian, Iraqi, and other refugees into Europe in order to destabilize the entire continent and endanger its Christian culture and social democratic traditions. Mrs. Clinton and Soros extensively used Mrs. Clinton’s private email system to exchange, among other things, information on the political situation in Albania, a country where Soros’s operatives are plentiful and powerful. Soros is a major donor to the Clinton Foundation and Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign.
Soros also pressed Mrs. Clinton for State Department support for his American University of Central Asia, which, as seen with Soros’s Central European University in Budapest and its graduate ranks of pro-U.S. leaders throughout central and eastern Europe, is designed to manufacture a new generation of pro-U.S. leaders in the Central Asian states of the former Soviet Union.
The “wiping” of Mrs. Clinton’s email systems’ hard drives appear to be part of a classic case of an intelligence operation destroying data after being exposed.
The Clinton outsourcing of U.S. foreign policy not only involves Teneo but also the Clinton Foundation, for which Mrs. Clinton solicited donations from foreign sources while she served as Secretary of State. Moreover, in a classic example of racketeering, Bill Clinton was paid by Teneo as an adviser while his Clinton Foundation hired Teneo as as a consultant. The Clinton Foundation is directed by Bill and Hillary Clinton, along with their daughter Chelsea Clinton Mezvinsky. Mrs. Clinton’s private email use also extended to Clinton Foundation chief financial officer Andrew Kessel and longtime Bill Clinton friend Bruce Lindsey.
One of the emails sent via Mrs. Clinton’s private system was from her State Department counsel Cheryl Mills to Amitabh Desai, the head of foreign policy for the Clinton Foundation. Mills wanted Desai to arrange a meeting between Rwandan dictator Paul Kagame with the Democratic Republic of Congo strongman Joseph Kabila during Kagame’s visit to Kinshasa in 2012. This effort was conducted outside the State Department with the sole exception that Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson, a close friend of Mrs. Clinton, was involved in the email exchange with Mills and Desai.
Other private email use involved Hollywood magnate Haim Saban, Loews heir Andrew Tisch, and Lynn de Rothschild, all of whom were peddling Israel’s interests to Hillary and Bill Clinton in return for sizable donations to the Clinton Foundation and Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign.
Under the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership, the Clinton Foundation received generous financial support totaling some $31 million from Frank Giustra, a Canadian uranium mining magnate. Giustra relied on the Clintons to use their influence to open up lucrative uranium exploitation opportunities in places like Kazakhstan and Africa.
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has been stonewalled in his attempt to obtain more information about Teneo’s relationship with Mrs. Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, and Bill Clinton.
Wayne Madsen is an investigative journalist who consistently exposes cover-ups from deep within the government. Want to be the first to learn the latest scandal? Go to WayneMadsenReport.com subscribe today!
Story 1: Trust, But Verify: Paul Ryan Is No Conservative, But A Neoconservative Neither New Nor Conservative! — Ryan Is A Leader of Political Elitist Establishment–All Big Government Republicans that Support Work Status and Amnesty for Illegal Aliens — Conservatives and Libertarians Are Not Interested In Ryan As House Speaker! — Do Not Be Neoconned — Videos
Neocon Manifesto: Paul Ryan
“I worship the ground Paul Ryan walks on,” says Dick Cheney
Congressman Ron Paul, MD – We’ve Been NeoConned
No Saving Private Ryan! Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney and the Betrayal of Ayn Rand
Paul Ryan…
Voted YES corporate welfare for big agriculture
Voted YES pm TARP
Voted YES for a bloated defense bill
Voted NO to repeal NDAA indefinite detention
Voted YES to prohibit reductions in nuclear weapons as required by START Treaty
Voted NO to limit military spending on the Afghanistan War
Voted YES to override military sequestration (spending cuts) negotiated in last year’s ‘let raise the debt limit bill’.
Voted YES on CISPA, the bill that attacks Internet liberty and the 1st amendment.
Voted YES on corporate welfare for the Keystone Pipeline which also authorized the use of Eminent Domain to seize private property for a private use.
Voted NO to extend payroll tax cuts which is effectively a tax increase on the poor and middle class.
Voted YES to increase the debt ceiling
Voted YES on war in Libya
Voted NO to limit funding of NATO for use in Libya
Voted NO on removing armed forces from Libya
Vote YES to extend the Patriot Act
Paul Ryan’s Budget:
Ryan’s “roadmap to prosperity” lays out $6.2 trillion in cuts over the next 10 years—not, sadly, cuts from what government spends today, but from what President Obama wanted to spend. Spending would actually increase by about a trillion dollars over the decade.
Ryan’s “radical” budget would only reduce government spending to 20% of GDP by 2015. Obama wants to cut it to 23%. It is currently at 25%. when Bill Clinton left office, it was 18 percent.
“The president’s plan will add about $11 trillion to the debt over 10 years,” Paul told me. “Congressman Ryan … is trying to do the right thing, but his plan will add $8 trillion to the debt over 10 years. We need to do something much more dramatic, or I think we’re in for a world of hurt.”
The inconvenient truth for conservatives is you cannot balance the budget if you eliminate (only) nonmilitary spending.
It would also reduce the federal workforce by 15 percent. Ryan’s figure is 10 percent. That’s a start. But they would do it by “attrition.” That’s cowardly. It’s not management. They should fire the worst 10 or 15 percent. That’s what private-sector managers do.
it grows revenues miraculously from $2.4 trillion to $4.6 trillion in 10 years by cutting taxes
– It led to 10 more years of deficit spending
– It added between $5-11 TRILLION dollars to the national debt
– It spent a total of $40 TRILLION over the next 10 years
– His plan REQUIRED the debt ceiling to be raised
– It was an obviously unbalanced budget (in fact it doesn’t fully balance until the year 2040)
– It increased spending over the next few years (it merely slows the rate of spending, not actually cutting spending anytime soon)
– It was was bigger than what we had under Bill Clinton
“I worship the ground Paul Ryan walks on,” says Dick Cheney
Sources Paul Ryan mulls House Speaker bid
Will Paul Ryan run for House speaker?
Paul Ryan, Not Interested in Speaker Position
What 6 House Conservatives Want From Their New Speaker
Candidates for House Speaker Try to Rally Conservative Support
Jason Chaffetz Announces House Speaker Bid
Jason Chaffetz Discusses Planned Parenthood
Rep. Jason Chaffetz Grills Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards | The Blaze
Kevin McCarthy | Rep. Kevin McCarthy Drops Out of House Speaker Race
House conservative group backs Webster, complicates Speaker race
Newsmax Prime | Rep. Daniel Webster on why he wants to replace John Boehner as Speaker of the House
Rep. Dan Webster on running for Speaker of the House
Daniel Webster Commercial: Fixing Washington Together
Congressman Dan Webster says he would break Norquist pledge
Paul Ryan Pushes Back Against TPNN’s Scottie Hughes, Defends His Record as Conservative
Tom Woods: Is Paul Ryan a real fiscal conservative?
Laura Ingraham: Elizabeth Warren sounds more conservative than Paul Ryan
Paul Ryan Is Not a Libertarian!
Paul Ryan is more the architect and messenger of Irving Kristol’s “conservative welfare state” than a libertarian. Check out my blogpost series on the subject of Paul Ryan as neo-con not conservative:
Reality Check: Is Rep. Paul Ryan Actually A Big Spender? His “Principle” Problem
Paul Ryan on Immigration, Sequester, and the Budget
Paul Ryan Defends Immigration Bill: “We’re Going To Have Labor Shortages”
Ted Cruz on John Boehner: “I’m Going to Tell You Why He Resigned”
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Why I Support Jason Chaffetz for Speaker of the House
Arthur Schaper
Yes, I know. Congressman Paul Ryan just penned support for California Congressman and current Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy for Speaker of the House.
So what?!
Perhaps there’s a record there. He helped ban earmarks. So did US Senator John McCain, and conservatives want McAmnesty out of office. How about reforming entitlements? How about ending the War on Drugs? How about confrontation with a capital C?
I am a California conservative, and I want someone who is not connected to the Old Boys Club, the business of working the backrooms to get deals. John Boehner, tanned and now panned, stepped down because the Freedom Caucus, and more importantly their nationwide supporters, pushed him to step down, because he would not fight for and demand real reforms in the House, from the US Senate, and the President. The call for new leadership is more than about differing factions. This is more than Tea Party v. Establishment, or centrist v. conservative. Meadows forced a showdown again a Speaker who was simply not doing his job.
Period.
I spoke with representatives from McCarthy’s office during the CRomnibus back-and-forth in late 2014. I kept hearing about how the leadership did not want to shut the government down. “It would be emotionally satisfying, but would make us look bad.” Really? They wanted to avoid the fights and missteps which had “occurred” during the 2013 shutdown. By the way, in case anyone missed it, the Tea Party movement actually forced spending cuts, and they went through, no questions asked, because they refused to cave. Republicans wiped out Democrats across the country. We have fiscal conservatives in deep blue Maryland and Massachusetts, too. Now Washington needs the bluster that puts up rather than sits down.
Now more than ever, Republicans in Congress, and all liberty minded, libertarians, conservatives in general, must accept one sordid fact: Obama and his Democratic cohorts are not interested in governing by consent, consensus, or principled compromise. He lied during the 2010 meeting with members, when he declared: “I am not an ideologue”. Congressman Mick Mulvaney blasted the Fiscal Cliff fiasco in 2012: “They want to buy a home for one dollar. That is not compromise!” Obama is interested in conflict, confrontation, and conquest. He has incited a war of polar opposites, not a debate of reasoned opponents trying to forge the best outcomes for both sides. Such is the outcome when the Chief Executive refuses to recognize our Constitution or the Chief Lawgiver, Congress.
We don’t have Bubba in the White House, people (who would have to be a Republican today, since his party has left him). We have a rogue Occupier who does not respect the rule of law, his oath of office or the United States Constitution.
So, the back-slaps, the cigar parties, and the Wednesday night dinners with opposing sides are a thing of the past. Just as US Senate candidate Rand Paul refused to shake his 2010 Dem rival’s hand during their last debate, so too friendship among differing parties is a thing of the past.
We don’t know picture parties and cocktail dinners. We need reform, we need change that we can see as well as believe in. And I do not trust McCarthy to bring either.
So. . .why Chaffetz, then? Is this not the long ago Democrat-turned-Republican who has a fan in Michael Dukakis? Yes, and that’s a point worth celebrating: a liberal, mugged by reality, who embraced conservative values over time and became a staunch Republican. I like that.
Didn’t Oversight Committee Chairman Chaffetz try to remove Rep. Mark Meadows from his sub-committee chairmanship earlier this year? Yes, he did. Guess what? He backed off. I want leadership that will do what conservatives want. Don’t you? I don’t want a fully independent Speaker. I want a sock puppet who will do and say what conservatives, constitutionalists, and citizens in general want.
Is this not the guy who sought out my loathsome former Congressman Henry Waxman to emulate his confrontation style as House Government Reform and Oversight Committee Chairman? Yes, and I even blasted his seeming selling out to “the Establishment”. Since then, I have looked over his current tenure as chairman. Come to think of it, I want a right-wing version of Henry Waxman, someone who will embrace rather than avoid confrontation. Maybe he will threaten to throw meandering Marylander Rep. Elijah Cummings off the committee if he refuses to stop frustrating investigations into government abuse.
Once again, readers, Chaffetz backed off his attempted overthrow of Rep. Meadows, who lived to serve on the committee, and then file the discharge petition ousting retiring Speaker Boehner. Inadvertently, we can thank Chaffetz for the little dust-up earlier this year.
I want Jason Chaffetz, the conservative who is the most electable. Not because he is perfect, not because he will be some savior to right the course of wrong-doing in Washington all by himself. He can communicate (McCarthy has already stumbled). He can count (McCarthy does not have 218 votes for the floor vote later in October or November), and as conservatives recognize their power to force change and influence outcomes in the House, I believe that Chaffetz will be easier to pressure to our cause, the country’s and the Constitution’s. Also, his win will further disrupt the Old Boys Club of Boehner-McCarthy, and further prove the individual voters’ muster. Now, I have learned another lesson about grassroots activism. It is not my job to make anyone, friend of acquaintance, support my choice for leadership. You make that decision for yourself.
So, I support for Chaffetz for Speaker. More importantly, I celebrate and continue to debate that conservatives can and must mobilize more effectively, not just propping up leaders whom we want, but getting more legislators, whether Republican or Democrat, to start accomplishing the right things: demanding constitutional rule which advances limited government, lower taxes, less spending, looser regulations, and most importantly individual liberty.
While top House Republicans are trying to push a reluctant Ryan into the job, on the grounds that he alone can unify the conference, conservative lawmakers gave a decidedly cool response Friday when asked if they want him to be their new leader.
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Several GOP lawmakers noted that Ryan has repeatedly said he is not interested in the job, while appearing less than convinced that he is the only viable candidate.
“The name came out,” said Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) after Friday’s private GOP meeting. “Last I knew, [Ryan] definitely didn’t want to do it.”
Huelskamp also criticized one of Ryan’s major legislative achievements in Congress, the two-year budget agreement he hammered out with Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) in 2013.
The Kansas Republican noted that he opposed the pact, “as did a lot of other people,” and pointed out lawmakers in both parties are now pushing to further ease the spending caps it established.
“A lot of folks want to break that up already,” Huelskamp said.
House Freedom Caucus Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) declined to weigh in on Ryan as Speaker, noting only that his group had earlier backed Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.) for the job.
And Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) dismissed the idea of a Ryan groundswell.
“I think that’s more media-driven. I think that’s you guys who keep talking about Paul Ryan,” he said. “Paul has made it clear he’s not interested.”
For his part, Ryan has repeatedly rebuffed calls for him to take over as the head House Republican. On Friday, a Ryan spokesman reiterated that the 2012 vice presidential candidate is “still not running for Speaker.”
Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) said the Freedom Caucus continues to back Webster. Still, he said Ryan would probably be a more palatable option compared to Boehner or House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who dropped out of the Speaker’s race on Thursday.
“I think that Paul Ryan would be a more acceptable candidate than the current leadership team, primarily because he’s not in the current leadership team. And I believe he’d provide a different approach,” Amash said.
Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) said that if hardliners reject Ryan, “they would lose all credibility.”
“Listen, these guys don’t know what they’re doing anyway. They would prove to the American people they have no idea what they’re talking about,” King said.
The level of support for Ryan among conservatives is critical, given that it was rightward pressure that originally pushed out Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and helped upend the campaign by McCarthy to replace him.
Despite being broadly popular among House Republicans, McCarthy stunned his colleagues Thursday by dropping out of the race, minutes before a vote he was expected to win.
He told members he was removing himself because he did not think he would be able to unite the divided Republican conference and win over enough conservatives.
By Dana Bash, Manu Raju, Deirdre Walsh, Tom LoBianco, Dan Berman and Eugene Scott
Rep. Paul Ryan is telling House Republicans privately he is considering running for speaker, several members say.
Ryan informed several members on the House floor of his deliberations, Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, told CNN. Stewart added that he urged Ryan to run, with the Wisconsin Republican replaying that he was “thinking and praying on it.”
Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who shocked Capitol Hillby deciding Thursday not to try and succeed retiring Speaker John Boehner, also said Ryan is weighing a run.
“Paul’s looking at it but it’s his decision,” McCarthy said on CNN. “If he decides to do it, he’ll be an amazing speaker but he’s got to decide on his own.”
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-California, said that Ryan told him privately he is thinking about it as well. “I think he’s gone from a ‘hard no’ to he knows he has to consider it,” he said.
Ryan, the Ways and Means Committee chairman and Mitt Romney’s vice presidential running mate in 2012 is respected throughout the conference and on paper could bridge the gap between tea party-linked conservatives and more establishment Republicans.
Romney even called Ryan and asked him to run, an aide to the former presidential candidate said.
“I wouldn’t presume to tell Paul what to do, but I do know that he is a man of ideas who is driven to see them applied for the public good,” Romney said in a statement. “Every politician tries to convince people that they are that kind of leader; almost none are — Paul is. Paul has a driving passion to get America back on a path of growth and opportunity. With Paul, it’s not just words, it’s in his heart and soul.”
There may be no way for Ryan to avoid the calls to run.
“He needs to do this for the team,” said Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Michigan.
“There’s going to be a lot of pressure on Paul,” said Rep. David Jolly, R-Florida. “If Paul really means no, he better keep his phone off the next two weeks. Or throw it in Lake Michigan.”
Ryan spokesman Brendan Buck issued a statement following Friday morning’s GOP conference meeting, that did not rule out a run. “Chairman Ryan appreciates the support he’s getting from his colleagues but is still not running for speaker,” Buck said.
Leaving Capitol Hill Friday afternoon, Ryan declined to comment on his decision.
“Right now I’m going to make my flight so I can make it home for dinner,” he told reporters. “Sorry guys I’m just going to go. The Packers are at home. They’re going to beat the Rams and cover the spread.”
Boehner’s plea: work together
Boehner indicated to his fellow Republicans on Friday morning he will stay as long as possible in the speaker’s job, although he still wants to “be out of here by the end of the month,” Rep. Dennis Ross said, adding that Boehner urged members to “hang in there.”
The speaker pled with his fellow Republicans to work together to break the impasse.
“While we go through this process, we’ve got to continue to address the people’s priorities. This institution cannot grind to a halt,” Boehner said in the meeting, according to a source in the room.
Several high-profile issues face Congress and the White House later this year, including the need to address the debt limit in early November and the federal government budget by December 11.
Boehner urged GOP lawmakers not to put up barriers between each other. “Don’t start erecting walls between us as members. We all came here to help advance the conservative cause,” he said.
“It’s not helpful for one group of members to say they will only vote for this candidate on the floor,” he added. “And it’s not helpful for another group of members to say they will only vote for different candidate on the floor. It’s up to the people in this room to listen to each other, come together, and figure this out.”
He later said: “Time for us to take the walls down, open up our ears and listen to each other.”
And addressing rumors that he might step down as majority leader, McCarthy told his fellow Republicans he plans to remain in the job, a source in the room said.
The meeting was centered on the rules and process going forward, members said.
“We are doing what needs to be done, said Rep. Scott Rigell, R-Virginia. “And Kevin (McCarthy) spoke very eloquently this morning and said, ‘if this causes us to do what we need to do in terms of reforming the rules and the House rules. Then that’s a good thing.”
As the surprise of McCarthy’s decision not to seek the top job wore off Thursday afternoon, eyes turned to Ryan, the former vice presidential nominee and chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. Influential and well-respected throughout the GOP caucus, Ryan could be a peacemaker between the warring factions.
Deputy Majority Whip Tom Cole, R-Oklahoma, also wants Ryan in the job.
“I think eventually Paul Ryan will get into this thing, I really do,” Cole said Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “I think we’ve had two guys fall on their swords for the good of the conference. In this case it’s hard not to step up when there’s an overwhelming demand.”
And for good measure, he added an appeal to Ryan’s sense of duty.
“Paul’s got a strong sense of doing the right thing,” Cole said. “I’m just so confident he’ll make the right choice.”
Boehner and Ryan have a long relationship: Ryan volunteered for Boehner’s campaign when he was a student at Miami University in Ohio in the 1990s, before launching his own political career. But Boehner has not publicly called on Ryan to replace him.
On paper, Ryan is a strong candidate. But his backing among the current House leadership could be a drag on his candidacy, as the conservative backlash against Boehner’s team shows no sign of abating.
Conservatives do praise many of Ryan’s policy positions, yet are already warning Ryan would need to agree to a series of demands to change House rules and agree to their policy agenda.
Rep. Charlie Dent, a moderate and critic of the Freedom Caucus, said more needs to change than just the man or woman in the chair.
“At the end of the day, it’s not who we put in that job,” Dent said on CNN. “If we don’t change the political dynamic, the next speaker will suffer the fate that John Boehner did.”
“We must assemble bipartisan coalitions to pass any meaningful legislation,” Dent added. “That’s the way this place has been operating. We have to accept that reality and move forward.”
Rep. Mimi Walters, a California Republican, called for compromise in selecting the next speaker. “I think we all need to give a little bit,” she said on CNN. “We’re never going to find the perfect person because nobody is perfect but what we have to remember is we have to put the American people first.”
Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez on MSNBC called Ryan one of the smartest men in the GOP.
“He would be good for the country,” Gutierrez said. “He would be good for the Republican Party. Paul Ryan is the kind of individual that would work with people on the other side of the aisle and that’s what we need.'”
Friday morning, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, the Utah Republican whose candidacy helped draw people away from McCarthy, said he would drop out of the race if Ryan runs, a sign conservatives are willing to rally behind the Wisconsin Republican.
“He’s certainly in my mind the most qualified person to do it and I hope he’ll do it,” Chaffetz said on MSNBC.
Other names that Cole said could be viable if Ryan stands firm and doesn’t run include Minnesota Rep. John Kline and Georgia Reps. Lynn Westmoreland and Tom Price. Westmoreland told CNN he was considering it. And Cole’s own name has been floated by his peers — something he said Thursday he wouldn’t rule out, though he said there were “better” options than himself.
And Rep. Daniel Webster, R-Florida, who won the Freedom Caucus’ endorsement, also remains a candidate. Webster Friday said he is still running but left open the possibility of abandoning his bid if he does not win support in conference.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy drops out of race for House speaker
By Mike DeBonis, Robert Costa and Rosalind S. Helderman
The infamously fractious House Republican Conference sank deeper into chaos Thursday after Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy abruptly withdrew his bid to replace John A. Boehner as speaker, a stunning move that left the party scrambling to find a new leader and deeply uncertain about how to effectively manage the House.
McCarthy (R-Calif.) announced his surprise decision at a meeting of House Republicans who gathered to select their candidate for speaker ahead of the official floor vote scheduled for Oct. 29. McCarthy was widely expected to win the support of his colleagues.
Instead he emerged to declare: “We need a fresh face.” McCarthy said at a news conference that he did not want to burden his members with a tough vote for speaker.
“I don’t want to go to the floor and win with 220 votes,” he said. “I think the best thing for our party right now is that you have 247 votes on the floor.”
With his wife at his side, he said his decision was about promoting unity. “If we’re going to unite and be strong, we need a new face to help do that. So nothing more than that.”
[This contest is now wide open. Who’s next?]
McCarthy’s candidacy to succeed the retiring Boehner (R-Ohio) was damaged in recent days by a public gaffe — a television interview in which he seemed to suggest that the Select Committee on Benghazi, the panel assembled by Republicans to investigate the 2012 attacks on U.S. facilities in Libya, was intended to damage Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential poll numbers.
“Well, that wasn’t helpful. I could have said it much better,” McCarthy acknowledged after dropping out of the race. “That’s part of the decision as well.” McCarthy said he will remain in his post as majority leader and seek reelection in 2016.
Still, McCarthy, who had been Boehner’s preferred successor, had been expected to earn the votes he needed before heading to a vote of the full House. That left significant confusion about his last-minute withdrawal — and whom Republicans might rally around as an alternative for the nation’s third-highest job.
There was an immediate push to recruit Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the former vice-presidential nominee and chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. Ryan is one of most widely respected members in the conference, with broad support among conservatives and moderates, as well as newcomers and veterans. But Ryan has repeatedly insisted he is not interested in the job, including in a new statement soon after McCarthy’s withdrawal. “While I am grateful for the encouragement I’ve received, I will not be a candidate,” he said.
[Why Paul Ryan won’t run for speaker]
Over two long phone conversations Thursday, Boehner urged Ryan to reconsider, according to two sources familiar with the exchanges, insisting that Ryan is the only person who can unite the House GOP at a time of turmoil.
Boehner, who last month said he would resign the speakership after weeks of facing a near-certain revolt from conservatives, had been scheduled to step down Oct. 30. Following McCarthy’s declaration, Boehner promised to stay on until the House elects his replacement.
McCarthy: ‘It’s best we have a new face’
Play Video0:58
After dropping out of the race for speaker of the House, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif). said he did not want to be a “distraction” from the committee investigating the attack on Americans in Benghazi. (AP)
Reaction to McCarthy’s surprise departure from the speaker’s race reflected deep divisions within the Republican Party.
Some conservatives seized the moment as a victory, celebrating the downfall of one of the House’s fastest-rising but more moderate stars.
On the eve of Thursday’s planned vote, a group of 30 to 40 of the chamber’s most conservative members, known as the Freedom Caucus, significantly changed the dynamics of the race by promising to throw its weight behind low-profile Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.) over McCarthy.
The move had jeopardized McCarthy’s chances to lock up the speakership on the floor, where he could not afford to lose more than 29 Republican votes if he wanted to win without Democratic support. In McCarthy’s place, they pledged to push for one of their own, a hard-liner on fiscal and social issues.
[The Fix: Republicans have a revolution on their hands]
More-moderate Republicans, including McCarthy allies from swing districts, also worked Thursday to draft a candidate.
Democrats tried to capitalize on the chaos, citing McCarthy’s withdrawal as a sign that the GOP is ungovernable — and unable to govern the country.
“There’s a minority group of conservative politicians that places their own extreme ideology ahead of everything else and certainly ahead of effective governance of the country, but also today of effective governance of the House Republican caucus,” said White House press secretary Josh Earnest.
[House conservatives spurn McCarthy ahead of speaker vote]
Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) urged Republican leaders to quickly move legislation that would lift the government’s debt limit, which the Treasury Department estimates will be hit around Nov. 5. “Republican chaos is likely to get worse before it gets better but the economic livelihood of the American people should not be threatened as a result of Republicans’ inability to govern,” he said in a statement.
Several lawmakers said they were caught off guard by McCarthy’s departure, and much of the day was spent speculating about McCarthy’s motives. Many believed he had simply concluded he could not win the job.
The California Republican had failed to woo conservatives, and some establishment Republicans threatened to oppose him, too, if he was likely to win the job only by a thin margin. Others attributed McCarthy’s downfall to the continuing anger at his comments about the Benghazi panel.
At a meeting Thursday morning that preceded the scheduled conference vote, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) publicly dressed down McCarthy for his Benghazi comments and described how they had harmed his ability to lead and be a forceful speaker in the 2016 campaign. Rohrabacher “went off on McCarthy on how bad and wrong it was” and how much his comments had embarrassed and politically kneecapped House Republicans, one lawmaker said.
Some also questioned whether McCarthy was chased from the race by a letter sent by Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-N.C.) to Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), who chairs the Republican conference. In the letter, Jones called for any leadership candidate who had committed “misdeeds” since joining Congress to drop out of the running.
“I’m asking that any candidate for speaker of the House, majority leader, and majority whip, withdraw himself from the leadership election if there are any misdeeds committed since joining Congress that will embarrass himself, the Republican Conference, and the House of Representatives if they become public,” Jones urged.
He offered no further specifics in the letter, and in an interview after McCarthy’s announcement, Jones said his letter was not directed at McCarthy in particular. He also said he had no reason to believe the letter forced McCarthy’s exit. “Everybody wants to know why he stepped down, the man that was in the lead,” Jones said. “I don’t know why he would step down.”
McCarthy insisted the letter played no role in his decision. “Nah, nah. Come on,” he told a reporter who asked about it.
Without Ryan in the race, the ideal pick for both establishment and conservative Republicans was unclear.
Other hopefuls — including Webster, who was a state House speaker in Florida, and Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) — were working to convince colleagues that they were up to the job. Chaffetz had announced Sunday that he would challenge McCarthy for the position.
Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), a Boehner ally floated Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a respected former House GOP campaign chairman, as a person who could be a calming presence.
Several conservatives suggested House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.), a former member of the Boehner leadership team, as a contender with strong relationships with the party’s conservative bloc. Other names mentioned were Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), the chair of the Benghazi committee, and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chair of the House Freedom Caucus. But Gowdy said he is backing Ryan and Jordan said he was not interested in running. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who preceded Chaffetz as chairman of the Oversight Committee, was also said to be considering a bid.
Rep. Lynn A. Westmoreland (R-Ga.) said he is considering a run for speaker. He told a group of his colleagues in a conference call that his experience in the state legislature prepared him for the role and that he planned to make calls Friday to seek support.
Most of the ambitious but less-seasoned Republicans who have considered leadership spent Thursday reacting to the news rather than quickly assembling coalitions.
Reps. Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Patrick T. McHenry (R-N.C.), who were already running for lower leadership spots should McCarthy have won the speakership, were encouraged to look higher up the chain of command but appear inclined to hold on to their current positions. Rep. Peter J. Roskam (R-Ill.), who was a frontline participant in the latest talks about the GOP’s future, also mulled his options. So did McMorris Rodgers, the conference chair and the party’s highest-ranking woman, and House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.), who has harbored dreams of leadership and had previously run unsuccessfully.
Yet none of these members seemed poised Thursday to take McCarthy’s position as the front-runner. All are relatively popular in certain circles, but few carry the national political heft of Ryan or McCarthy.
EXCLUSIVE– MARK LEVIN WARNS HOUSE REPUBLICANS: DO NOT SUPPORT KEVIN MCCARTHY FOR SPEAKER
Popular talk radio host and best-selling author Mark Levin is warning Republicans in Washington: don’t replace outgoing House Speaker
Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)
37%
with
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)
45%
.
Levin’s a tirelessly warrior against Speaker Boehner and the Washington establishment. “Kevin McCarthy is Eric Cantor with ten less IQ points,” Levin declares in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News.
The radio star adds Republicans must learn their lesson and not repeat the mistakes they made following Eric Cantor’s historic fall from power—namely that Republicans must replace Boehner with a “principled conservative.”
Levin explained that with the resounding defeat of the former-House Majority Leader, conservative voters made their voices heard and sent a clear message to the Republican establishment. Washington Republicans, however, refused to get the message.
“The Republican establishment never learned their lesson after Cantor… They replaced Cantor with McCarthy, who is a wheeler and dealer—he is not a principled conservative… My concern now is that they will do the same thing again,” Levin said.
Kevin McCarthy occupies the business wing of the Republican Party shared by other politicians like
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)
58%
,
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)
80%
, and
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ)
37%
. All seem to think that increasing corporate profits through large-scale immigration and globalist trade pacts like Obamatrade are more important than prioritizing the wages of Americans or preserving America’s cultural identity as a Western nation.
This vision is also in line with the donor-class idea of governing, which means lowering expectations and trying to manage the affairs of Congress in a smooth and non-confrontational way. For instance, only a few days ago, presidential contender Sen. Marco Rubio dismissed attacks on Republican leadership in an interview with Fox News host Bret Baier. Rubio said, “expectations were raised unnecessarily high.”
In other words, that conservative voters were expecting too much when they sent their elected officials to Washington to represent them. This stands in contrast to his presidential competitor Sen. Ted Cruz, who recently suggested that
is the de facto leader of the Senate.” Breitbart News asked Levin about McCarthy’s repeated support for open-border policies.
As Politicoreported last year, McCarthy is viewed as the “go-to” guy for Silicon Valley because he listens to the tech giants’ concerns “100 percent” of the time. Silicon Valley billionaires such as Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg have lobbied for countless immigration expansion bills– including Marco Rubio’s new I-Squared bill, which would essentially lift the cap on university green cards, triple the number of guest workers admitted on H-1B visas, and substantially increase Muslim immigration into the country.
“These guys are such lightweights.” Levin declared. “We need true leaders. They have too much tied to Washington, too much tied to the Chamber of Commerce, corporatists and the donor class.”
Levin said that House conservatives—many of whom are a part of the House Freedom Caucus—need to demand better for their voters.
“Those thirty or so Republicans need to remain united” to elect a principled conservative leader who represents the interest of Republican voters, Levin explained. “Republicans could make a real difference now for the Party and for the country if we elect a Speaker or a Majority Leader who’s a conservative—such as
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH)
94%
. But he’s just one example.”
“We need leaders who are solid, who are intelligent, who are strategic, who are constitutionalists, who can bring in– not just the mainstay of the Party– but demonstrate to millions of us in the grassroots that the message has finally been received. [We need to see that] there is a serious effort—not just a PR effort—but a serious effort to try to govern and keep the President in check—that they are prepared to fight, prepared to show courage, and that they’re going to stop cutting deals with the inside the beltway crowd.”
Levin explained that House conservatives should not squander the opportunity this new leadership election affords them.
“I’ve been pushing very hard for the replacement of this leadership, not just to save the Republican Party, but to save the Republic itself against an out-of-control President.”
Levin predicted that Republican and media elites will try to use Boehner’s resignation as grounds to belittle and demean Republican voters, but that the Republican voters should continue making themselves heard.
“Today, Republican after Republican will lament what’s taking place. There will more trashing of conservatives, more trashing of the base—using liberal terminology to describe conservatives as ‘extreme right’ and they will not learn their lesson.”
“This is also the reason why you can see the rise of Donald Trump,” Levin explained. People are tired of donor class Republicans who refuse to represent the interests of their voters and they are ready for things to change.
Story 1: No Muslim Presidents — Ben Carson Right — Sharia Law Conflicts With Presidential Oath of Office To Defend U.S. Constitution — Governor Scott Walker Suspends Campaign — Conservatives Disappointed — Videos
Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation:–“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
All debts contracted and engagements entered into, before the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.
This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
Amendment I (1):Freedom of religion, speech, and the press; rights of assembly and petition
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Sharia law is the law of Islam. The Sharia (also spelled Shariah or Shari’a) law is cast from the actions and words of Muhammad, which are called “Sunnah,” and the Quran, which he authored.
The Sharia law itself cannot be altered, but the interpretation of the Sharia law, called “figh,” by imams is given some leeway.
As a legal system, the Sharia law covers a very wide range of topics. While other legal codes deal primarily with public behavior, Sharia law covers public behavior, private behavior and private beliefs. Of all legal systems in the world today, Islam’s Sharia law is the most intrusive and strict, especially against women.
According to the Sharia law:
• Theft is punishable by amputation of the right hand (above).
• Criticizing or denying any part of the Quran is punishable by death.
• Criticizing or denying Muhammad is a prophet is punishable by death.
• Criticizing or denying Allah, the moon god of Islam is punishable by death.
• A Muslim who becomes a non-Muslim is punishable by death.
• A non-Muslim who leads a Muslim away from Islam is punishable by death.
• A non-Muslim man who marries a Muslim woman is punishable by death.
• A man can marry an infant girl and consummate the marriage when she is 9 years old.
• Girls’ clitoris should be cut (per Muhammad‘s words in Book 41, Kitab Al-Adab, Hadith 5251).
• A woman can have 1 husband, but a man can have up to 4 wives; Muhammad can have more.
• A man can unilaterally divorce his wife but a woman needs her husband’s consent to divorce.
• A man can beat his wife for insubordination.
• Testimonies of four male witnesses are required to prove rape against a woman.
• A woman who has been raped cannot testify in court against her rapist(s).
• A woman’s testimony in court, allowed only in property cases, carries half the weight of a man’s.
• A female heir inherits half of what a male heir inherits.
• A woman cannot drive a car, as it leads to fitnah (upheaval).
• A woman cannot speak alone to a man who is not her husband or relative.
• Meat to be eaten must come from animals that have been sacrificed to Allah – i.e., be Halal.
• Muslims should engage in Taqiyya and lie to non-Muslims to advance Islam.
• The list goes on.
Ben Carson: ‘Absolutely I stand by the comments’ about Muslim president
Ben Carson Does Not Believe a Muslim Should Be President Meet The Press
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson said today he would not support a Muslim as president on meet the press The retired neurosurgeon also said Islam, as a religion, was inconsistent with the Constitution. Carson told NBC’s “Meet the Press” he believed a president’s faith should matter “depending on what that faith is.” “I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that,” Carson said. “If it’s [a president’s faith] inconsistent with the values and principles of America, then of course it should matter.” Carson, who has been near the top of several presidential polls, said he would consider voting for a Muslim in Congress “[depending] on who that Muslim is and what their policies are.” ABC News has reached out to Carson’s campaign for comment.
Ben Carson Does ‘Not Advocate’ A Muslim As President Sun, Sep 20 Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson tells Chuck Todd that the faith of a presidential candidate should matter to voters “if it is inconsistent with the values … of America.”
GOP candidate Carson: Muslim shouldn’t be elected president
What Is Sharia Law?
How Is Sharia Law Dangerous for Western Society?
484. Is Islam A Religion Of Peace?
485. Was Muhammad A Prophet Of Peace?
493. What Is Sharia Law?
Muslims should not become President’ Republican candidate
Muslim Brotherhood in America, Part 1: The Threat Doctrine of Shariah & the Muslim Brotherhood
Muslim Brotherhood in America, Part 2: ‘Civilization Jihad’ in America
Muslim Brotherhood in America, Part 3: Influence Operations Against Conservatives & the GOP
Muslim Brotherhood in America, Part 4: Suhail Khan, A Case Study in Influence Operations
CAIR – Muslim Mafia
CAIR in Damage Control After Terrorist Designation, Ties to Muslim Brotherhood
CAIR, Muslim American Society Designated as Terrorist Organizations
Wisconsin Gov Scott Walker Suspends His Presidential Campaign – Mark Steyn – Hannity
What Walker’s campaign bow out means for the GOP race
Poor debate showings key to Walker’s early
Scott Walker drops out of 2016 presidential race
Scott Walker on Donald Trump, Family Politics
Donald Trump: Scott Walker Has ‘a Lot of Problems’
It’s Official – The Kochs Have Chosen Their Candidate
Scott Walker suspends presidential campaign
By Jenna Johnson, Dan Balz and Robert Costa
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has suspended his presidential campaign, effectively ending a once-promising GOP presidential bid that collapsed amid tepid debate performances, confusing statements and other missteps.
“Today, I believe that I am being called to lead by helping to clear the field in this race so that a positive, conservative message can rise to the top of the field,” Walker said in a brief speech in Madison, Wisconsin, on Monday evening. “With this in mind, I will suspend my campaign immediately.”
Walker said that because the field is so crowded, candidates have become focused on personal attacks instead of the substantial issues that matter most to voters. He said Republicans have lost the “optimistic view of America” pushed by President Ronald Reagan, Walker’s political idol, and urged those still running to “get back to the basics” with a focus on creating jobs, reducing the size of government and strengthening the military.
“To refocus the debate on these types of issues will require leadership,” Walker said. “I encourage other Republican presidential candidates to consider doing the same so that the voters can focus on a limited number of candidates who can offer a positive, conservative alternative to the current front-runner. This is fundamentally important to the future of the party and, more importantly, to the future of our country.”
In making that plea, Walker did not directly name the current front-runner, businessman Donald Trump.
The announcement stunned many of Walker’s major supporters, donors, fundraisers and even some of his staff members. Given his tanking poll numbers, many expected dramatic changes to the staff and strategy — but not such a sudden end.
“I’m stunned and saddened because I think Scott has had a tremendous record of accomplishment,” Fred Malek, a longtime party fundraiser who serves as the Republican Governor’s Association’s finance chairman. “He’s a man of the highest character and capacity, and he would have made a great president.”
Wisconsin State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said in a statement: “Governor Walker has an amazing story to tell about turning Wisconsin around. It is unfortunate that the bluster of candidates overshadowed his substance.”
When Walker launched his presidential campaign in mid-July, he was considered a top-tier candidate. He was an early favorite in Iowa, where many voters liked that he was a mellow, understated and sometimes boring Midwesterner. And a super PAC supporting his candidacy raised more than $20 million in less than three months.
But as the summer wore on, Walker’s campaign quickly became overshadowed by Trump and other candidates who have never held elected office. As Walker slid in early polls, he seemed to struggle to find his place the field, sometimes taking stances or using language that confused some of his longtime supporters. During the first Republican debate, Walker pitched himself as “aggressively normal” but seemed to disappear on the crowded stage. While he tried to be more energetic during the second debate last week, Walker was again overshadowed and hardly spoke during the three-hour faceoff. There were always glimmers of hope within the campaign that the situation would improve, and Walker’s campaign was constantly maneuvering — first targeting Trump’s supporters, then trying to tap into anti-establishment sentiments and then, just last week, focusing all of their energy on Iowa.
[How Donald Trump destroyed Scott Walker’s presidential chances]
Throughout the summer, Walker made a series of confusing or contradictory comments that often took several days to fully clarify. In August, he seemed to endorse ending birthright citizenship, then said he didn’t have a position on the issue, and then said that he did not want to change the constitution, which many believe guarantees citizenship to those born on U.S. soil. In late August, Walker called building a wall along the Canadian border “a legitimate issue for us to look at,” only to say days later that he never supported the idea and that his words were twisted by the media. Over Labor Day weekend, he refused to say if the United States should accept more Syrian refugees, telling reporters that it was a “hypothetical question” and that he wanted to talk about “reality” – only to say soon after that the United States should not accept more refugees.
Several longtime Walker supporters said they no longer recognized the candidate they had watched rise to national prominence from the Wisconsin governor’s office. Walker is best known for aggressively pushing for reforms to the state’s public-sector unions in 2011, riling Democrats both in his state and across the country. He quickly became a favorite of tea-party activists and his calm amid protests at the state capitol landed him on the cover of conservative magazines. He became a regular presence on Fox News. A year later, as he battled and ultimately won a recall election, he was being touted as a possible vice-presidential candidate for GOP nominee Mitt Romney.
“It was nice for him to get that attention in the short run, but it set up expectations he couldn’t hope to maintain,” said Vin Weber, a former Minnesota congressman and adviser to Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign.
Union leadership, which had long considered Walker a top target, reacted quickly Monday to reports that he was suspending his campaign. “Scott Walker is still a disgrace, just no longer national,” AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka said in a terse afternoon statement.
In recent weeks, there were clear signs that Walker’s campaign was in trouble. His poll results began to resemble a ski slope. And although the super PAC was flush with money, supporters worried that the campaign itself was running low on cash.
The large cadre of staff and paid consultants around Walker have been on what one called a “death watch” for the past several weeks. It was clear to many that a single bad debate performance would spell the beginning of a dramatic downsizing of Walker’s campaign, with Walker staffers bracing for spending cuts, layoffs and a shake-up in the campaign leadership. Following last week’s debate, the frustration of many fundraisers and major donors exploded, as they demanded that Walker replace his campaign manager, Rick Wiley. Over the weekend, Walker skipped two previously scheduled appearances in Michigan and California, angering Republicans in states with high numbers of delegates, so that he could instead spend more time in Iowa. There, he struck several people as looking exhausted and beaten down.
There aren’t many loyal Walker voters in the state left to claim, said Steve Grubbs, Iowa strategist for Republican presidential rival Rand Paul. “The reality is that there was a very significant shift from Walker to Trump over the last 8-10 weeks,” he said, adding that it was those voters who might be up for grabs. “As Walker is out, and Trump begins to lose support, those voters will come back into play. And we believe that a lot of those voters are gettable,” said Grubbs.
Then came the latest CNN poll on Sunday that was like a punch in the gut: The governor was now polling nationally at less than one percent – so low that he received an asterisk on some charts instead of an actual number.
Still, the candidate kept his deliberations to quit the race very close, with a full schedule of events planned for this week that included campaign stops in Indiana and Virginia and a fundraiser in New York City at the home of one of his major donors, Joe Ricketts. Most staff, including senior aides, found out only Monday that he had decided to suspend his campaign later in the day.
Walker said on Monday that he reflected on the decision at church on Sunday. In suspending his campaign, he thanked everyone who believed in him — especially his wife, Tonette, and their two sons.
“Most of all, I want to thank God for his abundant grace,” Walker said in closing on Monday. “Win or lose, it is more than enough for any of us.”
[What happened to Scott Walker?]
Trump — who has been credited with quickening if not causing the sudden death of Walker’s campaign — praised Walker’s character and gubernatorial record and said he would reach out to his former rival in the coming days to offer encouragement.
“I really liked him a lot,” Trump said in an interview with The Washington Post on Monday. “I thought he was a terrific person. He has been a terrific governor. I got to know him pretty well. I’m a little surprised that it hasn’t worked out better for him. Many people thought he’d be the primary competition, at least initially.”
Trump, who proudly surrounds himself with a small group of aides, wondered if Walker was hurt by too much advice and management from his political consultants. “He was very loose guy when he came up to see me a few months ago to give me a plaque, but then on the campaign, maybe there were too many people. I think he had too many people, many of them who didn’t know what they were doing,” he said.
Other presidential contenders also offered their praise on Monday evening. In a statement, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) called Walker “a good man, a formidable fighter, and an effective reformer.” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) also used a statement to call Walker “a good man” and “one of the best governors in the country.”
Even before Walker announced the suspension of his campaign, rival campaigns had begun contacting top Walker donors to urge them to come aboard. Vin Weber said Bush’s campaign was aggressively reaching out to Walker donors and staffers Monday afternoon. “We thought it happened a little sooner than expected, but it was inevitable. There was not a path back for him, based on his performance as a candidate. And even though he was an asterisk in the polls, his decision will help to clarify the race, sending a strong message to other candidates who aren’t registering to move on and get the party down to 5 or 6 candidates who are viable.”
Gary Marx, a senior adviser to Walker’s campaign who coordinated outreach to conservative movement groups, said in an interview Monday that he and others are already looking for work. On Tuesday, Marx said, he will interview with three GOP presidential campaigns, which he declined to name.
A major problem of the Walker campaign, he said, was that it was difficult to generate enthusiasm — and campaign funding soon dried up. “No matter how much money was in the super PAC, hard dollars still matter,” he said. “He didn’t have the finances to continue on. Money is ultimately what stops campaigns from going further.”
Story 1: Democrats and Progressives Support Planned Parenthood’s Big Business of Abortions, Baby Butchering and Selling Baby Body Parts For Money — Moral Bankruptcy of The Lying Lunatic Left — Killing Black, Hispanic and White Babies and Selling Their Baby Parts For Money — Progressive Eugenics Today –Stop Killing Babies! — Videos
SHOCK VIDEO: Planned Parenthood sells dead baby body parts
Planned Parenthood Uses Partial-Birth Abortions to Sell Baby Parts
BUSTED! Proof Planned Parenthood Sells Dead Babies to Anyone Willing to Buy! LEAKED FOOTAGE!
REP STANDS UP TO BABY PARTS BROKERS of PLANNED PARENTHOOD SATANISTS
Planned Parenthood Exposed
FULL FOOTAGE: Planned Parenthood Uses Partial-Birth Abortions to Sell Baby Parts
The Rolling Stones – You Can’t Always Get What You Want (lyrics)
Rolling Stones – You Can’t Always Get What You Want (The David Frost Show 1969)
The Silent Scream (Full Length)
The Silent Scream Complete Version – Abortion as Infanticide
Dr. Bernard Nathanson’s classic video that shocked the world. He explains the procedure of a suction abortion, followed by an actual first trimester abortion as seen through ultrasound. The viewer can see the child’s pathetic attempts to escape the suction curette as her heart rate doubles, and a “silent scream” as her body is torn apart. A great tool to help people see why abortion is murder. The most important video on abortion ever made. This video changed opinion on abortion to many people.
Introduction by Dr. Bernard Nathanson, host. Describes the technology of ultrasound and how, for the first time ever, we can actually see inside the womb. Dr. Nathanson further describes the ultrasound technique and shows examples of babies in the womb. Three-dimensional depiction of the developing fetus, from 4 weeks through 28 weeks. Display and usage of the abortionists’ tools, plus video of an abortionist performing a suction abortion.
Dr. Nathanson discusses the abortionist who agreed to allow this abortion to be filmed with ultrasound. The abortionist was quite skilled, having performed more than 10,000 abortions. We discover that the resulting ultrasound of his abortion so appalled him that he never again performed another abortion.
The clip begins with an ultrasound of the fetus (girl) who is about to be aborted. The girl is moving in the womb; displays a heartbeat of 140 per minute; and is at times sucking her thumb. As the abortionist’s suction tip begins to invade the womb, the child rears and moves violently in an attempt to avoid the instrument. Her mouth is visibly open in a “silent scream.” The child’s heart rate speeds up dramatically (to 200 beats per minute) as she senses aggression. She moves violently away in a pathetic attempt to escape the instrument. The abortionist’s suction tip begins to rip the baby’s limbs from its body, ultimately leaving only her head in the uterus (too large to be pulled from the uterus in one piece). The abortionist attempts to crush her head with his forceps, allowing it to be removed. In an effort to “dehumanize” the procedure, the abortionist and anesthesiologist refer to the baby’s head as “number 1.” The abortionist crushes “number 1” with the forceps and removes it from the uterus.
Abortion statistics are revealed, as well as who benefits from the enormously lucrative industry that has developed. Clinics are now franchised, and there is ample evidence that many are controlled by organized crime. Women are victims, too. They haven’t been told about the true nature of the unborn child or the facts about abortion procedures. Their wombs have been perforated, infected, destroyed, and sterilized. All as a result of an operation about which they they have had no true knowledge.
Films like this must be made part of “informed consent.” NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League) and Planned Parenthood are accused of a conspiracy of silence, of keeping women in the dark about the reality of abortion. Finally, Dr. Nathanson discusses his credentials. He is a former abortionist, having been the director of the largest clinic in the Western world.
Margaret Sanger’s “Negro Project” & Barack Obama’s Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood Exposed
Obama Tells Planned Parenthood-God Bless You – YouTube
A message to Planned Parenthood Supporters from President Obama
Barack Obama Addresses Planned Parenthood
Obama In ’03: No On Banning Late Term Abortions
Obama’s Barbaric Views on Partial Birth Abortion and Infanticide
MAAFA 21 [A documentary on eugenics and genocide]
Hitler`s Biological Soldiers / Science and the Swastika (EUGENICS)
Eugenics Glenn Beck w/ Edwin Black author of “War Against the Weak” talk Al Gore & Margaret Sanger
OVERPOPULATION
What’s Wrong With Socialism?
Eugenics, Planned Parenthood & Psychology, Mind Control
Mind Control, Psychology of Brainwashing, Sex & Hypnosis
Sex Addiction, Restless Legs Syndrome, PMS & Drug, Mind Control Report
Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood’s Racist Founder
Margaret Sanger: Eugenicist (1/3)
Margaret Sanger: Eugenicist (2/3)
Margaret Sanger: Eugenicist (3/3)
Pro-Lifer Mark Crutcher & Alex Jones: Eugenics is The Heart of The Globalists Religion 1/3
Pro-Lifer Mark Crutcher & Alex Jones: Eugenics is The Heart of The Globalists Religion 2/3
Pro-Lifer Mark Crutcher & Alex Jones: Eugenics is The Heart of The Globalists Religion 3/3
Slow Kill Holocaust: Proof the Government is Killing You
War on the Weak: Eugenics in America
Eugenics: Science In History
Bill O’Reilly Calls Planned Parenthood An “Abortion Mill”
Eugenics: alive and well in the USA
Scientific Racism The Eugenics of Social Darwinism
Eugenics, Population Control, and the NWO
Agenda 21 & Eugenics – Bill Gates Depopulation Plans Exposed
The Depopulation Agenda For a New World Order Agenda 21 ☁☢☁☰☰☰☰☰✈
George Carlin – List of people who ought to be killed
The Rolling Stones – Angie – OFFICIAL PROMO (Version 1)
Undercover video shows Planned Parenthood official discussing fetal organs used for research
By Sandhya Somashekhar and Danielle Paquette
An antiabortion group on Tuesday released an undercover video of an official at Planned Parenthood discussing in graphic detail how to abort a fetus to preserve its organs for medical research — as well as the costs associated with sharing that tissue with scientists.
Over lunch at a Los Angeles restaurant, two antiabortion activists posing as employees from a biotech firm met with Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical research. Armed with cameras, the activists recorded Nucatola talking about Planned Parenthood’s work donating fetal tissue to researchers and pressed her on whether the clinics were charging for the organs.
The Center for Medical Progress, which recorded and edited the video, says the footage proves that Planned Parenthood is breaking the law by selling fetal organs. But the video does not show Nucatola explicitly talking about selling organs. The Planned Parenthood official says the organization is “very, very sensitive” about being perceived as illegally profiting from organ sales and charges only for the cost, for instance, of shipping the tissue.
[Congressional and state investigations into the video have begun]
The video threatens to reignite a long-standing debate over the use of fetal tissue harvested through abortions and could add fuel to efforts seeking to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
In a statement, a spokesman for Planned Parenthood said the video misrepresents the organization’s work. Planned Parenthood clinics, with a patient’s permission, may sometimes donate fetal tissue for use in stem cell research, said the spokesman, who added that the group’s affiliates, which operate independently, do not profit from these donations.
“At several of our health centers, we help patients who want to donate tissue for scientific research, and we do this just like every other high-quality health-care provider does — with full, appropriate consent from patients and under the highest ethical and legal standards,” spokesman Eric Ferrero said. “In some instances, actual costs, such as the cost to transport tissue to leading research centers, are reimbursed, which is standard across the medical field.”
He accused the Center for Medical Progress of mounting a misleading attack similar to those by other groups that have tried to mount undercover “stings” targeting Planned Parenthood.
But antiabortion groups said the video shows that Planned Parenthood is essentially selling fetal organs and that Congress and other authorities should investigate.
Buying and selling human fetal tissue is illegal in the United States. Federal regulations also prohibit anyone from altering the timing or method of an abortion for the sole purpose of later using the tissue in research. Donating the tissue for research, however, is legal with a woman’s consent.
Antiabortion groups also said the callous nature of the discussion captured on film should tug at viewers’ consciences — particularly when Nucatola apparently describes “crushing” the fetus in ways that keep its internal organs intact and her remarks about researchers’ desire for lungs and livers.
“I’d say a lot of people want liver,” she says in the video posted on the Center for Medical Progress’s Web site, between bites of salad. “And for that reason, most providers will do this case under ultrasound guidance so they’ll know where they’re putting their forceps.”
She continues: “We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.”
It’s hard to assess exactly what happened at the lunch with Nucatola. The antiabortion group had complete control over the filming and editing of the footage. The group also posted a nearly three-hour version of the video that it’s calling the “full footage,” though there is no way to verify that the video is truly complete.
Key moments from the undercover recording with Planned Parenthood executive(7:56)
The anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress posted a long version of the conversation between a Planned Parenthood executive and undercover actors on YouTube along with an shorter version that has been shared widely. These are excerpts of the longer version. (CenterforMedicalProgress.org)
The unidentified activists, a man and a woman, told Nucatola they worked for a biotech firm that aimed to snare “a competitive advantage” by providing local samples for researchers who would like to avoid lengthy trips between clinic and lab. They said they worked in Norwalk, a suburb.
“Every provider has patients who want to donate their tissue, and they want to accommodate them,” says Nucatola. “They just want to do it in a way that is not perceived as: This clinic is selling tissue. This clinic is making money off this. In the Planned Parenthood world, they’re very, very sensitive to that. Some affiliates might do it for free. They want to come to a number that looks like a reasonable number for the effort that is allotted on their part . . . ”
One activist asks, “Okay, so, when you are — or when the affiliate is — determining what that monetary . . . So that it doesn’t raise the question of . . . ‘This is what it’s about’ — What price range would you . . . ?”
“You know, I would throw a number out, I would say it’s probably anywhere from $30 to $100, depending on the facility and what’s involved,” says Nucatola. “It just has to do with space issues, are you sending someone there that’s going to be doing everything . . . is there shipping involved? Is someone going to be there to pick it up?”
In order to film the footage, the activists wore “police-quality undercover cameras,” said David Daleiden, who ran the project for the Center of Medical Progress. (He refused to elaborate: “I don’t answer questions about our undercover costumes.”)
The “sting” unfolded over three years, Daleiden said, because it takes time to build up a front as a biotech company and gain access to Planned Parenthood executives. The lunch, he said, is just the beginning: The Center for Medical Progress plans to release a new video every week for the next few months.
Daleiden rejects Nucatola’s claim that costs associated with fetal tissue donation involve shipping and staff hours. “Literally the only thing the clinic is doing is carrying the fetus from the operation to the tech,” he said.
The Center for Medical Progress was established by Daleiden, a controversial antiabortion activist who previously worked with Live Action, another antiabortion group known for its “stings” of Planned Parenthood using actors and undercover videos.
The group is a non-profit organization that describes itself on its Web site as “a group of citizen journalists dedicated to monitoring and reporting on medical ethics and advances.”
“The promotional video mischaracterizing Planned Parenthood’s mission and services is made by a long time anti-abortion activist that has used deceptive and unethical video editing, and that has created a fake medical website as well as a fake human tissue website that purports to provide services to stem cell researchers,” Planned Parenthood said in a statement Tuesday.
Daleiden also alleges that the procedure described by Nucatola is similar to “intact dilation and extraction,” referred to by opponents as partial-birth abortion, which Congress outlawed in 2003. The Supreme Court upheld the law’s constitutionality four years later.
In the 1980s and 1990s, researchers considered fetal tissue transplants a budding treatment for Parkinson’s disease and diabetes. Some believed they held the potential to prevent autism.
As different kind of stem cells — embryonic stem cells — gain prominence in research, fetal tissue donations today are often used to gain deeper anatomical understanding of fetuses, said Arthur Caplan, director of New York University’s Division of Medical Ethics. The practice, however, is problematic if an abortion provider goes into a procedure with the primary intention of preserving a liver, he said. In the video, Nucatola appears to allude to methods for carefully extracting the organs.
“I think the only relevant goal of an abortion clinic is to provide a safe and least risky abortion to a woman,” Caplan said. “If you’re starting to play with how it’s done, and when it’s done, other things than women’s health are coming into play. You’re making a huge mountain of conflict of interest around a period for many people is morally difficult.”
A number of Republicans, including a few presidential candidates, reacted Tuesday to the video.
“This latest news is tragic and outrageous,” Carly Fiorina wrote on Facebook.
“This is a shocking and horrific reminder that we must do so much more to foster a culture of life in America,” said Jeb Bush on Twitter.
As politicians responded to the video, a bill to increase funding for breast cancer research was pulled from the House floor after abortion critics linked it to Planned Parenthood. The Breast Cancer Awareness Commemorative Coin Act would have raised as much as $4.75 million in research funds for Susan G. Komen for the Cure—an organization that has a longstanding alliance with Planned Parenthood to fund preventative cancer screenings. The bill was expected to pass easily, but House Republican leaders pulled it from consideration after the conservative group Heritage Action objected.
Whether the video Tuesday shows illegal activity could ultimately be irrelevant. For years, antiabortion groups promoted their cause by highlighting the sometimes disturbing details of abortion procedures and painting abortion providers as callous and unethical.
They have argued against allowing abortions later in pregnancy by suggesting that older fetuses can feel pain and they are pushing for a federal ban on the procedure at 20 weeks of pregnancy.
The accusation that Planned Parenthood is illegally selling the organs of fetuses is not new among antiabortion advocates. The controversy gained national attention in 2000, after the publication of an undercover investigation by a Texas-based antiabortion group, Life Dynamics, which was also involved in Tuesday’s video release.
The investigation’s conclusion, that a Kansas clinic affiliated with Planned Parenthood was participating in a scheme to profit from the sale of fetal tissues, prompted a 20/20 hidden camera investigation on the subject, and a hearing of the Subcommittee on Health and Environment in the House of Representatives.
The FBI also investigated the Kansas clinic for any wrongdoing, but later concluded that it did not break any laws.
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Story 1: President Trump Rocks at Make America Great Again Rally in Las Vegas Nevada — Build The Wall With $25 Billion in Funding and Balance The Budget — We Need More Republicans — Videos —
President Trump EXPLOSIVE Speech at MASSIVE Rally in Las Vegas, Nevada – September 20, 2018
Watch Live! Trump Rally in Las Vegas, NV!
Trump pushes for border wall funding during rally in Las Vegas
Trump goes one-on-one with Hannity at Las Vegas rally
‘He’s been there’: Trump stumps for vulnerable Sen. Heller
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
PUBLISHED: 23:10 EDT, 20 September 2018 | UPDATED: 08:00 EDT, 21 September 2018
His own political fortunes intrinsically linked to his party holding control of Congress, President Donald Trump on Thursday offered full-throated support for the most vulnerable incumbent Republican senator, while unleashing a torrent of grievances against Democrats and the news media and claiming they are sabotaging his administration.
Trump, appearing at a boisterous rally in Las Vegas, defended his embattled Supreme Court justice nominee, touted the booming stock market, cited progress in talks with North Korea and pledged to build his long-promised border wall, while also making the pitch for Nevada to re-elect Sen. Dean Heller. The president noted that he and Heller – who once said he “vehemently” opposed Trump – did not always get along.
“We started out, we weren’t friends. I didn’t like him, he didn’t like me!” said Trump to laughs. “But as we fought and fought and fought, believe it or not we started to respect each other, than we started to like each other, then we started to love each other.
“Ever since I won the election, he’s been there for us,” said Trump, who urged Heller’s re-election because the Republican majority in the Senate is so slim, 51-49, that the GOP would lose its advantage if “someone had a cold.” The president also bestowed one of his signature nicknames on Heller’s opponent, Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen, dubbing her “Wacky Jacky.”
Heller returned the praise: “Mr. President, I think you just turned Nevada red today,” he said. Trump narrowly lost Nevada to Hillary Clinton in 2016 despite his deep ties to Las Vegas – he has a golden-hued hotel just off the famed Strip – and repeatedly campaigning in the state.
Trump in particular focused his pitch for Heller on the need to confirm more conservative judges, in particular his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, whose seat on the bench had been thrown into question by allegations that he sexually assaulted a young woman while in high school more than 30 years ago.
Kavanaugh has denied the allegations.
While negotiations continued over whether his accuser, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, would testify next week, Trump, who has taken pains not to criticize Ford in recent days, appeared to break from that strategy in a pre-rally interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on the convention center floor.
“I think it’s a very sad situation,” said Trump, asking: “Why didn’t somebody call the FBI 36 years ago? … What’s going on?” While he said Ford should “have her say,” he made clear he was done waiting: “I don’t think you can delay it any longer. They’ve delayed it a week already.”
Trump remained on message at the rally. He did not utter a critical word about Ford, but defended Kavanaugh, saying he was “a great intellect” and “a great gentleman with an impeccable reputation.”
“We have to let it play out but I have to tell you, he is a fine, fine person,” Trump said of the Senate confirmation process. “I think everything is going to be just fine.”
There was one local topic Trump avoided. The Las Vegas rally was held three miles from the Mandalay Bay hotel where a gunman opened fire just over a year ago, killing 58 people and leaving 851 injured.
Trump made no mention of the shooting, though he assured Heller would vote in favor of the Second Amendment.
The rest of the rally was red meat for the crowd, which repeatedly roared its approval for the president but did not quite fill the room at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
As usual, Trump went after the media and many who attended the rally followed his lead. One man stood behind the president’s traveling press corps, repeatedly yelling the word “traitors” at the journalists.
At one point reading from a list of his administration’s accomplishments, Trump spent much of the rally focused on what advisers believe is his – and his party’s – best issue, the strong economy. He took credit for the stock market’s gains and the nation’s low unemployment rate and bragged about boosting the military, while accusing Democrats of doing their best to foster division and stall the growth.
“They are lousy politicians and their policies are terrible,” said Trump, in only his second rally as president in a state he lost two years ago, “but they are good at sticking together and resisting, that’s what they do. You see the signs ‘Resist, Resist.'”
With the chances of Republicans keeping control of the House of Representatives looking increasingly dismal, the White House has fixated on keeping the Senate as a bulwark against any Democratic effort to impeach and then remove Trump from office. Though the Senate midterm map favors Republicans, a few states, including Tennessee and perhaps Texas, could slip away from the GOP.
But no Republican-held seat is considered more endangered than the one in Nevada. The only Republican running for re-election in a state Hillary Clinton carried in 2016, Heller has been locked in a tight race in an increasingly blue-leaning state.
Though he fervently tried to wrap his arms around the president Thursday, Heller’s relationship with Trump has been tumultuous. Weeks before the 2016 election, Heller infamously said that he was “100 percent against Clinton, 99 percent against Trump,” a remark the president has not forgotten.
Heller drew the president’s ire a year ago when he held up Republican efforts to repeal former President Barack Obama’s signature health care law. But Trump saved Heller from a costly and damaging primary battle earlier this year by persuading a very conservative primary challenger, Danny Tarkanian, to drop out of the Senate race and instead seek a House seat.
Heller is now in a close race with Rosen, a first-term congresswoman who stands to benefit from a wave of Democratic and female activism fueled by opposition to Trump. And the senator, at times, has struggled to strike a balancing act of praising the president, who remains popular among Republicans, while distancing himself from Trump’s scandals and provocative positions.
“Eighty percent of what this president has done has been very, very good, very positive,” Heller told reporters last week. “The other 20 percent … he has a reality show. I get it. It’s a reality show.”
___
Associated Press writer Michelle Price contributed to this report. Colvin reported from Washington.
___
This story has been corrected to show the Senate is divided 51-49, not 50-49.
President Donald Trump meets with supporters during a campaign rally, Thursday, Sept. 20, 2018, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Story 2: Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 Hits An All Time High — Videos —
Markets soar to new records under Trump
Nightly Business Report – September 20, 2018
Dow Jones And S&P Rally For New Record Highs
What Do “Points” On The Dow And S&P 500 Actually Mean?
Dow, S&P 500 close at record highs as bull shrugs off trade worries
Nothing it seems can slow down the Wall Street bull, not trade fears, not natural disasters or any other perceived market risks.
The U.S. stock market notched fresh records Thursday, with the Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index both closing at new all-time highs, adding to gains in what is already the longest bull run in Wall Street history.
Investors appear to be shrugging off any worries related to the ongoing fight between the U.S. and its trading partners, including the escalating tit-for-tat tussle between President Donald Trump and China, the world’s second-biggest economy. Even though Trump hit China with a 10 percent tariff on $200 billion in additional goods this week, the levy came in lower than the 25 percent Wall Street feared.
Instead, investors are focusing on an American economy that is performing well, with the help from fiscal stimulus such as tax cuts, says Lindsey Bell, investment strategist at CFRA, a Wall Street research firm. The government Thursday said the number of Americans filing for jobless benefits fell to its lowest level in 49 years in the week ending Sept. 15.
“The new highs are being driven mostly by solid economic data,” Bell says. “The market seemingly priced in a much more dire situation with regards to tariffs, and given the lower-than-expected tariff rate, the market is moving higher.”
At the market close Thursday, the blue-chip Dow was up nearly 1 percent, or about 251 points, to a record 26,656.98, eclipsing its prior closing all-time high of 26,616.71 from Jan. 26. The large company S&P 500 finished at a record 2930.75.
The S&P 500 is up nearly 10 percent this year, and the Dow is about 8 percent higher.
More: Risky market? By one measure, U.S. stocks 50% pricier than at 2000 top
More: Avoid mental mistakes that could hurt your 401(k) savings in a bull market
More: Amazon’s stock value tops $1 trillion, joins Apple in trillionaire club
The bullish outlook for businesses and consumers has investors again betting on U.S. companies posting strong earnings when the third-quarter profit-reporting season gets underway in early October. Analysts forecast companies in the S&P 500 stock index to grow earnings at a 22 percent clip in the July through September quarter.
Rising interest rates, which historically have been a trigger for market downturns, haven’t yet caused investors to fear an economic slowdown. The Federal Reserve, which has raised short-term rates twice this year to a range of 1.75 percent to 2 percent, is almost certain to increase rates another quarter of a percentage point at its Sept. 26 meeting.
Odds for a similar-sized rate hike at the central bank’s December meeting have risen to nearly 79 percent, according to CME Group data.
Better performance from some slivers of the market that had not been faring well earlier in the year is also providing the market with a lift, says Bell. She notes that shares of industrial companies are 3.4 percent higher this month, while the materials sector and financials are up 1.5 percent and 1.3 percent, respectively.
More Money: Comcast, Fox takeover battle for Sky to be decided by weekend auction
More Money: How potentially dangerous fake Apple products reach the US consumer market
More Money: Ultra-luxury carmaker Aston Martin of James Bond fame plans IPO to go public in London
While acknowledging the U.S. economy is in good shape thanks to Trump’s growth-friendly policies, which “dwarfs all other issues,” Greg Valliere, chief global strategist at Horizon Investments, warns the biggest risk to the market right now might be too much optimism.
“I would worry if a mood of euphoria takes hold – that’s traditionally a warning sign,” Valliere told USA TODAY.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/09/20/dow-jones-industrial-average-hits-record-high/1366516002/
How major US stock indexes fared Thursday
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
PUBLISHED: 17:00 EDT, 20 September 2018 | UPDATED: 17:15 EDT, 20 September 2018
U.S. stocks closed broadly higher Thursday, driving the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 index to all-time highs.
The Dow beat the mark its set in January, while the S&P 500 eclipsed the peak it set last month. Big technology and health care companies led the broad rally. Banks also rose. Energy stocks declined.
On Thursday:
The S&P 500 index rose 22.80 points, or 0.8 percent, to 2,930.75.
The Dow gained 251.22 points, or 1 percent, to 26,656.98.
The Nasdaq composite climbed 78.19 points, or 1 percent, to 8,028.23.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies picked up 17.25 points, or 1 percent, to 1,720.18.
For the week:
The S&P 500 is up 25.77 points, or 0.9 percent.
The Dow is up 502.31 points, or 1.9 percent.
The Nasdaq is up 18.19 points, or 0.2 percent.
The Russell 2000 is down 1.53 points, or 0.1 percent.
For the year:
The S&P 500 is up 257.14 points, or 9.6 percent.
The Dow is up 1,937.76 points, or 7.8 percent.
The Nasdaq is up 1,124.84 points, or 16.3 percent.
The Russell 2000 is up 184.67 points, or 12 percent.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-6191051/How-major-US-stock-indexes-fared-Thursday.html
Story 3: Free U.S.-Led Uncensored Internet and Authoritarian Chinese-Led Censored Internet — Breaking Up Is Hard To Do — Videos
Report: Google working on a censored search engine for China
Google employees revolt against China project
Could the Internet Split in Two?
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt Predicts Internet Split: American vs. Chinese
Breakin’ Up Is Hard To Do – Neil Sedaka
Former Google CEO predicts the internet will split in two — and one part will be led by China
Eric Schmidt, who has been the CEO of Google and executive chairman of its parent company, Alphabet, predicts that within the next decade there will be two distinct internets: one led by the U.S. and the other by China.
Schmidt shared his thoughts at a private event in San Francisco on Wednesday night convened by investment firm Village Global VC. The firm enlists tech luminaries — including Schmidt, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Diane Green — as limited partners, then invests their money into early-stage tech ventures.
At the event, economist Tyler Cowen asked about the possibility of the internet fragmenting into different sub-internets with different regulations and limited access between them in coming years. “What’s the chance, say, 10 to 15 years, we have just three to four separate internets?”
Schmidt said:
The Belt and Road is a massive initiative by Beijing to increase China’s political and economic influence by connecting and facilitating all kinds of trade, including digital trade, between China and countries in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
Schmidt’s predictions come at a time when his successor at Google, CEO Sundar Pichai, has stirred up controversy around the company’s strategy in China.
Reportedly, Google has been developing “Project Dragonfly,” a censored version of its search engine that could appease authorities in China. The project allegedly included a means to suppress some search results, booting them off the first page, and a means to fully block results for sensitive queries, for example, around “peaceful protests.”
n recent weeks, hundreds of Google employees lobbied Pichai for more transparency and signed a letter saying that the reported plans raised “urgent moral and ethical issues.”
Pichai has said that Google has been “very open about our desire to do more in China,” and that the team “has been in an exploration stage for quite a while now,” and considering “many options,” but is nowhere near launching in China.
In a separate discussion last night between Schmidt and several start-up founders, he lauded Chinese tech products, services and adoption, especially in mobile payments. He noted that Starbucks in China don’t feature a register. Customers order ahead online and pay with their phones before picking up their lattes.
Eric Schmidt, who has been the CEO of Google and executive chairman of its parent company, Alphabet, predicts that within the next decade there will be two distinct internets: one led by the U.S. and the other by China.
Schmidt shared his thoughts at a private event in San Francisco on Wednesday night convened by investment firm Village Global VC. The firm enlists tech luminaries — including Schmidt, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Diane Green — as limited partners, then invests their money into early-stage tech ventures.
At the event, economist Tyler Cowen asked about the possibility of the internet fragmenting into different sub-internets with different regulations and limited access between them in coming years. “What’s the chance, say, 10 to 15 years, we have just three to four separate internets?”
Schmidt said:
The Belt and Road is a massive initiative by Beijing to increase China’s political and economic influence by connecting and facilitating all kinds of trade, including digital trade, between China and countries in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
Schmidt’s predictions come at a time when his successor at Google, CEO Sundar Pichai, has stirred up controversy around the company’s strategy in China.
Reportedly, Google has been developing “Project Dragonfly,” a censored version of its search engine that could appease authorities in China. The project allegedly included a means to suppress some search results, booting them off the first page, and a means to fully block results for sensitive queries, for example, around “peaceful protests.”
In recent weeks, hundreds of Google employees lobbied Pichai for more transparency and signed a letter saying that the reported plans raised “urgent moral and ethical issues.”
Pichai has said that Google has been “very open about our desire to do more in China,” and that the team “has been in an exploration stage for quite a while now,” and considering “many options,” but is nowhere near launching in China.
In a separate discussion last night between Schmidt and several start-up founders, he lauded Chinese tech products, services and adoption, especially in mobile payments. He noted that Starbucks in China don’t feature a register. Customers order ahead online and pay with their phones before picking up their lattes.
A business development leader with Facebook, Ime Archebong, asked Schmidt if large tech companies are doing enough good in the world.
Schmidt replied: “The judge of this is others, not us. Self-referential conversations about ‘Do I feel good about what I’m doing?’ are not very helpful. The judge is outside.”
At several points in the private discussion, Schmidt urged entrepreneurs to build products and services that are not merely addictive, but valuable. He also said not enough companies “measure the right things.” Too many focus on short-term revenue growth and satisfying shareholders, rather than what’s best for their users, society and the long-term health of their companies.
Schmidt was the CEO of Google from 2001, when he took over from co-founder Larry Page, through 2011, when Page reclaimed the reins. He remained as executive chairman of Google and then Alphabet until earlier this year.
Correction: Eric Schmidt did not specify a date by which he believed the internet would bifurcate. He was responding to a question from Tyler Cowen which specified “in the next 10 to 15 years.”
GOOGLE SUPPRESSES MEMO REVEALING PLANS TO CLOSELY TRACK SEARCH USERS IN CHINA
September 21 2018, 12:18 p.m.
GOOGLE BOSSES HAVE forced employees to delete a confidential memo circulating inside the company that revealed explosive details about a plan to launch a censored search engine in China, The Intercept has learned.
The memo, authored by a Google engineer who was asked to work on the project, disclosed that the search system, codenamed Dragonfly, would require users to log in to perform searches, track their location — and share the resulting history with a Chinese partner who would have “unilateral access” to the data.
The memo was shared earlier this month among a group of Google employees who have been organizing internal protests over the censored search system, which has been designed to remove content that China’s authoritarian Communist Party regime views as sensitive, such as information about democracy, human rights, and peaceful protest.
According to three sources familiar with the incident, Google leadership discovered the memo and were furious that secret details about the China censorship were being passed between employees who were not supposed to have any knowledge about it. Subsequently, Google human resources personnel emailed employees who were believed to have accessed or saved copies of the memo and ordered them to immediately delete it from their computers. Emails demanding deletion of the memo contained “pixel trackers” that notified human resource managers when their messages had been read, recipients determined.
The Dragonfly memo reveals that a prototype of the censored search engine was being developed as an app for both Android and iOS devices, and would force users to sign in so they could use the service. The memo confirms, as The Intercept first reported last week, that users’ searches would be associated with their personal phone number. The memo adds that Chinese users’ movements would also be stored, along with the IP address of their device and links they clicked on. It accuses developers working on the project of creating “spying tools” for the Chinese government to monitor its citizens.
People’s search histories, location information, and other private data would be sent out of China to a database in Taiwan, the memo states. But the data would also be provided to employees of a Chinese company who would be granted “unilateral access” to the system.
To launch the censored search engine, Google set up a “joint venture” partnership with an unnamed Chinese company. The search engine will “blacklist sensitive queries” so that “no results will be shown” at all when people enter certain words or phrases, according to documents seen by The Intercept. Blacklisted search terms on a prototype of the search engine include “human rights,” “student protest,” and “Nobel Prize” in Mandarin, said sources familiar with the project.
According to the memo, aside from being able to access users’ search data, the Chinese partner company could add to the censorship blacklists: It would be able to “selectively edit search result pages … unilaterally, and with few controls seemingly in place.”
That a Chinese company would maintain a copy of users’ search data means that, by extension, the data would be accessible to Chinese authorities, who have broad powers to obtain information that is held or processed on the country’s mainland. A central concern human rights groups have expressed about Dragonfly is that it could place users at risk of Chinese government surveillance — and any person in China searching for blacklisted words or phrases could find themselves interrogated or detained. Chinese authorities are well-known for routinely targeting critics, activists, and journalists.
“It’s alarming to hear that such information will be stored and, potentially, easily shared with the Chinese authorities,” said Patrick Poon, a Hong Kong-based researcher with the human rights group Amnesty International. “It will completely put users’ privacy and safety at risk. Google needs to immediately explain if the app will involve such arrangements. It’s time to give the public full transparency of the project.”
ON AUGUST 16, two weeks after The Intercept revealed the Dragonfly plan, Google CEO Sundar Pichai told the company’s employees that the China plan was in its “early stages” and “exploratory.” However, employees working on the censored search engine were instructed in late July, days before the project was publicly exposed, that they should prepare to get it into a “launch-ready state” to roll out within weeks, pending approval from officials in Beijing.
The memo raises new questions about Pichai’s claim that the project was not well-developed. Information stored on the company’s internal networks about Dragonfly “paints a very different picture,” it says. “The statement from our high-level leadership that Dragonfly is just an experiment seems wrong.”
The memo identifies at least 215 employees who appear to have been tasked with working full-time on Dragonfly, a number it says is “larger than many Google projects.” It says that source code associated with the project dates back to May 2017, and “many infrastructure parts predate” that. Moreover, screenshots of the app “show a project in a pretty advanced state,” the memo declares.
Most of the details about the project “have been secret from the start,” the memo says, adding that “after the existence of Dragonfly leaked, engineers working on the project were also quick to hide all of their code.”
The author of the memo said in the document that they were opposed to the China censorship. However, they added, “more than the project itself, I hate the culture of secrecy that has been built around it.”
The memo was first posted September 5 on an internal messaging list set up for Google employees to raise ethical concerns. But the memo was soon scrubbed from the list and individuals who had opened or saved the document were contacted by Google’s human resources department to discuss the matter. The employees were instructed not to share the memo.
Google reportedly maintains an aggressive security and investigation team known as “stopleaks,” which is dedicated to preventing unauthorized disclosures. The team is also said to monitor internal discussions.
Internal security efforts at Google have ramped up this year as employees have raised ethical concerns around a range of new company projects. Following the revelation by Gizmodoand The Intercept that Google had quietly begun work on a contract with the military last year, known as Project Maven, to develop automated image recognition systems for drone warfare, the communications team moved swiftly to monitor employee activity.
The “stopleaks” team, which coordinates with the internal Google communications department, even began monitoring an internal image board used to post messages based on internet memes, according to one former Google employee, for signs of employee sentiment around the Project Maven contract.
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Google’s internal security team consists of a number of former military and law enforcement officials. For example, LinkedIn lists as Google’s head of global investigations Joseph Vincent, whose resume includes work as a high-ranking agent at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s Homeland Security Investigations unit. The head of security at Google is Chris Rackow, who has described himself as a former member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s hostage rescue team and as a former U.S. Navy SEAL.
For some Google employees, the culture of secrecy at the company clashes directly with the its public image around fostering transparency, creating an intolerable work environment.
“Leadership misled engineers working on [Dragonfly] about the nature of their work, depriving them of moral agency,” said a Google employee who read the memo.
Google did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
https://theintercept.com/2018/09/21/google-suppresses-memo-revealing-plans-to-closely-track-search-users-in-china/
Story 4: American People’s Right To Privacy — National Privacy Law? — Videos
Facebook and Google Attempting to End California Privacy Laws
California lawmakers pass data privacy bill
California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff calls for national privacy law
Fight looms over national privacy law
The tech industry and consumer groups are gearing up for a fight as lawmakers begin considering whether to draft a national privacy law.
The push to get Congress to enact federal privacy standards is gaining new urgency after California passed what is seen as the nation’s toughest privacy law this June. The measure forces businesses to be more transparent about what they do with consumer data and gives users unprecedented control over their personal information.
But the California law has sparked worries within the tech industry, which fears having to comply with a patchwork of varying state regulations.
Now industry groups are pushing Congress to pass a national privacy bill that would block states from implementing their own standards.
Privacy advocates are skeptical of the industry proposals and concerned that internet giants will co-opt the process in order to get protections that are weaker than the California standard implemented across the country.
“They do not want effective oversight. They do not want regulation of their business practices, which is really urgently needed,” Jeff Chester, the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), told The Hill. “They’re going to work behind the scenes to shape legislation that will not protect Americans from having all of their information regularly gathered and used by these digital giants.”
“They see federal law as an opportunity to preempt stronger rules,” he added.
Next week, executives from Google, Apple, AT&T and other major technology and telecommunications companies will testify before the Senate Commerce Committee as the panel’s Republican chairman, Sen. John Thune (S.D.), prepares to introduce a new privacy law.
Consumer groups are concerned that only industry voices will be heard at the hearing and that internet companies will have an outsized role in shaping the legislation. They are now demanding a seat at the table.
On Wednesday, a coalition of public interest groups including the CDD, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Privacy Information Center sent a letter to Thune asking him to ensure that consumers have a voice in the process.
“While we have no objection to the participation of business groups in Senate hearings on consumer privacy, the Senate’s first instinct should be to hear from the American public on these important issues,” the letter reads.
Frederick Hill, a spokesman for the committee, told The Hill in an email that the panel will hold more hearings on the issue.
“For the first hearing, the committee is bringing in companies most consumers recognize to make the discussion about privacy more relatable,” Hill said. “We expect there will be opportunities for other voices at future hearings on the subject.”
A source familiar with the committee’s plans told The Hill that it could hold a hearing for privacy advocates to testify in the coming weeks.
The stakes are high for all sides in the privacy debate after a year which saw Facebook rocked by a massive data scandal.
The company disclosed earlier this year that a data firm had accessed the personal data of over 80 million Facebook users. The revelation sparked a firestorm that saw CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifying before Congress in a pair of marathon hearings to address lawmakers’ concerns.
Overseas, Europe has already passed its own tough privacy law, which took effect this year.
Whether Congress can actually get behind a national privacy framework, though, is an open question. Lawmakers have tried before, unsuccessfully.
In 2012, the Obama White House unveiled a “Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights” that it hoped to enact into law. The debate dragged on for several years and the process was eventually derailed by contentious disagreements between business and consumer groups.
As Congress gears up to try again, industry groups in recent weeks have been pushing wish lists for what they hope to see in a federal privacy framework. Lobbying groups including the Chamber of Commerce, the Internet Association and BSA | The Software Alliance have all released their own sets of privacy principles.
The industry proposals include calls for codifying transparency rules that require businesses to disclose their collection practices and giving consumers the right to request copies of their data and request that some data be deleted.
Shaundra Watson, BSA’s policy director, said the group’s privacy principles were not a response to the new California law but the result of a discussion among their members, including companies like Apple and Microsoft, of how to codify the consumer protections they already offer.
“Our companies really are responsible for personal data, and so they not only want to continue to embrace those practices but look more broadly to see what protections should be in place across the board and concluded the best way to do that is a [federal] law,” Watson told The Hill.
But privacy advocates remain skeptical. After a series of data scandals, many tech critics believe that any effective privacy framework needs to restrict the data collection practices that companies like Facebook and Google rely on as a business model.
Chester, who says public interest groups are banding together to come up with their own legislative principles, believes the frameworks being pushed by industry lobbyists don’t go far enough.
“What has to happen is the basic business practices have to change,” he said. “We believe there need to be restrictions on how these companies engage in data collection.
“These so-called principles are really principles to undermine privacy, not to protect it,” he said.
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/407528-fight-looms-over-national-privacy-law
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