Dataset statistics
| Number of variables | 5 |
|---|---|
| Number of observations | 44888 |
| Missing cells | 0 |
| Missing cells (%) | 0.0% |
| Duplicate rows | 196 |
| Duplicate rows (%) | 0.4% |
| Total size in memory | 146.7 MiB |
| Average record size in memory | 3.3 KiB |
Variable types
| Categorical | 4 |
|---|---|
| DateTime | 1 |
| Dataset has 196 (0.4%) duplicate rows | Duplicates |
title has a high cardinality: 38723 distinct values | High cardinality |
text has a high cardinality: 38640 distinct values | High cardinality |
subject is highly correlated with fake | High correlation |
fake is highly correlated with subject | High correlation |
subject is highly correlated with fake | High correlation |
fake is highly correlated with subject | High correlation |
title is uniformly distributed | Uniform |
Reproduction
| Analysis started | 2021-07-09 06:53:48.240117 |
|---|---|
| Analysis finished | 2021-07-09 06:54:41.562055 |
| Duration | 53.32 seconds |
| Software version | pandas-profiling v3.0.0 |
| Download configuration | config.json |
| Distinct | 38723 |
|---|---|
| Distinct (%) | 86.3% |
| Missing | 0 |
| Missing (%) | 0.0% |
| Memory size | 7.6 MiB |
| Factbox: Trump fills top jobs for his administration | 14 |
|---|---|
| Highlights: The Trump presidency on April 13 at 9:30 P.M. EDT/0130 GMT on Friday | 8 |
| Factbox: Contenders for senior jobs in Trump's administration | 8 |
| MEDIA IGNORES Time That Bill Clinton FIRED His FBI Director On Day Before Vince Foster Was Found Dead | 6 |
| Factbox: International reaction to arrest of Reuters reporters in Myanmar | 6 |
| Other values (38718) |
Length
| Max length | 286 |
|---|---|
| Median length | 73 |
| Mean length | 80.11152201 |
| Min length | 15 |
Characters and Unicode
| Total characters | 3596046 |
|---|---|
| Distinct characters | 121 |
| Distinct categories | 16 ? |
| Distinct scripts | 2 ? |
| Distinct blocks | 7 ? |
The Unicode Standard assigns character properties to each code point, which can be used to analyse textual variables.
Unique
| Unique | 33096 ? |
|---|---|
| Unique (%) | 73.7% |
Sample
| 1st row | As U.S. budget fight looms, Republicans flip their fiscal script |
|---|---|
| 2nd row | U.S. military to accept transgender recruits on Monday: Pentagon |
| 3rd row | Senior U.S. Republican senator: 'Let Mr. Mueller do his job' |
| 4th row | FBI Russia probe helped by Australian diplomat tip-off: NYT |
| 5th row | Trump wants Postal Service to charge 'much more' for Amazon shipments |
Common Values
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| Factbox: Trump fills top jobs for his administration | 14 | < 0.1% |
| Highlights: The Trump presidency on April 13 at 9:30 P.M. EDT/0130 GMT on Friday | 8 | < 0.1% |
| Factbox: Contenders for senior jobs in Trump's administration | 8 | < 0.1% |
| MEDIA IGNORES Time That Bill Clinton FIRED His FBI Director On Day Before Vince Foster Was Found Dead | 6 | < 0.1% |
| Factbox: International reaction to arrest of Reuters reporters in Myanmar | 6 | < 0.1% |
| Factbox: Contenders, picks for key jobs in Trump's administration | 5 | < 0.1% |
| Highlights: The Trump presidency on April 21 at 6:12 p.m. EDT/2212 GMT | 5 | < 0.1% |
| Highlights: The Trump presidency on March 31 at 6:19 p.m. EDT | 5 | < 0.1% |
| Turkey urges U.S. to review visa suspension as lira, stocks tumble | 4 | < 0.1% |
| Factbox: Why the Zika virus is causing alarm | 4 | < 0.1% |
| Other values (38713) | 44823 |
Length
Histogram of lengths of the category
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| to | 17257 | 3.1% |
| trump | 11774 | 2.1% |
| in | 9225 | 1.6% |
| video | 8330 | 1.5% |
| of | 8154 | 1.5% |
| for | 7572 | 1.4% |
| on | 6967 | 1.2% |
| the | 6533 | 1.2% |
| u.s | 4464 | 0.8% |
| a | 4126 | 0.7% |
| Other values (32452) | 474724 |
Most occurring characters
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| 523387 | 14.6% | |
| e | 266315 | 7.4% |
| a | 186811 | 5.2% |
| i | 178942 | 5.0% |
| r | 173387 | 4.8% |
| o | 173277 | 4.8% |
| s | 170931 | 4.8% |
| n | 166057 | 4.6% |
| t | 164246 | 4.6% |
| l | 106135 | 3.0% |
| Other values (111) | 1486558 |
Most occurring categories
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| Lowercase Letter | 2216448 | |
| Uppercase Letter | 729763 | 20.3% |
| Space Separator | 523450 | 14.6% |
| Other Punctuation | 58689 | 1.6% |
| Final Punctuation | 19001 | 0.5% |
| Decimal Number | 13006 | 0.4% |
| Open Punctuation | 9473 | 0.3% |
| Close Punctuation | 9472 | 0.3% |
| Initial Punctuation | 8466 | 0.2% |
| Dash Punctuation | 7418 | 0.2% |
| Other values (6) | 860 | < 0.1% |
Most frequent character per category
Lowercase Letter
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| e | 266315 | |
| a | 186811 | 8.4% |
| i | 178942 | 8.1% |
| r | 173387 | 7.8% |
| o | 173277 | 7.8% |
| s | 170931 | 7.7% |
| n | 166057 | 7.5% |
| t | 164246 | 7.4% |
| l | 106135 | 4.8% |
| u | 79701 | 3.6% |
| Other values (24) | 550646 |
Uppercase Letter
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| T | 69277 | 9.5% |
| A | 57727 | 7.9% |
| S | 57083 | 7.8% |
| E | 50619 | 6.9% |
| I | 47743 | 6.5% |
| O | 47106 | 6.5% |
| R | 40389 | 5.5% |
| C | 36459 | 5.0% |
| N | 32213 | 4.4% |
| H | 30317 | 4.2% |
| Other values (18) | 260830 |
Other Punctuation
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| : | 13698 | |
| . | 12221 | |
| , | 10095 | |
| ' | 9390 | |
| … | 4831 | 8.2% |
| ! | 3625 | 6.2% |
| ? | 1881 | 3.2% |
| * | 1016 | 1.7% |
| # | 807 | 1.4% |
| / | 375 | 0.6% |
| Other values (9) | 750 | 1.3% |
Decimal Number
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| 0 | 3225 | |
| 1 | 2733 | |
| 2 | 1987 | |
| 5 | 974 | 7.5% |
| 3 | 785 | 6.0% |
| 4 | 740 | 5.7% |
| 6 | 729 | 5.6% |
| 9 | 683 | 5.3% |
| 8 | 593 | 4.6% |
| 7 | 557 | 4.3% |
Format
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| | 2 | |
| | 2 | |
| | 1 | |
| | 1 | |
| | 1 | |
| | 1 |
Dash Punctuation
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| - | 6588 | |
| – | 754 | 10.2% |
| — | 76 | 1.0% |
Open Punctuation
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| [ | 5239 | |
| ( | 4231 | |
| { | 3 | < 0.1% |
Close Punctuation
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| ] | 5238 | |
| ) | 4231 | |
| } | 3 | < 0.1% |
Currency Symbol
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| $ | 749 | |
| € | 4 | 0.5% |
| £ | 2 | 0.3% |
Space Separator
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| 523387 | ||
| 63 | < 0.1% |
Final Punctuation
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| ’ | 13531 | |
| ” | 5470 |
Initial Punctuation
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| “ | 5028 | |
| ‘ | 3438 |
Math Symbol
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| + | 23 | |
| = | 2 | 8.0% |
Control
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| 56 | ||
| 8 | 12.5% |
Other Symbol
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| ™ | 1 |
Connector Punctuation
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| _ | 7 |
Most occurring scripts
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| Latin | 2946211 | |
| Common | 649835 | 18.1% |
Most frequent character per script
Latin
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| e | 266315 | 9.0% |
| a | 186811 | 6.3% |
| i | 178942 | 6.1% |
| r | 173387 | 5.9% |
| o | 173277 | 5.9% |
| s | 170931 | 5.8% |
| n | 166057 | 5.6% |
| t | 164246 | 5.6% |
| l | 106135 | 3.6% |
| u | 79701 | 2.7% |
| Other values (52) | 1280409 |
Common
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| 523387 | ||
| : | 13698 | 2.1% |
| ’ | 13531 | 2.1% |
| . | 12221 | 1.9% |
| , | 10095 | 1.6% |
| ' | 9390 | 1.4% |
| - | 6588 | 1.0% |
| ” | 5470 | 0.8% |
| [ | 5239 | 0.8% |
| ] | 5238 | 0.8% |
| Other values (49) | 44978 | 6.9% |
Most occurring blocks
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| ASCII | 3562773 | |
| Punctuation | 33136 | 0.9% |
| Latin 1 Sup | 125 | < 0.1% |
| Latin Ext A | 6 | < 0.1% |
| Currency Symbols | 4 | < 0.1% |
| Letterlike Symbols | 1 | < 0.1% |
| Arabic PF B | 1 | < 0.1% |
Most frequent character per block
ASCII
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| 523387 | 14.7% | |
| e | 266315 | 7.5% |
| a | 186811 | 5.2% |
| i | 178942 | 5.0% |
| r | 173387 | 4.9% |
| o | 173277 | 4.9% |
| s | 170931 | 4.8% |
| n | 166057 | 4.7% |
| t | 164246 | 4.6% |
| l | 106135 | 3.0% |
| Other values (80) | 1453285 |
Punctuation
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| ’ | 13531 | |
| ” | 5470 | |
| “ | 5028 | 15.2% |
| … | 4831 | 14.6% |
| ‘ | 3438 | 10.4% |
| – | 754 | 2.3% |
| — | 76 | 0.2% |
| | 2 | < 0.1% |
| ′ | 2 | < 0.1% |
| | 1 | < 0.1% |
| Other values (3) | 3 | < 0.1% |
Latin 1 Sup
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| 63 | ||
| é | 44 | |
| ë | 3 | 2.4% |
| á | 2 | 1.6% |
| £ | 2 | 1.6% |
| É | 2 | 1.6% |
| ¡ | 2 | 1.6% |
| | 2 | 1.6% |
| à | 2 | 1.6% |
| ¿ | 1 | 0.8% |
| Other values (2) | 2 | 1.6% |
Letterlike Symbols
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| ™ | 1 |
Currency Symbols
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| € | 4 |
Arabic PF B
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| | 1 |
Latin Ext A
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| Ž | 2 | |
| ž | 2 | |
| ć | 2 |
| Distinct | 38640 |
|---|---|
| Distinct (%) | 86.1% |
| Missing | 0 |
| Missing (%) | 0.0% |
| Memory size | 135.6 MiB |
| 627 | |
| (Reuters) - Highlights for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday: The United States drops a massive GBU-43 bomb, the largest non-nuclear bomb it has ever used in combat, in Afghanistan against a series of caves used by Islamic State militants, the Pentagon says. Trump says Pyongyang is a problem that “will be taken care of” amid speculation that North Korea is on the verge of a sixth nuclear test. Military force cannot resolve tension over North Korea, China warns, while an influential Chinese newspaper urges Pyongyang to halt its nuclear program in exchange for Beijing’s protection. The Trump administration is focusing its North Korea strategy on tougher economic sanctions, possibly including intercepting cargo ships and punishing Chinese banks doing business with Pyongyang, U.S. officials say. Trump says “things will work out fine” between the United States and Russia, a day after declaring U.S.-Russian relations may be at an all-time low. Trump signals he could be moving closer to the mainstream on monetary policy, saying he has not ruled out reappointment of Janet Yellen as Federal Reserve chair as he considers his choices for the U.S. central bank. [nL1N1HL14B] Trump signs a resolution that will allow U.S. states to restrict how federal funds for contraception and reproductive health are spent, a move cheered by anti-abortion campaigners. Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen presses Deutsche Bank to release information about issues including Trump’s debt and any bank meetings with Trump administration officials, saying he has “great concern” about possible conflicts of interest. EXPORT-IMPORT BANK Trump’s office says he plans to revive the hobbled Export-Import Bank of the United States, a victory for American manufacturers such as Boeing Co and General Electric Co that have overseas customers that use the agency’s government-backed loans to purchase their products. Top Wall Street bankers say they are having positive discussions about financial regulation in Washington, and downplay the idea U.S. policymakers may force their institutions to split up. The United States is pushing for trade to be a key issue in top-level economic talks with Japan, a source says, an unwelcome development for Tokyo, which is seeking to fend off U.S. pressure to reduce the bilateral trade imbalance. Trump’s administration has focused on one group of illegal immigrants more than others: women with children, according to eight Department of Homeland Security officials interviewed by Reuters about agency planning. | 8 |
| (Reuters) - Highlights for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday: Trump promises a big announcement about tax reform next week and orders an administration review of Obama-era tax rules written to discourage U.S. companies from relocating overseas to cut their tax bills. Trump tells the Treasury Department to examine two powers given to regulators to police large financial companies following the 2008 financial crisis. South Korea says it is on heightened alert ahead of another important anniversary in North Korea, with a large concentration of military hardware amassed on both sides of the border amid concerns about a new nuclear test by Pyongyang. Trump, striving to make good on a top campaign promise, is pushing fellow Republicans who control Congress to pass revamped healthcare legislation but the same intraparty squabbling that torpedoed it last month could do it again. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says Syria has dispersed its warplanes in recent days and that it retains chemical weapons, an issue he says will have to be taken up diplomatically. The Department of Justice threatens to cut off funding to California as well as eight cities and counties across the United States, escalating a Trump administration crackdown on so-called “sanctuary cities” that do not cooperate with federal immigration authorities. The United States will not make an exception for American companies, including oil major Exxon Mobil Corp, seeking to drill in areas prohibited by U.S. sanctions on Russia, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says. Trump and his fellow Republicans who control Congress face their first major budget test next week, with the threat of a government shutdown potentially hinging on his proposed Mexican border wall as well as Obamacare funding. The House of Representatives Intelligence Committee says it has invited FBI, National Security Agency and Obama administration officials to testify as it restarts its investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres meets with Trump at the White House for the first time since both took office earlier this year and amid a U.S. push to cut funding to the world body and its agencies. The United States has offered to help fund Mexico’s efforts to eradicate opium poppies, a U.S. official says, as Mexican heroin output increased again last year. | 5 |
| (Reuters) - Highlights of the day for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday: Trump backs a decision by his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, to seek immunity in congressional investigations of possible ties between his campaign and Russia, but there is no immediate sign the request will be granted. The Trump administration slams China on a range of trade issues from its chronic industrial overcapacity to forced technology transfers and longstanding bans on U.S. beef and electronic payment services. Beijing seeks to play down tensions with the United States and put on a positive face ahead of President Xi Jinping’s first meeting with Trump next week. Senate Democrats step closer to having enough votes to block a confirmation vote on Trump’s Supreme Court nominee with three more Democratic senators coming out against Neil Gorsuch for the lifetime job as a justice. Trump seeks to push his plan for fair trade and more manufacturing jobs back to the top of his agenda by ordering a study into the causes of U.S. trade deficits and a clampdown on import duty evasion. Trump has neither a clear White House tax plan nor adequate staff yet to see through a planned tax overhaul, according to interviews with people in the administration, in Congress and among U.S. tax experts. Democrats are trying to counter Trump’s boldest move yet to defang the U.S. consumer financial watchdog, with 40 current and former lawmakers defending the agency in court. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific integrity watchdog is reviewing whether EPA chief Scott Pruitt violated the agency’s policies when he said in a television interview he does not believe carbon dioxide is driving global climate change, according to an email seen by Reuters. Trump will seek to rebuild the U.S. relationship with Egypt at a meeting on Monday with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi focused on security issues and military aid, a senior White House official says. Trump will host Jordan’s King Abdullah at the White House next week to discuss the fight against Islamic State militants, the Syria crisis and advancing peace between Israelis and Palestinians, the White House says. A U.S. judge approves a $25 million settlement to resolve a class action lawsuit that claimed fraud against Trump and his Trump University real estate seminars. | 5 |
| 4 | |
| Other values (38635) |
Length
| Max length | 51794 |
|---|---|
| Median length | 2186 |
| Mean length | 2469.62901 |
| Min length | 1 |
Characters and Unicode
| Total characters | 110856707 |
|---|---|
| Distinct characters | 133 |
| Distinct categories | 19 ? |
| Distinct scripts | 4 ? |
| Distinct blocks | 8 ? |
The Unicode Standard assigns character properties to each code point, which can be used to analyse textual variables.
Unique
| Unique | 33502 ? |
|---|---|
| Unique (%) | 74.6% |
Sample
| 1st row | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of a conservative Republican faction in the U.S. Congress, who voted this month for a huge expansion of the national debt to pay for tax cuts, called himself a “fiscal conservative” on Sunday and urged budget restraint in 2018. In keeping with a sharp pivot under way among Republicans, U.S. Representative Mark Meadows, speaking on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” drew a hard line on federal spending, which lawmakers are bracing to do battle over in January. When they return from the holidays on Wednesday, lawmakers will begin trying to pass a federal budget in a fight likely to be linked to other issues, such as immigration policy, even as the November congressional election campaigns approach in which Republicans will seek to keep control of Congress. President Donald Trump and his Republicans want a big budget increase in military spending, while Democrats also want proportional increases for non-defense “discretionary” spending on programs that support education, scientific research, infrastructure, public health and environmental protection. “The (Trump) administration has already been willing to say: ‘We’re going to increase non-defense discretionary spending ... by about 7 percent,’” Meadows, chairman of the small but influential House Freedom Caucus, said on the program. “Now, Democrats are saying that’s not enough, we need to give the government a pay raise of 10 to 11 percent. For a fiscal conservative, I don’t see where the rationale is. ... Eventually you run out of other people’s money,” he said. Meadows was among Republicans who voted in late December for their party’s debt-financed tax overhaul, which is expected to balloon the federal budget deficit and add about $1.5 trillion over 10 years to the $20 trillion national debt. “It’s interesting to hear Mark talk about fiscal responsibility,” Democratic U.S. Representative Joseph Crowley said on CBS. Crowley said the Republican tax bill would require the United States to borrow $1.5 trillion, to be paid off by future generations, to finance tax cuts for corporations and the rich. “This is one of the least ... fiscally responsible bills we’ve ever seen passed in the history of the House of Representatives. I think we’re going to be paying for this for many, many years to come,” Crowley said. Republicans insist the tax package, the biggest U.S. tax overhaul in more than 30 years, will boost the economy and job growth. House Speaker Paul Ryan, who also supported the tax bill, recently went further than Meadows, making clear in a radio interview that welfare or “entitlement reform,” as the party often calls it, would be a top Republican priority in 2018. In Republican parlance, “entitlement” programs mean food stamps, housing assistance, Medicare and Medicaid health insurance for the elderly, poor and disabled, as well as other programs created by Washington to assist the needy. Democrats seized on Ryan’s early December remarks, saying they showed Republicans would try to pay for their tax overhaul by seeking spending cuts for social programs. But the goals of House Republicans may have to take a back seat to the Senate, where the votes of some Democrats will be needed to approve a budget and prevent a government shutdown. Democrats will use their leverage in the Senate, which Republicans narrowly control, to defend both discretionary non-defense programs and social spending, while tackling the issue of the “Dreamers,” people brought illegally to the country as children. Trump in September put a March 2018 expiration date on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, which protects the young immigrants from deportation and provides them with work permits. The president has said in recent Twitter messages he wants funding for his proposed Mexican border wall and other immigration law changes in exchange for agreeing to help the Dreamers. Representative Debbie Dingell told CBS she did not favor linking that issue to other policy objectives, such as wall funding. “We need to do DACA clean,” she said. On Wednesday, Trump aides will meet with congressional leaders to discuss those issues. That will be followed by a weekend of strategy sessions for Trump and Republican leaders on Jan. 6 and 7, the White House said. Trump was also scheduled to meet on Sunday with Florida Republican Governor Rick Scott, who wants more emergency aid. The House has passed an $81 billion aid package after hurricanes in Florida, Texas and Puerto Rico, and wildfires in California. The package far exceeded the $44 billion requested by the Trump administration. The Senate has not yet voted on the aid. |
|---|---|
| 2nd row | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Transgender people will be allowed for the first time to enlist in the U.S. military starting on Monday as ordered by federal courts, the Pentagon said on Friday, after President Donald Trump’s administration decided not to appeal rulings that blocked his transgender ban. Two federal appeals courts, one in Washington and one in Virginia, last week rejected the administration’s request to put on hold orders by lower court judges requiring the military to begin accepting transgender recruits on Jan. 1. A Justice Department official said the administration will not challenge those rulings. “The Department of Defense has announced that it will be releasing an independent study of these issues in the coming weeks. So rather than litigate this interim appeal before that occurs, the administration has decided to wait for DOD’s study and will continue to defend the president’s lawful authority in District Court in the meantime,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. In September, the Pentagon said it had created a panel of senior officials to study how to implement a directive by Trump to prohibit transgender individuals from serving. The Defense Department has until Feb. 21 to submit a plan to Trump. Lawyers representing currently-serving transgender service members and aspiring recruits said they had expected the administration to appeal the rulings to the conservative-majority Supreme Court, but were hoping that would not happen. Pentagon spokeswoman Heather Babb said in a statement: “As mandated by court order, the Department of Defense is prepared to begin accessing transgender applicants for military service Jan. 1. All applicants must meet all accession standards.” Jennifer Levi, a lawyer with gay, lesbian and transgender advocacy group GLAD, called the decision not to appeal “great news.” “I’m hoping it means the government has come to see that there is no way to justify a ban and that it’s not good for the military or our country,” Levi said. Both GLAD and the American Civil Liberties Union represent plaintiffs in the lawsuits filed against the administration. In a move that appealed to his hard-line conservative supporters, Trump announced in July that he would prohibit transgender people from serving in the military, reversing Democratic President Barack Obama’s policy of accepting them. Trump said on Twitter at the time that the military “cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.” Four federal judges - in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Seattle and Riverside, California - have issued rulings blocking Trump’s ban while legal challenges to the Republican president’s policy proceed. The judges said the ban would likely violate the right under the U.S. Constitution to equal protection under the law. The Pentagon on Dec. 8 issued guidelines to recruitment personnel in order to enlist transgender applicants by Jan. 1. The memo outlined medical requirements and specified how the applicants’ sex would be identified and even which undergarments they would wear. The Trump administration previously said in legal papers that the armed forces were not prepared to train thousands of personnel on the medical standards needed to process transgender applicants and might have to accept “some individuals who are not medically fit for service.” The Obama administration had set a deadline of July 1, 2017, to begin accepting transgender recruits. But Trump’s defense secretary, James Mattis, postponed that date to Jan. 1, 2018, which the president’s ban then put off indefinitely. Trump has taken other steps aimed at rolling back transgender rights. In October, his administration said a federal law banning gender-based workplace discrimination does not protect transgender employees, reversing another Obama-era position. In February, Trump rescinded guidance issued by the Obama administration saying that public schools should allow transgender students to use the restroom that corresponds to their gender identity. |
| 3rd row | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The special counsel investigation of links between Russia and President Trump’s 2016 election campaign should continue without interference in 2018, despite calls from some Trump administration allies and Republican lawmakers to shut it down, a prominent Republican senator said on Sunday. Lindsey Graham, who serves on the Senate armed forces and judiciary committees, said Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Mueller needs to carry on with his Russia investigation without political interference. “This investigation will go forward. It will be an investigation conducted without political influence,” Graham said on CBS’s Face the Nation news program. “And we all need to let Mr. Mueller do his job. I think he’s the right guy at the right time.” The question of how Russia may have interfered in the election, and how Trump’s campaign may have had links with or co-ordinated any such effort, has loomed over the White House since Trump took office in January. It shows no sign of receding as Trump prepares for his second year in power, despite intensified rhetoric from some Trump allies in recent weeks accusing Mueller’s team of bias against the Republican president. Trump himself seemed to undercut his supporters in an interview last week with the New York Times in which he said he expected Mueller was “going to be fair.” Russia’s role in the election and the question of possible links to the Trump campaign are the focus of multiple inquiries in Washington. Three committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives are investigating, as well as Mueller, whose team in May took over an earlier probe launched by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Several members of the Trump campaign and administration have been convicted or indicted in the investigation. Trump and his allies deny any collusion with Russia during the campaign, and the Kremlin has denied meddling in the election. Graham said he still wants an examination of the FBI’s use of a dossier on links between Trump and Russia that was compiled by a former British spy, Christopher Steele, which prompted Trump allies and some Republicans to question Mueller’s inquiry. On Saturday, the New York Times reported that it was not that dossier that triggered an early FBI probe, but a tip from former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos to an Australian diplomat that Russia had damaging information about former Trump rival Hillary Clinton. “I want somebody to look at the way the Department of Justice used this dossier. It bothers me greatly the way they used it, and I want somebody to look at it,” Graham said. But he said the Russia investigation must continue. “As a matter of fact, it would hurt us if we ignored it,” he said. |
| 4th row | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos told an Australian diplomat in May 2016 that Russia had political dirt on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, the New York Times reported on Saturday. The conversation between Papadopoulos and the diplomat, Alexander Downer, in London was a driving factor behind the FBI’s decision to open a counter-intelligence investigation of Moscow’s contacts with the Trump campaign, the Times reported. Two months after the meeting, Australian officials passed the information that came from Papadopoulos to their American counterparts when leaked Democratic emails began appearing online, according to the newspaper, which cited four current and former U.S. and foreign officials. Besides the information from the Australians, the probe by the Federal Bureau of Investigation was also propelled by intelligence from other friendly governments, including the British and Dutch, the Times said. Papadopoulos, a Chicago-based international energy lawyer, pleaded guilty on Oct. 30 to lying to FBI agents about contacts with people who claimed to have ties to top Russian officials. It was the first criminal charge alleging links between the Trump campaign and Russia. The White House has played down the former aide’s campaign role, saying it was “extremely limited” and that any actions he took would have been on his own. The New York Times, however, reported that Papadopoulos helped set up a meeting between then-candidate Donald Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and edited the outline of Trump’s first major foreign policy speech in April 2016. The federal investigation, which is now being led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, has hung over Trump’s White House since he took office almost a year ago. Some Trump allies have recently accused Mueller’s team of being biased against the Republican president. Lawyers for Papadopoulos did not immediately respond to requests by Reuters for comment. Mueller’s office declined to comment. Trump’s White House attorney, Ty Cobb, declined to comment on the New York Times report. “Out of respect for the special counsel and his process, we are not commenting on matters such as this,” he said in a statement. Mueller has charged four Trump associates, including Papadopoulos, in his investigation. Russia has denied interfering in the U.S. election and Trump has said there was no collusion between his campaign and Moscow. |
| 5th row | SEATTLE/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump called on the U.S. Postal Service on Friday to charge “much more” to ship packages for Amazon (AMZN.O), picking another fight with an online retail giant he has criticized in the past. “Why is the United States Post Office, which is losing many billions of dollars a year, while charging Amazon and others so little to deliver their packages, making Amazon richer and the Post Office dumber and poorer? Should be charging MUCH MORE!” Trump wrote on Twitter. The president’s tweet drew fresh attention to the fragile finances of the Postal Service at a time when tens of millions of parcels have just been shipped all over the country for the holiday season. The U.S. Postal Service, which runs at a big loss, is an independent agency within the federal government and does not receive tax dollars for operating expenses, according to its website. Package delivery has become an increasingly important part of its business as the Internet has led to a sharp decline in the amount of first-class letters. The president does not determine postal rates. They are set by the Postal Regulatory Commission, an independent government agency with commissioners selected by the president from both political parties. That panel raised prices on packages by almost 2 percent in November. Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos, who remains the chief executive officer of the retail company and is the richest person in the world, according to Bloomberg News. Bezos also owns The Washington Post, a newspaper Trump has repeatedly railed against in his criticisms of the news media. In tweets over the past year, Trump has said the “Amazon Washington Post” fabricated stories. He has said Amazon does not pay sales tax, which is not true, and so hurts other retailers, part of a pattern by the former businessman and reality television host of periodically turning his ire on big American companies since he took office in January. Daniel Ives, a research analyst at GBH Insights, said Trump’s comment could be taken as a warning to the retail giant. However, he said he was not concerned for Amazon. “We do not see any price hikes in the future. However, that is a risk that Amazon is clearly aware of and (it) is building out its distribution (system) aggressively,” he said. Amazon has shown interest in the past in shifting into its own delivery service, including testing drones for deliveries. In 2015, the company spent $11.5 billion on shipping, 46 percent of its total operating expenses that year. Amazon shares were down 0.86 percent to $1,175.90 by early afternoon. Overall, U.S. stock prices were down slightly on Friday. Satish Jindel, president of ShipMatrix Inc, which analyzes shipping data, disputed the idea that the Postal Service charges less than United Parcel Service Inc (UPS.N) and FedEx Corp (FDX.N), the other biggest players in the parcel delivery business in the United States. Many customers get lower rates from UPS and FedEx than they would get from the post office for comparable services, he said. The Postal Service delivers about 62 percent of Amazon packages, for about 3.5 to 4 million a day during the current peak year-end holiday shipping season, Jindel said. The Seattle-based company and the post office have an agreement in which mail carriers take Amazon packages on the last leg of their journeys, from post offices to customers’ doorsteps. Amazon’s No. 2 carrier is UPS, at 21 percent, and FedEx is third, with 8 percent or so, according to Jindel. Trump’s comment tapped into a debate over whether Postal Service pricing has kept pace with the rise of e-commerce, which has flooded the mail with small packages.Private companies like UPS have long claimed the current system unfairly undercuts their business. Steve Gaut, a spokesman for UPS, noted that the company values its “productive relationship” with the postal service, but that it has filed with the Postal Regulatory Commission its concerns about the postal service’s methods for covering costs. Representatives for Amazon, the White House, the U.S. Postal Service and FedEx declined comment or were not immediately available for comment on Trump’s tweet. According to its annual report, the Postal Service lost $2.74 billion this year, and its deficit has ballooned to $61.86 billion. While the Postal Service’s revenue for first class mail, marketing mail and periodicals is flat or declining, revenue from package delivery is up 44 percent since 2014 to $19.5 billion in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2017. But it also lost about $2 billion in revenue when a temporary surcharge expired in April 2016. According to a Government Accountability Office report in February, the service is facing growing personnel expenses, particularly $73.4 billion in unfunded pension and benefits liabilities. The Postal Service has not announced any plans to cut costs. By law, the Postal Service has to set prices for package delivery to cover the costs attributable to that service. But the postal service allocates only 5.5 percent of its total costs to its business of shipping packages even though that line of business is 28 percent of its total revenue. |
Common Values
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| 627 | 1.4% | |
| (Reuters) - Highlights for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday: The United States drops a massive GBU-43 bomb, the largest non-nuclear bomb it has ever used in combat, in Afghanistan against a series of caves used by Islamic State militants, the Pentagon says. Trump says Pyongyang is a problem that “will be taken care of” amid speculation that North Korea is on the verge of a sixth nuclear test. Military force cannot resolve tension over North Korea, China warns, while an influential Chinese newspaper urges Pyongyang to halt its nuclear program in exchange for Beijing’s protection. The Trump administration is focusing its North Korea strategy on tougher economic sanctions, possibly including intercepting cargo ships and punishing Chinese banks doing business with Pyongyang, U.S. officials say. Trump says “things will work out fine” between the United States and Russia, a day after declaring U.S.-Russian relations may be at an all-time low. Trump signals he could be moving closer to the mainstream on monetary policy, saying he has not ruled out reappointment of Janet Yellen as Federal Reserve chair as he considers his choices for the U.S. central bank. [nL1N1HL14B] Trump signs a resolution that will allow U.S. states to restrict how federal funds for contraception and reproductive health are spent, a move cheered by anti-abortion campaigners. Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen presses Deutsche Bank to release information about issues including Trump’s debt and any bank meetings with Trump administration officials, saying he has “great concern” about possible conflicts of interest. EXPORT-IMPORT BANK Trump’s office says he plans to revive the hobbled Export-Import Bank of the United States, a victory for American manufacturers such as Boeing Co and General Electric Co that have overseas customers that use the agency’s government-backed loans to purchase their products. Top Wall Street bankers say they are having positive discussions about financial regulation in Washington, and downplay the idea U.S. policymakers may force their institutions to split up. The United States is pushing for trade to be a key issue in top-level economic talks with Japan, a source says, an unwelcome development for Tokyo, which is seeking to fend off U.S. pressure to reduce the bilateral trade imbalance. Trump’s administration has focused on one group of illegal immigrants more than others: women with children, according to eight Department of Homeland Security officials interviewed by Reuters about agency planning. | 8 | < 0.1% |
| (Reuters) - Highlights for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday: Trump promises a big announcement about tax reform next week and orders an administration review of Obama-era tax rules written to discourage U.S. companies from relocating overseas to cut their tax bills. Trump tells the Treasury Department to examine two powers given to regulators to police large financial companies following the 2008 financial crisis. South Korea says it is on heightened alert ahead of another important anniversary in North Korea, with a large concentration of military hardware amassed on both sides of the border amid concerns about a new nuclear test by Pyongyang. Trump, striving to make good on a top campaign promise, is pushing fellow Republicans who control Congress to pass revamped healthcare legislation but the same intraparty squabbling that torpedoed it last month could do it again. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says Syria has dispersed its warplanes in recent days and that it retains chemical weapons, an issue he says will have to be taken up diplomatically. The Department of Justice threatens to cut off funding to California as well as eight cities and counties across the United States, escalating a Trump administration crackdown on so-called “sanctuary cities” that do not cooperate with federal immigration authorities. The United States will not make an exception for American companies, including oil major Exxon Mobil Corp, seeking to drill in areas prohibited by U.S. sanctions on Russia, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says. Trump and his fellow Republicans who control Congress face their first major budget test next week, with the threat of a government shutdown potentially hinging on his proposed Mexican border wall as well as Obamacare funding. The House of Representatives Intelligence Committee says it has invited FBI, National Security Agency and Obama administration officials to testify as it restarts its investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres meets with Trump at the White House for the first time since both took office earlier this year and amid a U.S. push to cut funding to the world body and its agencies. The United States has offered to help fund Mexico’s efforts to eradicate opium poppies, a U.S. official says, as Mexican heroin output increased again last year. | 5 | < 0.1% |
| (Reuters) - Highlights of the day for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday: Trump backs a decision by his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, to seek immunity in congressional investigations of possible ties between his campaign and Russia, but there is no immediate sign the request will be granted. The Trump administration slams China on a range of trade issues from its chronic industrial overcapacity to forced technology transfers and longstanding bans on U.S. beef and electronic payment services. Beijing seeks to play down tensions with the United States and put on a positive face ahead of President Xi Jinping’s first meeting with Trump next week. Senate Democrats step closer to having enough votes to block a confirmation vote on Trump’s Supreme Court nominee with three more Democratic senators coming out against Neil Gorsuch for the lifetime job as a justice. Trump seeks to push his plan for fair trade and more manufacturing jobs back to the top of his agenda by ordering a study into the causes of U.S. trade deficits and a clampdown on import duty evasion. Trump has neither a clear White House tax plan nor adequate staff yet to see through a planned tax overhaul, according to interviews with people in the administration, in Congress and among U.S. tax experts. Democrats are trying to counter Trump’s boldest move yet to defang the U.S. consumer financial watchdog, with 40 current and former lawmakers defending the agency in court. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific integrity watchdog is reviewing whether EPA chief Scott Pruitt violated the agency’s policies when he said in a television interview he does not believe carbon dioxide is driving global climate change, according to an email seen by Reuters. Trump will seek to rebuild the U.S. relationship with Egypt at a meeting on Monday with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi focused on security issues and military aid, a senior White House official says. Trump will host Jordan’s King Abdullah at the White House next week to discuss the fight against Islamic State militants, the Syria crisis and advancing peace between Israelis and Palestinians, the White House says. A U.S. judge approves a $25 million settlement to resolve a class action lawsuit that claimed fraud against Trump and his Trump University real estate seminars. | 5 | < 0.1% |
| 4 | < 0.1% | |
| AP News The regulars amble in before dawn and claim their usual table, the one next to an old box television playing the news on mute.Steven Whitt fires up the coffee pot and flips on the fluorescent sign in the window of the Frosty Freeze, his diner that looks and sounds and smells about the same as it did when it opened a half-century ago. Coffee is 50 cents a cup, refills 25 cents. The pot sits on the counter, and payment is based on the honor system.People like it that way, he thinks. It reminds them of a time before the world seemed to stray away from them, when coal was king and the values of the nation seemed the same as the values here, in God s Country, in this small county isolated in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.Everyone in town comes to his diner for nostalgia and homestyle cooking. And, recently, news reporters come from all over the world to puzzle over politics because Elliott County, a blue-collar union stronghold, voted for the Democrat in each and every presidential election for its 147-year existence.Until Donald Trump came along and promised to wind back the clock. He was the hope we were all waiting on, the guy riding up on the white horse. There was a new energy about everybody here, says Whitt. I still see it. Despite the president s dismal approval ratings and lethargic legislative achievements, he remains profoundly popular here in these mountains, a region so badly battered by the collapse of the coal industry it became the symbolic heart of Trump s white working-class base.The frenetic churn of the national news, the ceaseless Twitter taunts, the daily declarations of outrage scroll soundlessly across the bottom of the diner s television screen, rarely registering. When they do, Trump doesn t shoulder the blame because the allegiance of those here is as emotional as it is economic.It means God, guns, patriotism, saying Merry Christmas and not Happy Holidays. It means validation of their indignation about a changing nation: gay marriage and immigration and factories moving overseas. It means tearing down the political system that neglected them again and again in favor of the big cities that feel a world away.On those counts, they believe Trump has delivered, even if his promised blue-collar renaissance has not yet materialized. He s punching at all the people who let them down for so long the presidential embodiment of their own discontent. He s already done enough to get my vote again, without a doubt, no question, Wes Lewis, a retired pipefitter and one of Whitt s regulars, declares as he deals the day s first hand of cards.He thinks the mines and the factories will soon roar back to life, and if they don t, he believes they would have if Democrats and Republicans and the media all crooked as a barrel of fishhooks had gotten out of the way. What Lewis has now that he didn t have before Trump is a belief that his president is pulling for people like him. One thing I hear in here a lot is that nobody s gonna push him into a corner, says Whitt, 35. He s a fighter. I think they like the bluntness of it. He plops down at an empty table next to the card game, drops a stack of mail onto his lap and begins flipping through the envelopes. Bill, bill, bill, he reports to his wife, Chesla, who has arrived to relieve him at the restaurant they run together. He needs to run home and change of out his Frosty Freeze uniform, the first of several work ensembles he wears each day, and put on his second, a suit and tie. He also owns a local funeral home and he s the county coroner, elected as a Democrat.The Whitts, like many people here, cobble together a living with a couple jobs each sometimes working 12 or 15 hours a day because there aren t many options better than minimum wage. There s the school system, and a prison, and that s pretty much it. Outside of town, population 622, roads wind past rolling farms that used to grow tobacco before that industry crumbled too, then up into the hills of Appalachia, with its spectacular natural beauty and grinding poverty that has come to define this region in the American imagination.Whitt slides a medical bill across the table. Looks like this one is the new helmet, he says, and his wife tears the envelope open and reports the debt: $3,995. They will add it to a growing pile that s already surpassed $40,000 since their son was born nine months ago with a rare condition. His skull was shaped like an egg, the bones fused together in places they shouldn t be. Tommy, their baby boy with big blue eyes, has now outgrown three of the helmets he s been required to wear after surgery so his bones grow back together like they should.They pay $800 a month for insurance. But when they took their baby to a surgeon in Cincinnati, they learned it was out of network. In-network hospitals offered only more invasive surgeries, so they opted to pay out of pocket. At the hospital they were told that if they d been on an insurance program for the poor, it would have all been free.This represents the cracks in America s institutions that drove Whitt, a lifelong Democrat, from supporting President Barack Obama to buying a Make America Great Again cap that he still keeps on top of the hutch. Many of their welfare-dependent neighbors, he believes, stay trapped in a cycle of handouts and poverty while hardworking taxpayers like him and his wife are stuck with the tab and can t get ahead. Where s the fairness in that? he asks.But Whitt doesn t blame Trump for the failure this year to repeal the health care law and replace it with something better. He blames the brick wall in Washington, the politicians he sees as blocking everything Trump proposes while small people like them in small places like this are left again to languish.A third of people here live in poverty. Just 9 percent of adults have a college degree, but they always made up for that with backbreaking labor that workers traveled dozens of miles to neighboring counties or states to do, and those jobs have gotten harder to find.Many here blame global trade agreements and the war on coal environmental regulations designed by Obama s administration to curb carbon emissions for the decline of mining and manufacturing jobs. When Trump bemoans the American carnage of lost factories and lost faith, it feels like he s talking to the people in these Appalachian hills. When he scraps dozens of regulations to the horror of environmentalists and says it means jobs are on the way, they embrace him.Coal has ticked up since Trump took office; mining companies have added 1,200 jobs across the country since his inauguration, more than 180 of them in Kentucky. But industry analysts say that was tied largely to market forces and dismiss Trump s repeated pledges to resuscitate the coal industry as pie in the sky. Coal has been on the decline for many decades for many reasons outside of regulation: far cheaper natural gas, mechanization, thinning Appalachian seams. With the opposition he s had, I think he s pulling the plow pretty good, offers Wes Lewis from the card table. A few months ago, he says, he saw four brand-new coal rigs going through town. For the longest time, under Obama, all we saw were trucks being pulled on wreckers, because people turned belly up, they went broke. Lewis says he s heard about friends of friends being called back to work. He s noticed new trucks in people s driveways, too, which he takes as evidence that his neighbors are feeling confident about their futures. These tiny signs stack up to him as proof. Lewis fishes the tag out of the bib of his overalls: Made in Mexico, it reads. Trump s bringing them back, he says.Lewis, a registered Democrat, trusts Trump because he trusts his values. And because of that, he trusts Trump s other promises so strongly he can t think of anything that would shake that faith in him. If the factories and mines don t come back, he ll blame the opposition. If there isn t a wall on the Mexico border, he says, it won t be because Trump didn t try. If investigators find his campaign colluded with Russians, it s because so many people are so determined to bring him down.Go HERE to read entire story. | 4 | < 0.1% |
| On September 15, Hillary apparently held a rally in the Old Student Recreational Center at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro, NC. This was her first public appearance since she convulsed and had to be lifted into her van following the 9-11 memorial in NYC. Hillary s campaign was quick to blame the heat until they discovered conservative websites were able to quickly access the weather and determine that it was a balmy 74 degrees in NYC! Hillary was quickly whisked away to her daughter Chelsea s apartment following her incident, passing more than one hospital on the way to recuperate. Did Hillary recover from her incident or was this rally faked to make it look like she did?Here is the first video of Hillary s Greensboro, NC rally that was causing viewers to ask what the heck are those cameras in Hillary s audience pointing at? If you look closely, it sure isn t Hillary!Watch this video first, and then the video below to get a closer analysis of what appears to be a phony rally for Hillary at https://twitter.com/WDFx2EU5/status/777263623915745280This stunning video takes the viewer through and shows step-by-step where the audience is faked:Here is the actual video from C-Span to prove nothing was doctored in the videos above. Holy moly! | 4 | < 0.1% |
| Things didn t go as well as Nicholle had hoped and now, she s lashing out at the owner of the billboard company who was inundated with calls from angry residents.Rouse & Revolt owner Nicholle Lewis told Newsweek that she didn t sleep much last night. Her phone wouldn t stop going off with the persistent buzzing of death threats for her sign, which stylizes the number 45 into a swastika and features Trump posed in a Hitler-esque stance. I m living in a small, podunk red town and I m already getting death threats, said Lewis, whose store is in right-leaning Chico, population 90,000. My business has completely floundered. Overnight I had more one-star reviews than all the reviews I ve received in a year. The sign was up for less than 24 hours before Stott Outdoor Advertising took it down amid a backlash that featured online attacks.But Lewis said she s standing behind her beliefs. I don t necessarily think that just because I m a business doesn t mean I can t mix my beliefs, Lewis said. That s a common misconception that you can t mix politics and business. I have a platform and I m going to use it. Lewis has used the billboard at the corner of Third Avenue and Mangrove Avenue all year, though this is the first time she s made it political. He is not presidential, he is not a president, Lewis said. He is a celebrity who was born into money. And he s a Nazi sympathizer. I am going to stand behind my beliefs regardless. Lewis said she has been getting some support, too.Lewis got slammed by bad reviews on her store, Rouse and Revolt Facebook page, as well as her personal Facebook page, where she posted this video. In the video, Lewis pleas with liberals to make false claims against the sign company, as a payback because she s been hit with bad reviews. That s called liberal logic, in case you re not familiar with how liberal operate.Watch, as angry liberal Nicholle Haber Lewis threatens the sign company with a lawsuit while simultaneously asking libs to help her destroy his business.(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.10"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));Posted by Nicholle Haber Lewis on Friday, October 6, 2017The general manager of Stott Outdoor Advertising replied to Newsweek:Jim Moravec, the general manager of Stott Outdoor Advertising, told Newsweek that the company took it down because a lot of people misinterpreted the billboard and who the speaker was. I should have not accepted the ad in the first place, Moravec said, adding that the sign looked more like a call for action than an ad for the clothing store. Newsweek | 4 | < 0.1% |
| Because there wouldn t be any outrage over a white kids only field trip to a local college would there?Parents criticized Indiana school officials Thursday for a trip planned to local colleges that was only offered to black third-graders, ABC 57 reported.School officials defended the trip, saying the outing sends a positive message to black students who may believe the prospect of college is out of reach. We take them to a college campus, have them meet African-American students, modeling the idea that as a black person, college is a great place, Dr. G. David Moss, the head of the African-American services at the South Bend Community Schools Corporation, told the station.The initiative has been criticized by parents in the community, not because of its ambitions, but because it excludes students with other backgrounds.One parent whose son is going on the trip told the station that she believes all kids should be going. Moss told the station that he did not mean to offend anyone with the trips, but said he was hired to look at the issues facing African-American kids in the community.Via: FOX News | 4 | < 0.1% |
| Enjoy: | 4 | < 0.1% |
| Other values (38630) | 44219 |
Length
Histogram of lengths of the category
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| the | 1004835 | 5.5% |
| to | 534256 | 2.9% |
| of | 440580 | 2.4% |
| a | 407011 | 2.2% |
| and | 405615 | 2.2% |
| in | 344295 | 1.9% |
| that | 236170 | 1.3% |
| on | 189298 | 1.0% |
| s | 174313 | 1.0% |
| for | 171408 | 0.9% |
| Other values (261811) | 14288521 |
Most occurring characters
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| 18621853 | ||
| e | 10448679 | 9.4% |
| t | 7674963 | 6.9% |
| a | 7259795 | 6.5% |
| i | 6489686 | 5.9% |
| o | 6379452 | 5.8% |
| n | 6293001 | 5.7% |
| s | 5595342 | 5.0% |
| r | 5482684 | 4.9% |
| h | 3831693 | 3.5% |
| Other values (123) | 32779559 |
Most occurring categories
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| Lowercase Letter | 84552389 | |
| Space Separator | 18627119 | 16.8% |
| Uppercase Letter | 4300013 | 3.9% |
| Other Punctuation | 2076815 | 1.9% |
| Decimal Number | 725028 | 0.7% |
| Dash Punctuation | 196206 | 0.2% |
| Final Punctuation | 124629 | 0.1% |
| Open Punctuation | 84718 | 0.1% |
| Close Punctuation | 84662 | 0.1% |
| Initial Punctuation | 55328 | < 0.1% |
| Other values (9) | 29800 | < 0.1% |
Most frequent character per category
Lowercase Letter
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| e | 10448679 | |
| t | 7674963 | 9.1% |
| a | 7259795 | 8.6% |
| i | 6489686 | 7.7% |
| o | 6379452 | 7.5% |
| n | 6293001 | 7.4% |
| s | 5595342 | 6.6% |
| r | 5482684 | 6.5% |
| h | 3831693 | 4.5% |
| l | 3516969 | 4.2% |
| Other values (31) | 21580125 |
Uppercase Letter
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| T | 481723 | 11.2% |
| S | 390048 | 9.1% |
| A | 312257 | 7.3% |
| C | 287141 | 6.7% |
| I | 282391 | 6.6% |
| R | 232773 | 5.4% |
| M | 211552 | 4.9% |
| P | 190779 | 4.4% |
| N | 186865 | 4.3% |
| D | 178581 | 4.2% |
| Other values (16) | 1545903 |
Other Punctuation
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| . | 940247 | |
| , | 907524 | |
| : | 69888 | 3.4% |
| / | 34935 | 1.7% |
| ? | 30468 | 1.5% |
| @ | 28984 | 1.4% |
| ! | 18301 | 0.9% |
| ; | 10024 | 0.5% |
| # | 8632 | 0.4% |
| * | 7404 | 0.4% |
| Other values (8) | 20408 | 1.0% |
Decimal Number
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| 0 | 177674 | |
| 1 | 143594 | |
| 2 | 127607 | |
| 5 | 46881 | 6.5% |
| 6 | 42057 | 5.8% |
| 3 | 40580 | 5.6% |
| 7 | 40074 | 5.5% |
| 9 | 38537 | 5.3% |
| 4 | 37017 | 5.1% |
| 8 | 31007 | 4.3% |
Math Symbol
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| = | 3716 | |
| | | 787 | 12.9% |
| < | 584 | 9.6% |
| + | 521 | 8.6% |
| > | 353 | 5.8% |
| ~ | 129 | 2.1% |
Format
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| | 9 | |
| | 4 | |
| | 1 | 6.7% |
| | 1 | 6.7% |
Modifier Symbol
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| ^ | 492 | |
| ` | 40 | 7.5% |
| ¯ | 2 | 0.4% |
| ´ | 2 | 0.4% |
Space Separator
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| 18621853 | ||
| 5261 | < 0.1% | |
| 5 | < 0.1% |
Open Punctuation
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| ( | 77839 | |
| [ | 6325 | 7.5% |
| { | 554 | 0.7% |
Close Punctuation
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| ) | 78162 | |
| ] | 5947 | 7.0% |
| } | 553 | 0.7% |
Dash Punctuation
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| - | 194987 | |
| – | 716 | 0.4% |
| — | 503 | 0.3% |
Other Symbol
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| ☑ | 3 | |
| ➡ | 1 | 20.0% |
| ° | 1 | 20.0% |
Initial Punctuation
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| “ | 54140 | |
| ‘ | 1188 | 2.1% |
Final Punctuation
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| ’ | 70768 | |
| ” | 53861 |
Currency Symbol
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| $ | 19511 |
Control
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| 71 |
Connector Punctuation
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| _ | 3567 |
Nonspacing Mark
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| ️ | 4 |
Other Letter
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| ツ | 1 |
Most occurring scripts
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| Latin | 88852402 | |
| Common | 22004300 | 19.8% |
| Inherited | 4 | < 0.1% |
| Katakana | 1 | < 0.1% |
Most frequent character per script
Latin
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| e | 10448679 | |
| t | 7674963 | 8.6% |
| a | 7259795 | 8.2% |
| i | 6489686 | 7.3% |
| o | 6379452 | 7.2% |
| n | 6293001 | 7.1% |
| s | 5595342 | 6.3% |
| r | 5482684 | 6.2% |
| h | 3831693 | 4.3% |
| l | 3516969 | 4.0% |
| Other values (57) | 25880138 |
Common
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| 18621853 | ||
| . | 940247 | 4.3% |
| , | 907524 | 4.1% |
| - | 194987 | 0.9% |
| 0 | 177674 | 0.8% |
| 1 | 143594 | 0.7% |
| 2 | 127607 | 0.6% |
| ) | 78162 | 0.4% |
| ( | 77839 | 0.4% |
| ’ | 70768 | 0.3% |
| Other values (54) | 664045 | 3.0% |
Inherited
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| ️ | 4 |
Katakana
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| ツ | 1 |
Most occurring blocks
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| ASCII | 110670033 | |
| Punctuation | 181272 | 0.2% |
| Latin 1 Sup | 5381 | < 0.1% |
| Latin Ext A | 12 | < 0.1% |
| VS | 4 | < 0.1% |
| Misc Symbols | 3 | < 0.1% |
| Dingbats | 1 | < 0.1% |
| Katakana | 1 | < 0.1% |
Most frequent character per block
ASCII
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| 18621853 | ||
| e | 10448679 | 9.4% |
| t | 7674963 | 6.9% |
| a | 7259795 | 6.6% |
| i | 6489686 | 5.9% |
| o | 6379452 | 5.8% |
| n | 6293001 | 5.7% |
| s | 5595342 | 5.1% |
| r | 5482684 | 5.0% |
| h | 3831693 | 3.5% |
| Other values (86) | 32592885 |
Punctuation
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| ’ | 70768 | |
| “ | 54140 | |
| ” | 53861 | |
| ‘ | 1188 | 0.7% |
| – | 716 | 0.4% |
| — | 503 | 0.3% |
| … | 74 | < 0.1% |
| | 9 | < 0.1% |
| 5 | < 0.1% | |
| | 4 | < 0.1% |
| Other values (2) | 4 | < 0.1% |
Latin 1 Sup
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| 5261 | ||
| é | 48 | 0.9% |
| á | 21 | 0.4% |
| ñ | 11 | 0.2% |
| ó | 9 | 0.2% |
| í | 6 | 0.1% |
| ç | 5 | 0.1% |
| à | 4 | 0.1% |
| ú | 2 | < 0.1% |
| ¯ | 2 | < 0.1% |
| Other values (9) | 12 | 0.2% |
Dingbats
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| ➡ | 1 |
VS
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| ️ | 4 |
Misc Symbols
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| ☑ | 3 |
Latin Ext A
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| ā | 10 | |
| ō | 2 | 16.7% |
Katakana
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| ツ | 1 |
| Distinct | 8 |
|---|---|
| Distinct (%) | < 0.1% |
| Missing | 0 |
| Missing (%) | 0.0% |
| Memory size | 2.8 MiB |
| politicsNews | |
|---|---|
| worldnews | |
| News | |
| politics | |
| left-news | |
| Other values (3) |
Length
| Max length | 15 |
|---|---|
| Median length | 9 |
| Mean length | 8.802352522 |
| Min length | 4 |
Characters and Unicode
| Total characters | 395120 |
|---|---|
| Distinct characters | 24 |
| Distinct categories | 5 ? |
| Distinct scripts | 2 ? |
| Distinct blocks | 1 ? |
The Unicode Standard assigns character properties to each code point, which can be used to analyse textual variables.
Unique
| Unique | 0 ? |
|---|---|
| Unique (%) | 0.0% |
Sample
| 1st row | politicsNews |
|---|---|
| 2nd row | politicsNews |
| 3rd row | politicsNews |
| 4th row | politicsNews |
| 5th row | politicsNews |
Common Values
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| politicsNews | 11272 | |
| worldnews | 10145 | |
| News | 9050 | |
| politics | 6836 | |
| left-news | 4456 | 9.9% |
| Government News | 1568 | 3.5% |
| US_News | 783 | 1.7% |
| Middle-east | 778 | 1.7% |
Length
Histogram of lengths of the category
Pie chart
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| politicsnews | 11272 | |
| news | 10618 | |
| worldnews | 10145 | |
| politics | 6836 | |
| left-news | 4456 | 9.6% |
| government | 1568 | 3.4% |
| us_news | 783 | 1.7% |
| middle-east | 778 | 1.7% |
Most occurring characters
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| s | 56160 | |
| w | 47419 | |
| e | 46422 | |
| i | 36994 | |
| l | 33487 | |
| o | 29821 | |
| t | 24910 | |
| N | 22673 | 5.7% |
| p | 18108 | 4.6% |
| c | 18108 | 4.6% |
| Other values (14) | 61018 |
Most occurring categories
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| Lowercase Letter | 360950 | |
| Uppercase Letter | 26585 | 6.7% |
| Dash Punctuation | 5234 | 1.3% |
| Space Separator | 1568 | 0.4% |
| Connector Punctuation | 783 | 0.2% |
Most frequent character per category
Lowercase Letter
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| s | 56160 | |
| w | 47419 | |
| e | 46422 | |
| i | 36994 | |
| l | 33487 | |
| o | 29821 | |
| t | 24910 | |
| p | 18108 | 5.0% |
| c | 18108 | 5.0% |
| n | 17737 | 4.9% |
| Other values (6) | 31784 |
Uppercase Letter
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| N | 22673 | |
| G | 1568 | 5.9% |
| U | 783 | 2.9% |
| S | 783 | 2.9% |
| M | 778 | 2.9% |
Space Separator
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| 1568 |
Dash Punctuation
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| - | 5234 |
Connector Punctuation
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| _ | 783 |
Most occurring scripts
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| Latin | 387535 | |
| Common | 7585 | 1.9% |
Most frequent character per script
Latin
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| s | 56160 | |
| w | 47419 | |
| e | 46422 | |
| i | 36994 | |
| l | 33487 | |
| o | 29821 | |
| t | 24910 | |
| N | 22673 | |
| p | 18108 | 4.7% |
| c | 18108 | 4.7% |
| Other values (11) | 53433 |
Common
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| - | 5234 | |
| 1568 | 20.7% | |
| _ | 783 | 10.3% |
Most occurring blocks
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| ASCII | 395120 |
Most frequent character per block
ASCII
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| s | 56160 | |
| w | 47419 | |
| e | 46422 | |
| i | 36994 | |
| l | 33487 | |
| o | 29821 | |
| t | 24910 | |
| N | 22673 | 5.7% |
| p | 18108 | 4.6% |
| c | 18108 | 4.6% |
| Other values (14) | 61018 |
date
Date
| Distinct | 1010 |
|---|---|
| Distinct (%) | 2.3% |
| Missing | 0 |
| Missing (%) | 0.0% |
| Memory size | 350.8 KiB |
| Minimum | 2015-03-31 00:00:00 |
|---|---|
| Maximum | 2018-02-19 00:00:00 |
Histogram with fixed size bins (bins=50)
| Distinct | 2 |
|---|---|
| Distinct (%) | < 0.1% |
| Missing | 0 |
| Missing (%) | 0.0% |
| Memory size | 2.5 MiB |
| 1 | |
|---|---|
| 0 |
Length
| Max length | 1 |
|---|---|
| Median length | 1 |
| Mean length | 1 |
| Min length | 1 |
Characters and Unicode
| Total characters | 44888 |
|---|---|
| Distinct characters | 2 |
| Distinct categories | 1 ? |
| Distinct scripts | 1 ? |
| Distinct blocks | 1 ? |
The Unicode Standard assigns character properties to each code point, which can be used to analyse textual variables.
Unique
| Unique | 0 ? |
|---|---|
| Unique (%) | 0.0% |
Sample
| 1st row | 0 |
|---|---|
| 2nd row | 0 |
| 3rd row | 0 |
| 4th row | 0 |
| 5th row | 0 |
Common Values
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| 1 | 23471 | |
| 0 | 21417 |
Length
Histogram of lengths of the category
Pie chart
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| 1 | 23471 | |
| 0 | 21417 |
Most occurring characters
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| 1 | 23471 | |
| 0 | 21417 |
Most occurring categories
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| Decimal Number | 44888 |
Most frequent character per category
Decimal Number
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| 1 | 23471 | |
| 0 | 21417 |
Most occurring scripts
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| Common | 44888 |
Most frequent character per script
Common
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| 1 | 23471 | |
| 0 | 21417 |
Most occurring blocks
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| ASCII | 44888 |
Most frequent character per block
ASCII
| Value | Count | Frequency (%) |
| 1 | 23471 | |
| 0 | 21417 |
Pearson's r
The Pearson's correlation coefficient (r) is a measure of linear correlation between two variables. It's value lies between -1 and +1, -1 indicating total negative linear correlation, 0 indicating no linear correlation and 1 indicating total positive linear correlation. Furthermore, r is invariant under separate changes in location and scale of the two variables, implying that for a linear function the angle to the x-axis does not affect r.To calculate r for two variables X and Y, one divides the covariance of X and Y by the product of their standard deviations.
Spearman's ρ
The Spearman's rank correlation coefficient (ρ) is a measure of monotonic correlation between two variables, and is therefore better in catching nonlinear monotonic correlations than Pearson's r. It's value lies between -1 and +1, -1 indicating total negative monotonic correlation, 0 indicating no monotonic correlation and 1 indicating total positive monotonic correlation.To calculate ρ for two variables X and Y, one divides the covariance of the rank variables of X and Y by the product of their standard deviations.
Kendall's τ
Similarly to Spearman's rank correlation coefficient, the Kendall rank correlation coefficient (τ) measures ordinal association between two variables. It's value lies between -1 and +1, -1 indicating total negative correlation, 0 indicating no correlation and 1 indicating total positive correlation.To calculate τ for two variables X and Y, one determines the number of concordant and discordant pairs of observations. τ is given by the number of concordant pairs minus the discordant pairs divided by the total number of pairs.
Phik (φk)
Phik (φk) is a new and practical correlation coefficient that works consistently between categorical, ordinal and interval variables, captures non-linear dependency and reverts to the Pearson correlation coefficient in case of a bivariate normal input distribution. There is extensive documentation available here.Cramér's V (φc)
Cramér's V is an association measure for nominal random variables. The coefficient ranges from 0 to 1, with 0 indicating independence and 1 indicating perfect association. The empirical estimators used for Cramér's V have been proved to be biased, even for large samples. We use a bias-corrected measure that has been proposed by Bergsma in 2013 that can be found here. A simple visualization of nullity by column.
Nullity matrix is a data-dense display which lets you quickly visually pick out patterns in data completion.
First rows
| title | text | subject | date | fake | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | As U.S. budget fight looms, Republicans flip their fiscal script | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of a conservative Republican faction in the U.S. Congress, who voted this month for a huge expansion of the national debt to pay for tax cuts, called himself a “fiscal conservative” on Sunday and urged budget restraint in 2018. In keeping with a sharp pivot under way among Republicans, U.S. Representative Mark Meadows, speaking on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” drew a hard line on federal spending, which lawmakers are bracing to do battle over in January. When they return from the holidays on Wednesday, lawmakers will begin trying to pass a federal budget in a fight likely to be linked to other issues, such as immigration policy, even as the November congressional election campaigns approach in which Republicans will seek to keep control of Congress. President Donald Trump and his Republicans want a big budget increase in military spending, while Democrats also want proportional increases for non-defense “discretionary” spending on programs that support education, scientific research, infrastructure, public health and environmental protection. “The (Trump) administration has already been willing to say: ‘We’re going to increase non-defense discretionary spending ... by about 7 percent,’” Meadows, chairman of the small but influential House Freedom Caucus, said on the program. “Now, Democrats are saying that’s not enough, we need to give the government a pay raise of 10 to 11 percent. For a fiscal conservative, I don’t see where the rationale is. ... Eventually you run out of other people’s money,” he said. Meadows was among Republicans who voted in late December for their party’s debt-financed tax overhaul, which is expected to balloon the federal budget deficit and add about $1.5 trillion over 10 years to the $20 trillion national debt. “It’s interesting to hear Mark talk about fiscal responsibility,” Democratic U.S. Representative Joseph Crowley said on CBS. Crowley said the Republican tax bill would require the United States to borrow $1.5 trillion, to be paid off by future generations, to finance tax cuts for corporations and the rich. “This is one of the least ... fiscally responsible bills we’ve ever seen passed in the history of the House of Representatives. I think we’re going to be paying for this for many, many years to come,” Crowley said. Republicans insist the tax package, the biggest U.S. tax overhaul in more than 30 years, will boost the economy and job growth. House Speaker Paul Ryan, who also supported the tax bill, recently went further than Meadows, making clear in a radio interview that welfare or “entitlement reform,” as the party often calls it, would be a top Republican priority in 2018. In Republican parlance, “entitlement” programs mean food stamps, housing assistance, Medicare and Medicaid health insurance for the elderly, poor and disabled, as well as other programs created by Washington to assist the needy. Democrats seized on Ryan’s early December remarks, saying they showed Republicans would try to pay for their tax overhaul by seeking spending cuts for social programs. But the goals of House Republicans may have to take a back seat to the Senate, where the votes of some Democrats will be needed to approve a budget and prevent a government shutdown. Democrats will use their leverage in the Senate, which Republicans narrowly control, to defend both discretionary non-defense programs and social spending, while tackling the issue of the “Dreamers,” people brought illegally to the country as children. Trump in September put a March 2018 expiration date on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, which protects the young immigrants from deportation and provides them with work permits. The president has said in recent Twitter messages he wants funding for his proposed Mexican border wall and other immigration law changes in exchange for agreeing to help the Dreamers. Representative Debbie Dingell told CBS she did not favor linking that issue to other policy objectives, such as wall funding. “We need to do DACA clean,” she said. On Wednesday, Trump aides will meet with congressional leaders to discuss those issues. That will be followed by a weekend of strategy sessions for Trump and Republican leaders on Jan. 6 and 7, the White House said. Trump was also scheduled to meet on Sunday with Florida Republican Governor Rick Scott, who wants more emergency aid. The House has passed an $81 billion aid package after hurricanes in Florida, Texas and Puerto Rico, and wildfires in California. The package far exceeded the $44 billion requested by the Trump administration. The Senate has not yet voted on the aid. | politicsNews | 2017-12-31 | 0 |
| 1 | U.S. military to accept transgender recruits on Monday: Pentagon | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Transgender people will be allowed for the first time to enlist in the U.S. military starting on Monday as ordered by federal courts, the Pentagon said on Friday, after President Donald Trump’s administration decided not to appeal rulings that blocked his transgender ban. Two federal appeals courts, one in Washington and one in Virginia, last week rejected the administration’s request to put on hold orders by lower court judges requiring the military to begin accepting transgender recruits on Jan. 1. A Justice Department official said the administration will not challenge those rulings. “The Department of Defense has announced that it will be releasing an independent study of these issues in the coming weeks. So rather than litigate this interim appeal before that occurs, the administration has decided to wait for DOD’s study and will continue to defend the president’s lawful authority in District Court in the meantime,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. In September, the Pentagon said it had created a panel of senior officials to study how to implement a directive by Trump to prohibit transgender individuals from serving. The Defense Department has until Feb. 21 to submit a plan to Trump. Lawyers representing currently-serving transgender service members and aspiring recruits said they had expected the administration to appeal the rulings to the conservative-majority Supreme Court, but were hoping that would not happen. Pentagon spokeswoman Heather Babb said in a statement: “As mandated by court order, the Department of Defense is prepared to begin accessing transgender applicants for military service Jan. 1. All applicants must meet all accession standards.” Jennifer Levi, a lawyer with gay, lesbian and transgender advocacy group GLAD, called the decision not to appeal “great news.” “I’m hoping it means the government has come to see that there is no way to justify a ban and that it’s not good for the military or our country,” Levi said. Both GLAD and the American Civil Liberties Union represent plaintiffs in the lawsuits filed against the administration. In a move that appealed to his hard-line conservative supporters, Trump announced in July that he would prohibit transgender people from serving in the military, reversing Democratic President Barack Obama’s policy of accepting them. Trump said on Twitter at the time that the military “cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.” Four federal judges - in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Seattle and Riverside, California - have issued rulings blocking Trump’s ban while legal challenges to the Republican president’s policy proceed. The judges said the ban would likely violate the right under the U.S. Constitution to equal protection under the law. The Pentagon on Dec. 8 issued guidelines to recruitment personnel in order to enlist transgender applicants by Jan. 1. The memo outlined medical requirements and specified how the applicants’ sex would be identified and even which undergarments they would wear. The Trump administration previously said in legal papers that the armed forces were not prepared to train thousands of personnel on the medical standards needed to process transgender applicants and might have to accept “some individuals who are not medically fit for service.” The Obama administration had set a deadline of July 1, 2017, to begin accepting transgender recruits. But Trump’s defense secretary, James Mattis, postponed that date to Jan. 1, 2018, which the president’s ban then put off indefinitely. Trump has taken other steps aimed at rolling back transgender rights. In October, his administration said a federal law banning gender-based workplace discrimination does not protect transgender employees, reversing another Obama-era position. In February, Trump rescinded guidance issued by the Obama administration saying that public schools should allow transgender students to use the restroom that corresponds to their gender identity. | politicsNews | 2017-12-29 | 0 |
| 2 | Senior U.S. Republican senator: 'Let Mr. Mueller do his job' | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The special counsel investigation of links between Russia and President Trump’s 2016 election campaign should continue without interference in 2018, despite calls from some Trump administration allies and Republican lawmakers to shut it down, a prominent Republican senator said on Sunday. Lindsey Graham, who serves on the Senate armed forces and judiciary committees, said Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Mueller needs to carry on with his Russia investigation without political interference. “This investigation will go forward. It will be an investigation conducted without political influence,” Graham said on CBS’s Face the Nation news program. “And we all need to let Mr. Mueller do his job. I think he’s the right guy at the right time.” The question of how Russia may have interfered in the election, and how Trump’s campaign may have had links with or co-ordinated any such effort, has loomed over the White House since Trump took office in January. It shows no sign of receding as Trump prepares for his second year in power, despite intensified rhetoric from some Trump allies in recent weeks accusing Mueller’s team of bias against the Republican president. Trump himself seemed to undercut his supporters in an interview last week with the New York Times in which he said he expected Mueller was “going to be fair.” Russia’s role in the election and the question of possible links to the Trump campaign are the focus of multiple inquiries in Washington. Three committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives are investigating, as well as Mueller, whose team in May took over an earlier probe launched by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Several members of the Trump campaign and administration have been convicted or indicted in the investigation. Trump and his allies deny any collusion with Russia during the campaign, and the Kremlin has denied meddling in the election. Graham said he still wants an examination of the FBI’s use of a dossier on links between Trump and Russia that was compiled by a former British spy, Christopher Steele, which prompted Trump allies and some Republicans to question Mueller’s inquiry. On Saturday, the New York Times reported that it was not that dossier that triggered an early FBI probe, but a tip from former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos to an Australian diplomat that Russia had damaging information about former Trump rival Hillary Clinton. “I want somebody to look at the way the Department of Justice used this dossier. It bothers me greatly the way they used it, and I want somebody to look at it,” Graham said. But he said the Russia investigation must continue. “As a matter of fact, it would hurt us if we ignored it,” he said. | politicsNews | 2017-12-31 | 0 |
| 3 | FBI Russia probe helped by Australian diplomat tip-off: NYT | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos told an Australian diplomat in May 2016 that Russia had political dirt on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, the New York Times reported on Saturday. The conversation between Papadopoulos and the diplomat, Alexander Downer, in London was a driving factor behind the FBI’s decision to open a counter-intelligence investigation of Moscow’s contacts with the Trump campaign, the Times reported. Two months after the meeting, Australian officials passed the information that came from Papadopoulos to their American counterparts when leaked Democratic emails began appearing online, according to the newspaper, which cited four current and former U.S. and foreign officials. Besides the information from the Australians, the probe by the Federal Bureau of Investigation was also propelled by intelligence from other friendly governments, including the British and Dutch, the Times said. Papadopoulos, a Chicago-based international energy lawyer, pleaded guilty on Oct. 30 to lying to FBI agents about contacts with people who claimed to have ties to top Russian officials. It was the first criminal charge alleging links between the Trump campaign and Russia. The White House has played down the former aide’s campaign role, saying it was “extremely limited” and that any actions he took would have been on his own. The New York Times, however, reported that Papadopoulos helped set up a meeting between then-candidate Donald Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and edited the outline of Trump’s first major foreign policy speech in April 2016. The federal investigation, which is now being led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, has hung over Trump’s White House since he took office almost a year ago. Some Trump allies have recently accused Mueller’s team of being biased against the Republican president. Lawyers for Papadopoulos did not immediately respond to requests by Reuters for comment. Mueller’s office declined to comment. Trump’s White House attorney, Ty Cobb, declined to comment on the New York Times report. “Out of respect for the special counsel and his process, we are not commenting on matters such as this,” he said in a statement. Mueller has charged four Trump associates, including Papadopoulos, in his investigation. Russia has denied interfering in the U.S. election and Trump has said there was no collusion between his campaign and Moscow. | politicsNews | 2017-12-30 | 0 |
| 4 | Trump wants Postal Service to charge 'much more' for Amazon shipments | SEATTLE/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump called on the U.S. Postal Service on Friday to charge “much more” to ship packages for Amazon (AMZN.O), picking another fight with an online retail giant he has criticized in the past. “Why is the United States Post Office, which is losing many billions of dollars a year, while charging Amazon and others so little to deliver their packages, making Amazon richer and the Post Office dumber and poorer? Should be charging MUCH MORE!” Trump wrote on Twitter. The president’s tweet drew fresh attention to the fragile finances of the Postal Service at a time when tens of millions of parcels have just been shipped all over the country for the holiday season. The U.S. Postal Service, which runs at a big loss, is an independent agency within the federal government and does not receive tax dollars for operating expenses, according to its website. Package delivery has become an increasingly important part of its business as the Internet has led to a sharp decline in the amount of first-class letters. The president does not determine postal rates. They are set by the Postal Regulatory Commission, an independent government agency with commissioners selected by the president from both political parties. That panel raised prices on packages by almost 2 percent in November. Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos, who remains the chief executive officer of the retail company and is the richest person in the world, according to Bloomberg News. Bezos also owns The Washington Post, a newspaper Trump has repeatedly railed against in his criticisms of the news media. In tweets over the past year, Trump has said the “Amazon Washington Post” fabricated stories. He has said Amazon does not pay sales tax, which is not true, and so hurts other retailers, part of a pattern by the former businessman and reality television host of periodically turning his ire on big American companies since he took office in January. Daniel Ives, a research analyst at GBH Insights, said Trump’s comment could be taken as a warning to the retail giant. However, he said he was not concerned for Amazon. “We do not see any price hikes in the future. However, that is a risk that Amazon is clearly aware of and (it) is building out its distribution (system) aggressively,” he said. Amazon has shown interest in the past in shifting into its own delivery service, including testing drones for deliveries. In 2015, the company spent $11.5 billion on shipping, 46 percent of its total operating expenses that year. Amazon shares were down 0.86 percent to $1,175.90 by early afternoon. Overall, U.S. stock prices were down slightly on Friday. Satish Jindel, president of ShipMatrix Inc, which analyzes shipping data, disputed the idea that the Postal Service charges less than United Parcel Service Inc (UPS.N) and FedEx Corp (FDX.N), the other biggest players in the parcel delivery business in the United States. Many customers get lower rates from UPS and FedEx than they would get from the post office for comparable services, he said. The Postal Service delivers about 62 percent of Amazon packages, for about 3.5 to 4 million a day during the current peak year-end holiday shipping season, Jindel said. The Seattle-based company and the post office have an agreement in which mail carriers take Amazon packages on the last leg of their journeys, from post offices to customers’ doorsteps. Amazon’s No. 2 carrier is UPS, at 21 percent, and FedEx is third, with 8 percent or so, according to Jindel. Trump’s comment tapped into a debate over whether Postal Service pricing has kept pace with the rise of e-commerce, which has flooded the mail with small packages.Private companies like UPS have long claimed the current system unfairly undercuts their business. Steve Gaut, a spokesman for UPS, noted that the company values its “productive relationship” with the postal service, but that it has filed with the Postal Regulatory Commission its concerns about the postal service’s methods for covering costs. Representatives for Amazon, the White House, the U.S. Postal Service and FedEx declined comment or were not immediately available for comment on Trump’s tweet. According to its annual report, the Postal Service lost $2.74 billion this year, and its deficit has ballooned to $61.86 billion. While the Postal Service’s revenue for first class mail, marketing mail and periodicals is flat or declining, revenue from package delivery is up 44 percent since 2014 to $19.5 billion in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2017. But it also lost about $2 billion in revenue when a temporary surcharge expired in April 2016. According to a Government Accountability Office report in February, the service is facing growing personnel expenses, particularly $73.4 billion in unfunded pension and benefits liabilities. The Postal Service has not announced any plans to cut costs. By law, the Postal Service has to set prices for package delivery to cover the costs attributable to that service. But the postal service allocates only 5.5 percent of its total costs to its business of shipping packages even though that line of business is 28 percent of its total revenue. | politicsNews | 2017-12-29 | 0 |
| 5 | White House, Congress prepare for talks on spending, immigration | WEST PALM BEACH, Fla./WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Friday it was set to kick off talks next week with Republican and Democratic congressional leaders on immigration policy, government spending and other issues that need to be wrapped up early in the new year. The expected flurry of legislative activity comes as Republicans and Democrats begin to set the stage for midterm congressional elections in November. President Donald Trump’s Republican Party is eager to maintain control of Congress while Democrats look for openings to wrest seats away in the Senate and the House of Representatives. On Wednesday, Trump’s budget chief Mick Mulvaney and legislative affairs director Marc Short will meet with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan - both Republicans - and their Democratic counterparts, Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Nancy Pelosi, the White House said. That will be followed up with a weekend of strategy sessions for Trump, McConnell and Ryan on Jan. 6 and 7 at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland, according to the White House. The Senate returns to work on Jan. 3 and the House on Jan. 8. Congress passed a short-term government funding bill last week before taking its Christmas break, but needs to come to an agreement on defense spending and various domestic programs by Jan. 19, or the government will shut down. Also on the agenda for lawmakers is disaster aid for people hit by hurricanes in Puerto Rico, Texas and Florida, and by wildfires in California. The House passed an $81 billion package in December, which the Senate did not take up. The White House has asked for a smaller figure, $44 billion. Deadlines also loom for soon-to-expire protections for young adult immigrants who entered the country illegally as children, known as “Dreamers.” In September, Trump ended Democratic former President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which protected Dreamers from deportation and provided work permits, effective in March, giving Congress until then to devise a long-term solution. Democrats, some Republicans and a number of large companies have pushed for DACA protections to continue. Trump and other Republicans have said that will not happen without Congress approving broader immigration policy changes and tougher border security. Democrats oppose funding for a wall promised by Trump along the U.S.-Mexican border. “The Democrats have been told, and fully understand, that there can be no DACA without the desperately needed WALL at the Southern Border and an END to the horrible Chain Migration & ridiculous Lottery System of Immigration etc,” Trump said in a Twitter post on Friday. Trump wants to overhaul immigration rules for extended families and others seeking to live in the United States. Republican U.S. Senator Jeff Flake, a frequent critic of the president, said he would work with Trump to protect Dreamers. “We can fix DACA in a way that beefs up border security, stops chain migration for the DREAMers, and addresses the unfairness of the diversity lottery. If POTUS (Trump) wants to protect these kids, we want to help him keep that promise,” Flake wrote on Twitter. Congress in early 2018 also must raise the U.S. debt ceiling to avoid a government default. The U.S. Treasury would exhaust all of its borrowing options and run dry of cash to pay its bills by late March or early April if Congress does not raise the debt ceiling before then, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Trump, who won his first major legislative victory with the passage of a major tax overhaul this month, has also promised a major infrastructure plan. | politicsNews | 2017-12-29 | 0 |
| 6 | Trump says Russia probe will be fair, but timeline unclear: NYT | WEST PALM BEACH, Fla (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Thursday he believes he will be fairly treated in a special counsel investigation into Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election, but said he did not know how long the probe would last. The federal investigation has hung over Trump’s White House since he took office almost a year ago, and some Trump allies have in recent weeks accused the team of Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller of being biased against the Republican president. But in an interview with the New York Times, Trump appeared to shrug off concerns about the investigation, which was prompted by U.S. intelligence agencies’ conclusion that Russia tried to help Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton by hacking and releasing embarrassing emails and disseminating propaganda. “There’s been no collusion. But I think he’s going to be fair,” Trump said in what the Times described as a 30-minute impromptu interview at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida. Mueller has charged four Trump associates in his investigation. Russia has denied interfering in the U.S. election. U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said this month that he was not aware of any impropriety by Mueller’s team. Trump’s lawyers have been saying for weeks that they had expected the Mueller investigation to wrap up quickly, possibly by the end of 2017. Mueller has not commented on how long it will last. Trump told the Times that he did not know how long the investigation would take. “Timing-wise, I can’t tell you. I just don’t know,” he said. Trump said he thought a prolonged probe “makes the country look bad” but said it has energized his core supporters. “What it’s done is, it’s really angered the base and made the base stronger. My base is strong than it’s ever been,” he said. The interview was a rare break in Trump’s Christmas vacation in Florida. He has golfed each day aside from Christmas Day, and mainly kept a low profile, apart from the occasional flurry of tweets. He spent one day golfing with Republican Senator David Perdue from Georgia, who has pushed legislation to cap immigration numbers, and had dinner on Thursday with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, an international trade hawk. Trump told the Times he hoped to work with Democrats in the U.S. Congress on a spending plan to fix roads and other infrastructure, and on protections for a group of undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children. Trump spoke about trade issues, saying he had backed off his hard line on Chinese trade practices in the hope that Beijing would do more to pressure North Korea to end its nuclear and missile testing program. He said he had been disappointed in the results. He also complained about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which his administration is attempting to renegotiate in talks with Mexico and Canada. Trump said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had played down the importance of Canadian oil and lumber exports to the United States when looking at the balance of trade between the two countries. “If I don’t make the right deal, I’ll terminate NAFTA in two seconds. But we’re doing pretty good,” Trump said. | politicsNews | 2017-12-29 | 0 |
| 7 | Factbox: Trump on Twitter (Dec 29) - Approval rating, Amazon | The following statements were posted to the verified Twitter accounts of U.S. President Donald Trump, @realDonaldTrump and @POTUS. The opinions expressed are his own. Reuters has not edited the statements or confirmed their accuracy. @realDonaldTrump : - While the Fake News loves to talk about my so-called low approval rating, @foxandfriends just showed that my rating on Dec. 28, 2017, was approximately the same as President Obama on Dec. 28, 2009, which was 47%...and this despite massive negative Trump coverage & Russia hoax! [0746 EST] - Why is the United States Post Office, which is losing many billions of dollars a year, while charging Amazon and others so little to deliver their packages, making Amazon richer and the Post Office dumber and poorer? Should be charging MUCH MORE! [0804 EST] -- Source link: (bit.ly/2jBh4LU) (bit.ly/2jpEXYR) | politicsNews | 2017-12-29 | 0 |
| 8 | Trump on Twitter (Dec 28) - Global Warming | The following statements were posted to the verified Twitter accounts of U.S. President Donald Trump, @realDonaldTrump and @POTUS. The opinions expressed are his own. Reuters has not edited the statements or confirmed their accuracy. @realDonaldTrump : - Together, we are MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! bit.ly/2lnpKaq [1814 EST] - In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up! [1901 EST] -- Source link: (bit.ly/2jBh4LU) (bit.ly/2jpEXYR) | politicsNews | 2017-12-29 | 0 |
| 9 | Alabama official to certify Senator-elect Jones today despite challenge: CNN | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill said he will certify Democratic Senator-elect Doug Jones as winner on Thursday despite opponent Roy Moore’s challenge, in a phone call on CNN. Moore, a conservative who had faced allegations of groping teenage girls when he was in his 30s, filed a court challenge late on Wednesday to the outcome of a U.S. Senate election he unexpectedly lost. | politicsNews | 2017-12-28 | 0 |
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| 44878 | Seven Iranians freed in the prisoner swap have not returned to Iran | 21st Century Wire says This week, the historic international Iranian Nuclear Deal was punctuated by a two-way prisoner swap between Washington and Tehran, but it didn t end quite the way everyone expected. On the Iranian side, one of the U.S. citizens who was detained in Iran, Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari, has stayed in Iran, but on the U.S. side all 7 of the Iranians held in U.S. prisons DID NOT show up to their flight to Geneva for the prisoner exchange with at least 3 electing to stay in the U.S TEHRAN SIDE: In Iran, 5 U.S. prisoners were released, with 4 of them making their way to Germany via Switzerland.Will Robinson Daily MailNone of the Iranians freed in the prisoner swap have returned home and could still be in the United States, it has been reported.The seven former inmates, who were released as part of a deal with the Islamic republic, did not show up to get a flight to Geneva, Switzerland, where the exchange was set to take place on Sunday.Three of the Iranians have decided to stay in the United States, ABC reported, with some moving in with their families. However it is not known where the other four are.Three of the Americans who had been detained in Iran Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati and Christian pastor Saeed Abedini left Tehran at around 7am the same day, but weren t met by their counterparts in Switzerland Continue this story at the Mail OnlineREAD MORE IRAN NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Iran Files | Middle-east | 2016-01-20 | 1 |
| 44879 | #Hashtag Hell & The Fake Left | By Dady Chery and Gilbert MercierAll writers with a desire to rattle people out of their torpor occasionally wonder if it is worthwhile to continue to try to raise their voices over the din of lies and distractions.More and more for us, such thoughts are occasioned, not by the mainstream, which predictably treats all the pronouncements from the powerful as being newsworthy, but by the fake left, which lobotomizes most of whom it touches. The increasing sophistication of this group and its rate of expansion are astounding. Its purpose is to annihilate and replace the real left, and it is making great strides in this regard.The real left includes those who, like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK), came to realize that quantum leaps are the way to proceed, rather than tiny incremental change. The real left does not curry favor or approval from those in power; it challenges the social status quo and respects the inherent right of an injured and indignant population to rebel against authority. It is not for rent or for sale, and it does not cave in to power. Martin Luther King March (Image Source: Wikicommons)By contrast, the motivations of the fake left are money and fame: the preservation of their place in their ivory towers, together with all the trimmings of an upper middle class or wealthy lifestyle. For them, the path is smoothed and the wheels of the machine are oiled for lucrative book deals, speaking tours, radio and television interviews, and articles that are infinitely reverberated through approved sites in the Internet. Their spokespeople channel political ideas toward electoral cycles and transform revolutionary musings into banalities, paralysis, and futile actions. They attack the public s thought process itself and engender an attention-deficit disorder. Ideas are not pursued, shared, honed, and acted upon but instead displaced by fleeting slogans like hope and change, or feel the Bern. Alternatively, the ideas are muddled, branded and labeled with names like shock doctrine, disaster capitalism, or climate capitalism, so that they may be put away and no longer examined. An important function of the fake left is to diffuse legitimate, spontaneous defense. Righteous anger is made to give way to confusion, and the impetus to revolt is transformed into the futility of virtual actions. Slogans are used as vaccines to prevent the contagion of dissent. Thoughts, not quite fully formed and the beginning of spontaneous actions, like blockage of bridges and highways, quickly dissipate. They are aborted into quick visual scans of an image or rapidly associated with a few words, like black lives matter, and then shared on social media. Today, Thomas Paine s Common Sense would not kindle a revolution; instead it would be quoted, posted, pinned, and tweeted. The fake left is a decoy: a hunter s trap to break the leg of any possible revolution. One of the fake left s godfathers is the multibillionaire George Soros, who obviously believes that wealth equals wisdom and has come up with a clever model to launder his vast financial gains into global political influence. Soros has developed an extremely diversified portfolio of intellectual properties and non-governmental organizations (NGO) in more than 37 countries. Artists throughout the world who present their people as victims, and promote passivity and despair, are rewarded with support and prestigious prizes. Supported organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are accused not only of selectively collecting data on human rights abuses but also of exploiting some of those data to pressure countries into policy changes that are unrelated to human rights. Independent journalism is a major focus of Soros Open Society Foundation, which was founded in 1993, soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union and right before the explosion of the Internet. When US-friendly corrupt governments, and US-sponsored institutions like USAID and the United Nations are exposed by the real left, Soros-sponsored think tanks and news organizations like the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) spring into action and become the voice of reason, demanding that these organizations self-reform. Countless others, also related to the Open Society Foundation, echo and amplify their message. Dismantlement and profound systemic change are never on the agenda. In most of the world, and especially the US, elections are staged, with the primary goal being to let off steam from targeted sectors of the population. A secondary goal is to make a rigged political process appear believable and give the impression of a free exchange of ideas. The candidates are presented as caricatures that trigger an emotional identification in specific groups of people. In the US in 2016, the mean, misogynist and racist ugly American stereotype is served well by Donald Trump for the right. On the other side, the reincarnated Occupy leftist champion of social justice is played by Bernie Sanders. Nonetheless it is Hillary Clinton s turn to win. Trump and Sanders serve to keep the elections in the news and to make Clinton the only supposed pragmatic choice. The ambition of Sanders to beat Hillary Clinton is questionable in light of the fact that he did not run for the presidency in 2012, although the issues were the same, and he could have benefited then from the energy of Occupy. Sander s platform is a reactivation of the Occupy themes. Occupy, however, is not what it used to be. Indeed it is a perfect example of something from the real left that was hijacked. It began as a leaderless anti-capitalist movement called US Day of Rage, but soon it acquired leaders like Chris Hedges, and its most radical elements, like the Black Bloc anarchists, were vilified and excluded. The fake left poaches the narrative of the real left so as to kill it. Outright plagiarism and abundant appropriations and rewrites are hallmarks of the fake left. Since it lacks a heartfelt leftist rhetoric, it must continually borrow one, ironically, to excoriate it so as to present a superficial version of it. Any critical examination will show that the self-proclaimed firebrands of the left have, for decades, never moved the revolutionary dial an iota. If books like Noam Chomsky s Occupy or Naomi Klein s Shock Doctrine, or Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco s Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt had been genuine, they would have brought people to the barricades in the streets, and there would surely have been attempts to suppress them. Instead the books have been celebrated and glorified by the media establishment, because these pseudo-radical manifestos have not brought action but paralysis.The latest offering by Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything, will, by design, change absolutely nothing at all, except the balance of her bank account. TOAST OF THE LEFT: Author Naomi Klein.Those few of us who are genuinely trying to change the course of events sometimes wonder how we can compete against this powerful new machine that appropriates our message, twists it, and then blasts a degraded version of it through countless bullhorns. Doesn t the public realize that wealth and fame are not the normal trappings of revolutionaries? Don t people know that revolution is never easy, and that if it appears to be, it is not real? If words like earth, nature, life, democracy, dissent, protest, love, and revolution are allowed to lose their weight, our voices will go the way of the song of the extinct Dodo bird. It is imperative that these words be reappropriated and reinfused with meaning.Revolutionary talk cannot be permitted to become an exercise in futile venting or a validation of passivity; to mean anything at all, it must be enacted in community.Dady Chery is the author of We Have Dared to Be Free, and Gilbert Mercier is the author of The Orwellian Empire. This article was originally published at New Junkie PostREAD MORE 2016 ELECTION NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2016 Files | Middle-east | 2016-01-19 | 1 |
| 44880 | Astroturfing: Journalist Reveals Brainwashing Tactic Uses to Manipulate Public Opinion | Vic Bishop Waking TimesOur reality is carefully constructed by powerful corporate, political and special interest sources in order to covertly sway public opinion. Blatant lies are often televised regarding terrorism, food, war, health, etc. They are fashioned to sway public opinion and condition viewers to accept what have become destructive societal norms.The practice of manipulating and controlling public opinion with distorted media messages has become so common that there is a whole industry formed around this. The entire role of this brainwashing industry is to figure out how to spin information to journalists, similar to the lobbying of government. It is never really clear just how much truth the journalists receive because the news industry has become complacent. The messages that it presents are shaped by corporate powers who often spend millions on advertising with the six conglomerates that own 90% of the media:General Electric (GE), News-Corp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, and CBS. Yet, these corporations function under many different brands, such as FOX, ABC, CNN, Comcast, Wall Street Journal, etc, giving people the perception of choice As Tavistock s researchers showed, it was important that the victims of mass brainwashing not be aware that their environment was being controlled; there should thus be a vast number of sources for information, whose messages could be varied slightly, so as to mask the sense of external control. ~ Specialist of mass brainwashing, L. WolfeNew Brainwashing Tactic Called AstroturfWith alternative media on the rise, the propaganda machine continues to expand. Below is a video of Sharyl Attkisson, investigative reporter with CBS, during which she explains how astroturf, or fake grassroots movements, are used to spin information not only to influence journalists but to sway public opinion. Astroturf is a perversion of grassroots. Astroturf is when political, corporate or other special interests disguise themselves and publish blogs, start facebook and twitter accounts, publish ads, letters to the editor, or simply post comments online, to try to fool you into thinking an independent or grassroots movement is speaking. ~ Sharyl Attkisson, Investigative ReporterHow do you separate fact from fiction? Sharyl Attkisson finishes her talk with some insights on how to identify signs of propaganda and astroturfing These methods are used to give people the impression that there is widespread support for an agenda, when, in reality, one may not exist. Astroturf tactics are also used to discredit or criticize those that disagree with certain agendas, using stereotypical names such as conspiracy theorist or quack. When in fact when someone dares to reveal the truth or questions the official story, it should spark a deeper curiosity and encourage further scrutiny of the information.This article (Journalist Reveals Tactics Brainwashing Industry Uses to Manipulate the Public) was originally created and published by Waking Times and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Vic Bishop and WakingTimes.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this copyright statement. READ MORE MSM PROPAGANDA NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire MSM Watch Files | Middle-east | 2016-01-19 | 1 |
| 44881 | The New American Century: An Era of Fraud | Paul Craig RobertsIn the last years of the 20th century fraud entered US foreign policy in a new way. On false pretenses Washington dismantled Yugoslavia and Serbia in order to advance an undeclared agenda. In the 21st century this fraud multiplied many times. Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and Libya were destroyed, and Iran and Syria would also have been destroyed if the President of Russia had not prevented it. Washington is also behind the current destruction of Yemen, and Washington has enabled and financed the Israeli destruction of Palestine. Additionally, Washington operated militarily within Pakistan without declaring war, murdering many women, children, and village elders under the guise of combating terrorism. Washington s war crimes rival those of any country in history.I have documented these crimes in my columns and books (Clarity Press). Anyone who still believes in the purity of Washington s foreign policy is a lost soul Russia and China now have a strategic alliance that is too strong for Washington. Russia and China will prevent Washington from further encroachments on their security and national interests. Those countries important to Russia and China will be protected by the alliance. As the world wakes up and sees the evil that the West represents, more countries will seek the protection of Russia and China.America is also failing on the economic front. My columns and my book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism, which has been published in English, Chinese, Korean, Czech, and German, have shown how Washington has stood aside, indeed cheering it on, while the short-term profit interests of management, shareholders, and Wall Street eviscerated the American economy, sending manufacturing jobs, business know-how, and technology, along with professional tradeable skill jobs, to China, India, and other countries, leaving America with such a hollowed out economy that the median family income has been falling for years. Today 50% of 25 year-old Americans are living with their parents or grandparents because they cannot find employment sufficient to sustain an independent existance.This brutal fact is covered up by the presstitute US media, a source of fantasy stories of America s economic recovery.The facts of our existence are so different from what is reported that I am astonished. As a former professor of economics, Wall Street Journal editor and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy, I am astonished at the corruption that rules in the financial sector, the Treasury, the financial regulatory agencies, and the Federal Reserve. In my day, there would have been indictments and prison sentences of bankers and high government officials.In America today there are no free financial markets. All the markets are rigged by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury. The regulatory agencies, controlled by those the agencies are supposed to regulate, turn a blind eye, and even if they did not, they are helpless to enforce any law, because private interests are more powerful than the law.Even the government s statistical agencies have been corrupted. Inflation measures have been concocted in order to understate inflation. This lie not only saves Washington from paying Social Security cost-of-living adjustments and frees the money for more wars, but also by understating inflation, the government can create real GDP growth by counting inflation as real growth, just as the government creates 5% unemployment by not counting any discouraged workers who have looked for jobs until they can no longer afford the cost of looking and give up. The official unemployment rate is 5%, but no one can find a job. How can the unemployment rate be 5% when half of 25-year olds are living with relatives because they cannot afford an independent existence? As John Williams (shadowfacts) reports, the unemployment rate that includes those Americans who have given up looking for a job because there are no jobs to be found is 23%.The Federal Reserve, a tool of a small handful of banks, has succeeded in creating the illusion of an economic recovery since June, 2009, by printing trillions of dollars that found their way not into the economy but into the prices of financial assets. Artificially booming stock and bond markets are the presstitute financial media s proof of a booming economy.The handful of learned people that America has left, and it is only a small handful, understand that there has been no recovery from the previous recession and that a new downturn is upon us. John Williams has pointed out that US industrial production, when properly adjusted for inflation, has never recovered its 2008 level, much less its 2000 peak, and has again turned down.The American consumer is exhausted, overwhelmed by debt and lack of income growth. The entire economic policy of America is focused on saving a handful of NY banks, not on saving the American economy.Economists and other Wall Street shills will dismiss the decline in industrial production as America is now a service economy. Economists pretend that these are high-tech services of the New Economy, but in fact waitresses, bartenders, part time retail clerks, and ambulatory health care services have replaced manufacturing and engineering jobs at a fraction of the pay, thus collapsing effective aggregate demand in the US. On occasions when neoliberal economists recognize problems, they blame them on China.It is unclear that the US economy can be revived. To revive the US economy would require the re-regulation of the financial system and the recall of the jobs and US GDP that offshoring gave to foreign countries. It would require, as Michael Hudson demonstrates in his new book, Killing the Host, a revolution in tax policy that would prevent the financial sector from extracting economic surplus and capitalizing it in debt obligations paying interest to the financial sector.The US government, controlled as it is by corrupt economic interests, would never permit policies that impinged on executive bonuses and Wall Street profits. Today US capitalism makes its money by selling out the American economy and the people dependent upon it.In freedom and democracy America, the government and the economy serve interests totally removed from the interests of the American people. The sellout of the American people is protected by a huge canopy of propaganda provided by free market economists and financial presstitutes paid to lie for their living.When America fails, so will Washington s vassal states in Europe, Canada, Australia, and Japan. Unless Washington destroys the world in nuclear war, the world will be remade, and the corrupt and dissolute West will be an insignificant part of the new world.Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West, How America Was Lost, and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order. READ MORE NWO NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire NWO Files | Middle-east | 2016-01-19 | 1 |
| 44882 | Hillary Clinton: ‘Israel First’ (and no peace for Middle East) | Robert Fantina CounterpunchAlthough the United States is still ten months from its next exercise in electoral futility, most polls do not indicate what former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is most anxious to see: a runaway victory for her candidacy. It is a good sign that, despite the fact that she has no real contrasting opponent on the Democratic side, the coronation she expected isn t going to happen.One might say that this writer focuses too much on Mrs. Clinton s adoration of Israel. But by looking at her comments about that apartheid nation, one gets a clear view of some broader, very troubling perspectives that Mrs. Clinton seems to hold.On January 6, an opinion piece appeared in The Jewish Journal, written by Mrs. Clinton. It is a fawning, maudlin essay, typical of the writing of anyone seeking national political office in the U.S. who knows they must pay homage to their Israeli lord and master. A few points from this essay tell much about Mrs. Clinton. I m especially concerned about the new wave of violence inside Israel itself brutal stabbings, shootings, and vehicle attacks that seek to sow fear among the innocent. The number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank alone by settler and IOF (Israel Occupation Force) terrorists is at a ten-year high. Why is Mrs. Clinton not especially concerned about the continuing wave of violence against Palestinians, in an area that even the U.S. says Israel occupies illegally? Do not these vicious attacks seek to sow fear among the innocent ? Only a two-state solution negotiated between the parties can provide Palestinians independence, sovereignty, and dignity, and provide Israelis the secure and recognized borders of a democratic Jewish state. Why, oh why, does Mrs. Clinton continue to make this ridiculous statement? The borders of the Jewish state are recognized by most of the world, including the United Nations, and consist of those determined prior to 1967. There is nothing to negotiate. Does Mrs. Clinton disdain international law? It appears that she feels Israel, like the U.S. in its international dealings, is, indeed, above the law. BIBI FIRST: Hillary Clinton will never tell Israel no .And this writer must point out, once again, that negotiations, which have proceeded on and off for twenty years or so, can only be effective when each side wants something the other has, that it can only obtain by surrendering something it has. Israel wants all of Palestine, and takes it, piece by piece, with complete impunity. Why should Palestine agree to pointless negotiations?Mrs. Clinton refers to the secure and recognized borders of a Jewish state, but does not seem to consider the secure and recognized borders of a Palestinian state. We must continue to fight against global efforts to delegitimize Israel. The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, known as BDS, is the latest front in this battle. BDS demonizes Israeli scientists and intellectuals even young students and compares Israel to South African apartheid. That s wrong and this campaign should end. The most significant efforts to delegitimize Israel are made by Israel itself. Its racist society, wherein Israeli Jews have more rights than anyone else in Israel; its apartheid system of segregation; its complete disdain for the human rights of the Palestinians; the racist, murderous statements made by government officials all further delegitimize the country, and demonize it, and rightly so. Israel is often compared to South African apartheid, and the comparison is valid.And it is not just in the context of Palestine and Israel that Mrs. Clinton demonstrates either gross ignorance, or gross dishonesty. Her essay also contained these pearls of wisdom: We must work with our friends and partners to deny ISIS territory in the Middle East, dismantle the global infrastructure of terror, and toughen our defenses at home. We can t just contain ISIS we must defeat ISIS. Is that really the U.S. s goal? Garikai Chengu, a researcher at Harvard University, suggested in September of 2014 that ISIS is made-in-the-USA, an instrument of terror designed to divide and conquer the oil-rich Middle East and to counter Iran s growing influence in the region. In a June, 2015 column in The Guardian, Associate Editor Seumas Milne said this: [T]he U.S. and its allies weren t only supporting and arming an opposition they knew to be dominated by extreme sectarian groups; they were prepared to countenance the creation of some sort of Islamic state despite the grave danger to Iraq s unity as a Sunni buffer to weaken Syria. Continue this article at Counterpunch READ MORE 2016 ELECTION NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2016 Files | Middle-east | 2016-01-18 | 1 |
| 44883 | McPain: John McCain Furious That Iran Treated US Sailors Well | 21st Century Wire says As 21WIRE reported earlier this week, the unlikely mishap of two US Naval vessels straying into Iranian waters just hours before the President s State of the Union speech, followed by the usual parade of arch-neocons coming on TV in real time to declare the incident as an act of aggression by Iran against the United States is no mere coincidence.24 hours after the incident, the Iranians returned all 11 US sailors, unharmed and in good spirits. The only remaining casualty from this event was an incident of a common condition in Washington known as Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder suffered by a certain US Senator was mortified by the uneventful outcome which followed Daniel McAdams Ron Paul Institute The two US Navy riverine command boats intercepted in Iranian territorial waters yesterday were sent on their way along with the crew of 10 US sailors after brief detention on Iranian soil.According to news reports, the well-armed warships either suffered mechanical or navigational difficulties which caused them to enter Iranian territory (although it may well have been a game of cat-and-mouse to test the Iranian response). The US sailors were apparently treated well, enjoyed what appeared a decent meal in relaxed surroundings, and in the end apologized for the mistake and praised their treatment by the Iranians. Thanks to President Obama s policy shift on Iran toward engagement and away from isolationism, Secretary of State John Kerry was able to telephone his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Zarif and quickly defuse what just months ago would have been a far more serious situation.This should be a good-news story about the value of diplomacy and reducing tensions with adversaries, but Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was having none of it. That Kerry expressed his appreciation to the Iranians for swiftly releasing the American sailors only showed the Obama Administration s craven desire to preserve the dangerous Iranian nuclear deal at all costs evidently knows no limit, said McCain in a press release.McCain was furious that Obama administration officials seem to be falling over themselves to offer praise for Iran s graciousness and was outraged that the Iranians dared interfere with the actions of US military vessels operating in Iranian waters.In the world of John McCain, only the United States has the right to national sovereignty. The US military has the right to act anywhere and everywhere and the rest of the world dare not raise a question.According to McCain, sovereign immune naval vessels are exempt from detention, boarding, or search. Their crews are not subject to detention or arrest. Imagine the tune McCain would have been singing if a well-armed Iranian naval vessel had been spotted in US territorial waters off the coast of New York. Would he have so rigorously condemned any US interference in the actions of Iran s sovereign naval vessels?Leave it to some clever Twitterers to post an example of the difference between US and Iranian detention.Copyright 2016 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.READ MORE JOHN MCCAIN NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire McPain Files | Middle-east | 2016-01-16 | 1 |
| 44884 | JUSTICE? Yahoo Settles E-mail Privacy Class-action: $4M for Lawyers, $0 for Users | 21st Century Wire says It s a familiar theme. Whenever there is a dispute or a change of law, and two tribes go to war, there is normally only one real winner after the tribulation the lawyers. Ars TechnicaIn late 2013, Yahoo was hit with six lawsuits over its practice of using automated scans of e-mail to produce targeted ads. The cases, which were consolidated in federal court, all argued that the privacy rights of non-Yahoo users, who did not consent to Yahoo s interception and scanning of their emails, were being violated by a multi-billion dollar company.Now, lawyers representing the plaintiffs are singing a different tune. Last week, they asked US District Judge Lucy Koh to accept a proposed settlement (PDF). Under the proposal, the massive class of non-Yahoo users won t get any payment, but the class lawyers at Girard Gibbs and Kaplan Fox intend to ask for up to $4 million in fees. (The ultimate amount of fees will be up to the judge, but Yahoo has agreed not to oppose any fee request up to $4 million.)While users won t get any payment, Yahoo will change how it handles user e-mails but it isn t the change that the plaintiffs attorneys were originally asking for. Yahoo won t stop scanning e-mails. Instead, the company has agreed to make a technical change to when it scans e-mails. In the settlement (PDF), Yahoo has agreed that e-mail content will be only sent to servers for analysis for advertising purposes after a Yahoo Mail user can access the email in his or her inbox. The settlement deal looks pretty similar to what Yahoo had argued it did in the first place Continue this story at Ars TechnicaREAD MORE NSA NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire NSA Files | Middle-east | 2016-01-16 | 1 |
| 44885 | Sunnistan: US and Allied ‘Safe Zone’ Plan to Take Territorial Booty in Northern Syria | Patrick Henningsen 21st Century WireRemember when the Obama Administration told the world how it hoped to identify 5,000 reliable non-jihadist moderate rebels hanging out in Turkey and Jordan, who might want to fight for Washington in Syria? After all the drama over its infamous train and equip program to create their own Arab army in Syria, they want to give it another try.This week, Pentagon officials announced their new plan to train up to 7,000 more moderate fighters, but this time the project would take place inside Syria (and to hell with international law).We re told that this was requested by Ankara, and with all NATO allies singing the same hymn claiming that this new effort will help in securing Turkey s porous border with Syria, or so the story goes. Washington s political cover for this is fashioned from the popular post-Paris theme: to protect civilized Europe from invading hordes and the terrorists who hide among them, as stated in the Wall Street Journal: The program would address part of the tense and long-running dialogue between Washington and Ankara over sealing the border, which Western governments have long complained is an avenue for extremists to leave Syria and travel internationally, The timing of this announcement seemed uncanny against the backdrop of an unlikely ISIS suicide bomb terrorist attack, in Turkey, of all places, where the victims just happened to be 14 German tourists, feeding perfectly into Europe s new binary fear set of terrorism and immigration. Shades of GLADIO, undoubtedly (but you won t see western journalists entertaining such conspiracy theories).Our friends at Nation Builders Inc are banking on the global public suffering from Syria fatigue, but now is the time to really pay attention. The west s real agenda for the region is starting to unfold Despite all of US-led Coalition s scandals, lies, epic failures, false flags and official conspiracy theories, the mainstream narrative on Syria persists. It s on our TV screens and in our newspapers constantly from Los Angeles to London, from Paris to Riyadh, every politician and pundit seems to have an opinion about, what to do with Syria? Everyone, except the Syria people themselves, who like the people of Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen and ever other country that s found itself under the cleaver of western interests are never afforded any say in their own destiny. As is tradition in Washington, London and Paris, the only Syrian voices which count are the ones who have been hand-picked by western technocrats and approved by the Saudi royal family to form their ever-changing recognized government-in-exile, the Syrian National Council. Currently, that could be Riad Hijab, George Sabra or Khaled Khoja. Next week, it could be three others, depending on who has fallen in, or out of favor with Washington or Riyadh.To anyone who was listening close enough early on in the conflict, you would have heard determined members of the western-backed Syrian Opposition admitting how they would, make a deal with the devil if that s what it takes to win power. Four years later, we now see that is exactly what happened, but whether you believe that this devil is US-led Coalition, or terrorist armies fighting groups (or both) might be cause for debate. Others will argue over which is the bigger devil is it the Wahabist-Salafist terrorist brigades like al Nusra Front and Islamic State, or is it the West and its GCC partners?The unfortunate reality is that these two devils are not mutually exclusive. The West and its partners not only created this terror crisis, but did so with the intent of unveiling a grand solution to the problem.Plans A-ZThe terrorist enclave in Syria is designed for purpose to implant a hostile metastasis right in the middle of the very territory which neocolonial powers plan to tear away from the barely sovereign nations of Iraq and Syria.Since 2011, the western-led cartel has deployed various levels of international subterfuge in Syria, starting with Plan A: the Arab Spring method igniting a popular street uprising that might capture the world s attention for 15 minutes enough to generate some high-quality evocative imagery and a social media storm to carry memes of liberty around the globe, inspiring the people on the streets (and on Twitter) to demand change . Their cries for freedom would then be backed up by the US State Department, along with its functionaries at Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International America, and other Open Society Institute-funded NGOs and human rights organizations. Obviously, this did not work. Next, Plan B: the political opposition suddenly transcended into an armed, paramilitary opposition, followed by brutal violence and killing on both sides. The US and its allies wasted no time, pledging weapons, training, cash and logistical support to the armed opposition. The west set up its own parallel government for Syria abroad, but it failed to gain any traction with the Syria people. Then came Plan C: this opposition would be quickly overrun and absorbed into a massive array of mostly foreign jihadi and mercenary soldiers of misfortune and other assorted terrorists. This fed into an already established War on Terror western narrative. Now the west had a familiar entry point into the fight. The Washington-London-Paris-Tel-Aviv-Riyadh-Doha-Ankara Axis hoped that these terrorists would do the job of overthrowing the government of Bashar al Assad in Damascus, and collapse the country into a spirally pit of sectarian and tribal chaos. Who could blame them? After all, it worked in Libya in late 2011.Fast forward to 2016, having failed to overthrow Assad and implode the nation-state of Syria, the men and women of Nation Builders Inc and their muscles in Brussels (NATO), are quickly moving to Plan D: take territory. That s not to say plans A through D weren t always in the schematics they certainly were, and further back than many people would dare to speculate.We now know from Wikileaks cables that this operation goes back to at least 2006, but in reality, it s probably much earlier than that. Taking the long view of history and the audacious building, and rebuilding, of a Euro-centric empire in the Middle East, one could say the process began the day the Sykes-Picot Agreement was signed in 1916. Concealed between those post-colonial lines drawn exactly 100 years ago, was the latent potential for the very conflicts and uncivil wars we are seeing today. If those borders are redrawn once again, you can be certain that they will be drawn by the very same powers involved a century ago. Whatever the arrangement, it will be to weaken, not strengthen the region, and certainly not strengthen any of the present nation states in the region, especially Syria. Proprietary powers will want any new states to be stuck in a perpetual state of neocolonial dependency, with an emphasis on financial and security dependency.Mice and Men21WIRE was one of the first news sources to warn about Washington s initial impulse back in 2014 when it began calling for a No Fly Zone in Northern Syria. It was clear that a problem, reaction, solution dialectic was in play, with ISIS being the object of the public s reaction. That plan might have come to fruition in the fall of 2015, but a funny thing happened on the way to the UN General Assembly in New York City. Later that week, Russia announced that it would be inserting itself, and its Air Force, into the Syrian quagmire, and with that, thwarted any master plan for a US-Turkey (NATO) controlled No Fly Zone along the Turkish-Syrian border. Suffice to say, that Russia already knew NATO s next move and acted accordingly, and with purpose.When asked two days ago about the prospect of the Washington DC latest brainchild, Train and Equip 2.0, this time inside Syria, here were my initial thoughts: We now know why, and it has more to do with what s beneath the sand than what s on top.As any good pirate will tell you if you want to claim your share of the booty, you have to do your share of the killing. The Truth About Train and Equip The previous train and equip program ended with Washington s military brass paraded in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee, before being roundly lambasted for failing to train even a handful of moderate rebels , this after being awarded $500 million by the US taxpayer to get er done. When originally announced amid much fanfare, the public were told that the US government, in conjunction with the CIA, would be arming and training moderate militants in Turkey, Jordan or at a base in Saudi Arabia before sending them to fight inside Syria. Washington claims that these new trainees were meant to fight ISIS, and not the Syrian government forces, but judging by the unwavering regime change rhetoric from the west, it would be highly naive to think that all this was strictly for ISIS.Nine months into the train and equip project, US Army Gen. Lloyd Austin III, acknowledged in Sept. 2015 that they had only managed to get four or five on the battlefield by then. Not one member of the media challenged this statement, probably because most were happy with the answer given one which gave any hawkish critics of the Obama administration the pound of flesh they wanted and served to only intensify more calls before the new year for US boots on the ground in Syria. Doves loved it because it seemed to prove that backing proxies doesn t work, and that the best solution was to call it quits. For the sanguine mainstream media, it served-up that all-too familiar government narrative, of a cock-up, not a cover-up. This is the media s natural default position. In other words, Well, it didn t work out, but that s nothing new with our incompetent government. Nothing to see here, move along. To ask how the money disappeared, or really inquire into how it costs $500 million to train only five men apparently was way too much work for the media. Not one journalist stopped to ask, if only 5 fighters were trained and dispatched, then what happened to the half a billion dollars?The real answer to that question should be self-evident to anyone studying reports on the ground in Syria, and is way too uncomfortable for the US media to stomach that the US train and equip program provided the necessary official cover to allow the prosecution of a dirty war under the table. It wasn t a failure like fall guy Gen. Lloyd Austin will have you believe, it was a success.Judging by the proliferation of heavy weaponry and other lethal arms that have made it into the hands of al Qaeda in Syria (al Nusra Front), ISIS, Jaysh al Islam and others it s clear that Uncle Sam s generous donation of $500 million has definitely been used to equip, if not train, those rebels in Syria.Middle East commentator and analyst Sharmine Narwani explains the West s perennial dilemma when trying to identify who their moderates are in Syria: For years, Washington has insisted there are armed moderate groups in Syria, but have gone to great lengths to avoid naming these moderates. Why? Because if moderates were named and identified, the US would have to be very, very certain that no past, present or future atrocity video would surface to prove otherwise. And the US could not guarantee this with any of the groups they have armed, trained or financed in Syria over the past five years. The next train and equip round will be more focused, and will be used to secure the following The map above is from July 2015, but still represents the current military chessboard in Syria.Safe Zone = Sunnistan Somehow it feels like 1998 all over again, with bad memories of the KLA in Kosovo, imported jihadist fighters in Bosnia, and NATO lording over a newly balkanized region.When you hear US officials like John McCain or clueless Republican presidential candidates like Marco Rubio or Carly Fiorina, all crowing for a Safe Zone in northern Syria, this is what they are referring to (see map above). Their safe zone just so happens to be in the exact same area where ISIS is currently holding court. It s a safe zone alright, but not for refugees and Syrians fleeing the evil Bashar al Assad rather, the safe zone will be for an array of rebel and terrorist fighters, part of a defacto Sunni state-lette in waiting.So the US-led Coalition s safe zone is the very Caliphate that Americans are decrying.For anyone requiring proof that such a grand chessboard is in play in Syria, they need look no further than a set of US airstrikes that took place before Christmas. On December 6, 2015, US fighter bombers struck a Syrian military base located in the village of Ayyash in Deir Ezzor Province, east of Raqqa, which killed 3 Syrian Arab Army (SAA) soldiers and wounded additional others. Naturally, the Pentagon swiftly denied that any such attack took place. What happened after this incident was extremely telling, as explained by global affairs analyst Mike Whitney from Counterpunch Magazine: It s also worth noting, that according to South Front military analysis, the US bombing raid coincided with a a full-scale ISIS offensive on the villages of Ayyash and Bgelia. In other words, the US attack provided sufficient air-cover for ISIS terrorists to carry out their ground operations. Was that part of the plan or was it merely a coincidence? So the US air force was coordinating with ISIS boots on the ground, to achieve a common military objective. But it didn t end there. Less than 24 hours after the attack, US warplanes bombed the village of Al-Khan in north-eastern Syria killing 26 Syrian civilians including at least four women and seven children and four women. The message the US military is sending with these lethal attacks is that it wants to control the air-space over east Syria where it plans to remove ISIS and establish a de facto Sunni state consistent with its scheme to break Syria and Iraq into smaller cantons governed by local warlords, Islamic fanatics, and US puppets. Also taking place at the same moment on Dec 6th, was Turkey s quiet little invasion into northern Iraq, sending hundreds of troops and at least 20 tanks into territory north of Mosul, right between the Kurds and ISIS. It should be noted that this illegal incursion by NATO member Turkey was not approved by the Iraqi government in Baghdad, and Iraqi PM Haider al-Abadi called for Turkey to immediately withdraw its troops. Judging by Washington s silence on the matter, it s obvious that the US gave Turkey its full blessing. Here, Zero Hedge astutely points out the obvious: Most importantly of all, right on what Al-Araby al-Jadeed claims is the smuggling route for illegal ISIS crude into Turkey from Iraq. Not surprisingly, Turkey s sudden move also came at the same time that Russia began to publicly expose Turkey s clandestine role in facilitating the ISIS oil trade, as well as launching airstrikes to destroy ISIS oil convoys moving from Syria into Turkey. And then Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdo an (photo, left) places his military assets at the very location where stolen ISIS oil makes its way from Iraq into Turkey? Hardly a coincidence.Make no mistake, both ends of NATO s military axle, the United States and Turkey, along with their Saudi-backed boots on the ground in ISIS and al Nusra have each made critical strategic moves in unison, and with a specific military purpose each time, nudging towards securing territory. Once each key piece is finally in position, all that is required is a new crisis , either in the region, or in Europe, or in America to allow the Axis powers to move in quickly and take what is needed to implement the next phase of the game, whether that s creating a Kurdish canton, or a Sunni state-lette. Such moves will rarely be covered by the western international media.To be perfectly clear, the terms Sunni and Shia are the favored sectarian lexicon used by Nation Builders Inc and its international partners in Riyadh and Tel Aviv. My intention here is not to reduce the Muslim world down to this paradigm, but the architects of instability will use these terms, over and over in their attempt to both marginalize and dehumanized Muslims for their own selfish ends.What s the safe zone for? As the US-led Coalition steps up its 18 month-long Punch n Judy air operation to supplant ISIS from Raqqa, those western-backed jihadis will later require a safe corridor to flee but still remain connected to their Turkish supply lines. Washington s safe zone would also provide a much-needed safe haven for rebels who have been sent packing by the Syrian government from towns like Homs and others, as part of a painstaking disarming and reconciliation process between the Assad government and opposition rebels who are willing to participate in the program. Once the NATO-GCC Axis has established a mini protectorate inside of Syria, this will provide everything ISIS, al Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham, Turkmens et all will need; a secure launching pad for incursions further inside Syria which will certainly guarantee a longer, protracted conflict in Syria and beyond.This little Sunni wedge is also conveniently located next to a large rebel-terrorist contingent in Syria s northwestern Idlib governorate (province). Syria s border with Turkey has been porous from the beginning of the conflict, so the proposed safe zone will allow Turkey to maintain this status quo where it has been continuously allowing the free-flow of weapons, rebels and terrorist fighters alike, along with oil, narcotics and human trafficking to move freely through its southern border with Syria.If regime change rhetoric is anything to go by, along with turning a blind eye to NATO member Turkey s role in facilitating supply lines and safe passage for al Qaeda and ISIS, then Washington s agenda is fairly transparent here. If they can establish a internationally recognized safe zone and a No-Fly Zone on top of it, central planners believe they will have the platform they need to eventually destroy Damascus, install their own western puppet, and then carve up Syria and northern Iraq accordingly. ISIS RAT-LINES: Black market oil has been a key component to carrying on both conflicts in Syria, and Iraq.For the architects of instability in Washington, one crucial benefit of carving out Sunni territory in both northern and eastern Syria is that available oil will help fund all of their paramilitary and terrorist needs making it sustainable. To guarantee this uninterrupted income stream from black market oil which is presently making its way out of Syria and into Turkey and via Kurdistan, help is required from the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) and other stakeholders, including the British-Turkish firm Genel Energy, just one firm who is providing the end-run to market for illicit ISIS oil. Ditto for a key mover and shaker in Raqqa s new Rockefeller class, Bilal Erdogan, the son of Turkish president, who according to numerous recent reports has already amassed a small fortune from the lucrative oil-for-terror trade.This is a problem, but one which Washington, London and Paris are not overly concerned with, much less upset about. Iraqi, Kurdish and Turkish opposition officials have accused Turkish governments and the KRG of deliberately allowing some of these smuggling operations to take place.Even as provisional state-lettes and cantons are conjured around it, there is no guarantee that Greater Kurdistan will ever see the light of day if Nation Builders Inc having anything to say bout it. The promise of Greater Kurdistan is as important to neocolonialists, than the reality of a Greater Kurdistan. Turkey also has its own interests and ambitions, and a Greater Kurdistan is not compatible with them. Iraq is not crazy about the idea either, because of obvious financial and energy resource reasons. So they remain in limb indefinitely, even as smaller quasi-Kurdish entities sprout up around the KRG. Turkey has its own ongoing Kurdish problem within Turkish borders, so Ankara will naturally view any expressions of Kurdish autonomy around it as a threat and potential inspiration for international Kurdish solidarity. Ruling over the Kurds means keeping them divided, and playing them off against their neighbors.There are those within the Turkish establishment who believe there are old scores still unsettled in reclaiming Turk territory in both Syria and Iraq.SEE ALSO: SPECIAL REPORT: ISIS Oil? Follow the Money (Back to Europe)Here is where Sunnistan proper can emerge, coming into its own once set pieces are in place in Iraq and across Kurdistan, as Mike Whitney explained: So it looks like an agreement has been struck between Turkey, the KRG and the United States to seize parts of northern Iraq and eastern Syria to create a de facto Sunni state that will be jointly-controlled by Ankara and Washington. It also looks like Obama has agreed to use dodgy jihadi-proxies (aka Terrorists) to work alongside US Special Forces to carry out future military operations. So while the effort to remove Assad has been temporarily put on the backburner, the determination to destroy Syria is as strong as ever. Another dismembered part of old Syria and Iraq which central planners are hoping to hack-off is an area called Rojava (see map above), or Western Kurdistan . This region in northern Syria, formerly known as Syrian Kurdistan, gained its autonomy in November 2013 as part of the ongoing Rojava Revolution. The Kurdish defense forces here are known as the YPG (People s Defense Units) and are not on friendly footing with neighboring Turkey, for a number of reasons, not least of all because YPG defense forces present resistance to both al Nusra and ISIS encroachments into all three Rojava cantons. For Turkey, this is bad for business. How Rojava will factor into Washington s plans is not clear yet, but it occupies the most strategic squares on the chessboard.Make no mistake, the history s actors are all in for this plan. Do not be fooled by talk of peace and stability or humanitarian platitudes from western leaders, the UN, or the fair weather international community.Another indication that these plans have the full backing of the neoconservative illiterati, and Israel too, was PNAC walrus and former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton s recent article in the establishment s daily journal of political posterity, the New York Times, where he states: Today s reality is that Iraq and Syria as we have known them are gone. The Islamic State has carved out a new entity from the post-Ottoman Empire settlement, mobilizing Sunni opposition to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and the Iran-dominated government of Iraq. Also emerging, after years of effort, is a de facto independent Kurdistan. Central planners will happily frame this geopolitical scenario within the preferred theme of Sunni vs Shia sectarian strife in the region, which just happens to suit the interests and desires of both Saudi Arabia and Israel. Bolton confirms this: If, in this context, defeating the Islamic State means restoring to power Mr. Assad in Syria and Iran s puppets in Iraq, that outcome is neither feasible nor desirable. Rather than striving to recreate the post-World War I map, Washington should recognize the new geopolitics. The best alternative to the Islamic State in northeastern Syria and western Iraq is a new, independent Sunni state. Not so fast Mr. Ambassador. The Islamic State is the Sunni State.So for all intents and purposes, he s calling for the establishment of the Caliphate (funny how this goes right over the heads of conservatives ). This is just one of many geostrategic moves which will guarantee instability and military conflict in the region for another 100 years, as well as provide a timely entr e through to Azerbaijan and into Iran, and later towards the Eurasian heartland of Dagestan (Russia s emerging energy center and geographic underbelly).In the meantime, expect to be pelted with endless propaganda about starving children in one town or another, changing week to week with the usual slogans like, we must act now! , and blaming Bashar al Assad for the suffering of his people. It s already wearing thin.Until the US and its NATO-GCC Axis stops flooding Syria and the region with weapons and terrorist fighters, and continues its policy of toppling secular nation-states then any attempt at holding peace talks will end up back at square one, and stand as another exercise in futility.If the Syrian conflict has been good for one thing (and that s not to say it has), it s that the scripted western narrative, in all of its variations, has finally hit the wall of truth.***Author Patrick Henningsen is a writer, lecturer and global affairs analyst for international TV and radio. He is also the founder and co-editor of 21stCenturyWire.com.READ MORE SYRIA NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Syria Files | Middle-east | 2016-01-15 | 1 |
| 44886 | How to Blow $700 Million: Al Jazeera America Finally Calls it Quits | 21st Century Wire says Al Jazeera America will go down in history as one of the biggest failures in broadcast media history.Ever since the US and its allies began plotting to overthrow Libya and Syria, Al Jazeera has deteriorated from a promising international news network in 2003 into what it has become in 2016 a full-blown agit prop media shop for the US State Department and the Pentagon. In fact, US Military Central Command (CENTCOM) for the Middle East region is located in Qatar s capital of Doha, conveniently located just down the road from Al Jazeera s headquarters. Nice and cozy.Al Jazeera s role in promoting regime change and the destablization of Syria is now recorded history, as are its many shameful exhibitions of media fakery.The Qatari royals tried to expand propaganda operations into North America, but no matter how much money they threw at it (and those royals just love throwing money at things to try and get them to work), no one cared about it, much less watched it. I know this will be a massive disappointment for everyone here who has worked tirelessly for our long-term future. The decision that has been made is in no way because AJAM has done anything but a great job, reads a company email from CEO Al Anstey, obtained by Politico.Indeed, they tried everything it seems, just short of paying Americans to watch their programs Al Jazeera America to close down https://t.co/EmFjBw9uC1 pic.twitter.com/HDea8ujTPt Al Jazeera America (@ajam) January 13, 2016In 2012, the Qatari-owned Al Jazeera purchased Current TV from Al Gore for an inflated $500 million. Wait, it gets worse MONEY FOR NOTHING: Gore got fat off the AJAM deal.In addition to the $500 million which Doha blew on buying Gore s lemon, Current TV, the Qataris have spent at least $50 million per year between 2012 2015, along with many millions spent on advertising AJAM on other network slots, online ads, along with billboards and print media promotions. This was the Qataris easy ticket on to US cable and satellite networks. Boy, did Gore pull a fast one there. In total, you would be looking at $700 million for the whole party. At its apex, AJAM would be lucky to pull in 30,000 viewers during prime time which really amounts to a nothing market share.With all that money, and considering the hundreds of staff and media executives and producers they employed, it s safe to say that someone(s) did not have a clue what they were doing.What a colossal joke.On the bright side, the Qataris can always blame the collapse in oil prices for their lack of spare cash to fund their propaganda mills.READ MORE MAINSTREAM MEDIA EPIC FAILS AT: 21st Century Wire MSM Watch | Middle-east | 2016-01-14 | 1 |
| 44887 | 10 U.S. Navy Sailors Held by Iranian Military – Signs of a Neocon Political Stunt | 21st Century Wire says As 21WIRE predicted in its new year s look ahead, we have a new hostage crisis underway.Today, Iranian military forces report that two small riverine U.S. Navy boats were seized in Iranian waters, and are currently being held on Iran s Farsi Island in the Persian Gulf. A total of 10 U.S. Navy personnel, nine men and one woman, have been detained by Iranian authorities. NAVY STRAYED: U.S. Navy patrol boat in the Persian Gulf (Image Source: USNI)According to the Pentagon, the initial narrative is as follows: The sailors were on a training mission around noon ET when their boat experienced mechanical difficulty and drifted into Iranian-claimed waters and were detained by the Iranian Coast Guard, officials added. The story has since been slightly revised by White House spokesman Josh Earnest to follow this narrative:The 2 boats were traveling en route from Kuwait to Bahrain, when they were stopped and detained by the Iranians.According to USNI, search and rescue teams from the Harry S. Truman Strike group were scrambled to aid the crew but stopped short after the crew was taken by the Iranians. We have been in contact with Iran and have received assurances that the crew and the vessels will be returned promptly, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told AP. According to Persian Gulf TV: Farsi Island is one of the Iranian islands in the Persian Gulf, Bushehr province of Iran. There is an IRGC Navy base on this Island. The island has an area of about 0.25 km and is completely restricted to public, due to top secret governmental activities. According to NBC News, U.S. State Department is in touch with Tehran officials and the Iranians recognize that the U.S. Navy straying off course was a mistake, and that the sailors will be released within hours. WAR INC: CNN s Wolf Blitzer wasted no time in ramping-up talk of military tension with Israeli-financed neocon Senator Tom Cotton.Neocon StuntAlready, the U.S. media, including CNN and FOX, are running with the talking point that, this could not have come at a worse time for President Obama right before tonight s State Of Union speech, when he s trying to prove to the American people that Iran is a country that can be trusted to implement the historic nuclear deal. This latest Naval controversy also comes days before the implementation phase of the Iran Nuclear Deal. To say this is a coincidence might be naive.That said, could GOP and Israel-aligned members of the Pentagon or intelligence establishment have helped to engineer today s bizarre mini-crisis in order to help weaken U.S.-Iran relations, and by extension, Obama s controversial Iranian Nuclear Deal?This looks likely to be the case, as evidenced by the quick appearance of the Israel Lobby-sponsored, pro-war U.S. Senator Tom Cotton (R), placed by CNN to direct aggressive U.S. military talking points live on air as the story broke today. Cotton (photo, left) immediately called the event hostile and blamed Iran for the U.S. boat drifting into Iranian waters, and then blamed the crisis on President Obama, who he claims, has emboldened the Iranian aggression. Cotton then goes on to tell a giant lie, on which his media handler, CNN s Wolf Blitzer, does not even blink, much less challenge Cotton s imaginary statement: The Iranians, who are largely responsible for killing our (American) soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Cotton then went on to threaten Iran, saying that: These sailors and both vessels need to be immediately released. If they are not released, then the Iran (nuclear) deal should not go forward, and military force will be on the table to retaliate for this act of aggression. Cotton then proceeded to give a veiled (nuclear?) threat to Iran, saying that, All (military) options should be on the table. Would Washington s top operatives go so far as to engineer or exacerbate an international crisis such as this by dispatching the boats off course, knowing full-well that Iran would not harm U.S. personnel, but using the incident to injure a lame duck? The answer is yes , and they ve done it before In 1979, 52 American diplomats and citizens were held hostage for 444 days in what became known as the Iranian Hostage Crisis, which just happened to take place during a US presidential election cycle, with then president Jimmy Carter (D) running for reelection against challenger Ronald Reagan (R). The crisis, including a horrific failed rescue attempt, was used against Carter in the media. According to reports at the time Reagan campaign operatives had managed to do a backdoor deal with the elements of the new Iranian regime to hold-off releasing the hostages until after the election. In the end, Reagan won and took credit for that victory .Not surprisingly, at the end of his prearranged CNN segment, Cotton invoked the feckless foreign policy of Jimmy Carter which caused the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis, and compared that to President Obama s current policy.Of all the U.S. Officials CNN could have brought in on short notice , they chose Senator Tom Cotton, the most hawkish and closest aligned to Israel. Clearly, this looks like a neocon stunt.Stay tuned for more updates.READ MORE IRAN NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Iran Files | Middle-east | 2016-01-12 | 1 |
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| 55 | Highlights: The Trump presidency on April 13 at 9:30 P.M. EDT/0130 GMT on Friday | (Reuters) - Highlights for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday: The United States drops a massive GBU-43 bomb, the largest non-nuclear bomb it has ever used in combat, in Afghanistan against a series of caves used by Islamic State militants, the Pentagon says. Trump says Pyongyang is a problem that “will be taken care of” amid speculation that North Korea is on the verge of a sixth nuclear test. Military force cannot resolve tension over North Korea, China warns, while an influential Chinese newspaper urges Pyongyang to halt its nuclear program in exchange for Beijing’s protection. The Trump administration is focusing its North Korea strategy on tougher economic sanctions, possibly including intercepting cargo ships and punishing Chinese banks doing business with Pyongyang, U.S. officials say. Trump says “things will work out fine” between the United States and Russia, a day after declaring U.S.-Russian relations may be at an all-time low. Trump signals he could be moving closer to the mainstream on monetary policy, saying he has not ruled out reappointment of Janet Yellen as Federal Reserve chair as he considers his choices for the U.S. central bank. [nL1N1HL14B] Trump signs a resolution that will allow U.S. states to restrict how federal funds for contraception and reproductive health are spent, a move cheered by anti-abortion campaigners. Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen presses Deutsche Bank to release information about issues including Trump’s debt and any bank meetings with Trump administration officials, saying he has “great concern” about possible conflicts of interest. EXPORT-IMPORT BANK Trump’s office says he plans to revive the hobbled Export-Import Bank of the United States, a victory for American manufacturers such as Boeing Co and General Electric Co that have overseas customers that use the agency’s government-backed loans to purchase their products. Top Wall Street bankers say they are having positive discussions about financial regulation in Washington, and downplay the idea U.S. policymakers may force their institutions to split up. The United States is pushing for trade to be a key issue in top-level economic talks with Japan, a source says, an unwelcome development for Tokyo, which is seeking to fend off U.S. pressure to reduce the bilateral trade imbalance. Trump’s administration has focused on one group of illegal immigrants more than others: women with children, according to eight Department of Homeland Security officials interviewed by Reuters about agency planning. | politicsNews | 2017-04-13 | 0 | 8 |
| 56 | Highlights: The Trump presidency on April 21 at 6:12 p.m. EDT/2212 GMT | (Reuters) - Highlights for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday: Trump promises a big announcement about tax reform next week and orders an administration review of Obama-era tax rules written to discourage U.S. companies from relocating overseas to cut their tax bills. Trump tells the Treasury Department to examine two powers given to regulators to police large financial companies following the 2008 financial crisis. South Korea says it is on heightened alert ahead of another important anniversary in North Korea, with a large concentration of military hardware amassed on both sides of the border amid concerns about a new nuclear test by Pyongyang. Trump, striving to make good on a top campaign promise, is pushing fellow Republicans who control Congress to pass revamped healthcare legislation but the same intraparty squabbling that torpedoed it last month could do it again. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says Syria has dispersed its warplanes in recent days and that it retains chemical weapons, an issue he says will have to be taken up diplomatically. The Department of Justice threatens to cut off funding to California as well as eight cities and counties across the United States, escalating a Trump administration crackdown on so-called “sanctuary cities” that do not cooperate with federal immigration authorities. The United States will not make an exception for American companies, including oil major Exxon Mobil Corp, seeking to drill in areas prohibited by U.S. sanctions on Russia, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says. Trump and his fellow Republicans who control Congress face their first major budget test next week, with the threat of a government shutdown potentially hinging on his proposed Mexican border wall as well as Obamacare funding. The House of Representatives Intelligence Committee says it has invited FBI, National Security Agency and Obama administration officials to testify as it restarts its investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres meets with Trump at the White House for the first time since both took office earlier this year and amid a U.S. push to cut funding to the world body and its agencies. The United States has offered to help fund Mexico’s efforts to eradicate opium poppies, a U.S. official says, as Mexican heroin output increased again last year. | politicsNews | 2017-04-21 | 0 | 5 |
| 59 | Highlights: The Trump presidency on March 31 at 6:19 p.m. EDT | (Reuters) - Highlights of the day for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday: Trump backs a decision by his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, to seek immunity in congressional investigations of possible ties between his campaign and Russia, but there is no immediate sign the request will be granted. The Trump administration slams China on a range of trade issues from its chronic industrial overcapacity to forced technology transfers and longstanding bans on U.S. beef and electronic payment services. Beijing seeks to play down tensions with the United States and put on a positive face ahead of President Xi Jinping’s first meeting with Trump next week. Senate Democrats step closer to having enough votes to block a confirmation vote on Trump’s Supreme Court nominee with three more Democratic senators coming out against Neil Gorsuch for the lifetime job as a justice. Trump seeks to push his plan for fair trade and more manufacturing jobs back to the top of his agenda by ordering a study into the causes of U.S. trade deficits and a clampdown on import duty evasion. Trump has neither a clear White House tax plan nor adequate staff yet to see through a planned tax overhaul, according to interviews with people in the administration, in Congress and among U.S. tax experts. Democrats are trying to counter Trump’s boldest move yet to defang the U.S. consumer financial watchdog, with 40 current and former lawmakers defending the agency in court. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific integrity watchdog is reviewing whether EPA chief Scott Pruitt violated the agency’s policies when he said in a television interview he does not believe carbon dioxide is driving global climate change, according to an email seen by Reuters. Trump will seek to rebuild the U.S. relationship with Egypt at a meeting on Monday with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi focused on security issues and military aid, a senior White House official says. Trump will host Jordan’s King Abdullah at the White House next week to discuss the fight against Islamic State militants, the Syria crisis and advancing peace between Israelis and Palestinians, the White House says. A U.S. judge approves a $25 million settlement to resolve a class action lawsuit that claimed fraud against Trump and his Trump University real estate seminars. | politicsNews | 2017-03-31 | 0 | 5 |
| 57 | Highlights: The Trump presidency on April 26 at 9:12 P.M. EDT/0112 GMT on April 27 | (Reuters) - Highlights for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday: Trump proposes slashing tax rates for businesses and on overseas corporate profits returned to the country in a plan greeted as an opening gambit by his fellow Republicans in Congress. Trump’s plan could shift the U.S. economy into higher gear but could have one effect the White House would not welcome — interest rates ratcheted higher than expected by a wary central bank. The Trump tax cut will generate growth but not nearly enough to replace trillions of dollars in lost revenues, while rising deficits could even take back some of the economic gains, fiscal experts say. Congress inches toward a deal to fund the government through September but is preparing to possibly extend a midnight Friday deadline in order to wrap up negotiations and avoid an imminent government shutdown. Trump is considering issuing an executive order to pull the United States from the North American Free Trade Agreement, an administration official says, a move that could unravel one of the world’s biggest trading blocs. Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau discuss bilateral trade in their second conversation in as many days amid strains over softwood lumber and dairy. The Trump administration says it aims to push North Korea into dismantling its nuclear and missile programs through tougher international sanctions and diplomatic pressure, and remains open to negotiations to bring that about. Trump gives the military the authority to reset a confusing system of troop limits in Iraq and Syria that critics say allows the White House to micro-manage battlefield decisions and ultimately obscures the real number of U.S. forces. Trump signs an executive order to allow national monument designations to be rescinded or reduce the size of sites as the administration pushes to open more federal land to drilling, mining and other development. Trump orders Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to review the government role in school policy, which supporters cheer as a step in creating more local control in education and critics worry it could lead to lower quality schools in poorer neighborhoods. Israel’s intelligence minister says his country wants an “understanding” with the Trump administration that Iran must not be allowed to establish a permanent military foothold in Syria. | politicsNews | 2017-04-26 | 0 | 3 |
| 0 | 'Nuclear option' fallout? More extreme U.S. justices, experts say | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Republican-backed Senate rule change expected on Thursday could make it more likely that presidents will pick ideologically extreme U.S. Supreme Court nominees with little incentive to choose centrist justices, experts said. With a deep partisan divide in Washington, Democrats are using a procedural tactic called a filibuster to try to block confirmation of President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch in the Republican-led Senate. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has threatened to change long-standing rules in the 100-seat Senate if the Democrats succeed with the filibuster in order to prohibit the tactic against Supreme Court nominees. That would mean such nominees could be confirmed by a simple majority rather than needing to first muster a 60-vote super-majority. Experts said the rule change, called the “nuclear option,” could produce an ever-more ideologically polarized Supreme Court. Over the years with the Senate narrowly divided, the filibuster rule has meant that presidents have needed to make appointments who could win at least a few votes from the other party. For the court, the prospect of a filibuster has shaped the way presidents pick nominees, said Stephen Wermiel, a Supreme Court scholar at the American University Washington College of Law. “Although it has not been widely used, the idea that it was there as a deterrent to presidents appointing justices who might be considered extreme has been a significant factor,” Wermiel said. Republican Senator John McCain, a defender of Senate traditions, warned of the consequences of the rule change, though he said he would reluctantly support the move. “We will see more and more nominees from the extremes of both left and right,” McCain said. “I do not see how that will ensure a fair and impartial judiciary. In fact, I think the opposite will be true, and Americans will no longer be confident of equal protection under the law.” Republican Senator Lindsay Graham said Supreme Court nominees “are going to be more ideological, not less” with the rule change, which he warily supported. The nuclear option would erase “the last shred of bipartisanship in the Senate confirmation process,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, who led the filibuster against Gorsuch. Elimination of the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees could matter most with the next vacancy on the nine-seat court after Gorsuch, who was nominated by Trump to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died last year. Three current justices are 78 or older: liberal Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 84; conservative Anthony Kennedy, who sometimes sides with the court’s liberals in big cases, is 80; and liberal Stephen Breyer is 78. Having more justices who are ideologically extreme would make compromise among them harder and lead to rulings the public may view as based more on a political agenda than the law, said University of Massachusetts, Amherst political science professor Paul Collins, co-author of a book on Supreme Court confirmation hearings. If confirmed as expected on Friday, Gorsuch would restore the court’s 5-4 conservative majority. Overturning the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide may become more likely if there is no filibuster to moderate the choice of future court nominees, Wermiel said. Without a filibuster, a future Democratic president with a Democratic-led Senate could feel free to name a justice from the dogmatic left. The result would be a court even more polarized than the current one already is perceived to be, said Brookings Institution think tank expert Russell Wheeler said. “An ideologically-driven administration would eschew middle-of-the-road judges,” Wheeler said. “They would stack the court with ideological soulmates.” Trump advisor Leonard Leo said the best way to avoid extreme nominees is through the electoral process. Trump made it clear during the 2016 presidential campaign he would pick from a list of potential Supreme Court nominees that he made public, and the voters elected Trump, Leo said. “People knew or should have known what they were getting when he was elected president,” Leo said. | politicsNews | 2017-04-06 | 0 | 2 |
| 1 | After U.S. veto, U.N. General Assembly to meet on Jerusalem status | UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The 193-member United Nations General Assembly will hold a rare emergency special session on Thursday at the request of Arab and Muslim states on U.S. President Donald Trump s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel s capital, sparking a warning from Washington that it will take names. Palestinian U.N. envoy Riyad Mansour said the General Assembly would vote on a draft resolution calling for Trump s declaration to be withdrawn, which was vetoed by the United States in the 15-member U.N. Security Council on Monday. The remaining 14 Security Council members voted in favor of the Egyptian-drafted resolution, which did not specifically mention the United States or Trump but which expressed deep regret at recent decisions concerning the status of Jerusalem. Mansour said on Monday he hoped there would be overwhelming support in the General Assembly for the resolution. Such a vote is non-binding, but carries political weight. U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley, in a letter to dozens of U.N. states on Tuesday seen by Reuters, warned that the United States would remember those who voted for the resolution criticizing the U.S. decision. The president will be watching this vote carefully and has requested I report back on those countries who voted against us. We will take note of each and every vote on this issue, Haley wrote. She echoed that call in a Twitter post: The U.S. will be taking names. Under a 1950 resolution, an emergency special session can be called for the General Assembly to consider a matter with a view to making appropriate recommendations to members for collective measures if the Security Council fails to act. Only 10 such sessions have been convened, and the last time the General Assembly met in such a session was in 2009 on occupied East Jerusalem and Palestinian territories. Thursday s meeting will be a resumption of that session. Trump abruptly reversed decades of U.S. policy this month when he recognized Jerusalem as Israel s capital, generating outrage from Palestinians and the Arab world and concern among Washington s Western allies. Trump also plans to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. The draft U.N. resolution calls on all countries to refrain from establishing diplomatic missions in Jerusalem. Haley said on Monday that the resolution was vetoed in the Security Council in defense of U.S. sovereignty and the U.S. role in the Middle East peace process. She criticized it as an insult to Washington and an embarrassment to council members. Israel considers Jerusalem its eternal and indivisible capital and wants all embassies based there. Palestinians want the capital of an independent Palestinian state to be in the city s eastern sector, which Israel captured in a 1967 war and annexed in a move never recognized internationally. | worldnews | 2017-12-19 | 0 | 2 |
| 2 | Another U.S. appeals court refuses to revive Trump travel ban | SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump suffered another legal setback on Monday as a second federal appeals court refused to revive his travel ban on people entering the United States from six Muslim-majority nations in a dispute headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals used narrow grounds to reject the Trump administration’s bid to undo a Hawaii federal judge’s decision blocking the temporary ban. It said the Republican president’s March 6 order violated existing immigration law. But the three-judge panel - all Democratic appointees - did not address whether it was unconstitutional discrimination against Muslims. A second court, the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, on May 25 upheld a Maryland judge’s ruling that also blocked Trump’s 90-day ban on travelers from Libya, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The 4th Circuit had ruled that the ban, which replaced an earlier Jan. 27 one also blocked by the courts, “drips with religious intolerance, animus and discrimination” aimed at Muslims. The 9th Circuit largely left in place a nationwide injunction by Judge Derrick Watson that stopped parts of the order, which Trump said was urgently needed to prevent terrorism in the United States. That ruling came in a lawsuit challenging the order brought by the state of Hawaii, which stated the ban would harm its universities and tourism industry. Even before Monday’s ruling, the case was on the fast track to the Supreme Court, where the administration on June 1 filed an emergency request seeking to reinstate the order and hear its appeal of the 4th Circuit ruling. The Supreme Court could act on the administration’s request as soon as this week. Trump has been on the losing side in all four court rulings on the March order. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the administration is reviewing Monday’s decision and expressed continued confidence that the order is fully lawful and ultimately will be upheld by the Supreme Court. “I think we can all attest that these are very dangerous times and we need every available tool at our disposal to prevent terrorists from entering the United States and committing acts of bloodshed and violence,” Spicer told a briefing. The 9th Circuit upheld the block on Trump’s three-month travel ban for the six countries and four-month suspension of all refugee admissions. But the court pared back part of Watson’s injunction in order to allow the government to conduct internal reviews on vetting procedures for these travelers. The administration said the travel ban was needed to allow time to implement stronger vetting measures, although it has already rolled out some new requirements not blocked by courts, including additional questions for visa applicants. Rather than focusing on Trump campaign statements as the Virginia-based court did, the 9th Circuit said the language in the executive order itself did not make a rational case for why a travel ban was needed. “The order does not offer a sufficient justification to suspend the entry of more than 180 million people on the basis of nationality,” the court wrote, referring the combined populations of the six countries. Under immigration law, the administration was required to make findings that entry of the people in question would be detrimental to the United States but failed to do so, the court said. Stephen Vladeck, a professor at University of Texas School of Law, said the 9th Circuit provided an easier path for the Supreme Court to keep the travel ban on hold, because it avoided entirely the controversy over Trump’s campaign statements. “It provides a very attractive way to leave the injunction in place without setting broader doctrinal rules about which they may have pause,” Vladeck said. Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” Monday was the deadline for the ban’s challengers to respond to the administration’s request that the order be allowed to go into effect. The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents people challenging the ban in the separate Maryland suit handled by the 4th Circuit, filed court papers urging the court not to take up the case, saying the order will become moot on Wednesday, 90 days from when Trump issued it. Lawyers for Hawaii called the order a “thinly veiled Muslim ban.” Trump’s earlier Jan. 27 order also included Iraq among the countries targeted and a total ban on refugees from Syria. The March order was intended to overcome the legal issues posed by the original ban, but was blocked before it could go into effect on March 16. The suits by Hawaii and the Maryland challengers argued that the order violated federal immigration law and a section of the Constitution’s First Amendment that prohibits the government from favoring or disfavoring any particular religion. Hawaii’s court papers mentioned a series of Trump Twitter posts on June 5. Trump described the order as a “watered down, politically correct” version of his original one. | politicsNews | 2017-06-12 | 0 | 2 |
| 3 | Arab coalition says will keep Yemen port open; air raids kill at least nine | ADEN (Reuters) - The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen said on Wednesday it would keep the Houthi-controlled Hodeidah port, vital for aid, open for a month despite a fresh missile attack against Riyadh, but it kept up air raids that killed at least nine people. The Western-backed coalition, which controls Yemen s airspace and port access, said last month it would allow humanitarian relief through Hodeidah following a nearly three-week blockade imposed because of a missile attack toward the Saudi capital s international airport. The Saudis say the Red Sea port, which is Yemen s main entry point for food and humanitarian supplies, is also a hub used by the Houthis to bring in weapons, which it accuses Iran of supplying. Tehran denies the charges. On Wednesday, the coalition confirmed it would keep access open to the port despite another missile attack at Riyadh on Tuesday by the Houthis which Saudi forces also intercepted. Keen to maintain humanitarian aid to the brotherly Yemeni people and as a result of intensified inspection measures, the coalition command announces that Hodeidah port will remain open for humanitarian and relief supplies, the coalition said in a statement carried by Saudi state news agency SPA on Wednesday. The Saudi ambassador to Sanaa said the coalition would also allow the provision of four cranes to the port to boost aid deliveries to the war-damaged country. The ambassador, Mohammed al-Jaber, who was speaking in a televised news conference, did not give details on how the cranes would be delivered. Earlier this year, the United Nations said the coalition turned back four cranes the United States donated to the World Food Programme to boost aid operations at Hodeidah. The cranes would have replaced parts of the port s infrastructure destroyed by coalition air strikes in August 2015, damage that forced ships to line up offshore because they could not be unloaded. The coalition said ships bringing in fuel and food would also be allowed to enter for another 30 days while proposals made by the United Nations envoy to Yemen were implemented, it added. The agency did not elaborate on the proposals. But the coalition has been demanding that a U.N. inspection regime agreed in 2015 be further tightened to prevent weapons from reaching the Houthis. SALMAN-TRUMP CALL Saudi state news agency SPA said King Salman discussed in a telephone call with U.S. President Donald Trump ways to hold the Iranian regime accountable for its hostile acts and its involvement in supplying the Houthi militia with missiles to threaten the security of the kingdom and the region . The White House later confirmed the call and said the two leaders agreed on the importance of reinvigorating a political process to end the war in Yemen and that the king briefed Trump on a Saudi plan to alleviate the humanitarian crisis caused by the conflict. Tuesday s missile attack took place as the Houthis marked 1,000 days since the coalition intervened in the Yemen war in March 2015 to try to restore President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after a Houthi advance on his base in Aden forced him to flee. Saudi Arabia said that since the war began the Houthis had fired 83 ballistic missiles toward the kingdom. More than 10,000 people have been killed and a humanitarian crisis unleashed in a conflict which has intensified since former President Ali Abdullah Saleh was killed on Dec. 4. Coalition forces, which are supported by the United States and Britain, meanwhile launched fresh air strikes overnight. Residents said at least nine members of the same family, including at least five children, were killed in one air strike which hit their home in Wadi Khair in southern Yemen s Shabwa province. Coalition aircraft have been providing air support for southern fighters and pro-government troops as part of a push to clear the Houthis from Shabwa and the family were killed in an apparently mistaken attack. Residents also reported that coalition aircraft bombed a new parliament chamber, part of a government compound being built in Sanaa, causing damage but no casualties. The coalition had no immediate comment on the report but says it does not target civilians. Similar air strikes in which civilian homes, markets and hospitals were hit are recurrent in Yemen. On Monday, eight women and two children from the same family died when war planes struck a vehicle returning from a wedding party in Marib, east of Sanaa. | worldnews | 2017-12-20 | 0 | 2 |
| 4 | Australia finds wreck of first Allied submarine to sink in World War One | SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia has discovered the wreck of its first submarine off the coast of Papua New Guinea, authorities said on Thursday, resolving one of the country s oldest naval mysteries after more than a century. The submarine, AE-1, was the first Allied vessel to sink during World War One, while patrolling for German warships in 1914, in circumstances that have never been established. The Australian Navy and several private bodies found the final resting place of the vessel s 35 crew on their 13th attempt, Defence Minister Marise Payne told media. The submarine s disappearance was a tragedy for our then fledgling nation, Payne said, adding that a small commemorative service was held aboard the survey ship that found the wreck and authorities were trying to contact the crew s descendants. It is my hope that what we have done in the last couple of days will now provide relief to the family and descendants of all of those members, said navy chief Vice Admiral Timmy Barrett, adding that the crew had come from Australia, Britain and New Zealand. The authorities did not disclose the wreck s location, except to say it was found off the Duke of York Islands. The governments of Australia and Papua New Guinea said they planned to preserve the site. | worldnews | 2017-12-21 | 0 | 2 |
| 5 | Australian police say car that hit pedestrians in Melbourne was a deliberate act | SYDNEY (Reuters) - A car was deliberately driven into pedestrians in the Australian city of Melbourne on Thursday, injuring up to 14 people, though the motive was not known, police said. We believe based on what we have seen that it is a deliberate act, Victorian Police commander Russell Barrett told media in Melbourne. The motivations are unknown. | worldnews | 2017-12-21 | 0 | 2 |