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Paul Merrell

Federal Judge Rules for Anti-Trump GOP Delegate - NBC News - 0 views

www.nbcnews.com/...unbound-voting-him-rnc-n607461

Republican-convention delegate-voting-rights litigation Trump

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Jul 16 - No Cached
  • A federal judge blocked enforcement Monday of a Virginia law binding delegates to support the primary winner at the nominating convention. It was a victory for Carroll "Beau" Correll, a delegate to the Republican national convention who argued that the law violated his First Amendment rights to vote for his preferred candidate. Correll supported Ted Cruz in the primary, while Donald Trump received the most votes in the state.
  • Paul Merrell on 12 Jul 16
     
    Apparently some Republican delegates have a political death wish. Voting against the winning candidate on the first ballot is poltical suicide.
Paul Merrell

Top spy: Despite intelligence 'war' with Russians, it's too soon to blame them for DNC ... - 0 views

www.politico.com/...dnc-hack-russia-226384

Auction 2016 DNC-hack emails Clapper Russians

shared by Paul Merrell on 31 Jul 16 - No Cached
  • Spy chief James Clapper said Thursday that U.S. intelligence services are facing a "version of war" with Russia — but it's too soon to blame the old Cold War rival for hacking the Democratic National Committee's emails. He said it's also too early to say whether the people who leaked those emails are trying to throw the presidential election to Donald Trump, as Hillary Clinton's campaign has charged. Story Continued Below "I don't think we're quite ready yet to make a call on attribution," Clapper said at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado. "There are just a few usual suspects out there." Additionally, he said, "We don't know enough to ascribe motivation regardless of who it might have been." The reasons for the administration's reluctance to assign blame are a combination of two factors, Clapper said: uncertainty about whether the Russians are the culprits, and the lack of a decision yet on whether the U.S. should "name and shame" them if indeed they committed the cyberattack. No one should be "hyperventilating" about the hack, though, he said. "I'm shocked somebody did some hacking," he said, sarcastically taking the voice of someone who was surprised. "That's never happened before."
  • Paul Merrell on 31 Jul 16
     
    In other words, Clapper is saying that Team Hillary is trying to change the subject from the content of the DNC emails to bl;aming the Russians for the hack, without sufficient evidence to do so. Of course Hillary wants the subject changed. But will she get a way with it?
Gary Edwards

Arnold Ahlert: The Real American Divide - The Patriot Post - 0 views

patriotpost.us/44059

Angelo-Codevilla Ruling-Class Country-Class Patriotism

shared by Gary Edwards on 04 Aug 16 - No Cached
  • Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton provided great examples of the Ruling Class' arrogant mindset. Pelosi believes, as she stated last week, that white, non-college-educated men who vote Republican have “voted against their own economic interests because of guns, because of gays, and because of God — the three G’s, God being the woman’s right to choose.” Clinton was worse. Regarding abortion on demand, she insisted last year that “deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.” In other words, one embraces the progressive elitist viewpoint, or one is a religiously inspired bigot with a passé worldview that must be demolished. Thus it is no surprise these elitists conflate anything that dissents from their globalist agenda as a “world of wall-builders,” who have “already done great damage,” states The Economist. That damage includes the Brexit, the rise of nationalist (read: right-wing) parties, and “more electoral victories for closed-world types who pose the greatest threat since Communism.” In other words, elitists disdain national sovereignty and democratically determined destiny, logical responses to skyrocketing levels of elitist-enabled terrorism and uncontrolled immigration, and deeply felt concerns by non-elitists about a global economy that has devastated millions left behind in its wake.
  • The Ruling Class “solutions” for Country Class problems? “Let goods and investment flow freely, but strengthen the social safety-net to offer support and new opportunities for those whose jobs are destroyed,” The Economist states. “To manage immigration flows better, invest in public infrastructure, ensure that immigrants work and allow for rules that limit surges of people.” Codevilla explains what this really means, noting that “our Ruling Class' first priority in any and all matters, its solution to any and all problems, is to increase the power of the government — meaning those who run it, meaning themselves.” To achieve that end, new laws are longer than ever, “because length is needed to specify how people will be treated unequally.” Thus, these laws become “primarily grants of discretion,” because “all anybody has to know about them is whom they empower.” Codevilla adds, “This defines ‘crony capitalism.’”
  • If that sounds familiar, maybe it’s because WikiLeak emails reveal the DNC granted itself the sole discretion to empower Hillary Clinton’s presidential nomination, right from the beginning. Thus, when Hillary spoke of “bringing people together” during her speech at the convention, it was really about doing so on her and her fellow insiders' terms. And when she promised to get money out of politics, it can be assumed the billions of dollars that have flowed into the Clinton Foundation — dollars that conspicuously align themselves with a number of dubious initiatives — will remain exempt, even as another sham investigation of Clinton behavior conducted by an equally corrupted IRS lends an imprimatur of genuine concern to the spectacle. “If Americans, or at least a majority of them, have not completely lost their own self-regard as a free people, then the November election should turn out to be a referendum on the ‘ruling class,’ and a massive repudiation of Hillary Clinton’s sense of entitlement to be the first woman elected President of the United States,” writes American Thinker’s Salim Mansur. Perhaps. But traditional thinking dies hard. And a corrupt mainstream media — epitomized by CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer and Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger drinking wine and celebrating with Democrat delegates at the convention’s conclusion — isn’t about to jeopardize their own Ruling Class status to provide the Country Class with any potentially unifying political insight. Which brings us to Donald Trump. In exclusive communication with The Patriot Post, Codevilla maintained there were no circumstances under which he could support Hillary or any other Democrat, but his view of Trump “is more unfavorable than ever.” He does, however, grant that Trump “is the lesser of two evils.” He sees both candidates as “identical in their disregard for the U.S. Constitution and in the establishment of a post-republican regime — an empire of the will, by of and for favored sectors of the ruling class.”
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • No doubt Codevilla’s take resonates with millions of Americans appalled by a broken, Ruling Class-dominated political system that produced both candidates. Yet realistically, we are faced with a binary choice, made by either commission or omission. And while Codevilla believes “there is no vehicle for opposition” as yet to a Ruling Class “represented by the establishment of both parties,” our own Mark Alexander warns that “the outcome of the November election will not only determine our president for at least the next four years, but also the composition of the Supreme Court for at least the next quarter-century.” That quarter century could be one in which a constitutionally contemptuous Supreme Court majority appointed by Hillary Clinton makes representative government obsolete, and eliminates any chance, short of armed revolution, for the Country Class to take America back from the Ruling Class. A nation where, as Ayn Rand put it, “The government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission.” A Trump presidency may be nothing more than a distasteful, bite-the-bullet
  • impediment to Ruling Class hegemony. But it is better than no impediment at all.
  • “While most Americans pray to the God who created us in His own image, our Ruling Class prays to themselves as saviors of the planet and as shapers of mankind in their own image.” —from The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It by Angelo Codevilla, 2010. While many still frame the 2016 election in terms of Democrats vs. Republicans, those divisions are losing their meaning. This election could be the first one in which Americans will either choose to continue abiding a globalist Ruling Class and their government-dominant, one-world agenda, or decide that national sovereignty, the Constitution and American exceptionalism and individualism are worth preserving. To be clear, nationalism does not equal protectionism, nativism or Islamophobia, nor is it solely embraced by know-nothing rubes unworthy of serious consideration — despite the ongoing efforts of the Ruling Class to paint it that way. Codevilla calls people who oppose the Ruling Class the Country Class, and he describes it as a diverse, often inharmonious group that “shares above all the desire to be rid of rulers it regards as inept and haughty.”
  • Gary Edwards on 04 Aug 16
     
    ""While most Americans pray to the God who created us in His own image, our Ruling Class prays to themselves as saviors of the planet and as shapers of mankind in their own image." -from The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It by Angelo Codevilla, 2010. While many still frame the 2016 election in terms of Democrats vs. Republicans, those divisions are losing their meaning. This election could be the first one in which Americans will either choose to continue abiding a globalist Ruling Class and their government-dominant, one-world agenda, or decide that national sovereignty, the Constitution and American exceptionalism and individualism are worth preserving. To be clear, nationalism does not equal protectionism, nativism or Islamophobia, nor is it solely embraced by know-nothing rubes unworthy of serious consideration - despite the ongoing efforts of the Ruling Class to paint it that way. Codevilla calls people who oppose the Ruling Class the Country Class, and he describes it as a diverse, often inharmonious group that "shares above all the desire to be rid of rulers it regards as inept and haughty." Ruling Class haughtiness, argues Codevilla, derives from "an educational system that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them remarkably uniform guidance," and engenders "a social canon of judgments about good and evil, complete with secular sacred history, sins … and saints," all conveyed in an "in" language that serves as their "badge of identity." Irrespective of their professions, the Ruling Class is also united by the reality that "their road up included government channels and government money. … Hence, whether formally in government, out of it, or halfway in, America's Ruling Class speaks the language and has the tastes, habits, and tools of bureaucrats." Just as critically, this "fraternity" can only be joined by one who Codevilla says "shares the manners, the tastes, and the i
Paul Merrell

GOP's Last Line of Anti-Trump Defense - Consortiumnews - 0 views

consortiumnews.com/...ast-line-of-anti-trump-defense

Republican-convention delegate-voting-rights litigation Trump

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Jul 16 - No Cached
  • The last-ditch hopes of the Republican Party establishment to block Donald Trump’s presidential nomination may come down to whether the GOP convention frees delegates to vote their consciences on the first ballot, a prospect possibly made more likely by the appointment of two anti-Trump party loyalists to head the Rules Committee. But the rules of any convention are ultimately set by the delegates themselves, meaning that a vote on whether to bind delegates based on the will of voters in state primaries and caucuses likely will be decided by a majority of the delegates in approving or rejecting the proposals of the Rules Committee, a test of whether pledged Trump delegates will remain loyal to the candidate or follow the will of some party establishment figures who still want to stop Trump.
  • Plus, there are some in the “Stop Trump” faction who insist that delegates are free to vote their consciences in any event – regardless of state laws and party rules – a position bolstered by a federal court ruling on Monday blocking a Virginia state law binding delegates to support the primary winner.
  • Paul Merrell on 12 Jul 16
     
    Detailed analysis.
Paul Merrell

Clinton's lead over Trump narrows to less than three points: Reuters/Ipsos poll | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...sa-election-poll-idUSKCN10G2BQ

Auction 2016 polls Hillary Trump

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Aug 16 - No Cached
  • Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's lead over Republican rival Donald Trump narrowed to less than 3 percentage points, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Friday, down from nearly eight points on Monday.About 42 percent of likely voters favored Clinton, to Trump's 39 percent, according to the July 31-Aug. 4 online poll of 1,154 likely voters. The poll had a credibility interval of plus or minus 3 percentage points, meaning that the results suggest the race is roughly even.Among registered voters over the same period, Clinton held a lead of five percentage points, down from eight percentage points on Monday, according to the poll. The reasons behind the shift were unclear.
Paul Merrell

Clinton's third-party headache - POLITICO - 0 views

www.politico.com/...ns-third-party-headache-226700

Auction 2016 polls Hillary Trump Johnson Stein

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Aug 16 - No Cached
  • A raft of new polls out this week carried almost unanimously good news for Hillary Clinton, staking the Democratic presidential nominee to significant leads over Donald Trump. But there’s one potential warning sign in these polls should the race narrow: Clinton’s lead over Trump shrinks when voters are allowed to choose one of the major third-party candidates in the race. Yet the Libertarian Party’s presidential ticket — composed of former GOP Gov. Gary Johnson of New Mexico and former GOP Gov. Bill Weld of Massachusetts — appears to draw more from voters who might otherwise be aligned with Clinton, especially younger voters.Story Continued Below The same is true of Green Party nominee Jill Stein — though to a lesser degree, since Stein doesn’t earn nearly the same level of support as Johnson.
Paul Merrell

A whirlwind day in D.C. showcases Trump's unorthodox views and shifting tone - The Wash... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...5-85a6-2132cf446d0a_story.html

Auction 2016 Trump NATO Asia military-bases

shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Donald Trump endorsed an unabashedly noninterventionist approach to world affairs Monday during a day-long tour of Washington, casting doubt on the need for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and expressing skepticism about a muscular U.S. military presence in Asia. The foreign policy positions — outlined in a meeting with the editorial board of The Washington Post — came on a day when Trump set aside the guerrilla tactics and showman bravado that have powered his campaign to appear as a would-be presidential nominee, explaining his policies, accepting counsel and building bridges to Republican elites.
  • During the hour-long discussion, during which he revealed five of his foreign policy advisers, Trump advocated a light footprint in the world. In spite of unrest in the Middle East and elsewhere, he said, the United States must look inward and steer its resources toward rebuilding the nation’s crumbling infrastructure.
  • “At what point do you say, ‘Hey, we have to take care of ourselves?’ ” Trump said in the editorial board meeting. “I know the outer world exists, and I’ll be very cognizant of that. But at the same time, our country is disintegrating, large sections of it, especially the inner cities.” Trump said U.S. involvement in NATO may need to be significantly diminished in the coming years, breaking with nearly seven decades of consensus in Washington. “We certainly can’t afford to do this anymore,” he said, adding later, “NATO is costing us a fortune, and yes, we’re protecting Europe with NATO, but we’re spending a lot of money.”
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Trump praised George P. Shultz, who served as President Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state, as a model diplomat and, on the subject of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, said America’s allies are “not doing anything.” “Ukraine is a country that affects us far less than it affects other countries in NATO, and yet we’re doing all of the lifting,” Trump said. “They’re not doing anything. And I say: ‘Why is it that Germany’s not dealing with NATO on Ukraine? . . . Why are we always the one that’s leading, potentially, the third world war with Russia?’ ” While the Obama administration has faced pressure from congressional critics who have advocated for a more active U.S. role in supporting Ukraine, the U.S. military has limited its assistance to nonlethal equipment such as vehicles and night-vision gear. European nations have taken the lead in crafting a fragile cease-fire designed to decrease hostility between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists.
  • Trump sounded a similar note in discussing the U.S. presence in the Pacific. He questioned the value of massive military investments in Asia and wondered aloud whether the United States still is capable of being an effective peacekeeping force there. “South Korea is very rich, great industrial country, and yet we’re not reimbursed fairly for what we do,” Trump said. “We’re constantly sending our ships, sending our planes, doing our war games — we’re reimbursed a fraction of what this is all costing.” Such talk is likely to trigger anxiety in South Korea, where a U.S. force of 28,000 has provided a strong deterrent to North Korean threats for decades. Asked whether the United States benefits from its involvement in Asia, Trump replied, “Personally, I don’t think so.” He added: “I think we were a very powerful, very wealthy country. And we’re a poor country now. We’re a debtor nation.”
  • Paul Merrell on 24 Mar 16
     
    "I think we were a very powerful, very wealthy country. And we're a poor country now. We're a debtor nation."
Paul Merrell

White House threatens to veto 9/11 lawsuit bill - CNNPolitics.com - 0 views

edition.cnn.com/...index.html

war & peace 9-11 Saudis legislation sovereign-immunity litigation

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • A bipartisan bill to let families victimized by the 9/11 terrorist attacks sue Saudi Arabia ran into sharp setbacks Monday, as the White House threatened a veto and a GOP senator privately sought to block the measure.The move comes as presidential candidates from both parties are seizing on the legislation to score points with New York voters ahead of Tuesday's critical primary there.And it has pit the likely next Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, squarely against the Obama administration.The White House and State Department are bluntly warning lawmakers not to proceed with the legislation over fears it could have dramatic ramifications for the United States and citizens living abroad to retaliatory lawsuits. The President lands in Riyadh Wednesday for talks with Saudi Arabia over ISIS and Iran at a time of strained relations between the countries, making the bill's timing that much more sensitive.
  • The stepped-up lobbying against the legislation comes as it is coming up against fresh roadblocks on Capitol Hill, with party leaders learning that a GOP senator is objecting to taking up the bill, according to a source familiar with the legislation. The senator's identity has not yet been revealed publicly.Proponents of the measure, for their part, are beginning to intensify their pressure campaign."If Saudi Arabia participated in terrorism, of course they should be able to be sued," Schumer said Monday. "This bill would allow a suit to go forward and victims of terrorism to go to court to determine if the Saudi government participated in terrorist acts. If the Saudis did, they should pay a price."Speaking to reporters Monday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest fired back, warning that it would jeopardize international sovereignty and put the U.S. at "significant risk" if other countries adopted a similar law."It's difficult to imagine a scenario where the President would sign it," Earnest said.
  • The bill, which Schumer and Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas are pushing, would prevent Saudi Arabia and other countries alleged to have terrorist ties from invoking their sovereign immunity in federal court.Saudi Arabia has long denied any role in the 9/11 attacks, but victims' families have repeatedly sought to bring the matter to court, only to be rebuffed after the country has invoked legal immunity allowed under current law."It makes minor adjustments to our laws that would clarify the ability of Americans attacked on U.S. soil to get justice from those who have sponsored that terrorist attack," Cornyn said of the bill, which is entitled the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • As pressure grows on Congress to let 9/11 victims' families pursue their claims against Saudi Arabia in federal court, Saudi officials are quickly pushing back.In a stark warning to members of Congress, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir warned lawmakers last month in Washington that his kingdom would sell $750 billion in U.S. assets, including treasury securities, if the measure became law, sources familiar with the matter told CNN. The development was first reported in The New York Times.Cornyn, however, dismissed the threat.
  • Presidential candidates were also unmoved. Ahead of the New York primary, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders quickly sought to align themselves with the Cornyn-Schumer bill.After Clinton said in a Sunday appearance on ABC that she had to study the bill and would not take a position, a spokesman later said she backs the bill.Sanders, in a statement Sunday night, announced that he supports the bill and called on the Obama administration to declassify the 28 pages of the 9/11 report that could implicate Saudi Arabia. Other presidential candidates jumped into the fray, including GOP front-runner Donald Trump.Appearing on the Joe Piscopo Show, a New York radio program, Trump evinced no concern about Saudi Arabia's threat to sell off U.S. assets."Let 'em sell 'em," Trump said. "No big deal."Trump added: "Hey, look, we protect Saudi Arabia. We protect them for peanuts. If we weren't protecting them, they wouldn't be there for a week."
  • Paul Merrell on 20 Apr 16
     
    Sounds like the bill would also open the doors to suing Israel for 9-11. Could be interesting because that's where much of the evidence points, incliding the all important answer to the question, qui bono (who benefits).  
Paul Merrell

Ted Cruz's Team of Islamophobes « LobeLog - 0 views

lobelog.com/ted-cruzs-team-of-islamophobes

war & peace Auction 2016 Cruz foreign-policy-advisors Islamaphobia

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), one of the three remaining candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, is unveiling his national security team today, and Bloomberg View columnist Eli Lake was able to preview some of its members for his readers this morning. Calling the group “an unlikely team of foreign-policy rivals,” Lake argued that Cruz has chosen a wide array of advisors who hold divergent views with respect to at least one key foreign policy issue: In a year when the Republican Party is breaking apart because of Donald Trump, the only man left with a chance to beat him is trying to build a big tent—by GOP standards—when it comes to foreign affairs. On Thursday, Senator Ted Cruz is set to announce his campaign’s national security advisory team, and it includes many foreign-policy insurgents and a few more establishment types. The list includes conservatives who disagree on one of the most pressing issues facing the next president: defining and confronting radical Islam.
  • This is one way to describe Cruz’s team. Another way would be to say that Cruz has assembled a collection of some of the most prominent Islamophobes in American right-wing circles and balanced them with a group of neoconservatives who only want to go to war against part of the Islamic world, not all of it.
Paul Merrell

Snowden 'Not Afraid' of Being Returned to U.S. From Russia - NBC News - 0 views

www.nbcnews.com/...ng-returned-u-s-russia-n719896

surveillance-state NSA Snowden extradition

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • Edward Snowden says he is "not afraid" of being returned to the U.S. after NBC News reported that intelligence officials have information that Russia is considering turning him over as a "gift" to President Donald Trump.
  • NBC's report Friday cited a senior U.S. official who analyzed a series of highly sensitive intelligence reports detailing Russian deliberations and concluded that a Snowden handover is one of various ploys to "curry favor" with Trump.
  • A second source in the intelligence community confirmed the intelligence about the Russian conversations and noted it has been gathered since the inauguration.
Paul Merrell

Kremlin Denies Claim It Considered Giving Snowden As 'Gift' To Trump - 0 views

www.mintpressnews.com/...224862

surveillance state Snowden extradition

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • Amid reports that Moscow is considering handing over NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden as a “gift” to U.S. President Donald Trump, a Russian government spokesperson said Monday that the Kremlin and the White House have not discussed the matter, Russia’s state TASS agency reported. “No, this issue (Snowden’s fate) was not raised,” presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters Monday, adding that Russian officials have not taken a position on whether Snowden should be extradited to the U.S. or granted Russian citizenship. “The issue was not raised (during the Russian-US contacts),” Peskov said. “At the moment it is not among bilateral issues.” The statement comes after Snowden — who has lived in Russia since 2013, first with one-year temporary asylum then a residence permit — revealed in recent days that he is “not afraid” of being handed over to the United States, where he faces espionage charges for his explosive 2013 leak of documents on secret U.S. mass surveillance programs.
  • However, Snowden also said in an interview with Yahoo News that talk of a possible trade between Moscow and Washington makes him feel “encouraged” because it vindicates him in the face of accusations that he has been a spy for Russia by laying bare the fact that he has always been independent and “worked on behalf of the United States.” “Finally: irrefutable evidence that I never cooperated with Russian intel,” he tweeted on Friday. “No country trades away spies, as the rest would fear they’re next.” In the U.S., Snowden faces charges of theft of government property and violation of the Espionage Act on two counts, which each carry a maximum sentence of 10 years.
  • “What I am proud of,” Snowden told Yahoo News, “is the fact that every decision that I have made I can defend.” Snowden is set to be eligible to apply for Russian citizenship next year, according to his lawyer. Last month, Moscow extended his residence permit, which is now valid until 2020.
  • Paul Merrell on 13 Feb 17
     
    One of the bravest patriots in U.S. history, forced to live abroad. Ain't that life?
Paul Merrell

Trump's Pentagon Budget Boost: Shades of Ronald Reagan « LobeLog - 0 views

lobelog.com/-boost-shades-of-ronald-reagan

war & peace Defense-spending Trump-administration

shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • The last time a president went for a peacetime defense budget increase of the magnitude the Donald is seeking was 1981. Showing no originality, the current office-holder has even borrowed Ronald Reagan’s bumper sticker: “Peace Through Strength”! Holy cow, he even plans to bury this increase in a budget that promises fiscal control, cuts revenues, and slashes domestic spending. Talk about Groundhog Day. David Stockman must be rolling over in his bed (being still alive), recognizing the track marks on newly minted Mick Mulvaney as similar to the ones Cap Weinberger left on his back in 1981. It’s like a bad movie, something Reagan knew well; or, better yet, a bad TV show, which was the leadership preparation for the current chief executive.
  • Paul Merrell on 28 Feb 17
     
    The senior White House official for national security budgets from 1993-1997 devastates Trump's proposed whopping increase in defense spending.
Paul Merrell

Trump signs executive order to slash regulations - 0 views

www.yahoo.com/...tions-151135855--business.html

shared by Paul Merrell on 31 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • President Donald Trump signed an order on Monday that will seek to dramatically pare back federal regulations by requiring agencies to cut two existing regulations for every new rule introduced.
  • Paul Merrell on 31 Jan 17
     
    Idiotic blindness, without examining the need for the repealed rules. Cluestick: most rules are adopted pursuant to an order by Congress or the Courts. Trump's order is at https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/30/presidential-executive-order-reducing-regulation-and-controlling
Paul Merrell

U.S. judges limit Trump immigration order; some officials ignore rulings | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...migration-courts-idUSKBN15D0XG

Trump immigration litigation court-order

shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • U.S. judges in at least five states blocked federal authorities from enforcing President Donald Trump's executive order restricting immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries.However, lawyers representing people covered by the order said some authorities were unwilling on Sunday to follow the judges' rulings.Judges in California, Massachusetts, Virginia and Washington state, each home to international airports, issued their rulings after a similar order was issued on Saturday night by U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly in New York's Brooklyn borough.
Paul Merrell

Japan readies package for Trump to help create 700,000 U.S. jobs | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...-usa-trump-japan-idUSKBN15I0RS

Japan foreign-aid U.S.-infrastructure

shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • Japan is putting together a package it says could generate 700,000 U.S. jobs and help create a $450-billion market, to present to U.S. President Donald Trump next week, government sources familiar with the plans said. The five-part package, to be unveiled when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visits Trump on Feb. 10 in Washington, envisage investments in infrastructure projects such as high-speed trains and cybersecurity, said the sources, who declined to be identified as they were not authorized to speak to the media. Investing in overseas infrastructure projects dovetails with a key plank in Abe’s growth strategy, which is to export "high-quality" infrastructure technology. Japan will invest 17 trillion yen ($150 billion) in public and private funds over 10 years, the sources said. That would include helping develop high-speed railways in the northeastern United States, and the states of Texas and California, and renovating subway and train cars.
  • The package also includes cooperation in global infrastructure investment, joint development of robots and artificial intelligence, and cooperation in cybersecurity and space exploration, among others. The government may tap its foreign exchange reserves account to fund part of the package, the sources said. It may also get funding from megabanks and government-affiliated financial institutions, as well as the Government Pension Investment Fund, the Asahi and other newspapers reported.
  • Paul Merrell on 05 Feb 17
     
    Of course the world's largest economy is incapable of funding its own infrastructure maintenance and development.
Paul Merrell

That 'Valuable Intel' From The Yemen Raid? It Was 10 Years Old : The Two-Way : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...yemen-raid-it-was-10-years-old

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Yemen SEALs botched-raid wars of aggression

shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • A terrorist video released on Friday by the Pentagon to show what it called intelligence gleaned by the recent raid in Yemen actually was made about 10 years ago, it acknowledged. Defense officials canceled a briefing they had called to discuss the value of the information recovered from Yemen and took the video off the website of the U.S. Central Command. They circulated clips from a video that showed how to prepare explosives without knowing it had already been public. However, Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Defense Department spokesman, stuck by the Pentagon's main argument: Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula remains dangerous and wants to recruit and train people to attack the West.
  • "Even though the video is old, it shows their intent," he told reporters. But defense officials declined to release any other, newer intelligence they said was in computers recovered by the American and allied special operations troops who attacked the Yemeni town. The messaging kerfuffle turned an ongoing counterattack into a damp squib. Critics in Congress and within the national security establishment — speaking without identification in press reports — have called the Yemen raid botched. They accused the White House of hurrying troops into an operation with bad intelligence, or pressing commanders to go ahead with a raid after it lost its element of surprise. Spokesman Sean Spicer began to return fire on Thursday: The initial planning began in November, he said, and then the military and intelligence community worked to refine it in the succeeding months through the transition. With a strong case for action, Spicer said, the only thing needed was a moonless night in Yemen, which fell after President Trump's inauguration. Trump ultimately authorized it on Jan. 26. Article continues after sponsorship SEAL Team Six and its partners attacked the AQAP target early on Sunday, as NPR's Alice Fordham and Tom Bowman have detailed. The U.S. says some 14 terrorists were killed in the operation, which also claimed the life of an unknown number of civilians — including women and children — and Navy Chief Special Warfare Operator William Owens. An American MV-22 Osprey aircraft also crash-landed, injuring its crew, and U.S. troops went on to deliberately destroy it to keep it from being compromised.
Paul Merrell

Trump nixes Abrams for No. 2 State Department job: sources | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...usa-trump-abrams-idUSKBN15P2B8

Trump appointments Abrams neocons

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • U.S. President Donald Trump has nixed Elliott Abrams for the No. 2 position at the State Department after learning that the Republican foreign policy veteran had criticized him during the 2016 election campaign, people familiar with the matter said on Friday.Trump decided not to nominate Abrams, who had been the leading candidate for deputy secretary of state, after meeting him at the White House on Tuesday along with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, two sources told Reuters.Abrams, 69, who served in foreign policy roles for presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, was Tillerson’s pick for the job, and the administration’s newly installed top diplomat tried and failed to convince the president to reconsider and offer him the job, one of the sources said.
  • Paul Merrell on 12 Feb 17
     
    Whew! Dodged that neocon bullet.
Paul Merrell

Trump's Proposed Budget Includes Whopping $54 Billion Increase In Defense Spending - 0 views

www.mintpressnews.com/...225328

Trump-administration budget Defense-spending

shared by Paul Merrell on 27 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • The White House says President Donald Trump’s upcoming budget will propose a whopping $54 billion increase in defense spending and impose corresponding cuts to domestic programs and foreign aid. The result is that Trump’s initial budget wouldn’t dent budget deficits projected to run about $500 billion. White House budget officials outlined the information during a telephone call with reporters Monday given on condition of anonymity. The budget officials on the call ignored requests to put the briefing on the record, though Trump on Friday decried the use of anonymous sources by the media. Trump’s defense budget and spending levels for domestic agency operating budgets will be revealed in a partial submission to Congress next month, with proposals on taxes and other programs coming later.
  • The increase of about 10 percent for the Pentagon would fulfill a Trump campaign promise to build up the military. The senior budget official said there will be a large reduction in foreign aid and that most domestic agencies will have to absorb cuts. He did not offer details, but the administration is likely to go after longtime Republican targets like the Environmental Protection Agency. The tentative proposals for the 2018 budget year that begins Oct. 1 are being sent to agencies, which will have a chance to propose changes. In Congress, Democrats and some Republicans are certain to resist the cuts to domestic agencies, and any legislation to implement them would have to overcome a filibuster threat by Senate Democrats. A government shutdown is a real possibility. “It is clear from this budget blueprint that President Trump fully intends to break his promises to working families by taking a meat ax to programs that benefit the middle class,” said Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer of New York. “A cut this steep almost certainly means cuts to agencies that protect consumers from Wall Street excess and protect clean air and water.” The White House says Trump’s budget also won’t make significant changes to Social Security or Medicare.
  • rump’s first major fiscal marker is landing in the agencies one day before his first address to a joint meeting of Congress. For Trump, the prime-time speech is an opportunity to refocus his young presidency on the core economic issues that were a centerpiece of his White House run. The upcoming submission covers the budget year starting on Oct. 1. But first there’s an April 28 deadline to finish up spending bills for the ongoing 2017 budget year, which is almost half over. Any stumble or protracted battle there could risk a government shutdown as well. The March budget plan is also expected to include an immediate infusion of 2017 cash for the Pentagon that’s expected to register about $20 billion or so, and to contain the first wave of funding for Trump’s promised border wall and other initiatives like hiring immigration agents. The president previewed the boost in military spending during a speech Friday to conservative activists, pledging “one of the greatest buildups in American history.” “We will be substantially upgrading all of our military, all of our military, offensive, defensive, everything, bigger and better and stronger than ever before,” he said.
  • Paul Merrell on 27 Feb 17
     
    If we're to have a policy of non-interference, why do we need increase defense spending?
Paul Merrell

McCain, Thornberry: Trump's Proposed Defense Spending Hike Not Enough | Military.com - 0 views

www.military.com/...fense-spending-not-enough.html

Trump-administration budget Defense-spending McCain Thornberry

shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Mar 17 - No Cached
  • The Republican chairmen of the Senate and House armed services committees said Monday that President Donald Trump's proposal to boost defense spending by $54 billion for fiscal year 2018 is not enough. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, are pushing for a $640-billion base defense budget and said the $603-billion proposal unveiled by the White House will not reverse the decline in recent years in spending and military readiness.
  • Paul Merrell on 02 Mar 17
     
    Of course, why didn't I realize that ... So with 100 million Amercians living in povery, we need more to shove more dollars into the pockets of defense contractors to bring us monstroties like the F-35 program? Of course, why didn't I realize that ...?
Paul Merrell

Europe Votes To Impose Visas On Americans | Zero Hedge - 0 views

www.zerohedge.com/...e-votes-impose-visas-americans

Trump EU visa-war

shared by Paul Merrell on 03 Mar 17 - No Cached
  • Donald Trump may soon find himself on the receiving end of a "visa war" that could have dire consequences for trans-Atlantic travel and European tourism. On Thuesday, EU lawmakers voted to force Americans to apply for visas when traveling to Europe in response to Washington refusing to allow all Europeans to travel to the States visa-free.
  • he vote by show of hands was the latest in an ongoing “visa war” between Brussels and Washington DC, which now looks set to come to a head after MEPs today agreed that US nationals crossing the Atlantic should require additional travel documents as long as citizens from five EU countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland and Romania) are kept from entering America without a visa. A European Parliament source told Telegraph Travel this was a “serious negative step in the EU-USA visa war”. Following today's vote, the EU Commission now has two months to reintroduce visas for Americans wishing to travel to Europe, after MEPs agreed the EU is now “legally obliged” to suspend the Visa Waiver Programme (VWP) with the US for a year after the US administration failed to meet a deadline to respond something called visa reciprocity. Parliament and the European Council will have the chance to object to anything put forward by the Commission according to the Telegraph. The resolution passed despite warnings from the European Travel Commission (ETC) of the damage a visa war with the US might have on the continent’s tourism industry.
  • As we reported at the time, it was in April 2014 that the European Commission was first made aware that the US - along with Australia, Brunei, Canada and Japan - was failing to ensure the same visa waiver rights for its citizens that Europe offered in return. The Commission then gave the countries a deadline of two years before retaliating. Since, Australia, Brunei and Japan have all lifted their visa requirements, with Canada set to do the same by the end of the year, but the US has failed to act. There has not yet been a response to today’s vote from the US but the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs has said in the past that Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland and Romania do not yet meet security requirements for the US VWP. Canada also imposes visa requirements on Bulgarian and Romanian citizens, but it has announced that they will be lifted in December. Since the imposition of a visa regime is perceived as a major hurdle to free travel, the implementation of the MEP vote would likely lead to a dramatic drop in airline travel across the US and Europe, coupled with a plunge in tourism and associated reveue. As a country looking to boost its tourism industry will often look at loosening any existing visa requirements, the opposite may suggest that the European decision may have political overtones and be in response to Trump's aggressive anti-immigration regime.
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