Tag: government

The protests have lasted for nearly nine weeks, with no signs of slowing down anytime soon. FOX News operates the FOX News Channel (FNC), FOX Business Network (FBN), FOX News Radio, FOX News Headlines 24/7, FOXNews.com and the direct-to-consumer streaming…

House Oversight & Reform Committee holds a hearing on "The Trump Administration's Child Separation Policy: Substantiated Allegations of Mistreatment." PANEL I Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) PANEL II Acting…

Jay Wavering is being remembered as a conscientious government servant and for his love of politics. Wavering, 67, died Saturday after he was pinned underneath a tree he was cutting with two friends in the 3300 block of Lightfoot Road. Wavering ran Springfield Mayor J. Michael Houston’s 2003 and 2011 campaigns. Wavering went on to become city purchasing agent in 2011. That’s how I got to know him.” Houston recalled that Wavering wrote all of the commercials used for radio and television and came up with ads for print for the campaigns. Wavering was also involved in campaigns for Rep. Raymond Poe, who served in the Illinois House of Representatives from 1995 to 2015 before he resigned to become director of the Illinois Department of Agriculture. He had been involved in some huge purchases with the state. With the city, it was a smaller operation, but he brought the knowledge and experience to it and he did a fabulous job.” McCarty said he considered Wavering “a colleague and a friend.” “It hit me like a ton of bricks,” McCarty said when he received the news over the weekend. “I’m truly saddened by what happened.” McCarty said he didn’t know Wavering until his resume crossed his desk, but he eventually became McCarty’s first hire as the OBM director. Wavering was pronounced dead at 12:30 p.m. Saturday at Memorial Medical Center, Edwards said.

Greg Craig is indicted on charges of lying to investigators on his work on behalf of Ukraine; Mike Emanuel has the latest. #Outnumbered #FoxNews FOX News operates the FOX News Channel (FNC), FOX Business Network (FBN), FOX News Radio, FOX…

The government has sacked its housing adviser Roger Scruton after he appeared to repeat antisemitic statements and denied Islamophobia was a problem. Scruton also said: “Hungarians were extremely alarmed by the sudden invasion of huge tribes of Muslims”, and accused the Chinese of “creating robots out of their own people”. Scruton’s sacking follows Labour-led calls for his dismissal. Last month the party suspended 14 members for allegedly making Islamophobic comments after a string of abusive posts were uncovered on social media. His comments are clearly distracting from the important work of the commission and so it is no longer right for him to act as a government adviser.” Earlier, the ministry said: “It’s very clear from the interview Prof Sir Roger Scruton is not speaking for the government.” Would you trust Roger Scruton to design your new home? Read more The interview prompted Labour to repeat its call from five months ago for Scruton to be sacked after it emerged that he had described Jews in Budapest as part of a “Soros empire”. Dawn Butler, the shadow equalities secretary, said Scruton’s new comments were “despicable and invoke the language of white supremacists”. She added: “His claim that Islamophobia does not exist, a few weeks after the devastating attack in Christchurch, is extremely dangerous.” When Labour first called for Scruton’s dismissal, Brokenshire defended him as a “champion of freedom of speech”. The government should also strip him of his knighthood.” Tell Mama, the anti-bigotry campaign, welcomed Scruton’s dismissal but raised questions about why he had been appointed in the first place. A spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain said: “As the Conservative party faces its latest crisis on Islamophobia, it cannot continue with false promises to take the issue seriously … The reality is that these concerns will continue to recur until trust is rebuilt through – in part – an independent inquiry into Islamophobia in the party.”

The government has not proposed any changes to the PM's Brexit deal during cross-party talks, says shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer. But Sir Keir said the government was not "countenancing any change" on the wording of the existing plan. The government was "prepared to pursue changes to the political declaration", a plan for the future relationship with the EU, to "deliver a deal that is acceptable to both sides", the spokesman said. Extension request Sir Keir said the government's approach was "disappointing", and it would not consider any changes the "actual wording" of the political declaration. Brexit: A really simple guide EU's Tusk 'suggests flexible Brexit delay' Sturgeon: Brexit delay not long enough Brexit explained in flowcharts The UK is currently due to leave the EU on 12 April and, as yet, no withdrawal deal has been approved by MPs. Perhaps that's no surprise. There appears to be disagreement over what the talks can achieve; changes to the political declaration on the UK's future relationship with the EU, or an additional document to what has already been agreed? If a deal is done, it may or may not fly. Plenty of Tory MPs are uneasy about working with Labour and the closer ties to the EU it may lead to. He insisted that "of course we are prepared to compromise" on the political declaration.

Theresa May and her cabinet are looking for ways to bring her EU withdrawal agreement back to the Commons for a fourth attempt at winning MPs' backing. EU leaders plan for no deal as other options dissolve Friday's defeat was the third time MPs have rejected her withdrawal agreement - the first vote was lost by 230 votes, the second by 149. Government position 'clear' MPs will hold another set of non-binding votes on various Brexit options in the Commons on Monday. None of MPs' eight proposed Brexit options secured a majority in the last round of "indicative votes" on 27 March, but the options which received the most votes were a customs union with the EU or a referendum on any deal. He said staying in a customs union with the EU would go against the result of the referendum and the Conservatives' election manifesto. The aspiration, strange as it sounds, for some time now has been to prove to MPs that the deal is the least worst of all the options... Read Laura's thoughts in full Earlier this month, EU leaders gave the PM until 12 April to come up with a Brexit solution; if her deal had made it through Parliament on Friday that date would have been pushed back to 22 May to allow time to pass the necessary legislation. Since the deal was rejected, Mrs May now has until 12 April to seek a longer extension to avoid the UK leaving without a deal. Mrs May said it was "almost certain" there would have to be an extended delay to Brexit to allow the UK to take part in the European elections at the end of May if her deal does not go through. Monday, 1 April: MPs hold another set of votes on various Brexit options to see if they can agree on a way forward Wednesday, 3 April: Potentially another round of so-called "indicative votes" Wednesday, 10 April: Emergency summit of EU leaders to consider any UK request for further extension Friday, 12 April: Brexit day, if UK does not seek/EU does not grant further delay 23-26 May: European Parliamentary elections Meanwhile, Leave voters registered their anger at the latest vote rejection with a protest at Westminster. Will European leaders accept a longer delay to Brexit?

A Downing Street source said: “This is not meaningful vote three.” The leader of the Commons, Andrea Leadsom, said MPs would sit on Friday and hold a debate on Brexit. She did not specify what sort of vote would result, and repeatedly rebuffed MPs’ questions on the subject. Leadsom said only that the vote would get around the ruling of the Speaker, John Bercow, that the same motion could not be voted on yet again. Read more Leadsom was also asked whether ministers wanted to decouple the withdrawal agreement for a separate vote, distinct from the government’s outline plan for a future relationship with the EU, but declined to specify, saying MPs would have to await the motion. The Labour MP Ben Bradshaw, who fears the motion could be “more trickery”, said it would not be illegal for the government to seek to pass just the withdrawal agreement, without MPs having a say on the plan for the future relationship. Brexit is a national crisis. Conservative sources had claimed that she and other ministers would continue talks with the pro-union party in the hope they would have the numbers to pass a deal. However, a source close to the DUP said: “No talks planned today.” May fails to convince DUP and ERG 'Spartans' to back her Brexit deal Read more The decision not to hold talks on Thursday will also fuel speculation that further talks could be shelved altogether. The DUP, whose votes give the Tories a majority in parliament, said on Wednesday that May’s Brexit deal posed “an unacceptable threat to the integrity of the United Kingdom” because it could impose new barriers between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Hopes that this might mean that the DUP could abstain on a future vote were dashed on Thursday night after Dodds said: “The DUP do not abstain on the union.” On Wednesday, a spokesman for the DUP said the backstop had “the potential to create an internal trade border within the United Kingdom and would cut us off from our main internal market, being Great Britain”.

Liam Fox has indicated the government could ignore MPs’ views from indicative Brexit votes this week if parliament’s stated choice goes against the Conservative manifesto, insisting the real choice is still between Theresa May’s deal and no deal. The international trade secretary dismissed calls for May to be ousted, or for the prime minister to offer to resign in return for her Brexit plan being passed, as suggested to her by Tory Brexiters on Sunday. The real debate is about our future relationship with the European Union once we’ve left.” Later on Monday, after May has updated the Commons on last week’s Brussels summit, MPs will have a chance to vote for an amendment seeking to reserve Wednesday’s Commons business for a series of non-binding indicative votes on various Brexit options. I was also elected on a manifesto that specifically said no single market and no customs union. The number one constraint is that we contracted out parliament’s sovereignty on the issue of the European Union to the people.” MPs should instead, Fox said, focus on passing May’s deal at the third time of asking or else risk no deal or a further Brexit delay necessitating the UK taking part in European elections. Read more The chances of May’s deal being passed appeared to grow even more distant after a summit on Sunday at her Chequers country retreat, with Boris Johnson and other leading hard-Brexiters leaving without agreement. Tory rebels present said the prime minister repeated “all the same lines” about her deal and that nothing new emerged during the three-hour meeting, at which Jacob Rees-Mogg, Iain Duncan Smith and Dominic Raab were also present. “Clearly a number of people do not want the prime minister anywhere near the next phase of negotiations, which is the future trading relationship between ourselves and the EU,” he told Today. Oliver Letwin, the Conservative former minister who is among those who have led the amendment on the indicative votes, now signed by more than 120 MPs, told Today it could take several rounds of voting to find a consensus. The prime minister, the only woman present, also invited her effective deputy, Lidington, and the environment secretary, Gove, plus Julian Smith, the chief whip, and Brandon Lewis, the Conservative party chairman.