Tag: United States of America

America has been a free speech zone since our founding. Free speech led to The Revolutionary War. It stopped bad wars and ended slavery. America was founded on activism by men of honor whose actions spoke louder than their words. If it wasn’t for Paine’s activism, we’d still be subjects instead of citizens. “A man’s actions say much more than his most noble words.” – Thomas Paine Throughout our modern history, the activism of true leaders has made our nation stronger and far better than it would have been without them. Following the Tea Party Movement, tribal clans of self-anointed activist groups sprang up around America faster than Obama could say “change.” And the America Obama had divided, subdivided into activist bedlam. They were heroes of the day with mock activist groups. But their social media fame faded on Election Day as voters elected people who’d write laws to improve their lives, not to entertain activists. They had no experience, or knowledge of law, and campaigned to cause chaos in Congress.

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Americans across the country wish that Donald Trump would reveal his secret to staying so young and vibrant, the nation’s personal trainers have confirmed. According to Tracy Klugian, a fitness professional in St. Louis, “not a day goes by” without one of his clients requesting a physical regimen that will give him or her the youthful appearance and mental sharpness that have made Trump the envy of millions. “Clients will come in and say, ‘Make me as young and vibrant as Donald Trump,’ ” Klugian said. “I have to warn them that that’s setting the bar very, very high.” Having analyzed Trump’s fitness habits, Klugian has theorized that his startling youthfulness and off-the-charts vibrance might be the result of eight hours that he devotes each day to “Executive Time.” “Lifting the remote, putting it down, lifting it again, and then tweeting is an exercise routine that very few people could keep up for one hour, and Trump does it for eight,” he said. “I tell my clients, if you want to be as young and vibrant as Donald Trump, you’re going to have to put in that kind of time.” Klugian said that he was also putting clients on a “Trump diet,” consisting entirely of hamburgers and Coke, to give their bodies the fuel necessary to complete the gruelling remote-lifting-and-tweeting workout. But the personal trainer said that he urges his clients not to be discouraged if, even after adopting Trump’s rigorous exercise routine and diet, they fail to achieve Trump’s physical perfection. “At the end of the day, Donald Trump has found the Fountain of Youth, and also the Fountain of Vibrance,” he said.

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Correspondent, @StacyBrownMedia American politics appears to have hit a new low. According to reports, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has beefed up security following the vicious attacks she’s received and even news reports that paint her as un-American. “It is trafficking in Islamophobia, and should be condemned by everyone,” Booker said. Some media favorable to the president have also attacked Omar and despite death threats made against her, Trump has continued his assault by calling her –without any supporting evidence and against her denials – “anti-Semitic,” and “anti-Israel.” Booker noted that Trump has also attacked other African American women leaders like California Rep. Maxine Waters. That Trump claims he’s not racist isn’t satisfactory, Booker said. “It’s not enough to say, I’m not a racist. Matthew Haviland, 30, of North Kingstown was charged after sending approximately 28 threatening emails on March 10 to a college professor, whose name and affiliation was withheld by federal officials. The professor, who had been friends with Haviland for about 11 years, believed Haviland’s views changed because “of the way the news media portrays” President Donald Trump, Laft wrote. Authorities said Omar was among the Democrats whom Haviland threatened to kill. “We, as a people, cannot allow our Black leaders to be attacked for their advocacy.

(3) To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes; but neither this, nor any other clause contained in the Constitution, shall ever be construed to delegate the power to Congress to appropriate money for any internal improvement intended to facilitate commerce; except for the purpose of furnishing lights, beacons, and buoys, and other aids to navigation upon the coasts, and the improvement of harbors and the removing of obstructions in river navigation; in all which cases such duties shall be laid on the navigation facilitated thereby as may be necessary to pay the costs and expenses thereof. This goes a long way to cutting down the power of the commerce clause, and would likely have resulted in a different SCOTCS ruling on the power of the federal government to fuck with theinner workings of the states. (9) Congress shall appropriate no money from the Treasury except by a vote of two-thirds of both Houses, taken by yeas and nays, unless it be asked and estimated for by some one of the heads of departments and submitted to Congress by the President; or for the purpose of paying its own expenses and contingencies; or for the payment of claims against the Confederate States, the justice of which shall have been judicially declared by a tribunal for the investigation of claims against the Government, which it is hereby made the duty of Congress to establish. (10) All bills appropriating money shall specify in Federal currency the exact amount of each appropriation and the purposes for which it is made; and Congress shall grant no extra compensation to any public contractor, officer, agent, or servant, after such contract shall have been made or such service rendered. So while the Confederate government had a lot of power to tell states what laws they could and could not pass, it lacked a lot of the federal muscle of taxation of the USA.

The US has arranged for a representative from the state department, which has repeatedly warned of the risks of using Huawei, to give a briefing on Monday. The latest US lobbying comes after the leak of a decision by the normally secret UK National Security Council, which agreed to allow Huawei to supply 5G technology after a contested meeting in which five cabinet members raised objections. But while Downing Street may regard the Huawei decision as final there are signs that it could yet be reversed once Theresa May steps aside, with sources close to Boris Johnson indicating the former foreign secretary could be willing to “look again” at the Huawei approval if he were to become prime minister. The chancellor, Philip Hammond, was the first minister to publicly confirm that a leak inquiry had started, when asked about Huawei at an Chinese government investment forum in Beijing – and said it needed to be dealt with. “I think it is very important that we get to the bottom of what happened here.” On Thursday it emerged that the cabinet secretary, Sir Mark Sedwill, had written to the senior ministers present at the meeting to demand that they and their aides cooperate with the inquiry and state whether they were aware of the leak. It is understood that Sedwill’s letter did not spell out exactly what would happen next, but the inquiry process could involve phone and email records being examined and politicians and aides interviewed by investigators appointed by Sedwill. Some Conservative backbenchers want the police or MI5 to be called in to help with the investigation, which could become a criminal prosecution under the Official Secrets Act. Allies of Hammond say he also categorically denies being involved in any leaks from the meeting. The others were Theresa May, the prime minister; David Lidington, her effective deputy; Greg Clark, the business secretary; and Jeremy Wright, the culture secretary, who is ultimately responsible for the security of the UK’s telecoms networks. It also emerged on Friday that the Dutch telecoms giant KPN will select a “western company” to work on the core of its 5G rollout across the Netherlands after the US ambassador criticised its apparent plans to give the contract to Huawei.

— The mayor of a South Texas border city was arrested Thursday on charges that he orchestrated an illegal voting scheme in which he asked residents of nearby towns to change their addresses so that they could cast votes for him. The arrests of Richard Molina, the mayor of Edinburg, and his wife, Dalia Molina, came amid a bitter political fight in Texas over election fraud, and were made in a region with a long history of voting improprieties and public corruption scandals. Ken Paxton, the state’s Republican attorney general, whose office oversaw the investigation of Mr. Molina, has aggressively prosecuted voter fraud cases, even as a recent attempt by the state to purge noncitizens from the voter rolls was plagued by problems and inaccuracies. According to court documents, Mr. Molina and his wife were both registered as volunteer voter registrars in the 2017 election and were authorized to help people fill out voter registration applications. “The mayor is innocent of what he’s being accused of,” said Mr. Molina’s lawyer, Carlos A. Garcia. There’s a power struggle in Hidalgo County, specifically in Edinburg.” Cary Zayas, the spokeswoman for the City of Edinburg, said in a statement defending the mayor that the arrests “have no impact on the city’s day to day operations.” Mr. Molina and his wife were arraigned late Thursday morning in Edinburg, a city of 90,000 residents that is next door to McAllen and home to a University of Texas Rio Grande Valley campus. In January, the Texas Secretary of State’s office said it had discovered that about 95,000 people identified as noncitizens had matching voter registration records in the state, and that about 58,000 of them had voted in one or more Texas elections. Mr. Molina was arrested in the Democratic stronghold of the Rio Grande Valley, the result of an investigation led by a Republican attorney general. The Rio Grande Valley, which borders Mexico, has a long history of voter fraud. In January, Mr. Paxton’s Election Fraud Unit arrested a woman in Starr County for using a dead person’s identity to vote illegally in a 2016 Democratic primary.

The government plans to ask people taking part in the 2020 national census if they are US citizens – and the supreme court appears to be leaning in favor of approval. The census is conducted every 10 years to count the people living in the US. The states argue the plan is unconstitutional. The commerce department, which is in charge of the census, says it decided to add the question at the request of the justice department, which argued it was necessary to help enforce the Voting Rights Act. “Yesterday, the Supreme Court took up the Census Citizenship question, a really big deal. The citizenship question was on every census between 1890 and 1950, but has not been on the standard census form since then. Currently, the government gets citizenship data from the American Community Survey, which is done every year but only goes out to a small number of US households. Three lower courts, in New York, California and Maryland, have ruled against the plan. Two of the judges said that asking about citizenship would be unconstitutional, violating the provision that says the census must fully enumerate people living in the United States. A majority of the justices appeared to be leaning toward approving the question during arguments on Tuesday.

The US has announced it will no longer exempt countries from sanctions that aim to impose a complete oil embargo on Iran. Officials said the Trump administration would not renew any of the sanctions waivers granted to a handful of countries, including China, India, Turkey, Japan and South Korea, when those waivers expire on 2 May. We will continue to enforce sanctions and monitor compliance. Any nation or entity interacting with Iran should do its diligence and err on the side of caution. The risks are simply not going to be worth the benefits.” Trump administration unveils full extent of US sanctions on Iran Read more Neither Pompeo nor senior state department officials would say whether sanctions would be immediately imposed on the affected countries on 3 May, if oil purchases continued. Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 multilateral nuclear deal with Iran, the Joint Comprehensive Programme of Action (JCPOA), in May 2018 and threatened US sanctions against any international companies that continued to do business with Iran. Trump administration officials said the waivers, originally granted to eight countries, were motivated by a desire to avoid a spike in oil prices in a tight market last year. They said the waivers were being allowed to end because there was now greater supply. “When Trump withdrew from the Iran deal, it sent the US on a course of self-isolation and dwindling options,” Suzanne DiMaggio, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said. “If they want to continue to buy Iranian oil it has ways to structure the transaction in a way it doesn’t matter if the US sanctions it.”

If We Can Keep It review: how Trump happened and how America might survive Read more The pages of Joan Biskupic’s new, carefully reported biography of the chief justice are replete with evidence to support that conclusion – which Biskupic is much too polite to reach. Biskupic is a former Washington Post supreme court correspondent who is now a legal analyst for CNN. The author has known Roberts for more than 20 years and he granted her 20 hours of interviews. She has rewarded that courtesy with plenty of anodyne observations. In 1980, Roberts “was captivated by Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign”. As part of his youthful opposition to the renewal of key portions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Roberts pretended there was “no evidence of voting abuses nationwide”. That decision came three years after Roberts lobbed his single largest grenade at the heart of American democracy, when he joined the other conservative justices to give corporations the right to spend as much money as they chose to elect the public officials who would be most enthusiastic about promoting unfettered capitalism. This single act of sanity has sparked some hope that Roberts might replace Anthony Kennedy as the most reliable swing vote. But except in 2015, when he backed the ACA again, he has remained reliably rightwing. Her final sentences are just as unsatisfying: “The chief justice is leading a court increasingly in his own image.

Directionally, the overall policy posture is center-right. The president retains the firm support of most Republican voters. Under the January 1973 Paris peace accords, North Vietnam recognized the continued existence of a non-Communist government in Saigon, while the United States confirmed its own ground force departure. Nixon’s critics have long argued that he had no interest in or expectation of supporting South Vietnam’s continued independence with American ground troops gone. Reports indicate that key outlines of a possible settlement include the withdrawal of U.S. troops, and a promise from the Taliban never to attack the United States. In the year following his re-election, revelations of Richard Nixon’s criminal misconduct over the Watergate affair consumed his presidency. In the end it was stalwart conservatives like Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater, who told the president directly that his impeachment and removal were certain. Congressional Democrats will therefore continue aggressive investigations on a number of matters, including Trump’s tax returns, his inauguration committee, the Trump organization, obstruction of justice, and possible campaign finance violations. Second, U.S. party politics are considerably more polarized than they were in Nixon’s day, and this obviously affects the process in more than one direction. The nature of Donald Trump’s character and personality is furthermore that he will always fight back against such allegations with the ferocity of a wild honey badger.