Category: US Politics

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Dartmouth Prof To Donate Half Of Book Proceeds To Antifa

Does he make the check payable to George Soros?

Via Campus Reform:

A Dartmouth College professor plans to donate half of the proceeds from his latest book to Antifa, the radical protest group labeled as “domestic terrorists” by the federal government.

Mark Bray, a lecturer at the elite college, gained popularity after publishing Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, in which he openly admits that the group rejects the classical understanding of free speech.

“At the heart of the anti-fascist outlook is a rejection of the classical liberal phrase incorrectly ascribed to Voltaire that ‘I disapprove of what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,’” the professor writes, noting that “after Auschwitz and Treblinka, anti-fascists committed themselves to fighting to the death the ability of organized Nazis to say anything.”

While it is unclear how personally involved Bray is in the organization, a recent profile of the controversial professor in The Chronicle of Higher Education briefly notes that he plans to donate half of the proceeds from his book to an unnamed fund that helps support the legal, medical, and personal expenses of Antifa activists.

Keep reading…

via Weasel Zippers

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Tax Dollars Fund Active Military Member’s Sex-Change Surgery

On Tuesday, the Pentagon confirmed that an active-duty United States Military member underwent sex-reassignment surgery which was funded by taxpayer dollars.

“Pentagon confirms an active-duty military member received sex-reassignment surgery today, and it will pay for the procedure for the first time,” reports BuzzFeed’s Jon Passantino.

According to Defense Department spokesman Dana White, the surgery was determined to be “medically necessary” and was thus paid for by the Military’s Supplemental Health Care Program.

“Military hospitals do not have the surgical expertise to perform this type of surgery, therefore it was conducted in a private hospital,” said White, in a statement. “Since this service member had already begun a sex-reassignment course of treatment, and the treating doctor deemed this surgery medically necessary, a waiver was approved by the director of the Defense Health Agency. The Supplemental Health Care Program will cover this surgery in accordance with the Department’s interim guidance on transgender service members.”

In July, President Donald Trump restored a longstanding ban on individuals who suffer from psychological disorders like gender dysphoria, reversing a last-minute Obama Administration directive which lifted the exclusion of transgenders.

“​After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military,” wrote Trump, via Twitter. “Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you.”

As noted by Fox News, the president directed Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to pause federal funds paying for sex-reassignment surgeries and medications, “except in cases where it is deemed necessary to protect the health of an individual who has already begun the transition.”

The Pentagon was given six months to form and implement the ban Trump announced on Twitter. In September, General Mattis released a memo indicating trans folks could continue to enlist until the Trump Administration’s plan is finalized.

As reported by The Daily Wire on October 30, a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump’s proposed transgender plan “as a case against his ban works its way through court.” ​

via Daily Wire

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Report: Police Body Cameras Can Threaten Civil Rights Of Black And Brown People…

Social justice warriors wanted police body cameras, they got body cameras.

Via Newsweek:

The number of U.S. police departments outfitting their officers with body cameras increases each year, but the cameras can pose a threat to civil rights if the departments fail to set rules that govern when officers review footage from their cameras, according to a new report.

The vast majority of the nation’s biggest police departments allow officers to watch footage from body cameras whenever they want, including before they write their incident reports or make statements, said the report, which was released Tuesday by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

“Unrestricted footage review places civil rights at risk and undermines the goals of transparency and accountability,” said Vanita Gupta, former head of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and current head of the Leadership Conference, in the report’s introduction.

Because an officer’s memory of an event may be altered by watching body camera footage, doing so will likely alter what officers write in their reports. That, in turn, can make it more difficult for investigators or courts to assess whether the officer’s actions were reasonable based on what he or she perceived at the time of the incident, states the report, “The Illusion of Accuracy: How Body-Worn Camera Footage Can Distort Evidence.”

Body camera programs are in place at 62 of the 69 largest U.S. police departments, according to a scorecard released Tuesday by the Leadership Conference. Most of those departments—55, or almost 80 percent—allow officers to view their footage whenever they want.

The Leadership Conference report advises that police departments institute a “clean reporting” policy, under which officers write an initial incident report before reviewing any footage. Only afterward would they watch the footage and write a second, supplementary report.

“We make the case that in the interests of consistency, fairness, transparency and accountability, clean reporting should be adopted as a standard practice for all police departments with body-worn camera programs,” writes Gupta in the introduction.

Some policing experts say officers should view the footage before writing a report to make sure the account is correct.

Keep reading…

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Venezuela defaults on its debt, blames Trump

Venezuela has been declared a deadbeat on its debt by both Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor’s after it couldn’t cough up $260 million for a couple of sovereign bond payments.  Now any bond with Venezuela’s name on it – and all the bonds issued in the country – will be affected.  This will add up to billions.  All that’s left now is for the repo men of the bond world, the Investment Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA), to declare default to trigger cross-default clauses on a type of bond insurance known as credit default swaps for the deed to be complete.  All the help Russia has been able to give to Venezuela, some of which was signed even this morning, was not enough.


So this should be a time of socialist reckoning, right?  The comeuppance of socialism?  Another example of socialism failing every time you try it?  One of the historically richest countries in Latin America, and the country with the world’s largest oil reserves, has been left a smoking ruin.  It’s defaulted on its sovereign debt, run out of money (the WSJ says it has just $1 billion in foreign reserves left), has widespread hunger, mass poverty, and the wreck of its medical system.  The electrical company is bankrupt, the water isn’t running, the bridges are falling apart, and now even the Caracas subway seems to be shutting down.  The wages of socialism are there for all to see, and presumably reject, right?



Not for Chavista socialist Venezuela’s rulers.  They’ve got an answer for us: the problem is Trump.  I kid you not.  


At yesterday’s creditors’ meeting in Caracas, according to the Toronto Star:


Very little was announced and nothing was resolved, according to attendees who said they left just as confused about the government’s intentions as they were going in. Vice President Tareck El Aissami was the only official to speak, and devoted most of his prepared remarks to railing against U.S. President Donald Trump and global financiers who he said have conspired to keep the country from making debt payments on time. He pledged the nation would continue to honour its obligations and work with bondholders to find new ways to get them their money, but offered no concrete proposals for restructuring.


See?  If it weren’t for Trump, all would be hunky-dory.  Pay no attention to their failed socialist model out there for all to see, decades in the making.  The crash is the work of Trump.


Like a delinquent who blames everyone but himself for his misdeeds, they are like leftists everywhere, unable to point the finger at themselves.  It’s that very inability to examine themselves and take responsibility for the horrific errors they engineered that ensures they won’t be reforming any time soon, enough to pay their debts.


For the creditors, that message of incapacity to reform is the surest sign out there of a congenital deadbeat.  So long as they keep blaming Trump for the sanctions on their ruling drug dealers, one of whom is El Aissami himself, they aren’t ever going to crawl out of their hole.


Venezuela has been declared a deadbeat on its debt by both Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor’s after it couldn’t cough up $260 million for a couple of sovereign bond payments.  Now any bond with Venezuela’s name on it – and all the bonds issued in the country – will be affected.  This will add up to billions.  All that’s left now is for the repo men of the bond world, the Investment Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA), to declare default to trigger cross-default clauses on a type of bond insurance known as credit default swaps for the deed to be complete.  All the help Russia has been able to give to Venezuela, some of which was signed even this morning, was not enough.


So this should be a time of socialist reckoning, right?  The comeuppance of socialism?  Another example of socialism failing every time you try it?  One of the historically richest countries in Latin America, and the country with the world’s largest oil reserves, has been left a smoking ruin.  It’s defaulted on its sovereign debt, run out of money (the WSJ says it has just $1 billion in foreign reserves left), has widespread hunger, mass poverty, and the wreck of its medical system.  The electrical company is bankrupt, the water isn’t running, the bridges are falling apart, and now even the Caracas subway seems to be shutting down.  The wages of socialism are there for all to see, and presumably reject, right?


Not for Chavista socialist Venezuela’s rulers.  They’ve got an answer for us: the problem is Trump.  I kid you not.  


At yesterday’s creditors’ meeting in Caracas, according to the Toronto Star:


Very little was announced and nothing was resolved, according to attendees who said they left just as confused about the government’s intentions as they were going in. Vice President Tareck El Aissami was the only official to speak, and devoted most of his prepared remarks to railing against U.S. President Donald Trump and global financiers who he said have conspired to keep the country from making debt payments on time. He pledged the nation would continue to honour its obligations and work with bondholders to find new ways to get them their money, but offered no concrete proposals for restructuring.


See?  If it weren’t for Trump, all would be hunky-dory.  Pay no attention to their failed socialist model out there for all to see, decades in the making.  The crash is the work of Trump.


Like a delinquent who blames everyone but himself for his misdeeds, they are like leftists everywhere, unable to point the finger at themselves.  It’s that very inability to examine themselves and take responsibility for the horrific errors they engineered that ensures they won’t be reforming any time soon, enough to pay their debts.


For the creditors, that message of incapacity to reform is the surest sign out there of a congenital deadbeat.  So long as they keep blaming Trump for the sanctions on their ruling drug dealers, one of whom is El Aissami himself, they aren’t ever going to crawl out of their hole.






via American Thinker Blog

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Transgender Service Member Receives Gender Reassignment Surgery on Military’s Dime

The Pentagon / Getty Images

BY:

An active-duty service member underwent gender reassignment surgery on Tuesday in an operation paid for by the Pentagon.

The surgery was done in a private hospital and was covered by the military’s health coverage because a doctor deemed it medically necessary, according to the Associated Press.

Defense Department spokeswoman Dana White said that military hospitals do not have the “surgical expertise to perform this type of surgery” so it was done at a private hospital.

Because the service member “had already begun a sex-reassignment course of treatment, and the treating doctor deemed this surgery medically necessary, a waiver was approved by the director of the Defense Health Agency,” White added.

Tuesday’s operation was the first such procedure approved under a waiver allowing the Pentagon to pay for the surgery.

The waivers are required and routinely approved for medical procedures that military hospitals are unable to perform, Army Maj. Dave Eastburn told the AP.

NBC News first reported the gender transition surgery, noting that the patient is an infantry soldier who identifies as a woman, according to a source close to the service member.

The surgery comes amid an ongoing debate over whether transgender troops should be allowed to continue to serve in the military.

President Donald Trump tweeted in July that the U.S. government “will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. military,” reversing an Obama administration decision to lift a long-standing ban on transgender individuals openly serving in the armed forces.

A month after his tweet, Trump sent a formal order to the Pentagon to implement the ban and gave the Defense Department six months to determine what to do about those currently serving.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis sent out a memo in September saying that transgender military members can continue to enlist while the Pentagon decides how to implement Trump’s ban.

The president also instructed Mattis to stop the use of federal funds to pay for gender reassignment surgeries and medications, except in cases where it is deemed necessary to protect the health of individuals already in the middle of transition.

Last month, a federal judge barred the Trump administration from proceeding with its plan.

via Washington Free Beacon

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Grocery Chain Recalls Nuts Because Packages Didn’t Warn That They Contain — Nuts!

Alert: This is not The Onion.

The Aldi grocery chain has recalled a brand of nuts from its shelves because the packages don’t include a warning that among the contents are — nuts.

Nuts, right?

The worldwide chain this week recalled its Clancy’s Barbecue Flavour Coated Peanuts, which also contains cashews. because they contain cashew nuts — which did not warn customers about on the label.

The U.K’s Foods Standards Agency said that the omission puts people at a “possible health risk.” The bags of nuts were only available across three regions in the U.K. — Neston, Darlington and Goldthorpe.

The agency-issued “allergy alert” said: “Aldi is recalling its Clancy’s Barbecue Flavour Coated Peanuts because they contain cashew nuts, which are undeclared on the label. This means the product is a possible health risk for anyone with an allergy to nuts.”

The agency said that some people who may not be allergic to peanuts could have a reaction to cashews. Allergies to nuts can cause sickness and vomiting, and in extreme cases can cause the mouth to swell, making breathing difficult or even impossible.

“Peanuts are actually a legume — in the same family as peas and lentils — and has different properties to tree nuts, like cashews,” The News in Australia reports. “This means that someone can be okay to eat peanuts but suffer if they come into contact with other tree nuts.”

via Daily Wire

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Senate tax bill: Corporate cuts permanent, but individuals … not so much?

The Senate has finally produced its proposed version of tax reform nearly halfway through this session of Congress, and it’s clear that Republicans in Congress don’t talk much with each other. Not only did Finance chair Orrin Hatch include a repeal of the ObamaCare individual mandate, which the House eschewed, they took the opposite approach to deficit control for reconciliation. The House made the corporate tax rates temporary and the individual tax cuts permanent. Hatch flipped that around, which is bound to raise some eyebrows:

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) released modifications to the Senate tax bill late Tuesday, including the effective elimination of ObamaCare’s individual mandate and the expiration of tax changes for individuals after 2025. …

Hatch’s modifications also include several provisions aimed at helping the middle class and shoring up support from GOP senators. These include increasing the child tax credit to $2,000 from $1,650 in the original bill and further lowering some of the individual tax rates. Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) have been pushing for a larger child tax credit expansion.

But the modified mark would also sunset the measure’s changes to the individual tax code, excluding the mandate repeal, after 2025. Provisions that would sunset include the lower tax rates, the larger standard deduction and child tax credit, the 17.4 percent deduction of income from pass-through businesses and the repeal of the individual alternative minimum tax.

This may be a smarter approach, but it’s going to be a tough sell to voters. Republicans and the White House need significant and quick economic growth out of tax reform — a boost not just in job creation but also a move back to the US for large corporations, which have taken to tax inversions over the last few years for better competitive positions in global markets. That’s the biggest part of Donald Trump’s America-First approach, but a temporary tax cut won’t suffice as a catalyst for the scale necessary to demonstrate unchallengeable success. Those cuts have to be permanent for businesses to shift their long-term investment strategies enough to produce the economic results Trump and the GOP need for 2020, if not next year.

In essence, Republicans are rolling the dice on the middle-class tax cuts in Hatch’s plan. They’re betting that in 2025 the idea of allowing those tax cuts to expire will be so unpalatable that they can use a regular order vote on making them permanent. That’s not exactly how it panned out with George W. Bush’s “temporary” tax cuts; it took a series of budget battles and years of brinksmanship to settle that issue. However, it will be a lot tougher to fight that battle over corporate tax rates in 2025 than individual tax cuts. Hatch is at least giving Republicans a fighting chance at winning in eight years, and he’s raising the stakes on it by making the cuts and exemptions broader than the House version did.

Needless to say, though, the bill looks like Republicans favor corporations over individual taxpayers in taking this approach. Democrats will rain class warfare all over them, and it might be enough to peel off more than a couple of moderates in the Senate Republican caucus. One would presume that Hatch and Mitch McConnell whipped this version before unveiling it so as not to embarrass themselves by failing to get to 50 when it comes to the floor, but …. say, you’ve been around this year for ObamaCare repeal efforts, right? Riiiiiiight.

Keep that history in mind, especially now that the bill contains a mini-repeal of ObamaCare:

John McCain (R-Ariz.), one of three GOP senators who voted down the Obamacare repeal effort this summer, said repealing the mandate is not a deal-breaker for securing his vote.

“I want to see the whole package — it keeps changing as it goes through the House and Senate,” McCain said. “I want the regular order.” …

“I’m fine with it,” Corker said. “I would hope that if we do and there is real money there, that we use it as a buffer against any deficit in the first 10 years.”

Susan Collins of Maine, who opposed Obamacare repeal this summer, said combining the two issues could make tax reform more difficult.

“My concern is that if we combine the health care issues with tax reform, we make it far more controversial,” she said.

McCain seems determined to exit the Senate as its Grand Protector of Regular Order, so chalk him up as a no. Collins will almost certainly be a no too, but in this case McConnell can almost certainly count on Rand Paul as a yes. Assuming no one else defects, McConnell will need Luther Strange not just for the passage of Hatch’s bill but also for the conference report that will have to take place to clean up the major differences between the House and Senate, unless Ryan can get a majority to back the Senate version. They have until December 12th to get that done, and the clock is already ticking. Lots of luck.

The post Senate tax bill: Corporate cuts permanent, but individuals … not so much? appeared first on Hot Air.

via Hot Air

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UNSURPRISING: Israel Offers Aid To Victims Of Iran-Iraq Earthquake. Iran Rejects The Offer.

On Wednesday, in a live Q&A with a gathering of the Jewish Federations in Los Angeles, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made public his country’s offer of medical assistance to the victims of the 7.3 magnitude earthquake that struck on Sunday on the border of Iran and Iraq. Roughly 500 people were killed; another 7,500 were injured.

Despite the fact that the mullahs in Iran who run the theocratic regime have consistently called for the destruction of Israel, Netanyahu stated:

Now I just saw the pictures of the destruction in Iran and Iraq following this week’s earthquake, and I saw these heartbreaking images of men and women and children buried under the rubble. So I’m proud to announce that a few hours ago, I directed that we offer the Red Cross medical assistance for the Iraqi and Iranian victims of this disaster. Now, you heard me right; I’ve said many times that we have no quarrel with the people of Iran. Our quarrel is only with the tyrannical regime that holds them hostage and threatens our destruction. But our humanity is greater than their hatred.

Unsurprisingly, Iran rejected Israel’s offer.

Israel is justifiably famous for offering medical help to victims of disasters around the world for over 50 years. Here’s a short list:

In 1965, Israel offered to send antibiotics, X-ray films and other pharmaceutical and medical supplies to the victims of a catastrophic earthquake in Chile.

In 2004, Israel sent relief to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and first response aid after the 2004 tsunami with 60 tons of international aid to Indonesia, and 82 tons of relief to Sri Lanka.

After the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir, Israel sent a mission offering supplies and shelter for thousands of families.

In 2009, Israel sent medical aid to the Philippines after Typhoon Parma.

In 2010, Israel’s relief team of 200 people was the first to arrive to help the victims of the earthquake in Haiti.

In 2011, Israel was the first country to send medical aid to Japan after a huge tsunami hit the country.

In 2012 Israel offered to receive casualties who were evacuated from Syria after the violence in Syria; some Israeli doctors were even on the Syrian-Turkish border treating victims of the Syrian violence.

Last July, The Washington Post reported:

It is well documented that Israel has provided emergency medical treatment to Syrian fighters seeking help. As many as 3,000 wounded individuals have made their way to the border and received lifesaving medical treatment in Israeli hospitals before returning to their homeland … As part of the effort, Israel has transferred 360 tons of food, 450,000 liters of gasoline and 50 tons of clothing to Syria. It has also sent large quantities of painkillers, anesthetics and basic medicine for diabetes and asthma.

via Daily Wire

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FLASHBACK: Millionaire Author John Grisham Says It’s Sometimes OK To Watch Child Porn

John Grisham is one of the world’s most well-known authors. He’s sold more than 275 million books since he emerged on the scene in 1989, pulling down $200 million, Forbes reported.

Some of his works, including “The Firm,” have been turned into Hollywood blockbusters. And he continues to rule over the book world, pulling down millions each year.

But Grisham has some weird thoughts on pedophilia.

“We have prisons now filled with guys my age. Sixty-year-old white men in prison who’ve never harmed anybody, would never touch a child,” he told The Telegraph in 2014.

“But they got online one night and started surfing around, probably had too much to drink or whatever, and pushed the wrong buttons, went too far and got into child porn.”

Grisham said that he has “no sympathy for real pedophiles. God, please lock those people up. But so many of these guys do not deserve harsh prison sentences, and that’s what they’re getting.”

But he said something’s askew with the American justice system.

“There’s so many ‘sex offenders’ – that’s what they’re called – that they put them in the same prison. Like they’re a bunch of perverts… We’ve gone nuts with this incarceration,” he said.

Later, after his comments caused a firestorm, Grisham issued an apology. “Anyone who harms a child for profit or pleasure, or who in any way participates in child pornography—online or otherwise—should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.”

“My comments made two days ago during an interview with the British newspaper The Telegraph were in no way intended to show sympathy for those convicted of sex crimes, especially the sexual molestation of children. I can think of nothing more despicable.”

via Daily Wire

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North Korea ‘Sentences Trump To Death’ For Insulting Kim Jong-un

Well, he did call him “short and fat.”

President Trump just returned from a 12-day trip across Asia. When he was in South Korea, he delivered a powerful speech warning North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un not to mess with the United States or its allies.

“The weapons you are acquiring are not making you safer, they are putting your regime in grave danger,” Trump said at South Korea’s National Assembly in Seoul. “Every step you take down this dark path increases the peril you face.”

But Trump, as he does, went further on Twitter.

Now North Korea’s state media has called for the death penalty for Trump, calling him a coward for cancelling a visit to the Demilitarized Zone between South and North Korea (in reality, fog grounded the U.S. president, forcing his helicopter to turn back).

In an editorial in the state-controlled newspaper Rodong Sinmun, North Korea said Trump should be executed.

“The worst crime for which he can never be pardoned is that he dared [to] malignantly hurt the dignity of the supreme leadership,” the editorial said.

“He should know that he is just a hideous criminal sentenced to death by the Korean people,” it added.

On the scrubbed trip, the paper said: “It wasn’t the weather. He was just too scared to face the glaring eyes of our troops.”

Kim had disappeared for two-months, holding no public events. But the day the editorial came out, Kim visited a tractor factory which he claimed produced products made mainly with locally produced parts, despite punitive sanctions against the nation.

North Korean officials described Trump’s trip as “nothing but a business trip by a warmonger to enrich the monopolies of the US defense industry.”

“Trump, during his visit, laid bare his true nature as destroyer of the world peace and stability and begged for a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula,” the nation’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

via Daily Wire

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