THE SWAMP – Nancy Pelosi’s House FAILS To Re-Open Government

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Democrats failed to get the two-thirds vote needed to re-open the federal government through February 1 without funding President Donald Trump’s border wall on one of their attempts Tuesday.

House members favored the measure — which was under suspension — by a 237-187 vote, but that was not enough votes to pass.

The House is trying to get their mission accomplished through a different continuing resolution Tuesday.

Democrats’ failure to even get the H.J. Res 27 bill to the Senate further underscores how President Trump has all the leverage in these negotiations.

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President Donald Trump could save enough money to pay for his entire southern border wall with change to spare if he chooses not to sign a bill guaranteeing back pay for furloughed government workers. It would only take three pay periods over six weeks for the government to save more than $6 billion, more than the $5.7 billion Trump is asking for to build the Wall.

The mainstream media is reporting that Trump is prepared to sign the back-pay bill that went to his desk days ago, but Trump has not signed anything, and to do so would knock out some of his leverage over Schumer and Pelosi — which does not seem like it would be in line with “Art of the Deal” policy.

The shutdown — in which 800,000 workers are not working– is saving taxpayers more than two billion dollars for every two-week pay period, but the savings will only count if Trump chooses not to give them back pay.

Here is a chart on the savings, courtesy of the Center for American Progress:

 

“This is Islam”: BBC interviews Muslim cleric who claims he has the right to marry a 9-year-old girl

At least 25% of all girls in Niger are married by the age of 15 – and 76% by the age of 18. It is the highest rate of child marriage in the world.

Under Islamic Law (Sharia) girls can marry at any age, as long as they are “mature enough”.
In Muslim countries like Yemen, Iran, Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan and Sudan girls are considered “adults” and being sold into forced marriages with grown men by their families. There are even some cases of child marriages in Western countries since immigrants brought this tradition into the West.
Look at this BBC interview. It is from 2014, but nothing has changed since then.
The term “Islamophobia” was created by the Muslim Brotherhood to silence any possible debate about the problems Islamism has got with modernity.
The left uses it to portray anyone who criticises Islam as a “racist”. They ignore the fact that Islam is an ideology that has nothing to do with race.
There even is an attempt in the West to impose a sharia-blasphemy law to criminalise criticism of Islam. It started when Saudi Arabia and Muslim countries tried to pass a UN resolution to force Western states to criminalise criticism of Islam.
The Parliament in Canada passed “Motion M-103” to condemn the so-called “Islamophobia” (fear of Islam) in a preparation for a blasphemy law in Canada.
According to the sharia blasphemy law anyone who criticises Islam or the Prophet Muhammad should be killed. In Saudi Arabia and Iran Muslims are executed if they are accused of blasphemy. In Pakistan, where the situation is even worse, radical Muslims use the blasphemy law to persecute the Christian minority.
Is this the law the left wants to adopt?

LEFT MOCKS TRUMP FAST FOOD FEAST — BUT OBAMA SPENT $65,000 ON HOT DOGS!

Left Mocks Trump Fast Food Feast -- But Obama Spent $65,000 on Hot Dogs!

WikiLeaks emails reveal Obama used TAXPAYER CASH for private party — Trump paid for burgers himself!

 | Infowars.com – JANUARY 15, 2019

The left is mocking President Trump for providing a fast food buffet to a college football team, but emails obtained by WikiLeaks show that former President Obama flew in $65,000 worth of hotdogs from Chicago – using taxpayer funds – for a private party in 2009.

The haters spared no expense denigrating Trump on social media for serving hearty fast food to the Clemson University football team on Monday.

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However, emails from global intelligence firm Stratfor, released by WikiLeaks in 2012, show that the Obama administration spent $65,000 of taxpayer money to fly “hot dogs” to a private dinner party at the White House in 2009.

“RE: Get ready for ‘Chicago Hot Dog Friday,’” said the email’s subject headline sent by Chief Innovation Officer Aaric S. Eisenstein.

“If we get the same ‘waitresses,’ I’m all for it!!!”

Stratfor Vice President Fred Burton replied, asking if they would be “using the same channels.”

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“I think Obama spent about $65,000 of the tax-payers money flying in pizza/dogs from Chicago for a private party at the White House not long ago, assume we are using the same channels?” he said.

The corporate media completely ignored WikiLeaks’ bombshell Global Intelligence Files release highlighting government waste and corruption, but they have time to fact-check every aspect of Trump’s fast food feast, including the true height of the pile of burgers.

‘Only a wall will work’: Trump calls for border security as new migrant caravan departs Honduras

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Hundreds of migrants have set off for the US from Honduras, the latest ‘caravan’ to try and enter the country. With focus once again on his planned border wall, President Trump has accused Democrats of “playing political games.”

“A big new Caravan is heading up to our Southern Border from Honduras,” Trump tweeted on Tuesday. “Tell Nancy [Pelosi] and Chuck [Schumer] that a drone flying around will not stop them. Only a Wall will work. Only a Wall, or Steel Barrier, will keep our Country safe! Stop playing political games and end the Shutdown!”

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The US government has been partially shut down for over three weeks, as Trump has so far failed to secure $5.7 billion in funding for a border wall from House and Senate Democratic Leaders Nancy Pelosi (California) and Chuck Schumer (New York). Despite several rounds of negotiations, Pelosi and Schumer have outright refused to fund the wall, preferring what Pelosi called a “technological wall” of drones, infrared sensors, and security cameras along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico.

Trump has countered that a wall or physical barrier is simple and more effective than an array of sensors and devices.

As the partisan bickering in Washington drags on, the members of the latest caravan gathered in the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula on Monday, preparing to set off on a journey of over 2,500 miles that will take weeks or months. Migrant rights group CIPRODEH is accompanying the caravan, and reported some 500 members, including pregnant women, disabled people, old age pensioners, “children and unaccompanied girls,” gathering in San Pedro Sula.

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Of the three caravans or more that left Honduras for the United States last year, the migrants have always given the same reasons for making the journey. Fleeing Honduras’ lawlessness and sky-high murder rate, they set off for the US seeking jobs and stability. President Trump, on the other hand, has characterized the caravans as an “invasion,” and warned the migrants to stay at home and apply for asylum legally.

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Building a wall along the Mexican border was one of Trump’s core campaign promises, and one that he has thus far been unable to achieve. The last caravan approached the border before November’s midterm elections, and Trump’s daily tweets about its progress helped drum up support for his hardline immigration policies, including the wall.

Images of the migrants pulling down fencing and swarming onto US soil were used by Trump to argue his case for the wall, while the sometimes heavy-handed response of Customs and Border Patrol agents was used by Democrats to attack Trump’s policies.

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‘Land of censorship & home of the fake’ Facebook is getting into the local news business

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Facebook is investing $300 million in local newsrooms and training initiatives for regional journalists over the next three years. But can Mark Zuckerberg be trusted to keep the press free?

With print newspapers’ advertising revenues in freefall for almost two decades, and local newspapers conglomerating and laying off staff to survive, the industry will take any help it can get. Facebook – with its mountains of fake news, clickbait, and a tricky environment for digital publishers to make money in – has in no small way contributed to the precarious state of modern journalism, but the company now wants to give the fourth estate a booster shot.

The company decided to focus specifically on local news. Vice President of Global News Partnerships Campbell Brown said in a blog post that after examining what kind of news people want to see on Facebook, the company “heard one consistent answer: people want more local news, and local newsrooms are looking for more support.”

Facebook’s support for the new industry has thus far been limited to funding a small selection of news programs from CNN, Fox News, and a handful of others. The social media giant has been far more keen to play policeman, partnering up with an array of third-party “fact checkers”last year to filter out “false narratives” and “intentionally divisive headlines and language that exploit disagreements and sow conflict”from users’ timelines.

Troublingly, even Facebook’s own staff could not explain what exactly the term “false narratives” meant. Additionally, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with a consortium of media executives shortly afterwards to talk about his company’s use of algorithms to promote ‘reputable news’ and suppress other content, all to ensure that “people can get trustworthy news on our platform.”

Drawn from CNN, the New York Times, Buzzfeed and others, the overwhelmingly liberal makeup of the panel of executives did little to persuade conservatives – who have long accused the platform of bias – that Facebook would act impartially.

Neither did Facebook’s announcement in August that it would partner up with the aggressively pro-NATO think tank, the Atlantic Council. The Atlantic Council vowed to serve as Facebook’s “eyes and ears” in the fight against fake news, but that fight resulted in hundreds of alternative news pages being purged from the platform in October. The 800 pages spanned the political spectrum, and their removal triggered cries of censorship and accusations that Facebook was waging “a wider war on dissident narratives.”

One banned cartoonist declared Facebook to be “land of the censorship and home of the fake,” while anti-war journalist Caitlin Johnstone called the purge the “latest escalation of corporate censorship used as state censorship in the West.”

Can Facebook then be trusted to fund local journalism?

The answer is unclear. The $300 million will be given to a number of organizations to distribute further. Some of these organizations, like the Pulitzer Center, are household names. Others, like Report for America, are less well known. The Pulitzer Center will receive $5 million to award as grants to local newsrooms around the country, and social justice non-profit Report for America will get $2 million to go towards the hiring of 1,000 journalists over the next five years.

Pulitzer Center founder and executive director Jon Sawyer welcomed the funding, and took time to “applaud Facebook’s commitment to the editorial independence that is absolutely essential to our success.”

No matter how hands-off Facebook stays, some commentators were angered by the company’s new-found role as champion of the local press. After contributing in a large way to the decline of print media, Facebook’s $300 million investment in the industry is, as one cartoon implied, “peanuts.”

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FRENCH POLICE DEPLOY RIFLES WITH LIVE AMMUNITION TO YELLOW VEST PROTESTS

French Police Deploy Rifles with Live Ammunition to Yellow Vest Protests

French officers were caught on video brandishing what appeared to be Heckler & Koch G36 assault rifles

by Chris Tomlinson

French riot police (CRS) are alleged to have begun deploying assault rifles with live ammunition for the first time during the ninth weekend of protest in a row by the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vest) movement.

French officers were caught on video brandishing what appeared to be Heckler & Koch G36 assault rifles on the streets of the French capital near the Arc de Triomphe on Saturday, the Daily Mail reports.

Several users on Twitter posted other pictures of officers armed with rifles, with one user claiming he had counted at least a dozen armed officers at around 3 p.m. near the famous monument.

Only a week prior to the “Act IX” protest, former French Minister of Education Luc Ferry had seemingly endorsed the use of live ammunition on Yellow Vest protestors in an interview with French media.

A police officer points a non-lethal hand-held weapon at protesters in front of the Cathedral of Bordeaux, southwestern France, during an anti-government demonstration called by the 'Yellow Vest' (Gilets Jaunes) movement on January 12, 2019. - Thousands of anti-government demonstrators marched in cities across France on January 12 in a …

“When you see guys beating up an unfortunate policeman on the ground, let them use their weapons once and for all, that’s enough, these kinds of thugs, these bastards of far right and extreme left or the suburbs that come to beat police officers, we have the fourth-largest army in the world, it is capable of putting an end to this crap,” he said.

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Ferry later clarified his statement, saying: “I have obviously never called to shoot the Yellow Vests of which I defended the movement from the beginning. I am simply asking that the police be able to use their NON-lethal weapons… when some people are trying to kill them.”

Yellow Vest activist Gilles Caron commented on the display of the weapons by the officers, saying: “[T]he CRS with the guns were wearing riot control helmets and body armour – they were not a specialised firearms unit.”

He added: “Their job was simply to threaten us with lethal weapons in a manner which is very troubling. We deserve some explanations.”

The Act IX protest saw a return in momentum for the Yellow Vests and once again saw incidents of violence, including several activists attacking a group of journalists in the northern city of Rouen.

Democrats boycott White House border security meeting

By Brooke Singman

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Congressional Democrats on Tuesday rejected President Trump’s invitation to a lunch meeting at the White House to discuss border security, in the latest sign that both sides of the government shutdown standoff remain entrenched in their positions with no compromise in sight.

A senior administration official told Fox News that the president had invited Democrats to join his lunch with members of Congress in the Roosevelt Room shortly after noon. But moments before the session, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement that nobody took them up on the offer.

“The President has a proposal on the table that includes additional technology at ports of entry, allows minors from Central America to seek asylum in their home country, and physical barriers between ports of entry made of steel instead of concrete,” she said. “Today, the President offered both Democrats and Republicans the chance to meet for lunch at the White House. Unfortunately, no Democrats will attend. The President looks forward to having a working lunch with House Republicans to solve the border crisis and reopen the government.

“It’s time for the Democrats to come to the table and make a deal.”

She said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer “refuse to negotiate.”

Trump, however, did not invite House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, instead reaching out to rank-and-file Democrats including centrist Democrats from districts where Trump is popular. A Pelosi aide reportedly said she gave lawmakers her blessing to attend, telling her leadership team that other congressional Democrats can see what she and others have dealt with during the shutdown.

Pelosi predicted that after meeting with Trump, the lawmakers would want to make a “citizen’s arrest,” according to the aide.

But the lawmakers ultimately decided not to attend. The meeting boycott leaves unclear how and when both sides might negotiate a resolution to the partial shutdown, which was triggered when Trump demanded nearly $6 billion for a border wall and Democrats refused — and is now the longest in U.S. history.

TRUMP SUGGESTS PELOSI SHOULD STOP GETTING A PAYCHECK AMID SHUTDOWN

The last meeting with Democratic leaders did not end well. Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., sat down last week with Trump, but Schumer said it ended when the president “just got up and walked out.”

“He asked Speaker Pelosi, ‘will you agree to my wall?’ She said no. And he just got up, and said, ‘Well, we’ve got nothing to discuss,” Schumer said last week.

Pelosi, after the meeting, said the president was “petulant,” and Schumer added that Trump slammed his hand on a table in frustration and had a “temper tantrum”—a move Trump, Vice President Pence and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy later denied.

Trump rejected the account, tweeting that “Cryin’ Chuck” Schumer “told his favorite lie when he used his standard sound bite that I ‘slammed the table & walked out of the room. He had a temper tantrum.’ Because I knew he would say that, and after Nancy said no to proper border security, I politely said bye-bye and left, no slamming!”

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Trump initially requested $5.7 billion in funding for security and construction of the wall, citing the “humanitarian crisis” and “invasion” at the border as reasons. Democrats have vowed to block any type of spending package that would involve funds to build a wall along the Southern border.

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But Trump has continued to press for wall funding, tweeting Tuesday: “A big new Caravan is heading up to our Southern Border from Honduras. Tell Nancy and Chuck that a drone flying around will not stop them. Only a Wall will work. Only a Wall, or Steel Barrier, will keep our Country safe! Stop playing political games and end the Shutdown!”

Fox News’ Matt Leach and John Roberts and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

HOUSE GOP LEADERS REMOVE STEVE KING FROM COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS

House GOP Leaders Remove Steve King from Committee Assignments

“Steve’s remarks are beneath the dignity of the Party of Lincoln and the United States of America.”

By Katherine Rodriguez

House Republican leaders voted Monday to remove Rep. Steve King (R-IA) from all of his assigned committees after the Iowa Republican came under fire for his comments about white nationalism in a New York Times interview.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) announced Monday that the Republican Steering Committee voted not to give King any committee assignments in the current session of Congress.

McCarthy, in his statement announcing the decision, called King’s comments “beneath the dignity of the Party of Lincoln and the United States of America.”

“Steve’s remarks are beneath the dignity of the Party of Lincoln and the United States of America. His comments call into question whether he will treat all Americans equally, without regard for race and ethnicity,” McCarthy said in a statement.

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“House Republicans are clear: We are all in this together, as fellow citizens equal before God and the law. As Congressman King’s fellow citizens, let us hope and pray earnestly that this action will lead to greater reflection and ultimately change on his part,” McCarthy added.

In the previous session of Congress, King had served on the House Agriculture, Judiciary, and Small Business committees. He also chaired the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice and was on his way to becoming a ranking member of that committee in the current session before the Steering Committee’s vote.

The Iowa Republican decried the committee’s decision as a “political decision that ignores the truth,” adding that the committee misinterpreted his remarks:

King faced pushback on Thursday after he told the Times that he raised questions about why the terms “white nationalist” and “white supremacist” are considered offensive.

His comments caused an uproar, prompting Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to call his remarks “unworthy” of the office he holds.

“If he doesn’t understand why ‘white supremacy’ is offensive, he should find another line of work,” McConnell said.

King released a statement clarifying his comments soon after the Times article went live, stating that the Times‘ assumption that he was “an advocate for white nationalism” was incorrect.

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King also “condemned” people who support bigotry and rejected “those labels and the evil ideology that they define.

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