Tag: Russia

2020 Watch: De Blasio Announces Candidacy, Trump Weighs In

The New York City entered the race, and came out swinging against President Donald J. Trump.

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The never-ending list of Democratic Party candidates for president got a little bit longer Thursday, when New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced his candidacy.

“Even before his announcement, de Blasio already qualified to participate in the Democratic primary debates, according to a poll from Reuters and Ipsos,” Axios said. “The mayor intends to leverage his record of New York achievements such as universal pre-kindergarten and raising the minimum hourly wage. Following the announcement, he will go on a 4-day campaign tour to Iowa and South Carolina, per NBC.”

President Donald J. Trump weighed in on de Blasio’s candidacy on Twitter.

“The Dems are getting another beauty to join their group. Bill de Blasio of NYC, considered the worst mayor in the U.S., will supposedly be making an announcement for president today. He is a JOKE, but if you like high taxes & crime, he’s your man. NYC HATES HIM!” he said.

CAP

“There’s plenty of money in this world. There’s plenty of money in this country. It’s just in the wrong hands,” de Blasio said in a campaign announcement video.

He spent the first half of his announcement video describing his far-left platform, which includes universal healthcare, a $15 minimum wage, and “free” Pre-Kindergarten education for all. He spent the second half of the announcement video attacking Trump, calling him a “bully.”

De Blasio is squarely in the progressive corner. He was widely ridiculed for last month for proposing a skyscraper ban in New York City to fight climate change.

Big League Politics reported:

The mayor of America’s most populous city has a new plan to fight “global warming,” and it involves doing away with the landscape of the city over which he presides.

“We’re going to introduce legislation to ban the glass and steel skyscrapers that have contributed so much to global warming,” said New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said. “They have no place in our city or our Earth anymore.”

The mayor did not offer much in the way of specifics regarding his plan. Will existing skyscrapers be demolished, or will the city ban new ones from being erected? Many such buildings are apartments and condos. Will the people who live in them be forced to move? Also, what happened to “climate change?” This reporter was under the impression that “global warming” was an outdated term.

According to Spectrum News 1 in New York City, de Blasio’s proposal would prevent developers from “using all glass facades unless they meet strict new energy guidelines,” which he called “the city’s version of the Green new Deal.”

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White House Denies House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler’s Document Request ‘political theater pre-ordained to reach a preconceived and false result’

CAP

By Joshua Caplan

The White House said Wednesday that it is rebuffing the House Judiciary Committee’s request to hand over documents regarding topics broadly focused on 2016 Trump presidential campaign figures.

“The White House will not participate in the Committee’s ‘investigation’ that brushes aside the conclusions of the Department of Justice after a two-year-long effort in favor of political theater pre-ordained to reach a preconceived and false result,” a letter sent by White House counsel Pat Cipollone reads, according to ABC News.

Democrats launched a sweeping probe of President Trump in March, an aggressive investigation targeting eighty-one individuals and entities requesting records as part of their investigation ”into the alleged obstruction of justice, public corruption, and other abuses of power by President Trump, his associates, and members of his Administration.”

Cipollone wrote that Nadler’s investigation is “duplicative” of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into now-debunked collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia and requested that the committee seek a more “narrow” scope.

“Congressional investigations are intended to obtain information to aid in evaluating potential legislation, not to harass political opponents or to pursue an unauthorized “do-over” of exhaustive law enforcement investigations conducted by the Department of Justice,” argued the White House general counsel.

Former Trump campaign chief Stephen K. Bannon and the National Rifle Association (NRA) are among several figures and groups that have provided documents or responses to the panel.

President Trump has previously denounced the probe, tweeting that Nadler and other Democrats “have gone stone cold CRAZY. 81 letter sent to innocent people to harass them. They won’t get ANYTHING done for our Country!”

Nadler has said that the document requests, with responses to most that were due by March 18, are a way to “begin building the public record.”

“Over the last several years, President Trump has evaded accountability for his near-daily attacks on our basic legal, ethical, and constitutional rules and norms,” the New York Democrat said upon launching the probe. “Investigating these threats to the rule of law is an obligation of Congress and a core function of the House Judiciary Committee.”

Separate congressional probes are already ongoing, including an effort announced by three other House Democrat chairmen to obtain information about private conversations between him and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In a letter to the White House and State Department, the House intelligence, Foreign Affairs, and Oversight and Reform panels sent broad requests for details about President Trump and Putin’s private meetings by phone and in person. In addition to document requests, the committees are asking to interview interpreters who sat in on meetings, including a one-on-one session in Helsinki, Finland, last summer.

The State Department pledged to “work cooperatively with the committees.”

The AP contributed to this report. 

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UK POLICE FORCE RIDICULED FOR CONFISCATING A SPOON

UK Police Force Ridiculed For Confiscating a Spoon

Fighting violent crime one kitchen utensil at a time

A police force in the UK has been ridiculed for bragging about fighting knife crime by confiscating a spoon.

Regents Park Police said that a local charity shop had handed over a collection of potentially dangerous weapons to prevent criminals buying them.

“Yesterday we conducted weapons sweeps, dealt with a person injured from a van reversing on them, reported a burglary and collected all these from @scope charity shop who diligently didn’t want them to get into the wrong hands & disposed of correctly & safely,” said the police force in a tweet.

CAP

Eagle-eyed observers soon noted that amongst the trawl of deadly weapons, most of which were cooking knives and letter openers, was a spoon.

That’s right. With violent crime soaring and street gangs becoming more vicious, police in London are confiscating spoons.

“They CHOSE to include the spoon,” commented journalist Tim Pool. “They could have just left it out. They really do think spoons are dangerous.”

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“Cereal killer,” joked another respondent.

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“If you can’t trust the new Londoners you imported to handle spoons without stabbing someone, perhaps you have a problem which requires more than spoon confiscation to solve?” asks Chris Menahan.

The same police force was also ridiculed last year for confiscating pliers, scissors and a screwdriver.

CAP

The war on spoons doesn’t really seem to be helping reduce knife crime in the UK, which recently hit its highest level since records began.

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DEMS TO STAGE MARATHON READING OF MUELLER REPORT

Dems to Stage Marathon Reading of Mueller Report

Latest stunt in Russian collusion witch hunt soon

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Democrats plan to deliver a marathon public reading of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 448-page report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, staged Thursday in a House committee room.

“This report illustrates a presidency founded in opportunism, devoid of respect for public service and the rule of law,” Representative Mary Gay Scanlon of Pennsylvania, vice chairwoman of the House Judiciary Committee and a leader of the reading effort, said in a statement. “This administration and its enablers do not want the American people hear the contents of this report.”

More than 20 Democrats plan to take part, reading in shifts in the House Rules Committee meeting room in the Capitol, according to a notice about the planned event. The reading will start at noon Thursday on the first page, where Mueller’s report declares: “The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion.”

It will continue through the report’s two volumes, excluding the appendices and still-secret portions.

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Survey: Over Half of Swedes Reject Taking More Refugees

Swedish

By Chris Tomlinson

A new survey at attitudes towards migration across Europe has found more than half of Swedes say they do not want to see the country take in more refugees, making it one of the most migration-sceptic nations.

Around 8,000 people in Germany, Poland, Spain, Hungary, Italy, Belgium, France and Sweden were asked a series of questions in the survey, including “Do you agree with the statement: ‘My country should not receive more refugees from conflict areas.’?” to which 51 per cent of the Swedish respondents said they agreed, Spanish newspaper El Paisreports.

While both Poland and Italy were tied with 53 per cent saying they agreed with the statement, the Swedish number exceeded that of Hungary, a nation noted for its strong anti-mass migration stance and policies, at 49 per cent.

More than one-third, 35 percent of the respondents across all of the countries surveyed, said that immigration was the most important issue facing the European Union today but only 14 percent said that the European Union had managed to handle the migrant crisis in 2015 and 2016 in a competent manner.

By contrast, 41 percent of Germans say they would welcome more refugees despite being the largest recipient of migrants during the height of the migrant crisis, and the challenges of rising crime, increased spending and lack of both cultural and economic integration.

CAP

For Sweden, migration has been a core issue in elections since the height of the migrant crisis in 2015, with the issue dominating the 2018 national elections, according to similar surveys taken last year.

Several reports in Sweden have highlighted the issues surrounding mass migration, including an unpublished report earlier this year that proved that the costs for an increase in migration promised by the Swedish government earlier this year would be far higherthan the initial stated estimates.

Another report, from Swedish broadcaster SVT, revealed the extent of migrant rape rates, claiming over a period of five years, migrants made up 58 percent of those convicted for rapes. The number jumped to 85 percent when accounting to violent rapes in which the victim did not know the perpetrator beforehand.

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Record number of attacks on gays in France: report

Record number of attacks on gays in France: report

By AFP

Paris (AFP) – Assaults in France on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people hit a new record in 2018, “a dark year” for the LGBT community, French group SOS Homophobie reported Tuesday.

The non-profit association registered 231 physical attacks, up from the previous annual record of 188 anti-LGBT assaults back in 2013 linked to same-sex marriage legislation.

“2018 was a dark year for LGBT people,” said SOS Homophobie co-presidents Véronique Godet and Joël Deumier in the yearly report.

The number of assaults jumped 66 percent over 2017, with a spike towards the end of the year when a case a day was being reported to the group.

SOS Homophobie’s helpline, website and legal services collected 1,905 statements from witnesses of abuse of the gay community, 15 percent more than the previous year.

The breakdown of cases, which could involve multiple categories, showed 62 percent involved rejection, 51 percent insults, 38 percent discrimination and 20 percent harassment. Threats and defamation made up 17 percent each with physical assault on 13 percent.

Some 66 percent of witnesses were men, who were “more inclined to talk about it and turn to SOS Homophobie to denounce what they suffered”.

The association said the 42 percent leap in reporting of violence against lesbians appeared linked to the greater willingness of victims to speak out and the influence of the #MeToo movement.

With 23 percent of reported cases, Internet was the leading place for the expression of LGBT phobia in France.

Facebook and Twitter act like an “echo chamber” of daily cases with the social networks recording more than half of all reported cases, the group said.

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