President Donald Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi began a diplomatic friendship in September ’16 before the U.S. election. Two weeks ago President al-Sisi visited the White House and both leaders warmly praised the relationship established.
[…] “I fully trust the capabilities of President Trump … he can succeed in so many fields that others cannot. I trust him wholeheartedly.”…
As a gesture of the shift in relationship between the U.S. and Egypt, and at the request of President Trump, President al-Sisi’s administration released two imprisoned aide workers. They arrived back in the U.S. late last night.
Maintaining a diplomatic approach, President Trump speaks little about the event except to express appreciation for the release.
(Via WaPo) […] President Trump and his aides worked for several weeks with Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi to secure the freedom of Aya Hijazi, 30, a U.S. citizen, as well as her husband, Mohamed Hassanein, who is Egyptian, and four other humanitarian workers. Trump dispatched a U.S. government aircraft to Cairo to bring Hijazi and her family to Washington.
[…] The Obama administration unsuccessfully pressed Sissi’s government for their release. It was not until Trump moved to reset U.S. relations with Egypt by embracing Sissi at the White House on April 3 — he publicly hailed the autocrat’s leadership as “fantastic” and offered the U.S. government’s “strong backing” — that Egypt’s posture changed. Last Sunday, a court in Cairo dropped all charges against Hijazi and the others. (read more)
The media is downplaying, and in most cases ignoring, the extreme nature of the crisis currently going on in socialist Venezuela under the Maduro regime. Most of the cries for help are from people begging the international media to cover their plight.
Some of the video and photography are stunning as millions of people take to the streets to protest a collapsing economy and food shortages while being met with tanks, guns and rogue militias hired by the government.
Some of the targeted citizens appear chosen at random. Some of the citizens are also desperate and fighting back. Warning – These images are graphic and the video feeds are also alarming. However, the media are barely reporting on any of this, and unfortunately, it looks like things are getting worse:
Even absent guns (anti-gun laws) people are driving back the military.
As this lady and her family was filming the armed official shooting in the street, he turned and shot at her in her home.
So much tear gas has been deployed people are fleeing their homes amid the confrontations. The local district medical units appear overwhelmed, and also fearful of being targeted.
This woman was shot in her home by either militia or Venezuelan guards.
This is a well presented and easy to understand video which appears to make a solid case that police munitions were fired by the Berkeley Police Department against Trump supporters, and in support of AntiFA thugs, last weekend.
The video was created by Thomas Wictor who is continuing to assemble more evidence. WATCH, it is rather stunning to realize what could be happening:
If the video is correct the FBI needs to immediately open an investigation into the use of police munitions against political opponents by Berkeley Police.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions and DHS Secretary John Kelly visited the Southern border today and paused for an interview with Martha MacCallum:
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Almost simultaneously, OMB Director Mick Mulvaney gave an interview to the Associated Press where he outlines the White House priorities for the upcoming ‘bridge budget’ bill. The short-term budget (May through Sept 30th) is needed because congress never passed a budget from 2008 through 2017, and a continuing resolution spending bill expires on April 30th.
(Via AP) […] Mulvaney told The Associated Press in an interview that “elections have consequences” and that “we want wall funding” as part of the catchall spending bill, which lawmakers hope to unveil next week.
“We want wall funding. We want (immigration) agents. Those are our priorities,” Mulvaney said. “We know there are a lot of people on the Hill, especially in the Democratic Party, who don’t like the wall, but they lost the election. And the president should, I think, at least have the opportunity to fund one of his highest priorities in the first funding bill under his administration.”
He said the wall is “something that’s a tremendous priority for us and that clearly was a seminal issue in the 2016 presidential race.”
[…] Mulvaney said the White House isn’t enthusiastic about Democratic demands on the Obamacare payments but is open to them as part of a broader agreement.
“The president has been quoted several times and said he’s inclined not to make them and I can’t tell you that I’m interested in dissuading him from that position,” Mulvaney said. “That being said, if it’s important enough to the Democrats, we’d be happy to talk to them about including that in sort of some type of compromise.”
Added Mulvaney: “If Democrats are interested and serious about compromise and negotiation, the ball is in their court.” (read more)
It is more than a little ironic that most of the opposition to President Trump on budgets is coming from UniParty Republicans in congress. The same UniParty who couldn’t bother to pass a budget since Sept. 2007.
…. Almost a decade.
A decade without a budget, and yet congress has the audacity to quibble over President Trump’s spending requests. Think about it.
President Trump has already proposed a budget outline for fiscal year 2018 that includes over a trillion dollar reduction in actual spending. Not a reduction in the growth of spending, but an actual reduction in year-over-year spending. A concept so foreign to congress that most UniParty Republicans have already announced their opposition toward such an effort and stated they will demand President Trump spend more money.
….now, congress doesn’t want to fund a border wall.
….oh, and congress can’t repeal or replace ObamaCare.
….oh, and President Trump still doesn’t have his cabinet confirmed.
….. and congress is on vacation.
….. and, well, while on vacation, Representative Jodi Ernest is worried about President Trump going to Mar-a-lago too much. Did I mention she said that while on vacation?
….and then, well, congress won’t accept the letter of intent to open NAFTA for trade renegotiation.
John Redwood, a prominent and experienced Brexit MP, posted on his blog today (http://johnredwoodsdiary.com) about doing an interview on British Press:
Yesterday I was phoned to be asked onto the BBC Radio 4 Today program this morning. They said they wanted me to answer questions about how the election would change the UK’s ability to negotiate a new, good relationship with the EU. I was happy to do so, and said I could make any time at their studio. It seemed like a good topic, and central to what the PM said about her reason for calling the election.
They then proceeded to ask me a series of questions all designed to get me to disagree with the UK negotiating position and Prime Minister. I explained that I supported the PM, agreed with her Brexit White Paper and stated aims, and suggested if all they wanted to do was to criticize her, they should approach the opposition parties. They continued to try to get me to disagree. They did not seem to have read the White Paper or the PM’s speech on the topic, so I had to tell them what was in them and why I agreed with them.
I explained again that their thesis that the leave supporting MPs were in disagreement with the PM and were “rebels” was simply untrue. We are not in disagreement with the PM and we have been strongly supporting the government’s statements and legislation on Brexit. She said she would get back to me about the invitation to go on, with the details.
She did not of course bother to, as it was clear I was unwilling to feed their view of what the news should be.
I then found that another Leave supporting Conservative MP had been given the same treatment, and he too had thought the BBC were trying to change the news rather than report the position. When I came to do a live interview on some other BBC program, I was faced with the same stupid thesis and had to explain on air how wrong their idea was.
I do not know who is feeding the BBC this nonsense, but it is frustrating that they do not accept the truth from those whose views they claim to be reporting, and do not bother to get back and openly say they do not want you on because you won’t say what they want you to say.
There are many people rightly concerned about legislative issues seemingly stuck in the mud. However, what many of those same people seem to forget is the basic reality of President Trump’s America-First agenda being opposed by professional republicans even more than it is opposed by professional Democrats. DC is a UniParty.
Republican and Democrat political leadership, the UniParty writ large, have been paid to protect the legislative priorities of the multi-billion lobbying group known as K-Street.
The fallacy of false choice lies behind the concept of controlled opposition.
Prior to Donald Trump there was only one political party in DC, the Uniparty. President Trump represents the alternative; the second party.
For almost five years we have been pointing out the construct. The UniParty have three unwavering primary objectives as purchased by the lobbying groups: 1) Retention of Obamacare; 2) Budgetary spending to retain growth of government; and 3) comprehensive immigration reform to include amnesty.
These three primary legislative issues are not up for debate, modification or discussion. The legislative outcomes have been purchased, multi-million-dollar investments made, and the interests behind the legislative constructs will not allow any elimination or concession.
Beyond that reality, the rest is simply political optics and gamesmanship. If you refuse to accept this baseline, you will continue to find yourself frustrated as you try to reconcile what is not happening.
Congress, as salesmen for the interests funding their activity, does that which is important to it; and congress does not do that which is antithetical to its pre-purchased interests.
President Trump, through his proposed policy objectives, is antithetical to those interests.
FULL STOP.
Essentially, President Trump has requested the following:
A budget with actual baseline reductions in spending. Where Trump’s cabinet, individually and collectively, will actually reduce scale, scope and reach of federal government.
Healthcare reform to include the elimination of ObamaCare and a return to free market principles to drive down the cost of insurance products.
Funding funding to enhance enforcement of existing immigration law and a border wall to ensure the long-term reductions in the ease of illegal, unauthorized migration.
All three of those requests are opposed by Republicans and Democrats in congress. You can beat your head against the wall in frustration, but the reality doesn’t change. The big money interests who write legislation have paid all members of congress to block these basic principles of President Trump policy.
EXAMPLE – You might remember seeing Senator Rand Paul on TV for 10-consecutive-days (March), proclaiming that RyanCare must be defeated. Toward that end Senator Paul put on a tuxedo went to the House of Representatives, lobbied them personally, and handed out instructions and books telling Hillary’s Favorite Caucus (HFC) if they simply blocked President Trump and Secretary Price he (Paul) would, within two weeks, provide a clean repeal bill from the Senate. Senator Rand Paul said he and Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Mike Lee already had the legislation written for the clean repeal. Senator Paul stated if the House members simply followed his plan he would guarantee the “repeal only” bill would advance within two weeks.
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Remember that?
Well?…
This is the same UniParty that approved Trade Promotion Authority, a Republican Bill, that allowed President Obama to construct TPP and congress reversed the threshold for approval – making it necessary for two-thirds of the Senate to oppose passage to stop it, instead of two-thirds necessary to approve passage. Why would a republican controlled congress make it easier for Obama-Trade to pass and make it harder to stop?
This is the same UniParty that has refused to accept the ‘Notification of Intent’ letter from Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross permitting him to renegotiate NAFTA. Why would a republican controlled congress block President Trump from re-negotiating NAFTA?
Go back and look at the lobbying money spent by the U.S. CoC.
You see, this is where CTH refuses to be co-dependents in our own abuse. We fully understand, and more importantly ‘accept’, the DC UniParty congress has no intention of: Providing a budget to lower spending; repealing and replacing ObamaCare; allowing enforcement of immigration law to include deportation and a southern border wall.
It can be difficult to accept these realities. It can be difficult to confront your abuser. However, until the larger electorate understand the structural concept of the UniParty, there will be hours-upon-hours of talking in circles, and tens of thousands of column inches typed in an effort to reconcile the irreconcilable and avoid accepting the diagnosis:
Whether China is right about North Korea conducting a nuclear test on April 25 remains to be seen, but for now Kim Jong-Un is content with merely escalating the verbal warfare and overnight North Korean state media warned the United States of a “super-mighty preemptive strike” following the latest round of comments by Rex Tillerson who said the United States was looking at ways to bring pressure to bear on North Korea over its nuclear programme.
The Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, did not mince its words: “In the case of our super-mighty preemptive strike being launched, it will completely and immediately wipe out not only U.S. imperialists’ invasion forces in South Korea and its surrounding areas but the U.S. mainland and reduce them to ashes” it said according to Reuters.
The threat will hardly come as a surprise: the reclusive communist nation regularly threatens to destroy Japan, South Korea and the United States “and has shown no let-up in its belligerence after a failed missile test on Sunday, a day after putting on a huge display of missiles at a parade in Pyongyang.”
The comments come in response to Tillerson statement in Washington on Wednesday when he told reporters that “we’re reviewing all the status of North Korea, both in terms of state sponsorship of terrorism as well as the other ways in which we can bring pressure on the regime in Pyongyang to re-engage with us, but re-engage with us on a different footing than past talks have been held,”
Furthermore, Paul Ryan said during a visit to London the military option must be part of the pressure brought to bear. “Allowing this dictator to have that kind of power is not something that civilised nations can allow to happen,” he said in reference to Kim. Ryan said he was encouraged by the results of efforts to work with China to reduce tension, but that it was unacceptable North Korea might be able to strike allies with nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, the US and Russia clashed at the United Nations on Wednesday over a U.S.-drafted Security Council statement – which has to be agreed by all participants in the 15-member council – to condemn North Korea’s latest failed ballistic missile test. Curiously, diplomats said China had agreed to the statement.
Previous statements denouncing missile launches “welcomed efforts by council members, as well as other states, to facilitate a peaceful and comprehensive solution through dialogue”. The latest draft statement dropped “through dialogue” and Russia requested it be included again.
“When we requested to restore the agreed language that was of political importance and expressed commitment to continue to work on the draft … the U.S. delegation without providing any explanations cancelled the work on the draft,” the Russian U.N. mission said in a statement.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said China believed in the Security Council maintaining unity. “Speaking with one voice is extremely important to the Security Council appropriately responding to the relevant issue on the peninsula,” he told reporters.
With North Korean tensions lingering, there remains some confusion over the whereabouts of a U.S. aircraft carrier group after Trump said last week he had sent an “armada” as a warning to North Korea, even as the ships were still far from Korean waters. The U.S. military’s Pacific Command explained that the USS Carl Vinson strike group first had to complete a shorter-than-planned period of training with Australia. It was now heading for the Western Pacific as ordered, it said.
The incident has also become a source of mockery for China, whose influential Global Times newspaper, which is published by the People’s Daily, wondered whether the misdirection was deliberate.
“The truth seems to be that the U.S. military and president jointly created fake news and it is without doubt a rare scandal in U.S. history, which will be bound to cripple Trump’s and U.S. dignity,” it said.
Reuters is reporting that a lawsuit was just filed on Tuesday in federal court in Chicago seeking an injunction to stop Bose’s “wholesale disregard” for the privacy of customers who download its free Bose Connect app from Apple Inc or Google Play stores to their smartphones. The lawsuit alleges that Bose Corp spies on its wireless headphone customers by using an app that tracks the music, podcasts and other audio they listen to and then sells that information thereby violating their privacy rights. Many serviced offices force you to go through their network and they too are tracking what you search so they too can resell that info to others.
The real question is coming to a head. You do you value? Your customer or the few extra pennies you can get buy selling what they look at or sell.
The first round of the 2017 French presidential election is set to be held this coming Sunday on the 23rd of April 2017. Should no candidate win a majority, which is usually the case in France, a run-off election between the top two candidates will be held on May 7th, 2017.
Macron and Le Pen are tied at 22% each – a far cry from a majority. Yet, what people fail to comprehend is regardless of who wins, a sizable portion of the population throughout all of Europe is anti-EU. Economically, if Le Pen does not win, it will be a very hard landing for the EU going forward for the politicians will refuse to reform and assume they have beaten the “populist” movement.
Like many Euro countries, France’s economy has reached a dead-end, or in French an economic cul-de-sac. This creates the social unrest, which is the seed of Revolution. France, as strange as it may sound, is actually closer to Britain than Germany or Italy. However, the French labor market is even more socialistic than that in Britain and it is in a major crisis. France has a major energy problem that is very specific to France. France uses primarily nuclear power. However, it does import energy from Britain.
With the elections coming up this Sunday, the EU suffered a major shock with the BREXIT vote in 2016. Then the election of Donald Trump smacked them square in the face, yet a deep-haze manifested in their eyes as the politicians refused to recognize that they were the targets.
Panic has given way to confidence in the last few months and politicians are preparing to blame Russia for their own failures. Before the first round of the elections in France, the EU is on guard desperately trying to defeat Le Pen at all costs. They cling to the large portion of undecided and they are calling in all the markers desperately trying to get the press to manipulate this election to save Brussels.
The polls reflect considerable uncertainty. Many voters, perhaps 30 to 40% of the total, have not yet decided. This reflects the 22% poll for both Le Pen and Macron.
What is clear is that a Le Pen victory will provide a soft-landing for the Euro. If she loses, then this is going to be a very hard landing indeed in 2018. There will be no hope of reform and Brussels will push it into collapse cheering how they have defeated the “populist” movement
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
Panic has given way to confidence in the last few months and politicians are preparing to blame Russia for their own failures. Before the first round of the elections in France, the EU is on guard desperately trying to defeat Le Pen at all costs. They cling to the large portion of undecided and they are calling in all the markers desperately trying to get the press to manipulate this election to save Brussels.
Centinel2012 