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332,443 | nationalreview--2019-09-20--A California Court Dealt a Blow to Religious Liberty Its Time for SCOTUS to Act | 2019-09-20T00:00:00 | nationalreview | A California Court Dealt a Blow to Religious Liberty. It’s Time for SCOTUS to Act. | The California Court of Appeals rules that a transgender patient can sue a Catholic hospital for refusing to perform a hysterectomy. Yesterday, the California Court of Appeals issued a truly remarkable opinion in a truly remarkable case. It held that a Catholic hospital could indeed face legal liability for failing to perform a hysterectomy as part of a female-to-male “transition” — even though its policy broadly bans sterilization surgery generally (not just for trans individuals) and even though the hospital referred the patient to a non-Catholic facility in the same network. The patient obtained the hysterectomy a mere three days after the original scheduled surgery date and sued anyway. The facts of the case are simple. The plaintiff, Evan Minton, initially scheduled a hysterectomy for August 30, 2016, at Mercy San Juan Medical Center (part of the Dignity Health hospital network) as a treatment for gender dysphoria. Mercy is a Catholic hospital, and the day before the scheduled surgery, Mercy canceled the procedure. It cited the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services.” As the court noted, “The Directives prohibit direct sterilization and require that bodily and functional integrity be protected and preserved.” In other words, a Catholic hospital was upholding basic Catholic religious doctrine. Mercy’s president then recommended that Minton’s doctor obtain emergency admitting privileges at nearby Methodist Hospital, which is also a Dignity Health facility. The doctor obtained privileges and performed the surgery on September 2, 2016. Minton then sued Dignity Health, claiming that he was the victim of gender identity discrimination. The trial court dismissed his complaint, but yesterday the California Court of Appeals revived his claims. It held that Dignity Health could protect the religious liberty of its Catholic institutions only if “it can provide all persons with full and equal medical care at comparable facilities not subject to the same religious restrictions.” It also held that even the short, three-day waiting period between the initial scheduled surgery at Mercy and the actual surgery at Methodist did not constitute “full and equal medical care.” Instead, the court wrote, the plaintiff “experienced a startling and painful notification that the surgery would not go forward.” When the plaintiff’s surgery was cancelled, “he was subjected to discrimination.” Note the burden this ruling places on Catholic institutions — they will be compelled to provide care unless they actively facilitate the provision of care elsewhere, and even the most brief delays are legally intolerable. The case was decided under California state law, by a California appeals court, applying a California statutory and constitutional analysis. But the federal constitution applies here as well, and that brings me to the Supreme Court. This upcoming term it can decide a case that could and should transform the fight for religious liberty and decisively protect the right of religious institutions to uphold church teachings in the provision of their public services. That case is called Sharonell Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, and the pending cert petition challenges the city’s punitive actions against Catholic Social Services based on CSS’s refusal to “provide written endorsements for same-sex couples which contradict its religious teachings on marriage.” While Fulton and the California case are obviously not identical, a ruling protecting religious liberty in Fulton would create a federal precedent that the California state court would be required to consider. Moreover, the petitioners in Fulton are asking the Supreme Court to correct a historical wrong. They’re asking the court to reverse Antonin Scalia’s great mistake — his opinion in Employment Division v. Smith that gutted the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and greatly expanded state authority over religious individuals and religious institutions. At present, blue states across the United States are attempting to use expansive nondiscrimination to coerce religious institutions to violate their religious principles as a condition for providing charitable or commercial services in their states. Even in the absence of evidence that any LGBT person has been denied access to adoption services or medical care, states are still bringing down the hammer. For example, in Fulton, the city took action against CSS even though not one LGBT couple had approached CSS for foster services from its opening in 1917 through the filing of the case in 2018. In the California case, the court ruled that there could be actionable discrimination even though the LGBT plaintiff obtained the services he sought from the defendant in the case. Given these facts, it often appears as if activist states (and their activist allies at, for example, the ACLU) are less interested in ensuring that LGBT patients and families have access to care or services (which they do) than in bringing religious organizations into compliance with the moral mandates of the sexual revolution. Make no mistake, there are times when religious-liberty claims should yield to nondiscrimination statutes. The Supreme Court was right to decide in Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises that it was “patently frivolous” for a South Carolina restaurant to argue that the Free Exercise Clause protected its policy of excluding black customers. California and Pennsylvania in 2019 are nothing like South Carolina in 1968, and it’s past time to stop treating modern religious institutions as if they’re the harbingers of a new Jim Crow. Our nation has room for religious and secular institutions, and it should be beyond the power of the state to coerce religious institutions to compromise on conscience — especially when there is evidence that patients and families enjoy access to alternative choices. It’s time, this term, for SCOTUS to step up and draw a line in the sand. It should grant cert in Fulton and repair free-exercise jurisprudence. The state may encroach no farther on the constitutional liberty of religious institutions. | David French | https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/a-california-court-deals-a-blow-to-religious-liberty-its-time-for-scotus-to-act/ | 2019-09-20 18:07:34+00:00 | 1,569,017,254 | 1,569,590,565 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
332,542 | nationalreview--2019-09-27--Whither Anti-Communism | 2019-09-27T00:00:00 | nationalreview | Whither Anti-Communism? | The Vatican and the Western business elite, once instrumental in the West’s winning the Cold War, have been brought to heel by the Chinese Communist party. The Berlin Wall fell when I was just in primary school. Later in life, as I was beginning to develop my convictions about life and politics, I was taught that the West had faced down this threat to history, that institutions such as the Catholic Church and major Western business interests had brought down the dreadful and wicked Communists in the name of political, religious, and economic freedom. At the time, it stood to reason that the Western religious and business establishments had played such a big part in winning the Cold War. The Soviet Union tried to crush and humiliate Christian institutions wherever it went; indeed, many radicals became Communists precisely because of Communism’s inherent and fanatical anti-clericalism. Free enterprise was suppressed under the Communist regimes of the 20th century. The hostility of the Catholic Church and western titans of industry to Communism could be taken for granted then. But it can’t be anymore — not in the era of President Xi Jinping. I was reminded of this just today, when PBS’s revival of Firing Line released a preview of host Margaret Hoover’s interview with Michael Bloomberg, the Wall Street tycoon and former mayor of New York who has repeatedly flirted with running for president over the past decade. Hoover was talking to Bloomberg about China’s record on pollution, and she pointed out that its growth and coal-burning were, by Bloomberg’s standards, a threat to the global environment so great that it could not be overcome by any carbon-reduction strategy the United States might adopt. “So, the United States currently accounts for about 15 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions. China accounts for roughly 30 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions. How do we — even if we get to net-zero [emissions], how do you get China, India, and the other countries to be good partners?” Hoover asks. “China is doing a lot,” Bloomberg responds. “Yes, they’re still building a bunch of coal-fired power plants. . . . But they are now moving [coal-burning] plants away from the cities. The Communist party wants to stay in power in China, and they listen to the public. When the public says, ‘I can’t breathe the air’ — Xi Jinping is not a dictator. He has to satisfy his constituents or he’s not going to survive.” “Xi Jinping is not a dictator?” a clearly stunned Hoover asks. “No, he has a constituency to answer to,” Bloomberg replies. This is true as far as it goes: Xi Jinping still needs to please those in the inner sanctum of the Chinese Communist Party. But when Hoover goes on to express her incredulity at the idea that “the Chinese government is responsive,” Bloomberg cuts her off with great conviction. “Of course they are!” he says, adding, in total ignorance of history and political theory, “No government survives without the will of the majority of its people. He has to deliver services!” Ladies and gentlemen, you’ve heard it here first: Tyranny does not — and, in fact, cannot — exist! I don’t mean to pick on Bloomberg, however bad he’s made himself look here. What concerns me is that the attitude he expressed to Hoover has come to predominate among the American business elite. Tim Cook is happy to announce retaliatory measures against U.S. states that are on the wrong side of the culture war. But you won’t hear a peep about the anti-suicide nets that Apple’s Chinese contractor Foxxconn installed to deal with the public-relations problem of iPhone-assembly workers throwing themselves to their deaths. Nor about concentration camps for Muslims in Jinjiang province, or the ructions in Hong Kong. In an article on the trade war, James McGregor, the chairman of the greater China region for the consultancy APCO Worldwide, was quoted admitting the awful truth: “For many American tech companies, Xi Jinping is more important than Donald Trump, because China is often their largest and fastest-growing market.” The Church might even be even worse in this respect. “Right now, those who are best implementing the social doctrine of the Church are the Chinese,” Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, the chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, said last year as the Vatican was buttering up the Chinese ahead of a historic deal meant to solve long-standing conflicts between the Church and the Chinese Communist Party. Like Bloomberg, Sorondo burbled credulously about a fictive regime that does not exist, praising China’s “positive national conscience.” “You do not have shantytowns, you do not have drugs, young people do not take drugs,” in China, he said. Even better, “the economy does not dominate politics, as happens in the United States, something Americans themselves would say.” Last year’s deal aimed to unify China’s underground Catholic Church with the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA), the Communist Party body meant to regulate Catholicism in the country. The Vatican secretary of state, who oversaw its negotiation, has had to admit in retrospect that it is “not a good agreement.” But it was the only agreement they could get. The day after it was signed, Xi humiliated the Vatican by having the bishops of the CPCA sign a statement affirming their “independence” from Rome, and their determination to pursue the “sinicization” of their religion. Prelates who remained underground, like Bishop Peter Shao Zhumin, were rounded up and detained. This, whether any outsiders care to admit it in public or not, is just what the Chinese Communist Party does: It co-opts the businesses and religious institutions that it can, and swallows those that it can’t whole. That the West’s anti-Communist coalition now seems quite a bit smaller than it once was is a sign of the Chinese regime’s success. | Michael Brendan Dougherty | https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/chinese-communist-party-has-broken-catholic-church-western-business-elite-opposition/ | 2019-09-27 21:15:43+00:00 | 1,569,633,343 | 1,570,222,078 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
332,541 | nationalreview--2019-09-27--Whistleblower Filed Report with CIA Before Submitting Complaint | 2019-09-27T00:00:00 | nationalreview | Whistleblower Filed Report with CIA Before Submitting Complaint | The whistleblower who submitted a complaint on possible abuses of power by President Trump originally reported the matter to the CIA general counsel, according to a report from the New York Times. The CIA lawyer, Courtney Simmons Elwood, then shared the report with the White House and the Department of Justice, following standard procedure with regard to complaints of this type. The whistleblower remained anonymous throughout the process. Elwood also took up the whistleblower’s concerns with officials from the Justice Department. Eventually Attorney General William P. Barr was made aware of the allegations, but was not involved in planning further proceedings regarding them. However, during this time, the whistleblower learned that his concerns had been passed on to the White House. He suspected that the CIA wasn’t taking his concerns seriously, so he decided to file a complaint with the intelligence community inspector general, Michael Atkinson, a move that gave him legal protection. The whistleblower complaint was released Thursday in redacted form. The complainant alleges that the Trump administration went to extraordinary lengths to keep the contents of a July phone conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a secret, and that several White House officials with direct knowledge of the conversation worried that Trump had used his office to try to leverage his own political gain. The Trump administration released the transcript of the call on Wednesday. The transcript records Trump pressing Zelensky to look into possible evidence of corruption on the part of Hunter Biden, presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son, who had business holdings in Ukraine at the time his father was vice president. | Zachary Evans | https://www.nationalreview.com/news/whistleblower-filed-report-with-cia-before-submitting-complaint/ | 2019-09-27 12:16:43+00:00 | 1,569,601,003 | 1,570,222,077 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
332,739 | nationalreview--2019-10-11--Beto O’Rourke Calls for Stripping Churches of Tax-Exempt Status If They ‘Oppose Same-Sex Marriage’ | 2019-10-11T00:00:00 | nationalreview | Beto O’Rourke Calls for Stripping Churches of Tax-Exempt Status If They ‘Oppose Same-Sex Marriage’ | Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke defended his LGBT platform during a CNN town hall on Thursday night, calling for religious institutions to lose their tax-exempt status for opposing gay marriage on First-Amendment grounds. “There can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone … that denies the full human rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us.” O’Rourke told a cheering audience. “And so as president, we are going to make that a priority, and we are going to stop those who are infringing upon the human rights of our fellow Americans.” | Tobias Hoonhout | https://www.nationalreview.com/news/beto-orourke-calls-for-stripping-churches-of-tax-exempt-status-if-they-oppose-same-sex-marriage/ | Fri, 11 Oct 2019 12:07:58 +0000 | 1,570,810,078 | 1,570,797,608 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
332,751 | nationalreview--2019-10-11--Moderate NY Dem Max Rose Bashes O’Rourke’s Policy Extremism: ‘I Don’t Think Losing Is Cool’ | 2019-10-11T00:00:00 | nationalreview | Moderate NY Dem Max Rose Bashes O’Rourke’s Policy Extremism: ‘I Don’t Think Losing Is Cool’ | Democratic freshman congressman Max Rose slammed Beto O’Rourke for being a “social-media rock star” who prioritizes his public image over winning elections during an interview with New York Magazine. “When you win you get to help people, and when you lose you get to be a social-media rock star. So I don’t think Beto is cool, and I don’t think losing is cool,” Rose said. “Losing is not as cool as he thinks it is,” he added. On Thursday night, O’Rourke called for for religious institutions to lose their tax-exempt status for opposing gay marriage, saying “we are going to stop those who are infringing upon the human rights of our fellow Americans.” Rose represents New York’s 11th district, which includes Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn. Trump won the blue collar district by roughly ten points in 2016. Rose has been critical of his fellow Democratic freshmen representatives since taking office in January, and said in the interview that his goal in Washington was not to be “everyone’s buddy,” but to “wage war on the entire political class.” “The Democratic Party has been completely subsumed by this ‘What’s the Matter With Kansas,’ mantra,” Rose said. “‘Oooh, I don’t understand why they don’t vote for us? Why can’t they be smarter? Don’t they know all we are doing for them?’ It’s the most offensive, patronizing thing imaginable. And it’s taken over the party. A better question would be: Why don’t they trust us?” Last week, Rose became the last member of Congress from New York City to back the House’s impeachment probe, saying he will “fully support” the inquiry. The Army veteran, 31, was previously opposed to impeachment, arguing in a September op-ed that “we are in danger of losing the trust of the American people if we choose partisan warfare over improving the lives of hardworking families.” Rose defended the impeachment inquiry to New York Magazine, but said he was not committed to voting for it, and criticized Democratic colleagues who have cheered it on. “No one is to blame but the president. The president says he is innocent, so all we are saying is ‘prove it.’ But that is not what they are doing. They are not cooperating, and we need to get to the bottom of it. … This is a national tragedy. It is nothing to cheer on, it is nothing to sell T-shirts over,” he said. Rose also stated he believes it was wrong for Hunter Biden, son of Joe Biden, to serve on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma, which Trump suggested as a matter to investigate to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on a July phone call. | Tobias Hoonhout | https://www.nationalreview.com/news/moderate-ny-dem-max-rose-bashes-orourkes-policy-extremism-i-dont-think-losing-is-cool/ | Fri, 11 Oct 2019 15:41:36 +0000 | 1,570,822,896 | 1,570,832,879 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
332,777 | nationalreview--2019-10-14--CNN’s Anti-Religious Town Hall | 2019-10-14T00:00:00 | nationalreview | CNN’s Anti-Religious Town Hall | Billed an "equality" town hall, the CNN event was anything but. LGBT activists gathered last week for CNN’s “Equality” town hall with the Democratic presidential candidates. The advocates present were, in the words of Human Rights Campaign President Alphonso David, the “tip of the spear in our fight for full equality.” The “spear” metaphor grew more apt as the night went on. Religious freedom was the second-most-popular whipping post. The candidates talked about the concept with palpable derision, as if religion — save Islam, which they predictably if incoherently exempted — were a ruse used to cement old prejudices. No one actually believes those folksy things about God, heaven, and hell, right? Never considered was the notion that people hold earnest religious beliefs that in turn inform their views on sexual morality. The town hall was also evidence that the LGBTQ movement has grown more jaded and contemptuous, even as it has achieved more and more of its ostensible aims. If conciliation was ever the preferred tone, it is no longer. Instead, it is now increasingly unashamed and vituperative scorn. How would Elizabeth Warren, for instance, respond to someone on the campaign trail who said that they believed in the traditional definition of marriage? “Well, I’m gonna assume it’s a guy who said that,” she said. That elicited a laugh from the audience, men being the only acceptable punchline to the humorless scolds in the crowd. She continued, “I’m gonna say then just marry one woman. I’m cool with that.” Then, after a pause: “If you can find one.” Beto O’Rourke piled on further, affirming his belief that “freedom of religion is a fundamental right, but it should not be used to discriminate.” You are, in other words, “free” to practice your religion, so long as you practice it in a manner that Beto O’Rourke — the skateboard-wielding ex-congressman who posts videos of his dental visits on social media — sees fit. Some animals are more equal than others: O’Rourke will be happy to “discriminate” against your church if it happens to hold an unpopular position on sexual ethics. He literally said so seconds later, when asked by Don Lemon if religious institutions should “lose their tax-exempt status if they oppose same sex marriage.” O’Rourke’s response: What “human right” are religious organizations “infringing upon” when they “oppose” same-sex marriage? Do people have a “civil right” to have their sexual preferences validated by private religious organizations? Is there a “human right” to have your particular sexual union baptized by religious traditions with centuries of contravening theological directives? Pete Buttigieg took this same tack, insisting that “the right to religious freedom ends where religion is being used as an excuse to harm other people.” Which of course depends entirely on what Buttigieg means by “harm.” There is certainly “harm,” for instance, in mutilating the genitals of a young girl — a more ecumenical venture than progressives care to admit — but does a baker’s refusal to bake a cake that violates his religious convictions “harm other people”? What if a church refuses to host a ceremony that offends its moral precepts? Does “religious freedom end” when someone refuses to grant moral approbation to someone else’s choices and behavior? Indeed, that was the Freudian subtext of the entire town hall. “Equality?” That has, even on activists’ own terms, been long achieved. Notice, Alphonso David didn’t simply want “equality” — whatever that means — but “full equality”: your approval. Not simply your toleration, but your moral assent and your unhesitating affirmation. It’s not enough to live and let live. You will, in Erick Erickson’s words, “be made to care.” First, we were told that good sense held that we ought to allow two consenting adults to do as they wished in the privacy of their own bedroom. Fair enough — what business is it of ours? Next came civil unions. Fine. Then, marriage was redefined at a federal level on the basis of specious legal reasoning. Next, religious florists, bakers, and caterers were asked to violate their consciences and dragged before the courts if they declined. And now, at long last, the public exercise of religious faith, and the very belief itself, the very notion that one has rights to “oppose” practices that violate their private conscience, are under siege. All of which, we were told, would “never happen.” As the town hall put on display, it’s not for want of trying. | John Hirschauer | https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/cnns-anti-religious-town-hall/ | Mon, 14 Oct 2019 15:41:48 +0000 | 1,571,082,108 | 1,571,092,097 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
337,306 | naturalnews--2019-10-13--Climate Hysteria CULT: Fear monger "Greta" proclaimed the "successor" to Jesus Christ by the Church | 2019-10-13T00:00:00 | naturalnews | Climate Hysteria CULT: Fear monger "Greta" proclaimed the "successor" to Jesus Christ by the Church of Sweden | (Natural News) The official “Church of Sweden” has proclaimed climate eco-fascist Greta Thunberg to be the “successor” to Jesus Christ, proving once again that climate fanatics are members of a religious cult that worships the planet as a “god.” Towards the end of last year, the Church of Limhamn tweeted a bizarre “Announcement!” about young Greta, blasphemously declaring that “Jesus of Nazareth has now appointed one of his successors, Greta Thunberg,” to spread the gospel of global warming throughout all the land – except in China, though, because the world’s biggest polluter is completely off-limits. This disturbing tweet reemerged recently after Greta made her infamous appearance at the United Nations, where she looked everyone in the eye and said that her “message” to the world is simple: “We’ll be watching you.” Before announcing her belief that the world is in the beginning stages of “a mass extinction,” Greta nastily yelled to the crowd, “How dare you!” referring to her delusion that adult leaders have somehow “come to us young people for hope.” “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words and yet I’m one of the lucky ones,” an angry Greta went on to scream as if she was demon-possessed – just like Jesus did, apparently… For more related news about the climate hoax that’s now being spread by children like Greta Thunberg, visit Climate.news. Church of Sweden says its earlier reference to Greta Thunberg being a type of Second Coming of Christ was “misinterpreted” Now that this tweet has resurfaced and gained global attention, the Church of Sweden is trying to play damage control by claiming that it didn’t actually mean what it said. According to this government-religious institution, the word “successor,” in this context, could mean other things. Sponsored solution from the Health Ranger Store: Lab-verified Nascent Iodine solution is a dietary supplement that provides your body with supplemental iodine to help protect your thyroid during radiation exposure. Nuclear accidents such as Fukushima (or nuclear war) can expose your body to radioactive iodine-131, a dangerous radioisotope. Pre-loading your system with stable iodine occupies the iodine receptor sites on your organs, causing your body to naturally expel radioactive iodine you may have been exposed to through air, food, water or milk products. This defensive strategy is recommended by nearly all health authorities, worldwide, including the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Discover more at this link. “Shortly after, the entire account was abandoned, with a sign-off message that defended the original celebration of Thunberg and suggested everyone has a right to interpret Jesus in their own way,” the Church of Sweden said in a statement, obviously responding to critics who were quick to point out the blasphemy of likening Greta Thunberg to Jesus Christ. The Church of Sweden went on to apologize, adding that “if we have hurt someone … it has never been our meaning. Our meaning has been to talk about Jesus Christ in our own way. Now we leave the arena. Thank you for your commitment, joy and debate. God bless you!” Greta herself has not responded to the controversy, nor have either of her parents, whom we reported are both aligned with the domestic terrorist group known as Antifa (anti-fascists). Meanwhile, the mainstream media continues to worship Greta as if she really was Jesus in the flesh, noting that the 16-year-old climate fanatic is in the running for the Nobel Peace Prize. According to the Nobel Committee, the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to the person or organization that has “done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” Apparently Greta’s grandstanding at the U.N. with her prepared speech, followed by total confusion and silence when off-script, constitutes an act of “peace” in the eyes of the Nobel Prize committee these days. “While the Lord Jesus Christ spoke the entire universe into existence, this poor little girl parroted a bunch of leftist brainwashing one-liners,” wrote one commenter at The Gateway Pundit. “Mind control by the leftist controlled MSM (mainstream media) is a very powerful thing as can be illustrated by the demonic look on this little girl’s face.” | Ethan Huff | http://www.naturalnews.com/2019-10-13-fearmonger-greta-proclaimed-successor-to-jesus-christ.html | Sun, 13 Oct 2019 10:23:32 +0000 | 1,570,976,612 | 1,571,005,626 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
342,717 | newsbusters--2019-06-14--Media Slime Novelist Nicholas Sparks As Racist Homophobe | 2019-06-14T00:00:00 | newsbusters | Media Slime Novelist Nicholas Sparks As Racist Homophobe | It’s no big secret that the left openly targets Christianity for its views on marriage and gender. From the “Shame List” of faith-based colleges to the “Slate of Hate” of religious liberty bills, private religious institutions everywhere are smacked with the labels “hateful” and “bigotted” by the left-wing media. Now, bestselling romance novelist Nicholas Sparks is next to face the media’s branding iron. In 2006, Nicholas Sparks co-founded The Epiphany School of Global Studies, a small Christian academy dedicated to the study of global issues in relation to the Christian teaching. Eight years after the school opened, former headmaster Saul Benjamin sued Sparks for an alleged pattern of harassment, bullying, and bigotry. Yesterday, The Daily Beast published leaked emails between Sparks and Benjamin that supposedly displayed Sparks’ homophobia. In October 2013, Benjamin stated that he had reports of students bullying classmates for their sexual orientation. According to Benjamin, some of the students said that they wanted to start a “homo-caust.” Rumors started to circulate that Benjamin had formed an LGBT student club, a motion that the Board of Trustees immediately shutdown. The following November, Benjamin claimed that two LGBT students planned a protest at the school’s chapel. The students planned to remove their clothes and paint their orientation on their bodies. Though Benjamin stopped the students' plan, the Board of Trustees was not happy about how Benjamin had been dealing with the situation. Not only did the board feel that Benjamin had been undermining the school’s Christian tradition, it had felt that Benjamin had unjustly attacked the school for a lack of diversity and inclusivity. That same month, Sparks sent an email to Benjamin that partially read: Another email from Sparks gave Benjamin a list of recommendations to deal with the school’s alleged homophobia. One recommendation advised Benjamin to work on his perceived arrogance, rudeness, and condescension. Some parents’ had feared that Benjamin was spreading views on homosexuality that were contrary to the school’s religious beliefs. To address this, Sparks recommended that Benjamin use his own home to talk about LGBT issues with students in a small group setting, rather than speaking openly at school when tensions were high. The email also stated, Regarding diversity, I’ve now told you half a dozen times that our lack of diversity has NOTHING to do with the school, or anyone at the school. It’s not because of what we as a school, has or hasn’t done. It has nothing to do with racism, or vestiges of Jim Crow. In response to Benjamin’s accusations, Sparks gave a 29-page declaration to the court, and on Twitter, he posted a statement that denounced the headmaster’s claims as false, pointing out that some of the claims have already been dismissed. Unfortunately, Sparks did not give any additional comments to The Daily Beast. We’re left with only a one-sided perspective from The Daily Beast’s article -- a perspective from the man suing Sparks -- but this didn’t stop the media from jumping to conclusions. Vice ran the headline “Throw Nicholas Sparks And ‘The Notebook’ Into The Trash.” The article attacked Sparks, stating “No amount of New York Times bestsellers or film adaptations can substitute for being a good person.” The A.V. Club’s headline read “Nicholas Sparks tried to ban an LGBTQ+ club and student protest from his school, like a villain in a book.” The report slammed The Notebook author, commenting “A romance writer not knowing a damn thing about actual love? Now there’s a twist.” Lara Parker -- a deputy editorial director for Buzzfeed -- simply tweeted “fuck nicholas sparks [sic].” The lawsuit is finally scheduled for a six-day trial in August. You would think that after pushing the false “hands up, don’t shoot” slogan in the Michael Brown case, the media would have learned to hear all of the facts before passing judgement. However, Benjamin’s allegations fit too perfectly into the media’s narrative: Christian organizations are racist, sexist, bigotted, and homophobic. | Jorge Plaza | https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/culture/jorge-plaza/2019/06/14/media-slime-novelist-nicholas-sparks-racist-homophobe | 2019-06-14 17:00:00+00:00 | 1,560,546,000 | 1,567,539,098 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
404,426 | pamelagellerreport--2019-11-15--Christian woman uses Christian doctrine to fight misogynistic, unequal Islamic inheritance laws in E | 2019-11-15T00:00:00 | pamelagellerreport | Christian woman uses Christian doctrine to fight misogynistic, unequal Islamic inheritance laws in Egypt | A Coptic Christian woman in Egypt is taking on the country’s unequal Islamic inheritance laws that mean female heirs inherit half that of men. Huda Nasrallah, a 40-year-old human rights lawyer, has stood before three judges since her father passed away last year, demanding an equal share of the property left to her brothers. Her brothers are in her corner, testifying on her behalf. But officials have ruled against her twice, citing Islamic laws that favor men. “It is not really about inheritance, my father did not leave us millions of Egyptian pounds,” she said. “I have the right to ask to be treated equally as my brothers.” Nasrallah has formulated her case around Christian doctrine that dictates heirs, regardless of their gender, receive equal shares, but the courts have chosen to use Islamic law as their justification. In early December 2018, Nasrallah’s father, a former state clerk, died, leaving behind a four-story apartment building in a Cairo low-income neighborhood and a bank deposit. When she and her brothers filed their request for inheritance at a local court, Nasrallah invoked a church-sanctioned Coptic bylaw that calls for equal distribution of inheritance. A final verdict is expected to be handed down later this month. She hopes she will have the same outcome of a 2016 ruling from a Cairo court that favored a Coptic woman who also challenged Islamic inheritance laws. But recent cases and the sentiment in the nation don’t bode well for the minority believer. After calls for equal inheritance rights were introduced in the Arab world, Egypt’s Al-Azhar, the highest Sunni religious institution in the Muslim world, vehemently dismissed the proposal as contradictory to Islamic law and destabilizing to Muslim societies, fearing that if the state offers equal property rights to Christian women that Muslim women will soon request the same. As a lawyer, Nasrallah feels compelled to make her case and hopes to set a precedent for others at Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court. | Pamela Geller | https://gellerreport.com/2019/11/islamic-inheritance-law-robs-women.html/ | Fri, 15 Nov 2019 18:00:05 +0000 | 1,573,858,805 | 1,573,862,955 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
408,629 | pinknewsuk--2019-02-08--School cancels Black History Month event with lesbian speaker after protests | 2019-02-08T00:00:00 | pinknewsuk | School cancels Black History Month event with lesbian speaker after protests | Signup to receive a daily roundup of the top LGBT+ news stories from around the world A school in North Carolina reportedly cancelled a Black History Month event with a lesbian speaker after parents complained. Immaculata Catholic School in Durham sent a letter to parents on Thursday (February 7) explaining that the school would be closed on Friday as a number of groups had planned protests over a Black History Month event it planned to host, reports WRAL. In the letter, pastor Christopher VanHaight said that several organisations intended to demonstrate at the school because they were against Durham City councillor Vernetta Alston, a lesbian, speaking at the event. “As a pastor, I cannot place our Imaculata students into this contentious environment,” wrote VanHaight, reports WRAL. Alston, a former pupil, posted an open letter on Twitter claiming that she and her colleagues “were uninvited to the school’s Black History Month celebration and that the event was altogether cancelled.” “Immaculata is a religious institution and I believe strongly in the freedom to believe and worship how one chooses, even if a belief conflicts with something fundamental to my own life,” wrote Alston. “That said, adherence to that basic principle means that I can freely say that the church, by depriving the students at Immaculata of the chance to honor black history, and in doing so, condemning the lives and rights of the LGTBQ community, is sending a sad, regressive, and life-altering message to our children.” She added: “Let us use this moment to embrace the spirit of Black History Month and your celebration by letting the sacrifices we are being asked to make right now motivate us to examine our values, stand up for all the things we believe in even when we differ, and discover the strength in our shared history.” Immaculata Catholic School has released no public statement over the event. However, the school’s website states that the school campus is closed on Friday (February 8). It also states that the “African American Heritage Celebration/Friday Morning Prayer” planned on February 8 is cancelled. PinkNews has contacted Immaculata Catholic School and Alston for comment. | Ella Braidwood | https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2019/02/08/school-black-history-lesbian-protests/ | 2019-02-08 13:02:24+00:00 | 1,549,648,944 | 1,567,549,170 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
410,585 | pinknewsuk--2019-08-23--The Satanic Temple is in favour of equal rights for LGBT people | 2019-08-23T00:00:00 | pinknewsuk | The Satanic Temple is in favour of equal rights for LGBT+ people | Lucien Greaves, spokesman for The Satanic Temple, with a statue of Baphomet at the group's meeting house in Salem, Massachusetts. (Josh Reynolds for The Washington Post via Getty Images) The Satanic Temple is apparently thriving with LGBT+ members. In a interview for documentary Hail Satan? published in Attitude magazine, Satanic Temple co-founder Lucien Greaves claimed that nearly half of Satanists identify as LGBT+. Greaves said: “It would be a conservative estimate to say that more than 50 per cent of our membership is LGBTQ. “I think that’s because they feel disowned and disenfranchised from the traditional religious institutions. “So, you have a population willing to embrace a religious identification that is boldly willing to speak out to the contrary.” He added: “From the start, when one of our early actions was the Pink Mass, a lot of LGBTQ people were looking for another community that didn’t see them as defined by their sexual orientation. “Within the Satanic Temple, we’re all pretty much one and the same. “We’re all Satanists and it’s not like we have ‘tolerance’ for trans people or gay people or sex workers, we just don’t f**king care, and a lot of people in those communities appreciate that.” Greaves continued: “Our chapters are always involved with Pride parades in the United States, they’re always doing something for the LGBTQ community and they’re always open about inclusion.” He explained that before the US Supreme Court ruled in favour of equal marriage, the Satanic Temple had planned to test ‘religious freedom’ laws by holding a gay Satanic wedding. Greaves added: “We will always fight… to the death to ensure that there are equal rights for the gay community.” When most major religions still directly discriminate against LGBT+ people, it’s not hard to see the appeal of Satanism. A commitment to Satan is not required to join the Temple, although a commitment to trolling anti-LGBT evangelicals is desirable. The group’s website clarifies that members do not actually “believe in the existence of Satan or the supernatural.” It explains: “As such, we do not promote a belief in a personal Satan. To embrace the name Satan is to embrace rational inquiry removed from supernaturalism and archaic tradition-based superstitions. “Satanists should actively work to hone critical thinking and exercise reasonable agnosticism in all things. “Our beliefs must be malleable to the best current scientific understandings of the material world — never the reverse.” The group adds that “holds to the basic premise that undue suffering is bad, and that which reduces suffering is good.” | Nick Duffy | https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2019/08/23/the-satanic-temple-is-in-favour-of-equal-rights-for-lgbt-people/ | 2019-08-23 17:51:52+00:00 | 1,566,597,112 | 1,567,533,580 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
411,063 | pinknewsuk--2019-10-15--This is why Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren want anti-LGBT churches to keep tax-exempt status | 2019-10-15T00:00:00 | pinknewsuk | This is why Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren want anti-LGBT churches to keep tax-exempt status | Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren explained why they don't support plans to scrap tax exemption status for churches (Mario Tama/Getty) Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren have distanced themselves from Democratic rival Beto O’Rourke’s call for anti-LGBT churches to lose tax-exempt status. Appearing at CNN’s town hall on LGBT+ issues last week, O’Rourke called for religious institutions to lose their tax-exempt status if they reject LGBT+ people. He said: “There can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone, or any institution, any organisation in America, that denies the full human rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us. “As president, we are going to make that a priority, and we are going to stop those who are infringing upon the human rights of our fellow Americans.” The comments came under fire from Republicans, who accused O’Rourke of seeking to unpick constitutional protections for religious liberty. His stance has not been echoed by other leading 2020 Democrats. Pete Buttigieg: ‘Attacking separation of church and state would undermine LGBT equality.’ Pete Buttigieg, who is gay, told CNN on Sunday: “I agreed that anti-discrimination law ought to be applied to all institutions, but the idea that you’re going to strip churches of their tax-exempt status if they haven’t found their way toward blessing same-sex marriage… I’m not sure [O’Rourke] understood the implications of what he was saying.” Buttigieg continued: “That means going to war with not only churches but, I would think with mosques and a lot of organisations that may not have the same view of various religious principles that I do, that because of the separation of church and state, are acknowledged as non-profits in this country. “If we want to talk about anti-discrimination laws for a school or organisation, absolutely. They should not be able to discriminate. “But going after the tax exemption of churches, Islamic centres or other religious facilities in this country, I think that’s just going to deepen the divisions we’re already experiencing at a moment when we’re seeing more and more people moving in the right direction on LGBT+ rights, which is extremely important to me personally.” In a statement to NBC on Monday, a spokesperson for Elizabeth Warren said: “Elizabeth will stand shoulder to shoulder with the LGBTQ+ community until every person is empowered and able to live their life without fear of discrimination and violence. “Religious institutions in America have long been free to determine their own beliefs and practices, and she does not think we should require them to conduct same-sex marriages in order to maintain their tax exempt status.” | Nick Duffy | https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2019/10/15/pete-buttigieg-elizabeth-warren-anti-lgbt-churches-tax-exempt-status/ | Tue, 15 Oct 2019 16:27:18 +0000 | 1,571,171,238 | 1,571,180,075 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
412,473 | politicalite--2019-06-01--WOLVES In Sheeps Clothing The Secret Jihad Movement | 2019-06-01T00:00:00 | politicalite | WOLVES In Sheep’s Clothing: The Secret Jihad Movement | THE TABLIGHI Jamaat [Conveying Group] is a Muslim missionary and revival movement, writes Muslim journalist Shoaib Choudhury. Their activities, however, are not limited to the Deobandi community. Leaders of Tablighi Jamaat claim that the movement is strictly non-political in nature, with the main aim of the participants being to work at the grassroots level and reaching out to all Muslims of the world for spiritual development. Tablighi Jamaat seeks to revitalize Muslims around the world. It is claimed that their ideology and practices are in strict accordance with Quran and Sunnah. Despite their affiliation and influence of the prominent scholars of Deoband, they do not focus on any particular sect or community. It gathers its members and aids in community activities such as mosque building and education. Tabligh maintains an international headquarters, the Markaz, in Nizamuddin, Delhi and has several national headquarters to coordinate its activities in over 80 countries. Throughout its history it has sent its members to travel the world, preaching a message of peace and tolerance. It organizes preachers in groups [called Jamaats, meaning Assembly]. Each group, on average, consists of 10 to 12 Muslims who fund themselves in this preaching mission. The second largest gathering of Muslims after the Hajj [the pilgrimage to Mecca] is known as Bishwa Ijtema, a nonpolitical gathering of Muslims from all over the world hosted by the leaders of “International Tabligh Jamaat”. It takes place in Tongi which is on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh. The Tablighi Jamaat was founded in the late 1920s by the well-known scholar Maulana Ilyas [Maulana Muhammad Ilyas Kandhelvi] in the Mewat province of India. The inspiration for devoting his life to Islam came to Ilyas during his second pilgrimage to the Hejaz in 1926. Maulana Ilyas put forward the slogan, ´Aye Musalmano! Musalman bano´ [Urdu] which translates ‘Come O Muslims! Be Muslims’ [in English]. This expressed the central focus of Tablighi Jamaat, which has been renewing Muslim society by renewing Muslim practice in those it feels have lost their desire to devote themselves to Allah and the Islamic prophet, Muhammad. Maulana Ilyas was a prominent member of the movement and throughout Tabligh’s history there has been a degree of association between scholars of Deoband and Tablighi Jamaat. Tabligh was formed at a time in India when some Muslim leaders feared that Indian Muslims were losing their Muslim identity to the majority Hindu culture. In 1978, construction of the Tablighi mosque in Dewsbury, England commenced. Subsequently, the mosque became the European headquarters of Tablighi Jamaat. Ameer [Emir] or Zimmadar are titles of leadership in the movement. The first Ameer, also the founder, was Maulana Ilyas [1885-1944], the second was his son Maulana Muhammad Yusuf Kandhalawi and the third was Maulana Inaam ul Hasan. Now there is a shura which includes two leaders: Maulana Zubair ul Hasan and Maulana Saad Kandhalawi. In Pakistan, the duties of the Ameer are being served by Haji Abdulwahhab. Maulana Muhammad Zakariya al-Kandahlawi is also among the prestigious personalities of the Jamaat, as he compiled the famous book Fazail-e-Amal. With the ascent of Maulana Yusuf, Ilyas´ son, as its second emir (leader), the group began to expand activities in 1946, and within two decades the group reached Southwest and Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America. Initially, it expanded its reach to South Asian diaspora communities, first in Arab countries then in Southeast Asia. Once established, the Tablighi Jamaat began engaging local populations as well. Although the movement first established itself in the United States, it established a large presence in Europe during the 1970s and 1980s. It was especially prominent in France during the 1980s. The members of Tablighi Jamat are also represented in the French Council of the Muslim Faith. Tabligh’s influence has grown, though, in the increasing Pakistani community in France, which has doubled in the decade before 2008 to 50,000-60,000. However, Britain is the current focus of the movement in the West, primarily due to the large South Asian population that began to arrive there in the 1960s and 1970s. By 2007, Tabligh members were situated at 600 of Britain’s 1350 mosques. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the movement made inroads into Central Asia. As of 2007, it was estimated 10,000 Tablighi members could be found in Kyrgyzstan alone. By 2008 it had a presence in nearly 80 countries and had become a leading revitalize movement. However, it maintains a presence in India, where at least 100 of its Jamaats go out from Markaz, the international headquarters, to different parts of India and overseas. There are many celebrated personalities associated with this movement: These include the former Presidents of Pakistan, Muhammad Rafiq Tarar and Farooq Leghari [Sardar Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari], and former President of India, Dr. Zakir Hussain who was also associated with this movement. Major General Ziaur Rahman, former President and Chief of Army Staff of the Bangladesh Army, was a strong supporter and member of Tablighi Jamaat, and popularized it in Bangladesh. Lieutenant General [R] Javed Nasir of the Pakistan Army and former head of Inter-Services Intelligence along with former Prime Minister of Pakistan, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq have also been linked with the movement. Other well-known politicians such as Dr. Arbab Ghulam Rahim the former chief minister of Sindh, and Muhammad Ijaz-ul-Haq, former Pakistani Federal Minister for Religious Affairs have strong ties with the Tablighi activities. Many well-recognized writers and scholars, such as Dr. Nadir Ali Khan [famous Indian writer] and others are deeply related with it. Among Pakistani cricket professionals, Shahid Afridi, Saqlain Mushtaq, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Mushtaq Ahmed; and the former Pakistani cricketers Saeed Anwar, Saleem Malik are active members. It is also widely believed that Pakistani middle order batsman Mohammad Yousuf embraced Islam with the help of the Tablighi Jamaat. Others include South African batsman Hashim Amla. This movement also includes eminent directors and producers including Naeem Butt. Former renowned singer and pop star Junaid Jamshed has close links with Jamaat, and his departure from professional singing career is attributed as the result of his inclination towards this movement. Many famed actors and models including Moin Akhter, Hammad Khan Jadoon and many others are strongly affiliated with the movement. Several businessmen, industrialists, millionaires are actively serving in the movement. Policy analysts and Islamist scholars are fiercely divided in their assessments of Tablighi Jamaat, an Islamic revivalist organization that has spread from its origins in India in the 1920s to the broader Muslim world. Policy communities, for their part, have depicted the Tablighi Jamaat as a “gateway to terrorism” and contend that the organization poses numerous, underestimated security risks. The group appeared peripherally in such high-profile cases as those of Jose Padilla, Richard Reid, and John Walker Lindh, all of whom allegedly used the group as their stepping stone to radicalism. However, the Islamic studies community tends to depict Tablighi Jamaat, which roughly translates to “group to deliver the message of Islam,” as a revivalist organization that eschews politics in its quest to reform society. What accounts for these starkly different accounts, and how can one resolve some of the deeply perplexing questions surrounding this important and secretive organization? In an attempt to better understand this movement and it’s social, political, and potential security implications, the Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention at the U.S. Institute of Peace hosted Eva Borreguero, visiting Fulbright Scholar at Georgetown University’s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, to present some of the key findings of her ongoing research on the Tablighi Jamaat. This talk drew on Borreguero’s recent fieldwork in India and Pakistan, two important centers for the Tablighi Jamaat. This USIPeaceBrieing highlights Borreguero’s arguments, as well as some of the important issues that arose during the discussion that followed her presentation. In Britain, France, and the United States, the Tablighi Jamaat has appeared on the fringes of several terrorism investigations, leading some to speculate that its apolitical stance simply masks “fertile ground for breeding terrorism.” While acknowledging the involvement of the movement’s individuals, Borreguero discounted the claims made against the organization itself. Borreguero began her assessment by providing a historical overview of this complex movement. Maulana Muhammad Ilyas founded the Tablighi Jamaat in 1925, against the backdrop of the British Empire and a waning Muslim identity in South Asia. Believing that social, political, and economic hardships beset Muslims in India, Ilyas sought a return to a pristine form of Islam from the heterodox variants flourishing in South Asia. For nearly two decades, the Tablighi Jamaat operated mainly within South Asia. With the ascent of Maulana Yusuf, Ilyas´ son, as its second emir (leader), the group began to expand activities in 1946, and within two decades the group reached Southwest and Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America. Initially, it expanded its reach to South Asian diaspora communities, first in Arab countries then in Southeast Asia. Once established, the Tablighi Jamaat began engaging local populations as well. Although the group first established itself in the United States, Britain is the current focus of the group in the West, primarily due to the large South Asian population that began to arrive there in the 1960s and 1970s. Despite its secretive nature, Borreguero offered some insights into the organizational structure of the Tablighi Jamaat. The general conception of the group is of a nebulous collection of loosely affiliated, itinerate jamaats. While this is one major component of the group, there is a fixed, hierarchical network of elders and mosques and the two components do overlap. According to Borreguero, the core of the organization is comprised of “full-time” Tablighis who comprise the shura (council) and who are usually the elders of the mosques affiliated with the group. In addition to this core, there is the traveling Tablighis who undertake proselytizing missions over varying durations. Formed into jamaats of approximately ten people, these Tablighis’ missions last three days, forty days [Chilla], four months, or one year. The jamaat’s destination and desired area of focus generally determine the length of these missions. Those who go for three days concentrate on a local city, while a Jamaat traveling for a month will do so throughout their country. The longer tours of four months to one year generally take the Tablighis abroad. During these tours, the Jamaat—under the leadership of its emir—stays at a local mosque, which serves as its base for the duration. Four or five members of the group conduct daily ghast, during which they visit neighborhoods [or neighborhoods with large Muslim populations if in a non-Muslim country] and homes, asking the men of the household to attend mosque for Maghrib [sunset] prayers. Those who attend are offered the dawa [invitation] as the Tablighis outline their six principles and encourage attendees to form their own jamaat. Members voluntarily work for the organization and there is no registration process in the group. Participants are free to leave the movement at any time. Consequently, Tablighi Jamaat has a loose, informal recruitment process and attracts members of varying commitment. For example, some members only engage in group activities episodically, while others will do so annually. All of these factors contribute to the uncertainty regarding Tablighi Jamaat’s membership numbers. Tablighis in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh have competing claims as to which comprises the movement’s international headquarters. Those in India contend that Nizamuddin [India] is the base since the movement grew out of the Deoband school of Islam and it is in Delhi that the group was founded. However, elders in Raiwind [Pakistan] and Tongi [Bangladesh] dispute Nizamuddin’s final authority, citing their countries´ majority Muslim populations and claiming that the organization can operate more openly. South Asia is by far the most significant region for the group, with Mecca and Medina also serving as important geographical symbols. The organization is diverse and includes persons from nearly every sector of society across the countries of South Asia and beyond. Within South Asia, members of the lower-middle class and the business community have joined the group and some members even hold government posts. In the West, second and third generation Muslim diaspora make up the main pool of Tablighis. This demographic usually has little knowledge of Islam but are also not fully assimilated to culture in the West. According to Borreguero, the Tablighi Jamaat “is a source of re-Islamization that provides an alternative to religious institutions.” These individuals tend to be well-educated, multilingual, and have lived in both the West and a Muslim country. She noted that the Tablighi Jamaat also has some appeal to marginal members of society [petty criminals, drug abusers, and so on] who are looking for a renewed identity that submerges them in a community of piety. Keys to the Success of the Tablighi Jamaat: Borreguero sees several salient features which explain the Tablighi Jamaat’s successful transformation from a local South Asian movement into a robust transnational the phenomenon, including its simple message, its non-political character, the authority of its leadership, and its policy of secrecy. Borreguero addressed the persistent question of how a group so devoted to proselytizing a pristine form of Islam and inner spiritual transformation can coexist with modern society, and specifically whether such a group warrants scrutiny because of its revivalist beliefs. While recognizing the numerous reports that link Tablighi Jamaat to militancy in various forms, her fieldwork yielded little evidence to support the most sweeping of these claims. During her interviews with Tablighis, they tended not to opine on politics. However, she conceded that for some Tablighis—as individuals—this might not be enough. She claimed that there is no evidence thus far that the group as a whole is involved with militant groups, such as Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan, while acknowledging the potential role that individual Tablighis may have played in them. She claimed that the Tablighi Jamaat remains neutral on these groups, neither condemning nor supporting their actions. To some analysts, this neutrality is enough to make them culpable. Borreguero admits that militant groups may try to infiltrate the Tablighi Jamaat in order to gain a cover for obtaining visas and traveling abroad. Also, individual members may come to find that the movement’s principles are too apolitical and neutral for their liking. Members of militant groups often attend the Tablighi Jamaat´s Ijtima [congregation] in Raiwind, where they hand out recruitment pamphlets. It is thus possible that a flame sparked and fueled by Tabligh could begin to burn out of control. Borreguero, however, stressed that once this extreme position is taken, the individual relinquishes his or her membership to the Tablighi Jamaat. She also believes that any overt connection with these groups is not in the best interest of the Tablighi Jamaat. As stated above, the movement’s neutrality allows cordial relations with authorities or at least keeps them from incurring official harassment. Any collision with militant outfits would likely invite official proscription, especially in Western societies. While much light was shed on the Tablighi Jamaat, many questions still remain. To some, its official secrecy and peripheral links to some nefarious individuals have nullified its choice to remain outside politics. But, as scholar Barbara Metcalf writes, “Islamic movements [like the Tablighi Jamaat] may have many goals and offer a range of social, moral, and spiritual satisfaction that are positive and not merely a reactionary rejection of modernity or ´the West.´ Quite simply, these movements may, in the end, have much less to do with ´us´ than is often thought.” Borreguero´s insights provided a gateway to better assess the group´s motives and machinations. It may well be that the study of the Tablighi Jamaat as an apolitical traditionalist movement gives an alternate lens through which security concerns over Islamist groups´ hostility toward the West can be viewed. Every fall, over a million almost identically dressed, bearded Muslim men from around the world descend on the small Pakistani town of Raiwind for a three-day celebration of faith. Similar gatherings take place annually outside of Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Bhopal, India. These pilgrims are no ordinary Muslims, though; they belong to a movement called Tablighi Jamaat ["Proselytizing Group”]. They are trained missionaries who have dedicated much of their lives to spreading Islam across the globe. The largest group of religious proselytizers of any faith, they are part of the reason for the explosive growth of Islamic religious fervor and conversion. Despite its size, worldwide presence, and tremendous importance, Tablighi Jamaat remains largely unknown outside the Muslim community, even to many scholars of Islam. This is no coincidence. Tablighi Jamaat officials work to remain outside of both media and governmental notice. Tablighi Jamaat neither has formal organizational structure nor does it publish details about the scope of its activities, its membership, or its finances. By eschewing open discussion of politics and portraying itself only as a pietistic movement, Tablighi Jamaat works to project a non-threatening image. Because of the movement’s secrecy, scholars often have no choice but to rely on explanations from Tablighi Jamaat acolytes. As a result, academics tend to describe the group as an apolitical devotional movement stressing individual faith, introspection, and spiritual development. The austere and egalitarian lifestyle of Tablighi missionaries and their principled stands against social ills leads many outside observers to assume that the group has a positive influence on society. Graham Fuller, a former CIA official and expert on Islam, for example, characterized Tablighi Jamaat as a “peaceful and apolitical preaching-to-the-people movement.” Barbara Metcalf, a University of California scholar of South Asian Islam, called Tablighi Jamaat “an apolitical, quietist movement of internal grassroots missionary renewal” and compares its activities to the efforts to reshape individual lives by Alcoholics Anonymous. Olivier Roy, a prominent authority on Islam at Paris’s prestigious Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, described Tablighi Jamaat as “completely apolitical and law-abiding.” Governments normally intolerant of independent movements often make an exception for Tablighi Jamaat. The Bangladeshi prime minister and top political leadership, many of whom are Islamists, regularly attend their rallies, and Pakistani military officers, many of whom are sympathetic to militant Islam, even allow Tablighi missionaries to preach in the barracks. Yet, the Pakistani experience strips the patina from Tablighi Jamaat’s façade. Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif [1[1990-93; 1997-99]whose father was a prominent Tablighi member and financier, helped Tablighi members take prominent positions. For example, in 1998, Muhammad Rafique Tarar took the ceremonial presidency while, in 1990, Javed Nasir assumed the powerful director-generalship of the Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan’s chief intelligence agency. When Benazir Bhutto, less sympathetic to Islamist causes, returned to the premiership in 1993, Tablighis conspired to overthrow her government. In 1995, the Pakistani army thwarted a coup attempt by several dozen high-ranking military officers and civilians, all of whom were members of the Tablighi Jamaat and some of whom also held membership in Harakat ul-Mujahideen, a U.S. State Department-defined terrorist organization. Some of the confusion over Tablighi Jamaat’s apolitical characterization derives from the fact that the movement does not consider individual states to be legitimate. They may not become actively involved in internal politics or disputes over local issues, but, from a philosophical and transnational perspective, the Tablighi Jamaat’s millenarian philosophy is very political indeed. According to the French Tablighi expert Marc Gaborieau, its ultimate objective is nothing short of a “planned conquest of the world” in the spirit of jihad. The prominent Deobandi cleric and scholar Maulana Muhammad Ilyas Kandhalawi [1[1885-1944]aunched Tablighi Jamaat in 1927 in Mewat, India, not far from Delhi. From its inception, the extremist attitudes that characterize Deobandism permeated Tablighi philosophy. Ilyas’s followers were intolerant of other Muslims and especially Shi´ites, let alone adherents of other faiths. Indeed, part of Ilyas’s impetus for founding Tablighi Jamaat was to counter the inroads being made by Hindu missionaries. They rejected modernity as antithetical to Islam excluded women and preached that Islam must subsume all other religions. The creed grew in importance after Pakistani military dictator Zia ul-Haq encouraged Deobandis to Islamize Pakistan. The Tablighi Jamaat canon is bare-boned. Apart from the Qu’ran, the only literature Tablighis are required to read are the Tablighi Nisab, seven essays penned by a companion of Ilyas in the 1920s. Tablighi Jamaat is not a monolith: one subsection believes they should pursue jihad through conscience [j[jihad bin nafs]hile a more radical wing advocates jihad through the sword [j[jihad bin saif]But, in practice, all Tablighis preach a creed that is hardly distinguishable from the radical Wahhabi-Salafi jihadist ideology that so many terrorists share. Part of the reason why the Tablighi Jamaat leadership can maintain such strict secrecy is its dynastic flavor. All Tablighi Jamaat leaders since Ilyas have been related to him by either blood or marriage. Upon Ilyas’ 1944 death, his son, Maulana Muhammad Yusuf [1[1917-65]assumed leadership of the movement, dramatically expanding its reach and influence. Following the partition of India, Tablighi Jamaat spread rapidly in the new Muslim nation of Pakistan. Yusuf and his successor, Inamul Hassan [1[1965-95]transformed Tablighi Jamaat into a truly transnational movement with a renewed emphasis targeting conversion of non-Muslims, a mission the movement continues to the present day. While few details are known about the group’s structure, at the top sits the emir who, according to some observers, presides over a shura [C[Council]which plays an advisory role. Further down are individual country organizations. By the late 1960s, Tablighi Jamaat had not only established itself in Western Europe and North America but even claimed adherents in countries like Japan, which has no significant Muslim population. The movement’s rapid penetration into non-Muslim regions began in the 1970s and coincides with the establishment of a synergistic relationship between Saudi Wahhabis and South Asian Deobandis. While Wahhabis are dismissive of other Islamic schools, they single out Tablighi Jamaat for praise, even if they disagree with some of its practices, such as willingness to pray in mosques housing graves. The late Sheikh ´Abd al ´Aziz ibn Baz, perhaps the most influential Wahhabi cleric in the late twentieth century, recognized the Tablighis good work and encouraged his Wahhabi brethren to go on missions with them so that they can “guide and advise them.” A practical result of this cooperation has been large-scale Saudi financing of Tablighi Jamaat. While Tablighi Jamaat, in theory, requires its missionaries to cover their own expenses during their trips, in practice, Saudi money subsidizes transportation costs for thousands of poor missionaries. While Tablighi Jamaat’s financial activities are shrouded in secrecy, there is no doubt that some of the vast sums spent by Saudi organizations such as the World Muslim League on proselytism benefit Tablighi Jamaat. As early as 1978, the World Muslim League subsidized the building of the Tablighi mosque in Dewsbury, England, which has since become the headquarters of Tablighi Jamaat in all of Europe. Wahhabi sources have paid Tablighi missionaries in Africa salaries higher than the European Union pays teachers in Zanzibar. In both Western Europe and the United States, Tablighis operate interchangeably out of Deobandi and Wahhabi controlled mosques and Islamic centers. The West’s misreading of Tablighi Jamaat actions and motives has serious implications for the war on terrorism. Tablighi Jamaat has always adopted an extreme interpretation of Sunni Islam, but in the past two decades, it has radicalized to the point where it is now a driving force of Islamic extremism and a major recruiting agency for terrorist causes worldwide. For a majority of young Muslim extremists, joining Tablighi Jamaat is the first step on the road to extremism. Perhaps 80 percent of the Islamist extremists in France come from Tablighi ranks, prompting French intelligence officers to call Tablighi Jamaat the “antechamber of fundamentalism.” U.S. counterterrorism officials are increasingly adopting the same attitude. “We have a significant presence of Tablighi Jamaat in the United States,” the deputy chief of the FBI’s international terrorism section said in 2003, “and we have found that Al-Qaeda used them for recruiting now and in the past.” Recruitment methods for young jihadists are almost identical. After joining Tablighi Jamaat groups at a local mosque or Islamic center and doing a few local dawa [p[proselytism]issions, Tablighi officials invite star recruits to the Tablighi center in Raiwind, Pakistan, for four months of additional missionary training. Representatives of terrorist organizations approach the students at the Raiwind center and invite them to undertake military training. Most agree to do so. Tablighi Jamaat has long been directly involved in the sponsorship of terrorist groups. Pakistani and Indian observers believe, for instance, that Tablighi Jamaat was instrumental in founding Harakat ul-Mujahideen. Founded at Raiwind in 1980, almost all of the Harakat ul-Mujahideen’s original members were Tablighis. Famous for the December 1998 hijacking of an Air India passenger jet and the May 8, 2002 murder of a busload of French engineers in Karachi, Harakat members make no secret of their ties. “The two organizations together make up a truly international network of genuine jihadi Muslims,” one senior Harakat ul-Mujahideen official said. More than 6,000 Tablighis have trained in Harakat ul-Mujahideen camps. Many fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s and readily joined Al-Qaeda after the Taliban defeated Afghanistan’s anti-Soviet mujahideen. Another violent Tablighi Jamaat spin-off is the Harakat ul-Jihad-i Islami. Founded in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, this group has been active not only in the disputed Indian provinces of Jammu and Kashmir but also in the state of Gujarat, where Tablighi Jamaat extremists have taken over perhaps 80 percent of the mosques previously run by the moderate Barelvi Muslims. The Tablighi movement is also very active in northern Africa where it became one of the four groups that founded the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria. Moroccan authorities are currently prosecuting sixty members of the Moroccan Tablighi offshoot Dawa wa Tabligh in connection with the May 16, 2003, terrorist attack on a Casablanca synagogue. Dutch police are investigating links between the Moroccan cells and the November 2, 2004 murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh. There are many other cases of individual Tablighis committing acts of terrorism. French Tablighi members, for example, have helped organize and execute attacks not only in Paris but also at the Hotel Asni in Marrakech in 1994. Kazakh authorities expelled a number of Tablighi missionaries because they had been organizing networks advancing “extremist propaganda and recruitment.” Indian investigators suspect influential Tablighi leader, Maulana Umarji, and a group of his followers in the February 27, 2002 firebombing of a train carrying Hindu nationalists in Gujarat, India. The incident sparked a wave of pogroms victimizing both Muslims and Hindus. More recently, Moroccan authorities sentenced Yusef Fikri, a Tablighi member and leader of the Moroccan terrorist organization At-Takfir wal-Hijrah, to death for his role in masterminding the May 2003 Casablanca terrorist bombings that claimed more than forty lives. Tablighi Jamaat has also facilitated other terrorists’ missions. The group has provided logistical support and helped procure travel documents. Many take advantage of Tablighi Jamaat’s benign reputation. Moroccan authorities say that leaflets circulated by the terrorist group Al-Salafiyah al-Jihadiyah urged their members to join Islamic organizations that operate openly, such as Tablighi Jamaat, in order “to hide their identity on the one hand and influence these groups and their policies on the other.” In a similar vein, a Pakistani jihadist website commented that Tablighi Jamaat organizational structures can be easily adapted to jihad activities. The Philippine government has accused Tablighi Jamaat, which has an 11,000-member presence in the country, of serving both as a conduit of Saudi money to the Islamic terrorists in the south and as a cover for Pakistani jihad volunteers. There is also evidence that Tablighi Jamaat directly recruits for terrorist organizations. As early as the 1980s, the movement sponsored military training for 900 recruits annually in Pakistan and Algeria while, in 1999, Uzbek authorities accused Tablighi Jamaat of sending 400 Uzbeks to terrorist training camps. The West is not immune. British counterterrorism authorities estimate that at least 2,000 British nationals had gone to Pakistan for jihad training by 1998, and the French secret services report that between 80 and 100 French nationals fought for Al-Qaeda. Within the United States, the cases of American Taliban John Lindh, the “Lackawanna Six,” and the Oregon cell that conspired to bomb a synagogue and sought to link up with Al-Qaeda, all involve Tablighi missionaries. Other indicted terrorists, such as “shoe bomber” Richard Reid, “dirty bomber” Jose Padilla, and Lyman Harris, who sought to bomb the Brooklyn Bridge, were all members of Tablighi Jamaat at one time or another. According to Robert Blitzer, head of the FBI’s first Islamic counterterrorism unit, between 1,000 and 2,000 Americans left to join the jihad in the 1990s alone. Pakistani intelligence sources report that 400 American Tablighi recruits received training in Pakistani or Afghan terrorist camps since 1989. The Tablighi Jamaat has made inroads among two very different segments of the American Muslim population. Because many American Muslims are immigrants, and a large subsection of these are from South Asia, Deobandi influences have been able to penetrate deeply. Many Tablighi Jamaat missionaries speak Urdu as a first language and so can communicate easily with American Muslims of South Asian origin. The Tablighi headquarters in the United States for the past decade appears to be in the Al-Falah mosque in Queens, New York. Its missionaries—predominantly from South Asia—regularly visit Sunni mosques and Islamic centers across the country. The willingness of Saudi-controlled front organizations and charities, such as the World Muslim League, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth [W[WAMY]the Haramain Foundation, the International Islamic Relief Organization [I[IIRO]nd others, to spend large amounts of money to co-opt the religious establishment has helped catalyze recruitment. As a result, Wahhabi and Deobandi influence dominate American Islam. This trend is apparent in the activities of Tanzeem-e Islami. Founded by long-term Tablighi member and passionate Taliban supporter, Israr Ahmed, Tanzeem-e Islami flooded American Muslim organizations with communications accusing Israel of complicity in the 9/11 terror attacks. A frequent featured speaker at Islamic conferences and events in the United States, Ahmed engages in incendiary rhetoric urging his audiences to prepare for “the final showdown between the Muslim world and the non-Muslim world, which has been captured by the Jews.” Unfortunately, his conspiracy theories have begun to take hold among growing segments of the American Muslim community. For example, Siraj Wahhaj, among the best known African-American Muslim converts and the first Muslim cleric to lead prayers in the U.S. Congress, is also on record accusing the FBI and the CIA of being the “real terrorists.” He has expressed his support for the convicted mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, and advocating the demise of American democracy. Tablighi Jamaat has appealed to African American Muslims for other reasons. Founded by Elijah Mohammed in the early 1930s, the Nation of Islam was essentially a charismatic African American separatist organization which had little to do with normative Islam. Many Nation of Islam members found attractive both the Tablighi Jamaat’s anti-state separatist message and its description of American society as racist, decadent, and oppressive. Seeing such fertile ground, Tablighi and Wahhabi missionaries targeted the African American community with great success. One Tablighi sympathizer explained, The umma [M[Muslim community]ust remember that winning over the black Muslims is not only a religious obligation but also a selfish necessity. The votes of the black Muslims can give the immigrant Muslims the political clout they need at every stage to protect their vital interests. Likewise, outside Muslim states like Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, and Pakistan need to mobilize their effort, money, and missionary skills to expand and consolidate the black Muslim community in the USA, not only for religious reasons but also as a farsighted investment in the black Muslims’ immense potential as a credible lobby for Muslim causes, such as Palestine, Bosnia, or Kashmir—offsetting, at least partially, the venal influence of the powerful India-Israel lobby. Not only foreign Tablighis but also the movement’s sympathizers within the United States enunciate this goal. The president of the Islamic Research Foundation in Louisville, Kentucky, a strong advocate of Tablighi missionary work, for instance, insists that “if all the Afro-American brothers and sisters become Muslims, we can change the political landscape of America” and “make the U.S. foreign policy pro-Islamic and Muslim friendly.” As a result of Tablighi and Wahhabi proselytizing, African Americans comprise between 30 and 40 percent of the American Muslim community, and perhaps 85 percent of all American Muslim converts. Much of this success is due to a successful proselytizing drive in the penitentiary system. Prison officials say that by the mid-1990s, between 10 and 20 percent of the nation’s 1.5 million inmates identified themselves as Muslims. Some 30,000 African Americans convert to Islam in prison every year. The American political system tolerates all views so long as they adhere to the rule of law. Unfortunately, Tablighi Jamaat missionaries may be encouraging African American recruits to break the law. Harkat ul-Mujahideen has boasted of training dozens of African American Jihadists in its military camps. There is evidence that African American Jihadists have died in both Afghanistan and Kashmir. Tablighi Jamaat has made unprecedented strides in recent decades. It increasingly relies on local missionaries rather than South Asian Tablighis to recruit in Western countries and often sets up groups which apparently model themselves after Tablighi Jamaat but do not acknowledge links to it. In the United States, such a role is apparently played by the Islamic Circle of North America [I[ICNA]Founded in 1968 as an offshoot of the fiercely Islamist Muslim Student Association, ICNA is the only major American Muslim organization that has paid open homage to Tablighi founder Ilyas. The monthly ICNA publication, The Message, has praised Ilyas as one of the four greatest Islamic leaders of the last 100 years. While the relationship between ICNA and Tablighi Jamaat is not clear, the two organizations share a number of similarities. They both embrace the extreme Deobandi and Wahhabi interpretations of Islam. ICNA demonstrates disdain for Western democratic values and opposes virtually all counterterrorism legislation, such as the Patriot Act, while providing moral and financial support to all Muslims implicated in terrorist activities. An editorial in the ICNA organ, The Message International, in September 1989 bemoaned the “uncounted number of Muslims lost to Western values” which was a “major cause for concern.” In 2003 and 2004, ICNA has collected money to assist detainees suspected of terrorist activities, participated in pro-terrorist rallies, and mounted campaigns on behalf of indicted Hamas functionary Sami al-Arian. Like Tablighi Jamaat, ICNA initially drew its membership disproportionately from South Asians. As with Tablighi Jamaat, ICNA demands total dedication to missionary work from its members. Because many ICNA members spend at least thirty hours per week on their mission, their ability to independently support themselves is unclear. Many cannot hold full-time jobs. ICNA’s recruitment efforts have borne fruit, though. All ICNA members are organized in small study groups of no more than eight people, called NeighborNets. As in a cult, these cells provide support and reinforcement for new recruits, who may have sought to fill a void in their lives. Its yearly convocations, patterned on the annual Tablighi Jamaat meetings in South Asia, now attract some 15,000 people. The estimated 15,000 Tablighi missionaries reportedly active in the United States present a serious national security problem. At best, they and their proxy groups form a powerful proselytizing movement that preaches extremism and disdain for religious tolerance, democracy, and separation of church and state. At worst, they represent an Islamist fifth column that aids and abets terrorism. Contrary to their benign treatment by scholars and academics, Tablighi Jamaat has more to do with political sedition than with religion. The U.S. officials should focus on reality rather than rhetoric. Pakistani and Saudi support for Tablighi Jamaat is incompatible with their claims to be key allies in the war on terror. While law enforcement focuses attention on Osama bin Laden, the war on terrorism cannot be won unless al-Qaeda terrorists are understood to be the products of Islamist ideology preached by groups like Tablighi Jamaat. If the West chooses to turn a blind eye to the problem, Tablighi involvement in future terrorist activities at home and abroad is not a matter of conjecture; it is a certainty. The Tablighi Role in the Global Jihadism: However, there are indeed some links between Tablighis and the world of jihadism. First, there is evidence of indirect connections between the group and the wider radical/extremist Deobandi nexus composed of anti-Shiite sectarian groups, Kashmiri militants and the Taliban. This link provides a medium through which Tablighis who are disgruntled with the group´s apolitical program could break orbit and join militant organizations. One apparent manifestation of this nexus was a purported militant offshoot of TJ, Jihad bi al-Saif [J[Jihad through the Sword]which was established in Taxila, Pakistan. Members of this group were accused of plotting a coup against former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 1995. Yet, because of the organization´s extreme secrecy, little is known about it other than that it is believed to have developed in reaction to the TJ´s apolitical, peaceful stance. The TJ organization also serves as a de facto conduit for Islamist extremists and for groups such as al Qaeda to recruit new members. Significantly, the Tablighi recruits do intersect with the world of radical Islamism when they travel to Pakistan to receive their initial training. We have received reports that once the recruits are in Pakistan, representatives of various radical Islamist groups, such as Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, the Taliban and al Qaeda, are said to woo them actively — to the point of offering them military training. And some of them accept the offer. For example, John Walker Lindh — an American who is serving a prison sentence for aiding the Taliban in Afghanistan — traveled with Tablighi preachers to Pakistan in 1998 to further his Islamic studies before joining the Taliban. Because of the piety and strict belief system of the Tablighis and their focus on calling wayward Muslims back to an austere and orthodox Muslim faith, the movement has offered a place where jihadist spotters can look for potential recruits. These facilitators often offer enthusiastic new or rededicated Muslims a more active way to live and develop their faith. Although the TJ promotes a benign message, the same conservative Islamic values espoused by the Tablighis also are part of jihadist ideology, and so some Muslims attracted to the Tablighi movement is enticed into becoming involved with jihadists. Additionally, because of its apolitical belief system, TJ seems to leave a gap in the ideological indoctrination of the individual Tablighi because it essentially asks the novice to shun politics and public affairs. The problem in taking this belief system from theory to practice, however, is that some people find they cannot ignore what is happening in the world around them, especially when that world includes wars. This is when some Tablighis become disillusioned with TJ and start turning to jihadist groups that offer religiously sanctioned prescriptions as to how “good Muslims” should deal with life´s injustices. Once a facilitator identifies such candidates, he often will segregate them from the main congregation in the mosque or community center and put them into small prayer circles or study groups where they can be more easily exposed to jihadist ideology. [O[Of course, it also has been shown that a person with friends or relatives who ascribe to radical ideology can more easily be radical]/span> Examples of people making the jump from TJ to radical Islam are the two leading members of the cell responsible for the July 7, 2005, London bombings — Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shahzad Tanweer. Both had life-changing experiences through their exposure to TJ, though by 2001 the men had left the Tablighi mosque they had been attending in the British city of Beeston because they found it to be too apolitical. They apparently were frustrated by the mosque’s elders, who forbid the discussion of politics in the mosque. After Khan and Tanweer left the Tablighi mosque, they began attending the smaller Iqra Learning Center bookstore in Beeston, where they reportedly were exposed to frequent political discussions about places such as Iraq, Kashmir and Chechnya. The store’s proprietors reportedly even produced jihad videos depicting crimes by the West against the Muslim world. Exposed to this environment, the two men eventually became radicalized to the point of traveling to Pakistan to attend a terrorist training camp and then returning to the United Kingdom to plan and execute a suicide attack that resulted in the death of them both. TJ also is used by jihadists as cover both for recruiting activities, as discussed above, and for travel. Like Khan and Tanweer, many jihadists desire to travel to Pakistan for training, while others want to get to Afghanistan, Kashmir or other places to fight jihad. However, the travel environment is far different today than it was in the early 1980s when 747 jetliners packed with jihadists from Saudi Arabia and other places flew into Pakistan en route to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Foreigners traveling to Pakistan today cannot enter the country without a visa, and Pakistani authorities are no longer inclined to issue visas to jihadists, as Jeffrey Battle and the other members of the Portland Seven had to learn the hard way. Shortly after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the friends traveled to China with the intention of entering Afghanistan by way of Pakistan. Once at the Chinese-Pakistani border, however, they found they could not enter Pakistan without a visa. After spending a frustrating month trying to obtain visas from the Pakistani Embassy in Beijing, the seven aspiring jihadists decided to go their separate ways. Battle, who reportedly once served as a bodyguard for Black Panther leader Quanell X, later attempted to obtain a visa to Pakistan by saying he was affiliated with TJ. The Pakistanis, probably recognizing him from his prior [a[and apparently somewhat vocal]isa attempts, denied him again, though he was able to get a visa to travel to Bangladesh using the feigned connection to TJ. Unable to make his way from Bangladesh to Pakistan or Afghanistan, however, Battle returned to the United States, where he was later arrested. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison after pleading guilty to charges of seditious conspiracy and waging war against the United States. Similarly, in the spring of 2001, the members of the so-called Lackawanna Six-cell traveled to Pakistan under the pretext of studying the Islamic religion and culture at the TJ training center. In reality, the men traveled through Pakistan to Afghanistan, where they attended training at the al-Farooq camp, a training site being run by al Qaeda. Again, the men used TJ as cover for travel, though there is no indication that TJ played any real part in their alleged plot. Although the TJ organization unintentionally serves as a front for or conduit to, militant organizations such as al Qaeda, there is no evidence that the Tablighis act willingly as a global unified jihadist recruiting arm. Rather, such activities appear to occur without the knowledge or consent of TJ leaders. Additionally, because of the very size of the organization and its activities in Muslim communities in the West, a great many Muslims have had some sort of contact with the group. TJ itself, however, is not an intentional propagator of terrorism. Investigation on Terror Connection of Tabligh Jamaat in Pakistan: Prominent amongst the Wahabi-Deobandi organizations active in the CARs, Chechnya and Dagestan is the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen [H[HUM–formerly known as the Harkat-ul-Ansar]the Markaz Dawa Al Irshad and its militant wing, the Lashkar-e-Toiba. A detailed paper on the HUM was disseminated on March 20, 1999, and on the Markaz and its Lashkar on July 26, 1998. This paper deals with the Tablighi Jamaat [T[TJ]which is the mother of all the Pakistan-based jihadi organizations active not only in the CARs, Chechnya and Dagestan, but also in other parts of the world. In an investigative report carried by the “News” [F[February 13, 1995]Mr. Kamran Khan, the well-known Pakistani journalist, brought to light for the first time the nexus between the TJ and the HUM and their role in supporting Islamic extremist movements in different countries. He quoted unidentified office-bearers of the HUM as saying as follows: “Ours is basically a Sunni organization close to the Deobandi school of thought. Our people are mostly impressed by TJ. Most of our workers do come from TJ. We regularly go to its annual meeting at Raiwind. Ours is a truly international network of genuine jihadist Muslims. We believe frontiers can never divide Muslims. They are one nation. They will remain a single entity. “We try to go wherever our Muslim brothers are terrorized, without any monetary consideration. Our colleagues went and fought against oppressors in Bosnia, Chechnya, Tajikistan, Burma, the Philippines and, of course, India. “Although Pakistani members are not participating directly in anti-Government armed resistance in Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia and Jordan, many of the fighters in those Arab States had remained our colleagues during the Afghan war and we know one another very well. We are doing whatever we can to help them install Islamic governments in those States.” The report also quoted the office-bearers as claiming that among foreign volunteers trained by them in their training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan were 16 African-American Muslims from various cities of the US and that funds for their activities mostly came from Muslim businessmen of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UK. The February 1998, issue of the “Newsline”, a monthly of Pakistan, quoted workers of the TJ as saying that the TJ had many offices in the US, Russia, the Central Asian Republics, South Africa, Australia and France and that many members of the Chechen Cabinet, including the Deputy Prime Minister of Chechnya, was workers of the TJ and participated in its proselytizing activities… One of them, merely identified as Khalil, said: ” It is possible that France may become a Muslim state within my lifetime, due to the great momentum of Tablighi activity there. ” According to the “Newsline”, the TJ was started in the 1880s to revive and spread Islam. Its annual convention held at Raiwind in Pakistani Punjab in November every year is attended by over one million Muslims from all over the world. This is described by the “Newsline” as the second largest gathering of the Muslims anywhere in the world after the Haj in Saudi Arabia. Dr.Jassim Taqui, an Islamic scholar, wrote in the “Frontier Post” of Peshawar of January 15,1999, as follows: The TJ has been able to establish contacts and centers throughout the Muslim world. [C[Comment: By "Muslim world” he does not only mean Islamic countries but all countries where there is a sizable Muslim community]/span> It has thousands of dedicated and disciplined workers who never question any order from the high-ups. What has helped the TJ to expand [wit[without creating alarm in the security agencies]its policy of a deliberate black-out of its activities. It does not interact with the media and does not issue any statements or communiqués. It believes in human communication through word of mouth. [Com[Comment: It does not bring out any journals or other propaganda organs to explain its policies and objectives. All explanations to its workers and potential recruits are given orally]pan> During its training classes, it claims to have frustrated the efforts of the US Central Intelligence Agency [CIA[CIA]penetrate it and succeeded in converting the CIA agents to Islam. The TJ claims that it never accepts money from anybody and that all its workers who volunteer to go on preaching mission have to spend their own money. Even though the TJ claims to be apolitical and disinterested in political or administrative influence, many of its active members have come to occupy important positions. Examples are Lt.Gen. [Ret[Retired]ed Nasir, who was the DG of the ISI during Mr.Nawaz Sharif’s first tenure as the Prime Minister, and Mr.Mohammad Rafique Tarar, the President of Pakistan, who has been an active worker of the TJ for many years. “Those who are close to the inner circles believe that the Tablighis were the brain who bailed out Nawaz Sharif from the constitutional crisis. Tarar is believed to be the brain behind the Shariah Bill [whi[which could not be passed by the Senate] the concept of speedy justice through military courts [the[the military courts were declared unconstitutional by the Pakistan Supreme Court]wever, the contacts of the Tablighis had always been with Mr.Mohammad Sharif [fat[father of former Pakistani Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif] not with the son. Mr. Nawaz is well aware of the “tariquah” [the[the path advocated by the TJ] has been with the Tabligh for a fairly long time. He takes part in their meetings on a regular basis. He donates money to their welfare projects. As usual, the Tablighis never publicize the donors or the projects or the beneficiaries. All are committed to remaining silent.” Writing in the “Frontier Post” of January 27, 1999, Dr. Mumtaz Ahmed, another Islamic scholar said: “Despite its enormous significance as a mass-based religious movement that has influenced Asian, African, Arab and Western Muslims alike, the Tablighi Jamaat has received scant attention in the literature on modern Islam. Maulana Ilyas, the founder of the Tablighi Jamaat, was of the view that the Tablighi movement and politically-oriented Islamic groups, although operating in two different spheres were complementing each other’s work. Hence, there should be no competition and rivalry between them.” Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury is the editor of Blitz. Follow him on Twitter Salah_Shoaib | Shoaib Choudhury | https://www.politicalite.com/radical-islam/wolves-in-sheeps-clothing-the-secret-jihad-movement/ | 2019-06-01 17:42:04+00:00 | 1,559,425,324 | 1,567,539,455 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
419,528 | politicscouk--2019-11-14--The war against the non-religious: Blasphemy laws on the rise | 2019-11-14T00:00:00 | politicscouk | The war against the non-religious: Blasphemy laws on the rise | illions of people - more people than ever - live in countries with severely limited freedom of thought, expression and association, where criticising a religion, or simply being non-religious, can result in serious persecution. The 2019 Freedom of Thought report, released today by Humanists International, monitors the situation for humanists and other non-religious people in every country of the world. It highlights this year that, for many, the situation is getting worse. This year the thematic focus of the report has been in laws against 'blasphemy' and 'apostasy'. There has been some progress in the last five years, with eight countries having abolished blasphemy laws, but these were mainly countries that were already relatively free. Around 70 other countries still retain severe punishments for leaving a religion or expressing non-religious beliefs. In Pakistan, for example, those that express these views publicly or leave Islam can face the death penalty, mob violence, incarceration and extrajuidical violence. In countries like Brunei and Mauritania, persecution has become more acute in the last two years and we have seen the introduction of death sentences for both blasphemy and apostasy. These laws are - always and everywhere - a violation of the human rights to freedom of thought and expression. The logic that supports them is narrow, perverted, and an abuse of human freedom and intellect. Defenders of apostasy laws say that to shun a religion is a crime because it contradicts a religious prohibition and a natural law - peculiar logic when the very point is that the person in question, by definition, does not share that belief. In fact, the very existence of the law itself presupposes that obviously people's minds do change and that, given freedom of enquiry, people will reach different conclusions about the various metaphysical, moral and historical questions that religions hope to address. Defenders of blasphemy laws will often make a narrowly religious case, for instance that blasphemy is an 'offence against God'. But they often also produce a more secular argument around the harmful effects on society upon hearing criticism, ridicule, or insult to beliefs that many members of society hold dear. Humanists argue that a right to be immune from general criticism does not and should not exist, but we do have a very fundamental right to express ourselves. In the West, some argue that blasphemy laws are necessary to curb behaviour that is genuinely hateful. But laws can target harassment, intimidation and incitement without employing the incommensurable, ambiguous religious concept of blasphemy. And in any case, there is an obvious difference between making a criticism of a religious institution in a blog or conversation from a weak social position of dissent and shouting it in the face of an adherent on the street or outside their place of worship. It is sometimes argued that such laws help to combat social 'disharmony' or extremism. But it's very clear looking at this year's Freedom of Thought report in particular, that countries with the most severe and widely-enforced blasphemy laws are usually those with the most religious tension and extremism. Humanist and other nonreligious people face growing persecution globally, in every sphere, from family law to criminal law, and in policy. The causes are various. Sometimes it's religious extremism, whether Christian or Muslim. Sometimes it's ethnic nationalism, whether in India, Russia, America, or Europe. Sometimes it's authoritarian governments, such as in China. Those without a faith are one of the most viciously persecuted belief minorities in the world. The answer to their persecution, however, is not to focus on the rights of the nonreligious but to reclaim the universal nature of the human right to freedom of opinion and expression of all people. Recent policy in countries such as the US and UK, which say they want to promote this freedom, has been to emphasise the persecution of Christians in particular. Initiatives like this are also highlighted in this year's report as being to the detriment of freedom where they exceptionalise one group seemingly for political reasons. The right approach is to stand up for freedom for all. In countries where this year's report shows that humanists are most free - whether the Netherlands, Norway, or Japan - it is because all people are more free. We must promote this right to freedom of religion or belief for all people, indivisible. Andrew Copson is president of Humanists International and chief executive of Humanists UK. His latest book, Secularism: a very short introduction, out now. The opinions in politics.co.uk's Comment and Analysis section are those of the author and are no reflection of the views of the website or its owners. | null | http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2019/11/14/the-war-against-the-non-religious-blasphemy-laws-on-the-rise | Thu, 14 Nov 2019 15:37:09 GMT | 1,573,763,829 | 1,573,777,849 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
426,656 | prepareforchange--2019-03-12--Mainstreaming Satanism and Luciferianism | 2019-03-12T00:00:00 | prepareforchange | Mainstreaming Satanism and Luciferianism | Most of us can feel morality and culture being eroded at an increasing pace, but very few people recognize that this is by design. Until we can see the intentional distortions being offered up as the norm and identify the hidden motivations to herd an unaware humanity into consent with dark forces, we do not have free choice. Two of the main factions responsible for this are being given a make-over, to be sold to the public as something they are not. These are complex forces, mixing two energies that were organic to the earth realm, but that have been hijacked and amplified by invading off planet groups. These groups are exerting a tremendous influence over humanity at this time, and being able to read their signatures and decode their agendas, means being better able to maintain personal integrity and freedom of choice for all of humanity in the ascension cycle. The Mainstreaming of Satanism and the Mainstreaming of Luciferianism, are the current dominant cultures that are being methodically and secretly constructed through an array of social engineering experiments. These are being perpetrated through an increasing multitude of electromagnetic and chemical weapons targeting the unaware earth population, with the goal of mass mind control. Most people are still not able to discern the aggressive agendas hidden in plain sight that directly promote the death culture. These agendas are based upon manipulating Satanic and Luciferian doctrines and ideologies, and their proponents continue to deceive the public through pushing for mainstream acceptance while denying accountability for the destructive harm caused by their actions. These Controller groups desire to make the more extreme Satanic and Luciferian ideologies and their related behaviors and rituals fully mainstreamed and socially integrated. Thus, the agenda is to mainstream these practices so that they will become legally protected when their various harmful activities are openly disclosed or observed in full view of the public. This month’s newsletter is intended to demystify, educate and eliminate the many veils of confusion and the gaslighting tactics that are used by the main supporters of these dark ideologies. This is to help remove the knee jerk avoidance and the mainstream taboo, that prevents openly discussing the definition of the practices that are classified as Satanism or Luciferianism. This is a very complex subject where layers upon layers of deceptions, lies and cover stories are put in place to confuse the masses about the real source and intention behind these practices. There are many different schools of thought on the path towards achieving self-realization and greater enlightenment. There are discussions and debates on what are often referred to as the right-hand and left-hand path, and whether taboo types of activities can be used for spiritual benefit. However, what this newsletter attempts to define is the larger global agendas of the most powerful Satanic and Luciferian practitioners, those in the Power Elite that have alien handlers that use these practices to directly contact the NAA, and conjure sorcery against the masses. When attempting to describe Satanism or Luciferianism, the descriptors used are generally portrayed inaccurately to the public as delusions or fabrications of the unstable and superstitious mind, made up as purely religious constructs to control the masses through fear. That discussions about Satanism and Luciferianism are limited to conspiracy theorists, or whispered behind the closed doors of members of the clergy, exorcists, and secret societies is by design. Many people are taught to believe that these spiritual forces, rituals and the doctrines behind them do not exist, that these forces are purely imaginary and do not have an influence in the world or on those minds that are properly educated in the hard sciences. This is absolutely inaccurate. More people need to be able to identify and recognize Satanism and Luciferianism in action, when its ideology is being represented through the use of mainstream symbols and in practices that are shaping the cultural and societal norms, because it is being used as a type of black magic sorcery to directly infect minds, greatly impacting how the masses think and perceive their reality. When we finally recognize and know what it is, its darker existence can be found everywhere by opening our eyes to see the current state of chaos, mental fragmentation and traumatized pain in people that are running the world around us. Because when people do not recognize these forces even when they are looking them in the face, they are easily manipulated by them to easily give up their consent and authority. Classic dark Satanists and Luciferians glorify themselves through the ultimate heights of narcissism and lust for power, using knowledge to feel superior and to take unfair advantage over others. Thus, they endorse the master-slave relationship and they believe it is their natural right to be the dark master of humanity, because they consider themselves smarter, stronger and genetically superior. The point is to comprehend that Satanism and Luciferianism are ancient ideologies based in total secrecy, black magic sorcery and the continual cover up and denial of their existence to outsiders. Many of these mixed ideologies are promoted as atheistic, when this is entirely inaccurate, as they are connected directly to specific gestalts of energy intelligence. These are consciousness lifestyles and sometimes religious practices that have remained deeply buried behind the mysteriously hidden shadows of the esoteric occult, which has grown its tentacles of influence way beyond any current world religion, intellectual reasoning or spiritual philosophy. It is a dark predatorial consciousness with a doctrine that has infiltrated and infected every single aspect of secular society, generating an inverted society designed to reverse the principles of life into principles of death. Satanic and Luciferian death symbolism, black magic sorcery and their destructive beliefs are being thrust into our subconscious mind every day, through the onslaught of commercial entertainment, advertising and consumer branding of the death culture. These assaults against human consciousness are meticulously pre-planned, through the intentional social engineering experiments decided upon by the many academic think tanks and international committees that are founded by the Power Elite, and run at the highest levels by the NAA puppet masters. The most powerful cult of insiders, such as those involved with the Power Elite, misrepresent themselves and lie to the unaware public who are being tricked every day to believe that Mainstream Satanism or Luciferianism is an ideology that has genuinely benign, noble and humanitarian intentions. Under the guise of the marketing promotions of a gentler, kinder and more charitable Satan or Lucifer to the unaware masses, he is a friendly, sensual God that just wants to give you the knowledge you deserve so you can manipulate and lie to get the things you want on the material plane. Other forms of this propaganda use the atheistic mind control to target the subconscious, that none of this actually exists and life is meaningless anyway, so you better stick it to others and get yours while you can. Unfortunately, these are grave inaccuracies filled with complex deceptions and lies that are being spread, as the survival of a high-powered practicing Satanist and Luciferian that relies on ritual blood sacrifice of humans, is fully dependent on the propaganda machines and gaslighting tactics for controlling the perception of the population. They are fully dependent on controlling the public perception in order to promote social acceptance of their lifestyle choices, being classified as harmless hanging out with the intellectuals, atheists and scientists. Thus, they are pushing for mainstream acceptance of their practices into the population via political manipulation of highly charged controversial issues. In order to distract they hide behind the most liberal people who are unaware of their global agenda. People who morally believe all human rights should be protected, even those committing harm to the people, provide great cover for dark forces. Without an understanding of the actual consequences of the hidden forces behind these actions, they have no idea who they are inadvertently protecting. Does our civilized society want to protect the rights of the mentally ill and spiritually sick to be lying propagandists, free to use technological mind control to create world slavery? To protect having sex with children and to use human blood sacrifice and Negative Alien rituals to help maintain their power and control in materialism? Thus, these topics must be openly and intelligently discussed with reasonable, flexible and coherent minds, in order to understand where the primary ideologies and their belief systems originate, and why these groups operate in total secrecy and lies, seeking to have full spectrum domination, power and global control. Satanic and Luciferian consciousness forces can exist simultaneously within humans and non-human entities, who are practicing Satanic or Luciferian ideologies. They have a lifestyle that can also be considered Service to Self orientation, a deeply egoic, narcissistic and potentially psychopathic and violent personality that wants wealth and power over anything else. Powerful Satanic and Luciferian cults operate within inverted systems, they enforce a culture of absolute secrecy, and demanded loyalty with many layers of compartmentalized bureaucracy, filled with legal instruments and non-disclosure agreements throughout the many pillars of society to remain mostly undetected. They have access to unlimited wealth, while their projects are incredibly well funded and expertly insulated through a vetted network of powerful people. People that are organized in a hierarchical, highly compartmentalized layer of pyramidal inverted institutions and storefronts, where each layer has limited knowledge about the many tentacles that make up the entire scope of the organization’s true objectives and activities. As such, a whistleblower that leaks secrets or is an apostate of the business of the cult or its lifestyle, is considered a traitor and threat to be blackmailed and legitimately punished by any extent that is relative to their personal beliefs or moral code, if there is one. The cult will seek to permanently erase or destroy their lives and that of their families, even down to ritual torture and death. As a result of enforcing such dire consequences for breaking secret agreements, and the fact there is no rule of law operating for those criminals who have unlimited wealth for bribery, there are few people that are willing to go public and help educate others about those in power that subscribe to the Power Elite Satanic or Luciferian cult lifestyle. For this reason, it is unreasonable and naive to believe that the survivors and victims of Satanic and Luciferian cults and human trafficking rings will become public and tell their story, when in the majority of cases they remain completely unprotected by the law. The Many Spectrums of Satanism and Luciferianism It is important to comprehend as with all things, that there are many ranges of current socially acceptable lifestyle practices that would identify within the spectrum of Satanism or Luciferianism, from dabblers, black magicians, as well as any moderate to fanatic practices that strictly observe the holidays and ritual seasons. The spectrum of the intensity of the practice of Satanism or Luciferianism is usually based on the level of each person’s negative ego distortions, their personal desires, lust for power and addictive tendencies. The stronger the ego drive for instant gratification, the less moral fiber to consider the consequences that action has upon others. In the freedom of practicing any religion or lifestyle, just because a person identifies with being religious or spiritual does not make them a good hearted, trustworthy and compassionate person. One may draw comparisons observing many Christian sects, that may identify with the Bible or Jesus’ teachings, yet have many different ranges of interpretations and belief systems in what is thought to be God’s divine will for humanity. People that identity with being Christian and yet subscribe to the blood sacrifice of Jesus nailed to a cross as God’s plan for humanity, have no idea that blood sacrifice is purely Satanic and has absolutely nothing to do with true Christianity. In this state of mental confusion, there are many people with inverted belief systems, identifying as a Christian, and yet they are really practicing and connecting with Satanic forces that are pretending to be Christian. Satanic and Luciferian forces are the great Imposter Spirits, they are the ultimate deceivers and liars that enjoy confusing and mocking people. As an example, the Catholic Church is plagued with pedophilia and sodomy of children committed by clergy, which are the main tenets of the high-powered Satanists in their rituals for gaining power and control over others. With the knowledge of the Satanic agenda and their practices and belief systems, it becomes crystal clear who has been really running the Catholic Church and Vatican City. Satanic forces mock the Christians by pretending to be representatives of goodness, God and Christ. Additionally, many youngsters involved in these practices that proclaim themselves as Satanists when influenced from movies, modern art or music, are not involved in human blood sacrifice, but remain completely unaware of the spiritual-energetic ramifications of giving their authority to Satanic or Luciferian forces. Many have no idea that these forces directly connect and communicate with an array of off planet alien forces that directly answer to some of these sigils and rituals, many times infiltrating the human energy field and implanting their consciousness to become their mind control slave. However, what is considered acceptable behavior in one sect of a Satanic cult, like the ritual murder and cannibalism of babies, may be found morally reprehensible in a Luciferian belief system and vice versa. Many Luciferians do not believe that Satanic forces actually exist. Yet, they are interacting with Satanic forces in Satanic blood ritual referring to this same consciousness force as Lucifer, without the conscious awareness of the fact of who or what is actually present during the ritual of black magic sorcery. What makes it easy to confuse the two distinct and separate consciousness forces of Satanism and Luciferianism, is that they are comprised of female-male gender reversals that are both based in the Service to Self ideology. Satanism is without light, and is made up of black subtle forces conjured from the lowest female principle dimensions and black magic grids, while Luciferianism is the false light source conjured from the higher male principle dimensions, attempting to mimic and steal enlightenment from the Solar Consciousness of Christos-Sophia. We could think of a classic Satanist locked in the lower three layers of the negative ego, focused on the instinctual drives, while the Luciferian is attempting to gain higher knowledge through opening his third eye, by passing his heart center. Additionally, there are many people that are not aware of the NAA, and may identify as a Satanist or Luciferian, yet are fully capable of having a reasonable set of ethics in being respectful to others and not desiring to inflict harm on anyone. They may reject dogmatic religion and choose to support human creativity, personal freedom, gaining knowledge and seeking enjoyment of earthly life. For them, the Christian religion as it is generally represented is morally repugnant, and what is marketed as Luciferianism is much more appealing and rational. However, Satanism and Luciferianism at its core source share the common ground of beliefs that are rooted in Service to Self, believing that in order to become a master of the material world and gain wealth, prestige and knowledge, those with superior genetics and brute power deserve to exercise rulership over others that are less privileged. These Archontic Deception overlays come directly from the mind control broadcast from the NAA themselves. Spreading and growing the secret practice of Satanism and Luciferianism in the earth human population and throughout the main pillars of society is the primary agenda of the negative aliens who invaded our earth, who desire to enslave the planet and human consciousness through believing in their many complex deceptions. The Negative Alien agenda is to force the planet to serve another multiple species Controller agenda, made up of primarily groups that embody Satanic or Luciferian bi-wave polarity consciousness. The forces of polarity that exist in creation as a gender principle have taken on the bi-wave collective consciousness as the anti-life and fallen aspects of the Universal Mother and Universal Father. These fallen aspects are the Imposters of the original Universal Founders that operate as a trinity. There is a Reversal Mother alien aspect that works to grow the collective consciousness forces of Satanism to be expressed on the earth. There is a Reversal Father alien aspect that works to grow the collective consciousness forces of Luciferianism to be expressed on the earth. These larger gestalts of bi-wave consciousness have taken human and nonhuman forms in multiple dimensions of reality, and are dueling for complete control over the consciousness on the planet in order to continue to exist on the earth plane. These many varieties of bi-wave forces attempt to enslave humans to express their quality of anti-life reversals, made through the Satanic or Luciferian collective consciousness. Since humanity has the 12 Strand DNA imprint and potential of uniting with the eternal tri-wave consciousness of the combined Universal Mother and Universal Father Christos Trinity, the war on earth is between bi-wave and tri-wave, or anti-life and eternal life. Much of the NAA is veiled in the secrecy of black operations and shadow levels of the collaboration between non-terrestrial entities and the human special access programs, buried in the many compartments of the military industrial complex or covert intelligence agencies. The primary timeline for takeover through the shadow government began during the World Wars in the branch of the naval forces, who had procured off planet technologies from the NAA and were hiding them in the underground labs and underwater bases on the earth. Earth was invaded several times by hostile Negative Aliens with a major shift occurring 26,000 years ago during the Luciferian Rebellion, the Atlantian Cataclysm and leading to the latest event during the Sumerian-Egypt Invasion, when human history was completely rewritten by the victors of war. These agendas are still in effect today and are enforced by the Power elite or Controller group, that are hard core practicing Satanists and Luciferians. The Atlantian Conspiracy and Luciferian Covenant impacts all human and earthly life as an enforced enslavement program, where planetary resources are being harvested to send back to off planet entities, that collect the energetic quanta of human life force and earthly minerals. So, who are the Satanists in the NAA? Most of the Black Suns are comprised of the Reptile Insectoid Collectives. These groups are primarily responsible for spreading Satanic practices on the earth, particularly pushing blood sacrifice and child sacrifice ritual practices. Because as predatorial parasites, they require a massive amount of human soul energy to survive and consider sacrificed children to be a delicacy. As a result, they have made many deals with the Black Sun Satanist Power Elite to keep them in control of the planetary resources, more specifically the black magic currency and global financial institutions. They endorse and protect those in power that have been prolific harvesters of child sacrifice and that carry out the activities that serve their human enslavement agenda. Aleister Crowley was contacted in 1904 and is the Black Sun poster child of the last century, he was given power and Essene Gnostic knowledge to spread the O.T.O. into the related satanic practices, in order to build the black magic grids or Thothian grids worldwide for supporting the control network for the Power Elite. These are essentially the infiltrations that were made into the planetary grid networks that are used today to support the Power elite rituals through the use of black magic sorcery, making their mind control sorcery and blood rituals more effective. The Power elite draw upon a massive energetic field harvested from human souls that was generated specifically for them, in order to maintain the highest levels of wealth in the pyramid of global control. Some of the Black Suns are obsessed with the ideology of creating an elite race with a superior Olympian-Titan-Nordic body, and have stolen and genetically modified the Ruby Sun DNA from human beings for this reason. They have cloned out these bodies so that they appear to be Nordic humans making it easier to infiltrate human culture, as well as to satisfy their personal vanity. The Black Suns are comprised of Black Satanic forces and joined with the Fallen Angelics to counteract and destroy the Angelic Human Guardian Race for control and domination of this time vector in the Universal Time Matrix. The Black Suns are also referred to as Black Suns from their DNA genetic lineage, in that their heart center and source connection is made from a black hole. The Black Suns have reversed their DNA from many eons of inciting warring aggression against multiple species in the Universal timelines. They exist primarily in the reverse 10th dimensional DNA strand and thus they maintain a network in the Middle East, to run reversal currents in which they use the Iran-Iraq Gate to sustain themselves. They actively groom and cultivate Satanic Ritual Abuse for mass human blood sacrifice in the areas they have control like the Middle East, because they require the blood and soul energy for sustenance to survive, and are addicted to human hormones in the bloodstream, like adrenochrome. They are capable of existing in three-dimensional consciousness while in their body, yet they have access to 10 dimensions of the timelines in the collective consciousness field. They are primarily from the Satanic class network family, although they work and cooperate with the Luciferian families to gain control over the planet territories and share in the spoils of war. They cannot cellularly transmute their body in and out of Stargates easily and they need to use earth human genetics to do that, which is why they have a special interest in Starseed people. They access limited levels of biological immortality through the vampirism and siphoning of other living things, such as harvesting the life force energy of planet earth. The Black Sun main philosophies that interconnect throughout the different branches of Satanism include the following: Here we can see the master-slave narrative in action through the Satanic ideology. Humanity is being indoctrinated with Satanic Ideology through assorted mind control and propaganda tactics, because the masses do not understand that they have been given a false narrative, a false version of Satanism that is being promoted by the mainstream media and popular culture. Classic Luciferianism is also Service to Self, sharing many of the same principles of Satanism, with the exception of seeking Universal knowledge and enlightenment while protecting the Luciferian Covenant, as explained below. Who are Luciferians in the NAA? Did they engineer the 13 Bloodlines? The Sons of Belial are not only a massive gestalt of false light collective Luciferian consciousness that exist on the material plane, but also a part of the consortium of entities that make up the Negative Aliens. The Negative Alien that is embodying Luciferian principles, such as the Belial group, contacts and interfaces with its vibrational match or genetic line on the material plane, which is a human vessel embodying the same collective thoughtform vibration. The Belial Group is responsible for primarily spreading Luciferian ideologies and esoteric knowledge in the powerful and elite secret societies used for grooming world leaders, politicians and corporate heads that represent their overall interests in fulfilling the Luciferian Covenant. Luciferians believe in their superiority to rule and hold high value and esteem for universal knowledge, universal laws and enlightenment, yet they believe they are the rightful Gods to be worshipped by all of humanity. Thus, through imprisonment and takeover of the earth, they reject the authority of the Solar Consciousness of Christ Michael, rejecting the concept of divine right order, personal sovereignty as a right, and the divine plan of the Creator to achieve humanity’s ascension. Thus, the Luciferians became toxic with the perceived ideology that they are Supreme Gods of their own replicated worlds, and enslaved others, using others light source to build artificial realities that serve their continued existence and rulership. Many of the Power Elite believe that they are directly genetically descended from this invading alien group which they call Gods, and refer to them as the bloodlines of Lucifer. The Thirteen bloodlines were organized to be infiltrated by the Negative Alien Luciferians, they were genetically modified and engineered to be used to protect their investment and interest in dominating the earth, while harvesting humans as a work force and as an energy source. Yes, the Luciferian forces genetically modified 13 human bloodlines on the earth to act as the Controllers of their personal property. Over thousands of years, some of these elite bloodlines digressed even lower into full blown Satanic bloodlines, in which the general accepted behaviors tend to be much more violent, lustful and bloodthirsty than Luciferians. Satanics suffer with a black hole that generates extreme addictions, in severe cases generating blood lust and sexual lust that can never be satiated. While Luciferians suffer from the narcissistic ego of pride and lust for power to achieve enlightenment and to become Godlike, as well as gaining material power and possessing beautiful objects. These are mostly Reptilian hybrid beings that have lost their connection to the Godhead by rejecting the natural laws, and in partnership with the Satanic reptilians, produced an artificial reality based on the Saturnian Kabbalah Sephiroth, Black Cube and Black Tree of Life reversal architecture. As a result of the disconnection of the organic architecture that generates an open source supply of life force energy, in an entropic system their DNA became increasingly corrupted and damaged. Belial Suns are also called Fallen Angelics, because they are of false light or the fallen light source of Lucifer. The hybrids created by the Fallen Angelics comprise many of those in the Annunaki groups: The Belial Suns, are mostly comprised of Annunaki Hybrids including some of the Nephilim regressive lines that have 9-10-11 DNA strands. Their main control hub is located in the United Kingdom, and they maintain and administer to the NET’s that generate the Checkerboard Mutation and the 11th Stargate at Stonehenge. Approximately 11,500 YA, the anti-human and anti-krystic agenda for takeover of the planet from factions of the NAA that are Luciferian forces, is called the Luciferian Covenant. This is the historical timeline trigger event from which the Power Elite or Illuminati bloodlines are sourced, and they are instructed to protect these bloodlines from the ‘Gods’ by practicing their rituals and maintaining genetic purity. The Luciferian Covenant is comprised of factions of NAA and Power Elite that rewrote the history of humanity since the Atlantian Flood, and have falsified the historical records to hide the knowledge that this event ever happened. They have tried to obliterate evidence as well as mind control all information leading back to the extraterrestrial involvement in all human earthly affairs. They have been successful by employing the military strategy of compartmentalization and persecution, through the Victim-Victimizer software mind control to intimidate and threaten any humans that dare ask the larger questions of what the extraterrestrials are doing on our planet and why they are abducting and possessing humans to harvest DNA. The Luciferian Doctrine was used as a strategy of manipulation by the NAA Luciferian forces that were irritated at the success of the Black Sun’s control over the masses and the immense power, wealth and territory they had accumulated by the Popes campaigns and the Romans backing the Catholic Church. Because of the incredible brutality exhibited by the Black Suns enforcing the Roman Catholic Church’s satanic ideology, some groups went underground to reject the Church and its teachings. Thus, the Luciferian Doctrine was born out of the rejection of the power of the Catholic Church during the murderous times of the Crusades, and purports that Lucifer is a positive helper and bringer of light for an awakened humanity, in pursuit of gaining deeper knowledge of the true spiritual self. The proponents of the Luciferian Doctrine believe that Lucifer is not evil or anti-life, but is the God that desired to educate humankind and save them from the fallen state, so that worthy humans could elevate themselves into true Universal knowledge and enlightenment. In this doctrine, the bible God Yahweh is considered to be the anti-life principle and is actually the primary evil oppressor of humankind, because he did not want humans to gain this knowledge of the tree of life. As a result of the murderous persecution of all those who disagreed with the Catholic Church, secret societies were formed in order for groups to discuss these theories, along with studying the ancient wisdom collected from the Gnostics and other sacred texts outside of the bible. This evolved into many different secret societies operating today, with mixtures of spiritual teachings that came from an assortment of the core teachings found in many of the ancient mystery schools and sacred texts that were hidden from the church leaders and their religious followers. Through this the stated Luciferian based gnostic teachings were disseminated into books made available to the public, and it was believed by its proponents that Lucifer controlled all world affairs and desired to lead humans into a new age of prosperity and peace. Therefore, mixed perceptions of the Luciferian Doctrine are central to members of the Power Elite that are running the Controller pillars of society, as well as central to the organization of many secret societies, such as masonic orders, even influencing many of the most popular New Age belief systems. However, when you deeply know the Lucifer figure that exists as the marketed product of the NAA Luciferian forces, one becomes aware they are imposters, liars and propagandists that like to counterfeit and take credit for the light of creation and others achievements through energy parasitism. The false light of Lucifer was stolen from the original DNA template and consciousness of angelic humans, that reflects the true light of God’s eternal spark that exists within us. How the Luciferian NAA despise the spark of light we have been naturally given to achieve sovereignty and spiritual freedom from within us! Luciferian entities covet our light source, and mask themselves as Gods to those that will trade their soul light and inner spark for the instant gratification of gaining some knowledge, material wealth and power in the external world. As a result of making this pact, a blood covenant is formed, and the consciousness of that person is now indebted and bonded through cause and effect, to serve these Luciferian entities in life and afterlife. It is wise to remember that when interacting with Satanic or Luciferian forces through their ritual practices, nothing is ever given for free, there will always be a heavy payment required in time. There is no true love or peace present, and these entities are purely Service to Self, they don’t care about humanity and will say anything to get you to believe their lies. Power Elite, How they Control the World Who are the human groups that are mind controlled by the NAA and are used to enforce the Satanic and Luciferian global agendas of the Negative Aliens? There are many terms used to describe the minority group of human bloodlines that were infiltrated with Satanic and Luciferian ideologies creating the psychopathic human minds that would be used to enforce and carry out the enslavement of the earth population. Many of these people are severely traumatized with dissociative disorders from participating in Satanic or Luciferian based rituals since birth. The goal of a Satanist Bloodline family is to bind the child to a demonic entity gestalt or negative alien, so that person is a possessed biological robot that does what he or she is told by the NAA. Thus, it is important to comprehend that these bloodlines have assigned mind control handlers that are non-humans, the Power Elite that are not full-blown possessions, have direct alien handlers assigned to control their every move. Many of these people have no idea the extent of the alien mind control that they exist under, in the fog of confusion they believe the alien implanted thoughts are their own. Additionally, some of the newer generations of offspring do not want to continue the same practices of their grandfathers and are pulling out, which poses weakness in their control structures as this generates infighting and conflicts within these powerful families. Although known by different names such as Illuminati, Dark Cabal, Power Elite, Archons or Controllers, essentially these are criminal minds that behave similarly to mafia thugs, using mind control, brutality, tyranny and totalitarianism to enslave the human race to maintain their personal power and wealth, at any cost and without concern for the consequences. The Power Elite are a small group of people who act as the main Controllers of our world. They conjure black magic through dark rituals that are used for maintaining contact with the NAA, in order to control the entire planet through the manipulation of the collective consciousness through fear-based programming that is transmitted via mind control. To reinforce the fear programming and keep the population in a vibration of fear and separation, they organized a complex system of global institutions to act as the primary enforcer of the propagation of the disinformation that they use to influence people to self-enforce the belief systems that shape the current narrative of the 3D reality. The Power elite and committee members that include those families running in the Controller groups have been organized based upon their ancestral bloodlines, wealth, power and status. The majority of these people were groomed through Satanic-Luciferian cult practices and placed in the absolute highest positions of power by the NAA forces. With trauma-based mind control, these people over time have proven to be effective in carrying out the alien agenda, and thus are kept in the highest positions of global power to maintain the mind control reality and electromagnetic fences that are used to enforce the prison planet. Many of the groups that work under the pyramidal structure of control and its many layers of compartmentalization are unaware of what agendas exist at the very top of the power structure, which is annihilation of the original human DNA. Most remain unaware that the NAA are at the highest positions, running the main structures of anti-human control which influence all planetary affairs. This extends to all of the most powerful and large multinational corporations on the planet, as these same multinational corporations have tentacles that extend to off planet barter and trade with other civilizations, as well as running or servicing the Secret Space Programs. Members of the Power Elite or Cabal can be found throughout all the primary Controller Pillars of Society and that which influences power and policy in our world. Luciferian Covenant and Satanic Cultists in the Power Elite bloodlines organized together to share in the spoils of war against the earth inhabitants, and to enslave the masses, those they consider underlings or feeders to be slaves to the Negative Alien Agenda. This is a shared agenda between Power Elite Humans and Negative Aliens to gain full spectrum dominance over the earth, gaining full unhampered access to trade and barter all of the earth’s many resources, while mind controlling all inhabitants to be their worker slaves. This agenda includes Galactic human trafficking in which earth inhabitants, including children are taking off planet to work in slave colonies, or as sexual slaves, or used in blood sacrifices. The main corporations and those powerful private sectors that are fully controlled by the Power elite, primarily control the world governments through schemes of lobbying, bribing and blackmail. Clearly, this is highly unethical and sometimes criminal behavior, but it is an open secret that this is how the world works if you want to play along with the big boys. Lobbying, persuasion, or interest representation is the act of attempting to influence the actions, policies, or decisions of officials in their daily life, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies. Lobbying is done by many types of people, associations and organized groups, including individuals in the private sector, corporations, fellow legislators or government officials, or advocacy and special interest groups. Lobbyists may be among a legislator’s constituencies, meaning a voter or bloc of voters within their electoral district; they may engage in lobbying as a profitable business. -Wikipedia Controlling government and corporate structures through strongarm tactics of bribery and blackmail isn’t enough, because to gain more control over people and to create a master slave mentality, the Controller knows he must generate as much fear and intimidation as possible into mainstream thinking. The psychological warfare approach of Divide and Conquer Tactics used by the NAA to condition anti-human values and erode integrity in the masses is called the Archontic Deception Strategy. The Archontic Deception Strategy is used to socially engineer the Death Culture, a culture of fear, dishonesty, deception and intimidation. This is achieved through Pavlovian mind control conditioning that adopts extremely self-destructive behaviors as the standard model to guide human behavior. Through conditioning these same behaviors repeatedly in mass media to manufacture social norms, it has produced a population of people that commonly display these negative ego qualities of fear, dishonesty and deception as an acceptable value system that guides their deepest motivations and interactions. People without a value system of personal integrity are easily corrupted and manipulated by mass mind control, producing unstable, erratic and destructive behaviors. This produces the mindset of a slave. Satanics and Luciferians know that by controlling the mind, one can gain control over the human soul and spirit. Thus, through the sophisticated use of hidden electromagnetic technologies and psychotronic weapons to incite continual programs of fear and terror, they can digress humanity into biological robots. Their hope is that with a mind-controlled population, they will be fully unchallenged and can take full and complete possession of the earth’s physical resources. To achieve this goal the secretive infiltration of the core societal organizational structures such as: religious, medical, financial and legal systems, would be ideal to shape the value systems that generate the 3D reality based upon the belief systems they want to program in humanity and thus, fully control. The technological and mind control means of social engineering encompass five main Archontic Deception Strategies used to generate extremely dysfunctional behaviors, which we refer to as Archontic deception behaviors. These are used to spread anti-human value systems in the human public, and create the master-slave mentality. To study more about the Archontic Deception Strategy and its effects upon the subconscious layers of the negative ego, the Archontic Deception Behaviors, as well as the anti-dote to these strategies, it is suggested to look up these terms in the Ascension Glossary. How do the NAA and the Power Elite manage to maintain their power and global control over the majority of the wealth and planetary resources when they are such a small minority? The Power Elite are a small group of people who conjure black magic through dark rituals that are used for maintaining contact with the NAA, in order to control the entire planet through the manipulation of the collective consciousness. The manipulation of consciousness technology, planetary grid networks and the world of forces for Service to Self and Negative Ego purposes, without regard for the consent or the consequence of actions upon others, is a form of black magic sorcery. There are many different levels of the propagation of black magic and all are based in Service to Self or ego gratification, such as using black magic to generate harm to others. The practice of black magic and conjuring demons or aliens for gaining knowledge or power is considered the left-hand path, and is the definition of a Black Magician or Sorcerer. Black Magicians or Sorcerers exist in the human realm and in every dimension. Many Christos lightworkers deal with astral plane black magicians, human and non-human, who consistently throw etheric weapons, curses and implants with intent to harm or make us sick, from the astral or during the sleep state. This is why learning about these forces, and how to communicate with Krystal Star and holding meditation, prayers and doing spiritual housekeeping is critical during this time of the Ascension cycle. In the proper context for comprehending that everything is made of energy, all energy is intelligent and conscious and this energy influences the world around us. This helps us to easily identify the difference between what is referred to as white magic, positive energy or black magic, negative energy. Those that have knowledge of energy and are practicing meditation rituals to focus their consciousness with positive intentions, that are loving, kind and compassionate and seeking to truly do no harm or evil to themselves and others, are referred to as white magicians or Maji. White magic has traditionally been referred to in the use of supernatural powers or consciousness magic for selfless purposes, such as healings, blessings, prayers, clearings and planetary gridwork. Acquiring knowledge of the mechanics of consciousness and practicing ritual in itself is not evil, as the church has stated or those that have been mind controlled to fear these practices. To truly practice the positive application of directing our consciousness energy in Service to Others, we must purify our consciousness and our body of negative ego desires, and allow ourselves to be a clear conduit of genuine heart-based intentions to serve our inner spirit or God’s divine will. Through the pursuit of spiritual dedication to develop unconditional love, virtue ethics, goodness and communing with the Spirits of Christ, one allows themselves to become a white magician. By allowing the forces of goodness to flow through our physical vessel and circulate the inner light, while blessing the world around us. This is the natural result of spiritual ascension and expanding consciousness towards achieving spiritual freedom. It is not the ego identity that accomplishes this, it is the spark of God that transforms and heals the darkness, from the perfection of the Universal Krystal light that may flow through us. The opposing energy of goodness, those with negative ego and ill will seeking advancement of their own selfish desires at the expense of others, spreading hateful aspects that are destructive, are those that conjure black forces and black magic. In respect to using black magic to manipulate the planetary grid, the NAA and Power elite have accessed knowledge to gather collective conscious energy from the ley lines to power up their agendas. The planetary grid is a living ancient mapping system of multiple energy spectrums of consciousness organized intelligently into layers of geomantic blueprints, which perform specific functions within a precise layer of multiple webbings of energy. The NAA have given them information to interact with this living field of energy, and through the use of black magic sorcery and human blood sacrifice, they have been able to use it to maintain their control up until this point. During the Ascension Cycle, these forces are warring over what they feel are their conquered territories in the planet, including the use of humans as slaves. Why do these Black Magic rituals contain blood sacrifice and ritual killing? For centuries the NAA have developed and exploited multidimensional occult practices through reversal creation code. This has been given to secret societies and institutions for the purpose of mind control, in order to harvest negative emotional energy or loosh from the masses. Blood Sacrifice, whether human, animal or any living thing, are made during some of the black magic rituals that are designed to call directly upon the NAA, feeding them with loosh. Also, the ritualist may desire to conjure aspects of dark energy intelligence, such as the elemental forces that directly connect into the black magic grids. The NAA rewards ritual sacrifice and the killing that happens in wars, because this is the main food source of collecting loosh, as well as satisfying their addictive sensations that they get from ingesting the fear hormones that are released from the person or animal during its ritual killing. One of the primary black magic streams is collected from deep in the 2D layers of the earth body, and this astral stream of black magic forces is called Baphomet. Once connected to Baphomet, the black magician can call upon and conjure a variety of demonic forces in the spiritual hierarchy, including the 72 Demons used in the Ars Goetia. These groups are commonly used for soul binding of the subject. For Satanists, Luciferians, witches, and those practicing Santeria, voodoo, violent religions or other related rituals involving drugs or killing, the black magician is allowing their body to become possessed by lower spirits and is being controlled to spread the infection of this Satanic force field into the earth. In this way portals can be ripped open and demonic entities can freely roam among us. The world of forces can be ritualized through offerings of anti-life through blood sacrifice, called Satanic Ritual Abuse, and its black hearted and evil intentions are made manifest through superimposing forces or binding others energies without their consent in physical matter. Blood sacrifices and killing rituals are also used to bind groups of souls to demonic entities and NAA entities, for collecting their energy source and to satiate blood lust. The Main Goals of the Power Elite What are the primary goals and methods used by the NAA and Power Elite in their quest to fulfill the Luciferian Covenant and install the New World Order, a totalitarian and dystopian nightmare of consciousness enslavement? Many people still believe that the current state of world suffering, poverty, disease and violence was created accidently, and that what we see today in the globalscape was the organic evolution of humanity since the industrial age. This is inaccurate. The Power elite families have methodically and patiently grown their global agenda through specific objectives, which they sought to create through the use of social engineering and hidden technological mind control, along with gaining surveillance over our every move. Let’s review a brief summation of these goals. Before and during World War II, the Black Suns promoted German idealism into mind control via their social engineering experiments designed by their German academic counterparts that were the most revered and famous philosophers during that time. These guys were Black Suns connected to the Bavarian illuminati and were used to infiltrate the most prestigious academic institutions worldwide with deliberate misinformation that would eventually be spread as the standard curriculum in most colleges. Many of these social engineering programs got their start from the Institute for Social Research, Frankfurt School, which was used by the Black Suns and practicing Satanists to endorse and spread a faux communist ideology that was really designed as a eugenics program. This Black Sun flavor of social engineering experimentation is being used aggressively today to target prestigious academic institutions throughout the United States, with the hidden agenda to attempt to destroy the American Constitution in favor of socialism or communism, in order to rapidly enforce the globalist agenda for instituting the New World Order. Intentionally directing social engineering and mind control programming to dehumanize and demoralize the earth population, by denying them their basic rights to fundamental human needs and to generate depravity through increasing criminal behaviors, traumatic addiction, suicides and growing the homeless population. This includes propaganda to spread spiritually abusive behaviors as socially acceptable in the death culture, like legalized drugs, killing others, pornography and prostitution that are distractions from becoming aware that the earth is being used as a prison farm for creating more loosh for the predatorial parasites. Promote spiritual abuse and the rejection of God by spreading the anti-soul or anti-Christ religions and their related practices that destroy the inner spirit or inner Christ connection, that exists inside every angelic human being that is incarnated on the planet. Spread violent religions, and replace the ancient Christos Essene Gnostic teachings and call it Luciferianism. Control the weather and climate by intentionally poisoning and polluting the earth and natural resources through hidden technology and secret military agendas, in order to make these resources as scarce as possible, while spreading misinformation in the mainstream about environmentalism and climate changes. Use people’s genuine concern about the environment as a way to manipulate the unaware population into approval for directing tax payer’s dollars and massive funding into the Controller’s inverted systems, via their organized institutions to launder money into approved projects like chemtrailing and gang stalking. These schemes are designed to profit a few in order to protect the major industrial conglomerates, while actually enforcing and promoting policies that destroy the environment, rather than protect the earth’s environment. Systematic globalization agenda and economic terrorism used to eventually collapse the global economies in order to generate chaos and world-wide humanitarian crisis. To achieve this goal, the Controllers must patiently orchestrate their covert agenda to infiltrate all world governments, divide and conquer independent nations by destroying them from within their own country, carried out by their own people. The first stages of this agenda are to fully exploit cheap labor by forcing indentured servitude in the impoverished populations of less developed nations, while cultivating more debt slaves in the first world nations, in order to destroy the economic stability and financial power, to collapse the autonomy of that nation. This is designed to force economic, political and societal collapse in order to force all nations into dependence and collusion with the One World Order agenda. Control the bio-neurology of the human population through electromagnetic signals, prescription drugs, medical devices, GMO’s, and an assortment of toxins and poisons placed in the air, water and food supply, that generate many human diseases, while ensuring that the knowledge to cure these diseases is made unavailable to the masses. Promote disinformation and suppression of accurate knowledge within the hard sciences, academia, inventions, and advanced technologies with the exception of those that are approved to promote the death culture objectives of the NAA and Controller groups. Consistently control the mass perception of reality to be created in terrorism, cataclysm and pestilence fear programming that is carried out through the beliefs held in the biblical revelations, through an artificial mind control program known as Armageddon software. Armageddon programs are designed to trigger subconscious memories in the collective consciousness, of previously hidden timelines of traumatic devastation that was caused by the NAA, such as the warring events that took place during the Luciferian Rebellion and Atlantian Cataclysm. This keeps people in a constant state of survival and poverty consciousness, unable to develop the personal strength required to cultivate self-determination and personal sovereignty. The use of inverted systems in the non-profit organizations and religious institutions that are set up as storefronts used for international money laundering or criminal activities under the guise of humanitarian causes or charities, when the funds are collected for the express purposes to continue to enforce human misery and human suffering. Transhumanism and Transgenderism are used to further promote the death culture’s intended agenda to destroy the heart and Soul, the compassionate and empathic divine human being, through the intended annihilation of the true essence of both the Masculine and Feminine. In order to disrupt or destroy the unifying potential of the androgynous lightbody in the DNA of the human being, the first directive would be to attack the inner and outer gender principle in all ways possible. The NAA promote counterfeit creations through inciting confusion in the death process, obliterate the knowledge of the Lightbody and Soul, spin confusion in sexual conduct and concepts of marriage and children, instill gender confusion in expected roles, and then start to blend human bodies with animals and machines. Child Abuse and Child Sacrifice is an Archontic Deception Strategy of the NAA. The NAA and Satanists prefer to use children as targets in order to harvest negative emotional energy or Loosh, and as a result, child abuse, child sex slavery, child porn, child organ harvesting and child sacrifice are immensely profitable for those in the criminal network. The mind control used for gender reversal distortions are the most traumatizing, from painful memories existing between men and women being forced to abuse each other, over and over. These gender distortions have been used to propagate some of the deepest levels of spiritual abuse, sexual misery and personal torture that could occur to a race of beings. True spiritual marriage as a part of natural biological spiritual Ascension was stolen from humanity through the NAA alien invasion, and the pain of that theft and the emotional abuse has damaged many people’s hearts. Human Trafficking is the sale or barter for humans into slavery by other humans and non-humans. This is a massive epidemic on planet earth, and it also exists off planet earth and is referred to as Galactic Human Slavery. Generally, a person is culled for certain purposes and then abducted, captured from their families and sold or bartered for many purposes including manual slave labor, sex trade, engineering, and manufacturing. The person is mind controlled under a system of threats, intimidation and torture to remain compliant and submissive to the acts they are forced to perform for their handlers, who may be human or non-human entities. In poverty stricken third world countries, or during mass migration of refugees, children are grabbed from inattentive parents or offered a few hundred dollars to take their child. This level of human trafficking brings in many hundreds of thousands of people per year into the slave trade both on and off planet. Currently, the World Slavery system is used to parasitize soul energy but also to superimpose karmic exchanges on the masses, and is an important reason the NAA fight so hard to retain their control and access over earth and the trafficking of its inhabitants. It is estimated that at least 8 million children worldwide go missing each year. It is estimated that nearly 800,000 children will be reported missing each year in the USA; 40,000 children go missing each year in Brazil; 50,500 in Canada; 39,000 in France; 100,000 in Germany; and 45,000 in Mexico. An estimated 230,000 children go missing in the United Kingdom each year, or one child every 5 minutes. Ask yourself the Question: Every action you take to educate yourself, any action that is taken to help educate others on these topics, no matter how small, helps to bring an end to slavery and human suffering from servitude. Together, if we can understand what is happening on the earth and open our eyes to actually see these hidden agendas of Satanism and Luciferianism, across all paths, we can unite to end human slavery for the future generations. This is the true purpose of the Guardian host Christos mission to support planetary ascension and the liberation of humanity from the oppressors. As we move through these turbulent times, remember that Love is the answer. Please only take what is useful for your spiritual growth and discard all the rest. Thank you for your courage and bravery to be a truth seeker. I am God, Sovereign, Free! Until next, stay in the luminosity of your Avatar Christos Sophia heart path. Please be kind to yourself and each other. GSF! Disclaimer: We at Prepare for Change (PFC) bring you information that is not offered by the mainstream news, and therefore may seem controversial. The opinions, views, statements, and/or information we present are not necessarily promoted, endorsed, espoused, or agreed to by Prepare for Change, its leadership Council, members, those who work with PFC, or those who read its content. However, they are hopefully provocative. Please use discernment! Use logical thinking, your own intuition and your own connection with Source, Spirit and Natural Laws to help you determine what is true and what is not. By sharing information and seeding dialogue, it is our goal to raise consciousness and awareness of higher truths to free us from enslavement of the matrix in this material realm. | Edward Morgan | https://prepareforchange.net/2019/03/11/mainstreaming-satanism-and-luciferianism/ | 2019-03-12 04:05:25+00:00 | 1,552,377,925 | 1,567,546,542 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
427,074 | prepareforchange--2019-06-25--Religion in US worth more than Google and Apple combined | 2019-06-25T00:00:00 | prepareforchange | Religion in US ‘worth more than Google and Apple combined’ | Faith is worth $1.2tn a year – more than combined revenues of 10 biggest tech firms in America Religion in the United States is worth $1.2tn a year, making it equivalent to the 15th largest national economy in the world, according to a study. The faith economy has a higher value than the combined revenues of the top 10 technology companies in the US, including Apple, Amazon and Google, says the analysis from Georgetown University in Washington DC. The Socioeconomic Contributions of Religion to American Society: An Empirical Analysis calculated the $1.2tn figure by estimating the value of religious institutions, including healthcare facilities, schools, daycare and charities; media; businesses with faith backgrounds; the kosher and halal food markets; social and philanthropic programmes; and staff and overheads for congregations. Co-author Brian Grim said it was a conservative estimate. More than 344,000 congregations across the US collectively employ hundreds of thousands of staff and buy billions of dollars worth of goods and services. More than 150 million Americans, almost half the population, are members of faith congregations, according to the report. Although numbers are declining, the sums spent by religious organisations on social programmes have tripled in the past 15 years, to $9bn. Twenty of the top 50 charities in the US are faith-based, with a combined operating revenue of $45.3bn. The report points to analysis by the Pew Research Centre which shows that two-thirds of highly religious adults had donated money, time or goods to the poor in the previous week, compared with 41% of adults who said they were not highly religious. Grim and his co-author Melissa Grim of the Newseum Institute in Washington came up with three estimates of the worth of US religion. The lowest, at $378bn, took into account only the revenues of faith-based organisations. The middle estimate, $1.2tn, included an estimate of the market value of goods and services provided by religious organisations and the contributions of businesses with religious roots. The top estimate was based on the household incomes of religiously affiliated Americans, and placed the value of faith to US society at $4.8tn annually. The analysis did not take account of the value of financial or physical assets held by religious groups. Neither did it account for “the negative impacts that occur in some religious communities, including … such things as the abuse of children by some clergy, cases of fraud, and the possibility of being recruitment sites for violent extremism”. However, it concluded, “the faith sector is undoubtedly a significant component of the overall American economy, impacting and involving the lives of the majority of the US population”. Animated map shows how religion spread around the world The Future of World Religion (in 2050) Disclaimer: We at Prepare for Change (PFC) bring you information that is not offered by the mainstream news, and therefore may seem controversial. The opinions, views, statements, and/or information we present are not necessarily promoted, endorsed, espoused, or agreed to by Prepare for Change, its leadership Council, members, those who work with PFC, or those who read its content. However, they are hopefully provocative. Please use discernment! Use logical thinking, your own intuition and your own connection with Source, Spirit and Natural Laws to help you determine what is true and what is not. By sharing information and seeding dialogue, it is our goal to raise consciousness and awareness of higher truths to free us from enslavement of the matrix in this material realm. | Edward Morgan | https://prepareforchange.net/2019/06/24/religion-in-us-worth-more-than-google-and-apple-combined/ | 2019-06-25 00:09:16+00:00 | 1,561,435,756 | 1,567,538,143 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
427,440 | prepareforchange--2019-09-23--Church Vandalized with Satanic Symbols After Pastor Opposed Drag Queen Story Hour | 2019-09-23T00:00:00 | prepareforchange | Church Vandalized with ‘Satanic Symbols’ After Pastor Opposed Drag Queen Story Hour | Police investigating ‘hate crime’ over attack on church in Chula Vista, California The pastor of the church says he opposed Drag Queen Story Hour and believes it’s the reason his church was vandalized A church in Southern California was vandalized with spray-painted satanic symbols and vulgar phrases early Sunday, after its pastor openly opposed a Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH) event, according to reports. Police are investigating the incident as a possible hate crime because the target is a religious institution, KNSD-TV reported. The executive pastor of South Bay Pentecostal Church in Chula Vista, near San Diego, says he believes his church was targeted because it opposes an upcoming Drag Queen Story Hour. “We’ve stood up the last several weeks to share our concern regarding the upcoming Drag Queen Story Hour,” Amado Huizar told KNSD. “Sure enough, at every corner, there were phrases, hateful words, and graffiti on the walls of our church,” Huizar said.The pastor says he feels “there is no doubt” his church was targeted because of its opposition to the DQSH event. “We feel that maybe, perhaps, those two are connected.” The church was opposed to DQSH and NAMBLA – North American Man/Boy Love Association According to Breitbart, many of the symbols and messages scrawled on the walls were reportedly associated with Satan. Huizar said the church’s surveillance system captured two men parking their sedan in the church parking lot at around 3:00 am Sunday and walking toward the building. Fifteen minutes later, they are seen jumping back into the car with what looked to be spray cans in their hands. Huizar has since filed a hate crime report to Chula Vista Police and asked for increased patrols. Huizar has openly condemned the Chula Vista library system’s decision to host a Drag Queen Story Hour event at which men in drag read to young children. The pastor said the event is not appropriate for young children and should not be funded by taxpayer dollars. “If the people want to make that happen, do it at a private setting, at a book store or at a home, but not at the Chula Vista Public Library,” Huizar said. The battle over the drag queen event intensified last week as an LGBT-activist member of the city council accused pro-family protesters of the events of holding “white supremacist beliefs.” The graffiti featured Satanic symbols and vulgar phrases and was positioned in full view of Christian families coming and going from the church CBS8 reported, Steve Padilla, an openly gay, LGBT-activist Chula Vista councilmember, posted to Facebook that Drag Queen Story Hour protesters, such as the pro-family group MassResistance, hold “white supremacist beliefs”: I am disappointed that some voices both from inside and outside our community have chosen to use the upcoming Drag Queen Storytime as an opportunity to perpetuate long discredited false and discriminatory narratives targeting the LGBTQ+ community in the name of protecting children. This is wrong and must be called out for what it is – the spreading of ignorance, fear, and hate. Much of this fearmongering is being organized by the local chapter of a nationally known hate-group which promotes not just anti-LGBTQ beliefs, but also anti-immigrant and white supremacist beliefs. These ideas and tactics do not reflect the community I love and serve.“ None of us hold anti-immigrant, white supremacist, or hateful beliefs of any kind,” said Arthur Schaper, organization director for MassResistance, in a statement to Breitbart News. “This is a tired smear from the pro-LGBT left to target and silence critics of this agenda, nothing more.” The protesters rallied in front of the main branch of the Chula Vista public library to condemn the Drag Queen Story Hour scheduled on September 10. The library advertised the event as one that would encourage “reading, learning & inclusivity” among young children and “celebrate our wonderfully diverse community with stories, crafts, and dancing.” The library states that the drag queen event was “sponsored in partnership with San Diego Pride and South Bay Alliance.”The American Library Association (ALA) encourages Drag Queen Story Hour events and is supporting those libraries experiencing “pushback” from their communities. “ALA, through its actions and those of its members, is instrumental in creating a more equitable, diverse, and inclusive society,” the organization states.“ This includes a commitment to combating marginalization and underrepresentation within the communities served by libraries through increased understanding of the effects of historical exclusion. ”According to the Drag Queen Story Hour website, the aim of the event is to present gender fluidity as a positive quality that children should accept and even emulate: Drag Queen Story Hour captures the imagination and play of the gender fluidity in childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models. In spaces like this, kids are able to see people who defy rigid gender restrictions and imagine a world where people can present as they wish, and where dress-up is real. Concerns about safety at the Drag Queen Story Hour events made headlines recently when Houston MassResistance discovered drag queen Alberto Garza, who uses the name Tatiana Mala-Nina when reading to young children, had been convicted in 2008 of sexually assaulting an eight-year-old boy. The Houston library system had failed to perform a background check on Garza or any of the other drag queens appearing in its programs. Multnomah County Library in Portland, Oregon, also faced backlash when it was found the library system had quietly removed from social media photos of the Drag Queen Story Hour that took place at one of its libraries during which young children were lying on top of the drag queens and fondling their false breasts. Huizar said, regardless of the vandalism to his church, he will continue to speak out against the drag queen events with young children. The pastor said he is meeting Monday with Chula Vista Mayor Mary Salas and plans to urge her to cancel the public library event and have it relocated to the private South Bay Pride Festival. “I’m all about diversity. I am all about inclusiveness,” Huizar said, according to KGTV.“When you do something like a Drag Queen Story Hour, you are excluding a segment of the populous who are not in favor of this because of what we experienced today, or scared to speak out.” Disclaimer: We at Prepare for Change (PFC) bring you information that is not offered by the mainstream news, and therefore may seem controversial. The opinions, views, statements, and/or information we present are not necessarily promoted, endorsed, espoused, or agreed to by Prepare for Change, its leadership Council, members, those who work with PFC, or those who read its content. However, they are hopefully provocative. Please use discernment! Use logical thinking, your own intuition and your own connection with Source, Spirit and Natural Laws to help you determine what is true and what is not. By sharing information and seeding dialogue, it is our goal to raise consciousness and awareness of higher truths to free us from enslavement of the matrix in this material realm. | Edward Morgan | https://prepareforchange.net/2019/09/23/church-vandalized-with-satanic-symbols-after-pastor-opposed-drag-queen-story-hour/ | 2019-09-23 18:28:13+00:00 | 1,569,277,693 | 1,570,222,399 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
467,919 | rferl--2019-02-06--Tajikistan Mulls Reopening Building New Mosques | 2019-02-06T00:00:00 | rferl | Tajikistan Mulls Reopening, Building New Mosques | Tajikistan has set up a special commission to assess whether the country needs to build new mosques and reopen some of the places of worship that had been closed down by authorities in recent years, a government official says. Sulaimon Davlatzoda, the head of the State Committee for Religious Affairs, said on February 6 that the commission is set to submit its findings to the government, which will later decide where mosques should be built or reopened. Authorities have reopened dozens of mosques across the country in recent months, including some 100 mosques in the southern district of Bokhtar, according to the committee. About 10 years ago, the government launched a campaign that led to the closure of hundreds of mosques across the country. Some were turned into tea houses, public baths, and beauty salons. The move has been criticized by rights groups and many Tajiks, who complain that they don't have a place of worship close to where they live. The government strictly controls religious institutions in the predominantly Muslim country. It has banned the Islamic head scarf in schools, advising people to wear so-called Tajik traditional clothes. The authorities have also ordered more than 3,500 Tajiks who were studying in religious schools abroad to return, saying that they could radicalize. | null | https://www.rferl.org/a/tajikistan-mulls-reopening-building-new-mosques/29755262.html | 2019-02-06 18:25:56+00:00 | 1,549,495,556 | 1,567,549,479 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
472,627 | rightwingwatch--2019-06-19--Conservative Christian Media Leaders Spread Lies about California LGBTQ Resolution | 2019-06-19T00:00:00 | rightwingwatch | Conservative Christian Media, Leaders Spread Lies about California LGBTQ Resolution | Christian media outlets and anti-LGBTQ advocacy groups are spreading lies about a non-binding resolution in the California assembly that promotes compassion toward LGBTQ people and warns of the potential harms of conversion therapy. Last year, California legislator Evan Low sponsored legislation that would have classified advertising or engaging in conversion therapy as a fraudulent business practice. He withdrew that legislation after hearing from religious leaders who opposed it as an infringement on religious liberty. Some of the legislation’s opponents made wildly dishonest claims about the bill, including that it would ban the sale of the Bible. Earlier this month, Low introduced a resolution, ACR-99, which calls upon religious leaders to approach LGBTQ issues with love, compassion and knowledge of the harms caused by conversion therapy, and calls upon Californians “to embrace the individual and social benefits of family and community acceptance.” It also calls upon the people and institutions of California “to model equitable treatment of all people of the state.” The resolution was approved by the Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. As the committee’s analysis of the resolution makes clear, it is non-binding and “what it calls for is quite modest relative to past legislative efforts.” But you’d never know that from the headlines from Christian media and anti-LGBTQ organizations. “CA Lawmakers Trying to Force Pastors to Embrace Pro-LGBT Ideology,” screams a headline posted on Tuesday by the Christian Broadcasting Network. It’s not true. Low’s non-binding resolution doesn’t force anyone to do anything. CBN warns that the resolution is “aimed at telling religious leaders in California what they should preach from their pulpits.” CBN quotes Pastor Joe Dallas claiming that ACR-99 “dictates to pastors that they cannot teach that homosexuality is a sin. Nor can they encourage homosexually-attracted people who hold a traditional Biblical view to live in accordance with their own faith.” Again, completely false. The resolution does not do anything to restrict pastors’ ability to preach or speak against homosexuality. In Dallas’s post at The Stream, in which he acknowledges that ACR-99 is a non-binding resolution, he nevertheless warns, “Today’s seemingly benign resolution paves the way for tomorrow’s stringently enforced law.” The Family Policy Alliance wrongly warned that the resolution “seeks to silence the church on LGBT issues” and that it “could be used to target specific religious texts, in addition to censoring what pastors preach and how they counsel their congregants.” Nope. Also nope to this headline from Christian Headlines: “California Lawmakers Want to Control What Pastors Preach about LGBT Beliefs.” A letter from a group of Religious Right leaders opposing the resolution claimed that it “seeks to take away the freedom to give or receive assistance for sexual attraction of gender identity change.” Again, this non-binding resolution takes freedom away from no one. Among the letter’s signers: conversion therapy promoter Joseph Nicolosi, the Family Research Council’s Peter Sprigg, anti-gay activist Peter LaBarbera, and Sharon Slater of Family Watch International. Sprigg also wrote his own letter opposing the resolution. Ken Williams and Elizabeth Woning, two “ex-gay” activists, testified against the resolution. Their organization, Equipped to Love, published a blog post under the headline, “Controlled by the State,” which charges that the resolution “elevates government ideology above an individual’s right to religious freedom,” and that individuals, therapists and religious institutions “are commanded to embrace homosexuality as something to be applauded,” which is, again, a lie. David Cary Hart at Slowly Boiled Frog has pointed out additional inaccurate critics of the resolution. | Peter Montgomery | http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/conservative-christian-media-leaders-spread-lies-about-california-lgbtq-resolution/ | 2019-06-19 21:03:02+00:00 | 1,560,992,582 | 1,567,538,795 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
501,949 | sottnet--2019-05-29--Jordan Peterson Jesus was the only Christian but Catholicism is as sane as people can get | 2019-05-29T00:00:00 | sottnet | Jordan Peterson: Jesus was the only Christian but Catholicism is 'as sane as people can get' | Jordan Peterson, a clinical psychologist and university professor, first came to international prominence after his refusal to use special pronouns for transgender people in his native Canada and went on to become arguably one of the world's most influential public intellectuals.University of Toronto professor Jordan Peterson, a public speaker and internet sensation, has praised Catholicism as the "sanest" religious concept out there.Peterson told conservative writer Dennis Prager at the PragerU summit in California last week.He conceded that nevertheless, the Catholic doctrine is "eerie, complex and surreal", as is the case with the apocalyptic Book of Revelation.he added, saying that this idea was inspired by the writings of Nietzsche and Dostoevsky.Peterson took a slight dig at public thinkers Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, two of the apostles of "New Atheism", who have called for emancipation from religious superstition.He claimed that atheism does not necessarily equate to rationalism. "They believe that if we dispensed with our superstitions, we'd all become Harris and Dawkins," Peterson quipped, provoking a burst of laughter from the audience.He explained that, from his point of view, humans can't fully embrace rationalism because they are "deeply irrational", and that there has to be something of "fundamental worth" in our lives.Peterson, who has emerged as a modern-day prophet of a sort, is frequently asked whether he believes in God.In the same conversation with Prager, he said he actually didn't like that question and explained why:he asked rhetorically.From his perspective, Jesus Christ was "the only Christian", because to believe, in the Christian sense, "means that you live it out fully and that's an unbearable task, in some sense."Peterson's apparent non-alignment with any confession, as well as his idea of embracing God without intermediaries, has drawn outrage from clerics.Last month, a US-based Lutheran pastor accused him of swaying people toward "faux" communities provided by social media platforms, instead of professing their beliefs through traditional religious institutions."Christians hoping Peterson will offer an assist to an ailing Western church are like a married couple looking to porn to reinvigorate their marriage. Peterson is brain porn for Christians disenchanted with the institutional church, when they should be working on their churches instead," pastor Peter Burfeind wrote in a web blog. | null | https://www.sott.net/article/413949-Jordan-Peterson-Jesus-was-the-only-Christian-but-Catholicism-is-as-sane-as-people-can-get | 2019-05-29 08:52:04+00:00 | 1,559,134,324 | 1,567,539,927 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
1,007,685 | thetelegraph--2019-05-30--Children abused by religious figures less likely to report crimes because of belief in perpetrators | 2019-05-30T00:00:00 | thetelegraph | Children abused by religious figures less likely to report crimes because of belief in perpetrators' 'automatic morality', government report finds | Children abused by religious figures are less likely to report crimes because of the belief that community leaders have “automatic morality”, a government report has found. Child sex abuse survivors have told of their shame, guilt and embarrassment which prevented them from reporting their ordeals, amid calls for an end to the secrecy of religious institutions which they claim enabled abuse. An official report has now revealed that victims of sexual abuse in religious institutions were less likely to report the crimes at the time than those who had been abused in other institutions such as children’s homes, schools, secure care units and foster care. The Truth Project, which runs alongside the government’s Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), invites survivors to share their experiences and make reccomendations for change. Its findings were published today in the first survey of its kind comparing the experiences of abuse among religious institutions. The report collated responses from 183 people who were sexually abused as children in religious institutions or by clergy or church staff in other settings and found that they were far less likely to report abuse than those whose abuse was linked to other institutions. | Gabriella Swerling | https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/05/30/children-abused-religious-figures-less-likely-report-crimes/ | 2019-05-30 11:00:00+00:00 | 1,559,228,400 | 1,567,539,701 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
538,308 | sputnik--2019-07-22--Japan PM Shinzo Abe Vows to Tackle Economic Risks Ahead of Tax Hike | 2019-07-22T00:00:00 | sputnik | Japan PM Shinzo Abe Vows to Tackle Economic Risks Ahead of Tax Hike | Kristian Rouz – Shinzo Abe is on track to becoming Japan's longest-serving Prime Minister, after his party won in Sunday's elections for the upper chamber of Parliament. Following the vote, Abe delivered a speech promising a 'flexible' response to possible economic shocks and touting a stable set of policies to promote GDP expansion. However, his remarks come ahead of an unpopular increase in the value-added tax (VAT), which is expected to go up from the current 8 per cent to 10 per cent this coming autumn. While some experts say the move could hamper consumer demand and slow the broader economy, others say it could improve the nation's public finances and support an influx of investment. Abe says trade tensions between the US and Mainland China and Brexit pose the most significant risks to Japan's economic stability in the near-term. Domestic factors, he believes, are less critical in the export-reliant Japanese economy. “Uncertainty remains over the global economic outlook such as trade frictions and Britain’s exit from the European Union,” Abe told reporters on Monday. “We’ll respond to downside risks without hesitation and take flexible and all possible steps.” The Japanese Prime Minister promised 'bold' and 'aggressive' measures to support economic growth. Such policies, he believes, could offset the threats posed by possible disruptions in international trade, and will be aimed at improving Japan's foreign trade balance, and supporting the manufacturing sector. The Abe cabinet has already set aside roughly $18.53 bln as part of a fiscal stimulus plan, which could augment the Bank of Japan's (BOJ) unconventional monetary stimulus, and support business activity, improve the national infrastructure, and bolster consumer demand. The stimulus proposed by Abe includes shopping vouchers, tax breaks on the purchases of cars and houses, as well as free education – all of which could save Japanese households thousands of yens per year. This money, Abe believes, could produce an increase in domestic car sales, construction materials, and children's goods, as well as encourage investment in the construction and automotive sectors. “We will underpin domestic consumption which accounts for the bulk of the economy by taking sufficient measures,” Abe says. The Prime Minister also said he could deepen the broader economic stimulus, including through consultations with BOJ officials if global headwinds become stronger and start to pose a credible threat of derailing the Japanese economy. Although the BOJ has voiced its opposition to a more profound stimulus on the fiscal side, some economists believe Japan could use all of its firepower to advance economic reforms and move away from the export-reliant model of GDP expansion. “If the economy falls into a recession, Japan will resort to a large-scale fiscal stimulus with the Bank of Japan effectively financing debt through its yield curve control,” Ryutaro Kono of BNP Paribas Securities said. Meanwhile, Abe – although now having a comfortable majority in Parliament – doesn't rule out the possibility of a snap election in the coming months, should his tax hike plan turn out more unpopular than currently believed. The Prime Minister still needs a more significant majority to amend the Constitution's Article 9, which prevents Japan from going to war. Abe has repeatedly expressed concerns over the heightened tensions in the Middle East, which could threaten the island nation's energy supplies – the lion's share of which comes through the Strait of Hormuz. It's still unclear if Abe would seek a more belligerent stance in foreign affairs in the future, but the Prime Minister appears to be willing to assert Japan's economic interests abroad more decisively than any of his post-WWII predecessors. | null | https://sputniknews.com/business/201907221076324625-japan-pm-shinzo-abe-vows-to-tackle-economic-risks-ahead-of-tax-hike/ | 2019-07-22 17:05:49+00:00 | 1,563,829,549 | 1,567,536,180 | economy, business and finance | economy |
87 | 21stcenturywire--2019-01-30--WATCH Londoners Protest UK Governments Regime Change Policy on Venezuela | 2019-01-30T00:00:00 | 21stcenturywire | WATCH: Londoners Protest UK Government’s Regime Change Policy on Venezuela | Journalist Robert Inlakesh reported live from the streets of London earlier this week, covering a protest against the U.K. Government’s ‘Trump train’ support of regime change on Venezuela. Protesters marched on the streets of London in the late afternoon on Monday. Protests like these aren’t covered by the mainstream press. During this captivating 13-minute video, Inlakesh speaks with some of the Venezuelan protesters to get their candid views on the current crisis unfolding in their home country. The people gathered at this demonstration are in clear opposition to the regime change tactics used by foreign powers on oil-rich nations like Venezuela. Watch: | 21wire | https://21stcenturywire.com/2019/01/30/watch-londoners-protest-uk-governments-regime-change-policy-on-venezuela/ | 2019-01-30 17:59:19+00:00 | 1,548,889,159 | 1,567,550,189 | politics | government policy |
62,767 | birminghammail--2019-06-01--UK governments have an unstated policy of running down the North and Midlands - and building up Lo | 2019-06-01T00:00:00 | birminghammail | UK governments have an 'unstated' policy of running down the North and Midlands - and building up London | UK governments have a policy of supporting London and the south east - and running down the North of England and Midlands. It’s not official, but it’s definitely there. That’s the conclusion of a major new report by the UK2070 Commission, which was set up to investigate regional inequalities in the UK. It’s chaired by Lord Kerslake, the former head of the civil service, and backed by academics from some of the UK’s top universities. The inquiry found that jobs are increasingly moving to London - and eventually, half of all new jobs in the UK will be created in London and the south east, leaving the rest of the UK to fight for what’s left. It even suggested the task of closing the north-south divide was comparable to the challenge of re-building East Germany, when it re-unified with West Germany after the Cold War ended. But how has this happened when governments going back decades insisted that they are committed to closing the wealth gap? The report warned: “The biggest factor limiting the effectiveness of past policies to tackle spatial inequalities however, is the existence of an unstated and countervailing ‘regional policy’. “An overwhelming body of evidence points to a historic concentration of public investment in London and the wider south east. “This applies whether this is spending on research and development, culture, sport, the arts, national administration, national media or even military expenditure.” What does the huge wealth divide mean? It’s about money, but that affects a lot of other things. For example, if you’re richer then on average you’re likely to live longer. As the UK 2070 report puts it: “Blighted neighbourhoods, characterised by high incidence of poverty, crime, unemployment and crumbling infrastructure, have been found to curb individual income prospects, health, educational and employment outcomes.” There is also poverty in London, and wealthy neighbourhoods in the West Midlands. But research by a University of Sheffield academic found that the wealth gap between regions in the UK is probably worse than in any other large, high-income country. Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are both in the middle of leadership contests, and new leaders will be looking for a powerful message to put to voters. Labour needs to move the agenda back on to its plans for a fairer society and away from rows over Brexit. The parties should put regional equality at the top of their agendas. But it can’t just be a gimmick. Fixing our unequal country will take decades. Is any politician willing to take up this challenge? | [email protected] (Jonathan Walker) | https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/news-opinion/uk-governments-unstated-policy-running-16359366 | 2019-06-01 17:00:00+00:00 | 1,559,422,800 | 1,567,539,409 | politics | government policy |
71,618 | breitbart--2019-08-09--Federal Government to Investigate CT School Transgender Athlete Policy | 2019-08-09T00:00:00 | breitbart | Federal Government to Investigate CT School Transgender Athlete Policy | In a letter to Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the non-profit legal firm representing three female athletes, OCR granted the request to investigate the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) which adopted the policy allowing transgender biological males claiming to be female to compete in the girls’ athletic events. Since CIAC adopted its policy, the biological males have defeated Selina Soule and two other female athletes, causing them to lose awards and opportunities to advance to elite levels. The CIAC policy regularly results in boys out-performing and displacing girls in competitive high-school track events across Connecticut. Throughout the 2018-19 track season, males consistently deprived the female athletes who are part of the complaint of multiple medals, opportunities to compete at a higher level, and the public recognition critical to college recruiting and scholarship opportunities. The complaint notes that CIAC’s policy and its results directly violated the requirements of Title IX, a federal law designed to protect equal athletic opportunities for women and girls. “The CIAC is committed to equity in providing opportunities to student athletes in Connecticut,” CIAC executive director Greg Lungarini said in a statement to the Hartford Courantin June. “We take such matters seriously, and we believe that the current CIAC policy is appropriate under both Connecticut law and Title IX.” Connecticut is among 17 states that allow high school athletes who claim to be the opposite gender to compete without restrictions, according to Transathlete.com, reports the Associated Press. ADF, however, says the CIAC policy undermines women in athletic competition. “Female athletes deserve to compete on a level playing field,” said ADF Legal Counsel Christiana Holcomb. “Forcing them to compete against boys makes them spectators in their own sports, which is grossly unfair and destroys their athletic opportunities.” “ Holcomb described the irony of the CIAC policy that claims to fulfill the goals of the federal Title IX law. “Title IX is a federal law that was designed to eliminate discrimination against women in education and athletics, and women fought long and hard to earn the equal athletic opportunities that Title IX provides,” she said. “Allowing boys to compete in girls’ sports reverses nearly 50 years of advances for women.” Results of a new study found that male athletes claiming to be female do hold what the researchers called an “intolerable” advantage over biological females. Professors in bioethics and physiology observed that while the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is allowing “transgender women” (biological males) to compete against biological females if their testosterone is below 10 nmol/L, even that level is “significantly higher” than that of biological females. The authors cited research demonstrating that “healthy young men did not lose significant muscle mass (or power) when their circulating testosterone levels were reduced” for 20 weeks to meet the IOC’s guidelines. The researchers also stated that “indirect effects of testosterone will not be altered by hormone therapy.” “For example, hormone therapy will not alter bone structure, lung volume or heart size of the transwoman athlete, especially if she transitions postpuberty, so natural advantages including joint articulation, stroke volume and maximal oxygen uptake will be maintained,” they explained. “We conclude that the advantage to transwomen afforded by the IOC guidelines is an intolerable unfairness,” the professors said. | Dr. Susan Berry | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/breitbart/~3/pMKVWXA67i0/ | 2019-08-09 00:14:46+00:00 | 1,565,324,086 | 1,567,534,488 | politics | government policy |
85,884 | cbsnews--2019-10-01--Judge grills government lawyer over Remain in Mexico policy | 2019-10-01T00:00:00 | cbsnews | Judge grills government lawyer over "Remain in Mexico" policy | As a Justice Department lawyer defended a policy requiring tens of thousands of asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases are processed, a federal appeals judge reminded the Trump administration attorney that his time was running out, advising him to address an area of "real trouble" in the government's arguments. "You don't even ask whether they have any kind of fear," Judge William Fletcher of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, one of three circuit judges hearing the case on Tuesday in San Francisco, told Scott Stewart, a deputy assistant attorney general. Fletcher referenced the principle of "non-refoulement," a standard in international law that bars countries from sending asylum seekers to countries where they may face persecution. One of the pillars of the legal challenges to the so-called "Remain in Mexico" policy is that the administration is violating this cornerstone of international refugee law by returning migrants — including families with small children — to dangerous Mexican border cities. Under the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program, U.S. officials do not affirmatively ask migrants if they fear going back to Mexico before sending them there. As of this week, the administration has returned more than 50,000 asylum seekers to Mexico under this policy, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the agency that oversees the returns. The oral arguments before the three-judge panel on Tuesday represented the latest phase of litigation surrounding the MPP program since the same circuit court last spring delayed an injunction by a district judge and allowed the administration to implement the policy while the merits of the legal challenges to it are reviewed. On Tuesday, the plaintiffs, a group of immigrant advocacy groups represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), asked the panel to uphold the injunction a judge in San Francisco made in April and to prevent the administration from continuing to implement the policy. When Stewart defended the practice of not asking migrants placed in this program whether they fear persecution in Mexico as "reasonable," Fletcher quickly interjected. "But you're giving them nothing," he told Stewart. "That is to say, you're not even asking them the key question with respect to refoulement: that is to say, 'Are you afraid?'" The Justice Department lawyer suggested migrants could simply inform U.S. officials of any fear they have about staying in Mexico — even if they are not specifically asked. "Purportedly these plaintiffs are asylum seekers who are, at least according to their claims, fleeing persecution and have fears, including in Mexico," Stewart said. "It would be logical for them and the agency can reasonably conclude that they would volunteer their harm." But Fletcher remained unconvinced by Stewart's argument. "Do you have anything other than speculation to support that?" he asked the government lawyer. "It's the logic of the provision," Stewart responded. "But I'm asking about the real world," Fletcher countered before asking Stewart for evidence that demonstrates people would volunteer that kind of information without being asked for it. After apprehending or encountering them, CBP officials are typically supposed to ask migrants if they fear returning to where they came from. If migrants say yes, they are then referred to undergo so-called "credible fear interviews" with asylum officers, who work for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). If the migrants pass the credible fear test, they can formally apply for asylum in the immigration court system. Migrants placed in the "Remain in Mexico" policy, however, are automatically allowed to apply for asylum. But asylum officers still determine whether they will be sent back to Mexico. A migrant subject to the policy needs to say — without being asked — if he or she fears persecution in Mexico. But advocates say this is something migrants from Central American and other countries in the region are unlikely to do since they may not expect to face persecution in Mexico, having been in the country relatively briefly during their journey to the U.S. Even if the migrants spontaneously indicate they fear persecution in Mexico, it is almost impossible for them to pass the non-refoulement interviews for the program, according to attorneys and some of the very same asylum officers conducting the screenings. In the courtroom on Tuesday, Stewart defended the procedures in place for the MPP program, saying the U.S. is returning migrants to "liberty" in Mexico, not to the country they are "claiming to flee." He said the current practice of officials not asking migrants whether they fear returning to Mexico deters what he called "false positives" and claims by migrants who he suggested simply wanted to stay in the U.S. and be released. As Stewart started to explain that he believed the policy in place stemmed from a "logical conclusion," Fletcher reiterated his skepticism. "You keep coming back to logical. You don't really have much in the record, do you?" the judge asked. "Again, your honor, this is a facial— " Stewart said before being interrupted by Fletcher. "So, the answer is yes — you don't have much in the record," Fletcher said. | null | https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-immigration-policy-judge-grills-government-lawyer-on-potential-violations-of-international-refugee-law/ | 2019-10-01 21:53:21+00:00 | 1,569,981,201 | 1,570,221,836 | politics | government policy |
117,532 | conservativehome--2019-02-24--WATCH Gove It is Government policy to leave on the 29th of March | 2019-02-24T00:00:00 | conservativehome | WATCH: Gove – “It is Government policy to leave on the 29th of March” | #Marr: Did you try and stop them leaving? Marr talks to the Environment Secretary Michael Gove after three Conservative MPs left the party this week https://t.co/7rvyrd9wad pic.twitter.com/tHhyqOkVEq | Conservative Home | https://www.conservativehome.com/video/2019/02/watch-gove-it-is-government-policy-to-leave-on-the-29th-of-march.html | 2019-02-24 10:15:47+00:00 | 1,551,021,347 | 1,567,547,484 | politics | government policy |
119,884 | conservativehome--2019-12-20--Tania Mathias: The Government must put NHS workers at the heart of its policy | 2019-12-20T00:00:00 | conservativehome | Tania Mathias: The Government must put NHS workers at the heart of its policy | Tania Mathias is an NHS doctor and former MP for Twickenham. Boris Johnson’s success is already remarkable: while the message Get Brexit Done was powerful, the top line message on the NHS was for many people equally remarkable. Londoners who remember the Johnson mayoral years know that this Government will deliver, and that means for the first time this century there is a real opportunity to reassure an electorate who have said they lost trust in politics. Ironically, if the Government achieves this, all political parties will benefit from the restoration of trust between Parliament and the electorate. Already there are many predictions about how Johnson will be described in history. There is an extraordinary opportunity, not seen for 71 years whereby, he could do for NHS and social care workers what Margaret Thatcher did for people living in council homes. In 2024 the Conservative Party will have looked after the NHS for 49 of its 76 years, and on the 75th birthday it can be possible for people working in the NHS to say they have never had it so good. For that to happen, to seal the Conservative deal for people working in the NHS and care sector, Johnson’s policies need to address employee satisfaction, employee retention (including career progression), and employee health. Building 40 new hospitals is very worthwhile, but the invisible benefit of making a workforce that is proud, healthy, and wants to come to work every day will be a bigger monument to the Johnson administration. Every new hospital needs to have employee and expert input in the design so that the people working there have the gyms and rest areas that are commonplace in organisation and institutions like Google and the Turing Institute. Putting employees at the centre of all NHS and care sector policies could give the Prime Minister his equivalent to the original Right to Buy – i.e. a policy with an effect that lasts for generations. I, for one, am looking forward to Baroness Harding’s report on the NHS workforce. Baroness Cavendish made excellent proposals for people working in care. Now the Health Secretary – and if it is Matt Hancock we know the NHS and social care are in good hands – can speed on with policies for staff so that the NHS is the employer of choice for all job seekers. The Government is committed to bursaries: already under Jeremy Hunt we have more medical schools in Sunderland and Lancashire, and that investment can be built on to continue to strengthen regions beyond the existing NHS centres of excellence. Other policies for people choosing to work in the NHS could include: an ‘NHS passport’ for people coming from outside the UK to work in Health Service and social care; starting a real top class management training centre for the NHS; recruiting actively for the 300 careers in the NHS; and budgeting for sabbaticals for employees every seven years if they return to the NHS or care sector so that the NHS becomes the employer of choice for people in fields of management, cleaning, catering, technology, robotics, IT and many, many more allied health roles. Yes, the NHS and the care sector is all about patients and people using the service- but to be the best for patients and users the employees need to be the healthiest and happiest of workforces. The Health Foundation has said only ten per cent of our health is down to the NHS so lifestyle, mental well-being, diet, and other factors should be continued to be audited by the government. Preventative medicine can improve and if there is an NHS point of contact on the high street – a pharmacy or health practice – there can be screening hubs for all. An ambitious Government could also introduce two days of annual leave for everyone to ensure people make time to attend screening appointments, whether it’s at the GP hub or the high street NHS ‘shop’. Mental well being that starts in schools, universally available and on high street drop-in centres would also be a revolution worthy of a grand Johnson legacy. The Prime Minister is already stepping into the high heels of Thatcher, and by 2024 there is a real chance that trust in politics will be restored – especially if the NHS and care sector has been prioritised and the Government puts the people working in them at the forefront of all health policies. | Dr Tania Mathias | https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2019/12/tania-matthias-the-government-must-put-nhs-workers-at-the-heart-of-its-policy.html | Fri, 20 Dec 2019 13:00:54 +0000 | 1,576,864,854 | 1,576,888,918 | politics | government policy |
121,396 | crikey--2019-08-14--Government racks up another win in its wage stagnation policy | 2019-08-14T00:00:00 | crikey | Government racks up another win in its wage stagnation policy | Australian workers were stuck for another quarter with stagnant wages, the latest figures show. And this Groundhog Day is going to be repeating for a long time. The government is at least having one success with its economic policies: its policy of deliberate wage stagnation is a raging success. According to Wednesday's June quarter wage price index (WPI) numbers, wages growth is mired for yet another quarter at an annual growth rate of 2.3% in seasonally adjusted terms. Wages grew just 0.6% in the quarter, seasonally adjusted, with private sector wages performing even worse, at just 0.5%, while public sector wages grew 0.8%. | Glenn Dyer | https://www.crikey.com.au/2019/08/14/government-wage-stagnation-policy/ | 2019-08-14 07:08:31+00:00 | 1,565,780,911 | 1,567,534,187 | politics | government policy |
199,897 | fortruss--2019-11-05--Greeks March Against Migrant Policy as Government Takes in 40,000 Refugees | 2019-11-05T00:00:00 | fortruss | Greeks March Against Migrant Policy as Government Takes in 40,000 Refugees | ATHENS – Residents of a Greek city slated to host a fresh wave of asylum seekers took to the streets to protest the move, amid growing anger over the influx of refugees that have poured into the country. Anti-migration protesters in the northern city of Thessaloniki called on Athens to return all illegal immigrants to their previous host countries and close the border to migrants, RT reported. Footage from the march showed demonstrators carrying banners and Greek flags, while an activist at the front of the procession held an icon of the Virgin Mary. Thessaloniki and surrounding towns have been selected to host thousands of migrants that Athens wants to transfer from overcrowded facilities on the Greek islands to the mainland. According to reports, over the weekend about 900 people were transferred from Greek islands to sites on the mainland. The government is planning to relocate 20,000 refugees in total by the end of the year. Greece has taken in 40,000 migrants and refugees in the past four months alone, Migration Minister Giorgos Koumoutsakos told local media. He added that the mainland must “show solidarity” with border regions that have “borne the brunt” of the migrant influx. Athens has repeatedly been at odds with Brussels over the European Union’s migrant policy. The country, already hampered by economic woes, has been one of the main entry points for refugees coming to Europe – and has been shouldering the burden of housing tens of thousands of asylum seekers. This has angered the Greek people, and rightfully so, given that Greece has had economic problems for quite some time now and the last thing it needs is tens, if not hundreds of thousands of foreign people living off their welfare, which has been denied to many Greeks themselves on account of austerity measures. | Drago Bosnic | https://www.fort-russ.com/2019/11/greeks-march-against-migrant-policy-as-government-takes-in-40000-refugees/ | Tue, 05 Nov 2019 07:00:21 +0000 | 1,572,955,221 | 1,572,959,021 | politics | government policy |
212,491 | foxnews--2019-08-29--Trump administrations update of policy on citizenship for certain children of government employees | 2019-08-29T00:00:00 | foxnews | Trump administration's update of policy on citizenship for certain children of government employees born overseas sparks confusion | The Trump administration on Wednesday briefly sparked confusion when it issued updated policy guidance saying some children of U.S. government employees and service members who live abroad may not be considered to be residing in the U.S. for the purposes of automatically acquiring citizenship. The guidance by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) replaced previous input saying any child born of a U.S. government official or service member abroad would automatically acquire citizenship. The new guidance applies only to a small group of children born abroad and does not affect children who are citizens at birth or who have already acquired citizenship. USCIS identified three sets of children living outside the U.S. whom the policy could affect: children of non-U.S. citizens adopted by U.S. citizen employees or service members; children of non-U.S. citizen parents who become citizens after the child’s birth; and children of U.S. citizens who do not meet residency requirements to transmit citizenship to their children at birth. “For them to obtain a Certificate of Citizenship, their U.S. citizen parent must apply for citizenship on their behalf under [Immigration and Nationality Act] 322, by filing Form N-600K, and show they meet the qualifications under that provision,” a spokesman said. “Certain children of U.S. service members may complete the process outside of the United States without having to travel to the United States. However, children of U.S. government employees must enter the U.S. lawfully with an immigrant or nonimmigrant visa and be in lawful status when they take the oath of allegiance, which completes the process.” The agency said the reason for the policy update was because it conflicted with the definition of “residence” under a part of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) enacted in 2008 after existing guidance was issued. It also had conflicted with State Department guidance, which it said could lead to “inconsistent” decisions on citizenship claims, according to the agency. The Trump administration has been eyeing the thorny question of automatic birthright citizenship for some time -- particularly the policy under which the children of illegal immigrants are granted birthright citizenship. The USCIS guidance did not affect that question, but it initially sparked confusion among journalists -- some of whom deleted tweets after accidentally misconstruing the policy -- and anger among some military groups. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., blasted the change, calling it an "attack" on military families and diplomats abroad and saying "shameful policy must be reversed immediately." "America’s servicemembers & diplomats abroad are among our nation’s best, yet @realDonaldTrump is launching an attack on their families, putting in doubt the citizenship of their children born overseas. This shameful policy must be reversed immediately, she tweeted. “Military members already have enough to deal with, and the last thing that they should have to do when stationed overseas is go through hoops to ensure their children are U.S. citizens,” Andy Blevins, the executive director of Modern Military Association of America -- a nonprofit for LGBTQ military and veteran families -- said in a statement. However, Acting USCIS Director Ken Cuccinelli tweeted that members of the media were going “crazy” and that “the highly technical policy manual used by career employees here as a reference was updated today to conform USCIS practices with the Department of State -- that's it. But some people are freaking out over nothing." He later said in a statement that the policy “does not affect who is born a U.S. citizen, period.” CUCCINELLI PUTS HARDLINE STAMP ON IMMIGRATION AGENDA, JUST 2 MONTHS INTO USCIS JOB “This only affects children who were born outside the United States and were not U.S. citizens,” he said in the statement. “This does NOT impact birthright citizenship. This policy update does not deny citizenship to the children of U.S. government employees or members of the military born abroad.” “This policy aligns USCIS’ process with the Department of State’s procedure, that’s it,” he said. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP A Pentagon spokeswoman said the Defense Department “understands the estimated impact of this particular impact is small. “However, we are committed to ensuring affected families are provided the appropriate information, resources and support during this transition,” Lt. Col. Carla Gleason said. Fox News’ Rich Edson, Kellianne Jones, John Roberts and Lucas Tomlinson contributed to this report. | Adam Shaw | http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/politics/~3/zAQMc_gOUDA/uscis-policy-citizenship-children-government-employees-born-overseas | 2019-08-29 00:43:55+00:00 | 1,567,053,835 | 1,567,543,590 | politics | government policy |
232,956 | hitandrun--2019-01-02--Government Policy Created Housing Segregation So Should Government Be Required To Fix It Debate | 2019-01-02T00:00:00 | hitandrun | Government Policy Created Housing Segregation. So Should Government Be Required To Fix It?: Debate | That's the proposition under debate at the next Reason/Soho Forum debate, which takes place at New York City's Subculture Theater on Monday, January 14. Tickets cost between $12 and $24 and must be purchased online. Admission includes a buffet of light fare and a cash bar. Details below. Reason is proud to sponsor The Soho Forum, a monthly debate series covering topics of particular interest to libertarians. Moderated by Gene Epstein, long-time economics editor at Barron's, the debates are conducted "Oxford style," meaning the audience is polled before and after the proceedings and the winner is the debater who moves more people to his or her point of view. Each debate is subsequently turned in to a Reason video and podcast for later listening. For a full archive of past Soho Forum debates, go here. Here are specifics about the debate on Monday, January 14: "Since the federal government fostered housing segregation in the 20th century, the government should foster housing integration in the 21st." Richard Rothstein is a research associate of the Economic Policy Institute and a fellow of the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and of the Haas Institute at the University of California (Berkeley). He is the author of The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How our Government Segregated America. His other recent work has documented the history of state-sponsored residential segregation, as in his report, The Making of Ferguson. He is the author of Grading Education: Getting Accountability Right (2008) and Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap(2004). Other recent books include The Charter School Dust-Up: Examining the Evidence on Enrollment and Achievement (co-authored in 2005); and All Else Equal: Are Public and Private Schools Different? (co-authored in 2003). Howard Husock is vice president for research and publications at the Manhattan Institute, where he is also director of the Institute's social entrepreneurship initiative. City Journal contributing editor, he is the author of Philanthropy Under Fire (2013) and The Trillion-Dollar Housing Mistake: The Failure of American Housing Policy (2003). From 1987 through 2006, Husock was director of case studies in public policy and management at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, where he was also a fellow at the Hauser Center on Nonprofit Organizations and an adjunct lecturer in public management. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, National Affairs, New York Times, New York Times Magazine, Society, Chronicle of Philanthropy, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Philanthropy, The Wilson Quarterly, and Public Interest. Husock has written widely on U.S. housing policy, including Repairing the Ladder: Toward a New Housing Policy Paradigm (1996). As always, the comedian Dave Smith (follow him on Twitter and listen to his podcast Part of the Problem) will open the eveing with a fresh set of material based on the evening's topic. Here are details of the event: Bonus: I interviewed Rothstein about his path-breaking book, The Color of Law, which reveals all the ways in which federal housing policy, especially as it got kicked into high gear under Franklin Roosevelt, segregated housing patterns in the United States. Rothstein is a liberal—a former New York Times education reporter, a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, and a fellow at the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund Thurgood Marshall Institute—but pulls no punches when it comes to the effects of what transpired. "In many cases," says Richard Rothstein, "the federal government did create...segregation in metropolitan areas and in cities that had never known segregation before. In other cases...it did reinforce segregation that was already in existence. But the country was much, much more segregated as a result of these federal policies than it was before, or would be today without them." What he and the Manhattan Institute's Howard Husock will be debating is less about the past and more about what to do next. It should be a fascinating conversation with direct relevance to housing policy in every city in the country. Here's the podcast I did with Rothstein: | Nick Gillespie | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/reason/HitandRun/~3/CQ0LpXyQU2E/government-policy-created-housing-segreg | 2019-01-02 13:15:00+00:00 | 1,546,452,900 | 1,567,554,228 | politics | government policy |
276,645 | ipolitics--2019-12-17--New study says intergovernmental cooperation on labour market policy has improved | 2019-12-17T00:00:00 | ipolitics | New study says intergovernmental cooperation on labour market policy has improved | A new study suggests the provinces and Ottawa are enjoying a much improved relationship when it comes to developing labour market policy, as evidenced by new workplace development agreements and the establishment of Labour Market Information Council and Future Skills Centre. The study, authored by Andrew McDougall and published by the Institute for Research on Public Policy, details how the once-acrimonious relationship, marked by jurisdictional squabbles and regional politics, has improved as it has shifted more toward developing pragmatic solutions. “In the last couple of years, you’ve really seen both Ottawa and the provinces put some of that politics aside a little bit,” McDougall, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Toronto Scarborough, told iPolitics in an interview Tuesday. “And now you see a much more collaborative relationship than you had previously, and one that’s really started to be more focused on solutions to the problems that those orders of government have identified rather than focusing on jurisdictional disputes,” he said. The long-standing jurisdictional issues over labour market policy essentially boils down to Ottawa’s push for a national public employment service that helps match supply and demand clashing with the province’s exclusive constitutional responsibility for education, according to the study. The provincial governments have long maintained that their own training and skills development are more effective because they respond to regional and local conditions. In particular, Quebec has argued for decades that the federal government should not be providing training programs. Finally, in response to the nail-biter 1995 Quebec referendum and pressure from some other provinces, Ottawa began devolving leadership for training and skills programs, leading to a series of intergovernmental agreements governing the transfer of responsibility and funds to the provincial governments. Ottawa, though, remained involved in programs for Indigenous people, youth and people with disabilities. READ MORE: Liberals focus on skills, housing, students and seniors in pre-election budget During this devolution period, the study points to the forum for federal, provincial and territorial labour market ministers for playing an important role in intergovernmental relations in this sector. McDougall credited pressure from constituents favouring more amicable relationships between the various orders of government and a cooling of some of the regional political tensions for helping to improve intergovernmental relations on the file. But he also said a big factor was the development of certain norms and expectations around co-operation that have crystallized during the devolution period. For example, he said Quebec has long had an interest in the devolution of federal programs and, now that it has achieved that, the other provinces and Ottawa have accepted this arrangement, thus cooling the politics behind the push. “Now there are certain norms that have developed in this field around collaboration, which hadn’t existed previously. And it becomes much more difficult for an order of government to try to pull something unexpected,” McDougall explained. “So it kind of evolved together into this more collaborative relationship. And then some of the politics that was behind (it) sort of faded a little bit.” The development of new institutions and communications channels have also led to the creation of their “own norms,” which have a “constraining factor on what the expectations are and what’s possible,” according to McDougall. Intergovernmental relations, he said, have been “notoriously flexible” when it comes to what governments want to do, but there is a “constraining force that comes in from these past practices that developed when you see the same people over and over again.” While McDougall’s study credits developments in the labour market arena by the current federal Liberal government, such as reaching workplace development agreements with all the provinces and territories and collaborating to create the Labour Market Information Council and Future Skills Centre, he said this work towards improved intergovernmental relations has been a “long standing process.” However, he said it has been helped by the Liberal government’s greater emphasis on skills training and working with the provinces, in contrast to the “open federalism” practised by the former Harper government that was more focused on the different orders of governments staying in their own jurisdictional avenues. For example, the Liberals in the 2019 budget introduced a new personalized training benefit program, dubbed the Canada Training Benefit. The benefit includes a $250 non-taxable credit to help pay for training fees and four weeks of income support through the Employment Insurance program that will help workers cover living expenses while on training (and not receiving income). | Marco Vigliotti | https://ipolitics.ca/2019/12/17/new-study-says-intergovernmental-cooperation-on-labour-market-policy-has-improved/ | Tue, 17 Dec 2019 19:27:13 +0000 | 1,576,628,833 | 1,576,629,649 | politics | government policy |
281,717 | labourlist--2019-07-03--Does the Referendum and Remain policy work for a government in waiting | 2019-07-03T00:00:00 | labourlist | Does the ‘Referendum and Remain’ policy work for a government in waiting? | One of the keys to petrochemical giant Shell’s sustained success has been its Scenarios department. According to [its website](https://www.shell.com/energy- and-innovation/the-energy-future/scenarios/meet-the-shell-scenarios- team.html), these scenarios explore “possible versions of the future by identifying drivers, uncertainties, enablers and constraints, and unearthing potential issues and their implications”. Party members and strategists alike will be familiar with this type of exercise, as we all try to play the electoral tape through to the end. Surprising, then, how little has been made of the long-term incoherence of the ‘Referendum and Remain’ position. Supporters of this policy believe that the best deal available to the UK is EU membership. Calling on Labour to commit not just to a referendum on any Brexit deal – as is current policy – but also to campaigning for Remain in that referendum is thus an understandable next step. As has been [hinted at](https://labourlist.org/2019/06/labour-backs-a-public-vote-on-any-deal-but- remain-is-still-a-step-too-far/) on _LabourList_ before, however, the unspoken logic of Referendum and Remain is that Labour would no longer seek to negotiate a different Brexit deal at all, since it would then be obliged to campaign against it – a point Wes Streeting, an advocate of the policy, has also [acknowledged](https://twitter.com/wesstreeting/status/1141863393583947776?s=20). This is just the tip of the iceberg. The more you game out Referendum and Remain, the less useful this policy seems in the long term. It is not the function of the opposition merely to oppose – it needs to be a government in waiting. This means adopting the policies it intends to pursue in power. Working backwards from a Labour general election victory, it is unclear how a policy of Referendum and Remain meets this test. Given the very real prospect of a successful no-confidence vote in the next Prime Minister, electoral coherence is a legitimate consideration for the Labour leadership. Were Labour to win a pre-Brexit early election on a Referendum and Remain platform, the logic of a second referendum is immediately diminished. Would it not be more logical for the new government simply to proceed to Article 50 revocation? Why would the party, having so recently gained a mandate from the people for its Remain stance, put itself on the hook to deliver Brexit (should the subsequent referendum go against them)? It would send the country back to square one – only then it would be up to Labour to implement a policy against which it had explicitly campaigned not once but twice. It appears that revocation, not a referendum, is the logical conclusion of the policy being proposed. This is a problem because Referendum and Remain is premised and sold on the idea of any deal being put to the people, versus the option to Remain. While in opposition, this works fine. But in government, with responsibility for securing a deal – if only for it to be put to a referendum – the logic is much less clear: it seems doubtful that a Labour government would either commit to campaign against its own new deal, or seek to pass Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement – having so routinely disparaged it – purely for the purposes of having a leave option on a referendum ballot paper. It is unclear whether Labour would ever go into an election committed to Referendum and Remain for these reasons. The only alternative would thus be for Labour to campaign for revocation of Article 50. My instinct, though, is that many second referendum supporters are less enthusiastic about the optics of pivoting to revocation, however logical a progression it may be. Referendum and Remain only seems tenable so long as Labour are in opposition. Jeremy Corbyn and his allies have often been [accused](https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/05/corbyns-cranks-arent- interested-in-power/) of being more interested in fighting the good fight in opposition than making tough decisions in government. But surely Labour cannot claim to be a credible government-in-waiting while advocating in opposition a policy that it does not intend to pursue in government. I do not doubt that the leader’s office has already thought through these ramifications. Its reluctance to move to a Referendum and Remain position may well stem both from a (legitimate) desire to avoid the perception of abandoning Leave voters and from concern over the practical evolution of such a policy. While proponents of the shift are right that, given the October Brexit deadline, Labour needs to position itself for the present, it is also fair to highlight the longer-term complications of their preferred solution. ### Stephen Gilmore Stephen Gilmore is a master's student and former parliamentary staffer. [ @stevegilmore17 ](https://twitter.com/@stevegilmore17) [View all articles by Stephen Gilmore](https://labourlist.org/author/stephen-gilmore/) ### Value our free and unique service? LabourList has more readers than ever before - but we need your support. Our dedicated coverage of Labour's policies and personalities, internal debates, selections and elections relies on donations from our readers. [Support LabourList](/donate) | Stephen Gilmore | https://labourlist.org/2019/07/does-the-referendum-and-remain-policy-work-for-a-government-in-waiting/ | 2019-07-03 07:01:05+00:00 | 1,562,151,665 | 1,567,537,002 | politics | government policy |
282,118 | labourlist--2019-10-31--What would a Corbyn government mean for UK policy towards Israel? | 2019-10-31T00:00:00 | labourlist | What would a Corbyn government mean for UK policy towards Israel? | A few days into a general election campaign, Labour will hold a ‘Clause V’ meeting. This confusingly composed group consists of: Labour’s national executive committee (NEC), the shadow cabinet, the parliamentary committee of the Parliamentary Labour Party, the leaders of the Scottish and Welsh Labour Parties, and the chair and three vice-chairs of the national policy forum (NPF) and eight trade union members of the TULO contact group. It gets to decide which of the policies passed by party conferences by a two thirds majority – the ‘party programme’ – to include in Labour’s general election manifesto. One area where party conference has given scope for a potentially dramatic policy shift from relatively anodyne text in the 2017 manifesto is Labour’s stance on Israel and the Palestinians. Much has been written about the issue of antisemitism in the Labour Party, and the linkage between it and extreme anti-Israel discourse, but there has been less scrutiny of where Labour’s actual policy stance towards Israel has moved. The new policy passed at the 2019 party conference was carefully calibrated not to appear extreme, e.g. by never mentioning the word boycott. But it subtly gave the green light to a number of very problematic concepts, and took Labour another step towards the overt anti-Israel stance of Jeremy Corbyn himself. The motion claimed: “Recent actions by US and Israeli administrations are destroying prospects for peace in Palestine” – a dog whistle message that two states is no longer a viable proposition. The conference committed to oppose any peace deal “not based on international law and UN resolutions recognising… [Palestinian] rights to… return to their homes”. By making the ‘right of return’ for all Palestinians to pre-1967 Israel a condition for support of a peace deal, as the resolution did, the party signalled it is no longer really interested in the ‘two states for two peoples’ solution as the ‘right of return’ implies both states would have an Arab majority. It is a demand that Israel could never sign up to without committing national suicide. Is Labour really suggesting that approximately five million Palestinian descendants of refugees could move to live in Israel? The position on an arms embargo was actually more nuanced than one passed in 2018: “stopping any arms trade with Israel that is used in violation of the human rights of Palestinians”. But the new step was to include wording that would allow Labour to put a targeted boycott of settlement produce into its manifesto: “To adhere to an ethical policy on all UK’s trade with Israel, in particular by applying international law on settlements.” Most alarmingly, it provided scope for a wider boycott policy if trade agreements with Israel do not attach unspecified conditions about Gaza and the West Bank: “rejecting trade agreements with Israel that fail to recognise the rights of the Palestinians”. This has teeth as post-Brexit, trade with Israel would be controlled by the UK bilaterally, not conducted under EU rules. It introduces an ill-defined ethical test that could be used to veto any or all trade deals with Israel. What is missing from the resolution speaks volumes. No recognition of the Jewish right to self-determination. No mention of Israel being a Jewish state. No mention of Jewish suffering through antisemitism and genocide creating the need for statehood. No mention of Israeli victims of war, terrorism and missile attacks. No recognition of Israel’s legitimate right of self-defence to protect its citizens. Even though the policy adopted isn’t as radical as it would be expected to be given Corbyn’s own history on the issue and those of his core activist supporters, it is still the most radical anti-Israel platform adopted by a major UK political party, and a significant break from the pre-2015 cross-party consensus. If Labour wins with these policies in the manifesto, implementation of them would severely damage Britain-Israel relations. They would erode the booming bilateral trade relationship and weaken vital defence and security ties that keep British and Israeli people safe. The Labour leadership could move back towards the centre of the party if Corbyn loses a Brexit-dominated general election. But with the unions locked into policy positions identical to (or more radical than) the party’s stance; and a multitude of fronts, not least internal antisemitism, on which Labour’s credibility would need to be restored, would a new leader expend any political capital on prioritising reversing the policy changes on Israel? Luke Akehurst writes this piece in his capacity as director of We Believe in Israel. You can read the extended essay on which this piece is based here. | Luke Akehurst | https://labourlist.org/2019/10/what-would-a-corbyn-government-mean-for-uk-policy-towards-israel/ | Thu, 31 Oct 2019 13:40:01 +0000 | 1,572,543,601 | 1,572,544,004 | politics | government policy |
316,457 | mercurynews--2019-12-05--Letter: Long-time, clear government policy on whistleblowers | 2019-12-05T00:00:00 | mercurynews | Letter: Long-time, clear government policy on whistleblowers | I worked locally for 23 years for the federal government. Yesterday, I was cleaning out my office after my retirement. On some paperwork from the past, I found a notice on an official form that said: “Whistleblowers are protected and guaranteed anonymity.” This was commonly known and clear government policy. • Letter: Too many ‘public servants’ seem to serve themselves • Letter: Deputies inspired to communicate with and respect everyone No laws since then have changed that. But, Trump and the Republicans seem to think they have the right to ignore it. Also changed with them has been any sense of honesty, integrity, compassion, decency and morality. However, I do see these last five characteristics in Adam Schiff and many of the outstanding witnesses in the impeachment hearing. Submit your letter to the editor via this form Read more Letters to the Editor | Letters To The Editor | https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/12/05/letter-long-time-clear-government-policy-on-whistleblower-protection/ | Thu, 05 Dec 2019 11:10:00 +0000 | 1,575,562,200 | 1,575,548,510 | politics | government policy |
336,088 | naturalnews--2019-06-02--Straight up treason Cadre of Obama officials have been counseling Iranian government how to count | 2019-06-02T00:00:00 | naturalnews | Straight up treason: Cadre of Obama officials have been “counseling” Iranian government how to countermand Trump administration’s foreign policy | (Natural News) If you still believe that the Democrat Party is first and foremost concerned about protecting and defending America, put that idea completely out of your head. If Democrats aren’t thwarting every single effort by the Trump administration and most Republicans to shore up security along the U.S.-Mexico border and shut down the importation of potentially dangerous migrants, they are activity undermining the president of the United States as he and his national security team attempt to deal decisively with an avowed adversary: Iran. In May 2018, reports noted that John Kerry, who succeeded crooked Hillary Clinton as head of the State Department, had been in frequent contact with the leaders of the terrorism-supporting Iranian regime as POTUS Trump was considering pulling the United States out of the “nuclear deal.” (Related: Kerry whines after Trump pulls U.S. out of ‘horrible’ Iran nuke deal and POTUS back-hands him.) At the time, Trump blasted Kerry’s actions as blatantly illegal, per the Logan Act, which “is a single federal statute making it a crime for a citizen to confer with foreign governments against the interests of the United States,” an online description of the law states. “Specifically, it prohibits citizens from negotiating with other nations on behalf of the United States without authorization.” Now, thanks to reporting from The Daily Beast, we learn that a cabal of former Obama administration officials has been in regular contact with the Iranian regime, undermining the Trump administration: As the Trump administration sent warplanes and an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf, a small group of former Obama administration officials reached out to their contacts in the Iranian government, including Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. Their message to Iran: Don’t take Trump’s bait. Stay calm. In addition, the website noted that congressional Democrats were in on the meddling and ‘counseling’ as well: Three Obama officials who worked closely on the Iran nuclear deal, one of whom is still in touch with Iranian government officials, traveled to Capitol Hill to brief congressional Democrats about the situation. “It’s not just about what they were saying to the Iranians,” an aide told the Beast. “It’s about what they were saying to their political allies back here in the U.S. Their strategy was to divide and isolate the Trump administration just as the Trump administration was trying to re-establish deterrence with Iran. In the current highly partisan political environment, the only safe course is to signal national unity — and they contributed to eroding that at home and abroad.” Keep in mind that the United States isn’t at war with Iran, of course, but in many ways we are ‘competing’ with Iran and, as the 2018 National Defense Strategy (pdf.) notes, Iran has been identified by the Trump administration as an adversary: China and Russia challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity. They are determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data to repress their societies and expand their influence. At the same time, the dictatorships of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Islamic Republic of Iran are determined to destabilize regions, threaten Americans and our allies, and brutalize their own people… “Iran is a declared enemy of the United States. It doesn’t matter whether John Kerry, Barack Obama, Democrats, or other former Obama administration officials think so. POTUS Trump is president now and he gets to make those determinations,” The National Sentinel reports. “If what these people are doing — apparently in cooperation with Democrats on Capitol Hill — doesn’t amount to treasonous behavior or some other violation of U.S. law, there is no such thing.” The Trump administration has to move against this cabal, legally, as it must also move against the Spygate conspirators who sought to depose our duly-elected president. Read more about the illegal deep state activities to undermine the Trump White House at DeepState.news and WhiteHouse.news. | JD Heyes | http://www.naturalnews.com/2019-06-02-treason-cadre-of-obama-officials-counseling-iranian-government.html | 2019-06-02 21:58:46+00:00 | 1,559,527,126 | 1,567,539,346 | politics | government policy |
358,030 | newswars--2019-11-20--The Instability of Markets Is Not Nearly as Bad as the Instability of Government Policy | 2019-11-20T00:00:00 | newswars | The Instability of Markets Is Not Nearly as Bad as the Instability of Government Policy | A seductive (if poorly considered) critique of markets is the notion that they are so wildly unpredictable and inherently unstable that we need government to watch over them and intervene to mitigate their excesses. There is a great irony in this position which I will reveal. Economist John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) made perhaps the most famous case for this view, coining the term “animal spirits” to describe the irrational, impulse-driven whims of market-actors based on arbitrary expectations that could only cause instability. The idea itself seems to make sense because it’s hard for intellectuals, who love chewing over ideas and coming up with bright plans, to see how a society could run coherently without a single plan. The truth is, market economies are actually planned — there is just no central plan. What happens on a market is that lots of individuals make little plans to roll out their bright ideas into businesses, charities, and other organizations, hoping to influence as many people as possible. The plans which prove successful on the small scale attract resources and grow steadily in their impact. Other planners emulate them and adapt their own plans in light of their success. Meanwhile, those plans which prove to be failures never get far off the ground. This means that, left to their own devices, markets have their own self-correcting mechanisms which Keynes appeared to have overlooked. While in any situation there may be entrepreneurs, investors, and consumers who do indeed make poor or irrational decisions and make mistakes (driven by their animal spirits) there will always be others who succeed as well. The mechanism of profit and loss allocates the pool of available capital to those producers who make good predictions as to what consumers (you and I) want over the long term and reallocate them away from those who use them badly. This limits the scope of damage caused by bad or incompetent decision-makers. Where people fail, the results of those failures will be limited to some small number of people. This can not be said of failures of government which might extend to affecting the entire society. Now, here’s the irony. Even allowing for Keynes his hypothesis that markets are inherently unstable, how can the prospect of intervention by government, at any time, into the economy do anything but make the market more unpredictable and make it more difficult for the “little planners” to make long-term decisions? Over the course of 20 years a government could change five or more times. With each change in administration the form of state intervention in the economy can change dramatically, as can the political philosophy driving it. Plans can be added or scrapped at any time. Government can increase or reduce taxes at whim, or increase or decrease spending. They can pass new tariffs, grant subsidies, institute licensing laws and regulations or scrap them. Government-mandated central banks (like the Bank of England or the Federal Reserve) can increase or decrease interest rates; expand the money supply or contract it. Plus what makes those calm and virtuous actors themselves immune to the influences of the animal spirits? Do they not too have emotional whims, not to mention voters and campaign contributors to please? Yes, when the specter of government hangs looming over the economy conditions can rapidly and unpredictably change at any time, in countless ways, and this can only exacerbate the problem that the Keynesians plan to solve. Economist Robert Higgs called this the phenomenon of “Regime Uncertainty,” where investors fear it may be hard or even impossible to foresee the extent to which future government actions will alter the “rules to the game.” As a result, investors become averse to taking risk (much in the way that Keynes feared they might) not due to a lack of government intervention — but in anticipation of it! Private investors have “skin in the game.” Their own self-interest should motivate them to only take certain risks of personal loss, and investigate all the available information to make robust decisions. But public servants are forever fated to spending other peoples money on other people. The best people at making decisions with money are most likely not in government. They’re probably out there in the free market making “Little Plans” to launch a new business or product that might one day spread out to the furthest reaches of the earth the way mobile phones are now reaching the world’s poorest populations in Africa. | Mises.org | https://www.newswars.com/the-instability-of-markets-is-not-nearly-as-bad-as-the-instability-of-government-policy/ | Wed, 20 Nov 2019 22:02:06 +0000 | 1,574,305,326 | 1,574,294,700 | politics | government policy |
406,387 | pbs--2019-06-14--Court rules against Trumps abortion policy for immigrant teens in government shelters | 2019-06-14T00:00:00 | pbs | Court rules against Trump's abortion policy for immigrant teens in government shelters | WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court in Washington ruled Friday against a Trump administration policy it described as a “blanket ban” preventing immigrant teens in government custody from getting abortions, and it kept in place an order blocking the policy. The policy, which dates to 2017, prohibited shelters from facilitating abortions for children held in government shelters after entering the country illegally. The policy has not been in force since March 2018, when [a judge blocked it](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/court-rules-that-government- cant-block-immigrant-teens-from-abortion), writing that the government couldn’t implement a policy that strips minors of the right to make their own reproductive choices. On Friday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld that judge’s ruling. DHS allows pregnant women in immigration custody to obtain abortions, but the policy had been different for minors. “We are unanimous in rejecting the government’s position that its denial of abortion access can be squared with Supreme Court precedent,” the opinion says. The Supreme Court first announced the right to an abortion in its 1973 Roe v. Wade case, and subsequent rulings have upheld it. The opinion for the panel of judges — Sri Srinivasan, Robert Wilkins and Laurence Silberman — was unsigned. Beyond that agreement, however, Silberman wrote a dissent to explain why he wouldn’t have allowed the case to go forward as a class action. And he argued in support of giving officials a limited window to transfer a minor out of government custody to the care of a sponsor, where the child could then obtain an abortion without the government’s assistance. Srinivasan and Wilkins were appointed by President Barack Obama and Silberman by President Ronald Reagan. The Trump administration could now ask the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to hear the case. It could also appeal to the Supreme Court. But Justice Brett Kavanaugh likely wouldn’t take part in the case. That’s because he ruled on the case at an earlier stage as a judge on the D.C. Circuit, where he made the argument Silberman repeated about transferring a minor to a sponsor’s care. That would leave eight justices, four liberals and four conservatives, to rule on the case. The case against the administration’s policy was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented several pregnant minors who were seeking abortions. In those instances, teens who sought abortions were ultimately able to obtain them. And since the judge’s order in 2018 blocking the policy, other minors in government custody who have sought abortions have been able to get them. [WATCH: Undocumented teen in legal limbo over her right to an abortion ](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/undocumented-teen-in-legal-limbo-over-her- right-to-an-abortion) “The Trump administration’s cruel policy of blocking young immigrant women in federal custody from accessing abortion was a blatant abuse of power,” said Brigitte Amiri, deputy director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, in a statement after the ruling. “We are relieved that today’s ruling continues to prevent the policy from taking effect while the case proceeds, and allows the case to proceed as a class action as we continue this fight.” The Department of Justice declined to comment on the ruling. A spokesman for the office within the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services that is responsible for sheltering children who illegally enter the country unaccompanied by a parent, said the decision is being reviewed. DHS allows pregnant women in immigration custody to obtain abortions, but the policy had been different for minors. | Jessica Gresko, Associated Press | https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/court-rules-against-trumps-abortion-policy-for-immigrant-teens-in-government-shelters | 2019-06-14 19:33:49+00:00 | 1,560,555,229 | 1,567,539,090 | politics | government policy |
441,435 | rawstory--2019-09-06--BUSTED Trumps government shutdown policy ruled illegal by federal agency | 2019-09-06T00:00:00 | rawstory | BUSTED: Trump’s government shutdown policy ruled illegal by federal agency | On Thursday, the Government Accountability Office ruled that President Donald Trump’s administration broke the law by ordering the national park system to remain open during the federal government shutdown in January. GAO alleges that the Interior Department illegally moved money around between departments to keep the parks open. The agency will brief Congress on which individuals were behind these decisions. Trump’s decision to keep open national parks stood in stark contrast to previous shutdowns, when the parks were closed. Administration officials may have been fearful of a repeat of what happened during the 2013 government shutdown, when furious veterans pushed past the barricade of the World War II memorial in D.C. While the parks remained open, rangers and other federal employees were furloughed, leading to horrific piles of trash accumulating in some places. The 35-day shutdown — the longest in government history — was kicked off by the president backing off a bipartisan compromise funding bill and refusing to sign any continuing resolution until Congress appropriated funding for his border wall. The standoff lasted until major U.S. airports started being paralyzed by unpaid air traffic controllers, at which point Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) caved and accepted the original compromise. Trump subsequently declared a national emergency to divert military funding to construct his border wall anyway, although construction has not started yet. | Matthew Chapman | https://www.rawstory.com/2019/09/busted-trumps-government-shutdown-policy-ruled-illegal-by-federal-agency/ | 2019-09-06 00:01:18+00:00 | 1,567,742,478 | 1,569,331,108 | politics | government policy |
454,188 | redstate--2019-02-04--Bad Ideas Never Die Government Makes Them Policy Over and Over Again | 2019-02-04T00:00:00 | redstate | Bad Ideas Never Die – Government Makes Them Policy Over and Over Again | American colleges have for decades now been ongoing, rolling disaster areas. They are Leftist claptrap outfits that take mind-numbed victims of calamitous government primary and secondary education – and radicalize them to join the fight to end Western Civilization. Conservative vanguard William F. Buckley wrote about his atrocious experience at Yale – in the early 1950s. And that was two decades before colleges and then the nation were afflicted with the Baby Boomer generation. Things have been ever devolving – consistently and precipitously. “As Oscar Wilde should have said, when bad ideas have nowhere else to go, they emigrate to America and become university courses.” What’s even worse than when these graduates of academic malpractice enter society? When they enter government. It’s why Washington, D.C. spends so much of our money propping up colleges. Government capitols and college campuses are the only places on Earth where ideas as stupid as these can so effortlessly exist. It is the Year of Our Lord 2019. DC is currently thoroughly consumed with discussing the supposed merits of Collectivism – Socialism, Communism, etc.: “Any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.” Our DC Geniuses act as if Collectivism – has never, ever before been tried anywhere on planet Earth. Oh but it has. Over and over and over again since the 1917 Collectivist revolution in Russia. How’d Collectivism do? Well, about 100 million people have thus far been murdered. And orders of magnitude more have been subjected to authoritarian and economic horrors beyond our ability to accurately comprehend. But in DC, our Geniuses ignore a century of incalculable, inconceivable Collectivist suffering – and press on. Leading one of these idiotic collectivist charges are DC Geniuses like New York Democrat Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), California Democrat Senator Kamala Harris and Vermont Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders – and their titanic struggles with the basic math of Medicare. As of 2012, Medicare as currently constituted faces a looming tab – for which there is absolutely no money – of $38.6 trillion. And more and more medical professionals – are refusing to take Medicare patients: “As doctors become more frustrated with Medicare’s reimbursement rates and rules, many are displaying their dissatisfaction by not treating Medicare patients.” And because Medicare pays too little – private insurance companies and individuals pay way more. To make up the institutional government shortfalls: “Plans are increasingly concerned about the degree to which providers overcharge them to make up for losses from government programs.” The DC Geniuses – want to subject us to Medicare for All. Meaning we all jump into a pool – already drained to negative $40 trillion…just by senior citizens. DC Genius Kamala Harris – openly wants the government to murder the private industry that has for decades been picking up the massive government slack. When everyone has to use government medicine – and there’s nowhere else to go – what do you think starts happening? Eternally long lines to see anyone remotely related to medicine. And Sarah Palin was correct – death panels, where government lords over you Caesar-style and gives you the ultimate, eternal thumbs-down. Obamacare was the last expansion of government’s involvement in the health care sector. The results were uniformly disastrous. Its namesake Barack Obama repeatedly promised us our insurance premiums would go down by $2,500 per year. Since, premiums have, on average, doubled – and deductibles have tripled. Obamacare author Jonathan Gruber very-stupidly-on-video admitted – as a Kamala Harris precursor – its ultimate objective was to murder the private industry. The DC Geniuses have time and again thoroughly screwed up private health care. With Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, the Department of Defense’s TRICARE and TRICARE for Life, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), the Indian Health Service (IHS) program and Obamacare. All of which pay care providers too little – too slowly. All of which forces care providers to charge private industry and individuals ever more – to pick up all of the massive government slack. And The DC Geniuses’ solution to all of these massive government messes? Collectivize them all together – into one titanic government mess. Government never, ever learns anything – from anything. About anything. Government Broadband’s Record Is Bad; Traverse City Going For It: “Traverse City’s public utility wants to build out a fiber-optic network to every home and business in the municipality…. “(U)tility staffers began drafting a request for approval to apply for a long-term, low-interest loan from the federal government…. “Based upon construction cost estimates from a contractor, the utility plans to apply for a $16.3 million loan….Tim Arends, executive director of Traverse City Light & Power, said it would be more economical to secure a low-interest loan from the federal government than to issue a bond to cover construction costs.” More economical for Travis City? Sure. For We the Federal Taxpayers? Surely not. Is the idea of Collectivist government Internet novel? Is it a brand new notion – for “governmental ownership and administration of the means of production” of broadband? Of course not. Government Geniuses have tried government broadband – since the very beginnings of the private sector’s ongoing, massive ever-expansions of broadband. Shocker: The private sector’s results – have been mind-bogglingly incredible. Governments’ results – have been uniformly, excruciatingly atrocious. The Internet ‘Stimulus’-Just as Destructive as the Rest of the ‘Stimulus’ Despite Glossy Reports, Muni Broadband is Still a Net Money Loser Lake County Another Example of Failed Municipal Broadband What Other Cities Should Learn from Philly’s Failed Municipal Broadband Effort There’s even at least one website – dedicated to cataloguing the very many government fails: “For decades, local governments have made promises of faster and cheaper broadband networks. Unfortunately, these municipal networks often don’t deliver or fail, leaving taxpayers to foot the bill. Explore the map to learn about the massive debt, waste and broken promises left behind by these failed government networks.” Travis City’s latest foray into folly – won’t be paid for by Travis City. It’s a “loan” from the DC Geniuses – from which We the Federal Taxpayers will never, ever again see a penny. Because Travis City’s government broadband – will fail. Just as nigh all governments’ attempts everywhere at government broadband – have failed. But that’s ok. The DC Geniuses have managed us into $22 trillion in already-on-the-books debt. And at least $127 trillion in unfunded future debt – thanks to government health care and government retirement accounts (Social Security). So we have plenty of coin to waste on a brand new government broadband fail. Following up on a quarter century-plus of government broadband fails. Oh: And guess who – besides our Government Geniuses – think this nigh-endless line of terrible ideas…is just great? “Harvard manages to conduct an entire ‘study’ – totally surrounded by these mountain ranges of evidence that government broadband stinks on ice – and somehow writes the bizarre following: “‘Our examination of advertised prices shows that community-owned fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) networks in the United States generally charge less for entry-level broadband service than do competing private providers.’” Perhaps. For maybe two highly-government-subsidized weeks. After which government’s attempts at broadband – go bankrupt and away. But Government and College Geniuses – are too stupid to notice all these pesky facts and this annoying evidence. Unfortunately, so too is their ever-increasing victim pool. We the Reasonable eminently get the horrible joke of government doing anything – and everything. And We get to pay the incalculably heinous tab for it. What it lacks in hilarity – it more than makes up for with total American economic destruction. | Seton Motley | https://www.redstate.com/setonmotley/2019/02/04/bad-ideas-never-die-government-makes-policy/ | 2019-02-04 15:52:49+00:00 | 1,549,313,569 | 1,567,549,709 | politics | government policy |
501,332 | sottnet--2019-05-06--Ex-pms agrees Australias security agencies are run by NUTTERS who are writing government policy | 2019-05-06T00:00:00 | sottnet | Ex-pm's agrees Australia's security agencies are run by 'NUTTERS who are writing government policy' after article critical of foreign policy towards China published | Former Prime Minister Paul Keating has slammed Australia's security bosses as 'nutters' in a bizarre interview less than two weeks from the Federal Election. Speaking to ABC , Mr Keating discussed the economic impact Labor's policies would have on the nation, before slamming ASIO and ASIS, accusing them of being anti- China and 'running Australia's foreign policy'.'When the security agencies are running foreign policy, the nutters are in charge,' he said."They've lost their strategic bearings, these organisations."Mr Keating, who was Labor prime minister between 1991 and 1996, has called for spy chiefs to be sacked in a bid to improve relations with China, saying he would 'clean them out'.The politician said problems began to mount in the security council after former journalist John Garnaut helped to write a classified report for ASIO on Chinese influence in Australia.Mr. Keatings remarks come at 15:32'Once that Garnaut guy came back from China and [Malcolm] Turnbull gave him the ticket to go and hop into the security agencies, they've all gone berko ever since,' he said.Paul Keating said Australia's security agencies went 'berko' after former journalist John Garnaut helped write a classified ASIO report on ChinaMr Keating said any incumbent government needed to rethink Australia's relationship with China.'You know, China, whatever you think, China is a great state,' he said.Following the inflammatory comments, Prime Minister Scott Morrison called on Bill Shorten to denounce Mr Keating's remarks, noting the agencies had prevented 15 terror attacks in Australia.'For what the Labor Party calls a Labor legend to go out there and attack the credibility of our security agencies that have been saving lives in this country, I think is very disappointing,' the PM told reporters in Nowra on Monday.'I think that should be disowned and I think the leader of the Labor Party, Bill Shorten, should be having something to say about that in denouncing what Paul Keating had to say.'Prime Minister Scott Morrison called on Labor to denounce Mr Keating's remarks, with Labor Leader Bill Shorten telling reporters there would be no 'clean out' of Australia's security agencies under a government he led. Labor's deputy leader Tanya Plibersek said there would 'absolutely not' be a full-scale clean-out of Australia's security agencies under a Shorten government.'People love Paul Keating for his colourful language,' she told ABC Radio National on Monday.'We have a very good relationship with Australia's security agencies.'She said Mr Keating did not run Labor policy, noting the opposition valued regular briefings it receives from agencies.'Paul Keating is right to say that China is an absolutely vital economic partner for Australia and we have to have a good relationship with China,' Ms Plibersek said.Labor's Deputy Leader said the party enjoyed a 'very good' relationship with security agencies, but said Mr Keating was right to highlight China's importance | null | https://www.sott.net/article/412457-Ex-pms-agrees-Australias-security-agencies-are-run-by-NUTTERS-who-are-writing-government-policy-after-article-critical-of-foreign-policy-towards-China-published | 2019-05-06 15:07:35+00:00 | 1,557,169,655 | 1,567,541,081 | politics | government policy |
506,028 | sottnet--2019-09-11--Worlds governments welcome Bolton exit but still wary of future Trump foreign policy | 2019-09-11T00:00:00 | sottnet | World's governments welcome Bolton exit but still wary of future Trump foreign policy | The ultimate tyranny in a society is not control by martial law. It is control by the psychological manipulation of consciousness, through which reality is defined so that those who exist within it do not even realize that they are in prison. They do not even realize that there is something outside of where they exist. | null | https://www.sott.net/article/420211-Worlds-governments-welcome-Bolton-exit-but-still-wary-of-future-Trump-foreign-policy | 2019-09-11 18:50:17+00:00 | 1,568,242,217 | 1,569,008,747 | politics | government policy |
560,521 | tass--2019-01-29--Lavrov US policy aimed at toppling Venezuelas government | 2019-01-29T00:00:00 | tass | Lavrov: US policy aimed at toppling Venezuela’s government | MOSCOW, January 29. /TASS/. Washington and its closest allies are openly pursuing a policy aimed at overthrowing the legitimate authorities in Caracas, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday. "We are concerned about what the US and its closest allies are doing with respect to Venezuela, brazenly violating all imaginable norms of international law and actually openly pursuing the policy aimed at overthrowing the legitimate government in that Latin American country," the minister said. The decision to exempt American businesses from the sanctions against Venezuela is evidence of Washington’s intention for regime change in that country while at the same time maximizing profit from it, he added. "This merely underscores the cynicism of the current developments. US companies operating in Venezuela are exempt from these sanctions. In other words, they wish to topple the government and derive material gains from this," Lavrov said. The anti-Maduro forces are getting their orders from Washington, who instruct them not to make any compromises with the authorities in Caracas, Lavrov stressed. "According to our sources, the leaders of the opposition movement who have declared ‘dual power’ are in fact receiving instructions from Washington not to make any concessions until the authorities agree to abdicate in some way," Lavrov said. "Together with other responsible members of the international community, we will do everything to support President Maduro’s legitimate government in upholding the Venezuelan constitution and employing methods to resolve the crisis that are within the constitutional framework," the Russian top diplomat stressed. ## Bolton’s notepad Lavrov pointed out that during a recent press briefing, US National Security Adviser John Bolton nonchalantly displayed a notepad about sending troops to Colombia that cameras quickly picked up. This raised eyebrows, particularly given Washington’s statements about a potential military intervention in Venezuela. "I have read reports saying that apparently yesterday, John Bolton held a press briefing and, according to the media, was careless enough to expose some notes to journalists with TV and photo cameras. The note read ‘5,000 troops to Colombia.’ This raised some eyebrows, especially given the overt calls for using Venezuela’s neighboring countries to launch a direct intervention due to the difficult humanitarian situation in Venezuela, which can be heard from the United States and a number of other countries," the Russian top diplomat elaborated. The note in question took center stage at Bolton’s press briefing. Many media outlets posted a photo of him holding the notepad with handwritten notes that read "Afghanistan - welcome the talks" and "5,000 troops to Colombia." When asked about a potential US military intervention, a White House spokesperson noted, "As the president has said, all options are on the table." Colombia’s Defense and Foreign Ministries later rejected the reports about a potential deployment of 5,000 US troops to the country. Colombian Foreign Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo said that Bogota was unaware of any such plans. ## EU initiative Moscow has asked the European Union to explain its initiative to resolve the situation in Venezuela, Lavrov said. "We have taken note that although several EU countries presented an ultimatum to [Venezuelan] President Nicolas Maduro, [High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy] Federica Mogherini issued a more moderate statement on behalf of the entire European Union, promoting an idea to set up some contact group," he said. "We have asked our European colleagues what exactly it is all about and how they plan - if they have any plans at all - to translate it into practical action," the Russian top diplomat added. Lavrov noted that members of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) were particularly concerned about "the plans that some aggressive foreign players have in relation to Venezuela." "They have also shown interest in trying to pave the way for international mediation," he noted, adding that Venezuelan authorities had expressed readiness to hold such talks with the opposition. "Given signals coming from the EU and the interests of the Caribbean countries, as well as the fact that China and India seek to prevent catastrophic developments, we would like to figure out what the international community could do to prevent another blatant violation of international law and violent regime change, and bring the situation back to the constitutional track. This is what I discussed yesterday with the Iranian foreign minister, who - just like us - wants to find an opportunity for external players to prove themselves useful to the Venezuelan people," the Russian foreign minister said. ## Political upheaval rocks Venezuela Juan Guaido, Venezuelan opposition leader and parliament speaker, whose appointment to that position had been cancelled by the country’s Supreme Court, declared himself interim president at a rally in the country’s capital of Caracas on January 23. Several countries, including the United States, Lima Group members (excluding Mexico), Australia, Albania, Georgia and Israel, as well as the Organization of American States, recognized him. Maduro, in turn, blasted the move as a coup staged by Washington and said he was severing diplomatic ties with the US. Meanwhile, Spain, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands said on January 26 that they would recognize Guaido as Venezuela’s interim president unless Maduro called elections by February 3. In contrast, Russia, Belarus, Bolivia, Iran, Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Turkey voiced support for Maduro, while China called for resolving all differences peacefully and warned against foreign interference. The United Nations secretary general, in turn, called for dialogue to resolve the crisis. | null | http://tass.com/politics/1042235 | 2019-01-29 10:59:43+00:00 | 1,548,777,583 | 1,567,550,366 | politics | government policy |
675,826 | thegatewaypundit--2019-06-01--Enemies of the State Obama Shadow Government Caught Advising Iran on How to Defeat Trump Foreign Po | 2019-06-01T00:00:00 | thegatewaypundit | Enemies of the State: Obama Shadow Government Caught Advising Iran on How to Defeat Trump Foreign Policy | Remember: Obama deep state operatives led by Sally Yates accused General Michael Flynn of violating the Logan Act for making calls to foreign dignitaries including the Russian ambassador after Donald Trump won the election in 2016. The Logan Act, enacted in January 30, 1799, is a United States federal law that criminalizes negotiation by unauthorized persons with foreign governments having a dispute with the United States. General Michael Flynn’s job as National Security Advisor was to contact foreign dignitaries including the Russian ambassador after the 2016 election. John Kerry was even caught meeting with top Iranian officials in Paris. | Jim Hoft | https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/06/logan-act-violations-obama-shadow-government-caught-advising-iran-on-how-to-defeat-trump-foreign-policy/ | 2019-06-01 17:36:40+00:00 | 1,559,425,000 | 1,567,539,440 | politics | government policy |
688,507 | theguardianuk--2019-02-04--Governments fracking policy will cause energy crisis says UKs richest man | 2019-02-04T00:00:00 | theguardianuk | Government's fracking policy will cause energy crisis, says UK's richest man | The UK’s richest person has launched an attack on the government’s fracking rules, accusing ministers of policies that will cause an “energy crisis” and “irreparable damage” to the economy. Sir Jim Ratcliffe, chairman of petrochemicals firm Ineos, pledged four years ago to start a UK fracking revolution but the company has been bogged down in planning battles and is yet to drill or frack a single well. The businessman, who is worth £21bn, accused the government of taking an unworkable and unhelpful position on seismicity and planning rules. “They are playing politics with the future of the country. We have a non-existent energy strategy and are heading towards an energy crisis that will do long term and irreparable damage to the economy and the government needs to decide whether they are finally going to put the country first and develop a workable UK onshore gas industry,” he said. Ineos, which owns significant exploration rights in the UK, said it wants the limit at which fracking operations must be paused to be raised, from its current level of 0.5 magnitude. It said the ceiling should be a “sensible” level but did not specify what that would be. Cuadrilla, the only shale gas company to have fracked in the UK, had to repeatedly halt fracking at its site near Blackpool last year, as its operations triggered minor earthquakes above the regulatory threshold. Geologists have said the limit could safely be raised to 1.5 magnitude, above most of the mild tremors Cuadrilla caused. But the energy minister, Claire Perry, told the Guardian last month that she had no plans to review the rules. In a statement issued on Monday, Ineos attacked the government for setting the limit at 0.5, which it called “a level that has no sound basis in science and betrays a total lack of understanding of the shale extraction process”. The firm pointed to other countries that have much more relaxed rules on seismicity and fracking. But the UK government has repeatedly said that one of the virtues of a UK shale gas industry is that it would be tightly and robustly regulated. Ineos claimed the government was “shutting down shale by the back door” and branded the planning regime “archaic, glacially slow, inordinately expensive and virtually unworkable”. Ministers have already rewritten planning rules to speed up shale gas applications and have proposed a second batch of reforms to make it easier for shale companies to drill exploratory wells. However, all three Ineos shale gas sites were rejected by local authorities. Two of those – one in South Yorkshire and one in Derbyshire – have since been approved after the firm appealed. The company is appealing over a third, at Woodsetts in South Yorkshire. Ineos argued the UK had chosen to bet “the future of our manufacturing industry on windmills and imported gas from countries which are potentially unstable”. A government risk assessment last week concluded that UK gas supplies were “resilient to all but the most unlikely combination of high demand and supply disruption”. | Adam Vaughan | https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/04/ineos-chairman-jim-ratcliffe-criticises-government-fracking-policies | 2019-02-04 13:13:33+00:00 | 1,549,304,013 | 1,567,549,696 | politics | government policy |
701,086 | theguardianuk--2019-05-29--Government policy makes people ill and the NHS pays the price | 2019-05-29T00:00:00 | theguardianuk | Government policy makes people ill – and the NHS pays the price | NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens has been remarkably successful in prising more money for the health service out of the government, but short- term ministerial thinking about the service and its resources has resulted in an unedifying, dysfunctional scramble for cash in austerity Britain. Finally, though, ideas are emerging that could change all that. Trying to meet rising expectations without the money to do it has driven the NHS to run every part of the system hot. As [fissures open up in budgets and services](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/04/nhs-qa-why-is-nhs- under-most-intense-pressure-in-decades), the army of healthcare special interest groups such as the BMA trade union, NHS Confederation and the medical royal colleges – which collectively far outgun the rest of the public sector for political influence – powerful, persuasive healthcare special interest groupportray every difficulty as [a lethal crisis](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/feb/20/nhs-at-breaking-point- according-to-british-medical-association). When Treasury resistance is finally overcome, [unrealistic promises](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/dec/06/ministers-and-nhs- england-chief-at-loggerheads-over-targets) have to be made to provide political cover for the capitulation. Then the dance begins again as the NHS pursues another set of unrealistic goals with [too little money and too few staff](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/sep/11/nhs-suffering-worst- ever-staff-cash-crisis-figures-show). Crucially, this political battle is largely disconnected from any debate around wider social policy goals, save for the fact that everyone is scrapping over taxpayers’ money. Now Stevens is beginning to stimulate discussion around a different approach. In recent speeches to the Health Foundation and [Royal Society of Medicine](https://www.hsj.co.uk/news/stevens-nhs-must-act-to-prevent- hollowing-out-of-dghs/7025130.article), he has argued that wider social policy decisions should be used to predict future demand for healthcare. This is a powerful lens. For example, as demonstrated in London, we can easily determine how many thousands of children are being exposed to[ illegal levels of pollution](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/27/check-if- your-london-nursery-school-or-college-is-exposed-to-toxic-air) each day as they go to school, and there are numerous studies demonstrating [the link between pollution and illness](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/14/diesel-pollution- stunts-childrens-lung-growth-london-study-shows). Pollution is not some unfortunate accident but a consequence of a range of policies – from the provision of bus services to the price of petrol – that influence how we behave. Similarly, as United Nations rapporteur Philip Alston has forcibly pointed out, [poverty is a policy decision](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/nov/16/uk-austerity-has- inflicted-great-misery-on-citizens-un-says), and we know poverty drives [mental illness ](https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/statistics/mental-health- statistics-poverty)and [obesity](https://www.nhs.uk/news/obesity/children- poorer-backgrounds-more-affected-rise-childhood-obesity/). If the policy is to have children living in poverty, we can estimate how that will drive demand for health services. If this way of thinking started to get traction it could be transformative. It would certainly focus ministerial minds if they had to explain to parliament and the public how they were going to address the consequences of failures, such as planning for a large increase in respiratory specialists over the next two decades, or predicting how many children below the poverty line would need mental health services before they were 25. This might sound ambitious, but support for just such an approach may well emerge from the [five-year study just announced by the Institute for Fiscal Studies ](https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2019/may/14/britain-risks- heading-to-us-levels-of-inequality-warns-top-economist)into [the forces that shape inequality ](https://www.ifs.org.uk/research/deaton-inequality- review)and what we can do about it. The £2.5m programme, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, is being led by [Professor Sir Angus Deaton](https://scholar.princeton.edu/deaton/home), who was awarded the Nobel prize for his analysis of poverty, welfare and consumption. This is a big, politically high-risk undertaking for the IFS, and with so much money and intellectual firepower behind it there is every reason to hope it will have a significant impact. There are other ways in which thinking about the wider role of the NHS is becoming more sophisticated. There is growing interest in how hospitals can use their muscle as major local employers and contractors – so-called [anchor institutions](https://www.bmj.com/content/361/bmj.k2101.full) to benefit their local economy. Many hospitals, notably in deprived areas, are among the biggest local employers. To take just one example, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has 17,000 staff. And healthcare organisations spend roughly [£20bn a year on goods and services](https://www.health.org.uk /newsletter-feature/the-nhs-as-an-anchor). There are also [signs that the relationship between health service and climate change](https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/blog/2019/04/nhs-climate-change) is finally getting some attention after years of talk but little action. Taken together, these are significant developments. They present a rare opportunity to join the dots between the [NHS](https://www.theguardian.com/society/nhs) and the other parts of public policy which determine how we live and when we die. In the long run they could encourage far greater debate and understanding around the connections between political decisions, inequalities and the scale, shape and role of our care system. | Richard Vize | https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/may/29/government-policy-makes-people-ill-nhs-pays-price | 2019-05-29 07:00:36+00:00 | 1,559,127,636 | 1,567,539,882 | politics | government policy |
735,721 | thehuffingtonpostuk--2019-09-16--Government Policy Is Putting Foster Children At Risk Of Exploitation Why | 2019-09-16T00:00:00 | thehuffingtonpostuk | Government Policy Is Putting Foster Children At Risk Of Exploitation. Why? | Alarm bells about the dangers faced by vulnerable children being sent to live many miles away from home were first raised in a parliamentary inquiry in 2012. A report by the All Party Group for Runaway and Missing Children and Adults warned then that placing looked after children a long way from home was causing them to go missing. We raised the same concerns in 2016. Now, in 2019, we have reached crisis point. Today, our group has published a new inquiry – ‘No Place at Home’ – into the increasing dangers faced by this sent away generation, who are magnets for paedophiles and County Lines drugs gangs. Despite a government pledge to clampdown on the numbers of ‘out of area’ placements, the figures have hit record levels along with record numbers of children going missing. Two thirds of all children in children’s homes now live out of area and the numbers going missing from those placements has more than doubled since 2015. So, after years of enduring warm words and broken promises from government, we have not pulled our punches about the dangers of distant placements in today’s report. Urgent action is now needed. The government must take responsibility and draw up an Emergency Action Plan to slash the numbers of out of area placements, recognising that they do not keep children safe. That plan must ensure that there are enough places for children to live locally. Evidence submitted to us by 41 of the 43 police forces in England and Wales about the dangers faced by these children is compelling. The government and councils cannot argue with it or hide from it. 70% of police forces are adamant that placing children out of area increases their risks of exploitation and often results in them being coerced into going missing. Many also stressed that county lines gangs particularly target ‘out of area’ children because they are easier to exploit. We have reached the ludicrous situation where local authorities are unwittingly becoming ‘recruiting’ sergeants for County Lines gangs by placing so many children far away from home and leaving them exposed to high risk. Local authorities may also be inadvertently opening up new ‘County Lines,’ because relocating children groomed to sell drugs, can create opportunities for criminals to expand their reach into more rural parts of the country. Children are being systematically failed and placed in danger by the very professionals charged to help them. We took heart breaking evidence from children of the searing sadness they felt at being isolated so far away from home. One boy tried to hang himself on Christmas and Day and another girl walked 15 miles back to her home town. Many repeatedly run home, often hitch hiking from remote areas. Others are enticed to go missing by those who seek to exploit them. One girl told us she had run away and gone missing 100 times. Our report also shines a light on a new area of deep concern – the frightening twilight world of unregulated semi-independent accommodation for children aged 16 years and over. We call for these homes to be regulated and inspected because, unlike children’s homes, they are currently ‘off radar’. Shockingly, numbers of children living in this sort of accommodation has risen by 70% in the last decade. 80% of police forces expressed concerns about the increasing numbers living in this shady world and the dangers they face of falling prey to adults who want to exploit them for sex or to sell drugs. Children are often housed alongside adults who may be criminals or have addiction issues. Overall, we concluded that out of area placements are not made with the best interests of the child in mind but to suit the needs of the market. Children’s wishes are very seldom central to how decisions are made. They are being placed in children’s homes and semi-independent accommodation due to a lack of suitable provision and the uneven distribution of children’s homes across the country. A massive 75% of children’s homes are private and are concentrated in three main areas – North West, West Midlands and South East. The children’s homes market is not fit for purpose and the Government must take action. Without a sea change in approach, councils and government will continue to be complicit in exacerbating the trauma of neglected and abused children and of unwittingly providing new recruits for County Lines. This national scandal must stop. Ann Coffey is the independent MP for Stockport | Ann Coffey | https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/foster-children-drug-gangs_uk_5d7fa8cce4b03b5fc88742d7 | 2019-09-16 21:30:00+00:00 | 1,568,683,800 | 1,569,330,187 | politics | government policy |
739,954 | theindependent--2019-01-10--Government makes dramatic U-turn on plans to expand aposcruelapos two child policy | 2019-01-10T00:00:00 | theindependent | Government makes dramatic U-turn on plans to expand 'cruel' two child policy | Government plans to expand rules that stop families claiming benefits for more than two children were scrapped on Friday, Amber Rudd announced in her first major speech as work and pensions secretary. Just hours after the release of a damning report into the planned expansion, which would have cut benefits among families whose children were born before the policy was even devised, Ms Rudd said that the move would not be “right”. The policy, brought in in 2017 and which affects the child element of the already highly controversial universal credit, is designed to influence family planning decisions. But since its introduction critics have warned that the two-child limit is so damaging that it could breach fundamental human rights commitments. Until this month the two-child cap had only included those children born since the policy’s introduction in April 2017. Until today, that cap had been due to be extended in just three weeks’ time to include all children regardless of when they were born. The change of heart means that all children born before April 2017 will continue to be supported by universal credit – significantly altering the financial fate of around 15,000 families a year. The U-turn anticipated the release this morning of findings from an investigation into the two child policy by the Work and Pensions Select Committee – the group that examines the policies and actions of the Department for Work and Pensions. The committee’s report had called for the government to abandon the expansion as a matter of urgency because of the harm it could do to the nation’s poorest families. Commenting before the U-turn was announced, the committee said that applying the rules retrospectively would entirely undermine the government’s assertion that the two-child limit is designed to influence family planning decisions because the children had already been conceived and born. Speaking before Friday’s announcement, Frank Field, chair of the Work and Pensions Select Committee, said: “What on earth were they thinking? There are serious concerns about this policy as a whole, but the retrospective element is simply inexplicable. “The government claims this policy is about fairness, but it’s hard to think of anything more unfair than taking money from families whose children were born before the policy was even thought of.” Policy in Practice, which designs public policy development and implementation, predicted that, had it remained in place, the plan to expand the two-child limit would have led to 266,000 additional children living in poverty by the end of this parliament. The move alone would have increased the levels of child poverty in the UK by more than 10 per cent and another 256,000 children already living in poverty would have fallen further into deprivation as a direct result of the expansion. In evidence in parliament the Child Poverty Action Group stated that “you could not design a policy better to increase child poverty than this one”. Upon taking office as the secretary of state for work and pensions in November last year, Ms Rudd wrote an open letter describing her vision for a welfare system that “represents the best of British values and has women and children at its heart”. But the committee’s report heavily criticises fundamental elements of the existing two-child policy as it will remain. When the policy was announced in 2015 a broad coalition of religious leaders described it as “fundamentally anti-family” owing to its likely impact on abortion rates and family stability. A couple might choose to split up to avoid the limit, the report warns, or two people may decide against coming together if they have more than two children between them. The policy has a particular impact on couples who have conscientious or religious objections to birth control or abortion or for whom larger families are a tenet of faith, with particularly severe implications for certain faith communities. The committee also heard that it may breach a litany of human rights commitments including the fundamental human right to a private family life. Meanwhile, the so-called “rape clause” – an exception that allows a third or subsequent child to receive benefits if their mother can “prove” that they were conceived non-consensually or under coercive control by their father – has been widely criticised. Apart from the process of “proving” the case for the exception, the rarity of exceptions to the policy means it is easy for anyone, including the child themselves, to work out the circumstances of their conception. At the same time, the “coercion” exception does not apply unless mother and children have managed to escape the abusive relationship: an extremely difficult and dangerous process. Two women still die every week in England and Wales at the hands of their current or former partner. | Kate Hughes | http://www.independent.co.uk/money/spend-save/two-child-cruel-universal-credit-u-turn-child-poverty-benefits-a8722201.html | 2019-01-10 23:23:00+00:00 | 1,547,180,580 | 1,567,553,080 | politics | government policy |
752,554 | theindependent--2019-03-22--China birth rate plummets again despite government relaxing one-child policy | 2019-03-22T00:00:00 | theindependent | China birth rate plummets again despite government relaxing one-child policy | China’s birth rate in several regions, including the capital Beijing, fell again in 2018, the official China Daily said on Friday, despite government efforts to encourage couples to have more children. Alarmed by the rapid ageing of its population, China relaxed its controversial “one-child policy” in 2016, allowing all couples to have two children instead of just one. The change has failed to reverse what demographers say is a long-term trend of falling birth rates fuelled by growing prosperity and concerns about the high cost of raising children. Beijing’s birth rate fell to 8.24 per 1,000 people in 2018 compared to 9.06 in the previous year, China Daily said, citing figures from local authorities. In the financial capital Shanghai, the birth rate dropped to 7.2 per 1,000, from 8.1 in 2017. Beijing’s total population fell for a second straight year in 2018, dropping 170,000 to 21.54 million people, though the decline could also be due to new policies aimed at shifting “non-capital functions” out of the city, China Daily said. The birth rate in Liaoning, a rustbelt province where the population has dropped in recent years due to an exodus of young people, fell to 6.39 per 1,000, from 6.49 in 2017. China recorded 15.23 million births last year, down two million from 2017 and the second consecutive annual decline, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Marriage rates are also falling throughout China, with the ratio of newly-registered marriages in the total population down to 0.72 per cent last year from 0.99 per cent in 2013, NBS data showed. China’s ageing problem was on the minds of delegates to the annual session of parliament this month, where some called for radical new measures to encourage new births. Think tanks expect China’s population to peak at 1.4 billion in 2029 and then begin an “unstoppable” decline that could reduce the workforce by as many as 200 million people by the middle of the century. By 2050, China’s dwindling number of workers will be under pressure to support more than 400 million people aged 60 or over, putting the country’s pension, health and social service provisions under immense strain, experts say. We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view. At The Independent, no one tells us what to write. That’s why, in an era of political lies and Brexit bias, more readers are turning to an independent source. Subscribe from just 15p a day for extra exclusives, events and ebooks – all with no ads. | David Stanway | https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-birth-rate-fall-one-child-policy-a8834706.html | 2019-03-22 10:30:36+00:00 | 1,553,265,036 | 1,567,545,209 | politics | government policy |
760,187 | theindependent--2019-05-20--Secret policy aposallowing government to sidestep its own rules on tortureapos to be reviewed ur | 2019-05-20T00:00:00 | theindependent | Secret policy 'allowing government to sidestep its own rules on torture' to be reviewed urgently | A secret policy allowing ministers to share intelligence with allies even if there is a risk of torture will be reviewed urgently, the defence secretary has promised. Under pressure in the Commons, Penny Mordaunt pledged to call in the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office watchdog to examine the Ministry of Defence document. “I have undertaken to review this policy,” Ms Mordaunt told MPs – some of whom urged her to go further by scrapping it immediately. The defence secretary insisted the armed forces were “upholding international humanitarian law”, but added: “I can understand the concerns that have been expressed about the policy.” She was dragged to the chamber after a Freedom of Information request revealed the document, dated November 2018, that allows ministers to bypass torture fears if the potential benefits from passing on information justified it. A leading QC and former chair of the Bar Human Rights Committee said it paved the way for ministers to break domestic and international legislation on the prohibition of torture. David Davis, the former cabinet minister and civil liberties campaigner, demanded the policy be scrapped because it “betrayed” British values. Urging Ms Mordaunt to publish a document “which appears to give ministers the right to overrule the law”, to aid torture, he warned: “There can never be a reason or justification for it”. Labour also condemned the revelations. Defence spokesperson Nia Griffith said: “This policy appears to contradict the position taken by successive governments that the UK opposes torture in all circumstances.” Ms Mordaunt also came under fire over a long-standing demand for a judicial inquiry into past British complicity in torture, following the Abdel Hakim Belhaj scandal. Andrew Mitchell, the former chief whip, pointed out the government had promised to respond within 60 days when the call was made last July – which was 323 days ago. The cabinet office‘s “consolidated guidance” on passing intelligence relating to detainees states the UK does “not participate in, solicit, encourage or condone the use of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment for any purpose”. But the internal MoD document, seen by The Times, states this can be overridden if “ministers agree that the potential benefits justify accepting the risk and the legal consequences that may follow”. The document also includes powers for ministers to “pre-approve” intelligence-sharing about named individuals whose whereabouts are unknown – even though that may be crucial in determining the risk of torture. Ms Mordaunt said: “The prime minister has asked the commissioner to review the government’s consolidated guidance and submit proposals for how it could be improved. “Once it has done so, and the government has had a chance to consider them – and I anticipate this will be a matter of weeks – the MoD will review its internal guidance and, as necessary in the light, of any updated guidance that is published.” | Rob Merrick | https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/uk-intelligence-sharing-torture-security-services-penny-mordaunt-secret-policy-mp-a8922336.html | 2019-05-20 15:04:00+00:00 | 1,558,379,040 | 1,567,540,409 | politics | government policy |
760,311 | theindependent--2019-05-21--Governmentaposs probation policy aposdriving up prison population and trapping offenders in cycl | 2019-05-21T00:00:00 | theindependent | Government's probation policy 'driving up prison population and trapping offenders in cycle of crime' | The government’s flagship probation policy is driving up the prison population and trapping people in an endless cycle of low-level offending, a report has suggested. As justice secretary, Chris Grayling said radical changes introduced in 2014 would “bring down stubbornly high reoffending rates”. Five years on, HM Inspectorate of Probation found there had been “no tangible reduction in reoffending” as freed prisoners commit further crimes costing the economy up to £10bn a year. The government is renationalising the supervision of offenders after private companies failed to properly monitor them. But the probation watchdog said the long called-for change would not be a “silver bullet” to stop prisoners committing more crime on release. It found that almost two-thirds of people freed from prison sentences of under one year reoffend, and the problem is being worsened by homelessness and difficulties accessing benefits. A report warned that the introduction of a year’s post-release supervision for all offenders, even those jailed for just weeks, was driving an “expensive merry-go-round” in and out of jail. Dame Glenys Stacey, the chief inspector of probation, said the changes had increased the prison population amid a crisis with record levels of violence, self-harm and rife drug abuse. “A good number of people are being recalled to prison because they miss appointments – we saw one individual recalled after three days,” she told The Independent. “Prisons are spending time and public resource receiving people and releasing them a short time later.” The government said it would keep one key aspect of Mr Grayling’s Transforming Rehabilitation policy, which extended post-release supervision to around 40,000 extra offenders a year. Officials hailed the change a “success” when announcing reforms last week, but Dame Glenys said the “one size fits all approach” was causing more people to be needlessly jailed for violating conditions. She called for a “more tailored approach” that takes into account people’s circumstances, addictions, family circumstances and mental health needs. “There needs to be a more holistic and system-wide approach for people with chaotic lifestyles and complex needs,” Dame Glenys said. “The standard supervision for some of these people is just not enough.” Analysis by the Prison Reform Trust found that since the reforms were introduced, the rate of people being recalled to prison had risen by 29 per cent for men and 166 per cent for women. Head of policy Mark Day said: “While the reforms appear to have had no discernible impact on reoffending, recall rates have rocketed, disrupting lives and placing unnecessary pressure on an already overcrowded and overstretched prison system. “The justice secretary has signalled his willingness to follow the evidence by bringing offender management back into the public sector. He should now follow the advice of his chief inspector by ending the unfair and disproportionate mandatory supervision of short-sentenced prisoners.” The Howard League for Penal Reform said the changes had “not made the public any safer”. Chief executive Frances Crook added: “It has trapped tens of thousands of people in the criminal justice system for even longer than necessary. This has blighted lives and put an intolerable strain on prisons, and it should be abandoned immediately.” Almost one in three people being released from prison are homeless, and 83 per cent of homeless ex-offenders monitored by inspectors committed more crime. Officials believe some are being jailed for stealing food. The inspectorate said that universal credit can only be claimed after people are released from prison, and with great difficulty if they do not have a permanent address, documentation and internet access. “The lack of accommodation and money make the first days following release particularly difficult,” Dame Glenys added. “Those leaving custody after a short sentence are very likely to need early help and are likely to return to prison promptly without it.” She called for the government to mount a strategy to tackle the lack of accommodation, barriers to claiming universal credit, and better access to mental health and substance misuse services, adding: “Those things can be looked at regardless of what the government does with the future model of probation.” The Ministry of Justice has announced a consultation on changes that will see offender supervision handed to the public National Probation Service in spring 2021. Under the new model, 11 probation regions across England and Wales will commission private companies to provide unpaid work, substance misuse programmes, training courses, community service and housing support. David Gauke has called for prison sentences of under six months to be scrapped in favour of community punishments, but Dame Glenys said the measure would be pointless if supervision and rehabilitation is not improved. Inspectors found prisoners were being poorly prepared for release in some areas, and the National Probation Service was failing to provide court reports on offenders’ health and circumstances. “It is plainly unacceptable for magistrates and judges to sentence a person to custody without the benefit of essential information and advice on why they offended, their current circumstances and any alternative sentence options,” Dame Glenys said. “A system-wide approach as well as much more purposeful probation supervision is needed. Without it, individuals are locked in an expensive merry-go-round of criminal justice processes and the public are left at undue risk.” Mr Gauke said: “I am determined to have a more effective probation system that commands the confidence of the courts, rehabilitates offenders and ultimately better protects the public. “That is why just last week we set out our future vision for probation – bringing all offender management under the National Probation Service and harnessing the skills of voluntary and private providers to boost rehabilitation. “I want to move away from often ineffective short prison sentences and towards robust community alternatives which turn offenders away from crime and ultimately reduce reoffending. We will now carefully consider the recommendations in this report as we develop our future plans.” | Lizzie Dearden | https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/probation-policy-prison-grayling-crime-cycle-offending-rehabilitation-a8922536.html | 2019-05-21 04:03:48+00:00 | 1,558,425,828 | 1,567,540,275 | politics | government policy |
763,737 | theindependent--2019-06-26--Women forced to consider abortions due to government policy that apostraps children in povertyapo | 2019-06-26T00:00:00 | theindependent | Women forced to consider abortions due to government policy that 'traps children in poverty', says report | Mothers have been forced to consider having abortions so they can feed their families because of a government policy which cuts some child benefits for households with more than two children, a new report has claimed. The two-child limit, which prohibits families from receiving tax credit and universal credit for a third or subsequent child, is “trapping children in poverty” to the point where they cannot eat healthy food or attend sports clubs, according to the research from the Child Poverty Action group (CPAG) and the Church of England. Based on a survey of more than 430 families affected by this policy, as well as additional evidence from charities, the report found that in some cases, women who had had unplanned pregnancies – often because contraception had failed – had felt obliged to consider a termination. Campaigners described the policy as "cruel", saying it "sent a message that one child matters more than another simply because of the order in which they are born". The two-child limit was part of a package of changes to benefits announced in 2015, aimed at reducing spending on working-age families. From April 2017, low-income families having a third or subsequent child lost their entitlement to additional support through child tax credit and universal credit, worth £2,780 per child per year. An estimated 160,000 families have been affected by the policy to date, while 300,000 children will be pushed into poverty by 2023/24, according to the findings, which also suggested that 1 million children will be pushed even deeper into poverty in the next five years. The report states that by 2024, more than half of children in families with three or more children are expected to be in poverty. Alison Garnham, chief executive of CPAG, called on the government to lift the two-child limit, saying: “We wouldn’t turn away a sick child from our hospitals or stop them going to school and yet the two-child limit denies families the support they need from our social security system when they experience tough times, trapping kids in poverty.” The Rt Revd Paul Butler, Bishop of Durham, said the policy was “going against this fundamental principle and pushing many families and children into poverty”. He added: “It is simply not right that some children get support and others don’t. The two-child limit must be lifted as part of a concerted effort to reverse the rise in child poverty." Almost all parents who took part in the survey said they had had to cut back on essentials (95 per cent). One said they hadn’t been able to afford inhalers that week because they were more concerned about their children having food, and that they were "praying" they could make the inhalers last before they ran out. One mother, named only as Lisa, whose husband works full time, said she couldn't buy the healthy food that she would like to buy for her children, adding: "I would have liked to get them fruit. I can’t remember the last time I made a fresh dinner, it’s all stuff I’ve got in my freezer.” Another mother, whose partner had become ill and unable to work due to disability, meaning she stayed at home caring for him and their four children, said she and her husband were "not eating at all during the day to feed the children". Margaret Greenwood, Labour's shadow work and pensions secretary, said: "The government must listen to the damning evidence in this report. It brings home the impact of this cruel policy on families forced to cut back on essentials and pushed into poverty as a result. "The two-child limit means children missing out not just on toys or school trips, but meals and new clothes when they need them. It sends a message that one child matters more than another simply because of the order in which they are born." Interviews conducted as part of the research also suggested the two-child limit risked making it harder for women experiencing domestic abuse to leave their abuser and increase the hardship they and their children face if they do manage to leave. Under the policy, if a woman conceived a child due to rape there is a requirement for disclosure of non-consensual conception to get an exception, which the report said could make it more difficult to leave an abusive relationship and put mothers at increased risk of violence. The research also states that refugees affected by the two-child limit are likely to have arrived in the UK with next to nothing, and that the two-child limit hinders their ability to rebuild their lives after traumatic experiences. The financial effects of the two-child limit not only undermine refugee parents’ ability to provide material basics for their children but also reduce refugee children’s access to school activities that could help them to integrate and build social connections with their peers, it said. One refugee couple have had to stop swimming lessons for their eldest child, though she loves them, in order to cover essentials for the baby. Another refugee couple said: “We just try to pay the bills and buy food because that’s all we can afford, that’s what we have to prioritise.” A government spokesperson said: “This policy helps to ensure fairness by asking parents receiving benefits to face the same financial choices as those in work. Safeguards are in place and we’ve made changes this year to make the policy fairer. "Tackling poverty remains a priority - we’re spending £95bn a year on welfare and providing free school meals to more than a million children. We’re supporting families to improve their lives through employment and latest figures show there are 667,000 fewer children living in workless households since 2010.” | May Bulman | https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/abortion-women-two-child-limit-poverty-children-report-a8974241.html | 2019-06-26 05:04:00+00:00 | 1,561,539,840 | 1,567,538,004 | politics | government policy |
767,293 | theindependent--2019-07-29--Brexit MPs aposalarmedapos at governmentaposs failure to set out aposbasic policyapos ove | 2019-07-29T00:00:00 | theindependent | Brexit: MPs 'alarmed' at government's failure to set out 'basic policy' over future investment agreements | A committee of MPs has voiced “alarm” at the government’s failure to develop a policy on post-Brexit international investment agreements, with the UK fewer than 100 days away from a possible no-deal departure from the European Union. A critical report condemned the Department for International Trade’s “inability to set out even basic lines of policy” on the agreements, which will be vital to the UK economy after EU withdrawal. And the cross-party House of Commons International Trade Committee questioned government claims that foreign direct investment (FDI) in the UK had remained strong following the 2016 referendum vote to leave the EU, warning there was a danger that ministers were painting an excessively positive picture by “cherry-picking” figures. Their 70-page report cited experts who said the Department for International Trade relied on “very suspect” private sector estimates of jobs created by FDI. And even the former investment minister Edward Garnier told the committee he initially thought it was “mad” to follow an international norm which measures FDI in terms of the number of projects attracting investment, regardless of their value. Appearing before the committee in March, the then international trade secretary, Liam Fox, replaced by Liz Truss in Boris Johnson’s reshuffle last week, said the UK’s FDI performance had been “very strong because we have strong economic fundamentals”. But the report pointed to figures from the Office for National Statistics suggesting that the number of jobs created and safeguarded by FDI has fallen in each year since 2015-16. And the report quoted FDI experts who said there had been a “sudden and very notable decline” in foreign investment in new “greenfield” projects in the UK following the Brexit vote, with one putting the fall in the number of such projects at 25 per cent between 2015 and 2018, with a 50 per cent decline in associated manufacturing jobs. Meanwhile, greenfield investment in the Netherlands, France, Germany, Switzerland and Ireland had “boomed” as companies moved operations due to Brexit. Much of the FDI activity which contributed to the UK’s apparently strong performance involved mergers and acquisitions of existing companies by foreign buyers – such as the Kraft takeover of Cadbury – found the report. “The government regularly cites statistics on FDI from various sources,” said the committee. “In doing so, it needs to be careful not to risk giving the impression of cherry-picking figures so as to convey the most favourable impression possible.” The cross-party committee said it was “disappointed” by the information provided to its inquiry on international investment agreements, with neither ministers nor officials “able to set out even basic lines of policy”. Ministers’ claims that the UK is barred from developing a policy until after Brexit did not appear to have “any credible legal basis”, the committee found. The report warned: “The government needs to have a policy in place for the eventuality of a Brexit scenario in which there is no transition period, which could occur on 31 October. “We are alarmed that no such policy seems yet to have been formulated.” Committee chair Angus MacNeil said: “Despite describing the value of investment to the UK as ‘phenomenal’, the minister for investment could tell us surprisingly little about the government’s approach to international investment agreements after Brexit. “This is urgent, given that we could leave the EU without a deal in a matter of months, and if that happens the UK will take back responsibility for negotiating such agreements.” A Department for International Trade spokesperson said: “The UK is an incredibly attractive destination for foreign direct investment, as shown by a range of analysis by independent experts. “As the prime minister has said, we are ready for no deal. We are building on the 90 bilateral investment agreements we have already secured with countries across the world.” | Andrew Woodcock | https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-trade-foreign-investment-boris-johnson-eu-committee-no-deal-a9025386.html | 2019-07-29 18:21:16+00:00 | 1,564,438,876 | 1,567,535,437 | politics | government policy |
767,770 | theindependent--2019-08-01--Justice secretaryaposs call for rape suspect anonymity aposnot government policyapos Downing | 2019-08-01T00:00:00 | theindependent | Justice secretary's call for rape suspect anonymity 'not government policy', Downing Street says amid outrage | The new justice secretary has been heavily criticised after suggesting that suspected criminals of “good character” should be granted anonymity before charge. Robert Buckland QC said there was “merit” in extending a controversial campaign launched by Sir Cliff Richard to ban naming people arrested over alleged sex offences and other serious crimes. “Let’s say you are a reputable local businessperson who is accused of fraud – your good name is going to be really undermined by this mere accusation,” he told The Times. “You are a person of good character. That might be a meritorious case for anonymity. “Let’s say you are a person with a list of previous convictions. You’ve committed offences. There is intelligence out there that suggests that other victims might come forward. Is that a case where anonymity should be automatic?” Downing Street said the suggestions were “not government policy” and The Independent understands no steps are being taken towards a change in police guidance governing how suspects are named. Some MPs and victims’ groups reacted to Mr Buckland’s comments with outrage, following statistics showing that the proportion of reported rapes prosecuted in England and Wales has fallen to just 1.5 per cent. Labour MP Stella Creasy said anonymising suspected sex abusers would amount to “basing actual law-making on the belief women lie”. Writing on Twitter, Mr Buckland replied that he agreed “that particular crimes should not be singled out, particularly sexual allegations” and had opposed a 2010 government proposal to grant legal anonymity to alleged rapists who are not convicted. The victims commissioner for England and Wales, Dame Vera Baird, said there can be a public interest in naming arrested suspects for information appeals or to encourage other complainants to come forward. “The current guidance, which I think is right, says that nobody should have their name made public until they are charged with an offence, whatever the crime,” she told The Independent. “It is when the police depart from this that problems arise.” Dame Vera said research suggested that four out of five victims of sexual assault do not report their crime and the number of prosecutions had “dropped off a cliff”, adding: “We must not lose sight of this in the debate about defendant anonymity.” The Society of Editors expressed “deep concerns”, adding: “We cannot have a state of affairs in this country where the rich and powerful are given more protection than the rest of society. “What would exist is a state of affairs where the actions of the police when investigating and arresting citizens cannot be reported on by the media.” The controversy came just two days after Mr Buckland, a former criminal barrister and solicitor general, was sworn in as the new justice secretary and Lord Chancellor. A Private Member’s Bill aiming to ban naming of suspects accused of any crime before charge passed its second reading in the House of Lords in March. But it does not have government support. The proposals would make publishing the identity of an arrested person a criminal offence punishable by up to six months in prison in England and Wales, unless a crown court judge allowed restrictions to be lifted. Liberal Democrat peer Brian Paddick, who moved the bill, said on Thursday: “It’s within the power of government to get this through.” Last month, Sir Cliff and Paul Gambaccini launched a campaign to ban naming suspected offenders unless they are prosecuted to “protect the reputations of all innocent suspects”. Sir Cliff won a privacy case against the BBC over its coverage of a 2014 police raid on his home, following a child sex assault allegation that he denied and was never arrested. Mr Gambaccini, a radio DJ, was arrested in October 2013 as part of an operation set up in the wake of the revelations about paedophile Jimmy Savile but not charged. Their petition, backed by a group called Falsely Accused Individuals for Reform (Fair), has garnered almost 27,500 signatures but a government response said false accusations were not widespread and can be prosecuted. “The government believes that there should, in general, be a right to anonymity before charge in respect of all offences, but that there will be exceptional circumstances where there are legitimate policing reasons for naming a suspect,” said a Home Office statement. “The naming of an arrested person before they are charged must be authorised by a chief officer who must also ensure that the Crown Prosecution Service is consulted. “This approach recognises that there is a risk of unfair damage to the reputation of those persons, particularly if they are never charged. It strikes a balance between the rights of suspects to privacy and the need to prevent and investigate crime.” Police guidance states that people investigated for a crime must not be named until charge, unless there is a “legitimate policing purpose to do so”. But the College of Policing said it cannot “prevent the media relying on information from sources outside the police in order to confirm identities”. The Home Office said that anyone who feels they have been wrongly named “can either make a complaint to the publishers’ self-regulator or take action through the courts”. | Lizzie Dearden | https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/rape-suspect-anonymity-justice-secretary-robert-buckland-a9034881.html | 2019-08-01 17:17:00+00:00 | 1,564,694,220 | 1,567,535,115 | politics | government policy |
772,762 | theindependent--2019-10-07--Home Office adviser quits drugs panel over 'political vetting' of applicants critical of g | 2019-10-07T00:00:00 | theindependent | Home Office adviser quits drugs panel over 'political vetting' of applicants critical of government policy | A drug policy expert on the government’s advisory panel has resigned, warning the Home Office’s “political vetting” of applicants is undermining the body’s independence. Professor Alex Stevens cited recent instances where a minister blocked suitable applicants from the Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), after they criticised government drug policy on social media. It followed the revelation in June, that Niamh Eastwood, executive director of drug charity Release, had her ACMD application denied by a minister because of her social media activity. An interview panel had earlier found that she “impressive experience”. Ms Eastwood, a leading legal expert on drug policy, had previously accused the Home Office of “just making s*** up”. She tweeted that a letter from crime minister Victoria Atkins rejecting the ACMD’s call for safer drug consumption rooms despite a climate of rising drug-related deaths was “utter BS” When her application to the ACMD was denied, Ms Eastwood submitted a subject access request, which revealed the government had vetted not only these and other comments on drug policy, but on Brexit, the Windrush scandal and “race-related” issues. Mr Stevens said two other people, who wished two remain anonymous, had been similarly vetted and blocked from sitting on the panel. After questioning the government about this process to no avail, Mr Stevens said in a statement over the weekend that ministers had not provided any assurance this would not happen again. “The statutory duty of the ACMD is to provide the best possible advice to ministers on how to reduce drug-related harms,” Mr Stevens told The Independent. “If suitably qualified experts are excluded from membership on the basis of stated disagreements with government policy, this will erode the quality of advice that the ACMD can give. “It also fundamentally undermines the independence of the ACMD. The longer this approach to vetting is left in place, the less independent the ACMD will be.” Mr Stevens also criticised the government’s failure to act upon the panel’s recommendations. In 2016, the ACMD advised the government on how to reduce opioid-related deaths in the UK. “The most important recommendation was to maintain investment in opioid substitution therapy (OST), like methadone, which has been proven to save lives,” Mr Stevens said. Despite ministers claiming to accept the recommendations in 2017, save for the advice to introduce drug consumption rooms, funding for drug treatment services, including OST, has since been cut across the UK, Mr Stevens said. A lack of local government funding for drug treatment, combined with a policy-driven emphasis on abstinence rather than harm reduction, has frequently been cited as a likely reason for the increasing number of drug-related deaths. Ms Eastwood is among those calling for the government to prioritise evidence-led policies. Responding to Mr Stevens’ decision to resign from the ACMD, she told The Independent : “Whilst I disagree on the government’s current approach to drug policy – especially in light of the record level of drug related deaths – that should not bar me from appointment. “Rather a range of views makes for better, and more informed, advice and decision making. Professor Stevens’ resignation in light of the minister’s decision to block my appointment to the ACMD and general concerns around the politicised nature of the appointment process is well founded. “The fact that the government are undertaking checks on a person’s social media account in relation to Brexit and Windrush, which have nothing to do with the work of the ACMD, is frankly Orwellian.” Ms Eastwood said she stands by her description of Ms Atkins’ letter as “utter BS”. “We’ve seen over the years the government ignore the evidence of the ACMD, which frankly is frustrating to all of us, not least because of drug related deaths and the continued decision to block drug consumption rooms, which could really save lives," she said. “If you think about the rates of drug-related deaths in this country, the highest since records began for the seventh year in a row. At some point you get frustrated at the lack of leadership from the Home Office on this issue.” In 2009, the government’s chief drugs adviser Professor David Nutt was sacked by home secretary Alan Johnson after he criticised policy, saying ecstasy and LSD were less harmful than alcohol and cigarettes. Five other members of the panel resigned in the wake of the row. The sacking forced ministers to reaffirm publicly their commitment to the independence of advisers and a working protocol was put in place to protect the body from governmental interference. Mr Stevens' statement said the renewed commitment to the ACMD's independence following the debacle was a key factor in his decision to apply to the panel in 2014. Responding to Mr Stevens' departure, Prof Nutt said: "The news that a leading expert on drug policy has resigned because the Home Office rejected another well-qualified expert for political reasons shows they have learnt nothing in the decade since my sacking. Surely it's now time to put the responsibility for drug policy in the Department of Health who at least understand the meaning of evidence." A government spokesperson: “Ministers are responsible for appointing members to the boards of public bodies and do so in line with the Governance Code for Public Appointments. The names of candidates are submitted to Ministers following assessment by an independent Advisory Assessment Panel. It is then for Ministers to determine merit and make the final appointment. “It is important that candidates who are considered for these roles undergo appropriate checks to ensure they are suitable to hold these vital public positions”. | Andy Gregory | https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/home-office-drugs-policy-adviser-quits-alex-stevens-acmd-a9146621.html | Mon, 07 Oct 2019 17:18:52 GMT | 1,570,483,132 | 1,570,492,050 | politics | government policy |
779,462 | theindependent--2019-12-13--What a Boris Johnson government means for foreign policy and defence | 2019-12-13T00:00:00 | theindependent | What a Boris Johnson government means for foreign policy and defence | Jeremy Corbyn was closer than Boris Johnson to Donald Trump on some foreign and defence issues. Both the US president and the Labour leader were opposed to wars of intervention by the west, both dislike Nato and the EU, and both find it difficult to criticise Russia. There were, of course, many other fields in which the two men differed – from Palestinian rights, to trade deals between the two countries, to relations with states like Venezuela and Iran. All that is now immaterial and the question is how Boris Johnson’s premiership will handle diplomatic and defence issues: whether it will follow Trump poodle-like or have an independent stance on important international matters. The post-Brexit trade deal is an imperative for a Johnson government and Trump has repeatedly said that an agreement would be done swiftly. Congratulating Mr Johnson after the election results he declared that the UK and US would now be free to strike a “massive” new deal soon. But it will not be simple. There is the emotive and contentious issue of whether US firms will have access to the NHS. Trump maintained on his visit to the UK for the Nato leaders conference this month that the US would not want this “even if it was handed on a silver platter”. But this was to help out Mr Johnson in the campaign. The US president has made contradictory statements on this. The administration’s own negotiating objectives, a public document, demands that “state-owned enterprises” should “accord non-discriminatory treatment with respect to the purchase and sale of goods and services.” It also calls for “full market access for US products” and for “government regulatory reimbursement regimes” for pharmaceuticals and medical devices. The assertion in the summer by the US ambassador to Britain, Woody Johnson, a friend of Trump, that every aspect of the economy would be open to negotiations should not be discounted. The US bargains as hard as any country which has carried out trade negotiations with it knows. In any event, offering favourable terms for Mr Johnson may not be a gift for Trump to give. No one realistically expects an agreement this side of the US elections and Democrat controlled Congressional Committees will have a major say on any deal. There have been repeated warnings from senior Democrats, including House speaker Nancy Pelosi, that Congress will block any deal which threatens the Northern Ireland peace process. We have yet to see whether Brexit leads to a resurgence of violence in the province. Such is the worry in the US about Trump and Nato that the Senate foreign relations committee has voted unanimously on a bipartisan bill for a vote which would stop him from withdrawing from the Alliance. Last week John Bolton, the president’s recently departed national security advisor, warned in a speech at a private corporate event that Trump could go “ full isolationist” if re-elected next year. Both the Theresa May and Mr Johnson’s governments have stressed the UK’s commitment to Nato, and there is no indication that there is any doubt about this from other member states. Emmanuel Macron caused controversy last month by describing the Alliance as “brain dead”, partly because of the failure to address the repeated threats by Trump. One of the solutions the French president envisaged was for three member states to take the lead in trying to solve the problem: France, Germany and the UK – a stance which has peeved other members like Italy and Spain. Mr Johnson, when it comes to the EU, is reported to have wanted to change the defence and security pledges in the Brexit deal. The political declaration between the UK and EU contains a commitment to “close cooperation in union-led crisis management missions and operations, both civilian and military.” London, it is believed, later demanded that it must have sovereign control over how its defence assets are used. The Tory right has long complained about EU defence initiatives, claiming it weakens Nato, and is part of a conspiracy to create an European super state. Downing Street’s aim, however, is seen as using defence and security as leverage in the negotiations on various deals which will have to be hammered out in the future. Theresa May had tried something similar. After triggering Article 50 a letter sent on behest of her two chiefs of staff, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, warned that the UK leaving without a deal would mean “in security terms a failure to reach agreement would mean our cooperation in the fight against crime and terrorism and would be weakened.” Britain’s security and intelligence agencies have been, and remain, gravely concerned at the idea of using the issue of security as a bargaining chip. Mrs May had to retreat, reassuring that the UK’s role in common defence remained unconditional. Domestically, both Labour and the Conservatives had promised a new Strategic Defence and Security Review. There is a broad consensus for the need a for more joined up, comprehensive policy with rising new threats such as cyber-warfare, international terrorism and use of propaganda and fake news in targeting national institutions being faced. There would also be the need to work out how the government tallies the vision of ‘Global Britain’ with limited defence spending and the economy likely to shrink after Brexit in varying degrees, depending on terms of parting with ‘no-deal’ having the most damaging effect. One of the arguments made for leaving the EU was that it would restore Britain’s influence in the world. The Johnson government’s policy, however, will be subject to commercial constraints. Criticism of human rights abuses by regimes would be tempered with the pressing need for trade. Mr Johnson himself would only be too aware of this. Three years ago, as foreign secretary, he accused Saudi Arabia of abusing Islam and acting as puppeteer in proxy wars. No 10 were quick to slap him down saying these “were not the government’s views” which considers the Kingdom to be a “vital partner for the UK”. Mr Johnson, said Mrs May’s spokesperson, would be sticking to the government line at a scheduled meeting with Saudi ministers. Economic need has made the British government resist American pressure. The most high-profile example of this is Washington’s demand that the Chinese multinational, Huawei, is kept out of the UK’s 5G network. The British government has postponed making a decision on this, but there is a stated policy of enlarging trade with China and a desire not to antagonise Beijing. The so-called ‘golden era’ in relations was initiated by David Cameron’s government; it continued under Theresa May and then Mr Johnson. The UK is one of the very few Western countries involved in China’s highly controversial ‘belt and road’ scheme which has been widely accused of being a vehicle for expanding Chinese hegemony. There are none such obvious financial factors in differences between the US and UK in dealing with another state, Iran. The Trump administration has been demanding that the UK joins it in pulling out of the deal between international powers and Iran over its nuclear programme, and join in imposing punitive sanctions on Tehran. Britain has, so far, resisted this and is indeed, along with France and Germany, engaged in establishing the Instex scheme, which enables companies to trade with Iran avoiding American sanctions. The Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden have defied the US to join Instex. Whether Britain sticks to its policies or caves in to Washington will be a barometer of the Johnson government’s relationship with the Trump administration. The need for trade has also had an effect on an issue which helped the Tories at the election, immigration. While Mr Johnson and his ministers talked tough about keeping people out, visa regimes are being relaxed for countries, the government is keen to do business with like South Korea and India. One example of this is that there has been a 63 per cent increase in the number of visas issued in India for study in the UK in just one year. | Kim Sengupta | https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-general-election-result-government-foreign-policy-defence-a9246116.html | Fri, 13 Dec 2019 16:06:00 GMT | 1,576,271,160 | 1,576,284,283 | politics | government policy |
781,729 | theintercept--2019-02-07--House Republicans Warn That Bill Combating Big Money in Politics Resembles Russian Government Polic | 2019-02-07T00:00:00 | theintercept | House Republicans Warn That Bill Combating Big Money in Politics “Resembles Russian Government Policy” | House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform denounced a major new initiative by Democrats to clean up elections and expand voter participation as a power grab that will corrupt the political process and infringe on the rights of free speech and association. In nearly apocalyptic terms on Wednesday, Republican committee members took turns laying out the dire consequences of H.R. 1, decrying the consequences of a federal holiday on Election Day, matching public funds for congressional candidates, increasing transparency in campaign finance, and making it easier to register to vote. More stringent disclosure requirements for political spending would encourage partisan monitoring and even doxxing, Republicans argued, citing the Obama-era scandal where the Internal Revenue Service was accused by conservatives of targeting conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status. During the Wednesday hearing, several minority members described the bill — an attempt to implement sweeping reforms to the way we finance elections and oversee the executive branch — as “chilling.” Ranking Member Jim Jordan said the bill was designed to benefit the majority by “tilting the playing field in their favor.” Jordan denounced the bill for requiring states to offer early voting, no-excuse absentee voting, same day voter registration, automatic voter registration, paid leave for federal workers to be poll workers, to allow released felons to vote, to make Election Day a federal holiday, and to have taxpayer contributions finance campaigns. “So lets take a whack at a little summary here, professor,” Jordan said during his questioning of Bradley Smith, chair of the Institute for Free Speech and former chair of the Federal Election Commission, who testified at the invitation of the minority. “H.R. 1 requires taxpayers to pay for a holiday on Election Day for government workers. H.R. 1 requires taxpayers to pay for six days of paid leave for government workers who want to be poll workers. H.R. 1 requires taxpayers to pay for politicians’ campaigns. And if those same taxpayers give to some organization, some (c)(4), they can be outed under H.R. 1 so that the left can — or anyone — could harass them or their family.” “Yes,” Smith said. “Such a deal for the taxpayer, right?” The bill, sponsored by Maryland Rep. John Sarbanes, is the first serious attempt in decades to revamp the model for public financing of presidential campaigns and establish a national program to publicly finance congressional campaigns. It also expands rights and protections for voters; bans senior federal officials from getting private sector perks after they leave office; prohibits senior federal employees from working on issues in which they have financial interests; and strengthens the call for Trump to divest his business holdings and place them in an independent, blind trust. Trump is the only president who hasn’t done so. Georgia Rep. Jody Hice said in opening remarks that he was “extremely alarmed” by the bill and that while its provision for automatic voter registration “may sound good on the surface,” it would “open the floodgates for fraudulent voting by illegal individuals in this country.” “It’s virtually 600 pages. Almost every page has issues of great concern,” he said. In just under three minutes, the congressperson referenced “illegals” or being in the country “illegally” nine times. equips the Office of Government Ethics with subpoena power and the authority to impose disciplinary action on agencies and employees within the executive branch — “needed teeth,” as the office’s former director Walter Shaub said in written testimony to the committee. But Jordan and his Republican colleague Rep. Mark Meadows argued that taxpayers shouldn’t have to finance elections, let alone contribute to the campaigns of candidates whom they oppose. Meadows pointed to the fact that his own campaign was largely funded by small individual donors, and that under the measure, he’d get $3.8 million for re-election. Louisiana Rep. Clay Higgins conceded that the bill might have some worthwhile measures, but said he wanted to see it broken down into smaller components that would suit individual state needs. He also said the bill “resembles Russian government policy.” Bipartisan legislation to strengthen democratic institutions in ways similar to those outlined in H.R. 1 have already passed at the local and state levels, Karen Hobert Flynn testified. She’s the president of Common Cause, a nonpartisan organization focused on reducing the role of big money in politics. In written testimony to the committee, Flynn cited “more than 20 red, blue and purple states and localities [that have] passed pro-voter democracy reforms, with strong support from Republican, Independent, and Democratic voters.” Smith said his primary concern with the bill was its infringement on first amendment protections of free speech — wherein political spending is a form of speech. He said the bill would expand the universe of what Congress could regulate as political spending or speech, including ads. And he argued that in public financing there “tend to be avenues for corruption in many ways.” But in all the concerns raised about voter fraud and abridging freedom of speech by reining in the influence of large donors, the minority never addressed the specter of partisan gerrymandering that’s historically benefited their party, Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley pointed out. The ACLU filed suit last year to challenge gerrymandering in Ohio, citing Jordan’s 4th District as one of seven that were drawn with “borders that defy explanation by any political boundary or geographical feature.” H.R. 1 would put an independent commission in charge of redistricting duties, taking that responsibility away from state legislatures. “That is really convenient, and rich, and hypocritical,” Pressley said. “H.R. 1 has been described as a wishlist by the Democrats,” she continued. “Well, you got us there. A wishlist for an inclusive, expanded democracy and electorate. “Characterizations of H.R. 1 as a power grab — you got us again,” Pressley said, referencing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s comments on the push to make Election Day a federal holiday. “Guilty,” she said. “We wouldn’t have to grab back the power for the people if through policy you weren’t complicit in, or perpetuating, the disenfranchisement and marginalization of the people. And disproportionately, people of color. And disproportionately, black people.” Meadows had a heated exchange with Shaub, the former head of the OGE, in which he suggested the latter’s support for an investigative mandate for OGE was politically motivated against President Donald Trump. Meadows cited Shaub’s testimony to an oversight subcommittee in December 2015 in which he said he thought the OGE didn’t need an investigative mandate, expressing shock at Shaub’s change of heart “all of a sudden.” “No, it’s not all of a sudden at all,” Shaub said. “It’s after watching, for two years, somebody prove to me that the executive branch ethics program is much weaker and much more fragile than I ever thought it was. Frankly, I was naive.” “I never imagined,” Shaub went on, “a president would come in and refuse to eliminate his conflicts of interest, have appointees who are completely disinterested in government ethics, and have — with all respect — a Congress refuse to exercise oversight over them in that respect.” | Akela Lacy | https://theintercept.com/2019/02/07/house-republicans-warn-that-bill-combatting-big-money-in-politics-resembles-russian-government-policy/ | 2019-02-07 19:06:50+00:00 | 1,549,584,410 | 1,567,549,370 | politics | government policy |
804,556 | themanchestereveningnews--2019-09-07--Work and Pensions secretary Amber Rudd resigns from Boris Johnsons government in protest at Brexit | 2019-09-07T00:00:00 | themanchestereveningnews | Work and Pensions secretary Amber Rudd resigns from Boris Johnson's government in protest at Brexit policy and expulsion of rebel Conservative MPs | Senior cabinet minister Amber Rudd has sensationally quit Boris Johnson's government and the Conservative Party in protest at his handling of Brexit. The Hastings and Rye MP has walked away from her post as work and pensions secretary and said she was relinquishing the Tory whip after the Prime Minister sacked 21 rebels this week. Mr Johnson removed the whip from two former chancellors and Winston Churchill's grandson after they voted to give Opposition MPs control of the order paper and start the process of blocking a no-deal Brexit. Ms Rudd declared in a letter to the Prime Minister: "I cannot stand by as good, loyal moderate Conservatives are expelled. "I have spoken to the PM and my Association Chairman to explain. I remain committed to the One Nation values that drew me into politics." She added: "I have resigned from Cabinet and surrendered the Conservative Whip." David Gauke, the former secretary of state for justice and lord chancellor tweeted: "I'm sure this has not been an easy decision. But it is brave and principled and is all about putting the national interest first." Former minister Damian Green tweeted: "This is desperately sad." Keir Starmer, Labour MP and Shadow Secretary of State for Brexit, added: "Johnson government falling apart. He’s being totally found out..." Rudd's resignation will ramp up pressure on Mr Johnson to allow Tory rebels back into the party. It comes after a former Director of Public Prosecutions suggested today the Prime Minister could be jailed if he refuses to delay Brexit. Boris Johnson indicated he would rather "die in a ditch" than go to Europe and ask for the extension, despite MPs having voted through a law forcing him to delay a no-deal Brexit. The bill is expected to receive royal assent on Monday, thereby completing all stages required to become law. According to Sky News, the former Director of Public Prosecutions Lord McDonald has said it is 'likely' Johnson will face court action if he refuses to comply with the newly-passed law. "I've been talking to former Director of Public Prosecutions, Lord MacDonald, now a cross-bench peer and he said it is likely that this court action could lead to some sort of order from a judge, from a court, forcing Boris Johnson to comply with the law and, if Boris Johnson continues to refuse to comply with that, he could be held in contempt of court," Rob Powell, reporter for Sky News, told the channel. "Contempt of court by convention carries a prison sentence, which could mean that the prime minister could go to jail. Now I asked him if this was an extreme outcome and he said 'No, it's not an extreme outcome, it is by convention that if you are found guilty of contempt of court, of defying a court order, then you are jailed.'" Leader of the opposition Jeremy Corbyn said Mr Johnson believes he is "above the law". | [email protected] (Steve Robson) | https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/amber-rudd-resigns-boris-johnsons-16882871 | 2019-09-07 20:42:53+00:00 | 1,567,903,373 | 1,569,330,914 | politics | government policy |
820,290 | thepoke--2019-01-31--This MPs powerful speech nailed this problem with the governments immigration policy | 2019-01-31T00:00:00 | thepoke | This MP’s powerful speech nailed this problem with the government’s immigration policy | As part of the UK immigration strategy after Brexit, the government proposes to control the intake of unskilled workers by setting a minimum earnings requirement of £30k. During Monday’s debate on the immigration bill in the House of Commons, Labour MP Jess Phillips made a powerful speech about why that policy would be a mistake. “I thought I had met posh people before I came here, but I had actually just met people who eat olives.” “I have met many people who earn way more than £30,000 and have literally no discernible skills, not even one.” To prove her point, a nurse spoke up. | Oonagh Keating | https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2019/01/31/this-mps-powerful-speech-nailed-problem-with-the-governments-immigration-policy/ | 2019-01-31 07:50:14+00:00 | 1,548,939,014 | 1,567,550,100 | politics | government policy |
1,001,095 | thetelegraph--2019-03-12--Italian children without vaccination certificates turned away from schools after government changes | 2019-03-12T00:00:00 | thetelegraph | Italian children without vaccination certificates turned away from schools after government changes policy | Italian children lacking proof that they have been vaccinated were turned away from nurseries on Tuesday after the country’s populist coalition reversed its previously sceptical stance on the need for compulsory jabs. The two parties that make up Italy’s government – The League and the Five Star Movement – had criticised the policy of compulsory vaccinations, both before and after they came to power last summer. But in a reversal of policy, the coalition fell into line with mainstream medical opinion and insisted that as of this week, children attending school must receive immunisations for a range of infectious diseases, including measles, mumps, rubella and polio. Under the law, children over six cannot be banned from school but their parents will be fined up to €500 (£425). Children under six can be barred from attending nursery schools and kindergartens if their parents fail to present written evidence that they have had the required vaccinations. "No vaccine, no school", said Giulia Grillo, the health minister. Some children were denied entry to schools on Tuesday but the numbers appeared to be modest. Different cities and regions applied the law with varying degrees of vigour. In Bologna, 300 children were suspended from school, according to Italian media reports, while 37 were turned away in the northern Veneto region. | Nick Squires | https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/03/12/italian-children-without-vaccination-certificates-turned-away/ | 2019-03-12 17:17:20+00:00 | 1,552,425,440 | 1,567,546,571 | politics | government policy |
971 | abcnews--2019-01-10--Pompeo defends US withdrawal from Syria during foreign policy address in Egypt | 2019-01-10T00:00:00 | abcnews | Pompeo defends US withdrawal from Syria, during foreign policy address in Egypt | Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended the U.S. withdrawal from Syria and issued a strong rebuke of the Obama administration's Middle East strategy, during a major foreign policy address in Egypt on Thursday. While the secretary challenged Middle Eastern countries to take on new responsibilities in the fight against extremism, he failed to call out human rights abuses in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia and did not mention the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. During his speech at the American University in Cairo, Pompeo declared that "American will not retreat until the terror fight is over," but acknowledged that President Donald Trump "has made the decision to bring our troops home from Syria." "We always do and now is the time. But this isn’t a change of mission," he said. "We remain committed to the complete dismantling of the ISIS threat and the ongoing fight against radical Islamism in all of its forms." Pompeo's address came one day after his surprise visit to Iraq and in the midst of a whirlwind tour of the Middle East in which he is reassuring partners of America's presence in the region following Trump's decision three weeks ago to withdrawal 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria. What was originally a 30-day timeline for withdrawal gradually grew to several months, but now Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton are stating that any withdrawal is "conditions-based," including the enduring defeat of ISIS, protection for America's Kurdish partners, and the assurance that Iran will not increase its influence in the region. Speaking to reporters before his speech on Thursday, Pompeo said that any contradiction in the administration’s Syria policy has been “made up” by the media. The secretary began his address in Cairo by blasting the Obama administration for "falsely seeing ourselves as a force for what ails the Middle East." "So today what did we learn from all of this? We learned that when America retreats, chaos follows. When we neglect our friends, resentment builds. And when we partner with our enemies, they advance," he said. "The good news is this: The age of self-inflicted American shame is over, and so are the policies that produced so much needless suffering. Now comes the real 'new beginning.'" In a statement, the National Security Action Group – an advocacy organization made up of former Obama administration officials – responded to Pompeo's criticism, writing: “That this administration feels the need, nearly a decade later, to take potshots at an effort to identify common ground between the Arab world and the West speaks not only to the Trump administration’s pettiness but also to its lack of a strategic vision for America’s role in the region and its abdication of America’s values." Pompeo also praised the Trump administration's decision to leave the Iran nuclear deal, saying "we will not ease our campaign to stop Iran's malevolent influence and actions against this region and the world." That includes Syria, where Iran has had a growing role in supporting the Syrian regime. Pompeo downplayed the idea that the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria would give Iran the upper hand there, saying that, "In Syria, the United States will use diplomacy and work with our partners to expel every last Iranian boot, and work through the [United Nations]-led process to bring peace and stability to the long-suffering Syrian people." Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif responded on Twitter, saying, "Whenever/wherever US interferes, chaos, repression and resentment follow. The day Iran mimics US clients and Secretary Pompeo's 'human rights models' — be it the Shah or current butchers — to become a 'normal' country is the day hell freezes over. Best for the US to just get over loss of Iran." Pompeo declined to call out human rights abuses happening Egypt, including the reported detention and torture of American-Egyptian Khaled Hassan who has been missing since last January -- allegations Cairo denies. During his address, the secretary applauded Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's efforts to promote religious freedom and encouraged him "to unleash the creative energies of Egypt’s people, unfetter the economy, and promote a free and open exchange of ideas." The State Department did say that the issue of human rights was brought up in Pompeo's private meeting with Sisi earlier in the day. Also noticeably absent from Thursday's address was the mention of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, brutally murdered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October. The killing led the U.S. Senate to vote to suspend U.S. support to the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, as well as condemn Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the act. While the Trump administration has sanctioned Saudi officials for their alleged role in the murder, Trump has continued to defend Saudi leadership. With stops already in Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt, Pompeo will continue his tour of the Middle East on Friday with planned visits to Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Kuwait. | Elizabeth Mclaughlin | https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/pompeo-defends-us-withdrawal-syria-rebukes-obamas-middle/story?id=60272071 | 2019-01-10 18:46:54+00:00 | 1,547,164,014 | 1,567,553,084 | politics | government policy |
1,208 | abcnews--2019-01-21--Boltons test Massaging Trump tweets into foreign policy | 2019-01-21T00:00:00 | abcnews | Bolton's test: Massaging Trump tweets into foreign policy | In President Donald Trump's Washington, matters of war and peace are decided in 280-character bursts. It's up to John Bolton to massage them into a foreign policy. The mustachioed national security adviser developed a reputation as a bureaucratic bulldozer through more than three decades in and out of government. But the wrangling over Trump's decision to pull troops out of Syria demanded a new skill — the ability to dramatically redraft the president's policy without provoking a hint of protest from the commander in chief. When Trump announced on Dec. 19 that he saw no need for U.S. troops to remain in Syria, senior U.S. officials expected the Trump-ordered withdrawal to be completed within a month. Aides, lawmakers and overseas allies were beside themselves with concern that the U.S. was betraying its Kurdish allies in the fight against the Islamic State and ceding influence in the region to Iran and Russia. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis quit in protest. But one month after Trump declared that U.S. forces were "coming back now" and White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the administration had "started returning United States troops home," the drawdown of U.S. troops has only just begun. The explanation, senior White House officials said, is the behind-the-scenes effort by Bolton. Bolton was always an unlikely pick to be Trump's third national security adviser, with a world view seemingly ill-fit to the president's isolationist "America First" pronouncements. He's espoused hawkish foreign policy views dating back to the Reagan administration and became a household name over his vociferous support for the Iraq War as the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. under George W. Bush. Bolton even briefly considered running for president in 2016, in part to make the case against the isolationism that Trump would come to embody. Yet he earned Trump's ear in part through his frequent appearances on Fox News, the president's favored network. And despite the president's aversion to his bushy mustache, the two have formed a close relationship since Bolton took over at the National Security Council in April. "Frankly, what I have said in private now is behind me," Bolton told Fox News last year just after joining the White House. "The important thing is what the president says and the advice I give him." Longtime associates credit Bolton with a keen ability to manage-up to the president — a key differentiator between Bolton and his predecessor, H.R. McMaster, an Army general whose professorial tones grated on Trump. That doesn't mean that Bolton was on board with Trump's impulsive policy announcement on Syria, officials said. Rather than go public with the same concerns aired by Mattis and others, though, Bolton quietly set out on a monthlong revision of Trump's order, leading to critical adjustments that the administration, at least publicly, is loathe to acknowledge. "A lot of the press coverage about the decision on Syria missed what the president had in mind," Bolton insisted in Jerusalem this month, overlooking the fact that many of Trump's own aides were also in the dark. His role, Bolton said, "is to help elaborate what the president's conditions are and what he expects." He and Trump have harshly pushed back on any notion of a policy reversal. White House aides cast Bolton's role as merely "elucidating" or "clarifying" the president's initial order. "No different from my original statements," Trump tweeted on Jan. 7. In reality, there were key changes. One month in, materiel has been removed from northeastern Syria, but troops remain. In the war-torn country's south, 200 U.S. service members serving in al-Tanf are now remaining in place indefinitely as a check against Iran — a step sought by Israel. And in a trip to the Middle East this month, Bolton announced new "conditions" on the withdrawal, including demanding assurances from Turkey it won't attack Kurdish fighters in Syria. The pace of the planned withdrawal was dramatically slowed, first, after Trump's three-hour December visit to Iraq to meet with U.S. commanders in which they argued that they, not allies, were best positioned to destroy the last vestiges of the Islamic State's territorial caliphate in Syria. Then came concerns about the fate of the Kurds, who face assault from Turkey, which considers them a terrorist group, and Iranian regional influence. According to seven administration officials, Bolton's influence was central to the "reinterpretation" of Trump's initial order and convincing the stubborn commander in chief to go along with it. White House aides maintained that the two have a strong relationship in part because Bolton has tried not to draw attention to the changes. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe Bolton's role and the administration's policy thinking. It was a sign of Bolton's outsized role in foreign policy that when he traveled to Israel and Turkey earlier this month to clarify the policy, he brought along a contingent of press aboard a modified Boeing 757 of the type typically used by the vice president and secretary of state. It was the first trip by a national security adviser to include reporters in recent memory. Bolton, who was briefly considered by Trump for the role of U.N. ambassador, was clearly in his element, taking in cultural sites with allies and soberly delivering dire warnings to foes. Unafraid to stir the pot, he didn't seem to mind a bit when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan very publicly accused him of making "a very serious mistake" in saying the U.S. would insist that Turkey refrain from attacking its Kurdish partners. The episode led Erdogan to scrub plans to meet with Bolton and sent relations between the NATO allies to a fresh low. Bolton's approach has drawn some charges of heavy-handedness from other corners of the administration, as some Trump loyalists argue he's using the NSC to implement his own priorities over the president's. Some in the White House were shocked that the NSC took hours to explain Trump's Syria decision, chalking it up to Bolton's objection to the policy. But Bolton allies contend he's fulfilling the president's wishes in fleshing-out the president's top-line decisions, and White House officials insist reports of bad blood between the two are misguided. Bolton "works every day to advance President Trump's national security strategy to keep our country safe and secure," Vice President Mike Pence said in a statement. "Ambassador Bolton is a strong leader who is respected by our allies around the world. He understands that America First means strong U.S. leadership is critical on the world stage and it is my great honor to serve with him." Associated Press writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report. | Zeke Miller, Associated Press | https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/boltons-test-massaging-trump-tweets-foreign-policy-60515553 | 2019-01-21 05:44:32+00:00 | 1,548,067,472 | 1,567,551,500 | politics | government policy |
1,307 | abcnews--2019-01-25--US to begin enforcement of new policy to make asylum seekers wait in Mexico | 2019-01-25T00:00:00 | abcnews | US to begin enforcement of new policy to make asylum seekers wait in Mexico | The Trump administration is expected Friday to begin enforcing its new policy that would force asylum seekers at the U.S. southern border to wait in Mexico for their claim to be heard. It's a move that officials said they expect will severely curb the number of people approaching the border in the first place. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen announced Dec. 20 that the U.S. had reached a deal with the Mexican government to require asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their case winds its way through U.S. immigration courts, a process that can take months or years. The approach would be a change to a longstanding U.S. policy that asylum seekers are allowed to wait inside the U.S. Asylum seekers crossing “illegally or without proper documentation” will be turned away at the San Ysidro port of entry in San Diego starting Friday, Katie Waldman, a DHS spokeswoman, told ABC News Thursday night. Homeland Security eventually plans to implement the policy across the entire southern border, but she did not offer a time frame for that roll out. The policy is the latest attempt by the Trump administration to curb what it insists are loopholes in the immigration system. Like many of its immigration policies, the plan is expected to face pushback in court. The decision by the Homeland Security Department to move ahead with enforcement of the new policy comes as President Donald Trump remains locked in a bitter dispute with lawmakers over the $5 billion he wants for construction of a border wall. "We have a huge problem with asylum fraud," Nielsen told the House panel last month. "We need to work together to combat that." At issue is how the United States decides who should be granted asylum, a right granted to migrants by U.S. and international law. According to the Homeland Security Department, border officials have seen a surge in migrants from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras and that the vast majority are granted entrance into the United States after passing a "credible fear" interview. John Cohen, a former acting under secretary at the Homeland Security Department and an ABC News contributor, said in order for this policy to be legal, the U.S. needs a safe country agreement with Mexico. The law requires that the person's "life or freedom" not be threatened and that the person claiming asylum still have "full and fair" access to the U.S. immigration system. That means it's likely the U.S. will have to devote resources to either bring people into the United States to see an immigration judge, or set up American courts in Mexico -- a highly unusual situation that presents legal complications, Cohen said. “Even if a safe country agreement exists, having these people in Mexico while their application processes will be a logistical nightmare," he said. That agreement exists with Canada, a designated safe country where refugees are required to reside while going through the asylum process for the U.S. if they first arrive in Canada. Last month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the plan "historic" and said that the Mexican government had promised to give the migrants humanitarian visas to stay on Mexican soil and apply for work. "We think that they [migrants seeking asylum] will now see that they can’t disappear inside the United States, and so they will remain in their home countries," Pompeo told Fox News host Laura Ingraham. Mexico had previously refused to accept the return of migrants who aren't Mexican citizens. However, in December, the U.S. signed a joint declaration with Mexico promising to invest $5.8 billion in southern Mexico and the three countries where most of the migrants were coming from: El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. The administration also promised a U.S.-Mexico business summit next year and a cabinet-level meeting in January. Mexico has called the latest agreement to allow U.S. asylum seekers to remain in Mexico a temporary, humanitarian measure. | Quinn Owen | https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-begin-enforcement-policy-make-asylum-seekers-wait/story?id=60607394 | 2019-01-25 02:20:27+00:00 | 1,548,400,827 | 1,567,550,863 | politics | government policy |
1,617 | abcnews--2019-03-13--Pentagon issues new transgender policy limiting service members to birth gender | 2019-03-13T00:00:00 | abcnews | Pentagon issues new transgender policy limiting service members to birth gender | With all legal hurdles cleared, the Pentagon has instituted a new transgender policy that largely limits the military service of transgender persons currently in uniform to their birth gender. If they are unwilling to do so, they could be discharged. The new policy, signed late Tuesday by David Norquist, who is currently serving as the deputy Defense secretary, will be implemented on April 12. A copy of the policy memo was obtained by ABC News. Transgender service members currently serving in the military will only be allowed to continue to serve if they adhere to the dress and grooming standards of their biological gender. Waivers will be allowed on a case-by-case basis but only from the secretaries in charge of the military services. As was the case with a memo issued last February, service members diagnosed with gender dysphoria will no longer be allowed medical surgeries for gender transition unless they are currently in the process of receiving medical treatment. However, transgender recruits will no longer be allowed to join the military, even if they have transitioned to a new gender, as had been the case under the earlier memo. Only individuals who have never had hormone treatment or surgery will be allowed to enter the military as recruits. Waivers are still available for those currently in uniform, but they have to be approved by the service chiefs. The new policy comes a week after a federal judge lifted the only remaining injunction of the ban on transgender military service that President Donald Trump had called for in the summer of 2017. Multiple lawsuits filed shortly after the Pentagon followed through with the president’s desire for a ban had limited the implementation of the ban. "It would be prudent for acting Secretary Shanahan to delay implementing the Mattis policy until the courts have made their final determinations," said Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. "Any other course of action not only undermines military readiness, but is also an insult to transgender individuals who have served and are still serving with distinction," he continued. "Anyone who is qualified and willing should be allowed to serve their country openly. Make no mistake, this is a discriminatory ban on transgender people, not a ban on a medical condition and we will continue to fight against this bigoted policy.” "Today the Trump administration has chosen prejudice and politics over the truth of open service as revealed by the testimonies of dozens of medical and military leaders and the service and sacrifice of 14,700 transgender service members," Aaron Belkin, the head of the Palm Center, said in a statement. "In almost three years of open service these troops built a strong record of achievement and earned the support of every service chief. The Trump administration is determined to bring back 'don’t ask, don’t tell,' a policy that forced service members to choose between serving their country and telling the truth about who they were." | Luis Martinez, Elizabeth McLaughlin | https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/pentagon-issues-transgender-policy-limiting-service-members-birth/story?id=61643836 | 2019-03-13 17:29:56+00:00 | 1,552,512,596 | 1,567,546,406 | politics | government policy |
4,149 | activistpost--2019-02-26--Fed Must Face Reality No Return to Normalcy for Monetary Policy | 2019-02-26T00:00:00 | activistpost | Fed Must Face Reality: No Return to Normalcy for Monetary Policy | More than a decade after the 2008 financial crisis, U.S. monetary policy continues to operate in crisis management mode. Despite a long, drawn out rate-hiking campaign – now paused – the Federal Reserve has yet to bring its benchmark interest rate up to normal levels historically. It has yet to unwind the vast majority of the nearly $4 trillion in emergency asset purchases added to its balance sheet. The Fed outlined its “normalization” policies back in September 2014. The two main components of normalization are gradual increases in the federal funds rate toward neutral and gradual reductions in securities held on the central bank’s balance sheet. Even with the benefit of an unusually prolonged period of favorable economic conditions, progress toward normalization has been slow and fleeting. Full normalization – a return to pre-2008 monetary conditions as is the Fed’s stated goal, may never come. It may not be possible to withdraw much more stimulus from mortgage and equity markets without collapsing them. It may not be possible to unload U.S. Treasury securities without causing a funding crisis for the government. The governmental, corporate, and consumer sectors of the economy are addicted to debt growth fostered by artificially low interest rates. The Fed wants to wean everyone off easy money. The problem is, everyone is behaving as if easy money will never end. Central bankers can’t act normally when private and public debt levels are abnormally high and projected to go much higher. The Fed wants to keep hiking rates to discourage, in former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan’s words, “irrational exuberance.” But going one hike too far or too fast risks triggering a deleveraging event that brings about another financial crisis. At its most recent policy meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) vowed to be “patient.” Minutes released last Wednesday show the Fed citing “a variety of considerations that supported a patient approach to monetary policy at this juncture as an appropriate step in managing various risks and uncertainties in the outlook.” Cutting through the dense Fedspeak, policymakers essentially said they put their rate hiking campaign on hold due to risks in the economy. Left unstated were possible policy concessions made to Wall Street and Washington. Perhaps Fed officials got spooked by the sharp stock market correction in late December. Perhaps they succumbed to political pressure from the Trump administration’s “Plunge Protection Team.” The Trump administration and both parties in Congress all (save for a few, rare voices of fiscally responsible dissent) agree on pushing forward with trillion-dollar budget deficits. They all are on board with expanding the national debt (which recently crossed the $22 trillion mark) well beyond the total size of the economy… well beyond the previous debt-to-GDP ratio high incurred temporarily during World War II. Wars and other crises in American history were always followed by efforts to “return to normalcy” (as President Warren G. Harding famously called for after World War I). There has been no return to normalcy since the 2008 financial crisis, no sincere effort on the part of policymakers to stop financial bubbles from forming or reduce the national debt. Our elected leaders in Washington are planning for a long fiscal emergency. They are counting on the Fed to accommodate their abnormal spending behavior with easy money, with Quantitative Easing, with debt monetization on a grandiose scale… with whatever it takes to avert a default on government bonds and entitlement program promises to voters. And the “patient” Fed may already be preparing its next stimulus campaign. Former Fed chair Janet Yellen told CNBC recently, “If global growth really weakens and that spills over to the United States, while financial conditions tighten more and we do see a weakening in the U.S. economy, it’s certainly possible that the next move is a cut.” When the Fed starts cutting again, you can bet another asset bubble will follow. Stocks have already had a huge multi-year run. At present, the most depressed asset class – the one that seems most due for a new bull market cycle – is commodities. A bull market in hard assets would coincide with a rise in inflationary pressures and renewed investor interest in time-tested inflation proxies such as gold and silver. Stefan Gleason is President of Money Metals Exchange, a precious metals dealer recently named “Best in the USA” by an independent global ratings group. A graduate of the University of Florida, Gleason is a seasoned business leader, investor, political strategist, and grassroots activist. Gleason has frequently appeared on national television networks such as CNN, FoxNews, and CNBC and in hundreds of publications such as the Wall Street Journal, TheStreet.com, and Seeking Alpha. | Activist Post | https://www.activistpost.com/2019/02/fed-must-face-reality-no-return-to-normalcy-for-monetary-policy.html | 2019-02-26 18:12:12+00:00 | 1,551,222,732 | 1,567,547,211 | politics | government policy |
4,980 | activistpost--2019-07-07--US Foreign Policy Is A War On Disobedience | 2019-07-07T00:00:00 | activistpost | US Foreign Policy Is A War On Disobedience | In an excellent new essay titled “We’re Not the Good Guys — Why Is American Aggression Missing in Action?“, Tom Engelhardt criticizes the way western media outlets consistently describe the behavior of disobedient nations like Iran as “aggressions”, but never use that label for the (generally antecedent and far more egregious) aggressions of the United States. “When it comes to Washington’s never-ending war on terror, I think I can say with reasonable confidence that, in the past, the present, and the future, the one phrase you’re not likely to find in such media coverage will be ‘American aggression,’” Engelhardt writes. He then asks a very fair question: So here’s the strange thing, on a planet on which, in 2017, U.S. Special Operations forces deployed to 149 countries, or approximately 75% of all nations; on which the U.S. has perhaps 800 military garrisons outside its own territory; on which the U.S. Navy patrols most of its oceans and seas; on which U.S. unmanned aerial drones conduct assassination strikes across a surprising range of countries; and on which the U.S. has been fighting wars, as well as more minor conflicts, for years on end from Afghanistan to Libya, Syria to Yemen, Iraq to Niger in a century in which it chose to launch full-scale invasions of two countries (Afghanistan and Iraq), is it truly reasonable never to identify the U.S. as an ‘aggressor’ anywhere? In other words, does it really make sense for any nation to be able to take over the world and then look up with Bambi-eyed innocence saying “I was attacked! Completely out of the blue!” whenever any government pushes back on this? If you ask the empire’s narrative makers, the answer is a resounding yes. This important discrepancy is as close as we’ll ever get to an honest admission from the political/media class that they consider empire-building and endless war to be normal, and any opposition to it freakish. All nations are meant to submit to America’s use of military and economic force upon them, and if they don’t, that’s “aggression”. The official position of the political/media class is that the US is a normal nation with the same rights and status as any other, but the unofficial position is that this is an empire, and nations will either obey or be destroyed. It’s a machine with the same values as Napoleon or Hitler or Genghis Khan or any other imperialist conqueror from ages past; the only difference is that it pretends not to be the thing that it is. The US markets itself as an upholder of rules-based liberal democratic values, even though it consistently flouts international law, wages imperialist wars of aggression, imprisons journalists, crushes dissent and uses propaganda just as much as any totalitarian regime. The only difference is that it does so in a way that enables its supporters to pretend that that’s not what’s actually happening. Forget the “war on terror”. If US foreign policy were honest it would unite all its war propaganda sloganeering under a single banner: the War on Disobedience. After the end of the first cold war there was much celebration. At long last! The USSR was no longer a threat, so America could finally stop pouring its resources into the nuclear arms race and finally just relax and start acting like a normal country in the world. But it didn’t take long after the Berlin Wall fell for the neoconservatives to find their way into key points of influence and steer US foreign policy into the agenda of ensuring that America never again risks losing its status as the world’s only superpower. Which necessarily meant expanding the use of military and economic force to a level never previously seen. So now you’ve got this weird dynamic where the US is constantly working to make sure that no other countries surpass it and gain the ability to treat America the way America treats other countries. That’s all US military and economic agendas in a nutshell right now. The nation that poses the greatest threat to US hegemony is of course China. Most of the US war machine’s aggressions right now are ultimately built around securing resource control and geostrategic dominance to prevent China from surpassing it without attacking China itself. Any time you see the US ramping up hostilities toward a given nation, just do a search for that nation’s name plus China (or plus “Belt and Road Initiative“), and you’ll usually find a strong connection. So the USSR was simply replaced with China, and the nuclear arms race was simply replaced with greatly increased global military expansionism. The plutocrat-owned media and the plutocrat-owned political class have fallen right in line with this and normalized the idea of US imperialism around the world. The cold war never ended, it just shifted its narrative and focus. Neoconservatism never went away, it just went mainstream. | Activist Post | https://www.activistpost.com/2019/07/us-foreign-policy-is-a-war-on-disobedience.html | 2019-07-07 13:00:53+00:00 | 1,562,518,853 | 1,567,536,538 | politics | government policy |
6,002 | activistpost--2019-11-16--Bolivia’s New Puppet Regime Wastes No Time Aligning With US Foreign Policy | 2019-11-16T00:00:00 | activistpost | Bolivia’s New Puppet Regime Wastes No Time Aligning With US Foreign Policy | The Washington-recognized interim government which just ascended to power via US-backed military coup in Bolivia is already shifting the nation’s foreign policy into alignment with the US-centralized empire, severing important ties with two governments which have resisted absorption into the imperial blob. “Bolivia’s caretaker government isn’t wasting any time overhauling its foreign policy, announcing Friday that it will expel hundreds of Cuban officials and break ties with longtime ally Venezuela,” The Miami Herald reports. “In a series of statements, Bolivia’s new foreign minister, Karen Longaric, told local media that about 725 Cubans — including doctors and medical staff — would begin leaving Bolivia on Friday.” “In that same interview she also said she’d be recalling Bolivia’s diplomatic staff from Venezuela,” Miami Herald adds. “Later, asked if she would maintain ties with Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, she said, ‘Of course we’ll break diplomatic relations with the Maduro government.’” Of course they will. This news comes as no surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention. US foreign policy is essentially an endless war on disobedience, in which governments that refuse to bow to US interests are toppled by any means necessary and replaced by governments who will. International affairs are much easier to understand once you stop thinking in terms of separate, sovereign nations and start thinking in terms of alliances and empire. What we are witnessing can best be described as a slow-motion third world war between what amounts to an unofficial globe-spanning empire centralized around the United States and its military on one side, and all the nations which have refused to be absorbed into this empire on the other. Nations which allow themselves to be absorbed are rewarded with the carrot of military and economic alliance with the empire, and nations which refuse are punished with the stick of invasions, sanctions, trade wars, and coups, with the ultimate goal being total unipolar global domination. The bigger the imperial blob grows, the stronger and more effective it becomes in undermining the interests of unabsorbed nations like Venezuela and Cuba. Nothing takes precedence over this agenda of unipolar hegemony. As long as a nation remains loyal to the empire, it can fund terrorists, butcher Washington Post columnists, and create the worst humanitarian crisis in the world without fear of any retribution of any kind from the US-centralized empire. As a leaked State Department memo explained in 2017, so far as the empire is concerned human rights violations are nothing more than a strategic narrative control weapon with which to attack unabsorbed nations, and to be ignored when they are perpetrated by absorbed nations. It should therefore also surprise no one that this same Washington-recognized government installed via US-backed military coup is now murdering demonstrators who object to it. As of this writing there have been five protesters confirmed to have been killed by gunfire in Cochabamba, where security forces are cracking down on demonstrations with extreme aggression against majority-Indigenous demonstrations in support of the ousted president Evo Morales. The narrative managers at The New York Times are reporting on the events in Cochabamba with the obnoxious insinuation that it may actually be Morales and Bolivia’s Indigenous population who are to blame for current tensions. Here are a couple of excerpts from NYT’s latest contribution to the narrative matrix titled “Ethnic Rifts in Bolivia Burst Into View With Fall of Evo Morales” (emphases mine): Mr. Morales’s nearly 14 years in power represented a breakthrough for the three-quarters of Bolivians who are either of Indigenous descent or identify as members of Indigenous groups. But he also reinforced his base of support with explicit appeals to racial identity that many Bolivians found threatening and polarizing. “Racism exists in Bolivia; it existed before Evo, and it will never disappear,” said Michelle Kieffer, an insurance broker, as she sipped a cappuccino in an upper-middle-class neighborhood of the country’s administrative capital, La Paz. “While Evo started an important discussion,” she added, “he also manipulated the race issue, and that has caused disunity. And now people of different races look at each other with suspicion.” Right. Gotcha. Maybe it’s the impoverished brown-skinned people who are in fact the real fascists, and not the literal Christian fascist coupmongers whose US-backed government takeover they are protesting. Thanks, NYT. Morales won re-election by over ten percentage points last month, and his previously-elected term wasn’t scheduled to end until January. He was commanded to resign during a current term by the military despite fully acquiescing to demands for a new internationally supervised election. Now it’s being reported that the popular leftist party to which he belonged, MAS, may be banned by the Jeanine Añez-led interim government from participating in the next elections. Despite all this the Western mass media are continuing their cartoonishly ridiculous pattern of resisting the use of the word ‘coup’ when reporting on Bolivia, except to admonish people for using that word as in the case of recent narrative management pieces by The Washington Post, The Washington Examiner, and The Economist. “Supporters of the coup in Bolivia can’t call it a coup,” US politician Lee Carter recently noted. “The US has a law preventing us from sending foreign aid to a new government if it was installed by a coup. So they come up with absurd claims that the military forcing Evo out somehow isn’t a coup.” And the Western mass media are falling right in line with the government forces in refusing to use this word, despite the ousting of a government by the military being exactly the thing that a coup is. This is because in a plutocracy, plutocrat-owned media is functionally the same as state media. Reporters for plutocratic media know what they are and are not permitted to say without being told, so they advance narratives which favor the status quo upon which their plutocrat employers have built their respective kingdoms. This is the status quo of the US-centralized empire, which just absorbed Bolivia and pivoted its foreign policy against the unabsorbed governments of Venezuela and Cuba. Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, checking out my podcast on either Youtube, soundcloud, Apple podcasts or Spotify, following me on Steemit, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone, or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish or use any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. Subscribe to Activist Post for truth, peace, and freedom news. Become an Activist Post Patron for as little as $1 per month at Patreon. Follow us on SoMee, Flote, Minds, Twitter, and Steemit. Provide, Protect and Profit from what’s coming! Get a free issue of Counter Markets today. | Activist Post | https://www.activistpost.com/2019/11/bolivias-new-puppet-regime-wastes-no-time-aligning-with-us-foreign-policy.html | Sat, 16 Nov 2019 16:16:57 +0000 | 1,573,939,017 | 1,574,104,006 | politics | government policy |
6,938 | ageofautism--2019-02-23--National Vaccine Policy Hinted at by FDAs Gottlieb Oversteps States and Personal Rights | 2019-02-23T00:00:00 | ageofautism | National Vaccine Policy Hinted at by FDA's Gottlieb Oversteps States and Personal Rights | Note: Thank you to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and his team at Children's Health Defense for this important action alert. We are on on the defense as regards vaccination mandates and personal choice because the heavy hand of pharma in government is on the offensive. Measles equals mandates. It is incongruous to claim to be pro choice, feminist, MeToo or part of any progressive group that demands equality and personal rights and back mandates. ### Maintaining Medical Freedom: Urgent Action Required! Threats to end religious and philosophical vaccine exemptions have just been ratcheted up to an unprecedented federal level. If parents and caregivers are stripped of the ability to make healthcare decisions for their children, reinstating that ability may be nearly impossible. We need to take action now to prevent the government from dictating what is injected into our children. On Wednesday, FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb hinted in a CNN interview that if non-medical vaccine exemptions were not abolished at the state level, federal health agencies may intercede. This is especially ominous considering two critical upcoming vaccine-related hearings recently announced on Capitol Hill: We absolutely must have representation at these hearings. It’s crucial that we have as many parents and advocates as possible in attendance at both. And if your Senator or Congressional representative is on one of these committees, it is critical that they hear from you! Click here for the Energy & Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee members and here for the HELP Committee members. | Age of Autism | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ageofautism/~3/T4-x8cQZ0Ag/national-vaccine-policy-hinted-at-by-fdas-gottlieb-oversteps-states-and-personal-rights.html | 2019-02-23 11:02:00+00:00 | 1,550,937,720 | 1,567,547,577 | politics | government policy |
22,665 | bbc--2019-02-10--Spain Catalonia Madrid mass protest over talks policy | 2019-02-10T00:00:00 | bbc | Spain Catalonia: Madrid mass protest over talks policy | Supporters of Spanish conservative and centrist parties have held a protest in Madrid against government plans to hold talks with Catalan separatists. The centre-right Popular Party (PP) and Ciudadanos (Citizens) say Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's plan to appoint an intermediary for the talks amounts to treason. The separatists have rejected the offer - they want a new independence vote. Like the right, the ruling Socialists also oppose Catalan independence. Far-right groups including the Vox party are also present at the protest, held under the slogan "For a united Spain. Elections now!" Protesters filled the Spanish capital's Colon Square and nearby streets, many of them chanting "long live Spain". Police put the total number of demonstrators at 45,000. They say the government's offer to separatists to hold round table talks and appoint a special rapporteur amounts to a capitulation and they want elections scheduled for 2020 brought forward. One protester, Mabel Campuzano, told Reuters news agency that Mr Sánchez was "betraying Spain and we think that Spaniards don't deserve him as the president of the government". In a speech, PP leader Pablo Casado denounced Mr Sánchez's policies as "Socialist surrender" and "deals under the table", Efe news agency reports. "Sánchez's time is over," Mr Casado said, adding that the protests were a turning point and the beginning of a return to "harmony and legality" in Spain. Speaking shortly afterwards at a local election campaign meeting, Mr Sánchez said his Socialist party had always been on the side of dialogue, and was now attempting to resolve a crisis made worse by the PP while it was in power. On Friday the government said the separatists had rejected its framework for talks. Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo said the situation had "stalled", as separatist calls for an independence referendum were "not acceptable". Meanwhile the separatists accused the government itself of abandoning dialogue. Mr Sánchez heads a minority government that relies on the support of other parties including Catalan nationalists. His government faces a key vote on Wednesday on its proposed 2019 budget - failure to approve it could lead to a snap election. Catalan nationalist parties have said that their support for the budget depends on whether Mr Sanchez's proposed talks with separatists include the issue of independence. Mr Sánchez has, however, ruled out the possibility of a Catalan independence referendum. Polls show that the PP, Ciudadanos and Vox would together win a majority in a general election. In December the three parties together won power in the southern region of Andalusia, ousting the Socialists, who had been in power there for 36 years. Catalan nationalists regained power in Barcelona in May, after a seven-month period of direct rule by Madrid. Mr Sánchez became prime minister the following month, making negotiations with the pro-independence movement his priority. Tensions remain high, as many Catalans resent Madrid's show of force last year, when it charged pro-independence leaders with sedition. Some of them are due to go on trial on Tuesday and face up to 25 years in prison. In December Catalan premier Quim Torra irritated the Spanish government by praising Slovenia's successful path to independence. It broke away from Yugoslavia in 1991, after a 10-day war. | null | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-47190135 | 2019-02-10 21:25:27+00:00 | 1,549,851,927 | 1,567,549,011 | politics | government policy |
23,588 | bbc--2019-02-26--Mohammad Javad Zarif Irans foreign policy poisoned by infighting | 2019-02-26T00:00:00 | bbc | Mohammad Javad Zarif: Iran's foreign policy 'poisoned by infighting' | Mohammad Javad Zarif has said Iran's diplomacy is being "poisoned" by party and factional fighting, a day after he offered to resign as foreign minister. He made the comments in a newspaper interview that took place before he announced he was stepping down, apologising for all his "shortcomings". Hardliners in Iran have long criticised Mr Zarif over his role in negotiating a nuclear deal with world powers in 2015. President Hassan Rouhani has yet to formally accept his resignation. Mr Rouhani made no mention of Mr Zarif's announcement in a televised speech on Tuesday morning, but he did praise him for his "resistance" and "capabilities". "If our foreign ministry is doing something, it is because it is from the people and it represents the people," the president added. "The government, in general, is elected by the people." Mr Rouhani also noted that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had "explicitly thanked" the Iranian foreign ministry for its help during the country's civil war. Earlier, a majority of MPs signed a letter to the president on Tuesday asking for Mr Zarif to remain in post, a spokesman for parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy told the official Irna news agency. Mr Zarif announced his resignation on Monday night in an Instagram post that gave no explanation for the decision. "I apologise for not being able to continue in the post and for all the shortcomings and flaws in the period," he wrote. | null | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-47370098 | 2019-02-26 09:59:55+00:00 | 1,551,193,195 | 1,567,547,261 | politics | government policy |
25,595 | bbc--2019-04-09--Trump Court defeat on asylum policy unfair to US | 2019-04-09T00:00:00 | bbc | Trump: Court defeat on asylum policy 'unfair to US' | US President Donald Trump has lashed out at a judge for blocking his policy of sending asylum seekers to Mexico to await court hearings in their cases. "A 9th Circuit judge just ruled that Mexico is too dangerous for migrants," he tweeted. "So unfair to the US." His policy would have returned migrants back over the border while they sought a legal right to stay in the US. The legal defeat comes as migrant numbers at the US-Mexico border surged to their highest since 2008. Mr Trump was said to be livid after US immigration officials estimated border apprehensions in March had topped 100,000. The San Francisco ninth district judge's order on Monday against the migrant policy is not due to go into effect until this Friday, giving US officials a chance to appeal. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which implements Mr Trump's immigration directives, is in turmoil following a major shake-up. DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen quit on Sunday after being summoned to the White House by the president. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley called on Mr Trump on Monday to halt the leadership purge at the agency. The senior senator told the Washington Post he was "very, very concerned" about reports of possible further DHS dismissals. "The president has to have some stability and particularly with the number one issue that he's made for his campaign," Mr Grassley said. "He's pulling the rug out from the very people that are trying to help him accomplish his goal." Last week Mr Trump rescinded his own nomination of Ronald Vitiello as director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Speaking to Fox News on Monday, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said: "It's time to do things a little differently. "The president's looking around to reshape his team so he can have the people in place to carry out his agenda." There are also reports that the president is preparing to toughen his stance on immigration. According to the New York Times, Mr Trump is considering implementing further limits on asylum seekers, ending birthright citizenship, and closing ports of entry at the Mexican border. But Mr Trump denied on Tuesday reports that his administration was planning once again to separate families caught crossing the border. "We are not looking to do it," he said. He added: "Once you don't have it [child separation], that's why you see many more people coming. They're coming like it's a picnic because let's go to Disneyland." More than 2,700 immigrant children were separated from their parents last year under a so-called zero tolerance US policy to prosecute anyone caught crossing the border illegally. According to US media, the White House has recently been considering a "binary choice" policy. This would give migrant parents awaiting immigration hearings two options: agree for their child to be held separately, or be detained together, possibly indefinitely, until their court date. A 1997 court decision known as the Flores agreement states that immigrant children are only allowed to be held for 20 days. The Trump administration has reportedly drafted a regulation to change these rules, an official told the Axios news website, so that the government could detain children for longer periods of time. Senior White House adviser Stephen Miller is said to be encouraging the president to adopt an increasingly hardline stance on immigration. Mr Trump fired back at Ms Omar on Twitter, calling her criticism of Mr Miller, who is Jewish, anti-Semitic. "'What's completely unacceptable is for Congresswoman Omar to target Jews, in this case Stephen Miller'", Mr Trump wrote, citing a segment on Fox Business Network. Republican Congressman Lee Zeldin also condemned Ms Omar for her comments. "During my time in Congress before @IlhanOmar got here, I didn't once witness another Member target Jewish people like this with the name calling & other personal attacks", Mr Lee wrote. "For @IlhanOmar, this is just called Monday." The comments follow widespread condemnation of Ms Omar last month for her criticism of pro-Israel lobbyists in Washington DC. Meanwhile, amid an ongoing debate about immigration on both sides of the Atlantic, former President Barack Obama told young people at a town hall meeting in Berlin, Germany: "We can't label everybody disturbed by immigration as racist." He also said immigrants should be encouraged to learn the language of their adopted country. | null | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-47869821 | 2019-04-09 21:09:03+00:00 | 1,554,858,543 | 1,567,543,450 | politics | government policy |
28,682 | bbc--2019-07-04--Venezuelas rulers accused by UN of death squads and policy of fear | 2019-07-04T00:00:00 | bbc | Venezuela's rulers accused by UN of death squads and policy of fear | The UN has accused Venezuela of a strategy of instilling fear in its population to retain power, removing opponents with a "shocking" number of alleged extrajudicial killings. Victims are arrested and shot, with crime scenes manipulated to suggest they resisted police, a report says. The UN urges Venezuela to end the "grave violations of economic, social, civil, political and cultural rights". Nicolás Maduro's administration has not yet officially responded to the report. Venezuela has in the past dismissed human rights allegations as "lies". Mr Maduro is locked in a political battle with opposition leader Juan Guaidó. Mr Guaidó, head of the country's National Assembly, declared himself interim president in January and has the backing of more than 50 countries, including the US and most of Latin America. Mr Maduro retains the loyalty of most of the military and important allies such as China and Russia. Some four million people have fled Venezuela since 2015, according to the UN, amid a severe economic crisis that has resulted in high unemployment and chronic shortages of food and medicine. The report is scheduled to be presented to the UN Human Rights Council on Friday. It is based on "558 interviews with victims and witnesses of human rights violations and the deteriorating economic situation" from January 2018 to May 2019. Its most damning findings relate to the number of deaths the Venezuelan government has ascribed to resisting arrest. That figure for last year was 5,287, with another 1,569 up to 19 May this year. Referring to these figures as "unusually" and "shockingly" high, the report says: "Information analysed by Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights suggests many of these killings may constitute extrajudicial executions." The UN says witnesses reported how the Special Action Forces (FAES) "manipulated the crime scene and evidence. They would plant arms and drugs and fire their weapons against the walls or in the air to suggest a confrontation and to show the victim had 'resisted authority'". It adds that the UN "is concerned the authorities may be using FAES and other security forces as an instrument to instil fear in the population and to maintain social control". The BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Geneva says the report paints a dark picture of Venezuela, in which unmarked black vans arrive in poor neighbourhoods, masked officers get out, round up young men and shoot them. The lengthy report also covers areas such as economic and social rights, and social programmes and policies. Problems of access to justice - which the report says the government has asked for help with - are also tackled. A separate section covers the rights of indigenous people, and migrants and refugees. The UN concludes it believes "there are reasonable grounds to believe that grave violations of economic and social rights, including the rights to food and health, have been committed in Venezuela". On accusations of torture it says detainees have been subjected to "one or more forms of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, including electric shocks, suffocation with plastic bags, water boarding, beatings, sexual violence, water and food deprivation, stress positions and exposure to extreme temperatures". Yes. A navy captain arrested over an alleged plot to assassinate President Maduro died in custody with his lawyer alleging it was as a result of torture. The death sparked outrage, coming just days after the visit to Venezuela by UN human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet. Local media say the official autopsy reported that the body of Rafael Acosta, 49, had showed signs of having been subjected to extreme force, had been starved of oxygen and had suffered severe beatings and electrocution. Two men, Lt Ascanio Tarascio and Sgt Estiben Zarate have been charged with murder. President Maduro has intensified a crackdown on the opposition since a failed military uprising against him in April led by Mr Guaidó. Since the failed rebellion, described by Mr Maduro as part of a US-orchestrated coup, many opposition MPs have lost their parliamentary immunity and some have been arrested. While Mr Guaidó's parliamentary immunity has been lifted, he has so far not been jailed, even though he recently said he did not rule out the use of military force to oust Mr Maduro from power. | null | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-48873500 | 2019-07-04 18:51:59+00:00 | 1,562,280,719 | 1,567,536,903 | politics | government policy |
29,074 | bbc--2019-07-25--Boris Johnsons Brexit policy unacceptable - EU negotiator | 2019-07-25T00:00:00 | bbc | Boris Johnson's Brexit policy 'unacceptable' - EU negotiator | Top European officials have rebuffed the Brexit policy of Boris Johnson after his first speech to UK MPs. The new prime minister said he was committed to "getting rid" of the Irish border backstop, which has long been a bone of contention in negotiations. The EU's chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, said removing the backstop guarantee was unacceptable. Mr Johnson also spoke on the phone with EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. Mr Juncker reiterated the EU's position that the already-negotiated withdrawal agreement was the best one possible – though he said the commission would be available over the coming weeks if the UK wanted to hold talks. Boris Johnson gave his first statement in the House of Commons since becoming prime minister, and set out his position on Brexit, which he has promised to complete by 31 October. The backstop is a key piece of the deal negotiated by his predecessor's government, dictating what will happen to the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. It is a last resort that guarantees a frictionless border if no better solution is devised in time - by maintaining close ties between the UK and the EU until such a solution is found. "No country that values its independence, and indeed its self-respect, could agree to a treaty which signed away our economic independence and self-government as this backstop does," Mr Johnson said. Responding to questions from MPs, he said he was committed to "getting rid" of the backstop, describing it as "divisive" and "anti-democratic". "[It] poses that appalling choice to the British government and the British people - to the United Kingdom - of losing control of our trade, losing control of our regulation or else surrendering the government of the United Kingdom," he added. After the speech, Mr Barnier sent a note to European leaders, repeating the EU's position that getting rid of the backstop was "of course unacceptable", and labelling Mr Johnson's speech "rather combative". But he added that despite disagreements over the backstop, the EU was prepared to "work constructively, within our own mandate", and was prepared to analyse "any UK idea on withdrawal issues that are compatible with the existing withdrawal agreement". Concerning the possibility of a no deal, he said it would not be "the EU's choice" but "we have to be ready for a situation where he [Mr Johnson] gives priority to the planning for 'no deal', partly to heap pressure on the unity of the EU27." "In any case, what remains essential on our side is to remain calm, stick to our principles and guidelines and show solidarity and unity of the 27." He added that he would "remain available throughout the summer for talks with the UK". Downing Street did not respond directly to Mr Barnier's comments, but the prime minister's official spokesman said the PM would be "energetic in the pursuit" of a deal. But he added that Theresa May's withdrawal agreement had "been rejected three times" by MPs and was "clearly not acceptable to them". However, at a news conference in County Donegal, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said, "without the backstop there is no withdrawal agreement, there's no transition phase, there's no implementation phase, and there will be no free trade agreement until all those matters are resolved". Meanwhile, Mr Johnson is coming under pressure from one of his own MPs to introduce a law guaranteeing the rights of EU citizens living in the UK. The prime minister said EU citizens would have "absolute certainty" of their right to live and remain in the country. Alberto Costa - who resigned as a parliamentary aide over the issue - welcomed the statement, but said the promise should be "underpinned by law". | null | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49118107 | 2019-07-25 20:16:57+00:00 | 1,564,100,217 | 1,567,535,840 | politics | government policy |
31,766 | bbc--2019-10-14--Turkey-Syria offensive: Disastrous moment for US Mid-East policy | 2019-10-14T00:00:00 | bbc | Turkey-Syria offensive: Disastrous moment for US Mid-East policy | It has taken a week to reshape the map of the Syrian war, in the seven days since President Donald Trump used what he called his "great and unmatched wisdom" to order the withdrawal of US troops from northern Syria. He set off a chain of events that betrayed America's ally, the Syrian Kurds, and opened a cornucopia of opportunities for Turkey, the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad, its backers, Russia and Iran, and the jihadist extremists of Islamic State (IS). Eight years of war in Syria have shaped and changed the Middle East. This last week has been another turning point. Perhaps President Trump's wisdom helped him to foresee events. Or perhaps his habit of following his gut instincts is a serious mistake when it comes to the infinite complexities of the Middle East. For years it has been clear that Syria's fate would be decided by foreigners, not Syrians. Repeated interventions have sustained and escalated the war. Writing about the contest for influence and power in Syria should start with the war's victims. Every turn of the military screw means disaster and often death for civilians. Video of their suffering should be compulsory viewing for the leaders who give the orders. Those images are not hard to find online and on television. President Trump's decision to pull the US out of what he called an endless war gave Turkey the green light to send troops into Syria. Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared he wanted to go after the Kurds of the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) because they are allies of his country's own Kurdish rebels. His plan is to control both sides of the border with north-eastern Syria, and to set up an occupation zone around 20 miles (32km) deep. Into that zone he wants to move a million or more Syrian refugees. When the US decided to equip and train Syrian Kurds, as well as some Arabs, to fight IS, they were aware of a potential problem, that their would-be Kurdish allies were regarded as terrorists by their Nato ally, Turkey. Washington turned a blind eye to a problem that could be kicked into the future. Now the future is here, and it has blown up. A week ago, a small number of US troops were the tangible symbol of what seemed to be a security guarantee to the Syrian Kurds, who had become vital allies in the war against the extremist jihadists of Islamic State. The Kurds fought and died on the ground while the US, the UK and others provided air power and special forces troops. When the Caliphate, the self-styled entity of IS fell, the Kurds rounded up and jailed thousands of jihadist fighters. But in not much more than the time it took President Trump to send some tweets, the Syrian Kurds were forced to recognise that they had been dumped, sparking consternation in the American military. • US to evacuate 1,000 troops as Turkey advances US Defence Secretary Mark Esper denied that the Kurds had been abandoned. But with the Turks advancing, and the Americans leaving, that is not how it felt for the Syrian Kurds. Once again in their troubled history, Kurds had become the disposable allies of a foreign power. They turned to their old enemies in Damascus. On Sunday the Kurds announced a deal with the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, agreeing that its troops could advance into the zone that had not been controlled by Damascus since 2012, right up to the border with Turkey. That is a big victory for the regime. The troops moved quickly out of bases they maintained in the north-east. Assad loyalists dug out regime flags. It was a disastrous day for American Middle East policy. The alliance with the Kurds, and the security guarantee safeguarding their self-governing slice of Syria, gave the Americans a stake in the war's endgame. It was also a way of pushing against the backers of the Assad regime: Russia and Iran. The departure of the Americans, and the advance of the Syrian army, are victories for them too. New opportunities seem to be opening up for the jihadist extremists of Islamic State. On the messaging app Telegram, they have declared a new campaign of violence across Syria. They lost their territory, the "caliphate", but those who stayed out of jail - or a grave - have reconstituted themselves in sleeper cells to carry out guerrilla attacks. Now with the Kurds reeling, they see a chance to free the thousands of fighters who are locked up in Kurdish jails. Some of them are notorious killers who would constitute a serious threat if they could get out to carry guns and bombs again, not just in Syria but further afield. Justifiably, western governments are getting nervous about a renewed IS threat. European governments, rattled in the way that happens when the problems of the Middle East come knocking at their doors, are calling on Turkey to stop the offensive. Some Nato members can see a nightmare scenario unfolding, with Syria, backed by Russian power, potentially facing off against Turkey, a fellow Nato member. The Russians say they are in regular contact with Turkey. But in a fluid, violent theatre of war. the chances for misperception, mistakes and escalation are always present. Perhaps what has happened in the last week simplifies the endgame of the Syrian war. Two major players, the Americans and the Kurds, look to be out of the picture. And President Assad, along with his allies from Russia and Iran, continue to solidify their victory in Syria's catastrophic war. | null | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-50039856 | Mon, 14 Oct 2019 15:25:14 GMT | 1,571,081,114 | 1,571,141,650 | politics | government policy |
32,894 | bbc--2019-11-19--US policy shift reduces chances of Mid-East peace deal | 2019-11-19T00:00:00 | bbc | US policy shift reduces chances of Mid-East peace deal | The US policy shift on Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank makes no difference from a legal point of view. The Trump administration can declare that the settlements are "not per se inconsistent with international law", as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did on Monday. But Americans do not make international law: that is up to bodies such as the United Nations and treaties such as the Fourth Geneva Convention, which bars an occupying power from transferring parts of its civilian population to occupied territory. The US decision does, however, make a difference from a political point of view, giving a boost to Israel's position that the West Bank is "disputed" rather than "occupied". And it decreases even further the chances of a negotiated peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. Settlements are Jewish communities built on territory occupied by Israel during the 1967 Middle East war. Negotiations within the framework of the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords aimed to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. But Oslo did not forbid the building of settlements and every Israeli government since 1993 has continued doing so. Previous US administrations opposed settlement construction as an obstacle to peace, and tried to limit it to varying degrees. But planning and building have accelerated under the Trump administration, according to the Israeli anti-settlement monitoring group Peace Now. The policy shift has been strongly supported by the US envoy to Israel, David Friedman, who raised funds for settlements before becoming an ambassador. • Can the Jewish settlement issue be resolved? • Are there alternatives to a two-state solution? The possibility is that this change could green-light steps towards annexation of Palestinian territory. That is the demand of Israel's national religious right, a core constituency of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which sees the West Bank as part of a historic Jewish homeland. Mr Netanyahu has made election promises to annex parts of the West Bank, and described a pending peace plan drafted by the Trump administration as a road map for extending "Jewish sovereignty". That proposal has yet to be rolled out. Mr Pompeo said removing the peace process from arguments about who was right or wrong under international law would create political space for the administration's "vision", although he did not provide any details. Whether or not that is the case, it creates problems for the rest of the world, which has been operating under an internationally accepted framework for Israeli-Palestinian peace. The international community has focused for more than two decades on working towards a two-state solution. The European Union and United Nations have been warning that Jewish settlements are eroding that possibility. Now that a main player has withdrawn opposition, the way forward is even less clear: there is no Plan B. America's Arab allies also find it increasingly difficult to support President Trump's peace efforts, as they are reluctant to be associated with US decisions considered so pro-Israel. And the decision on settlements is a problem for the American Jewish community, because it further deepens the partisan divide on Israel. Republican lawmakers praised the policy shift, but some Democrats strongly denounced it, including presidential candidates. Such clear differences no doubt influenced the cautious response from even the most powerful pro-Israel lobby group in Washington, Aipac, which tweeted that it did not take a position on settlements. Palestinians do not have many options. They have has been boycotting President Trump's peace efforts since his 2017 decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, the eastern part of which Palestinians want to be the capital of a future state. The Palestinian leadership is divided between the Palestinian Authority led by President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah movement in the West Bank, and the Islamist Hamas movement in Gaza. That schism has prevented the development of an effective strategy to confront the Trump administration as it has changed US policy on Israel and the Palestinian territories. The people are weary of protests. Palestinian militants have described the US shift as the funeral of the Oslo peace process, and called for resisting the occupation. But many Palestinians seem to have adopted a war of position. They say that simply staying on the land is a form of non-violent resistance. | null | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-50481519 | Tue, 19 Nov 2019 19:00:54 GMT | 1,574,208,054 | 1,574,294,904 | politics | government policy |
34,612 | bbc--2019-12-30--Kim Jong-un calls for 'positive and offensive' security policy | 2019-12-30T00:00:00 | bbc | Kim Jong-un calls for 'positive and offensive' security policy | North Korea's leader has called for "positive and offensive measures" to ensure the country's "sovereignty and security", state media said. Kim Jong-un was speaking at a multi-day gathering of party leaders in Pyongyang - unusual for this time of the year. The comments come amid concerns that the North could end negotiations on denuclearisation with the US, and restart major weapons testing. The US has said it would be "extraordinarily disappointed" by that. While the phrase "positive and offensive measures" is vague, it seems to imply further bolstering of North Korea's weapons programme - tactical or strategic, or both - says Minyoung Lee from specialist site NK News. "State media's coverage of the plenum [meeting] tomorrow, or Kim Jong-un's New Year's speech, will likely lend further insight into Kim's next course of action," she added. Pyongyang threatened earlier this year to take a "new way", if Washington failed to offer concessions in the nuclear talks by the end of the year. Why was this meeting unusual? According to North Korean state media KCNA, Mr Kim opened the party meeting on Saturday and presided over the session on Sunday. Reports also indicated the meeting would continue on Monday. The plenary party meeting is one of the communist state's highest decision-making bodies, though it is thought largely to rubber-stamp policies put forward by Mr Kim, who holds absolute power. It comes days ahead of the much-anticipated New Year's Day address, where Mr Kim has previously made big announcements related to denuclearisation. At the party meeting Mr Kim emphasised "the need to take positive and offensive measures" to "fully ensure the sovereignty and security of the country, as required by the present situation". Mr Kim did not elaborate on what "offensive measures" could mean. Where is the US on negotiations? On Sunday - before Mr Kim's remarks were publicised - the White House national security adviser Robert O'Brien said the US had "many tools in its tool kit" to respond to any North Korean tests. "We'll reserve judgment but the United States will take action as we do in these situations," he told ABC. "If Kim Jong-un takes that approach we'll be extraordinarily disappointed and we'll demonstrate that disappointment." UN Security Council members are set to meet on Monday to discuss a proposal by Russia and China to lift some sanctions on North Korea to try to break the deadlock. Washington has previously refused to soften its own sanctions against Pyongyang. Two weeks ago, the US special representative for North Korea urged Mr Kim to restart negotiations. "We are here, let's get this done," said Stephen Biegun. How did we get here? Mr Kim and Donald Trump held face-to-face talks in Singapore in June 2018, and in Vietnam in February this year, aimed at denuclearisation. The two leaders also held an "impromptu" meeting at the demilitarised zone (DMZ) that separates North and South Korea in June. But relations between the US and North Korea have deteriorated in recent months. North Korea has again started testing short-range missiles - though the long-range missiles are more controversial - and hostile language has also resumed. • US tells North Korea: 'Let's get this done' Pyongyang had set Washington an end-of-year deadline to offer sanctions relief, and had also suggested Mr Trump was a "dotard". That came after Mr Trump again referred to Mr Kim as "rocket man". | null | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-50942971 | Mon, 30 Dec 2019 06:07:47 GMT | 1,577,704,067 | 1,577,707,678 | politics | government policy |
45,183 | bbcuk--2019-11-18--Boris Johnson announces new business policy at CBI conference | 2019-11-18T00:00:00 | bbcuk | Boris Johnson announces new business policy at CBI conference | Boris Johnson said that planned cuts to corporation tax next April are to be put on hold. The prime minister told the CBI conference the move could cost the Treasury £6bn and the cash would be better spent on the "nation's priority". | null | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-50460811 | Mon, 18 Nov 2019 11:50:22 GMT | 1,574,095,822 | 1,574,105,045 | politics | government policy |
48,882 | bipartisanreport--2019-01-02--Republican Official Defects From Trump With Defiant Policy Announcement | 2019-01-02T00:00:00 | bipartisanreport | Republican Official Defects From Trump With Defiant Policy Announcement | What if all the Republicans who have been tight-lipped about Donald Trump said what they were thinking publicly? That is not likely to happen, because they are afraid that the president will Twitter-bomb them. Fortunately, some of those who are retiring speak their mind about the strange world of Trump. Representative Ryan Costello (R-PA) pounded POTUS for his tweets about closing the southern border between the U.S. and Mexico, if he does not get five billion dollars from Congress to build his medieval wall. The representative called out the commander-in-chief’s action for what it truly was “an angry eighth-grader’s tweet.” ‘This struck me as like an angry eighth-grader’s tweet. I don’t really know how to make sense of it because I don’t think he can do this even if he wanted to. It probably violates (the North American Free Trade Agreement — NAFTA). I don’t think he’ll have much if any support in Congress. Nor do I think logistically he’d be able to implement it. And when you start throwing out vacuous threats like this, people stop taking you seriously in terms of how you go about negotiating.’ Trump has the pattern of blaming everyone else and not taking responsibility for his own actions — unless they turn out positively. He blamed his “enemies” the Democrats and the parents for the deaths of their two small children in the president’s refugee camps. Now, he has blamed the Democrats for his own shutdown. Just weeks ago, the president sat with incoming Speaker of the House Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and talked about shutting down the government. Trump said that he would take on the “mantel,” according to NPR: Costello said the “ball’s in the president’s court:” Thus far, the House has already passed legislation for the Trump wall, but it died in the Senate. The reason was that the Senate passed a clean bill without the wall funding attached. The House Republican leaders did not put the president’s wall to a vote. Pelosi and the new Democratic majority will take the House on January 3, 2019. However, Trump has vowed to refuse to sign any spending measure unless it includes enough money for his wall. Perhaps, the president just wanted to have a fight. Trump shut down the government without consideration for the people who do their government jobs but still live paycheck to paycheck. That was about 800,000 people. Some of those people have to work without pay as long as the government was shut down, while others do not work and do not get paid. The president somehow believes that a wall would keep out people who want to come into this country. Does he not realize they can go under, over, and around it? Does he not realize that people can arrive by plane or boat? The largest number of people just overstay their visas. Rather than build the Great Trump Wall circa 500 A.D., maybe he could spend the five billion dollars on a wall of technological scanning. He could spend that money on a new tracking system for visas. He could even spend it on caring for those children he should be protecting instead of locking them up. | Gloria Christie | https://bipartisanreport.com/2019/01/01/republican-official-defects-from-trump-with-defiant-policy-announcement/ | 2019-01-02 03:42:25+00:00 | 1,546,418,545 | 1,567,554,212 | politics | government policy |
49,491 | bipartisanreport--2019-01-31--JUST IN McConnell Turns On Trump To Strip Him Of Foreign Policy Powers | 2019-01-31T00:00:00 | bipartisanreport | JUST IN: McConnell Turns On Trump To Strip Him Of Foreign Policy Powers | The GOP is willing to stand behind the president who invaded their party on many inadvisable issues: wasteful spending on the southern border, trillions of dollars in added U.S. deficit spending to give tax breaks to the rich, and support for ending sanctions against their Russian donors, to name just a few. Foreign policy, however, seems to be a bridge too far. The GOP-led Senate is preparing to take the power to dictate foreign policy and military operations away from the president, a jaw-dropping rebuke by the party of the current president. MSN reports that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said: Trump’s Twitter attack on his more experienced intelligence operatives on Wednesday shocked the GOP. While these agencies’ leaders have tried to inform Trump that pulling troops from Syria is premature and Kim Jong Un will not be reigned in and his country denuclearized, Trump is ignoring them and insisting he knows better than they do. The GOP is ready to respond with quick action in this area. Trump hires military generals as a point of pride to administration, but he refuses to listen to them or any of the other experts in a position to keep him briefed. Instead, he continues to insist that he alone knows what should happen and, despite the projected harms to the American people, pushes policies designed to meet his campaign promises. He was told during the campaigns and continues to be told now that those policies are not in the best interest of the country. McConnell may be willing to shill to Trump in areas he previously admonished other presidents for, such as unnecessary spending, but Trump’s recent attacks on intelligence officials in a headlong race to recklessly pull troops from Syria or ease the vigilance on Kim Jong Un’s dictatorial regime in order brag about how well his negotiations with North Korea have gone have pushed even Trump’s worst shills over the edge. | Carissa House-Dunphy | https://bipartisanreport.com/2019/01/31/just-in-mcconnell-turns-on-trump-to-strip-him-of-foreign-policy-powers/ | 2019-01-31 17:03:58+00:00 | 1,548,972,238 | 1,567,550,080 | politics | government policy |
50,235 | bipartisanreport--2019-03-22--France Responds Unkindly To New Trump Policy On Israel | 2019-03-22T00:00:00 | bipartisanreport | France Responds Unkindly To New Trump Policy On Israel | Donald Trump has always been desperate to hold on to his evangelical Christian base, which is no easy feat considering his womanizing, lying, greed-laden past. One of the easiest ways for him to continue to appease that base is through Israeli policy, and his latest idea around this has allied and non-allied countries to the United States utterly appalled. Trump has made public statements recently saying that the world needs to recognize Israel’s sovereignty over Golen Heights, an Israeli-occupied territory currently under the sovereignty of Syria. Israel’s occupation there is not legal and global recognition of the territory as Israel’s would be a redrawing of international boundary lines. In a statement reported by Reuters, the French ministry said: Trump’s ties to Israel were made clear when he moved the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, a move that denied Palestinians the right to also claim their own stake in their holy land. The idea of recognizing Israel as the sovereign ruler of Golen Heights is causing even more controversy. Redrawing boundary lines is something the United States can and should not do in other countries. Despite Trump’s beliefs that he is king and dictator because some very misguided people cast their vote for the wild card in the 2016 election, a U.S. president cannot violate international law and grant ownership of other countries to his friends. | Carissa House-Dunphy | https://bipartisanreport.com/2019/03/22/france-responds-unkindly-to-new-trump-policy-on-israel/ | 2019-03-22 17:00:38+00:00 | 1,553,288,438 | 1,567,545,192 | politics | government policy |
50,476 | bipartisanreport--2019-04-06--Federal Judge Deals Trumps Refugee Policy A Major Setback | 2019-04-06T00:00:00 | bipartisanreport | Federal Judge Deals Trump’s Refugee Policy A Major Setback | The Trump administration has now yet again faced a block to their immigration agenda in court. This week, U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman ruled that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) must provide bond hearings to detained asylum seekers within seven days of their requests for judicial review. If the hearings aren’t provided, Pechman’s ruling demands the asylum seekers be released. Although DHS has denied the allegations of inappropriate detention, there have been widespread accounts of the agency detaining asylum seekers for weeks and months on end, sometimes without granting access to judicial review. Just recently at Louisiana’s River Correctional Facility — a private prison DHS has contracted to house asylum seekers — some two dozen immigrants went on a prolonged hunger strike over allegedly being unable to convince judicial authorities to grant them bond. At the time, the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice’s Rachel Taber offered: Pechman’s ruling is meant to address that problem, at least in part. Besides mandating bond hearings be granted in the first place, her ruling includes a demand for DHS to bear the burden of proof that certain asylum seekers pose some danger that warrants them remaining in detention. She denounced the “no-win scenario” that the government has placed asylum seekers in, wherein they must choose to either “accept their indeterminate detention and receive bond hearings at the Government’s pleasure with a reversed and inequitable burden of proof” or “allow themselves to be deported back to a homeland where they have already been found to have a credible fear of injury or death.” The issue could be primed for a fight in higher-level courts. Just on Friday, the very same day that Pechman delivered her ruling, President Donald Trump asserted during a tour of the border that asylum seekers should be told “Sorry, we’re full.” In recent days, he’s revived his assertion that the U.S. asylum system should go so far in the direction opposite Pechman’s ruling that immigration judges are thrown out altogether. He raised the complaint last year, but again recently while sitting next to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg asserted that to fix the American immigration system we must “get rid of judges.” The judicial system doesn’t seem to agree with his platform. Repeatedly, his administration’s plans for asylum seekers have been overturned in court. They’ve been rebuffed when trying to deny asylum to immigrants who cross outside designated ports of entry, and their attempt has been overruled to erase gang and domestic violence from the drivers of the “credible fear” that’s mandatory for an asylum claim. Still, Trump is keeping at it. Although he’s walked back his threat to completely close the southern U.S. border this week, he’s continuing to press for dramatic steps against immigrants including the construction of a southern border wall that’s really ended up being little more than glorified fence repair begun under the Obama administration. Now, the Trump team is also trying to have at least some asylum seekers wait in Mexico for their claims to be processed. | Caleb Newton | https://bipartisanreport.com/2019/04/05/federal-judge-deals-trumps-refugee-policy-a-major-setback/ | 2019-04-06 02:24:52+00:00 | 1,554,531,892 | 1,567,543,749 | politics | government policy |
50,488 | bipartisanreport--2019-04-06--Trump Bulldozed By House Democrats Over Unconstitutional Policy | 2019-04-06T00:00:00 | bipartisanreport | Trump Bulldozed By House Democrats Over Unconstitutional Policy | Donald Trump created a crisis at the border with his threats to shut down the border and end any chance for desperate immigrants to flee to safety and then circumvented Congress by declaring a national emergency to fix his mess and appease his voters. As a result, he faces several lawsuits by groups like the ACLU and 20 separate state governments. Now, another group has weighed in with their own lawsuit. House Democrats filed suit against Trump over violations of appropriations laws, saying that Trump is attempting to use taxpayer dollars without the consent of Congress, who is constitutionally granted authority over spending. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) issued a statement, according to Vox: ‘The President’s action clearly violates the Appropriations Clause by stealing from appropriated funds, an action that was not authorized by constitutional or statutory authority,. Congress, as Article I — the first branch, co-equal to the other branches — must reassert its exclusive responsibilities reserved by the text of the Constitution and protect our system of checks and balances.’ In order to have their lawsuit granted, Democrats must prove that harm has been done as a result of Trump’s actions. In a twist of irony, Republicans may have provided them with the legal precedent they need as proof in the GOP fight to block the Affordable Care Act. ‘At the time, Republicans argued that officials had attempted to use federal funds that had not been approved by Congress to pay insurers under the Affordable Care Act. In that case, a federal judge ruled that Republicans had the grounds to sue the White House because its efforts infringed on Congress’s authority over appropriations. Because Trump is now trying to reauthorize funds that were originally appropriated for other purposes, legal experts say Democrats can, once again, use this same argument and emphasize that he’s circumventing Congress by doing so.’ The declaration of a national emergency from a president of the United States is rarely questioned, leaving the ACA fight the one legal precedent from which Democrats can draw. However, a national emergency that does little more than fulfill campaign promises is certainly unprecedented. ‘House Democrats could also contest the status of the national emergency by arguing that it’s not actually an emergency at all, though experts have said that the law has typically granted the president wide latitude to determine what an emergency is.’ Featured image via Flickr by Gage Skidmore under a Creative Commons license | Carissa House-Dunphy | https://bipartisanreport.com/2019/04/06/trump-bulldozed-by-house-democrats-over-unconstitutional-policy/ | 2019-04-06 22:33:33+00:00 | 1,554,604,413 | 1,567,543,749 | politics | government policy |
50,533 | bipartisanreport--2019-04-09--Federal Judge Puts An End To Major Trump Immigration Policy | 2019-04-09T00:00:00 | bipartisanreport | Federal Judge Puts An End To Major Trump Immigration Policy | On Monday, in a move that’s sure to make Trump and all of his MAGA-hat-wearing followers even crazier, a Federal judge in San Francisco blocked “an experimental Trump administration policy that requires asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases make their way through the U.S. immigration court system.” ‘U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco enjoined the Migrant Protection Protocols(MPP) policy days after outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen pledged to expand the program. The policy began in January at the San Ysidro port of entry in California but has been extended to the Calexico, Calif., entry and to the entry in El Paso, and Seeborg wrote that the approach would have been further extended if the court had not stepped in. ‘Several hundred migrants have been returned to Mexico under the program after seeking asylum at the border.’ ‘The ruling — a preliminary injunction at least temporarily stopping the program — paralyzes one of the Trump administration’s last remaining tools to stem the flow of Central American families trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, an influx that has hit decade-long highs and has infuriated the president. Trump took out some of that frustration on the Department of Homeland Security in recent days: Nielsen resigned days after the White House rescinded the nomination of one of her top deputies, Ronald Vitiello, to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement.’ Seeborg said in his 27-page ruling that “the legal question before him was not whether the MPP is a wise, intelligent, or humane policy, or whether it is the best approach for addressing the circumstances the executive branch contends constitute a crisis,” but that the program may violate the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Administrative Procedures Act. These laws are in place to ensure that immigrants, as the judge puts it, “are not returned to unduly dangerous circumstances.” The Justice Department has not yet commented on this ruling, or whether or not they will appeal it. | Allison Vincent | https://bipartisanreport.com/2019/04/08/federal-judge-puts-an-end-to-major-trump-immigration-policy/ | 2019-04-09 03:41:57+00:00 | 1,554,795,717 | 1,567,543,425 | politics | government policy |
50,552 | bipartisanreport--2019-04-10--Congress Announces Law To Immediately Stop Racist Trump Policy | 2019-04-10T00:00:00 | bipartisanreport | Congress Announces Law To Immediately Stop Racist Trump Policy | It’s difficult these days to keep track of all the atrocities Donald Trump has committed as president. During his first days in office, he instituted a ban on travelers from majority-Muslim countries entering the United States, something he promised to do as a presidential candidate but now says was not the purpose of his ban. After several revisions, Trump expanded the ban to include two non-Muslim majority countries and managed to whitewash it enough to get it through the Supreme Court. Democrats, however, are noting the dire consequences of the ban and fighting back in Congress with a bill to end Trump’s policy. Newsweek explained the bill and its origins: Republicans may be the party of the Religious Right, but in this case, the Democrats have the backing of the religious community. More than 400 faith-based advocacy groups have joined forces to support the repeal of the ban. ‘Today, a diverse coalition of close to 400 civil rights, faith, national security and community organizations announced their support for the National Origin-Based Antidiscrimination for Nonimmigrants Act (“NO BAN Act”), a historic civil rights bill that would end the Muslim Ban and prevent faith-based discrimination in immigration. The organizations sent a joint letter to Congress endorsing the bill ahead of its bicameral introduction on Wednesday, April 10, 2019, by Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) and Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA). The members will host a press conference to announce the bill that will take place at the Senate Swamp on Wednesday, April 10 at 9:15 am featuring impacted individuals, faith leaders and members of Congress.’ The Church World Service and Shoulder to Shoulder, two activist groups who support religious freedom and faith, are reminding religious communities that the family separation policy and the travel ban were instituted to achieve the same goal: separating families from marginalized communities due to racism and fear. ‘Together, the Muslim ban on travel from several Muslim-majority countries, asylum ban that wrongfully and illegally blocks people who cross between ports of entry from applying for asylum, and refugee ban that seeks to dismantle the resettlement program deny vulnerable families their fundamental right to safety, condemn them to return to unfathomable danger, and prolong family separation. To restrict thousands of people based on discrimination forsakes our nation’s ideals of compassion, hospitality, and welcome.’ Featured image via Flickr by Gage Skidmore under a Creative Commons license | Carissa House-Dunphy | https://bipartisanreport.com/2019/04/10/congress-announces-law-to-immediately-stop-racist-trump-policy/ | 2019-04-10 21:15:42+00:00 | 1,554,945,342 | 1,567,543,287 | politics | government policy |
50,994 | bipartisanreport--2019-05-19--Sanders Appears On Meet The Press Horrifies Trump With Oil Policy Announcement | 2019-05-19T00:00:00 | bipartisanreport | Sanders Appears On ‘Meet The Press’ & Horrifies Trump With Oil Policy Announcement | Despite the general election remaining more than a year in the future at this point, the 2020 presidential race is heating up. Despite taking a hit in the polls following former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign announcement, Sen. Bernie Sanders remains a high-profile candidate in the Democratic presidential primary race and shared a portrait of his strategy this weekend on Meet the Press. In short, he’s targeting what he describes as the dangers of Donald Trump and those of the interests he and his side represent, like the fossil fuel industry. ‘I think Democrats have got to do a couple things. Number one, it goes without saying that we have got to defeat Donald Trump, who in my view is the most dangerous president in the modern history of this country. He’s a pathological liar, he’s a sexist and a racist etc. etc. But that is not enough! If we’re talking, for example, about climate change, what the scientists tell us is that we have twelve years for irreparable damage is done to this planet. Beating Trump is not good enough — you’ve got to beat the fossil fuel industry.’ Sanders explained his position in response to Todd asking about Biden having shared beating Trump as a key pillar of his plan for taking on global warming, which Trump has consistently ignored. Confronted with a report from inside his own administration about the looming impacts of climate change, Trump insisted that he simply didn’t believe what scientists were saying about the situation and we would all be just fine — because he said so, or something. In this realm, like others, his maniacal egotism has dangerous implications — which has helped spark a crowded field of some two dozen Democratic presidential candidates. Sanders has sought to establish himself as the true progressive frontrunner following Biden’s campaign launch, after which he shot up in the polls to garnering an average of 38.3 percent of the support as of this weekend. Sanders has consistently been in second place, ending up with an average of 18.8 percent of the support as of this weekend. The gap between the two candidates has shrunk by a few percent following the post-announcement Biden surge. In recent days, Biden has come out with a strategy outlined by a quote from a Saturday afternoon speech, in which he said: To say that many left-wing interests are, in fact, angry over the current runaway train car that is United States politics would be an understatement. Besides Sanders repeatedly directly countering Biden’s assertions of being a leading voice of progressivism, fellow Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Senator from Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren has done the same. She has spoken out about Biden having supported legislation in favor of credit card companies back when he was in Congress which she was staunchly opposed to, and she’s in third place in most polling lately, with an average of 8.5 percent of the support this weekend. | Caleb Newton | https://bipartisanreport.com/2019/05/19/sanders-appears-on-meet-the-press-horrifies-trump-with-oil-policy-announcement/ | 2019-05-19 15:44:12+00:00 | 1,558,295,052 | 1,567,540,486 | politics | government policy |
71,216 | breitbart--2019-03-30--Border Crisis Forces Massive Catch and Release Policy | 2019-03-30T00:00:00 | breitbart | Border Crisis Forces Massive Catch and Release Policy | Border Patrol officials in multiple sectors announced a policy this week to being releasing thousands of migrants on their own recognizance shortly after they are apprehended at the border. The move comes in response to the massive increase of illegal border crossings by migrant families from Central America. “This demographic is challenging in that they cannot be immediately returned to their country of origin,” Del Rio Sector Border Patrol officials stated. “U.S. Border Patrol processing centers are not designed to house the current numbers of families and small children that we are encountering.” During a press conference late this week, Yuma Sector Deputy Chief Patrol Agent Carl Landrum announced a similar policy for his Arizona sector. He blamed the dramatic surge in migrant families and minors that are overwhelming his sector’s agents and resources. “Due to capacity issues at our stations and the ongoing humanitarian crisis nationwide, Border Patrol has begun identifying detainees for potential release in Yuma with a notice to appear for their immigration hearings,” Yuma Sector officials said in a written statement. Landrum said his sector is on pace to apprehend 60,000 migrants this fiscal year. He explained that this is the highest level since 2007 when constructions crews built border barriers that greatly reduced illegal border crossings in the Yuma Sector, AZCentral reported. The deputy chief said his sector has the capacity to hold about 400 migrants at a time. The migrants being released reportedly have family members living in the U.S. and have cleared medical screening and criminal background checks, officials reported. The same policy has also been implemented in the Rio Grande Valley Sector in South Texas where the largest number of migrant families and minors cross on a daily basis. Earlier this week, agents in this sector apprehended nearly 1,700 migrants in a single day, Breitbart News reported. Hidalgo County, Texas, Sheriff Eddie Guerra says human smugglers are exploiting the current laws and advertising with pamphlets in Central America. “In Central American countries they have pamphlets and flyers that tell them, ‘Just Come to America! You will be processed and released, given an opportunity!” the sheriff said in an interview with KGBT. During a speech at the Texas-Mexico border near El Paso, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin K. McAleenan said, “On Monday, we saw the highest total of apprehensions and encounters in over a decade, with 4,000 migrants either apprehended or encountered at Ports of Entry in a single day. That was Monday.” “Yesterday, we broke the record again with 4,117,” the commissioner stated. “We are now on pace for over 100 thousand apprehensions and encounters with migrants in March, with 90 percent of those, 90 thousand people, crossing the border illegally between Ports of Entry. March will be the highest month since 2008. The arriving flows are made up primarily of Central American families and unaccompanied children.” “We have lost the ability to know who or what is coming across the border,” Border Patrol Agent Hector Garza told Fox & Friends during an interview on Thursday morning. The agent spoke to Fox News in his capacity as Vice President of the National Border Patrol Council. “We don’t know who or what is coming across because now our agents are having to process these people, transport them, feed them, care for them, and now we can’t even do our job of border security,” the veteran Border Patrol agent stated. “That’s unacceptable.” “Out of those 100,000 that are going to be coming in during the month of March, 90 percent are being released into the community.” In an interview with Conservative Review, National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd said, “We have never seen what we are dealing with today. It’s unprecedented and we’re in uncharted waters. | Bob Price | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/breitbart/~3/rG7GQR0B-SI/ | 2019-03-30 16:24:45+00:00 | 1,553,977,485 | 1,567,544,635 | politics | government policy |
71,949 | breitbart--2019-08-21--Fact Check Kamala Harris Suggests Anchor Baby Policy Enshrined in US Constitution | 2019-08-21T00:00:00 | breitbart | Fact Check: Kamala Harris Suggests Anchor Baby Policy Enshrined in U.S. Constitution | After President Trump said he is “very seriously” reviewing an executive order to end birthright citizenship, Harris hit back on Twitter, writing “This president should “seriously”consider reading the Constitution.” Despite Harris’s claim, the U.S. Supreme Court has never explicitly ruled that the children of illegal aliens must be granted automatic American citizenship, and many legal scholars dispute the idea. Many leading conservative scholars argue the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment does not provide mandatory birthright citizenship to the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens or noncitizens, as these children are not subject to U.S. jurisdiction as that language was understood when the 14th Amendment was ratified. Breitbart News Senior Legal Editor Ken Klukowski has noted that Trump may have two routes by which an executive order ending birthright citizenship is constitutionally upheld: President Trump has at least two routes to victory through a legal fight. It must be noted for both that a legal challenge to an executive order issued in November 2018 would almost certainly not make it all the way to petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court until after the cutoff in mid-January 2020 for cases to be decided before the presidential election, so this issue will likely still be pending when Americans go to the polls in November 2020 to vote for president. [Emphasis added] The first route to victory is that the Supreme Court could hold that the specific provisions of the executive order are authorized under current statute. If so, President Trump wins outright. [Emphasis added] The second is that the Court could hold that one or more of those provisions require congressional action, but could signal that the Constitution permits such changes. If so, there would be a massive push to tweak current statute. The American people will have been debating this issue for two full years by that time, and would by 2021 be educated by the Supreme Court’s final decision as well. This could lay the groundwork, such that the same political momentum that would secure a second term for President Trump could also secure the votes to change the relevant provision of Congress’s Immigration and Nationality Act. [Emphasis added] Swing voters, most recently, told Michigan focus-group pollsters that they are deeply concerned with the country’s birthright citizenship policy, as Breitbart News reported: One swing voter hit back against the U.S. policy of providing birthright citizenship to the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens, saying, “We shouldn’t give away our birthright like candy. Meaning that all they have to do is cross the border illegally, pop out a kid, and they’re a U.S. citizen. Two illegals do not a citizen make.” [Emphasis added] Birthright citizenship rewards the children of illegal aliens, commonly known as “anchor babies,” with automatic U.S. citizenship, thus anchoring their illegal alien and noncitizen parents in the U.S. Eventually, those anchor babies are allowed to bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the country through the process known as “chain migration,” making birthright citizenship not only a driver of more illegal immigration, but also legal immigration. Ending birthright citizenship would carry the U.S. into the future on the issue, putting the nation more in line with similar Western countries. In the developed world, only Canada has a birthright citizenship policy as other nations have ended the policy or never had such a policy. There are at least 4.5 million anchor babies in the U.S. with nearly 300,000 anchor babies born every year. John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder. | John Binder | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/breitbart/~3/Yo7afiNE62Q/ | 2019-08-21 23:01:01+00:00 | 1,566,442,861 | 1,567,533,805 | politics | government policy |
73,802 | breitbart--2019-10-02--Jeff Sessions Applauds Trump on Trade Immigration Foreign Policy | 2019-10-02T00:00:00 | breitbart | Jeff Sessions Applauds Trump on Trade, Immigration, Foreign Policy -- 'Republican Leadership Needs to Get Their Back Up' | Six miles and 1,312 days removed from where the former U.S. Senator gave GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump his first major endorsement of the 2016 presidential campaign, Sessions spoke to attendees at the Madison County, AL Republican Party’s Freedom Celebration gala. There he pledged his unwavering support for the current commander-in-chief and the policy positions that got Trump elected. After acknowledging things could have gone better during his tenure as U.S. Attorney General and offering attendees a brief history of the rise of the GOP in Alabama, Sessions turned his focus on three critical areas of policy – trade and China, immigration and foreign policy. There is no question about it – trade has been a significant issue for President Donald Trump, especially with regards to China. As the United States and China are embroiled in a bitter trade dispute, Sessions explained why it was vital that the United States maintains its posture, which he argued was for the good of the American worker and for the sake of national security. “Trade – I supported all kinds of trade deals over the years and hoped they would be the right thing,” Sessions said. “We had these intellectuals tell us, and they come from both sides of the aisle, trade deficits don’t matter. You’ve heard that argued, right? The Wall Street Journal and others. Trade deficits — $500 billion with China, so what? It doesn’t make any difference. If it is two cents cheaper at Walmart, we’ll just buy it there.” “So what’s the problem? Products that are made in the United States are made by people, by workers,” he continued. “And when you import a product, you, in fact, lay off workers in the United States and hire workers in some other country to make these products. And it’s not a little matter. Yes, we believe in trade and comparative advantage. As I said, I supported all of that, but I’m telling you – when you’re dealing with a country like China that has the kind of surplus they have with us – a state-dominated economy that’s determined to advance their strategic national interest. We act like it is OK to have 5G in the United States, and Huawei gets to make – an entire computer network, internet network nationwide run by the Chinese? But they’re cheaper. Free market, right? There are limits to free markets. There is a question of national security that is real about this.” Sessions said if China wanted to rise up and become a real international power, it had to start playing by the rules. According to the Alabama Republican, that included the end of the theft of intellectual property. “The American people get that,” he said to a round of applause. “And I’m sure there are certain companies that have got investments in China. This is not helpful to them. I’m sure some of our farmers might suffer for a while. But if we’re going to be victors in a good trade policy, the world needs to be buying a whole lot more of our products because we’ve got the best farm products, the cheapest farm products and we can supply the highest quality. I think that we are in a good position. We’ve just got to stand. The American people are there. We have got to get our party helping the American people get this done.” Long before Trump promised a border wall, Sessions served as the intellectual godfather of modern conservative immigration policy. He credited the American public for having a favorable view on immigration, which he noted was backed up by numbers. However, he also noted there were reasonable expectations for immigrants seeking to come to the United States. “The American people favor immigration,” he said. “They’re not against immigration. We admit 1.1 million people every year to become legal residents in the United States. They can be a citizen in about five years. No country in the world admits that many people.” “The American people believe in the wall,” Sessions added. “They believe we should have a lawful system of immigration. And people should apply and wait their time, and we’ll admit people who want to be successful and prosper in the United States, flourish in our country – not be people who are going to sell dope, commit crimes or go on welfare. I mean, how simple is this?” The former Alabama U.S. Senator criticized the suggestion that having a so-called “open borders” immigration policy was good for the economy and urged his fellow Republicans to lend their support to Trump on immigration. “We’ve got people out there – many of them are basically open borders people,” he added. “Yes, you get a little GDP boost if you add a number of people to the United States. But per capita GDP goes down, which is what we should be concerned about – per capita GDP. I just think the American people are right about that, and it’s time for us to get on board.” “The president said I’m going to end it,” he continued. “I agree with you, American people. We’re going to stop it if you elect me. He’s done everything he possibly can. I was there trying to help him get this done. It’s going to get better.” One of the other central components of Trump’s 2016 election campaign dealt with limiting foreign entanglements so that more focus could be put on a domestic agenda. Sessions recognized the United States’ long-standing role in the world but argued for discretion when it comes to sending U.S. military assets abroad. “The American people are proud of our world leadership when it comes to spreading democracy and trying to make the world a better place,” he said. “We do it selflessly to advance freedom and law and prosperity and democracy around the world. But the American people thought when they electing people in this representative democracy, as Henry Kissinger said, they thought they were electing wise statesmen, who with caution, realism, history would advance these goals wisely.” “When our military is committed, we support them – and I always have,” he said. “Yet, there has been in the minds of a growing number of Americans, a majority pretty clear in mind, a concern that the positive results predicted for our military activities haven’t materialized. We have to be honest with ourselves. They think we have gotten into too many wars. Not only do these wars cost us treasure but the cost us the blood of patriots who we sent out there. They didn’t make the decision to go. We sent them out there. The president sent them out there.” He advocated for criteria to be met in the cases of U.S. intervention around the globe. “In the end, the question is has there been progress advancing the interest of the United States and have our efforts made life better in these countries?” Sessions added. “They were supposedly trying to help. Shouldn’t those be fundamental questions as we go forward?” As an example, Sessions referred to former President Barack Obama’s opposition to the U.S. effort to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. As he explained, despite at least 500,000 dead and 5 million displaced, ISIS was able to gain a foothold and Assad remains in power. Noting that this was central to Trump’s 2016 campaign, it required Trump standing up to the so-called establishment. “I think President Trump sensed that correctly,” he said. “He said the American people are right. ‘I’m with you. I’ll stand up to the establishment,’ whoever they are – the global community, the Congress, the State Department, the military, ‘and we’re not going to be in so many wars. I’m going to pull this country back, and we’re going to put the national interest first.’” Sessions said it was an evolution to those positions but reiterated his support for Trump given those positions were the views of the American people. “I came to many of these ideas gradually over time,” he continued. “I began to wonder aren’t we drifting away on these issues and a lot of others from what the principles of our party basically are. Trump announced it. Mo [Brooks] reasserted it. That’s why I support him, and why I still do support him. These are essentially the views of the American people, and I think they are good views. They’re wise.” He issued a call to action for the Republican Party and said if it were to follow suit, electoral success would come for the long haul. “Who is running this country?” he said. “How did this happen? The Republican leadership needs to get their back up and understand this. It’s not business as usual. There is the opportunity for this party to achieve a historic governing majority in the Congress for quite a number of years – maybe a generation, maybe 10, maybe 20 years – a realigning election. The average voter does not like the Democratic agenda. But we have to show them sufficiently how much we need them and how much we care for them, and we’re willing to listen to them about the things they care about. Special interests don’t get to run this country – not for long.” “The stakes are high,” Sessions added. “The left’s vision is being rejected. I think on issue after issue despite all their influence with the mainstream media, the academy, the socialist internationale – the anti-Brexit people. They operate in their own world.” | Jeff Poor | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/breitbart/~3/3sUczaD2clk/ | 2019-10-02 05:54:32+00:00 | 1,570,010,072 | 1,570,221,753 | politics | government policy |
73,962 | breitbart--2019-10-06--Nikki Haley Every American Should Be Proud of Trumps Foreign Policy Record | 2019-10-06T00:00:00 | breitbart | Nikki Haley: ‘Every American Should Be Proud’ of Trump’s Foreign Policy Record | Speaking to Fox News reporter Adam Shaw, Haley applauded the president for the eradication of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) and his handling of complex national security threats around the globe. If you look around the world, President Trump has a record every American should be proud of. In the Middle East, the ISIS caliphate has been destroyed, and we’ve stopped handing billions in cash to Iran that it used to fund terrorism. The North Korean regime is no longer testing long-range missiles. America is once again treating the Cuban dictatorship like the pariah it is, and Maduro’s days are numbered in Venezuela “America is strong again, and it’s because of President Trump’s decisions,” she added. The former Trump administration official issued her glowing praise of President Trump ahead of a New York City fundraiser this weekend in support of the president’s 2020 re-election campaign. “Haley will be a “special guest” at the Trump Victory Committee’s Fall Retreat, along with Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., Donald Trump Jr., and Kimberly Guilfoyle,” Fox News reported. “I’m happy to partner with the RNC supporting President Trump’s reelection, and I look forward to doing more for his campaign in the next year,” she told the news outlet. Haley’s support for a second Trump term is nothing new. Upon announcing her resignation from post last October, she immediately squashed speculation that she would challenge her former boss for the White House. “No, I am not running in 2020,” said Haley, flanked by the president in the Oval Office. “I look forward to supporting the president in the next election.” Despite her support for President Trump, Haley hasn’t taken his side in battles with Democrats. In August, the former U.S. diplomat responded directly to the president’s early tweet regarding Rep. Elijah Cummings’ (D-MD) home burglary, tweeting that his comment was “so unnecessary.” “Really bad news! The Baltimore house of Elijah Cummings was robbed. Too bad!” tweeted the president at the time. This was far from the first time Haley had taken a shot at the president. She was critical of then-candidate Trump during the 2016 presidential election, previously declaring that he represented “everything a governor doesn’t want in a president.” “I want someone who is going to hold Republicans accountable, and I want someone who is going to make a difference, not just for our party but for every person they represent in the country,” Haley, then the governor of South Carolina, told reporters ahead of the South Carolina Republican primary in February 2016. In 2016, Haley endorsed Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) in his failed bid for the White House. Despite her repeated attacks, President Trump nominated Haley for U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., a role she fulfilled between January 2017 and December 2018. Since leaving the administration, she has joined Boeing’s board of directors and formed the “Stand for America” policy group. | Joshua Caplan | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/breitbart/~3/KUXE_hCQwEg/ | 2019-10-06 01:57:40+00:00 | 1,570,341,460 | 1,570,632,917 | politics | government policy |
73,993 | breitbart--2019-10-07--Colin Powell: 'Foreign Policy Is in Shambles' Under Trump | 2019-10-07T00:00:00 | breitbart | Colin Powell: 'Foreign Policy Is in Shambles' Under Trump | Sunday on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” former Secretary of State Colin Powell slammed the Republican Party and President Donald Trump. After describing himself as a “moderate Republican,” Powell criticized the GOP and described U.S. foreign policy as being in “shambles” under Trump. “The Republican Party has got to get a grip on itself,” Powell declared. “Right now, Republican leaders and members of the Congress, in both the Senate and in the House, are holding back because they’re terrified of what will happen to any one of them if they speak out. Will they lose a primary? I don’t know why that’s such a disaster, but will they lose a primary?” “And so, they need to get a grip, and when they see things that are not right, they need to say something about it because our foreign policy is in shambles right now in my humble judgment,” he continued. | Jeff Poor | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/breitbart/~3/-RnKUzqePLk/ | Mon, 07 Oct 2019 00:15:02 +0000 | 1,570,421,702 | 1,570,465,093 | politics | government policy |
98,087 | cnbc--2019-01-07--Elizabeth Warren already owns two huge policy issues that could shape the 2020 presidential race | 2019-01-07T00:00:00 | cnbc | Elizabeth Warren already owns two huge policy issues that could shape the 2020 presidential race | Sen. Elizabeth Warren's nascent presidential campaign has so far drawn attention to the DNA test she took in hopes of proving her Native American bloodline, President Donald Trump's Twitter attacks against her, and whether or not she is "likable." Her potential impact on the policy issues that will shape the 2020 race has received far less attention. As Warren stumped across Iowa last weekend, reporters asked her whether she'd take money from billionaires, how she planned to talk about her gender and whether her campaign was similar to Hillary Clinton's. But not about U.S. plans in Syria, immigration or the volatile stock market. Still, while the Massachusetts Democrat has yet to release a formal platform, certain key issues are coming into focus as she steps further into the national spotlight. On at least two of them, Warren is already running the table against other potential Democratic 2020 candidates. The first is corruption and the lack of transparency in government, and more specifically within the Trump administration. The second is changing the laws that govern U.S. businesses to make them more favorable to employees and consumers. Both are subjects that Warren is uniquely positioned to tackle, given her experience as a Harvard law professor. And either of them could alter the tenor of the next presidential election, regardless of whether Warren wins the nomination or not. | null | https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/07/elizabeth-warren-owns-two-policy-issues-in-the-2020-presidential-race.html | 2019-01-07 17:48:00+00:00 | 1,546,901,280 | 1,567,553,648 | politics | government policy |
98,398 | cnbc--2019-02-09--Trumps disruptive foreign policy will be tested in four major ways this month | 2019-02-09T00:00:00 | cnbc | Trump's disruptive foreign policy will be tested in four major ways this month | February brings the most significant series of tests yet of whether President Trump can transform his disruptive U.S. foreign policy into concrete outcomes. The four to watch most closely are: Trump's trade team, led by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, will visit China early next week seeking progress toward a trade deal before a March 1 deadline, ending a 90-day truce agreed to by the two country's leaders at the G-20 in Buenos Aires. That would not only head off the increase of tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods from 10 percent to 25 percent, but it would also show markets that the world's two leading economies can find mutually beneficial ways to settle trade differences. More important over time will be to see whether the two sides can as well navigate even more difficult disputes over future technologies and regional security issues. On North Korea, Trump in his State of the Union address – otherwise light on foreign policy issues – said he would meet for his second summit with Kim Jong Un on February 27-28 in Vietnam. "If I had not been elected president of the United States, we would right now, in my opinion, be in a major war with North Korea," Trump said in the speech. The meeting will be a test of whether the "great chemistry" Trump says he has developed with Kim will help him achieve gains toward denuclearization, building upon the release of three American prisoners and the remains of 55 American soldiers. While his intelligence community, in a report to Congress last week, said North Korea is "unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capability," Trump aims to show he is correct that there is a "good chance" of a deal because Kim so badly wants to engineer an economic turnaround. This week, on February 13-14, Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will host in Warsaw, Poland, an international conference on peace and security in the Middle East, even as the U.S. pulls its troops out of Syria by April. Media reporting is skeptical about whether the meeting can produce more pressure on Iran, garner support for an emerging Trump administration Mideast peace plan between Israel and the Palestinians, or lay the groundwork for an alliance of Arab states to advance common interests. What the conference, involving more than 40 countries, underscores is the continued U.S. ability to convene, even if many countries won't be sending ministerial level representatives. What I'll be watching: Although Palestinians weren't invited, the Trump administration "peace team" will be there – senior advisor Jared Kushner and special envoy Jason Greenblatt. On Thursday morning, they will brief and field questions during a session hosted by Børge Brende, the former Norwegian foreign minister and now-World Economic Forum president. February will likely also be a decisive month in Caracas. My CNBC column last week argued that Venezuela has become the first battleground in a new era of great power competition. As such, the outcome of this contest will be an indication of whether democracies or autocracies will be the dominant forces that will shape the future. The coming month will show whether the interim President Juan Guaido alongside the U.S. and its regional and European allies can leverage public dissatisfaction, international isolation and sanctions to create serious cracks in Maduro's regime. Conversely, if Maduro weathers – with the support of Cuba, China and Russia – the most intense public, diplomatic and economic pressures ever to face his autocratic system, it would mark the most severe setback to U.S. global interests during the Trump administration. There's also much more in play, stretching the bandwidth of a U.S. administration in which so many foreign policy jobs remain unfilled. For example, the United States on February 2 triggered a six-month withdrawal period from the INF Treaty on short and medium-range land-based ballistic and cruise missiles in Europe, and a NATO defense ministerial this week will discuss consequences and next steps. There is also some disruptive Trump foreign policy thinking less likely to gain traction. The largest U.S. delegation of all time, including over 40 members of Congress, is heading to Germany this Friday for the Munich Security Conference, a symbolic opposition to any steps Trump would take to weaken U.S. commitment to NATO or, at the very worst, withdraw from the alliance. The House of Representatives has passed legislation that is engineered to "ring fence" Trump on NATO, and the Senate is preparing to do the same. For his part, the president in his State of the Union altered his tone on NATO, speaking of how for years "the United States was being treated very unfairly by NATO," but that he now had "secured a $100 billion increase in defense spending from NATO allies." What confounds Trump critics, as illustrated above, is his success at identifying real foreign policy problems and then taking them on with characteristic rhetorical gusto and tweets. A less bold American president wouldn't have made the progress he has achieved on a host of issues that seemed previously immovable. And his most ardent opponents won't be able to complain much if in February he shows progress in addressing China's unfair trade practices, toward denuclearizing North Korea, in rallying support to counter Iran's malevolent behavior, and in replacing Venezuela's odious dictatorship with democratic change. What should concern his supporters, however, is his disdain for the sort of allies, strategies and process that he'll need to address all the above challenges. With their level of risk and complexity, Trump isn't going to score lasting wins on any front without allies. Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis' resignation letter was all about differences he had with Trump on that central issue. It won't make it any easier that he's dealing with a cabinet that lacks the many decades of experience lost through recent departures. Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan observes in her weekend column that, when Mattis, John Kelly and H.R. McMaster left the Trump White House, "a cumulative 123 years of military and diplomatic experience left with them." To steer all the above issues across the finish line and beyond may take a more strategic actor and thinker than President Trump. Let's see where we are at the end of this month. Frederick Kempe is a best-selling author, prize-winning journalist and president & CEO of the Atlantic Council, one of the United States' most influential think tanks on global affairs. He worked at The Wall Street Journal for more than 25 years as a foreign correspondent, assistant managing editor and as the longest-serving editor of the paper's European edition. His latest book – "Berlin 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth" – was a New York Times best-seller and has been published in more than a dozen languages. Follow him on Twitter @FredKempe and subscribe here to Inflection Points, his look each Saturday at the past week's top stories and trends. For more insight from CNBC contributors, follow @CNBCopinion on Twitter. | null | https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/08/trumps-disruptive-foreign-policy-will-be-tested-in-four-major-ways-this-month.html | 2019-02-09 12:00:00+00:00 | 1,549,731,600 | 1,567,549,121 | politics | government policy |
98,610 | cnbc--2019-03-12--Dick Cheney reportedly confronts Mike Pence over Trumps foreign policy | 2019-03-12T00:00:00 | cnbc | Dick Cheney reportedly confronts Mike Pence over Trump's foreign policy | Former Vice President Dick Cheney reportedly confronted Vice President Mike Pence about President Donald Trump's foreign policy at a gathering Saturday, with Cheney questioning Trump's decision to remove troops from Syria and take a tougher stance on NATO allies. The conversation between Cheney and Pence took place at a closed-door retreat hosted by the American Enterprise Institute. A transcript of the event, which was meant to be "off the record," was obtained by The Washington Post from an unnamed source. Cheney, who was vice president under President George W. Bush, reportedly said he worries the Trump administration is looking "a lot more like Barack Obama than Ronald Reagan." In addition to his qualms about Trump's stance on NATO allies and the withdrawal of troops from Syria, Cheney expressed concern over Trump's choice to end U.S. military exercises with South Korea, which had been happening for decades, as an olive branch to North Korea. He also was alarmed by reports that said Trump "supposedly doesn't spend that much time with the intel people, or doesn't agree with them, frequently." Cheney's questions prompted Pence to strongly defend the Trump administration. The vice president said ending the biannual "war games" in South Korea would "not affect our readiness" in the country. When discussing NATO, Pence and Cheney engaged in a vigorous back-and-forth, with Pence saying Trump can ask allies to increase funding for defense while still maintaining a positive relationship. "I think there is a tendency by critics of the president and our administration to conflate the demand that our allies live up to their word and their commitments and an erosion in our commitment to the post-World War II order," Pence said. A spokesman for Pence confirmed the discussion with Cheney took place but declined to comment, according to the Post article. A spokeswoman for Pence did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment. A spokeswoman for Cheney did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment. Click here to read the full article by The Washington Post. | null | https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/12/cheney-reportedly-questions-pence-over-trumps-foreign-policy.html | 2019-03-12 16:19:00+00:00 | 1,552,421,940 | 1,567,546,629 | politics | government policy |
98,849 | cnbc--2019-04-05--Trump says economy would take off like a rocket ship if Fed cut rates ending tightening policy | 2019-04-05T00:00:00 | cnbc | Trump says economy would take off like 'a rocket ship' if Fed cut rates, ending tightening policy | President Donald Trump said Friday the U.S. economy would climb like "a rocket ship" if the Federal Reserve cut interest rates. Commenting after a strong jobs report for March, Trump said the Fed "really slowed us down" in terms of economic growth, and that "there's no inflation." "I think they should drop rates and get rid of quantitative tightening," Trump told reporters, referring to the Fed's policy of selling securities to unwind its balance sheet, a stimulus put in place during the financial crisis. "You would see a rocket ship. Despite that we're doing very well." White House aides have called for the Fed to cut interests rates by as much as 50 basis points. Following the Fed's most recent meeting in March, the central bank decided to maintain interest rates and hold off on any further increases this year. As Trump's chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow did on Friday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell highlighted the slowing global economy. "We're facing a worldwide slowdown [as] Europe is not doing well," Kudlow said on Bloomberg TV. But unlike the White House, the Fed did not conclude in March that slowing global growth means the bank should begin cutting rates. Trump has been heavily critical of Powell's decisions at the Fed, going as far as to say that "the Fed has gone crazy" with raising rates. Trump has blamed Powell's decision-making for drops in the stock market, calling him "loco" for steadily raising rates in 2018 and saying choosing Powell for Fed chairman was the worst mistake of his presidency, But the White House declared repeatedly that Trump does not plan to remove Powell as Fed chairman. | null | https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/05/trump-says-economy-would-take-off-like-rocket-ship-if-fed-cut-rates-ends-tightening-policy.html | 2019-04-05 14:11:00+00:00 | 1,554,487,860 | 1,567,543,927 | politics | government policy |
101,312 | cnn--2019-01-10--Pompeo says no contradiction on Syria policy despite shifting US statements | 2019-01-10T00:00:00 | cnn | Pompeo says 'no contradiction' on Syria policy despite shifting US statements | "This is a story made up by the media. That's fine, you all write what you like, but the President's been very clear, and (national security adviser John) Bolton and I have been very clear about this too, that the threat from radical Islamic terrorism is real," Pompeo said in Cairo. "ISIS continues -- we fight them in many regions around the country. Our commitment to prevent Daesh's growth, ISIS' growth, is real. It's important. We will continue at that." While analysts have underscored the impact the withdrawal decision has had on US allies, particularly the Kurds, and the potential benefits to Iran and Russia of an American pullback, none have suggested the threat from ISIS has dissipated and instead have stressed it continues to exist. "We're going to do it in a way in one particular place, Syria, differently," Pompeo also said. "The United States' decision, President Trump's decision, to withdraw our troops has been made. We will do that." Trump caused an uproar among US allies when he announced last month that ISIS had been defeated in Syria and that US troops would be "coming back now" from the country. Since then, Trump and his top advisers have qualified that declaration, and Bolton said Sunday that US forces wouldn't leave until ISIS has been crushed and Kurdish fighters working with US troops are protected from Turkish attacks. Bolton's remarks earned a swift rebuke from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who said the national security adviser had made a "serious mistake" and that Turkey would not compromise. Pompeo said Thursday "it is possible to hold in your head the thought" that the US would withdraw uniformed troops while continuing its "crushing campaign" against ISIS. "I've told each of the leaders here in the region that I've met that we're committed to that," he said. Asked about disagreements with Turkey over the US Syria withdrawal commitments, Pompeo said that discussions were ongoing, noting that special envoy for Syria Jim Jeffrey was in the region. "Our entire team is engaged and having the conversations about how we achieve all of the outcomes that are important there," he said. Pompeo is traveling to nine Middle Eastern countries this week to stress the US remains committed to the region, officials have said. In a gaggle with the traveling press at the outset of the trip, Pompeo denied that there was confusion from allies. "Everyone we've communicated with, all the countries I'm going to visit to -- we've communicated with all of our European allies. I think everyone understands what the United States is doing. At least the senior leaders in their governments do," he said then. | Jennifer Hansler | http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_allpolitics/~3/6T2Iew8TrqE/index.html | 2019-01-10 14:49:07+00:00 | 1,547,149,747 | 1,567,553,145 | politics | government policy |
101,412 | cnn--2019-01-13--Analysis Polished Putin tempestuous Trump are a contrast in foreign policy styles | 2019-01-13T00:00:00 | cnn | Analysis: Polished Putin, tempestuous Trump are a contrast in foreign policy styles | (CNN) Last year's Helsinki summit still seems to be paying dividends for Russian President Vladimir Putin. President Donald Trump's closed-door meeting with the Kremlin leader last July was in the news again this weekend, following a report by The Washington Post that highlighted Trump's efforts to keep the details of his face-to-face encounters with Putin from public scrutiny. The Helsinki summit was a prime example: Trump and Putin met for two hours, accompanied only by translators, fitting what the Post described as a pattern of secrecy about Trump's encounters with Putin. (When asked about the story, Trump told Fox News host Jeanine Pirro on Saturday he and Putin had "a great conversation.") It's worth revisiting the summit, which gave Putin a chance to deliver a polished performance that contrasted with Trump's chaotic foreign-policy style. In the US commentators were aghast that Trump appeared to dismiss his own intelligence community , casting doubt in Putin's presence on the US government's own assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election. Russian officialdom hasn't responded yet to the swirl of news generated by the Post report, along with a New York Times report about an investigation into whether Trump was working on behalf of Russia against US interests after the firing of FBI Director James Comey. The weekly Sunday news program Vesti Nedeli touched briefly on the weekend's Trump revelations, but focused in large part on an exotic new word: Шатдаун (shutdown). Political turmoil in Washington always plays into a Russian narrative about Western democracies being dangerously dysfunctional, but does it matter how the Kremlin spins this latest controversy? Russia, of course, is an authoritarian country, and Putin's press apparatus can set the agenda domestically. But the Kremlin's sophisticated press office often appears to be ahead of the White House when it comes to spinning the news. As the Post article notes, the Kremlin is swift to issue readouts of phone conversations and meetings with foreign leaders. That gives Moscow the chance to cast the first version of the news in a light that is flattering to Putin. That's especially important as Russia takes on a more energetic role in world affairs. A cursory glance at the Kremlin website shows the Russian president at the center of the geopolitical conversation. In recent days, Putin has had phone calls with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He also is getting ready for a visit by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the coming days to hash out the future of Syria after Trump announced last month that US troops would be withdrawing from that war-torn country. Still, Russia does not have an unlimited ability to set the news agenda. A pattern of propaganda and disinformation has given the Russian government little credibility, whether Putin is explaining away the occupation of Crimea by "little green men" or dismissing evidence of Russian intelligence's complicity in the Salisbury nerve-agent poisoning nearly a year ago. Commenting on Twitter, Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves summarized how Moscow's credibility has been strained. "In my 15 years as foreign minister and prez, after a meeting the Russians would lie about what we had talked about even *with* ample note-takers and staff present," he said. | Nathan Hodge | http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_allpolitics/~3/veZRNe5krb4/index.html | 2019-01-13 20:49:45+00:00 | 1,547,430,585 | 1,567,552,709 | politics | government policy |
101,649 | cnn--2019-01-18--House panel demands answers from Trump administration on zero tolerance family separation policy | 2019-01-18T00:00:00 | cnn | House panel demands answers from Trump administration on 'zero tolerance' family separation policy | (CNN) A House panel sent a letter Friday to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar requesting he turn over documents related to the administration's "zero-tolerance" policy that led to the separation of families apprehended along the southern border. The controversial policy was eventually reversed in a June executive order. Still, a new inspector general report released Thursday found that "thousands" more children had been separated than previously reported by the government. The letter concludes a week of back-to-back revelations about the administration's policy that led to the separation of families. It's yet another example of how House Democrats intend to hold Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security accountable. The panel -- headed by Rep. Diana DeGette, Democrat of Colorado -- has oversight authority over the Department of Health and Human Services among other agencies. DeGette is expected to hold a hearing soon focusing on the policy and its beginnings. | Priscilla Alvarez, CNN | http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_allpolitics/~3/yjHiCjtb8Js/index.html | 2019-01-18 23:37:39+00:00 | 1,547,872,659 | 1,567,551,919 | politics | government policy |
101,777 | cnn--2019-01-22--Top US State Department diplomat on Europe policy resigns | 2019-01-22T00:00:00 | cnn | Top US State Department diplomat on Europe policy resigns | In a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo dated January 4, Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs A. Wess Mitchell said, "I feel that I have completed what I set out to do in taking this position." Mitchell, who took on the role October 2017, said he was proud of the accomplishments made under his tenure but said "the time has come for (him) to spend more time with (his) young family." In a tweet Tuesday, Pompeo commended Mitchell for "an outstanding job" in the role. "I have valued his counsel and wisdom as he has led our European team in this administration. I wish him and his wife Elizabeth, who is also a committed public servant, much happiness with their two young children," Pompeo tweeted. "Assistant Secretary A. Wess Mitchell has been a valued and effective leader in @StateDept and good friend to our allies and partners in #Europe. We thank him for his service and wish him and his family well." Palladino said that Elisabeth Millard, principal deputy assistant secretary, will serve as acting assistant secretary of state for the bureau. | Jennifer Hansler | http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_allpolitics/~3/RT-JM_hR4UQ/index.html | 2019-01-22 18:09:49+00:00 | 1,548,198,589 | 1,567,551,404 | politics | government policy |
101,796 | cnn--2019-01-23--House Foreign Affairs plans probe into whether Trumps businesses impact foreign policy decisions | 2019-01-23T00:00:00 | cnn | House Foreign Affairs plans probe into whether Trump's businesses impact foreign policy decisions | Engel told CNN that examining the President's business ties is one of his priorities on the committee, one of numerous House panels now led by Democrats that will probe the President's private businesses and finances. "I'm concerned about -- we want to make sure that policies are being made based on what's good for the United States and not what might be good for the president personally," Engel said. "I mean, there are a lot of people who look at the Constitution and say that it's being violated right now." Asked whether he thought the Constitution was being violated, Engel said: "I think we'll find out soon. I think it's a possibility, yeah." The White House has not immediately responded to a CNN request for comment on Engel's remarks. , which is still pending, over foreign payments to his businesses, accusing him of violating the emoluments clause by not seeking congressional approval to accept payments from foreign governments. The issue is something that several Democratic committee chairman have vowed to investigate. , which is still pending, over foreign payments to his businesses, accusing him of violating the emoluments clause by not seeking congressional approval to accept payments from foreign governments. The issue is something that several Democratic committee chairman have vowed to investigate. Democratic lawmakers have brought a lawsuit against the President , which is still pending, over foreign payments to his businesses, accusing him of violating the emoluments clause by not seeking congressional approval to accept payments from foreign governments. The issue is something that several Democratic committee chairman have vowed to investigate. In addition, Democrats have raised questions about the President's financial ties to Saudi Arabia following his response to the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Trump has denied any financial interests in Saudi Arabia. Engel and House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff of California have also both expressed interest in seeking the testimony of the interpreters who were present for Trump's meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The staffs of the two committees met last week to discuss their next steps and whether issue subpoenas. Engel said that his committee is organizing next week, which will allow it to begin holding hearings. Engel said that his first hearing will examine US policy and the civil war in Yemen. "The first hearing that we're going to have is going to be on US policy in the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen, everything to do with that," Engel said. | Manu Raju | http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_allpolitics/~3/omohvnTxZQk/index.html | 2019-01-23 18:04:28+00:00 | 1,548,284,668 | 1,567,551,241 | politics | government policy |
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