Disgraced USA Gymnastics ex-team doctor Larry Nassar has been removed from a federal prison where he has been held, records showed on Sunday, less than a month after his lawyers alleged he was assaulted.
Federal authorities announced Sunday that they are offering $20,000 to anyone who can provide information leading to the capture and arrest of a Pennsylvania man accused of threatening President Trump and other high-profile government officials.
The blowback against bank virtue signaling has begun.
Louisiana's state’s bond commission voted 7 to 6 Thursday to ban Bank of America and Citigroup from working on its upcoming debt sale because of the banks’ "restrictive gun policies," the state treasury said in a statement, according to Bloomberg.
As states begin using the bond market in retaliation against Wall Street and to stick up for the Second Amendment, Bank of America and Citigroup - the two top-ranked underwriters of long-term municipal debt - stand to lose millions in muni revenue.
"I personally believe the policies of these banks are an infringement on the rights of Louisiana citizens,” Treasurer John Schroder said in a statement. “As a veteran and former member of law enforcement, I take the Second Amendment very seriously."
As a reminder, Bank of America in April said it would stop making new loans to companies that make assault-style rifles for civilian use. At the time, the bank said at least 150 of its employees had been affected by gun violence over the years.
One month earlier, Citigroup became the major banking institution to set restrictions on the firearm industry in March, when it announced plans to prohibit retailers that are customers of the bank from offering bump stocks or selling guns to people who haven’t passed a background check or are younger than 21. The restrictions applied to companies that rely on the bank for store credit cards, lending and other services.
Citigroup’s Brandee McHale, the company’s head of corporate citizenship, defended the bank’s policies at the state’s bond commission meeting. "This policy does not infringe on constitutional rights, and certainly not the right to bear arms," she said at the meeting.
But if banks thought their recent "virtue signaling" would not cost them, Louisiana just showed the way how the counter-resistance can extract its own pound of flesh.
As Bloomerg notes, the ban is the latest example of how corporate America has been drawn into the nation’s polarizing debate over gun control.
Earlier this year, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel proposed using the city’s business to push for stricter gun controls by limiting work with Wall Street firms that didn’t cut ties with companies that sold firearms to people under the age of 21 or dealt in high-capacity magazines. Emanuel's diversion from the city's inability to contain its own gun problems has not gone unnoticed, and just last weekend some 66 people were shot and 12 killed in the latest weekend of Chicago gun violence. There were no arrests made.
A Turkish appeals court upheld U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson's house arrest Thursday despite threats of retaliation from the Trump administration, according to ...
PlanetFreeWill's Alexander Paul reports that, in a quick spurt of tweets Friday morning, President Trump continued to slam New York Governor Andrew Cuomo over his assessment that America “was never great.”
“Wow! Big pushback on Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York for his really dumb statement about America’s lack of greatness,” Trump said via Twitter. “I have already MADE America Great Again, just look at the markets, jobs, military- setting records, and we will do even better. Andrew “choked” badly, mistake!”
Wow! Big pushback on Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York for his really dumb statement about America’s lack of greatness. I have already MADE America Great Again, just look at the markets, jobs, military- setting records, and we will do even better. Andrew “choked” badly, mistake!
In a following tweet, Trump called Cuomo’s words “career threatening” and took a shot at his CNN pundit brother, Chris.
When a politician admits that “We’re not going to make America great again,” there doesn’t seem to be much reason to ever vote for him. This could be a career threatening statement by Andrew Cuomo, with many wanting him to resign-he will get higher ratings than his brother Chris!
When a politician admits that “We’re not going to make America great again,” there doesn’t seem to be much reason to ever vote for him. This could be a career threatening statement by Andrew Cuomo, with many wanting him to resign-he will get higher ratings than his brother Chris!
New York Governor Cuomo, who is being considered a possible contender for the presidency in 2020, told an audience during a bill signing event on Wednesday that: “We are not going to Make America Great Again. It was never that great.”
“We have not reached greatness. We will reach greatness when every American is fully engaged,” he said. “We will reach greatness when discrimination and stereotyping against women, 51 percent of the population, is gone, and every woman’s full potential is realized and unleashed.”
When first commenting on the NY Governor’s statement, Trump expressed disbelief.
“WE’RE NOT GONG TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, IT WAS NEVER THAT GREAT,” the President tweeted Thursday. “Can you believe this is the Governor of the Highest Taxed State in the U.S., Andrew Cuomo, having a total meltdown!”
President Donald Trump trashed former CIA director John Brennan on Friday and defended revoking Brennan’s security clearance. WATCH: Trump claimed in response to a question about revoking the clearance that he’s had a “tremendous response” to the decision. “I know I’ve gotten tremendous response from having done that because security clearances are very important to me,” […]
A woman who was kidnapped by ISIS as a teenager in her native Iraq in 2014 and held for three months as a sex slave by the terror group eventually managed to escape and later resettled as a refugee in Germany after the harrowing ordeal.
But two years after her escape, she unexpectedly encountered her ISIS kidnapper while walking the streets of Stuttgart, Germany. The man she identified as Abu Hamam was living in Germany as a free man, and the police did nothing.
Speaking in a Facebook video, she said she had seen the man, Abu Humam, in 2016 and then again earlier this year in Schwäbisch Gmünd in south-western Germany.
She told police and asylum officials about the encounter and although they identified the man from CCTV they said there was nothing they could do because the man was also registered as a refugee, The Times reports.
Former ISIS captive Ta'lo Ashwaq, Screengrab
"Someone stopped me, on 21st February this year. I froze when I looked at his face carefully. It was Abu Humam, with the same scary beard and ugly face. I was speechless when he started speaking in German, asking, 'You’re Ashwaq, aren’t you?'" Ta'lo told Kurdish outlet Bas News in an exclusive interview published Wednesday.
The girl was kidnapped in northern Iraq along some of her sisters, one of which is still missing, when she was only fifteen; and after being auctioned off she was abused by her ISIS captor on a daily basis for ten months, according to her testimony.
She escaped after feigning a skin disease, for which she had been issued pills. She had managed to slip the pills into the food of her captor, putting him to sleep, and escaped the compound where she was being held near Mosul.
Upon fleeing Iraq and resettling in Germany in 2016, and while seeking the support of humanitarian refugee services, she came upon the man that had tortured her in Mosul all those months.
Ta'lo related of the incident that she immediately denied her identity out of shock and fear when questioned by Abu Hamam on on a German street. The man told her, "Yes, you are Ashwaq, and you know me very well. I am Abu Humam, and you were with me for a while in Mosul. And I know where you live, with whom you live, and what you are doing," according to the Bas News report.
ISIS kidnap survivor Ta'lo Ashwaq's shocking video testimony...
This is Ashwaq, a Yazidi girl who was kidnapped by ISIS in 2014 when the terrorist group attacked Kurdistan-Iraq. After her escape and her migration to Germany, she met the man who had bought her as a slave, walking around freely in Germany. This is unacceptable! pic.twitter.com/rIYYhP9nmQ
The girl says she fled to a nearby market until she could observe the ISIS terrorist-turned-"refugee" leaving.
In her testimony she recounts that while previously being abused daily she was also made to pray five times a day and recite the Koran by the ISIS fanatic. Encountering the terrorist roaming freely on the streets of Germany left her stunned in disbelief.
She recounts of the apathetic response on the part of the German police when she notified them that an ISIS terror leader was walking free in their midst: "The police told me that he is also a refugee, just like me, and that they could not do anything about it. They just gave me a phone number that I could contact in case Abu Humam ever stopped me. After this response, I decided to return to Kurdistan and never go back to Germany," Ashwaq told Bas News.
Since Ashwaq's story was first published, it's been picked up by a number of US and UK outlets, including Newsweek, which sought answers from German authorities: "The Stuttgart headquarters of the Baden-Württemberg Police were not immediately available for comment when contacted by Newsweek," the magazine reports.
Thousands of other refugees also survived ISIS captivity before the terror group was routed from northern Iraq in 2017, but as Bas News summarizes of her tragic story:
But what makes Ashwaq’s story unique is that after three years living in Stuttgart, she meets Abu Humam, the IS militant who had bought Ashwaq in Iraq’s Mosul for $100, and subjected her to constant inhuman abuses. Abu Humam, at the time of meeting Ashwaq in Germany, appears to have no fear and no regrets. He starts again harassing Ashwaq, which forces the Yezidi victim to escape Germany and return to Kurdistan.
Which begs the question: how many other ISIS terror leaders and kidnappers are roaming European streets freely, right under the watchful and apparently permissive eye of German and other European authorities?
We expect that there are many more untold stories like Ta'lo Ashwaq's out there, and more as yet unreported instances of European governments allowing ISIS terrorists to cross their borders without hindrance.
Michigan Democratic state Reps. Stephanie Chang and Bettie Cook
After more than a dozen community groups called on her to apologize, an African-American state lawmaker issued a statement through her lawyer expressing regret for using racial slurs to describe her Asian primary election opponent in a state Senate race.
State Rep. Bettie Cook Scott allegedly referred to state Rep. Stephanie Chang as “ching-chang” and “the ching-chong” to voters outside polling precincts in Detroit during last Tuesday’s election, the Detroit Metro Time reported.
The paper also said she called one of Chang’s campaign volunteers an “immigrant” and declared “you don’t belong here” and “I want you out of my country.”
Chang won the Democratic primary for state Senate District 1 with 49 percent of the vote. Scott finished third with 11 percent.
In a statement issued Thursday, two days after the election, Cook said those “are
not the kinds of comments that should be made nor are they the kind of comments I would normally make.”
“I humbly apologize to Rep. Chang and to her husband, Mr. (Sean) Gray, and to the broader Asian American community,” she said.
Gray, who is black, said he heard Scott tell a voter at a polling site in Detroit “these immigrants from China are coming over and taking our community from us.”
Scott, according to Gray, said it “disgusts” her “seeing black people holding signs for these Asians and not supporting their own people.”
At East English Village Preparatory Academy in Detroit, Scott told another campaign’s volunteer not to vote for the “ching-chang,” apparently referring to Chang.
She was overheard telling multiple voters: “Vote for me. Don’t vote for the ching-chong!”
She also told Chang’s campaign staff that she called Chang’s volunteers “ching-chongs,” saying: “I called them ching-chongs. That’s what they are!”
Gray told Metro Times that Scott called him a “fool” for marrying Chang.
“When you hear someone that’s a minority and a woman using slurs against another minority that’s a woman, it’s just mind boggling,” he said.
In her statement Thursday, Scott said: “We live in a time of increasing divisiveness. As a state representative, I should never do anything to contribute to an atmosphere of divisiveness and for that, I am terribly sorry. I look forward to meeting with Rep. Chang to express my apologies directly to her as soon as she’s able to.”
You may remember Sgt. Hulka as the man who whipped Pvt. Bill Murray into fine, fighting form in the movie “Stripes.” Murray played a self-absorbed, lazy smart-ass with a chip on his shoulder. In other words, he would have fit right in at CNN.
Yesterday we saw the latest display of newsroom onanism when some 300 newspapers led by The Boston Globe published editorials attacking President Trump over his anti-press rhetoric. You probably didn’t notice this massive, nationwide, coast-to-coast protest because, well, when are these newsrooms not attacking Trump?
Newspapers protesting by printing anti-Trump invective would be like IHOP protesting by making pancakes: Who’s gonna notice? Meanwhile, the media just cannot help taking themselves ridiculously seriously, even as more and more Americans dismiss them as merely ridiculous.
Not long ago, CNN ran an editorial by a University of Notre Dame professor attacking Trump’s “enemy of the people” rhetoric. It concluded: “We thank soldiers for their service because they devote themselves to protecting our freedoms, and we should. But we should also thank the media for the same reason — especially when the stakes have never been higher.”
Uh, no. I won’t be “thanking the media” for their “service.” This may be news to the kids down at The Boston Globe, but sitting at your laptop sipping skinny vanilla lattes and sending snarky tweets about Donald Trump’s kids is hardly the same as storming the beaches at Normandy or fighting the battle of Fallujah.
If the military were like the media, every base would be in a five-star hotel, the guns would have no ammo and they would spend all day giving each other medals.
I say all this as a member of the media who has always been a fan of the business. I wrote my first newspaper column when I was 16 and never stopped. My oldest son is named after one of America’s greatest newspaper writers, H. L. Mencken. But if Mencken were alive today, he’d cringe in horror over the combined self-regard and self-pity of the press.
The same headline-writing heroes who constantly intone about “comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable” can’t stand the discomfort of a few snide comments from President Trump. Boo hoo, he’s calling us names. He says we’re the “enemy,” woe is me! What happened to your “Stormin’ Norman” newsman act, people?
For years, liberal media outlets like The New York Times and network news balked when their liberalism was called out. They repeatedly declared the accusation “liberal media bias” was itself a form of #FakeNews. Then Trump won the White House, and now they’re proudly embracing the same overt liberalism they were denying just a couple of years ago.
And then they wonder: “Gee, why aren’t people taking us more seriously?”
After decades of water-carrying for the Clintons and bending the knee before Obama, the media want to be seen as defenders of objectivity. The same “reporters” who tried to explain how Obama wasn’t lying when he said “If you like your doctor …” The same “journalists” who fed us Hillary Clinton’s talking points about her Bleach-Bitten email server. These same partisan apparatchiks are now angry that they’re seen as part of the political fight, rather than above it.
Sorry, but the American people aren’t nearly as dumb as you keep telling us you think we are. According to Gallup, a whopping 12 percent of Americans say that have a “great deal of trust” in newspapers. If that sounds bad, in 2016 it was 8 percent.
The military on the other hand, is at 43 percent. That’s the fact, jack.
President Donald Trump‘s target du jour is a DOJ operative who had some level of interaction with Christopher Steele — the British intelligence officer who compiled the dossier of potentially incriminating information about the president.
“I think Bruce Ohr is a disgrace,” Trump said to press outside the White House — referencing the officer. “I suspect I will be taking [his security clearance] away very quickly.”
“I think Bruce Ohr is a disgrace with his wife Nellie,” Trump continued, referring to Nellie Ohr‘s work with Fusion GPS, the company which helped compile the Steele dossier. “For him to be in the Justice Department and to be doing what he did, that is a disgrace.”
Very little is actually known about Ohr’s involvement with Steele and with the compilation of the dossier.
“Some have speculated that the FBI used the Ohr channel as a way to continue to get information from Steele even though the relationship had been officially terminated,” The Washington Post reports. “But it is not clear what Ohr relayed to the FBI — and whether the FBI even used the information.”
Meanwhile, Trump said that Ohr’s actions are “disqualifying for Mueller and Mr. Mueller has a lot of conflicts,” trying to cast aspersions on the special counsel for the umpteenth time. “Mr. Mueller is highly conflicted. In fact, Comey is like his best friend. I could go into conflict after conflict. But sadly, Mr. Mueller is conflicted.”
“But let him write his report,” Trump added. “We did nothing. There is no collusion. But if he was doing an honest report, he would write it on the other side because when you look at criminality and you look at problems, take a look at what they did, including colluding with the Russians, the other side.”
Aretha Franklin, the preacher's daughter whose powerful voice made her the long-reigning "Queen of Soul" with such hit songs as "Respect" and "Chain of Fools," died on Thursday at the age of 76, officials said.
Crowdfunding platform Kickstarter has allowed a violence-inciting project titled "Always Punch Nazis," which includes a graphic guide on how to assault "Nazis," despite the fact that the project breaks its own terms of service.
A photographer says actor Bill Murray slammed him against a door and poured a glass of water over him while he was taking photos of a band at a Massachusetts restaurant.
Bill Maher ended his show Friday night by ridiculing the QAnon conspiracy theorists and, well, revealing that he is Q.
Maher explained to his audience what the conspiracy actually entails and the fact that some people have been spotted with Q signs at rallies for President Donald Trump.
He started by saying, “If Trump supporters don’t want us to call them stupid, they have to stop coming up with things like Q.”
And after playing footage of one Trump rally-goer dismissing a reporter’s observation that there’s no evidence of it, Maher said, “Oh, for fuck’s sake. I liked you people better when you were just religious nuts.”
“Donald Trump was just posing as a disgusting pervert for the last half-century,” Maher continued explaining, “to gain credibility so he could go after the real perverts now.”
And then Maher went ahead and just revealed he’s Q and send out a list of instructions for followers, like “on Tuesday, November 6th, stay at home.”
A Texas man was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison on Friday after he admitted to attempting to blow up a Confederate statue in Houston last year.
