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Mon. Apr. 24, 2017
Gorbachev Slams Putin… Claims Key to Future Success Lies in the Hands of Democracy
BY WILMOT PROVISO
It’s the biggest heavyweight fight in Russia since Ivan Drago vs. Rocky Balboa. This time, former Soviet leader Mikhail “The Bruisin’ Bald Birthmark” Gorbachev has come out of retirement to battle the current title holder, Vladimir “The DNC Hacker from Dzerzhinsky” Putin.
Unlike the Drago-Balboa fight from “Rocky IV,” this one took place in the pages of Time magazine. Gorbachev was tasked with writing Putin’s profile for Time’s “The 100 Most Influential People” article.
While most of the profiles were softball pieces written by people who supported the individual (Donald Trump’s profile, for instance, was written by Paul Ryan; Colin Kaepernick’s blurb was contributed by Jim Harbaugh, his former coach), Time decided to give the honors on Putin to Gorbachev, who isn’t exactly a Putin fan.
Gorbachev proceeded to tear into Putin, arguing that even if Putin had “succeeded in stabilizing the situation, preserving the Russian state and strengthening its economic position” when he took over from Boris Yeltsin, he had stifled democracy in post-Soviet Russia.
“Today, even as the international agenda continues to be important, equally urgent are Russia’s domestic problems: a stagnating economy and declining living standards; mass poverty and corruption and illegal enrichment of the few; the degradation of education, health care and science,” Gorbachev wrote.
“Each year, addressing parliament, the president emphasizes these problems. But they cannot be solved without a change in the system of government.
“I am convinced that Russia can succeed only through democracy. Russia is ready for political competition, a real multiparty system, fair elections and regular rotation of government,” Gorbachev added. “This should define the role and responsibility of the president.”
While nothing that Gorbachev said was necessarily incorrect, it’s worth pointing out that for all his emphasis on glasnost and perestroika, Gorbachev remains the last unelected communist autocrat to hold power over Russia. Being a former Soviet leader and criticizing Putin for heavy-handed tactics is getting pretty deep into pot-and-kettle territory, if you ask me.
Either way, it’s fun to watch two autocrats squabble like Taylor Swift and Katy Perry.
One assumes Putin is going to respond to Gorbachev’s remarks sometime soon. Let’s hope, for the former Soviet leader’s sake, that the response doesn’t involve polonium-210.
Trump announces 'BIG' rally in Pennsylvania to mark first 100 days in office
President Trump announced in a tweet Saturday that he will hold a "BIG" rally in Pennsylvania next Saturday evening.
He didn't share any further details. Trump's campaign website does not currently have any new events listed.
The rally will take place in Harrisburg, marking Trump's first 100 days in office and will be paid for by his campaign committee, a senior White House official told CNN.
The 100-day point in Trump's presidency has been somewhat marred by low poll numbers and critics who note that Trump has yet to achieve any significant pieces of legislation during that time, even though he promised before the inauguration swift action on several matters. Trump is reportedly eyeing a last-minute push for tax reform and an Obamacare repeal deal next week. He has already signed off executive orders that roll back several Obama-era regulations on businesses and the climate, but his repeated attempts at a travel ban have been caught up in the courts.
The rally would mark the first Trump as held in over a month. He last rallied in Nashville, Tenn., in mid-March and Melbourne, Fla., in February.
Pennsylvania played a major role in Trump's election victory over Hillary Clinton. The swing state's 20 electoral votes went to Trump after he beat Clinton by less than one percent of the vote.
Pennsylvania played a major role in Trump's election victory over Hillary Clinton. The swing state's 20 electoral votes went to Trump after he beat Clinton by less than one percent of the vote.
Moments before making the announcement, the president tweeted that he was preparing to visit Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.
Trump Considers Shredding Nuclear Deal, Re-Imposing ALL Sanctions On Iran
Photo DigitalGlobe/ISIS via Getty Images
President Trump has ordered his National Security Council (NSC) to conduct an interagency review of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), colloquially known as the Iran Nuclear Deal. Citing the Islamic Republic’s terror-funding campaigns across the Middle East, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson briefed Congress on the Trump administration’s increasingly hardline stance against Iran in a letter sent Tuesday.
"Iran remains a leading state sponsor of terror through many platforms and methods," Tillerson wrote. "President Donald J. Trump has directed a National Security Council-led interagency review of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that will evaluate whether suspension of sanctions related to Iran pursuant to the JCPOA is vital to the national security interests of the United States."
"When the interagency review is completed, the administration looks forward to working with Congress on this issue," he added.
While Tillerson stressed the fact that Iran is technically complying with the literal language of the nuclear accord, he suggested that Tehran’s military posturing and terror financing not only undermines the spirit of the deal but threatens stability across the region.
“Tehran's malign activities across the Middle East and elsewhere have prompted the Trump administration to place all aspects of the nuclear agreement under critical review, which is viewed by some as a first step to nixing some controversial aspects of the accord, including the massive sanctions relief package,” reports The Washington Free Beacon’s Adam Kredo. “U.S. officials familiar with the review told the Free Beacon that Iran's continued support for terrorism has become a sticking point for the Trump administration as it reviews the agreement and the previous administration's policy toward Iran.”
As Iran expands its military capabilities, including ballistic missiles arsenal, it’s becoming increasingly clear that former President Obama exploited the symbolic power of nuclear warfare to sidestep the fact that Iran’s conventional weapons may pose a more immediate and realistic threat to the United States and its interests abroad.
With a new president in office, White House officials are now sounding the alarm on Iran’s conventional weapons buildup and hostile activities in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and elsewhere.
Unlike Obama, Trump doesn’t think it’s fair for Iran to enjoy the splendor of economic sanctions relief as it dispatches its Iranian Revolutionary Guard units to conflict zones in order to expand its sphere of influence.
As a result, the NSC and other organs of the administration’s national security team seem intent on reversing some of the sanctions relief packages offered on a silver platter to the anti-American mullahs of Iran. All economic sanctions provided under the previous administration appear to be under active review. After receiving billions in frozen funds and assets, Iran may soon see its Obama-blessed dollars dry up.
Texas Senate approves bill to allow first responders to carry handguns
The Texas Senate passed a bill Tuesday that would allow first responders to carry handguns while on duty.
The measure — Senate Bill 1408, proposed by Houston firefighter Chris McAllister — passed easily through the Senate and now heads to the House for consideration, Click2Houston reported.
McAllister said he first decided to lobby for the proposal after he and his ambulance crew were threatened by a man with a pistol at the scene of a shooting.
“Nationwide, EMS first responders are assaulted 700,000 times a year,” McAllister said. “We are 30 times more likely to be assaulted than the general public, and we are seven times more likely to be murdered than any other health care professional in the line of duty.”
The bill’s sponsor, Republican Sen. Don Huffines, said firefighters and EMTs have the right to be able to protect themselves.
The measure would prevent departments from restricting the concealed carrying of handguns, so long as first responders who want to carry obtain a concealed carry permit and take an extra 20 hours of firearms training.
Among those opposed to the bill are the Houston Fire Department. Ruy Lozano, HFD captain, argued first responders carrying handguns might have slower response times if they had to stop and secure their firearms in restricted areas.
McAllister noted that first responders with concealed carry permits are already allowed to carry handguns so long as their department’s policy does not prohibit them, as the HFD does.
“The public trusts us with their life,” McAllister said. “It only seems appropriate the public would trust us to defend our own lives.”
“The public trusts us with their life,” McAllister said. “It only seems appropriate the public would trust us to defend our own lives.”
California Senate Committee Passes Bill to Force College Health Centers to Sell Abortion Pills
MICAIAH BILGER
A California state Senate committee passed legislation Wednesday that would expand abortions by requiring state universities to provide abortion pills on campus.
The California Senate Health Committee approved Senate Bill 320 Wednesday and then sent it to another committee for further consideration, according to The Mercury News.
The bill would require California public universities to provide non-surgical abortions at their student health centers. It also would require the taxpayer-funded universities to cover abortions in their student health insurance plans. The mandate would go into effect in 2020.
Amendments to Senate Bill 320 on Wednesday dropped the mandate from community colleges and gave universities a more cost-effective option of allowing outside providers to come to campus for the service, rather than providing the two-dose abortion medication at their student health centers.
State Sen. Connie Leyva, a Democrat who is sponsoring the bill, said the purpose is to increase access to abortion for college students in California.
Some student abortion activists have joined abortion groups to push the legislation. Adiba Khan, a junior at UC Berkeley, is one of the student leaders.
“I’m upset that abortion is so highly politicized,” Khan told the newspaper. “It’s not evil. It’s a good thing, and it should be easily accessible to anyone.”
Here’s more:
Dr. Karen Meckstroth, a clinical professor at UC San Francisco who testified in support of the bill, said Tylenol and Viagra were riskier than this medication. Leyva said it had “serious adverse affects” in 0.05 percent of cases.
“The evidence is clear that medical abortion is 98 percent effective for early abortion and extremely safe,” Meckstroth said.
But questions remain about the cost of implementation, how much of the increase would be passed on to students, and the extent to which campuses are equipped to take it on. UC Berkeley officials have told students they would need to upgrade facilities and ramp up security, Khan said.
Despite what abortion activists claim, abortion pills can be very dangerous and even deadly to women as well as their unborn babies.
The abortion pills are responsible for the deaths of dozens of women worldwide, including several in the United States; and they have injured at least 1,100 women in the United States, as of 2006 figures from the FDA. A Planned Parenthood study admits at least one woman is seriously injured from the abortion pills daily.
Californians for Life, a coalition of pro-life groups in California, is urging pro-lifers to call Sen. Leyva’s office to “tell her that turning our college health centers into Medical-Pill-Abortion clinics is outrageous!”
“These pills will hurt our daughters and end the lives of our grandchildren by forcefully inducing a miscarriage up to 10 weeks of pregnancy, with hemorrhaging and delivery of the baby into the dorm room toilet,” the pro-life group said in an email.
Jonathan Keller, CEO of the California Family Council, said the bill is a dangerous government overreach.
“To my knowledge, no other state has gone so far as to try to require chemical abortion coverage on campus,” Keller told the Mercury.
“Not only will this bill destroy the lives of innocent children, but the chemical abortion medication being mandated has a notorious reputation for being very painful and traumatic,” Keller added in a statement. “These drugs are known for not just causing physical pain to the mother, but psychological anguish that could last a lifetime.”
College-age women already are the age group most likely to have abortions. College campuses tend not to be friendly toward pregnant and parenting students, and Leyva’s bill could push more young women to abort their unborn babies rather than provide much-needed support for parenting students and their children.
California laws already are some of the most hostile to unborn babies in the world. Late-term abortions are legal for any reason up until birth, and girls under age 18 can get an abortion without a parent’s knowledge or permission.
The state forces taxpayers to fund abortions through Medi-Cal, and allows non-doctors to perform abortions. It also forces pro-life pregnancy centers to advertise free and low-cost state-funded abortions to clients, though pregnancy centers are challenging the law.
The state does not report any abortion statistics to the Centers for Disease Control, making it difficult to tell how many abortions occur in California, how many women are injured by them and other relevant facts.
North Korea condemns USS Carl Vinson deployment
(UPI) North Korea said it is not afraid of the USS Carl Vinson, following reports the aircraft carrier and its strike group had not been deployed to the Korean peninsula as announced.
Over the weekend, the fleet was being sent to the Indian Ocean to train with the Australian navy after U.S. President Donald Trump had said he was sending an “armada” to deter Kim Jong Un.
Pyongyang propaganda outlet Uriminzokkiri issued a statement Thursday in a 3-minute video that derided international sanctions against the country, South Korea news service News 1 reported.
The footage included subtitles, without narration, to criticize the sanctions, then cutting to video of North Korea’s recent military parade commemorating the birth anniversary of founder Kim Il Sung.
The message was clear: Pyongyang’s weapons development would carry on regardless of sanctions.
North Korea also had a message for the Carl Vinson carrier group.
“The closer it approaches, the greater the impact of the effect of annihilating punishment,” the statement read. “We will not allow survival for those who threaten our existence.”
The propaganda statement also described sanctions as “pressure from the hostile forces beyond anyone’s imagination” that paves the way for “the nuclear weapons of the United States and a pre-emptive strike” against North Korea.
On Wednesday Workers’ Party newspaper Rodong Sinmun described the Carl Vinson as a “pile of garbage” and advised the United States to “refrain from acting rashly.”
Last week in an interview with Fox News, Trump said he was sending an “armada” to the Korean peninsula.
“We are sending an armada, very powerful. We have submarines, very powerful, far more powerful than the aircraft carrier,” Trump said.
The statement raised tensions on the peninsula and a North Korea diplomat to the United Nations said the United States was risking nuclear war.
On Wednesday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer defended Trump’s remarks.
“We have an armada going toward the peninsula. That’s a fact,” Spicer said.
‘Pro-Life’ Sen. Joe Manchin Poses in Support of Planned Parenthood… He’s full of oomgalagala…
Sen. Joe Manchin – who has claimed in the past to be pro-life – appears now to be supporting abortion industry giant Planned Parenthood.
The West Virginia Democrat appeared in a photo, tweeted by Planned Parenthood South Atlantic West Virginia, standing behind a poster that states, “I stand with Planned Parenthood.”
The tweet immediately drew the ire of national pro-life leaders who in the past have counted Manchin among members of Congress who support the rights of the unborn.
“Sen. Manchin used to call himself pro-life, but this is the last straw,” said Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser, adding that her organization “will work tirelessly in the months ahead to make sure West Virginians know of this profound betrayal of the unborn and their mothers.”
The national director of Priests for Life, Father Frank Pavone, also reacted, telling Breitbart News: “Would that Sen. Manchin spoke plainly about what ‘standing by Planned Parenthood’ means! Instead of following the bad example of his Democratic colleagues, who want to support abortion without talking about abortion, Sen. Manchin should stay on the pro-life path and tell his constituents what Planned Parenthood actually does and doesn’t do.”
Pavone added that his organization’s StopAbortionNow.org campaign would inform West Virginians of Manchin’s change in position.
“West Virginians supported President Trump last November and will face a choice next year as to whether to re-elect Sen. Manchin,” Pavone continued. “We have already communicated through Priests for Life to all the churches of West Virginia that Planned Parenthood needs to be defunded and that they need to let Sen. Manchin know where they stand on this before they make their voting decisions in the midterm elections.”
As a candidate for the presidency, Republican Donald Trump outlined four policy commitments in a letter to pro-life leaders:
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Nominating pro-life justices to the U.S. Supreme Court
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Signing into law the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would end painful late-term abortions nationwide
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Defunding Planned Parenthood as long as they continue to perform abortions, and reallocating their funding to community health centers that provide comprehensive healthcare for women
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Making the Hyde Amendment permanent law to protect taxpayers from having to pay for abortions
As the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported, Manchin has raised about $235,000 for his 2018 re-election campaign in the first quarter of the year, but only $7,900 is derived from sources within his home state.
“Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., has received more money from individual donors in Texas ($95,600), Washington D.C. ($33,000), New York ($32,300), Massachusetts ($22,500), Virginia ($19,700), Maryland ($10,700) and Connecticut ($10,400) than West Virginia,” states the report.
Dannenfelser observed that Planned Parenthood is “the nation’s largest abortion business.”
“It is an enormous mistake both morally and politically for Sen. Manchin to side with Planned Parenthood,” she added, continuing, “In more than nine times out of ten, Planned Parenthood resolves pregnancy with abortion. They are clearly an abortion-centered, profit-driven business – yet taxpayers are forced to fork over nearly $554 million each year to their coffers. Where does Sen. Manchin stand on this injustice? Last month, he voted to force states to fund the abortion giant through Title X grants. That was only a day after new footage was released showing a former Planned Parenthood abortionist describe the force needed to dismember a five-month-old unborn child struggling to survive in the womb.”
Planned Parenthood performs at least 300,000 abortions every year. The group has been using political muscle to bolster its image in the wake of videos released that led to allegations it sells the body parts of aborted babies for a profit. The allegations led to multiple congressional investigations. Ultimately, the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Select Investigative Panel have referred Planned Parenthood Federation of America, several of the largest Planned Parenthood affiliates in the country, and three of their business associates in the fetal tissue procurement industry, to the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice for criminal prosecution.
“The Democratic Party is, no doubt, putting pressure here on a senator who has in many instances been an exception to the rule and has taken pro-life positions,” Pavone said.
“I urge him to resist this pressure, to be honest with himself and his constituents,” he added, “and to let the people of West Virginia know the facts about Planned Parenthood so that they, in turn, can let him know whether they think he should support this criminal, child-killing enterprise, which is more a political machine than a health organization.”
A recent Marist poll found that 61 percent of Americans oppose taxpayer funding of abortion, including 40 percent of those who say they are “pro-choice” and 41 percent of Democrats.
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