Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is back in New Jersey Thursday for a rare public appearance since she lost in her bid for the White House against President Donald Trump.
Clinton is expected to talk politics,
American democracy and her role in shaping women's political history.
Rutgers will pay Clinton $
25,000 from an endowment but use no money from tuition or state aid,
according to the university.
A Clinton spokesperson told NBC the former secretary of state plans to donate the honorarium for the speech to charity.
Clinton made at least three public appearances in the Garden State since the presidential election:
She campaigned for then-gubernatorial candidate Phil Murphy for governor in October,
and then returned for another pro-Murphy event that same month with her husband,
former President Bill Clinton.
Hillary Clinton was in New Jersey the month before for a book signing in Montclair.
Clinton railed against what she called Trump's "
Reckless"
and "
Dangerous"
agenda on the campaign trail in Blackwood in May 2016 and was welcomed back to the state a short time later by rocker Jon Bon Jovi.
http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2018/03/hillary_clinton_is_back_in_nj_today.html
Attorney General Jeff Sessions revealed on Thursday that Utah's top federal prosecutor is investigating allegations of misconduct atop the Justice Department and FBI. John Huber,
is the lead U.S. attorney and top federal law enforcement officer in Utah,
having served for two years under former President Barack Obama and reappointed by Sessions last spring.
According to Sessions,
Huber has already been looking into allegations that the DOJ and FBI acted improperly in how a warrant to monitor former Trump campaign aide Carter Page was obtained leading up to the 2016 presidential election,
as well as the role former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had in the 2010 Uranium One deal.
In a letter to top Republican lawmakers who have been vocal in their accusations of abuse of powers,
Sessions said he saw no cause to appoint a special counsel for the moment.
After Huber completes his review,
Sessions said he will then determine the need for a special counsel - who would have broader prosecutorial powers.
Sessions said he also receives regular updates from Huber.
The lawmakers addressed in the letter - Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley,
R-Iowa,
House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte,
R-Va.,
and House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy,
R-S.C. - have pressed the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel to look into surveillance of Page,
as well as the relationship the DOJ and FBI had with Christopher Steele,
the author of the Trump dossier,
which GOP findings suggest was used in obtaining the wiretap.
Sessions had already hinted the inspector general would take the reigns of the investigation earlier this year.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/attorney-general-jeff-sessions-names-prosecutor-to-probe-fbi-doj-wrongdoing
At one point,
Trump's lawyers even publicly hinted the president might voluntarily submit to an interrogation by Mueller.
The day after Trump decided not to name Mueller,
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed him special counsel to investigate Trump.
Out of the thousands of eminently qualified and conflict-free lawyers available,
Rosenstein picked Mueller,
Comey's good friend and former colleague whom Trump had just rejected,
to decide whether Trump or Comey is telling the truth about their conversations.
After the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General unearthed their rabid anti-Trump text messages,
Mueller quietly sent them back to the FBI. He must have known of their virulent hatred of Trump when he brought them on board.
By laying that legal banana peel at the president's feet,
Rosenstein encouraged Trump to take the action that has afforded Mueller the specious basis for investigating Trump for the legally and constitutionally impossible "
Crime"
of a president terminating a member of the executive branch.
If Trump declined to voluntarily submit to questioning,
Mueller would have to issue a subpoena to compel him to appear before the grand jury.
That would afford Trump's lawyers the perfect opportunity to move to quash the subpoena based on,
among other things:
Rosenstein's illegal appointment of Mueller to conduct a counterintelligence operation with no jurisdictional limits,
Team Mueller's glaring conflicts of interest,
Trump's overwhelmingly justified firing of Comey,
the legal impossibility of a president facing criminal charges for discharging a member of the executive branch,
and,
as appears increasingly likely,
the special counsel's furtherance of the plot hatched during the presidential campaign to destroy Trump by any means necessary.
http://thefederalist.com/2018/03/30/president-trump-play-hardball-robert-mueller/
One presupposition is never challenged,
however:
that redistricting is the unavoidable,
if not intrinsic, "
Responsibility"
of the political parties.
Thus,
the premise that it is natural for political parties to redraw district lines has predominated any and all debates about gerrymandering.
Should parties possess this responsibility?
Why should a party be able to engineer districts to assure predictable electoral results for years to come simply because it is in the majority at the time of redistricting?
Wouldn't American society benefit from a more neutral method?
Although the Framers thought the constitutional system required no parties,
two parties have permeated government for virtually all of U.S. history.
It is taken as a given that political parties will decide how districts look.
If reapportionment is designed to be apolitical,
based simply on population distributions,
then why should redistricting be undertaken with a political bent?
Surely the technology that is used to manipulate district maps so precisely can be utilized to redraw districts that advantage no party.
The parties may challenge gerrymandered results,
but they are loath to give up their own advantages.
https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2018/03/30/why_give_political_parties_the_power_of_redistricting.html
The Trump administration is being sued over its plans to include a question about citizenship in the 2020 Census,
which California Attorney General Xavier Becerra says "
Is not just a bad idea - it is illegal."
Democrats are worried that adding a citizenship question will dampen participation in the census by illegal immigrants,
reducing the total population count in the Democratic-leaning metropolitan areas where illegal immigrants are largely concentrated.
There is no evidence that a citizenship question would dramatically impact census participation.
If a household does not fill out the census form,
then census workers visit that household to gather census data.
If asking about citizenship is a deterrent to participation by illegal immigrants,
then what about the existing census question that asks whether respondents are "
Of Hispanic,
Latino,
or Spanish origin"
- the only ethnic group specifically called out?
Respondents are required by law to tell the government whether they are of Mexican,
Puerto Rican,
Cuban or other Hispanic origin,
which they are required to list.
As the Census Bureau points out, "
It is against the law for any Census Bureau employee to disclose or publish any census or survey information that identifies an individual or business. . .
the FBI and other government entities do not have the legal right to access this information."
Furthermore,
the proposed question is about citizenship,
not legal status.
If they choose to violate U.S. law yet again by refusing to participate in the census because of a perfectly legitimate question about citizenship,
that's not the U.S. government's fault.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/theres-nothing-wrong-with-a-census-question-about-citizenship/2018/03/29/aa3ee8c2-3367-11e8-94fa-32d48460b955_story.html?utm_term=.8001ee17ef0d
He controls a million-strong army and runs a nuclear weapons programme but for years Kim Jong Un has ruled with a nagging sense of fear.
Unlike Kim Jong Il - his father whose reign became associated with a famine that killed hundreds of thousands in the 1990s - Mr Kim has focused his ire mainly on the North Korean elite and military,
leaving his image among the wider populace relatively unscathed.
Mr Kim further weakened the power of the military hierarchy by transferring rights to operate foreign currency-earning businesses away from certain generals back to the ruling Workers'
party,
according to Mr Ahn,
who formerly served in the North Korean army.
"
This is his survival code.
For Kim,
the economic reforms are crucial to keeping power,"
says Kim Byung-yeon,
a professor at Seoul National University and author of a book on the North Korean economy.
"
Kim Jong Un's reputation is relatively good compared with his father,"
says Kang Myung Do,
a high-ranking defector and son-in-law of former North Korean premier Kang Sung San.
Aged 27,
Kim Jong Un succeeds his father as supreme leader of North Korea.
Pyongyang tests its third nuclear device;
the first of the Kim Jong Un reign.
https://www.ft.com/content/ad7c7388-3335-11e8-b5bf-23cb17fd1498?segmentId=7ac5b61e-8d73-f906-98c6-68ac3b9ee271
As per a Thursday article from Jerusalem Post.,
Israeli F-35 stealth fighter jets entered Iranian airspace undetected over the past month.
What's most worrying is that the Israeli fighters actually targeted locations in Abbas,
Esfahan and Shiraz,
and they allegedly escaped undetected by Iranian air-defense,
which is basically a Russian-made radar using Russian made SAM systems.
"
As far as decision-making,
it is a partnership,"
he continued,
stressing nonetheless that "
At the end of the day it is about the protection of Israel - and if there is a question in regards to how we will operate,
the last vote will probably go to Zvika.
Washington and Israel have signed an agreement which would see the US come to assist Israel with missile defense in times of war and,
according to Haimovitch,"I am sure once the order comes we will find here US troops on the ground to be part of our deployment team to defend the State of Israel.
As per the Jerusalem Post article,
the Israeli F-35 stealth jet fighters entering Iranian airspace signal a huge escalation in diplomatic tensions in the region,
especially considering the recent attacks in Syria,
when the Israeli air-force lost an F-16 fighter while engaging twelve Iranian military targets in the country,
together with Syrian military positions.
The attack was a provocation following an alleged "
border security"
incident,
i.e. an Iranian surveillance drone shot down over Israeli airspace.
According to US officials and various experts,
such a move from Hamas may signal the beginning of a new war with Israel just before the Passover holiday.
The thing is,
Israel seems ready and willing to strike both Palestine and Iran,
which is the biggest supporter of Hamas,
and a war between Iran and Israel could be easily triggered by the mass protests this weekend,
so stay tuned.
http://www.investmentwatchblog.com/claim-israeli-f-35-stealth-fighters-violate-iranian-airspace-sparking-fears-of-imminent-war/
