Under Trump, Military Members Receive Biggest Pay Bump Since 2010

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. . .At the end of December, President Donald Trump, by way of executive order, mandated a 2.4% pay hike for uniformed service members and a 1.9% raise for federal workers. The Trump administration’s initial budget blueprint called for a 2.1% pay increase, while the House and Senate suggested the 2.4% figure, which was eventually adopted by the president.

In 2017, the Obama administration issued a 2.1% increase. This year’s raise will be the largest for the military since 2010, when wages jumped 3.4% under the previous administration.

The new pay increase went into effect on Jan. 1, however, this is the first full week that paychecks will reflect the higher amounts. The raise is in line with private sector wage growth, according to Militarybenefits.com.

Even though Trump signed the raises into law through the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in December, the government still needs to agree on how to fund the act during the budget process, since it is over the cap imposed by the defense sequester. With a Friday deadline looming for Congress to reach a deal to keep the government funded, the military stands to be impacted by a potential shutdown in a number of ways. (Read more from “Under Trump, Military Members Receive Biggest Pay Bump Since 2010” HERE)

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You’ll Never Guess What ‘Global Warming’ Is Being Blamed For

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Rising oceans. Flooded shorelines. Horrific storms. Cold winters. Hot summers. An Arctic without ice or snow. Water flooding into the 9/11 memorial in New York. You’ve heard all the dire warnings about what global warming is doing.

But there’s a new one: It’s causing immigration.

“International negotiations on climate change, along with recent upsurge in migration across the Mediterranean Sea, have highlighted the need to better understand the possible effects of climate change on human migration – in particular, across national borders,” authors Anouch Missirian and Wolfram Schlenker say in their paper, “Asylum Applications Respond to Temperature Fluctuations.”

“Here we examine how, in the recent past (2000-2014), weather variations in 103 source countries translated into asylum applications to the European Union, which averaged 351,000 per year in our sample.

“We find that temperatures that deviated from the moderate optimum (~20°C) increased asylum applications in a nonlinear fashion, which implies an accelerated increase under continued future warming,” they wrote. (Read more from “You’ll Never Guess What ‘Global Warming’ Is Being Blamed For” HERE)

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MLK ‘Knew’ He’d Be Gunned Down

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As Americans pause to commemorate what would have been Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 89th birthday, a new book chronicles the civil rights leader’s horrific assassination 50 years ago, the harrowing pursuit of his killer and the legacy he leaves with us today.

James L. Swanson is the author of “Chasing King’s Killer: The Hunt for Martin Luther King Jr.’s Assassin.” Swanson, who writes of these searing moments in history in the style of a novel, has also written on the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy and the pursuit of their assassins . . .

“I think Martin Luther King is one of the bravest men in American history, in a way more so than Abraham Lincoln or John Kennedy. Unlike them, Dr. King was under constant threat of death and harassment for over 10 years,” Swanson explained.

Swanson begins the book by recounting the 1958 attack on King’s life, when a deranged black woman named Izola Ware Curry stabbed King in the heart at a book signing event in Harlem. Later, the FBI kept very close tabs on King, and one official even sent a letter urging King to take his own life before receiving the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize . . .

“He could have gone back to private life and lived quietly as a husband, father and minister at his local church,” Swanson said. “But he said for this great cause, we must all be prepared to die. In fact, when John Kennedy was assassinated, Martin Luther King turned to his wife and said, ‘Well, you know that’s what’s going to happen to me.’” (Read more from “MLK ‘Knew’ He’d Be Gunned Down” HERE)

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Chelsea Clinton Rebuked for Trump Attack: ‘Haiti Paid for Your Wedding’

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Chelsea Clinton really stepped in it Thursday when she tore into President Trump after news organizations said the president asked senators why the U.S. keeps bringing in migrants from “sh–hole” countries like Haiti, El Salvador and African nations.

President Trump has denied using the term, though he did admit he used “tough” language in the meeting.

In her response to a Bloomberg headline, Chelsea tweeted to Trump Thursday: “Mr. President, immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti and 54 countries in Africa likely helped build your buildings. They’ve certainly helped build our country. cc @POTUS.”

But Chelsea apparently forgot that her parents are accused of helping to leave hundreds of earthquake-ravaged Haitians homeless.

Twitter users quickly pointed out that the Clintons’ organization, the Clinton Foundation, reportedly scammed Haiti out of recovery donations after its horrific 2010 earthquake and, in that same year, was said to have paid for Chelsea’s $3 million luxurious wedding to Marc Mevinsky on July 31, 2010.

(Read more from “Chelsea Clinton Rebuked for Trump Attack: ‘Haiti Paid for Your Wedding'” HERE)

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As No One Watched, Trump Pardoned 5 Megabanks for Corruption Charges

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While Americans celebrated the holidays, President Trump followed in the footsteps of his predecessors by acting in the interest of Wall Street and using the distraction to do something that was not in the best interest of the American people. He pardoned five megabanks for rampant fraud and corruption, which is especially notable because of the amount of money he owes them.

Trump has been using Deutsche Bank since the 1990s, and Financial Times has reported that he now owes the bank at least $130 million in outstanding loans secured in properties in Miami, Chicago, and Washington. However, the report claimed that the actual number is likely much larger at $300 million.

Reports claimed that Deutsche was the only bank willing to lend Trump money after his companies faced multiple bankruptcies. The relationship has continued over the years, and an analysis from the Wall Street Journal claimed that Trump has received at least $2.5 billion in loans from Deutsche Bank over the last 20 years.

There have been concerns about Trump’s ties to the bank becoming a conflict of interest, dating back to the 2016 election, and the evidence to support those concerns is now becoming clear.

During the week of Christmas, the Federal Register announced that the Trump Administration had issued waivers to Citigroup, JPMorgan, Barclays, UBS and Deutsche Bank—all megabanks facing charges of fraud and corruption.

The banks were involved in the LIBOR Scandal, in which they colluded to deliberately depress the rate at which they paid out on investments. By suppressing the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) at the beginning of an economic crisis in 2007, the megabanks were able to boost their earnings and to give their customers a false sense of security.

Deutsche Bank pled guilty to wire fraud in a U.S. court in 2015, and it went on to pay $3.5 billion for its role in the LIBOR scandal—more than any other bank involved—before it reached a $7.2 billion settlement with the Justice Department in early 2017.

Then in June 2017, Deutsche Bank trader David Liew, who is based in Singapore, pleaded guilty to conspiring to spoof gold, silver, platinum and palladium futures in federal court in Chicago, confirming that the biggest banks in the world have conspired to rig precious metals markets.

While Trump granted 5-year exemptions to Citigroup, JPMorgan, and Barclays, and 3-year exemptions to UBS and Deutsche Bank, it should be noted that his administration is not the only one to have done this. As International Business Times noted, “In late 2016, the Obama administration extended temporary one-year waivers to five banks,” which just happened to be the same ones Trump has now extended the exemptions on—revealing the real rulers in DC.

Not surprisingly, the latest decision to pardon the banks comes in stark contrast to one of Trump’s most applauded campaign promises—that he would finally stand up against Wall Street and demand that the most powerful banks be held accountable to the public.

“I’m not going to let Wall Street get away with murder. Wall Street has caused tremendous problems for us. We’re going to tax Wall Street,” Trump said during a campaign rally in January 2016. (For more from the author of “As No One Watched, Trump Pardoned 5 Megabanks for Corruption Charges” please click HERE)

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Professor Creates Checklist for Detecting White Supremacy

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An English professor at Linfield College has developed a checklist that is intended to help individuals determine whether they are white supremacists.

In a Friday op-ed for Inside Higher Ed, professor Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt explains that after many years of contemplation, she “created a list of qualities and attributes of those that overtly or covertly support or contribute to a culture of mundane and everyday white supremacy within our institutions.”

The academic then goes on to outline 15 of her core “troubles” that she “identified to help others in academe recognize your (un)conscious contributions to white supremacy.”

The first item on the lengthy list of transgressions is working “in a position of power in a predominantly white institution” and doing nothing “to change the white supremacist power structures within your departments, committees and institutional decision-making process.”

Likewise, another sign of aiding white supremacy is thinking that marginalized colleagues who complain about oppressive work conditions are “difficult,” and saying “I am so sorry. This is unbelievable” to colleagues and students who claim “that they experienced microaggressions,” Dutt-Ballerstadt claims. (Read more from “Professor Creates Checklist for Detecting White Supremacy” HERE)

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Serious Shocker in ‘Lost’ Cronkite Broadcast

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A newly discovered CBS News clip broadcast by Walter Cronkite while still in Saigon following the Tet Offensive reveals the influential newsman had a much different perspective on the battle than he expressed in the history-making commentary he delivered after returning to New York days later.

Anyone who had reached the age of awareness when Cronkite delivered his famous live editorial Feb. 27, 1968, knew the significance of what “the most trusted man in America” was saying: The U.S. had lost the Vietnam war. President Lyndon Johnson’s famous reaction told the story: “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America,” he is reported to have said.

“Tonight, back in more familiar surroundings in New York, we’d like to sum up our findings in Vietnam, an analysis that must be speculative, personal, subjective,” he said in opening his brief closing report. “Who won and who lost in the great Tet Offensive against the cities? I’m not sure. The Viet Cong did not win by a knockout but neither did we.” . . .

But buried in the dusty archives of CBS News was another Cronkite report from Saigon broadcast days earlier – nearly two weeks earlier to be exact. The “lost” Feb. 13 clip, shows Cronkite had a much different and unambiguous view of the recent Tet battlefront immediately after it was over.

“First and simplest, the Viet Cong suffered a military defeat,” he reported. “Its missions proved suicidal. If they had intended to stay in the cities as a negotiating point, they failed at that. The Vietnamese army reacted better than even its most ardent supporters had anticipated. There were no defections from its rank, as the Viet Cong apparently had expected. And the people did not rise to support the Viet Cong, as they were also believed to have expected.” (Read more from “Serious Shocker in ‘Lost’ Cronkite Broadcast” HERE)

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‘Chelsea Manning’ Running for Senate

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Chelsea Manning on Sunday confirmed via Twitter that he is a candidate for U.S. Senate.

Three days after making his intention known to federal election officials, Manning tweeted “yup, we’re running for senate” with an attached campaign video indicating his intention to run in the 2018 Maryland Democratic primary. She sent a subsequent tweet seeking donations to his campaign.

The 71-second video weaves together images of white supremacists holding tiki torches in Charlottesville, Virginia, as well as protesters clashing with police elsewhere.

“We live in trying times . times of fear . of suppression . of hate,” Manning said.

The montage shifts to the U.S. Capitol and President Donald Trump sitting with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, both Democrats. (Read more from “‘Chelsea Manning’ Running for Senate” HERE)

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Two Senators Do Not Recall ‘Sh**Hole’ Comments

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By Al Weaver. Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and David Perdue, R-Ga., defended President Trump Friday after reports that he referred to Haiti and various African nations as “shithole countries” during a meeting at the White House.

In a statement, the pair of GOP immigration hawks said they “do not recall” the president making those remarks and hit Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., for not “negotiating in good faith” by making what they call an “accusation.”

“President Trump brought everyone to the table this week and listened to both sides. But regrettably, it seems that not everyone is committed to negotiating in good faith,” Cotton and Perdue said. (Read more from “Two Senators Do Not Recall ‘Sh**Hole’ Comments” HERE)

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Rep. Lamar Smith: Democrats Using ‘Sh**Hole’ Comments as ‘Distraction’ and ‘Excuse’ to Avoid Talks

By Breitbart. Democrats may use President Donald Trump’s alleged “s***hole” comments as an excuse to abandon negotiations over amnesty, immigration reform, and border security, said Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX).

Smith’s remarks came during a Thursday interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight with Breitbart News’s Senior Editors-at-Large Rebecca Mansour and Joel Pollak.

Pollak asked Smith if the controversy over the president’s aforementioned remarks would damage the political atmosphere for negotiations. Smith described Democrats’ focus on Trump’s “s***hole” comments as both a”distraction” and an “excuse” to avoid good faith negotiations. Partial transcript:

POLLAK: Do you think that the president’s remarks, or the controversy about the president’s remarks will make that more difficult?

SMITH: No. If the Democrats don’t want to negotiate, they’ll always come up with some excuse, and maybe this is an indication that they were never serious to begin with, but they’ll always come up with some reason not to negotiation, or make an excuse not to make concessions. This is just another distraction, another excuse for the Democrats to do that. I think when things settle down over the next several days we’ll find out whether the Democrats were really serious and want to have an immigration bill, want to try to something for some of the so-called DACA folks. We’ll know that in the next few days. It’ll be an indication of whether they’re negotiating in good faith whether they come back to the table.

(Read more from “Rep. Lamar Smith: Democrats Using ‘s***Hole’ Comments as ‘Distraction’ and ‘Excuse’ to Avoid Talks” HERE)

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No, the US Ambassador to Panama Did Not Resign Over Trump’s ‘Sh**Hole’ Comment

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Several news organizations have incorrectly reported that John Feeley, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Panama, resigned from his post in the aftermath of President Trump’s reported use of the word “shithole” to describe particular nations.

Here’s what MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi had to say:

. . .

From the Washington Blade’s Michael Lavers:

It appears to be very fake news, according to a publication in Panama.

According to Panama’s Dia a Dia news, Feeley announced his resignation Thursday around noon, which was well before news reports came out about the president’s controversial “shithole” comment.

The report said Feeley resigned for undisclosed personal reasons and that he reported his decision in a statement to both the White House and the government in Panama.

Additionally, it’s strange that the media is grouping Panama with Haiti and other impoverished nations referenced by the president. Over the past few years, Panama has been a free country that has experienced a soaring GDP per capita, thanks to deregulation and a business-friendly climate. Panamanians are also reported to be the happiest people in the world. (For more from the author of “No, the US Ambassador to Panama Did Not Resign Over Trump’s ‘Sh**Hole’ Comment” please click HERE)

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