Thousands of people lined up in frigid temperatures yesterday hoping for tickets to President Barack Obama’s farewell speech in his hometown of Chicago.
Day: January 8, 2017
Goldman: Some things you just can’t make up
The first order of business from the power-hungry Republican members of the US House of Representatives in 2017 turned out to be not their pledge to end Obamacare or to defund Planned Parenthood, but instead their first action taken in the dark of night on January 2 was to gut their own long-standing independent ethics oversight panel! During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump announced that he had a ‘secret plan’ which would “end the violence in Chicago within 5 days of his taking office”.
Kissinger’s Washington is coming back around
Let’s take a moment to savor what looks to be Henry Kissinger’s final act. The man is 93. At that age, most people are lucky to have enough energy for Wheel of Fortune and a few Facebook posts.
Passing of Pierces leaves large void in Tyngsboro
Even six decades into their marriage, the games were more competitive than their friends could believe. Neither liked to lose.
Trump defends Russia outreach amid US intel criticism
U.S. intelligence officials are convinced that Russia meddled in the presidential race. But that hasn’t changed President-elect Donald Trump’s call for warmer relations with Moscow.
Hillary Clinton not a saint
First, let me commend you on urging everyone to get behind President Elect Donald Trump. Love him or loath him, he will be our next President and we had all better hope and pray that he is successful.
Gingrich: Trump, Schumer in ‘the name-calling phase’
“Schumer has known Trump for a very long time. Right now they’re in the name-calling phase,” Gingrich said during an interview with radio host John Catsimatidis on AM 970 in New York.
Dem rep unsure why Trump has ‘taken a shine’ to Assange
“I watched him for a long time and look, I think he is a dangerous guy,” Himes, the ranking Democrat on the House NSA and Cybersecurity Subcommittee, said of Assange in an interview with John Catsimatidis on AM 970 in New York. “He is dedicated to the idea that there shouldn’t be secrets — and that might be an interesting philosophical point — but he doesn’t seem to worry too much about Russian secrets or Chinese secrets.
United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois to host Naturalization ceremony
The United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois will host a Naturalization ceremony at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, January 13 2017, at Rend Lake College. There will be 75 candidates presented to the court on behalf of the Department of Justice by Acting United States Attorney Donald S. Boyce.
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The young prince leading Saudi ArabiaA s drive for economic reform has laid out a three-pronged strategy to avoid a backlash from any religious conservatives opposed to his plan, according to remarks reported by Foreign Affairs magazine on Saturday. Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the 31-year-old overseeing the kingdomA s biggest-ever overhaul of state and society, told visiting researchers last month punitive measures would be considered for any clerics who incited or resorted to violence over the plan, one of the researchers wrote.
Editorial cartoons for Jan. 8, 2017: Trump and Russia, Obamacare repeal, goodbye 2016
The back and forth between President-elect Donald Trump and the intelligence community over alleged Russian meddling in the U.S. election dominated the headlines and the cartoons this week.
Ex-lawmaker seeks a comeback bid, this time in N.J. Senate
Seen in this 2009 file photo, then-state Democratic Committee Chairman and Assemblyman Joe Cryan , shares a laugh with Elizabeth Mayor J. Christian Bollwage during the event of Hawaiian Luau at O’Donnell Dempsey Senior Center in Elizabeth. Bryan left the legislature but announced Saturday he was making a comeback by seeking the Senate seat vacated by Sen. Raymond Lesniak who is running for governor.
Obamacare is no legacy; it’s a failing law that needs a fix
It shouldn’t have come to this — a repeal battle over President Barack Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act — but it has. Republicans are in a dominant position in Congress to dismantle the law, passed in 2009 when Democrats controlled both legislative branches and the White House.
Royal Navy ship on patrol off Northumberland coast
The rare appearance of a Royal Navy patrol ship off Berwick pier caught early risers by surprise on Sunday morning. HMS Severn is the second River-class built by Vosper Thornycroft at their Woolston yard.
Dianne Williamson: When it’s a crime to think Updated at
In 2013, a 16-year-old Worcester youth attacked another teen who was dribbling a basketball near Southgate Street.
What the US lost in Syria
The duration of the latest Syrian cease-fire may matter less than its genesis. Russia, Turkey and Iran brokered the agreement without US involvement — a worrying sign of the waning regional influence of the world’s only superpower.
[Chicago Tribune] Trump’s North Korea conundrum
“We may have to go on an arduous march, a time when we will again have to eat the roots of grass,” said a March 2016 editorial in the official newspaper of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, preparing North Koreans for worsening conditions after tougher sanctions were imposed. Last year around this time, North Korea tapped the world on the shoulder with an underground nuclear test that drew the usual international diplomatic tut-tutting.
[Kent Harrington ] Donald Trump’s North Korean family values
With every new US president arriving in Washington come a handful of counselors and aides whose personal ties, built over years and forged in election campaigns, give them pride of place in the administration. From the “Irish Brotherhood” that brought John F. Kennedy to office to the “Berlin Wall” that guarded Richard Nixon’s door, close friends and confidantes have often outdone the administration’s biggest names.
[David Ignatius] Trump’s showdown with the intelligence community
Watching Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, a gruff, 50-year veteran of the spy world, answer congressional questions Thursday, you couldn’t help wondering if perhaps this time Donald Trump has met his match. To recall a quip made years ago by a prominent Washington lawyer, Clapper is not a “potted plant.”
Trump, Putin and the Big Hack
Vyacheslav Molotov, Stalin’s foreign minister, once remarked while on a trip to Berlin in the early days of the Cold War, “The trouble with free elections is that you never know how they will turn out.” On the morning of November 9th, Molotov’s grandson, Vyacheslav Nikonov, a member of the Russian Duma’s foreign-affairs committee, announced to the parliament, “Three minutes ago, Hillary Clinton conceded defeat in the American Presidential elections.
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RT, a state-run Russian television network that broadcasts around the world in English, was implicated in a recently declassified United States intelligence report that accused the Russia government of meddling in the American presidential election to tip the vote in favor of Donald J. Trump. The Russians are accused of hacking the email systems of the Democratic National Committee and conducting a widespread disinformation campaign that included the propagation of fake news stories on the internet and the airwaves.
Trump Challenges Intel Agencies
President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday escalated his blunt public challenge to the U.S. intelligence agencies he will soon oversee, appearing to embrace WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s contention that Russia did not provide his group with the hacked Democratic emails that roiled the 2016 election. Trump’s [seen here] defiance has increased the pressure on intelligence officials to provide decisive evidence of Russian election interference.
Farm owners fear losing help if deportations carried out
FRESNO, Calif. — Days after Donald Trump won the White House vowing to deport millions of illegal aliens and fortify the Mexican border, California farmer Kevin Herman ordered nearly $600,000 in new equipment, cutting the number of workers he'll need starting with the next harvest.
Exploring the ‘Lost City of the Monkey God’
To pigeonhole Douglas Preston a true-crime author is a gross understatement of his skills as a writer.
Another look at ‘Wampum’ and the creation of reservation gambling
Originally a type of bead fashioned by Native Americans in the northeastern United States, it was used as currency and eventually became a slang term for money.
Even with increased airport security vulnerabilities remain
A heavy police presence was at the Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport after it re-opened Saturday, Jan. 7, 2017.
Pro-Trump Californians hope his victory can fuel a GOP revival in the Golden State
Candidate Donald Trump waves to the crowd during an April rally at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa. Hundreds of Donald Trump ‘s California supporters gathered Saturday to celebrate his impending inauguration – and to try to funnel the energy that propelled him to the White House into turning their cobalt-blue home state red.
Political Road Map: The only thing ‘special’ about California special …
Democracy won’t come cheap in Los Angeles in 2017. Voters from Boyle Heights to Eagle Rock will likely vote twice – after two earlier elections last year – to fill a single seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, with the final ballots costing county taxpayers more than $1.3 million to cast and count.
Hypocrisy Alert: PBS’s Mark Shields Pathetically ‘Shames’…
On Friday’s week-in-review segment on PBS, every host and guest was piling on Donald Trump. These people consisted of anchor Judy Woodruff, liberal analyst Mark Shields, and pseudo-conservative David Brooks.
Challenging the duopoly
Ever so briefly during the 2016 presidential campaign, Peter Ackerman and his band of reformers believed their time had come. Those hopes proved fleeting, but Ackerman and his rebels are in for the long haul.
Letters: Evaluating Obama’s legacy
Re: “How do you assess Obama’s legacy?” [Opinion, Jan. 3]: It’s become clear that President Obama is very concerned about his place in history, and his actions in office will define that legacy. His administration has given us inedible school lunches, unaffordable insurance and made police lives unimportant.
Loyal opposition versus resistance to Trump
Perhaps nothing has made modern progressivism look sillier than the often hysterical reaction to the election of Donald Trump. This has spanned everything from street protests, claims of Russian electoral manipulation and even reports of sudden weight gain and loss of sexual interest.
O.C. legislator overstates law, but his column goes viral
California Republicans face a discouraging dilemma, as GOP numbers wither in the state Capitol. Democrats gained supermajorities in both houses of the Legislature, which leaves the remaining Republicans virtually no power to stop anything and little more than a bully pulpit for their policies.
The Latest: Trump team defends Crowley on plagiarism claims
President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team is defending against plagiarism accusations the syndicated talk show host Monica Crowley, named as a communications specialist for the incoming administration. In its report, CNN says it found more than 50 examples of plagiarism from numerous sources, including copying with no changes or minimal changes from news articles, other columnists and think tanks.