A Compendium of Various Official Lies, Business Scandals, Small Murders, Frauds, and Other Gross Defects of Our Current Political, Business and Religious Moral Lepers.

“When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes… Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain.”- Napoleon Bonaparte, 1815

 

“Corrupted by wealth and power, your government is like a restaurant with only one dish. They’ve got a set of Republican waiters on one side and a set of Democratic waiters on the other side. But no matter which set of waiters brings you the dish, the legislative grub is all prepared in the same Wall Street kitchen”. – Huey Long

 

“I fired [General MacArthur] because he wouldn’t respect the authority of the President. That’s the answer to that. I didn’t fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that’s not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail “- Harry S Truman

 

“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.” -Thomas Jefferson.

 

“Democracy is the art of running the circus from the monkey cage”

– H.L. Mencken

 

 “For a quarter of a century the CIA has been repeatedly wrong about every major political and economic question entrusted to its analysis.” 

-Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, 

The New York Times, 1991.

 

Don’t tell a lie! Some men I’ve known
Commit the most appalling acts,
Because they happen to be prone
To an economy of facts;
And if to lie is bad, no doubt
’Tis even worse to get found out!

 

My children, never, never steal!
To know their offspring is a thief
Will often make a father feel
Annoyed and cause a mother grief;
So never steal, but, when you do,
Be sure there’s no one watching you.

 

The Wicked flourish like the bay,
At Cards or Love they always win,
Good Fortune dogs their steps all day,
They fatten while the Good grow thin.
The Righteous Man has much to bear;

      The Bad becomes a Bullionaire!

 The Voice of the White House  

Washington, D.C.  November 13, 2016: “Now tht Trump has the popular vote as well as the Electoral College vote, the bleatings of the Clinton elitists that they are going to petition the Electoral College to “elect” Clinton fades into nonsense. But nonsense and irrational concepts seem to be a hallmark of Trump’s opposition and some elements of the print media are still throwing mud on him. Why not talk about all those people who got in the way of Bill and Hillary and were quickly removed from the scene? This will be something for the Department of Justice to work with.”

Trump won because Clinton & her supporters refused to live in the real world

November 13, 2016

by Danielle Ryan

DW

The Washington establishment and its fans and defenders got their comeuppance this week, and they’re finding it very difficult to get their heads around it.

Before we go any further, I should clarify that I’m no fan of Donald Trump, and like most people, I believed Clinton would win, so this isn’t an opportunity to say ‘I told you so.’

Nevertheless, it was always clear that Clinton’s campaign strategy had some serious flaws. Most of us thought this would simply make it a tight race, but that Clinton would undoubtedly pull through. Now, however, the events of the aftermath – on top of the obvious mistakes already made – make the reasons Trump pulled off the shock victory clearer than ever.

It’s not me, it’s you

Liberals for Clinton spent this election doing three things that were entirely counter-productive and which now they should regret.

First, they ran a campaign which based itself less on issues and more on the fact that Trump doesn’t appear to be a very nice person. Now, while this may be true and even seemed like a logical strategy at times (during p*ssy-grabbing-gate, for example), ultimately it’s not how you win over or inspire people.

Second, instead of debating and engaging with people, a huge chunk of Hillary supporters decided anyone who didn’t agree with them was a racist, sexist, uneducated waste of oxygen. In fact, their own candidate even appeared to back them up in this line of thinking by calling Trump supporters “deplorables.” Instead of sucking it up and realizing that their Trump friends had the right to an opinion – and were not necessarily racist and sexist – these overly sensitive souls ran off to their “safe spaces” where differing opinions couldn’t reach them. This led to a lot of unfriending on Facebook, and probably a significant chunk of secret Trump voters who came out only in the privacy of the voting booth. As such, the polls that Clinton relied on to read the country’s mood were almost all wrong. The refusal to acknowledge Trump supporters as human beings with their own, perhaps legitimate, reasons for favoring him was a major failure of the Clinton camp. This is much the same thing that happened in the UK with the Brexit vote.

Third, they played the blame game in a way that really backfired “big-league,” as Trump would say. If Trump’s support had to be acknowledged, it must be blamed on anyone but Clinton or the status quo of American politics which she was trying to protect. Their favorite strategy in this regard was to blame Russia. This was odd because most Americans probably don’t give a flying toss about Russia, but Vladimir Putin became the “secret mastermind” behind Trump’s successes, not the fact that millions of ordinary Americans were hurting and feeling left behind and ignored by decades of policies which never seemed to take them into account.

Julian Assange and WikiLeaks were Putin’s puppets, too. And so was Green Party candidate Jill Stein. They were all part of a massive Kremlin plot, you see. That’s what you would have believed if you’d listened to some Clinton surrogates and fans in the media. It was real ‘Russia ate my homework’ level stuff – and it has likely flamed the fury of Clinton’s supporters trying to come to terms with how they lost.

Can we have a do-over?

Not surprisingly, the blame game has continued in the aftermath of Clinton’s loss, but now the main culprit is the Electoral College system, which has suddenly become the major focus of Clinton supporters who last week were perfectly happy with it.

Only the popular vote matters, they say. Clinton’s loss isn’t fair, they cry. Millions of them have signed petitions trying to have Clinton elected anyway. Unfortunately for the disappointed, signing petitions isn’t how you elect a president – and it is truly fascinating how quickly liberals who love democracy seem to forget all about it when their candidate loses. Ask them if they would be complaining about the Electoral College and its fairness if Clinton had won and they quickly go quiet. There’s another parallel here to the Brexit vote and how pro-EU voters tried to annul the majority’s choice on the grounds that they were the “stupid masses.”

Sudden outrage and mass denial

Then there’s the protesters; the people who have actually taken to the streets to dispute the outcome of a legitimate election simply because they don’t fancy dealing with the result. The rather ironic theme seems to be: Trump is an evil fascist who hates democracy and will destroy America, so we need to violently overthrow him. Now, protesting is fine, it’s their right to do so. Many people are legitimately worried about the kind of era Trump will usher in. But there’s a kind of hypocrisy to it as well.

If you asked these liberal anti-Trump protesters why they weren’t out protesting Obama’s drone war, or his funding of terrorists in Syria, or Hillary’s hand in the destruction of Libya, they’d barely know what you’re talking about – which brings us finally to the media and its role in all of this.

Liberals weren’t bothered by most of these things because the media told them not to be. Bombings under Obama were humanitarian airstrikes. The mainstream media made anti-war liberals fine with war because a nice man with a pretty family was dropping the bombs.

Journalists and pundits became so entrenched in their own perspective and bubble that they couldn’t even mask their disbelief and anger over the outcome on election night. Literally until moments before the race was called for Trump, anchors and pundits were talking about Clinton’s path to 270 delegates when, to anyone facing reality, it had been clear hours before that she probably didn’t have one.

Trump’s victory is beyond comprehension for Clinton supporters and the media because for so long they’ve failed to live in the real world where there are two sides to every story. There’s a lesson there for anyone who wants to take it.

Reminder: Hillary Clinton Lost Because She’s Hillary Clinton

Among the many reasons for Hillary Clinton’s loss, obvious corruption, lockstep leftism, disastrous health-care prescriptions, abortion fanaticism, and basic incompetence are just a few

November 11, 2016

by Heather Wilhelm

National Review

Sexism obviously exists, but to attribute Clinton’s loss to it is absurd. Well, that didn’t take long. Just hours after Hillary Clinton lost the presidency to Donald Trump — and hours after she left her disconsolate supporters at New York City’s Javits Center, hightailing it to the confines of Manhattan’s Peninsula Hotel—cries of “sexism” erupted across America’s fruited plain. On Twitter, under the top-trending hashtag #NotMyPresident, many Americans bemoaned the “misogyny” that allegedly doomed Clinton from the start. “Trump didn’t win because of Comey,” MSNBC’s Jonathan Alter wrote on election night. “He won because he’s a testosterone candidate and men weren’t ready for a woman president.” Introducing Clinton before her Wednesday concession speech, vice-presidential candidate Tim Kaine noted that Hillary had “made history in a nation that is good at so many things, but has made it uniquely difficult for a woman to be elected.”

“It turns out the glass ceiling is reinforced with steel beams,” Charlotte Alter wrote at Time, arguing that Clinton’s loss “may be as good a sign as any that we’re not ready for glass-breaking yet.” The “stench of sexism,” she added, “engulfed Hillary Clinton’s quixotic bid for the presidency, magnifying her flaws and minimizing her considerable strengths.” Well, something certainly smells about all this hullaballoo — in fact, the entire ramshackle 2016 election has been chock-full of malodorous surprises — but when it comes to Clinton’s numerous flaws and resounding electoral failure, the culprit sure doesn’t seem to be sexism. Democrats would prefer we believe otherwise. In the closing weeks of the campaign, President Obama bemoaned the nation’s latent misogyny. “There’s a reason we haven’t had a woman president,” he told an Ohio rally. “Hillary Clinton is consistently treated differently than just about any other candidate I see out there.” On November 4, Bill Clinton chimed in: “I know there’s a bunch of guys that are upset about having a woman president. They just don’t want to ’fess up to it.”

Over the course of the campaign, Clinton has played the woman card to the hilt—sometimes literally, dispensing tongue-in-cheek “woman cards” to fans, friends, and supporters. “If I’m playing the woman card,” she regularly declared at campaign rallies, “then deal me in!” For election night, Team Clinton even carefully chose the Javits Center — that “unglamorous glass fortress on Manhattan’s West Side,” as the New York Times called it — so that Hillary could declare victory under a literal glass ceiling. As an aside, when you think about it, this is actually kind of weird. What on earth was the Clinton camp planning to do to that poor glass ceiling when they won? Yell at it? Sit in a circle and try to levitate it, like hippies used to do to the Pentagon? Give everyone in the audience hard hats, ladders, and hammers, hope for the best, and watch the resulting glass-shard shower of terror? (Update: At press time, CNN reported that the actual Clinton plan involved using cannons filled with confetti designed to look like shattered glass. Ho hum. Like THAT would fool anyone. The ceiling would still be there!)

Luckily, we never discovered the potentially sinister endgame of this half-baked political metaphor. The “glass ceiling” remains unbroken, at least when it comes to the American presidency. (Women like Margaret Thatcher, who won the role of British prime minister almost 30 years ago, must be wearily rolling their eyes from up above.) Hopefully, in the future, we will leave the presidential ceiling cracking to a far superior candidate. There are many reasons for Hillary Clinton’s loss: Obvious corruption, lockstep leftism, disastrous health-care prescriptions, abortion fanaticism, and basic incompetence are just a few. But her loss might best be summed up in a September 22 video address she gave to the Laborers’ International Union of North America. After bashing right-to-work measures allowing freedom from unions, Clinton stared at the camera, suddenly irate. “Now, having said all this,” she bellowed, head bobbing, appearing as though she wanted to throttle the entire world, and maybe a few stuffed animals, too, “why aren’t I 50 points ahead, you might ask?” Oh dear. Why indeed? It was a question that answered itself, and a moment that, for obvious reasons, went viral. You recognized that it eerily resembled a famous scene, if you’ve seen the movie Office Space, where a terrified worker wildly shouts at downsizing consultants about how good he is with people. Sexism certainly exists, but to attribute Clinton’s loss — the failed candidacy of an ossified political fixture with enough toxic baggage to crush 17 glass ceilings — to it is absurd. But in the Rorschach test of life, some people will always see sexism lurking around every corner, hysterically labeling each slight as a sign of eternal misogyny. It must be an exhausting way to live. Some would argue that it helped fuel the backlash that brought us Donald Trump.

No, the Electoral College won’t make Clinton president instead of Trump

November 11, 2016

by Andrew Prokop

vox.com

Donald Trump won Tuesday’s presidential election. But many liberals and progressives have begun clinging to one faint hope that he could still be stopped — through the Electoral College.

Tuesday’s vote was technically not to make Trump president, but only to determine who the 538 electors in various states across the country will be. It is those electors who will cast the votes that legally elect the president on December 19.

In modern times, the casting of electoral votes has been a purely ceremonial occasion where the results in the states have been rubber-stamped. But one idea spreading on left-leaning social media circles is that electors from states Trump won should be urged to support Clinton instead. A Change.org petition to this effect has more than 500,000 signatures.

Weirdly enough, this actually seems to be technically possible — the US Constitution does seem to give the electors the final say in picking the president.

But realistically, considering how big a lead Trump has, who the electors are, how their votes are counted, and hundreds of years of American democratic norms, it’s a silly fantasy that is just in no way, shape, or form going to happen.

How the Electoral College works

When Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton won states on Tuesday, the practical result was that they won slots for electors in those states. For instance, Trump’s win in Alaska meant the Republican Party’s nominated elector slate there — former Gov. Sean Parnell, Jacqueline Tupou, and Carolyn Leman — officially becomes Alaska’s three electors. This process repeated itself across the country, resulting in the selection of the 538 electors.

On December 19, the electors will cast their votes for president in their respective states. But while in the modern era this ceremonial occasion has been a formality that reiterates the results of statewide votes, it seems to be at least technically possible that electors could instead defy their states and vote for whomever they choose.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, about 30 of the 50 states have passed laws “binding” their electors to vote in accordance with the presidential popular vote in their state. But in most, the penalty for not doing so is only a fine, and it’s unclear whether stiffer penalties would hold up in court — it’s never been tested, and the Constitution does appear to give the electors the right to make the final call. Furthermore, there are still 20 or so states that haven’t even tried to bind their electors.

This isn’t just theoretical. Richard Berg-Andersson lists nine electors who have indeed gone “rogue” and refused to support their state’s presidential choice in the past 100 years. Their votes were all counted as cast, though there have never been sufficient numbers of them to overturn a presidential election result.

In the past, I have warned of the risk that rogue electors could throw the outcome of a presidential election to a losing candidate. But there are many reasons why it’s not going to happen this year.

1) The Trump state electors are Republican Party stalwarts or activists chosen during state party deliberations — check out this excellent Politico feature “The People Who Pick the President” to see who some of them are. Almost always, the parties do a good enough job of vetting their respective electoral slates to ensure that they will indeed loyally back their party’s presidential nominee.

The Republican Party clearly ended up falling behind Trump, and any Republican elector who abandons him would be defying the will of not only their state’s voters but also the party generally. And while there actually are some Trump skeptics who are electors, they’ve pretty much all said they’d affirm the results in their states.

2) Trump now looks likely to end up with 306 electors to Clinton’s 232. So it’s not as if one or two electors could make the difference. Thirty-seven electors would have to desert Trump to deprive him of his majority. That’s a lot.

3) These electors wouldn’t just have to desert Trump. Simply depriving Trump of 270 votes without giving Clinton herself 270 would throw the election to the GOP-controlled House of Representatives, which is certain to award the presidency to Trump. To prevent Trump’s election, they’d all have to affirmatively back Clinton.

Keep in mind that hardly any of even Trump’s strongest critics in the GOP went so far as to actually endorse Hillary Clinton over him. Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Lindsey Graham, John McCain, and George W. Bush all refused to go so far, saying instead they’d vote for no one or write in somebody else.

4) Any large-scale defections from Trump would surely be disputed by his supporters in those states, who may well just send in a conflicting set of electoral votes. And an 1887 law holds that if states send in multiple conflicting sets of electoral college votes, Congress gets to vote on which ones to recognize. The Republican-controlled Congress would obviously not go along with an attempt by electors to steal the presidency for Hillary Clinton.

5) Hillary Clinton has conceded the election and recognized Donald Trump as the winner. There is no sign that she would go along with or participate in this endeavor.

6) Most importantly, there are democratic norms. The broader reason we’ve only had nine faithless electors in the past 80 years or so, despite the enormous power they seem to have, is that it’s widely believed that picking the president isn’t their job anymore. Their job is to affirm the results in their states.

In summary, what people are talking about is getting 37 Republican Party activists expected to vote for Trump to essentially steal the election for Hillary Clinton in defiance of the will of the people in their states and the widely recognized rules of the presidential contest, even though Clinton herself doesn’t want them to. Not going to happen.

If this actually happened, it would almost surely end in disaster

Many progressives and liberals are clearly unhappy with the outcome of this election and fearful of a Trump presidency, and understandably so.

However, in addition to being unrealistic, this idea that the electors should simply choose to make Hillary Clinton president would be tremendously dangerous for American democracy if it ever gained real steam, despite the fig leaf that it seems to be technically possible and that Hillary Clinton appears to have won the popular vote.

For 180 years or so, our system has interpreted the results of the state elections as the Electoral College results. The campaigns are waged based on this understanding of the rules. The electors themselves have been rubber stamps. The popular vote has been irrelevant. Degrading those norms as part of a likely doomed effort to defeat Donald Trump is a bad idea. (For one, future rogue electors may not always vote the way you want — several historical rogue electors had racist motivations.)

Furthermore, electors overturning Trump particularly would certainly cause a constitutional crisis, because there is no world in which the Republican Party — who, again, control Congress — would accept Clinton taking the presidency in this way. (Likely, as mentioned above, they’d refuse to recognize the returns.) And furthermore, when this sort of thing happens elsewhere in the world, it often creates a military crisis. (Hillary Clinton is not very popular among the military, so I’m not sure liberals want to make that play.)

Indeed, to be perfectly clear, this idea is essentially a call for destroying American democracy, at least so far as it relates to presidential election results, before Trump can even get the chance to do anything, without any clear idea of what would replace it. It is very, very unlikely to work out well.

Trump sees Japan’s Abe as ally in push back against China: adviser

November 11, 2016

by Tim Kelly

Reuters

Tokyo-U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s meeting next week with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may mark the start of talks to garner Japan’s support for a push back against China’s growing influence in Asia, a security adviser to Trump said.

In the face of a rising China and a volatile North Korea, Trump’s campaign comments, including a demand that Japan pay more for the upkeep of U.S. forces on its soil, have worried Tokyo about a rift in a security alliance with Washington that has been the bedrock of its defense since World War Two.

A tougher stance against China, however, and a call for Japan to play a bigger security role through a Trump-Abe axis would fit with Abe’s hawkish policies that include allowing the military to operate more freely overseas.

Abe will meet Trump in New York on Thursday before going to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru.

Trump was looking to Japan “to play a more active role in Asia”, the adviser, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to talk to the media, told Reuters.

Abe, he added, was “a uniquely placed figure to offer leadership in the alliance”.

Senior U.S. Navy commanders have said they would welcome joint air and sea patrols with Japan’s military in the disputed South China Sea, where the construction of island bases is extending Beijing’s influence. Tokyo has balked at direct provocation of its neighbor, choosing instead to assist nations in the region with disputes with China, such as the Philippines.

Trump, in his first 100 days in office, would end budget sequestration that mandates spending, including cuts in military outlays, and submit a budget that would fund construction of dozens of new warships, the adviser said.

It would “send a message to Beijing as well as allies Japan and South Korea and other nations that the U.S. is intent on being in (Asia) for a long time”, he said.

However, current U.S. officials warn it would be difficult to build and absorb new warships.

“Ships can’t be built overnight,” a U.S. defense official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “The larger concern is how they would be funded and how they would be manned.”

The official said that even if the funds were available, it would be necessary to find shipyards and skilled workers to build the ships.

Ending sequestration is also easier said than done, requiring the approval of Congress, where the support would be needed of Democrats staunchly opposed to giving the Pentagon more money without also spending more on social programs.

Trump would also need to overcome the reservations of fiscally conscious “Freedom Caucus” Republicans, who oppose increasing government spending, including at the Pentagon.

The Trump adviser said the president-elect would want to allay any “unfounded” concerns Abe may have and affirm his commitment to their countries’ security alliance. “This is going to be a respectful conversation.”

Potential friction between the two countries, however, exists over how much Tokyo pays for the deployment of U.S. forces in Japan. Japan says the funding it provides, which covers three quarters of the cost, is enough.

“We are bearing the burden for what we should bear,” Japanese Minister of Defense Tomomi Inada told reporters in Tokyo on Friday, Kyodo news reported.

Abe knows little about Trump, and in New York is likely to want to begin building a relationship that could yield a common world view, a person who knows the prime minister said.

“He has proven to be able to get along with fairly edgy people,” he said.

(Reporting by Tim Kelly; Additional reporting by Idrees Ali, Patricia Zengerle and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Nick Macfie and Chizu Nomiyama)

 Le Pen says Trump victory boosts her chances for presidency, likens NF to UKIP

November 13,2016

RT

Marine Le Pen, far-right leader of the National Front, has said Donald Trump’s presidential win has increased her chances of becoming France’s next president. She also said “there’s not a hair’s breadth of difference” between UKIP and her party.

In an interview with the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Le Pen stated that president-elect Trump “made possible what had previously been presented as impossible.”

Le Pen made the comments during a pre-recorded interview with Marr, which was aired on Sunday and was widely criticized by many viewers for giving a platform to the far-right leader.

When asked about Trump’s victory in the US elections, she said her own chances of leadership were now more likely.

“Yes, I wish that in France also the people upend the table, the table around which the elite are dividing up what should go to the French people,” Le Pen told the BBC.

She also defended her party against claims of being racist and when asked if “Muslims can be good French citizens and be welcome in Marine Le Pen’s France,” she replied, “We are not going to welcome any more people. Stop, we are full up!”

Le Pen claimed, however, that she didn’t “judge people on their religion” but added that if people did not “comply with our codes, our values, our French lifestyles” then the country would “act accordingly.”

When asked about UKIP, Le Pen said there isn’t a “hair’s breadth” between the National Front and Nigel Farage’s party.

Farage has attempted to distance UKIP from the National Front in the past and rejected support from Le Pen during the Brexit campaign.

Le Pen told Marr that it was “ridiculous” for UKIP to deny similarities between both parties.

“Sorry, no, but objectively, there is on the topic of immigration and the European Union, there is not a hair’s breadth of difference between what UKIP thinks and what the National Front thinks, let’s be truthful here,” Le Pen said.

“Maybe UKIP is trying to counter the demonisation they are victim of by saying ‘we are the good guys and the National Front are the bad guys’, they can do so, but I don’t feel obliged to follow this strategy, because frankly I feel it’s a little bit ridiculous,” she added.

Le Pen is leading in a number of polls and is expected to enter the second round of the French elections in May 2017. She succeeded her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, as leader of the National Front in 2011.

Mexico-US wall to be part fence – Trump

November 13, 2016

BBC News

US President-elect Donald Trump has said his planned wall along the Mexican border could be partly fence.

In some areas, “a wall is more appropriate”, he told US broadcaster CBS, but “there could be some fencing”,

Mr Trump repeatedly promised during his election campaign to build a wall to keep out illegal migrants.

He said he planned to deport or jail up to three million undocumented migrants with criminal records, such as gang members and drug dealers.

Trump vows to deport up to three million immigrants ‘immediately’

US president-elect Donald Trump has said he will deport two to three million undocumented immigrants “immediately” upon taking office. He also insisted that a wall will be built between the US and Mexico.

November 13, 2016

DW

In his first televsion interview since winning the US presidential election on Tuesday, Donald Trump  vowed to see through his hardline proposals for immigration policy. The interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” was due to be aired later on Sunday.

On entering office in January, Trump said he will deport as many as three million undocumented migrants.

“What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, where a lot of these people – probably two million, it could be even three million – we are getting them out of the country or we are going to incarcerate,” Trump said.

“But we’re getting them out of the country, they’re here illegally.”

Trump’s comments on Sunday contradicated those made by House Speaker

Plans to build a wall between the US and Mexico will also be realized, Trump said, adding he would accept a fence in some places along the US southern border.

During his election campaign, Trump said vowed to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it. He also has insisted he will deport all 11 million people in the country illegally, with exceptions.

Once the border is “secure,” the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement will assess the status of the remaining undocumented immigrants in the country, Trump told CBS on Sunday.

“After the border is secure and after everything gets normalized, we’re going to make a determination on the people that they’re talking about who are terrific people, they’re terrific people but we are gonna make a determination at that,” he said.

“But before we make that determination … it’s very important, we are going to secure our border.”

More to follow …

Trump vows to deport up to three million immigrants ‘immediately’

Donald Trump has said he will deport 2 to 3 million undocumented immigrants “immediately” upon taking office. The US president-elect also announced that Washington veteran Reince Priebus will serve as his chief of staff.

November 13, 2016

DW

In his first television interview since winning the US presidential election on Tuesday, Donald Trump vowed to see through his hard-line proposals for immigration policy.

Speaking on CBS’ “60 Minutes” on Sunday, Trump said that on entering office in January he will deport as many as 3 million undocumented migrants.

“What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, where a lot of these people – probably 2 million, it could be even 3 million – we are getting them out of the country or we are going to incarcerate,” Trump said.

“But we’re getting them out of the country; they’re here illegally.”

However, Trump’s comments contradicted those made by House Speaker Paul Ryan.

Speaking with CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, Ryan said that mass deportation is not a focus of the Republicans right now.

“I think we should put people’s minds at ease” on mass deportation, he said, because the top priority is really border security.

US-Mexico wall to go ahead: Trump

Reiterating his plans to reinforce the border between the US and Mexico, Trump also said in Sunday’s interview that his proposed wall may not entirely be built from concrete or bricks and mortar.

“There could be some fencing,” Trump said. “But [in] certain areas, a wall is more appropriate. I’m very good at this; it’s called construction,” he added.

The wall, which was a focal point of Trump’s election campaign, would be paid for by Mexico, the president-elect had said in previous statements.

Once the border is “secure,” the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement will assess the status of the remaining undocumented immigrants in the country, Trump told CBS.

“After the border is secure and after everything gets normalized, we’re going to make a determination on the people that they’re talking about who are terrific people. They’re terrific people, but we are gonna make a determination at that,” he said.

“But before we make that determination … it’s very important, we are going to secure our border.”

Priebus appointed White House chief of staff

Trump made the first major appointments of his administration on Sunday, selecting Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus as his White House chief of staff, the top employee in the administration. He also named Stephen Bannon, his campaign CEO and executive of the conservative website Breitbart as his chief strategist and senior counselor.

“Steve and Reince are highly qualified leaders who worked well together on our campaign and led us to a historic victory. Now I will have them both with me in the White House as we work to make America great again,” Trump said in a statement.

As the head of the Republican National Committee, Priebus is expected interact with Republicans on Capitol Hill, some of whom have been skeptical of a Trump presidency. Priebus is close to House Speaker Ryan.

Priebus said the top priorities of the Trump administration were “to create an economy that works for everyone, secure our borders, repeal and replace Obamacare and destroy radical Islamic terrorism.”

Priebus, Bannon and Vice-President elect Mike Pence, who was tasked with heading the transition team, will be the three primarily responsible for choosing Trump’s cabinet.

Trump Camp Refuses to Close Door on Campaign Pledge to ‘Lock Her Up’

November 12, 2016

by Eric Lichtblau

The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Even as President-elect Donald J. Trump vows to unify a divided nation, he faces a momentous decision over whether to make good on his oft-repeated campaign pledge to have a special prosecutor “lock up” Hillary Clinton.

That decision will signal whether Mr. Trump intends to look ahead and “bind the wounds of division,” as he pledged to do in his acceptance speech early Wednesday, or look back and settle scores, as he often seemed inclined to do during his campaign.

The possibility of a new investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s email server has forced the White House to field questions about whether President Obama might offer Mrs. Clinton a pardon to insulate her from criminal charges.

Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman, said last week that he would not discuss Mr. Obama’s thinking on any particular case for clemency, but he sent a strong signal that it would be inappropriate for Mr. Trump to revive the Clinton investigation.

He told reporters that the country had a long tradition of political leaders’ “not using the criminal justice system to exact political revenge.” Mr. Earnest said that “in fact, we go to great lengths to insulate our criminal justice system from partisan politics,” adding that “the president is hopeful that it will continue.”

Chants of “lock her up” became a frequent rallying cry at Trump campaign events, and Mr. Trump told Mrs. Clinton at the second presidential debate that if elected, he would instruct his attorney general “to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation because there has never been so many lies, so much deception.”

If he were president, he told her, “you’d be in jail.” That threat unnerved both Republican and Democratic legal analysts.

When Mr. Obama took office, he and his first attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., also faced a decision over whether to investigate the previous administration.

While Mr. Holder said the country was owed “a reckoning” for torture of terrorism suspects carried out after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Obama administration ultimately did not conduct a broad criminal investigation of officials from the Bush administration. Mr. Obama declared that “we need to look forward, as opposed to looking backwards.”

The F.B.I. has concluded two times, including after a surprise review that began just 11 days before the election, that Mrs. Clinton should not face criminal prosecution over her handling of her private email server. Mrs. Clinton on Saturday blamed her loss in part on the F.B.I.’s last-minute intervention.

Even so, legal analysts said there was little doubt that as president, Mr. Trump would have the power to direct his attorney general — Rudolph W. Giuliani has been frequently mentioned for the job — to appoint an outside special counsel to reinvestigate the matter in light of new evidence that may have developed.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal that was published on Friday, Mr. Trump deflected a question about naming a special prosecutor.

“It’s not something I’ve given a lot of thought, because I want to solve health care, jobs, border control, tax reform,” he said.

But his top aides have left the door open to such a move.

In an appearance Thursday on Fox News, Mr. Giuliani — a top adviser to Mr. Trump on legal and national security issues — said he did not think that Mr. Obama should pardon Mrs. Clinton, and he raised the prospect that the Trump administration could investigate not only the email server, but also the Clinton Foundation, the family charity. Several F.B.I. offices are known to have examined questions about the charity’s acceptance of gifts from foreign leaders, but those inquiries appear to have been paused.

Mr. Giuliani said that during the campaign Mr. Trump had “talked about an independent counsel doing it, who would be not a Republican, not a Democrat, somebody free of any political question.”

The decision about appointing a special prosecutor is a “tough” one, Mr. Giuliani said in a separate appearance on CNN. “It’s been a tradition in our politics to put things behind us,” he said. “On the other hand, you have to look at, how bad was it?”

Kellyanne Conway, Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, has also not ruled out a special counsel investigation, saying a decision would come “all in good time.”

But Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who is also a Trump adviser, seemed to discourage talk of prosecuting Mrs. Clinton when he was asked about it Thursday on NBC’s “Today” show. “People get to speak through their vote, and they voted for Donald Trump to be the president of the United States,” Mr. Christie said. “It is now his job, and I am confident he will bring the country together.”

However, Mr. Christie’s influence in the Trump camp appears to be waning. A day after that interview, he was demoted from chief of the Trump transition team in favor of Vice President-elect Mike Pence. Mr. Christie was made a vice chairman.

Democrats say the lingering threats to “lock up” Mrs. Clinton are alarming. They say they hope that Mr. Trump, who has already shown signs of backing away from other campaign pledges, most notably his vow to repeal the Affordable Care Act entirely, will do the same when it comes to threats of prosecuting his defeated rival.

“It would be very, very unwise, in my view, for a new attorney general, acting presumably on the orders of the president, to start out a new administration on this note,” Richard Ben-Veniste, a prominent Democratic lawyer in Washington, said in a telephone interview. “It would be mimicking the tin-pot dictators of historical disgrace who seek to punish those who have run against them.”

The Real Clinton Conspiracy that backfired

The Worst  Candidate in American History

November 12, 2016

by Martin Armstrong

armstgrongeconomics

Meanwhile, Hillary lost not merely because she misread the “real” people, she decided to run a very divisive and nasty negative campaign, which has fueled the violence ever since. According to WikiLeaks emails from campaign John Podesta, Clinton colluded with the DNC and the media to raise what they thought would be the extreme right among Republicans to then make her the middle of the road to hide her agenda.

Clinton called this her “pied piper” strategy, that intentionally cultivated extreme right-wing presidential candidates and that would turn the Republicans away from their more moderate candidates. This enlisted mainstream media who then focused to Trump and raise him above all others assuming that would help Hillary for who would vote for Trump. This was a deliberate strategy all designed to propel Hillary to the White House.

The Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee along with mainstream media all called for using far-right candidates “as a cudgel to move the more established candidates further to the right.” Clinton’s camp insisted that Trump should be “elevated” to “leaders of the pack” and media outlets should be told to “take them seriously.”

If we look back on April 23, 2015, just two weeks after Hillary Clinton officially declared her presidential campaign, her staff sent out a message on straregy to manipulate the Republicans into selecting the worse candidate. They included this attachment a “memo for the DNC discussion.”he memo was addressed to the Democratic National Committee and stated bluntly, “the strategy and goals a potential Hillary Clinton presidential campaign would have regarding the 2016 Republican presidential field.” Here we find that the real conspiracy was Clinton manipulating the Republicans. “Clearly most of what is contained in this memo is work the DNC is already doing. This exercise is intended to put those ideas to paper.”

“Our hope is that the goal of a potential HRC campaign and the DNC would be one-in-the-same: to make whomever the Republicans nominate unpalatable to a majority of the electorate.”

The Clinton strategy was all about manipulating the Republicans to nominate the worst candidate Clinton called for forcing “all Republican candidates to lock themselves into extreme conservative positions that will hurt them in a general election.”

It was not Putin trying to rig the elections, it was Hillary. Clinton saw the Republican field as crowded and she viewed as “positive” for her. “Many of the lesser known can serve as a cudgel to move the more established candidates further to the right.” Clinton then took the strategic position saying “we don’t want to marginalize the more extreme candidates, but make them more ‘Pied Piper’ candidates who actually represent the mainstream of the Republican Party.”

Her manipulative strategy was to have the press build up Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz and Ben Carson. “We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to them seriously.”

This conspiracy has emerged from the Podesta emails. It was Clinton conspiring with mainstream media to elevate Trump and then tear him down. We have to now look at all the media who endorsed Hillary as simply corrupt. Simultaneously, Hillary said that Bernie had to be ground down to the pulp. Further leaked emails showed how the Democratic National Committee sabotaged Sanders’ presidential campaign. It was Hillary manipulating the entire media for her personal gain. She obviously did not want a fair election because she was too corrupt.

What is very clear putting all the emails together, the rise of Donald Trump was orchestrated by Hillary herself conspiring with mainstream media, and they they sought to burn him to the ground. Their strategy backfired and now this is why she has not come out to to speak against the violence she has manipulated and inspired.

This is by far the WORST campaign in history and it was all orchestrated by Hillary to be intentionally divisive for the nation all to win the presidency at all costs. She has torched the constitution and the country. No wonder Hillary could not go to the stage to thank her supporters. She never counted on them and saw the people as fools. The entire strategy was to take the White House with a manipulation of the entire election process. Just unbelievable. Any Democrat who is not angry at this is clearly just a biased fool. Wake up and smell the roses. You just got what you deserve.

Trump packs transition team with loyalists and family

November 12, 2016

by Steve Holland and Luciana Lopez

Reuters

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK-President-elect Donald Trump began laying the groundwork on Friday to take office on Jan. 20, 2017, gathering the most loyal advisers from his insurgent campaign and three of his children to plot his transition strategy.

Trump put Vice President-elect Mike Pence in charge of his White House transition team, while demoting his former transition chief, tarnished New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, to one of the six vice-chair posts.

Daughter Ivanka and sons Eric and Donald Jr. and son-in-law Jared Kushner accounted for a fourth of the 16-member executive committee, which was filled with politicians and advisers who stuck with Trump during his rollercoaster first run for public office.

Aides huddled in the real-estate mogul’s Trump Tower in New York City to begin prioritizing policy changes and considering Cabinet picks and other candidates for the 4,000 positions he will need to fill shortly after he takes the reins of the White House.

A member of the Trump transition team told Reuters there were more than 100 people now involved in developing “white papers” on what regulations to roll back after Jan. 20. Some environmental measures and a rule requiring retirement advisers to act in their clients’ interests could be among the first on the chopping block, an industry lobbying source said.

Trump promised during his campaign to cut taxes, clamp down on immigration and repeal President Barack Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare.

But in interviews with the Wall Street Journal and CBS “60 Minutes” on Friday, he said he was open to keeping some provisions of Obamacare.

James Woolsey, a former CIA director who has advised Trump on foreign policy, said several of Trump’s campaign promises were “advocacy of a general direction” that may require compromise – including his signature pledge to build a wall on the border with Mexico.

Woolsey told CNN that border security could be achieved with a combination of fence and wall. “I don’t think we ought to fall on our sword about the difference between a wall and fence. Maybe this will be cheaper because it’s mainly fence, but it’s a good fence. I wouldn’t have any problem with that myself,” he said.

Trump, a billionaire real estate magnate, also moved on Friday to extricate himself from his sprawling business empire, which will be overseen by his three grown children on the transition team.

His company said it was vetting new business structures for the transfer of control to the three and the arrangement would not violate conflict-of-interest laws. But government ethics experts said the move would fall short of blind trust standards and was unlikely to prevent potential conflicts of interest.

Trump said that Pence – who has strong ties to Republican leaders in Congress – will build on work done by Christie and has the mission of assembling “the most highly qualified group of successful leaders who will be able to implement our change agenda in Washington.”

Christie, once viewed as a top candidate for attorney general, is dealing with political fallout from the ‘Bridgegate’ lane closure scandal. Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani is now the leading contender for the top law enforcement job, according to two sources familiar with the discussions.

‘THERE’S A SCRAMBLE’

Trump’s campaign spent relatively little time on transition planning during the campaign, and even his Republican supporters had been bracing for a loss to Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in Tuesday’s election.

“I was on Romney’s transition team, and it was a well-oiled machine months before the election. Now there’s a scramble,” said one Republican source, referring to the party’s 2012 presidential nominee, Mitt Romney.

Since Tuesday, dozens of possible cabinet appointees have been floated, from grassroots conservative heroes like Sarah Palin to seasoned Washington hands like David Malpass.

During his campaign, many establishment Republicans condemned Trump’s racially inflammatory rhetoric as well as his attacks on trade deals and the NATO alliance, which could take many traditional names out of the running.

But outgoing Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte – who had distanced herself from Trump at points in her unsuccessful reelection campaign in New Hampshire – was being floated as a potential defense secretary on Friday, the Washington Post reported.

Trump’s relatively small cadre of steadfast supporters is expected to play a prominent role in his administration. Campaign sources say Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions could serve as Defense Secretary, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich might be named as Secretary of State and retired General Michael Flynn could serve as national security adviser.

Those three, along with Giuliani and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, were named as vice chairs of the transition team.

Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus is a strong candidate for White House chief of staff, according to sources close to the campaign. Trump campaign CEO Steve Bannon, a conservative provocateur, is also being considered for the job.

As Trump mulled his team, demonstrators hit the streets in major cities for the third straight night to denounce his election and the inflammatory campaign rhetoric on immigrants, Muslims and women. Thousands marched through Miami, Atlanta, Philadelphia, New York and San Francisco as night fell.

ECONOMIC, FOREIGN POLICY

Trump appears to be leaning toward seasoned Republicans for many economic positions. David Malpass, a former Treasury and State Department official, and Paul Atkins, a former Securities and Exchange Commission official, are guiding the transition team on economic issues.

“This is one area where the most Republican orthodoxy will come out,” said Brandon Barford, a former Republican congressional staffer.

The Trump transition website, www.greatagain.gov, picked up on the tone of legislation aimed at weakening Dodd-Frank financial regulations that was released this summer by Republican chair of the House Financial Services Committee, Jeb Hensarling.

Trump’s victory is forcing President Barack Obama to scale back his ambitions for his final months in office. Obama, who is set to meet with key allies from Europe and Asia next week during his final foreign trip, is giving up on a last-ditch attempt to seek congressional approval for the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal before leaving office.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a TPP partner, is slated to meet with Trump next week in New York, and the president-elect also fielded calls from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande on Friday.

But EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker had a blunter reaction to the Trump transition. “I think we will waste two years before Mr. Trump tours the world he does not know,” Juncker said on Friday.

(Additional reporting by David Shepardson, Emily Stephenson, Ginger Gibson, Eric Beech, Diane Bartz, Jason Lange, David Brunnstrom, David Lawder, Julia Harte and Julia Edwards Ainsley in Washington, Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Writing by Roberta Rampton and Andy Sullivan; Editing by Bill Rigby and Mary Milliken)

 Trump: Don’t Follow the Bush-Obama Foreign Policy Legacy

by Jacob G. Hornberger

November 9, 2016

www.fff.org

Eight years ago, President Obama had a chance to change the warmongering direction that outgoing President Bush and the U.S. national-security establishment had led America for the previous eight years. Obama could have said, “Enough is enough. America has done enough killing and dying. I’m going to lead our country in a different direction — toward peace, prosperity, and harmony with the people of the world.” He could have ordered all U.S. troops in the Middle East and Afghanistan to return home. He could have ended U.S. involvement in the endless wars that Bush, the Pentagon, and the CIA spawned in that part of the world. He could have led America in a new direction.

Instead, Obama decided to stay Bush’s course, no doubt believing that he, unlike Bush, could win the endless wars that Bush had started. It was not to be. He chose to keep the national-security establishment embroiled in Afghanistan and Iraq. Death and destruction are Obama’s legacy, just as they were Bush’s.

Obama hoped that Hillary Clinton would protect and continue his (and Bush’s) legacy of foreign death and destruction. Yesterday, a majority of American voters dashed that hope.

Will Trump change directions and bring U.S. troops home? Possibly not, especially given he is an interventionist, just as his Clinton, Bush, and Obama are. But there is always that possibility, especially since Trump, unlike Clinton, owes no allegiance to the U.S. military-industrial complex, whose survival and prosperity depends on endless wars and perpetual crises.

If Clinton had been elected, there was never any doubt about continued U.S. interventionism in Afghanistan and the Middle East. Not only is she a died-in-the-wool interventionist, she would have been owned by the national-security establishment. She would have done whatever the Pentagon, CIA, and NSA wanted, which would have automatically meant endless warfare — and permanent destruction of the liberty and prosperity of the American people.

It’s obvious that Americans want a new direction when it comes to foreign policy. That’s partly what Trump’s election is all about. Americans are sick and tired of the never-ending wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere. That includes military families, especially the many who supported Trump, Gary Johnson, or Jill Stein. Americans are also tired of the out of control spending and debt that come with these wars. By electing Trump, it is obvious that Americans are demanding a change on foreign policy.

Imagine the benefits to American society if Trump were to change directions on foreign policy. No more anti-American terrorist blowback, which would mean no more war on terrorism. That means the restoration of a sense of normality to American lives. No more TSA checkpoints at airports. No more mass surveillance schemes to “keep us safe.” No more color coded warnings. No more totalitarian power to round up Americans, put them into concentration camps or military dungeons, and torture them. No more power to assassinate people, including Americans. In other words, the restoration of American civil liberties and privacy.

The Middle East is embroiled in civil wars — wars that have been engendered or magnified by U.S. interventionism. Continued interventionism in an attempt to fix the problems only pours gasoline on the fires. The U.S. government has done enough damage to Afghanistan and the Middle East. It has already killed enough people, including those in wedding parties, hospitals, and neighborhoods. Enough is enough.

Will Trump be bad on immigration and trade? Undoubtedly, but Clinton would have been bad in those areas too. Don’t forget, after all, that Obama has become America’s greatest deporter-in-chief, deporting more illegal immigrants than any U.S. president in history. Clinton would have followed in his footsteps, especially in the hope of protecting his legacy. Moreover, while Trump will undoubtedly begin trade wars, Clinton would have been imposing sanctions on people all over the world whose government failed to obey the commands of the U.S. government. A distinction without a difference.

Another area for hope under a Trump presidency is with respect to the drug war, one of the most failed, destructive, and expensive government programs in history. Clinton would have followed in Bush’s and Obama’s footsteps by keeping it in existence, if for no other reason than to cater to the army of DEA agents, federal and state judges, federal and state prosecutors, court clerks, and police departments whose existence depends on the drug war.

While Trump is a drug warrior himself, he doesn’t have the same allegiance to the vast drug-war bureaucracy that Clinton has. If we get close to pushing this government program off the cliff — and I am convinced that it is on the precipice — there is a good chance that Trump will not put much effort into fighting its demise. Clinton would have fought for the drug war with every fiber of her being.

There is another possible upside to Trump’s election: The likelihood that Cold War II will come to a sudden end. With Clinton, the continuation of the new Cold War against Russia was a certainty. In fact, Clinton’s Cold War might well have gotten hot very quickly, given her intent to establish a no-fly zone over Syria where she could show how tough she is by ordering U.S. warplanes to shoot down Russian warplanes. There is no telling where that would have led, but it very well might have led to all-out nuclear war, something that the U.S. national-security establishment wanted with the Soviet Union back in the 1960s under President Kennedy.

The danger of war with Russia obviously diminishes under a President Trump, who has said that he favors friendly relations with Russia, just as Kennedy favored friendly relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba in the months before he was assassinated.

Indeed, given Trump’s negative comments about NATO, there is even the possibility of a dismantling of that old Cold War dinosaur that gave us the crisis in Ukraine with Russia.

How about it, President-Elect Trump? While you’re mulling over your new Berlin Wall on the Southern (and maybe Northern) border and your coming trade wars with China, how about refusing to follow the 16 years of Bush-Obama when it comes to U.S. foreign interventionism? Bring the troops home. Lead America in a different direction, at least insofar as foreign policy is concerned — away from death, destruction, spending, debt, loss of liberty and privacy, and economic impoverishment and toward freedom, peace, prosperity, and harmony.

Israeli ministers defy Netanyahu over settlement evacuation

November 13, 2016

by Ori Lewis

Reuters

JERUSALEM-An Israeli ministerial committee on Sunday defied Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and voted to support a bill to allow settlers in the occupied West Bank to remain in homes built on privately owned Palestinian land.

Israel’s Supreme Court had ruled the government must evacuate a few dozen families from the Amona settlement and return the land to its Palestinian owners but right-wing lawmakers want to pay them compensation instead and allow the settlers to stay.

The government has sought an extension for the end-of-year evacuation so it can find somewhere else for settlers to live, but the lawmakers who support the settlers’ wish to remain, presented the bill to try to circumvent the ruling.

Israel’s attorney-general, Avihai Mandelblit, said in a statement that the bill was legally flawed in its current form as it contravened private property rights legislation and did not tally with Israel’s international law commitments.

“The attorney-general told the committee that the bill does not sit with the basic principles of the rule of law as it contradicts the position that the state must respect the judiciary’s decisions in individual cases,” Mandelblit said.

Israel has occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the 1967 Middle East war. Palestinians want those territories along with the Gaza Strip for a state but peace talks have stalled since 2014.

The Palestinians see Israeli settlements as a major obstacle to reaching a peace agreement and want them dismantled.

Netanyahu had insisted on delaying any political move and told his cabinet on Sunday to allow the new administration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to take over in Washington before setting future policy.

Netanyahu last week expressed confidence that he and Trump could work together to bring U.S.-Israeli relations to “new heights”.

The administration of President Barack Obama has been highly critical of Israel’s settlement policies.

The committee also voted to support a bill to enforce lowering the volume of loudspeakers in mosques calling worshippers to prayer which Arab-Israeli lawmakers described as racist.

Netanyahu said the bill would improve the quality of life for all Israelis, who he said had complained to him about “excessive noise coming from houses of worship.”

Nabil Abu Rdainah, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said that enacting both laws would force the Palestinians to appeal to international bodies.

But Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked from the ultra-nationalist Jewish Home party, partners in Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition, ignored his call to postpone the vote.

Following authorization of the private members’ bill in committee, it now heads to parliament on Wednesday where it will be debated but it is still some distance from becoming law.

(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Writing by Ori Lewis; Editing by Dale Hudson)