President Donald Trump’s decision to strike Syrian facilities in response to Syrian President Bashar Assad’s reported use of chemical weapons against civilians fulfills Trump’s promise of being tougher than President Barack Obama.
But it’s unlikely to have much impact beyond that ― and will likely be historically judged as a failure on Trump’s own terms.
Trump’s military response alongside France and the U.K. is ostensibly an attempt to deter Assad’s murderous behavior and demonstrate American toughness to Assad’s patrons, Iran and Russia. It won’t serve either of those goals.
Lawyers for President Donald Trump tried to prevent former acting Attorney General Sally Yates from testifying before the House Intelligence Committee on links between Trump campaign staff and Russian officials, according to correspondence first obtained by The Washington Post.
In a series of letters last week, Yates’ lawyer, David O’Neil, accused the Trump Justice Department of trying to silence Yates by asserting that “all information Ms. Yates received or actions she took in her capacity as Deputy Attorney General and acting Attorney General are client confidences that she may not disclose absent written consent of the department.”
Yates served as deputy attorney general in the Obama administration and then as acting attorney general in the first few weeks of the Trump administration. Trump fired her on Jan. 31, after she refused to enforce the president’s original executive order banning immigrants from seven majority-Muslim countries.
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Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
A professor who correctly predicted the result of every US presidential election since 1984 has claimed Donald Trump is certain to be impeached.
Allan Lichtman, a history professor at American University, uses a system of measures he calls “keys” to predict political outcomes and is now so convinced Mr Trump will face impeachment that he is writing a book on it.
The text, titled “The Case for Impeachment”, will be published in April by HarperCollins. It will include Professor Lichtman’s assessment of how Mr Trump could be impeached, based on analysis showing how his actions make him “uniquely vulnerable” to disciplinary proceedings.
“Professor Lichtman has correctly predicted every Presidential election since 1984, including the election of 2016”, said a spokesperson for HarperCollins.
President-elect Donald Trump praised Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday afternoon, after the Russian leader said he would not expel any U.S. diplomats from his country.
Trump tweeted, “Great move on delay (by V. Putin) – I always knew he was very smart!”
It’s shockingly direct praise from an incoming American president for a Russian leader who’s been accused by U.S. intelligence agencies and President Barack Obama of overseeing hacking efforts aimed at influencing the 2016 election.
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Sean Gallup via Getty Images
A woman walks past a mural showing President-elect Donald Trump (R) blowing marijuana smoke into the mouth of Russian President Vladimir Putin on the wall of a restaurant on Nov. 23, 2016, in Vilnius, Lithuania.
President Barack Obama on Friday defended his early response to suspicions that the Russian government attempted to influence the 2016 election and appeared to threaten retaliation against those plotting cyberattacks against America.
“Our goal continues to be to send a clear message to Russia, and others, to not do this,” he said, adding “Because we can do stuff to you.”
He urged that U.S. investigations of cyberattacks should not become a “political football.”
“I think we handled it the way it should have been handled,” he said during his final scheduled news conference of 2016.
Republican nominee Donald Trump has been treading treasonous territory for months now, raising eyebrows around the nation for a foreign policy that openly supports the ambitions of Vladimir Putin, the dictator of the Russian Federation. He’s surrounded himself with men with close ties to the Kremlin and the oligarchs that pull the strings behind the scenes; he’s being openly supported by Russian state-controlled media and by Russian intelligence services, who have breached the electronic servers of Democratic Party operatives and released selected pieces of information in an attempt to sow discord.
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Throughout all of this, Trump has insisted that he has no business ties to Russia. “For the record, I have ZERO investments in Russia” he tweeted in July. Now – brace yourself, this might come as a shock – it appears he’s been lying to us the whole time.
Philips made a splash at last year’s IFA conference when it showed off a television set with embedded, handheld projectors that could take an image onscreen and extend it to the wall behind the set. The visual trick is intended to create a more immersive viewing experience as the picture pours off the screen. Now the technology, which Philips calls Ambilight, is making its way to a new 65-inch UHD 4K TV due out later this year.
The Dutch lighting and technology giant debuted the TV at the IFA conference in Germany today, though it did not specify a price tag. It will be available in the fourth quarter of this year in Russia, Germany, and other European countries. Powering the TV will be Google’s Android TV software, meaning those eager to plunk down what we assume will be be an unsettling amount of cash for the device will have access to Netflix, Hulu, and all the other TV-centric offerings of the Google Play Store.
FIFA, the international soccer governing body, could strip Russia and Qatar of their World Cup hosting rights if evidence comes to light there was corruption in the bidding process, a FIFA official said Sunday.
Domenico Scala, the chairman of FIFA’s audit and compliance committee, said that 2018 World Cup host Russia and 2022 World Cup host Qatar could be in trouble if allegations of bribery turn out to be true, Reuters reported.
“If evidence should emerge that the awards to Qatar and Russia only came about thanks to bought votes, then the awards could be invalidated,” Scala told the Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung Sunday. “This evidence has not yet been brought forth.”
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Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
Russia and Qatar lost the strongest supporter of their bids to host the next two World Cups when FIFA President Sepp Blatter resigned his post on Tuesday, casting further doubt on whether the controversy-marred tournaments would be played as scheduled.
FIFA is now likely to face further calls for a revote on both tournaments, or a transparent probe into how they were awarded.
Qatar and Russia were both named hosts in a joint bidding process in 2010, the first time countries have been awarded the quadrennial event at the same time.
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Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
For the tens of thousands bearing flowers and tying black ribbons to railings in honor of slain Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, the solemn march through the Moscow drizzle on Sunday was a time for silence, not slogans.
The marchers occasionally broke into chants of “Russia without Putin,” or “Say no to war,” but often the only sound was the steady thwack of police helicopters overhead or the hum of police boats patrolling the shores of the Moscow River.
While the killing of Nemtsov has shaken the Russian opposition, which sees the Kremlin as responsible, it is unclear whether his death will be enough to invigorate the beleaguered movement. Despite the Ukraine conflict and Russia’s economic crisis, support for President Vladimir Putin has been above 80 percent in the past year.
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