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The United Nations has called on Israel to back down after it advanced the construction of more than 2,300 housing units for Judea and Samaria communities. “The expansion of settlements has no legal effect and constitutes a flagrant violation of international law,” United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov said in a statement Wednesday. “By advancing the effective annexation of the West Bank, it undermines the chances for establishing a Palestinian state based on relevant UN resolutions, as part of a negotiated two-state solution.” Israeli construction “must cease immediately and completely,” he demanded. The plan...

Tennessee state senators are expected to consider a proposal that would ban abortions from the time a woman learns she is pregnant. It arises from the discussion of the so-called "fetal heartbeat bill" that has divided state lawmakers. The idea of the new legislation is to challenge abortion rights by taking an even more restrictive approach. The key word in next week's debate will be "viability" — a concept that for decades has been at the center of abortion laws. According to the courts, that’s the capability of a fetus to live outside the mother’s womb, generally thought to happen...

Former vice president Joe Biden will accuse President Donald Trump of inspiring mass shootings, during remarks Biden is scheduled to deliver in Iowa on Wednesday afternoon. Among the remarks released by the Biden campaign, according to Axios, are the following: “How far is it from Trump’s saying this ‘is an invasion’ to the shooter in El Paso declaring ‘his attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas?’ Not far at all.”“How far is it from the white supremacists and Neo-Nazis in Charlottesville — Trump’s ‘very fine people,’ chanting ‘You will not replace us’ — to the shooter at the...

Chairman Castro, They don't like it when you name their donors. The public needs to know who funds racism.

Tulsi Gabbard hit Kamala Harris where it hurt during the second Democratic primary debate. John Delaney was given more than 10 minutes to go head-to-head with the liberal front-runners. And Marianne Williamson was the most searched for candidate on Google during and after the debate. But none of these lower-tier candidates have anything to show for their moments in the spotlight. A new Quinnipiac poll shows that the candidates who needed the debates the most benefited the least. Gabbard remains at 1%, while Delaney and Williamson sit at 0%. On the other hand, Democratic front-runner Joe Biden maintains his lead...

Gun-grabbing crisis vultures just can't let the latest mass shootings go to waste. "Red flag" laws are now all the rage in the Beltway as the magic pill to prevent homicidal maniacs from wreaking havoc on the nation. Even President Donald Trump has endorsed the idea of preemptively confiscating people's firearms if they are deemed a "threat." But if you want to know how this American version of China's social credit system would work in practice, let me remind you of how Veterans Affairs recklessly red-flags "disruptive" citizens without due process, transparency or accountability in the name of "safety." Government...

Good Morning And WELCOME!

I generally oppose gun control, wrote Donald Trump in his 2000 book, The America We Deserve, “but I support the ban on assault weapons and I support a slightly longer waiting period to purchase a gun.” It was an uncontroversial view for a freewheeling New Yorker, who moved in the same circles as Bill and Hillary Clinton, and liked to speak his mind. Twelve years later, even after he had begun his shift to the right, Trump endorsed Barack Obama’s push for tougher gun control in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting that cost the lives of 20...

In the aftermath of 9/11, Americans were given a persistent and unquestioned drumbeat of messages instructing them not to seek retribution, but to show grace and mercy towards those whose people had carried out the attacks . .. This mantra has been repeated over and over again following attack after attack in America and Europe. ... On one side, someone from another nation can throw a child off a balcony, throw a mother and child in front of a train, kidnap, rape, and murder a young woman, drive a truck through crowds of children in Sweden or France, set off...

Orange County, long a Republican stronghold, has officially turned blue. The county that nurtured Ronald Reagan’s conservatism and is the resting place of Richard Nixon is now home to 547,458 registered Democrats, compared with 547,369 Republicans, according to statistics released early Wednesday morning by the county Registrar of Voters. And the number of voters not aligned with a political party has surged in recent years, and now tops 440,770, or 27.4% of the county’s voters.

I first reported on the VA’s secretive database on “disgruntled” and “disruptive” vets five years ago. Under the VA policy on “patient record flags,” federal bureaucrats can classify vets as “threats” based on assessments of their “difficult,” “annoying” and “noncompliant” behavior. The VA manual says the flags “are used to alert Veterans Health Administration medical staff and employees of patients whose behavior and characteristics may pose a threat either to their safety, the safety of other patients, or compromise the delivery of quality health care.” What a crock. It’s precisely because so many vets receive inferior care from the feds...

Many Americans think of Sunday at the day for church, but The New York Times encourages its subscribers to see Sunday in a much more sybaritic way. This seemed really obvious on August 4. Sunday Business had a big cover story titled "Can Millennials Save Playboy?" The Hefner family is no longer involved, and "gender editor" Jessica Bennett wrote "This is a newer, woke-er, more inclusive Playboy — if you believe what company executives tell you, and if you are inclined to give an aging brand yet another chance at reinvention." A new underwater cover photo is said to be...

CHARLOTTE COUNTY, Fla. – A Florida couple's toilet was blown to pieces Sunday during a thunderstorm, WBBH reports. It was a relaxing morning for Marylou Ward, her husband and three dogs listening to the rain and rumbles of thunder until she heard a "boom." "It was the loudest noise I've ever heard, "Ward said. "We got out of bed and came over here and the toilet was laying on the floor." The plumbing company helping to repair Ward's pipes says the lightning struck near the septic tank. The lightning strike, combined with methane gas in the septic tank, caused a...

Democracy Dies in Darkness Morning Mix ‘Stop hate and racism, starting with yourself’: Catholic archbishop hits out at Trump Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller blesses a member of his congregation during his installation service at St. Mark The Evangelist Church in San Antonio in 2010. (KIN MAN HUI/AP) (Kin Man Hui/San Antonio Express-News/AP) Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller blesses a member of his congregation during his installation service at St. Mark The Evangelist Church in San Antonio in 2010. (KIN MAN HUI/AP) (Kin Man Hui/San Antonio Express-News/AP) By Timothy Bella August 7, 2019 at 6:20 AM EDT Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller of San Antonio, one...

"I'm looking to do background checks," he told reporters. "I think background checks are important. I don't want to put guns into the hands of mentally unstable people or people with rage or hate. Sick people. I'm all in favor of it." He indicated there would be little movement on legislation to ban high-powered weapons like the one used in Dayton, Ohio, on Sunday and other mass shootings. "You have to have a political appetite within Congress, and so far I haven’t seen that," Trump said.

Australians travelling to Hong Kong have been warned to exercise a “high degree of caution” as China said Hong Kong was facing its worst crisis since the former British colony was handed back in 1997. The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Dfat) said: “There is a risk of violent confrontation between protesters and police, or criminally linked individuals, particularly at unauthorised protests.” Ireland, the UK, and Japan have all issued Hong Kong travel warnings since July. (please see full article at the link)

Today's Quotefall Puzzle features a quote by Ronald Reagan. Click puzzle (or click here) for full size rendition, then use your browser's print command to print puzzle. Ronald Reagan was the first president since World War 2 who was not part of the Washington establishment, and was truly a populist choice. All hints, along with the answer, are provided in the first reply comment below, using filtered font to prevent accidental spoilers. Please refrain from disclosing the full answer in comments to prevent spoilers.To solve the puzzle: Enter the letters in the top half (letter columns) of the puzzle into the white...

President Trump’s judicial nominees have faced unprecedented opposition from the Senate in his first two-and-a-half years in office, records show, with Democratic senators voting against potential judges in higher numbers than at any point in American history. Trump’s nominees for the lower courts that feed cases -- and sometimes judges -- to the U.S. Supreme Court contend with far more ‘no’ votes and delay tactics than any past president’s, according to numbers compiled by the conservative Heritage Foundation. As the Senate moved last week to confirm 13 more of Trump’s district court nominees, Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., blasted...

Here's what President Donald Trump tweeted about Baltimore's congressman and his city: "Rep. Elijah Cummings has been a brutal bully, shouting and screaming at the great men & women of Border Patrol about conditions at the Southern Border, when actually his Baltimore district is far worse and more dangerous. His district is considered the worst in the USA." "As proven last week during a congressional tour, the border is clean, efficient and well run, just very crowded," Trump added. Cumming's "district is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess. If he spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help...

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