Trump, Grand Rapids, Mich.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gave new perspective on Russian President Vladimir Putin speaking favorably about him. When he mentioned allegations the Russian president killed reporters, Trump said it's awful and said he would "never kill reporters but I hate them - such lying, disgusting people".
He told the crowd in Grand Rapids, Mich. that the current U.S. approach towards Russia isn’t working. “It would be so great if we could get Russia on our side and knock the hell out of ISIS, right, so stupid, just knock the living hell out of them?”
Trump weighed on Hillary Clinton saying ISIS is using videos of the GOP front-runner as a recruitment tool. “It turned out to be a lie and the last person she wants to run against is me”.
He also reacted to S.C. Sen. Lindsey Graham dropping out of the 2016 race. In what seemed to be a sarcastic remark, Trump said the news was “extremely sad” and added, “he was nasty to me, everybody who goes against me is then gone”.
Then knocking his other GOP rivals, Trump said “ask Jeb bush if he enjoys running against me, ask Lindsay graham did he enjoy running against me … do they enjoy it, I enjoy it”.
He attacked Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, accusing him of being controlled by outside money. “Politicians are controlled by special interests and lobbyists, companies pay them millions of dollars and they get in, look I don't' want to get involved, Rubio, then this one and this one.”
The businessman talked a good portion of his remarks about the car industry with Michigan being the home state to Ford, G&M, and Chrysler.
“You have your closed plants and you're looking for jobs it's a disgrace, and I'll tell you the one thing that really helps me is that you're really making great cars now,” he told supporters.
Trump proposed imposing 35 percent tax on “ever car truck and part” that comes from outside the country.
At what has become the norm at Trump rallies, protestors nearly a dozen times during his speech interrupted the GOP candidate. He tried to downplay their significance saying they look so young or calling them losers.  One protestor called Trump a “bigot” before being escorted outside the venue. 

Japan says armed Chinese coast guard ship violates its waters off disputed islands

TOKYO –  Japanese authorities say an armed Chinese coast guard vessel has for the first time entered its territorial waters off islands claimed by both countries.
Japan's coast guard says the ship, armed with what appeared to be four gun turrets, was one of three Chinese coast guard vessels spotted Saturday inside Japanese waters in the East China Sea. It was the only one that was armed.
Chinese vessels regularly sail around the disputed islands, known as the Senkaku in Japanese and the Diaoyu in Chinese. But Japan's coast guard said it was the first time an armed Chinese vessel had been sighted in Japanese waters.
The vessels have since left the area.
The armed ship also was spotted Tuesday, but Japan said it didn't infiltrate Japanese waters at the time.

Hillary puts 'secret weapon' Bill on campaign trail, fueling 'sexism' feud with Trump

Faced with a tight battle in two, fast-approaching primaries, Hillary Clinton will bring husband Bill Clinton onto the campaign trail, a move already escalating the acrimony between her and GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Clinton said after last weekend’s Democratic primary debate in New Hampshire that husband and former President Clinton would join the campaign trail in January and called him her “not-so-secret weapon.”
“We’re going to cover as much ground in New Hampshire as we possibly can, see as many people, thank everyone who’s going to turn out and vote for me to try to get some more to join them,” she said.
Clinton is the clear Democratic frontrunner but remains in a close race with primary challenger Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in Iowa, which holds the first-in-the-nation balloting Feb. 1, and in New Hampshire, where voters go the polls eight days later.
She leads Sanders by 25 percentage points nationally but by just 6 points in New Hampshire, according to a RearClearPolitics averaging of polls.
Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta recently told supporters that his candidate was in a “dog fight” in New Hampshire, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The former president has already been on the 2016 trail for his wife, appearing on stage with pop star Katy Perry in late October before a key fundraising dinner in Iowa.
But he has largely remained behind the scenes, raising money and offering campaign advice to the former New York senator and secretary of state.
Though polls show Bill Clinton is still one of the most popular political figures in American politics, his efforts during Hillary Clinton’s failed 2008 White House bid were occasionally criticized -- including his suggestion that race was a factor in eventual-winner Barack Obama defeating his wife in the South Carolina primary.
And Clinton’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinski while president will almost certainly become an attack line for the front-running Trump, whom Hillary Clinton accuses of being sexist.
Trump on Wednesday tweeted in response: “Hillary, when you complain about ‘a penchant for sexism,’ who are you referring to. I have great respect for women."
He also wrote in capital letters, “BE CAREFUL!”
And Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson has suggested that the campaign will make an issue of Bill Clinton’s past behavior if his wife continues with the sexist accusations.
“Hillary Clinton has some nerve to talk about the war on women and the bigotry toward women when she has a serious problem in her husband,” Pierson said on CNN.

Peyton Manning slams report linking him to HGH use

Peyton Manning is vehemently refuting a report set to air on Al Jazeera that contends the Denver Broncos quarterback received human growth hormone through his wife during his recovery from neck fusion surgeries in 2011 in Indianapolis.
In a statement Saturday night, Manning said: "The allegation that I would do something like that is complete garbage and is totally made up. It never happened. Never."
He added, "I really can't believe somebody would put something like this on the air. Whoever said this is making stuff up."
The allegations surfaced in an Al Jazeera undercover probe into doping in global sports that is set to air Sunday and was shared in advance with the Huffington Post.
The report claims Manning received HGH from an Indianapolis anti-aging clinic in 2011 while he was still with the Colts. It said the drug, which was banned by the NFL in the 2011 collective bargaining agreement, was delivered to his wife, Ashley, so that the quarterback's name was never attached to the shipments.
Liam Collins, a British hurdler, went undercover and spoke with Charlie Sly, an Austin, Texas-based pharmacist who worked at the Guyer Institute, the Indiana-based anti-aging clinic in 2011. Sly allegedly names Manning and other high profile athletes as having received HGH from the clinic.
However, Sly backtracks in a subsequent statement to Al Jazeera, saying Collins secretly recorded his conversations without his knowledge or consent.
"The statements on any recordings or communications that Al Jazeera plans to air are absolutely false and incorrect," Sly said. "To be clear, I am recanting any such statements and there is no truth to any statement of mine that Al Jazeera plans to air. Under no circumstances should any of those recordings, statements or communications be aired."
The NFL and players union added human growth hormone testing to the collective bargaining agreement signed in 2011 but the side didn't agree to testing terms until 2014. Nobody has tested positive, which would trigger a four-game suspension.
Manning, who joined the Broncos in 2012, has been sidelined since Nov. 15 by a left foot injury. Brock Osweiler makes his sixth consecutive start in Manning's place Monday night when the Broncos (10-4) host the Bengals (11-3).

Graham leaving GOP puts key evangelical vote at risk for Republican presidential candidates

The Rev. Franklin Graham quitting the Republican Party poses a significant blow to the GOP’s 2016 White House aspirations, especially if other evangelical pastors follow suit and their millions-plus congregations stay away from the polls.
Graham suggested earlier this week that the last straw was congressional Republicans funding Planned Parenthood in the recently passed, $1.8 trillion tax-and-spending package, despite revelations about the group harvesting fetal tissue.
However, he made clear Wednesday night that the funding was only part of the reason he left the GOP to become an independent.
"It's not just that,” Graham said on Fox News’ “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren.” “It's the way the bill was passed. It came down so quickly. And it didn't seem like anybody tried to fight it. It was just, 'Let's get home for Christmas.' "
Graham, the son of evangelical leader Billy Graham, also expressed disappointment with GOP and Democratic leaders but insisted he’s not trying to lead a GOP exodus.
“I'm not here to hurt the Republican Party,” he said, adding that the GOP appears to have “some good candidates” in the 2016 White House race.
Earlier in the day, the Rev. Wilfredo De Jesus, head pastor for the New Life Covenant Church, in Chicago, expressed similar concerns.
“People already know how evangelicals feel about the sanctity of life,” he told FoxNews.com. “That’s a continual fight. But the government spending also speaks to us. That was the disappointment and frustration you heard in brother Graham’s tone.”
De Jesus, popularly known as Pastor Choco, said only time will tell whether other evangelical leaders will follow Graham and potentially take voters with them.
“Many evangelicals are still vetting,” he said. “It’s too early. … But hope is in the kingdom of God, not in the political system.”
While evangelical Christians have long been a key part of the Republican base, their support in the 2016 presidential election cycle appears even more critical as black voters remain overwhelming loyal to Democratic presidential nominees and Hispanics now go to the polls in record numbers for Democrats.
Hispanics, in fact, voted for President Obama over 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney 71 percent to 27 percent, according to an analysis of exit polls by the Pew Research Center.
“We cannot afford to stand on the sidelines as our Christian values are continually trampled,” Jack Graham, pastor of the Prestonwood Baptist Church in Texas, said in October, before a forum with the Faith & Freedom Coalition for 2016 White House candidates.
Graham did not return a request for comment for this story.
White evangelical support for Republican presidential nominees has been largely consistent for at least the past three election cycles, amid assertions that Romney, a Mormon and a moderate, lost in part because millions of evangelical voters stayed on the sidelines.
Some political observers argue at least 3 million Republican voters stayed home, which could have given Romney wins in swing states Florida or Ohio.
However, the Pew analysis shows Romney got 79 percent voter support from white evangelical Protestants, matching George W. Bush in 2004 and exceeding John McCain’s 73 percent in 2008.
The analysis also shows that voting bloc was in 2012 about the same size that it was in the previous two cycles, amid speculation the number was declining.
Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz -- a top-tier GOP presidential candidate courting the evangelical vote -- said in March that roughly half of born-again Christians aren’t voting, which resulted in questions about his methodology.
“They’re staying home,” he said at Liberty University, in Virginia. “Imagine instead millions of people of faith all across America coming out to the polls and voting our values."
Cruz’s campaign did not respond Wednesday for a request for comment. Fellow GOP candidates Carly Fiorina and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul declined though spokespeople who said their respective candidate was spending time with family over the Christmas holidays.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, elected relatively late in this year’s budget process, has vowed to revisit the issue of Planned Parenthood funding when Congress returns next month. But that might be too late for Graham and other evangelicals.
“Republicans always have a reason for not doing something that they say they would,” Bret Bozell, founder of the conservative-leaning Media Research Center, said Wednesday.
He suggested that evangelicals will likely support Cruz and Donald Trump in the primaries but expressed less certainty about the general election.
“Ask John McCain,” he said.