Free Obama Cell Phone Cartoons

Trump ‘Supervolunteer’ Tells Healthcare Story

Days after Congress passed a bill to Repeal and Replace Obamacare, it’s now in the hands of the Senate. However, for some, like Ray Reynolds, it’s a start to what the American healthcare system needs. Reynolds is a photographer and followed the Trump campaign across the country taking over 60 thousand photos. He compiled some of those photos into books, documenting his campaign experience, but also, his family’s struggle with health insurance. His mother and sister both died while waiting for treatment. He says “I lost a sister that was 52 years old. Now, I’ve got health issues with diabetes and I’m going down the same path she went down.”
He calls Obamacare a “death tax for the elderly and senior citizens.”
Reynolds clearly doesn’t hold back on his distaste for America’s current healthcare system. Living in Virginia where insurance rates have increased 252%, he’s a man with diabetes unable to get insurance, facing potential premiums up to thousands of dollars.
To find his books, “My Path My Purpose” and “ Making America Great Again” on the campaign and the healthcare struggle that inspired him to volunteer, visit DJT.digital.

Trump to nominate Chatterjee, Powelson to FERC: White House

President Donald Trump will nominate Neil Chatterjee, an adviser to Republican U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell, and Robert Powelson, a member of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, to the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the White House said on Monday.
Chatterjee’s term would expire on June 30, 2021, and Powelson’s term would end on June 30, 2020, the White House said. Both must be confirmed by the Senate.

White House postpones meeting to decide on participation in Paris climate pact

A meeting of Trump administration advisers that had been scheduled for Tuesday to decide whether to pull the United States out of the Paris Climate Agreement has been postponed due to scheduling conflicts, a White House official said.
Key advisers to President Donald Trump and cabinet officials were due to convene at the White House to resolve an internal debate over whether Trump should keep his campaign promise to pull the United States out of the Paris agreement, according to senior administration officials and several people briefed on the meeting.
The White House official did not say when the meeting would be rescheduled.
The meeting was meant to lay the groundwork for a formal proposal to Trump, who has promised to announce a decision before a Group of Seven summit at the end of May.
Ahead of Tuesday’s originally planned meeting, business groups and some lawmakers called on the White House to remain in the Paris agreement, while some conservative policy groups urged the advisers to recommend a withdrawal.
Meanwhile, representatives of nearly 200 countries that are party to the Paris agreement are meeting in Bonn this week to discuss technical aspects of implementing the accord.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will host the biennial Arctic Council meeting in Fairbanks, Alaska, later this week.

French ex-prime minister Valls plans to back Macron in June elections

Manuel Valls, a former French Socialist prime minister, said on Tuesday that he wished to support President-elect Emmanuel Macron’s political movement in the June elections in the lower house of parliament.
“I will be a candidate in the presidential majority and I wish to join up to his movement, namely the ‘Republic on the Move’,” Valls told RTL radio.
Macron is working to obtain a majority in the lower house of parliament in June elections.
His party chief, Richard Ferrand, said on Monday that Macron’s ‘En Marche’ movement would change its name to “En Marche la République” or “Republic on the Move”, so as to structure itself more like a traditional party.
Ferrand also said the names of Macron’s 577 candidates in the legislative elections would be announced this Thursday.

FBI James Clapper Cartoons

White House expects Senate to change healthcare bill, but retain principles

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House said on Friday it expects the Senate to retain the “principles” of the healthcare bill approved by the House of Representatives on Thursday even as it makes some changes.
“We expect there to be some changes, but we expect the principles and the main pillars of the healthcare bill as it exists now to remain the same,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters.
Among those principles, she said, were creating a competitive environment and giving states more flexibility to make decisions about the healthcare system.

Ex-Obama administration officials to testify in Trump-Russia probe

Two officials in former President Barack Obama’s administration will testify on Monday in a Senate investigation into allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election and possible collusion between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Moscow.
James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence under Obama, and Sally Yates, who was Deputy Attorney General, will testify to the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on crime and terrorism, the first such public testimony by former officials from the Democratic administration in one of congressional probes on Russia.
Congressional committees began investigating after U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered hacking of Democratic political groups to discredit the election and sway the voting toward Republican Trump, who won an upset victory in November.
Moscow has denied any such meddling. Trump also has dismissed the allegations, suggesting instead that Obama might have wiretapped his Trump Tower in New York or that China may have been behind the cyber attacks. No evidence has been found to support either allegation.
The public hearing will be the first featuring testimony by Obama administration officials who have left government. Trump fired Yates from the Department of Justice in January, and Clapper retired on Jan. 20, when Trump was inaugurated.
Senator Lindsey Graham, the subcommittee’s chairman who called the hearing is a Russia hawk and sometime critic of Trump who has been one of the leading Republican voices calling for a thorough investigation of Russia and the election.
Yates is expected to tell the senators that on Jan. 26, when she was acting Attorney General, she had warned White House Counsel Don McGahn that then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn had not told the truth about conversations he had with Sergei Kislyak, Moscow’s Ambassador to Washington, about U.S. economic sanctions on Russia.
Flynn resigned after less than a month in office.
The congressional hearings have been shadowed by allegations, mostly from Democrats, that lawmakers are too partisan to investigate effectively.
In the lead-up to Monday’s hearing, Susan Rice, who was Obama’s national security adviser, declined an invitation to testify because it had come only from the Republican Grahamand not Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, the subcommittee’s ranking Democrat.
Her refusal was first reported by CNN.
Rice’s name was linked to the Russia investigation when Trump suggested she might have broken the law by asking intelligence analysts to reveal the name of a Trump associate mentioned in an intelligence report.
She denied doing anything inappropriate, and there is no evidence to substantiate Trump’s allegation.
Trump tweeted on Thursday that it was “Not good!” that Rice had not agreed to testify.
The probe being led by Graham and Whitehouse is one of three main congressional investigations of Russia and the 2016 U.S. election. The FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies are conducting separate investigations.
Clapper, Yates and another official who served under Obama, former CIA Director John Brennan, had been scheduled to testify to the House of Representatives intelligence committee in March, but that hearing was canceled by the panel’s chairman, Republican Devin Nunes.
Nunes, a Trump ally, has since recused himself from the Russia investigation amid concerns that he was too close to the White House to lead a credible probe.
Yates, Clapper and Brennan are now due to appear at a public hearing of the House committee that has not been scheduled.

Made in North Korea: As tougher sanctions loom, more local goods in stores

From carrot-flavored toothpaste and charcoal facemasks to motorcycles and solar panels, visitors to North Korea say they are seeing more and more locally made products in the isolated country’s shops and supermarkets, replacing mostly Chinese imports.
As the Trump administration considers tougher economic sanctions to push the isolated country toward dismantling its weapons programs, North Korea is pursuing a dual strategy of developing both its military and economy.
The majority of consumer products in North Korea still come from China. But under leader Kim Jong Un, there’s been an attempt to sell more domestically made goods, to avoid any outflow of currency and to reinforce the national ideology of juche, or self-reliance, visiting businessmen say.
There is no available data to show how much is being produced domestically. Export data from countries like China and Malaysia, which sell consumer goods to North Korea, may not be an accurate reflection.
China’s commerce ministry declined to comment when asked whether China’s exports to North Korea were decreasing due to an increase in locally-made products.
Visitors say that with the impetus from the top, large North Korean companies like military-controlled Air Koryo, the operator of the national airline, and the Naegohyang conglomerate have diversified into manufacturing consumer goods including cigarettes and sports clothing.
North Korea is one of the most insular countries in the world and visits by foreigners are highly regulated.
A Reuters team that was in the capital Pyongyang last month was allowed to go to a grocery store, accompanied by government minders, where shelves were filled with locally made drinks, biscuits and other basic food items. Other visitors have seen locally made canned goods, coffee, liquor, toothpaste, cosmetics, soap, bicycles and other goods on sale in the city.
“As new factories open, the branding, packaging and ingredients of our food products have improved,” said shop assistant Rhee Kyong-sook, 33.
Kim Chul-ung, a 39-year old physical education teacher visiting the store, said: “I can taste real fruit in the drinks that are made in North Korea, compared to drinks from other countries.”
Visitors say locally made consumer goods are becoming increasingly sophisticated and QR or matrix barcodes can been found on a wide range of products from make-up to soft drinks. Market vendors are also becoming more competitive, offering samples of their food to shoppers, something they didn’t do five years ago.
“Around 2013, Kim Jong Un started talking about the need for import substitution,” said Andray Abrahamian of Choson Exchange, a Singapore-based group that trains North Koreans in business skills.
“There was clearly recognition that too many products were being imported from China, not just high-end consumer goods but also lower-end ones like food.”
“MY HOMELAND”
Air Koryo’s range of products now includes cigarettes, fizzy drinks, taxis and petrol stations.
“Naegohyang”, or “My Homeland”, began as a Pyongyang-based tobacco factory, but has expanded in recent years to produce playing cards, electronic goods and sports clothing. The company even sponsors a women’s football team of the same name.
The North Korean companies were not available for comment and do not publish revenue or profit statements. It was not possible to identify any joint venture partners.
Traders and retail experts said the North Korean market was attractive, thanks to a growing class of “donju”, or “masters of money,” who generate wealth in a gray market economy that is being increasingly recognized and controlled by the state.
“The North Koreans increasingly don’t want Chinese products because they think they are poor quality,” said a trader from Southeast Asia who exports consumer goods to North Korea. The trader did not want to be identified.
China has been rocked by a number of food safety scandals in recent years, including contaminated rice and milk powder.
“Mothers in North Korea are no different to mothers in China or Canada, they want to feed their babies the best possible food,” said Michael Spavor of Paektu Exchange, which brings delegations of investors, tourists and academics into North Korea.
“I’ve seen people in a store in North Korea comparing a Chinese and a Korean product and picking the Korean one,” he said.
STILL RELIANT
Nevertheless, North Korea is still heavily reliant on trade with China and the vast majority of raw materials to make consumer products still come from or through China.
For example, while domestically-made instant coffee is becoming increasingly common, the sugar used in it would likely come from China or another country that produces sugar and pass into North Korea via China, says Abrahamian.
“We’re seeing a rise in domestically-made products, including motorcycles, solar panels and food, but the business relationships on which these products depend on are still Chinese.”
Because of the reliance on China, it is likely these “Made in North Korea” companies will suffer if stiffer economic sanctions are imposed on the country.
Diplomats said this week Washington was negotiating with China on a possible stronger U.N. Security Council response – such as new sanctions – to North Korea’s missile launches.
(Washington considering imposing new sanctions on North Korea, to read more, click http://reut.rs/2p9JyO5)
“If you have a coal mining town of 10,000 people who are all in some way connected to the coal industry, then when sanctions are imposed against North Korean coal, the whole town’s consumer market will suffer because people don’t have the buying power anymore,” said Abrahamian.

Macron wins French presidency, to European allies’ relief

Emmanuel Macron was elected French president on Sunday with a business-friendly vision of European integration, defeating Marine Le Pen, a far-right nationalist who threatened to take France out of the European Union.
The centrist’s emphatic victory, which also smashed the dominance of France’s mainstream parties, will bring huge relief to European allies who had feared another populist upheaval to follow Britain’s vote to quit the EU and Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president.
The euro currency, hit a six-month high against the dollar while Asian shares gained and U.S. stocks briefly touched a record high.[FRX/]
With virtually all votes counted, Macron had topped 66 percent against just under 34 percent for Le Pen – a gap wider than the 20 or so percentage points that pre-election surveys had suggested.
Even so, it was a record performance for the National Front, a party whose anti-immigrant policies once made it a pariah, and underlined the scale of the divisions that Macron must now try to heal.
After winning the first round two weeks ago, Macron had been accused of behaving as if he was already president. On Sunday night, with victory finally sealed, he was much more solemn.
“I know the divisions in our nation, which have led some to vote for the extremes. I respect them,” Macron said in an address at his campaign headquarters, shown live on television.
“I know the anger, the anxiety, the doubts that very many of you have also expressed. It’s my responsibility to hear them,” he said. “I will work to recreate the link between Europe and its peoples, between Europe and citizens.”
Later he strode alone almost grimly through the courtyard of the Louvre Palace in central Paris to the strains of the EU anthem, Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, not breaking into a smile until he mounted the stage of his victory rally to the cheers of his partying supporters.
His immediate challenge will be to secure a majority in next month’s parliamentary election for a political movement that is barely a year old, rebranded as La Republique En Marche (“Onward the Republic”), in order to implement his program.
EUROPE DEFENDED
Outgoing president Francois Hollande, who brought Macron into politics, said the result “confirms that a very large majority of our fellow citizens wanted to unite around the values of the Republic and show their attachment to the European Union”.
Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, told Macron: “I am delighted that the ideas you defended of a strong and progressive Europe, which protects all its citizens, will be those that you will carry into your presidency.”
Macron spoke by phone with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, with whom he hopes to revitalize the Franco-German axis at the heart of the EU, saying he planned to visit Berlin shortly.
Trump tweeted his congratulations on Macron’s “big win”, saying he looked forward to working with him. Chinese President Xi Jinping said China was willing to help push Sino-French ties to a higher level, according to state news agency Xinhua.
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also congratulated Macron.
“Fading political risk in France adds to the chance that euro zone economic growth can surprise to the upside this year,” said Holger Schmieding, an analyst at Berenberg Bank.
Macron will become France’s youngest leader since Napoleon. A 39-year-old former investment banker, he served for two years as economy minister under Hollande but has never previously held elected office.
Le Pen, 48, said she had also offered her congratulations. But she defiantly claimed the mantle of France’s main opposition in calling on “all patriots to join us” in constituting a “new political force”.
Her tally was almost double the score that her father Jean-Marie, the last far-right candidate to make the presidential runoff, achieved in 2002, when he was trounced by the conservative Jacques Chirac.
Her high-spending, anti-globalisation “France-first” policies may have unnerved financial markets but they appealed to many poorer members of society against a background of high unemployment, social tensions and security concerns.
RESHAPING THE LANDSCAPE
Despite having served briefly in Hollande’s deeply unpopular Socialist government, Macron managed to portray himself as the man to revive France’s fortunes by recasting a political landscape moulded by the left-right divisions of the past century.
“I’ve liked his youth and his vision from the start,” said Katia Dieudonné, a 35-year-old immigrant from Haiti who brought her two children to Macron’s victory rally.
“He stands for the change I’ve wanted since I arrived in France in 1985 – openness, diversity, without stigmatizing anyone … I’ve voted for the left in the past and been disappointed.”
Macron was due to attend a ceremony marking the Western allies’ World War Two victory in Europe on Monday. The ceremony in Paris marks the 72nd anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in 1945.
Macron’s team successfully skirted several attempts to derail his campaign – by hacking its communications and distributing purportedly leaked documents – that were reminiscent of the hacking of Democratic Party communications during Hillary Clinton’s U.S. election campaign.
Allegations by Macron’s camp that a massive computer hack had compromised emails added last-minute drama on Friday night, just as official campaigning was ending.
While Macron sees France’s way forward in boosting the competitiveness of an open economy, Le Pen wanted to shield French workers by closing borders, quitting the EU’s common currency, the euro, radically loosening the bloc and scrapping trade deals.
Macron will become the eighth – and youngest – president of France’s Fifth Republic when he moves into the Elysee Palace after his inauguration next weekend.
Opinion surveys taken before the second round suggested that his fledgling movement, despite being barely a year old, had a fighting chance of securing the majority he needed.
He plans to blend a big reduction in public spending and a relaxation of labor laws with greater investment in training and a gradual reform of the unwieldy pension system.
A European integrationist and pro-NATO, he is orthodox in foreign and defense policy and shows no sign of wishing to change France’s traditional alliances or reshape its military and peacekeeping roles in the Middle East and Africa.
NEW GENERATION
His election also represents a long-awaited generational change in French politics that have been dominated by the same faces for years.
He will be the youngest leader in the current Group of Seven (G7) major nations and has elicited comparisons with youthful leaders past and present, from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to British ex-premier Tony Blair and even the late U.S. president John F. Kennedy.
But any idea of a brave new political dawn will be tempered by an abstention rate on Sunday of around 25 percent, the highest this century, and by a record share of blank or spoiled ballots – submitted by more than 11 percent of those who did vote.
Many of those will have been supporters of the far-left maverick Jean-Luc Melenchon, whose high-spending, anti-EU, anti-globalisation platform had many similarities with Le Pen’s.
Melenchon took 19 percent in coming fourth in the first round of the election, and pointedly refused to endorse Macron for the runoff.
France’s biggest labor union, the CFDT, welcomed Macron’s victory but said the National Front’s score was still worryingly high.
“Now, all the anxieties expressed at the ballot by a part of the electorate must be heard,” it said in a statement. “The feeling of being disenfranchised, of injustice, and even abandonment is present among a large number of our citizens.”
The more radical leftist CGT union called for a demonstration on Monday against “liberal” economic policies.
Like Macron, Le Pen will now have to work to try to convert her presidential result into parliamentary seats, in a two-round system that has in the past encouraged voters to cast ballots tactically to keep her out.
She has worked for years to soften the xenophobic associations that clung to the National Front under her father, going so far as to expel him from the party he founded.
On Sunday night, her deputy Florian Philippot distanced the movement even further from him by saying the new, reconstituted party would not be called “National Front”.

LGBT Cry Baby Cartoons

Tennessee ‘natural meaning’ law raises fears in LGBT community

Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam on Friday enacted a bill that critics say is an underhanded way of denying rights to same-sex couples by insisting on the “natural and ordinary meaning” of words in state statues.
The legislation, which was signed by the Republican governor despite pressure from civil liberty and gay-rights groups, requires words in Tennessee law be interpreted with their “natural and ordinary meaning, without forced or subtle construction that would limit or extend the meaning of the language.” It did not explain, however, what that means.
Civil rights and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) advocates warned the law is meant to undermine the rights of same-sex couples in any statutes that include words like “husband,” “wife,” “mother” or “father.”
Neither of the two sponsoring lawmakers, Republican state Senator John Stevens and Republican state Representative Andrew Farmer, could be reached to comment.
However, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported Stevens said he proposed the measure partly to compel courts to side more closely with the dissenting opinion in the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2015 ruling in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges which legalized same-sex marriage.
Haslam said on Friday he believes the law will not change how courts interpret legal precedent.
“While I understand the concerns raised about this bill, the Obergefell decision is the law of the land, and this legislation does not change a principle relied upon by the courts for more than a century, mitigating the substantive impact of this legislation,” he said in a statement.
The Tennessee measure is one of more than 100 bills introduced in U.S. state legislatures this year that to curtail LGBT rights, said Cathryn Oakley, senior legislative counsel for the LGBT advocacy group Human Rights Campaign.
While public opinion polls and court rulings have shifted in favor of same-sex rights in recent years, there is ongoing pushback from the 2015 ruling, Oakley said.
Last month, a Kentucky family court judge made headlines by issuing an order stating he would not hear adoption cases involving same-sex couples due to personal objections. That echoed Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis’ 2015 refusal to issue same-sex marriage licenses because it violated her religious beliefs.
Gay-rights groups previously warned the law could create an economic backlash against Tennessee similar to that suffered by North Carolina, where a law requiring students use the restroom of the gender on their birth certificates led sports organizations and musicians to cancel events.

Iowa Supreme Court blocks portion of 20-week abortion ban

The Iowa Supreme Court on Friday granted an emergency temporary injunction halting a portion of a 20-week abortion ban that was signed into law by Republican Governor Terry Branstad just hours earlier.
The law, passed by Iowa’s Republican-controlled House and Senate last month, bans abortions once a pregnancy reaches 20 weeks and stipulates a three-day waiting period before women can undergo any abortion.
The law does not make exceptions for instances of rape or incest but does allow for abortions if the mother’s life or health is at risk.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Planned Parenthood, a group that provides family planning services, including abortions, challenged the waiting-period part of the legislation in court as well as the requirement for an additional clinical visit women must make before an abortion.
The state Supreme Court on Friday issued the injunction after it was denied Thursday by a district judge.
“We are pleased that the court granted the temporary injunction, ruling on the side of Iowa women who need access to, and have a constitutional right, to safe, legal abortion,” Suzanna de Baca, chief executive of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland said in a statement.
The state will have an opportunity to respond to the court’s decision on Monday.
“This is all part of the process and we’re confident that the stay will be lifted very shortly,” said Ben Hammes, a spokesman for the Republican governor.
Women in the United States have the right under the Constitution to end a pregnancy, but abortion opponents have pushed for tougher regulations, particularly in conservative states.
There are 24 states that impose prohibitions on abortions after a certain number of weeks, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks reproductive policy.
Seventeen of these states ban abortion at about 20 weeks and after.
Iowa’s law, Hammes said after the signing, marked a “return to a culture that once again respects human life.”
In Tennessee, a bill similar to the Iowa measure was sent to the desk of that state’s Republican governor on Wednesday to possibly be signed into law.

Pentagon to lease privately owned Trump Tower apartment for nuclear ‘football’: letter

The U.S. Defense Department is finalizing a lease on a privately owned apartment in New York’s Trump Tower for the White House Military Office to use for supporting President Donald Trump without providing any benefit to Trump or his organization, according to a Pentagon letter seen by Reuters.
The Military Office carries and safeguards the “football,” the device that contains the top secret launch codes the president needs to order a nuclear attack, as well as providing him secure communications wherever he is.
The White House, Secret Service, and Defense Department had no comment on whether similar arrangements have been made at other properties Trump frequents – Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida and the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where Trump is spending this weekend.
In a letter to Representative Jackie Speier, a Democrat on the House Armed Services and intelligence committees, Defense Department official James MacStravic, said the apartment is “privately owned and … lease negotiations have been with the owner’s representatives only.”
MacStravic, who wrote that he was “temporarily performing the duties of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics,” said any acquisition of leased space with “an annual rental in excess of $1 million must first be approved by my office.”
He “approved this action” after consulting with the White House Military Office and other officials, he said.
Officials declined to reveal the cost of the lease or identify the owners of the apartment.
MacStravic’s letter, dated March 3, added: “We are not aware of any means through which the President would personally benefit from a Government lease of this space.”
The letter explained that the White House Military Office, a Pentagon unit, “requested approval to lease space in the Trump Tower for personnel assigned to support the President when at his private residence.”
The letter said such arrangements are “typical of support provided” by the Military Office to previous U.S. presidents and vice presidents at their private residences. It is not clear, however, whether the office has ever paid to rent space to house the classified equipment presidents need when they are staying at homes they own outside Washington.
A White House spokeswoman said the White House had no information on the leasing issue. The Defense Department and U.S. Secret Service declined to comment.
The Trump Organization did not reply to an email requesting comment.
When the Pentagon in February first acknowledged that it was seeking to lease space in Trump Tower, some Democrats questioned whether such a move would produce a financial windfall for Trump.
“I am concerned by the appearance that the President of the United States will financially benefit from this deal at the expense of the Department of Defense – and ultimately, taxpayers,” Speier wrote to Defense Secretary James Mattis shortly after the Trump Tower issue became public in February.
By negotiating only with representatives of the owners of a private apartment, the Pentagon said it was seeking to avoid such concerns.

Iranian supreme leader critical of ‘Western-influenced’ Rouhani education plan

Iran’s supreme leader on Sunday criticized the government of President Hassan Rouhani for promoting a “Western-influenced” United Nations education plan which his hardline allies have said contradicts Islamic principles.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s remarks came ahead of May 19 polls, in which the president is seeking re-election.
“In this country, the basis is Islam and the Koran. This is not a place where the faulty, corrupt and destructive Western lifestyle will be allowed to spread its influence,” Khamenei told a gathering of educators, according to his website.
“It makes no sense to accept such a document in the Islamic Republic,” Khamenei said, referring to the Education 2030 plan proposed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Khamenei did not give details of his opposition to the UNESCO plan, but hardline commentators in Iran have said its promotion of gender equality in education contravened Islam.
“How can a so-called international body which is under the influence of the great powers allow itself to assign duties for countries with different histories, cultures and civilizations?” said Khamenei, who often warns of a “soft war” mounted by the West to topple Iran’s Islamic government.
Khamenei has the final say over policy in Iran and has repeatedly distanced himself from Rouhani in recent weeks.
But he has stopped short of backing any of Rouhani’s hardline opponents, who include influential cleric Ebrahim Raisi and Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf.
A U.N. human rights report issued in August 2015 said Iran had almost achieved universal enrolment and gender parity at all educational levels.
But the report said that gender-ratio policies adopted in 2012 had led to a fall in enrolment of female students in universities.

Macron favourite as France votes for new president, early turnout low

French voters choose on Sunday whether a pro-European Union centrist or a eurosceptic, anti-immigration far-rightist will lead them for the next five years, with early figures indicating turnout could be low, but above most recent forecasts.
Opinion polls predict that after 8 p.m. (1800 GMT) Emmanuel Macron, a 39-year-old ex-economy minister who wants to bridge the left-right divide, will be named as president, seeing off the challenge from National Front leader Marine Le Pen.
A Macron victory would further stem the tide of nativist, anti-globalisation voting outcomes like those that will see Britain quit the EU and which made Donald Trump U.S. president.
Macron, who wants to deregulate the economy and deepen EU integration, is set to win the head-to-head with between 61.5 and 63 percent of the vote, according to the last opinion polls on Friday.
Should an upset occur and Le Pen win, the very future of the EU could be on the line given her desire to close borders, dump the euro currency, and tear up trade treaties.
Even in defeat, the 48 year-old’s vote is likely to be about twice what her party scored the last time it reached the presidential second round in 2002, demonstrating the scale of voter disaffection with mainstream politics in France.
By midday, both candidates had voted, he in Le Touquet on the north coast, and she in the northern town of Henin-Beaumont.
Midday turnout figures from the Interior Ministry said 28.23 percent of voters had turned out so far, the lowest at this stage of the day since the 2002 presidential poll, when it was 26.19 percent. Turnouts at midday in 2012 and 2007 were 30.66 percent and 34.11 percent respectively.
A poll on Friday had predicted a final turnout of 75 percent this time. The eventual turnouts in 2002, 2007 and 2012 were all above 80 percent.
Pollsters see likely abstentions as highest among left-wing voters who feel disenfranchised by Sunday’s choice after nine other candidates were eliminated in first round, but it is unclear what a high or low turnout could mean for the outcome.
Nevertheless, voter surveys forecasting the result itself proved accurate for the tight first round race last month.
Markets have risen in response to Macron’s widening lead over his rival after a bitter television debate on Wednesday.
“We increased our equity exposure and added some French stocks after the first round,” said Francois Savary, chief investment officer at Geneva-based fund management firm Prime Partners. “The major political risk of a Le Pen victory appears to be disappearing.”
After a campaign in which favourites dropped out of the race one after the other, Le Pen is nevertheless closer to elected power than the far right has been in France since World War Two.
If opinion polls prove accurate and the country elects its youngest-ever president rather than its first female leader, Macron himself has said himself he expects no honeymoon period.
Close to 60 percent of those who plan to vote for Macron say they will do so to stop Le Pen from being elected to lead the euro zone’s second-largest economy, rather than because they fully support the former banker turned politician.
“I don’t necessarily agree with either of the candidates,” psychotherapist Denise Dulliand, who was voting in Annecy in the mountainous southeast, told Reuters.
“But I wanted to express my voice, to be able to say that I came, even if I am really not satisfied with what is happening in our country, and that I would like to see less stupidity, less money and more fraternity.”
MORE ELECTIONS TO COME
The battle between mainstream and more radical policies in France will continue into parliamentary elections next month in which the new president will try to secure a majority in parliament. One poll this week suggested that was within reach for Macron.
Much will also depend on how the candidates score on Sunday. Le Pen’s niece, Marion Marechal-Le Pen, on Thursday told L’Opinion daily that winning 40 percent of the vote would be “a huge victory” for the National Front.
Whoever wins will open a new chapter in French politics, after the major left- and right-wing parties — the Socialists and The Republicans — that have ruled France for decades both suffered humiliating defeats in the election’s first round.
The campaign was hit by yet another surprise on Friday night, just as the quiet period in which politicians are forbidden from commenting began. Macron’s team said a massive hack had dumped emails, documents and campaign-financing information online.
Exit polls will be published when voting ends at 8 pm (1800 GMT).
With security a prime concern More than 50,000 police officers were on duty on Sunday. A series of militant attacks in Paris, Nice and elsewhere in France have killed more than 230 people in recent years.

Clintoon Foundation Cartoons

Hillary Clinton Email Cases Still Smolder, With Foes Eager to Spark New Investigation

She just won't go away.

Conservative transparency group Judicial Watch continued its carousel of court hearings Tuesday, seeking records relating to Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state, hoping to uncover evidence of wrongdoing.
The legal pursuit of the former Democratic presidential nominee remained hot inside a federal courthouse in the nation's capital, even if fewer reporters showed up than before her surprise November defeat.
At one hearing, appeals judges reviewed a request to identify all State Department employees who used personal email for work after Clinton took office. At the other, a district court judge considered the speed of redacting and releasing FBI investigative records about a cloud service backup of Clinton’s private email server.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said outside the group’s second hearing that there remains an objective to the legal onslaught, even if Clinton holds no office.
Fitton wants President Donald Trump to make good on a campaign promise to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Clinton, whose handling of classified records and interactions with family foundation donors were major election issues.
“We want the thumbs to be taken off the scale, finally,” he says, alleging the State Department and FBI may be slow-walking disclosure because they fear triggering Trump to reconsider his walk-back of the campaign pledge.
Currently a new probe of Clinton, who maintained her innocence and against whom FBI Director James Comey in July recommended no charges for mishandling classified records, does not appear likely.
After defeating her, Trump downplayed his talk about a special prosecutor, saying "I don't want to hurt the Clintons." And attorneys now facing off against Judicial Watch's Freedom of Information Act demands work for the new Trump administration.
In court Tuesday, the group sought FOIA processing priority for 785 pages of FBI investigative records -- of about 10,000 pages of FBI Clinton investigation records -- that it believes could be explosive.
The pages relate to the Datto cloud backup service, which stored data from Clinton’s private server -- something discovered to the apparent displeasure of Platte River Networks CEO Treve Suazo, whose company helped maintain Clinton's server.
“This data should not be stored in the Datto Cloud, but because the backup data exists, we cannot delete it,” Suazo wrote in a 2015 email to a Datto employee, which was released in a congressional committee investigating Clinton's email server.
Judicial Watch believes investigative records about Datto may include information about the 30,000 or so emails that Clinton's team deleted before turning over content it deemed work-related to the State Department. Many but not all of those emails were later recovered by the FBI and determined to be work-related.
Justice Department attorney Cesar Lopez-Morales said in court Tuesday that a heavy FOIA request burden prevented authorities from agreeing to Judicial Watch's request to prioritize the 785 pages.
“A lot of the Clinton investigation remains sensitive,” Lopez-Morales said, meaning “a limited number” of people can access the documents. And, he said, “there’s a risk of missing files as you’re pulling out the specific files” from folders.
Judicial Watch attorney Michael Bekesha suggested copying files rather than removing them from folders, but U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss said he was inclined to side with the administration.
Moss expressed concern it would be “inefficient and unfair” to prioritize the pages and asked rhetorically, “what happens if everyone comes in and does this?”
Lopez-Morales said the full set of FBI investigatory files are likely to be fully processed for redaction and release within about 17 months, down from the 20 months previously estimated.
The approximately 10,000 pages of FBI records are distinct from State Department documents from Clinton's tenure, including emails, being processed for release. A hearing in March is scheduled to review the pace of State Department processing, which as of November was calculated to take five years in response to lawsuits from Judicial Watch and Vice journalist Jason Leopold.
The tangle of Clinton emails cases can be difficult to follow, even for leaders of Judicial Watch, which is known as a prolific document requester and FOIA litigator. But the effort continues to see successes. In December, a federal appeals panel revived a pair of lawsuits -- one from Judicial Watch -- to force authorities to do more to compel recovery of Clinton emails. Last week, the group published 549 pages of State Department documents a judge ordered released in a different case targeting Clinton aide Huma Abedin's emails.
Fitton concedes it’s difficult to keep all of the Clinton email lawsuits straight, and Bekesha deferred to spokeswoman Jill Farrell for a precise number of active cases relating to Clinton’s emails. Farrell says the group has 13 Clinton email lawsuits currently pending.

North Korea accuses CIA of ‘bio-chemical’ plot against leadership

North Korea on Friday accused the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and South Korea’s intelligence service of a plot to attack its “supreme leadership” with a bio-chemical weapon and said such a “pipe-dream” could never succeed.
Tension on the Korean peninsula has been high for weeks, driven by concern that North Korea might conduct its sixth nuclear test or test-launch another ballistic missile in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions.
Reclusive North Korea warned this week that U.S. hostility had brought the region to the brink of nuclear war.
The North’s Ministry of State Security released a statement saying “the last-ditch effort” of U.S. “imperialists” and the South had gone “beyond the limits”.
“The Central Intelligence Agency of the U.S. and the Intelligence Service (IS) of south Korea, hotbed of evils in the world, hatched a vicious plot to hurt the supreme leadership of the DPRK and those acts have been put into the extremely serious phase of implementation after crossing the threshold of the DPRK,” the North’s KCNA news agency quoted the statement as saying, referring to the North by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“A hideous terrorists’ group, which the CIA and the IS infiltrated into the DPRK on the basis of covert and meticulous preparations to commit state-sponsored terrorism against the supreme leadership of the DPRK by use of bio-chemical substance, has been recently detected.”
The U.S. Embassy in Seoul and South Korea’s National Intelligence Service were not immediately available for comment. The U.S. military has said CIA director Mike Pompeo visited South Korea this week and met the NIS chief for discussions.
KCNA said the two intelligence services “ideologically corrupted” and bribed a North Korean surnamed Kim and turned him into “a terrorist full of repugnance and revenge against the supreme leadership of the DPRK”.
“They hatched a plot of letting human scum Kim commit bomb terrorism targeting the supreme leadership during events at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun and at military parade and public procession after his return home,” KCNA said.
“They told him that assassination by use of biochemical substances including radioactive substance and nano poisonous substance is the best method that does not require access to the target, their lethal results will appear after six or twelve months…
“Then they handed him over $20,000 on two occasions and a satellite transmitter-receiver and let him get versed in it.”
North Korea conducted an annual military parade, featuring a display of missiles and overseen by top leader Kim Jong Un and his right-hand men on April 15 and then a large, live-fire artillery drill 10 days later.
KCNA, which often carries shrill, bellicose threats against the United States, gave lengthy details about the alleged plot but said it could never be accomplished.
“Criminals going hell-bent to realize such a pipe dream cannot survive on this land even a moment,” it said.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Wednesday that Washington was working on more sanctions against North Korea if it takes steps that merit a new response. He also warned other countries their firms could face so-called secondary sanctions for doing illicit business with Pyongyang.
Tillerson said the Trump administration had been “leaning hard into China … to test their willingness to use their influence, their engagement with the regime”.
Two women accused of killing the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim with a chemical weapon appeared in court in Malaysia last month.
They allegedly smeared the man’s face with the toxic VX nerve agent, a chemical described by the United Nations as a weapon of mass destruction, at Kuala Lumpur airport on Feb. 13.

Japan, China to hold finance talks amid concerns on protectionism, North Korea

YOKOHAMA, Japan (Reuters) – Japan and China will hold their first bilateral financial dialogue in two years on Saturday to discuss risks to Asia’s economic outlook, such as the protectionist policies advocated by U.S. President Donald Trump and tension over North Korea, officials said.
Chinese Finance Minister Xiao Jie, who missed a trilateral meeting with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts on Friday for an emergency domestic meeting, has flown in for the bilateral dialogue, seeking to dispel speculation his absence had diplomatic implications.
Xiao and Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso will discuss issues ranging from North Korea’s nuclear and missile program to the two countries’ economic outlook and financial cooperation during the dialogue, to be held on the sidelines of the Asian Development Bank’s annual meeting in Yokohama, eastern Japan.
Senior finance officials from both countries will also hold a separate round of talks, Japanese Finance Ministry officials say.
Relations between Japan and China have been strained over territorial rows and Japan’s occupation of parts of China in World War Two, though leaders have recently sought to mend ties through dialogue.
Still, China’s increasing presence in infrastructure finance has alarmed some Japanese policymakers, who worry that Beijing’s new development bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), may overshadow the Japan-backed ADB.
Japan and China do agree on the need to respect free trade, which is crucial to Asia’s trade-dependent economies.
Finance officials from Japan, China and South Korea agreed to resist all forms of protectionism in Friday’s trilateral meeting, taking a stronger stand than G20 major economies against the protectionist policies advocated by Trump.
China has positioned itself as a supporter of free trade in the wake of Trump’s calls to put America’s interests first and pull out of multilateral trade agreements.
Japan has taken a more accommodative stance toward Washington’s argument that trade must not just be free but fair.

Clinton Refuses to Take Blame; Problems Ahead for Democratic Party

Washington, DC – Kendall Forward, OAN Political Correspondent
Hillary Clinton is gaining criticism for failing to take the blame for losing the 2016 election. In an interview with Christiane Amanpour at a Woman for Woman event on Tuesday, she claimed if the election had been earlier, she would be president; “It wasn’t a perfect campaign. There is no such thing um but I was on the way to winning until the combination of Jim Comey’s letter on October 28th and Russian Wikileaks placed doubt in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me who got scared off.”
Colin Reed, executive director of the political action committee, America Rising says it’s simply not true; “The problems she had were deep seeded and long in the making. They were things that she created. A secret e-mail server was one thing but only in politics, the unethical stuff going on with the Clinton Foundation there was a slew of reasons the American people did not trust Sec. Clinton.” He says she lost because she ran a bad campaign and lost voter trust.
According to Reed, it’s part of a bigger problem democrats face, including increasing lack of leadership in the party, leaving democrats looking to the past for candidates.
“Right now there’s no one really in charge. The leadership is all over the age of 75,” says Reed. “Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren are clearly trying to take over the party, but they’re running into resistance from folks that are already in the middle.” He says the party is moving too far left, isolating more members and voters; “It is time for this party to look forward but they’re having a real hard time doing that.”

French candidate Macron claims massive hack as emails leaked

Again ? :-)

FRANKFURT/PARIS (Reuters) – Leading French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron’s campaign said on Friday it had been the target of a “massive” computer hack that dumped its campaign emails online 1-1/2 days before voters choose between the centrist and his far-right rival, Marine Le Pen.
Macron, who is seen as the frontrunner in an election billed as the most important in France in decades, extended his lead over Le Pen in polls on Friday.
As much as 9 gigabytes of data were posted on a profile called EMLEAKS to Pastebin, a site that allows anonymous document sharing. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for posting the data or if any of it was genuine.
In a statement, Macron’s political movement En Marche! (Onwards!) confirmed that it had been hacked.
“The En Marche! Movement has been the victim of a massive and co-ordinated hack this evening which has given rise to the diffusion on social media of various internal information,” the statement said.
An interior ministry official declined to comment, citing French rules that forbid any commentary liable to influence an election, which took effect at midnight on Friday (2200 GMT).
The presidential election commission said in statement that it would hold a meeting later on Saturday after Macron’s campaign informed it about the hack and publishing of the data.
It urged the media to be cautious about publishing details of the emails given that campaigning had ended, and publication could lead to criminal charges.
Comments about the email dump began to appear on Friday evening just hours before the official ban on campaigning began. The ban is due to stay in place until the last polling stations close Sunday at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT).
Opinion polls show independent centrist Macron is set to beat National Front candidate Le Pen in Sunday’s second round of voting, in what is seen to be France’s most important election in decades. The latest surveys show him winning with about 62 percent of the vote.
RUSSIAN HAND SEEN
Former economy minister Macron’s campaign has previously complained about attempts to hack its emails, blaming Russian interests in part for the cyber attacks.
On April 26, the team said it had been the target of a attempts to steal email credentials dating back to January, but that the perpetrators had failed to compromise any campaign data.
The Kremlin has denied it was behind any such attacks, even though Macron’s camp renewed complaints against Russian media and a hackers’ group operating in Ukraine.
Vitali Kremez, director of research with New York-based cyber intelligence firm Flashpoint, told Reuters his review indicates that APT 28, a group tied to the GRU, the Russian military intelligence directorate, was behind the leak. He cited similarities with U.S. election hacks that have been previously attributed to that group.
APT28 last month registered decoy internet addresses to mimic the name of En Marche, which it likely used send tainted emails to hack into the campaign’s computers, Kremez said. Those domains include onedrive-en-marche.fr and mail-en-marche.fr.
“If indeed driven by Moscow, this leak appears to be a significant escalation over the previous Russian operations aimed at the U.S. presidential election, expanding the approach and scope of effort from simple espionage efforts towards more direct attempts to sway the outcome,” Kremez said.
France is the latest nation to see a major election overshadowed by accusations of manipulation through cyber hacking.
U.S. intelligence agencies said in January that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered hacking of parties tied to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to influence the election on behalf of Republican rival Donald Trump.
On Friday night as the #Macronleaks hashtag buzzed around social media, Florian Philippot, deputy leader of the National Front, tweeted “Will Macronleaks teach us something that investigative journalism has deliberately killed?”
Macron spokesman Sylvain Fort, in a response on Twitter, called Philippot’s tweet “vile”.
En Marche! said the documents only showed the normal functioning of a presidential campaign, but that authentic documents had been mixed on social media with fake ones to sow “doubt and misinformation”.
Ben Nimmo, a UK-based security researcher with the Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council think tank, said initial analysis indicated that a group of U.S. far-right online activists were behind early efforts to spread the documents via social media. They were later picked up and promoted by core social media supporters of Le Pen in France, Nimmo said.
The leaks emerged on 4chan, a discussion forum popular with far right activists in the United States. An anonymous poster provided links to the documents on Pastebin, saying, “This was passed on to me today so now I am giving it to you, the people.”
The hashtag #MacronLeaks was then spread by Jack Posobiec, a pro-Trump activist whose Twitter profile identifies him as Washington D.C. bureau chief of the far-right activist site Rebel TV, according to Nimmo and other analysts tracking the election. Contacted by Reuters, Posobiec said he had simply reposted what he saw on 4chan.
“You have a hashtag drive that started with the alt-right in the United States that has been picked up by some of Le Pen’s most dedicated and aggressive followers online,” Nimmo told Reuters.
Alt-right refers to a loose-knit group of far-right activists known for their advocacy of extremist ideas, rejection of mainstream conservatism and disruptive social media tactics.

Food Stamp Cartoons

U.S. employment growth seen rebounding, wages increasing

U.S. job growth likely rebounded in April and wages increased, pointing to a further tightening in labor market conditions that could pave the way for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates next month.
Nonfarm payrolls probably increased by 185,000 jobs last month, according to a Reuters poll of economists, after a paltry gain of 98,000 in March.
The March gain, the smallest in 10 months, was dismissed as payback after unseasonably mild temperatures in January and February pulled forward hiring in weather-sensitive sectors like construction and leisure and hospitality.
The Labor Department will release its closely watched employment report at 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT) on Friday.
Job gains in line with expectations would support the Fed’s contention that the pedestrian 0.7 percent annualized economic growth pace in the first quarter was likely “transitory,” and its optimism that economic activity would expand at a “moderate” pace.
“The labor market continues to tighten, we have on average seen inflation rise over this past year,” said Ray Stone, an economist at Stone & McCarthy Research Associates in Princeton, New Jersey. “From the Fed’s perspective, there is probably going to be a policy tightening in June and probably again sometime over the balance of the year.” The Fed on Wednesday kept its benchmark overnight interest rate unchanged and said it expected labor market conditions would “strengthen somewhat further.”
The U.S. central bank raised its overnight interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point in March and has forecast two more increases this year.
Average hourly earnings likely rose 0.3 percent last month, partly because of a calendar quirk. While that would keep the year-on-year increase at 2.7 percent, there are signs that wage growth is accelerating as labor market slack diminishes.
A government report last week showed private sector wages recorded their biggest gain in 10 years in the first quarter.
NEAR FULL EMPLOYMENT
The economy needs to create 75,000 to 100,000 jobs per month to keep up with growth in the working-age population. Job growth averaged 178,000 per month in the first quarter.
The unemployment rate probably ticked up to 4.6 percent last month from a near 10-year low of 4.5 percent in March. With the labor market expected to hit a level consistent with full employment this year, payroll gains could slow as firms struggle to find qualified workers.
“We have seen a steady increase in anecdotal evidence of a mismatch in the labor force,” said David Donabedian, chief investment officer at CIBC Atlantic Trust Private Wealth Management in Baltimore. “There are a number of industries that are having trouble hiring enough qualified personnel and those things will eventually lead to upward wage pressures.”
Construction and manufacturing hiring likely led the anticipated acceleration in job growth last month. Retail employment probably declined for a third straight month.
Retailers including J.C. Penney Co Inc , Macy’s Inc and Abercrombie & Fitch have announced thousands of layoffs as they shift toward online sales and scale back on brick-and-mortar operations.
More people likely entered the labor force in April, which could led to a marginal rise in the participation rate, or the share of working-age Americans who are employed or at least looking for a job. The labor force participation rate is at an 11-month high of 63 percent.
“At this point there just aren’t a lot of excess discouraged workers left and dropout rates of unemployed workers are already low, so there’s not a lot of apparent room left to extend the participation rate rebound,” said Ted Wieseman, an economist at Morgan Stanley in New York.

U.S. House approves tighter North Korea sanctions

The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation on Thursday to tighten sanctions on North Korea by targeting its shipping industry and companies that do business with the reclusive state.
The vote was 419 to 1.
Supporters said the legislation was intended to send a strong message to North Korea, amid international concern over the escalation of its nuclear program.
The measure would have to be approved by the Senate before it could be sent to the White House for President Donald Trump to sign into law.
Although legislation addressing North Korea has been introduced in the Senate, there was no immediate word on when or if the Senate might take up a bill.
Any new U.S. sanctions against North Korea would likely affect China, the North’s most important trade partner.
While China has been angered by North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests, it has signed up for increasingly tough U.N. sanctions against it, and says it is committed to enforcing them.
Asked about the latest U.S. legislation, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang reiterated that China opposed other countries using their own domestic law to impose unilateral sanctions.
With the situation tense on the Korean Peninsula, all sides need to exercise restraint and not irritate each other to avoid the situation worsening, he said.

Report: Russia says Syria safe zones will be shut for US warplanes

Russian news agencies reported on Friday that U.S. and coalition warplanes will not be allowed to fly over safe zones in Syria.
Putin on Wednesday said he had a “very good” conversation over the phone with Trump, and that his U.S. counterpart agreed to a proposal to establish Syrian safe zones to protect civilians in the war-torn country.
But the White House only confirmed that the two leaders discussed the safe zones, not that there were any agreements.
It is unclear how Russia would enforce this reported no-fly zone for coalition forces.
Reuters reported that countries like Iran and Turkey have agreed on Moscow’s proposal for the “de-escalation zones.” The United Nations also reportedly welcomed the plan.
The proposal presented to the rebels in Astana delineates four zones in Syria where front lines between the government and rebels would be frozen and fighting halted, according to a statement made by rebels. The four include areas in the provinces of Idlib and Homs, the eastern Ghouta suburbs outside Damascus, and an area in the south of the country.
The zones, according to the document received by rebels, would be monitored by international observers and allow for the voluntary return of refugees.
Late Wednesday, Syria's Foreign Ministry said Damascus is "fully backing" the Russian initiative on the four cease-fire areas, according to the state-run SANA news agency.
But Ahmed Ramadan, an opposition representative, told The Associated Press that rebels requested a written answer on a number of questions, including why the cease-fire would only be in effect in the four areas instead of a nationwide truce.

Congress Passes Bill to Repeal and Replace Obamacare

Congress voted to make sweeping changes to the American health care system Thursday. Republicans passed the American Health Care Act to repeal and replace Obamacare with 217 yea votes and 213 no votes.
Rep. Leonard Lance (R-NJ) , one of the few Republicans who voted no to the bill, said, “I don’t think this bill lowers premiums” and he added he would have liked to see a CBO score. The bill still has not been scored. Lance also said he’d like to “see the parties coming together and see cooperation from our Democratic colleagues” in a more bipartisan bill.
Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, said it was a series of discussions that brought him and other Caucus members from a ‘no’ to ‘yes’ vote.
In an last minute switch, Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) and Rep. Billy Long (R- MO) told President Trump, they had decided to vote ‘yes’, giving Republicans the final count they needed to go forward with the vote.
After the vote, House Democrats sang “Na Na Na Na Hey Hey Hey Goodbye”, a song by Steam, on the House floor to Republicans.
A few major main provisions of the bill include:

• Obamacare subsidies for lower income Americans are repealed.
• The bill offers yearly tax credits ($2,000-$4,000 a year) to those without insurance based on age.
• A complete Medicaid funding overhaul. A fixed amount of funding is provided by the federal government. The bill ends open-ended entitlement and puts the program on a budget, cutting $880 billion dollars over 10 years.
• The bill cuts taxes on high income people by taking out a tax that previously charged an additional 3.6%

The bill could still see some major changes when it hits the Senate. However, after it passed Republicans headed to the White House Rose Garden for a celebratory press conference. President Trump said, “premiums will be coming down did will be coming down but very importantly its a great plan and that’s what it’s all about.”

Borrowing from the Bank Cartoons