Maduro: Venezuela’s Govt preparing for potential armed conflict with U.S.

FILE – In this Jan. 10, 2019, file photo, Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro holds up a small copy of the constitution as he speaks during his swearing-in ceremony at the Supreme Court in Caracas, Venezuela. The coalition of Latin American governments that joined the U.S. in quickly recognizing opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s interim president, and not Maduro, came together during weeks of secret diplomacy. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File)

OAN Newsroom
UPDATE 7:55 AM PT – Sat. January 26, 2019

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says the country is preparing for a potential armed conflict with the U.S.
Maduro made the comments during a press conference on Friday, just a day after calling to close the Venezuelan embassy and its consulates in the U.S.
He went on to say the National Bolivarian Armed Forces are willing and ready to take the appropriate measures, to stand against any enemies that may arise in a potential coup.
While the White House claims “all options are still on the table with Venezuela,” officials said, they are not actively considering to take action.
“The conflict may happen, because they have said they are going to put the Marines in Caracas, and they will send them I don’t know where, and so, in each city, in each town; we will have a defense plan and a reaction plan for combat and victory,” said Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.”
President Maduro also announced Friday, military exercises would be held in Venezuela between February 10th through 15th.

Mexico receives more than 12,000 humanitarian Visa applications from migrant caravan

OAN Newsroom
8:59 PM PT – Sat. January 26, 2019

Migrants of Honduras and El Salvador stand in line waiting to enter bridge over the Suchiate River on the border between Guatemala and Mexico, in Tecun Uman, Guatemala, early Saturday, Jan. 19, 2019. Hundreds of mainly Honduran migrants began crossing peacefully into Mexico without the confrontations that marked last fall’s migrant caravans. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

The number of Central American migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. continues to grow as Mexico fast-tracks humanitarian visas.
Mexican migration officials say, as of Friday, they’ve received more than 10,000 visa applications for adults, and nearly 2,400 for minors.
Mexico is offering one-year visas to migrants which include the right to work in Mexico and travel the country freely. So far, about 2,200 visas have been granted.
Honduran nationals make up about seventy-five percent of the caravan, including more 1,800 minors.

Extramarital affair with Kamala Harris? Former San Francisco mayor, 84, admits it happened

Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris.

Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown addressed his past extramarital relationship with U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris in his weekly column Saturday, saying he may have boosted the presidential hopeful's career.
"Yes, we dated. It was more than 20 years ago," Brown wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle.
"Yes, I may have influenced her career by appointing her to two state commissions when I was [California] Assembly speaker. And I certainly helped with her first race for district attorney in San Francisco."
Brown, 84, pointed out that he also helped the careers of other prominent California Democrats, such as U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Gov. Gavin Newsom and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
"The difference is that Harris is the only one who, after I helped her, sent word that I would be indicted if I 'so much as jaywalked' while she was D.A.,” Brown wrote. "That's politics for ya."
Brown appointed Harris -- about 30 years younger than Brown and just a few years out of law school – to two well-paid state commission assignments on the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and the California Medical Assistance Commission, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
"Whether you agree or disagree with the system, I did the work," Harris said in a 2003 interview with SF Weekly. "I brought a level of life knowledge and common sense to the jobs."

"The difference is that Harris is the only one who, after I helped her, sent word that I would be indicted if I 'so much as jaywalked' while she was D.A.”
— Willie Brown, former mayor of San Francisco

The former mayor also connected Harris with campaign donors, which helped her outraise her opponent for San Francisco district attorney, Business Insider reported. Brown's involvement in her election raised questions as to how Harris would remain impartial, given his enormous political clout.
Questions about Brown’s relationship with Harris began anew after she announced her 2020 presidential bid on Martin Luther King Day.
During his two terms as mayor of San Francisco, Brown was known for his charm, arrogance and ego, according to a 1996 profile in People magazine.
Named one of the world’s 10 sexiest men by Playgirl magazine in 1984, Brown sometimes attended parties with his wife on one arm and a girlfriend on the other, according to a reporter quoted by the magazine.
Brown and Harris broke up in 1995 but remained political allies. In Saturday's column, Brown said Harris is "riding a buzz wave the likes of which we haven’t seen in years."
Fox News contacted Harris' office for a response to Brown's claims but did not receive a response.
For the past decade or so, Brown has reportedly been linked with Sonya Molodetskaya, a Russian refugee and socialite. He is said to be separated from wife Blanche Vitero, whom he married in 1958.
Brown and Vitero have three children, while Brown also fathered a child in 2001 with his former fundraiser, Carolyn Carpeneti, according to the Chronicle.

Trump slams 'one-sided' media, says BuzzFeed, HuffPost layoffs result from 'bad journalism'

President Donald Trump announces a deal to temporarily reopen the government, in the Rose Garden of the White House, Friday, Jan. 25, 2019, in Washington. (Associated Press)

President Trump took aim at "one-sided Fake Media coverage" and "bad journalism" Saturday in tweets referring to coverage of former adviser Roger Stone's indictment and arrest and to reports that layoffs had struck news outlets such as BuzzFeed and Huffington Post.
The tweets came a day after the Trump tore into "Fake News CNN," which had a camera crew outside Stone's home as he was being arrested by the FBI on obstruction and other charges in connection with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe.
Trump on Saturday also mocked CBS News, asserting that its reporting on Stone neglected to include details on the "Fake and Unverified 'Dossier,'" which Trump described as "a total phony conjob, that was paid for by Crooked Hillary."
Faulty journalism has been a constant theme of Trump's for a long time, and the president suggested Saturday that recent job cuts at news organizations -- which have left around 1,000 journalists jobless, according to reports -- were an indication that he was accurate in his assessment.
“Ax falls quickly at BuzzFeed and Huffpost!” Headline, New York Post," the president wrote. "Fake News and bad journalism have caused a big downturn. Sadly, many others will follow. The people want the Truth!"
BuzzFeed announced this week that it was letting go 220 employees -- or about 15 percent of its staff -- in a restructuring move. The news came just days after the outlet published a since-discredited report that Trump had directed his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress about a potential real estate deal in Moscow.
The office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller took the rare step of issuing a brief statement saying the story was "not accurate," further escalating Trump’s claim that most news outlets are not to be trusted. BuzzFeed has stood by its reporting.
The Huffington Post, meanwhile, laid off 20 reporters as part of job cuts at Verizon, whose media division also includes AOL and Yahoo News. The parent company's media cuts represented a 7 percent workforce reduction. Other media organizations that laid off workers last week included Gannett – the nation’s largest newspaper chain, which owns USA Today.
In response to Trump, BuzzFeed’s Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith tweeted that the president's remarks were “a disgusting thing to say about dozens of American workers who just lost their jobs.”
HuffPost Editor-in-Chief Lydia Polgreen also chimed in. "1,000 journalists lost their jobs last week," Polgreen wrote. "Ordinary people with rent to pay, families to support, student loan bills coming due. They are workers like any other who do not deserve this cruelty."
Many of the journalists left jobless received death threats online and anti-Semitic messages, the Hill reported.
Trump often accuses the media of unfair coverage and not highlighting his “accomplishments” enough. On Thursday, for example, the president complained about a lack of coverage of corporate earnings.
Trump's tirade followed a storm of criticism against the media from many conservatives, particularly over coverage of the Catholic high school students from Covington, Ky., who were vilified online for allegedly harassing a Native American man -- until additional video footage showed that the MAGA-hat-wearing kids were not the aggressors they had been made out to be.

Bunny Mueller Keeps On Going Cartoons

White House: Roger Stone’s indictment has nothing to do with President Trump

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 6:55 AM PT — Friday, January 25, 2019

The White House has responded to the recent arrest and indictment of President Trump’s ex-adviser Roger Stone.
While speaking outside the White House Friday, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the special counsel’s latest indictment has nothing to do with the president or the administration.
When asked if President Trump encouraged Stone to make false statements, Sanders said the implication is absolutely ridiculous and insulting and simply not true.
The press secretary said she hopes the same standards applied against Stone will also be applied to others who have been accused of lying under oath to Congress, and named off James Comey, James Clapper and Hillary Clinton.
Stone was arrested Friday morning in Florida and has been indicted on a number of charges, including lying during his testimony to the House Judiciary Committee.
According to a 24-page indictment released by the special counsel Friday, he was arrested on one-count of obstruction of an official proceeding, five-counts of making false statements, and one-count of witness tampering.
Indictment on Roger Stone

Roger Stone

He has been under investigation by Mueller for his alleged ties to the WikiLeaks document dump ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Stone has adamantly denied all accusations of wrongdoing, and has blasted the Mueller probe as a “witch hunt.”

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders listens to a question as she speaks with reporters outside the White House, Friday, Jan. 25, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

Roger Stone may be a ‘BS artist,’ but indictments don’t prove collusion: Byron York

Republican operative Roger Stone is the latest in President Trump’s inner circle to face criminal charges in the Mueller probe, but his alleged crimes have nothing to do with Russia collusion, Washington Examiner chief political correspondent Byron York argued Friday.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller charged the former Trump campaign adviser with seven felonies -- including obstruction, making false statements, and witness tampering. The FBI sent more than two-dozen armed agents to arrest Stone in his Florida home before the crack of dawn Friday.
On the "Special Report" All-Star panel, York -- along with National Journal political editor Josh Kraushaar and Washington Free Beacon editor-in-chief Matthew Continetti -- weighed in on the political and legal ramifications of the latest indictments from Mueller.
York began by pointing out that Stone’s communications regarding WikiLeaks took place after the site published emails from the Democratic National Committee. York said he thought this suggested that “there was no knowledge beforehand” and that the facts don't support “any collusion scheme or conspiracy” involving the Trump campaign and Russia.
“The main thing to remember reading this indictment is, Roger Stone has always been a kind of a BS artist. He brags about all sort of dirty deeds, some of which he hasn’t even done, and he was doing that in connection to this case in public. And then the House had him come for an interview and asked him about those statements under oath and he allegedly lied about it all and it has all kind of caught up with him. But as far as revealing some sort of scheme or conspiracy, it just doesn’t do it,” York told the panel.
Continetti said that because the indictments Stone is facing are “process crimes,” the Trump administration is able to “create some space” between the former adviser and the president.
Kraushaar, however, felt differently, telling the panel that it “feels like the walls are closing in” at the White House regarding its connections with Russia and WikiLeaks. The political fallout, if it takes place, would occur after Mueller releases his final report.

Democrat ends 2020 presidential bid -- 11 days after quitting state Senate to run

Richard Ojeda, a Democratic candidate for West Virginia's 3rd Congressional District, watches election results during his campaign's watch party at Special Occasions in Yuma, W.Va., Nov. 6, 2018. (Associated Press)

Former West Virginia state Sen. Richard Ojeda ended his 2020 presidential bid Friday, just 11 days after he left his seat to focus on his White House bid.
In an hourlong Facebook video, the tattooed Army veteran said he couldn’t see himself accepting money from people struggling to get by for a race “that’s not going to be able to get off the ground.”
“When I was a kid in grade school, my teachers always said that anyone could grow up and become president,” Ojeda said. “Unfortunately, what I’m starting to realize is that unless you have wealth, influence and power, it’s not gonna happen.”
Ojeda -- a Democrat who voted for Republican Donald Trump in 2016 -- announced his presidential run in November after losing a congressional race to Republican Carol Miller. On Jan. 14, he submitted his resignation from the state Senate, WOWK-TV in Huntington, W. Va. reported
As a lawmaker, he sponsored successful legislation to make medical marijuana legal and stressed health care and economic issues.
He also came under fire in September 2018 for allegedly threatening state delegate Rupie Phillips in a Facebook message: "When I'm done with you, you will beg me to ease up. I’m going to make you famous… and it’s not going to be in a good way."
In December, an attack he called politically motivated left him in the hospital with multiple fractures.
In his announcement, Ojeda did not say what he would do next.
“I want you to know though that my fight does not end! I may not have the money to make the media pay attention but I will continue raising my voice and highlighting the issues the working class, the sick and the elderly face in this nation."