President Trump on Saturday urged graduates of Liberty University to “never give up” and find the courage to challenge the establishment and critics, much like he has done in Washington.
"In my short time in Washington, I've seen firsthand how the system is broken," he said. "A small group of failed voices, who think they know everything … want to tell everybody else how to live,” Trump said in his commencement speech at the Christian school, in Lynchburg, Va.
“But you aren't going to let other people tell you what to believe, especially when you know that you're right. … We don't need a lecture from Washington on how to lead our lives."
Trump, a businessman and first-time elected official, made three previous visits to Liberty but none likely as important as his January 2016 trip in which he asked and received the support of evangelical Christians.
Jerry Falwell Jr., Liberty's president, helped Trump win an overwhelming 80 percent of the white evangelical vote, in his 2016 White House victory.
"Nothing worth doing ever, ever, ever came easy," Trump said Saturday, in his first college commencement speech as president. "Following your convictions means you must be willing to face criticism from those who lack the same courage to do what is right. And they know what is right, but they don't have the courage or the guts or the stamina to take it and to do it."
Newly elected U.S. presidents often give their first commencement addresses at the University of Notre Dame, the country's best-known Roman Catholic school.
Former Presidents Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush did so during their first year in office. But this year, Vice President Mike Pence will speak at Notre Dame's graduation, becoming the first vice president to do so.
Notre Dame spokesman Paul Browne declined to say whether Trump had been invited to the May 21 ceremony, saying it was against school policy to reveal who had turned down offers.
Trump's remarks in Virginia marked his first extended public appearance since he fired James Comey as FBI director on Tuesday.
The president on Saturday didn't talk about Comey. And he has largely stayed out of public view since Tuesday, when he removed the head of the agency investigating Russia's role in the 2016 election, along with possible ties between Trump's campaign and the Russian government.
Aboard Air Force One, en route to Liberty, Trump said he could appoint a new FBI director by Friday, before departing on his first overseas presidential trip.
Several candidates were interview Saturday at Justice Department headquarters in Washington, D.C. Whoever is appointed would have to be confirmed by the Republican-led Senate.
A recent Pew Research Center survey marking Trump's first 100 days in office, a milestone reached on April 29, found three-quarters of white evangelicals approved of his performance as president while just 39 percent of the general public held the same view.
“I’m thrilled to be back at Liberty University,” said Trump, who repeatedly thanked the stadium-filled crowd for helping him get elected. “Boy did you come out and vote.”
Christian conservatives have been overjoyed by Trump's appointment of Justice Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, along with Trump's choice of socially conservative Cabinet members and other officials, such as Charmaine Yoest, a prominent anti-abortion activist named to the Department of Health and Human Services.
But they had a mixed response to an executive order on religious liberty that Trump signed last week. He directed the IRS to ease up on enforcing an already rarely enforced limit on partisan political activity by churches.
He also promised "regulatory relief" for those who object on religious grounds to the birth control coverage requirement in the Affordable Care Act health law. Yet the order did not address one of the most pressing demands from religious conservatives: broad exemptions from recognizing same-sex marriage.
Still, Falwell, who endorsed Trump in January 2016 just before that year's Iowa caucuses, praised Trump's actions on issues that concern Christian conservatives.
"I really don't think any other president has done more for evangelicals and the faith community in four months than President Trump has," Falwell said.
Falwell became a key surrogate and validator for the thrice-married Trump during the campaign, frequently traveling with Trump on the candidate's plane and appearing at events. Falwell often compared Trump to his later father, the conservative televangelist Jerry Falwell, and argued that while Trump wasn't the most religious candidate in the race, he was the man the country needed.
"The more that a broken system tells you that you're wrong, the more certain you must be that you must keep pushing ahead," added Trump, who often complains about being underestimated during the presidential campaign.

White House: North Korea has been 'flagrant menace for far too long'

The White House responded to the latest North Korean ballistic missile launch late Saturday, saying that the rogue regime has been a “flagrant menace for far too long.”
The statement added that President Trump “cannot imagine that Russia is pleased” with North Korea’s latest test because the missile landed close to Russia soil. The statement pointed out that the missile landed closer to Russia than to Japan.
The White House said the U.S. maintains its "ironclad commitment" to stand with its allies in the face of the serious threat posed by North Korea, and added that the latest "provocation" should serve as a call for all nations to implement far stronger sanctions against the North.
The Pentagon confirmed that North Korea launched some type of ballistic missile at around 10:30 a.m. Hawaii time. It was launched near Kusung and landed in the Sea of Japan.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) determined the missile launch from North Korea did not pose a threat to North America.
South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported the missile traveled about 435 miles.
The launch is the first in two weeks since the last attempt to fire a missile ended in a failure just minutes into flight.
The isolated regime attempted but failed to test-launch ballistic missiles four consecutive times in the past two months but has conducted a variety of missile testing since the beginning of last year at fast pace.
Trump warned in an interview with Reuters in late April that a "major, major conflict" with the North was possible, but he would prefer a diplomatic outcome to the dispute over its nuclear and missile programs.
The launch is the first since a new liberal president took office in South Korea on Wednesday, saying dialog as well as pressure must be used to ease tensions on the Korean peninsula and stop the North's weapons pursuit.

North Korea fires missile days after new South Korea leader pledges dialogue

North Korea fired a ballistic missile on Sunday in defiance of calls to rein in its weapons program, days after a new leader in its old rival South Korea came to power pledging to engage it in dialogue.
The U.S. Pacific Command said it was assessing the type of missile but it was “not consistent with an intercontinental ballistic missile”. Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada said the missile could be of a new type.
The missile flew 700 km (430 miles) and reached an altitude of more than 2,000 km (1,245 miles), according to officials in South Korea and Japan, further and higher than an intermediate-range missile North Korea successfully tested in February from the same region of Kusong, northwest of its capital, Pyongyang.
North Korea is widely believed to be developing an intercontinental missile tipped with a nuclear weapon that is capable of reaching the United States.
U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed not to let that happen.
An intercontinental ballistic missile is considered to have a range of more than 6,000 km (3,700 miles).
Experts said the altitude the missile tested on Sunday reached meant it was launched at a high trajectory, which would limit the lateral distance it traveled.
But if it was fired at a standard trajectory, it would have a range of at least 4,000 km (2,500 miles), experts said.
Kim Dong-yub, of Kyungnam University’s Institute of Far Eastern Studies in Seoul, said he estimated a standard trajectory would give it a range of 6,000 km.
Japan said the missile flew for 30 minutes before dropping into the sea between North Korea’s east coast and Japan. The North has consistently test-fired missiles in that direction.
“The launch may indeed represent a new missile with a long range,” said Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, referring to the estimated altitude of more than 2,000 km. “It is definitely concerning.”
In Washington, the White House said Trump “cannot imagine Russia is pleased” with the test as the missile landed closer to Russia than to Japan.
“With the missile impacting so close to Russian soil – in fact, closer to Russia than to Japan – the President cannot imagine that Russia is pleased,” it said.
The launch served as a call for all nations to implement stronger sanctions against North Korea, it added.
‘CLEAR VIOLATION’
Speaking in Beijing, Dmitry Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, told reporters Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping had discussed the situation on the Korean peninsula, including the latest missile launch and expressed “mutual concerns” about growing tension.
Putin is in Beijing for a conference on a plan for a new Silk Road. Delegations from the United States, South Korea and North Korea are also there.
The launch, at 5:27 a.m. Seoul time (2027 GMT Saturday), came two weeks after North Korea fired a missile that disintegrated minutes into flight, marking its fourth consecutive failure since March.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who took office on Wednesday, held his first National Security Council in response to the launch, which he called a “clear violation” of U.N. Security Council resolutions, his office said.
“The president said while South Korea remains open to the possibility of dialogue with North Korea, it is only possible when the North shows a change in attitude,” Yoon Young-chan, Moon’s press secretary, told a briefing.
Moon won Tuesday’s election on a platform of a moderate approach to North Korea and has said he would be willing to go to Pyongyang under the right circumstances, arguing dialogue must be used in parallel with sanctions.
China, the North’s sole main ally which nevertheless objects to its weapons programs, called for restraint and for no one to exacerbate tension.
“China opposes relevant launch activities by North Korea that are contrary to Security Council resolutions,” China’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
The launch will also complicate Moon’s efforts to mend ties with China that have been strained by a decision by South Korea’s former government to deploy a U.S. anti-missile defense system aimed at defending against North Korea, but which China sees as a threat to its security.
Moon told Chinese President Xi last week that it would be difficult to resolve the issue unless North Korea stopped being provocative.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said North Korea’s missile launches were a “grave threat to our country and a clear violation of UN resolutions”.
North Korea on Feb. 12, launched the Pukguksong-2 missile, an upgraded, extended-range version of its submarine-launched ballistic missile, from the same site.
South Korean and U.S. military officials said the February launch was a significant development as it successfully tested a solid-fuel engine from a mobile launcher. The missile flew about 500 km with an altitude of 550 km.
The North attempted but failed to test-launch ballistic missiles four times in the past two months but has conducted various tests since the beginning of last year at an unprecedented pace.
It also conducted its fourth and fifth nuclear tests last year.
Trump warned in an interview with Reuters in April that a “major, major conflict” with the North was possible but he would prefer a diplomatic outcome.
Trump has also said he would be “honored” to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un under the right circumstances.
On Saturday, a top North Korean diplomat said it was open to dialogue with the Trump administration under the right conditions.

pork barrel spending cartoons

GOP Document Outlines ‘Stealth’ Congressional Earmark Process

Hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb speaks during a Reuters Newsmaker event in Manhattan, New York, U.S., September 21, 2016. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly

May 12, 2017
Washington, DC – John Hines, OAN Senior Political Correspondent
The term “congressional earmark” refers to the longstanding practice in which Members of Congress allocate pork barrel spending for their own districts. House Speaker Paul Ryan has placed a moratorium on earmarks saying they lead to uncontrolled spending. But now there is new evidence that Congress may have a system for “stealth earmarks.”
“What I’ve found is a PowerPoint presentation that proves that both parties are still using the earmark process secretly just now calling it ‘earmarks.’ But the earmark process goes on,” claims Patrick Howley, Editor, Big League Politics.com. “In the article, I refer to it as ‘stealth earmarks,’ which I think is a good term that pretty much encapsulates it. This is a PowerPoint presentation delivered by Appropriations leadership to GOP Congressmen. So, it’s a pass word only on-line system where Congressmen can go in and make their submissions for the earmarks they want and in 80 or 90 percent of cases they get the pork barrel spending that they want,” the reporter explains.”
The Power Point presentation proves that both parties are still using the earmark process, says Howley, nevertheless, he says the document specifically discourages the term “earmark.”
“In fact they even have a chart here, where they go through the you know the system for how a bill becomes a law. And they have a little yellow box with an arrow going around the typical system and says this is how you get your earmarks into the bill. Don’t use the term ‘earmarks,’ they even tell the Members ‘do not use the term earmark’ and do not be germane in the language that you use with these submissions,”he states.
Indeed, the document instructs members not to use the term earmark, and, even though Bill Christian of Citizens Against Government Waste says he cannot confirm the legitimacy of the document, the practice–if true–is disturbing.
“I would say that it would be disturbing if such a secretive end run around the earmark moratorium did in fact exist. This betrayal of the elected representatives’ pledge to abandon the corruptive practice of earmarking would run completely counter to the ‘drain the swamp’ message of the 2016 elections,” says Christian.
Appropriations Committee spokesperson Jennifer Hing commented officially in an email: “The notion that this was an instruction on earmarks is a total fabrication. This was simply an educational document to explain the proper way for members and their constituents to have their voices heard in the federal funding process. In fact, the committee specifically warns against asking for earmarks in any way.”

Treasury unit to share records with Senate for Trump-Russia probe: WSJ

A unit of the U.S. Treasury Department that fights money laundering will provide financial records to an investigation by the Senate into possible ties between Russia and President Donald Trump and his associates, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The Senate Intelligence Committee asked for the records from the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, late last month, the Journal cited the people as saying. (http://on.wsj.com/2qbNL7K)
One person said the records were needed to decide whether there was collusion between Trump associates and Russia during the 2016 campaign, the Journal said.
Representatives for FinCEN and Republican Senator Richard Burr, the intelligence committee chairman, declined to comment, the Journal said.
The Senate probe took on added significance after Trump dismissed FBI Director James Comey earlier this week amid an agency investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and possible Moscow ties to the Trump presidential campaign. The House of Representatives intelligence panel is conducting a similar probe.

With a threat of ‘tapes,’ Trump tells ousted FBI chief not to talk to media

Donald Trump warned ousted FBI Director James Comey on Friday not to talk to the media, a highly unusual move that prompted fresh charges the president is trying to silence the man who led an investigation into possible collusion between Trump’s election campaign and Russia.
On Twitter, Trump appeared to suggest that if Comey gave his version of contacts between them, the administration might produce tapes of conversations, although it was not clear if such tapes exist. The veiled threat added to the storm over Trump’s abrupt firing of Comey on Tuesday.
Critics have assailed Trump for dismissing the FBI chief just as the agency is investigating alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, and possible Moscow ties to the Trump presidential campaign.
The New York Times reported the president asked Comey in January to pledge loyalty to him and that Comey refused to do so. Such a request would undermine the standing of the FBI chief as an independent law enforcer and further fueled charges that Trump has overstepped the norms of his office.
“James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” Trump said in a string of Twitter posts on Friday.
Trump told Fox News he did not ask Comey to pledge loyalty and only wants him to be honest. Trump said he would not talk about the existence of any tapes.
CNN said Comey is “not worried about any tapes” Trump may have, citing an unnamed source familiar with the matter.
The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner, told MSNBC that Congress would want to look at the tapes, if they exist.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation probe and parallel congressional investigations have clouded Trump’s presidency since he took office on Jan. 20, threatening to overwhelm his policy priorities.
Democrats accuse the Republican president of trying to dent the FBI probe by firing Comey and have called for a special counsel to investigate the Russia issue.
INDEPENDENT PROBE?
The No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, Richard Durbin, went further on Friday and said Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein should appoint an independent special prosecutor to pursue possible criminal charges related to Comey’s firing, although he did not specify if he meant such charges should be against Trump.
But Rosenstein does not see the need at this time for a special prosecutor, CNN reported. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
Trump told Fox News in an interview he did not think an independent probe was necessary.
In a statement, Durbin said that what he characterized as Trump’s admission that he fired Comey because of the Russia probe was “dangerously close to obstruction of justice.”
Durbin said Trump’s tweet on Friday “could be construed as threatening a witness in this investigation, which is another violation of federal law.”
Comey declined an invitation to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee in a closed meeting on Tuesday for scheduling reasons, said Warner’s spokesman. An official familiar with the matter told Reuters that Comey had agreed in principle to testify behind closed doors at some point.
As has happened on previous occasions since Trump took office, different versions rapidly circulated of an event – in this case phone conversations between Comey and Trump and a dinner they had at the White House.
The New York Times said Comey told associates he declined to make a pledge of loyalty to Trump when the president requested it while they dined just seven days after his inauguration. Comey instead told Trump he could count on his honesty, the Times said.
Trump says Comey had told him three times he was not under investigation in the Russia probe. He said in an interview on Thursday with NBC News that Comey gave him this assurance during the White House dinner and in two phone conversations. Trump said Comey wanted to have the dinner because he wanted to stay on in the job.
Comey has not publicly discussed any conversations he has had with Trump.
NEWS BRIEFINGS
Trump also hit back on Friday at media reports questioning the credibility of White House accounts of why Comey was fired, which have changed over the course of the week, and threatened an end to regular White House press briefings.
“As a very active President with lots of things happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy!” Trump said. “Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future ‘press briefings’ and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy???”
Trump told Fox News he would decide in “the next couple of weeks” whether the briefings would continue.
The White House initially said Trump fired Comey on the recommendation of the top Justice Department officials: Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Rosenstein. In the NBC interview on Thursday, Trump said he would have fired Comey regardless of any such recommendations.
The White House has said Comey’s firing was unrelated to the Russia probe. On Thursday, Trump told NBC he knew he ran the risk that by firing Comey he would “confuse people” and “lengthen out the investigation” into ties to Russia.
The president said he never pressured Comey into dropping the FBI investigation, and added that there was no “collusion between me and my campaign and the Russians.”
Trump told Fox News he was surprised by the fierce reaction of Democrats. “I thought that this would be a very popular thing, that I did, when I terminated Comey, because all of the Democrats couldn’t stand him,” Trump said.
Comey had angered Democrats over his handling of the probe of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.
Trump is considering 11 people to replace Comey, a White House official said. Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, Republican Senator John Cornyn, New York Appeals Court Judge Michael Garcia and former Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher will be interviewed on Saturday for the post, an administration official said.
U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in January that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a campaign of interference in the election aimed at tilting the vote in Trump’s favor. Moscow has denied any such meddling.
As part of the Russia investigation, the Justice Department last month requested former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s banking records, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.
Seeking to bolster Trump’s case that he has had no concealed dealings with Russia, his lawyers said in a letter released by the White House on Friday that a review of Trump’s tax returns from the past 10 years showed no income from Russian sources outside of a few exceptions, and indicated he did not owe money to Russian lenders.

Major cyber attack hits companies, hospitals, schools worldwide

LONDON/MADRID (Reuters) – A global cyber attack leveraging hacking tools believed to have been developed by the U.S. National Security Agency has infected tens of thousands of computers in nearly 100 countries, disrupting Britain’s health system and global shipper FedEx.
Cyber extortionists tricked victims into opening malicious malware attachments to spam emails that appeared to contain invoices, job offers, security warnings and other legitimate files.
The ransomware encrypted data on the computers, demanding payments of $300 to $600 to restore access. Security researchers said they observed some victims paying via the digital currency bitcoin, though they did not know what percent had given in to the extortionists.
Researchers with security software maker Avast said they had observed 57,000 infections in 99 countries, with Russia, Ukraine and Taiwan the top targets.
Asian countries reported no major breaches on Saturday, but officials in the region were scrambling to check and the full extent of the damage may not be known for some time.
China’s official Xinhua news agency said some secondary schools and universities had been affected, without specifying how many or identifying them.
The most disruptive attacks were reported in Britain, where hospitals and clinics were forced to turn away patients after losing access to computers on Friday.
International shipper FedEx Corp said some of its Windows computers were also infected. “We are implementing remediation steps as quickly as possible,” it said in a statement.
FROM ARGENTINA TO SPAIN
Only a small number of U.S.-headquartered organizations were hit because the hackers appear to have begun the campaign by targeting organizations in Europe, said Vikram Thakur, research manager with security software maker Symantec.
By the time they turned their attention to the United States, spam filters had identified the new threat and flagged the ransomware-laden emails as malicious, Thakur added.
Infections of the worm appeared to have fallen off significantly after a security researcher bought a domain that the malware was connecting to, by chance undermining the malware’s effectiveness.
Making the domain active appears to have stunted the spread of the worm, Thakur said on Saturday.
“The numbers are extremely low and coming down fast,” he said, while cautioning that any change in the original code could lead the worm to flare up again.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said late on Friday it was aware of reports of the ransomware, was sharing information with domestic and foreign partners and was ready to lend technical support.
Telecommunications company Telefonica was among many targets in Spain, though it said the attack was limited to some computers on an internal network and had not affected clients or services. Portugal Telecom and Telefonica Argentina both said they were also targeted.
Private security firms identified the ransomware as a new variant of “WannaCry” that had the ability to automatically spread across large networks by exploiting a known bug in Microsoft’s Windows operating system.
The hackers, who have not come forward to claim responsibility or otherwise been identified, likely made it a “worm”, or self spreading malware, by exploiting a piece of NSA code known as “Eternal Blue” that was released last month by a group known as the Shadow Brokers, researchers with several private cyber security firms said.
“This is one of the largest global ransomware attacks the cyber community has ever seen,” said Rich Barger, director of threat research with Splunk, one of the firms that linked WannaCry to the NSA.
The Shadow Brokers released Eternal Blue as part of a trove of hacking tools that they said belonged to the U.S. spy agency.
Microsoft said it was pushing out automatic Windows updates to defend clients from WannaCry. It issued a patch on March 14 to protect them from Eternal Blue.
“Today our engineers added detection and protection against new malicious software known as Ransom:Win32.WannaCrypt,” Microsoft said in a statement on Friday, adding it was working with customers to provide additional assistance.
SENSITIVE TIMING
The spread of the ransomware capped a week of cyber turmoil in Europe that began the previous week when hackers posted a trove of campaign documents tied to French candidate Emmanuel Macron just before a run-off vote in which he was elected president of France.
On Wednesday, hackers disrupted the websites of several French media companies and aerospace giant Airbus.Also, the hack happened four weeks before a British general election in which national security and the management of the state-run National Health Service (NHS) are important issues.
Authorities in Britain have been braced for cyber attacks in the run-up to the vote, as happened during last year’s U.S. election and on the eve of the French vote.
But those attacks – blamed on Russia, which has repeatedly denied them – followed a different modus operandi involving penetrating the accounts of individuals and political organizations and then releasing hacked material online.
On Friday, Russia’s interior and emergencies ministries, as well as its biggest bank, Sberbank, said they were targeted. The interior ministry said on its website that about 1,000 computers had been infected but it had localized the virus.
The emergencies ministry told Russian news agencies it had repelled the cyber attacks while Sberbank said its cyber security systems had prevented viruses from entering its systems.
NEW BREED OF RANSOMWARE
Although cyber extortion cases have been rising for several years, they have to date affected small-to-mid sized organizations, disrupting services provided by hospitals, police departments, public transport systems and utilities in the United States and Europe.
“Seeing a large telco like Telefonica get hit is going to get everybody worried. Now ransomware is affecting larger companies with more sophisticated security operations,” said Chris Wysopal, chief technology officer with cyber security firm Veracode.
The news is also likely to embolden extortionists when selecting targets, Chris Camacho, chief strategy officer with cyber intelligence firm Flashpoint, said.
In Spain, some big firms took pre-emptive steps to thwart ransomware attacks following a warning from the National Cryptology Center of “a massive ransomware attack”.
Iberdrola and Gas Natural, along with Vodafone’s unit in Spain, asked staff to turn off computers or cut off internet access in case they had been compromised, representatives from the firms said.
The attacks did not disrupt the provision of services or networks operations of the victims, the Spanish government said in a statement.