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Mississippi drivers can put flag minus rebel X on license

Mississippi residents who want a state flag without the Confederate battle emblem will soon be able to display one on their license plate.

Gov. Phil Bryant signed a bill Tuesday authorizing the state to sell several new specialty license plates, starting July 1. One of them features a proposed state flag designed by Jackson artist Laurin Stennis.

Legislators have not changed the actual flag that's the last in the U.S. with the Confederate emblem, although some have pushed for the "Stennis Flag."

Stennis says her design represents unity. It has red vertical bars on each side and a white center with a large blue star encircled by 19 smaller ones, representing Mississippi as the 20th state.

She is the granddaughter of the late U.S. Sen. John C. Stennis, who served 41 years before retiring in 1989 and was a segregationist much of his career. He died in 1995.

"What is the role of a state flag? In this day and age, it is marketing and branding," Laurin Stennis, 46, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "If any company or any corporation had a symbol that hurt its morale and its bottom line the way ours does, they'd change it immediately."

Like most specialty license plates in Mississippi, this one will cost an extra $30 a year. Most of the money will go toward operation and maintenance of the Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, which opened in 2017 in Jackson.

The Confederate emblem — a red field topped by a blue tilted cross and dotted by 13 white stars — has appeared on Mississippi's flag since 1894. Critics say it's racist; those who oppose removing it say it's a historic symbol.

Mississippians voted to keep the flag in a 2001 statewide election. However, several Mississippi cities and counties and all eight of the state's public universities have stopped flying it in recent years amid criticism that the battle emblem is a racist reminder of slavery and segregation. Supporters of the flag say it represents history.

Bryant has said that if the Mississippi flag is going to be redesigned, the matter should be decided in another statewide election.

Some homes and businesses in Mississippi already fly the Stennis design instead of the state flag. The artist said she still hopes her design will eventually gain official status and replace the one with the Confederate emblem.

"Mississippians deserve a state flag that any Mississippian can fly without a moment's hesitation," she said.

Confederate symbols have been widely debated across the South, particularly since June 2015, when a white supremacist killed nine black worshippers at a church in Charleston, South Carolina; and August 2017, when violence erupted as white nationalists held a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

For the past several years, multiple bills have been filed to redesign the Mississippi flag. More than a dozen were filed this year, and they all died when they were not considered because a committee chairman said there was no consensus among lawmakers.

____

Follow Emily Wagster Pettus on Twitter: http://twitter.com/EWagsterPettus .

Source: Fox News National

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The real foundation of Notre Dame


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On the roster: The real foundation of Notre Dame - Bernie makes no apologies at Fox News town hall - Dems start to sweat Trump’s fundraising advantage - Pelosi faces heat from party over Omar dispute - Hamburglars
 
THE REAL FOUNDATION OF NOTRE DAME 
If the art and design that a civilization leaves behind is a more honest reflection of its values than the subjective accounts of chroniclers and historians, Western Europe 900 years ago was wild as hell.

Talking about the dizzyingly detailed 18-foot-tall bronze candlesticks cast in the style of central France’s Cluny abbey, art historian Kenneth Clark described their creators’ “irrepressible, irresponsible energy.”

“The Romanesque carvers were like a school of dolphins,” Clark said in the second episode of his 1969 BBC television series “Civilisation.” And looking at the work you have to agree. Our modern aesthetic recoils from such gaudy ornamentation, but 12th century artists were not looking for spare, clean lines. And like a bunch of dolphins (actually called a pod, Sir Kenneth) frolicking in the surf, they were utterly heedless.

The art is seemingly alive, crawling with fantastic beasts, writhing humans and, of course, dogs. In the churches and palaces of the day, like the one where the great Charlemagne had ruled in Aachen, every surface that could be was bejeweled or encrusted or etched. Gilt was good. 

You may have forgotten since eighth-grade days, when teachers knew the redeeming power of the audio-visual rack on a balmy spring Tuesday, Clark’s series focuses on art as a key for understanding Western history. Yes, art is to be appreciated for art’s sake, but it is also a reflection of a civilization’s priorities.

How does it spend its treasure? Where does it enshrine its greatest glories? What does it most fear?

In the centuries after the final fall of the Roman Empire in Europe, fear, want and uncertainty were the norms. If you worried when a barbarian tribe would come marauding or Viking long boats would vomit out bloodthirsty shock troops, “berserkers,” to murder, rape and rob you did not take much time to consider your candlesticks.

But slowly, slowly, slowly, men started to reassert order – men like Charlemagne and his grandfather Charles Martel. By the time we reached the second millennium after Jesus, Europeans – at least those where sufficient order had been restored to allow for a new birth of freedom – were ready to create. And a riot of beauty broke out.

“Irrepressible, irresponsible energy” requires order and ease. Every culture creates art, but sometimes it is little more than drawings on a wall. A civilization, however, produces art on a grand scale. That’s because a civilization is a culture strong and stable enough to afford people the chance to let their spirits soar.

Listen to J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 or stand in front Michelangelo’s David or gaze up at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater. What connects them? The masterworks of Western art are the fruits of a civilization rich, peaceful and predictable enough to make room for true beauty. 

As the West mourns the loss of much of Paris’ Notre Dame, the great gothic masterpiece, we are rightly considering matters of faith, history, art and culture. But we should also be considering the matter of the health of our civilization.

Notre Dame was built to glorify God. But it was also an act of rebellion – a defiant act of art that boldly rejected the darkness and fear that had kept Europeans gazing earthward for generations. Here in stone and glass and wood was an eruption of human potential – a victorious yawp in the face of benightedness.

As you watch the spire rise above Notre Dame again in the months to come, be grateful that for all of our near failures and for every time the light of learning and beauty was almost extinguished again, we have somehow managed to maintain a civilization that can afford such wondrous things.

And maybe that will remind us all to do more to shore up that civilization in our little corners of the world. Industry, decency, charity, order and community are the real bedrocks on which the foundation of Notre Dame were laid.  

THE RULEBOOK: DON’T JUMP THE GUN
“In some, it has been too evident from their own publications, that they have scanned the proposed Constitution, not only with a predisposition to censure, but with a predetermination to condemn…” – James Madison, Federalist No. 37

TIME OUT: ‘THE SCRAMBLE FOR EGGS’
Smithsonian: “Between 1848 and 1855, some 300,000 fortune-hunters flocked to California from all over the world in hopes of finding gold. … The feverish growth strained the area’s modest agriculture industry. Farmers struggled to keep up with the influx of hungry forty-niners and food prices skyrocketed. … Chicken eggs were particularly scarce and cost up to $1.00 apiece, the equivalent of $30 today. … The situation became so dire that grocery stores started placing ‘egg wanted’ advertisements in newspapers. … The scramble for eggs drew entrepreneurs to an unusual source: a 211-acre archipelago 26 miles west of the Golden Gate Bridge known as the Farallon Islands. … [T]he Farallones had one feature that appealed to the ravenous San Franciscans: they hosted the largest seabird nesting colony in the United States. Each spring, hundreds of thousands of birds descended on the forbidding islands, blanketing their jagged cliffs with eggs of all colors and sizes.”

Flag on the play? - Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM with your tips, comments or questions.

SCOREBOARD
Trump job performance 
Average approval:
 43.2 percent
Average disapproval: 51.6 percent
Net Score: -8.4 points
Change from one week ago: up 3 points 
[Average includes: Gallup: 45% approve - 51% disapprove; GU Politics/Battleground: 43% approve - 52% disapprove; IBD: 41% approve - 52% disapprove; NPR/PBS/Marist: 44% approve - 50% disapprove; NBC/WSJ: 43% approve - 53% disapprove.]

BERNIE MAKES NO APOLOGIES AT FOX NEWS TOWN HALL
Fox News:Bernie Sanders took the stage at a fiery Fox News town hall in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania on Monday, and sparks flew almost immediately, as Sanders defiantly refused to explain why he would not voluntarily pay the massive new 52-percent ‘wealth tax’ that he advocated imposing on the nation's richest individuals. ‘We'll get through this together,’ Sanders said at one point, as tensions flared. Sanders later admitted outright that ‘you're going to pay more in taxes’ if he became president. Just minutes before the town hall began, Sanders released ten years of his tax returns, which he acknowledged showed that he had been ‘fortunate’ even as he pushed for a more progressive tax system. According to the returns, Sanders and his wife paid a 26 percent effective tax rate on $561,293 in income, and made more than $1 million in both 2016 and 2017. Sanders donated only $10,600 to charity in 2016 and $36,300 in 2017, the records showed, followed by nearly $19,000 in 2018.”

Dems wonder if they can stop Bernie’s momentum - NYT: “…Democrats are increasingly worried that their effort to defeat President Trump in 2020 could be complicated by Mr. Sanders, in a political scenario all too reminiscent of how Mr. Trump himself seized the Republican nomination in 2016. … But stopping Mr. Sanders, or at least preventing a contentious convention, could prove difficult for Democrats. He has enormous financial advantages — already substantially outraising his Democratic rivals — that can sustain a major campaign through the primaries. And he is well-positioned to benefit from a historically large field of candidates that would splinter the vote: If he wins a substantial number of primaries and caucuses and comes in second in others, thanks to his deeply loyal base of voters across many states, he would pick up formidable numbers of delegates for the nomination. That prospect is not only spooking establishment-aligned Democrats, but it is also creating tensions about what, if anything, should be done to halt Mr. Sanders.”

Where does Beto fall on the policy spectrum - Politico:Beto O’Rourke’s most distinctive policy position? To be determined. There’s no signature issue yet, no single policy proposal sparking his campaign. Convening crowds — and listening to them — is the central thrust of his early presidential bid. And one month into the race, even some of O’Rourke’s supporters are starting to worry about persistent criticism that the charismatic Texan is missing big policy ideas of his own. … It’s not that O’Rourke doesn’t have positions. He does, and in the month since announcing his presidential campaign, he has expressed many of them with specificity. … But none of those positions is unique to O’Rourke. And with his relatively meager legislative record — and a belief that he can transcend ideological lanes within the Democratic Party — O'Rourke appears unclear about where he fits on the policy spectrum.”

Mayor Pete pitches national service program plan - Politico: “Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg on Monday night advocated a form of national public service for all young adults as a way to create unity among Americans. ‘We really want to talk about the threat to social cohesion that helps characterize this presidency but also just this era,’ the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow. ‘One thing we could do that would change that would be to make it, if not legally obligatory, but certainly a social norm that anybody after they're 18 spends a year in national service.’ … Buttigieg was vague about what would constitute national service, but both he and Maddow acknowledged it would most likely not be a military draft. Without saying the program would be mandatory, Buttigieg did suggest colleges and employers ask applicants about participation in it.”

Harris rakes in donations from Hollywood - Politico: “Hollywood donors are flocking to Kamala Harris. Actors and actresses who wrote checks to the Harris campaign during the first three months of the year included Ben Affleck, who gave $2,800; Elizabeth Banks, who donated $5,600; Eva Longoria Baston, who donated $5,400; Alison Pill, who donated $360; Wanda Sykes, who donated $500; Lily Tomlin, who donated $525; and America Ferrera, who donated $250. Filmmakers and studio executives were similarly supportive of Harris’ presidential bid: Filmmakers J.J. Abrams and Lee Daniels wrote Harris checks of $2,800 and $2,700, respectively. … Harris did not garner a herd of Hollywood supporters by accident. She has made an effort to court donors in Hollywood for years while holding statewide office in California, as well as during the early months of her presidential bid.”

Tax returns reveal 2020 candidates’ charity donations - WaPo: “Former congressman Beto O’Rourke (D-Tex.) released 10 years of tax returns last night. He and his wife reported $1,166 of charitable giving from a total income of $370,412 in 2017, the most recent year they released a return for. That’s one-third of 1 percent. How much someone gives to charity is a meaningful metric of their values and priorities, though far from the only one. … Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and his wife gave $19,000 to charity out of an income of $566,000 last year, or 3.4 percent. … Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) … gave $27,000 to charity – or 1.4 percent. … Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and her husband donated $6,600 of their $338,500 income to charity last year, or just under 2 percent… Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) … gave $3,750 to charity, also just under 2 percent. The most generous of the top-tier presidential candidates appears to be Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). She and her husband donated $50,000 last year of their $906,000 income. That’s 5.5 percent.”

DEMS START TO SWEAT TRUMP’S FUNDRAISING ADVANTAGE
Bloomberg: “Fundraising totals for 2020 candidates show the advantage of being an incumbent president -- and the challenge for Democrats, who are raising less money and still have to compete among themselves before taking on Donald Trump. … Sanders, who leads with $18.2 million raised and has $15.7 million in cash on hand, started with a massive fundraising advantage because of the list of supporters he’s maintained from his failed 2016 bid… Some Democrats moved quickly to use Trump’s fundraising news to seek fresh donations. Kamala Harris sent out an e-mail solicitation seeking more money for her campaign Monday evening, highlighting the $30 million Trump raised during the quarter. … Elizabeth Warren, a Senator from Massachusetts, collected about 70 percent of her contributions in amounts of $200 or less, the filings show. While that’s a higher proportion than many of her contenders, her overall fundraising total lagged others who had declared their intentions to run even later than she did.”

Trump uses border efforts with election momentum - WashEx: “President Trump’s reinvigorated effort to secure the Mexican border coincides with the acceleration of his 2020 reelection bid and comes as some immigration hawks say the administration has failed to realize a signature campaign promise. Trump on Monday said the federal government would begin releasing undocumented immigrants in sanctuary cities, a provocative move to pressure Democrats in Congress to negotiate and that follows a bold house cleaning of top personnel at Homeland Security. The president wants the department to toughen its response to a historic surge of asylum-seekers and unlawful immigrants, vexing problems that persist despite his vow to halt illegal crossings. … But as Trump’s own election nears, immigration hawks otherwise supportive of the administration’s aggressive border policies say the president could find himself exposed, politically, for lack of tangible results.”

Weld makes it official as Trump’s first primary challenger - WaPo: “Former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld officially announced Monday that he will challenge President Trump for the 2020 Republican presidential nomination, after several months of mulling a long-shot bid that would appeal to traditional GOP voters. Weld made the announcement in an appearance on CNN’s ‘The Lead With Jake Tapper,’ where he described himself as ‘a Republican who works across the aisle and gets things done.’ ‘Donald Trump is not an economic conservative. He doesn’t even pretend to be. The country deserves to have some fiscal constraint and conservatism,’ he said. Weld, 73, will face a steep climb against Trump, an incumbent who is deeply popular with Republican voters. Weld last won an election in 1994 and has drifted politically in recent years, even serving as the vice presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party in 2016. But he is now determined to offer the GOP a moderate alternative.”

PELOSI FACES HEAT FROM PARTY OVER OMAR DISPUTE
WaPo: “The far left’s frustration with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is on the rise, as liberal advocates and lawmakers fume that she hasn’t done enough to defend freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar from attacks by President Trump and other Republicans and has undermined their policies and leaders, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Omar’s allies over the weekend were upset by what they viewed as Pelosi’s delayed response in standing up for one of the two Muslim women in Congress after Trump accused Omar of playing down the tragedy of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Pelosi, whose initial statement criticizing Trump made no mention of Omar, said Monday that it was ‘beneath the dignity of the Oval Office’ for Trump to have shared a video on Twitter of Omar spliced with footage of the burning twin towers. But liberals seethed that Pelosi (Calif.) and Democratic leaders did too little, too late. They were equally baffled by Pelosi’s quip seeming to dismiss Ocasio-Cortez during a CBS ‘60 Minutes’ interview Sunday, suggesting her ‘wing’ of the party included ‘like five people.’”

Once her defender, Bernie distances himself from Omar - WaPo: “Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders created some distance Monday night from Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), emphasizing that he doesn’t know Omar well and suggesting that she should change the way she addresses the Jewish community. At the same time, Sanders repeated his defense of Omar against accusations by many that she has made remarks that are anti-Semitic. Sanders’s comments, which the independent senator from Vermont made in a televised town hall here hosted by Fox News Channel… ‘Hold it, hold it, hold it,’ Sanders told moderator Bret Baier, after Baier called Sanders a ‘staunch supporter’ of Omar. ‘I’ve talked to Ilhan about twice in my life.’ … Sanders, who would be the nation’s first Jewish president, continued, ‘I think that Ilhan has got to do maybe a better job in speaking to the Jewish community.’ He said that he does not consider Omar to be anti-Semitic and that he respects her.”

Omar reaps cash benefits from controversies - Politico: “Small-dollar donors rushed to defend embattled Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) in the first three months this year, as she faced charges of anti-Semitism from prominent Democrats, according to a fundraising report filed Monday with the Federal Election Commission. Omar, a Minnesota Democrat elected in 2018 and sworn in for the first time in early January, found herself embroiled in controversy shortly after arriving in Washington. The first Somali-American member of Congress was widely rebuked in February, including by her own party, after several high-profile instances in which she invoked anti-Semitic tropes about U.S. politicians’ support for Israel. Omar raised $832,000 in the first quarter, according to her FEC report — among the best totals posted by any House Democrat.”

PLAY-BY-PLAY
House Dems subpoena Deutsche Bank for Trump records - NYT

Poll shows Alabama voters divided on Sen. Doug Jones, Roy Moore leads list of replacements - Montgomery Advertiser

Survey finds 13 percent of Americans believe men are ‘better suited emotionally’ for office - Politico

Trump to award Tiger Woods with the Presidential Medal of Freedom - NYT

AUDIBLE: THIRSTY
“This glass of water would win with a ‘D’ next to its name in those districts.” – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi while praising Democrats who flipped House seats in 2018 downplayed representatives like herself and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez whose districts were solidly Democratic.

Share your color commentary: Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM and please make sure to include your name and hometown.

HAMBURGLARS
Tech Times: “In the battle of man versus McDonald's machine, man comes out on top as a pair of buddies hack their way into a bunch of free burgers in Australia. … In a YouTube video that has racked up more than 2.6 million views (and counting), two Australians share the ingenious way they outsmarted the McDonald's machine to get a free burger and 10 patty-less burgers as a bonus. As the pair show in the video, the first step is to put in an order of 10 burgers on the machine, which cost $1 each. Then they customized these by taking out the beef patty from the order, which cuts down the cost to $1.10 — for a burger that only costs $1. As a result, they were credited $1 for all 10 burgers, which the pair used to buy an eleventh burger. For this last burger, they kept the patty in. The pair's final count is: one hamburger and 10 other burgers with no patty.”

AND NOW, A WORD FROM CHARLES…
“On foreign policy, as the cliché goes, I didn’t leave the Democratic Party. It left me. Not so on domestic policy. The Democratic Party remained true to itself. I changed.” – Charles Krauthammer (1950-2018) wrote in his book, “Things That Matter.”

Chris Stirewalt is the politics editor for Fox News. Brianna McClelland contributed to this report. Want FOX News Halftime Report in your inbox every day? Sign up here.

Source: Fox News Politics

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EU watchdogs give banks no leeway on Brexit-driven hub demands

FILE PHOTO: The skyline of banking district is photographed in Frankfurt
FILE PHOTO: The skyline of banking district is photographed in Frankfurt, Germany, April 9, 2019. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo

April 23, 2019

By Huw Jones, Sinead Cruise and Francesco Canepa

LONDON/FRANKFURT (Reuters) – European Union regulators are refusing to cut British-based banks any slack over bulking up in the bloc in preparation for Brexit, despite an extension to the process which some have taken as an opportunity to drag their feet.

Cost-conscious banks are reluctant to spend millions more and cause further disruption to already unsettled staff given uncertainty over how and when Britain will leave the EU.

“Businesses are trying to be savvy, to meet the minimum legal requirement and figure the rest out after Brexit,” Hakan Enver, managing director for financial services at recruiter Morgan McKinley told Reuters.

Banks are trying to minimize staff moves despite pressure from the European Central Bank (ECB), which set a proviso to granting licenses that firms would beef up their EU units with more employees and assets over the next one to two years.

This requirement has not changed, a source close to the matter said, even though the EU has given Britain until Oct. 31 to leave, an extension from the original “Brexit Day” of March 29.

“Banks are still expected to stick to the timeline agreed with the ECB,” the source said.

Dozens of banks have already set up new bases in the EU to avoid disrupting services to clients. Regulators issued licenses for them, even though they are thinly staffed, so that they could be operational when Britain was meant to quit the EU.

HSBC, which declined to comment, shifted some staff from London to its Paris subsidiary in case of a no-deal Brexit on April 12, only to recall them when a new delay was agreed.

And a source at a major U.S. bank said it had dozens of staff lined up to move if there was a no-deal Brexit, but stood them down and is now awaiting clarity before any further moves.

“We are inclined to say that while we remain in this holding pattern, we don’t have to move anyone or anything,” the source said, adding that Brexit could yet be scrapped completely.

The Bank of England expects about 4,000 banking and insurance jobs will have moved from London to new EU hubs by Brexit Day, but recruiters and banking sources say the number that have moved so far is much lower than that.

Some banks were behind with plans to be operationally ready and are now using the delay to complete moves of customer accounts to new hubs, a senior official at a global bank said.

Meanwhile, Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority’s has warned financial firms sending staff to new EU hubs to ensure they still have “appropriate senior oversight” of their operations left behind in Britain.

BACK-TO-BACK

Banks have so far moved around a trillion euros in stocks, bonds, derivatives contracts and other assets from London to their new EU hubs. Accounts of EU clients must also be moved to conduct business from these hubs, a process known as repapering.

But there is still a long tail of small customers for whom repapering is a burdensome task of changing IT and controls systems, limiting how much business new hubs can take on despite regulatory pressure to move in to higher gear.

“Nobody is yet really doing any substantive business, but there will be a robust dialogue between banks and regulators about when to transfer substantive amounts of business and client preferences will play a big role,” said Vishal Vedi, lead financial services Brexit partner at Deloitte.

EU regulators gave temporary concessions to banks to obtain a license, such as continuing to book some trades in London, but their tolerance is waning.

“We expect some back-to-back (trading) to continue, though new hubs in Frankfurt will have to show the ECB that they can stand on their own two feet if need be,” a senior banking regulator told Reuters.

Having to build up capital in a new unit is expensive for banks at a time of a slowdown in European investment banking.

European M&A was down 67 percent in the first quarter of the year, while first quarter results due out over the next few weeks are expected to show trading volumes at European investment banks were down 15 to 20 percent.

“The longer the extension period, the longer it will be problematic for firms,” Andrew Gray, head of UK financial services at PwC, said.

(Editing by Alexander Smith)

Source: OANN

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AG Barr to Release Redacted Copy of Mueller Report in Mid-April

U.S. Attorney General William Barr plans to issue a redacted copy of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's nearly 400-page investigative report into Russian interference in the 2016 election by mid-April, he said in a letter to lawmakers on Friday.

"Everyone will soon be able to read it on their own," Barr wrote in the letter to the top Democrats and Republicans on the Senate and House Judiciary committees.

He said he is willing to appear before both committees to testify about Mueller's report on May 1 and May 2.

Mueller completed his 22-month investigation probe into whether President Donald Trump's campaign colluded with Russia on March 22. On Sunday, Barr sent a four-page letter to Congress summarizing Mueller's findings.

Barr told lawmakers that Mueller's investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired with Russia in its election interference activities.

Mueller left unresolved the question of whether Trump obstructed justice during the investigation. Barr said that based on the evidence presented, he concluded it was not sufficient to charge the president with obstruction.

Lawmakers have since been clamoring for more details, with Democrats calling for a full release of the report. At a rally on Thursday in Michigan celebrated the end of the investigation and what he called "lies and smears and slander."

Barr said in his letter on Friday that certain information must be redacted before the report is release, including secret grand jury information, intelligence sources and methods and information that by law cannot be public or might infringe on privacy.

He said that while Trump has the right to assert executive privilege on some materials, that "Trump has stated publicly that he intends to defer to me." Because of that, he said, there are no plans for the Justice Department to submit the report to the White House for a privilege review.

Trump addressed the news during a brief media appearance at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida Friday afternoon, saying he welcomes whatever Barr decides to do.

"I have great confidence in the attorney general. If that is what he would like to do, I have nothing to hide," Trump said. "This was a hoax. This was a witch hunt.

"I have absolutely nothing to hide and I think a lot of things are coming out with respect to the other side."

Newsmax writer Jason Devaney contributed to this report.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Rep. Mike Turner: Pelosi encourages Schiff and ‘his minions’ to continue their pursuit of Trump

Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio, a Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday House Speaker Nancy Pelosi encourages House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and "his minions" to continue their pursuit of President Trump “as if he’s the most significant threat to our national security instead of our adversaries."

Turner added that it is “certainly interrupting real congressional work that needs to be done.”

“The intelligence committee should be working on issues such as Russia and China, North Korea and Iran” instead of focusing on Trump, he said.

DEM LEADERS REJECT IMMEDIATE IMPEACHMENT PROCEEDINGS IN URGENT CONFERENCE CALL

Turner made the statements on “America’s Newsroom” a day after House Democrats participated in a conference call with party leadership to discuss their next steps after the release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report.

While some have pushed for impeachment, Pelosi, D-Calif., already has stated her opposition to launching impeachment proceedings, saying in an interview last week it would  be “divisive” and “just not worth it."

“The Constitution gives very limited authority for Congress to remove a president, impeachment. It requires crimes and high misdemeanors. The founding fathers could have drafted the Constitution to say that Congress could remove the president if they just didn't like them. But that's not the case. They cannot just put political party or their own political wishes above the electorate which viably elected the president of the United States,” Turner said.

MUELLER PROBE HAS COST TAXPAYERS MORE THAN $25 MILLION, SPENDING REPORT REVEALS

Fox News is told by two senior sources on the private conference call that Pelosi and her leadership team were clear there were no immediate plans to move forward with impeachment. Well-placed sources said it was a spirited 87-minute call involving more than 170 Democratic members, including Schiff.

"We have to save our democracy," Pelosi said during the call, according to the sources. "This isn’t about Democrats or Republicans. It’s about saving our democracy. If it is what we need to do to honor our responsibility to the Constitution – if that’s the place the facts take us, that’s the place we have to go."

Pelosi asserted that more investigations were needed: "We don’t have to go to articles of impeachment to obtain the facts, the presentation of facts.”

“In this instance, we see that Congress is now saying through Nancy Pelosi that they're going to continue their investigations. Congress does have a limited authority in which to investigate the president. I think we're probably going to see a lot of court interpretation as to where congressional authority ends and where it begins," Turner said in response.

"You can't just begin to investigate a president for the purposes of seeking reasons to remove him. In this instance, I think that people need to stop putting political party ahead of the interests of the American public.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Turner added, “Congress needs to get back to work to see how we can improve the lives of the American public, not just improve their political parties.”

Source: Fox News Politics

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Philippines’ Duterte warns of harsher drugs war ahead

FILE PHOTO: President Rodrigo Duterte speaks after his arrival in Davao
FILE PHOTO: President Rodrigo Duterte speaks after his arrival, from a visit in Israel and Jordan at Davao International airport in Davao City in southern Philippines, September 8, 2018. REUTERS/Lean Daval Jr.

February 20, 2019

MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte warned on Wednesday that his signature anti-narcotics campaign will be even harsher in the future, signaling no let-up in a bloody crackdown that has alarmed the international community.

Duterte won the presidency by a wide margin in 2016 on promises of eradicating drugs and crime, and recent opinion polls indicate broad support for him and for the crackdown, despite widespread allegations of police cover-ups and summary killings resulting from weak intelligence.

Duterte said the drugs problem was a national security issue.

“I will not allow my country to end up a failed state because of drugs,” he said in a speech.

He did not elaborate on how he would intensify a campaign that had already seen more than 5,000 people killed by police since he took office.

Human rights groups say many of those deaths were executions of people suspected of selling or using drugs, which police deny, insisting the killings were in self-defense.

Critics, including the Catholic Church, say the campaign has overwhelmingly targeted the urban poor and left drug kingpins largely untouched.

Asked by reporters later if the crackdown would be bloodier, Duterte said: “I think so.”

A poll last week showed that about two thirds of Filipinos believed there were fewer drug users in their community now than last year. Most respondents said it was vital for police to arrest suspects alive and believed police agreed.

(Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Edited by Martin Petty)

Source: OANN

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Brexit in crisis as PM May plots a course around speaker’s obstruction

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May and her husband Philip leave church in Sonning
Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May and her husband Philip leave church in Sonning, Britain March 17, 2019. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls

March 19, 2019

By Guy Faulconbridge and Kate Holton

LONDON (Reuters) – Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plans were in disarray on Tuesday as her government sought to plot a way around the speaker of parliament’s ruling that she had to change her twice-defeated divorce deal to put it to a third vote.

After two-and-a-half years of negotiations with the EU, Brexit remains uncertain – with options including a long postponement, exiting with May’s deal, a economically disruptive exit without a deal, or even another EU membership referendum.

Speaker John Bercow blindsided May’s office on Monday by ruling the government could put the same Brexit deal to another vote in parliament unless it was substantially different to the ones defeated on Jan. 15 and March 12.

Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay said the ruling meant a vote this week on May’s deal was more unlikely but said ministers were studying a way out of the impasse and indicated the government still planed a third vote on May’s deal.

“This is a moment of crisis for our country,” Barclay said. “The ruling from the speaker has raised the bar and I think that makes it more unlikely the vote will be this week.”

“We always said that in terms of bringing a vote back for a third time we would need to see a shift from parliamentarians in terms of the support – I think that still is the case.”

May is due at an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday at which she will ask for a delay to Brexit as the British government tries to come up with a way to leave the European Union after 46 years of membership.

EU leaders could hold off making a final decision at that summit on any Brexit delay depending on what exactly May asks them for, senior diplomats in the bloc said.

“Now it looks like we have to wait till the week after the Council to find out what happens,” said one diplomat.

SPEAKER’S SPANNER

Bercow said his ruling, based on a convention dating back to 1604, should not be considered his last word and the government could bring forward a new proposition that was not the same as those already voted upon.

Barclay, who last week said Britain should be unafraid of a no-deal exit, indicated the government was looking at different options and that circumstances, such an extension or a shift in support, would indicate a change in context.

“The speaker himself has pointed to possible solutions, he himself has said in earlier rulings we should not be bound by precedent,” Barclay said. “You can have the same motion but where the circumstances have changed.”

“The speaker himself has said that where the will of the House is for a certain course of action, then it is important that the will of the House is respected.”

He ruled out May asking Queen Elizabeth to cut short the entire parliamentary session, known as prorogation, saying involving the 92-year-old monarch in Brexit was a bad idea.

“The one thing everyone would agree on is that involving Her Majesty in any of the issues around Brexit is not the way forward, so I don’t see that a realistic option,” he said.

(Editing by Michael Holden)

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An employee looks up at goods at the Miniclipper Logistics warehouse in Leighton Buzzard
FILE PHOTO: An employee looks up at goods at the Miniclipper Logistics warehouse in Leighton Buzzard, Britain December 3, 2018. REUTERS/Simon Dawson

April 26, 2019

LONDON, April 26 – British factories stockpiled raw materials and goods ahead of Brexit at the fastest pace since records began in the 1950s, and they were increasingly downbeat about their prospects, a survey showed on Friday.

The Confederation of British Industry’s (CBI) quarterly survey of the manufacturing industry showed expectations for export orders in the next three months fell to their lowest level since mid-2009, when Britain was reeling from the global financial crisis.

The record pace of stockpiling recorded by the CBI was mirrored by the closely-watched IHS Markit/CIPS purchasing managers’ index published earlier this month.

(Reporting by Andy Bruce, editing by David Milliken)

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Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad speaks at the opening ceremony for the second Belt and Road Forum in Beijing
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad speaks at the opening ceremony for the second Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, China April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Florence Lo

April 26, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – Fewer than half of Malaysians approve of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, an opinion poll showed on Friday, as concerns over rising costs and racial matters plague his administration nearly a year after taking office.

The survey, conducted in March by independent pollster Merdeka Center, showed that only 46 percent of voters surveyed were satisfied with Mahathir, a sharp drop from the 71 percent approval rating he received in August 2018.

Mahathir’s Pakatan Harapan coalition won a stunning election victory in May 2018, ending the previous government’s more than 60-year rule.

But his administration has since been criticized for failing to deliver on promised reforms and protecting the rights of majority ethnic Malay Muslims.

Of 1,204 survey respondents, 46 percent felt that the “country was headed in the wrong direction”, up from 24 percent in August 2018, the Merdeka Center said in a statement. Just 39 percent said they approved of the ruling government.

High living costs remained the top most concern among Malaysians, with just 40 percent satisfied with the government’s management of the economy, the survey showed.

It also showed mixed responses to Pakatan Harapan’s proposed reforms.

Some 69 percent opposed plans to abolish the death penalty, while respondents were sharply divided over proposals to lower the minimum voting age to 18, or to implement a sugar tax.

“In our opinion, the results appear to indicate a public that favors the status quo, and thus requires a robust and coordinated advocacy efforts in order to garner their acceptance of new measures,” Merdeka Center said.

The survey also found 23 percent of Malaysians were concerned over ethnic and religious matters.

Some groups representing Malays have expressed fear that affirmative-action policies favoring them in business, education and housing could be taken away and criticized the appointments of non-Muslims to key government posts.

Last November, the government reversed its pledge to ratify a UN convention against racial discrimination, after a backlash from Malay groups.

Earlier this month, Pakatan Harapan suffered its third successive loss in local elections since taking power, which has been seen as a further sign of waning public support.

Despite the decline, most Malaysians – 67 percent – agreed that Mahathir’s government should be given more time to fulfill its election promises, Merdeka Center said.

This included a majority of Malay voters who were largely more critical of the new administration, it added.

(Reporting by Rozanna Latiff; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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The German share price index DAX graph at the stock exchange in Frankfurt
The German share price index DAX graph is pictured at the stock exchange in Frankfurt, Germany, April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Staff

April 26, 2019

By Medha Singh and Agamoni Ghosh

(Reuters) – European shares slipped on Friday after losses in heavyweight banks and Glencore outweighed gains in healthcare and auto stocks, while investors remained on the sidelines ahead of U.S. economic data for the first quarter.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index was down 0.1 percent by 0935 GMT, eyeing a modest loss at the end of a holiday-shortened week. Banks-heavy Italian and Spanish indices were laggards.

The banking index fell for a fourth day, at the end of a heavy earnings week for lenders.

Britain’s Royal Bank of Scotland tumbled after posting lower first quarter profit, hurt by intensifying competition and Brexit uncertainty, while its investment bank also registered poor returns.

Weakness in investment banking also dented Deutsche Bank’s quarterly trading revenue and sent its shares lower a day after the German bank abandoned merger talks with smaller rival Commerzbank.

“The current interest rate environment makes it challenging for banks to make proper earnings because of their intermediary function,” said Teeuwe Mevissen, senior market economist eurozone, at Rabobank.

Since the start of April, all country indexes were on pace to rise between 1.8 percent and 3.4 percent, their fourth month of gains, while Germany was strongly outperforming with 6 percent growth.

“For now the current sentiment is very cautious as markets wait for the first estimates of the U.S. GDP growth which could see a surprise,” Mevissen said.

U.S. economic data for the first-quarter is due at 1230 GMT. Growth worries outside the United States resurfaced this week after South Korea’s economy unexpectedly contracted at the start of the year and weak German business sentiment data for April also disappointed.

Among the biggest drags on the benchmark index in Europe were the basic resources sector and the oil and gas sector, weighed down by Britain’s Glencore and France’s Total, respectively.

Glencore dropped after reports that U.S authorities were investigating whether the company and its subsidiaries violated certain provisions of the commodity exchange act.

Energy major Total said its net profit for the first three months of the year fell compared with a year ago due to volatile oil prices and debt costs.

Chip stocks in the region including Siltronic, Ams and STMicroelectronics lost more than 1 percent after Intel Corp reduced its full-year revenue forecast, adding to concerns that an industry-wide slowdown could persist until the end of 2019.

Meanwhile, healthcare, which is also seen as a defensive sector, was a bright spot. It was helped by French drugmaker Sanofi after it returned to growth with higher profits and revenues for the first-quarter.

Luxembourg-based satellite operator SES led media stocks higher after it maintained its full-year outlook on the back of the company’s Networks division.

Automakers in the region rose 0.4 percent, led by Valeo’s 6 percent jump as the French parts maker said its performance would improve in the second half of the year.

Continental AG advanced after it backed its outlook for the year despite reporting a fall in first-quarter earnings.

Renault rose more than 3 percent as it clung to full-year targets and pursues merger talks with its Japanese partner Nissan.

(Reporting by Medha Singh and Agamoni Ghosh in Bengaluru; Editing by Gareth Jones and Elaine Hardcastle)

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U.S. President Donald Trump hosts Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day at the White House in Washington
U.S. President Donald Trump gives a thumbs up to his audience as he hosts Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

April 26, 2019

By Jan Wolfe and Richard Cowan

(Reuters) – The “i word” – impeachment – is swirling around the U.S. Congress since the release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s redacted Russia report, which painted a picture of lies, threats and confusion in Donald Trump’s White House.

Some Democrats say trying to remove Trump from office would be a waste of time because his fellow Republicans still have majority control of the Senate. Other Democrats argue they have a moral obligation at least to try to impeach, even though Mueller did not charge Trump with conspiring with Russia in the 2016 U.S. election or with obstruction of justice.

Whether or not the Democrats decide to go down this risky path, here is how the impeachment process works.

WHAT ARE GROUNDS FOR IMPEACHMENT?

The U.S. Constitution says the president can be removed from office by Congress for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” Exactly what that means is unclear.

Before he became president in 1974, replacing Republican Richard Nixon who resigned over the Watergate scandal, Gerald Ford said: “An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.”

Frank Bowman, a University of Missouri law professor and author of a forthcoming book on the history of impeachment, said Congress could look beyond criminal laws in defining “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Historically, it can encompass corruption and other abuses, including trying to obstruct judicial proceedings.

HOW DOES IMPEACHMENT PLAY OUT?

The term impeachment is often interpreted as simply removing a president from office, but that is not strictly accurate.

Impeachment technically refers to the 435-member House of Representatives approving formal charges against a president.

The House effectively acts as accuser – voting on whether to bring specific charges. An impeachment resolution, known as “articles of impeachment,” is like an indictment in a criminal case. A simple majority vote is needed in the House to impeach.

The Senate then conducts a trial. House members act as the prosecutors, with senators as the jurors. The chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court presides over the trial. A two-thirds majority vote is required in the 100-member Senate to convict and remove a president from office.

No president has ever been removed from office as a direct result of an impeachment and conviction by Congress.

Nixon quit in 1974 rather than face impeachment. Presidents Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998 were impeached by the House, but both stayed in office after the Senate acquitted them.

Obstruction of justice was one charge against Clinton, who faced allegations of lying under oath about his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Obstruction was also included in the articles of impeachment against Nixon.

CAN THE SUPREME COURT OVERTURN?

No.

Trump said on Twitter on Wednesday that he would ask the Supreme Court to intervene if Democrats tried to impeach him. But America’s founders explicitly rejected making a Senate conviction appealable to the federal judiciary, Bowman said.

“They quite plainly decided this is a political process and it is ultimately a political judgment,” Bowman said.

“So when Trump suggests there is any judicial remedy for impeachment, he is just wrong.”

PROOF OF WRONGDOING?

In a typical criminal court case, jurors are told to convict only if there is “proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” a fairly stringent standard.

Impeachment proceedings are different. The House and Senate “can decide on whatever burden of proof they want,” Bowman said. “There is no agreement on what the burden should be.”

PARTY BREAKDOWN IN CONGRESS?

Right now, there are 235 Democrats, 197 Republicans and three vacancies in the House. As a result, the Democratic majority could vote to impeach Trump without any Republican votes.

In 1998, when Republicans had a House majority, the chamber voted largely along party lines to impeach Clinton, a Democrat.

The Senate now has 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats and two independents who usually vote with Democrats. Conviction and removal of a president would requires 67 votes. So that means for Trump to be impeached, at least 20 Republicans and all the Democrats and independents would have to vote against him.

WHO BECOMES PRESIDENT IF TRUMP IS REMOVED?

A Senate conviction removing Trump from office would elevate Vice President Mike Pence to the presidency to fill out Trump’s term, which ends on Jan. 20, 2021.

(Reporting by Jan Wolfe and Richard Cowan; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Peter Cooney)

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New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft attends a conference at the Cannes Lions Festival in Cannes
FILE PHOTO: New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft attends a conference at the Cannes Lions Festival in Cannes, France, June 23, 2017. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft’s lawyers on Friday are set to ask a Florida judge to toss out hidden-camera videos that prosecutors say show the 77-year-old billionaire receiving sexual favors for money inside a Florida massage parlor.

The owner of the reigning Super Bowl champions plans wants the video to not be used as evidence against him as he contests two misdemeanor counts of soliciting prostitution at the Orchids of Asia Spa in Jupiter, Florida, along with some two dozen other men.

His legal team is fresh off a win on Tuesday, when they successfully persuaded Palm Beach County Judge Leonard Hanser to block prosecutors from releasing the hidden-camera footage to media outlets, which had requested copies under the state’s robust open records law.

Kraft, who has owned the franchise since 1994, pleaded not guilty, but has issued a public apology for his actions.

His attorneys have argued in court papers that the surreptitious videotaping of customers, including Kraft, inside a massage parlor was governmental overreach and the result of an illegally obtained search warrant.

The warrant, Kraft’s lawyers claim, was secured under false pretenses because police officers cited human trafficking as a potential crime in their application. Prosecutors have since acknowledged that the investigation yielded no evidence of trafficking.

Palm Beach County prosecutors in a court filing on Wednesday said Kraft’s motion should be rejected because he could not have had any expectation of privacy while visiting a commercial establishment to engage in criminal activity.

That prompted an indignant response from Kraft’s attorneys, who said the prosecution’s position on privacy was “unhinged.”

“It should go without saying that Mr. Kraft and everyone else in the United States have a reasonable expectation that the government will not secretly spy on them while they undress behind closed doors,” they wrote.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax, editing by G Crosse)

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