The Russian president stated that the most important achievement was to stop the bloodshed.
Puppet Masters
The Russian president stated that the most important achievement was to stop the bloodshed.
Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller briefs reporters from the Pentagon.
Standing in front of "Bronze Bruce," a memorial to Army Special Forces at Fort Bragg this morning, Miller signed a memo authorizing the Pentagon's Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflict office to begin reporting directly to the Defense Secretary, instead of reporting to the policy undersecretary.
"I am here today to announce that I have directed the Special Operations civilian leadership to report directly to me, instead of through the current bureaucratic channels," Miller said, making good on language that permitted such a move in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act. Note the NDAA did not mandate the change; it allowed it.
"This couldn't come at a more critical moment in time as we bring our nation's longest conflict to a responsible end and prepare our special operations forces for this new era of great power competition," Miller continued. "It will put Special Operations Command on par with the military services for the first time."
Miller himself is a former Army Special Forces officer, and deployed several times to Iraq and Afghanistan, including being part of one of the first units into Afghanistan in the weeks after the attacks of September 11.
© Reuters / SIMON DAWSON
A Tesla electric charging point stands unused in a car park in UK
A Tesla electric charging point stands unused in a car park in UK
The key point about the move to electric cars announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson as part of his 10-point plan to make the UK carbon-neutral by 2050, is that it is more a signal of aspirational worthiness than a credible project. It is a barely disguised move by the UK government to show global leadership ahead of its role as host of next year's COP26 climate change summit.
This woke virtue signalling would be hilarious if it did not have deeply worrying authoritarian implications for the future.
Four-year settlement goes beyond Tory manifesto pledge
The £16.5bn in funding comes on top of the Conservative manifesto commitment to increase military spending by 0.5 per cent in real terms for each year of the parliament.
Downing Street claims the expenditure will contribute to about 10,000 jobs a year, and will cement the UK's position as the largest defence spender in Europe, and the second largest in Nato after the US.
Comment: Considering the dire state of the UK, none of the above is anything to boast about.
"I have taken this decision in the teeth of the pandemic because the defence of the realm must come first," the prime minister said.
© Al Drago for The New York Times
Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump’s personal lawyer, at the White House last month.
Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump’s personal lawyer, at the White House last month.
The press conference will feature former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Trump Campaign Senior Legal Advisor Jenna Ellis.
The update follows reports of discrepancies in hand-recounts, threats of intimidation against Republican members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers, and looming questions over the voting software used in 28 states.
WATCH LIVE:
Trump previewed the press conference in a Thursday morning tweet.
"Important News Conference today by lawyers on a very clear and viable path to victory. Pieces are very nicely falling into place,
Trump said:
Guiliani said, "This is not a singular voter fraud in one state. The pattern repeats itself in a number of states. Almost exactly the same pattern. Which, to any experienced investigator...would suggest that there was a plan from a centralized place to execute [voter fraud]."
Comment: Worth watching in full. Grab the popcorn.
Meanwhile, the campaign has made a few more moves, including asking a federal PA judge to let the Republican-controlled state legislature select electoral college electors.
"This court should enter an order, declaration, and/or injunction that the results of the 2020 presidential general election are defective and providing for the Pennsylvania General Assembly to choose Pennsylvania's electors," the campaign wrote in its second amended complaint (pdf). The draft complaint was attached to a motion requesting the court to afford the campaign an opportunity to amend their claims in the case.They will also file a major lawsuit in Georgia.
The lawsuit is seeking to block the state from certifying its election results, or to block the certification of results that include mail-in ballots that did not meet statutory requirements, were cured without authorization, or were cast in violation of the law. The campaign's suggestion to allow the state legislature to decide electors was proposed as an alternative to the invalidation of votes.
The campaign argued that it believes "statistical analysis" will find that "over 70,000 mail and other mail ballots which favor" Democratic nominee Joe Biden "were improperly counted" and "sufficient to turn the election."
President Donald Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani asked the judge during a court hearing on Tuesday whether the campaign could file a new complaint because it had erroneously removed their due process claim during one of their revisions of the complaint.
The Trump campaign also reinstated its claims that the due process, equal protection, and the elections and electors clauses were violated when campaign poll watchers were denied access to "meaningfully" observe the ballot-counting process. These claims were also removed in their amended complaint.
It also alleged that Democrats that controlled the county election boards, named in the lawsuit, engaged in a "deliberate scheme of intentional and purposeful discrimination to favor Biden over Trump." The election officials, the campaign claims, excluded Republican and Trump campaign poll observers from watching the counting of mail-in ballots to hide their decision to count ballots that should have been disqualified because of irregularities.
During the Tuesday hearing, Giuliani argued that "widespread nationwide voter fraud" claims weren't isolated and had been argued in courts in "at least 10 other jurisdictions," in a bid to keep the lawsuit alive.
© smartboy10/Getty Images/KJN
The basic facts of the 2020 American Presidential election are concerning because mounting evidence indicates there's been a concerted effort by state Democratic Parties to flip the election from President Donald Trump to former Vice President Joe Biden in a number of key swing states with the help of notoriously corrupt Democratic Party machines in at least five American cities — Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, and Atlanta.
Here are the basic facts of the case: On Election Night when America went to bed, President Trump had a commanding lead in virtually every swing state, as well as Virginia, which no one expected him to win. However, when America woke up the next day, we found that he'd lost these leads, largely on the basis of mail-in ballots found in the middle of the night and out from under the watchful eye of legal election monitors.
What's more, these massive caches of votes - almost all of which were for former Vice President Biden - came via large dumps primarily from the five aforementioned cities in states predominantly run by Democratic governors.
Comment: Two thumbs up for this article.
© 112 US Congress/Sky News
Democratic Senator Chris Coons • Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey
Democratic Senator Chris Coons • Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey
"You do, Mr. Dorsey, have policies against deep fakes or manipulated media, against Covid-19 misinformation, against things that violate civic integrity," the Delaware senator began, "but you don't have a standalone climate change misinformation policy. Why not?"
"Our policies are living documents," Dorsey replied. "They will evolve, we will add to them, but we thought it important we focus our energies and prioritize the work as much as we could." And then:
"Well, Mr. Dorsey... I cannot think of a greater harm than climate change, which is transforming literally our planet and causing harm to our entire world. I think we're experiencing significant harm as we speak. I recognize the pandemic and misinformation about Covid-19 manipulated media also cause harm but I'd urge you to reconsider that because helping to disseminate climate denialism in my view further facilitates and accelerates one of the greatest existential threats to our world."
© AP
Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller
Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller
"I am formally announcing that we will implement President Trump's orders to continue our repositioning of forces" from Afghanistan and Iraq, Miller told reporters at the Pentagon.
Miller also said that Trump's decision "is based on continuous engagement with his national security Cabinet for the past several months, including ongoing discussions with me and my colleagues across the United States government." He added that he spoke with "key leaders in Congress as well as our allies and partners abroad to update them on these plans" earlier in the day.
Ahead of Miller's announcement, a senior Defense official told reporters that the drawdown was a "collaborative decision," but would not say which military leaders had recommended the plan.
The official also would not say which conditions had been met by the Taliban to warrant such a drawdown in Afghanistan, but insisted that U.S. national security will not be threatened and the troops remaining overseas will still be able to assist allies and partners in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The remaining 2,500 troops "can accomplish everything we have been doing," the official said.
Comment: Twenty years is apparently not enough! Not everyone agrees with Trump's withdrawal plan:
The Pentagon announced on Tuesday that it will be going ahead with President Donald Trump's order to cut down troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, leaving 2,500 troops in each country by January 15. The news did not sit down well with the NATO secretary general.The Taliban, deeming it a positive step, are enthusiastic!
"We went into Afghanistan together," Stoltenberg said, adding that the allied forces should "leave together in a coordinated and orderly way," but only "when the time is right." He added that he counts "on all NATO allies to live up to this commitment, for our own security."
Stoltenberg hinted that the Alliance has plans to stay in Afghanistan through 2024, to train, advise and assist local security forces.
Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Islamist fundamentalist group, told AFP news agency on Wednesday, that the troop withdrawal is in the best interest of people in both Afghanistan and the US. He added that pulling US forces out will avert further war.
© Getty Images
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
The nomination was secured by voice vote during a process conducted remotely as a health precaution amid a surge in coronavirus cases.
That marks a stark contrast to the secret election of two years ago, when 32 Democrats had opposed Pelosi amid a rebellion from a group of restive moderates ready for a changing of the guard after nearly two decades under Pelosi's reign.
The erosion of defectors reflects the support she's since earned from a number of those earlier critics; the losses Democrats suffered at the polls earlier in the month, when four moderate Democrats who had opposed Pelosi's Speakership bid on the House floor were picked off by GOP challengers; and the ascension of President-elect Joe Biden, whose victory over President Trump has tempered some of the party's frustrations for losses down the ballot.
Comment: Another deluded media source! There is no ascension, nor President-elect, nor Democratic victory at this juncture.
The outcome was never in doubt: Pelosi ran unopposed, and her dealings with Trump over the last two years have won the praise of even her sharpest Democratic critics.
Comment: Pelosi is a permanent fixture and until she is dethroned, expect nothing to change within the Democratic party. Its power structure is locked and loaded.
© Shutterstock
Watergate began with an election-motivated break-in and burglary. Could this be another one?
A company that supplies voting machines to Philadelphia was broken into and an employee's laptop and data-filled USB drives were stolen, as 6ABC is Philly reports:
Comment: Software can be manipulated and administrative access is key, as this particular county demonstrated in its election results:
Comment: Whether or not it will change anything, a little more civilian oversight is a good idea. Many online are wondering if there is more to this move: