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President Donald Trump smiles while speaking to a meeting of the National Governors Association, Monday, Feb. 27, 2017, at the White House in Washington. (AP/Evan Vucci)

Trump’s Proposed Budget Includes Whopping $54 Billion Increase In Defense Spending

Archives for February 2017

Muslims And Jews ‘Unite Against Hatred’ After Another Jewish Cemetery Is Vandalized

Muslim activists rally to donate funds, assist in cleanup after Jewish grave site in Pennsylvania desecrated.

Nadia Prupis
By Nadia Prupis
Rabbi Joshua Bolton of the University of Pennsylvania's Hillel center surveys damaged headstones at Mount Carmel Cemetery on Monday, Feb. 27, 2017, in Philadelphia. More than 100 headstones have been vandalized at the Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia, damage discovered less than a week after similar vandalism in Missouri, authorities said. (AP/Jacqueline Larma)

(REPORT) --- Muslim activists rallied again to help repair another Jewish cemetery vandalized over the weekend, this time in Pennsylvania, where at least 100 gravestones were toppled. The president of the Philadelphia chapter of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA visited the Mount Carmel Cemetery in the northeast part of the city on Sunday and

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Texas Bathroom Bill Is Politics Disguised As Policy

As policy, the proposed regulations for transgender Texan’s restroom choices have some gaping holes in it. The politics, however, are easy to understand.

Ross Ramsey
By Ross Ramsey
A sticker that reads, "Keep Locker Rooms Safe," is worn by a person supporting a bill that would eliminate Washington's new rule allowing transgender people use gender-segregated bathrooms and locker rooms in public buildings consistent with their gender identity, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, outside a Washington Senate hearing room at the Capitol in Olympia, Wash.

(ANALYSIS) --- The proposed bathroom bill percolating in the Texas Legislature doesn’t do what its supporters say it is supposed to do. Here’s the caption — the legal description at the top of Senate Bill 6: “relating to regulations and policies for entering or using a bathroom or changing facility; authorizing a civil penalty; increasing

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Wisconsin State Patrol Return To DAPL Admits Mass Arrests, Testing New Strategy?

Wisconsin sought to learn from the Standing Rock protests for containment of their own similar future actions.

Isiah Holmes | The Fifth Column
By Isiah Holmes | The Fifth Column
A law enforcement officer speaks to a protester against the Dakota Access Pipeline through a wall of razor wire on the Backwater Bridge over Cantapeta Creek on Thursday afternoon, Dec. 8, 2016. (Tom Stromme/The Bismarck Tribune via AP)

(REPORT) --- As Dakota Access police operations intensify, Wisconsin State Patrol has deployed a second officer group. This occurs shortly following raids on some of the last well-entrenched water protector camps. It’s also a move seemingly contrary to the reason Wisconsin authorities returned the first group home. The deployment of 17 WSP

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Arizona Republicans Want Racketeering Laws Applied To Protesters

“By including rioting in racketeering laws, it actually permits police to arrest those who are planning events.”

James Holbrooks
By James Holbrooks
In this Feb. 10, 2011 file photo, protestors gather around Arizona State Sen. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, Arizona's immigration bill SB1070 author, outside the Sandra Day O'Connor Federal Courthouse in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Matt York, File)

(REPORT) --- If Republicans in Arizona’s senate have their way, police in that state could soon have the power to seize assets and property from protesters, the Arizona Capitol Times reports. From a February 22 article: “Claiming people are being paid to riot, Republican state senators voted Wednesday to give police new power to arrest anyone

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Trump Administration Begins Courting Contractors For Border Wall

In a document on the government’s website for business opportunities, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it would release a request asking companies for prototype ideas for a wall to be built near the U.S.-Mexican border.

ZeroHedge.com
By ZeroHedge.com
A U.S. Border Patrol agent Jerry Conlin looks to the north near where the border wall ends as is separates Tijuana, Mexico, left, and San Diego, right. (AP/Gregory Bull)

(REPORT) --- In the first tangible step toward delivering on Trump’s campaign promise to halt unauthorized immigration from Mexico, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection on Friday released plans for picking vendors for President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall, issuing a preliminary request for proposals saying it plans to release a formal

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The Future Of Fake News?

A misleading map of ‘refugee crime’ in Germany distorts reality in a slick and sophisticated way.

Abigail Fielding-Smith
Crofton Black
By Abigail Fielding-Smith
And Crofton Black
XYE map

Last year, an anonymously-produced map started to make its way around German social media. It claimed to show viewers the spread of “refugee and migrant crime” throughout Germany. Unlike some of the lurid tales of migrant depravity that have circulated in Germany in recent months and turned out to be false, the interactive map seemed

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