Why Is That People Ignore Germany Being Controlled By Russia But Tell Us About Russian Collusion?
BRUSSELS (AP) — In a combative start to his NATO visit, President Donald Trump asserted Wednesday that a pipeline project has made Germany “totally controlled” by and “captive to Russia” and blasted NATO allies’ defense spending, opening what was expected to be a fraught summit with a list of grievances involving American allies.
Trump, in a testy exchange with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, took issue with the U.S. protecting Germany when the European nation is making deals with Russia.
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President Trump: “Germany is a captive of Russia.”
Trump and NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg discuss plans for the summit before a bilateral breakfast in Brussels.
“I have to say, I think it’s very sad when Germany makes a massive oil and gas deal with Russia where we’re supposed to be guarding against Russia,” Trump said during a breakfast with Stoltenberg, his first event since arriving in Brussels. “We’re supposed to protect you against Russia but they’re paying billions of dollars to Russia and I think that’s very inappropriate.”
The president appeared to be referring to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that would bring gas from Russia to Germany’s northeastern Baltic coast, bypassing Eastern European nations like Poland and Ukraine and doubling the amount of gas Russia can send directly to Germany. The vast undersea pipeline is opposed by the U.S. and some other EU members, who warn it could give Moscow greater leverage over Western Europe.
Trump said that, “Germany, as far as I’m concerned, is captive to Russia” and urged NATO to look into the issue. Trump, who has been accused of being too cozy with Putin — a man accused of U.S. election meddling — was expected to see German Chancellor Angela Merkel later in the day.
Stoltenberg pushed back, stressing that NATO members have been able to work together despite their differences.
The dramatic exchange set the tone for what was already expected to be a tense day of meetings with leaders of the military alliance. Trump is expected to continue hammering jittery NATO allies about their military spending during the summit meeting, which comes amid increasingly frayed relations between the “America first” president and the United States’ closest traditional allies.
“The United States is paying far too much and other countries are not paying enough, especially some. So we’re going to have a meeting on that,” Trump said as he arrived at the breakfast, describing the situation as “disproportionate and not fair to the taxpayers of the United States and we’re going to make it fair.”
“They will spend more,” he later predicted. “I have great confidence they’ll be spending more.”
Trump has been pushing NATO members to reach their agreed-to target of spending 2 percent of their gross domestic products on national defense by 2024 and has accused those who don’t of freeloading off the U.S.
“Many countries in NATO, which we are expected to defend, are not only short of their current commitment of 2% (which is low), but are also delinquent for many years in payments that have not been made,” he tweeted Tuesday while en route to Europe, asking: “Will they reimburse the U.S.?”
That’s not how the spending words. The 2 percent represents the amount each country aims to spend on its own defense, not some kind of direct payment to NATO or the U.S.
NATO estimates that 15 members, or just over half, will meet the benchmark by 2024 based on current trends.
During his campaign, Trump called NATO “obsolete” and suggested the U.S. might not come to the defense of members if they found themselves under attack — a shift that would represent a fundamental realignment of the modern world order. He also called Brussels a “hell hole” and “a mess.” Trump has moderated his language somewhat since taking office, but has continued to dwell on the issue, even as many NATO members have agreed to up their spending.
Stoltenberg, for his part, credited Trump for spurring NATO nations to spend more on defense, noting that the Europeans and Canada are projected to spend around $266 billion more by 2024.
“We all agree that we have to do more,” he said, describing last year as marking the biggest increase in defense spending across Europe and Canada in a generation.
Trump interjecting, asking Stoltenberg why he thought that had happened.
“It’s also because of your leadership, because your clear message,” Stoltenberg responded.
Arriving for his meeting, Trump had taken credit for the spending, telling the NATO chief that “because of me they’ve raised about $40 billion over the last year. So I think the secretary general likes Trump. He may be the only one, but that’s OK with me.”
Trump was also participating in a welcome ceremony, a meeting of the North Atlantic Council and a working dinner with some of the same leaders he berated over trade during his last world leaders summit in Canada last month.
Brussels is the first stop of a week-long European tour that will include stops in London and Scotland, as well as a highly anticipated meet with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Trump predicted as he departed Washington that the “easiest” leg of his journey would be his scheduled sit-down Putin — a comment that did little to reassure allies fretting over his potential embrace of a Russian leader U.S. intelligence officials accuse of meddling in the 2016 elections to help Trump win.
On the eve of the NATO summit, European Council President Donald Tusk pushed back against Trump’s constant criticism of European allies and urged him to remember who his friends are when he meets with Putin in Helsinki.
“Dear America, appreciate your allies, after all you don’t have all that many,” he said.
What next? A dick? Has to be a Bernie Sanders supporter
The ‘condom snorting challenge’ is every parent’s worst nightmare
Viral videos posted on social media show teenagers snorting condoms as part of a so-called “condom snorting challenge.”
In the videos, teens put an unwrapped condom up one of their nostrils and inhale until the condom comes out of their mouth. Like other viral challenges, the condom snorting challenge has been around for years but recently reemerged on social media.
In San Antonio, Stephen Enriquez, who teaches drug and alcohol prevention to parents, has also started to teach parents about dangerous online trends like the condom snorting challenge, KABB-TV reported.
“Because these days our teens are doing everything for likes, views, and subscribers,” Enriquez told the station. “As graphic as it is, we have to show parents because teens are going online looking for challenges and recreating them.”
And this isn’t the first time that teens have done questionable things in the pursuit of Internet fame. In 2012, more than 50,000 YouTube video clips showed young people swallow a tablespoon of dry cinnamon with no water, gag and spew out a cloud of orange dust as part of the “cinnamon challenge.”
Likewise, just before the New Year, a spate of teenage poisonings were reported in the U.S. as a result of an Internet-based dare encouraging youths to post video of themselves biting or eating Tide Pods. The stunt, dubbed “The Tide Pod Challenge,” has resulted in poison centers reporting 142 incidents in January.
While teens may think the condom snorting challenge goes without consequences, it can be dangerous, Bruce Y. Lee, a Forbes contributor and associate professor of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said in a recent column.
Lee writes that with the exception of doctor-prescribed nasal sprays, “anything else that goes up your nose can damage the sensitive inner lining of your nose, cause an allergic reaction, or result in an infection.”
He notes that the condom could also get stuck in the nasal cavity or the throat and cause someone to choke.
Liberals are nothing but Nazi scum. They hate guns until they need them.
A Democratic congressman from Long Island implied that Americans should grab weapons and oppose President Trump by force, if the commander-in-chief doesn’t follow the Constitution.
Rep. Tom Suozzi made the remark to constituents at a town hall last week, saying that folks opposed to Trump might resort to the “Second Amendment.”
“It’s really a matter of putting public pressure on the president,” Suozzi said in a newly released video of the March 12 talk in Huntington. “This is where the Second Amendment comes in, quite frankly, because you know, what if the president was to ignore the courts? What would you do? What would we do?”
A listener then blurts out, “What’s the Second Amendment?”
The left-leaning Democrat says, “The Second Amendment is the right to bear arms.”
The spectators laughed — some nervously. Republicans were not amused.
“This video is incredibly disturbing. It’s surreal to watch a sitting member of Congress suggest that his constituents should take up arms against the president of the United States,” said National Republican Campaign Committee spokesman Chris Martin.
Suozzi political adviser Kim Devlin denied the pol was “advocating for an armed insurrection.”
But the Suozzi campaign at the same time seemed to double down on the comments, as they forwarded a line penned by Thomas Jefferson that called for armed resistance.
“What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms,” the quote said.
Suozzi’s comment seems to conflict with his recent push for gun control following the Parkland, Florida, school shooting.
Suozzi even participated in the March 14 student walkout for gun control outside the US Capitol — and called on the young people of his district to back tightened gun laws.
“I think we should engage the high school students of #NY03, and all of Long Island, to promote gun violence prevention legislation,” he said in a Feb. 21 tweet.
Trump himself has in the past used language similar to Suozzi’s. During the 2016 campaign, he told a crowd at a rally in North Carolina that if Hillary Clinton were elected and able to nominate a Supreme Court justice, there would be nothing that gun supporters could do. He then added: “Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know.”
The remark was widely seen as a veiled call for violence, though Trump denied that was his meaning.
Suozzi, a first-term congressman elected in 2016, is seeking re-election this fall. He formerly served as Nassau County executive.
He is expected to easily win the Democratic primary and face GOP challenger Dan Debono, a former US Navy SEAL, in the general election.
He looks like he would go crazy over barbecue sauce
“I’ll go to fucking jail over some barbecue sauce!”
That is what Willie Edward Drake, 43, yelled during a tirade last week inside a Waffle House in Georgia after being informed by a employee that the restaurant did not offer his favorite tangy condiment.
According to a Bibb County Sheriff’s Office report, Drake sat down at the Macon eatery’s counter early Tuesday morning and ordered food. Drake subsequently asked for some barbecue sauce.
The Waffle House, however, does not stock barbecue sauce, a revelation that allegedly caused Drake to begin “screaming obscenities and insulting” workers. Drake’s unhinged behavior “caused the employees and customers to fear for their safety,” cops reported.
Officers responding to a 911 call about a disturbance at the Waffle House (seen below) described Drake as “uncooperative and disorderly.” Pictured above, Drake was subsequently arrested for disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor.
Drake, who gave his address as a hotel near Waffle House, spent several days in the county jail before his release on $390 bond. He is scheduled for a March 1 appearance in Municipal Court.
Would somebody be this fools daddy so he can stop being mad at Donald Trump.
Eminem has hit out again at Donald Trump, arguing that both Hillary Clinton and “a fucking turd” would have made for a better President than the current US leader.
The Detroit rapper has been vocal in his criticism of Trump in recent months, saying that Trump doesn’t care about America and that he has “brainwashed” his supporters.
Now, speaking to Billboard, Eminem has claimed that he foresaw Trump’s election win. “Watching the TV in fucking disbelief. I was in my basement, on the phone back and forth with friends like, ‘He’s going to fucking win’,” he said.
“I called it just from the rallies he was having when he first started running. Because just watching the impact he has, they were fanatics. There is something to be said about the person who really felt like he might do something for them – and he just fucking duped everybody.”
“I know that Hillary [Clinton] had her flaws, but you know what? Anything would have been better [than Trump]. A fucking turd would have been better as a president.”
Last October, Eminem slammed Trump in a freestyle performed at the BET Hip-Hop Awards, drawing a “line in the sand” between him and Trump, telling his fans to pick a side. He later expressed his surprise at Trump failing to respond to the freestyle.
“I felt that everybody who was with him at that point doesn’t like my music anyway,” Eminem said. “I get the comparison with the non-political-correctness, but other than that, we’re polar opposites. He made these people feel like he was really going to do something for them.”
“It’s just so fucking disgusting how divisive his language is, the rhetoric, the Charlottesville shit, just watching it going, ‘I can’t believe he’s saying this.’ When he was talking about John McCain, I thought he was done. You’re fucking with military veterans, you’re talking about a military war hero who was captured and tortured. It just didn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. And that’s some scary shit to me.”
“I knew [the BET freestyle] would get a reaction, obviously; that’s what I rap to do,” Eminem added. “But where I was coming from in that cypher was a genuine place in my heart. I [hesitate] to say [I have] hatred in my heart for him, but it’s serious contempt. I do not like the guy.”
“At the end of the day, if I did lose half my fan base, then so be it, because I feel like I stood up for what was right and I’m on the right side of this. I don’t see how somebody could be middle class, busting their ass every single day, paycheck to paycheck, who thinks that that fucking billionaire is gonna help you.”
He continued: “Y’all saw the tracklist and had a fit / Before you heard it / So you formed your verdict While you sat with your arms crossed / Did your little reaction videos and talked over songs / Nah dog, y’all saying I lost it / Your fucking marbles are gone.”
Read more at http://www.nme.com/news/music/eminem-says-a-fucking-turd-would-be-a-better-president-than-trump-2229077#EP8k5yKTRqGEsV52.99
An incensed bride punched a wedding crasher in the face after the interloper disrupted her reception by pawing several teenage female guests, according to a criminal complaint.
Cops say that William Dickinson, 25, and two co-workers were drinking at the bar of a Best Western in Eau Claire, Wisconsin Friday night when they decided to crash a wedding reception being held in the hotel.
The goal was “getting laid,”Dickinson’s buddy Patrick Smith later told police.
But Dickinson–wearing jeans and a t-shirt–quickly caused an uproar when he sought to dance with two 17-year-old girls and an 18-year-old woman. Police charge that he inappropriately touched all three teenagers. Two of the victims said Dickinson rubbed and squeezed their buttocks. When a 14-year-old girl confronted him about his behavior, Dickinson allegedly yanked on the child’s hair, causing her pain.
During a scuffle that followed, Dickinson allegedly punched the bride’s father in the face, knocking the man down. Smith said that Dickinson later told him that wedding guests “were mad at him for dancing with the girls and accused him of being a pedophile.”
When questioned by police, Dickinson admitted decking the bride’s father, adding that he planned to ground and pound the man, “but then realized that he was so old so he stopped punching him.” Dickinson, police reported, said that he “liked to fight people.”
Dickinson, the complaint notes, later apologized to the bride, saying that he “hoped he didn’t ruin her party.” The woman responded by punching the wedding crasher (seen above) in the face. “Dickinson said he probably deserved it,” cops noted.
Dickinson was charged with physical abuse of a child, a felony, disorderly conduct, and two counts of fourth-degree sexual assault (the latter two charges are misdemeanors). Dickinson was freed from jail Tuesday after posting $1000 bond.
A Circuit Court judge has ordered Dickinson to have no contact with “any underage females,” including the teens he allegedly groped at the wedding reception. Additionally, he must “maintain absolute sobriety” and stay out of “any taverns, bars, or place where alcohol is primarily served/sold.”
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