demmiblue
demmiblue's JournalExclusive: White House considers new year executive order to bar Huawei, ZTE purchases
Source: Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump is considering an executive order in the new year to declare a national emergency that would bar U.S. companies from using telecommunications equipment made by China’s Huawei and ZTE, three sources familiar with the situation told Reuters.
It would be the latest step by the Trump administration to cut Huawei Technologies Cos Ltd [HWT.UL] and ZTE Corp, two of China’s biggest network equipment companies, out of the U.S. market. The United States alleges that the two companies work at the behest of the Chinese government and that their equipment could be used to spy on Americans.
The executive order, which has been under consideration for more than eight months, could be issued as early as January and would direct the Commerce Department to block U.S. companies from buying equipment from foreign telecommunications makers that pose significant national security risks, sources from the telecoms industry and the administration said.
While the order is unlikely to name Huawei or ZTE, a source said it is expected that Commerce officials would interpret it as authorization to limit the spread of equipment made by the two companies. The sources said the text for the order has not been finalized.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-huawei-tech-exclusive/exclusive-white-house-considers-new-year-executive-order-to-bar-huawei-zte-purchases-idUSKCN1OQ09P
Trump is trying to hide behind Melania's skirt:
https://twitter.com/seungminkim/status/1078025539288551430
Lol... he is scared!
U.S. Schools Think These Objects Can Keep People Safe in a Shooting
https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1077999486251749376Hmmm...looks like the President is taking an unannounced trip...
https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1077993460118958080
https://twitter.com/Oriana0214/status/1077983592351969282
National Cathedral service attended by Trumps urged them to 'help all refugees'
“As Christians, as followers of Jesus, as one of our great mantras of the church says, in the name of these refugees, we are to help all refugees,” Bishop Marianne Budde told NPR Tuesday, adding that there are parallels between the story of many refugees and Mary and Joseph in the nativity story.
...
“I didn't explicitly mention any of the immigrant crises that are facing us, although I was just at the U.S.-Mexican border a few days ago and can't get those images out of my mind. But I didn't have to. It was the text that called that to us, and I simply touched upon it pretty lightly, actually, at the end of the sermon. But it's an unmistakable part of the story,” Budde told NPR.
Budde said she found out that Trump, who had originally planned on being in Florida at the time, would be in attendance at the service about 15 minutes before the sermon began and did not design her speech specifically for the president.
“I hope he heard what I wanted everyone to hear. I don't think I changed his mind on the issues about which he and I would disagree because most of us come into a sermon or any other encounter with our biases fully in place. But one never knows,” she said. “It wasn't just for the president. It's for all of us. I mean, we have a responsibility. And we have infinite ways that we can respond. And so that's what I hope he and everyone heard.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/422893-national-cathedral-service-attended-by-trumps-urged-them-to-help-all?__twitter_impression=true&__twitter_impression=true
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner Go on Vacation During Shutdown
https://www.thedailybeast.com/ivanka-trump-and-jared-kushner-go-on-vacation-during-shutdown
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6529175/Ivanka-Trump-wears-summer-dress-bizarre-straw-visor-hat-strolls-Jared.html
Sandra Lee and the famous Kwanzaa Cake
Shutdown to cut office overseeing federal food stamps by 95%
Source: CNN
(CNN)As the government shutdown loomed over the holidays, heads of federal agencies and departments overseeing health and public assistance services tweeted that, regardless of what was happening in Washington, they were attending, as much as possible, to business as usual.
In a statement over the holiday weekend, Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue said, "There may be a lapse in funding for the federal government, but that will not relieve USDA of its responsibilities for safeguarding life and property through the critical services we provide."
According to the statement, 61% of the Department of Agriculture's employees would continue to work through the first week of the shutdown, but that number would decrease the longer the shutdown continues.
Some of the agency's offices to be hit hardest by the closure include the office of Food and Nutrition Services that oversees the Child Nutrition, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). By the end of the fifth day of the shutdown, staffing will be cut by 95%.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/25/health/shutdown-usda-fda-cdc-hhs/index.html
Did a Queens Podiatrist Help Donald Trump Avoid Vietnam?
For 50 years, the details of how the exemption came about, and who made the diagnosis, have remained a mystery, with Mr. Trump himself saying during the presidential campaign that he could not recall who had signed off on the medical documentation.
Now a possible explanation has emerged about the documentation. It involves a foot doctor in Queens who rented his office from Mr. Trump’s father, Fred C. Trump, and a suggestion that the diagnosis was granted as a courtesy to the elder Mr. Trump.
The podiatrist, Dr. Larry Braunstein, died in 2007. But his daughters say their father often told the story of coming to the aid of a young Mr. Trump during the Vietnam War as a favor to his father.
“I know it was a favor,” said one daughter, Dr. Elysa Braunstein, 56, who along with her sister, Sharon Kessel, 53, shared the family’s account for the first time publicly when contacted by The New York Times.
Elysa Braunstein said the implication from her father was that Mr. Trump did not have a disqualifying foot ailment. “But did he examine him? I don’t know,” she said.
For decades, Dr. Braunstein saw patients in a congested ground-floor office below Edgerton Apartments in Jamaica, Queens, one of dozens of buildings owned by the Trumps in the 1960s. The family sold the building in 2004, records show.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/26/us/politics/trump-vietnam-draft-exemption.html
https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1077886105721102337
"Today is very special to my heart. To give back to the two people who have given up everything..."
https://twitter.com/Bsinger51/status/1077689162004721664
Something in my eye...
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