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Post by Admin on Dec 27, 2020 18:49:03 GMT
Unemployment benefits for millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet lapsed overnight as President Donald Trump refused to sign an end-of-year COVID relief and spending bill that had been considered a done deal before his sudden objections.
The fate of the bipartisan package remained in limbo Sunday as Trump continued to demand larger COVID relief checks and complained about “pork” spending. Without the widespread funding provided by the massive measure, a government shutdown would occur when money runs out at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday.
Several lawmakers implored Trump to sign the legislation immediately, then have Congress follow up with more relief.
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Post by Admin on Dec 30, 2020 19:18:12 GMT
Americans are most likely to name President Donald Trump and Michelle Obama as most admired man and woman in 2020. Trump tied former President Barack Obama for the honor last year but edged out his predecessor this year. Trump's first-place finish ends a 12-year run as most admired man for Obama, tied with Dwight Eisenhower for the most ever. Meanwhile, Michelle Obama ranks as most admired woman for the third year in a row. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is second. Most Admired Man The incumbent president is usually top of mind when Gallup asks Americans to name, without prompting, which man living anywhere in the world they admire most. In the 74 times Gallup has asked the open-ended most admired man question since 1946, the incumbent president has topped the list 60 times. Harry Truman (1946-1947 and 1950-1952), Lyndon Johnson (1967-1968), Richard Nixon (1973), Gerald Ford (1974-1975), Jimmy Carter (1980), George W. Bush (2008) and Trump (2017-2018) are the incumbent presidents who did not finish first in past years. When the sitting president is not the top choice, it is usually because he is unpopular politically. That was the case in 2017 and 2018 when Trump had 36% and 40% approval ratings, respectively, and finished second to Obama as most admired man. Even though Trump is similarly unpopular now -- 39% approve of his performance -- his dominant performance among Republicans, contrasted with Democrats splitting their choices among multiple public figures, pushes him to the top of the 2020 most admired man list. Forty-eight percent of Republicans name Trump this year, with no other public figure receiving more than 2% of Republicans' votes. Obama is the top choice among Democrats, at 32%, but that is down from 41% last year. President-elect Joe Biden (13%) is also commonly named by Democrats. Additionally, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, is named by 5% of Democrats but only 1% of Republicans, further contributing to Democrats' relative dispersion of choices. Independents are evenly split between Trump (11%) and Obama (11%), with another 3% naming Biden and 2% Fauci. Overall, 18% of Americans name Trump, 15% name Obama, 6% Biden and 3% Fauci. The remaining top 10 men include Pope Francis, businessman Elon Musk, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, basketball player LeBron James, and the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists. Most Admired Man, 2020 What man that you have heard or read about, living today in any part of the world, do you admire most? % Mentioning Number of top 10 finishes Donald Trump 18 10 Barack Obama 15 15 Joe Biden 6 2 Dr. Anthony Fauci 3 1 Pope Francis 2 8 Elon Musk 1 4 Bernie Sanders 1 6 Bill Gates 1 21 LeBron James 1 1 Dalai Lama 1 11 Combined first and second mentions; rankings based on total number of responses GALLUP, DEC. 1-17, 2020
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Post by Admin on Jan 3, 2021 1:55:03 GMT
Special Message from President Trump Rally LIVE in Dalton, GA 1/2/21
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Post by Admin on Mar 31, 2021 4:59:03 GMT
A federal judge ruled Tuesday that a broad non-disclosure agreement that Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign required employees to sign is unenforceable.
U.S. District Court Judge Paul Gardephe’s ruling generally steered clear of the constitutional issues presented by such agreements in the context of political campaigns. Instead, the judge — an appointee of President George W. Bush — said the sweeping, boilerplate language the campaign compelled employees to sign was so vague that the agreement was invalid under New York contract law.
“As to the scope of the provision, it is — as a practical matter —unlimited. ... Accordingly, Campaign employees are not free to speak about anything concerning the Campaign,” wrote Gardephe. “The non-disclosure provision is thus much broader than what the Campaign asserts is necessary to protect its legitimate interests, and, therefore, is not reasonable.”
Gardephe’s 36-page decision said a non-disparagement clause in the agreement was similarly flawed.
“The Campaign’s past efforts to enforce the non-disclosure and non-disparagement provisions demonstrate that it is not operating in good faith to protect what it has identified as legitimate interests,” the judge added. “The evidence before the Court instead demonstrates that the Campaign has repeatedly sought to enforce the non-disclosure and non-disparagement provisions to suppress speech that it finds detrimental to its interests.”
Gardephe issued the ruling in a case brought by Jessica Denson, a Hispanic outreach director for Trump in 2016 who accused the campaign of sex discrimination in separate litigation.
At one point, the campaign persuaded an arbitrator to issue a $50,000 award against Denson for violating the agreement, but that award was later overturned.
Denson celebrated the latest ruling, saying it dealt a death blow to a tactic Trump has long wielded to control his image.
“I’m overjoyed,” Denson told POLITICO. “This president … former president spent all four years aspiring to autocracy while claiming that he was champion of freedom and free speech. ... There’s many people out there who have seen cases like mine and were terrified to speak out.”
For decades, Trump required such secrecy agreements of his personal employees and staff in his companies. When he jumped into the presidential race in 2016, his lawyers continued to demand NDAs that seemed modeled on those he used previously in his personal and business affairs.
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Post by Admin on May 2, 2021 19:00:07 GMT
The Biden administration has disclosed a set of rules secretly issued by President Donald Trump in 2017 for counterterrorism “direct action” operations — like drone strikes and commando raids outside conventional war zones — which the White House has suspended as it weighs whether and how to tighten the guidelines. While the Biden administration censored some passages, the visible portions show that in the Trump era, commanders in the field were given latitude to make decisions about attacks so long as they fit within broad sets of “operating principles,” including that there should be “near certainty” that civilians “will not be injured or killed in the course of operations.” At the same time, however, the Trump-era rules were flexible about permitting exceptions to that and other standards, saying that “variations” could be made “where necessary” so long as certain bureaucratic procedures were followed in approving them. In October, Judge Edgardo Ramos of the Southern District of New York had ordered the government turn over the 11-page document in response to Freedom of Information Act lawsuits filed by The New York Times and by the American Civil Liberties Union. The Biden administration inherited that case and sought a delay but has now complied, providing a copy to both plaintiffs late Friday. The Biden administration suspended the Trump-era rules on its first day in office and imposed an interim policy of requiring White House approval for proposed strikes outside of the war zones of Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. At the same time, the Biden team began a review of how both Obama- and Trump-era policies had worked — both on paper and in practice — with an eye toward developing its own policy. The review, officials said, discovered that Trump-era principles to govern strikes in certain countries often made an exception to the requirement of “near certainty” that there would be no civilian casualties. While it kept that rule for women and children, it permitted a lower standard of merely “reasonable certainty” when it came to civilian adult men.
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