As many Americans come together to watch the Super Bowl, Melania and I extend our greetings and appreciation for those who make occasions like this possible, particularly the brave men and women of our Armed Forces.
Though many of our Nation’s service members are unable to be home with family and friends to enjoy this evening’s American tradition, they are always in our thoughts and prayers. We owe these heroes the greatest respect for defending our liberty and our American way of life. Their sacrifice is stitched into each star and every stripe of our Star-Spangled Banner. We hold them in our hearts and thank them for our freedom as we proudly stand for the National Anthem.
We send our best wishes for an enjoyable Super Bowl Sunday. May God bless and protect our troops, and may He continue to bless the United States of America.
Rep. Lieu: ‘People would take to streets’ if Rosenstein fired
AM Joy 2/4/18
The Nunes memo may have been created to give cause for Donald Trump to fire Rod Rosenstein, Robert Mueller’s boss, many experts believe, but Joy Reid’s panel says the memo contains no such grounds.
Rep. Joe Kennedy, III: I’m not running for president
AM Joy 2/4/18
Rep. Joe Kennedy, III told AM JOY on MSNBC he is not running for president, after the buzz surrounding his State of the Union rebuttal to Donald Trump. Kennedy and Joy Reid also discuss the legacy of his grandfather, Robert F. Kennedy.
Paul Ryan was blasted for applauding one woman gaining $1.50 per week through the GOP tax plan, while wealthier Americans are accruing much more. Joy Reid and her panel discuss.
Conservative media wrongfully claims memo vindicates Trump
AM Joy 2/4/18
The Nunes memo has been claimed by FOX news and other conservative media to completely vindicate Donald Trump, who many believe is highly influenced by Sean Hannity. Joy Reid and her panel discuss.
Vince McMahon’s XFL will prevent players from taking a knee during the national anthem, amid other rules Donald Trump would likely approve. Joy Reid and her panel discuss.
NFL Hall of Famer Alan Page on Trump, equality fight
AM Joy 2/4/18
This Super Bowl LII Sunday, Joy Reid highlights an exhibit of African-American and Jim Crow era artifacts on display near the NFL playing field in Minneapolis from the collection of NFL Hall of Famer [and Associate Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court from January 1993 to August 2015 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Page )] Alan Page, who underscores to AM JOY the importance of civil rights during the era of Donald Trump.
China accuses US of 'Cold War mentality' over nuclear policy China has urged the US to drop its "Cold War mentality" after Washington said it planned to diversify its nuclear armoury with smaller bombs. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42935758
'A bittersweet moment': Janet Yellen is disappointed she didn't get a 2nd term as Fed chair Outgoing Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen said in an interview that she feels "bittersweet" about leaving her position. While it is tradition to renominate Federal Reserve chairmen for a second term, President Donald Trump nominated Fed board member Jerome Powell instead of Yellen. The economy, job market, and stock market have improved considerably since Yellen took office. Yellen was the first woman to lead the Federal Reserve in US history. http://www.businessinsider.com/ap-yellen-disappointed-not-to-get-a-second-term-as-fed-chair-2018-2
Italy shooter motivated by 'racial hatred': minister A shaven-headed far-right supporter suspected of wounding six Africans Saturday in brazen drive-by shootings in central Italy was arrested, as the country's interior minister said "racial hatred" had prompted the attack. https://www.thelocal.it/20180204/italy-shooter-motivated-by-racial-hatred-minister
Italy's League under pressure over racist shootings ROME (Reuters) - Leftist politicians on Sunday pinned blame for a racist shooting spree in central Italy on the far-right League party that looks set to make major gains in a March 4 national election. Six African migrants were shot and injured on Saturday in the city of Macerata by an Italian man named as Luca Traini, who last year stood as a League candidate in a local ballot, but failed to win any votes. Police said Traini, who has a neo-Nazi symbol tattooed above his eyebrow, admitted to carrying out the drive-by shootings and had shown no remorse. League leader Matteo Salvini, who has forged an electoral pact with former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, distanced himself from the attack, but said the violence was the direct result of mass immigration in recent years. “If anyone is to blame, it is the government that has allowed hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants to come here without any limits,” Salvini told La Stampa newspaper on Sunday. Leftist politicians accused Salvini of stirring dangerous sentiment in a country that struggles to get to grips with the legacy of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, who ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943. “Salvini has created fear and chaos and should apologize before the Italian people,” said Laura Boldrini, speaker of the lower house of parliament and a leading figure in the left-wing Free and Equal party. Wading into the row late on Sunday, Berlusconi said the center-left government had let 630,000 migrants into Italy over the past four years, with only 30,000 having any right to asylum. “The other 600,000 are a social time bomb ready to explode because they live off handouts and crime,” he told a news show on his family-controlled Mediaset network, promising to make security a priority if his coalition wins power next month. Almost 120,000 people have received some form of asylum to Italy over the past four years, while roughly 200,000 migrants live in shelters awaiting the result of asylum requests. Many others have left Italy and headed to northern Europe. “VENDETTA” Opinion polls say the center-left will lose next month’s parliamentary election, with Berlusconi’s center-right bloc set to win the most seats, lifted in part by rising support for the League though short of an absolute majority. After taking charge of the League in 2013, Salvini shunted the party to the far right, adopting an uncompromising anti-immigration stance and allying himself with the National Front in France and the anti-Islam Freedom Party in the Netherlands. His strategy appears to be paying off - polls suggest the League will win up to 14 percent of the vote against 4.1 percent in 2013, challenging Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party for supremacy in their center-right bloc. Shooting attacks are very rare in Italy and it was not clear if Saturday’s violence would damage Salvini. However, pollsters say his calls for mass deportations of the mainly African migrants now living in the country have resonated in the past. The six people injured on Saturday came from Nigeria, Mali, Ghana and Gambia. None suffered life-threatening wounds. Traini’s attack came just days after a Nigerian migrant was arrested in connection with the death of an 18-year-old Italian woman, whose dismembered body was discovered stuffed into two suitcases near Macerata. “The most likely hypothesis is that (Traini) carried out this mad gesture as a form of vendetta,” Carabinieri police commander Michele Roberti told Sky TG24 on Sunday. “He was lucid, determined and aware of what he had done.” Traini is being held in solitary confinement and is expected to be charged in the coming days with attempted murder and racism. It was not clear when a trial might be held. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-macerata-shooting/italys-league-under-pressure-over-racist-shootings-idUSKBN1FO0RB
The Latest: Africans planned vigil for slain woman in Italy - AP MILAN (AP) — The Latest on the shooting rampage Saturday in Italy in which police say a far-right gunman targeted African migrants. (all times local): 3:20 p.m. A Nigerian community leader in central Italy says he was on his way to meet with cultural mediators when he heard the first shots fired by a right-wing extremist who eventually wounded six Africans. Sammy Kunoun, who runs the office of an immigrant association in the city of Marcerata, told The Associated Press on Sunday he didn't think anything of the shooting sounds on Saturday night until a shop owner said: "They are shooting at us. They are killing us." Kunoun says he was heading to discuss plans for a sit-in to show solidarity with the family of an 18-year-old woman's slaying a few days earlier. A Nigerian immigrant is jailed as the prime suspect. Kunoun says the event was called off after the shooting spree for fear of further racist attacks. Authorities say the suspect behind the shooting rampage, Luca Traini, had extreme right-wing leanings and was motivated to target Africans by Pamela Mastropietro's killing. Kunoun said: "Now, we are all victims in this story." [...] http://www.nydailynews.com/newswires/news/world/latest-africans-planned-vigil-slain-woman-italy-article-1.3798084 original https://www.apnews.com/26d0d3f5562e4492986c326b64291830/The-Latest:-Africans-planned-vigil-for-slain-woman-in-Italy
A Kansas chemistry professor got his kids ready for school — then ICE arrested him on his front lawn On a recent Wednesday morning, Syed Ahmed Jamal was getting ready to take his daughter to school when he was stopped outside his home in Lawrence, Kansas. Officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement were on his front lawn. Before Jamal, 55, could say goodbye to his wife and three children, the ICE agents detained him and led him away in handcuffs. The arrest of a "beloved Lawrence family man, scientist and community leader" came as a shock to Jamal's friends and neighbors in the Kansas City area, where he has lived since arriving in the United States on a student visa from Bangladesh more than 30 years ago. He would go on to also attain graduate degrees in molecular biosciences and pharmaceutical engineering, then settle in Lawrence to raise a family. Along the way, he switched from student visas to an H-1B visa for highly skilled workers, then back to a student visa when he enrolled in a doctoral program, his family said. At the time of his arrest, Jamal was on a temporary work permit, teaching chemistry as an adjunct professor at Park University in Kansas City and conducting research at various local hospitals. In a statement to The Washington Post, an ICE official said the agency "continues to focus its enforcement resources on individuals who pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security." Asked whether Jamal had done anything that would have placed him in this category, the official said that, "as ICE Acting Director Thomas Homan has made clear, ICE does not exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement." Jamal's arrest is also the latest example of ICE agents abruptly targeting noncitizens with no criminal record who have, in the past, been allowed to stay in the country because they were seen as contributing positively to society, according to Jeffrey Y. Bennett, an immigration lawyer who filed a request to stay Jamal's deportation on Friday. [...] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-chemistry-professor-ice-arrest-20180204-story.html original https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/02/04/a-chemistry-professor-got-his-kids-ready-for-school-then-ice-arrested-him-on-his-front-lawn/
Regulators who targeted anti-vaccine doctor may pay millions for humiliating him - Alex Jones gonna love this one Mark Geier built a medical practice in Rockville and a national reputation for propagating the discredited theory that vaccines cause autism. The Maryland Board of Physicians suspended his license seven years ago because he was treating autistic children with a drug considered dangerous for young people and not known to alleviate symptoms of the disorder. But the regulators who stripped Geier’s credentials are now in the hot seat, ordered to each personally pay tens of thousands of dollars in damages by a judge who says the board abused its power in an attempt to humiliate the doctor and his family. The board posted a cease-and-desist order on its website in 2012 alleging that Geier had improperly prescribed medication for himself, his wife and his son while his license was suspended. In an unusual move, the order named the drugs in question. Online critics of Geier took notice, mocking the doctor and his family in blogs and comments for their use of the medications. The Geiers say the state publicized those details for vengeance, to punish a doctor with unconventional ideas. State officials say it was an honest mistake. But Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Ronald B. Rubin sided with the Geiers, awarding them $2.5 million in damages. He called the order a significant breach of medical privacy and accused the board and its staff of failing to preserve emails related to the case and pleading ignorance about the order on the witness stand. [...] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/regulators-who-targeted-anti-vaccine-doctor-may-pay-millions-for-humiliating-him/2018/02/03/b63ea6dc-faf8-11e7-ad8c-ecbb62019393_story.html