Trump wins. Hillary speech.

Trump wins. Hillary Speech.

"Keep your friends close. Watch your wife closer"

Election 2016 Mania: Nate still says Clinton wins. 71% chance.

Election 2016: Undecideds will decide the vote.

If they split evenly, this is a landslide victory for Hillary Clinton.

If they split towards Trump, the Donald could win.

Election 2016: Slate still has Clinton winning in Florida. Last 4.2M Clinton vs. 3.9M Trump.

Trump and Farage

Former leader of the UK Independent Party Nigel Farage, credited for Brexit, addressed the audience at a Trump campaign rally in Jackson, Mississippi on Wednesday night. Farage left the UKIP after the United Kingdom voted to 'leave' the European Union.

"You can beat the pollsters, you can beat the commentators, you can beat Washington," Farage said to cheers. "If you want change, you better get your walking boots on."

"Anything is possible if enough decent people want to fight the establishment," Farage said.

Farage also took a shot at President Barack Obama for campaigning against Brexit. 

"The big card the prime minister (David Cameron) decided to play in the referendum is he got a foreign visitor to come to London to talk to us. Yes, we were visited by one Barack Obama. And he talked down to us. He treated us as if we were nothing," Farage said.

"I wouldn't vote for Hillary Clinton if you paid me!" Farage jokingly said to the crowd. 

"I wouldn't vote for Hillary Clinton if she paid me!" Farage said to laughter.

Source: RealClearPolitics

The New Amazon Kindle

The new Kindle Paperwhite Kindle.

Highest resolution e-reader display

With twice as many pixels as the previous generation, Kindle Paperwhite has an improved high-resolution 300 ppi display for crisp, laser quality text. No other e-reader offers a higher resolution display.

No glare in bright sunlight

Unlike reflective tablet and smartphone screens, Kindle Paperwhite reads like paper.

Read comfortably with one hand

Lighter than a paperback, comfortably hold Kindle Paperwhite in one hand for those times when you can’t put the book down.

Charge monthly, not daily

Kindle Paperwhite won't leave you tethered to an outlet. A single charge can last up to six weeks (based on a half hour of reading per day with wireless turned off and the light setting at ten).

Won't tire your eyes in the dark

Kindle Paperwhite guides light toward the surface of the display with its built-in front light—unlike back-lit tablets that shine in your eyes—so you can read comfortably for hours without eyestrain. Adjust your screen's brightness for great reading in any light.

Next-generation reading experience

Kindle Paperwhite now offers Bookerly, an exclusive font crafted from the ground up for reading on digital screens. Warm and contemporary, Bookerly is inspired by the artistry of the best fonts in modern print books, but is hand-crafted for great readability at any font size. 

Typesetting engine lays out words just as the author intended for beautiful rendering of pages. With improved character spacing and the addition of hyphenation, justification, kerning, ligatures, and drop cap support, our best-in-class typography helps you read faster with less eyestrain. 

Enjoy reading with larger font sizes without compromising your reading experience. Page layout and margins automatically adapt to work well at even the largest font sizes. The new typography and layout improvements are available on over half a million books, including many best sellers, with thousands more being added every week.

Lose yourself in a book

By design, Kindle Paperwhite is purpose-built for reading and creates a sanctuary so you can lose yourself in a book. Unlike tablets and phones, Kindle doesn’t distract you with social media, emails, and text messages.

NATIONAL SECURITY Source: No 'coincidence' Romanian hacker Guccifer extradited amid Clinton probe

The extradition of Romanian hacker “Guccifer” to the U.S. at a critical point in the FBI’s criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email use is “not a coincidence,” according to an intelligence source close to the case.

One of the notches on Guccifer’s cyber-crime belt was allegedly accessing the email account of Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal, one of Clinton’s most prolific advice-givers when she was secretary of state. It was through that hack that Clinton's use of a personal account -- clintonemail.com -- first came to light. 

Former law enforcement and cyber security experts said the hacker, whose real name is Marcel Lehel Lazar, could – now that he’s in the U.S. – help the FBI make the case that Clinton’s email server was compromised by a third party, one that did not have the formal backing and resources of a foreign intelligence service such as that of Russia, China or Iran. 

“Because of the proximity to Sidney Blumenthal and the activity involving Hillary’s emails, [the timing] seems to be something beyond curious,” said Ron Hosko, former assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division from 2012-2014.

Source: Fox News

Reprinted from Japan Times

Tokyo orders SDF to shoot down North Korean missile if threat to Japan

BY REIJI YOSHIDA AND AYAKO MIE

STAFF WRITERS

Japan on Wednesday condemned Pyongyang’s plan to launch a space rocket, calling it a thinly disguised test of a long-distance ballistic missile.

The government ordered Aegis ballistic missile defense warships of the Maritime Self-Defense Force and land-based Patriot PAC-3 rocket units to respond should projections show components falling in Japanese territory.

“This will effectively mean the firing of a ballistic missile. It would be a clear violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions and a grave, provocative act against the security of our country,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a Lower House session Wednesday.

“Japan, in cooperation with the United States and South Korea, will strongly urge North Korea to refrain from (conducting) the launch,” Abe said.

On Tuesday night, North Korea notified the International Maritime Organization that it plans to send a “satellite” into orbit between Feb. 8 and 25. It said the launch will take place on one of those days between 7:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Japan time.

Pyongyang conducted a fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6. The planned launch is widely seen as both a test and a demonstration of its advances in rocketry.

Feb. 16 is the birthday of late leader Kim Jong Il, the father of current leader Kim Jong Un. Observers believe the launch window has been set around the day for domestic purposes — to bolster the nation’s morale.

During a daily news conference, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga pointed out that the projectile, expected to be launched from a site in western North Korea, would fly over part of the Sakishima island chain of Okinawa Prefecture, which includes the islands of Ishigaki and Miyako.

Japan lodged a formal protest with the North’s embassy in Beijing at 7:55 a.m. on Wednesday, Suga said.

“U.N. Security Council resolutions have repeatedly banned any launch by North Korea that uses ballistic missile technologies,” Suga said.

Meanwhile, Defense Minister Gen Nakatani ordered the Self-Defense Forces to destroy any parts of the rocket should they threaten to fall within Japanese territory.

Japan has already deployed Aegis destroyers equipped with the SM-3 missile system at sea and Patriot PAC-3 air-defense units of the Ground Self-Defense Forces on land. Both systems are designed to intercept ballistic missiles.

Their primary mission is seen as monitoring the launch, but the deployment also appears to be a gesture underlining Japan’s determination to defend its territory.

Pyongyang’s declared plan would involve three parts of the rocket falling west of the Korean Peninsula, in the East China Sea southwest of the peninsula and in the Pacific Ocean east of the Philippines, respectively.

The rocket is expected to fly over the Sakishima island chain, according to a map with navigation warnings posted by the Japan Coast Guard on its website.

The course matches that of a ballistic missile Pyongyang launched in December 2012, Suga said.

Later Wednesday, a high-ranking government official said Pyongyang may be preparing to launch the same type of missile as the one it used in 2012. A Defense Ministry white paper says Pyongyang fired a variant of its Taepodong-2 ballistic missile at that time.

A missile of this type can fly more than 10,000 km if the warhead weighs less than a ton, the Defense Ministry said.

If North Korea develops long-range ballistic missiles using the technologies tested in the launches, “the missiles could have ranges that potentially reach the central, western, and other areas of the U.S. mainland,” the Defense Ministry concluded in its 2015 white paper.

Meanwhile, Washington and Seoul have both condemned Pyongyang’s plan.

“The international community would regard a step like that by the North Koreans as just another irresponsible provocation and a clear violation of their international obligations,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Tuesday in Washington.

“The U.S. has worked closely not just with our allies in South Korea and Japan but also with our partners in China and Russia, to convey to the North Koreans the need to end their provocative actions,” he said.

Earnest also maintained that China has “unique influence over the North Korean regime,” urging Beijing to join the U.S. and its allies to “counter this threat.”

Urging Pyongyang to drop its plan, the government in Seoul said the move would be a serious breach of U.N. resolutions and a “direct challenge” to the international community.

China on Wednesday expressed serious concern over North Korea’s plan, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang calling on Pyongyang to “exercise restraint” and not escalate tensions in the region.

According to the Defense Ministry, Patriot PAC-3 air-defense units have been deployed at bases and facilities of the Self-Defense Forces in Asaka, Saitama Prefecture, Narashino, Chiba Prefecture, and Naha and Chinen of Okinawa Prefecture, as well as at the Defense Ministry’s compound in Tokyo’s Ichigaya district.

The ministry said that it will consider whether further deployment is necessary elsewhere.

Aegis destroyers carrying the SM-3 missile system have been deployed in the East China Sea and the Sea of Japan.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida met with U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy over North Korea’s move Wednesday evening.

“It’s important that Japan and the U.S. coordinate with each other closely. We hope to increase dialogue between us,” Kishida said during the meeting.

Kennedy responded by emphasizing that the trilateral relationship among Japan, the U.S. and South Korea is “critical” to deal with North Korea’s provocations.

Staff writer Tomohiro Osaki also contributed to this report

Bloomberg for President?

Bloomberg for President?

Source: NYT

Michael R. Bloomberg has instructed advisers to draw up plans for a potential independent campaign in this year’s presidential race. His advisers and associates said he was galled by Donald J. Trump’s dominance of the Republican field, and troubled by Hillary Clinton’s stumbles and the rise of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont on the Democratic side.

Mr. Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York City, has in the past contemplated running for the White House on a third-party ticket, but always concluded he could not win. A confluence of unlikely events in the 2016 election, however, has given new impetus to his presidential aspirations.

Mr. Bloomberg, 73, has already taken concrete steps toward a possible campaign, and has indicated to friends and allies that he would be willing to spend at least $1 billion of his fortune on it, according to people briefed on his deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss his plans. He has set a deadline for making a final decision in early March, the latest point at which advisers believe Mr. Bloomberg could enter the race and still qualify to appear as an independent candidate on the ballot in all 50 states.

ManUtd wins vs. Liverpool

Manchester United F.C.

5th in Premier League

Premier League

Anfield, Liverpool

Liverpool

0 - 1

FT

Man United

CIA Spokesman Slams ‘13 Hours’ as ‘Distortion’ of Benghazi Events

CIA Spokesman Slams ‘13 Hours’ as ‘Distortion’ of Benghazi Events

Source: Paramount

"A spokesman for the CIA is criticizing the Michael Bay movie “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi” as a “distortion of the events and people who served in Benghazi that night.”

The spokesman, Ryan Trapani, was quoted in an exclusive Washington Post story, which also features an interview with the CIA chief in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, when Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others were killed in a siege of the diplomatic compound and attack on the CIA annex.

“No one will mistake this movie for a documentary,” Tripani told the Post. “It’s a distortion of the events and people who served in Benghazi that night. It’s shameful that, in order to highlight the heroism of some, those responsible for the movie felt the need to denigrate the courage of other Americans who served in harm’s way.”"

Full article on Variety