Here is a news article: Image copyright AFP Image caption Japan's women's team had been defeated 5-2 in Sunday night's match

 Victory for the US against Japan in the Women's World Cup final turned into a Twitter row on Monday after some fans began to relate the win to Japan's 1941 attack on the US Navy's Pearl Harbor base.

 Pearl Harbor became one of the top trends among Twitter users in the US, attracting thousands of tweets.

 "Hey Japan, that one was for Pearl Harbor," said Cloyd Rivers, in a tweet which drew more than 8,500 retweets and was favourited more than 11,000 times.

 Image copyright Twitter

 The hyper-patriotic account is generally considered to be a parody, but many on Twitter were quick to take up the theme.

 "They destroyed Pearl Habor, we destroyed their dreams," said another user Sean Garcia.

 Others referenced the US atomic bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, with one user remarking: "Someone forgot to tell our US women's team that we already avenged Pearl Harbor."

 Image copyright Twitter

 Image copyright Twitter Image caption This Japanese tweet expresses disbelief towards the negative reaction after the win

 Image copyright Twitter

 'Awful human beings'

 But many Twitter users also condemned the negative reaction expressed by some fans.

 "Pearl Harbor isn't funny. Hiroshima isn't funny. Nagasaki isn't funny," said Twitter user Taylor Perry. "This isn't WW2. This is a women's soccer match in 2015."

 Another user tweeted: "Jokes about bombing, Pearl Harbor and racist remarks are never funny in the first place. Why can't we all just watch the game and cheer?"

 Other Twitter users also rose to the defence of the Japanese fans.

 "Pearl Harbor? I thought the atomic bomb was enough reaction for that," read a tweet.

 "You're not funny. You're awful human beings," said Twitter user Ginge.

 Image copyright Twitter

 Image copyright Twitter ||||| Play Facebook

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 Embed Soccer Fans Celebrate U.S. Women's World Cup Win 1:51 autoplay autoplay Copy this code to your website or blog

 While most Americans celebrated the country's historic soccer win Sunday night, a vocal minority saw the opportunity to stir up a Twitter storm.

 The resounding 5-2 victory by the U.S. Women's National Team over Japan prompted some people to suggest that the game was payback for the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.

 This is for Pearl Harbor pic.twitter.com/jd3ptnxxWM — Yung C Boy (@JGenzy) July 5, 2015

 Japan wishing they never bombed Pearl Harbor right about now... — Joe Head (@JoeHeadTV) July 5, 2015

 That 4th one was for Pearl Harbor. #USA — TA (@TaylorDTTT) July 5, 2015

 More than 2,400 people died in the surprise assault by Japan on the U.S. naval base in Hawaii.

 Others on Twitter used America's third triumph at the Women's World Cup to make barbed comments about the atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, in which at least 135,000 people died.

 Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Vancouver Three locations USA has blown Japan away — Kevin Pierce (@Kpierceswag) July 6, 2015

 "Pearl Harbor" was among the most popular trending topics in the U.S. following the game, ranking alongside the team names "#USAvJPN" and the U.S. goalkeeper "Hope Solo."

 The words "Pearl Harbor" typically get around 500 mentions per day, according to the analytics website Topsy. On Sunday this spiked to more than 50,000 mentions, although many of these were from people expressing outrage at the original joke.

 Pearl Harbor isn't funny. Hiroshima isn't funny. Nagasaki isn't funny. This isn't WW2 this is a women's soccer match in 2015 lol — Tay (@Tayty_Perry) July 5, 2015

 Pro tip: that Pearl Harbor tweet you're typing up...don't send it, keep that to yourself, you heathen. — Kami Mattioli (@kmattio) July 5, 2015 |||||
A summary of this is?

– Shortly after the USA's win over Japan in the Women's World Cup last night, Twitter fans exchanged jubilation and sportsmanship for something much darker: mentions of Pearl Harbor. Several soccer fans suggested the 5-2 victory was a form of payback for the 1941 attack during World War II, reports the BBC. "This is for Pearl Harbor," one less-than-subtle user tweeted along with a photo of Carli Lloyd's face on an atomic bomb. "They destroyed Pearl Harbor, we destroyed their dreams," tweeted another. Yet another wrote "USA has blown Japan away," while referencing Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The New York Daily News reports 120,000 died instantly when two atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945; while 2,403 died in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor tends to get mentioned about 500 times a day on Twitter, analytics website Topsy finds, per NBC News. That number jumped to 50,000 yesterday, but at least some users challenged the trend. "Pearl Harbor isn't funny. Hiroshima isn't funny. Nagasaki isn't funny. This isn't WW2 this is a women's soccer match in 2015," wrote a user.


News article:

Image copyright AFP Image caption Bavarian police have released a picture of a gate found in Norway

 German police say they believe an iron gate stolen in 2014 from a former Nazi concentration camp at Dachau has been found in Norway.

 Bavaria's police say their colleagues in Bergen found a gate with the Nazi slogan "Arbeit Macht Frei" ("Work sets you free") after an anonymous tip-off.

 After receiving photos from Norway, the police say it is "highly likely" to be the infamous gate.

 More than 40,000 people were murdered by the Nazis in Dachau, near Munich.

 Image copyright AFP Image caption The notorious 'Work sets you free' gate before it was stolen

 Built in 1933, the camp at Dachau was the first Nazi concentration camp and it initially housed political prisoners.

 Thousands of Jews, foreigners and other groups persecuted by the Nazis were later held at Dachau. Many inmates were shot or gassed, with thousands others dying through disease or overwork.

 The camp was liberated by US troops in 1945.

 It is now a memorial, attracting hundreds of thousand of visitors from around the world. ||||| A handout picture made available to Reuters on December 2, 2016 shows the iron gate from the Dachau concentration camp in Germany bearing the notorious "Arbeit macht frei" (work sets you free) slogan, which has been recovered in west Norway two years after it was stolen, police said. REUTERS/Police Norway/Handout via Reuters

 (This December 2 story was corrected to change date of camp’s liberation to April 29, 1945, from May 3)

 OSLO (Reuters) - An iron gate from Dachau concentration camp in Germany with the notorious “Arbeit macht frei” (“Work sets you free”) slogan has been found in western Norway two years after it was stolen, police said on Friday.

 “The gate is in okay condition and will be returned to German authorities as soon as practical,” police in the western city of Bergen wrote in a statement.

 Police got an anonymous tip that led to the find and a source said no arrests had been made. They issued two pictures of the gate propped up in a store room, apparently intact and mostly black with some flaking paint.

 German authorities made a replica of the gate, 1.87 meters (6.14 feet) high and weighing 108 kg (238 lbs), which they installed at Dachau last year to mark the 70th anniversary of the camp’s liberation by U.S. troops on April 29, 1945.

 The Nazis set up the camp in Dachau outside Munich only weeks after Adolf Hitler took power. Initially designed to detain political rivals, it became the prototype for a network of concentration camps where 6 million Jews were murdered.

 More than 41,000 died at Dachau and more than 200,000 people had been detained in the camp by the time it was liberated at the end of World War Two.

 Television footage showing piles of bodies and starved inmates of the camp were among the first images the world saw of the Holocaust.

 In December 2009, a similar “Arbeit macht frei” sign was stolen from the entry gate of the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz in Poland by a Swedish man with far-right ties. ||||| An iron gate with the slogan “Arbeit macht frei” (work will set you free) that was stolen from the former Nazi concentration camp in Dachau two years ago has been found in Norway, police say.

 “Due to an anonymous tipoff, police in Norway’s Bergen have secured an iron gate with the well-known text,” Bavaria state police said on Friday. “From the picture transmitted, police believe it is highly likely that this is the iron gate that was stolen from Dachau.”

 The theft of the 100kg (220lb) gate was reported on 2 November 2014, sparking uproar, with Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, calling it “appalling”.

 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Workers install a replacement gate at Dachau in April 2015 after the original was stolen. Photograph: Christof Stache/AFP/Getty Images

 The Dachau camp, just a few miles from Munich, opened in 1933, less than two months after Adolf Hitler became chancellor. It was first used to incarcerate political prisoners, but during the second world war it became a death camp where more than 41,000 Jews were slaughtered before US troops liberated it on 29 April 1945.

 Another sign with the same inscription at Auschwitz was stolen in 2009. The mastermind of that theft, the Swedish neo-Nazi Anders Högström, was caught and jailed for two-and-a-half years.

 The metal sign was eventually recovered cut up into three pieces. A replica was displayed above the entrance until it was restored in 2011. ||||| Story highlights Police didn't release further details on where they found the gate

 The gate has been missing since 2014

 (CNN) An iron gate with the notorious Nazi slogan "Arbeit Macht Frei" stolen from a German concentration camp site most likely has been recovered.

 Authorities said they found a gate that matches the description of the one from the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial in Bergen, Noway, after receiving an anonymous tip.

 The gate has been missing since 2014, despite a reward of $10,000.

 Police didn't release further details on where exactly they found the gate or who tipped them off.

 "This is all the information we have at the moment," a spokesman for Bavarian police told CNN. "International communication is not very fast, we will have to wait for more information."

 Read More |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– Two years ago when someone stole an infamous iron gate from the former Nazi concentration camp at Dachau, Angela Merkel called the theft "appalling" and the director of the Dachau memorial said it was a "deliberate, reprehensible attempt to deny and obliterate the memory of the crimes." On Friday, police announced the gate bearing the Nazi propaganda slogan "Arbeit Macht Frei"—"Work Sets You Free"—has likely been found in Bergen, Norway, following an anonymous tip, the BBC reports. According to CNN, police haven't given any information about the tipper or where specifically the gate was found. No arrests have been made, Reuters reports. Police say the gate, which appears to be in OK condition, will be returned to Germany "as soon as practical." The Nazis opened the Dachau camp in 1933, and by the time it was liberated by US soldiers in 1945, more than 41,000 people—most of them Jews—had been killed there, the Guardian reports. The 220-pound iron gate was made by inmates at the camp, and its slogan was an attempt by the Nazis to pass off the concentration camp as a "work and re-education camp." The Dachau camp is currently a memorial, and German authorities installed a replica gate there last year. A $10,000 reward had been offered for the return of the original gate. A sign with the same "Arbeit Macht Frei" phrase on it was stolen from Auschwitz in 2009 by a Swedish neo-Nazi, who spent more than two years in jail. (A Holocaust-themed skating number didn't go over well.)


– Authorities may have found Christopher Dorner's burned-out truck near Big Bear Lake in California, but the former cop and suspected murderer remains at large this morning, reports the Los Angeles Times. A storm has brought heavy snow and bitter-cold temperatures to the area, which is both a help and a hindrance to the manhunt. Dorner would need serious survival gear if he is indeed still in the woods somewhere. His mother owns undeveloped land in the region, but a search of it turned up nothing. Of course, given Dorner's boasts of planning to bring "warfare" to the LAPD, authorities have to be on guard that they're not walking into a trap, reports AP. Or that he didn't plant the truck there to divert resources while he heads elsewhere. "It makes you wonder," says a former LAPD official. "What is his plan for the end game?"

Expand this summary.

The massive dragnet for a fugitive ex-cop continued Friday, with more than 100 officers conducting a fruitless search in the snowy, forested mountains around Big Bear Lake for an armed gunman who police say is on a vengeful rampage.

 As the falling snow piled up, authorities pledged to continue the manhunt until they find Christopher Jordan Dorner, the 33-year-old former Los Angeles police officer suspected of killing three people, or stumble on definitive evidence that he is no longer in the area.

 The trail has gone cold since Dorner's Nissan Titan pickup was found Thursday morning engulfed in flames on a U.S. Forest Service dirt road between the Bear Mountain and Snow Summit ski resorts. A set of footprints in the snow led away from the burned truck. It took more than five hours for experts to confirm that it was Dorner's vehicle and search parties to begin a methodical sweep of an area stretching across eight square miles.

 While ski-masked SWAT teams went door-to-door checking hundreds of homes and shuttered cabins, other authorities fanned out on foot, slogging through fresh snow with search dogs. The teams combed backcountry and checked every shed, trash bin and barrel where the fugitive could hide. Dorner is described as African American, 6 feet tall and 270 pounds.

 The snow slowed the search, but did not halt it, said Cindy Bachman, a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department. Sheriff John McMahon said the snow has one advantage: It is "great for tracking folks."

 Although following tracks led only to frustration Friday, authorities were relieved by the break in a week of extraordinary interconnected violence.

 Police say that Dorner has killed three people and injured others in a campaign to take revenge on those he blamed for his dismissal from the LAPD four years ago. Investigators are scrutinizing a conspiracy-laden manifesto that they believe was published on Dorner's Facebook page. In the screed, Dorner threatened "unconventional and asymmetrical warfare" against police officers and their families, saying that he has no choice but to kill to reclaim his damaged reputation.

 Police accuse him of killing the daughter of a retired LAPD captain and her fiance, who were found shot to death Sunday in a car in Irvine. While on the run, police said, Dorner shot three police officers, one fatally, in Riverside County.

 With warnings on radio and TV that an armed and deadly fugitive remained at large, police spent hours chasing down bogus leads and erroneous sightings.

 Dorner was purportedly driving a white Lexus near Barstow. He was supposedly spotted entering the county jail in downtown Los Angeles. He was allegedly holed up in a hotel in San Diego or in a park in Norco or at a home next to the Barona Indian Reservation in San Diego County. None of those tips checked out, and authorities are considering false reporting charges against one person who was more prankster than tipster.

 "When you're dealing with a case that's getting this amount of press coverage, you're going to get your share of bad information," said Laura Eimiller, a spokeswoman for the FBI, whose agents searched Dorner's home in Las Vegas and are investigating a package that CNN received, apparently from Dorner, that made various threats. Federal and local authorities also searched the home of his mother, Nancy Dorner, in La Palma, carrying out bags of potential evidence.

 With the possibility of Dorner in the vicinity and the potential for violence, the Bear Valley Unified School District closed all its campuses Friday, and nervous residents locked their doors and made other preparations.

 Roger Curtis, a retired carpenter who lives in Big Bear, said he was watching the manhunt on TV when a car alarm sounded. "I got the guns and loaded them," he said.

 Many residents suspect that Dorner high-tailed it out of the area, but others believe he could be hunkered down in one of many vacant, half-hidden cabins.

 Authorities can only speculate about Dorner's familiarity with the terrain and preparedness to brave a winter storm. Nancy Dorner owns property about 35 miles away in Arrowbear Lake, according to county records. Dorner, who was trained as a police officer and a Navy Reserve officer, learned to hunt in the Utah wilderness as a college student.

 As much as 8 inches of snow fell at higher elevations Friday. The National Weather Service predicts that temperatures will plunge to 16 degrees early Saturday, with the wind chill making it equivalent to -6.

 If Dorner were still hiding in the woods, he would need layered, insulated clothing — and have to avoid getting wet — to survive for very long, said Dr. Brian Prestwich, an assistant professor of clinical family medicine at USC's Keck School of Medicine. Cold weather poses a tremendous, and often unappreciated, threat to human survival.

 "The minute you're exposed to the cold air or you get wet, the clock starts ticking," Prestwich said.

 Dorner's five-hour-plus head start before the search got underway has brought extensive speculation about his whereabouts, including theories from his former boss, retired LAPD Police Chief William J. Bratton.

 Bratton and John Miller, a former LAPD official who is now a CBS correspondent, said they thought the burned truck was "possibly a diversionary tactic to draw people into that area while he's actually heading south."

 The former chief has good reason to be concerned about Dorner's location: In the package Dorner purportedly sent to CNN was a ceremonial coin with Bratton's name on it and three bullet holes — a discovery Bratton called "chilling."

 Police continue to guard at least 40 people mentioned in the anger-filled manifesto.

 Miller speculated that the burning of Dorner's pickup showed potential for calculated "pre-staging" and "planning." If this is premeditated staging, he said, "It makes you wonder: What is his plan for the end game?"

 phil.willon@latimes.com

 joseph.serna@latimes.com

 ken.weiss@latimes.com

 Times staff writers Andrew Blankstein, Ari Bloomekatz, Eryn Brown, John Glionna, Anna Gorman, Robert Lopez, Kate Mather, Rick Rojas and Richard Winton contributed to this report. ||||| The hunt for Christopher Dorner in the snow-covered San Bernardino Mountains is expected to resume at daybreak Saturday, when authorities hope clearer skies will allow airplanes to help them in their search.

 Members on the California Highway Patrol search a truck for Christopher Dorner, a former Los Angeles police officer accused of carrying out a killing spree because he felt he was unfairly fired from his... (Associated Press)

 This undated photo released by the Los Angeles Police Department shows suspect Christopher Dorner, a former Los Angeles officer. Dorner, who was fired from the LAPD in 2008 for making false statements,... (Associated Press)

 Police investigators take away evidence from the home of the mother of fugitive suspect former Los Angeles police officer Christopher Dorner, in La Palma, Calif., on Friday, Feb. 8, 2013. Police agencies... (Associated Press)

 A digital billboard along Santa Monica Boulevard on the west side of Los Angeles shows a "wanted" alert for former Los Angeles police officer Christopher Dorner Friday, Feb. 8, 2013. Dorner is suspected... (Associated Press)

 A San Bernardino County Sheriff SWAT team returns to the command post at Bear Mountain near Big Bear Lake, Calif. after searching for Christopher Jordan Dorner on Friday, Feb. 8, 2013. Search conditions... (Associated Press)

 A San Bernardino County Sheriff SWAT team returns to the command post at Bear Mountain near Big Bear Lake, Calif. after searching for Christopher Jordan Dorner on Friday, Feb. 8, 2013. Search conditions... (Associated Press)

 A San Bernardino County Sheriff SWAT team returns to the command post at Bear Mountain near Big Bear Lake, Calif. after searching for Christopher Jordan Dorner on Friday, Feb. 8, 2013. Search conditions... (Associated Press)

 ADDS DATE VIDEO WAS TAKEN - This image provided by the Irvine Police Department shows Christopher Dorner from Jan. 28, 2013 surveillance video at an Orange County, Calif., hotel. More than 100 officers,... (Associated Press)

 Relentless snowfall on Friday grounded helicopters with heat-sensing technology and hampered their effort to find the former Los Angeles police officer suspected of going on a deadly rampage to get back at those he blamed for ending his career.

 After they found his burned-out pickup truck near at this ski resort town Thursday afternoon, SWAT teams in camouflage started scouring the mountains, aware to the reality they could be walking into a trap set by the well-trained former Navy reservist who knows their tactics and strategies as well as they do.

 "He can be behind every tree," said T. Gregory Hall, a retired tactical supervisor for a special emergency response team for the Pennsylvania State Police. "He can try to draw them into an ambush area where he backtracks."

 As authorities weathered heavy snow and freezing temperatures in the mountains, thousands of heavily armed police remained on the lookout throughout California, Nevada, Arizona and northern Mexico for a suspect bent on revenge and willing to die.

 Police said officers still were guarding more than 40 people mentioned as targets in a rant they said Dorner posted on Facebook. He vowed to use "every bit of small arms training, demolition, ordnance and survival training I've been given" to bring "warfare" to the LAPD and its families.

 The manhunt had Southern California residents on edge. Unconfirmed sightings were reported near Barstow, about 60 miles north of the mountain search, and in downtown Los Angeles.

 Some law enforcement officials said he appeared to be everywhere and nowhere, and speculated that he was trying to spread out their resources.

 For the time being, their focus was on the mountains 80 miles east of Los Angeles _ a snowy wilderness, filled with thick forests and jagged peaks, that creates peril as much for Dorner as the officers hunting him.

 The small army hunting him has the advantage of strength in numbers and access to resources, such as special weapons, to bring him in.

 In his online rant, Dorner baited authorities.

 "Any threat assessments you generate will be useless," it read. "I have the strength and benefits of being unpredictable, unconventional, and unforgiving."

 Without the numbers that authorities have, Dorner holds one advantage: the element of surprise.

 Authorities said they do not know how long Dorner had been planning the rampage or why he drove to the San Bernardino Mountains. Property records show his mother owns undeveloped land nearby, but a search of the area found no sign of him.

 It was not clear if he had provisions, clothing or weapons stockpiled in the area. Even with training, days of cold and snow can be punishing.

 "Unless he is an expert in living in the California mountains in this time of year, he is going to be hurting," said former Navy SEAL Clint Sparks, who now works in tactical training and security. "Cold is a huge stress factor. ... Not everybody is survivor-man."

 Jamie Usera, an attorney in Salem, Ore., who befriended Dorner when they were students and football teammates at Southern Utah University, said he introduced him to the outdoors. Originally from Alaska, Usera said, he taught Dorner about hunting and other outdoor activities.

 "Of all the people I hung out with in college, he is the last guy I would have expected to be in this kind of situation," Usera, who had lost touch with Dorner is recent years, told the Los Angeles Times.

 Others saw Dorner differently. Court documents obtained by The Associated Press on Friday show an ex-girlfriend of Dorner's called him "severely emotionally and mentally disturbed" after the two split in 2006.

 Dorner served in the Navy, earning a rifle marksman ribbon and pistol expert medal. He was assigned to a naval undersea warfare unit and various aviation training units, according to military records. He took leave from the LAPD for a six-month deployment to Bahrain in 2006 and 2007.

 Last Friday was his last day with the Navy and also the day CNN's Anderson Cooper received a package that contained a note on it that read, in part, "I never lied." A coin riddled with bullet holes that former Chief William Bratton gave out as a souvenir was also in the package.

 Police said it was a sign of planning by Dorner before the killing began.

 On Sunday, police say Dorner shot and killed a couple in a parking garage at their condominium in Irvine. The woman was the daughter of a retired police captain who had represented Dorner in the disciplinary proceedings that led to his firing.

 Dorner wrote in his manifesto that he believed the retired captain had represented the interests of the department over his.

 Hours after authorities identified Dorner as a suspect in the double murder, police believe Dorner shot and grazed an LAPD officer in Corona and then used a rifle to ambush two Riverside police officers early Thursday, killing one and seriously wounding the other.

 The incident led police to believe he was armed with multiple weapons, including an assault-type rifle. That detail concerned officers whose bullet-proof vests can be penetrated by such high-powered weapons, said LAPD Deputy Chief Kirk Albanese.

 As a result, all LAPD officers have been required to work in pairs to ensure "a greater likelihood of coming out on top if there is an ambush," Albanese said. "We have no officers alone right now."

 ___

 Associated Press writers contributing to this report include Michael Blood and John Antczak in Los Angeles and Julie Watson in San Diego.

 Risling reported from Big Bear Lake and Abdollah reported from Los Angeles. She can be reached on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/LATams |||||


If the Republicans still harbor any doubts about whether or not they should shut down the government, those doubts should be long gone for one simple reason: if David Stockman is for it, it must be a bad idea.

 “Bring it on!” the erstwhile Reagan budget chief told the Daily Beast’s Lloyd Grove. “I think the Republicans need to stand rigidly firm and shut the government down for a few days. The Obama White House is weak. If the Republicans hold the line, Obama will fold faster than a lawn chair. And the Republicans will get their $60 billion in reductions.” ||||| Former budget director David Stockman says America must deal with its mountain of debt, and faces an epoch of falling incomes and a stalled economy. “Bring it on,” he tells Lloyd Grove about the government shutdown.

 Feeling depressed about the budget negotiations in Washington—the meaningless posturing, the colossal deficit, the looming government shutdown, and the nation’s collective inability to come to grips with the real problem?

 David Stockman at home in Greenwich, Connecticut. (Photo: Douglas Healey, Bloomberg / Getty Images) Leave it to David Stockman, the acid-tongued former budget director for President Reagan, to make you feel even worse.

 “Bring it on,” Stockman told me Thursday morning from his estate in Greenwich, Connecticut—some 40 hours before the midnight Friday deadline that, absent an agreement between President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker John Boehner, will result in furloughs, federal dysfunction and untold harm to the fragile economy. “I think the Republicans need to stand rigidly firm and shut the government down for a few days. The Obama White House is weak. If the Republicans hold the line, Obama will fold faster than a lawn chair. And the Republicans will get their $60 billion in reductions.”

 Stockman described the impending showdown as a “wakeup call”—the political equivalent of getting whacked in the head by a two-by-four containing a rusty nail.

 “And then,” Stockman added in a tone of lethal glee, “they’re going to be calling their own bluff. Because at that point the problem will remain 98 percent as large as it was the morning before.”

 The 64-year-old Stockman, who made millions as an investment banker after serving as a Michigan congressman and then Reagan’s fiscal guru in the early 1980s, makes Debbie Downer sound like a cockeyed optimist. During a conversation punctuated by mirthless laughter, he characterized America’s elected officials as “the fools inside the Beltway,” dismissed House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, generally celebrated as the GOP’s brightest policy star, as “an earnest young man” who offers discredited ideology over practical solutions, and predicted a long and agonizing epoch in which incomes will fall, the economy will stall and reality’s bite will leave painful tooth marks.

 “If the Republicans hold the line, Obama will fold faster than a lawn chair.”

 • Patricia Murphy: The Tea Party’s Budget Freakout

 • Daniel Stone: The Capitol Hill Shutdown Slumber Party

 • Government Shutdown: Full coverage “The real issue now is that the Tea Party needs to shut down the government or shut down Boehner,” Stockman said. “Boehner is as prone to cave as Obama. So how can we have any confidence that Washington is ever going to address anything when you have two guys who love to kick the can down the road?”

 Stockman went on: “The Democrats are not doing anything about their guy either. They should be pounding the table—why aren’t we cutting the defense budget by $100 billion a year instead of this embarrassing pinprick [$78 billion over five years] that [Defense Secretary Robert] Gates has come up with? It’s unfortunate, but when you bury yourself in $52 trillion of debt—public, private, business, housing and government—you can’t make it go away. Because all the people who loaned you that money think they have a contract with you to pay it back. So we’re going to go through a massive workout, and during that process I don’t think the economy’s going to grow—it’s going to struggle and suffer. Those are the facts that Washington is unwilling to face.”

 Stockman—who in 1981 wrote the guidelines for a government shutdown that, three decades later, are still the template for the action he favors—insisted that the economic consequences of temporarily laying off one-fourth of the country’s 4 million federal employees and closing the doors of various agencies, have been greatly exaggerated in the service of demagoguery.

 “I think that’s a lot of baloney that’s being put out by the interest groups and lobbies and the White House,” Stockman told me, reacting to the Democrats’ dire claims of a new recession. “A few days or even a few weeks of a very few people on furlough—most of whom are likely to get back pay, because that has been the precedent in the past—once this crisis is over, how is that going to affect a $15 trillion economy?

 “If the Smithsonian, the Parks Service and the Cherry Blossom Festival get delayed or canceled, it’s the wakeup call that we really needed. The fools inside the Beltway are borrowing $100 billion month in and month out, and there’s nobody left in the world buying except the central banks—the Fed and the people’s printing press of China. There’s no way that’s sustainable or viable. It’s simply building up pressure in the monetary system that’s going to blow sky-high.”

 While cheering the Tea Party Republicans’ demand of $60 billion in cuts, Stockman lamented their insistence on attaching polarizing policy riders forbidding funding for Planned Parenthood and other right-wing pariahs. “I don’t agree with that. It’s unfortunate that these social issues get caught up in what essentially is the core fiscal question.”

 Stockman took special aim at Chairman Ryan, who this week proposed a politically risky budget that Thursday garnered laurels from The Wall Street Journal for attacking the festering growth of entitlement costs, particularly through Medicare reform.

 “I think he has a nice philosophical plan for the fiscal hereafter, two or three decades down the road,” Stockman sniffed. “But it is neither courageous nor relevant when it comes to the fiscal here and now… It’s a fine plan that starts in 2021. We need to deal with revenue, entitlements, defense and discretionaries, and the problem with his plan is it doesn’t address more than one of those appropriately. Discretionaries, yes, but it totally whiffs on the other three—which are much more important.”

 Stockman points out that, at current levels, “Social Security and Medicare alone will cost $17.2 trillion over the next 10 years—a startling number. How much does this courageous budget cut from the entitlements over the next 10 years? Zero! None! Nothing! Ryan is taking a nice philosophical stand for the by and by—I call it the fiscal afterlife. But it’s not relevant to the wolf that’s at the door right now, and it’s going to exact huge amounts of political cost and baggage for no gain at all on the fiscal front.”

 Also galling to Stockman: “The Republicans have come with a plan to reduce the deficit that involves cutting taxes by $4.2 trillion over the next 10 years. This is the Ryan plan: burying us that much deeper because of this Republican catechism about tax cuts, anytime, anywhere, for any reason.” Stockman said letting the current tax cuts expire, as called for in the next few years, will eventually produce $600 billion in deficit reduction. “The Republicans should just sit on their hands and let it happen.”

 Meanwhile, Stockman told me that the abnormally low interest rate on the $14 trillion national debt—currently near zero—is likely to rise to normal levels in coming years by at least 300 basis points, or 3 percent. “This morning the European Central Bank started that process by raising interest rates—a little more enlightened than the Fed. It’s kind of ironic—an increase of 300 basis points, a few quarters or years down the road, increases federal spending by half a trillion dollars. All of the assembled congressmen of every stripe and viewpoint—from Tea Party to left-liberal—could not come up with $500 billion in cuts between them.”

 As a former congressman, Stockman acknowledged that the prospect of a shutdown isn’t without peril for the House Republicans. After all, even right-wing firebrand Michele Bachmann, the de facto leader of the Tea Party in the House, is on record supporting efforts to avoid this severe outcome.

 “Maybe the public doesn’t like this,” Stockman said. “You have this fight going on between the 83 youngsters, the Tea Party newbies, and the Boehner crowd that remembers 1995 well. If the public reacts badly to a shutdown, that will be a message to the Republicans that you are totally out to lunch, thinking you can address a $1.6 trillion deficit, and spending 43 cents on every dollar for borrowing, without tax increases. Because the public just shouted you down when you made the modest pinprick cut on your domestic spending, and to do that you shut down the government? We need to find out where the public is. ”

 Doubtless, we will.

 Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.

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 For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com. |||||

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– How do you know that shutting down the government is an absolutely terrible idea? Because David Stockman is for it, reasons Dee Dee Myers in Vanity Fair. “Bring it on!” declared Stockman, Ronald Reagan’s one-time budget guru, in a Daily Beast interview. “If the Republicans hold the line, Obama will fold faster than a lawn chair.” Stockman, for the uninitiated, led Reagan’s war on the “welfare state” and once confessed that the president's tax cuts were a “Trojan Horse” to bring down rates on the rich. It’s “kind of hard to sell trickle down,” he said. Now, three decades later, trickle down’s been thoroughly discredited—even George HW Bush called it “voodoo economics”—but Republicans have stuck with it, leading us to these massive deficits, “all in the name of a crackpot ideology,” Myers writes. “So when David Stockman speaks, don’t walk, Republicans, run—as fast as you can, in the opposite direction.”


Summarize this article:

* Top investigator put on leave for misleading public

 * He said up to 60 people murdered and their fat extracted

 By Terry Wade

 LIMA, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Peru suspended its top organized crime investigator on Tuesday after he misled the country by saying he had caught a gang of serial killers who acted out an ancient Andean legend and sold their victims’ fat.

 Eusebio Felix was put on leave from his job for telling Peruvians last month that four suspected murderers apprehended by police were "Pishtacos" — the legendary killers who roam the Andes mountains extracting fat from travelers.

 In the legend, the Pishtacos strung-up the torsos of their victims above candles and heated them to collect fat.

 Police initially said the gang murdered up to 60 victims and exported their fat for thousands of dollars a liter to Italian cosmetics makers. In the end, there may have been only one victim.

 When they announced their big find, police held a news conference and displayed what they said was human fat stored in an empty bottle of Inca Kola, the electric-yellow soft drink popular in the Andes.

 They also showed a video of police pulling body parts from a shallow grave at a house in the mountainous region of Huanuco.

 But on Tuesday, after weeks of doubts about the case, police in Lima, the capital, said the investigation had been botched.

 General Miguel Hidalgo, the head of Peru’s police, said he was embarrassed.

 "This affects the image and respectability of the police," he said.

 Police in Huanuco, who complain they were excluded from the inquiry, said there was only one murder victim and that he was linked to the cocaine trade.

 They believe the four alleged killers, who are still in custody, may have bottled his fat to intimidate their rivals in an area rife with drug trafficking and violence.

 Police have been harshly criticized.

 Anthropologists said investigators foolishly believed the Pishtacos legend when searching for a motive for the murder, and then played on people’s fears by turning the legend into reality.

 "It seems a myth that has been in Peruvian culture for a long time was used to explain a very strange crime," said Juan Rivera of the Catholic University in Lima.

 Politicians blamed the police for scaring away tourists.

 "This has been a ruse of bad taste," said Jorge Espinoza, president of the region of Huanuco.

 Doctors said it would be pointless to kill people to harvest their fat when it could be easily collected from plastic surgery clinics that perform tummy tucks.

 "We wouldn’t throw out hundreds of liters of human fat if it were worth $15,000 a liter," said Julio Castro of Peru’s board of medicine. Others said fat spoils too quickly to be useful. (Additional reporting by Carlos Valdez and Enrique Mandujano; Editing by Eric Beech) ((terry.wade@reuters.com; +51 1 221 2130; Reuters Messaging: terry.wade.reuters.com@reuters.net))

  ||||| By Dan Collyns

 BBC News, Lima

 Police had displayed what they said were bottles of human fat to reporters Peru's police chief has suspended a top investigator for saying he had caught a gang who were murdering people to sell their fat. Last month, top organised crime investigator Felix Murga said police had arrested four suspects who confessed to murdering up to 60 people. He said they were selling their fat for thousands of dollars a litre. But the macabre tale now appears to be nothing more than a tall story - or a big fat lie. 'Sold-on' In an extraordinary press conference, police showed two bottles of what they said was human fat and a photo of a decapitated head. Mr Murga told journalists how four suspects had confessed to gruesome murders reviving an Andean legend about the Pishtacos - mythical killers who murdered people on lonely roads to collect their fat. But two weeks later a complete lack of evidence showed the police account to be more fiction that fact. As a result Peru's chief of police, Miguel Hidalgo, announced Mr Murga would be put on indefinite leave from his job for sullying the reputation of his unit. Initial doubts were compounded when police from the region where the crimes were alleged to have taken place said they knew nothing about a gang of murderers killing people for their fat. They were only able to corroborate one of the dozens of alleged disappearances in a region where drug-trafficking and violence is rife. Mr Murga and the head of the anti-kidnapping unit had also claimed the fat was sold for thousands of dollars in the European black market supplying the cosmetics industry, but could not confirm any sales. Medical experts dismissed this theory, saying human fat had no monetary value and injecting it from one person to another would be potentially life-threatening. Some anthropologists say the police's story deliberately played on an old Peruvian myth to explain crimes which the police had failed to investigate fully. Other observers say this story was just one of many embellished or invented news stories used as a smokescreen which are intended to distract the general public from the real issues facing Peru.

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– The Peruvian cop who claimed to have busted a crime ring that killed dozens of people to harvest their fat has been suspended for lying. Felix Murga, the country's top organized crime investigator, said that a gang had killed 60 people to sell their fat at $15,000 a liter. Investigators now believe there was just one victim and his murder was linked to drug trafficking, the BBC reports. Murga appears to have revived an ancient Andean legend of killers who roam the mountains extracting fat from travelers, say authorities, who blame him for damaging the police force's reputation and scaring tourists away. "This has been a ruse of bad taste," a local politician tells Reuters.


The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term of four years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same term, be elected, as follows:

 Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector.

 The electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves. And they shall make a list of all the persons voted for, and of the number of votes for each; which list they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such majority, and have an equal number of votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for President; and if no person have a majority, then from the five highest on the list the said House shall in like manner choose the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each state having one vote; A quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. In every case, after the choice of the President, the person having the greatest number of votes of the electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal votes, the Senate shall choose from them by ballot the Vice President.

 The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes; which day shall be the same throughout the United States.

 No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States.

 In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by law provide for the case of removal, death, resignation or inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what officer shall then act as President, and such officer shall act accordingly, until the disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.

 The President shall, at stated times, receive for his services, a compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that period any other emolument from the United States, or any of them.

 Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation:--"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

 The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.

 He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law: but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.

 The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session.

 He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper; he shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers; he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the officers of the United States.

 The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. ||||| Why it matters: A funding freeze could be seen as a slap against the organization — which the U.S. and Israel consider to be biased against Israel and too politicized — and an attempt to pressure the Palestinians to return to peace talks with Israel. But a State Department official said that the fact the money wasn't transferred on Jan. 1 doesn't mean it was frozen. "There are still deliberations taking place, and we have until mid January to decide what we are going to do,” the official said.

 The Trump administration has frozen $125 million in funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which provides aid to Palestinian refugees, according to three Western diplomats who were informed of the move. They said the funding, one third of the annual U.S. donations to the agency, was supposed to be transferred by Jan. 1 but was withheld.

 The details: The diplomats, who asked to speak on conditions of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said the funding was frozen until the Trump administration finishes its review of U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority.

 The move comes after the Palestinian Authority suspended their contacts with the Trump administration in response to its decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. A senior White House official said no decision have been made yet, but confirmed that a review of the U.S. assistance to the Palestinians is underway "in light of the Palestinians' recent conduct."

 The diplomats added that U.S. officials told U.N. officials in the last two days that President Trump is considering totally cutting the part of the funding which was frozen, and is even considering cutting up to $180 million, which amounts to half of the U.S. funding to UNRWA.

 The impact: The Western diplomats said freezing or cutting of such a big part of the U.S. funding would be catastrophic for the organization, would hamper its work and might lead to negative consequences for the Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan and Lebanon.

 U.N. secretary general António Guterres has spoken with senior U.S. official about the UNRWA funding and also consulted with foreign ministers from other donor countries, according to the diplomats.

 The Israeli security establishment and the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories — the Israeli organization that oversees government activities in the West Bank and Gaza — are concerned about possible freezing or cutting of U.S. funding to UNRWA, fearing the escalation of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

 “The humanitarian situation in Gaza is complicated enough and harming UNRWA funding will only make it more complicated," a senior Israeli security official told me.

 What we're hearing: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not enthusiastic about the cutting of U.S. funding to UNRWA, but is politically pressed by conservative ministers in his cabinet and by the fact he can't be more dovish on the Palestinian issue than President Trump.

 Officials in the prime minister's office told diplomats from several western countries that Israel does not object to the cutting of U.S. funding to the Palestinian Authority, but prefers that the U.S. doesn't cut funding to UNRWA due to the fact it also serves Israeli security interests.

 A senior Israeli official told me Netanyahu is in touch with the White House on the UNRWA funding issue, and conveyed the message that Israel prefers “gradual disengagement" with UNRWA by the U.S. and not a big funding cut.

 The prime minister's office said in a statement: "Netanyahu supports President Trump's critical attitude towards UNRWA and believes practical steps need to be taken in order to change the fact that UNRWA is being used to entrench the Palestinian refugee problem instead of solving it." ||||| This is the full text of the Articles of Impeachment adopted by the House Judiciary Committee on July 27, 1974.

 Note: The articles of impeachment were passed only by the Committee on the Judiciary. They were never voted on in the full House of Representatives. Nixon was not impeached.

 Article 1 RESOLVED, That Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanours, and that the following articles of impeachment to be exhibited to the Senate: ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT EXHIBITED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IN THE NAME OF ITSELF AND OF ALL OF THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AGAINST RICHARD M. NIXON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, IN MAINTENANCE AND SUPPORT OF ITS IMPEACHMENT AGAINST HIM FOR HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANOURS. ARTICLE 1 In his conduct of the office of President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his consitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has prevented, obstructed, and impeded the administration of justice, in that: On June 17, 1972, and prior thereto, agents of the Committee for the Re-election of the President committed unlawful entry of the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, District of Columbia, for the purpose of securing political intelligence. Subsequent thereto, Richard M. Nixon, using the powers of his high office, engaged personally and through his close subordinates and agents, in a course of conduct or plan designed to delay, impede, and obstruct the investigation of such illegal entry; to cover up, conceal and protect those responsible; and to conceal the existence and scope of other unlawful covert activities. The means used to implement this course of conduct or plan included one or more of the following: making false or misleading statements to lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States; withholding relevant and material evidence or information from lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States; approving, condoning, acquiescing in, and counselling witnesses with respect to the giving of false or misleading statements to lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States and false or misleading testimony in duly instituted judicial and congressional proceedings; interfering or endeavouring to interfere with the conduct of investigations by the Department of Justice of the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the office of Watergate Special Prosecution Force, and Congressional Committees; approving, condoning, and acquiescing in, the surreptitious payment of substantial sums of money for the purpose of obtaining the silence or influencing the testimony of witnesses, potential witnesses or individuals who participated in such unlawful entry and other illegal activities; endeavouring to misuse the Central Intelligence Agency, an agency of the United States; disseminating information received from officers of the Department of Justice of the United States to subjects of investigations conducted by lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States, for the purpose of aiding and assisting such subjects in their attempts to avoid criminal liability; making or causing to be made false or misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States into believing that a thorough and complete investigation had been conducted with respect to allegations of misconduct on the part of personnel of the executive branch of the United States and personnel of the Committee for the Re-election of the President, and that there was no involvement of such personnel in such misconduct: or endeavouring to cause prospective defendants, and individuals duly tried and convicted, to expect favoured treatment and consideration in return for their silence or false testimony, or rewarding individuals for their silence or false testimony. In all of this, Richard M. Nixon has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore Richard M. Nixon, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office. Adopted 27-11 by the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives, at 7.07pm on Saturday, 27th July, 1974, in Room 2141 of the Rayburn Office Building, Washington D.C. Listen to the roll call of the Judiciary Committee on the First Article of Impeachment:

 Listen to the Announcement of the Vote:

 Article 2 Using the powers of the office of President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in disregard of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has repeatedly engaged in conduct violating the constitutional rights of citizens, impairing the due and proper administration of justice and the conduct of lawful inquiries, or contravening the laws governing agencies of the executive branch and the purposed of these agencies. This conduct has included one or more of the following: He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavoured to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposed not authorized by law, and to cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be intitiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner. He misused the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secret Service, and other executive personnel, in violation or disregard of the constitutional rights of citizens, by directing or authorizing such agencies or personnel to conduct or continue electronic surveillance or other investigations for purposes unrelated to national security, the enforcement of laws, or any other lawful function of his office; he did direct, authorize, or permit the use of information obtained thereby for purposes unrelated to national security, the enforcement of laws, or any other lawful function of his office; and he did direct the concealment of certain records made by the Federal Bureau of Investigation of electronic surveillance. He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, in violation or disregard of the constitutional rights of citizens, authorized and permitted to be maintained a secret investigative unit within the office of the President, financed in part with money derived from campaign contributions, which unlawfully utilized the resources of the Central Intelligence Agency, engaged in covert and unlawful activities, and attempted to prejudice the constitutional right of an accused to a fair trial. He has failed to take care that the laws were faithfully executed by failing to act when he knew or had reason to know that his close subordinates endeavoured to impede and frustrate lawful inquiries by duly constituted executive, judicial and legislative entities concerning the unlawful entry into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, and the cover-up thereof, and concerning other unlawful activities including those relating to the confirmation of Richard Kleindienst as Attorney General of the United States, the electronic surveillance of private citizens, the break-in into the offices of Dr. Lewis Fielding, and the campaign financing practices of the Committee to Re-elect the President. In disregard of the rule of law, he knowingly misused the executive power by interfering with agencies of the executive branch, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Criminal Division, and the Office of Watergate Special Prosecution Force, of the Department of Justice, and the Central Intelligence Agency, in violation of his duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. In all of this, Richard M. Nixon has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore Richard M. Nixon, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office. Adopted 28-10 by the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives. ||||| Tweet with a location

 You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| President Donald Trump, or any other commander in chief, can't be found guilty of obstructing justice because the Constitution says so, according to one of Trump’s top lawyers.

 John Dowd, among several attorneys representing the president, told Axios that the Constitution makes Trump the nation's top cop, so by definition the president "cannot obstruct justice, because he is the chief law enforcement officer," Dowd said. He added that Trump "has every right to express his view of any case."

 The latter comment refers to Trump's tweets dismissing special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into the Trump campaign's alleged collusion with Russia during the 2016 election. Most recently, Michael Flynn, the president's former national security adviser and campaign aide, pleaded guilty on Friday to lying to the FBI, and one day later, Trump's Twitter account posted a comment that could help bolster a case of obstruction:

 “I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!” Trump posted, the first time he suggested he knew Flynn lied to investigators.

 The tweet could be seen as evidence of obstruction of justice because Trump later reportedly asked then-FBI Director James Comey to “let” the Flynn thing “go."

 Dowd said that he wrote the tweet. Not that it matters, because the president can't be found guilty of obstruction, the lawyer claims.

 It’s not clear which section of the Constitution's Article II Dowd was referencing, though Section Two does read: “ The president] may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices.”

 Keep up with this story and more by subscribing now

 But according to Dowd, the tweet was the furthest thing from an admission of guilt or obstruction.

 "The tweet did not admit obstruction. That is an ignorant and arrogant assertion,” Dowd told Axios.

 Dowd’s comments hark back to former President Richard Nixon’s defense of his actions in office. Nixon, who resigned in August 1974 before he could be impeached, famously said during his interviews with British journalist David Frost in 1977 that “when the president does it, that means it is not illegal.”

 REUTERS/James Lawler Duggan

 In Nixon’s case, he was talking about the cover-up in the Watergate scandal, while Trump’s case involves the president’s powers over the Justice Department. Trump lamented in November that the “saddest thing” about being president is that he is “not supposed to be involved with the Justice Department” and the “FBI.”

 Trump then asked why the Justice Department was not going after his former presidential opponent, Hillary Clinton, and her private email server scandal. He also wondered why the department was not investigating Clinton’s campaign for hiring the company that created the infamous Trump-Russia dossier that has dogged Trump’s first year in office. |||||

Write a summary.

– The Trump attorney who says he penned the "sloppy" tweet that some say indicates a possible obstruction of justice isn't done making headlines. John Dowd spoke to Axios' Mike Allen, scoffing at criticism of the tweet regarding Mike Flynn, which suggested Trump knew the former national security adviser had lied to the FBI before Trump canned James Comey. "The tweet did not admit obstruction," Dowd says. "That is an ignorant and arrogant assertion." Plus, the Constitution has Trump's back, per Dowd. "[The] president cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer under [the Constitution's Article II] and has every right to express his view of any case," he claims. Newsweek notes it's not clear which section of Article II Dowd refers to, though it speculates on one part involving the president seeking the opinion "of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices." Allen notes that with this pronouncement, Trump's legal team is "setting the stage" to keep Trump insulated from obstruction of justice or collusion charges in the Russia probe—meaning, Allen speculates, that his lawyers may be nervous charges are coming down the pike. But one of Barack Obama's former counsels notes "it is certainly possible" for Trump to have obstructed justice, and Allen points out Richard Nixon's Articles of Impeachment were jump-started with the assertion that Nixon "has prevented, obstructed, and impeded the administration of justice." But whether Trump can or can't be held responsible for such a transgression may be moot, Allen adds. "The one thing everyone agrees on is that the House of Representatives, with its impeachment power, alone decides what is cause for removal from office," he writes. "For now, at least, the House is run by Republicans."


Nelson Mandela, pictured in 1994, was in prison for nearly 28 years after police were told where to arrest him Rex Features

 A former CIA spy has revealed his key role in the arrest of Nelson Mandela, which led to the future South African president’s trial and imprisonment for almost 28 years.

 The bombshell disclosure led yesterday to a demand for the CIA to come clean about putting behind bars a figure who became one of the world’s most revered statesmen.

 A veteran political associate of Mandela called it a “shameful act of betrayal” that “hindered the struggle against apartheid”.

 The former CIA operative, Donald Rickard, was unrepentant, saying that when arrested in 1962 Mandela was “the world’s most dangerous communist outside of the Soviet Union”.

 He made his taped confession in March to the director John Irvin, who has recreated Mandela’s final months of freedom before… ||||| A CIA tip off to South Africa's apartheid regime which led to Nelson Mandela's arrest and 27-year imprisonment was yesterday condemned as a "betrayal of our nation" by the grandson and heir of the former president.

 Mandla Mandela called on US President Barack Obama to apologise and make a “full disclosure” of the events leading up to his grandfather's arrest in 1962 and suggested that the US should face censure by the United Nations.

 His comments came after a former CIA agent confirmed that he told the apartheid police how to find Mandela because he viewed him as a “toy of the communists”.

 “Whilst we were always aware of the West’s role in overt and covert support for the Apartheid state (this) disclosure has put an end to decades of denial revealing the fact that the USA put its imperial interests above the struggle for liberation of millions of people,” said Mr Mandela, the former statesman’s eldest grandson who is also an ANC MP and traditional chief in the family clan.

 “We call on freedom loving people of the world to come out in condemnation of this betrayal of our nation, the peoples of Southern Africa and all who suffered as a consequence of the USA’s support for the brutal apartheid state.” ||||| Donald C. Rickard

 Donald C. Rickard, age 88, of Pagosa Springs, passed away peacefully on March 30. Donald was the third born of four sons of Samuel and Ada Rickard. Donald was born March 2, 1928, in Rangoon, Burma.

 Donald is survived by his six children: Laura Rickard (Bill), of Durango, Colo.; Donald Rickard II (Connie), of Colorado Springs, Colo.; David Rickard (Carolyn), of Lake Villa, Ill.; Diana Wilson (Greg), of San Carlos, Mexico; Nicolette Leboy (Peter), of Danville, Calif.; and Jennifer Parker (Owen), of Pagosa Springs, Colo.; and his older brother, John Rickard (Marge), of Lewisville, N.C.

 Donald was predeceased by his wife of 61 years, Elaine Grove Rickard, in February of 2014 and his brothers Samuel H. Rickard and David T. Rickard.

 He lived an interesting life, full of service and adventures around the world. As a child, Donald and his family lived in Burma until they were forced to leave in 1942, during WWII. They fled Burma, walking nearly 200 miles through the jungles to India. There, Donald and his brothers attended Woodstock Christian School in Mussoorie, Northern India. The family later moved to the San Francisco Bay area and he and his four brothers graduated from Piedmont High School and attended San Jose State University. The family later moved to Pennsylvania, where Donald and his three brothers attended Bucknell University and graduated with a bachelor of science degree in political science. Donald met Elaine Grove at Bucknell University and they married in September of 1952.

 Donald’s work as a diplomat with the U.S. State Department took him to places from Burma to Saipan, Pakistan and South Africa. In 1958, he was appointed vice consul of the United States for Durban, South Africa, served in other capacities for the State Department in Maryland and Washington, D.C., and later as U.S. consular officer for the diplomatic office in Seoul, South Korea, in 1969. He retired in 1978 and settled with his beloved wife, Elaine, in beautiful Pagosa Springs.

 Don was a warm and loving man and a devoted father and husband. He was well read, intelligent and quick to find humor in most any situation. His warmth and wit earned him many lifelong friends. He was an engaging and curious man who loved to tell stories of his childhood and his many adventures, and was just as interested in the stories of others. No one was a stranger for long.

 He loved the outdoors, hiking and camping, always taking the road less traveled. Anyone and everyone was welcomed into his home, including animals. His love of books was only outdone by his love of animals (especially strays). He will be missed by many.

 An open memorial service will be held at St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church in Pagosa Springs on Saturday, April 16, at 3 p.m.

 Follow these topics: Obituaries |||||

Write a summary.

– In an interview recorded two weeks before his death, a former CIA agent claimed he had prevented a war by giving South African authorities a tip that led to the arrest of the "Black Pimpernel"—better known as Nelson Mandela. In March, 88-year-old Donald Rickard told film director John Irvin that when he was the US vice consul in Durban in 1962, African National Congress informants told him Mandela was visiting the city and he shared that information with police, leading to Mandela's arrest at a roadblock as he tried to return to Johannesburg, the Times of London reports. The ANC leader spent the next 28 years in prison. An unrepentant Rickard said he and his CIA handlers saw Mandela as "a toy of the communists" who was completely controlled by the Soviet Union. Rickard—who retired in 1978 and died on March 30, according to an obituary in the Pagosa Springs Sun—claimed Mandela was preparing to incite a communist rebellion against apartheid, which could have led to Moscow's involvement. "If the Soviets had come in force, the United States would have had to get involved, and things could have gone to hell," he said. "We were teetering on the brink here and it had to be stopped, which meant Mandela had to be stopped. And I put a stop to it." Irvin's movie about the months before the arrest, Mandela’s Gun, will debut at the Cannes Film Festival this week, the Guardian reports. An ANC spokesman called the news "a serious indictment" and accused the agency of interfering in South African politics to this day, reports the Telegraph. The CIA has declined to comment. (President Obama toured Mandela's former prison cell in a 2013 visit to South Africa.)