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PEDRO CAIXINHA last night pledged that Rangers are ready, willing and able to end Celtics treble dreams.

The Light Blues warmed up for their Scottish Cup semi-final meeting with the Hoops a week today with their second win on the spin, their third clean sheet in a row and their eighth game unbeaten.

And while Brendan Rodgers side can point to far more formidable figures having gone the entire domestic season unbeaten, there was no mistaking the confidence behind the Portuguese managers words.

This team is always ready to beat anyone, and Celtic is going to be next, he said.

The history of this team is about this. We need to be ready and prepare for the game.

The approach to the game is going to be different its an Old Firm game, a knockout game, and I like the strategic side of the game so Im looking forward to preparing for it.

When we met with the players before the match we talked to them about how we felt, and we felt the team is growing in confidence, getting a pattern and an identity.

So well keep focusing on that process.

We know this will be a different opponent, a different match because it is a knockout and I just hope to have 11 warriors starting the game.

As you would expect with Thistle having just clinched a top six place, they came to Ibrox determined to make it tough for Rangers.

They shut down space, muscled their way into their 50:50s and generally got plenty of men behind the ball whenever the home team were in possession.

It wasnt pretty it said it all about the tightness of this match that it took 24 minutes for the game to produce its first shot on target.

Even then it came from an unexpected source Rangers left-back Myles Beermen.

He shot wide and showed it was no fluke when he hit a deflected effort over soon afterwards.

With Danny Wilson denied only by an acrobatic save from Tomas Cerny when powering a header in at goal from Barry McKays corner from the right, it was impossible to escape the feeling a breakthrough was imminent.

And as at Pittodrie six days earlier, it was Kenny Miller who made the killer contribution.

James Tavernier swung an inviting cross into the back post from where the striker headed down and up into the net.

But it wasnt all one-way traffic. Ryan Edwards shot wide at the other end of the pitch when a McKay mistake threw up the chance of a rapid fire equaliser.

Having failed to take their opportunity, Thistle soon found themselves further behind.

Emerson Hyndman stole into the box from a disputed throw in and teed up Jon Toral who finished in some style.

Hyndman was decent and was unlucky not to be able to claim an assist when Miller forced an excellent diving stop out of Cerny with a measured shot towards the corner of the net.

Its certainly a pleasing result, summarised Rangers midfielder Andy Halliday. The first half was a bit scrappy, but once the goal went in, it settled the nerves.

In the last few weeks, weve been a lot more clinical in our chances.

As soon as we got that good chance, Kenny put it away with aplomb.

It was a fantastic header and a great ball in from Tavernier.

Thats something else weve talked about when the chances come along we need to take them.

The goal came at a very good time for us because we werent at our free-flowing best, we werent creating chances.

That was certainly a nerve-settler.

Its two wins, but Celtic are obviously in form themselves.

Theyve had a really consistent season which is something weve not managed to stamp our authority on.

Its a big game, but its a semi-final, a knock-out competition.

If you cant get up for this game, youre in the wrong sport.

Its a massive occasion, a global audience is watching.

Ive managed to be part of a few and I cant wait for the next one.

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We're ready to end Hoops' dream of a Treble, says Rangers boss Pedro Caixinha - The Sunday Post

President Trump arrives at Palm Beach International Airport in Florida on Air Force One to spend Easter weekend at Mar-a-Lago resort on Thursday. Joe Raedle/Getty Images hide caption

President Trump arrives at Palm Beach International Airport in Florida on Air Force One to spend Easter weekend at Mar-a-Lago resort on Thursday.

Ordinary folks can fly from the Washington, D.C., area to southeast Florida for $200-300 round-trip, if they book in advance. For the president, the trip is a little more costly.

Exactly how much is not currently public, though. The conservative group Judicial Watch, which has been tracking the cost of presidential travel for several years, estimates that President Trump's frequent visits to his Palm Beach resort Mar-a-Lago probably cost the government around $1 million each.

Much of the expense stems from Air Force One 747, which costs around $140,000 per flying hour right now, says Judicial Watch's president, Tom Fitton. The trips typically incur other expenses as well, such as lodging and travel expenses for the Secret Service, and reimbursements for local police.

"It's a snapshot cost, in the sense that there are other costs obviously involved that we could get, but the government just doesn't want to give it to us or they keep secret for some reason," Fitton says.

The Government Accountability Office has agreed to look into the costs and security concerns raised by Democratic lawmakers about the Florida trips.

Trump has so far appeared to set a record for weekend travel, regularly shuttling back and forth between Washington and Florida.

"For someone who complained about President Obama traveling a lot, he's going to supersede President Obama's travel, all eight years [of it], within a year, which is just absolutely ridiculous," says Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, who recently signed a letter to the Pentagon asking about the costs racked up by the president's use of Air Force One.

Political hay has long been made over personal travel by presidents. Republicans regularly excoriated Obama for the cost of his trips to Hawaii and Africa, for example.

Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming asked the Government Accountability Office to look into the cost of a three-day, three-legged trip Obama took from Washington to Chicago and then onto Palm Beach in February 2013. The report calculated the cost of the trip at around $3.6 million.

In fact, Judicial Watch began monitoring travel costs during the Obama administration.

"He made a big show of taking his wife up to New York on a date night. And I thought to myself, 'Well, that sounds like a pretty darned expensive date night,' knowing what it costs to move a president around," Fitton says. Because the Obamas and their entourage flew on small planes, the cost of that trip was relatively low. Press reports put it at around $25,000.

The Obama administration was reluctant to answer questions about travel costs, forcing Judicial Watch to file Freedom of Information requests to get an answer (Secret Service documents show $11,648.17 in security expenses for that trip). So far, the Trump White House hasn't been much more transparent, Fitton says.

"There has to be an awareness that it costs money to go down there, and they should justify the cost or explain to the American people why it's necessary," he says.

A million dollars for a weekend trip to Florida is actually chump change for the Pentagon, with its annual budget of $600 billion, but Gallego says that isn't really the point.

"We've had to stop hiring child care specialists in child care day centers on Army bases because the president has done a hiring freeze," he says. "If the president wants to ask the country to sacrifice and other government agencies to sacrifice, then he should be doing the same."

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Trump's Travel Costs Add Up, Setting Him On Path To Outspend - NPR - NPR

A member of former President Barack Obama's Cabinet, Julian Castro, is rallying support for Jon Ossoff the leading Democratic candidate in the special election to take the Georgia congressional seat vacated by Republican Tom Price when he became Health and Human Services secretary.

Castro, who served as Obama's secretary of the House and Urban Development Department, met with supporters at Ossoff's office. Pictures of the event were posted online Saturday.

Castro served as mayor of San Antonio before he was tapped to join the Obama administration.

Ossoff is a former aide to Rep. Hank Johnson. Not only does he have the support of local Democratic leaders, but also has actors Samuel L. Jackson and Alyssa Milano campaigning for him. Donors have reportedly put contributed $8 million for the candidate.

Meanwhile on the Republican side, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich lent his voice for a robocall urging support for state Sen. Judson Hill, according to the local NBC affiliate. Among the other GOP candidates is former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel. Meanwhile, Karen Giorno, a former senior adviser for the Trump campaign, is out supporting Bob Gray, a former Johns Creek city councilman.

The day of the special election for the conservative-leaning Atlanta suburb district is scheduled for April 18. If no candidate is able to reach a 50 percent threshold, then the top two candidates will participate in a runoff on June 20.

According to a Washington Examiner analysis, Ossof likely will make the second round of voting, but will probably lose in that contest.

See more here:
Team Obama gets involved in Georgia special election - Washington Examiner

News of President Trumps response to the Syrian chemical attack left several Obama administration officials with a sense of frustration and a reluctant feeling of vindication.

Trumps decision to act swiftly and decisively, with an airstrike, was what they had wanted to see Barack Obama do in 2013 when he was president and the world learned of the Syrian governments chemical attack that killed some 1,400 people, including hundreds of children.

But Obama, they say, was too hesitant and too guided by a belief that dialogue was the way to deal with rogue leaders. He preferred the olive branch to the stick in his efforts to appeal to leaders with dangerous instincts, they say.

I think he left a more dangerous world, Barry Pavel, senior director for defense policy and strategy on the U.S. National Security Council staff from 2008 to 2010, said to Fox News.

In Syria, a major mistake was treating it like a humanitarian crisis, when it was a major national security crisis that has caused destabilization on our closest allies in Europe, Pavel said, Syria has been a source of terrorist attacks in Europe and the United States, and future attacks. I worry about that very much.

The world watched the United States underwhelming response to rogue moves by the Syrian government and by Russia in its invasion of Ukraine, Pavel said, and got the message that illegal actions would not be met with military actions.

He left a more dangerous world. Political adversaries knew we had the capability, but not the will.

- Barry Pavel, National Security Council from 2008-2010, said of President Obama

Potential adversaries know we had the capability, but not the will to strike out at aggressive actions by certain nations against their neighbors or their own people, Pavel, who is director at Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security at the Atlantic Council, said. Because they knew that the Obama administration would never use military force for any purpose, they felt free to conduct their coercive actions in the South China Seas, the Russians went into Iran and Syria and North Korea accelerated their nuclear arms program.

Pavel called it unfathomable that it wasn't until this year thatU.S. troops arrived in Europe to deter Russia from a repeat of its 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

"That should have been done in 2014," he said. "We could have reinforced NATO to reassure our allies that we had their back, or we could have given the sovereign country under attack from Russia legitimate defensive weapons."

Pavel recalls the resistance he faced when before the 2013 chemical attack -- he suggested that the U.S. be more forceful in its handling of rogue leaders like Syria President Bashar Assad. While the Obama administration said it did not want to commit hundreds of thousands of troops in a military conflict, Pavel said there were choices between a full-scale commitment and complete inaction.

Gary Samore, who served for four years as Obamas White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction (WMD), said the Iran nuclear deal widely criticized by Republicans has been effective.

That proves, Samore said, that not all adversaries can be handled the same way.

The constraints that Obama negotiated are holding, Samore, who is executive director for research at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, said. But who knows, in a couple of years they might renege on the agreement. Its true that you cannot trust the Iranians, but can we spot cheating? The agreement has mechanisms for us to restore U.N. sanctions. If we can catch them cheating we have much stronger rationale for using the military. We can say we tried the diplomatic approach, it gives you a stronger argument for using the military.

Military action can be risky with an unstable leader who has access to nuclear weapons, Samore said.

The Syrians are so weak, he said. By contrast, Iran has options. It can retaliate against U.S. allies, against Israel, Saudi Arabia. North Korea is another example.

Both men praised Trumps military strike against Syria.

I applaud Trump, Samore said. It was the kind of strike that Obama was planning a limited military attack against the airfields in order to deter Assad from carrying out additional chemical weapons attacks, but he decided not to use it. Obama made a huge mistake by saying he was going to go to Congress for authorization, it turned out he did not have the votes.

Trump was very smart to do it without congressional support, Samore said.

Pavel agrees.

I think the Trump administration is putting the world on notice, he said. The U.S. can use military force to achieve particular goals without getting mired in a protracted conflict.

Michael McFaul, Obamas ambassador to Russia, said in aninterview with the New York Timesthat the former presidents penchant for a kinder, gentler approach to adversaries was counterproductive.

For me, this tragedy underscores the dangers of trying to do deals with dictators without a comprehensive, invasive and permanent inspection regime, said McFaul after the Syrian chemical attack earlier this month. It also shows the limits of doing deals with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. Surely, the Russians must have known about these chemical weapons.

Other experts say that while reaching out to foes of the United States may not yield the desired results, playing hard ball may yield far worse consequences.

Imagine what Syria would look like without that deal, former Deputy Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said to the Times. It would be awash in chemical weapons, which would fall into the hands of ISIS, Al Nusra or other groups.

Blinken said that the Obama administration was not blind to the Syrian governments deceptive ways.

We always knew we had not gotten everything, he said, that they Syrians had not been fully forthcoming in their declaration.

Pavel says there is no one-size-fits-all answer to dealing with adversaries.

I dont agree that you should never come to agreements with dictators, he said, as long as the agreements are hard-headed and have necessary provisions, and they are largely enforced.

During the Cold War, we had agreements, and that contributed to stability, he said.

Elizabeth Llorente is Senior Reporter for FoxNews.com, and can be reached at Elizabeth.Llorente@Foxnews.com. Follow her on https://twitter.com/Liz_Llorente

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Ex-Obama officials say hesitation to use force in Syria, elsewhere, emboldened adversaries - Fox News

Photo: Jabin Botsford, The Washington Post

Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, listens during a meeting with small business leaders at the White House on Jan. 30. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Jabin Botsford

Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, listens during a meeting with small business leaders at the White House on Jan. 30. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Jabin Botsford

Vice President Al Gore during interview with reporters in 1997 at his White House desk using his personal computer and talking about all the 'goodies' he has on it.

Vice President Al Gore during interview with reporters in 1997 at his White House desk using his personal computer and talking about all the 'goodies' he has on it.

Andrew McMahon, co-founder of 18F, sits for a portrait in Covo, a co-working space April 3, 2017 in San Francisco, Calif.

Andrew McMahon, co-founder of 18F, sits for a portrait in Covo, a co-working space April 3, 2017 in San Francisco, Calif.

Trump innovation push overshadows Obamas tech agencies

A new White House office unveiled by the Trump administration has left two Obama-era federal tech agencies, both heavily staffed with Silicon Valley talent, facing an uncertain future.

The Office of American Innovation is designed to combine the best ideas from government, the private sector, and other thought leaders. Among its plans: reimagining the Department of Veterans Affairs, remodeling government workers training and providing broadband Internet service to every American. It aims to modernize the governments approach to technology and data, and is seeking the counsel of the likes of Apple CEO Tim Cook, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

The government should be run like a great American company, White House adviser Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of President Trump who will lead the office, told the Washington Post.

But the government is already at work on some of these projects: The U.S. Digital Service, part of the Executive Office of the President, includes training government workers in its mission and has projects under way that benefit veterans. 18F, housed within the General Services Administration, is bringing open source and other software techniques from the technology industry into government agencies. And the Federal Communications Commission released a National Broadband Plan in 2010 designed to spread adoption of fast Internet connections.

Under Trump, those existing agencies have gotten little mention, while the new office has been closely associated with Kushner, whose influence with the president seems to be on the rise.

The devil is in the details of this thing, said Andrew McMahon, the creator and former administrator of 18F. Are they setting up an office to be a public affairs machine, or are they actually going to do the hard work of actually making the government run better?

Andrew McMahon, co-founder of 18F, sits for a portrait in Covo, a...

White House promises to deploy tech for the betterment of America are nothing new. As candidates in 1992, Bill Clinton and Al Gore released an 18-page position paper titled Technology: the Engine of Economic Growth.

The plan made technology experts giddy with excitement, the New York Times reported after their election.

In 2004, President George W. Bush released a technology agenda, complete with a typeface straight out of Star Trek, that promised better job training and universal broadband access.

But nearly three months into the new Trump administration, plans for a digital overhaul of the government remain little more than a White House press release. The government has neither a chief technology officer nor a permanent head of the U.S. Digital Service. Kushner is also the presidents adviser on relations with China, Mexico, Canada and the Middle East. And Trump has reportedly questioned the need for Kushners new office.

Despite the uncertainty, Matt Cutts, Digital Services acting administrator, welcomed the office as an opportunity to further the work of the organization on an executive level.

Ive been very heartened by the support that weve gotten by the new administration, Cutts said. And we see with the announcement of the Office of American Innovation, that they see how top talent with a nonpartisan approach can improve the government.

Mikey Dickerson, Digital Services former administrator, left in January. He said hes skeptical of the new office and will assume its nothing until proven otherwise.

When Dickerson was the agencys administrator, he said he met with President Barack Obama at least once every three months and sometimes as frequently as twice a week. Cutts declined to say what meetings he had, but said he has received a positive indication that the administration is open to working with the agency.

The U.S. Digital Service and 18F were the outgrowth of a mutually beneficial relationship between Washington and Silicon Valley that sprang up during Obamas administration: Software engineers modernized the governments inner workings, while former politicos left the capital and brought their government knowledge and connections to tech companies such as Facebook, Airbnb and Google.

Silicon Valley is its own world, and most people have not considered how their skills can serve the greater good, said David Kaufman, who worked at Google and a startup before leading public engagement and communications for Digital Service. The agency, he said, really stumbled on a special group of people.

But now, many worry how both Digital Service and 18F will continue to attract the likes of Kaufman and persuade them to uproot their lives and work under an administration that often clashes with the ideals of Silicon Valley.

Trumps victory was a bleak surprise for those in the federal tech wings who supported Hillary Clinton. Several former Digital Service members said some employees left as a result of the election, while others could separate their work from politics.

Cutts, well-known for his work on the Google search engine, initially came to the U.S. Digital Service for a three-month stint last summer. He decided to stay after the election to provide the organization with some consistency, he said.

The popular engineers decision to stay has been considered a saving grace for the agencys ability to recruit people. But he is just the acting administrator, and his plans are unclear.

In January, the new administration put a hiring freeze on executive-branch employees that affected Digital Services ability to recruit employees to work with certain federal departments. The freeze was recently lifted.

David Eaves, a professor at Harvards Kennedy School of Government who specializes in the governments use of technology, said Trumps new innovation office could be a way for the administration to continue attracting the engineers, designers and product experts it needs.

Both Digital Service and 18F rely on a tour of duty model, where employees typically serve only a short assignment in the government before returning to the private sector. As workers come and go, the White House will need to continually fill roles or lose technical expertise.

They do have a fixed amount of employees, and they need to attract people to replenish the attrition, Eaves said. I do think that (the Office of American Innovation) is an effort to say, Hey, were going to be working on nonpartisan stuff.

During her brief stint in the White House, Janine Gianfredi, who left a job at Google last year to join Digital Service, said she quickly realized the government does not have the luxury of playing out the Silicon Valley mantra of moving fast and breaking things.

But, she said, that shouldnt deter people from the tech sector from embracing the agencys mission to improve the American experience.

I think the tech industry feels some really healthy constituent ownership of the (Digital Service) and 18F, in a really good way. People really believe in the mission, Gianfredi said. But this work takes time.

Trisha Thadani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tthadani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @TrishaThadani

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Trump innovation push overshadows Obama's tech agencies - SFGate