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Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former U.S. presidentBill Clinton shook hands and posed for photos with people on the streets ofNorth Hatleyin Quebec's Eastern Townshipson Tuesday.

The pair, along with their daughter Chelsea and two grandchildren have been staying at Manoir Hoveyresort on the shores of Lake Massawippi this week.

"We're having a wonderful time, thank you, it's so beautiful," said Hillary Clinton.

Bill Clintonsaid the lake impressed him.

"It's beautiful, very interesting what's developed, what's not. And you know for most people it's a very deep lake, because it's a glacier lake," he said. "These are relatively rare.There are only a few lakes in America as deep as this. It's quite beautiful."

Radio-Canada reporterMarie-HlneRousseau asked him if he would be seeing former prime ministerJeanChrtienduring his visit.

"I haven't heard back from him, but you know, we're very close friends andI just was with him not too very ago, so I'm hoping he can come and be with me on my birthday," he said.

Clinton will be turning 71on Aug. 19.

Clinton said his plans were to do as little as possible on the tripexcept play with grandchildren and have a good time.

On Tuesday, Clinton strolled outside in North Hatley, stopping to shake hands, while Hillary Clinton browsed in some shops.

He was even drawn into a conversation about the U.S. politics, and emphasized the need for a high voter turnout in the next U.S. election.

"Hillary'sin there spending the money," a woman standing on the steps outside a shopteasedtheformer president as he went in an antiques store to find his wife.

"It's a good thing, it's her money too," he quipped back.

Author Louise Penny, who lives inKnowlton,invited theClintonsto the Townships for a visit.

Hillary Clinton has said she is a fan of Penny's murder mysteries, featuring InspectorGamache,a fictionalSretdu Qubecdetective. Penny was spotted with the Clintons on Tuesday.

Read the rest here:
Hillary and Bill Clinton spotted shopping in Quebec's Eastern Townships - CBC.ca

Following a white nationalists rally that turned violent on Saturday in Charlottesville, former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton issued a statement on Twitter condemning white supremacists for inciting violence that may have led to the death of one person.

In a string of tweets, Clinton expressed empathy for residents of the Virginia town, home of the University of Virginia, writing: My heart is in Charlottesville today, and with everyone made to feel unsafe in their country.

Unlike President Donald Trump, who refused to pin responsibility of the violent exchanges between white nationalistgroups and counter-protesters, Hillary blatantly blamed white supremacy for the spread of hatred in America.

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But the incitement of hatred that got us here is as real and condemnable as the white supremacists in our streets. Every minute we allow this to persistthrough tacit encouragement or inaction is a disgrace & corrosive to our values, she wrote, adding, Now is the time for leaders to be strong in their words & deliberate in their actions.

Trump offered an official statement in regards to the altercations that ensued in Charlottesville on Saturday, writing on Twitter that there was no place for this kind of violence in America hours after Virginias Governor Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency in the town, putting an end to the rally. However, Trump failed to acknowledge white nationalists' role in the savagery that resulted in the injuries of multiple people in the small town.

Instead, during a press conference, the president said he condemns in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides. The comment and Trumps refusal to directly name white supremacist groups for inciting violence in Charlottesville--where a person drove a vehicle into a crowd of people injuring 19 people and killing one person--has resulted in a wave of criticism from all sides regarding his inability to stand up to racist white hate groups.

No matter our color, creed, religion or political party we are all Americans first. We love our country, we love our God, we love our flag, were proud of our country, were proud of who we are, Trump said. so we want to get the situation straightened out in Charlottesville and want to study it and see what were doing wrong in this country. We have to respect each other, ideally we have to love each other.

Following Trumps comments, a number of people took to social media to point out that the president has been vocally tougher on his Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and a number of other people than what he has been on white supremacists and neo-nazi groups.

Check out a few reactions below:

Excerpt from:
Hillary Clinton Condemns White Supremacist Groups For Inciting Violence, Trumps Says It's Coming From 'Many Sides' - Newsweek

This is the email Hillary Clinton's pastor, the Rev. Bill Shillady, sent her on the morning of November 9, 2016, the day after she lost the presidential election to Donald Trump.

It is Friday, but Sunday is coming. This is not the devotional I had hoped to write. This is not the devotional you wish to receive this day. While Good Friday may be the starkest representation of a Friday that we have, life is filled with a lot of Fridays.

For the disciples and Christ's followers in the first century, Good Friday represented the day that everything fell apart. All was lost. The momentum and hope of a man claiming to be the Son of God, the Messiah who was supposed to change everything, had been executed.

Even though Jesus told his followers three days later the temple would be restored, they had no idea of what that Sunday would be. They betrayed, denied, mourned, fled and hid. They did just about everything BUT feel good about Friday and their circumstances.

For us, Friday is the phone call from the doctor that the cancer is back. It's the news that you have lost your job. It's the betrayal of a friend, the loss of someone dear. Friday is the day that it all falls apart and all hope is lost. We all have Fridays. But, as the saying goes, "Sunday's coming!"

Today, you are experiencing a Friday. Your Friday is what happened in the last few weeks and last night in the tragic loss. But Sunday is coming!

Jesus completed the excruciating task of giving up his life as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. It was his faith and belief in his heavenly Father, that gave him the grace and peace to submit to Friday. While death had seemingly won, Jesus knew better. When he said, "It is finished," it wasn't meant to be a statement of concession. It was a declaration that a new day was on the way.

Friday is finished. Sunday is coming. Death will be shattered. Hope will be restored. But first, we must live through the darkness and seeming hopelessness of Friday.

You know one of my favorite sayings is "God doesn't close one door without opening another, but it can be hell in the hallway." My sister Hillary. You, our nation, our world is experiencing a black Friday. Our hope is that Sunday is coming. But it might well be hell for a while.

Read more:
First on CNN: The email Hillary Clinton's pastor sent her the day after the election - CNN

Exclusive: President Trump has shattered the hope of many peace-oriented Americans that he would pull back from U.S. foreign interventions, but Hillary Clinton might have pursued even more wars, notes James W. Carden.

By James W. Carden

The alliance between neoconservatives and the Democratic foreign policy establishment, which is largely made up of former Obama administration officials and former Clinton campaign surrogates, has been much noted of late, particularly since the formation of the German Marshall Funds Alliance for Democracy Project which brings together high-profile members of both groups in an effort to fight what is loosely (and often inaccurately) defined as Russian disinformation.

Those who applaud the new alignment are quick to point out that Donald J. Trump who, by virtue of his volatile temperament and his alarming ignorance and inexperience, is a menace to his country and the planet. And at this stage in Mr. Trumps presidency, that would seem unarguable.

And yet, Clinton partisans charge that those who withheld their support from Clinton not only bear responsibility for Trump, but also had no right to do so since it was, according to them, obvious that Clinton would have been, among other things, a more responsible steward of U.S. foreign policy than Trump.

And so, given the extreme bitterness that Hillary Clintons loss has engendered among a number of prominent members of the liberal commentariat, it might be worth looking at what her campaign promised with regard to foreign policy to see if the above criticism holds water.

The argument here isnt that Trump isnt awful (which is something Ive never argued); its that hes proven to be every bit as bad as some of us reasonably expected Clinton would have been; and if one takes the time to consult the Clinton campaigns own briefing papers and fact sheets, one will find that on issue after issue, Clinton invariably took hawkish positions that reflected the fact that Clinton was (and remains) a saber-rattler par excellence very much on par with the current occupant of the White House.

When North Korea conducted a nuclear test in September 2016, she released a statement, if not quite promising fire and fury, that did declare: North Koreas decision to conduct another nuclear test is outrageous and unacceptable. This constitutes a direct threat to the United States, and we cannot and will never accept this.

No Regrets on Regime Change

Beyond that, Clinton remained a firm believer in regime-change strategies.On Syria, the Clinton campaign proposed instituting a coalition no-fly zone in the air coupled with safe zones on the ground to protect Syrian civilians and create leverage for a diplomatic resolution that includes Assads departure. She supported the deployment of special operating forces to Syria and strongly urged President Obama to arm moderate rebels in support of the eventual removal of the brutal Assad regime.

Clinton also favored escalation in other hot spots.On Iran, the Clinton campaign outlined a plan to counter Irans other malicious behavior which included pledges to deepen Americas unshakeable commitment to Israels security; expand our military presence in the region; increase security cooperation in areas like intelligence sharing, military backing and missile defense with our Gulf allies, to ensure they can defend themselves against Iranian aggression; and build a coalition to counter Irans proxies.

When we also factor in Clintons support for the NATOs illegal airstrikes on Kosovo (1999), her vote to authorize the second Iraq War (2003), her enthusiastic support for sending more troops to fight and die in Afghanistan (2009), and her disastrous embrace of regime change in Libya (2011) and Syria (2012), how can anyone be sure that her administrations foreign policy would have been much of an improvement over what we now have?

Indeed, those who threw their support behind Clintons vision of American world leadership, like those associated with the Alliance for Democracy, really, with the notable exception of Trumps abandonment of the Paris Climate Accord, have little to complain about.

Trump has done much as Clinton would have done by, among other things: slapping sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea; pledging unlimited support toIsrael; reassuring our allies in the Persian Gulf and eastern Europe; condemning Russias actions in eastern Ukraine; expanding military operations in eastern Syria; and lobbing none-to-veiled threats at the left-wing government in Venezuela.

So while its easy and almost certainly emotionally satisfying to the legions of Clinton supporters to tell themselves (and their readers) that of course Hillary would have been a better of steward of U.S. foreign policy than Trump, that assertion remains both unprovable and, given her record, highly questionable.

James W. Carden served as an adviser on Russia policy at the US State Department. Currently a contributing writer at The Nation magazine, his work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Quartz, The American Conservative and The National Interest.

See the original post here:
Hillary Clinton Promised Wars, Too - Consortium News

A 3D printer company founded by provocateur Cody Wilson, along with the Second Amendment Foundation, has filed for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court in a case asking that the company be allowed to post on its website instructions for using a 3D printer to manufacture a plastic gun.

Defense Distributed and the Foundation sued the State Department and other government persons and agencies back in May 2015 after the government threatened the company in May of 2013 for hosting the 3D gun manufacturing files.

Defense Distributed

The government maintains that such files are essentially armaments in and of themselves and subject to existing laws against the export of such munitions, with posting them in a place where foreigners could access them constituting such an illegal export.

The plaintiffs have sustained a series of losses in lower courts attempting to get a preliminary injunction against the government. Their plaintiffs contends the government has violated the company owners' First, Second, and Fifth Amendment rights with its actions.

Most specifically in this cert petition they have asked the Supreme Court to answer these questions:

1. Whether a court weighing a preliminary injunction must consider a First Amendment plaintiff's likelihood of success on the merits. 2. Whether it is always in the public interest to follow constitutional requirements. 3. Whether the Arms Export Control Act of 1976....and its implementing International Traffic in Arms Regulations ("ITAR")...may be applied as a prior restraint on public speech.

The petition insists that in denying their request for an injunction, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has taken a dangerous stance in balancing the First Amendment against government's insistence that it has very good reason to violate it.

It is also worth noting the files in question, although no longer hosted by Defense Distributed, are universally available on the internet from many other sources.

Defense Distributed is represented in this case by Alan Gura, who won two previous Second Amendment victories at the Supreme Court in 2008's Heller case and 2010's McDonald. Gura and his co-counsels argue in the petition the Fifth Circuit should not have been allowed to have:

simply declared that the government's asserted interests outweighed the interest in securing constitutional rights....considering the merits of preliminary injunction motions is not optional. Of all contexts, the merits cannot be optional in First Amendment cases. It should ordinarily go without sayingand so it must now be saidthat federal courts cannot dismiss the Constitution's primacy in our legal system...

The government can be relied upon to assert the necessity of every prior restraint. The public must be able to rely on the courts to test these assertions for constitutional compliance.

Gura argues the government's rules defining what falls under ITAR are completely ambiguous and confusing. The process for learning whether or not those rules apply to you is a similar mess of ambiguity and overreach. And the government's ability to stonewall drags out cases like that of Defense Distributed for years, Gura writes.

The petition also details the history of interpretation of ITAR over the past decades in the (proper) direction of not using it as a prior restraint on expression or speech on American citizens when it involves non-classified information.

The Fifth Circuit, in its decision on the appeal of an initial district court loss for Defense Distributed, was pretty blatant in saying the First Amendment doesn't count here because the government says so:

Ordinarily, of course, the protection of constitutional rights would be the highest public interest at issue in a case. That is not necessarily true here, however, because the State Department has asserted a very strong public interest in national defense and national security.

Gura finds that assertion unsatisfying, leaning on a Fifth Circuit dissent from the panel's majority opinion. Dissenter Judge Edith Jones:

noted that "[i]nterference with First Amendment rights for any period of time, even for short periods, constitutes irreparable injury,"...and that "Defense Distributed has been denied publication rights for over three years,"...She then found it "a mystery" why the majority was "unwilling to correct" the district court's "obvious error" in applying only intermediate scrutiny to the content-based prior restraint at issue...

[Judge Jones believes the State Department's censorship of Defense Distributed] "appears to violate the governing statute, represents an irrational interpretation of the regulations, and violates the First Amendment as a content-based regulation and a prior restraint."

Jones also pointed out how weirdly ineffectual is the government's desired power to violate the First Amendment. The government admits stating or publishing that same information at a conference in the U.S., or in a domestic publication or library, would be protected speech if they somehow could insure no foreigners accessed it. Foreigners could, of course, access such information on the Internet, an act considered a blow against national security so severe it trumps the First Amendment. That is, if "foreigners can't hear this speech" is to be held as true and important, the power to restrict speech applies far beyond the Internet.

The Fifth Circuit's decision to ignore the First Amendment is dangerous far beyond the simple question of publishing files for printing plastic armaments on the internet, Gura argues. That decision:

has unsettled the established norms for adjudicating preliminary injunction requests. Gone is this [Supreme] Court's careful balancing test, with its reliance on the merits. In its place, a wholly arbitrary system: The court will consider the merits, when it wishes to do so. Whether the merits might reveal a constitutional violation is less important, because the court will enforce the Constitution only when it seems to be a good idea.

What are courts, attorneys, and the public to make of this innovation?

Critics of this or that opinion often allege that a court has followed an extra-constitutional agenda. For a court to declare that it has done just thatin ignoring a content-based prior restraint no lessraises basic questions about the judiciary's function. The public is left with no way of knowing when a judge would declare some interest more important than the Constitution, or even bother hearing the merits of plainly significant pleas to enjoin unconstitutional conduct.

Absent a merits inquiry, a court balancing the unknown equities is reduced...to declaring whether an abstract interest in constitutional rights is more or less important than an equally abstract government interest. And if the court then decides, as did the majority below, that security > freedom, that ends the matter. The logic is inescapable; where applied, it bars any injunctive relief.

Expressed that way, the danger of letting the Fifth Circuit decision stand should be clear even to Americans who don't understand why anyone, domestic or foreign, needs a computer file that helps them print a plastic gun at home.

The Supreme Court should take up the case, and let lower courts know they can't, absent a fair consideration of the merits, blithely decide that security beats the First Amendment in court.

Reason TV interviewed Cody Wilson of Defense Distributed last year:

See the article here:
Can a Court Arbitrarily Conclude That 'Security' Overrules the First Amendment? - Reason (blog)