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Chiloquin settles First Amendment lawsuit | News | heraldandnews … – Herald and News

A freedom of speech lawsuit against the city of Chiloquin has been settled out of court and a motion to dismiss the suit was approved Friday.

Plaintiff Richard Twamley confirmed Monday his lawsuit against the city was resolved through a settlement agreed upon by both parties. Twamley said he found the terms of the settlement agreeable, but said specific details were under seal and wont be made public.

Twamley said he would need to contact his attorney before offering further comment.

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He sued Chiloquin and former Mayor Joe Hobbs Oct. 27, 2016, for an incident Dec. 15, 2015, during which Hobbs allegedly denied Twamley an opportunity to speak during public comment at a city council meeting. Twamley sought $1.7 million for the denial of his First Amendment rights as well as emotional distress.

According to the lawsuit, Twamley intended to speak to the council that night regarding a 2014 legal settlement between the city and the Chiloquin Rodeo Association, which Richard Twamley said occurred without proper authority. Twamley said his comments were ruled out of order by Hobbs and the plaintiff was not allowed to continue speaking on the topic.

At the beginning of council meetings in Chiloquin, a disclaimer is read saying officials will rule out of order comments of a discrediting nature, as well as personal attacks on officials and city personnel.

A response to Twamleys allegations was not filed in court by Chiloquin. A representative of City Hall could not be reached Monday for comment due to the federal holiday.

Twamley has been an outspoken critic of Chiloquin along with his wife, former Mayor Patricia Twamley, and Dennis Jefcoat, who acted as Patricia Twamleys adviser. In addition to letters to the editor printed in the Herald and News, the three each filed lawsuits against Chiloquin, though Patricia Twamleys suit was settled in the citys favor in 2014 and Jefcoats suit was dismissed for lack of evidence in 2016.

When asked Monday if he will continue to voice criticisms of the city, Richard Twamley said he would need to consult his attorney before responding to the question.

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Chiloquin settles First Amendment lawsuit | News | heraldandnews ... - Herald and News

Hillary Clinton: Trump must take action against string of antisemitic acts – Jerusalem Post Israel News

Republican US presidential nominee Donald Trump listens as Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton answers a question from the audience during their presidential town hall debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, US, October 9, 2016. (photo credit:REUTERS)

Hillary Clinton on Tuesday condemned a recent streak of "troubling" antisemitic incidents, and called for action first and foremost from US President Donald Trump.

"JCC threats, cemetery desecration & online attacks are so troubling & they need to be stopped," she wrote on Twitter. "Everyone must speak out, starting w/ @POTUS."

Also on Monday, 11 Jewish community centers across the United States were targeted with false bomb threats, the fourth such wave of harassing phone calls in five weeks.

The White House responded to a reporters query about the latest string of bomb threats called in to Jewish community centers by saying these actions are unacceptable.

Hatred and hate-motivated violence of any kind have no place in a country founded on the promise of individual freedom, read a statement, attributed to White House press secretary Sean Spicer, that was shared Monday afternoon by NBC News correspondent Peter Alexander. The President has made it abundantly clear that these actions are unacceptable.

The statement did not specify that the threats targeted Jewish institutions, although it came in reply to a query about threats to JCCs.

Alexander posted Spicers response on Twitter, adding, @PressSec responds to my request for comment about wave of threats to Jewish community centers.

Separately, Trumps daughter, Ivanka, who is Jewish, condemned the threats in a Tweet that pointed to the fact that the targets were Jewish.

America is a nation built on the principle of religious tolerance, she said. We must protect our houses of worship & religious centers. She ended the tweet with the hashtagged acronym for Jewish community center, #JCC.

Shortly afterward, various Jewish groups, including the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee, urged the White House to issue an unequivocal denunciation of the bomb threats and other antisemitic acts.

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Hillary Clinton: Trump must take action against string of antisemitic acts - Jerusalem Post Israel News

Trump Calls JCC Threats ‘Horrible and Painful’ After Clinton Latest to Call Him Out for Silence – NBC Chicago

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that a series of bomb threats called in to Jewish community centers around the country in the last few months "are horrible and painful."

They were his first remarks specifically addressing the threats, coming amid mounting criticism about his silence. Earlier Tuesday, Hillary Clinton called the series of threats and attacks against Jews and Jewish groups "so troubling" in a tweet that urged Trump to speak out against them.

Trump spoke over an hour later at a news conference at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

"The anti-Semitic threats targeting our Jewish community and community centers are horrible and painful and a very sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil," he said.

Before that, Trump hadn't commented directly on the threats, despite being asked about them at two recent press conferences. The latest wave of threats came Monday, with 10 locations targeted. Also Monday, dozens of headstones were toppled at a Jewish cemetery near St. Louis.

"JCC threats, cemetery desecration & online attacks are so troubling & they need to be stopped. Everyone must speak out, starting w/ @POTUS," Clinton tweeted, referring to Trump, who beat her in November's election.

About an hour afterward, a threat was received at a Jewish Community Center in the San Diego area.

Also at the museum Tuesday, Trump condemned anti-Semitism as horrible in an interview with NBC News, saying "it's going to stop and it has to stop."

But the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, an anti-discrimination advocacy group, said that Trump's statement is not nearly enough to address the worst anti-Semitism its staff had ever seen in the White House

The Presidents sudden acknowledgement of Anti-Semitism is a Band-Aid on the cancer of Anti-Semitism that has infected his own Administration," the center said in a statement. "His statement today is a pathetic asterisk of condescension after weeks in which he and his staff have committed grotesque acts and omissions reflecting Anti-Semitism, yet day after day have refused to apologize and correct the record."

There have been several sets of bomb threats against Jewish Community Center facilities since Trump was elected president, along with other incidents involving anti-Semitic symbols like swastikas.

The Southern Poverty Law Center said recently it reported an increase in U.S. hate groups in 2016 the second year in a row the number has risen.

The total number of organizations considered hate groups by the SPLC rose from 892 in 2015 to 917 in 2016. Mark Potok, an editor of the report called 2016, "an unprecedented year for hate."

While Trump has spoken out against hatred and the White House said Monday that "hate-motivated violence" is unacceptable, he had not specifically decried threats and attacks against specific groups, including Jews, even when a Jewish reporter asked him about the rise in anti-Semitic incidents around the country in a contentious news conference Thursday.

Trump told the reporter, a Hasidic Jew from an Orthodox magazine who had taken pains to preface his question by saying he knew Trump wasn't anti-Jewish, to sit down. Trump said it was not a simple or fair question before describing himself as "the least anti-Semitic person you've ever seen in your entire life."

The reporter, Jake Turx, later told The New York Times he spoke with White House staff members who assured him it would give the proper help, guidance and collaboration on anti-Semitism.

Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, called the president's response to Turx "mind-boggling." The ADL works to combat anti-Semitism and fights for civil rights protections.

Trump supporter Mort Klein, president of the hawkish Zionist Organization of America, said Trump must have been frustrated by the "relentless and outrageous allegations" of anti-Semitism against him and his White House strategist Steve Bannon.

A day earlier, Trump had another chance to respond to the rise in anti-Semitic harassment in the U.S. when asked about it by an Israeli reporter at a news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, where Trump had opened by calling Israel a symbol of "survival in the face of genocide."

But he responded to the reporter by touting the total number of Electoral College votes he won and promised "peace in this country."

Netanyahu then took up the question, saying he had known the president, his family and some of his aides for many years and "there is no greater supporter of the Jewish people and the Jewish state than President Donald Trump. I think we should put that to rest."

But Trump's answer to that question drew criticism from the ADL, which tweeted it's "troubling that @POTUS failed to condemn real issue of anti-Semitism in US today."

Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, did specifically condemn the latest threats against JCCs on Monday.

She converted to Judaism when she married Jared Kushner, and she tweeted that "America is a nation built on the principle of religious tolerance. We must protect our houses of worship & religious centers. #JCC."

Greenblatt, the ADL chief executive, said on Twitter he was happy to see Ivanka Trump's tweet, but added that "All Jews need to urge @POTUS to step forward & share a plan. His words carry weight. His actions will speak even louder."

Clinton's daughter, Chelsea, also responded to the attacks Monday in a tweet and used it to criticize Trump's silence.

"<2 months into 2017: JCC bomb threats, synagogue defamed, subway swastikas, Jewish cemetery desecrated. NOW will Trump condemn antisemitism?" Clinton said.

The White House released a statement Monday about "hate-motivated violence" in response to a request from NBC News about the wave of threats to JCCs.

"Hatred and hate-motivated violence of any kind have no place in a country founded on the promise of individual freedom," press secretary Sean Spicer said in a statement Monday. "The president has made it abundantly clear that these actions are unacceptable."

The FBI is investigating the threats as possible civil rights violations.

Published at 8:19 AM CST on Feb 21, 2017 | Updated at 4:37 PM CST on Feb 21, 2017

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Trump Calls JCC Threats 'Horrible and Painful' After Clinton Latest to Call Him Out for Silence - NBC Chicago

Should Bannon Resign? He and Yiannopoulos Falsely Linked Hillary Clinton to Pedophilia. – Truthdig

Milo Yiannopoulos resigned Tuesday from Breitbart News, saying, This decision is mine alone. Juan Coles column was written before the resignation occurred.

The interview that emerged on the internet of practicing Catholic Milo Yiannopoulos expressing approval of some instances of priest pedophilia with boys has perhaps ended his career as the most flamboyant voice of the neo-KKK in suits. But those remarks are hardly the most objectionable things Yiannopoulos has said; at least he seems to have been talking in part about his own experience. What is really monstrous is the lies he told, and which he was encouraged by his boss Steve Bannon to tell, about Hillary Clinton being involved in a pedophilia ring. [Truthdig editors note: In an article Monday, The New York Times reported that Yiannopoulos denied that he had ever condoned child sexual abuse, noting that he was a victim himself. He blamed his British sarcasm and deceptive editing for leading to a misunderstanding. Also on Monday, the website Heavy posted a video and transcript of the controversial interview with Yiannopoulos.]

Steve Bannon, now sitting on our National Security Council (and perhaps in control of which of its recommendations goes to Trump), hired Yiannopoulos as an editor at his alt-NeoNazi rag, Breitbart, and helped unleash him on the United States. Bannons choice of proteges tells us everything we need to know about him and his agenda in the Trump White House. (Yiannopoulos himself has spoken about how Bannon hired and promoted him).

Newsweek reminds us that last fall,

Milo Yiannopoulos, who lost his Twitter access earlier this year after one too many online insults against women and minorities, was on the campus of Miami University in Ohio, scheduled to talk about PIZZAGATE: The deep Dish on Liberalism and Pedophilia.

Yiannopoulos pushed the fake news that Hillary Clinton, her campaign manager John Podesta, and others in her circle were involved in two scandals. One was spirit cooking or witchcraft. The other was involvement in a pedophilia ring run out of a Washington, DC, pizzeria (an establishment that has suffered reputational damage and actually was shot up by a Bannon-Trump acolyte). I dont understand why they never sued.

Yiannopoulos said he was not surprised at Secretary Clintons alleged involvement in spirit cooking because he had long been aware that witchcraft and Lesbianism go together.

Bannon cleverly used far rightwing narcissists like Yiannopoulos to spread around the most ridiculous and yet sinister charges against Secretary Clinton, which were apparently actually believed in the far right circles he cultivated.

So it is especially ironic that, having falsely charged the Democratic Establishment with pedophilia, that Yiannopoulos himself should have been revealed to be a proponent of it. Indeed, it is hard not to conclude that his charges against Clinton were form of projection, in which he transferred his real feelings incorrectly to her.

Given that Bannon hired and relentlessly promoted Yiannopoulos to spread hate speech and dark conspiracy theories, and given that his protege has been revealed to be so deeply flawed, is it really appropriate (was it ever really appropriate) to have Bannon in the White House? What kind of judge of character can we depend on Bannon to be?

Shouldnt Bannon have to tell us if he ever discussed pedophilia with his close associate Yiannopoulos?

Bannon should resign. Or he should be fired.

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Should Bannon Resign? He and Yiannopoulos Falsely Linked Hillary Clinton to Pedophilia. - Truthdig

Spokesman for Turkey’s Erdogan calls on Israel to halt ‘illegal settlements’ – Reuters

ANKARA Turkey on Wednesday called on the Israeli government to halt what it called "illegal settlement policies" on Palestinian land.

Ibrahim Kalin, the spokesman for President Tayyip Erdogan, made the comment at a news conference in Ankara. Erdogan has previously condemned Israel's decision to ramp up settlements in the West Bank as an "absolute provocation".

Israel announced plans last month for 3,000 more settlement homes in the occupied West Bank. It has also retroactively legalized about 4,000 settlement homes built on privately owned Palestinian land, a move that brought condemnation from the United Nations and the European Union.

(Reporting by Tulay Karadeniz and Daren Butler; Writing by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by David Dolan)

LONDON/CAIRO An Islamic State suicide bomber from Britain who blew himself up in an attack on Iraqi forces this week had been given compensation for his detention in the Guantanamo Bay military prison, Western security sources said on Wednesday.

DUBAI The United States should expect a "strong slap in the face" if it underestimates Iran's defensive capabilities, a commander of the elite Revolutionary Guards said on Wednesday, as Tehran concluded war games.

BEIRUT The Syrian army and its allies took a small district on the outskirts of Aleppo from rebels on Wednesday, a war monitor and a military media unit run by Damascus ally Hezbollah said.

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Spokesman for Turkey's Erdogan calls on Israel to halt 'illegal settlements' - Reuters