A New Perspective on Constantine

(Worthy News) – The Defense Intelligence Agency now estimates that North Korea could have an ICBM with a nuclear warhead capable of hitting the U.S. mainland by next year, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

The estimate by the DIA significantly shortened the timeframe for when North Korea could develop the technology for miniaturizing a nuclear warhead to fit atop an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) and survive re-entry into the atmosphere. Previous estimates said that North Korea was at least three years away from having the capability.

The new confidential assessment by the DIA followed the July 4 missile test that North Korea claimed was an ICBM. U.S. Pacific Command initially said the missile appeared to be of intermediate range but later concluded that it had the range of an ICBM capable of hitting Alaska. [ Source:Defense Tech (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – The push for a ‘clean’ repeal of Obamacare died Wednesday after Senate Republicans were unable to rally the votes, forcing leaders to turn to watered-down proposals that would repeal only some of the onerous parts of the troubled health care law.

Seven Republicans, including six who supported it two years ago, voted against repeal. Fellow Republicans said they broke their promise to voters.

The party’s defectors said they wouldn’t commit to repeal without knowing what would replace it. The two-year grace period that party leaders wrote into the repeal proposal wasn’t enough of an assurance, they said, and millions of Americans could lose coverage if an alternative plan wasn’t in place.

With their backs against the wall, Republican leaders are floating a last-ditch “skinny” repeal. Details are still being finalized, but Republicans described it as ditching Obamacare’s unpopular mandate requiring individuals to hold insurance, its rule requiring large employers to provide coverage and its tax on medical device sales. [ Source:Washington Times (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Senate Democrats used a parliamentary maneuver Wednesday to cut short a high-profile hearing central to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s probe into Russian meddling.

Browder’s public remarks were delayed when Democrats invoked the “two-hour rule” to protest Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare. The seldom-used rule bars committees from meeting longer than two hours after the full Senate begins a session. [ Source:Washington Free Beacon (Read More…) ]

Russia probe: Democrats block key witness against shadowy firm Fusion GPS

Bill Browder, the CEO and co-founder of Hermitage Capital, was set to tell the Senate Judiciary Committee that the co-founder of the firm Fusion GPS was hired to conduct a “smear campaign” against him. Further, he planned to testify the campaign was orchestrated by Natalia Veselnitskaya — the Russian attorney who sought the highly scrutinized Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort in June 2016.

“Veselnitskaya, through Baker Hostetler, hired Glenn Simpson of the firm Fusion GPS to conduct a smear campaign against me and Sergei Magnitsky in advance of congressional hearings on the Global Magnitsy Act,” Browder wrote in his prepared testimony, adding that the firm helped to organize a Washington D.C.-based premiere of a “fake documentary” about Magnitsky and himself. [ Source:Fox News (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – The head of the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah called Israel’s removal of metal detectors from Temple Mount entrances a “victory” in a televised speech Wednesday, even as Muslim leaders have said that the move is not enough and vowed to continue protests.

“The resistance salutes and hails the people of Jerusalem, the West Bank and all Palestinians, who have flocked to the Old City in defense of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and have managed to impose a new victory through forcing the enemy to remove its new measures,” Hassan Nasrallah said, according to a report in the Lebanese daily al-Nahar.

The Hamas terror group also called for a “day of rage” for the second consecutive Friday following the attack, though it also portrayed the removal of the detectors as a victory over Israel. [ Source:Times of Israel (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would look for ways to shutter the presence of satellite news station al-Jazeera in Israel, accusing the Qatar-based channel of inciting violence.

In a Facebook post Wednesday night, Netanyahu said he had asked law enforcement authorities to shut down the station’s Israel offices a number of times.

“Al-Jazeera has not stopped fomenting violence around the Temple Mount,” he said, referring to escalating tensions surrounding Muslim protests against Israeli security measures at the holy site. There were put in place following a July 14 terror attack in which three terrorists shot two Israeli policemen to death with weapons they had smuggled onto the compound. Israel shut the site for two days and re-opened it with new security arrangements including metal detectors and cameras. [ Source:Times of Israel (Read More…) ]