Archive of Uncategorized News Items


This is the overflow from the Uncategorized News page, which is located here.




Senate Report:  Thousands of Americans Were Left Behind in Afghanistan Following Biden Regime's Botched Withdrawal.  Thousands of Americans were left in Afghanistan after the Biden Administration's botched withdrawal last summer, according to a stunning new report released by the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other Biden administration officials claimed that number of Americans left behind was only 100-150.  According to the report, published by Foreign Relations ranking member Jim Risch (R-Idaho), the Biden Administration "did not hold a senior-level interagency meeting to discuss an evacuation or formally task the State Department (State) to contact at risk populations, including Americans, until August 14, just hours before Kabul fell."

Chris Wallace joined CNN+ because Jeff Zucker would be his protector there, now reportedly 'irate' at his departure.  Apparently, nobody told Chris Wallace that rats are supposed to jump from sinking ships, not onto them.  After leaving Fox News for the nascent CNN+ streaming service (and watching ratings soar for his old show, Fox News Sunday, once he was gone), Wallace now finds himself abandoned by the person who lured him away, Jeff Zucker. [...] Wallace has got to be worried about the long knives and his ample back at his new employer that looks like it is about to clean house.  Notably, there are no reports of him bringing any staff with him from Fox, and his old support staff at Fox News Sunday must be popping champagne corks with the new ratings they enjoy with Shannon Bream helming the broadcast.

Elon Musk slams GoFundMe for 'double standard' after platform seizes $10 million from Freedom Convoy.  Elon Musk, the world's richest man, slammed GoFundMe for taking down the Freedom Convoy's fund, which amassed over $10 million.  As reported earlier by The Post Millennial, GoFundMe has taken down the Freedom Convoy fundraiser after significant pushback from those opposed to the protest.  They stated that they "now have evidence from law enforcement that the previously peaceful demonstration has become an occupation, with police reports of violence and other unlawful activity."  Responding to suggestions that he had donated funds to the GoFundMe, Musk denied that it was his money, but posted a meme that blasted GoFundMe for being "professional thieves."

Flashback:  GoFundMe supported Antifa-occupied 'CHAZ/CHOP' even after people were murdered.  GoFundMe, the crowdfunding platform that recently seized over $10 million in funds intended for the Canadian truckers' Freedom Convoy, financially supported and promoted the illegal "Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone" or CHAZ/CHOP in Seattle, Washington during the height of the summer 2020 riots that broke out in the wake of George Floyd's death.  As detailed by Jack Posobiec on Twitter, GoFundMe tweeted an advertisement publicizing one of the many crowdfunds set up in the CHAZ/CHOP, which was established by Black Lives Matter supporters, local gangs, and elements of Antifa, who set up a cop-free perimeter that encased several neighborhoods in Seattle's Capitol Hill district.

Hurricane Canada.  What is most surprising in a tepid and unadventurous country like Canada that habitually votes left is the degree of popular support the truckers' Freedom Convoy has garnered from ordinary citizens across the land.  Convoys have assembled in several Canadian cities, the Alberta-Montana border has been blockaded, and reinforcements continue to arrive — even on horseback, taking a page from the RCMP.  Naturally, official aggression is also formidable, as a bought-and-paid-for print media, enjoying Prime Minister Trudeau's $600 million bribe, and the country's national broadcaster the CBC, rolling in annual billion-dollar government funding, weigh in against the truckers.  Government officials at every level, municipal, provincial, and federal, with only a few exceptions, have joined the vigilante movement against the salt-of-the-earth protesters.  Threats of reprisal are mounting, highways have been closed, and the turbulence shows no sign of ending anytime soon.

Jake Sullivan Gets Taken to the Woodshed on Biden Hurting US, Helping Russia on Energy.  Biden's National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan went on all the networks on Sunday, stoking up the concern about a potential invasion of Ukraine by Russia.  But when he went on Fox, he faced some real questions from host Martha MacCallum about why Joe Biden had aided and abetted Russia with the moves that he has made regarding energy.  Now, we see a lot of liberal media giving the Biden Administration a pass when it comes to their bad moves on energy, but MacCallum had the facts and was loaded for bear with them in the interview.

Turns out Joe Biden abandoned 9,000 Americans to the Taliban in his chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal.  After Joe Biden, Tony Blinken, and other Biden administration officials blithely assured that the number of Americans left behind in Afghanistan in the chaotic U.S. pullout was minuscule, just a minor rounding error, Congress has come up with a more accurate figure. [...] That's a bona fide scandal because Biden and his administraton obsessively assured Americans that virtually no American was left behind.  He said that, of course, in order to get the issue off the front pages.

GoFundMe Says It Will Automatically Refund All Donations to Trucker Convoy; Florida to Investigate.  The GoFundMe fundraising platform said Feb. 5 it will automatically refund donations made to a trucker convoy in Canada protesting COVID-19 vaccine mandates after backlash.  GoFundMe said Friday it was preventing the funds from going to organizers of the Freedom Convoy and would instead send the money to "established charities verified by GoFundMe."  The justification for the unusual move?  "We now have evidence from law enforcement that the previously peaceful demonstration has become an occupation, with police reports of violence and other unlawful activity," GoFundMe said.  The website didn't provide any evidence of the alleged violence or unlawful activity.

GoFundMe Caves After Attempting to Steal 'Freedom Convoy' Donations.  As RedState reported Friday evening, GoFundMe has decided to shut down the fundraiser set up to provide money to the Freedom Convoy in Canada, a group of truckers, farmers, and others protesting draconian COVID-19 mitigation measures.  According to the crowd-funding site, they did so because of threats of violence and harassment, though, they provided no evidence of that claim.  In fact, the only violence so far appears to have come from someone running over some of the Freedom Convoy participants in what is still a developing story we reported on earlier Saturday [2/5/2022].  Worse, GoFundMe announced that it was only going to offer manual refunds, and that the unclaimed money would go to "approved" charities.  That meant that thousands of people who didn't hear the news could end up having their money go to causes they didn't approve of.  In short, GoFundMe was fine stealing people's money for political reasons.

Reporter Presses White House on 'False Flag' Claims.  Skepticism is building around the White House's narrative regarding Ukraine and Russia, and that boiled over today during the press briefing at the US State Department.  In a rare act of journalism, Matt Lee of the Associated Press excoriated State Department spokesman Ned Price in a must-see back and forth.  The issue at hand involved the Biden administration's latest claims that Russia is spreading "misinformation" and seeking to commit a "false flag" attack to offer a pretext for war.  While most reporters would have just accepted the government's word as fact, Lee was having none of it.  He lit into Price, comparing the claims to "crisis actors," and describing them as "Alex Jones territory." [...] The context of Lee's frustration is simple:  The government has, time and time again, shown itself to be completely untrustworthy in relaying information to the public.  At times, the dishonesty has come via omission.  At other times, it's manifested in outright lies.

Keep your gas tank full.  You might need it.
Canadian Convoy Movement Goes Global — Next Stop, U.S.?  As we've discovered again in recent years, the left loves civil disobedience, until it's someone disobeying them.  Then it becomes filled with authoritarian busybodies, more than happy to deny you your rights to enforce their vision of the world — whether it's COVID lockdowns used to force Americans to follow senseless, unscientific rules, racist America-hating Critical Race Theory forced on school kids, or insane "woke" cancel culture imposed on us all.  But some are now saying, "enough," and loudly.  And they're not the elites.  They're working people who have seen their livelihoods damaged or destroyed, lost their rights to travel and and speak out, and in general have been treated as subjects, not citizens.  That's where Canada's trucker convoy comes in.  Like the American Tea Party movement of more than a decade ago, the truckers hoped to use their right to speak out and criticize to compel their government to change its rigid and at times absurd lockdown rules, which have devastated whole swaths of the country's economy.  The Canadian government, led by Canada's woke, Peter Pan-ish Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has responded not with an understanding of the trucker movement's followers and their very real fears, but with ridicule, name-calling and insults.

Workers of the World Unite, and the Left Hates It.  The workers are uniting against government mandates and the left now calls it fascism.  What began as a GoFundMe campaign for Canadian truckers who lost their jobs due to COVID-19 mandates for cross-border travel turned into a massive "Freedom Convoy" that drove across Canada and into the capital, Ottawa.  Left-wing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dismissed the truckers as a "small fringe" with "unacceptable views." [...] Are we really to believe that the Black Lives Matter protests didn't include "hateful rhetoric" and violence?  They certainly didn't practice social distancing or universal mask use when that was demanded by the capital "S," science.  Unlike those "mostly peaceful" protests that ended up in many cases burning down large sections of cities, no arrests or police incidents have occurred so far as a result of the Freedom Convoy.

China Builds 27 Empty New York Cities.  As of 2016, China's empty apartment units could house New York City 27 times over.  What does this mean to you?  There are a lot of effects from wasting so many resources. [...] If you are a connoisseur of forbidden truths, as I am, you don't take official figures at face value.  You keep digging for tells that reveal the real story.  I'm convinced that Chinese government statistics are as bogus as those in the United States.  And more so.  Professor Christopher Balding of Peking University's HSBC Business School, an authority with good sources in the People's Bank of China's (PBOC) Financial Stability Board, recently did some subversive arithmetic combining "on balance sheet assets" with "off-balance sheet assets."  Remember, while debts are liabilities to the borrowers, they are assets to the lenders.  He concludes that total debt in China is a breathtaking 833 percent of GDP.  That means a debt of roughly $116.6 trillion.

With Chris Wallace Gone, "Fox News Sunday" Sees Most Viewers in a Year.  Chris Wallace, the former Fox News Sunday host that many contended was extremely biased towards Biden in the first Trump-Biden debate, showed his true colors when he announced that he was leaving Fox for CNN, a move many said was for ideological reasons. [...] In any case, though Wallace probably thought he was doing the brave thing by leaving Fox and taking his audience with him, that didn't happen.  Rather than Fox's audience shrinking thanks to Wallace's departure, it actually grew!

'Fox News Sunday' Yet to Feel Impact of Chris Wallace's Departure, Sees Highest Rated Show in a Year.  Fox News' Sunday morning show, "Fox News Sunday," has not suffered a decline in the ratings since former anchor Chris Wallace announced his departure for CNN's streaming service.  The program even saw a rise in ratings, with the Jan. 23 broadcast raking in the most total viewers and the most viewers aged 25-54 the show has seen since Jan. 24, 2021.  According to Nielsen Media Research, the Jan. 23 episode of the show hosted by "Fox News at Night" anchor Shannon Bream saw a rating increase of 27 percent in the 25-54 demo and a 21 percent rise in total viewers over Wallace's last show on Dec. 12, 2021.

Boomers for Censorship.  If you're not aware, earlier this week, "[Neil] Young" threatened to remove his music catalogue from Spotify if the corporate media behemoth did not remove the "Joe Rogan Experience" podcast from its platform.  He gave Spotify an ultimatum, 'It's Joe Rogan or me.'  It's not clear whether Spotify assigned this challenge to its accounting department, but a quick glance at Joe Rogan's download numbers (in the tens of millions) shows that they dwarf the number of music downloads "and Young" gets on the platform.  Spotify apparently and politely told Young they were going to stick with Joe.  Spotify then proceeded to remove Young's music from the platform, forcing all of his fans to dust off their shoeboxes full of 8-track tapes if they want to listen to his music again.

Marijuana impairs driving more, and for longer, than users think, study finds.  Smoking marijuana impacts adults' ability to drive safely, yet most who use the drug believe otherwise, a study published Wednesday by JAMA Psychiatry found.  Adults in the study performed "significantly" less well on tests designed to assess their driving abilities, including reaction times 30 minutes and 90 minutes after smoking marijuana, the data showed.

Pennsylvania monkey truck crash spawns conspiracy theories after woman at scene falls ill.  A Pennsylvania woman first on the scene of last week's lab monkey truck crash near Danville is now the center of online conspiracy theories after falling ill.  The Daily Mail reports the woman, Michele Fallon who lives near Danville, Pa., is now suffering symptoms after one of the cynomolgus macaque monkeys "hissed" in her face.  On her Facebook page and in interviews, Fallon said she suddenly developed a cough, runny nose and pink-eye the day following the accident.  The pink-eye became so bad, she sought emergency room treatment at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, the Daily Mail reported.

US sends Kiev a plane-load of lethal Javelin anti-tank weapons — each with Vlad's name on them.  Russia has for the first time moved elite paratroopers close to its border with Ukraine amid fears of a military operation to grab capital Kiev.  A train with the crack troops and their equipment was spotted moving west towards the potential war zone and appears to be the 217th Guards Parachute Regiment of the 98th Airborne Division.  The deployment was seen passing through Russia's Bryansk region which borders both Ukraine and Belarus, as shown in a video posted on TikTok.

Russia-Ukraine Crisis [is] Deescalating As NATO Countries Break From Bellicose US-UK Stance.  Deescalation appears to be accelerating over the Ukraine crisis given a number of rapid developments which have seen lead NATO countries break from the more bellicose and threatening tone of the United States and UK. After Germany's neutrality toward the Russia-Ukraine crisis became apparent, Sweden is the latest to follow its lead of forbidding arms transfers to Kiev, while Croatia is out with a firm statement saying it will recall all of its troops from NATO in the event of war.  This followed on the heels of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announcing that circumstances in the region are now "under control" and that there's "no reason to panic" according to The Associated Press.  It appears the earlier hyped messages of an 'imminent Russian invasion' have backfired, as Ukraine officials have now turned to castigating the media for spreading a sense of overblown panic and doom among the population.  Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov went so far as to say the threat of a Russian invasion "doesn't exist" despite there still being "risky scenarios". Other Ukraine defense officials have echoed this as well.

Microsoft's 'Woke' Language Editor Included in Software.  [Scroll down]  Imagine, Microsoft, the company founded by Jeffrey Epstein's great friend Bill Gates, is telling us how to behave through language alteration.  (Does anyone have a synonym for hypocrisy meaning "so hypocritical it's actually nauseating."  We need a new word here.)  Soon enough, they'll be asking us to insert our pronouns in order to log in.  On the surface the whole thing is hilariously stupid, but this is no joke.  Woke, and all it entails, is far from funny.  Even the reliably liberal Bill Maher has recognized that, reminding his ideological compatriots that a lot of the public is fed up with this nonsense.  But that doesn't deter Microsoft that continues to pay obeisance to what's in reality manipulative propaganda designed to control us and guilt us into being sheep, a nation of conformists.

China might claim salvage rights to crashed US F-35 stealth jet by calling it an 'environmental hazard'.  A retired military official is warning on Wednesday that China could claim salvage rights to an F-35 stealth fighter jet that crashed into the South China Sea earlier this week.  Carl Schuster, former director of operations at the US Pacific Command's Joint Intelligence Center in Hawaii, told CNN that China's likely game plan will be to capitalize on its territorial claims in the South China Sea and claim it's salvaging the craft for environmental purposes.  'Salvaging the plane with commercial and coast guard assets will enable Beijing to claim it is recovering a potential environmental hazard or foreign military equipment from its territorial waters,' the former Navy captain said.

US Navy sailors hurt in 'mishap' on USS Carl Vinson in South China Sea.  Seven US sailors were injured Monday when a fighter jet had a "landing mishap" on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in the South China Sea, officials said.  The pilot of the F-35 Lighting II warplane was recovered by a helicopter after ejecting and is in stable condition.  The incident occurred during "routine flight operations," the Navy said.  Three of the injured sailors were taken to a medical facility in Manila, while the other four were treated aboard the ship.  Three of the four have since been released.

Race to beat China to recover $100 million US F-35 stealth fighter from bottom of South China Sea.  The U.S. faces a race to beat China in recovering an F-35 stealth fighter that plunged into the South China Sea on Monday [1/23/2022] after what the Navy termed a 'landing mishap' aboard the USS Carl Vinson.  The pilot was forced to eject and seven military personnel in total were injured.  The $100 [million] warplane, customised for naval operations, plunged overboard — making it the second time in three months that an F-35 has been lost at sea.

Finnish Government Puts Christianity On Trial, Calls The Bible 'Hate Speech'.  Two Christian leaders in Finland stood trial in Helsinki on Jan. 24 for publicly stating the Bible's teachings on sex and marriage.  Longtime Member of Parliament Paivi Rasanen and Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola defended in court their decision to write and publish, respectively, a pamphlet explaining Christian teachings about sex and marriage.  In the trial's opening arguments, which will resume on Feb. 14, Finnish prosecutors described quotations from the Bible as "hate speech."  Finland's top prosecutor's office essentially put the Bible on trial, an unprecedented move for a secular court, said Paul Coleman, a human rights lawyer with Alliance Defending Freedom International who is assisting in the Finns' legal defense and was present during Monday's trial.

The Criminalization of Christianity in Finland.  In a foreshadowing of America's future under coercive secularism, a Finnish politician and Finnish bishop will go on criminal trial next week for merely upholding historic Christian teaching on sexual morality.  The trial is a telling measure of the erosion of Christianity in Europe.  Juhana Pohjola, a Lutheran bishop, and Päivi Räsänen, a member of Finland's Parliament, stand accused of an act increasingly forbidden in the de-Christianized West: quoting the Bible.  "According to the nation's top prosecutor, the two people are accused of violating the equality and dignity of LGBT people," reports Christianity Today.  Simply quoting the Bible's condemnation of sexual immorality is now sufficient to qualify as a "hate crime" in Finland.  What Christianity has always taught — hate the sin, but love the sinner — is no longer permissible in the eyes of Finnish authorities.  They say that Pohjola and Räsänen are guilty of "ethnic agitation" — an absurdly vague charge they would never dream of applying to members of any other religion besides Christianity.

Drop in Public Trust in Military Officers Portends Danger.  The public disaster that unfolded in Afghanistan in August shook Americans to their core.  Many to this day cannot understand how the military was so unprepared for the sweep of the Taliban across Afghanistan.  They do not understand how U.S. forces were forced to conduct an evacuation out of a civilian airport unsuited for that purpose and why America relied on terrorists to provide airport security.  Despite moments of candor — such as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley's description of the Afghan war as a "strategic failure" — multiple days of congressional testimony failed to shed much light on these questions, and based on these poll results, Americans are not willing to let senior military leaders completely off the hook for the debacle.  But it probably isn't just Afghanistan that led to this decline.  Before Afghanistan there was a growing sense that senior military officers are becoming more political, and that does not sit well with Americans.

Now the BNSF Railroad Prepares to Go on Strike Adding to Challenges in Filling Already Empty Shelves in US Stores.  The Burlington Northern - Sante Fe (BNSF) railroad is preparing to go on strike.  This will involve 17,000 workers across the nation and will disrupt supply chain channels even further.

No military evacuation of U.S. citizens if Russia invades Ukraine:  State Department.  Americans in Ukraine will be on their own if Russia invades so the U.S. government is advising them to take the earliest commercial flight possible out of the country.  On Sunday [1/23/2022], State Department officials said they didn't know if Russian President Vladimir Putin has made the decision to send tanks across the border but insisted such a move could come "at any time."  "The U.S. government will not be in a position to evacuate American citizens in such a contingency," a senior State Department official told reporters in a briefing.  "Russian military action anywhere in Ukraine will severely impact the U.S. embassy's ability to provide consular assistance."

Joe Biden Just Told Americans in Ukraine to Go Jump in a Lake.  Are you ready for some more of that foreign policy "expertise" Joe Biden is supposedly famous for?  As RedState has reported, tensions between Ukraine and Russia are nearing a boiling point, with the latter possibly invading at any moment.  On Saturday, the State Department moved to evacuate all embassy personnel and their families.  Now, the call to leave the country has extended to all Americans.  Unfortunately, because absolutely no lessons were learned from Afghanistan, the Biden administration isn't planning on offering any help.

Senate Rejects Filibuster Change, Defeats Election Overhaul Bills.  The Senate late Thursday [1/19/2022] rejected a Democratic effort to alter the filibuster in order to pass their long-sought voting bills over unanimous Republican opposition, capping one of the most consequential days in the history of the chamber.  The vote failed 48-52 after Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema voted as they said they would for months, joining a unanimous Republican caucus in opposition and denying their party the necessary support for the change to take effect.  The change, had it been adopted, would have established a "talking filibuster" pertaining to the voting bills only, allowing any senator to speak for or against them for as long as they wanted but lowering the 60-vote threshold for passage to a simple majority.

Chuck Schumer's daughters work at Amazon and Facebook while Senate pursues antitrust bills.  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's two adult daughters work for big tech, raising questions about whether he has conflicts of interest as the Senate pursues legislation to rein in the companies.  The New York Post reported Tuesday that Jessica Schumer is a registered lobbyist for Amazon, while her sister Alison Schumer works for Facebook as a product marketing manager.  Schumer's first test could come soon, as a bill is making its way through the Senate Judiciary Committee that would prohibit companies like Amazon from 'self-preferencing' their content - essentially marketing their products over those from other sellers.

In Norway, a man who murdered 77 people — who was sentenced to only 21 years — is seeking release after 10 years in prison.  You may remember Anders Behring Breivik, who hunted down children at a Labor Party summer camp.  The sentence was 21 years because that was the maximum permitted, though the judge was able to add a provision for "preventive detention," based on his future danger to society.  But, technically, he's eligible for parole, and he's taking advantage of this access back into the public eye.

Glenn Youngkin Wastes No Time Delivering on Election Promises.  Shortly after being inaugurated, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin and his administration set the left's hair on fire.  It was glorious to watch.  Virginia is not just full of government employees working in the Biden administration.  It is also full of corporate media hacks who cover the beltway.  One of the first few actions Youngkin took was appointing an adviser on the pandemic.  He chose Dr. Marty Makary, surgery and public health professor at Johns Hopkins University.

NYS landmarks to be lit red, green and black for MLK Day.  New York Governor Kathy Hochul has announced that state landmarks will be lit the night of January 17 to mark Martin Luther King Jr.  Day.  The landmarks with be lit red, green and black.

The Editor says...
Please explain how something can be lit black.

Married University of Michigan president, 64, is fired under zero-tolerance rules he created.  The University of Michigan has fired its $927,000-a-year president for having an affair with a subordinate, a year after implementing wide sexual misconduct rules to stop people in power sleeping with their staff.  Mark Schlissel, 64, was informed in a letter on Saturday that he was being fired from the role he has held since July 2014.  The university has also made public 118 pages of emails between him and the woman he had an affair with.  She is not named in the exchanges.  The school found out about their affair through an anonymous tip on December 8, 2021.  The emails begin in 2019, when he sent the woman an article that she 'couldn't download' about the sexual habits of New Yorkers.  Their correspondence ends on December 3 last year, five days before he was reported.

Communist Takeover:  Without Firing a Shot, China Seizes Control of America's Farmlands.  U.S President Joe Biden told the media earlier in 2021 after a phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping that China was "going to eat our lunch."  Heads up, they already are — literally eating our lunch as they buy up American farmland and invest in thousands of American companies.  "The current trend in the U.S. is leading us toward the creation of a Chinese-owned agricultural land monopoly," Representative Dan Newhouse (R-WA) warned in a recent House Appropriations hearing.  According to American Military News, Newhouse raised his concerns about Chinese land ownership as he proposed an amendment in a new agricultural appropriations bill, H.R. 4356.  The amendment would block any new agricultural purchases by companies wholly or partly controlled by the Chinese government.  Furthermore, it would ban existing Chinese-owned farms in the U.S. from drawing from federal agricultural support programs.

Union Pacific train derails near site of recent cargo thefts in Lincoln Heights; 17 cars off track.  Seventeen cars of a Union Pacific train derailed Saturday afternoon in Lincoln Heights, the same area which has recently seen rail car thefts.  Drone video showed the scene of the derailment near San Pablo Street and Valley Boulevard, which is expected to be blocked for some time.

The Editor says...
[#1] I'm not a detective, but if the railroad pirates have discovered a gold mine of flat-screen TV's and other merchandise that can be looted and re-sold, they have a tremendous incentive to figure out how to derail a freight train at exactly the place they want it to stop.  A derailment leaves the train stopped for a long time, which makes it much easier to board and hastily ransack it.  [#2]  Democrats don't spend any time wondering, Where is this going to lead?  But allow me to make this prediction:  Before long, television sets will be sold as brain-dead devices that can only be activated after you enter a code that the retailer will supply to you when you legitimately purchase the TV.  That way, a stolen TV set will be useful only as a doorstop or boat anchor.  This would be especially effective if the TV has a connection to the internet.  Under this registration system, one could easily invent a system to remotely disable TV sets that were stolen after they were purchased and initially registered, but for now I won't elaborate on the technical details.

Biden boasts $27 billion in bridge repair spending.  President Biden on Friday announced that his administration will distribute $27 billion to repair or replace 15,000 bridges across the country.  The funds will be doled out as part of the bipartisan infrastructure spending Mr. Biden signed into law in November.  He said the funds were the largest investment in our nation's bridges since the creation of the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s.

The Editor says...
This is an example of a news story (and a presidential option) that is unleashed for the purpose of getting something in the newspapers other than presidential scandals.  In this case, the scandals include dementia, rock-bottom approval ratings, incompetence, runaway inflation, U.S. citizens trapped in Afghanistan, unchecked illegal immigration, the collapsing Covid-19 hoax, and big city crime that's out of control.  Stories like highway construction and NASA space probes are injected into the news stream to divert your attention.

Gov. Youngkin Signs 11 Executive Orders During First Day In Office.  Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin got straight to work Saturday, issuing 11 executive orders within hours of his inauguration.  Several of the orders were aimed at the issues within Virginia schools that gave him the edge over Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe in the waning days of the election.  "It's Day One, and we are going to work just like we promised," said Youngkin in a press release, directing an end to "the use of divisive concepts, including Critical Race Theory, in public education" with his first executive order.  He further made good on his promise to parents with his second order by "empowering [them] in their children's education and upbringing by allowing them to make decisions on whether their child wears a mask in school."

VA Governor Glenn Youngkin Overturns Mandates and Takes on Critical Race Theory Immediately Upon Taking Office.  Newly-minted Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin started his first day in office with a bang that could reverberate across the nation as a signal to other governors on the fence between the people and the donor class.  Signing a slate of executive orders, Youngkin fulfilled some of the biggest promises he made to voters during his groundbreaking gubernatorial run.  The orders include:
  •   Ending the use of Critical Race Theory in public education
  •   Investigating "wrongdoing" in Loudon County
  •   Opening the economy for all business
  •   Withdrawing from previous "green energy" initiatives that have been harmful to Virginia's economy and bureaucracy
  •   Slashing "job-killing" regulations
  •   Allowing parents and students to opt out of school mask mandates
  •   Rescinding vaccine mandates for all state employees

Watch As Mexican Cartel Drops Bomb From Drone On Rivals.  A modified consumer drone was used in a bombing raid on a rival drug cartel in Mexico on Monday.  Video from the cartel-operated drone shows several bombs were dropped on a rival camp in a new turf war.  According to the Spanish-language daily newspaper El Pais, the drone was operated by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and bombed a rival cartel in the state of Michoacan.  At least one person was injured in the attack.  [Video clip]

National School Board Association 'at risk of total collapse'.  We've seen this coming for a while now, like a slow-motion train wreck.  After the National School Board Association (NSBA) sent a letter to the Biden administration comparing parents to domestic terrorists and even suggesting the PATRIOT Act might be used to reign them in.  That turned out to be the last straw for a lot of parents and maybe also for the NSBA.

Why Are They Building A Wall Around The White House?  The last year has seen a lot of construction making its way around the White House, and after the fountain on the South Lawn was renovated a month or two ago we had a bit of a break.  That ended today though as the construction crews moved into the North Lawn and surrounded the fountain with barriers and hoarding in preparation for some new construction at the White House.  Construction like this has been ongoing for over a year at the White House, but they generally move in small bits.  [Video clip]

Even as Biden tears down our border, he's protecting himself and his friends.  When Donald Trump boasted about and then began building his wall along America's southern border to protect us from illegal aliens flooding in, bringing crime in their wake, and taking jobs from low-income Americans, Democrats insisted that walls were evil.  Walls were ugly.  Walls divided Americans.  Blah, blah, blah.  And when Biden got into the White House, the first thing he did was stop building Trump's wall and throw open the border to illegal aliens from around the world.  Given all that, it's ironic, to say the least, that Biden appears to be building a ten-foot high wall around the White House.  Conservative Treehouse writes that "the Joe Biden White House is erecting a concrete (K-Rail) blast and security containment wall directly around the White House."  It's a big wall, too:  "The perimeter fence appears to be approximately 10' high and is made from reinforced concrete k-rails.  It is also being installed directly around the White House building itself."

Biden Administration Erecting Concrete Blast and Security Wall Around White House.  Recently revealed video shows the Joe Biden White House is erecting a concrete (K-Rail) blast and security containment wall directly around the White House.  There doesn't appear to be any explanation readily available.  These types of security barriers are sometimes erected when heads of state are planning to come to the White House.  However, there doesn't appear to be any information about an anticipated delegation or foreign dignitary.  Additionally, according to one researcher on social media, all of the publicly available CCTV video-streams have been disabled as this work is taking place.  The perimeter fence appears to be approximately 10 [feet] high and is made from reinforced concrete k-rails.  It is also being installed directly around the White House building itself.  [Video clip]

Pentagon opens probe into whether extremists are getting into the military.  The Department of Defense's inspector general this month launched an investigation into whether the military is adequately screening recruits for "supremacist, extremist and criminal gang behavior," in accordance with Pentagon policy and procedures.  In December, Pentagon officials issued new rules prohibiting service members from engaging in extremist activities.  The guidelines were announced about a year after some veterans and a handful of active-duty service members were found to have participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.  Soon after taking office, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a "stand down" in the ranks so commanders could discuss what the Pentagon considers a rise in extremism in the armed forces.

Microsoft introduces new feature that suggests PC alternatives when someone types phrases that could offend snowflakes like 'mankind'.  Microsoft has included a new function in the latest version of its Word software that acts as a checker for inclusivity and offers PC alternatives to phrases which could upset others.  Traditionally, Microsoft Word has offered tools to its 250 million users such as checking software for spelling, punctuation and grammar.  But now, the tech giant has added an additional feature which reads through a user's work and examines whether the language used may offend an individual.

After a Visit by Pete Buttigieg, Oakland California Joins Operation Hide the Ships.  Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg visited the Port of Los Angeles (POLA) and Port of Long Beach (POLB) to announce the Biden administration officially saved Christmas.  Yes, that actually happened.  Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti took it one step further and proclaimed Secretary Buttigieg as the official "man who saved Christmas".

Fed vice chair is latest official to quit in trading scandal.  Federal Reserve Vice Chair Richard Clarida said Monday [1/10/2022] that he will step down on Friday, the third Fed official to resign after a trading scandal at the central bank that involved potential conflicts of interest.  The announcement followed new revelations around Clarida's trading in a stock fund in February 2020, when the coronavirus threatened to upend the global economy and the Fed was discussing extraordinary rescue measures.

McCarthy Eyes Ban on Lawmakers Trading Individual Stocks.  House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy is considering banning lawmakers from trading individual stocks if his party wins control of the chamber in the November midterms and he becomes speaker, a person familiar with the matter said.  The plan could be put into effect in the package of House rules voted on at the beginning of the next Congress.  Government officials' personal financial dealings are receiving fresh scrutiny following Federal Reserve Vice Chair Richard Clarida's announcement Monday that he will resign before his term expires amid revelations about his own stock trading on the eve of a major central bank announcement.

Powell calls inflation a severe threat, disputes White House claims of easing supply-chain woes.  Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome H. Powell on Tuesday [1/11/2022] disputed President Biden's claim that supply-chain problems have eased, telling Congress that persistent bottlenecks are responsible for record-high inflation that could prompt the central bank to raise interest rates more than planned.  In a confirmation hearing for a second four-year term, Mr. Powell told the Senate Banking Committee that high inflation has become a "severe threat" to healthy employment levels.  He said stalled shipping and delivery networks are still hurting the economy by contributing to the biggest price increases in consumer goods in four decades.  "We're not seeing really a lot of progress," Mr. Powell testified.  "Look at Long Beach and L.A., the two big ports on the West Coast for Asia, the number of ships at anchor is still at a record level."

American Airlines issues groveling apology after furious customer tweeted photo of pilot with Let's Go Brandon sticker on his case.  An American Airlines passenger has sparked a firestorm by complaining about a pilot whose case bore a sticker critical of Joe Biden.  Dana Finley Morrison, a Missouri-based fraternity and sorority worker, was flying from St Lucia to Miami on Saturday when she spotted the pilot's 'Let's Go Brandon' sticker. [...] he airline has a policy that only official, preapproved badges or pins can be worn by its staffers.  Examples include a military veterans pin, a gay pride pin and one for Christian workers.  Pilots can only wear three pins at a time.

Maryland surgeons successfully transplant pig heart into human patient.  In a medical first, doctors transplanted a pig heart into a patient in a last-ditch effort to save his life and a Maryland hospital said Monday that he's doing well three days after the highly experimental surgery.  While it's too soon to know if the operation really will work, it marks a step in the decades-long quest to one day use animal organs for life-saving transplants.  Doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center say the transplant showed that a heart from a genetically modified animal can function in the human body without immediate rejection.  The patient, David Bennett, a 57-year-old Maryland handyman, knew there was no guarantee the experiment would work but he was dying, ineligible for a human heart transplant and had no other option, his son told The Associated Press.

Rep. Ed Perlmutter Becomes 26th Democrat to Announce Retirement In 2022.  Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) has added his name to the already-expansive list of Democrats who have announced that they will be retiring ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.  Most of these retirements have thus far come from the House, where Republicans are expected to put on a real challenge to Democrats who are looking to keep their majority.  In the Senate, where Democrats have a more favorable election map, there has only been one retirement, that of Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), president pro tempore of the Senate.  The slew of Democratic retirements in the House has led some to speculate that there is a connection between the difficulty that Democrats will face in the 2022 elections and the growing list of retirements.  During a speech announcing his retirement, Perlmutter brushed off any such speculation.

Things to Look For that show signs of food supply chain vulnerability.  [Scroll down]  The reason I list the shortage of potatoes as the #1 precursor is because every food outlet sells a potato in some form.  Every supermarket and every single restaurant (fancy, sit down or fast food) sells some form of potato.  Potatoes are demanded by every single food outlet; therefore, a shortage of potatoes is the first noticeable issue.  The 2020 demand disruption problem now becomes a 2021/2022 supply chain problem on both the fresh and processing side (depleted inventories), with each vector now competing for the same raw material:  wheat, soybeans, grains, beans and stored row crops.  Making matters worse, the protein suppliers also need grain as feed for cattle, pigs, cows, chickens, etc.

Ted Cruz admits his comment calling the January 6 riot a 'violent terrorist attack' was 'dumb and sloppy'.  Texas Senator Ted Cruz gave a mea culpa to Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson Thursday after Carlson criticized Cruz Wednesday [1/5/2022] for comments he made last week branding the Capitol riot 'a violent terrorist attack.'  Cruz, introduced by Carlson as 'smarter than me,' called his own comments 'dumb and sloppy' and said he texted Carlson shortly after and asked to go on the show.  Carlson didn't believe it, continuing his line of criticism from Wednesday night, where he said: 'He doesn't use a single word by accident.  Every word Ted Cruz uses is used intentionally.  He's a lawyer.'

The Editor says...
Ted Cruz isn't just a lawyer.  He was the Solicitor General for the State of Texas before being elected to the U.S. Senate.  Everything he says is planned in advance.  He knows exactly what he's saying.

Democrats Call for the Disqualification of Dozens of Republican Members.  Electoral disqualification systems are generally anathema to democratic values, but some in the United States are now toying with the idea for the 2022 or 2024 elections.  While more modest than the Iranian model, the Democratic calls for disqualification are just as dangerous.  What is most maddening is that this anti-democratic effort is cloaked in democratic doublespeak.  This week, Democratic lawyer Marc Elias predicted that 2022 would bring a renewed interest in disqualifying Republican members from office based on an obscure Civil War-era provision.  Elias — the former Hilary Clinton campaign general counsel — is a well-known figure in Washington who has been prominently featured in the ongoing investigation of Special Counsel John Durham.  Elias has founded a self-described "pro-democracy" group that challenges Republican voting laws and pledges to "shape our elections and democratic institutions for years to come."  In the age of rage, nothing says democracy like preventing people from running for office.

Disgraced Theranos boss Elizabeth Holmes is found guilty of four counts of wire fraud and conspiracy.  Elizabeth Holmes has been found guilty of four counts of wires fraud after a jury in San Jose found that she deceived investors into sinking more than $945 million into her faulty blood testing machines.  The former Theranos CEO is facing up to 20 years in jail, with each count of her sentence likely to be served concurrently.  She is expected to appeal.  Holmes, 37, who modelled herself on Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, won widespread acclaim — including from Harvard University and Time magazine — for a phoney technology which she claimed would revolutionize blood-testing methods by using miraculously tiny volumes of blood, such as from a finger prick.

Covid crisis leaves Sri Lanka on brink of bankruptcy.  Sri Lanka is facing a deepening financial and humanitarian crisis with fears it could go bankrupt in 2022 as inflation rises to record levels, food prices rocket and its coffers run dry.  The meltdown faced by the government, led by the strongman president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, is in part caused by the immediate impact of the Covid crisis and the loss of tourism but is compounded by high government spending and tax cuts eroding state revenues, vast debt repayments to China and foreign exchange reserves at their lowest levels in a decade.  Inflation has meanwhile been spurred by the government printing money to pay off domestic loans and foreign bonds.  The World Bank estimates 500,000 people have fallen below the poverty line since the beginning of the pandemic, the equivalent of five years' progress in fighting poverty.

China unveils plan to 'take over' Latin America.  Chinese Communist Party officials have unveiled an "action plan for cooperation" with Latin American countries that amounts to a "comprehensive" plan to influence the region and threaten U.S. interests, following a new summit with the nearest neighbors of the United States.  "The Chinese don't say, 'We want to take over Latin America,' but they clearly set out a multidimensional engagement strategy, which, if successful, would significantly expand their leverage and produce enormous intelligence concerns for the United States," U.S. Army War College research professor Evan Ellis, a former member of the State Department policy planning staff, told the Washington Examiner.

FDIC chair resigns after warning Democrats launching 'hostile takeover'.  FDIC Chairman Jelena McWilliams announced her resignation Friday [12/31/2021] in an open letter addressed to President Biden, just weeks after she warned of a "hostile takeover" of the agency by Democrats.  McWilliams, a Serbian immigrant, has lived in the country for decades and boasts a successful career in law, finance, and banking policy.

The Government Of Netherlands Banned Fireworks For New Year'd Eve, The People Begged to Differ.  This was the amazing scene on New Year's Eve in the Netherlands after the government banned fireworks in the face of Omicron spreading.  Looks like the good Dutch people have had enough of being told what to do, replicating Los Angeles one year ago when mayor Garcetti banned fireworks and the night sky filled with explosions in protest.  [Video clip]

Oregon Business Owner Ordered to Remove American Flag Mural on Private Property.  A business owner in Salem, Oregon, painted a mural honoring the American flag and the Marines who raised it at Iwo Jima.  Most observers considered it a beautiful memorial and an attractive use of an otherwise nondescript wall.  The owner of the business commissioned a local artist to create the tasteful and fetching display of patriotism.  The Salem City Council has ordered him to remove it, or face fines of up to $200 per day.

Brandon might as well make the most of it.
NASCAR's Brandon Brown to drive 'Let's go, Brandon'-themed car.  "Let's Go, Brandon"-themed stickers have spread from America's roadways to NASCAR's — thanks to "Brandon" himself.  Brandon Brown acquired a new sponsor Thursday, one that took its very name from the chant based on the driver's name but aimed at President Biden.  The cryptocurrency company LGBcoin — the self-styled "America's Coin" — will be the Brown team's full season primary partner for the 2022 NASCAR Xfinity Series[.]

Kraft Heinz Tells Grocery Retailers Price Increases Beginning 2022 Will Be Up to 20 Percent.  Hopefully everyone has done their preparatory diligence and are well situated to assist their family, because prices on fast turn consumable goods (groceries) are now less than 30 days from entering exponential increase phase.  CTH has been counting down the days to impact as the contract terms of 30, 60 and 90 days have begun expiring.  The Wall Street Journal has seen the first pricing notification memo from Kraft-Heinz food group to the buying offices of major U.S. retailers.  Here's how the WSJ presents it:  "Kraft Heinz Co. told retailer customers that it would raise prices across many of its products including Jell-O pudding and Grey Poupon mustard, with some items going up as much as 20%, according to a memo viewed by The Wall Street Journal."

Stu Scheller Announces Discharge from the Marine Corps, His Planned Media Blitz.  The Marine lieutenant colonel who demanded accountability from senior military leaders for the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan has announced that he has been officially discharged from the Marine Corps and is planning to go on a media blitz.  Former Marine Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Scheller wrote on his Facebook page on December 23:  "Out of respect to my senior leaders, I haven't done a single interview since this began.  But now it's my turn.  My television media blitz starts with Tucker Carlson on 4 January."

Power company scraps plan for natural gas turbines in Gowanus, Brooklyn.  An energy company is pulling the plug on a controversial plan to install natural gas turbines at a power plant in Gowanus, Brooklyn.  The proposal had come under criticism as a step backward while the state government attempts to phase out fossil fuels and switch to clean sources of energy.  Eastern Generation said it was withdrawing its application to replace combustion turbines at the Gowanus site — considered to be among the dirtiest power plants in the city — with natural gas units.

Amazon Partners With Chinese Propaganda Arm, Deletes Reviews Critical of Communist Party Books.  In the latest example of corporate America kowtowing to the Communists in Beijing, internal memos and Amazon.com insiders have revealed the company's continuing appeasement of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), including colluding with state propaganda operatives to delete reviews of books critical of the regime.  Notably, as reported by Reuters, Amazon caved in like a cheap Mao suit to a CCP edict that it stop allowing negative customer ratings and reviews of the book "Xi Jinping:  The Governance of China," which contains many of Xi's speeches and writings, as well as other state propaganda.  It gets worse.  Said a company insider, according to Reuters:  "I think the issue was anything under five stars."

NASCAR driver who unintentionally sparked 'Let's Go Brandon' chant says corporations don't want to sponsor him.  The NASCAR driver who recently rose in fame after unintentionally sparking the "Let's Go Brandon!" phrase says he's had a hard time finding corporate sponsors following the chant going viral.  "It got extremely difficult for us. ... If you're a national corporation, that means you sell to all consumers ... and unfortunately, when you get dragged into the political arena, people want you to take a side,'" Brown told Sports Business Journal in a recent interview.

The Editor says...
In my opinion, the damage to Brandon Brown's marketability was done by NBC Sports reporter Kelli Stavast, not by Brandon himself.

Today's deep question:  Do all California's education-equity execs live in Texas?  Answer:  Nope.  One of them lived in Philadelphia, for instance.  However, the latest California education executive to be discovered by Politico living out of state tendered her resignation ... from Dallas: [...] As a newly minted Texan, that irony makes my day.  Gavin Newsom made a big show of launching that ban — which most Texans likely appreciated — while his patronage regime paid at least one of its executives to live in Texas.

Internal Amazon Documents Show Alexa Owners Aren't Using Devices.  According to a recent report, Amazon is aware that many owners of its Alexa devices are not using them after as little as two weeks of use.  According to internal documents viewed by Bloomberg, as many as 25 percent of Amazon's smart home assistants become expensive paperweights just weeks after being activated.  A recent report from Bloomberg reveals that Amazon knows that users of its Alexa devices are not utilizing the full capabilities of the smart home assistant, and often are becoming bored with the device as quickly as two weeks after getting it.

The Editor says...
If you get tired of it, don't just ignore it.  Pull the power cord, so it won't keep listening and/or recording everything you say.

Did two Democrat politicians just get mugged by reality?  One of the long-standing problems with Democrat governance is that Democrat politicians enact policies that affect people other than themselves.  Thus, affluent professional Dems living in chi-chi gentrified enclaves aren't the ones who lose their jobs due to unconstrained illegal immigration.  Likewise, those same neighborhoods insulate them from the havoc their "defund the police" policies wreak.  However, on Wednesday, two Democrat politicians, one in Philadelphia and one in Chicago, were mugged by reality when both were carjacked.  Fortunately, neither was hurt but I hope it was a learning experience for both of them.

Former Arsonist Just Got Appointed Fire Chief In Illinois, Over A Dozen Firefighters Resign.  There were high emotions and high drama at a fire district board meeting in Illinois Monday, as a once-convicted arsonist was named acting fire chief of the volunteer fire department.  The board removed John Rosencranz as chief of the Prairie Du Pont Volunteer Fire Department and replaced him with Assistant Chief Jerame Simmons.  The two were seated at the same table when the change was made.  Board members said they had good reasons for making the change but they have not made those reasons public.  That wasn't good enough reasoning for most of the department's firefighters.  Ten of the department's 13 firefighters quit on the spot.  [Video clip]

10 Illinois firefighters walk off job after man convicted of arson appointed new chief.  Ten out of 13 firefighters with a volunteer Illinois department have quit after their chief was replaced by a man once convicted of arson.  Fire Chief John Rosenkranz was removed from his post and replaced with Assistant Chief Jerame Simmons, at a fire district board meeting in East Carondelet on Monday, FOX 2 reports.  The newly-appointed fire chief pleaded guilty to arson more than 20 years ago when he was just 18.  The two can be seen in video seated at the same table when the change was made.  Jerame Simmons is reportedly the son of Herb Simmons, who is the long-time director of the St. Clair County Emergency Management Agency.  He was accused of setting fire to a vacant home and setting another, smaller fire, at Dupo High School.  He served probation, but said Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker has since pardoned him.

Progressive DA Larry Krasner's office in chaos after 261 attorneys quit during his first term.  As you may have heard, shootings and murders are up around the country.  That's especially true in Philadelphia which had already recorded more murders this year than either New York City or Los Angeles.  Progressive DA Larry Krasner's response to that spike in violence has been denial.  "We don't have a crisis of lawlessness, we don't have a crisis of crime, we don't have a crisis of violence," Krasner said earlier this month.

Former Harvard Chemistry Chair Admits to Taking Tens of Thousands of Dollars From China.  The former chair of Harvard University's Chemistry Department accused of hiding Chinese ties has admitted to taking tens of thousands of dollars from China, video footage presented in federal court on Dec. 17 shows.  The footage, shot during an interrogation by federal investigators of nanoscientist Charles Lieber, was played for jurors on the fourth day of the trial regarding Lieber's alleged false statements about China funding.  The 62-year-old Harvard professor had maintained that he didn't take payments from a Chinese university, except for compensation of his travel costs to China.  But he shifted his story quickly after FBI agents Robert Plumb and Kara Spice presented him with copies of evidence, including a bilingual contract he signed with the Wuhan University of Technology (WUT) in 2011.

Special Report:  Amazon partnered with China propaganda arm.  Amazon.com Inc was marketing a collection of President Xi Jinping's speeches and writings on its Chinese website about two years ago, when Beijing delivered an edict, according to two people familiar with the incident.  The American e-commerce giant must stop allowing any customer ratings and reviews in China.  A negative review of Xi's book prompted the demand, one of the people said.  "I think the issue was anything under five stars," the highest rating in Amazon's five-point system, said the other person.

Mexico's Supreme Court says you can choose your own age.  That's right, Mexico's Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) has affirmed that a "fundamental right to personal identity" includes the right to change one's date of birth on government documents.  The Court ruled that, under the Mexican Constitution's recognition of individuals' "right to identity," a birth certificate should reflect how someone has "constantly identified himself in his private and public acts."  It added that identity is comprised of more than just "biological truth."

China Follows Up 2021 Box Office King with Another Anti-American War Movie.  Chinese filmmakers are preparing to follow up The Battle at Lake Changjin, which became this year's top box-office attraction in China with a good deal of help from the communist government, with another anti-American propaganda film about the Korean War called Crossing the Yalu River.  The Battle at Lake Changjin was touted by the Chinese communist government as the top movie worldwide in October, and the most successful movie ever produced by a Chinese studio.  Some of its massive ticket sales were due to the government strongly suggesting that every patriotic Chinese citizen was obliged to see it, and making sure no other movies were playing in many theaters.

Redfin and Realtor websites won't provide crime statistics for neighborhoods when homebuyers search for houses to avoid 'racial bias'.  Two major websites used by homebuyers to search for properties to move into have decided that ignorance is bliss when it comes to crime statistics.  As noted by Stacey Matthews on Legal Insurrection, Realtor.com and redfin.com decided on the same day that providing crime information on neighborhoods would promote racial bias.  Helping families avoid moving to a house or condo in a dangerous crime-ridden neighborhood is far less important to them than virtue-signaling their trendy "anti-racism."  Apparently, they both have forgotten the ancient maxim "caveat emptor" — "let the buyer beware."  I am not certain how to render "let the buyer be anti-racist" in Latin, but that is the replacement philosophy for these real estate marketing geniuses.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to investigate drugmakers promoting puberty blockers to minors.  Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Monday that he was opening an investigation into two pharmaceutical companies for promoting puberty-blocking drugs to minors for gender transitions.  The investigation will look at whether or not Endo Pharmaceuticals and AbbVie Inc. have violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act by advertising and providing puberty-blocking drugs to underage children for the purposes of gender transitions, a use that does not have FDA approval.  The two companies provide puberty-blocking drugs that are approved for use in children with precocious puberty, a condition in which a child starts exhibiting signs of puberty prematurely.

Wait, What?  Jake Sullivan's Wife is AG Merrick Garland's Legal Counsel at DOJ?  The same Jake Sullivan who was one of Hillary Clinton's foot soldiers, a foreign policy advisor pushing the fraudulent Trump-Russia conspiracy theory, is now Joe Biden's national security advisor.  That was always sketchy by itself.  However, to discover that Sullivan's wife, Margaret Goodlander, is the legal counsel to Attorney General Merrick Garland, opens up an entire world of conflict issues.  As noted by Chuck Ross, Attorney General Merrick Garland is being advised by Jake Sullivan's wife and overseeing the John Durham criminal probe, which is looking into the role of Jake Sullivan in the construct of the fabricated Trump-Russia conspiracy, the use of the FBI as a political tool, and Sullivan's lies in testimony to congress.

North Koreans are banned from laughing or drinking for 11 days to mark tenth anniversary of former leader Kim Jong Il's death.  North Koreans have been banned from laughing or drinking for 11 days to mark the tenth anniversary of former leader Kim Jong Il's death.  Government authorities have ordered the public to not show any signs of happiness while North Korea commemorates his death.  Kim Jong Il ruled North Korea from 1994 until his death in 2011, and was then succeeded by his third and youngest son, current leader Kim Jong Un. 

The Editor says...
An eleven-day ban on laughing is appropriate, because there's no laughing or drinking where Kim Jong Il is now.

'Woke' retailers who asked Congress for help amid smash-and-grabs supported left-wing police reforms.  Retail CEOs are calling on Congress for help amid the smash-and-grab lootings that are leaving them grappling with hundreds of thousands of dollars of lost or stolen merchandise.  Some of those same companies, however, supported organizations last year that have called to defund or overhaul policing in the United States.  "Many corporate leaders jumped on the woke bandwagon and wrote big checks to organizations that still continue to advocate to defund the police.  They did not think of anything beyond not being labeled a racist," Sean Pritchard, president of the San Jose Police Officers Association, told Fox News Digital Tuesday [12/14/2021].  Nearly two dozen CEOs signed the letter to Congress asking for support as theft crimes rage, including the chiefs of Target, Nordstrom, Levi Strauss, Ulta Beauty and Home Depot.

Lee Harvey Oswald was in contact with member of KGB two months before shooting and anonymous phone calls said Russia was behind it, documents reveal.  More than 1,500 previously classified JFK assassination files have today been made public, including documents about killer Lee Harvey Oswald's contact with a KGB agent two months before the shooting.  The files were released at noon on Wednesday by the National Archives, after months of delays by Biden who had promised to make them public but then stalled, claiming COVID backlogs was the reason.  Not all of them are now public — some are still being held back for further review by the NSA until next December, a move that has been slammed by members of Kennedy's family.

The Editor says...
If inflation gets worse, and it will, or if Ghislaine Maxwell spills the beans about someone really important, or if a Democrat politician is struck by lightning while telling the latest in a series of obvious lies, a few more of these documents will be released, to get the bad news off the front page of the newspaper.  Anybody who has looked into the Kennedy assassination for a few years will learn nothing from the documents most recently declassified.  (Really, this is news?  Oswald had "contact with a KGB agent two months before the shooting?"  That it?  Did anybody not know that already?  The only difference is that it was a conspiracy theory last week, and now it's a fact.)  The really interesting stuff is still under wraps, and will be for years, no matter who is president.

Governor of Texas Exceeded Constitutional Authority.  Allen West says that recent edicts issued by the Governor of Texas exceeded the governor's constitutional authority.  West specifically mentioned such decisions as deciding which businesses were essential and which were not as being blatantly unconstitutional.  Part of the discussion included references to American and Texas history as both the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and Texas' break from Mexico in 1836 included opposition to similar autocratic decrees by the King of England and by General Santa Anna respectively.  West also mentioned the lack of enforcement of border security as well as gubernatorial edicts that changed Texas' election schedule in 2020 in a manner that all but killed any attempts to accomplish voter registration clean-up in Texas.

Key Inflation Metric Grows at Fastest Pace Ever Recorded.  The producer price index jumped 9.6 percent in November compared to the same month last year, the highest year-over-year increase since record-keeping began in 2010.  The PPI increased by 0.8 percent during the month of November 2021.  Prices still climbed 6.9 percent when excluding food and energy costs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  The PPI tracks changes in the sale price of domestically produced goods, and is a key gauge of inflation.

Leaked SoCal hospital records reveal huge, automated markups for healthcare.  Ridiculous, seemingly arbitrary price markups are a defining characteristic of the $4-trillion U.S. healthcare system — and a key reason Americans pay more for treatment than anyone else in the world.  But to see price hikes of as much as 675% being imposed in real time, automatically, by a hospital's computer system still takes your breath away.  I got to view this for myself after a former operating-room nurse at Scripps Memorial Hospital in Encinitas shared with me screenshots of the facility's electronic health record system.  The nurse asked that I not use her name because she's now working at a different Southern California medical facility and worries that her job could be endangered.

Pentagon Pledges to 'Do Better,' But Won't Discipline Anyone for Botched Kabul Drone Strike.  Remember back in August when the Biden administration, through its Pentagon brass, announced a "righteous" drone strike in Kabul that supposedly stopped an imminent suicide bombing amid President Biden's disastrous and deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan?  The one that turned out to have been a complete miss and killed ten innocent civilians including seven children?  Well, no one's getting punished, as Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby announced Monday [12/13/2021].  According to The Associated Press, U.S. defense officials reported that "No U.S. troops involved in the August drone strike that killed innocent Kabul civilians and children will face disciplinary action."

Pentagon confirms NO military personnel will be punished for botched Kabul drone strike that killed 10 civilians instead of ISIS-K suicide bombers.  The Pentagon said Monday [12/13/2021] that no action would be taken against military personnel involved in the botched drone strike that killed 10 civilians in Kabul as American forces withdrew in August.  Seven children were among the dead when a Hellfire missile hit a saloon car mistakenly identified as being packed with explosives in the Afghan capital.  U.S. nerves were on edge three days after an ISIS-K suicide bomber killed 170 Afghans and 13 American service members at Hamid Karzai International Airport.

Project Veritas Case Appointed a Special Master in Court Win Over DOJ.  Project Veritas is in court again, this time because they claimed to have received an abandoned diary that once belonged to Ashley Biden, daughter of the current President of the United States.  James O'Keefe, founder of the group that is devoted to conducting sting operations against Democrats and their various organizations, insisted the diary came into their hands around September 3rd, 2020 because it had been abandoned, not stolen.

Amazon's cloud outage left millions who use 'smart' technology locked out of their homes, fridges, vacuum cleaners and house lighting systems!.  Amazon's cloud outage saw Alexa's, Roomba robot vacuum cleaners and Ring doorbells go down — leaving some users trapped outside their own 'smart' homes.  Some Ring customers said that they spent time rebooting or reinstalling their apps and devices before finding out about the outage on social media.  Many rely on a phone app to enter their homes, rather than a code that can also be used, with those that had forgotten the latter stuck outside their own homes as Ring doorbells went down.

The Editor says...
If you put all your eggs in one basket, you're in for great disappointment.  The internet just isn't all that reliable.  Neither is the power grid.  Neither is the government.

GOP moves to stop 'zombie votes' at Democratic FTC.  Republican senators are aiming to stop the Federal Trade Commission's Democratic chairwoman, Lina Khan, from using the votes of departed commissioners to move her agenda forward.  Six Republican senators, led by Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas, introduced legislation last week that would invalidate dozens of email votes left behind by Democrat Rohit Chopra when he left the agency in October.  The trade commission's current rules allow Chopra's votes to be used for up to 60 days after his departure, thereby allowing Democrats at the agency, led by Khan, to use his critical vote to maintain a majority regarding votes on policy statements, investigations, and rule-makings.

Leftist radicals enjoy unequivocal freedom of speech.  Conservatives do not.
Virginia: 'Let's Go Brandon' Boat Wins Boat Parade Contest, Is Then Disqualified Because of Liberal Tears.  Yorktown, Virginia held its annual Yorktown Lighted Boat Parade on Saturday night, and one 50-foot vessel won the coveted "Best in Show" title with a colorful and artfully designed display of lights, plus people dressed as Santa Claus and Old Joe Biden yelling "Merry Christmas" to the crowd, topped off with a pair of American flags at the bow.  A splendid time was had by all, but there was one fly in the festive ointment:  the winning entry was also bedecked with a sign reading "FJB Let's Go Brandon" in white lights.  Within hours, the Yorktown Foundation, which sponsors the event, had abjectly apologized and stripped the offending boat of its title.  An "overt political message," you see, is not allowed, or at least isn't allowed now that this has happened.

'Amazon Bought Twitch for $1 Billion for a Reason': Why Defense Experts Are Watching Video Game Industry.  From Call of Duty to Minecraft, virtual spaces are where more and more people are spending a good amount of their lives.  Facebook's plan to create a metaverse — a sort of next-generation internet that promises to blur the line between the actual and virtual worlds even further — raises valid concerns.  And yet, the demand for virtual environment is only growing.  In fact, Investopedia reports that the video game industry is larger than both the movie and music industries combined.  It has become an incubator for technology that is changing how people socialize, communicate, and even wage war.

Apple Signed Secret $275 Billion Deal With Chinese Government.  [Scroll down]  And just as the SEC prepares to boot dozens of Chinese companies off of US stock exchanges for refusing to comply with US audit standards (something the CCP has expressly forbidden under the auspices of data privacy), reporters with the Information have just published a bombshell:  At some point in the not-too-distant past, Cook struck a $275 billion deal with the Chinese government while facing pressure from the CCP.

Alleged $275 billion secret deal between Apple and China raises awkward questions.  A paywalled IT industry publication called The Information has published a blockbuster report titled, "Inside Tim Cook's Secret $275 Billion Deal with Chinese Authorities."  Only 2 paragraphs are visible to non-subscribers, Hartley Charlton of MacRumors has published a summary of it that is available to all.

New Bombshell Report Reveals CIA Is Full Of Pedophiles, Agency Refuses To Clean It Up.  The CIA covered up evidence of a Deep State pedophile ring operating within its own agency, according to newly released documents.  The bombshell revelation was reported, surprisingly, by BuzzFeed News, which obtained hundreds of internal CIA reports through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits.  According to the documents, one of the 10 CIA staffers raped a two year old girl and admitted to raping a six-year-old on two occasions.  The employee was fired but never criminally charged.  [Video clip]

Stash of money and checks discovered in walls of Joel Osteen church.  A stash of money and checks was discovered behind a bathroom wall by a plumber working at the megachurch of televangelist Joel Osteen in Houston, Texas.  The revelation was reported Thursday with Morning Show radio host George Lindsey being told about the Nov. 10 find during repair work at the Lakewood Church, according to KPRC 2.  "There was a loose toilet in the wall, and we removed the tile," a caller said.  "We went to go remove the toilet ... I moved some insulation away, and about 500 envelopes fell out of the wall, and I was like, 'Oh wow!'"  The caller explained to Lindsey that, upon discovering the stash of envelopes filled with cash and checks, he immediately "contacted the maintenance supervisor" and had the money turned in.  Lindsey said he was in disbelief upon hearing that the plumber had turned in the money.  "We were like, 'What are you talking about?'"  Lindsey said the caller explained that "in 2014 there was a big story about money being stolen from Lakewood church that they never recovered."

Alabama School Board Association votes to leave the National School Boards Association.  The parent movement scored another victory, as confirmed last night, with a vote taken by the Alabama School Board Association.  That association voted to leave the National School Boards Association which brings the number to 26 states that have distanced themselves from or terminated their membership with the national organization, as noted by Christopher Rufo on Twitter.

Supply chain issues impacting pharmacies.  The Federal Reserve reported Wednesday that many parts of the country were hit by supply chain disruptions and labor shortages in November.  While these problems have continued into December — with price increases reported to be widespread across the U.S. economy — empty shelves aren't the only issue for Americans.  Pharmacies are reportedly running out of important prescription medications, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) shows there are about 111 drugs on backorder — including heart medications, antibiotics and cancer drugs.

U.S. Space Academies Prioritize 'Diversity' And 'Inclusion' As China Prepares To Eclipse U.S. In Space.  The United States may soon lose its status as a truly global superpower, both on Earth and in the heavens of low orbit.  "The threats are really growing and expanding every single day," Space Force Vice Chief of Operations Gen. David Thompson warned in an interview with the Washington Post published Tuesday.  As the Chinese and Russians continue to enhance their capabilities beyond Earth-bound gravity, the United States finds itself in the midst of a new 21st-century space race, competing with world powers developing new weapons to target satellites.  "We're really at a point now where there's a whole host of ways that our space systems can be threatened," Thompson said, adding U.S. satellites already face attacks "every single day" whether it be by laser, cyber, or frequency jammers.

DeSantis Moves to Reinstate the Long Disbanded Florida State Guard.  Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said on Dec. 2 that he will be reinstating the Florida State Guard and will be seeking $3.5 million in the budget to do it.  The state guard was formed in 1941 and filled in for the Florida National Guard troops when they were deployed during World War II.  In the late 1940s, the unit was disbanded.  The governor said he wanted "to make sure we have the flexibility — and the ability needed — to respond to events in our state in the most effective way possible."  He added that will require Florida to have access to, and use of, support in ways that don't require the federal government.  The state guard would answer to the governor with no federal deployment, or missions, and would receive no federal dollars.

Biden sending 1,000 Nat'l Guard troops to Africa.  President Joe Biden is sending 1,000 Virginia and Kentucky National Guard troops to the horn of Africa, the services announced on Saturday.  The deployment marks the largest single-unit mobilization of Virginia's National Guard since World War II.  According to the Virginia National Guard Public Affairs Office, 800 Virginia and 200 Kentucky Guardsmen were transported to Fort Bliss, Texas, for roughly one month of pre-deployment training, marking the start of their federal active duty status.  The troops will be deployed to "unspecified countries" in Africa early next year.

The Editor says...
The article goes on and on after that, but never addresses the obvious question, "Why are U.S. National Guard troops needed in Africa?  One might also reasonably wonder if U.S. troops are supposed to be a generic manpower pool for every country on earth.  One might also wonder why those same soldiers aren't stationed on the Mexican border to defend the international boundary.

18 Democrats Will Abandon the House — More than Triple GOP Needs to Win Back Majority.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) ambitions of keeping the Democrat majority in the House of Representatives past the midterm elections next year are dwindling as droves of vulnerable Democrats have announced they are leaving their current seats to either retire or seek a different office instead of fighting in a brutal reelection.  Republicans only need to net five seats to pick up the House majority after the midterms.  So far, more than triple the amount of Democrats (18 total) have decided to officially call it quits on the House and have left their seats open for a fight, giving Republicans a chance to gain another seat since House Republicans only need to net five seats to gain the majority and retire Pelosi as Speaker.

Xi's plan to punish Australia for insisting on investigating the origins of Covid backfires.  For almost a year and a half, China has been trying to bully Australia for that nation's insistence on getting to the bottom of the spread of COVID from the Middle Kingdom.  From the standpoint of Chairman Xi, Australia must have looked like an excellent target to use as a means of establishing China's power over lesser nations that are part of the world's club of advanced nations.  Xi's ambition for China to be the world's hegemon requires that other nations fear its power. [...] China's GDP of 14.72 trillion dollars is more than 11 times Australia's 1.33 trillion.  China targeted Australian wines for trade restrictions, a shrewd move because of the visibility in Australia of this small but very proud industry.  However, Xi made a big boo-boo in targeting Australian coal.  That's a strategic item, and world energy markets can be volatile.

The trucker shortage is fueled by a misconception that the job is only for low-skilled people, who endure poor working conditions, says expert.  A false perception of truck drivers' experiences and working conditions is fueling the ongoing truck-driver shortage, according to an expert.  Tra Williams, CEO of FleetForce, a Florida-based truck-driving school, told Insider:  "The problem is the perception that trucking is for people of low skill, low education, who are OK with low wages.  All three are factually incorrect."  In the US, there is a shortage of around 80,000 truck drivers, Chris Spear, president and CEO of the American Trucking Associations, recently told CNN.

Disney's Faltering Brand Takes Another Hit with 'Encanto' Box Office Nosedive.  Despite rave reviews, Disney's Encanto, an animated musical with songs from Lin-Manuel Miranda, took a nosedive at the holiday box office.  As of Thursday, this tale of a magic castle in Colombia (or something) is expected to gross just $26 million over three days and an anemic $38.6 million over the full five-day holiday.  First off, no one can blame streaming.  This is a theatrical-only release.  Secondly, no one can blame the pandemic.  Plenty of movies are opening just fine.  How bad is this?  Oh, it's bad.  By comparison, one of Disney's biggest bombs, The Good Dinosaur, grossed $55.4 million over the five-day Thanksgiving weekend.  This is also the second time Hollywood's precious Lin-Manuel Miranda has failed to juice the box office this year.

This holiday season the Salvation Army wants a donation — and a 'sincere apology' for white racism.  As Americans head out on Black Friday to make a dent in their holiday shopping lists, some are sure to come across Salvation Army volunteers ringing bells as part of the annual Red Kettle campaign.  But this year, the global charitable organization wants more from its donors than a donation to the needy during the holidays.  With the dissemination of a recent Salvation Army guide titled "Let's Talk About ... Racism," the Christian organization is attempting to elicit "sincere" apologies from white people for being racist.  The guide, which was compiled and approved earlier this year by the International Social Justice Commission of the Salvation Army, aligns the organization with the ideology of the Black Lives Matter, antiracism, and critical race theory movements.

The Editor says...
This story sounds very difficult to believe, but I've heard it from multiple sources.  The others are immediately below.

Salvation Army's Donors Withdraw Support in Response to Racial 'Wokeness' Initiative.  As The Salvation Army launches its Red Kettle Campaign this holiday season, some of its long-time donors are withdrawing their support from the 156-year old charitable organization citing its newly embraced "woke" ideology as the reason.  Of great concern to loyal supporters and faithful Salvationists is the initiative dubbed "Let's Talk About Racism."  In a nutshell, its curriculum outlines the Christian church's alleged racial collusion and provides action steps to analyze and combat racism through an "anti-racist" lens while incorporating Critical Race Theory.  Definitions of institutional and systemic racism are included while real or perceived differences in life outcomes ("inequities") are attributable not to individual effort and other circumstances, but to discrimination.

Get woke and go broke.
Did donations dry up?  Salvation Army pulls U-turn on 'guidance' for whites.  Just as the famous red kettles of the Salvation Army are appearing nationwide for the international charitable organization's major fundraising effort, the organization abruptly has withdrawn a controversial "guidance" that warned white Americans racism is "systemic" and Christians would "evaluate" their racist practices.  Fox Business reported over the weekend that the guidance apparently was intended to ask "white Americans" to "stop trying to be 'colorblind.'"

Happy Holidays, White Donors:  Salvation Army Wants You to Offer a 'Sincere Apology' for 'Systemic Racism'.  The ubiquitous "red kettle."  Cheerful bell ringers, beckoning holiday shoppers to toss in a few bucks for the less fortunate among us.  My how times have changed since the first red kettle was set up on an Oakland street corner in 1891 — particularly for white donors.  Along with your holiday donations this year, white people, the Salvation Army beseeches you to offer a "sincere apology" to Black people.  For "systemic racism," of course.  Needless to say, the "Christian" organization has strayed a bit from its previously chosen non-judgemental path — particularly in its embrace of Marxist-derived Critical Race Theory.  Put simply, if you're white, you're guilty.

Disgusting: Salvation Army Wants White Donors To Offer A "Sincere Apology" For "Systemic" Racism.  What was founded in 1865 in London, England, as both a protestant Christian church and an international charitable organization, the Salvation Army has now embraced Critical Race Theory.  Its first "red kettle" was set up in Oakland, California in 1891 and since then millions of people have dropped coins and bills into their kettles while a smiling person repeating " Merry Christmas" rings a handheld bell perpetually.  Unfortunately, this Christian organization, like many others who have drifted away from the sole purpose of advancing the Gospel, is now embracing racist ideology peddled by anti-white activists including Ibram Kendi.  The organization is embracing the ideas of Black Lives Matter, an activist group, deemed as domestic terrorists by some, who are working to "dismantle white privilege" and "disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure."

Salvation Army defends guide telling white people to apologize for racism.  The Salvation Army recently defended an internal racism guide that discouraged "colorblindness" and encouraged staff members to "apologize for being white" after the guide faced backlash.  The Salvation Army argued the new guide was meant to encourage discussion about racism among members of the Salvation Army.  The organization denied attempting to indoctrinate or tell its donors what to think, reminding people that the guide was meant for internal use.  "The Salvation Army has occasionally published study guides on various complex topics, including race, to help foster positive conversations and reflection among Salvationists," the Thursday statement said.  "The hope is that by openly discussing these issues, we can encourage a more thoughtful organization that is better positioned to serve those in need.  These guides are solely designed for internal use.  No one is being told how to think.  Period."

The Salvation Army says white donors should 'repent for their racist ideologies'.  A Salvation Army released a guide, "Let's Talk About Racism," in April that is meant to provide "internal dialogue" on racism within the charity's organization.  The guide was created by the Salvation Army International Social Justice Commission.  According to the guide, "White culture" has challenges it needs to overcome, including "denial of racism," "defensiveness about race," and suggests for "White Americans" to "stop trying to be 'colorblind.'"

Update:
Salvation Army pulls anti-racism document after donor blowback.  The Salvation Army said Monday it has withdrawn a discussion guide on racism that was intended for its church members but that an advocacy group claimed was given to donors as a call to "repent" for being White.  "If that document is getting in the way of the fulfillment of our mission, The Salvation Army is going to remove it," Commissioner Kenneth Hodder, the group's U.S. national commander, told The Washington Times.  "Because nothing can be allowed to affect the fulfillment of that critical mission."  The church group has been flooded by email complaints about repentance requests over its guide "Let's Talk About Racism," one critic said.  An online petition has garnered more than 14,000 signatures asking the organization to denounce critical race theory.

Analysis:
Woke Salvation Army surrendered without a fight.  Over the years, I've embraced the opportunity to volunteer for the Salvation Army by serving meals to the poor and needy and by gleefully ringing the Christmas bell for Red Kettle donations.  I loved the many acts of broad and nonstop charity and goodwill the Salvation Army extended to all of humanity, as it was a reminder of the Gospel mission.  The Salvation Army had honorable principles and stood reliably strong as an institution in my mind.  Until now.  Salvation Army documents reveal that the organization has gone woke.  Instead of appreciating all people groups and continuing on an unbiased and uncompromising mission to serve all people compassionately, the Salvation Army now thinks it's somehow okay to view people through the lens of "race."  Somewhere deep in its leadership, the Army saw the enemy and embraced it.  Race consideration and connotations are an obvious outcome of Critical Race Theory (CRT), or adjunct theology (Liberation Theology, for instance).  Viewing people by race or class is wholly antithetical to any organization committed to providing compassionate and unbiased services to any and all people or groups in need.  Woke schemes see everything about human culture in one paradigm: "oppressors vs. oppressed" or "victimizers vs. victims."  Without exception, the oppressors and victimizers are "White" by definition.

Another update:
The Salvation Army takes an even deeper dive into wokedom.  The Salvation Army, despite having faced a massive backlash because of November's "Let's Talk About Racism" guide, doesn't seem to have learned its lesson.  It's now announced that, in January, it will be offering a two-day racial justice forum in Illinois.  This turn to the left does not bode well for an organization that has already seen a significant drop in charitable donations since it decided to embrace leftist politics.

Joe Biden Claims Shelves Are Well Stocked as Grocers Ration Food.  President Joe Biden tweeted Wednesday [11/24/2021] that supermarket shelves are well stocked across the country while grocers ration food.  "For all those concerns a few weeks ago that there would not be ample food available for Thanksgiving, families can rest easy today," Biden claimed. [...] Meanwhile, Publix Supermarkets, a Florida-based grocer, warned customers this week to expect food shortages in all 1,280 stores across the southeast.  According to the Orlando Sentinel, the list of rationed foods include the following:
  •   Canned cranberry sauce
  •   Jarred gravy
  •   Canned pie filling
  •   Canola and vegetable oil
  •   Cream cheese
  •   Bacon
  •   Rolled breakfast sausage
  •   Paper napkins
  •   Disposable plates, cups and cutlery
  •   Bath tissue
  •   Refrigerated snacks (Lunchables-type items)
  •   Sports drinks
  •   Aseptic-type juices (Capri Sun) [...]

Federal Reserve Should Fight Inflation, Not Climate Change.  [Scroll down]  Per the Fed's statement, "Climate change poses significant challenges for the global economy and financial system, with implications for the structure of economic activity, the safety and soundness of financial institutions and the stability of the financial sector more broadly.  A sustained global response by national authorities, the international community, and the private sector can address the financial and economic implications of climate change."  So, instead of declaring war on inflation and all the other problems facing the U.S. economy, the Fed is more inclined to use its bandwidth and resources to counter so-called climate change.  Just in case the Fed's recent statement on its quest to fight climate change was not enough to placate radical leftists, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell made it clear that the Fed, under his leadership, will prioritize climate change above all else.

Stunning good news from Chile — and not just for them, but for us.  In Chile, the presidential election was straightforward: communism or liberty.  Pick one or the other.  No soggy middle.  So guess which one got the most votes!  Yep, liberty, and I'm not talking about some namby-pamby nice-guy RINO kind of liberty, respectable at Santiago cocktail parties.  It was 100-proof hard stuff liberty, prompting shudders from the press. [...] José Antonio Kast is a solid free-market candidate who ran against Gabriel Boric, a self-described communist, and wound up with the most votes on an unapologetic advocacy and defense of free markets.  That was what Chile needed.

What to Watch For if Russia Invades Ukraine.  News reports from Europe indicate two potentially dangerous events occurring on the borders of NATO.  The most glaring is the report of Russian large scale troop deployments near the Ukrainian border indicating a possible invasion in the next few months.  The other report is on the smaller yet volatile migration movements along the Belarussian-Polish border.  These two circumstances coincide with Europe's weak energy situation and the global perception of American weakness created by the mismanaged withdrawal in Afghanistan.  Although the risk of war in this region remains low, the possibility of a regional war during a time of European energy shortages would threaten the world with a global depression next year.  How could Ukraine spark a depression?  The biggest impact on global markets would of course be related to oil and gas prices.  Three of the primary pipelines that feed the European Union go through Ukraine and any invasion would likely stop hydrocarbon delivery for weeks in the best-case scenario.

Gates Germ-Game Warning Motivates Smallpox Vaccine Discussions.  Policy Exchange recently hosted Mr. Bill Gates, Co-Chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP, Chair of the Health Select Committee, who discussed the potential of future pandemics.  In a wide-ranging discussion on November 4, 2021, Gates called for a new international Pandemic Task Force, with a budget of about $1 billion per year.  According to Microsoft's founder, governments must invest billions in research and development to prepare for future pandemics and smallpox terror strikes.

Just Days After Bill Gates Warned Of A Coming Smallpox Bioterror Attack, 15 Vials Labeled 'Smallpox' Are Found In Research Lab In Pennsylvania.  A scenario ripe for a zombie-horror movie has just happened.  The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed Tuesday that vials labeled 'smallpox' — an extremely deadly virus that was eradicated in the 1970s — were found at a vaccine research facility in Pennsylvania.  Just days after Bill Gates in an interview said that the next thing we need to prepare for is a smallpox bioterror attack, vials of... wait for it... smallpox dried vaccine were randomly 'discovered' in a research lab in Pennsylvania.  What an amazing coincidence, wouldn't you say?

The Editor says...
The "discovery" of smallpox, or at least, "vials labeled 'smallpox'" in a lab sounds really fishy.  The FBI is notorious for busting its own sting operations and a cynical onlooker might easily infer that this case is one of them.  The government wants to keep us all in a state of constant alarm, and this is just the latest angle.

Biden Admin Quietly Authorizes Largest Oil Lease Sale In US History Despite Campaign Promise.  The Biden administration auctioned off over 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico for oil drilling Wednesday [11/17/2021] despite a campaign promise to ban new oil and gas leasing, the Boston Globe reported.  The auction is the largest offshore oil and gas lease sale in the United States, according to the Boston Globe.  The new leases will produce 1.1 billion barrels of oil and 4.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, according to a Department of the Interior estimate, the Globe reported.  [Tweet]  "This morning was met with extreme disappointment, depleted hope, and shattered trust," Legal Director for Friends of the Earth Hallie Templeton said, the Globe reported.  Just four days before the sale, the Biden administration signed the COP26 pact, which requires countries to eliminate subsidies for the fossil fuel industry.  Biden previously pledged to ban new oil and gas leasing on public land and water.

FDA Approves New Drug Against Weaponized Smallpox.  The FDA has approved a new drug to treat smallpox.  Fearful of a possible bioweapon attack, the United States has been steadily preparing a defense through BARDA, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.  Tecovirimat was the first drug for smallpox, approved in 2018.  The FDA granted the new drug, brincidofovir, or BCV, fast track status and orphan drug designations in 2018.  The new approval came under the FDA's Animal Rule.  Drug testing usually goes through several phases prior to approval.  First, there is preclinical testing in test tubes and animal models.  Phase I is the "first in human" testing, looking primarily for safety and toxicity.  Phase II is where researchers look for the best dose to treat a specific condition.  The drug being tested is generally given to people who are relatively healthy otherwise.

FBI demands motorists return money they grabbed in frenzy after armored truck spewed cash over San Diego freeway.  An armored truck spewed cash all over a San Diego freeway this week after one of its doors burst open, and now the FBI and the California Highway Patrol are looking for those who ran off with the money.  'If anyone picked up cash, we ask you to bring it to the office in Vista immediately,' a CHP spokesperson told Fox 5.  'I just want to give everyone a head's up that there is a lot of video evidence.'  They are giving people 48 hours to return the money or face 'potential criminal charges.'  Two people have already been arrested, officials said.  Drivers stopped what they were doing Monday and scrambled to pick up 'free' money on the northbound side of Interstate 5 near Carlsbad, California.  The trunk was on its way to the Federal Reserve to make the deposit when the back doors burst open around 10 a.m., authorities said.

The Editor says...
There are a number of ethical issues involved here.  [#1] Maybe you should lock the doors on the armored car next time.  The money is all over the highway because of negligence.  [#2] It would be a lot easier to convince people to return the money except that we all know what would happen if the shoe was on the other foot:  The government eagerly confiscates large amounts of cash from innocent people travelling on Interstate highways, but now throws a fit when the roles are reversed.  [#3] It's the taxpayer's money.  Just go print some more.  That's what Joe Biden is doing anyway, and the inevitable inflation is well underway.  [#4] It's not your money, and you really should give it back, minus a customary ten percent finder's fee.  But the kind of people who scooped it up are more likely to buy marijuana with it, than to stimulate the economy by buying durable goods.

Royal Navy submarines and special forces [are trying] to recover crashed £100m F-35 fighter jet from the bottom of the Mediterranean.  Royal Navy submarines are racing against the Russians to recover a crashed £100million jet with top secret technology from the bottom of the Mediterranean.  An RAF pilot was forced to eject from his F-35B Lightning as it ditched into the sea soon after taking off on 'routine exercise' from the Navy's flagship aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth.  The aircraft was one of eight UK fast-jets onboard, along with 10 US aircraft.  By plunging into international waters, the crash triggered a scramble to find the next-generation jet from the sea bed before it could be reached by Russia.  It s thought to be the first time an F35-B has crashed in such an area.  The technology aboard the US-designed aircraft, including top secret radar and sensors, is hugely sensitive as it allows the F-35 to fly 'unseen' in hostile territory at supersonic speeds.  However, it is likely that China already knows all there is to know about the jet due to spying.

China is destroying the world's fishing ecosystem.  Not content with overfishing its own coastline in a non-sustainable way, China has now turned to unethical pirate fishing in the territorial waters of less powerful nations around the world.  Chinese fishermen turn off their GPS transponders that can be traced electronically, send out false electronic signals, violate U.N. maritime law, enter the sovereign fishing territory of foreign nations, illegally fish with slave-like labor, and then escape to international waters with their catch.  Some fishing fleets are so large that they can be seen from space.  For China, world fishing is now like the wild west, with a value in billions of dollars annually.  The Chinese have an insatiable appetite for seafood, and their population is about 1.4 billion people.  They are even risking entering the territorial waters of the U.S. in Hawaii.  Guam and American Samoa may be next.  Fishing in pristine North Western Australia is done not only by China, but by Indonesia as well, and Australia recently sank fifteen Chinese fishing vessels and chased off many others.

Plane Stalls and Nearly Kills the People Skydiving.  A Plane stalled seconds after a group of skydivers took flight from the plane itself.  Seconds later the pilot eems to regain control and pulls up, coming just feet from the skydivers who just moments prior jumped out of the plane.  [Video clip]

US Marines Go All-In On Diversity-Equity-Inclusion Training.  Last week, the US Marine Corps marked its 246th birthday.  And while there are many reasons to celebrate this milestone, last we also saw a group Iran-backed of Houthi rebels stormed the U.S. Embassy compound in Yemen's capital San'a. [...] Also during the week, Chinese military forces held exercises near Taiwan in response to a visit by a US congressional delegation to the island. [...] Given these developments, sensible planners would consider making military preparedness, defense preparation, and troop recruitment and training top priorities.  Instead, the Biden administration's priorities have nothing to do with actual military readiness.  It intends to force march the US Marines toward diversity, equity and inclusion as the solution to make the Marine's "reflect America".

Pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson will split into 2 companies.  Johnson & Johnson, the New Jersey-based pharmaceutical giant, will separate into two publicly traded companies, creating an entirely new, rebranded consumer health business, the company announced Friday [11/12/2021].  It's a major change for the 135-year-old institution based in New Brunswick.  Johnson & Johnson, which has more than 136,000 employees, will split its consumer products arm — responsible for Band-Aids, Tylenol, Listerine and Neutrogena — from its pharmaceutical and medical device branches within 18 to 24 months, the company said.  The decision was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

China blew up one of its satellites with a missile 14 years ago and this week a piece of the satellite nearly hit the International Space Station.  Little-known fact:  Astronauts in the International Space Station have to work with the constant possibility that, at some point, a piece of hypersonic space junk might potentially obliterate the station.  The space station just dodged debris from a 2007 Chinese weapons test.  The object was expected to make a close pass with the outpost in orbit on Thursday night [11/11/2021].

Yale's Administrators Outnumber Its Entire Undergraduate Enrollment.  If you're wondering about the state of bureaucratic bloat in America — and, particularly, in education — look no further than Yale University. [...] From teaching to schooling, we appear to have jumped the shark where practical application is concerned.  Contemporarily, people go to college to absorb ideas that have no discernible real-world value.  We're living in an age of symbolism.  Of empty acts.  Take a look across the culture — entertainment elites endorse socialism while living indulgent capitalist lives.  Those who rail against energy abuse charter private jets.  The recent planetary environmental summit was held in person — everyone in that room posturing against fuel-consuming travel... traveled needlessly.

Los Angeles Potentially Exposed to Radioactive Dust After Explosive Demolition at Old Nuclear Test Site.  Residents of some parts of Los Angeles are expressing concern that they may have been exposed to radioactive dust particles after the U.S. Department of Energy demolished a building last month at a former nuclear testing site by using explosives.  [Video clip]

Pope Francis Says The Great Reset Must Include A 'Green Spirituality' Where The Earth Is Worshipped.  Pope Francis says the the pre-pandemic world must be done away with, all militaries around the world dismantled, and that the earth is our mother who needs to be protected.

Biden's naivete about Russian cyber warfare puts America in danger.  In September, the Biden Administration released back to Russia the world's most dangerous cybercriminal, Alexei Burkov, after Trump's Justice Department had taken great pains to extradite him from Israel.  From early 2009 till August 2013, 31-year old Burkov operated a website called "Cardplanet," which sold stolen numbers of credit and debit cards, many of which belonged to US citizens.  Fraudulent purchases in the amount of $20 million were made on US credit cards, as a result of stolen data traded on Burkov's website.  He also ran another website where elite hackers advertised stolen personal information, hacking tools and money laundering services.  Instead of serving a maximum sentence of 15 years in US prison, the cyber criminal was deported to his native Russia.  Russian cyber criminals like Burkov have extorted millions of dollars in ransom from US businesses in return for unlocking infected computer networks.  But the main value of highly-skilled cyber criminals like Burkov for Russian President Putin is not how much ransom he can gain, but rather, what these hackers can do for their country.

Black Americans Sue U.S. Farms for Replacing Them with Foreign Workers.  Black Americans who spent most of their lives working on Mississippi farms are suing their former employer after they were replaced by foreign workers on the H-2A visa program.  The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi, accuses Pitts Farms of laying off a number of black Americans, only to replace them with foreign visa workers from South Africa.  The H-2A visa program allows U.S. farms to annually outsource an unlimited number of American jobs to foreign workers who can extend their stay for up to three years.  The foreign families of H-2A visa workers can also come to the U.S. on H-4 visas.

Tucker Burst Out Laughing at What Edward Durr Told Stephen Sweeney, the NJ Senate President He Ousted.  New Jersey Senate President Stephen Sweeney was ousted by Edward Durr, a little known Republican candidate who spent next to nothing on his campaign.  For a bit, Sweeney held out hope that once all the legal votes were counted, he'd beat the commercial truck driver, but that didn't pan out and he conceded this week.  During an interview with Durr, Fox News's Tucker Carlson asked if he has actually spoken to Sweeney since the election results came out.  "Have you talked to Sweeney since you dethroned him?  I mean, how baffled is he?" Carlson wondered.  "Yes, we had a phone conversation yesterday after he had given his press conference to the media and he congratulated me and just wished me luck to do well for South Jersey."  Durr said he was a "gentleman" about it.

The Editor says...
I suspect Mr. Sweeney wants to duck down the Media Memory Hole for a while, so nobody will ask about the 12,000 ballots that he allegedly "found" after the polls closed.

Norwegian undersea surveillance network capable of detecting submarines has cables mysteriously cut.  A Norwegian undersea surveillance network that is capable of detecting submarines has had its cables mysteriously cut.  Police were called in to investigate amid suspicion Russia could have 'sabotaged' the undersea sensors, which predominantly monitor fish but can pick up the movement of submarines.  The cables were cut and then disappeared, with the Institute of Marine Research describing 'extensive damage' to the outer area of the Lofoten-Vesterålen (LoVe) Ocean Observatory.

Tree DNA sends leader of poaching ring to prison after 2018 Olympic National Forest fire.  In the spring and summer of 2018, a crew of poachers had been chopping down trees by night in the Olympic National Forest in Washington state, federal prosecutors said.  On Aug. 3, they came upon the wasp's nest.  It was at the base of a bigleaf maple, a species of hardwood tree with a shimmering grain that is prized for its use in violins, guitars and other musical instruments.  The crew was selling bigleaf maples to a mill in Tumwater, Thurston County, using forged permits, prosecutors said.  The timber poachers sprayed insecticide and most likely gasoline on the nest and burned it, authorities said.  But they were unable to douse the fire with water bottles, so they fled, prosecutors said.  The fire spread out from the forest's Elk Lake area, near Hood Canal, burning 3,300 acres and costing about $4.2 million to contain, prosecutors said.

Rittenhouse Trial Judge's 'Asian Food' Comments Sparks Cries of Racism.  Leftist internet trolls have been crying racism in response to Kyle Rittenhouse trial Judge Bruce Schroeder's reference to "Asian food" on Thursday [11/11/2021] as the court went into recess.  The alleged "faux pas" happened as Judge Schroeder dismissed the court for lunch on Thursday afternoon, during which he mocked President Joe Biden's supply chain crisis at Asian food's expense.  "Let's hope for one o'clock, I don't know, the uh, hope the Asian food isn't coming — it isn't on one of those boats in Long Beach Harbor," he said.

The Editor says...
If that's all you've got against Judge Schoeder, you've got nothing.

Judge in Kyle Rittenhouse trial makes inappropriate joke about Asian food.  The judge presiding over the homicide trial of Kyle Rittenhouse confused observers after making a strange and off-color joke inside the courtroom on Thursday.  "I hope the Asian food isn't coming... isn't on one of those boats from Long Beach Harbor," said Kenosha County Circuit Court Judge Bruce Schroeder as the court was preparing to take a lunch break.  Schroeder, the longest-serving active judge in Wisconsin's trial courts, appeared to be referring to the supply chain backlogs caused by congestion problems in California ports.

The Editor says...
Oh, yeah.  That's a dog whistle, at least.

LA Ports Break Records During Supply Chain Crisis.  The waters off the coast of Southern California continued to see record-breaking numbers of cargo ships this week as one city opened its harbor to help with the overflow.  The ports broke a new record on Nov. 9, with 168 ships waiting to unload goods.  That included 55 ships drifting at sea, 48 at anchor, and 65 ships docked.  Another record fell the same day when 49 container ships were forced to drift off the coast, unable to anchor or dock at the overloaded twin ports.  "This is record-setting levels at anchor and record-setting levels at loitering," Kip Louttit, head of the Marine Exchange of Southern California, told The Epoch Times.

The Editor says...
About 45 years ago, I thought I might get a job as a radio operator on a ship.  For that job, one needed a Second-Class FCC Radiotelegraph License (which I had!), Coast Guard certification (which I didn't have), and about a year of jumping through hoops with the labor union in charge of such things.  I heard stories about how radio officers made good money, had no place to spend it, and racked up overtime when stuck in the Suez Canal, for example.  I'm not sure how much of that work has been automated out of existence, but each of these ships has a crew that can't go ashore, and a finite supply of groceries.  I would not want to be there.

3 Nigerian Men Are Flogged Mercilessly In Public For Bringing Meth Into The Neighborhood.  A viral video of a group of young men being beaten to stupor for taking hard drugs in Ekwe Isu, LGA of Imo state has surfaced on social media.  In the video making rounds, some group of boys were tied to a pillar and beaten by the community youths after they were reportedly caught taking a hard drug known as Methamphetamine Hydrochloride.  Sharing the video, a Facebook user simply named Uche disclosed that Mkpuru mmiri as it is called in the southeast is an addictive drug that has driven many young men to their early graves.  [Video clip]

Supply chain stalled by 72,000 truckers who failed strict drug tests.  A dire truck driver shortage that's wreaking havoc on the US economy is getting worse — and it's being fueled partly by tough federal drug-testing restrictions that were imposed nationwide last year, industry officials told The [New York] Post.  More than 72,000 truck drivers have been taken off US roads since January 2020 because they have failed drug tests that are now required by the Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse, a 22-month-old registry established to increase safety on US highways, according to government data.  That's a big number, considering that the American Trucking Association — which also blames the pandemic and a lack of younger drivers, among other factors — recently pegged the industry's overall driver shortfall at 80,000, up from 60,800 in 2018 and 50,700 in 2017.  "It's a staggering number of drivers we have lost" because of the new drug-testing rules, Jeremy Reymer, chief executive of industry recruiter DriverReach, told The Post.

CCP Media Says Large Number of Officials 'Lack Confidence in the CCP,' Could Flee at Any Time.  Eight years ago, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping criticized party officials for letting their confidence waver and sending their families and money abroad.  These people were trying to "leave themselves a way out and prepared to 'jump ship' anytime."  Study Times, a newspaper run by the CCP's Central Party School for training Chinese officials, recently reiterated these words, saying some party officials were being physically in China, but mentally abroad.  "This shows a loss of ideal and a lack of confidence toward the Party and the nation," the article said, adding that such officials are more prone to "losing their direction" and "walking further away on the wrong path."  Such officials have become known as "naked officials," a figurative term suggesting that they are not leaving anything but themselves back home.  Naked officials might not be corrupt, but they have a higher chance to become corrupt," the Study Times article stated, naming three such officials to illustrate the point.

A Truck Driver With a Few Thousand Bucks and an iPhone Just Toppled New Jersey's Most Powerful Lawmaker.  It is not hyperbole to say that Edward Durr, a 58-year-old truck driver from New Jersey, just pulled off one of the biggest political upsets in American history.  With a bare-bones campaign that reportedly cost less than $6,000 (some earlier reports claimed that Durr spent just $153 on the race, but Durr later clarified that was not a full accounting), Durr ousted New Jersey Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-West Deptford) in Tuesday's election.  After previously calling the race for Sweeney and then withdrawing that call, the Associated Press called the race for Durr on Thursday morning.  He has a lead of over 2,000 votes with 99 percent of precincts reporting.  Sweeney, who was seeking a seventh term in the Senate, is widely regarded as a kingpin in New Jersey politics and one of the most powerful men in the state.  He has been president of the state Senate since 2010, the longest tenure in state history.

The mystery of the missing millions is the only blemish on a strong U.S. jobs report.  The U.S. jobs report for October hit all the right notes — except for one.  The number of people in the labor force barely grew, leaving the rate of participation at the lowest level since the early 1970s.  Put another way, millions of people who had jobs before the pandemic still haven't returned to work.  And that doesn't even take into account a few million more who likely would entered the labor force had there been no pandemic at all.

Murder By Any Other Name.  Scott Ritter explains how the murder of Zemari Ahmadi and nine family members by a U.S. drone attack in August was whitewashed by the Pentagon.

Josh Hawley:  Milley, Austin Need To Prepare US Troops For Real Wars, Not Culture Wars.  U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, reacted Thursday night [11/4/2021] on "The Ingraham Angle" to news that U.S. troops had been badly beaten by their British counterparts while both groups underwent a training exercise in California.  Hawley suggested the incident exemplified misplaced priorities in the U.S. military under the Biden administration — and worried that China might draw some conclusions about U.S. war readiness.

Epic Fail:  L.A. Ports Are More Clogged Now Than Before Biden's Supply Chain 'Fix'.  President Joe Biden says he's been addressing supply chain problems "since Day One," but that's consisted mainly of appointing task forces and holding summits.  His latest bold "action" was to beg G-20 leaders to "help address global supply chain issues."  The one concrete step Biden has taken was, he said, to get the Los Angeles ports to stay open 24/7, which he announced on Oct. 13.  Biden said this has the "potential to be a gamechanger."  A White House fact sheet declared that it "will speed up shipments of goods throughout the country."  Except, that's not what's happened.  In fact, things have gotten worse at those ports, not better, since Biden's "game changer."  On Oct. 10, three days before the president's announcement, there were 60 container ships waiting offshore to get into the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and 27 were at berths unloading or loading cargo, according to the Marine Exchange of Southern California.  This Tuesday [11/2/2021], there were 77 container ships waiting, while 25 were berthed.

How Glenn Youngkin beat the Democrats in Virginia.  When a Republican wins in a reliably Democratic state, it's big news.  That's exactly what happened in Virginia, where newcomer Glenn Youngkin defeated former governor Terry McAuliffe.  The Republican won even though McAuliffe had a well-oiled political machine and high name recognition, and was campaigning in a state Joe Biden won by ten points only a year ago.  All those advantages were for nought.  The Commonwealth will have a Republican governor for the first time in over a decade.  It is likely Republicans will win the other two state-wide races for the lieutenant governor and attorney general and could win the House of Delegates, which had been under firm Democratic control.

The Red-Pilling of Loudoun County, Virginia.  The drama that played out in upscale Loudoun County, Virginia over the last year or so, and cost Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe the governorship last night, is a book waiting to be written.  In fact, if companies like HBO or Netflix have any sense, it will soon be a movie as well, because almost every hot-button issue in American national politics was rolled up somewhere in this sprawling, preposterous, rage-filled suburban drama.  I have a longer piece on this coming, and have to return to the area at least once to follow up, so I can't get into it in depth yet.  But [...] a few things are already clear.  McAuliffe's collapse, and the corresponding underdog win by private equity titan Glenn Youngkin, is already being caricatured nationally using the language of 1980s politics.  We're meant to understand that the Loudoun County story — which is too complex to summarize easily but involves furious disputes between local parents and the school board over a variety of issues, including a pair of sexual assaults — was cooked up by Republicans as a cynical dog-whistle campaign.

CDC advisory committee recommends all US adults younger than age 60 get vaccinated against hepatitis B.  Advisors to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended on Wednesday that all U.S. adults younger than age 60 get vaccinated against hepatitis B.  Under the new policy, tens of millions of adults in the 30-to-59 age range could get their shots, protecting them against this potentially chronic liver disease.  The new recommendation aims to prevent infection among middle-aged adults with hepatitis B increasingly impacting people in their 40s and 50s in recent years.

Another Shocking Victory Happened in Texas Last Night and Suggests 2022 Doom for Democrats.  While all eyes were on Virginia last night, where Republican Glenn Youngkin pulled a massive upset, other elections were going on across the country.  Candidates for local offices and state districts along with referendums on things like defunding the police occurred in places like Texas, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, and there's a big upset in Texas that suggests doom is coming for Democrats in 2022.  That occurred in San Antonio where the race of HD118 took place.  Republican John Lujan came out victorious in the majority-Hispanic district that Democrats carried by double-digits the last time around.

Georgia woman was billed almost $700 for trip to ER; says she did not see a doctor and left after waiting seven hours.  A Georgia woman says she received an emergency room bill for nearly $700- despite not receiving treatment and leaving the hospital after seven hours without ever getting to see a doctor.  Taylor Davis told a local media outlet that she checked into Emory Decatur Hospital for treatment of a head injury in July — but after waiting to be seen for seven hours, left the facility.  'I sat there for seven hours,' she told Fox 5.  'There's no way I should be sitting in an emergency room — an emergency room — for seven hours.'  Weeks later, Davis said she was shocked to receive a hospital bill for $688.35.  "I didn't get my vitals taken, nobody called my name,' Davis told the outlet.  'I wasn't seen at all.'

Isn't that what sonar is for?
Navy investigation reveals sub hit uncharted underwater mountain.  A U.S. Navy investigation has determined that the nuclear attack submarine damaged in a collision in the South China Sea in early October struck an uncharted underwater mountain, defense officials said Monday [11/1/2021].  The Navy's U.S. 7th Fleet commander Vice Adm. Karl Thomas is now conducting a review of the findings to determine whether any additional accountability measures will be taken, U.S. Naval Institute News reported.  "The investigation determined USS Connecticut grounded on an uncharted seamount while operating in international waters in the Indo-Pacific region," 7th Fleet spokesperson Cmdr.  Hayley Sims said in a statement.  Vice Adm. Thomas "will determine whether follow-on actions, including accountability, are appropriate."

Staggering $1.5 billion lithium deposit discovered near Newry; excavating it poses a challenge.  The richest known hard rock lithium deposit in the world lies a few miles northeast of the ski slopes of Sunday River and not far from Step Falls, where swimmers can wade in shallow pools formed by hundreds of feet of cascading granite ledge.  Smaller deposits have been known in Maine for decades, but this recent discovery, just north of Plumbago Mountain in Newry, is the first to have a major resource potential.  And that potential is staggering:  At current market prices, the deposit, thought to contain 11 million tons of ore, is valued at roughly $1.5 billion.  Measuring up to 36 feet in length, some of the lithium-bearing crystals are among the largest ever found.

The Royal Marines defeat the U.S. Marines at the 'Battle of the Mojave Desert'.  The Marines occupy an almost mythic place in many Americans' minds as an invincible force that runs to the guns and fights no matter what.  That's why it was so shocking to learn that, during a joint training exercise in the Mojave Desert, Britain's Royal Marines inflicted such a shellacking on the Americans that the latter had to surrender halfway through the exercise.  This is a direct result of the Pentagon having gone woke under Obama — something that Trump failed to undo — followed by Biden doubling down on Obama's policies.  Marines used to be synonymous with dogged determination. [...] But the Marines have been in war nonstop since 2001, and that's a long time for a fighting force. [...] The American military has had another force bearing down on it that may be an even greater enemy than Islamists the world over.  That force has been wokeism.  Beginning with Obama, the American left has been using the military as a social justice experiment.

Special inspector general for Afghanistan warns the Pentagon is classifying documents to cover up failures.  A U.S. government watchdog on Friday accused the State Department and Pentagon of suppressing information that lawmakers and the public need to understand the collapse of Afghanistan's former government and military and the chaotic U.S. troop pullout.  John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction (SIGAR), spoke out on Friday after it emerged that many of the routine documents had now been marked as classified.  'The full picture of what happened in August — and all the warning signs that could have predicted the outcome — will only be revealed if the information that the departments of Defense and State have already restricted from public release is made available,' said Sopko.

12 dock workers reveal the 'never-ending' chaos at shipping ports: 'We can't keep this pace up forever'.  Dock workers have long been working day and night to keep the supply chain running.  But, since the pandemic started, COVID-19 shutdowns and surging demand have cast the ports into chaos — and workers say there's no end in sight.  Insider spoke with 12 dock workers from across the US, including seven that work at ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach — locations responsible for over 40% of the nation's imports.  The workers asked to remain anonymous to speak freely about their jobs, but their identities have been verified by Insider.  Four longshoremen with more than 20 years of experience at the major California ports said they've never seen anything like the near-record backlogs.  The issues are spilling over to ports in cities like Seattle and Houston, as well, workers said.

North American Missionaries Going on Second Week as Hostages in Lawless Haiti.  Thursday [10/28/2021] marked 13 days that one Canadian and 16 U.S. citizen missionaries have been held by Haitian kidnappers for $17 million.  The kidnappers threaten to kill the hostages unless they get $1 million per person.  The hostages are in Haiti to do work for the Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries and were abducted on Oct. 16, while on a trip to visit an orphanage supported by the organization.  The group includes six men and six women ranging in age from 18 to 48, and five children ages 8 months, 3 years, 6 years, 13 years, and 15 years.  Before the kidnapping, their work throughout Haiti included supporting thousands of needy school children, distributing Bibles and Christian literature, supplying medicines for numerous clinics, teaching Haitian pastors, and providing food for the elderly and vulnerable.

Top Florida Official Pleads With In-N-Out to Move After Vaccine Mandate Closures.  Florida's Chief Financial Officer, Jimmy Patronis, suggested that In-N-Out Burger should move to the Sunshine State after several In-N-Out locations were shut down by California officials.  Patronis appealed to In-N-Out CEO Lynsi Snyder to move to the state, arguing that Florida has a superior business climate — noting the state has no personal income tax, low corporate taxes, and no mandates.  "I'm writing you today not only as Florida's Chief Financial Officer, but as a small business owner who grew up in a family-owned restaurant and worked there for more than 30 years," his letter reads.  "I know how hard it is to turn a profit and make payroll on a good day, let alone when your own government is working to crush your business with absurd mandates.  Once I heard the news of your shutdown for refusing to act as 'vaccine police,' I knew I had to reach out immediately."  It came as health officials in Contra Costa County, Calfornia, shut down another In-N-Out Burger location for allowing indoor dining without checking customers for proof of vaccination, coming after a location was closed in nearby San Francisco for a similar reason.

Facebook changes company name to Meta.  Facebook on Thursday [10/28/2021] announced that it has changed its company name to Meta.  The name change was announced at the Facebook Connect augmented and virtual reality conference.  The new name reflects the company's growing ambitions beyond social media.  Facebook, now known as Meta, has adopted the new moniker, based on the sci-fi term metaverse, to describe its vision for working and playing in a virtual world.  "Today we are seen as a social media company, but in our DNA we are a company that builds technology to connect people, and the metaverse is the next frontier just like social networking was when we got started," Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said.

DeSantis Blasts Republican 'Boneless Wonders,' Totally Destroys 'Fake News' Media.  Yes, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is a man on a mission.  Moreover, the popular Florida governor doesn't suffer fools gladly — be those fools his fellow Republicans, left-wing loons, or anywhere in between.  A fired-up DeSantis went full metal attack mode at a Washington, D.C., Republican dinner on Tuesday night, effectively telling spineless Republican politicians to get hop aboard the train — or get [...] out of the way.  "We don't have time for boneless wonders," he said.  Even better, DeSantis blistered the "fake news" media, beginning with the never-ending "Russian collusion" nonsense in the 2016 presidential election win of Donald Trump, as transcribed by BizPac Review.

Florida Has The Fastest Job Growth Rate In The Nation, Significantly Faster Than National Average.  Florida's job market is recovering significantly faster than the national average, according to new figures.  The United States economy gained 194,000 jobs in the month of September, severely missing economists' expectations.  However, Florida alone gained 84,500 jobs during the same period — leading the nation in terms of the largest percentage increase. [...] [Governor] DeSantis was one of the first governors to pull his state from enhanced federal unemployment checks funded by President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.  A recent report from the Foundation for Government Accountability — a Florida-based think tank seeking to reform welfare initiatives — confirms that DeSantis' decision to end the handouts paid significant dividends for the state's job market.

Air War College professor admits tie to Chinese official, pleads guilty to lying to federal agent.  Xiaoming Zhang, a civilian professor at the Air War College, headquartered at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, pleaded guilty to making false statements to a federal agent.  He faces a maximum of five years in prison for lying about his relationship with a Chinese official to a federal agent.  Zhang is a naturalized U.S. citizen of Chinese descent.  His tenure as a professor at the Air War College began in 2003.  He traveled to China on a regular basis for both work-related reasons and to visit family living there.  He was as an associate professor in the college's Department of Leadership and Strategy.  He taught strategy and classes in China and East Asia.  Zheng held a secret security clearance as part of his employment.  He attended annual security training during which he was informed of reporting requirements about suspicious foreign contacts and relationships with foreign government officials.

Florida tries to lure ships waiting at backlogged California ports.  Florida is encouraging ships to ditch backed-up ports on the West Coast and head its way.  While dozens of ships remain moored off the coast of Los Angeles waiting to be unloaded in a historic supply chain snarl, ports in Florida are humming along with little or no delays and are standing by if shipping companies decide to reroute freighters to the East Coast.  Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, considered a possible contender for the 2024 Republican presidential ticket, recently invited ships to reroute and offload their shipments in Florida, which has several ports.

As Expected, Joe Biden Pledge To Speed Up California Ports Amounts to Absolutely Nothing.  In a rare act of journalism, NBC actually followed up on the October 13th grand proclamation of Joe Biden to speed up California ports.  What they found is exactly what everyone suspected, the grand prose from the White House was a political pantomime — absolutely nothing has changed.  [Video clip]  As noted, and as previously outlined, the issues with the backlog of the California ports have absolutely nothing to do with rapid unloading of ships and container vessels.  The issue is the inability of California truckers to move those containers.  The problem is a shortage of CA emission compliant internal transportation trucks to move the containers out of the port and into the U.S. mainland.

AG Garland Gaffes:  Missed Leftist 'Insurrection', Admits Unions Steer Policy, Shrugs Off CRT Conflicts.  For starters, while the Biden administration, Congressional Democrats and their media support complex have branded January 6th rioters as domestic terrorists — Garland had no clue about leftist Demonstrators who forced their way into the Department of the Interior just one week ago — to protest Biden's approval of fossil fuel energy projects.  "They forced their way into the Department of the Interior.  They fought with security and police officers, sending some of those officers to the hospital.  The extremists violently pushed their way into a restricted government building in an attempt to thwart the work of the department," Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) told Garland.  "Police arrested at least 55 protestors on sight, but others got away.  Mr. Garland, do you believe these environmental extremists who forced their way into Interior are also domestic terrorists?"  Garland appeared to have no clue what Steube was talking about.

Biden delays release of JFK assassination records, blaming COVID-19 pandemic.  The US will "unfortunately" continue to delay the public release of records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and officials say the COVID-19 pandemic is to blame.  The move was announced in a memo signed by President Joe Biden and released by the White House Friday [10/22/2021].  "Temporary continued postponement is necessary to protect against identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure," Biden wrote.  In 1992, Congress ruled that "all Government records concerning the assassination of President John F. Kennedy ... should be eventually disclosed to enable the public to become fully informed about the history surrounding the assassination," the missive said.

White House further postpones disclosure of JFK assassination documents, citing Covid.  The White House announced late Friday that it would further postpone the release of more documents related to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, pointing to the "significant impact" of the Covid-19 pandemic.  President Joe Biden issued a memo that said the national archivist recommended he "'direct two public releases of the information that has ultimately 'been determined to be appropriate for release to the public.'"  The first will be an "interim release" later this year, with a second, "more comprehensive release in late 2022," the memo said.  The memo said that the Covid-19 pandemic has slowed down the process of reviewing whether redactions continue to meet the "statutory standard."

The Editor says...
Pardon my perpetual skepticism:  Joe Biden — or whoever is running the Executive Branch — has decided to keep these documents up his or her sleeve until the next major Biden scandal.  Only then will they be released, for the purpose of pushing that scandal off the front pages of America's few remaining newspapers.  And if that doesn't work, a few days later, NASA will announce they're discovered life on Jupiter — which none of us can disprove.  But if no need arises for this future JFK document dump, and Covid is long gone, there will be a "computer glitch" or "Russian hacker" someday, and all the documents will conveniently disappear.  Think for a moment:  What decision cannot be made due to Covid?  The Kennedy assassination happened in 1963.  There has been plenty of time to review what is in the documents, and to come up with excuses to keep them secret.  Covid has nothing to do with it.

Release of JFK assassination records delayed *again*.  There was an obscure deadline for the federal government coming up on Tuesday that is now being pushed back for the umpteenth time.  According to the latest interpretations of the Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 (also known as the JFK Records Act or simply the JFK Act), the final trove of federal records related to the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 and the subsequent findings of the Warren Commission had to be reviewed by this coming Tuesday, October 26, 2021, "to determine whether continued withholding from disclosure is necessary."  Last night, President Joe Biden signed and released a memo stating that the release of the remaining records from the National Archives & Records Administration (NARA), would "unfortunately" be delayed yet again.  The unreleased records contain more than 440,000 pages of documents.

Biden admin doubles estimate of Americans left behind in Afghanistan.  Nearly 200 Americans left behind in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan following the August U.S. military withdrawal may still be trying to get out, the State Department said Friday [10/22/2021], doubling its previous public count.  Spokesman Ned Price said the U.S. airlifted out several dozen people in the past couple days, but even more people have come forward in recent weeks saying they also want to leave, which has sent the number soaring.  He listed the current total still left behind and interested in getting out as somewhere between 100 and 200, and cautioned that the numbers are just "a momentary snapshot in time."

Trucking companies offer $100,000 salaries and $15,000 bonuses to lure 80,000 truckers and ease supply crisis.  Haulage companies are offering six-figure salaries and $15,000 sign-on bonuses while struggling to attract 80,000 new drivers who are needed to relieve the nation's supply crisis.  But industry experts said more drivers won't alleviate the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach backlog, where an empty shipping container fiasco is preventing trucks from moving product to consumers.  Facing an exodus of 600,000 retiring truckers by 2028, the transportation industry is desperate to recruit more people and estimates that 80,000 new hires are needed this year to offset attrition and clear a backed-up supply chain.

Taliban Official Can't Even Find Afghanistan On The Globe.  Watch as an Afghani reporter asks a Taliban official to find his own country on a globe and fail miserably.  [Video clip]

Ron DeSantis Addresses Supply Chain Crisis:  Florida's Ports Are Open.  Florida can play a key role in alleviating the nation's supply chain crisis, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said Tuesday [10/19/2021], as Florida's ports remain open, ready, and, in some cases, are offering incentives for businesses to move their cargo through Sunshine State ports.  Speaking from Jacksonville, Florida's JAXPORT, DeSantis laid out the situation the nation faces, as Americans witness "major disruptions" in the supply chain, citing images of ships docked off the coast of various cities and log jams, which are directly "impacting what we see in terms of our store shelves."  Americans are seeing shortages of products, increased costs of items, and rising gas prices, directly affecting commuters.

The Editor says...
There are also ports at Houston, Beaumont, and Corpus Christi, if you really want to unload a ship.  That's what the Panama Canal is for.

Why don't they call it 'wokebook'? Users mock Facebook's plans to change their name to shake off multiple scandals.  Facebook has been mocked after it emerged the firm plans to rebrand its parent company with a new name next week in a bid to distance itself from a series of embarrassing scandals.  The firm's original, flagship social media site and app — Facebook — is expected to keep its moniker, but Facebook Inc., the parent company which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, will be given rebrand.  Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg is set to reveal the parent company's new name at its annual Connect conference on October 28, but it could be unveiled sooner, the Verge reported.

Shipping Containers That Spent Weeks Aboard Ships Stuck At Ports Now Being Dumped In Nearby Neighborhoods.  With the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach now running 24/7 operations, a new problem has occurred.  Many of the shipping containers that spent weeks onboard ships waiting to be unloaded are now being dumped in nearby neighborhoods once they're emptied.  Sonia Cervantes lives along Anaheim Street, where UCTI Trucking Company is located.  The company's lot only has a capacity for 65 containers so the additional containers now line up along Anaheim Street in front of some people's homes.  "It's a bunch of neighbors that are very upset because it's a non-stop situation," said Cervantes.

Fully-vaccinated former Secretary of State Colin Powell, 84, dies of COVID complications while battling Parkinson's and blood cancer.  Colin Powell, the first black Secretary of State who formulated foreign policy under several presidents, died Monday morning at the age of 84 of complications from COVID.  The Pentagon powerhouse who served as a soldier in Vietnam and went on to become Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was fully vaccinated and battling blood cancer and Parkinson's when he passed away at Walter Reed Medical Center in Maryland, according to his family.  Retired Four-Star General Powell, who was also suffering from Parkinson's, is survived by his wife of 59 years, Alma, and three children, and has a celebrated career that saw him rise up the military ranks after growing up in a Jamaican immigrant family in Harlem.

Colin Powell, military leader and first Black US secretary of state, dies after complications from Covid-19.  A source familiar with the matter said Powell had multiple myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells that suppresses the body's immune response.  Even if fully vaccinated against Covid-19, those who are immunocompromised are at greater risk from the virus.  "We have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American," the family said.  Powell was a distinguished and trailblazing professional soldier whose career took him from combat duty in Vietnam to becoming the first Black national security adviser during the end of Ronald Reagan's presidency and the youngest and first African American chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President George H.W. Bush.  His national popularity soared in the aftermath of the US-led coalition victory during the Gulf War, and for a time in the mid-90s, he was considered a leading contender to become the first Black President of the United States.

China Tests New Hypersonic Nuclear-Capable Missile That Circled Entire Globe at Low-Orbit.  China launched a new hypersonic nuclear-capable missile that circled the entire globe at low-orbit in August, the Financial Times reported.  US Intelligence and US Military officials were left stunned.  "We have no idea how they did this," a source told the Financial Times.  According to the report, the missile missed its target by about 24 miles and caught US intel by surprise.

Chinese Military Operation Leaves US Officials Dumbfounded.  The US military, specifically its leadership, has not had a good year.  While the bungled, deadly evacuation from Afghanistan was the clearest sign of incompetence yet, that disaster followed decades of failure and corruption.  Instead of admitting there's a problem and improving, the US military has been busy prosecuting soldiers for speaking out.  By contrast, the Chinese communists are eating our lunch by building the world's largest navy, advancing next-generation technologies, and promoting unity and strength among their rank and file.  The latest example of their advancement has left US officials dumbfounded, after the Chinese military launched a nuclear-capable hypersonic glider that orbited the earth and then descended into its target area.

As Expected Containergeddon is Getting Worse — Biden's Political Solution to Clear The Ships From Los Angeles Ports Only Making Things Worse.  This is a follow-up to the original explanation of the epicenter of the supply chain backlog issue, ie "The Clog".  You need to review the years-long and building background issue to understand the [mess] that Joe Biden has just made worse.  From the White House perspective, the problem at the California ports, specifically the Port of Los Angeles (POLA) and the Port of Long Beach (POLB), was visible due to hundreds of container ships sitting in a queue off the coast of Los Angeles awaiting their opportunity to offload their cargo.  The media was reporting on the backlog of ships and Joe Biden was under fire.  The team behind Joe Biden wanted the optics removed asap.  Hence, the White House meeting with the heads of the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, Gene Seroka and Mario Cordero, respectively.  The continuing supply chain crisis of empty store shelves, missing parts and component goods that are backlogged at the California ports may be politically represented by the optic of those floating vessels.  However, that's not the problem.

Australia Is Planning To Pass Law Banning Biker Gangs From Showing Gang Tattoos In Public.  An outlaw bikie gang member has slammed a new Western Australian law which could lead to him and his fellow tattooed associates being forced to wear make-up.  Chris 'Ballistic' Orchard, whose motto is the implied threat that 'I shake hands to negotiate ... I throw hands to renegotiate' compared a tough new law banning the public display of gang insignia to 'Nazi Germany'.  [Video clip]

Keywords: Unnecessary travel, junket, carbon footprint, jet fuel, money down the drain.
Buttigieg and 12 Other Biden Cabinet Officials to Attend U.N. Climate Summit as Supply Chain Crisis Continues.  Thirteen members of President Joe Biden's cabinet are heading to Glasgow, Scotland, for the United Nation's climate summit later this month, while the nation remains in the midst of a migrant crisis at the southern border and a supply chain crisis at U.S. ports.  The climate summit attendees will include Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg who has been on parental leave for weeks after adopting two infants.

Ethics watchdog files a complaint against Jen Psaki because she 'violated the Hatch Act by endorsing' Democrat Terry McAuliffe for Virginia Gov. at the White House.  A prominent outside government ethics watchdog has filed an ethics complaint claiming White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki violated the Hatch Act when she talked up former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe from the White House podium.  Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington, an ethics group that regularly hounded the Trump administration when multiple officials talked politics or promoted merchandise from the White House grounds, announced the complaint a day after Psaki's comments.  She had been asked whether the tight Virginia governor's race, just a few weeks out, would be a bellwether for Biden.

While Joe takes a nap...
Jill Biden out to flex political muscle in governors' races.  First lady Jill Biden is set to campaign Friday for Democrats in governors' races in Virginia and New Jersey, her most overt foray into politics since arriving at the White House nine months ago.  Her involvement is the latest sign that Democrats are pulling out the stops in the upcoming elections, particularly in Virginia, where Democrat Terry McAuliffe appears to be in a tighter race than expected.

The Editor says...
The Associated Press certainly has a way with words.  The phrase, "appears to be in a tighter race than expected," is a polite way of saying Mr. McAuliffe is likely to lose.  Here's some free advice for Mr. McAuliffe:  Don't ask Barack H. Obama for help.  He has the Reverse Midas Touch.

Scheller, Marine who criticized Afghanistan withdrawal, sentenced to reprimand, forfeiture of $5K in pay.  The U.S. Marine who posted videos on social media criticizing military leadership and the Biden administration's withdrawal of military assets from Afghanistan was issued a letter of reprimand and a forfeiture of $5,000 worth of pay for one month, after pleading guilty to all charges during his court-martial hearing this week.  Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller Jr. pled guilty to all six misdemeanor-level charges Thursday [10/14/2021], including willfully disobeying a superior commissioned officer, dereliction in the performance of duties and conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.

Boeing deals with new defect on troubled 787 Dreamliner:  Admits titanium parts on new planes are too weak.  Boeing is dealing with an alarming new defect on its problem-plagued 787 Dreamliner, which involves certain titanium parts that are weaker than they should be, according to a new report.  The defect is on 787s built over the past three years, and is among the Dreamliner issues that has led to $25 billion in jet inventory piling up on Boeing's hands, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.  In a statement to DailyMail.com, a Boeing spokesman confirmed that the company had received a notice from a supplier about 'certain 787 parts that were improperly manufactured.'

Amazon India reportedly copied sellers' products and rigged search results.  Amazon's India division engaged in a systematic campaign of copying items sold by third-party sellers and then manipulated search results to favor its own products, according to a Reuters report Wednesday [10/13/2021] that cites internal documents.  In a 2016 document, titled "India Private Brands Program," Amazon's private label team in India detailed how it would review sales and customer review data to identify "reference brands" to replicate, according to the article.

Marine who criticized military over Afghan withdrawal to plead guilty at court martial, lawyer says.  The Marine officer whose online video criticizing senior military leaders over the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan went viral is expected to plead guilty at his court-martial this week, his lawyer said.  Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Scheller is facing several charges ahead of the court-martial set for Thursday at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.  They include disrespect toward superior commissioned officers, willfully disobeying a superior commissioned officer and conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.  One of Scheller's attorneys, Timothy Parlatore, confirmed to CBS News that his client would be pleading guilty, but would not say which charges Scheller would plead guilty to, since details are still being finalized.

Marine top brass claims Lt. Colonel Stuart Scheller 'incited a revolution' by criticizing Afghanistan withdrawal on Facebook.  Marine top brass has claimed in charges against Lt. Colonel Stuart Scheller that he was trying to 'incite a revolution' by repeatedly criticizing the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal and calling for a change in military leadership, leaked documents have revealed.  The viral Marine posted that 'It's time for a new generation to assume American power.  We are ready, and we reject the current system... Follow me, and we will bring the whole [...] system down... in a constitutional manner with one loud voice.'  That September 2 post is referred to in a charge sheet that was first obtained by Task and Purpose, a military news site, and made public on Friday [10/8/2021].

Clint Eastwood Wins $6.1M Lawsuit Against CBD Scammers Using His Name.  Famed actor and director Clint Eastwood has won a $6.1 million lawsuit against a Lithuanian company that used his face and name without permission to sell CBD products.  The 91-year-old Dirty Harry star was thrilled that he came out on top in the lawsuit to stop the "scammers" from illegally using him — and other stars — to sell their products.

No cases of influenza A or RSV detected in Ohio during 2020-21 season - and just two cases of B flu strain.  Cases of influenza and other respiratory viruses plummeted during the COVID-19 pandemic, a new study suggests.  Researchers from Akron Children's Hospital, in Ohio, looked at data from children treated during the 2018-19, 2019-20 and the 2020-21 flu seasons.  They found that flu infections among kids were reduced by 99 percent and there were no cases of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) detected in northern Ohio.

New Zealand Central Bank Raises Interest Rates For First Time in Seven Years.  New Zealand's central bank raised interest rates for the first time in more than seven years on Wednesday, removing some of the support it put in place when the coronavirus pandemic began.  The Reserve Bank raised the benchmark rate to 0.5% from a record low 0.25%.

Lt. Col. Scheller [has been] Freed, but Charges Loom.  Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller has been freed from pretrial detention, but could still face charges for criticizing senior military officials over the U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan, The Epoch Times has learned.  Scheller was scheduled for a pretrial confinement initial review hearing Tuesday.  Military officials planned to conduct the hearing in secret, sparking anger from some media outlets and members of the public.  But prior to the hearing, the Marine Corps agreed to free Scheller, cancelling the pretrial review as a result, according to a source familiar with the matter.  Meanwhile, Scheller has submitted a request for resignation of his commission in lieu of trial to the Secretary of the Navy, the source said, speaking under the condition of anonymity to avoid backlash from the military.?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=akdart

Lt Colonel Stuart Scheller is being released from military brig.  Lt. Colonel Stuart Scheller Jr. is being released from military brig today after winning a landslide of public support for his condemnation of the withdrawal from Afghanistan.  Scheller Jr. was jailed last Monday at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina for repeatedly criticizing the military's chaotic withdrawal from Kabul.  He was three days from retirement when he was stripped of his post and thrown in the grim confinement quarters to await military trial for contempt.  He had said in videos that he was resigning and giving up his $2 million pension because he was so appalled with how the situation in Afghanistan had unfolded.

Natural gas price spikes 25% on soaring demand.  European and UK gas prices surged on Wednesday by more than 25 percent, energised by soaring demand before the northern hemisphere winter.  Europe's reference Dutch TTF gas price jumped to 145.19 euros per megawatt hour and UK prices soared to 347.27 pence per therm.

General Mark Milley's Sketchy October 2020 Intelligence on China Fears Likely Came From Twitter and New York Times, Congressman Mike Turner Will Confirm.  CTH has discovered what we believe will turn out to be the currently classified "intelligence product" that Joint Chief's Chairman Mark Milley has been claiming as justification for his unilateral phone call with the Chinese military to discuss their concerns.  I am 80% certain we have located that intelligence product, and you ain't gonna believe where it was from.  Yesterday [9/29/2021], congressman Mike Turner of Ohio noted that no one in the entire system of intelligence and oversight had any idea what intelligence product Mark Milley was describing in his two days of testimony.  Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said Wednesday, in response to the claims of Milley, that no such intelligence product ever existed.  Congressman Turner, who sits on the House Intel Committee (HPSCI) and the House Armed Services Committee, confirmed the same.  Congressman Turner has demanded that General Milley turn over this mysterious, secret, oddly untraceable intelligence product that Milley alone has seen.

Facebook Whistleblower Is Leftist Activist Repped By Lawyer For 'Whistleblower' Behind Trump Impeachment.  The Facebook whistleblower, Frances Haugen, has a record of donations to far-left Democrats and a history of raising issues about purported bias while at previous employers, a Daily Wire review found.  She is working with Democrat operatives to roll out her complaint and has the same lawyers as the anonymous Ukraine "whistleblower" whose allegations led to Donald Trump's impeachment, but who reportedly turned out to be then-Vice President Joe Biden's top advisor on the country.  In a previous role at Pinterest, Frances Haugen was behind a "recent change to give users the option to filter searches to specific skin tones."  At Gigster, she gave a talk on how "if we don't build with an eye towards inclusion, we can end up enshrining bias." [...] According to public records, Haugen co-owns a house with Molly Tombley-McCann, a computer coder who made a "gamification tool to be a better ally."  Haugen has made more than twenty federal campaign contributions since 2016, all of which have gone to Democrats, according to Federal Election Commission data.

A simple guide to the Pandora Papers leak.  The Pandora Papers is a leak of almost 12 million documents that reveals hidden wealth, tax avoidance and, in some cases, money laundering by some of the world's rich and powerful.  More than 600 journalists in 117 countries have been trawling through the files from 14 sources for months, finding stories that are being published this week.  The data was obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in Washington DC, which has been working with more than 140 media organisations on its biggest ever global investigation.  BBC Panorama and the Guardian have led the investigation in the UK.

Maj Gen Ordered 50+ Evacuees off One of Last Flights out of Kabul to Make Room for Taliban Souvenir.  [Scroll down]  During the last hours of the evacuation, according to troops under his command and as documented by photographs and witness statements, [Maj. Gen. Christopher] Donahue ordered all of the passengers aboard a C-17 transport plane to disembark so he could have a souvenir loaded onto the plane.  That souvenir, or "war trophy," was an inoperable Taliban-owned Toyota Hilux with a fully operational Russian ZU-23 anti-aircraft autocannon mounted in the bed.  Once the Hilux was loaded passengers were allowed back on the plane, but, of course, there wasn't room for all of them.  According to troops on the scene, at least 50 people and perhaps as many as 100 people were left at Kabul to make room for the Hilux.

Related story:  Nobody ran a red light for four straight hours.
Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp go down in major internet outage.  Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, three of the most-popular websites and apps in the world, were knocked offline Monday in a major internet outage.  The outage that affected the products, which are all owned and operated by Facebook, occurred around noon EST. Several other products that are owned and run by Facebook were also affected.  On Facebook, a simple error message read "Sorry, something went wrong.  We're working on it and we'll get it fixed as soon as we can."

Kabul faces blackout as Taliban fails to pay the bills.  Afghanistan's capital could be plunged into darkness as the winter sets in because the country's new Taliban rulers haven't paid Central Asian electricity suppliers or resumed collecting money from consumers.  Unless addressed, the situation could cause a humanitarian disaster, warned Daud Noorzai, who resigned as chief executive of the country's state power monopoly, Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat, nearly two weeks after the Taliban's takeover on Aug. 15.

Louie Gohmert shares reassuring update on jailed Marine after visit.  Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas said the Marine who was jailed after criticizing top military officials over the Afghanistan withdrawal "looks" and "sounds good" after the two met on Thursday [9/30/2021].  The congressman traveled to North Carolina's Camp Lejeune, where Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller is being held, for a visit and later provided a status update to his parents on Sean Hannity's Fox News program.  "There are people in that brig that like Stu, and so please know that," Gohmert told Scheller's parents, who say they have not talked to their son since he was thrown in the brig on Monday, on Hannity.  Scheller garnered attention in August when he posted a video on social media calling for accountability from military leaders over the United States's pullout from Afghanistan.  He later said he was "relieved from duty" after his comments went viral and that he expected to be jailed over it.  Scheller Jr. is currently in pretrial confinement as he awaits a hearing, which has not yet been scheduled.

$2 million raised for Marine in the brig for speaking out against Afghan chaos.  Individuals raised nearly $2 million on behalf of the Marine facing possible charges for his public criticism of military leadership amid the Afghanistan withdrawal.  Supporters have raised more than $1.85 million from over 23,000 donations for Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller Jr., who awaits a hearing for his viral videos in which he called for accountability for the military's top brass.  He is in pretrial confinement in the Regional Brig for Marine Corps Installations East abroad Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune.  However, the time, date, and location of the Article 32 proceeding has not been scheduled.

GOP Lawmakers:  Incarceration Of Lt. Col. Scheller Is Political.  Republican lawmakers are coming to the defense of a U.S. Marine who was jailed after criticizing Joe Biden's Afghan pullout.  In a statement on Thursday, Reps.  James Comer (R-Ky.) and Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) said Biden officials put a U.S. Marine in solitary confinement for demanding accountability from top brass for the Afghan disaster.  The lawmakers went on to ask why our troops receive punishment for questioning the failures of Biden and his administration.  Back in August, Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller posted a video on Facebook asking why the Afghanistan crisis even happened and blasting military leaders for the exit.  He was placed in pre-trial confinement shortly after.

36 members of Congress sign letter calling for Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller's immediate release from grim military brig.  Dozens of congressmembers have demanded the immediate release of Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller after he was jailed for defying orders to stop publicly criticizing the nation's Afghanistan withdrawal.  Scheller, 40, was arrested and jailed at the Camp Lejeune brig Monday [9/27/2021] for allegedly breaking four military laws by refusing orders to stop posting critical videos on social media.  He was scheduled to make his first court appearance in North Carolina today, but the public — including elected officials and the media — are prohibited from attending.

The Scheller Case is America's Dreyfus Affair.  A US Marine officer, Lt. Colonel Stuart Scheller, publicly criticized the Biden Administration's chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan which left 13 servicemen and women dead at Kabul Airport.  He particularly targeted the top brass of the military, a military to which he devoted his energy and his life to serve, for their abysmal performance in the closing days of the Afghan withdrawal.  Scheller was relieved of his command shortly after he posted a video on Facebook demanding senior officers be held to account for their actions.  In the video, Scheller said that he intended to resign his commission. [...] On September 27, Lt. Colonel Sheller was suddenly arrested and placed in solitary confinement in the military jail at Camp Lejeune, N.C., according to Marine Corps spokesman Capt. Sam Stephenson.  He is held incommunicado, under a gag order, unable even to speak with his parents.  Throwing people into solitary confinement has become, it seems, a repeatable tactic to the current Democrat enforcers.

Workers Who Maintain Supply Chains Warn of Worldwide 'System Collapse'.  Several industry groups have warned world leaders of a worldwide supply-chain "system collapse" due to pandemic restrictions, coming as Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell suggested that the current period of higher inflation will last until 2022.  The International Chamber of Shipping, a coalition of truck drivers, seafarers, and airline workers, has warned in a letter to heads of state attending the United Nations General Assembly that governments need to restore freedom of movement to transportation workers amid persistent COVID-19 restrictions and quarantines.  If nothing is done, they warned of a "global transport system collapse" and suggested that "global supply chains are beginning to buckle as two years' worth of strain on transport workers take their toll," according to the letter.  It was signed by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the International Road Transport Union (IRU), and the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF), which represent some 65 million transport workers around the world.

Coal For Christmas.  In mid-April 2021, I began receiving reports from sources in China and the United States that certain regions in China had begun to experience ongoing power disruptions at their warehouses and manufacturing facilities.  Most notable of these was in south China's Guangdong megaregion, where in June operations at the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant had become disrupted by a small number of faulty claddings for the fuel rods, ultimately forcing state-owned General Nuclear Power Group to shut down Unit 1 (there are two units) for maintenance and repair.  Concurrently, available power imported to the Guangdong region from Yunnan province's considerable hydroelectric capacity was reduced due to drier-than-expected weather throughout the spring.  Taken together, some estimates are that total power available to the region fell by as much as 15% by June.  In response, officials began quietly rationing power to factories, cutting business operation days by 1 or 2 days depending on the facilities' power requirements.  In recent weeks, however, officials have begun a much more aggressive rationing program, with factories in much of Guangdong now seeing only 1-2 days per week of power use allowed.

Millions Of Chinese Residents Lose Power After Widespread, "Unexpected" Blackouts; Power Company Warns This Is "New Normal".  Just yesterday [9/26/2021] we warned that a "Power Supply Shock Looms" as the energy crisis gripping Europe — and especially the UK — was set to hammer China, and just a few hours later we see this in practice as residents in three north-east Chinese provinces experienced unannounced power cuts as the electricity shortage which initially hit factories spreads to homes.  People living in Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces complained on social media about the lack of heating, and lifts and traffic lights not working.  Local media in China — which is highly dependent on coal for power — said the cause was a surge in coal prices leading to short supply. [...] Then there is Beijing's pursuit of curbing carbon emissions — Xi Jinping wants to ensure blue skies at the Winter Olympics in Beijing next February, showing the international community that he's serious about de-carbonizing the economy — that has led to artificial bottlenecks in the coal supply chain. [...] Whatever the reason, it's just getting started:  as BBC reported, one power company said it expected the power cuts to last until spring next year, and that unexpected outages would become "the new normal."  Its post, however, was later deleted.

Why are the Chinese eating by flashlight?  Some [Chinese] homeowners and businesses are firing up generators to keep the power going during prime demand hours.  So what's going on?  Have they run out of fuel? [...] Nope.  As it turns out, there's plenty of power to go around but the government simply shut it off for their own policy reasons. [...] China's rapid expansion has more than doubled their power consumption over the past couple of decades.  Because they use a lot of "dirty" energy, that leads to more emissions.  Why would they care?  Because China is hosting a U.N. environmental conference next month where emissions will be a topic of discussion.  They are anxious to show that they are actually curbing emissions when they never actually do that.  To not produce some good numbers to show the UN would be a political embarrassment.

Alternative viewpoint:
Power shortages in China may cause world food and commodities prices to surge.  China is looking at a difficult harvest season as a severe energy crunch hurts the outlook for production — a development that can trigger another surge in food prices.  The autumn harvest in China is underway, but with power shortages in industrial hubs, authorities see slow processing growth.  This is especially true in the northeastern provinces of Jilin, Liaoning and Heilongjiang, where half of the country's corn and soybeans are grown.  This crisis is pushing concerns that China will have a tough time handling crops this year, as some plants were asked to cut their output to conserve electricity.  Over the past year, China already imported record lows of agricultural products due to domestic shortages, which drove prices and global food costs to record highs.  Power shortages in the country have forced soybean processors in northern regions to shut down, affecting operations of larger companies.

Parents of jailed Marine hail his courage calling out generals over Afghan disaster.  A Marine Corps officer jailed after releasing a series of Facebook videos criticizing military leadership for the botched withdrawal of Afghanistan, as well as a series of scathing posts lambasting "hypocrite" former presidents and generals, now sits in a type of solitary confinement with no phone, visitors, books, or even paper, his parents told the Washington Examiner.  "I anticipated it.  I ran the gamut of rage to tears," said Cathy Scheller upon learning that her son Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller was arrested Monday.  "I have taken up his cause.  I will do everything I can to make sure this doesn't disappear.  I am very proud of him for standing for the service members and asking for accountability."

The Marine Who Called for Afghanistan Accountability Has Been Thrown in Prison.  Back in August, Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller called for accountability for military leadership on the disastrous and catastrophic exit from Afghanistan.  He did so knowing he was risking his career and would likely face punishment for doing so.  "The reason people are so upset on social media right now is not because the Marine on the battlefield let someone down," Scheller said.  "People are upset because their senior leaders let them down and none of them are raising their hands and accepting accountability or saying, 'We messed this up.'"  "I'm not saying we've got to be in Afghanistan forever, but I am saying:  Did any of you throw your rank on the table and say, 'Hey, it's a bad idea to evacuate Bagram Airfield, a strategic airbase, before we evacuate everyone.'  Did anyone do that?  And when you didn't think to do that, did anyone raise their hand and say, 'We completely messed this up.'"

The Wrong Man Is In The Brig — Put Biden On Trial.  U.S. Marine Lieutenant-Colonel Stuart Scheller is in the brig — a military jail at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.  More specifically, Scheller is in pre-trial confinement.  That means he is being held behind bars pending a military court-martial.  Scheller was up until recently a Marine battalion commander.  He was relieved of his command following a series of public statements he made chastising military leadership for the manifest incompetence shown during the Afghan withdrawal that led directly to the deaths of 13 Marines.  After his relief Scheller announced he would resign from the service and continued to speak out — in apparent violation of direct orders to stop discussing his concerns publicly.  In one video, posted on September 16th, Scheller stated his intention to charge Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie Jr., head of U.S. Central Command, with dereliction of duty.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin Makes the Case for His Own Resignation.  Joe Biden's generals are up on Capitol Hill today defending their incompetent, politically driven decision-making that led to the collapse of Afghanistan.  That collapse included the deaths of 13 Americans in a suicide bombing attack while we imported tens of thousands of "refugees" who weren't qualified.  In short, the entire thing was a massive catastrophe, led by people like Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley.  In fact, while speaking today, Austin didn't even really hide the fact that the Afghanistan withdrawal and subsequent evacuation were a total cluster.

Save it for the jury.
Mark Milley defends his secret China calls, insists he wasn't trying to undermine Trump.  Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley denied any wrongdoing in making two phone calls to China during Trump's presidency and insisted he spoke with his counterpart there to 'de-escalate' Beijing's fears over an imminent attack.  Speaking before a Senate panel on Tuesday, Milley also denied accusations that he told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi he agreed with her Trump is 'crazy,' telling lawmakers today that he instead told her he is 'not qualified to determine the mental health of the president.'  Milley and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin are testifying before the Senate Armed Service Committee Tuesday, marking their first public testimony since the U.S. completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Outspoken Marine officer who went viral blasting military leaders over Afghanistan is jailed: report.  Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller, the officer who went viral for blasting the military's leadership amid the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, has been sent to the brig, according to a report.  "All our son did is ask the questions that everybody was asking themselves, but they were too scared to speak out loud," Scheller's father, Stu Scheller Sr., told Task & Purpose.  "He was asking for accountability.  In fact, I think he even asked for an apology that we made mistakes, but they couldn't do that, which is mind-blowing."  Scheller first rose to internet stardom by posting a video to Facebook blasting military leaders for the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, questioning their command decisions on the events leading up to and during the final evacuation effort.

John Hinckley, Who Shot President Reagan, to Be Granted Unconditional Release.  A federal judge has approved the unconditional release of John Hinckley Jr., the man who tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan outside a Washington, D.C., hotel in 1981.  Hinckley, now 66, has been living outside a mental health facility for several years under court-imposed restrictions, including the oversight of his medical care and tracking of his computer passwords.  The new agreement will result in his full release from supervision in June 2022.  The Justice Department agreed to a settlement but will monitor Hinckley for nine months to ensure he remains mentally stable, as he will be living on his own for the first time in about 40 years and because one of his primary doctors is set to retire and dissolve Hinckley's therapy group.

The Editor says...
Doctors retire all the time.  That's no reason to let crazy people out of the mental hospitals.

Pentagon loosens access rules to secret programs, raising security leak fears.  Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks issued a memorandum to senior Pentagon officials on Sept. 20 stating that filling out a counterintelligence questionnaire is no longer required to gain access to special access programs.  Known as SAPs, these are the most secret activities and programs within the department.  The eased rules specifically allow Senate-confirmed political appointees, members of the House and Senate, the professional staff of the congressional defense and intelligence oversight committees and senior White House officials access to the programs without filling out a prescreening questionnaire as required for all other officials in the Pentagon's Special Access Security Manual:  Personnel Security.

Headline corrections provided by The Editor.
Biden admin purges Lee Greenwood from [the] [N]ational [A]rts [C]ouncil; [because the] singer's 'God Bless the USA' [is] played at Trump rallies.  The Biden administration's purge of appointees to various government advisory boards by prior presidents — mostly Republicans — is continuing with the dismissal of country music great Lee Greenwood from the National Council on the Arts.  During an interview last week with "Fox & Friends," Greenwood explained that he was initially appointed to the board by President George W. Bush then served throughout President Barack Obama's two terms and President Donald Trump's single term, adding he was shocked to get the letter advising him he was being replaced.  Greenwood, who wrote the country anthem "God Bless the USA," which was a favorite of the late President Ronald Reagan and has become a fixture at Trump's rallies, suspects that politics may be behind the decision to remove him from the arts council.

Democrats in Congress Try to Abolish Space Force.  Some Democrats in Congress are trying to abolish the Space Force at a time when China and Russia have been doubling down on expanding their military capabilities in space.  On Wednesday [9/22/2021], Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) introduced a bill named No Militarization of Space Act, trying to abolish the Space Force, a new military service branch created under former President Donald Trump.  "The long-standing neutrality of space has fostered a competitive, non-militarized age of exploration every nation and generation has valued since the first days of space travel," Huffman said in a statement.  "But since its creation under the former Trump administration, the Space Force has threatened longstanding peace and flagrantly wasted billions of taxpayer dollars."  The Space Force was established in December 2019 and has been deemed by some to be one of Trump's signature achievements.  But its origin can be traced back to the beginning of the Cold War.

The Editor says...
I'm opposed to the creation of a Space Force, simply because NASA already exists, and NASA isn't doing anything useful at the moment.  Create a Space Force if you must, but if you do, what is the purpose of NASA?

Costco Limits Purchases of Toilet Paper, Paper Towels, and Bottled Water amid Inflation, Supply-Chain Issues.  Costco is implementing new consumer limitations on purchases of household essentials including toilet paper, paper towels, and Kirkland bottled water as the company has seen an increase in demand due to a surge in the delta variant and supply-chain complications.  Costco has been dealing with significant issues centered around supply-chain complications and inflation according to the company's Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Richard A. Galanti.

The Editor says...
Mrs. Editor and I were turned away from Costco a couple of weeks ago when we refused to put on face masks before entering the store.  Costco headquarters is in Seattle.  The customers on the west coast may put up with that kind of treatment, but I'm done with Costco.

Pentagon names ISIS-K 'planner' who was killed in successful August drone strike.  The Pentagon has named an ISIS-K planner killed in a drone strike and said he was 'directly connected' to the suicide attack that killed 13 Americans.  The man, Kabir Aidi, was killed in an American drone strike on August 27 one day after the troops were blown up outside Kabul's airport.  It comes a week after the Pentagon admitted the US accidentally killed ten innocent people — including seven children — in a drone strike two days later on August 29 in Kabul.

South Korean President Travels to Hawaii to Repatriate US Servicemembers' Remains — Biden Admin Skips Event, Sends No One.  Biden leaves Americans stranded in Afghanistan.  And on Wednesday [9/22/2021] he didn't bother to send a single representative to honor our Korean war heroes or greet the South Korean leader in Hawaii.  South Korean President Moon Jae-in traveled to Hawaii on Wednesday to repatriate the remains of American service members.  Not a single representative from the Biden Administration showed up.  They hate this country, its heroes, its values and traditions and want it destroyed.

Is This Facebook's 'Big Tobacco' Moment?  Facebook Inc. executives have long boasted that its platforms are safe, even as they invested in ways to keep teenagers hooked and hid what they knew about the side effects.  Sound familiar?  Critics say Big Tobacco once used the same playbook, and it's fueling a whole new level of outrage against the social media giant.  Facebook consistently played down its own research that showed how photo-sharing app Instagram can harm the mental well-being of its youngest users, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.  Almost a third of young teen girls told Facebook they feel worse about their bodies after scrolling through the site, documents reviewed by the newspaper showed.  Despite that knowledge, Facebook is dedicating more resources to reaching even younger consumers, including developing a children's version of Instagram.

S. Korean President Returns U.S. MIA Troop Remains in Person.  Biden Sends No Rep.  Many of us remember the big stink that Joe Biden made last year when he bothered to campaign about how the Democrat would treat America's allies so much better than that loudmouth Donald Trump who was always talking about America First.  The allies seemed excited at the prospect of an American president treating them with the deference, respect, and obedience they've come to expect from American leaders until, well, you-know-who.  Biden can't seem to remember a lot of things these days, including the name of his Secretary of Defense and that five-sided building in Virginia where the military hangs out.

It is Trump's party.  Get over it.  Never Trump Congressman Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio announced he won't seek a third term because of Donald Trump.  Gonzalez won't be missed, He voted to impeach Trump.  I do not get the congressman's problem.  Water is wet, the media is biased, and Trump is the leader of the Republican Party.  It is no contest.  McLaughlin and Associates polled Republicans nationally and asked if Trump won the nomination in 2024, would you vote for him in the general election?  86% of Republicans said they would.  There are your Republican values and principles.  Donald Trump proved his worthiness as a Republican, as a conservative, and as an American in his 4 years as president.  He has nothing to be ashamed of.  Gonzalez, well, that's a different story.

Ohio Republican Who Voted to Impeach President Trump Announces He Will Not Seek Re-Election.  Anthony Gonzalez (OH-16) was one of the ten House republicans (pictured above) who voted to impeach President Trump.  As President Trump announced his support for Gonzalez's challenger, Max Miller, former House Speaker John Boehner went to Ohio to support Gonzalez.  Apparently the support of Paul Ryan and John Boehner was not enough to help.  Max Miller was in position to primary Gonzalez.

The DOJ Moves To Block The Purdue Pharma Bankruptcy Deal That Shields The Sacklers.  A division of the Justice Department that serves as a watchdog over the federal bankruptcy system filed an appeal late Wednesday seeking to block the controversial Purdue Pharma bankruptcy plan.  William Harrington, who serves as U.S. trustee for the Justice Department, also filed documents requesting an "expedited stay" to prevent implementation of the settlement.  The deal, which Judge Robert Drain approved Sept. 1, granted sweeping immunity from opioid lawsuits to members of the Sackler family who own the drug company.  The Sacklers, who are not bankrupt, were granted releases from liability after agreeing to contribute roughly $4.3 billion of their private wealth to the deal.

Centcom Commander General McKenzie Calls Drone Strike Killing 10 Innocents in Kabul, a Tragic Mistake — The Signals Intelligence Was Wrong.  Earlier today [9/17/2021], General Kenneth Franklin McKenzie Jr. admitted a claimed U.S. drone strike against the ever evolving and mysterious ISIS-K, actually killed 7 children and three innocent adult civilians.  General McKenzie calls it a "tragic mistake."  Four days after the August 29th strike Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the strike "righteous."  General McKenzi says he takes "full responsibility", yet he retains his position.  No one is being held to account.  No one at the Pentagon is facing discipline.  Both McKenzie and Milley claim it was solid intelligence that led them to watch, follow, and eventually target and kill Zemari Ahmadi, an Afghan relief worker who arrived home.  The missile struck his vehicle as his children ran out to welcome daddy home from work, killing all occupants in the car and those in the vicinity.

Oops: Biden's 'Righteous Strike' in Kabul Now a 'Tragic Mistake'.  In August, the Biden administration conducted a drone strike in Kabul that Gen. Mark Milley described as a "righteous strike" against the Islamic State.  On Friday [9/17/2021], CENTCOM commander Frank McKenzie acknowledged the strike was actually a "tragic mistake" that killed 10 civilians, and no ISIS targets were killed.

The Pentagon confesses that it lied about killing ISIS operatives.  For many years, the American military was the most respected institution in America.  In the seven months of the Biden administration, we've learned that the upper reaches of the Pentagon are partisan, corrupt, possibly treasonous, and totally incompetent.  The latest evidence of this is General McKenzie's confession that the military didn't really kill an "ISIS-K fighter" after Islamists slaughtered 13 American troops.  Instead, our military drone attack killed an aide worker, seven children, and two other adults.

Biden Vacations in Delaware as Generals Admit Drone Strike 'Mistake' in Kabul.  President Biden continued his vacation in Delaware Friday [9/17/2021] as the country's top generals confirmed a "tragic mistake" in Afghanistan that left three adults and seven children dead in a drone strike aimed at ISIS terrorists.  "We now assess that it is unlikely that the vehicle and those who died were associated with ISIS-K or a direct threat to US forces," McKenzie said of the airstrike at a briefing, following an investigation by the Military.  "This strike was taken in the earnest belief that it would prevent an imminent threat to our forces and the evacuees at the airport, but it was a mistake and I offer my sincere apology," Mckenzie added, claiming that he is "fully responsible for this strike and this tragic outcome."

US military admits drone strike intended to kill ISIS-K fighters in Kabul actually killed civilians, including 7 children.  An investigation by the US military has determined that an airstrike last month in Kabul believed to have eliminated a terrorist threat actually killed civilians, a top US general said Friday [9/17/2021].  "This strike was taken in the earnest belief that it would prevent an imminent threat to our forces and the evacuees at the airport, but it was a mistake and I offer my sincere apology," Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the head of US Central Command, told reporters at the Pentagon.  "I am now convinced that as many as 10 civilians, including up to 7 children, were tragically killed in that strike," he said.

US military admits it killed 10 civilians and targeted wrong vehicle in Kabul airstrike.  A United States military investigation into a deadly Kabul drone strike on a vehicle in August has found it killed 10 civilians and the driver and that the vehicle targeted was likely not a threat associated with ISIS-K, announced Gen. Frank McKenzie, the top general of US Central Command, at the Pentagon on Friday [9/17/2021].  McKenzie told reporters that the strike — which he said killed seven children — was a "mistake" and offered an apology.  "This strike was taken in the earnest belief that it would prevent an imminent threat to our forces and the evacuees at the airport, but it was a mistake and I offer my sincere apology," he said.  McKenzie added that he is "fully responsible for this strike and this tragic outcome."

Senator Bob Menendez Threatens Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and All Further Pentagon Nominations.  Protecting the interests of the Fourth Branch of Government is not a partisan issue. [...] In this example, Democrat Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez targets the Pentagon Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for not appearing to answer questions about Afghanistan.  Showcasing the out of balance power of the Senate, Menendez threatens to block defense department nominations as a consequence to Austin for defying the Fourth Branch of Government.  [Video clip]

Blinken Just Told Us How Many Biden Really Left Behind in Afghanistan.  I've been skeptical of the Biden administration's official number of Americans still left in Afghanistan.  They've said about 100-200 Americans were left behind (still a tragedy) but one U.S. official said that over 5,000 Americans were likely to end up stranded in the country by the time U.S. forces left.  As of yesterday, they are saying there are about 100 Americans still there — which likely means nothing has changed since the withdrawal concluded on August 30.

DOJ Allows Three U.S. Intelligence Contractors To Pay Their Way Out of Criminal Charges.  This thread might be well worth pulling for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the DOJ National Security Division allowing three former Intelligence Community Contractors to pay their way out of criminal charges.  It appears that criminal operatives that come from within the Fourth Branch of government are allowed to get a "first-of-its-kind resolution."  Apparently it looks like three men Marc Baier, 49, Ryan Adams, 34, and a former U.S. citizen, Daniel Gericke, 40, all former employees of the U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) or the U.S. military, left the contractor employment of the USIC in 2016 and went to work for the United Arab Emirates.  It appears the three were experts in computer intrusion; meaning they were hackers for the U.S. government working inside the intelligence system.  When they went to work for the UAE, they helped develop hacking tools that were later used to hack into U.S. cell phone networks and operating systems.  They were supposed to register as free-lance hackers, they didn't; and they were not allowed to help foreign governments hack into U.S. systems, which they did.

China Installs Cameras Inside People's Homes, Expanding Its Surveillance Network.  The world depicted in George Orwell's "1984" and "Animal Farm" is often used as an analogy for totalitarian states, such as China.  Recently, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is taking the "big brother" tactic of surveillance and control of citizens to a new level, building internet grids to watch and implicate the "whole clan" by association, sneakily monitoring private cellphones and even installing cameras inside people's homes.  As shown in the internal CCP documents obtained exclusively by The Epoch Times, under the name of COVID-19 containment, the regime has been systematically expanding its already massive surveillance network, spending hundreds of millions of yuan, hiring a large number of personnel, and incorporating more governmental departments.  The measures involved have become increasingly invasive, directly violating China's own constitution.

Pentagon defends drone strike in Kabul that reportedly killed civilians.  The Pentagon defended a deadly August drone strike in Kabul on Monday — despite a report that the attack actually killed an innocent man and his family.  The second of a pair of drone airstrikes in the waning days of the Afghanistan war is now being investigated by Central Command, but details are scarce and there remains a question of how much information will be shared once the probe is completed.  "I would say that the assessment by Central Command is ongoing and I'm not gonna get ahead of that," Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said during a news briefing on Monday.  "The strike was taken to prevent an imminent attack on the airport."

'Thousands' of lawful US residents left in Afghanistan, Blinken says in testimony.  President Joe Biden's administration assessed "thousands" of lawful permanent residents of the United States remain in Afghanistan following the tumultuous evacuation of Kabul, according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.  "I think the best estimates are that there's several thousand green card holders in Afghanistan," Blinken told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Monday [9/13/2021].  That figure hints at the scale of the diplomatic and humanitarian challenge confronting State Department officials in the absence of U.S. military personnel.  Blinken's team is developing new plans for securing the departure of the remaining American citizens, green card holders, and Afghan allies expected to face retaliation from the Taliban for their past work with the U.S. government — but the number of Afghans eligible for Special Immigrant Visas remains unclear.

Media Matters' Electioneering Against Larry Elder Broke IRS Rules, Complaint Says.  The Iowa-based conservative watchdog group Patriots Foundation filed a new complaint with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Monday against Media Matters for America (MMFA) arguing the tax-exempt group has violated its agency agreement with illegal electioneering.  Founded in 2004, the leftist non-profit was given 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status under IRS code which prohibits explicit campaign activity on behalf of any candidate or candidate's party.  In a supplemental complaint added to an existing referral over last year's election, however, the Patriots Foundation argues the group's interference in the California recall race violates IRS terms for tax exemption.  "MMFA has, from inception, operated as a thinly veiled partisan political organization supporting Democratic candidates for office and engaging in other improper activities," the group wrote, outlining four parameters groups must follow in order to maintain their 501(c)(3) status with the IRS. [...] In a Media Matters article headlined, "Larry Elder is running to be California governor.  Here's just some of his toxic record as a radio host and right-wing pundit," the Patriots Foundation explained, "each of these assurances have been abandoned."

House GOP Leader Asks Supreme Court to End Proxy Voting.  House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is taking his fight against what he calls the "patently unconstitutional practice" of proxy voting in the U.S. House of Representatives to the Supreme Court.  In the early days of the pandemic in May 2020, the House approved a resolution allowing members to cast votes on the House floor by proxy on the theory that it was advisable to limit attendance in Congress to combat the spread of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.  Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said at the time the new absentee voting protocol was needed because the virus posed a "mortal danger."  House Democratic leadership said when the policy began that it would be temporary but it is still in effect today.  This "unprecedented" proxy voting resolution permits a single member to vote on behalf of up to 10 absent members, according to the petition for certiorari, or review, from McCarthy.

I&I/TIPP Poll:  The Distrust Of Scientists Is Widespread — Including On COVID Vaccines.  rom coronavirus vaccines and the virus' origin to climate change, a substantial portion of the country distrusts scientists to do their jobs honestly and capably.  The latest data from the September Issues & Insights/TIPP Poll also found significant differences among Americans of different political views, reflecting a growing politicization of science in America.  The I&I/TIPP poll asked Americans "how much trust do you place in scientists" in three areas of science prominent in today's headlines:  "vaccine safety," "climate change," and "coronavirus origin."  Overall, among the three, vaccine safety was tops in scientist trust, at 61%.  Perhaps not surprisingly, that almost perfectly matches the share of the U.S. population currently vaccinated:  63%.

Last Missile Fired By U.S. Military in Afghanistan Killed Only Innocent Family — Not [an] ISIS 'Facilitator' as Gen. Milley Claimed.  The last missile fired by the United States Military in the 20-year war in Afghanistan struck only an innocent Afghan man and his family in Kabul — not ISIS militants, the New York Times reported on Friday [9/10/2021].  [Tweet]  The blast killed ten members of the extended family of a civilian aid worker, Zemari Ahmadi, and three of his children, Zamir, 20, Faisal, 16, and Farzad, 10; Mr. Ahmadi's cousin Naser, 30; three of Romal's children, Arwin, 7, Benyamin, 6, and Hayat, 2; and two 3-year-old girls, Malika and Somaya.  [Tweet]  While the Pentagon initially conceded there was some "collateral damage" in the aftermath of the Aug. 29 drone attack, military leaders called a "righteous strike" that eliminated an imminent threat to troops and civilians at the Kabul airport.

US drone strike that Pentagon said killed a suicide bomber in Kabul actually killed an aid worker and seven children who ran to greet him.  The drone strike that the Pentagon claimed killed an ISIS-K suicide bomber in Kabul actually targeted an aid worker who had filled his car with water jugs, rather than explosives, according to a shocking new report.  Zemari Ahmadi, 43, was driving the 1996 Toyota Corolla that was destroyed in the August 29 drone strike, killing him and nine family members, including seven children, according to a New York Times investigation.  The Pentagon still maintains that only three civilians died, despite the family now detailing in the new report how their 10 relatives were killed in the blast.

Report: Evidence suggests car hit by U.S. drone strike in Kabul wasn't carrying bombs.  The car that U.S. military officials believed was packed with explosives and destined for a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport on Aug. 29 may actually have been driven by an innocent man transporting canisters of water, a new report claims.  A New York Times story published Friday afternoon [9/10/2021] identified the driver of the car as Zemari Ahmadi, 43, who worked as an electrical engineer for an American aid and lobbying group doing business in Afghanistan.  The Times cited numerous interviews with family members, relatives and others with knowledge of the Aug. 29 incident, and the new report seems to cast serious doubt on the official version of events laid out by the Pentagon.

The Editor says...
Ordinarily, when someone dares to "cast serious doubt on the official version of events," he's called a "conspiracy theorist" or a "truther," or tin-foil-hat nut case.  We are supposed to believe whatever the government tells us.  In this case, the New York Times examined the facts and came up with the embarrassing truth.  Hardly anyone has the resources to examine an incident like this, and even fewer people would be able to report a blatant government lie and stay in business.  It may be a thousand years from now, but some day we'll know how many other lies we were told.

About That Drone Strike.  The New York Times has just posted this intensely interesting investigative scoop by Matthieu Aikins based on reporting by him as well as Christoph Koettl, Evan Hill, and Eric Schmitt:  "In U.S. Drone Strike, Evidence Suggests No ISIS Bomb."  Subhead:  "U.S. officials said a Reaper drone followed a car for hours and then fired based on evidence it was carrying explosives.  But in-depth video analysis and interviews at the site cast doubt on that account."

CNN Poll: 2% Think America Is Doing 'Very Well' Under Joe Biden.  Two percent of Americans participating in a CNN poll think the United States is doing "very well" under President Joe Biden, results revealed Friday [9/10/2021].  "How well are things going in the country today?" CNN asked respondents.  Two percent said "very well," 29 percent said "fairly well," 45 percent said "pretty bad," and 24 percent said "very badly."

Where are All the Americans Returning Home from Afghanistan?  President Joe Biden and his team of military, intelligence, and diplomatic advisors oversaw America's most epic surrender, on the world stage, under the lights and cameras of international media recording it for posterity, spinning the news to mitigate American failure.  One of many failures was the abrupt departure of American military and security forces, necessary to evacuate thousands of Americans and Afghan allies who placed themselves and their families at great risk by helping the Great Satan against the Taliban, the latter being the new boss, replacing the old boss.  How many Americans were left behind?  Official government numbers are all over the map.

30 Headless Goats Found In Georgia River, Ties To African Sacrifice Rituals Suspected.  Channel 2 Action News is investigating headless goats found floating in the Chattahoochee River.  Someone has dumped hundreds of decapitated goats over the past few years.  As they approached the Interstate 20 bridge near the Fulton County and Cobb County border, "There's a goat," Ulselth said.  "These goats have to be coming from somewhere, but we haven't been able to determine who's buying the goats, who's providing the goats or actually how they are making their way here in the river," Ulseth said.  It turns out it was part of a religious ceremony for the followers of Santeria, a religion that mixes West African culture with Cuban Catholicism.

State Department obstruction of private rescue flights from Afghanistan revealed in leaked email.  The State Department refused to grant official approval for private evacuation flights from Afghanistan to land in third countries, even though the department conceded that official authorization would likely be needed for planes to land in those nations, an email reviewed by Fox News shows.  Furthermore, the State Department explicitly stated that charter flights, even those containing American citizens, would not be allowed to land at Defense Department (DOD) airbases.  U.S. officials have pointed to possible security threats from landing charter planes at military bases, saying that they lack the resources on the ground to fully verify flight manifests.

The political time bomb for Biden inside the latest jobless numbers.  While the unemployment rate for Americans dropped in August, there is a political time bomb buried in the statistics for President Joe Biden and a Democratic Party increasingly focused on equity: black joblessness shot up significantly.  In other words, the president who fondly boasts of a domestic policy promising to leave nobody behind has an economic recovery that is leaving a key Democratic constituency in worse shape.  "The rise in black unemployment in August is certainly troubling, considering their unemployment rates were already much higher than any other group," Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said on Twitter.  Adding to the complications is the fact that before the pandemic, African-Americans enjoyed historic economic gains under President Trump, including record-low unemployment and falling poverty.

US in talks with Taliban over additional Kabul evacuations.  Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday [9/7/2021] the United States is coordinating with the Taliban to secure additional charter flights from Kabul for people seeking to leave the country.  With the U.S. having concluded all military operations in the country following the Aug. 31 deadline for withdrawal, the State Department has been working closely with Taliban leaders to facilitate additional evacuations for an estimated 100 U.S. citizens who still want to exit Afghanistan.

Report: At Least 500 Americans [are] Stranded in Afghanistan, Contradicting Joe Biden's Estimates.  At least 500 Americans are reportedly stranded in Afghanistan, contradicting President Joe Biden's estimate of between 100 and 200, according to the Associated Press (AP) on Sunday [9/5/2021].  Among those who believe Biden has miscalculated how many Americans remain trapped behind enemy lines includes Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), who told the AP, "the number of U.S. citizens still there and wanting to leave is closer to 500."  And if the family members of those trapped Americans are included, Issa believes the overall "number of people could be as high as 1,000."

Pre-trial hearings for five 9/11 suspects delayed for 18 months by COVID resume at Guantanamo Bay.  Five of the suspects accused of being involved in the September 11 attacks will see their cases resume on Tuesday in Guantanamo Bay, after an 18-month hiatus caused by the COVID pandemic.  The five — Khalid Sheikh Mohammed; Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin 'Attash; Ramzi Bin al-Shibh; Ali Abdul Aziz Ali; and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi — were initially arraigned in May 2012.  Since then, there have been more than 40 rounds of pre-trial hearings, with the latest set to begin just four days before the 20th anniversary of the attacks.

Nihilism Is Not a Good Look for the USA.  Biden has given the West's enemies enormous resources that strengthen their geopolitical positions.  Does any sane military strategist believe the vast military resources left behind would be left to rust or merely used as scrap?  Any knowledgeable strategist would know that the military hardware would be confiscated and utilized by powers greater than the Taliban — global powers with a vested interest in undermining America and her allies.  Any strategist would be watching nations such as China and Iran waiting to take advantage of such a treasure trove.  As reports from Asaad Hanna and others surface indicating that much of the weaponry left behind in Afghanistan is being transferred to Iran, observers of recent history will recall that Iran's leaders still proclaim themselves to be the deadly enemies of the "Great Satan," America, and the "Little Satan," Israel.

Australian Supermarket Shelves Are Empty After Truckers Go On Strike, Protesting COVID Tyranny.  Videos of empty shelves in Australia have gone viral on TikTok and Twitter after truckers went on strike this past week over the country's heavy-handed COVID tactics.  The video shows meat, fruit, and vegetables running out as the fight between the government and citizens heats up.  [Video clip]

Second Thoughts:  Dems Have A Few.  The man who as a candidate promised to repair our international alliances has dealt NATO a significant if not fatal blow.  The rush to bug out of Afghanistan left hundreds, probably thousands of persons who were citizens, green card holders, and allies behind.  And our NATO allies have not been able to extract all their people either.  Worse, for reasons that seem impossible to justify, we gave the Taliban the names of the people we wanted to extract and turned down their offer to guard the airport ourselves instead of turning that task over to them.  Credible reports and videos at the site show how the Taliban refused entry to those entitled to leave. [...] We left behind on estimated $63 billion worth of military equipment, some of which the Taliban is reportedly selling off to Iran to use against us and Israel and to undo the peace in the Middle East which President Trump so adroitly brought about in the Abraham Accords.  China is the likely real victor, having worked out agreements with the Taliban allowing them to mine valuable mineral resources there.  If any of the abandoned military equipment is state of the art, expect it to fall into Chinese hands one way or another to be reverse engineered for their own use.

Taliban Refusing To Allow Planes Of Americans To Leave, Effectively A 'Hostage' Situation, Report Says.  The Taliban is reportedly not allowing flights carrying American citizens and green card holders to leave Afghanistan.  CBS News reported that, according to congressional and NGO sources, "multiple planes that are ready to take American citizens and green card holders out of the country are being denied permission to leave by the Taliban."  A State Department email viewed by CBS News said that the flights out of Afghanistan have permission to land in Qatar "if and when the Taliban agrees to takeoff."  A senior congressional source told CBS News, "The Taliban is basically holding them hostage to get more out of the Americans."

McCaul: Afghanistan Is 'Worse' than Pre-9/11 because Taliban Has U.S. Weapons.  Representative Michael McCaul (R-TX), the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said on this week's broadcast of "Fox News Sunday" that the situation in Afghanistan is "worse" than before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks because the Taliban was now in possession of U.S. weapons.  McCaul said, "This over the horizon capability is greatly exaggerated because we don't have anything near Afghanistan.  It's a landlocked country surrounded by our enemies, Russia, China, Iran, who have now been emboldened by this foreign policy, you know, blunder.  So, you know, how do we — how do we go forward?  I think we have to establish that ISR.  You know, somewhere over the horizon capability means flying from a gulf, probably countries like Qatar, which would be, you know, anywhere from six to eight hours, having to fly, you know, around Iran, over Pakistan, get refueling.  This is not — when I talk to anybody in the military, they tell me this is not adequate for us to have ISR capability. [...]"

Private Afghanistan Evacuation Team Criticizes Biden Administration Officials Who 'Did Absolutely Nothing' To Help Girls Escape Taliban.  The Biden administration ignored several pleas for help from an American evacuation team in the waning days of the Afghanistan withdrawal, emails reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation show.  The team had contacted senior officials in the administration to help evacuate people from Afghanistan before the U.S. withdrawal, according to emails obtained by the DCNF.  They were working to get Americans and vulnerable Afghans out of the country, but it was a difficult task to do alone, according to the team.  Robert Stryk, who earlier spoke with the DCNF about his frustrations with the administration before Aug. 31, said Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer failed to act on his team's desperate pleas for help in getting hundreds of girls out of Afghanistan as the U.S. withdrawal deadline approached.

Biden signs executive order demanding the DOJ declassify FBI's 9/11 investigation documents.  President Joe Biden signed an executive order Friday [9/3/2021] that ordered a review of the classified documents related to the 9/11 terror attacks — with the promise of releasing more information to the public.  Biden had been told by nearly 1,800 Americans impacted by the terror attacks last month — including victims' family members, first responders and survivors — not to come to any of the 20th anniversary events unless he declassified documents that potentially show Saudi government links to the September 11, 2001 hijackers.  The order makes no mention of Saudi Arabia.

Marine who spoke out about Afghanistan withdrawal says he expects to be jailed.  A Marine who claimed he was "relieved from duty" after going viral for criticizing military leadership over the withdrawal from Afghanistan now speculates he might be court-martialed and "will probably do some jail time."  Stuart Scheller, who claims now to be a former lieutenant colonel, has been posting regular updates about his dissenting stance that led to his alleged removal from the military, saying in a Wednesday update to a video he uploaded to social media on Aug. 27, "The Marine Corps will assign an investigating officer.  Most likely a Colonel."

Afghan Journalist:  Family Blown Up by Joe Biden's Missile Strike Had Special Visas and Were About to Leave Afghanistan.  Afghan reporter Ali Latafi joined Yalda Hakim at the BBC to discuss the recent missile attack by Joe Biden that killed an Afghan family including several children in Kabul.  According to Latafi the family killed on Sunday by a US drone strike had Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) to leave for the US and were about to leave Afghanistan.

DoD had Foreknowledge of Kabul Airport Bomber — Denied Permission to Fire Predator Drone that had Lock on Him — 13 US Heroes Dead.  Roger Pardo-Maurer, the former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Western Hemisphere Affairs (2001-2006), joined Jorge Ramos on Univision Noticias on Monday to discuss the unfolding disastrous withdrawal of US forces in Afghanistan.  During their conversation, Pardo-Maurer told Ramos the Department of Defense had foreknowledge of the Kabul Airport suicide bomber but denied permission to fire a Predator Drone missile once they had a lock on him. [...] The US Department of Defense allowed the bomber to murder 13 Americans.

Report: US Knew About Kabul Bomber, Had Drone Lock but Didn't Take the Shot.  Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Roger Pardo-Maurer dropped some incredible information during an interview and it's huge, if true.  Director of MRC Latino, Jorge Bonilla, posted an interview of Pardo-Maurer.  Pardo-Maurer, who was in the State Department for years, since at least 2001, said he was being told that the Department of Defense already knew who the bomber was ahead of time, before the bombing and when the Kabul attack would occur.

White House announces plan to build 100K affordable homes.  The White House said Wednesday it will use existing federal funds to build and provide 100,000 homes to low- and middle-income buyers and nonprofits over the next three years to bolster supply that is often snapped up by deep-pocketed investors.  President Biden believes Congress can bolster affordable housing by approving his mammoth spending plan for families, but the White House said it "can't wait to take action," as economically battered Americans sought space during the coronavirus pandemic only to find tight supply and runaway home prices and rents.  "The large and long-standing gap between the supply and demand of affordable homes for both renters and homeowners makes it harder for families to buy their first home and drives up the cost of rent," a White House fact sheet said.  "Higher housing costs also crowd out other investments families can and should make to improve their lives, such as investments in education."

The Editor says...
[#1] This is not the proper role of government at any level.  [#2] The story is a red herring, pulled out of a hat to get Afghanistan out of the headlines.  When Joe Biden is impeached, watch for a story the next day about NASA finding life on Mars, or some other sensational click-bait diversion.

In secret texts, U.S. military officials lamented leaving Americans behind in Kabul.  President Biden declared to a puzzled country on Tuesday that the U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan was an "extraordinary success," while his Pentagon portrayed a prosaic, workaday process to repatriate Americans still stranded in the war-torn country.  But text messages between U.S. military commanders and private citizens mounting last-minute rescues tell a far different story, one in which pleading American citizens were frantically left behind at the Kabul airport gate this past weekend to face an uncertain fate under Taliban rule while U.S. officials sought to spread the blame between high-ranking generals and the State Department[.]  "We are [...] abandoning American citizens," an Army colonel assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division wrote Sunday in frustration in a series of encrypted messages that detailed the failed effort to extricate a group of American citizens, hours before the last U.S. soldiers departed Afghanistan.

Biden Administration Erased Afghan Weapons Reports From Federal Websites.  The War in Afghanistan has always been a black box, but the Biden administration just made matters worse.  According to an admission obtained from the State Department, Biden officials recently directed federal agencies to scrub their websites of official reports detailing the $82.9 billion in military equipment and training provided to the Afghan security forces since 2001.  The scrubbed audits and reports included detailed accounting of what the U.S. had provided to Afghan forces, down to the number of night vision devices, hand grenades, Black Hawk helicopters, and armored vehicles.  Reports further quantified 208 aircraft and helicopters; 75,000 war vehicles — including 22 Humvees, 50,000 tactical vehicles and nearly 1,000 mine resistant vehicles; and 600,000 weapons — including 350,000 M4 and M16 rifles, 60,000 machine guns, and 25,000 grenade launchers.

Group of 87 retired generals call on Austin and Milley to resign following botched Afghan withdrawal.  Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley have been called upon to resign by a group of 87 retired generals.  In an open letter from the group "Flag Officers 4 America," the retired generals argue Austin and Milley showed "negligence in performing their duties" during the botched exit from Afghanistan.  Members of the group, who describe themselves as "retired U.S. generals and admirals defending the Constitution," also wrote Austin and Milley must be held accountable for their actions that have stranded hundreds of Americans and Afghan allies in hostile territory as "de facto hostages of the Taliban."  The generals also argued Austin and Milley should have counseled President Biden against the swift exit from the region and resigned in protest if he did not abide by their recommendation.

Rapist Evacuated From Kabul to US Reveals Bigger Problem With People the Biden Team Evacuated.  [Scroll down]  Unfortunately, because it's the Biden Administration, lying and incompetence go hand in hand with each other so it raises the real question of whether people on the planes were adequately vetted or just packed onto the planes to bump the numbers.  I put nothing past the Biden team at this point.  This latest story confirms that not everyone was vetted sufficiently[.]  According to the Washington Times, a convicted rapist who had previously been deported from the United States was one of the people who made it on an evacuation flight all the way to the U.S., until he was flagged by border officials when he arrived at Dulles Airport.  He's now being held at a detention facility in Virginia.

Ron Johnson Demands Answers After U.S. Commander Allegedly Turned Away American Citizens In Kabul.  Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken demanding answers on why a U.S. military official allegedly stopped Americans and Afghan allies from evacuating Afghanistan at the Kabul airport.  Johnson said he has heard reports indicating "a group of over 400 individuals including U.S. citizens were turned away from the airport" by "the commander of the 82nd Airborne Brigade ... who told them to get back on their buses and turn around because 'the rescue was over.'"  "It is not clear what happened to the Americans and the other individuals after they left the airport," Johnson wrote.  "It's hard to believe that any U.S. military official would deny Americans the ability to evacuate Afghanistan.  What generalized or specific order was given to the commander that caused him to take this alleged action?  Where did this order originate?"

Biden Officials at Kabul Airport Warned American Rescue Plane To Turn Back or Be Shot Down.  A private airplane that was flying into Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA) in Kabul, Afghanistan to rescue stranded American citizens and Afghan allies allegedly was told to turn back or they would be shot down.  In the past 24 hours, American officials in charge of giving clearance at the airport told fellow Americans they would be fired upon if they didn't leave, Mary Beth Long, a former Department of Defense official, told American Greatness in an exclusive interview.  The plane ended up landing elsewhere in Afghanistan, she said.  Now Americans are reportedly being advised to leave Kabul completely as the Taliban is expected to start rounding people up after the last of the U.S. military leaves.

Fox News' Jen Griffin Shocked at Blinken's Videotaped Afghanistan Withdrawal Speech.  As the last United States planes departed Afghanistan Monday, myriad questions remained.  Many Americans were unable to get to Kabul airport, making Joe Biden the first U.S. president in memory to leave American citizens behind enemy lines, despite saying it would not happen.  Embattled Secretary of State Antony Blinken took the stage for an early evening address and said he could not determine how many Americans remain in Afghanistan.  It was unclear whether the speech was pre-taped, but his mannerisms and eye contact were awkward.  Fox News national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin said Blinken appeared to be in a hostage video.  "I thought that the secretary of state's statement, which was videotaped and he was looking slightly off-camera, I mean it looked like a hostage video.  It was not the kind of production values that you would expect for such a moment in time," Griffin said.

Almost 90 Retired Flag Officers Demand Mark Milley, Lloyd Austin Resign After Afghanistan Debacle.  Nearly 90 retired U.S. generals and admirals penned an open letter asking Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley to resign from their positions following their "negligence in performing their duties primarily involving events surrounding the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan."  "As principal military advisors to the CINC [Commander-in-Chief]/President, the SECDEF and CJCS should have recommended against this dangerous withdrawal in the strongest possible terms," the letter states.  "If they did not do everything within their authority to stop the hasty withdrawal, they should resign.  Conversely, if they did do everything within their ability to persuade the CINC/President to not hastily exit the country without ensuring the safety of our citizens and Afghans loyal to America, then they should have resigned in protest as a matter of conscience and public statement."

Taliban seeks pallets of cash in exchange for extending US Aug. 31 evacuation deadline.  In a briefing last week, Joe Biden told inquisitive reporters that every American who wants to get out of Afghanistan would get out of Afghanistan, and he was counting on the Taliban's "self-interest" in letting the Americans leave.  Toss that one into the bin of lies and errors coming from this Biden Afghanistan fiasco.  Turns out the Taliban has its own ideas about what its self-interest is. [...] What we are seeing here is an emerging hostage situation in that country as Biden insists on pulling out by his Aug. 31 deadline, which the Taliban is holding him to, under penalty of "consequences."  The State Department has claimed that 300 Americans are awaiting evacuation and have not made it to the Kabul airport yet.  According to this disturbing collection of reports from AT deputy editor Andrea Widburg, it's likely more.

Afghan TV Show Host Surrounded By Taliban With Guns Tells Public Not To Be Afraid And Cooperate.  The presenter of Afghan TV's Peace Studio appears on video informing the Afghan public to "cooperate with it and should not be afraid" while members of the Taliban stand behind him at gunpoint.  [Tweet]  The host of the Peace Studio TV show which airs on Kabul TV can be seen being held at gunpoint while Taliban members clad in tactical gear appear to be holding rifles and surrounding the host.  The host can be seen telling his audience to "cooperate with it."  This occurs just over one week after the Taliban seized power over Afghanistan before the U.S. was set to complete its withdrawal of troops from the area, according to The Associated Press.

Finally, we have some good news.  The news is so depressing lately that it takes nerves of steel to open the newspaper, turn on the TV, or visit an internet news site.  However, there is good news out there if you know where to look.  First Item:  Taiwan has been jolted awake by the Afghanistan debacle!  For months, the Republic of China (Taiwan) has been nervously watching The People's Republic of China (China) amass and marshal its land and naval assets in a continuing threat to try to conquer the island through military force.

Dan Crenshaw, Lara Logan Bring the Most Disturbing Reports Out of the Kabul Airport Yet.  Rep. Dan Crenshaw is a retired Navy SEAL who served and was wounded in Afghanistan's Helmand province during his third deployment, in 2012.  He lost his right eye and his left eye was badly damaged in an IED attack.  Crenshaw is held in extremely high regard in the veteran and active-duty communities.  Lara Logan is a long-time award-winning journalist now working for Fox News who has spent much of her career covering war zones including Iraq and Afghanistan.  Between the two of them, Logan and Crenshaw have spent years in and around Afghanistan.  Due to their experience there, both are likely to have credible sources on the ground at the Kabul airport.  Both Logan and Crenshaw are independently reporting that Americans have been turned away from safety at that airport over the past couple of days.

Lawmakers: State Department No Longer Allowing American Citizens to Enter Kabul Airport.  Members of Congress said Sunday evening that the Biden administration was not allowing Americans to enter the Kabul airport and leave Afghanistan, as the evacuation mission nears its end by August 31.  Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) tweeted Sunday night [8/29/2021] that the State Department was not helping American citizens trying to evacuate.  "I am furious!!  My team has been on the phone all day trying to get AMERICAN CITIZENS out.  They have been just outside the airport numerous times, but the State Department WILL NOT help them," he tweeted.

USMC Take[s a] Troubling Step Against Marine Commander Who Demanded Accountability on Afghanistan.  So what happens when you call out the powers that be and demand accountability, saying that you are going to get it, as Marine LTC Stuart Scheller has done?  Now, after his last video, the leadership is clearly not going to take it and they are moving against him because he's gotten far too much attention.  As we previously reported, they had already relieved him of his command.  Now the USMC is going to paint him as having mental health problems and being a "threat" because he spoke about bringing the "system down."  [Tweet]  There's nothing in his video that indicates that he's a threat to anyone, he's a bringer of truth that explodes the narrative that they want to pitch so they're going to paint him as a nut and try to do him in.

Marine Lt. Col. Who Got Fired From Position For Criticizing Command Resigns, Promises To 'Bring The Whole [...] System Down'.  Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller on Sunday announced in a video that he was resigning his commission as a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps, following being fired as a battalion commander for asking for accountability from his senior leadership on the botched Afghanistan withdrawal.  [Video clip]

Marine Lt. Col. Is Fired For Angry Video Ranting Against Biden And The Military Leadership Over Afghanistan Mess.  Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller was relieved for cause after demanding that senior U.S. leaders hold themselves accountable for actions made during the U.S. military's withdrawal from Afghanistan that led to the deaths of 13 service members.  Officials confirmed to Fox News on Thursday [8/26/2021] that 11 Marines, an Army soldier and a Navy corpsman were killed in explosions near Kabul's airport Thursday.  Another 169 Afghans were killed, according to two officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.  [Video clip]

Marine battalion commander resigns after he was relieved of his duties for slamming his superiors over botched Afghanistan exit.  The Marine battalion commander who was relieved of his duties for blasting his superiors over the Afghanistan exit strategy says he has resigned from the military.  Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller published a new video online on Sunday addressing his resignation just days after he went viral for calling out his superiors for not "raising their hands and accepting accountability or saying, 'We messed this up.'"  Scheller's original video criticized Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley for leaving the Bagram Air Base before all Americans and their allies had the chance to be evacuated.

Naval Intel reminds active duty, retired members they cannot 'disrespect' Biden, Harris.  Active duty and retired members of the Office of Naval Intelligence were reminded last week they are barred by the Uniform Code of Military Justice and other Department of Defense regulations from criticizing President Joe Biden and other ranking members of his Cabinet and the Pentagon.  The memo, sent via email and first reported by The Daily Wire, was sent out by the ONI's chief of staff following deadly suicide bombing attacks outside the international airport in Kabul which left 11 Marines, two Army soldiers, a U.S. Navy corpsman, and 169 Afghan civilians dead.  In addition to Biden, members were instructed they also could not publicly criticize or be contemptuous of Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, members of Congress, and others.

CCP's Grand Strategy Is to Displace US: China Expert.  China has had three grand strategies to counter the United States since 1989, culminating in the latest phase, beginning in 2016, of wanting to displace the United States, China expert Rush Doshi said during an Aug. 26 webinar to talk about his new book.  Doshi wrote the book "The Long Game:  China's Grand Strategy to Displace American Order" while working at the Brookings Institution, which hosted the online event.  Now he's the Biden administration's newly appointed director for China on the White House National Security Council.  Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials "seek to restore China to its due place and roll back the historical aberration of the West's overwhelming global influence" with its grand strategy, according to Doshi's book.  The grand strategy is now in its third phase, he said, after he examined years of CCP documents such as memoirs, speeches, and biographies.  Today China sees its competition with the United States as global, regional, and functional in many domains, according to Doshi.

Congressmen and Others Accuse Biden of Blocking US Citizens from Kabul Airport.  Reports trickled in throughout Saturday [8/28/2021] that American citizens in Afghanistan were being blocked by U.S. military and government officials from entering Kabul airport so they could escape the (thanks to Biden) terrorist controlled nation.  Several reports also said Americans are being beaten by Taliban terrorists at the airport.  The reports reached a crescendo Saturday night with two Texas Republican Congressmen and military veterans, Dan Crenshaw and Ronny Jackson angrily calling out Joe Biden.  Crenshaw, "America, you need to know this:  Biden is not letting US citizens through the airport gates.  It has been impossible to get anyone through for the last 24 hours.  This administration has been lying about their intent to save Americans.  Unforgivable."

The Brits somehow seem to be getting their people out of Afghanistan.  While the United States has been warning all of its people to stay away from the airport in Kabul and is basically ready to shut down the evacuation, Great Britain has still been bringing people out of the country.  In fact, they expect to have all of their citizens out today, even though there are only a few flights expected to leave in the next 24 hours.  The troops they airlifted out were part of a group of more than 1,000 who stayed behind to help the United States secure the airport during the initial days of the bugout.  They won't hit 100% of their goals, however, admitting that as many as a thousand Afghans who had been assisting them will wind up being left behind.  But they do seem to have accounted for all of their own citizens in the country, so how did they manage to pull this off?

Afghanistan is not going down well with the U.S. military's ranks.  The perfumed princes of the Pentagon with their wokester focus, operate as if they have little to fear in making a hash of Afghanistan.  After all, Joe Biden has made it clear that nobody's getting fired.  And with all their consulting contracts and revolving board seats, it probably wouldn't matter if they did.  Why does General Mark Milley still have a job?  Biden's actually out gaslighting the public about how great he's doing.  One problem, though, is emerging from that phoniness:  Growing anger in the ranks.  These cossetted leaders no longer have the respect of the troops. [...] It seems so much of this is going down that someone high up in the ranks felt compelled to issue this reminder, recognizing probably quite accurately that the military's decadent leadership is actually losing control.  So not only can they not win wars, but they also are losing the respect of the troops.

Republicans file impeachment articles against Blinken over Afghan disaster.  House Republicans on Friday introduced articles of impeachment against Secretary of State Antony Blinken for "high crimes and misdemeanors" leading up to the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.  Republican Reps.  Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Andy Harris of Maryland co-sponsored the resolution.  They said "inexcusable failures" on behalf of Mr. Blinken led to the lives lost in Thursday's terrorist attack in Kabul and "set a horrible precedent on the international stage."  "Secretary Blinken's complete and utter failure of managing this avoidable catastrophe makes him unfit for leadership, and I hope my colleagues will join me in pushing for his removal," Mr. Harris said.

Taliban kill squad hunting down Afghans — using US biometric data.  The Taliban has mobilized a special unit, called Al Isha, to hunt down Afghans who helped US and allied forces — and it's using US equipment and data to do it.  Nawazuddin Haqqani, one of the brigade commanders over the Al Isha unit, bragged in an interview with Zenger News that his unit is using US-made hand-held scanners to tap into a massive US-built biometric database and positively identify any person who helped the NATO allies or worked with Indian intelligence.  Afghans who try to deny or minimize their role will find themselves contradicted by the detailed computer records that the US left behind in its frenzied withdrawal.  The existence of the Al Isha unit has not been previously confirmed by the Taliban; until now the Haqqani Network, a terror group aligned with the Taliban, has not admitted its role in targeting Afghans or its use of America's vast biometric database.

U.S. Used a Nasty New Hellfire Missile In Retaliatory Drone Strike on ISIS-K.  The United States used a relatively new gruesome, but effective kind of missile for its first retaliatory strike after the suicide bombings at the Kabul airport. [...] The article goes on to say that the military nickname for the missile is the "flying Ginsu."  It's not known exactly how many times the R9X has been used because the Pentagon doesn't exactly hit Instagram for everything it accomplishes.

So we blew up an ISIS-K "planner" with a drone last night.  After an ISIS-K suicide bomber attacked one of the gates at the Kabul airport, President Biden promised that we were going to strike back.  I'm assuming that this was what he was talking about.  NBC News is reporting that we took out an ISIS-K "planner" last night and he was allegedly engaged in plotting additional attacks in Kabul.  We didn't have to deploy any troops to do it, however.  The suspect was driving in a car with another person when he was taken out by one of our drones.  Oh, and he wasn't anywhere near Kabul at the time.

Experts question decision not to name ISIS terrorists killed in Afghanistan drone strike.  The failure of the Biden administration to name the two Islamic State terrorists killed in a US drone strike in Afghanistan on Friday [8/27/2021] has led some experts to conclude they were not high-value targets.  In a press conference Saturday, Major Gen. William Taylor only referred to the dead targets as a "planner" and "facilitator," and would not say if they played specific roles in the airport suicide attack Thursday that killed 13 American soldiers and 169 Afghans.  Islamic State Khorasan, or ISIS-K, was behind the attack.  "Normally if they get a high-profile guy they like to name him," retired US Army Lt. Col Brian F. Sullivan told The [New York] Post.  "They keep talking BS about 'eyes over the horizon' but I think a lot of this is the administration blowing more smoke," Sullivan added.  "They're throwing this up as if the US is reacting with strength and power.  So that makes the score something like ISIS 200-US two.  Who are they kidding?"

Biden's Pentagon Won't Tell Anyone Who Was Killed In That Drone Strike They Say Happened.  At this point, the Pentagon is best known for publicly downplaying the threat the Taliban posed for taking over all of Afghanistan, and for greenlighting closing its largest operational base in Central Asia.  It's still purging competent minds but retaining and encouraging its woke drones.  Gen. Mark Milley, the 21st-century version of Gen. Custer, still has a job.  Biden has lied, or remains unaware, about the fact that our allies are livid at him and questioning whether working with the United States is in their interests anymore.  The Biden government hasn't been straight about anything, from the number of stranded Americans to who is on the planes getting out to the inflation it has unleashed on the country.  This regime still thinks white supremacy is a greater threat than the monsters they've unleashed and armed in Afghanistan.

Color Me Extremely Skeptical About Joe Biden's Retaliation Strike Against ISIS.  Yesterday, as RedState reported, the US Military executed a drone strike that reportedly blew up an ISIS "planner" in the Nangarhar Province of Afghanistan.  This was touted as a retaliation strike for the dual suicide bombings that occurred in Kabul, which tragically took the lives of at least 13 US servicemembers with over a dozen others still hospitalized.  The terrorist attack also killed at least 170 Afghans with countless others wounded.  [Tweet]  I know this is the point where I'm supposed to give a fist-pump and praise Joe Biden for greenlighting a response that never should have been necessary in the first place, but color me extremely skeptical of how this is being framed.  If Jen Psaki herself had written that press release, what would be different about it?  No, I'm not suggesting a strike didn't take place.  I'm sure some terrorist-supporting goat herder in a hut was blown to bits.  But what I am suggesting is that there's some serious gaslighting going on about what the strike actually means and amounts to.

Pentagon Briefing on ISIS-K 'Retaliatory Strike' Prompts More Questions Than Answers.  My colleagues Bonchie and Streiff expressed important concerns about the drone strike retaliation attack on ISIS-K that the Biden Administration is claiming happened last night.  [Tweet]  Unfortunately, because they have told us so many lies at this point of the Afghanistan debacle, it's really hard to accept what they say without proof.  Indeed, assuming this report is true, there's a real question of proportionality of response here, as Streiff noted.  Not to mention, holding the Taliban accountable for this, as well.  The Pentagon briefing this morning didn't help provide any more assurances, although they did try to use Joe Biden's "over the horizon" phrase a lot.  [Tweet]

Pictures Of Where The Drone Strike On ISIS-K Occurred In Afghanistan — No Human Remains Can Be Seen.  The United States launched an airstrike following a suicide bombing at Kabul airport earlier this week.  The target of the drone strike, believed to have been killed with no known civilian causalities, was an ISIS-K fighter believed to be involved in the planning future attacks, according to two U.S. defense officials.  The US military says it has killed an ISIS-K planner in the Nangarhar Province of Afghanistan.  According to the US officials, the target was planning to attack US officials in Kabul airport.  A UAV took off from an unnamed base in the Middle East and reportedly hit the target while he was in a car with another associate.  It's reportedly the first UAV strike launched by the United States from outside Afghanistan.  "U.S. military forces conducted an over-the-horizon counterterrorism operation today against an ISIS-K planner," Captain Bill Urban, spokesman for U.S. Central Command, confirmed Friday night.  "The unmanned airstrike occurred in the Nangahar Province of Afghanistan.  Initial indications are that we killed the target.  We know of no civilian casualties."  The statement did not identify the target of the attack, or what role a "planner" has in the group.  It is unclear whether the planner was involved in Thursday's attack.

Joe Biden's Afghanistan Drone Strike Against ISIS-K Is a Joke, and We Are the Punchline.  Two days ago, a suicide bomber attacked a security checkpoint at the Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA) in Kabul, Afghanistan.  That airport is the main point of egress for any seeking to leave that sad simulacrum of a country, before US forces comply with the August 31 withdrawal deadline set for them by the Taliban.  Re-read that last sentence a couple of times to grasp the scope of our national shame.  Thirteen Americans were killed: eleven Marines, one Navy corpsman, and one Army special forces soldier.  Twenty more Americans were sufficiently wounded to require medical evacuation.

Rogue Team of Retired US Vets Rescue Afghan Allies During Secret Missions Conducted Behind Biden's Back.  A group of highly trained US military veterans have been conducting secret rescue missions behind the Biden State Department's back, rescuing hundreds of Afghan allies from Afghanistan with their heroic efforts.  Furious over the terrible situation in they had already sacrificed so much to prevent when they served, the team of retired specialists, including Green Berets and Navy SEALS, risked their lives.  They volunteered to travel to Kabul because they were afraid that Joe Biden was abandoning at-risk Afghan elite forces, leaving them to die at the hands of terrorists.  They felt it was necessary for someone to step up and were baffled "that our own government didn't do this," former Navy SEAL Jason Redman told ABC.

Marine LTC Fired After Demanding Accountability On Afghanistan.  Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller announced Friday [8/27/2021] that he had been "relieved for cause" after he posted a video demanding accountability on Afghanistan.  Scheller shared a Facebook post saying that, as of 14:30 on Friday, he had been relieved of duty — and he noted that he would have taken the same action if he were in the position of his superior officers.

Marine Officer Who Questioned Generals over Afghanistan Is Relieved of Duty.  Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller of the United States Marine Corps revealed Friday afternoon that he has been relieved of duty for posting a video criticizing military leaders for failing to take responsibility for the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.  In the video, Scheller, a 17-year Marine Corps officer, said that he knew he was risking his career by speaking out, but that he wanted to explain why so many service members were frustrated, in the wake of the terror attack on U.S. forces in Kabul on Thursday.

A Cry From The Heart.  Addressing "the American leadership," Marine Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Scheller has posted the video below to his Facebook page.  Making a point I have made repeatedly in my comments on our withdrawal from Afghanistan, Lieutenant Colonel Scheller seeks accountability from senior leaders.  Obviously made at substantial risk to himself, it is a powerful statement that is likely to be suppressed before long.  Perhaps he himself should have resigned from the Corps before he made it.  I don't know.  A reader writes to point out that "Marine leadership is as of yet unaware of it — but they will figure it out shortly."  Watch it while you can.  [Video clip]

This Marine Battalion Commander Probably Burned Down His Career to Demand Accountability for Chain-of-Command Failures in Afghanistan.  If you are a commissioned officer, going public with your concerns about how the military or your particular service is going is an activity nearly guaranteed to provide you all the fun and entertainment you can reasonably handle.  However, where integrity and forthrightness are given a place of honor in lesson plans and speeches, the reality is that at senior levels, you are expected to shut up and toe the command's line.  You deviate from that norm at your peril.

The Report on U.S. Officials Giving Taliban a List of American and Allied Afghans Makes Sense.  There are two puzzle pieces that help to make sense of the Politico report about "U.S. Officials" giving the Taliban a list of American and U.S. Afghan names to allow through the checkpoints.  However, if you don't understand the two dueling power teams, each attempting to position, it doesn't make sense.  Remember, the State Dept (DoS) and CIA are one team.  The White House and Pentagon are another team. [...] Both teams are highly political.  However, the State Dept/CIA team consider themselves above political changes; essentially the deeper Deep State.  With the DoS/CIA aligned with CNN/WaPo, when the Pentagon needs to defend their specific interests in crisis management, they must go elsewhere, hence Politico.

Biden admits admin may have given Taliban 'kill list' of Afghans who aided US.  A potentially deadly blunder by President Biden's administration effectively handed the Taliban a "kill list" to target Afghans who aided the US, according to a report Thursday — and he admitted it may have happened when asked later at a White House briefing.  Following the Taliban takeover of Kabul, US officials there gave the Islamic extremist group the names of American citizens, green card holders and Afghan allies so they could be allowed to enter the Taliban-controlled perimeter around Hamid Karzai International Airport, according to Politico.  The decision reportedly was made despite the Taliban's notorious reputation for brutally executing Afghans who helped the US military and other Western forces during the war and occupation that followed the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

U.S. Officials Handed Taliban a List of Names of Americans and Afghan Allies.  In a move no one can grasp, U.S. officials in Kabul gave the Taliban a list of names of American citizens, green card holders, and Afghan allies, believing the Taliban would allow them to enter the militant-controlled outer perimeter of the city's airport.  Lawmakers and military officials are outraged.  The insane move was designed to expedite the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from Kabul by the August 31 deadline.  It also came as the Biden administration began relying on the Taliban for security outside the airport.  ISIS-K has since set up forces around the soon-to-be-renamed Hamid Karzai International Airport.

CENTCOM Commander Reveals U.S. Intelligence-Sharing Operation with Taliban.  General Kenneth McKenzie, commander of the United States Central Command, revealed an intelligence-sharing operation between the U.S. and Taliban on Thursday at a Department of Defense briefing, just hours after attacks at Hamid Karzai International Airport killed at least twelve U.S. service members and 60 Afghan civilians.  According to McKenzie, the Taliban and U.S. share a "common purpose" of finishing the ongoing evacuation mission by August 31.

Trump slams Biden over 'Kill List': US officials naively gave Taliban list of Afghan allies and citizens to be evacuated.  Donald Trump has slammed Joe Biden for handing over a list of approved Afghan evacuees to the Taliban amid fears it will now be used by the extremist group to kill those named on it.  Calls for Biden's resignation and impeachment have mounted after at least 103 people, including 13 U.S. service personnel, were killed by ISIS terrorists in a double suicide attack on Kabul airport on Thursday.  In an emotional address to the nation, Biden vowed to 'hunt down' and 'make the terrorists pay' as he mourned the 'selfless heroes' who died helping vulnerable people flee the country.

Adam Schiff leaves classified briefing, says Afghanistan disaster was NOT the fault of intel agencies.  I know, I know.  This is Adam 'Pencil Neck' Schiff, one of the biggest liars on Capitol Hill.  But what he's saying right now, after having left a classified briefing, concurs with much of what we've learned in the media regarding Biden's Afghanistan disaster and it is NOT favorable to Biden.

The Kabul Mission Begins to Unravel and We Can Expect to See Much Worse.  Earlier today, some organization carried out a complex suicide bomb attack on the perimeter of Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA) in Kabul.  The explosions took place at an ingress point called the Abbey Gate and at the Baron Hotel, which is just a short distance from the Abbey Gate. [...] The US government negotiated an agreement with the Taliban to allow the use of HKIA for evacuation until the August 31 deadline laid down by the Taliban for all US forces to be removed from their country.  However, if you have followed the day-in-day-out reporting, it is obvious that the people making the deal don't necessarily have the juice to make the deals work.  For instance, Taliban forces harassed and beat US passport holders on the way to the airport despite everyone agreeing that this would not happen.  Earlier this week, Taliban fighters started turning back Afghans, no matter their US visa status.  This was followed by an "official" announcement by the Taliban government that Afghans would no longer be allowed to leave.

Naturalized Americans could have their citizenship revoked if secret DHS program hosted by Amazon flags their social media or other personal data as a threat.  Naturalized Americans could have their citizenship revoked thanks to a computer program that searches for concerning activity — with broad categories including anything deemed 'derogatory'.  The program, called ATLAS, is used by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and is hosted on servers owned by web e-commerce giant Amazon.  DHS stated on their website in a November update that ATLAS was created 'to automate, streamline, and support accurate exchange of data' among immigration authorities and the DHS, and 'to support biometric and biographic-based screening and vetting of immigration requests.'

Canadian Minister for Women and Gender Equality Refers To Taliban Thugs As 'Our Brothers'.  Canada's minister of women and gender equality says her mention of the Taliban as "our brothers" during a press conference Wednesday is a "cultural reference," after receiving criticism for her choice of language.  Maryam Monsef — who was born in Iran and raised in Afghanistan — had a direct message for the terrorist group, which has swiftly taken control of most of Afghanistan since the U.S. began withdrawing its troops following a 20-year mission.  [Video clip]

Taliban Secures World's Largest Lithium Deposits After US Withdrawal From Afghanistan.  It's been more than a decade since we penned "The US "Discovers" Nearly $1 Trillion In Mineral Deposits In Afghanistan" in which we highlighted the colossal untapped mineral deposits that reside in Afghanistan. [...] Readers have known for a while Afghanistan was never about the opium trade or the war on terror but rather the massive deposit of minerals essential for renewable energies.  So in the Economic Hit Man context, why would the Biden administration suddenly pull out of Afghanistan after 20 years if the play all along was about securing rare earth metals?  We don't want to speculate the Biden administration's intentions, nor do we have any idea.  Still, one thing is sure is that the Taliban now control the world's largest lithium deposits is becoming friendly with China.

No Americans Have Been Rescued Outside of Kabul:  Pentagon.  U.S. troops have not rescued any Americans in Afghanistan outside of Kabul, though they have the capability to do so, the Pentagon said Wednesday [8/25/2021].  Only three rescue missions have been conducted by American soldiers since the Taliban took over the country, according to military officials.  But all three took place within Kabul, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters in Washington.  "Could it be done outside Kabul, if needed?  We have the capability," he said.  "I'm not suggesting that it would be well outside of Kabul.  I'm not suggesting that it would be throughout the whole countryside," he added later.

No One Will Call It A Coup.  The report doesn't call it an attempted political coup.  But buried in the antiseptic language of an investigative report issued yesterday, it appears several former top employees of Attorney General Ken Paxton were more concerned with furthering their own political career than getting at the truth — and, ironically, at least two were willing to break the law to do it.  Texas' political world was rocked a year ago when seven top employees of the Office of the Attorney General filed a criminal complaint.  They alleged Paxton had received a bribe to aid a campaign donor, Texas businessman Nate Paul.  An internal investigation, however, finds the complaint had no substance and that Paxton himself took actions that were "proper pursuant to his legal obligations."  Meanwhile, "[t]here is no evidence that Nate Paul attempted to bribe [Ken Paxton]."  What emerges from the report is picture of an agency's senior staff who had decided to take out their boss — a statewide elected official — and were unconcerned with whatever facts needed to be ignored or concocted to make it happen.

Leaked Cable Showing Number of Americans Rescued From Afghanistan Produces Shock and Horror.  I'd like to say I have good news to share this morning, but that's not the reality we are living in.  Instead, a leaked State Department cable has finally revealed the number of Americans rescued from Afghanistan over the last 10 days.  Unfortunately, the number is so bad that it's producing shock and horror.  While the Pentagon and White House insisted yesterday that they didn't have this data, in the least shocking development of the week, we now know they were lying.  A running tally of Americans who have gotten out has been kept, and the numbers as of last night are that only 4,407 American citizens have made it onto flights.

Pleading With Terrorists?  CIA Director Meets With Taliban as Evacuation Fears Grow.  It just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?  That is if you're the Taliban, al Qaeda, ISIS — now resurfacing in Afghanistan — and the rest of the toxic stew of Islmastist [sic] extremism hellbent on forcing — by any barbaric means necessary — the planet back to the 7th-century world of the Kharijites.  However, if you're hapless Joe Biden or a member of his equally hapless administration, you're anywhere from dangerously delusional to afraid to tell "the big guy" he's been catastrophically wrong about the debacle he and he alone created — from his no-plan "plan" to jerk American forces out of Afghanistan, inexplicably abandon Bagram Air Base and its multiple runways (which would have been easily defendable, not to mention come in [very] handy right how as "Evacuation HQ") — to the disaster at the Hamid Karzai airport out the outskirts of Kabul.

Negotiating with Terrorists:  Taliban Gives 'No Extensions' to Evacuation Timeline.  The Taliban gave "no" evacuation deadline extensions on Tuesday to the Biden and Harris administration after the CIA negotiated with a Taliban leader.  Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the terrorists will accept "no extensions" to the August 31 deadline.  Mujahid also suggests he was "not aware" the CIA met with the Taliban, "but he did not deny that such a meeting took place," the Associated Press reported.

Taliban may have biometric data of US military aides.  In 2007, the United States military began using a small, handheld device to collect and match the iris, fingerprint and facial scans of more than 1.5 million Afghans against a database of biometric data.  The device, known as Handheld Interagency Identity Detection Equipment (HIIDE), was initially developed by the US government as a means to locate insurgents and other wanted individuals.  Over time, for the sake of efficiency, the system came to include the data of Afghans assisting the US during the war.  Today, HIIDE provides access to a database of biometric and biographic data, including of those who aided coalition forces.  Military equipment and devices — including the collected data — are speculated to have been captured by the Taliban, who have taken over Afghanistan.

Food And Supply Shortages Hit Retailers, Walmart Shelves Empty.  Grocery-store chains are still battling supply challenges that some executives said are as bad as what they saw in spring 2020, when hoarding left holes in stocks of some staples.  Industry executives say new problems are arising weekly, driven by shortages of labor and raw materials.  Groceries including frozen waffles and beverages remain scarce as some food companies anticipate disruptions lasting into 2022.  A wider range of products is running short and logistical challenges are compounding for many retailers.  Donny Rouse, chief executive of Louisiana-based Rouses Markets, said he is struggling to fill shelves as his company runs low on everything from pet food to canned goods.  [Video clip]

Taliban transformed by haul of advanced U.S.-made weapons; lawmakers demand answers.  The Taliban were transformed from an insurgent rabble armed with cast-off Soviet-era weapons into one of the most well-equipped forces in the region in the space of a few days during their lightning-fast advance across Afghanistan.  Following the complete collapse of the U.S.-equipped Afghan army, the Taliban were able to scoop up a trove of advanced military hardware:  thousands of rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers, artillery pieces and night-vision goggles.  The Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANSDF) also left behind thousands of military vehicles from U.S. taxpayers, everything from Humvees to heavily armored Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) trucks.

Kamala Harris' flight from Singapore delayed by three hours because of Havana Syndrome.  Vice President Kamala Harris' departure from Singapore on Monday was delayed by more than three hours because of an 'anomalous health incident in Hanoi,' which was the next stop in her Asia trip.  Anomalous health incident is what the U.S. government calls Havana Syndrome, the mysterious condition that causes headaches, brain injury and other issues.  Officials said the decision was made to continue to the trip but did not offer many details.  'Earlier this evening, the Vice President's traveling delegation was delayed from departing Singapore because the Vice President's office was made aware of a report of a recent possible anomalous health incident in Hanoi, Vietnam.  After careful assessment, the decision was made to continue with the Vice President's trip,' the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi said in a statement.

The last sane man down under?  Aussie parliamentarian denounces totalitarian lockdown abuses.  I've been watching in sadness and wonder at the abuse that Australia's government elites — many of them purported conservatives — have heaped on their citizens, using military force to keep people imprisoned in their own homes, warning people against private conversations, vaccinating children without their parents' permission.  All over a handful of deaths in a continent-sized nation of 25 million.  There has been savage repression of demonstrations.  Finally, an Aussie Member of Parliament has stood up and denounced the madness.  [Video clip]  George Christensen is what passes for a maverick in Australia, outspoken, nationalist, anti-jihad, pro-life.

CBS Gets Blinken to Admit Biden Is Asking Taliban for 'Permission' to Save Americans.  The Biden administration was having an extremely rough time spinning their Afghanistan failure as they made the rounds on the Sunday shows.  Secretary of State Antony Blinken made things exponentially worse on CBS's Face the Nation after fill-in moderator Major Garrett got him to admit the administration was asking the Taliban for "permission" to get Americans out of the country.  Blinken's fumble began when Garrett asking him about President Biden's comments regarding "an agreement with the Taliban," because "that implies we're negotiating with them." "Does that not confer upon them already legitimacy," Garrett fretted.  In defense of Biden, Blinken suggested that negotiating with the terrorist organization was needed to foster "a working relationship in order to deconflict, in order to work through any problems with people getting to the airport."  Garret cut right to point and asserted that, to some, it sounded like he and the rest of the administration were asking "permission" to save Americans.  Blinken didn't disagree or show any discomfort at the notion:  [Video clip]

Psaki Bristles at Suggestion Americans Are 'Stranded' in Afghanistan: 'Irresponsible'.  White House press secretary Jen Psaki labeled it "irresponsible" to say that Americans currently attempting to leave Afghanistan are "stranded" in the country, in response to a question from Fox News reporter Peter Doocy at a press briefing on Monday [8/23/2021].  "First of all, I think it's irresponsible to say Americans are stranded.  They are not," Psaki said.  "We are committed to bringing Americans who want to come home, home," adding that the U.S. is in touch with Americans in Afghanistan by phone, email, and other communications.  "'There are no Americans stranded' is the White House's official position on what's happening in Afghanistan right now?" Doocy countered.  "I'm just calling you out for saying that we are stranding Americans in Afghanistan when we have been very clear that we are not leaving Americans who want to return home.  We are going to bring them home," Psaki said.

Reporter: British troops say the scene at Kabul airport now is the worst thing they've seen in their careers.  In case the new alert from the embassy didn't make it clear, the situation appears to be getting worse, not better.  Frankly, it's hard to fault the embassy for telling Americans to stay away at this stage.  Behold this scene.  What would be the point of trying to make it to the airport gate?  [Tweets]  One journalist there says he's personally witnessed four women towards the front of the crowd crushed to death.  Some have passed out from the heat and fatigue.  Others have been killed, presumably by the Taliban goons charged with keeping "order":  [Tweet]  The perimeter around the airport has become a refugee camp policed by one of the worst regimes on earth.  Meanwhile, greater Kabul is being policed by, essentially, Al Qaeda.

US considers ordering commercial airlines to help in Afghan evacuation.  The Biden administration is planning a dramatic ramp-up of its airlift from Kabul by making preparations to compel major U.S. airlines to help with the transportation of tens of thousands of evacuees from Afghanistan, while expanding the number of U.S. military bases that could house Afghans.  The White House is expected to consider activating the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, or CRAF, created in 1952 in the wake of the post-World War II Berlin Airlift, to provide nearly 20 commercial jets from up to five airlines to augment U.S. military efforts to transport Afghan evacuees from bases in the region, according to U.S. officials.

Serious Cyberattack on the State Department.  The hits keep on coming under Joe Biden.  Remember when Joe Biden allegedly asked Vladimir Putin and the Chinese not to conduct cyber attacks against us, but then he didn't sanction China and he gave Putin a list of the targets that were important to us?  How'd that work out?  Well, the cyberattacks have continued.  Great job, Joe!  Now, we're hearing about a serious breach, a new attack that hit the State Department.  It's not clear who is behind it yet.

Taliban Seized 75,000 Vehicles, 600,000 Weapons and 200 Aircraft in Afghanistan Leftover by Biden Admin.  Earlier in the week, it was reported the Taliban now controls approximately 174 humvees, 10,000 rockets and 6 light attack aircraft.  But it is much worse than that.  A report from Fox News on Saturday [8/21/2021] highlighted the scope of the crisis unfolding in Afghanistan as the network claims the Taliban now control 75,000 vehicles, 200 aircraft, 600,000 weapons, and $85 billion in funding.

No biggie, but ISIS appears to be in Kabul.  Earlier today [8/21/2021] we described how some British troops are describing the situation around the airport in Kabul as "the worst they've ever seen."  Well, they may need to expand their horizons a bit in terms of extremes.  CNN is reporting that the Pentagon is working on an "alternate route" for Americans, allies and our helpers to get to the airport and it's not just because of the massive crowds blocking the roads or the Taliban checkpoints turning people away. (Which we were assured wasn't happening.) No, this is an entirely new wrinkle in the picture.  There appears to be solid intelligence indicating that ISIS-K (which is just a rebranded ISIS offshoot that's taken root in Afghanistan) is on the prowl and looking to perpetrate attacks in or around the airport.  But that can't be right, can it?  Apparently, it can.

Americans Stopped, Beaten on Way to Kabul Airport as Biden Claims They're Having No Problems.  Joe Biden just gave more remarks on Afghanistan that were just delusional and devoid of reality.  He is now claiming that they've secured the airport and that the U.S. military is "standing guard around the airport" and that there's no problem for Americans or allies to get to the airport.  We have no information that Americans are having difficulty getting to the airport, Biden said.  Where there have been challenges for Americans, we resolved them, he claimed.  Completely ignoring the question about the safety of the allies, where there have been innumerable reports about them not being able to get through to the airport.  But as Sasha Ingber of Newsy explained, it's not even reality as to the Americans.  She explained that the situation was deteriorating rapidly and Americans are being stopped and beaten.

China Admits Taliban Ties Aimed at Getting Afghanistan's $3 Trillion in Rare Earths.  In the course of hectoring the United States for its "bungled and embarrassing withdraw from Afghanistan" on Thursday, China's state-run Global Times admitted Beijing has a rapacious interest in Afghanistan's vast rare-earths mineral resources and snarled it was none of America's business if China makes deals with the Taliban to get what it wants.  The Global Times accused the U.S. of profiteering from Afghanistan for the past twenty years, without offering any theories on where all the plunder might have gone, and claimed America is only worried about China going after those mineral resources because the U.S. is jealous.

Quick — What can we do to get Afghanistan off the front page?
Biden cancels $5.8 billion in student loan debt for the disabled.  President Joe Biden will cancel more than $5.8 billion in federal student loan debt for over 323,000 borrowers with permanent disabilities in the single largest cancellation of debt in his presidency the Department of Education announced on Thursday [8/19/2021].  For a second day in a row, the Biden administration announced an initiative with no connection to the ongoing Afghanistan crisis, where an unknown number of American civilians remain.  On Wednesday, the president pushed for COVID-19 vaccines and rallied against anti-maskers while refusing to answer questions about the situation in Afghanistan.  The debt cancellation is for those with total or permanent disabilities, or TPD.

French and Brits Are Rescuing Their Citizens in Kabul, but Here's What Americans Were Hearing.  Americans were left in the lurch by Joe Biden, stuck behind enemy lines in Afghanistan, despite the fact that the Biden team was warned about the impending collapse of Afghanistan and Kabul.  They were then told that if they were outside of Kabul, there was no plan to get them out.  Even the people in Kabul were told:  Figure out your own way to the airport through the Taliban because we're not going to help get you there.  Now, just in perspective, understand that the French and the British are actually going out and extracting their citizens in Kabul and bringing them back.  The French.  But the Biden folks aren't letting the military do that because of the "deal" with the Taliban about "safe passage" to the airport, according to reports.  Meanwhile, many can't get through despite that claim of "safe passage."  It's madness.  Biden is acceding to the Taliban, yet again.

British Paratroopers Bravely Entering Kabul to Save UK Citizens While Biden Does Nothing.  British paratroopers are risking their lives in Afghanistan to save UK citizens from the deadly Taliban after President Joe Biden's disastrous withdraw from the region.  While the British government is telling its citizens that "help is on the way," Biden is telling American citizens that they are on their own.  The UK is sending paratroopers to Kabul to rescue the 4,000 stranded Brits and Afghan allies in Kabul.  The paratroopers were told to "prepare for face-to-face combat."

Biden Admin Tells Americans Stranded In Afghanistan To Pay For Their Own Flights Home.  President Joe Biden's administration is telling Americans who are stranded in Afghanistan to pay for their own passage back to the U.S. "Repatriation flights are not free, and passengers will be required to sign a promissory loan agreement and may not be eligible to renew their U.S. passports until the loan is repaid," the Overseas Security Advisory Council noted in its security alert for Afghanistan.  "The cost may be $2,000 USD or more per person."  [Tweet]

A few hours later...
Under pressure, State Dept. scraps plan to bill Kabul evacuees $2K for flights.  The State Department was forced to scrap a widely excoriated plan to bill US citizens $2,000 or more for their evacuation flights from Kabul.  The hefty price tag drew social media outrage Thursday [8/19/2021] after it gained public notice.  "In these unique circumstances, we have no intention of seeking any reimbursement from those fleeing Afghanistan," State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement provided to The [New York] Post.  The cost was publicly posted to a State Department website on Saturday but went largely unnoticed before it was highlighted by Politico's military-focused newsletter Thursday.  An unnamed State Department spokesman initially stood by the charge, telling Politico that "U.S. law requires that evacuation assistance to private U.S. citizens or third country nationals be provided 'on a reimbursable basis to the maximum extent practicable.'"

Teddy Daniels Gives Forceful Speech at Pennsylvania Audit The Vote Rally, The Time is Now.  Teddy Daniels is a Republican congressional candidate for Pennsylvania CD-08, Scranton, Pennsylvania.  Teddy Daniels is challenging Democrat incumbent Matt Cartwright in the 2022 mid-terms.  Daniels [...] recently spoke at the Pennsylvania Audit The Vote rally.  [Video clip]

Teddy Daniels:  Pro-Trump America First Combat Veteran Who Won't Back Down.  Decorated combat veteran.  Retired police officer.  Business entrepreneur.  Teddy Daniels has spent his career serving community and country, and now he's running to be your voice in the halls of Congress.

China Threatens to 'Crush' U.S. Troops in Taiwan.  Exuberant after President Joe Biden's spectacular defeat in Afghanistan, China's state-run Global Times on Tuesday [8/17/2021] warned that if any American troops are present in Taiwan when Beijing decides to invade it by force, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) will "crush them by force."  The Global Times was responding indignantly to a tweet from Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) in which he listed U.S. troop deployments around the world.  Cornyn incorrectly stated in this tweet that 30,000 American soldiers are stationed in Taiwan, roughly the same amount stationed in South Korea.

Exclusive: Space Force Officer, Punished After Denouncing Marxism, to Leave Military.  The Space Force officer who was removed from his command post for condemning Marxism and critical race theory is leaving the military.  Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier told The Epoch Times' "American Thought Leaders" that his last day in the service will be Sept. 1.  "I wrote a letter to then-Acting Secretary of the Air Force explaining certain circumstances, which I don't plan to make public, but also requesting an early retirement, and a separation honorably from the service," he said.  "And they've denied me an early retirement, but agreed that they would separate me.  And so my family and I have decided that that's the best course of action for us right now, given the circumstances."  "I believe I'm able to continue serving my country outside of the service and out of uniform, perhaps in a better way than I was able to, given the circumstances, in uniform at the moment."

Afghan President Surfaces in the United Arab Emirates.  Ashraf Ghani, the Afghan president who fled his country as the Taliban gained the upper hand in the civil war against his government has surfaced in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).  "The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation can confirm that the UAE has welcomed President Ashraf Ghani and his family into the country on humanitarian grounds," announced the small Middle Eastern nation in a statement.  In an address on Monday [8/16/2021], President Joe Biden lambasted Afghanistan's political leaders for having given up.  The proximate cause of the Taliban's victory has been the United States' withdrawal and decision to stop providing air support for the Afghan military.  According to the Wall Street Journal, the Afghans had relied upon American air power to "resupply outposts, strike targets, ferry the wounded, and collect reconnaissance and intelligence" among other tasks.  U.S. forces have not been leading the fight against the Taliban for years, instead taking on a support role.

Republican Flips State Senate Seat Where Biden Won By 25%.  A Republican candidate for state senate in Connecticut flipped a seat where then-candidate Joe Biden won by just over 25% during the 2020 presidential election.  Ryan Fazio, a member of Greenwich, Connecticut's Representative Town Meeting, defeated Alexis Gevanter, a gun control advocate who had never before held public office on Tuesday by less than three percentage points in the wealthy, suburban 36th State Senate District.  Republicans are hailing the victory as a preview of the 2022 congressional midterms, and are hoping that it will signal their continued viability with suburban voters.

Taliban Warning:  US Must Fully Withdraw American Troops by Sept. 11.  A spokesman for the Taliban warned that U.S. troops in Afghanistan have to leave by Sept. 11 — the anniversary of the terrorist attacks that launched the United States into the war — after troops were re-deployed to the Kabul airport to oversee an evacuation.  Suhail Shaheen, a member of the Taliban's political office, told Sky News on Tuesday [8/17/2021] that "we are committed not to attack them," but he stressed they have to leave by that date.  It's not clear what will happen if American forces remain in Afghanistan after Sept. 11.  The United States had previously planned to withdraw all its troops by the end of August, but the Pentagon was forced to send thousands of soldiers to the beleaguered country to facilitate evacuations from Kabul, which was quickly captured by the Taliban — considered a terrorist group by many countries — on Sunday.

That Story of Afghans Falling off Fleeing Transport Planes Just Got So Much Worse.  Yesterday, a disturbing video emerged from Kabul airport showing thousands of Afghans storming a C-17 transport aircraft.  AH-64 Apache helicopters were being used to swoop down and clear a path so the plane could take off.  That's how ill-prepared the evacuation was.  Other videos showed the scene after the plane rotated and began climbing, with at least two individuals falling to their deaths. [...] This is an inexplicable situation, not because the pilots did anything wrong, but because they were put in this position in the first place.  They had to make the no-win decision to remain on the ground and possibly be overrun or to take off knowing that people would die as a result.

Report: Taliban Seizing Personal Weapons Because Afghans 'Can Now Feel Safe'.  Taliban jihadists reportedly began seizing personal weapons from Afghans in Kabul on Sunday, claiming civilians "can now feel safe" and no longer need the firearms because the terrorists had taken over the country.  Taliban officials declared victory and the restoration of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan after occupying the presidential palace in Kabul on Sunday [8/15/2021].

Kabul Has Fallen, Afghan President Ghani Flees, U.S. Embassy Being Evacuated, Airport Under Siege, Biden on Vacation.  Throughout the night and today U.S. personnel were evacuated from the embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.  The U.S. flag has been removed.  The airport in Kabul is no longer safe and flights have been suspended.  Afghanistan President Ghani has fled the country.  The Taliban are on the streets of Kabul as fighting around the airport continues.

Taliban seizes $6,000,000 US Blackhawk helicopters.  All of this was preventable, but the U.S. military was too busy making sure all its troops were woke and reliably Leftist.

Taliban Seizes Presidential Palace, to Soon Declare Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.  The Taliban has entered the presidential palace in the capital city Kabul and is now in control of the entire country, according to a highly placed source.  The group is soon expected to declare the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.  An anonymous source in a position to know confirmed the high-ranking source's report of the seizure of the presidential palace, which The Times of India has also reported.  President Ashraf Ghani left Kabul after stepping down from power on Sunday [8/15/2021].  Rumors of his resignation had been circulating since Friday, while fears of the Taliban attacking the capital were also high that night.  However, in a video message released on Saturday afternoon, Ghani didn't announce his resignation but said negotiations were ongoing.  The anonymous source told The Epoch Times that Ghani's announcement meant he will not step down until the whole country surrenders or falls to the Taliban.

Jen Psaki [is] Taking Next Week Off Amid Afghanistan Fiasco.  White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki is taking the next week off work amid the crisis in Afghanistan.  Joe Biden, who is on vacation, has still not addressed the public about the foreign policy nightmare underway in Kabul.  Questions sent to Psaki are being met with an autoreply saying that she will be out of the office through August 22.

Biden's Saigon:  Videos Reveal Utter Chaos at Kabul Airport as Taliban Conquers Afghanistan.  Videos uploaded from Kabul on Sunday [8/15/2021] showed chaos at the international airport as panicked people rushed to board aircraft ahead of the Taliban's advance.  Gunfire was audible in the distance as refugees packed into transport aircraft.  Operations at the airport were reportedly suspended for a time due to shooting nearby.

Helicopters Rescue U.S. Personnel from Embassy in Afghanistan, After Biden Said 'No Circumstance' That Would Happen.  Helicopters busily rescued personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Sunday, just weeks after President Joe Biden promised that there was "no circumstance" in which that spectacle, remembered from Vietnam, would recur.  Images of the evacuation of the U.S. embassy in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) are seared into the American imagination as a memory of humiliating defeat, as U.S. promises of security for South Vietnam collapsed with the North Vietnamese advance.

This may be the biggest event ever pushed down the Memory Hole:
9/11 museum's decision to scrap special 20th anniversary tribute is a disgrace.  As the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack looms, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum is crying poverty for the second year in a row.  This time, it says it can't afford to mount special exhibitions planned to mark the two-decade milestone.  In 2020, the twin-beam "Tribute in Light" was canceled only to win a last-minute reprieve after soon-to-be-ex Gov. Cuomo pitched in state resources.  But no such bailout appears in the offing this time.  In fact, this year, the museum is shamefully restricting the reading-of-the-names ceremony exclusively to the families of 9/11 victims.  No hero firefighters, cops, first responders or emergency workers, who were normally welcome until the pandemic eliminated last year's event, are invited.

Number of white people declines for first time — and other census data takeaways.  Detailed census data released Thursday [8/12/2021] revealed a more diverse country with the first recorded decline in the white population, as well as the slowest population growth in the country overall since the 1930s.  States will use the population information to redraw congressional and state legislative district lines, potentially giving Republicans an edge in House districts that favor them ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.  Democrats, too, hope to use the data to their advantage.

Texas Lawmakers Thwart Chinese Communist's Plan To Connect To State's Electricity Grid.  Lawmakers in Texas have blocked a Chinese billionaire's push to build a 15,000-acre wind farm on a large swath of land he purchased after news of his plans drew the attention of a conservancy group.  It warned first about the environmental impact and then noted Sun Guangxin's ties to the Chinese Communist Party and how the project could give him access to the state's electricity grid.  And the 140,000 acres that Sun snapped up in recent years is near Laughlin Air Force Base[,] raising national security concerns.

Biden Admin Decision to Hide Info About Palestinian Terrorism From Congress Broke Law, Watchdog Says.  Biden administration officials may have broken the law when they erased information about the Palestinian government's terror incitement from a mandatory compliance report submitted to Congress in July, according to a legal watchdog group.  The America First Legal Foundation (AFLF) in a letter sent Wednesday is asking the State Department inspector general to investigate the Biden administration's decision to omit references to the Palestinian government's calls for violence, as well as its support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement — issues that are being closely monitored by Congress as the Biden administration restarts millions of dollars in U.S. aid to the Palestinians.  Information about Palestinian terror incitement and support for the BDS movement were included in the outgoing Trump administration's October 2020 version of the report, but removed by the Biden administration when it came into office, as the [Washington] Free Beacon first reported.

Hospital Bill From 1955 Sparks Outrage Over Childbirth Costs In The US Today.  A 1955 hospital bill that revealed it cost less than $60 for a three-night stay to deliver a baby has shocked Americans who have become accustomed to being charged exorbitant amounts for childbirth.  Last month, a Reddit user who goes by the username @BinaryPeach uploaded a photo of the hospital bill to the platform, where they revealed that the invoice was from the December 1955 birth of their medical school professor in a Kansas hospital.  "My medical school professor showed me this bill from his birth in 1955 (in the United States)," the caption reads.  In the photo, the $59.95 bill, which one Reddit user estimated would be equivalent to $600 today, details the costs for services such as room and board and nursing service, which totalled $27, with the delivery room costing the new parents just $15.

Joe Biden approves Justice Department's move to conduct a 'fresh review' of documents pertaining to Saudi Arabia's role in Sept. 11 attacks.  President Joe Biden approved of a move by the Justice Department Monday to conduct a 'fresh review' of documents pertaining to Saudi Arabia's role in 9/11.  Biden was told Friday by nearly 1,800 Americans impacted by the terror attacks — including victims' family members, first responders and survivors — not to come to any of the 20th anniversary events unless he declassified documents that potentially show Saudi government links to the September 11, 2001 hijackers.

Senate Fails To Wrap Up Infrastructure Bill After Talks To Expedite Process Collapse.  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer set up a critical vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill Saturday after talks to expedite the process fell apart late Thursday [8/5/2021].  Both Republicans and Democrats engaged in marathon talks Thursday in a bid to vote on a package of amendments and to advance the sweeping public works package.  Doing so, however, required approval from all 100 senators, and Tennessee Republican Sen. Bill Hagerty refused to go along even as his Republican colleagues urged him to do so.  In a statement, Hagerty attributed his objection to the Congressional Budget Office's estimation that the bill would add $256 billion to the national debt over 10 years.

Now there are chipmunks in Lake Tahoe with the bubonic plague.  Okay, don't worry everyone.  Just some chipmunks over here in Lake Tahoe which have tested positive for the plague.  [Tweet]

Hagerty Holds Up the Senate — For Good Reason.  An article in the Washington Times this morning [8/6/2021] — "GOP Sen. Hagerty blocks Democrats from expediting $1.2T infrastructure bill in late-night session" — made this bald guy's hair stand on end this morning.  "Sen. Bill Hagerty blocked Democrats from ramming through President Biden's $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill late Thursday, only hours after the package was found to be not fully paid for as promised.  "Mr. Hagerty, a first-term Republican from Tennessee, refused to sign off on a deal between Democratic and GOP lawmakers to expedite passage of the legislation.  Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer had worked out an agreement with Republicans to pass a series of amendments to the infrastructure package en masse.  "If successful, the tactic would have all but ended debate on the bill, setting up a final vote for Saturday.  To succeed, however, all 100 members of the Senate had to acquiesce, something Mr. Hagerty refused."

Could pandemic unemployment be extended beyond Labor Day?  Lawmakers, economists and advocates are working to extend a handful of key federal aid programs established at the beginning of the pandemic, many of which are scheduled to end just as the delta variant has caused Covid caseloads to rise across the U.S. yet again.  Already this week, following pressure from House Democrats, the CDC extended the federal eviction moratorium through October 3 after it lapsed over the weekend.  Now, other Congressional Democrats are calling on the White House to extend the pause on federal student loan payments scheduled to expire at the end of September, the Washington Post reports.  Meanwhile, advocacy groups are also dialing up attention to extend pandemic-era unemployment benefits programs that are set to expire on Labor Day, September 6.

Have an older Kindle? It will lose access to the internet soon.  Amazon's Kindle eBook reader has been a huge success since its launch.  No longer having to carry hefty books with you on vacation, you can cram thousands of electronic versions onto a small device.  When they first launched, the Kindle connected to the internet through mobile networks.  This allows you to purchase and download more books from the Kindle repository.  As newer and more technologically advanced mobile networks emerged, so too did the Kindle.  The latest models connect to mobile networks through super-fast 4G and 5G availability.  But that also presents older Kindles with a problem.  Mobile networks in the country are rapidly replacing legacy technology like 2G and 3G with a better standard.

Former Papal Nuncio Brands Pope Francis 'Liquidator of the Catholic Church'.  The former papal nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, has issued a scathing indictment of Pope Francis, calling him "the head of the most extremist faction of progressivism."  In an hour-long video message posted to YouTube earlier this week, Archbishop Viganò attacks the pope's July 16 letter restricting the use of the Traditional Latin Mass, which Viganò calls the "highest and most sacred expression of prayer." [...] In his strongly-worded condemnation of the pope's decision to roll back accommodations to priests who want to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass, Archbishop Viganò joins a growing list of high-ranking prelates who have expressed their anger and consternation over the "harsh" measure.

Sailor who 'hated the Navy' accused of destroying $1 billion naval assault ship.  The 2020 destruction of the Bonhomme Richard, if you can recall it, was a monster loss for the Navy.  I'm here in San Diego and have relatives who were stationed on that ship, and they said it was bad.  It happened at a particularly vulnerable time, during a holiday where there were few people around.  Once it got started, it was impossible to put out, and the whole ship had to be taken out of service and possibly scrapped, leaving a huge hole in U.S. naval capabilities, which can't be replaced for at least three years.  And it will cost $3 billion to restore the ship.  Two things spring to mind, aside from the fact that they didn't have adequate security over a long holiday:  One, why they weren't able to get rid of this guy, or at least get him off the ship? [...] Who needs the Red Chinese when the Navy harbors people like this?

ASPCA spending may not be what donors expect, investigation finds.  The heartbreaking commercials are almost impossible to ignore:  Sarah McLachlan singing to images of suffering animals and making an urgent appeal for donations to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, or ASPCA.  After those iconic commercials debuted more than a decade ago, the ASPCA's revenues tripled — going from $85 million in 2007 to nearly $280 million in 2019 — making the ASPCA one of the nation's leading animal welfare charities. [...] The ASPCA says the vast majority of donor dollars go directly toward its mission, but a CBS News investigation found there are questions about whether the money is going where donors expect. [...] Since 2008, the ASPCA has raised more than $2 billion for animal welfare.  In that time, it has spent $146 million, or about 7% of the total money raised, in grants to local animal welfare groups.  But during that same time period it spent nearly three times that, at least $421 million, on fundraising.  Over $150 million of that went to Eagle-Com Inc, a Canadian media production company, to produce and place ASPCA's ads.

The Editor says...
There is an old adage about charity organizations, which goes something like this:  If you pay me a million dollars per year to solve a problem, I will guarantee that no solution will ever be found.

Mike Lindell Says He's Losing $1M a Week Because Fox News Refused to Air Voter Fraud Ad.  MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has said that is losing "about a million dollars a week" since he pulled his ads from the Fox News network.  "They're disgusting, what they've done to our country," Lindell said of the network while speaking on War Room, a show on Real America's Voice, a right-leaning media network.  The host is hosted by Steve Bannon, former White House Chief Strategist under Republican President Donald Trump.  "I mean, it's terrible," Lindell continued.  "I can't make this up.  This is about a million dollars a week MyPillow is going to lose again... I want nothing to do with them if they're going to ruin our country and decide on events you have.  'Oh, I don't want it.  You can't advertise that concert because we don't like who's playing.'"  Lindell was referring to his recent decision to pull his company's ads from the network after the network refused to air an advertisement for his upcoming "cyber-symposium."

Coming Soon:  A 'No Buy List' for Conservatives and Other 'Hate Groups'.  Suppose you're doing a little online shopping and see a nice pair of shoes you want to buy.  But when it comes to the payment part of the transaction, you are rejected.  Your PayPal account is frozen.  Your credit cards may be canceled.  And forget to try a crowdfunding site like GoFundMe as an alternative.  You haven't been hacked.  Your personal finances have been de-platformed.  You have become a non-person in the international financial community because somewhere someone determined that you were spouting "hate speech."  Perhaps you're pro-life?  That's an anti-woman point of view and will not be tolerated.  Do you support a traditional view of marriage?  Begone from Amazon, hateful one!

US Marines made rare move to deploy elite security teams to protect two American embassies in two months.  The U.S. Marine Corps deployed its Security Augmentation Unit (MSAU) twice in the past 30 days to help defend embassies in Africa and the Caribbean.  A team was sent to Haiti on July 16 in wake of the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, Fox News reported.  This mission was said to be 'out of an abundance of caution'.  Moïse was gunned down in his home in Port-au-Prince before dawn on July 7, setting off a new political crisis in the Caribbean country that has struggled with poverty, lawlessness and instability.

Generac recalls portable generators after 7 finger amputations.  A popular portable generator brand has recalled several models after multiple reports of fingers being injured in the machines.  Generac Power Systems recalled the gas-powered generators this week, advising consumers to stop using them immediately.  An unlocked handle can pinch fingers against the generator's frame when it's moved.  The Waukesha, Wisconsin-based company has received eight reports of injuries related to the generators, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

'Inflation Storm' Looms as Expectations Hit 13-Year High, Consumer Sentiment Sinks.  Americans expect more inflaton this year and remain uneasy about the direction of the economy, the University of Michigan's survey of consumers showed Friday [7/30/2021].  Expected inflation over the next year rose to 4.7 percent from 4.2 percent in June.  That's the highest level in over a decade.  At least for now, however, Americans still believe that inflation will remain tame over the long term.  Expected inflation over the next five years is just 2.8 percent, down from 3 percent in May.

The Editor says...
Forecasts and expectations touted by the news media are meaningless, because when a Democrat occupies the White House, monthly economic reports are always unexpectedly bad. (When a Republican is in the White House, economic news is always unexpectedly good.)

Alcohol-infused ice cream:  Dessert's hottest trend.  Multiple startup companies across the United States have been infusing alcohol into classic frozen desserts, sparking a wave of boozy desserts just in time for summer.  [Video clip]

The Editor says...
Just in time for summer.  Right.  Summer started a month ago.  The announcement of a new product "just in time for summer" would take place in April or May.

The US is rapidly lowering its military profile and backing away from commitments to allies.  Why would the US Department of Justice drop five cases against Chinese researchers including Dr Juan Tang, a cancer researcher who allegedly lied on her visa application after photos of her were found wearing a Chinese military uniform?  Part of the answer is that Tang's case was dropped to facilitate Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman's high-level visit this week to China, where she was treated hostilely by her Chinese hosts.  The five cases are just part of a bigger picture which can best be termed as "The Great Retreat."  In many areas, the US is lowering its profile and backing away from its commitments.  For example, the US has pulled its only aircraft carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, from the Pacific ostensibly to cover the retreat from Afghanistan.  But whether the Ronald Reagan carrier will return to Japan in the future isn't altogether clear.

Sailor charged in massive blaze that destroyed U.S. Navy warship.  The Navy has filed criminal charges against a sailor in connection with the July 12, 2020 fire aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard, which raged for several days in San Diego and forced the Navy to scrap the ship.  The sailor, who has not been identified, was a member of the crew at the time and is accused of starting the fire, said Commander Sean Robertson, a spokesman for the Navy's 3rd Fleet.  "Evidence collected during the investigation is sufficient to direct a preliminary hearing in accordance with due process under the military justice system," Commander Robertson said in a statement.

Pitchman and innovator Ron Popeil dead at 86.  Salesman, marketing visionary and inventor Ron Popeil wrapped up a colorful life Wednesday morning [7/28/2021], according to TMZ, which reports the 86-year-old Ronco founder died in a Los Angeles hospital following an unspecified medical emergency.  Known as well for his creative spirit as his ability to sell the items he sometimes made, Popeil is credited for introducing the world to the Pocket Fisherman, Mr. Microphone, Hair in a Can and Showtime Rotisserie & BBQ.  He made famous phrases like "But wait, there's more" and "Set it, and forget it."

Former Matt Drudge deputy starts rival to Drudge Report.  The former editor of the Drudge Report, Joseph Curl, announced Tuesday [7/27/2021] the launch of Off The Press, a conservative-oriented aggregator that he says will have a "fearless attitude" toward covering "everything for those who devour news all day."  Curl says the marketplace is ripe for a premier, 24/7 news aggregator that consumers can trust, with the Drudge Report having become just another echo chamber for the mainstream media.  "Now more than ever, keeping up with the most important stories is a battle," Curl says.  "With social media deluging everyone with endless posts on their news feeds, the internet needs an editor to cull the very best stories and present them on a single site.  That will be the sole mission of Off The Press."  Joining Curl as co-editor is veteran journalist Paul Bedard, "Washington Secrets" columnist for The Washington Examiner.

Goldman Sees Sharp Deceleration In US Economic Growth In 2022.  It was good while it lasted, but the party is finally ending.  One day after we reported that unemployed households which no longer receive emergency benefits are suddenly spending far less, and on the same day we read about an "unprecedented spike" in evictions as foreclosure moratoriums end, the only thing missing was a sellside downgrade to the US economy.  Well, we got just that early this morning, when Goldman — which last year was the first bank to unveil materially above consensus GDP projections — cut its 2021 second half consumption growth forecast, resulting in 1% downgrade to its GDP growth forecasts for Q3 and Q4 to +8.5% and +5.0%, respectively, "as it is becoming apparent that the service sector recovery in the US is unlikely to be as robust as the bank had expected.["]  Which is odd considering the trillions in monetary and fiscal stimulus that have entered into the economy.  One wonder how many more trillions would be needed for Goldman to be happy.

A loony leftist hunts Tucker Carlson down in a bait shop.  In 2008, before he was president, Obama told his followers that, if they were in the company of independents or Republicans, "I want you to argue with them and get in their face." A decade later, Rep. Maxine Waters (D. Stupidity), in defense of keeping an open border, exhorted her supporters that, if they saw someone from the Trump administration, "you get out and you create a crowd, and you push back on them, and you tell them they're not welcome anymore, anywhere." This is what leftists do — and it's what some guy in a bait shop did when he caught sight of Tucker Carlson.  Carlson responded with aplomb, but it must have been unnerving.

The man who accosted Tucker Carlson has an interesting background.  It's already old news that an obnoxious leftist verbally assaulted Tucker Carlson, who was in a fly fishing shop in Montana.  Leftists celebrated one of their own throwing mindless insults in Tucker's direction.  Conservatives appreciated how Tucker kept his calm and his sense of humor.  Now, though, some interesting information is emerging about the leftist yahoo, a guy named Dan Bailey, thanks to his having outed himself on his Instagram account.  It turns out that Dan Bailey worked for an organization that was closely associated with the CIA.

Navy warns it's running out of capabilities to cut, budget moves threaten readiness.  The Navy warned Congress today [7/21/2021] that it is quickly reaching the end of the line on divestments before cutting into capabilities needed for deterrence and war fighting.  Lawmakers from the Senate Appropriations Defense subcommittee questioned both the Navy and the Air Force on their divestment decisions at a hearing as Congress continues to parse the proposed budget for 2022.  "The challenge that we're facing now is that the good ideas, the things that we don't think we need to bring to the future fight, we're starting to run out of that," said Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Integration of Capabilities and Resources Vice Adm. Randy Crites.

Girl, 10, dies from the plague as cases confirmed in six Colorado counties.  Colorado health authorities are investigating a possible outbreak of the plague after a 10-year-old died from the ancient disease earlier this month for the first time since 2015.  The plague, a disease caused by bacteria most often spread by fleas, has been confirmed in six different counties, according to lab results from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.  The deceased child lived in La Plata County in southwestern Colorado.

23-year-old GOP candidate running for Congress [is] a promising antithesis of AOC.  Could 23-year-old college graduate Karoline Leavitt be the Republican version of AOC?  U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., was the youngest member of Congress when first elected to Congress in 2018, having defeated a top-ranked Democrat in the primary before winning in the general.  Leavitt is running against two-term U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas, D-N.H., and should she prevail, she would be 25 when she takes office — the Constitution requires members to be at least 25.  Her plan to defeat Pappas is to run against President Biden's policies and what she calls the "tyrannical ... corruption" of New York's Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the New York Post reported.

TikTok's Parent Company is a Strategic Partner of Chinese State Police.  ByteDance, the owner of the explosive social media app TikTok, is in direct collaboration with the Chinese State Police.  According to Chinese media outlet Sohu, on April 25, 2019, the Press and Propaganda Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security and ByteDance signed a strategic cooperation agreement.

'Verified ID': Meghan McCain, Sunny Hostin push rule to strip anonymity from social media.  Sunny Hostin and Meghan McCain want new rules for social media that would strip all users of anonymity.  The co-hosts of ABC's "The View" made the comments Wednesday [7/21/2021] after colleague Whoopi Goldberg discussed racist posts directed at Black athletes competing in the Euro Cup.  "I think this is a terrific, terrific idea," Ms. Hostin said of the idea while seconding actor Idris Elba's support.  "I mean, I am subjected daily to racist attacks on social media.  I'm talking daily.  Sometimes in the hundreds, sometimes in the thousands, and it's — it's painful, it's hurtful, and it's always from someone who has a cat icon, a flag icon, a frog icon, you know?  All sorts — an eagle icon, and they are, I believe.  Just Twitter thugs, social media thugs, hiding in their mama's basements."

American language gets new words: 'Zaddy' and 'oof' among 300 words added to Dictionary.com.  Dictionary.com is adding more than 300 words and definitions to its latest lexicon update to reflect changes in the culture, along with what appears to be, in part, a dollop or more of corporate political correctness.  New additions, abbreviations, and expanded explanations include 5G, content warning, cultural appropriation, DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), deplatform, JEDI (justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion), long COVID, side hustle, TW (trigger warning), yeet, and zaddy.

Taco Bell is hit with nationwide ingredient shortages a week after Popeyes announced it's been hoarding chicken.  Taco Bell customers may be left hungry if they visit the chain any time soon amid a nationwide ingredient shortage.  The pandemic, which forced many factories to close, limited temporary visas for workers on farms and slowed transportation, has resulted in food shortages across the US as the food industry struggles to keep up with newly reopened restaurants, sports arenas and food halls.  At Taco Bell, a message posted atop the company's website the company apologized for its slimmed down menu.

Animatronic Biden joining Hall of Presidents at Disney World.  Forget an inauguration ceremony.  The true indicator of having made it as president is being added to the Hall of Presidents at Walt Disney World in Florida, an honor President Joe Biden will soon receive.  Disney World officials said Monday [7/19/2021] that they were putting the finishing touches on the animatronic Biden replica ahead of its debut next month at the Magic Kingdom attraction that features a tableau of the nation's presidents.

The Editor says...
Please select one of these incisive and witty retorts:
  [#1] How will anyone know it isn't Joe himself?
  [#2] If the robot spontaneously reboots once in a while, that will make it more realistic!
  [#3] In the event of a power failure, nobody will notice.
  [#4] Please don't let your young daughter stand too close to this display.
  [#5] Everything Animatronic Joe will say is being written at this moment by Doctor Jill Biden.
  [#6] Animatronic Joe will automatically call a lid at 11:00 a.m., and won't work at all on weekends.

Dow drops more than 700 points on Monday heads for worst decline of 2021.  U.S. stocks fell aggressively Monday [7/19/2021] on concern a rebound in Covid cases would slow global economic growth.  The selling picked up as the session went on, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average had its worst day since last October.  The Dow dropped 725.81 points, or 2.1%, to 33,962.04 in a broad-based rout that sent all 30 members lower.  At one point during the session, the Dow was down 946 points before recovering some ground into the close.  The S&P 500 fell 1.6% to 4,258.49.  Energy, financials and industrials were the worst-performing sectors.  The tech-dominated Nasdaq Composite slid 1.1% to 14,274.98, posting its fifth-straight day of losses and worst losing streak since October.

Aluminum Factor[y] Explosion In Henan Province China Looked Like A Mini Nuke!.  An explosion occurred at an aluminum alloy plant on Tuesday morning in Dengfeng, Central China's Henan Province.  No casualties were reported as of press time, said local authorities.  [Video clip]

US kosher supermarkets to stop stocking Ben & Jerry's in protest.  Some kosher supermarkets in the US won't stock Ben & Jerry's ice cream, after the company announces it will end sales in the "Occupied Palestinian Territories."  Glatt Express Supermarket, a kosher grocery store in Teaneck, New Jersey, announced via Facebook that it would no longer carry Ben & Jerry's products following the company's announcement.  "Due to the recent actions by Ben & Jerry's, Glatt Express will no longer be carrying Ben and Jerry's products.  Am Yisroel Chai," the store wrote in a post.  Aron's Kissena Farms, a kosher market in Queens, made the same decision.  The market "has removed all of the Ben & Jerry's products in the Freezers, and will no longer sell any and all Ben & Jerry products effective immediately," the store writes on Facebook.

EPA squeeze on aftermarket car part sellers hurts classic car industry, Lankford says.  Raids on aftermarket auto part vendors by the Environmental Protection Agency for evidence of emissions violations standards are harming the classic car industry, says Sen. Jim Lankford.  Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican and a member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, told the Washington Examiner he recently took an interest in bipartisan legislation reintroduced in the House by Rep. Patrick McHenry, a North Carolina Republican, and Rep. Raul Ruiz, a California Democrat, known as the Recognizing the Protection of Motorsports Act.  The legislation, which has 61 Republican and 21 Democratic co-sponsors, aims to make clear that converting a street vehicle by emissions-related changes for exclusively competition purposes is legal.  Additionally, it would affirm that manufacturing, selling, and installing racing parts into a vehicle is a legal act.

Wha-a-a-at?  There's a flaw in Microsoft's software?
U.S. says Chinese intelligence behind global cyberattack [is] using [a] Microsoft software flaw.  China's Ministry of State Security (MSS) intelligence service was behind a major international cyberattack earlier this year involving tens of thousands of computers penetrated through security flaws in Microsoft software, the White House charged Monday [7/19/2021] in coordination with a group of major U.S. allies.  Beijing also is employing contract Chinese hackers to carry out ransomware attacks in financial crime schemes, according to a statement kicking off a major publicity campaign targeting what U.S. officials say are extensive Chinese state-linked hacking operations around the globe.  "Today, the United States and our allies and partners are exposing further details of the PRC's pattern of malicious cyber activity and taking further action to counter it, as it poses a major threat to U.S. and allies' economic and national security," the statement said, referring to the People's Republic of China.

Judge hit for ordering Trump supporter to remove [Anti-] Biden sign from yard.  A municipal judge in New Jersey's Roselle Park borough is facing condemnation and scorn for effectively violating a Trump supporter's First Amendment rights because of a complaint reportedly made by the borough's Democrat Party mayor.  That Trump supporter, Andrea Dick, has been displaying a slew of pro-Trump and profanely anti-Biden signs on the fence outside her mother's home.  Or rather, she had been, up until Roselle Park Municipal Court Judge Gary Bundy issued a ruling last Thursday [7/15/2021] ordering her mother, Patricia Dilascio, to remove the signs containing profanity within a week or face a $250/day fine.

Researchers follow trail of sex trafficking to Minnesota massage program.  Something seemed very wrong at the American Academy of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine.  There was a locked closet with student files the registrar could not access.  There were students arriving for a Chinese-language-only massage therapy program, siloed off from the rest of the classes at the Roseville campus.  Students who were sent off to "internships" at local massage parlors where some of their supervisors were unlicensed, some had prostitution arrests on their record, and few bothered to fill out all the paperwork the students needed for legitimate degrees, according to the Minnesota Office of Higher Education.  When state office investigators took a closer look in 2019, they found that seven of nine recent graduates of the Chinese Tuina Massage program had already had their massage therapist licenses revoked or deactivated for "ties to prostitution/trafficking."

California court strikes down law against "misgendering" speech.  There was a decision rendered on Friday [7/16/2021] in the California Court of Appeal that will impact some portions of the ongoing debates over transgender rights and free speech.  The catch here is that the state law in question, California Health & Safety Code §1439.51, applies only to employees of long-term healthcare facilities such as nursing homes and hospitals.  But even in that limited scope, it provides another bit of precedent that may wind up applying to the large backlog of similar cases currently making their way through the system.  In the case of Taking Offense v.  California, the plaintiffs were challenging the constitutionality of the portion of the law that makes it a criminal offense to repeatedly "misgender" a patient in the facility by referring to them using the pronoun appropriate for their biological gender and not the gender they "identify" as.

Pepper the robot discontinued after being repeatedly fired from jobs.  Good help is hard to find, particularly in the post-pandemic world.  You can add one more job opening to the list this week, though it doesn't appear to be an employment situation directly driven by COVID.  Pepper the artificial intelligence robot produced by Japan's Softbank Group is being discontinued after having been widely distributed around the globe for the past seven years.  And the reason is that Pepper turned out to be almost entirely unemployable.  Despite having been "hired" by multiple businesses and schools to perform a variety of jobs, the employers almost always wound up returning the robots for a variety of job performance-related issues.

Michigan Senate Repeals Emergency Powers Law, Whitmer Unable to Veto.  Michigan's Senate on Thursday [7/15/2021] approved a petition that repeals Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's emergency powers, with another approval expected by the state's lower chamber.  Whitmer, a Democrat, cannot veto the petition.  The Michigan Senate's 20-15 vote came two days after the Board of State Canvassers certified the petition, which was started by a group called Unlock Michigan that gathered over 340,000 signatures.  The board deadlocked 2-2 in April but voted 3-0 this time around.  The petition took aim at the 1945 Emergency Powers Act that enabled Whitmer to impose harsh restrictions on state residents during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Republicans on the Senate floor before the vote praised the petition and said it was needed to curb Whitmer's power.

Americans facing massive passport processing delays, lawmakers urging State Dept. to act.  A crush of Americans are seeking to travel overseas again as vaccination rates climb in the U.S., and foreign governments loosen their restrictions.  But many of them are running into a critical problem:  Their passport is expired.  That's led to another crush — of passport applications — one that has overwhelmed the State Department's 26 passport agencies across the country and created an enormous backlog of applications.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is straight out of Dr. Strangelove.  In Stanley Kubrick's 1964 black comedy, Dr. Strangelove or:  How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, the engine for the plot is Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper, a United States Air Force general, who goes completely off his rocker and launches a nuclear weapon at the Soviet Union.  We may have our own, real-life General Ripper in the form of General Mark Milley, a product of the Ivy League and now Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  However, unlike General Ripper, who had the Russkies in his sights, General Milley is pretty sure that you are the enemy. [...] For many of us, Milley entered our consciousness on June 23, when he insisted that West Pointers should study Critical Race Theory and that he, especially, wanted to understand "White rage."  At that moment, when he openly embraced CRT, complete with its claims about White Supremacy, systemic racism, and White privilege, Milley imposed upon himself an obligation immediately to resign from his position and to insist that someone Black — anyone Black — take his place.  Until Milley walks away from his White privileged position, he's just a very dangerous, virtue-signaling windbag.

Rep. Crenshaw says military leaders 'prioritizing woke training over actual war fighting' after Navy report.  Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, said Thursday that U.S. military leaders are "prioritizing woke training over actual war fighting" following lawmakers' investigation into the Navy's culture.  Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark. — along with Crenshaw, a retired Navy SEAL, and fellow Republican Reps.  Jim Banks of Indiana and Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin — directed an investigation into Navy culture, following three major incidents between 2016 and 2017 that resulted in the death of 17 sailors.  They found that 94% of the sailors interviewed thought the military branch is facing a leadership and culture crisis.  "Unfortunately, the findings of our report aren't surprising," Crenshaw tweeted.  "We've known military leaders are prioritizing woke training over actual war fighting.  It's what we constantly hear from service members.  It doesn't make this any less concerning.  It's a threat to national security."

New Revelations Show How Absolutely Dangerous Our Military Leadership Has Become.  The descent into leftism of our current military brass has been a much-discussed topic lately.  As RedState reported previously, the woke ad campaigns belittle the mission and make a mockery of the readiness of our military.  While China grows a more capable Navy and prioritizes physical ability, the US Army and other branches are out there plugging for people with anxiety disorder and gay parents.  But just in case you thought our military leadership was delusional enough, a new book reveals just how insane they were and continue to be.  [Tweet]

Trump Responds to Military Coup Accusation.  In remarks reported in a forthcoming book, Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, compared President Donald Trump to the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler and his supporters to Nazi brownshirts.  Milley said he feared a military coup from Trump, who had decided to contest the results of the 2020 election.  Trump responded to the accusation in a blistering statement on Thursday [7/15/2021].  "Despite massive Voter Fraud and Irregularities during the 2020 Presidential Election Scam, that we are now seeing play out in very big and important States, I never threatened, or spoke about, to anyone, a coup of our Government.  So ridiculous!" the former president wrote.  Trump insisted that the only way he would want to gain or hold on to power would be through an election.  He also went on the offensive against Milley.

The Left's Fear Is Palpable After Republicans Overperform in a Georgia Election.  Last night, several special elections happened in various legislative districts in the states of Georgia, Alabama, and Wisconsin.  After the results came in, a common theme was apparent:  Republicans had overperformed compared to the 2020 election.  Yet, it was the Georgia election that raised the most eyebrows.  In a suburban Atlanta district that saw its Republican vote share hit an all-time low just under a year ago, voters swung 22 points further toward the GOP yesterday.

Scathing official report finds US Navy is too woke for war because of risk averse, politically correct, control-freak top brass.  A scathing new report commissioned by members of Congress has claimed that the Navy's surface warfare forces have systemic training and leadership issues, including a focus on diversity that overshadows basic readiness skills.  The report prepared by Marine Lt. Gen. Robert Schmidle and Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, both retired, came in response to recent Naval disasters, including the burning of the USS Bonhomme Richard in San Diego, two collisions involving Navy ships in the Pacific and the surrender of two small craft to Iran.  The authors conducted hour-long interviews with 77 current and retired Navy officers, offering them anonymity to identify issues they wouldn't feel comfortable raising in the chain of command.

Michigan Legislature Is About to Limit Gretchen Whitmer's Power as Governor.  Michigan might soon have some checks and balances restored to its legislature over a year after the current governor of the state overstepped her authority.  The really awesome part of this is that the law she abused will be taken off the books for good without a veto threat and no governor in the future will be able to use it.  That is a good thing, no matter if it is a Democrat or a Republican in the governor's mansion, and will prevent the people of Michigan from getting abused.

Mural Honoring George Floyd in Toledo, Ohio Destroyed by Lightning Strike.  A George Floyd mural in Toledo, Ohio was destroyed by a lightning strike Tuesday afternoon [7/13/2021], according to witnesses.  WTVG reported their Doppler Radar did show a lightning strike on the same block as the George Floyd mural at 4:30 this afternoon.  The lightning strike, which hit directly on George Floyd's face, reduced the mural to a pile of bricks.

Lightning strikes George Floyd memorial mural, collapses its brick wall; hilarity ensues.  For those who see the Hand of God in extraordinary natural phenomena, a lightning strike in Toledo, Ohio is being seen as divine retribution.  Others call it karma.  Witnesses reported that lightning struck a George Floyd memorial mural, not only burning the artistic expression, but collapsing the brick wall on which it was painted.

Lightning Strike Destroys George Floyd Mural in Toledo.  A lightning strike has completely destroyed a mural of George Floyd that was erected in Toledo.  Oh no, how awful.  After the mural collapsed, people were initially unaware of the cause, with one city inspector commenting it was "just age — it just came away," noting that the mural had been bowing.  [Tweet]  Witnesses later confirmed that it had been destroyed by what the insurance industry used to refer to as an "act of God."

Possible signs of life found on Saturn's moon.  Scientists find possible signs of life on Saturn's moon Enceladus.  In a recent interview Dr. Brad Tucker, said NASA's space probe Cassini found methane, a biproduct of life, emerging from a large sheet of ice.  Dr. Tucker, a cosmologist from Australia National University, said the space probe Cassini was able to collect data from the cracks in the ice that shoot out gases like a geyser.  "When the probes went through these plumes of gas, imagine like geysers shooting out of the cracks," he explained.  "Not only did they detect hydrogen, they detected methane, which is shown to be in the latest study a potential strong by-product of life.  You know, think cows, think methane."

The Editor says...
[#1] How convenient!  This is a shiny object to displace unpleasant headlines; for example, the threat of forced vaccinations, runaway inflation, rapidly rising gas and food prices, the wide-open Mexican border, anti-white racism in schools, riots in South Africa, revolution in Cuba, China is prepping for nuclear war, Chicago is a war zone, San Francisco is an asylum with an open sewer, much of the federal government is openly corrupt, and the 2020 election really was stolen.  Stories from NASA (which nobody else can verify or disprove) sit on the shelf until the government needs a red herring on the front page.  [#2] Escaping methane gas is not proof of life on or near Saturn.  There is no life in a climate that's as cold as liquid nitrogen.  [#3] It's difficult to believe that methane exists as a gas on Enceladus, since methane freezes at 90°K., and no place on Enceladus is that warm.  The news media confidently presume that you don't know that.  [#4] Combine points 1, 2, and 3, and the sum is fake news!

Experts Send Dire Warning About Biden's Economy.  Remember how the Biden regime and the Federal Reserve chair keep telling Americans how "inflation is transitory" and that we shouldn't worry much about it because it'll pass?  Yes, well, so much for that; another lie debunked.  "Americans should brace themselves for several years of higher inflation than they've seen in decades, according to economists who expect the robust post-pandemic economic recovery to fuel brisk price increases for a while," The Wall Street Journal reported.

Is this really our problem?
WH: Multi-agency delegation helping Haiti maintain security, schedule elections.  The White House said Monday [7/12/2021] a delegation from multiple U.S. agencies is helping Haiti maintain security and pave the way to "free and fair" elections in the wake of the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.  Officials from the National Security Council and departments of Homeland Security, Justice and State traveled to Haiti on Sunday at the Haitian government's request.  "The delegation reviewed the security of critical infrastructure with Haitian government officials and met with the Haitian National Police, who are leading the investigation into the assassination," security council spokeswoman Emily Horne said.

The Editor says...
Joe Biden should make a bold step and appoint former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to lead the investigation into President Jovenel Moïse's death.  After all, she knows a lot about Haiti.  More than you might suppose.

Hotel Maid Prevents Potential 'Las Vegas Style' Mass Shooting Ahead of All-Star Game — FBI Says No Link to Terrorism.  A Denver hotel maid prevented a potential 'Vegas style' mass shooting ahead the MLB All-Star game over the weekend.  The maid discovered more than a dozen weapons, a thousand rounds of ammo and body armor in a room at the Maven Hotel near Coors Field.  According to Denver police, authorities confiscated narcotics, 16 firearms, ammo and body armor from two hotel rooms that had balconies overlooking downtown Denver.  Three men and one woman were arrested and being held on suspicion of weapons charges and possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, according to Denver police.

More about the still-unexplained Las Vegas shooting in October 2017.

Vatican Insider:  Pope Francis 'Will Never Be the Same' After Colon Operation.  Luis Badilla, editor of the semi-official Vatican news aggregator Il Sismografo, said Wednesday [7/7/2021] that Pope Francis' health situation is "severe" and when he returns from hospital he "will never be the same again."  In his sobering blog post, Badilla declares that journalists and commentators are not doing the pope any favors when they downplay the seriousness of his illness.

The Editor says...
The Pope encourages crowds of ordinary Catholics to worship him.  Read Acts 12:23.

How Much Scientific Research Is Actually Fraudulent?  As I earlier reported, a 2015 editorial in The Lancet observed that "much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue."  A 2015 British Academy of Medical Sciences report suggested that the false discovery rate in some areas of biomedicine could be as high as 69 percent.  In an email exchange with me, [Stanford University biostatistician John] Ioannidis estimated that the nonreplication rates in biomedical observational and preclinical studies could be as high as 90 percent.  The possibility that fraud may well be responsible for a significant proportion of the false positives reported in the scientific literature is suggested by a couple of new Dutch studies.  Both studies are preprints that report the results of surveys of thousands of scientists in the Netherlands aiming to probe the prevalence of questionable research practices and scientific misconduct.

What's in it for us?
Haitian Officials Request U.S. Troops to Protect Infrastructure amid Political Turmoil.  Haitian government officials said they've asked the United States to deploy troops in an auxiliary effort to help shield Haiti's infrastructure from attack amid the political turbulence the country is experiencing after President Jovenel Moïse's sudden assassination Wednesday [7/7/2021].  They requested U.S. forces to help protect Haiti's port, airport, gasoline reserves, and other facilities.  There are concerns that the leader's murder could exacerbate the already fraught situation in the country, which is afflicted by civil unrest, economic instability, gang violence, and a COVID public health crisis, among other woes.

The Editor says...
Assassinations are always sudden, aren't they?

Barry Diller Headed 2 Hollywood Studios.  He Now Says The Movie Business Is Dead.  Barry Diller made his name in the film industry as the chairman and CEO of two Hollywood studios, Paramount Pictures and what was then 20th Century Fox.  Now, he is declaring the industry dead.  "The movie business is over," Diller said in an exclusive interview with NPR on the sidelines of the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference, a media and technology conference in Idaho.  "The movie business as before is finished and will never come back."  Yes, that has to do with a substantial decline in ticket sales and the closure of movie theaters during the coronavirus pandemic.  But Diller, the chairman and senior executive of IAC, a company that owns Internet properties, said, "It is much more than that."

FDA seeks probe into communications between its staff and Biogen after controversial approval of Alzheimer's drug.  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had asked for a federal investigation into its approval of a controversial Alzheimer's drug.  Dr Janet Woodcock, acting commissioner of the FDA, announced she sent a letter to the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services for a probe into communications between FDA staff and Biogen Inc representatives in the lead up to the approval of Aduhelm, the company's Alzheimer's drug.  'Given the ongoing interest and questions, today I requested that [The Office of the Inspector General] conduct an independent review and assessment of interactions between representatives of Biogen and FDA during the process that led to the approval of Aduhelm,' she wrote on Twitter on Friday [7/9/2021].

Toyota halting contributions to U.S. lawmakers who opposed Biden certification.  Toyota Motor Corp's political action committee will halt donations to U.S. members of Congress who voted against President Joe Biden's election certification in January, the company said on Thursday [7/8/2021].  The largest Japanese automaker has faced harsh criticism for donations to some lawmakers — members of then-President Donald Trump's Republican Party — who voted against certification of Biden's win in some U.S. states.  "We are actively listening to our stakeholders and, at this time, have decided to stop contributing to those members of Congress who contested the certification of certain states in the 2020 election," the company said.

If you'll make it a thousand, I'll think about it.
Tennessee to use taxpayer funds to pay tourists $250 to visit the state.  Tennessee will pay for tourists to travel to its largest cities this year — but some are questioning if the gift is the best use of taxpayer dollars.  Gov. Bill Lee (R) was joined by country music star Brad Paisley in a video promoting the "Tennessee on Me" initiative, although some top lawmakers said they were blindsided by the announcement, a report said.  "The state's buying all these airline tickets and giving 'em away to anybody who books two nights in a hotel room to come to Tennessee, so it's 'Tennessee on Me,'" Lee said in the spot, posted by Paisley to his Twitter on July 4.

Venezuela to Cut Six Zeroes Off Bolivar to Simplify Transactions.  Venezuela is preparing to once again lop off zeroes from the national currency in an attempt to simplify daily transactions which sometimes barely fit on a calculator or require swiping cards multiple times to complete a purchase.  The central bank is planning to slash six zeroes from the bolivar as early as August after previous attempts to issue larger-denomination bills failed to resolve problems created by endemic inflation, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter who aren't authorized to speak publicly about the plans.  That means one dollar would fetch 3.2 bolivars instead of 3,219,000 at present.

Wikipedia has become a one-sided 'thought police' for liberals, cofounder warns.  Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, is warning that the online encyclopedia has become too one-sided and overloaded with liberal sources in a way that harms democracy.  "In short, and with few exceptions, only globalist, progressive mainstream sources — and sources friendly to globalist progressivism — are permitted," Sanger wrote on his website in an article last week headlined "Wikipedia is more one-sided than ever."  "It is not too far to say that Wikipedia, like many other deeply biased institutions of our brave new digital world, has made itself into a kind of thought police that has de facto shackled conservative viewpoints with which they disagree," he added.  "Democracy cannot thrive under such conditions:  I maintain that Wikipedia has become an opponent of vigorous democracy."

Allen West to challenge Greg Abbott in Republican primary for Texas governor.  Republican Allen West, the former Florida congressman and firebrand who rode into office on the tea party wave a decade ago, said Sunday that he will run for governor of Texas in a bid to again seize on restless anger from the right.  His odds are far longer this time around:  Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who is up for a third term and may also be eyeing a 2024 presidential bid, has already locked up the endorsement of Donald Trump — whose voters West would need to have any shot at winning a GOP primary in Texas.

The Editor says...
Politically, Allen West is well to the right of Greg Abbott.  That's a good position from which to start a campaign.  If Governor Abbott had made any effort to fight county-level Covid-19 restrictions, and had removed all face mask requirements statewide about three months before he did, he would have no trouble getting re-elected and might have a slight chance at the White House.  But he didn't.  The state of Texas is run by Republicans, but you'd never know it.  The Republican Party platform and the Party's long list of "legislative priorities" were all completely ignored by Governor Abbott.

Vatican Indicts Cardinal And 9 Other Suspects On Embezzlement, Fraud.  A Vatican judge indicted a cardinal and 9 other suspects on charges of money laundering, fraud, and abuse of office Saturday, according to the Independent.  The suspects are accused of withholding millions of euros from the Holy See and investing money that was donated to the pope for charity work, the Independent reported.  Italian broker Gianluigi Torzi is accused of using 15 million euros that he withheld from the Vatican to invest in a London building in 2018.  Former Holy See official Cardinal Angelo Becciu was indicted for helping organize the investment when he was the Secretariat of State's chief of staff, according to Independent.

Stunning Fire in the Gulf of Mexico Burns Anti-Capitalists With Their Own Narrative.  [Tweets blaming the Pemex fire on capitalism]  Except there's a small problem with that argument, kids.  You just got burned with your own narrative.  The company behind this is Pemex, a Mexican-state controlled company that formed by nationalizing private companies in 1938.  Literally the opposite of "capitalism."  It's the state seizing the means of production.  Pemex also has a long history of "major industrial accidents at its facilities," according to Reuters.  Not to mention it also has a bad record of pollution, being named one of the top polluters in the world.  When the government seizes control, they run things the way government often runs anything — badly.  When there's no incentive to do things better (you know, that whole capitalism thing), you tend to get shoddy work.  So, these folks who wanted to gore capitalism just pointed out a great example of why socialism is bad.

Nine people are taken into custody after heavily-armed Moorish-Americans fled during traffic stop.  Massachusetts police have taken eleven 'armed and dangerous' men into custody after they fled from police during a traffic stop overnight.  A state trooper spotted the group — who claimed to be members of 'Rise of The Moors' — at the side of the Interstate-95 between Wakefield and Reading around 1.30 am Saturday [7/3/2021].  The men, who were dressed in tactical-style gear and armed with both pistols and rifles, refused to comply with orders to drop their weapons and ran into woodland by the side of the road.

Texas Soldier Who Shot BLM Protester Indicted On Murder Charge.  A Travis County grand jury has indicted an active-duty former Fort Hood Army sergeant on charges of murder, deadly conduct and aggravated assault in the 2020 shooting death of an armed Austin protester.  Perry, who was stationed at Fort Hood, was working for a ride-sharing company and just dropped off a customer when he turned onto a street filled with people protesting police brutality.  He stopped his car, honked, and seconds later, police said Perry drove his car into the crowd, The Texas Tribune reported.  But videos show that he was under attack contradictory to the police reports!  The man who defended himself against BLM rioters was indicted today a year after the incident is yet another example of how illegitimate our justice system is.  Army Sgt Daniel Perry was driving Uber when rioters mobbed his car and pointed a gun towards him[.]

Biden's America:  Ransomware Attack Paralyzes Networks of Hundreds of US Companies.  A ransomware attack paralyzed networks of more than 200 US companies on Friday [7/2/2021].  Hackers targeted software supplier Kaseya and penetrated cloud-service providers by going through its network management system.  Surprise, surprise, Russians are being blamed for this latest ransomware attack.

CBO sees supercharged recovery as pandemic dissipates, predicts severe inflation in coming months.  The U.S. economy will roar to life for the rest of this year and remain supercharged through 2022, the Congressional Budget Office said Thursday, though the analysts also warned Americans to expect inflation to rise "sharply" for several months.  The unemployment rate will fall to 4.6% at the end of this year and be back to pre-pandemic levels at some point next year, said CBO, delivering a glowing picture on the most politically important yardstick.  Americans who saved up during the pandemic are looking to spend, creating strong demand for goods and services.  Inventories aren't ready to handle that demand right now, thus the spike in inflation.  The analysts said supply and demand will even out quickly and inflation pressures will dissipate by the end of the year.

The new Air Force fitness test will feature walking instead of running and modified push-ups.  The Air Force raised some eyebrows on Monday when it announced upcoming changes to its physical training test that would allow airmen to choose their own adventure for demonstrating physical prowess.  The new test, which the service will begin to experiment with in January 2022, will allow airmen to choose between running, shuttle run sprints, and walking for the aerobic portion of the test.  Shuttle run sprints involve sprinting back and forth between two markers about 25 meters apart.  They could then choose between planks and sit-ups for the core strength measure.  And for the final portion of the test airmen would be allowed to choose between push-ups and raised-hand push-ups.

Executive Agency Defies [Texas] Legislature, Creates 'Equity' Office.  The Texas Department of State Health Services is using close to $45 million to create the Office of Health Equity Policy and Performance.  Purportedly, the office will work with state and local public health entities to address disparities in health outcomes in various demographics.  If this sounds familiar, it is because Democrat State Rep. Garnet Coleman (Houston) authored a bill during the 87th Legislative Session that would have created the Office of Health Equity within the Texas Department of Health and Human Services, which is an entity of the Texas Department of State Health Services.  The bill was included in the healthcare legislative priorities of Republican House Speaker Dade Phelan as a part of his "Healthy Families, Healthy Texas" legislative package announced in early April.

While Congress Dithers on Confederate Statues, China Builds 119 New ICBM Silos.  While House Democrats consider crucial decisions on such weighty issues as which statues of Southerners get removed from the Capitol, word emerged Thursday that the People's Republic of China has undertaken a massive construction project to dig and fortify more than 100 new silos to house ICBMs. Newly-released photos from the private commercial satellite company Planet appear to show upwards of 120 silos under construction spread over a vast swath of desert in northwestern China.  Experts at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies said the excavations appear capable of housing China's DF-41 ICBM, which can contain multiple warheads and be delivered to targets in excess of 9,000 miles distant.  Not to draw too fine a point here but, hello, a 9,000-plus mile range would cover the United States.

Satellite images show China building what appears to be over 100 new silos for its nuclear missiles, analysts say.  China appears to be building more than 100 new missile silos in the desert, according to an analysis of satellite imagery first reported by the Washington Post Wednesday.  Analyzing satellite images from Planet Labs, Jeffrey Lewis and Decker Eveleth, researchers at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, identified 119 apparent intercontinental ballistic missile silos under construction near Yumen in Gansu province.

Controversial crypto billionaire — dubbed 'the father of bitcoin toxicity' — drowns off Costa Rica aged 41 leaving a $2bn fortune.  The sudden death of 41-year-old Mircea Popescu, an early adopter of Bitcoin, has left cryptocurrency experts speculating on what will happen to the estimated $2 billion worth that he owned.  There has so far been no word on who has access to his digital assets, believed to be some of the largest in the world, fueling unconfirmed rumors that the fortune could be gone.  Popescu drowned Monday morning [6/29/2021] off the coast of Costa Rica near Playa Hermosa, according to local news reports.

Seventeen people injured as 'controlled' detonation of illegal fireworks by police in middle of Los Angeles neighborhood goes horrifically wrong.  Seventeen people have been injured in Los Angeles after a cache of homemade fireworks exploded as it was being destroyed by a bomb squad, damaging cars and smashing windows in homes.  Police called in a bomb squad on Wednesday evening [6/30/2021] after a tip led them to seize some 5,000 pounds of illegal home-made and China-manufactured pyrotechnics at about noon, police said.  LAPD Chief Michel Moore said three box trucks and a 53-foot trailer were brought in to load up the fireworks and move them to a safe location.  However, 'improvised explosives' also were found that were too dangerous to move.

Bomb Squad Truck Carrying Illegal Fireowrks Explodes In Los Angeles, Injuring 17.  A bomb squad truck carrying confiscated illegal fireworks exploded unexpectedly, blowing out windows and destroying nearby cars in a South Los Angeles neighborhood Wednesday night [6/30/2021].  According to the Los Angeles Police Department, the explosion happened in the 700 block of East 27th Street a little after 7:30 p.m.  The explosion left a total of 17 people hurt, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.  Of the 17 people hurt, 16 were taken to the hospital with one declining the option of being transported.  [Video clip]

HK media erase their archives amid rising arrests.  Several online media outlets in Hong Kong took down opinion articles and videos from their websites or said they would move out of the city after one more columnist of the Apple Daily was arrested at the airport on Sunday [6/27/2021].  Stand News, a pro-democracy news outlet, said in a statement that it had temporarily removed commentaries written by its bloggers and readers from May this year and before until it had decided whether it was appropriate to publish them again.  It said it had decided to stop accepting monthly sponsorship from readers and to shelve older commentaries.  It added that it had enough money to run for another nine to 12 months and maintain its current editorial guidelines.

Ed Henry, Former Fox Anchor, Strikes Back at Fox News.  Do you recall the aphorism, "revenge is a dish best-served cold?" Former Fox News show host, Ed Henry, delivered a frosty plate filled with offal today — courtesy of his attorney, Ty Clevenger — to the senior executives running Fox News.  Henry is suing for defamation and the text of the complaint contains some stunning allegations:  [Details omitted for brevity, among other reasons.]  Ed Henry kept his mouth shut since his shameful firing and gathered a mountain of evidence.  The allegations presented in this complaint are, I am told by a source with direct knowledge of the case, just the tip of the iceberg.  There is a lot more damaging dirt that will emerge if this goes to court.  This lawsuit comes on the heels of Fox News shelling out $1 million dollars this week in a settlement with the New York City Commission on Human Rights.

New Yorkers [are being] Asked to Turn Off Electricity to Avoid Power Outages Amid Blistering Heat.  New York City residents were asked on Wednesday to limit their electricity usage to avoid power outages during the blistering heat wave.  "We're now experiencing a heat emergency, and we need people to take immediate action," Mayor Bill de Blasio said.  "Our electric system is dealing with real strains right now because of the severity of heat that we are experiencing today."  De Blasio continued, "We have a real challenge on our hands.  So here's the message to all New Yorkers: immediately reduce the use of electricity in your home or in your business.  This is very serious stuff.["]

The Editor says...
Conservation is not an energy source.  The solution to excessive demand is increased production capacity.

Leftists Outraged After Popular British Influencer Comes Out As 'Transracial' Korean.  A British-born influencer announced this week that he is coming out as "transracial" and is now Korean.  In a series of videos he began sharing on June 26, Oli London, who boasts more than 300,000 followers on Instagram, revealed that he has had more than 18 plastic surgeries in order to become Korean and look like BTS singer, Park Ji-min.  "Hey guys!  I'm finally Korean.  I've transitioned," London said in a video posted Monday [6/28/2021] to Twitter.  "I identify as Korean — that's just my culture, that's my home country, that's exactly how I look now," he added.  London also claimed he's been "trapped in the wrong body for eight years."

The Editor says...
I have a few questions:  Is Korea really his home country?  North or South?  Has he ever lived there?  Was he born there?  Was anything other than his face altered through surgery?  How is this any less offensive than applying black face paint and claiming to be African?

After 18 plastic surgeries this British dude is "coming out as Korean" and we live in a bad sitcom.  This British bloke has had 18 (!!!) plastic surgeries so he can "finally be himself."  He is now a "transracial" "Korean" and if you say otherwise you are a HORRIBLE BIGOT!  [Video clip]

The Editor says...
Free advice for the delusional freak with too much money:  Move to Korea (South or North) and see how well your new look is received.

Jamaal Bowman requested special police protection for his Yonkers home.  Freshman U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman — a champion of defunding cops who claims policing is rife with "white supremacy" — asked for and received a special police detail to guard his Yonkers home in the days following the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill insurrection, The Post has learned.  "About a week after the Jan. 6th incident at the Capitol, we received a request from the Congressman's office for increased police presence at his residence," Yonkers Police Department Detective Lt. Dean Politopoulos told The [New York] Post.  "In response, our Intelligence Unit was notified of the request and the local precinct instituted what is called a directed patrol at the Congressman's home for the next two weeks," Politopoulos said.  Politopoulos said police have not detected anything unusual in Bowman's area for the last several years.

How Putin uses gas to win allies and punish enemies.  The recent US-Russia summit between Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin suggests that a controversial Russian natural gas pipeline, Nord Stream 2, is a done deal.  If completed as planned by the end of this year, Nord Stream 2 will convey 55 billion cubic meters of gas per year from Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea and thence to the rest of Europe.  It is expected to bring US$3.2 billion to Russia annually.  Construction had been halted for over a year by US sanctions passed in 2019 on the pipeline's construction and financing.  Sanctions were later expanded in 2020.

Outgoing US envoy to Syria says he hid true number of troops from Trump team.  Veteran diplomat James Jeffrey, the outgoing US special representative in Syria, reportedly said he and his team were deliberately ambiguous in communications with senior Trump administration officials about the number of American troops in Syria.  President Donald Trump ordered withdrawals of US troops from northeast Syria, where they partnered with Kurdish forces to oppose the Islamic State, in 2018 and in October 2019, saying that the terror group had been defeated.  The withdrawal of the American soldiers was seen as a major shift in US policy, and a betrayal of the Kurds — longtime, close allies to the US whose territory was invaded by Turkey shortly after the US withdrawal.

Israel's High-Powered Laser System A 'Breakthrough'.  Israel has just completed tests of its new high-power laser system that, installed on a civilian aircraft, can shoot down drones.  It promises to be what is called a game-changer. [...] The lasers can cover a much wider area and lock onto, and then destroy, unmanned vehicles passing through that area.  The cost of firing a laser beam for an interception will cost around $2000.  Meanwhile, the price of launching an Iron Dome interception missile is between $40,000 and $60,000.  Consider how may tens of millions of dollars the IDF spent on Iron Dome missiles in the recent war against Hamas; Hamas aimed 4300 not-very-expensive rockets at Israel; about 600 fell short, leaving 3700 that entered Israeli airspace; Iron Dome missiles managed to intercept 90%.

BofA Crashes The "Transitory" Party:  Sees Up To 4 Years Of "Hyperinflation".  BofA chief equity strategist Savita Subramanian summarized the current state of affairs as follows:  "On an absolute basis, [inflation] mentions skyrocketed to near record highs from 2011, pointing to at the very least, "transitory" hyper-inflation ahead."  [Video clip] [...] While the Fed has bet what little credibility it has left on the benign meaning of "transitory" in setting its monetary policy (no rate hikes until 2023 by which point inflation will be in the double digits) and today's UMichigan commentary echoed the Fed's cheerful sentiment, predicting that soaring inflation won't last long, with Consumer Survey economist Richard Curtin writing that "year-ahead inflation expectations fall slightly to 4.2% in June from May's decade peak of 4.6%, [as] consumers believed that the price surges will mostly be temporary", one of the most respected Bank of America strategists just crashed the "transitory" party, and in a note published today, BofA Chief Investment Strategist Michael Hartnett wrote that, far from transitory, soaring US prices may last up to 4 years.

Groundbreaking decision:  Texas Supreme Court rules against Facebook in teen sex trafficking lawsuits.  The Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday [6/26/2021] that Facebook can be held liable for sex traffickers who use the social media platform to recruit and prey on children.  The court ruled in favor of three Houston civil actions involving teenage sex trafficking victims.  All three victims said they met their traffickers through Facebook's messaging functions.

Trump-appointed judges obstruct Biden 'pen and phone' policies just months into term.  Judges appointed by former President Trump have stymied President Biden's policies on multiple fronts in the early months of the new administration, taking what experts say is a less "deferential" approach to executive power as judges appointed by past presidents.  "What you're seeing is that 'pen and phone' initiatives are running into legal trouble right off the bat," Ilya Shapiro, the vice president and director of the libertarian Cato Institute's Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, told Fox News.  "Trump appointed a lot of judges — more than anyone in one term than Jimmy Carter, for whom Congress created 152 new judgeships to fill — and these folks aren't as deferential to executive power as past Republican-appointed judges might have been."

Report finds UFOs may be security risk, have no 'single explanation'.  A long-awaited US government report on UFO sightings released Friday was largely inconclusive, describing the more than 140 strange objects seen by military personnel across the nation as a threat to flight safety and possibly national security, but adding that there was no "single explanation" for their appearance.  The nine-page public report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said the lack of "high-quality reporting ... hampers our ability to draw firm conclusions about the nature or intent" of the unidentified objects, but concluded they were likely physical in nature since they were picked up on radar and other sensors.

The Editor says...
The more you hear about UFOs in the news, the closer you need to look for important developments that the news media is covering up.  The UFO stories are just a diversion.

Pentagon: The UFOs are real and they're spectacular.  After six months of anticipation, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released its unclassified report on the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force's assessment of UFOs seen in and around restricted airspace and military facilities.  (You can download and read the report here.  It's only nine pages, some of which is just boilerplate.)  A second, classified report which is believed to be much longer and containing far "juicier" material was also delivered to Congress.  The White House has also been briefed on the report. [...] So, assuming you're convinced that the government is telling the truth about all of this (a big assumption, I know), we've learned that the UFOs are real.  They're not ours and they're almost certainly not the property of one of our adversaries.  And some of them do things that they just shouldn't be able to do based on our understanding of the laws of physics.

UFO report:  US 'has no explanation' for sightings.  The US government has said it has no explanation for dozens of unidentified flying objects seen by military pilots.  A Pentagon report released on Friday says of 144 reports made about the phenomena since 2004, all but one remain unexplained.  It does not rule out the possibility that the objects are extra-terrestrial.  Congress demanded the report after the US military reported numerous instance of objects seen moving erratically in the sky.  The Pentagon then established the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force last August to look into the reports.

FAA group urges move to gender-neutral terms, no more 'airman' or 'cockpit'.  A Federal Aviation Administration advisory group is urging the agency to replace words like "airman" and "cockpit" with gender-neutral terms like "aviator" and "flight deck."  The FAA's Drone Advisory Committee put forth the recommendations in a report released Wednesday [6/23/2021], part of a broader push for equity in the agency and aviation industry.  "Research shows that the utilization of gender-neutral language can lead to a more inclusive environment that draws more people to the industry and helps keep them there," the report states.  The committee offered several alternatives for terms commonly used in the industry, such as using "manufactured" or "fabricated" instead of "man-made."

Technocrats Want Us to Pray to Machines.  Last April, as Covid restrictions were being lifted, Robert Jones at PRRI discovered Facebook had quietly rolled out a "prayer posting" feature for its religious users.  As Gizmodo reported on June 3, the platform now provides a "pray" button to click whenever a prayer request is posted to a faith-based group.  It's analogous to the vapid "like" icon, except the "pray" button is supposedly directed heavenward. [...] A Facebook spokesperson explained, "During the COVID-19 pandemic we've seen many faith and spirituality communities using our services to connect, so we're starting to explore new tools to support them."  A more accurate statement would be "We're exploring new tools to probe and manipulate our users."

How the Mormon Church Beat Bill Gates in a Battle Over Farmland.  On Friday [6/18/2021], a showdown between two of the largest agricultural landowners in the United States — the Church of Latter-Day Saints and Bill Gates' wealth management firm — came to a head when the Mormons beat out the mogul on a bid for 12,000 acres of Eastern Washington farmland that was once at the center of a $244 million "ghost cattle" fraud locals have dubbed "Cattlegate."  The land in question lies on the mighty Columbia River, the fourth-largest river in the United States and one central to the region's culture and economy for thousands of years:  fishing, transportation, and power generation are essential uses to this day.  The Columbia also provides agricultural landowners an important and dwindling asset:  water rights, and for those with anxiety over the coming climate crisis, access to a seemingly infinite supply of fresh water is worth fighting for.

New Polling Shows Majority of Americans Know Exactly Why Inflation Is Rising.  Inflation is on the run at rates the United States hasn't seen since 1992, and consumer prices in May 2021 were up five percent over May 2020.  Americans are paying attention as they experience price surges on basic and essential goods.  [Tweets]  Now, new polling from Echelon Insights shows the federal government is being held responsible for the problem as politicians in Washington, D.C., keep printing money for excessive spending.  [More tweets]

Collapsed Florida condo was sinking for decades, researcher says.  The Florida apartment building that partially collapsed on Thursday had been reportedly sinking for decades — and was undergoing a structural inspection, according to officials and a research study.  The 12-story beachfront condo in Miami-Dade County was built in 1981 — and had been sinking into the ground since the 1990s, according to a 2020 study conducted by Shimon Wdowinski, a professor at Florida International University. [...] Wdowinski's research focused on which parts of Miami were sinking, in an effort to determine what areas could be most impacted by sea-level rise and coastal flooding.

New York Supreme Court Suspends Rudy Giuliani's Law License.  [Scroll down]  Giuliani, who was admitted to the New York state bar in 1969, previously had a prominent legal career, having worked in the Department of Justice during the 1980s.  He was named as U.S. Attorney in Manhattan in 1983.  Years later, he was elected mayor of New York and served in that capacity for eight years.  Giuliani rose to national prominence for his leadership during and after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks targeting the World Trade Center in Manhattan.  Aside from the state Supreme Court's ruling, Giuliani also could face a potential criminal investigation, after a federal judge appointed a special watchdog to review material that was recently seized from him.  The watchdog, former federal Judge Barbara Jones, will determine what electronic files can be seen by prosecutors and what material should be exempt.

Florida Makes Sure Schools Teach Evils of Communism, Totalitarianism.  Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, recently signed legislation prohibiting critical race theory from being taught in the state's schools.  DeSantis followed Tuesday by signing into law three bills that further address education.  One of the new laws will create a survey to provide a look at viewpoint diversity on Florida's college campuses, as well as add protections for students' free speech.  Another requires that applicants pass a civics test to enter Florida's public universities.  The third bill will require public K-12 schools to teach students about communism, totalitarianism, and other political systems that "conflict with the principles of freedom and democracy essential to the founding principles of the United States."  At a press conference Tuesday [6/22/2021] after signing the bills, DeSantis explained why it's so important that citizens not only learn about civics but also the evils of truly oppressive regimes.

Satanists, Planned Parenthood and More: 216 Crazy AmazonSmile Charities.  From Planned Parenthood to Satanism, AmazonSmile encourages shoppers to donate to some extreme charities — at least 216 different groups.  But multiple prominent conservative groups aren't even allowed to participate.  Amazon, which is on track to be America's largest retailer next year, launched its charity program AmazonSmile in 2013.  The company has banned multiple conservative organizations since then, because it relies on the anti-conservative Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to decide what groups qualify for the program.  WORLD News Group reported in 2020 that "Liberty Counsel, Family Research Council (FRC) and the American College of Pediatricians" are not allowed on Amazon Smile.  Alliance Defending Freedom was reportedly removed from the site as well.  Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood, Black Lives Matter, and The Satanic Temple are all free to collect donations from the program.

DeSantis Signs Bill Requiring High School Students Learn 'Evils Of Communism And Totalitarian Ideologies'.  Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill on Tuesday requiring high school students to learn about the evils of communist ideologies.  During a press conference at Three Oaks Middle School in Fort Myers, Florida, DeSantis signed three education bills designed to foster civic literacy in schools.  "It's crucial to ensure that we teach our students how to be responsible citizens," DeSantis said during the press conference.  "They need to have a good working knowledge of American history, American government and the principles that underline our Constitution and Bill of Rights."

Curtis Sliwa cruises to easy win over Mateo in Republican primary for NYC mayor.  Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa cruised to a big victory as the Republican nominee for mayor, handily defeating rival Fernando Mateo following a feisty and entertaining primary fight, according to Board of Election returns released Tuesday night [6/22/2021].  "Curtis won and we want to unite the Republican Party and we hope Fernando Mateo will join us," Sliwa senior campaign adviser Rob Cole told the [New York] Post.  It was a rout.  Sliwa captured 68.8 percent or 34,758 of the Republican votes to 27 percent or 13,655 votes for Mateo, a restaurateur who advocates for bodega owners and taxi drivers.  More than 95 percent of the precincts were reporting.

It's Beginning to Look Like Enemy Action.  Dong Jingwei is a Chinese defector working with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).  He served as Vice Minister of State Security in the Chinese Ministry of Defense.  Before defecting, he was responsible for the counterintelligence efforts in China.  He was in a position to know about all things "espionage" in China and is perhaps the highest-level Chinese defector the U.S. has ever had.  Even though the legacy media is playing it down, this is a big deal.  It speaks volumes that the man who knows the identity of all the Chinese spies in our country chose to defect to the DIA and only the DIA.  Further, it's reported that the DIA is not sharing the information it's receiving with the FBI or CIA.  Now why would that be?

Video Allegedly Shows That There Are Currently No Flags Flying At The Pentagon.  At the beginning of the month, the Pentagon confirmed that they will not allow rainbow pride flags to fly at military facilities in celebration of Pride Month.  That fell in line with the Pentagon's 2020 decision to permit only certain flags at Department of Defense installations.  Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told reporters the DOD chose not to make an exception to the existing flag policy after careful consideration.  Along with the American flag, the current policy implemented under the Trump administration authorizes flags representing states and U.S. territories, military services, prisoners of war and missing in action, national flags of U.S. allies and a handful of others.  But a video that surfaced on Telegram this morning shows that there are no U.S. flags either.

eBay Bans Dr. Seuss, Allows Hezbollah.  Words and images that offend someone are just like violence.  At least that's the modern safetyism argument.  But the symbols of an Islamic terrorist organization are the symbol of someone else's freedom fighter.  eBay is very careful to keep the marketplace safe from things that might offend crybullies. [...] There's no room for And To Think I Saw It On Mulberry Street on eBay.  Hezbollah though is another matter, [...]

Biden Breaks the Record on Wealth Transfers: $4.9 Trillion.  The Democrats' new favorite term is "human infrastructure," which pretty much means anything they want to spend money on.  That raises the question:  Just how much does the government spend on "human infrastructure" today?  Turns out, it's an eye-popping $4.9 trillion this year alone — a new record.  Buried in President Joe Biden's 2022 budget is a document called Historical Tables, which breaks down annual federal revenues and spending in a variety of ways.  One of the tables in this document tracks what the government calls "direct payments to individuals."  These payments, mind you, don't count salaries paid to federal employees or the cost of buying equipment.  It's just what the name states — direct money transfers.

The Editor says...
This is the kind of information that was once published in the Statistical Abstract of the United States, before Barack H. Obama terminated the collection of this data in 2011, because it was starting to make him look bad.

US Navy Releases INSANE Footage Of The Detonation Of A 40k Pound Bomb That Caused A 3.4 Mag Earthquake In Florida.  The US Navy has released a jaw-dropping video that shows the moment a bomb exploded in the middle of the ocean, triggering an earthquake 100 miles away.  The footage shows the 40,000 lb bomb exploding in "full ship shock trials" where they are testing the effects such a device has on Navy ships.  The explosion caused a 3.9 magnitude earthquake roughly 100 miles away in Daytona Beach, Florida, a phenomenon that is not unusual during such trials.  [Video clip]

Abbott defunds the entire Texas state legislature.  Governor Abbott threatened to defund the Texas Legislature after Texas Democrats walked out of the legislative session rather than take a vote on election reform laws.  When they broke quorum and shut down the session, Abbott said that if legislators weren't going to do their jobs, they shouldn't be paid.  Friday [6/18/2021] Abbott made good on that threat.

A star is born:
Guy does a Perfect impression of a "Trump GPS".  [Video clip]  I would pay to have this impression installed on my GPS or Google/Apple Maps.  At the very least, I need this guy to make more of these vids to save the internet.

Outrage Erupts After Israeli Food Truck Uninvited from Philadelphia Event.  A food truck festival planned for Philadelphia's Kensington neighborhood was cancelled Sunday [6/20/2021] after outrage when a Israeli food truck was uninvited to the event.  The Israeli food truck, Moshava Philly, said in an Instagram post that they were asked not to come to Sunday's "The Taste of Home" event after organizers, Eat Up the Borders and Sunflower Philly, heard there could be protests over its inclusion.  "We were really hoping that the organizers ... would step up to the plate and defend local, small and immigrant based businesses, no matter where they are from ... but by the looks of it fear, violence, and intimidation got the best of them," one Instagram post read.

The Editor says...
[#1] If an meeting, a gathering, or a ceremony is planned, certain parties may be invited.  When someone was invited originally, but the invitation is subsequently withdrawn, that person is said to be disinvited.  If they show up anyway, or they were never welcome in the first place, they arrive uninvited.  [#2] The event had to be canceled because the organizers couldn't bear the presence of one particular vendor.  One might easily presume that these organizers are some of the same people who constantly tout diversity and inclusion.

That high level Chinese defector's 'embarrassing and damaging information about our intelligence community'.  The defector's name is Dong Jingwei and he's the vice minister of State Security.  He knows where all the bodies are buried, both in China and, I'm sorry to say, in America.  According to Spy Talk, Dong "was responsible for the Ministry's counterintelligence efforts in China, i.e., spy-catching, since being promoted to vice minister in April 2018."  Spy Talk also reports that China demanded Dong's return, but Blinken said no.  Interestingly, the weak, woke Blinken didn't say "no" as a matter of principle.  Instead, he took a stand only because the DIA hadn't told the administration about Dong's existence.  That tells you about how little the DIA trusts the Biden administration.

8 Million Face Foreclosure or Eviction Beginning July 1 — Economic Recovery Is About to Crash.  This issue has been lurking in the background for months.  Where I live, there are almost no homes on the market for rent.  The inventory of the number of homes for sale is at record lows, and when combined with historically low home mortgage rates, the prices at which homes are selling have gone through the roof.  There are no homes for rent because landlords have been unable to evict tenants for non-payment of rent for a year or more, depending on where you live.  The federal government — based on dubious legal authority — imposed an eviction "moratorium" during the pandemic, allowing renters to stop paying their rent safe in the knowledge that their landlords couldn't do anything about it.

NYC prosecutor working remote from Oklahoma refuses to come back.  A veteran Brooklyn prosecutor has been working remotely in Oklahoma amid the court system's coronavirus closure — and was told to resign because she refuses to return to New York, The [New York] Post has learned.  Senior Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Nasar relocated to the Sooner State after her husband, former Manhattan prosecutor David Nasar, landed a job with the US Attorney's Office in Tulsa last year.  In late October, the couple bought a newly built, $413,000 house in suburban Jenks, official online property records show.

Many Companies Want Remote Workers — Except From Colorado.  Big companies are hiring for remote positions that can be performed in any state across the U.S. except one:  Colorado.  At issue is a new Colorado law that requires companies with even a few employees in the state to disclose the expected salary or pay range for each open role they advertise, including remote positions.  The rule's aim is to narrow gender wage gaps and provide greater pay transparency for employees.  To avoid having to disclose that information, though, some employers seeking remote workers nationwide are saying that those living in Colorado need not apply.

Petition to Remove Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.  No institution in America — from government offices to schoolrooms to corporate boardrooms and beyond — is safe today from the divisive racism of Critical Race Theory and the "1619 Project," both of which posit that United States history is rooted in slavery and white supremacy, and that "whiteness" is an incurable disease.  The institution whose subversion poses the greatest threat to our national security is the U.S. military, whose head is Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.  General Austin is a determined advocate of these repulsive anti-American views.  As Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin has incorporated both Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project as core elements of the Pentagon's military training programs, under the guise of "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion."  He has further ordered a purging of the military ranks of what he calls "extremists," defined as opponents of these noxious views and supporters of former president Donald Trump.  The consequence of dividing our troops by race and gender, and regarding one community of Americans as oppressors and beneficiaries of race and gender-based privileges is a direct threat to unit cohesion and military morale, the core elements of an effective military force.

Most of them weren't going to accomplish anything on Friday anyway.  Might as well pay them to stay home.
Federal workers get surprise Friday off thanks to new Juneteenth holiday.  The White House announced Thursday [6/17/2021] that most federal workers will have Friday off due to the new Juneteenth federal holiday, which President Biden will sign into law Thursday afternoon.  White House chief of staff Ron Klain announced the surprise three-day weekend on Twitter.  "Today [Biden] will sign the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, establishing June 19th as a federal holiday.  As the 19th falls on a Saturday, most federal employees will observe the holiday tomorrow, June 18th," Klain tweeted.

Major Australian Banks, US Airlines Hit by Widespread Internet Outages.  Websites of dozens of financial institutions and airlines in Australia and the United States were briefly hit by an internet outage on Thursday, after a second major blackout in little more than a week.  The Australian outage, which also affected the country's central bank, was caused by glitches on the servers of Akamai, an operator of content delivery network (CDN) services used in speeding up the delivery of data-heavy content, videos and games to web pages.  The impacted platform is now up and running, an Akamai spokesperson said, adding that the company was "continuing to validate services".  Akamai, one of the largest providers of CDN services, competes with Fastly, Cloudera and Amazon's AWS.

"Omission of any rational basis": Federal judge strikes down Biden oil-lease ban.  It's "a blow to climate change activists," CBS News helpfully explains in its headline.  According to federal judge Terry Doughty, it's a blow for the rule of law.  Doughty issued a restraining order blocking Joe Biden's executive order suspending the issuance of gas and oil leases, an order that applies nationwide, ruling that Biden failed to follow the law in imposing this policy.  The problem is not just the rule of law, Doughty ruled, but also the lack of any rational basis for the decision: [...] Twelve states had joined Louisiana in challenging Biden's EO.  Doughty ruled that they had "reliance interests" on federal law that could run into billions of dollars of lost revenue for their economies.  Presidents can't just arbitrarily upend legal access to public lands, regardless of the purpose, especially given the stakes involved, Doughty ruled.

Louisiana federal judge rules that Biden ban on new oil leases must be lifted.  A Louisiana federal judge ruled the ban on new oil leases on U.S. lands and waters put in place by President Joe Biden's administration must be lifted nationwide.  Judge Terry Doughty of the Western District Court of Louisiana on Tuesday sided with 13 conservative states, including Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, in saying the pause on drilling should be lifted.  President Joe Biden halted lease sales on federal lands and waters with an executive order in January.  Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and West Virginia joined Louisiana in the suit.

Texans Are Getting Blackout Warnings in June.  Why?  Texans have been unpleasantly surprised with blackout and usage warnings from ERCOT this week.  That's the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which was no one's friend during the great freeze back in February.  Its rolling blackouts left Texans alternately freezing and fuming but not quite enough of the latter to keep our homes warm. [...] Now it's June, which we know will be hot, but we also know we're not yet at the peak of a Texas summer.  It's hitting the low 90s now.  It will top 100 in July and August.  This is an immutable fact of life, at least where I am in central Texas.  It's Texas.  It gets hot.  Hopefully, it'll at least burn up the mosquitoes outside.  But we need A/C inside or we'll all be living in saunas.

2 Nevada Counties Go 'Constitutional'.  Elected commissioners in two Nevada counties declared that the Bill of Rights will be upheld in their jurisdictions, even if it means standing against unconstitutional acts by state and federal authorities.  According to a resolution approved in Elko County on June 2, abuse of the constitutionally protected rights of citizens in Elko and Lander counties will be "dealt with as criminal activity."  Officials in Lander County approved a similar effort.  Under the leadership of constitutionally minded sheriffs and elected commissioners, the two rural counties in Nevada decided to become "constitutional counties" where the rights of citizens will be protected from all attacks.  That means local authorities intend to uphold the entire Bill of Rights in those jurisdictions, and that even federal and state officials must comply with the U.S. Constitution there, they said.

Germany and Italy Block G7 Condemnation of Chinese Slave Labour.  German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, along with EU leaders have reportedly blocked efforts by the G7 to issue a joint statement condemning alleged forced slave labour in the Chinese province of Xinjiang.  EU officials have reportedly expressed the opinion that the West should focus on corporation with China instead of adversarial elements.  Meanwhile, the United States along with Japan, Canada, the UK, and France supported the effort to call out the alleged slave labour.  France was the only EU member-state in the block that did not side with the EU on the issue.  EU leaders Ursula von der Leyen (herself a former German cabinet member) and Charles Michel (of Belgium) led the effort to oppose the measure.  The final version of the G7 communiqué read:  "we are concerned about the use of all forms of forced labour in global supply chains, including state-sponsored forced labor of vulnerable groups and minorities, including in the agricultural, solar, and garment sectors," with no mention of China in particular.

Try This One Weird Trick Russian Hackers Hate.  Possibly feeling the heat from being referenced in President Biden's Executive Order on cybersecurity this past week, the DarkSide group sought to distance itself from their attack against Colonial Pipeline.  In a message posted to its victim shaming blog, DarkSide tried to say it was "apolitical" and that it didn't wish to participate in geopolitics.  "Our goal is to make money, and not creating problems for society," the DarkSide criminals wrote last week.  "From today we introduce moderation and check each company that our partners want to encrypt to avoid social consequences in the future."  But here's the thing:  Digital extortion gangs like DarkSide take great care to make their entire platforms geopolitical, because their malware is engineered to work only in certain parts of the world.  DarkSide, like a great many other malware strains, has a hard-coded do-not-install list of countries which are the principal members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) — former Soviet satellites that mostly have favorable relations with the Kremlin.

Apple, Amazon, Nike, [are] criticized for using Chinese forced labor.  American companies, including Amazon.com, Apple and Nike, came under fire by a U.S. Senator on Thursday [6/10/2021] for disregarding forced labour allegations in China and making American consumers complicit in Beijing's alleged repressive policies.  Speaking at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on China's crackdown on Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang region, Republican Senator Marco Rubio accused many U.S. companies of "profiting" from the Chinese government's abuses.  "For far too long, companies like Nike and Apple and Amazon and Coca-Cola were using forced labor.  They were benefiting from forced labor or sourcing from suppliers that were suspected of using forced labor," Rubio said.  "These companies, sadly, were making all of us complicit in these crimes."

Arizona Reverting to the Wild West as Cattle Rustling [is] Allowed to Thrive.  Arizona used to have some of the best livestock laws in the nation.  Now, the cattle ranching industry is being torn apart due to a dismantling of the successful laws and regulations that used to prevent cattle theft.  Close to 3,000 head of cattle have been stolen from at least 32 people in the last few years.  Thieves brazenly stole over 100 cows with calves from well-known attorney and judge Tom Kelly in Yavapai County.  Cowboys who once made a good living raising and selling cattle are finding substantial portions of their herds decimated, and when they complain to authorities, no one is ever arrested.  Instead, they get attacked and the investigations go nowhere.  Although Arizona is mostly a red state, it has an extensive history of corruption in government.  Powerful players including RINOs control many elected officials.  Under Governor Doug Ducey, a lot of corruption has been ignored and swept under the rug, making conservatives and honest people furious with him.  Cattle ranchers say there are important people in Phoenix behind the cattle rustling.

Man, 69, who continued to receive food stamps after $2 million lottery win is found dead in Michigan river.  A Michigan man who made headlines after he continued to collect food stamps despite winning the lottery has been found dead in a river.  Police recovered the body of 69-year-old Leroy Fick from the Tittabawassee River on June 5.  While the Midland Police Department has not publicly disclosed Fick's cause of death, they said the circumstances surrounding the 69-year-old's death do not appear to be suspicious, Mlive.com reported.

Organs on Demand:  China's Transplant Industry.  For years, China's organ transplant industry has been matching patients with organs at speeds unimaginable in the West — in some cases, producing four hearts in 10 days, or two livers in just 24 hours.  Damon Noto, spokesman for Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting, said:  "So how are they able to have this 'on-demand' transplant system that's capable of extremely short times?  The only way they can be doing this is if they have another source of living donors that are available on demand."  "So they become anonymous prisoners of conscience, and that makes them extremely vulnerable because they can disappear at any time without a trace," said Torsen Trey, executive director of Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting.

Pentagon whistleblowers:  Troops segregated for 'privilege walks,' critical-race theory reading lists.  Sen. Tom Cotton revealed several whistleblower complaints from service members who objected to critical-race theory indoctrination in the military, including airmen being divide race into groups for "privilege walks."  The service members also spoke out against receiving reading lists of critical race theory books as part of the Pentagon's new anti-extremism and diversity training within the ranks.  Mr. Cotton, Arkansas Republican, received the complaints after launching a whistleblower site in late May in partnership with Rep. Dan Crenshaw, Texas Republican.

Tom Cotton asks Lloyd Austin if military is a 'fundamentally racist organization'.  Sen. Tom Cotton and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had a heated exchange during a hearing this week over the military going "woke" through Defense Department efforts to address "extremism" within its ranks, with the senator asking bluntly if the United States military is a "fundamentally racist organization."  The intense back-and-forth occurred while Austin was testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday [6/10/2021].  The Arkansas Republican, who recently set up a whistleblower campaign for members of the armed forces to expose extremist training programs, began by noting that his office had received "hundreds" of complaints thus far.

GOP Rep. Byron Donalds says Congressional Black Caucus keeping him out.  A black GOP lawmaker in the House of Representatives says the Congressional Black Caucus has declined his efforts to become a member.  In a statement to The [New York] Post on Thursday [6/10/2021], Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) expressed his disappointment about being excluded from the CBC, which inducted other freshman lawmakers into the group six months ago.  "The Congressional Black Caucus has a stated commitment to ensuring Black Americans have the opportunity to achieve the American Dream," the 42-year-old lawmaker, who represents the Naples area, began.  "As a newly elected Black Member of Congress, my political party should not exempt me from a seat at the table dedicated to achieving this goal.  As a young Black man who grew up in the inner city of Brooklyn in a single-parent household, my achieving of the American Dream would be a valued addition to the CBC and one that should transcend politics."

Cotton presses defense secretary on 'anti-American indoctrination' as Austin defends diversity push.  Sen. Tom Cotton told Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin his office has received "hundreds" of whistleblower complaints about the military's new diversity and inclusion training, which he says amounts to "anti-American indoctrination."  Cotton, R-Ark., has aggressively fought back against such training.  In March, he introduced legislation to ban critical race theory training from the military.  He and Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, set up a website for whistleblower complaints to be directed to them earlier this month.  Cotton said he'd seen reports of "plummeting morale, growing mistrust between races and sexes where none existed just six months ago and unexpected retirements and separations based on these trainings alone."

Here We Go Again:  JBS "Paid" "Russian" "Hackers" $11 Million In Bitcoin To Resolve "Ransomware" Attack.  There was a moment of sheer hilarity earlier today [6/10/2021] when, during a Congressional Hearing, the CEO of Colonial Pipeline Joseph Blount took the merely farcical episode of the Colonial Pipeline ransomware hack — when, as a reminder, a ragtag band of elite "Russian" hackers somehow managed to penetrate the company's cyberdefenses but was so stupid it left most if not all of the $4.4 million bitcoins it demanded in ransom in an easily traceable address for the FBI to track down and magically confiscate (it is still unclear how the Feds got the private key to access the "hackers" digital wallet) in days if not hours — and elevated it to a level of sheer ridiculous absurdity when he told Congress that he didn't consult the FBI before paying the ransom.  This, pardon the parlance of our times, is [nonsense]:  either the CEO is lying or, worse, he is telling the truth and as some have speculated, he, the FBI and the "hackers" are all in on this so-called ransomware breach...

Suspect Identified After Posting Pic of His Hand Holding Cheese.  In 2019, I told audiences at a few conferences that we would eventually see persons identified via their fingerprints without them having touched anything, or even having been at a specific physical location.  At the time I acknowledged that some would marvel at the ingenuity while others would cringe at the privacy implications.  A man in the U.K. who shared a photo of his hand holding a block of cheese was sentenced to over 13 years in prison when police used the image to link his fingerprints to a criminal investigation.

A rogue killer drone 'hunted down' a human target without being instructed to, UN report says.  A "lethal" weaponized drone "hunted down a human target" without being told to, likely for the first time, according to a UN report seen by the New Scientist.  In the March 2020 incident, a Kargu-2 quadcopter autonomously attacked a person during a conflict between Libyan government forces and a breakaway military faction, led by the Libyan National Army's Khalifa Haftar, the Daily Star reported.  The Turkish-built Kargu-2, a deadly attack drone designed for asymmetric warfare and anti-terrorist operations, targeted one of Haftar's soldiers while he tried to retreat, according to the paper.

Scientists discover potentially dangerous metals in brains of Alzheimer's patients.  Scientists have discovered particles of copper and iron in the brains of deceased Alzheimer's patients, a discovery that could lead to new treatments for the disease.  In an article in the journal Science Advances, researchers from Keele University and the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom found traces of the elemental forms of copper and iron in amyloid plaque, proteins that form in the brains of Alzheimer's patients.  Copper and iron are found naturally in the human body but are usually in an oxidized form.  In an elemental form, the metals can produce unstable atoms, which are harmful to the brain.

U.S. recovers $2.3 million in ransom paid to Colonial Pipeline hackers.  The federal government has recovered millions of dollars in cryptocurrency paid in ransom to cybercriminals whose attack prompted the shutdown of the country's largest fuel pipeline and gas shortages across the southeastern U.S. last month, the Department of Justice announced Monday [6/7/2021].  On May 8, Colonial Pipeline paid a ransom worth roughly $4.3 million in bitcoin to the Russia-based hacking group known as DarkSide, which had used malicious software to hold the company hostage.  Colonial Pipeline CEO Joseph Blount told The Wall Street Journal that the company paid the pricey ransom because the company feared a prolonged shutdown and did not know how long it would take to restore operations.

DOJ Says it Seized $2.3 Million in Bitcoin from Colonial Pipeline Hackers.  Sketchy doesn't begin to describe this DOJ narrative.  According to their press release the DOJ seized 63.7 Bitcoin (digital currency) through accessing a server in North Carolina used to enter the Bitcoin wallet password of the original hackers.  However, the DOJ still claims the "hackers" were sophisticated Russian operatives.  Meaning the "Russian Hackers" were so sophisticated they could hack a major gas pipeline, but not sophisticated enough to protect their wallet and hosted it online on a US based server? [...] Doesn't this seem like either the private key wasn't private, or the FBI was the original hacker of the pipeline?

Energy secretary says enemies are capable of shutting down US power grid.  Adversaries to the US are capable of shutting down the nation's electrical grid, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm admitted Sunday, saying that such cybersecurity attacks are "happening all the time."  Granholm warned of the system's vulnerabilities — amid an uptick of ransomware sieges — on CNN's "State of the Union."  "Yeah, they do," Granholm told host Jake Tapper when asked if foreign actors have the ability to make the power grid go dark.  "There are very malign actors who are trying, even as we speak," she explained.  "There are thousands of attacks on all aspects of the energy sector and the private sector generally."

Energy secretary says US adversaries [are] capable of shutting down the nation's power grid.  Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm warned that United States's adversaries have the potential to tamper with the country's power grid.  Granholm confirmed the threat after being asked if adversaries have the capabilities to shut down the power grid, during an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on Sunday [6/6/2021].  "Yeah, they do.  I think that there are very malign actors who are trying.  Even as we speak, there are thousands of attacks on all aspects of the energy sector and the private sector generally," the secretary said.

The Editor says...
I suspect the issue of hacking threats to the power grid is a red herring, injected into the news media to give the talking heads something to talk about other than inflation, uncontrolled illegal immigration, the stolen 2020 election, Hunter Biden and his laptop, the torrent of lies about Coronavirus, and the murder of Ashli Babbitt by a cop who still hasn't been named five months after her death.  UFO stories are being put out for the same reason.

Bush nonprofit agreed to take $5 million from Chinese Communist Party-connected group: report.  The George H.W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations agreed to accept $5 million from a group with ties to the Chinese Communist Party and China's international propaganda efforts, according to a report Saturday [6/5/2021].  The group, which was founded by Neil Bush, a brother to former President George W. Bush and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, goes by the name Bush China Foundation for short.  Its goal, according to its website, is to build "a constructive relationship" between the U.S. and China.  But a written agreement published by Axios reveals that the Bush China Foundation agreed in 2019 to accept $5 million over five years from the China-United States Exchange Foundation, an organization that's been criticized as a key part of China's international propaganda efforts.

Government's UFO report cannot explain aerial phenomena.  The US intelligence community has not found evidence that unexplained aerial phenomena seen by Navy pilots are from outer space, but they can't rule out the possibility or explain the mysterious vehicles, said officials who viewed a classified version of a report to Congress detailing everything the government knows about UFOs.  The report said most of the more than 120 UFO incidents examined over the past two decades were not the work of the US military or government, officials said, according to the New York Times.  The explanation means that the military eyewitnesses who encountered UFOs on an almost "daily basis" off the coast of California in 2017, and shot footage that was verified by defense officials, were not seeing programs the US meant to keep secret.

The Editor says...
Suppose the UFO stories are true.  Suppose there are manned spacecraft from some other civilization.  What then?  If the visitors were here to take over, they would have done so already.  If their technology is so far advanced that it's almost unimaginable, resistance is probably futile.  This sounds like a red herring that is being placed in the news media to distract from the socialist coup and imminent upheaval.

SD Gov. Noem Slams Biden Admin Decision To Close Mt. Rushmore For Fourth of July.  Thursday [6/3/2021], Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) spoke about the Biden administration's decision to close Mount Rushmore for the Fourth of July festivities, a contrast to a year earlier when then-President Donald Trump spoke before a fireworks display.  The South Dakota Republican slammed the move, claiming it was part of the "radical left's agenda."  "You know, the decision was really arbitrary," she said.  "That's why we'll be appealing this decision, and the fight isn't over. [...]"

Fed's Beige Book Freaks Out Over Unprecedented Nationwide Shortages Of Everything.  With the economy overheating, it will hardly come as a surprise that the latest Fed Beige Book — which found that the economy expanded at what the Fed absurdly called a "moderate pace" from early April to late May, at least clarifying that this was a "somewhat faster" rate than the prior reporting period — one of the top concerns was soaring costs, but nothing spooked the various Fed districts quite as much as what appears to be a shortage of everything, with district after district complaining about broken supply chains, a lack of workers, and critical commodities that just can't be procured, all resulting in sharply higher prices, slower delivery times and all around chaos.

Really?  It's a nice gesture, but is Pepsi any less active politically?
North Carolina county bans Coca-Cola machines over 'left-wing' politics.  Coke is too "woke" for one North Carolina county's government.  Surry County has voted to ban all Coca-Cola vending machines in its office buildings over backlash to the Atlanta-based soft drink maker's criticism of new restrictive Georgia voting laws.  "The left wing in America, they defund, they boycott, they cancel, they tear down statues — all sorts of egregious actions," Eddie Harris, a county commissioner, told WXII in a video interview.  "The expectation from them is the opposing political side will cower in the corner and we're supposed to accept that and it's supposed to be OK.  And it's not OK."

The Senate Parliamentarian Just Ripped the Heart out of the Democrat Agenda.  While the Democrats have high, if not delusional hopes of fundamentally changing every aspect of American life, from federal voting dictates to essentially outlawing sub-contracting, the actual rules of the Senate have stood in their way.  The filibuster, which Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema (among others who are laying low) have pledged to not touch, means that Chuck Schumer and his merry band can't force through things on a simple 50-50 vote. [...] Reconciliation is a very narrow process, and the Byrd Rule requires that anything included in a reconciliation bill must deal with taxes and budgetary issues.  You also have stipulations about deficit offsets that must be taken into account.  You can not pass regularly legislative items under the guise of reconciliation.  Given that, this ruling essentially defeats HR1, the ProAct, and much of what is included in the current "infrastructure" bill.  Of course, none of those bills were likely getting support from Manchin anyway, but with reconciliation off the table to get this stuff passed, Schumer is now officially out of options.

Dems Can Only Sidestep GOP on One More Bill This Session, Senate Parliamentarian Rules.  The Senate parliamentarian issued a new ruling that would effectively allow Democrats to use automatic budget reconciliation just one more time this year to bypass Republicans to advance President Biden's progressive agenda.  Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled that a revision to the 2021 budget resolution cannot be automatically discharged from the Senate Budget Committee, according to The Hill.  This means that Democrats would need at least one Republican on the 11-11 panel to vote with them if they want to use reconciliation on more than one occasion before the legislative session ends in October.

Amazon's Sidewalk feature will share your internet connection.  Here's how to opt out.  Amazon is planning to automatically enroll owners of its devices in a program that would share a slice of their internet connection with neighbors.  Amazon confirmed in an email to USA TODAY that the program will launch on eligible Echo devices starting June 8.  Amazon Sidewalk is a low-bandwidth shared network the tech giant says will not only allow your devices to work better, but help locate lost items.  The network shares "a small portion of your internet bandwidth which is pooled together to provide these services to you and your neighbors," reads a description on Amazon's website.  "And when more neighbors participate, the network becomes even stronger," it claims.

US Army soldiers mistakenly raid Bulgarian olive oil factory during NATO exercise.  A team of U.S. Army soldiers mistakenly raided a factory in Bulgaria that manufactures equipment used in olive oil production during a NATO training exercise in the region, Fox News has confirmed.  Ken McGraw, the public affairs office for U.S. Special Operations Command, told Fox News on Tuesday [6/1/2021] that an initial report about the raid was incorrect.  "The unit that raided the factory was the 173rd Airborne Brigade, which is stationed in Vicenza, Italy," he said.  "U.S. Special Operations Forces were not involved in this incident in any way."

Employees Are Quitting Instead of Giving Up Working From Home.  A six-minute meeting drove Portia Twidt to quit her job.  She'd taken the position as a research compliance specialist in February, enticed by promises of remote work.  Then came the prodding to go into the office.  Meeting invites piled up.  The final straw came a few weeks ago:  the request for an in-person gathering, scheduled for all of 360 seconds.  Twidt got dressed, dropped her two kids at daycare, drove to the office, had the brief chat and decided she was done.

The Democrat Flint Witch Hunt is a Creepy Totalitarian Star Chamber.  The extreme ways that leftists have weaponized the justice system leading to show trials, star chambers, abuses of the law, and a blatant disregard of the evidence is an evolving totalitarian nightmare.  The federal system is already notorious for these things, but the Flint water case, already highly dubious, is starting to make the Feds look good.  The target is former Governor Rick Snyder and associates so it's already political as hell.  But the prosecution isn't acting like it has a case.  Instead, it's acting like it's operating in a police state and is doing everything it can to avoid any kind of open process. [...] The media has blown up the case, but some of the most basic facts about it are still being kept in a locked cabinet.  We've seen this pattern before with Democrats aggressively targeting Republicans, destroying their reputations, only for it to turn out that there was no actual criminal case here.

GOP Bill Aims to Ban Black Lives Matter, 'Political' Flags From Embassies.  Republican lawmakers have introduced a proposal that would prohibit U.S. embassies and consulates from flying "political" flags, such as those associated with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, after a number of diplomatic missions displayed the BLM flag on the anniversary of George Floyd's death.  Called the Stars and Stripes Act of 2021 (pdf), the measure was introduced by Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) and co-sponsored by a number of GOP members of Congress, including new Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.).  "Our beautiful American flag should fly over our U.S. embassies around the world — not the flag of a political organization founded by Marxists," Stefanik said in a statement, referring to the reported links between BLM founders and Marxism.

Why Inflation Matters.  Americans under 40 live with no memory of high or unpredictable inflation.  Thus, the generational divide over the new, rising risk of inflation, with younger Americans more complacent, is no surprise.  I don't remember the high-inflation days, but I still fear the prospect of their return — in part because I study economic history and because most of my research focuses on financing retirement, but mostly because whenever we count out a risk, it seems to come roaring back.  Policymakers and observers may be tempted to let the price level creep up to 4 percent yearly growth and see what happens, but inflation can quickly spiral out of control.  (The Federal Reserve currently targets an average inflation increase of 2 percent; inflation rose in April at a 4.2 percent yearly rate.)  If prices seem poised to increase, then people will demand higher wages.  They will then have more money to spend.  Businesses, paying higher labor costs, will produce fewer goods, pushing inflation higher.  Inflation makes the dollar less attractive as it depreciates; buying important goods becomes more expensive, too.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw and Sen. Tom Cotton launch new campaign urging military 'whistleblowers' to report 'woke' training programs.  Rep. Dan Crenshaw and Sen. Tom Cotton have launched a new initiative to prevent 'woke ideology' taking hold in the US military.  The Republican politicians announced their joint effort on Saturday [5/29/2021], sharing a 'whistleblower' form for military members to fill out should they encounter any far-left training materials.  Crenshaw wrote on Twitter Saturday:  'Enough is enough.  We won't let our military fall to woke ideology.  We have just launched a whistleblower webpage where you can submit your story.  Your complaint will be legally protected, and go to my office and @SenTomCotton'.

US Mint Delays Silver Shipments Due To "Global Silver Shortage".  Interest in silver is soaring (both for industrial use and financial investment), echoing 2013's crisis, as a recent report from the Silver Institute, silver demand for printed and flexible electronics is forecast to increase 54% over the next 10 years.  Demand for silver in this rapidly developing sector is forecast to come in at 48 million ounces this year.  By 2030, the demand is expected to surge to 615 million ounces.

Republican Lawmakers Demand Immediate Action From Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin After Bombshell Bishop Garrison Report.  A group of thirty Republican Congressmen led by Matt Rosendale of Montana are demanding action from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin after Revolver's recent reporting exposed the disturbing depths of woke ideology taking control of the highest echelons of the American military.  "The sole purpose of the United States Military is to protect American citizens, defend American national security interests, and to fight and win wars when necessary," the Congressmen say in a letter exclusively provided to Revolver News.  "We urge you to use your authority to take action to fight back against the creeping left-wing extremism in the U.S. military."

Canadian soldier who spoke at anti-lockdown rally, called COVID-19 vaccine a 'killer' charged with mutiny.  A member of the Canadian Armed Forces has been charged with mutiny for speaking out against the COVID-19 vaccine and urging colleagues not to help with vaccine distribution.  Officer Cadet Ladislas Kenderesi has been charged with one count of persuading another person to join in a mutiny and one count of behaving in a scandalous manner unbecoming of an officer, according to the Ottawa Citizen.  In December, Kenderesi was filmed at an anti-lockdown rally in Toronto, wearing his Canadian Forces uniform and a nametag.

There's more going on in Houston than just oil and traffic jams.  They also have commie spies!
Shuttered Chinese Houston consulate called 'major hub' for science and tech espionage worldwide.  The Chinese consulate in Houston, ordered closed by the Trump administration last year, was a "major hub" for Beijing's global science and technology collection efforts, according to a new study.  Georgetown University's Center for Security and Emerging Technology examined 642 "international technological cooperation opportunities" between 2015 and 2020 identified by Chinese diplomats and found the Houston post was the key hub for science and technology (S&T) collection globally.  U.S. critics say intellectual property theft and piracy have been key to China's drive to close the technology gap with the U.S. and the West.

Fusion GPS is losing the fight to keep its records secret.  In 2017, the owners of Alfa Bank (we'll call them Alfa Bank for the purposes of this article) sued Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson for their publication of false statements accusing Alfa Bank of "bribery, extortion, and interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election."  Now, the Alfa Bank is on offense.  They have filed a motion to compel, asking the Court to require Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson to produce nearly 500 critically important documents improperly withheld as privileged.  Fusion/Simpson have fought the production of the documents, arguing that they are subject to the "attorney-client privilege" and otherwise privileged and not subject to production.  These are weak legal arguments — and the attorneys for Alfa Bank recognize it.  First, Fusion/Simpson previously admitted the purpose of their work was political, and not for the purposes of any ongoing litigation.

Pennsylvania Rebukes Tom Wolf.  On May 18, Pennsylvania held its customarily scheduled municipal primary elections.  Following the example of previous municipal primary elections, Keystone State voters were faced with several statewide questions and ballot initiatives.  This year, these prompts included a new genre of questions:  those related to Gov. Tom Wolf's emergency powers.  Two questions specifically targeted Wolf's abuse of his emergency powers during the pandemic.  The results show Pennsylvania voters have fatigued from overreaching executive authority and they have chosen to strip Gov. Wolf of his emergency powers.  The first ballot question asked if voters felt that the state constitution should be amended to provide additional checks on the governor's emergency powers.  More specifically, by allowing the General Assembly the authority to terminate an emergency declaration, effectively removing Gov. Wolf as the sole decision-maker when it comes to emergency declarations.  Currently, under the Pennsylvania Constitution, any action by commonwealth agencies to address statewide emergencies requires the governor's approval.

Trump says he has done 'limited media' so America can see how much of a 'disaster' Biden is with inflation, the border and the Middle East.  Former President Donald Trump angrily rejected reports that social media bans had sent him sliding into irrelevance, insisting Monday [5/24/2021] that he was staying out of the headlines so attention would stay on President Joe Biden's troubles with inflation, the border and the Middle East.  His comments come as his lieutenants plan a new social media platform to propel Trump back into the daily conversation.  And a new poll suggests the former president retains his grip on Republicans, with a majority of the party still proclaiming Trump to be the 'true president.'

China, having weakened the West with COVID, threatens Australia.  For anyone doubting whether China has Taiwan in its sights, a warning that the Global Times, a Chinese communist party media outlet, issued to Australia should set those doubts to rest.  Having concluded that Joe Biden is not a threat, China is busy letting other regional powers know that they had better not cross China.  In response to Australia's participation in joint military exercises in the East China Sea, China's propaganda outlet threatened it with intermediate-range ballistic missiles.  Taiwan is a prosperous and free island located off the southeastern coast of China.  The two countries are separated from each other only by the Taiwan Straits.  Taiwan maintains that it is the legitimate government of China, while the Chinese Communist Party claims that it is a pretender nation.  The CCP has long made known its desire to conquer Taiwan and bring it into the mainland fold.

Black Man With A Gun Attempts A Carjack — Receive Instant Karma.  The attempted carjacking went down last year but started trending this morning because the video was released for public use yesterday.  In the video you see a black man trying to stop a car by standing in the middle of the road as he pulls out a gun.  The would-be carjacker receives instant karma as the driver of the car hits the gas and sent him flying down the street.  The moment of impact did some heavy damage to the man, as two people come to his aid immediately, and people allege that they also wanted to aid the robber.

The Editor says...
[#1] Obviously the two bystanders who immediately sprang to the aid of the gunman were his accomplices.  They probably called 9-1-1 for assistance after this occupational injury.  [#2] The biggest problem now faced by the driver is whether his insurance company will pay for his car repairs.

Montana prison dairy herd reduced after losing Darigold deal.  The last load of raw milk left the ranch outside Montana State Prison on Dec. 27, drying up a decades-long run for the prison's work program that was clipped by a shift in a single company's global commerce policy.  Last year Darigold, the product brand for a dairy cooperative headquartered in Seattle, canceled its 30-year contract with the prison, forcing the state's prison work program, Montana Correctional Enterprises, to scale down its dairy operation from 350 head to about 70, enough to produce milk to self-sustain the Department of Correction's facilities around the state.

How Apple, Tim Cook give into China while pushing back against the US.  Over the past 30 years, Western leaders have dreamed they lived in an earthly paradise where they could stand for both.  But the ruling Communist Party of China under paramount leader Xi Jinping is now making it increasingly clear that if you want to do business with his country, you'd best embrace the party line.  Take Apple.  The world's most valuable brand is a powerhouse in Washington, DC, maintaining armies of lawyers and making large donations to the political parties and to lobby organizations like the US-China Business Council.  It has instant entrée to the White House, Congress and any other center of American power.  In 2001, Apple closed its California production lines, dismissed its American workers and moved production to China, where investment subsidies were high, wages low, and labor unions and environmental rules nonexistent.  Apple has since admitted to avoiding $41 billion in US taxes.  Now the tech giant — led by CEO Tim Cook — has truly made out like a bandit, becoming the world's most valuable corporation in the process.

More Than 150 Missing Children [have been] Found in North Carolina.  More than 150 missing children have been found in North Carolina, a few of whom were victims of human trafficking, according to police.  On Wednesday [5/19/2021], Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) announced that detectives and marshals had recovered more than 130 missing and runaway juveniles, prior to an investigation called "Operation Carolina Homecoming" to recover missing and runaway children in the Charlotte area, where earlier efforts to find them had failed.  The operation, which took place April 26 to May 7, was able to find another 27 missing children.

Investigation of ousted Space Force Commander elevated to IG.  The investigation into the ousting of a Space Force commander who spoke out against Marxism and critical race theory in the military has been elevated to the Department of the Air Force's Office of Inspector General (IG).  Air Force spokesperson Ann Stefanek told Fox News on Thursday [5/20/2021] that the investigation into the removal of Lt. Colonel Matthew Lohmeier from duty was moving up to the IG's office for review, as the case could have an Air Force-wide impact.  Stefanek also said that the IG's investigation would take precedence over the one launched by Lohmeier's superior, Air Force Lt. General Stephen Whiting.

Nearly 1,000 Apple employees sign letter calling on Tim Cook to issue statement supporting Palestinians.  Nearly 1,000 Apple employees have signed an internal letter to CEO Tim Cook urging the company to issue a public statement in support of the Palestinian people, The Verge reported Thursday [5/20/2021].  "We are frustrated and disappointed because once more, many of those in positions of power and influence — who boldly stand for human rights in so many other just causes — either choose to remain silent or release ineffectually neutral 'both sides' statements with regards to the Palestinian situation," wrote the letter's authors, who are members of the Apple Muslim Association, according to The Verge.  Apple taking a "both sides" approach, they wrote, "would feel to us as the equivalent of 'all lives matter' — a minimization of the disproportionately larger pain and suffering of the Palestinian people."

Sex (and Sobs) on the Set:  Actresses Lay Bare Their Thoughts on Baring it All.  Hollywood actresses have been speaking up about how they really feel about performing on-screen sex and nudity.  Spoiler alert:  They hate it.  Actress Salma Hayek recently opened up to Dax Shepard, host of the Armchair Expert Podcast, about her experience filming the iconic sex scene in her first film Desperado:  "I started to sob and kept saying, 'I don't know that I can do it.'"  She remembers holding onto the towel wrapped around her.  "I would take it off for two seconds and start crying again."  And Hayek is not the only one.  Dozens of actresses have gone on record detailing traumatic experiences they had while filming sex scenes.

The Editor says...
[#1]  I've got no sympathy for actresses.  They read the script before the filming starts; probably before accepting the role.  Why are they surprised when they have to take their clothes off?  [#2] Notice that in Hollywood, lewd behavior is permissible in front of the camera, and is completely forbidden behind the camera.

Hollywood Celebrities Plead With Movie Fans:  Please Go Back To Theaters.  At the "Big Screen is Back" initiative on Wednesday, Arnold Schwarzenegger and J.J. Abrams joined fellow filmmakers and Hollywood studio executives in an effort to motivate a return to the theater-going lifestyle.  As reported by The Associated Press, the event was socially distanced and held at AMC Century City 15 theater in Los Angeles.  Before speaking, Schwarzenegger chanted, "We are back!  We are back!"  He described the importance of getting movie theaters back into commission and creating the experience of attending a movie in theaters once again.

The Editor says...
Sitting in a movie theater to watch a movie (and the commercials and trailers that are shown before the show starts) is as archaic and obsolete as waiting until 5:30 p.m. to hear the day's news from Huntley and Brinkley on broadcast TV.  Or waiting until the next morning to read about the same news in the newspaper.  By watching a movie on the internet, the only thing you're missing is about 30 dB of unrealistic dynamic range when the phony sound effects punctuate the computer-generated "action" scenes, i.e., depictions of senseless violence and gunfire that miraculously doesn't hurt anybody.  If you really miss the theater, set up a "home theater" in a spare bedroom.  Buy some badly-worn seats to accurately simulate the big theater experience, be sure there are no lights in the room, so you have to stumble all over the adjacent rows, and then invite a bunch of nasty, smelly strangers over, to sit uncomfortably close to you and chatter on their cell phones while the show is underway.  Be sure to stock up on Milk Duds and stale popcorn, for which you must pay twice the retail value, and pour a bottle of Coca-Cola on the floor about a week before watching your first film, so the floor is disgustingly sticky.  Then be sure the air conditioning is set to about 50 degrees.  Before watching each movie, get in your car and drive about a mile away from your house in a random direction.  On the way home, take a ten-dollar bill and either set fire to it, or mail it to someone you really don't like, who is already a lot wealthier than you'll ever be.  The movie theater experience may have been really enjoyable in 1948, when you had never seen a film in color, but those days are over.

Senate Republicans propose allowing states to redirect federal funds to debt reduction.  Senate Republicans will introduce legislation Thursday [4/20/2021] to allow state and local governments to redirect federal government grants they receive to go toward paying down the growing national debt instead.  In particular, the bill would ensure that Democratic-led blue states don't end up receiving federal funds that red states have rejected.  GOP Sens. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Rick Scott of Florida are set to introduce the Pay Down the Debt Act of 2021 to give state and local leaders the power to take concrete steps to reduce the federal debt.

The Editor says...
I'm no economist, so tell me how that's supposed to work.  The federal government prints up a bunch of money, borrowed from the national debt.  Then the states take the money, and instead of spending it, they send it back to the federal government to pay down the debt.  That won't affect the debt at all.  The federal government could eliminate the middle-man and just print $20 trillion, and then have a big ceremony at which they drop all that cash into an enormous made-for-TV piggy bank.  The effect is the same.  This kind of shell game is something you'd expect from the Democrats!

Pentagon reportedly running secret army of 60,000 around the world.  The Pentagon is running a 60,000-strong secret army made up of soldiers, civilians and contractors, who travel the world under false identities embedded in consultancies and name-brand companies — without the knowledge of the American people or most of Congress — according to a report.  The top-secret army was created by the Pentagon over the past 10 years as part of a program called "signature reduction," and operates both domestically and internationally using a low-profile force of clandestine warriors who sometimes wear civilian clothes as they carry out their assignments, Newsweek reported.  The force is 10 times the size of the covert elements of the CIA, comes with a cost of more than $900 million, and engages about 130 private companies in operations in locales like the Middle East and Africa, the report said.

Conservative group launches ad campaign against 'woke capitalism,' targeting CEOs by name.  A conservative group is launching an advertising campaign Tuesday designed to push back against what it sees as "woke capitalism," spending more than $1 million on ads targeting the CEOs of Coca-Cola, American Airlines and Nike.  The ads are sharply critical of the CEOs on a range of issues ranging from childhood obesity to allegations of forced labor in China.  Organizers say the campaign, which is being mounted by the conservative group Consumers' Research, is designed to change the thinking in corporate boards around the economic and political costs of getting involved in flashpoint issues such as voting rights.  "Increasingly we're seeing companies taking their eye off the ball," said William Hild, executive director Consumers' Research.  "Our focus is always on the consumer.  And that's what it should be for these companies as well, but increasingly we're seeing them work to curry favor with woke politicians, rather than focusing on serving their consumers."

The Editor says...
I wouldn't wear Nike shoes if you gave them to me.  I've got no use for American Airlines.  Coca Cola would be hard to give up, but I could do it.

Biden will start sending monthly checks of up to $300 to 39 million families with children under the age of 16.  Expanded monthly child tax credits will start going out to 39 million U.S. families starting July 15, the President Joe Biden and the Treasury Department announced Monday [5/17/2021].  'We need to give ordinary families a break — a tax break — to help them with the cost of raising their kids,' Biden said during remarks from the White House on Monday.  'Most people don't know it, but for families with children we put that tax cut into the American Rescue Plan.'  '90% of the families, all middle class and working class families, will get this tax cut.  It's a one-year cut that reduces your taxes... for each child you have under the age of 18,' he added.

980-foot skyscraper sways in China, prompting panic and evacuations.  A Chinese skyscraper had to be evacuated Tuesday afternoon [5/18/2021] after it began inexplicably swaying on its foundation, prompting scores of bystanders to flee in terror, as seen in a series of viral videos circulating social media.  The shaky incident occurred around 1 p.m. at Shenzhen's SEG Electronics Building, which is one of China's tallest structures in the city at a whopping 980 feet tall.  "The people in the building and downstairs fled for their lives!" read the caption to one of the Twitter clips, which depicts petrified shoppers stampeding across a plaza like scene out of a monster movie.

Goodyear to phase out petroleum-based tires with soybeans by 2040.  For decades engineers have used petroleum to make everyday products.  It's still commonly used in everything from rubbers and plastics to chemicals and asphalt.  But this useful product comes from crude oil, which is often criticized by activists and experts as harmful to the environment, citing oil spills and fracking incidents.  Recent studies from the last decade have shown that petroleum isn't as efficient as some once thought.  Now, companies, engineers and scientists aim to replace it with plant-based oils, specifically soybeans.  The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. recently announced its goal to replace all petroleum-based products with soybean oil by 2040.

The Editor says...
What problem does this solve?  When tires are made from soybeans, and gasoline is made with ethanol (i.e., corn), food prices will increase rapidly.  Apparently a lot of CEO's have never heard, "If it works, don't fix it."

88% of children covered by monthly payments starting in July.  The Treasury Department said Monday that 39 million families are set to receive monthly child payments beginning on July 15.  The payments are part of President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, which expanded the child tax credit for one year and made it possible to pre-pay the benefits on a monthly basis.  Nearly 88% of children are set to receive the benefits without their parents needing to take any additional action.

Governor Abbott Ends Federal Unemployment Insurance in Texas.  Governor Greg Abbott announced Monday afternoon that Texas will discontinue further federal unemployment benefits associated with the COVID-19 pandemic on June 26.  Among the insurance Texas is opting out of is the $300 weekly unemployment supplement from the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation program.  "The Texas economy is booming and employers are hiring in communities throughout the state," Abbott said.  "According to the Texas Workforce Commission, the number of job openings in Texas is almost identical to the number of Texans who are receiving unemployment benefits.  That assessment does not include the voluminous jobs that typically are not listed, like construction and restaurant jobs.  In fact, there are nearly 60 percent more jobs open (and listed) in Texas today than there was in February 2020, the month before the Pandemic hit Texas."

Texas, Indiana, Oklahoma to End Federal Unemployment Benefits in June.  Texas, Indiana, and Oklahoma on Monday announced that they will be joining a growing number of GOP-led states in ending the expanded federal unemployment benefits that were implemented during last year's pandemic relief efforts.  In a letter to the Biden administration, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said that the $300 weekly extra payments under the president's new $1.9 trillion stimulus plan will end on June 26, ahead of its September expiration date.  He joins at least a dozen other governors, all Republicans, who are opting out of the additional federal unemployment benefits this summer.  Republicans argue that these benefits have discouraged people from returning to the workforce and have become a drag on the recovery.

Space Force Officer's Book on Marxism in the Military Reaches No. 1 on Amazon After He's Relieved.  A U.S. Space Force officer's self-published book positing that Marxist ideology and Critical Race Theory is being spread throughout the military reached the top of Amazon's bestseller list on Sunday after it was learned that he was relieved of his command.  "Irresistible Revolution:  Marxism's Goal of Conquest & the Unmaking of the American Military" by Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier, reached the top of the retail website's bestseller list on Sunday evening.  It came after the Space Force confirmed that Lohmeier was relieved of his command "due to a loss of trust."  "This decision was based on public comments made by Lt. Col. Lohmeier in a recent podcast.  Lt. Gen. Whiting has initiated a Command Directed Investigation on whether these comments constituted prohibited partisan political activity," according to the Space Force's statement, which was sent to a number of news outlets over the past weekend.

Republicans back 'hero' Space Force commander fired for speaking out against 'Marxism' in military.  Republican lawmakers blasted President Biden online after the military removed a Space Force commanding officer for speaking out against critical race theory and Marxism in the military.  Several prominent GOP lawmakers threw their support behind Lt Col. Matthew Lohmeier, the Space Force commanding officer who was relieved of duty Friday for decrying Marxist ideologies and critical race theory, which he said are gaining influence in the military, on a recent podcast.  Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas — himself a former Navy SEAL — said the military needs to prepare service members for combat and told social media users to not let the story "slip away."  "We need to be preparing our warriors to fight and win battles, not how to be SJWs," Crenshaw wrote.  "Far left critical race theory is taught while speaking out against MARXISM is punished??"

Georgia lieutenant governor announces he won't seek reelection after fighting Trump's election fraud claims.  Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, one of the most vocal state-level Republican critics against former President Donald Trump's claims of 2020 election fraud, announced on Monday that he will not seek reelection in 2022.  "It always feels coldest right before the sun rises," Duncan said in a statement posted to Twitter.  "I believe that this is the exact moment in time the Republican Party is caught in right now, and I am committed to being a part of creating those better days ahead for our conservative party all across this country."  Duncan also said that he plans to serve out the rest of his term, which will conclude in January 2023, noting how he has "no intention of slowing down on my policy over politics reform."

Space Force commander is Fired for warning of the spread of 'Critical Race Theory rooted in Marxism' throughout military.  A Space Force commander has been removed from his post after blasting diversity and inclusion training in the military as 'critical race theory rooted in Marxism'.  Lt Col. Matthew Lohmeier appeared on a podcast to promote his new self published book when he made the comments which led to a 'loss of trust and confidence in his ability to lead', according to a statement from the Space Force.  Lohmeier said: 'The diversity, inclusion and equity industry and the trainings we are receiving in the military... is rooted in critical race theory, which is rooted in Marxism.'

Israel Levels a Building Shared by Hamas and 'News' Outlets, Whose Freak-out Ignores the Bigger Story.  Israel isn't playing around with Hamas this time around.  While terrorist apologists plead for "proportionality" now that they've messed around and found out, the Jewish state seems determined to do more.  As of last night, rockets were still being launched at Tel Aviv, signaling no end to the conflict in sight.  Part of the IDF's campaign has included destroying buildings that Hamas uses for intelligence-gathering, and command and control.  Once, such building happened to also be an office complex for Al Jazeera, the Qatari-funded, terrorist propaganda outlet.  The Associated Press also had space there.  After multiple warnings and a "knock bomb," the building was evacuated.  Then this happened.  [Video clip]

The sixth borough:  Florida state records quantify defections from NY.  New data from the Sunshine State's Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles offers the latest glimpse of just how many New Yorkers fled south during the COVID-19 pandemic.  At least 33,565 New Yorkers exchanged their NY drivers licenses for Florida credentials between September 2020 and March 2021.  That's a 32% increase from the same period the prior year, when 25,370 New York driver's licenses were traded for Florida ones.  Florida officials said a major cause of migration was parents looking to get their kids back in full-time, in-person school.

Why didn't the USDA do this?
Texas House Approves Bill Banning Plant-Based Foods From Using 'Meat' On Labels.  Plant-based and additional meatless products are accused of misleading buyers under a bill the Texas House approved Monday [5/10/2021].  "Texas is the latest state to debate measures that would prohibit foods that don't contain animal products from using words like 'meat' or 'beef' in their name," the Dallas Morning News reported.  The bill was approved following a debate but needs one additional vote in the House to move on to the Texas Senate.

Hackers Threaten To Release Confidential DC Police Files Unless The City Pays Them $4 Million.  Hackers threatened to release 250 gigabytes of confidential Metropolitan Police Department files unless Washington, D.C., officials pay a $4 million ransom, the DCist reported Tuesday [5/11/2021].  The Russian-speaking hackers are part of a group known as Babuk, which allegedly posted 20 Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officers' personnel files after stealing 250 gigabytes of internal data, the DCist reported.  Babuk said negotiations with officials "reached a dead end" and reportedly posted chat logs where officials offered $100,000 to the group.

Rep. Elise Stefanik wins GOP conference chair vote to replace Liz Cheney.  House Republicans approved Rep. Elise Stefanik to their No. 3 leadership position Friday — officially voting her into the post after Rep. Liz Cheney was forced out this week.  The 134-46 tally for Stefanik (R-NY) was nearly guaranteed before the vote took place, given that she went into the meeting with former President Donald Trump's endorsement and without a serious challenger.  "Listen, the Republican Party is a big tent party and my district is the story of the growth of the Republican Party.  My district voted for President Obama by double digits and voted for President Trump and myself by double digits — we have worked to grow the Republican Party," she told reporters following her win.

The Cybersecurity 202: Biden says the Russian government was not involved with Colonial Pipeline hack.  The issue of whether the U.S. government is doing enough to tackle international cybercriminals moved to center stage this week after the high-profile attack on a major East Coast energy supplier.  Even though Colonial Pipeline has restarted operations, there are still lingering questions about the group that executed the attack and how to prevent future assaults on critical infrastructure.  In a news conference yesterday, Biden emphasized the U.S. government's belief that the cybercriminals behind the pipeline company attack are based in Russia  — which has become a safe harbor for such groups — but do not work directly for the Russian government.  U.S. intelligence and researchers have also noted extensive ties between some criminal hacking groups in Russia and Russia's intelligence services.

Prime today, gone tomorrow:  Chinese products get pulled from Amazon.  If you ever bought power banks, water bottles, toys or other daily goods on Amazon, the chances are your suppliers are from China.  Analysts have estimated that the share of Chinese merchants represented 75% of Amazon's new sellers in January, up from 47% the year before, according to Marketplace Pulse, an e-commerce research firm.  Chinese sellers are swarming not just Amazon but also eBay, Wish, Shopee and Alibaba's AliExpress.  The boom is in part a result of intense domestic competition in China's online retail world, which forces merchants to seek new markets.  Traditional exporters are turning to e-commerce, cutting out excessive distributors.  Businesses are enchanted by the tale that a swathe of the priciest property in Shenzhen, an expensive city known for its tech and manufacturing, is now owned by people who made a fortune from e-commerce export.

Biden Blocks Trump Statues to Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, and Jimmy Stewart.  In his Friday dump, Biden decided to revoke a number of President Trump's executive orders including the one creating the National Garden of American Heroes.  This order was a reaction to BLM's vandalism of American statues with the collaboration of local Democrat authorities.  As executive orders go, this was an odd choice to rescind considering that it called for little more than the creation of a garden of statues and the huge list of potential figures included plenty of lefty favorites like Woody Guthrie and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a whole lot of pop culture figures from a particular era from John Wayne to Jimmy Stewart, some conservative heroes, like Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley, Jr. and Antonin Scalia, and the sort of traditional American figures whom the Left was obsessively tearing down including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

Joe Biden Revokes Donald Trump Orders for Garden of Heroes, Protection of Monuments.  President Joe Biden revoked an executive order Friday to create a National Garden of American Heroes, initially planned by former President Donald Trump.  Biden also revoked Trump's order to prevent online censorship, and his order to protect American monuments.  Biden could have modified Trump's initial order but instead revoked it entirely.  The White House did not say why Biden revoked his predecessor's executive orders but sent the text of his order to revoke Trump's priorities to reporters on Friday afternoon.

China and Overfishing.  All told, three billion people rely on fish as their primary source of protein, according to the World Wildlife Fund.  Given that this is nearly half of the world's population, the need to carefully manage the world's supply of fish is absolutely crucial for global stability.  A hungry nation is a desperate nation and desperate nations take desperate measures to feed themselves.  China is, far and away, the world's biggest offender when it comes to overfishing.  This isn't just a crime of omission — failing to adequately control its fishermen — but a crime of commission:  China prioritizes subsidies for overfishing above subsidies for conservation.  The powerhouse spent a whopping $7.2 billion in 2018 alone on fishing.

Indian workers held captive and forced to build New Jersey temple, lawsuit claims.  Hundreds of workers from India were allegedly lured to New Jersey and forced to work for just a few dollars a day to help build a massive Hindu temple, according to a lawsuit on Tuesday [5/11/2021].  The federal suit, brought by the laborers, accuses the prominent Hindu sect known as Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, or BAPS, of human trafficking and wage law violations.  The global organization is accused of bringing more than 200 low-caste men from India to the US by claiming they were religious volunteers.

Poll: Orthodox Jews Are Overwhelmingly Republican and Growing in Number.  According to a new poll from the Pew Research Center, while the majority of Jews identify as Democrat, three out of four Orthodox Jews identify as Republican.  Overall, three out of four Orthodox Jews experienced at least some form of antisemitism in the past year, more than non-religious Jews.  The Pew poll "surveyed 4,718 U.S. adults who identify as Jewish, including 3,836 Jews by religion and 882 Jews of no religion.  The survey was administered online and by mail by Westat, from Nov. 19, 2019, to June 3, 2020."

Colonial Pipeline Hackers Apologize:  We Are 'Apolitical,' Will 'Avoid Social Consequences in the Future'.  The criminal hacking group that reportedly goes by the name DarkSide and attacked the largest gasoline pipeline in the United States has now put out an apology of sorts.  The Colonial pipeline, which snakes 5,500 miles along the eastern U.S., transports 2.5 million barrels of gasoline a day, and provides 45 percent of the region's fuel consumption, was shut down on Friday in response to the hacking.

The Editor says...
Pardon my perpetual skepticism, but the "Russian hacking" story sounds a little bit phony.  Deep State phony.  If there is physical evidence of the alleged "hacking," it will appear in a congressional hearing soon.  If there was no hacking, the news media is lying, and the Composite President made the decision to turn off the pipeline [1] to save the earth from fossil fuels and global warming, and [2] to mask the rapid inflation of gas prices.  Mostly #2.  Which one is more plausible:  Russian hackers did it for ransom, or the Deep State did it as a distraction?

Golden Globes Organization Implodes amid Accusations of Corruption and Lack of Diversity.  In the latest act of liberal Hollywood cannibalism, NBC has pulled the plug on the 2022 Golden Globes telecast as studios including Netflix, Amazon, and WarnerMedia have cut ties with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) over accusations of corruption and a lack of diversity.  Many of these same studios have spent years showering HFPA members with gifts — including free overseas trips — as a way to help secure votes for their movies and TV shows.  Now, they are casting stones at the beleaguered HFPA, whose promises to reform have failed to impress industry leaders.

Latest on directed-energy attacks: 'It looks, smells and feels like the GRU'.  The attention being given to the directed-energy attacks that cause "Havana syndrome" has been ramping up lately.  Today Politico reports that while no new conclusions have been reached officially, there is a growing consensus behind the scenes that these attacks are being carried out by Russia's GRU. [...] A National Academies of Sciences report issued last year concluded that the attacks were likely being carried out using pulsed-microwaves, a type of energy attack that Russia had experimented with during the Cold War.  The Politico story quoted above claims the GRU's suspected involvement hasn't been reported before but that may be true but it's not the first time Russian intelligence agents have been identified as the likely cause.

Government Grew by 48,000 Employees in April.  Federal, state and local governments in the United States increased their employment by a combined 48,000 workers in April, according to the numbers released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  From March to April, the number of workers employed by government in the United States climbed from 21,543,000 to 21,591,000.  Local government employment increased by 32,000, rising from 13,685,000 to 13,717,000.

Israel Shared Iranian General Soleimani's Cell Phones With US Intelligence Before Drone Strike:  Report.  Israel shared three cell phone numbers used by Qasem Soleimani with U.S. intelligence in the hours before American drones unleashed Hellfire missiles on the Iranian general last year, Yahoo News reported Saturday [5/8/2021].  The revelation sheds new light on the role that Israel played in the killing of Soleimani, who the State Department says was responsible for hundreds of U.S. troop deaths as the head of the Revolutionary Guard's elite Quds Force.  The drone strike occurred shortly after midnight on Jan. 2, 2020, as Soleimani and his entourage were leaving Baghdad's international airport.

Texas Gov. Abbott Just Showed America What Freedom Looks Like — in One Photo.  The republic of Texas held a premier boxing match Saturday night, and freedom broke out.  At least, that's how it looked in the tweet Texas Governor Greg Abbott sent out to Twitter followers around 12:30 a.m. Central time on Sunday morning [5/9/2021]. [...] [Quoting KTVT] It was also a record-breaking evening with 73,126 people in attendance for the boxing match between Mexico's Canelo Alvarez and Billy Joe Saunders. [...] AT&T Stadium didn't require masks at the unlimited capacity event but, instead, said they were encouraged.  [End quote]

Gov. DeSantis Tells Unemployed Floridians Collecting Benefits To Start Looking For A Job.  Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis informed unemployed Floridians during a Wednesday [5/5/2021] press conference that May will be the last month they can collect unemployment benefits without proving they are looking for work.  DeSantis, who had lifted the state's policy requiring such proof because of the pandemic, said that reopened Florida now offers ample opportunity for employment, and capable residents need to get off the government dole, according to CBS Miami.

Rats Leaving a Sinking Ship:  More Democratic House Retirements on the Way.  A combination of factors is driving a wave of Democratic retirements in the House as Republicans look to flip the chamber in 2022.  The census is giving deep-red Texas and Florida another congressional district.  And Republican-dominated state legislatures will be able to draw maps that make red districts redder and force two Democrats to vie for the same House seat.

Cryptocurrency investors should be prepared to lose all their money, Bank of England governor says.  Cryptocurrencies "have no intrinsic value" and people who invest in them should be prepared to lose all their money, Bank of England (BOE) Governor Andrew Bailey said Thursday [5/6/2021].  Digital currencies like bitcoin, ether and even dogecoin have been on a tear this year, reminding some investors of the 2017 crypto bubble in which bitcoin blasted toward $20,000, only to sink as low as $3,122 a year later.  Asked at a press conference about the rising value of cryptocurrencies on Thursday, Bailey said:  "They have no intrinsic value.  That doesn't mean to say people don't put value on them, because they can have extrinsic value.  But they have no intrinsic value."

Bank of America: "Transitory Hyperinflation Ahead".  Last week, when discussing the latest earnings call commentary, Bank of America said "Buckle up!  Inflation is here", and showed a chart of the number of mentions of "inflation" during earnings calls which exploded, more than tripling YoY per company so far, the and the biggest jump in history since BofA started keeping records in 2004. [...] While the implications are obvious, we leave it to Bank of America to explain what this means:  ["]On an absolute basis, [inflation] mentions skyrocketed to near record highs from 2011, pointing to at the very least, 'transitory' hyper-inflation ahead.["]

Microwaving the White House: Enemies Are Now Sonic Attacking Americans from American Soil.  Unidentified parties have in recent years been directing sonic attacks on U.S. officials on American soil.  One such attack even occurred on the grounds of the White House.  We should not be surprised.  Failure to impose costs on known sonic attackers — the Cuban and Chinese regimes — almost certainly emboldened the perpetrators to think they could harm Americans in America.  Two attacks, both from American soil, have involved National Security Council officials, one on the White House's south lawn, the Ellipse, last November and another after Thanksgiving in 2019 in Arlington, Virginia.  The earlier attack involved a White House staffer walking her dog.  The pet "started seizing up," and then she too suffered "a high-pitched ringing in her ears, an intense headache, and a tingling on the side of her face."

Montana governor pulls out of COVID federal unemployment programs.  Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte argued Wednesday [5/5/2021] that there has been "a continual stream of initiatives out of Washington that disincent work," explaining that his state decided to get rid of supplemental benefits and is offering a back-to-work bonus in order to incentivize people to get back into the workforce.  Gianforte made the comments on "Cavuto:  Coast to Coast" while explaining what was behind his decision to end Montana's participation in federal COVID-19 unemployment programs.  He also discussed the start of the new state program to give people "Return to Work" bonuses.

A federal judge scrapped a nationwide moratorium on evictions, saying the CDC went beyond its authority.  A US federal judge on Wednesday [5/5/2021] blocked an order from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to prevent landlords from evicting their tenants during the coronavirus pandemic.  "The CDC order must be set aside," US District Judge Dabney Friedrich said in a 20-page ruling.  The order was initially announced on September 4 to take effect for the rest of 2020.  President Joe Biden on his first day in office extended the order through June 30 to aid struggling tenants through the pandemic's financial fallout.  Friedrich wrote that the ban was among "difficult policy decisions that have had enormous real-world consequences" in the pandemic.

New York bill proposes to ban crypto mining for 3 years over carbon concerns.  Crypto miners in New York may be subject to a forced three-year hiatus if the latest environmentally-focused bill passes in the state senate.  The New York Senate Bill 6486 was proposed by Democrat senator Kevin S. Parker, the Chairman of Committee on Energy and Telecommunications, and co-sponsored by fellow Democrat senator Rachel May, the Chair of Committee on Aging, Chair of Legislative Commission on Rural Resources.  The bill is yet to receive widespread backing from other senators, however the Democrats do control the lower house and senate.  The bill seeks to "establish a moratorium on the operation of cryptocurrency mining centers," to slow the environmental impacts of fossil-fuel-backed crypto mining in particular.  It also aims to enforce stricter regulations for mining centers, such as the requirement to undergo an environmental impact review, which would prevent crypto mining if the facility does not comply with New York's climate change targets.

The Editor says...
Crypto mining produces no byproducts at all, other than heat, simply because the "mining" operation is just a large array of computers looking for magic numbers.  The electricity they use in this process is the same as that which is used for other residential or industrial purposes.  All the politicians are doing is trying to reduce the demand for electricity, because they are the ones opposing nuclear energy, coal, and natural gas, and thanks to these politicians, there's not enough electricity to go around.  Many of the same politicians are now on a campaign against air conditioning, for the same reason.  The solution to a shortage of electricity is not conservation.  The solution is greater supply, which requires building or re-activating coal-fired power plants, to use this country's 200-year supply of coal.

Tucker Carlson:  The woke CIA video may not be what we think.  Tucker at first mocks the wokeness of the video and puts up his new CIA acronym, which now stands for "Cisgender Intersectional Agency".  But then Tucker made the argument that this video may not be what we think, that the CIA is, after all, a hall of mirrors and maybe this is what they want our enemies to see.  Personally, I think Biden's CIA is as woke as it seems and the country is doomed.  But could Tucker be right about this woke facade, that it's just a ruse?

The Special Election in Texas Was All Bad News for the Democrat Hopes to Keep the House in 2022.  Texas 6 is located south of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and has a demographic make-up of approximately 40% black and Hispanic voters.  Pres.  Trump carried the district in 2016 by 12%, but in 2020 he won Texas 6 by a margin of only 51-48%.  The district has a +6 partisan advantage for the GOP in voter registration.  The special election contest held on Saturday to fill the seat left vacant by Wright began with an "open" primary — the seat could be won if any single candidate received more than 50% of the vote.  If no candidate received more than 50% of the vote, Saturday's top 2 vote-getters would meet in a runoff to decide the winner.  Twenty-three candidates ended up on the ballot.  The GOP swept the top two positions, and the district will remain in GOP's hands after the runoff.  But the story is more interesting when you look closely at some of the numbers in the contest.

Failed Texas Democrat Candidate Sounds Alarm: 2022 'Could Be Major Setback' for Democrats.  Failed special election Democrat candidate Jana Lynne Sanchez has sounded the alarm that 2022 "could be a major setback" for Democrats if they lose their slim majority in the House of Representatives.  Sanchez, after not receiving enough votes last Saturday to make the special election runoff, has a very strong message for the Democrats.  Sanchez lost by fewer than 400 votes to come in third place.  Republican candidates did extremely well, edging out the rest of the field.  Sanchez said the Republicans received an overwhelming majority (62 percent) of the total voters.

Corn Prices Rise 30 Percent So Far This Year.  You've likely seen mentions of inflation popping up amid some MSM discussions.  Without a doubt you have seen significant price jumps at your local supermarket.  The reason is simple, JoeBama's economic policies are beneficial to the multinationals, crushing to the domestic U.S. economy and driving massive increases in prices in a variety of sectors.  As a consequence the leftist financial media (almost all financial media) are churning out deflection points, but if you understand the background you can predictably see the cause and effect.

This will have an immediate impact on ethanol.

Basecamp Employees Flee Company After CEO Rejects Woke Capitalism.  About one-third of the employees of software developer Basecamp have quit their jobs after the company's founders asked them to focus on developing software, rather than get involved in politics at work.  Basecamp co-founder and CEO Jason Fried told employees that "every discussion remotely related to politics, advocacy, or society at large quickly spins away from pleasant."

Reports say one-third of Basecamp employees exit in the wake of new company etiquette.  Last Monday, Chicago-based software firm Basecamp issued a statement that said it was making a number of changes, including a ban on political discussions on its company Basecamp account.  "Today's social and political waters are especially choppy.  Sensitivities are at 11, and every discussion remotely related to politics, advocacy, or society at large quickly spins away from pleasant," the company said.  "You shouldn't have to wonder if staying out of it means you're complicit, or wading into it means you're a target."  The changes were touted as a "new etiquette regarding societal politics" by company co-founder and CTO David Heinemeier Hansson.  They did not prevent employees from having such conversations in a personal capacity.  But the internal reception to the more inclusive guidelines was not overly welcome, with reports coming in that a third of the company's employee base had walked out, accepting severance packages.

A software company comes up with a brilliant corporate speech policy.  Basecamp is remote work software that provides a single online environment in which workers on a single project can consolidate everything they do on that project.  No matter where you are, there's a virtual meeting space in cyberspace.  That's pretty cool.  What's really cool about Basecamp, though, is its CEO's new rule: people may not discuss politics at work.  With that single announcement, a third of the workforce quit.  Other American corporations should follow suit. [...] This is the American ethos:  employees are paid to get work done, not to stand on soapboxes, and employers exist to give them a safe environment and a decent salary for their work, not to try to force their lifestyle choices.

One-Third Of Basecamp Employees Quit After Ban On Political Discussions At Work.  Roughly one-third of employees at Basecamp are quitting after the company instituted a 'controversial' ban on wokeness in the workplace, according to TechCrunch.  After CEO Jason Fried announced in a Monday blog post that employees would no longer be able to openly share their "societal and political discussions" at work, around 20 of the company's 60 employees simply couldn't handle minding their own business and focusing on what they were hired to do.  "Every discussion remotely related to politics, advocacy or society at large quickly spins away from pleasant," Fried wrote in the blog post.  "You shouldn't have to wonder if staying out of it means you're complicit, or wading into it means you're a target."

The CIA's woke recruitment video gets panned.  A new CIA recruitment video has been widely ridiculed online after the recruit described herself as an 'intersectional cisgender millennial'.  The unnamed CIA officer, 36, tells viewers she is 'unapologetically me', adding that she to suffer from 'imposter syndrome' but now refuses to 'internalize misguided patriarchal ideas of what a woman can or should be.'  But the clip has sparked a fierce reaction online with users labelling it 'woke'.  Another said:  'The world is laughing at us.'

The CIA Goes Full-Blown WOKE, Release Commerical Targeting 'Cisgender Millennials' Featuring An Agent With A Mental Disorder.  The Central Intelligence Agency's recent advertisement profiling a "cisgender millennial" agent is being criticized and ridiculed by social media, especially on Twitter where the hashtag #CIA is trending.  The ad follows a 36-year-old Latina CIA agent, who identifies herself as a "woman of color" who has been "diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder."  "I am intersectional, but my existence is not a box-checking exercise," the agent says in the video, later adding that she "refuse[s] to internalize misguided, patriarchal ideas of what a woman can or should be."  [Video clip]

Chinese Leader Xi Jinping Lays out Plan to Control the Global Internet:  Leaked Documents.  Chinese leader Xi Jinping personally directed the communist regime to focus its efforts to control the global internet, displacing the influential role of the United States, according to internal government documents recently obtained by The Epoch Times.  In a January 2017 speech, Xi said the "power to control the internet" had become the "new focal point of [China's] national strategic contest," and singled out the United States as a "rival force" standing in the way of the regime's ambitions.  The ultimate goal was for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to control all content on the global internet, so the regime could wield what Xi described as "discourse power" over communications and discussions on the world stage.

Cop suspended for mocking LeBron James has GoFundMe erupt for over $289,000.  The cop who mocked LeBron James in a viral video got suspended.  Now there's a GoFundMe for him that has over $289,000 at the time of publication.  The police officer was mocking LeBron James soon after his "You're Next" tweet targeted the police officer who shot Ma'Khia Bryant.  LeBron James deleted the tweet and posted again suggesting it was out of anger, despite him having the facts and possibly not even watching the video to see Ma'Khia Bryant had a knife in her hand as she ran at another girl who was in a defensive stance.

Washington DC Is Paying $1.6 Million In Settlements To Rioters At Trump's Inauguration.  The double standard of justice continues.  Washington D.C. is going to pay $1.6 million in settlements to those who were arrested for rioting at Trump's inauguration.  According to lawsuits filed protesters were arrested without cause and excessive force was used. [...] Trump supporters who were at the capitol on January 6th are not getting the same treatment.  While they do nothing about the crimes committed by the deep state and radical left they are targeting every Trump supporter.  The FBI is now focusing in on a Grandmother who just walked through the U.S. Capitol!

UFOs are real, feds' cover-up fueled by fear: ex-Pentagon whistleblower.  UFOs exist — but the government doesn't want you to know it, according to the ex-Pentagon official who says he ran the program investigating "unidentified aerial phenomena" or UAP.  Recalling the revelatory instant when he recognized that UFOs were bona fide, controversial whistleblower Luis "Lue" Elizondo exclusively told The [New York] Post, "... [N]ow we have to do something about it.'"  However, Elizondo has not been able to get the feds to act on what he describes as a serious national security risk due to a litany of roadblocks — including a cover-up of the existence of UFOs because of religious objections, concerns over tarnishing its own reputation and fears of inciting public panic.

Former Sen. Harry Reid thinks Lockheed Martin may have UFO fragments.  Former Nevada Sen. Harry Reid believes US defense contractor Lockheed Martin may have once had fragments of a crashed UFO in its possession, it was revealed Friday.  Reid, 81, told The New Yorker that he had never actually seen proof of the remnants — but tried, unsuccessfully, to get approval from the Pentagon to find them.

Goodbye Humvee, Hello Z-MAG: Meet Israel's New All-Terrain Military Vehicle.  Israel's Ministry of Defense is procuring Z-MAG, a unique all-terrain vehicle for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).  The IDF traditionally has used several types of light armored vehicles and jeeps, including thousands of Humvees.  Now Z-MAG will be one of the IDF's future vehicles as the army continues to modernize and use new technology.  Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), one of Israel's largest defense companies, acquired the manufacturing of Zibar, Z-MAG, and ZD vehicles from off-road vehicle manufacturer Ido Cohen, the company said last year.  At the time IAI said that the all-terrain vehicles would be upgraded for military and homeland defense applications with a range of intelligence, radar, and communication systems manufactured by IAI's ELTA Systems.

US reveals suspected energy weapon attacks near Trump White House in 2020: Report.  Federal agents are reportedly looking into a suspected directed energy weapon attack near the White House in November of last year while President Donald Trump was still in office, as well as another suspected attack on a White House staffer the year prior.  The suspected November attack took place near the Ellipse, the large oval lawn on the south side of the White House, according to sources for CNN.  U.S. Secret Service agents were sickened during the incident, according to multiple current and former officials.  Details about the November attack are still limited, but CNN reported defense officials briefed lawmakers on the Senate and House Armed Services Committees on the matter earlier this month.  Recent reports have detailed defense officials' efforts to brief lawmakers about several different incidents of directed energy attacks, including at least one in Syria in the fall of 2020 that sickened several U.S. troops with flu-like symptoms.

Report: Chinese Investors Seeking Stake in Saudi Oil Company Aramco.  Reuters reported Wednesday that "major Chinese investors" are in talks to buy a stake in Saudi Aramco, the national oil company of Saudi Arabia.  Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) mentioned the possibility of selling some Aramco stock in a television interview Tuesday [4/27/2021].  "I don't want to give any promises but there's a discussion for acquisition of one percent of one of the pioneer companies for energy that will be a great deal to enhance the sales of Aramco in the country of this company," he said.

DC agrees to $1.6M settlement in lawsuits over mass arrests of Trump inauguration protesters.  The nation's capital reached a settlement over allegations that city police officers unlawfully arrested and detained more than 200 people protesting or observing protests of former President Donald Trump's inauguration in January 2017.  The Washington, D.C., government will pay a combined $1.6 million to settle the two lawsuits over the mass arrests, according to court documents filed Monday which alleged that D.C. police violated the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment rights of plaintiffs, citing the use of pepper spray, flash-bang grenades, concussion grenades, and stingballs.  The lawsuits also alleged many plaintiffs were arrested without probable cause and that they were detained for 16 hours without access to food, water, or restrooms.

Used pickup prices are skyrocketing amid new vehicle shortage.  A sharp drop in the supply of new vehicles due to the ongoing semiconductor chip shortage coupled with a strong demand for cars as the economy continues its post-lockdown recovery has led to an increase in used car prices with pickups leading the way.  According to used automobile wholesaler Manheim, the average wholesale price for a pickup hit $30,093 in mid-April, which is up from #28,121 a month earlier and $17,201 last April when the industry was oversupplied during the worst part of the coronavirus lockdowns.  Manheim chief economist Jonathan Smoke said the increase should be reflected in retail prices within six to eight weeks.

Apple, Retail Groups Continue Lobbying Congress On Chinese Slave Labor Bill.  Apple and several retail trade groups continued lobbying policymakers in the first quarter of this year on a bill to prohibit American firms from using Chinese forced labor, according to disclosures filed with Congress this week.  Apple paid Fierce Government Relations, a Washington, D.C. firm, $90,000 to lobby the House and Senate on multiple pieces of legislation, including the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, according to Fierce's lobbying disclosure filing.  The tech giant also paid $90,000 to Invariant LLC, another Beltway-based firm, to work on several bills and to monitor "legislative action on workforce and supply chains in China."

Cops found 'cryptic writing and emblems' in Phillip Adams' home.  Former NFL player Phillip Adams may have become involved in a new religion before going on a killing rampage that left six people dead in South Carolina earlier this month.  After searching the ex-athlete's home, detectives said they had learned that Adams 'had been acting differently' and was 'possibly following a new religion or ideology'.  Investigators also discovered numerous notebooks containing 'cryptic writing with different designs and emblems' in Adams' room although they indicated they were not able to determine the meanings of these.

China's Fishing Fleet Is Vacuuming the Oceans.  Communist China seems increasingly to be depleting the world's oceans of marine life.  The country has by far the world's largest fishing fleet of anywhere between 200,000 to 800,000 fishing boats — accounting for nearly half of the world's fishing activity — approximately 17,000 of which belong to its distant-water fishing fleet.  The growth has been made possible by enormous state subsidies.  In 2012, for instance, the Chinese state poured $3.2 billion in subsidies into its fishing sector, most of it for fuel.  However, according to a report from 2012, "government support for the fishing and aquaculture sector could be as much as CNY 500 billion (USD 80.2 billion, EUR 61.7 billion) when regional and national subsidies for rural-based fish farmers are taken into account."  As noted by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), many industrialized countries, having depleted their domestic waters, go distant-water fishing in the territorial waters of low-income countries, but China's distant-water fleet is by far the largest in the world.  The ODI also noted that ownership and operational control of China's fleet is both "complex and opaque".

Apple claims 'no reasonable consumer would believe' hitting 'buy' button means you forever own the digital content they sold you.  Our high-tech overlords are redefining the word "buy" when it comes to online purchases of digital content from them.  They seem to conflate it with "rent."  Class action lawsuits are challenging the two most valuable companies in the world on this point.

Why lawmakers are so interested in Apple's and Google's "rents".  I suspect you, unlike me, had better things to do last Wednesday than watch the Senate antitrust subcommittee hearing on Apple's and Google's mobile app stores.  But if you did tune in, and you're not an economist, you might have been baffled by that exchange.  What is a monopoly rent — a term that was mentioned over and over at the hearing — and why is it bad?  What does it have to do with app stores?  In economics, the concept of rent refers to money that a business makes in excess of what it would get in an efficient, competitive market.  In other words, it's money that isn't earned by actually creating value.  When corporations lobby government to give them a tax break or a special regulatory favor, they are often accused of "rent seeking."  It's a pejorative term, and the precise limits of it are up for debate; it can be hard to draw the line between fair profits and unreasonable rents.  But the basic premise is that businesses should try to get rich by improving their products and services, not by gaming the system.

Elon Musk says 'bunch of people will probably die' during Mars mission.  Elon Musk has admitted that "a bunch of people will probably die" in the race to get to Mars.  The SpaceX pioneer made his blunt prediction as he laughed at how his planned Mars mission was being seen as "some escape hatch for rich people."  "You might die, it's going to be uncomfortable and probably won't have good food," Musk told Peter Diamandis, the founder and chairman of the X Prize Foundation for scientific discovery.  Advertisements for the journey should note how it will be an "arduous and dangerous journey where you may not come back alive," Musk said with a chuckle.

A mystery:  Why is the Pentagon sitting on four percent of all internet addresses?  This is just a really odd story that's been bouncing around for a little while now, but the Associated Press is reporting that at least some details have emerged pointing to a possible explanation.  On January 20th (the day Joe Biden was inaugurated as president), a shadowy company in Florida announced that it was now managing a massive chunk of all the available internet addresses in the world and they were doing so on behalf of the United States Department of Defense.  The term "massive" isn't hyperbole in this case.  We're talking about more than 175 million addresses or roughly 4% of the total available domains.  Virtually all of this internet space was unused, too.  The problem was that the Pentagon didn't seem to have anything to say about it and the company making the claim barely existed except on paper, having only been incorporated last September.  Some additional probing by journalists has now produced a few answers, but many questions still remain.

Pentagon quietly transfers 175 million internet addresses worth $4 BILLION to mysterious firm at shared workspace in Florida.  A very strange thing happened on the internet the day President Joe Biden was sworn in.  A shadowy company residing at a shared workspace above a Florida bank announced to the world's computer networks that it was now managing a colossal, previously idle chunk of the internet owned by the U.S. Department of Defense.  That real estate has since more than quadrupled to 175 million addresses — about 4 percent the size of the entire current internet.  It's also more than twice the size of the internet space actually used by the Pentagon.

Atlanta dethroned as world's busiest airport.  [Scroll down]  The second surprise there, the fact that China's airports take 7 of the top ten slots for the busiest airports in the world, is even more significant.  Part of the surge is because the pandemic that originated in China has devastated other countries' business travel, the core of the airline industry's traffic, while China's economy has bounced back much faster.  (Why that is the case ought to be a central political issue of our time.)

Manchin rails against eliminating filibuster, says he's not 'going to be part of blowing up this Senate'.  Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., on Sunday [4/25/2021] pushed back against progressive Democrats who call him a "roadblock" to their liberal proposals, emphasizing he is "not going to be part of blowing up this Senate."  CNN's "State of the Union" anchor Dana Bash asked Manchin how he would respond to Democrats who say that he is one of the "main roadblocks" to President Biden passing his "ambitious agenda," prompting Manchin to say, "I'm not a roadblock at all."  "I am not going to be part of blowing up this Senate of ours or basically this democracy of ours or the republic that we have," Manchin said, referring to the Democratic push to eliminate the filibuster.  "If we have a 51-vote threshold in the Senate, the same as the House — the House wasn't designed to be partisan."

NYPD Officers Leaving In Droves, 75% Increase In Quitting Or Retirement In 2020.  The members of the NYPD grew so disenchanted with their jobs in 2020 that over 5,300 uniformed officers either retired or quit, an astonishing 75% increase over the year before, amounting to 15% of the total number of officers on the force.  The impetus for the officers quitting seemed to be the death of George Floyd and the unrest that followed; between May 25 and June 24, 2020, a whopping 272 officers left the force in one month.  2,600 officers quit and 2,746 filed for retirement, according to the New York Post.  The 5,346 officers who left the force were nearly 2,300 more than left the force in 2019, when 1,509 officers quit and 1,544 filed for retirement.

Jim Clyburn Fined $5,000 For Bypassing Metal Detectors Outside House Floor.  House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn was fined $5,000 Friday for bypassing the metal detectors before walking on the floor.  The House Ethics committee released a statement, saying Clyburn had been fined and that he has appealed the fine.  The House installed magnetometers in early January and require all members of Congress to walk through them before entering the chamber after rioters supporting Trump stormed the U.S. capitol, committing acts of vandalism and violence.  Clyburn denied breaking House rules to CNN, saying:  "I have no idea," adding:  "It's just somebody on the other side trying to cause mischief."  For a first-time offense, the fine is $5,000, a second-time offense is $10,000.

Former Coca-Cola Employee Convicted of Stealing $120 Million Worth of Trade Secrets to Sell in China.  A Chinese-born American chemist was found guilty on April 22 for her role in a scheme to steal trade secrets worth an estimated $120 million from American companies for the purpose of setting up a Chinese company that would manufacture the product for the global market.  After a 12-day trial, 59-year-old You Xiaorong — also known as Shannon You — of Lansing, Michigan, was convicted of conspiracy to commit trade secret theft, conspiracy to commit economic espionage, possession of stolen trade secrets, economic espionage, and wire fraud, according to the Justice Department.  While working at two U.S. companies — Coca-Cola in Atlanta, Georgia, and Eastman Chemical Company in Kingsport, Tennessee — she stole trade secrets related to BPA-free (bisphenol-A) coating technology, which lines the insides of cans and other food and beverage containers to prevent flavor loss, corrosion, and reactions to the food or beverage content.

Coca-Cola GC who pushed law firms on diversity resigns post after less than a year.  Bradley Gayton, who joined the Coca-Cola Co as general counsel in September and made headlines for requiring its law firms to staff its matters with diverse lawyers or lose its business, has resigned, the beverage giant said in a Wednesday [4/21/2021] filing.  Gayton will now serve as an outside consultant to Coca-Cola's chief executive, the Atlanta-based company said in a statement and a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. [...] Gayton's new consulting agreement is non-exclusive and expires at the end of next April.  Under its terms, he is set to receive a lump-sum, $4 million "sign-on make-whole" payment this month and an additional $8 million combined in monthly installments, the filing said.

Cotton singles out Schiff as 'potential source' for hyped Russian bounties reporting.  House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff may have been a source for media reports last year that hyped intelligence about how the Russian government had offered bounties to Afghan militants to kill U.S. troops, according to a Republican lawmaker.  Sen. Tom Cotton told Lisa Boothe on her podcast, The Truth with Lisa Boothe, that the leaks were "probably as likely" to have come from Democrats in Congress as the U.S. intelligence community and specifically name-dropped Schiff, a California Democrat.  The Arkansas Republican was reacting to the White House saying last week the U.S. intelligence community had only "low to moderate confidence" in intelligence that was used by former President Donald Trump's critics to say he was ignoring information out of deference to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

From 'Insurrectionists' to 'Interruptionists'.  Well, this is a bummer for the sedition-baiting crowd.  The Biden Justice Department last week announced its first plea deal related to the January 6 protest on Capitol Hill:  Jon Ryan Schaffer pleaded guilty to two charges — obstruction of an official proceeding and entering the Capitol with a dangerous or deadly weapon.  Schaffer, who has no criminal record, faced six counts of various trespassing and disorderly conduct offenses.  (He did not plead guilty to any of the initial charges.)

Florida Sheriff To Incoming Residents Fleeing Blue States; 'Welcome To Florida, But Don't Vote Stupid.".  For any American who values liberty, freedom, patriotism, and 'America First,' if you're currently living in a blue-state or blue-city hell and are seeking to escape, there are a number of 'free states' where you can go to live a better life.  Missouri is good.  Texas is good.  The Dakotas would work.  Oklahoma and Kansas and Tennessee and Kentucky are options.  So, too, is Mississippi, Arkansas, Utah, and Idaho.  But wait — what if you're an American who values liberty, freedom, patriotism, and 'America First,' and who also wants really good weather for the majority of the year?  Yes, there's an option for those folks, too:  Florida.  Thanks to the Republicans who run that state, Florida has become a beacon of industry, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  That didn't come easy and it is a constant battle to keep the state that way.  Which brings me to a particular Florida law enforcement leader who had something to say about that very subject this week.

Executive Order Canceling the Constitution.  On April 15, Preident Biden signed an Executive Order on Blocking Property with Respect to Specified Harmful Foreign Activities of the Government of the Russian Federation.  Contrary to its title, this EO is not about Russia.  It is designed to allow the Biden administration to deprive American citizens and organizations of their rights and property by arbitrarily linking those persons to real, imagined, or vaguely defined activities of the Russian government.  The Biden administration unilaterally makes the determination and requires neither criminal acts nor intent.  The punishment is blocking assets and a prohibition on any dealing with the accused person.  Spouses and adult children of individuals found guilty by accusation under this EO are punished, too.  The EO was preceded by some distracting maneuvers, both diplomatic (hostile rhetoric toward Russia) and military (sending naval ships toward the Black Sea and recalling them back, as if dealing with Russian threats).  Thus, many people assumed that the EO was directed at Russia, and completely missed the fact that it is directed at dissent here, at home.

The Catholic Church is Building Mosques Now:  What could possibly go wrong?  Celebrate diversity!.  Gloria.tv reported Saturday [4/17/2021] that in France, "Tours Diocese donated money for the construction of a local mosque," and that "Tours Bishop Vincent Jordy justified his donation on April 15 with the fact that for John Paul II's 1996 visit to the city, the local Muslims made a symbolic donation which the diocese wanted to reciprocate.  Riposte-Catholique.fr adds that in 2015, Auch Diocese — where John Paul II never visited — donated €5000 for a mosque."  Also, the amount of the Muslims' "symbolic donation" was not reported, but it is not likely to have been enough to build a church, much less two churches.  Meanwhile, Bishop Stephen Mamza of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Yola in Nigeria is building houses in Yola for people who have lost their homes due to jihad terror activity by the Islamic group Boko Haram, whose official name is People Committed to the Prophet's Teachings for Proselytizing and Jihad.  Since many of those displaced are Muslims whom Boko Haram didn't think were Islamic enough, Bishop Mamza also built them a mosque.

It Was Worse Than We Thought:  NO ONE Met Japanese Prime Minister at the White House Door Except Stationary Army Guard.  In a highly disrespectful and embarrassing move, Kamala Harris welcomed Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to the White House on Friday [4/16/2021].  Joe Biden was nowhere to be found as Kamala Harris welcomed Yoshihide Suga, the first foreign leader to visit the Biden White House.  But it was way worse than we originally reported.  No one met Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga at the door when he arrived.  The only one standing there was a stationary Army guard.

Trump-Supporting Republican Vernon Jones To Primary RINO Brian Kemp In Georgia Governor's Race.  Georgia Governor Brian Kemp (R) officially has a primary challenger.  Former Democrat Vernon Jones announced he would be running for Georgia Governor — as a Republican! [...] On January 6th Vernon Jones officially announced that he would be joining the Republican Party.

This is what happens when the government prints money and passes it around:
U.S consumer prices surge in March, CPI finds, pushing inflation to 2 1/2-year high.  Consumer prices rose in March for the fourth month in a row and the pace of inflation hit the highest level in two and a half years, underscoring new pressures emerging on the economy as the U.S. recovers from the coronavirus pandemic.  The consumer price index jumped 0.6% last month, the government said Tuesday, spearheaded by the rising cost of oil.  Economists polled by Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal had forecast a 0.5% increase in the CPI.  The rate of inflation over the past year shot up to 2.6% from 1.7% in the prior month, marking the highest level since the fall of 2018.  The yearly rate of inflation is widely expected to surge in the next few months.

Consumer Prices Jump 0.6% in March, Biggest Gain Since 2012.  U.S. consumer prices increased a sharp 0.6% in March, the biggest uptick since 2012, while inflation over the past year jumped 2.6%.  The big gains had been anticipated and are largely expected to be a temporary blip rather than a reawakening of long dormant inflation.

House Democratic margin shrinks to 2 votes with swearing-in of Republican Julia Letlow.  House Democrats are barely holding onto their majority, with Rep.-elect Julia Letlow, R-La., set to be sworn in Wednesday morning.  Letlow will be joining the House in the seat originally won by her husband, Luke Letlow, who died in September from COVID-19 before he was supposed to be sworn in.  Julia Letlow won a special election in March.  This gives Republicans 212 seats in the House, catching up to Democrats' 218.  Since tie votes fail in the House, that means Democrats cannot lose more than two votes from their party to pass legislation if the GOP fully opposes them.  That slim margin of error could prevent Democrats from passing more progressive bills that moderates in their party may not support.

Is the Special Election in Texas 6 a 'Canary in GOP Coal Mine'?  Texas is turning blue.  We know because that's what we're told.  Despite Donald Trump winning the state in 2020 and the 10 Democratic targeted House races all ending up in Republican hands, the state is getting bluer all the time.  We know because... well, if the media tells us Republicans are sinking and Texas is where the "evidence" will appear next, naturally, the race to succeed Rep. Ron Wright, who died of COVID-19 in February, will be the "canary in the coal mine" according to Politico.

Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff dies in prison.  Bernard Madoff, the infamous architect of an epic securities swindle that burned thousands of investors, outfoxed regulators and earned him a 150-year prison term, died in a federal prison early Wednesday [4/14/2021].  He was 82.

U.S. soldiers should be at the Mexican border.
Pentagon will send 500 new troops to Germany in reversal of Trump plan.  The Pentagon on Tuesday [4/13/2021] said it will send an additional 500 U.S. troops to Germany in the coming months, marking a stark reversal of former President Trump's ill-fated push to move thousands of forces out of the country.  Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced the shift after meeting with German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbaue, who hailed the plan as a "strong signal" of America's commitment to its European ally.  The 500 troops will join the roughly 35,000 American personnel now in Germany.  They are expected to arrive by the fall.

Due process is no more in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota.  [Scroll down]  Due process is the underpinning of the rule of law:  Those in power cannot treat people in an arbitrary and capricious manner.  Instead, there are rules for dealing with problematic situations, whether criminal accusations or workplace wrongdoing, especially in the context of government employment.  Due process is a double-sided shield that, in addition to protecting Americans from those in power, also protects them from the passions of the mob[.]  A man like this, who can stand for the rule of law when the mob is baying for blood, is a treasure and should be cherished.  In a fraught situation, he placed profoundly important principles ahead of any personal feelings he might have had regarding the events that just put his city on the map.  It turned out that the City Council would have liked to cherish him but the members were too frightened to do so.  Immediately after the conference, the Council convened in an emergency session and promptly fired [City Manager Curt] Boganey.  As one council member stated explicitly, the council's decision was made entirely to appease the mob.

Daunte Wright shooting:  Brooklyn Center city manager fired after call for due process for police officer.  Brooklyn Center City Manager Curt Boganey was fired on Monday evening, hours after he publicly disagreed with Mayor Mike Elliott's assertion that the police officer who fatally shot a Black man in the Minneapolis suburb should be immediately fired in response to the incident.  "Effective immediately our city manager has been relieved of his duties, and the deputy city manager will be assuming his duties moving forward," Elliott wrote on Twitter.  "I will continue to work my hardest to ensure good leadership at all levels of our city government."

Bitcoin Was Supposed to Be a Way Around Corporate Gatekeepers.  Now Big Companies Are Hopping On Board.  A year ago, Bitcoin was just a curiosity for many companies.  That's starting to change.  More than two dozen public companies now own some cryptocurrencies on their balance sheets.  Many more are starting to offer services to people interested in buying Bitcoin or to companies that want to hold it or accept it for payments. [...] Helping to push Bitcoin further into the mainstream have been traditional Wall Street institutions that are figuring out how to update their current systems to offer the same services for crypto that they do for cash.

If you're making counterfeit money, head to Minneapolis. They'll take it.
Retailers [are being] urged to re-think police calls for low-level crimes after George Floyd's death.  George Floyd died in police custody after a corner store clerk reported he had used a fake $20 bill, a nonviolent offense so low-level that police don't usually take people to jail for it. [...] In response to community outcry following Floyd's death, the owner of the Cup Foods store said they would no longer contact police in cases of nonviolent crime, as they did for Floyd's suspected counterfeit bill.  Raymond Moss, who runs the St.  Paul-based Carl Moss Institute that helps young people who have been incarcerated re-enter society, believes more stores need to forgo calling the police for small crimes and change the loss prevention culture among their security officers and staff.

The Editor says...
[#1] Counterfeiting is a federal crime.  It is not "low-level."  [#2] When the police tried to put George Floyd in the back of a cop car, he went berserk, because he was already about to die from a drug overdose.  [#3] Failing to report petty crime will result in more serious crime.  Who decides where to draw the line?  [#4] There's already too much selective enforcement of the law.  If you're white, no offense is too petty to overlook.

Portland Plans to Combat Crime with Unarmed Park Rangers.  Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler reportedly backed down from his request the police bureau be given $2 million in emergency funds and instead voted with city commissioners to spend $6 million on grants to community groups and also hire 24 park rangers.  "The deal gives police no money but calls for the Portland Police Bureau to assemble a new gun violence team to replace the one eliminated last June, when the city defunded its police by $15 million in the midst of nightly social justice protests," Fox News reported Friday [4/9/2021].

JAMA pulls plug on editor; fired for questioning 'existence of structural racism' on podcast.  An editor at the Journal of the American Medical Association is out of a job after criticizing the concept of structural racism in the healthcare field during a February podcast.  Dr. James L. Madara, CEO and executive vice president of the American Medical Association, announced in a statement that the journal had accepted the resignation of Deputy Editor for Clinical Reviews and Education Dr. Edward H. Livingston, accusing him of hosting a "harmful" podcast that "both minimized the effects of systemic racism in health care and questioned its profound impact on millions of people across our country."  The AMA's CEO declared that "structural racism exists in the U.S. and in medicine" and that it's "not opinion or conjecture" but a fact proven "through the science and in the evidence."

7% of Americans don't use the internet.  Who are they?  For many Americans, going online is an important way to connect with friends and family, shop, get news and search for information.  Yet today, 7% of U.S. adults say they do not use the internet, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted Jan. 25-Feb. 8, 2021.  Internet non-adoption is linked to a number of demographic variables, but is strongly connected to age — with older Americans continuing to be one of the least likely groups to use the internet.  Today, 25% of adults ages 65 and older report never going online, compared with much smaller shares of adults under the age of 65.  Educational attainment and household income are also indicators of a person's likelihood to be offline.

The Editor says...
The Democrats often say that high-speed internet service should be available in every part of the country, but the poll reported above shows that some people don't care about the internet at all.  The last time I checked, just over one percent of American households do not have a television.  With TV's so cheap and plentiful, that must be voluntary.  (It's voluntary at my house).  Some people just want to isolate themselves from all the noise.

'Is there an actual plan?' New Yorkers rip De Blasio for saying residents 'don't live in fear' amid crime spike.  Mayor de Blasio boldly insisted Wednesday [4/7/2021] New Yorkers are unrattled after 34 of them failed to dodge a fatal bullet last month, after a 5-year-old Brooklyn girl was grazed by a gunshot Monday outside her home, and after a Times Square tourist who'd just taken in a Mets game was hit by a stray shot walking to his hotel.  "I do not believe New Yorkers are living in fear," the mayor declared.  "It's just not who we are.  I believe there are some real issues we have to address .... But New Yorkers don't live in fear.  They keep moving forward.  I really believe that."

The Editor says...
If "New Yorkers don't live in fear," why is everybody wearing face masks?  Because they live in fear!

China warns Biden:  Cave to our demands or forget about your climate agenda.  A critical meeting on climate change, organised by the UK, appears to be the latest victim of an ongoing row with China.  Ministers from around 35 countries are due to participate in today's summit on climate and development.  But while the US, EU, India and others are taking part, China is notable by its absence.  The UK says that China was invited to the event but is not participating.

Rep. Lee Zeldin announces run for NY governor amid Cuomo scandals.  Long Island Rep. Lee Zeldin announced his candidacy for governor of New York on Thursday with the message:  "Cuomo's gotta go!"  Zeldin, 41, is the first GOP contender to officially challenge three-term Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2022.  "I'll bring the kind of relentless, fighting spirit towards helping to save our state that Cuomo reserves for multi-million dollar self-congratulatory book deals, cover-ups, abuse & self-dealing," the congressman tweeted. 

Cop-Hating Leftist Tishaura Jones Wins St. Louis Mayoral Race — As Homicides Soar in St. Louis City to 50-Year High.  Former St. Louis Treasurer Tishaura Jones defeated fellow Democrat Cara Spencer to win the St. Louis Mayoral race.  Tishaura Jones is a radical leftist who is very critical of St. Louis City policing. [...] The murder rate in St. Louis City hit a 50-year high in 2020.  Tishaura Jones said the city's brightest days are "ahead of us and not behind us."  That's Doubtful.

Man accused of trying to extort Matt Gaetz admits he asked for cash.  The man accused of trying to extort $25 million from Rep. Matt Gaetz's family admitted Monday that he asked the congressman's dad for cash — but denied that it was a shakedown.  Bob Kent, an ex-Air Force intelligence officer, confirmed to Sirius Radio host Michael Smerconish that he approached the Florida Republican's dad, Don Gaetz, for money last month.  The funds, Kent said, were to pay for an effort to free Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who disappeared in Iran in 2007, and is believed to be dead.  Kent claimed he has video evidence that Levinson is still alive and is being held hostage.

Keep Up The Delta Airlines Boycott — Delta Cancels Over 100 Flights on Sunday, But Cites "Staff Shortages".  Last week President Donald Trump asked for a full and unrelenting boycott of several corporations who are operating as political activists to advance an agenda on behalf of the far-left.  The corporations spoke against election integrity and are opposed to secure election reforms.  Among those corporations cited for immediate boycott was Delta Airlines.  On Sunday Delta cancelled over 100 flights: [...] Delta is claiming "staff shortages" suddenly appeared in multiple states, simultaneously; that had never happened before, immediately after the boycott began.  This story reeks of Delta cancelling the flights because of the boycott, but they don't want to admit the reason for the cancellation so they make up an artificial justification.  You decide what is likely.  A coincidental cancellation across multiple states, affecting multiple flights, in multiple locations, or the boycott is working?

Georgia GOP Legislators to Coca-Cola:  We Want You Out.  Certain Republican Georgia lawmakers want Coca Cola products removed from their offices after the corporation spoke out against the state's new election law, reports the Hill.  In a letter to Kevin Perry, president of the Georgia Beverage Association, eight members of the Georgia House of Representatives — Victor Anderson, Clint Crowe, Matt Barton, Jason Ridley, Lauren McDonald III, Stan Gunter, Dewayne Hill and Marcus Wiedower — complained about Coca-Cola.  "Given Coke's choice to cave to the pressure of an out of control cancel culture, we respectfully request all Coca-Cola Company products be removed from our office suite immediately," they stated.  "Should Coke choose to read the bill, share its true intentions and accept their role in the dissemination of mistruths, we would welcome a conversation to rebuild a working relationship."

The company racing to free US from reliance on China for electric cars, wind turbines, and satellites.  One company sees a business opportunity in the United States's reliance on China for rare earth elements, such as dysprosium, terbium, and yttrium, crucial for the proper functioning of night vision goggles and wind turbines, among scores of other kinds of important hardware.  There are 17 metals called rare earth elements, also referred to as REEs.  China has dominated the rare earth market for years and accounts for about 80% of U.S. imports of rare earth metals and compounds.  Demand for the metals is only growing as clean energy products such as wind turbines and electric cars, which use the metals, become more popular.  UCore aims to rip that hegemony away from China.  "It's a pretty dangerous spot to be in," UCore interim CEO Pat Ryan told the Washington Examiner.  "It's quite an imbalance, and it's got to be corrected, or the technology will continue to evolve with control by China."

The Duty to Dissent:  In our free republic, where the God-given right to free speech is recognized by our federal and state constitutions and guaranteed by our servant governments, a recent poll of our fellow citizens should amaze no one and enrage everyone.  Consider these findings:
  •   64 percent believe there is "a growing cancel culture" threatening their freedom (36 percent disagreed);
  •   36 percent said cancel culture is a "big problem"; 32 percent a "moderate problem"; 20 percent a "small problem"; 13 percent said it's "not a problem";
  •   54 percent are "concerned" that expressing online opinions would get them banned (by Big Tech) or fired by their employer; 46 percent "were not concerned."

New York opens Office of Cannabis Management following legalization.  A state-run website for a new Office of Cannabis Management was launched Friday following the legalization of recreational marijuana in New York.  The website is meant to educate the public "on the OCM's regulatory structure which, with the Cannabis Control Board, will oversee the licensure, cultivation, production, distribution, sale and taxation of medical, adult-use and cannabinoid hemp within New York State," Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office said.  The site also provides resources for individuals seeking medical cannabis practitioners and medical cannabis IDs as well as businesses seeking licensure to participate in the adult-use, medical and cannabinoid hemp industries even though legal marijuana cannot be sold by licensed dispensaries until at least next year.

Oil companies defeat New York City appeal over global warming.  A federal appeals court on Thursday [4/1/2021] rejected New York City's effort to hold five major oil companies liable to help pay the costs of addressing harm caused by global warming.  Ruling in favor of BP Plc, Chevron Corp, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil Corp and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions should be addressed under federal law and international treaties.  It rejected the city's efforts to sue under state nuisance law for damages caused by the companies' "admittedly legal" production and sale of fossil fuels, and said the city's federal common law claims were displaced by the federal Clean Air Act.

Georgia House passes bill stripping Delta of tax break after airline's CEO slammed new election integrity law.  Georgia lawmakers passed an amendment that would strip Delta Airlines of a tax break on jet fuel after the company publicly excoriated the state's newly enacted election integrity law.  Republicans in the Georgia House of Representatives narrowly passed an amendment that would revoke the tax break, costing the Atlanta-based Delta tens of millions of dollars per year, according to Forbes.  "They like our public policy when we're doing things that benefit them," state House Speaker David Ralston said about the move.  "You don't feed a dog that bites your hand.  You got to keep that in mind sometimes."

Detectives find cause of Tiger Woods crash but won't reveal.  The Los Angeles County sheriff said detectives have determined what caused Tiger Woods to crash his SUV last month in Southern California but declined Wednesday to release details, citing unspecified privacy concerns for the golf star.

Russia Massing Troops on Ukraine Border; US Forces in Europe Raise Watch to Highest Level 'Potential Imminent Crisis'.  Russian forces massing on the border with Ukraine have prompted the U.S. European Command to raise its watch level to its highest point of "potential imminent crisis", according to a New York Times report Tuesday night [3/30/2021].  On Wednesday, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley spoke to senior Russian Gen. Valery Gerasimov about the buildup, according to Russia.  Four Ukrainian soldiers were killed last week in an extended battle in the contested Donetsk Region against Russia-backed separatists.  Russian forces that were thought to have gathered for training exercises near the border have stayed and grown in numbers, prompting concerns.

Mike Lindell:  New Social Media Platform Will Be Able to Handle Upwards of a Billion People.  The forthcoming social media website from MyPillow's Mike Lindell will be able to handle more than a billion users, Lindell said this week.  "I believe it will handle upwards of a billion.  If it doesn't, we will get to that capacity.  I don't think that's exaggerated, by any means," Lindell told The Epoch Times.  "It's going to be the safest, secure platform.  I built it expecting to be attacked."  The platform, dubbed Frank, has a landing page but isn't operational yet.  Lindell told The Epoch Times' affiliate NTD on March 11 that the website would be up and running within two weeks.

Biden Stimulus Delayed for Many Americans on Social Security.  Americans struggling to survive on federal benefits have waited weeks for word on their share of the $1.9 trillion stimulus.  Some of the country's most vulnerable citizens have been waiting weeks for the next round of promised financial aid from President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion "American Rescue Plan" coronavirus relief package, with no indication of when it would come.  Chief among those are the millions of elderly Americans who depend on federal assistance to survive.

Terrorism Charges Dismissed by Judge Against Three Men Accused of Plotting to Kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.  Jackson County District Judge Michael Klaeren (Michigan 12th District) has removed charges of terrorism against three men accused in a plot to kidnap governor Gretchen Whitmer.  According to the Detroit News, judge Klaeren said:  "There has to be some form of intent here to incite mayhem", and no evidence in that regard has been presented.  The terrorism charges fail for lack of evidence.

Identity Politics and Critical Race Theory Have No Place in US Military.  Sen. Tom Cotton, rightly angered that the Department of Defense is moving to indoctrinate U.S. military personnel in divisive critical race theory, has introduced a bill that would forbid it.  Like colleagues in the House who sent letters to Adm. Mike Gilday, the chief of naval operations, expressing severe disapproval of the Navy's decision to include books on critical race theory and other aspects of identity politics on professional reading lists, Cotton, R-Ark., and a former soldier, demonstrated he understands the corrosive effect that such teachings would have on the U.S military.

Limbaugh's Brother Addresses Fans Directly, Tells Them What Their 'Profound Love' of Rush Means.  It's been over a month since conservative talk show legend Rush Limbaugh passed away.  And ever since, the many voices of many American conservatives that would've otherwise remained unheard without his golden microphone, now speak in loving remembrance.  Limbaugh's brother David, awed by the immense outpour of love his now-deceased brother's audience continues to show, expressed his overwhelming gratitude in words every Rush fan needs to hear.

How a desert wind blew $10 billion of global trade off course.  The forecast for Tuesday, March 23, showed wind gusts of more than 40 miles per hour and sand storms sweeping through northern Egypt.  Indeed, such weather is common in the Sinai desert at this time of year.  The Suez Canal — one of the most critical, yet precarious waterways on the planet — remained open.  Ships were starting to form the daily convoy as the gusts picked up.  One of the world's biggest container vessels, the Ever Given, joined it.  The decision would reverberate globally within hours.

Suez Canal snafu costs $10 billion a day: report.  A massive container ship remains stuck in the Suez Canal for a sixth day on Sunday — hiking the estimated economic damage from the resulting shipping logjam to $60 billion.  The crisis is causing commercial losses of about $9.6 billion a day as ships that should have been heading between Europe and Asia stay immobilized, according to economic estimates calculated by Bloomberg.  Meanwhile, there is still no timeline for freeing the massive Ever Given container ship, which is about the length of the Empire State Building.  The vessel went aground Tuesday [3/23/2021] after being blown aground inside the canal by heavy winds, investigators said.

Myanmar military kills dozens of anti-coup protesters; baby injured.  Myanmar's military fatally shot dozens of protesters Saturday and a rubber bullet injured a baby amid anti-coup demonstrations, observers said.  The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said dozens of protesters were shot dead in the bloodiest day since the February coup with the latest deaths bringing the total number to about 400, according to the BBC.

US military has gone full woke, waging war on those who disagree with them.  Who exactly is Richard Torres-Estrada?  His Facebook page gives us some indication of who he is.  On it, you'll find an attack on the police, you'll find crude BLM propaganda, you'll find a picture of Donald Trump holding a Bible in front of a church.  Next to Trump is a photograph of Adolf Hitler.  The point is, they're the same.  So, this is the guy who now oversees hiring for the SEALs.  If you're wondering whether our military leadership has gone woke, consider that question settled for good.  The Pentagon is now the Yale faculty lounge, but with cruise missiles.  That should concern you.  Meanwhile, the rest of the world rolls on and gets more menacing by the day.  Tonight, the Suez Canal, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, is blocked by a stranded container ship.  Was it an accident?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  We don't know.  What we do know is the Suez Canal is vital to the world's economy.  That's not an overstatement.  The Suez Canal is one of about a dozen strategic choke points that control virtually all global trade.  Now it's closed.

James Huntsman files lawsuit accusing Latter-day Saint Church of fraud.  A member of one of Utah's most prominent families, and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has filed a lawsuit accusing the church of fraud.  James Huntsman says the church spent tithes from members on commercial interests instead of charity, as it was intended.  "This is not a case about faith; it is a case about fraud and corporate greed," the lawsuit reads.  The lawsuit was filed Tuesday [3/23/2021] in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California and first reported by the Washington Post.  Huntsman claims the Church lied to members about the use of funds that it said would be used for non-commercial purposes such as "missionary work, member indoctrination, temple work, and other educational and charitable activities."

Parler Just Flipped Big Tech's Jan. 6 Conspiracy Theory on Its Head.  In the days after the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, Big Tech moved against a conservative alternative social media platform, Parler, based on the premise that the rioters has used Parler to plan the attack on the Capitol and that Parler had failed in its responsibility to prevent such coordination. [...] On Thursday [3/25/2021], Parler sent a response to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform's request for documents regarding the riot, the company explained in a press release.  In that response, Parler revealed that it had "proactively developed an open line of communication with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the fall of 2020 and referred violent content and incitement from Parler's platform over 50 times before January 6th.  Parler also warned the FBI about specific threats of violence being planned for the events at the Capitol on January 6th."  The letter details Parler's efforts "to flag and remove unlawful speech from its platform that was not protected by the First Amendment."  It also notes that of the 270 charging documents filed by the Department of Justice, 80 percent of social media references involved Big Tech platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.  "Only 5% referred to Parler."

North Korea:  Lockdown as a Strategy.  There used to be a saying that any country called the "People's Democratic Republic" was the reverse.  Nothing illustrates the semantic inversion better than the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK, also known as North Korea). [...] The Democratic People's Republic's claim to be coronavirus-free cannot be independently confirmed in a country where lockdown is policy.  The secret to the Kims' ability to control the messaging is the principle that less is more.  To achieve this, they deplatformed channels in favor of systems like their unique low bandwidth closed-circuit radio.  DPRK closed-circuit radio works just like a giant apartment intercom system.  "When hundreds of houses and apartments were completed last year, North Korean media showed residents entering their new homes, welcomed with a pile of household goods.  On the wall of each home was something else provided by the state:  a dedicated receiver for the country's secretive third radio network that relays daily news, instruction, and propaganda."  It is obviously impossible to run an economy on the basis of an apartment intercom/loudspeaker.  But the royal Kims are not interested in running an economy, just maintaining control.  For this their infrastructure suffices.

Republican Candidate For Congress In Texas: 'Commies In DC' Are Ruining America.  Dan Rodimer is a former WWE wrestler who is running for Congress in Texas.  In one of his new ads, he takes aim at Nancy Pelosi and Democrats in Washington, DC and refers to them as 'commies' who are ruining America.

China's Myanmar dilemma grows deep and wide.  Soon after 17-year-old medical student Khant Nyar Hein was shot and killed during an anti-coup demonstration in Yangon's Tamwe township on March 14, his mother posted on social media that although her family is ethnically Chinese they do not support the People's Republic of China (PRC).  Ethnicity also came into play in Mandalay when a 19-year-old woman was shot by a Myanmar army sniper on March 3.  Widely circulated pictures of the Sino-Myanmar woman, known as Angel, taken just moments before she was killed showed her in a T-shirt with the slogan "Everything will be OK."

Global Plastic Shortage Triggered By Texas Deep Freeze.  The cold snap that shut down oil fields and refineries across Texas last month has severely impacted several petrochemical plants caused a global shortage of plastics, according to WSJ. Plastics produced on the Gulf Coast are essential for carmaking, medical devices, homebuilding, and consumables.  Prices for polyethylene, polypropylene, and other plastics used to make automobiles, computers, and pipes have reached their highest prices in years due to the shortages produced by the shuttering of petrochemical plants across Texas and other Gulf Coast states due to cold weather in February.  On top of a shortage of almost everything and soaring prices, as we explained days ago, wide-scale supply chain pains are expected throughout 2021.

Kylie Jenner, Billionaire, Asks Fans To Donate To Her Injured Makeup Artist's GoFundMe.  Kylie Jenner, who earned $590 million in 2020 alone, asked her fans to crowdsource $60,000 for her makeup artist's medical bills[.]  According to Forbes, Kylie Jenner made $590 million in 2020, making her the highest paid celebrity of that year.  Not the highest paid female celebrity.  The highest paid celebrity, full stop.  Her estimated net worth is just shy of a billion dollars, and her family's combined net worth?  Estimated to be somewhere around $2 billion.  And over the weekend, Jenner asked her social media fans to contribute to a GoFundMe to help pay for her makeup artist's medical bills.

China's rare earth supplies disrupted by Myanmar tumult.  Fears are growing of a global shortage of rare earth minerals used in the manufacture of high-tech devices as unrest in Myanmar following the February 1 coup disrupts exports to China.  Chinese companies started complaining about delays in shipments of the minerals since mid-March, reportedly due to the deteriorating political and economic situation, which Chinese media reports say have had an impact on logistics.  Rare earth metals are used in aerospace, advanced military equipment, mobile phones and electric vehicles, among other tech products.  Myanmar is a major supplier of rare earth ores, which are exported to China for extraction and processing, and then either used in local production or shipped on to global markets.

Army pulls the pin on 'gender neutral' combat fitness test; creates separate tiers for men, women.  The latest version of the Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) will be gender-neutral in how performance is measured but will establish separate ranked tier systems for men and women, military officials said Monday as they rolled out the latest tweak to the Army's physical performance standards.  Army leaders said that both male and female soldiers will be measured on the same numerical scale of 360 to 600, with a 360 score being the minimum threshold.  In other words, a man and woman who run a mile in the same amount of time will have their performance measured equally on that point scale, and they will receive the same score.  But from there, the results will be separated out by gender in what Pentagon officials say is a recognition of reality.  The changes come amid criticism that previous tries at a truly "gender-neutral" test resulted in high failure rates for female soldiers.

Condo Association Says Resident's American Flag Is Too Noisy, Threatens Fines.  A condo association in Fargo, North Dakota, has threatened ongoing fines to a resident for the flapping sounds his flag makes on windy days.  Andrew Almer, like many Americans, hangs an American flag outside his home.  "It's something I've always wanted when I owned a home," Almer told Fox 13 on Friday.  "Having an American flag in the yard is just an American thing — that pride to have."  Now it looks like the patriotic display could cost him.

Wild Footage Shows Protesters In Myanmar Trying To Fight Armed Security Officers With Slingshots.  Protesters in Myanmar fired slingshots and threw Molotov cocktails toward lines of security forces after apparently coming under fire Wednesday in a rare incidence of anti-coup demonstrators fighting back against a relentlessly violent crackdown.

China uses Black Lives Matter to embarrass Biden Administration.  The Biden administration was thoroughly embarrassed and unprepared in their first diplomatic meeting with the Chinese delegation yesterday [3/18/2021].  On U.S. soil, the Chinese mocked U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.  "Many people within the United States actually have little confidence in the democracy of the United States," top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi told the Biden administration, citing the Black Lives Matter movement.  The Chinese brazenly violated protocol for their 2-minute openings, each extending their comments beyond the given time.  Mr. Yang spoke for 16 minutes.

How Covid-19 Supercharged the Advertising 'Triopoly' of Google, Facebook and Amazon.  When the pandemic upended the economy last year, companies took a hard look at their advertising plans.  Oreos maker Mondelez International Inc. shifted money meant for TV commercials during March Madness basketball and the Summer Olympics into digital platforms.  A hefty chunk went to Alphabet Inc.'s Google, which offered data on what locked-down snack lovers were searching for.  Athleisure company Vuori Inc. more than tripled its spending on Facebook Inc., spotting a chance to juice sales of its sweatpants to people stuck at home.  Office-furniture maker Steelcase Inc. built an operation to sell directly to workers and advertised aggressively on Amazon.com Inc.  The Big Three of digital advertising — Google, Facebook and Amazon — already dominated that sector going into 2020.  The pandemic pushed them into command of the entire advertising economy.

Weather Channel will stop using 'racially insensitive' term 'Dixie Alley' for tornado-prone region of the South.  The Weather Channel on Friday [3/19/2021] announced it will no longer use the term "Dixie Alley" on its television network.  The term describes the region of the southern U.S. that's prone to deadly tornado outbreaks.  "Effective immediately, we will discontinue use of the racially-insensitive term 'Dixie Alley' — and I call on others in the industry to do the same," Byron Allen — CEO of Allen Media Group, parent company of The Weather Channel television network — said in a statement.

Myanmar Military Seizes George Soros Organization's Bank Accounts, Announces Arrest Warrants After Coup.  The military government in Myanmar, in place after a coup provoked by widespread accusations of voter fraud plagued the country's recent election, has now seized the bank accounts of George Soros' Open Society Foundations.  After taking control of the country in a military coup provoked by allegations of voter fraud earlier this year, the Myanmar military government has seized several bank accounts belonging or affiliated with George Soros' Open Society Foundations, and has announced arrest warrants for 11 members of the organization in the country "on suspicion of giving financial support to the civil disobedience movement against the military junta."

Former intelligence chief: 'Quite a few more' UFOs detected than public knows.  A former top intelligence official raised expectations on Friday for a forthcoming U.S. government disclosure on what it knows about UFOs.  John Ratcliffe, who served as director of national intelligence under former President Donald Trump, was asked on Fox News by host Maria Bartiromo what he knows about unidentified flying objects that have captured people's imaginations for generations.  "There are a lot more sightings than have been made public," Ratcliffe said.  "Some of those have been declassified.  And when we talk about sightings, we are talking about objects that have seen by Navy or Air Force pilots, or have been picked up by satellite imagery that frankly engage in actions that are difficult to explain.  Movements that are hard to replicate that we don't have the technology for.  Or traveling at speeds that exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom."  After saying that there have been sightings all around the world, Ratcliffe insisted that reports of "unidentified aerial phenomena" already in the public eye are only part of the bigger picture.

January 6 Narrative Collapse:  Assault Charges Spell Problems for DOJ, FBI in Officer Sicknick Case.  A major development broke this week in the Federal investigation into what exactly caused the death of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick. [...] Here's what we know:  Two men, Julian Khater and George Tanios, have been charged with nine criminal counts for actions taken on January 6th just outside the steps of the U.S. Capitol building.  The most serious offense appears to be assault on an officer with a dangerous weapon, arising from Khater's alleged use of Tanios's chemical spray to tag Officer Sicknick and two other officers in the face.  It's not fully clear whether "dangerous weapon" or "deadly weapon" is the apt description.  The front page of the criminal complaint describes the assault as only being with a "dangerous weapon": [...] Everyone from Fox News to The Daily Caller to TMZ to World Socialist Website to Baltimore Jewish Life to the January 6th Wikipedia entry reported the charge as assault with a "deadly weapon"[.]

Tide wants you to wash in cold water to save the planet.  Detergent and cleaning brand Tide is urging Americans to do their laundry in cold water; to save the planet, and maybe save some money.  As part of their effort to lower the carbon footprint of doing laundry, Tide's new campaign is aimed at getting people to do an average of three out of four loads of laundry with cold water by 2030.  Currently, about half the loads of laundry in North America are with cold water.  The switch will cut down on the power consumption needed to heat the water.

The Editor says...
[#1] Hot water cleans better, every time.  [#2] Just make the soap, and leave the environmental preaching to someone else.  The detergent market is very competitive.  If I try all the other brands, I might not come back.  [#3]  If there is not enough power available in this country to wash clothes in warm water, the solution is to build more power plants; preferably fueled by America's 500-year supply of coal and 200-year supply of natural gas.

The Root accused of racism after piece by New York Times contributor declares 'Whiteness is a Pandemic'.  The digital magazine The Root was accused of racism Wednesday after publishing an article declaring "Whiteness is a Pandemic" in response to Tuesday's deadly shootings in Georgia.  There was a rush to conclude that the shootings that killed eight people at three Atlanta-area massage parlors were hate crimes after officials confirmed that six of the eight victims were Asian-Americans.  Investigators said Wednesday that the suspected gunman, 21-year-old Robert Long, told them he was motivated by a "sexual addiction".  They added that racism "did not appear to be the motive".  Long has since been charged with multiple counts of murder and assault.  In the piece, Root senior editor Damon Young argued that "Whiteness" is a "public health crisis."

Biden Admin Halts Navy Operations, Orders Sailors to Undergo 'Chilling' Stand-Down Training.  [Scroll down]  As one person on our team put it, "Why does the DoD only care about one kind of extremism?  Why do they refuse to talk about antifa?  Why is it extremist to attack a Capitol police officer, but not extremist to attack a Portland police officer?"  We were further lectured that "supremacists" were seeking to join the military to gain skills and proficiency with weapons.  But, of course, we know that inner-city gangs have been trying this for years, and yet there was no discussion of this.  Nor was there any mention of antifa, which explicitly and often openly promotes violent activities.  It seems odd that in 2020, when we saw 1,000 riots with varying levels of violence, our training would be centered on the one riot connected to the right and ignore the 999 connected to the left.

Ohio AG sues Biden administration over pandemic bill.  Ohio's attorney general filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration on Wednesday [3/17/2021] over a provision of the recently signed pandemic relief bill.  In a complaint filed in federal district court in Ohio, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (R) challenged a provision in the legislation that forbids state and local government from using pandemic aid to offset tax cuts.  "Ohio seeks to enjoin federal officials from enforcing the unconstitutional Tax Mandate, and seeks declaratory relief establishing that the State of Ohio, under the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, retains the freedom to manage its own tax policy," the lawsuit reads.

U.S. has issued 90 million stimulus checks worth $242 billion, Treasury says.  The U.S. has thus far issued 90 million stimulus checks worth a collective $242 billion as part of President Joe Biden's landmark $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, according to a report released Wednesday [3/17/2021] by multiple government agencies.  The first batch of payments were mostly sent by direct deposit, and some recipients started receiving their checks this past weekend, the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service announced.  The Treasury said it also mailed about 150,000 physical checks worth about $442 million as part of the first wave of disbursements.

Convicted Democratic fund-raiser had secret ties to U.S. intelligence.  Imaad Zuberi hobnobbed for two decades among America's political elite, raising millions for Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton, texting with kings, princes, presidents and prime ministers and jet-setting with Republican senators like Lindsey Graham and John McCain. [...] When Zuberi was sentenced last month to 12 years in prison and more than $18 million in fines — one of the harshest penalties ever meted out for a donor fraud case — it seemed like an open-and-shut case of political corruption. [...] But back in the nation's capital, the U.S. government harbored a deep secret about Zuberi, a Pakistani-American who ran a highly successful venture capital firm with reach across the globe.  Just the News has confirmed from multiple current and former U.S. officials that Zuberi enjoyed a long and complex relationship with U.S. intelligence.  His early help to the Drug Enforcement Administration with illegal drug trade and the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department in the war on Islamic terrorism in the early 2000s eventually elevated him to becoming a valuable source inside Washington's security and spy establishment for much of the last two decades, the officials said.  They declined to be more specific.

Man Sues Hertz Over Lost Receipt That Was His Murder Alibi.  A Michigan man has sued Hertz, the car rental company, saying it failed to produce a receipt that would have proved his innocence before he was convicted of a 2011 murder.  The man, Herbert Alford, was convicted in 2016 of second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of Michael Adams, 23, in Lansing, Mich.  Mr. Alford insisted that he was innocent and that a car rental receipt from the Hertz location at the Lansing airport would prove that he was nowhere near the scene of the murder when it occurred in October 2011.  The company produced the receipt in 2018, and the charges against Mr. Alford were dropped last year.

Democrat Introduces Sensible Bill To Eliminate Clock Changes.  Have you recovered from once again having an hour stolen from your day on Saturday night?  This annoying practice has been with us for quite a while now but it's always seemed fairly pointless to me.  Beyond not providing any concrete benefits, it's an annoyance.  Every time I complain about changing the clocks twice per year, somebody always chimes in telling me to move to Arizona, but that's not a practical solution for everyone.  So how would you feel about doing away with it?  That may finally be possible with the latest submission of a bill that would keep the United States permanently on Daylight Savings Time.  Sponsored by Senator Ed Markey and already garnering bipartisan support, it sounds like we may actually be able to put an end to this nonsense.

Lockdowns: Class warfare of the rich and the professional class against the working class.  A year after "15 days to flatten the curve" began our lockdowns, we have enough data to answer the classic question about lockdowns (which still exist a year later in many places, including much of California):  cui bono?  (who benefits?)  The answer is:  as an individual, Jeff Bezos.  His stock in Amazon, the single biggest beneficiary of lockdowns, is worth billions of dollars more than before the lockdown.  As a group:  educated professionals, able to work from home via Zoom and other internet-based services and able to afford home delivery.

A Study Shows Very Few Capitol Hill Rioters Were QAnon Red-Staters With Ties to 'Right Wing' Groups.  A survey by the University of Chicago finds that most Capitol Hill rioters had no ties to any fringe right-wing groups and were engaged people outraged by what they believed was a rigged election.  While colorful weirdos with names such as QAnon Shaman and Baked Alaska stole the headlines, people who were arrested by federal officials during and after the riot were a "broader core of people" with a healthy skepticism about the veracity of the November 2020 election, according to the study.

Journalism Competition and Preservation Act could be a massive blow to small media companies.  The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act of 2019 is currently making its way through Congress and if passed, would be a massive blow to small media companies.  According to govtrack.us, the bill creates a four-year safe harbor from antitrust laws for print or digital news companies to collectively negotiate with online social media companies regarding the terms on which the news companies' content may be distributed by online content distributors.  A report published by Breitbart this week criticizes the bill, saying it would give Big Media companies a special exemption from antitrust law, allowing them to form a cartel, meaning big companies would maintain prices at a high level while restricting the competition.

Poll Finds Most Democrats Still Think Trump Stole The 2016 Election — Why Aren't They Being Canceled?  Pollster Scott Rasmussen recently came up with an interesting finding.  His poll showed that almost the exact same percentage of Americans think Hillary Clinton had the election stolen from her as think Donald Trump suffered the same fate in 2020.  So why is it that Democrats never get attacked for being seditionists?  Rasmussen (who founded but is no longer with the Rasmussen Reports polling firm) surveyed 1,200 registered voters, asking who they believe were the legitimate winners of the 2016 and 2020 elections.  What he found was that 52% of Democrats continue to believe that Clinton was the actual winner in 2016.  Only 34% of Democrats believe Trump was the legitimate winner, and 14% aren't sure.

U.S. Army Considers Reversing 'Gender Neutral Physical Test' After Majority Of Women Fail To Keep Up With Men:  Report.  The United States Army is reportedly considering doing away with its new "gender-neutral physical test" after test results showed that the majority of women failed while approximately 90 percent of men passed.  Officials are reportedly considering having different evaluation categories for men and women due to the physiological differences between the two.  "Research showed that the Army Combat Fitness Test [ACFT], which is the same for male and female soldiers, was leading to lower results for women with a knock-on effect for promotions," The Telegraph reported.  "An early Pentagon study showed that women were failing the ACFT at a rate of 65 percent, while only 10 percent of men did."  A report from last fall found that 54 percent of women failed the test while only 7 percent of men failed it.

Biden Admin Warns NY Sheriff Over Flying of Trump Flag in Boat Parade.  Joe Biden's handlers are not content with the fact that they managed to get rid of Donald Trump, because now they're going after his supporters and pretending as though they have the law on their side.  The Office of the Special Counsel has issued a warning to a New York sheriff that he allegedly violated an 82-year-old law that prevents federal workers from doing political stuff in their official capacity.

Some people read too many sci-fi novels.
Scientists want to send 6.7M sperm samples to the moon.  Scientists have begun to lay plans for repopulation, starting with a sperm bank — on the moon.  In what they're calling a "modern global insurance policy," mechanical engineers have proposed that humans establish a repository of reproductive cells — sperm and ova — from 6.7 million of Earth's species, including humans.  And the proposed bank, or "ark," would be beneath the moon's surface.

The Editor says...
Who's going to pay for this project?  Under what circumstances would it be necessary, feasible, or possible, to go get all that material from the repository?  It would be all but useless on the moon, so one infers that the stuff would be returned to the Earth.  By whom?  For what purpose?

Wall Street elites who fled to Florida amid COVID-19 want to return to NYC.  Wall Street elites who flocked to Florida to ride out the COVID-19 crisis now have regrets — and are eyeing a move back to the Big Apple.  "The main problem with moving to Florida is that you have to live in Florida," Jason Mudrick, the founder of Mudrick Capital Management, told Bloomberg.  Those among the upper crust are being drawn back to New York for its choice selection of private schools, restaurants and cultural institutions — as well as the city's deep pool of young talent when it comes to finance jobs.  "New York has the smartest, most driven people, the best culture, the best restaurants and the best theaters," the Manhattan resident of more than two decades admitted to the outlet.

The Editor says...
Yeah, your life in Florida must be really tough.  I feel so sorry for you.  It probably feels like Kansas, but with more rain.

The Socialist Revolution Expects Venezuela's Elderly to Live Off $0.63 a Month.  Time and time again the "Bolivarian, Socialist, Anti-Imperialist, and Profoundly Chavista" Revolution has stylized itself as a champion of the elderly.  In reality, being an elderly Venezuelan in times of socialist revolution means living a miserable retirement, on a pension so low that it's all but a death sentence.

The Man Who Tried To Stop The Space Shuttle Challenger Launch And Exposed NASA's Cover-Up Dies At 83.  Allan McDonald lived an incredible life dedicated to exploration and the pursuit of truth.  In 1986, McDonald had a very important decision to make:  To let the U.S. space shuttle Challenger fly despite adverse conditions, or to deny launch.  He refused to sign off on a launch that fateful January day, and he refused to remain silent when NASA attempted to cover up what really happened.  As the director of the solid rocket booster project at Morton Thiokol, the NASA contractor that built the rockets, he was the one who had to sign off on a launch.  But the night before the January 28 launch, McDonald had some serious concerns.  Concerns that would prove completely valid in the cold light of day.

No Labor Shortage: 17M Americans Remain Unemployed, All Want Jobs.  Nearly 17 million Americans remain unemployed in the United States economy, though all want full-time jobs, as President Joe Biden's administration looks to pack the labor market with foreign workers.  The latest Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data for February finds that about ten million Americans are unemployed, 6.9 million are out of the labor force entirely and 6.1 million remain underemployed, but all want full-time work with competitive wages and good benefits.

Biden's German Shepherd has aggressive incident and is sent back to Delaware.  The two German Shepherds belonging to President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden were returned to the Biden family home in Delaware last week after aggressive behavior at the White House involving Major Biden, two sources with knowledge tell CNN.  Major, who was adopted by Biden in November 2018 from a Delaware animal shelter, had what one of the people described as a "biting incident" with a member of White House security.  The exact condition of the victim is unknown, however, the episode was serious enough that the dogs were subsequently moved to Wilmington, Delaware, where they remain.  CNN reached out to the White House for comment and did not immediately receive a reply.

At Least 30,000 U.S. Organizations Newly Hacked Via Holes in Microsoft's Email Software.  At least 30,000 organizations across the United States — including a significant number of small businesses, towns, cities and local governments — have over the past few days been hacked by an unusually aggressive Chinese cyber espionage unit that's focused on stealing email from victim organizations, multiple sources tell KrebsOnSecurity.  The espionage group is exploiting four newly-discovered flaws in Microsoft Exchange Server email software, and has seeded hundreds of thousands of victim organizations worldwide with tools that give the attackers total, remote control over affected systems.

Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin Starts To Crack On Filibuster, Signals Openness To Change.  Democrat Senator Joe Manchin (WV) appears to have started to shift his views on the filibuster with remarks that he made on two news shows on Sunday morning [3/7/2021].  The shift from Manchin comes after he has repeatedly stated that he would not vote to end the filibuster, despite pressure from the far-Left.  During the interviews on Sunday, Manchin repeatedly claimed that he was not open to ending the filibuster because he did not want to strip the minority party of their power in the Senate, but signaled that he was open to changing it. [...] Left-wing TPM editor Josh Marshall tweeted out a clip of the interview and noted that Manchin is apparently adopting the talking points that leftists are pushing in their attempts to combat the filibuster.

Rep. Lee Zeldin Has an Announcement for Gov. Cuomo.  "Cuomo's Gotta Go," said Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) on Twitter on Tuesday.  And he wants to be the guy to kick him out.  Fielding a nursing home scandal had already weakened Gov. Andrew Cuomo politically, but with a new trio of sexual harassment accusations against him, Cuomo finds even his own party starting to turn against him.  Zeldin sees an opening and he is "actively exploring" a run against Gov. Cuomo in 2022.

Contractor serving National Guard at U.S. Capitol defends catering service.  The caterer contracted to feed thousands of National Guard troops providing security at the U.S. Capitol defended its food service Thursday [3/4/2021], claiming that none of the cases of reported gastrointestinal illness among soldiers have been linked to the company.  "No cases of foodborne illness can be directly tied to this vendor," said Maria Stagliano, a spokeswoman for Sardi's Catering in College Park, Maryland.  The response follows a Wednesday announcement by the National Guard that at least 50 service members have been sickened with gastrointestinal issues after complaints that they were served bad food while on duty guarding the Capitol.

Biden Administration Fires Trump-appointed Lawyer Who Refused To Resign.  The White House fired the Trump-appointed General Counsel of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Friday evening, following her refusal to step down.  In a definite letter Friday morning [3/5/2021] to President Biden, Sharon Gustafson said she "respectfully" declined the White House's request for her resignation, noting she had only served half of her four-year term.  "I intend to honor that commitment," she wrote in a letter released by the Ethics and Public Policy Center.  "I have confidently given this advice to countless embattled clients over the last 25 years:  hold your head high, do your best work, and do not resign under pressure.  I stand in solidarity with them, I will follow that advice," she added.

Wall Street Made Huge Profits Off Deep Freeze, at Least on Paper.  Traders across Wall Street are poised for significant profits from the freeze that roiled energy markets and left swaths of the U.S. without electricity last month.  That is, if they can collect.  Goldman Sachs Group Inc. could gain more than $200 million from the physical sale of power and natural gas and from financial hedges after spot prices surged across much of the U.S., according to people with knowledge of the matter.  Morgan Stanley's gains could come in under $200 million, according to a person with familiar with the matter, and Bank of America Corp. stands to rake in profits as well.  But those gains in their totality may prove elusive given the crisis's fallout — tipping energy companies into bankruptcy, triggering legal challenges and prompting government intervention.  The uncertainty is such that Goldman executives estimate that the bank may realize less than half of its paper gains, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information isn't public.

Ebay scraps 'canceled' Dr. Seuss books from site.  Dr. Seuss' "canceled" books are becoming rarer by the minute.  EBay is barring users from reselling the six Dr. Seuss books that will no longer be printed due to their "racist" imagery — a move that comes after the books started going for hundreds of dollars on the auction site.  "EBay is currently sweeping our marketplace to remove these items," an eBay spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal in an email.  The announcement comes after Dr. Seuss Enterprises, which publishes the author's books for Penguin Random House, said it would no longer print six titles — "And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street," "If I Ran the Zoo," "McElligot's Pool," "On Beyond Zebra!," Scrambled Eggs Super!," and "The Cat's Quizzer."  A scan of eBay on Thursday [3/4/2021] showed a handful of the titles still available for sale on the site, although fewer than the prior day, the Journal said.

Outrage as eBay removes listings for canceled Dr Seuss books 'because they glorify violence' but allows copies of Mein Kampf and Louis Farrakhan's books to be sold.  Outraged Americans are demanding to know why eBay has banned them from reselling the six 'offensive' Dr Seuss books that are being canceled when copies of Hitler's Mein Kampf and Louis Farrakhan — whose anti-Semitic remarks are well known — are still available.  Ebay on Thursday started removing listings for the six Dr Seuss books that are no longer going to be produced.  They emailed people who had listed the books, saying that the post violated their 'offensive materials policy'.  The company has not released any kind of statement about it, nor have they responded to inquiries.

Dr. Seuss Books Hold 42 of Top 50 on Amazon Sales Ranking Chart.  Sales of Dr. Seuss children's books continue booming a day after the left tried to "cancel" the author's works on his birthday.  Dr. Seuss's books were among the leading 42 titles on the top 50 list of Amazon's "movers and shakers" on Wednesday morning [3/3/2021] after the ban was announced.

Phil Haney's warning to America:  Did he know something that got him killed?  A little over a week before government whistleblower Phil Haney was found dead on the side of a road in California, he was heard on a conference call discussing an interfaith initiative that involved Islamic organizations working with the Vatican and the U.S. government.  One of the people on that call with Haney was Elizabeth Yore, a longtime attorney and international activist who focuses on issues involving the Vatican, Islam and global child abuse.  "I was on this conference call with a group that included Phil, talking about the Abrahamic Faiths Initiative and Pope Francis," Yore told me in a phone interview Friday, March 5.  The Abrahamic Faiths Initiative was announced Jan. 14, 2020, a little over a month before Haney's mysterious death.

Marlboro Maker Asks FDA to Convince Americans Nicotine Isn't That Bad.  Marlboro-maker Altria Group Inc. wants to enlist an unlikely partner in convincing Americans that nicotine isn't as bad as they think — its regulator.  The company asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to tackle misperceptions about nicotine as part of a proposed $100 million advertising campaign to reduce the harm caused by tobacco, according to a letter seen by Bloomberg News.  That could be difficult with about three-fourths of U.S. adults incorrectly believing nicotine causes cancer, Altria said in the communication, citing government research.  Clearing up the drug's health risks will be key to the agency reducing smoking because it will help convince cigarette users to switch to non-combustible options for nicotine, the company said.

Canceled: Conservative comic strip 'Mallard Fillmore' dropped in 'unprecedented' move.  The conservative comic strip "Mallard Fillmore" has been plucked.  Bruce Tinsley, creator of the 27-year-old cartoon, said he was told this week by his syndication company that Gannett newspapers across the country simultaneously dropped the comic over two strips critical of President Biden and transgender participation in women's sports.  "It was a big shock," Mr. Tinsley told The Washington Times.  "From what I'm hearing, it was unprecedented.  My syndicate had never seen anything like it."

Capitol Police chief disputes FBI's account of pre-insurrection warnings.  Acting Capitol Police Chief Yogananda Pittman said her department received only an email warning of "war" at the Capitol, disputing testimony Tuesday by FBI Director Christopher Wray, who said his agency communicated the intelligence three different ways on the eve of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.  "The FBI only sent the email," Pittman told House appropriators Wednesday [3/3/2021].  Pittman appeared before the Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee asking for a fiscal 2022 budget of $619.2 million, a boost of more than $100 million over the past year.  The budget request would add 212 sworn officers to fund a total of 2,112 uniformed and 453 civilian employees.  The force would use the additional officers for a standby quick response force, as threat assessment agents and as dignitary protection agents.

FBI Official Says No Guns Were Recovered During Capitol Riot Arrests.  A top FBI counterterrorism official testified on Wednesday [3/3/2021] that no firearms were recovered during arrests of rioters who breached the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.  "How many firearms were confiscated in the Capitol or on Capitol grounds during that day?" Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson asked Jill Sanborn, the FBI official, during a Senate Homeland Security hearing.  "To my knowledge, we have not recovered any on that day from any other arrests at the scene at this point," replied Sanborn, who serves as FBI assistant director for counterterrorism.  "I don't want to speak on behalf of Metro and Capitol police, but, to my knowledge, none," she added.

Chuck Schumer Used 'Green Eggs and Ham' to Sell Obamacare.  President Joe Biden joined the "cancel culture" this week by dropping Dr. Seuss from "Read Across America Day" after left-wing critics complained about the author's early caricatures and race-neutral beliefs.  But Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who leads the Democratic Party in the Senate, is among the many members of his party who have used Dr. Seuss to make political points.  In 2013, for example, Schumer used Dr. Seuss to argue for the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare.  Schumer cited the popular Dr. Seuss book Green Eggs and Ham, which Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) had read aloud on the Senate floor as he attempted to block the implementation of Obamacare.  Schumer argued that like the central character in Green Eggs and Ham, who resisted the dish until he actually tried it, Americans would enjoy Obamacare once they were forced to enroll in it.

SpaceX Starship rocket prototype nails landing... then blows up.  The latest heavy-duty launch vehicle prototype from SpaceX soared flawlessly into the sky in a high-altitude test blast-off on Wednesday from Boca Chica, Texas, then flew itself back to Earth to achieve the first upright landing for a Starship model.  But the triumph was short-lived.  Listing slightly to one side as an automated fire-suppression system trained a stream of water on flames still burning at the base of the rocket, the spacecraft blew itself to pieces about eight minutes after touchdown.

Mike Pence Speaks Out Against 2020 Election Irregularities.  Former Vice President Mike Pence has been extremely quiet since January 6th, when he presided over an Electoral College objection process that was cut short by his rules decisions.  Amid the Capitol uprising that even spurred him to be ushered out by the Secret Service, it seemed to be a foregone conclusion that Pence must have been partial to the arguments that there were no major irregularities in the 2020 elections.  Pence put that presumption to rest today [3/3/2021] with an op-ed published at the conservative Daily Signal.  In the opinion piece, the former vice president weighs in on the "election irregularities" that he believes played a role in keeping the 2020 election from being "free and fair."

Biden Gives China Full Access to Control the U.S. National Power Grid.  In his first week in office, President Biden put U.S. security at great risk by giving China autonomous ability to control the national power grid.  Biden issued executive order 13990 in which, buried amid matters purportedly designed to combat climate change, was an anomalous and potentially dangerous provision that suspends a key security measure put in place last May 1 by former President Donald Trump.  Biden's executive order permits China to have full access to the U.S. power grid for 90 days.  Trump's Executive Order 13920 declared an official national emergency with respect to the nation's electric grid and prohibited the acquisition or installation of "any bulk-power electric equipment ... designed, developed, manufactured, or supplied, by persons owned by, controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of a foreign adversary."  In sum, Trump forbade the use of grid equipment that is made in China, Russia, or other hostile nations.  Trump's order was a common-sense response to real, proven threats.  Just last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that the United States seized a Chinese-built transformer because officials believed "its electronics had been secretly given malicious capabilities, possibly allowing a distant adversary to monitor or even disable it on command."

FBI official:  No shots [were] fired by rioters, [and] no firearms [were] recovered during [the] siege on [the] U.S. Capitol.  No firearms were recovered on the U.S. Capitol grounds on Jan. 6 during the riot, and no shots were fired by the demonstrators, an FBI official on Wednesday [3/3/2021] told Congress.  "To my knowledge we have not recovered any [firearms] on that day from any of the arrests at the scene at this point," said Jill Sanborn, assistant director of the FBI's Counterterrorism Division.  "No one has been charged with a firearms violation."  Sanborn made her comments during a joint oversight hearing in the Senate to examine the breach of the U.S. Capitol.  In addition to Sanborn, witnesses included the commander of the Washington, D.C. National Guard, and civilian officials from the Pentagon.

$1,400 stimulus checks in COVID relief bill would phase out at $80,000 instead of $100,000, according to deal between Biden and Democrats.  Senate Democrats reached a deal with President Joe Biden to limit the eligibility for $1,400 stimulus checks in his $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill, phasing the payments out for Americans earning over $80,000, according to two sources familiar with the deliberations not authorized to speak on the record.  The tweak is a key goal of moderates who did not want the checks to go to wealthier Americans[.]  The stimulus checks would phase out entirely at $80,000 of income for individuals, as opposed to about $100,000 in the version of the legislation passed by the House last week.  Joint filers would have their checks phase out entirely at $160,000.

Widely Used Flea Collar Linked to Nearly 1,700 Pet Deaths With No Warning From EPA.  For cat and dog owners, flea and tick collars is a staple for their animal's care.  Sadly, one of the most widely used flea and tick collars in the U.S., Seresto, is linked to hundreds of animal deaths and tens of thousand of animal injuries, not to mention hundreds of humans that have been harmed by the product according to Environmental Protection Agency documents.  However, the EPA has not warned the public of these risks.

Popular flea collar reportedly linked to 1,700 pet deaths.  A popular flea and tick collar is reportedly making thousands of pets sick and even killing some of them — and critics are blaming the Environmental Protection Agency for turning a blind eye to the problem.  The EPA, which is responsible for regulating products that contain pesticides, has received 75,000 incident reports about Seresto pet collars, developed by Bayer and manufactured by Elenco, since they were introduced in 2012, according to public records.  Those include 1,698 pet deaths and nearly 1,000 incidents involving harm to humans, according to an explosive report published Tuesday by the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting and USA Today.

China appears to warn India:  Push too hard and the lights could go out.  Early last summer, Chinese and Indian troops clashed in a surprise border battle in the remote Galwan Valley, bashing each other to death with rocks and clubs.  Four months later and more than 1,500 miles away in Mumbai, India, trains shut down and the stock market closed as the power went out in a city of 20 million people.  Hospitals had to switch to emergency generators to keep ventilators running amid a coronavirus outbreak that was among India's worst.  Now, a new study lends weight to the idea that those two events may have been connected — as part of a broad Chinese cyber campaign against India's power grid, timed to send a message that if India pressed its claims too hard, the lights could go out across the country.  The study shows that as the battles raged in the Himalayas, taking at least two dozen lives, Chinese malware was flowing into the control systems that manage electric supply across India, along with a high-voltage transmission substation and a coal-fired power plant.

Chinese companies buy up UK private schools, sparking fears of CCP influence.  Chinese companies have bought up 17 U.K. private schools in the United Kingdom in recent years, sparking fears of expanding Chinese Communist Party (CCP) influence in the country as the schools struggle financially in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, British media reported.  "Hundreds of independent schools left in dire financial straits by the coronavirus pandemic are being targeted by Chinese investors," the Mail on Sunday newspaper reported at the weekend.  Some of the companies are run by high-ranking members of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, and "seek to expand their influence over Britain's education system," the report said.

China Boasts It Is Getting Rich Selling Syringes to America.  China's state-run Global Times bragged Sunday [2/28/2021] that Chinese companies are making a fortune selling syringes and needles to the United States during the coronavirus pandemic, a tidal wave of imports that makes a mockery of "the U.S. government's attempt to get rid of the Chinese supply chain."  The Global Times quoted U.S. officials admitting in congressional testimony that 80 percent of the needles and syringes used in the United States, and about 90 percent of the supplies purchased worldwide, originate from China.  Chinese officials said China's factories produce hundreds of thousands of syringes a day.

Six Dr. Seuss books won't be published due to racist images, publisher.  The publisher of the popular Dr. Seuss children's books said Tuesday [3/2/2021] it will stop publishing six of the books because of their racist and hurtful imagery, according to the publishing company.  Dr. Seuss Enterprises said the books including "And to Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street" and "If I Ran the Zoo."  "These books portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong," the company told the Associated Press in a statement.

The Editor says...
Dr. Seuss books are not encyclopedias.  They are books for teaching little kids to read, and they were written with humor and illustrated with harmless caricatures.  Anyone who is not perpetually outraged knows this.  If you don't like Dr. Seuss, don't buy the books, but don't ruin them for everybody!

Trump Confirms He Called For 10,000 National Guard For Jan 6th; Pelosi Refused.  Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Monday blamed former President Trump and his team for the border crisis that's now engulfed the new Biden administration, saying when he took office he found "quite frankly the entire system was gutted."  "What we are seeing now at the border is the immediate result of the dismantling of the system and the time it takes to rebuild it virtually from scratch," Mr. Mayorkas said at the White House.  He pleaded with migrants not to make the trip right now, telling them to wait until the rebuild is further along when they can try to come and take their chances under a new Biden system.

Oklahoma House votes to enable legislature to block Biden's executive orders.  James Madison once asserted that "in a republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates."  Well, today, only executive power predominates, because federal and state executive agencies seem to be the only ones doing the legislating.  As Joe Biden continues to pass sweeping "laws" unilaterally with no authority from Congress, the red states are the only even potential check on his abuse of power.  It appears that the state of Oklahoma has now taken up the mantle as the second state to move to block these executive orders.  On Thursday [2/25/2021], the Oklahoma House overwhelmingly passed a bill, HB 1236, that would grant the state's attorney general and state legislature the authority to review the president's executive orders to determine constitutionality.  Specifically, the bill would authorize the legislature to recommend that the attorney general review any executive order, federal agency rule, or federal congressional action to determine whether the state should seek an exemption or declare it unconstitutional.  If either the attorney general or the legislature, by concurrent resolution, declares the act unconstitutional, then all state and local officials and any publicly funded organization are prohibited from enforcing it.

Capitol police chief claims militias are plotting to blow up Capitol during SOTU, kill as many as possible.  Acting Capitol Police Chief Yogananda Pittman issued an alarming statement that members of violent militias who were involved in the Jan. 6 riot are allegedly plotting to blow up the Capitol during Biden's State of the Union address.  She made the explosive claim on Thursday during her testimony via teleconference at a House hearing.  She posited that the goal was to kill as many members of Congress as possible.  "We know that members of militia groups that were present on Jan. 6 have stated their desires that they want to blow up the Capitol and kill as many members as possible with a direct nexus to the State of the Union, which we know that date has not been identified," Pittman declared.

Arizona's Paul Gosar Proposes Amending Coronavirus Package to Replace Pork with $10,000 Stimulus Checks.  Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona has proposed that the federal government pay stimulus checks of $10,000 to Americans beleaguered by the coronavirus pandemic, adopting an approach that would prioritize direct payments to individuals over payments to state and local governments.  Gosar's Amendment, offered on Friday night, would also replace payments to extend federal unemployment benefits.

Make America Ugly Again:  Biden Axes Trump's 'Beautiful' Federal Architecture Order.  Brutalism was seen as modern, stylish, and even futuristic at the time.  It was also cheap to build because it was mostly concrete.  Hence why you'll also find such buildings on college campuses throughout the country.  It's really, really, really ugly.  Few would argue that brutalism has stood the test of time the way classical Greco-Roman architecture has.  As someone who studied architecture in college, I can tell you that Brutalist architecture, while historically significant, is not studied because of its beauty, but for its failure to create inviting spaces.  One classic example of how terrible the Brutalist movement is can be seen in Boston's City Hall Plaza, which has been deemed one of the worst public spaces in the country, and City Hall itself one of the ugliest in the world.  Yet anti-Trumpism apparently takes precedence over architectural beauty, as Joe Biden axed Trump's executive order earlier this week.  There seems to no other justification for this move.  Brutalism is now widely panned, even in architectural circles, whether they'd like to admit it or not.

Russia and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.  [Scroll down]  The debate over Warren's conclusion that Oswald acted alone continues.  However, it is surprising that most Americans have refused to accept that conclusion.  In 2003 three quarters of Americans thought more than one man was involved, and in 2013, the number was still 61%.  It may not be a driving event in American history, but it is important in this era of Russian disinformation to examine allegations of a covert war waged by the Kremlin in the past.

Anything you say on the internet can and will be taken out of context and used against you.
Facebook admits 'mistake' in threat to ban 81-year-old knitter for hate speech.  Facebook has apologized to Rita Rich-Mulcahy, the 81-year-old knitter who was nearly banned from the site for promoting "white pigs."  It all started when Rich-Mulcahy, of Adelaide, Australia, began knitting stuffed animals to pass the time and distract the grieving widow from the death of her husband in 2020.  She also set up a Facebook page through which to share her swine-inspired crafts.  Recently, the self-proclaimed "porcophile" was flagged for "hate speech" by the social-media company — for writing the caption "white pigs" under images of her knitted piglets.  The guiltless woman called it a "frightening" experience for someone without so much as "an overdue library book," she claimed.

One more product to boycott:
Oreo Cookie tweets 'Trans people exist'.  The Twitter feed for Oreo cookies seemed to weigh in on the day's events with a simple statement Thursday [2/25/2021]: "Trans people exist."  The Nabisco cookie brand sent out those three words following a busy day of debate over gender identity rights.  That included a contentious day of testimony over President Biden's transgender Health and Human Services deputy secretary nominee Rachel Levine, where conservative Kentucky senator Rand Paul drilled Levine on topics including hormone treatment for trans teens.

The Editor says...
It may not be possible to boycott every company that connects leftist political messages to its products, but I can try.

Texas was "seconds and minutes" away from catastrophic months-long blackouts, officials say.  Texas' power grid was "seconds and minutes" away from a catastrophic failure that could have left Texans in the dark for months, officials with the entity that operates the grid said Thursday [2/18/2021].  As millions of customers throughout the state begin to have power restored after days of massive blackouts, officials with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, which operates the power grid that covers most of the state, said Texas was dangerously close to a worst-case scenario:  uncontrolled blackouts across the state.  The quick decision that grid operators made in the early hours of Monday morning to begin what was intended to be rolling blackouts — but lasted days for millions of Texans — occurred because operators were seeing warning signs that massive amounts of energy supply was dropping off the grid.

What Happens When Cryptocurrencies Earn Interest?  The premise of DeFi is simple:  Fix the longstanding inefficiency in crypto finance of capital being kept idle at a nonzero opportunity cost.  Now, most investors buy crypto with the hope that the value of the currency itself will rise, as Bitcoin has.  In general, that strategy has worked just fine.  The value of cryptocurrencies has appreciated so rapidly that there just wasn't much incentive to worry about gains of a few percent here and there.  But the recent rise of stablecoins, which are designed keep their value constant, has changed that calculation.  The combined market cap of stablecoins such as Terra and USDC has more than quadrupled in 2020.  Now, vast passive income opportunities are being awakened by DeFi.  The appeal of a lower-risk approach to crypto is obvious and has the potential to expand the pool of investors.  For the first time, it's possible to be compensated for owning cryptos (even in the absence of price appreciation), which brings real, tangible utilities to digital currencies and changes the narrative of an asset class whose sole purpose used to be about being sold at a higher price.

Lee Harvey Oswald [was] ordered to kill JFK by Soviets, ex-CIA chief claims.  Lee Harvey Oswald was a KGB associate who was personally instructed by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to assassinate President Kennedy.  Sometime shortly thereafter, the Soviets changed their minds, and Oswald was told to drop the plan.  But Oswald, harboring a blinding love for all things USSR, refused.  A new book by two former intelligence chiefs — one from the west, one from the east — tosses this tale on the voluminous pile of JFK assassination theories.  "Operation Dragon:  Inside The Kremlin's Secret War on America," (Encounter Books), was written by Ambassador R. James Woolsey, who ran the CIA from 1993-1995 (and who, ironically, resigned abruptly during the scandal over Aldrich Ames, a CIA officer turned Russian double agent), and Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, a former acting chief of Communist Romania's espionage service and the "highest-ranking intelligence official from an enemy country ever granted political asylum in the United States[.]"  (Pacepa died of COVID earlier this month).

Mother Of Officer Sicknick Says Media Got Her Son's Death Wrong, Rejects NYT Fire Extinguisher Story.  The mother of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who died one day after the Capitol riots in January, rejected media assertions weaponized by Democrats in their impeachment trial that her son was killed from head trauma by a fire extinguisher.  "He wasn't hit on the head, no.  We think he had a stroke, but we don't know anything for sure," Gladys Sicknick told the Daily Mail in an interview published Tuesday [2/23/2021].  "We'd love to know what happened."  The false narrative first came from the New York Times, which headlined an article, "Capitol Police Officer Dies From Injuries in Pro-Trump Rampage," published on Jan. 8, two days after the riot. [...] Democrats repeatedly cited the story and even introduced it into evidence at the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump.

Capitol Police Witnesses Struggle to Explain How Rioters Breached the Capitol on January 6.  On Tuesday, current and former Capitol Police officials testified at a joint hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Rules committees about the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.  The law enforcement officers claimed that they had been prepared to face a potentially violent protest, but they said the rioters caught them off guard.  "We properly planned for a mass demonstration with possible violence.  What we got was a military-style coordinated assault on my officers and a violent takeover of the Capitol building," former U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) Chief Steven Sund testified.  He pushed back on claims that USCP was not prepared for the riot.

Co-founder says Wikipedia's neutrality 'long gone,' cites leftist bias.  Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger is criticizing the site's left-wing bias, saying the popular online encyclopedia has become an irretrievably broken platform for socialism.  "The days of Wikipedia's robust commitment to neutrality are long gone," Mr. Sanger told Fox News in a new interview.  "Wikipedia's ideological and religious bias is real and troubling, particularly in a resource that continues to be treated by many as an unbiased reference work."  Mr. Sanger, 52, co-founded the site with Jimmy Wales in January 2001.  He said Wikipedia's turn away from neutrality is "disheartening."

Autos need finite rare earth, critical, & precious metals.  There are 17 rare earth elements (REE) that China controls up to 97% of (Klare 2012, Shumsky 2011).  These are essential for transitioning to so-called green energy — not just cars but solar panels, windmills, solar photovoltaic, computers, electronics, the smart grid and more.  While we can import oil from dozens of nations, REE make us dependent on China, and China is also constructing mines all over the world — it's as if Saudi Arabia bought up all the remaining oil fields.  Mining is the second most toxic, environmentally damaging industry on earth.  So whatever the cost may be, no matter how high, let the Chinese destroy their land.  It's a cheaper price to pay rather than destroy our own nation's precious topsoil, which in the long run is the most valuable possession we have.  Already 20% of China's arable land is polluted with toxic heavy metals from mining and industry.

Professor Charged with Stealing $1.75 Million in Research for China.  We are closely watching the growing threat China poses to the United States, not the least of which is its wholesale, systematic theft of scientific and medical research.  A recent criminal indictment, reported in our Corruption Chronicles blog, illustrates how this theft is too often enabled with your tax dollars:  Communist China has long benefitted from American-funded research stolen by Chinese academics who infiltrate colleges throughout the United States.  This month a criminal indictment sheds light on a recent scheme allegedly masterminded by a Chinese professor at one of the nation's top-ranked public universities.  His name is Lin Yang, a 43-year-old member of the Thousand Talents Program (TTP) operated by the Chinese government to transfer original ideas, technology and intellectual property from foreign institutions, especially American colleges.

Court Docs Show Facebook Played Much Bigger Part In Capitol Riot Than Parler, Yet No Consequences.  It's been more than a month since the app stores of Google and Apple joined forces with Amazon Web Services to knee-cap an upstart competitor, Parler.  The stated reasoning was Parler's lack of content moderation policies, which Apple, in particular, claimed led to Parler's use as a forum to "plan, coordinate, and facilitate the illegal activities in Washington DC on January 6, 2021."  This reasoning was confidently repeated across the corporate press.  "The Capitol mob began organizing ... on platforms like Parler and Gab," Vox asserted.  Planning for the "mob violence that descended on the U.S. Capitol ... took place openly on websites popular with far-right conspiracy theorists," National Public Radio proclaimed.  Facebook shut down Stop the Steal groups, said The New York Times, so planning moved to Parler and Gab. [...] The problem with all of this is that it turned out to be mostly wrong.  Yes, Parler was used, in some form, to promote and discuss the violent aspects of Jan. 6.  But so too were other major social media platforms — and in a much larger way than Parler.  The Department of Justice has now charged 223 people for their participation in the events of Jan. 6.  A comprehensive analysis of those charging documents performed by Forbes demonstrate that Parler's role was minimal, compared to that of Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.

At least 800 Ethiopians killed after defending 'Ark of the Covenant'.  At least 800 people were reportedly killed in Ethiopia as worshippers and soldiers risked their lives to protect what Christians there say is the sacred Ark of the Covenant from local militia.  Ethiopian Christians claim the Ark — the wooden chest built to hold the Ten Commandments of Moses — is being kept safe in a chapel in the holy northern city of Axum in the Tigray region.  The battle between Ethiopian soldiers and rebel fighters happened in the fall, The Sunday Times reported, but it is only being reported now.  "When people heard the shooting they ran to the church to give support to the priests and others who were there protecting the ark," Getu Mak, a local university lecturer, told The Times.  "Certainly some of them were killed for doing that."

'How in the world can anyone pay that?': Some seeing electric bills as high as $17K in wake of Texas winter storm.  The Texas power outage has become the Texas power outrage.  Electricity supply and demand in Texas has really stabilized now.  But when it was grossly out of whack over the past several days, the cost of power in the wholesale market went crazy.  It went from about $50 per Megawatt to $9,000.  That didn't affect retail many customers because they were on a fixed-rate plan.

Portland police officers 'guarding' Fred Meyer dumpsters as residents seek discarded food.  Roughly a dozen Portland police officers faced off with a small group at a Northeast Portland Fred Meyer on Tuesday after people tried to take food that had been thrown away.  Workers at the Hollywood West Fred Meyer threw away thousands of perishable items because the store, like many others, had lost power in an outage brought on by the region's winter storm.  Images on social media showed mountains of packaged meat, cheese and juice, as well as whole turkeys and racks of ribs that had been tossed into two large dumpsters near the store.

Rep. Banks Leads Republican Study Committee in Large-Scale Campaign to Counter CCP.  For the first time in its history, the Republican Study Committee (RSC) — the largest conservative caucus on Capitol Hill — will make countering the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) a key part of its agenda under the leadership of its newly elected chairman, Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.).  As part of this large-scale effort, Banks said that he and others in the House committee will introduce more than 20 bills this week alone dedicated to confronting the China threat and holding the Biden administration accountable for weak policies on China.  The legislative barrage will touch upon a wide range of issues broadly focused on pushing back against the CCP's influence in the United States.  "We've made countering communist China a platform of the RSC for the first time, under my leadership," Banks told The Epoch Times.  "It deserves our attention, and as the largest caucus, our members understand this is the greatest threat that we face and that we have to confront it."

Texas Attorney General Announces Probe Into ERCOT Over Role in Blackouts.  Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has launched an investigation into the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the organization that operates the state's power grid, alleging "mishandling" amid the brutal cold snap that has left millions of Texans shivering and in the dark.  "ERCOT & other energy cos have slipped & fallen on their faces & it's not the ice's fault.  They have left 3+ million homes w/o power for days, including my own," Paxton wrote in a tweet late Wednesday [2/17/2021].  "What do they do in response?  Jack up prices, go silent, make excuses, & play the blame game.  It's unacceptable!" he added.  Paxton also commended officials, including Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott, on "getting to the bottom" of the power crisis.

Texas Electric Board Members Live WHERE?  Many, probably most, Texans hadn't heard of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas until this week.  Then a historic winter storm froze up the place and "electric reliability" turned into an unfunny joke for far too many.  Their electricity was reliably unavailable.  Well, except in certain well-lit urban downtowns.  If you live outside of those, as most Texans do, you were forced to play a grim version of Russian Roulette with your power and water supply — if you could get either.  Your water pipes may have frozen and burst, rendering your frigid home uninhabitable.  I have friends who are dealing with this and will be dealing with it for a long time after the storm.  Power went out for millions of Texans several days ago and is only now being restored piecemeal.  Freezing temperatures won't even leave central Texas until Friday.

A third of the ERCOT board members live out of state.  A third of the board of directors that operate the state's electrical grid do not appear to live in Texas, and their performance in wake of widespread outages has led to a Dallas-area lawmaker's call for change.  Records show the two top office holders of the 15-member board of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), live out-of-state.  Three other ERCOT board members also appear to live thousands of miles from Texas.

Florida GOP congressman beckons New York Stock Exchange to move to Florida.  Florida GOP Rep. Byron Donalds is urging The New York Stock Exchange to leave Lower Manhattan for Florida.  Donalds argued such a move would benefit the exchange because Florida has no tax on stock trades.  "Oh I do," Donalds said in response to a question on whether the NYSE should leave Wall Street for Florida.  "We have a lot of nice land here in southwest Florida we can find a nice place for them right here in the heart of my congressional district."

Chattanooga man charged with impersonating President Obama on gun permit application.  Police are charging a man from Chattanooga after they say he forged former President Barack Obama's name on an application for a handgun permit.  Chattanooga officers arrested Robert Joseph Hallick on February 11th.  He's charged with perjury, forgery and identity theft.  An affidavit obtained by NewsChannel 9 says Hallick had been denied a gun permit request using his own name back in November due to an active warrant for his arrest in the state of Michigan.  The arrest report says Hallick sent another application on January 21st, except this time he used the name "President Barack H. Obama" instead.  Included along with the form was a $50 check.

The Editor says...
Helpful clues for the police: [#1] Barack H. Obama doesn't have a valid Social Security number to put on an application for a gun permit, or any other form.  [#2] Barack H. Obama is the last person in town who needs a gun, since he's surrounded by armed cops 24/7.  [#3] The only time Barack H. Obama has ever held a gun (reluctantly!), as far as I know, was for this photo op.  He's the least likely customer to come in to a gun shop.

Rush Limbaugh, the Human Megaphone Who Hijacked the GOP, Dead at 70.  Rush Limbaugh, whose wife Kathryn confirmed on Wednesday [2/17/2021] that he died at 70 after a yearlong and very public battle against lung cancer, was a college dropout when he began his combustible radio career, repeatedly losing gigs as a deejay and news-talk host; he spent much of 1974 jobless and living in his parents' basement in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. [...] Yet in his final two decades of life, he managed to dominate conservative talk radio even after near-total deafness — somewhat remediated by a cochlear implant — required him to hire a former court reporter to sit in his Palm Beach control room and instantly transcribe listener phone calls so he could converse in real time on the air.  Born Rush Hudson Limbaugh III into a distinguished and rabidly Republican family of judges and lawyers in the nearly all-white southeast Missouri town on the Illinois border, he ultimately commanded an adoring national audience of as many as 20 million listeners — "dittoheads" in Limbaugh-speak — and became by some accounts (especially from his Democratic detractors) the de facto leader of the GOP.

Rush Limbaugh, RIP.  Rush Limbaugh, the monumentally influential media icon who transformed talk radio and politics in his decades behind the microphone, helping shape the modern-day Republican Party, died Wednesday morning at the age of 70 after a battle with lung cancer, his family announced.  Limbaugh's wife, Kathryn, made the announcement on his radio show.  "Losing a loved one is terribly difficult, even more so when that loved one is larger than life," she said.  "Rush will forever be the greatest of all time."  The radio icon learned he had Stage IV lung cancer in January 2020 and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Trump at the State of the Union address days later.  First lady Melania Trump then presented America's highest civilian honor to Limbaugh in an emotional moment on the heels of his devastating cancer diagnosis.

Texas mayor quits after saying residents are 'lazy' amid power outages.  A Texas mayor has resigned over controversial social media posts that called his constituents lazy for complaining about power outages, according to a report.  Colorado City Mayor Tom Boyd announced his resignation Tuesday [2/16/2021] hours after he received backlash for his long Facebook rant, according to KTXS-TV.  "No one owes you or your family anything; nor is it the local governments responsibility to support you during trying times like this!  Sink or swim, it's your choice!" he wrote.  "The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING!"  "If you have no water you deal with out and think outside of the box to survive and supply water to your family," he added.

The Editor says...
How true.  It is not the government's job to buy you a wool blanket and tuck you in on a cold winter night.  It's also not the government's job to mop up your house after a hurricane.

'This didn't look like an armed insurrection.' Trump ultra-loyalist senator Ron Johnson plays down danger of the MAGA riots saying 'How many shots were fired?'  Ron Johnson said Monday [2/15/2021] that the MAGA riot 'didn't seem like an armed insurrection to me' in downplaying the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol last month that left five dead and hundreds injured.  'When you hear the word 'armed,' don't you think of firearms?' Johnson questioned during his conversation with 1130 WISN conservative radio talk show host Jay Weber.  'Here's the questions I would have liked to ask — how many firearms were confiscated?' the Trump loyalist senator continued.  'How many shots were fired?  I'm only aware of one, and I'll defend that law enforcement officer for taking that shot, it was a tragedy, but I think there was only one.

The Editor says...
Yes, let's hear more about that one shot that was fired, and about the name of the "officer," if that's what he was, and the name of the agency for which he works, and about the justification for the shooting.  All that information is a deep dark secret, which means there is a cover-up underway, and the door to the News Media Memory Hole is open now.

Pelosi: 'Next Step' Is 9/11-Type Commission To Investigate January 6.  David Perdue lost re-election to Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) in Georgia's Senate runoff election on January 5, with Ossoff winning by just over 93,000 votes (2%).  It now seems that Perdue is considering a 2022 Senate run against Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), who beat Kelly Loeffler in Georgia's special election.  According to Fox News, Perdue filed Federal Election Commission (FEC) paperwork on Monday evening "to become a candidate to run for Senate in 2022."  The paperwork designated a "principal campaign committee," titled "Perdue for Senate."  Warnock defeated Loeffler — who was appointed to the U.S. Senate by Georgia Governor Brian Kemp on December 4, 2019, after Johnny Isakson announced his resignation for health reasons — on January 5, also by just over 93,000 votes.

China Is Creating a New Master Race.  Bing Su, a Chinese geneticist at the state-run Kunming Institute of Zoology, recently inserted the human MCPH1 gene, which develops the brain, into a monkey.  The insertion could make that animal's intelligence more human than that of lower primates.  Su's next experiment is inserting into monkeys the SRGAP2C gene, related to human intelligence, and the FOXP2 gene, connected to language skills.  Has nobody in China seen Planet of the Apes?  Or maybe they have.  "Biotechnology development in China is heading in a truly macabre direction," writes Brandon Weichert of The Weichert Report in an article posted on the American Greatness website.  In a communist society with unrestrained ambition, researchers are pursuing weird science.  What happens when you mix pig and monkey DNA?  Chinese experimenters can tell you.  How about growing human-like organs in animals?  Yes, they have done that as well.  Moreover, Beijing may already be engineering "super soldiers."

Biden Deputy Press Secretary TJ Ducklo Threatens Reporter: 'I Will Destroy You'.  Earlier this week there was a treacly story in People magazine about an Axios White House reporter named Alexi McCammond, who turns out to be dating White House deputy press secretary TJ Ducklo.  A heartwarming workplace romance!  There were a few grumbles about ethics in journalism and whatnot, but then everybody forgot about it because journalists don't really care about ethics.  Besides, at least Biden isn't Trump, right?  The journos got what they wanted and they just want to take a nap for 4-8 years.  But now the story is getting interesting!

Refund the police!
Minneapolis to spend $6.4 million to hire more police.  Minneapolis will hire dozens more police officers after the City Council on Friday [2/12/2021] agreed to release $6.4 million to bring on additional recruits.  The unanimous vote came eight days after Minneapolis police requested the funding, saying they had 200 fewer police officers available to work than in most recent years.  The additional funding comes at a time when some City Council members and activist groups are pushing to replace the Police Department in the wake of George Floyd's death.  Minneapolis police said they began the year with 817 officers on their payroll, 60 fewer than the previous year.  But, only 638 officers are currently available to work, the department said.  Some officers resigned or retired early in the year, while another 155 remain on some form of extended leave.  With the new recruit classes, the city expects it will have 674 officers available to work at the end of the year, and another 28 working their way through the hiring process at that time.

'A hoax from day one': Michigan GOP leader says Capitol riot was 'staged'.  The Republican leader in Michigan's state Senate said last week that the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol was a prearranged hoax and not the work of supporters of then-President Donald Trump.  "That wasn't Trump's people.  That's been a hoax from day one.  That was all prearranged," state Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey said of the riot.  "It was arranged by somebody who was funding it," the Clarklake Republican continued.  "It was all staged."

What's most interesting about the Florida water system hack?  That we heard about it at all.  Stories about computer security tend to go viral when they bridge the vast divide between geeks and luddites, and this week's news about a hacker who tried to poison a Florida town's water supply was understandably front-page material.  But for security nerds who've been warning about this sort of thing for ages, the most surprising aspect of the incident seems to be that we learned about it at all. [...] In short, a likely inexperienced intruder somehow learned the credentials needed to remotely access Oldsmar[ Florida]'s water system, did little to hide his activity, and then tried to change settings by such a wide margin that the alterations would be hard to overlook.  "The system wasn't capable of doing what the attacker wanted," said Joe Weiss, managing partner at Applied Control Solutions, a consultancy for the control systems industry.  "The system isn't capable of going up by a factor of 100 because there are certain physics problems involved there.  Also, the changes he tried to make wouldn't happen instantaneously.  The operators would have had plenty of time to do something about it."

Today's blacklisted American:  Chase Bank blacklists Pro-Trump Covfefe Coffee.  They're coming for you next:  Chase Bank has suddenly decided that it can't do business with the coffee company, Covfefe Coffee, apparently for the simple reason that the coffee company is unabashedly pro-Trump and supports the standard American values of freedom and liberty that made this nation the haven for the oppressed for more than two centuries. [...] Amazon suspended the company's advertising on that platform in 2019 for using the phrase "Make America Great Again," a phrase that Amazon thinks "incites hate."  What this really tells us is that the people at Amazon and Chase Bank hate America, and want it to fail.  Anyone who thinks different must be blacklisted and preventing from succeeding.

Denver City Council Passes Controversial Group Living Amendment.  The Denver City Council has voted 11-2 to pass the controversial 200-page group living text amendment proposal.  This, following a more than seven-hour meeting, in which at least 150 Denver residents spoke about their impassioned feelings on the proposal, some in favor and some against. [...] The text amendment will allow five unrelated adults to live together, instead of two, among several other changes.  The text amendment would also allow residential care facilities in more areas, including community corrections facilities — or halfway houses — in more neighborhoods than is currently allowed.

Aunt Jemima breakfast brand renamed Pearl Milling Company.  The Aunt Jemima breakfast brand will be renamed Pearl Milling Company, it was announced Tuesday, after the 130-year-old maple syrup mascot was scrutinized last year over its ties to slavery.  Quaker Oats, a division of PepsiCo that owns the brand, unveiled the new name and logo, which it said would hit store shelves in June.  Pearl Milling Company has historical roots with the brand.  It was a small Missouri mill that in 1889 produced the self-rising pancake mix later known as Aunt Jemima.

Bitcoin and Its Discontents:  What Elon Musk is Telling Us.  Elon Musk, our new arbiter of all that is in and out, has purchased $1.5 billion in bitcoin and announced that Tesla plans to accept it as payment.  Bitcoin predictably has jumped to a record high, in excess of $46,000, and now is up more than eight-fold in the past year. [...] Regardless of whether bitcoin in the short-term gyrates unpredictably in value, it is timely to ask not what bitcoin is worth, but what its valuation tells us about ourselves.  The enduring beauty of bitcoin lies in its origin.  It is typically defined as a peer-to-peer digital currency whose ownership is recorded in a secure account ledger, known as a blockchain.  Lose the private key to access this ledger, as reportedly many early buyers have done, and the investment is lost forever, even if it amounts to millions, or now even billions of dollars.

Tesla buys $1.5 billion in bitcoin: as Elon Musk jumps on board with cryptocurrency.  Tesla invested $1.5 billion in bitcoin in January in a nontraditional move to diversify its investments.  The investment, which the electric vehicle maker disclosed Monday in a public filing, comes as CEO Elon Musk has been promoting an alternative cryptocurrency in recent weeks.  Tesla said in its annual report that the company made the move as part of a policy change designed "to provide us with more flexibility to further diversify and maximize returns on our cash."  It is not typical for major corporations to acquire digital currency due to questions about its dependability and concerns about its volatility.  The new policy authorized by the Tesla board allows the company to invest in various forms of digital assets.

Following the money behind Myanmar's coup.  By seizing absolute power, Myanmar coup leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing has protected his and his family's financial interests and the military's unscrutinized economic domination.  Min Aung Hlaing spent much of his military career as a quiet, publicity-shy officer steadily promoted to higher positions before grabbing absolute power at dawn on February 1, five months before his mandatory retirement at age 65 on July 3.  Among other goals, the military's commander-in-chief apparently hopes he has protected himself, his family, and military colleagues from possible investigation over their extensive, lucrative financial deals and economic holdings, sources say.  "His financial interests must be considered as a motive for his coup," the Justice for Myanmar campaign group of activists said in a statement.

Canadian traces origin of AIDS to starving First World War soldier who hunted chimpanzees.  A Canadian professor who has been studying the origin of HIV for decades says he has identified a new "Patient Zero" — a starving First World War soldier stationed in Cameroon who was forced to hunt apes to survive.  In the first edition of his book Origin of Aids, Jacques Pepin, a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases at the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec, originally traced the first case of the human immunodeficiency virus to a hunter in Southeast Cameroon at the start of the 20th Century.

Fox News suffers worst ratings in 20 years.  Fox News has fallen into third place among US cable current affairs broadcasters, languishing behind CNN and MSNBC in Donald Trump's final month in the White House as conservative viewers deserted the channel.  January saw a mob of enraged Trump supporters stage a failed insurrection at the US Capitol in protest at his election defeat, the president's historic second impeachment by the House of Representatives, his departure from the Oval Office and Democrat Joe Biden being sworn-in as his successor.  But despite this dramatic sequence of events, Rupert Murdoch's network suffered its worst month since April 2000, falling into third for total day viewers and overall viewers, according to the latest Nielsen ratings.

Amazon stole $62 MILLION in tips from delivery drivers and the fed is telling them to give it back.  Here's another story of giant corporations totally (not) looking out for the little guy.  The Federal Trade Commission revealed this week that Amazon was making some pretty big bucks stealing tips meant for its drivers.  Apparently, after Amazon started letting average Joes use their own cars to deliver products for some side money, it also decided to skim some $62 million of that hard-earned cash out of the virtual tip jar.

Biden Admin Yanks Maternity Leave From Trump Appointees Days Before Some Give Birth.  President Joe Biden's administration denied multiple President Trump-era aides their previously established maternity leave, some days before birth, reports Politico.  Even though some Trump aides made arrangements for parental leave early in 2021 in advance of their children's births, multiple federal employees were told shortly before or after their babies arrived that the benefits would no longer be extended to them after Biden and his team took office.

Amazon Plans To Install AI Surveillance Cameras In Delivery Vans.  Amazon is preparing to install high-tech video cameras inside its fleet of delivery vehicles to better monitor drivers' behavior, according to The Verge.  The Information first uncovered an instructional video sent out to employees and contract workers about Amazon's new partnership with Netradyne, a California-based company developing video cameras inside fleet vehicles to monitor drivers.  The device will tell the driver:  "Distracted driving," "No stop detected," and "Please slow down."  The video was first uploaded to Vimeo a week ago and is titled "Amazon Netradyne Driver Information."

US Navy's UFO-like patent raises questions.  It has long been claimed by ufologists that the US government has been back-engineering UFOs at Area S4, the ultra secret site within Area 51.  In 1989, scientist Bob Lazar, who claimed to have worked at the base deep in the heart of the Nevada desert, spilled the beans on the study of UFOs — of which he claimed they had several.  The smaller saucer-like UFO he said he was studying, which was called the "sport model," supposedly was based on directing gravity waves.  This came from a reactor which amplified the gravity waves which extended beyond the atom of Element 115, which he predicted to exist (he would be proved right years later).  Whether any of that is true or not, it is interesting to note that in 2019, the US Navy's Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) filed a number of seemingly out of this world patents that could, in theory, revolutionize not only military aviation, but just about everything.  According to a report by Alex Hollings in The National Interest, chief among these strange new inventions is a High Energy Electromagnetic Field Generator (HEEMFG), which if functional, could produce massive amounts of power with far reaching military and commercial implications.

Never give up!
Rescue divers find a guy alive in a sunken tugboat on the bottom of the ocean 3 days after it capsized in a storm.  [Scroll down]  Those divers were not expecting to find anyone alive.  They were sent down there to investigate the cause of the crash and recover bodies.  You can tell how surprised they were to see a moving hand.

Pentagon purges advisory boards of Trump loyalists.  Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday [2/2/2021] ordered the resignation of the hundreds of people that serve on the Pentagon's 42 civilian advisory boards, effectively purging a number of Trump loyalists named to the boards in the Trump administration's final days.  The resignations are part of a broader review Austin has ordered to look at the viability of the boards and to eliminate potential overlaps.  But the Pentagon's top spokesman acknowledged that the resignations and the review had been prompted by the last-minute appointments of Trump loyalists to the boards, including Trump's former campaign manager.

Firefighter Facing Discipline For Rushing 3-Year-Old Burn Victim To Hospital After Ambulance Never Showed.  A veteran Oklahoma City Fire Department (OKCFD) major has lost his role as senior company officer of his station after he rushed a three-year-old burn victim to the hospital on a fire truck because the ambulance was taking too long to respond.  "We don't transport patients," OKCFD Chief Richard Kelley told KFOR.  "That's not our job."  The complaint against OKCFD Major Corey Britt was field by EMSA, the emergency medical and ambulance service that serves Oklahoma City.

Jeff Bezos, 57, steps down as Amazon CEO and will be replaced by Andy Jassy - the man who built AWS and pulled the plug on Parler.  Jeff Bezos is stepping down as the CEO of Amazon, 27 years after founding it with his ex-wife and building it into one of the most successful companies of all time now worth $1.7 trillion.  Bezos, 57, announced the move in a letter to his 1.3 million Amazon employees Tuesday where he insisted he isn't retiring but wants to focus on his 'passions' including his space and climate change ventures.  He will be replaced by 53-year-old Andy Jassy, the current CEO of the Amazon empire cloud business Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the man behind the move to cancel Parler.

New York City to ban natural gas hookups in new buildings by 2030: mayor.  New York City this week said it will join a growing list of U.S. cities banning natural gas hookups in new buildings.  New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Thursday as part of his State of the City address that New York will "ban new fossil fuel connections in new construction by at least 2030."

The Editor asks...
What will be gained from this?

Justice Department Probes SpaceX After Hiring Discrimination Complaint.  The Department of Justice is probing Elon Musk's rocket company SpaceX over whether the company discriminates against non-U.S. citizens in its hiring, according to court documents filed on Thursday [1/28/2021].  The Justice Department's Immigrant and Employee Rights division received a complaint of employment discrimination from a non-U.S. citizen, who alleged that SpaceX discriminated against him based on his citizenship status.  "Specifically, the charge alleges that on or about March 10, 2020, during the Charging Party's interview for the position of Technology Strategy Associate, SpaceX made inquiries about his citizenship status and ultimately failed to hire him for the position because he is not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident", DOJ attorney Lisa Sandoval wrote in the complaint filed on Thursday.

The Editor says...
Why is it illegal to prefer U.S. citizens for new employees?  It's just common sense to hire Americans first, especially in an industry that's at least 95 percent publicity-centric, like manned space travel.

Texas governor vows to fight U.S. curbs on oil and gas activity.  The top elected official of the largest U.S. oil and gas producing state on Thursday [1/28/2021] pledged to fight President Joe Biden's executive orders that he claimed would undercut Texas energy production.  In a case of dueling executive orders, Texas Governor Greg Abbott authorized state agencies to bring legal challenges Biden's policies.  Biden on Wednesday unveiled a series of actions to combat climate change, including pausing new oil and gas leases on federal land and cutting fossil fuel subsidies.

Pathetic:
German-built robot gives hugs to provide emotional support for people.  German scientists taught a human-like robot how to give a hug and provide emotional support to people.  Footage shows HuggieBot raising its plastic arms before embracing the person in front when prompted.  Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart made the robot wear a jacket to better imitate warm hugs.  Project leader Alexis Block said they are interested in enabling robots to give a hug because of its health benefits.  [Video clip]

You Can Thank Our Elites For Proliferating Conspiracies.  [Scroll down]  Let's focus in on the second point.  Rep. Ilhan "All-About-The-Benjamins" Omar, D-Minn., is corrupt and nearly as conspiratorial as [Rep. Marjorie Taylor] Greene.  She also seems to be antisemitic.  But the media doesn't make Omar the subject of breathless coverage about her party's moral bankruptcy.  They put her on magazine covers.  The same goes for the likes of Linda Sarsour and Tamika Mallory.  Hillary Clinton and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) are currently trafficking in bizarre conspiratorial theories that Donald Trump talked to and took direction from Vladimir Putin on the day of the Capitol riot without being treated as menacing representations of rot in their party.  Clinton never accepted the results of her 2016 loss, and continues to recklessly advance baseless notions of "hacking."  That brings us to the Russia collusion hoax, which for years consumed the entire Democratic Party (even Sen. Bernie Sanders!) in a silly conspiracy replete with prostitutes and urine.  Because this comported with the media's basic political narrative, they failed to approach it with appropriate skepticism.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene Publishes Statement Addressing the Mob That's Trying to 'Take Her Out'.  Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene posted a statement on Friday addressing the mob of Democrats and liberal reporter henchmen that are trying to "take her out" with a massive smear campaign.  The statement comes shortly after Marxist Democrat lawmaker Cori Bush tried to claim that Greene had harassed her in the halls — which Greene promptly shut down with a video of the incident.  [Video clip] [...] In a statement published on social media and sent out to members of the media by her press team, Greene wrote that "since launching your smear campaign attacks on me, nearly 60,000 America First Patriots from all 50 states have reached out with messages of support and have poured over $1.6 million in small donations into my campaign account."

Pressure builds against GOP Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene as Dem demands her expulsion.  It appears that Democrats have decided to go after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA) announced on Wednesday [1/27/2021] that he will introduce a resolution to expel Greene from Congress because she poses a "direct threat" to other lawmakers.  "Her very presence in office represents a direct threat against the elected officials and staff who serve our government, and it is with their safety in mind, as well as the security of institutions and public servants across our country," Gomez stated.  This move follows Greene introducing articles of impeachment against President Biden immediately after he took office.  But the reasoning put forth here is that she supported the rioters, and Gomez claims that her Facebook posts advocated violence against Democrats and the FBI.

Dem rep plans to introduce a resolution to expel Marjorie Taylor Greene.  Rep. Jimmy Gomez on Wednesday [1/27/2021] announced that he plans to introduce a resolution to expel the controversial Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from Congress, accusing Greene of previously supporting calls for "political violence" and advocating "extremism and sedition."  The resolution would require the support of two-thirds of the members of the House to pass. [...] Greene was first known during her run for Congress as a supporter of the online conspiracy theory QAnon, which she later distanced herself from in an interview with Fox News in August.  She's since earned a reputation as a bomb-thrower in Congress.  She's refused on various occasions to wear a mask, supported false allegations of widespread election fraud which resulted in her temporarily losing access to her Twitter account and most recently announced that she was filing articles of impeachment against President Biden.

Pennsylvania Teacher Suspended for Attending Trump Rally Says His Life Has Been Destroyed.  Jason Moorehead, a teacher in Allentown, PA, for 17 years, attended the Trump rally in DC on January 6th.  Although he did not participate in the Capitol Hill riots, he claims he was smeared by association and suspended from his job.  He has also been doxxed, and now his family is living in fear.

Fierce Cuomo Critic Janice Dean Might Challenge Him In 2022.  Fox News meteorologist Janice Dean, whose profile grew exponentially in 2020 as she repeatedly blasted Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo after her in-laws died in New York nursing homes, is hearing calls for her to run against Cuomo in 2022 — and she's leaving the door open, saying, "You never say never in this life, right?  And many people have gotten into government because something personal has happened to them."  Former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, a close friend, was delighted with the idea of Dean running, noting that Dean, 50, has weathered home invasion, sexual harassment, and multiple sclerosis.  Kelly told the New York Post, "Unlike the poser currently in the governor's mansion, she really IS 'New York tough,' whip smart, and we can trust her.  She's got my vote."

US State Department Criticizes China After Latest Military Incursion Against Taiwan.  The U.S. State Department has voiced concerns about China's continued military aggression against Taiwan, after China breached the island's air defense zone with 13 military aircraft.  "We urge Beijing to cease its military, diplomatic, and economic pressure against Taiwan and instead engage in meaningful dialogue with Taiwan's democratically elected representatives," State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement on Jan. 23.  He added:  "We will continue to assist Taiwan in maintaining a sufficient self-defense capability.  Our commitment to Taiwan is rock-solid and contributes to the maintenance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and within the region."  Beijing's coercion against Taiwan is nothing new, as the Chinese communist regime claims the self-ruled island as a part of its territory and has repeatedly threatened to use military force to bring the island under its fold.

Justice Department considers Not charging up to 800 MAGA rioters who caused havoc at the Capitol 'since most of them just trespassed and were not violent'.  The FBI and prosecutors at the Justice Department are debating whether to decline to charge some of the MAGA rioters who stormed the United States Capitol on January 6 in an attempt to derail President Joe Biden's certification.  There is concern among DOJ officials that bringing charges against all of the estimated 800 rioters who ransacked the Capitol building could flood the local federal courthouse in Washington, DC, with cases.  There have been internal discussions about forgoing charges against those who were not involved in any violence or vandalism but were simply trespassing or 'going along with the crowd,' The Washington Post reported.

U.S. forces choppered into Syria 24 hours after new commander-in-chief takes power.  A large convoy of U.S. military personnel headed into Syria on Thursday along with hundreds of troops some 24 hours after President Joe Biden took office and took on his commander-in-chief role, foreign media reported.  Citing Syrian state news agency SANA, i24 News reported that a convoy of about 40 trucks and armored vehicles "entered northeastern Syria" on Thursday supported by helicopters.  The convoy entered the country from Iraq via the al-Waleed crossing "to bring arms and logistical equipment to bases in Hasakeh and Deir Ezzor provinces," i23 News stated.  And while "other local media" noted that such resupply convoys are not uncommon, SANA's report added that an additional 200 U.S. troops were choppered into the Hasakeh province as well.

Trump Offers to Let National Guard Stay at the Trump Hotel D.C. After Parking Garage Outrage.  Former President Trump has reportedly offered to let the National Guardsmen still stationed at the Capitol stay at his Trump Hotel in Washington D.C.  "Trump has given permission for the troops to stay at Trump Hotel DC if any of them need, an advisor told the One America News Network.

President Trump Gives Permission for US Troops to Stay at Trump Hotel in Washington DC.  As reported earlier by Cristina Laila military source in DC told TPUSA Chief Creative Officer Benny Johnson that for the last week his battalion had been sleeping on the floor in the Senate cafeteria in preparation for Biden's sham inauguration.  One day after Biden's inauguration, 5,000 soldiers were moved to a cold parking garage.  There is one power outlet and one bathroom for 5,000 soldiers.

The Mullahs Turn to Bitcoin Mining.  The Iranian regime's economy is suffocating, its banking system locked at the international level.  Khamenei believes that any negotiation and moderation would mean an end to his nuclear ambitions and the export of regional terrorism, threaten his regime's survival and could swiftly lead to its overthrow.  The financial institutions affiliated with Khamenei and especially the IRGC, need to find other ways to launder money, circumvent sanctions, and evade the world banking system.  Supporting their proxy forces in the region depends on keeping the money flowing.  There is no centralized control over bitcoin, making it an attractive vehicle, but Iran hasn't got enough hard currency to buy a lot of it.  Bitcoin can't be used to circumvent sanctions importing and exporting and unless two countries cooperate.  Iran cooperates with China, Venezuela, Turkey, and several other countries on bitcoin transactions.  Enter bitcoin mining.

325 Australian-Based Scientists, Researchers Identified as Recruits for Beijing.  Over 325 academics and scientists in Australian universities and research institutes have been identified as alleged recruits of Beijing's controversial overseas talent-recruitment programs.  The allegations raise questions over potential conflicts of interest, grant fraud, and Australian research funds inadvertently advancing the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) military technology.  Alex Joske of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), wrote to the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security claiming that despite 325 individuals being identified, as many as 600 could be connected to Beijing-backed partnerships.

'We feel incredibly betrayed': Thousands of Guardsmen forced to vacate Capitol.  Thousands of National Guardsmen were allowed back into the Capitol Thursday night, hours after U.S. Capitol Police officials ordered them to vacate the facilities, sending them outdoors or to nearby parking garages after two weeks pulling security duty after the deadly riot on Jan. 6.  One unit, which had been resting in the Dirksen Senate Office building, was abruptly told to vacate the facility on Thursday, according to one Guardsman.  The group was forced to rest in a nearby parking garage without internet reception, with just one electrical outlet, and one bathroom with two stalls for 5,000 troops, the person said.  Temperatures in Washington were in the low 40s by nightfall.

National Guard Kicked Out Of The Capitol, Forced To Sleep In A Parking Garage.  Thousands of National Guardsmen descended on the Capitol and surrounding buildings after the riots at the Capitol earlier this month.  They were there as a show of force and to discourage anyone who was thinking about a repeat performance during the inauguration. [...] Something apparently changed today [1/21/2021].  The NY Times reports the Guard was kicked out of the Capitol and surrounding buildings and sent to sleep in a parking garage.

Ohio orthodox priest suspended for attending Trump rally at U.S. Capitol, reports say.  An orthodox priest in western Ohio who has filled in at churches in the Cleveland area has been suspended and could be defrocked after he attended a rally for former President Trump in Washington on Jan. 6 that ended with an assault on the nation's Capitol, according to reports.  A notice on the website for the Orthodox Church in America says Archpriest Mark Hodges was suspended on Jan. 12.  The notice offers no other details.  According to the Dayton Daily News, Hodges most recently has been a "supply priest" in the Diocese of the Midwest and has filled in at parishes in Cleveland and Olmsted Falls.

The Editor says...
Does he not enjoy the freedom of association that the rest of us have?  There might have been half a million people at that event.  Should they all lose their jobs?

No pardons by Trump for Snowden, Assange.  Fugitive national security contractor Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange missed out on pardons from outgoing President Trump on Wednesday [1/20/2021].  The high-profile figures were not among the 143 pardons and commutations issued by Mr. Trump with just hours remaining in his presidency.  The clemency actions included a pardon for former White House strategist Steve Bannon, who was facing trial for allegedly defrauding donors in a project to help build Mr. Trump's border wall.  Also missing from the clemency list was Reality Winner, a former National Security Agency contractor imprisoned in 2018 for mailing classified material to a news outlet.  The documents pertained to Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Bill Sammon and Chris Stirewalt out at Fox News.  Two executives involved in the early call of Arizona for Joe Biden on Election Night, angering many conservatives, are no longer employed at the cable network whose ratings took a subsequent nosedive.  Both have been lightning rods for conservatives since the election.

Failing Fox purges Stirewalt and 16 others — shifts back to conservative opinion.  Fox News laid off at least 16 staffers at Fox digital, including Chris Stirewalt, the political editor who defended the election-night call of Arizona.  While the purge is allegedly a restructuring after the election, insiders told The Daily Beast it's an ideological purge.  Viewers were infuriated with Stirewalt when he called Arizona while people were waiting in line to vote.  Fox refused to call Florida and Texas for Trump when he obviously won.  Stirewalt was a Never Trumper who told reporters to never attend Trump rallies.  He said their presence allows Trump to use them as a "prop."

Court documents reveal a group of militia members planned their entry to the U.S. Capitol.  The Washington Post story focuses on three individuals who have now been charged for their involvement in the riot.  But unlike some people who may have just been following the mob, these three — Thomas Caldwell, Jessica Watkins and Donovan Crowl — appear to have planned their entry to the Capitol in advance and discussed their progress during the riot.

Army vet shreds Dem Rep for 'ridiculous' remark about dangerous troops:  You've no business leading this country.  A U.S. Army veteran slammed Rep. Steve Cohen for claiming that National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., could pose a threat to President-elect Joe Biden.  West Point graduate Jeremy Hunt called out the Tennessee Democrat for questioning the loyalty of 25,000 troops who have been deployed to the nation's capital for Biden's inauguration on Wednesday, calling it "absolutely ridiculous" and blasting him for exploiting an intelligence report to score political points.  With reports that the U.S. Military was running background checks and the FBI was conducting additional vetting of the Guard troops, Cohen weighed in on CNN, recounting how former India Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her own bodyguards, as he suggested some within National Guard could be suspicious.

Pentagon won't say what got 12 Guard troops sent home from Biden inauguration duty in DC.  Twelve National Guard troops deployed to Washington ahead of President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration were flagged during background checks and have been sent home, Defense Department officials confirmed Tuesday, offering scant details as to what raised suspicions about them.  Two of those were flagged for "inappropriate comments or texts," Army Gen. Daniel Hokanson, chief of the Nation Guard Bureau, told reporters, including one reported within their own chain of command.  Hokanson's comments refute a Tuesday story from the Associated Press that all 12 troops removed from the Capitol had right-wing militia ties.

Pentagon: No indication of 'inside threat' to inauguration, troops being vetted.  Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller said Monday [1/18/2021] that there is no intelligence to suggest President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration is being targeted by any members of the National Guard.  Miller's statement comes as reports surfaced over the weekend that the 25,000 National Guard members stationed in Washington to protect the Capitol were being vetted.  Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy told The Associated Press on Sunday that National Guard commanders were instructed to be on the lookout for problems within their units.  "As is normal for military support to large security events, the Department will vet National Guardsmen who are in Washington, D.C," Miller said.  "While we have no intelligence indicating an insider threat, we are leaving no stone unturned in securing the capital."

Is this paranoia, or just bigotry?
Democratic Congressman Fears Trump-Voting 'White Males' in National Guard at Inauguration: '75 Percent Are in the Class' that May 'Do Something'.  Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen (TN) expressed concern Monday [1/18/2021] that the National Guard troops responsible for protecting Washington, D.C. on Inauguration Day could constitute a threat because they included too many "white males" who voted for President Donald Trump.  "The guard is 90-some-odd percent, I believe, male," Cohen said in a Monday interview with CNN's Jim Sciutto.  "Only about 20 percent of white males voted for Biden.  You've got to figure that in the guard, which is predominantly more conservative — I see that on my social media, and we know it.  They're probably not more than 25 percent of the people that are there protecting us that are voting for Biden.  "The other 75 percent are in the class, the large class of folks, who might want to do something," he added.

Bed Bath & Beyond and Kohls will STOP selling MyPillow because of CEO Mike Lindell's support of voter fraud theories.  MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell revealed Monday [1/18/2021] that Bed Bath & Beyond, Kohl's and Wayfair have all stopped selling his products on account of his continued support of widely discredited conspiracy theories regarding election fraud.  Lindell, whose company is based in Minneapolis, made the announcement during an interview with conservative commentator Brian Glenn on Monday night [1/18/2021].  'Just got off the phone with Bed Bath & Beyond.  They're dropping My Pillow.  Just got off the phone not five minutes ago.  Kohl's, all these different places,' Lindell said during the interview. 'These [companies], they're scared, like a Bed Bath & Beyond, they're scared.  They were good partners.  In fact, I told them, "You guys come back anytime you want."'

'No Plot Against Biden Found' — 2 National Guardsmen Removed From Duty In DC After Social Media Spying.  Despite no plot against Biden being found, two National Guardsmen have been removed from duty in Washington, D.C. after government agencies began scouring their social media feeds for pro-Trump sympathies.  The Associated Press reports from an anonymous source: "two National Guard members have been found to have ties to fringe right group militias.  No plot against Biden was found."  According to the AP: An "Army official and the intelligence official spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity due to Defense Department media regulations.  They did not say what fringe group the Guard members belonged to or what unit they served in.  The National Guard Bureau referred questions to the U.S. Secret Service and said, "Due to operational security, we do not discuss the process nor the outcome of the vetting process for military members supporting the inauguration."

Gov. Abbott vows to never again authorize deployment of Texas Natl Guard to DC over 'offensive' loyalty screening.  Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a tweet Monday night [1/18/2021] that he will not authorize the deployment of the Texas National Guard to Washington, D.C. again if the troops are going to be disrespected.  Responding to a Washington Post article on the Pentagon was vetting National Guard members tapped to help with security on Inauguration Day for extremist ties, the Republican governor called it "the most offensive thing I've ever heard."  In effect, with an assist from the FBI, the 25,000-plus soldiers deployed to DC in a show of force are being submitted to background checks — essentially a political purity test — to ensure that they are not an inside threat endangering Joe Biden.  Seriously.

The Editor says...
Governor Abbott, if you're really so offended, you could recall those soldiers back to Texas and keep them from participating in ... whatever this event is.

FBI vetting Guard troops in DC amid fears of insider attack.  US defense officials say they are worried about an insider attack or other threat from service members involved in securing President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration, prompting the FBI to vet all of the 25,000 National Guard troops coming into Washington for the event.  The massive undertaking reflects the extraordinary security concerns that have gripped Washington following the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the US Capitol by pro-Trump rioters.  And it underscores fears that some of the very people assigned to protect the city over the next several days could present a threat to the incoming president and other VIPs in attendance.

Ever Had a Hard Time Understanding Someone's Accent?  A Professor Says You're Guilty of 'Linguistic Racism'.  Have you ever had difficulty understanding someone's accent?  That is, have you ever been racist?  According to a Michigan State University linguistics and education professor, the two are one and the same.  So stop being beastly, and start understanding everyone.  Per Professor Peter De Costa, when/if you don't know what someone's saying due to their consonants and vowels, you're guilty of "linguistic racism."

Conservative Joe Ricketts, Cubs family patriarch who closed DNAinfo after union vote, to launch Omaha-based 'unbiased' news site.  The Omaha World-Herald reported on Sunday [1/17/2021] that billionaire businessman and philanthropist Joe Ricketts is hiring staff to launch an online national news source called Straight Arrow News.  "I think there's a gap in the market — there's no source for unbiased, fact-based news," Ricketts told the World-Herald in an emailed response to questions last week.  "And I believe there's a business opportunity there."

Arrests Connected to the Capitol Hill Protest Are Creating a Procedural Mess As Reflected by the Media's Coverage.  [Scroll down]  Where supported by the evidence, agents are drafting affidavits and prosecutors are filing criminal complaints to obtain arrest warrants for individuals connected to their actions.  Given the sheer numbers involved, I would guess that a dozen or more prosecutors are working on cases connected to the January 6 protests and nothing else.  But, as Michael Sherwin, Acting US Attorney for the District of Columbia, noted in a public statement earlier in the week, this process is made quite difficult by the fact that most of the persons being charged were able to return to their homes in other states prior to them being identified and the charges being filed.  Those individuals are now being arrested in their home states — not in DC.  That fact creates some procedural issues that DOJ must work through before the cases can proceed.

America's Biggest Owner Of Farmland Is Now Bill Gates.  Bill Gates, the fourth richest person in the world and a self-described nerd who is known for his early programming skills rather than his love of the outdoors, has been quietly snatching up 242,000 acres of farmland across the U.S. — enough to make him the top private farmland owner in America.  After years of reports that he was purchasing agricultural land in places like Florida and Washington, The Land Report revealed that Gates, who has a net worth of nearly $121 billion according to Forbes, has built up a massive farmland portfolio spanning 18 states.  His largest holdings are in Louisiana (69,071 acres), Arkansas (47,927 acres) and Nebraska (20,588 acres).  Additionally, he has a stake in 25,750 acres of transitional land on the west side of Phoenix, Arizona, which is being developed as a new suburb.

GOP Senators To Attend Biden Inauguration Wednesday After Objecting To His Electoral College Win.  At least half of the eight GOP senators who voted against President-elect Joe Biden's Electoral College victory will be attending the inauguration Wednesday [1/20/2021] in Washington to support the peaceful transfer of power, Fox News has learned.  Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who spearheaded the Jan. 6 effort to toss out electoral votes for Biden, will attend the official swearing-in at the Capitol.  Sens. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., and Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., who joined with Cruz in objecting to Biden's victory before a Joint Session of Congress, also will attend Biden's inauguration, their offices confirmed.

Trump Declassifies 'Foot-High' Stack Of Russiagate, Obamagate Documents; Set For Release Within Days.  President Trump has declassified and authorized the release of "more than a foot-high stack of documents" related to the Obama administration's surveillance and espionage committed against the 2016 Trump campaign, as part of a larger campaign to discredit and undermine the incoming US president.  According to journalist and Trump insider John Solomon, the documents would be released as soon as Friday [1/15/2021], but no later than Monday.  "He has delivered in a big way.  More than a foot-high stack of documents he has authorized to be released by the FBI and the DOJ.  These are the things that the FBI has tried to keep from the public for 4 years.  They have amazing, big picture revelations," Solomon told Fox News' "Lou Dobbs Tonight."

Poll: Strong majority of GOP voters see themselves as Republicans instead of 'MAGA Nation'.  A strong majority of GOP voters view themselves as Republicans rather than devotees of President Trump's Make America Great Again, or "MAGA," movement, according to a new Just the News Daily Poll with Scott Rasmussen.  Among the Republican voters, 74% consider themselves "more of a Republican," while 19% see themselves as "part of MAGA nation."  The numbers could reflect the fallout from last week's Capitol riot, which has been broadly characterized as being led by Trump's MAGA devotees, a key part of the president's base, helped him become president in 2016.  However, there is no similar, previous polls to compared percentages.  The president has condemned the deadly, Jan. 6 siege on the U.S. Capitol Building, disavowed the participants and argued that "no true supporter" of his could have participated in it.

CISA and the SolarWinds Attack:  What Do We Know?  On November 17, President Trump appointed Brandon Wales as the director for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).  Wales was a highly qualified choice, as he had been CISA's first executive director and previously served as the director of the DHS Office of Cyber and Infrastructure Analysis (OCIA), which provides analysis of cyber- and physical risks to America's critical infrastructure.  Perhaps the most pressing cyber-security issue for America and CISA currently is the fallout from the SolarWinds hacking attack that has affected at least 2,000 computer systems belonging to over 100 governmental and non-governmental agencies around the world.  News of the attack was first reported a few weeks after Wales took over CISA.  The attacks have been attributed to APT29 (Advanced Persistent Threat).  The Russian hacking group is known by several aliases including Cozy Duke, Cozy Bear, the Dukes, and Office Monkeys.

Elon Musk Blames Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg For Capitol Riot.  In times of social crises in America, big tech billionaires are often amongst the first to speak up — though how they do so varies.  Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, unlike many of his peers, didn't directly speak about the riot that erupted in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday afternoon.  But the second-richest man in the world did make it clear that he was watching the news and indeed had a strong opinion about the surreal events that transpired at the U.S. Capitol.  Late Wednesday night [1/6/2021], after police had cleared protestors from the Capital ground to allow Congress to resume vote counting and certifying election results, Musk tweeted a meme showing bricks lining up like dominoes.  The smallest front brick was labeled "a website to rate women on campus" — a reference to the early version of Facebook — and the largest tile in the back was superimposed with a tweet by The New York Times Magazine correspondent Mark Leibovich that read:  "The Capitol seems to be under the control of a man in a viking hat."

Lawmaker Urges House Leadership to Stop Distributing Communist Propaganda Paper.  Freshman representative Ashley Hinson (R., Iowa) petitioned House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) to stop distributing a Chinese Communist propaganda paper to House offices on Capitol Hill, according to a letter sent late last week and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.  Hinson, who was elected in November, said she is "appalled" that lawmakers receive unsolicited copies of China Daily, a Chinese state-controlled newspaper that has been designated as Communist propaganda by the State Department.  China Daily has been delivered to congressional offices each morning for many years despite outrage among some members who view its circulation as inappropriate.  "Frankly, I was appalled when I walked into work Friday morning and saw my office had received an unsolicited copy of China Daily," Hinson, a former television news reporter, told the Free Beacon.

Indonesia jet carrying 62 goes missing on domestic flight.  A jet carrying 62 people lost contact with air traffic controllers minutes after taking off from Indonesia's capital on a domestic flight on Saturday, and debris found by fishermen was being examined to see if it was from the missing plane, officials said.  Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi said Sriwijaya Air's Flight SJ182 was delayed for an hour before it took off at 2:36 p.m.  The Boeing 737-500 disappeared from radar four minutes later, after the pilot contacted air traffic control to ascend to an altitude of 29,000 feet (8,839 meters), he said.

Indonesian airliner's pilots reportedly did not declare emergency before crash.  The pilots of the Indonesian airliner that plunged into the sea off Jakarta with 62 people aboard did not declare an emergency or report technical problems before the Boeing 737-500 went down, according to a report.  National Transportation Safety Committee investigator Nurcahyo Utomo said recordings of conversations between the crew of the Sriwijaya Air flight bound for Pontianak and air traffic control were routine.  "It's like a normal conversation and nothing suspicious," he told Agence France-Presse.  "There's no talk of an emergency or something like that."  Preliminary data suggest it was "most likely" that the jet was intact when it hit the water Saturday, Utomo said, adding that "we don't know at this stage" what caused the crash.  His comments came as divers searched for the black boxes — cockpit voice and flight data recorders — that could be crucial to help explain why the aircraft went down with 62 Indonesians aboard, including 10 children.

The Editor says...
If they have not yet recovered the cockpit voice recorder, how do they know the crew's conversation was routine?  This case sounds a little like Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which crashed March 15, 2014.

Hennepin County libraries end overdue book fees.  Hennepin County Library users will no longer be paying fines for overdue books, movies and music.  The Hennepin County Board is eliminating the fees to make libraries more accessible to low-income populations, the kind of users who might stay away as fines pile up.  "Whenever a constituent would hear about a city or county eliminating fees, I would get e-mails from them asking why Hennepin hasn't done it," County Board Chairwoman Marion Greene said.  "This is really a way to drive usage of the libraries."

The Editor says...
Library fines don't "pile up" unless one violates the library's terms of use.  Fines exist for a reason. If the libraries eliminate fines, the books will all walk out the door, never to return.

GOP Rep Stands His Ground After CNN Commentator Demands Resignation.  A newly-elected black Republican House representative is firing back after he was told this week to "resign in disgrace" after he objected to the election results in a number of states Wednesday during congressional certification of the election results.  Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida stood with dozens of other lawmakers in questioning the results from a number of key battleground states.  The Republican was vocal on his Twitter page with regard to his intent to object to certification, prior to the Capitol incursion.  "The people of Florida's 19 Congressional District elected me to honor the Constitution and the Rule of Law.  That is why I just officially signed the objection to the electoral college certification — our election laws matter," he posted on Jan. 6.

Australians call on authorities to solve mystery of funds from Vatican.  People inside and outside the church are calling on authorities to get to the bottom of mystery funds transferred from the Vatican to Australia.  As Australia's bishops are considering requesting information from the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre, a source close to the Vatican told The Catholic Weekly, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Sydney, that it was "completely implausible" that $2.3 billion Australian dollars (U.S. $1.8 billion) in Vatican funds transferred to Australia from Rome between 2014 and 2020 were legitimate.

Report Details Space Force Success in Foiling Iranian Missile Attack.  The Space Force proved instrumental in thwarting an Iranian missile attack on American bases in Iraq last year, a new report shows.  A review of the events of January 7, 2020, reported by C4ISRNET indicates that the newly created Space Force's early warning system allowed hundreds of Americans to quickly shelter in bunkers as Iran fired over a dozen ballistic missiles at U.S. military installations.  The missile attacks came days after a U.S. drone strike killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani.  A Space Force early warning team at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, Colo., picked up unusual readings from advanced satellite missile-detection technology and informed military officials in Iraq within minutes.  The early warning potentially saved lives, as U.S. forces reported zero deaths after the night's action despite personnel suffering 110 injuries.

Reaction to the Conservative Daily Wire's Hollywood Debut Speaks Volumes.  Deadline.com leans reliably to the Left, but the news outlet played it straight this week for a big announcement.  The site revealed The Daily Wire's first feature film will be "Run Hide Fight," a Die Hard-style thriller set during a school shooting.  [Video clip]

Matt Gaetz draws raucous reactions from congressmembers, calls it like he sees it in Fiery floor speech.  U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz delivered a fiery speech from the House floor defending President Donald Trump and addressing protests that rocked the nation's capital.  The Florida Republican elicited both applause and boos from his colleagues in Congress Wednesday as he reminded them that Trump had asked protestors to be peaceful.  He expressed his gratitude to law enforcement who defended the Capitol when it was overrun by protesters but blamed the violence on Antifa and the left's rhetoric.  While many in Congress seemed to dial back their open defense of the president following the deadly violence that unfolded, Gaetz doubled down on his support in a blistering speech calling out Democrats for the part they have played in stoking divisions and holding a double standard.

Cancel culture comes for Justice Clarence Thomas over wife's alleged tweets.  The far-left cancel culture is in full gear following the protest Wednesday at the U.S. Capital that got out of hand, even targeting Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who is no stranger to "high-tech lynchings."  Not that Thomas did anything.  No, it's because his wife allegedly expressed support for the tens of thousands of Trump supporters who came to DC to peacefully protest the results of an election that they believe to be illegitimate — never mind that Ginni Thomas tweeted her presumed remarks well before a smaller faction of protesters stormed the U.S. Capitol.

CBS News:  Cabinet Members Discussing 25th Amendment To Remove Trump.  A CBS News correspondent reports [1/6/2021] that cabinet members are discussing possibly invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Donald Trump as president.

Has the 25th Amendment Basically Been Invoked?  Today [1/6/2021], violent radicals stormed the U.S. Capitol Building after the conclusion of President Donald Trump's speech at what is likely to be the final rally he'll hold in the city.  In the end, one woman was shot and killed, parts of the building were damaged, and a lot of morons made fools of themselves.  Nothing of value was actually accomplished because that obviously wasn't the goal of the perpetrators.  Instead, any possible debate on election integrity will be shelved for the foreseeable future.  In fact, most of the elected officials who were set to object to the electoral college certification today have backed out.  That line of pursuit is simply over.  In order to regain control of the Capitol, National Guard troops were called in, but it's who called them in and who wasn't consulted that makes that decision interesting.  It turns out that VP Mike Pence made the call.  In fact, the Department of Defense never even contacted the President, completely bypassing him.

Donald Trump:  Riots Happen When Election 'Landslides' Are Stolen.  President Donald Trump on Wednesday told his supporters who were demonstrating in Washington, DC, to "go home with love and in peace," though he simultaneously argued that protesters breaking into the U.S. Capitol was a consequence of the presidential election allegedly being stolen.  "These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously and viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly and unfairly treated for so long," Trump wrote on Twitter.

VP Pence Just Unfollowed President Trump on Twitter.  This afternoon [1/6/2021] at 1:16 PM, former AG GOP Chair Kelli Ward tweeted a copy of Vice President Mike Pence's statement, informing the public that he has no intention of sending the Electoral College votes from 6 contested states back to their state's legislature.  100 Percent Fed Up reports — AZ GOP Chair Dr. Kelli Ward appears to be blaming VP Pence for the chaos that ensued in the Capitol building during the Joint Session of Congress.

Incompetence:
"Which Executive Order?"; Jen Psaki Had No Idea That Biden Resumed Catch And Release On The Border.  During the White House press briefing on Friday, Press Secretary Jen Psaki was blindsided by a reporter when she learned that Joe Biden had signed an executive on Tuesday [2/2/2021] resuming catch and release on the border.  The Biden order allows illegal immigrants to remain in the US while awaiting immigration proceedings.  According to the NY Post, "the executive order only permits Border Patrol to hold an undocumented illegal alien crossing the border up to 72 hours[.]"  Understandably, the reporter brought up concerns about the potential spread of COVID from random migrants who enter the country.  When the reporter mentioned the executive order, Psaki gave her a blank stare, clearly not knowing what she was talking about.

The U.S. Has Lost More Than 110,000 Restaurants, Setting The Stage For A Commercial Real Estate Collapse Of Epic Proportions.  The restaurant industry is in the midst of a complete and total meltdown that is unlike anything that we have ever seen before.  If you ask Google how many restaurants there are in the United States, it will tell you that there are 660,755, although that number is a few years old.  But for the purposes of this article, that is a good enough estimate.  Americans love to eat out, and restaurant workers are some of the hardest working people in the entire country.  So it is incredibly sad to see more restaurants constantly going under.  In some cases, restaurants that have served their communities for decades are deciding to permanently close their doors.

LA County Orders Ambulance Crews Not to Transport Patients With 'Little Chance of Survival'.  Los Angeles ambulance crew members have been instructed not to transport patients with "little chance of survival" to local hospitals as ICUs near capacity across the county.  In a directive issued by the Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency Monday, ambulance workers were also told to conserve the use of oxygen in the state's most populous county, which currently has an infection rate of 138 per 100,000, according to California's tracking dashboard.  According to county health data, there were just 17 adult ICU beds available, with 7,544 hospitalizations as of Monday evening [1/4/2021].  The county EMS directive states that due to bed shortages, ambulance crews should no longer transport patients to hospitals if their hearts have stopped and resuscitation attempts have failed, according to the Los Angeles Times.

No Police Officers Will Be Charged In Kenosha Shooting Of Jacob Blake, District Attorney Announces.  Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley announced on Monday that the officers involved in the shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old black man, in August in Kenosha, Wisconsin, will not be charged.  According to Graveley, there was not sufficient and admissible evidence to support an unlawful shooting charge against law enforcement.  He also clarified that Blake will not be charged. [...] The announcement comes months after Blake was shot in the back seven times by Officer Rusten Sheskey after Blake grappled with and then attempted to flee the police tasers and enter a vehicle containing three of his children.  The shooting, which left him partially paralyzed, was caught on video and shows that Blake may have been holding a knife, which was later recovered from the scene.  Officers originally pursued Blake in response to a complaint from his girlfriend, who said he was violating a restraining order.

Kenosha Wisconsin Prosecutor Will Not Charge Police Officer With Shooting of Jacob Blake.  On Tuesday afternoon [1/5/2021] Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley announced his decision that his office would not file criminal charges against Kenosha Police Officer Rusten Shesky in connection with the shooting by Shesky of Jacob Blake on August 23, 2020.  Blake was left paralyzed from the waist down by the shooting, which was captured on a cell phone video from across the street, and the video spread widely on the internet in the hours following the shooting.  In making his announcement, Gravely stated that his office had employed an independent "use of force" expert as well as the Wisconsin Department of Justice.  His decision was based on an analysis of how a trial on any charges would likely develop, and the "privilege of force" defense that would likely be available to Officer Shesky.

Senate Swears In 6 New Members as 117th Congress Convenes.  Several new members of the Senate on Sunday [1/3/2021] were sworn in for the 117th Congress.  The new members include Sens. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.). Tuberville defeated former Sen. Doug Jones, a Democrat; while Hickenlooper defeated former Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.). Marshall succeeded former Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), Hagerty succeeded former Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), and Lummis succeeded former Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.).  "To say the 117th Congress convenes at a challenging time would indeed be an understatement," Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a statement after the senators were sworn into office.  "From political division to a deadly pandemic to adversaries around the world, the hurdles before us are many and they are serious."

Printing Business In Rochester Burns To Ground, Sparks Unfounded Rumors About Ballots.  A printing business in upstate New York that has been a staple in the community for nearly a century burned to the ground on Christmas Eve.  Taking 70 firefighters to put out the raging flames, City Blue Imaging Services on Scio Street in Rochester was reduced to rubble by Christmas morning.  "First I cried, obviously," said City Blue employee Paul Kieffer, on scene the morning after the fire.  "There are no words for it.  We expected burned up building, maybe a small fire, but it's just gone." [...] City Blue has denied any connections to ballot printing, posting via Twitter:  "NO, we do not do ballot printing.  We don't have the equipment and it's not a specialty we would be involved with.  We are mainly doing blue printing and marketing."

Jon Ossoff's Company Produced [a] Documentary Praising China's Rise in Africa.  Democrat Georgia Senate candidate Jon Ossoff's production company, Insight TWI, produced a two-part report for Al Jazeera in 2015 that praised China's growing power and influence in Africa, two years after he became the company's CEO.  The report, featuring Sierra Leonean investigative journalist Sorious Samura, begins with an interview with an elderly African woman talking about how, when she was young, "white men" came, took their land, and destroyed their forests.  Samura contrasts that with the "new elephant" in Africa — China.  "China is now Africa's largest trading partner.  If you fly into Kenya, China greets you at the airport," Samura said.  "In just 10 years, China's trade with the continent has gone from $10 billion to over $200 billion."  Samura reported that an estimated 30 percent of all new projects in Africa are the result of Chinese investment.  He gave passing mention to China's desire for the "freeflow of mineral resources."

Gohmert on Lawsuit Dismissal: 'If I Don't Have Standing to Do That, Nobody Does'.  Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) said late Friday [1/1/2021], after a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit he and others filed against Vice President Mike Pence, that the ruling was wrong, and that he plans to appeal.  District Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump nominee, alleged Gohmert didn't have sufficient standing to bring the legal action.  Gohmert "alleges at most an institutional injury to the House of Representatives," Kernodle wrote.  "Under well-settled Supreme Court authority, that is insufficient to support standing."  Reacting during a virtual appearance on Newsmax, Gohmert said, "If I don't have standing to do that, nobody does."

Congress Overrides President Trump's Veto of $740 Billion Defense Bill.  The Republican-controlled Senate voted to override President Trump's veto of the $740 billion defense bill on Friday [1/1/2021].  President Trump last Wednesday vetoed the $740 billion defense bill because the legislation renamed bases named after Confederates and would not allow for removal of our military from other countries.  Trump also wanted to add a provision terminating Section 230 protections for tech giants.  The House of Representatives Monday evening overwhelmingly voted to override President Trump's veto of the defense bill.

Senate Overrides Trump's Veto of NDAA, 13 Members Uphold Veto.  The Senate voted to override President Donald Trump's veto of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2021.  The upper house on Friday afternoon [1/1/2021] passed the bill without the president's signature with an 80-13 vote — the first time a Trump veto has been overridden.  The debate over the bill was ended earlier in the day with the same result.

McConnell Ties $2,000 Checks to Section 230 Repeal, Voter Fraud Investigation.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell introduced legislation authorizing direct cash payments of $2,000 Tuesday [12/29/2020], but with a catch to which Democrats will likely object.  The bill combines $2,000 payments with a repeal of Section 230, a provision that grants social media companies liability protections against content users post on their platforms, and the establishment of a commission to study allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 election.  Though Democrats supported President Donald Trump's push for $2,000 checks, they have opposed his efforts to abolish Section 230 and investigate his allegations of fraud, giving McConnell's bill little chance of becoming law.

Most West Point cadets in cheating scandal are athletes.  The majority of cadets caught cheating on a math test at the West Point military academy are athletes — including two dozen members of the Army football team playing West Virginia in Thursday's Liberty Bowl.  Of the 24 Army Black Knights embroiled in the scandal, 17 remained in uniform as of Wednesday — and a few have already played in games this season, USA Today reported.  They remain on the team because West Point Superintendent Lt. Gen. Darryl Williams suspended the school's policy of barring cadets who violate the academy's honor code from representing the school in public.  The honor code is engraved in a monument at the Hudson River front school:  "A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do."

Mich.  Gov. Whitmer Vetoes Unemployment Funds.  Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) is under fire from Republicans after cutting millions of dollars in unemployment benefits from a state COVID-19 relief bill.  On Tuesday [12/29/2020], Whitmer signed a massive bipartisan relief package that was easily passed by state legislators, but not before nixing a provision to provide $220 million to Michigan's Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund.  She adamantly claimed while signing the bill, the change wouldn't affect people's jobless benefits.  "To be very clear, this will not impact individual workers," she stated.  "General fund dollars have got to be used to fund essential services like vaccines and PPE, not to give tax breaks to big businesses right now."

Mitch McConnell blocks unanimous vote on $2,000 COVID-19 stimulus checks.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday blocked unanimous passage of the $2,000 COVID-19 stimulus checks requested by President Trump.  McConnell (R-Ky.) objected after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) asked for a unanimous vote on a five-page bill that passed the House on Monday [12/28/2020] with 44 Republican votes.  Trump requested the $2,000 checks last week, saying the $600 checks approved as part of a $2.3 trillion pandemic relief and government funding bill was too small.  McConnell blocked unanimous passage after scheduling a Wednesday vote to override Trump's veto of a $740 billion defense bill.

McConnell blocks Democrats' attempt to quickly approve $2,000 stimulus checks amid pressure on GOP to act.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday [12/29/2020] blocked consideration of a House bill that would deliver $2,000 stimulus payments to most Americans — spurning a request by President Trump even as more Senate Republicans voiced support for the dramatically larger checks.  McConnell's move was just the beginning of a saga that is likely to engulf the Senate for the rest of the week.  Democrats are pushing for an up-or-down vote on the House bill, while more Republicans acknowledge a need for larger stimulus checks.  Tension within the Republican party spilled into public view on Tuesday, with Trump leveling pointed attacks at GOP leaders for failing to act, accusing them of being "pathetic" and suggesting they had a "death wish."

The Editor says...
By all means, block the $2,000 payments, if you're doing it for the right reasons.  The right reasons include the simple fact that the Constitution does not authorize direct payments to individuals, and the national debt is already high enough, and printing money causes inflation.  But I doubt if Mitch McConnell is motivated by any of that.

American youth too flabby to defend nation, retired generals say.  A group of retired military leaders is warning the Pentagon that most of America's youth is too out of shape to defend the nation.  The organization, known as "Mission Readiness" wants the Pentagon to help set up an interagency committee to address what it considers the nation's military recruiting crisis.  They recently sent a letter to acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, urging him to work with heads of other relevant federal departments and agencies to take a "holistic approach" to addressing issues ultimately impacting the ability of the military to recruit personnel.

Global investors flee from Chinese tech stocks after the government crackdown on Ant and Alibaba.  Global investors are running from Chinese tech stocks in the wake of the government's crackdown on Ant Group and Alibaba, two high-flying businesses founded by Ma Yun (Jack Ma) that were once hailed as paragons of China's new tech elite.  Shares of major technology companies in the country have fallen sharply in recent days, with Bloomberg calculating that Alibaba, Tencent, JD.com and Meituan have lost around $200 billion in value during a handful of trading sessions.  Already reeling from the last-minute halt of the public debut of Ant Group, a major Chinese fintech player with deep ties to Alibaba, the e-commerce giant came under new fire, as China's markets watchdog opened a probe into its business practices concerning potentially anticompetitive behavior.

Group pushes to diversify volunteering at Minnesota nonprofits.  Minnesotans have rallied to help nonprofits during the pandemic, but across many organizations, most of those volunteers are white.  A statewide organization is trying to change that with new research calling attention to disparities in volunteerism.

The Editor says...
If you need unpaid help with your charitable organization, and you really care what color the volunteers are, you might be a racist.

The U.S. government spent billions on a system for detecting hacks.  The Russians outsmarted it.  When Russian hackers first slipped their digital Trojan horses into federal government computer systems, probably sometime in the spring, they sat dormant for days, doing nothing but hiding.  Then the malicious code sprang into action and began communicating with the outside world.  At that moment — when the Russian malware began sending transmissions from federal servers to command-and-control computers operated by the hackers — an opportunity for detection arose, much as human spies behind enemy lines are particularly vulnerable when they radio home to report what they've found.  Why then, when computer networks at the State Department and other federal agencies started signaling to Russian servers, did nobody in the U.S. government notice that something odd was afoot?  The answer is part Russian skill, part federal government blind spot.

Mayhem in the streets:  Illegal vendors are overtaking NYC.  Live crabs.  Bras with rhinestones.  Old shoes.  Frayed electrical cords.  Knock-off Louis Vuitton clutches.  Disposable face masks.  Mets caps.  Illegal street peddlers hawking such items have taken over the outer boroughs, clogging sidewalks with their second-hand wares and pulling customers from pandemic-ravaged mom-and-pop shops.  And everybody is pointing the finger at Mayor de Blasio.  From Brooklyn to the Bronx, Staten Island and Queens, folding tables and mats rolled out on the ground force pedestrians to go single-file or step aside so they don't get run over.

The Editor says...
I don't see how the situation described above qualifies as mayhem.  Many people are selling substandard merchandise without permits from the city.  That sounds like free-market capitalism.  Maybe some of the vendors are aggressively touting their wares and impeding the flow of pedestrian traffic.  In Texas, that condition is known as the State Fair.

GoDaddy teased 500 employees into replying to email promising Christmas $650 bonus — only to then reveal it was phishing test they FAILED.  Internet domain giant GoDaddy is in hot water after sending several employees an email claiming that they would get a holiday bonus, only for it to be a hoax that the company set up to test staff.  A December 14 email was sent to employees of the Scottsdale, Arizona-based company after staff had already been notified that they would not be receiving bonuses for the holidays this year.  'Happy Holiday GoDaddy! 2020 has been a record year for GoDaddy, thanks to you,' the email, obtained by 12 News, read.  It was sent to roughly 500 employees.

The Editor says...
In the last few years before I retired, I got two or three of those emails.  Fortunately I deleted them without looking at them, but the unfortunate few who did read them got in a little bit of trouble.  All the company accomplished was to teach us not to trust anybody.

So many people left New York that the state may lose a seat in Congress.  The coronavirus pandemic appears to have been the icing on the case in terms of New York's declining population, and it could impact the state's political influence in future elections.  According to preliminary US Census Bureau data released on Tuesday, more than 126,000 people moved out of New York state between July 2019 and July 2020 — the biggest population drop of any state this year.

Elephant Walk:  It's showdown time in Alaska.  According to a report in the UK's Daily Mail, an impressive fleet of 30 fighter jets and two refueling aircraft lined the runway at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska, in a display of air power and American military might.  A group from the 354th Fighter Wing and the 168th Wing Air National Guard were pictured on Friday in what is known as an "Elephant Walk."  The drill involves a procession of military aircraft taxiing close in formation right before a minimum interval takeoff — essentially a readiness exercise in testing how quickly fighter jets can take to the skies.

War Train.  This War Train was filmed in the CSX Yard back in March (Pensacola, Florida) [March, 2020]  [Video clip]

Bodycam shows ex-wife of Georgia Dem.  Senate candidate Raphael Warnock telling cops he hit her as he drove off with their kids.  The ex-wife of Georgia senatorial candidate Raphael Warnock accused him of running over her foot in his car during a domestic dispute in March, and told police he is 'a great actor' obsessed with his reputation.  Police bodycam footage of the incident, shown by Fox News' Tucker Carlson on Tuesday [12/22/2020], shows a tearful Ouleye Ndoye, 35, telling cops that her then-husband had injured her foot while trying to drive away with their children.  Ndoye, who works to combat human trafficking in the office of the mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms, called police over the incident.

That video of Warnock's wife is really... something.  We've repeatedly discussed the fact that the oppo file on Reverend Raphael Warnock is about as thick as the Oxford English Dictionary, but even with that as a given, I'm pretty sure this wasn't the present he wanted to find under his Christmas tree right before the Georgia runoff elections.  Last night on Tucker Carlson's show on Fox News we were shown police body camera footage of Warnock from an incident that took place earlier this year.  Warnock's former wife accused the Reverend of running over her foot with his car during an argument in the driveway of their home.  Warnock cast doubt on the claim, but the wife seemed insistent.  She also went on to say that her husband is "a great actor" and he's able to fool the public easily.

Pelosi and Schumer Agree to Trump's Demand for $2,000 Stimulus Checks.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) signaled that they are open to increasing the amount for the stimulus checks after President Donald Trump threatened to veto the COVID relief bill unless the direct payment was increased to $2,000 per individual.  "Republicans repeatedly refused to say what amount the President wanted for direct checks.  At last, the President has agreed to $2,000 — Democrats are ready to bring this to the Floor this week by unanimous consent.  Let's do it!" Pelosi wrote on Twitter on Tuesday [12/22/2020].

Hackers believed to have stolen Treasury Department's encryption keys.  Hackers who broke into the US government's computer systems appear to have stolen encryption keys, potentially giving them access to the email accounts of top officials, US Sen. Ron Wyden said Monday [12/21/2020].  Following a briefing on the SolarWinds hack — a suspected state-sponsored act of espionage, with fingers pointed at Russia — Wyden issued a statement saying that the hack of the US Treasury Department, in particular, "appears to be significant."  According to department staff, "the agency suffered a serious breach, beginning in July, the full depth of which isn't known," Wyden said.  "Microsoft notified the agency that dozens of email accounts were compromised."

IBM, 3M, PepsiCo Among Leading US Firms That House Chinese Communist Party Units:  Leaked Database.  Hundreds of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members are embedded within the Chinese divisions of major U.S. corporations, from IBM to PepsiCo to 3M, a leaked CCP-member database revealed.  The existence of Party units within foreign companies in China is hardly surprising, given that the regime mandates any organization with at least three CCP members to form a Party branch.  But the 1.95 million CCP member list, which includes names, levels of education, ethnicity, and the Party branches they belong to, was to date the biggest revelation on the scale of the CCP's influence on international companies.  Most of the members in the database are from the country's southeastern coastal metropolis of Shanghai.  New York-headquartered tech firm IBM has at least two dozen Party units with 808 members in China.

Houston pastor on $200K Lamborghini gift: 'It wasn't a pastor that bought the car.  It was a husband'.  An associate pastor at Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church who caught heat for buying his wife a $200,000 Lamborghini Urus is now defending the move, saying, "it wasn't a pastor that bought the car, it was a husband that bought the car."  Pastor John Gray, who leads his own megachurch in Greenville, S.C., said in a 23-minute Facebook Live video that he bought the car using funds from other ventures — citing his book deals, a reality TV show on the Oprah Winfrey Network and being "wise with savings and investments" — and did it to mark the couple's eighth anniversary.

Former Host Says Fox News Is Tanking, Lost 40% Of Audience.  Former Fox News host Eric Bolling said people at Fox News are nervous.  Fox News ratings have dropped by 40%, and they don't know how to turn it around.

Congress Finally agrees on $900B COVID relief package that will send $600 to Americans — half of what they got in April.  Congress has agreed to a $900 billion coronavirus relief package, Senate leaders announced Sunday [12/20/2020].  The deal finally delivers long-overdue help to businesses and individuals and provides money to deliver vaccines to a nation eager for them.  It establishes a temporary $300 per week supplemental jobless benefits and $600 direct stimulus payments to most Americans — half of what they got in April — along with a new round of subsidies for hard-hit businesses and money for schools, health care providers and renters facing eviction.

Are We Witnessing the Beginning of the End for Fox News?  Newsmax is not yet rivaling Fox in terms of ratings, but it seems feasible that the outlet could close the gap in the next few years.  GOP lawmakers told The Hill that the rise in popularity for Newsmax and other right-leaning news organizations has enticed them to appear more frequently on these alternative networks.  Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) stated that Trump's feud with Fox contributed to his decision to look at smaller outlets.  The Hill noted, "asked whether Trump's criticism of Fox News is a factor for the small segment of Republicans considering the alternative networks, Harris replied: 'It is for me.'"

Critics Boycott CBS Series 'The Stand' Because the Actor Playing the Deaf Character Can Hear.  Well, it had to happen eventually.  In our new woke paradigm, actress Scarlett Johansson can't portray a woman identifying as a man.  Nor can James Corden be a straight actor playing a gay character.  Thus, we take an obvious next step:  Deaf characters should only be played by deaf actors.  Such is the premise of a December 17th letter picking up steam on the web, which condemns the casting of actor Henry Zaga.

The Editor says...
But it's okay to portray Beethoven as a black man.

Resignations by US Attorneys Create Opportunity for Senate GOP to Maintain Influence Over Biden DOJ.  [Scroll down]  I was in my first year with DOJ in 1992 when George H.W. Bush lost to Bill Clinton, and I had a front-row seat to how that transition took place.  I can't express any opinions about other departments of agencies, but I can say that DOJ is heavily influenced in its functioning by the people who hold the position of US Attorney in the 93 US Attorneys' Offices around the country.  A very large percentage of the work done by DOJ takes place far outside Washington DC, and includes a significant amount of "discretionary" judgment at the local level about what cases to bring and what cases to decline.  The oversight from DC comes almost exclusively from the Office of the Deputy Attorney General and the Attorney General, not other sections of Main Justice.

Space Force Reveals What Their Personnel Will Officially Be Called.  The United States Space Force (USSF), which is the sixth branch of the United States Armed Forces, revealed on Friday that their personnel will officially be called "Guardians."  "Today, after a yearlong process that produced hundreds of submissions and research involving space professionals and members of the general public, we can finally share with you the name by which we will be known:  Guardians," the USSF said in a statement.  "The opportunity to name a force is a momentous responsibility.  Guardians is a name with a long history in space operations, tracing back to the original command motto of Air Force Space Command in 1983, 'Guardians of the High Frontier.'"

The Editor says...
Now that the Space Force is up and running, why are we still spending money on NASA?  On the other hand, if we really need a Space Force, why not just militarize NASA?  If both entities exist, something tells me the great majority of the Space Force's activity will be secret and/or redundant, and thus ten times as costly as it should be.

Pentagon halts Biden transition briefings.  Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller ordered a Pentagon-wide halt to cooperation with the transition of President-elect Biden, shocking officials across the Defense Department, senior administration officials tell Axios.

It's 'pretty clear' Russia did it, Pompeo says of massive U.S. government hack attack.  Russia is behind the ongoing hack of a spectrum of government agencies and corporations, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday night [12/18/2020].  "This was a very significant effort, and I think it's the case that now we can say pretty clearly that it was the Russians that engaged in this activity," Pompeo said during an interview on the Mark Levin Show.  Pompeo is now the first Trump administration official to pin the hack on Russia.  "We're still unpacking precisely what it is, and I'm sure some of it will remain classified," Pompeo, who formerly headed the CIA, told Levin, according to a transcript of the interview released by the State Department.

New York village votes to dissolve its own government.  A 142-year old Rockland County village has voted its independence out of existence.  Residents of South Nyack, a small community in Orangetown along the Hudson River, voted Thursday [12/17/2020] in a referendum to dissolve its government, the Journal News reported.  "We acknowledge that the residents have chosen to dissolve the village and we will now work to establish a plan that will allow for a smooth transition into the Town of Orangetown," said South Nyack Mayor Bonnie Christian.  The 508 to 292 vote means South Nyack's nearly 2,000 residents will rely on Orangetown to provide municipal services such as police and street maintenance.

Woke Art Centre Celebrates Beethoven Birthday with Portrait of Composer as a Black Man.  The Centre of Fine Arts in Brussels announced the celebration of the 250th birthday of German composer Ludwig van Beethoven by posting a portrait of the composer as a black African man.  The centre, also known as BOZAR, published a post on Wednesday [12/16/2020] of a still from a video entitled "Black Beethoven" by American artist Terry Adkins, which features a portrait of the late 18th and early 19th-century composer depicted a young black man with dreadlocks.

The Editor says...
Beethoven wasn't black.  What would be the purpose of depicting him as a black man?  That's borderline insanity.

Two SolarWinds investors sold $280 million in stock six days before it was hacked in 'Russian cyber-attack' along with six federal agencies.  Two investment firms that together own 70 percent of SolarWinds sold off $280 million in stock just six days before it was revealed the technology company had been the subject of a huge hack hitting federal agencies.  On December 7, Silver Lake — a Silicon Valley investor — sold $158 million in shares, while Thoma Bravo — a San Francisco-based private equity firm — sold $128 million in shares on the same day.  Three executives from each firm sit on the board of SolarWinds and they have been the largest investors in the company since it went public in 2018.

Cuomo signs bill banning sale of Confederate flags.  Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a bill into law aimed at banning the sale of "hate symbols" such as the Confederate flag or the swastika on state property — even while admitting the new edict might clash with the First Amendment and be struck down as unconstitutional.  The new law — effective immediately — prohibits the sale of hate symbols on public grounds including state and local fairs, and also severely limits their display unless deemed relevant to serving an educational or historical purpose.  But Cuomo said the rule likely needs "certain technical changes" so the Empire State doesn't get caught treading upon free speech protections codified in the Constitution's First Amendment.

Intel community assessment delayed amid dispute over whether China sought to influence 2020 election.  The 2020 Intelligence Community Assessment focused on foreign election influence will be delayed, Fox News has learned, amid a dispute among senior intelligence analysts over whether China sought to influence the election.  "This afternoon the DNI was notified by career intelligence officials that the Intelligence Community will not meet the December 18 deadline, set by Executive Order and Congress, to submit the IC's classified assessment on foreign threats to the 2020 U.S. elections," Amanda Schoch, Assistant DNI for Strategic Communications said in a statement to Fox News.

Redistricting gives GOP a built-in edge to win House majority in 2022.  The Republican Party is poised to win the House majority in 2022, boosted by the rare combination of President Trump's ouster and down-ballot victories that put the GOP in command of the decennial redrawing of district boundaries.  House Republicans flipped nearly a dozen Democratic-held seats in the Nov. 3 elections, a surprising gain that left them a handful shy of the majority.  With such a thin margin, there is loose speculation redistricting could effectively deliver Republicans the speaker's gavel before a single Democratic incumbent is defeated.  The GOP preserved control of key state legislatures and governor's mansions, a crucial advantage in the partisan battle over reapportionment.

DNI John Ratcliffe Confirmed There Was Foreign Interference in November Elections:  Report.  Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe confirmed that there was foreign interference in the 2020 election, according to CBS correspondent Catherine Herridge.  "Well DNI Ratcliffe leads the 17 intelligence agencies and he has access to the most highly classified information that is held by the US government.  And he told CBS News that there was foreign interference by China, Iran, and Russia in November of this year and he is anticipating a public report on those findings in January," Herridge said on Dec. 3.

Government Leaders Clash Over Next Step for Trump's Ban on Chinese Stocks.  President Trump's recent executive order prohibiting Americans from investing in companies tied to China's military complex has set up a fight in the highest ranks of government over how broad the list should be.  Since November, the White House barred U.S. investors from buying into 35 Chinese companies the Pentagon has classified as aiding China's defense, intelligence and security apparatus.  It sparked selloffs of Chinese stocks and bonds, forced index firms to drop companies from marquee benchmarks, and pushed Wall Street to reassess risks from investing in China.  Now, the U.S. government is at odds over whether the blacklist should include subsidiaries of the companies.  Another battlefront is over whether affiliates should be included.  The question affects how much teeth the ban will have.

Why The Epoch Times Won't Call the Presidential Race Until All Challenges Are Resolved.  Our nation is moving into uncharted territory as multiple legal challenges have been filed in response to the 2020 elections, with more challenges expected to come.  Both candidates have claimed victory in certain states, but it appears increasingly likely that this election will be resolved in the courts.  For that reason, The Epoch Times will not declare a winner of the 2020 presidential election until all legal challenges are resolved.

Venezuela wields a powerful "hate" law to silence Maduro's remaining foes.  Francisco Belisario, a Venezuelan mayor, retired general and member of the ruling Socialist party, had enough.  His loudest local critic had accused him of bungling the response to the coronavirus outbreak and other big problems.  In August, he wrote a state prosecutor and requested an "exhaustive investigation" of his nemesis, Giovanni Urbaneja, a former lawmaker who had become a gadfly to the mayor and other Socialist officeholders.  Urbaneja, Belisario wrote in a letter reviewed by Reuters, was conducting a "ferocious smear campaign" on Facebook and elsewhere.

Barr resigns:  Everyone (except Biden) wins.  William Barr resigned as Attorney General yesterday [12/14/2020], clearing the way for appointment of a special counsel to investigate the crimes of Hunter Biden and any other matters that may arise from that investigation. [...] The fact that his resignation letter and President Trump's tweets were cordial tells me that an arrangement between the two men was reached.  My strong suspicion is that Trump asked Barr to appoint a special counsel to take over and potentially expand the investigation of Hunter Biden already underway by the US Attorney for Delaware and that Barr declined, but offered to resign to allow a successor (for now, Deputy Attorney General Jeffery Rosen) to appoint a special counsel. [...] If Biden is inaugurated, he could easily demand the resignations of all sitting US Attorneys, as has been done before by new presidents.  That would relatively quietly kill the investigation of the Biden family's corrupt arrangements with foreign entities and governments, since the media would raise no questions and the social media oligopolists would suppress discussion.  But firing a special counsel, while not impossible, is more difficult.

White House confirms cyberattack report on U.S. Treasury by foreign government.  The U.S. government has acknowledged reports that hackers backed by a foreign government have breached the U.S. Treasury Department and an agency within the Commerce Department.  "The United States government is aware of these reports and we are taking all necessary steps to identify and remedy any possible issues related to this situation," National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot told FOX Business in a statement.  According to Reuters, the elaborate cyber hack was launched on the Treasury Department as well as the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration, or NTIA, a U.S. agency that is tasked with crafting internet and telecommunications policy.  Sources told the outlet that the hack was so serious it led to a National Security Council meeting on Saturday [12/12/2020].

Suspected Russian hackers broke into US federal agencies and spied on emails in a 'highly sophisticated' cyberattack.  Suspected Russian hackers have infiltrated several key parts of the US government, including the Treasury and Commerce departments, in a "highly sophisticated" and large-scale cyberattack that took place over several months.  The security breaches were so alarming that they prompted the National Security Council to meet Saturday, Reuters reported, and came less than a week after the National Security Agency warned that "Russian state-sponsored actors" were exploiting weak spots in a computer system used by US federal agencies.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Dismisses Trump Lawsuit.  In a 4-3 decision [12/14/2020], the Wisconsin Supreme Court dismissed President Trump's lawsuit seeking to invalidate roughly 220,00 votes in Dane and Milwaukee counties.  The court stated that it would not made a blanket invalidation of ballots cast under the status of indefinitely confined, as President Trump had sought.  Regarding other challenged ballots, the court said President Trump waited too long in bringing his challenge.

Wisconsin Supreme Court says election officials were wrong; ballots may not be counted.  The Wisconsin Supreme Court has ruled in favor of Mark Jefferson and the Republican Party of Wisconsin.  The opinion, which was released this morning [12/14/2020], says local election officials were wrong to suggest that voters could claim the status of "indefinitely confined" based on COVID-19.  The majority decision also held that if voters falsely claimed they were indefinitely confined "their ballots would not count."

Houston, We Have A Road Rage Shooting Problem, Governor Abbott Deploys DPS.  Governor Abbott announced Wednesday that he is deploying resources from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) to Houston.  This move is to support the Houston Police Department as it deals with a sharp rise in road rage shootings and other violent crimes.  The announcement from the governor's office followed a news conference held the previous day by Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo.  Acevedo spoke about the new task force put in place to help combat road rage incidents on Houston's streets and roadways.  The situation has gotten out of control.

Osama bin Laden's spin doctor is back on UK streets after being freed early from US jail.  Osama bin Laden's spin doctor is walking the streets of Britain again today after being released from a US prison because he is too fat to be locked up safely amid the pandemic.  Adel Abdel Bary, 60, was jailed over the devastating 1998 attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people.  But the terror propagandist won early 'mercy' release because his morbid obesity and asthma puts him at risk of Covid.

'The Big One' Gets Bigger: 15 Michigan Legislators Join Texas Election Lawsuit.  On Thursday [12/10/2020], 15 Republican legislators in Michigan filed a motion in support of Attorney General Ken Paxton's (R-Texas) lawsuit challening the 2020 presidential election results in four key swing states, including Michigan.  The legislators joined the Amistad Project of the Thomas More Society in supporting the Texas lawsuit, which asks the Supreme Court to remand the election results to swing-state legislatures for review and potential reversal.

Chuck Schumer 'forced to have serious and painful talks' with Dianne Feinstein over apparent cognitive decline.  Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer has reportedly been forced to have several "serious and painful talks" with 87-year-old colleague Diane Feinstein, over alleged mental decline.  Ms Feinstein, who has represented California since 1992 and who previously served as mayor of San Francisco, was seen to repeat a question to Twitter boss Jack Dorsey during a November 17 hearing on Capitol Hill, something he chose to ignore, but which social media did not.  She had also angered some progressives during the recent confirmation hearting for justice Amy Coney Barrett, for the way she seen to be too deferential and excessively friendly with Republicans, who were pushing through Donald Trump's nominee in controversial circumstances.  She said afterwards she would be giving up her position as ranking member on the judiciary committee.

Senate Judiciary Committee advances Amy Coney Barrett replacement on 7th Circuit to floor over Dem opposition.  The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday advanced the nomination of Thomas L. Kirsch II for a seat on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals to the floor in a party-line vote, moving the Senate one step closer to filling the vacancy created by the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett.  President Trump had named Kirsch as his replacement for Barrett before she was even confirmed and the Judiciary Committee took a little over a month after her confirmation to report Kirsch favorably to the Senate floor.  With the Senate still in session and multiple bills still to be passed this year, the timing of when the Senate might confirm Kirsch is unclear, but it is likely to happen before the Senate leaves town for the holidays.

Vaccine Whistleblower Found Dead After Saying She'd Never Commit Suicide.  Brandy Vaughan was a whistleblower of Big Pharma and vaccines has been found dead roughly a year after she released a public statement saying she'd never commit suicide.  Her body was discovered by her nine-year-old son earlier this week, according to reports.  The cause of death is currently unknown.

Pandemic Villains:  Robinhood.  As the world went into lockdown and the global economy into a spiral last spring, one company struck gold.  A phone-based trading app called Robinhood began wiping the floor with more celebrated online brokerage rivals like Charles Schwab, TD Ameritrade, and E-Trade.  The moment the pandemic began, it seemed, the world started trading stocks on Robinhood.  The numbers were staggering.  Robinhood's average daily trading volume tripled in the first quarter of this year, compared with the last quarter of 2019, and saw a tenfold increase in net deposits as millions were losing their jobs.

48 States and US Government Sue Facebook for Illegal Monopoly Practices.  Facebook is facing a lawsuit filed by 48 states for monopoly practices and the FTC is joining with supportive legal action.  NY Attorney General Latitia James held a news conference to announce the antitrust lawsuit using Instagram & WhatsApp as examples.  [Video clip]

Folks, This Is NOT Good!  Folks, feel free to dismiss this, or to count it as 'coincidence,' but I don't believe in 'coincidence' — especially not 'coincidences' like this one.  The other day, GA Gov. Kemp called for a signature verification of the mail-in ballots in his State.  The next day, this happened and that call was dropped: [...]

Message For Governor Kemp From The Deep State.  An apparent car crash in Georgia — kills Harrison Deal.  He was a staffer for Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler.  Harrison Deal was also dating Gov Kemp's daughter.  ["]#HarrisonDeal car exploded (witnesses heard the explosion over a mile away).  Vehicle left as molten metal, engine block ejected 50-60 yards away.  That's not an accident.  That's a car bomb disguised as an accident.["]

Loeffler campaign staff member, Kemp family friend dies in car crash.  Harrison Deal died Friday [12/4/2020] at age of 20.  The UGA junior died in a fiery car accident on Interstate-16, Pooler Police confirmed to Channel 2's ABC affiliate WJCL in Savannah.  Deal served as Loeffler's Athens Regional Field Director.  He is also a family friend of the Kemp family.  Gov. Brian Kemp tweeted a statement and photo of his family with Deal.  "Today, we lost a member of our "Kemp Strong" family and words cannot express how much Harrison Deal's life, love and support meant to us.  He was a person of deep faith, unmatched integrity, and incredible kindness.  Harrison was the Kemp son and brother we never had," Kemp said in a statement.

Explosive Video of Car Crash Killing Boyfriend of Kemp's Daughter Sparks Conspiracy Theories.  Just one day after Brian Kemp account a signature audit in Georgia, his daughter's boyfriend, and a staffer to Senate runoff candidate Kelly Loeffler was killed in a fiery car crash. [...] Harrison Deal was a young aspiring Georgia political figure.  In his very young life, he'd already worked for two Senators, Perdue and Loeffler, and he had sights set on becoming a political figure in his own right.  He was dating the daughter of controversial GA Governor Brian Kemp, who was under a lot of pressure to recount the 2020 election in his state and audit the signatures.  After refusing to do it, Kemp finally relented and called for the signature audit.  But then, suddenly he went dark, and we didn't hear anything from him — later we found out that was because his daughter's boyfriend was tragically killed in a car accident.

Murder Video!  Gov. Brian Kemp's Daughter's Boyfriend Wacked in Gangland Car Explosion!  Governor Brian Kemp is Involved in Election Fraud.  Now His daughter's boyfriend, Harrison Deal, has been Assassinated in a Fiery Gangland Hit on a Parkway near Savannah.  Deal was working on the Kelly Loeffler U.S. Senate campaign, and close to the Election Dumpster Fire at the Governor's Office.  Twitter is going Wild, and the comparisons to Seth Rich's Murder are right on Point.

Congressional Inaugural Committee Adjourns After It Fails To Agree Joe Biden Is President-Elect.  [Scroll down]  To date, only a relatively small number, about 27, Vichy Conservatives have lined up to welcome their new master.  That any have done so just shows the absolute cravenness of a small but, I predict, a growing number of Republicans who will find life without invitations to the right parties to be just too much to bear.  It would have cost them nothing to say nothing until the Electoral College votes and it would have shown solidarity with that 70+% of Republicans and 50% of all Americans who believe Joe Biden is the beneficiary of a fraudulent election. [...] Eventually, there will be a president-elect, but it will be one decided by the Electoral College, not one appointed by the news media and demanded by geriatric Democrats.

Win Over FOX News Host Martha MacCallum for the First Time Ever.  This was a first.  Newsmax nighttime host Greg Kelly scored a ratings win over FOX News host Martha MacCallum for the first time on Monday night [12/7/2020].  FOX News continues to crash and burn after they turned a blind eye to the massive voter fraud in the 2020 election.

FireEye, a Top Cybersecurity Firm, Says It Was Hacked by a Nation-State.  For years, the cybersecurity firm FireEye has been the first call for government agencies and companies around the world who have been hacked by the most sophisticated attackers, or fear they might be.  Now it looks like the hackers — in this case, evidence points to Russia's intelligence agencies — may be exacting their revenge.  FireEye revealed on Tuesday that its own systems were pierced by what it called "a nation with top-tier offensive capabilities." The company said hackers used "novel techniques" to make off with its own tool kit, which could be useful in mounting new attacks around the world.  It was a stunning theft, akin to bank robbers who, having cleaned out local vaults, then turned around and stole the F.B.I.'s investigative tools.  In fact, FireEye said on Tuesday [12/8/2020], moments after the stock market closed, that it had called in the F.B.I.

Communist China Cynically Weaponizes Race To Help Democrats Smear Republican Senator.  Communist China appears to be targeting Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn for calling out China's moral bankruptcy, including enslaving Uyghur Muslims in the northwest province of Xinjiang. [...] Chinese propaganda mouthpiece Chen Weihua responded by tweeting sexist profanities at the GOP woman and labeling her the "most racist" senator. [...] Shortly after she was publicly insulted by Weihua, Blackburn released a statement condemning communist China's actions.  "From Tiananmen Square to the Uyghur genocide, Communist China is an expert at slaughtering populations," Blackburn said in a statement.  "America will not bow down to sexist communist thugs."

China honeytrap spy targeted Eric Swalwell as her useful fool.  Rep. Eric Swalwell is famous for yelling about Russian influence with outrageous claims against President Trump, even calling for a 'presidential crimes commission,' but based on a year-long investigation from Axios, he's the one who has some spy problems, and they ought to be embarrassing at least.  He was China's idea of the perfect fool.  According to a year-long investigation from Axios:  ["]A suspected Chinese intelligence operative developed extensive ties with local and national politicians, including a U.S. congressman, in what U.S. officials believe was a political intelligence operation run by China's main civilian spy agency between 2011 and 2015, Axios found in a yearlong investigation.["]  ...and...  ["]The woman at the center of the operation, a Chinese national named Fang Fang or Christine Fang, targeted up-and-coming local politicians in the Bay Area and across the country who had the potential to make it big on the national stage.["]

Trump tweets video of Chinese professor claiming that Beijing can swing US policy because it has 'people at the top of America's core inner circle of power'.  President Donald Trump has tweeted video of a Chinese professor suggesting that China has managed to influence U.S. policy for decades thanks to a special network of relationships with people at the upper echelons of American power.  The video, which had originally been posted on Weibo but has since been removed from Chinese social media according to Fox News, depicts Di Dongsheng, a professor and associate dean of the School of International Studies at Renmin University in Beijing.  Tucker Carlson shared a clip at the top of his show on Monday evening [12/7/2020].  In the video Professor Di suggests that China has managed to influence American policies for decades through a special undercover network of 'old friends' who were at the highest levels of the U.S. government and financial institutions.

DNI Ratcliffe:  China Trying to Breed Stronger Soldiers 'Through Gene Editing'.  China is a threat to the United States, "economically, militarily, technologically," Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe wrote last week in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.  On Sunday [12/6/2020], Ratcliffe told Fox News's Maria Bartiromo that the op-ed was more of an "intelligence briefing to the American people."

Ivanka and Jared buying $30M Miami waterfront lot from Julio Iglesias.  Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner have set their post-White House sights on Miami.  The couple is spending $30 million to purchase a waterfront lot on Indian Creek Island in a deal that's set to close Dec. 17, according to the New York Post.  Famed singer Julio Iglesias sold the 1.8-acre property, which the Post reported is Lot 4.  Iglesias listed the land earlier this year for $31.8 million.  It has about 200 feet of water frontage.

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kusher 'buy $30m plot on high-security island known as Miami's 'Billionaire Bunker'.  Ivanka Trump Trump and Jared Kusher are buying a $30 million plot on a high-security island dubbed "Billionaire Bunker" in Miami, reports say.  The Kushners, both 39, are supposedly taking steps to start their post-White House life in a highly exclusive Florida neighborhood when Joe Biden takes over from Donald Trump next year.

The Editor says...
Google Street View has taken pictures of residential areas all over the world.  Many of them are dangerous slums.  Someone — other than me, of course — should compile a list of all the places in the U.S. that Google Street View has never been.  Such a list would include
  •   Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts
  •   Hart Island, New York
  •   Riker's Island, New York
  •   Most of Centralia, Pennsylvania
  •   Indian Creek Island, (Miami) Florida

The 'Biggest Ever' Flotilla Of Iranian Tankers Is En Route To Venezuela With Fuel.  It appears both Iran and Venezuela are ready and willing to test the outgoing Trump administration in a major gambit to skirt sanctions in a crude and fuel export scheme.  The daily American military newspaper Stars & Stripes alongside Bloomberg reports this weekend that Iran "is sending its biggest fleet yet of tankers to Venezuela in defiance of U.S. sanctions to help the isolated nation weather a crippling fuel shortage," based on sources familiar with their movements.  "Some of the flotilla of about 10 Iranian vessels will also help export Venezuelan crude after discharging fuel, the people said, asking not to be named because the transaction is not public," the report continues.

Trump Georgia Rally Press Wifi
Trump Makes Georgia Rally Press WiFi Password 'RiggedElection!'  President Donald Trump is scheduled to speak in Georgia today in a stump appearance for Republican Senate candidates Kelly Loeffler and David Purdue, and has named the media's WiFi router "Make America Great Again", and the password to gain access, "RiggedElection!"  In what must be a frustrating and traumatic experience for mainstream media reporters and cameramen, Breitbart News videographer Matthew Perdie reveals that the Trump campaign is forcing them to access an America First Internet router using "RiggedElection!" as the password if they want to work during his event.


Al-Qaeda Calls on Jihadis to Kill Non-Muslims With Poisoned Coronavirus Masks.  If you're tired of wearing a visible sign of massive government overreach and ginned-up hysteria everywhere you go, do not despair.  Help could be on its way, courtesy of the most unlikely source:  al-Qaeda.  According to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), the jihad group is refusing to accept the State Department's complacent assertion that it is on the ropes, and has just published a new magazine with the catchy title Wolves of Manhattan, in which it calls on the warriors of jihad who find themselves in the U.S. to murder people by means of poisoned coronavirus masks.  So now it's wear a mask or the coronavirus will get you (unless you're at a Black Lives Matter protest, of course; the virus knows better than to infect the righteous), or don't wear a mask so that al-Qaeda doesn't get you.

DOJ says Facebook gave preference to foreigners over American workers.  The Justice Department said Thursday [12/3/2020] that Facebook "intentionally" discriminated against U.S. workers and hired foreign guest workers instead — and actively tried to deter Americans from even applying.  For most of its jobs the California tech giant abides by the law, but in cases when a foreign worker is already employed on a temporary visa and seeks a permanent job, Facebook locks out any other candidates, the government said in a new complaint filed in immigration court.

Puerto Rico:  Iconic Arecibo Observatory telescope collapses.  The US National Science Foundation (NSF) said the telescope's 900-ton instrument platform fell onto a reflector dish some 450ft (137m) below.  It came just weeks after officials announced that the telescope would be dismantled amid safety fears, following damage to its support system.  The Arecibo Observatory telescope was one of the largest in the world.

Technical details about the Arecibo collapse.  The 900-ton instrument platform of the 305-meter radio telescope at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico fell some 400 feet Tuesday morning, crashing into the huge, already-damaged dish below, the National Science Foundation (NSF) reported in a December 1 Tweet.  "No injuries were reported," NSF said, adding that it is still assessing the situation.  "Our top priority is maintaining safety." The calamity not only was a final and fatal blow for the observatory but for the people of Puerto Rico.

Footage of Collapse Arecibo Observatory.  [Video clip]

Entire police department resigns in South Carolina town.  The entire police force of a small South Carolina town resigned "due to the constant impediment of police matters" by the town's mayor.  Pine Ridge, a 2,000-person town outside Columbia, typically has a police department of three full-time officers and a number of part-time officials.  According to the State, that hasn't been the case since Oct. 13, when interim Police Chief Lt. Vincent Silano resigned after only five months.  Silano is the fourth chief in the past three years.  Five other officers have left since in the same period of time.  In a letter sent to Mayor Robert Wells and the town council, Silano said his departure was "solely due to the constant impediment of police matters and micro-managing at the hands of Mayor Robert Wells."

Socialist Takeover:  Militant Left-Wing Groups Descend On Georgia to Seize Control of the Senate.  Left-wing groups who seek to fundamentally transform America into a socialist country are descending upon Georgia in order to win two Senate seats (currently held by Republican Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler) in run-off races to be held on January 5, 2021.  The left is throwing their weight behind their far-left challengers Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock.  If they are successful, the radical big government policies they propose such as open borders, abolishing police, a welfare state, unrestricted abortion, class war, burdensome regulations, restrictions on speech, fake news monopoly, coronavirus tyranny, Supreme Court Packing, so-called sanctuary cities, the destruction of the filibuster, massive taxes and the Green New Deal will be pushed through the Senate and rubber-stamped by the incoherent Joe Biden, should he win the 2020 election.

Woke Police Reform Doesn't Work.  This summer, street anarchists and militias doubled down on their exploitation of fatal police-involved shootings as straw arguments to legitimize widespread rioting.  A 2019 landmark, five-year study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by five university scholars reported that fatal shootings involving black and white officers disproportionately occur in minority neighborhoods with greater rates of violent crime and show no evidence of anti-black or Latino disparities.  The study shook the sensibilities of the professoriate and raised the hackles of the anti-police movement.  The research drew an immediate rebuke and ejection from the journal, attended by an author apology over the temporary loss of their senses.  It unveiled an effort by progressive academia to treat with utter contempt any research supporting the claim that fatal police shootings are remote events, blind to race, ethnicity, and gender, and negligible in situations where the police are found at fault.

Nike, Coca-Cola, others reportedly lobbying against Uighur Chinese labor bill.  Nike and Coca-Cola are among a number of companies seeking to water down a bill that would ban imports from a region of China where products are made through forced labor by minority Muslim groups being held in detention camps, according to a report.  The bill, called the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, would forbid the import of a variety of materials from the Xinjiang region of China, in an effort to crack down on human rights abuses, the New York Times reported on Sunday [11/29/2020].  It passed the House in September by a 406-3 vote and has enough support to pass the Senate.  Xinjian produces materials like cotton, sugar, coal and tomatoes and also supplies workers for Chinese clothing factories.

France Looks Like A Dystopian Warzone Movie As Thousands Take on Hundreds Of Cops.  Demonstrations took place across France on Saturday against the proposed global security law and its signature measure to restrict the filming of police officers.  They came as calls to withdraw it were exacerbated by cases of police violence this week.  The police prefecture initially restricted the main protest to République Square, but the decision was overturned by an administrative court and a collective was allowed to march from République to Bastille as the organizers had requested.  The route is typical for protests in Paris.  The collective, called "Stop Loi Sécurité Globale" or Stop Global Security Law, is composed of journalists' unions, human rights NGOs and other groups.  They are advocating for the withdrawal of articles 21 and 22 of the proposed law, "which organize mass surveillance," and article 24, which would penalize the "malicious" dissemination of the image of police officers.  [Video clip]

London Streets Turn Chaotic As The Masses Showed Up To Protest Lockdowns, 155 Arrested.  More than 150 people have been arrested as anti-lockdown protesters clashed with police in central London.  Thousands of demonstrators marched through the city near Oxford Street chanting "freedom" on Saturday, with some carrying placards reading "stop controlling us" and "no more lockdowns".  The Metropolitan Police said the arrests were for a number of suspected offenses including breaching coronavirus regulations and that it expected the number to rise.  [Video clip]

President Trump Tells Supporters to Ignore the Grifters and Turn out to Vote in Georgia.  On January 5[,] Georgians return to the polls for two elections.  Incumbent senator David Perdue is in a runoff contest with Socialist Jon Ossoff.  Perdue led Ossoff in the general election but failed to break the 50% threshold to win outright.  The other election is a special election to fill the remainder of the term of Johnny Isakson, who resigned on December 31, 2019, for health reasons.  Kelly Loeffler was appointed to fill the vacancy.  She will face off against Democrat Raphael Warnock, who is running on an anti-police, anti-military, racial-identity-trumps-all platform.

8 U.S. House Races Still Have Not Been Called.  Republicans Lead All 8 Races.  The results from eight U.S. House races have still not been finalized in the 2020 elections nearly four weeks after election day.  The Republican candidates in all eight races currently are leading their Democrat opponents.

Images Show Zombified Americans More Concerned With Toilet Paper Than Food.  Back in March ANP published a piece titled "Due To An 'Outbreak Of Stupidity' People Will Die Of Starvation Surrounded By Toilet Paper," because when the initial quarantine lockdowns began, clueless Americans were more worried about paper products [...] than they were about eating.  The food shortages and limits on purchases came well after the toilet paper runs on any store that carried the product.  We are now looking at another round of quarantine lockdowns, and readers are once again sending ANP exclusive images, the majority of which are... Yup... toilet paper aisles and other paper goods shelves quickly emptying, while a much smaller percentage of reports and images are showing food aisles, and those are from canned good shelves.

Matt Drudge Logs Off.  The Drudge Report once cycled through 40-50 links in a single five-hour period.  The page is now updated only once or twice a day and almost never reacts to breaking news, as if it's being run by someone who simply doesn't care anymore.  Traffic has reportedly lagged, with Comscore data suggesting a 45% plunge in the year before this past September.  In the glory days even a midpage Drudge link could pull a million views; the number is now down to the high tens of thousands.

Diverse Group of Incoming House Republicans Form 'Freedom Force' to Counter AOC's Socialist 'Squad'.  Not only did Republicans make big gains in the U.S. House on Election Day, but among those elected are men and women whose families fled communist and socialist countries and came to America to build better lives.  Nicole Malliotakis (NY-11) is the daughter of Greek and Cuban immigrants.  Maria Elvira Salazar's (FL-27) parents were Cuban exiles.  Carlos Gimenez (FL-26) was born in Cuba and his family emigrated to America in 1960 after the Cuban Revolution.  Gimenez's father Carlos Gimenez, Sr., who was 98, passed away just days after his son was elected.  Victoria Spartz (IN-5) was born in what was at the time known as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.  She emigrated to the U.S. in 2000.

Pentagon Fails Another Audit, Will Likely Get Budget Increase From Congress Anyway.  The third time wasn't the charm for the Pentagon, which has once again failed to successfully complete an audit.  Thomas Harker, the Pentagon's comptroller, told Reuters that it could be another seven years before the department can pass an audit — something that it has never accomplished.  Previous attempts in 2018 and 2019 turned up literally thousands of problems with the Pentagon's accounting system and millions of dollars' worth of missing equipment.  In a statement, the Pentagon lauded the fact that auditors had "cleared" more than 500 issues identified in previous audits.  That serves as compelling evidence that the effort is worth it, even if a clean review is still impossible.  The Pentagon had resisted being audited for years.  Though Congress passed a law in 1990 requiring all federal departments to be audited every year, it still took nearly two decades for the first Pentagon audit to be attempted.

Fox News Feels the Heat as Morning Joe Beats Fox and Friends for the First Time in 20 Years.  I'm sure Fox News' new public relations firm will say this is no big deal and point us to Tucker Carlson's ratings, but this seems like a pretty big deal to me.  For the first time since 2001, MSNBC's Morning Joe has beaten Fox and Friends in the ratings game.  This is also not a single cherry-picked day, but an average of the entire week.

New stats reveal massive NYC exodus amid coronavirus, crime.  More than 300,000 New Yorkers have bailed from the Big Apple in the last eight months, new stats show.  City residents filed 295,103 change of address requests from March 1 through Oct. 31, according to data The [New York] Post obtained from the US Postal Service under a Freedom of Information Act request.  Since the data details only when 11 or more forwarding requests were made to a particular county outside NYC, the number of moves is actually higher.  And a single address change could represent an entire household, which means far more than 300,000 New Yorkers fled the five boroughs.

Jon Ossoff's Financial Ties to Pro-CCP Hong Kong Media Company Revealed.  Jon Ossoff, currently a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Georgia, reportedly took money from a Hong Kong media company whose owner has condemned the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.  Ossoff challenged Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) in the November election and his race went to a runoff scheduled for January 5, 2021.  The Democrat had failed to previously disclose the gift from the Hong Kong media company, which supports the Chinese Communist Party.  Ossoff recently amended a financial disclosure form reporting that he has received at least $5,000 from PCCW Media Limited over the last two years.  His initial disclosure, filed in May, omitted the payments.

Trump Wins Battleground State of North Carolina.  President Trump has won the battleground state of North Carolina with its 15 electoral votes.  The Associated Press called the state for Trump Friday afternoon, 10 days after Election Day.

Republicans Pick Up Tenth House Seat With New York Victory.  House Republicans added one more to their ranks this week after New York Democratic Rep. Max Rose conceded defeat Thursday in the Staten Island-area district.  "I received a gracious phone call from Rep. Max Rose today conceding the election," wrote State Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis on Twitter.  "I want to thank him for his service to our nation in both the military and in Congress.  We agreed to work together on a seamless transition to best serve our constituents."

After the Election, the Left Demands Purges.  Joe Biden is calling for unity following the 2020 presidential election, but it's clear that many of the former vice president's supporters view postelection unity as something to create by force and intimidation.  That sort of unity is enforced by ruthless institutional pressure and cancel culture.  It's a tactic that the left already uses through its power in America's elite institutions, but is looking to redouble if it indeed captures the presidency and the executive branch.  Numerous liberals and left-wingers have demanded punishment of anyone who has worked for, allied with, or generally supported President Donald Trump.  Some want to destroy the Republican Party.

Fox News Terminates Trey Gowdy After Joining Trump's Legal Team.  Fox News has reportedly terminated former Republican Congressman Trey Gowdy after he has allegedly joined the Trump campaign's legal team.  On Tuesday [11/10/2020], Fox News contributor Trey Gowdy said it's "inexcusable" to not count all legal votes within 48 hours of the presidential election.

MSNBC splits with two more contributors going to work for Biden.  MSNBC has split with two more on-air contributors who will work with Joe Biden's White House transition team, a report said Tuesday [11/10/2020].  Barbara McQuade, a legal analyst for the cable network, and political analyst Richard Stengel will no longer be paid contributors at the station after they were announced as part of Biden's forthcoming administration, the Daily Beast reported.  Stengel will serve on the review team for the US Agency for Global Media and McQuade will be a member of the Department of Justice Review team, according to the report.  The network does not allow their contributors to endorse candidates or run for office while being paid by the outlet, the Beast reported.

Conservative Network Newsmax Surges In Ratings — Already Beating The FOX Business Network.  FOX News may have made a colossal mistake.  They had one of the most loyal audiences in cable television.  But after their reportage of the 2020 election, and particularly election night, the landscape is changing fast.  Anger from their audience is already driving down FOX's ratings.  Now, another right leaning network called Newsmax is getting a major boost from former FOX News fans.  In fact, Newsmax is already eclipsing the FOX Business Network in ratings.

New York City to try new, NYPD-free approach to mental health crises: de Blasio.  Teams of mental health professionals and EMS staff will respond to 911 mental health calls instead of police officers under a new trial program, Mayor de Blasio announced Tuesday [11/10/2020].  Without providing key details such as when the program will start and where it will take place, Hizzoner and First Lady Chirlane McCray promised "a major innovation" in how the city handles mental health and policing.  "Helping people in a time of crisis with a new approach ... this is a big change in how things are done," de Blasio said at a press conference.

Trump Wins North Carolina, Decision Desk HQ Projects.  Decision Desk HQ called North Carolina for President Trump on Tuesday afternoon, awarding the state's 15 electoral votes to the president on the outlet's election map.  Decision Desk HQ is the first major outlet to award the state to Trump over Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.  The call comes a week after election day on Nov. 3 and is one of the final states to be called by any major election decision desk.  Trump has led in the state almost the entire time as outstanding ballots continue to be counted in North Carolina.

Pompeo predicts 'smooth transition' — to second Trump administration.  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo predicted Tuesday [11/10/2020] that President Trump would emerge victorious in this year's election.  During a briefing at the State Department's headquarters, Pompeo was asked by a reporter whether officials there were "preparing to engage" with Joe Biden's transition team.  "There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration," Pompeo said with a smile.

Trump Pulls Within 1 Percent of Biden in Arizona.  President Donald Trump is within 1 percent of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in Arizona, according to the latest unofficial results.  An automatic recount will take place if the final margin is one-tenth of 1 percent, according to state law.  Trump has received 1.63 million votes to Biden's 1.64 million, as of late Monday [11/9/2020].  That's a margin of 0.45 percent.  Biden's lead has slowly decreased as new bundles of ballots are added to the count.  Fox News called the race in Biden's favor on election night, followed by The Associated Press, even though hundreds of thousands of votes remained outstanding.  Trump's campaign predicted the president would ultimately win the state, as he did in 2016.

Trump's (Alleged) Defeat [is] a Stunning Rebuke to Obama, Hillary.  For reasons too numerous to count, President Donald J. Trump will go down in history as a world-historic leader who defied the odds at every turn.  Trump's 2016 election was a stunning rebuke to both his opponent, Hillary Clinton, and his predecessor, Barack Obama.  Amazingly enough, so is his (alleged) defeat in the 2020 election.  In addition to undoing the vast majority of Obama's legacy, Trump is on track to receive more than 71 million votes in this year's election.  That means more people will have voted for Trump in 2020 than voted for Obama in the 2008 (69 million) and 2012 (66 million) elections.  The nature of Trump's (alleged) defeat is also rather embarrassing for the former president.  His opponent this time around, Joe Biden, wanted to run for president in 2016.  His boss, Obama, talked him out of it.

Sharpies Were Made Available Throughout Arizona's Largest County, Officials Say.  Sharpies were made available at all 175 voting locations on Election Day in the largest county in Arizona, officials said Thursday [11/5/2020].  "Poll workers in all those locations were instructed to provide voters with Sharpie markers to mark their ballots in accordance with the recommendation of the manufacturer," Tom Liddy, civil services division chief for Maricopa County, said in a letter to the office of Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich's office.  The office opened an inquiry this week after hundreds of voters filed complaints about Sharpies at polling locations.  Michael Catlett, deputy solicitor general for Brnovich, asked Maricopa County in a letter about the use of Sharpies and wondered how many ballots were rejected because ink from markers bled through. [...] Liddy said the manufacturer of the vote tabulation machines used by the county recommends Sharpies because ink from ballpoint pens can cause smudges in the machines and foul them, while Sharpie markers do not.

The Editor says...
This is perhaps the biggest non-issue of the whole election.  A reporter who spends his day writing articles like this is a reporter who is expendable.  If you're watching a newscast or a cable TV news network and they start talking about meaningless trivia like this, it's time to turn off the TV.

George W. Bush congratulates Joe Biden and tells Trump that he must concede.  George W. Bush congratulated Joe Biden on his election victory Sunday, and delivered an unmistakable message to Donald Trump that he must now concede.  The only living former Republican president broke his silence, more than 24 hours after Biden was declared the winner in a call by TV networks and the Associated Press, to say that he had spoken to the Democratic victor, and to Kamala Harris, the vice president-elect.  'I just talked to the President-elect of the United States, Joe Biden,' he said in a statement.  No Republican leader has so far called Biden president-elect.

Newsmax Releases Statement Refusing to Bend on Presidential Call by Other Media.  Newsmax released a statement saying they refuse to bend on the call for president because there are numerous challenges to the vote in different states by President Trump's lawyers.  President Trump and his legal team are disputing results in key swing states like Pennsylvania.  This is not over, but all major news outlets have surrendered to the steal except Newsmax and OANN.

Dems plot mass migration to Georgia to take advantage of runoff election.  As the fate of control of the Senate is still in doubt, two senate races in Georgia are likely headed for run-off elections on Jan. 5, because so far none of the candidates received above 50 percent of the vote.  Democrats will likely need to win both of them to retake the majority for the first time since 2014.  However, what appears to be a major loophole for potential voter fraud has created a strong likelihood that the balance of power in the US Senate will be decided not by current Georgia residents but by many new voters not in Georgia today.  Some Liberals, including journalists, are encouraging Democrats to move to red states like Georgia with the sole purpose of impacting future elections even suggesting that Michael Bloomberg should foot the bill.

What?  Liberal tears are flowing?  [Scroll down]  The story said, "In a caucus meeting held by telephone that was their first group conversation since Election Day, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Representative Cheri Bustos of Illinois, who led the party's campaign arm, defended their efforts.  Democrats expressed frustration over the loss of eight of their members — and a net loss of six seats, with 33 races still undecided — that had left them with a slimmer margin of control."  It was a 3-hour call.  That is 3 hours longer than Biden campaigned in the 5 days before the last debate.  Bustos said, "Something went wrong."

Trump Campaign:  Projection of Biden as Winner Is 'False'.  A projection of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is not accurate, President Donald Trump's campaign said Friday [11/6/2020].  Decision Desk HQ around 9 a.m. projected a Biden win in Pennsylvania.  If Biden wins the state, he would win the presidency, based on the current projected results.  "This election is not over.  The false projection of Joe Biden as the winner is based on results in four states that are far from final," Matt Morgan, the Trump campaign's general counsel, said in a statement.  "Georgia is headed for a recount, where we are confident we will find ballots improperly harvested, and where President Trump will ultimately prevail.  There were many irregularities in Pennsylvania, including having election officials prevent our volunteer legal observers from having meaningful access to vote counting locations.  We prevailed in court on our challenge, but were deprived of valuable time and denied the transparency we are entitled to under state law," he continued.

Why The Epoch Times Won't Call the Presidential Race Until All Challenges Are Resolved.  Our nation is moving into uncharted territory as multiple legal challenges have been filed in response to the 2020 elections, with more challenges expected to come.  Both candidates have claimed victory in certain states, but it appears increasingly likely that this election will be resolved in the courts.  For that reason, The Epoch Times will not declare a winner of the 2020 presidential election until all results are certified and any legal challenges are resolved.

For First Time In 20 Years, US Senate Candidate Wins More Votes Than Presidential Candidate In Texas.  When U.S. Senator John Cornyn won his fourth term this week, he not only defeated Democratic challenger MJ Hegar by ten percentage points, he also won more votes in Texas than President Donald Trump.  Senator Cornyn has 5,931,602 votes so far, which is 71,506 votes more than President Trump, who has 5,860,096 votes.  The President defeated Democrat Joe Biden by 648,690 votes or six percentage points, 52%-46%, while Cornyn defeated Hegar by ten percentage points, 54%-44%.

The Editor says...
That might be because this was the first major election after the end of straight-party voting in Texas.

WaPo to Dems:  Don't get your hopes up on those two Georgia runoffs.  For now, it appears that Joe Biden will become the forty-sixth president — but potentially with a historically hostile Congress for a first-termer.  At best, Democrats' hold on the House has slipped, thanks to unexpected losses in a cycle where their party reclaimed the White House.  At worst, it still might end up in Republican hands, although that would require the GOP to pull an inside straight on all of the outstanding House races left.

Democrat civil war begins.  Democrats planned a blue wave election the likes of which have not been seen before.  Bigger than Obama.  They said they would win the Senate, the White House, and increase their lead in the House and rule for 10,000 years.  Two of those things did not happen and likely the third one as well.  They poured a whopping $315 million into Senate races in Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, South Carolina, and Texas — and lost every one.  Mini Mike Bloomberg spent $100 million to stop President Trump in Florida and Ohio.  The president won those states by 3 and 8 points, respectively.  In the House, Republicans added members despite Democrats spending more money.  This has led to many unhappy campers.

UN speaks of Temple Mount as solely Muslim site, ignores Jewish ties.  Some 138 United Nations countries approved a draft resolution that spoke of the Temple Mount solely as an Islamic holy site, by referencing it only by its Muslim name of al-Haram al-Sharif.  It was one of seven pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel resolutions that the UN General Assembly's Fourth Committee in New York passed on Wednesday [11/4/2020].  The resolution was titled, "Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including east Jerusalem."

Steven Crowder's Election Coverage Drew Millions Of Views, Competed With Big Networks.  Conservative podcast host Steven Crowder's election night coverage garnered millions of views on YouTube, more evidence of a growing trend of viewers looking to sources other than the establishment media for important news and commentary.  As of this writing, Crowder's election night coverage streamed on YouTube has amassed 8.1 million views.  His coverage of election updates and news the following day attracted another 3.1 million views online.  The impressive showing may be a bell-weather for the future of media as newcomers compete with legacy media corporations.

Somebody's pink sneakers didn't have enough traction.  Many of you may recall Wendy Davis, the progressive darling who drew national acclaim from liberals for her now-infamous eleven-hour filibuster of a pro-life bill back in 2013.  The effort proved ineffective since the bill went on to pass anyway.  She then tried to leverage the national attention she had drawn by running for governor.  She experienced a similar level of "success" in that effort, being trounced by Greg Abbott by more than twenty points.  This year she decided to shoot for a more modest goal by trying to unseat Republican Congressman Chip Roy in the 21st district of the Lone Star State.  I know you'll all be shocked to learn that her efforts once again produced the same result.  The Associated Press called the race earlier this morning, and while Davis did slightly better than she had in her gubernatorial bid, she still came up six points shy of finally putting one the W column.

Walmart fires inventory-tracking robots, realizes humans work just as well.  Walmart is parting ways with robots used to monitor store inventory as the retail giant realized humans are just as capable, a new report said.  The robot layoff is the result of the company cutting ties with startup Bossa Nova Robotics, which over the last five years provided six-foot-tall inventory-tracking machines to roughly 500 Walmart stores, The Wall Street Journal reported.  Sources familiar with the move told the newspaper that company executives determined they can use their own store employees to effectively keep tabs of inventory.  Walmart US chief executive John Furner has also expressed concern over shopper reactions to the hulking robots.

Reuters equipping journalists with gas masks, flak jackets for election coverage.  Reporters for Reuters covering the elections in the US will have protective gear in anticipation of protests after several incidents in which journalists were targeted during summer demonstrations.  Stephen Adler, the editor-in-chief of the global news service that employs 2,500 journalists, told the Press Gazette that his reporters were supplied with flak vests, helmets and gas masks, as well as COVID-19 personal protective equipment including N95 masks, the newspaper reported.

'Aloha also means goodbye': Tensions brew between locals and tourists as Hawaii reopens.  For anyone who's traveled recently — including visitors with negative results on a preflight COVID-19 test — you may have to skip dining at two popular North Shore Kauai restaurants.  The state reopened to trans-Pacific travel on Oct. 15, allowing travelers to skip the 14-day quarantine under its Safe Travels testing program.  As tourists began to return, the Saenz Ohana Breakfast food truck in Princeville and the Bistro restaurant in Kilauea decided to limit on-site service to those who have not traveled in the past 14 days as an additional safety precaution.  Those who do not meet this criteria can order online for takeout instead.

The Editor says...
I would be delighted to see Hawaii secede from the United States and resume its previous role as an independent kingdom.  I would be even more delighted to see the United States prohibit travel to or from the independent Hawaii.  The locals are bigoted against tourists and outsiders, and have been for decades, so let's see how well they do on their own.  Let's see if they can eat all those pineapples by themselves.

New York is about to kill a whole lot of landlords.  Gov. Andrew Cuomo and President Trump made sure to protect tenants by banning evictions during the pandemic, but public officials have done almost nothing for property owners.  That's inviting disaster.  Many of these landlords, particularly mom-and-pop small-building owners, have been struggling for months to make ends meet as the COVID crisis drags on.  Thousands of tenants haven't paid full rent.  Others, looking to escape the virus, violent crime and plunging quality of life, have fled, pushing up the vacancy rate and forcing owners to grant concessions.

Philadelphia Firefighters Union Confirms Trump Endorsement in Forced Recount.  Earlier in October, the union representing Philadelphia firefighters voted to endorse Donald Trump.  This was no small undertaking, given the overwhelming support of most unions for Joe Biden.  When some union members complained about the process, a second vote was conducted.  Trump won that vote by a two-to-one margin, with a final tally of 1,444 votes to keep the endorsement in place to 782 votes to rescind the endorsement.

And now... here's the next contestant on Get Woke and Go Broke!
Drudge Report traffic plunges as content turns against Trump.  The Drudge Report posted a 45 percent decline in web traffic in September as the site alienated its core readers by turning against President Trump ahead of the 2020 presidential election.  The data — derived from comScore, which tracks the industry — were released in a report by TheRighting, a website that analyzes traffic to right-leaning websites.  TheRighting told The [New York] Post that the Drudge Report had 1,291,000 unique vis itors in September, according to data supplied by comScore, down from 2,340,000 in the same month a year ago.  September's eye-popping decline marks the ninth month in a row that the political news aggregation website run by reclusive founder Matt Drudge has seen traffic fall, TheRighting said.

Biden Campaign Bus Runs Red Light to Flee Pro-Trump 'Democrat Cemetery Vote Collector' Hearse.  A Trump supporter with an "Official Democrat Cemetery Vote Collector" hearse tailed a Biden campaign bus in Houston on Thursday, leading to the vehicle running at least one red light in an attempt to get away.  Video showed the bus at a red light before driving through it, causing a delivery van driver to jam on the brakes.

F-16s intercept plane flying too close to Trump rally in Arizona.  "Oh, look at that.  Look, look, look," Trump said, pointing at the sky.  "Look at that.  They gave the president a little display."  The crowd then chanted "USA, USA, USA!"  [Video clip]

F-16 Fighter Jet Fires Flares at Unauthorized Aircraft Near Trump Rally.  An Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon was scrambled to intercept a civilian aircraft flying near President Donald Trump's latest rally in Arizona Wednesday, setting off flares to get the aircraft's attention, according to North American Aerospace Defense Command.  The fighter jet was dispatched to investigate "a general aviation aircraft that was not in communication with [Air Traffic Control] and entered the Temporary Flight Restriction area surrounding Bullhead City, Arizona, without proper clearance," NORAD said in a tweet.  The incident occurred around 2 p.m. local time.

A Navy veteran exposes the insanely gross food served on warships in a viral Facebook post.  A Navy veteran has posted pictures and videos capturing the rotten, unhealthy, and quite frankly disgraceful food that sailors and Marines are forced to eat while embarked on the service's warships.  The compilation of nauseating imagery, most of which were taken aboard multiple surface vessels, includes pictures of lettuce with insects, hair on food, and raw chicken, among other egregious examples.

Democrat 'Dirty Campaign Tricks' Against Lindsey Graham Backfire, Even Critics Rally to Graham's Defense.  The South Carolina Senate race between Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham and his opponent and former SC Democratic party chairman Jaime Harrison has turned into the national media's 2020 version of the 2018 race between Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) vs.  Democrat Beto O'Rourke.  Not a day goes by where there is not a fawning puff piece or two and/or umpteen tweets from reporters and "political analysts" on how Harrison has managed to make a race most believed at the beginning of the year would not be competitive into one to watch down the homestretch.

Trump Supporter Pays $2,600 For Downtown New Hampshire Billboard.  Just Before Election, Company Removes It After Complaints.  A Trump supporter who spent $2,600 for a billboard that read "Trump Country" on a building in downtown Nashua, New Hampshire, discovered that the company that he paid to help him design it removed it from the building after complaints were made, just in time for the presidential election.  Dave Streit, who told The New Hampshire Union-Leader, "I think that Trump was the most unlikely conservative imaginable, and he has delivered on every single promise, and we will never have a president like him again," paid Outfront Media to place the message on the top of 169 Main Street in downtown Nashua from Oct. 6 to Nov. 3.  "The company notified him Monday [10/26/2020] that the message would be removed in the next couple of business days because of complaints.  By Tuesday morning, the sign had been taken down," the Union-Leader reported.  Streit said, "Free speech just got thrown out the window."

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev blames TV show Dallas for the fall of the USSR because it opened people's eyes to western lifestyles.  TV show Dallas was the main reason behind the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union, it has been claimed.  Eurythmics co-founder Dave Stewart said that former Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev told him that the 1980s soap opera 'had more effect' in ending the Cold War than anything else.  Mr Stewart, 68, said the Gorbachev admitted an illicit broadcast of the US show in Russia had opened his people's eyes to Western life, and the Texas-based show 'brought down' the communist superpower.

The Editor says...
If ever there was misleading propaganda on television, it was Dallas.  The show painted everyone in Texas with the same broad brush:  You would have thought that everybody in downtown Dallas walks around in cowboy boots and a ten-gallon hat, and everybody else within 100 miles is fabulously wealthy, slightly drunk, evil, mean, nasty, and ruthless.

Texas Dem MJ Hegar's Latest Detractor Is Her Own Mother-In-Law.  Texas Democrat MJ Hegar's bid to unseat Republican incumbent senator John Cornyn will be without the support of her own mother-in-law, who says she would "never vote" for Hegar because "she is not a good person."  Patricia Heiman, the mother of Hegar's husband Stephen Hegar, took to Facebook in the race's final weeks to warn voters against supporting the Democratic Senate candidate, specifically pointing to Hegar's failure to lend a helping hand to her three step-children after their home was burned down in a fire earlier this year.  "I know her personally and she is not a good person," Heiman wrote.  "I know that sounds like a spiteful mother-in-law but I speak on behalf of my son's three other children that they do not see."

Only one long week left in the election struggle for control — of the Senate.  While national attention is riveted by the presidential horse race, a more important contest — or series of contests — is unfolding for control of the Senate.  No matter who occupies the Oval Office, the political majority that runs the Senate will play the decisive political role for at least the next two years, perhaps longer.  In what is shaping up as a difficult year for Republicans, the House of Representatives seems virtually certain to remain under the gavel of Speaker Nancy Pelosi.  Republicans would need to gain 18 seats there to hand the gavel to another Californian, Kevin McCarthy.  But an array of intriguing scenarios all depend on a handful of crucial Senate seats.

Pope Francis to Celebrate Christmas Mass Without a Congregation.  The Vatican has announced Pope Francis will livestream his Christmas liturgies this year without public participation due to concerns over the coronavirus.  In an October 22 letter to ambassadors to the Holy See, the Vatican's foreign minister, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, said that the pontiff's Christmas ceremonies would take "a private form" this year without the presence of the faithful.

The Editor says...
Is he afraid of getting sick, or is he just lazy?  Either way, he should find another line of work.

US threatens to destroy Iranian missiles shipped to Venezuela.  The United States is warning it will destroy potential Iranian long-range missile shipments delivered to the Maduro regime in Venezuela, a senior administration official tells Fox News.  "The transfer of long-range missiles from Iran to Venezuela is not acceptable to the United States and will not be tolerated or permitted," said Elliott Abrams, the State Department Special Representative for Iran and Venezuela.  "We will make every effort to stop shipments of long-range missiles, and if somehow they get to Venezuela they will be eliminated there," added a senior administration official.

Millionaire owner of iconic Strand Book Store in NYC pleads with public for help as revenue drops.  An iconic New York City bookstore is asking the public to save it from financial ruin brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic even though it is owned by a multimillionaire wife of a US senator who recently bought at least $115,000 in Amazon stock and then got a PPP loan while laying off workers. [...] [O]utraged Twitter users noted that the store's owner, Nancy Bass Wyden, the wife of Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, is reported to be worth tens of millions of dollars.

Friend recalls moment Indiana tourist was shot dead with 'no warning' in NYC.  The Brooklyn gunfire that killed a young tourist from Indiana this weekend came out of nowhere, a witness told The [New York] Post on Sunday [10/25/2020].  Ethan Williams, 20, was sitting with four of his friends on a stoop outside their Bushwick Airbnb around 2:30 a.m.  Saturday when shots broke out across the street and struck him in the chest with "no warning," his pal Jacob Mayhew told The Post on Sunday.  "Some guy next to that mailbox just started shooting!" he said.

The Editor says...
When young people die unexpectedly, it is often the result of their own faulty decisions.  [#1] Why would anyone go to New York City as a tourist?  I would sooner go to Mexico City.  [#2] Why would a tourist be outdoors at 2:30 a.m. in a strange city?

NYC Hotel Occupancy Rate Crashes Toward 10% As Permanent Closures Loom.  Prices at New York City hotels have plunged as the hospitality industry continues to try and grapple with the effects of the global pandemic.  Some hotels, like the Midtown Hilton, have remained closed since March.  Others, like the Pierre, are operating in limited capacity.  Those that are open for business have slashed prices by more than 60%, according to a new writeup by AlJazeera.  Despite October usually being a fruitful month for tourism in NYC, coronavirus has forced the cancellation of staple events like the NYC Marathon and Fashion Week.  And while the industry has definitely recovered since March, it still has a long way to go.  200 of New York's roughly 700 hotels remain closed, the article notes.

The Editor says...
The tourism industry in New York City is dead, and this should surprise no one.  The hotels are bring used to house vagrants. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] The streets are full of violent criminals.  The subways are, too.  And with the city's high population density, the city is a hotbed of Covid-19 activity, so you'll have to wear a face mask everywhere you go.  Even in pre-pandemic times, the city was full of prostitutes and pickpockets.  Who would want to visit a place like that?

Macy's Cancels Santa Claus.  Macy's canceled their nearly 160-year-old tradition of hosting Santa Claus in their midtown Manhattan store because of COVID-19.  More than a quarter of a million people typically shuffle through the store's elaborate Santaland each Christmas season, but the close quarters of the attraction have rendered it impossible in the age of social distancing, according to The Associated Press.  Santa will also not be appearing in the Macy's in Chicago or San Francisco, though he will be making an appearance at the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, which has also had to undergo adjustments to comply with health guidelines.

Swiss couple names daughter after internet provider to score free Wi-Fi.  One Swiss dad thinks there are worse names than Twifia for his baby girl.  A couple in Switzerland has chosen to name their daughter after their internet service provider after the company ran a promotion offering 18 years of free service.  According to a local newspaper, Blick, the internet provider, Twifi, promised free Wi-Fi for 18 years to any family that named their child Twifia or Twifius.  At first, the anonymous Swiss couple, 30 and 35, reportedly thought it was a joke.  However, the more the soon-to-be dad thought about it, the more he began to like the "unique moniker."

The Editor says...
What if the wi-fi company goes out of business in five years?

Canadian motorist with 8 lifetime driving bans busted for speeding.  A man pulled over for allegedly speeding was discovered to have a whopping eight separate lifetime driving bans, reported Canadian news website the Orangeville Banner.  When cops ran a driver's license check on Toronto resident Timothy Fraser after halting him Oct. 21, they discovered the steering scofflaw's checkered past.  "I've never seen that many.  This is the first time I've seen someone with eight," Dufferin Ontario Provincial Police Constable Shannon Gordanier told the Banner.  "The risk of driving and putting other people in harm's way is definitely not worth it.  There is a reason there had been that many prohibitions and therefore, it needs to be taken seriously."

Debate topics and American priorities.  The supposedly nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates has selected the following topics for Thursday night's final encounter between President Trump and Joe Biden:  "Fighting COVID-19," "American Families," "Race in America," "Climate Change," "National Security" and "Leadership."  The commission also announced it will mute the microphone of the candidate who is not talking, which could be advantageous for President Trump since the more Biden talks the less clear he becomes.  Are these topics priorities for most voters?  Not according to the Pew Research Center.  Nearly eight in 10 registered voters say the economy is their number one issue, followed by health care, Supreme Court appointments, the virus and foreign policy.  Race and ethnic inequality come in number eight (52 percent) and climate change ranks next to last at just 42 percent.

UT stands by 'Eyes of Texas' song, will play recording as band refuses to play.  The University of Texas school song has been deemed racist by some.  Band members are now refusing to play it, but the school says it will just play a recording instead, and was planning to do that anyway.  As calls to cease the playing of its school song "The Eyes of Texas" went unheeded by the administration, several band members said they would not play the song.  Despite petitions and demands from both student-athletes and several band members, the University of Texas has announced that it will continue to play "The Eyes of Texas."  University President Jay Hartzell doubled down Wednesday on his commitment to keeping the song, assuring that it would be played one way or another, even with band members refusing to do so, at the upcoming game against Baylor University.

The Editor says...
Scrap the band.  Who needs the UT band anyway?  Dismantle it.  Defund it.  Use the band hall as a homeless shelter.

Zeptoseconds: Scientists successfully record shortest measurement of time in history.  The blink of an eye seems to most people like an incredibly fast act.  Scientists in Germany however, say they've witnessed something that makes the blink of an eye seem as slow as watching paint dry.  Atomic physicists at Goethe University have measured the time it takes for a photon to cross a hydrogen molecule; a process that can only be measured in zeptoseconds.  In 1999, Egyptian chemist Ahmed Zewail won the Nobel Prize for measuring the speed of molecules changing their shape.  Zewail founded the science of femtochemistry, which measures the formation and division of chemical bonds in femtoseconds. [...] The new study has now broken this record, finding that it takes 247 zeptoseconds for photons to cross hydrogen molecules.

Ted Cruz introduces constitutional amendment to limit Supreme Court to nine justices.  Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, along with other GOP senators, has introduced a constitutional amendment that, if it were to pass, would prevent court packing on the Supreme Court.  Additionally, the Texas senator is pushing a separate proposal to forever block Democrats, should they regain control of the Senate, from passing any legislation to add additional justices to the high court.  The amendment proposal states simply, "the Supreme Court of the United States shall be composed of nine justices."

'Nodding woman' Mayra Joli from Trump town hall shares hate mail.  Miami lawyer Mayra Joli, the freshly famous "nodding woman" behind President Trump at last week's NBC News town hall, says her employees are being targeted with hate mail.  "Nobody can call an employer to fire me," Joli told Fox News.  "What they're doing is calling my employees so they quit."  Joli, who donated to Hillary Clinton in 2016, said that "they start sending other [messages] saying, 'I can't believe you're working for that person.  I thought you were better.' ... They aren't used to this commotion."  The Dominican Republic-born Joli wore a red mask and nodded in response to Trump's answers during a frequently acrimonious hour-long event hosted by Savannah Guthrie of NBC News, who grilled Trump about conspiracy theories and likened him to "someone's crazy uncle."

'Nodding lady' at Trump town hall accuses critics of targeting her employees.  Mayra Joli, the Miami lawyer who gained renown as the "nodding lady" sitting behind President Trump during a nationally televised town hall, said her employees began receiving hate messages urging them to quit after the Oct. 15 event.  The digital onslaught isn't enough to change her mind, however.  An immigration lawyer and mother from the Dominican Republic, Joli came to the U.S. with her family in the 1990s and donated to Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign before becoming a Trump supporter.

Here are the fastest-growing jobs in every state this year: report.  As the U.S. grapples with unemployment because of the coronavirus pandemic, a new report could help people who are trying to figure out where to look for a new job. [...] The occupation with the highest percentage increase was in Rhode Island, where structure metal fabricators and fitters saw a 674% increase from 2015 to 2019.

Bill Gates: 'Shutting down' economy 'nowhere near sufficient' to stop climate change.  Just the News:  Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, said the coronavirus pandemic demonstrates that "simply shutting down" the U.S. economy won't bring about net zero carbon emissions to fight climate change.  Gates said the emissions reductions from the pandemic were "quite modest," despite the drastic drop in air travel and car travel.

Senator John James of Michigan?  We've been focusing so much on Senator Susan Collins of Maine and Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina that we may be forgetting that John James has a shot at flipping the U.S. Senate seat in Michigan.  We hope James wins the race.  Of course, it depends a lot on turnout and that's always hard to measure.  According to statespoll.com, Michigan is tilting to Trump, but it's still in the margin of error.  In all fairness, other polls show Biden ahead so your guess is as good as mine.  We can say this:  James would become an overnight sensation if he pulls this out.

Commission will mute mics during final debate between Trump and Biden.  The Commission on Presidential Debates has decided to mute microphones to allow each candidate the opportunity for uninterrupted remarks during this week's final forum.  The mute button will be featured at the start of each 15-minute segment during opening comments, according to the commission.  After that time, both mics will be turned on without a mute option to enable debate.  The rule change follows the first debate between President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden that devolved into a frequently interrupted shouting match.

Investigation: 9NEWS has used multiple unlicensed security guards.  Unlicensed security guard Matthew Dolloff, 30, is facing 2nd degree murder charges for the shooting and killing of 49-year-old Lee Keltner during dueling Denver rallies on Saturday, Oct. 10.  Separate from the criminal investigation, there is also an administrative investigation taking place because the city said Dolloff was not licensed to work as a security guard in Denver, or to be armed while doing so. [...] This investigation finds Dolloff is not the only unlicensed or not properly credentialed security guard to accompany 9NEWS crews as they covered protests and riots during the past five months.

Texans Can Dethrone 'Abortion Rights Queen' Wendy Davis.  Since the passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the vacancy, the national debate over abortion has returned to the forefront.  For pro-life Americans, there is no more important U.S. House race in the country than Texas' 21st Congressional District.  The choice for Hill Country Texans from Austin to Kerrville could not be more stark than that between trusted pro-life Republican Chip Roy and the radically anti-life leftist Wendy Davis.  Congressman Roy has been endorsed by pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, while every extreme pro-abortion group in the nation has endorsed Davis.

The Editor says...
Last week, I was under the mistaken impression that Wendy Davis was running for a seat in the Texas Senate; but no, she is running for U.S. Congress.  The 21st congressional district includes Fredericksburg and Kerrville — two delightful towns, especially in March and April when the wildflowers are in bloom.  But politically, the two towns are solid blue, and the district goes east to Austin, by way of Johnson City, which is also solid blue.

Is this not an act of war?
China warns it will take Americans hostage if DOJ doesn't drop charges against researchers.  Beijing is threatening to take Americans in China hostage if the Department of Justice doesn't drop its prosecution of several Chinese research scientists arrested on U.S. soil this year, according to a report on Saturday [10/17/2020].  Chinese government officials have repeatedly warned their U.S. counterparts that Americans in China face being detained if its demands are not met, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.  The drastic action — dubbed "hostage diplomacy" — would be in retaliation for the arrests of at least five Chinese military-affiliated scholars visiting American universities to conduct research.  The scientists were charged with visa fraud for allegedly lying to U.S. immigration authorities about their active duty statuses with China's People's Liberation Army.

More On The PA Mayor That Fired Her Police Chief Over Wife's Pro-Trump FB Posts.  As you may recall, about a week ago we learned that the Mayor of Lancaster, Pennsylvania had given her chief of police a stark choice.  Retire early or be fired.  Mayor Danene Sorace had said she negotiated a "private agreement" with Police Chief Jarrad Berkihiser so she would not comment further on the details.  The reason, as detailed by a past President of the PBA, was that Mayor Sorace was incensed over a couple of Facebook comments the Chief's wife had posted in support of President Trump. [...] At the time I speculated that there was much more to the story than what the Mayor was saying.  That prediction is looking considerably more solid now.  After being badgered by the local press for more information, the Mayor decided to comment on the subject she was "not allowed to comment on" after all.  She's now telling a different story, claiming that the Chief didn't "share her vision" for the progressive future of Lancaster.

Joe Biden retreats to Delaware as Trump stumps through four states.  It was back to the basement for Joe Biden Saturday [10/17/2020] — as President Trump went into campaign overdrive.  With only 16 days to go before Election Day, amid an uproar over The [New York] Post's expose of son Hunter's shady foreign business deals and with a second debate face-off this week, Biden retreated to his Delaware home with no public events on his schedule — and a substantial but slightly slipping national polling lead in his pocket.  Meanwhile, the underdog president whipped up his troops Saturday at back-to-back rallies in two crucial battleground states, with two more of the raucous gatherings set for Sunday and a full slate of appearances this week that will have him hopscotching across the country.

Click bait alert:  Apparently the only mention of Texas is in the headline.
Texas Software Billionaire Charged in Largest Tax Fraud Indictment in US History.  A Texas software billionaire is being charged with tax evasion in a case federal prosecutors are describing as the largest incidence of tax fraud in American history.  79-year old Robert Brockman was charged in a 39-count indictment that includes charges of money laundering, conspiracy, wire fraud, and tax evasion, with an indictment being unsealed by the US Attorney for the District of San Francisco on Thursday.

Orwell Rears His Head.  On Monday of last week, to use the phrase "sexual preference" was completely acceptable.  As recently as last month, multiple gay rights publications used the phrase.  Leon Panetta had used the phrase in the past couple of years.  Joe Biden has used the phrase this year.  Merriam-Webster considered "sexual preference" to be just another version of "sexual orientation."  But then Tuesday happened.  On Tuesday, the village idiot from Hawaii masquerading as a senator, Mazie Hirono, attacked Amy Coney Barrett for using "sexual preference" instead of "sexual orientation."  By Tuesday evening, the employees of Merriam-Webster had changed the phrase in their online dictionary to note it was offensive.  No, I am not making that up.  The dictionary company literally changed it after Barrett's exchange with Hirono.  Steve Krakauer, a former CNN producer who now produces Megyn Kelly's podcast, documented the change on his social media feed.  Gay rights publications such as The Advocate went on the attack as well.  In just 18 days, "sexual preference" went from acceptable to a hate crime.

Underdog GOP Senate candidate gains ground in race against incumbent Democrat, campaign says.  Virginia's Republican Senate candidate is heading into Election Day at a fundraising disadvantage against a well-known Democratic incumbent — but the Iraq War veteran said he's closing the gap.  Daniel Gade, who lost a leg to a roadside bomb during Operation Iraqi Freedom, said he believes his story is attracting more voters.  He graduated from West Point in 1997 and remained in the Army after his injury, retiring as a lieutenant colonel in 2017.  He also served on several White House advisory committees for veterans and the disabled beginning under former President George W. Bush.  He has a Ph.D. in public administration and became a university professor.

How a Goya boycott led to a 'buycott'.  First, the Goya Foods boycott turned into a "buycott." Now the largest Hispanic-owned foods company is finding favorable backlash in the wake of the CEO's praise for President Trump.  Company sales have been "fantastic" and "historic" following the controversy surrounding his positive comments for President Trump in July, according to CEO Robert Unanue.  "Our sales went up significantly since the pandemic," Unanue told FOX Business' Stuart Varney.  "We did well because the restaurant business declined 70% but we also did well because of the backlash of a boycott to a buycott.  We have our traditional customers, we kept them, but we also have new customers."

Amazon Prime Cancels Shelby Steele.  Though most of the focus is on Twitter's White Knighting of Joe Biden, it's also worth noting that many other voices are inhibited by Big Tech because they fail to conform to leftist orthodoxy.  Just today [10/15/2020], the Wall Street Journal reported that Shelby Steele's documentary What Killed Michael Brown?, which explores race relations in the United States, has been rejected because it "doesn't meet Prime Video's content quality expectations."  Amazon claims the documentary, which Steele made with his son Eli, isn't "eligible for publishing" and that they "will not be accepting resubmission of this title and this decision may not be appealed."

NeverTrump Website The Dispatch Colludes With Big Tech To Censor SBA List's Pro-Life Ads.  Facebook censored two advertisements from the pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List's, claiming the videos contained "partly false information" about Democratic Presidential Nominee Joe Biden and VP Nominee Kamala Harris's views on late-term abortions.  The ads, which focus on the Democratic Party's position in support of abortion on demand and up until the moment of birth, were labeled by "independent fact-checkers" who claim to "look carefully into claims from elected officials, reports from the media, and disinformation on social media to help you understand what's true and what's not."

Out-of-state buyers from New York City, Boston and DC are flooding the Maine property market causing home values to surge 17% and supply to hit a 'historic low'.  Maine has seen a stunning real estate boom as buyers from New York City, Boston and Washington DC flee for quieter pastures amid the pandemic, causing home values to surge 17 percent, supply to hit a historic low and properties to fly off the market in a matter of 11 days.  In the spring Maine saw a startling decline in sales at the start of the pandemic, but by summer time a wave of buyers came in from out of state looking to ride out the COVID-19 crisis.  The value of single-family existing homes jumped 17.39 percent in August this year compared to 2019 and homes reached a median sales price of 270,000, as per Maine Listings.

The Mysterious October 20th DOJ Targeting Memo [is] Finally, Quietly, Released.  On June 3, 2020, former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss his role in how Main Justice was operating while Andrew Weissmann's special counsel was in charge.  What he said in that hearing never quite made sense until yesterday. [...] Rosenstein's tone when questioned about the scope memos he authorized during the special counsel time-frame was very odd in that June hearing.  Rosenstein had a very guilty conscience and it was on full display as he attempted to justify his action.  You see, there was always a missing scope memo from October 20, 2017, that no one in the DOJ ever discussed.  The nature of the scope memo was mentioned by Weissmann and Mueller in part of their Russia report; but until yesterday it was hidden.

Can McSally Rocket Past Kelly in AZ Senate Race?  Martha McSally seems relaxed — almost curiously so for a first-term appointed senator facing voters again after just two years on the job and trailing her opponent in every public poll conducted over the last month.  It's a mid-October afternoon, less than a month before Election Day.  Early voting is underway, and tens of millions of dollars are pouring into the Arizona Senate race pitting McSally, 54, the first female U.S. military pilot to fly in combat, against Mark Kelly, a former NASA astronaut who commanded the second-to-last space shuttle mission.  He's also the husband of former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was grievously wounded in a 2011 mass shooting in Tucson.

Trump administration to consider adding China's Ant Group to trade blacklist — sources.  The U.S. State Department has submitted a proposal for the Trump administration to add China's Ant Group to a trade blacklist, according to two people familiar with the matter, before the financial technology firm is slated to go public.  It was not immediately clear when the U.S. government agencies that decide whether to add a company to the so-called Entity List would review the matter.

Police Chief Forced To Retire After Wife Supports President Trump On Social Media.  The media missed this one!  The Lancaster police chief was forced to retire at the end of September after the mayor took issue with comments his wife made on Facebook in support of President Donald Trump's re-election.  John Fiorill, a former president of the local Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), said that Lancaster Police Chief Jarrad Berkihiser was asked to resign on Sept. 30 because his wife had shown support for President Trump when he visited a nearby airport a day earlier.  Now-former Chief Berkihiser's wife, posting under her own personal Facebook account "Kristy Lynne," commented on a post made by somebody who was at the Trump campaign rally at Harrisburg International Airport on Sept. 29.

Republican Chip Roy defending his Congressional seat against former state Sen. Wendy Davis in District 21.  The race for U.S. Congressional District 21 has been one to watch since the primaries when election officials announced Wendy Davis won the Democratic nomination and would challenge Republican incumbent Chip Roy on Election Day.  Roy is a former federal prosecutor, advisor to elected officials, and was first assistant attorney general to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.  Roy recently called Paxton to resign amid accusations against Paxton of bribery and abuse of office.  Davis is a former state senator for State District 10 who led a 13-hour filibuster to block a bill restricting abortion rights in Texas.  She was also the Democratic challenger in the 2014 gubernatorial race against now-Gov. Greg Abbott.

'Unmasking' probe commissioned by Barr concludes without charges or any public report.  The federal prosecutor appointed by Attorney General William P. Barr to review whether Obama-era officials improperly requested the identities of individuals whose names were redacted in intelligence documents has completed his work without finding any substantive wrongdoing, according to people familiar with the matter.  The revelation that U.S. Attorney John Bash, who left the department last week, had concluded his review without criminal charges or any public report will rankle President Trump at a moment when he is particularly upset at the Justice Department.

Minneapolis loses more police officers to disability claims.  Attorney Ron Meuser told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS the number of Minneapolis police officers who have filed for disability claims since this spring's civil unrest and rioting has now reached 175, with 100 other officers considering similar moves.  "The 100 additional officers are doing their best to hang in there and not leave because they want to serve their community," Meuser said.  "But if there is more rioting in the near future, I would not be surprised to see the number of officers filing for disability to reach between 250 and 300 officers."  Meuser says the disability filings are for both physical and mental health reasons.  So far, 2020 has seen twice as many claims as usual.

GOP Challenger John James Running Neck-And-Neck With Gary Peters, Recent Poll Shows.  John James, the Republican senatorial candidate from Michigan, has pulled within one point of incumbent Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, according to a New York Times/Sienna College poll released Monday [10/12/2020].  Peters leads James 43-42 among likely voters in the state, the poll's crosstabs show.  The poll shows a significant jump in support for James, who trailed Peters 41-31 in a similar NYT poll from June and lost to Sen. Debbie Stabenow, the state's senior senator, two years ago.

Another young Republican has another phenomenal campaign video.  Twenty twenty has introduced several dynamic young Republican candidates who use eye-catching, powerful campaign videos to challenge incumbent Democrats.  Joe E. Collins III, a naval veteran from South Los Angeles, is the latest entrant in this category.  He's running as a Republican and challenging Rep. Maxine Waters, who's spent 44 years enriching herself while her constituents live in the slums of South L.A. (AKA California's 43rd Congressional District).  Collins opens his video by standing in front of Maxine Waters's beautiful Southern California mansion, worth a hefty $6 million.  It's not in her district, though.  Her district is South L.A., one of the poorest and most violent communities in America.

Feds to Portland:  Take Your Fine and Shove It.  Several months ago, an ambitious and radical Portland city commissioner tilted at the federal windmill by levying fines for the fence erected around the courthouse downtown that rioters have repeatedly attempted to burn down.  The fence blocks bike lanes, which has drawn the ire of radical Commissioner Chloe Eudaly, head of the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT).  The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) didn't bother to respond — until now. [...] The fines have grown to over $3.7 million, as Portland continues to assess $48,000 a day to DHS. [...] On top of the bike lane fines from PBOT, the Portland Bureau of Environmental Services (BES) has also levied fines on DHS for excess tear gas found in stormwater drains.  Apparently nobody informed BES that, had Portland police been allowed to disperse the riots, there would have been no need for excess tear gas.

Robinhood Users Say Accounts Were Looted, No One to Call.  It took Soraya Bagheri a day to learn that 450 shares of Moderna Inc. had been liquidated in her Robinhood account and that $10,000 in withdrawals were pending.  But after alerting the online brokerage to what she believed was a theft in progress, she received a frustrating email.  The firm wrote it would investigate and respond within "a few weeks."  Now her money is gone.  Bagheri is among five Robinhood customers who recounted similar experiences to Bloomberg News, saying they've been left in limbo in recent weeks after someone sold their investments and withdrew funds.  Because the wildly popular app has no emergency phone number, some said they tried in vain to intervene, only to watch helplessly as their money vanished.

Nation Experiences Pandemic-Fueled Mason Jar Shortage.  For plenty of people across the United States, the pandemic has prompted a resurgence in cooking at home more and experimenting with food preparation in general.  For a number of home cooks, that has ended up involving the purchase of plenty of Mason jars — some for cooking, some for storage and others for preservation.  And that, in turn, has led to a nationwide Mason jar shortage.  It's not the most unpleasant side effect of the pandemic by a long shot, but neither is it minor:  cooking and canning for yourself can be both healthier for you and a good way to save money.  A new report from CNN explores the shortage — both in terms of Mason jars and for the lids used in canning.

Colorado town to pay visitors $100 to travel there.  Glenwood Springs, Colo., is paying visitors $100 to visit the town famous for its hot springs until Nov. 30.  The town's tourism business announced in late August that it would be extending the stimulus program, which began in the spring during the coronavirus pandemic, through Nov. 30 as part of an effort to boost fall tourism in the area.

$68,703: Median Household Income Set Record in 2019.  Median household income in the United States rose to a record $68,703 in 2019, according to data released by the U.S. Census Bureau in its Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC).  Because of the COVID-19 pandemic and changes in recent years to the manner in which the Census Bureau surveys household income (which it has been estimating since 1967), the bureau this year addressed questions about whether or not the 2019 median household income could indeed be considered a record high.

Big Three Censor Poll Showing Majority Say They're Better Off Now than 4 Years Ago.  It turns out the ABC, CBS and NBC evening news shows won't show you polls that show the majority of the American voters feeling better off now under President Donald Trump's economy than under former President Barack Obama's economy.  But they do love parading around questionable polls showing Trump losing the election by double digits.  Gallup released a jaw-dropping news released Tuesday, the day of the vice presidential debate.  A new poll, taken between September 14 [and] September 28, showed that 56 percent of registered voters said that "they are better off now than they were four years ago, while 32% said they are worse off."  That's a 24 percent disparity.

Poll: 56% Americans Say They Are Better Off Now Under Trump Than Four Years Ago Under Obama-Biden.  A solid majority of 56 percent of Americans say they are better off now than they were four years ago, a new Gallup survey reveals.  Only 32 percent say they are worse off than four years ago.  The number is, as Fox News's Laura Ingraham noted on Thursday night, "the highest Gallup has ever recorded." [...] While the 56 percent number is impressive indeed — again the highest ever recorded this close to an election — it was even higher before the coronavirus pandemic swept across the United States.

Anarchist Arrested For Plot to Kidnap and Kill Whitmer Hates President Trump.  Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D) owes President Trump an apology. [...] It turns out Brandon Caserta, one of anarchists who was arrested for plotting to kidnap Whitmer, actually hates President Trump and is on video calling Trump a "tyrant."  "Trump is not your friend dude," Caserta said.  He says Trump is "a tyrant" and calls President Trump an "enemy."  [Video clip]

Pizzas kept showing up every 45 min outside Walter Reed: 'You know it's from Trump, there's meat on it!'  While you don't know for sure if President Donald Trump is behind it, somehow you just know he is.  A peculiar thing happened Sunday night outside the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, hot pizzas kept showing up.  By the dozens.  A throng of Trump supporters have been holding a vigil outside the facility since the president was admitted on Friday after testing positive for COVID-19, or as Trump is now calling it, the "plague from China."  According to one enthusiastic supporter, Domino's pizzas were being delivered every 45 minutes to the crowd — 250 pies and counting.

Cruise ships in the scrap yard:
Drone view of a ship graveyard as cruising market collapses in pandemic.  Dozens of workers stripped walls, windows, floors and railings from several vessels in the dock in Aliaga, a town 45 km north of Izmir on Turkey's west coast.  Three more ships are set to join those already being dismantled.  [Video clip]

The Slow Suicide of New York City.  About 1,200 restaurants have permanently shuttered since March.  The city has around 600,000 fewer jobs than a year ago.  About one-third of the city's small businesses may never reopen.  But, of course, it's not just about numbers.  It's the vitality of the city that has been struck down.  Tourism is practically a thing of the past.  Hotels lay in waste.  Broadway remains dark.  Offices spaces are just that — vacant.  The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the subways, is hemorrhaging $200 million a week.  Nobody, it seems, is going anywhere.  Take a look at the platforms at virtually any subway station: a ghost town.  Imagine the wreckage occurring to the city's tax base.

Trump Supporter Outside Walter Reed Hospital: 'We Brought a Trump Rally to Him'.  A Trump supporter who gathered outside of Walter Reed hospital with fellow supporters on Sunday said that they effectively "brought a Trump rally" to the president, as Trump remained in the hospital undergoing treatment for the Chinese coronavirus.  "Trump has been giving us rallies basically four, five times a week, every day the last three, four weeks," the Trump supporter, identified as "Greg," told Breitbart News.  "Right now he needs us.  So we brought a Trump rally to him and he came out and he said hi and it made his day."  Earlier in the day, Trump made a surprise visit to his supporters who have gathered outside of the hospital throughout the duration of his stay, waving to them from a[n] SUV.

Led Zeppelin emerges victorious in 'Stairway to Heaven' plagiarism case.  British rock band Led Zeppelin on Monday effectively won a long-running legal battle over claims it stole the opening guitar riff from its signature 1971 song "Stairway to Heaven."  The band, one of the best-selling rock acts of all time, was handed victory after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the case, meaning that a March 2020 decision by a U.S. appeals court in Led Zeppelin's favor will stand.  Lead singer Robert Plant and guitarist Jimmy Page had been accused in the six-year-long case of lifting the riff — one of the best-known openings in rock music — from a song called "Taurus", written by the late Randy Wolfe of the U.S. band Spirit.

Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, 32, becomes Thirteenth member of Trump's inner circle to test positive for COVID-19.  White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany has become the latest person in the President's inner circle to test positive for COVID-19, three days after Trump confirmed he'd been infected.  McEnany, 32, continued going to work at the White House despite Trump testing positive late on Thursday night and she took her mask off on Sunday to brief reporters.  She had been in close contact with the President and others at White House who have tested positive, but repeatedly tested negatively herself until Monday.  Her assistant, Chad Gilmartin has also tested positive.

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany says she's tested positive for coronavirus.  White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany revealed she tested positive for the coronavirus on Monday morning and will start the "quarantine process," becoming the latest person in President Trump's orbit to get the virus.  "After testing negative consistently, including every day since Thursday, I tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday morning while experiencing no symptoms," McEnany said in a statement.  "No reporters, producers, or members of the press are listed as close contacts by the White House Medical Unit."

Carl Sagan's socialism hot take with Ted Turner goes viral 31 years later.  Carl Sagan, who spent his career in search of extraterrestrial intelligence, was apparently hard-pressed to find it here on Earth.  The famed astronomer made a case for socialism in a 1989 interview on CNN with billionaire television mogul Ted Turner when asked simply, "Are you a socialist?"  A clip of their exchange has gone viral on Twitter with more than 100,000 likes and more than 3 million views since Sunday night.

Martha McSally has what it takes to be a senator.  Mark Kelly doesn't, former astronauts say.  As former fighter pilots and test pilots, we know what it takes to get in the cockpit of a fighter jet for a test flight or combat:  incredible determination, strength and grit.  That's why we support Sen. Martha McSally.  As the first woman in U.S. history to fly a fighter jet in combat and command a fighter squadron, she broke barriers in the Air Force and the military.  We remember a not-so-distant past when the Air Force wouldn't let women fly in combat.  Instead of sitting down accepting the status quo, McSally stood up, fought for change and made strides for generations of women to follow her.

Ouch! Three Astronauts Endorse AZ's GOP Senator Over Her Astronaut Senate Challenger.  You hate to see it.  Things are going great in your effort to become a U.S. senator:  you're crushing your general election opponent both in the polls and donations haul, PACs are filling the airwaves and online with nasty, dishonest ads against your governor-appointed, incumbent adversary.  Then this happens...  The Arizona Republic, the largest newspaper in the state of Arizona and the ostensible paper of record for the movers and shakers in the capital city, Phoenix, publishes an embarrassing endorsement for your GOP rival, barely thirty days before Election Day, from these three gentlemen.

Horse-Drawn Carriages Met With Protesters As Rides Return To Central Park.  Horse-drawn carriage rides are officially back in Central Park again.  Rides ran Saturday [10/3/2020] for the first time since March after being shut down due to the pandemic.  But as drivers and tourists celebrated the return, they were met with protesters who are asking the city to get the carriages off the streets again.

The Editor says...
Rusty!

Biden's dramatic change to retirement accounts could reduce their availability, industry warns.  Former Vice President Joe Biden's presidential platform includes a tax proposal that could force some employers to abandon offering retirement options to workers, the industry is warning.  The plan would dramatically change the incentive to save for retirement by replacing the current deferral system with a tax credit.  Most retirement plans, such as 401(k) plans and IRAs, allow taxpayers to delay paying taxes on contributions to accounts until they are retired.  By suspending this tax until retirement, workers have been able to grow their nest eggs beyond what they would have been if taxes were paid in the year that the money was received.  Biden would like to replace the current system with a tax credit.  His campaign site does not lay out a rate for the credit, but it has been reported to be 26%.

Texas AG Paxton disputes bribery, abuse-of-office allegations leveled by aides.  Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton defended himself Saturday evening [10/3/2020] after a group of high-level aides reported alleged criminal misconduct to federal law enforcement, according to local reports.  "We have a good faith belief that the Attorney General is violating federal and/or state law, including prohibitions relating to improper influence, abuse of office, bribery and other potential criminal offenses," said a letter signed by seven high-ranking assistant attorney generals.  It was dated Oct. 1 but obtained and published Saturday by Austin's KVUE-TV and the Austin American-Statesman.

China's Communist Christ.  Earlier this year, we learned of the Chinese Communist Party's intention to undertake its own, state-approved "translation" of the Bible.  Evidently, the Christian Scriptures are not as amenable to CCP orthodoxy as the Politburo would like.  According to the state-run Xinhua News Agency, the Party assembled a group of obedient and pliable "scholars" late last year and charged them with "making accurate and authoritative interpretations of classical doctrines to keep pace with the times."  In other words, the CCP plans to turn the Scriptures into another piece of regime propaganda by rewriting them beyond all recognition.

The Editor says...
Numerous re-translations of the Bible have been produced over the last century, and many of them are so loosely paraphrased or so excessively "amplified" and embellished that they don't sound like the original at all.

Debate commission accedes to Biden campaign's 'health and safety' objections for VP debate.  The Commission on Presidential Debates has agreed to seat Kamala Harris and Mike Pence 12 feet apart at the vice presidential debate next week, after the Biden campaign raised health and safety objections to the original spacing between the two candidates because of Covid concerns.  As of Friday evening [10/2/2020], however, the commission would not accede to the Biden campaign's request that Harris and Pence stand during the debate.  Instead, the two will be seated, which was the preference of the Trump campaign, a source familiar with the discussions told POLITICO.

Former FBI Official Proposes 'Bipartisan Commission' to Vet Presidential Candidates Like Trump.  A former top FBI official on Thursday [10/1/2020] proposed that a "bipartisan commission" be created to vet presidential candidates so people like President Trump can never be elected again.  "We got this wrong, and this can't happen again," said Frank Figliuzzi, who was briefly the assistant director of the FBI under President Obama.  During a discussion on MSNBC about Trump's taxes Thursday morning, Figliuzzi opined that the president's supposedly dire financial situation made him "vulnerable" to certain entities like {{{Russia}}}.

The Editor says...
[#1] Whenever a "bipartisan commission" is proposed, the purpose of it is to damage or impede the Republicans.  [#2] Whenever you read, "former Obama official," you can stop right there and infer that the proposal is as partisan as it can be.  [#3] Little kids have been told for centuries that anyone can grow up to be President of the United States.  Is that still true?  Was it ever true?  [#4]  Presidential candidates are filtered by a lengthy campaign process which is widely televised for all to see.  If the American voters want to elect someone with a sketchy background, a phony Social Security number, and a forged birth certificate, it is the duty of the press to let everyone know about all this before Election Day.

Trump delivers video message saying he thinks he is 'doing very well,' after testing positive for coronavirus.  President Trump thanked Americans for their "tremendous support" and said he is "doing very well" in a pre-recorded video he tweeted out Friday as he was being flown by Marine One to Walter Reed Military Medical Center where he will be treated for mild symptoms after testing positive for the COVID-19.  The president's message was upbeat, though his tone was more subdued than usual in the video, which is believed to have been shot just before he was transferred to Walter Reed "out of an abundance of caution," according to the White House.

Trump Taken to Hospital 'Out of an Abundance of Caution,' White House Says.  [Scroll down]  The Trumps' diagnosis comes just three days after the first presidential debate of this year's election cycle, where Trump and Biden did not shake hands in order to protect both candidates against contracting the virus.  Republican Senator Mike Lee has tested positive as well, just two days after he met with in-person with Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett.  Barrett reportedly already contracted the coronavirus over the summer and has since recovered.

Stock futures, oil prices plunge after Trump tests positive for coronavirus.  US stock futures and global shares tumbled Friday as President Trump's announcement that he tested positive for coronavirus rattled investors.  Futures contracts for the Dow Jones industrial average had dropped 348 points, or about 1.2 percent, to 27,341.00 as of 6:52 a.m. after Trump tweeted that he and first lady Melania Trump had contracted the virus.  Futures for the benchmark S&P 500 index sank 1.3 percent while Nasdaq futures fell about 1.8 percent, pointing to a sharp drop on Wall Street at Friday's opening bell.  Investors also sold stocks abroad, with London's FTSE 100 index dropping as much as 1.1 percent and Germany's blue-chip DAX index falling as much as 1.4 percent.

The Editor says...
It sounds like a bunch of armchair investors find it much too easy to buy and sell over the internet.

Verizon scrambling to unload HuffPost as losses mount.  Verizon has been quietly scrambling to unload HuffPost as it grapples with continued losses at the left-leaning news and culture website, The [New York] Post has learned.  The telecom giant — which acquired the site formerly known as the Huffington Post as part of its $4.4 billion purchase of AOL in 2015 — has approached multiple digital-media companies during the past few months in a bid to get the property off its books as losses accelerate due to the coronavirus, according to sources close to the situation.  Verizon has pitched the property to prospective buyers including Thrillist-owner Group Nine Media, Rolling Stone publisher Penske Media Corp., Bustle Digital Media and J2 Global, insiders said.  Those media outlets declined to comment.

GOP pollster sees Trump-Biden debate as embarrassing, says it 'encouraged people not to vote'.  Longtime Republican pollster Frank Luntz told CNBC on Wednesday [9/30/2020] that participants in his focus group were let down by the first debate between President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden.  "I have never had a session blow up where the participants were disappointed on both sides, where everyone was embarrassed and everyone was upset about what had happened," Luntz said on "Squawk Box," while agreeing with the participants' assessment.

Dallas salon owner jailed for defying lockdown orders wins spot in run-off for state senate seat.  Remember Shelley Luther, the Dallas salon owner who reopened her business during the coronavirus shutdown?  She decided to turn her story into action and is running for a seat in the Texas State Senate.  Tuesday night [9/29/2020], she earned a spot in the run-off for that seat.  While everyone else was consumed with the presidential debate, a special election race was being held in the Dallas area.  Sen. Pat Fallon (R-Prosper) is running for Congress so his seat has been vacated.  The district is a solidly red district and stretches to the northwest around Dallas-Fort Worth.  With 100% of precincts reporting, she and state Rep. Drew Springer of Muenster ended in a dead heat.  The third-place finisher was the only Democrat running.

Court rules Subway sandwiches too sugary to meet legal definition of 'bread'.  Ireland's highest court isn't sweet on tax breaks for footlongs.  The country's Supreme Court ruled that the starch used in Subway sandwiches is too sugary to meet the definition of "bread" — a legal distinction that would have saved the firm some dough.  In deciding whether to give the fast-food chain a tax break for serving a "staple" food item, the five-judge panel ruled that the bread's sugar-to-flour content is roughly five times too high to qualify, according to the Irish Independent.  For a company to be taxed zero percent, under the Value-Added Tax Act of 1972, the weight of sugar and fat in a bread product must not be more than 2 percent of the total weight of flour in the dough.

Next major doc declass by WH said to show Russia was actually trying to hurt Trump, not collude with him.  The White House is set to declassify a major trove of documents that include evidence showing Russian President Vladimir Putin was actually working against then-GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, not 'colluding' with him as Democrats have long charged, a report said Tuesday [9/29/2020].  The declassification and its potential to flip the narrative — set for this week according to multiple sources who spoke to Just The News — would come four years after the Obama-era FBI launched a counterintelligence probe over claims that people within the Trump campaign were working with Moscow to manipulate the outcome in the GOP contender's favor.

A temporary dip in demand is no reason to move the plant.  There must be more to it.
Boeing to move all 787 Dreamliner production to South Carolina.  Boeing Co. will set plans this week to consolidate 787 Dreamliner assembly in South Carolina, people familiar with the matter said, ending production of that jetliner in Washington state as the coronavirus pandemic saps demand for aircraft.  The decision carries significant implications for the Seattle-area economy and Boeing's unionized workforce around Puget Sound.  It wasn't clear over what period of time the consolidation would play out, or how many employees might be affected by the move.  Boeing could announce the plans as soon as this week, some of the people familiar with the matter said.

Chamber of Commerce's Political Chief Resigns After Democrat Endorcements.  The United States Chamber of Commerce's chief political strategist has resigned from the business group after its endorsement of 23 House Democrats in swing districts across the country.  Scott Reed, the Chamber's longtime senior political strategist, has resigned, according to the New York Times' Maggie Haberman.  "Scott Reed, who's been the top political strategist at the US Chamber for years, tells me he has resigned, amid a perceived drift to the left at the Chamber on heels of nearly two dozen endorsements of House Dems," Haberman posted online.

Governor Cuomo Offers To Send National Guard To Pick Up Trash.  New York Governor Andrew Cuomo offered to send the national guard to help pick up the trash which has reportedly been piling up in New York City.  "Garbage piling up, literally, people saying there is an odiferous environment because of the garbage piling up," Cuomo said during a Tuesday [9/29/2020] press conference.  "I don't know what's going on in New York City.  If they can't do it, I have offered to send in the National Guard to come help pick up the garbage."

The Editor says...
If you're in the National Guard, is this the kind of duty you had in mind when you signed up?  Is the National Guard just a mass of poorly-paid all-purpose servants who clean up the 50 governors' messes?

Ron Johnson: 'Political' for John Durham not to release interim report before election.  A top Republican senator blamed U.S. Attorney John Durham's criminal inquiry into the Russia investigation for presenting a roadblock to documents sought by Congress.  This is why Sen. Ron Johnson, the chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said "it is incredibly disappointing" if the federal prosecutor does not intend to release an interim report before the Nov. 3 election due to concerns about such a disclosure being viewed as political as Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo reported on Sunday [9/27/2020].  "What's political is if he doesn't report," the Wisconsin Republican declared.  Johnson said the "deep state" has, "through these other investigations," prevented the public "from knowing what happened with the FBI's corruption of their investigation, the corruption of the transition process, for about three-and-a-half years."

Huge: No Durham Report, Indictments Coming per Sources.  This is not the kind of big news you want to get on an otherwise slow Sunday morning, but here it is.  Fox News' Maria Bartiromo is reporting this morning that there will be no Durham interim report or indictments coming before the election.  By the wording, she may actually be saying there's no report coming at all.  If true, this is a travesty of justice of the highest order given what has transpired the last five years. [...] Whether or not you believe this news will probably depend on the level of cynicism you normally operate with in regards to this topic.  I've been far more skeptical of the Durham investigation than even I'd like to admit at times.

Hollywood not good enough?  Meghan Markle reportedly now wants to be US president.  Forgetting who she is, Meghan Markle, duchess of Sussex, has decided she'd also like to become president of the United States. [...] Seems that with duchess titles coming easily, shouldn't presidential ones, too?  All she has to do is smile pretty... and speak woke, and the American voters will be drooling for her.  Her foray into U.S. politics is getting particularly unseemly for someone who hasn't renounced her title of duchess.  First she started hanging out with Michelle Obama, "teaming up for female empowerment" as the press release, I mean USA Today article, put it.  Then she gets a lucrative Netflix deal, too, kind of like what the Obamas got.  Then she puts her husband, Prince Harry, in an embarrassing position by making a get-out-the-vote "public service" announcement, insisting that the election of 2020 would be "the most important election of our lifetimes," which was clearly targeted at President Trump.  She did her husband Harry, who has never voted in his life, a tremendous disservice by shoving him into that.

Woke Royals' U.S. Election Interference 'Violation' of Megxit Deal:  Claim.  The decision by Los Angeles-based Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to wade into the upcoming U.S. election by offering voting advice was a "violation" of their "Megxit" deal with the Queen and could further jeopardise their links to the monarchy, it was claimed Sunday [9/27/2020] by senior royal aides.  According to the Times newspaper, courtiers have been canvassing how the royal household could separate itself further from the pair.  The distance is required after the couple called on voters in America to "reject hate speech, misinformation and online negativity" in "the most important election of our lifetime" — comments widely interpreted as a swipe at President Donald Trump, as Breitbart News reported.

New Year's Eve ball drop in Times Square will be virtual this year.  For the first time in 114 years, there will be no crowd in Times Square to cheer the famed New Year's Eve ball drop.  In the latest COVID-19-induced blow to Big Apple traditions, officials announced major changes to the annual event Wednesday [9/23/2020] — saying that while the ball will still drop, the usual packed celebration will be a no-go.  "One thing that will never change is the ticking of time and the arrival of a New Year at midnight on December 31st," said Tim Tompkins, the president of the Times Square Alliance, in a news release.

The Editor says...
You could ring in the new year yourself, just by observing the time here or here.  If you have to be at work early the next morning (like I always did), you can celebrate the New Year in UTC or Zulu time, five hours earlier than Eastern Standard Time.  To simulate the actual conditions at Times Square, find about a thousand nasty smelly strangers to crowd around you, including a few pickpockets and prostitutes.  Then spill beer and cigarette butts all over the ground, and charge yourself $50 for a ride home.  In other words, you're not missing anything by not being in Times Square at midnight.

Anti-Cop Alyssa Milano Terrorizes Her Neighborhood by Calling Cops on a Teenager and a Squirrel.  If you're a liberal in Hollywood who likes to spout off about vital political issues 'n' stuff, there is a 98% chance you are a flaming hypocrite for it.  Like all the celebs who want to #DefundThePolice for me and you, but not for them.  And when it comes to leftist celebs with dumb political opinions, top of the list is usually Alyssa Milano.  Who, for a celeb who is super-serious about defunding the police — she [...] tweeted about it and everything — she has no problem calling the police.

The Editor says...
Apparently she wasn't acquainted with the teenager, otherwise I'd suspect her of low-level SWATting.

'Defund the police' activist Alyssa Milano calls 911 sparking massive police presence in her quiet California neighborhood.  Actress and 'Defund the police' activist Alyssa Milano was quick to call cops when she believed an armed gunman was on her Bell Canyon property on Sunday morning [9/20/2020].  The call ignited a response that included seven Ventura County Sheriffs' vehicles, one K-9 unit, a police helicopter and one Los Angeles Fire Department team that sat down the street on standby. [...] The search by air and street level lasted over three hours and ended abruptly at 12.20 pm. [...] 'It turned out it was a neighborhood teen with an air gun shooting at squirrels,' a resident told the DailyMail.com.  The male teenager witnessed the emergency response and later realized he was the cause and turned himself in.

The Editor says...
This is a person who wants to live in a little world without cops.  If that's what she wants, she should learn a lot more about firearms.

House passes short-term spending bill to avoid government shutdown.  The House approved late Tuesday night, in a 359-57-1 vote, a stopgap bill to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the month.  Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did not vote yes or no, but "present."  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced earlier Tuesday [9/22/2020] that Democrats had reached a deal with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to avert a government shutdown and fund the government with a continuing resolution through Dec. 11.

The Editor says...
AOC has figured out how to get easy press coverage:  Just vote "present," like Barack H. Obama used to do, and the news media will point out the lone exception.  In doing so, she isn't representing her constituents, but as long as the newspapers spell her name correctly, she doesn't seem to care.

Bloomberg raises millions to help Florida felons vote.  Just days after after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis won a court victory to keep felons from voting until they've paid off fines, restitution and court fees, billionaire Mike Bloomberg has stepped in to help them pay off the debts.  The former Democratic presidential candidate has helped raise more than $20 million so that felons who completed their prison sentences can vote in the presidential election.  Bloomberg also has pledged $100 million to help Joe Biden win Florida.

Matt Gaetz Calls On Florida AG To Investigate Mike Bloomberg "For Potentially Engaging In Bribery And Vote Buying".  Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has called on the state's Attorney General to investigate Bloomberg for "Potentially Engaging In Bribery And Vote Buying."  [Video clip] [...] [Earlier,] Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who has committed at least $100 million in Florida towards electing Joe Biden, has raised another $16 million to pay the court fines and fees of nearly 32,000 Black and Hispanic felons so that they can vote in the November election.

Mike Bloomberg Is Likely Breaking Federal Law by Paying off Felon Debts for Democrat Votes.  As reported earlier former New York City Mayor and billionaire Mike Bloomberg raised $16 million to pay off the fines for 32,000 black and Hispanic Florida voters so they can vote for Joe Biden in the 2020 election.  Basketball icon Lebron James is also looking to pay convicted felons' fines so they can vote for Joe Biden.  But tonight legal analyst J. Christian Adams argued that Michael Bloomberg is breaking federal and likely Florida state law by buying votes from felons.  And J. Christian Adams also argued that Bloomberg is putting the felons in legal and financial jeopardy by paying off their debts for votes.

Candace Owens Claims Amazon [is] Destroying Her Books Before Shipping, Provides Photos.  On Saturday, conservative commentator and author Candace Owens claimed about 1,000 fans have informed her that their copy of her new book, "Blackout:  How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation," was damaged upon arrival from Amazon.  "Dear [Amazon].  About 1,000 people have written to let me know that your employees appear to be stomping on and in this case, smearing Vaseline on my books before mailing them," Owens accused.  "I know it must have pained you to ship out all 90,000 copies you had in stock — but this is unacceptable."  Owens provided photos of the damaged books and retweeted others showcasing similar damage to their copy.

Translation:  Printing money causes inflation.
Price Increases at Retail Level Accelerating, Thanks to Massive Money Supply Increase.  The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported on Friday [9/11/2020] that prices at the retail level in August increased at an annual rate of nearly five percent in August.  Retail prices dropped when the shutdown began and demand for retail items such as gas and services such as restaurants fell like stones.  People nearly stopped buying, preferring to stash their "stimulus" checks from the government in savings or use them to pay off credit card debt.  In response, the government, with the help of the Federal Reserve, dumped massive amounts of newly created digital currency into the economy, hoping that the infusion would quickly revive it once the infection risk had passed.

Most Want 'Blue Lives Matter' Laws to Protect Police, Fear for Public Safety.  Most voters believe there is a war on police in America today and want to make attacks on cops punishable as a hate crime.  Blacks worry most that these attacks will make their communities less safe.  The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 59% of Likely U.S. Voters think there is a war on police going on.  That's up from 43% two years ago and up from a previous high of 58% in 2015.  Just 29% disagree, while 12% are undecided.

Senate Dems, including Kamala Harris, call for investigation into Durham probe.  Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, including Sen. Kamala Harris, are calling on the Justice Department's watchdog to investigate whether a probe led by U.S. Attorney John Durham violates Justice Department policy.  Durham, is investigating the origins of the Trump-Russia probe and other intelligence-gathering activities related to Donald Trump and his associates.

Black Leaders Launch '1776 Unites' High School Curriculum.  Two black leaders are launching "1776 Unites," a new high school curriculum that aims to combat victimhood culture in American society by telling the stories of black Americans who have prospered by embracing America's founding ideals.  Civil rights veteran Bob Woodson and Ian Rowe, a charter school leader, gave remarks Wednesday on the new curriculum and what they hope it will accomplish for young black students and students of all races.  The curriculum's goal is to "let millions of young people know about these incredible stories, African-Americans past and present, innovative, inventive, who faced adversity, did not view themselves as victims, and chose pathways to be agents of their own uplift," said Rowe, who is also a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Oregon couple helplessly watch as looters break into evacuated home.  An Oregon couple forced to flee their home because of the raging wildfires soon faced a second heartbreak — as they helplessly watched looters breaking in on their home video surveillance system.  Tracy and Marvin Johnson told KOIN 6 News how the Unger Fire had already destroyed a two-mile hiking trail in Beavercreek that they had opened days earlier after spending eight years building.  Firefighters managed to save their home despite the blaze coming within feet of it — just for looters to break in despite an evacuation order in the area, they told the station.  "Our Nest cam came on and told us that there was movement and we could see the lights pull up into our driveway," Marvin Johnson said.

Analyst: Neither Trump or Biden care about soaring federal debt, deficit.  The U.S. government is awash in debt and red ink — and neither President Donald Trump or his Democratic challenger appear bothered by the status quo, an analyst told Yahoo Finance on Wednesday [9/16/2020].  Last week, the Treasury released data showing how the COVID-19 pandemic helped push the U.S. federal budget deficit above $3 trillion for the first 11 months of fiscal 2020, a rate more than double the prior full-year record.

Uh-Oh: John Bolton Is Officially Under DOJ Investigation.  Perhaps that book wasn't such a great idea?  John Bolton is now officially under DOJ investigation for possibly leaking classified information in his recent tell-all publication.  The book made news by making several big unsubstantiated claims aimed at hurting President Trump.  The media obviously salivated over Bolton because he was targeting the right person, though they once treated him as the root of all evil and a disgusting warmonger.  But Trump has a way of rehabilitating anyone's image.  Now, Bolton may be rethinking whether all those plaudits were worth it.

Data Reveals Where the Majority of Biden's Donations Came from — and It's Bad News for Dems.  The conservative group Take Back Action Fund is sounding the alarm on millions of political donations made to former Vice President Joe Biden's presidential campaign.  According to the group, more than half of the 2019 contributions Biden received on the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue came from unemployed people, Fox News reported.  That number has increased in 2020, particularly in light of the pandemic. [...] "After downloading hundreds of millions of [dollars in] donations to the Take Back Action Fund servers, we were shocked to see that almost half of the donations to ActBlue in 2019 claimed to be unemployed individuals," Take Back Action Fund's president, John Pudner, told Fox News.  "The name of employers must be disclosed when making political donations, but more than 4.7 million donations came from people who claimed they did not have an employer.  Those 4.7 million donations totaled $346 million ActBlue raised and sent to liberal causes."

Rochester Police Receive Permission to Cover Their Names After Harassment.  Rochester, New York, police officers have received permission to cover their name tags in an effort to avoid harassment from far-left protesters.  Rochester Police Chief La'Ron Singletary who is set to retire soon, approved the move after protesters targeted a number of officers who shouted out their home addresses, the names of their children and their schools, and made phone calls to their parents.  After the decision, a city council meeting with Democrat Mayor Lovely Warren and City Council Chief of Staff Robert Scanlon occurred.  During the meeting, Scanlon fielded questions on the police.  Scanlon read a response on behalf of Singletary.

Silicon Valley's Tech Titans Cut Pay For Staff That Work From Home.  Software company VMWare announced recently that employees that opt to work from home indefinitely will be asked to accept as much as an 18 percent reduction in pay.  Now, other companies in Silicon Valley have announced similar plans to decrease salaries for those that choose to work from home.  According to a report by Bloomberg News, companies in Silicon Valley may reduce pay for employees that opt to work from home indefinitely.  Both Facebook and Twitter confirmed that they may adopt policies that would reduce pay for employees that opt to work from home.

Hero veteran's 'Oregon is burning' campaign ad sweeps the internet for originality and fire.  A Republican running for Congress in Oregon blasted his far-left opponent for a dismal track record in representing their district in a fiery new campaign video.  In the video released this week, Republican congressional candidate Alek Skarlatos declared that "Oregon is burning" as he called out Democratic Rep. Peter DeFazio, who has "been in office longer than I've been alive."  The 27-year-old former Oregon National Guardsman, hailed as a hero for his part in thwarting a terrorist attack on a Paris-bound train in 2015, now wants to represent Oregon's 4th district in Congress.

Entire Rochester, NY Police Command Staff Resigns.  Rochester has been having fiery but mostly peaceful protests ever since a mentally-ill man jacked up on amphetamines died while in police custody.  He said he had covid and began spitting on officers, so, to protect Their Lives, which apparently don't matter, they put a spit-hood over him.  Then he suffocated.  "Mostly Peaceful Protesters" blame the spit-hood.  I blame the spitting of disease on cops.  I also blame the illegal amphetamines this lunatic was amped up on.  They've been rioting since then, and now the whole leadership says Byeeee!

Propaganda for kids:
DC Comics 'Wonder Women Of History' To Feature 'Real World Heroes' Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib.  DC Comics is releasing a new graphic novel celebrating the "Wonder Women of History," and included among 17 female "real-world heroes" will be leftist darlings Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and even former presidential candidate, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).  The list of "Wonder Women of History" also includes Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, tennis star Serena Williams, Beyonce, and alternative comedian Tig Notaro, as well as a number of social justice activists.  No conservative women were included.

New Jersey orders American flags honoring 9/11 to be removed from overpasses.  New Jersey's Department of Transportation has come under fire for ordering the removal of flags hung on overpasses in memory of lives lost on 9/11.  Days before the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks on The U.S., flags that have been hung on New Jersey highway overpasses for years were reportedly ordered to be taken down by the state's turnpike authority because they were deemed a "distraction."

The Editor says...
Ri-i-i-ight.  But the state's own highway message boards are okay, even if they just have a placeholder message like "Click It or Ticket."

Alek Scarlatos is Running for Congress in Oregon's 4th District.  Alek Scarlatos is running for Congress in Portland's 4th Congressional District. [...] Alek can win this district.  Alek is running against Rep. Peter DeFazio who has held the seat since January 1987 before Alek was born.  You may recognize Alek Scarlatos.  In August 2015 Alek Scarlatos along with this friends Spencer Stone and Anthony Sadler took down an armed Islamic terrorist during his attack in the train from Belgium to France.

Minnesota Veteran Running for Congress Criticizes Obama-Era VA.  Minnesota GOP congressional candidate Tyler Kistner told Fox Business on Friday [9/4/2020] the Obama-era Veterans Affairs was the "worst it had ever been."  "Under the Obama administration ... our budget was cut.  We had limited resources to effectively carry out our job, and Veterans Affairs was the worst it had ever been," Kistner, a former Marine, told Fox Business.  "So I stand with our president and everything he's continuing to do for our military day in and day out."

UN Forced to Admit Gates-funded Vaccine is Causing Polio Outbreak in Africa.  This really should be one of the biggest public health scandals of the decade, but instead it's given little attention — mainly because of the high-profile nature of the people and organisations involved.  The United Nations has been forced to admit that a major international vaccine initiative is actually causing a deadly outbreak of the very disease it was supposed to wipe-out.  While international organisations like the World Health Organization (WHO) will regularly boast about 'eradicating polio' with vaccines — the opposite seems to be the case, with vaccines causing the deaths of scores of young people living in Africa.

The Coming Coup?  Democrats are laying the groundwork for revolution right in front of our eyes.  As if 2020 were not insane enough already, we now have Democrats and their ruling class masters openly talking about staging a coup.  You might have missed it, what with the riots, lockdowns and other daily mayhem we're forced to endure in this, the most wretched year of my lifetime.  But it's happening.  It started with the military brass quietly indicating that the troops should not follow a presidential order.  They were bolstered by many former generals — including President Trump's own first Secretary of Defense — who stated openly what the brass would only hint at.  Then, as nationwide riots really got rolling in early June, the sitting Secretary of Defense himself all but publicly told the president not to invoke the Insurrection Act.

Discover blocks donations to site raising money for Kyle Rittenhouse defense.  Discover Financial Services has blocked customers from making donations on a Christian crowdfunding site that was raising money for accused Kenosha gunman Kyle Rittenhouse, a report said.  GiveSendGo has raised more than $380,000 for the 17-year-old, who has been receiving support in some conservative circles who claim he acted in self-defense when he fatally shot two protesters with an AR-15 style rifle during a chaotic night following the shooting of Jacob Blake.  The credit card company, in emails to Forbes, said the action was taken for operating regulation violations.  The violation wasn't explained.

AG Barr on Michael Reinoehl's Killing: 'Our Cities Are Safer With This Violent Agitator Removed'.  Attorney General William Barr on Friday lauded law enforcement after the killing of self-professed Portland Antifa member and murder suspect Michael Forest Reinoehl, saying American cities are safer with him off the streets.  "Last Saturday, Aaron 'Jay' Danielson was shot and killed amid the continuing violence in Portland.  Local authorities subsequently obtained an arrest warrant for Michael Forest Reinoehl, a self-described Antifa member suspected of the alleged murder," Barr said in a statement.  "Reinoehl fled to Washington State, where he was located yesterday by members of a fugitive task force led by the U.S. Marshals Service, the FBI, and state and local law enforcement partners.  When Reinoehl attempted to escape arrest and produced a firearm, he was shot and killed by law enforcement officers."

Jacob Blake pleads not guilty to sexual assault charges in virtual court appearance.  Jacob Blake, the black man who was shot by a white cop in Kenosha, Wisc., last month, surfaced Friday for the first time since he was injured — to plead not guilty to previous criminal charges filed against him in July.  Blake, 29, donning a blue button-down shirt and yellow tie, entered his plea by video from his hospital bed at Wisconsin's Froedtert Hospital.  It was his first public appearance since he was shot seven times in the back by a Kenosha police officer Aug. 23, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.  His shooting sparked more widespread police-brutality protests.

Atlanta ICE operation nets 77 'worst of the worst' offenders.  At least 77 "worst of the worst" accused offenders were arrested during an operation by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Atlanta Field Office earlier this summer, according to a report on Thursday [9/3/2020].  Most of the individuals arrested have had convictions for aggravated assault, cruelty towards children and other crimes that targeted the young, Thomas Giles, the ICE Atlanta Field Office director, told FOX 5.  He said the operation — which spanned from July 13 to Aug. 20 — focused on individuals he deemed "the worst of the worst — the threats to public safety."

If a Republican does this, it's called going into hiding.
St. Louis mayor temporarily relocates following protests at her home.  Mayor Lyda Krewson has temporarily relocated after a string of protests at her Central West End home.  The mayor on Wednesday [9/2/2020] confirmed that she and her husband, former television reporter Mike Owens, have been living at an apartment, also in the Central West End.  "We have not lived at home for 2 months," Krewson said in a text message to a reporter.  "We did it to deescalate the situation, to save police resources, and importantly because our neighbors were being disturbed and threatened."  The mayor said "for me it comes with the territory."  "I ran for this job — my neighbors did not," Krewson said.

Students Think Trump's 2nd-Term Plans Are Great... When Told They Are Biden's.  A new video highlights how young people agree with Donald Trump's second term agenda, just so long as they don't know it's the President's.  Campus Reform told students that the plans, including going after human traffickers and terrorists, and ending wars to bring troops home.  [Video clip]

DoJ: Operation Legend arrests 147 murder suspects — and 2,000 overall — in six weeks.  How did the Department of Justice make over 2,000 arrests in less than two months of Operation Legend?  In part by returning to the kind of effective law enforcement that cities have abandoned in 2020.  US Attorney Justin Herdman told Fox & Friends that the efforts in nine cities have found almost 150 murder suspects since the late-July effort began, which is one reason why local police departments have welcomed federal help, Herdman claimed.  The boost in resources at all levels allows officers to use broken-windows policing to find criminals who have been hiding in plain sight all along.

Court Documents Reveal Shot Kenosha Rioter Joseph Rosenbaum Was a Convicted Child Rapist.  New court documents of the Pima County, Arizona circuit court reveal that Joseph Rosenbaum was convicted of various sex crimes against children in Arizona in 2002.  Rosenbaum was killed in an altercation while rioting in Kenosha, Wisconsin last week.  He is seen on camera lunging at 17-year old Kyle Rittenhouse, who eventually shot him, claiming he acted in self defense when Rosenbaum attempted to take the AR-15 rifle he was carrying.

Pedophiles are Using Cheese and Pizza Emojis to Share Child Porn Images on Social Media.  Experts are warning that pedophiles are using cheese and pizza emojis to trade child pornography over social media.  PDProtect, a London-based group, is warning that pedophiles are taking and sharing images of children that are uploaded by their own parents and sharing them with other creeps.  "I couldn't just scroll past it as at the end of the day these are people's children," said India, the 27-year-old mother who founded the project, to The Telegraph.

Seattle mayor asks state Supreme Court to halt recall effort against her.  Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan filed a petition Monday asking the state Supreme Court to block an effort to recall her, arguing that the push is based on a policy disagreement and is vague about what she should have done differently in her handling of widespread protests in June.  In appealing her case to the state Supreme Court, Durkan argued that she hadn't violated any law or standard.

Fox News' Chris Wallace to moderate first Trump-Biden presidential debate.  "Fox News Sunday" anchor Chris Wallace has been selected to moderate the first presidential debate between President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, the non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) announced Wednesday [9/2/2020].  Wallace will moderate the first debate, which is scheduled to take place Tuesday, Sept. 29 in Cleveland.  Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott celebrated the announcement in an email to staffers on Wednesday.

US Marshals Service 'Operation Safety Net' recovers 25 missing children in Ohio in its first two weeks.  The U.S. Marshals Service recovered at least 25 missing children in Ohio in a two-week stretch as part of an ongoing operation in the Buckeye State.  "Over the weekend U.S. Marshals rescued dozens of missing children across Ohio, many of whom were being trafficked." Gov. Mike DeWine said during a Tuesday [9/1/2020] news conference.  "Operation Safety Net" is still in its first two weeks and is ongoing, according to the Marshals Service.  It's being carried out in conjunction with local law enforcement agencies around northern Ohio.

Body cam:  Knife-wielding woman killed after stabbing Jacksonville officer.  Body camera footage released Tuesday [9/1/2020] shows the sequence of events leading up to what the State Attorney's Office ruled a justifiable police shooting.  Leah Baker, 29, was shot and killed by police after attacking an officer who was answering an April 11 call about a dispute at a home in Northwest Jacksonville.  The newly obtained video shows how quickly the encounter escalated.

Oregon State Troopers were deputized by the feds so they can make arrests on federal charges.  There are a lot of moving parts to this one so let's quickly recap.  There have been 95 straight nights of protests in Portland since the death of George Floyd and on 25 occasions those have been declared riots.  Mayor Ted Wheeler has been more vocal lately about denouncing the violence and in response the mob has targeted him at his home with occupations, vandalism, arson and rioting.  Mayor Wheeler has now told his neighbors that for their safety he plans to move.

The Editor says...
Ri-i-i-ight.  I'm moving for your safety.  Perhaps at your expense, too.  It's a public service!

RFK's grandson Joe Kennedy III becomes the first member of his family to lose a Massachusetts election.  Joe Kennedy III on Tuesday failed in his bid to take the Senate seat held by JFK, becoming the first member of his family to lose an Congressional election in Massachusetts.  The 39-year-old grandson of Robert F. Kennedy lost to incumbent Sen. Ed Markey, 74, who has been in the Senate since 2013.  Kennedy said Tuesday night that the results aren't the ones he'd hoped for, but pledged to work for Markey's reelection.

Fleet of moving trucks mark exodus from Manhattan's troubled Upper West Side.  Moving trucks were out in force on Manhattan's Upper West Side on Saturday [8/29/2020] — leaving Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa practically tripping over them.  "The mass evacuation of Upper West Siders from NYC is in full effect," Sliwa, who lives on W. 87th Street, lamented, blaming the city's decision this summer to house hundreds of emotionally disturbed homeless and recovering addicts in neighborhood hotels.  A mayoral candidate, Sliwa has been organizing and often leading Guardian Angels patrols of the area.  "They were stacked up," Sliwa told The [New York] Post of the four trucks he saw as he took a morning walk on Saturday.

Shelley Luther, Dallas hair salon owner who defied Covid-19 shutdown, is running for office in Texas.  Dallas hair salon owner Shelley Luther is running for state senate in Texas to represent local business owners and individuals who want to make their own informed decisions during the pandemic.  Luther, a Republican, appears to be pro-choice as far as freedom of movement and face masks are concerned.  Moreover, Luther described Gov. Greg Abbott's statewide mask mandate as "ridiculous" and believes that any further measures related to COVID should be subject to the approval by the state legislature "otherwise, we'll turn into a communist state."  "I feel like if a business owner wants to require a mask to come in, then that's their right," she told Texas native Will Cain on Fox & Friends.

Should've waited for facts!  Armed Blake fleeing, was wanted for alleged robbery, sexual assault.  Non-fatal police shooting "victim" Jacob Blake of Kenosha, Wisconsin, may not be as innocent of a so-called "victim" as the media have portrayed him to be.  In fact, according to his police records, he's an alleged sexual assaulter.  The evidence is contained in charges that were filed against Blake on July 6, 2020, and subsequently obtained and published by the Daily Mail this Friday [8/28/2020].  According to the complaint, on May 3rd, Blake entered the home of his ex-girlfriend, identified as "LNB," and proceeded to sexually assault her.

This is why Jacob Blake had a warrant out for his arrest.  The cops involved in the shooting of Jacob Blake — which touched off a fresh wave of angry, anti-police sentiment across the country — were attempting to arrest him for violating a restraining order stemming from an alleged sexual assault, The [New York] Post has learned.  Blake, 29, was forbidden from going to the Kenosha home of his alleged victim from the May 3 incident, and police were dispatched Sunday following a 911 call saying he was there.  The responding officers were aware he had an open warrant for felony sexual assault, according to dispatch records and the Kenosha Professional Police Association, which released a statement on the incident on Friday.

Latest Chicago and Minneapolis riots broke out over police killings that never happened.  How do you restore order when people start riots over injustices that never happened?  Tragically, as riots sparked by disinformation unfold in Minneapolis and Chicago, this is the question we now face as a country.  Things are spiraling out of control.  The riots that broke out in late May and June after the death of George Floyd in police custody were destructive beyond description.  At least 15 people were killed during the wanton arson and looting.  Meanwhile, thousands of businesses, many owned by people of color, were destroyed, looted, and vandalized.  The economic fallout of this violence will haunt riot-torn urban communities for decades.

Biden campaign buys Keep America Great website domain to post anti-Trump messages.  Joe Biden's presidential campaign took a wily move from the Trump campaign playbook, buying up the domain KeepAmericaGreat.com and using it to post anti-Trump messages.  The slogan is frequently used by President Trump as part of his 2020 reelection effort.  Instead of MAGA boilerplate, however, visitors to KeepAmericaGreat.com are confronted with a laundry list of Trump's alleged broken promises.  "Trump isn't looking for a second term — he's looking for a do-over.  Here's how Trump's record stacks up against the promises he made to the American people," reads an intro to the material.  The website URL has existed in some form since 2004, though in recent years it has taken on a colorful new life among resistance trolls, according to the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.

UCLA: Chinese visiting college researcher arrested, charged with destroying evidence.  Once again, a Chinese national has been arrested and detained in the United States for his alleged activities as a military scientist.  Guan Lei first came under investigation in July by the FBI.  He was under suspicion for visa fraud and possibly transferred "sensitive software or technical data" from UCLA.  Guan Lei studied machine-learning algorithms in UCLA's mathematics department.  According to one FBI agent's affidavit, he transferred information to "high-ranking" officials in the Chinese military.  He isn't charged with that, though.  He is accused of destroying evidence.  FBI agents staked out his apartment, saw him pull a computer hard drive from his sock and throw it into a trash dumpster.  He tossed the damaged hard drive just days after he was interviewed by investigators and tried to board a plane back to China.  It sure sounds like he's hiding something, right?

Criminal Complaint Against Jacob Blake Released, The Original Story His Lawyer Told Was a Lie.  The criminal complaint which led to the outstanding warrants on Jacob Blake has been obtained and released.  Blake was shot and wounded by police after assaulting an officer, resisting arrest, having a knife, and then trying to reach back into the car where the knife was late located.  In the complaint, we see exactly why cops were pursing him, that they knew who he was when they were called, and why tensions were so high. [...] This completely changes the narrative.  The first story told by the press and Blake's lawyer was that he was an innocent bystander just breaking up a fight.  That was a total lie, as evidenced by the statement's of his own ex-girlfriend, who had a restraining order against him.  In reality, he showed up and was attempting to steal her car.  The warrant was for allegedly sexually assaulting the woman, among two other things.  This also brings up the possibility that Blake was taking the children against the mom's wishes.  Why else would they be in the car he was stealing at the time of this incident?

9th Circuit Appeals Court Rejects Oregon Judge's Order Protecting "Press" from Federal Agents in Portland.  This bit of news slipped past on Thursday [8/27/2020] in the wake of events in Kenosha and the RNC Convention speech by Pres.  Trump.  One such story was the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocking an Order from an Oregon judge placing restrictions on federal agents in Portland concerning their actions involving the press and legal observers.  I have written two stories in recent weeks about orders by Federal District Court Judge Michael Simon in Portland — [an] Obama appointee — which placed restrictions on alleged conduct by federal law enforcement agents claimed by members of the "press" and "legal observers" as having been targeted at them by the agents.  Judge Simon first issued a temporary restraining order, and later, after hearing additional evidence, entered a preliminary injunction which made the restrictions permanent while the case brought by news agencies and others was pending before him.

George Floyd's Brother Ends $14.7 Million GoFundMe Memorial Account, One Day Before the Release of 3-Month Old Toxicology Report Revealing Floyd Died Of Overdose.  Two days after George Floyd's death in Minneapolis, MN, his brother, Philonise Floyd started a GoFundMe account to raise money for his estate and for grief counseling.  The GoFundMe description, written by Philonise also mentions that the funds they collect will help to cover the costs of a funeral.  George was buried in a gold casket and placed in a mausoleum as part of his elaborate funeral.  Retired professional boxer Floyd Mayweather donated $88,500 to cover the costs of George Floyd's funeral.  The GoFundMe campaign for George Floyd ended one day before the toxicology report was made public by the MN prosecution revealing the cause of George Floyd's death was a fentanyl overdose.

Fox News makes history with massive audience for Trump's GOP renomination acceptance speech.  A whopping 9.2 million people tuned in to Fox News from 10 p.m. to 11:45 p.m. ET Thursday [8/27/2020] to watch President Trump accept his party's renomination for president to close the Republican National Convention.  By contrast, no other network garnered more than 2.6 million viewers.  More people tuned into Fox News Thursday night than did CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC and CBS combined.  The viewing figures more than double the combined viewership of the two liberal cable news networks, with CNN averaging 2.2 million viewers and MSNBC pulling in 1.9 million viewers.

Kenosha police union gives its account of Jacob Blake shooting.  The Kenosha, Wis., police union issued a statement Friday on the police shooting of Jacob Blake, an incident last Sunday that sparked protests and rioting in the city this week that led to at least two deaths. [...] In Sunday's incident, Blake was "armed with a knife" and "forcefully fought" with officers, putting one of them in a headlock, Brendan Matthews, an attorney for the Kenosha Professional Police Association, said Friday, according to Kenosha News. [...] Matthews said officers first tried unsuccessfully to subdue Blake with stun guns.  Blake's lawyer claimed his client was trying to break up a domestic dispute before his arrest and he was unarmed at the time.  The police union statement added that most accounts of the shooting were "wholly inaccurate" and "purely fictional," Kenosha News reported.

WGN newsroom / studio WGN America to launch 'News Nation' on Tuesday, aiming to transform the house that Bozo built into the next CNN.  WGN America, the erstwhile home to Bozo and Andy Griffith, is set to reinvent itself as a cable news network with the Tuesday [9/1/2020] launch of "News Nation," a prime-time newscast that pledges to deliver unbiased reporting.  The mission is to take a bite out of CNN, MSNBC and Fox News.  Delayed but not derailed by the pandemic, WGN America has assembled a 150-person newsroom and has been making dry runs for several weeks of its nightly three-hour newscasts from extensively remodeled Chicago studios.

The Editor says...
That's a nice looking newsroom, but it is a mistake to put the primary news studio in one end of a TV newsroom.  In a newsroom, especially when unexpected (bad) things are happening somewhere nearby, conversations tend to get clamorous, police scanners are chattering, and everybody's phone is ringing.  The Happy Team doesn't like off-camera distractions.  A television studio is supposed to be totally silent except for the voices of the on-air talent.  Moreover, the modern TV studio has robotic cameras, and robotic cameras don't watch where they're going.  The robot will stop if it runs over your foot, but by then, it has run over your foot.


U.S. Marshals Find 39 Missing Kids and Rescue 15 From Sex Trafficking in Atlanta.  The U.S. Marshals Service put out a press release on Thursday announcing the recovery of 39 missing kids, some of whom were rescued from sex traffickers in Atlanta and Macon during Operation Not Forgotten in the state of Georgia. [...] The U.S. Marshal's Office is taking on child traffickers around the country.  Historically, the U.S. marshals are famous for the manhunt.  This kind of work is right up their alley and it was surprising to learn they had not been utilized to find missing children up until now.

The Kennedy dynasty may be well and truly over.  When Joe Kennedy III, the undistinguished, 39-year-old, four-term Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, announced he would challenge longtime incumbent Ed Markey for the US Senate last September, the liberal media had its typical slobbering, Pavlovian response.  Still does, despite a dramatic drop in the polls.  "The Democratic representative hasn't come up with a good rationale for challenging progressive Senator Ed Markey in Massachusetts," The Atlantic said three weeks ago.  "But with a name like his, it may not matter."  Really?  Great-Uncle Ted's run for president in 1980 couldn't be derailed by serial drunkenness, womanizing, cheating, nor lying — not even Chappaquiddick and the little matter of leaving a young woman to drown was enough.  It was Ted's televised inability to answer that very question — "Why are you running?" — that did him in.  Voters aren't stupid.  They know the reason.  The Kennedys think Massachusetts is their fiefdom, the Oval Office their birthright.  Kennedys run because they are Kennedys.

BLM Mob Starts Looting to Protest Police Brutality After Black Murder Suspect Commits Suicide.  It appears Black Lives Matter activists are so anxious for an excuse to riot that they won't even make sure the police were the ones who pulled the trigger when a black man loses his life.  On Wednesday night, a large crowd started breaking windows and looting stores like Target at Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis following news of a black man dying after police pursued him.  As it turned out, the man was a suspect in a murder case and he committed suicide to avoid arrest.

Arson suspected as cause of ship fire at San Diego Navy base.  Arson is suspected as the cause of a July 12 fire that left extensive damage to the USS Bonhomme Richard and a U.S. Navy sailor is being questioned as a potential suspect, a senior defense official said Wednesday.  The sailor was being questioned but was not detained and defense department leaders were notified of the development, the official said.

No, It's Not New for a Cabinet Secretary to Address a Political Convention.  Over at Slate, Fred Kaplan fumes about Mike Pompeo's speech from last night and writes, "no secretary of state has ever spoken at a party convention.  The Hatch Act forbids federal employees from taking part in political campaigns.  Pompeo also violated his own guidance, sent to his underlings on Feb. 18 of this year.  A bold-faced sentence in that memo read: 'Senate-confirmed Presidential appointees may not even attend a political party convention or convention-related event.'"  But the Hatch Act doesn't bar cabinet officials from speaking at political events.  The rules state that a cabinet official "may not use the official title 'Secretary' when engaging in political activity, such as speaking at a political campaign event.  However, a Cabinet secretary may use a general form of address, such as 'The Honorable,' when engaging in political activity, as such address does not identify his or her position."

Tom Fitton sharply criticizes the Durham probe..  Something is wrong.  Durham is NOT investigating.  Looks like a sham.  [Video clip]

Young woman in Detroit declared dead by paramedics, found alive at funeral home.  A 20-year-old woman was discovered this past weekend breathing at a Detroit funeral home hours after she was declared dead by paramedics and sent to the mortuary by her bereaved family.  "While it is our practice not to comment on open investigations, we can confirm that on Sunday, August 23, 2020, we received a call to pick up a Southfield woman who was deceased.  Upon her arrival at the funeral home, our staff confirmed she was breathing and called EMS," the mortuary told ABC News on Monday [8/24/2020].

Hungry New Yorkers form quarter-mile line for free food in Queens.  The line stretched a quarter-mile before the sun was barely up Saturday, snaking around corners like bread lines in the 1930s.  But the hungry in Queens are today's New Yorkers, left jobless by the coronavirus.  Until the pandemic struck the city, La Jornada food pantry used to hand out groceries to roughly 1,000 families a week.  Now, the figure tops 10,000.  And volunteers serve lunch every day to 1,000 — many of them kids with growling stomachs.  Across the five boroughs, the hungry number in the hundreds of thousands, the Food Bank of New York estimates.

The Editor says...
People always line up for free stuff, whether they're really hungry or not.

Chinese Government Urges Dam Operators at Maximum Capacity to Hold Back the Flood.  Pressuring operators of dams which are already at or near maximum capacity to try to hold back anticipated severe flooding in my opinion puts the structural integrity of the entire river system at risk.  One of the worst dam failures in history occurred in 1975, after Typhoon Nina dumped water upstream of the Banqiao Dam.  Whistle blower Chen Xing had warned Banqiao Dam was defective but his warnings were ignored.  Authorities rejected a plea from dam operators on August 6th to open the floodgates.  This order to keep the flood gates closed was rescinded on August 7th, too late to save the dam.  Up to a quarter of a million people are estimated to have died because of the Banqiao Dam failure.

Houston police chief recruits officers from defunded police departments: 'We're hiring'.  Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo is inviting officers laid off by defunded police departments throughout the country to join his force telling "Fox & Friends Weekend" on Sunday [8/23/2020], "We're hiring."  "We're fortunate we have a mayor and a council .. that understands that our community doesn't want less policing, they don't want to defund the police, they want better policing and they want good cops," Acevedo said.  He made the comments amid a growing push across the country to defund or dismantle police departments, following the death of George Floyd in police custody.

Chipotle keeps the change — without customers' permission, lawsuit claims.  Cashiers at the Chipotle restaurant chain have been rounding off customers' tabs a little too well, according to a lawsuit.  Some of the chain's locations in Pennsylvania have been keeping the change by hundreds of thousands of dollars, the suit claims, KDKA-TV of Pittsburgh reported.  The state attorney general's office has received at least seven complaints, reports said.

The Editor says...
The plaintiffs must be credit card customers.  If you pay with cash, you would notice this immediately.

FL airport discovered live missile, evacuated.  The Lakeland Linder Airport in Florida was forced to evacuate on Friday [8/14/2020] after an airport employee discovered a container with a live missile in it.  BayNews9 reported officials cleared the airport and the surrounding area after the discovery of the missile.  Officials who spoke with another outlet, ABC Action News, said the missile they found Friday evening "was live, but it not armed."

Court Affirms Right Of California Church To Meet Indoors.  Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California is affirmed in its right to host indoor worship services after a Los Angeles County Superior Court ruled that there is no court order preventing it.  The ruling comes just a mere week after an emergency order enacted by the California Court of Appeals made it again illegal for the church to meet indoors.  "We are pleased with the outcome today.  Judge Mitchell L. Beckloff correctly found there is no court order prohibiting Grace Community Church from holding indoor services," said Jenna Ellis, one of the Thomas More Society attorneys representing the church and Pastor John MacArthur.

You Don't Really Own Your Own Gadgets.  The water filter inside a household refrigerator is a simple device:  a plastic tube packed with activated carbon.  Nonetheless, replacement filters for certain GE refrigerators cost a stiff $55.  And they need to be replaced every six months.  So it's no surprise that many GE fridge owners seek cheaper generic filters.  These fit just fine.  But when the owner presses the button to dispense water or ice, nothing comes out.  The culprit is a bit of engineering almost as ingenious as it is infuriating.  It seems that official GE replacement filters include a small RFID chip whose only purpose is to tell the refrigerator that an up-to-date GE-brand filter has been installed.  If a customer installs a generic filter, the water system shuts off.

The Editor says...
Solution:  Tape the old water filter next to the new water filter, so the refrigerator can still sense the RFID chip.  The sensor is probably close to the filter.  Even if this only works for a year or two, you'll be better off.

Army investigating soldiers who appeared in DNC video.  The Army is launching an investigation into two soldiers who appeared in uniform during Democratic National Convention coverage Tuesday night, the service announced Wednesday [8/19/2020].  During the broadcast, two soldiers in uniform flanked officials from American Samoa while the territory awarded its delegates during the roll call at the Democratic National Convention.  The appearance goes against Defense Department regulations, which prohibit all troops from being in uniform at partisan political or campaign events.

Army investigating uniformed soldiers who appeared in DNC roll-call vote.  The Army announced it has launched an investigation into how two uniformed soldiers appeared on camera during the televised roll-call vote at the Democratic National Convention.  The two service members, who are assigned to the Army Reserve's 9th Mission Support Command, raised concerns that they had violated Defense Department rules after they were seen standing with delegates from American Samoa during the state roll call.  The Pentagon strictly forbids uniformed personnel from appearing at political engagements as part of its longstanding effort to keep the military as apolitical as possible.

Democrats Blew $5.3 Million On Failed Bid To Shape Kansas GOP Primary Results.  Political action committees aligned with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Emily's List, a pro-choice group, paid a dark money group $5.3 million in a failed bid to shape the results of the Kansas Republican Senate primary, according to campaign finance records released Thursday night [8/20/2020].  A mysterious super PAC called Sunflower State popped up in June and began a relentless media campaign in Kansas aimed at portraying Republican Rep. Roger Marshall as insufficiently conservative compared to his opponent, former Kansas Sec. of State Kris Kobach.  Democrats apparently saw an easier path to victory in November against Kobach, who lost the 2018 race for governor to Laura Kelly, a Democrat.  Sunflower State's effort failed, as Marshall won a decisive victory over Kobach in the state's primary on Aug. 4.

Goodyear Says BLM, LGBT 'Acceptable'; MAGA, Blue Lives Matter, Not So Much.  We can add "America's Tire Company" to the long and growing list of virtue-signaling corporations that continue to prostrate themselves before the Black Lives Matter altar of pretend "systemic racism."  And for virtue-signaling extra credit, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company has told its employees that terms like MAGA, Blue Lives Matter, and All Lives Matter are "unacceptable" in the workplace.  As reported by WIBW 13 News in Topeka, Kansas, a Goodyear employee leaked a screenshot of a slide that was presented during a diversity training session showing what's acceptable and what isn't acceptable as part of the company's new zero-tolerance policy. [...] In the eyes of the Left, tolerance is a one-way street.  Those of us on the Right must be tolerant of their beliefs, causes, and everything else they foist upon us.  When we're not, we are immediately labeled (pick one or more):  "racist," "white supremacist," "bigoted," "homophobic," Islamophobic," "misogynistic," or worse.  That reality has never been clearer than in the aftermath of George Floyd's death.

Donald Trump Reacts to MAGA Hat Ban:  Do Not Buy Goodyear Tires.  President Donald Trump on Wednesday reacted to a viral image showing Goodyear Tire had banned employees from wearing MAGA attire.  "Don't buy GOODYEAR TIRES — They announced a BAN ON MAGA HATS," Trump wrote on Twitter.  "Get better tires for far less!"

Need New Tires?  Don't Buy From Goodyear.  I'm currently searching for new tires for our car, and was looking seriously at a 50,000-mile set from the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.  After all, it's a great American company — or at least it used to be — and I'm all about buying American since China's government intentionally spread a deadly virus all over the world.  But that consideration of ever buying from Goodyear ended this morning when news broke about a new attire policy the company has adopted for its employees.

Goodyear slide
Goodyear Bans Employees From Wearing 'All Lives Matter,' 'Blue Lives Matter' or MAGA Slogans, But Says Black Lives Matter is Allowed.  A slide has leaked from a Goodyear diversity training which brands "Blue Lives Matter," "All Lives Matter" and "MAGA" attire "unacceptable," while deeming Black Lives Matter and LGBT slogans to be "acceptable."  The leaked slide is of their "zero tolerance" policy towards support for police or conservative values.  According to a report from WIBW, the person who took the photo of the slide said that it was presented at a Topeka plant by an area manager and says it came from their corporate office out of Akron, Ohio.


Trump backs boycott of Goodyear over 'MAGA hat ban'.  Trump called for a boycott of Goodyear tires Wednesday [8/19/2020] after the company's workplace tolerance policy banned his trademark #MAGA caps as a display of hate speech on the job.  "Don't buy GOODYEAR TIRES — They announced a BAN ON MAGA HATS," Trump tweeted.

The Editor says...
I was once a loyal Goodyear customer, because I liked the local dealer, but I'll never buy Goodyear tires again.

It's too late now!
Goodyear president affirms company's support for police, says employees can wear pro-police clothing.  Goodyear Chairman, CEO and President Rich Kramer on Thursday released a statement following public uproar over a slide shown at a Topeka, Kansas plant that suggested pro-police apparel should be banned.  The slide categorized "Blue Lives Matter," "All Lives Matter," "MAGA Attire" and "Political Affiliated Slogans or Material" as "unacceptable" but described "Black Lives Matter" and "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Transgender Pride" as "acceptable."  "The slide in question was created by a plant employee to try to explain what is acceptable to wear in the workplace.  The slide was not approved or distributed by Goodyear Corporate or anyone outside of that facility," Kramer explained.

The Editor says...
Really?  Then show me the list of people inside that facility who have been fired as a result of this incident.

Goodyear clarifies policy on MAGA, pro-police gear after Trump boycott call.  Goodyear clarified its policy on acceptable workplace attire on Thursday, one day after reports that one of its facilities in Topeka, Kansas had banned "Make America Great Again" and "Blue Lives Matter" apparel which prompted President Trump to call for a boycott of the Ohio-based company.  Goodyear Chairman and CEO Rich Kramer said the slide from a presentation at the Topeka plant "was not approved or distributed by Goodyear Corporate or anyone outside of that facility."  The company has clarified its policy to inform employees that they can "express support for law enforcement through apparel at Goodyear facilities," but are asked to "refrain" from wearing apparel of a political nature.

The Editor says...
Obviously, BLM is "of a political nature," just like MAGA.

Goodyear is Run By Idiots.  Get woke — Go broke, strikes again.  When you consider the scale of the company and the resources available to them on branding and marketing, one can only come to the reasonable conclusion that Goodyear is run by idiots.

Update:
Audio from Goodyear training session reveals more about the company's 'zero tolerance' policy.  New audio reveals why Topeka Goodyear said All Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter and MAGA attire are unacceptable.

Goodyear hands a political triumph to Trump.  In terms of the reality TV show of the presidential campaign, Goodyear has caved-in to Donald Trump's pressure and affirmed its support for law enforcement, handing a potent symbolic victory to his reelection effort.  The now-notorious Topeka "zero tolerance" slide framed a simple tale of PC bullies taking over a corporation and terrorizing the employees into verbal conformity, silently hewing to the party line with all the enthusiasm of a 1986 East German. [...] By midday, yesterday [8/20/2020], after trying to weasel their way out with inside baseball about corporate versus Topeka, the Chairman of the Board surrendered and affirmed the company's "support for law enforcement."

Former CIA Officer Arrested as Chinese Spy:  You'll Never Guess Who Hired Him.  On Monday morning [8/17/2020], it was announced in Honolulu, Hawaii, that a naturalized US citizen, Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, 67, originally born in Hong Kong, has been charged with espionage on behalf of the People's Republic of China. [...] The charges against Ma could result in life in prison.  What intrigues me about the complaint is that I have strong suspicions the level of detail provided is not consistent with espionage activities that were only uncovered after the fact, and pieced together in a historical analysis.  The fact that someone has had a video for nearly two decades of that March 2001 five day session in a Hong Kong hotel room strongly suggests that Ma was not a complete "unknown" on his first day reporting to work in Honolulu.  There might be much more to this story if it does actually play out in a Hawaii federal courtroom.

When has the Washington Post, or any newspaper, called anyone a "left-wing commentator?"
Right-wing commentator Loomer wins GOP primary in Trump's Palm Beach district.  A right-wing commentator supported by Roger Stone and Alex Jones defeated five opponents in the Florida Republican primary Tuesday in the congressional district that includes Mar-a-Lago and its notable voters, President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump.  Laura Loomer, 27, will face four-term Rep. Lois Frankel, a Democrat, in the November general election.  Frankel, who has served in Congress since 2013 and ran unopposed two years ago, easily defeated primary challenger Guido Weiss, a former legislative assistant for Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii.  Frankel will be the favorite in the heavily Democratic district that covers a swath of Palm Beach and Broward counties.

GoFundMe for Cannon Hinnant, boy fatally shot in head by neighbor, raises $700K.  A GoFundMe account has raised some $700,000 for the family of a North Carolina boy shot in the head and killed by a neighbor.  Cannon Hinnant, 5, was riding his bike outside his home last Sunday when Darius Sessoms, who lives next door to Cannon's dad, allegedly ran up and shot the child at point-blank range.  Sessoms has been charged with murder.  "He was merely doing what he would do any other day and that's playing with his sisters, riding his bike, doing what kids do and all of the innocence that comes with being a child," wrote Gwen Hinnant, who listed herself as Cannon's grandmother and started the fundraiser to pay for the boy's funeral.

North Koreans are ordered to hand over 'decadent and bourgeois' pet dogs for 'restaurant meat' as the country is rocked by food shortages.  Kim Jong-un has declared that pet dogs are a symbol of capitalist 'decadence' and ordered that dogs in Pyongyang be rounded up — and owners are fearful that their beloved pets are being used to solve the nation's food shortages.  Dictator Kim announced in July that owning a pet is now against the law, denouncing having a dog at home as 'a tainted trend of bourgeois ideology'.  'Authorities have identified households with pet dogs and are forcing them to give them up or forcefully confiscating them and putting them down', a source told South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper.

Millie Weaver faces her first court hearing this morning after being arrested and jailed last Friday.  New media reporter Millie Weaver is scheduled to have her first court hearing this morning after a weekend in jail following her arrest last Friday [8/14/2020].  Weaver's arrest came on the eve of the release of her 82-minute documentary, Shadow Gate, that is an exposé of the Deep State with the assistance of two individuals identified as whistleblowers.  Her arrest and incarceration in the Portage County Jail in Ravenna, Ohio immediately raised suspicions that she was being subjected to a scary new level of intimidation and censorship.  Millennial Millie, as Weaver is known, is a conservative rising star on the new and alternative media landscape, having worked as a reporter and contributor for Infowars since 2012 and lately on her own as well.  She has developed a loyal following, and there is widespread interest in the outcome of the legal case against her.

Update:
'Millennial Millie' Weaver's felony case totally dismissed.  Ten weeks after her widely reported arrest, the conservative new media star Millie Weaver and her two fellow defendants have been exonerated and the mainstream media are ignoreing [sic] her vindication.  On Friday, August 14, 2020, Weaver, widely known as Millennial Millie, a 29-year old conservative new media video and print journalist with a large following online — including over 200,000 on Twitter — was arrested at her home in Ohio.  The arrest stemmed from an indictment issued weeks earlier for multiple felonies relating to an alleged family dispute.  The charges seemed specious at best but Weaver and her husband and younger brother, who were also arrested, spent the weekend in jail until they were released on their own recognizance the following Monday.  Alarms were immediately raised among Weaver's fans and followers who smelled a rat.  On the day of the arrest, Weaver was about to release a provocative 82-minute documentary on the Deep State titled Shadow Gate.  A colleague of hers uploaded it to YouTube on that same Friday where, before it was banned less than a day later, it had been watched about a million times.  It has since propagated all over the Internet including here.

Wuhan launches air cargo route to Dallas, LA.  A new air cargo route linking Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province and Dallas and Los Angeles in the United States was launched on Sunday [8/16/2020].  An all-cargo flight carrying 110 tonnes of exported auto parts and electronic products took off from Wuhan Tianhe International Airport at noon on Sunday for Dallas.  It was the third regular, intercontinental air cargo route opened by the airport, and the only all-cargo flight to Dallas in China.  After arriving in Dallas, the aircraft continued on to Los Angeles.

Bulletproof vest sales soar amid surge in NYC shootings.  With bullets flying over Broadway, New Yorkers are buying up bulletproof vests.  Midtown dealer Brad Pedell — who runs 221B Tactical — claims sales of body armor are up 80 percent this year compared with 2019 due to the "unrest" in the city and nationwide.  "You wouldn't believe the people who call up and say, 'I'm scared,'" Pedell told The [New York] Post.  He said most buyers are from the Bronx and Brooklyn, where shootings have skyrocketed.  Pedell's customers tend to keep their purchases — and motivations for buying — to themselves.

4 Things to Know About the Prosecutor Who's Probing 'Obamagate'.  A federal prosecutor in Texas is drawing a new kind of attention by digging into the "unmasking" of Trump campaign associates that occurred in the waning days of the Obama administration.  Attorney General William Barr last month revealed to the House Judiciary Committee that he had assigned U.S. Attorney John Bash of the Western District of Texas to probe what the Obama administration did in the name of national security. [...] John Franklin Bash III, now 37, went to work in the Trump White House counsel's office in early 2017 as special assistant to the president and associate counsel to the president. [...] "John Bash is a brilliant lawyer who will be an outstanding United States attorney," [Senator Ted] Cruz said in a prepared statement when Trump nominated him.  "He is committed to the fair and effective enforcement of the law, and has the integrity, judgment, and skill necessary to serve the people of the Western District as its chief federal law enforcement officer."

Oregon State Police Leave Portland After Woke Prosecutor Refuses to Charge Rioters.  For weeks, the Marxists who run Portland complained about the outsized presence of federal agents and officers sent to protect the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse.  It was an invasion ordered by President Donald Trump, you see. [...] That's nonsense, of course, but to sane people, little of what emanates from Portland these days makes much sense.  In any event, in response to the constant harping and whining from people like Mayor Ted Wheeler and Gov. Kate Brown, the Trump administration cut a deal to gradually redeploy federal protective service officers and other DHS agents out of the courthouse and out of Portland, replacing them with local and Oregon State Police.  Well, no sooner than that happened, the Antifa thugs that have been allowed to run wild through Portland streets re-focused their attention back on local cops — and State Patrol officers — as nightly riots continued.  Now, according to The Daily Wire, the Oregon State Police has had enough of the Left-wing lunacy in Portland after the Marxist district attorney announced he wouldn't be prosecuting anyone for the 'peaceful' act of violent rioting.

Oregon State Police Pull Out of Portland — Local DA's Refusal To Prosecute Behind The Move?  Return of Feds At Hand?  Very interesting development earlier today [8/14/2020], as the Oregon State Police announced they were leaving Portland. [...] Local reporting says that the move is a result of the announcement by Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt's that his office does not intend to prosecute most of those arrested. [...] The deployment of the State Police in support of the Portland PD was the product of an agreement reached between Democrat Oregon Governor Kate Brown, and officials of the Trump Administration, which came after weeks of escalating violence in the rioting at the Hatfield Federal Courthouse in Portland.  Prior to the agreement being reached two weeks ago, the Portland Police Department had been ordered by Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler to leave federal law enforcement agents defending the courthouse to fend for themselves, and did nothing while rioters organized themselves and provided for their logistical needs in the parks across the street from the courthouse.

Facebook's "Offshore Drilling" Mishap.  The drilling incident occurred on April 28, 2020.  They didn't notify the Oregon Department of State Lands about the incident until June 19, thus eliminating "any potential options for recovery of the equipment."

The Case for Trump.  Americans who want to remain citizens of a united country that at least makes some desultory attempt to protect them and further their interests have no choice but to stay the course.  As the saying goes, the only way out is through. [...] [T]here's little wrong with President Trump that more Trump couldn't solve.  More populism.  More nationalism.  More patriotism.  More law and order. [...] In short, more adherence to the 2016 agenda.  The only way to get more Trump is, literally, to get more Trump.  Which means the president being reelected and implementing his core agenda in a second term.  But that alone will not be enough.  Saving America as a unified, self-governing republic is a long-term — possibly generational — project.

New York Uses Coronavirus as Excuse to Cancel 9/11 Light Tribute.  "The iconic Lower Manhattan 9/11 memorial display that features twin beams of light to honor victims of the terror attacks will not shine this year over coronavirus concerns," reports the New York Post.  "The annual 'Tribute in Light' display requires a large crew to pull off ... posing health risks this year that 'were far too great.'"

The Editor says...
Additionally, this pushes the 9/11 attacks one step closer to the Memory Hole.

Update:
'Tribute In Light' Memorial To 9/11 Victims No Longer Canceled.  The 9/11 Memorial and Museum announced that the annual "Tribute in Light" — an artistic light installation that projects twin beams into the Manhattan skyline as a memorial to the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks — actually won't be cancelled this year after all.  "For the last eight years the 9/11 Memorial & Museum has produced the Tribute in Light and we recognize the profound meaning it has for so many New Yorkers.  This year, its message of hope, endurance, and resilience are more important than ever," said museum president Alice Greenwald in a statement.  "In the last 24 hours we've had conversations with many interested parties and believe we will be able to stage the tribute in a safe and appropriate fashion."

Federal court rules all-male military draft is constitutional.  A federal appeals court in New Orleans on Thursday [8/13/2020] ruled that the all-male military draft system is constitutional, pointing to a 1981 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.  The case, which was argued in March, stemmed from a lawsuit filed by two men with the National Coalition for Men who had challenged the historic male-only draft.  They had argued that the 1981 case was outdated and was ruled on when women were not as involved in combat as many are today.  The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rule[d] that "only the Supreme Court may revise its precedent."

Somebody New Is Cracking Down On "Unauthorized Parties" And It's Not The Government.  As we've recently seen, California is cracking down on people throwing house parties in defiance of state-ordered bans on large gatherings of people, particularly when they fail to practice social distancing.  They're going so far as to cut off water and electrical services to residents engaging in such behavior.  Or at least they would like to crack down on them, assuming they can get the police to enforce the rules.  But it's not just the Governor and Mayor Garcetti who are throwing down the gauntlet and reining in these scofflaws.  There's a new sheriff in town and it's Airbnb.  The company has "taken action against" one guest on their platform who rented out a house for a large party that wound up including a gunfight where multiple people were shot.

Disney kills off the Fox name:  Conglomerate renames 20th Century Fox Television and replaces iconic title card.  The Walt Disney Company has purged the remaining Fox branding from assets it acquired in a 2017 deal, renaming 20th Century Fox Television as simply 20th Television.  It comes as part of a larger rebrand for all of Disney's TV studios, with Fox 21 Television Studios renamed Touchstone Television and ABC Studios and subsidiary ABC Signature merging under the ABC Signature banner.

Retail Chains Abandon Manhattan: 'It's Unsustainable'.  For years, Bryant Park Grill & Cafe in Midtown Manhattan has been one of the country's top-grossing restaurants, the star property in Ark Restaurants' portfolio of 20 restaurants across the United States.  But what propelled it to the top has vanished.  The tourists are gone, the office towers surrounding it are largely empty and the restaurant's 1,000-seat dining room is closed.  Instead, dinner is cooked and served on its patio, and the scaled-down restaurant brings in about $12,000 a day — an 85 percent plunge in revenue, its chief executive said.

There's a shortage of Dr. Pepper amid the COVID-19 pandemic.  The iconic soda brand confirmed on Aug. 10 that there is indeed a shortage impacting all Dr. Pepper products at grocery stores.  While it didn't cite a specific cause, the company comforted fans with some hopeful words.

Russian Collusion Perps Target Johnson.  Still unpunished for the first go-around, Russian collusion perpetrators are taking aim at a new target this time:  Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.  The news media and Democratic lawmakers are accusing the two-term senator of acting as an agent of Russia for continuing to pursue his investigation into the Biden family's shady ties to Burisma, the troubled Ukranian energy company that paid Hunter Biden millions of dollars while his father was vice president and Obama's designated "point person" in Ukraine.  The onslaught began last month when Politico reported Johnson planned to subpoena Biden associates after they refused to voluntarily testify.

Seattle's First Black Female Police Chief Resigns After Budget Cuts.  Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best announced Monday evening she is retiring, the same day the city council voted to slash police department funding.  "This was a difficult decision for me, but when it's time, it's time," Best said in an email to the police department.  The first black woman to serve as police chief in Seattle, Best will step down on Sept. 2.

Seattle's police chief stepping down after City Council votes to trim department, sources say.  Seattle's Police Chief Carmen Best is stepping down, multiple sources tell the CBS affiliate there, KIRO-TV.  One source calls the development "devastating."  The move came to light made the same day the City Council approved reducing the department's ranks by as many as 100 officers through layoffs and attrition, note's KIRO's Gary Horcher[.]

House won't return until mid-September amid coronavirus gridlock.  The House's No. 2 Democrat announced Monday the lower chamber will not return for votes in Washington until mid-September after negotiations between Democratic leaders and the White House on the next coronavirus relief measure collapsed last week, leaving millions of jobless Americans without immediate relief.  According to the schedule released by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer on Monday, the House will not convene for votes until September 14.

Ousted 'Diamond and Silk' call on fans to 'ditch and switch' from Fox News after joining new network.  Pro-Trump personalities "Diamond & Silk" have joined the Newsmax TV line-up after being ousted from Fox Nation earlier this year following a controversial episode.  The duo — Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson — are hosting the program, "Diamond and Silk Crystal Clear," which debuted on Saturday at 7:30 p.m.  EST.  Their show follows conservative pundit and author Michelle Malkin, who hosts, "Michelle Malkin Sovereign Nation."  The duo was released from the subscription-only Fox Nation in April after they allegedly pushed coronavirus 'conspiracy theories' and "disinformation," BizPac Review reported at the time.

Seattle City Council Votes to Lay Off 100 Police Officers.  The Seattle City Council voted unanimously on Wednesday in support of police budget proposals that would lay off 100 police officers, despite objections from the city's mayor and police chief.  The city council began to reexamine the police department's budget earlier this summer in response to anti-police protests.  Mayor Jenny Durkan (D.) and police chief Carmen Best criticized the most recent set of proposals, which would also end the removal of homeless people from the city's streets and cut salaries for police leadership.  Durkan said the cuts would hit the "most diverse class" of officers the city has ever had, as police union rules mandate that layoffs are determined by seniority.

This probably has a lot to do with voter fraud:
Fake driver's licenses flooding into US from China, other countries, US says.  Counterfeit documents are giving criminals a license to commit a host of offenses, including terrorism, U.S. officials say — and young adults who are lax with their personal information may be their biggest enablers.  In the first six months of 2020, Customs and Borden Protection officers seized nearly 20,000 counterfeit U.S. driver's licenses at Chicago's O'Hare airport alone, according to a report.  The 19,888 licenses and other fake documents were included in 1,513 overseas shipments, mostly from China and Hong Kong, CBP said, according to FOX 5 in New York City.  Others were from South Korea and Britain.

Report:  Shipment of Nearly 20 Thousand Fake U.S. Drivers Licenses From China Were Just Confiscated at Chicago Airport.  Why are the Chinese making so many fake U.S. driver licenses?  That's a disturbing little tidbit to discover, especially right before an election, right?  According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the bulk of these fake U.S. IDs flooding into the country come from China and Hong Kong, with the rest coming in from South Korea and the U.K.  Officials in Chicago just confiscated a shipment of these fake IDs totaling nearly 20 thousand.

Meet Kanye West's presidential running mate, Michelle Tidball.  The world may be long familiar with rap superstar Kanye West, but not many know his vice presidential running mate, Michelle Tidball.  Tidball is a 57-year-old spiritual coach who, like West, lives on a ranch in Cody, Wyoming, and has a deep religious background. [...] Tidball touted on the now-deleted page that she has "various degrees in mental health and criminal justice." The only known degree she has, however, is a bachelor's in psychology from the University of Wyoming in 2003, according to TMZ.

Milwaukee police chief demoted over tear gas use, other concerns.  An oversight board demoted Milwaukee Police Chief Alfonso Morales after questioning how he handled multiple incidents, including ordering officers to fire tear gas and pepper spray at protesters demonstrating over George Floyd's death.

Milwaukee FPC votes to demote police chief to captain for role in MPD's protest response.  The Milwaukee Police and Fire Commission (FPC) voted to demote Milwaukee Police Chief Alfonso Morales to the rank of captain on Thursday, Aug. 6.  The commission also voted to appoint Assistant Chief Michael Brunson as acting police chief.  The possibility of disciplining Morales came after he ordered officers to use tear gas to break up protests over George Floyd's death.  It was the last straw for some FPC members who were upset over how Morales has handled incidents since the arrest of Milwaukee Bucks player Sterling Brown in 2018.  The commission's vote on Thursday took just minutes to conclude.  Acting Chief Brunson will be given two weeks to choose his command staff.

Obesity may cause cancer simply because larger organs have more cells.  CT scans of 750 individuals show that people who are obese have larger organs and thus more cells.  This could explain why people who are obese have a higher risk of many kinds of cancers.  "While obesity is a complex disease that may affect cancer risk in several other ways, the increase in the size of an organ, and in the number of its cells, must increase the risk of cancer in that organ," states the team, which is led by Cristian Tomasetti at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

The Citadel Will Require All Cadets to Take Class on the Constitution.  The Citadel, a military academy in South Carolina, has announced that it will require all students to take a course on the United States Constitution.  The decision comes in the aftermath of discussions by state lawmakers to enforce a decades-old law that requires public institutions to teach a course on the Constitution.  According to a report by Campus Reform, The Citadel, a military academy in South Carolina, announced this summer that it will introduce a mandatory course on the U.S. Constitution.

Pelosi, Schumer Send Urgent Letter to Postmaster General Demanding Reversal of Operational Changes to USPS Ahead of Election.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Thursday [8/6/2020] sent an urgent letter to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy demanding he reverse the recent operational changes to the USPS that "threaten the timely delivery of mail" ahead of the 2020 election.  The Democrat-media complex exploded last week and accused President Trump of "destroying" the US Postal Service after the President's newly appointed postmaster general made structural changes.  New changes made by Louis DeJoy have reportedly 'slowed down' the mail deliveries, prompting the left to accuse President Trump of corrupting the US Postal Service in order to deter people from using mail-in ballots for the November election.

Amateur Video Shows The MASSIVE Explosion And Mushroom Cloud In Lebanon.  Beirut, Lebanon (CNN)A massive explosion ripped through the Lebanese capital Beirut on Tuesday, injuring many people and blowing out windows in buildings across the city.  The source of the explosion was initially believed to be a major fire at a warehouse for firecrackers near the port in Beirut, the state-run National News Agency reported.

What the videos of the Beirut blast tell us about the explosion.  The massive explosions in a Beirut port on Tuesday [8/4/2020] provoked fear, then speculation after an eerie, white cloud enveloped the lenses of bystander videos, with many suggesting online that it looked something like a nuclear blast.  But the building consensus among arms experts and Lebanese officials is that the explosion, which killed at least 100 people and injured thousands more, may have been ignited by burning chemicals stored at a warehouse.  Many not accustomed to seeing large explosions may conflate mushroom clouds and spherical blast waves as nuclear, said Jeffrey Lewis, an arms-control expert and professor at Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.  "But some of the things we associate with nuclear explosions are just associated with explosions."

Primary battles paint a surprising picture of GOP vs. Democrats.  Establishment Republicans dodged a bullet in Tuesday night's [8/4/2020] round of primaries while Establishment Democrats took one to the heart.  In the Kansas GOP primary, Rep. Roger Marshall triumphed over former Secretary of State Kris Kobach, allowing him to run for the seat now held by retiring GOP Sen. Pat Roberts.  Marshall appears to have won by a comfortable margin, 40% to 26%, much to the relief of Republican Party leaders trying to keep control of the Senate this fall.  In early polling, he leads his Democrat rival, Barbara Bollier.

Bill Gates issued a stark warning for the world: 'As awful as this pandemic is, climate change could be worse'.  Bill Gates has advocated for pandemic preparedness for years, and famously gave a TED talk in 2015 that warned of the potentially staggering death toll a worldwide pandemic could create.  Now, Gates is once again urging preparedness for a potentially devastating emergency.  "As awful as this pandemic is, climate change could be worse," Gates said in a blog published on Tuesday [8/4/2020].  "If you want to understand the kind of damage that climate change will inflict, look at COVID-19 and spread the pain out over a much longer period of time.  The loss of life and economic misery caused by this pandemic are on par with what will happen regularly if we do not eliminate the world's carbon emissions."

The Editor says...
[#1] Carbon dioxide is not carbon, for the same reason that water is not hydrogen.  [#2] Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.  [#3] There is no extraordinary global warming; in fact, global cooling is a more likely problem.  If global warming (or cooling) occurs at a rate of one degree per century, nobody will ever notice, and only the people who watch television will ever be alarmed about it.  [#4] The day will never arrive when mankind "eliminate[s] the world's carbon [dioxide] emissions."  Natural emissions of carbon dioxide exceed man-made CO2 emissions.  [#5] One would think that someone as bright as Mr. Gates would know about all this.

NBC News Reportedly Laying Off Staff Due To COVID-19.  NBC News will reportedly be laying off staff due to declining revenue amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to Page Six.  The network's parent company NBCUniversal is planning cuts countrywide, according to Tuesday [8/4/2020] reports.  These cuts include employees at NBC News, sources told Page Six.  A little less than 3% of employees at NBC News are reportedly being laid off, the publication added.  These cuts come as NBC News' "Today" producer Jackie Levin leaves the network.  Levin worked at NBC for 26 years and recently accepted a buyout, Page Six reported Tuesday.

Attorney of Driver in Austin Shooting Releases Details Confirming Self Defense.  There are new developments in the shooting case where a driver shot a protestor who was armed with an AK47 type rifle, as his car was being swarmed by the crowd of protestors.  The following is a press release from the attorneys of Daniel Perry, who has identified himself as the driver who shot Garrett Foster on the evening of 25 July.  This account tells what happened from the viewpoint of Daniel Perry.

Beirut death toll rises to at least 100 as explosion is blamed on 2,750-ton ammonium nitrate stash.  Beirut's residents are in shock and mourning after an enormous explosion at the city's port ripped through the Lebanese capital, killing at least 135 people, injuring more than 4,000 and displacing some 300,000, according to emergency services.  Hospitals are overwhelmed, with some too damaged by the blast to operate.  The explosion, which blew out windows and destroyed property for miles around, has been initially blamed on 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate stored in an unsecured warehouse, without safety measures, since 2014 at Beirut's cargo port.  The New York Times, citing public records, reported that Lebanese officials knew about the risks for several years but did not act on them.  The government subsequently announced an investigation to determine within five days the exact cause of the explosion and "who was responsible."

TV meteorologist is fired for tweet comparing federal troops policing American cities to Nazi Germany.  A meteorologist at a Colorado news station has been fired after he shared a tweet comparing federal agents policing cities amid the recent unrest across the country to Nazi Germany.  Marty Coniglio shared a picture of soldiers posing with Adolf Hitler and captioned the July 23 post: 'Federal police in cities ... now where have I seen that before?'  The following day Coniglio, who has been on television in Denver for three decades, confirmed he had stopped working for 9News.

Nobody's defunding the police here!  Quite the opposite.
Overtime costs to monitor protests at capital soar to nearly $880,000.  As the 24-hour-a-day protest at the state capitol approaches its 50th day, the cost to pay overtime and travel expenses for state troopers has ballooned to $878,626.15.  The latest available figure is only for roughly half of the protest so far, between May 31 and June 30. According to a spokesman for TEMA, the cost cannot be reimbursed by federal dollars because of its type of emergency, therefore it will be paid out of the state's reserve funds for emergencies.  Activists like Justin Jones said the protestors shouldn't be blamed for the costs.  "That is the choice of the governor.  This could have easily been over with a conversation.  If the governor has [sic] come out on day one to talk to these people — we've been out here for 50 days — that would have saved all that money," Jones said.

Wisconsin Republicans help Kanye West in his attempt to get on state presidential ballot.  Who knew Wisconsin Republicans were such big fans of Kanye West?  The rapper's campaign turned in a number of signatures on Tuesday in a bid to get on the November presidential ballot in Wisconsin.  He is making similar attempts in Ohio, Arkansas and West Virginia.  Reid Magney, spokesman for the state Elections Commission, said it could be several days before officials confirm that West has enough valid signatures to appear on the ballot as an independent candidate representing the Birthday Party.  It was a pretty impressive feat that West's campaign was able to submit as many signatures as it did by Tuesday's 5 p.m. deadline.

As Democrats decried national park openings, one pushed to front of Yosemite's line.  Worried about loose rules amid a surge in the coronavirus crisis, Democrats have urged the National Park Service to stop or slow the reopening of facilities, citing concerns about the safety of employees, visitors, and neighboring communities.  That is, except one:  California Rep. TJ Cox, whose Fresno district is close to Yosemite National Park.  In emails shared by the Interior Department with the House Natural Resources Committee, Cox's staff sought two vehicle passes of the 340 available to the public for July 4.  When he was told he'd have to wait in line like others, he pushed for "preferential treatment" to get them, according to a letter calling for an Interior Department investigation.

KFC Tests 3D-Printed Chicken Nuggets in Russia.  KFC has partnered with a Russian biotech research firm to create the world's first laboratory-produced chicken nuggets this fall.  The fast-food chain and Russia's 3D Bioprinting Solutions, founded by the private medical firm Invitro, announced the partnership Thursday [7/16/2020] amid a growing global race to find safe and authentic-tasting meat alternatives.

The Editor says...
Sadly, the persistent misuse of partner as a verb had paid off, [1] [2] and it's only a matter of time before that definition is included in an actual dictionary (i.e., a big heavy book that gathers dust on a shelf).

Largest police union in Florida endorses Trump reelection bid: 'We're being used like a punching bag'.  The largest police union in Florida voted to endorse President Trump in the 2020 election.  The Florida Police Benevolent Association's president, John Kazanjian, said on Friday [7/31/2020] that Trump has sided with law enforcement amid a wave of anti-police sentiment during nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice that have taken place over the past several months.  "I spelled it out.  What's going on in not just in Florida but across this country that, 'Hey, you know what, we're getting beat up.  We're being used like a punching bag, and we're tired of it.  And President Donald Trump has been there for us.  He supported us,'" Kazanjian told Fox & Friends.

DoJ Seeks Removal of Protection for Journalists in Riots Due to Presence of Imposters.  Officials from the Department of Justice have officially filed a request with the courts asking for the removal of special protection for journalists in the ongoing riots in Portland, due to rioters often disguising themselves as journalists in order to commit violence, according to Politico.  In a filing submitted to U.S. District Court Judge Michael Simon, the Department of Justice asks Simon to consider overturning his previous temporary restraining order (TRO) issuing special protections for journalists, which, among other privileges, allowed journalists to remain in place even if the police force rioters back or attempt to disperse the crowds.  In the filings, lawyers with the Justice Department revealed that "individuals are abusing the TRO to masquerade as members of the press and evade lawful orders, or actively participate in protest activities and even illegal acts while holding themselves out to be members of the press under the protection of the TRO."  The Department of Justice included at least seven recorded instances of rioters abusing this protection, disguising themselves as members of the press in order to carry out acts of violence.

Leftie James Murdoch Resigns from News Corporation, the Parent Company of FOX News Over "Differences in Editorial Content".  James Murdoch tendered his resignation from the Board of Directors of News Corporation, the parent company of FOX News.  Rubert Murdoch stepped down as the CEO of FOX in June 2011 and handed the reins over to his son James.  James Murdoch's wife Kathryn Murdoch is an outspoken leftist who works for the Clinton Climate Initiative.  The resignation went into effect today [7/31/2020].

Cuomo: Federal government needs to fill New York's budget gap.  The state of New York faces a budget deficit of $30 billion over the next two years thanks to the COVID-19 crisis, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday [7/29/2020] it's up to the federal government to fill it.  Without that help, Cuomo told reporters that funding for local governments and hospitals would take a significant hit.  Education will too, unless the federal bill requires states to fully fund education.  His comments come a day after Senate Republicans in Washington revealed details of their latest COVID-19 relief package proposal, called the HEALS Act.  Cuomo sent a letter to the state's congressional delegation urging them to push for $500 billion in unrestricted state aid that the National Governor's Association is calling on Congress to pass, and he wants them to fight for every dollar they can get for New York.

The Editor says...
[#1]  When you fight for every dollar you can get from the federal government, where does that money come from?  [#2] The federal government should never bail out badly-managed states after natural disasters or public health problems.

Obama Privately Warns Top Dem Donors:  Trump Voters 'Glued' to Breitbart, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh.  Former President Barack Obama is privately telling some of the biggest and most influential donors on the left that the 2020 election will not be a lock for former Vice President Joe Biden because President Donald Trump's voters are "glued" to outlets on the right like Breitbart News and will turn out in droves in November, according to a Thursday report in the New York Times.  Obama has reportedly raised $24 million for Biden in two months by having conversations with people like LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, actor George Clooney, and top party leaders.  According to the Times, "donors who have paid six-figure sums" have been able to see Obama have these "wide-ranging Q. and A. sessions about the state of politics and unvarnished analysis" on Zoom.

Barr Rightfully Defends Federal Response to Dangerous Rioting, as House Democrats Attack Him.  In testimony Tuesday, Attorney General William Barr justifiably pushed back hard against confrontational and rude Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee who appeared intent on scoring political points by shouting over him as he explained the Justice Department response to riots across the country.  Committee members got something else as well from the attorney general:  a much-needed lecture on their role and responsibilities as elected public officials.  Barr told them that "regardless of their political views" or "their feelings about the Trump administration," they should "condemn the violence" engulfing our cities, particularly violence directed at federal officers and federal property.  "To tacitly condone destruction and anarchy is to abandon the basic rule-of-law principles that should unite us even in a politically divisive time," Barr said, stating an obvious truth.

Bannon's Radio Free China.  During the Cold War, Radio Free Europe (RFE) broadcast anti-communist messaging to countries behind the Iron Curtain.  In addition to providing hope to victims of leftism and countering the official Soviet narrative, RFE shored up hope for change.  The efficacy and threat of this western-backed and -operated "free flow of information" was recognized by the Soviet Union, such that in 1981, RFE's Munich headquarters were bombed by Carlos the Jackal under the orders of the Stasi.  Seventy-one-years after RFE's inception and twenty-nine-years after the fall of the Soviet Union, the West continues to "provide accurate and timely news and information to... countries whose governments prohibit access to a free press," only now it is targeting a new audience: the Chinese people, along with North Koreans, Cambodians, Vietnamese, and Burmese listeners.  Radio Free Asia began broadcasting in 1996, but the CCP has managed, in large part due to its great firewall, to jam the signal.

'Maybe the National Guard:' Chief may request help with 100+ police departments pulling out of DNC.  Milwaukee Police Chief Alfonso Morales said Wednesday, July 29 he may seek state or federal assistance with more than 100 local police departments pulling out of responding to the Democratic National Convention starting Aug. 17.  Meanwhile, with his job at stake if he doesn't comply with a list of directives handed down by the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission, the chief weighed in on those orders, with some due Thursday [7/30/2020].  Chief Morales wasn't shy about the fact that his future is uncertain.  "I gotta be able to look at myself in the mirror," he said.  "I gotta be able to do the right thing, whether it means my job or not."

Cops pull out:  Democrats in need of convention protection can now call a hippie.  One hundred police agencies delivered a vote of "no confidence" in the Democrats' fitness to govern, pulling out from contracts to protect the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee, just three weeks before kickoff.

More than 100 police departments back out of agreements to help provide security for Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee.  More than 100 police agencies are withdrawing from agreements to send personnel to bolster security at next month's Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee, in part because they're concerned about a recent directive ordering police in the city to stop using tear gas to control crowds.  A citizen oversight commission last week directed Milwaukee's police chief to publicly account for why the department used tear gas during protests in late May and early June after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and to change Milwaukee's police policies to ban the use of tear gas and pepper spray.  The Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission said in its order that Police Chief Alfonso Morales could be fired if he fails to comply.

The Editor says...
The left-wing Democrats (which is the only kind) proudly huff and puff about defunding the police, which is another way of saying eliminating the police.  Now that the police want nothing to do with the Democratic National Convention, we will see what happens when the rubber meets the road.

Alarm over discovery of hundreds of Chinese fishing vessels near Galápagos Islands.  Ecuador has sounded the alarm after its navy discovered a huge fishing fleet of mostly Chinese-flagged vessels some 200 miles from the Galápagos Islands, the archipelago which inspired Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.  About 260 ships are currently in international waters just outside a 188-mile wide exclusive economic zone around the island, but their presence has already raised the prospect of serious damage to the delicate marine ecosystem, said a former environment minister, Yolanda Kakabadse.  "This fleet's size and aggressiveness against marine species is a big threat to the balance of species in the Galápagos," she told the Guardian.

Man, 40, dies after cops find him burning alive on the side of a California highway 'after getting into argument outside a 7-Eleven'.  A 40-year-old man has died after being found on fire by cops on a California highway shortly after he got into an argument with a group of people outside a 7-Eleven early Friday morning. [...] A woman identifying herself as Mungaray's sister said he was last last seen Thursday outside a 7-Eleven in Gilroy where he was having an argument with the occupants of two cars.

Oregon Football Coach Fired Because Of His Job As Portland Police Officer.  A longstanding football coach was recently fired by an Oregon high school.  Sgt. Ken Duilio is "one hundred percent positive" that he was targeted because of his day job as a Portland Police Officer.  It's tough being a cop these days as protests against the police have evolved into riots.  Some politicians across the country are even demonizing the men and women in blue who protect us and are joining the protests.  Portland Police have been put in an incredibly challenging position by local politicians and rioters.

Jim Jordan Opens AG Barr Hearing with Devastating Video on Leftist Violence, Looting and Rioting in the Streets of America.  Attorney General Bill Barr is set to testify in front of the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday morning.  Chairman Jerry Nadler opened the hearing with several baseless attacks on Attorney General Barr.  Next up was Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee.  Jordan was ON FIRE!  Rep. Jordan opened his remarks reminding the American public that Barack Obama spied on the opposition party and candidate Donald Trump during the 2016 election and beyond.

Fort Worth Zoo named best in the country in USA Today poll.  The Fort Worth Zoo was recently named the best zoo in the nation, according to a USA Today poll.  USA Today assembled a panel of industry experts who created a list of 20 zoos that excel in animal care and enrichment, while also creating interactions between animals and humans, according to a press release.  Once people across the country voted, the Fort Worth Zoo claimed the number one spot after finishing in the top five for the last four years, zoo spokesperson Avery Elander said.

The Editor says...
The Fort Worth zoo might be enjoyable someday after the state-wide face mask mandate is over, but not until then.

Sen. Rand Paul's neighbor gets an additional 13 months for assault.  Back in 2017, Sen. Rand Paul's neighbor, Rene Boucher, attacked the Senator on his own property, allegedly over a dispute about lawn clippings.  The attack left Sen. Paul with several broken ribs.  Last August, Paul had a portion of his lung surgically removed because of damage caused by the attack.  Boucher was eventually charged with one count of assaulting a member of Congress.  Boucher was initially given a light sentence of just 30 days in jail plus a $10,000 fine and community service.  But the case was appealed and last September the appeals court overturned the sentence saying it was too light given the extent of Sen. Paul's injuries.  A review of similar cases involving suspects with no criminal history found the average sentence was more than two years.

Notre Dame withdraws from hosting first Trump-Biden debate.  The commission that holds the quadrennial presidential debates says that the first of the three scheduled showdowns this fall between President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden is being moved from Indiana to Ohio after Notre Dame withdrew as a host.  The Commission on Presidential Debates (CDP) announced on Monday that the Sept. 29 debate will now be co-hosted by Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic and held at the Health Education Campus (HEC) in Cleveland, Ohio.  The move came after Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana withdrew as the host of the first presidential general election debate.

Violent Crime Explosion Forces Minneapolis Residents to Form Militias.  [T]he first, the very first priority of government is to protect our God-given rights from being violated, most especially by others.  We have a God-given right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and the government has no higher purpose than to see to it those rights are not interfered with.  To say the Democrat-run city of Minneapolis is failing on this point would be an understatement.  The city, which has not had a Republican mayor in nearly 50 years, slashed the police budget and turned its police department into eunuchs who are either unable to respond due to budget cuts and ridiculous policies that make it impossible to enforce the law or are unwilling to respond for fear they will become CNNLOL's Villain of the Day.  And now the city's residents are forced to go to extraordinary lengths to protect their family and property.

Armed Minneapolis Residents Are Patrolling Their Own Neighborhoods As City Moves To Defund Police.  Minneapolis residents have begun patrolling their own neighborhoods after violent crime across the city surged in the aftermath of George Floyd's death in late May.  The patrols, some armed, are part of a largely grassroots efforts to protect neighborhoods, businesses, and residents from rioters and criminals.  Some groups have constructed barriers at the entrance to their neighborhoods and control who can enter, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Parking Tickets Covered By Eighth Amendment's Ban On Excessive Fines, Federal Court Rules.  In a decision that managed to cite both La La Land and Magna Carta, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Wednesday [7/22/2020] that parking tickets and fees must comply with the Eighth Amendment's ban on "excessive fines."  Although the ruling is only a partial victory for the Angeleno drivers in this case, it nevertheless clears a path for others to challenge municipal fines as unconstitutional.  "This right to be free from excessive governmental fines is not a relic relegated to the period of parchments and parliaments, but rather it remains a crucial bulwark against government abuse," Judge Kenneth Lee wrote for the court.  "The government cannot overstep its authority and impose fines on its citizens without paying heed to the limits posed by the Eighth Amendment."

The Editor says...
That must have been quite a hefty parking ticket.

US Could Deploy Aegis Missile Defense System To Protect Guam From Chinese Attack.  The United States is planning to deploy the deadly Aegis Ballistic Missile Defence System in Guam in preparation of an attack with China.  As Sino-American tensions continue to escalate, experts suspect that the island of Guam could be targeted by Beijing.  Phil Davidson, the US Navy admiral in charge of Indo-Pacific Command was the latest to voice his concern.  He says that an attack by Chinese could remove from the map the U.S. Air Force's main Pacific base for bombers and other heavy warplanes.  To protect the US base in Guam, the US should deploy the Aegis missile-defence system on Guam., he says.

Judge denies Oregon push to limit US agents during arrests.  Thousands of people gathered in Portland streets for another night of protests Friday [7/24/2020], the same day a U.S. judge denied Oregon's request to restrict federal agents' actions when they arrest people during chaotic demonstrations that have roiled the city and pitted local officials against the Trump administration.

US officials force their way into Chinese consulate in Houston.  The Chinese consulate in Houston has been raided by U.S. officials, shortly after it officially closed for business.  The consulate, which Donald Trump forced to close on Wednesday, was reportedly a hot bed of spies and was allegedly being used to steal medical and scientific research.  Beijing was told that the consulate must cease operations by Friday [7/24/2020].

Chinese Researcher Tied To Chinese Military [is] Hiding From FBI In Chinese Consulate.  Although the FBI has arrested three Chinese visa holders suspected of having memberships in the People's Liberation Army, a fourth research visa fraud suspect is being protected in the Chinese consulate in San Francisco, where U.S. law enforcement cannot enter unless invited.  The People's Liberation Army is under the command of the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of China.

Are the cities emptying out?  Millions of Americans are voting with their feet.  They're leaving the cities.  In Michigan, despite some of the nation's worst unemployment — engineered in large part by our governor — homes priced around $200,000 are often on the market for about a day.  Much more expensive homes in northern Michigan, hundreds of miles from Detroit and Grand Rapids, are also selling quickly.  Why?  Two reasons:  People have found they can work from home, and they want to escape what the media portray as nonviolent protests and riots.

The Editor says...
This effect was once known as "White flight."  But apparently it's not polite to use that term any more.

Senate passes veto-proof bill that will strip Confederate names from military bases.  The Senate on Thursday [7/23/2020] passed a $740 billion defense spending bill that includes a provision to remove the name of Confederate leaders from military bases — setting up a showdown with President Trump who is opposed to the move.  The GOP-controlled chamber overwhelming passed the legislation with a vote of 81 to 14 — well over the number required to override the presidential veto which Trump threatened to wield last month in a bid to stop the bill.  The National Defense Authorization Act includes a plan to change the names of army bases named after Confederate soldiers, such as Fort Bragg in North Carolina and Fort Benning in Georgia, which are named after Confederate Gens.  Braxton Bragg and Henry Lewis Benning.

Chinese buy strategic land in Texas, U.S. intel may not be pleased.  Given its hold on many American Democrat politicians (Joe Biden among them) and its aggressive global stance, it is not surprising that during testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee in July 2019, FBI Director Christopher Wray emphasized: "there is no country that poses a more severe counterintelligence threat right now than China."  Now in 2020, China has purchased over 100,000 acres in West Texas for what they say is an economic project.  U.S. intelligence is casting a suspicious eye at their claim.  Retired CIA station chief Daniel Hoffman told the media, "The specific location in Xi's crosshairs is the iconic frontier landscape, framed by the pristine Devils River and legendary Pecos River, in the West Texas borderlands of Val Verde County.  Beginning in 2015, GH America Investment Group purchased over 130,000 acres of property in Val Verde County.  GH America is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Xinjiang-based Guanghui Industry Investment Group.  Xinjiang is notorious for its so-called 're-education' camps, where China detains Uighur Muslims and other ethnic minorities against their will and violates their human rights."

Afghan Girl, 15, Picks Up AK-47, Kills Taliban Fighters Who Murdered Her Parents.  Last week, about 40 Taliban fighters stormed the village of Geriveh in the central Ghor province.  Around midnight, they knocked on the door of the house where Qamar Gul, 15, lived with her parents and 12-year-old brother Habibullah, officials told Agence France-Presse (AFP). [...] Officials said the fighters were looking for Gul's father, the village chief, and a government supporter.  Aber said Gul told him the Taliban members "took my father and mother outside and shot them several times.  I was terrified." That's when the teen girl took action.  "According to Aber, Qamar Gul witnessed the death of her parents, picked up her father's rifle and shot and killed three insurgents.  She then started a one-hour battle with the Taliban alongside her 12-year-old brother, Habibullah," AFP reported.

This is why we have secret ballots:
62% Of Americans Are Afraid To Express Political Views, Survey Finds.  Self-censorship is on the rise according to a new Cato Institute survey that reports nearly two-thirds of Americans are afraid to share their political views.  A new CATO Institute/YouGov national survey found 62% of Americans say the political climate today prevents them from saying what they believe.  This is up several points from 2017 when 58% of Americans said they were afraid to share their political beliefs.  "31% of liberals, 30% of moderates and 34% of conservatives are worried their political views could get them fired or harm their career trajectory," the CATO survey stated.

Rubio: Chinese consulate in Houston was 'massive spy center'.  Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., tweeted his support Wednesday for the shuttering of a Chinese consulate in Houston, claiming that spying activity was carried out through the facility.  The U.S. directed the closure of the consulate on Tuesday [7/21/2020].  The Chinese government said Wednesday morning that they had been instructed to do so without warning, but Rubio claims the move was "long overdue."

US orders Chinese Consulate in Houston to close, fire spotted in courtyard hours later.  Hours after the United States ordered the closure of the Consulate General of China in Houston on Tuesday, witnesses spotted workers burning papers in the courtyard.  Firefighters said they could smell smoke and saw something burning in barrels, the Houston Chronicle reported.  However, firefighters were not granted access to the building.  "All I know, it's illegal to have open burning in the city of Houston like that," Houston Fire Chief Samuel Peña said.

Rand Paul calls other Republican senators 'Bernie bros' and 'insane' and Ted Cruz curses in bitter feud over $1 trillion coronavirus bailout plan.  The price tag for the next COVID-19 aid package could quickly swell above $1 trillion as White House officials negotiate with Congress over money to reopen schools, prop up small businesses, boost virus testing and keep cash flowing to Americans while the virus crisis deepens in the U.S.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday promised a new round of direct payments to earners below a certain income level, similar to the $1,200 checks sent in the spring.  President Donald Trump insists on a payroll tax holiday for workers.  And Democrats want billions to outfit schools and shore up local governments.

Cops In Riot Gear Clear Out NYC 'Occupy' Camp Near City Hall In Pre-Dawn Raid.  New York Police Department officers clad in riot gear emptied out an "occupy" protest that sprung up around NYC City Hall weeks ago in a dramatic pre-dawn raid, according to local media.  The protest, which began on June 28 with just 100 protesters, had spilled over into the street as demonstrators demanded a massive cut to the NYPD budget.  Although New York City mayor Bill de Blasio happily complied with demands to "defund the police," slashing the NYPD's operating funds by nearly a billion dollars and canceling more than 1,000 planned hires, protesters remained unsatisfied given that de Blasio refused to officially sign the change into law.

Ousted Cardinal McCarrick ran sex ring at N.J. beach house: suit.  Former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick ran a depraved sex ring of underage boys at a beach house on the Jersey Shore, a disturbing new lawsuit claims.  The suit, filed by a man using the pseudonym Doe 14, claims that in 1982 and 1983, when he was as young as 14 years old, he and other victims were taken on weekend overnight trips to a Sea Girt beach house.  "McCarrick assigned sleeping arrangements, choosing his victims from the boys, seminarians and clerics present at the beach house," according to the suit filed in state court under New Jersey's Child Victims Act.  "On these occasions, minor boys were assigned to different rooms and paired with adult clerics."

Sen. Ted Cruz seeks to hold hands-off local officials liable for protest, rioting damage.  Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, has a plan on how to douse the protest violence in Portland, Seattle and elsewhere:  Hold local officials responsible for failing to stop it.  Mr. Cruz introduced Wednesday legislation that would "hold state and local officials liable when they abdicate their legal duty to protect the public in cases where death, serious bodily harm or significant property damage have occurred."  The bill, called the Restitution for Economic losses Caused by Leaders Who Allow Insurrection and Mayhem Act, or RECLAIM, would allow property owners to seek triple damages for protest destruction.

The Death of Standards at the New York Times.  The mainstream press has spent a lot of time and energy recently attacking Tucker Carlson, none more enthusiastically than CNN's simpering and shrieking little eunuch, Brian Stelter.  Of course Carlson, with the No. 1 rated show in the history of cable news, can laugh all the way to the bank in response to most of these critics.  This is nothing new:  Fox News is used to its top stars being attacked by the thought-monolith, leftist media and benefitting from the drama in the ratings.  For those of us on the Right, it's amusing and tiresome all at once.  But at the same time, disturbing undertones are emerging in these stories.  On Monday [7/20/2020], Carlson revealed that the New York Times was preparing to publish a story discussing the details surrounding the location of his family residence.  This pathetic attempt to incite doxxing and harassment is unfortunately par for the course for the rag started by Confederate sympathizers.  The paper with its new generation of little wokesters will brook no deviation from their leftist dogma and are intent on driving out any editors, reporters, or columnists who are not 100 percent on board with their program to smash the Right.

Woke Red Bull Execs Fired After Attempting to Force Company Into Black Lives Matter Virtue Signal.  Companies are routinely being pressured to show their support for Black Lives Matter.  Those who don't are under threat from the mob to be accused of being racist or in support of police brutality.  The idea that silence is violence has forced many a company executive to cave out of fear that they'll be personally held responsible by the mob and their entire life will be ruined.  Red Bull has taken the opposite tack.  In fact, it fired execs attempting to force the company into a BLM virtue signal.  According to the Wall Street Journal, Red Bull North American chief executive Stefan Kozak and North American president and chief of marketing Amy Taylor were both terminated from their positions after they attempted to force the company to support BLM by subversively creating racial tension within the company.

Michigan School Fires Popular Teacher For Saying 'Trump Is Our President'.  A Michigan school district fired a popular high school teacher and coach after he pointed out that "Trump is our president" on social media.  Varsity baseball coach and social studies teacher Justin Kucera said Walled Lake school district officials hauled him into a closed-door meeting after he indicated his support for President Trump's speech to reopen schools.  He told the Washington Free Beacon the Walled Lake Western principal and district superintendent gave him an ultimatum: be fired or resign.

Allen West elected chairman of Texas GOP, vows no more 'watered down conservatism'.  The nation's largest state Republican Party has a new leader.  Allen West was elected chairman of the Republican Party of Texas in the early hours of Monday during a virtual vote among the organization's membership.  The retired U.S. Army officer and former presidential hopeful has already taken on the responsibilities of the role and begin to "implement his strategy to hold Texas," according to his campaign — which means a return to traditional conservatism for Lone Star Republicans.  "I am honored and privileged that Republicans of Texas have selected me to Chair their party and to be at the helm during this coming election cycle.  We need to focus on maintaining the conservative policies that made Texas strong and drive voter outreach across the state," Mr. West said in a statement.

Japan to Pay at Least $536 Million for Companies to Leave China.  Japan's government will start paying its companies to move factories out of China and back home or to Southeast Asia, part of a new program to secure supply chains and reduce dependence on manufacturing in China.  Fifty-seven companies including privately-held facemask-maker Iris Ohyama Inc. and Sharp Corp. will receive a total of 57.4 billion yen ($536 million) in subsidies from the government, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said Friday.  Another 30 firms will receive money to move manufacturing to Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand and other Southeast Asian nations, according to a separate announcement, which didn't provide details on the amount of compensation.

German States Ask Congress Not to Remove U.S. Troops.  The leaders of four German states wrote to Congress asking for a halt to Washington's troop withdrawal plan from the country, Reuters reported Sunday [7/19/2020].  The premiers of the four states — all of which have U.S. bases — addressed their letters to 13 members of Congress, including Sens. Mitt Romney (R., Utah) and Jim Inhofe (R., Okla.). Inhofe chairs the Armed Services Committee, while Romney is a leading member of the Foreign Relations Committee.

A long-needed conservative movie studio is being created to counter far-left Hollywood.  In the 2015 movie "Trumbo," top Hollywood scriptwriter Dalton Trumbo fights against the evils of a blacklist that prevents him from earning a living in the late 1940s and 1950s because of his membership in the Communist Party of the United States.  The plot of the film — based on a true story — could work for a documentary about Hollywood today, but with an important twist.  Now far-left and pro-Communist voices are celebrated.  The cancel culture has come for conservative and Christian voices.  And heaven help anyone in Hollywood who supports President Trump.  Actor Antonio Sabato Jr. is out to change that.

Federal Unit Behind Arrests In Portland Reportedly Identified.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) smeared federal law enforcement officials on Friday night while making false claims about the continuing violence and rioting in Portland, Oregon. [...] Pelosi's claim that the officials were "kidnapping protesters" in response to "graffiti" is wildly misleading.  The Washington Post documented one man who was arrested and the process that he went through, which resulted in his brief detainment and release.  "He was detained and searched," The Post said.  "One man asked him if he had any weapons; he did not.  They drove him to the federal courthouse and placed him in a holding cell."

Genocide in China ignored by most of the press.  China is running concentration camps and committing demographic genocide, but the media hardly care. [...] In northwestern China, as many as three million members of ethnic minority groups have been imprisoned in grim concentration camps.  Over one million of the imprisoned people are Uighurs, the largest minority group in China's Xinjiang province.  Torture is widespread in the concentration camps, and thousands have died in them.  Uighur cemeteries have been destroyed in a campaign some have called cultural genocide.  But many progressives think America is more racist than China.  Thus, they argue, it lacks any moral authority to criticize China's human-rights violations.

Ford is auditing 188,000 employees:  What it's asking.  Ford Motor Co. is currently "auditing" an estimated 188,000 salaried and hourly employees worldwide to see where the 117-year-old company stands on workplace attitudes about diversity.  The effort involves employees from the factory floor to executive suites in an aggressive attempt to address institutional bias and issues that may hinder employee performance, company officials confirmed to the Free Press.

New 'Unwoke' Job Website Lists Jobs for Regular Americans, Not Left Wing Activists.  A new job listings board created for the purpose of hiring workers and not activists has been met with a mixed reception following its recent release.  Unwoke.hr was unveiled to post job opportunities for discerning workers at a time where activism pervades practically all human resources departments of major corporations.

AG Barr:  China Waging 'Economic Blitzkrieg' to Replace U.S. as Top Superpower.  The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), under dictator Xi Jinping, has launched an aggressive, governmentwide, whole-of-society "economic blitzkrieg" to replace America as the globe's "preeminent superpower," U.S. Attorney General William Barr warned on Thursday [7/16/2020].  China's "predatory economic policies are succeeding," Barr conceded via written remarks prepared for delivery during a speech at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Michigan.

National Association of Police Organizations President:  Vote to Endorse Trump 'Overwhelming'.  On Wednesday's broadcast of the Fox Business Network's "Evening Edit," National Association of Police Organizations President (NAPO) Mick McHale discussed the group's endorsement of President Trump and stated that the endorsement was partially due to the "overwhelming vote of the majority of the associations who participated" and stated that while Trump addressed the organization's board, 2020 Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden did not take advantage of the same opportunity.  McHale said that the endorsement of Trump is the result of the association's endorsement process and the "overwhelming vote of the majority of the associations who participated."

Rabbi wounded in deadly California synagogue shooting pleads guilty to multi-million dollar tax scam.  The founder of a California synagogue at the center of deadly shooting in 2019 has pleaded guilty for his role in a multimillion-dollar scam, which aimed to disguise charitable contributions so that they can be used for personal gain.  Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, longtime leader of the Chabad of Poway synagogue, on Tuesday admitted to his role in the plot, involving tax, real estate, insurance and grant frauds. [...] According to prosecutors, Goldstein collected an estimated $6.2 million in fake donations for the synagogue only to return 90% to those who contributed along with phony receipts.  The remaining 10% he kept for himself, which in total is around $620,000.

NY Times Gushes Over Lefty Dixie Chicks: 'Witches Who Could Not Be Burned'.  The band formerly known as The Dixie Chicks made the front of the New York Times Sunday Styles with a full-page photo under the puffed-up headline "Still Fearless."  Inside was a two-page spread with posed photos, "A Sisterhood Skilled at Ignoring the Static."  The text box:  "Three women flourished in an industry that never really loved or defended them."  Fortunately for the "Chicks" (who recently ditched the "racist" part of their name but kept the "sexist" one) the gushing by the liberal press made up for it.  The online version came with the ironic headline, "The Chicks Are Done Caring What People Think."  So why did they just change their name?

Fifty-four scientists have lost their jobs as a result of NIH probe into foreign ties.  Some 54 scientists have resigned or been fired as a result of an ongoing investigation by the National Institutes of Health into the failure of NIH grantees to disclose financial ties to foreign governments.  For 93% of the 189 scientists whom NIH has investigated to date, China was the source of their undisclosed support.  The new numbers come from Michael Lauer, NIH's head of extramural research.  Lauer had previously provided some information on the scope of NIH's investigation, which had targeted 189 scientists at 87 institutions.  But his presentation today to a senior advisory panel offered by far the most detailed breakout of an effort NIH launched in August 2018 that has roiled the U.S. biomedical community, and resulted in criminal charges against some prominent researchers, including Charles Lieber, chair of Harvard University's department of chemistry and chemical biology.

Virus or Politics?  Houston Democrat Mayor Cancels Texas GOP Convention.  Houston's Democrat Mayor Sylvester Turner heaped praise on the recent George Floyd protests, which drew tens of thousands of people tightly packed into the city.  He even addressed the crowd.  Coronavirus was no problem, the protests were too important.  Yesterday [7/8/2020] Mayor Turner cancelled the Texas state Republican Party convention, which was to be held in Houston and would bring in a tiny fraction of the numbers of those who attended the Floyd protest.  The mayor's reason to cancel the Republican Party convention?  Coronavirus!  Is this really about public health, or is it something else?  [Video clip]

GOP Denied Convention Plan For Texas.  A Texas Supreme Court decision ruled that Huston [sic] is free to choose whether to host a GOP Convention, and that the party was prevented from forcing the city to agree.  The decision came out 7-1 with a majority in favor of Houston's right to choose on hosting the convention.  The GOP wanted a in-person event to take place in Huston [sic] this week, following a Democratic Convention online in June.  "The Party argues it has constitutional rights to hold a convention and engage in electoral activities, and that is unquestionably true," said the court's majority decision.  "But those rights do not allow it to simply commandeer use of the [George R. Brown Convention] Center."

The Editor says...
The Republican Party of Texas had a legally-binding contract with the convention center, so the word commandeer hardly seems appropriate.  The mayor canceled that contract at the last minute for purely political reasons.  No doubt this will all end up in the courts, months from now; but of course it will be too late then for any meaningful relief.

In politics, there are no coincidences.
Kansas GOP Rep charged with voter fraud just before primary debate.  Something truly bizarre happened last night in the runup to a GOP congressional primary debate in Kansas.  Republican Congressman Steve Watkins (KS-2) was preparing to take the stage against two primary opponents when he received some unexpected and potentially politically damaging news.  The District Attorney had just slapped him with four counts of voter fraud, including three felony charges.  That changed the tone of the debate, to say the least, as it immediately became the first question of the evening from the moderators.

Shamers lose it when Ted Cruz is 'captured' on a commercial flight drinking coffee with no mask.  A marketing and compliance official with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee snapped pics of Sen. Ted Cruz during a commercial flight Sunday [7/12/2020] in which the Texas Republican was seen not wearing a mask.

The Editor says...
If that's all you've got on Ted Cruz, you've got nothing.

American Airlines Investigating Photo of Ted Cruz Not Wearing a Mask on a Plane.  American Airlines has reached out to Senator Ted Cruz's (R-Texas) office after a photo began circulating online of the senator apparently not wearing a mask on one of its flights, according to The Hill.  The airline, which requires that all passengers keep masks on for the entirety of their flight duration, said that "we have reached out to Sen. Cruz to affirm the importance of this policy as part of our commitment to protecting the health and safety of the traveling public."  The statement came after a radical Democratic campaign operative tweeted a photo allegedly showing Cruz without a mask on.  The senator's office responded with a statement explaining that Cruz had taken his mask off to drink his coffee, which he can be seen holding in the photo.

Feds spent $1 trillion last month.  The federal government spent $1.1 trillion last month, shattering the record for the highest monthly spending ever, and sending the deficit soaring to $2.7 trillion so far this fiscal year, the Treasury Department reported Monday [7/13/2020] [.]  Before this year, the highest monthly total was $439.8 billion, spent last May.  But the last three months have easily topped that, totaling nearly $2.7 trillion in spending over just those three months along.  As recently as 2006, the government spent less than that in the entire year.

California tries the box and breakfast — a hotel made of shipping containers.  A winery in central California has opened a hotel for guests made from recycled shipping containers.  The quirky development offers a "luxury hospitality experience," according to the owners of the Geneseo Inn.  The eight-unit "box & breakfast," composed of 20 factory-built shipping containers, is situated on a scenic, 145-acre estate amid grapevines and rolling hills.  The rectangular suites, grouped in clusters around a sprawling 60-foot live oak tree, are set off the ground by steel frames, allowing overnighters to park their cars underneath their rooms.

Lindsey Graham says he'll grant Democrats' request for Mueller to testify before Senate.  Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday [7/12/2020] he will approve Democrats' request to invite Robert Mueller to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee after the former special counsel published an op-ed in The Washington Post criticizing President Donald Trump's decision to commute the prison sentence for Roger Stone.  "Apparently Mr. Mueller is willing — and also capable — of defending the Mueller investigation through an oped in the Washington Post," Graham wrote on Twitter.  "Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have previously requested Mr. Mueller appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify about his investigation."  "That request will be granted," he added.

Petition for election to recall Mayor Jenny Durkan can move forward, judge says.  A King County Superior Court judge has approved a petition [7/10/2020] for an election to recall Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, opening the door for a campaign that's gained steam over the last several weeks. [...] Once any recall petition is approved, signatures are needed to qualify for a special election ballot.  The petitioners must, within 180 days, collect valid signatures from a number of voters equal to 25% of the votes cast in the last election.  In this case, signatures from more than 50,000 Seattle voters would be needed.  The Durkan petitioners' recall effort, known online as the "Fire the Mayor" campaign, accuses the mayor of "endanger[ing] the peace and safety of the community" by allowing police to "leak false information about fabricated crimes and threats to the media" and issuing a citywide curfew without sufficient notice to the public.  The petitioners also accused Durkan of restricting certain property rights in downtown Seattle and Capitol Hill, the neighborhood where many of the protests took place.

Greyhound's Value Drops by $156M Due to Less Illegal Immigration to U.S..  The value of Greyhound Lines Inc., the intercity bus service company, has seen a drop in its value as a result of reductions to illegal immigration at the United States-Mexico border.  Executives with Greyhound's parent company, FirstGroup, told MarketWatch their value has dropped by about $156 million because of less migration across the southern border.  As Breitbart News has reported, President Trump's administration released tens of thousands of border crossers and illegal aliens into the U.S. every month.  Those foreign nationals would board Greyhound buses to travel to the interior of the country.

Goya 'buy-cott' begins as customers load up on product after Trump backlash.  Many took to social media to express their displeasure with Goya Foods CEO Robert Unanue after he praised President Trump at a White House event on Thursday, but others are flipping the narrative and calling for a Goya Foods "buy-cott."  "My brother came up with a terrific idea and I am encouraging all to join me in purchasing $10 worth of Goya Foods products and donating them to your local food bank," self-described "conservatarian" radio host Mike Opelka wrote on Twitter.  "Let's push a BUY-cott, not a boycott.  Let's show the #Goyaway people what compassion can do.["]  Opelka's post received 27,000 likes.

A Journalist's Escape From Socialist Venezuela, Part 1.  These articles document a Venezuelan journalist's struggle to flee the failing state and survive in a place where journalists are often under serious threat of bodily harm.  Some names have been changed in order to protect those involved.

'They are killing our nation': Goya Foods CEO slams growing boycott of his brand.  Goya Foods CEO Robert Unanue has doubled down on his support for Donald Trump saying 'we are with the president' and blasting protesters for 'killing our nation' amid the growing boycott of his family brand.  Unanue showered more praise on Trump in an interview with Fox News Friday, just one day after he spoke at an event in the White House Rose Garden where he told Americans they were 'truly blessed' to have a leader like him.  His comments sparked an instant backlash on social media and from some major political names including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Julian Castro, with calls mounting for a boycott of the popular food brand.

Body Cam Transcript Tells a Different Story on the Death of George Floyd.  The transcript from the body camera worn by J. Alexander Kueng shows clear evidence that George Floyd was suffering respiratory distress before police laid hands on him.  He died from a Fentanyl overdose, not from being choked out by Minneapolis police.  This news will not bring joy to the crazed, leftist mob screaming to lop off the heads of the Minneapolis police officers who stand accused of "murdering" George Floyd and little attention has been paid to the transcript since its release on July 7.  I hope to correct that oversight.  First a note about Officer J. Alexander Kueng.  He also is a black man.  He was adopted shortly after birth by a white woman and single mother.  Can't have that story out there.  Simply does not promote the meme that white Americans are inherently and irredeemably racist.

Ohio protester, 22, died of natural causes, not pepper spray: autopsy.  A 22-year-old Ohio woman who died two days after participating in a protest related to the death of George Floyd, died of natural causes — not from exposure to pepper spray, an autopsy determined.  Sarah Grossman, who took part in the May 28 protest in Columbus, had recently graduated from the Ohio State University, according to The Lantern, a campus newspaper.  The autopsy after her May 30 death in a hospital revealed she died from a tear in a coronary artery related to a pre-existing case of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, according to The Associated Press.

2 Texas police officers killed in ambush attack; suspect dead, authorities say.  Two police officers were killed in a Texas border town Saturday in what authorities described as an ambush shooting.  The gunman later killed himself after engaging in a shootout with other responding officers, The Monitor of McAllen, Texas, reported.

How have Iran's intelligence forces broken down in face of explosions?  Iran is facing a total intelligence breakdown.  With another explosion on Thursday night, reportedly at an Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps facility, the question is not only how anyone has pulled off up to seven attacks in around two weeks, but how has the Islamic Republic repeatedly failed to stop them.

Professor charged over scheme to use $4M in US grant money to conduct research for China.  An Ohio State University professor with ties to China is charged with using more than $4 million in U.S. grant money to develop rheumatology and immunology expertise for the Chinese government, according to an indictment unsealed Thursday [7/9/2020].  Song Guo Zheng, 57, was arrested on May 22 at an airport in Anchorage, Alaska while preparing to board a charter flight to China, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a press release.  At the time of his arrest, Zheng was carrying three large bags, filed electronic devices, expired Chinese passports for his family, deeds for a property in China, among other items, the DOJ said.

Black activist takes on Minn city council member for demolishing police: 'Utopia is a bunch of BS'.  A former police officer calling "B.S." on the Minneapolis city council's plan to dismantle the police department got a chance to confront a Councilmember directly.  Community violence-prevention advocates held an emergency news conference to denounce the push to dismantle the police department following deadly shootings in the area, demanding that citizens rise up against the threatened move.  Lisa Clemons, a former officer and a peace activist with "A Mother's Love" was speaking on the issue when Minneapolis City Councilmember Andrea Jenkins happened on the scene.

Ford employees ask if company should stop building police vehicles.  An estimated 100 employees of Ford Motor Co. have asked the automaker to reconsider building and selling police vehicles in light of controversy related to police brutality and social justice, the Free Press confirmed late Wednesday [7/8/2020].  The issue has been raised with Ford executives by employees during at least one virtual town hall and a series of letters sent to executives since the May 25 death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.  Over the past six weeks, civil rights protests have roiled the streets of Detroit and cities across the country as debate about police reform grows.  Auto executives and business leaders in Detroit have made headlines with calls for racial justice.

The Beginning of the End of Whites in South Africa.  And it's worse than any of us can imagine.  Eighty-four farm attacks since lockdown began, twelve white farmers slaughtered from their land.  The footage of the aftermath of one of the attacks circulating on Telegram and sent to me — too brutal to share.  Only monsters could do such things to the elderly in their own homes.  As many of us celebrated the 4th of July this weekend, there were three murders in two days, one of them so unspeakably cruel that even those hardened to the news of torture of farmers by black gangs have found themselves white-knuckled at the speed of the horror.

Five Guys Employees Fired After Refusing Service to Police Officers.  Multiple Five Guys employees have been fired or suspended from the Daphne, Alabama, location after they refused to serve members of the Daphne Police Department, according to a statement from the company.  Earlier this week, Alabama-based Yellowhammer News reported that three Daphne police officers were refused service when they entered the Five Guys restaurant in Alabama.

Pandemic accelerates the death of malls.  The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the closing of malls as people fear venturing into enclosed spaces and touching merchandise that has likely been handled by hundreds of other shoppers, according to an industry expert.  "COVID accelerated the migration to online [shopping], and it's accelerating the rationalization of the retail landscape, so, more stores will close within the next year or two, and more malls will come down in the next year or two," said Marie Driscoll, managing director, luxury and fashion, at Coresight Research, a retail advisory and research firm.

Supreme Court:  Eastern Oklahoma is American Indian territory.  The Supreme Court ruled Thursday [7/9/2020] that a large swath of eastern Oklahoma is actually an Indian reservation belonging to the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, meaning that hundreds of prosecutions could be tossed because the state does not have jurisdiction there, including in part of Tulsa.  The 5-4 decision notes that only federal prosecutors have jurisdiction over American Indians on the reservation, which includes most of Tulsa, the state's second-largest city.  Justice Neil M. Gorsuch joined the court's four liberal justices in the majority decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma.

NYPD limits retirement applications amid 400 percent surge this week.  New York's Finest are putting in for retirement faster than the NYPD can handle — while citing a lack of respect and the loss of overtime pay, The [New York] Post has learned.  A surge of city cops filing papers during the past week more than quadrupled last year's number — as the city grapples with a surge of shootings — and the stampede caused a bottleneck that's forcing others to delay putting in their papers, officials and sources said.  The NYPD said Wednesday that 179 cops filed for retirement between June 29 and Monday, an astounding 411-percent increase over the 35 who filed during the same time period in 2019.

Counterfeit $20 bill now part of George Floyd murder case.  The counterfeit $20 bill that cost George Floyd his life is now part of the murder case against the ex-Minneapolis cops charged in his death, according to court records made public Wednesday [7/8/2020].  The lawyer for accused former cop Thomas Lane said the crumpled bills found between the seats of Floyd's SUV put the officer on alert from the start after Floyd repeatedly reached down and ignored 10 requests to show his hand.  "From the initial interaction with Floyd and his vehicle, Lane noticed the driver and passenger in the vehicle digging underneath the seat, as if reaching for something," defense attorney Earl Gray said in a motion to dismiss charges against Lane which included photos of the bills.

Brooks Brothers Files For Bankruptcy After 202 Years Of Business.  Brooks Brothers, one of the United States' oldest and most prestigious retailers, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Wednesday after 202 years, CNBC reported.  The retailer, credited with dressing 40 U.S. presidents since its founding in 1818, had already been burdened with rising rent when it was devastated by the coronavirus pandemic, which sunk the company's potential sale, according to CNBC.  "Over the past year, Brooks Brothers' board, leadership team, and financial and legal advisors have been evaluating various strategic options to position the company for future success, including a potential sale of the business," a company spokesman said.

Kanye West To Run On 'Birthday Party' Ticket, Use 'Wakanda Management Model'.  Kanye West is running for president and the details of his bid for the White House are spectacular. [...] In his announcement, West said he's no longer a backer of President Donald Trump.  "I'm taking the red hat off," West told Forbes.  The reason?  "I don't like that I caught wind that he hid in the bunker," West said, referring to the time Secret Service agents took Trump to an underground safe room on May 29 amid violent riots near the White House[.]  (Trump later said he was there just to inspect the site).  But West is still a fan of the president.  "Trump is the closest president we've had in years to allowing God to still be part of the conversation," he said.

Kanye West: 'It's 'Racism and White Supremacy to Say All Black People Need to Be Democrat'.  Grammy-winning rapper and fashion mogul Kanye West ripped Joe Biden and declared that the Democratic Party has controlled black Americans to the point that "this white man can tell a black man if you don't vote for me, you're not Black."  "That is a form of racism and white supremacy and white control to say that all Black people need to be Democrat and to assume that me running is me splitting the vote.  All of that information is being charged up on social media platforms by Democrats," Kanye West said in a lengthy interview with Forbes magazine.  "And Democrats used to tell me, the same Democrats have threatened me....  The reason why this is the first day I registered to vote is because I was scared.  I was told that if I voted on Trump my music career would be over."

The Editor says...
Spoken like a man who thinks primarily of himself.

Big Tex hardest hit:
State Fair of Texas cancelled for first time since WWII due to coronavirus pandemic.  The 2020 State Fair of Texas has officially been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic — marking the first time since WWII that the annual event will not be held.  The decision was made Tuesday [7/7/2020] in a vote by the fair's board of directors.  "In the current climate of COVID-19, there is no feasible way for the Fair to put proper precautions in place while maintaining the Fair environment you know and love," board Chairwoman Gina Norris said.

The Editor says...
What a shame.  Where else can I go to enjoy a five-dollar corn dog, accompanied by a four-dollar drink?  Where else can I go to park my car in a high-crime neighborhood under the blazing Texas sun, for only $20?  Where else can I go to be aggressively approached by some nosy salesman wanting to sell me faster internet service?  Oh, wait — that salesman is at Wal-Mart, with a table set up next to the electronics department.

2020 State Fair of Texas Canceled Due to Ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic.  For just the eighth time in the fair's 134-year history, The State Fair of Texas is canceled for the upcoming season.  The fair made the announcement on their website Tuesday morning, citing the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as the reason.

FBI Director Wray says half of bureau's 5,000 counterintelligence cases are related to China.  FBI Director Christopher Wray on Tuesday warned Americans that the Chinese government's theft of American information is taking place on so large a scale, suspected incidents make up nearly half of his bureau's counterintelligence cases.  Speaking at an event hosted by the Hudson Institute in Washington, Wray said that Chinese thefts amount to "one of the largest transfers of wealth in human history," and that the American people are the victims.

Officer cleared after appearing to flash white power sign at Oregon protest.  The Oregon State Police on Sunday [7/5/2020] cleared a trooper who appeared to make a white power symbol during a Black Lives Matter protest in Salem, Oregon, over the weekend.  In a statement, authorities said the trooper made the gesture after seeing a skirmish during the event at the Oregon Capitol on Saturday.  He was checking on a man who had been knocked to the ground, police said.  Footage of the protest, which was streamed live on social media, shows a trooper observing counter-protesters during the demonstration.  The officer then walks towards one of the counter-protesters and flashes the "OK" hand gesture, which is used among extremist circles to signal "white power," according to the Anti Defamation League.  The counter-protester is then seen patting the officer on the back.  NBC News is not publishing or linking to the video to avoid providing a platform to apparent expressions of hate or white supremacy.

The Editor says...
If you re-define a harmless hand gesture that has been in use for many decades, you are to blame if someone misconstrues its use.  I had no idea, until a few months ago, that this gesture had been hijacked (mostly by the news media, since there aren't that many white supremacists) as some sort of hateful symbol.

Burgess Owens:  America Will See a 'Renaissance' with Trump Re-Elected, GOP House.  Utah congressional Republican candidate Burgess Owens told Breitbart News Saturday that America will see a "true renaissance" with President Donald Trump re-elected for a second term and a Republican majority in the House of Representatives.  Owens — a former Oakland Raiders safety and Super Bowl champion — recently won Utah's fourth congressional district primary.  The black conservative hopes to unseat freshman swing district Democrat Rep. Ben McAdams.

The Editor says...
Now is the time to build more prisons.  If the Democrats win, the prisons will be full of people who used to wear red MAGA hats.  If the Republicans win, they could be filled with rioters, looters, and other violent criminals, of which there is no shortage.

US population growth is driven ONLY by minorities with the white population declining for the first time in the nation's history.  Population growth in the United States has been driven only by minorities in the last decade, according to a new report.  Data analysis by Brookings suggests the last decade will also be the first in America's history where the white population declined in numbers.  Estimates released by the US Census Bureau ahead of the 2020 results show that last year, for the first time, more than 50 percent of those under 16 also identified as a racial or ethnic minority.

Amazon driver in Detroit quits job on Twitter, leaves package-filled van with keys in the ignition.  Here's why he did it.  Among the grievances that led [Derick] Lancaster to quit:  He said he was late getting to his sister's recent graduation party because he was working, and he felt constant pressure to deliver more packages — and to do it faster.  Lancaster said after he left the van, he called a Lyft and went home, until he came to his senses hours later and returned to the gas station and waited for someone from Amazon to pick up the van.  He also got back on Twitter and posted a live video about why his job and mental health wasn't worth $15.50 an hour.  Since the pandemic began, Amazon workers nationwide have called out sick in protest and held rallies to raise awareness about what they say are unsafe and harsh working conditions.

Home Depot removes spools of ropes from its shelves after customer started making nooses in stores.  The Home Depot has changed the way it displays rope for sale after nooses made from spooled rope were discovered in several of its stores, most recently last month in North Carolina.  The home improvement giant has removed giant spools of rope from every one of its US locations and has switched to selling pre-cut rope in lengths that are most commonly sold, Home Depot spokesperson Margaret Smith told DailyMail.com

CBO predicts V-shaped recovery, GDP growth to top 12% for rest of 2020.  The Congressional Budget Office is predicting the economy will come roaring out of the coronavirus recession with growth surging to 12.4% the rest of this year, before settling back into the longer-term trend of about half that.  Unemployment will peak at more than 14% but "fall quickly" as the economy rebounds later this year and into next year, the CBO said in its new update Thursday [7/2/2020]. But it will still be at nearly 6% in 2024, and through the end of the decade will never reach the historically low levels of just a few months ago, CBO said.

CNN Reporter Robbed at Knifepoint on Live TV.  It doesn't matter what part of the globe you're in — if you work for fake news CNN, bad things will find you.  That's what happened to CNN Brasil reporter Bruna Macedo, who was robbed at knifepoint during a live report in São Paolo on Saturday [6/27/2020].  Macedo was reporting on rising water levels at Bandeiras Bridge in São Paolo when a man in a hoodie was lurking around on camera behind the reporter.  It didn't take long for him to make his move.

Rich Hamptons residents rush to hire private security guards after protests.  With protesters descending on the Hamptons this summer, rich New Yorkers with second homes on the East End are looking for more protection than just their hedges.  Wealthy Hamptonites are rushing to hire security guards to keep them safe from the threat of unrest, The [New York] Post has learned.  Charlie McArdle, co-founder of CM Security Consulting, says business is booming in the moneyed enclave, and that he's gotten a flood of calls after Thursday's protests, which targeted the Hamptons homes of figures such as Mayor Mike Bloomberg, real estate mogul Stephen Ross and Blackstone CEO Steven Schwarzman.  "My clients range from the 1 percenters to people who are concerned about the political climate and what's going on today," McArdle said.

Wisconsin police officer fatally shoots black man allegedly wielding knives, family says race played role.  A black man was shot a killed by a Wisconsin police officer Thursday [7/2/2020] after authorities say he chased a woman with a pair of knives and then advanced on the officer.  Family members of Kevan Ruffin, 32, said he had psychiatric issues but believe his race played a role in the shooting.  Sheboygan, Wis., Police Chief, Christopher Domagalski said police officers responded to a call that a man was chasing a women with "sai-style" kitchen knives at around 5:50 a.m.

Broadcasting legend Hugh Downs dead at 99.  Broadcasting legend Hugh Downs died at age 99 on Wednesday night [7/1/2020] surrounded by loved ones, according to CBS' Arizona affiliate.  Downs' historic career lasted over 60 years, with memorable work on "20/20," "Today" and "The Tonight Show."  He famously co-anchored "20/20" alongside Barbara Walters where the duo became beloved by millions.

Epstein 'sex slave' Virginia Giuffre, Alan Dershowitz both lose in new court ruling.  Attorneys for alleged Jeffrey Epstein "sex slave" Virginia Roberts Giuffre were ordered Wednesday [7/1/2020] to destroy evidence from her case against Ghislaine Maxwell — as lawyer Alan Dershowitz was also denied access to the potentially explosive information.  Manhattan federal Judge Loretta Preska said she was "troubled" to learn during oral arguments last week that Giuffre's lawyers, from the firm of Cooper & Kirk, had been given sealed records from her since-settled suit against Maxwell, who Giuffre claims recruited her to have sex with Epstein and his pals while she was underage.

New GOP Ad Issues Powerful Warning About Democrats Threatening American Culture.  On Wednesday, the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) released a powerful new ad warning about vandals and rioters destroying a key monument in American culture — the presidents on Mount Rushmore.  While the vandals are not likely to actually deface Mount Rushmore anytime soon, their iconoclastic movement has already targeted each of the four presidents on the monument — George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt.

Twitter alternative Parler faces growth obstacle:  Too few liberals.  The self-proclaimed "unbiased" platform Parler has the potential to become a mainstream platform, social media analysts say, but its one-sided political audience could stunt its growth.  "If Parler can't grow beyond its current conservative user base, it will be a trend that quickly fades.  It's going to need to get more diversified users and diversified content," social media marketing expert and Digital Trailblazer owner Todd Getts told the Washington Examiner.

The Editor says...
A one-sided audience might inhibit advertising sales, but otherwise, there is nothing to be gained by recruiting left-wing extremists to join the platform.

Bottles And Trash Thrown At NYPD Responding To Crimes.  This story is from the weekend, but I wanted to circle back to it as it seems to be emblematic of what's going on in New York City these days in terms of the ability of the police to maintain order in the Big Apple.  Early Sunday morning, the police were dispatched to a scene were gunfire was reported.  Upon arriving at the Harlem neighborhood where the report originated, they were greeted by the sight of hundreds of people having some sort of party in the streets.  But rather than helping the officers look for any possible shooter in the vicinity, dozens of partygoers began pelting the police cruisers with rocks, bottles and garbage.  The cops were so badly outnumbered that there was virtually nothing they could do to address the original report.

Knoxville police regain access to computer system following ransomware attack.  The Knoxville Police Department regained use of its in-car computers more than two weeks after a ransomware attack shuttered the reporting system the officers use.  KPD previously announced officers would not respond to car crashes unless they involved injury or a disabled vehicle blocking traffic because they couldn't access their electronic reporting system.

Trump congratulates Boebert for win in Colorado primary.  President Trump congratulated Lauren Boebert late Tuesday night after the pro-gun businesswoman defeated Rep. Scott Tipton, who represented his Colorado district for five terms in Congress.  "Congratulations on a really great win!" Trump tweeted.  Trump's tweet linked to a post from her Twitter account from back in May where she described herself as a tough fighter against socialism and advocate for the Second Amendment.

University of California SF pays ransomware hackers $1.14 million to salvage research.  The University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) has admitted to paying a partial ransom demand of $1.14 million to recover files locked down by a ransomware infection.  The university was struck on June 1, where malware was found in the UCSF School of Medicine's IT systems.  Administrators quickly attempted to isolate the infection and ringfence a number of systems that prevented the ransomware from traveling to the core UCSF network and causing further damage.  While the school says the cyberattack did not affect "our patient care delivery operations, overall campus network, or COVID-19 work," UCSF servers used by the school of medicine were encrypted.

China Is Buying Up Dozens of U.S. Commercial Airliners.  We Should Be Worried.  After years of aggression, broken promises and falsehoods, most recently about the coronavirus outbreak, the Chinese government has finally begun to face the consequences of its misconduct.  On behalf of industries that range from technology to pharmaceuticals, the United States is fighting back against the Chinese.  Why then is it looking the other way as Chinese companies buy up the commercial aircraft that Americans fly?

Black cop charged in George Floyd's death joined force to stop discrimination.  The black officer charged in the death of George Floyd had joined the force to protect other young black men from police abuse, arguing more cops like himself could change the Minneapolis force.  Now J. Alexander Kueng is being denounced by members of his own family.  Kueng's mission to change the reputation of the department was rooted in seeing friends — even a sister, Taylor Kueng — treated badly by law enforcement officers, the New York Times reported.  Still, Kueng defended authorities, including the sheriff's deputies who arrested his sibling, telling his friends and relatives the best way to fix the department was from within, not by public demonstrations.

Comey miniseries gets pre-election airdate, after director pleads for chance to sway voters.  Showtime miniseries based on former FBI Director James Comey's memoir has been rescheduled to debut before Election Day, after its creator made an emotional plea for a chance to sway presidential voters.  Billy Ray, who wrote and directed "The Comey Rule," recoiled after learning Showtime originally planned to debut it in late November.  Ray wrote an angry letter to his cast and crew about the post-election date obtained by Deadline.com.  The note suggests a collective agenda behind the project:  ["]I know what a disappointment this is to you.  It is for me too — because while I've made movies about my country before, this was the first time I ever made a movie for my country.  We all were hoping to get this story in front of the American people months before the coming election. [..."]

Disney to retheme Splash Mountain in Orlando and California to Princess and the Frog.  Disney will retheme Splash Mountain to its only film to feature a Black princess, The Princess and the Frog.  Disney announced Thursday [6/25/2020] that the ride — currently themed to a film some Disney fans say is the company's most racist, "Song of the South" — will get a makeover at both Walt Disney World in Orlando and Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif.

Army ditches officer promotion photos to combat bias, says strength 'comes from our diversity'.  The U.S. Army says its time to ditch photos in officer promotion board packages as a way guaranteeing a diverse racial aesthetic.  The move, which will go into effect Aug. 1, was confirmed by Military.com on Thursday and comes shortly after the creation of the "Defense Board on Diversity and Inclusion."  "The strength of our Army comes from our diversity," leaders wrote in a memo obtained by the defense website.  "Developing and maintaining qualified and demographically diverse leadership is critical for mission effectiveness and is essential to national security."

The Editor says...
Exactly the opposite is true.  The strength of the Army comes from uniformity, not diversity.  Diversity adds nothing but confusion.  Just ask anyone who worked on the Tower of Babel.

US puts sanctions on 5 Iranian ship captains for bringing oil to Venezuela.  The United States on Wednesday imposed sanctions on five Iranian ship captains who delivered oil to Venezuela, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reaffirmed Washington's backing for Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido.  Speaking at a news conference, Pompeo said the ships delivered about 1.5 million barrels of Iranian gasoline and related components, and warned mariners against doing business with the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whose ouster Washington seeks.

GOP Lawmaker Forces DOJ Whistleblower To Admit He Sought Job With Democrats During Trump Impeachment.  A Justice Department official turned whistleblower appeared caught off-guard Wednesday when Republican Rep. Doug Collins pressed him in a House Judiciary Committee hearing about his efforts in 2019 to work for House Democrats during the Trump impeachment saga.  John Elias, a chief of staff to the Justice Department's assistant attorney general in the antitrust division, reluctantly conceded at the hearing that he sought a position on the Democratic side of the House Judiciary Committee.  Elias was one of three witnesses who accused Attorney General William Barr of abuse of his authority at the Judiciary hearing.

Black citizens chase punk robbing old white man, make him give money back.  While you would be hard-pressed to believe it watching cable news these days, there really are two Americas.  There is the version portrayed nightly on your TV and computer screens, by a liberal media fully invested in a racially-divisive narrative ahead of the presidential election, and there is the America most of us live in.  An example of the latter world was captured in a video making the rounds on social media, featuring a black woman and her brother chasing down a younger black man, who appears to have just robbed an old white man.

We Appear to Have the Winner of the 'Most Conservative District' in New York.  State Senator Chris Jacobs declared victory Tuesday night in the special election for New York's 27th congressional district, held to replace former Rep. Chris Collins (R) after his resignation following insider trading charges.  NY-27 has been classified as the "most conservative district" in the state of New York, so there were plenty of eyes on this one.  In his win, Jacobs defeated attorney Beth Parlato, Erie County Comptroller Stefan Mychajliw, and the lone Democratic candidate Nate McMurray.  McMurray has yet to concede, but Jacobs's team says there's no way, even with absentee ballots, that the Democrat can make up the deficit.  President Trump endorsed Jacobs, touting him as a congressman who would be strong on many of the issues conservatives care about.

Assistant principal at Staten Island high school is investigated after 'racist' rant on Facebook.  The New York City Department of Education has launched an investigation into a troubling Facebook post penned by an employee of a Staten Island high school.  Deborah Morse-Cunningham, who serves as the assistant principal of New Dorp High School, is still at work despite sharing a lengthy status update in which she pondered the nature of privilege by referring to a number of racial stereotypes.  'What is privilege?' Morse-Cunningham asked in the post, which has now been deleted.  'Privilege is wearing $200 sneakers when you've never had a job.  Privilege is wearing $300 Beats headphones while living on public assistance.  Privilege is living in public subsidized housing where you don't have a water bill, where rising property taxes and rents and energy costs have absolutely no effect on the amount of food you can put on your table.'

The Editor says...
How is that "a troubling Facebook post"?  What did she say that isn't true?

Whistleblower Claims Chinese Communists Pay Vatican $2 Billion in Bribes.  Exiled Chinese dissident Guo Wengui alleged this weekend the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) "allocates $2 billion a year" to pay off the Vatican for its silence concerning Chinese atrocities.  In a June 20th interview on The War Room, Mr. Guo said the CCP earmarks massive sums each year to win the allegiance of foreign countries including the Vatican, Italy, and Australia.  Among them, the Vatican receives up to 2 billion dollars from the Chinese Communist Party every year, he said.

Due to Seattle's unrest, [a] billion-dollar investment firm [is] moving to Phoenix.  Coronavirus pandemic or not, an investment advisory company is leaving the cultural unrest in Seattle and moving its headquarters to Phoenix's Camelback Corridor. [...] [President and CEO Cole] Smead said that although taxes in Seattle are lower, candidate recruitment is harder and the cost of living within the city is more expensive than Phoenix.

Berman refused to criticize de Blasio over social distancing rules for religious gatherings, not protests: report.  Geoffrey Berman, the former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, refused to sign a letter criticizing New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) for okaying protests but not religious gatherings a day before Attorney General William Barr announced he would be replaced, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday [6/22/2020].  Justice Department supervisors asked both Berman and Eric Dreiband, the head of the agency's civil rights division, to sign the letter, but after a brief back-and-forth, Berman objected to its characterization of de Blasio's handling of the protests as a double standard and said signing the letter would hurt relations between the city and his office, the newspaper reported, citing people familiar with the matter.  The letter was never sent.  It is unclear whether the episode contributed to the Justice Department's removal of Berman.

Digital Yuan:  China's Plan to Topple the U.S. Dollar.  There are many qualified candidates for the title of second most consequential event of 2020, right after coronavirus and its associated worldwide economic implosion.  The global reach of the George Floyd protests comes to mind, as does the still-unfolding China-India clash in the Himalayas.  Perhaps North Korea or Iran will deliver another crisis unto the world.  Possibly more deserving than any of these, however, is China's planned rollout of its digital yuan, through which the Communist Party intends to upend the U.S.-led financial world order.

Hackers Doxxed More Than 200 Law Enforcement Agencies.  The hacker group known as "Distributed Denial of Secrets" on Friday released 10 years' worth of data from more than 200 law enforcement agencies across the nation.  The doxxing, being dubbed "BlueLeaks," includes "hundreds of thousands of documents," including "police and FBI reports, bulletins, guides, and more."  The documents are 269 [gigabytes].  The group's Twitter account stated the information is being released anonymously, but they took no part in actually obtaining it.  The release was done as protests and riots over the death of George Floyd continue across the nation.  DDOS co-founder Emma Best told Wired that people began sifting through the documents to learn more about how law enforcement is tracking and communicating with one another about the protests.

In Venezuela, 'Enforced Disappearance' Is Used by the Regime to Keep People In Line.  Earlier this week I wrote about the continued deterioration of democracy in Venezuela.  Specifically, the Maduro loyalists on Venezuela's Supreme Court announced they were handing control of two opposition parties to individuals who had previously left the parties and joined the Maduro regime.  Today a human rights group has published a report documenting how "politicallly-motivated detentions" have become a major tool of repression in Venezuela.

Facebook breaks [its] own free-speech policy over bogus 'symbol of hate' charge.  Facebook employees are apparently creating exceptions to CEO Mark Zuckerberg's vow to refrain from policing political speech:  On Thursday, the social-media giant took down a Trump-campaign ad — citing a preposterous rationale.  "We removed these posts and ads for violating our policy against organized hate," a Facebook spokesman said:  They showed a red, upside-down triangle similar to what Nazis used to classify political prisoners, so they violated the platform's ban on "using a hate group's symbol to identify political prisoners without the context that condemns or discusses the symbol."  Huh?  There are no political prisoners in question here.  And Team Trump was clearly condemning the symbol — which is indeed linked to antifa — because the ad included the words:  "STOP ANTIFA."  In any event, most Americans probably have no idea that the triangle is linked to either the Nazis or antifa.  Indeed, a campaign spokesman notes that Facebook itself "has an inverted red triangle emoji in use."

Hillsdale College Refuses To Bow To The Totalitarian Mob.  The nationally recognized liberal arts institution Hillsdale College has a history of defying political pressure in order to uphold what is good and true.  Its recent refusal to give in to the demands of those who think a public statement is necessary to fight social injustice is just the most recent example.  Some of the college's alumni publicly pushed their alma mater to comment on the recent controversies regarding the death of George Floyd and the ensuing protests and riots.  When a petition began circulating calling on the college to release a statement, arguing that its "silence" supported violence, the college responded in an open letter. [...] Hillsdale was founded by abolitionists in 1844 and has, since its inception, pledged to educate all students, "irrespective of nation, color, or sex."  Such strong anti-discrimination practices were viewed as fiercely radical at the time, and made Hillsdale among the first in the nation to grant education to black Americans and the second in the nation to provide four-year liberal arts degrees to women.

In a world of sheep-like conformity, Hillsdale College takes a stand.  [Scroll down]  In the 20th century, as myriad colleges gave up their intellectual independence chasing after state and federal money (and, it seems, Chinese money), Hillsdale refused to do so.  As it has since its founding, it depends entirely on private donations and tuition to meet its needs.  Hillsdale is also one of the few colleges in America that continues the classic inquiring tradition of a liberal education, rather than falling in line with academic leftism and mindless obedience.  In sum, Hillsdale is a bastion of intellectual liberty, founded on a moral and historic bedrock dedicated to the equal rights of all people, regardless of race or sex.  So, of course, people began insisting that it issue a statement supporting Black Lives Matter.

Canceled: Hispanic Man Loses Job Over 'White Power' Hand Gesture Accusation.  He Was Cracking His Knuckles.  The fanatical urge to purge and punish wrong-think is claiming scalps across the country, and one of its latest victims is a blue collar, Mexican-American worker in Southern California.  Via San Diego's NBC affiliate, this is yet another installment of weaponized political correctness harming innocent people — as the practitioners of paranoid, irrational cancel culture run roughshod over any semblance of common sense, logic, or grace.  Everything about this is cartoonishly insane.

Sick, Twisted and Evil — Six eBay Executives Charged With Disturbing Cyberstalking.  This is so purposefully evil it almost seems unbelievable.  If you ever wondered how twisted and deranged a group of Silicon Valley executives could be this might provide some context.  This is what happens when Antifa-types get jobs.

Six Former eBay Employees Charged with Aggressive Cyberstalking Campaign Targeting Natick Couple.  Six former employees of eBay, Inc. have been charged with leading a cyberstalking campaign targeting the editor and publisher of a newsletter that eBay executives viewed as critical of the company.  The alleged harassment included sending the couple anonymous, threatening messages, disturbing deliveries — including a box of live cockroaches, a funeral wreath and a bloody pig mask — and conducting covert surveillance of the victims.

Feds take on Nigerian internet fraud, freeze assets of six scammers.  The Treasury Department said Tuesday that it has frozen the assets of six Nigerian scammers who targeted American businesses and widows for internet fraud, hoping the same financial tools used against terrorism and drug cartels can make a dent in email phishing scams.  Government officials called the sanctions an "extraordinary step" as the Justice Department announced fraud and identity theft indictments against the six men, all of whom are still at large.  Those announcements were made a day after federal prosecutors in Boston announced that they had arrested and charged two Nigerian men who they say are responsible for stealing coronavirus unemployment benefit money.

Aunt Jemima to remove image from packaging and rename brand.  The breakfast brand Aunt Jemima is removing its logo and will be renamed, amid public outcry that the branding perpetuated a racist stereotype, its parent company said Wednesday [6/17/2020].  Quaker Oats said in a statement that the longtime brand will remove the image of Aunt Jemima from its packaging starting at the end of 2020, and the name change will happen at a later date. [...] Quaker Oats, a subsidiary of PepsiCo, owns the Aunt Jemima brand, which has been around for more than 130 years.

The Editor says...
This is better than a caption contest.  Stand by for a whole series of memes featuring insensitive and politically incorrect new names for this product, as well as some innovative packaging ideas all over the internet.

Beverly Hills tells BLM protesters to scram; gatherings limited to 10 at night for 'tranquility'.  The wealthy stars in Beverly Hills support large Black Lives Matter protests — provided they're held elsewhere.  The city issued an ban on any gatherings over 10 people after 9 p.m. until further notice to "preserve peace and tranquility."

Panic In Beverly Hills:  Emergency Order Bans Protests In Residential Areas.  The rich and famous are all about protesting and declaring themselves down with the struggle until protesters forget their place and invade residential areas of Beverly Hills.  Then the masks drop.  It's the ultimate Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) — the City of Beverly Hills issued an emergency order Saturday night [6/13/2020] that bans public gatherings of more than 10 people in residential areas between 9 PM and 8 AM.  What brought this on?  Well, it seems a group calling themselves "Occupy" disrupted the beauty sleep of locals in their posh neighborhood on June 12 between the hours of 10 PM until 1 AM.  The group used bullhorns and "amplified music".  The residents want their tranquility back.  The emergency order remains in effect until further notice.

Disney Mum on Splash Mountain Outcry.  There is a growing call for Disney to rebrand one of its classic rides, which is intertwined with arguably the company's most controversial film.  Amid the ongoing worldwide anti-racism protests in the wake of the May 25 killing of George Floyd, a number of discussions have taken place about previously accepted symbols of historical division in America.  There have been some direct results from the renewed outcry, such as NASCAR banning the use of the Confederate flag at races and the country band Lady Antebellum renaming itself "Lady A."  Disney has found itself in the middle of the debate due to Splash Mountain, the ride featured at a number of its theme parks, including Walt Disney World and Disneyland.  The ride features characters from the 1946 film Song of the South, a movie so overtly out-of-touch and racist, Disney chairman and former CEO Bob Iger made it a point to note the film would never be available for purchase or made to stream on Disney+.  (Vintage VHS copies are going for north of $100 on eBay).

NYPD investigating whether three cops were served poisoned milkshakes at downtown Manhattan Shake Shack.  Three police officers fell ill Monday after drinking milkshakes at a Manhattan Shake Shack, and the NYPD was investigating if they were poisoned with bleach.  The officers ordered a meal at the burger chain's location at Broadway and Fulton St. at about 8:30 p.m. and noticed their shakes tasted strange, police sources said.  One of the officers noticed a "clump of something" in one of their cups, and a second cop smelled bleach before all three fell ill, sources said.

NYPD officers taken to hospital after drinking milk shakes at Shake Shack: cops.  Three NYPD police officers were taken to the hospital on Monday night after drinking milkshakes at a Shake Shack in the city that they said had an unfamiliar taste, police officials told Fox News.  It was later determined that there was "no criminality" after police investigated the scene.  "After a thorough investigation by the NYPD's Manhattan South investigators, it has been determined that there was no criminality by shake shack's employees," Chief Rodney Harrison, the head of detectives for the department, announced on Twitter.

Update / opposing viewpoint:
Oops: Four NYPD Officers Poisoned At Restaurant — By Accident.  Detectives determined that the employees failed to properly rinse the milkshake machines after cleaning them as usual with a bleach solution, CNN reported shortly afterward. [...] It was just random chance, therefore, that the first customers who ordered milkshakes turned out to be cops.

The Editor says...
Even if this explanation is true, the cops could still sue the restaurant.

NYPD Cops 'Intentionally Poisoned' With Bleach In Drinks From Shake Shack.  After an investigation, the NYPD says there is no criminality involved, suggesting the drinks were poisoned by accident.  "NYPD finds no criminality by Shake Shack workers in case of sickened cops," remarked John Cardillo.  "Well this is odd as most places don't bleach paper cups.  I guess the bleach jumped into the milkshakes on its own."

Shake Shack 'Horrified' NYPD Cops' Drinks May Have Had Bleach.  Three NYPD officers were sickened by a cleaning solution that was left in the drink machine their milkshakes came from when they dined at a Shake Shack in Lower Manhattan Monday night, police said.  After a thorough investigation, the NYPD said it found no criminality by Shake Shack's employees, according to Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison.  The three cops from the Bronx were assigned to watch over protests in Manhattan and they went into the burger chain at Fulton Center around 8:30 p.m., according to the union.  After eating their meals and drinking some of their milkshakes, the officers discovered some toxic substance in their beverages, the union said.

Update:
Update: NYPD Denies that Officers [were] Poisoned at Shake Shack.  NYPD Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison declares that an investigation of the incident did not find evidence of a crime from any Shake Shack employees.

The Editor says...
How did this story gain so much traction so quickly?  Because it is 100 percent believable, at a time when anti-police demonstrations are underway in major cities.  If I were a cop, I'd be extremely suspicious of the employees in every restaurant.

Insanity at the Poetry Foundation.  You may not pay much attention to the Poetry Foundation, possibly because you are under the impression that, as the modesty of its name and goals imply, it is a struggling little outfit.  Perhaps you picture a staff of a few miserable editors working in some backroom in threadbare cardigans, warming their hands over the only heat they can afford, which is generated by setting fire to their own rejected manuscripts.  The Poetry Foundation is, however, more like the Palace of Versailles of cultural nonprofits.  Its endowment is fat with a quarter of a billion dollars of assets, according to the New York Times, thanks to the generosity of the late pharmaceutical heiress Ruth Lilly, who gave the Chicago foundation $100 million in 2002 before her death in 2009.  Those who would like to transfer this fortune from the Poetry Foundation to their own bank accounts are using the favored tool of the day, which is to issue a thundering race-based denunciation.  As usual, this tactic is working well.

The Editor says...
I had never heard of the Poetry Foundation until now, and now that I've heard of it, I can't imagine what this organization does that requires so much money.

Florida police chief takes a knee, loses his SWAT team.  Is there anything more pathetic than a leader whose charges have all simply walked away?  Hard to look big and powerful when that happens.  That's the pretty picture in Hallandale Beach, where the entire SWAT team resigned after the police chief and members of his command staff took a knee in religious obeisance to the Black Lives Matter anti-police activist group.

Entire SWAT Team in Florida City Resigns in Response to Police Chief Kneeling with Black Lives Matter Protesters.  An entire SWAT team in Hallandale Beach, Florida resigned on Friday in response to Police Chief Sonia Quinones kneeling with Black Lives Matter protesters.  The police chief scheduled a meeting for Monday [6/15/2020] with the officers who resigned to hear their complaints.  In a memo, the SWAT officers said in addition to being under trained and minimally equipped, they were outraged to see the police chief kneeling with political activists.

Cops to America:  You won't have to abolish police, we're outta here.  Mike O'Meara, the president of the New York State Police Benevolent Association, is not the only cop fed up and exasperated with mainstream America's incessant demonization of all law enforcement officers.  Not by a long shot.  So is Travis Yates, a 27-year Tulsa cop who "grew up in a law enforcement family" but is now warning of an incoming police exodus.  In a powerful, nearly 1500-word long column published last week at LawOfficer.com, Yates poured his heart out over the growing disrespect for law enforcement that he's seen as the decades have progressed.

Truck Drivers Say They Will Not Deliver to Dangerous Far Left Cities with Defunded Police Departments.  77% of truck drivers say they will not deliver to far left cities with defunded police departments.  Nor should they.  Truck driving is a dangerous profession.  Far left mayors and violent rioters make it deadly.  Here's a scene from a "peaceful protest" last week that did not end well for the trucker.  The mob yanked him from his cab and beat him senseless.  [Video clip]

State to relitigate Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby abortion decision.  The state of Illinois apparently has decided to relitigate the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision, which concluded the First Amendment prevents the government from ordering religious believers to violate their conscience by requiring them to pay for abortion.  In response, the Thomas More Society is suing the state "to challenge a law requiring all health insurance policies sold in the state to provide coverage for elective chemical and surgical abortions, with no exemptions, even for churches."

A New Silent Majority Is Coming.  Led by a media that is at once delusional and cynical — an eye-rolling combination — America is in the throes of a national madness.  Few are able to tell the truth — and when they do, they are attacked by the mob, not only in the street, but in the board room.  Just the other day, talk show host Tucker Carlson opened his mouth about the well-documented dishonest origins (the lie about Michael Brown) of Black Lives Matter and sent advertisers skittering like so many scared rabbits.  You have the sensation that people across the country are hiding what they really think for fear of repercussions, retribution that will destroy their lives and livelihood.  And they're not being stupid.  It could — and has.

Twitter removes 170,000 accounts associated with Chinese misinformation campaigns.  Twitter announced Thursday [6/11/2020] that it deleted more than 170,000 accounts associated with Chinse state-linked misinformation campaigns.  The social media company published an archive of 32,242 accounts related to state-linked information operations including three attributed to China, Russia and Turkey, adding that data from the accounts was shared with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and Stanford Internet Observatory.

Cancel culture goes crazy, claiming classics, cartoons and the confederacy.  All right, this time they've gone too far.  As part of a sweeping reassessment of all things either favorable to the police or upsetting to the black community, the latest target is "Paw Patrol."  That's right.  No less an authority than the New York Times informs us that the Nick Jr. cartoon — featuring a squad of canines running around helping other creatures — is too positive toward the cops.  After the show tweeted an appeal for black voices to be heard, the commenters started growling:  "Defund the paw patrol."  "Euthanize the police dog."  "All dogs go to heaven, except the class traitors in the Paw Patrol."

Black Lives Matter Website, 'Defund The Police' Donations Go to 'Act Blue', The 'Biden For President' Campaign's Top Source of Donations.  The National Pulse can reveal the Black Lives Matter website — the organization spearheading nationwide "defund the police" campaigns — is partnered with ActBlue, a Democrat fundraising platform that is the top donor to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, responsible for raising nearly 99.64 percent of the Biden for President effort.  While the Biden campaign insists it doesn't support efforts to defund the police, it may happily profit from Black Lives Matter (BLM) efforts, and is complicit in taking money from an organization partnered with those spearheading the dangerous policy that has already taken root in Minneapolis, New York, and Los Angeles.

BUSTED! DNC Gets Caught Laundering Money Through Black Lives Matter.  The Democratic National Committee and the Democrats are really as corrupt as they come.  It is absolutely unreal what they get away with.  Last year, we learned about a lot of overseas donations from foreign entities to Democrats including former presidential candidates such as Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and Adam Schiff, but ther were a number of others as well.  It appears as though the BlackLivesMatter.com website that it is an international money laundering scheme and a front for the DNC to generate money from people across the world.

Merriam-Webster To Change Dictionary Definition of "Racism" to Show Only White People are Racist.  The root of the issue here is how to define racism.  Racism, obviously, means disliking another race, viewing it as 'bad'.  That's a definition that black nationalists and their leftist allies really hate because it raises the possibility that Farrakhan, Sharpton, or Tamika Mallory can be racist.  Instead they define racism as a system of oppression so that only people with power can be racist and only white people have power.  Therefore Farrakhan can't possibly be racist.  This wasn't a fringe idea.  Obama was one of the more prominent figures who implicitly championed it The usual tell for someone who is pushing this is their use of "reverse racism" to refer to racism by minorities, all the while insisting that reverse racism doesn't exist.  Now in the dumpster fire of 2020, Merriam-Webster will be redefining racism.

Leaked 2015 Democrat Memo Warned Lawmakers 'Don't Offer Support' for 'Radical' Black Lives Matter.  A leaked 2015 internal Democrat Party memo warned top House Democrats not to embrace the Black Lives Matter movement because it was described by the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) as a "radical movement."  The memo, from then-DCCC official Troy Perry addressed to "DCCC Staff" on Thursday Nov. 19, 2015, noted that the Democrats' 2016 presidential candidates "have struggled to respond to tactics of the Black Lives Matter movement."  Perry was at the time he wrote this the DCCC's Director of Diversity and Public Engagement. [...] Perry warned recipients of his memo in the next line that it was top secret and confidential — not to be shared with anyone.  "This document should not be emailed or handed to anyone outside of the building," he wrote.  "Please only give campaign staff these best practices in meetings or over the phone."

Cox slows an entire neighborhood's internet after one person's 'excessive use'.  Cable company Cox Communications is slowing internet speeds of a whole neighborhood if one resident is a heavy user, Ars Technica reported.  Cox confirmed that it does enact neighborhood-wide slowdowns to discourage what it calls "excessive use," but didn't specify how many users it would take for this to happen.  One Florida customer said he was warned about his data usage before Cox responded by slowing upload speeds on his gigabyte internet plan with unlimited data from 35 Mbps to 10 Mbps for the customer and all of his neighbors.

'Cops' canceled amid George Floyd protests.  The long-running reality-TV show "Cops" has been canceled, a casualty of the George Floyd protests.  The show, which began in 1989, was pulled from the schedule of the Paramount Network several days ago, and Tuesday [6/9/2020] the network said it won't be coming back.  "'Cops' is not on the Paramount Network and we don't have any current or future plans for it to return," a Paramount Network spokesperson told Variety magazine in a statement.

Corcoran realtor fired for using photo of NYPD van on fire to sell homes.  A Corcoran realtor has been fired for trying to lure Big Apple home buyers to Florida — by using a photo of an NYPD van in flames during the recent George Floyd protests.  "Looking for Change?" South Florida agent Joseph Swedroe asked in an email blast — juxtaposing the engulfed cop vehicle with images of boating and sandy beaches in the Sunshine State, according to The Real Deal.  His email asked potential buyers if they wanted to live in "chaos or comfort," alluding to violent clashes and looting that rocked the city during mass protests over Floyd's death, the real estate site said.  Swedroe — a licensed real estate agent since 2010 — insisted there was "nothing offensive" in his blast because "everything in the email was easily available online, or in the newspaper or on TV."

Petition language to recall Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer approved by state board.  The language in a petition to recall Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for the signing of nine of her executive orders during the COVID-19 pandemic has been approved by the Michigan Board of State Canvassers.  Albion resident Chad Baase, 39, was successful in his third attempt at coming up with "clear and factual" language to move forward with the recall petition process.  He and his group — the Committee to Recall Governor Gretchen Whitmer — must come up with more than 1 million signatures from registered voters in 60 days or less to trigger a recall election.

"We Effectively Have A Zimbabwe Fed" - John Williams Warns "The System Is Bankrupt".  While the country was distracted with the Covid-19 lockdown and economic crisis, the Federal Reserve made a huge banking requirement change never before done in history.  The Fed cut "...reserve requirement ratios to zero percent effective March 26, 2020.  This action eliminated reserve requirements for all depository institutions."  What does this profound change mean?

Stan Wischnowski resigns as The Philadelphia Inquirer's top editor.  Stan Wischnowski, the top editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, has announced his resignation, days after discontent among the newspaper's staff erupted over a headline on a column about the impact of the civil unrest following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. [...] It was the placement of an insensitive headline over Inga Saffron's column in the Tuesday [6/2/2020] newspaper that may have set the stage for Wischnowski's departure.  He joined the two other top editors in signing an apology to readers and staff, characterizing the headline, "Buildings Matter, Too," as "deeply offensive" and apologizing for it.

Alamance County speedway breaks state's restrictions again, draws more than 2,000 in 'protest against inequality, injustice'.  A North Carolina speedway drew a crowd of more than 2,000 spectators in defiance of the state's coronavirus restrictions after declaring the race a "protest."  The governor's office had warned Ace Speedway that a crowd of more than 25 would violate the state's Phase 2 coronavirus restrictions.  But news outlets report that more than 2,000 attended a race Saturday night.

Boris Johnson's excellent answer to Beijing's move on Hong Kong's freedom.  Cheers to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson for offering millions of Hong Kongers visas and a path to UK citizenship if Beijing goes ahead with its horrible new "security law." [...] London is in no position to stop the massive treaty violation.  But Johnson's riposte will still wound:  If the law goes ahead, he says, he'll offer visas and potential citizenship to all 3 million Hong Kongers who qualify for British National (Overseas) passports, not just the 300,000 who now hold them.

The Great Diamond Glut:  Miners Stuck With Gems Worth Billions.  In one of the world's biggest diamond vaults, hidden inside a nondescript office compound on the dusty outskirts of Botswana's capital, the precious stones just keep piling up.  Owner De Beers, which mines and auctions most of its gems in the southern African nation, has barely sold any rough diamonds since February.  Neither has Russian rival Alrosa PJSC.  Now, as the coronavirus restrictions that froze the global industry for months begin to lift, the unsold diamonds present a dilemma:  how to reduce billions of dollars' worth of stocks without undermining the nascent recovery.  The pandemic has devastated the diamond world.  Jewelry stores closed their doors, India's cutting and polishing artisans were forced to stay home and De Beers had to cancel its March sale because buyers couldn't travel to view the merchandise. [...] The five biggest producers are probably sitting on excess inventories worth about $3.5 billion, according to Gemdax, a specialist advisory firm.

The Editor says...
Diamonds are just minerals, and in some parts of the world they are not especially rare.  If the American consumer were to realize this, the price of diamonds would drop ... like a stone.

Looney Tunes remake will see Elmer Fudd without his rifle as creators declare 'we're not doing guns'.  Warner Bros has commissioned a new animation series featuring the classic characters, including Bugs Bunny, which sticks close to the spirit of the originals. [...] In response to US gun violence, the showrunners will not include firearms in Fudd's arsenal.  That is not to say that he has given up hunting Bugs Bunny, though — he just uses a scythe instead.

The Editor says...
[#1] Elmer Fudd never carried a rifle.  [#2] The depictions of firearm misuse in cartoons had no effect on violent crime in America in the 1940's and 1950's, when the cartoons were so violent that many of them can't be shown on television any more.  [#3] The Warner Brothers cartoons started going downhill about 1960, and really hit the skids when computer animation took over from hand-drawn works of art.

Antifa Reportedly Chased Out of Town by Hell's Angels Biker Gang.  According to various reports on social media, several biker gangs coalesced to prevent an Antifa demonstration from taking place in Placerville, California. [...] A tweet containing a Facebook post from the small California town telling how the infamous Hell's Angels united with other gangs to reportedly repel an Antifa demonstration.  The tweet reads:  "ANTIFA has threatened the town of Placerville, CA.  They said if anyone stands in their way "there will be consequences."  So Hell's Angels and the Mongols biker gangs have accepted the challenge !

'I Only Kneel For One Person': Black Georgia State Trooper Refuses To Kneel At Black Lives Matter Protest.  A Georgia law enforcement officer refused to kneel for protesters at a Black Lives Matter rally in Hartwell, Georgia on Sunday [6/7/2020].  Instead, Georgia State Trooper O'Neal Saddler was recorded telling a female protester that he only kneels "for one person, and that's God."  The video, which was first posted to Facebook by Ni'Rubyan Photography, was shared Saturday on Twitter by Students for Trump President Ryan Fournier.

Black Georgia state trooper refuses to kneel at a Black Lives Matter protest: 'I only kneel for one person'.  Georgia State Trooper O'Neal Saddler refused to kneel during a Black Lives Matter protest in Hartwell, Georgia, on Sunday, saying he "has much respect" but only kneels "for one person."  Video was rolling after Saddler had apparently been asked by a protester to kneel during the demonstration out of respect for the black community.  "If I didn't have any respect, I wouldn't [be here]," Saddler began saying to a female protester.  "I was supposed to be out of town this weekend with my wife.  I took off today, this weekend, but I'm out here to make sure y'all are safe."  "Don't go there with respect, OK? I have much respect, but I only kneel for one person," Saddler continued.

Poll: 56% Of Americans Believe Police Are Behaving Appropriately Or Not Being Aggressive Enough.  A new NPR-Marist poll found that 56% of Americans believe that the police are behaving appropriately or not being aggressive enough during the nationwide demonstrations after George Floyd's death.  The survey, which was conducted Tuesday through Wednesday, asked 1,062 American adults about police behavior in relation to the protests about George Floyd's death with a margin of error of +/- 4 percentage points.

Trump retweets video of Candace Owens attacking George Floyd.  President Trump retweeted a video Friday of right-wing commentators Glenn Beck and Candace Owens attacking the reputation of George Floyd.  "The fact that he has been held up as a martyr sickens me," Owens told Beck in the footage.  "George Floyd was not a good person."  As mass protests rocked the nation for yet another day, the Trump retweet amplified the message to a worldwide audience and his 81.8 million Twitter followers.  Beck and Owens then delved into Floyd's lengthy criminal record, which included time behind bars.  Floyd's autopsy report revealed he had both fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system at the time of his death.

AMC theater chain warns it may not survive.  Back in mid-March, Regal Theaters announced they would be closing down operations because of the coronavirus and I was worried that it could be the end for some chains.  Today [6/3/2020], AMC Theaters, the nation's largest chain announced that it might not survive if shutdowns continue for much longer.  All of AMC's theaters are shut down through June, which means the company isn't generating any revenue.

A Dark Day for Freedom of Expression.  It's been a terrible 48 hours for Americans who believe in freedom of speech. [...] [F]irst a note about Alex Berenson.  He is the former New York Times reporter who has been highly critical of the lockdown policy employed by most places to slow the spread of coronavirus.  Berenson's lockdown critique was sober and data-based — and deeply unpopular among advocates of extending lockdowns far into the future.  So Berenson put his work into book form.  And then, on Thursday, he got a message from Amazon, telling him the online giant would not be selling his book.  "Your book does not comply with our guidelines," Amazon said.  "As a result we are not offering your book for sale."  Amazon went on to refer customers to "official sources" for information about coronavirus.  Amazon offered no further explanation.  It was censorship, pure and simple.  And then some prominent voices, notable among them tech mogul Elon Musk, began to protest.  "This is insane, @JeffBezos," Musk tweeted, addressing the head of Amazon.  "Time to break up Amazon.  Monopolies are wrong!"  And then — Presto! — Berenson's book was released from captivity, available from Amazon.

Autopsy report:  George Floyd died from cardiopulmonary arrest, was positive for COVID-19.  The family of George Floyd and the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office agreed to release the full autopsy report of George Floyd.  In the report, it is stated that Floyd died of cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint and neck compression.  Floyd had multiple blunt force injuries to his forehead, face and upper lip as well as cutaneous blunt force injuries of the shoulders, hands, elbows and legs.

The June 4 Tiananmen Square Massacre:  Five Truths That Still Aren't Widely Known.  Despite Hong Kong lighting up every evening on June 4 in an annual candlelight vigil to commemorate the victims of the massacre, Chinese mainlanders across the border are without such freedom of speech.  Talking about the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or even mentioning "June 4," or "6.4," could have one disappear.  In 2007, Zhang Zhongshun, a lecturer from Yantai University, showed his class a video of the massacre he obtained from an overseas website.  He was subsequently jailed for three years by Laishan City Court on Feb. 28, 2008.  "I imagined that the worst case would just be that the university president would criticize me in front of my colleagues in a meeting.  I would not have thought that the communist regime would imprison me," Zhang told The Epoch Times in an interview after his release from the detention.  "Is it illegal even if I include a historical event into my lecture?" he asked.  Who'd dare raise this for discussion in China knowing the consequences?

Who are the biggest holders of gold?  The U.S. Federal Reserve is the world's largest holder of gold, with 8,133.5 tonnes as of May 2020, accounting for 78.3 percent of its reserves, according to the International Monetary Fund and International Financial Statistics.  Germany was the second-largest gold hoarder at 3,362.2 tonnes, or 74.3 percent of reserves.  The International Monetary Fund has the third-largest gold stash at 2,814 tonnes.  The IMF holds the commodity for financial soundness and to help meet unforeseen contingencies.

Petition to impeach Mayor Bill de Blasio gains support amid protests.  Critics of Mayor Bill de Blasio are circulating an old, fanciful petition calling for his impeachment amid outrage over riots and lootings in the city during protests over the death of Minnesota resident George Floyd at the hands of the police.  The online Change.org petition — "Impeach de Blasio" — garnered more than 60,000 signatures and growing Tuesday night [6/2/2020]. Organizers are seeking 75,000 backers.  The petition was started last year but thousands signed onto the petition Tuesday as controversy raged over protests engulfing the city that have triggered clashes between participants and police officers and reports of vandalism and property damage of retail stores.  But critics are just venting their frustration.  De Blasio will not be impeached.  He is term-limited and will complete his term at the end of 2021.

George Floyd had 'violent criminal history': Minneapolis police union chief.  The head of the Minneapolis police union says George Floyd's "violent criminal history" needs to be remembered and that the protests over his death are the work of a "terrorist movement."  "What is not being told is the violent criminal history of George Floyd.  The media will not air this," police union president Bob Kroll told his members in a letter posted Monday on Twitter.  Floyd had landed five years behind bars in 2009 for an assault and robbery two years earlier, and before that, had been convicted of charges ranging from theft with a firearm to drugs, the Daily Mail reported.

The Editor says...
Regardless of his criminal record, Mr. Floyd did not deserve the treatment he got.

140 Republican Lawmakers Pile Onto Lawsuit Against Democrats Over Proxy Voting, File Injunctions On New Proxy Votes.  An additional 140 House Republicans have joined a lawsuit Friday filed earlier this week against Speaker Nancy Pelosi over new rules in the lower chamber allowing for proxy voting.  The suit was initially filed Tuesday by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy joined by 20 GOP lawmakers and four constituents on the eve of the first time members of the House have ever voted without being physically present, upending more than 200 years of precedent.

Chinese state media says US demonstrations are 'beautiful' as it hits back at American support for Hong Kong protests.  Chinese state and social media have been filled with reports highlighting the nationwide demonstrations against police brutality in the US and attacking American politicians who supported the Hong Kong protests.  State news agency Xinhua described the chaotic scenes as "Pelosi's beautiful landscape", a veiled reference to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's comments last year that the mass protests in Hong Kong were "a beautiful sight to behold".  State broadcaster CCTV on Saturday referred to the protest cities as "warzones" and produced round-the-clock updates and analyses highlighting the racial divide in the US.

As you hurl bricks and set fires...
Minneapolis mayor urges protesters to wear masks and practice social distancing.  The mayor of Minneapolis told individuals protesting that their anger is "understandable" and "right" but urged them to make sure they are wearing masks and practicing social distancing during their demonstrations.  "The City encourages everyone to exercise caution to stay safe while participating in demonstrations, including wearing masks and physical distancing as much as possible to prevent the spread of COVID-19," Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey's office wrote in a statement addressed to individuals who took to the streets following the death of George Floyd while in police custody.  "The City has made hundreds of masks available to protesters this week."

Twin Cities Situation Deteriorating as Keith Ellison Fans the Flames.  Twin Cities rioters and leftists are spreading a conspiracy theory: they claim that an agent provocateur, an undercover police officer, was the first to vandalize property in Minneapolis, and therefore the police are "really" responsible for the arson, looting, and so on now taking place.  This is absurd, of course.  But now Attorney General Keith Ellison, the state's chief law enforcement officer, has signed on with the far-left kooks:  [Tweet]

Trump supporters smeared — again — by the left, in Minnesota mayhem.  When Trump supporters say 'it's not about Trump, it's about us,' when the left howls about President Trump, they aren't kidding.  The Minnesota riots, brought on by a video of a bad instance of police brutality, have incited leftists to paint the perpetrating cop, Derek Chauvin, as a Trump supporter on social media, something they're spreading around:  [Tweets]  Here's the fact-check that isn't been seen on Twitter from its vaunted fact-checkers:  The claim is 100% fake.  100%  And I've looked around for Twitter's disclaimers about it and don't see any.

By all means, if you're going to loot a store, hit Whitey!
Sharpton Upset: 'Reckless' Rioters Are Destroying the Black-Owned Stores!  One might think that MSNBC might give Rev. Al Sharpton the day off when the hot topic is protesters burning down buildings.  In 1995, Sharpton's protest against the "white interloper" who ran Freddy's Fashion Mart in Harlem led to a fire where seven people died of smoke inhalation (and the arsonist shot himself).  Discussing the rioting in Minneapolis on today's [5/29/2020] Morning Joe, Al Sharpton began by telling protesters that the goal of a fair criminal justice system wouldn't be achieved by "appearing" to be criminal themselves.  He warned that people would "exploit" that.  A clearly upset Sharpton then said:  "As I walked around Minneapolis yesterday ... some of the stores that are being damaged are black-owned stores!  So we cannot become so reckless that we are destroying each other in our rage."

The Editor says...
I hope all the rioters are staying six feet apart from one another, because that's what's really important!  We want you brick-throwing Antifa anarchists to stay healthy!

Minneapolis Mayor Frey: 'Brick and mortar is not as important as life'.  Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey held a press conference early Friday morning ]5/29/2020] at City Hall.  Around 1:30 a.m., Frey addressed a city that is enduring escalating protests that have lasted for the past three days in response to the death of George Floyd.  Four Minneapolis Police officers were fired in the incident that happened Monday night.  Thursday night's protests accelerated in violence in comparison to the previous two, with the Minneapolis Police Department's 3rd Precinct set on fire, where all the fired officers were from.

CNN Crew Arrested by MN State Police Live on Air During Riot Coverage.  The Minnesota Governor has activated the National Guard and the state police have been deployed to try to control the situation.  But the state police may have just stoked the situation instead by arresting a CNN crew live on air.  Police claim that the crew didn't move out of the riot area when they were told.  The CNN crew said they were trying to be compliant with the police and that's what it appears like from the video.  But then they were arrested while the cameras rolled.  They arrested the reporter, Omar Jiminez on air, but also arrested the whole crew including the producer and the cameraman.  [Video clip]

Update:
CNN crew released after being arrested while reporting on Minneapolis protests.  Three members of a CNN crew have been released after being placed under arrest during a live report Friday morning [5/29/2020], according to the Minnesota State Patrol.  According to CNN, the crew was detained while giving a live report in Minneapolis just after 5 a.m.  Friday.  The CNN crew was covering protests over the death of George Floyd this week in Minneapolis.  The reporter at the scene who was placed under arrest told CNN he was holding his badge and identified himself as a reporter while reporting from the scene.  According to the crew at the scene, CNN reports, police told them they were detained because they were told to move and didn't.

Cuomo says NY businesses can deny entrance to those without masks.  New York businesses will have the right to deny entrance to those who refuse to wear a mask or other face covering under an executive order Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Thursday [5/28/2020].  "We're giving the store owners the right to say, 'If you're not wearing a mask, you can't come in,' " said Cuomo in a press briefing at the Madison Square Boys and Girls Club in Flatbush, Brooklyn.  "That store owner has a right to protect the other patrons in that store.  "You don't want to wear a mask?  Fine.  But you don't have a right to then go into that store if that store owner doesn't want you to."

The Editor says...
Consider what this means.  The store owners now have permission to deny entrance to certain people because of the way they're dressed.  This can be used in ways that have nothing to do with masks.  For example, some business owners don't like red MAGA hats.  Some don't like police officers and soldiers in uniform.  It's a can of worms.

China's Communist Regime Shows Its True Totalitarian Colors.  For years, Americans of all political stripes operated under the delusion that China, though nominally communist, was becoming more like the West every day.  Our massive, but one-sided, trade with the country would bring changes, we thought.  An inevitable consumer economy in China would expand, and bring with it ideas of freedom, human rights and democracy.  China would moderate its behavior, the argument went, perhaps eventually easing its military threats against Taiwan, and letting Hong Kong maintain its status as a free-trading city-state outside of Beijing's direct control.  That was our folly and our delusion, as we're now finding out.

Seattle Judge Tosses Suit That Tried to Gag Fox News Commentary.  A Seattle judge has dismissed a lawsuit from a little-known advocacy organization that hoped to bar Fox News Channel from transmitting its popular primetime opinion programs to its large cable-news audience.  The Washington state group known as the Washington League for Increased Transparency and Ethics, or WASHLITE, filed a suit in Superior Court of Washington State in April, calling for an injunction that would keep Fox News from "publishing further and false and deceptive content" about the coronavirus pandemic.  Several Fox News opinion hosts in prior weeks questioned the level of the coronavirus threat, with former Fox Business Network anchor Trish Regan losing her position at the company after hosting a segment with graphics that read "Coronavirus Impeachment Scam" while suggesting liberals were overstating the danger of the contagion.

Devin Nunes:  House Cannot Debate FISA Reauthorization When Democrats are Not Here.  Devin Nunes appears on Fox News daytime to discuss the pending FISA reauthorization bill from the Senate amid President Trump's request to expose corruption before legislation.  As Representative Nunes outlines there are only a handful of Democrats in Washington DC because they are planning all votes by proxy.

'COVID camper' sales surge before summer amid pandemic: report.  The future of travel remains uncertain amid the coronavirus pandemic, but the open road is alluring as ever.  Some RV dealers across the country say that sales are surging amid the ongoing outbreak of the novel coronavirus, Fox 59 reports, as cooped-up adventurers invest in what Bloomberg has dubbed "COVID campers" for road-trip getaways.  In Indiana, Mount Comfort RV owner Ken Eckstein said that RV sales are about triple what they were last year.

The Editor says...
Consider the possibility that FEMA or other government agencies are buying them.

COVID-19 'surcharges' take customers by surprise.  Some companies are adding coronavirus surcharges to bills, infuriating customers enough to take their business elsewhere.  "Many customers are angry about the changes," wrote Ted Rossman, an industry analyst at CreditCards.com.  Rossman noted that roughly 86% of respondents from an American Express survey said they would stop patronizing a business if it applied surcharges to receipts.  A dentist in Florida charged patients $10 to help pay for the personal protective equipment worn by staff, which the mother of one patient felt she was not obligated to pay.  "I don't feel that I'm required to pay that," she told a local news station in Jacksonville, Florida.

Illinois Dems Bank on a Congressional Bailout.  Illinois Democrats passed a state budget over the weekend that relies on billions in still-not-guaranteed federal dollars to avoid a gaping deficit.  The state's 2021 budget, now headed to Gov. J. B. Pritzker's (D.) desk, is written with the expectation that the $3.5 billion the state received under the CARES Act will be freed up for general spending.  That would require Congress to change limitations on those funds, which currently can only be spent on expenses directly related to coronavirus — not general fiscal costs.  The bill also gives Pritzker the authority to borrow up to $5 billion from the Federal Reserve as part of a program backstopped by Congress.

Reopening optimism fuels stock market surge.  Stocks soared Tuesday [5/26/2020] as enthusiasm builds about the reopening of the country and the development of a coronavirus vaccine.  The S&P 500 rose nearly 2%, breaking over 3,000 for the first time since March 5.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose over 2%, briefly trading above 25,000 for the first time since early March.  Some companies showing the greatest gains would be aided by faster removal of business and travel restrictions.  They include Carnival, whose shares jumped 12.7%, MGM Resorts, whose shares climbed 8.6%, and United Airlines and Southwest Airlines, whose shares rose over 11% each.

In a viral video, a supermarket mob rampages against a woman.  On Monday morning [5/25/2020], people woke up to a video on Twitter showing masked customers in a Staten Island grocery store screaming obscenities at a woman without a mask and shouting at her to "get out."  It's an alarming video because it shows how quickly people can be turned into human weapons when fear powers them.

Poll: Up to 94 Percent of Americans Want Economic Nationalist Overhaul in Wake of Chinese Coronavirus Crisis.  Up to 94 percent of American voters say they want an economic nationalist overhaul of the United States' economy in the wake of the Chinese coronavirus crisis, a survey reveals.  A survey conducted by FTI Consulting finds that American voters overwhelmingly want economic nationalist policies implemented — including more tariffs on foreign imports, mandatory country-of-origin labeling, and a requirement that goods be made in the U.S.

The implication here is that all restaurants have rats.  That is not believable.
CDC warns rats becoming 'aggressive' in search for food during pandemic restaurant closures.  Starving rats growing increasingly "aggressive" are starting to become a problem as the coronavirus pandemic continues.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned last week that restaurant closures and restrictions intended to combat the spread of the COVID-19 virus have left trash bins less full than usual, cutting into a major food source for rodents.  In a battle over slim pickings, some have become more aggressive, leading to reports of rat cannibalism and rodent armies on city streets.

China poised to cash in on coronavirus aid designated for U.S. railroads, safety advocates warn.  China's communist government is poised to cash in on billions of dollars in federal coronavirus aid designated for U.S. railway systems, warn railroad safety advocates.  Erik Olson, vice president of the Rail Security Alliance, said more than $2.6 billion in contracts has already gone to the Beijing-backed China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation in the past four years.  Because CRRC benefits from financial support from the Chinese Communist Party, the company often can significantly underbid competitors, said Mr. Olson.

Hong Kong, All Alone.  China's legislature in Beijing is preparing a new national-security law aimed at Hong Kong to prohibit and punish terrorism, foreign influence, and secession.  By that, they mean demonstration, free speech, and a functioning democratic system with rights guaranteed to citizens.  Meanwhile, Beijing's loyalists installed in Hong Kong's legislative council have been making open attempts at a putsch against the pro-democracy majority.

Law professor falsely accused of rape, wins defamation case.  A University of Minnesota Law School professor, Francesco Parisi, has won a nearly $1.2 million defamation case against a woman who had falsely accused him of rape.  In his blistering ruling on Tuesday [5/19/2020], Hennepin County Judge Daniel Moreno wrote that Parisi's former lover, Morgan Wright, had pursued an "untruthful narrative crusade," and her "accusations were false, and made with malice."  It is believed to be the largest defamation judgement in Minnesota.  The vast majority of the judgement, $814,514 is for economic losses, as well as reputational and emotional damages.  Only $100,000 was for punitive damages.

Propaganda organs of the left hard hit by lockdown.  The nation's blue-state governors seem to be far more enthusiastic about lockdowns than their red-state counterparts, perhaps because they recognize that the small businesses being driven toward extinction are a key component of the GOP base.  But if their motives are so ruthless, perhaps they need to reckon with the damage being done to the key propaganda organs of the left:  progressive media, higher education, and government schools.  Waves of layoffs already have hit such progressive stalwarts as Vice, Quartz, BuzzFeed, and Conde Nast.  Now The Atlantic, controlled by Steve Jobs's widow and previously recruiting highly paid talent, is joining the layoff crowd.

Obama's Man in China Now Beijing's Man in Washington.  As the novel coronavirus wreaks havoc across the world, the Obama administration's ambassador to China has found a second lease on life as a pro-China talking head on regime propaganda outlets.  Former ambassador Max Baucus has given at least four different interviews to Chinese propaganda outlets in the last two weeks, repeatedly comparing the U.S. rhetoric about China to both the McCarthy era and Nazi Germany.  "Joe McCarthy [and] Adolf Hitler ... rallied people up, making people believe things that were really not true," Baucus said during a May 12 interview with China Global Television Network (CGTN), a regime mouthpiece.

Tomorrow could be the end of Hong Kong as we know it.  When the British handed over Hong Kong to China in 1997, China promised to respect it's [sic] independence for the next 50 years.  The shorthand for that plan was "one country, two systems."  But the two systems part of the plan could effectively come to an end tomorrow.  China has tried and failed in the past to exert more control over Hong Kong, but this time it seems prepared to simply bypass Hong Kong's government entirely and pass the new law via the mainland's one party system.

Mark Cuban's mindless critique of President Trump.  In an era when American politics is dominated by obnoxious loud mouths, it's not surprising that Mark Cuban thinks he should have a big role.  Cuban deems himself presidential timber, and has not ruled out running for president in 2024.

Media knives out for Catherine Herridge — for reporting ObamaGate straight.  Journalists are pack animals.  That's especially true in Washington.  Despite the hunger for scoops, when it comes to the substance of stories, few have the guts to go against the ideological groupthink that prevails in our nation's capital.  That's what makes CBS' Catherine Herridge so exceptional.  In an era when too many network journalists slant their reporting to serve establishment opinion, Herridge sticks to the facts.  Her dogged determination to get to the bottom of stories has made her an invaluable source on the national-security beat.  Her sterling quality and integrity have also put a target on her back.  When it came to the "collusion" hoax, she dared to let the truth guide her.

Social distancing beeper will go off if you're within 6 feet of someone.  A social distancing gadget that beeps whenever you're not keeping six feet from someone could help people return to work.  The beeper has been invented by Pathfindr and aims to helps companies keep their workers safe.  In the UK and the US, two meters (six feet) apart is the recommended distance to stand in order to try and not spread Covid-19.  Pathfindr, based in Norfolk in the UK, usually provides internet-based technical solutions for companies.

These two congressional districts could decide the presidential race.  The fate of the 2020 general election could hang on two congressional districts, one in Maine and the other tucked away in Nebraska.  Maine and Nebraska are the only two states in the country that split their Electoral College votes by congressional district while also rewarding the statewide victor, giving Democrats extra opportunities to pick up votes in otherwise Republican strongholds.  And with the fall fight between President Trump and Joe Biden set to be a tight battle for the White House, every vote will matter on Nov. 3.

The pandemic has changed everything. So, why does the race for president look the same?  In February, America had a booming economy.  Since then, because of fears of this invisible virus and even worse fears of it somehow spreading further, the entire economy is paralyzed.  More than 36 million men and women have filed unemployment claims.  Schools are closed indefinitely, as are most offices.  With little debate and virtually no opposition, the federal government is blithely spending trillions of dollars we don't have.  Many Americans have begun fighting each other over when, or even if, to resume normal social and economic activities. [...] Yet, also without seeming explanation, one thing has remained static:  politics.

Katie Hill Threw a Tantrum Because Republican Mike Garcia Won Her Vacant Seat.  Former Rep. Katie Hill (D-CA) was forced to resign after the House Ethics Committee launched an investigation into her private life.  She was allegedly having an extra-marital affair with her Legislative Director, Graham Kelly, and a throuple relationship with a female campaign staffer.  Hill repeatedly said she was going through a divorce from her abusive husband but text messages show Hill, her husband, Kenny Heslep, and the female staffer had an ongoing relationship.  The husband admitted in text messages to the campaign staffer that he and Hill abused her.  The former representative had a meltdown after learning that the Republican Party was successful in flipping her seat red with congressman-elect Mike Garcia.

The Editor says...
Well, Katie, perhaps if you made better decisions, your life would be less chaotic.

Elon Musk stirs the pot with cryptic 'red pill' tweet.  [Scroll down]  Musk has been vocally critical of government shutdown policies during the global pandemic recently, reopening Tesla's California plant in defiance of local restrictions there last week.  Tesla's factory reopened Monday [5/11/2020] with Musk practically daring local law enforcement to arrest him.  The plant apparently continued operations on Tuesday.  Officials backed off Wednesday and announced that the move would be okay, as long as the company followed previously agreed-upon worker safety precautions.

AG Barr:  Durham probe unlikely to lead to criminal investigations of Obama or Biden.  U.S. Attorney John Durham's probe into the origins of the Russia collusion investigation is not expected to lead to a criminal investigation of either former President Barack Obama or former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Attorney General William P. Barr said Monday [5/18/2020].  "As for President Obama and Vice President Biden, whatever their level of involvement based on what I know, I don't expect Durham's work will lead to a criminal investigation of either man," Mr. Barr said.  "Our concern of potential criminality is focused on others," he continued.

Elon Musk, having taken the 'red pill,' now urges others to join him.  Elon Musk is always interesting. [...] [H]aving tasted freedom, Musk likes it — especially because he's got a factory that, to survive, must be able to open.  To that end, Musk fought the law...and he won.  Now, flush with success, he has tweeted that it's time for others to join him by taking a "red pill."  Musk set up his Tesla factory in Fremont, California, which is located on the southeastern side of the über-liberal San Francisco Bay Area.  Because electric cars are "green," nobody minded a big new manufacturing plant.  Recently, however, Musk's relationship with California went flipsy-wopsy when the total lockdown, complete with mandatory "shelter in place" orders, went into effect.  By the end of April, Musk was tweeting out the damage that the lockdowns were doing and the falsity of the panic.

Fed chief inadvertantly makes the case for re-electing Trump.  [Scroll down]  This wasn't some policy that went wrong — overspending, bank failure, currency meltdown — or any of the things that have the makings for real depressions both here and abroad.  The structure was great, and the U.S. just got hit by an unexpected hurricane.  It would skew back to what it was if nothing else changed.  This would have to assume nothing else changes.  The good economy he's describing is the Trump economy, the economy that roared in the wake of President Trump's policies.  Changing those policies, as Joe Biden vows to do — and putting Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in charge of energy policy is pretty much what he means — would open the door to structural problems, the things that really do create depressions.  That has to be an endorsement of President Trump from the Fed chief.  Policies are what create depressions, not natural disasters, and Joe wants to remake policies.

Firefly: Israel's 'Loitering' Munition (or Kamikaze Drone).  It hovers and looks like a black stick floating in the sky but can slam into an enemy at seventy kilometers an hour.  The Firefly is Israel's latest weapon to be acquired by the Israeli Ministry of Defense from Rafael Advanced Defense Systems.  It will be deployed with infantry and is specially designed for soldiers fighting in urban areas, giving them the ability to fly a hovering missile around buildings to accurately take out terrorists or enemy forces.  The Firefly is a loitering munition, a kind of kamikaze drone but it is part of Rafael's larger Spike family of missiles that have been deployed to thirty-three countries.  The United States has used the Spike for its AH-64 Apaches.  Spike missiles are more usually known for their ability to kill tanks, but the Firefly is a much smaller weapon that weighs only 3kg so it can be carried into battle by soldiers.  Infantry have been increasingly deploying smaller drones in a surveillance role and also for attack, but the use of small drones that are man-packable is still in its infancy.

Case Western Reserve Prof Arrested over Financial Ties to Chinese Government.  A professor at Case Western Reserve University's School of Medicine was arrested on Wednesday [5/13/2020] over his alleged financial ties to the Chinese government.  The FBI alleges that professor Qing Wang was providing research funded with taxpayer money to the Chinese communist government.  According to a report by Campus Reform, Professor Qing Wang was arrested in Shaker Heights, Ohio, on Wednesday on wire fraud charges.  Wang allegedly failed to disclose his affiliations with several Chinese universities.

DOJ: Pakistani Doctor on H-1B Visa Wanted to Attack U.S. for ISIS.  A Pakistani doctor, admitted to the United States through the H-1B visa program, wanted to attack Americans for the Islamic State (ISIS), federal agents say in a criminal complaint.  Muhammad Masood, a 28-year-old Pakistani national, first arrived in the U.S. in February 2018 after he was able to secure an H-1B visa — the visa program whereby more than 100,000 foreign workers are brought to the U.S. every year and are allowed to stay for up to six years.  There are about 650,000 H-1B visa foreign workers in the U.S. at any given moment.

Chinese-Born Researcher at Cleveland Clinic Accused of Fraud, Links to Espionage.  The FBI announced on Thursday [5/14/2020] that it has arrested Dr. Qing Wang, a longtime employee of the famed Cleveland Clinic, on charges of fraud for accepting grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) without disclosing that he was simultaneously working for a Chinese university.  "This is not a case of simple omission.  Dr. Wang deliberately failed to disclose his Chinese grants and foreign positions and even engaged in a pervasive pattern of fraud to avoid criminal culpability," said Eric B. Smith, FBI Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of the Cleveland office.

Grenell: Top counterintel official will take charge of 2020 campaign briefings on election interference.  The Office of the Director of National Intelligence announced Friday [5/15/2020] that its top counterintelligence official would carry out all election security intelligence briefings to 2020 candidates and campaigns instead of the FBI or Department of Homeland Security.  The nation's top spy office, which oversees all 17 spy agencies and is currently led by acting spy chief Richard Grenell, said that the intelligence community "will lead all intelligence-based threat briefings to candidates, campaigns, and political organizations under the U.S. government's notification framework."  ODNI said William Evanina, the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center since 2014, will "serve as the IC's leader to this critical effort."  The ODNI also announced reforms to the National Counterterrorism Center on Friday.

NYC providing 74K air conditioners for low-income seniors ahead of summer months.  Mayor Bill de Blasio revealed new a new plan Friday [5/15/2020] aiming to keep all New Yorkers cool and safe this summer amid the coronavirus pandemic.  The first goal of the mayor's "COVID-19 heat-wave plan" focuses on protecting the city's most vulnerable residents as they remain at home in the hotter months.

The Editor says...
Providing air conditioners (and buying votes) is not the proper role of government, but I guess it's better than handing out cash.  But wait — surely there are more than 74,000 "low-income seniors" in New York City, so who decides who receives a free air conditioner?

Farmers dubbed the 'Carbon Cowboys' say business is booming during coronavirus.  While much of the farming industry has been decimated by the global coronavirus pandemic — forced to wastefully slaughter livestock, abort piglets, crush food and pummel perfectly healthy crops — one group spawning America's heartland claims that its method has actually seen sales soaring.  The so-called Carbon Cowboys are the subject of a new 10-part documentary series detailing the farming technique known as regenerative grazing, which seemingly is saving them from a sales' drought.  The series, directed by Peter Byck, was filmed over six years in various rural communities across the U.S., Canada and the U.K.

Shoppers begin to shift from stockpiling to penny pinching at the grocery store.  U.S. shoppers are making more trips to the dollar store.  They're stocking up with items from stores' private label brands more than usual and cutting back on snacks and sodas at convenience stores.  Those emerging data points, captured by market research firm IRI in recent weeks, may preview the next wave of grocery shopping during the coronavirus pandemic.  They all have something in common:  They are the buying patterns that herald an economic downturn.  "As this drags on, you are going to see a lot more recessionary behavior coming up," said Krishnakumar Davey, president of strategic analytics for IRI.  "We are just seeing the beginnings of it."

Mark Kelly Silent on Firm's Windfall From Chinese Tech Giant.  Mark Kelly, the former NASA astronaut who commanded the second-to-last space shuttle mission and spent 25 years in the Navy, readily acknowledges the myriad threats China poses to the U.S. Earlier this month, he told an Arizona TV station that U.S. intelligence has repeatedly shown China suppressed information about the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak before COVID-19 spread to become a global pandemic.  The interview was part of Kelly's new mission: trying to oust GOP Sen. Martha McSally, herself an aerospace pioneer as the first female fighter pilot to fly in combat.  The clash of the two American flight titans has become one of the most closely watched campaigns in the country.

$1.6T in century-old Chinese bonds offer Trump unique leverage against Beijing.  As the Trump administration seeks ways to penalize China for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, it need look no further than Tennessee.  The Lewisburg, Tennessee-based American Bondholder Foundation holds $1.6 trillion of century-old Chinese debt, including interest, dating to before the founding of the communist People's Republic of China, that it wants the administration's help in redeeming.  There is an estimated $6 trillion or more of the debt outstanding worldwide.

Elective surgery moratorium takes toll on patients.  Prohibitions on elective surgeries, in place in most states since early March, have taken a toll on hospitals, physicians, and other healthcare workers.  But patients may be the group that have suffered the most.  "A lot of treatment has been delayed that was important but not necessarily emergent," said Dr. Juliette Madrigal Dersch, a primary care physician in Marble Falls, Texas.  Elective surgery includes heart operations, cancer treatment, joint replacements, and spine surgery.  "Elective" only means that it is not a medical emergency, not that it is unnecessary.

FBI mistakenly reveals Saudi diplomat suspected of aiding 9/11 terrorists.  FBI lawyers accidentally revealed the identity of a Saudi diplomat who agents have suspected helped deliver crucial support to the al Qaeda terrorists who carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to a report.  The disclosure came in court documents filed in April that were unsealed late last week in a lawsuit brought by families of 9/11 victims accusing the Saudi government of aiding the attacks, Yahoo News reported.  The Saudi official, Mussaed Ahmed al-Jarrah, had his name blocked out in all but one appearance in the document, with the FBI admitting to Yahoo it was a mistake.  Jarrah was a Saudi Foreign Ministry official assigned to the Saudi Embassy in Washington, DC, in 1999 and 2000.

RussiaGate Collapses:  CrowdStrike Admits 'No Evidence' Russia Stole Emails From DNC Servers.  Fox News' Tucker Carlson and The Grayzone's Aaron Mate on Monday broke down new evidence released by the Department of Justice exposing RussiaGate as a farce.  Mate broke down newly released testimony from CrowdStrike president Shawn Henry admitting behind closed doors before House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) that "we did not have concrete evidence" that Russian hackers stole emails from the DNC's servers.

As Lobbyist for Huawei, Las Vegas Radio Station May Have Broken Law.  A local Las Vegas radio station may have broken federal communications laws when it failed to disclose its partnership with Chinese telecom giant Huawei, according to a former official of the Federal Communications Commission.  Las Vegas Public Radio, the self-professed "people's voice of Las Vegas," registered to lobby for Huawei in May 2019, promising to "address concerns that Members of Congress, Executive branch and American businesses have about Huawei products/services being developed or manufactured in the US for US consumption" in its lobbying disclosure.  In turn, Huawei promised to help the radio station open up a branch in China.

Politico: Special election tomorrow may hand Dems 'unthinkable' defeat in House race.  Politico has never been known as a cheerleader for Republicans, so when it headlines, "Democrats are on verge of the unthinkable:  Losing a swing district in California," you know that the donkeys are facing a humiliating and symbolically important blow to their House majority and a possible portent of disaster on November.  Recall that pervy Congresswoman Katie Hill resigned after being caught in sexual involvement with her staff.  Tomorrow will see a special election in her suburban Los Angeles district largely in the Inland Empire, pitting a Dem state rep against a ruggedly handsome retired Navy combat veteran fighter pilot, who just happens to be Hispanic.

Democratic North Carolina Governor Could Throw a Monkey Wrench into GOP Convention Plans.  The Republican National Convention is scheduled for August 24-27 in Charlotte, NC, and Donald Trump has been adamant that the event will go forward as planned.  That means thousands of Republicans descending on Charlotte from across the country and standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the Spectrum Center, acclaiming Trump as their standard-bearer.  That is unless the Democratic Governor Roy Cooper intervenes and nixes the whole thing.

Many Texas ranchers won't survive multibillion-dollar financial hit from coronavirus.  The spring pastures perfect for grazing cattle on Marisue Potts' ranch have begun to dry.  That means it's time to sell.  Potts owns a ranch near Matador, Texas, where she keeps a herd of about 35 cattle.  In a few weeks she'll take her yearlings and full-grown steers to the nearest auction in Floydada.  She expects to make less per head than she's made in at least a decade.

Iran Sinks Its Own Battleship.  [F]riendly fire may have killed dozens of servicemen, Al Jazeera have reported.  According to local media, an Iranian battleship was accidentally hit by a C-802 Noor missile during military exercises, causing it to sink.

'Unhappy? Go To Another State,' Murphy Tells NJ's Jobless.  In case you missed the end of Thursday's [5/7/2020] daily news briefing, Gov. Phil Murphy told anyone unhappy with the guy in charge of New Jersey unemployment to "Go to another state."  The governor said anyone who doesn't like state Labor Commissioner Robert Asaro-Angelo can move.  Murphy's dismissive remark came when asked by a reporter about Bergen County Assemblyman Kevin Rooney's call for the labor commissioner to fix the backlogged unemployment system or resign.  Earlier, state officials announced that more than a million New Jersey residents have filed jobless claims due to the coronavirus pandemic — but that 300,000 still had to be processed.

The Editor says...
Please come to Texas, but only if you are willing to renounce everything that makes New Jersey different from Texas.  Also you must promise never to vote for a Democrat again.  Otherwise, you'll turn Texas into New Jersey, and you'll be right back where you started.

Workers Are No Longer Heroes, Kroger Concludes.  What Kroger giveth, Kroger taketh away.  The national grocery-store chain will end a $2 per hour "hero pay" bonus for workers on May 17, the United Food and Commercial Workers union announced on Thursday [5/7/2020].  Kroger only implemented the raise last month; the pandemic, meanwhile, shows no sign of ending, and the risks for essential workers remain very real.

Durham Moving Full Throttle on Russian Probe Review.  U.S. Attorney for Connecticut John Durham is going "full throttle" with his review into the origins of the investigation into suspected Russia-Trump coordination in the 2016 election, with additional top prosecutors involved in looking at different components of the original probe, sources told Fox News.  Two sources told Fox News that Jeff Jensen, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri who was tapped by the Justice Department in February to review the case of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, is continuing to help with Durham's investigation even after the DOJ's move last week to drop the case against Flynn.

South Dakota governor threatens Native American tribes with legal action if they do not remove coronavirus checkpoints.  The governor of South Dakota has issued ultimatums to two Sioux Native American tribes to remove travel checkpoints on state and US highways aimed at protecting themselves from the coronavirus.  Governor Kristi Noem sent letters to the Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe on Friday [5/8/2020] requesting that they remove the checkpoints surrounding their reservations within 48 hours or "the state will take necessary legal action".  "We are strongest when we work together; this includes our battle against Covid-19," the governor said.  "I request that the tribes immediately cease interfering with or regulating traffic on US and State Highways and remove all travel checkpoints."

United Kingdom reveals last decoded Nazi message to mark VE Day.  To mark Friday's [5/8/2020] 75th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, the British government revealed the final Nazi message intercepted and decoded by U.K. codebreakers as Allied forces were advancing through Germany. [...] At 7:35 a.m. on May 7, 1945, a Nazi soldier identified as "Lt. Kunkel" sent a final message to colleagues from the town of Cuxhaven on Germany's North Sea coast.  "British troops entered Cuxhaven at 14:00 on 6 May — from now on all radio traffic will cease — wishing you all the best.  Lt Kunkel," the message read.  "Closing down forever — all the best — goodbye."

Adam Schiff Changed Russia Document Release Strategy Because Grenell Forced His Hand.  Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), had only planned to release partial transcripts from the committee's Russia investigation, not all of them, a source with knowledge of his efforts told Breitbart News.  But then, when acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell announced he was prepared to release all of the transcripts in full — something Grenell had planned to do on Friday morning if Schiff had not done so — Schiff changed his strategy and agreed to release them all in full.

Souplantation, Sweet Tomatoes permanently closing all restaurants amid pandemic.  San Diego-based buffet chain Souplantation has announced it will permanently close all of its restaurants amid the coronavirus pandemic, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. [...] CEO John Haywood told the publication that the restaurants' buffet-style model wouldn't be able to survive amid the FDA's regulations.  According to the outlet, about 4,400 employees will lose their jobs, the Union-Tribune reported.

Engineers Just Tested an 'Impossible' Detonation Engine For The First Time - And It Works.  A type of rocket engine once thought impossible has just been fired up in the lab.  Engineers have built and successfully tested what is known as a rotating detonation engine, which generates thrust via a self-sustaining wave of detonations that travel around a circular channel.  As this engine requires far less fuel than the combustion engines currently used to power rockets, it could eventually mean a more efficient and much lighter means of getting our ships into space.

Nunes dares Schiff to release House Intel Russia probe transcripts.  The top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday demanded Chairman Adam Schiff release the transcripts of interviews conducted by the panel during its Russia probe in 2017 and 2018, now that they have been cleared by the intelligence community.  "Schiff himself voted to release these transcripts and claims he wants them out," Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., told Fox News Thursday.  "There's no reason he can't publish them all today — except that he really doesn't want the American people to see how little evidence there ever was for the Russian collusion hoax he advocated and continues to advocate."

Sources say Russia probe transcripts affirm officials came up empty on collusion: 'Schiff is in panic mode'.  Transcripts of House Intelligence Committee interviews that have been cleared for release show top law enforcement and intelligence officials affirming they had no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election, senior administration and intelligence community officials told Fox News on Wednesday [5/6/2020].  This would align with the results of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation — which found no evidence of illegal or criminal coordination between President Trump, the Trump campaign and Russia in 2016 — but the numerous transcribed interviews could raise further questions about committee Chairman Adam Schiff's past statements saying that there was "direct evidence" of collusion.  "Schiff is in panic mode," a senior administration official told Fox News.

DNI to Schiff:  The transcripts are ready to release.  A big development in the fight over 53 secret interviews the House Intelligence Committee conducted during its Trump-Russia investigation.  Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell has sent a letter to chairman Adam Schiff notifying him that transcripts of all 53 interviews, over 6,000 pages in all, have been cleared for public release.  "All of the transcripts, with our required redactions, can be released to the public without any concerns of disclosing classified material," Grenell wrote to Schiff in a letter dated May 4.

Russian collusion emperor Adam Schiff about to be exposed today and it won't be pretty.  Adam Schiff, the fanatic who from the begining launched probe after probe of President Trump, is about to see the 2017-2018 Russia collusion transcripts he's been sitting on all these months released to the public, all 6,000 pages, with 73 witnesses stating there was no Russian collusion in 53 transcripts.  National Intelligence Director Richard Grenell did the job Schiff wouldn't do, releasing the transcripts, and now Schiff is expected to be looking more bug-eyed than usual.

Federal judge reinstates New York Democratic presidential primary.  A federal court judge has ordered New York Democrats to reinstate the presidential primary election for June 23 after one-time candidate Andrew Yang challenged its cancellation.  Judge Analisa Torres in her decision Tuesday [5/5/2020] ruled that the New York Board of Elections' decision to cancel the vote was unconstitutional and that all qualified candidates as of April 26 must be on the ballot.  "[T]he removal of presidential contenders from the primary ballot not only deprived those candidates of the chance to garner votes for the Democratic Party's nomination," Torres wrote in her opinion.

How China is buying up America's food supply.  A Sioux Falls meatpacking plant was forced to close when it became the epicenter of COVID-19 in South Dakota.  Three weeks after executives from its Chinese owner, WH Group, visited the plant, a month after President Trump's ban on travel from China, nearly 600 of Smithfield Foods' 3,700 employees tested positive for the virus, as have 135 additional people in close contact with employees.  Smithfield Foods was started in 1936 by a family in Virginia.  Today, the Chinese own Armour and the famous Smithfield hams, together with the most quintessential American brand of all:  Nathan's Famous hot dogs, with its iconic annual eating contest.  In 2013, Smithfield Foods was bought by the Shanghui Group, later rebranded as the WH Group, for $4.7 billion.  It remains the largest total acquisition of a U.S. company by the Chinese.

Pope Francis, Not Content to Falsely Accuse Christians of Fictional Atrocity, Celebrates Jihadis' Favorite Holiday.  The Vatican's Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue on Friday [5/1/2020] informed its "dear Muslim brothers and sisters" that the month of Ramadan is "a time for spiritual healing and growth, of sharing with the poor, of strengthening bonds with relatives and friends," as well as an opportunity for "your Christian friends" to "further strengthen our relationships with you."  The message, which was published in Arabic, Italian, French, and English, added:  "It is in this spirit that the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue offers its prayerful best wishes and hearty congratulations to you all."  And that's wonderful, but just what was the Vatican congratulating?  Vatican officials are without any doubt unaware of the fact that because Ramadan is the month in which Muslims redouble their efforts to obey Allah, Ramadan is also quintessentially the month of jihad.

'The hardest time we've ever faced': Amazon revenue surges, but coronavirus costs may wipe out operating profit.  Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos warned the company's stockholders that Amazon may incur a second-quarter operating loss as it spends at least $4 billion from April through June on its coronavirus pandemic response, including some $300 million to develop its own testing capabilities.  Amazon's first-quarter sales were up 26% year over year to $75.5 billion — well above the high end of the company's previous expectations.  Despite the revenue surge, expenses related to Amazon's pandemic response weighed on the bottom line in the quarter ended March 31.  Amazon's net income fell 29% to $2.5 billion, or $5.01 per share, compared to $3.6 billion, or $7.09 per share, during the first quarter of 2019, it said Thursday afternoon [4/30/2020].

Trump Ridicules George W. Bush Appeal for Bipartisanship amid Coronavirus.  A call by former President George W. Bush for humanity to jettison partisanship amid the Chinese coronavirus pandemic has drawn a sharp rebuke from President Donald Trump.  Bush published a video message on Saturday urging unity and togetherness amid the coronavirus' outbreak, which received 4.4 million views on Twitter as of Sunday morning [5/3/2020]. [...] The president's response was straight to the point, outlining Bush's absence when Trump was being excoriated during his impeachment proceedings.  "[...] I appreciate the message from former President Bush, but where was he during Impeachment calling for putting partisanship aside. [...]"

Epstein had his own office, phone line at Harvard even after his 2008 conviction of soliciting sex from minors.  Harvard University admitted Friday [5/1/2020] that Jeffrey Epstein had his own office and phone line at the university and also made several visits there even after he was convicted in 2008 of soliciting sex from minors.  According to a new report from the university, Epstein, the disgraced financier who killed himself in jail last year while awaiting sex crimes charges, visited Harvard more than 40 times after his 2008 conviction and unveiled deep ties between him and the university, with which he had no official affiliation.  University President Lawrence Bacow said in a letter to the Harvard community that Harvard accepted $9.1 million from Epstein between 1998 and 2008 to support research and faculty activities.

How natural gas is withstanding the energy market collapse.  Natural gas is withstanding the coronavirus-fueled economic crash in a way that its closely associated relative, oil, isn't.  Oil prices have reached record lows, with the U.S. benchmark oil price briefly dropping below zero last month after trading at around $60 per barrel at the start of 2020.  The U.S. natural gas price, meanwhile, is stable, staying below $2 per million British thermal units, or MMBtu, a historically low level it has been hovering at for a while due to a glut produced from the shale boom.  Oil producers are shutting in their wells, prompting tens of thousands of layoffs, because the pace of the price collapse was so sudden, caused mostly by the fact that the pandemic has crushed demand for transportation fuels made with oil, as people forgo driving and flying.

U-Haul hands down lifetime ban to Brooklyn funeral home that stored bodies in trucks.  Rental company U-Haul has reportedly cut ties with the Brooklyn funeral home caught storing dozens of bodies inside their unrefrigerated trucks.  Andrew T. Cleckley Funeral Services in Flatlands is no longer welcome to rent from the company, U-Haul sources told TMZ.  The U-Haul trucks used by the funeral home to hold corpses are also being decommissioned so they can be deep cleaned, according to the report.  "This is a wrongful, egregious and inhumane use of our equipment," company bigs told the outlet.

Iran Is Hauling Gold Bars Out of Venezuela's Almost-Empty Vaults.  Out of cash and desperate for help in propping up its oil industry, Venezuela is raiding its gold vaults and handing tons of bars to its long-time ally Iran, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter.  Government officials piled some 9 tons of gold — an amount equal to about $500 million — on Tehran-bound jets this month as payment for Iran's assistance in reviving Venezuela's crippled gasoline refineries, the people said.  The shipments, which resulted in a sudden drop in Venezuela's published foreign reserve figures, leave the crisis-ravaged country with just $6.3 billion in hard-currency assets, the lowest amount in three decades.

Globalists are Now Talking about 'Flattening the Climate Curve' to Stop Global Warming.  With the notion of "flattening the curve" now burned into the minds of traumatized individuals worldwide, the globalists are attempting to re-appropriate the familiar propaganda line in their war against so-called climate change.  The World Economic Forum (WEF), which works hand-in-hand with the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations (UN), is urging various governments to focusing on flattening the "climate curve," whatever that is supposed to mean, when the coronavirus pandemic comes to an end.

Why Trump's new UFO comments are interesting.  [Scroll down]  [President] Trump and certain members of the House and Senate Armed Services and Intelligence committees have been briefed on what is known about the objects.  But those briefings center on the objects' indicated capability and behavior patterns, not their origin.  Still, Trump's doubts as to whether the objects in the videos are "even real" is noteworthy.  Those words match up with the argument propagated by some, that these objects might not actually be real in the first place.  Some have suggested these objects are actually the products of highly advanced and top-secret electronic or psychological warfare capabilities or that they're a combination of both.  Such capabilities involve tricking personnel and platforms as to the location and operational activity of enemy forces.  The United States and China have invested heavily in trying to weaponize these capabilities.  So, are these objects really sensory fictions?  The government's assessment is that this is highly unlikely, although not impossible.

City To Dump Ton Of Chicken Manure In Central Park To Discourage Festival Gathering.  A city in Sweden is set to dump a ton of chicken manure in a central park to discourage crowds from gathering for an annual festival amid the coronavirus pandemic.  The move is an attempt to deter as many as 30,000 residents in Lund, a university town east of Copenhagen, from gathering in the park for traditional celebrations to mark Walpurgis Night on Thursday [4/30/2020], The Guardian reported.  The festival features parties and bonfires scattered across Europe.

Dozens of Bodies Found in U-Haul Trucks Outside Brooklyn Funeral Home.  Dozens of dead bodies were found stored in unrefrigerated U-Haul trucks outside a Brooklyn funeral home Wednesday [4/29/2020], according to two senior law enforcement officials.  Around 50 bodies were discovered inside as many as four different storage vehicles over the past few days, the law enforcement officials said.  The Andrew T. Cleckley Funeral Home, located on Utica Avenue in the Flatlands neighborhood, was using ice inside the trucks in an effort to maintain the bodies.

Woman Who Blamed Trump after Giving Her Husband Fish-Tank Cleaner Now Under Investigation for Murder.  Arizona police are now conducting a homicide investigation into a woman who claimed she gave her husband fish tank cleaner after President Trump claimed the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine was an effective treatment for coronavirus.  Wanda Lenius told NBC News last month that she and her husband Gary consumed fish tank cleaner because it contained a chemical that Trump suggested might be an effective prophylactic and treatment for coronavirus.  The cocktail, which contained four teaspoons of fish tank cleaner mixed with soda water, put Wanda in the ICU and killed Gary.  "My advice," Wanda explained, is "don't believe anything that the President says and his people because they don't know what they're talking about."

Amazon turns to Chinese firm on U.S. blacklist to meet thermal camera needs.  Amazon.com Inc has bought cameras to take temperatures of workers during the coronavirus pandemic from a firm the United States blacklisted over allegations it helped China detain and monitor Uighurs and other Muslim minorities, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

You Don't Get to Collect Unemployment Because You Are Scared.  It is always great when the media reports news that isn't really news.  Reports are surfacing today that some awful Republican governors are telling citizens if they are recalled to work and refuse to go, they will be ineligible for unemployment.  This is not startling and will most likely be the case in blue states as well.  Of course, you won't hear about that.  Unemployment is a system for people who are able to work but either out of work for reasons beyond their control or going through a period of reduced work because of reduced business operations.  The entire goal of the Paycheck Protection Program was to keep employees attached to their employers so they could seamlessly return to work when operations resumed.

Newt Gingrich blasts 'precious politicians' who want to wimp out of their jobs with remote proxy vote.  Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called out "precious politicians" who are avoiding getting back to Washington due to the coronavirus pandemic.  Gingrich found it "bizarre" that some lawmakers would consider themselves any different from those who are working through the crisis, calling on them in tweets to get back to work or "resign."

The deaf community faces another communication hurdle as face masks become the new normal.  Mary Beth Pagnella, who has lived with profound hearing loss most of her life, prides herself on being an excellent lip reader.  But,amid the coronavirus outbreak, reading lips has become more difficult with state and federal officials recommending, and some requiring, people to wear masks in public.  "I feel so lost and out of place because [people] are wearing masks and I cannot read their lips," Pagnella told USA Today.  "Not being able to hear is hard enough.  Now, lip reading is hard, too."

Long-Lost U.S. Military Satellite Found By Amateur Radio Operator.  [Scroll down]  In other words, says [Scott] Tilley, even though the satellite was supposed to shut down in 1972, it's still going.  As long as the solar panels are in the sun, the satellite's radio continues to operate.  Tilley thinks it may even be possible to send commands to the satellite.  The MIT lab that built LES-5 still does a lot of work on classified projects for the military.  NPR contacted its news office to ask if someone could say more about LES-5 and whether it really could still receive commands.  But after repeated requests, Lincoln Laboratory finally answered with a "no comment."  It seems that even a 50-year-old zombie satellite might still have secrets.

Police open homicide probe into death of man whose wife gave him fish tank cleaner, blamed Trump.  The Mesa City, Ariz., Police Department has launched a homicide investigation into the death of Gary Lenius, the man whose wife gave him a drink laced with fish tank cleaner allegedly to ward off COVID-19.  The investigation, which was confirmed by the Washington Free Beacon, is being handled by Det.  Teresa Van Galder, who could not provide any details at the moment because it's an active case.  The news site also reported that it provided a recording of its interview with Wanda Lenius, 61, from March.

All Is Not What It Seems In Sweden.  Sweden has been regularly cited in American media as a country that chose an approach to the Covid-19 pandemic different from that of the U.S. and the European countries.  There have been pictures of Swedes crowding into outdoor restaurants, enjoying sunny early spring weather.  Streets in central Stockholm have been shown looking "normal," although the density of shoppers and pedestrians had been exaggerated through tele-lens photography.  These news reports seemed to suggest social life little affected by the pandemic, as if Sweden had taken a more relaxed approach to the virus than other countries.

Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie Touches the Third Rail — Reveals DC's Biggest Secret.  With congress saying they will not be returning to work next week, it appears Kentucky representative Thomas Massie has decided to use the opportunity to expose Washington DC's biggest secret.  Something 99% of American voters do not understand: [...] You see, congress doesn't actually write legislation.  The last item of legislation written by congress was sometime around the mid 1990's.  Modern legislation is sub-contracted to K-Street.  Lobbyists write the laws; congress sells the laws; lobbyists then pay congress commissions for passing their laws.  That's the modern legislative business in DC.

The House of Representatives has identified itself as a non-essential service.  The original plan in Washington, D.C., was for both the Senate and the House to reconvene on May 4.  News broke on Tuesday [4/28/2020], though, that the House will not be returning to work.  It turns out that so many members of the House panicked at the thought of working once more for the American people that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer was forced to announce that the House would remain closed next week.

Sen. Cotton says Chinese students shouldn't be allowed to study science in US.  GOP Sen. Tom Cotton suggested that Chinese students should be banned from studying technology and science in the US — and said he has "little doubt" that Beijing is trying to steal a coronavirus vaccine from America.  "In the middle of a pandemic, what's the most valuable intellectual property in the world?  It's the research that our great laboratories and life science companies are doing on prophylactic drugs, therapeutic drugs, and ultimately a vaccine," Cotton of Arkansas said on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures."  "So I have little doubt that the Chinese intelligence services are actively trying to steal America's intellectual property as it relates to the virus that they unleashed on the world, because, of course, they want to be the country that claims credit for finding those drugs or finding a vaccine, and then use it as leverage against the rest of the world," the senator continued.

More than 88 million emergency payments totaling $158 billion are out the door:  IRS.  The Internal Revenue Service on Friday said the federal government has issued more than 88 million emergency direct payments to individuals that collectively totaled about $158 billion over a three-week period ending April 17.  "The IRS, Treasury and partner agencies are working non-stop to get these payments out in record time to Americans who need them," said IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig.  A total of more than 150 million payments, which were a central feature of a recent $2.2 trillion economic rescue package, are expected to be sent out.

One country, one system:  The week that China shredded its promise on Hong Kong.  Martin Lee has tangled with the Chinese Communist Party countless times in his decades-long fight to achieve free elections in Hong Kong and enlist Western support for the city's democratic ambitions.  Last weekend, the police came knocking.  Seven officers appeared at Lee's home and arrested the 81-year-old for participating in an unauthorized protest last year that 1.7 million people attended.  More than a dozen other democracy activists were detained the same day.  The arrests buttressed a week of coordinated actions by Beijing that experts say have redefined the status of Hong Kong.  The effect was to demolish the "one country, two systems" framework that prohibits Beijing's involvement in local affairs and is supposed to afford the financial center a high level of autonomy.

AutoNation, a Fortune 500 auto retailer worth $3 billion, received nearly $95 million in PPP funds by using separate tax IDs.  A Fortune 500 auto company worth $3 billion received nearly $95 million in federal small-business funds, almost double the amount of any company that received money through the Paycheck Protection Program.  The $95 million received by AutoNation is said to have been spread among dozens of their more than 300 locations and intended to use the funds to help employees.  Funds for PPP ran out last week, with thousands of small businesses left without a dime.  AutoNation Executive Vice President Marc Cannon said that the company's board voted on Thursday [4/23/2020] to return the funds, the Washington Post reports.

World Health Organization's History of Promoting Radical Sex Ed.  When President Donald Trump pushed the pause button on funding the World Health Organization this past week, most people's only experience with the group was as a harmless arm of the United Nations.  But the "watchdog" of the global health is a lot more than the world's disease and infection police.  It's also, as more Americans are starting to learn, one of the biggest promoters of abortion and peddlers of radical sex ed.  At this point, it's undeniable.  And it's been its agenda for many years.  If Americans are upset about anything, it shouldn't be that the president temporarily cut the WHO's funding.  It should be the incredible injustice that's been done to taxpayers by sending billions of dollars to a group that doesn't share most people's values.

Tucker Carlson goes full Alinsky on McKinsey for outsourcing manufacturing to China.  Tucker Carlson spent the first 15 minutes of his show last night decrying the loss of so much of our manufacturing base to China.  That concern has spread from the already devastated Rust Belt to the coastal habitats of the elites now that the pandemic has exposed our reliance for survival on an increasingly threatening China for pharmaceuticals, protective gear, and many other critical strategic goods, such as the rare earths necessary for the manufacture of advanced electronic components.  With the dangers of such dependence obvious to all, Tucker took an original angle and followed Saul Alinsky's Rule #13:  "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it."  His target:  McKinsey & Company, the global consulting group that has helped many a giant corporation outsource its manufacturing to lower-wage countries, pre-eminently but not exclusively China, as a means of competing in world markets and in the domestic American market, which for the most part has been wide open to foreign competition.

Workers volunteered to live in a factory for 28 days to produce millions of pounds of raw PPE materials to make masks and gowns.  Workers at a Pennsylvania petrochemical factory ended a nearly monthlong "live-in" at their workplace to produce 40 million pounds of raw material used to make personal protective equipment like hospital masks and gowns.  Forty-three employees at Braskem America in Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania, volunteered to live in the factory to limit outside exposure to the coronavirus as they made polypropylene, a material used to make hygienic products such as face masks, surgical gowns, and disinfectant wipes.

Could Poorly Managed States End Up in Bankruptcy?  The Constitution grants Congress the power to establish uniform laws for bankruptcies throughout the country.  Yet the bankruptcy code lacks a chapter extending such protection to states, which might be why some of them have become so profligate.  That combined with the coronavirus has put some of them on the brink of collapse.  This erupted in the news when the President of the Illinois senate, Don Harmon, wrote a letter to the Illinois delegation in the U.S. Congress asking a bailout of more than $40 billion for the state.  Chicago Tribune blew its stack in a memorable editorial.  What was so galling about it, at least to us, is that Mr. Harmon sought a $10 billion bailout directly to the Land of Lincoln's long-underfunded pension system.

Ruth's Chris Steakhouse owner says it will repay $20 million in small business loans.  Ruth's Chris Steak House announced Thursday [4/23/2020] it will return the $20 million it received in coronavirus small business loans.  Ruth's Hospitality Group, which owns the Ruth's Chris Steak House brand, procured two $10million loans from the government's $350 billion Paycheck Protection Program this month.  The chain was met with fierce criticism for using loopholes in the PPP system to secure funding, leaving the small business applicants it was designed for high and dry.

On Earth Day, pope says nature will not forgive our trespasses.  Pope Francis made an impassioned plea for protection of the environment on Wednesday's 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day, saying the coronavirus pandemic had shown that some challenges had to be met with a global response.  Francis praised the environmental movement, saying it was necessary for young people to "take to the streets to teach us what is obvious, that is, that there will be no future for us if we destroy the environment that sustains us".

The Editor says...
I'm not worried about nature forgiving me for anything.  Personification of the earth, or Naturalistic Pantheism, is heresy.  The Pope's message is something you'd expect to hear from a Buddhist, not a Catholic.

States Made Risky Bets with Pensions Before Coronavirus.  Now They Want a Bailout.  Staring down the coronavirus's effect on their budgets, states like New Jersey and Illinois are calling on federal leaders to backstop public pensions as part of future coronavirus relief. [...] But the pension shortfalls are not just a product of the bear market, experts tell the Washington Free Beacon.  Some states now seeking bailouts are in part covering for more than a decade of economic mismanagement, having chased increasingly risky investments to fund generous benefits at low up-front costs.  Bailouts would allow states to dodge hard questions about the viability of excessively generous public pensions.

Usama bin Laden wanted to kill Obama so 'totally unprepared' Biden would be president, declassified docs show.  Usama bin Laden wanted to assassinate then-President Barack Obama so that the "totally unprepared" Joe Biden would take over as president and plunge the United States "into a crisis," according to documents seized from bin Laden's Pakistan compound when he was killed in May 2011.  The secretive documents, first reported in 2012 by The Washington Post, outlined a plan to take out Obama and top U.S. military commander David Petraeus as they traveled by plane.  "The reason for concentrating on them is that Obama is the head of infidelity and killing him automatically will make [Vice President] Biden take over the presidency," bin Laden wrote to a top deputy.  "Biden is totally unprepared for that post, which will lead the U.S. into a crisis.  As for Petraeus, he is the man of the hour ... and killing him would alter the war's path" in Afghanistan.

Judge Napolitano skeptical about lawsuits against China over coronavirus losses: 'They don't have a case'.  Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano joined the "Fox News Rundown" podcast Thursday to offer a legal perspective on coronavirus after Missouri became the first state to file a lawsuit against China in an attempt to hold Beijing accountable for the severity of the pandemic.  "At the present time, they don't have a case because of the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act [of 1976], which basically says American courts do not have jurisdiction over the behavior of foreign governments and that, of course, would bar nearly any lawsuit against the government of China," Napolitano explained.

DeVos bars undocumented college students from emergency aid.  The Trump administration on Tuesday prohibited undocumented college students from receiving emergency federal cash assistance for expenses like food, child care and housing.  The economic rescue law passed by Congress gives $6 billion to colleges to dole out to students for expenses stemming from the disruption on campuses caused by the pandemic.  But Education Department officials in new guidance said the money can go only to students who qualify for federal financial aid — U.S. citizens and some legal permanent residents.

The Death of the Department Store: 'Very Few Are Likely to Survive'.  American department stores, once all-powerful shopping meccas that anchored malls and Main Streets across the country, have been dealt blow after blow in the past decade.  J.C. Penney and Sears were upended by hedge funds.  Macy's has been closing stores and cutting corporate staff.  Barneys New York filed for bankruptcy last year.  But nothing compares to the shock the weakened industry has taken from the coronavirus pandemic.  The sales of clothing and accessories fell by more than half in March, a trend that is expected to only get worse in April.  The entire executive team at Lord & Taylor was let go this month.  Nordstrom has canceled orders and put off paying its vendors.  The Neiman Marcus Group, the most glittering of the American department store chains, is expected to declare bankruptcy in the coming days, the first major retailer felled during the current crisis.  It is not likely to be the last.

The 2016 election scandal waiting to break.  As I've been telling you for a long time, there are going to be repercussions from the political scandals of 2016.  The time is coming soon — maybe very soon — when we will find out who will be indicted and what impact these legal actions will have on the 2020 presidential election.  John Durham, the US Attorney in Connecticut, has been investigating whether there was wrongdoing before and after the last presidential election.  His focus seems to be on whether warrants were improperly obtained to spy on the Trump campaign.  But over the two-plus years since Durham has been on the case, the probe seems to have expanded.  High up intelligence officers in the US seem to be the target.  Durham's probe could turn very political if his evidence determines that actions were taken by the intelligence community to aid the Democrats.

Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue Announces $19 Billion U.S. Farm Aid Relief Package.  In the background of lessons being learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, stay tuned for a new MAGA-minded small farm program in the agricultural industry similar in construct to how President Trump and Secretary Mnuchin created the parallel banking system using community banks and credit unions.  Domestic food security is national security.  Today [4/17/2020] President Trump and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue revealed a $19 billion U.S. farm relief program which includes the Dept. of Agriculture purchasing $3 billion in farm products from the fresh supply chain to support those impacted by the collapse of the restaurant, hotel, school and cafeteria demand (food away from home).

Foreign Powers Test US defenses amid coronavirus pandemic.  U.S. adversaries are probing America's defenses as the world is preoccupied with the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.  In the past two weeks, Russia, China, Iran and North Korea have all moved to test Washington in the sea, in the air and on land as U.S. forces have become more restricted in movement amid concerns over the spread of COVID-19.  "Exactly how distracted is the U.S. military?  They want to know," said Susanna Blume, the director of the defense program at the Center for a New American Security, referring to foreign countries.

Texas Lt. Gov Patrick says it's time for Congress to take a pay cut, show Americans 'you're with us'.  Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is calling on Congress to show solidarity with Americans hurt by the coronavirus crisis and take a pay cut.  With millions of people across the nation facing financial hardship due to government decisions to shut down the economy, Patrick believes members of Congress who "are not hurt" by the same constraints should stand with citizens, telling Fox News host Laura Ingraham that it's high time lawmakers in Washington "feel some of this pain."

Over 20 million Americans lack broadband, says senator.  More than 20 million Americans lack "meaningful broadband service" as people turn to the internet for school and work during the coronavirus crisis, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner warned federal regulators.  "Under the current circumstances, this lack of broadband access threatens to greatly — and potentially lastingly — exacerbate disparities in health, education and economic equity," said Mr. Warner, a Democrat, in a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai on Thursday [4/16/2020].  He noted that 770,000 Virginians don't have broadband access.

The Editor says...
Broadband internet service should be the least of Virginians' concerns, when the Governor is trampling their First- and Second-Amendment rights.  But aside from that, what is the minimum download and upload speed that qualifies as "meaningful broadband service?"  I suspect I'm one of the unfortunate victims left behind, with my minimal DSL service.

Land O'Lakes quietly removes image of Mia, its longtime Native American maiden.  Popular dairy brand Land O'Lakes quietly changed its packaging to remove its iconic Indian maiden image, it was revealed Wednesday [4/15/2020].  The new packaging has already started to appear in stores and looks similar to the previous branding with an image of lake and trees — except without Mia, the kneeling woman featured in the center, the Minnesota Reformer reported.

Photo by Tiffany Hagler-Geard, courtesy of Bloomberg.
Land O'Lakes Drops Its 'Racist' Native American Packaging After Nearly 100 Years.  The iconic Native American woman has been removed from all butter and margerine packaging for the Minnesota-based company Land O'Lakes.  In a press release, the company announced that it has introduced a new brand of packaging without mentioning the Native American woman's removal.  The new packaging simply features the "Farmer-Owned" Land O'Lakes before an evergreen wilderness.  "The new packaging will show up in a variety of ways, including through a new front-of-package design that features the phrase 'Farmer-Owned' above the LAND O LAKES brandmark, 'Since 1921' below it and a vibrant illustration of land and lakes," said the statement.


The Editor says...
How strange it is, that the illustration wasn't racist until this year.  My advice would be to leave the packaging exactly as it was, and let that one-in-a-million snowflake boycott this product.

Related topic:  Redskins.

Q Praises Shocking Out of Shadows Documentary and Millions Watch it.  On April 10, an underground documentary with no publicity landed on YouTube and amassed one million views in 24 hours.  Despite YouTube's efforts to hide it, Out of Shadows continues to attract more than a million viewers a day, lifting the mask "on how the mainstream media and Hollywood manipulate and control the masses by spreading propaganda throughout their content."  "Why do you believe what you believe?" asks Mike Smith, a former star stuntman for Hollywood action films, who produced and self-funded the film.  Mike tells the story of how he began delving into the messages of the high-budget films he worked on, after an injury sidelined him.  To his shock, he discovered that "we have all been lied to and brainwashed by a hidden enemy with a sinister agenda."  Mike's investigation revealed a host of CIA programs he sees as designed to control the public's beliefs and deflect attention from massive governmental crimes.

Mike Smith, the Stuntman, QAnon Follower & Trump Fan Behind 'Out of Shadows' Documentary.  ike Smith is the Hollywood stuntman behind the conspiracy documentary, "Out of Shadows."  Smith says in the documentary that while he rehabbed an injury on his pelvis that he suffered while filming, he had a spiritual awakening.  Smith says, "I didn't find God because I went to church.  I found God because I realized that the Luciferian and the occult world was real and that I had been fooled for all of these years and I then got really scared."  Smith goes on to say that he became a Christian again because of his belief that Hollywood and the entertainment industry was influenced by Satan.  The film delves deep into the disproved Pizzagate conspiracy theory.

Newly Declassified Papadopoulos Transcript Exposes Crossfire Hurricane Corruption.  Attorney General William Barr said last week that "the evidence shows that we're not dealing with just mistakes or sloppiness" in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.  Rather, "there is something far more troubling here."  "Without any basis," Barr added in his sit-down interview with Fox News' Laura Ingraham, "they started this investigation of [Trump's] campaign, and even more concerning actually is what happened after the campaign, a whole pattern of events while he was president to sabotage his presidency — or at least have the effect of sabotaging the presidency."

No construction order means "open season" for squatting, theft, vandalism.  As stakeholders continue to discuss how to resume construction activity during the COVID-19 pandemic, builders across the state say criminals are taking advantage of empty construction sites and near-completed residential homes — and the effects are destructive and costly.  In one case, a city manager has provided further guidance to the industry as it seeks to navigate the challenging circumstances.  In addition to myriad financial consequences construction businesses and employees are bearing due to the inactivity, builders say there's been a sharp increase in vandalism, thefts and squatters on construction sites, in some cases despite enhanced security measures.  Additionally, people are using the sites as dumping grounds for all manner of things from old appliances to electronics and more, likely to avoid fees at transfer stations.

The Fastest Growing and Declining E-Commerce Categories.  The COVID-19 pandemic is having a significant impact on every aspect of life, including how people shop for their necessities, and their not-so-necessities.  With online retail sales estimated to reach an eye-watering $6.5 trillion by 2023, the ecommerce sector was already booming.  But since the outbreak, online shopping has been catapulted into complete overdrive.

Confirmed: Air Force "Men in Black" were investigating Luis Elizondo over UFO videos.  The last time we checked in on the folks at the Pentagon who have gone almost entirely silent on the matter of government and military investigations into Navy encounters with UFOs, there were plenty of questions left unanswered.  One of the key issues was why they seemed to keep changing their story when pressed for answers and how they couldn't seem to define precisely what Luis Elizondo did or didn't have to do with their secret UFO program known as AATIP (Advanced Aerial Threat Identification Program). One other question was how those three Navy UFO videos wound up making their way into the public eye if all of this was supposed to be so hush-hush.  Now we know the answer and several other new details.

The BBC Ridicules Christianity On Good Friday.  At the end of holy week, the Christian — or at least the Western Christian Churches — celebrate the mysteries of Easter and the resurrection of Christ.  At this time the BBC, in the shape of Nick Robinson on its flagship Today program, decided to belittle a Covid survivor's reference to his faith as a 'trick' played on him by the drugs he was being administered in intensive care.

Pressure mounts for Gov. Inslee to restart private construction projects.  Pressure is mounting on Gov. Inslee to relax his stay-at-home requirements for the construction industry.  He is getting letters from developers, lawmakers, and others saying private construction is just as essential as public projects.  While most large public projects have been halted — including state road projects and some Sound Transit work — public construction projects are on Gov. Inslee's "essential" list.  Building homes is not, a double-standard contractors believe isn't fair.

Bridge collapses in Italy with almost no traffic amid lockdown.  A bridge on a normally busy provincial road in northern Italy collapsed on Wednesday [4/8/2020] but with virtually no traffic during the coronavirus lockdown, only two truck drivers suffered minor injuries, the fire brigade said. [...] Although casualties were limited in Wednesday's incident, the incident highlights the poor state of repair of Italy's road network, after the collapse of a motorway bridge in the port city of Genoa in 2018 that killed 43 people.

Airline travel has dropped 96 percent amid coronavirus.  Airline travel has dropped 96 percent amid the coronavirus pandemic, CNN reported Thursday [4/9/2020], citing multiple metrics.  Only about one in 10 seats on U.S. domestic planes are occupied, the outlet reported citing Airlines for America, an industry group that represents airlines including American, Delta, Southwest and United.  On the limited number of international flights operating, only one in five seats are occupied, the group said.

The Editor says...
On a normal day (how I miss normal days!) there was an airplane flying over my house about every two minutes.  Now, there are only a few per day.

Bill Barr:  "Without Any Basis".  Here are what I think are the important points we can take from what Barr said.  First of all, it seems apparent that the Durham investigation has completed most of its evidence gathering — whether documentary or through interviews.  That doesn't mean the investigation is finished.  There is also the question of putting together a prosecutive case, and that will probably involve complicated negotiations with the lawyers for the persons being investigated.  That, in turn, could lead to further substantive investigation.  But the bottom line is that at this point Barr appears confident that he knows what happened and, most likely, who was behind it.  As Barr says, this is a "sprawling" case.

Battery explodes in a home while being charged.  Batteries are not 100% safe and should not be left unattended while charging.  [Video clip]

NASA astronaut's estranged wife charged with lying about space crime allegation.  The estranged wife of a NASA astronaut who claimed her spouse improperly accessed her bank account from space has been indicted for lying to federal authorities.  Summer Worden, 44, whose claim would have potentially been the first accusation of a crime committed in space, made false statements to NASA's Office of the Inspector General and the Federal Trade Commission, according a statement from U.S. Attorney Ryan Patrick.  A federal jury in Houston returned the two-count indictment in late February, but it was unsealed Monday [4/6/2020].

Kennedy Center Agrees To Pay Orchestra After Lawmakers Move To Rescind Bailout.  The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has walked back its decision to furlough nearly 100 members of the symphony orchestra despite receiving a $25 million federal bailout, a move that prompted the affected musicians to file a lawsuit against the performing arts center.  According to The Washington Free Beacon, the center has offered the musicians pay cuts and a wage freeze instead of furloughs, and the union representing the orchestra's musicians has, in turn, decided to drop a lawsuit against the center for allegedly violating a contract, which prohibits layoffs without six weeks notice.

US Box Office Sales Collapse To Just $5,179; Was $204 Million During Same Period Last Year.  As millions of Americans spend quality time with their families to avoid the global pandemic, box office sales across the US have predictably cratered — falling to just $5,179 from March 20 through March 26 as movie theaters across the country remain shuttered.

Landlords alarmed over rent forgiveness proposal.  On Wednesday [4/1/2020], Portland city leaders sent a letter to the governor asking for statewide rent forgiveness for people who lost incomes because of the pandemic.  "We've never talked about a rent moratorium before or forgiving mortgages.  I know it might sound outlandish to some, but I just ask them to consider the alternatives or offer alternatives.  You can't squeeze blood from a stone," Portland City Commissioner Chloe Eudaly told KATU.  Since then, reaction has been swift, claiming if put in place, it would cause long-term damage to basic economic structures.

California nonprofit calls for statewide rent strike.  The start of the month under a statewide stay-at-home order means many tenants and homeowners are scrambling to come up with the money for their rent and mortgage bills.  On Wednesday, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment declared a statewide rent strike, demanding that those payments be forgiven until people can return to work.  With so many workers out of a job right now, a number of families do not know when their next paycheck is coming — but the bills keep piling up.

The Editor says...
Being unable to pay the rent and being unwilling to pay the rent are two entirely different things.  In the former case, one might reasonably hope for mercy, longsuffering, and unmerited kindness.  In the latter case, one might reasonably expect eviction.

European leaders warn coronavirus could lead to the breakup of their union.  The coronavirus pandemic, with its simultaneous health and economic crises, is deepening fault lines within Europe in a way some leaders fear could prove to be a final reckoning.  The cohesion of the European Union had been battered by Brexit, bruised by the political fallout from the 2015 migration surge and the 2008 financial crisis, and challenged by rising autocracy in the east that runs contrary to the professed ideals of the European project.  Now, if Europe's leaders cannot chart a more united course, the project lies in what one of its architects described this week as "mortal danger."

Major Errors Found In All 29 of the FISA Warrants The IG Has Reviewed.  FISA hearings are ex parte — one sided.  There is only a prosecutor; there is no defense attorney present to challenge or question the claims made to the judge.  That's why the Woods Procedures specify that each and every claim made in the FISA application be so thoroughly proven that even if there were a defense attorney present to challenge every claim, the judge would still find that the claim was too well supported to be questioned.

DOJ Inspector General Finds Rampant Errors in FBI Surveillance.  The Justice Department's watchdog determined that the FBI failed to properly document the facts in 29 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) applications that were reviewed in an audit.  The findings are part of a report released on March 30 by the Department of Justice's Office of Inspector General.  The office had previously found widespread fundamental and serious errors in the FISA applications used to spy on former Trump campaign associate Carter Page. [...] Of the 42 applications reviewed, 39 had a "total of about 390 issues, including unverified, inaccurate, or inadequately supported facts, as well as typographical errors."  Just three applications had no issues.

Two Fateful Events Occurred on January 15 Which Changed America for Years to Come; One Glaring, the Other Quiet.  On January 15, America watched as a group of prideful House Democrats, placing partisan interests above their country, walked the spurious Articles of Impeachment over to the Senate.  The solemn looks on their faces belied the elation they tried hard not to show.  For the next three weeks, we watched the spectacle of Adam Schiff and his team trying desperately to prove their fraudulent case against President Trump.  Fortunately, they failed.  At the same time, an airplane landed at Washington State's Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.  A 35-year-old man had just returned from visiting his family in Wuhan, China.  Five days later, on January 20, he would become the first person in the U.S. to test positive for the coronavirus.

A Surprising Paradox of Major Floods.  Last year, record floods along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers caused $2.9 Billion worth of damage in Nebraska and Iowa, flooding at least one million acres of farmland and killing three people.  While floods and other natural disasters can inflict unfortunate death and destruction upon individuals, they can paradoxically benefit communities in the long run.  In the short term — over a span of a few years — floods can transform urban areas into downtrodden, waterlogged ghost towns.  But you might be surprised to learn that in the long term — think more than ten years — floods and other natural disasters actually seem to grow economies and populations.

Fish tank cleaner couple's story gets weirder and weirder.  [W]hat normal person eats a fish-tank cleaner to avoid coronavirus?  Hmmm, perhaps a loving husband whose oh, so solicitous wife suggests it because President Donald J. Trump (R) highly recommends it.  At least that's what the grieving widow says, whose husband died from dining on the stuff while she daintily ingested a mere taste.  While the lefty media — i.e., 90% or so of the media — gleefully agreed with her that Trump was at fault, the remaining 10% of the media, plus the hundreds of thousands of silent deplorables, thought this explanation was fishy.  The fishiness began to stink to high Hillary hell upon the discovery that the couple was — surprise! — Democratic donors.

The mysterious case of the people who ate fish tank cleaner.  Shortly after President Trump touted chloroquine as a potential cure for COVID-19, the media triumphantly reported that a man died from taking homemade chloroquine due to Trump's recommendation.  It turned out that the man's wife fed him some fish tank cleaner.  She even partook of it with him, except that he died while she didn't.  As a dedicated murder mystery reader, I didn't blame Trump.  My suspicions were focused elsewhere.  It turns out my instincts may have been right on the money.  Here's the story the drive-by media didn't tell you: [...] Here's an excellent rule of thumb when navigating stories that are hostile to President Trump:  Assume everything you hear is a lie, whether it's from the media or from the anti-Trump source about which the media is reporting.  Also, you can learn a lot about human nature and sneaky crimes by reading murder mysteries.

Rick Perry warns US energy sector on verge of 'massive collapse' due to coronavirus pandemic.  Former Energy Secretary Rick Perry warned Tuesday [3/31/2020] on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" that the coronavirus pandemic has brought the United States' once-thriving oil and energy sector to the verge of a "massive collapse."  Sweeping restrictions on work and travel have brought industrial activity to a near-standstill.  Perry explained that fewer cars on the road and fewer flights in the air translate to a major decrease in demand for oil, which is bad news for America's energy producers.

Ex wildlife chief:  Trump rule could kill billions of birds.  At a former open-pit copper mine filled with billions of gallons of toxic water, sirens and loud pops from propane cannons echo off the granite walls to scare away birds so they don't land.  After several thousand migrating snow geese perished in the Berkeley Pit's acidic, metal-laden waters in 2016, its owners deployed a sophisticated arsenal to frighten away flocks, including lasers, drones, fireworks and remote-controlled boats.  Montana Resources already had been hazing incoming birds with spotlights and rifle shots into the water — and a spokesman says those existing deterrents likely helped the company avoid a penalty or prosecution under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. [...] However, the Trump administration says deaths of birds that fly into oil pits, mining sites, telecommunications towers, wind turbines and other hazards should be treated as accidents not subject to prosecution.

The Editor says...
Where was this writer's concern about windmills killing birds when Obama was president?

Coronavirus job losses could hit 47M, unemployment rate may surge to 32%, St. Louis Fed says.  Tens of millions of Americans will likely lose their jobs as the coronavirus pandemic sends the U.S. economy into a free fall, causing the unemployment rate to surge to levels not seen since the Great Depression, according to a St. Louis Federal Reserve estimate.  The analysis, posted by St. Louis Fed economist Miguel Faria-e-Castro, projected that unemployment could hit 32 percent in the second quarter as more than 47 million workers are laid off as a result of the pandemic, which has forced swaths of the economy to shut down.  That would exceed the 24.9 percent peak during the Great Depression.  "These are very large numbers by historical standards, but this is a rather unique shock that is unlike any other experienced by the U.S. economy in the last 100 years," Faria-e-Castro wrote in the research paper published last week.

King of Thailand 'isolates' from coronavirus with 20 women.  Thailand's playboy king has taken over a luxury German hotel to isolate from the coronavirus — along with a harem of 20 women, according to reports.  King Maha Vajiralongkorn, 67, reportedly booked the entire Grand Hotel Sonnenbichl with "special permission" to break the lockdown in the Alpine resort town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the Independent said, quoting German media.  But rather than isolate, he moved in a harem of 20 concubines along with a team of servants, the UK paper said, citing German tabloid Bild.

France Issues Rallying Calls to 'Buy French' as Coronavirus Erodes EU Single Market.  French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has called on his countrymen to buy domestic products as the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak cripples the European single market.  Describing his approach as "economic patriotism," he urged French supermarkets to 'stock French products.' The call didn't go unheard.  Following the minister's remarks on Tuesday, the trade body representing French supermarkets vowed to stock up shelves exclusively with fruits and vegetables produced within France once the foreign products run out, the newspaper Les Echos reported.

Globalism gone bust:  Italians burn EU flag, vow to leave EU over EU's lousy coronavirus response.  Now that Italy has recorded its 10,000th coronavirus death, a third of the global total, and nearly a thousand just yesterday, Italians are questioning the value of globalism, and more specifically asking what good its European Union membership does it.  Sentiment is soaring for getting out and going it alone.  Britain did it, why not Italy?  Locals are now burning European Union flags, and Italian politicians are ramping up the talk about getting the heck out of the European Union altogether.

Senior WHO Official Cuts Off Interview When Reporter Implies Taiwan Isn't Part Of China.  A senior World Health Organization official appeared to pretend he couldn't hear a reporter and then cancelled the call when she implied Taiwan was a separate country from China.  A Hong Kong-based outlet was conducting the interview with senior advisor to the WHO Bruce Aylward.  Taiwan is one of the few Western-style democracies near China, and China's communist government has long insisted that the international community treat Taiwan as a part of "Greater China," despite having separate governments.  The WHO complies and does not allow Taiwan to be a member state.  The reporter asked whether that policy might change during the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump to cruise lines:  If you want American coronavirus relief, try being American companies first.  If companies want America to bail them out, perhaps they should bail back into America first.  Donald Trump had spoken repeatedly about the financial beating that cruise lines had taken since the start of the coronavirus outbreak, and perhaps those corporations just assumed that they could access the COVID-19 rescue package once it passed. [...] Last night [3/26/2020], Trump sympathized with the plight of cruise lines, but noted that these companies haven't done much to invest in the US.  If the cruise lines want the protection of American taxpayers, they should join their ranks first, Trump said.

President Trump signs into law $2 trillion coronavirus bailout.  President Trump on Friday [3/27/2020] signed into law a historic $2.2 trillion coronavirus rescue package, the largest stimulus deal in United States history, as the pandemic devastates the nation's economy and sickens thousands.  "This will deliver urgently needed relief to our nation's families, workers and businesses and that's what this is all about," Trump said in the Oval Office flanked by GOP lawmakers and administration officials.  "I want to thank Republicans and Democrats for coming together, setting aside their differences and putting America first," he added.  The bill includes $500 billion in direct checks to American families, $500 billion in small business loans, $150 billion in hospital funding and a $150 billion relief fund for state and local governments, among other measures.

More than 400,000 jobs available as coronavirus prods people to stock up on necessities and order takeout.  The outbreak of the coronavirus across the United States has shuttered whole industries.  Still, demand for essentials, such as food, toilet paper, and even pizza delivery, has increased hiring by over 400,000 jobs as people shelter in their homes and stock up on necessities.  Walmart, the largest employer in the U.S., wants to hire an additional 150,000 temporary workers by the end of May to meet the increase in demand at its stores.  However, those temporary jobs could become permanent.  "These roles will be temporary at first, but many will convert to permanent roles over time," it stated in a press release.

China Uses Coronavirus Crisis to Bulldoze Churches and Temples.  Religious freedom watchdog groups are accusing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) of using the Wuhan coronavirus epidemic as an opportunity to intensify their crackdown on religion, bulldozing some churches and placing others under heavy surveillance.  "China is now holding itself up as a model for fighting the coronavirus.  But fighting the pandemic hasn't stopped communist officials from persecuting Christians," Todd Nettleton, a spokesman for the nonprofit group Voice of the Martyrs (VOM), told Fox News on Tuesday.

The United States indicts Venezuela's Maduro on narco-terrorism charges.  The Trump administration unsealed sweeping indictments Thursday against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and members of his inner circle on narcoterrorism charges, a move that dramatically escalates U.S. efforts to force the authoritarian socialist from power.  The United States also offered a $15 million bounty for information leading to Maduro's capture and conviction.  Attorney General William P. Barr said the Justice Department has charged Maduro, along with a host of other current and former Venezuelan officials, with narcoterrorism, money laundering and drug trafficking.  Barr and other U.S. officials outlined a detailed conspiracy headed by Maduro that effectively worked with Colombian guerrillas to transform Venezuela into a transshipment point for moving massive amounts of cocaine into the United States.

His Tesla was in a hit and run.  It recorded the whole thing.  The car is becoming a sentry, a chaperone, and a snitch.  My parked car got gashed in a hit-and-run two weeks ago.  I found a star witness:  the car itself.  Like mine, your car might have cameras.  At least one rearview camera has been required on new American cars since 2018.  I drive a Tesla Model 3 that has eight lenses pointing in every direction, which it uses for backing up, parking and cruise control.  A year ago, Tesla updated its software to also turn its cameras into a 360-degree video recorder.  Even when the car is off.

Sentiment builds for moving U.S. companies out of China.  American companies that produce essential goods in China should plan to shift their operations back to the United States or other Western countries, according to a senior Republican lawmaker.  "We're staring into a significant, significant crisis of supply chain," Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner told the Washington Examiner.

Deal Reached on $2 Trillion Package to Pay for Our 'Strange New Reality'.  Senate and White House negotiators reached an agreement early Wednesday morning [3/25/2020] on a $2 trillion stimulus package to help businesses and families affected by the coronavirus epidemic and to bolster the economy.  The agreement clears the way for the package to sail through both houses of Congress on its way to President Trump.  Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin told reporters that Trump will sign the bill as soon as it reaches his desk."

Dow surges more than 2,000 points in its strongest one-day performance since 1933.  The Dow soared more than 2,000 points on Tuesday in its strongest one-day performance since 1933 as US lawmakers neared a deal to inject nearly $2 trillion of aid into an economy ravaged by the coronavirus.  All three main US stock indexes rebounded strongly from Monday's brutal selloff as the coronavirus outbreak forced entire nations to shut down.

Hallelujah! Daughter of Muslim domestic terrorist defeated In Illinois election.  Ameena Nuur Matthews was defeated in the Democratic primary election for Illinois' 1st Congressional District on March 17th, 2020.

De Blasio's senior staff in near revolt over his coronavirus response.  When Mayor de Blasio dragged aides and members of his NYPD security detail to his Brooklyn YMCA Monday morning amidst the coronavirus outbreak, fellow fitness enthusiasts were coughing and sneezing — and a mentally ill person was walking around touching the equipment, a gym source said.  "It's crazy that he made his staff and detail come with him to the gym and expose them like that," the source said.  But the incident is just one example of the mayor's disregard for the health of his staff during the crisis, multiple sources told The [New York] Post.  There's also growing frustration from senior aides, who fault the mayor for dithering instead of making decisions, micromanaging instead of leading, and insisting he knows best instead of listening to others, three sources said.

Political tectonic plates are shifting as media and other Dems start praising Trump's crisis management (and as his polls rise).  Democrat politicians have access to far more granular polling data that must show them that Americans want a strong leader in a time of mortal peril facing them, and that President Trump is rising to the challenge of his office.  The smarter ones among them may also understand that the nonstop carping, criticizing every move that Trump has made since taking office, has created cynicism and doubt about the sincerity of the continuous nit-picking.  President Trump is not about to let them forget the wave of criticism denouncing his prescient ban on arrivals from China as racist, either, so they had better get on board and earn his favor, lest they be called out.

Amazon to Add 100,000 Jobs, Raise Pay During 'Unprecedented' Needs of Coronavirus.  Amazon announced Monday [3/16/2020] it will invest over $350 million to open up 100,000 new jobs and to increase pay by $2 per hour in the U.S. and around the world during the coronavirus pandemic.  The Seattle-based multinational e-commerce company, said Dave Clark, senior vice president of worldwide operations, in a press release that it is seeing a "significant increase in demand" and accompanying "unprecedented" labor needs.

Americans are very likely to get $1,000 (or more) checks.  Here's what you need to know.  Americans could get a check for $1,000 or more in the coming weeks, as political leaders coalesce around a dramatic plan to try to prevent a worse recession and protect people from going bankrupt.  The idea took off Monday [3/16/2020] when Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) called for every American adult to receive a $1,000 check "immediately" to help tide people over until other government aid can arrive.  By Tuesday, there was bipartisan support for the idea, including from President Trump.  The White House even suggested the amount could be over $1,000, an acknowledgment of how big the economic crisis is becoming.  "We're looking at sending checks to Americans immediately," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said, adding that Trump wants checks to go out "in the next two weeks."

Utah hit with its strongest earthquake since 1992.  Utah was hit with a 5.7 magnitude earthquake on Wednesday, its strongest since 1992, officials said.  The earthquake, which struck at 7:10 a.m. local time and was centered just north of Magna, shook houses between Salt Lake City and Antelope Island, the U.S. Geographical Survey (USGS) reported.

Adam Schiff's surveillance state.  Lawmakers are debating ways to prevent the Federal Bureau of Investigation from abusing its surveillance authority again.  While they're at it, they have an obligation to address their own privacy transgressor, Rep. Adam Schiff.  That's the gist of a pointed letter from Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr, which landed Thursday at the House Intelligence Committee.  Chairman Schiff spent months conducting secret impeachment hearings.  His ensuing report revealed that he'd also set up his own surveillance state.  Mr. Schiff issued secret subpoenas to phone carriers, to obtain and publish the call records of political rivals.  Targets included Rudy Giuliani and another attorney of the president, the ranking Republican on the Intelligence Committee (Rep. Devin Nunes) and a journalist (John Solomon).

FCC Commissioner Calls Out Adam Schiff Over His Secret Subpoenas, May Take Action.  During the House impeachment proceedings, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) released a report which included the phone records that included calls made or received by Rep. Devin Nunes(R-CA), journalist John Solomon, Rudy Giuliani and others.  The records in the report didn't contain the content of the conversations but included who called who called who and how long the call lasted.  The belief was that the records were obtained through subpoena to the phone companies of records related to Giuliani and Lev Parnas, with the obvious purpose meant to try to impugn the people whose records were included without reason or cause.

Woman pardoned by President Trump announces Congressional run against Rep. John Lewis.  A woman who was pardoned by President Donald Trump has announced she will be running for Congress against Georgia Democratic Rep. John Lewis.  Angela Stanton-King, who was pardoned by Trump last month, announced her congressional bid in a message clarifying that "this isn't about replacing John Lewis, this is about picking up the torch and continuing the fight for Justice.

3-year-old boy gets lost and left behind by class, teachers on preschool field trip.  A 3-year-old boy was left behind by his class and his teachers while on a school field trip last week and his mother was notified days after the incident took place.  Karter Williams, a 3-year-old student in the Houston Independent School District (HISD) Head Start program at Thompson Elementary in Houston, Texas, was on a field trip with his class to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo last Friday when he became separated from his classmates and teachers.  It is unclear how long Karter was wandering around for on his own.

The Editor says...
Why is a three-year-old kid in school at all?

California Throws The Books At Undercover Reporter Who Exposed Baby Body Trafficking.  An undercover reporter has been arraigned in California and charged with ten felonies for secretly recording conversations, and it's time to revisit how the judiciary and the law can stifle the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of the press.  The accused, David Daleiden, used standard media undercover techniques to investigate and expose Planned Parenthood's sale of aborted fetus body parts.  While the use of undercover techniques like Daleiden's is a controversial practice even within journalism circles, Daleiden's upcoming jury trial has far wider implications for journalists.  Namely, can and should government criminalize undercover reporting, which historically has revealed otherwise hidden wrongdoing of all kinds?

US Treasury likely to push back April 15 tax filing deadline, Report.  The Trump administration is likely to extend the April 15 tax deadline as part of an effort to mitigate the effects of the novel coronavirus on U.S. households and businesses, according to an administration official and another person familiar with the matter.  Neither the decision to extend the deadline nor the mechanics of how such an extension might work are yet final.

'Black Americans Are Waking Up:' More African Americans Exiting Democratic Party in 'Blexit' Movement.  A recent poll found that 54 percent of African Americans believe the Democratic Party isn't paying enough attention to their needs.  It is an issue that is leading a growing number of blacks to rethink their choices at the ballot box.  For decades African Americans have been a key voting block for Democrats.  In 2016, 89 percent of black voters supported Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump.  Now, a movement called Blexit, which means the exit of black Americans from the Democrat Party, is encouraging African Americans to abandon the status quo.

Pierce Bush, late President George H.W. Bush's grandson, loses Texas Congressional bid.  Republican Pierce Bush, a grandson of former President George H.W. Bush, failed to advance out of Tuesday's primary in his bid for a Houston congressional seat, becoming the first member of his family to lose a race in Texas in more than 40 years.  Aside from the recognition of coming from America's most enduring Republican dynasty, Bush 34, was endorsed by the outgoing GOP incumbent, Rep. Pete Olson and raised more money than many of the other 14 candidates in the field.  Troy Nehls and Kathaleen Wall, staunch defenders of President Donald Trump, advanced instead to the runoff.  That raised questions about whether the Bush family's sharp personal clashes with the president in recent years turned off Republican voters.

London Uber driver reveals how he killed a man by removing his liver and kidneys while working as a doctor in China.  China has slaughtered thousands of its citizens to harvest organs such as hearts, lungs, kidneys, eyes and even skin for sale and to transplant into sick patients in hundreds of hospitals across the country.  A landmark international investigation, published in full today, will accuse the Beijing government of covering up 'crimes against humanity' that have been routinely carried out against religious minorities.  The inquiry says the organised butchery of living people to sell body parts can be compared 'to the worst atrocities committed in conflicts of the 20th Century' such as the Nazi gassing of Jews and Khmer Rouge massacres in Cambodia.

Fed Announces Emergency Rate Cut to Fight Coronavirus Economic Risks.  The Federal Reserve announced an emergency interest rate cut Tuesday, saying it was slashing its benchmark target by half a percentage point to combat the risks by the global outbreak of the coronavirus.  This was the largest move in interest rates since the Fed cut rates during the financial crisis and the first emergency cut since late 2008.  Typically, the rate target only moves its rate target at scheduled meetings.  The next meeting is set to begin in two weeks.

Federal Reserve announces first emergency rate cut since the financial crisis.  The Federal Reserve slashed interest rates by half a percentage point on Tuesday, a bold attempt to give the US economy a jolt in the face of concerns about the coronavirus outbreak.  It was the first unscheduled, emergency rate cut since 2008, and it also marks the biggest one-time cut since then.  The new benchmark interest rate is 1% to 1.25%.

Trump campaign manager says Democrats will try to steal the election.  President Trump's campaign manager thinks that Democrats will fight dirty in the race to the White House this year.  "They are going to cheat," Brad Parscale told an audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, on Friday [2/28/2020].  "Trust me, I saw what they did in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019.  They are not going to wake up in 2020 and say, 'Let's play fair now.'"  Some Democratic voters are concerned that Trump will refuse to accept the results of the election.  The campaign expects to have an email list that is 50 million contacts deep by November, and 2 million trained volunteers — a massive jump from the 16,000 trained volunteers it had in 2016.

China is concocting plans to paralyze US society before conflict, Marco Rubio says.  Chinese officials are seeding the United States and allied nations indirectly with technology that could cause massive societal disruption in the event of a conflict, according to a senior Republican lawmaker.  "We have never faced that sort of vulnerability in the backbone of our country," Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, said this week.  China's potential to carry out a crippling attack against U.S. satellites has commanded attention from military strategists and diplomats for years, but Rubio's warning was spurred by analysis of much more mundane systems:  office printers, which could pose an unexpected intelligence threat.

Mystery zero-day in Chrome — update now!  Google has issued an update for its widespread Chrome browser to fix three security holes.  Unfortunately, one of those holes is what's known as a zero-day: a bug that was already being exploited by cyerbcrooks before Google tracked it down and fixed it.  Google, which is often vociferous about bugs and how they work, especially those found by its own Project Zero and Threat Analysis teams, is playing its cards close to its chest in this case.

Oregon man busted for buying Girl Scout cookies with fake bills.  An Oregon man has been busted for repeatedly duping Girl Scouts, buying cookies with counterfeit money, police said.  Camden Stevens Ducharme, 36, of Salem, was arrested Sunday [2/23/2020] on charges of theft and forgery after two separate Girl Scouts troops reported getting bogus bills while hawking their iconic baked goods earlier this month, the Statesman Journal reports.  During one incident, police said Ducharme passed a counterfeit $20 to purchase a box of cookies from a Girl Scout troop outside a Walmart in Salem and received legal currency in exchange, the newspaper reports.

Using radar, not a shovel:
Digging into the far side of the moon:  Chang'E-4 probes 40 meters into lunar surface.  A little over a year after landing, China's spacecraft Chang'E-4 is continuing to unveil secrets from the far side of the Moon.  The latest study, published on Feb. 26 in Science Advances, reveals what lurks below the surface.

The Editor says...
I confidently predict that all they will find is rocks, dust, and sterile dirt.  But suppose they find giant gold nuggets or big chunks of solid uranium?  What possible benefit would that be?  The moon is too far away for mining — even robotic mining.  I encourage the government of China to keep wasting money and manpower on this futile nonsense.

In the UK, it now spells a product's death if conservatives boast about liking it.  Because Britain is still a free-market economy, although Yorkshire Tea shies away from positioning itself with specific political or social demographics, it has no control over who ultimately buys its products.  The free market's effect of letting anyone buy a product, and even boast about the product, is why SJWs in England are trying to destroy Yorkshire Tea.  Rishi Sunak, the conservative chancellor of the Exchequer in Boris Johnson's government, decided it would be good to tweet out that he was making a big pot of Yorkshire Tea.  Presumably, with Brexit going into effect, he did so to highlight homegrown British industries: [...] The SJWs went ballistic.

Beware of fair weather friends:
Eight Mississippi Elected Officials Leave Dems, Independents, Join GOP.  Sensing the sentiment in their state has swung toward the GOP, eight Mississippi political office holders who were either Democrats or Independents have joined the Republican Party.  "We have had a relentless focus on switching conservative Democrats over to the Republican party," Mississippi Republican Party Chairman Lucien Smith said of the flurry of politicians looking for a safe haven.  He added, "They recognize increasingly that there is only one party that represents the conservative values of our state and that is the Republican party," as WLBT reported.

Trey Gowdy:  Time for intel officials to stop briefing 'epidemic leaker' Adam Schiff.  Former Republican congressman Trey Gowdy suggested intelligence officials should just stop briefing "epidemic leaker" Rep. Adam Schiff.  The Fox News contributor slammed the House Intelligence Committee chairman during a discussion Monday on "Hannity" about the recent reports of US intelligence assessments on alleged Russian meddling in the 2020 election.

John Ratcliffe Discusses Manufactured ODNI Intel Briefing on Russia and Upcoming FISA Reauthorization.  Representative John Ratcliffe appears with Maria Bartiromo to answer questions about the fraudulent information within an intelligence briefing last week and the House democrats weaponizing a false narrative.  Ratcliffe points fingers toward Adam Schiff for manufacturing the false media assertions & perpetuating a hoax on the American people.  Additionally Mr. Ratcliffe notes the upcoming reauthorization of FISA authority is taking place under a cloud of abuse by government officials and a host of deep state resistance interests who do not want to admit abuse within the FISA system.  [Video clip]

Warning! House Schedules Backroom FISA Reauthorization Hearing Without Sunlight, While FISA Court and DOJ Delay.  Against the backdrop of a then pending OIG FISA report, in December of 2019 buried deep in the congressional budget Continuing Resolution (CR) was a short-term extension to reauthorize the FISA "business records provision", the "roving wiretap" provision, the "lone wolf" provision, and the more controversial bulk metadata provisions [Call Detail Records (CDR)], all parts of the Patriot Act.  As a result of the FISA CR inclusion the terminal deadline was pushed to March 15, 2020: [...] For the past several years no corrective action taken by the intelligence community has improved the abuses outlined by the FISA court.  The sketchy programs, and abuse therein, needs more public attention.  However, there is now a confluence of events highlighting a likelihood congress and the intelligence apparatus writ large want to reauthorize the FISA surveillance and collection authorities without further sunlight and without public input.

New Jersey lists threat from white supremacists as higher than ISIS.  New Jersey officials have raised the threat level from white supremacists to the highest possible level — while deeming Islamic terror groups like ISIS a low threat to the Garden State.  The annual threat assessment report released Friday shows that white supremacists are now labeled a "high" threat for attacks, joining other so-called homegrown violent extremists as the biggest menace.  "The threat from white supremacist extremists increased from moderate to high in 2020 due to the number of threats, plots, and attacks conducted in 2019," the report said.  ISIS, however, was dropped from a moderate threat level to low, joining other fundamentalist terror groups like Al Qaeda, Al-Shabaab and Boko Haram.

Nevada Democratic Party asks caucus volunteers to sign confidentiality agreements.  The Nevada State Democratic Party is asking site leaders for Saturday's caucuses to sign non-disclosure agreements that would prevent them from speaking to the media.  The news comes just one day before the Nevada Democratic caucuses.  The caucus process here in Nevada has come under intense scrutiny after a similar process melted down in Iowa.

Electric rates by state
Electricity Rates By State.  Electricity rates are not usually something that most people think about every day until the end of the month when the unpleasant surprise arrives in the form of an energy bill.  If you've always wondered why your electric bill varies from time to time, who is the company whose letterhead your bill arrives on and how do the average electricity rates by state vary on average, we have the answers.


John Bolton Admits Last-Minute Impeachment Leak Was A Publicity Stunt.  Former National Security Advisor John Bolton admitted Wednesday that his testimony in President Donald Trump's recent impeachment proceedings involving Ukraine would have had no impact on the trial's outcome even after sections of his upcoming book leaked attempting to convict the president in its final days.  "People can argue about what I should have said and what I should have done," Bolton said at Vanderbilt University Wednesday night during a forum with his predecessor Susan Rice, according to ABC News.  "I will bet you a dollar right here and now my testimony would have made no difference to the ultimate outcome."

Newspaper Lobbyists and Encryption Foes Join the Chorus Against Section 230.  On Wednesday [2/19/2020], the U.S. Department of Justice held a "public workshop" on Section 230.  Predictably, it wound being up a greatest hits of the half-truths and paranoid bellyaching commonly employed against this important law.  Section 230 prevents digital companies from being automatically treated as the speaker of any third-party speech they assist in putting online.  It also allows companies to moderate content without becoming liable for it.  The law was passed in 1996 to address the fact that the then-dominant web companies felt forced to choose between very strictly gate-keeping or allowing a free-for-all if they wanted to avoid civil lawsuits and criminal liability over user-generated speech.  Section 230 has never prevented the Justice Department from enforcing federal criminal statutes against online violators, as many have misleadingly argued.  It acts as a shield against civil lawsuits and against state and local criminal charges.

If you rent an arena to a Democrat, demand payment up front.
Dems race to avoid going broke before Super Tuesday.  Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren each started the month scraping perilously close to the bottom of their campaign bank accounts, posing an existential threat to their candidacies as the Democratic primary goes national.  They're up against well-funded machines threatening to dominate the Democratic race:  Bernie Sanders, whose recent rise in the polls has come during a major spending streak fueled by his online donors, and billionaire Mike Bloomberg, whose personal fortune has vaulted him into the middle of the campaign to take on President Donald Trump.

Democrats' once-wishful hero slams House impeachment process as 'grossly partisan'.  Former National Security Adviser John Bolton slammed the Democrats' impeachment process of President Trump as "grossly partisan" and claimed his own potential testimony "would have made no difference to the ultimate outcome."  Despite the left's hailing him as a hero for claiming he had information about Trump's conduct regarding Ukraine, Bolton has increasingly come under fire for teasing information but never really saying anything.  Many who formerly praised his courage blasted him for just trying to sell his forthcoming book.

George Soros calls for Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg to be removed from Facebook.  George Soros has called for Mark Zuckerberg to be removed from Facebook because he thinks he is 'helping Trump get re-elected' by not censoring or banning political ads.  Soros, a prolific billionaire Democrat donor, wrote a letter to The Financial Times on Monday [2/17/2020] calling on both Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg to step down.  He has accused them of having a 'mutual assistance arrangement' with Trump that will 'help him get re-elected'.

Source: Democrat Senator Held Secret Meeting In Munich With Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif.  Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and other Democratic senators had a secret meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during the Munich Security Conference last week, according to a source briefed by the French delegation to the conference.  Murphy's office did not respond to repeated requests for comment by press time.  Such a meeting would mean Murphy had done the type of secret coordination with foreign leaders to potentially undermine the U.S. government that he accused Trump officials of doing as they prepared for Trump's administration.  In February 2017, Murphy demanded investigations of National Security Advisor Mike Flynn because he had a phone call with his counterpart-to-be in Russia.

Alaska Supreme Court puts Gov. Dunleavy recall campaign on fast track, allowing signatures to be collected.  The Alaska Supreme Court Friday [2/14/2020] ordered the state Division of Elections to allow Alaskans to sign petitions seeking to remove Gov. Mike Dunleavy from office and said that arguments over the legality of the recall will take place March 25.  The decisions reverse a lower-court ruling that had paused signature-gathering and put the case on an extremely speedy schedule by the standards of the court.  Both orders were signed by all five justices.

Everest:  Top Sherpas slam Nepal's plan to clean rubbish from mountain.  A plan to clear 35,000kg of rubbish from Everest and five other Himalayan peaks has been slammed by some of Nepal's leading mountaineers.  The government says the army will be used for the task, which will cost 860 million Nepali rupees ($7.5m; £5.7m).  Last year, they managed to clear about 10,000kg of waste from the region.  But Kami Rita Sherpa, who has scaled the world's highest mountain a record 24 times, says they do not have the skills to reach the highest points.

Harvard, Yale under investigation over foreign gifts totaling hundreds of millions of dollars.  The U.S. Department of Education (DOE) announced an investigation into Harvard and Yale on Wednesday and accused both universities of failing to report foreign gifts and contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars.  The federal agency claimed Yale failed to report at least $375 million in foreign transactions and hasn't reported any gifts or contracts for the last four years.  The DOE did not say how much Harvard might have failed to report.  Section 117 of the Higher Education Act requires American Title IV-eligible colleges and universities to report any foreign gifts or contracts that exceed $250,000 in value.  Institutions must also disclose any foreign ownership or control, twice each year — something many schools have failed to do, according to federal officials.

Siri is Now Refusing to Say the Word "Gun".  Apple's Siri voice assistant is now apparently refusing to say the word "gun" when used on an iPad.  Tracy Connors tweeted a video of herself attempting to have Siri read out a Daily Caller headline entitled 'Virginia House of Delegates Passes Gun Ban, Seizure Bill'.  Instead of saying the word 'gun', Siri spelled out the letters G-U-N.

Seattle City Council approves legislation protecting renters from wintertime evictions.  The Seattle City Council voted Monday [2/10/2020] to prohibit some residential evictions during the winter, but altered what had been originally proposed by reducing the number of months the ban would be in effect.  Before voting 7-0, the council trimmed the period covered by the legislation from five months to three months; limited the rule to low- and moderate-income tenants; and exempted landlords with four or fewer housing units.  The legislation is meant to prevent most evictions during the coldest months for people behind on their rent.

Catherine Herridge Drops Big Scoop About the DOJ and What They're Doing on Ukraine.  [Scroll down]  While there are obviously questions about the Bidens, there are also questions about possible interference in our 2016 election and the role of the Democrats or the DNC and Ukraine in that.  The fact that Barr took it out of main justice and assigned it to a separate U.S. Attorney, as he did with the Russia probe and U.S. Attorney John Durham, makes me think he believes there's a lot there to look at as well as he wants to ensure that an independent eye looks at it.

Authorities in Awe of Drug Runners' Jungle-Built, Kevlar-Coated Supersubs.  The vessel, which never had a chance to take its maiden voyage, is by no means perfect.  Its steel-free hull can't withstand depths of more than 62 feet, according to the US Navy's technical assessment, a limitation that gives the pilot an incredibly narrow comfort zone.  In other words, the slightest miscalculation in ballast — the amount of seawater a sub takes in to dive — could spell disaster for the unwieldy, 16-foot-high vessel.  Still, while they don't approve of its purpose, the Psubs members confirm that the craft is an impressive piece of work.  "Something like that would have taken a year or so in a modern shop," says Vance Bradley, a member of the group's advisory council and a former professional submarine fabricator.  "Imagine doing it out in the boonies with the mosquitoes and vermin!"

Boycott MSNBC trends after Chris Matthews breaks silence, goes off about Dems and socialism.  MSNBC's Chris Matthews stepped too far outside the liberal box in a rant on socialism that ignited social media's cancel culture.  Matthews unloaded on the word "socialism," saying he has an "attitude" about the term and proceeded to stun the MSNBC panel and viewers with his passionate warning to Democrats about supporting 2020 candidates who promote the ideology.

How a Croatian gas project exposes Green Deal hypocrisy.  The company in charge of the construction is the Austrian company Strabag, who provided an update on the construction's progress in December 2019.  Strabag is involved in one of the largest corruption scandals in Austria.  It is being investigated by the Austrian fiscal authorities and is accused, alongside a dozen of other peers, of cartel forming and price-fixing of construction work tenders in Austria since 2003, in violation of Austrian and EU law.  Strabag's offices were raided by the authorities in 2019.  According to media, the expected fines are estimated to reach tens of millions of euros.  This adds an extra shade of grey to the Croatia LNG project, whose hidden interests have been challenged by international civil society in a report in 2019.

Report: Missing $1.8 Billion in Aid Linked to Corrupt Oligarch Who 'Bankrolled' Ukraine Revolution.  In a live video presentation, Thursday night, conservative radio host Glenn Beck accused the Obama administration of funneling $1.8 billion in taxpayer dollars to Ukraine in order to fund the Ukrainian revolution against Russia.  Calling the scandal bigger than the Reagan-era "Iran Contra" scandal, The Blaze founder said that his research team made the discovery while looking into the phone call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky, which spurred the Democrats' now-failed impeachment charade.

John Solomon's laptop was stolen on eve of Senate impeachment trial using 'sophisticated device'.  Investigative reporter John Solomon, whose bombshells on Ukraine-Biden corruption have upset a number of deep state operatives and Democratic lawmakers in Washington, had his laptop computer stolen on the eve of the Senate's impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.  According to a report by RealClearInvestigation's Paul Sperry, Solomon noted that nothing else was taken from his vehicle, just the laptop.  Even his US Capitol press security badge was left untouched.  According to the report, Solomon said his laptop contained "notes on Ukraine and former Vice President Joe Biden and other sensitive information."

Donald Trump Awards Rush Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  President Donald Trump awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Rush Limbaugh during Tuesday's State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress in Washington, D.C.  Limbaugh, in attendance and seated beside first lady Melania Trump, was visibly emotional upon hearing the president's announcement.  Melania Trump presented the medal and placed it around Limbaugh's neck.

Mid-SOTU, First Lady Presents Rush Limbaugh With Presidential Medal Of Freedom.  First Lady Melania Trump presented legendary talk radio host Rush Limbaugh with the Presidential Medal of Freedom during Tuesday's State of the Union address.  Limbaugh had revealed his advanced lung cancer diagnosis only one day earlier.  "Almost every American family knows the pain when a loved one is diagnosed with a serious illness," President Trump said on Tuesday night.  "Here tonight is a special man, beloved by millions of Americans, who just received a stage 4, advanced cancer diagnosis.  This is not good news, but what is good news is that he is the greatest fighter and winner that you will ever meet, Rush Limbaugh.  Thank you for your decades of devotion to our country."

'An unacceptable and upsetting environment': 2020 Democratic Host Committee under investigation.  The two top officials overseeing Milwaukee's host committee for the 2020 Democratic National Convention were sidelined Monday [2/3/2020] amid allegations of a toxic work culture.  In a letter to staff obtained by the Journal Sentinel, the board said it had retained an attorney to investigate "concerns about the work environment" for the Milwaukee 2020 Host Committee.  During the investigation, Liz Gilbert, president of the host committee, will not be in the office and "will not have direct contact with staff," the letter says.  Adam Alonso, the chief of staff for the group, has been placed on administrative leave, pending the outcome of the probe.

That Incident With the SUV Crashing the Barricades at Mar A Lago Yesterday Is Weirder Than We Realized.  It didn't quite get the attention yesterday one might expect, but yesterday was an extraordinarily busy news day and, more importantly, it wasn't quite the ominous story it initially appeared to be.  An SUV crashed through the gates at Mar-a-Lago, late yesterday morning.  Shots were fired by the Secret Service and, ultimately, the driver was taken into custody.  What became clear fairly quickly is that this was not a terrorist type thing — nor did it appear that Mar-a-Lago was intentionally targeted by the SUV driver.  Rather, the driver — a 30-year-old opera singer from Connecticut — apparently was under the influence/impaired.  But the story is a little more involved than that, [...]

CNN is Angry That White People Are Trying to Stop the Coronavirus Spreading.  According to CNN, the real concern about the coronavirus is not the potential for a global pandemic, it's the fact there are too many white people trying to stop it.  That was the message sent by an article posted on the news network's website entitled 'Coronavirus task force another example of Trump administration's lack of diversity'.

Proposed Missouri book ban could jail librarians for loaning 'inappropriate' content.  Librarians and free speech advocates are fighting back against a proposal in the Missouri House of Representatives that would ban certain books from the state's libraries with the threat of a misdemeanor charge. [...] Cynthia Dudenhoffer, the president of the Missouri Library Association, said she was shocked when she first heard about the bill and said it was unnecessary.  Each of the state's library systems, which account for a total of 365 branches, already have their own protocols in place to determine which materials are allowed for their younger members. [...] Dudenhoffer, however, noted that drag queen story hours and other similar events aren't mentioned in the bill and those readings have not included books with sexually inappropriate content.

Suspects accused of running $7M fentanyl ring released without bail.  Six suspected drug dealers who are accused of running a $7 million fentanyl distribution operation out of a Bronx apartment were released without bail under the state's new criminal justice law early Wednesday [1/29/2020].  The suspects — Livo Valdez, Jaslin Baldera, Frederick Baldera, Frandi Ledema, Diego Tejada and Parfraimy Antonio — were arrested Monday [1/27/2020] when officers with the New York Drug Enforcement Task Force raided an apartment on Sedgwick Avenue in Kingsbridge that was allegedly used as a heroin and fentanyl packaging mill.  They were each charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance and criminally using drug paraphernalia.

Bellwether to Blowout:  Texas House District Gets Redder to Lead Off 2020 Elections.  Texas House District 28's special election offered a first test of the theory that red Texas may be trending blue in the age of Trump.  The suburban district west of Houston offered Democrats an opportunity to grab a seat and the narrative just days before the 2020 Iowa caucuses. [...] Sen. Elizabeth Warren endorsed the Democrat.  Former veep Joe Biden did the same.  Julian Castro campaigned for the Democrat.  Mike Bloomberg bumbled his way into town and apparently knocked on the wrong doors.  Beto O'Rourke practically lived in the district for the last few weeks, showing up everywhere giving speeches for the Democratic candidate, Dr. Eliz Markowitz.  If one were to go by Twitter, the Dem would win 90-10.

$900K in counterfeit $1 bills discovered inside Chinese shipping container.  Minnesota officers from Customs and Border Protection said they discovered 900,000 fake $1 bills in a commercial rail shipment that originated from China.  The officers flagged a container last month at the International Falls Port of Entry, located between International Falls, Minnesota, and Fort Frances, Canada.  During the search, $900,000 worth of U.S. currency was found in 45 different cartons within the shipping container.  The Secret Service determined all of the money was fake, according to a press release from CBP over the weekend.

The Editor says...
I'm very surprised that anyone bothers to counterfeit one-dollar bills.  That would involve a lot of paper and very little gain.  It sounds like the case of Mr. 880, except in this case there was a railroad car full of money.

Counterfeit singles
CBP officers seize $900K worth of counterfeit U.S. currency.  U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers at the International Falls Port of Entry seized $900,000 in counterfeit United States currency Friday [1/24/2020] that was discovered in a commercial rail shipment originating from China.  "CBP officers strive every day to protect the United States from a variety of threats," said Jason Schmelz, Pembina Area Port Director.  "Those threats don't always come in the form of terrorists or narcotics, but also in the form of counterfeit currency and other goods that have the potential to harm the economy of the United States.  Thanks to the dedication of our officers and our partnership with the Secret Service, we were able to keep this currency from entering into circulation."

The Editor says...
As pointed out elsewhere, it isn't worth the trouble to counterfeit one dollar bills.  This story doesn't add up.  The simplest explanation is that the customs people needed to justify their existence, so they put some $1 bills in an envelope to show the press, along with some boxes stacked against a wall, and claimed to have disrupted a counterfeiting operation.  But if you actually make such an accusation, you'll be called a conspiracy theorist.

Harvard chemistry department chairman charged with lying about ties to Chinese government.  Federal prosecutors Tuesday charged Harvard University's chemistry department chairman with lying to the U.S. Department of Defense about his ties to a controversial Chinese talent recruitment program.  Prosecutors say Charles Lieber concealed almost $2 million from authorities in an alleged scheme to hide his ties to a Chinese university linked to a program accused of stealing U.S. intellectual property from businesses and universities.  By hiding his ties, Mr. Lieber was able to secure $18 million in research grant funding from the Department of Defense and National Institutes of Health, prosecutors said.

Harvard professor arrested for failing to disclose $50,000 per month he received from China.  Dr. Charles Lieber, a professor who led Harvard's chemistry department has been arrested and accused of lying about his ties to a Chinese program that recruited scientists and paid them to share their expertise at Chinese universities.

Rand Paul Says Trump Kids Should Sue Chuck Schumer for Slander.  When Senator Rand Paul gets a lil fire in his belly it is always a lot of fun to watch and man did he have some fire earlier today.  Earlier today [1/28/2020] on Fox while Rand was being interviewed they cut live for a couple of minutes to Sen. Chuck Schumer doing his daily talkfest before the trial was gaveled in.  When host Ed henry cut back to Sen. Paul and asked him what was said, the Kentucky politician was ready to rip on what he heard Schumer said.

Is This Objectively Disgusting Soup What's Causing China's Disease Outbreak?  A recent outbreak in China of a new strand of coronavirus may be linked to an objectively disgusting Chinese delicacy called bat soup, according to reports.  Video footage online shows an entire cooked, dead bat sitting in soup.  Scientists believe that the virus, which has killed 17 and infected over 640 people, could have spread from snakes or bats.  Is this bat soup the cause of the quickly-spreading virus?

The Editor says...
The Chinese people eat rats and wolves, too.  Maybe that's because they live under communism; but really, it's no wonder they're sick.

Some junk for sale on Amazon is very literally garbage, report finds.  Some days it seems like searching for an item on Amazon just brings up endless pages of junk with no clear pattern.  There's a reason for that, it turns out: dumpster divers are, in fact, literally reselling discarded junk.  Resellers hunt through trash to find and repair treasures, the Wall Street Journal reported today.  Those sellers, for understandable reasons, mostly didn't want to talk to the WSJ, so reporters for the paper tried it themselves.

The Disturbing Dismissal of the Kiddies' Climate Lawsuit.  On a 2-1 vote, the Ninth Circuit Court finally dismissed Juliana v. United States, the lawsuit brought on behalf of child plaintiffs demanding their constitutional right to "a climate system capable of sustaining human life."  The children, and the environmentalist group Our Children's Trust that's using them as lawfare puppets, were demanding a court order compelling the U.S. government to "swiftly phase out fossil-fuel use" and develop and implement "a national plan to restore Earth's energy balance ... to stabilize the climate system." [...] Juliana is only one of a "wave" of climate lawsuits proceeding on the basis "that climate science itself isn't up for debate."  Even when a court gets it right as a matter of law, as happened this time in Juliana, widespread allegations that apocalyptic climate theories are "settled science" have a cumulative effect across the Judicial Branch.

Millennials Offended by Suggestion They Work Weekends.  Individual tweets rarely deserve article-length analyses.  In our social media-addled age, blithely drafted tweets too often lead to unforgiving shaming campaigns, which result, not infrequently, in ruined careers.  But, once in a while, a 280-character-or-fewer remark actually accomplishes the Pollyannaish wishes of Silicon Valley techies:  it provokes thought, sparks debate, inspires afflatus, and makes us consider the important things in life.  A tweet from a cryptocurrency enthusiast named Ryan Selkis was roundly reviled by critics who are almost certainly leftists by persuasion.  "If you don't work nights and weekends in your 20s, you're not going to have a successful career.  Sorry," Selkis wrote in response to Jason Fried, CEO of the business management platform Basecamp, who called weekend work a sign of brokenness within a company.

US troops drink Iceland capital's entire beer supply in one weekend.  Thousands of U.S. soldiers depleted all of the beer in Iceland's capital over the weekend.  More than 6,000 soldiers were in Reykjavik for four days participating in the Trident Juncture 18 — a NATO-led military exercise.  After their drills, the troops reportedly visited the city's downtown bars, where they finished off the entire beer supply.

Justice delayed: 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed appears in Guantanamo courtroom as trial approaches.  Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will appear in a Guantanamo Bay courtroom this week, more than 18 years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks he is alleged to have masterminded and a year before he will finally face a jury.  In the nearly two decades since 19 al Qaeda terrorists crashed hijacked planes into the World Trade Center buildings, the side of the Pentagon, and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing nearly 3,000 people, the five men believed to be responsible have yet to face a trial.

Cases of bottled water found inside another vacant building in Flint.  This time, they were found inside Flint Northern High School.  Flint Northern High School closed in 2013.  The discovery was made by Todd Farnum, who is an urban discoverer in the area.  Farnum tells our Lia Kamana that he and a friend had discovered the water bottles back in 2018 while walking around in the neighborhood.  Farum and his friend came back to the area last week and noticed that the cases of bottled water were still inside the building.  The last time cases of bottled water were found inside a vacant building was back in 2019.

Made to Order Colorado Birth Certificates.  Colorado has enacted legislation, effective Jan. 1, allowing adults born in Colorado to secure a new birth certificate reflecting a self-designated gender other than as recorded on an original birth certificate.  That legislation is unwise, unethical, dangerous, and, surely to be contended by some, unlawful. [...] Impersonation is an act of pretending to be another person for the purposes of entertainment or fraud.  Criminal impersonation includes pretending to be another individual in order to deceive others or gain some advantage, benefit, or thing of value.  Since impersonation can also include assuming a fake identity with intent to defraud another, persons of one sex impersonating the opposite sex may be in violation of law when seeking an advantage such as access to opposite-sex bathrooms or when surreptitiously advancing intimate relationships with unsuspecting persons who would find such a relationship abhorrent.

Report: Over 50 Percent Of Attendees At Trump's Wisconsin Rally Weren't Republicans.  This is some news that should absolutely terrify Democrats.  They know they need Wisconsin and other rust belt states to beat Trump in 2020 but the crowd at Trump's recent rally there proves winning the state is going to be extremely difficult for them.  More than half of the people at Trump's rally were not even Republicans.

Democrats & Independents Are Now Flocking To President Trump.  Support for President Trump is surging due not only to the remarkably strong economy and international successes for the U.S., but also because of voter backlash against the ongoing insanity that is the Democrat Party — a party currently without any substantive policies or direction.  When more than half of the people attending recent political rallies for President Trump are Democrats and Independents it's a sign the president's broad-based appeal to tens of millions from all backgrounds could prove impossible for the zany Democrats to defeat in 2020.

Mother and daughter psychics get prison time for $1.4 million fraud.  They claimed they were "white squaw Cherokee Indian" spiritual healers, and used eggs filled with snake embryos to convince their victims that they were cursed, authorities say.  One woman forked over almost $1.5 million before realizing it was a scam.  But on Friday [1/17/2020], the mother-daughter pair of Annie Marie Vwanawick, 74, and April Miller, 44, both of Broward, were sentenced to 42 months and 27 months in prison, respectively, for defrauding two victims with their spiritual scams.

Meet the Muslim Republican Iraqi Refugee Who's Looking to Unseat Ilhan Omar.  A Muslim Iraqi refugee who previously worked as a war journalist announced she is running for Congress in Minnesota's 5th Congressional District, meaning she will try to unseat Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar.  In her campaign announcement video, Dalia al-Aqidi said she was fortunate to be able to come to the United States as a little girl with her mother to escape Saddam Hussein, who she described as a "brutal dictator."  Seeing how terror had affected her family, al-Aqidi says in the video she was happy President Trump ordered the death of Iranian general and terrorist Qasem Soleimani.

Amazon Crowns 'Profiles in Corruption' the 'Most Anticipated' Nonfiction Book.  Slated to hit bookstores nationwide on January 21, Profiles in Corruption by Government Accountability Institute President and Breitbart senior contributor Peter Schweizer hit #1 in Amazon 10 days before its official release.  The book is said to contain never-before-published revelations about Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Eric Garcetti, Kamala Harris, Sherrod Brown, and Amy Klobuchar — several of whom are featured on the book's cover.

Victory In New Jersey!  Mandatory Vaccine Bill Miserably Fails After Thousands Show Up To Protest.  A bill in New Jersey that would've stripped parents and children of their right to informed consent by allowing them to object to mandatory vaccinations failed on Monday.  Much to the chagrin of the tyrants who claim ownership over the bodies of others, the bill that would have eliminated religious exemptions to mandatory vaccinations failed to pass the New Jersey state legislature.  According to reports, the bill was canceled in the Senate before the vote because lawmakers knew they lacked the passing votes.  The proponents of the bill vowed to reintroduce it on Tuesday but this gives opponents a new time frame on the public hearing and voting process.

Stephen King faces backlash for saying 'quality' should matter in Oscar nominees over 'diversity'.  Legendary horror author Stephen King is facing backlash on Tuesday for his commentary on this year's Oscar nominations, stressing that the "quality" of the art should matter over "diversity."  On Monday [1/13/2020], the Oscar nominations were revealed, and the Academy was slammed for both not having any female nominees for Best Director and for the numerous snubs of people of color among the other categories.  King weighed in on the controversy on Twitter.

Drinking in the US hits 30-year high — Here's how much the average American drinks.  Drinking in America has been rising for the last 20 years and has reached a point where Americans are drinking more than they were when Prohibition was enacted, according to federal health statistics.  Aside from rising per-person alcohol consumption, there has also been an increase in emergency room visits, hospitalizations and deaths related to drinking, The Associated Press reported Tuesday [1/14/2020].  "Consumption has been going up.  Harms [from alcohol] have been going up," Dr. Tim Naimi, an alcohol researcher at Boston University, said.

The NSA found a 'severe' security flaw with Microsoft Windows 10, and it's urging all users to do a software update immediately.  The National Security Agency is urging all Windows 10 users to update their software after detecting a "severe" security flaw in the operating system, the agency announced Tuesday.  The NSA first detected the flaw and alerted Microsoft, prominent security researcher Brian Krebs first reported.  NSA Director of Cybersecurity Anne Neuberger confirmed that the agency told Microsoft about the flaw in a call with reporters Tuesday morning [1/14/2020].

Rep. Meadows:  Lawmakers Will Appeal To FISC Judge To Remove David Kris From FBI Review.  North Carolina Congressman Mark Meadows told "The Sara Carter Show" Monday that he — along with other senior Republican lawmakers — will send a letter to the presiding Judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court demanding that FBI apologist David Kris be removed from overseeing bureau reforms demanded by the secret court.  Kris, who openly criticized Republican lawmakers and defended the bureau's spying of short-term Trump campaign advisor Carter Page, is coming under heavy scrutiny for his online posts and blogs targeting Republican lawmakers investigations that uncovered malfeasance at the bureau.

AG Barr rains on Dem parade, says Trump consulted DOJ prior to Soleimani airstrike.  Attorney General William Barr rained on the liberal media's parade in trying to paint President Donald Trump as an impulsive, irrational war-seeking commander-in-chief going off half-cocked to stir world passions.  Countering media claims that the president disdains expertise in making decisions, Barr said Monday that Trump consulted the Justice Department before ordering the airstrike that killed Iran's terrorist general.  "The Department of Justice was consulted and frankly I don't think it was a close call," the attorney general said.  "I believe the president clearly had the authority to act as he did on numerous different bases."

Exclusive: Iranian National Arrested Near Mar-a-Lago with Machete, Knives Came to U.S. as Refugee.  An Iranian national arrested near President Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, originally arrived in the United States as a refugee, Breitbart News has learned.  On January 10, Palm Beach Police Department arrested 38-year-old Masoud Yarieilzoleh, from Iran, who was apparently sleeping in a gazebo in a park in Palm Beach, according to the Palm Beach Post.  When police searched Yarieilzoleh, they found a 17-inch machete, two 4.5-inch knives, and an ax, along with about $22,000 in cash.

Poll: 47% of Young Democrats Prefer Other Countries over America.  A shocking new poll has discovered that 47 percent of young Democrats believe that other countries are better than the United States.  Moreover, many young Americans admit that they wouldn't mind other countries becoming as militarily powerful as the United States.  Slightly more than one third — 36 percent — of Americans 18 to 29 say that other countries are better than the United States, according to a recent poll released by Pew Research.

Red states see less unemployment, more economic growth.  Opinion polling isn't everything.  However, it often gives you a good barometer of the general shape of things, especially at the state level.  As of mid-2019, every single one of the top 10 most popular governors in the country were Republicans, while eight of the 10 least popular were Democrats.  Generally speaking, voters trust Republicans more than they trust Democrats to lead their states.

AG William Barr Backs Soleimani Strike: 'He Was the Head of a Terrorist Organization'.  Attorney General William Barr held a press conference on Monday to discuss the findings of an investigation into the terror attack on a Florida Naval base in December and other topics, at one point defending the Trump administration's elimination of Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani.  A reporter asked Barr if the Trump administration gave any "special consideration" to Soleimani's position in the Iranian government — the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' (IRGC) Quds Force, an arm dedicated to external acts of terrorism.

Iranian protesters refuse to walk on US, Israeli flags.  A few people who did walk over the flags were booed by protesters in the area with chants of 'Shame on you.'  Some reports said that the protesters chanted 'Our enemy is in Iran, not America.'

President Trump praises Iranians for protesting Ayatollah regime.  Protesters in Iran are calling for Ayatollah Khamenei to step down.  During Saturday's [1/11/2020] demonstrations in Tehran, protesters were heard chanting "commander in chief resign" and "death to the liars."  The protests came in response to the Iranian government's admission of guilt regarding the Ukrainian passenger plane crash, which killed 176 people this week.

Yale Psychiatrist Issues Diagnosis of "Psychotic" for Defending Constitutional Rights.  A Yale professor of forensic psychiatry has diagnosed guess who — your truly — as suffering from "psychosis" for expressing legal views that happen to be on the Constitutional rights of President Donald Trump.  Dr. Bandy Lee has never met me, never examined me, never seen my medical records, and never spoken to anyone close to me.  Yet she is prepared to offer a diagnosis of "psychosis" which she attributes to my being one of President Trump's "followers."  (I voted for Hillary Clinton and am a liberal Democrat.)  Indeed, Dr. Lee went even further, diagnosing "the severity and spread of 'shared psychosis' among just about all of Donald Trump's followers."  Nor does she seem to be using these psychiatric terms as political metaphors, dangerous as that would be.  She is literally claiming that we are mentally ill and our views should be considered symptoms of our illness, rather than as legitimate ideas.

Walmart Has Made A Genius Move To Beat Amazon.  I ordered Powerbeats earbuds from Amazon the other day.  As a Prime member, I got them to my doorstep in Stowe, Vermont the next day for free.  When I unpacked the box, one of the accessories was missing.  I called Amazon's customer service to get a replacement sorted out.  But what I was told raised my eyebrows:  "We'll make a one-time exception.  Keep the earbuds and we'll issue you a full refund right now."  "Why don't you take them back?  They are fine, it's just the wire clip is missing," I asked, puzzled.  "It's too expensive to ship them back..." the customer rep replied.  This surprising story hints at Amazon's Achilles heel that threatens its crown as the king of online retail.  And as I'll explain in a moment, America's biggest retailer Walmart has a master plan to use it against Amazon.

Once Again, Government-Subsidized Projects Fail to Deliver.  In June 2018, President Donald Trump attended the groundbreaking ceremony for a Foxconn factory in Wisconsin. [...] A year and a half after Trump paraded at the site with his golden shovel, the reality isn't as bright.  First, a few days before the ceremony, Foxconn announced that the factory would ultimately be smaller than the one initially promised.  It would also be highly automated, with almost all of the assembly work done by robots, and would only require 3,000 employees — 90% of them "knowledge workers" such as engineers, programmers and designers.  There's nothing wrong with such a modern factory, except that it's not what Trump and other government officials thought they were buying with taxpayers' money.

Illinois: Daughter of convicted Muslim terrorist is running for Congress.  The daughter of Jeff Fort (aka Abdul Malik Ka'bah), who is spending the rest of his life in prison for domestic terrorism charges, is running for Congress in Illinois.  Ameena Matthews is a Democratic candidate for U.S. House of Representatives in Illinois' 1st Congressional District.

Army warning Americans about fake military draft texts.  The US Army is warning Americans about a flurry of "fraudulent text messages" falsely telling recipients they have been drafted into the military and will be shipped out to Iran.  The bogus texts tell hapless recipients to report to the nearest Army recruiting branch "for immediate departure to Iran," and warn about multiple attempts to contact recipients, in one case warning "you'll be fined and sent to jail for minimum 6 years if no reply," CNN reported Wednesday [1/8/2020].

Scientists claim that 'normal' body temperature is now 36.6°C NOT 37°C.  Human bodies have naturally got cooler over the last century, a study reveals.  The accepted wisdom is that the human body sits, under normal conditions, at a nice balmy 37°C (98.6°F), but this is no longer true for modern-day humans.  Researchers at Stanford University in the US measured people's temperatures from the 2000s and compared them to records of soldiers that fought in the US Civil War.  The study reveals that modern-day men have a body temperature 0.58°C (1.06°F) lower than their 19th century counterparts, while women are 0.32°C (0.58°F) cooler.

Peter Schweizer Book Set to 'Upend Official Washington'.  The investigative author behind the game-changing New York Times bestsellers Clinton Cash and Secret Empires is set to drop another bombshell book that sources close to the publisher say will "upend official Washington."  As Axios reported on Thursday [1/9/2020], [...] Peter Schweizer's forthcoming book, Profiles in Corruption:  Abuse of Power by America's Progressive Elite (HarperCollins), is set to launch Tuesday, January 21.

Climate Change?  Turns Out Two Dozen Arrested for Setting Australia's Fires.  Authorities in New South Wales have arrested two dozen Australians for intentionally setting fires as huge swaths of the country continue to be engulfed by flames.  In a news release issued Monday, the NSW Police Force said legal action has been taken against more than 180 people since late last year.  The bushfires have killed 18 people and burned 4.9 million hectares of land, consuming thousands of structures, and millions of animals, the statement said.  In breaking down their figures, the police said "24 have been charged over deliberately-lit bushfires; 53 people have had legal actions for allegedly failing to comply with a total fire ban; and 47 people have had legal actions for allegedly discarding a lighted cigarette or match on land."

Indiana twins born in different decades.  Meet Baby New Year — and his twin sister Baby Last Year.  A pair of Indiana twins were born just a half hour apart, but entered the world on different days, months, years and even decades from one another.

The Editor says...
Technically, the current decade doesn't end until the last day of 2020, because there was no Year Zero.

Ignored by Liberal Mainstream Media:  Iranian Regime Bribed Funeral Attendees with Free Meals.  The liberal pro-Iranian mainstream media could not stop talking about the size of the crowds at the "popular" and "loved" Qassem Soleimani funeral today [1/7/2020].  The media was in awe of the number of people at Soleimani's funeral.  [Video clips]  The regime was serving dinners to people who came out to the funeral.

Retired Green Beret slams Dems, says Army community buried Americans killed by Soleimani.  Retired Green Beret Master Sgt. Terry Schappert fired back at Democrats who criticized President Trump's order of the U.S. airstrike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani on Friday, detailing the general's role in hundreds of American deaths.  "If you're in my community, it's pretty safe to say that you've probably buried somebody who was killed by him [Soleimani], you know someone who's lost a limb or been catastrophically wounded, and you know a Gold Star family who has been destroyed by this guy," Schappert said on "The Greg Gutfeld Show" over the weekend.  "If you can't care about that, you can care about all the people he's killed over there... Iraq, Syria, Lebanon... his own country... he's murdered and tortured people," he added.

Iran Loses Its Terror-Master.  Trump's red line against the Iranian regime harming Americans was very real, and Qasem Soleimani is dead.  The U.S. killed the Iranian terror-master at the Baghdad airport where he reportedly had just arrived from Syria.  The head of the Revolutionary Guard's elite Quds Force, Soleimani was the instrument of Iranian imperialism around the region, building up proxy forces, overseeing operations, and executing a geopolitical vision.  He existed at the very center of the Iranian regime and was uniquely skilled at his role, honed over decades of ruthlessness and cunning.  He was also a cold-blooded killer of Americans, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of our servicemen during the Iraq war.  He deserved to die for that alone.

Inside the twisted, terrible reign of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani.  The killing of Iranian terror-meister Qassem Soleimani in a targeted US air strike in Baghdad on Thursday will have a dramatic impact on the stability of the Iranian regime and its ability to conduct oversea terrorist operations.  Soleimani was, in many ways, the irreplaceable man.  Known as a charismatic leader — indeed, the only charismatic leader in Iran's military today — he has no parallel among contemporary Iranian commanders.  Wherever Iran has sent its expeditionary Quds Force to war — in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen — there you would find Soleimani.

Impeached, Imprisoned Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich Slams Democrats on Impeachment.  Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who was impeached and removed, and later criminally convicted, for trying to sell then-president-elect Barack Obama's U.S. Senate seat, has written an op-ed condemning Democrats' ongoing impeachment effort.  The op-ed, published at Newsmax on Tuesday [12/31/2019], argued that Democrats' new standard for impeachment is so low that they would have impeached President Abraham Lincoln.  (In fact, Democrats' opposition to Lincoln triggered the Civil War.)

New York is losing residents at an alarming rate: report.  Despite the nation's longest economic expansion, the Empire State is actually losing population, an analysis of newly released US Census data released Monday reveals.  The total state population as of mid-2019 was 19,453,561 — a drop of 76,790, or 0.4 percent, from the previous year, according to the study by the Empire Center for Public Policy.  New York was one of only 10 states to suffer a total population decline in 2018-19 — its fourth consecutive annual decrease after five years of growth, and the largest population drop of any state.  Only West Virginia, Alaska and Illinois saw their populations fall at a faster percentage clip.

While We Were Focused on the IG Report, Rep. Ratcliffe 'Dropped a Bomb' at the House Hearing.  Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi have released most of the transcripts from the first round of witness interviews, 15 to be exact, however there is one they refuse to let go of.  That would be the transcript from Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson's October 4 closed-door testimony before the House Intelligence Committee.  Investigative journalist Paul Sperry asked about this in a tweet and Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) replied. [...]

Trump Home Alone 2 Cameo - via screen grab
CBC Cuts Donald Trump's 'Home Alone 2' Cameo Out of BroadcastHome Alone 2: Lost in New York is full of violence that, in my opinion, exceeds the physical comedy of the original film and is borderline barbarism.  The main antagonists were subjected to bricks thrown at them from atop a building, being shot with a staple gun, having their heads lit afire, and being electrocuted.  It is actually hard to watch.  But, for CBC TV in Canada, the following scene was too much, and had to be removed from their broadcast of the film:  [Video clip]


Venezuela's currency so worthless it's mostly being used for making crafts.  Venezuela — once one of the more prosperous countries in Latin America — has been driven into such economic and political turmoil that its currency is no longer of any use.  However, that has not stopped Venezuelan bolivares from becoming a commodity elsewhere.  Across the border in Colombia, Hector Cordero uses the currency to make wallets and purses, which he sells to tourists in Colombia.

Giuliani: 'Saint Marie Yovanovitch' Quashed Ukraine Probe Into Missing $5.3 Billion in Foreign Aid.  Rudy Giuliani alleged Monday that former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch "quashed" a corruption investigation into the disappearance of foreign aid because the Obama Administration was funneling the money to non-governmental organizations run by left-wing billionaire George Soros.  Giuliani, President Trump's personal attorney, recently returned from a fact-finding mission in Ukraine, and discussed his findings in an interview with Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk for his podcast.  The former mayor of New York City told Kirk that in 2017, the Ukrainian Accounting Authority did a study which revealed that $5.3 billion in foreign aid during the Obama/Biden years was not properly accounted for.  So the agency started an investigation[.]  "All of a sudden, members of the U.S. Embassy, under the control of Marie Yovanovitch — I call her Saint Marie Yovanovitch — comes and tells them, 'there's no need to do that.  We're okay with the spending.  There's no need to.'"

Soros gave millions to a group trying to pit Republicans against President Trump.  A "dark money" group that received millions from speculator George Soros — whose organizations and other establishments have been expelled from several countries on charges of political interference and subversion — is hiding behind a massive media campaign that is trying to pressure Republicans to support the impeachment of President Donald Trump.

English Girl Finds Plea for Help From Prisoners in China in Christmas Card.  Florence Widdicombe, a six-year-old girl from Tooting, Southwest London, was writing Christmas cards to send to her friends when she made a startling discovery.  Inside one of cards was the frightening message, "We are foreign prisoners in Shanghai Qingpu prison China.  Forced to work against our will.  Please help us and notify human rights organization." [...] As disturbing as this report of inmates at a Chinese prison being subjected to forced labor is, it is hardly an anomaly.  Communist nations such as China, North Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba are by their very nature giant prisons and very little labor done within them can be said to be voluntary.

U.S. Stops Sending Bomb-Sniffing Dogs To Jordan, Egypt After Ten Percent Of Dogs Die From Mistreatment.  The United States State Department says that ten percent of bomb-sniffing canines, lent to countries like Egypt and Jordan in a program to help control and prevent bombings, died after being mistreated.  The Inspector General that discovered the disturbing trend now suggests the U.S. suspend the program altogether.  The Hill reports that the State Department's Inspector General found, in September, that "at least 10 of the 100 explosive-detection dogs sent to Jordan between 2008 and 2016 died of 'various medical problems,' while others were living in 'unhealthy conditions.'"  Last Friday [12/20/2019], the same inspector general released a follow-up report, adding that they'd "received notice of additional canine deaths" since September" and that the State Department should take immediate action to stop the program.

The Editor says...
Muslims hate dogs, among other things, which probably explains why they don't take care of the dogs they've been given.  Bring the dogs home, I say, and let the Egyptians and Jordanians find explosives the hard way.

Pope says Christians should never seek to convert unbelievers, anyone who proselytizes "is not a disciple of Jesus".  In a dialogue with Catholic high school students in Rome this weekend, Pope Francis responded to a question about how to deal with atheists and people of other faiths by saying that Christians should never proselytize — and any who do are not truly Christians. [...] Last year, Pope Francis told a grieving boy that his late father was in heaven, despite the fact that he was an atheist, because he had his children baptized.

Hospitals, not drugs, are the big driver of health-care costs.  It's perfectly fine for politicians to look at ways to keep prescription drugs affordable.  But why does the bigger problem of soaring hospital bills get so little notice?  Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data out this month show that "retail prescription drug prices declined by 1.0 percent" last year, to $335 billion, while spending for hospital-care services rose at about the same rate as in 2017, to $1.2 trillion.  And that's nothing new:  The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that drug prices have gone down for more months this year than they've gone up, something the White House understandably celebrated.

Rudy Giuliani reveals what he discovered on Ukraine trip, alleging U.S. embassy would not stop a corruption scheme funneling money to George Soros.  Rudy Giuliani has revealed some of what he discovered on his trip to the Ukraine, unraveling a conspiracy theory alleging the U.S. Embassy — led by then-Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch — 'quashed' efforts by Kiev to end a corruption investigation into the disappearance of foreign aid because it was going to a non-governmental organization run by billionaire George Soros.  Giuliani, Donald Trump's personal attorney, unveiled his findings in an interview with Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk for his podcast, a copy of which was obtained by DailyMail.com.  He told Kirk he has told President Trump of his findings.

China to Build Space Solar Power Station Pioneered by Caltech.  China announced it will begin building megawatt-capable solar power stations in space by 2035, as it intends to displace the United States as the leading space power.  The space-based solar power (SSP) were first designed by Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists.  Caltech (California Institute of Technology) spent 40 years perfecting SSP as a weapons platform and power replacement for U.S. "peak oil."  But the effort was shelved after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s and the realization by 2009 that the U.S. oil fracking boom was about to add another 200 years to America's oil reserves.  China Academy of Space Technology scientist Wang Li stated at the China-Russia Engineering Forum in late November that China was moving ahead to build a 200-ton power (SSP) station in space to capture the sun's energy, convert it to microwaves or lasers, and wirelessly beam energy to the Earth.

What's Working:  Fuzzy math used for move-to-Vermont cash giveaway.  Vermont spent nearly a half-million bucks this year to increase its population by 341 people.  That math might work for Vermont since it had seen its resident count grow by a mere 555 over most of this decade.  New Hampshire, meanwhile, gained nearly 40,000 people during that same time frame.  "And we haven't paid one to come," Taylor Caswell, the state's economic development chief, said in an interview last week.

Three Ukrainian Officials Swear Under Oath that Ukraine Interfered in the 2016 US Election Against Donald Trump.  Andrii Telizhenko worked in Washington DC at the Ukraine Embassy in 2016.  Today Andrii is a political consultant.  Andrii was approached by a DNC operative during the 2016 election (March-April 2016).  This past week Andrii Telizhenko joined two other Ukrainian officials who all swore under oath that Ukraine was meddling in the 2016 US election.

Monica Crowley Vindicated by Columbia University After Fake Plagiarism Accusations from CNN, Establishment Media.  Treasury Department Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs Monica Crowley has been vindicated by Columbia University after a years-long investigation ultimately concluded she did not plagiarize her thesis, despite allegations by CNN and other establishment media outlets that she did.  Crowley, now the Treasury Department's top spokeswoman but previously a Fox News contributor, had been under consideration to join the National Security Council (NSC) in the White House at the very beginning of President Donald Trump's administration under his first national security adviser, retired Gen. Mike Flynn.  Then, allegations from CNN and Politico, among other publications, claimed that she plagiarized her 2012 book and her thesis at Columbia, sparking Columbia to launch a review of her thesis that has now concluded.

Investigation clears West Point cadets of 'white supremacy' allegation.  Cadets who were accused of signaling a white supremacist hand signal at the annual Army-Navy football game have been cleared of wrongdoing.  West Point released a report today that states cadets were playing the "circle game," where players attempt to get one another to look at the "OK" hand gesture and then deliver a punch if others look.  "The evidence strongly supports a finding that the cadets were playing the 'circle game,' an internationally recognized game in which people attempt to trick someone else into looking at an okay-like hand gesture below the waist."

The Editor says...
I feel so much better knowing these buffoons are about to be Army officers.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Fourth Pentagon official announces resignation within week.  A top Pentagon intelligence official will soon leave the building, the fourth key defense official to announce their resignation within a week.  Principal Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Kari Bingen submitted her resignation on Dec. 5 and will leave Jan. 10, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Uriah Orland confirmed in a statement.  Her departure was first reported by Politico.

Marine Corps eyes gender-integrated basic training.  The push to eliminate all gender segregation at Marine Corps camps has more momentum than ever, but analysts and military insiders say there remain major real-world, physical roadblocks to coed basic training and serious questions about whether the Marines can or should follow the lead of the Army, Navy and Air Force.  The Marine Corps last month reportedly commissioned a comprehensive study to examine the benefits and potential pitfalls of moving to more integrated training of male and female Marines.

Earth's Magnetic North Pole Continues Drifting, Crosses Prime Meridian.  Earth's magnetic north pole, which has been wandering faster than expected in recent years, has now crossed the prime meridian.  Magnetic north has been lurching away from its previous home in the Canadian Arctic toward Siberia at a rate of about 34 miles (55 kilometers) a year over the past two decades.  The latest model of the Earth's magnetic field, released Dec. 10 by the National Centers for Environmental Information and the British Geological Survey, predicts that this movement will continue, though likely at a slower rate of 25 miles (40 km) each year.

Dangerous Debt Hidden Reason for Monetary Madness.  The Federal Reserve Bank of New York injected $86.4 billion into the repo market on Monday.  This follows three months of the Fed intervening in a repo market it normally leaves to its own devices.  When repurchase agreement (repo) rates exploded in September and the Fed intervened in that market for the first time in more than a decade, interested parties cited corporate tax deadlines, regulations, and other minor reasons as the major factor.  BIS Quarterly Review shines the light on the $23 trillion elephant in the room.

Two Chinese diplomats expelled from US after entering military base: report.  Two Chinese diplomats have been secretly kicked out of the US after driving onto a sensitive military base in Virginia — the first such expulsions in more than 30 years, according to a report Sunday [12/15/2019].  The Chinese Embassy officials were stopped in September at a base in Norfolk that is home to Special Operations forces — after they were chased by military personnel, according to The New York Times.  At least one is believed to be an intelligence officer operating under diplomatic cover, The Times said, citing six people with knowledge of the expulsions.

What is going on at Drudge Report?  The NOQ Report noted over the weekend that the Drudge Report has lost almost a third of its regular visitors since the summer.  This observation came a week after Rasmussen Reports called attention to a rumor that Matt Drudge had sold his eponymous media behemoth some time ago.  Does it make more sense that one of the savviest communicators of information in the history of the world (no exaggeration when you think of the sheer number of ideas he has used to change minds; affect populations; and influence leaders, movements, and governments for twenty-five years) decided to burn his creation down in nihilistic rage and madness, or that some other person or entity is now directing the show in his name?

Drudge Report Has Lost 28% of Its Traffic in Last Four Months Alone As It Continues to Push Corrupt Anti-Trump News.  On November 1oth we reported that since 2017 Matt Drudge and The Drudge Report has gone from staunch Trump supporter to Never-Trump.  It's obvious to everyone.  Matt Drudge is pushing for President Trump to be removed from office in a Democrat coup.  This makes no sense.  Drudge was once well respected and it was an honor to have a link to the Drudge Report.  Now the links only go to far-left anti-Trump corrupt publications.

9 of the 20 Richest Counties Are D.C. Suburbs; Virginia Suburbs Beat Silicon Valley.  Nine of the 20 richest counties in the United States — when measured by median household income — are suburbs of Washington, D.C., according to data released today by the Census Bureau.  In fact, two Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., are richer than the California counties that constitute Silicon Valley.

Exxon wins first-of-its-kind climate change case against New York.  ExxonMobil won a first-of-its-kind climate change fraud trial on Tuesday [12/10/2019] as a judge rejected the state of New York's claim that the oil and gas giant misled investors in accounting for the financial risks of global warming.  New York Supreme Court Justice Barry Ostrager said the state failed to prove that Exxon violated the Martin Act, a broad state law that does not require proof of intent of shareholder fraud.

Mount Sinai Hospital's emergency department is a 'war zone,' workers say.  Mount Sinai Hospital is considered one of the best in the country — but its emergency department is a "war zone" and a danger to the very patients it is supposed to save, current and former staffers have told The [New York] Post.  Nurses from the Upper East Side hospital recalled patients going into cardiac arrest without anyone noticing, others not being admitted to the critical care area because it was too full and staffers losing track of their charges.  They blamed staffing shortages and an obsession with profits.

He makes a village.  Tyler Merritt has taken the saying "It takes a village to raise a child" and turned it a bit sideways.  He's building a village, literally, to allow adults to raise themselves up.  His village is a stabilizing rail, or a stepping stone to a better life.  Merritt, a former special operations air mission commander, is trying to help his military brothers and sisters who have found themselves post-military service one paycheck away from financial collapse, as well as those struggling to find their way through modern civilian life, which does not begin and end with a stated purpose in the way military service does.  "Our most recent initiative is our veterans village," said Merritt, whose post-military life makes him an unlikely entrepreneur and philanthropist as the CEO of Nine Line Apparel and president of Nine Line Foundation.

Cyber Monday shoppers spent $9.4 billion, setting new record.  American shoppers shelled out $9.4 billion on Cyber Monday, setting a new spending record, new data show.  The total was a 19.7 percent jump from last year, according to real-time Adobe Analytics data.  Smartphones also set a new record by accounting for $3 billion, or about a third, of all Cyber Monday sales, Adobe says.  "Consumers capitalized on deals and ramped up spending, especially on smartphones, where activity increased on days when shoppers were snowed or rained in," John Copeland, Adobe's head of marketing and consumer insights, said in a statement.

Chinese defector spills Communist Party, military secrets in Australia.  China's military is engaged in an elaborate covert smuggling operation in Hong Kong to steal U.S. and other western arms and military technology, according to a Chinese intelligence official who has defected to Australia.  Wang Liqiang described the operation in an official statement to Australian authorities that also revealed details of a major Chinese influence campaign aimed at swaying the upcoming presidential election in Taiwan, and aggressive efforts to undermine democracy advocates in Hong Kong.

Thanksgiving Day shopping frenzy tops record with $4.1B spent.  Shoppers on Thursday [11/28/2019] weren't slowed down one bit by their huge turkey feasts.  Consumers spent a staggering $4.2 billion online on Thanksgiving, a 14.5 percent from last year and a record high, according to new figures published by Adobe Analytics on Friday.  This marks the first time that Thanksgiving shopping has surpassed $4 billion.

Leftists Decry Fake University ICE Sting Practiced During Obama Administration.  The fake University of Farmington, set up by the Department of Homeland Security, that resulted in the arrest of 250 foreign students this year and prompted outrage from leftists, was a concept embraced by the Obama administration, which engaged in similar operations.  Leftists experienced a collective freakout this week after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced the arrest of dozens of foreign nationals committing visa fraud by enrolling in the fake university.  It was "part of a sting operation by federal agents who enticed foreign-born students, mostly from India, to attend the school that marketed itself as offering graduate programs in technology and computer studies," the Detroit Free Press reported.

Shoppers Spend $7.4 Billion Online During Black Friday Sales.  Black Friday shoppers spent $7.4 billion online Friday [11/29/2019] and $4.2 billion on Thanksgiving day, making it the second largest Internet shopping day ever, according to data compiled by Adobe Analytics.  Receipts for Friday trail only last year's Cyber Monday's record-setting $7.9 billion in sales.

Surprising findings about your life expectancy and US health care.  Do Americans live in a health care hellscape?  A report out this week would seem to indicate as much — but that first impression is deceiving.  "U.S. life expectancy has not kept pace with that of other wealthy countries and is now decreasing," concluded the report, published by the medical journal JAMA.  Or, as The Washington Post put it:  "'There's something terribly wrong': Americans are dying young at alarming rates."  "Medicare-for-all" partisans have pounced on the research to declare the U.S. health care system an expensive failure — one in which we spend more than double what other developed nations devote to health care but die younger.

China due to introduce face scans for mobile users.  People in China are now required to have their faces scanned when registering new mobile phone services, as the authorities seek to verify the identities of the country's hundreds of millions of internet users.  The regulation, announced in September, was due to come into effect on Sunday [12/1/2019].  The government says it wants to "protect the legitimate rights and interest of citizens in cyberspace".  China already uses facial recognition technology to survey its population.

Democrats 'will not be able to field a candidate' in Arkansas Senate race.  The Democratic Party of Arkansas had selected Joshua Mahony to run against Sen. Tom Cotton in next year's election.  However, minutes after the filing deadline for candidates had passed, Cotton's campaign released significant oppo research which caused Mahony to withdraw from the race within a matter of hours.  In fact, Mahony didn't even talk to the party before announcing on Twitter that he was withdrawing from the race.  Monday [11/25/2019] the Democratic Party announced that, after a failed attempt to find a path forward, it was simply too late to field a replacement candidate.

Texas teacher fired after asking Trump to remove 'illegal students from Mexico' wins her job back.  A Texas teacher who lost her job after asking President Trump on Twitter to remove the "illegal students from Mexico" from her school has won an appeal to get her job back.  Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath ruled Monday that the series of offensive tweets sent in May by Georgia Clark — an English teacher at Carter-Riverside High School in Fort Worth — were protected by the First Amendment, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports.

Government workers more likely to support socialism, repealing Second Amendment:  Poll.  Government employees are more likely than other workers to support socialist candidates and oppose the Second Amendment, according to a newly released poll.  A survey of likely voters conducted by the pollster Rasmussen Reports and the free-market Heartland Institute found that 69% of Americans favor capitalism over socialism, and that 50% would not vote for a self-described socialist.  Republicans and unaffiliated voters were more likely to support a free-market economic system, with 87% of Republicans and 69% of unaffiliateds favoring capitalism, while just 53% of Democrats agreed.

The Editor says...
This is not surprising.  A poll like this is hardly worth conducting, let alone publishing.  If you work for the government, you would naturally support big government.

Hero Dog 'Conan' Visits the White House.  President Donald Trump met with the hero dog of the famous raid leading to the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on Monday, surprising reporters at the White House.  "Conan is a tough cookie," Trump said proudly, after meeting the dog.  "Nobody's going to mess with Conan."  The dog was slightly injured in the raid that took place in October in Syria but has returned to duty.  The president, the first lady, and Vice President Mike Pence appeared in the Rose Garden with Conan to recognize her contribution to the successful raid.

The President is paid in quarters!
Trump donates 3rd-quarter salary to help fight opioid crisis.  President Donald Trump is donating his third-quarter salary to help tackle the nation's opioid epidemic.

Smoking is prohibited in shopping malls, because second-hand smoke is harmful, but this is okay?
Native American offended that his burning sage sickens people at mall.  The head of a Native American cultural center at a shopping mall in Rapid City, South Dakota, is "hurt and offended" by complaints that people are being sickened by his practice of burning sage several times a day.  However, he is promising to cut back on the smoke that has made the mall air hazy.  The Rapid City Journal reported the manager of the Rushmore Mall warned Erik Bringswhite at the I Am Legacy center in a letter that his lease would be terminated if he continued to burn sage "because it was jeopardizing people's health."

Ex-CIA operative gets 19 years for China espionage.  A former CIA case officer who spied for China was sentenced to 19 years in prison on Friday [11/22/2019] in a case U.S. officials say involved the loss of more than two dozen recruited CIA agents in China.  Jerry Chun Shing Lee, 55, was sentenced to the prison term Friday by federal Judge T.S. Ellis III during a hearing in an Eastern District of Virginia courtroom.  G. Zachary Terwilliger, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said the sentence should serve as a warning to other would be spies.

Stefanik Successfully Uses Battle Against Schiff to Raise over $500K in Less than Two Hours.  Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) is using her ceaseless battle against House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) and his impeachment efforts to her advantage, raising over $500,000 for her congressional campaign in less than two hours, she announced on Friday [11/22/2019].  Stefanik has been a predominant GOP figure in recent weeks, particularly due to her significant role on the House Intelligence Committee, which held a series of public impeachment trials over the last two weeks.  Stefanik has used her time during the hearings to demonstrate the partisan nature of the inquiry and question Schiff's methods.

Why primary care costs a trillion dollars more than it should.  Americans carry insurance for unexpected catastrophes such as car accidents, burned houses, and inpatient hospital care.  We don't purchase it for routine car or home maintenance, so why do we have it for everyday medical care?  The reason is, unlike other insurance, it is a pre-tax expense enjoyed primarily by large and medium-sized corporations that exert a large amount of political influence.  Most people don't know that this tax exemption for employer-provided health insurance adds about $350 billion to our national debt each year while discriminating against the self-employed and employees of small businesses, many of whom can't afford health insurance yet were cruelly forced to pay ObamaCare penalties.  The increasing number of families choosing membership in Christian health care sharing ministries don't benefit from this tax exemption.

Stents no better than drugs for many heart patients:  U.S. study.  Many patients with severe but stable heart disease who routinely undergo invasive procedures to clear and prop open clogged arteries would do as well by just taking medications and making lifestyle changes, U.S. researchers reported on Saturday [11/16/2019].

As Impeachment Fizzles, The Stock Market Soars.  In New York City on Friday the Dow Jones Industrial Average soared to 28,004, a new record.  In fact all major U.S. stock indexes hit new highs, and the SNP 500 hit its longest streak of weekly gains in two years.  Put simply, it was a really good day for the economy.  Meanwhile in Washington, the public phase of the House impeachment inquiry slogged along, with Democrats all but conceding that even if they vote to impeach, the removal of the president by the Senate is all but certainly not going to happen.

So 'Pachamama' was a problem in Bolivia, too.  A few weeks ago, some Catholic activists marched on the Vatican and flung statues of "Pachamama," a pagan goddess of the Andes, into the Tiber.  Good riddance.  The radical leftists in charge at the Vatican were trying to sell some extra gods to the Catholic faithful under the banner of globalism, multiculturalism, New Age-ism, and inclusion.  And while there is nothing wrong with appreciating indigenous peoples in a non-religious context, embracing them in a religious context is something else. [...] But this doesn't seem to be the end of it.  Moving away from the Catholic Church itself, seems the land of Pachamama itself, Bolivia, is getting upended over the leftist desire to shove Pachamama in people's faces, too.

Pope Francis Invokes Hitler, Criticizes Politicians Who Denounce Homosexuality.  This is an interesting point for a Pope to make for a couple of reasons.  First, is the Pope's equating of the denouncing a particular sexual act that is denounced in scripture with hating people on the basis of race, contrary to the explicit command of scripture.

LASIK eye surgery needs to stop, former FDA adviser says:  Report.  Even though LASIK has been around for 20 years in the U.S., one former FDA adviser has said the procedure should be taken off the market.  Dr. Morris Waxler originally voted to approve the eye surgery, but he's changed his mind.  "Essentially we ignored the data on vision distortions that persisted for years," the retired FDA adviser told CBS News.

CBS executive to receive $100 million package.  Joe Ianniello's sweet deal just keeps getting sweeter.  Acting CBS Chief Executive Ianniello, who will become chairman and CEO of CBS once Viacom merges with CBS, will bank a hefty payout of $100 million when the deal closes, sources said.  That's up from the $70 million he was already set to pocket in severance for not being named head of the newly combined company — despite staying on in his current job.

Chrysler prodded sellers to absorb glut of 40,000 unordered cars, dealers say.  Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV has been manufacturing more cars and trucks than its U.S. dealers are willing to accept, at one point creating a nationwide glut of about 40,000 unordered vehicles and stoking tension with some of its retailers.  Four dealers, two of whom spoke on the condition they not be named, said Fiat Chrysler has revived what's known in industry circles as a "sales bank."  The practice is decades old and frowned upon by investors and analysts because it can obscure an automaker's inventory figures.

Federal Judge Rules U.S.-Born 'ISIS Bride' Not an American Citizen, U.S. Not Required to Repatriate Her.  A federal judge ruled Thursday [11/14/2019] that 25-year-old Hoda Muthana, who lived in Alabama but left the U.S. in 2014 to join ISIS, is not an American citizen and therefore the country is not required to repatriate her.  Muthana is the daughter of Yemen's former ambassador to the United Nations, Ahmed Ali Muthana.  Judge Reggie Walton ruled that because Hoda was born while Ahmed Ali still had diplomatic status, Hoda could not be considered a U.S. citizen.  Ahmed Ali has since become a naturalized citizen.  In addition, Walton ruled that Ahmed Ali cannot provide financial aid to his daughter, who escaped from ISIS to a Kurdish refugee camp in 2018.  Hoda Muthana has a son, Adam, who was born in ISIS territory.

A Judge Has Ruled That A Woman Who Left The US For ISIS Is Not An American Citizen.  A federal judge ruled Thursday [11/14/2019] that Hoda Muthana, a US-born woman who left the country to join ISIS, is not an American citizen, and therefore the government has no obligation to facilitate her return or that of her 2-year-old son.  Judge Reggie Walton said there was sufficient evidence that Muthana had been born while her father, who once represented Yemen in the United Nations, still had diplomatic status in the US.

Dutch Priest on Pope Francis: 'I Rightly Think He Is a Heretic'.  Rev. Cor Mennen, a retired priest in the Netherlands, recently wrote on his blog that he thinks Pope Francis is a "heretic," and explained that excessive respect by Catholics towards the papacy is not a virtue given that Christ Himself rebuked the first Pope, St. Peter, ordering him to "Get thee behind me, Satan!"  Fr.  Mennen, 74, was ordained a priest in 1969.  He also holds a degree in ecclesiastical law and is vice chairman of the board of the Latin Liturgy Association.  He lives in Vlijmen, east of Rotterdam, still participates in events for the diocese, and is often interviewed on Radio Maria.  In an Oct. 28 blog post, Fr. Mennen criticized some of the pagan events that occurred at the Vatican during the Amazonian synod, such as the veneration of a wooden statue of an Earth goddess named "Pachamama" in the Vatican gardens.

So much for "peak oil."
Iran discovers new oil field with over 50 billion barrels.  Iran has discovered a new oil field in the country's south with over 50 billion barrels of crude, its president said Sunday [11/10/2019], a find that could boost the country's proven reserves by a third as it struggles to sell energy abroad over U.S. sanctions.

The Editor says...
Let the Iranian terrorists drown in oil.  The United States should never buy oil from Iran again, because the U.S. has plenty of it.

Socialist Bolivia heading for the ash heap of history?  Like all dictatorships, every socialist hellhole dictatorship eventually falls.  It's a law of nature, and with socialism inherently unsustainable as both a political and an economic system, it's a law about as certain as 'what goes up, must come down.'  Which brings us to Bolivia, where embattled far left Hugo-Chavez-trained socialist dictator Evo Morales, now on his fourth term in a grossly rigged election, has for the first time wobbled in fear in response to protests.

Bolivian Leader Evo Morales Steps Down.  President Evo Morales of Bolivia, who came to power more than a decade ago as part of a leftist wave sweeping Latin America, resigned on Sunday after unrelenting protests by an infuriated population that accused him of undermining democracy to extend his rule.  Mr. Morales and his vice president, Álvaro García Linera, who also resigned, said in a national address that they were stepping down in an effort to stop the bloodshed that has spread across the country in recent weeks.  But they admitted no wrongdoing and instead insisted that they were victims of a coup.  "The coup has been consummated," Mr. García said.

70-year-old man on electric scooter dies in car crash.  The Boston Globe reports the Falmouth man, who police did not identify, was struck and killed at an intersection on Wednesday while riding the scooter.

The Editor says...
I'm surprised this doesn't happen every day.  Advertisements for electric scooters portray them as a way to ride around effortlessly, safely, and quickly, anywhere in town!  Many of the people who buy electric scooters think they are getting a one-seat electric car.  (Purchased by Medicare, of course.)  I sometimes see a fat old person trying to make a round trip to the grocery store on an electric wheelchair.  I suspect the grandkids have to come and pick up grandma fairly often, when the batteries run out.  Electric scooters are not street legal.  You shouldn't even go outdoors on one of these things.

How Dystopian Los Angeles Measures Up to Rwanda.  [Scroll down]  I asked our guide how the Rwandans manage to keep their city so clean. "Umuganda!" he shouted.  "Before Umuganda, there were piles of garbage everywhere!  Look!  Now, no one is now allowed to even use a plastic bag, no one is allowed to buy water in a plastic bottle.  We are solar.  Rwanda is green!"  He explained that on the last Saturday of every month, all able-bodied Rwandans (18-65), including the president and his Cabinet members, are required by law to go out and clean the areas around their homes and businesses.  The police fine eligible citizens who fail to participate 5,000 Rwandan francs (about U.S. $5.00).  These fines and traffic tickets are sent via text to the violator's mobile phone.  The fine is paid via the phone.  Mobile phone transactions have all but overtaken those involving currency in Rwanda.

I wonder if the Cardinals knew this before they elected him.
Report:  Pope denies bodily resurrection of Christ.  Pope Francis already has been accused of heresy by prominent Catholic clergy, but now his longtime friend and interviewer is claiming the South American-born pontiff denies one of the foundational doctrines of the Christian faith, that Jesus Christ rose from the dead in bodily form.  Eugenio Scalfari, a left-wing atheist journalist, published the remarks in the periodical he founded, La Repubblica, and in a new book, CNS News reported.

Heresy:
Scalfari: Pope Denied Jesus' Bodily Resurrection, Said It Was 'Semblance of a Spirit'.  In his new book and in the periodical he founded, La Repubblica, Eugenio Scalfari, a long-time friend of Pope Francis and frequent papal interviewer, claims that the Pope told him that Jesus Christ did not rise bodily from the dead but "in the semblance of a spirit."  This notion is a contradiction of Church teaching and the Gospels.

Pilot Who Chased The UFO: Some Of The Tapes Are "Missing".  Another interesting tidbit has surfaced in the story of U.S. Navy Cmdr David Fravor (Ret), the pilot who engaged in the now-infamous encounter with the "tic-tac" UFO in 2004.  While flying his F/A-18F Super Hornet, he was sent to observe unidentified craft showing up on radar, flying from the USS Nimitz carrier battle group, leading to the bizarre run-in with the tic-tac.  This encounter produced one of the three Navy UFO videos that have been making the rounds in the media for the past couple of years.  During an interview earlier this year, however, Fravor indicated that there were more tapes, including video and radar tracking information, that simply "disappeared" after the event.  And so, the mystery deepens further.

Bill Gates says meeting Jeffrey Epstein was a 'mistake'.  Bill Gates said Wednesday that he "made a mistake" when he decided to meet with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein while seeking money for his global health campaign.  Gates made the mea culpa while speaking to The New York Times Dealbook Conference — saying that by sitting down with Epstein he helped legitimize the convicted sexual predator.  "I made a mistake in judgment that I thought that those discussions would lead, literally, to billions of dollars going to global health.  It turned out that was a bad judgment," said 64-year-old Gates.

The most and least affordable places in America to rent a home.  Average rent in the U.S. recently dropped for the first time in two years, with prices waning in more than half of the country's largest renter hubs.  The declines aren't uniform, though, and for people trying to stick to a tight budget, some areas are still significantly more affordable than others.

Turkey:  Arming Genocide of Christians in Nigeria?  [Scroll down]  He then played an intercepted audio of what he said were Mustafa Varank (currently Turkey's Minister of Industry and Technology) and Mehmet Karatas (a manager at the partly state-owned Turkish Airlines).  The gist of their brief conversation in Turkish, according to the Arabic transcript, is that weapons were being transferred from Turkey to Nigeria — and that there was a concern that the weapons might kill not just Christians but Muslims.

Planeloads of Cash From Russia Have Been Shipped to Venezuela.  Hundreds of millions of dollars in cash has been shipped from Russia to Venezuela, providing a lifeline to the South American country as U.S. sanctions limit its access to the global financial system.  A total of $315 million of U.S. dollar and euro notes were sent in six separate shipments from Moscow to Caracas from May 2018 to April 2019, according to data reviewed by Bloomberg from ImportGenius, which compiled Russian customs records it obtains through private sources.  The cash came from lenders run by the countries' governments and went to Venezuela's development bank, the records show.

TPUSA Officers at KSU Quit En Masse.  All of the officers of the Kansas State University chapter of Turning Point USA announced on Thursday that they are stepping down from their positions because the purported conservative organization no longer reflects their conservative values.  In a statement, Jaden McNeil, the former president of the KSU chapter of TPUSA listed several reasons why he was quitting, including what he called the group's "fair weather conservatism," their refusal to promote social conservative values, their tone-deaf views on immigration, and the group's "culture of censorship."

Pentagon releases incredible footage of Abu Baghdadi raid.  The Pentagon has released footage showing the raid that resulted in the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.  Marine Corps General Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr, commander of U.S. Central Command, released the footage at a press conference on Wednesday [10/31/2019] at the Pentagon.  McKenzie was the operational commander of the Delta Force raid, which took place on Saturday in northwest Syria, and resulted in the death of Baghdadi after the terror leader detonated a suicide vest to avoid capture.  [Video clip]

The Editor says...
When the Pentagon releases footage of this sort, it is always blurry, fuzzy, monochrome video that looks like a fourth-generation VHS dub.  Come on, fellas!  We should be seeing these explosions in 4K by now.  Quit showing us the muddied-up version.

House Dem Katie Porter wears Batgirl costume in Congress.  Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., wore a Halloween costume and kept her mask on during a vote Thursday in the House Financial Services Committee.  At one point, Porter reportedly yelled at a reporter about her outfit.  "It's Batgirl!" she told Washington Post reporter Mike DeBonis.  She wore her outfit on the same day Democrats voted for a resolution on ground rules for the impeachment inquiry surrounding President Trump.  For Republicans, Porter's display was inappropriate.

The Editor says...
That kind of behavior might be okay in a California high school, but not in Congress.  Grow up.

Fox News's Catherine Herridge Contract Lapses, Heads To CBS.  Catherine Herridge, a beloved investigative correspondent at Fox News, is leaving the network after 23 years to go to work for CBS News.  Media reporters like CNN's Chief Media Correspondent Brian Stelter are taking the moment to gloat, insinuating that Herridge's departure marks another defection from the network.  Shepard Smith recently resigned from Fox News after also working there for 23 years.

Catherine Herridge, Fox News Veteran, Moves to CBS News.  Catherine Herridge, a Fox News Channel veteran who has been with that network since it was founded in 1996, is moving to rival CBS News.  She will work as a senior investigative correspondent out of Washington, CBS News said, and will start in November.  Herridge is the second long-serving Fox News journalist to leave the Fox Corporation-owned cable-news outlet in recent weeks.

Ex-CIA boss Brennan appears to partly back Hillary Clinton's theory Tulsi Gabbard is a Russian asset.  When it comes to Hillary Clinton's controversial suggestions about 2020 Democratic hopeful Tulsi Gabbard, it seems that maybe, John Brennan is with her.  Speaking at the "2020 Vision:  Intelligence and the U.S. Presidential Election" event at the National Press Club, the former CIA director was asked about Clinton recently raising the suggestion that Gabbard, a Democratic candidate for president, is a Russian asset. [...] "Something is a Russia asset even if it is not intentionally advancing their interest," the ex-CIA boss said.

X-37B spaceplane lands after record-breaking 780 days in orbit.  The Air Force's X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle Mission 5 successfully landed at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility Oct. 27, 2019, at 3:51 a.m.  The spaceplane conducted on-orbit experiments for 780 days during its mission, recently breaking its own record by being in orbit for more than two years.

Poll: 7-in-10 Voters Believe in 'America First' Agenda Ahead of 2020 Election.  Ahead of the 2020 presidential election, the overwhelming majority of likely voters say they believe in the doctrine of "America First" when it comes to national public policy, a new poll reveals.  A poll by Selzer and Company/Grinnell College finds that the vast majority of American adults say they are America First voters, while less than 20 percent identify as socialists.  Overall, about seven-in-ten — or 70 percent — of likely voters say they are believers in America First — the nationalist-populist doctrine that guides President Trump's agenda on immigration, trade, healthcare, and foreign policy, among others.

DC Circuit Halts Disclosure Of Mueller Grand Jury Materials Just Hours Before Release.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit temporarily halted the release of grand jury materials from former special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation Tuesday, just hours ahead of their scheduled distribution.  A three-judge panel issued a short directive saying the grand jury documents will be temporarily withheld while it considers an emergency appeal from the Department of Justice (DOJ), which hopes to shield those materials on a permanent basis.

California Power Outages — A Look Into The Future.  Pacific Gas and Electric began shutting down power early the morning of Oct. 9, when electricity was cut to more than 140,000 customers in Sonoma, Napa, Solano, and Marin counties.  Those outages and the ones that followed were ordered because there was a high risk of wildfires. [...] PG&E labeled the disruption a "public safety power shutoff."  The utility industry calls it "de-energization," a sort of euphemism that sounds less serious than "blackout."  It's not a word that should be used in the 21st century in California.  But there it is.  This state has long considered itself a model of progress, always pressing forward.  Yet California now chooses darkness.  And rather than being a rare exception, these autumn blackouts are more likely a preview of coming long night.

Missouri man charged with starting 13 forest fires in California.  A man found himself in handcuffs while trying to fly home to Missouri after allegedly setting 13 forest fires in California.  Freddie Graham, 68, was apprehended before boarding a plane in San Jose and charged with starting forest fires in the Milpitas foothills.  Graham had flown to California on Sept. 19 and spent two days in the state before attempting to fly back to Kansas City.  The fires in question burned 128 acres.  Graham was charged with 15 counts of committing arson, two of which were heightened charges because the fires were started during a declared emergency.

Al-Baghdadi's Right-Hand Man Killed In U.S. Airstrike.  ISIS leadership continues to crumble with the official spokesman of the terrorist organization being the latest to fall.  Sunday reports claimed the CIA targeted and killed Abu al-Hassan al-Muhajir.  U.S. officials have confirmed the missile attack, which was targeted at the high level ISIS official in the Aleppo province of Syria.  The Texas-born man was named the official spokesperson for the militant group in 2016.  Muhajir climbed the ranks of ISIS, advancing to be the right-hand man of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.  U.S. officials have reassured the public that a strong surveillance operation continues in the region, despite the withdrawal of troops.

Top Secret Spaceplane Lands in Florida After Spending Over 2 Years in Orbit.  The U.S. Air Force's top secret spaceplane, the Boeing X-37B, landed in Florida early Sunday after 780 days — over 2 years and one month — in orbit around the Earth.  And we still have no idea what it was doing while it was up there.  The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle-5 (OTV-5) mission was the fifth time that the uncrewed vehicle has flown around the world, beating the duration of the fourth mission, which landed in May of 2017 after 718 days in orbit.  This most recent mission launched from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on September 7, 2017.

1 In 3 Millennials See Communism As Favorable, Survey Finds.  A growing number of Millennials show support for communism and socialism, a survey from the Victims of Communism found.  The survey, conducted by the Victims of Communism and polled by the research and data firm YouGov, found that 70% of Millennials are likely to vote socialist and that one in three Millennials perceive communism as "favorable."  The survey is part of the Victims of Communism's report "U.S. Attitudes Toward Socialism, Communism, and Collectivism," which polled 2,100 people in the United States who were 16 and older with a margin of error of +/- 2.4%.

Syrian Kurdish forces say they killed close al-Baghdadi aide.  One of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's last audio messages was an appeal for his followers to do everything in their power to free Islamic State detainees and the women being held in jails and camps in northeastern Syria.

Baghdadi's aide was key to his capture - Iraqi intelligence sources.  In their long hunt for Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Iraqi intelligence teams secured a break in February 2018 after one of the Islamic State leader's top aides gave them information on how he escaped capture for so many years, said two Iraqi security officials.

George Soros on Lifelong Funding of Leftwing Causes: 'Tide Has Turned Against Me'.  Billionaire George Soros, who has spent his fortune promoting leftwing politicians, media, and organizations, said over the weekend that he hasn't failed in his lifelong quest to put socialism in place in the United States, but has been impeded by his opposition, including President Donald Trump.  "Between the election of President Trump and Britain's ongoing debate over Brexit, the billionaire philanthropist George Soros recognizes that populism is on the rise and that his brand of liberal democracy is faltering," said Michel Martin, host of All Things Considered on taxpayer-funded National Public Radio (NPR).

PG&E will cut power to more than 3 million people over 'historic wind event'.  New evacuations were ordered Saturday for at least 90,000 people across a huge swath of Northern California as millions of Californians prepare to have their power cut — the third time in as many weeks — due to the wildfires whipped up by strong winds.  The entire communities of Healdsburg and Windsor were ordered to evacuate ahead of severe winds that could lead to erratic fire behavior near the blaze burning in wine country.  The Sonoma County Sheriff's Office said it is expected to be the biggest evacuation in the county in more than 25 years.

Scientology spread its magazine across Clearwater.  Residents aren't happy.  Gertrude Zullinger woke up on Monday morning [10/26/2019] to about 10 calls from concerned neighbors.  Somebody had entered the three buildings of the 55-and-older Imperial Pines complex — where Zullinger is president of the condo association — and hung copies of the Church of Scientology's Freedom Magazine on all 168 doorknobs.  "We have gates.  Each building has a lobby that's locked," Zullinger said.  "They felt violated.  They were very upset about it."  One day after the Tampa Bay Times published an investigation showing companies tied to Scientology had bought much of the property in the center of downtown Clearwater, the church responded by spreading its own story across the city.

California enters uncharted territory:  Massive blackouts, historically dangerous wind.  Northern California braced for a weekend in uncharted territory as Pacific Gas & Electric prepared to shut off power to more than 2 million people as the region faced one of the worst periods of fire weather in a generation.  It's a perilous combination that left many anxiously planning for blackouts and the potential for more destructive wildfires, fueled by 36 hours of intense winds.  Some fear they will have to confront fires without power, an experience those who fled this week's Sonoma County fire described as terrifying.

ICE deports Russian operative Marina Butina.  The woman at the center of a Russian influence-peddling scheme has been deported, ICE announced Friday evening [10/25/2019].  Maria Butina was convicted last year of acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, as part of the FBI's efforts to combat the Russian government's meddling in the 2016 election.  She was sentenced to 18 months, was released Friday [10/25/2019], and deported back to Russia the same day, in a flight from Miami to Moscow, the agency said.

Somethings Up:  Tusli Gabbard Will Not Run For Congress Next Year.  [Scroll down]  If she is calculating that her announcing over a year early she is not running again for her seat will make her look more viable for the Presidential run, I personally don't see how.  Maybe she has started off the 4th quarter raising more money than her campaign anticipated after the Hillary dust-up.  Possibly she just doesn't like being a congress critter anymore after traveling to Iowa and New Hamshire.  Could it be that MSNBC wants to hire her after she drops out as a commentator on the network that currently is offering every excuse in the book for Hillary?  This is one of the stranger moves I have ever seen for someone who does not have a viable path to the nomination of her party.

Tulsi Gabbard announces she is not running for re-election to House of Representatives.  Bad things tend to happen to people who find themselves on Hillary Clinton's enemies list.  Just days after being attacked by Hillary Clinton for being a favorite of the Russians and for allegedly being "groomed" (by Republicans, her spokesman later claimed she meant) to run as a third-party candidate, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard announced late last night that she will not seek re-election to the House of Representatives, where she has served since winning election there in 2012.  It is an odd coincidence that becoming an official enemy of Hillary Clinton preceded this surprise announcement that offered no new reason for the decision announced on Twitter beyond her desire to serve as president.  Curiously, the announcement came just after she was interviewed for ten minutes on Sean Hannity's Fox News program (video embedded below) during which she made no mention of her decision.

DNC Announces All-Female Moderator Panel for Next Debate amid Neutrality Concerns and Sinking Viewership.  The Democratic National Committee (DNC) announced that its upcoming presidential primary debate will be moderated by an an all-female panel amid concerns over the event's neutrality and sinking viewership.  The debate, which is being sponsored by The Washington Post and MSNBC in Georgia on Nov. 20, will be moderated by NBC News's Andrea Mitchel and Kristen Welker, The Washington Post's Ashley Parker, and MSNBC host Rachel Maddow.

The Editor says...
This proves that the debates are all sizzle and no steak.  Nobody wants to hear about global warming, so let's put some women on display!  If the viewers were interested in substantive discussion of the issues, it wouldn't matter who the moderators were.  The debate would draw much better ratings if the moderators were Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, and Rush Limbaugh.

The Deep State Is Assassinating Julian Assange.  WikiLeaks founder and journalist Julian Assange appeared in court to fight his extradition to the United States, sluggishly reciting his name and date of birth in a zombie-like state — displaying signs of either sleep deprivation, torture or poisoning — but quickly recovered to state the rigged case against him to the judge when he was asked if he understood what he was facing.  Assange responded, appearing to fight back tears at his case management hearing, "I can't think properly, I don't understand how this is equitable.  This superpower had 10 years to prepare for this case and I can't access my writings.  It's very difficult where I am to do anything but these people have unlimited resources."

Josh Hawley Has Had Enough Of The Federal Government In The Swamp.  Missouri Republican and arguably the most MAGA member of the Senate, Josh Hawley, introduced a bill on Wednesday [10/23/2019] that would move numerous federal agencies out of the District of Columbia, and disperse the offices throughout cities in the country The bill was co-introduced by Republican Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and is officially known as the "Helping Infrastructure Restore the Economy (HIRE) Act."  "Every year Americans' hard-earned tax dollars fund federal agencies that are mainly located in the D.C. bubble," Sen. Hawley said in a statement.  "That's a big part of the problem with Washington:  they're too removed from the rest of America.  The HIRE Act will move policymakers directly into the communities they serve, creating thousands of jobs for local communities and saving taxpayers billions of dollars along the way."

Senate GOP bill seeks to move 90% of jobs in 10 federal departments outside D.C.  The decision to move the Bureau of Land Management headquarters to Colorado's Western Slope should be viewed not as a one-off, but a good start, as far as some Senate Republicans are concerned.  GOP Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee introduced Wednesday legislation to move 90% of positions in 10 executive departments — including Agriculture, Education and Energy — to 10 states outside Washington, D.C., and "into the heart of economically distressed regions across the country."

The Editor says...
The relocation of the Departments of Agriculture, Education, and Energy, is a waste of money.  All three of those agencies should be shut down.  Drain the swamp, don't just spread it around.

FBI chases down increasing number of Chinese nationals in costly corporate spy cases.  A federal judge last week sentenced a Chinese national to nearly four years in prison for trying to steal U.S. space technology, the latest corporate spy snared by an FBI that has ramped up protection of American businesses amid President Trump's trade war with Beijing.  Over the past year, the Justice Department has brought public charges against Chinese nationals and entities in 10 separate trade secret cases.  That represents a rapid increase from the three the department brought during the previous year, according to The Washington Times' review of Justice Department records.

Venezuelans trade cigarettes, candy bars for gas as economic crisis worsens.  Motorists in socialist Venezuela have long enjoyed the world's cheapest gasoline, with fuel so heavily subsidized that a full tank these days costs a tiny fraction of a US penny.  But the economy is in such shambles that drivers are now paying for fill-ups with a little food, a candy bar or just a cigarette.

94 hospitalized and 4 dead from disease outbreak at hot tub display.  More than 100 people have been infected with Legionnaires' disease after stopping by a public hot tub display at the North Carolina Mountain State Fair.  The fair, which took place Sept. 6-15 in Fletcher, North Carolina, was the common link among those diagnosed.  So far, 133 cases of Legionnaires' disease have been reported to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, 94 of which resulted in hospitalizations.  Four of those diagnosed with the disease died.

Convoy of Trucks Seen Emptying Obama-Linked Former Ukrainian President Poroschenko's Palace — Confidants Arrested and Flee.  Poroshenko was known for his strong ties to the Obama Administration, specifically Obama's point man for Ukraine:  Now this:  A convoy of trucks were seen emptying former President Poroshenko's home this weekend. [...] If the reportes are accurate this will be horrific news for the Democrats and Biden Crime Family.  Poroshenko was behind all of the dirty dealings between the corrupt Obama admininstration and the Biden family corruption.

Drudge leaves Conservatives, follows Fox down the liberal rabbit hole.  The Drudge Report seems to have lost its conservative-leaning.  More and more the headline aggregator, whose claim to fame was Monica Lewinsky's semen-stained blue dress, is highlighting articles that are anti-Trump, anti-Republican, and pro-Impeachment.  It has been an obvious trend during the Trump Presidency that is accelerating as we get closer to the House Impeachment farce and the 2020 election.

Federal prosecutors interviewed multiple FBI officials for Russia probe review.  Federal prosecutors who are looking into the origins of the government's Russia probe have interviewed about two dozen people, suggesting that the inquiry is further along than previously known, The New York Times reported Saturday [10/19/2019].  The prosecutors have asked witnesses about whether former FBI officials that have been frequent targets of President Trump hold anti-Trump bias, former officials and others familiar with the review told the Times.  U.S. Attorney John Durham, who is leading the investigation, has not interviewed all of the FBI officials who were instrumental in opening the Russia probe in 2016, sources told the newspaper.

'Start Your Day With Maximum Gay:' Kellogg's Launches LGBT Cereal.  Have you ever eaten Froot Loops and thought, "This cereal isn't gay enough?"  Do you seek a safe space to eat your Rice Krispies?  Are you concerned that your Corn Flakes aren't sufficiently woke?  Well, now Kellogg's has the solution! [...] Kellogg's chief diversity officer (why does a cereal company need such a thing??) Priscilla Koranteng said, "At Kellogg, we are firmly committed to equality and inclusion in the workplace, marketplace and in the communities where we work and live."

The Editor says...
Why do manufacturers of consumer goods feel compelled to inject left-wing politics into their products and risk alienating their customers?  I'm no longer a regular consumer of breakfast cereal; but when I was, the least of my concerns was the level of "equality and inclusion" at the cereal factory.  If the product tastes good, I don't care if the factory workers all look alike, nor do I care how little they are paid.  Any salary paid to the "chief diversity officer" is wasted, because workplace diversity adds nothing to productivity.  For example, the Japanese economy is thriving, yet Japan has the least diverse work force in the world.  God himself originated workplace diversity at the Tower of Babel, and inflicted it upon mankind — as punishment! — to stop the entire project overnight.

Sallie Mae paid for employees to go on Hawaiian retreat to celebrate $5 billion in sales.  Student loan servicer Sallie Mae paid for more than 100 of its employees to go on a Hawaiian retreat in August to celebrate a record $5 billion worth of sales.  "We said, 'Hey, look, Maui is a pretty nice spot," Ray Quinlan, CEO of Sallie Mae, said to NBC News while on the grounds of the Fairmont Resort on Hawaii's Wailea beach.  The trip celebrated a year of $5 billion in sales to 374,000 borrowers.  The sales came as combined U.S. student debt topped $1.6 trillion.

'Women for America First' March to 'Stop Impeachment'.  Women for America First organized the march which will take place around the Capitol building in D.C. and in dozens of other cities.  "We want our President to know he is not alone and we stand with him," an announcement of the march states.  "Our President needs us more than ever before.  We must not let him down."

Mark Sanford kicked off his presidential campaign against Donald Trump in Philly.  One person showed up.  The bell in the Independence Hall tower rang at 9 a.m., and Mark Sanford took a deep breath.  He grabbed a giant check for "one trillion dollars," stood next to a tiny wooden lectern, and asked me if I was ready for him to kick off a news conference announcing his bid to challenge President Donald Trump in the 2020 Republican primary.  It didn't really feel like a news conference.  I was the only reporter there.

Dems Decimated in Louisiana:  GOP Gains Senate Supermajority, Dem Governor Now on the Ropes.  In Louisiana's Saturday [10/12/2019] election, Republicans had a lot to cheer about.  Among statewide office-holders, the incumbent GOP Lieutenant Governor (68 percent), Attorney General (66 percent), Treasurer (60 percent, and Agricultural Commissioner (58 percent) were all re-elected without the need for a run-off, under the state's 'jungle primary'-style system.

No fool like an old fool:  Hanoi Jane Fonda makes another comeback.  Does anyone need this?  Eighty-one year old Jane Fonda, whose claim to fame is hopping up on and bouncing around a communist North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun engaged in downing American fighters as her way of protesting the Vietnam War nearly 50 years ago, has now taken to getting herself arrested at global warming protests in Washington.  She's says she's actually moved to the city for four months for such a mission, undoubtedly leaving a [substantial] jet carbon compound trail behind her.

Half of millennials and 75% of Gen Zers have left their job for mental health reasons.  Cases of burnout have been increasing at an alarming rate in recent years among millennials and Gen Zers.  It's a growing problem in today's workplace because of trends like rising workloads, limited staff and resources and long hours.  It's no surprise, then, that a recent study by Mind Share Partners, Qualtrics and SAP reveals that half of millennials and 75% of Gen Zers have left a job for mental health reasons.  The study, which looked at mental-health challenges and stigmas in the U.S. workplace, polled 1,500 respondents ages 16 and older working full-time.  Another recent study, by the American Psychological Association, found the percentage of young adults experiencing certain types of mental health disorders has increased significantly in the past decade.  In particular, the percentage of people dealing with suicidal thoughts increased 47 percent from 2008 to 2017.

Kurds Report Turkish Shelling of Prison Filled with Islamic State Jihadis.  Kurdish officials in Syria on Thursday [10/10/2019] accused the invading Turkish army of shelling the Chirkin prison, which is filled with captive Islamic State jihadis from 60 different countries.  The Turkish government did not immediately respond to the allegation.

Goodbye, iTunes:  Once-revolutionary app gone in Mac update.  It's time to bid farewell to iTunes, the once-revolutionary program that made online music sales mainstream and effectively blunted the impact of piracy.

Victoria's Secret, Under Siege, Lays Off Employees at Headquarters.  Victoria's Secret is laying off about 15 percent of the brand's employees at its Columbus, Ohio, headquarters as the beleaguered lingerie chain struggles to reshape its image and the chief executive of its parent company remains under scrutiny for his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.  The cuts, which took place on Wednesday and Thursday, involved about 50 people and range from senior leaders to junior staff, according to three people with knowledge of the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Intelligence agent arrested for spilling secrets to journalists.  The feds busted a Defense Intelligence Agency worker Wednesday for leaking classified national defense information to two journalists in 2018 and 2019 — one of whom he was shacking up with.  Henry Kyle Frese, 30, a counterintelligence analyst from Alexandria, Virginia, who had a Top Secret security clearance, was indicted Tuesday [10/8/2019] on two counts of willful transmission of national defense information to persons not entitled to receive it.  "Frese was caught red-handed disclosing sensitive national security information for personal gain," said John C. Demers, assistant attorney general for national security, who cited ex-Attorney General Jeff Sessions' vow to pursue leakers as the motivation for the probe.

In-N-Out Burger Joins Chick-fil-A as a Company That Openly Celebrates Its Christian Values.  I say "joins," but In-N-Out Burger hasn't necessarily been secretive about the fact that it's a Christian establishment.  It has printed John 3:16 on the bottom of its cups.  However, like Chick-fil-A before it, the owner and heiress of the burger chain, Lynsi Snyder, is letting everyone know just how much Christ means to her publicly.  Snyder gave an interview with The Christian Post and divulged that her life was on a downward spiral until she came to Christ, leaving behind drug and alcohol addiction, broken marriages, physical abuse, and more.  The burger empire heiress said that she "finally found that the deep need in my heart can only be filled by Jesus and my identity in Him."

BoJo to Trump:  Return diplomat's spouse to face vehicular homicide charge.  This has the potential to get very awkward for both leaders who are depending on each other a little more than usual recently.  The US whisked a State Department official's spouse out of the United Kingdom after an accident that killed a motorcyclist, claiming she had diplomatic immunity.  Responding to the outrage at home, Boris Johnson is now demanding her return to face charges, and plans to challenge his key ally Donald Trump — who has problems of his own on international relations at the moment.

Mother stopped possible school massacre by turning in her own son.  A Washington state mom turned her 17-year-old son in to police upon finding plans in his journal to carry out a school shooting on the anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre.  "It's devastating.  I know I did all I can do and that I made the right choice," the mother, who only identified herself as Nicole, told CBS News about the decision that led to her son's Sept. 17 arrest on harassment and bomb threat charges.  The teen, in his journal, said he'd use guns and a variety of explosives to carry out the attack on College Place High School, according to police records obtained by KTEL News.

CrowdStrike and the Impeachment Frenzy.  [Scroll down]  The time stamps contained in the released computer files' metadata establish that, at 6:45 p.m.  July 5, 2016, 1,976 megabytes (not megabits) of data were downloaded from the DNC's server.  This took 87 seconds, which means the transfer rate was 22.7 megabytes per second, a speed, according to VIPS, that "is much faster than what is physically possible with a hack."  Such a speed could be accomplished only by direct connection of a portable storage device to the server.  Accordingly, VIPS concluded that the DNC data theft was an inside job by someone with physical access to the server.  VIPS also found that, if there had been a hack, the NSA would have a record of it that could quickly be retrieved and produced.  But no such evidence has been forthcoming.  Can this be because no hack occurred?  Even more remarkable, the experts determined that the files released by Guccifer 2.0 have been "run, via ordinary cut and paste, through a template that effectively immersed them in what could plausibly be cast as Russian fingerprints."  In other words, the files were deliberately altered to give the false impression that they were hacked by Russian agents.

Florida woman arrested after parents find 24 pipe bombs in her bedroom.  A 27-year-old Florida woman was arrested after her parents found two dozen pipe bombs in her bedroom and called the local sheriff's office, authorities said Friday [10/4/2019].  Michelle Louise Kolts was arrested early Friday [10/4/2019]and booked on 24 counts of making, possessing, throwing, projecting, placing or discharging a destructive device.  "I can only imagine how hard it is to call in about any family member," Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said, according to Bloomingdale Patch.

The Editor says...
Yes, this is apparently a person who needed to be arrested.  But how does one "project" a destructive device?  This sounds like a law designed to be broad enough to convict anybody.

De Blasio's subsidized ferry primarily used by rich white people: report.  Mayor Bill de Blasio has touted his heavily subsidized ferry service as a tool in his war on economic and social inequality — but long-awaited ridership data released Tuesday [10/1/2019] tells an entirely different story.  Ferry users are overwhelmingly white, wealthy and come from waterfront neighborhoods, according to surveys of over 5,000 riders conducted in June by the city's Economic Development Corporation, which manages the service.  Just 36% of riders are people of color, while 65% make over $75,000 per year, the survey found.

The Editor says...
That's a misleading mix of percentages, but anyway, the cost of living is extremely high in New York City, so $75,000 per year isn't that much.

Never Forget Trash Day Again, Thanks to This Terrifying New AI Garbage Can.  I have been pretty disappointed with "the future" we are inhabiting.  I was promised flying cars and robot maids.  Instead, all we seem to have is boys in the girls' locker rooms and politicians banning plastic straws.  Until today, that is.  Because today I learned that some genius somewhere has invented garbage cans that take themselves to the curb.

U.S. Ambassador to Germany Saves Taxpayers $20 Million.  The Trump administration's ambassador to Germany has saved the U.S. taxpayer some $20 million during the last two fiscal years, according to an announcement from the American mission in Berlin.  Under the leadership of U.S. ambassador Richard Grenell, the foreign mission managed to come in $6 million under budget in fiscal year 2018 and $14 million under budget in fiscal year 2019.  By streamlining operations and cutting down on burdensome bureaucracy, Grenell has been able to carry out the Trump administration's agenda abroad with limited wasteful expenditures.

Giuliani Reveals Trump Admin, Including Himself and Others, May Sue Congressional Democrats!  Trump Attorney and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani told Laura Ingraham on Tuesday night [10/1/2019] that the Trump administration is considering a lawsuit against Congressional Democrats. [...] Rudy Giuliani added, "We have to raise their violation of constitution and civil right!  This is worse than McCarthy."

Dutch Farmers in Mass Revolt Against Green Fascism.  Thousands of Dutch farmers descended on the Netherlands capital to protest against onerous environmental restrictions that threaten their livelihoods.  The demonstrations were sparked after the coalition government proposed that "Dutch livestock farming should be slashed to meet commitments on reducing nitrogen emissions," reports Dutch News NL.  Farmers traveled to the Hague in their tractors, causing tailbacks in excess of 620 miles and huge traffic jams around and in the city.

Tractor Trail Of Protesting Dutch Farmers Snarls Traffic for Hundreds Of Miles.  Thousands of Dutch farmers rolled their tractors over highways to The Hague to protest a possible crackdown on nitrogen emissions from livestock and farming operations.  The angry farmers snarled traffic for hundreds of miles in what has been called the Netherlands' busiest morning rush hour.  Brightly colored rows of the tractors rolled slowly down main roads all morning on Tuesday.  The Dutch automobile association ANWB says it recorded more than 700 miles of traffic jams at the peak of rush hour, mostly due to the protest.

The Editor says...
Nitrogen is not a pollutant.  More than 78 percent of the atmosphere is nitrogen already.  Just like carbon dioxide, nitrogen is plant food.  It's about as harmless as a gas can be, without being completely inert.  I see truckloads of liquid nitrogen on the highway every day.  Wherever those trucks deliver their payloads, the nitrogen will eventually return to the atmosphere.  The radical left is trying to outlaw the emission of everything but oxygen — although that might be next — by anyone engaged in agriculture, industry, or daily life.  They are doing this to obstruct capitalism and obtain leverage and power where they currently have none.

San Francisco tour guide is accused of being a Chinese spy after 'delivering digital cards with classified national security information' to Beijing's Ministry of State Security.  A citizen of the United States is facing federal charges for allegedly spying on behalf of the Chinese government.  Xuehua 'Edward' Peng, 56, delivered classified information relating to national security to the Chinese government according to a complaint that was unsealed on Monday and obtained by DailyMail.com.  The complaint alleges he retrieved four SD cards from hotel rooms between October 2015 and June 2018, and in each instance traveled to Beijing shortly thereafter.  Peng also left behind $20,000 cash in an envelope four times in that same period.

Trump: 'Rep. Adam Schiff Must Resign From Congress!'  As we reported yesterday [9/28/2019], Republican Congressman Andy Biggs wants his fellow Congressman Adam Schiff censured.  The reason, of course, is that Schiff making up dating quotes during a congressional hearing about the conversation President Trump had with Ukraine's leader.  Biggs is now joined by President Trump himself, who takes it one step further.  He calls on Rep. Schiff to resign from Congress.

Police feared Odessa shooter was planning attack — 8 years ago.  When Amarillo, Texas, police officers arrived at her home the night of February 7, 2011, they found what they interpreted as preparations for an attack — a machete hidden in her son's bed and an underground shelter he had dug in the backyard.  In a recording the mother shared with police, her son declared, "911 will bow down before me."  The officers were so troubled by what they encountered that they recorded floor plans of the property and shared the information with the city's SWAT team, according to incident reports.  The woman's then-28-year-old son, they concluded, was volatile and might hurt somebody someday.  Those concerns were tragically realized when the woman's son — Seth Ator — engaged police in a wild shootout not unlike what officers feared might happen eight years earlier.

Study: Top Motivation For Hating Capitalism Isn't Compassion, It's Resentment.  With the 2020 presidential election around the corner, Democratic presidential hopefuls and lawmakers have put forth bold proposals such as returning the top marginal income tax rate to 70 percent, levying wealth taxes as Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have proposed, or "taxing the [heck] out of the wealthy" as New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio put it.  Others such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claim that capitalism is "irredeemable" and a system that "allows billionaires to exist" is "immoral."  Sanders recently declared he does not think "billionaires should exist."

Colorado governor's staff urges newspapers to remove story.  The press office for Colorado's liberal Democratic governor, Jared Polis, is facing criticism after asking two small-town newspapers to take down an online news story reported by what it calls a biased news organization affiliated with the conservative Koch family.

Susan Rice:  Obama Put Call Transcripts On Top Secret Server, Too.  Former national security adviser Susan Rice acknowledged last night [9/27/2019] that the Obama administration moved transcripts of conversations with foreign leaders onto the same top-secret server where the Trump administration stored his recent phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

US Attorney John Durham looking into Ukrainian involvement in 2016 election.  The Justice Department revealed that U.S. Attorney John Durham, picked by Attorney General William Barr to look into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation, is investigating whether Ukraine was involved in any 2016 election efforts.  "A Department of Justice team led by U.S. Attorney John Durham is separately exploring the extent to which a number of countries, including Ukraine, played a role in the counterintelligence investigation directed at the Trump campaign during the 2016 election," DOJ spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said Wednesday [9/25/2019].  "While the Attorney General has yet to contact Ukraine in connection with this investigation, certain Ukrainians who are not members of the government have volunteered information to Mr. Durham, which he is evaluating."

Mattel unveils gender-neutral dolls for 'all kids to express themselves freely'.  Mattel Inc. has unveiled a new line of customizable dolls that are free of gender labels in a step toward more "inclusive" play, the company said Wednesday [9/25/2019].  The Creatable World line allows children to create their own characters with "extensive" wardrobe options, accessories, hairstyles and up to six skin tones, Mattel said in a press release.

Federal Judge Throws Out Guilty Verdict for Flynn Partner and Acquits.  In a stunning and very rare move today [9/24/2019] Federal Judge Anthony J Trenga has thrown out the conviction of a Mike Flynn's partner Bijan Rafiekian (Flynn Intel Group) and granted the defendants' motion to acquit.  [Hat Tip to Techno-Fog for the ruling]  This is a huge blow to the DOJ-NSD who framed their special counsel case on sketchy FARA violations and bamboozled the jury with dubious legal theories.  This type of intervention by a federal judge is very rare.

Pope Announces Global Compact On Education For 'New Humanism'.  The global event, set to take place at the Vatican on May 14, 2020, is themed Reinventing the Global Educational Alliance.  According to a Vatican statement issued on Thursday, Sept. 12, the Pope is inviting representatives of the main religions, international organizations and various humanitarian institutions, as well as key figures from the world of politics, economics and academia, and prominent athletes, scientists and sociologists to sign a "Global Pact on Education" so as to "hand on to younger generations a united and fraternal common home."

Sorry, Greta:  Trump skips UN climate summit.  [Scroll down]  Throwing the U.N. into this pathetic record of failure — it can't even run a credible peacekeeping operation without a new pedophile scandal — is pretty much piling failure upon failure.  Would China and India bother to cut their greenhouse gas emissions if the U.N. told them to?  Something says no.  This points to the wisdom of Trump's refusal to even bother with this United Nations clown show.  It's a new takeover bid from unelected leftist bureaucrats to rule the U.S., which has the most pristine record on climate emissions anyway.

U.S.-Pakistan Alliance After 9/11 Was 'One of the Biggest Blunders' for the Country, Imran Khan Says.  Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has said his country's alliance with the U.S. in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 was one of its biggest "blunders," citing the huge death toll and economic cost inflicted on the nation as part of the ongoing War on Terror.  Speaking at a Council on Foreign Relations event in New York on Monday [9/23/2019], Khan also admitted his country's role in funding and training Al-Qaeda militants to fight in Afghanistan, the Hindustan Times reported.

Democrats Wrote to Ukraine in May 2018, Demanding It Investigate Trump.  Democrats wrote to the Ukrainian government in May 2018 urging it to continue investigations into President Donald Trump's alleged collusion with Russia in the 2016 presidential campaign — collusion later found not to exist.  The demand, which came from U.S. Senators Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Patrick Leahy (D-VT), resurfaced Wednesday in an opinion piece written by conservative Marc Thiessen in the Washington Post.

Attorney Representing Whistleblower Against Trump Worked For Hillary and Schumer.  One of the attorneys representing the person who anonymously filed a complaint against President Donald Trump claiming Trump asked Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter has a resume that includes working for Senators Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.).  As The Federalist reports, "Andrew Bakaj, now a managing partner at the Compass Rose Legal Group, interned for Schumer in the spring of 2001 and for Clinton in the fall of the same year, according to Bakaj's LinkedIn page."  The Federalist notes that Bakaj's resume also includes stints at the CIA and Pentagon and specializing in whistleblower and security clearances.  The anonymous official, although acknowledging a lack of firsthand knowledge of the conversation between Trump and Zelensky, filed the complaint alleging that Trump asked Zelensky to check into the Bidens' dealings with a Ukrainian energy company.

GOP rep introduces resolution to remove Nadler as Judiciary panel chairman over impeachment probe.  A Republican congressman introduced a resolution on Tuesday calling for the ouster of House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., from his panel post for pursuing impeachment proceedings against President Trump.  The proceedings were formally backed late Tuesday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.  Lance Gooden, R-Texas, said in a release that Nadler has acted against the will of the House of Representatives, which never gave his committee explicit authorization to begin impeachment proceedings.  The body voted 332-95 in July to table an impeachment resolution from Rep. Al Green, D-Texas.

China buys 10 boatloads of US soybeans after mid-level trade talks.  Chinese companies imported roughly 10 boatloads of soybeans from American farmers on Monday following mid-level trade talks, Reuters reported.  The deals for about 600,000 tons of soybeans were similar in size to a wave of buying earlier this month, two traders told Reuters.

Modi, Trump and protesters converge on Houston's NRG Stadium.  Charismatic, controversial Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to draw 50,000 adoring supporters to "Howdy, Modi!," an event at Houston's NRG Stadium this morning — as well as U.S. president Donald Trump and thousands of protesters outside.  Supporters praise Modi, who was first elected prime minister in 2014, for modernizing India's economy, addressing climate change and ecological issues, and dramatically improving sanitation for some of the world's poorest people.  But critics say that under Modi's Hindu nationalist government, human rights, including religious freedom, are endangered.  They point to this summer's crackdown on largely Muslim Kashmir, an autonomous territory between India and Pakistan.

We've lost sight of the real scandal.  What will Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz's latest investigation reveal?  Will Congress hold hearings about it?  Will former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe actually get indicted?  After all, it's said that a motivated prosecutor can "indict a ham sandwich" if he really wants to.  We're so wrapped up in the daily tick-tock, we could be losing sight of a big picture that's come into focus over the past two years.  For the first time in our nation's history, an inspector general — one appointed by President Obama — has determined that at least two men who sat in the top spot at the FBI committed multiple violations that warrant possible prosecution.  That in itself is a scandal with national implications deserving of headlines, congressional hearings and promises to overhaul a broken system.  Of course, the complicating factor in the whole mess is that the government entities responsible for addressing any wrongdoing are the same ones inextricably tied to the alleged wrongdoing.

Trump Deploys Troops To Saudi Arabia, UAE After Oil Attacks.  The Pentagon announced it will be deploying U.S. troops and military equipment to Middle Eastern allies, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, following Iran's attack on Saudi oil facilities last weekend.  "The president has approved the deployment of U.S. forces, which are primarily defensive in nature and primarily focused on air and missile defense," Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Friday, as reported by The Hill.  "We will also work to accelerate the delivery of military equipment to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the UAE to enhance their ability to defend themselves."

Saudi Arabia oil attacks:  US to send troops to Saudi Arabia.  The US has announced plans to send forces to Saudi Arabia in the wake of attacks against the country's oil infrastructure.  Secretary of Defence Mark Esper told reporters the deployment would be "defensive in nature".  Total troop numbers have not yet been decided.  Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels have said they were behind the attacks against two oil facilities last week.

Scientology policy enabled years of child sexual abuse, lawsuit says.  In the third lawsuit filed against the Church of Scientology and its leader, David Miscavige, in three months, a 25-year-old woman alleges she was repeatedly sexually assaulted as a child in Scientology's care, including at the church's Clearwater Academy.  On top of the abuse, the lawsuit explains how church officials allegedly knew it was occurring and did nothing to stop it or alert law enforcement, actions rooted in policy written by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.  When the woman spoke of her alleged abuse after leaving Scientology in 2018, the church deployed a campaign of harassment against her, a tactic also based on Hubbard's Fair Game policy aimed to destroy those labeled as enemies.

Inspector General Michael Horowitz Testifies on Matters of High Interest — FISA, Comey, McCabe, SpyGate.  DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz testified before congress today on matters relating to the overall IG office.  However, with Democrat majority chairs refusing to call Horowitz for testimony on the recent Comey Report, republicans on the House Oversight Committee took advantage of the opportunity to ask questions about the FISA investigation and the prior IG reports on James Comey and Andrew McCabe.

Snowflake Nation:  Most Millennials Say Life More Stressful for Them Than Our Ancestors.  Are many millennials embracing socialism — which most of them can't even define — for lack of perspective?  Do they see the glass as half empty when its three-quarters full, and when for most of history it contained, materially speaking, the equivalent of bitter dregs?  A recent survey of millennials, and an analysis of it, point to this being the case.

Merriam-Webster Adds Gender-Neutral Pronouns to Dictionary.  Merriam-Webster announced Tuesday [9/18/2019] that gender-neutral pronouns "they" and "themself" have been added to the dictionary, along with more than 530 other words.  Added to "address the complex ways we view ourselves and others," the word "they" is "used to refer to a single person whose gender identity is nonbinary," meaning that they do necessarily not identify with the binary language of male or female.  Nonbinary and gender nonconforming people have existed throughout history and across cultures, but as Merriam-Webster noted, "we've struggled to find the right language to describe these people — and in particular, the right pronouns."

Two labs in the world keep a live smallpox sample.  The one in Russia just had an explosion.  An explosion sparked a fire Monday at a Russian biological research center known for being one of two places in the world that holds live samples of the smallpox virus.  A gas cylinder exploded on the fifth floor of a six story laboratory building at the Russian State Centre for Research on Virology and Biotechnology in the city of Koltsovo, the center said in a statement Monday.  A sanitary inspection room was being repaired when the blast hit the center, also known as VECTOR, causing a fire that spread 30 square meters.  No biohazard material was held in the room where the explosion occurred and only one person was injured, according to the statement.

The Editor says...
Yeah, but it's Russia, so who knows if that's really true.

The Navy Says Those UFO Videos Are Real.  The U.S. Navy has confirmed that three online videos purportedly showing UFOs are genuine.  The service says the videos, taken by Navy pilots, show "unexplained aerial phenomena," but also states that the clips should have never been released to the public in the first place.

The Pope Lies.  [Scroll down]  The lies were understandable because he was making a political statement against capitalism and against America, two of his favorite bugaboos.  Yet is it ever all right for the Pope to lie?  I shall leave that matter for the theologians.  I do wonder, though, who is hearing the Pope's confession these days?  His most obvious lie came when he said that his conservative critics, mainly in the United States, have criticized him for saying what he claims were "the same things" as previous conservative popes have said about capitalism.  He mentioned Pope John Paul II, who is dead and cannot rebut him.  Pope Francis said, "They are the same things John Paul II said.  The same!  I copy him."

'These kids have all vaped': Wisconsin doctors were first to warn of a sudden surge of mystery lung illnesses.  It was June 11 when a teenager showed up at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin short of breath.  He had lost a lot of weight, was fatigued and couldn't do routine activities.  A chest X-ray showed something doctors found odd:  interstitial pneumonia.  Unlike the more common viral or bacterial pneumonia that infects one or two of the lungs' five lobes, interstitial pneumonia looks like a complex spider web crisscrossing the entire lung.  "It's usually associated with bad disease," said Michael Meyer, medical director of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.

Purdue Pharma files for bankruptcy as part of settlement.  Purdue Pharma, the company that made billions selling the prescription painkiller OxyContin, filed for bankruptcy in White Plains, New York, days after reaching a tentative settlement with many of the state and local governments suing it over the toll of opioids.  The filing was anticipated before and after the tentative deal, which could be worth up to $12 billion over time, was struck.

Purdue Pharma's Sackler family used hidden accounts to transfer $1B: court docs.  The Sackler family, which owns Purdue Pharma, used Swiss and other hidden bank accounts to transfer around $1 billion from the company to themselves, the New York attorney general's office claimed Friday [9/13/2019].  The family stands to lose billions after a litany of lawsuits claiming that their company marketed the painkiller OxyContin as nonaddictive despite knowing otherwise.

China Buys Soybeans, Exempts Pork and Beans From Additional Tariffs.  In a quiet admission of food dependency, China purchased 600,000 tonnes of soybeans yesterday [9/12/2019], and simultaneously announced that U.S. pork and soybean imports would be exempt from further tariff increases.  The surface message Beijing is selling, surrounds their magnanimous panda narrative of reaching out to diminish trade friction.  However, below the surface everyone knows China cannot feed itself, and if food prices keep rising they could likely have growing unrest.

A penthouse, limousines and private jets:  Inside the globe-trotting life of Bishop Michael Bransfield.  It was billed as a holy journey, a pilgrimage with West Virginia Bishop Michael J. Bransfield to "pray, sing and worship" at the National Shrine in Washington, D.C. Catholics from remote areas of one of the nation's poorest states paid up to $190 for seats on overnight buses and hotel rooms.  Unknown to the worshipers, Bransfield traveled another way.  He hired a private jet and, after a 33-minute flight, took a limousine from the airport.  The church picked up his $6,769 travel bill.  That trip in September 2017 was emblematic of the secret history of Bransfield's lavish travel.  He spent millions of dollars from his diocese on trips in the United States and abroad, records show, while many of his parishioners struggled to find work, feed their families and educate their children.

Secretary Ben Carson Cleared of Any Misconduct in the Furniture Controversy of 2017.  The Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) inspector general cleared Secretary Ben Carson and his wife of any misconduct in the controversy surrounding an order for expensive furniture in late 2017.  The watchdog's report, first obtained by Fox News, confirmed that Carson and his wife did not violate HUD policy when they instructed staffers to buy dining room furniture to replace the old furniture in Carson's office.  "We found no evidence indicating that either Secretary or Mrs. Carson exerted improper influence on any departmental employee in connection with the procurement," the report states, according to Fox News.

U.S. to disclose name of Saudi official redacted in 9/11 FBI report.  The U.S. said Thursday [9/12/2019] that it will disclose the name of a Saudi citizen sought by lawyers for victims of the Sept. 11 attacks who want to link the kingdom to the terrorist plot.

Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax files $400 million lawsuit against CBS.  Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax filed a defamation lawsuit against CBS on Thursday seeking $400 million.  CBS News aired interviews with two women who have accused Fairfax of sexually assaulting them.  CBS News anchor Gayle King interviewed both Vanessa Tyson and Meredith Watson earlier this year, where they described their encounters with Fairfax.  He denies the encounters were non-consensual.

'Not a wandering tourist': Guilty verdict for woman accused of trespass at Trump's Mar-a-Lago.  A Chinese businesswoman was found guilty Wednesday of trespassing at Mar-a-Lago and lying to a federal agent about why she was at President Donald Trump's private Palm Beach club, capping a bizarre federal trial where the enigmatic defendant's true purpose in coming to the resort was never answered.  Was Yujing Zhang, 33, just a bumbling tourist or an agent of Beijing's government?  One thing is certain:  Zhang, who has been in federal custody since her arrest March 30, now faces up to one year in prison on the trespassing charge and five years on the false-statement offense.  She showed no reaction to the verdict.

Chinese Mar-a-Lago Intruder Found Guilty.  The Chinese woman who tried to lie her way into Mar-a-Lago was found guilty today [9/11/2019]. [...] From the BBC:  "Despite the guilty verdict the trial did not establish why exactly she was there.  She told agents after her arrest a friend in China had encouraged her to speak to a member of Trump's family about Chinese-US economic relations."

Why Did the Deficit Just Top $1 Trillion?  Here's Another Clue.  The deficit this year will be larger than the entire budget was in 1987. [...] Spending increases were across the board.  Social Security costs climbed 5.7%; Medicare, 6.5%; Medicaid, 4.6%.  Defense spending is up 7.9%, but spending on everything else in the budget has climbed by 4.5%.  Here's the really worrisome figure:  Interest payments on the national debt is up 14% over the prior year.  It should go without saying that these levels of spending growth are unsustainable.

The whole city is full of perverts.  Why would anyone want to go there?
Times Square's 'creepy' costumed characters are out of control.  The Times Square Elmo busted for grabbing a 14-year-old girl's rear while posing for a photo is far from an isolated incident, according to a new report that found the handsy panhandlers touched an average 24 people per hour without consent.  "This is Times Square.  Quirky is fine, but creepy is not," said Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance, which commissioned the report and also found that more than a third of American tourists had a gripe with the costumed creeps.  Forty-seven percent of New Yorkers said that they've had an "unpleasant interaction" with one of the pushy plushies or other street hustlers at the Crossroads of the World in the past year.

Couple spends $120,000 mistakenly deposited in their account — then are arrested.  Robert and Tiffany Williams of Montoursville, Pennsylvania, in May reportedly received an unexpected deposit of more than $120,000, the result of a BB&T bank teller's mistake, according to a police criminal complaint provided to CBS News by the Pennsylvania State Police.  The money was supposed to have been deposited to an investment firm.  Rather than checking with the bank on the nature of the deposit, the pair allegedly spent more than $100,000 on a number of household items, including a $15,000 down payment on a 2015 Chevy Traverse, two four-wheelers for about $10,000, a $4,500 camper and a race car.

The Editor says...
The jury in this case, if it goes to trial, would have been less likely to convict this couple if they had spent the money on necessities rather than an assortment of vehicles they could do without.  On the other hand, the bank made a mistake.  (How is that possible?)  So the bank should bear some of the responsibility.  After all, if you call the bank and insist that your account has half the money it's supposed to have, the people at the bank will insist that the computers never lie.

The Shocking Paper Predicting the End of Democracy.  [Scroll down]  As one of the lions of the profession, 68-year-old Shawn Rosenberg, began delivering his paper, people in the crowd of about a hundred started shifting in their seats.  They loudly whispered objections to their friends.  Three women seated next to me near the back row grew so loud and heated I had difficulty hearing for a moment what Rosenberg was saying.  What caused the stir?  Rosenberg, a professor at UC Irvine, was challenging a core assumption about America and the West.  His theory?  Democracy is devouring itself — his phrase — and it won't last.

Christians Massacred, Media Look the Other Way.  In an interview with Italian paper La Stampa, Pope Francis said that one of the biggest challenges to the Amazon region is the "threat to the life of the populations and territory which derives from the economic and political interests of the dominant sectors of society."  The program for the Amazon's synod in Rome talks about "life threatened", "inculturation and interculturality", "extractivist destruction" and "indigenous peoples", among other matters.  There is, however, another group of "indigenous people" whose life has been "threatened" and who live under an existential physical "destruction." They are the persecuted Christians, and the Vatican should dedicate the next synod to them.  "They asked him to deny Christ and when he refused they cut off his right hand; then he refused [again], they cut to the elbow.  In which he refused, before they shot him in the forehead, the neck, and chest," a Nigerian Christian, Enoch Yeohanna, recently recounted about his father's murder in 2014.  The trial of Nigerian Christians has been defined "a global nightmare."  But it is happening in many countries.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell Throws Cold Water on Latest Media Conspiracy.  Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell spoke with Thomas J. Jordan, chairman of the Swiss National Bank, in Zurich, Switzerland on Friday.  The talk was hosted by the Swiss Institute of International Studies.  During his remarks Powell said he does not foresee the U.S. sliding into a recession soon, despite a slowdown in global growth and uncertainties surrounding the U.S.-China trade war.  "I wouldn't see the recession as the most likely outcome in the U.S.," he said during his remarks in Zurich.

Is China trying to elect a Democrat?  For the last three years, Democrats have obsessed over Russia's relatively trivial participation in the 2016 election.  But if they have any concern about China's reported interest in 2020, they haven't shown it.  Why?  Because China's leaders want to get rid of Donald Trump and replace him with a Democrat who will be more compliant.

China Is Using Fentanyl as 'Chemical Warfare,' Experts Say.  Behind the deadly opioid epidemic ravaging communities across the United States lies a carefully planned strategy by a hostile foreign power that experts describe as a "form of chemical warfare."  It involves the production and trafficking of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that caused the deaths of more than 32,000 Americans in 2018 alone, and fentanyl-related substances.  China is the "largest source" of illicit fentanyl in the United States, a November 2018 report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission stated.  That same commission said that since its 2017 report, they found no "substantive curtailment" of fentanyl flows from China to the United States.  They also noted that in "large part, these flows persist due to weak regulations governing pharmaceutical and chemical production in China."

Nunes suing Glenn Simpson and ethics group, claiming conspiracy.  Republican Congressman Devin Nunes of California has filed a lawsuit claiming a left-leaning transparency nonprofit conspired with a research firm to damage his reputation.  The lawsuit in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, follows two that Nunes filed in state court against parody Twitter accounts, Twitter, a Republican strategist and the media company McClatchy for mocking him.

Harry Reid:  Only a Democratic president can issue a proper executive order.  Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said executive orders can only be executed properly and appropriately when a Democrat occupies the White House.  "We need a Democratic president for a number of reasons," the Nevada Democrat said Wednesday [9/4/2019] during a conference call with reporters about climate change-related issues.  "We've learned over the last few years from trying to govern the country by executive order that there's a lot that can be done legally with executive order," Reid said, a reference to President Trump's unilateral moves on immigration, climate, deregulation generally, and other issues.  "Only the Democratic president can get that done."

The Editor says...
Why do reporters care about Harry Reid's opinion?  He's a has-been.

Bill de Blasio eyes license requirement for bike riders.  New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said he is considering requiring bicyclists to be licensed and registered like automobile drivers currently are.  According to a report in the New York Daily News on Wednesday [9/4/2019], the mayor also wants to expand the city's safety regulations, which already have won it a nanny-state reputation, to include requiring Citi Bike renters to wear helmets.  Mr. de Blasio called the idea of forcing cyclists to have licenses and registration a "valid discussion," the Daily News reported, and added that he also plans a crackdown on cyclists who break traffic laws.

The Editor says...
The mayor is making a crime out of something that's not a crime:  riding a bicycle without a license.  (What about unicycles, skateboards, and dockless scooters?)

Devin Nunes Sues Fusion GPS Over False Media Smears And Bogus Ethics Claims.  The former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee sued Fusion GPS and its founder in a sweeping suit alleging conspiracy to obstruct investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election.  In the suit, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., alleges Fusion GPS worked directly with a tax-exempt organization to intimidate and harass him over his investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.  That organization, Campaign for America, filed bogus ethics complaints with the Office of Congressional Ethics to sideline Nunes as he investigated Fusion GPS's role in the false claims that President Donald Trump treasonously colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton.

Meet the 'super pro-cop' gorgeous young Latina running for Congress who calls herself 'the anti-AOC'.  Catalina Lauf is 26-years-old and running for Congress in Illinois, hoping to unseat a Democrat incumbent and push aside Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as the youngest woman ever to be elected to Congress.

Woman Told to Remove 'Obsolete' 9/11 Memorial Stone from Property.  An Illinois woman has been ordered to remove a 9/11 memorial stone from her property, according to reports.  Leigh Gardella-Wood has lived on the property in Winthrop Harbor with her family since 2011.  The land was once the site of Spring Bluff Elementary School before it closed down the year she bought it.  Reports said Gardella-Wood got a letter from Winthrop Harbor Village saying she must remove "all obsolete signage" related to the school from the property, including the memorial stone.

The Editor says...
The big stone with a plaque embedded in it sounds like it has Ebay written all over it.

Meat the Neighbors:  Giant Cookout Planned for Outside Vegan's House.  Thousands of Aussie meat eaters are planning to attend a mass community BBQ outside the home of a vegan woman who has been fighting neighbors over the smell of their outdoor cooking of meat and fish.  As Breitbart News reported, a "devastated" Australian vegan has taken her neighbors to court alleging they deliberately waft barbecue smoke rich in meat and fish smells across their shared boundary fence and into her property.

The Editor says...
Your vegetarian neighbors may be misguided troublemakers, but to blow smoke in their faces is un-Christian behavior.  1 Cor 8:13.

Cherokee Nation Names First Delegate To Congress.  The Cherokee Nation has named its first delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives.  Former Obama appointee Kimberly Teehee's nomination was approved by the tribe's council on Thursday [8/29/2019].  Although the treaty that created this nonvoting position is almost 200 years old, it had never been filled.

Voice Of America Currently Employs A Former Russian Anti-U.S. Propagandist.  The taxpayer-funded Voice of America (VOA) currently employs a reporter for its Russian website who formerly produced anti-U.S. propaganda videos for a Russian outlet.  Ilya Kolosov is a "contractor with the VOA Russian language service TV team," Bridget Serchak, Director of Public Relations at VOA, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.  He was previously employed at ONT, a Belorussian state-run TV station and RTVI, a Russian station, according to a report by Belsat.  VOA is a U.S. government-funded and state-owned news agency, reaching more than 275 million people around the world every week.  VOA is part of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which is a government agency overseeing all U.S. international broadcasting.

'National security imperative': Military spouses struggle to find employment.  Between 35% and 50% of military spouses work in fields that require occupational licenses or certifications, which are not always recognized when couples move to a new state or country.  With the constant moves military life requires, the difficulty drastically increases.  Lawyers and teachers are some of the hardest hit, but thanks to the work of advocacy groups across the country, they are seeing some relief from federal and state governments.

DOJ IG Reveals Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lied Under Oath About Viewing Porn on Govt-Issued Computer, Declined Prosecution.  First it was reported Thursday [8/29/2019] that the DOJ declined to prosecute James Comey despite the fact that he mishandled classified information and leaked to the media, then it was revealed another member of the Justice Department lied under oath to investigators and escaped prosecution!

The Character Assassination of Amy Wax and Her Response.  On August 23rd, the New Yorker ran a hit piece with the sensationalized headline, "A Penn Law Professor Wants to Make America White Again."  The writer, Isaac Chotiner, had interviewed Amy Wax, who had recently received considerable attention after a speech she made at the National Conservative Conference in Washington D.C. last month.  Part of the speech included the controversial comment that "we are better off if our country is dominated numerically, demographically, politically, at least in fact if not formally, by people from the first world, from the West, than by people from countries that had failed to advance."

A surprising number of Americans are retiring the idea of retirement.  Ah, those much-anticipated halcyon days of retirement — sleeping in, golf at will, travel too, leisurely day after leisurely day.  No more whining colleagues, carping bosses, endless meetings with no result, tedious commutes.  Of course, few retirements turn out that way.  And now a new Associated Press poll finds that for a variety of reasons about a quarter of Americans have no intention of ever retiring at all.

Report: ISIS Fighter Blows Himself Up After His Drone-Bomb Runs Low on Batteries.  Since President Trump defeated ISIS, the once-formidable terrorist organization that came into power under Barack Obama, has been forced back into hiding.  The dismantled terror group has suffered so many losses, that they've been reduced to conducting lone-wolf attacks.  And some of those attacks aren't going so well, according to a recent report.  Karma delivered a hefty blow to an ISIS terrorist who had his sights set on killing his enemies in Mosul, Iraq.  The terrorist was using a drone-bomb in his attack — however, his plans went haywire and blew up in his face (literally) when the drone ran out of battery power.

DHS bars Dem staffers from visiting border facilities after 'rude' and 'disruptive' behavior.  The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has barred Democratic staffers from the House Oversight Committee from visiting Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facilities at the U.S.-Mexico border as part of a planned trip this week after committee staff allegedly were "disruptive" and refused to follow instructions during their last trip, Fox News has learned.  Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., had sent his staff to visit border facilities for "oversight inspections" last week and planned to send staff again to view Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and CBP centers.

Bad Law Keeps People Poor.  Why does most of Africa stay poor while other parts of the world prosper?  People blame things like climate, the history of colonialism, racism, etc.  But I say Senegalese businesswoman Magatte Wade gives the right explanation:  too many rules.  "Once you hire someone, good luck getting rid of them for any reason," Wade complains.  Her government must approve every firing.  "Then the tax code is so complicated... worth at least two or three truckloads of paper."

Investigators scrutinizing video outside Epstein's cell find some footage unusable, according to people familiar with the inquiry.  At least one camera in the hallway outside the cell where authorities say registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein hanged himself earlier this month had footage that is unusable, although other, clearer footage was captured in the area, according to three people briefed on the evidence gathered earlier this month.  It was not immediately clear why some video footage outside Epstein's cell is too flawed for investigators to use or what is visible in the usable footage.  The incident is being investigated by the FBI and the Justice Department's inspector general's office, which are attempting to determine what happened and how to assess whether any policies were violated or crimes committed.

US Air Force's mysterious X-37B space plane sets new record after spending 717 days in orbit.  A pilotless space plane operated by the US Air Force has completed a record 717 days in orbit — and, we still have no idea what its mission is. [...] While it isn't the longest flight ever, the feat marks a personal best for this line of craft, with each pushing a bit further than the mission before.

Fake buyers raiding medicine cabinets at open houses to steal opioids from home sellers.  People are sneaking into open houses under realtors' noses and stealing home sellers' prescription opioids.  As the flood of opioids into vulnerable communities has grown, realtors have had to be on guard to prevent drug theft while hosting open houses and to educate home sellers about their roles in prevention, including hiding their medications in the same way they would firearms.

Hasbro Has a New 'Monopoly:  Socialism' Game and Socialists Are Not Happy.  A few weeks ago, my wife and I took a deep breath and then reluctantly replied "sure" to our kids' request that we play Monopoly for family game night.  As most of us can attest, Monopoly requires a level of commitment that no family game night should require, and it's not really that fun to begin with.  Hasbro's new "Monopoly:  Socialism," though, sounds like a hoot and a great way to continue to teach my kids why socialism is for the math-, economics-, and history-challenged among us.

North Carolina Police Officer Suing Former Department For Religious Discrimination For 'Billy Graham Rule'.  A police officer in North Carolina is suing for religious discrimination after being fired for following the "Billy Graham rule."  The officer in question is 51-year-old Manuel Torres, who served as a deputy for the Lee County Sheriff's office for five years.  He was then asked to train a new female deputy in July of 2017, but refused to do so on religious grounds.  Torres, a practicing Baptist, cited that his belief is that "the Holy Bible prohibits him, as a married man, from being alone for extended periods with a female who is not his wife."

Federal energy program suggests keeping thermostat set at 78 degrees — 82 while you sleep.  To keep your home cool with central air conditioning while also optimizing energy efficiency (and therefore cost), keep the temperature at 78 degrees Fahrenheit or higher.  The suggestion comes from Energy Star, a federal program managed jointly by the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency that provides information to consumers about energy efficiency practices that not only save consumers money, but also improve air quality and protect the environment.

Update:
DOE Issues Statement on Energy Star Thermostat Report.  After quite widespread discussion on the Energy Star Thermostat Report, and the ridiculous recommendations to set thermostat to 82° when sleeping, the U.S. Department of Energy (Secretary Rick Perry) issued the following statement:  "It is the position of DOE that Americans should set their thermostats to whatever temperature they choose."

Made in Mexico:  Money for the Democratic National Committee.  Desperate for cash — even the deepest blue Democratic vendor has to be paid but the significant Democratic National Committee (DNC) debt does not inspire payment confidence — the DNC, under chairman Tom Perez, has decided to outsource some of its fundraising to Mexico, where an estimated 1.5 million American expats reside.  And so next month there will be a series of events in Mexico City, featuring Perez himself, for the American citizens living there eager to help their party in the old country.

Barr: Epstein's Death Looks Like A Suicide To Us Too.  "Serious irregularities"?  You betcha.  A murder-for-hire to benefit Jeffrey Epstein's friends-cum-extortion-targets?  Naah, says William Barr.  Despite a noticeable lack of cooperation from the people at the jail where Epstein died, the Attorney General says investigators have found no evidence that anyone other than Epstein himself was behind his hanging death earlier this month.

Poll: 63 Percent of Voters Expect a Trump Victory in 2020.  As President Donald Trump's approval rating remains stable, an increasing amount of voters say he is "somewhat likely" to be re-elected as president, according to a survey.  Scott Rasmussen's latest 2020 poll revealed 63 percent of American voters believe President Trump will serve a second term in the White House, which is up 17 percentage points from February.

Amazon's CEO Owns a Terror-Linked Paper.  Millions of Americans brought Alexa into their homes only to learn, belatedly, that not only software, but human beings, were listening in on them.  Amazon employees and contractors from Costa Rica to India were caught reviewing thousands of recordings, of casual requests, private conversations and intimate moments, and sharing clips that they thought were funny in chat sessions with each other.  The Amazon product is always listening and maintains recordings of your conversations indefinitely.  But now there's something bigger at stake than privacy violations.  Amazon expects a $10 billion cloud contract for the military.

ABC Fined $395K by FCC for 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' Emergency Alert Misuse.  A Jimmy Kimmel Live! bit making fun of President Donald Trump is going to cost ABC $395,000, as the FCC is cracking down on use of the emergency alert tone in entertainment.  The network agreed to pay a fine to the agency after late-night host Jimmy Kimmel in October used a simulated tone during a monologue about the nationwide presidential wireless emergency alert test.  According to the FCC filing, ABC says it was a "misunderstanding that the use of the tone was permissible."

The Editor says...
I worked in broadcasting for 48 years.  There are only a few low-level newcomers in broadcasting who don't know that emergency alert tones are not to be used as sound effects.  The FCC has made this abundantly clear on several occasions.  Somebody in the production control room of the Kimmel show should have know better.  I'm surprised that the fine was not much higher.  A mere $400,000 just blends into the background cost of doing business.

This is what juries are for:
Phoenix father beats a man to death for accosting daughter in bathroom.  A Phoenix father is facing second degree murder charges for allegedly killing a man who allegedly harassed his young daughter.  Police say Melvin Harris, 40, admitted to beating Leon Armstrong, 26, to death after he attempted to break into the teenage girl's stall at a QuikTrip convenience store bathroom.  Harris was waiting for his daughter and her two friends in the store's parking lot when Armstrong approached his car asking for money.  Harris gave him change, then Armstrong walked into the convenience store, police said

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and fellow anti-vaxxers call on judge to delay law barring unvaccinated kids from school.  Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his fellow anti-vaxxers flooded an Albany courtroom Wednesday [8/14/2019] as they implored a judge to overturn a state law barring kids who haven't been vaccinated from attending school.  Hundreds of white-clad supporters later descended on the Capitol to leave photos of their children outside Gov. Cuomo's office in an attempt to draw the governor's attention to thousands who will be affected.  Rita Palma, the founder of a group called My Kids, My Choice, said new law, which ended an exception for kids whose parents objected to vaccines on religious grounds, will keep 26,000 children out of school and daycare.

New York Times:  Lawns Are Symbols of Racism and Bad for Global Warming.  While most Americans are spending time this summer enjoying the sun in the comfort of their houses' yards, the New York Times is out with a new exposé on how lawn care is problematic, once viewed through the lens of social justice.  Lawns are contributing to pollution and climate change, asserts narrator David Botti, and their origins are far from woke, in a seven-minute video on the history of American lawns.

Also posted under everything causes global warming.

Venomous snake has been missing inside Bronx Zoo for a week.  The venomous mangrove snake that escaped its enclosure at the Bronx Zoo was still loose Tuesday — marking a week since it went on the lam.  The 3-foot, tree-climbing serpent got free from its Jungle World exhibit Aug. 6 — when zoo officials claim it escaped via a mesh-covered vent in its glass case — and was still nowhere to be found Tuesday [8/13/2019].  Concerned guests were assured it was still safe to go inside Jungle World, with one ticket vendor even joking to several scared children:  "If you see him, let us know!"

Facial recognition misidentified 26 California lawmakers as criminal suspects.  San Francisco Assemblyman Phil Ting has never been arrested, but facial recognition technology developed by Amazon links his image to a jailhouse mugshot.  Ting is one of 26 state legislators who were wrongly identified as suspected criminals using the technology, according to results from a test released Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.

Minneapolis Bans New Drive-Thrus.  One of the hottest trends in the restaurant world right now is delivery — and Minneapolis just gave people one more reason to stay home and place their food orders online:  The city has placed a ban on the construction of new drive-thru windows.  Be it restaurant or coffee shop, pharmacy or bank, the Minneapolis City Council approved the new rule this past Thursday [8/8/2019], leaving current drive-thrus untouched (as well as businesses that are currently waiting for approval), but preventing the construction of any new ones within the city.

The Editor says...
In cases such as this, where a decision is made in a Democrat-controlled city, and it makes no sense at all, one can easily surmise that it must be an effort to stop global warming, or some kind of irrational nonsense of that sort.  Either that, or it's another incremental step to push us all onto mass transit.

Jermaine Taylor
Mocking [a] suspect's hairstyle could get you prosecuted, police warn.  Police have warned social media users they could face arrest if they "troll" a wanted drug dealer by mocking his distinctive hairstyle.  An online appeal to catch the criminal has resulted in tens of thousands of people posting joke comments.  Jermaine Taylor, 21, is wanted for breaching his licence [sic] conditions after being released from prison in December 2018.  Gwent Police launched the social media appeal to find the convicted drug dealer, but it backfired when people began making jokes about his hairstyle, with one saying it had been "pushed back more times than Brexit".


Jeffrey Epstein Accuser Names Powerful Men in Alleged Sex Ring.  A young woman who says financier Jeffrey Epstein and socialite Ghislaine Maxwell kept her as a sex slave also accused a host of high-powered men of being involved in Epstein's alleged sex-trafficking ring, according to court records unsealed Friday [8/9/2019].  Virginia Giuffre, who says that Epstein and Maxwell trafficked her to powerful people for erotic massages and sex, claimed in a 2016 deposition that Maxwell directed her to have sex with former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Britain's Prince Andrew (whom she has accused before), wealthy financier Glenn Dubin, former senator George Mitchell, now-deceased MIT scientist Marvin Minsky, and modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, as well as "another prince," a "foreign president," and the owner of a "large hotel chain" in France.  None of the men named in the deposition have been charged with a crime or even sued in civil court in connection with the Epstein case.

Jeffrey Epstein's alleged 'sex slave' reveals the men she claims she was forced to sleep with.  Jeffrey Epstein's alleged teenage "sex slave" claims she was ordered to sleep with powerful men — including a former US senator, the former governor of New Mexico, a prominent hedge fund manager and a late longtime MIT professor.  The identities of the men were revealed in some 2,000 documents unsealed Friday in Manhattan federal court related to Virginia Giuffre's defamation lawsuit against British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell.  In a deposition, Giuffre, née Roberts, claimed she was trafficked to MIT professor Marvin Minsky, who died in 2016 at age 88, as well as former Maine Sen. George Mitchell, ex-New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and money manager Glenn Dubin, whose wife, Eva, is an ex-girlfriend of Epstein's.

A 15 Year-Old Girl Was Allegedly Held Hostage on Epstein's Island.  Newly unsealed court documents contain a slew of horrifying allegations against the billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and those in his inner circle, including claims that a 15-year-old Swedish girl was essentially held hostage on his private island, and that friends of Epstein's had taken her passport and phone, and demanded sex from her.  These claims come from nearly a huge tranche of documents recently unsealed by the United States Second Circuit Court of Appeals related to the defamation lawsuit filed by Epstein victim Virginia Roberts Giuffre against his associate Ghislaine Maxwell.

While media were focused on mass shootings, explosive revelations about the Russia Hoax came out in a Sunday morning interview.  Maria Bartiromo has immersed herself in the details of the Russia Hoax and has used her weekly Fox News program, Sunday Morning Futures, to tease out details of information from current and former Republican congressmen who have seen documents and interviewed witnesses that the public has not yet had access to.  The picture that emerges is ugly, indeed.  Yesterday [8/4/2019], in an interview with former House oversight committee chairman Trey Gowdy, she exposed new details — outrageous behavior by a U.S. intelligence asset — in the setting up of George Papadopoulos in order to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign and (unsuccessfully) attempt to lure him into a chargeable crime.

In China, Big Brother is watching you even as you sort your trash.  The Chinese state is taking surveillance to the next level.  Vast networks of cameras are not just aimed at reducing crime but also enforcing recycling laws, encouraging civic behaviour.  Privacy concerns aside, the tools are reshaping the relationship between government and citizen.

IBM bans all removable storage, for all staff, everywhere.  IBM has banned its staff from using removable storage devices.  In an advisory to employees, IBM global chief Information security officer Shamla Naidoo said the company "is expanding the practice of prohibiting data transfer to all removable portable storage devices (eg:  USB, SD card, flash drive)."  The advisory stated some pockets of IBM have had this policy for a while, but "over the next few weeks we are implementing this policy worldwide."

Narrative of rampant white nationalist mass shootings overblown.  Seven times this year, a gunman has opened fire in a U.S. public place, killing at least three people.  One shooter is suspected of being a white supremacist.  One was an Elizabeth Warren supporter.  And two were black.  Yet fears over rising white nationalist attacks after the El Paso massacre threaten to obscure what studies describe as the big picture about mass killings:  that they represent a small fraction of annual gun deaths, that they are not surging, and that about half are committed by whites, not a share out of line with the general U.S. populace.

France [is] Slowly Sinking into Chaos.  France today is a country adrift.  Unrest and lawlessness continue to gain ground.  Disorder has become part of daily life.  Polls show that a large majority reject President Macron.  They seem to hate his arrogance and be inclined not to forgive him.  They seem to resent his contempt for the poor; the way he crushed the "yellow vest" movement, and for his not having paid even the slightest attention to the protesters' smallest demands, such as the right to hold a citizens' referendum like those in Switzerland.  Macron can no longer go anywhere in public without risking displays of anger.  The "yellow vests" seem finally to have stopped demonstrating and given up:  too many were maimed or hurt.  Their discontent, however, is still there.  It seems waiting to explode again.

Ohio gunman described himself as pro-Satan 'leftist' who supported Elizabeth Warren.  The Ohio gunman described himself on social media as a pro-Satan "leftist" who wanted Joe Biden's generation to die off, hated President Trump and law enforcement, and hoped to vote for Sen. Elizabeth Warren for president.  In the early hours of Sunday morning [8/4/2019], rifle-wielding Connor Betts rampaged through a Dayton entertainment district, killing his sister and eight other people and leaving dozens of others wounded before police killed him.  "I want socialism, and i'll [sic] not wait for the idiots to finally come round to understanding," he wrote in one tweet, according to Heavy.com.

Chinese Aluminum Billionaire Indicted in $1.8 Billion Tariff Evasion Scheme.  We previously outlined Mr. Zhongtian Liu as part of the early 2018 explanation for how China was exploiting the NAFTA loophole as an end-run around tariffs.  Today the Central District of California U.S. Attorney announces his indictment.

This supercomputer will perform 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 operations per second.  A government laboratory in Illinois will receive the fastest supercomputer in the United States in 2021, and it will be the first to hit what's called exascale-level processing.  The mammoth machine, called Aurora, will live at Argonne National Laboratory, and will be able to accomplish tasks like simulating complex systems, running artificial intelligence, and conducting materials-science research.  So what's the point of a supercomputer?  Experiments like crash-testing a car are expensive, complicated, and sometimes dangerous.  A supercomputer simulation, however, allows researchers to carry out those tests virtually, and track and change countless variables as they play out.  Some supercomputers even simulate nuclear blasts, which is best done virtually, and not in the real world.

Illinois tied for nation's most lax lawmaker/lobbyist revolving door laws.  Illinois is one of the only states in the U.S. that has no rules against lawmakers leaving office on a Friday and returning Monday as a registered lobbyist.  A new analysis of each state's lobbying restrictions for lawmakers by consumer advocacy nonprofit Public Citizen shows Illinois — along with Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Wyoming — are the most lax in their rules about lawmakers leaving office only to return as lobbyists.  Government affairs lobbyist Craig Holman says the pay that these former lawmakers often see is a stark contrast from their days in public office.

132 House Republicans Vote Against Trump-Pelosi Spending Deal, But House Democrats Push It Through.  The debt-and-spending deal that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) made with President Donald Trump and the congressional Republican leadership was rejected by a large majority of House Republicans — 132 voted against it — but it was pushed to passage on Thursday with overwhelming support from House Democrats.  The final vote on the deal was 284-149.  The 284 who voted for it included 219 Democrats and 65 Republicans.  The 149 who voted against it included 132 Republicans, 16 Democrats and 1 Independent.

Tainted alcohol killed 19 people in Costa Rica last month.  At least 19 people in Costa Rica have died after drinking alcohol tainted with toxic levels of methanol, local officials said Sunday [7/21/2019]. The Costa Rica Ministry of Health said fourteen men and five women[,] ranging in age from 32 to 72[,] died in June from what appeared to be methanol poisoning, local outlet the Tico Times reported.

New York office towers ordered to set their AC thermostats at 78 degrees to save energy [...] ahead of dangerously hot weather.

The Editor says...
Left-wing environmentalists want to do away with air conditioning, in order to "save the earth."  What then are we supposed to do during "dangerously hot weather?"

Has the duration and extent of heat waves gone up or down in the last century?  Answer:  Not just down but way down.  According to Chris Martz of Weather Facts, the average duration of heat waves is 41 percent shorter than it was in the 1930s.  They lasted nine days then to six and a half now.  Not only that, average high temperatures in the 1930s, when industrialization was minuscule compared to today, were considerably above (roughly two degrees) what they are now.

Who is "anti-science" now?
Protesters continue to block telescope construction in Hawaii.  The protesters believe the telescope project will desecrate Mauna Kea.  Their protest is based on primitive, Earth-worshiping paganism.  On the other hand, I suspect most of the astronomers who would benefit from the project are secular humanists, bent on disproving the Biblical account of creation.

Ousted UK ambassador leaked US intelligence.  Leaked U.K. diplomatic cables critical of President Trump have led Britain's ambassador, Sir Kim Darroch, to announce his departure from Washington earlier than expected.  But the story is not yet concluded.  According to one current and one former U.S. government official speaking on the condition of anonymity, Darroch repeatedly leaked classified U.S. intelligence information, including highly classified information, to a journalist for a U.S.-based media outlet.  The sources are consolidated by the reaction my related inquiries have received from other government officials.  These leaks are unrelated to the diplomatic cables which sparked Trump's anger and Darroch's departure.

Overpopulation:
Our New Planet Is Going to Be Great!  For example, in 1991, when Omar's family fled Somalia due to their complicity in the genocidal regime of the dictator Siad Barre, the population of Somalia was only 7 million.  Today, 28 chaotic years later, Somalia has more than doubled in size to 15 million despite immense outflows of emigrants.  The U.N. forecasts that Somalia's population will reach 35 million in 2050 and 76 million in 2100.  Alternatively, millions of Somalis (or, quite possibly, tens of millions of Somalis) might prefer to follow Rep. Omar to the Magic Dirt of the first world.  According to a Gallup poll, at present one-third of the population of sub-Saharan African wants to migrate, and it's unlikely that additional population growth will make Africa more attractive.

These Are The Most And Least Obese States In America.  According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), their most recent estimate is that 30.1% of adults are obese as of 2017.  The obesity rate in the United States has doubled since 1990 when 15% of the population was classified as obese.  Further, estimates for the costs of obesity range from $147 billion to nearly $210 billion per year.  As consumers, we're footing the bill. [...] The state with the highest levels of obesity in America is West Virginia. [...] West Virginia just beat out Mississippi, the state with the second highest obesity rate in the country.  Mississippi ranks as the state with the lowest life expectancy in America.

New York's power is coming back after Manhattan spent hours in the dark.  [Scroll down]  ConEd CEO John McAvoy said the company is working to understand the cause of the outage and needs to do a full engineering analysis.  The city's fire department responded to numerous transformer fires, the first of which occurred in Manhattan on West 64th Street and West End Avenue, officials said.  [7/13/2019]

The Editor says...
Why would "numerous" transformers catch fire simultaneously in a small area?  Was it a chain reaction, or something else?

American Parents 'Are Afraid of Their Own Kids,' Physician Says.  Family physician and author Dr. Leonard Sax has made a name for himself by seeking to restore common sense to today's crazy world of child-rearing.  He continues this quest toward restored sanity in a recent interview with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.  As Dr. Sax explains, there is a great difference between parents in European countries, such as the U.K., and those in the U.S. That difference, Sax explains, is fear.

Attention Correction Feature in iOS 13 Beta Enables Appearance of Eye Contact During FaceTime Calls.  A new feature in the latest iOS 13 beta makes users appear as if they're looking directly at the camera to make eye contact during FaceTime calls, when actually they're looking away from the camera at the image of the other person on their screen.

Real Hedge-Fund Managers Have Some Thoughts on What Epstein Was Actually Doing.  Long before Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to prostitution charges in Florida more than a decade ago, his fellow Palm Beach resident and hedge-fund manager Douglas Kass was intrigued by the local gossip about his neighbor.  "I'm hearing about the parties, hearing about a guy who's throwing money around," says Kass, president of Seabreeze Partners Management.  While stories about young girls swarming Epstein's waterfront mansion and the sex parties he hosted for the rich and powerful were the talk of the town, Kass was more focused on how this obscure person, rumored to be managing billions of dollars, had become so wealthy without much of a track record.

Axios: Breitbart Defines Democratic Presidential Field by Dominating Social Media.  Despite widespread, documented cases of bias against conservative media by social media platforms, Breitbart News and other conservative media have dominated online coverage of the Democrat party primaries, according to Axios.  In an article titled "Axios-NewsWhip 2020 attention tracker:  The might of right-wing media," Axios published data from its online media tracker, which tracks the attention received by individual Democrat presidential candidates from stories shared on social media.

American Psychological Association Pushes Polyamory.  Remember when psychologists' goal was to help people live balanced and ordered lives?  Now, it seems, the profession's highest purpose is to empower and validate people's deepest desires and sexual urges without having to suffer "stigma" or any adverse judgments from themselves or society.  Hence, the American Psychological Association has launched the "Non-Monogamy Task Force," the goal of which seem to be the promotion of sexual anarchy and the muting of polyamorists' moral consciences.

APA Task Force Promotes Multiple Sex Partner Status as Legally Protected Class.  The American Psychological Association (APA) has created a task force to promote "consensual non-monogamous relationships" (CNM) and a petition seeking legal protected class status of individuals with multiple sex partners.

Ross Perot, self-made billionaire and presidential candidate, dead at 89.  Ross Perot, the fiery, self-made Texas billionaire whose failed but memorable White House bids as a third-party candidate garnered a sizable slice of the popular vote, died Tuesday [7/9/2019].  He was 89.

Barr's recusal from Epstein case should give Democrats the willies.  [Scroll down]  Now Democrats can have a field day against Trump with the investigation entirely in their hands, right?  Don't think so.  On the surface it may appear to be bad news for President Trump — another rat fleeing a sinking ship? — and the left may be secretly cheering.  But if they are, they don't know Barr very well.  Barr is a canny player in ways that Sessions was not, and more likely, he's clearing the floor to keep any hint of politics out of this bona fide child-molestation case.

Did someone mention Jeffrey Epstein?

A warning about the stalemate in Venezuela.  Colombia has a recent history of one group of bad guys replacing another.  When Pablo Escobar and his M-19 Marxist guerrilla buddies were knocked out in 1990, the Cali Cartel took over.  When the Cali Cartel as knocked out, FARC took over.  When FARC got its vaunted yet locally rejected "peace" deal, they were knocked out (but got free stuff).  Now it's ELN's turn.

New 7.1 earthquake hits Southern California — 1 day after largest temblor in decades.  A magnitude 7.1 earthquake hit Kern County in California on Friday evening [7/5/2019] — just a day after a magnitude 6.4 earthquake that was the largest temblor in the region in two decades, the U.S. Geological Survey confirmed.  Shaking on Friday evening was felt as far away as Las Vegas and Los Angeles and into northern Mexico.  The USGS said there was a 5 percent chance a larger quake could still follow.

Act removed from Du Quoin State Fair lineup.  A band has been removed from the Du Quoin State Fair lineup.  Confederate Railroad will no longer perform on August 27.  The Du Quoin Weekly reports the band was removed because of their name.

Venezuela Forces Killed Thousands, Then Covered It Up, U.N. Says.  Venezuelan special forces have carried out thousands of extrajudicial killings in the past 18 months and then manipulated crime scenes to make it look as if the victims had been resisting arrest, the United Nations said on Thursday [7/4/2019] in a report detailing wide-ranging government abuses targeting political opponents.

Venezuela's implosion is becoming Colombia's security nightmare.  As Venezuela's economic and political situation continues to plumb new depths, analysts fret that the crisis is bound to spill over its borders sooner or later.  The most obvious candidate for destabilization is Colombia, which lies just across a long, porous, heavily populated border region that stretches over the Andes and down through the Amazon jungle.  It's no picnic having a failed state on your border.  As Rwanda found out in the '90s when the perpetrators of its genocide set up camp across the border in the vast, ungoverned jungles of Congo, security threats quickly become unmanageable if your foe has a safe harbor just across a lightly patrolled border.  And while the scale of violence in the northern tip of South America is much less, the basic dynamic looks distressingly similar.

UN finds a torture den in Venezuela's detention centers.  Where are Ocasio-Cortez's fake tears at the fence?  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is one of the few Democrats who's openly stood up for and defended the socialist Venezuelan regime even as millions of Venezuelans seek to dislodge it from power. [...] Now a report from the United Nations high commissioner of human rights is out, on Venezuela, and it's profoundly ugly. [...] Can we draw one conclusion about her?  She's not about humanitarian concerns.  She's about seeking raw power, using people's emotions about what's humane to achieve her ends.  Socialism is always given a pass.

US customs agents seize rat meat at Chicago's O'Hare Airport.  Officials say U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport thwarted a man's attempt to import several pounds of African rat meat.

Border Protection stops illegal Giant African snails that were smuggled into US in luggage from Nigeria.  Two keen-nosed Beagles at a Georgia airport are being hailed for sniffing out two, illegal Giant African snails which were stashed inside an international passenger's luggage.  US Customs and Border Protection revealed that Candie and Chipper — members of the CBP's 'Beagle Brigade' — were on duty at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia, on June 23 when they alerted their handlers to the presence of contraband in a traveler's checked luggage.  The traveler, who has not been identified, had arrived in the US from a flight originating in Nigeria.

The Editor says...
From the two articles immediately above, one can reasonably infer that the residents of Africa, where the ten poorest countries in the world are located, are so poor they have to eat snails and rats.  While there is no doubt that slavery was a disgraceful facet of this country's early history, it seems to me that the descendants of African slaves should be glad they live here.

July 4: Feds Warn of Possible Terror Attacks as ISIS Threatens New York, White House.  Federal authorities, in the days leading to Independence Day, warned of potential, not specific, attacks against revelers at the hands of "homegrown terrorists," referring to those inspired by overseas jihadi groups such as the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) and al-Qaeda, according to an intelligence bulletin issued to law enforcement.  The warning came as ISIS threatened to target the celebrations marking the birth of the United States in the nation's capital and New York.

Charlie Kirk Launches 'Turning Point Action' to Organize 1 Million Trump-Supporting Students.  Turning Point USA founder and executive director Charlie Kirk, who has launched Turning Point Action, a national get out the vote initiative for President Donald Trump's 2020 reelection campaign, announced the acquisition of Students for Trump on Tuesday [7/2/2019].  TPUSA's sister 501(c)(4) organization, Turning Point Action (TPA), announced on Tuesday its expansion with the acquisition of Students for Trump, and "all associated media assets."  The new initiative is seeking to organize one million student Trump-supporters in an effort to get out the vote in 2020.

Speaking on behalf of the internet, I'm shocked!
Toll House shocks the internet with surprise raw cookie dough announcement.  Raw cookie dough has always been a popular snack food, but it hasn't always been safe.  Health officials warn that it can cause sickness and infections, such as salmonella.  While that hasn't stopped a lot of people from risking it over the years, several companies have introduced safe-to-eat raw cookie dough over the last few years.  Nestle Toll House just entered the uncooked-cookie market with their own brand of raw cookie dough.

The President, China and the Spooks.  Why is it that every time Donald Trump gets together with Xi Jinping, someone gets busted on a sanctions violation?  I'm not privy to the inner workings of our cops and spooks, so I'm just asking.  While Trump and Xi sat down to dinner at the November 2018 Group of 20 meeting in Argentina, the chief financial officer of Huawei was arrested in a Vancouver airport transit lounge.  Now that Trump and Xi are meeting again next week at the Osaka Group of 20 meeting, there are reports of a contempt-of-court order against Chinese banks for violation of North Korea sanctions.

Second world war bomb explodes after three-quarters of a century.  The second world war may be long over, but its weapons remain deadly.  This huge crater in a field near the town of Limburg, Germany was created when a bomb exploded without warning during the early hours of 23 June.  Nearby residents heard the explosion during the night.  The next day they discovered the crater, which is 10 metres wide and 4 metres deep.  Bomb disposal experts think it was created by a 250-kilogram bomb.  It may have been faulty or failed to explode because it hit soft soil rather than a hard surface.  Around 75 years later, it seems a decaying detonator finally triggered the explosion.

The Editor says...
Maybe that was the last one of its kind.  Or maybe it wasn't.

Former White House lawyer: 'I'm not aware of any situation like' Elaine Chao's reported conflicts of interest.  Department of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao's personal connections are raising concerns on Capitol Hill and beyond amid recent reports of various conflicts of interest.  Recent reports found that the Trump cabinet member created a "special path" for projects favored by Senate Majority Leader and husband Mitch McConnell for his home state of Kentucky; she retained shares in a construction-materials company for more than a year after promising to relinquish them; and she has "extraordinary proximity to power in China" given her family's American shipping company is largely based in China.

Facebook to hand over identity data of users suspected of hate speech, report says.  Facebook has struck a deal with France to turn over identity information on users suspected of posting hate speech on the platform, Reuters reported Tuesday [6/25/2019].  Digital Affairs Minister Cédric O said he reached an agreement with the social media site, according to the report.  Facebook has also been using artificial intelligence technology to combat the increasing problems of fake accounts, fake news and hate speech.  Between October 2018 and March 2019, Facebook took down more than 3 billion fake accounts, estimating that around 5% of monthly active accounts are fake.

Oregon Republican senator threatens state troopers, warns them to 'come heavily armed'.  After Senate Republican Leader Herman Baertschiger Jr. said Tuesday [6/18/2019] that his caucus was "prepared to take actions" to prevent passage of a major climate change bill, Gov. Brown announced on Wednesday that she was ready to answer Republican stonewalling by calling lawmakers back for a special session.  Brown hinted that she would be willing to send state troopers to round up Republicans if they walk out in the final days of the regular legislative session, saying in a statement that she is "in close communication with Oregon State Police."  That's an option Democratic senators and the governor did not use earlier this year, when Senate Republicans first brought the Senate to a standstill by walking out and preventing the necessary quorum.

The Editor says...
The Democrats did the same thing in Texas in 2003, [see this and this] but they had sense enough to leave the state and hide out in Oklahoma, beyond the reach of the Texas state troopers.

92% of left-wing activists live with their parents and one in three is unemployed, study of Berlin protesters finds.  The vast majority of left-wing protesters arrested on suspicion of politically-fuelled offences in Berlin are young men who live with their parents, a new report found.  The figures, which were published in daily newspaper Bild revealed that 873 suspects were investigated by authorities between 2003 and 2013.  Of these 84 per cent were men, and 72 per cent were aged between 18 and 29.

Monsignor Rossi Boots Me From D.C. Basilica on Corpus Christi Sunday.  For now, Rossi enjoys the PC immunity of the press and the protection of the utterly hypocritical Church of Pope Francis, which preaches poverty by day and practices decadence by night.  Pope Francis goes on and on about "self-interested clericalism" than protects and promotes its most obvious practitioners.  The McCarrick-Bransfield-Rossi triumvirate, with its beach houses, boy toys, and ballooning bank accounts, resembled nothing less than self-interested clericalism on steroids. [...] With one hand, Rossi invites Nancy Pelosi and company to Communion; with the other, he calls the police and his praetorian guard on me.

Pink Floyd frontman David Gilmour sells guitars for over $21 million in auction to combat climate change.  Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour sold over 120 of his guitars for a charity that combats climate change.  According to NBC News, the former frontman's auction raked in $21.5 million, all of which will be donated to ClientEarth, a nonprofit environmental law organization that prides itself on using the law to "combat climate change" and "defend habitats and wildlife," according to its Facebook page.  Gilmour tweeted about his decision to sell the guitars on Friday [6/21/2019], writing, "The choice really is that simple, and I hope that the sale of these guitars will help ClientEarth in their cause to use the law to bring about real change."

The Editor says...
This fellow wants to halt climate change, but then he says he wants "real change."  So he's not against changes.  But he is.

Why The Delay in Public Release of Key Documents?  [Scroll down]  The Inspector General report on FISA abuse has apparently been delayed due to the new angle of interviewing Christopher Steele.  Given the nature of this new aspect; and considering the process for a report assembly after investigation all the way to release (a minimum of a month); it is highly unlikely we will see the IG report until the end of July or August 2019, which triggers suspicions of the proverbial DC can-kicking process.

Feds Seize 16.5 Tons of Cocaine at Philly Port Worth over $1 Billion.  Federal authorities have confiscated 16.5 tons of cocaine from a ship at a port in South Philadelphia.  The U.S. Attorney's office reported the illegal drug was found in a ship at the Packer Marine Terminal on Tuesday, Fox 32 reported.  Officials estimate the seized shipment of 33,000 pounds of cocaine has a street value of over $1 billion.

The Editor says...
If this took place in Philadelphia, wouldn't that be Fox 29?  Fox 32 is in Chicago.

Pro-Life Rep Speaks Out After He Was Uninvited to a Security Conference Over Politics.  Pro-life Republican Texas Rep. Will Hurd responded Tuesday [6/18/2019] after his invitation to speak at a high-profile cyber security conference was rescinded.  "One of the things that's disturbing, I think, this is one more data point in a trend where people are uncomfortable or unwilling to engage with people who disagree with them," Hurd said on "Fox and Friends."

Can the swamp be drained?
City of Secrets:  Estimated 10,000 people in DC are spies.  Waves of civil servants, military and law enforcement officers, business people, students, diplomats and tourists saturate the city.  That is the scene on a typical weekday in the world's most powerful city — whose business revolves around secret meetings, information and documents.  Woven into that orderly bedlam are sophisticated networks of foreign nationals whose sole purpose is to steal secrets.  They are spies.  According to the International Spy Museum in D.C., an educational and historical center of U.S. intelligence documentation and artifacts, there are "more than 10,000 spies in Washington."  While there may be some quibbling about the actual numbers, the FBI agrees with the premise.

Disney World Raises Prices for Annual Passes.  As of Tuesday [6/18/2019], the lower-cost Epcot After 4 pass was $309, up from $289.  Disney's Silver Pass went up from $479 to $519.  The Gold Pass increased $90, from $609 to $699.  Prices for the higher-tier annual passes also went up.  The Platinum Pass now costs $899, up from $749.  The Platinum Plus Pass jumped from $849 to $999, an increase of $150.  The price for the Theme Park Select Pass remains the same.  Prices also increased on the annual passes offered to out-of-state residents.  The Platinum Pass now costs $1,119, while the Platinum Plus Pass increased to $1,219.

The Editor says...
I wouldn't be seen in Disney World if they gave me a lifetime Uranium-plus ultra super duper pass, and free parking, and the air fare to get there.

Oh, by the way...
Dozens of Disney World workers arrested in child sex stings.  Almost three dozen Disney theme park workers have been arrested for alleged kiddie-sex crimes since 2006, according to a broadcast report.  The 35 busts have been for possession of child porn or trying to meet a minor for sex, CNN found after combing through law enforcement and court records.  So far, 32 of those busted have been convicted and the other cases are pending.  Two cases of child porn allegedly happened on Disney property.  Disney spokeswoman Jacquee Wahler said these scary arrests represent only a tiny fraction of the company's workforce.

Trump supporters line up over 36 hours early for President's Orlando rally.  President Donald J. Trump is holding a rally at the Amway Center on Tuesday evening to announce his re-election campaign.  The event does not begin until 8 p.m.  However, people from across the United States began to line up outside of the Amway Center on Monday morning [6/17/2019].  Fox 35 was on scene and spoke to Maureen Bailey, a supporter of President Trump.

Foreign Meddling: [The] Department Of Education [is] Going After Elite Colleges For Allegedly Taking And Hiding Foreign Cash.  The Department of Education is going after U.S universities over supposed ties to foreign governments, after some allegedly took huge quantities of foreign cash and hid it from regulators.  At the top of the list are Georgetown University and Texas A&M, which have taken hundreds of millions of dollars from the government of Qatar, a middle eastern nation with suspected links to international terrorism.  Both schools received letters from the Department of Education Thursday [6/13/2019] saying they should have disclosed that funding but their filings "may not fully capture" the activity, the Associated Press reported.  The letter warned that they could be referred to the attorney general to "compel compliance."

GOP Congressman Nixed As Keynote Speaker For Cybersecurity Conference.  The effort by the left to de-platform conservative speakers continues.  This time it is Rep. Will Hurd, former CIA officer, and cybersecurity expert, who has been disinvited to be a keynote speaker at a cybersecurity conference.  The reason?  He's a pro-life Republican politician.  No, really.  This slight doesn't make any sense at all except to highlight the fact that there is no tolerance from the pro-abortion left for pro-life politicians.  What does a pro-life position have to do with cybersecurity?  The answer is absolutely nothing.

Indian election reveals role of money, questionable morality.  Nearly 43% of the new members of [India's] lower house of Parliament that convenes Monday [6/17/2019] for the first time since the election won despite facing criminal charges.  More than a quarter of those relate to rape, murder or attempted murder, according to a report by the civic group Association of Democratic Reforms.

Hong Kong and China Give In to Protesters, Suspend Extradition Bill.  Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said on Saturday [6/15/2019] that a proposed extradition bill will be suspended, handing a stunning victory to thousands of protesters who packed the streets for a week to oppose legislation strongly desired by the mainland Chinese government.

DOJ Admits FBI Never Saw Crowdstrike Report on DNC Russian Hacking Claim.  The foundation for the Russian election interference narrative is built on the claim of Russians hacking the servers of the Democrat National Committee (DNC), and subsequently releasing damaging emails that showed the DNC worked to help Hillary Clinton and eliminate Bernie Sanders.  Despite the Russian 'hacking' claim the DOJ previously admitted the DNC would not let FBI investigators review the DNC server.  Instead the DNC provided the FBI with analysis of a technical review done through a cyber-security contract with Crowdstrike.

23 House Republicans Suspect DOJ Cover-up in Progress? — Request "Prompt" Declassification from President Trump.  Twenty-three House republicans request declassification of documents directly from President Trump as soon as possible.  Despite the executive office directive to AG Bill Barr, the republican group seemingly do not trust the DOJ and FBI institutional interests.  It's a smart move to keep the pressure on.

Children should have the right to tell doctors to vaccinate them if parents have 'flawed' anti-vaxx beliefs, rules American Medical Association.  Children should be able to get vaccines even if their parents don't want them to, top doctors in the US have ruled.  The American Medical Association — the country's largest doctors' union — this week voted to give 'mature' children as young as 12 the power of consent.

Denver elects an Ocasio-Cortez wannabe to its city council.  Is the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez phenomenon spreading through the country?  In Denver, it looks like the Bronx congresswoman has got an imitator, and not just in the Latina looks department, we're talking the bad stuff, the Hugo Chavez socialist department.

Avowed Communist Wins a Seat in the Denver City Council.  Candi CdeBaca, an avowed Communist, just won a seat in the Denver City Council.  She knows literally nothing but firmly believes in communism.  "I don't believe that our current economic system actually works," she said.  "Capitalism by design is extractive and in order to generate profit in a capitalist system, something has to be exploited.  That's land, labor or resources.  And I think that we're in late phase capitalism and we know it doesn't work and we've got to move into something new."

Is Stacey Abrams being groomed for higher office?  The practice of opposing a party rebuttal to the president's State of the Union speech was started in 1966, when Republicans Senator Everett Dirksen and Rep. Gerald Ford responded to Democrat President Lyndon Johnson's State of the Union on television.  Since then, it has become an annual event.  Until 2019, all previous responses were delivered by contemporary senators, representatives, or governors.  Since 2011, there have been two responses — one in English and one in Spanish.  And here I was, under the illusion that English is our national language.  So how did Stacey Abrams, an ungracious loser with no national elective office, become the Democrats' choice to deliver a response?

Good!  It was the students that got you into this mess.
Oberlin College to Jury:  We're cash poor and big punitive award to Gibson's Bakery will hurt students.  The witness testimony completed today [6/12/2019] in the punitive damages hearing, which follows the $11.2 million compensatory verdict last Friday in the lawsuit Gibson's Bakery v. Oberlin College.  The jury could award up to double damages, meaning $22.4 million on top of the $11.2 million, bringing the potential total to $33.6 million, plus a recommendation that the judge award attorney's fees. [...] Gibson's lawyers spent considerable time going over Oberlin College's IRS Form 990, showing over $1 billion in assets and numerous employees earning over $100,000[.]

'Homework gap' shows millions of students lack home internet.  In classrooms, access to laptops and the internet is nearly universal.  But at home, the cost of internet service and gaps in its availability create obstacles in urban areas and rural communities alike.

The Editor says...
That's what books are for.  That's what the library is for.

Record High Employment — Available Jobs Exceed Labor Pool by 1.6 Million.  The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary, aka "JOLTS report", lags behind monthly employment reports by a month as the 'hires' and 'quits' are contrast against available job openings.  In the latest JOLTS report we find evidence why the May employment numbers were less than expected.  The data shows the economy is expanding; businesses are hiring; and the reason for lower new hires has nothing to do with an economic slow-down.  In essence, the labor market is tight, very tight, and Main Street businesses are having a hard time finding qualified workers.

The Editor says...
There will always be a shortage of qualified workers because the public schools are not teaching young people to learn and think for themselves.

Mississippi River floods right after climate alarmists predict water shortages.  The Mississippi River is inundated with water this spring, defying climate alarmists' claims and predictions that global warming is drying up the Midwest.  Reuters published an article in February asserting global warming will cause less precipitation and more drought in the Mississippi River basin.  The article, titled "U.S. faces fresh water shortages due to climate change, research shows," claims, "The pressures of climate change and population growth could cause water shortages in most of the United States."  The article specifically mentions the Midwest, where the Mississippi River flows, as one of the regions poised for reduced rainfall and water shortages.

The Toronto School Board's New Marxist 'Dress Code' Is A Huge Red Flag.  The Toronto District School Board recently announced changes to their official dress code.  Shaping the direction of the new code is the TDSB's push to ensure that school attire reflects "individual expression of identity, socio-cultural norms, and economic factors," which it deems "important factors to a person's health and well-being."  What has so far caused the most controversy is that the new policy allows students to wear hats in class while the national anthem plays at the start of the day.  In a tone-deaf move, the news broke the morning Canadians were paying their respects to those who fought at Juno Beach on D-Day.

PG&E Is Cutting Off Power In California So They Don't Get Sued Over Another Wildfire.  There have been a series of blackouts in northern California recently, but these don't have anything to do with storms or equipment failure.  Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) has been intentionally, proactively shutting off the juice in areas where red flag warnings for potential wildfires have been posted.  This has led to numerous complaints (mostly justified or at least understandable) from people losing service, particularly those who rely on electricity for home medical equipment.  But the actions by PG&E are equally understandable.

Oberlin College's identity crisis led to its Gibson's Bakery train wreck.  [Scroll down]  There are two things about this case that are very important, of which some of the commenters and tweets I read are missing.  The first is that Oberlin College, in the minds of the jury, wasn't guilty only of what they did, but also what they didn't do.  They had opportunities early on to see the [nonsense] flying in their faces — thrown by the social justice warrior students — and didn't have the good sense to see a basic problem and recognize the simplest of solutions.  What happened here is that Oberlin College and many universities have lost the understanding of their identity and basic purpose, and when that happens with most of us, when we don't know who we are, we tend to do stupid things.  That's what happened here.

Oberlin College ignored the First Law of Holes responding to the jury verdict against it.  Lack of respect for juries can be very, very costly.  The landmark jury verdict awarding $11 million (with the possibility of triple damages to come) to members of the Gibson Family, owners of a 5-generation bakery boycotted and slandered by students with the encouragement of a College official, is looking to be as much about social class as it is about the excesses social justice warriors (SJWs).

Gibson's Bakery v.  Oberlin College:  More than $11 million awarded.  A Lorain County jury on Friday awarded the owners of Gibson's Bakery more than $11 million from Oberlin College in finding that the college inflicted emotional distress, interfered with business relationships and libeled the family-owned bakery in downtown Oberlin.  The jury also found that Meredith Raimondo, the college's vice president and dean of students, libeled the family and business.  "All the Gibsons ever wanted was for the truth to come out," Lee Plakas, lead attorney for the Gibson family, said afterward.  "All they ever asked from the beginning, from Oberlin College, was to use its power and influence and might to tell the truth, and that letter never came.  But the jury sent the letter that was louder and more visible and more public.  I think the Gibson family is grateful for that and grateful for the jury to have the courage to be able to send a letter that no one else would send for the last almost three years."

Catering to the PC mob is going to cost Oberlin College big bucks.  Oberlin College, which has become one of the most politically correct campuses in the United States, has just discovered that allowing and encouraging social justice warriors to damage their perceived enemies can be expensive.  A local jury has just awarded Gibson's Bakery, a five-generation institution in Oberlin, Ohio, $11 million in its lawsuit against the college for throwing its support behind a student-led boycott over false charges of racism.  This amount could triple to $33 million if punitive damages — intended to punish and disincentivize egregious behavior — are awarded in proceedings Tuesday next week.

Arrogant Conceit and Pratfalls.  It's foolish to think that this case impacts only Oberlin.  Insurance companies are not as stupid as the Oberlin administrators and surely are reviewing the fees they charge colleges and universities for tortious liability claims.  Every one of them will pay more.  Will this come out of the payroll of the very bloated administrative salaries they are paying?  Not unless trustees finally get off their duffs and do their job of fiscal and policy oversight.  I do not see Oberlin long surviving this and that's as it should be.  The staff may have cushy, protected jobs but people like Gibson do not.

California utility proactively cuts power because of weather.  Pacific Gas & Electric implemented a controversial practice of cutting power to selected portions of Northern California on Saturday to guard against wildfires as the weather turned very windy, dry and hot.

Backlash when House Dems propose Congressional pay raise.  House Democrats apparently believe all of their hard work chasing impeachment, collusion and obstruction claims against President Donald Trump deserve a reward.  Tone-deaf Congressional Democrats are now proposing a pay raise for themselves, lifting a nearly decade-long pay freeze that would effectively give them an extra $4,500 next year, according to The Hill.

Jury awards Gibson's Bakery $11 million against Oberlin College.  The Jury in the Gibson's Bakery v.  Oberlin College case has reached a verdict.  According to our reporter in the Courtroom, the jury awarded $11 million.  Here are the details:  Allyn W. Gibson was awarded $3 million, David Gibson $5.8 million, Gibson Bros. $2,274,500.  Next Tuesday [6/11/2019] there will be a separate punitive damages which could be a double award (meaning tripling the $11 million to $33 million).

Construction to Begin Soon on Taller White House Fence.  The White House is getting a new 13-foot fence, almost double its current height, to help keep intruders out.

Liberals are gunning for your 401(k).  Shareholder activists are taking direct aim at companies — such as oil companies and gun-manufacturers — by abusing rules that publicly traded companies must follow to promote a far-left agenda.  Instead of trying to pass gun control laws through Congress, they are forcing public companies to bend to their will.  What they are doing is dangerous.  The most recent example happened to the legendary gun-maker Smith & Wesson.  As The Free Beacon reported, an obscure women's group called the Adrian Dominican Sisters has organized its 600 members to become marginal shareholders in gun companies to pass far-left political resolutions. [...] Other asset-managers and hedge fund leaders are willing to cave to activists — in the form of "virtue-signaling" — because they fear retribution and take actions not in the shareholders' best interest.

Leftwing Academic Calls On Bill Barr To Investigate A Surprising Player In The Russia Hoax Scandal.  Now that the popular consensus in the nation has shifted from "Trump is Putin's tool" to "Trump didn't want to help Mueller destroy his presidency" it is interesting to see some of the folks claim that they never ever supported the whole Russia hoax. [...] What shows that Steele dossier is looking more and more Chernobyl-like is the fact that the left is beginning to run from it.  Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at Princeton University and New York University, who is also Mr. Katrina vanden Heuvel, definitely a lefty, and a contributor at The Nation, thinks that Bill Barr might be onto something.

A New Player Emerges In The Russia Investigation:  Who Is Walter Soriano?  One of the most interesting and maddening things about Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia collusion investigation and report is that it has always felt less than comprehensive.  It has been rightly criticized as only lightly touching on the role Hillary Clinton played in hiring Fusion GPS, to name one example.  Now Politico reports there's a new name added to the mix, discovered as part of an ongoing investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee's probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.  That name is Walter Soriano, and no one really seems to know much about him.

Pope Francis Approves Change To Lord's Prayer.  Pope Francis finally approved the changes he has long wanted to implement to the Lord's Prayer by replacing "lead us not into temptation" with "do not let us fall into temptation," reports UCatholic.

The Editor says...
The Pope should attend to his own prayers.  The Pope presumes to know more than Jesus, by editing His model prayer.

Healthy Texas couple dies from mysterious virus in Fiji.  A young and healthy Texas couple on a dream vacation in Fiji died suddenly after they both contracted a mysterious illness.  Family of David and Michelle Paul said the Fort Worth couple began feeling unwell the day before they were supposed to leave Fiji and return home two weeks ago.

Texas couple who died in Fiji said hands went numb in message: reports.  The Texas couple who died suddenly from a mysterious illness in Fiji last month sent messages to relatives saying their hands went numb and that they had been throwing up for at least eight hours prior to rushing to a local doctor to be examined.  David and Michelle Paul of Fort Worth, Texas, were in their 30s and both healthy when they arrived in Fiji on May 22.  According to relatives, the couple were in and out of the hospital due to a violent illness that caused vomiting, diarrhea, extreme weakness, shortness of breath and hand numbness.

An Ornery Old Man.  [T]he Mississippi River, the world's most economically significant watershed, is coming to the end of its lease and considering relocation.  Old Man River is a frightening and uncooperative beast in the best of times.  It's an alluvial river, meaning the Mississippi's bed isn't solid rock like, for example, the Colorado.  At its bottom the Mississippi flows on top of sand and mud, and it moves that sediment hither and yon as it pleases while draining half the North American continent from western Canada to the Appalachians down into the Gulf of Mexico.  Which means every thousand years or so the Mississippi will choose for itself a new channel.

De Blasio blames his staff for missing 9/11 memorial event.  Mayor de Blasio's staff threw themselves under the bus Friday to protect their boss from the fallout over his blowing off a memorial event for those who died from toxic exposure to Ground Zero after 9/11.  A spokesman for de Blasio claimed the mayor was missing from the ceremony for the unveiling of the 9/11 Memorial Glade because nobody told him about it.

New York City Is Facing A Rat Invasion.  Back in 2017, Mayor Bill de Blasio declared war on rats demanding "more rat corpses."  The city council mobilized and minted $32 million for the war.  So, what are the results?  After a small drop, rat sightings are again on the upswing.

Commonwealth: You unwittingly pay billions for political agendas in your electric bill.  Already, these agendas add up to about $300 a year for the average electricity bill.

What if Green Energy Isn't the Future?  What's Warren Buffett doing with a $10 billion bet on the future of oil and gas, helping old-school Occidental Petroleum buy Anadarko, a U.S. shale leader?  For pundits promoting the all-green future, this looks like betting on horse farms circa 1919.  Meanwhile, broad market sentiment is decidedly bearish on hydrocarbons.  The oil and gas share of the S&P 500 is at a 40-year low, and the first quarter of 2019 saw the Nasdaq Clean Edge Green Energy Index and "clean tech" exchange-traded funds outperform the S&P.

WHO will no longer categorize transgender as mental disorder.  The World Health Organization will no longer categorize transgender people as having a mental disorder, according to reports.  "Gender Identity Disorder" was removed from the organization's classification of diseases as of last weekend and will now be referred to as "gender incongruence," included in WHO's section about sexual health, Time reported.

Also in the news, the same day:
Burnout is an official medical diagnosis, World Health Organization says.  It's a feeling of extreme work stress that's long been embedded in the cultural lexicon, and now it might be codified in your medical records as well.  Burnout is now a legitimate medical diagnosis, according to the International Classification of Diseases, or the ICD-11, the World Health Organization's handbook that guides medical providers in diagnosing diseases.  Burnout now appears in the ICD-11's section on problems related to employment or unemployment.

There aren't that many dope smoking hippies, even in Oregon.
Oregon, awash in marijuana, takes steps to curb production.  Oregon is awash in pot, glutted with so much legal weed that if growing were to stop today, it could take more than six years by one estimate to smoke or eat it all.

Why the UFO story is far more interesting than you think.  The New York Times has made waves with a new report on sightings by U.S. Navy aviators of unidentified flying objects between 2014 and 2015.  But the UFO issue, which follows a similar 2017 story, is far more interesting than the reporters let on.

JPMorgan Chase accused of purging accounts of conservative activists.  Conservative activists are calling out America's largest financial institution, charging they are being targeted.  JPMorgan Chase is under fire for closing the bank accounts of several customers in the conservative movement as other right-wingers are threatening to close their accounts unless the bank plays nice.  "If Jamie Dimon can't absolutely guarantee that Chase Bank won't ever discriminate against conservatives, conservatives should consider banking elsewhere," warned David Almasi, vice president of the conservative-leaning National Center for Public Policy Research, referring to JPMorgan's chairman and CEO.

How's that legalized pot working out?  Is the War on Drugs over yet?
42 arrested across metro Denver in massive black market marijuana bust.  Authorities said Friday [5/24/2019] they raided hundreds of black market marijuana operations in Colorado that flouted the state's cannabis law by growing tens of thousands of plants in Denver-area homes and selling it out of state.  Investigators seized more than 80,000 plants and 4,500 pounds of harvested marijuana, state and federal prosecutors said at a news conference.  Officers raided 247 homes and eight businesses and arrested 42 people in Denver and seven nearby counties.

Americans' Life Savings Disappear From Mexican Bank Accounts.  In late December, Kathy Machir called Marcela Zavala Taylor, her banker of nine years at Mexico's Monex Casa de Bolsa, to get cash for contractors building her retirement home in San Miguel de Allende.  Typically, Zavala would wire money or dispatch her assistant, Juan, on his motorcycle with an envelope full of pesos.  Monex, with $5.2 billion in assets and operations in the U.S., was woven into the lives of Machir and the 10,000 other Americans who've moved to San Miguel de Allende.  The transfer didn't happen.  Juan didn't show, Zavala didn't return calls, and Kathy and Jim Machir discovered that their nest egg was gone.  When the Machirs and other San Miguel expatriates met with Monex officials in early January, the bankers told some of them that about $40 million was missing from as many as 158 accounts, many belonging to English-speaking Americans.

Wendy's employee takes bath in kitchen sink, restaurant still passes inspection.  This doesn't count as washing your hands before returning to work.  An employee at a Wendy's in Florida brought his home hygiene routine to the fast food restaurant, washing up in an industrial sink, a revolting viral video shows.  The 93-second footage, posted Tuesday [5/21/2019] on Facebook, shows a Snapchat video of a shirtless young man without shoes or socks climbing into an oversize sink in the Milton restaurant's kitchen.

FDA looks to swap out 'sell by' dates for 'best if used by'.  The Food and Drug Administration announced Thursday [5/23/2019] that it will work with food manufacturers to use the label "best if used by" to refer to food quality, rather than the phrase "sell by," which can create the impression the product is not safe by a certain date.  The FDA said that the new label will curb food waste.  Setting expiration dates on foods is not an exact science.  The "best if used by" date on milk or eggs means that the products will be the highest quality until a certain date, not that they will expire after that date.  The "best if used by" date shows consumers that the products are still safe by the date indicated, but doesn't lead them to think they have to immediately toss the milk or eggs in the trash after the date.

Sometimes the swamp drains itself:
USDA staffers quit en masse as Trump administration eyes moving offices out of DC.  Employees at the U.S. Department of Agriculture are quitting at a rapid clip as Secretary Sonny Perdue prepares to move forward with plans to relocate two offices far outside the Washington, D.C., Beltway.  Federal employees at the Economic Research Service (ERS) and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) — two small but important agencies within the USDA — are unhappy with Perdue's plan, announced last August, to move the majority of their staff from current offices in the capital to an area closer the country's agricultural centers.

The Editor says...
Here's a better idea:  After all the employees walk out in protest, eliminate the USDA completely.  If anybody misses the USDA, a private company will pop up to take its place.

FBI Warns of New Twist in Virtual Kidnapping Scams.  The FBI and our law enforcement partners are warning the public about a new, concerning twist on virtual kidnapping for ransom scams (VKFR), where criminals are convincing U.S. victims to cross the border into Mexico.  Law enforcement agencies have been warning the public of virtual kidnapping schemes for some time.  Virtual kidnappings happen when a victim is told, over the phone, that his or her family member has been kidnapped.  Then, through deception and threats, criminals coerce victims to pay a ransom.  The criminals also threaten harm to the party(s) if they call law enforcement or alert authorities.  No one is physically kidnapped in these schemes, but they are often traumatic for everyone involved.

After the global warming alarmists were defeated...
ASX closes $33 billion higher at 11-year high.  The S&P/ASX 200 has closed [5/20/2019] 1.7 percent higher at 6476, the highest since 14 December, 2007.  The gains are thanks solely to the financial sector, which had multiple negative overhangs removed with the Coalition's victory on Saturday [5/18/2019].

3 Hectares of Poppy Crops Near Tijuana, BC = 2 Million Plants.  A poppy field of approximately three hectares was located by agents of the State Preventive Police at the height of El Veladero Hill, in the Natura district, in Tijuana.  The first data provided to ZETA that at 4:38 pm on Friday [5/17/2019] they reported to the emergency line that from Camino Vecinal street in Colonia Natura a poppy field was visible.

The Editor says...
That's a surprise, but is that really an emergency?

Jesse Jackson Wants To Help Fix The Venezuelan Embassy Standoff.  After the United States recognized Juan Guaido as the interim President of that country, he appointed a new ambassador to our country named Carlos Vecchio.  But Ambassador Vecchio hasn't been able to get into the Venezuelan embassy in Washington because it's being "occupied" by protesters who support Nicolas Maduro.  They're primarily comprised of Code Pink members and other random socialists, but they've locked themselves in for some time.  In response, officials have cut off the power and, allegedly, the water (the utility company denies the water was cut off), and counter-protesters have not allowed anyone to bring in food.  This has been going on for a couple of weeks.

Microsoft uses artificial intelligence to push what liberals think you should write.  Microsoft has decided that you need help in understanding what words to use when you write.  After all, what you write and how you want to write it should take a backseat to what liberals think you should write.  Fox News reported, "Microsoft is harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to boost the use of 'inclusive language' in Word.  The feature is part of Ideas in Word, a forthcoming AI-powered online tool designed to improve users' writing ... In addition to 'familiar fixes for spelling and grammatical errors,' Ideas in Word will also offer 'advice on more concise and inclusive language,' according to Microsoft.  In the blog post, [John] Roach used the example of 'police officer,' instead of 'policeman.'"

If Globalization Meant China Could Turn off Your Fridge, Would You Still Like It?  The pill many people take in the morning may have come a long way to the breakfast table, from the other side of the world, in fact.  "America needs generic drugs.  They make up 90 percent of the American drug supply.  Without them, every large-scale government health program — the Affordable Care Act, Medicare Part D, the Veterans Health Administration, charitable programs for the developing world — would be unaffordable."  In the fall of 2012, an FDA employee tasked with "inspecting the Indian manufacturing plants that make many of America's low-cost generic drugs" discovered that its reputation as "the world leader in aseptic manufacturing" was a fraud.

California May Go Dark This Summer and Most Aren't Ready.  A plan by California's biggest utility to cut power on high-wind days during the onrushing wildfire season could plunge millions of residents into darkness.  And most people aren't ready.  The plan by PG&E Corp. comes after the bankrupt utility said a transmission line that snapped in windy weather probably started last year's Camp Fire, the deadliest in state history.  While the plan may end one problem, it creates another as Californians seek ways to deal with what some fear could be days and days of blackouts.

'America Needs Men and Women of Integrity... Freedom of Religion Is Under Assault'.  Vice President Mike Pence on Saturday [5/11/2019] delivered the commencement address at the 46th graduation ceremony at Liberty University — and spoke bluntly to the new graduates and their families and friends as over 50,000 people gathered at Williams Stadium on the Liberty University campus in Lynchburg, Virginia.  More than 8,000 graduates were in attendance to hear the vice president's remarks.  The university graduated more than 20,000 students — 80 percent of whom earned their degrees via the school's online programs, as the university noted in a press release.

Soon, Microsoft Word Will Edit Your Document for Political Correctness.  Is Microsoft trying to rehabilitate the image of Clippy? [...] I'm not sure anything can replace that stupid paperclip, but according to the business magazine Fast Company, Microsoft is rolling out a series of features called "Ideas in Word" to help users with their writing — and one of those features will have to do with whether your writing is sufficiently woke.  "Microsoft will soon preview a version of Word that will use artificial intelligence to make your writing not just grammatically but politically correct," Fast Company reported Wednesday [5/8/2019].

Intelligence analyst charged with leaking Top Secret information to left-wing reporter Jeremy Scahill.  A former intelligence analyst and Afghanistan veteran has been charged with leaking classified information to the media.  Daniel Everette Hale, 31, of Nashville, Tenn., was arrested on federal charges Thursday [5/9/2019].  The reporter that Hale leaked this information to is not named in the indictment, but the charging document identifies him as Jeremy Scahill of the Intercept, an outspoken critic of America's military activities overseas.  Hale "printed off a series of Secret and Top Secret documents through his position with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, many of which he then provided to the reporter."

Secret Knife Missile That Kills Terrorists Without Harming Civilians.  The U.S. has developed a secret missile to kill terrorists in precision strikes without harming civilians nearby, and it has already proven its worth in the field, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing more than a dozen current and former US officials.  The R9X is a modified version of the Hellfire missile.  Instead of exploding, the weapon uses sheer force to kill its target.  "To the targeted person, it is as if a speeding anvil fell from the sky," The Journal wrote.

FCC warns about 'one ring' robocall scam:  Do not call numbers back.  Don't call back phone numbers that ring once and hang up, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has warned.  People throughout the U.S. have been receiving "One Ring" or "Wangiri" robocalls in bursts, according to officials.  The calls are targeting specific area codes "often calling multiple times in the middle of the night."

Nadler Schedules Vote To Hold Barr In Contempt Of Congress.  House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler scheduled a vote Monday [5/6/2019] to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress for not giving the committee special counsel Robert Mueller's full unredacted report.  The New York Democrat gave Barr a deadline of 9 a.m.  Monday to turn in the full report with no redactions, which many Republicans believe would be dangerous due to the possibly sensitive material, which could be leaked.

Does this come with a fair trial, or just a decree of guilt?
Democrats prepare to hold William Barr in contempt.  The House Judiciary Committee will proceed with a vote to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress on Wednesday [5/8/2019], Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) confirmed late Monday, as the Justice Department attempts to fend off the effort ahead of a negotiating session with the Democratic-led committee on Tuesday.  Nadler's firm stance comes as he seeks punitive actions against the attorney general for defying a subpoena for special counsel Robert Mueller's unredacted report on the Russia investigation and its underlying evidence.

Imprisoning Bill Barr is left's new rallying cry.  The battle between congressional Democrats and the Justice Department over Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia report has reached new levels of vitriol, as some on the left call for Attorney General Bill Barr to be physically dragged in to testify or even locked up for defying congressional subpoenas.  The demands have escalated after the attorney general refused to appear before the House Judiciary Committee last week amid disagreements over the format of the hearing.

Ken Starr:  Leak of Mueller's 'whiny' letter to Barr was an 'unforgivable sin'.  Former independent counsel Ken Starr on Monday sharply criticized the leak of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's letter to Attorney General William Barr following Barr's summary of the Russia report, calling the release of the letter an "unforgivable sin."  "His letter, that was then leaked on the very eve of Bill Barr's testimony, was essentially, I believe, an unfair, whiny complaint," Starr argued on "The Story with Martha MacCallum."  Details of the March 24 letter went public shortly before Barr testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in a tense hearing last week.

Is Venezuela's military really loyal to Maduro — or its own survival?  The Venezuelan military officers, summoned to the feared headquarters of the Military Counter Intelligence Agency, found themselves in a room wondering what was looming behind the piece of cloth covering the bulletin board facing them.  Having to be there was bad enough.  The agency, known by its acronym DGCIM, is notorious for holding some 200 to 300 officers and military personnel who have been sent over the years for punishment after being arrested on accusations of conspiring to depose the socialist regime headed by Nicolás Maduro.  Reports of dire conditions and torture abound, the term "hell" often used to describe what it's like to be in DGCIM custody.

WaPo reports that Maduro had advance knowledge of Guaido's plans.  Somehow in the events leading up to the May Day protests that rocked Caracas over the last three days, Maduro got advance word that his military leaders were about to defect, forcing acting president Juan Guaido to start his street protests a day earlier than scheduled.  The leak to Maduro also forced military, now on its backfoot, to show an exaggerated sort of loyalty to the Maduro dictatorship to keep themselves out of the torture chambers, or maybe just plain dead — which is why we saw such a brutal military response to the protests in the streets, with in one instance, the military running a truck over protestors.

Conservatives want Catholic bishops to denounce pope as a heretic.  A group of 19 Catholic priests and academics have urged bishops to denounce Pope Francis as a heretic, in the latest ultra-conservative broadside against the pontiff over a range of topics from communion for the divorced to religious diversity.

Marco Rubio: the narrative that Nicolás Maduro is winning in Venezuela is 'ridiculous'.  Venezuela's self-declared president may have tried and failed this week to overthrow and expel the country's embattled ruler, but U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio said Friday that Juan Guaidó is winning a power struggle with Nicolás Maduro.  Appearing in the heart of South Florida's Venezuelan exile community with U.S. Sen. Rick Scott and U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, Rubio argued that Maduro maintains control over the military but can't move around his own country amid a popular uprising.  He described Maduro as a man with reason to be paranoid, and limited time left on the life of an administration propped up by the Cuban and Russian governments.

McConnell: Senate won't take up bill preventing US withdrawal from Paris deal.  Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Thursday that the Senate will not take up a House bill that would force President Trump to keep the U.S. in the Paris climate agreement.  "This futile gesture to handcuff the U.S. economy through the ill-fated Paris deal will go nowhere here in the Senate," McConnell said from the Senate floor.  "We're in the business of actually helping middle-class families, not inventing new obstacles to throw in their paths."

Ukrainian Embassy confirms DNC contractor solicited Trump dirt in 2016.  The boomerang from the Democratic Party's failed attempt to connect Donald Trump to Russia's 2016 election meddling is picking up speed, and its flight path crosses right through Moscow's pesky neighbor, Ukraine.  That is where there is growing evidence a foreign power was asked, and in some cases tried, to help Hillary Clinton.  In its most detailed account yet, the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington says a Democratic National Committee (DNC) insider during the 2016 election solicited dirt on Donald Trump's campaign chairman and even tried to enlist the country's president to help.

Ukraine Embassy Says DNC Operative Reached Out For Dirt On Trump In 2016, Report Says.  A new bombshell report released on Thursday evening alleges that an operative for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) reached out during the 2016 presidential election and asked for dirt on Donald Trump.  The Hill reports that Ukrainian Ambassador Valeriy Chaly's office said in written answers to questions that DNC contractor Alexandra Chalupa sought information on Paul Manafort because Chalupa wanted to force Manafort's business dealings in front Congress.

Journalism Institute Poynter Tries to 'Blacklist' 29 Conservative Outlets as 'UnNews'.  The attack on the conservative internet has reached a new low.  Poynter, the journalism institute responsible for training writers and reporters, decided to promote a left-wing smear of conservative groups online.  The result was a hit job written by someone who works for the anti-conservative Southern Poverty Law Center for a journalism organization funded by prominent liberal billionaires such as George Soros and Pierre Omidyar.  Poynter, which has started the International Fact-Checking Network, shared the new report and dataset called "UnNews," declaring at least 29 right-leaning news outlets and organizations to be "unreliable news websites."

The Editor says...
I was disappointed to see akdart.com did not make the list.

But then, the very next day...
Poynter Shelves Entire Blacklist Of 'Unreliable' News Outlets Following Backlash.  The Poynter Institute, a journalism nonprofit organization, has completely disabled a list of what they labeled as an extensive list of "unreliable" news websites on Thursday night after facing scrutiny in the days since its publication.  A litany of conservative publications, including The Washington Free Beacon and The Washington Examiner, were lumped into the list of "unreliable" publications and it received nearly instantaneous condemnation from them.

Poynter pulls list of 'unreliable' news sites.  Well, that was quick.  Yesterday [5/2/2019], I reported that the Poynter Institute for Media Studies had published a list of 515 "unreliable news websites" that included this blog.  Today I am pleased to report that the list has been pulled with Poynter's apology, albeit a qualified one.

Update:
Poynter 'Blacklist' of Conservative News Sites Was Created by SPLC Employee.  A journalism institute released a "blacklist" of media outlets they deemed as "unreliable" that was created by an employee of the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center and overwhelmingly contains conservative new media outlets.  The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, a Florida-based nonprofit journalism school, released the list on Wednesday [5/1/2019] and declared dozens of mainstream conservative sites such as the Washington Free Beacon, Daily Caller, Daily Signal, CNS News, and Breitbart as "unreliable" while listing few liberal sites," Newsbusters reports.

For Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders — Utopia looks like Venezuela.  The already ruined nation of Venezuela descended further into chaos this week.  Opposition leader Juan Guidó has called on the military to overturn the leftist regime of Nicolás Maduro.  The government has blocked CNN from the nation's airwaves.  Every storm cloud has a silver lining.  Doctors have treated at least 50 injured demonstrators, including one woman shot in the abdomen.  A military tank crushed protesters attempting to flee.  Amnesty International reports a systematic policy of repression throughout the country, including widespread extrajudicial executions.  More than one-third of Venezuelans eat just one meal per day.  "We eat what people give us," one desperate mother of three explained to the Miami Herald.  "My husband works as a watchman, but his salary is not enough to buy food.  We have gone up to two days without eating."  So she waits with hundreds of other hungry Venezuelans in breadlines at her local church.

Brutal: Maduro's Thugs Run People Over With Heavy Trucks in Venezuela.  The situation in Venezuela is deteriorating by the minute as President Guan Guido continues to encourage the military to stop taking orders from Dictator Nicolas Maduro.  During opposition protests Tuesday [4/30/2019] in Caracus, Maduro's thugs deliberately plowed into a crowd of people, running them over and causing severe injury.

Venezuela's Guaido makes a bold new push for military uprising.  We've had so many false alarms it's tempting to just ignore this one.  Wake us when it's over.  Venezuela's democratic acting president, Juan Guaido, called for a giant rally on May Day, a bid for the Venezuelan public to come out into the streets and protest yet again.  Not very original, but there isn't much else he can do, given that the Venezuelan military, the traditional avenue for power shifts in that country, hasn't significantly joined the side of the democrats.  And, it's hard to top the avalanchas of protest that have flooded Venezuela in the past.  How could this one be any bigger?  What's more, given that none of the past demonstrations ever brought forth any change, it's hard to see how this one will.  In Venezuela, it seems it's just all there is to do.  But there are some details that suggest maybe a corner is being turned.

Venezuela's Guaido calls for military uprising while flanked by soldiers at Caracas airbase.  The power struggle between embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and the opposition met its most bold action on Tuesday when Juan Guaido called for a military uprising to oust the socialist leader.  Emboldened crowds took to the streets of Caracas — and around the country — after the 35-year-old leader of the opposition-led National Assembly and a small contingent of heavily armed soldiers appeared in an early morning video promoting the "final phase" of his putsch to oust Maduro.

Watch Ben Rhodes Squirm as He Denies Obama White House Involvement in Trump-Russia Probe.  During an interview last week with PJ Media's Nick Ballasy, Ben Rhodes, former deputy national security adviser to President Obama, strenuously denied that the Obama White House had anything to do with the improper surveillance of the Trump campaign.  Echoing a familiar Obama refrain, Rhodes, in fact, insisted that he "literally" read about the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into Trump for the first time in the newspaper ("the [...] Washington Post" to be exact).

Muslim Murders US Soldier - Canada will Apologize to Him and Give Him $10,500,000.  A Toronto-born Muslim is set to receive an apology from Canada's justice and public safety ministers plus pay him more than $10,000,000.00 after he pled guilty to five war crimes, including killing an American soldier.  Omar Khadr, 30, pleaded guilty to five war crimes before a military commission in 2010.  The allegations against him occurred in 2002 in Afghanistan when he was just 15 years old.

Nepal Deports US Citizen, Arrests Four on Allegations of Converting People to Christianity.  Nepalese authorities arrested four people Tuesday and deported a U.S. citizen on allegations of illegally converting people to Christianity by "allurement," sparking outcry from Christian advocates.  Police officers arrested two men and two women, one of whom is a resident of Colorado, around 8 a.m.  Tuesday [4/23/2019], a day after the group of four attended a one day conference for pastors with 70 others at a local church, according to Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

U.S. Broadcaster Under Scrutiny for Disseminating Autocratic Propaganda.  Federal officials are scrutinizing the U.S. government's Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty news service, established to promote democratic values abroad, after complaints it has distributed foreign propaganda favorable to authoritarian regimes in Central Asia, according to the network, its employees and an internal State Department memo.  State Department officials sent a six-page memo to the leaders of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty earlier this year criticizing a pro-government stance by the service's Tajikistan network and urging them to intervene following repeated complaints by U.S. diplomats, network employees and academics specializing in Central Asia.  They said the network was providing programming favorable to Tajikistan's president, Emomali Rahmon, his government and family.

Navy SEAL combat veteran told that age 37 is too old become a New York firefighter.  A Navy SEAL, 37, who served four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan has been told he is too old to become a New York firefighter.  Special Operations Chief Shaun Donovan is due to leave the Navy next year and was planning to join the Fire Department of New York.  He enlisted after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which took place on his twentieth birthday. [...] He took a written exam in October and scored within the top 1% of the nearly 44,000 applicants.  He returned to New York in January for the physical exam and passed that as well.  The two trips from San Diego, Calif., cost him $1,331 and military leave time.

Video: Officer who fatally shot man said she had no choice.  A North Carolina police officer who fatally shot a black man in a parking lot after repeatedly ordering him to drop his gun said multiple times that she had no choice, according to a bodycam video released Wednesday [4/24/2019].

The Editor says...
Despite the news media hype, there is nothing extraordinary about this.  If you don't want to get shot, drop your gun when the cops tell you to.

Chinese family paid $6.5M to admissions scam mastermind.  A Chinese family allegedly paid a whopping $6.5 million to crooked college prep adviser William "Rick" Singer in the nationwide admissions scandal — but still haven't been charged in the case, according to a new report.  Prosecutors mentioned the eye-popping figure last month when announcing they'd busted dozens of rich American parents for allegedly paying Singer to bribe their kids' way into top colleges — but none of those families were accused of paying anywhere near that much.  The Wall Street Journal on Friday [4/26/2019] revealed that the deep-pocketed family in question is from China, and have not been charged.

Mississippi flag ordered out of park near Statue of Liberty.  New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is ordering that the Mississippi flag be replaced by the American flag at a state park that overlooks the Statue of Liberty because it has a Confederate emblem on it.

So much for E Pluribus Unum.
New Jersey's Dem governor says Mississippi flag won't fly in park near Statue of Liberty.  New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy ordered the Mississippi flag removed from a state park Friday [4/27/2019] over the Confederate emblem that adorns it, as the nationwide debate rages over symbols honoring the antebellum South.  Murphy, a Democrat, ordered the flag be replaced with an American flag at Liberty State Park, a preserve of more than 1,200 acres in Jersey City that overlooks Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, just across the harbor from New York City, NorthJersey.com reported.  The park has traditionally flown the flags of all 50 states.

The Editor says...
The liberals have to inject politics into everything.  The socialists are bent on destroying American traditions.  Draw your own conclusions about the New Jersey Governor.

Trump denies paying North Korea $2 million for Otto Warmbier's medical care.  President Donald Trump denied that the U.S. paid North Korea $2 million for Otto Warmbier's medical care after reports emerged Thursday [4/25/2019] that the regime forced U.S. officials to sign a pledge to do so.  "No money was paid to North Korea for Otto Warmbier, not two Million Dollars, not anything else," the president tweeted.  Warmbier, an American college student detained by North Korea for allegedly stealing a propaganda poster, died six days after he was freed by North Korea and handed over to U.S. officials in June 2017.

Lettuce weigh the pros and cons.
Lettuce-Farming Robots Might Grow Your Next Salad.  Your next salad might include leafy greens grown by robots in California greenhouses.  About 75 percent of the lettuce farmed in the U.S. comes from that state's Central Coast and San Joaquin Valley.  Cultivating it requires warm temperatures, not too much rain, and lots of time and labor.  Startups such as Iron Ox, a maker of agricultural robots, and big players such as John Deere are investing in artificial intelligence to raise produce more efficiently.

President Trump Speech During NRA Convention at the Indiana Convention Center.  Earlier today [4/26/2019] President Trump delivered exceptional remarks during the National Rifle Association 148th Convention, Indiana Convention Center.  One very important aspect to point out in this speech is the remarks about the "coup" and "overthrow" were not off-the-cuff additions[,] they were written into the teleprompter[.]

Clinton-Era State Department Employee Pleads Guilty to Conspiring With Chinese Agents.  The Department of Justice announced Wednesday that a former State Department employee who also happened to be a Clinton appointee, pleaded guilty to conspiring with foreign agents.  The FBI arrested Candace Marie Claiborne on March 28th, 2017.  She made her first appearance in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia the following day.  According to the DOJ, Candace Marie Claiborne, a former employee of the U.S. Department of State, pleaded guilty Wednesday [4/24/2019] to a charge of conspiracy to defraud the United States, by lying to law enforcement and background investigators, and hiding her extensive contacts with, and gifts from, agents of the People's Republic of China (PRC), in exchange for providing them with internal documents from the U.S. State Department.

2020 candidates are too old, warns Obama's former doctor: 'We're asking for trouble'.  The entrance of former Vice President Joe Biden into the 2020 White House race adds yet another septuagenarian into the crowded field of contenders.  Of the 20 Democrats and two Republicans who are running for president, six are nearing or over the age of 70.  If Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., wins, he would be 79 by the time he reaches the White House, becoming the oldest president in history; Ronald Reagan was 77 years and 349 days on the day he left office.  President Trump, who turns 73 this summer and has long batted back scrutiny about his health, is the oldest president when first sworn in.

The writer of this article sounds like a Russian propagandist, or maybe he reads too many comic books:
Russia reveals its new submarine armed with nuclear-tipped drones capable of wiping out a city by triggering a tsunami.  Russia has launched its latest nuclear-armed submarine under the watchful eye of President Vladimir Putin.  The sub, named Belgorod, was launched from the Sevmash plant in northwestern Russian on Tuesday [4/23/2019] while Putin observed via teleconference.  Belgorod is designed to carry nuclear-armed Poseidon drones, a doomsday weapon that Russia says will be capable of destroying entire cities by triggering a tsunami.

Bad air days on the rise:  The nation's most polluted city is...  California's reign as the U.S. state with the worst air pollution continues as Los Angeles is again the nation's smoggiest metro area, according to a report released Wednesday [4/24/2019].  LA isn't alone when it comes to smog-choked cities in California:  seven of the nation's top 10 smoggiest cities are in the Golden State, including other sprawling cities such as San Francisco, San Diego and Sacramento.

The Editor says...
Note that all ten of the smoggiest cities have been run by Democrats for years.

Pulitzer Prize administrator defends process after prize goes to board member's wife.  The Pulitzer Prizes organization has been accused of being an exclusive club in which members give awards to each other, and the institution did nothing to dispel that notion last week by honoring the wife of a prominent board member.  Author Eliza Griswold won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction for Amity and Prosperity:  One Family and the Fracturing of America.  Her husband is Steve Coll, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, which hosts the prizes, and a Pulitzer board member since 2012.

Vaccine skeptics under siege.  [Scroll down]  As for efficacy, consider this new data:  A recent whooping cough outbreak at the private Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles last week resulted in 30 students contracting the illness, all of whom were vaccinated.  Of 18 unvaccinated students, none caught the disease.

Democrats Can Kiss Ohio Goodbye.  You have to go all the way back to 1960 and JFK to find a president who got elected without Ohio.  If I could pick football teams the way Ohio picks presidents, I'd be a very wealthy man.  Ohio hasn't elected a Democrat to state office since Obama took the state by a solid three points (50.6% to 47.6%) over Mitt Romney.  And yet Donald Trump, for all his supposed unelectability, scored nearly 52%, beating Hillary Clinton by a whopping eight points.

Mulvaney: Trump Personally Wrote Pro-Life Comments in State of the Union Speech.  Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney praised President Donald Trump's personal commitment to the protection of religious liberty while speaking at the 15th annual National Catholic Prayer breakfast on Tuesday [4/23/2019].  Mulvaney told the audience of Catholic leaders gathered in Washington, D.C., that in addition to emphasizing religious liberty during his public speeches, during private meetings at the White House Trump also speaks with world leaders about the importance of protecting the rights of Christians.  "He will look at them and say, 'You're not doing enough to take care of the Christians in your country,' or 'Thank you for helping the Christians in your country,'" Mulvaney said.

Half of England Is Owned by Less Than 1% of Its Population, Researcher Says.  Land ownership in England, a source of enormous wealth, is often shielded by a culture of secrecy harking back to the Middle Ages.  But a researcher says that after years of digging, he has an answer:  Less than 1 percent of the population — including aristocrats, royals and wealthy investors — owns about half of the land, according to "Who Owns England," a book that is to be published in May.  And many of them inherited the property as members of families that have held it for generations — even centuries.

49% of workers are stressed out: here are some of the biggest office culprits.  On the heels of April being dubbed National Stress Awareness Month, a new survey found that nearly half of Americans workers are battling the condition at work.  While not all stress is bad, too much of it could lead to extreme health problems like obesity, heart disease and asthma.

Vatican makes history:  Pope allows Islamic prayers, Koran readings.  For the first time in Vatican history, the pope allowed for the reading of Islamic prayers and Koran readings from the Catholic facility.

Documents reveal attempts to 'smear the brand' of Gibson's.  An associate professor at Oberlin College wrote that the protests conducted by students outside of Gibson's Bakery in 2016 to "smear the brand" of the business had been achieved. [...] The transcript of [associate professor Jan] Miyake's message was included in a recently unsealed court filing made by the attorneys for Gibson's as part of the lawsuit filed against the college and Meredith Raimondo, vice president and dean of students, for libel, slander, interference with business relationships, interference with contracts, deceptive trade practices, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent hiring and trespass.

Venezuela's Guaidó waging election-style campaign in a country with no plans for an election.  This is not how it was supposed to go for Guaidó.  The National Assembly leader declared himself Venezuela's interim president in January and quickly won recognition from the United States and dozens of other countries as he prepared to take control of the struggling South American nation.  But three months later, the military has remained loyal to President Nicolás Maduro, and increasing U.S. sanctions and threats have yet to dislodge him.  So this is Plan B:  An election-style campaign in a country with no plans for an election.  Guaidó is traveling Venezuela, addressing crowds and meeting with interest groups, as aides develop a governing platform, recruit local committee members and try to raise money.  Organizers say the effort is modeled, in part, on a presidential run — and on one level, it's working.

Virus identified as a cause of paralyzing condition in Minnesota children.  A virus appears to be the cause behind a rash of polio-like illnesses that struck Minnesota last fall, causing paralyzing symptoms in several children, including one girl who lost all motor function and remains hospitalized.  Researchers from Minnesota and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday [4/18/2019] that they found Enterovirus-D68 in the spinal fluid of one of six children who suffered acute flaccid myelitis, or AFM.  The virus caused the condition in that child and is presumed to be the cause in the other five, according to the researchers, who described their finding as a key development in addressing a puzzling national outbreak.

Secret 'Memorandums Of Understanding' Among House Democrats; It's Almost As If They Don't Trust Each Other.  Investigative journalist Sara Carter reported that House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings and House Finance Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters allegedly "executed a secret Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to "target" President Trump and subpoena all his financial and banking records."  Carter obtained a copy of a letter from Rep. Jim Jordan, ranking member of the Oversight Committee, sent to Cummings on Monday [4/15/2019].  She reports that, "The letter also indicates that other MOUs have apparently been signed and agreed to with House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Ca, who has promised to continue investigations into the president despite findings by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office that there was no conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia."

No one, not even the Secret Service, should randomly plug in a strange USB stick.  The case follows a Chinese national, Yujing Zhang, who is accused of trying to sneak into President Trump's private Florida resort Mar-a-Largo last month.  She was caught by the Secret Service with four cellphones, a laptop, cash, an external hard drive, a signals detector to spot hidden cameras, and a thumb drive.  The arrest sparked new concerns about the president's security amid concerns that foreign governments have tried to infiltrate the resort.  Allegations aside and notwithstanding, what sent alarm bells ringing was how the Secret Service handled the USB drive, which cannot be understated — it was not good.

Putting American flags on police cars sparks backlash in Laguna Beach.  A decision to affix an American flag graphic to the side of freshly painted Laguna Beach police cars is dividing residents, who are alternately praising the image as patriotic or panning it as too aggressive.  After hearing the criticism and acknowledging that the image they approved didn't quite match the final results, officials agreed to reconsider their February decision to paint the Laguna Beach Police Department's fleet of 11 squad cars.  The City Council will take up the issue again at its Tuesday [4/16/2019] meeting.

What is kratom?  And why is it being promoted as a 'wellness' product to our kids?  Mitragyna speciosa, commonly known as "kratom," comes from a tropical tree native to Southeast Asia — primarily Malaysia and Thailand.  Most commonly the leaves are brewed as a tea or even chewed directly.  My son tells me that the tea form is most common, and a tea labeled "green tea and kratom" is quite popular and being sold in most stores around his campus.  However, kratom is not a safe, benign plant.  In fact, emerging data is providing strong evidence that kratom and its compounds work on the same central (brain) nervous system receptors as opioids, and therefore have the potential for addiction and abuse.  It is because of this opioid association that people are using kratom for pain relief and the euphoric high.  But patients are also, according to the FDA, using kratom to treat opioid withdrawal symptoms.  Alarmingly this can lead to further dependence, withdrawal and abuse.

Trump goes after Ilhan Omar with dramatic video using 9/11 footage.  President Trump Friday tweeted out a jarring video juxtaposing remarks last month by Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., which some charged minimized the 9/11 tragedy, with archival footage of the destruction of the World Trade Center.  Writing "WE WILL NEVER FORGET," Trump tweeted a video that repeatedly displays Omar's reference to the terrorists as "some people" and then cuts to planes crashing into the buildings and the towers tumbling to the ground.

GOP trolls 'Georgia' Dem over residency claims, gets her to accept gift basket at 'real home' in Tennessee.  Georgia Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath was the target of some creative trolling by the Republican Party over her widely disputed claim that she actually lives in Georgia, after receiving and signing for a gift basket the GOP sent to her address — in Tennessee.  McBath, a racial justice activist who defeated Republican incumbent Karen Handel in November, has been dogged with questions since the election campaign on whether she actually lives in the state she now represents.

Tesla's Sentry Mode has already caught a suspected car thief.  At the start of the year Tesla teased Sentry Mode, a security feature for its EVs that leverages a 360 dash cam to record damage and attempted break-ins.  It rolled out in February, and it's already earning its keep.  According to ABC 7 news, the feature has resulted in the arrest of a would-be thief.  San Francisco-based Jed Franklin received an alert on his phone informing him that Sentry Mode had been activated.  On arriving at his vehicle, he found that the window had been broken, but that the perp had fled empty-handed.

Senior Obama Cyber Official [is now] Lobbying for China.  China's government-linked telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies has hired a senior Obama administration cyber security official as a lobbyist, according to a congressional filing.  Samir Jain, former senior director for cybersecurity policy at the White House National Security Council, notified Congress March 27 that he is registering as a lobbyist for the Shenzhen-based Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.  Jain is now with the lobbying firm Jones Day.

Hackers attacked California DMV voter registration system marred by bugs, glitches.  California has launched few government projects with higher stakes than its ambitious 2018 program for registering millions of new voters at the Department of Motor Vehicles, an effort with the potential to shape elections for years to come.  Yet six days before the scheduled launch of the DMV's new "motor voter" system last April, state computer security officials noticed something ominous:  The department's computer network was trying to connect to internet servers in Croatia.

Ukrainian to US prosecutors:  Why don't you want our evidence on Democrats?  Ukrainian law enforcement officials believe they have evidence of wrongdoing by American Democrats and their allies in Kiev, ranging from 2016 election interference to obstructing criminal probes.  But, they say, they've been thwarted in trying to get the Trump Justice Department to act.  Kostiantyn Kulyk, deputy head of the Prosecutor General's International Legal Cooperation Department, told me he and other senior law enforcement officials tried unsuccessfully since last year to get visas from the U.S. Embassy in Kiev to deliver their evidence to Washington.

Socialist Venezuela now an exploding supernova of spreading infectious disease.  So much for all that free health care.  Now for what it looks like up close:  Socialist Venezuela is an exploding supernova of spreading disease vectors, with its three million fleeing refugees bringing measles, malaria, diptheria, typhoid fever, tuberculosis, AIDS, Zika, leprosy, dengue, chikungunya virus, and other diseases long thought to have been eradicated in the early 20th century, with them.  What an advertisement for socialism that is.  It's the effect of the collapse of the country's medical system, brought on by socialism's unsustainable economics and Venezuela's Maduro dictatorship (unlike a lot of starving African countries) refusing to permit any aid to enter.

Venezuela:  The Next Syria.  Venezuela has been transformed from an oil-rich nation into a failed state by the late Hugo Chavez and his successor Nicolás Maduro.  Many of its people are literally starving, unable to barter or buy the essentials of life and living in near-constant nationwide blackouts at night.  Months ago, the only thing holding Venezuela together was Maduro's military which — when it isn't oppressing the people — is feeding itself from the profits it derives from drug trafficking.  But now, with about 500 Russian mercenaries, at least 100 Russian regular troops, an unknown number of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps troops, and who-knows-how-many Cuban troops, Venezuela is being transformed into a major Russian-Iranian power base in South America.

The Chinese woman caught at Mar-a-Lago.  The Chinese woman arrested at President Trump's Mar-a-Lago club with four cell phones on her last month entered the U.S. on a business visa that allowed her to make repeat trips to the country for a period of a decade.  Yujing Zhang, who had a bond hearing in Florida Monday [4/8/2019], entered the U.S. on a B-1/B-2 visa, according to documents released by the government.  Her visa allowed her to travel to the U.S. for a period ranging from 2016 through 2026.  Those visas are designed for people who need to be in the country on a temporary basis, such as to attend a business conference, or to seek medical treatment.  They allow for repeat visits.

Chinese Woman Arrested at Mar-a-Lago Had Device to Detect Hidden Cameras.  A Chinese woman charged last week for bluffing her way into President Donald Trump's Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, had a device used to detect hidden cameras and thousands of dollars in cash in her hotel room, prosecutors said April 8.  Yujing Zhang appeared at a Florida court for a bail hearing on April 8, where prosecutors said a search of her Florida hotel room turned up a signal detector — a device used to detect hidden cameras — nine USB drives, five SIM cards, and over $8,000 in cash, the Washington Post reported.

Chinese Woman Had Additional Spy Tech During Security Breach at Mar-a-lago.  During a bond hearing today prosecutors say the FBI is still investigating whether a 32-year-old Yujing Zhang, the Chinese woman accused of lying to illegally enter President Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, is a spy.  After a search warrant, additional spy tech was found in her hotel room including:  $7,500 in one hundred dollar bills; a signal detector device to find hidden cameras; nine USB drives, five SIM cards and an additional cell phone.

Trump fires Secret Service director after agency ducks blame for Chinese malware carrier at Mar-a-Lago.  President Donald Trump followed the ouster of his Homeland Security secretary with another pink slip on Monday, reportedly axing the director of the U.S. Secret Service.  Trump ordered acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to fire Randolph 'Tex' Alles.  CNN first reported the move.  U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Lee Cissna is also leaving, according to CBS News.  So are DHS undersecretary for management Claire Grady and general counsel John Mitnick.  A person with knowledge of USCIS's front office, however, said late Monday that Cissna was still in his job.  And Alles told his agency's staff that he wasn't forced out.

Update:
Judge in Mar-a-Lago Chinese Spy Case Denies Bail.  The Chinese woman who tried to lie her way into Mar-a-Lago appeared in court today [4/15/2019] to plea 'not guilty'.

'Restore Public Trust' Blacklists Former Trump Administration Employees.  A number of organizations are coalescing to actively blacklist people who have worked for the Trump administration, including former Secretary of the Department of Homeland (DHS) Security Kirstjen Nielsen.  Nielsen resigned Sunday, but could face opposition finding new employment.  A group known as "Restore Public Trust" is targeting her and others in a letter sent Saturday [4/6/2019] that warns corporate America that these purported pariahs may "seek refuge in their corner offices or boardrooms."

Frightening Drug-Resistant Infection Cropping Up Around The World.  The New York Times reported Saturday morning [4/6/2019] that an elderly man was admitted to Mount Sinai Hospital's branch in Brooklyn for abdominal surgery.  After getting his blood tested, it was revealed that he was infected with Candida auris, a fungus that was recently discovered but has been identified in patients around the world.  The fungus is most deadly to those with already weak immune systems.  The elderly man, who was not named by the Times, was isolated in the intensive care unit, but died 90 days later.  What makes his case so frightening is that after his death, doctors tested his room and discovered the fungus was everywhere.

Former Sen. Harry Reid loses civil lawsuit over exercise-device injury.  After about an hour of deliberations Friday, a jury in Las Vegas rejected former U.S. Sen. Harry Reid's lawsuit against the maker of an exercise band that Reid claimed was responsible for injuries he suffered in January 2015.  The injuries included blindness in one eye for Reid, 79, a Nevada Democrat and former party leader who asserted in his lawsuit that his injuries forced him to retire early from the Senate, where he had served for three decades.

The Editor says...
If a man served in the Senate for three decades, and retired at age 79, that is not early retirement.  That's long overdue retirement.

The Arms Race in Space Is Here.  Last week, the world was up-in-arms over the fact that democratic India, one of the world's leading economies with nuclear arms, launched an anti-satellite test.  Codenamed "Mission Shakti" by India's military, the test of their anti-satellite capability was a resounding success:  the target was a derelict Indian weather satellite in low-Earth orbit (LEO).  By launching a missile at the dead weather satellite, India was sending an unmistakable signal to the world that it was a major power and not to be messed with.  Presently, India is experiencing what some might call a quasi-war with its Muslim-majority neighbor of Pakistan and the tensions between India's other major neighbor, China, have long been an issue.

Hate-Based Faith.  [Scroll down]  DNA technology is also making it harder to get away with murder.  For example, in the Queens jogger murder case that was decided this week in New York, the cops started out with the assumption that the pretty young speech pathologist had been killed by "two jacked-up white guys from Howard Beach."  But when the DNA found under her fingernails turned out to be of black ancestry, the NYPD obtained samples from 384 sketchy black guys in the area.  Law enforcement has recently been making arrests in cold cases from decades ago.  Killers and rapists are tracked down via their relatives posting their own DNA online.

Collusion? Russians Gave $35 Million to Company with John Podesta on Board.  Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign manager, John Podesta, played a central role in another potential Russian collusion scandal that has not yet been investigated.  Podesta, the former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, served on the board of Joule Unlimited, a now defunct alternative energy company, from January 2011 to January 2014.  He resigned from the company's board to accept the powerful job of Counselor to President Barack Obama.  During Podesta's tenure on the board of Joule Unlimited, a significant investment in the company by a firm owned by the Russian government escaped review and scrutiny by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

A Mysterious Infection, Spanning the Globe in a Climate of Secrecy.  The germ, a fungus called Candida auris, preys on people with weakened immune systems, and it is quietly spreading across the globe.  Over the last five years, it has hit a neonatal unit in Venezuela, swept through a hospital in Spain, forced a prestigious British medical center to shut down its intensive care unit, and taken root in India, Pakistan and South Africa.  Recently C. auris reached New York, New Jersey and Illinois, leading the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to add it to a list of germs deemed "urgent threats."

Scientists Discover World's Tallest Tropical Tree In Borneo.  Scientists have discovered the world's tallest tropical tree in the tropical rainforest of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo.  The previous record holder is also from the same region. [...] The tree has since been named Menara which means "tower" in Malay, and it stands at 330 feet (100.8 meters) from ground to sky.  The previous record holder for tallest tropical tree was also from the same region and from the same genus as Menara.

US health officials alarmed by paralyzing illness in kids.  One morning last fall, 4-year-old Joey Wilcox woke up with the left side of his face drooping.  It was the first sign of an unfolding nightmare.

Pope Francis Says God Only 'Permits' Islam to Exist.  Pope Francis walked back an earlier statement Wednesday [4/3/2019] on God "willing" a plurality of religions, saying that in reality God only permits the existence of many religions.  In a joint statement with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, Pope Francis said in February that the plurality and diversity of religions "are willed by God in His wisdom," just as God wills a plurality of colors, sexes, races, and languages.

The Editor says...
By the same token, God only permits Catholicism — which is based on superstition, monetized indulgences, bureaucracy, communication with the dead, and the worship of the Pope — to exist, for the moment.

Conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court Candidate Shocks Liberals With Surprise Victory.  It was a statewide race that only the nerdiest of political nerds were following at the national level, but suffice it to say that we'd be hearing a lot about it if the expected outcome had come to pass.  By way of background, Wisconsin's Supreme Court has been decidedly conservative for years, but when a liberal justice won a resounding 12-point victory last fall (Badger State voters choose Supreme Court members in nominally "non-partisan" elections), the Left immediately set it sights on the 2019 contest.  If a left-leaning candidate had defeated another right-leaning jurist — as was widely anticipated by political experts — liberals believed they'd have a very real shot at wresting ideological control of the state's high court in 2020.  But a funny thing happened on the way to that liberal judicial renaissance.  Voters intervened.

A Big Win for Conservatives in Wisconsin?  In Tuesday's [4/2/2019] Wisconsin supreme-court election, conservatives appear to have scored a shocking upset victory.  With only a handful of precincts left to report, conservative-backed Brian Hagedorn leads liberal-backed Lisa Neubauer by nearly 6,000 votes out of 1.2 million cast, according to unofficial results.  The liberal Neubauer called for a recount, which a losing candidate may do — if she pays for it herself — when the margin is less than one percentage point.  (Taxpayers pick up the tab at margins less than 0.25 points.)  But a lead of 6,000 votes would almost certainly be insurmountable in a recount, assuming there were no unusually large tabulation errors Tuesday night, as there was in a 2011 supreme-court election in the state.

Chinese woman carrying thumb drive with malware arrested at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort.  Secret Service agents arrested a Chinese woman after she bypassed layers of security and gained access to the reception area of President Trump's Florida resort this past weekend, saying they found she was carrying two passports and a thumb drive containing malicious software, according to court documents.  The incident renews concerns about how secure the president and his advisers are during their frequent stays at his Mar-a-Lago Club, which stays open for its members and their guests when the president is there.

A Paralyzing Illness In Kids Is On The Rise, But Continues To Mystify Doctors.  It starts with just a droopy eye and a slightly slumped face.  Within just a few days, reflexes begin to lose their sharpness, while the arms and legs become weaker.  If left without therapy, the nervous system continues to become damaged, the ability to breath becomes strained, and paralysis can take hold.  More and more children are falling sick with this polio-like illness.  However, there are currently few solid ideas about how it develops, how it can be treated, or even what it is exactly.

Children of Jamal Khashoggi receiving homes, 'blood money' from Saudis: report.  Saudi Arabia has given multimillion-dollar homes and monthly five-figure payments to the children of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post writer who was killed in a Saudi Consulate in Istanbul last October, as compensation for their father's death, according to a report.  The reported payments to Khashoggi's two sons and two daughters are part of a long-term arrangement to ensure they refrain from speaking out, the Washington Post reported, citing information from current and former Saudi officials.

John Huber leaves Congress in the dark on FBI probe.  Attorney General Jeff Sessions thought he had already answered calls for a special counsel to look into the FBI's handling of sensitive political investigations when he named a Utah prosecutor to conduct an inquiry and report back.  Nearly 18 months later, there has been nary a public peep from U.S. Attorney John Huber, the man Mr. Sessions assigned to get to the bottom of things.  Likely witnesses say Mr. Huber has never contacted them, and members of Congress say they are still in the dark despite regular pleas to see progress.

Conversion is not your mission, pope tells Catholics in Morocco.  Pope Francis told the tiny Catholic community in predominantly Muslim Morocco on Sunday [3/31/2019] that their mission was not to covert their neighbors but to live in brotherhood with other faiths.

Chicago Isn't The Only Town With A Problem In The Office Of Its Chief Prosecutor.  [Scroll down]  This is about the office of St. Louis Circuit Attorney, Kim Gardner.  You may recall that Gardner's office was the driving force behind the prosecution (subsequently dropped) of former (now resigned) Missouri Governor Eric Greitens over his alleged photographing of his mistress in a state of undress prior to taking office.  Even at the time, Gardner's actions were questioned and criticized.  Since then, a grand jury probe has been opened into Gardner's handling of that matter and, in particular, her hiring of ex-FBI agent William Tisaby as an investigator and his purported perjury in that matter.  And it's not been a good look for Gardner.

CNN and MSNBC ratings plummet, Fox News triumphs in wake of 'no collusion'.  Starting on Sunday [3/24/2019] and continuing all day Monday, CNN and MSNBC — the two cable "news" channels that over the past two years have morphed into high-impact electronic facilitators of the anti-Trump resistance — saw their ratings plummet... precipitously.  Meanwhile, the Fox News Channel (FNC), the only mainstream media outlet to even question the whole collusion meme from the outset, trounced the competition.

Devin Nunes Prepares Criminal Referrals for Next Week Delivery to AG Barr.  Two MAGA freight trains are heading full-speed toward each other and there ain't no spur between em'.  The conductor of one engine is HPSCI ranking member Devin Nunes who will be sending criminal referrals to AG Barr next week based on existing evidence and testimony.  The conductor of the opposing engine is Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, who wants AG Barr to ignore the criminal referrals and instead launch another Special Counsel which will be guaranteed to carry into the 2020 election year.

Is Europe About to Break the Internet?  The European Parliament is about to vote on contentious new regulations that threaten to reshape how the internet operates.  This will end a debate started in 2016 over two key provisions to the EU's Copyright Directive, Article 11 and Article 13.  These changes turn internet policy on its head, moving the web from a world of permissionless innovation to a world where platforms and websites must proactively police internet users.  And given the borderless nature of the internet, America and the rest of the world also will suffer the consequences of Europe's internet makeover.

Sketchy Cesar Sayoc Pleads Guilty to Federal Charges of Mailing "pipe bombs".  Everything about last year's headline story just two-weeks before the mid-term election was weird; including the refusal of the FBI to state what 'specifically' was the material suspect Cesar Sayoc was accused of using to create his Acme looking pipe bombs.  You might remember:  FBI Director Christopher Wray outlined during his remarks that the devices consisted of PVC pipe, clocks, batteries, wiring and "energetic material that can become combustible when subjected to heat or friction".  The FBI director went out of his way to state:  "these were not hoax devices."  The DOJ then moved to seal all court filings and the case against the nut continued behind the curtain of 'national security'.

The Editor says...
Just about anything "can become combustible when subjected to [sufficient] heat or friction."  This guy's "pipe bombs" were a lot less convincing than the gadget built by Clock Boy in 2015.

Mark Kelly Returns $55,000 From Paid Speech in United Arab Emirates.  Mark Kelly, a Democrat running for the Senate in Arizona, this week returned $55,000 that he received from a paid speech in the United Arab Emirates last year.  Kelly, a former astronaut and the husband of former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D., Ariz.), delivered the speech with his twin brother and fellow astronaut Scott Kelly at an event sponsored by the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, as part of a lecture series, CNN reported Friday [3/22/2019].  While Kelly, who is challenging Sen. Martha McSally (R., Ariz.), has vowed to refuse donations from corporate political action committees, he has faced scrutiny from one of his potential challengers, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D., Ariz.), for breaking his "no corporate PAC money" pledge.

Eight Years of Corrosive Lies about Syria.  [Scroll down]  But, then I come across another story about Syria in the Wall Street Journal, suggesting that the United States may leave 1,000 troops in that country after all.  The president, if you'll remember, announced a complete withdrawal of troops from Syria months ago.  Then, weeks later the White House announced that a small force of 200 would stay behind.  Now, the Journal was reporting that it would actually be 1,000.  A few hours later the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff said the original plan remained unchanged.  I realized that I no longer knew what to believe.

With Personal Connection to Crash, Ralph Nader Takes on Boeing.  Mr. Nader, the high-profile consumer crusader in the twilight of his career, is determined to translate his family's anguish into action.  He is on a personal mission to find out what caused the Boeing Co. 737 MAX jet to plunge to the ground minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa.  His goal is to get the plane maker — along with U.S. air-safety regulators who certified the jetliner — to assume legal and moral responsibility for the tragedy and an earlier 737 MAX crash in Indonesia.

Hannity's warm welcome for Donna Brazile has fans changing the channel in disgust.  On Tuesday [3/19/2019] longtime Fox News host Sean Hannity welcomed former Democrat National Committee chairwoman Donna Brazile to the network by inviting her onto his show, "Hannity," so he could grill her to smithereens in a fast-paced "lightning round" debate over various issues.  The scorching, oftentimes hilarious grilling started right away thanks to the former DNC chair's refusal to stick to the "lightning round" rules and keep her answers sweet and to the point.

Green New Deal Would Spark Yellow Vest-Style Protests.  Democrats are predicting a climate-change-fueled apocalypse 12 years from now, but 3,800 miles away in Paris, we're seeing a preview of the real doomsday scenario that would result from radical policies such as the Green New Deal.  For the 18th weekend in a row, violent protests broke out in the streets of one of Europe's oldest cities as French citizens protested their government's efforts to make them bear the costs of transitioning to clean energy.  The mouvement des gilets jaunes, or Yellow Vests Movement, started in response to French President Emmanuel Macron's decision to raise gas taxes by 12 cents per gallon for gasoline and 24 cents per gallon for diesel, prompting the working-class protesters to complain that "the government talks about the end of the world.  We are worried about the end of the month."  With gas prices at nearly $6 per gallon, driving in France is already very expensive, and while public transportation is available in urban centers, most people in rural areas have no realistic alternative to driving.

NYU Students Blame Chelsea Clinton for New Zealand Attack over Condemnation of Rep. Ilhan Omar's Antisemitic Comments.  A group of students confronted Chelsea Clinton on Friday night [3/15/2019] at NYU where they accused the former first daughter of stoking "Islamophobia" and facilitating, with her words, the recent terror attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, that left 49 people dead and dozens of others wounded.  The former first daughter was berated by students as she tried to attend a vigil honoring the victims of the New Zealand terror attack in what turned out to be a bizarre confrontation as students blamed the mosque shootings on her "rhetoric."

The Editor says...
"Islamophobia" is not even a phobia, it's just the word most commonly used for denunciation of Islam.  "Islamophobia" does not cause terrorist attacks.  Criticism of Muslims only rarely induces Islamic terrorism.  The Koran and the daily preaching of hatred in mosques all over the world are the principal causes of Islamic terrorism.

New Zealand Mosque Shooting Leaves Dozens Dead.  [Scroll down]  Some people reading this will note that I am diametrically opposed to Islam, but this is plain murder.  The people were not attacking anyone and no one's life was in danger.  These shooters deserve the same thing I said Anders Behring Breivik deserved:  justice, a swift execution.  Furthermore, there is no doubt that New Zealand will attempt to encroach more on the people's God-given rights to arms in light of this attack by a few people, which only makes the people more defenseless no matter what their religion is.  They already have fairly restrictive regulations against civilians owning handguns, semi-automatic weapons or fully automatic weapons, but pay no attention to the fact that those "restrictions" didn't stop these people from possessing them to murder unarmed people.

Christchurch, Conservatism, and Fascism.  At the time of writing, 49 people have been killed at two separate Christchurch mosques, with dozens more left injured by the shooter.  Both media and public officials, in New Zealand and elsewhere have chosen to lay the blame for the killings on "conservatives."  In fact, conservatism had nothing to do with this. [...] How do we know that the shooter isn't a conservative?  For starters, he explicitly says that he detests conservatism twice, once in the "Q&A" and again in his more ideological section, where he devotes a whole page to it.

How Sears Lost the American Shopper.  Over the last four decades, a succession of CEOs have tried to reinvent, reimagine and, finally, save Sears.  One discussed merging with rivals Best Buy and Home Depot, talks not previously reported.  Another opened the door to hedge-fund billionaire Eddie Lampert, who went on to slash spending with little investment in stores.  Amid changing shopping patterns, technology shifts and Sears's own missteps, customers fled.

Report: Lori Loughlin's Daughter Skipped First Week Of Classes At USC To Vacation In Fiji.  It is not surprising that a child of privilege with zero interest in school, whose parents allegedly had to commit a federal crime just to get her into USC, would decide to blow off the first week of classes for a vacation in a tropical paradise.  What continues to surprise is that someone this young, good-looking, connected, and vacuous doesn't already have her own reality show.

U.S. seeks input on GM petition to deploy cars without steering wheels.  U.S. regulators will ask the public if robotic cars should be allowed on streets without steering wheels or brake pedals as they try to set the first legal boundaries for their design in the world's second largest vehicle market.

DA: Urgent care clinic in Los Gatos charged someone $700 for a pair of foam slippers.  The owner and manager of the facility, Los Gatos Urgent Care Clinic, have been charged with insurance fraud after billing patients' insurance for a range of egregious expenses, according to the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office.  The eye-popping bills include one instance in which the clinic allegedly billed a patient who stepped on a sea urchin $700 for a pair of foam slippers that cost less than $10. [...] The pair behind the clinic are a married couple from Monte Sereno, Ali Moayed, 53, and Dr. Farzaneh Tabrizi, 50.

College Scam:  That's Not the Half of It.  "The biggest college scandal in our history!" exclaims a news reader, referring to the indictment of William Singer, who organized a scheme so the wealthy could bypass the college admissions process and get their children into prestigious schools through a combination of fraud, deceit, and bribery.  The scandal might not have received the attention it generated had it not been for actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman getting caught in the FBI's net.  If there are celebrities involved, the story must be important.  As offensive as this scandal is, it is nowhere near the biggest college scandal in our history.  Our colleges and universities have long been mired in ongoing scandals, but they are so common that we hardly consider them newsworthy.

You Know Who Hates People Who Cheat To Get In To College?  Elizabeth Warren.  Yesterday's top news item, that dozens of parents — including two Hollywood actresses — lied and cheated to get their kids into top colleges, is still getting talked about today.  To be fair, it should be, as the corrupt admissions process should be exposed for all to see.  However, there is one person I figured would avoid any questions about it.  One 2020 hopeful who needed to stay away from the subject of lying or cheating to get into a college or university.  "Surely," thought I (perhaps a bit naively), "she wouldn't speak on this issue.  She can't possibly think it would go over well."

Russian ship with 'vomit-inducing weapon' spotted off UK coast.  A Royal Navy warship has been scrambled to follow a Russian vessel believed to be carrying a "vomit inducing" weapon as it sails close to UK territorial waters.  HMS Defender was deployed at weekend to keep watch on the frigate Admiral Gorshkov and three auxiliary ships. [...] The Gorshkov is reportedly fitted with Russia's Filin 5P-42 device — a "visual optical interference" weapon which can cause "dizziness, nausea and feelings of disorientation".

How bad is Venezuela's economy?  Even the criminals are struggling to get by.  In one of the strangest consequences of this oil-rich country's collapse, cash has virtually disappeared.  With soaring hyperinflation, the government can't print money fast enough to keep up, so many Venezuelans have switched to debit cards — not that they have enough money on them.

Government Jobs Drop by 5,000.  As the number of people employed in the United States climbed to a record 156,949,000, the number of people working for government in the country declined by 5,000, according to data released today [3/8/2019] by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Senate Confirms High-Priority Trump Judges Without Any Democrat Support.  Senators confirmed three high-priority Trump judges to the federal appeals courts last week without a single Democrat voting for any of them, with one of those new judges replacing an irreplaceable conservative judicial icon, Judge Alice Batchelder.  The Senate confirmed Allison Jones Rushing on March 6 as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which covers five states in the middle of the Eastern Seaboard.

New York man with 600-square-foot apartment gets $38M Con Edison bill: report.  A New York man reportedly received a Con Edison monthly bill of $38 million on Monday [3/11/2019] for his 600 square foot apartment. [...] "Our customer ops team is looking into it and we'll definitely work on it and fix it," a ConEd spokesperson told the New York Daily News, saying that it was most likely a computer error.

The Editor says...
Most likely a computer error, they say.  There's still a chance that he actually consumed that much electricity in a month.  To believe this, and to insist on payment, you would have to believe that his electric meter could pass that much electricity without burning up.  In the case of my very modest house, for example, the main breaker will handle no more than 70 amperes.  That limits the electric consumption to about 17 kilowatts.  In 31 days, I couldn't possibly consume more than 12,650 kilowatt-hours; and even if I paid the highest rates in town (which I might be, I don't know), that would produce an electric bill of only about $2,000 dollars.  Obviously Con Edison has no sanity checking software in their billing computers.

Felicity Huffman, Lori Loughlin among 50 snared in elite college cheating scam, authorities say.  Actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin were among more than four dozen people charged in a nationwide college admissions cheating scandal that involved wealthy individuals paying up to $6.5 million to place their children into elite universities, according to court records revealed Tuesday [3/12/2019].

"Leaving Neverland" — Hollywood's pedophilia problem exposed.  The Michael Jackson estate is suing HBO to the tune of $100 million.  The suit says the documentary makers failed to reach out to the Jackson family for comment on the sexual allegations.  And estate attorneys also claim HBO violated a "non-disparagement agreement" they made as part of its contract to broadcast the pop star's "Dangerous" world tour in 1992.

Scrutinizing Fake Business Reviews Online.  More than 80 percent of people sometimes check reviews for businesses, but half wonder if they can be trusted, according to the Pew Research Center — and they have good reason to, according to experts in online reviews.

Robot workers can't go on strike but they can go up in flames.  Machines may be efficient and safe workers, but their environment is not designed for human intervention when disaster strikes. [...] Fashion brand Asos has had three warehouse fires since 2005.  The online grocer said on Feb 5 that the fire started in what is called the ambient grid, where food is stored at room temperature.  A spokesman declined to comment further on the cause.  The blaze began high in the warehouse and was so difficult to reach that firefighters had to cut holes in the roof, according to chief officer Neil Odin at Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service.  A sprinkler system only contained the fire in its early stages.

Venezuela:  Socialism Dies in the Darkness.  "A major power outage hit crisis-stricken Venezuela on Thursday [3/7/2019], according to Reuters ... a problem the government of President Nicolas Maduro quickly blamed on "sabotage" at a hydroelectric dam that provides much of the country's power."  National life ground to a standstill, telecommunications — including the internet — stopped working, hospitals were plunged into darkness and cities of millions lay helpless without electricity.  As the outage continued into Friday spreading to every Venezuelan state, it became clear this was going to become the biggest of the blackouts yet and Maduro's officials increasingly pointed a finger at the United States.  But the national electric grid had also been teetering for a long time.  "Crumbling infrastructure and lack of investments have hit Venezuela's power supply for years."  Outages had become a way of life and there was no easy way of proving this wasn't "sabotage" but only more of the same dysfunction.

Venezuela Goes Dark In Worst Blackout In Decades, At Least 17 People Dead.  Venezuela entered its fourth day of blackouts in an "electricity crisis" that plunged most of the country's 23 states, including the state home to the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, into complete darkness.  Reuters reports that international non-governmental organizations estimate that at least 17 people have died, nine of whom were waiting for emergency medical attention.  Reuters was not able to independently verify the numbers, but they are being tabulated by the non-partisan NGO, Doctors For Health, which has been treating patients in Venezuela.

They're still in the dark in Venezuela, and it's really ugly.  [Scroll down]  These reports describe the terrible conditions in just Caracas — in the rest of the country, the situation is reportedly far, far worse.  And yes, the result looks as though it's going to be famine.  And coincidence of coincidences, it comes just as dictator Nicolas Maduro is under fire from millions and millions of Venezuelans to get out and allow acting president Juan Guaidó, who's there through democratic mechanisms, to take over.  Guaidó returned to the country last week without much fuss and says he's calling for protests, and now the blackout has followed.  The internet has been shut off, and the subways are out.  Both of those things are instrumental in getting word out of protests and transporting protestors to locations.  Shut.  Down.  How very convenient for Maduro.  And by another coincidence, Maduro has had high-level contacts with Russians in recent weeks — and the Russians just happen to be the masters of blowing out power grids.

Nationwide blackout in socialist Venezuela is more than just turning the country into North Korea.  It's the spectacle of a whole country going dead, with its socialist rulers turning the nation into something quite similar to parts of eastern Nigeria, where the impoverished locals in remote rural areas live with little electrical infrastructure (Lagos and Abuja have no such problems), or, even more similarly, into Pol Pot's inhuman communist regime, which was a nationwide project by Khmer Rouge central planners to rebuild the entire society from the ground up.  I have my doubts that this nationwide blackout was just the characteristic incompetence of socialism and its Cuban masters.  Cubans have made a hash of the electrical grid in Venezuela, it's true, but they also seem to be following the plan of doing what it takes to make Cuba the electrical disaster it also is.

Republicans notch streak of special election victories, ousting Democrats.  Republicans picked up a Kentucky state Senate seat earlier this week, marking the latest in a series of under-the-radar wins at the state level for the GOP since the November midterms.  The pickups have the party claiming momentum going into 2020, after having lost control of the U.S. House last fall.  Republican Phillip Wheeler defeated Democrat Darrell Pugh in a special election to fill an eastern Kentucky state Senate seat.  Wheeler will succeed a Democrat, making it a Republican pickup.

Black journalists' group places CNN on 'special monitoring list'.  The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) said Tuesday that it would place CNN on a "special media monitoring list," citing a lack of black representation among the network's leadership ranks.  NABJ said in a statement that its preliminary research showed that CNN has no black employees reporting to CNN President Jeff Zucker.  It also showed that the news organization has no black executive producers as well as no black vice presidents or senior vice presidents on the news side.  CNN disputed the group's finding that there are no black vice presidents on the news side, according to NABJ.  But the news network did not provide the name or position of the vice president or vice presidents, NABJ said.

Geraldo Rivera defends AOC, 'generosity' of socialism.  Geraldo Rivera, in a heated debate on Fox News with host Sean Hannity and guest Dan Bongino, defended Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez by saying she was a too-easy target of the ideological right and that conservatives should just leave her alone because, by gosh, "she has heart" and socialism "is so yesterday" and mean old Americans were killing the dreams of all these youthful idealists.

Apple CEO Tim Cook to Conservative Employees Who Feel Shunned: 'Come Talk to Me'.  Apple CEO Tim Cook recently encouraged any conservative employees who felt discriminated against due to their political views to speak with him directly.  Business Insider reports that Apple CEO Tim Cook recently encouraged conservative employees at the Silicon Valley giant to speak with him directly if they felt discriminated against or shunned due to their beliefs.  Cook's statement was in response to a question at the company's annual shareholder meeting; the questioner stated that a friend of hers worked at Apple and this friend did not "share the left-wing view" and suggested that her friend felt discriminated against by her fellow workers as a result.

The Editor says...
Usually, when the CEO of a giant company tells you to come and speak to him directly, it means your employment is about to end.

JetBlue black history display honored convicted killer.  JetBlue has taken down a poster of a convicted murderer that it had included as part of a Black History Month tribute at New York's Kennedy Airport.  The airline said Saturday [3/2/2019] it removed the poster paying tribute to Assata Shakur last month after being alerted via Twitter that Shakur is "a convicted cop killer."

Canadian Economy Halts — GDP Growth Drops to 0.1 Percent, and No-One Is Talking About Why.  The Canadian government shocked the professional financial and economic media with their latest fourth quarter GDP release showing the economy has essentially come to a grinding halt at 0.1% growth.  [Compare to U.S. GDP growth of 3%]  The Canadian Q4 GDP growth isn't one percent, it's one-tenth of one percent: 0.1%, essentially halted; but everyone discussing this is missing something very important.

The Awful Truth of Michael Jackson's Depravity.  Fair warning for those curious about exactly what Michael Jackson did to little boys:  The two-part, four-hour documentary Leaving Neverland goes into gruesome, nauseating, nightmarish detail about the King of Pop's depredations.  But it's also disturbing for another reason, one you might not have anticipated.  Debuting on HBO March 3 and 4 after a previous series of screenings at the Sundance Film Festival, this enraging film by Dan Reed inspired a lawsuit against the pay-cable channel from Jackson's estate, which desperately wants people not to see a story that may significantly diminish the value of his brand.  It's a wonder that there is any brand left to defend, given that four men have now made detailed, credible claims that Jackson sexually abused them as minors over extended periods of time.

'Social justice' is killing organized religion.  A fascinating article by Joel Kotkin in The Tablet describes the precipitous decline in membership to organized churches and synagogues, with a primary reason being the growing influence in these religious organizations of leftists and leftist dogma.  The numbers are shocking.  It's not just the decline of members that's concerning; it's the aging of the church-going population that jumps out at you.  For example, attendance at conservative and reformed synagogues is declining at a time when the average age of Reform congregations is 54, and only 17 percent of members say they attend religious services even once a month.  It's just as bad for Christians. [...]

Millennial Repo: Car Loan Defaults on the Rise.  An interesting data nugget percolated the other day about a "sharp worsening" — that is to say, an increase — in the number of car loan defaults among borrowers under 30 years old.  According to Bloomberg Financial News, the rate for the Millennial demographic was 4.04 percent last quarter vs. 2.36 for the general population, or about twice as high.

There's A Vladimir Lenin Statue In Seattle, and Republican Lawmakers Want It Gone.  In the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle (because, duh, it's Seattle) stands a 16 foot tall statue of communist revolutionary and innovator of mass starvation and firing squads, Vladimir Lenin.  Republican lawmakers in Washington have now introduced a bill "to study and make recommendations on an appropriate historical figure to replace the statue of Lenin, and to represent the state of Washington."

People Search Garbage Truck For Food In Socialist Venezuela.  Starving Venezuelans rummaged through a trash truck this week in a search for food, following Venezuela's collapse due to its socialist policies.  "Amid the increasingly dire situation in Venezuela, Univision's left-leaning anchor Jorge Ramos traveled into the rapidly imploding socialist country for an interview Monday with dictator Nicolas Maduro," The Daily Wire reported. [...] In a video posted on the "Real American with Jorge Ramos" Facebook page, Ramos "said the last straw for Maduro was when the Mexican-American journalist held up his iPad and showed him footage he had filmed himself of three children on the streets of Venezuela rummaging through the back of a garbage truck for scraps of food," Fox News reported.  "He just couldn't stand it," Ramos said.  "He didn't want to continue the interview.  He tried to close my iPad.  They confiscated all of our cameras, all our videos."

Venezuela to deport Univision team after Maduro shown 'garbage eating' video.  U.S. television network Univision said on Monday Venezuela was deporting a news team led by anchor Jorge Ramos after they were briefly detained at the presidential palace because their line of questioning upset President Nicolas Maduro.

George Pell: cardinal found guilty of child sexual assault.  Cardinal George Pell, once the third most powerful man in the Vatican and Australia's most senior Catholic, has been found guilty of child sexual abuse after a trial in Melbourne.  A jury delivered the unanimous verdict on 11 December in Melbourne's county court, but the result was subject to a suppression order and could not be reported until now.

PayPal CEO Admits Partnership with Far-Left SPLC to Blacklist Conservatives.  PayPal CEO Dan Schulman admitted during an interview with the Wall Street Journal that PayPal works with the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) when it considers blacklisting conservatives.  After being asked by the Wall Street Journal what "values" PayPal identifies with," Schulman replied, "Probably the most important value to us is diversity and inclusion."

Venezuela Ex-spy Chief Reveals Maduro's Ties To Hezbollah, Drugs.  Former head of Venezuela's intelligence services Hugo Carvajal revealed powerful ties between the administration of President Nicolás Maduro and the Hezbollah terrorist group, as well as wide-spread corruption and drug activity, the New York Times reported on Thursday [2/21/2019].  The nefarious activities were directed by Maduro himself as well as Interior Minister Néstor Reverol and former vice-president Tareck El Aissami.

Women May Have to Register for the Draft as Men's Group Wins Selective Service Lawsuit.  On Friday [2/22/2019], a Texas judge ruled that the Selective Service System (SSS) violates the Constitution by requiring only men to register for the draft.  The court ruled with the National Coalition for Men (NCFM) in a lawsuit claiming the male-only draft constitutes discrimination against men.  NCFM's lawyer told PJ Media that even if the SSS appeals, they are likely to lose again.  He also suggested the Pentagon will not end the draft, so women may have to register.

The Corruption of the Vatican's Gay Elite Has Been Exposed.  I spent much of this week reading and trying to absorb the new and devastating book by one Frédéric Martel on the gayness of the hierarchy at the top of the Catholic Church, In the Closet of the Vatican:  Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy.  It's a bewildering and vast piece of reporting — Martel interviewed no fewer than "41 cardinals, 52 bishops and monsignori, 45 apostolic nuncios, secretaries of nunciatures or foreign ambassadors, 11 Swiss Guards and over 200 Catholic priests and seminarians."  He conducted more than 1,500 interviews over four years, is quite clear about his sources, and helps the reader weigh their credibility.  He keeps the identity of many of the most egregiously hypocritical cardinals confidential, but is unsparing about the dead.  The picture Martel draws is jaw-dropping.  Many of the Vatican gays — especially the most homophobic — treat their vows of celibacy with an insouciant contempt.  Martel argues that many of these cardinals and officials have lively sex lives, operate within a "don't ask, don't tell" culture, constantly hit on young men, hire prostitutes, throw chem-sex parties, and even pay for sex with church money.  How do we know this?  Because, astonishingly, they tell us.

Catholic Cardinal Marx says files on child abusers 'destroyed'.  Vatican officials worked to silence the victims, senior German Cardinal Reinhard Marx has told the summit on tackling pedophilia within the church.  He said files on the abusers were often destroyed.  Germany's top cardinal, Reinhard Marx, slammed the Catholic Church officials for their response to the decadeslong pedophilia scandal at a conference called by Pope Francis in the Vatican on Saturday [2/23/2019].

Projection:
Pope Francis decries critics of church as 'friends of the devil'.  Pope Francis has said that those who constantly criticise the Catholic church are "friends of the devil".  Speaking to pilgrims from southern Italy, the pontiff said that defects of the church needed to be denounced so they could be corrected, but that those who condemned "without love" were linked to the devil.  "One cannot live a whole life accusing, accusing, accusing, the church," he said.  People who did, he said, were "the friends, cousins and relatives of the devil".  His remarks come as dozens of victims of clerical sexual abuse gathered in Rome ahead of an unprecedented Vatican summit on the issue.

Brian Stelter Reports CNN Staff 'Up in Arms' Over Hiring of Ex-Trump Official as Editor.  Many media figures were instantly horrified by CNN's hiring of former Trump Department of Justice official Sarah Isgur Flores as a political editor, and according to CNN's Brian Stelter, so are many of CNN's other staffers.  Stelter spent much of Tuesday night [2/19/2019] tweeting updates about the hiring, then published a detailed story on the controversy that included extremely dissatisfied comments from several unnamed CNN staffers.

Chinese Cardinal:  Vatican Has Kept Secret the Text of Deal With Atheist Regime on Naming of Bishops.  Cardinal Joseph Zen, bishop emeritus of Hong Kong, said in a video interview with CNSNews.com that the Vatican has kept secret the text of the agreement it made in September with the government of the People's Republic of China on the appointment of Catholic bishops.  According to the U.S. State Department, the government of China is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, whose members are required to be atheists.  "The People's Republic of China (PRC) is an authoritarian state in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is the paramount authority," says the State Department's latest report on human rights in China, which was published on April 20, 2018.

Congress Wants To Bring Thousands More Acres Under Federal Control. The US Can't Afford It.  A lengthy public lands package sitting in Congress adds hundreds of thousands of acres of federally protected wilderness without securing funding to manage it.  The House is preparing to vote on a bipartisan land package next week that is roughly 660 pages and composed of 118 different bills.  The Senate version passed its version, the most comprehensive land package in a decade, on Feb. 12 in a 92 to 8 vote.  "It touches every state, features the input of a wide coalition of our colleagues, and has earned the support of a broad, diverse coalition of many advocates for public lands, economic development and conservation," Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, according to The Washington Post.

Democrats took $60,000 junket to attend Beyonce concert in South Africa.  Five members of the Congressional Black Caucus took an official three-day trip to South Africa to be feted as VIPs at a Beyonce and Jay Z concert, according to congressional disclosure records.  The stated purpose of the $60,000 trip in December was to attend the "Global Citizen Mandela 100" concert, the stated purpose of which was to celebrate the centenary of the birth of the late Nelson Mandela and raise awareness of global poverty.  The extravaganza was headlined by Beyonce, Jay Z, Ed Sheeran, Pharrell Williams, and Chris Martin.

Chase Bank Shuts Down Personal Account of Vocal Trump-Supporting US Army Combat Vet.  Chase Bank abruptly closed the personal account of US Army combat veteran Joe "Rambo" Biggs.  Mr. Biggs is a very vocal Trump supporter with a bluecheck verified Twitter account and has over 200,000 followers.  "Chase bank just closed out my account!" Biggs said on Twitter Saturday [2/16/2019]. [...] Joe Biggs is a huge supporter of the 2nd Amendment and also makes documentary films focused on the border crisis but he says YouTube has taken down most of his videos and demonetized his channel.  Tyranny from big tech and big banks in the US is reminiscent of the 'social credit score' in China which is used to silence and control the population.

What is the purpose of a secret Facebook account?
Malia Obama's secret Facebook account reveals just how much former First Daughter hates Trump.  Malia Obama described President Trump as 'evil' on a secret Facebook page where she exchanges messages friends including Joe Biden's granddaughter, DailyMail.com can reveal.  The Facebook page operates under a pseudonym and does not appear to have been publicly updated since 2017.

Defrocking McCarrick Before the Abuse Summit.  With his "abuse summit" a few days away, Pope Francis finally got around to defrocking the sexual predator Theodore McCarrick this week.  The move appears to have been driven by optics more than anything else.  It would have simply been too embarrassing for the pope to conduct the summit with the McCarrick matter still unresolved.  The pope's ostensible hope in delaying the abuse summit until this year was that interest in the scandal would dissipate.  It hasn't.

Former Air Force intelligence officer charged with revealing classified information to Iran.  The Justice Department on Wednesday unsealed an indictment against a former Air Force counterintelligence officer on espionage charges for allegedly revealing classified information to Iran.  On a Wednesday [2/13/2019] conference call with reporters, the Justice Department said former Air Force officer Monica Witt defected to Iran in 2013, where she is still suspected to be located.  She allegedly provided the code name and mission of a secret Department of Defense program and information about her former intelligence colleagues to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

House Democrat counters Trump with resolution declaring climate change a national emergency.  Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon said Friday he intends to introduce a resolution declaring climate change a national emergency.  Blumenauer, who has endorsed the progressive Green New Deal resolution and is active on environmental and renewable energy issues, circulated a letter to colleagues Friday seeking support for a resolution that would declare the "sense of Congress" that climate change is a national emergency.  Blumenauer's resolution would swipe President Trump for declaring a national emergency Friday to build a border wall and address what the congressman called a "manufactured crisis."

The Editor says...
That's all very nice, except that The climate isn't changing.

This is the man who delivered the death blow to Amazon deal.  The watershed moment that led Amazon to reconsider coming to Queens came on Feb. 4, when a fierce political foe was appointed to a state board with the power to thwart the project, said sources involved in the discussions.  That was the day state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins nominated Sen. Michael Gianaris as her appointee to the obscure Public Authorities Control Board.  Gianaris, who represents Long Island City, where Amazon was planning to build one of its new headquarters, bitterly opposed the $3 billion in subsidies offered by the city and state and was miffed that Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio didn't consult him on the deal, according to sources.

Amazon's cancellation of move to NYC is catastrophic and could hurt far-left Dems at polls.  Amazon's announcement Thursday [2/14/2019] that it is abandoning plans to construct a second corporate headquarters New York City is a catastrophic loss for the city, New York state and the metropolitan region.  As a New Yorker, I find it immensely disappointing to see the immediate economic impacts and future economic losses of this unfortunate move.  I wholeheartedly believe that New York is a global city that should always strive to diversify its economy and compete on the world stage.

After Venezuela exchange, the case grows for throwing Ilhan Omar off the House Foreign Affairs Committee.  The unfitness of Rep. Ilhan Omar for the House Foreign Affairs Committee has already been brought up based on her persistent anti-Semitism, her strange habit of repeating Russian propaganda, and her apparent abuse of U.S. immigration law.  Now a new and very big reason has come up:  Her cringe-inducing ignorance of actual foreign affairs.

Judge voids Paul Manafort plea deal, says he 'intentionally' lied to the FBI, special counsel and grand jury.  Paul Manafort "intentionally" lied to special counsel Robert Mueller's office, breaking the plea agreement that made him the star cooperator in the Russia probe, a federal judge found on Wednesday [2/13/2019].  Manafort "made multiple false statements to the FBI, the OSC and the grand jury concerning matters that were material to the investigation," including his contacts with his Russian associate during the campaign and later, Judge Amy Berman Jackson wrote on Wednesday [2/13/2019].

This means they really don't know, or they DO know but won't say.
Feds don't know what caused romaine lettuce food poisoning outbreak.  U.S. food regulators say they weren't able to identify a contamination source for a food poisoning outbreak that prompted them to warn people to avoid romaine lettuce this fall.  The Food and Drug Administration says it wasn't able to determine how a water reservoir on a Santa Barbara County, California, farm became contaminated with E. coli.  It also says the water reservoir doesn't explain how lettuce from other farms may have been contaminated.  The FDA says leafy greens' short shelf life makes it difficult to investigate such outbreaks.

The Editor says...
The two most likely causes, in my opinion, are:  [1] Illegal aliens defecating in the water supply, or out in the lettuce fields (lettuce hope not!), or [2] small-scale Islamic terrorism designed to destabilize the US economy.

Tech Elites, Donor Class Unite with GOP/Dems to Outsource White-Collar American Jobs.  Silicon Valley's business elites and donor-class billionaires are uniting with elected Republicans and Democrats to ensure that white-collar, middle-class American jobs are swiftly outsourced to mostly Indian and Chinese nationals.  A plan known as the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act, introduced in the Senate by Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Kamala Harris (D-CA), as well as Reps.  Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Ken Buck (R-CO), would eliminate the U.S. country caps in the legal immigration system and would fast-track outsourcing of white-collar American jobs to mostly Indian and Chinese nationals imported to the country by businesses, outsourcing firms, and multinational corporations.

Mysterious Turkish Firm Helped Maduro Move $900 Million in Gold.  Two months after Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro visited his counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, a mysterious company called Sardes sprang into existence.  The firm started business with a bang in January of 2018, when it imported about $41 million worth of gold from Venezuela, the first such transaction between the two countries in records that go back 50 years.  The next month its volume more than doubled, with Sardes transporting almost $100 million worth to Turkey.

Pope signs pact with Islam declaring 'diversity of religions' is 'willed by God'.  Almost without notice from the global media, Pope Francis held a historic meeting last week in the United Arab Emirates with Grand Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, head of Egypt's al-Azhar University, the world's most authoritative institution on Islamic law.  El-Tayeb, while touted as a "moderate" by some in the West, unapologetically teaches that Muslims who leave Islam for other religions, or no religion at all, are guilty of apostasy and should be killed.  So what is the Pope of Rome, the supposed Vicar of Christ, doing cavorting with such a man?

Pope Francis Leading His Flock to the Slaughter?  The two foremost representatives of Christianity and Islam, Pope Francis and Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb — the Grand Imam of Al Azhar who was once named the "most influential Muslim in the world" — just signed "A Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together."  The Document "forcefully rejects," to quote Vatican News, "any justification of violence undertaken in the name of God," and affirms "respect for believers of different faiths, the condemnation of all discrimination, the need to protect all places of worship, and the right to religious liberty, as well as the recognition of the rights of women."  The Document is being portrayed as a "historic pledge of fraternity" and applauded as a "historical breakthrough."  The problem is that one of the two men who signed it, Dr. al-Tayeb, has repeatedly contradicted — when speaking in Arabic and appearing on Arabic media — all the lofty sentiments it highlights.

Panera Bread's Socialist 'Pay What You Want' Experiment Fails Miserably.  Panera Bread has shuttered the last of its ideologically driven "pay what you want" restaurants.  The socialist-tinged ventures were called "Panera Cares" and the higher-ups have finally figured out that "caring" is not synonymous with "viable business model."  On February 15, the final Panera Cares, located in Boston, will close. [...] If Panera had cared more about making money than promoting a constantly refuted ideology, its employees would still be receiving paychecks.  Frighteningly, though, a growing segment of the populace seems to be allergic to common-sense economic principles.

Panera's Socialist Pay-What-You-Want Restaurant Implodes:  Students, Homeless Mob The Place.  According to Eater, after nine years of being in business, Panera Bread's socialist pay-what-you-want restaurant, Panera Cares, will officially be closing shop on February 15 due to the business model's unsustainability.  While Panera Cares billed itself as a "non-profit" restaurant designed to feed low-income people, the business model was anything but.  Rather than create a charitable organization that distributes food to needy families or a discount outlet or even a $1 menu (like every other fast-food restaurant), Panera tried to create a socialist system in which meals were offered at a suggested donation price.  That means some people would pay more while others would pay less based on what they felt like or could afford.  By not simply offering food at a low price (hat-tip, Dollar Tree), Panera completely removed any incentive for patrons to meet even the lowest standards of consumer/retailer exchange.  The result:  some people paid their fair share while others enjoyed a "free lunch."

Why didn't the Panera Cares social experiment pay off?  The concept was introduced in 2010, when Panera Bread Co. opened its first Panera Cares location in a suburb of St.  Louis, where the company is based.  Under the chain's nonprofit arm, the stores operated on a pay-what-you-can model.  Customers could pay as much or as little as they wanted for sandwiches, soups, and other menu items, which carried only suggested prices.  The hope was that enough of them would "pay it forward" for those who were less well off.  To make it work, the company figured, 60 percent of patrons would need to fork over the full price, about 20 percent would have to offer more money, and another 20 percent could leave less than the suggested price, or even pay nothing.  In December 2012, when the Boston Panera Cares was about to open at 3 Center Plaza, company founder Ron Shaich that it would be a place where people could eat with dignity, no matter whether they could afford a meal.  "It's a powerful study of humanity," he said.  "Will people do the right thing?"  The answer, apparently:  Some did, but not enough to make the restaurants sustainable.

Surprise!  Panera's Socialist Restaurant Closes Due To People Not Paying For Their Food.  Panera Cares'll be officially closing on February 15th.  As it turns out, when you don't make people pay for stuff, people don't pay for stuff.

The Editor says...
The "pay whatever you feel it's worth" idea is suitable only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate for any others.  The liberal Left has created a culture of entitlement, and there is an abundance of freeloaders in this country who feel they are entitled to take whatever they can get, free of charge.

China and Russia loaned billions to Venezuela — and then the presidency went up for grabs.  Venezuela is in the middle of a power struggle at the highest level, and that could mean trouble for its two biggest foreign allies:  China and Russia.  The socialist petrostate is home to the largest oil reserves on the planet, but endemic corruption has devastated its economy.  Beijing and Moscow have helped the country stave off collapse by repeatedly extending financial lifelines — to the tune of tens of billions of dollars over the last decade.  For the most part, those oil-for-debt swaps were good for all parties involved.  But that may be changing.

Denton County measles case is first in Dallas-Fort Worth, seventh in Texas.  One case of measles has been confirmed in Denton County, raising the statewide total to seven, according to health officials.  Denton County Public Health confirmed the case Wednesday [2/6/2019] and is working to identify and contact other people who may have been exposed.  The case has not been linked to any other cases, the health department said.  The department did not release any information about the person who contracted measles, citing patient confidentiality.

The Editor says...
I suppose it's a sign of the times:  The privacy of the person with the measles is more important than the health of the general population.  What's all the fuss about the measles, anyway?  I had the measles when I was a kid, and it was no big deal.

Yup, Iran/Hezbollah Really Is In Venezuela.  Ghazi Nasr Al-Din fundraisers for and with Hezbollah.  He also is a player in operational issues which includes a Hizbollah community center and operations office in Venezuela.  He speaks Arabic and Spanish.  Born in Beirut, Lebanon, he has been on the FBI Most Wanted List for several years.  Al Din along with Fawzi Kan'an are based in Venezuela and have been since at least 2008.

Earth's Magnetic North Pole keeps moving about and it could be a problem.  Earth's North Magnetic Pole has been drifting so fast in the last few decades that scientists say past estimates are no longer accurate enough for precise navigation.  On Monday [2/4/2019], they released an update of where magnetic north really is, nearly a year ahead of schedule.  The North Magnetic Pole is wandering about 34 miles a year.  It crossed the international dateline in 2017 and is leaving the Canadian Arctic on its way to Siberia.

Getting the gold out:  The rats are fleeing Venezuela's sinking ship.  You can tell that things are not going well for Venezuela's Maduro socialist dictatorship, based on how they're behaving now.  All signs are out now that the rats are fleeing a sinking ship.  Giant contractors, even from Venezuela's allies Russia and China, are pulling out, meaning the money's running out.  Just as interesting are the huge 757 Russian off-radar cargo jet flights into Caracas bearing the name of a newly-founded company, which sounds like a front for the Russian government.  They came and went, with unknown purpose, but lots of room for anyone who might want to ... smuggle out the nation's gold.

Plan to pull nearly $1B in gold out of Venezuela reportedly halted.  Plans by Venezuelan officials to ship 20 tons of gold overseas have reportedly been halted as the embattled presidency of Nicolas Maduro faces international pressure to cede power to a transitional government and protect the country's hard assets.  The gold bars, worth around $850 million, were weighed and separated in the central bank but won't be leaving the country anytime soon, according to reports.  On Tuesday, reports emerged that the gold was ready to be loaded onto a Russian airliner that arrived in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas a day earlier.

How the feds pulled off University of Farmington sting.  Federal agents who created a phony university to bust immigration fraud had help from straw men, a state agency, a national college accreditation group and a dead-end post office box, public records show.  The tapestry of tricks added a sheen of legitimacy to the University of Farmington, a fake university used by Homeland Security agents to arrest eight recruiters who are accused of visa fraud conspiracy and harboring aliens for profit.  The recruiters helped at least 600 foreign nationals illegally remain and work in the United States by recruiting them to enroll as students at the fake university, according to federal prosecutors.

And now they're stuck with a lifetime of student loan debt!
Homeland Security made fake university to lure illegal immigrants.  The Department of Homeland Security created a fake university in Detroit to lure — and arrest — illegal immigrant students and recruiters, according to newly unsealed court documents.  The University of Farmington existed in Farmington Hills, Michigan — but had no real teachers, curriculum or actual classes.  Instead, undercover Homeland Security agents posed as "owners and employees" of the school as "part of a federal law enforcement undercover operation designed to identify recruiters and entities engaged in immigration fraud," according to a federal indictment filed Jan. 15 but unsealed Wednesday [1/30/2019].

Russian Boeing 777 in Caracas set to haul 20 tons of gold from central bank, report says.  About 20 tons of gold from Venezuela's central bank was ready to be hauled away Tuesday [1/29/2019] on a Russian airline's Boeing 777 that landed in Caracas a day earlier, a Venezuelan lawmaker wrote on Twitter.  The destination of the $840 million in gold bars was unknown, but a source told Bloomberg News that it represented about 20 percent of the country's holding of the metal.  The gold was set aside for loading, the report said.

Senator's huge financial win after neighbour tackled him in lawn maintenance dispute.  A jury in Bowling Green, Kentucky, deliberated less than two hours before delivering the award to Republican Rand Paul, who had been attacked while doing yard work at his home.  During the three-day trial Mr Paul told the court he feared for his life as he struggled to breathe after Rene Boucher, an anesthesiologist, slammed into him in late 2017.  The jury awarded $375,000 in punitive damages and $200,000 for pain and suffering, plus $7,834 for medical expenses.

Struggling Newseum Sells Building to Johns Hopkins for $372.5 Million.  The financially struggling Newseum which moved from Virginia to D.C. in 2008 announced that it has agreed to sell its Pennsylvania Ave. location to Johns Hopkins University for $372.5 million.  The Newseum will remain open through 2019 while museum executives search for a new and presumably less costly location at which to operate.

Democrat Who Laughed Out Loud at Pledge of Allegiance will Deliver Dem's SOTU Response in Spanish.  On Tuesday [1/29/2019] it was announced that California Attorney General Xavier Becerra will deliver the Dems' State of the Union response in Spanish.  Schumer and Pelosi praised the incredibly corrupt California Attorney General with more Marxist doublespeak.

Failed gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams gets a SOTU response participation trophy.  On Tuesday [1/29/2019], Senator Chuck Schumer announced that he is pleased that failed gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams had accepted the invitation to give a televised rebuttal directly following President Trump's State of the Union address on February 5.  Given that she's not an elected representative, it's an odd choice [...] It is likely that Democratic leaders are offering Abrams as a sacrificial lamb, considering the failed rebuttal given by the frothymouthed Joe Kennedy last year, which led to thousands of memes and harsh criticisms about his flat and wet delivery.  Before he gave his speech, he was considered the "rising star" of the Democratic Party.  Afterward, he fell back into obscurity.

Israel Kamikaze Drones are Destroying Syria's Air Defenses.  On January 21, Iranian, Syrian and Israeli forces unleashed a hail of missiles upon each other in what is becoming yet another flare-up of violence along the Syria-Israel border.  Afterwards, the Israeli Defense Force released a video depicting unidentified munitions eliminating two or three short-range air defense systems--apparently including Russia's latest short-range system, the Pantsir-S2.  In fact, the recent raids may reveal improvements to Syria's air defense forces due to ongoing Russian training and weapons transfers.  However, they also reveal Israel's continuing ability to defeat, including through likely use of kamikaze-drones.

Thanks to Trump, China's economy is rapidly decelerating — Here's what could happen next.  The Chinese government recently announced that its GDP growth for 2018 of only 6.6 percent — the country's slowest rate of economic development since 1990.  Growth in the fourth quarter declined to 6.4 percent.  For the second half of 2018, Chinese investment, consumer spending, manufacturing and exports all slowed markedly with the current trade war with the U.S. hurting China more than anticipated.  And that's assuming the numbers are accurate.  Economists have long questioned the accuracy of China's official economic data.  In any event, China's economy is rapidly decelerating — and that's no coincidence.

Yes, Venezuela Is a Socialist Catastrophe.  Conspicuous by its absence in much of the mainstream news coverage of Venezuela's political crisis is the word "socialism."  Yes, every sensible observer agrees that Latin America's once-richest country, sitting atop the world's largest proven oil reserves, is an economic basket case, a humanitarian disaster, and a dictatorship whose demise cannot come soon enough.  But ... socialist?  Perish the thought.  Or so goes a line of argument that insists socialism's good name shouldn't be tarred by the results of experience.  On Venezuela, what you're likelier to read is that the crisis is the product of corruption, cronyism, populism, authoritarianism, resource-dependency, U.S. sanctions and trickery, even the residues of capitalism itself.

Venezuela Erupts Against Dictator Maduro as His Socialist Regime Starts to Completely Collapse.  Hundreds-of-thousands of people took to the streets in Venezuela Wednesday afternoon in protest of illegitimate President Nicolas Maduro and in support of internationally recognized President Juan Guadio. [...] On Wednesday afternoon [1/23/2019] the Trump administration, in partnership with a number of Central and South American countries, officially declared Maduro is no longer recognized as the leader of Venezuela and that Guadio is the legitimate President of the country.

Bernie Sanders warns about US, not Russian, intervention in Venezuela.  The story out of Venezuela is revolting: mass Egypt-style protest to get a leftist dictator who's put the country in ruins out, and the whole thing stopped by Russian intervention. [...] Russian president Vladimir Putin's warnings, delivered yesterday via his administrative minions, threatening civil war and hell to pay if Maduro is thrown out, is a clear signal that somebody's rice bowl is threatened in Moscow if Maduro exits and that Russia itself is trying to intervene.  By the wildest coincidence, they just happen to be the Venezuelan military's arms-supplier, supplying the weapons that, so far, are being aimed at Venezuela's protesting people.  China, which has loaned Venezuela billions in exchange for oil at below-market rates, is another one.  And Cuba, which literally runs the critical parts of the Venezuelan government, including much of its military, has the dirtiest hands of them all.

Most supporters of socialism ignore Venezuela's collapse — with one exception.  Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and most other fantasy-embracing leftists are uncharacteristically silent about the collapse of socialism, even as President Trump calls out the real-world refutation of the suddenly trendy failed ideology in the experience of Venezuela.

Trump announces temporary end to partial government shutdown; vows to build wall despite no funding deal.  Both chambers of Congress passed the short-term spending bill to re-open the government, temporarily ending the 35-day partial government shutdown on Friday [1/25/2019], sending the measure to President Trump's desk for him to sign into law.  Trump and congressional Democrats arrived at an agreement Friday to support a short-term spending bill to re-open the government, temporarily ending the partial government shutdown that has dragged on for 35 days, in a move to separate the controversial issue of border security from funding of the government.

Desperate Embrace At Europe's Core.  Europe's most powerful personages on Tuesday [1/22/2019] signed a treaty for the "unification," of Western Europe's biggest countries.  French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel inked the deal at Aachen/Aix la Chapelle.  It was there in the chapel that Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer had knelt at Holy Mass to celebrate the signing of the 1963 Franco-German treaty of cooperation that sealed their peoples' vow of friendship and cooperation.  In the ensuing half century, it produced just that.  France and Germany became the core of the Common Market and then of the European Union.  Today's treaty, its pretensions notwithstanding, is between regimes that are overwhelmingly occupied trying, with decreasing success, to fend off domestic challenges to their legitimacy.  The treaty is a desperate attempt by France and Germany to change the subject from their internal struggles.  Nevertheless, the treaty cannot but have major and deleterious effects on intra-European relations as well as on relations between Europe and the United States.

Venezuelans set fire to Hugo Chavez statue.  Operation Boot Maduro seems to be moving to stage two.  Following this week's military mutiny, which was squelched, but not before locals ran out and attempted to defend the troops in pitched street battles, now at least sixty — sixty! — neighborhoods in Caracas have erupted into riots — big riots, with people reported shot dead.  Take a look at the series of tweets posted by Caracas Chronicles on its Twitter feed enumerating the names of the neighborhoods now in open revolt.

That weird silence from Democrats over Venezuela's massive rejection of socialism.  All over the world, nations and leaders are throwing expressions of support and praise for Venezuela's leaders and people, who after many years of oppression and missteps, have come together with a courageous plan to non-violently shake off a detested socialist dictatorship that has left their country in ruins.  Television pictures from yesterday's demonstration covered the story in spades, showing the magnificent human spectacle to U.S. viewers.  President Trump and Vice President Pence have been right there for them.  The Organization of American States and the Inter American Development Bank are loudly supporting them.  The European Union is openly encouraging them.  There also are the skunks, such as Russian President Vladimir Putin's government, an official of which dismissed the millions-strong effort to shake off socialism and finally have food to eat, muggers in jail, a full roll of toilet paper and hospitals with sheets, running water and Band Aids as "an attempted coup."  Then there are the Democrats, who are curiously, weirdly silent.

Astronomers Aren't Pleased About a Russian Plan to Put Billboards in Space.  Russian company StartRocket is proposing to use Cubesats, small satellites with inexpensive launch profiles, to put billboards in space.  At an altitude of about 450 km (280 miles), the satellites would unfurl a mylar sail about 9 meters (30 ft.) long.  A group of CubeSats would work together to create a singe billboard, and the result would be a pixelated billboard with a viewable area of about 50 sq. km., visible in morning and evening twilight, when they catch and reflect sunlight.  StartRocket thinks of their billboards in space as the creation of a new media.  The company calls them Orbital Displays, and each one would only last about a year.  They would be easily visible on clear nights, but not overbearingly bright.

Socialists can't stand to see capitalism succeed.
Progressives target Amazon.  Amazon has become a recurring symbol of economic inequality for newly emboldened progressive Democrats.

Like in Nigeria, 20 Mexican oil pipeline thieves die in fire.  Stealing fuel from oil pipelines appears not to be a peculiar Nigerian habit.  It is also a problem in Mexico, where the theft cost the government about $3 billion in 2018.  At least 20 people were killed and 54 were injured on Friday [1/18/2019] when a pipeline ruptured by suspected fuel thieves exploded in central Mexico as dozens of people tried to fill up containers, state and federal authorities said.

Update:
At least 66 dead, dozens injured after pipeline explosion in Mexico.  Forensic experts attempted to separate and count charred heaps of corpses in central Mexico on Saturday after a massive fireball erupted at an illegal pipeline tap, killing at least 66 people.

More updates:
Pipeline explosion witnesses describe scene where 73 died.  Grief-stricken family members and witnesses to Friday's pipeline explosion in central Mexico — which killed at least 73 people, burning many to just bones or ash, and injured at least 74 — were still reeling from the tragedy Saturday [1/19/2019]. [...] Isaias Garcia, a farmer who witnessed the explosion from a distance, explained why so many had come to the area.  "Everyone came to see if they could get a bit of gasoline for their car," he said.  "There isn't any in the gas stations."

Death toll rises in Mexico pipeline blast.  Mexico's state oil firm, Pemex, did not close the valve at a leaking gasoline pipeline when first notified because it was not initially thought to be an "important" leak, Mexico's security minister said on Sunday [1/20/2019].  The number of people who died from the explosion in central Mexico has risen to 85, Mexico's health minister said on Sunday.  An additional 58 people were hospitalized, Health Minister Jorge Alcocer told a news conference.

Death toll in Mexico gasoline pipeline blast climbs to 96.  The number of people who died in a gasoline pipeline explosion in central Mexico late last week has risen to 96, government officials said on Tuesday [1/22/2019], from 91 reported a day earlier.

The Editor says...
This horrific tragedy was caused by gasoline thieves drilling into a pipeline to get free gas.  This event will probably be used by anti-pipeline activists as evidence that pipelines are dangerous, but that is not true, at least in the United States.  Pipelines are safe if you leave them alone.

The 'Pelosi Rule' — "Sen. Joni Ernst Proposes Legislation to Keep Lawmakers in DC During Shutdowns.  On Friday night Speaker Nancy Pelosi was spotted at Reagan International Airport in Washington DC flying commercial as the president suggested.  This was after President Trump grounded Speaker Pelosi and Democrats taking a "public relations tour" to trash the administration in Europe and Afghanistan.  On Friday [1/18/2019] Sen. Joni Ernst (R_IA) proposed legislation to force lawmakers to stay in Washington and meet twice per day until their work is done on national budgets.

The Tense Debate Over Gay Priests.  Since last summer, the Catholic Church has been roiled by accusations that retired Archbishop Theodore McCarrick of Washington, D.C., molested male minors and sexually harassed adult seminarians and priests over more than two decades.  The case has reignited a long and tense debate among Catholics over the question of homosexuality in the all-male priesthood.  Some bishops, other clergy and laypeople have cited Archbishop McCarrick's rise to power, despite widespread rumors of sexual misconduct, as evidence of a "homosexual subculture" in the hierarchy that they blame for allowing sex abuse and covering it up.

GOP Senators:  No Official Travel for Pelosi or Anyone If Budget Deadlines Aren't Met.  After President Trump yanked funding for Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D., Calif.) Democratic delegation trip to Afghanistan, a trio of GOP senators are pushing a proposal that would bar any congressional travel if Congress can't meet its budget deadlines.  The bill would also prevent Congress from leaving Washington if lawmakers fail to complete their job of funding the government on time in an effort to fix the broken budget process and avoid future government shutdowns, stop-gap funding extensions, and bloated, last-minute, "omnibus" spending deals.

Another FBI Lawyer is Under Criminal Investigation for Leaking to the Media.  Former FBI attorney James Baker is reportedly under criminal investigation for improperly leaking sensitive information the media. [...] Baker reported to fired FBI Director James Comey, who has also been the subject of investigation by the Department of Justice Inspector General for his leaking habits and potential improper handling of classified information.  Comey openly admitted to leaking memos about his conversations with President Trump during a congressional hearing in June 2017.  He said his goal was to launch a special counsel investigation into the president.

Freshman Democrats frustrated with leadership over shutdown impasse.  While Democratic leadership holds the line, apparently refusing to come to the table to negotiate, the resolve of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in holding out might not be trickling down into the freshman class.  A number of newly sworn-in Democrats have reportedly voiced frustration with the leaders within their own party.  Some are suggesting that they might be willing to at least negotiate and see what kind of a deal could result.

You don't know what's in those vaccines.
Leading cancer expert dies suddenly after routine yellow fever jab.  A leading cancer expert has died suddenly after a routine yellow fever jab.  Martin Gore[,] once described by the Duke of Cambridge as an 'inspiration[,]' suffered total organ failure shortly after having the injection.  The jab is recommended to anyone visiting Sub-Saharan Africa, South and Central America and the Caribbean, reports The Times.

America's progressives are so busy extolling virtues of socialism that they want you to ignore this.  Venezuela is in deep trouble:  hyperinflation, food shortages, scarce medical supplies, and soaring violence born of desperation.  It's all the doing of former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, his successor Nicolás Maduro, and their fellow kleptocrats.  Though America didn't cause Venezuela's problems, the Trump administration is trying to be part of the solution.  Its primary motive:  to ease the intolerable suffering caused by the socialist regime and its destabilizing effects on the entire region.  Nearly three-quarters of a century ago, Winston Churchill described socialism as "the equal sharing of misery."  Venezuela under Maduro shows that description holds true today.

Libertarian Party Organizes National Park Cleanups.  Republicans and Democrats may be sniping at each other over the partial government shutdown, but it's the Libertarian Party which is putting words to action.  Libertarians have organized multiple national park cleanups over the last week to show maybe the government isn't needed to provide services.  Libertarian Party National Committee Chair Nicholas Sarwark sees it as a real opportunity.

Mercenary:
Joe Lieberman Called Chinese Telecom Giant ZTE a National Security Threat.  Now He's a Lobbyist for It.  Joseph Lieberman, the former Connecticut senator and Democratic vice presidential candidate, is working for a company he once called a national security threat.  In November, Lieberman registered as a lobbyist for ZTE, a Chinese telecom giant with close links to the country's government.  The ex-senator told Politico that, despite his registration, he wouldn't actually be lobbying for the firm.  Rather, he hoped to "raise the level of trust in ZTE."  Lieberman certainly should understand the trust deficit the company faces.  In 2010, he signed a letter saying ZTE and another Chinese telecom company, Huawei, could threaten American national security.

Ex-CIA Interrogator:  Dems Comparing Shutdown to Hostage Situation Is a 'Narcissistic Power Grab'.  Dr. James Mitchell, a U.S. Air Force veteran and former CIA interrogator, blasted Democrats for likening the partial government shutdown to a hostage situation.  A multitude of top Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), have recently said President Trump has taken Americans "hostage" by not opening up the government.  Mitchell, who interrogated 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, said Saturday [1/12/2019] on Fox & Friends that the true hostage-takers are the Democrats themselves.  "They're using the federal employees as human shields in order to keep the southern border open to illegal immigration," he said.

The Unraveling of Wuerl's Lies.  In the latest revelation about Donald Wuerl — that, contrary to his claims of ignorance, he knew about McCarrick's misconduct for at least 14 years — he emerges as the amoral but self-protective bureaucrat, undone by his own pass-the-buck-style record-keeping, which gives a grimly ironic dimension to his downfall.  Wuerl's policy wasn't one of zero tolerance but of zero legal exposure, and toward that end he needed to keep records of complaints he had received and transmitted to the papal nuncio.

Gone: More cases emerge of Saudi students vanishing while facing Oregon charges.  In December 2014, a university student from Saudi Arabia was arrested in Monmouth and accused of raping a classmate after giving her marijuana and shots of Jack Daniel's.  Bail was set at a half-million dollars.  The judge ordered the student, Abdulaziz Al Duways, to turn over his passport to the private defense lawyer hired to represent him, according to court records and the Polk County District Attorney's Office.  A few days later, an official from the Royal Consulate General of Saudi Arabia in Los Angeles posted bail.  Al Duways disappeared.  The case preceded a similar one recently reported by The Oregonian/OregonLive involving Abdulrahman Sameer Noorah.  The Portland Community College student jumped bail in the hit-and-run death of a 15-year-old Portland girl and apparently fled with the Saudi Arabian government's help, law enforcement officials said.

Real Mature:  Democratic Lawmakers Deliver National Park Trash To White House Amid Shutdown.  When things get serious, you can always count on Democrats to put the best interest of the country ahead of everything.  Just kidding.  Instead, when the chips are down, you can expect Democrats to pull stunts — pointless, crude and childish.  That's just what two California Democrats did on Wednesday [1/9/2019], making a show of bringing boxes of garbage collected at a national park during the government shutdown, which began December 22.  Reps. Jackie Speier and Jared Huffman went out to Golden Gate National Recreation Area on Saturday [1/5/2019] and helped volunteers pick up trash.  On Wednesday, the two House members brought the garbage to the White House to deliver what they called a "reality check."

Surgeon fined $3K for removing kidney he thought was tumor.  The Florida Board of Medicine says a West Palm Beach surgeon has agreed to pay a $3,000 fine for removing a woman's healthy kidney that he thought was a tumor.

"Biblical plague" swarms into Muslim holy capital.  A plague that seems straight out of the Bible's Old Testament has hit the Muslim holy capital of Mecca — the first time in recorded history such an event has occurred.  Inside Islam's holy city, the Grand Mecca itself has been swarmed by hordes of flying locust[s].  The unexplained event has left authorities struggling to clean up.  According to Newsweek, "The Holy Mecca Municipality issued a statement Monday responding to the swarm of so-called 'night cockroaches,' saying it had dispatched '22 teams consisting of 138 individuals and 111 devices'" to clean up.

Portland professor behind journal paper hoax fears he could lose his job.  A professor who fooled prestigious journals into running absurd hoax papers, as a test of their bias, says he may now lose his job because of his actions.  Peter Boghossian was one of three people who collaborated last year to test the standards of various university disciplines, submitting papers loaded with left-wing buzzwords to journals in fields like feminism, race studies, queer studies, and cultural studies.  Many prestigious journals fell for their absurd hoax papers.  A leading feminist journal published a section of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf that had simply been re-written with fashionable buzzwords.  Another journal published a paper about "rape culture and queer performativity" in dog parks.

How Convenient:  Charter Spectrum has Major Outage Across US before President Trump's Address on Border Security.  Spectrum has announced a major cable outage across the country just 1 hour before President Donald Trump is supposed to address the nation about the immigration crisis and the need to build the wall.  What are the odds?  Interesting how the outage is in all major cities and border states.

GOP senator's bill to withhold pay from Congress members during gov't shutdowns catches on.  Republican Montana Sen. Steve Daines introduced a bill on the Senate floor Thursday that would withhold the pay of members of Congress during future government shutdowns.  Daines's introduction of the bill, sponsored by Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn, comes hours after Daines announced he sent a letter requesting the secretary of the U.S. Senate withhold his pay during the ongoing partial shutdown of the federal government.

Families of Sandy Hook shooting victims win legal victory in lawsuit against InfoWars, Alex Jones.  Six families of victims killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School won a legal victory Friday [1/11/2019] in their fight against controversial radio and internet personality Alex Jones.  A judge in Connecticut has granted the families' discovery requests, allowing them access to, among other things, Infowars' internal marketing and financial documents.

New York now requires changing tables in public men's restrooms.  Change is coming to men's restrooms in New York — and it's going to be a big help to fathers all over the state.  A new law requires all new or renovated buildings in New York that have bathrooms used by the public to make changing tables available to both men and women.  The rule, which passed in April 2018 but didn't go into effect until the new year, applies to restaurants, stores and movie theaters as well as state facilities such as parks and offices of the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Here's The Viral Photo Of The Bloodied Man Female UFC Fighter Allegedly Beat Up For Attempted Robbery.  Twenty-six-year-old UFC fighter Polyana Viana told MMAjunkie on Sunday [1/6/2019] that she was approached by a man while she was waiting for an Uber driver.  After asking her for the time, he demanded she give him her cellphone and told her he was armed.  Making a split-second decision, Viana decided the "gun" he claimed to have was likely "too soft" to be an actual gun and deployed two punches and a kick to the man, and as he fell to the ground, she caught him in a headlock, she recalled.  The fighter said she held him until the cops arrived.

Four-year Senate investigation finds US Marshals Service plagued with corruption.  Wasteful spending.  Favoritism and nepotism.  Sexual harassment.  These were a few of the findings of a four-year Senate investigation into the U.S. Marshals Service, which concluded Thursday [1/3/2019].  A newly released report has revealed the Justice Department agency was rife with misconduct and abuse of authority, and at high levels.  The Senate Judiciary Committee's report, that included more than 100 interviews with current and former agency employees, details a long list of serious offenses that touched every part of internal affairs.

China: We'll Use Force To "Absorb" Taiwan If Necessary.  2019 is shaping up to be the year of Chinese aggression and challenges to the west.  On the technological front, they just landed a spacecraft on the dark side of the moon.  Far more troubling is the increasing level of military saber-rattling going on.  After launching their first domestically constructed aircraft carrier, one of their admirals suggest that they might sink a couple of ours.  And now, renewing a diplomatic battle that's been going on for decades, China's president is suggesting that they will bring Taiwan back under the direct control of Beijing, even if they have to do so by force.

Senate confirms dozens of stalled Trump nominees hours before the 115th Congress ends.  The Senate confirmed dozens of stalled Trump administration nominees Wednesday night, just hours before the close of the 115th Congress.  The list excluded federal judges despite an effort by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to secure a deal for those nominees with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.  In total, the Senate cleared 77 nominees by voice vote, among them 23 ambassadors to countries including Australia, Armenia, Yemen, Guyana, Kenya, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Overflowing garbage, feces on roads prompt Yosemite National Park officials to close some campgrounds.  Campgrounds in Yosemite National Park have been closed amid a foul tide of trash and human waste that is being blamed on the partial federal shutdown.  The restrooms and visitor centers at the park in California have been closed since Dec. 22, when the partial government shutdown began, the Los Angeles Times reported.  Trash collection was also suspended at the park but it has remained open.  But on Monday, feces and garbage were beginning to overwhelm Yosemite and other national parks.

The Editor says...
False flag alert:  Are average park visitors suddenly throwing trash wherever they please, or is someone making the government shutdown look more inconvenient than it really is?

Federal workers are suing the US government over the shutdown.  Federal workers on Wednesday sued the U.S. government over the shutdown, protesting the requirement that employees who are considered "essential" must report to work without pay, a major federal workers' union announced Monday.  An estimated 420,000 employees fall into the category of being essential, many of them working for the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department, focused on public safety.  In previous government shutdowns, Congress approved back pay for federal employees, something that's likely to happen again once the standoff between President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats ends.

Utah implements nation's strictest drunk-driving law.  Just in time for New Year's Eve, Utah is setting up the strictest DUI law in the country.  The state is lowering its limit on blood-alcohol content from 0.08 to 0.05 percent.  Most states, including New York, set the limit at 0.08 percent.  Utah's mostly Mormon lawmakers embraced the change.

Journalists Dropping the Ball to End 2018.  After another year of embarrassing and sometimes bizarre behavior, the American news media will shamelessly celebrate themselves as 2018 draws to a close.  The irony of people representing media outlets that have polluted our public discourse with some of the most flawed, biased, and conspiratorial news coverage in modern times dropping a ball together in midtown Manhattan is delicious.  And their lack of self-awareness makes it even more spectacular.

Chancellor Merkel Says Nations Must 'Give up Sovereignty' to the EU.  German Chancellor Angela Merkel gave a very troubling speech yesterday to the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Berlin where she said, "Nation states must today be prepared to give up their sovereignty" and that the will of the people on issues like immigration and border security doesn't matter.

French security services investigate Russian role in yellow vests movement.  Yellow vest protestors claim that tax increases are disproportionally affecting working- and middle-class people and that everyday life is becoming economically unsustainable in France.  Some of the demonstrations have turned violent, and so far at least eight people have died as a result.  The ensuing crisis has become the most significant threat to the government of Emmanuel Macron, as the protests are increasingly evolving into an anti-Macron rallies.  So far, the yellow vests campaign has been largely bipartisan, bringing together protestors from the entirety of the French political spectrum.  Additionally, there are no identified leaders or coordinators of the movement.  However, some suspect that Russian government operatives may be further-inflaming an already incensed protest movement.

Kenya believe it?
China's African debt-trap:  Beijing prepares to seize Kenya's port of Mombasa.  China may be preparing to seize some major assets in the African nation of Kenya, as a result of debt-trap diplomacy.  African media reports that Kenya may soon be forced to relinquish control of its largest and most lucrative port in Mombasa to Chinese control.  Other assets related to the inland shipment of goods from the port, including the Inland Container Depot in Nairobi, and the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), may also be compromised in the event of a Chinese port takeover.

What the Russian Trolls Were Really Doing in 2016.  [Scroll down]  So the actual story of Russia's Facebook operations is that they targeted African-Americans and even Latinos more than conservatives.  That would be entirely in line with Russia's past propaganda, and its influence operations in the United States, but it doesn't fit the Clinton conspiracy theory.  The Oxford report is even forced to concede that the Russians hit Muslims with "pro-Clinton" messages and that the Russians had "targeted Canadians with ads encouraging donations to Justin Trudeau's campaign."  That doesn't fit the narrative, so it's dismissed as confusing.  When Russia posted pro-Trump material, it's touted as proof of Russian backing.  But when the Russians supported Bernie Sanders, Justin Trudeau or other leftists, suddenly "it's not what it looks like."

Not in my neighborhood!
Plans for homeless shelter on Billionaires' Row are stopped.  The new homeless shelter set to open up in the former Park Savoy Hotel in Manhattan's "Billionaires' Row" has been put on ice — at least, for the time being.  The group of residents suing over the city's contentious housing plan was granted a temporary injunction halting the construction at the West 58th Street shelter.

National debt interest will soon exceed national defense spending.  President Trump has harshly criticized the Federal Reserve in recent weeks for inching up the standard interest rate to guard against rising inflation and threatening the four percent economic growth rate the billionaire likes to brag about.  Here's another reason:  The higher interest rates on your credit card balances and car loans also apply to the federal government's borrowing.

Iraqi politicians attack Trump's visit to US troops as 'blatant violation of sovereignty'.  Iraqi politicians and military leaders have criticised Donald Trump's visit to US troops in the country.  Calling it a "blatant violation of Iraq's sovereignty" Sabah al Saadi, the former head of Iraq's integrity commission and leader of the powerful Islah parliamentary bloc, called for an emergency session of parliament.  He described Mr Trump's visit as "aggressive" before claiming the US president "should know his limits."  He said:  "The US occupation of Iraq is over."

The Editor says...
Why are we in Iraq at all?  Pull out now, I say, and let the ungrateful Iraqis rot.

Top Amazon boss privately advised US government on web portal worth billions to tech firm.  A top Amazon executive privately advised the Trump administration on the launch of a new internet portal that is expected to generate billions of dollars for the technology company and give it a dominant role in how the US government buys everything from paper clips to office chairs.  Emails seen by the Guardian show that the Amazon executive Anne Rung communicated with a top official at the General Services Administration (GSA) about the approach the government would take to create the new portal, even before the legislation that created it — known to its critics as the "Amazon amendment" — was signed into law late last yea

Baltimore police pay $500 for rocket launcher at gun buyback.  Baltimore police say a rocket launcher was among the more than 1,000 firearms turned in during recent gun buyback events.

In Brazil, Bolsonaro gives cops 'license to kill.' What could go wrong?  High crime has made Brazil's cities unlivable, which is why many of even the poorest Brazilians flocked to elect right-wing conservative Jair Bolsonaro for president.  But his solution — which news accounts say is to just get out there and shoot the criminals — isn't likely to work.

License-to-Kill Policing to Get a Trial Run in Rio de Janeiro.  Teams of marksmen next year will patrol swaths of Rio de Janeiro with high-powered weapons and a license to kill, said a security adviser to Governor-elect Wilson Witzel.  As many as 120 sharpshooters will accompany police incursions into the slums of Brazil's postcard city to exterminate gun-toting criminals, according to Flavio Pacca, a longtime associate of Witzel who the governor-elect's press office said will join the administration.  The shooters will work in pairs — one to pull the trigger, one to monitor conditions and videotape deaths.

Report: Huber and Horowitz Investigations Deep State Cons Constructed by DOJ.  Paul Sperry has an interesting report posted at RCP-Investigations outlining numerous interviews with DC politicians and would-be witnesses, if any actual DOJ investigation of the FBI and DOJ misconduct was taking place.  What Sperry discovers is the year-long narrative around John Huber and Michael Horowitz is factually false.  Just like the false framework surrounding the long-forgotten U.S. Attorney John Lausch; the guy who was supposedly hired to facilitate DOJ record production but actually did nothing of the sort; Sperry discovers the framework around U.S. Attorney John Huber was manufactured by career officials inside the DOJ to tamp down problematic demands for a second special counsel.

Former Senate Intel aide accused of passing info to 'young, female reporters' gets 2 months.  A former aide to the Senate Intelligence Committee, who leaked information to a journalist he was having an affair with, has been sentenced to two months in prison for lying to the FBI.  James Wolfe, 58, pleaded guilty in October to one felony count of lying to the FBI.  The count referenced use of encrypted messaging in October 2017 to tell "Reporter #3" about a subpoena the committee had issued.

Ticking Time Bombs in the [Catholic] Church.  Former Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony is long retired, but his scandals keep exploding like ticking time bombs around the feet of his successor.  The latest eruption was this week's revelation that Mahony had elevated Monsignor Alexander Salazar to auxiliary bishop in 2004 despite a credible allegation of abuse against Salazar from the 1990s.

Catholic Church in Illinois Withheld Names of at Least 500 Priests Accused of Abuse, Attorney General Says.  The Catholic Church in Illinois withheld the names of at least 500 priests accused of sexual abuse of minors, the state's attorney general said Wednesday in a scathing report that accused the church of failing victims by neglecting to investigate their allegations.  The preliminary report by Attorney General Lisa Madigan concludes that the Catholic dioceses in Illinois are incapable of investigating themselves and "will not resolve the clergy sexual abuse crisis on their own."

Microsoft Making It Easier to Type Kaomoji.  Last night Microsoft released quite a feature-packed Windows 10 2019 Preview Build to Windows Insiders.  The last major update for the year, build 18305 brought in some pretty useful features.  But, it's the fun ones that deserve some attention.

Illinois finds 500 more Catholic clergy accused of abuse.  Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan on Wednesday issued a blistering report about clergy sexual abuse, saying that Catholic dioceses in Illinois received allegations of child sexual abuse by 500 more clergy than previously publicly identified.

What's Happening to Tucker Carlson (and Others) Is Called 'Blacklisting'.  There is no question political blacklisting has returned with a vengeance.  Once again, just as we saw during the Hollywood blacklist of old, large corporations are de-platforming, refusing to serve, firing, and stripping sponsorship from those who hold beliefs and opinions unpopular with the establishment.  We even have large media corporations, like the far-left CNN, openly demanding the blacklisting of certain opinions.  What's more, in a truly ironic example of history repeating itself, we have the powerful in Hollywood calling for the blacklisting of certain opinions.

Protester Who Climbed Statue Of Liberty To Protest ICE Convicted On All Counts.  On Monday [12/17/2018], the woman who climbed the base of the Statue of Liberty to protest against U.S. immigration policy last July 4, forcing thousands of visitors who wanted to visit the iconic statue on Liberty Island to evacuate the island, was convicted on all counts by a judge in Manhattan.

Federal court says NY ban on nunchucks [is] unconstitutional.  A federal court says New York's ban on nunchucks, the martial arts weapon made famous by Bruce Lee but prohibited in the state for decades, is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.

Acting AG Matt Whitaker likely in clear in Hatch Act probe, experts say.  Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker did not violate the Hatch Act when his campaign account from a failed 2014 Senate bid accepted four donations totaling nearly $9,000 earlier this year, campaign finance experts said.  But most of the money is still sitting in the campaign's account because William Gustoff, the campaign's treasurer, is waiting to make sure he can use it to pay back a loan to Mr. Whitaker, who is still owed $50,000 from a personal loan he made to his Senate bid.

Over 40 percent of Americans say no to flu vaccinations.  Have you gotten your flu shot this year?  If the answer is no — and I'm not getting one! — you're not alone.  A new study finds more than 40 percent of Americans have not been vaccinated and, in fact, don't plan on it either.  This is despite the warnings, potential dangers, and last year's record-number of flu deaths.  The survey was done by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.  People under the age of 45 were the least likely to report being vaccinated.

Joe Lieberman, former 'conscience of the Senate,' becomes a Chinese agent.  Joe Lieberman, a Democrat-turned-independent who has backed Republicans, has found friends in yet another party:  the ruling Communist Party of the People's Republic of China.  The former "conscience of the Senate" has been hired to represent China's ZTE telecommunications company, which is basically a front organization for Chinese intelligence services.  ZTE is under pressure in light of overdue U.S. government efforts to prevent it from entrenching a stronger position in the U.S. economy.  With the U.S. now in a new cold war with Beijing, no former U.S. official, let alone a foreign policy hawk like Lieberman, should be serving ZTE.

How to delete Facebook without losing your friends and photos.  Casey Neistat wrote an article back in 2014 how he 'fixed' his Facebook by unfriending people who shared too much.  I tried this in 2017, and it absolutely didn't work!  People still share way too much and every time I go on Facebook it feels like like a whole plague of negativity that's trying to give me cancer.  Just no.  It's not cool.  Facebook really isn't the 'cool' platform it was back in 2008.

The curiously now-dead Venezuelan PDVSA oil chief was the CITGO guy and a Washington fixer.  Another day, another dead dissident over in the socialist hellhole of Venezuela.  The death of Nelson Martínez in police custody made the news, because no one had ever seen such a high-level official killed off, possibly by bad medical care, which wouldn't be surprising in a Venezuelan dungeon, or maybe a rubout from the mafia state that's currently in power.  Maybe it was both.  It's likely someone wanted him dead.  Martínez had been Venezuela's oil chief, the man at the top of state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A., which brought in 95% of the country's export revenues based on Venezuela's oil shipments, and close to Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro.

Judge rules Americans can secretly record public officials in victory for Project Veritas.  A federal judge ruled Monday that Americans have a right to secretly record their public officials, including police, when they are engaged in their government duties.  U.S. District Chief Judge Patti B. Saris said a Massachusetts law banning secret recordings violates the First Amendment when it comes to government employees, rejecting the state's claims that officials need some space to be able to operate without having to worry about being monitored.

Project Veritas Gets A Win In Massachusetts.  Chalk up a win for the watchdogs of government.  A federal judge in Massachusetts has ruled in two cases — one including the bane of many Democrats' existence, Project Veritas — that the Massachusetts state law prohibiting secretly recording government officials is unconstitutional.

Naval Air Station Corpus Christi could be re-named after Bush 41.  The naval air station where former President George H.W. Bush earned his naval wings in 1943 could soon be renamed after the late president.  Nueces County commissioners are set to vote Wednesday on a resolution in support of changing the name of the N.A.S. Corpus Christi to the George H.W. Bush Naval Air Station Corpus Christi — a push that's making its way through Texas and Washington.

Barack Obama's Campaign Was Fined $375,000 for Campaign Finance.  Donations — Why Didn't Liberal SDNY Prosecute Obama?  Gregg Jarrett went off after the New York Southern Division accused President Trump of campaign violations by paying hush money to two women from his own pocket. [...] Of course, the NYSD said nothing when Obama was accused of campaign finance donations.  In January 2013 the Obama Campaign was fined $375,000 for campaign reporting violations.

France surrenders to the French.  Macron today [12/10/2018] capitulated to the Yellow Jacket rioters who have turned Paris into Europe's first no-go zone not run by Muslims.  Corporate media in America is alarmed and couched Macron's submission as heroic.  Maybe he can relocate his capital to Vichy.  Some Trump supporters are saying he negotiated with terrorists.  That's being kind.  He merely gave them what they want.  Again.

Are 'deplorables' reaching the breaking point... again?  Another possible government shutdown showdown just ahead of Christmas, along with news of massive protests in France against unfair and unsustainable tax policies, has comments sections on conservative sites buzzing with calls to just "shut it down" if funding for the border wall is not included in the budget.  Candidate Trump's "forgotten" men and women are getting antsy.

AI can solve CAPTCHA tests in under 0.05 seconds.  CAPTCHA is an acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart", a type of challenge-response test used in computing to determine whether or not the user is human.  Text-based CAPTCHAs use a jumble of letters and numbers, alongside other security features such as occluding lines, to distinguish between humans and malicious automated computer programmes.  The system relies on people finding it easier to decipher the characters than machines.  Developed by computer scientists at Lancaster University in the UK as well as Northwest University and Peking University in China, the new algorithm delivers significantly higher accuracy than previous CAPTCHA attack systems, and is able to successfully crack versions where previous attacks failed.  It is also highly efficient, able to pass a test within 0.05 seconds on a desktop PC.

Nadler: I'm ending investigation into FBI, DOJ when I become chairman.  The Democrat poised to lead the House Judiciary Committee next year says he has no intention of continuing the GOP-led investigation into FBI and Justice Department (DOJ) decisionmaking [sic] during the 2016 election.  Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), who stepped outside of the ongoing closed-door interview with former FBI Director James Comey, told reporters Friday [12/7/2018] that he plans to end the probe come January.

The Editor says...
Please show me a dictionary (if you attended a public school, that's a hardback book with a lot of definitions and pronunciation guides in it), in which decisionmaking is a single un-hyphenated word.

Macron Shuts Down Paris in Attempt To Stop Protests.  French President Emmanuel Macron has officially shut down Paris this weekend in his attempt to stop the "Yellow Vest" populist uprising against current political policies.  The primary tourist venues are all closed; shops ordered to close; windows boarded up; 8,000 police units dispatched to Paris and 89,000 deployed throughout the country.

The Editor says...
Beware of new reports that tell you about thousands of people rioting in the streets over "political policies" without telling you what those policies are, or why they're bad enough to justify violence.  The riots are all about sudden increases in already-high gasoline taxes to pay for environmental money pits like global warming.  The French people are just now figuring out that socialism comes at a high cost.  They may also learn that carbon dioxide is harmless, global warming and cooling is inevitable and natural, and no amount of money can change the weather.

Paris Is Burning Over Climate Change Taxes — Is America Next?  The City of Lights, Paris, has been illuminated in recent days by cars set alight by thousands of protesting "Yellow Vests" — largely middle class people who earn their living by driving or who commute to get to work.  The cause of their ire is a scheduled 25 cents-per-gallon increase in gas taxes, and about 10 cents on diesel, to fight climate change.  French President Macron, deeply unpopular, just reversed course on the new green tax — Parisians are already paying about $7.06 per gallon for gasoline, almost half of that in taxes.  If Paris streets burned over a proposed 25 cents per gallon climate change tax, imagine the global conflagration over a $49 per gallon tax.

France protests and the 'yellow vests' deep anger reveal the hypocrisy at the heart of the green agenda.  Over the last month, hundreds of thousands of angry French citizens have joined in "yellow vest" protests, initially sparked by proposed carbon taxes on fuel.  This weekend, protester turnout was down, but the violence was up.  While the destructive rioting should be deplored, the underlying problems that led to this moment should not be ignored.  French President Emmanuel Macron once heralded as a visionary "centrist" leader who would pull France and the world into glorious modernity, now finds himself in hot water.

More than a thousand arrested in Paris 'Yellow Vest' protests.  Paris was again the epicentre of clashes as fresh anti-government Yellow Vest protests swept France for a fourth consecutive weekend.

Trump Says Paris Climate Accord 'Isn't Working Out So Well For Paris' As Riots Engulf The City.  For weeks, tens of thousands of French have risen up to oppose planned hikes to carbon taxes on diesel and gasoline as part of Macron's climate agenda.  Carbon taxes provided the spark for what's morphed into protests against Macron's attempts to revamp France's economy.  Thousands of protesters, called "yellow vests" for the safety jackets European law mandates all drivers have on hand, stormed the Champs-Elysées for another round of protests.  The entire city is basically shut down, including major tourist attractions.

More about carbon (dioxide) taxes.

Frexit? French protesters call for EU exit as Macron fails to control deadly Paris riots.  Yellow vest protesters in Paris have been calling for France to leave the European Union as President Emmanuel Macron struggles to control the deadly riots currently shutting down the capital.  The yellow vest protests in the French capital escalated on Saturday [12/8/2018] with protesters firing tear gas canisters against police officers and holding up banners calling for France to leave the European Union.  More than 400 people have already been arrested with thousands of protesters breaking police barriers to inundate the streets of Paris.  The so-called gilets jaunes have been protesting against French President Emmanuel Macon's policies for the fourth weekend in a row.

New Drone City.  The New York Police Department is planning to introduce a new drone program in New York City and we should all be enthusiastic about this development. [...] As the rest of the world finds ways to maximize profits and key results using technology, our cops need the same equipment to maximize our safety.  Imagine how many drug busts, gang activities, and crimes in general can be stopped if a drone is flying nearby.  The power of deterrence is incomparable in its importance to police work and if drones are utilized to monitor potential criminal activity we might be able to stop crimes before they happen, and maybe even save some lives.

The Editor says...
As long as they are investigating felons and fighting violent crimes, I'm all for it.  If they're using the drones as a way to collect overdue payments from tax cheats and "deadbeat dads," that's another matter.

Outrage over Boeing selling top-secret satellite technology to a company financed by ChiComs.  What [...] was Boeing thinking when it agreed to sell a satellite containing top-secret technology to a startup company financed by China?  How [...] did this deal pass muster and gain an export license from the Commerce Department?  I am not the only one baffled: [...]

SDNY Releases Cohen Sentencing Memo — Apparently Media Reports of Cohen Cooperation Were Greatly Exaggerated.  Within a sentencing memo filed today [12/7/2018] the US Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York recommends "a substantial term of imprisonment" for Michael Cohen, who has pleaded guilty to fraud and tax charges and campaign finance crimes, as well as lying to Congress.  Reading through the memo — the content of cooperation, and the details that surface as a result therein, are entirely different from all previous media claims.

Eye-opening breakdown of America's safest cities — and the one labeled most dangerous.  East Coast cities won first and second place rankings as the safest cities in America, according to a Monday WalletHub study.  Columbia, Maryland, and South Burlington, Vermont, rank as America's two safest cities, respectively, according to the study.  Plano, Texas, and Virginia Beach, Virginia, followed as the third and fourth safest cities in the U.S., respectively, according to the study.  St. Louis ranked as the least safe city, followed by Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and San Bernardino, California, as the most unsafe cities, respectively, according to WalletHub.

Two cemeteries found in violation as Michigan mortuary scandal broadens: reports.  Two cemeteries in Michigan incurred multiple violations related to fetuses and fetal remains found in their facilities, reports said.  Both cemeteries' fetuses with documentation violations were improperly handled by Perry Funeral Home, according to the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press.

54,543 Voters.  That's the extent of the "blue wave" which occurred on November 6th.  True, that isn't what you've heard on MSNBC, who crowed that 8,805,130 more voters voted for Democratic House candidates than voted for Republicans — a record.  That figure isn't wrong.  Just irrelevant.  The 8,800,000 wasted votes in places like California, New York, and Boston that piled up massive "blue" supermajorities in "super-blue" urban districts and states isn't a good thing for the Democrats; it's their central problem.

U.S. military warns electromagnetic pulse weapons in Iran, Russia and North Korea could melt down nuclear power plants.  The military is warning the U.S. government to prepare for a potential electromagnetic pulse weapon attack, as countries like North Korea, Russia and Iran develop the special arms.  The shocking report, published by the Air Force's Air University, reveals that the U.S. is dismally unprepared for such an attack that could wipe out all electricity, kill 90 percent of the East Coast, and lead to utter chaos.  And it could take 18 months to restore the electricity grid and social order.

The Editor says...
Everyone seems to be so afraid of EMP weapons, and the government sounds so sure this sort of weapon would be completely effective; yet no such weapon has ever been used by any country, as far as I know.  Every time you hear alarms sounding about a problem that nobody has (for example:  global warming, light pollution, plastic straws in the ocean), it's almost certainly a ploy to get taxpayer money thrown at somebody's pet project.

The CRISPR Baby Scandal Gets Worse by the Day.  Before last week, few people had heard the name He Jiankui.  But on November 25, the young Chinese researcher became the center of a global firestorm when it emerged that he had allegedly made the first CRISPR-edited babies, twin girls named Lulu and Nana.  Antonio Regalado broke the story for MIT Technology Review, and He himself described the experiment at an international gene-editing summit in Hong Kong.  After his talk, He revealed that another early pregnancy is under way. [...] If you wanted to create the worst possible scenario for introducing the first gene-edited babies into the world, it is difficult to imagine how you could improve on this 15-part farce.

Three charged — including exec with past ties to Clintons — in alleged scheme to defraud Pentagon billions, DOJ says.  Three Northern Virginia men — including one who reportedly celebrated New Year's Eve in 1999 with the Clintons — were charged last week for their alleged roles in a scheme to defraud the Pentagon after receiving an $8 billion contract in 2012 to provide food and supplies to troops in Afghanistan, the Department of Justice announced.  Federal prosecutors said the three — all executives connected to Anham FZCO, a defense contractor based in the United Arab Emirates — knowingly gave false estimates of completion dates for a warehouse intended to provide supplies for troops in Afghanistan in order to win contracts.  They allegedly provided "misleading photographs" to show that the project was further along than it was.

FBI raids home of Atlantic City mayor.  FBI agents raided the home of Atlantic City Mayor Frank Gilliam just before 8 a.m.  Monday morning [12/3/2018], the agency confirmed to NJ Advance Media.  "We can confirm that our agents were executing search warrant at the home of Mayor Frank Gilliam," said Doreen Holder, a public affairs specialist with the FBI's Newark office, declining to comment on the reasons for the possible seizure of documents.  At least a dozen agents were seen going in and out of the Ohio Avenue home Monday morning, removing more than 10 boxes.  An FBI spokeswoman at the scene said both FBI and IRS agents were involved in the search of home.

New Study Provides Further Evidence that Marijuana Is a Gateway Drug.  A new study looking at alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use among adolescents gives some interesting and helpful conclusions.  Well, helpful conclusions if people will be willing to remove their cultural blinders concerning marijuana.  Since the politically and culturally popular thing to do is to extol the virtues of the recreational use of marijuana, the study's sharp gateway-drug implications will most likely be a warning that is derided and unheeded.  Frankly, I don't really care if people smoke weed or not.  To be clear, if asked, I'll warn against it.  What bugs me, though, is that many who do choose to smoke weed deceive themselves (and others) about marijuana's potential for harm.

My Pillow CEO Puts $1 Million Into Upcoming Pro-Life, Anti-Planned Parenthood Film.  Putting your money where you mouth is would be one way to show how much you believe in something.  One entrepreneur has done just that.  Christian conservative CEO of My Pillow Mike Lindell has reportedly invested in a new film that might not make the folks at abortion mill Planned Parenthood that happy.

Austin Votes to Keep the Books Closed.  It would be hard to find a better example of left-wing naiveité in municipal affairs than what transpired here in November.  Voters in the Lone Star State's progressive bastion, overwhelmingly approved a $925 million bond package but rejected a simple ballot initiative for an independent audit of city spending.  The defeat of the audit wouldn't be so galling if the new bonds didn't so obviously demonstrate the need for an independent review of Austin's books.  Spending in the Texas capital is more like what one would expect in some profligate California city.

Trump hints at the scandal about to blow.  The Clinton Foundation scandal is, as President Trump would say, yuuuuge.  I am told by a knowledgeable source that the official that John Solomon cites "knows where the bodies are buried."  Of course, the news that another whistleblower who came forward with information and documents on the Uranium One scandal, Dennis Nathan Cain, was raided by a team of FBI agents who spent six hours rummaging through his home raises some alarming possibilities.

Top Obama-era officials tangled in watchdog's lawsuit over Clinton Foundation investigation.  A conservative watchdog group announced Friday it had filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Justice Department seeking communications records that relate the FBI's investigation into whether Hillary and Bill Clinton's charity organization participated in pay-to-play schemes or other improper behavior with the U.S. government.  The latest lawsuit by Judicial Watch related to the Clintons, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the FBI denied their FOIA request and appeal this fall, targets the offices of prominent Obama-era officials, including former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, former FBI Director James Comey, and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

Foreboding — FBI Raids Home of Clinton Foundation Whistleblower.  The Daily Caller has an exclusive report tonight that is very troubling, and, unfortunately in alignment with a previous suspicion CTH shared when it was first announced that John Huber was scheduled to testify to congress on December 5th.

FBI Raids Home of Whistleblower on Clinton Foundation, Lawyer Says.  FBI agents raided the home of a recognized Department of Justice whistleblower who privately delivered documents pertaining to the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One to a government watchdog, according to the whistleblower's attorney.  The Justice Department's inspector general was informed that the documents show that federal officials failed to investigate potential criminal activity regarding former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation and Rosatom, the Russian company that purchased Uranium One, a document reviewed by The Daily Caller News Foundation alleges.

Revealed: Democrats went $18 million into debt to win control of the House.  Democrats paid a heavy price to win control of the House of Representatives, going $18 million into debt for the election.  The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee went into the red despite raising $272 million for the 2018 election, in which its heavy spending helped flip at least 39 House seats to Democrats.  A source with knowledge of the group's finances confirmed the debt figure to NBC News.  The GOP's counterpart group also spent heavily on House races, ending the election cycle $12 million in debt, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee confirmed.

Honduran president's brother accused of conspiring to import tons of cocaine to US.  A brother of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez was charged by federal prosecutors Monday [11/26/2018] with conspiring to import tons of cocaine to the United States, as well as weapons offenses and lying to federal agents.  Juan Antonio Hernandez Alvarado, aka Tony Hernandez, was arrested Friday in Miami and was due to appear in federal court there on Monday.  Federal prosecutors in New York described the suspect, a former Honduran congressman, as "a large-scale drug trafficker" who worked for more than a decade with compatriots as well as traffickers based in Mexico, Colombia and other countries to receive, process and distribute cocaine making its way through Honduras en route to the United States.

Vatican: Climate Change 'Key Challenge' of Our Age.  In its ongoing climate crusade, the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano echoed dire warnings in its weekend edition that the present generation may be the last to be able to battle global warming effectively. [...] "The effects of climate change," the joint declaration states, "are well documented and are felt everywhere in the world."

The Editor says...
With homosexual predators running rampant in the leadership of the Catholic church, I'd say the Pope has bigger fish to fry.

Against the 'Other'.  Rest in peace, John Allen Chau, a Christian missionary killed while attempting to share the Good News with an uncontacted people known as the Sentineli, habitants of North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal. [...] Claims of attempted genocide are predicated on the idea that Chau may have, had he made contact, introduced disease among the primitives.  On the other hand, Americans who object to how tuberculosis, among other diseases, has made a resurgence in the United States as a result of Third World immigration to the U.S. are condemned as racists by many of these same critics.  The tribe that killed Chau, [Josh] Shahryar says, has "chosen deliberately to not reach back and to keep living on THEIR land in THEIR way."  Shahryar argues that people have a right to defend their land and their way of life, but there is a catch — only non-Western people may exercise this right.

The Bitcoin 'pyramid scheme' continues to collapse.  I've been calling it a "bitcon" for a long time.  And now the pyramid seems to be collapsing because fewer and fewer people have confidence that the price of this inherently worthless "cryptocurrency" is going to continue to rise.  I've just repeated some of the comments I made about bitcoin (and you could include other cryptocurrencies here) for years.  But I've been especially vocal since early this year when bitcoin was reaching nearly $20,000 in price and even staid Wall Street firms were being lured to this "investment."

So much to love in Senate Judiciary Committee downsizing plan.  It's been reported that the new, larger Republican Senate majority is going to exercise its power and downsize the Senate Judiciary Committee.  It's a brilliant plan for two different reasons.  The first reason is that fewer Democrat senators will have the opportunity to showboat and eat up precious time with the sort of antics they displayed in the confirmation hearings for Justice Kavanaugh.  Confirmation of more federal judges at the district court and appeals court levels is the most important priority for Senate Republicans, and this proposal would streamline and therefore speed that process.  But the second reason is delicious, because thanks to longstanding Senate tradition, the member who would lose a committee seat first would be the senator with the lowest seniority.  And that would be Senator Kamala Harris of California, who has held office only since 2016.  Not only is she transparently running for the 2020 presidential nod, she is a shameless demagogue.

French Riot Against "Green" Policies.  Protests and riots against the Macron government's economic policies have been going on in France for the last week.  In Paris, the demonstrations have turned violent and police are using tear gas and water cannons to disperse rioters.  The demonstrations are referred to as "yellow vest" protests because demonstrators are wearing the yellow vests that French drivers are required by law to carry in their cars as a safety measure.

Nearly all homes in San Francisco cost over $1M.  San Francisco real estate is holding strong with a new report from housing website Trulia showing 81 percent of homes in the Bay Area cost $1 million or more.  The impressive price tags represent a 13.7 percent increase since October 2017 — only second to neighboring San Jose, which saw a 14.3 percent year-over-year increase.  Number three in the nationwide report on the housing markets with biggest increases is also a Bay Area city, Oakland, which saw a 5.8 percent increase.

EU Army: Just Another Bad Idea From Euro-socialists Macron And Merkel.  The European Union has announced it wants its own army and intelligence services.  Why?  Europeans need to be protected from mean, predatory potential enemies.  Like the U.S.

Francis Has Mobilized The Papacy's Absolute Monarchy Against Justice.  Pope Francis administered a stunning and humiliating shock to the bishops of the Catholic Church in the United States last week.  The American bishops had gathered in Baltimore to discuss a pair of measures to deal with the continuing crisis over clerical sexual abuses in this country.  The measures were fairly modest.  One sought to build on the 2002 "Dallas charter" — measures designed to stop priests' abuse of children, mostly young boys — by extending its rules on reporting and accountability to bishops.  The other would have launched an investigation, led by lay Catholics, into reports of abuses by bishops.  Conceivably, this would have looked into how former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, D.C., could have risen to the top of the U.S. Catholic hierarchy, despite being widely known — in secular circles, to the Vatican, and to many in the church — as being a serial abuser and harasser of young adult male seminarians (and at least one young boy).

So What Do You Think:  Hijabs In Congress?  Elections do, indeed, have consequences.  And one of the most interesting and perhaps controversial consequences of Nancy Pelosi and Democrats being elected to take control of the House of Representatives come January is their planned rules change to allow religious head covers on the floor of the House.  Head covers as in hijabs, Muslim head scarves covering an entire woman's head except for her face.  The new House will have the first two Muslim females — Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, a Somali refugee, and Michigan's Rashida Tlaib.  For nearly two centuries, hats have been banned from the House floor.

Hancock Elevator Dropped From 95th To 11th Floor, Passenger Says.  It took nearly three hours to rescue six people stuck in an elevator in Chicago's fourth-tallest building early Friday [11/16/2018].  A broken hoist rope caused the express elevator to malfunction while guests who had just left the Signature Room on the 95th floor rode down toward the lobby.  The elevator and two others have since been closed to the public while repairs are made and investigators figure out what happened.

Was a sexy Italian actor living with the man who would be Washington's new cardinal?  Was the man who who's widely believed to be the next cardinal for the Washington archdiocese, Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, bunking with a houseboy?  It looks like it, given the reporting of the indefatigable George Neumayr.

Noted Vatican Theologian Calls for Examination of Validity of Pope Benedict's XVI's Resignation.  In an important interview that was overlooked last month, a Vatican theologian said that unless Pope Francis corrects himself and reaffirms Church teaching on morals, the faith, and the sacraments, "the apostasy will deepen and the de facto schism will widen."  To address the current crisis, he suggested that an examination of the "juridical validity" of Pope Benedict's XVI's resignation was in order to "overcome problems that today seem insurmountable to us."  The theologian consultor to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints was implying that further study of the situation could reveal that Francis is not and has never been a valid pope, but is, in fact, an antipope who could be removed from the papacy, thus nullifying his "insurmountable" errors.

Amazon Chose DC And NYC Because That's Where The Childless Workaholics Live.  After courting every city in America large enough to support its own Jimmy John's franchise, Amazon is going to split its HQ2 between Long Island City in New York and Crystal City in the D.C. metro area. [...] Besides being boring, what does Amazon's location choice signal?  According to CNN's Jill Filipovic, the predictable selections mean that, "Republicans can no longer lay claim to being a pro-business party, successful as they've been at making the states they control increasingly undesirable to modern businesses and workers."  She also says the lack of a commitment to public education and transportation in Republican states was a determining reason Amazon didn't pick a Republican-governed state.

Report: Cruz Internal Polls Showed Him Leading O'Rourke By Double Digits — Until Trump Showed Up.  What more fitting end could there have been to Cruz's political career than Trump blowing into town and fumbling away a reelection bid for him that was in the bag?  Between that and the 2016 primaries, it would have been Shakespearean tragedy.  Well, Shakespearean comedy, at least.

Democrats pushing losing senate candidate to run for president.  Democratic Rep. Beto O'Rourke narrowly lost to GOP Senator Ted Cruz on Tuesday night [11/6/2018], but that isn't stopping national Democrats, activists, and other left wing loons from pushing O'Rourke to run for the nomination for president in 2020.  This unlikely scenario is nearly unheard of.  Losing candidates don't usually run for anything, much less president.

Rush Limbaugh Rocks Missouri Rally with President Donald Trump.  Talk radio legend Rush Limbaugh took the stage with President Donald Trump at a rally in Missouri on Monday defining the greatness of the first two years of the Trump presidency.  Limbaugh said that Trump was committed to making America great again, which was more than a campaign slogan.  He slammed the left and the media for refusing to concede the 2016 election, repeatedly blaming it on racism and the Russians.

You Had One Job.  Understandably, people worry about the temperament of anyone with access to US nuclear codes.  It turns out Bill Clinton solved that particular problem in a uniquely Clintonian way.  He lost the codes:  ["]For several months during Bill Clinton's administration, a former top military officer says the White House lost the card with a set of numbers for opening the briefcase containing the codes for a nuclear attack.["]

Uber and Lyft Slowing Traffic in San Francisco, Says Report.  The experience of moving through San Francisco in a car has gone from slow to crawl.  Congestion in the Bay Area flagship city has grown increasingly worse, and a new report by the San Francisco County Transportation Authority placed a sizable portion of that blame on ride-hailing services like Lyft or Uber.

New Supercomputer with 1 Million Processors Is World's Fastest Brain-Mimicking Machine.  Since April 2016, SpiNNaker has been simulating neuron activity using 500,000 core processors, but the upgraded machine has twice that capacity, Furber explained.  With the support of the European Union's Human Brain Project — an effort to construct a virtual human brain — SpiNNaker will continue to enable scientists to create detailed brain models.  But now it has the capacity to perform 200 quadrillion actions simultaneously, university representatives reported in the statement. [...] "Even with a million processors, we can only approach 1 percent of the scale of the human brain, and that's with a lot of simplifying assumptions," he said.  However, SpiNNaker could mimic the function of a mouse brain, which is 1,000 times smaller than a human brain, Furber added.

Papadopoulos Wants Congress To Inspect Cash He Says He Was Given During Suspected 'Sting Operation'.  "I am more than happy to deliver the $10,000 in cash I received, as part of what I believe was a sting operation to frame me in summer 2017, to your committee to examine for marked bills.  This is in the interest of me being fully transparent," [George] Papadopoulos wrote on Twitter [10/31/2018] to North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows and Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe.  The two Republicans are members of a congressional task force investigating the FBI's investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.  The task force interviewed Papadopoulos on Oct. 25.

CNN shocker:  Jake Tapper does a great job grilling DNC Chair Tom Perez.  Yesterday [11/4/2018], Jake Tapper of CNN behaved most uncharacteristically for a CNN interviewer of this day and age, aggressively questioning and confronting DNC chair Tom Perez on the Sunday morning interview show State of the Nation.  Listen to the two segments below with your eyes closed, and you could imagine that this was a Fox News interviewer.  But don't do it!  Watch, instead, the looks on Perez's face:  [Video clip]

Candidates seek to represent districts they don't live in: 'I don't think a lot of voters even know'.  For voters in Maryland's 6th Congressional District, it's proving difficult to find representation right at home.  Four candidates are vying for the seat Tuesday, but only one of them, Libertarian Kevin Caldwell, lives in the 6th District's jigsaw piece of Western Maryland.  Neither the Republican nor Democratic nominee is a resident — nor, for that matter, is Rep. John Delaney, the Democrat retiring from the seat.  "It's sort of a joke that when you say you live in Maryland people will often say, 'Where are you really from?'" said Paul Ellington, a spokesman for Republican Amie Hoeber.  "So in those areas close to D.C., it's not a hindrance.  In some of the other areas, however, there have been questions."

Should News Anchors Wear Ties?  One Station No Longer Thinks So.  Pretty much since the first television newscast, one wardrobe rule has been fairly consistent:  anchors wear ties.  One Boston station is trying to rewrite that rule.  Most of the time, news anchors wear ties and jackets when they deliver the news.  There are some individual newscasts, particularly at less usual news times, such as 4:00 pm or 7:00 pm, where male anchors can get away with not wearing or tie or wearing a tie with no sports coat.  But as a general rule, the biggest newscasts of the day still follow the old fashion format.  In Boston, that just changed for three NBC-owned outlets.

PHOTOS: #WalkAway from Democrats Rally Draws Hundreds of Patriots, 'We Love America and Trump'.  The gathering at Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC, on Saturday [10/27/2018] was a stark contrast to recent rallies where people dressed in black and held signs disparaging President Donald Trump and members of his administration.  The #WalkAway rally featured a sea of red, white, and blue-clad participants, waving flags, wearing Make America Great hats, and even [pink] hats made infamous during the Women's March were transformed into bright red, Trump-supporting headgear.

Murderous communists?  Who knew?  Take a look at what they are doing in Venezuela.  When we think of Venezuela, we think of starving people fleeing their country without access to food, clothing, toilet paper, or medical care.  We think of street urchins fighting over garbage scraps with machetes.  We think of migrant exoduses from socialism.  But there's another reality about the place, and it's not getting the attention, say, Saudi Arabia or Russia is, over the killings of dissidents.  The Maduro regime is showing an alarming willingness to violently attack opposition leaders, and it's moving in on high-profile ones who had previously seemed untouchable.  They've already jailed politician Leopoldo Lopez and driven many others into exile.  But the regime's people have stepped up the thuggery to higher levels since then. [...] What we are looking at is not just a failed regime that can't feed its people; we are looking at a communist thug regime that beats and kills dissidents.  The two go hand in hand in any communist regime, every single time.

Middle school 'Satanists' arrested for mass murder plot in Bartow.  Police say two Polk County middle school students are facing charges following the discovery of a disturbing plot to kill several students, cut them up and eat them.  The investigation began on Tuesday [10/23/2018] at Bartow Middle School when Bartow police were contacted by a school resource officer who had detained two girls that came to school with knives.  An affidavit from the police department says the students, a 12-year-old girl and an 11-year-old girl, came up with the plan after spending the past weekend together watching scary movies.  During an interview with detectives, the girls said they planned to go to their first-period class and then meet in the bathroom.  The affidavit says they planned to then wait for smaller students to come into the bathroom so they could attack them.

The Facts Of The Mail Bomber Case Don't Add Up.  The October spree of packaged mail bombs unsuccessfully delivered to media outlets, politicians and politically active benefactors has gripped the United States ahead of the November midterm elections.  The media is awash with speculation about the suspect's inspiration and why he may have carried out the attacks.  While the official narrative makes for captivating commentary amongst pundits, the case bears several suspicious points.  Inconsistencies between reported facts and the official version of events, the targets chosen to receive packages and details about the suspect and their social media all represent loose ends to the case that have not been adequately addressed.

Bomb sent to CNN
5 Bizarre Facts About Cesar Sayoc & His Fake Pipe Bomb Scare That Are Making Americans Shout "False Flag!"  A large number of Americans are not sold on this fake pipe bomb story and are entertaining the idea that this was a false flag to benefit Democrats AND that Cesar Sayoc is simply a patsy.  If you are still trying to process the information and figure out what you believe, here are 5 things to consider:  [#1] The timing was suspicious[.] Could the Democrats have asked for a series of bomb scares at a better time?  I think not.  [#2] Look hard at this envelope.  This is the envelope sent to CNN for John Brennan.  The perpetrator can't spell Brennan, nor can he spell Florida, despite supposedly living there.  I think the misspellings just add to the intended end correlation of Republicans being idiots.  I see it as just a little bonus psychological warfare for the American sheeple (those who won't think for themselves).  They want you and I to look at that envelope and draw the conclusion that Republicans are uneducated.


Some Suspected Mail Bombs Were Not Capable of Exploding, Others Yet to Be Analyzed, Officials Say.  Some of the 10 suspected mail bombs addressed to high-profile Democrats and others over the last few days were flawed and not capable of exploding, while others have yet to be fully analyzed, several investigators said Thursday [10/25/2018].  In some cases, the flaws were substantial.  In others, more subtle, they said.  The news comes after investigators said the devices appeared poorly made and that it was unclear if they were hoaxes or simply cases of bad construction.  Earlier in the investigation, officials in multiple states had described the items as live explosives and a number of senior bomb techs briefed on the probe said they had all the components necessary for successful explosions.

Could the "bombs" that targeted Democrats win them the midterm elections?  It's a tactic that has worked before.  Then-President Bill Clinton struck back at anti-government rhetoric in the aftermath of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and eventually used a heroic survivor of that attack to rebuke congressional Republicans for government shutdowns. [...] Others later invoked the 2011 shooting of then-Rep. Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz., to discredit the burgeoning Tea Party movement, which also used rhetoric sharply critical of liberals, politicians, and the federal government, though no link was ever found.  Giffords survived the assassination attempt and became a gun control advocate.  Arguments about right-wing extremism and Trump's incendiary rhetoric will be easily made now.

Suspicious packages, not bombs.  Always wait 24 hours before reacting politically to crime news because the media generally does a terrible job in reporting national crime stories.  Rumors and hype hound the coverage because the amount of actual news does not warrant the amount of time devoted to the story on cable television.  Commentary from people ignorant of the facts (and limited in their intellect) dominate the airwaves. [...] Finally, the media's history of falling for hoaxes complicates the situation.  Liberals have succeeded in destroying America's ability to trust its media.  Calling a suspicious package a bomb did little to reassure us that the media is run by competent people.

Explosive Packages a False Flag?  The packages may be found to be a real threat from an obviously unbalanced individual or individuals, but it may very well also be a false flag designed to reaffirm the Democrats' continuous slander against the GOP.

Rush Limbaugh suggests bombs mailed to Democrats are a false flag:  "Republicans just don't do this kind of thing".  ["]Mrs. Clinton, it's your party, forgive me, that is encouraging this kind of thing.  It is the Democrat Party that's home to all of these mobs.  It's the Democrat Party — Mrs. Clinton herself who said that being uncivil at this point in time is entirely proper and understandable.  It's — the time to go back to civility will be after the Democrats win.  You've got bought and paid for operatives by Mrs. Clinton money showing up at Trump rallies trying to make them look like deranged Trump supporters.  The Democrats are even paying people to draw swastikas on American flags and waving them around, made to look like deranged, lunatic Trump supporters.  And so, in the midst of this atmosphere, we have this series of bombs that were supposedly sent today, exclusively to Democrats.["]

Feds tell reporter that bombs were 'Complete Hoaxes'!  We should know pretty soon if they were real or not, which would make a big difference as to motivation, and what the attacks mean for the election.

Explosive Packages a False Flag?  As the liberals rise up in righteous condemnation of Trump's "toxic" rhetoric, we will be asked to forget Rep. Maxine Waters' call for nonstop harassment of GOP players, of key Republicans being hounded out of restaurants, confronted in elevators and even in their offices and at their homes.  We will be asked to forget the violent riots on college campuses to keep conservative speakers from speaking.

The Pipe-Bombs Story:  Another Example of Why No One Trusts the Media.  The political Left has been known to orchestrate frame-up attacks designed to make it appear that right-leaning opponents are responsible for violent acts and plots.  If I wrote the paragraph above in the context of reporting or commenting on the pipe bombs that were reportedly sent by an unidentified person or persons to prominent Democrats, many people would react angrily, and rightly so.  After all, there is no evidence that the atrocious but thankfully unsuccessful targeting of the Obamas, the Clintons, CNN, George Soros, and Eric Holder (as well as "Debbie Wasserman Shultz," whose Florida office, with her name misspelled, was given as the return address on some of the packages) was carried out by political leftists.  There is no proof that any Democrat was hoping to cast suspicion on Republican supporters, to suggest to voters, less than two weeks before the midterms, that Trump and GOP rhetoric incites violence.  To intimate, in the absence of any proof, that left-wing agitators may be responsible would be a condemnable smear.

Democrats and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.  On Wednesday [10/24/2018], several pipe bombs were sent to Democrat leaders, none of which detonated.  These suspicious packages were sent to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, George Soros, former Attorney General Eric Holder, and Rep. Maxine Waters.  The return address name on the suspicious packages sent to Clinton, Obama, Holder and Waters belonged to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz.  Several investigative journalists have said this stunt seems designed for maximum political and media optics, and not maximum damage.  The political Left has been caught orchestrating attacks on themselves in the past, to make it look as if the right attacked.

George Soros's Son Has Op-Ed Published In NYT Condemning Political Violence Within An Hour Of Pipe Bomb Story Breaking.  The timing of Alexander Soros's published piece in the New York Times today will do nothing to quell the understandable skepticism of the 'pipe bomb' story that broke across all news agencies earlier today given the article was apparently written and then published within an hour of the events being made public.

Caravans, Mobs, and Phony Bombs.  Recently it seems that whatever foul means the Dems turn their hand to they overplay it.  Take the Kavanaugh hearings for example.  Democrat theatrical histrionics and semi-coherent mobs didn't sidetrack Kavanaugh's confirmation, so the Left turned to incoherent mobs and a Dreyfus Affair-style show trial.  Both the mobs and the trial backfired on the Dems big time.  More than anything else they served to further wake up and engage We the People.

Bomb Expert Labels Today's 'Pipe Bomb' Scare A Dumb Hoax.  "Dumb."  That's the assessment of a Navy veteran and professional bomb disposal officer regarding the toy-like 'bombs' that the media has gone gaga over today.  In fact, Tom Sauer likens these non-functional pipe bombs to a few road flares taped to an 'old-timey alarm clock ticking away' like you would see in cartoons.  Which of course leads to the real important question.  Who would send out these fake bombs and why?  Who might have anything political to gain two weeks out from the Midterm Elections by staging a fake bomb hoax against noted Democrat politicians that then generates Establishment Media hysteria?

"Too Coincidental": MAGA-Land Calls Bombing Threats A False Flag.  [Scroll down]  "Here's my bet ... no one will be arrested for these alleged mail bombs," suggested pro-Trump commentator Kurt Schlicter.  "After dozens of college-campus hoaxes by leftists, I don't buy this super-convenient turn of events."  Candace Owens, who is the communications director for Turning Point USA and a frequent Fox News guest, suggested that there was "zero percent chance" that conservatives sent the packages.  "Caravans, fake bomb threats — these leftists are going ALL OUT for midterms."  Rush Limbaugh, the paterfamilias of conservative radio, warned, "It's happening in October.  There's a reason for this."

UPDATE: Fake Bomber is a Registered DEMOCRAT.  Anybody surprised to see how quickly the fake bomb case got resolved.  It's as if the person wanted to get caught.  No ingenuity, as all the packages looked the same.  And there were a multitude of clues.  They solved this case faster than it took the FBI to clear Hillary Clinton, and they did that in advance!

These Prominent Conservatives Think the Bomb Scares Were a Liberal Hoax.  The moment news reports first surfaced on Wednesday of explosive devices sent to the Clintons, Obamas, and CNN, the counterintuitive, conspiracy-fueled takes started rolling in.  It was inevitable.  The bombs were not meant to maim the people to whom they were addressed, the main theory went:  They were planted by liberals hoping to scapegoat the right, distract from the migrant caravan in Mexico, or boost Democratic chances in the midterms.  These mad ravings weren't only coming from the lunatic fringe, either.

Alleged Fake Bomber is a Fillipino Ex-Con Who Claimed to be Seminole.  I don't think there's a profile that fits this guy.  There's no point in even bothering to try. [...] At least one of his businesses seem to have involved male burlesque dancers.  And he has an extensive criminal record for pretty much everything.  The media is going to cynically try to connect him to Trump and Republicans, but he seems to have been a mentally unstable man with a lot of anger and obvious personal issues.

Opening Up the Package Plot.  FBI director Christopher Wray described the packages as improvised explosive devices and not "hoax devices," though according to a U.S. News report it was unclear whether they could be detonated.  To date, none of the devices exploded and no one has been harmed, but Wray believes "we've caught the right guy."  That turned out to be Cesar Sayoc, 56, and the establishment media cranked out stories on what was known about him. [...] Sayoc also had a criminal record, with arrests for bomb threats, grand theft, battery, fraud, drug possession and probation violations.  His lawyer Ronald S. Lowy told CNN Sayoc "didn't fit it" and he questioned Sayoc's ability to execute a scheme of explosive devices.

Why are fake bombs sent to Democrats more shocking than real ricin packages to Republicans?  [Scroll down]  The other difference between this spate of packages and the attack on Trump, Cruz, Mattis, and Richardson it that the ricin attack was real and it was potentially deadly.  The letters really contained ricin.  Whereas, the packages sent to Democrat grandees including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, George Soros, Maxine Waters, and Joe Biden were apparently inert and were made just to look dangerous according to recent reporting.  Since none of the packages detonated, and possibly were not able to detonate, Occam's Razor demands that we confront the most likely choices:  Either the sender intended harm but was grossly incompetent or the sender never intended harm and meant the packages to be a form of agitprop.  The notes that accompanied the packages read like parodies of how committed progressives think Republicans speak.

The Media climbs out on a limb.  [Scroll down]  Thirteen days before a contentious election and suddenly a bunch of pipe bombs turn up and the targets are all Democrats?  Come on.  I wasn't born yesterday.  And I didn't just fall off a turnip truck from Guatemala.  The "Democrats are the party of the Mob" talking point is clearly having a negative effect on their much anticipated Blue Wave.  And what better way to shift that talking point away from the Democrats than the conveniently-timed Pipe-Bomb-ageddon?  Plus, it just doesn't make sense.  Why would a Trump supporter try and blow up Maxine Waters?  She is a gift to our side.  Come to think of it, so are Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

If democrats campaign on the bombs, you'll know who was behind it.  It's just too convenient.  Politico published a target list.  It includes the Clinton's, the Obama's, John Brennan and CNN, Eric Holder, Wasserman-Schultz, Joe Biden, Maxine Waters and Robert DeNiro.  All these targets and not a single device exploded.  The devices were apparently not meant to detonate.  They were sent to a very specific list of people who have been critical of Trump.  They were sent to people who don't open their own mail.

Feds widen search for others who may have helped the South Florida mail-bomb suspect.  [Scroll down]  Despite allegedly committing practically the entire mail-bombing campaign from South Florida, Sayoc will be whisked away to New York after appearing in federal court in Miami for a removal hearing on Monday.  He will be prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York, based on evidence that at least five of the 14 packages were sent to that area, including CNN's offices in Manhattan.  Many criminal and legal experts in South Florida called the New York U.S. Attorney Office's takeover of the case a classic "power grab" of a national case that really belongs in South Florida.  One former federal prosecutor said Miami's new U.S. attorney, Ariana Fajardo Orshan, got a "dose of the SDNY."

Wondered Why All Those Trump Stickers On Fake "MAGA" Bomber's Van Were So Pristine? - Here's Why.  [Scroll down]  Maybe Cesar Altieri Sayoc is just that stupid.  Maybe he's crazy.  Maybe he's a patsy.  Or just maybe, Mr. Alleged Hoax Bomber wanted to get caught looking like the world's most syrupy Trump fan boy, knowing that his Trump-mobile MAGA bomb delivery vehicle would instantly become the most vividly captured image in the political universe just days before the most important midterm election in American history.  After all, a picture is worth a thousand words.  Or, in this case, maybe a million votes or more.

MAGAbomber Suspect:  A Case of Homosexual Panic?  [Scroll down]  At some point over the past year, the Klan and lynching tableau on Sayoc's van gave way to more explicitly pro-Trump and anti-Democrat bumper stickers.  Every available inch of his van's exterior was spackled with violent imagery featuring rifle crosshairs placed over the faces of people such as Barack Obama, Michael Moore, and Hillary Clinton.  Another sticker said "CNN ****s."  Yet another showed Trump standing atop a tank while a bomb was exploding in the background.  All of this makes him seem like either a demented Trump supporter or a mindless patsy for anti-Trump forces.  One thing is for certain — the story completely deflected attention away from the ominous brown human caravan headed to the USA from points south, a story that was working in Trump's favor.  Yet what seems to have completely escaped notice is how intensely squirrely this alleged Hate Bomber is.

Everything Is Trump's Fault Is Fake News At Its Worst.  [Scroll down]  Next, came the bizarre non-bomb terrorism-by-mail campaign against prominent Democrats, anti-Trump mouthpieces and Far-Left liberal donors.  The fall guy in this is one Cesar Sayoc, a "crazed" former pizza deliveryman, body builder, DJ and casino employee who fancied himself as a defender of the "unconquered" Seminole Indian tribe and allegedly lived out of his vehicle for over a decade.  Sayoc's mother, Madeline Giardiello has been active in Democratic politics and was an officer on her condominium board in Aventura for many years according to reporting by the Washington Post.  USA Today reported that online records show that Sayoc has a string of arrest records that date back to 1991 for alleged theft and drug offenses, along with traffic infractions.

What a small world!
Bomb Suspect Cesar Sayoc And Stormy Daniels Worked at the Same Strip Club.  In a really strange turn of events, it has been discovered that bombing suspect Cesar Sayoc worked at Ultra Gentleman's Club in West Palm Beach, FL, the same strip club that Stormy Daniels performed at back in April, WPTV reported.  Sayoc worked as a DJ at the club on Thursday afternoon and was arrested on Friday [10/26/2018].  According to the club's manager, Stacey Saccal, Sayoc had worked as a DJ for the past two months.  She had received no complaints about him from other staff members and he seemed like a "nice guy."

Democrats [are] Using Every Evil Play in the Book to Silence Americans.  A crazy man sent package bombs to prominent Democrats.  Fake news media and the demonic Democratic Party viewed the mentally ill man's actions as a gift from the gods of liberalism.  They immediately flooded the airwaves with their absurd narrative that Trump was responsible for the package bomber's behavior because he told the truth about CNN and their fellow fake news liars.  Fake news media and Democrats outrageously said Americans who cheer and applaud Trump at his rallies are also responsible for the package bombs.

Update:
'MAGA bomber': I didn't know pipe bombs could hurt anyone.  A Florida man who last week pleaded guilty to sending pipe bombs to prominent Democratic politicians and other targets says in a new court filing that he didn't know the devices could actually hurt anyone.  In a hand-written letter to the Manhattan federal judge presiding over his case, "MAGA bomber" Cesar Sayoc, 65, acknowledged that he pleaded guilty to 65 counts — which included charges of using weapons of mass destruction — at his March 21 hearing.  But he said that when he was asked if he knew whether the devices could harm anyone, his lawyer told him to say, "Yes."

The Editor says...
I find it difficult to believe that a phony pipe bomb, or even a real pipe bomb that's only a few inches long, could be considered a "weapon of mass destruction."  The FBI never did describe the construction of the bombs in any detail.  Maybe it was just a bunch of plastic pipes full of Plumber's Putty.  I also find it hard to believe that a gay, Fillipino, ex-convict, who is a registered Democrat, can be accurately described as a "MAGA bomber."  Moreover, I find it hard to believe that this whole incident was not an elaborate and carefully-timed hoax that was staged, choreographed, and orchestrated by the Democratic Party.

Red Wave Rising:  Over 12,000 Voters Change Party Affiliation in Wyoming — 90% to Republican.  As we reported on Thursday early ballots show a huge increase in voting in favor of Republicans.  It looks like our prediction is holding up!  On June 23, 2018, we reported that the 2018 Mid-terms would be a referendum on government corruption and because of this President Trump and the Republicans would win big.  This was before Democrats made up trumped up charges against a good man — Supreme Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

US Marines reveal plans for plasma crowd control weapon that can shout at people from 3,000 feet away - then be 'turned up' to temporarily blind and even burn them.  The US Marines are developing a new laser weapon that can transmit voice messages at long range, or be turned up to deafen, dazzle or even kill.  The Scalable Compact Ultra-short Pulse Laser System (SCUPLS) will be mounted on a truck or tank.  It will initially be used as a non-lethal weapon for crowd control, according to US Government documents.

The Editor says...
Hmmm... How do they know this weapon can kill people?

President Trump Can't Find Venue Big Enough for Houston Rally with Senator Ted Cruz — 77,800 People Already Signed Up!  President Trump is unable to find a location where he can hold all his followers that want to see him and Senator Ted Cruz in Houston, Texas.  The Texas Tribune reported that the original site that President Trump set up for the rally in Houston is too small so they found a bigger venue [...]

Former Minnesota FBI Agent Sentenced to 4 Years in Prison for Leaking Documents.  Terry James Albury, a former FBI agent in Minnesota, was sentenced to four years in prison with an additional three years of supervised release on Thursday [10/18/2018] in U.S. District Court.  Albury admitted that he leaked documents to a reporter from The Intercept, an online news publication.  He worked as an FBI Special Agent at the field office in Minneapolis at the time of the disclosure in 2016-2017.  He was also working as a liaison with the Department of Customs and Border Protection at MSP International Airport during that same time period.

Democrats start to regret piling money on Beto O'Rourke.  Is bulging war chest going to waste?  Despite touting socialist-like policies, Texas Democrat congressional nominee Rep. Beto O'Rourke seems to prefer not sharing his wealth, much to the chagrin of other nominees across the nation. [...] The problem is that the polls continue to show O'Rourke trailing leagues behind Sen. Ted Cruz, whom he seeks to unseat.  The chances of him eking out a victory appear so low that some argue he should redistribute some of the $38 million he's raised in the last three months to other nominees in need.

Trump: I sent weapons to Ukraine, Obama 'sent pillows and blankets'.  President Trump claims his administration has been tougher on Russia than his predecessor's, arguing that former President Obama allowed Russia to annex Ukraine and only offered them "pillows and blankets."  "I'm the one that gave Ukraine offensive weapons and tank killers.  Obama didn't.  You know what he sent?  He sent pillows and blankets.  I'm the one — and he's the one that gave away a part of Ukraine where Russia," Trump said in a "60 Minutes" interview that aired dSunday [sic] evening [10/14/2018] on CBS.

Heitkamp campaign identifies sexual-assault victims in ad without permission.  Sen. Heidi Heitkamp is trying to recover from her vote against President Trump's Supreme Court nominee by standing up for victims of sexual assault, but the North Dakota Democrat's efforts backfired Tuesday [10/16/2018] when she had to apologize for identifying victims without their permission in a recent campaign ad.  Some of the women her ad identified say they weren't even victims of domestic violence or sexual assault.  Others say they don't support her campaign.  Ms. Heitkamp admitted the bungle in a statement Tuesday, blaming victim advocates for feeding her wrong information.

California Christian school brings back gay relationship ban, students protest.  Azusa Pacific University made changes to the school's policy without the approval of the Board of Trustees, seemingly suggesting that students could engage in same-sex relationships.  Pro-LGBTQ students protested after the school's board of trustees clarified that these relationships would, in fact, not be permitted on campus.

What a dope!
Stephen Hawking said 'there is no god' and that humans will 'live in space' in final book.  The late Professor Stephen Hawking revealed his answers to the 10 "big questions" he was often asked in a new book published six months after his death.  In "Brief Answers to the Big Questions," the British scientific hero admitted he thought "there is no god" and that humans would eventually live in space.  Professor Hawking passed away in March this year after a lifelong battle with Motor Neurone Disease.

The Fall of the Gay Mafia's Don.  Some of Donald Wuerl's priests called him the "Tin Man," a reference to his cold, heartless style as the archbishop of Washington, D.C., a position from which he has now formally resigned, though outrageously Pope Francis is permitting him to continue as an "apostolic administrator" until his successor arrives.  It is hilarious that Wuerl became arguably the most powerful American cardinal in the "pastoral church of Pope Francis," given that Wuerl is the least pastoral prelate imaginable.  He instinctively avoided encounters with his flock and priests, unless they served some immediate interest or enjoyed riches and power.  "He is a robot," said one of his priests.  "All he cared about was money and living as comfortably as possible and whatever else he got up to."

Cardinal Wuerl Is Out... Or Is He?  Embattled Cardinal Wuerl is finally out after Pope Francis accepted his resignation.  Wuerl was named in the Pennsylvania grand jury report accusing him of being responsible for shuffling known predator priests around.  In one egregious case, he allegedly paid off a priest who was involved in a child porn ring.  It is disturbing to many Catholics that Wuerl is being allowed to retire with all his benefits after so terrible a cover-up, but at one point it was debatable whether he would even resign.

Joe Biden's Endless Rumination About Running for President.  In Democratic circles, the common nickname for Biden is "Uncle Joe."  But it cuts two ways.  On the one hand, it connotes the kind of familiarity and affection that comes with his longtime presence in the capital, and his tenure as the loyal sidekick to a president who's still popular with the party base.  Grassroots Democrats say he's their top choice for 2020, as evidenced this year in a series of polls.  But a sizable share of Democrats believe there comes a time when even a beloved uncle should be put out to pasture.

CNN Poll:  Biden Leads Field of 2020 Democratic Hopefuls.  Former Vice President Joe Biden is leading the field of prospective 2020 Democratic candidates, according to a recent poll from CNN.  The CNN/SSRS poll, which surveyed 1,009 adults between October 4 and 7, found that one-third — or 33 percent — of Democrats and independents who leaned Democratic thought Biden would be the most likely to take on President Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

Another Shoe Drops In The Catholic Church Abuse Scandal.  Pope Francis accepted the resignation of the Archbishop of Washington, D.C this week, but his letter reveals that he still has a blind spot when it comes to the Catholic abuse scandal.

The Catholic Church's Biggest Crisis Since the Reformation.  The Catholic Church is facing its most serious crisis in 500 years.  In these last few months, a new wave of clerical sexual abuse revelations left the world in shock.  From Australia to Chile to Germany to the United States, horrifying reports revealed thousands of cases of child molestation by members of the clergy.  One U.S. grand jury report documented 1,000 children abused by 300 priests in the state of Pennsylvania alone over seven decades.

Chinese Communist Propaganda Group Paying for Vox Posts.  Explanatory media website Vox has been receiving money from a Chinese communist government-backed front organization.  A recent Vox blog post by foreign editor Yochi Dreazen titled, "The big winner of the Trump-Kim summit?  China" discloses at the bottom of the piece that the reporting was subsidized by the China-United States Exchange Foundation.

Mormon no more:  Tabernacle Choir renamed in big church shift.  The choir was renamed Friday [10/5/2018] to strip out the word Mormon in a move aimed at ending shorthand names for the religion that have been used for generations by church members and others.

Judicial Watch Uncovers Soros Open Society Foundation/Obama State Department Collusion.  The latest Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit has enabled the release of documents showing U.S. Embassy officials in Albania shown working directly with Soros operatives to channel grant money into left-wing operations that attack traditional, pro-American groups, governments and policies in name of 'civil society.'

Always Believe Women?  Boy's Life Destroyed by Girls' False Allegations.  The accusations plaguing Brett Kavanaugh have captivated the nation.  Yet they're not as damning as two relatively recent allegations of sexual assault made against a Pennsylvania teen — allegations that were backed by corroborating witnesses.  Until a few of the female accusers admitted they'd lied simply because they didn't like the boy.  Unfortunately, this admission came only after they'd ruined his life.  Now the teen's parents, Michael J. and Alecia Flood of Zelienople, Butler County, have filed a federal lawsuit seeking "unspecified civil damages against the girls' parents, the school district and Butler County District Attorney Richard Goldinger's office.

Thirteen states now investigating alleged sexual abuse linked to Catholic church.  Florida's attorney general said Thursday [10/4/2018] she is launching an investigation of potential sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic church, making Florida at least the 13th state with an ongoing statewide probe of the church.  "Any priest that would exploit a position of power and trust to abuse a child is a disgrace to the church and a threat to society," said Attorney General Pam Bondi in a statement.  The Attorney General's Office will coordinate its probe with local prosecutors and review records from all seven of Florida's Catholic dioceses.  It is also launching a tip line for victims.

Rock used as doorstop is actually a meteorite worth $100K.  A Michigan man curious about a rock he'd used for decades as a doorstop now knows its secret:  it's a meteorite worth $100,000.

Study: 91 Percent of Apple Contributions Went to Democrats.  According to a new GovPredict study released Thursday [10/4/2018], Apple employees heavily favored Democrats in their contributions for local, state, and federal elections.  In all, 91 percent of their political giving went to Democrats, with only 9 percent going to Republicans between 2004 and 2018.  Since 2004, 95.5 percent of contributions by Apple employees to local political action committees (PACs) went to Democrats and only 4.5 percent went to Republicans.

Philly's Illegal Tacos restaurant gets stuffed — and not with cheese and lettuce.  Let's just say it wasn't a great night for Illegal Tacos, the restaurant on South Broad Street.  It started when about 35 demonstrators showed up around dinnertime Tuesday, parked themselves at the front door, and loudly decried what they saw as the racism of the eatery's name.  It got worse when the protesters brought in a local taco truck and parked it outside the restaurant.

NSA staffer who took top secret files home so he could do extra work and get promoted is jailed for five years 'after they were stolen by Russians'.  A former NSA employee who took secret files home with him in an effort to get promoted has been jailed after they were allegedly stolen by Russian spies.  Nghia Hoang Pho, 68, from Maryland, was sentenced to five and a half years Tuesday [9/25/2018] after earlier pleading guilty to willful retention of national defense information.  Pho was working as a software developer for the NSA's Tailored Access Operations branch, which hacks into foreign computer networks, at Fort Meade when he began taking the files home in 2010.

School bus driver fired for letting kids take the wheel.  A school bus driver in Indiana was fired after a shocking video emerged showing her let students get behind the wheel, according to reports.  Joandrea McAtee, 27, faces charges for allowing kids as young as 11 years old drive the bus as they dropped off students Thursday from a Porter Township school, according to the Chicago Tribune.  The Porter County Sheriff's Department said at least three students got a turn driving short distances in Lake Eliza.

Senate about to pass 'opioid' laws that are built on lies.  Today [9/17/2018], the Senate will vote on H.R. 6, a package of dozens of bills designed to treat the opioid crisis, which is misdiagnosed and misidentified from head to toe.  But they have a lot of solutions!  The bill provides grants for the endless "evidenced-based" treatment programs for addiction groups that live rent-free in government.  It also hands the pharmaceutical companies more money to work on research and development for non-addictive painkillers.  Yup, after pushing the medical industry into treating pain, then pushing them out of it, now they will get it just right with their social engineering.  The bill increases the scope of Medicaid coverage for addiction treatment.  It also gives the DEA a more flexible mandate to set targets for manufacturing of painkillers and shutting down the supply.

Hurricane Florence leaves behind millions of hungry mosquitoes.  Storm-battered North Carolinians are facing a new plague — millions of hungry mosquitoes, with some invading buggers three times the size of more common species.  Mosquitoes lay their eggs in standing water — of which there is now plenty in the Tar Heel State — thanks to flooding caused by Hurricane Florence, which dumped more than 30 inches of rain on the region.  "It's like "a bad science fiction movie," Robert Phillips told the Fayetteville Observer.  "They were inundating me, and one landed on me.  It was like a small blackbird.  I told my wife, 'Gosh, look at the size of this thing.'  I told her that I guess I'm going to have to use a shotgun on these things if they get any bigger."

The Editor says...
Bring back DDT.

Utah toddler put $1,000 through shredder, parents say.  A Utah toddler's parents are in disbelief after they discovered their 2-year-old son sent more than $1,000 through a shredder.  Leo Belnap's parents, Ben and Jackee, tore through their home over the weekend, desperate to find the $1,060 they had saved to pay back Ben's parents.  The couple had borrowed the money to purchase season tickets to the University of Utah's football games, KSL-TV reported.

The Editor says...
Pardon my constant skepticism, but this story has all the ingredients of a hoax:  [#1] Why did the toddler have access to a thousand dollars in cash?  [#2] Wouldn't normal parents keep their toddler away from a paper shredder?  [#3] The parents saved the shredded money, which can probably be replaced by their bank.  [#4] Even if it cost them $1,000, this is a relatively small price to pay for 15 minutes of "viral" internet and TV fame.

The Most Dangerous Place to Bicycle in America.  Florida has by far the highest per-capita bicyclist death rate in the country.  The number of cyclists killed in motor-vehicle crashes nationwide hit 840 in 2016 — the most recent data available — according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.  That was the most since 1991 and a 35% jump from 2010.

Life in a Democrat-controlled dystopia:
East Village already a 'war zone' ahead of L train shutdown.  The L train shutdown is still seven months away, but East Villagers say they're already going through hell.  Non-stop construction spanning two blocks on East 14th Street near the First Avenue station is costing residents their sleep and sanity, while businesses are losing customers and cash.  "It's like living in the middle of a war zone," said Stuyvesant Town resident Scott Francis, 47.  "It's dirty, loud, terrible and disgusting."  Traffic is reduced to one lane, stores are blocked off by fences, parts of sidewalks are closed, several 70-year-old trees were cut down, and diesel generators, drills, compressors and bulldozers are running from 7 a.m. to almost midnight.

PetSmart under fire after investigation finds dozens of dogs across the US died after a grooming at the retailing giant.  PetSmart is under fire after an investigation found dozens of dogs have died after going to the nation's leading pet retailer for grooming.  A nine-month investigation by NJ Advanced Media discovered that since 2008, at least 47 dogs across 14 states in the US died shortly after going to PetSmart for a routine appointment.  Of those cases, 32 deaths occurred after 2015, the year that PetSmart was bought by BC Partners for $8.7 billion.

Dems Down:  Flores Clobbers Gallego, Poll Shows Cruz Up by Nine.  In Texas, September 18 may be remembered as the day the Democratic Party's plans of for a 'blue wave' in the November elections broke and rolled back out to sea, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.  Republican Pete Flores, a retired Texas Parks and Wildlife Department game warden, stunned former Congressman Pete Gallego to win the District 19 State Senate seat which was vacated by convicted felon Carlos Uresti.  A Republican has never won in the 19th District dating back to the creation of the district, which runs from Southeast San Antonio all the way to the Big Bend.

Chairman Devin Nunes Discusses The Use of Legislative Branch Rules To Combat DOJ/FBI Corruption.  A few days ago, September 13th, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes was given the Keeper of the Flame Award in Washington DC.  Within his acceptance speech Chairman Nunes discusses the significance of this time in U.S. history.  In the days and months following Watergate, the HPSCI was given specific rules within their legislative branch oversight, which actually became the most significant tools — utilized for the first time — to uncover intelligence abuses by the former administration.  Additionally, Chairman Nunes expands on the "next steps."

No bad reviews?  Amazon employees might have deleted them for bribes.  Some Amazon employees have reportedly been bribed by sellers to remove bad reviews of products sold through the online retail giant.  The average bribe is around $300 per review, with most of the demand coming from China.  The retail giant has launched an internal investigation into the shady practice, with a probe ongoing since May, when Eric Broussard, Amazon's vice president, was reportedly notified of the problem, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday [9/16/2018].  The transactions were facilitated by middlemen who used the messaging service WeChat in China.  Citing people familiar with the scheme, the WSJ reported that it costs around $300 to delete one review.  However, brokers prefer to trade wholesale, with the minimum number of reviews for removal standing at five.

The European Union Would Love to Control Your Internet Use.  Imagine an internet in which users can't freely blog, parody, share material, or remix content — an online experience in which linking, code-sharing, and the unfettered use of art and images would be nearly impossible due to legal limitations.  Unfortunately, this scenario — a restrictive internet culture — may soon be a reality in the European Union with the recent passage of the European Unions Copyright Directive.  This new E.U. decree, which includes provisions for filtering and surveillance, could have a chilling effect on internet creativity and innovation, potentially increase censorship, and impose new market barriers for businesses worldwide.  The new regulations were originally proposed two years ago as part of the E.U.'s Digital Single Market policy that applies to 28 E.U. member-states and the four non-E.U. states of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland.  Essentially, it could have a global impact on non-E.U. countries across the world similar to the effect of the E.U.'s 2016 E.U.-wide data protection rules created under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

State Signs Off on Alamo Plan, but Controversy Builds.  The long range, $300 million plan to 'reimagine the Alamo' is one step closer to becoming a reality today, as Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush, whose office owns the Alamo, has signed off on the agreement approved by a citizens review committee, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.  The last signature needed to put the plan in motion is that of Mayor Nirenberg, and Bush is clearly hoping to prod the mayor into signing, releasing a photograph of the agreement with a 'sign here' sticker over the place where the mayor signs his name.

The mystery of a Russian satellite attacking others.  Russia has launched a military satellite that, according to U.S. officials, is behaving strangely.  And they say concerns are mounting that it is a test for some kind of military weapon, perhaps designed to cripple or silence an adversary's satellites.  An arms race in space makes perfect sense for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who recently boasted about new missile and submarine technology.

New Mexico observatory's sudden closure sparks wild speculation.  The temporary closure of a New Mexico observatory last week sparked wide-ranging theories, especially after reports that federal authorities were involved.  The Sunspot Solar Observatory, located near the Sacramento Mountains, closed over an unspecified security issue, the facility said in a statement posted to Facebook on Sunday [9/9/2018].

New Mexico:  The Sunspot Solar Observatory Unexpectedly Closed Due To "Security Issue".  The Sunspot Solar Observatory in New Mexico was rapidly closed down and evacuated last Thursday [9/13/2018] with no explanation why.  Locals report that the FBI is involved, though the Bureau has neither confirmed or denied their presences at the facility.  The official statement from The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) is there was "a security issue" so they "decided to temporarily vacate the facility as a precautionary measure."

A solar observatory in New Mexico is evacuated for a week and the FBI is investigating.  No one will say why.  At a small solar observatory tucked away in the woods of a national forest here, scientists and other personnel were commanded last week to leave at once.  A week later, the facility remains vacant, and no one is willing to say why.  The mysterious and lengthy evacuation, in a state known for secretive military testing and a suspected UFO crash, has spawned a wealth of speculation.

Update:
New Mexico observatory shut down amid FBI child porn investigation: documents.  Investigators determined the observatory's janitor had used his laptop to connect to the facility's wireless internet system, an FBI affidavit said.  Federal authorities obtained a warrant to the search the suspect's residence, Reuters reported, citing FBI records.  On Sept. 14, FBI agents removed three cell phones, five laptops, one iPad, an external hard drive, and other electronic devices, from the suspect's home, FBI records showed.  An FBI spokesman said the case is still under investigation.  According to the FBI, the suspect has not been arrested or charged.

3,677 sex abuse cases in German Catholic Church.  A report on sexual abuse inside the Catholic Church in Germany says 3,677 people were abused by clergy between 1946 and 2014, two leading German media outlets said Wednesday [9/12/2018].

Andrew Cuomo has no credibility left.  Gov. Andrew Cuomo's credibility stands in shreds just hours before Thursday's [9/13/2018] primary, as fresh evidence puts his fingerprints all over what he insists are just a series of remarkable coincidences.  As The [New York] Post's Anna Sanders and Bruce Golding report, a top Cuomo campaign official emailed this paper trying to plant a news story that mirrored the same points contained in that dirty-trick mailer accusing opponent Cynthia Nixon of being "silent on anti-Semitism."  That would be the very same mailer the notoriously hands-on governor insisted he knew nothing about and hadn't even seen, even though it was sent by the Democratic State Committee — which he funds and controls.

Airbnb renter trashes luxury San Francisco home, leaving piles of trash, feces, needles.  A man who rented a luxury home in San Francisco through Airbnb trashed it, KTVU has learned, leaving used needles and human waste throughout the $5-million home.  The owner of the home does not want to reveal any identifying details about where this house is located, other than that it is in one of The City's most desirable neighborhoods.  On Friday [9/7/2018], KTVU got an exclusive look inside the home and spoke with the property manager, Egan Lim, who was dressed in a hazmat suit and supervised cleaning up the mess.

'People are on edge': Inside the palpable tension throughout Miss America.  Despite the sweltering temperatures last week in Atlantic City, there was a discernible chill in the air as Miss America contestants, volunteers and executives arrived for the annual pageant.  The recently revamped event, which airs Sunday on ABC, kicked off at Boardwalk Hall Wednesday night with the first phase of preliminary competition.  "The energy was very odd in the auditorium, for sure," said one former board member who asked not to be identified, citing for professional reasons.

Why Is Obama's Secret Service Head Working for Cardinal Wuerl?  I googled Obama's Mark Sullivan and compared him to the man with whom I spoke.  Yep, they were one and the same.  I nearly dropped my phone as a chill went up my spine and the dawning realization hit:  Obama's Secret Service honcho had become Cardinal Wuerl's.  What made the discovery even more alarming was the subsequent harassment I received from security goons clearly working for Cardinal Wuerl, with whom I have had multiple encounters in August and September.  Are all these goons working for Sullivan and the private security firm GSIS, of which he is a principal and co-founder?  It looks like a real possibility.

Pluto never should have been downgraded from a planet, scientists say in new study.  Make Pluto a planet again.  According to a new study published in the scientific journal Icarus, Pluto never should have been downgraded more than a decade ago.  Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006 by the International Astronomical Union, which ruled a planet a "celestial body that is in orbit around the Sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit."  That last qualification is where Pluto was tripped up; the IAU said the planet was too small to control its own orbit, as its gravity is influenced by Neptune's.

The Editor says...
No planet controls its own orbit.

British Navy Confronts Argentina ship in military face off over Falklands.  The Royal Navy unleashed a patrol ship against an Argentinian vessel in the Falkland Islands, after the South American ship was caught "snooping for oil" in UK territorial waters.

The ABA Just Gave Brett Kavanaugh Its Highest Possible Rating.  The American Bar Association's (ABA) standing committee on the judiciary released its evaluation of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh Friday, awarding him a unanimous "well-qualified" rating.  The ABA panel issues its evaluation based on a variety of measures including integrity, professional competence and judicial temperament.  "The committee's objective is to provide impartial peer evaluations of the professional qualifications of judicial nominees in order to assist the Senate Judiciary Committee in assessing whether such individuals should be confirmed by the Senate," an ABA memo detailing the process reads.

California approves measure to pass on wildfire costs.  The California Legislature voted Friday [8/31/2018] to allow power companies to raise electric bills to cover the cost of lawsuits from last year's deadly wildfires amid fears that Pacific Gas & Electric Co., would otherwise face financial ruin.

US soldier pleads guilty to supplying terrorist group with secret military information.  A soldier who was filmed by the FBI kissing the ISIS flag has pleaded guilty to supporting the jihadist group.  Ikaika Erik Kang, a 35-year-old sergeant first class in the US Army, admitted to four counts of attempting to provide material support to ISIS.  Kang, who is based in Hawaii, provided secret military information, a drone meant to track US troops and other support to undercover agents he believed were members of the terrorist organization.

Borders won't be able to contain Venezuela's disaster.  For years, the world watched corrupt socialists turn Latin America's richest nation, Venezuela, into one of its poorest.  Now, as the country's economy nears total collapse, it's time to ask what can be done to contain the fallout and help its residents.  Start with its refugees:  In a nation whose 2016 population was 31 million, 1.8 million have fled the country over the past two years.  This year, it's 5,000 a day — with the United Nations projecting another 2 million gone by year's end.  Venezuela's neighbors bear the brunt of this refugee flood.  But more than 28,000 Venezuelans sought asylum in the United States last year, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services notes.  That's up 88 percent from 2016, and 1,300 percent since 2014.  There are now three times as many asylum-seekers here from Venezuela as from any other nation.

Former CIA Officer Charged With Spying For China.  An ex-CIA officer arrested in January at New York's John F. Kennedy airport has been charged with conspiracy to commit espionage on behalf of China years after FBI agents turned up notebooks containing classified information in a search of his hotel room.  Jerry Chun Shing Lee, 53, a naturalized U.S. citizen, had a top-secret clearance and worked as a field agent for the Central Intelligence Agency from 1994 until 2007.  He was living in Hong Kong at the time of his arrest, and had apparently been the target of an FBI investigation since 2012, when agents searching a Honolulu hotel room discovered handwritten notes on "asset meeting, operational meeting locations, operational phone numbers, true names of assets, and covert facilities" pertaining to China, according to a court affidavit.

Transvestites monkeying up US Navy.  The Navy Times had a propaganda article yesterday [8/30/2018] featuring a sailor who likes to get dressed up as a woman and "perform" for the troops.  Why is this newsworthy?  It's all part of the liberal propaganda effort to increase acceptance of the so-called "transgendered."  This is sick brainwashing of the worst kind.

The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged Edition, Page 1507.
The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged Edition, Page 1507.

Box Office:  Summer Movie Attendance Second Worst in 25 years.  Movie attendance for the summer of 2018 at the box office is the second worst in 25 years, reports the Hollywood Reporter.  For months now all we have been hearing about the box office is what a great season it has been, a record season, a comeback that proved all the doomsayers wrong who said America is falling out of love with going to the movies.  To a point, that remains true, but only if you look at the cold, hard numbers.  As far as money, the summer of 2018 is a record breaker, up +14 percent over 2017's brutal summer, and the fifth best on record.

B-1 Crew Makes 'Emergency Landing' Request in Newly Released Audio.  "Is that an actual emergency?" an air traffic controller at Midland Airport, Texas, asks an Air Force B-1B Lancer crew experiencing an engine fire.  After someone interjects a quick "Yes," the voice replies, "Actual emergency.  Alright, Bravo go."  The conversation is part of a recently released audio clip between the control tower and a Dyess Air Force Base-based bomber that had to make an emergency landing in May after an ejection seat didn't work following an engine fire.  The audio was obtained and published by Military Times.

Pope silent on claim he ignored abuse.  Pope Francis has declined to comment [8/26/2018] on a growing scandal after a former Vatican official claimed the pontiff ignored sexual abuse allegations against a senior clergyman and called on him to resign.

The Catholic abuse scandal now leads all the to way the Vatican.  An ecclesial straight shooter.  A reliable character.  A serious man.  That's how sources familiar with Carlo Maria Viganò describe the Italian archbishop, who served as the Vatican ambassador to the United States from 2011 to 2016.  His reputation makes the publication Saturday of Viganò's written "testimony" about the Theodore McCarrick affair all the more inconvenient for those in the Catholic hierarchy who tried to bury the truth about the disgraced American prelate.  The core claim in the 11-page document is that a high-powered circle of silence for years abetted McCarrick's career, despite his well-known penchant for sexual abuse.  The circle of silence, Viganò says, included the current successor of Saint Peter.  In a cryptic statement to reporters on Sunday, Pope Francis refused to confirm or deny the allegations, instead urging them to "read the document carefully and judge it for yourselves."

Journalist Who Exposed CIA Cocaine Trafficking, Would Be 63 Today, But He 'Shot Himself' TWICE.  On August 22nd, 1996 the San Jose Mercury News shocked the country with a series of articles entitled 'The Dark Alliance' detailing the CIA's connection to the crack epidemic that terrorized the nation in the 1980's and destroyed countless lives in its wake.  After the article's publication, the story's author, award winning journalist Gary Webb, was initially hailed as a hero, before a massive smear campaign attacked his credibility and destroyed his career.

DNC passes historic reforms stripping superdelegates of power.  Two years after the gruesome presidential primary of 2016 left Democrats bitterly divided, the Democratic National Committee adopted major reforms Saturday [8/25/2018] to reduce the outsized influence of unpledged delegates, known as superdelegates.  In a majority vote, the DNC passed a measure to block superdelegates — elected officials and party leaders — from casting a vote for any presidential candidate unless a second ballot is required at the 2020 national convention, stripping them of power.

The Editor says...
The Washington Examiner exaggerates somewhat:  The super-delegates have the same power they've always had, except on the first vote (at the party convention) for the presidential nominee.

The Left's New Offensive In Their Economic War On Conservative Speech.  The evidence is clear the left is ramping up its war on conservative free speech.  We've already the social media platforms' censorship of Alex Jones, or NY Governor Cuomo's attempts to get banks and insurance companies to stop working with the NRA, or even YouTube's removal of Dennis Prager's "Prager U" videos.  Visa and Mastercard have blocked service to the David Horowitz Freedom Center because the far left hate group, The Southern Policy Law Center (SPLC) pressured them into believing that the Horowitz Center is a hate group.

Chinese Communist Party Funds Washington Think Tanks.  China's Communist Party is intensifying covert influence operations in the United States that include funding Washington think tanks and coercing Chinese Americans, according to a congressional commission report.  The influence operations are conducted by the United Front Work Department, a Central Committee organ that employs tens of thousands of operatives who seek to use both overt and covert operations to promote Communist Party policies.  The Party's United Front strategy includes paying several Washington think tanks with the goal influencing their actions and adopting positions that support Beijing's policies.

Loyal Democratic donors:  We're done with the DNC 'until they get their act together'.  The Democratic National Committee — the party's signature organization — has posted its worst midterm fund raising totals in more than a decade.  The DNC has so far taken in $116 million before the November midterm elections, $9 million less than it had taken in at this point in 2014 and more than $30 million less than it had taken in at this point in 2010, the last two midterm cycles.  By contrast, the Republican National Committee has nearly doubled the DNC's haul this cycle, bringing in a total of $227 million.  And of the six major federal committees of both parties, the DNC has by far the most debt ($6.7 million) and the least amount in its bank account ($7.8 million).

Michael Jackson 'may not have' sung lead vocals on posthumous tracks.  When an album of previously-unreleased songs from their hero Michael Jackson was released a year after his death it seemed, some astute fans feared, too good to be true.  Today [8/24/2018], it appeared those suspicions may not necessarily have been unfounded, as a record label was caught up in an extraordinary dispute over whether three songs were really performed by the late singer himself.  A court case, revolving around the release of posthumous album in 2010, saw a fan of the singer take on Sony Music Entertainment, alleging songs on the record were not sung by the late artist.

Republican declared winner of Ohio special congressional election.  Republican congressional candidate Troy Balderson on Friday was declared the winner of a hotly contested Ohio special election that served as a final test of his party's ability to hold off an anticipated surge of Democratic voters in the November elections.  After two weeks of counting additional ballots in a district that has historically provided easy victories to Republicans, Balderson was declared by Franklin County officials as the winner over Democrat Danny O'Connor, who said on Friday [8/24/2018] he called to concede to Balderson.

Police union offers $500 reward for people who take down suspects.  A police union wants to turn random bystanders into vigilantes-for-hire — by offering $500 to any civilian who helps cops wrestle down suspects who are resisting arrest.  The cash proposal from the Sergeants Benevolent Association is aimed at getting those who normally would make videos of cops taking people into custody to put down their phones and actually get involved.  "When you see an officer struggling, rather than take your cellphone out, assist the officer and you'll receive an award of $500," SBA president Ed Mullins told The [New York] Post.  "Far too often, we see police officers engaged in violent struggles with perpetrators while members of the public stand by and take videos of the incident.  This has got to stop, and hopefully this program will incentivize good Samaritans to do the right thing."

The Editor says...
Yes, the police have to "incentivize [bystanders] to do the right thing" because kids these days won't do the right thing without the likelihood of reimbursement.

'Stop Filming and Help Me!': Officer Begs Security Guard to Help Him Subdue Suspect.  A police officer begged a female security guard to put down her cell phone and help him subdue a robbery suspect in Houston.  Bystanders began filming the confrontation between the officer and 17-year-old Davon Shavelle Miller, who was pulled over and ran from the officer, a local news station reported.  "He's trying to kill me!" the suspect yelled, while the officer yelled that Miller was trying to grab his service weapon.

University Bans Snowball Fights.  Any "snowflakes" at Delaware State University among the student body will be pleased to hear that the university is protecting them — by banning snowball fights.  As Maria Lencki of The College Fix reports, "The school's Division of Student Affairs Student Judicial Handbook, lists 'the throwing of snowballs on University grounds' under the 'personal violations' category, alongside violations such as 'being in the bath/shower areas of the opposite sex' and 'making threats of violence or intimidation.'"

Scientists discover water ice on moon's surface.  Here's why that's big news.  For the first time, scientists have found what they say is definitive evidence of water ice on the surface of the moon.  The discovery suggests that future lunar expeditions might have a readily available source of water that would make it easier "to explore and even stay on the moon," officials at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement Tuesday about the discovery.  The ice was detected at the darkest, coldest regions of the moon's north and south poles.  It exists in sparse patches in the north and is concentrated in permanently shadowed craters in the south, where temperatures never climb above minus 250 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Editor says...
Ri-i-i-i-ight.  Thirsty?  Too bad we didn't bring enough water on this trip to the moon.  Well... just climb a few thousand feet down into this crater, and you'll find water.  Oh, but it's about 250 degrees below zero.  Is that a problem?  Tell me again why we need to have people on the moon.

Miss Denver resigns her crown in solidarity with Miss America who insists former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson 'abused and silenced' her.  The winner of the 2018 Miss Denver beauty pageant publicly renounced her crown on Friday [8/24/2018].  In a message posted to her Instagram account, Kayla Kline said that she was stepping away from her position in solidarity with Miss America Cara Mund, who claimed earlier this year that she was abused by senior leadership of the Miss America Organization.

Sunken World War II British warships reportedly raided by pirates for scrap metal.  World War II-era shipwrecks containing the remains of hundreds of British sailors and civilians are now being plundered by pirates scrounging for scrap metal in Southeast Asia, prompting calls for a multinational investigation.  The wrecks of four ships that were sunk in the waters off Malaysia and Indonesia have recently been looted for scrap metal, The Mail on Sunday newspaper reported.  Several other British shipwrecks in the region have previously been looted, even though the United Nations International Salvaging Convention bans raiding sunken warships.

Clergy sex abuse has cost Catholic Church $3 billion in settlements.  Clergy sex abuse of children has rocked the Catholic Church not only in terms of trust and reputation, but also financially, to the tune of more than $3 billion, according to National Public Radio.  The multibillion-dollar expense has gone to settlements in response to lawsuits filed by people abused by clergy, reports NPR.  Nearly 20 Catholic dioceses and religious orders have filed for bankruptcy because of the scandals.

The Editor says...
If you are Catholic, ask yourself this question:  Where do you suppose that money comes from?

Canadian Government Moves To Block Freedom of Speech in Effort to Prop-up Justin.  Under the auspices of making moves to block election interference from outside interests the government of Justin from Canada is moving to block internet content critical of Trudeau and his policies.  Simultaneously and ironically, the same Canadian government is spending millions lobbying U.S. politicians in Washington DC to retain their one-sided NAFTA trade benefits.

Miami Herald endorses House candidate who claims aliens took her aboard a spaceship.  The Miami Herald is endorsing a congressional candidate who claims to have communicated with aliens throughout her life and says extraterrestrials once visited her.  The newspaper on Sunday [8/19/2018] endorsed Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera, who is running as a Republican for Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's (R-Fla.) seat in the Republican primary for Florida's 27th Congressional District.  The newspaper called her "a strong candidate in the race with plausible conservative ideas."  Rodriguez Aguilera said in a 2009 television interview that she boarded a spaceship occupied by aliens when she was 7.

Venezuela's Crack-Up Is Accelerating.  What happens when the country with the world's largest oil reserves becomes its latest failed state?  As Venezuela's government grows increasingly despotic, a crack-up is accelerating — and despite plenty of warning, the world remains unprepared for the consequences.  Recent headlines read like the plot of a Hollywood thriller:  According to President Nicolas Maduro, assassins trained in Colombia tried to kill him with explosive-laden drones as he was delivering a televised speech.  He has responded with a broad crackdown, including the jailing and alleged torture of one of his most vocal opponents.  Even as theories about the attack's origins multiplied in Caracas, a judge in Delaware ruled that a Canadian mining company could seize the assets of Citgo Petroleum Corp.'s parent firm, a key piece of the beleaguered Venezuelan state-owned oil company that funds the government.

3 million bolivars will buy one kilogram of carrots
Hyperinflation in Venezuela - in pictures.  Venezuela has devalued its currency by about 95 per cent ahead of the rollout of a new bolivar as part of a recovery plan that seeks to loosen the grip of hyperinflation on the country.  In recent weeks, goods have skyrocketed in price, leaving locals needing piles of cash to purchase household essentials.


Venezuela's detention of an opposition lawmaker is chilling.  The world must act.  Venezuelans have every reason to doubt the events surrounding the mysterious "assassination" attempt against President Nicolás Maduro in Caracas on Aug. 4.  The regime distorts reality every day, even refusing to recognize and address the economic and social collapse it has created.  But whether you believe the official version or not, there's no question that it has served as a heaven-sent excuse to further crack down on civil liberties and the opposition.

Brazilian border town residents drive out Venezuelan immigrants.  Angry residents of the Brazilian border town of Pacaraima ran riot and drove out Venezuelan immigrants on Saturday [8/18/2018] after a local restaurant owner was stabbed and beaten, residents and government officials said.

Joe DiGenova:  Process is underway declassifying documents.  Former US Attorney for DC Joseph DiGenova is one of the smartest, most energetic, and clearest-thinking lawyers on the conservative side.  He knows what he is talking about, and he doesn't mince words.  The video of him speaking for 12 minutes with Howie Carr on Carr's Newsmax TV show, embedded below, is must-watch material, and well worth the twelve minutes it will take.  The first thing that DiGenova does is bust wide open the Russia Collusion fantasy and re-frame the issue as a conspiracy against President Trump, a theory explaining the events of the past two years with far better evidence than the theory that President Trump is a pawn of Putin.  But then he gets into explaining what is underway beneath the surface:  the process of declassifying documents that implicate the cabal is underway, based on hints that DiGenova has picked up from his many contacts.

HUD sues Facebook, which could jeopardize all Internet ads.  HUD today sued Facebook for promoting illegal discrimination in housing.  This could be the first legal challenge to how Internet oligarchs target ads.  One man's tailoring ads to audiences is another man's discrimination.  The agency's press release said, "The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced today a formal complaint against Facebook for violating the Fair Housing Act by allowing landlords and home sellers to use its advertising platform to engage in housing discrimination.  "HUD claims Facebook enables advertisers to control which users receive housing-related ads based upon the recipient's race, color, religion, sex, familial status, national origin, disability, and/or zip code.  Facebook then invites advertisers to express unlawful preferences by offering discriminatory options, allowing them to effectively limit housing options for these protected classes under the guise of 'targeted advertising.'"  That triggered so much laughing that I had a coughing spell.

The Crusader Who Exposed Pennsylvania's Sadistic Priests.  Without [Richard] Serbin's diligence and commitment, many of these atrocities never would have come to light.  Serbin, who has been defending victims of clerical sex abuse since he met Michael more than 30 years ago, provided the names of 109 predator priests to the Pennsylvania grand jury investigation, and to a prior Pennsylvania grand jury investigation in 2016.

Miss America Ordered to Regularly Say 3 Things Promoting Gretchen Carlson.  The AP reported that the reigning Miss America says she has been bullied, manipulated and silenced by the pageant's leadership.  The alleged bullies include former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson.  Carlson, a former Miss America, famously sued Roger Ailes for inappropriate sexualized comments, eventually settling for millions.  In a letter sent Friday [8/17/2018] to former Miss Americas, Cara Mund says she decided to speak out despite the risk of punishment.  She said she doesn't want to leave this mess for future Miss Americas.  Miss Mund criticized both Gretchen Carlson, chairwoman of the Miss America Organization and Regina Hopper, the CEO.  She said her voice was not heard nor did leadership have any interest in knowing who she was.

Monsters Of The Cloth.  The grand jury report in that Pennsylvania child rape case involving several hundred Catholic priests which surfaced last week is, as Michael Brendan Dougherty termed it at NRO Wednesday, a Rotherham for the Church.  But unlike Rotherham, a case in which a ring of Muslim pedophiles and rapists latched on to local ethnic English girls and turned them into an extended harem of prostitutes, there will be no institutional cowardice involving politically correct politicians and law enforcement officials wishing the horror away.  Pennsylvania won't be swept under the rug.  Nor should it.  And after years of pedophilia scandals engulfing the Church, with promise after promise that the problem has finally been banished to the hell from whence it came, the public is eventually going to demand its pound of flesh for the clergy's sins.  We're going to see that made manifest as that case goes to trial in the weeks and months to come.  As we should.

Omarosa acted dishonorably by recording confidential White House conversations, but here's the bigger problem.  Even if you strongly oppose President Trump and want to see him defeated in 2020 or impeached before then, you should hope his presidential campaign succeeds with its legal action against Omarosa Manigault Newman alleging she violated a nondisclosure agreement.  And if she broke any laws you should want her prosecuted.  Manigault Newman — a fired presidential aide and earlier a member of the Trump campaign staff — has set a dangerous precedent by her secret recording of conversations with President Trump and White House and campaign aides.  The New York Times reported Thursday that Manigault Newman "is believed to have as many as 200" recordings of such conversations.  If Manigault Newman suffers no penalty for making her secret recordings — and instead uses the recordings to boost sales of her virulently anti-Trump book "Unhinged," as she is clearly doing now for maximum media exposure — future White House employees will be tempted to follow in her footsteps.

Whistleblower makes shocking IRS, insider trading allegations.  A whistleblower made this shocking allegation to me last week:  the IRS was tipping off members of Congress to corporate takeovers so the elected officials could profit from insider trading.  My snitch also charged that higher-level employees of the IRS also used that information to enrich themselves.  This may sound crazy but remember:  Up until a few years ago members of Congress were allowed to trade stock based on information they got while performing their public duties.  It wasn't until 2012, during President Obama's tenure, that the practice was banned.

Fusion GPS Founder Shared 'False Story' About GOP Lawyer In Meeting With DOJ's Bruce Ohr.  Veteran GOP lawyer Cleta Mitchell suddenly found her name mixed up in the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.  The first public mention of Mitchell came in a March 13 report released by Democrats on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.  The report listed Mitchell, a partner at the firm Foley & Lardner, as one of the "individuals or groups who were involved in or may have knowledge of third-party political outreach from the Kremlin to the Trump campaign."  Two days later, McClatchy newspapers cited two anonymous sources who claimed that Mitchell expressed concerns just after the election that Russians had funneled secret cash to the National Rifle Association.

West Virginia House votes to impeach entire state Supreme Court.  The West Virginia House of Delegates voted on Monday to impeach the state's entire Supreme Court, a remarkable move occasioned by reports of extravagant spending by the court's five members, one of whom resigned in July.  Of the four impeached justices, one, Allen H. Loughry II, also faces 23 federal counts of fraud, witness tampering, lying to a federal agent and obstruction of justice.  If convicted on all counts, he could face up to 405 years in prison and a fine of $5.75 million.  He pleaded not guilty and was suspended without pay in June.  The impeachment charges against Loughry, who was the chief justice until February, are most severe, included lying to the House Finance Committee and moving an antique desk appraised at $42,000 to his home.

Church protected more than 300 'predator priests' in Pa., grand jury says.  Church leaders protected more than 300 "predator priests" in six Roman Catholic dioceses across Pennsylvania for decades because they were more interested in safeguarding the church and the abusers than tending to their victims, says a scathing grand jury report released Tuesday [8/14/2018].

NBC Releases Portion of Secretly Recorded Audio of John Kelly Firing Omarosa Manigault.  Former short-term White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman is attempting to stir up interest in a new book by delivering audio that she secretly recorded in the White House situation room when she was fired by Chief of Staff John Kelly.  Ms. Manigault released the audio to NBC for use in a Sunday [8/12/2018] broadcast of Meet the Press with Chuck Todd.  There is a strong possibility Ms. Manigault has committed several violations of federal law with a secret electronic recording within a SCIF (Situation Room); however, any action therein would only further provide fuel for her already discredited self-promotion.  The fact Ms. Manigault made the recording speaks to her duplicitous intent and lack of integrity.

Omorosa releases purported secret recording of Chief Of Staff John Kelly 'threatening' her in the Situation Room.  Omarosa Manigault-Newman, the ex-reality star and former Trump aide who has since acccused the president of racism, on Sunday released what she claimed was a secret recording of White House Chief of Staff John Kelly "threatening" her in the White House Situation Room. [...] "The very idea a staff member would sneak a recording device into the White House Situation Room, shows a blatant disregard for our national security — and then to brag about it on national television further proves the lack of character and integrity of this disgruntled former White House employee," White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said on Sunday evening.

Hungary's populist government abolishes gender studies courses.  Hungary's populist government is stopping universities from offering courses in gender studies, saying there is no need for graduates in the labor market and they take taxpayer money away from other programs.  The move, announced this week, comes after Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government won a comfortable majority in April after an election focused primarily on immigration.

Secret DMV office serves lawmakers, Capitol staffers.  In California, long lines are a fact of life at Department of Motor Vehicles offices across the state, but for California lawmakers and their legislative staffers, there's an alternative.  KCRA has learned of a DMV office that is not open to the public.  It's located inside the Legislative Office Building on N Street, adjacent to the state Capitol.

White Republican Michigan Voters Chose a Black Guy.  White Republican voters chose a black conservative over a white billionaire in Michigan. [...] Black conservative John James won Michigan's U.S. Senate Republican primary because he shares the values of most Americans.  James boldly expresses his desire to help Trump Make America Great Again.  Voters chose James because of the content of his character rather than the color of his skin, fulfilling the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

'Souza's Death of a Nation has provoked prog critics' outrage.  Unsurprisingly, Dinesh D'Souza's film Death of a Nation has made the loud voices on the left stark raving mad.  A perfect example is the film review website Rotten Tomatoes.  The eleven critics gave the film a zero.  The voting audience gave it 90% approval.  The same is true at all the typically left-wing sites that review films.  The Hollywood Reporter reviewer, Frank Scheck, was apoplectic.  He does not bother to provide any countervailing facts.  He cannot.  D'Souza's history is accurate.  But reviewers like Scheck are so committed to the lies they have been taught in college, or maybe J-school, for forty years that they leap to histrionic attacks on the film before bothering to do any research.  The hysterical reaction to this film by the left is yet another sad commentary on the state of American education.

Rogue Chinese message broadcast over intercom at National Weather Service center.  A strange Chinese audio message was heard over the intercom at the National Weather Service center on Wednesday [8/8/2018].  The voice was from a woman and the 45-second message was also heard by building employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Center for Weather and Climate Prediction.  The intercom message, translated from Chinese, said something to the effect of "you have a package from Amazon at the Chinese Embassy, press 1 for more details," according to a National Weather Service employee who spoke to the Washington Post.

In Venezuela's hospitals, eat at your own risk.  Hardly anybody likes hospital food but in Venezuela, it's so awful — monotonous, starchy diets cooked in filthy conditions, and newborns fed intravenous solution for lack of baby formula — that experts call it an actual health risk.

China may have to resume U.S. soybean purchases in weeks:  Oil World.  China may have to start buying U.S. soybeans again in coming weeks despite the trade war between the two countries as other regions cannot supply enough soybeans to meet China's needs, Hamburg-based oilseeds analysts Oil World said on Tuesday [8/7/2018].

Polling Shows Leah Vukmir Takes Dive in Wisconsin After Video Emerges of Her Calling Trump 'Offensive to Everyone'.  State Sen. Leah Vukmir, one of the two candidates for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate in Wisconsin, has been hit hard throughout the state after Breitbart News unearthed video of her in 2016 saying that President Donald Trump, then a candidate for the GOP nomination, was "offensive to everyone."  The video, along with audio of her saying she is not a "Trumpkin," a derisive term she and Never Trump leader Charlie Sykes use to describe supporters of the president, was part of a series of pieces exposing Vukmir's opposition to the president and his agenda.

Far Left Actress Alyssa Milano Blames Russia for Republican Win in Ohio Special Election.  On Tuesday Trump-endorsed Troy Balderson defeated Democrat Danny O'Connor by less than 1% of the vote. [...] Balderson ended up defeating O'Connor by 1,754 votes.  The Green Party candidate in the district had 1,127 votes.

Red China bans Winnie the Pooh.  The total value of Chinese stocks have fallen 40% in the last three years, putting Chairman Xi in a precarious place politically. [...] But Xi is on top of things.  He just banned a new Disney movie, "Christopher Robin," because it features Winnie the Pooh.  Conservative Chinese people mock Xi as Winnie the Pooh.

Stealth Socialist Steve Phillips Works With TOP Radicals To Turn Texas Blue.  The US Electoral College consists of 538 electoral votes.  A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the president.  The Democrats have a lock on California's 55 votes.  The Republicans rely on Texas' 38 votes.  If either party can ever win both states in the same cycle, that will be the end of the traditional two-party system.  Given the Democrats' heavy top to bottom Marxist infiltration, flipping Texas to their camp would usher in a permanent one-party socialist state.  San Francisco lawyer and stealth socialist Steve Phillips is aiming to do just that.  Working with leftist mega donors from the secretive Democracy Alliance and his own organizations, Steve Phillips has set up mass voter registration programs in several states to sign up millions of new minority voters.  Phillips is well on the way to flipping Georgia, Arizona, Florida and North Carolina.  But Texas will be the biggest prize of all.  Not this election cycle, not the next election cycle, but within a decade at the most, Steve Phillips wants to turn Texas blue.

Rhode Island Senate race may be in play, as media and political pros [are] oblivious.  If good presents come in small packages, the Rhode Island Senate race this year may be a great example for the GOP.  William Jacobson, the founder of Legal Insurrection and an astute political analyst who has spent many years in Rhode Island, writes that the Big Surprise of the 2016 election could be the defeat of incumbent Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.

West Hollywood's Moral Crusade against Trump.  Donald Trump is sometimes fortunate in his opponents.  The town fathers of West Hollywood have adopted — unanimously! — a resolution calling on the City of Los Angeles and the L.A. Chamber of Commerce to remove Donald Trump's star from the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  Their reasoning?  Trump's "disturbing treatment of women and other actions that do not meet the shared values of the City of West Hollywood."  West Hollywood values.  I am on record as a fan of Los Angeles.  I like the place very much.  I think West Hollywood is A-okay.  But I'm not sure I would cite "West Hollywood values" in a moral crusade.

West Hollywood Fascists Vote Unanimously to Remove Donald Trump's Star on Walk of Fame — But Guess Whose Star Remains?  Tonight [8/6/2018] the West Hollywood City Council is voting to remove President Donald Trump's star on the Walk of Fame. [...] Guess whose Hollywood star they won't be voting on?  Far left actor Kevin Spacey was accused of sexual misconduct by at least a dozen men and several underage teens.  They have no problem with Kevin Spacey.

If Hollywood is going to strip Trump of his Walk of Fame star for sexual misconduct then when will Spacey and Cosby lose theirs?  [Scroll down]  Then there's liberal fury over Trump's sexual behaviour, which is perfectly reasonable given his own unedifying admission that he's treated women like pieces of meat.  When playing 'Whataboutery' however, I wonder why the same liberal fury is not extended to Democratic presidential legends Bill Clinton and JFK, whose treatment of women made Trump look like a choirboy?

West Hollywood to vote on removing Trump's Walk of Fame star.  The West Hollywood City Council is expected to vote Monday night on a resolution calling on officials to permanently remove President's Trump's star from the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  "The City Council will consider adopting a resolution urging the Los Angeles City Council and Hollywood Chamber of Commerce to remove President Donald J. Trump's star from the Hollywood Walk of Fame, due to his disturbing treatment of women and other actions that do not meet the shared values of the City of West Hollywood, the region, state, and country," reads the agenda item, The Hollywood Reporter said Monday [8/6/2018].

The Editor says...
The collection of celebrity stars in the sidewalks of Hollywood is an exercise in idolatry. 

'This is huge': US Ambassador Grenell quietly blocks $400 million transfer from Germany to Iran.  A transfer of nearly $400 million in cash to Iran has been blocked by Germany's central bank in what appears to be a response to efforts by the U.S. ambassador to Germany.  Last month, Ambassador Richard Grenell urged Berlin to prevent Iran's withdrawal of large sums of cash from German bank accounts in an effort to offset U.S. sanctions that took effect following Washington's withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

Venezuela's Maduro says drone blast was bid to kill him, blames Colombia.  At least one explosion rocked a military event where Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was giving a speech on Saturday [8/4/2018] and the government said it was a failed assassination attempt involving drones carrying explosives.

Venezuela: Always a bad sign when your military scatters and runs.  As with everything else in socialist Venezuela, truth is experiencing some shortages.  So it's not all that clear whether the 'incident' that went down in Venezuela on Saturday afternoon [8/4/2018], [...] was really an 'assassination attempt' on President Nicolas Maduro, from two drones carrying the moldable explosive known as C-4, as the Venezuelan government claimed, or else the noise from a gas canister explosion from a nearby apartment building, as local firemen have alleged.

The Editor says...
In the video, the Venezuelan President didn't seem very alarmed by the incident.  It was almost as if he was expecting the disruption at about that time.  The attack was apparently an attempt to use a drone to deliver a bomb to the target, but it failed to get anywhere close to him.  That also suggests it was a stunt planned by the "victim" himself.

Wells Fargo apologizes and admits error that caused hundreds of people to lose their homes because of a computer malfunction.  Wells Fargo has apologized on Friday [8/3/2018] for a error they made that caused hundreds of customers to lose their homes over a five-year period.  The San-Francisco based bank claimed that a calculation error utilizing the company's mortgage underwriting tool caused 625 customers to be effected [sic].  Those customers where wrongly denied access to modifications that would make their loans more affordable.  400 of those cases resulted in actual home foreclosure, the Charlotte Observer reports.

Sen. Mark Warner Strays from Dem Talking Point, Says Foreign Interference Didn't Favor Any Party.  Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), vice chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, seems to have strayed from the Democrats' talking point, reinforced by Obama-era intelligence agencies, that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election specifically to ensure that Donald Trump was victorious.  Warner stated:  "This is one where there is no Democratic or Republican answer since clearly the goal of our adversaries was not to favor one party over the other.  It was to wreak havoc and split divisions."

McCain Flunky Who Weaponized the IRS Now Controls All Internal DoJ/FBI Probes.  As corruption continues at the DoJ/FBI, it is important to know the name of an operative who is working behind the scenes in a powerful position.  That person is Henry Kerner.  Former McCain staffer, Henry Kerner, a deep state bureaucrat, has oversight over whistleblowers and internal probes.  This is no ordinary staffer.  This man hates conservatives.  Senator John McCain's Staff Director Henry Kerner urged the IRS' Steve Miller and Lois Lerner to target the tea party and any conservative groups until its "financially ruinous".  Henry Kerner is now in charge of all internal investigations in the government.  In his past positions, he was in investigative control during Obama's scandals.

BBC, Fox News, PBS ranked as TV's most trusted news brands.  The BBC, Fox News and PBS are the most-trusted TV news brands in the U.S., according to an analysis released Tuesday [7/31/2018].  Research Intelligencer by Brand Keys surveyed 4,012 viewers who rated broadcast and cable brands that they watch more than three times per week "to determine how much trust those brands engendered."  The BBC came in first, with 90 percent of those surveyed saying they trust the British news outlet.

Feinstein was 'mortified' by FBI allegation that staffer was spy for China: report.  U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein fired a staffer a few years back who was allegedly part of an effort to spy and pass on political intelligence to the Chinese government.  The staffer, based in the Democrat's San Francisco office, was suspected of delivering political intelligence, though nothing top secret, to officials based at the local Chinese Consulate, Politico reported.  The FBI informed Feinstein, the then-chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, about five years ago about the staffer and allegations that the staffer was a spy.

Donald Trump Surprises Rush Limbaugh to Congratulate Him for 30th Anniversary.  President Donald Trump surprised talk radio host Rush Limbaugh by calling him on the air to congratulate him on the 30th anniversary of his show.  "You're a very special man, Rush, and you have people that love you.  I'm one of them," Trump said.  "What you do for this country, people have no idea how important your voice is."  Limbaugh thanked Trump for the courtesy, noting that the president meant a great deal to his listeners.

Stupid People Start 90% of California Wildfires:  Study.  The left is already blaming climate change for the spate of destructive California wildfires, which have already killed eight people and burned hundreds of thousands of acres.  The UK Guardian reports, with incredulity, that Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) does not believe that climate change is responsible for the devastation in his district, even though he is "surrounded by fire."  Yet as even the liberal SFGate.com notes, the vast majority — some 90% — of California wildfires are started by humans behaving extremely stupidly.

City forced to correct misspelled YIELD on the road.  It was an oops that wasn't easy to fix.  The "yield" sign painted on West Street in Gardner, Mass., made drivers do just that, but for the wrong reason.  It was spelled Y-E-I-L-D.  The department of public works (DPW) corrected the misspelling overnight Monday [7/30/2018] into Tuesday.

Young people don't want construction jobs.  That's a problem for the housing market.  The construction business is having trouble attracting young job seekers.  The share of workers in the sector who are 24 years old or younger has declined in 48 states since the last housing boom in 2005, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data by Issi Romem, chief economist at construction data firm BuildZoom.  Nationally, the share of young construction workers declined nearly 30% from 2005 through 2016, according to Mr. Romem.  While there's no single reason why younger folks are losing interest in a job that is generally well-paid and doesn't require a college education, their indifference is exacerbating a labor shortage that has meant fewer homes being built and rising prices, possibly for years to come.

Greece's fire disaster another gift of socialism.  The terrible wildfire in Greece, which destroyed the seaside village of Mati and killed, at last count, 91 people, was all the more awful because it need never have happened.  Unfortunately, it did, and it was a problem of not having free markets.  The New York Times, in an op-ed from a Greek journalist who knows the place, points out that scores of unpermitted buildings and a non-working property registry, along with the corruption that makes its home in any such setting, were at fault. [...] Unpermitted buildings?  You know, like the shacks and shantytowns of the Third World?  Sounds like it.

Ron Dellums:  Anti-American pro-communist to the very end.  Yes, I'm gonna go with "rest in peace" for the late Rep. Ron Dellums (D-Calif.), former Democratic Socialists of America vice chair and one of the most extreme left-wing Democratic congressmen.  He was actually a nice guy. [...] Dellums was also known as someone who could keep a secret; one of the tropes on Capitol Hill I heard in those old days was that Dellums had an impeccable record of never leaking classified information as chief of the House Armed Services Committee.  He was a guy who could be trusted with America's secrets, at least around the swamp, not playing the swamp games we see now.  The problem is that Dellums's civility concealed a strategic-minded general's mentality for the big game of turning the U.S. into a socialist state.  A social worker with an interest in boosting domestic spending, he joined the House Armed Services Committee — not to support U.S. defense, but to drain money from it for domestic programs while he was a power in Congress.

Keywords:  Triggering, snowflakes, fragile, crybabies.
Counselors Claim Clients Face Trump Anxiety: 'Fear of the World Ending'.  A correspondent with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) based in Washington, DC, ferreted out a counselor who is treating people for a "collective anxiety" caused by President Donald Trump "volatility."  "There is a fear of the world ending," Elisabeth LaMotte, founder of D.C. Counseling and Psychotherapy Center, told CBC.  "It's very disorienting and constantly unsettling."

Therapists claim patients are experiencing President-related anxiety due to Potus' policies and Twitter feuds.  Therapists across the United States say that ever since president Donald Trump took office patients have been experiencing more anxiety — and it's affecting both Trump critics and supporters.  Several therapists spoke to Canada's CBC News saying that many of their patients have a fear about the country's future and if Trump will 'blow us all up.'  'There is a fear of the world ending,' DC therapist Elisabeth LaMotte said.  'It's very disorienting and constantly unsettling.'  LaMotte said there is a 'collective anxiety' about how Trump's decisions could affect everyone.  Patients and therapists refer to it as 'Trump Anxiety Disorder', although it is not an official diagnosis.

The Editor says...
[A] foolish man built his house upon the sand:  And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell:  and great was the fall of it.

China Expands Surveillance of Sewage to Police Illegal Drug Use.  Dozens of cities across China are applying an unusual forensic technique to monitor illegal drug use:  chemically analysing sewage for traces of drugs, or their telltale metabolites, excreted in urine.  One southern city, Zhongshan, a drug hotspot, is also monitoring waste water to evaluate the effectiveness of its drug-reduction programmes, says Li Xiqing, an environmental chemist at Peking University in Beijing who is working with police in these cities.  Li says Zhongshan police have already used the technique to help track down and arrest a drug manufacturer.  He says a handful of cities are planning to use data from waste water to set targets for police arrests of drug users, some as early as next year.

Venezuelan inflation heading towards 1,000,000 percent.  Inflation in Venezuela could top 1 million percent by the end of 2018 as its five-year-long economic crisis deepens, the region's observer at the International Monetary Fund said.  Years of hyperinflation and destitute conditions in the oil-concentrated nation compare to Germany after World War I and Zimbabwe at the beginning of the last decade, said Alejandro Werner, head of the Western Hemisphere for the IMF, in a blog post.

NJ 101.5 suspends 'Dennis & Judi' hosts for racist comments about N.J. attorney general.  New Jersey 101.5 radio hosts Dennis Malloy and Judi Franco have been suspended for 10 days over the duo's derogatory comments about state Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal.  Malloy and Franco, who have hosted 101.5's Dennis & Judi Show since 1997, repeatedly referred to Grewal, the nation's first Sikh attorney general, as "turban man" during Wednesday's broadcast.

The Editor says...
If you are a prominent public official and you don't want to be called "Turban Man," then stop wearing a turban in public.  This is America.  If you don't act like an American, don't complain about the treatment you get.  Assimilate or leave!

California teen wakes up couple to ask for Wi-Fi code as he burglarizes their house, police say.  Because he is under 18, the name and photo of the suspect have not been released.

Attorney calls Markeis McGlockton's death 'cold-blooded murder' by 'wannabe cop'.  Prominent civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump stood in front of the Pinellas County Justice Center on Thursday [7/26/2018] and demanded justice for the family of Markeis McGlockton.  Flanked by the slain man's parents and girlfriend, Crump told reporters that McGlockton's shooting death last week was "cold-blooded murder ... by the self-appointed, wannabe cop Michael Drejka."  The July 19 incident started when Drejka, 47, confronted the girlfriend, Britany Jacobs, over why she had parked in a handicap-reserved parking space without a permit outside a convenience store near Clearwater.  McGlockton, in the store with his 5-year-old son, got wind of the argument and walked outside, where he shoved Drejka to the ground.  Drejka then pulled out a gun and fatally shot McGlockton, 28.

Bill Cosby recommended to be classified as a 'sexually violent predator' by Pennsylvania board.  The Sexual Offenders Assessment Board is recommending to the court that recently convicted Bill Cosby be classified as a sexually violent predator.  According to the Assocaited Press, The Montgomery County District Attorney requested a hearing regarding the report on Tuesday where a judge will determine if Cosby will be classified as a sexually violent predator.  Following his conviction, the state law requires Cosby to register as a sex offender and the possible prediator classification would result in increased treatment in prison and increased notification of neighbors when and if he is released.

How Many Times Did Barack Obama Meddle In Other Nations' Elections?  Answer:  A LOT.  Barack Obama was the meddler-in-chief — a U.S. president who attempted to shape the elections of foreign nations multiple times during his eight years in the White House.  The media knew of it, downplayed it, and since 2016, has all but ignored it.  The fact is, when it comes to election meddling, the Russians have nothing on one Barack Hussein Obama.

Alaska Democratic congressional candidate doesn't live in state — or plan to campaign there.  Carol Hafner hopes to represent Alaska in Congress — even though she doesn't live in the state nor does she plan to campaign there.  Hafner, a Democrat running for Congress in Alaska's primary, listed two addresses on her candidate filing form: one in New Jersey and one in South Dakota.  While she considers South Dakota her home base, Hafner told The Associated Press that she travels a lot and has been in New Jersey to deal with an illness in the family.  Hafner said she's never been to Alaska and does not plan to campaign in person.

The Democratic Party's New Motto Same As A Used Car Dealership, Personal Injury Law Firm.  House Democrats revealed their new slogan for the upcoming 2018 elections, but whoever was behind it probably forgot to check that it's identical to the one used by a used car dealership in Texas and a personal injury law firm in Florida.  The motto, "For the People," debuted at a private meeting with members Wednesday, according to Politico.  Yet Democrats probably won't like to know that their new message for American voters is the same used by some of the sleaziest businesses in the country, namely used car dealers and ambulance chasers.

House Democrats Pivot Away From 'Better Deal' Slogan to New 'For the People' Slogan.  House Democrats are now pivoting away from their "Better Deal" slogan, according to Politico.  In a private meeting Wednesday, House Democrats announced that they will be employing the new slogan "For the People" in the 2018 midterm elections. [...] The new slogan will reportedly not have the same dramatic rollout that the "Better Deal" slogan did last year, featuring a press conference with Democratic leadership.  Their old slogan was roundly mocked by the media and even some Democratic lawmakers.

House intel committee votes down Dems' motion to subpoena Trump's translator.  Republicans voted down a motion introduced by two Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee to subpoena President Trump's translator.  Committee members Rep. Adam Schiff and Rep. Eric Swalwell, both of California, announced the congressional vote on Twitter.  Mr. Schiff said the move was "an extraordinary remedy," but the president's rhetoric at the summit and in subsequent days necessitated it.

Antifa Attempts Attack on Lauren Southern — Fails Miserably.  The Canadian-born Conservative activist Lauren Southern is on tour in Australia.  In a video posted to YouTube promoting her visit, Southern said Australians are "at a crossroads."  She asks "Do you want to retain your culture, do you want to retain your borders, family, identity."  As you'd expect, her tour will focus mainly on immigration and multiculturalism.  The 23-year-old commentator rose to popularity almost exclusively online, working for the right-wing group Rebel Media before pursuing an independent career funded by fan donations, posting her own reports to her YouTube channel that boasts nearly 800,000 subscribers.  The cost to see Southern speak in Australia starts at $79 a seat and goes up from there, but it's clear that she didn't have much trouble filling an auditorium despite the cost.  Australian media billed her as an "alt-right" activist coming to Australia, which predictably led to Antifa groups planning massive protests against her talks.

Unmasked: Matt Rivitz, Founder of Sleeping Giants, Behind Anti-Breitbart, Laura Ingraham Social Media Mobs.  A Monday [7/16/2018] report revealed Matt Rivitz, a San Francisco-based ad executive, as the founder of Sleeping Giants, the anonymous leftist group that organizes social media mobs in an effort to silence conservative voices.  According to the Daily Caller News Foundation's (DCNF) Peter Hasson, Rivitz's identity as the until-now anonymous founder is confirmed by clues left in Rivitz's media interviews and social media posts by people in his "social and professional circles."  Rivitz himself long ago deleted his Twitter and Facebook accounts, as well as his professional websites.

Woman Who Sought 'Back Channel' Meeting for Trump and Putin is Charged as Russian Agent.  A Russian woman who tried to broker a secret meeting between Donald J. Trump and the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, during the 2016 presidential campaign was charged Monday and accused of working with Americans to carry out a secret Russian effort to influence American politics.  At the behest of a senior Russian government official, the woman, Mariia [sic] Butina, made connections through the National Rifle Association, religious organizations and the National Prayer Breakfast to try to steer the Republican Party toward more pro-Russia policies, court records show.  Privately comparing herself to a Soviet Cold War propagandist, she worked to infiltrate American organizations and establish "back channel" lines of communication with American politicians.

Russian redhead gun activist is arrested over 'infiltrating U.S. political organizations for a Kremlin boss before the election'.  A 29-year-old Russian woman living in Washington has been arrested and charged with conspiracy to act as an agent of the Russian government while developing ties with U.S. citizens and infiltrating political groups, the U.S. Justice Department said on Monday [7/16/2018].  Maria Butina allegedly worked at the direction of a high-level official in the Russian government who has been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, the Justice Department said in a statement.  Butina — a life member of the National Rifle Association — was arrested on Sunday [7/15/2018] and was ordered held pending a hearing set Wednesday, it said.

New Army fitness standards.  Now no push-ups, sit-ups.  Every time the military changes their fitness requirements lately it leads to controversy.  This is mostly because so many of the recent changes created at least the suggestion that accommodations were being made for female recruits, or perhaps even males who couldn't meet the traditional standards.  This latest set of changes may sound similar on the surface, but let's not be too quick to judge.  Rather than doing two minutes of push-ups and two minutes of sit-ups, new exercises are being added which supposedly better simulate physical demands encountered on the battlefield.

NATO's lavish new headquarters is a danger sign.  It is virtually an iron law that mature bureaucracies turn their focus from the ostensible mission to self-preservation and aggrandizement of the bureaucrats.  One side benefit of President Trump's attendance at the NATO Summit has been the opportunity to view the huge and lavish new headquarters building the organization proudly opened a couple of months ago.

Deep Fake News.  The Brookings Institution warns that "fact checking" will become a lot harder in the 21st century as artificial intelligence becomes better at producing "deep fake news" creating counterfeits so good they are difficult to distinguish from the Real McCoy.  "Because the algorithms that generate the fakes continuously learn how to more effectively replicate the appearance of reality, deep fakes cannot easily be detected by other algorithms — indeed, in the case of generative adversarial networks, the algorithm works by getting really good at fooling itself."  The technology to fake videos, photographs and sound clips is now so good even Hollywood is increasingly using digital actors.  Moreover artificial intelligence can weave these fakes into a superficially self-consistent universe of lies creating a false narrative whose fraudulence can only be exposed by painstaking comparison to reality.

WalkAway founder Brandon Straka denied service at Adorama camera store.  A Manhattan camera store has apologized after the founder of the #WalkAway movement, which encourages Democrats to abandon the party, said he was denied service.  Brandon Straka said he had already spent a considerable amount of time picking out camera equipment at Adorama on West 18th St. in Manhattan on July 5 when one of the salesmen refused to sell anything to him.  "He stared at me with this kind of deadpan expression," Mr. Strakatold The Epoch Times.  "And he said:  Are you planning to use this equipment for alt-right purposes?'"  "'I'm sorry I just don't feel comfortable selling to you,'" he recalled the clerk as saying.

The Editor says...
After you purchase a product, its ownership is transferred, and what you do with that product after leaving the store is entirely up to you.  You can bet that if Mr. Straka had wanted to buy photographic equipment to take pictures of his neighbor's wife, or to take snapshots at the next Mardi Gras, the store manager would have supported it 100 percent. 

Americans are losing confidence in many things, but not these three.  Americans, it seems, are growing increasingly dubious, skeptical, even cynical about many of their once-hallowed institutions.  These include especially Congress.  But any such disapproval list also contains TV news, newspapers, unions, public schools and even the criminal justice system.  Only two institutions — the military and small business — hold an overwhelming net positive opinion in the minds of Americans.  The volunteer military has by far the most public confidence — 94 percent with a great deal or some confidence in it.

Episcopal Church considers making God gender neutral.  The Episcopal Church formed a committee Wednesday to "provide a pathway" toward revising the Book of Common Prayer to include gender-neutral language.  Church leaders called for immediate revisions to correct the "overwhelming use of masculine language" throughout the book, arguing that the language is now a hindrance to spiritual inclusion, according to the Episcopal Church website.  "As long as 'men' and 'God' are in the same category, our work toward equity will not just be incomplete.  I honestly think it won't matter in some ways," Wil Gafney, a professor of the Hebrew Bible and strong advocate for the edit, told the Washington Post[.]

The Editor says...
God is exactly what he always has been.  He does not change.  The delusional leadership of the Episcopal Church cannot make him into something else.

Long Island family busted for $25M counterfeiting scheme.  Nassau County cops arrested a father and his two sons Tuesday for importing $25 million of phony luxury bags, watches and other accessories, officials said.  Mahmood Nasir, 55, was charged with counterfeiting after an investigation by Nassau police and federal authorities found millions of fake goods in his home, at a storage facility and in another rental property.  The phony accessories were emblazoned with brand-name goods Rolex, Burberry, Hublot, Gucci, Prada and Louis Vuitton.

Vaccinated children are more likely to develop OCD and other anxiety disorders.  A recent study, led by researchers from two Ivy League universities, found a link between vaccines and the onset of anxiety and other related disorders.  This shocking find once again calls vaccine "safety" into question, though the mainstream media and other pharma shills are loath to admit it.  Even the World Health Organization has quietly admitted that anxiety-related reactions following vaccination are a growing phenomenon — yet, little is being done to rectify the issue.  Vaccine dogma and Big Pharma are so powerful that even with mountains of evidence showing harm, the "powers that be" continue to look the other way, all the while pushing for even more vaccinations at seemingly ever-younger ages.

Who Is Joel Davis, Really?  [Scroll down]  In light of all this, it is unavoidable to ask questions, including:  How was it possible for a two-time college dropout to be appointed to a leading role at the head of a defunct charity which then held a leadership position over such a vast coalition of thousands of groups and individuals, with many member-organizations having entire legal departments and staff who could have easily recognized that Davis's charity did not have 501c status?

House Democrat Tulsi Gabbard dodges debates in home state — despite demanding them in 2016: report.  A House Democrat is drawing heat in her home state for her history of refusing to participate in debates prior to primary elections.  But ironically, U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii resigned from her position with the Democratic National Committee in 2016 because she believed the party hadn't scheduled enough debates among its presidential candidates that year.

Family of baby treated at hospital with bottle of formula gets $18G bill: report.  A bottle of formula and a nap cost $18,000, according to a family whose son was treated at a San Francisco hospital after a head injury.  Vox.com reported that a family from South Korea was visiting the city in 2016 when their infant son fell off a hotel bed and hit his head.  The baby reportedly never lost consciousness, but was crying hysterically.  So out of an abundance of caution, the family took the baby to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, the report said.  Doctors quickly determined that eight-month-old Park jeong-whan was fine.  The family told the news site that the baby had some formula, took a little snooze and they got on with their vacation.  Two years later, the family said they were handed the bill:  $18,836.

General Mills quarterly profit drops 13 percent.  Cheerios cereal maker General Mills on Wednesday [6/27/2018] reported a quarterly profit that topped analysts' estimates, as its efforts to reduce costs and improve distribution network paid off.  Gross margins of the company, which is also known for its Haagen-Dazs and Betty Crocker brands, rose to 36.5 percent in the fourth quarter from 34.7 percent a year earlier.

The Editor says...
Somehow I feel partly responsible.  Mrs. Editor refuses to buy Cheerios as long as the boxes feature pictures of a lesbian.  Who wants to look at that while eating breakfast?

Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll.  It seems like a common convenience in a digital age:  a car that can be powered on and off with the push of a button, rather than the mechanical turning of a key.  But it is a convenience that can have a deadly effect.  On a summer morning last year, Fred Schaub drove his Toyota RAV4 into the garage attached to his Florida home and went into the house with the wireless key fob, evidently believing the car was shut off.  Twenty-nine hours later, he was found dead, overcome with carbon monoxide that flooded his home while he slept.  "After 75 years of driving, my father thought that when he took the key with him when he left the car, the car would be off," said Mr. Schaub's son Doug.  Mr. Schaub is among more than two dozen people killed by carbon monoxide nationwide since 2006 after a keyless-ignition vehicle was inadvertently left running in a garage.  Dozens of others have been injured, some left with brain damage.

Another risk of driverless cars.  NPR reported today [6/11/2018] that Waymo is buying a slew of cars to create a driverless taxi fleet with no human overseer required in the car.  Emergency takeover would be done by a fleet of well-trained remote admin personnel, via cell phone.  There seem to be some massive flaws in that reasoning.  One is the need for real-time response.  Another is unavailable cell-phone coverage.

Red Hen eateries feel the heat after Sarah Sanders booted from Virginia restaurant with same name.  Michael Friedman never imagined that naming his restaurant The Red Hen would be so controversial.  But when the co-owner of another restaurant named The Red Hen — this one almost 200 miles away in Lexington, Va. — refused to serve White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders on Friday night, it was open season on any eatery with Hen in its name.  "It was a bit of an interesting day yesterday," Friedman told Fox News.  "There were so many negative comments floating in on social media and people calling up my restaurants to threaten us."

Now that Obama's gone...
Army training will now focus on actual battlefield skills, not social issues.  In a series of servicewide memorandums approved by Army Secretary Mark Esper and Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and obtained by The Washington Times, service leaders are making optional previously mandatory training on issues such as transgender transition and drug abuse.  The move, Army leaders argue, is designed to relieve stress on the overburdened troop training regimen and refocus on soldiers' ability to fight in combat.

Red Hen Owner Runs Historic Downtown And They Just Threw Her Under the Bus.  Apparently, Meryl Streep's cousin, Stephanie Wilkinson, the owner of the Red Hen and a bully who kicked out Sarah Sanders and her family mid-meal, runs all of Downtown Main Street Lexington.  She is the Director of the area.  Unfortunately for her, the officials of historic downtown are very unhappy with her rude, bullying tactics.  She's been thrown under the bus and rightfully so.

New poll ranks Obama as the worst president since World War II.  No wonder there is such a rush to build that ugly monument to Barack Obama in Chicago: the bloom is already off his rose.  I suppose it was inevitable that the tidal wave of media flattery would recede from memory and allow the hollowness of his two terms in office to be perceived by those who don't think critically about what they see in the media.  But now that President Trump is demonstrating the bankruptcy of the Obama administration economic and foreign policies with solid results that vividly contrast Obama's failures, a new poll has identified him as the worst president since World War II.

Mixed-Race Family Asks Ice Cream Company To Change Flavor Name To Make It More Inclusive.  A Louisiana mother of six children and foster mother to other children has a mixed-race family whose children thought that Blue Bell Ice Cream should change the name of a popular chocolate and vanilla ice cream flavor, The Great Divide, to "Better Together."

The Editor says...
Some people have to inject politics into everything.  The overwhelming majority of us go to the grocery store, see products on the shelves, and either buy them or don't.  Once in a while, someone comes along who's just so special and so victimized and triggered by what she sees, that she undertakes an effort to tell a private company how to run their business — and make a name for herself on social media at the same time.

NHS boss warns of cannabis addiction risk for children after former Tory leader William Hague [calls] for the drug to be legalised.  Legalising cannabis risks making children believe it is safe, the head of the NHS warned yesterday [6/18/2018].  In a major intervention, Simon Stevens highlighted serious health dangers, such as addiction and psychosis.  He spoke out after former Tory leader Lord Hague urged ministers to be 'bold' and legalise cannabis for recreational use — meaning it could be sold in shops with alcohol and tobacco.  The peer claimed the war on the class B drug had been 'comprehensively and irreversibly lost'.  But campaigners said it would be wrong to decriminalise a narcotic linked to mental illness, organised crime, violence and road deaths.

Texas Billboard
Texas Billboard:  Liberals Should Keep Driving "Until You Have Left Our Great State Of Texas".  This photo was recently posted on Facebook and has already been shared thousands of times.

Texas billboard tells liberals to keep driving until they leave the state.  A photo of the sign was posted to Facebook by Kyle Mccallie, of Fritch.  He wrote the billboard was six miles east of Vega, a city roughly 35 miles west of Amarillo, on the eastbound side of the highway.  Mccallie's post, which was uploaded earlier Tuesday, had more than 8,000 shares as of Tuesday night [6/19/2018].


The Bad Hate The Good:  The Southern Poverty Law Center Tries To Smear PragerU.  The SPLC smears individuals and groups it differs with by labeling them as some form of "hater" — "racist," "white supremacist," "extremist" and the like.  That it is cited and even relied upon by The New York Times, Facebook, Amazon, Google, CNN and others, and that Apple gave the organization a million dollars, is testimony to the moral state of mainstream media and corporate culture in America today.  Were the SPLC not quoted and used as a source, there would be no reason to pay it any attention.  All the SPLC does is politicize, and thereby trivialize, the fight against racism and other evils.

Southern Poverty Law Center finally pays for its smears.  The SPLC rakes in donations by claiming to fight hate, but its lists of hate groups routinely include not just truly vile outfits but also ones that simply don't toe a politically correct line.  It went too far in listing Maajid Nawaz and Quilliam, a think tank he founded, in its 2016 "Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists," which proclaimed in part:  "Extremists routinely espouse a wide range of utter falsehoods, all designed to make Muslims appear as bloodthirsty terrorists or people intent on undermining American constitutional freedoms."  Actually, Quilliam is dedicated to countering extremism, and Nawaz is a practicing Muslim — indeed, a prominent voice for reform within the faith, having turned from extremism during four years in an Egyptian prison for his work with the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir.  Nawaz sued, and the SPLC plainly realized it couldn't win:  It has agreed to pay $3.4 million to settle the case and also issued a full apology.

Not a Surprise:  DC Has Highest Concentration of Psychopaths in the United States.  It is often said that Washington, DC is filled with a bunch of nerds dominated by psychopaths.  Others say that politics is simply Hollywood for ugly people.  These are usually said in a joking manner and often uttered after coming back from a young professional happy hour here in the swamp.  Perhaps the most soulless congregation of folks ever assembled can be found at those kind of events.  But it turns out that a recent study showing the population density of psychopaths could confirm anecdotal suspicions that these two areas of American life have more in common than either would like to admit.

Texas GOP Endorses Marijuana Decriminalization.  The Republican Party of Texas has officially endorsed decriminalization of marijuana, offering yet more proof of the dizzying speed at which attitudes are changing toward marijuana and marijuana prohibition.  At the state's GOP biennial party convention in San Antonio last week, assembled delegates lent their overwhelming support to adding four cannabis-related planks to the party platform, including the repeal of criminal penalties for marijuana possession, the expansion of the state's incredibly limited medical marijuana law, a call for the rescheduling of marijuana at the federal level, and the legalization of industrial hemp production.  All measures passed with 80 percent of the vote or more.

The Editor says...
The Texas GOP did not vote to decriminalize marijuana.  Any assertions to the contrary are false and misleading.  The plank in the platform endorsed the re-categorization of marijuana from one Schedule to another in the DEA system of drug possession penalties.  The Editor and Mrs. Editor were both present at the Texas Republican State Convention and neither of us heard a word spoken about decriminalizing marijuana.  There was a lot of talk about growing "industrial hemp," as if that's something we all need, but in my opinion that's just another way to open the door to Colorado-style legalization of marijuana.  If you like Colorado, go there.  But don't bring any part of Colorado back to Texas.

Roger Stone Was Offered "Dirt" On Hillary Clinton By An FBI Asset.  The salient feature of the whole Russian collusion story is not that the Trump campaign is alleged to have reached out to Russia for help, but that on at least two occasions alleged Russian contacts reached out to Trump campaign operatives with the exact same offer, that is, Russia had "dirt" on Clinton and was willing to give it to the Trump campaign. [...] As far as we know, the first contact was made, apparently by Joseph Mifsud, with George Papadopoulos.  Mifsud, you'll recall, knew Stefan Halper, the FBI asset, and Halper knew Christopher Steele who was busily working on the Trump dossier.

Cartoonist claims he was fired after 25 years for making fun of Trump.  A cartoonist who was terminated by his employer of 25 years on Thursday believes his provocative portrayals of President Donald Trump were the cause of his firing.  Rob Rogers, a cartoonist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, was let go by the paper after six of his cartoons in a row were spiked and his employer tried to change his terms of working, he told the Guardian.  His final cartoon showed a bloated man representing the United States, impaled on a steel girder with "trade war" written on it, waving the Stars and Stripes and saying:  "Take that, Canada, Mexico and Europe."

No, the firing of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette cartoonist is not a threat to free speech.  The press has had a field day pumping the news that a publisher's firing of a political cartoonist in Pittsburgh is a sign of President Trump's war on freedom of the press.  It's nonsense.  Whatever President Trump's voiced beefs with the mainstream media, rest assured, he had nothing to do with this.  And it actually happens all the time, and on both sides of the political spectrum.

In Venezuela, the End Is Near.  We have chronicled the accelerating destruction of Venezuela, once one of the world's more prosperous countries, by socialism.  The most recent news from that country is chilling:
  •   According to Gallup, Venezuela is now the least safe place in the world, having tumbled below Afghanistan in the rankings.  Only 17% of Venezuelans say they feel safe walking alone at night.
  •   Polio has re-emerged in Venezuela, 30 years after it was declared extinct there.  The country's health care system is verging on non-existent, as hospitals not only have run out of medicines, in some instances they don't even have running water.
  •   Venezuela is said to have more proven oil reserves than any other country, but its socialist government can't keep the petroleum flowing, as pretty much everyone who is competent enough to do so has left the country.  As a result, Venezuela's oil exports are heading toward zero.
  •   Having frustrated the creation of wealth, Venezuela's socialists have done what they thought was the next best thing — they created a lot of currency.  With an inflation rate now at 24,600%, that currency is essentially worthless.

Bestselling Author Fired for Mocking Publisher's Diversity Policy.  Publishing giant Penguin Random House has announced that its authors are no longer to be chosen on literary merit but according to a politically correct quota system "taking into account ethnicity, gender, sexuality, social mobility and disability".  This is mad, stupid, and insulting.  But not nearly as mad, stupid, and insulting as the decision by the Mslexia Short Story Prize, a literary competition for women authors, to sack one of its judges[,] Lionel Shriver[,] as a punishment for daring to criticise the new policy.

Smokey Bear the (Unwitting) Arsonist:  The Culture War and Western Wildfires.  "We held then, and we hold now, that economics alone is not a sufficient basis for determining whether wilderness shall survive or die," said Secretary Orville L. Freeman in reference to the construction of Interstate 70 in Colorado in 1968.  This sentiment, imbued with an almost religious confidence, embodies the defiant attitude of liberal environmentalism that still haunts the United States.  As wildfires rip through California, Colorado, and New Mexico, it must not be forgotten how we arrived here.  Smokey needs more paws to get the job done or, at the very least, more cash.  In a statement from last summer, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue noted how Forest Service funding continues to disproportionately flow towards active fire suppression over forest management.  This reflects research from the University of Arizona which points towards fires becoming both more numerous and larger.

Air Force's 'most wanted deserter' discovered working on Janet Napolitano's staff.  The former head of the Department of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, managed to overlook the Air Force deserter with top-security clearance on her staff who has been a "most-wanted" fugitive for 35 years.

Federal judge halts secret FEC plot to target GOP groups.  A federal judge has blown the whistle on a secret Federal Election Commission scheme to punish some Republican groups and their donors, the latest sign of an anti-GOP bias at the elections watchdog.  In a newly released decision, Trump-appointed District Court Judge Trevor N. McFadden shined a spotlight on the FEC's general counsel who recommended action against four Republican groups but dismissal of similar charges against supporters of a Democratic group, "Black Men Vote."  In the case, the Washington-based Campaign Legal Center charged that the FEC wrongly voted to drop charges against three of the Republican super PACS accused of taking "straw donations" through corporations.

Judge Orders Mueller to Name Key Players in Manafort's Ukraine-Lobbying Operation.  A federal judge has ordered Special Counsel Robert Mueller to identify by Friday all of the individuals and companies involved in former Trump-campaign chairman Paul Manafort's Ukraine-lobbying operation.  Mueller will be required to turn over to the defense the names of top European politicians who participated in Manafort's efforts to lobby on behalf of Ukraine without registering as a foreign agent, as is required under U.S. law, Politico first reported.

FBI Sweep Takes Down More Than 70 'Nigerian Prince' Email Scammers.  The FBI arrested more than 70 people in the U.S. and Nigeria for engaging in a massive email scam that has taken millions of dollars from U.S. companies in 2018 alone.  The arrests came over a month after an email protection group, Agari, exposed the scammers behind the infamous "Nigerian Prince" email scams that have been appearing in American inboxes for years.  The FBI announced Monday it had taken down more than 70 members of the west African crime ring in an action dubbed Operation Wire Wire, The Wall Street Journal reported.  The organization had mostly targeted the finance departments of U.S. companies, posing as business partners seeking bill payments.

These Are The Drunkest Cities In America.  Drinking in excess has proven to claim the lives of thousands of Americans each year.  Alcohol is responsible for about 1 in every 10 deaths among working-age adults.  As enjoyable as drinking can be, those who consume too much often feel long-lasting effects.  In 2016, Appleton, Wisconsin was awarded the title of the Drunkest City In America.  They ended up losing the honors this year to nearby Green Bay.  It would appear that many cities in Wisconsin have nothing better to do than drink.  There are still plenty of other states where people rely heavily on alcohol to get through their day.

The Editor says...
What cities are on the other end of the scale?  Salt Lake City?  Abilene?  Waxahachie?

Connecticut Town Bans For Sale Signs In Front Of Homes.  Guess Why.  Here's an odd little story which is probably going to be cropping up more and more in blue states in the near future.  The town of New Canaan, Connecticut is instituting a change this summer.  Their Board of Realtors has passed a ban on "For Sale" signs placed in front of the properties where residents are selling their houses and moving away.  Why is that?  Well, if you ask the local government they'll tell you that there's simply no need for the signs anymore.  Savvy shoppers are looking for houses online and besides... those signs are an eyesore anyway.

'Commie Cadet' Spenser Rapone Leaving Army with 'Other Than Honorable Discharge'.  Eight months after his communist social media postings and conduct caused a conservative media firestorm, 2nd Lieutenant Spenser Rapone (better known as "the commie cadet") is reportedly being processed out of the Army with the most severe type of military administrative discharge — an "other than honorable discharge."  Rapone, you may recall, is the avowed Marxist and Antifa supporter who posted pictures of himself on social media promoting pro-communist messages and expressing an intention to infiltrate the U.S. military.

Senate Select Intel Staffer Targeted Trump Campaign Adviser In Aggressive Leak Campaign.  Former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page was the primary target of a Senate Select Intelligence Committee (SSIC) staffer indicted for lying about his contacts with reporters, according to an indictment released on Thursday [6/7/2018].  James Wolfe, the former director of security for the SSIC panel, was in contact with at least three reporters at around the time they published articles about Page, an energy consultant who is a central player in the investigations into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government.  Wolfe, 57, is charged with lying to the FBI during a Dec. 15, 2017 interview about whether he knew the journalists and had contact with them on certain dates.

A shocking 83% of junior U.S. Navy officers lacked proficient seamanship skills in spot test.  The Navy has identified deep deficiencies in seamanship among its junior officers, with just 27 of 164 first-tour officers passing competency checks with "no concerns," according to an internal review obtained Wednesday by The Washington Times.  The study was ordered after two naval collisions claimed the lives of 17 sailors last year and put the Navy in the spotlight.  Both maritime disasters, the Navy concluded, were avoidable and stemmed from failures of leadership aboard both vessels.  In the internal message, written by Vice Adm. Richard Brown, commander of Naval Surface Force Pacific, the Navy identified concerns with 137 of 164 junior officers who were randomly tested.

Pope Francis to host oil executives to talk about combating climate change.  Pope Francis will convene a meeting of oil producer and investment firm executives next week at the Vatican to discuss what the industry can do to address climate change, according to a report.  Companies such as BlackRock, BP, ExxonMobil, and Equinor are expected to be represented at the gathering, which will likely take place on June 9, per Axios.  The conversation's focus will be aligned with Francis' 2015 "On Care For Our Common Home" encyclical, a papal document arguing climate change is caused by humans and that world leaders were not doing enough to mitigate it, sources told the news outlet.

Black unemployment rate hits new record low in May.  The unemployment rate for black workers hit new record lows in May, the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday [6/1/2018].  Black unemployment fell sharply to 5.9 percent, beating out the 6.6 percent record low that was set a month earlier.  The unemployment rate for Hispanic workers hit a record low in April, at 4.8 percent, but it rose slightly to 4.9 percent in May.

America has a massive truck driver shortage.  Here's why few want an $80,000 job.  America has a massive shortage of truck drivers.  Joyce Brenny, head of Brenny Transportation in Minnesota, increased driver pay 15 percent this year to try to attract more drivers.  Many of her drivers now earn $80,000, she says, yet she still can't find enough people for the job.  About 51,000 more drivers are needed to meet the demand from companies such as Amazon and Walmart that are shipping more goods across the country, according to the American Trucking Associations.  The driver shortage is already leading to delayed deliveries and higher prices for goods that Americans buy.  The ATA predicts that it's likely to get worse in the coming years.  Many trucking companies are so desperate for drivers that they are offering signing bonuses and pay raises.

Attackers Can Use Sonic and Ultrasonic Signals to Crash Hard Drives.  Researchers have demonstrated how sonic and ultrasonic signals (inaudible to human) can be used to cause physical damage to hard drives just by playing ultrasonic sounds through a target computer's own built-in speaker or by exploiting a speaker near the targeted device.  Similar research was conducted last year by a group of researchers from Princeton and Purdue University, who demonstrated a denial-of-service (DoS) attack against HDDs by exploiting a physical phenomenon called acoustic resonance.  Since HDDs are exposed to external vibrations, researchers showed how specially crafted acoustic signals could cause significant vibrations in HDDs internal components, which eventually leads to the failure in systems that relies on the HDD.

Venezuela's Road To Serfdom.  Venezuela trudged further down its road to serfdom when a sham election on May 20 returned Nicolas Maduro to the presidency for another six-year term.  Venezuela's experiment with democratic socialism has now run its course from early optimism through economic dysfunction and now ever-closer to political tyranny.

Poland Wants To Pay US $2 Billion For Its Permanent Military Presence.  Poland is willing to pay the U.S. up to $2 billion for the installment of a permanent American military base in the nation, according to a document Polish news portal Outlet obtained.  "This proposal outlines the clear and present need for a permanent U.S. armored division deployed in Poland, Poland's commitment to provide significant support that may reach $1.5-2 billion by establishing joint military installations and provide for more flexible movement of U.S. forces," the Polish defense ministry states in the document.

The Editor says...
Great.  Now how about Japan, Germany, Portugal, Belgium, Australia, and South Korea?

101 grads owe over $1M in federal student loans, with more students expected to follow suit.  A total of 101 graduates in the U.S. owe at least $1 million in federal student loans compared to only 14 owing that much just five years ago.  The latest Education Department figures reveal that thanks to skyrocketing education costs, living expenses, crippling interest rates and additional fees, more graduates expected to join the club of debtors who may not ever pay back their loans, the Wall Street Journal reported.

'Heretic' in the Vatican.  Celebrated by progressives around the world for his push to update and liberalize aspects of church doctrine, [Pope] Francis is facing fierce blowback from traditionalists who take issue with his openness to Muslim migrants, his concern for the environment and his softer tone on divorce, cohabitation and homosexuality.  Opposition has become so heated that some advisers are warning him to tread carefully to avoid a "schism" in the church.

Trust in Self-Driving Cars is Wavering.  A study conducted by AAA last month found that 73 percent of Americans don't trust the current iteration of autonomous vehicle technology.  That number is up from 63 percent as noted in late 2017.

Tesla in Autopilot mode crashes into police car.  Authorities say a Tesla sedan in Autopilot mode has crashed into a parked police cruiser in Southern California.

Self-driving car caught on camera running red light.  An self-driving car prototype failed in dramatic fashion last week when it ran a red light in Jerusalem with a TV news crew on board.  The Ford Fusion built by Intel-owned Mobileye was nearing the end of a successful demonstration run, News 10 reports, when the light turned red and it cruised right through the intersection with the cameras rolling.

Uber self-drives robo-cars out of Arizona after fatal crash.  Uber is pulling its self-driving cars out of Arizona.  The ride-sharing company's reversal was triggered by the recent death of woman who was run over by one of its robotic vehicles while crossing a darkened street in a Phoenix suburb.  The decision announced Wednesday means Uber won't be bringing back its self-driving cars to the streets to Arizona, eliminating the jobs of about 300 people who served as backup drivers and performed other jobs connected to the vehicles.

FBI repeatedly overstated encryption threat figures to Congress, public.  The FBI has repeatedly provided grossly inflated statistics to Congress and the public about the extent of problems posed by encrypted cellphones, claiming investigators were locked out of nearly 7,800 devices connected to crimes last year when the correct number was much smaller, probably between 1,000 and 2,000, The Washington Post has learned.  Over a period of seven months, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray cited the inflated figure as the most compelling evidence for the need to address what the FBI calls "Going Dark" — the spread of encrypted software that can block investigators' access to digital data even with a court order.  The FBI first became aware of the miscount about a month ago and still does not have an accurate count of how many encrypted phones they received as part of criminal investigations last year, officials said.  Last week, one internal estimate put the correct number of locked phones at 1,200, though officials expect that number to change as they launch a new audit, which could take weeks to complete, according to people familiar with the work.

Publix grocery in Charleston censored 'Summa Cum Laude' on graduation cake.  Saturday was Jacob Kosinski's big day.  His whole family, many from out of town, saw the Charleston, South Carolina, student graduate from his Christian-based homeschool program with a 4.79 grade point average and the coveted honor of summa cum laude.  His mother, Cara Koscinski organized a graduation party for her 18-year-old son.  For the occasion, she ordered a cake online from her nearest grocery store, Publix, which lets customers build their own cakes complete with a customized inscription, which they enter into a little message box.  Carefully, she typed in the message she wanted on the cake:  "Congrats Jacob!  Summa Cum Laude class of 2018."  The Publix software was unhappy with the word cum.  In Latin, cum is the preposition "with," as in summa cum laude "with the highest distinction."

Journalist Who Vowed to Expose George Soros, Found Dead.  An investigative journalist, who went undercover to infiltrate violent leftist groups such as Antifa, has been found dead shortly after he vowed to expose billionaire globalist, George Soros.  33-year-old Bechir Rabani was a hugely popular Swedish independent reporter, well known for his daring exposés.

Obama Is Lawyering Up After Discovering He's Being Implicated In The Biggest Scandal In US History.  Obama, Hillary, Comey, Strzok, and many others are about to get the slap back to the reality that they have sorely needed for quite some time now.  Technical glitches in the form of the delete button and a hammer don't last too long in a world where everything that has ever been sent through any device is never truly gone.

Republicans Introduce Resolution for Second Special Counsel to Investigate FBI and FISA Abuse.  Twenty-five House Republicans have introduced a resolution officially calling for a second Special Counsel to investigate FBI misconduct and FISA abuse during the 2016 presidential election.  "Here's the now filed 12 pg[page] H.Res.907 w[ith] 25 original cosponsors, detailing misconduct at highest levels of DOJ/FBI re FISA abuse, how/why Clinton email probe ended & Trump-Russia probe began.  Also calls for 2nd Special Counsel," Republican Congressman Lee Zeldin tweeted Friday.  As mentioned, the legislation is twelve pages long and details two dozen reasons — including the handling of the criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton — why the Special Counsel is necessary.

Mystery in Mueller probe:  Where's the hacking indictment?  In the year since the start of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, one thing has been notably absent:  a public indictment of any Russians for the hacking of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).  Mueller has charged President Trump's former campaign chief, secured guilty pleas from several individuals in Trump's orbit and indicted 13 Russians for an elaborate plot to leverage social media to influence the American electorate.  But the special counsel has yet to announce charges for the hacking of the DNC, even though the intelligence community and private cybersecurity experts linked the attack to the Russian government more than a year ago.

Human Rights Activist Files RICO Suit Against Fusion GPS Founders.  A prominent human rights activist is suing two of the founders of Fusion GPS and several Venezuelan businessmen under a statute usually associated with the Mafia.  Thor Halvorssen, the president of the Human Rights Foundation, claims that Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch, two former Wall Street Journal reporters who founded Fusion, engaged in a conspiracy to retaliate against him for blowing the whistle on one of Fusion's clients, a Venezuelan power plant company called Derwick Associates.  The two Fusion founders were hired to produce a dossier and a media campaign "to depict Halvorrsen as a pedophile, heroin addict, and embezzler of the Foundation's money," reads Halvorssen's lawsuit, which he filed under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) statute.

Sweden distributes 'be prepared for war' leaflet to all 4.8 million homes.  The Swedish government has begun sending all 4.8 [million] of the country's households a public information leaflet telling the population, for the first time in more than half a century, what to do in the event of a war.  Om krisen eller kriget kommer (If crisis or war comes) explains how people can secure basic needs such as food, water and heat, what warning signals mean, where to find bomb shelters and how to contribute to Sweden's "total defence".  The 20-page pamphlet, illustrated with pictures of sirens, warplanes and families fleeing their homes, also prepares the population for dangers such as cyber and terror attacks and climate change, and includes a page on identifying fake news.

Florida judge rules ballots were illegally destroyed in Wasserman Schultz race.  A Florida Circuit judge ruled Friday [5/11/2018] that that the state's second-most populous county violated state and federal laws by destroying ballots from a 2016 Democratic primary race which Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz won.  Circuit Judge Raag Singhal decided that the records were wrongly destroyed because the laws require elections offices to keep the ballots in federal elections for 22 months.  Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes destroyed the ballots just after 12 months, the Sun-Sentinel reported.  The judge also noted that because the ballots were subject to a lawsuit, only a court order should have allowed their destruction.

Teen who started devastating wildfire ordered by judge to pay more than $36 million in restitution.  A teen who started a massive wildfire in Oregon has been ordered by a judge to pay nearly $37 million over the next decade.  Hood River County Circuit Judge John Olson awarded the restitution totaling $36,618,330.24 to cover the costs of firefighting, repair and restoration, according to the Oregonian.  "Having reviewed the arguments presented by the parties, the court is persuaded that an award of more than $36 million in restitution does not violate either the state or federal constitution," the judge wrote in Monday's [5/21/2018] decision, according to the newspaper.

Pope Francis tells gay man 'God made you like this and loves you like this'.  Pope Francis has told a gay man that God loves him during a private meeting, it has been claimed.  In a private dialogue, the Pontiff is understood to have told Juan Carlos Cruz, a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic priests, that God loves gay people and it is fine to be homosexual.

Pope's reported comment to a gay man may indicate a new level of acceptance of homosexuality.  Pope Francis has reportedly told a gay man that "God made you that way and loves you as you are," apparently pushing the pontiff's acceptance of homosexuality to a new level.  Francis made the comments to Juan Carlos Cruz, a Chilean victim of priestly sexual abuse who recently spent days with the pope at the Vatican to discuss his ordeal as the pontiff moves to tackle decades of coverups and ostracism of victims in the Chilean church, according to the Spanish newspaper El Pais.  Cruz was quoted as having discussed his homosexuality with Francis.  "He told me:  'Juan Carlos, I don't care about you being gay.  God made you that way and loves you as you are and I don't mind.  The pope loves you as you are, you have to be happy with who you are.'"

Fox News Reportedly Turned Oliver North's Former Office Into 'Meditation Room' With Muslim Prayer Rugs.  According to Gabe Sherman at Vanity Fair, the network that Ailes long saw as a beacon of political incorrectness "is getting woke."  Aside from empowering a new female CEO — which makes Scott the only female CEO leading a major news organization — Fox News has also implemented some cosmetic changes to its offices.  Most remarkably:  Lt. Col. Oliver North, the pugnacious former Fox News host who left to serve as president of the NRA, has seen his old office the network's Washington Bureau turned into a "mediation room" replete with Muslim prayer rugs, per Sherman.

Devin Nunes Is [Formidable].  Devin Nunes, the eight-term Republican congressman from California, is taking on the world's most powerful law enforcement and intelligence apparatus to uncover exactly what happened before and after the 2016 presidential election.  Although Nunes is undoubtedly earning some formidable enemies, he seems undaunted — perhaps even emboldened — by the anti-Trump mob on the Left and the Right trying to discredit his investigation and destroy his reputation.  Nunes, 44, goes about his business in a way that only a politician who doesn't owe his career to billionaire benefactors or a privileged pedigree can:  He is fearless, well-informed, and slightly snarky.

Sarah Sanders Is One Of The 10 Most Admired Women In America.  White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is one of the most admired women in America, according to a fact check.  Snopes fact-checked a popular conservative meme being shared on Facebook that claimed that Sanders is in the top 10 of most admired women in the U.S.  The site rated the claim as "true."

Joe DiGenova:  Frustrated President May Fire 'Clowns' Sessions and Rosenstein.  Attorney Joe diGenova predicted that both Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions' days are numbered at the Department of Justice during a telephone interview with Newsmax's Howie Carr Wednesday [5/16/2018].  DiGenova's claim came after the New York Times published a report titled "Code Name Crossfire Hurricane:  The Secret Origins of the Trump Investigation". The report has been interpreted by many as an attempt by sources within the "Deep State" to cushion the blow of the imminent DOJ inspector general report, which is expected to be explosive.

Former DNC Chair Donna Brazile Fights to Keep Superdelegates in Dem Primary.  Donna Brazile, the former chair of the Democratic National Committee, is defending the party's use of superdelegates in its presidential primary.  Brazile has criticized how the DNC favored Hillary Clinton during the 2016 primary but said superdelegates — party insiders who are not pledged to back candidates voters choose — are helpful to the primaries, according to the New York Times.  "We have to make sure that we do this in the right way, in the most responsible way, and superdelegates should be a part of that process," she said.

Hotel pools linked to many disease outbreaks.  Hotel pools and hot tubs are breeding grounds for waterborne diseases.  A study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention find a third of all recreational waterborne disease outbreaks occurred in hotel pools or hot tubs and water play venues.  Between 2000 and 2014 the CDC recorded nearly 500 disease outbreaks related to recreational water use that resulted in more than 27,000 illnesses and eight deaths.  Hotels were the leading setting, associated with 157 of the outbreaks

Crime Plague in the Alamo City.  The incidence of reported crimes in San Antonio fluctuates from year to year, affecting the comparative rankings, but despite a reduction in some categories in 2017, heavily Hispanic San Antonio has had a major crime problem since the 1980s.  With more than 1,200 drive-by shootings in 1993, many gang-related, San Antonio earned the nickname the "Drive-By City."  Reported homicides in 2016 were the highest since 1995.  San Antonio also has one of the nation's worst rates of auto theft.  In the National Council for Home Safety and Security's 2018 ranking of Texas cities, San Antonio came in at 215 out of 224, making it "one of the most dangerous cities in the nation."

Tesla with Autopilot slams into truck stopped at red light.  A Tesla sedan with a semi-autonomous Autopilot feature has rear-ended a fire department truck at 60 mph (97 kph) apparently without braking before impact, but police say it's unknown if the Autopilot feature was engaged.

Update:
Tesla that crashed into truck was on Autopilot.  The driver of a Tesla electric car had the vehicle's semi-autonomous Autopilot mode engaged when she slammed into the back of a Utah fire truck over the weekend, in the latest crash involving a car with self-driving features.

Laziness:
Amazon's Alexa to Come Standard With Some New Houses.  Is It a Good Idea?  Amazon announced its partnership with homebuilder Lennar on Wednesday.  The two companies are creating "Amazon Experience Centers," which are model homes that contain appliances controlled by Amazon's virtual assistant Alexa, an artificial intelligence device sold as a home automation and time saving tool.  "As one of the nation's largest homebuilders, Lennar offers the potential to enable this experience within easy driving distance of millions of customers," said Nish Lathia, general manager of Amazon Services.  The commercials for Alexa and similar devices are tempting.  A weary couple comes home from a hard day's work, collapses on the sofa and merely speaks orders to an unobtrusive device tucked away in the corner of the room.  The device turns lights on and off, adjusts the thermostat, picks out a good television show and orders pizza.  At some point, one can imagine a near future where the consumer won't even have to answer his door — a robot controlled by a virtual home assistant will do it.

Wellstone legacy 'goes dormant' after family ousted in Democratic feud.  In the Democratic Party's reckoning following the election of Donald Trump, an unlikely feud has erupted inside an organization at the heart of the progressive movement.  Earlier this year, the board of directors of Wellstone Action — an influential training group formed after Paul Wellstone's death — dumbfounded Minnesota Democrats when it voted the late senator's sons off the governing board.

Soros Buying San Diego DA Race.  Leftist billionaire George Soros is injecting big money into a San Diego district attorney race as part of his larger effort to install extremist prosecutors across America who will refuse to enforce inconvenient laws that liberals and progressives don't like.  Soros, who turns 88 in August, has been underwriting district attorney races across America in an effort to dismantle the criminal justice system, empty the prisons, and sabotage the enforcement of immigration laws.

Why isn't Michael Avenatti in jail?  Porn star Stormy Daniels's lawyer, Michael Avenatti, has covered television screens across America, and because of it, he claims his exposure is why he was able to get his hands on the bank records of President Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, as well as the bank records of several other Michael Cohens, none of whom have anything at all to do with President Trump.  Possession of such stolen property is well worth throwing him in jail all by itself, and even the experts quoted in the leftwing Daily Beast say he's got a problem with that one.  But he's actually got a longtime record of sleaze and shadiness and if an investigative report, which ran in the Seattle Times a month ago is correct, he looks like the sort of guy who absolutely belongs in jail.  He did despicable things in his business practices that anyone can see is illegal.

Noam Chomsky Says Christians and Republicans Are the Real Threats to the World.  Noam Chomsky may not be a household name in most circles, but the philosopher and linguist has a reputation in academic and political circles for his outspoken radical left worldview.  In a recent 90-minute speech at St.  OlafCollege (no word if Rose Nylund is an alumna), Chomsky declared that he knows the biggest threat to the world.  And boy, is it a doozy!  So, is the truest threat to the world North Korea?  Is it Iran or ISIS?  How about Russia or China?  Nope.  According to Chomsky, nuclear war and climate change are pretty scary, but the big threats to our planet are the Republican Party and Christianity.

DC Think Tank Wins FOIA Case Against Climate Crusading NY AG.  A New York court ordered AG Eric Schneiderman Thursday [5/3/2018] to fork over public information about elements of his climate crusade to a libertarian think tank in Washington, D.C.  New York Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) in a case involving a series of documents conservatives believe could reveal a coordinated campaign against global warming dissenters.  Schneiderman has consistently used his state's Freedom of Information Law to block past requests.

Nigerians 'escaping' US and asking for asylum in welcoming Canada.  Well what should Canada expect when their Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invited them in in the immediate wake of the election of Donald J. Trump!  Now the Canadians have the audacity to tell us we have to be more strict about who we admit to the US, so our soil doesn't become a stepping stone to their welcoming arms in the north.

Indictments Are Coming.  Americans must open their eyes.  Indictments of those responsible for this charade will reaffirm America as a nation of laws and not of people, no matter how big and untouchable those on the left think they are.

Huge icebergs could be towed from Antarctica to Cape Town to solve South African drought crisis.  Huge icebergs could be towed from Antarctica to Cape Town in a bid to solve South Africa's worst drought in a century.  Marine salvage experts are floating the plan to tug the icebergs to the region after its seen the worst water shortage in decades.  Salvage master Nick Sloane told Reuters news agency he was looking for government and private investors for a scheme to guide huge chunks of ice across the ocean, chop them into a slurry and melt them down into millions of litres of drinking water.

CIA emails to journalists don't have to be released to public, judge rules.  The CIA can selectively divulge classified information to selected reporters in emails yet withhold that information from other journalists or members of the public when they seek the same information under the Freedom of Information Act, a federal judge in New York has ruled.  The decision appeared in the court record on Friday but became more widely disseminated Monday [4/30/2018].

Facebook's dark-ads problem is systemic.  Facebook's admission to the UK parliament this week that it had unearthed unquantified thousands of dark fake ads after investigating fakes bearing the face and name of well-known consumer advice personality, Martin Lewis, underscores the massive challenge for its platform on this front.  Lewis is suing the company for defamation over its failure to stop bogus ads besmirching his reputation with their associated scams.  Lewis decided to file his campaigning lawsuit after reporting 50 fake ads himself, having been alerted to the scale of the problem by consumers contacting him to ask if the ads were genuine or not.  But the revelation that there were in fact associated "thousands" of fake ads being run on Facebook as a clickdriver for fraud shows the company needs to change its entire system, he has now argued.

Kim Jong Un may have no nukes.  The truth about North Korea's nuclear program may leak out.  "North Korea's main nuclear test site has collapsed following its latest bomb test and could be at risk of leaking radiation, research by Chinese geologists has shown," the Independent reported this weekend.  "As a result, the Punggye-ri site under Mount Mantap has been rendered unsafe for further testing and should be monitored, scientists from the University of Science and Technology of China have said."  This happened September 3.  This was done either by nature or man.

Canadian Man Switched Genders for Lower Car Insurance.  Some dude from Alberta switched genders to save money on car insurance. [...] I view this story with a healthy dose of skepticism.  But we've already seen a story where a man changed genders to retire early.  Plus, this is Canada.

Lubbock Democrats Blasted for 'Childish Crop Job' that Cuts Melania out of Presidents Photo.  Democratic Party members in Lubbock, Texas, have apologized for posting the photo of four previous U.S. presidents and their wives together at Barbara Bush's funeral with Melania Trump cropped out.  The original photograph, featuring Laura Bush, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, George Bush Sr. and the current First Lady, went viral after it was taken at the funeral of Barbra Bush in Houston, Texas, on April 21.  The Lubbock County Democratic Party Headquarters also uploaded a version of the photo, but the image they used was edited so that Melania Trump was not in it.

The Editor says...
Imagine the reaction from the news media if Michelle Obama had ever been so amateurishly cropped out of a similar photo.

A soldier just got authorization to wear a beard because of his Norse pagan faith.  When the Army authorized beards for religious soldiers in early 2017, the move was a response to years of requests — and a lawsuit — from Sikh soldiers seeking to both serve and adhere to the tenets of their faith.  But the directive, technically, applied to all religions.  And that includes Norse pagans, also known as heathens, according to an undated memo from the 14th Military Police Brigade at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.

Former Sen. Feinstein staffer hired FUSION GPS and it somehow never came up during Senate investigation.  A newly declassified congressional report shows that a former staffer to Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, had ties to Fusion GPS and British ex-spy Christopher Steele, both subjects of Feinstein's committee's investigation.  Feinstein never disclosed these connections publicly.  The former staffer, Daniel Jones, previously served as Feinstein's senior intelligence staffer.  Jones currently leads a "research and investigatory advisory" that hired Fusion GPS and Steele after the 2016 election to push the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, [...]

Former Feinstein Staffer Raised $50 Million, Hired Fusion GPS And Christopher Steele After 2016 Election.  A declassified congressional report confirms prior reporting by The Federalist that Daniel Jones, a former staffer for Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), hired Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele after the 2016 election to push the anti-Trump Russian collusion narrative.  According to the report, Jones, who runs an investigative outfit called the Penn Quarter Group (PQG), told the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in March of 2017 that he had retained the services of Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele to "continue exposing Russian interference" in the 2016 election.  Steele is the former British spy who authored the infamous unverified dossier of allegations against President Donald Trump.  Although Jones' name is redacted in the report, the biographical details plus previous reporting on the matter make clear that he is the individual referenced.

Trump delays release of some JFK assassination files until 2021, bowing to national security concerns.  President Trump vowed last year to release all the long-secret files related to the JFK assassination, but the administration announced Thursday that some documents will remain redacted until October 2021 for national security reasons.  In a White House memo, Trump said that the nation's intelligence community persuaded him to keep some parts of documents secret because their exposure could harm "identifiable national security, law enforcement, and foreign affairs concerns."  Trump gave the CIA, FBI and other agencies a deadline of April 26 to release documents related to the investigation into President John F. Kennedy's assassination by Lee Harvey Oswald on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas.

The Editor says...
What could possibly be so secret about the Kennedy assassination after half a century?  Whatever the "concerns" are, the classified files must be an embarrassment to the U.S. government — most likely meaning some of the "conspiracy theories" are actually true.

Twin Peaks mandated lingerie 'dress-up days,' federal sexual harassment complaint claims.  Employees of the Dallas-based Twin Peaks restaurant chain, which describes itself as "the ultimate sports lodge," allege they were sexually harassed and subjected to a hostile work environment when they were forced to wear skimpy costumes they had to pay for themselves and were ranked in a weekly report evaluating their bodies.  A Chicago attorney, Tamara Holder, said Thursday [4/26/2018] that she has filed federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints on behalf of three former workers at Illinois locations of the chain.  A fourth former employee plans to sue for breach of contract.

The Editor says...
What did you expect, ladies?  It ain't exactly Chick-Fil-A.  I've never been in the place, but I've heard the atmosphere of the Twin Peaks restaurant is readily apparent.  Reviews frequently include the terms "breastaurant" and "man cave," along with comparisons to Hooters.  Thus the working conditions should come as no surprise.  There are women who don't mind working as NFL cheerleaders or swimsuit models or Playboy bunnies, and there are others who could work in those jobs but would prefer not to.  But once you accept a job in a sexually-charged atmosphere, you can't be surprised when the job turns out to be demeaning and degrading.

'QLaser' TV infomercial doc gets 12 years in prison for selling scam device.  A former dentist-turned-con man and his two cohorts were sentenced to prison on Friday [4/20/2018] for their roles in a multimillion-dollar fraud case that primarily preyed on the elderly.  Robert "Larry"' Lytle, who created the QLaser, along with Irina Kossovkaia and Ronald Weir Jr., who helped him hawk it as a "cure-all" device, had pleaded guilty to fraud charges in South Dakota earlier this year.

Members of Congress Who Questioned Mark Zuckerberg Had Received $641,685 From Facebook.  The top recipients include Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA).  The hostility of the questioning did not appear to correlate with the contributions.  Sen. Orrin Hatch — who has received $15,200 in donations in the past three years, the sixth largest amount — asked purely softball questions.

The Most Dangerous Democrat in America.  Imagine a combination of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and you've got Kamala Harris, the current seat-warming senator from California who, like Obama, is using the World's Greatest Deliberative Body as a resume-puncher before swiftly moving on to bigger things:  the 2020 Democrat presidential nomination.  Even as a nobody senator, she's been the subject of dozens, perhaps scores of speculative stories about her future, [...]

Report: Facebook Spent More on Swamp Lobbyists in 1Q than Ever Before.  Facebook reportedly spent more on lobbyists in the first quarter of 2018 than it has ever before as the company faces increased scrutiny over data breaches and censorship.  According to a Recode report, Facebook spent more than "$3.3 million to steer lawmakers on privacy, security, online advertising and transparency efforts, among other issues."  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently testified before Congress, and his company and entities associated with it donated to 46 of the 55 Members on the House Energy and Commerce Committee that questioned him.

Waffle House Suspect Said Taylor Swift Was Stalking Him.  The 29-year-old man wanted in a deadly mass shooting at an Antioch Waffle House allegedly told officials Taylor Swift was stalking him.  Travis Reinking is from Illinois. [...] Reinking told officials Taylor Swift was harassing him by stalking him and hacking his phone.  He later told them she had hacked his Netflix account, told him to meet her at a Dairy Queen, then allegedly ran from him at that location.  He said he chased her to the rooftop of a building, but she was gone.  Reinking told authorities he was telling the truth.  He also stated he had proof on his phone, but he would not show it to them.  His family stated he had made suicidal threats and owned guns.  Officials said they took him for an evaluation at Methodist Hospital.

The Editor says...
What are mental hospitals for, if not to protect the sane population from people like this?  Why was this man not locked up?

Waffle House gunman killed four with a gun that was confiscated by the FBI and returned.  Nashville Police Chief Steve Anderson said there was no clear motive for the shooting but noted that Reinking may have 'mental issues.'

The Editor says...
Oh.  He may have mental issues.  Indeed, the man's history is apparently well documented.

Update:
Defense claims accused Waffle House shooter is incompetent to stand trial.  Travis Reinking's defense attorney has filed a motion stating that after testing, their experts believe he is not mentally fit to stand trial.  Sources close to the case say more testing is underway to determine if the claim by the accused Waffle House shooter's defense team is true.  Reinking is accused of killing four people in the Antioch Waffle House shooting on April 22.  Authorities conducted a 36-hour manhunt for Reinking after the shooting at the restaurant along Murfreesboro Pike.

Finally, a truly bipartisan issue:  We all hate robocalls.  [Scroll down]  One Saturday morning I was even wakened by a phone call not from a telemarketer, but from an angry man asking me why I was calling him!  Turns out the robocaller had hijacked my phone number and was annoying other real live humans just like me.  I explained to the man who woke me up that we were both victims of a digital scam "too big to fail," but I had no idea just HOW BIG until I read the press release from Sen. Tester.  One hundred million calls in three months?  Apparently, robots really are invaluable to the forward progress of Western civilization!  There's no way that an ordinary call center could possibly have annoyed so many people in so short a time.

Politico: Kamala Harris, 2020 Presidential Contender, is a Mystery in California.  First-term Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) is emerging as a Democratic presidential contender in 2020.  However, according to Politico, her own voters in California do not really know much about her.

Kangaroo in zoo dies after being pelted by bricks from tourists trying to see it hop: report.  Tourists at a zoo in South China pelted a kangaroo with bricks in an attempt to see the animal hop, but the animal was fatally injured, The AFP reported Thursday, citing state television.  The marsupial died after a few days after suffering a ruptured kidney, the report said.  A few weeks later, another kangaroo in the enclosure was slightly injured in a similar incident, the report said.  The report said that visitors at the Fuzhou Zoo in Fujian province are known to try and get kangaroos to hop.  The zoo reportedly said it will install cameras and stuff the 12-year-old female.

Facebook to put 1.5 billion users beyond the reach of new EU privacy law, report says.  Reuters reports that Facebook is looking to limit its exposure to the EU's new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).  Passed in 2016, the law regulates how firms protect the data of EU citizens.  On May 25, the EU will start enforcing the new regulation, which explicitly applies to any company that uses the data of EU residents, no matter where it is based.  Organizations in breach of GDPR can be fined up to 4 percent of their annual global turnover or 20 million Euros ($24.6 million), whichever is greater.  For Facebook, which reported over $40 billion in revenue during its fiscal year 2017, the implications of the new regulation is significant.

CNN Panel Gives Their Opinions About Why Opinion Shows Are Bad.  In a jaw-dropping display that was one part a lack of self-awareness and another part hypocrisy, Wednesday's [4/18/2018] prime-time Anderson Cooper 360 featured a panel of CNN analysts sharing their opinions about opinion shows like Hannity on Fox News.  Their opinions varied but were largely against the mixing of opinion and news.  And that was their opinion on the news of the day.  The hypocrisy was so thick you could cut it with a knife.  "I mean, personally, I have no problem with Fox News.  I'm glad Fox News is out there.  I'm glad MSNBC is out there.  I personally wouldn't want to do what either of them do," explained host Anderson Cooper.

NYC 'poop train' sitting idle in Alabama has become a 'nightmare' for residents, mayor says.  A stinking trainload of human waste from New York City is stranded in a tiny Alabama town, spreading a stench like a giant backed-up toilet — and the "poop train" is just the latest example of the South being used as a dumping ground for other states' waste.  In Parrish, Alabama, population 982, the sludge-hauling train cars have sat idle near the little league ball fields for more than two months, Mayor Heather Hall said.  The smell is unbearable, especially around dusk after the atmosphere has become heated, she said.

New air pollution report:  California is the worst.  So, don't come here.  Good news for those of us who think the nation's most populous state should be a little less populous.  Or a lot less.  The American Lung Association has released its annual report on ozone pollution.  And would you believe, eight of the worst places in the country for ozone pollution are in California?

Ingraham's Viewership Increases 20 Percent Since David Hogg's Boycott.  Fox News host Laura Ingraham's viewership has gone up by 20 percent since gun control activist David Hogg initiated a boycott of her advertisers late last month.  Hogg went after "Ingraham Angle" advertisers on March 29, and that week Ingraham's ratings had averaged about 2.23 million, but last week she returned from vacation and her ratings climbed to around 2.7 million, NewsBusters reported.  Hogg, a 17-year-old student [...], targeted Ingraham's advertisers last month after she tweeted an article about him being turned down from four different campuses in the University of California school system.  The boycott, which was pushed by Media Matters for America among other liberal-leaning groups, led to at 27 companies dropping their ads from her show, as of Friday [4/13/2018].

Trey Gowdy Requests IG Horowitz Appearance Before House Oversight Committee May 8th, 2018.  Hopefully, this is not cause for alarm.  However, given the history of such activity; and specifically given the history of the engagements and motives of the participants involved in this request; it is a troubling development.  The House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee is the official DC enterprise deployed when Washington DC interests identify a threat and maneuver their political UniParty alliances to eliminate the issue.  Historic Oversight Committee references to Fast-n-Furious (Issa), IRS targeting (Chaffetz), and the origin of the Benghazi, Libya investigation are recent examples of outcomes therein.

Laura Ingraham Maintains Ratings, Advertiser Returns To Her Show.  The leftist attempt to take down Fox News by methodically targeting each show's host and the show's advertisers seems to have hit a wrinkle as Laura Ingraham's show is still boasting high ratings.  In addition to her high ratings, she has also had one advertiser return to her show.  Ace Hardware, my new favorite hardware retailer, has returned to Ingraham's show.  They say that they made the decision to pull their ads because they didn't have the whole story.

Sen. Cory Booker Violating Constitution:  Voting Against Pompeo for Religious Beliefs.  Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) announced on Friday that he will vote against CIA Director Mike Pompeo's nomination to become secretary of state because of Pompeo's beliefs on marriage and sexuality — beliefs consistent with Pompeo's Christian faith.  Conservative leaders are now denouncing Booker's vote as a violation of the Constitution's Religious Test Clause.  Booker sharply questioned Pompeo on Thursday [4/12/2018] during the nominee's confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, referring to words Pompeo spoke at a church in his district when the current director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was still serving in the U.S. House of Representatives.

National Park Service drops entrance fees to $35 after public outcry.  After fierce public outcry, the agency is indeed hiking daily entrance fees at some of America's most popular parks by $5 to $35 a vehicle.  The new plan replaces a proposal that would have charged $70 for cars to enter perennial hotspots like the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite and Zion, the release details.

Facebook spent nearly $9M on jets and security for Zuckerberg.  Facebook spent nearly 37 times the typical worker's salary on private security and private jets for Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg's security in 2017, the company said late Friday [4/13/2018] in a Security and Exchange Commission filing.  Zuckerberg received $1 in compensation and received no stock, but the company said the company paid for his security at private residences, and during personal travel, which included the use of private aircraft.  Facebook spent $7.3 million on private security and $1.5 million in 2017 on Zuckerberg's use of private aircraft; the company spent $5.8 million on security for Zuckerberg in the year-earlier period.

Pope Francis does for church attendance what Colin Kaepernick did for NFL attendance.  The comparison is obvious.  A new Gallup poll finds a precipitous drop in Catholic Church attendance coinciding with the years of Pope Francis's papacy.  Francis is known for shoving secular statist left-wing ideology into church teachings, through both his words and his deeds, just as Colin Kaepernick did with the National Football League.  That's clear in what Pope Francis says and in whom he invites into the Vatican to provide advice.  And surprise, surprise, the result is the same:  the fans and the flock stay away.

Trump pardons ex-Cheney aide Scooter Libby.  President Trump on Friday pardoned Scooter Libby, the former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney who was ensnared in what was known as the "Valerie Plame affair" during the Bush administration.  "I don't know Mr. Libby," Trump said in a statement.  "But for years I have heard that he has been treated unfairly.  Hopefully, this full pardon will help rectify a very sad portion of his life."  Libby told Fox News in a brief phone call after Trump's announcement he is "pleased" his "innocence has been recognized."

Trump issues pardon for Lewis 'Scooter' Libby.  President Donald Trump on Friday pardoned Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the chief of staff to former Vice President Dick Cheney who was caught up in the investigation into the leak of the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame.  "I don't know Mr. Libby," Trump said in a statement, adding, "but for years I have heard that he has been treated unfairly.  Hopefully, this full pardon will help rectify a very sad portion of his life."  Libby came under scrutiny in connection with the leak in 2003 of the identity of Plame, who had worked undercover overseas and was married to a prominent George W. Bush administration critic, Joseph Wilson.  Libby was never charged with leaking, but was indicted in 2005 on charges of obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements to investigators, largely for denying his contacts with the media about Plame.

This Hospital Bed May Kill You.  Danger lurks for hospital patients in a place they'd least expect it — the bed.  Hospitals claim to disinfect beds in between patients.  Don't believe it.  Data from four New York hospitals prove beds are full of germs.  Patients are nearly six times as likely to come down with staph, strep or another dangerous infection if the patient who used the bed before them had it.

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg Will Not Be Under Oath Before Senate Committee.  When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg takes the stand before a joint congressional panel on Tuesday [4/10/2018], he will not be under oath, Breitbart News has learned.  But he will be required by federal statute to tell the truth, and if he lies he could face serious legal consequences.  A senior Senate GOP aide helping organize the joint Senate Judiciary Committee and Senate Commerce Committee hearing told Breitbart News that it is standard practice not to swear witnesses like this in under oath.  But they are required by law to tell the truth, the aide says.

U.S. Attorney John Lausch Assigned To Document Production.  Tomorrow [4/9/2018] Attorney General Jeff Sessions will announce the assignment of U.S. Attorney John Lausch to facilitate the production of documents from the DOJ (Horowitz/Huber) to the House Judiciary Committee, and Chairman Bob Goodlatte.  Mr. Lausch is a Trump appointed U.S. Attorney from outside Washington DC.  John Lausch currently heads the Northern District of Illinois which includes Chicago, and this specific U.S. Attorney has extensive experience in complex cases of conspiracy and political corruption; a key skill-set given the issues within the Horowitz/Huber investigation of potential politicization of the FBI and DOJ offices.

The Limits of American Patience.  Questioning whether America can afford the status quo here and abroad is not heresy.  Assuming we can borrow our way out of any inconvenience is largely over.  What helped elect Trump was a collective weariness with demands put on a country $20 trillion in debt.  America is currently running a $57 billion a month trade deficit.

Communist China Bans Online Bible Sales — Crosses Removed From Churches.  The Communist Chinese government banned the sale of Bibles online this week and released a new document dictating its "Policies and Practices on Protecting Freedom of Religious Belief."  By Thursday, April 5, "internet searches for the Bible came up empty on leading online Chinese retailers, such as JD.com, Taobao, and Amazon," reported the New York Times.  Christianity is the only religion in China, according to The Times, in which its primary holy book, the Bible, is banned online.  Books from other religions such as Buddhism, Taoism, and Islam are available.  The Quran is not banned online.

Not much good news for DNC.  As of now, according to the Federal Elections Commission, the Democratic National Committee is in debt to the tune of $6,271,605.47.  For the period between 2017-2018, total individual contributions to the DNC were $61,939,222.68, and its total cash on hand is $10,093,347.47.  That is not good news for the party trying to rally momentum for a big "blue wave" this November.  The situation is so bad that DNC Chair Tom Perez went on C-SPAN last month to spin morale out of the Intensive Care Unit: [...]

DNC Quietly Adds Another 160K In Debt, Bringing Total Debt To $6.3 Million.  The Democratic National Committee (DNC) reported more than $162,000 in additional debt in an amended FEC report filed this week.  The DNC originally reported $6.1 million in debt in its March 2018 FEC report filed on March 20 but amended that report on Monday to include an additional $162,368.64 in debt, bringing the DNC's total debt to just under $6.3 million.  The Republican National Committee (RNC) has zero debt, according to the committee's most recent FEC filings.

If Fox News' Laura Ingraham Goes Down for 'Bullying,' You're Next!  What did Fox News' Laura Ingraham say that cost her advertisers?  About David Hogg, the teenage Parkland, Florida, high school shooting survivor, Fox's Ingraham tweeted:  "David Hogg Rejected By Four Colleges To Which He Applied and whines about it.  (Dinged by UCLA with a 4.1 GPA ... totally predictable given acceptance rates.)" [...] Two weeks after the Parkland shooting, Hogg gave an interview to The Outline, in which the writer described Hogg as "exhausted" and "still traumatized."

Cops kill Brooklyn man wielding pipe like gun.  A man terrorizing people on the streets in Brooklyn with what appeared to be a firearm was fatally shot by cops — who later determined the weapon was not a gun but a metal pipe.  Saheed Vassell, 34 — whose family said he suffered from bi-polar disorder — was brandishing the curved metal pipe and pointing it at people at a bus stop at Utica Avenue and Empire Boulevard in Crown Heights at 4:40 p.m., according to police.  Three witnesses called 911 to report that a man wearing a brown jacket was pointing "what was described as a silver firearm at people on the street."  Surveillance footage from a Utica Avenue store shows Vassell pointing the pipe like a firearm at a person who is walking into a store.

The Editor says...
This now-deceased fellow should have been confined to a state hospital years ago.  Failing that, he should have at least had 24/7 supervision.  Now he's dead, entirely due to his own feeble-minded actions, yet he still counts as "an unarmed black man" in the statistics.

'Chappaquiddick' Is A Brutally Honest Movie Laying Bare The Kennedys For Who They Really Were.  Conservatives' expectations for honest and fair movies coming out of Hollywood are understandably low.  For decades now we have been brow-beaten and lectured by clueless celebrities on everything from saving the Spotted Owl to gun control — the latest flavor of the moment.  But a breath of fresh air is blowing in from the left coast.  The new movie 'Chappaquiddick,' from Entertainment Studios and Apex Entertainment, is a brutally honest recounting of one of America's greatest public tragedies: the death of Mary Jo Kopechne in a car owned and driven by Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.)

Malaysia outlaws 'fake news'; sets jail of up to six years.  Malaysia on Monday [4/2/2018] approved a law against "fake news" that would allow for prison of up to six years for offenders, shrugging off critics who say it was aimed at curbing dissent and free speech ahead of a general election.

This Dental Office Threatens Parents Over Kids' 'Dental Neglect'.  How sharper than a serpent's tooth to have a despotic pediatric dentist.  Parents who decide, for whatever reason, that they don't like their children's oral care provider should be forewarned.  Empowered by government "mandatory reporter" laws, dental offices are now using their authority to threaten families with child abuse charges if they don't comply with the cavity police.  Mom Trey Hoyumpa shared a letter last week on Facebook from a dental office called Smiles 4 Keeps in Bartonsville, Pennsylvania.  It informed her that if she did not make a dental appointment for "regular professional cleanings" for her child, she could be charged with "dental neglect."

Historic New York City churches install metal detectors to prevent (Islamic) terrorism.  If Alexander Hamilton wanted to visit the church where he's buried today, he'd have to leave his pistol at home.  Historic Trinity Church and St. Paul's Chapel have installed metal detectors at their entrances, citing terrorism fears.  "It's a sign of the times, unfortunately," said Marc Pacheco, a tourist from Albuquerque who was visiting Trinity on Wednesday [3/28/2018].  "I'm sad that we have to have it, but it's probably necessary."

AARP accused of hard-sell marketing practices like those it warns seniors about.  In its newsletters and magazines, in congressional testimony and on its website, AARP warns seniors about deceptive direct mail and other dubious marketing come-ons as part of its mission to protect members from financial abuses.  But the huge lobbying group's own aggressive efforts to coax seniors to join or renew their memberships also have drawn a burst of criticism this year.

What The Laura Ingraham Boycott Is Really About.  Advertisers are dropping Fox News host Laura Ingraham after she made fun of Parkland survivor David Hogg this week.  On Wednesday, Ingraham tweeted a Daily Wire article mocking Hogg for whining about getting rejected by four different colleges.  It was not a smart move for a cable news host to tease a high school student over such a matter, but it was hardly as offensive as Hogg claiming Sen. Marco Rubio makes money off of dead kids.  The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student soon got the upper hand in this feud when he called for a pressure campaign against Ingraham's advertisers.  His large fanbase quickly went into action and forced several companies — including TripAdvisor, Hulu and Jos. A. Bank — to cut ties with Ingraham's Fox News program.

Stand for Laura Ingraham and a Free Press.  Laura Ingraham tweets the mildest of tweets, in this case about the news that David Hogg of Parkland student anti-gun activism fame, has been rejected by various colleges.  This news of Hogg's rejections — something totally normal in the world of being admitted to X or Y college — was put out there by Hogg himself in [a] talk with TMZ. [...] Hogg, who has made extensive use of his First Amendment free speech rights, immediately turns around and demands that a free press that displeases him — Ingraham's Fox News show — be "boycotted" by advertisers.

Uber driver takes the stairs, blames app's navigation.  An Uber driver in California ended up taking the stairs on Sunday after claiming the navigation system in the ride-sharing app told him to.  The driver, only identified as Fred by Business Insider, was reportedly driving two passengers through San Francisco, on his way to pick up a third, when he made the wrong turn just before 1:30 p.m.

Students at Florida high school stage walkout in support of Second Amendment.  A group of students at a Central Florida high school walked out of class Friday [3/30/2018] as part of a protest in support of the Second Amendment.  Some of the students who participated in the walkout at Rockledge High School told WFTV that when the movement to honor the victims and survivors of the shooting in Parkland became political, they felt silenced.

Man carrying $10 million in U.S. currency arrested at Tijuana airport.  A man carrying $10 million in U.S. currency was arrested Friday [3/30/2018] at Tijuana's A.L. Rodriguez International Airport, authorities said.  The man was taken into custody after he tried to pick up the money — bills of different denominations that had been stuffed into 31 white plastic sacks, according to a statement from Mexico's Federal Police.  He was unable to show documentation proving the shipment's legal origin, police said.

Rhode Island considers cash incentives to win new residents before Census.  One Rhode Island state representative wants to pay cash to people willing to move there, as the state faces the prospect of losing half their congressional delegation after the next census and reapportionment process.  State Rep. Carlos Tobon (D) has introduced legislation that would give families $833.33 per month — up to $10,000 — to move to Rhode Island for a year.  Those families would be counted in the 2020 census as Rhode Island residents.  The goal, Tobon said, is to attract enough residents to maintain Rhode Island's two seats in the House of Representatives at a time when most population projections show the state has not grown fast enough to warrant two seats.

The Editor says...
This could be construed as buying votes.  If you accept compensation to reside in a state for a year, specifically for the purpose of tampering with the outcome of the census, which then amplifies the power of that state in the House of Representatives, you abetting an attempt to affect the balance of power in the Congress.  Are you willing to relocate to another part of the country at the request of the highest bidder?  To migrate across state lines for a better job is one thing, but this bonus is for one year only, and $10,000 is not enough:  That's not much more than it would cost most people to move to Rhode Island, and it's certainly not enough to compensate for the high cost of living there, not to mention the cost of heating one's house in Rhode Island's long winters.  None of this matters much, because the idea is unlikely to become law.  Where is the State of Rhode Island going to get ten thousand dollars, multiplied by the number of additional residents they'd need to acquire another seat in the House of Representatives?  That would be a lot of money.

Chef sues Virginia over happy hour law, claims it is a violation of the First Amendment.  Popular D.C.-area Chef Geoff Tracy has filed a lawsuit against Virginia claiming his First Amendment rights are being violated due to the state's law on happy hour advertising.  In Virginia, happy hour is defined as a time period where alcoholic drinks are sold at a reduced price.  But bars and restaurants are very restricted at how they can advertise.  Businesses are only allowed to use the terms "happy hour" or "drink specials" for their promotions and they cannot put out anything specific regarding happy hour prices or discounted amounts when advertising outside of the business.  Virginia also prohibits two-for-one drink specials.

California Catholic school removed statue of Jesus & Mary so as not to alienate students.  Founded in 1850, San Domenico Catholic School in San Anselmo in the San Francisco Bay Area serves 671 students grades K-12, and is California's oldest independent school and first Catholic school.  The school is not an archdiocesan school, but an independent school sponsored by the Dominican Sisters of San Rafael.  In an effort to make the Catholic school more "inclusive" and less "alienating" to prospective students, the school recently removed 162 Catholic statues and icons, including a statue of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus.  The statues were stored in the school's basement or donated to "appreciative recipients".

Pope Francis: 'There Is No Hell'.  In another interview with his longtime atheist friend, Eugenio Scalfari, Pope Francis claims that Hell does not exist and that condemned souls just "disappear."  This is a denial of the 2,000-year-old teaching of the Catholic Church about the reality of Hell and the eternal existence of the soul.  The interview between Scalfari and the Pope was published March 28, 2018 in La Repubblica.

The Editor says...
If the quote is accurate and the Pope actually said there is no such place as Hell, he is a heretic.

Did the Pope Commit Rank Heresy?  Drudge quoted this exchange, published in La Repubblica, between Pope Francis and his atheist friend, journalist Eugenio Scalfari.  Scalfari:  "What about bad souls?  Where are they punished?"  Bad souls "are not punished," Pope Francis is quoted, "those who do not repent and cannot therefore be forgiven disappear.  There is no hell, there is the disappearance of sinful souls." [...] If there is no hell, is not the greatest deterrent to the worst of sins removed?  What did Christ die on the cross to save us from?  If Francis made such a statement, it would be rank heresy.

Vatican Refuses to Disavow Pope's Alleged Denial of Hell.  In reaction to reports that Pope Francis has denied the existence of hell, the Vatican has released a carefully worded statement that does not refute the substance of the claims.  "The Holy Father Francis recently received the founder of the newspaper La Repubblica in a private meeting for the occasion of Easter, without giving him an interview," the unsigned March 29 Vatican statement begins.  "What is reported by the author in today's article is the result of his reconstruction, in which the pope's exact words are not cited.  No quotation of the aforementioned article must therefore be considered as a faithful transcription of the Holy Father's words," the statement concludes.

The Editor says...
I wouldn't convert to Catholicism if you put a gun to my head.  But even a life-long Catholic should have a problem calling someone "the Holy Father" who denies the existence of Hell.  Or Heaven.  Such a person isn't holy at all.  Moreover, the Pope is undercutting his own business:  If there is no Hell, why would anyone sit through Mass every week?

Parkland Students Bullied Shooter.  Yes, said Parkland student Emma González.  She and her fellow students at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School "ostracized" fellow student Nikolas Cruz. [...] Which is to say, González just made a startling admission.  Parkland students bullied Nikolas Cruz.  It may well be that González is right — the rest of us didn't know him.  But there are a large number of people — some of whom are celebrities and either marched in and/or supported the March — who have spent years insisting that what González and her friends who "ostracized" Nikolas Cruz did was... bullying.

Walmart's: shelf-scanning robots to patrol the aisles.  Machines already play a part in the shopping experience for many, with self-checkout facilities popping up in supermarkets and department stores all over the world.  They now continue their push into retail, with Walmart expanding its trials of robots that roam the aisles for sections in need of attention.  Self-checkouts have been around for years now, but the truth is there a other repetitive tasks that could conceivably be carried out by machines.  Way back in 2015, Simbe Robotics took aim at at this with a fully autonomous robot called Tally that rolls around stores using a sensor array to make sure shelves are fully stocked and that items are correctly priced, placed and labelled.

Man guilty of hate crime for filming pug's 'Nazi salutes'.  A man who filmed a pet dog giving Nazi salutes before putting the footage on YouTube has been convicted of committing a hate crime.  Mark Meechan, 30, recorded his girlfriend's pug, Buddha, responding to statements such as "gas the Jews" and "Sieg Heil" by raising its paw.  But police were alerted and he was arrested for allegedly committing a hate crime.  The original clip had been viewed more than three million times on YouTube.

Democratic senator resigns for new gov't role paying $100G more.  A North Carolina Democrat resigned from the state Senate this week, on the same day she announced she was joining the state parole board — at a pay raise of more than $100,000.  The state Senate received Sen. Angela Bryant's resignation letter Monday [3/19/2018], the same day Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper announced he was appointing Bryant to the state Post-Release Supervision & Parole Commission.  State law sets Bryant's board salary at $116,595 annually, about eight times more compared to her legislative salary at nearly $14,000, the Raleigh News & Observer reported.

Guccifer (Marcel Lehel Lazar) Says Guccifer 2.0 was a Creation of the NSA and US State Department and at Least 10 Groups or Individuals Breached Hillary's Private Server!  Crooked and corrupt Assistant US AG Rod Rosenstein is holding a cyber law enforcement announcement today where's he's expected to announce that the corrupt Mueller investigation is taking over the Guccifer 2 investigation. [...] In August of 2017, the Eastern European hacker known as "Guccifer" reached out to US reporters from prison in Romania to claim that Guccifer 2.0 is a scheme orchestrated by the National Security Agency and US State Department.

Elon Musk on Mars flights: 'Good chance' first passengers will die.  Billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk says his company SpaceX is close to sending passengers on test flights to Mars, but with a catch:  the trip will likely be deadly.  Musk told attendees of the South by Southwest tech and pop culture festival that SpaceX is aiming to launch an interplanetary shuttle to Mars by the first half of 2019.  The Tesla founder said the trips would be "up and down flights" using reusable rockets, with flights likely costing less than $6 million.

DOD To Transfer Secret Data To Amazon's Secret Cloud.  The U.S. Department of Defense is set to start transferring top-secret data to Amazon's secret cloud storage platform after a military command awarded the tech giant a large contract.  "This is a significant benefit to the warfighter," Amazon said in a press release, "as it allows the most sensitive mission workloads to benefit from the innovation and agility of cloud and also simplifies training for DoD's IT professionals, as training on AWS will help the DoD take advantage of the cloud across all data classification levels."

Air Force:  GPS Satellites Vulnerable to Attack.  Global Positioning System satellites that guide both precision guided weapons and car navigation systems are vulnerable to attack from Chinese and Russian lasers and missiles, Air Force officials told Congress this week.  Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said in House testimony on Wednesday that her service is working on developing jam-proof GPS satellites that currently can be disrupted by a variety of weapons.  "With respect to the threat that we face, I think it's everything from jamming from the surface or a cyber attack, to direct-ascent satellite weapons, either from Russia [or] in 2007 the Chinese tested an anti-satellite weapon and spread debris all over orbit," Wilson told a House Appropriations defense subcommittee hearing.  The testimony on space warfare threats came a day after President Donald Trump told Marines in California that the military needs a "space corps."

Searches for Hotels in Fictional Country 'Wakanda' Rise 620% Following 'Black Panther' Release.  Searches for hotels in the fictional African country of Wakanda are up by 620 percent, following the release of Black Panther.  According to the Daily Mail, "Hotelscan.com reported that the number of people landing on its Wisconsin Wakanda Water Park page is up by 620 percent and Hotels.com reported that searches for neighbouring Wakanda Park are up by 55 percent year on year."

The Editor says...
There are a lot of poorly-educated simpletons who spend too much time in movie theaters; and even worse, they seem to think every film is a documentary.  That's probably why some of the simpletons are trying to buy tickets to visit a place that exists only in a work of fiction.

Navy Floats Idea of Atheist Chaplains.  If there aren't atheists in foxholes, why should we put them in the Chaplain Corps?  Senator Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) can't imagine.  Like most leaders, he's astounded that the Navy is even considering letting someone who doesn't believe in God join the chaplaincy.  Three years ago, the idea was so absurd that even Obama's military attorneys went to court to stop it.  Now, with Secretary Jim Mattis at the helm, no one can quite understand why the topic is even up for discussion.

Radical Atheist Who Trashed Billy Graham after His Death Is Set to Become a Navy "Chaplain".  Radical atheist Jason Heap is hoping to become a Navy chaplain.  The US Navy is seriously considering the approval of this anti-Christian activist for a spot in its Chaplain Corps.

Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof's sister charged with bringing weapons, drugs to school.  The sister of Dylann Roof, the man who shot and killed nine people at a Charleston, South Carolina, church in 2015, was arrested Wednesday after authorities said she brought weapons and drugs to school.  According to WIS-TV, Morgan Roof, 18, is accused of bringing a knife, pepper spray and marijuana to A.C. Flora High School in Forest Acres.  She was arrested on charges of carrying weapons on school property and simple possession of marijuana, the station reported.

Ohio student suspended for staying in class during walkouts.  An Ohio high school student says he tried to remain nonpolitical during school walkouts over gun violence and was suspended for a day because he stayed in a classroom instead of joining protests or the alternative, a study hall.

Rebuttal:
Hilliard student wasn't suspended for avoiding gun protest, but the Internet doesn't believe that.  Scott Shoemaker was flooded with messages of support, death threats and offers from attorneys because of a viral internet post claiming his son was suspended for refusing to join the national walkout on Wednesday to protest guns in schools.  The story wasn't true, but that didn't stop thousands from sharing it.  The photo of a Hilliard City Schools suspension slip made its away around Twitter and Facebook — along with Shoemaker's name and phone number on it.  The now-viral story is 100 percent false, the Hilliard district says.  Shoemaker says that the story is partially true, but not in the way the sharers are trying to spin it.

This collusion should worry all.  In light of current investigations of interference in the U.S. political process, it turns out that Russia has, in fact, been meddling for years — not only in the electoral system, but also in the legislative process, and in our internal cultural debates over a wide range of policy issues.  According to congressional investigators, a primary focus of their influence-buying has focused on the environmental movement.  The committees discovered that Russia has covertly funded opposition to U.S. domestic energy production by funding the environmental opposition.  That includes underwriting organizations that work to ban fracking, and even efforts to push ballot initiatives at the state and local level.

Environmental group may have to register as foreign agents.  U.S. environmental activists who are working to halt the production and use of fossil fuels could be required to register as foreign agents if Congress gets serious about enforcing an existing law.  There was some potential movement in that direction last October when Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, introduced legislation that would put some teeth into the Foreign Agents Registration Act.  The law, which was first passed in 1938, calls for individuals and organizations to provide full disclosure when they are working to advance the public policy interests of a foreign government.

Everything You Need to Know About 5G.  [Synopsis by The Editor] This article includes an amusing video clip that explains some advancements in cell phone technology, but the bottom line is that cell phone providers are about to demand control of every radio frequency above 500 MHz.  In the video clip (at the 1:43 mark), the frequencies above 6 GHz are labeled as "EMPTY."  This is not true.  In any big city, the frequency bands up to at least 20 GHz are well-populated by long-established services.

Conservative Activists Martin Sellner and Brittany Pettibone Detained in UK for Political Beliefs.  Austrian activist Martin Sellner of Génération Identitaire and his girlfriend, American author and YouTuber Brittany Pettibone, have been detained by airport police in England for nearly three days.  Nobody from the US State Department or embassy contacted Pettibone's family.  Sellner was on his way to give a speech that authorities say would cause "tension among local communities and possibly incite hatred."

Footage of mysterious object above ocean stuns military personnel.  The videos, along with observations by pilots and radar operators, "appear to provide evidence of the existence of aircraft far superior to anything possessed by the United States or its allies," writes Christopher Mellon, a former defense official in the George W. Bush and Clinton administrations and an adviser to To the Stars Academy.  In a Washington Post op-ed, Mellon reasoned that if the origin of these aircraft is a mystery, "so is the paralysis of the US government in the face of such evidence."

Ex-Justice Dept. lawyer caught in 'most serious' internal corruption case in recent memory.  A former corporate-fraud prosecutor carried out the "most serious" example of public corruption by a U.S. Department of Justice attorney in years by stealing more than 40 whistleblower fraud cases in 2016 and trying to sell the secret information to companies under federal investigation, prosecutors said.  The scheme was an attempt to woo potential clients and increase his earnings and standing in his new role as a defense lawyer for one of Washington's most influential law firms, according to prosecutors and admissions by Jeffrey Wertkin at his sentencing Wednesday [3/7/2018].

Official: School metal detectors not in use day of shooting.  Metal detectors at an Alabama high school were not in use the day a 17-year-old student was killed in a shooting on campus, the district's superintendent said Thursday [3/8/2018].

Justice Department processing pardon case for sailor Trump compared to Hillary Clinton.  The Justice Department is processing a pardon application from former Navy sailor Kristian Saucier after denying him a waiver to apply for a pardon last year.  President Trump repeatedly invoked Saucier during the 2016 campaign after he was sentenced to one year in prison for taking pictures inside a nuclear submarine, arguing Saucier was "ruined" for doing "nothing" compared to Hillary Clinton.  The photos Saucier, now 31, took inside the sub were deemed "confidential," meaning the lowest level of classification, even though some depicted the vessel's nuclear reactor.  Clinton, by contrast, sent and received more highly classified information on a private and insecure email server.

Trump preparing to use a pardon to highlight the depth of Hillary's national security crimes.  On the campaign trail, Donald Trump repeatedly referred to the case of Navy sailor Kristian Saucier, who was sentenced to one year in prison for taking pictures on a submarine that were deemed "confidential" — the lowest rung on the ladder of national security secrets.  Candidate Trump compared Saucier's severe punishment for this comparatively minor infraction to Hillary Clinton's exoneration by James Comey for far more serious breaches in using an unprotected server in a bathroom to house top secret and beyond documents.  This usually was a cue for the crowd to chant, "Lock her up!  Lock her up!"  The next chapter is about to dawn.

Eating a nutria rat is okay for someone like Granny Clampett or Kim Jong-un, but count me out.
Invasive rodent threatens California wetlands and there's talk about eating them.  Wildlife officials in California are asking residents to report any sightings of nutria — an invasive rodent that threatens wetlands — and at least one report raises the question of whether or not the rodents should be eaten.  There is no indication that the rodent is anywhere close to being on the menus at Craig's or the Polo Lounge, but The Verge's report said other states that have grappled with nutria have turned to eating them.

The No. 1 Thing That Causes Millennial Employees to Quit.  Jive Communications looked at 2,000 millennials and asked them about their workplace requirements and why they leave.  Thirty-seven percent said having a job with flexible hours is essential, and a quarter of those reported they'd left jobs because they couldn't work flexibly.  The ability to work remotely was also an important factor for 63 percent of millennials surveyed, who said they might not be interested in future jobs if working remotely wasn't an option.  Sixty-four percent of the millennials surveyed also said they'd leave a job if it were too difficult to take sick or personal days.  Meanwhile, over 70 percent said they strongly prefer fast in-office technology, and without it, 20 percent of the millennials polled said they would actually quit.

Chinese billionaire 'hid $2bn aluminium pile in Mexican desert and then sold it across the border to America to avoid costly tariffs', claim US rivals.  A Chinese billionaire is hiding a giant stockpile of aluminum in the Mexican desert, his American rivals have claimed.  The pile, worth $2 billion and measuring one million metric tons, represents six percent of the world's aluminum.  It was discovered two years ago after a California aluminum executive sent a pilot over San José Iturbide, a city in central Mexico, the Wall Street Journal reported in an investigative piece Friday.  Trade representative Jeff Henderson believes Chinese billionaire Liu Zhongtian, an aluminum magnate, routed merchandise through Mexico to avoid paying US tariffs.

SST Committee Staff Report Reveals Russia's Social Media Meddling in U.S. Energy Markets.  U.S. House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) today released a staff report uncovering Russia's extensive efforts to influence U.S. energy markets through divisive and inflammatory posts on social media platforms.  The report details Russia's motives in interfering with U.S. energy markets and influencing domestic energy policy and its manipulation of Americans via social media propaganda.  The report includes examples of Russian-propagated social media posts.

Disneyland workers struggle with low wages and homelessness.  The happiest place on Earth may not be a happy place to work.  Some workers at Disneyland say they are struggling with homelessness and poverty because the theme park doesn't pay them enough to live on, CBS Los Angeles reports.  Several Disney (DIS) unions met to discuss wages Wednesday night in Anaheim, while hundreds of protesters showed up to demand a livable wage.  One in 10 Disneyland employees has recently experienced homelessness, while two-thirds of workers don't have enough food to eat three meals per day, according to a new study from researchers at Occidental College and the Economic Roundtable.  Low-wage workers in expensive regions — such as Disneyland's location near Los Angeles — are increasingly feeling the pinch as their incomes have failed to keep up with soaring real estate values and the cost of living.

Kenya believe it?
Kenya doctors 'perform brain surgery on wrong patient'.  Staff from nurses to the CEO have been suspended at a Nairobi hospital after the wrong patient underwent brain surgery.  One patient needed surgery for a blood clot on the brain, the other only non-invasive treatment for swelling.  But a horrifying mix-up of identification tags saw the wrong man operated on, reports say.  The doctors did not realise their mistake until "hours into the surgery", the Daily Nation reported.  They then realised "there was no blood clot".

The Editor says...
In Africa, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to be a brain surgeon.

Florida sheriff on the defensive after school shooting.  The outspoken Florida sheriff whose deputies responded to the Parkland school shooting usually deals with critics head on.  But in recent days, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel has been mostly silent.

Deputies Allegedly Told To Set Up 'Perimeter' Around Parkland Shooting, Opposite Of Training.  A partial Broward Sheriff's Office dispatch log obtained by a local newspaper revealed on Friday that the captain who initially took charge of the scene at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, allegedly told deputies to form a perimeter around the school, leaving questions as to whether a stand-down order was given.

Teacher who caused mass panic when he fired a gun at Georgia high school had multiple run-ins with police in recent years including confessing to 'killing a woman'.  The teacher who caused mass panic when he fired a gun at a Georgia high school had been the subject of multiple police reports in recent years.  including one instance where he told officers he had killed a woman.  Jesse Randal Davidson, 53, was arrested on Wednesday after he barricaded himself inside a classroom at Dalton High School and fired a handgun through the window.  The social studies teacher was taken into custody after a 45-minute standoff with police and later refused to discuss what led to the shooting.

Supreme Court rules immigrants can be held indefinitely with no bond hearings.  The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday [2/27/2018] that immigration officials can continue to indefinitely detain immigrants during proceedings to determine the legality of their status in the U.S.  In the 5-3 decision, which Justice Elena Kagan took no part in, the Supreme Court reversed the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision that ruled detained immigrants must receive bond hearings every six months to determine if their continued detainment was necessary.  The decision of Jennings v.  Rodriguez affects illegal and legal immigrants.  Legal permanent residents facing deportation as a result of committing crimes and asylum seekers who have turned themselves in at the border and are awaiting a court date can be detained indefinitely with no interval bond hearings.

Cheers, protests as German court lets cities ban diesel cars.  Handing environmentalists a landmark victory, a German court ruled Tuesday that cities can ban diesel cars and trucks to combat air pollution, a decision with far-reaching and costly implications in the country where the diesel engine was invented in the 1890s.  The ruling by the Federal Administrative Court stirred fears from motorists, auto dealers and other businesses worried about the financial impact.  And Chancellor Angela Merkel's government scrambled to reassure drivers it would seek to prevent such drastic measures by pushing other ways to reduce urban pollution.

Cape Cod environmentalists plan to wreck their lobster Industry to save the whales.  Scientists trying to convince New England lobstermen to invest in "ropeless fishing" to cut the risk current fishing methods pose to northern right whales, The Boston Globe reported.  Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution say ropeless fishing will allow lobstermen to continue in their livelihood, but without long ropes running from buoys on the ocean's surface to lobster traps on the ocean floor.  Whales are caught in these lines, which fishermen use to haul up their catch, and tangle themselves until they drown.

Pattern Starts To Emerge In Political Corruption Cases That Bodes Ill for Prosecutors.  [This article presents] four examples, featuring two Republican and two Democratic politicians whose prosecutions were originally brought in 2014 and 2015, when the White House and the Justice Department were under control of the Democrats.  In all four cases, the prosecutors proclaimed they had caught a crime.  In all four cases, judges or jurors disagreed.  In all four cases, the politicians, who pleaded not guilty, have suffered the punishment of public humiliation — negative headlines and unflattering photographs.  Three of the four are no longer elected officials, though [Robert] Menendez remains in office and is running for reelection this year.  All four politicians have at least so far not had to serve the long prison terms with which they were threatened had they been convicted and had the convictions been sustained on appeal.

The CIA's year-long inquiry into whether employees have to pay for their own coffee.  During its 70 year history, a number of coffee-related controversies have gripped the Central Intelligence Agency — but perhaps none of them had such long-lasting impact on the caffeination of our nation's clandestine service as a year-long inquiry into the legality of using government funds to buy CIA employees their daily pick-me-up.  After a lengthy departmental review, Director of Central Intelligence William Colby announced the decision to stop allowing government funds to be used to purchase coffee and food at meetings attended solely by U.S. Government employees in a June 12, 1975 memo: [...]

South Korean MPs demand execution of North's Olympic delegate.  South Korean lawmakers protested Friday over a visit by a top North Korean general for the Pyeongchang Olympics, labelling him a war criminal over the 2010 sinking of a warship and calling for his execution.  Kim Yong Chol will head an eight-member delegation to arrive on Sunday for the Games' closing ceremony — which will also be attended by US President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka, creating protocol headaches for Seoul officials.  Kim is widely blamed for a spate of attacks against the South including the torpedoing nearly eight years ago of the Seoul's Cheonan corvette, with the loss of 46 lives.  Some 70 lawmakers of the conservative Liberty Korea Party staged a protest outside the presidential Blue House, urging President Moon Jae-in to scrap the visit.

Apple removes Good Friday, Easter from calendar for iPhones.  Breitbart reports that the latest iPhone update has deliberately removed Good Friday and Easter Sunday from users' calendars. [...] Apple has been receiving complaints about this change.

Democrat Dallas Mayor — Move the NRA Convention Out Because of JFK or Something.  The liberal Democrat mayor of Dallas (elected by ghetto voters) doesn't want to the NRA convention to be held in Dallas.  His reason?  Because JFK was assassinated in Dallas back in 1963.

Dallas Mayor Pro Tem urges NRA to find a new home for their convention.  A leader in Dallas politics does not want the National Rifle Association to meet in his city.  Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway is urging the NRA to find a new home for its annual convention.  He says the meeting is not appropriate in Dallas in the wake of last week's school shooting in Florida.  Caraway also points to the past tragedies in Dallas, including the 2016 ambush that killed five Dallas officers, and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

The Editor says...
The City of Dallas has been working for decades on various ways to make the city more attractive to large conventions, even going so far as to build a nice hotel adjacent to the downtown convention center.  By attempting to turn away convention business merely on the basis of his own misguided left-wing views, Mr. Caraway is undoing a lot of other people's work.

Free Speech Panel at CPAC Canceled by Pamela Geller After Gateway Pundit Jim Hoft Banned.  Conservative commentator Pam Geller revealed on Breitbart News Daily on Wednesday morning that her panel on free speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) had been canceled because she refused to remove Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit as a participant. [...] Geller said that she had been asked to exclude Hoft after a post at Gateway Pundit on the Parkland shooting in Florida last week.  The site has published several posts criticizing the students who are advocating for gun control.  The demand, she said, forced her to cancel the panel.

Powell: 'Pretty Shocking' That So Many American Youths Lack Smarts, Fitness for Military.  Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said too many young people do not qualify for military service due in part to obesity and criminal records, which is reflective of many "scary" problems in local communities that must be addressed.  Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President George H. W. Bush and President Bill Clinton, was asked why he thinks more African-Americans should join the military.  "I'm very, very thankful that they do, and they join the military for a variety of reasons:  a combination of patriotism, looking for a change in their life experience at that point, travel or serving their country, just serving their country.  And many of them go in because, frankly, it's a steady wage every month," Powell said during a discussion at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Avoice Heritage Celebration recognizing African-American veterans.

250 Teachers Sign Up for 50 Seats at Concealed Carry Training Session.  Butler County, Ohio, Sheriff Richard K. Jones offered free concealed carry training for 50 teachers and 250 teachers responded within 24 hours.  Breitbart News reported that Jones began advertising the free training on Sunday [2/18/2018] and the immediate response was 50 emails within 20 minutes.

Woman Pulled From Public Hearing While Listing Corporate Donations to Reps.  Lissa Lucas, Democratic candidate for District 7 of the West Virginia House of Delegates., appeared at the state capitol to testify regarding House Bill 4268, "which would allow a majority of 75 percent of owners or heirs of a single piece of property to determine whether the property could be developed for oil or gas production" according to WVNews.  Lucas claimed that those speaking in favor of the bill and some voting on the bill were being paid by "the industry."  "I have to keep this short because the public only gets a minute and 45 seconds while lobbyists can throw a gala at the Marriott with whiskey and wine and talk for hours to the delegates," Lucas said.

Soros Backed Pro-Mass Migration NGO Has Funds Frozen Amidst Sex Abuse, Fraud Claims.  The International Rescue Committee (IRC), an open borders-backing NGO fronted by former Labour Foreign Secretary David Miliband has been accused of "hushing up" allegations of more than 30 crimes.  UK government ministers froze funds to the NGO, which is a major partner of globalist billionaire George Soros, "based on direct reporting of sexual harassment and fraud", it was reported this week.  With nearly five and a half million pounds of taxpayer cash at stake, a team from the IRC was sent to look into claims made over the body's behaviour in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Marine Corps Drops Major Obstacle to Female Infantry Officers.  The Marine Corps has made a major change to its Infantry Officer Course.  The first big challenge for many was a test of physical fitness.  If you passed, you moved on.  If you didn't, you washed out.  The test was especially difficult for women who had to meet the same standard as the men.  Not anymore.

Apple's iCal calendar mysteriously deletes Easter.  Easter Sunday, which arrives on April 1 this year, is the culmination of Holy Week, commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the most important holiday in the Christian religion.  However, it's absent from some Apple users' iCal calendars.  There are other holidays on the U.S. calendar, such as Juneteenth (a holiday celebrating the abolition of slavery in Texas), Flag Day and Indigenous People's Day, that appear.

Air Force Academy First Sergeant Reprimanded For Telling Cadets To Dress Properly.  Progressive social justice trends appear to be creeping into the Air Force Academy, as an academy first sergeant was reprimanded for instructing cadets to maintain a professional appearance, emails reveal.  "Observations made by USAFA [United States Air Force Academy] permanent party members regarding cadet grooming standards have become increasingly unfavorable," First Sergeant Zachary Parish apparently wrote in a leaked email to cadets.  "Going forward, I expect you all to do your part in reversing negative perceptions about cadet personal appearance that circulates USAFA and diminishes your credibility as a member in the profession of arms."  The first sergeant then advised the cadets in his charge to be like Mike.

Trump White House agrees to make some visitor logs available to the public — but traffic into the Oval Office will stay a secret.  The Trump administration has settled a transparency lawsuit by agreeing to release visitor logs from some White House agencies — but not those that cover major West Wing areas.  Offices on the White House complex that are specifically funded by Congress or are led by Senate-confirmed officials are required to make public records available in response to Freedom Of Information Act requests.  But offices that are created by the president and managed internally are not.  That includes most of the Executive Office of the President and the top-level officials who work most closely with the president — and the Oval Office itself.

Venezuela oil production is plummeting.  Venezuela's main source of cash is dwindling at a breathtaking pace.  The country's oil output in January fell to its lowest level in nearly 30 years, not including a brief oil strike in 2003, according to S&P Global Platts.  A monthly OPEC report published Monday revealed Venezuela pumped 1.6 million barrels of oil per day last month.  Production in January was down 20% from a year ago.  The staggering decline is another sign of Venezuela's economic and political crisis.  The country is heading toward a presidential election in April that international critics are already labeling fraudulent.  Venezuela has more crude oil than any other country in the world and it heavily depends on the commodity to power its economy.  Crude oil makes up about 95% of Venezuela's exports.  The country has no other source of foreign income.

Someone's Doing The DOJ and FBI Interrogations and It's Not Congress.  On a Monday night (February 12th, 2018) episode of Tucker Carlson a Democrat member of the House Intelligence committee said something interesting that almost everyone missed.  Appearing on the show to joust with Tucker, HPSCI member Eric Swalwell stated:  "the House Intel Committee has not interviewed a single witness in over a month".  This statement is rather enlightening.

Judge orders release of sealed Bill Clinton documents from Ken Starr probe.  A federal judge has ordered the unsealing of documents from then-Independent Counsel Ken Starr's two-decade old probe that led to former President Bill Clinton's impeachment.  Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia granted the order Monday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from CNN.  According to the judge's order, CNN journalist Katelyn Polantz requested on Feb. 9, 2018 that eight sealed matters arising from Starr's 1998 investigation of Clinton "be unsealed and made public."

CNN Stunned By What Iowa Voters Think About Russia Investigation.  CNN's Martin Savidge interviewed a group of voters from Iowa on Monday [2/12/2018] who all expressed serious doubts about special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation.  The panel, comprised of four Trump voters, voiced their support for the president while slamming Mueller's investigation.  Vicente Javier, a former baseball player, called the investigation a "political witch hunt from the get-go" and a "disgrace."

FBI, Hillary scandals could have a ripple effect on Wall Street.  Again, if you are investing in US financial markets, keep a close eye on developments regarding the FBI and the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation.  The markets don't like chaos, and that's what we are headed for.  There have been a lot of major developments recently, although most big media organizations are ignoring them.  They will soon regret that.

Hawaii Has A Major [Cesspool] Problem.  Hawaii is struggling to find more sanitary ways to dispose of human waste after years of putting sewage into open holes in the ground.  The state's five islands have more than 88,000 "cesspools," Hawaii's Department of Health determined in a recent report.  The cesspools put 53 million gallons of sewage into ground and surface water.  The 2017 legislative session passed a law requiring all cesspools to be replaced with better sewer systems by 2050, but that might not be fast enough.

San Francisco Fines Landlord $2 Million For Renting Out Dwellings to Low-Income Veterans that Violated Zoning Codes.  For the past two years the City of San Francisco has been doing everything in its power to dismantle low-income housing units that run afoul of the city's laborious zoning codes.  Over the past decade, San Francisco landlord Judy Wu (real name Xiaoqi Wu) converted some 12 properties she owns into 49 housing units which she and her husband, Trent Zhu, have rented predominately to low-income veterans, many of whom are disabled, or previously homeless.  These units, however, were only zoned for 15 dwellings.  And in 2015, the city's Planning Department first became aware of the excess units, ordering her to obtain permits to dismantle many of them.  In 2016, as she was working to bring her units into compliance, and while her tenants fought to preserve their homes, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera sued Wu, claiming that her unauthorized dwellings "substantially endanger the health, welfare, and safety of individual tenants, the residents of the City and County of San Francisco."

Farage: Instead of Russian Collusion, Press Should Look at Where Soros' Billions Are Going.  Former United Kingdom Independence Party Leader Nigel Farage said the world need to keep a closer eye on the activities of billionaire investor and political activist George Soros.  Farage underlined that nothing Soros has done has been illegal, but that with the billions he has spread around the world for left-wing causes, "nation-state democracies" should be concerned.  "We all need to wake up to who George Soros is and how big his [Open Society Foundations] organization is," Farage said of the 87-year-old.

Obama Knew.  Former President Obama wanted "to know everything" the FBI was doing in its investigation into claims that Russia was interfering in the 2016 election, a new report suggests, raising the specter of a sitting president becoming involved in a plot to rig the 2016 election.  It was a year ago the outlines of a Watergate-like conspiracy emerged in which a term-limited Democrat president used the privacy-invading apparatus of the state to spy on a Republican presidential candidate.  Watergate differed in that President Nixon didn't get involved in the plot against the Democratic National Committee until later as an accomplice after the fact.  But this new evidence suggests Obama may have been part of a sinister anti-democratic cabal from the beginning.

50% Think Senior Law Enforcement Officials Broke the Law to Block Trump Presidency.  A once-secret memo released last week scrutinizes the FBI and Justice Department officials for their surveillance practices of a former Trump campaign adviser, and half of voters think those officials went too far.  A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 50% of Likely U.S. Voters believe it's at least Somewhat Likely senior federal law enforcement officials broke the law in an effort to prevent Donald Trump from winning the presidency, including 32% who think it's Very Likely.  Forty percent (40%) think it's not likely these officials broke the law, with 25% who feel it's Not At All Likely.

Adam Schiff, gullible fool.  The easiest marks are the desperate ones, the ones who want something so bad they lose their common sense, becoming putty in the hands of their manipulators.  So here we have Rep. Adam Schiff, easy mark for a phone prank tailored especially for him by Russian comedians, pushing all his right buttons.  Here is the audio, and man is it stupid.

Watch: Chuck Schumer Called For Military Parade In 2014.  Historically ignorant and cynical politicians feigned outrage on Wednesday [2/7/2018] at President Trump's proposal of a military parade in 2018.  Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) insisted, "I think confidence is silent and insecurity is loud.  America is the most powerful country in all of human history; you don't need to show it off."  Rep. Adam Smith (D-CA) preened, "A military parade of this kind would also be a departure from the values of our constitutional democracy."  Reps.  Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) and Ted Lieu (D-CA) glibly observed, "Because authoritarian regimes like Russia and North Korea hold massive military parades does not mean that we must as well."

Well, Well, Well, Look Who Adam Schiff Has "Family Ties" To.  Twitter is on fire with the revelation that Democratic party mouthpiece Adam Schiff turns out to have "family ties" to none other than George Soros himself.

Mexico pipeline thefts at record high, 10,363 illegal taps.  Fuel thieves in Mexico drilled 10,363 illegal taps into state-owned pipelines in 2017, or an average of about 28 illegal taps every day.

The Air Force Turned Off GPS To Rehearse a War Without It.  The U.S. military is worryingly dependent on GPS. Our global positioning satellites tell planes where they are, provide targeting info for smart weapons, and support communication and navigation systems.  But in a war with a tech-advanced adversary — think China, Russia, or Iran — GPS could become a big liability because it could be jammed, spoofed, or outright destroyed.  So how does the U.S. Air Force train for such a scenario?  Simple — just turn it off.

The Editor says...
Jamming is a possibility in wartime, but that would likely affect other countries' versions of GPS, like Glonass, putting all parties on equal footing.  And I suspect our jamming is much more effective than their jamming.  Spoofing is not easy.  It has been done, but it takes a lot of talent and a lot of computer and radio hardware.  Both jamming and spoofing would be local, not global or even regional.  Destroying the entire GPS system would be impossible:  It would have to be done by a country with extremely sophisticated (laser) weapons, and it would have to be done quickly, before any countermeasures could be taken.  Agents of some other country could upload a "shutdown" command to all of the GPS satellites at once, but this would require the theft of encryption keys, multiple uplink sites, and lots of other stuff.  In summary, there is no credible threat to the GPS system from anyone outside of our own government.  Someone at the top levels of our government could tell the Air Force to put GPS into the military-only mode and those who rely on GPS navigation would need to make other arrangements.  This, too, is unlikely except in the event of civil war.  So it's good that the military is making plans to remain functional in the absence of GPS, but that situation is extremely unlikely.

Amazon patents could enable worker monitoring via wristband.  The patent filings, first reported this week by the news site Geekwire, come amid concerns over workplace conditions for the company, which has seen rapid growth in its warehouses or "fulfillment centers" key to its logistics.  The publicly available patent documents show how wrist-worn devices could deliver ultrasonic pulses that could direct employees to the location of bins for packages being sought.  "Ultrasonic tracking of a worker's hands may be used to monitor performance of assigned tasks," according to one of the documents.

The Editor says...
I hope I'm retired by the time this device is issued to every U.S. worker.  On the other hand, it might be very beneficial for my employer to see who's completely motionless (asleep), who's hiding in the freight elevator until shift change, who's in a room he's not supposed to be in, and who's not even in the building.

SJWs Demand You Stop Saying 'Marijuana.' The Reason Is Stupider Than You'd Expect.  I have to admit, weed culture can be downright befuddling to us normies on the outside looking in (see Nevada Declares State of Emergency for Running Low on Weed).  We're not up to speed on all the different terms.  Can't tell a roach clip from a hair barrette.  Sometimes mistake broccoli for the pot.  That sort of thing.  Yet, having said that, one still can't help but be surprised at this story crawling its way out of the cannabis community.  Apparently saying "marijuana" is now a big no-no.

Politifact Backs Down:  Crazed Democrat Out As Fact Checker.  Only hours after Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro issued a scathing attack targeting Politifact for announcing on Thursday [2/1/2018] that they had hired former Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson as a fact checker, Politifact backed down, tweeting their acknowledgement that hiring Grayson was a major boo-boo.

Dem Rep Brenda Lawrence Slams Trump For Focusing On "M-16" Street Gang.  Michigan Representative Brenda Lawrence (D) has apparently never even heard of MS-13.  After Trump's State of the Union address on Tuesday, she went on C-SPAN2 to slam the president for being "so focused" on this "M-16" street gang, which she says "spoke nothing about crime in America."  "To be so focused on this M-16, or, the, this illegal immigrant gang that he speaks of, spoke nothing about crime in America, about his commitment to America First," Rep Lawrence said.  "What about fighting the crime that's in our streets?  It's not by immigrants!"

Drug firms shipped 20.8M pain pills to WV town with 2,900 people.  Over the past decade, out-of-state drug companies shipped 20.8 million prescription painkillers to two pharmacies four blocks apart in a Southern West Virginia town with 2,900 people, according to a congressional committee investigating the opioid crisis.  The House Energy and Commerce Committee cited the massive shipments of hydrocodone and oxycodone — two powerful painkillers — to the town of Williamson, in Mingo County, amid the panel's inquiry into the role of drug distributors in the opioid epidemic.

'Drool' on Rep. Joe Kennedy's Mouth Distracts from Dem Response to Trump's State of the Union.  Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-MA) appeared to have an unidentified liquid coming from the side of his mouth as he delivered the official Democratic Party's response to President Donald Trump's first State of the Union address.  As Kennedy delivered his remarks, Twitter commentators were quick to point out an unverified moisture on the side of his mouth, which they speculated could be anything from saliva to lip balm.

Trump administration restarts refugee program for 11 high-risk countries.  The Trump administration has lifted its effective pause on refugees from 11 "high-risk" countries but is imposing stricter vetting, including in-depth interviews, for applicants from those nations, Homeland Security announced Monday [1/29/2018].  Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen also said it's time to update the list of high-risk countries, which hasn't been revised since 2015, in order to keep track of the expanding threats.  That review will happen over the next six months, and will be updated every six months following.

John Kerry Sabotages US Foreign Policy.  Former Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly sought to undermine the Trump administration's current policy in dealing with the nihilist Palestinian leadership.  According to an article appearing in Maariv, as quoted by the Jerusalem Post, Kerry met a senior Palestinian leader, Hussein Agha, in London recently and told him to convey a clandestine message to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.  The message was that Abbas should "play for time" and "not yield to President [Donald] Trump's demands."  Kerry reportedly predicted that President Trump would not be in office for long — perhaps not more than a year.  Possibly for that reason, Kerry allegedly advised that the Palestinians should aim their criticisms at President Trump personally, rather than more broadly at the United States.

Why Did Kerry Lie About Israeli Blame?  In testimony before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Secretary of State John Kerry performed a post-mortem on the recent collapse of the Middle East peace talks.  According to Kerry, the Palestinian refusal to keep negotiating past April and their decision to flout their treaty commitments by returning to efforts to gain recognition for their non-existent state from the United Nations was all the fault of one decision made by Israel. [...] Kerry doesn't want to blame the Palestinians for walking out because to do so would be a tacit admission that his critics were right when they suggested last year that he was embarking on a fool's errand.

Kerry's Collusion.  Deafening is the word for the silence that has greeted the report that Secretary of State Kerry has sent a message urging the Palestinian Arab leader Mahmoud Abbas to stay strong and resist American policy in the Middle East.  This supposedly took place at a meeting between Mr. Kerry and an longtime ally of Mr. Abbas, Hussein Agha, who has long been involved on the Palestinian side of the so-called peace process.  At that meeting, according to reports in the Israeli newspaper Maariv and the Jerusalem Post, Mr. Kerry asked Mr. Agha to encourage Mr. Abbas to "hold on and be strong" in the face of "Trump's demands."  And to "play for time."  Mr. Kerry sought to reassure his interlocutor with the news that he was considering making another run for the presidency in 2020, the implication being that if so, things would go better for the Palestinian Arabs.

New York Attorney General to Investigate Firm That Sells Fake Followers.  The New York attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, on Saturday [1/27/2018] opened an investigation into a company that sold millions of fake followers on social media platforms, some of them copying real users' personal information.  The company, Devumi, and its sale of automated followers to a swath of celebrities, sports stars, journalists and politicians, was detailed in a New York Times article published earlier on Saturday.  While based in Florida, Devumi claims on its website to be based in New York City.

Morning Consult Poll Shows 'Public's Confidence in Presidency' Up Among Republicans, Down Among Democrats.  A Morning Consult Poll released this week shows that the "public's confidence in the presidency" is up significantly among Republicans since December 2016 but is significantly down among Democrats over the same time period.  An astonishing 82 percent of Republicans say they have "a lot" or "some" confidence in the institution of the presidency, according to the January 2018 Morning Consult Poll.

Rocket Lab's 'Humanity Star' slammed as 'space graffiti'.  Rocket Lab has angered astronomers across the world after putting a glittering disco ball into orbit.  New Zealand's first-ever successful orbital launch was hailed last week, but on Thursday the company revealed in addition to two mapping satellites, the Electron rocket was carrying a reflective sphere it called the 'Humanity Star'.  It holds no practical purpose, except to "get people to go outside and look up", according to Rocket Lab founder Peter Beck.

Mike Huckabee Responds to Cher's Attack on His Daughter.  On Thursday [1/25/2018] Cher the progressive attacked White House Spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders for dressing like a polygamist bride.  Because nasty attacks on women based on their looks is still acceptable if you are high profile liberal.  On Friday morning Governor Mike Huckabee responded to Cher. [...] "The person who dresses like a cigarette girl at a casino on stage?  And you're going to tell my daughter how to dress?"

Facebook exec to retire, help Dems in midterms.  A top Facebook executive announced this week that he would be stepping down from the company in part to focus on helping Democrats in this year's midterm elections.  Gary Briggs, Facebook's chief marketing officer (CMO), wrote in a post on Monday [1/22/2018] that he also plans to advise some companies and will consider teaching in his retirement.  "We're going to travel some and start to split our time in and out of the Bay Area and Seattle," Briggs wrote, referring to his family's plans.

Women's Marchers Ignore Science, Walk On Melting Ice In National Mall Reflecting Pool.  The Women's March in D.C. was, according to its website, "pro-science" with regards to "Climate Change," but while they might happily embrace an extensive, industry-crushing, regulation-heavy response to their own extensively researched environmental concerns, short-term weather knowledge appears out of their reach.  They learned more about that from experience Saturday [1/20/2018] when a number of them got soaked (thankfully, though, no one got hurt).

Adam Schiff and Dianne Feinstein Demand Twitter Investigate #ReleaseTheMemo.  The desperation of democrats has crossed into ludicrous world.  Rep. Adam Schiff and Senator Dianne Feinstein have written a letter to Facebook and Twitter demanding an immediate investigation into the strong support of the #ReleaseTheMemo campaign.  If you thought CNN was absurd last year when they spent eight months investigating the 2016 election results and determined a conspiracy behind the mobile ap 'Pokemon-Go' was a factor in causing Hillary Clinton to lose, well, [Shiff and Feinstein] apparently have one-upped that conspiracy.

John Kerry Stabs America In The Back.  If a Republican did this the Democrats would say it was treasonous.

As Palestinian children 'starve' Mahmoud Abbas is set to take possession of a new $50 million private jet!  Amid U.S. funding cuts to UNRWA, and threats to cut direct Palestinian Authority (PA) funding, Mahmoud Abbas is set to take possession of a new $50 million private jet.  Half of PA foreign aid goes towards payments to imprisoned terrorists or dead terrorists' families, while Palestinian "leadership" claims Donald Trump is starving children by withholding funding for the regime in Ramallah.  The illegitimate leader of the fictitious state will need his new wings to fly around the world begging for the money lost from shunning the U.S.

Democrats end shutdown — Republicans cut taxes another $31 billion.  Democrats made fools of themselves this weekend by shutting down the government over their call to grant amnesty to border jumpers who live here illegally.  President Trump laughed and laughed and laughed.  Democrats tanked in the polls. [...] Republicans extracted a price from Democrats for resuming government operations:  another $31 billion in tax cuts.  Surprise, surprise, surprise.  And the tax cuts are stripped from Obamacare.

Unsealed FISA Court Ruling Shows 85% of Obama's FBI and DOJ 704-5 FISA Searches Were Illegal and Illegally Provided to Government Outsiders.  A Report was released in April of 2017 that received no publicity until recently.  The report was a ruling on the results of an investigation or audit into FISA searches made by Obama's FBI and DOJ during Obama's time in office.  The report shows Obama's FBI and DOJ participated in widespread criminal searches and criminal sharing of data with non authorized entities outside of government.

A Nation of Junkies?  Study Eschews Economic Despair Opioid Theory.  Why are so many Americans dying of drug overdoses?  Maybe it's because we're a nation of junkies.  At least that seems to be the finding from a new study that flies in the face of the more widespread view that the opioid crisis is the result of a weak economy.  "The fatal overdose epidemic is likely to primarily reflect drug problems rather than the deaths of despair," states a report published this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Pope Francis Honors Dutch Abortion Activist with Pontifical Medal of Knighthood.  Pope Francis has conferred the title of "Commander of the Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great" on Lilianne Ploumen, a Dutch politician and vocal agitator for abortion rights.  Last year, Ploumen founded a pro-abortion organization called She Decides, which offers funding and support for international NGOs that provide, facilitate or campaign for abortion.  In an email to the Catholic Herald, Ms. Ploumen said that she was "very honoured" by the pontifical medal, which was sent via the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs last month.

'Deplorable Vet' Offers to take Maxine Waters' SOTU Seat: 'She Surely Doesn't Speak for Me'.  An African-American veteran has offered to take Rep. Maxine Waters' (D-Calif.) seat at President Trump's first State of the Union address later this month.  Waters is one of several Democrat lawmakers who are skipping the event, telling MSNBC last week that Trump is "the most despicable human being that could possibly ever walk the earth."  "Why would I take my time to go and sit and listen to a liar? ... He doesn't deserve my attention," Waters said.  Ricky Taylor, a ten-year Army veteran who served two tours in Afghanistan, started going viral after he tweeted that he would like Waters' seat, so he can attend the State of the Union and thank the president.

Nearly all members of National Park Service advisory panel resign in frustration.  More than three-quarters of the members of a federally chartered board advising the National Park Service have quit out of frustration that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke had refused to meet with them or convene a single meeting last year.  The resignation of 10 out of 12 National Park System Advisory Board members leaves the federal government without a functioning body to designate national historic or natural landmarks.  It also underscores the extent to which federal advisory bodies have become marginalized under the Trump administration.  In May 2017, Zinke suspended all outside committees while his staff reviewed their composition and work.  In a letter to the secretary on Monday [1/15/2018], departing board chairman Tony Knowles, a former Alaska governor, wrote that he and eight other members "have stood by waiting for the chance to meet and continue the partnership ... as prescribed by law."  All of the signatories, who serve as unpaid volunteers, had terms set to expire in May.

The Dangerous Supreme Court Case Nobody Is Talking About.  This case, National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA) v.  Becerra, has almost entirely escaped public attention.  That's a mistake.  If anything, the violation of the First Amendment in the NIFLA case is more egregious, and the implications potentially more far-reaching.  As readers almost certainly recall, the issue in Masterpiece Cakeshop was whether the state of Colorado could compel a Christian baker to design a cake for a gay wedding.  One of the state's principal arguments against the baker's First Amendment claim was that designing a custom cake wasn't an expressive act, so forcing him to design a cake wasn't compelled speech.  The NIFLA case, however, is unquestionably about compelled speech.  The state of California has enacted a law, the so-called FACT Act, that requires pro-life crisis-pregnancy centers to prominently place a notice informing clients that California offers low-cost and even free abortions to women who qualify and providing them a phone number that grants quick access to abortion clinics.

What Happens When Socialists Run Out Of Money.  Prime Minister Thatcher once famously observed that socialists "always run out of other people's money."  But what actually happens when socialism runs out of money?  Venezuela, a once wealthy nation with black gold coming out of the ground, is a test case.  The socialist regime ran out of other people's money, and then out of money, years ago.  The government met protests by its starving population with a 40% minimum wage hike.  That's the usual socialist solution to what leftists call 'income inequality'.  The problem is that 40% of nothing is still zero.  The "Strong Bolivar" introduced by former dictator Hugo Chavez, who died of an overdose of Cuba's socialist medicine, leads the world in one economic category:  a 3,000% inflation rate.  Currently a dollar will buy you 111,413.23 bolivars.  Wait a while and there will be a better bargain in bolivars because economists are forecasting a 30,000% inflation rate.

N.J. town is banning out-of-town drivers who use apps like Waze and Google Maps.  If you want to drive through the small residential streets of Leonia, N.J., you'll have to move there.  Starting Jan. 22, the town will ban all non-residents from driving on 60 of its streets during the morning and evening rush hours.  The new rules aim to crack down on urban-dwellers who take shortcuts through the town while following instructions from navigation apps like Waze, Google Maps or Apple — a phenomenon Mayor Judah Zeigler says is causing gridlock, costing money and putting people in danger.

How robo-callers outwitted the government and completely wrecked the Do Not Call list.  On the morning of Oct. 1, 2015, a middle-aged telemarketer arrived at the Washington headquarters of the Federal Trade Commission.  His name was Aaron Michael Jones, or possibly Michael Aaron Jones, and in any case, he went by Mike.  According to court documents, Mike was a father and widower.  He lived well, paying $25,000 a month for a Spanish Colonial Revival in a gated community near Laguna Beach, Calif.  He also employed a personal chef, drove a couple of Mercedes, and maintained a gambling account at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.  Jones sustained his lifestyle by spamming people with robo-calls. [...] Jones, it appears, didn't really care about getting caught.  The same goes for the rest of the robo-calling industry.  The financial rewards of bothering people on the telephone are clearly greater than the risks.

The Editor says...
Outwitting the government isn't much to brag about.  The government specializes in brute force, not wits.

Dem Attorney General Candidate in Illinois Robbed at Gunpoint While Taking Promotional Photos.  A Democratic candidate running for Illinois attorney general was robbed at gunpoint on Thursday afternoon [1/11/2018] while taking promotional photos for his campaign, according to his campaign manager and authorities.  Aaron Goldstein, 42, and several members of his campaign team were taking publicity shots in the middle of the afternoon when three men in their early 20s approached them, according to the Chicago Tribune.  One of the men flashed a handgun and demanded the camera equipment and other personal belongings from the team, according to police.  The gunman and two other men robbed Goldstein and four others of camera equipment and their cellphones before they ran away, the law enforcement source said.  As of Thursday evening, no one was in custody, police said.

Tyrants Kill Internet To Quell Riots.  The "Democratic" Republic of Congo (DRC) recently ordered national telecom companies to turn off internet and text messaging (SMS) services in order to suppress political insurrection.  Telecom minister Emery Okundji explained that the action was to prevent "violence that is being prepared."  All tyrants make broad, general statements like this that are essentially meaningless, to justify their outrageous behavior.  The effect of online bans and restrictions work for a while, but eventually, regular folks become really annoyed at not being able to conduct daily business and personal affairs.  At this point, there is more to protest, not less.  The African country has a history of political struggle and human rights abuses under DNC leaders Laurent Kabila and, now, his son Joseph Kabila.

Clinton House Burns:  Interesting Timing with DOJ Investigation.  Admit it.  When you heard the Clinton's house burned, the thought crossed your mind:  What are they hiding.  It reminded me of when Al Sharpton's office burned right around the time the IRS was investigating him about non-payment of taxes. [...] I'm wondering if we will hear later that the Clintons wanted to turn over all information related to The crooked Clinton Foundation, but they lost that information... in the fire?

New York: de Blasio spends $50M to install 1,500 security barriers to prevent Muslim car attacks.  The mayor of New York City has announced plans to install 1,500 steel street barriers to prevent vehicle attacks.  Bill de Blasio said the protective barriers were part of a $50m (£37m) investment in security infrastructure.  The move comes after two vehicle attacks in 2017 that killed nine people in total.  The new permanent barriers will replace temporary concrete blocks that were put in place after the incidents.  [They were only put in after the Muslim attack]

Russia probe grand jury looks like 'a Black Lives Matter rally,' says witness.  The federal grand jury handing down indictments for special counsel Robert Mueller doesn't appear to include any supporters of President Donald Trump, according to one witness who recently testified before the panel.  "The grand jury room looks like a Bernie Sanders rally," my source said.  "Maybe they found these jurors in central casting, or at a Black Lives Matter rally in Berkeley [Calif.]"  Of the 20 jurors, 11 are African-Americans and two were wearing "peace T-shirts," the witness said.  "There was only one white male in the room, and he was a prosecutor."  Mueller was not present.

Something is very wrong with the US Navy.  Recently, a sailor on the cruiser Shiloh started to behave erratically.  He claimed he had the ability to shoot fireballs from his hands and that he had traveled into outer space.  Despite his obvious insanity, no action was taken.  The sailor, named Peter Mims, then hid aboard his ship, and no one was able to find him for a week. [...] Yet that same year, he was listed as "must promote" in his annual evaluation.  "His enthusiasm and motivation are contagious!" a supervisor wrote on his eval.  "A rock-solid performer with unlimited potential!"

People Freak Out After Oregon Strikes Law Banning Self-Service Gas Stations.  People are raising Cain on social media about a law in Oregon making it legal for citizens to pump their own gas.  A law passed through Oregon's legislature in May and signed into law in June will allow counties with 40,000 residents or fewer to pump their own gas.  Oregonians are not pleased about the change.  The law, which will take effect Jan. 1, has created a minor firestorm in rural parts of Oregon, where full-service gas stations have been the norm since 1951.

Hillary Clinton backer paid $500G to fund women accusing Trump of sexual misconduct before Election Day, report says.  One of Hillary Clinton's wealthy pals paid $500,000 in an unsuccessful effort to fund women willing to accuse President Trump of sexual misconduct before the 2016 election, The New York Times reported Sunday.  Susie Tompkins Buell, the founder of Esprit Clothing and a major Clinton campaign donor for many years, gave the money to celebrity lawyer Lisa Bloom who was working with a number of Trump accusers at the time, according to the paper's bombshell report.  Bloom solicited donors by saying she was working with women who might "find the courage to speak out" against Trump if the donors would provide funds for security, relocation and possibly a "safe house," the paper reported.

Clinton Donors David Brock, Susie Tompkins Buell Spent $700,000 to Find Trump Accusers.  Left-wing political operatives and Hillary Clinton backers David Brock and Susie Tompkins Buell bankrolled $700,000 allegedly to find people who would accuse then-candidate Donald Trump of sexual misconduct before Election Day 2016.  Brock's American Bridge 21st Century Foundation and Buell, a major donor to the foundation, reportedly donated the six-figure sums to Lisa Bloom's law firm, which specializes in sexual harassment allegations against public figures, according to a report from the New York Times.  Brock gave $200,000, and one of his major donors, Susie Tompkins Buell, gave $500,000.  Bloom's firm capitalized on the sexual harassment allegations against Trump in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, offering to sell alleged victims' stories to media outlets for a 33 percent commission.

Trump's DC Hotel Was Supposed To Lose Money.  It Made $2 Million In 4 Months.  Trump International Hotel in Washington., D.C. was projected to lose money, but it raked in a staggering $2 million in four months, according to a Friday [12/29/2017] report.  Despite frequent protests outside the hotel and the fact that most luxury hotels do not make substantial profits in their first years, President Donald Trump's hotel hit an unexpected profit, Axios reported.  The hotel, opened in 2016 and reconstructed out of an old post office close to the White House, is now a hot gathering spot for Trump fans, tourists and conservative groups.  While the hotel expected to lose $2 million in its first year, it cashed in almost that same amount in profits.  Perhaps one factor that played into this increase was the spike in room rates following the presidential inauguration.

The WHO will recognize 'gaming disorder' as a mental health condition.  Whether it's an Atari or the latest Xbox One X, most have probably been gamers at some point in life.  Now, doctors believe too much video-gaming is a cause for concern, our affiliate WBMA reported.  Frequently playing video games could lead to an addiction, doctors say.

The States' Unfunded Pension Nightmares.  The stock market boom has helped everyone, right?  Nope.  States' pension funds have nearly $4 trillion of stock investments, but somehow haven't benefited from soaring stock prices.  A new report by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) shows why this is true.  It notes that the unfunded liabilities of state and local pension plans jumped $433 billion in the last year to more than $6 trillion.

An avalanche of embassy moves to Jerusalem begins.  Last week, the Trump administration's announced that the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv would move to Israel's actual capital, Jerusalem.  As the cognoscenti shrieked, some ten nations are now planning to do the same, in a snowball effect.

In four hours, a robot taught itself chess, then beat a grandmaster with moves never before devised.  Will robots one day destroy us?  It's a question that increasingly preoccupies many of our most brilliant scientists and tech entrepreneurs.  For developments in artificial intelligence (AI) — machines programmed to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence — are poised to reshape our workplace and leisure time dramatically.  This year, a leading Oxford academic, Professor Michael Wooldridge, warned MPs that AI could go 'rogue', that machines might become so complex that the engineers who create them will no longer understand them or be able to predict how they function.

Fascism And Communism.  The 20th century was mankind's most brutal century.  Roughly 16 million people lost their lives during World War I; about 60 million died during World War II.  Wars during the 20th century cost an estimated 71 million to 116 million lives. [...] The People's Republic of China tops the list, with 76 million lives lost at the hands of the government from 1949 to 1987.  The Soviet Union follows, with 62 million lives lost from 1917 to 1987.  Adolf Hitler's Nazi German government killed 21 million people between 1933 and 1945.  Then there are lesser murdering regimes, such as Nationalist China, Japan, Turkey, Vietnam and Mexico.  According to Rummel's research, the 20th century saw 262 million people's lives lost at the hands of their own governments.

Navy grants fitness amnesty to 48,000 sailors who failed test.  The Navy will grant a clean slate to nearly 50,000 sailors with fitness failures in their records, part of new shakeup for fleet-wide fitness rules announced Thursday [12/21/2017].  A new Navy-wide message instructs commands to immediately stop discharging sailors for fitness failures and to cancel any pending discharges for sailors slated to be kicked out after March 31.  The change applies to both enlisted and officers.

Who Regulates Bitcoin Trading?  No U.S. Agency Has Jurisdiction.  Investors are frantically trying to learn everything they can about bitcoin — and so are regulators.  Frenetic trading in cryptocurrencies is confounding many in the Trump administration who had hoped to embrace financial innovation, after nearly a decade of tighter clamps on risk-taking put in place after the 2008 financial crisis.  The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the agency with closest oversight of bitcoin trading, began the year by launching an in-house lab to encourage advances in blockchain, the technology that underpins digital currencies.  Yet the regulator recently sounded an alarm on bitcoin itself, noting most exchanges are completely unregulated while the cryptocurrency is prone to wild price swings and potential flash crashes.

Anti-Racist Activist Fired for Speaking Out Against Muslim Brotherhood.  The Canadian government has fired an anti-racism activist for criticizing a supremacist racist organization.  It's just one that happens to be protected by the left.

Chief D.C. Correspondent James Rosen is Suddenly Out at Fox News.  After 19 years at the Fox News Channel, veteran political reporter James Rosen is leaving at the end of this year.  The announcement came as a surprise when it was first reported by TVNewser on Friday [12/22/2017] at 2:09 P.M. E.T.  Rosen currently serves as FNC's chief Washington correspondent and appears frequently on various programs across the channel, most often on Fox News' signature nightly news show, Special Report with Bret Baier.  Rosen is considered one of Fox News's best and most experienced journalists and he is widely respected among his colleagues in the Washington, D.C. press corps.

Rosie O'Donnell Could Be Facing Prison Time And A $12 Million Fine For Bribery.  18 U.S. Code §201 criminalizes the attempted bribery of federal officials by whoever "directly or indirectly, corruptly gives, offers or promises anything of value to any public official ... with intent to influence any official act."

O'Donnell Could Be Facing Prison Time and a $12 Million Fine for Bribery.  [Scroll down]  Federal law addresses O'Donnell's actions.  18 U.S. Code §201 criminalizes the attempted bribery of federal officials by whoever "directly or indirectly, corruptly gives, offers or promises anything of value to any public official ... with intent to influence any official act." [...] In court, O'Donnell would probably argue that her attempted bribe was in jest, or perhaps a syndrome of a mental illness.  After all, her attorneys would argue, who, while seriously attempting to bribe members of the U.S. Congress would do so in such a reckless, public manner that would all but ensure a conviction?

The Editor says...
This is a very common Socialist-Democrat tactic:  They will say something outrageous, hoping for general agreement, and if there are any objections, they'll follow up a few days later with, "Can't you take a joke?"  Examples:
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21]

U.S. life expectancy falls for second straight year — as drug overdoses soar.  Life expectancy in the United States fell for the second year in a row in 2016 — and it's clear the epidemic of drug overdoses is at least in part to blame, government researchers said Thursday.  Overall life expectancy for a baby born in 2016 fell to 78.6 years, a small decline of 0.1 percent, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) team found.  At the same time, mortality from drug overdoses rose by 21 percent.

Declassified: Chinese official said at least 10,000 civilians died in 1989 Tiananmen massacre, documents show.  A member of the Chinese State Council estimated that at least 10,000 civilians were killed in the Tiananmen massacre of June 4, 1989, declassified files reveal.  Alan Donald, Britain's ambassador when the Chinese government sent tanks into Tiananmen square to quell the student-led protests, sent telegrams to the foreign office on June 5, a day after the massacre.  He said a person — whose name was redacted from the document — passed along the information from an unnamed member of the State Council.

Is North Korea collapsing?  A North Korean soldier walked away from North Korea through the DMZ on Thursday morning (Wednesday night in the United States).  No shots were fired.  No one tried to stop him.  Is this the moment we have waited for?  Is North Korea about to collapse?  I ask this because it seems like Kim Jong Un's most elite troops — the ones he places along the border with South Korea — no longer protect that border.  If people figure that out, they will start walking south by the dozen, then hundreds, then thousands.

North Korean soldier defects by crossing DMZ border in thick fog before soldiers in the South fire warning shots at search party.  A North Korean soldier defected to South Korea by crossing the border in thick fog, triggering gunfire from both sides this morning [12/20/2017].  The 'low-ranking' soldier in his 20s was spotted by South Korean soldiers using surveillance equipment as he crossed the land border near Yeoncheon and made his way to a guard post.  There were no shots at the time but about an hour later South Korean troops fired 20 rounds from a K-3 machine gun to warn off Northern guards who approached the border apparently looking for their comrade.

North Korean soldier defects to the South by walking over the DMZ with no shots fired.  A North Korean soldier defected to South Korea by crossing the border in thick fog, triggering gunfire from both sides this morning.  The 'low-ranking' soldier in his 20s was spotted by South Korean soldiers using surveillance equipment as he crossed the land border near Yeoncheon and made his way to a guard post.  There were no shots at the time but about an hour later South Korean troops fired 20 rounds from a K-3 machine gun to warn off Northern guards who approached the border apparently looking for their comrade.  Two bursts of gunfire were later heard in the North but there were no indications of any bullets crossing the border, a South Korean official said.

There Was A Lot More To That NY Times UFO Story Last Week.  Over the weekend, John looked at that blockbuster New York Times article where the government released some video (and audio) of Navy pilots encountering something they couldn't explain.  That caused plenty of buzz for a little while, but since nothing else was forthcoming it seems to have died down just as quickly.  But there were a few tidbits in that story which were less discussed but might prove to be even more interesting.  What's that, you say?  More interesting than an unidentified craft that can massively outrun an F-18?  Hey... why not?  First of all, as I said, everyone's focusing on that white oval object with no obvious wings which apparently can travel at MACH 9 or something ridiculous like that.  But it's worth noting that this is not new information.  It's been around for years in the UFOlogy community and it's known as the white tic tac.  There were contemporaneous pilots from other ships who had gone public about seeing it or something very similar and even had radio recordings of pilots talking about it.  Anyone who brought it up previously was ridiculed and experts claimed the audio recordings were fake.  The video released this week seems to put that to rest.

Pentagon Program Investigated "Anomalous Aerospace Threats" — UFOs.  The New York Times and Politico reported on December 16 that the Defense Department launched a program in 2007 to study reports of UFOs, videos of encounters between military pilots and unknown objects, and interviews with people who said they had "experienced physical effects" from encounters with the unidentified flying objects.  The initial funding for the program came mostly at the request of former U.S. Senator Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), who was long known for his interest in space phenomena.  The program ended in 2012.  According to the media reports, the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program (AATIP) was launched following a conversation that Reid had with his longtime friend, Robert Bigelow, the billionaire founder of Bigelow Aerospace, a space technology company and government contractor.  Bigelow has spoken about his belief in UFOs visiting the United States as well as the existence of extraterrestrial aliens.  The program's existence was not classified but operated with the knowledge of an extremely limited number of officials.

Technology-aided Chinese Big Brother Makes Thousands Disappear.  The Chinese regime is using countless video cameras and face scans to monitor citizens — and thousands have already vanished.  It's a cautionary tale about how modern technology threatens to make totalitarianism truly total.  The surveillance in this case concerns one particular region in China, Xinjiang, which a local police officer chillingly informed is home to "tens of thousands of cameras."  USA Today reports on why Xinjiang has become Big Brother Central, introducing the topic with the story of how a Uighur student disappeared after returning from Egypt: [...] Unlike the West, China doesn't have to consider civil liberties when confronting terrorism; the regime can watch all of the people all of the time and imprison (or worse) people on a whim for a long time.

As Venezuela Collapses, Scores Of Children Are Dying Of Starvation — And The Government Is Trying To Hide It.  Venezuela was once a beacon of what the late Hugo Chavez called 21st Century Socialism.  Oil prices were up; things were going well.  Then, things fell apart.  The drop in oil prices has been a contributing factor.  Venezuelans for a few years now have lacked access to medicine, food, soap, toilet paper, and other basic commodities.  They're eating out of trashcans.  Cats, dogs, and birds are being eaten.  Even animals at the zoo are being stolen for consumption.  There's a food police that targets people who wait in food lines.  That's bad public relations for the government.  The hospital system is in an awful state of disrepair, with soap and gloves being items that are in short supply.  As a result, health care in the country has reverted back to 19th century conditions.  Even educated people, like doctors and teachers, are resorting to prostitution to feed themselves and their families.  Children have begun joining the sex industry to help their families eat.  It truly is a horror show.

Virginia court tosses out one-vote victory that briefly ended GOP majority in House.  A three-judge panel declined to certify the recount of a key House race today, saying that a questionable ballot should be counted in favor of the Republican and tying a race that Democrats had thought they had won by a single vote.  "The court declares there is no winner in this election," said Newport News Circuit Court Judge Bryant L. Sugg, after the judges deliberated for more than two hours.  He said the ballot in question contained a mark for Democrat Shelly Simonds as well as a mark for Republican Del.  David Yancey but that the voter had made another mark to strike out Simonds' name.  Election officials presiding over the five-hour recount on Tuesday had discarded that ballot.  But Republicans challenged that decision in court Wednesday [12/20/2017], saying the voter had selected every other Republican on the ballot and intended to vote for Yancey.

UPS Loses Family's $846K Inheritance, Offers to Refund $32 Shipping Fee.  A Canadian man says he's broke after the United Parcel Service lost track of his inheritance.  The intended $846,000 delivery was a bank draft from TD Canada Trust, which still hasn't refunded the lost fortune 10 months later.  Instead, UPS offered an apology and $32 to pay for the mailing costs, according to a CBC News report.  "It was a total surprise," Lorette Taylor told CBC News.  "Never in my wildest imagination did I think something like this would happen."

Diamond & Silk:  Liberals 'Want Us to Live in a Third World Country'.  Best known for their viral videos in support of the president, social media stars Lynnette "Diamond" Hardaway and Rochelle "Silk" Richardson ripped the left for "disrespecting" President Trump at every turn.  Diamond & Silk said that since Inauguration Day, when several Democrats boycotted the ceremony and left-wing protesters rioted in the District of Columbia, Trump has not been shown the respect his office deserves.

Whats really driving the price of Bitcoin through the roof.  Although Bitcoin is electronic and moves quickly, the real world doesn't. [...] Crypto exchanges are experiencing huge bottlenecks, which means this squeeze has only started.  This week the price of BTC/USD can run up 100% or more due to this demand.

Charlottesville police chief retiring 'effective immediately'.  Charlottesville Police Chief Alfred Thomas announced Monday [12/18/2017] that he is retiring, which the city said is "effective immediately," following criticism surrounding the department's handling of a deadly white supremacist rally in the Virginia town this past summer.

Bitcoin Surpasses "Tulip Mania", Now The Biggest Bubble In World History.  One month ago, a chart from Convoy Investments went viral for showing that among all of the world's most famous asset bubbles, bitcoin was only lagging the infamous 17th century "Tulip Mania."

Report: Andrew McCabe Postpones House Intel Interview Amid Dossier Developments.  Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe on Monday night [12/11/2017] reportedly postponed an appearance before the House Intelligence Committee that was scheduled for Tuesday.  The abrupt cancellation occurred following a report by Fox News that raised new questions about connections between the Justice Department and Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm behind the infamous Trump dossier.  Fox News reported that McCabe's interview will be rescheduled for next week.  The Justice Department told the network that the cancellation was due to a "routine scheduling error."  A Congressional source told The Daily Caller that the excuse is "very hard to believe."

The Editor says...
Oops.  I was supposed to testify in front of the House Intelligence Committee, but I forgot all about that and scheduled a haircut instead.  Just a routine scheduling error.

Pentagon says transgender people can enlist starting in January, after court order.  The Defense Department plans to allow transgender people to enlist in the military starting Jan. 1, Pentagon officials confirmed to Fox News on Monday, after a federal court ordered the military to do so despite opposition from President Trump.  The president over the summer announced, via Twitter, a ban on transgender servicemembers.  But the directive has since been challenged in the courts, and a federal judge last month said the U.S. military must accept them starting Jan. 1.  The new policy reflects growing legal pressure on the issue and the difficult hurdles the federal government would have to cross to enforce Trump's demand.

Amnesty International caught taking Soros cash to push abortion in Ireland.  Soros is appalling just for his uni-world vision with rotted out values, from pot legalization to releasing predators out on the streets from prisons to coercive, anything-goes redefinitions of family.  He calls himself a "stateless statesman" and sees that as his license to foment revolutions in struggling and established democracies, using NGOs as the arms of his multi-tentacled operational octopus.  He also loathes America.  During the Bush administration, he compared Americans to Nazis.  He's only gotten worse ever since, moving into the promotion of abortion.  Abortion is an awful topic, too: the ending of human life, and cheapening it into a convenience and commodity.  Without abortion, there would be no sale of baby parts, as the current Planned Parenthood investigation announced yesterday by the Department of Justice signals.

No, Bitcoin Won't Boil the Oceans.  While much of the world marvels at bitcoin's meteoric rise, another part is focused on an environmental byproduct:  The sheer amount of electricity that crypto-currencies use.  By some estimates, bitcoin's consumption alone exceeds — or will exceed — that of Ireland, Denmark, Japan or even the entire world.  Instead of worrying about how soon bitcoin will melt the polar ice caps, though, it's worth considering how much energy might be saved.  Digital currency is wasteful by design.  Bitcoin "miners," who process transactions in return for new currency, must race to solve extremely difficult cryptographic puzzles.  This computational burden helps keep the transaction record secure — by raising the bar for anyone who would want to tamper with it — but also requires miners to build giant farms of servers that consume vast amounts of energy.  The more valuable bitcoin becomes, the more miners are willing to spend on equipment and electricity.

Megyn Kelly's Living in Liberal TV Hell.  Megyn Kelly has attracted the lowest audience in the Today show's recent ten-year history. [...] She has been her own worst enemy.  Kelly alienated Fox viewers with her announcement that she would take down Donald Trump, followed by constant daily attacks, followed yet again by her anti-Fox News tour selling her book and herself.  While going from TV station-to-TV station to get a "better" job, she trashed colleagues and the boss who helped her establish a career.  The right doesn't like her because of all that and because she seems to be a phony.  At the same time, the left hates her because she came from Fox News and she seems to be a phony.

Rachel Dolezal Is Trying To Commercialize Her Fake Blackness Just In Time For Christmas.  Rachel Dolezal is back and now this time she's trying to commercialize her status as an alleged black woman by selling calendars urging people to "get woke."  Dolezal, a white woman claiming to be black, is now selling a 2018 calendar of herself on her personal website.  Dolezal's calendar, which has already sold out, features various pictures of her striking poses with a collection of inspirational quotes Dolezal came up with.

Pope Francis wants to change line of 'Our Father'.  Pope Francis has suggested he wants to make a change to The Lord's Prayer, widely known among the faithful as the "Our Father."  Specifically, the Catholic leader said in an interview Wednesday he would prefer to adjust the phrase "lead us not into temptation," saying that it too strongly suggested that God leads people to sin.  "That is not a good translation," the pope said, according to Reuters.  The phrase "do not let us fall into temptation," which the Catholic Church in France has previously decided to use, would be a more appropriate alternative, Francis said.

Handwriting Expert Touted by Washington Post Turns on Gloria Allred:  Calls for Activist Attorney to Release Yearbook.  A handwriting expert prominently cited by the Washington Post on the matter of the yearbook presented as evidence by Roy Moore accuser Beverly Young Nelson raised new questions today in a Breitbart News interview about the inscription and signature at the center of national controversy.  Specifically, the expert raised doubts about whether the initials "DA" at the end of Moore's alleged signature evidenced stylistic differences when compared to the rest of the writing in the yearbook.  The forensic document examiner, Mark Songer, a former FBI agent, also called for Nelson's attorney, activist Gloria Allred, to release the original yearbook "to all parties for examination.  I think it is only fair.  It shouldn't be hidden or anything like that in my opinion."

Roy Moore accuser Beverly Young Nelson says she added date and location to yearbook entry.  When Beverly Young Nelson, accompanied by Gloria Allred, accused Roy Moore of sexual assault behind a diner when she was 16, she showed a high school yearbook with Moore's purported dated signature to prove she knew him.  The yearbook entry was a piece of evidence that immediately raised questions.  I wrote at the time Roy Moore "handwriting analyses" prove Trial by Twitter is no way to determine guilt or innocence[.]

Roy Moore Accuser Admits She Forged Part of Yearbook Signature.  Roy Moore has been a man under fire lately.  He first gained national prominence as the pick of Steve Bannon in the Alabama Senate race against Trump's pick, Luther Strange, and shortly after Moore was declared the winner, women including Beverly Young Nelson have come up to claim that Moore had sexually abused her as a young woman.  Ms. Young Nelson's charge comes with the physical evidence of her high school yearbook.  She alleged that Moore had signed her yearbook when she was 16.  Now 56, she has been showing off the yearbook from 1977 with her lawyer, Gloria Allred.

The Editor says...
One would presume that a competent attorney would carefully examine the physical evidence in a case like this, before going on national TV to make sensational claims against a Senate candidate.

Roy Moore accuser admits she forged part of yearbook inscription attributed to Alabama Senate candidate.  One of the women who accused Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore of making advances on her when she was a teen and he a local prosecutor admitted Friday [12/8/2017] to forging part of the yearbook inscription she offered as proof.  Beverly Young Nelson told ABC News she wrote part of the disputed note in her high school yearbook that she and famed attorney Gloria Allred presented as proof the then-30-something Moore sought an inappropriate relationship with her in the late 1970s.

Economics Prof: $21,000,000,000,000 Missing From Federal Budget.  On the dark side of the moon stand vast palaces made completely of gold, where federal bureaucrats plan to retire.  Or maybe they constructed a city of platinum under a giant dome at the bottom of the sea.  Either might explain what they have done with the missing $21 trillion.

Melania Visited Texas Aide Workers — But It's Where She Ate That Shows She Really Cares About Texas.  The purpose of the trip was to give the First and Second ladies time with aide workers and first responders who have been working nonstop to help those affected by Hurricane Harvey.  Harvey made landfall in August and devastated communities in the south of Texas.  Melania and Karen Pence made very important stops throughout the affected communities, but one stop above all others signaled that the two really cared for the people of Texas.

Chairman Devin Nunes Cleared After Eight Month Ethics Cloud Over Classified Information.  After House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes almost derailed the Muh Russian Collusion Conspiracy in March/April 2017, the UniParty pushed him into an ethics blender claiming he disclosed classified information.  As an outcome of his Chairmanship role Representative Nunes is also a member of the elite intelligence oversight team known as the Gang of Eight.  Today, the House Ethics Committee cleared Nunes of any wrongdoing, and stated the information he discussed was not classified.

Global Islamophobia Follows Trump's Embassy Move.  President Trump displayed more courage and integrity Wednesday than Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama ever did when he ended twenty-two years of waivers postponing the U.S. Embassy to Israel's move to Jerusalem, declared that the U.S. recognized that Jerusalem was Israel's capital, and announced that preparations for the embassy move would begin forthwith. [...] Nonetheless, the reaction was predictable.  Pope Francis obliquely denounced the move, saying:  "I appeal strongly for all to respect the city's status quo, in accordance with the relevant UN resolutions."  A spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel said:  "We do not support President Trump."  French President Emmanuel Macron said that Trump's move was "regrettable."  British Prime Minister Theresa May called the move "unhelpful for peace prospects."  Why were all these leaders, and many more, lining up against the move?  Because Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas "warned of the dangerous consequences such a decision would have to the peace process and to the peace, security and stability of the region and of the world."

House Unanimously Passes Taylor Force Act.  No More Funding The PA's 'Pay To Slay'.  On Tuesday [12/5/2017], the House of Representatives unanimously passed the Taylor Force Act, which would restrict U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority until it stops subsidizing terrorists through "pay to slay" policies. [...] There is one glitch amidst the justifiable pride the House has taken in addressing the PA's brazen policy of rewarding murderers; there is a "sunset clause" in the House version of the bill which would require the act to be renewed in six years time.

Watch Israel's Reaction: 'Arabs Don't Have a Claim On Jerusalem'.  It didn't take long for the rhetoric to turn white hot when President Donald Trump on Wednesday formally recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital and announced the beginning of a plan to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to the holy city.  While Muslims around the Middle East promised three "days of rage" over the announcement, a panel member appearing on ILTV's special broadcast summarized the Israel argument.  "The Arabs don't have a claim on Jerusalem.  It was never an Arab capital.  The Muslims don't have a claim on Jerusalem," said Ari Fuld, the COO of "Standing Together."

Fake sign language interpreter delivered gibberish in Florida.  Hearing-impaired people tuning in to a news conference about the arrest of a suspected serial killer got a message of gibberish from an American Sign Language interpreter.

The Editor says...
Later in the article, one can see that this woman been previously arrested several times for fraud, which implies that there are no background checks for sign-language interpreters.

Pro-Doug Jones Super PAC Using Voter Intimidation Tactics — Ad Claims 'Your Vote Is Public Record'.  Highway 31, a Birmingham-based pro-Doug Jones super PAC is using what could be perceived as voter intimidation tactics against Roy Moore by suggesting the votes cast in a December 12 special election are "public record."  Beginning last week, some Alabamians were posting on social media about encountering online pre-roll video advertising making such a claim.

Residents Moving Out of Colorado in Record Numbers.  New annual figures from the bureau's American Community Survey show that Colorado saw its first drop in about a decade last year in the number of people arriving from other states, while those leaving Colorado hit a record high.

Venezuela's big oil purge:  Auto-extinction of a socialist enterprise.  Powerful names in Venezuela's oil industry, people who've been in and out of the picture for years, went down like bowling pins in Venezuela this week.  Nelson Mart'nez, Venezuela's chief of the state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA), was one.  Eulogio del Pino, the country's oil minister, was another.  Whoever was acting director of Venezuela's U.S. refiner and distributor, CITGO, isn't there, either.  A press release from Nov. 29 says Asdrubal Chávez is now running the U.S. operation, and many of the CITGO officials are now detained in Caracas.  Chávez is a cousin of Venezuela's late president, Hugo Chávez.  Even the press contacts' names are now different.

Detroit's stray dog population is likely 1,000, includes 10 packs.  Stray dogs exist in Detroit, and that shouldn't be breaking news to anyone.  But the numbers of strays — and those part of packs — are grossly exaggerated, said Tom McPhee, the World Animal Awareness Society's executive director.  McPhee, a Dearborn native, estimates data form his non-profit organization will show in March there are likely only about 1,000 strays and 10 packs within the city's 143 square miles.

Great news for West Virginia — and America.  West Virginia's divorce from the slave state Virginia (which went for Hillary) helped turn the tide in the Civil War.  West Virginia provides the military with an outsized portion of its military personnel.  And finally, West Virginia coal, oil, and natural gas help make the nation energy independent.  But wait.  There's more.  Scientists believe that Almost Heaven may have high concentrations of rare earth elements (REE) that it can bring to the market.

Never Trump Plant in Alabama: 'Write In' Against Conservative Roy Moore Attended Liberal Dem Doug Jones Fundraiser.  "Never-Trump" Alabama Senate "write-in" candidate Lee Busby attended a fundraiser for liberal Democrat candidate Doug Jones.  Busby, a retired Marine colonel and former aide to White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, announced on Monday [11/27/2017] that he will launch a last-minute write-in campaign against Republican nominee Alabama Judge Roy Moore and Democrat Doug Jones.

McMuffin 2.0: Former Marine Colonel Lee Busby Launches Last-Minute Establishment Write-In Campaign Against Roy Moore.  Lee Busby, a retired Marine colonel and former aide to White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, announced on Monday that he will launch a last-minute write-in campaign against Republican nominee Alabama Judge Roy Moore and Democrat Doug Jones.

Marine Colonel Announces Run Against Roy Moore: 'Hold My Beer'.  When retired Marine Col. Lee Busby read it was too late for a write-in candidate for the Alabama Senate race, he said, "Hold my beer, we will just see about that."  Busby told The Daily Beast on Monday [11/27/2017] he is launching his long-shot bid to stop Republican nominee Roy Moore from reaching the Senate.  "I have no idea if the allegations against him true or not, but I don't see anything within his experience as a judge that qualifies him for the job."  Busby said his state needs a choice other than Moore or Democrat Doug Jones.

"Quitting" doesn't mean "resigning," it just means he won't run for re-election.
Amnesty Champion Rep. Luis Gutierrez Quitting Congress, Says Chicago TV Station.  The Democrats' leading pro-amnesty legislator, Chicago Rep. Luis Gutierrez, is quitting Congress, according to a Chicago TV station, NBC 5.

Gutierrez won't seek reelection.  Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.) a leading national voice on immigration reform, will not seek reelection, three Democratic sources with knowledge of the decision told POLITICO.  Gutierrez, who has held his seat since 1993, is expected to announce Tuesday afternoon he's withdrawing the nominating petitions he just filed on Monday [11/27/2017] and will formally endorse Jesus "Chuy" Garcia.

Report: Militant Representative Louis Gutierrez Not Seeking Reelection.  Representative Louis Gutierrez (D-IL) is a long-time Marxist in congress who is an open-border activist.  Representative Gutierrez has previously requested illegal aliens to cross the Southern U.S. border and target any border patrol official possible.  As a militant immigration activist Mr. Gutierrez has also supported MS-13 gang strikes in the U.S. and advocated for illegal aliens to register to vote to influence U.S. elections.  He generally keeps his most visible vitriol reserved for Spanish-speaking audiences.

We've finally found something politicians and reporters have considered important enough to keep secret for decades.  Information from the Mueller investigation leaks like a sieve.  Information from intelligence committees and intelligence agencies has a way of showing up in newspapers.  It seems every private conversation anyone surrounding Trump had with Russians or any meeting or inadvertent handshake shows up in the press. [...] But no one seems to have ever leaked a story or reported a story about an over 20-year-old slush fund where politicians paid off people that complained — with taxpayers' money.  We don't know how the fund was set up, where the appropriation came from, who approved each payoff and how the amount was decided, who drew up the documents that required secrecy and whom the complaints were about.

What Congressmen Are Hiding.  For two decades, taxpayers have been underwriting secret payments to people who accuse lawmakers of sexual misconduct under a 1995 law called, paradoxically, the Congressional Accountability Act.  The legislation applied to Congress many laws on workplace safety, employment and civil rights from which it had been exempt.  In the process, it established an account to pay settlements, which prevented lawmakers from being personally liable, and created an Office of Compliance that kept charges and payments secret.  After public pressure, the Office of Compliance released a tally of the settlements this month:  Between 1997 and the present, the office has paid more than $17 million on more than 260 claims.

Congress faces pressure to come clean on sex harassment payouts.  Both Democrat and Republican politicians on Sunday called for increased transparency on how lawmakers handled allegations of sexual misconduct in the past.  There is a bipartisan effort to pass legislation that would require all sexual harassment claims to be handled in the public, The New York Times reported.  It is unclear if the legislation would expose payouts in the past.

Criminal justice college embroiled in battle with the Pentagon over an art exhibit with works from Guantanamo Bay detainees.  A criminal justice college in New York City is embroiled in a battle with the Pentagon over exhibiting and helping to sell artwork by suspected al Qaeda terrorists at Guantanamo Bay.  John Jay College of Criminal Justice is displaying 36 pieces of art by Gitmo detainees but the Department of Defense wants the paintings and sculptures destroyed.  The school is funded by tax payers.

Ex-Cop Making Roy Moore Harassment Claim Is Leftist, Anti-Moore Opponent.  Few witnesses could be more damning against a purported sexual abuser of four decades ago than an ex-cop from that era.  That is, unless the ex-cop has a hidden agenda.  Like the former Gadsden, Alabama cop who claims police were told in the 1970s to ensure that now-GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore stayed away from teen cheerleaders — and who actually turns out to be a left-wing Moore opponent.

Moore campaign disputes accuser's story of assault.  GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore is attempting to discredit the story of one of his accusers, who alleges he sexually assaulted her outside of an Alabama diner when she was 16 years old.  The Moore campaign released a series of bullet points on Monday [11/20/2017] that contest the account Beverly Young Nelson gave during a press conference with attorney Gloria Allred last week, comparing statements provided by former employees and patrons of Olde Hickory House with her remarks.  The campaign points to the accounts of four unidentified witnesses including "two former waitresses and two former patrons" who say they never saw Moore at the restaurant, while Nelson said that he regularly visited when he served as the district attorney of Etowah County.

Texas AG Paxton rejects Romney standard from Roy Moore case.  Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton isn't on board with former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney's approach to the allegations against Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore.  After Moore supporters said he was entitled to a presumption of innocence regarding claims that he had inappropriate contacts with teenage girls, Romney took to Twitter to say the standard used in criminal cases isn't the correct one to apply in the political realm.  "Innocent until proven guilty is for criminal convictions, not elections," he said.

Houston economy rebounds from Harvey; state jobless rate hits record low.  The Houston economy rebounded strongly last month after losing thousands of jobs in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, aided by the oil industry recovery and strong state and national economic growth.  The metropolitan area added more than 27,000 jobs in October, more than making up for the 20,000 lost in September after devastating floods shut and in some cases destroyed thousands of businesses across the region, according to data from the U.S. Labor Department.  Even employment sectors hardest hit by natural disasters experienced substantial job gains.

Haiti owes Venezuela $2 billion — and much of it was embezzled, Senate report says.  A special Haitian Senate commission is accusing more than a dozen former government officials and heads of private firms of embezzling $2 billion in Venezuelan oil loans — money that could have helped the country rebuild after its devastating earthquake in 2010.  An anti-corruption investigation concluded that charges should be filed against two former prime ministers, several ex-ministers and the owners of private firms on grounds they misappropriated and embezzled money that left post-quake Haiti with unfinished government buildings, poorly constructed housing and overpriced public works contracts.  The nearly $2 billion that was paid out came from the country's Venezuelan oil largess, known as PetroCaribe.

Character Witnesses:  Former Girlfriends, Employees, and Childhood Friends Step Up to Defend Roy Moore.  A dozen women who know Alabama Senate candidate Judge Roy Moore personally have come forward to express their support and speak out about his good character. [...] All of the women live in Alabama and some in the same county where Moore and his wife, Kayla, live.  The women range from Moore's sister-in-law to a former receptionist, from women he once dated to women who have known him since childhood.  A "Women for Moore" rally took place Friday [11/17/2017] outside the Alabama State Capitol.  The statements follow below: [...]

Mall Never Banned Moore and Other Lies.  The rush to judgment by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, and others was premature, but the facts about Judge Roy Moore may be unraveling the fiction as we speak, starting with the accusation that Moore was banned from the Gadsen Mall for repeatedly trolling for young women.  The problem is, the manager of the mall says Roy Moore was never banned.

Roy Moore Attorney Questions Authenticity of Accusers Evidence.  The attorney for Alabama Republican Senate Candidate Roy Moore appeared today for a brief press statement and provided material that strongly suggests the documents provided by the accusers attorney, Gloria Allred, were forged.  In a subsequent follow-up interview with Allred she refused to say the documents were not forged.  Apparently Judge Roy Moore was the presiding judge in the divorce case of Beverly Young Nelson.  The signature on the yearbook Mrs. Nelson provides as evidence, via Gloria Allred, looks like it was taken from the judge's signature on her previously undisclosed divorce documents.

Gloria Allred's Blunder on Roy Moore's Yearbook Challenge.  Gloria Allred is a highly accomplished, if controversial, lawyer who is admired — or reviled — for her sensational representation of women who are alleged victims of sexual assault and sexual harassment.  Yet on Wednesday [11/15/2017] she committed a major blunder when she declined a public invitation by the attorney representing Roy Moore, Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Alabama, to have a key piece of evidence examined by independent experts.

Susan Collins:  Senate Has 'No Choice but to Seat' Judge Roy Moore If He Wins.  Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said Wednesday [11/15/2017] that the Senate would have "no choice but to seat" Judge Roy Moore if he wins the Alabama Senate race in December.  According to the law, "We would have no choice but to seat him," she said, speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill.

Stepson of Roy Moore Accuser:  Accusations 'One Hundred Percent a Lie'.  Darrel Nelson, the stepson of Republican senatorial candidate Roy Moore accuser Beverly Young Nelson, claims that his stepmother's accusations are "one hundred percent a lie."  "I know for a fact that there is a lot that that woman does not tell the truth on," Nelson claimed in an in-person interview with Breitbart News.

Analyst Says Judge Roy Moore Signature Inside Gloria Allred Accuser's Yearbook Was Forged.  Known for his insightful take on politics, journalist and author Thomas Wictor believes Judge Roy Moore's signature in Gloria Allred accuser Beverly Young Nelson's yearbook is a forgery.

Kiss the good times goodbye.  It saddens me to say it, but we are approaching the end of the automotive era.  The auto industry is on an accelerating change curve.  For hundreds of years, the horse was the prime mover of humans and for the past 120 years it has been the automobile.  Now we are approaching the end of the line for the automobile because travel will be in standardized modules.  The end state will be the fully autonomous module with no capability for the driver to exercise command.  You will call for it, it will arrive at your location, you'll get in, input your destination and go to the freeway.

The bar is lowered a little more:
Army lifts ban on recruits with history of self-mutilation, other mental health issues.  People with a history of "self-mutilation," bipolar disorder, depression and drug and alcohol abuse can now seek waivers to join the Army under an unannounced policy enacted in August, according to documents obtained by USA TODAY.  The decision to open Army recruiting to those with mental health conditions comes as the service faces the challenging goal of recruiting 80,000 new soldiers through September 2018.  To meet last year's goal of 69,000, the Army accepted more recruits who fared poorly on aptitude tests, increased the number of waivers granted for marijuana use and offered hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses.

Alabama Accuser Deletes Anti-Moore Postings from Facebook, Rants About Removing Trump from Office.  A woman who alleges that she engaged in a legal and consensual but inappropriate relationship with Republican senatorial candidate Roy Moore has deleted multiple political postings from her Facebook page.  Some of those postings by Deborah Wesson Gibson were critical of Moore while one was related to Moore's Democratic opponent, Doug Jones.  One posting shows a picture of Gibson with Vice President Joe Biden and says that she did work for him in 2012.  One older version of that image is still on her page while another more recent posting of that same image in response to a posting from Jones's official campaign Facebook page was removed, but was captured by Breitbart News.  Reached by Breitbart News, Gibson said that she has no comment on the removals of her Facebook posts.

Most Wikileaks Emails Weren't Even Written Until After DNC Knew It Was Hacked.  The majority of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails released by Wikileaks were not even written until after the DNC knew it had been hacked, raising questions about the effectiveness of Democrats' decision to turn to a private firm instead of the FBI.  DNC CEO Amy Dacey learned of the breach in late April, but of the 27,500 DNC emails published by Wikileaks, fewer than 7,000 pre-date April 29.  A Daily Caller News Foundation analysis of the published emails shows that the majority were written between May 5 and May 25 — after cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike was brought in to respond.  The emails exposed dirty laundry that Democrats have said swayed the election in President Donald Trump's favor, and they might never have seen the light of day had the DNC enlisted law enforcement to immediately lock down its system after first detecting problems.

Roy Moore accuser worked for Clinton campaign as interpreter, reports say.  One of the women accusing Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore of sexual impropriety reportedly worked as a sign language interpreter for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, a new report claims.  Deborah Wesson Gibson, who told The Washington Post that she briefly dated Moore when she was 17 and he was 34, founded the language interpreting company, Signs of Excellence, and has worked for a number of democratic campaigns, according to Alabama Local News.  The company's Facebook page shows Gibson working for and posing with several Democrats at political rallies including 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, former Vice President Joe Biden, former Sen. Patrick Murphy, D-Fla., and Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.

Mother of Roy Moore Accuser Contradicts Key Detail of Daughter's Sexual Misconduct Story.  The mother of Leigh Corfman, who says that Alabama Senatorial Candidate Roy Moore tried to engage in a sexual encounter with her when she was 14, has contradicted a key detail of Corfman's story.  Speaking by phone to Breitbart News on Saturday [11/11/2017], Corfman's mother, Nancy Wells, 71, says that her daughter did not have a phone in her bedroom during the period that Moore is reported to have allegedly called Corfman — purportedly on Corfman's bedroom phone — to arrange at least one encounter.  Moore strongly denies Corfman's claims.

Muslim Gets 27 Years for Terror Support, Soliciting Murder of Fed Judge.  Yahya Farooq Mohammad, 39, was sentenced today [11/6/2017] to 27½ years in prison for one count of conspiracy to provide and conceal material support or resources to terrorists and one count of solicitation to commit a crime of violence.

Millions of Professional Drivers Will Be Replaced by Self-Driving Vehicles.  At a time when a booming economy has led to record freight shipments, the trucking industry is struggling with a severe shortfall of drivers.  And long-haulers aren't alone.  Delivery services, cab companies, even ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft are struggling to find the drivers they need to keep their freight and passengers moving.  Ironically, this shortage could wind up turning into a glut in the not-too-distance future that will see a huge disruption in the American workforce.

Why was this a state secret until 2017?
Newly released JFK files allege Martin Luther King Jr. had love child, bedded Joan Baez.  A newly declassified FBI dossier on the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. alleges the civil rights leader had a possible lovechild and once bedded folk singer Joan Baez.  The scandalous 20-page report — included in the latest document dump of files related to the JFK assassination — says that "a responsible Los Angeles individual" informed an agent that King had an affair with the wife of a prominent black dentist and may have fathered a baby girl.  The individual, who was a relative of King's paramour and had known the reverend since 1960, also accused him of having affairs with three other women, including Baez.

Donna Brazile:  I considered replacing Clinton with Biden as 2016 Democratic nominee.  In an explosive new memoir, [Donna] Brazile details widespread dysfunction and dissension throughout the Democratic Party, including secret deliberations over using her powers as interim DNC chair to initiate the removal of Clinton and running mate Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.) from the ticket after Clinton's Sept. 11, 2016, collapse in New York City.  Brazile writes that she considered a dozen combinations to replace the nominees and settled on Biden and Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.), the duo she felt most certain would win over enough working-class voters to defeat Republican Donald Trump.

Manafort's Team Will Argue Mueller Search Violated Constitutional Rights.  Attorneys for Paul Manafort told the judge on Friday [11/3/2017] how they anticipate fighting charges.  One of their tactics is eliminating evidence improperly attained in a search.

Congressman Says Jeff Sessions Has Recused Himself on Uranium One Deal.  Attorney General Jeff Sessions told a small group of lawmakers in late September he was recused from appointing a special counsel to look into potential corruption surrounding the Uranium One deal and Fusion GPS's work on the Trump dossier, according to one of the lawmakers present.  Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) told Breitbart News on Wednesday that he and other House Judiciary Committee Republicans had met with Sessions at the Justice Department on September 28 in advance of an upcoming committee hearing with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein later this month.

200 feared dead after tunnel collapses at North Korean nuclear test site, Japanese TV claims.  About 200 people are feared dead in North Korea after underground tunnels at a nuclear test site that was feared to be unstable reportedly collapsed, crushing 100 people in the initial cave-in and 100 others when the tunnels again gave way on top of rescuers.  The collapse at the Punggye-ri test site on Oct. 10 occurred while people were doing construction on the underground tunnel, Japan's Asahi TV reported, citing a source in North Korea.  The television station also said North Korea's sixth nuclear test on Sept. 3 most likely caused the tunnel to crumble and created serious damage in the region.

North Korea Nuclear Test Site Tunnel Collapse May Have Killed 200.  A tunnel at North Korea's nuclear test site collapsed after Pyongyang's sixth atomic test in September, possibly killing more than 200 people, Japanese broadcaster TV Asahi said on Tuesday [10/31/2017], citing unnamed sources familiar with the situation.  Reuters has not been able to verify the report.

Lost sailors' story's list of inconsistencies cast doubt on tale of survival.  The U.S. Coast Guard said Monday that the two Hawaii women who were lost at sea for five months had an emergency beacon aboard their sailboat that was never activated.  U.S. Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Scott Carr told The Associated Press that their review of the incident and subsequent interviews with the survivors revealed that they had the Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) aboard but never turned it on.  When asked if the two had the radio beacon aboard, the women told the AP on Friday [10/27/2017] they had a number of other communications devices, but they didn't mention the EPIRB.

Sailor lost at sea says they didn't activate emergency beacon because they weren't 'in imminent peril'.  Less than a month into their voyage, during a spell of bad weather, Appel and Fuiava's sailboat's engine stopped running for good.  Two months into their voyage, they began issuing daily distress radio calls.  They told Coast Guard officials that they never turned on the boat's Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) because they never felt "truly in distress," nor did they think the situation was "dire" enough to warrant it, a spokesperson for Coast Guard District 14 said.

The Editor says...
Why were they sending "daily distress radio calls" if they were not in distress?  And if they were in distress, why not use the EPIRB?  Why else would you bring an EPIRB to the open ocean?  And if it's a sailboat, why do you care if the engine goes out?

Update:  Goodbye, book deal!
Hawaii 'lost sailor' is making up parts of survival story, Taiwanese official says.  The legitimacy of the women's claims have been cast into doubt several times during the past few weeks by numerous sailing experts and scientists.  The Taiwan News website said Appel's claim of being under attack by the fishing boat is one item on a "long list of tall tales from her curious voyage" that "has become fishier by the day." [...] [Jennifer] Appel has defended a supposed mass attack by 30-foot tiger sharks that experts immediately questioned, and the pair has issued conflicting statements over whether they believed they were in life or death situations during the journey.  They have also insisted they were caught in a serious storm in the days after they set sail, despite weather data strongly suggesting otherwise.

NBC's erroneous reporting on JFK files.  NBC News reported earlier this week that President Trump had released "most but not all" of the government's secret JFK files.  That was wrong, according to Rex Bradford, president of the Mary Ferrell Foundation and webmaster of the internet's most comprehensive collection of JFK records.

The Manafort Indictment:  Not Much There, and a Boon for Trump.  Do not be fooled by the "Conspiracy against the United States" heading on Count One (page 23 of the indictment).  This case has nothing to do with what Democrats and the media call "the attack on our democracy" (i.e., the Kremlin's meddling in the 2016 election, supposedly in "collusion" with the Trump campaign). Essentially, Manafort and his associate, Richard W. Gates, are charged with (a) conspiring to conceal from the U.S. government about $75 million they made as unregistered foreign agents for Ukraine, years before the 2016 election (mainly, from 2006 through 2014), and (b) a money-laundering conspiracy.  There are twelve counts in all, but those are the two major allegations.

'Millionaire Muslim' convicted of ripping off taxpayers for 18 years by posing as a struggling single mother.  A 'millionaire' Muslim woman who rorted the public housing system for nearly two decades by posing as a battling single mother has finally been evicted from her taxpayer-funded flat.  Rebecca Khodragha lived in the Punchbowl apartment in south-west Sydney for 18 years, failing to tell authorities her husband owned a lucrative business which reportedly collected a million dollars a year.  Ms Khodragha was found guilty of two counts of fraud in November last year and was sentenced to three months jail, which she served as home detention at the Punchbowl unit.

Unsealed docs reveal KGB thought LBJ could have been behind JFK assassination.  The Soviet Union theorized that President Lyndon B. Johnson could have been behind JFK's assassination — and also feared Moscow could be blamed and attacked, according to documents in a major release of files related to Kennedy's slaying on Thursday [10/26/2017].

Cops knew about Sandy Hook shooter's plot for years.  Adam Lanza expressed his desire to commit the Sandy Hook massacre years before the tragedy took place — and when a witness alerted police, cops said there was nothing they could do, newly released FBI documents reveal.  In 2008, the witness, whose name has been redacted, heard Lanza (inset) say that he had access to assault weapons and planned to kivll students at the elementary school, along with his mother, Nancy Lanza, according to a cache of documents released this week.  "Lanza allegedly [said] that he planned to kill his mother and children at Sandy Hook in Newtown, Connecticut," the document reads.

Investigative Journalist Who Exposed Elite Pedophile Ring, Found Dead.  Liz MacKean, the former British investigative reporter who exposed Jimmy Savile and the culture of pedophile protection at the BBC, has been found dead.  She was 52.  The BBC, who blocked her groundbreaking investigation from airing and spent the next few years attempting to destroy her reputation, are reporting that she died of "complications from a stroke." [...] Liz MacKean is the second high profile BBC journalist to die in suspicious circumstances after attempting to expose the truth about the pedophile ring operating in the upper reaches of the establishment.

This sounds like a news headline from 2017 BC:
Plague that's killed scores is blamed on dances with corpses.  The deadly plague sweeping Madagascar may have a particularly gruesome cause — a local tradition of dancing with dead bodies.  Health officials suspect it's no coincidence that the outbreak — which has infected more than 1,100 people and killed 124 since August — coincides with the time of year when families customarily exhume the remains of dead relatives, wrap them in a sheet, and dance with them through the streets in a sacred ritual, AFP reports.  "If a person dies of pneumonic plague and is then interred in a tomb that is subsequently opened for [the ritual], the bacteria can still be transmitted and contaminate whoever handles the body," said Willy Randriamarotia, Madagascar's health ministry chief of staff.

Pentagon advocates requiring women to sign up for military draft.  The Pentagon says the country should stick with mandatory registration for a military draft, and it advocates a requirement for women to sign up for the first time in the nation's history. [...] Currently, only male citizens and residents age 18-25 are required to register, for a pace of about 2 million each year.  Women, whom the government has never ordered to sign up, would add 11 million to the Selective Service System database "in short order," the report says.

Hillary booster Wasserman Schultz claims she knows nothing about the DNC she ran helping Clinton fund 'fake news'.  Former Democratic National Committee chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz is saying she was unaware how the dirty dossier on Donald Trump was produced even though the DNC has been revealed to have helped fund it.  'She was not aware of anything related to this research arrangement,' a spokesman for the Florida representative told The Hill newspaper, as the murky origins of the creation of the dossier gained new attention in Washington.  The DNC is represented by prominent Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias, who was revealed by the Washington Post this week to have hired the political intelligence firm Fusion GPS.

McCain joins Dems to regulate Drudge, Google, Facebook political ads.  Big websites like Facebook, Drudge Report, Breitbart News, Google and the New York Times would face substantial punishment if they don't make "reasonable efforts" to block foreigners from posting political ads under new election legislation pushed by Sen. John McCain and two Democrats.  The "Honest Ads Act," co-sponsored by Democrats Virginia Sen. Mark Warner and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, would put new legal requirements and punishments on websites with 50 million unique monthly readers that take a tiny $500 or more in political ads from one advertiser.

The Editor says...
By now you should know how these things work:  The initial "50 million unique monthly readers" boundary will affect so few web sites that nobody could possibly object to it.  But then, over the next few decades if necessary, the parameters will be incrementally tightened so that the law will constrict free speech — or at least political advertising — for everyone.  The incremental changes tactic is probably on about page five of the Democrats' playbook.  (See:  Origins of the Income Tax)

The new battle of the Alamo.  A plan to quadruple the size of the Alamo with a major restoration project has been attacked by conservatives over worries its history will be sanitized.  At a time when Confederate statues are being removed across the country, some Texans are fearing the battle site will become the latest victim of 'political correctness'.  Land Commissioner George P. Bush — son of former Florida governor Jeb — is overseeing a 7-year revamp of the shrine where 189 Texas independence fighters were killed by Mexican Gen. Santa Anna's troops in 1836.  The site's size would quadruple after excavation and restoration of historical structures, the closing of nearby streets and the building of a more than 100,000-square foot museum to house artifacts and guide visitors through the Alamo's history.

Trying to perpetuate alarmist climate "science".  Several months ago a brief furor erupted when the New York Times leaked the final draft of the upcoming Climate Science Special Report (CSSR), an extremely alarmist rendition of what is supposedly happening with Earth's climate.  Dangerous climate change and weather events, the report says, are due to mankind's use of fossil fuels to create and maintain modern living standards and to the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that result from that energy use.  The CSSR is being prepared by the federal Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) and has been in the works for several years, mostly under Obama and still staffed by diehard alarmists.  The USGCRP consists of the 13 federal agencies that conduct and analyze climate science and supposedly "consensus" views on the topic.  The Times and other news stories speculated that one of the agencies, especially the EPA under Administrator Scott Pruitt, might block the CSSR.  This has not happened, and the Report is now scheduled for release next month.  The CSSR is far more alarmist than any IPCC report.  Most other USGCRP reports have been, as well, thanks in particular to NOAA.  The new CSSR will be an official Federal report, which will give it more credibility than it deserves.

Whataburger worker fired for refusing to serve police officers.  A worker at a Texas fast-food restaurant was fired after she refused to serve two police officers, the company said Saturday [10/14/2017].  In a lengthy post on the Denison Police Department's Facebook page, Chief Jay Burch alleged the officers were cursed at by the employee and that the restaurant manager's only response was "I don't get into politics."

Whataburger worker fired for refusing to serve police officers.  A worker at a Texas fast-food restaurant was fired after she refused to serve two police officers, the company said Saturday [10/14/2017].  In a lengthy post on the Denison Police Department's Facebook page, Chief Jay Burch alleged the officers were cursed at by the employee and that the restaurant manager's only response was "I don't get into politics."  "If a business does not want police officers as customers, just let us know," Burch wrote.  "There's no need to curse us and make a scene, just let us know you don't want us there and we'll go somewhere else."

Swedish Ambassador Admits, We're "In The Process Of Dismantling Democracy".  Sweden's new ambassador to Iceland has sparked a major controversy after warning that Sweden is "in the process of dismantling democracy" and could be on a slippery slope towards technocracy or a dictatorship.

The Numbers Don't Lie:  Obama Administration MOST DEADLY in History.  Attorney General Jeff Sessions just received the final report for 2016 and one thing is clear.  Obama's war on police claimed more law enforcement lives than ever before.  Monday [10/16/2017], the FBI finalized their annual summary known as the "Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted Report."  As Sessions put it, the 61% increase in murders targeting law enforcement is both shocking and unacceptable.  Of course, we knew Obama's Administration painted police as the enemy.  Now it's indisputable.

Megyn Kelly's ratings hit 'possible all-time low'.  A big get with Harvey Weinstein accuser Lauren Sivan wasn't big enough to pull Megyn Kelly out of her ratings slump.  Her "Megyn Kelly Today" viewership slipped from 0.77 ratings points on Monday [10/9/2017] to 0.54 ratings points on Tuesday of last week.  "It's a possible all-time low for 'Today.'  It may even be lower than her [Fox] cable show.  [NBC News president] Noah [Oppenheim] and [NBC News and MSNBC chairman] Andy [Lack] are in big trouble," a source told us.

Eight Texas cities make the top 50 best places for grads.  With employers reporting plans to hire 5% more graduates in 2017 than in 2016, the employment outlook for recent graduates is on the upswing.  Yet as any English major can tell you:  Not every city offers the same opportunities.  NerdWallet analyzed data for the 100 largest U.S. cities and scored each according to the environment offered for recent college graduates who are looking to get a foothold in the working world.

Marijuana farms are burning in California wildfires.  Deadly wildfires in Northern California are burning up marijuana farms in the so-called Emerald Triangle.  Blazes have destroyed a number of farms in Mendocino County right before legal recreational sales begin in California.  Cannabis business owners who lose their crops have little reprieve.  "Nobody right now has insurance," said Nikki Lastreto, secretary of the Mendocino Cannabis Industry Association.  "They might have insurance on their house, but not on their crop."

Muslim brothers join ISIS, parents lie to FBI about it & get $5K plea deal?  Arman, 27, and Omar Ali, 26, would not follow the path of most Plano kids leaving home to start a life.  After some college study, the brothers moved to Egypt and then traveled to Syria to fight alongside ISIS terrorists, according to federal court records.  Now, their parents are charged with lying to the FBI about their sons' activities in the Middle East.

The financial collapse of Illinois is accelerating.  John O'Connor of the AP has just broken the news that the unpaid bills of the Great State of Illinois have reached the awe-inspiring sum of $16.5 billion. [...] Various bureaucratic tricks are being performed to slow down payment, but they all amount to stiffing the vendors, borrowing their capital at no immediate cost.

Fed's Dudley Sent Puerto Rico A "Plane Loaded With Cash".  In the days following Hurricane Maria's devastating blow to Puerto Rico, air traffic on the island came to a complete standstill as airport damage prevented commercial pilots from servicing the island.  That said, with the island economy grinding to a halt, San Juan International apparently managed to find a way to accept one very important plane... a "jet loaded with an undisclosed amount of cash" from New York Fed president William Dudley.

The Editor says...
What does that mean?  Where did the money come from and what was it for?  Was the money evenly distributed to everyone, or was it all delivered to one place?

Mexico's remittance bonanza balloons to record $30 billion.  After all the foofarall from Mexico's officials raised in the wake of President Trump's election — from tweet wars to governors with lawsuits to traveling foreign ministers — turns out Trump hasn't been such a bad thing for Mexico's elites.  Remittances, the lifeblood of Mexico's government, are expected to hit an all-time high at $30.5 billion, the likely product of job growth in President Trump's booming U.S. economy.  These remittances top Mexico's oil earnings in absolute value and amount to 2.7% of Mexico's GDP.

Goodbye DUI: Drinking Alcohol in Self-Driving Cars Could Become Legal.  As Anti-Media reported in September, governments around the world are beginning to take measures to accommodate for the rise of electric vehicles.  Britain, France, India, and Norway have all set deadlines for when to have zero gas-powered cars on their roads, and China is looking into setting one of its own.  Similarly, governments will be forced to craft rules applying to self-driving vehicles once they start becoming standard modes of transportation.  It seems Australia recognizes this, as the government has instructed its National Transport Commission (NTC) to look into the matter.  A report from the NTC, released this week, starts from the conclusion that eventually, vehicles controlled by an automated driving system (ADS) will make roads safer because they take human error out of the equation.

Jimmy Kimmel Bulks Up His Security As He Lectures Americans On Gun Control.  According to a report from The Blast on Monday [10/2/2017], late night host Jimmy Kimmel has been bulking up on his security for his Jimmy Kimmel Live! show tapings, including the addition of "highly-trained, off-duty police officers" at both the front and back entrances.

Americans may be propping up North Korea by buying salmon at Walmart.  [Scroll down]  This means Americans buying salmon for dinner at Walmart or ALDI may inadvertently have subsidized the North Korean government as it builds its nuclear weapons program, an AP investigation has found.  Their purchases may also have supported what the United States calls "modern day slavery" — even if the jobs are highly coveted by North Koreans.

Cambridge, Mass.  Librarian Refuses Books Donated by Melania Trump.  Trump Derangement Syndrome on full display.  And you just know that if Michelle Obama had donated the exact same books, she would have been hailed as a literary scholar/genius.

Russians Impersonated Real American Muslims to Stir Chaos on Facebook and Instagram.  The Facebook group United Muslims of America was neither united, Muslim, nor American.  Instead, sources familiar with the group tell The Daily Beast, it was an imposter account on the world's largest social network that's been traced back to the Russian government.  Using the account as a front to reach American Muslims and their allies, the Russians pushed memes that claimed Hillary Clinton admitted the U.S. "created, funded and armed" al-Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State; claimed that John McCain was ISIS' true founder; whitewashed blood-drenched dictator Moammar Gadhafi and praised him for not having a "Rothschild-owned central bank"; and falsely alleged Osama bin Laden was a "CIA agent."

Here Are The Congressional Aides That Traded On Insider Information Over The Past Year.  Up until April 2012, members of Congress and their staff were the only people in the country actually allowed to trade stocks on insider information.  That was supposed to change with the passage of the STOCK (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge) Act which was signed into law by Barack Obama on April 4, 2012.  But, as we all know, laws are only meaningful to the extent our legislators and bureaucracies are willing to enforce them.  Given that intro, it is with great 'shock' that we share with you the results of a Politico study which would seem to suggest that Congressional aides continue to trade on insider information on a fairly regular basis despite the existence of the STOCK Act.  We guess the SEC didn't take seriously the STOCK Act's attempt to "criminalize behavior that is normal."

Muslim college in Berkeley buys Lutheran seminary campus.  America's first accredited Muslim college has reportedly purchased an expansive property in Berkeley, California, for $10 million.  The property was previously occupied by Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary for 65 years, BerkeleySide.com reported.  Zaytuna College, the Muslim college, was opened in 2009 with just 11 students, but has since expanded and will use the 10-acre property for its graduate program.  The college has 51 undergraduate students.

Dickerson: Russian Ads on Facebook Seems Too Small an Amount to Affect Election.  CBS "Face The Nation" host John Dickerson expressed doubts Sunday to Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Calif.) over what impact the Russian-linked ads on Facebook had on the election.  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced this week the company was turning over more than 3,000 Russia-linked ads to congressional committees that are investigating the extent of the Russian 2016 election interference campaign.  Facebook disclosed on Sept. 6 it had identified $100,000 in advertising bought by a shadowy company tied to the Kremlin.  Schiff said the Russia-linked advertising was designed to pit Americans against each other on some of the most divisive issues in the country and also criticized Facebook's algorithms that confirm people's biases.

The Editor says...
Political advertising is not the same as "tampering with an election."

Will Trump allow release of secret JFK assassination papers?  The anticipated release of thousands of never-seen government documents related to President John F. Kennedy's assassination has scholars and armchair detectives buzzing.  Now, they're waiting to see whether President Donald Trump will block the release of files that could shed light on a tragedy that has stirred conspiracy theories for decades.  The National Archives has until Oct. 26 to disclose the remaining files related to Kennedy's 1963 assassination, unless Trump intervenes.  The CIA and FBI, whose records make up the bulk of the batch, won't say whether they've appealed to the Republican president to keep them under wraps.

See also "Dorothy Kilgallen"
Inside the unsolved murder of JFK's mistress who some say 'had to die because she knew too much'.  She met John F. Kennedy at a prep school dance and in the early 1960s, began an affair with the president that lasted until the time of his assassination.  One year later, on Oct. 12, 1964, Mary Pinchot Meyer was shot dead while taking an afternoon walk on a Georgetown towpath in Washington, D.C., at age 43.  Nearly fifty three years later, her murder remains unsolved.  Was it a random act of violence or did someone want her dead?

Fake news writer in 2016 presidential election found dead.  A writer of fake political news who previously said he felt responsible for President Trump's election has died near Phoenix, police said Tuesday [9/26/2017].  Maricopa County Sheriff's Office spokesman Mark Casey told The Associated Press that Paul Horner was found dead in his bed earlier this month.  Casey said there was "evidence at the scene" that "suggested this could be an accidental overdose."  The cause of Horner's death has not yet been finalized.

All Russian Roads Lead to DNC: Russian Purchased Facebook Ads Promoted Hillary Clinton and Black Lives Matter.  A Russian firm linked to pro-Kremlin propaganda had advertised on Facebook during the election.  The company spent only $100,000 on the Facebook ads but liberals believed this was enough to flip the election to Trump.

Classified US spy satellite launched from California.  A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket carrying the classified NROL-42 satellite lifted off at 10:49 p.m.  PDT Saturday [9/23/2017].

Senate overwhelmingly passed bill pumping $700 billion into military.  The measure authorizes $700 billion in military spending for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, expands U.S. missile defenses in response to North Korea's growing hostility and refuses to allow excess military bases to be closed.

The Editor says...
Wow.  I've never heard of a Senate bill that just flat-out refused to do something.

Hungary Builds a Wall, Cuts Illegal Immigration by Over 99 Percent.  Hungary has slashed illegal immigration by over 99 percent after rolling out a series of powerful border fences in response to the European migrant crisis, possibly providing a lesson as to the potential impact of constructing President Trump's much-discussed southern wall in the U.S.

Gender-confused man commits suicide-by-cop:
Non-binary Georgia Tech student, 21, is shot dead by campus police.  Georgia Tech police shot dead a barefoot student carrying a knife late on Saturday night [9/16/2017].  The student, 21-year-old Scout Schultz, who identified as gender non-binary, was seen walking toward police — who issued several warnings to drop what officers believed was a knife.  The tense encounter was caught on camera — in which the student can be seen walking closer and closer to the police officers and shouting 'shoot me.'

Antifa Activists Beware:  Knife Wielding Activist Shot at Georgia Tech.  He screamed, "Shoot me".  And you'll never guess what the police did.

They're rioting in Missouri again.  In charging [officer Jason] Stockley with murder, prosecutors opted for a bench trial of Stockley rather than a jury trial.  In a 30-page verdict delivered on Friday [9/15/2017], St. Louis Circuit Judge Timothy Wilson said the prosecutors failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Stockley had murdered [suspected heroin dealer Anthony Lamar] Smith.  He relied on expert testimony claiming that absence of DNA does not necessarily prove someone hadn't handled an item.  He also said that a bystander's video evidence showed that Stockley — who was not wearing a jacket — had not tucked the gun in his belt and that the gun was too big to be concealed in his pockets.  He also said that Stockley's "kill that m-----f-----" statement did not qualify as evidence of premeditation so much as it indicated high-stress frustration.  In his closing remarks, Wilson wrote:  ["]Finally, the Court observes, based on its nearly thirty years on the bench, that an urban heroin dealer not in possession of a firearm would be an anomaly.["]  Ouch!  The verdict didn't sit well with some of the Gateway City's more vibrant residents.

Equifax had 'admin' as login and password in Argentina.  The credit report provider Equifax has been accused of a fresh data security breach, this time affecting its Argentine operations.  Cyber-crime blogger Brian Krebs said that an online employee tool used in the country could be accessed by typing "admin" as both a login and password.  He added that this gave access to records that included thousands of customers' national identity numbers.

FTC probes Equifax; top Democrat likens it to Enron.  The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said on Thursday it was investigating Equifax Inc's massive data breach, and a top Democrat suggested the credit-monitoring company's corporate leaders might need to resign.

Is Your Refrigerator A National Security Risk?  The federal government is worried some refrigerators and coffee pots could pose a national security risk, and it's taking action.  Colorado's U.S. Senator Cory Gardner among a bi-partisan group of senators who are sponsoring legislation to secure the so-called Internet of Things — everyday devices that are embedded with computer chips and sensors.  Gardner says those devices can be used as weapons of mass disruption.

Hackers Gain Direct Access to US Power Grid Controls.  In an era of hacker attacks on critical infrastructure, even a run-of-the-mill malware infection on an electric utility's network is enough to raise alarm bells.  But the latest collection of power grid penetrations went far deeper:  Security firm Symantec is warning that a series of recent hacker attacks not only compromised energy companies in the US and Europe but also resulted in the intruders gaining hands-on access to power grid operations — enough control that they could have induced blackouts on American soil at will.  Symantec on Wednesday [9/6/2017] revealed a new campaign of attacks by a group it is calling Dragonfly 2.0, which it says targeted dozens of energy companies in the spring and summer of this year.  In more than 20 cases, Symantec says the hackers successfully gained access to the target companies' networks.

Custom upgrades add $600 million to Air Force One sticker price.  The Air Force has awarded Boeing a $600 million modification to a previous contract to buy two commercial 747 jetliners, and convert them for the Air Force One.  The additional money, according to an Air Force statement, is for design upgrades to the pair of planes that were originally destined to be sold to a now-bankrupt Russian airliner, which never took delivery.  The contract is for the design of modifications to ensure the planes can accommodate the communications and security needs of the president.  The actual work on the aircraft won't begin until sometime next summer, and will require a future contract, and many more millions of dollars.

Superman Protects Undocumented Workers From Armed White Supremacist in Latest Comic.  Perhaps it is just a coincidence, but perhaps not.  In the recent issue of Action Comics #987, "The Oz Effect," released Wednesday, Superman arrives in the nick of time to protect a group of undocumented immigrants from a white man sporting an American flag bandanna, wielding a machine gun, who is going to shoot them for taking his job.

Miss America Contestants Asked to Condemn President Trump.  Though the ominous feeling of concern for those in the path of Hurricane Irma in Florida hung heavy in the air, the show must go on.  Miss America 2018 on ABC aired September 10th and throughout the show, donations for hurricane relief were solicited for those affected in both Texas and Florida.  Never fear, though.  Politics dominated the final question competition and yes, it was all about President Trump.  Breaking with the tradition of one question per finalist in the final round of competition, this year the pageant decided to ask two questions of each — described as one serious and one playful.  The serious questions were saved for the last five finalists.  Four of the five questions were political.

The one percent's new status symbol:  Armed bodyguards on vacation.  When Upper East Side dad Michael planned a French getaway for his family this summer, his first move wasn't to book a hotel.  Instead, he contacted armed guards.  Each morning in Paris, Michael (who requested a pseudonym because of privacy concerns), his wife and their 10-year-old son would stroll out of the Hotel George V, where suites can go for $5,000 a night, to meet their personal security detail:  two strapping ex-military men who cost $2,000 a day.

Portland Deletes Its Gang List for Having Too Many Blacks.  Portland is, famously, the whitest big municipality in the United States, which gives it some margin for error to do dumb stuff.

Wait Til You Hear Why Portland Oregon Dumped Its Gang Registry.  On Sunday [9/10/2017], the Daily Caller reported that authorities in Portland, Oregon have decided to scrap their registry of known gang members out of concern that a majority of gang members are racial minorities.  The registry was very useful in that when you ran a name through it, you could learn if the person was a gang member, what gang they belong to and what gang-related crimes they have committed.  The city is claiming that doing away with the registry will not allow gang members to hide better.  Besides, they had to eliminate the registry because all of the gang members were overwhelmingly black and Hispanic, making the registry racist.

Portland Police Are Purging Their Gang Database Because There Aren't Enough White Gangs.  Portland police will no longer maintain a database of suspected gang members, due to concerns that the vast majority of people with the gang label are racial minorities.  Starting Oct. 15, the Portland Police Bureau will end the 20-year practice of issuing gang member designations, which police say can lead to "unintended consequences" and a lifelong stigma even for those who have given up the gang lifestyle.  Officials intend to notify the approximately 300 people on the gang list that the bureau will purge all records related to the designations, The Oregonian reported.  "There are still criminal gang members.  That doesn't go away because we don't have a gang designation," said Capt. Mike Krantz, according to The Oregonian.  "We're not pretending gang violence doesn't exist.  We're just taking this one thing away."

'Like moths to a flame': US-led coalition leave over 300 ISIS fighters stranded in the desert, using them as bait to target jihadists.  Islamic State militants attempting to evacuate members stranded in the Syrian desert are being pummeled by US-led coalition air strikes, the military said Thursday [9/7/2017].  'Like moths to a flame,' coalition spokesperson Army Col. Ryan S. Dillon told the military publication Stars and Stripes.  Dillon said that at least 40 vehicles belonging to ISIS have attempted to rescue the stranded jihadists, including armored technical vehicles and a tank disguised as a truck.

Rand Paul:  Use foreign aid to fund Harvey, Irma relief, FEMA.  Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is unveiling a blueprint to divert unspent foreign aid to cover hurricane relief and cleanup costs, an "America First" proposal to spend U.S. taxpayer money where it is needed most, Secrets has learned.  Republican Paul, who has in the past targeted billions of tax dollars shipped to anti-American nations like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, is eyeing an amendment to the proposed package to raise the debt ceiling and fund Hurricane Harvey relief.  "As the Senate prepares to vote on hurricane aid, I will be introducing an 'America First' amendment to cut wasteful spending from abroad to pay for much-needed relief here at home," said Paul.  "Moving forward, any new spending should be paid for," he added.  The funds would come from foreign aid not already spent, about $20 billion.

New documents trigger questions about special treatment for Congress under Obamacare.  An influential Obamacare opponent who was the architect of a Supreme Court challenge that threatened to unravel the law is raising questions over whether the District of Columbia's health exchange looked the other way so that employees of Congress and others could illegally enroll in a program meant to cover small businesses.  Michael Cannon, the director of health policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, said that his latest findings indicate cause for a Department of Justice investigation that he believes could lead to criminal charges.

FEMA really does have a "Waffle House Index" for hurricanes — and they're not too happy about it.  Records originally released to Adam Schweigert reveal the intricacies of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) much-rumored "Waffle House Index" (WHI) — and the agency's recent attempts to distance themselves from it.  So, exactly what is the WHI? Well, before we can answer that question, we should clear up a few things for our readers from north of the Mason-Dixon — such as "What is Waffle House?"

The people of Houston would rather starve than eat this
Texan Posts Photos of Absolutely Barren Grocery Store After Hurricane, With One Hilarious Exception.  [Jennifer Lopez] Fuller is a food writer and foodie based in Houston.  Fuller has donated her skills and time to helping people affected by the flood get food where and when they need it.  While gathering supplies at a local grocery store last week, she posted multiple photos of the sparse and sometimes entirely empty shelves.  Here are the sections and images of the completely picked over shelves: [...]

Even in a disaster no one wants the vegan food.  [Photo]

California woman confronts dealership employee for taking her limited edition car on joyride.  A California woman confronted a dealership employee on Friday after she and her husband spotted him taking her limited edition Chevy Camaro on a joyride for fast food.  The confrontation was caught on a video that has gone viral.

Left-wing activists launch 'No Red Cross' campaign, ask for donor dollars.  Activists are discouraging Hurricane Harvey donors from giving to the American Red Cross and urging them instead to contribute to left-wing causes, some of which are advocacy groups engaged in little if any emergency relief work.  Linda Sarsour, a prominent Muslim and feminist activist, sent out a tweet encouraging donors to give to the Texas Organizing Project Education Fund, which conducts "direct action organizing, grass-roots lobbying and electoral organizing led by working families in Texas."

Linda Sarsour Steering Money to Political Group, Not Hurricane Harvey Victims.  Anti-Israel, Sharia law loving activist Linda Sarsour sparked outrage after she asked her followers on Twitter to donate to help Hurricane Harvey victims, but the link takes you to a political activist group.

EPA determines 13 Superfund sites flooded and possibly damaged in Houston area.  Long a center of the nation's petrochemical industry, the Houston metro area has more than a dozen Superfund sites, designated by the Environmental Protection Agency as being among America's most intensely contaminated places.  Many are now flooded, with the risk that waters were stirring dangerous sediment.

New Texas law allows knives, swords in public places.  A new Texas law makes it legal for anyone to walk down the street carrying a sword or even a machete.  House Bill 1935 was recently signed into law, and starting September 1, long knives, daggers and even spears can legally be taken into public.  The author of the bill, Representative John Frullo said its main purpose is to simplify the laws pertaining to knives and to limit their restrictions.

Mavericks owner Mark Cuban considering 2020 presidential run.  Mark Cuban has his eye on the United States presidency although he hasn't said directly that he will run in 2020.  On the "Rich Eisen Show" Tuesday [8/22/2017], the Mavericks owner spoke on a lot of issues, but some of what he and Eisen discussed was the possibility that he is considering making a run for the White House.

A thousand years from now, I wouldn't want to trade places with this guy:
Former Priest Jailed For Child Porn, Says He Did It For Revenge On God.  A former Catholic priest who was sentenced Thursday to two years of imprisonment for possession and dissemination of child porn, said his crimes were his revenge against God.  A New Jersey court sentenced Kevin Gugliotta to up to two years in jail and ruled that he must be registered as a sex offender for 25 years for one count of disseminating child pornography, according to Christian Today.  Police arrested Gugliotta, then a priest in the Archdiocese of Newark, in 2016 and charged him with 40 accounts [sic] of spreading child pornography.  Gugliotta told officers that he had downloaded and spread the illicit materials to spite God, who he believed was attacking him by causing him to lose high stakes poker games.

ESPN Pulls Announcer from UVa Football Game — Because His Name Is Robert Lee.  The man shown to the left is sportscaster Robert Lee.  The man to the right is Confederate General Robert E. Lee.  ESPN was afraid that viewers would mix them up.  Mr. Lee (the one who didn't die in 1870) was scheduled to announce next weekend's University of Virginia football game against William and Mary.  This match-up will be hosted in Charlottesville, which has a statue of Gen. Lee (who never provided NCAA play-by-play).  ESPN decided that this was far too confusing for their viewers to process.

Asian Announcer Pulled off VA Football Game Because of His Name.  The cultural totalitarians at ESPN pulled an Asian man off the Virginia football game because his name is Robert Lee, the same as Confederate General Robert E. Lee.  These people are crazy.

The Editor says...
Ordinary viewers don't care what sports announcers' names are.  It doesn't matter if the commentator's name is Chuck Roast or Patty O'Furniture:  The names will be forgotten at the end of the broadcast, or about two seconds after the last time the names appear at the bottom of your TV screen.  (And if those names never came up in superimposed text, who would notice?)  I suspect that even the most rabid sports fan can't recall the names of the announcers on any televised sporting event they saw last week.

Muslim doctor prescribed more than 500,000 opioid pills since January, arrested.  About 8 a.m. on Thursday, Michigan State Police raided the Dearborn Medical Clinic, where a doctor is accused of over prescribing opiates.  Lt. Mike Shaw of the State Police described the clinic, located at Warren and Yinger Avenues, as a "pill mill" and said oxycodone is the drug most prescribed.  It was attracting patients from all over at all hours of the day and night, becoming disruptive to the neighborhood.

Texas adds 19,600 jobs in July, its 13th straight month of employment growth.  Texas added 19,600 jobs in July, a middling number on its own, but it's one that builds on just over a year straight of employment growth in the Lone Star State, data released Friday [8/18/2017] shows.  Over the year, Texas added 293,400 jobs — the most of any state — followed by California, whose economy has grown by 276,400 jobs over the past year and Florida, which added 226,200.  That all puts Texas' annual employment growth at 2.4 percent.  According to the Texas Workforce Commission, that's twice the rate at this time a year ago.

U.S. Judge Orders Deportation of Convicted Terrorist and Women's March Organizer.  A federal judge ordered Thursday [8/17/2017] that convicted Palestinian terrorist and Women's March organizer Rasmea Odeh be deported from the United States, and her citizenship, revoked.  Odeh was previously convicted in Israel for masterminding a pair of 1969 bombings that left two civilians dead and fourteen injured.  She was later released as part of a prisoner exchange, and she moved to the United States.  When she entered the United States, Odeh stated she had no criminal record.  In 2013, she was indicted in federal court for immigration fraud, and in 2015, was sentenced to eighteen months in prison.  The prison sentence was to be followed by deportation.

Grassley: 'Partisan' Lawsuits Against Trump Should Also Implicate Clinton.  Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) is arguing that plaintiffs in three separate cases claiming President Donald Trump violated the Emoluments Clause should also sue Hillary Clinton.  Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, suggested that Clinton may also have violated the clause when she was secretary of state, Circa reports.  He called the lawsuits "partisan and narrow" in their scope.

Something stinks about Charlottesville.  Evidence is turning up from, of all places, the Southern Poverty Law Center, as well as Breitbart and others, that this character, Jason Kessler, who organized the suspicious and supposed Alt-Right demonstration in Charlottesville, Va. that blew up in everyone's face, is a cunning lefty holdover from the Occupy Wall Street movement and a former Barack Obama supporter.  I smell Soros money, sabotage, and Democrat dirty tricks here. [...] I have to wonder if this Kessler fellow, strong Barack Obama-supporter that he is, had a hand in making sure his Alt-Right marchers were clearly guaranteed to encounter a strong crowd of riled up counter-protesters as well.

Seattle's Statue of Communist Dictator Vladimir Lenin Under Fire.  A growing number of people on social media are calling for the removal of Communist dictator Vladimir Lenin's statue in Seattle.  Many social media users, from a prominent Seattle venture capitalist to the estimated 900 people who follow the Facebook group Seattle, Tear Down This Lenin Statue! are calling for Lenin's statue to be removed.

WaPo: Documents Show Russians Sought Meetings With Trump Campaign, and Team Trump Declined.  [Scroll down]  These freshly-revealed emails look like a conscientious campaign doing the right thing and expressing appropriate skepticism when approached about opportunities to huddle with the Russians.  You can argue that maybe they turned down these contacts because they were involved with the Kremlin at a higher level elsewhere, but there's no proof of that.  You can also contend, as WaPo's story does, that this further demonstrates Moscow's keen interest in establishing ties with the Trump camp.  That's fine, but that Russian interest would need to have been improperly reciprocated and acted upon to be a scandal.  Collusion requires at least two parties, by definition.  So this strand of evidence cuts in Trump's favor.

New report claims hacked DNC emails which rocked the presidential election were actually a LEAK.  A new report suggests the DNC hack, one of several that rocked the 2016 presidential election, was an inside job.  According to The Nation, forensic experts and four former NSA employees claim to have new evidence that the Democratic National Committee hack happened locally with a memory key or other portable storage device.  The experts speaking to The Nation argue the files were too large to have been transmitted over the internet, therefore they must have happened on site, by someone within the DNC.

Candidate To Be First Female Navy SEAL Officer Quits After A Week: Report.  A woman aiming to become the first female Navy SEAL officer quit about a week into the initial training, Task and Purpose reported Thursday [8/10/2017].  The unidentified female candidate dropped out in early August during a three-week course in San Diego that began July 24.

Mysterious death of federal prosecutor on Hollywood beach ruled a suicide.  Beranton J. Whisenant Jr., 37, had just started a new job in the Miami office of the U.S. attorney in January when his body was found floating in the surf on May 24. [...] Hollywood police said detectives and the Broward medical examiner determined Whisenant "died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound" before his body was discovered just south of Magnolia Terrace on Hollywood beach.  It did not say why the investigation took so long to determine the cause of death.

Officials: Veteran's 'no foreigners' sale sign violates civil rights.  A veteran's front-yard sign advertising the sale of his home violates state and federal anti-discrimination laws because it indicates the owner won't sell to foreigners, according to Michigan Department of Civil Rights officials.

Gym bans police officers, military because they might offend minority members.  Jim Chambers, the owner of the gym, told 11Alive he took responsibility for the sign and wanted the message to be clear. [...] Chambers said law enforcement agents were not allowed in his business because their presence made his minority clientele uncomfortable.

The Editor says...
The only place more dangerous than a "gun-free zone" would be a "cop-free zone."

Attkisson v.  DOJ: The Computer Intrusion Lawsuit against the Federal Govt.  I'm frequently asked about the status of my lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice over the secret, unlawful intrusions into my computers, exposed in 2013.  As my federal case moves slowly through court system, there is a new development:  ongoing forensic work of my computer laptop system has revealed a second government Internet Protocol (IP) address used in the illegal cyber-attacks on my computer laptop system.  The IP addresses don't belong there.  In a new affidavit filed in federal court last week, cyber-security expert David Scantling states, "[T]he presence of these USPS addresses on [Attkisson's] computer is not a mistake; it is not a random event; and it is not technically possible for these IP addresses to simply appear on her computer systems without activity by someone using them as part of the cyber-attack."

GOP Pulls in $75M in Trump's First 6 Months, Double Obama's First 6 Months.  The Republican National Committee is touting some big fundraising numbers bolstered by President Trump's appeal with his base, including small donors.  The $75 million-plus brought in by the party in the first six months of this year is more than double the amount that Democrats raised during Barack Obama's first six months, ABC reported.

NBC Lawsuit:  The Network's Desire for 'Attractive Employees' Created a 'Toxic Environment'.  A former NBC employee claims the network blatantly looked for "good-looking employees" and asked that she submit photos before being allowed to interview.  Stephanie Belanger has filed a lawsuit against the network, claiming that NBC's focus on beauty enabled a toxic, discriminatory environment, the New York Post reported Monday [7/31/2017].  In the lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, Belanger alleges disability discrimination, sexual harassment, and termination after she complained.  When Belanger was first contacted for a job as an audio-visual coordinator, the recruiter told her that NBC "specifically asked for good-looking employees."

Two Zeta Cartel Members Found Guilty of Murdering ICE Agent Jaime Zapata.  Jose Emanuel Garcia Sota and Jesus Ivan Quezada Piña were found guilty of murdering ICE Agent Jaime Zapata Thursday by a federal jury.  Both men are Mexican nationals and part of Los Zetas drug cartel. [...] In March an inspector general report confirmed the failure of the Obama Justice Department to arrest known straw purchasers working for the Zeta cartel, similar to tactics used in Operation Fast and Furious, also lead to Zapata's murder.

San Diego Teacher Thinks Citizenship Question Is 'Racist,' Refuses to Answer.  A San Diego middle school teacher refused to answer a border patrol agent's question regarding her citizenship at a New Mexico checkpoint and was briefly detained.  Her family members recorded the incident that has since gone viral, with her proclamation that "enforcing racist laws perpetuates institutional racism."

Caution: possible hoax.
'Fact checking' website Snopes on verge of collapse.  Fact-checking website Snopes is on the verge of financial collapse after its owner was accused of embezzling company funds to pay for his contentious divorce battle and lavish overseas trips with his new wife, a former Las Vegas escort and porn actress.  The company's financial woes have gotten so bad that Snopes' owner David Mikkelson started a crowd-funding website pleading for donations this week, which raised over $500,000 from generous readers in its first day.  But DailyMail.com can disclose significant facts which are entirely missing from the fact-checking website's version of events — including the fraud allegations against Mikkeslon.

Compromised: Evidence Emerges Muddling Impartiality of Two Democrats on House Ethics Committee Nunes Probe.  The top two Democrats on the House Ethics Committee appear to be compromised when it comes to the panel's probe of House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), Breitbart News has learned.  Evidence demonstrating a preconceived bias against Nunes — from before the onset of an official investigation — has clouded the supposed impartiality of Reps.  Ted Deutch (D-FL) and Yvette Clark (D-NY).  Both of their offices have refused, when contacted by Breitbart News, to answer whether the members will recuse themselves from the investigation.

True Socialist:  Apparently Bernie Sanders Is Stealing His Neighbor's 'Washington Post'.  In perhaps the funniest and most fitting news of the year, WMAL radio host Chris Plante told his audience of a story he heard from friends about the elderly senator.  A man living next to Sanders apparently called the [Washington] Post to complain that he was hardly ever receiving his subscription.  After an investigation into the matter, the paying customer realized that it was his neighbor, Senator Sanders, who was stealing the paper right from under his nose.

The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills.  Early last year, executives at a small hospital an hour north of Spokane, Wash., started using a company called EmCare to staff and run their emergency room.  The hospital had been struggling to find doctors to work in its E.R., and turning to EmCare was something hundreds of other hospitals across the country had done.  That's when the trouble began.  Before EmCare, about 6 percent of patient visits in the hospital's emergency room were billed for the most complex, expensive level of care.  After EmCare arrived, nearly 28 percent got the highest-level billing code.

Trump State Dept Unsure Why Palestinian Terrorists Kill Israelis.  Officials in the Trump administration's State Department are standing by a recent report criticized by Congress that blamed Israel for terror attacks and claimed Palestinians rarely incite violence, telling the Washington Free Beacon that it remains unclear why terrorists engage in violent acts.  Rep. Peter Roskam (R., Ill.), co-chair of the House Republican Israel Caucus, criticized the State Department Thursday [7/20/2017] for releasing a report portraying Israel as the culprit in terrorism and downplaying Palestinian incitement of violent acts against the Jewish state, the Free Beacon first reported.

NSA Officials and Computer Expert:  Forensic Evidence Proves DNC Emails Were LEAKED, Not Hacked.  Forensic studies of "Russian hacking" into Democratic National Committee computers last year reveal that on July 5, 2016, data was leaked (not hacked) by a person with physical access to DNC computers, and then doctored to incriminate Russia.  After examining metadata from the "Guccifer 2.0" July 5, 2016 intrusion into the DNC server, independent cyber investigators have concluded that an insider copied DNC data onto an external storage device, and that "telltale signs" implicating Russia were then inserted.  Key among the findings of the independent forensic investigations is the conclusion that the DNC data was copied onto a storage device at a speed that far exceeds an Internet capability for a remote hack.  Of equal importance, the forensics show that the copying and doctoring were performed on the East coast of the U.S.

CBO Says McConnell Healthcare Bill Would Slash Deficits By $420 Billion, Leave 15 Million Uninsured.  Another day, another CBO score for another version of the GOP's healthcare bill.  This time, the agency estimates that McConnell's "Better Care Reconciliation Act" legislation would lower the federal budget deficit by $420 billion over the next 10 years by reducing spending for Medicaid and subsidies for nongroup health insurance.  As The CBO notes, those effects would be partially offset by the effects of provisions not directly related to health insurance coverage (mainly reductions in taxes), the repeal of penalties on employers that do not offer insurance and on people who do not purchase insurance, and spending to reduce premiums and for other purposes.

Army to discharge sergeant who tried to keep secret data on bin Laden raid revealed by Obama.  The Army has rejected an appeal from a 13-year public affairs sergeant and is kicking him out in a case tied to the Osama bin Laden raid, President Obama's speech about it and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's mishandling of classified information.  Staff Sgt. Ricardo Branch told The Washington Times that he must leave the Army by Aug. 1.  His crime was mentioning in an internal military email the name of the aviation unit that flew Navy SEALs inside Pakistan airspace to kill the al Qaeda leader.  The irony:  He was trying to keep that fact out of a proposed article in an industry newsletter.

Exclusive: Conservatives launch war on Southern Poverty Law Center, promotes 'terrorism'.  A coalition of conservative groups whose advocacy has been labeled "hate" by the leftist media-darling Southern Poverty Law Center are launching a counteroffensive Monday, accusing it of fueling hate, killing free speech and even encouraging terrorist-style attacks on those it doesn't agree with.  The effort, which includes a video and planned Monday tweetstorm, takes aim at SPLC's so-called "hate map" which identifies groups it says promotes hate and extremism.  It includes groups like the Ku Klux Klan, but also conservative nonprofits that promote traditional marriage, enforcement of immigration laws, and other policies it doesn't agree with.

Obama-appointed 'ethics' officer resigns - good riddance.  When a partisan member of the bureaucratic swamp resigns, that's something to cheer about.  And huzzahs were certainly in order last week when the nation's top "ethics" officer, Walter Shaub, announced that he is resigning, effective July 19.  Barack Obama appointed Shaub to head the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) back in 2013.  It's a five-year appointment, so Shaub's resignation merely ends his reign six months early.  Shaub has already lined up a new gig.  He is headed to the Campaign Legal Center, a partisan, Soros-funded advocacy group that has been working for years to restrict your First Amendment right to speak and engage in political activity.  That tells you a lot about Shaub's politics and why his resignation is cause for celebration.

Russian Lawyer Who Met with Donald Trump Jr.  Worked with Democrats for Years.  The revelation that Donald Trump Jr. met for 20 minutes at Trump Tower with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in June 2016 has skyrocketed her to mainstream news media notoriety.  Although she has been painted by Democrats as a Russian government official, numerous reports and photos show she has a long record of working with U.S. political figures, including many Democrats.  For example, The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group revealed on Wednesday [7/12/2017] that California Rep. Ron Dellums was a hired lobbyist for Veselnitskaya.

FEC Has Kept Documents About Democrats Secret For Years.  Federal Election Commission (FEC) officials have withheld public documents for years, some of which would expose details about Democrats' taxpayer- and foreign-funded travel, The Daily Caller News Foundation's Investigative Group has learned.  The FEC — which includes three commissioners each from Democratic and Republican parties — has withheld records related to 17 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests filed more than three years ago, according to an agency document obtained by TheDCNF.  Of the 17, 10 have been pending for nearly four years, another will be five this year and the oldest turned six in June.  The requested documents span a variety of topics, ranging from communications regarding former FEC official Lois Lerner, the central figure in the IRS targeting scandal, to internal communications and commission policy documents.

Bezos, Slim, and Buffett, Publicly Pleading Poverty, Ask Congress for Help With Their Newspapers.  It's the sort of brazen move that might ordinarily trigger a front-page news story or an outraged editorial — a bunch of rich individuals asking Congress to write them a law that would give them better negotiating power against other rich individuals.  Yet in this case, the rich individuals wanting special treatment are the newspaper owners themselves.  Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos (worth $83.9 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire's Index), New York Times owner Carlos Slim (worth $61.1 billion), and Buffalo News owner Warren Buffett ($76.9 billion), publicly pleading poverty, are asking Congress for a helping hand in their negotiations with Google, controlled by Sergey Brin ($45.6 billion) and Larry Page ($46.8 billion).

Natalia Veselnitskaya Pictured With Obama Officals in DC on June 14th, 2016.  At the heart of the current media Russian narrative du jour is a story about Donald Trump Jr. meeting with a Russian attorney named Natalia Veselnitskaya.  That meeting took place on June 9th 2016 in Trump Tower.  Now it is discovered via video and images, that only 5 days later, June 14th 2016, Ms. Veselnitskaya was a guest of former Obama administration Russian Ambassador Michael McFaul in Washington DC for a House of Representatives hearing on U.S. Policy Toward Putin's Russia.

NYPD cops turn their back on Mayor Bill de Blasio as he speaks at funeral for slain officer .  [Miosotis] Familia, a 48-year-old single mother-of-three, was shot dead in The Bronx as she made notes in her patrol car in the early hours of July 5. Her killer, paranoid schizophrenic Anthony Bonds, 34, was gunned down by other police officers as he tried to flee.  On Tuesday [7/11/2017], thousands packed World Changers Church in The Bronx to lay Familia, a single mother-of-three, to rest.  Outside, scores more stood beneath screens and speakers which broadcast the service.  When de Blasio appeared on screen, some turned their backs on him in a show of protest over his decision to go to Hamburg last week in the immediate aftermath of the officer's death, The New York Post reported.

New fears Drudge, InfoWars, Breitbart could face Dem FEC 'inquisition'.  A revived bid by a top Federal Election Commission Democrat could lead to an "inquisition" against conservative media outlets like the Drudge Report, InfoWars and Breitbart that take political advertising and are overseen by right-leaning owners or editors, according to critics.  The plan, set for discussion at Thursday's FEC meeting, could open the door to political subpoenas targeting the websites, their editorial news decisions, and their owners, maybe even Matt Drudge and Alex Jones, according to an expert analysis.  In her effort targeting foreign influence in federal and state elections, Commissioner Ellen Weintraub would probe spending by overseas sources and even partially-foreign-owned U.S. firms on campaigns, including their media buys.  Foreign influence is illegal in elections.

Google, Facebook Join Online Protest of Net Neutrality Rollback.  How many online activists does it take to save Silicon Valley's favorite Obama-era regulation?  Organizers of an online protest aimed at derailing a Republican plan to roll back net neutrality rules are hoping the magic number is 70,000.  That's the number of sites and organizations — including Amazon.com, Google, Facebook and even President Donald Trump's favored medium, Twitter — that have pledged to participate.

New Research Shows Guccifer 2.0 Files Were Copied Locally, Not Hacked.  New meta-analysis has emerged from a document published today [7/9/2017] by an independent researcher known as The Forensicator, which suggests that files eventually published by the Guccifer 2.0 persona were likely initially downloaded by a person with physical access to a computer possibly connected to the internal DNC network.  The individual most likely used a USB drive to copy the information.  The groundbreaking new analysis irrevocably destroys the Russian hacking narrative, and calls the actions of Crowdstrike and the DNC into question.

Alexa calls cops on man allegedly beating his girlfriend.  A New Mexico man was arrested for allegedly beating his girlfriend and threatening to kill her — after Amazon's Alexa called police, authorities said.  Eduardo Barros, 28, became angered with his unidentified girlfriend while house-sitting in Tijeras, about 15 miles east of Albuquerque, and the dispute suddenly turned physical on July 2, authorities said.  During the assault, Barros waved a gun and threatened to kill the woman before he allegedly asked:  "Did you call the sheriffs?"

MO Gov Signs 'Blue Alert' Bill to Help Protect Law Enforcement.  Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens (R) last week signed into law the so-called "Blue Alert" bill, which creates a system similar to Amber Alerts that let law enforcement agencies and the public know when an officer has been assaulted.  It also increases the penalties for assaults on law enforcement officers.

The Editor says...
When a cop has been assaulted, what are we supposed to do about it?  Is there ever a case in which an officer is assaulted and no other officer is able to assist?

House Dem IT Suspects Wanted Untraceable Payments — and Sure Enough, Millions Disappeared.  A Pakistani family under criminal investigation by the U.S. Capitol Police for abusing their access to the House of Representatives information technology (IT) system may have engaged in myriad other questionable schemes besides allegedly placing "ghost employees" on the congressional payroll.  Imran Awan, his wife Hina, and brothers Abid and Jamal collectively netted more than $4 million in salary as IT administrators for House Democrats between 2009 and 2017.  Yet the absence of signs of wealth displayed among them raise questions such as was the money sent overseas or did something other than paychecks motivate their actions?

Burger Joint Robotics Are Coming Soon.  Fast-food restaurants are a major target for automation developers because of the high labor costs connected with preparing food and dealing directly with customers.  Kiosks for ordering food have begun appearing as a result of their simple design.  In February for example, Wendy's announced it would install kiosks in 1,000 restaurants (around 16 percent) by the end of the year.

DNC refuses to allow feds access to hacked email server.  For a political party accusing the president of the United States of treason, the Democrats are being very reluctant to have authorities prove it.  The email server that the Democratic National Committee say was hacked by the Russians is so far being kept out of reach of federal investigators looking into the issue.  The only people who have examined the server are employees of the private cyber-security company the DNC hired to find out who hacked them. [...] Withholding access to the server raises troubling questions the DNC refuse to answer.  Why did they refuse the assistance of DHS?  Why are they not cooperating with Congress or the FBI?  Just what is it they are trying to hide?

Killer Of U.S. Soldier To Get Apology And $10 Million From Trudeau Government.  Canada's Liberal government is prepared to provide an apology and $10.5 million to the confessed killer of a U.S. soldier who spent time in Guantanamo Bay.  According to multiple reports Tuesday [7/4/2017], Omar Khadr will be compensated in part because his interrogation at the hands of Canadian security was deemed "oppressive" by the Supreme Court of Canada.  Khadar, who was born in Canada, was fighting with al-Qaeda forces in Afghanistan when he was 15.  In a shoot-out with U.S. forces, Khadr confessed to killing U.S. Special Forces medic Sgt. Christopher Speer with a grenade.

Hacked computer server that handled DNC email remains out of reach of Russia investigators.  It is perhaps the key piece of forensic evidence in Russia's suspected efforts to sway the November presidential election, but federal investigators have yet to get their hands on the hacked computer server that handled email from the Democratic National Committee.  Indeed, the only cybersecurity specialists who have taken a look at the server are from CrowdStrike, the Irvine, California-based private cybersecurity company that the DNC hired to investigate the hack — but which has come under fire itself for its work.  Some critics say CrowdStrike's evidence for blaming Russia for the hack is thin.  Members of Congress say they still believe Russia was responsible but wonder why the DNC has never allowed federal investigators to get a look at the key piece of evidence:  the server.

Lyme Disease Is Spreading, And It's Partly This Mouse's Fault.  Ticks aren't born with the pathogens that cause the main tick-borne diseases in humans; they get them from feeding on animals that act as reservoirs of the bacteria and parasites.  Scientists are especially interested in the host that seems to be by far the best at harboring Lyme disease:  the white-footed mouse.  And some researchers have noted that an abundance of the mice one year is linked to more Lyme disease in humans the next — suggesting that this relationship could matter a lot when it comes to reducing Lyme disease.

NYPD to deploy sand-filled trucks on July 4 — to prevent Muslims from plowing into crowds.  The NYPD will deploy nearly 120 sand-filled trucks and "blocker vehicles" near July 4 fireworks viewing spots in Manhattan to prevent an attacker from plowing into crowds as terrorists have done in London; Berlin; Nice, France, and elsewhere in Europe.  Speaking at police headquarters at the start of Independence Day weekend, Commissioner James O'Neill said the trucks have been parked strategically at large public gatherings like parades in New York City since after Bastille Day in July 2016, when 86 people were killed by a terrorist-driven truck that rushed into a crowd watching fireworks in Nice, France.

Whole Foods 'chicken salad' recalled for containing no chicken.  Tuna and chicken have been needlessly conflated ever since a tuna company started marketing their canned fish products as "Chicken of the Sea."  But now, Whole Foods has fallen victim to similar confusion, after one of their poultry suppliers mistakenly sent the store a large shipment of "chicken salad" that actually contained tuna.

The Biggest Scandal You've Never Heard Of.  One of the most bizarre spectacles in Washington is flying almost completely under the radar, even though much of it is playing out in public.  And, it begs one simple question:  Is someone blackmailing one of the top members of Congress in plain sight?

SLPC Silencing Anti-Jihadist Muslim Activists, Sued for Defamation.  On a recent appearance with Bill Mahar, [Maajid] Nawaz announced, "I'm sick to death of well-meaning... white men sitting in sweet Alabama — the Southern Poverty Law Center - created to defend people like me... they've decided to list me... as anti-Muslim extremist.  I'm sick and tired of well-meaning liberal and left-leaning white men who decide I'm saying what they don't agree with about my own religious heritage." [...] Kudos to Nawaz for calling out the bullying SPLC for their tactics.

French Mayor Demands Pork in School Lunches to Promote Secularism.  The conservative mayor of Chevigny-Saint-Sauveur has announced he will ban alternative school menus that do not include pork to promote secular values in schools.  Mayor Michel Rotger, a member of the conservative Republican party, said the move would promote secularism but would also save the local government money saying 'alternative menus' led to too much waste, L'Express reports.

Christian bakers free to live out faith in Mississippi.  The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals announced June 22 that it was overturning a lower-court decision a year earlier that stopped the Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act.  HB 1523 was signed into law April 2016 by Gov. Phil Bryant but was challenged in the courts by homosexual activists.  Last week's ruling found that those activists lacked legal standing because the new law had not harmed them.  "The court determined," says attorney Kevin Theriot of Alliance Defending Freedom, "that the plaintiffs in this situation weren't even harmed enough to be able even to get into court, much less to win on the merits of the case."

Black Unemployment at Lowest Level in 17 Years.  Unemployment among black Americans ages 16 years and over fell to 7.5 percent in May, its lowest level since December 2000.  Black unemployment has been on the decline since February — falling from (February) 8.1, (March) 8.0, (April) 7.9, and (May) 7.5 percent, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  The national unemployment rate in May was 4.3 percent, its lowest level since May 2001.

Walker Battles Climate Change Believers to Reshape Department of Natural Resources.  Wisconsin Democrats have demanded Gov. Scott Walker (R) join the U.S. Climate Alliance, a newly formed coalition of states that intends to move forward with the terms of the Paris climate accord after President Trump's decision to pull out of the agreement.  "President Trump's rejection of fact, science and of the Paris Climate Agreement is an act that endangers every American.  Gov. Walker's silence on this issue echoes this shared anti-environment, anti-middle class agenda," read the letter to Walker signed by 35 state representatives and 11 senators.

Illegals fleeing from Trump to Canada not faring too well there either.  If you're that worried about being caught, Canada is famous for its incredibly friendly people, generally socialist environment, generous welfare benefits and back bacon.  They're generally good with almost anyone showing up provided you're not too much of a hoser, eh?  And to top it off, the new Prime Minister was no fan of Trump's either so he pretty much rolled out the welcome mat and said he wasn't going to be taking any new, extraordinary measures to stop the flow of illegal aliens.  So how's that working out for them now?

Asylum seekers in Canada who fled Trump now trapped in legal limbo.  Thousands of people who fled to Canada to escape President Donald Trump's crackdown on illegal migrants have become trapped in legal limbo because of an overburdened refugee system, struggling to find work, permanent housing or enroll their children in schools.  Refugee claims are taking longer to be completed than at any time in the past five years, according to previously unpublished Immigration and Refugee Board data provided to Reuters.

Theater That Put On Trump Assassination Play Gets New $100,000 Grant.  The Public Theater in New York has received an additional $100,000 grant from the federal government, fresh off its controversy for staging a Julius Caesar production where a Donald Trump lookalike is assassinated.  Just days after controversy over the graphic mock Trump killing began, the National Endowment for the Arts announced its newest round of grants.  The Public Theater received $100,000 for its New York Shakespeare Festival.  This time the theater will do performances of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Gowdy: Maybe DNC Did Not Cooperate With DHS Because There Was Something Else On That Server.  Wednesday [6/21/2017] on Fox News Channel's "The Story," Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) said it was concerning that while testifying before the House Intelligence Committee earlier in the day at a hearing on the alleged Russian hacking of the 2016 presidential election, former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said his department's offer to help the Democratic National Committee was denied.

Judicial Watch Asks Trump Administration to End Congressional Obamacare Exemption.  Judicial Watch requested the Trump administration stop members of Congress and their staff from unlawfully purchasing, with taxpayer subsidies, health insurance through the District of Columbia's small business exchange.  The Judicial Watch request was made on June 14, 2017, to the Centers for Medicare Medicaid Services (CMS) as part of a process set out by the Department of Health and Human Services to reform the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), otherwise known as Obamacare.

Freighter Was On Autopilot When It Hit U.S. Destroyer.  The deadly collision between a U.S. destroyer and a container ship June 17 took place while the freighter was on autopilot, according to Navy officials.  The Philippines-flagged cargo ship ACX Crystal was under control of a computerized navigation system that was steering and guiding the container vessel, according to officials familiar with preliminary results of an ongoing Navy investigation.  Investigators so far found no evidence the collision was deliberate.

Maritime Mystery:  Why a U.S. Destroyer Failed to Dodge a Cargo Ship.  There should have been lookouts on watch on the port, starboard and stern of the destroyer Fitzgerald — sailors scanning the horizon with binoculars and reporting by headsets to the destroyer's bridge.  At 1:30 a.m. last Saturday, off the coast of Japan south of Tokyo, they could hardly have failed to see the 730-foot freighter ACX Crystal, stacked with more than 1,000 containers, as it closed in.  Radar officers working both on the bridge and in the combat information center below it should have spotted the freighter's image on their screens, drawing steadily closer.  And under standard protocol, the Fitzgerald's captain, Cmdr.  Bryce Benson, should have been awakened and summoned to the bridge to assure a safe passage long before the ships could come near each other.  But none of that happened.

FCC hits robocaller with agency's largest-ever fine of $120 million.  The Federal Communications Commission has levied its largest fine ever, targeting a Florida-based robocall network it says was responsible for nearly 100 million calls over the last three months of 2016.  The agency on Thursday [6/22/2017] proposed a $120 million fine against Adrian Abramovich of Miami, Fla., alleging his operation, doing business as Marketing Strategy Leaders, made 96 million spoofed robocalls during the period in which the FCC investigated.  Of those calls, about 90% were made to wireless phones, with 10% to landline phones.

Runaway MTA Bus Rolls for Blocks, Hitting Cars and a Church in Brooklyn:  Officials.  A runaway MTA bus rolled for blocks down one Brooklyn street, hitting nearly a dozen parked cars and a church, and sending one man who had been changing a tire leaping out of the way to to save his life, officials say.  Police say the driver of the bus got out of the vehicle around 12:30 a.m.  Wednesday in Bushwick, but left it in neutral.  The bus then rolled backward down the street, smashing into 10 parked cars before striking a church.  No passengers were on the bus at the time.  [Video clip]

Patagonia Devotes Itself to Moonbattery.  Patagonia is no longer primarily about overcharging for outdoor clothing.  It has other priorities.

Outdoor Clothing Corporation Patagonia Pledges to Lead Resistance to Trump.  You would think that by now, stores would have learned their lesson about making politically charged statements, but apparently there are still some morons dedicated to making that mistake.  Like outdoor clothing retailer Patagonia, whose CEO has decided that she is going to "lead the resistance" against President Trump.

Independent group releases new report on Seth Rich's murder investigation.  A new report has been released by an independent group on the investigation into the death of DNC worker Seth Rich, who was murdered last July in DC.  Rich's killer remains on the loose, and for months now a group of George Washington University grad students, called the Profiling Project, have been digging into the case.  The Profiling Project released their initial report on the investigation Tuesday [6/20/2017] in [a] press conference.

Canada Legalizes Sex With Animals.  [Scroll down]  So next time Canada is hit with calamities do not get angry when I do not care.  What an evil wicked generation full of the devil and on the road to hell!

Tears — and questions — on the ramming of USS Fitzgerald.  Fitzgerald, at 8,900 tons, was struck directly in its forward starboard quarter by a massive container-cargo freighter, the 29,000-ton ACX Crystal, at about 2:30 a.m.  Some two-thirds of the crew would've been off-duty, presumably sleeping, when the impact occurred, causing substantial hull damage and massive flooding.  Seven sailors died.  It's far too early to draw even speculative conclusions about the collision, but the question is inescapable:  How could a nimble warship like Fitzgerald allow herself to be run down by a lumbering, cargo-container laden freighter?

How Could This Happen?  On Saturday, at about 2:30 AM local time, the destroyer USS Fitzgerald (DDG 62) and the Philippine container ship ACX Crystal collided southwest of Yokosuka, Japan — the home of the United States Navy's Seventh Fleet. [...] It is difficult to understand how something like this could happen, given the size of the vessels, the well-understood rules that govern the movement of ships, the expanse of the ocean, the technology available to avoid collisions, and the (relatively) slow speed at which ships move.  So-called "background" information was provided in the cable which gave vague details on a 2006 nuclear smuggling sting operation in which the U.S. government took possession of some HEU previously owned by the Russians.

There's a strange reason for all those quakes near Harrison.  Ten earthquakes just north of Harrison, Arkansas, in the past five days?  Blame it on nearby Bull Shoals Lake, swollen by spring floods.  The lake, which straddles the Missouri-Arkansas border, has risen 42 feet since the first of March, adding more than 6 trillion pounds of water weight to the lake basin.  That crushing weight triggered a 3.6-magnitude earthquake north of Harrison on Sunday and at least nine more in the following days, according to David Johnston, earthquake geologist with the Arkansas Geological Survey.

North Carolina man receives shocking $100 million charge on water bill.  The News & Observer of Raleigh reports that Kieran Healy of Orange County in central North Carolina got a water bill for $189.92.  The service charge was a dollar shy of $100 million.

Confirmed: Obama Had His Own 'Back Channel' To Moscow.  The Obama administration had a "back channel" to communicate with Russian officials, according to a new report detailing Moscow's efforts to delegitimize the U.S. presidential election results.  The news comes after Trump White House aide Jared Kushner was criticized for allegedly trying to open a back channel line of communications with Russian officials during the transition last year.  Former intelligence officials called Kushner's alleged back channel "dangerous," but now Bloomberg reports the Obama administration had its own back channel to Moscow.

African-American History Museum Sued for Censoring Pro-Life Display.  Two African American pro-life leaders filed a lawsuit Friday against the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., alleging that it violated their rights to freedom of speech and religious liberty.  The lawsuit stems from an incident on Feb. 1 when the Rev. Clenard H. Childress Jr. and Jacqueline Hawkins, two African American pro-life advocates, set up a display outside the Smithsonian's new museum in downtown Washington, D.C.  The pro-life display was a project of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, a California-based pro-life organization, which also is a party in the lawsuit, Christian Post reports.

Qatar: Helium Plants Close Because Of Gulf Boycott.  Qatar, the world's second largest helium producer, has closed its two helium production plants because of the economic boycott imposed on it by other Arab states, industry sources told Reuters on June 13.  The helium plants operated by RasGas, a subsidiary of state-owned Qatar Petroleum, were shut because Saudi Arabia closed its border with Qatar, blocking overland exports of the gas.  The two plants have a combined annual production capacity of approximately 2 billion standard cubic feet of liquid helium and can meet about 25 percent of total world demand for the gas, according to RasGas' website.

'We've been living a lie!' Twitter has meltdown when it discovers that Sasha Obama's real name is Natasha.  Sasha Obama turned sixteen on Saturday, a day before Twitter was shocked to discover (again) that the former First Daughter's real first name isn't Sasha, but Natasha.

Apple screen shot
A bug, not a feature.  Dear Apple CEO Tim Cook,  I am writing to report a bug in the Clock application of your iOS operating system (10.3.2), found on my new iPad.  Somehow the country associated with Jerusalem seems to be missing!  Almost every other city, even Ittoqqortoormiit, has a country.  But Jerusalem does not (Taipei also lacks a country, but I will leave that to someone else to argue about).  I know this has to be a bug, because Jerusalem is in Israel!  Not only is Jerusalem in Israel, it is the capital of Israel, and has been since the modern state was founded in 1948 (it was also the capital of David's kingdom, back around 1000 [BC]).  Israel's Knesset meets there, its Prime Minister's office is there, and there are even several authorized Apple dealers there.  So how can you not know?


Judicial Watch Sues Justice Department for Records about Forcing Corporations to Fund Leftist Groups.  Judicial Watch announced today [6/12/2017] that it has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice for records relating to an Obama administration policy of settling agency lawsuits against corporate defendants by requiring that the corporations make "donations" to left-wing interest groups La Raza, the Urban League and the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.

The Conspiracy to Silence a JFK Assassination Theorist.  Robert Groden has been issued 82 tickets by the city of Dallas and arrested twice.  His offense?  Running a table in Dealey Plaza on weekends offering passerbys an interpretation of the JFK assassination that conflicts with what Groden calls "the official fiction."  Groden's attorney, Brad Kizzia, uncovered emails between the Dallas City Council and an institution called the Sixth Floor Museum that references "how to deal with the vendor problem in Dealey Plaza."  Kizzia's assumption is that the Sixth Floor Museum, an institution dedicated to telling the official story of the JFK asssassination, saw Groden as a nuissance and was conspiring with the city drive him out.

'Anti-Fascists' Crash Nationwide Protests Against Sharia Law.  Protesters campaigning against Sharia Law were met with a number of counter-demonstrations on Saturday, as anti-Sharia rallies took place in 28 cities across America.  The rallies, which were organized by the national security organization ACT! for America, attracted strong support in cities such as Phoenix, Chicago, Austin, Atlanta, New York, Boston, and Seattle.

Hawaii ignores Trump, is first state to pass law committing to Paris Climate Accord.  The governor of Hawaii on Tuesday [6/6/2017] signed a bill that aligns the state's carbon emissions with the Paris climate accord.  Gov. David Ige signed the bill that calls on documenting sea level rise and set strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  "Many of the greatest challenges of our day hit us first, and that means that we also need to be first when it comes to creating solutions," Mr. Ige, a Democrat, said, according to The New York Times.  "We are the testing grounds — as an island state, we are especially aware of the limits of our natural environment."

Watch Jon Ossoff Lose The Entire Special Election Debate In Less Than Four Minutes.  Democratic congressional candidate Jon Ossoff struggled through a brutal four minutes in Georgia's special election debate Tuesday night [6/6/2017] after Republican Karen Handel called him out for not living in the district he is hoping to represent.

James Comey's Media Leak Conduit, Daniel Richman, Goes into Hiding.  Oh, this is transparently suspicious.  But don't anticipate the media to point out that transparently innocent people do not need to duck for cover.  The Columbia University professor, Daniel Richman, that fired FBI Director James Comey utilized as the go-between to provide leaks to the media, has gone into hiding.

USPTO director Michelle Lee has resigned without warning.  Director of the US Patent and Trademark Office Michelle Lee resigned today [6/6/2017], without explanation.  Lee, who has been director of the office since 2014, was a favored candidate by the tech sector, who thought she brought a balanced approach to patents.  She is a former Google lawyer and was one of the first corporate lawyers to speak out about the problem of so-called "patent trolls."  Lee took office at a time when the tech sector was at odds with the pharmaceutical lobby and trial lawyers over a proposed patent-reform law, which did not end up passing.

The Raspberry Pi and Other SBCs Are the IBM PCs of Our Time.  The Raspberry Pi and other single-board computers like it have nailed a combination of low cost, easy availability in high quantities, and a pleasure to program.  The successive generations have worked out the kinks of the platform and the latest editions are both powerful beasts, and pretty solid.  The low price has enticed many developers to build libraries and frameworks around the Pi, making it accessible to less hardware-savvy developers.

10,000 people falsely claim to have been at Manchester attack to get free Ariana Grande tickets, sales outlet says.  Music fans in Britain will come together Sunday for the event "One Love Manchester," featuring major international acts including Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber and Usher, plus many more.  The event was announced after a suicide bombing shortly after a Grande concert in Manchester last month left 22 people dead.  Proceeds from the concert, which will also be broadcast around the world, will go to a fund designed to help those affected by the attack and their families.  But planning for the event has been hindered by allegations that 10,000 people have fraudulently applied for tickets.

Disability attorney who stole $600M from the government disappears, FBI says.  Eric Conn pleaded guilty in March to stealing from the federal government and bribing a judge.  He was ordered to pay back tens of millions of dollars.  His sentencing was scheduled for next month.  The FBI said Saturday [6/3/2017] that Conn violated the conditions of his bond by removing his electronic monitoring device which prompted the U.S. District Court to issue a warrant for his arrest.

New Batch of DNC Conspiracy Theories Emerge After Prosecutor Found Dead on Florida Beach.  Last week, federal prosecutor Beranton Whisenant was found dead on a beach in Hollywood, Florida, which is in ex-DNC chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz's district.  Police say Whisenant suffered head trauma possibly caused by a gunshot, according to the Miami Herald. [...] Whisenant worked in the major crimes unit in the U.S. Attorney's office in Miami and usually dealt with immigration cases.  ABC News reported that he "had been working on visa and passport fraud cases, according to court documents." [...] Some believe that he was investigating the immigration status of the Awan brothers, the Pakistani congressional IT aides who have been accused of stealing equipment and the possible breaches of the House IT network.  Imran Awan worked for Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Firm involved in DNC lawsuit got 'voice changer' call from Debbie Wasserman Schultz' office.  This is a very strange story.  A law firm which represents Bernie Sanders supporters in a class-action lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee (and against former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz) received a call asking about the case.  The caller's voice was disguised, but when the firm checked the number on caller ID, it came up as one of Debbie Wasserman Schultz' offices. [...] I don't know anything about spoofing phone numbers but it does strike me as odd that someone would make the effort to disguise their voice electronically and then apparently forget about the caller ID.  If you wanted to make an anonymous call, wouldn't it be better to hide the phone number and talk like a normal person?  In this case, the voice changer just seems to draw attention to the call.

Donald Trump Signs Bills Assisting Law Enforcement: 'We Are Behind You 100 Percent'.  President Donald Trump signed two bills on Friday assisting law enforcement officers, vowing to back the community "100 percent."  "We are here today to reaffirm our unbreakable support for the American heroes who keep our streets, our homes, and our citizens safe, and they've been doing an amazing job under very adverse conditions," Trump said during a signing ceremony at the White House.  Trump signed the Public Safety Officers' Benefits Improvement Act, a bill to help streamline benefits for disabled officers and the families of fallen officers.

Exclusive: Attorney To File Lawsuit In Seth Rich Murder Mystery.  Washington, D.C. lobbyist and attorney Jack Burkman is filing a lawsuit Wednesday [5/31/2017] to force the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) to release information regarding the murder of Democratic National Committee (DNC) staffer Seth Rich.  "The release of this crucial material will help bring peace to the victim's family, and it will help to either confirm or refute the various theories that swirl about this important murder case," the lawsuit says.

D.C. Police Chief Who Oversaw Seth Rich Murder Socialized With Top Democrats, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.  More and more evidence is revealed every day, that points to the real possibility that murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich was the person who leaked the DNC emails to Wikileaks, and that there is an all-out effort to cover it up, or completely dismiss it as a "tin-foil hat" theory by social media platforms, the leftist media and the Democrat Party.  Twitter just suspended the WND account for posting a story that suggested disgraced DNC chief and top Democratic strategist Donna Brazile may have interceded in the Seth Rich murder investigation.

This Dystopian Device Warns You When AI Is Trying to Impersonate Actual Humans.  Scared of a future where you can no longer discern if you're dealing with a human or a computer?  A team of Australian researchers have come up with what they call the Anti-AI AI.  The wearable prototype device is designed to identify synthetic speech and alert the user that the voice they're listening doesn't belong to a flesh-and-blood individual.

Wasserman Schultz Threatened Cops for Pursuing Her IT Staff Hackers.  Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz threatened the chief of the U.S. Capitol Police with "consequences" for holding equipment that she says belongs to her in order to build a criminal case against a Pakistani staffer suspected of massive cybersecurity breaches involving funneling sensitive congressional data offsite.  The Florida lawmaker used her position on the committee that sets the police force's budget to press its chief to relinquish the piece of evidence Thursday [5/25/2017], in what could be considered using her authority to attempt to interfere with a criminal investigation.

Veterans unite, fight HOA's claim that American flag threatens 'theme of the community'.  Two U.S. military veterans are making national headlines for their fight to fly the American flag.  A Georgia homeowners association recently informed U.S. Navy veteran Tom Wilder and Air Force veteran Pete Rockett that American flags flown outside 23 designated holidays constitute a threat to the "aesthetic and architectural theme of the community."  The men told Fox News Channel on Thursday [5/25/2017] that they are ready for a legal fight.

Taxpayer Funded University Identifies as "Law Enforcement Agency".  The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has turned down a television station's open records request by claiming that it is a law enforcement agency.  UNC Chapel Hill officials made their declaration that the taxpayer-funded, 29,000-student school is actually a very large crime-fighting force after Charlotte CBS affiliate WBTV requested public records from Jeffrey B. Welty, an associate professor within the UNC School of Government.

They're Off to Pakistan.  In February, we noted the strange case of the three Awan brothers, who got themselves hired as IT professionals, working for a number of Democratic Congressmen at an extraordinarily high rate of pay.  They had access to intelligence and homeland security information, among much else, but were fired weeks after the Obama administration left office.

DHS chief:  If you knew what I knew about terror, you'd 'never leave the house'.  Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly on Friday [5/26/2017] said the terror threat is worse than most realize, saying some people would "never leave the house" if they knew the truth.  "I was telling [Fox host] Steve [Doocy] on the way in here, if he knew what I knew about terrorism, he'd never leave the house in the morning," Kelly said on "Fox & Friends."  He noted there were four major terror attacks in the last week — in England, Egypt, the Philippines and Indonesia — "by generally the same groups."

Dems Say They Know Little About IT Staffers Suspected Of Accessing Sensitive Congressional Info.  U.S. Capitol Police and other agencies are probing the cyber activities of three brothers who had jobs as congressional staffers at the office of information technology for lawmakers on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, The Daily Caller News Foundation first reported.  Brothers Imran, Abid and Jamal Awan also provided their services for other Democratic members in the lower chamber.  When they came under suspicion by law enforcement for accessing the House network without permission last February, they were all banned from accessing it.  While some Democratic lawmakers dismissed Imran from their employ when the story, others, like Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz kept him on.

John Brennan Completely Contradicts FBI Director James Comey on Congressional Notification.  Today [5/23/2017] former CIA Director John Brennan testified to congress on the Russian counter-intelligence operation which began in July 2016.  Today, John Brennan completely contradicted the March 20th, 2017, testimony of former FBI Director James Comey.

California Democrats Claim Their Party's Chair Election Corrupted Because Of Lack Of VOTER IDs.  [Kimberly] Ellis, the former director of Emerge America, a women's political organization, lost the election by a narrow margin of 62 votes out of 3,000 cast.  Her loss immediately set off protests from hundreds of her backers, many of whom charged that there were irregularities that included allowing voters to cast proxy ballots without proper ID.

House IT Aides Fear Suspects In Hill Breach Are Blackmailing Members With Their Own Data.  Congressional technology aides are baffled that data-theft allegations against four former House IT workers — who were banned from the congressional network — have largely been ignored, and they fear the integrity of sensitive high-level information.  Imran Awan and three relatives were colleagues until police banned them from computer networks at the House of Representatives after suspicion the brothers accessed congressional computers without permission.  Five Capitol Hill technology aides told The Daily Caller News Foundation's Investigative Group that members of Congress have displayed an inexplicable and intense loyalty towards the suspects who police say victimized them.  The baffled aides wonder if the suspects are blackmailing representatives based on the contents of their emails and files, to which they had full access.

House Aides Wonder if Dem IT Suspects Are Blackmailing Members of Congress.  The Pakistani clan that managed office information technology for congressional Democrats until they were accused of data theft in February and banned from the network still have not been charged with a crime, The Daily Caller reported Monday.  What's more, it's not even clear whether or not they are still employed by Democrat members of Congress.  The lack of action on the case has reportedly baffled congressional technology aides who now "fear the integrity of sensitive high-level information."  The strange passivity Democrats have demonstrated since the breaches were discovered have some even wondering whether blackmail is involved.

PC Police:  Seattle cops told to replace "suspect" with "community member".  In an effort to be more sensitive and less judgmental, an edict was recently issued to law enforcement in the liberal paradise of Seattle that from now on, the correct term for "suspect" when writing up reports should be "community member".

Russia Special Counsel Mueller Worked with Radical Islamic Groups to Purge Anti-Terrorism Training Material Offensive to Muslims.  Now that Robert Mueller has been appointed special counsel to investigate if Russia influenced the 2016 presidential election it's worth reiterating his misguided handiwork and collaboration with radical Islamist organizations as FBI director.  Judicial Watch exclusively obtained droves of records back in 2013 documenting how, under Mueller's leadership, the FBI purged all anti-terrorism training material deemed "offensive" to Muslims after secret meetings between Islamic organizations and the FBI chief.  Judicial Watch had to sue to get the records and published an in-depth report on the scandal in 2013 and a lengthier, updated follow-up in 2015.  As FBI director, Mueller bent over backwards to please radical Islamist groups and caved into their demands.

Slain DNC Official Contacted Wikileaks?  The young Democratic National Committee official rumored to have leaked DNC documents to WikiLeaks and who was murdered in the nation's capital last year was, just as previously claimed, in touch with Julian Assange's document-dumping hacktivist group, media reports confirm.  This raises the possibility that Russia had nothing to do with the attacks on the DNC's computer servers — assuming those actually took place.  And if Russia didn't hack the DNC, then the left-wing conspiracy theory that Russian President Vladimir Putin launched cyber-attacks on the DNC to help Donald Trump win the election — and that Trump knowingly colluded with the Russians in those attacks — is undermined.

School district pulls '13 Reasons Why' book from libraries.  As a Colorado community mourns the loss of seven students who recently killed themselves, a school district official ordered librarians to temporarily stop circulating a book that's the basis for Netflix's popular new series "13 Reasons Why," which some critics say romanticizes suicide.

There's a reason they're called "anchor stores."  When they sink, you're sunk.
The fall of retailers means doomsday for malls.  The time-honored multigenerational giants like Macy's, Sears and JCPenney are all looking at a dramatically different future.  Macy's stock collapsed 17 percent after Thursday's [5/11/2017] first-quarter report.  And high-end retail behemoths like Nordstrom are getting clobbered, too.  Shares of that politically petulant retailer fell 11 percent Thursday on news of its first-quarter results.  Better take a good look, because this may be last call for the mall.  The rise of online retailing and the disenchantment of shoppers with the department store is rapidly leading to the demise of American shopping meccas.  For decades, malls have been anchored by super-sized department stores occupying tens of thousands of square feet.

NYU accidentally leaked military code-breaking computer project to the internet.  A super-secret computer project designed to break military codes turned out to be pretty easy to crack — because New York University engineers accidentally put the whole thing on the internet, according to a report.  An anonymous digital security researcher identified files related to the project while hunting for things on the internet that doesn't belong there, The Intercept reported Thursday [5/11/2017].  The cyber sleuth, who requested anonymity to protect his day job, used a program called Shodan, a search engine for internet-connected devices.

DNC Lawyers Argue DNC Has Right to Pick Candidates in Back Rooms.  On April 28 the transcript was released from the most recent hearing at a federal court in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on the lawsuit filed on behalf of Bernie Sanders supporters against the Democratic National Committee and former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz for rigging the Democratic primaries for Hillary Clinton.  Throughout the hearing, lawyers representing the DNC and Debbie Wasserman Schultz double down on arguments confirming the disdain the Democratic establishment has toward Bernie Sanders supporters and any entity challenging the party's status quo.

Texas Committee Passes Bill to Review and Reject Unconstitutional Federal Acts.  On Thursday [5/4/2017], a Texas House committee passed a bill that would create a mechanism to review federal laws and end state cooperation with enforcement of those determined to violate the U.S. Constitution.  This process would set the stage to effectively block some federal laws and acts in the Lone Star State.

Texas Joins Call for Convention of States to Rein In Washington.  The Republican-controlled Texas Legislature passed a Convention of States Resolution, becoming the eleventh.  Article V of the U.S. Constitution allows for a Convention of States to restrict the power of the federal government.  Texas State Representative Rick Miller (R-Sugar Land), one of the authors of the measure, told Breitbart Texas there were 12 other states in the country waiting to see what Texas was going to do.  He says North Carolina is poised to be the next state to pass a resolution.

Texas Becomes 11th State to Call for Article V Convention.  On Thursday, May 4, 2017, the Texas legislature passed a resolution calling for a Convention of States for the purpose of proposing amendments to the U.S. Constitution.  The resolution (SJR2), having a total of 72 co-authors, was passed 217 to 213 as nearly 250 supporters watched from the Gallery.  The resolution comes after the Senate passed its own version on February 28, making the Lone Star State the 11th state to call for a convention as outlined in Article V of the Constitution.

153,156,000 Employed Americans in April, 3rd Straight Record; Unemployment Rate Dips to 4.4%.  The number of employed Americans set a third straight monthly record in April, increasing by 156,000 to 153,156,000; and the nation's unemployment rate dropped a tenth of a point to 4.4 percent.  On the negative side, the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics said the labor force participation rate dropped a tenth of a point in April; and the number of Americans NOT in the labor force increased for the second straight month to 94,375,000, compared with 94,213,000 in March.  The numbers are important:  People who are employed have Social Security and other payroll taxes deducted from their paychecks, and those taxes help to support many other people who do not work for various reasons and who may receive taxpayer-funded entitlements or benefits.

Saudis take 100% control of America's largest oil refinery.  America's largest oil refinery is now fully owned by Saudi Arabia.  Saudi Aramco, the kingdom's state-owned oil behemoth, took 100% control of the sprawling Port Arthur refinery in Texas on Monday, completing a deal that was first announced last year.  Port Arthur is considered the crown jewel of the US refinery system.  The Gulf Coast facility can process 600,000 barrels of oil per day, making it the largest refinery in North America.

Court Docs:  Wasserman Schultz IT Guy Installed Wiretaps, Threatened Kidnappings.  A former congressional information technology (IT) aide allegedly threatened to have his stepmother's Pakistani relatives kidnapped if she talked to U.S. law enforcement authorities, according to court documents obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation's (TheDCNF) Investigative Group.  "Imran Awan threatened that he is very powerful and if I ever call the police again, [he] will ... kidnap my family members back in Pakistan," Awan's stepmother, Samina Gilani, claimed in the documents filed April 14 in Fairfax County, Va., in the case of Americo Financial Life and Annuity Insurance Company v.  Abid A. Awan and Samina Ashraf Gilani.  Imran Awan and his brothers Abid and Jamal are under criminal investigation by U.S. Capitol Police on suspicion they abused their administrator-level access to sensitive congressional data, as reported Feb. 4 by TheDCNF.

Arizona woman discovers note from 'Chinese prisoner' in purse bought at Walmart.  A woman in Arizona said she made a stunning discovery inside a new purse she bought at a Walmart:  A note apparently written by a desperate prisoner in China.  Laura Wallace found the message, written in Chinese, tucked inside the zipper compartment of the purse she purchased at a Sierra Vista Walmart, KVOA reported.

Tennessee Bill to Protect 'Natural and Ordinary' Meaning of Words Is Veiled Anti-LGBTQ Law, Opponents Say.  What's in a word?  According to a bill passed by lawmakers in the Tennessee Senate Thursday, certain words should only be allowed to have "natural and ordinary" meanings.  In this case, the words in question could be "husband" and "wife."  Tennessee's House Bill 1111 (also known as Senate Bill 1085) has caused quite a bit of controversy for a seemingly slight change to an existing state code.  In layman's terms, the new Tennessee law could make it so that marriage is inadvertently defined as between a man and a woman only — and prevent other currently evolving definitions of gender from being permissible.

IRS Agents Raid The Offices Of Posh-Living Televangelist Benny Hinn.  Criminal investigators from the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Postal Service raided the Grapevine, Texas offices of televangelist Benny Hinn on Wednesday afternoon [4/26/2017].  Hinn is famous for his stadium-filling "Miracle Crusades."  At these revival-style events, held worldwide, Hinn claims to use special, supernatural power to heal people suffering from terminal diseases and various handicaps.

Advanced Talks Underway For New Conservative Network Amid Fears Fox News Moving Too Far Left.  On the heels of major shakeups at the Fox News Network, an alternative conservative network is being actively discussed amongst conservative fat cats.  A well-placed source close to the proposal tells Mediaite that serious discussions are underway to create an alternative conservative cable network on the belief that the Fox News Network is moving too far to the left.  The source, who is engaged in the talks, says a meeting is planned for today with two prominent high-powered television executives, some underperforming conservative networks and people who have an interest and the ability to fund a new network.

Report: A More Conservative Alternative To Fox News Is In The Works.  According to a source close with the negotiations, "conservative fat cats" are talking very seriously about launching a rival to Fox News Network.  The reports come amid continued internal turmoil within the solitary mainstream right-leaning news network, turmoil largely caused by external scrutiny over sexual harassment allegations directed at two high-profile figures and what appears to be a power shift at the top.

The Pope Heads To Egypt To Defend Islam.  The worst part about this is the fact that because this man is Pope, all too many Catholics, including some in positions of high authority, treat him as if he were a divine oracle, his every utterance to be revered, respected, studied, and followed. [...] This leads them into impossible positions.  When Pope Benedict XVI appeared to criticize the aspects of Islam that incite and justify violence, they allowed for criticism of Islam.  When Francis showed himself to be an Islamic apologist, they became Islamic apologists.  All too many Catholic leaders and institutions, in other words, are more interested in being papists than in being truthful.  They would rather show loyalty to the Pope, no matter how damaging his utterances, than stand for the truth on the own against the Pope.  The contradiction is clear, and absolute.  If the Catholic Church has become one of Islam's loudest boosters, then those who are aware of the nature and magnitude of the jihad threat, rooted in Islamic texts and teachings, have to make some decisions about where they stand.

Hillary Aides Threatened Prime Minister's Son With IRS Audit.  Hillary Clinton's Department of State aides allegedly threatened a South Asian prime minister's son with an IRS audit in an attempt to stop a Bangladesh government investigation of a close friend and donor of Clinton's, The Daily Caller News Foundation's Investigative Group learned.  A Bangladesh government commission was investigating multiple charges of financial mismanagement at Grameen Bank, beginning in May 2012.  Muhammad Yunus, a major Clinton Foundation donor, served as managing director of the bank.  Sajeeb Wazed Joy, son of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and permanent U.S. resident, recalled the account of the threatened IRS audit to TheDCNF.  The allegations mark the first known instance in the U.S. that Clinton's Department of State used IRS power to intimidate a close relative of a friendly nation's head of state on behalf of a Clinton Foundation donor.

Obama says photos of his high school drug use might have derailed his political rise.  Former President Obama said Monday that if his checkered pre-politics life had taken place in today's social media oversaturated world, he might not have been able to win the White House.  He repeated stories about his own drug use in his younger days, saying that marijuana use was "what teenage kids did at that age when I was growing up." And while he wrote about those experiences in his book, he acknowledged that if that behavior had been documented more thoroughly it might have derailed his political career.

The Editor says...
I'm sure there are a number of issues that would have kept Barry Soetoro out of politics forever, if these matters had been investigated and publicized by honest and objective news media.  It's not too late to begin investigating Mr. Soetoro's Indonesian citizenship, the exact date and place where his name was legally changed to "Barack H. Obama," his highly suspicious Social Security number, his other aliases and assumed names, including Harrison J. Bounel, and the highly doubtful authenticity of his long-form birth certificate.

Numerous states considering anti-protest bills.  So far, lawmakers in at least 18 states have proposed legislation that would make it harder to protest, create harsher penalties for protestors who are arrested, and, in two states, remove liability from drivers who accidentally injure protesters on roadways.  Proponents of the bills say they are commonsense measures to ensure public safety after the high-profile protests against the Dakota Access pipeline near Cannonball, North Dakota, and against the police shootings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and of Jamar Clark and Philando Castile in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota, area.  But the trend is alarming to civil rights groups and others who say the measures would trample the public's First Amendment rights.

Obama Injects Himself Into French Election.  Remember when President Obama urged the British to vote to stay in the European Union, and they completely ignored him?  He apparently hasn't learned to stay out of European races.  A new report confirms that Obama, now a private citizen, called French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron, from the centrist party En Marche!, just three days before the contest begins.

Obama Tries to Influence French Elections, The Exact Accusation Hurled By Democrats Against Putin.  The example today of President Obama stepping in to influence the French election stands as a direct highlight upon the hypocrisy of left-wing progressives (Marxists).  Against a predictable strategy, French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron is promoting a phone call today from former President Obama.

The Editor says...
I think it was Karl Marx who used to say, "Accuse others of what you do."

Obama Tries to Influence French Elections, The Exact Accusation Hurled By Democrats Against Putin.  Under Obama's leadership the U.S. State Department has a long history of working to influence elections in France.  Additionally, as we shared from research into the Ambassador Rivkin Project the left-wing U.S. globalists have considered France to be the fulcrum for their global intentions toward the larger EU.

Carpetbagger!
Leading Democrat Cannot Vote for Himself in Today's Georgia Primary.  Jon Ossoff, 30, has raised more than $8.3 million, most of it from outside his district, press reports said.  But he can't vote for himself today, since he lives outside of the district he wants to represent.

Facebook targets 30,000 fake France accounts before election.  Facebook says it has targeted 30,000 fake accounts linked to France ahead of the country's presidential election, as part of a worldwide effort against misinformation.

Arrogant Oklahoma Congressman Claims His Voters Don't Pay His Salary.  Sorry Congressman, but the constituents of your district really do pay your salary, as does everyone else in America.  Try not to forget about who you really work for.

MOABs are Just the Appetizer:  US Conducts Successful Field Test Of New Thermonuclear Weapon.  With the world still abuzz over the first ever deployment of the GBU-43/B "Mother Of All Bombs" in Afghanistan, where it reportedly killed some 36 ISIS fighters, in a less noticed statement the US National Nuclear Security Administration quietly announced overnight the first successful field test of the modernized, "steerable" B61-12 gravity thermonuclear bomb in Nevada.

Judicial Watch wants ethics probe widened to Democrats.  The conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch is asking the Office of Congressional Ethics to investigate whether two Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee may have violated standards by disclosing classified information. [...] "If the standard for filing a complaint or opening an ethics investigation is that a member has commented publicly on matters that touch on classified information, but the member does not reveal the source of his or her information, then the complaints against Chairman Nunes are incomplete insofar as they target only Nunes," Judicial Watch wrote.  "At least two other members of the House Intelligence Committee have made comments about classified material that raise more directly the very same concerns raised against Chairman Nunes because they appear to confirm classified information contained in leaked intelligence community intercepts."

Up escalator suddenly reverses direction, leaving riders in a heap at the bottom.  A four-story escalator packed with shoppers at a Hong Kong mall suddenly stopped and reversed direction at high speed Saturday, injuring at least 18 people who fell and rolled down the hard steel, some landing in a heap at the bottom.  People can be heard screaming as they suddenly found themselves hurtling backward down the steep incline of the 150-feet structure at the Langham Place mall in the Mong Kok section of the city.  [Video clip]

Trump donates first-quarter salary to National Park Service.  President Trump will donate his first three months of salary to the National Park Service, White House press secretary Sean Spicer announced Monday [4/3/2017].  "The president has spoken with counsel and made the decision to donate his first-quarter salary to a government entity," Spicer said at Monday's briefing.  Spicer handed a check for $78,333.32 for the National Park Service to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.  Spicer said the paycheck starts from Jan. 20, when Trump took office, until now.

Sergeant faces discharge over bin Laden raid intelligence that Obama made public in 2011.  The Army is booting out a 13-year public affairs sergeant for including in an unclassified government email the same information about a special operations unit and Osama bin Laden found on Army.mil web pages.  The irony in the narrative of Staff Sgt. Ricardo Branch is that his motive was to keep classified material away from public view. [...] And the transgression of Sgt. Branch, 34, is on its face far less serious than that of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who faced no punishment for keeping classified data on her personal unsecured server.

Company creates a 'snowflake test' for job applicants and the word is spreading.  Job applicants for a Connecticut-based marketing company have a unique "snowflake" test to pass before being hired.  The Silent Partner Marketing firm is taking on liberal "snowflakes" in an effort to weed out the hundreds of applications they have received.  The company has developed a survey to vet potential employees by asking key questions about themselves.

Fox Throws Judge Napolitano under the Bus.  Fox News anchor Bret Baier likes to end his Special Report broadcast with the claim that Fox News is "fair, balanced and unafraid."  Well, Fox News seems not to be fair when it throws contributor Judge Andrew Napolitano under the bus for linking surveillance of Team Trump to Team Obama's links with British intelligence.  Apparently, Fox News isn't as "fair and balanced" as it pretends to be.  While it endlessly repeats totally unsubstantiated claims of Trump critics of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, as well as repeatedly dismissing Trump claims of Obama administration surveillance of Trump tower, they have dared to take Fox News contributor Judge Napolitano off the air for repeating what three intelligence agents told him — that the Obama administration in fact had British intelligence conduct the surveillance so as not to leave a trail.

Judge Napolitano pulled from Fox News airwaves.  Judge Napolitano's removal from the air, and his apparent silence and lack of public response or defense of his remarks, suggests that the very high stakes are understood by everyone.  The suggestion that intelligence services are surreptitiously cooperating to use the data readily available to them via raw NSA surveillance is now taboo.  Judge Napolitano has been punished, and his job may be in jeopardy.  Because FBI director James Comey said, "We don't have any information that supports those tweets," the conclusion has been reached that the charge is false.  To believe otherwise, one must be open to three possibilities.  One is that Comey didn't go after, and probably lacked the ability to go after, an investigation of what the intelligence agencies did.  When he says he doesn't have any information, he leaves open the possibility that it exists but is not in his possession.  A second possibility is that intelligence agencies lie. [...]

Fox News Pulls Judge Napolitano Off Air Due To Prior Comments on UK Trump Surveillance.  Apparently Rupert Murdoch has taken action against Judge Andrew Napolitano as an outcome of his broadcast report on British Intelligence coordinating surveillance activity with the NSA[. ...] A few weeks earlier Napolitano was on Fox Business News saying President Trump was the first president to confront The Deep State.

The Russians Did Not 'Hack The Election.' Repeat.  The Russians Did Not 'Hack The Election'.  [Scroll down]  Yet Democrats are already asking:  After testifying in front of Congress about Clinton, why didn't Comey inform the American public about the Trump investigation?  Well, the Hillary investigations had been exhausted, and Comey reported his findings to a congressional committee looking into charges that she illegally transmitted top-secret documents, set up an server to circumvent transparency, then lied about it and attempted to cover it up.  Comey confirmed all of those charges, but tacked on a standard of intent, allowing her to escape legal accountability.  Comey then promised to report back to Congress if any new evidence emerged.  As it turned out a Hillary staffer was possession of emails that were supposed to be handed over to the FBI, and her husband, who was being investigated for carrying on with an underaged girl, had access to them.  So Comey reported the finding to Congress with a letter.  This was Hillary's doing, not the Russians' and not the FBI's.

Good News From CIA Leak:  Encryption Works!  The media have spun the recent story about CIA-developed hacking tools by claiming either that there's nothing to worry about, or that the problem is so severe that it is no longer possible to protect our privacy through encryption.  In reality, privacy is under attack, but encryption still works.

Secret Service removes agent who didn't want to take 'a bullet' for Trump.  The Secret Service will permanently remove a top special agent from her position after an investigation into her Facebook comments that she would rather not defend President Trump or take "a bullet" for him, but some agents are concerned she will simply be transferred to another government job.  About two weeks ago, the Secret Service placed the agent's prior post — the special agent in charge of the Denver District, the top job in that office — on a list of agency openings, according to two Secret Service sources.

Most electronics banned on U.S.-bound flights from 10 international airports.  The U.S. government is temporarily barring passengers on certain flights originating in eight other countries from bringing laptops, iPads, cameras and most other electronics in carry-on luggage starting Tuesday [3/21/2017].

Fox News suspends Andrew Napolitano over British spying claim:  Report.  Fox News has indefinitely removed contributor Andrew Napolitano from its programming, following an unsubstantiated claim he made on air last week and that was refuted by U.S. intelligence officials, according to a report.  The Los Angeles Times reported Monday [3/20/2017] that Napolitano has not made any appearances on Fox since last Thursday.  Citing an anonymous source, the paper said Napolitano "is not expected to be on Fox News Channel any time in the near future."

Russian Meddling Had More To Do With Hillary Than Trump, Comey Implies.  FBI Director James Comey repeatedly referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin's personal animus to Hillary Clinton as one of the major motivations in Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election during congressional testimony Tuesday [sic &&8211; Monday 3.20.2017].  Comey described how Putin "hated Hillary Clinton so much" he developed a preference for President Donald Trump.

David Rockefeller, "Mr. Globalist," Dead at 101.  The titles of news stories and obituaries announcing his passing refer to him as a banker, billionaire, businessman, and philanthropist.  He was much more than that, but there has been little amongst the glowing tributes in the Rockefeller-friendly media to hint at his darker passions and accomplishments, particularly as they relate to his promotion of globalism and world government.  During the 1970s and 1980s, especially, David Rockefeller was considered by knowledgeable observers across the political spectrum to be the undisputed "chairman of the Eastern Establishment."  In addition to being chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Trilateral Commission (TC), the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Americas Society, David Rockefeller was a director, trustee, and/or funder of numerous foundations, corporations, organizations, and think tanks.

Suspicious cellular activity in D.C. suggests monitoring of individuals' smartphones.  As the discussion over wiretapping and foreign hacking still dominates the conversation in Washington, an unusually high amount of suspicious cell phone activity in the nation's capital has caught the attention of the Department of Homeland Security, raising concerns that U.S. officials are being monitored by a foreign entity.  The issue was first reported in the Washington Free Beacon, but a source at telecom security firm ESD America confirmed the spike in suspicious activity to CBS News.  ESD America, hired preemptively for a DHS pilot program this January called ESD Overwatch, first noticed suspicious activity around cell phone towers in certain parts of the capital, including near the White House.  This kind of activity can indicate that someone is monitoring specific individuals or their devices.  DHS confirmed the pilot program but did not comment on the suspicious activity.

Former US Navy admiral among 9 charged in 'Fat Leonard' scandal.  Retired Rear Adm. Bruce Loveless and eight other high-ranking Navy officers are charged with accepting luxury travel, elaborate dinners and the services of prostitutes from foreign defense contractor Leonard Francis.  They did so in exchange for classified and internal US Navy information, according to a news release from the Department of Justice.  "This is a fleecing and betrayal of the United States Navy in epic proportions, and it was allegedly carried out by the Navy's highest-ranking officers," said Acting US Attorney Alana Robinson in a statement.

Congress Demands Investigation Into Obama Admin Meddling in Foreign Elections.  A group of leading senators is calling on newly installed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to immediately launch an investigation into efforts by the Obama administration to sway foreign elections by sending taxpayer funds to "extreme and sometimes violent political activists" that promote leftist causes, according to a copy of the letter.  The lawmakers disclosed multiple conversations with foreign diplomats who outlined active political meddling by the Obama administration's State Department, including the use of taxpayer funds to support leftist causes in Macedonia, Albania, Latin America, and Africa.

Russia confirms envoy met with Trump and Clinton camps during election.  The spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday [3/12/2017] confirmed a Kremlin envoy met with members of the Trump campaign during the election to discuss "bilateral relations" — but he also contacted people linked to the Clinton camp.  Dmitry Peskov, who denied Moscow meddled in the 2016 presidential election, said Ambassador Sergey Kislyak huddled with the campaign staffers as part of his diplomatic duties.  "This is his job.  He was talking about bilateral relations.  He was talking about what is going on in the United States so we have a better understanding in Moscow," Peskov told CNN's Fareed Zakaria.  "This is what is being performed by every ambassador of Russia abroad, every ambassador of the United States abroad, including in Moscow."

When the media didn't care about secret talks with Russia.  Until the press uncovers audio of President Trump promising the Russian government anything that comes even close to what former President Obama did, it's time to stop behaving like the White House is paying its staff in rubles.  The only secret conversation between a White House official and a Kremlin operative that the public knows about and in which something absolutely questionable took place is the one from March 2012, when Obama told then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, in the heat of the election, that he would have "more flexibility" to negotiate with Russia once re-elected.  Obama had made the mistake of whispering too loud into a live mic.

Putin Spokesman Says Russian Ambassador Met With Clinton Campaign Advisers.  The spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin turned the tables Sunday [3/12/2017] by saying that the Russian ambassador to the U.S. also met with people connected to Hillary Clinton's campaign, not just Trump advisers.  Dmitry Peskov, Putin's spokesman, told CNN "GPS" host Fareed Zakaria that Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak met with "people working in think tanks advising Hillary or advising people working for Hillary," The Hill reports.  Peskov stressed that part of Kislyak's job entails talking to officials and advisers on both sides of the aisle.

Test meant to screen teachers instead weeded out minorities.  New York education officials are poised to scrap a test designed to measure the reading and writing skills of people trying to become teachers, in part because an outsized percentage of black and Hispanic candidates were failing it.  The state Board of Regents on Monday [3/13/2017] is expected Monday to adopt a task force's recommendation of eliminating the literacy exam, known as the Academic Literacy Skills Test.  Backers of the test say eliminating it could put weak teachers in classrooms.  Critics of the examination said it is redundant and a poor predictor of who will succeed as a teacher.

Ted Cruz may have discovered a way to totally change Obamacare without 60 Senate votes.  [Scroll down]  Trump is a reform president, and Reform Number One is fully replacing Obamacare, not "Obamacare Lite" to be followed (maybe, maybe not) by phases two and three, where the good stuff supposedly will happen.  The GOP base is sick and tired of reforms scheduled for a "later" time that never comes.

Senator Cruz Found an Overlooked 1974 Rule That Could Be a Real Game-changer for Repealing Obamacare.  Republicans' long-anticipated Obamacare replacement has received a less than warm reception, even within the party itself.  Among the disappointed is Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who now says he's found a decades-old rule that he hopes will allow Republicans to pass a more thorough, far-reaching health care reform bill.  However, Cruz's strategy — which would leverage the power Vice President Mike Pence has as president of the Senate — "might blow up the Senate too," Bloomberg Politics notes.

PETA shelter was a 'slaughterhouse,' group claims.  PETA for years has been a target of criticism for its high rate — more than 80 percent over the years — of euthanasia at the shelter, the only one it runs, according to the Religion News Service.  PETA officials have said that animals suffer far worse fates than euthanasia, such as illness, pain, and not being adoptable.  Will Coggin, director of research for the Center for Consumer Freedom, told Fox News that his organization wants the public to know that PETA is two-faced when it presents itself as a defender of animals.

Stunning Win — Exxon Mobil Will Invest $20 Billion Building New Refineries.  One of the missing elements in our quest for energy independence has always been the lack of oil refining capacity to produce gasoline and other fuel end-products.  Years of choking fossil fuel regulation, partly funded and supported by an alignment of special interests including foreign governments, OPEC and eco lobbyists, has created a situation where over half of our oil refining capability was eliminated.  With the election, and independence, of Donald Trump that course has changed dramatically.  Trump is not beholden to the lobbyists and special interests who pay for the U.S. to remain dependent on foreign oil and off shore refinement.

Poachers Hack Environmentalists' GPS Signals to Hunt Endangered Animals.  Poachers and hunters are hacking signals from conservationists' tags to locate and hunt down endangered animals.  Animal researchers claim the incidents of poachers intercepting signals to track down the animals are under-reported out of fear of being accused of putting animals at risk or lose funding, according to The Times.  Poachers are set to make an enormous amount of money from hunting the animals, some indicating that the illicit wildlife trade is worth around £15 billion ($18.4 billion) a year and rhinoceros horn is being sold for over £50,000 ($61,000) a kilo.

Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak Appeared As Obama White House Visitor At Least 22 Times.  Sergey Kislyak appeared in the White House visitor logs dozens of times when Barack Obama was in office.  The visitor logs, which Obama made public in 2009 in a push for transparency, show that the long-time Russian ambassador to the United States visited the White House at least 22 times between 2009 and 2016.

Obama Officials Set Up Jeff Sessions' Meeting With the Russian Ambassador.  It should already be obvious that the fake media firestorm over Attorney General Jeff Sessions' meetings last year with the Russian ambassador is nothing more than the Democrat Media Complex — led by Obama's shadow government — trying to take down a key member of the Trump administration.  Their game is to find some minor issue (Sessions could have been more forthcoming during his confirmation hearing) and turn it into a major impeachment-worthy scandal.  It's a tried and true strategy that Democrats and their friends in the media were able to pull off with amazing success during the Bush years.  But the playing field is completely different in 2017 — more people are on to their games, and we have a president who loves to fight.  President Trump doesn't crouch in a defensive posture — he goes on the offense.  Good luck with that, Dems.

No One Knows Exactly What Joe Biden Does at UPenn.  It's been two weeks since Joe Biden officially joined the University of Pennsylvania, and most of the school's population is still trying to figure out exactly what he does.  According to the Daily Pennsylvanian, UPenn's student newspaper, Biden is supposed to be leading the school's Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, and teach classes as the University's "Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professor" in residence.  But Biden's spokesperson says he isn't teaching any classes, and the University itself isn't sure what his plans are.  UPenn spokesperson, Stephen MacCarthy, told the newspaper that administrators weren't able "to have conversations around [Biden's] specific role until he left office four weeks ago, so details are still being ironed out."

Oprah's not ruling out a presidential run.  Donald Trump may face off in 2020 against another TV star, best-selling author and wildly successful entrepreneur with zero political experience — Oprah Winfrey.  Winfrey — a staunch liberal who backed Hillary Clinton and is pals with former President Barack Obama — slyly hinted that she might reconsider a presidential run.  In an interview with Bloomberg TV, Winfrey, 63, said she never considered running before because of her lack of political experience.  But now, with the political neophyte Trump in the White House, she just might change her mind.

Tweets suggest McCaskill met with Russian ambassador, despite denials.  Tweets by Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democratic member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, suggest she met with the Russian ambassador at least twice during a period she denied doing so.  McCaskill, as she built her case Thursday for Sessions' resignation on the heels of reports that the Republican attorney general had met twice with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 campaign, tweeted she had never contacted the Russian ambassador while serving on the committee.

Devastating Proof of Media Bias:  New York Times Airbrushes Away Democrat's Embarrassing False Claim Without a Trace.  Jay Caruso noted that Senator Claire McCaskill had claimed early today never to have met with a Russian ambassador:  [Tweet]  Then undeniable documentary and photographic evidence emerged that she had.  I bet she wishes she could just airbrush that initial tweet from history — like it never happened.  Kinda like the New York Times did today with her claim.  They reported it — and then, when they figured out it was wrong, they simply vanished it.

Wendy's reportedly to install self-order kiosks at 1,000 stores.  Fast-food chain Wendy's is planning to install self-order kiosks at about 1,000 locations across the country by the end of 2017 to cut labor costs, The Columbus Dispatch reported.  Wendy's has locations in at least 110 New Jersey towns.  The report did not indicate the locations getting the kiosks.  Wendy's said it already offered kiosks to its restaurants last year and that both customers and franchisees have demanded more of the service.

Arkansas lawmaker wants to strip Clinton name from airport.  The largest and busiest airport in Arkansas would no longer be named after the only president and first lady from the state if a bill introduced in the legislature on Thursday [2/23/2017] succeeds.  The legislation would prohibit public buildings or civil works from being named for anyone living or who served in public office in the 10 years prior to the structure's completion.  The bill makes no mention of former President Bill Clinton or former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for whom the Little Rock airport was renamed four years ago — as Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field — but its author does not hesitate to identify its target.

Planet Nebraska.  World hunger is in dramatic decline.  As our friends at HumanProgress.org reported over the summer, the hunger indicators are all moving in the right direction:  Fewer people are going hungry, both in absolute numbers and as a share of the world's population; hunger has fallen dramatically in China after a program of partial economic liberalization; those people around the world who are underfed are less underfed than they were a decade or two ago, with their average daily calorie deficits down to about 85 calories — just 1.5 McNuggets short of a full day's nutrition; and world food prices are down steeply, having fallen by half in real terms over the past century.  The USDA reported on Tuesday [2/21/2017] that world wheat production is expected to hit a record high this year, and that U.S. producers will export — not produce, but export — more than 1 billion bushels of the stuff.  Export projections are up 50 million bushels since January, driven higher by large orders from China.

Should we treat obesity like a contagious disease?  Becoming obese isn't like catching a cold, but a handful of research groups are now trying to model obesity in a population by treating it like a "social contagion" that spreads among people through their interactions.

The Editor says...
If obesity is contagious, how does a reclusive loner get to be overweight?

American flag has 51 stars for Pence visit to European Union.  A background picture of the American flag that went up alongside the European Union flag as Pence and EU leader Donald Tusk spoke on Monday [2/20/2017] had 51 stars instead of the usual 50, one for each state.

The Editor says...
Obvious question:  Where does one order a 51-star U.S. flag?

Delaware:  Muslim Uber driver burglarized homes when customers were away.  An Uber driver has been arrested in connection with multiple burglaries in Bethany Beach and Fenwick Island.  Delaware State Police, in conjunction with the Bethany Beach Police Department, announced the arrest of 26-year-old Saddam A. Awadallah of Frankford.  Awadallah was tracked down in Tennessee and extradited back to the First State on Feb. 13, state police said.  State police said Awadallah worked as an Uber driver for customers in Bethany Beach and Fenwick Island.  While patrons were away at businesses and restaurants in Ocean City and Dewey Beach, state police say Awadallah would burglarize their homes for credit cards, computers, watches, cellphones, tablets, sunglasses and other items of value.

WikiLeaks Drops Bombshell Report Exposing CIA Involvement In 2012 French Election.  Today [2/16/2017] WikiLeaks drops a bombshell exposing President Obama and Hillary Clinton using the CIA to manipulate the outcome of the 2012 election in France.  According to documents released today by WikiLeaks the CIA ordered covert targeted activity in the 2012 French presidential election which included French Politicians Francois Hollande, Nicolas Sarkozy & Marine Le Pen.

House Conservatives Want To Know How Rogue IT Staffers Got Away.  Conservative Republicans — disappointed in House Democrats for hushing up the issue and in the media for failing to widely report the story — hope the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (HOGR) will examine how House Democratic offices allowed the potential breach in national security information.  The Daily Caller News Foundation's Investigative Group was first to identify suspects Abid, Imran and Jamal Awan, who are under a U.S. Capitol Police criminal investigation for their use of congressional IT systems and alleged theft and over-billing of computer equipment.

Bank of America opens its 3rd employee free branch.  An alarming trend is emerging throughout society; companies are ditching humans and replacing them with automation.  We mostly hear about these situations in tech and supply chain companies and even fast food restaurants, but now we see this come to fruition in banking as well.  Banks already operate with little to no physical cash on hand, making the elimination of the bank teller that much easier.  Armed guards will be replaced as biometric eye scanning software contracts become the next big thing in banking security.  The loss of these jobs alone will result in hundreds of thousands without work in the next ten years.

Congress IT Probe Suspects Had Massive Debts, Years Of Suspicious Activity.  Four people who worked for the House of Representatives have a history of massive debts and bankruptcy, a fondness for fast cars and real estate, and unusually complicated webs of intertwined finances.  The three brothers and a wife of one of them are under criminal investigation into sensitive congressional information security.

A Muslim Brotherhood Security Breach in Congress.  Last year, eight members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence issued a demand that their staffers be granted access to top secret classified information.  The signatories to the letter were Andre Carson, Luis Guiterez, Jim Himes, Terri Sewell, Jackie Speier, Mike Quigley, Eric Swalwell and Patrick Murphy.  All the signatories were Democrats.  Some had a history of attempting to undermine national security.  Two of them have been linked to an emerging security breach. [...] Carson is the second Muslim in Congress and the first Muslim on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and, more critically, is the ranking member on its Emerging Threats Subcommittee.  He is also a member of the Department of Defense Intelligence and Overhead Architecture Subcommittee.  The Emerging Threats Subcommittee, of which Carson is a ranking member, is responsible for much of counterterrorism oversight.  It is the worst possible place for a man with Carson's credentials.

Petition asks Disney to keep Donald Trump speech out of Hall of Presidents.  Some critics of president Donald Trump are so adamant in their opposition that they don't even want an fake version of him to speak.  An online petition was started last week, asking Walt Disney World to keep an animatronic president Trump silent in its Hall of Presidents attraction.  The attraction has animatronic figures of all US presidents.  Recent incumbent presidents including Barack Obama have recorded speeches for their animatronic doubles.

Police probing IT contractors for House Dems over 'unauthorized' computer access.  U.S. Capitol Police are probing the activities of several IT contractors who worked for dozens of House Democrats after they allegedly inappropriately accessed House computers, took congressional computer hardware and made questionable IT-related purchases on behalf of lawmakers.  House officials already have revoked the IT and access privileges for the five congressional IT contractors, as police investigate.  No arrests have yet been made.

Manhattan DA's Office probing death of reporter with possible JFK ties.  The Manhattan District Attorney's Office is looking into the mysterious death 51 years ago of newspaper writer and "What's My Line?" star Dorothy Kilgallen, who was investigating the JFK assassination, The [New York] Post has learned.  The stunning development comes after a new book, "The Reporter Who Knew Too Much," suggests Kilgallen was murdered to shut down her relentless pursuit of a Mafia don linked to JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald.

Kenya believe it?
US deports 100 ex-inmates to Kenya, Somalia.  One hundred deportees from the United States yesterday arrived at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.  The deportees, who have served jail sentences in the US, arrived on an Omni Air International plane from Dallas, Texas, at about 11am under escort by Federal Bureau of Investigation officers.  Ninety eight of them were Somali citizens.  They were put on a Jubba Airlines plane and flown to Mogadishu, while two Kenyans were handed over to the Immigration officials at the airport.

Catholics Ask Trump to Probe Soros-Obama-Clinton Conspiracy at Vatican.  Did billionaire speculator George Soros, President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, and Obama/Clinton adviser John Podesta conspire to overthrow the conservative Pope Benedict XVI and replace him with a radical, Pope Francis?  Did they use America's intelligence agencies, and our nation's diplomatic machinery, political muscle, and financial power to coerce and blackmail "regime change" in the Roman Catholic Church?  Far from being some wild conspiracy theory, there is sound prima facie evidence to indicate that this is a serious effort to expose a political scandal of the highest order, involving flagrant, criminal abuse of power at the top levels of the U.S. government.

Beware new "can you hear me" scam.  Virginia police are now warning about the scheme, which also sparked warnings by Pennsylvania authorities late last year.  The "can you hear me" con is actually a variation on earlier scams aimed at getting the victim to say the word "yes" in a phone conversation.  That affirmative response is recorded by the fraudster and used to authorize unwanted charges on a phone or utility bill or on a purloined credit card.

San Francisco couple and their two cats found dead after they were poisoned by carbon monoxide from 3D printer in their home.  A San Francisco couple and their two cats died from poisoning after a laser 3D printer filled their home with carbon monoxide.  Roger Morash, 35, his wife Valerie Morash, 32, and their pets were found dead inside their apartment in Berkeley, California, on Monday [1/23/2017].  The Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduates had died from poisoning due the couple's laser 3D printer, which emitted carbon monoxide in their residence, an officer said on Friday [1/27/2017].

Philadelphia is the most rat infested city in the United States while New Orleans is crawling with cockroaches.  New York broke the top ten for both lists, coming in third place for rat sightings and ninth for cockroaches, making it the most vermin-infested city in America.  Around 15 percent of households reported a rodent problem in the Big Apple in 2015 — around 1.1 million homes — while just over that at 16 percent reported cockroaches.

Four more journalists get felony charges after covering inauguration unrest.  Four more journalists have been charged with felonies after being arrested while covering the unrest around Donald Trump's inauguration, meaning that at least six media workers are facing up to 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine if convicted.  A documentary producer, a photojournalist, a live-streamer and a freelance reporter were each charged with the most serious level of offense under Washington DC's law against rioting, after being caught up in the police action against demonstrators.

Democrats propose taking Trump's finger off nuclear trigger.  Saying they fear President Trump with his finger on the nuclear trigger, two congressional Democrats introduced legislation Tuesday that would prevent the White House from launching a nuclear first strike without a declaration of war from Capitol Hill.  Sen. Edward J. Markey and Rep. Ted W. Lieu said their bill was designed to put a check on Mr. Trump, who during the presidential campaign had sent mixed signals on his thoughts about nuclear proliferation and the possibility of a U.S. first strike.  "It is a frightening reality," Mr. Lieu, California Democrat, said of Mr. Trump, saying the new president showed a lack of understanding of U.S. capabilities.

College Student Confuses Covered Lab Equipment With KKK Rally.  A student at Bowling Green State University suspected she saw on Sunday a Ku Klux Klan rally taking place on campus.  It turned out to be covered lab equipment.  The student was walking through campus and saw what looked like a white sheet through a window.  She quickly took video footage and sounded the alarm on Twitter, messaging the university president about the issue.

More than 50,000 gallons of oil spill near sacred land in Canada.  More than 52,800 gallons of oil have leaked onto the Ocean Man First Nation reserve in Saskatchewan, and investigators are trying to determine the source of the spill. [...] There are no homes near the spill, but it is close to a cemetery on what is is considered sacred land.

The Editor says...
There is no such thing as sacred land, unless you worship the earth, which is a serious mistake in the long run:  Those who worship the creation rather than the creator will someday find themselves in big trouble.

Man who filmed Hillary Clinton's collapse at the 9/11 Memorial is being called a 'hero' by Trump supporters.  The man who filmed Hillary Clinton collapsing after attending a 9/11 memorial is being lauded as a 'hero' by Trump supporters.  Zdenek Gazda, a firefighter from the Czech Republic who now lives in New Jersey, was a special guest at the Deplora Ball after the inauguration on Friday [1/20/2017].  A host of the event introduced Gazda as a 'hero' and 'the man who turned the election around'.

Obama Leaves U.S.A $9,335,000,000,000 Deeper in Debt.  President Barack Obama will leave the federal government approximately $9,335,000,000,000 deeper in debt than it was when he took office eight years ago, according to data released today by the U.S. Treasury.  The increased debt incurred under Obama equals approximately $75,129 for every person in the United States who had a full-time job in December.

Canadians to be jailed for walking on Yellowstone hot springs, violations at parks across West.  Three Canadians will be banned from federal lands for five years after pleading guilty to walking on a sensitive hot spring in Yellowstone National Park and other crimes at parks across the Western U.S., park officials said Thursday [1/19/2017].

The Obama Presidency — By the Numbers.  When President Obama leaves office on Friday, he and his supporters likely will want to focus on numbers like the sub-5 percent unemployment rate, 11.3 million net new jobs and roughly 20 million more Americans with health insurance.  But Obama's allies almost certainly will want to bury another set of numbers, those that document stagnant incomes, anemic economic growth, and an increasing threat posed by terrorism.

Don't take it for granite.
With countertops, quartz has supplanted granite as the people's choice.  Granite may be going the way of plastic laminate as the preferred material for kitchen countertops.  Today, the granular, igneous rock is less popular than engineered stone, commonly referred to as quartz.  "About 75 percent of our clients are opting for quartz over granite," says Bill Millholland, executive vice president of Case, a design-build firm in Bethesda, Md.  "More people want a contemporary aesthetic in the kitchen, and the clean look of quartz goes with that.  Granite goes better with traditional decor."

German Reporter, Who Exposed Governments Creating Fake News War Propaganda, Found Dead.  Udo Ulfkotte, a German journalist and whistleblower who spoke out against fake news from government and intelligence sources, has died from a heart attack at the age of 56.  He was an assistant editor for German mainstream media newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and he lived in many Middle Eastern countries during his career, including Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan.  As Ulfkotte became increasingly upset at news reports sourced from false government information, he began publishing a magazine called Whistleblower, which reports on topics not covered by the German media.  He also wrote multiple books on the subject during the 2000s.

Has Your Gmail account been hacked?  A new phishing scam is so convincing it has even fooled tech experts.  Gmail is the latest victim of a phishing scam that is even fooling experienced technical users.  The scam is being described as one of the most convincing yet, and tricks users into giving their Google login details, allowing the attacker to sift through their messages.  Emails containing the rogue attachment can come from people in the recipient's own address book, and attacker can even copy their style of writing, convincingly passing the fake email on to the victim's contacts.

Why was the Zimmermann Telegram so important?  Tuesday marks the 100th anniversary of a remarkable success for British intelligence:  but one that involved spying on the United States and then conspiring with its senior officials to manipulate public opinion in America.  On the morning of 17 January 1917, Nigel de Grey walked into his boss's office in Room 40 of the Admiralty, home of British code-breakers.  It was obvious to Reginald "Blinker" Hall that his subordinate was excited.  "Do you want to bring America into the war?" de Grey asked.  The answer was obvious.  Everyone knew that America entering World War One to fight the Germans would help break the stalemate.

Majority of Americans believe Russian hacking of the presidential election did NOT change the result, poll finds.  Most Americans think Donald Trump would have still won the election regardless of information leaks that came out of Russia's alleged hacking, a poll reported.  In the study, 58 percent thought the outcome of the U.S. presidential elections would have remained the same, despite the hacking of files from the Democratic National Convention.  Americans thought 'regardless of the information released as a result of Russian hacking' Trump would still have won the election, according to a poll conducted by CNN and ORC.

Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner reintroduces bill to dissolve ATF.  The less government bureaucracy the better.  The ATF is not needed, and the money saved is a step in the right direction fiscally speaking.  And, as Bob owens explains, the ATF needs to go for other reasons [...]

Report: Obama Family Dog Bites Teenage Girl at the White House.  In the midst of all of the confirmation hearings for President Elect Donald Trump's confirmation hearings for his various appointees and the afterglow of President Barack Obama's exit speech, some negative Obama news did crop up on Thursday.  TMZ reports that an unnamed 18 year-old girl, who they say is an Obama family friend, was bitten in the face by Sunny Obama, one of the two family dogs, while at the White House on Monday.  Sunny, 4, is the same breed, a Portuguese Water Dog, as Bo Obama, the family's 8 year-old "First Dog."

Navy sailor invokes Hillary Clinton defense in bid for clemency over classified photos.  A former Navy submariner sent to prison for photographing his ship's classified engine compartments has filed a presidential clemency request, arguing that President-elect Donald Trump should realize the sailor was a "scapegoat" amid the FBI probe into Hillary Clinton's mishandling of classified material.  The paperwork was filed Monday [1/9/2017] with the Justice Department's office of the pardon attorney, which now will conduct an investigation.  The case of former Machinist Mate 1st Class Kristian Saucier has become a cause celebre for conservatives.  They watched the young sailor go to prison for carelessness with classified information while Mrs. Clinton avoided any punishment from the Obama administration.

US politicians vote against bill to ban them from 'sexual contact' with their interns.  Rules to ban politicians in the US state of South Dakota from having "sexual contact" with interns have been voted down by the very people the proposed changes would have applied to. [...] However, opponents maintained that such behaviour was already barred.

Was Friday's declassified report claiming Russian hacking of the 2016 election rigged?  Friday night [1/6/2017], during her last show on Fox News, Megyn Kelly asked former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Pete Hoekstra whether he accepted the conclusion by 17 intelligence agencies in a recently released declassified report that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election and that this interference came at the direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin.  Hoekstra gave an answer many viewers of "The Kelly File" did not anticipate.  He noted that the declassified report represents the views of only three intelligence agencies, not seventeen.  Hoekstra also questioned why the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) did not co-author or clear the report and why it lacked dissenting views.

FBI Never Looked At DNC Servers Before Announcing They Were Hacked By Russia.  The Federal Bureau of Investigation did not inspect the servers of the Democratic National Committee before declaring Russia responsible for last year's hacking, according to a report from Buzzfeed.

Moving company names South Dakota, Vermont, and Oregon as the most popular states to move to in the US — and New Jersey comes in dead last.  One of the nation's largest moving companies has made a list of top moving destinations in 2016, and number one might surprise you.  United Van Lines says South Dakota is first on its list of top moving destinations for the past year.  The company has tracked customer state-to-state migration for the past 40 years.

States with right-to-work laws and no income taxes grew fastest in the Obama years.  One highlight of the Christmas holiday season for me is the Census Bureau's release of its estimated population figures, as of July 1, for the 50 states and the District of Columbia.  It's always interesting to see which states have grown the most in the past year:  for 2015-16 the fastest growers were Nevada and Utah at 2 percent and Florida, Idaho and Washington at 1.8 percent.  It's also interesting that an unusually large number — eight — of the states are estimated to have lost population in 2015-16:  Connecticut, Illinois, Mississippi, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Wyoming.  In percentage terms, the biggest loser was Illinois, the home state of the outgoing president.

Congress to Freeze State Department Funds Until U.S. Embassy Moves to Jerusalem.  A delegation of Republican senators is moving forward with an effort to freeze some funding to the State Department until the U.S. embassy in Israel is formally moved to Jerusalem, according to new legislation.  The legislation comes as the Obama administration continues to face criticism over its behind-the-scenes effort to forward a United Nations resolution condemning Israel.  The Obama administration, like previous administrations, does not formally recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital city and has worked to stymie efforts to move the U.S. embassy there.

New GOP legislation:  Recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.  Three Republican senators on Tuesday [1/3/2017] unveiled legislation that would recognize Jerusalem as Israel's official capital and move the U.S. Embassy to from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.  The new legislation, entitled the Jerusalem Embassy and Recognition Act, was introduced by Senators Ted Cruz of Texas, Dean Heller of Nevada and Marco Rubio of Florida.  "Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish state of Israel, and that's where America's embassy belongs," Rubio said in a statement Tuesday [1/3/2017] quoted by The Hill.

France Outlaws Spanking Kids, Bringing Ban Total to 52 Countries.  The French parliament has passed a formal ban on spanking children, bringing the global total to 52 different countries where such corporal punishment in homes is against the law.  The new law that went into effect for 2017 bans "any cruel, degrading or humiliating punishment, including any use of physical violence," including spanking in the home.

There's Still a Group That Can Probe Alleged Crimes by Members of Congress.  Yes, the House is weakening the powers of an independent entity that was authorized to investigate allegations of wrongdoing.  Boo, hiss.  But keep some perspective:  the Office of Congressional Ethics had two powers: the first was to issue those public reports — giving the accused member of Congress bad publicity.  The second was to refer their findings to the House Ethics Committee, which could implement a more serious punishment, like fines and formal reprimands by the full House.  Under the old system, the referrals went to the House Ethics Committee, consisting of five Democrats and five Republicans.  Under the new system, the no-longer-public referrals will go to the same committee, consisting of five Democrats and five Republicans.

Assange says a 14-year-old could have hacked Democratic emails as he reveals John Podesta's password was 'password'.  Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has said a 14-year-old could have hacked into the emails of Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman.  John Podesta's emails were made public by the whistleblowing website and proved to be a hammer blow to the Democrat's election campaign as she lost out to Trump.  In an interview, Assange revealed the campaign chairman's password was 'password' and that he had responded to phishing emails.

The Russian Election Hacking Case Is Getting Murkier.  President Obama's decision to expel Russian diplomats for interfering with the U.S. election is starting to look like "Alice in Wonderland"-style justice:  sentence first, verdict afterward.  Even some liberals are starting to wonder if the evidence against Russia holds water.

The Top 10 Prescribed Pharmaceuticals of 2016 Are a Sign That Food is Killing Us.  Our food supply is being compromised and bastardized by corporations who profit handsomely by feeding the American public ever-more processed, modified, and chemical-laden foods.  As if this were some kind of revolving door conspiracy, when food makes us sick, we spend more money on healthcare, and a look at the most prescribed medications of 2016 make it clear there is a direct link between poor food and poor health in America.  The 2016 list of the 50 most prescribed medications in America, as reported by Lowest Med, includes among the top ten, nine medications used to address health problems that can be primarily associated with an unhealthy diet.

US home ownership
Something Wicked This Way Comes.  Something is not making sense.  During the debates Trump declared on more than one occasion the stock market was in a bubble.  It is now 2,000 points higher and he is proclaiming its advancement as an endorsement of his plan to drastically cut taxes, spend trillions, and Make America Great Again.  The financial media, which despised Trump six weeks ago, is now peddling an economic recovery, soaring future corporate profits, and a stock market poised to blast through 20,000 to higher and higher all-time highs.  I think that would be swell, but let's examine a few facts before putting our life savings in Twitter and Fakebook stock.


Kim Jong Un orders North Koreans to celebrate his grandmother on Christmas.  Kim Jong Un is the Grinch who stole Christmas.  North Korea's tubby tyrant wants the few Christians in the hermit state to spread cheer only to celebrate his grandma, Kim Jong Suk — not the birth of Jesus.  Jong Suk — who was born on Christmas Eve in 1919 — was an anti-Japanese guerrilla and Communist activist, wife of North Korea's first dictator, Kim Il Sung, and former leader Kim Jong Il's mother.  Many pay homage to the "Sacred Mother of the Revolution," who died under mysterious circumstances in 1949, by visiting her tomb.

Peter King Accuses CIA Director John Brennan Of 'Hit Job' On Trump.  GOP Rep. Peter King accused CIA Director John Brennan on Sunday [12/18/2016] of orchestrating a "hit job" against GOP President-elect Donald Trump.  In an interview Sunday on ABC's "This Week," King, a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said while he agrees there should be an investigation into Russian involvement in the election, there should also be an investigation into Brennan for the "hit job he seems to be orchestrating against the president-elect," Politico reports.  This hit job, according to King, has taken the form of Brennan allegedly leaking intelligence assessments to the press and circumventing Congress, in order to take shots at Trump.

South Carolina lawmakers propose pornography block on new computers.  Computers and devices sold in South Carolina that can access the internet would be required to have filters installed to prevent people from viewing pornography, although buyers could pay a $20 fee to remove the blocking software under a proposal before the legislature.  The amendment would require manufacturers or sellers of computers and internet-accessible devices to install software that blocks pornography, according to a draft of the amendment filed with the South Carolina General Assembly on Dec. 15.

Working for Media Matters Is a Miserable Job.  Progressives tend to be terrible people to work for.  There are a legion of horror stories about life working for Bernie Sanders, Ralph Nader or Michael Moore.

Dems push to penalize foreigners who subvert US elections.  A group of House Democrats has proposed legislation that would impose a series of penalties against foreigners who try to interfere in U.S. federal elections, the latest shot fired in the fight over whether Russia improperly tried to tip the election to President-elect Trump.  Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., and more than a dozen Democrats proposed the Protect American Democracy Act on Tuesday.  The aim of the bill is to "expose and deter unlawful and subversive foreign interference in elections for Federal office."

The CIA, Washington Post, And Russia:  What You're Not Being Told.  According to an unsubstantiated article by the Washington Post, anonymous CIA officials have confirmed that the Russian government hacked the United States election to favor Donald Trump.  Though it's entirely possible the Russian government attempted to influence the election, the Post has been widely criticized — for the second time in a month — for its failure to follow basic journalistic practices.  Nevertheless, the narrative is sticking.  But the outlet's behind-the-scenes relationship with the CIA is nothing new.

National popular vote now final:  Clinton finishes 2.1 points ahead, Trump has highest vote total ever for a Republican.  Trump's total of nearly 63 million votes is almost a million votes better than the second-largest total by a Republican in history.  You might guess that that distinction belongs to Mitt Romney; after all, with the population increasing every four years, chances are that each successive nominee will bank more votes than the last.  Not so, though.  Romney has the third-most votes by a Republican in history.  McCain has the fourth-largest amount.  Second place belongs to George W. Bush, who received a little more than 62 million votes for his reelection bid in 2004, a gigantic improvement of nearly 12 million ballots over his 2000 total.  Both parties' voters were out in force in 2004 for the first presidential election since 9/11 and the Iraq war.  It took 12 years of population growth before Republicans were able to improve on Dubya's total, but Trump did it.  Bush's 2004 campaign does retain one title, though:  It's the only time in the last 25 years that a Republican has won the popular vote.

College enrollment drops 1.4% as adults head back to work.  Despite aggressive efforts nationwide to boost the number of people who attend college, enrollments declined this fall for the fifth straight year as better job prospects for older potential students and a stalled pipeline of new high-school graduates were compounded by continued woes in the for-profit college sector.  Total fall-term undergraduate and graduate enrollment slid by 1.4% to 19.01 million students as of the beginning of this month, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, a nonprofit education organization.  Enrollment peaked at nearly 20.6 million in 2011.

Paedophile aged 101 will die behind bars after victims saw Facebook posts celebrating his 100th birthday.  A 101-year-old paedophile will die behind bars after being jailed for a string of sex crimes against three children in the 1970s and 1980s.  Ralph Clarke's traumatised victims began to come forward in August last after seeing Facebook posts celebrating their abuser's 100th birthday.  The retired lorry driver, believed to be the oldest person ever convicted by a jury in Britain, has today been thrown in jail for 13 years.

Florida woman selling her positive pregnancy tests to pay for college.  A Florida woman said she is paying her way through college by selling her positive pregnancy tests and urine on Craigslist.

Court says man can't seek divorce without wife's permission.  The Kentucky Supreme Court says the only way a mentally incompetent 88-year-old man can seek a divorce is if his guardian files for it on his behalf.  The trouble is, Elmer Riehle's legal guardian is his wife, and she does not want a divorce.

Russia's Doomsday Bomb.  While liberal mainstream media concoct fake news that President-Elect Trump is Moscow's Manchurian Candidate, they ignore the latest real threat from Russia.  Russian state television "accidentally" disclosed plans for a robot submarine, reportedly armed with a massive 100 megaton warhead-the largest nuclear weapon ever deployed by any nation.  The submarine doomsday bomb would explode underwater to radioactively contaminate and inundate with tsunamis U.S. coastal cities and seaboard, where are concentrated much of America's military-industrial strength and population.  A diagram of the robo-bomb was shown on Russian TV, supposedly inadvertently, over the shoulder of a Defense Ministry officer.

Story of Santa with dying child may not be true.  In a story posted Wednesday afternoon [12/14/2016] by [Knoxville] News Sentinel editor Jack McElroy, the paper said it "has done additional investigation in an attempt to independently verify Schmitt-Matzen's account.  This has proven unsuccessful.  Although facts about his background have checked out, his story of bringing a gift to a dying child remains unverified.  The News Sentinel cannot establish that Schmitt-Matzen's account is inaccurate, but more importantly, ongoing reporting cannot establish that it is accurate."  "Therefore," he wrote, "because the story does not meet the newspaper's standards of verification, we are no longer standing by the veracity of Schmitt-Matzen's account."

Comey to Trump:  The Russians Didn't Influence the Election.  In telephone conversations with Donald Trump, FBI Director James Comey assured the president-elect there was no credible evidence that Russia influenced the outcome of the recent U.S. presidential election by hacking the Democratic National Committee and the e-mails of John Podesta, the chairman of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.  What's more, Comey told Trump that James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, agreed with this FBI assessment.  The only member of the U.S. intelligence community who was ready to assert that the Russians sanctioned the hacking was John Brennan, the director of the CIA, according to sources who were briefed on Comey's conversations with Trump.  "And Brennan takes his marching orders from President Obama," the sources quoted Comey as saying.

Could The Testimony of Defectors Cause Scientology To Implode?  In the first episode of her eight-part series exposing the cult of Scientology, Leah Remini pledged not to focus on herself or her celebrity, but instead on the stories of Scientology defectors.  As promised, the second episode focused on one of the most highly placed executives in the "Church" to leave, Mike Rinder.  Rinder, an Australian by birth, was raised in Scientology since age six.  He spent 46 years practicing the faith, and spent over 20 years serving as International Spokesman for the organization. [...] Rinder was brutally honest about his role in the organization as a henchman.  He spent his career in Scientology discrediting those opposed to it, actively trying to ruin the lives of those who dared cross the organization.

U.S. to send 4,000 troops to Poland.  The U.S. Army plans to deploy about 4,000 troops to Poland in early 2017 in a demonstration of strength aimed at Russia, a senior U.S. military official said.

More Intelligence Officials Are Disputing CIA's Claims About Russian Hacking.  The CIA's assessment that Russian hackers intervened during the presidential election specifically to help Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton relies on a "thin reed" of evidence, an official with the U.S. intelligence community says.  The official, who is with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), is one of three sources who told Reuters that the CIA's assessment, which was reported over the weekend, is flawed.

Socialist Venezuela Steals Toys To Impose Its Version Of Christmas.  You better watch out, you better not cry, better not pout, let us tell you why:  Santa Claus is coming to Caracas, and this year he'll be bringing toys to all the pro-regime boys and girls — and jailing those who get in his way.  Striking an almost comically Orwellian posture of Saint Nick meets Robin Hood, last week Venezuela's consumer "protection" agency seized several million toys that will, ostensibly, be redistributed to the poor.  The trinkets were confiscated from a toy distributor that had purportedly "committed fraud" against the country by selling the goods at unlawfully high mark-ups.

99 Dallas officers have quit or retired in last 10 weeks, reports say.  Interim Police Chief David Pughes told City Council members Monday night [12/12/2016] that the department wanted to fill the next academy class with 60 officers but has only hired 30 for the February class, the Dallas Morning News reported.  The department is down to 3,252 officers and wold like to have at least 3,500.  CBS 11 reported that most of the 99 who left since Oct. 1 were some of Dallas' most experienced officers, according to the incoming president of the Dallas Police Association.

Catholic priests will have to preach about climate change as part of a drive by the church to cut global warming.  Catholic priests are now expected to learn about climate change, church chiefs have announced.  It is part of a worldwide drive by the faith to increase environmental awareness.  New guidelines issued to priests state that members of the clergy should be 'promoters' of 'appropriate care for everything connected to the protection of creation'.

Exclusive:  Top U.S. spy agency has not embraced CIA assessment on Russia hacking - sources.  The overseers of the U.S. intelligence community have not embraced a CIA assessment that Russian cyber attacks were aimed at helping Republican President-elect Donald Trump win the 2016 election, three American officials said on Monday [12/12/2016].  While the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) does not dispute the CIA's analysis of Russian hacking operations, it has not endorsed their assessment because of a lack of conclusive evidence that Moscow intended to boost Trump over Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, said the officials, who declined to be named.

Atheist who fought Illinois laws dies in small plane crash.  The McHenry County coroner said an autopsy Monday [12/12/2016] revealed that Robert I. Sherman, 63, of Poplar Grove, died from multiple crash injuries.

The Editor says...
One thing is certain:  He's no longer an atheist!

Bombshell Dropped in Federal Court:  Proof of a Silver Market "Mafia" Among Big Banks.  Lawyers representing traders who allege they were ripped off by a group of colluding global banks filed eye-popping evidence in a Manhattan Federal Court yesterday showing that even as global banks were being criminally probed for rigging currency markets, they continued to engage in rigging the silver market, with a UBS trader referring to the group as the "mafia."  In order to settle the charges against it in the matter, yesterday's [12/7/2016] filing shows that the beleaguered Deutsche Bank turned over to the plaintiffs' attorneys "more than 350,000 pages of documents and 75 audio tapes" that implicate other banks in a very serious way.

CDC: Heroin Deaths Surpassed Firearm-Related Homicides in 2015.  The latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) numbers show heroin deaths surpassed firearm-related homicides for the first time ever in 2015.  The number of heroin deaths was 12,989 and the number of firearm-related homicides was 12,979.  The Washington Post published the CDC numbers, which show the deaths from all opioids combined topped 33,000 in 2015.  That means opioid deaths outnumbered firearm-related homicides nearly 3 to 1.  Opioids include heroin and prescription drugs like oxycodone, hydrocodone, fentanyl, and oxymorphone.

State Dept. approves $3.5B Apache helicopter sale to UAE.  If approved by Congress, the UAE's order will also come with training devices, technical data and publications, and other supporting services.  The total estimated cost of the program is $3.5 billion.  U.S. defense officials say the sale enhances foreign policy interests in the region, and will not alter the balance of power in the Middle East.  Boeing and Lockheed Martin are listed as the primary contractors.

Russian Senator Wants to Make Chess Mandatory in All High Schools.  A Russian senator is asking the Education and Science Ministry to make chess a mandatory subject in high schools across the country, according to the newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta.  Senator Vadim Tyulpanov says chess lessons could replace one of the required physical education classes now in place, arguing that adding chess to Russia's school curriculum would also allow disabled students to participate in sporting activities.

Three Muslim pilots detained after near collision with Florida cop.  A senior official from the Indian River County Sheriffs Office told Edward that the driver of the White Hyundai Sonata was cited for running a stop sign, and that all three passengers were flight students attending a pilot training academy located in Vero Beach.

State Dept Claims No One Used 'Sham' Visas From Fake Embassy.  None of the visas issued by a fake U.S. embassy that operated abroad for almost a decade were used to enter the U.S., the Department of State claimed Monday [12/5/2016].  After nearly 10 years in business, a fake U.S. embassy in Accra, Ghana, was shut down this past summer, the State Department revealed last month in a press release.  The Department reportedly discovered the operation earlier this year through an informant.

For 10 years, a fake U.S. embassy in Ghana sold illegal visas and ID papers.  Every Monday, Tuesday and Friday for the past decade, a pink building in Accra, the capital city of Ghana, flew an American flag from 7 a.m. to 12 p.m.  Inside, a portrait of President Barack Obama hung on the wall, and people claiming to be consulate workers speaking English sold visas to the U.S., India and other countries to rural Ghanaians for $6,000 apiece.  It was all a fraud, a scheme of organized crime rings and a Ghanaian lawyer to defraud people of tens of thousands of dollars, according to the U.S. State Department, which recently raided and shut down the fake embassy.  And it wasn't just the U.S.  There was also a fake Dutch embassy being run as well.

The death rate among white Americans now outstrips the birth rate in a third of states.  More white people are dying than being born in a third of the states, according to new research.  The death rate among Caucasian Americans outstripped the birth rate in 17 states in 2014, compared to just four in 2004, the University of New Hampshire found.  While Latino, black and Asian populations continue to grow, soaring death rates among white middle-aged Americans — combined with the fact that white families are having less children — mean certain states are seeing falling Caucasian populations.

'You need to concede': President Obama called Clinton on election night to urge her to step down as results turned against her.  President Obama urged Hillary Clinton to concede to Donald Trump on the night of election, sources claim.  'You need to concede,' Obama told the Democratic candidate as the tide of Rust State votes began to turn against her.  Clinton had been hoping for a last minute turnaround in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, sources say.

Obama urged Clinton to concede on Election Night.  President Obama urged Hillary Clinton to concede to Donald Trump on the night of her devastating loss, it was reported Friday [11/25/2016].  Obama made the call as Clinton and her campaign were watching the election slip away from them in Rust Belt states, according to The Hill newspaper, citing a forthcoming book by its senior White House correspondent Amie Parnes.  "You need to concede," Obama reportedly told Clinton.  Clinton allies were apparently hoping she would wait for a miracle turnaround in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania — three states where Green Party candidate Jill Stein is seeking recounts.

Dallas to Declare Bankruptcy?  The New York Times just reported that the Dallas police and firefighters pension plan is $7 billion short of meeting its obligations and needs an immediate bailout of $1 billion just to stay afloat.  The problem is that Dallas' annual budget is $3 billion.  Three years ago Dallas wasn't on anyone's "watch" list.  Barron's worst 10 cities included Charleston, West Virginia; Omaha, Nebraska:  and Portland, Oregon, but not Dallas.  Pew Charitable Trusts identified nine cities in trouble, including Charleston, Chicago, Fargo, Jackson, Mississippi, and Little Rock, Arkansas.  But Dallas didn't make that list.

Shootings of police skyrocketed this year.  The number of police officers who were shot and killed this year jumped 67 percent compared to 2015, according to the latest data from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.  Sixty police officers died from firearm-related incidents so far in 2016, up from 36 by this point last year.  The overall number of police fatalities, including traffic deaths and other causes, increased 18 percent.  The data covers from Jan. 1 to Nov. 25 of 2016 and 2015.  This year has also seen the most targeted attacks, or ambushes, on police since 1995.

Pope Francis Equates Christianity to Communism.  In an interview with Pope Francis published November 11 by the Italian newspaper, Repubblica, the supreme authority of the Catholic Church equated Christianity with Communism when asked about his views on Marxist ideology.

9/11 Memorial and Museum loses $25M in first full year.  The private nonprofit foundation, chaired by former Mayor Mike Bloomberg, racked up $108 million in expenses but took in only $87.3 million, just-filed 2015 tax records show.  The negative bottom line stems largely from a drop in revenues as government grants used to construct the museum were spent.  The foundation received only $17 million in grants and contributions in 2015 but raked in $61.8 million from the sale of tickets, tours, memberships and souvenirs.

Federal Judge Sides With Man in Free Speech Lawsuit Against Charlottesville.  A federal judge said that the Charlottesville City Council violated the U.S. Constitution when it had a resident removed from a council meeting for violating its group defamation rule, according to a report in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.  A lawsuit was filed by Charlottesville resident Joseph Draego after two police officers carried him out of a June 20 meeting at the order of the Virginia town's mayor.  Draego had taken the floor during the public comment portion of the meeting to voice his concerns about the "public safety" concerns he had about Muslims in the community.

Mall Santa loses job for telling girl Hillary Clinton on naughty list.  A shopping mall Santa Claus in Florida is out of a job for telling a 10-year-old girl that Hillary Clinton was on his "naughty list."  WKMG-TV in Orlando reported Friday [11/18/2016] that the Santa was relieved of his duties at the Seminole Town Center in Sanford after the girl's mother complained.

Son puts valuable coins stolen from father through Coinstar to buy crack:  Torrington police.  Police said a man stole a valuable coin collection from his father and put it through a Coinstar machine at a local supermarket in order to get money to buy crack cocaine.  Police said Leonard Rinaldi, 53, of Torrington, was arrested on larceny charges in connection with the theft of thousands of dollars worth of valuable coins from his father.  The coins, worth $8,000, were reported stolen on October 11.  Police said Rinaldi told them he stole the coins, took them to a CoinStar machine at a Stop and Shop and received approximately $60 dollars for them.  He then told police he used the money to buy crack cocaine.  Police said he has a lengthy criminal record.  He was living at home with his father at the time of the theft.

Judicial Watch and Russell Pearce Sue Arizona Attorney General for Communications with ACLU.  Under Arizona law the Attorney General's office was required to respond "promptly" to the records request.  After nearly two months, the Attorney General has failed to comply.  The request seeks to shed light on the unusual settlement of the SB 1070 case, including an agreement that the Attorney General would issue an "informal opinion" setting forth his "interpretation" of the meaning of certain provision of SB 1070.  The agreement also provided for payment of $1.4 million of taxpayer money to the ACLU and other groups.

Too many pot cookies brings trouble for assistant principal.  Donna Lynch Haff, 50, has worked for the Pasco County School District since 2008 and started as an assistant principal at Anclote High School in 2012, according to the school's online staff page.  Haff was released Monday [11/14/2016] from St. Joseph's Hospital in North Tampa after overdosing on edible marijuana in cookies made with cannabis oil, according to the Pasco County Sheriff's Office.  Deputies went to Haff's Land O'Lakes home and arrested her for possession of a controlled substance.

Huffington Post Owner AOL Lays Off 5% Of Staff: 500 Workers Lose Their Jobs.  Following news that vocally pro-Hillary Clinton Spanish language media conglomerate Univision, which had a Q3 loss of $30 million after revenues dropped 8% to $735 million, would lay off between 200 and 250 workers, in part driven by the media organization's recent acquisition of insolvent Gawker Media, on Thursday ReCode reported that the media bloodbath continues, with another 500 workers, or 5% of the total staff, set to be let go by AOL.

Mich. vote tally may change, but outcome will hold.  As of Monday afternoon [11/14/2016], President-elect Donald Trump was winning Michigan by a razor thin 13,107 votes out of 4,785,223 votes cast, according to the Michigan secretary of State.  But those are not the official results of the Nov. 8 election.  The state's 83 counties have until Nov. 22 to certify their election results.

78,000 military email accounts found in adult website hack.  Tens of thousands of government and military-issued email addresses were among those stolen from a conglomeration of adult hookup and pornography sites last month, according to an analysis of the breach issued Monday [1/14/2016] by LeakedSource.com.  At least 78,000 dot-mil email addresses and 5,650 dot-gov addresses were stolen from Friends Finder Network, which includes AdultFriendFinder.com, porn site Penthouse.com, and live streams Stripshow.com and Cams.com.

FDNY forbids firefighters from hanging pictures of Trump.  The FDNY has ordered firefighters to not hang pictures of President-elect Donald Trump in firehouses or on their trucks, angering some members of the department.  "Only [the] FDNY wouldn't want the democratically elected president of America hanging in a firehouse," said one firefighter, who asked to remain anonymous.  "The firehouse is supposed to be a symbol of America.  That's hard to believe when you can't post a picture of the president."

The Editor says...
Obvious follow-up question:  How many New York fire stations feature prominent pictures of Obama?

Poll: Voters Ignorant On Issues That Affect Them.  If there is truth in Ben Franklin's precept that "tyranny begins" with "ignorance," a poll commissioned by Just Facts shows that the U.S. may be in deep trouble.  While most polls measure public opinion, this unique poll measures voters' knowledge of issues that affect their lives in tangible ways.  These include education, taxes, healthcare, the national debt, pollution, government spending, Social Security, global warming, energy, and hunger.  This national scientific poll surveyed 700 people who vote "every time there is an opportunity" or in "most" elections.  In other words, these are voters who regularly exercise their constitutional right to choose the politicians who govern them.

Did Trump Actually Get 1.7 Million Fewer Votes Than Mitt Romney?  Never-Trumper Ben Shapiro, writing in National Review, claimed that "Trump underperformed Romney ... in a vastly expanded electorate.  That's not the mark of a huge wave."  Some reporters are making the same claim about Hillary Clinton.  The Washington Post's Philip Bump wrote that "Hillary Clinton's campaign was crippled by voters who stayed home," and that she "received far fewer votes than Barack Obama in an election that was supposed to see a big increase in turnout."  The problem is, all these stories are wrong.  In fact, they all suffer the same flaw:  The reporters were counting the complete, certified vote totals from previous elections to the incomplete, uncertified results for 2016.  Believe it or not, there were still millions of votes to be tallied.

Someone Pinch Me:  Michael Moore Probably Summed Up the Election Best.  In fact, the "Trump supporters are racists" lie was repudiated by none other than Michael Moore earlier today [11/11/2016].  He said, "You have to accept that millions of people who voted for Barack Obama, some of them once, some of them twice, changed their minds this time.  They're not racist.  They twice voted for a man whose middle name is Hussein.  That's the America you live in."

Obama Administration Gives up on Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).  Donald Trump's victory in Tuesday's presidential election has prompted President Barack Obama to abandon the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement, the Wall Street Journal reported late Friday [11/11/2016].  According to the Journal, the White House had hoped to push the deal forward in the lame-duck session of Congress, assuming Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton had won the election.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is dead, Schumer tells labor leaders.  The Senate's soon-to-be top Democrat told labor leaders Thursday [11/10/2016] that the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the trade deal at the center of President Obama's "pivot" to strengthen ties with key Asian allies, will not be ratified by Congress.  That remark from Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who is expected to be the incoming Senate minority leader, came as good news to the AFL-CIO Executive Council, which met Thursday in Washington.  Schumer relayed statements that Republican congressional leaders had made to him, according to an aide who confirmed the remarks.

Chelsea Clinton being groomed to run for Congress.  While some pundits are declaring the Clinton political dynasty dead, sources tell us that it is far from over.  Chelsea Clinton is being groomed for the New York seat held by Rep. Nita Lowey.  Chelsea could run for the seat in NYC's 17th Congressional District once Lowey, a 79-year-old respected career politician with nearly 30 years in office, decides to retire, we have exclusively learned.  Lowey's district includes parts of Rockland and Westchester counties and, conveniently, Chappaqua, the Clinton family home base.

Burglar flees with arrow in buttocks after Australian pensioner shoots intruder with bow.  An Australian pensioner resorted to Robin Hood-style tactics, shooting a bow and arrow at an intruder, in an effort to stop him from fleeing his home with stolen goods.  The burglar was struck in the buttocks with the medieval weapon Sunday afternoon [11/6/2016] as he tried to steal the 68-year-old homeowner's car from the Sydney residence.

Palestinian Authority Demands Israel Give Them Dead Sea Scrolls.  The Palestinian Authority is preparing to demand that UNESCO force Israel to "return" the Dead Sea Scrolls, one of the Jewish state's most important archaeological treasures and proof of Jewish existence in the land of Israel two millennia ago.  "This is another provocative and audacious attempt by the Palestinians to rewrite history and to erase our connection to our land," Ambassador to UNESCO Carmel Shama-Hacohen said.  "The Dead Sea Scrolls are factual and weighty archaeological evidence of the presence of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel."

A New Cuban Connection to JFK's Murder.  Days after the John F. Kennedy assassination, top White House aides read an eyes-only report that Cuba was behind the shocking Dallas murder.  Castro had warned he'd retaliate if the Kennedy administration kept trying to kill him, and they continued.  New president Lyndon Johnson ordered the secret report buried.  If made public, the U.S. would have to attack Soviet-backed Cuba and thus start World War III.

Gambler offered steak dinner after casino claims $43 million jackpot was 'machine malfunction'.  Katrina Bookman visited the Queens, New York casino in late August and started playing on one of the floor's slot machines.  According to the New York Daily News, the machine on which Bookman was playing flashed $42,949,642.76 and read "Printing cash ticket."  The excited mother-of-four thought she had won nearly $43 million and took a selfie video next to the machine.  "I couldn't believe it," Bookman told the Daily News.  "My body went numb."  But instead of being able to collect her reported winnings immediately, Bookman says she was escorted off the floor by Resorts World employees and told to come back the next day.

Are You Ready For Mandatory Adult Education?  The Washington Post reports on a debate over mandatory adult education currently happening in Nordic countries.  Forcing adults to return to school is seen by some as a way to make people adapt to the changing 21st century economy.  The story is published in the Post's "Inspired Life" section which means someone thinks governments forcing people to go back to school is an uplifting idea, and not an assault on individual liberty.

Doesn't matter the language, appeals court rules no profanity allowed on vanity plates.  In regards to customized license plates, an appeals court in Maryland ruled that there is no profanity when it comes to vanity ... no matter what language it's in.  After bouncing through the court system for almost five years, the Maryland Court of Appeals unanimously decided late last week that state officials did not violate a Washington D.C.-area lawyer's right to free speech by recalling his license plate for displaying a Spanish-language curse word.

Venezuela inflation
Venezuela's Inflation — Zero Hedge Repeats the Errors Printed Ad Nauseam in the Financial Press.  As the accompanying chart shows, Venezuela's inflation is not about ready to break out in hyperinflation, but has decelerated dramatically from annual rates exceeding 700 percent in 2015 to today's still punishing rate of 74.4 percent.  By the way, for those who play fast and loose with the word "hyperinflation," the hyperinflation threshold is 12,875 percent, year over year.


It Begins — Chicago Tribune Says Hillary Should Resign.  Liberal papers like the Chicago Tribune are calling on Hillary Clinton to step aside and let Tim Kaine run for the presidency instead.  Of course, the same writer in this article claims that the Democrats hold themselves to the high moral standards which is hilarious.  The Chicago Tribune at least has a little shred of credibility, as they didn't endorse Hillary Clinton back in early October.  They endorsed Gary Johnson.

U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Jamal D. Sutter
Air Force general:  A-10 Thunderbolt will be sustained 'indefinitely'.  The iconic A-10 Thunderbolt's time in Air Force limbo appears to be over with the announcement that depot lines are nearing full capacity for the purpose of sustaining it "indefinitely."  Ground troops will brief a sigh of relief with the recent assurance of Air Force Materiel Command chief Gen.  Ellen Pawlikowski that resources to perpetually maintain and repair the aircraft are in place.  In short, plans to completely scrap the "Warthog" — and its famous 30 mm GAU-8/A seven-barrel Gatling gun — in favor of the newly minted F-35 stealth fighter jet have been thwarted by performance in the field and lawmakers in the nation's capital.


The Editor says...
I like the A-10 because I like seeing bad things happen to bad people, and the A-10 delivers bad news in heavy doses.

Norwood Business Operator Gets Prison Time for Tobacco Tax Fraud and Money Laundering.  Muhammad Saleem Iqbal, 53, was sentenced in U.S. District Court to 42 months in prison, two years of supervised release and restitution of $28,027,946, according to the U.S. Attorney's office.  The court also ordered forfeiture of hundreds of thousands of dollars in tobacco products and over $150,000 belonging to Iqbal and the tax-evading wholesale tobacco business in which he engaged.  In May, 2016, he pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud Massachusetts of wholesale tobacco taxes and to filing a false personal income tax return.

US charges 61 over India-based impersonation scam.  The US Justice Department charged 61 people and entities on Thursday (Oct 28) with taking part in a scam involving India-based call centres where agents impersonated Internal Revenue Service, immigration and other federal officials and demanded payments for nonexistent debts.  The scam, which had operated since 2013, targeted at least 15,000 people who lost more than $300 million.

Satire:
Queen Offers to Restore British Rule Over United States.  In an unexpected televised address on Saturday, Queen Elizabeth II offered to restore British rule over the United States of America.  Addressing the American people from her office in Buckingham Palace, the Queen said that she was making the offer "in recognition of the desperate situation you now find yourselves in."  "This two-hundred-and-forty-year experiment in self-rule began with the best of intentions, but I think we can all agree that it didn't end well," she said.

China repeatedly hacked US, stole data on nukes, FBI & war plans — security report.  Chinese intelligence repeatedly targeted US national security agencies and email accounts of US officials, a soon-to-be-released report says, adding that Beijing spies targeted info on nuclear weapons, FBI investigations and war plans.  "Chinese intelligence has repeatedly infiltrated US national security entities and extracted information with serious consequences for US national security, including information on the plans and operations of US military forces and the designs of US weapons and weapons systems," a draft annual report for 2016 said, as cited by the Washington Free Beacon.  The final version of the report of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission is to be released November 16.

How Hackers Wrecked the Internet Using DVRs and Webcams.  The internet was on shaky footing for the better part of Friday [10/21/2016] thanks to a large-scale attack on a company that runs a large portion of crucial internet infrastructure.  It's still too early to know exactly who is behind the attack, but experts have begun to pin down which devices are doing the bulk of the work.  It's not computers, but devices from the so-called Internet of Things.  We're talking smart fridges, web cams, and DVRs.  It may sound funny, being attacked by refrigerators, but don't laugh.  It's actually horrifying.

'Have You Changed the Password on Your Smart Fridge Lately?'.  That's the question asked by Popular Mechanics writer Eric Limer, who wrote an article explaining the massive internet outage that hit the East Coast on Friday [10/21/2016], saying the attack may be only the beginning.  The Distributed Denial of Service attack (DDoS) used thousands upon thousands of computers and other internet-connected devices to attack the internet performance company Dyn.

Investigators say attack could have relied on internet-connected household items to flood servers with traffic.  Early investigations into the attack that crippled websites across the US and in some parts of the UK on Friday [10/21/2016] found the 'internet of things' could have been used to overload servers at Dyn — the company that was targeted.  The shocking development revealed almost 500,000 items were potentially at risk of being activated without their owners' knowledge, with everything from baby monitors, DVRs, security cameras, and other gadgets turned into cyber weapons.

How a Bunch of Hacked DVR Machines Took Down Twitter and Reddit.  A distributed denial of service attack, or DDoS, is not an uncommon attack on the web, and web hosts have been fending them off for years.  But according to reports, Friday's [10/21/2016] attack was distinguished by its distinctive approach.  The perpetrator used a botnet composed of so-called "internet-of-things" devices — namely, webcams and DVRs — to spam Dyn with more requests than it could handle.

DNS devastation:  Top websites whacked offline as Dyn dies again.  An extraordinary, focused attack on DNS provider Dyn continues to disrupt internet services for hundreds of companies, including online giants Twitter, Amazon, AirBnB, Spotify and others.  The worldwide assault started at approximately 11am UTC on Friday [10/21/2016].  It was a massive denial-of-service blast that knocked Dyn's DNS anycast servers offline, resulting in knock-on impacts across the internet.  Folks immediately started reporting problems; millions of people are affected.

A grandmother is suing KFC for $20 million because she didn't get enough chicken.  A lot of small businesses advertise but it's worth taking care how you tout your wares.  Take the case of KFC's allegedly under-stuffed bucket.  A New York woman says she spent $20 for a bucket of chicken last summer and was disappointed when the meal fell short of what was advertised, the New York Post reports. [...] She claimed the fast-food giant's advertising shows a "bucket that's overflowing with chicken," according to the Post.  She's claiming false advertising.

Is CIA censoring jailed contractor's explosive book to protect Clinton?  The CIA has been accused of political bias by trying to stall publication of an explosive memoir which could damage Hillary Clinton's chances of reaching the White House.  The book tells the story of CIA contractor Raymond Davis, who was imprisoned in Pakistan in 2011 after shooting two men in self defense before being released in a controversial blood-money deal.  According to the authors, the CIA held the book manuscript for several months before demanding a swathe of redactions — even on information that is publicly available — pushing the publication of the book from September 2016 to March 2017.

Democrats warn of a racist uprising if Donald Trump loses election.  In Democratic circles, the talk about the presidential election has increasingly turned to fears of a violent uprising by white supremacists and neo-Nazis if Donald Trump loses.  The nervous talk holds that Mr. Trump's alleged racist followers are being primed to take to the streets to challenge election results should Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton prevail Nov. 8.  They say Mr. Trump's followers reveal their revolutionary fervor at rallies by chanting "lock her up" about the former secretary of state.

The Editor says...
Look at the people who have rioted in the streets for the past few years.  They don't look like Republicans.

Wikileaks Provides An Update On The Assange Internet Outage.  It seems that the Obama administration's efforts to save the presidential candidacy of Hillary Clinton is finally starting to yield tangible results as WikiLeaks just provided the following update that Julian Assange was cut off from using the Internet at the Ecuadorian embassy in London effective Saturday evening. [...] Of course, this comes just a few days after the Obama administration announced overt plans to escalate a cyber war with Russia over allegations they were behind the hacking of Hillary's private email server.  Certainly, one has to wonder what this means for the future of Assange as clearly the Obama administration has applied sufficient pressure on the Ecuadorian government such that they have started to cave on their support of him.

RT's Bank Accounts Frozen, Assange's Internet Cut In Apparent Move to Silence West's Critics.  [Scroll down]  Although neither the cutting of Assange's Internet access nor that a state agent was responsible have been proven, if factual, speaks to the power wielded in the government transparency Wikileaks continues to provide when, for instance, President Obama's administration has failed.  Wikileaks assumedly already has possession of whatever documents Assange might have obtained and plans to release in the future, but the attempt to silence the controversial and vociferously debated public figure are at least concerning — and at worst disturbingly indicative of the trouble an unknown will go to silence free speech and press.

Julian Assange's internet link has been intentionally severed by a state party - WikiLeaks.  WikiLeaks has activated "contingency plans" after its co-founder's internet service was intentionally cut off by a state actor, the media organization said in a tweet.  The internet is one of the few, if not only, available ways for Julian Assange, who has been locked up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for more than four years, to maintain contact with the outside world.  Facing extradition to Sweden over allegations of rape, which he denies, the Australian computer programmer has been holed up in the embassy in West London since 2012.  He claims the extradition is actually a bid to move him to a jurisdiction from which he can then be sent to the US, which is known to be actively investigating WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks says Assange's Internet link was severed by 'state party'.  The website's announcement came hours after it published three cryptic tweets.  The messages referenced Ecuador, Secretary of State John Kerry and the United Kingdom's Foreign Commonwealth Office.  Each tweet was matched with a string of numbers. [...] Gizmodo noted that the 64-character codes sparked a whirlwind of rumors that the 45-year-old Assange had died.  Rumors on Reddit and Twitter said the numbers triggered a so-called "dead man's switch," which could be enacted in case Assange did die.  Gizmodo reported that such switches do exist.  WikiLeaks hasn't tweeted anything else about Assange's Internet access or how it may have been "severed."

Clinton Campaign chairman:  I'm OK with taking money from foreign agents.  Sunday's Wikileaks dump includes an email discussion within the Hillary Clinton campaign about whether they should continue to take money from people who were registered with the U.S. government as foreign government agents under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.  At first, on April 15, high-level campaign officials met by telephone and made the honorable decision to not take money from foreign government agents, but, as Hillary's national finance director, Dennis Cheng, wrote, when he reopened the decision later that same day, "we are leaving a good amount of money on the table."

Rio Grande Valley Corruption Update for October 2016.  Two Hidalgo County employees arrested for stealing from the county.  "La Villa Alderman Jose Lupe Contreras, 32, and 26-year-old Derick Palomin were arrested and charged with theft by a public servant, a Class B misdemeanor, and abuse of official capacity, a Class B misdemeanor, according to the news release."  What did they take?  "The pair of cousins is accused of using county equipment to steal caliche from Precinct 1."  It takes a certain kind of genius to be arrested for stealing dirt.

The Editor says...
For those of you who have not yet been fortunate enough to move to Texas, let me offer some background information to accompany the article immediately above:  Caliche is a white, chalky dirt that is used to pave roads where asphalt is too expensive.  Even the weeds won't grow in caliche, so its value is just slightly above zero.  Presumably, the value of caliche was zero until the widespread popularity of the automobile.  Caliche is low-class:  If you live on a street that's paved with caliche, your car is always dirty.  Caliche is mined at several locations in Texas.

Venezuelan regime runs out of other people's money.  Though every eye in the country is focused on the election, Americans should take a moment to look at the socialist disaster unfolding in Venezuela.  Domestic economic anxiety is legitimate, but we should be thankful we're so much better off than those subjected to the economic nostrums of the far Left.  Americans are fortunate they no longer have to worry about diphtheria; Venezuelan doctors warn that their country may be on the verge of an epidemic because vaccines and antibiotics are so scarce.  Americans are fortunate that prices are fairly stable; Venezuela has the highest inflation rate in the world, expected to hit 700 percent this year.

Lookalike Toy Gun Ban Moves Forward in N.J. Assembly.  New Jersey Assembly Democrat Mila Jasey wants to outlaw toy guns in her state not because she has a problem with her grandchildren playing with them.  A Republican in the New Jersey Assembly, who used to be a cop, argues her legislation, while well-intentioned, might backfire and empower criminals.  But Jasey is afraid children are going to be killed by cops because they are waving around toy guns that are too realistic.  "As a mother and a grandmother, I shudder to think that a child can be playing one moment and dead the next simply because an officer was unable to determine whether a gun was real or a toy," said New Jersey Assembly Democrat Mila Jasey.  As a result, Jasey is a co-sponsor of legislation that would outlaw toy guns that look too much like the real thing.

The Editor says...
After this law is enacted, the police will be even less hesitant to assume that there are no fake guns — making toy guns (i.e., realistic BB guns) even more dangerous.

Legislator Wants Mandatory Class to Teach Teens How to Deal with Cops.  To paraphrase John Oliver, the host of HBO's "Last Week Tonight," the good news is this won't be like Algebra 101.  Teenagers are actually going to use it in real life.  Texas Sen. John Whitmire will introduce legislation to mandate traffic-stop etiquette classes for 9th-grade students.  In other words, the kids will be taught how to act when they're pulled over by a cop — or, worst-case scenario, when they are arrested.

Russia Hints at Reclaiming Cuba, Vietnam Bases in Test for U.S..  Threatening to open Cold War wounds and further aggravate ties with the U.S. that are already strained by the conflict in Syria, a senior Russian defense official said the military is considering a possible return to its Soviet-era bases in Cuba and Vietnam.  In the clearest confirmation to date that Russia may scrap its decision to withdraw from the two countries more than a decade ago, Deputy Defense Minister Nikolai Pankov told lawmakers in Moscow on Friday [10/7/2016] that the military is revisiting the issue, without providing more details, according to the state-run Tass news service.  Responding to a question about the plans, President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the global security situation has become "rather fluid" after "substantial changes" over the past two years.

Judge allows a lawsuit to be served by tweet.  A California nonprofit was having a hard time serving a Kuwaiti sheikh with lawsuit papers, so it got permission to do it in the most 21st-century way possible:  on Twitter.  Courthouse News Service reports that a federal judge is allowing St. Francis of Assisi, which assists refugees, to tweet the suit at Hajjaj al-Ajmi, whom the group is suing (in addition to two Middle Eastern banks) for what they say is his role in funding a Christian genocide in Iraq and Syria.

Dad shocked that he was charged $40 to hold his newborn in the delivery room.  A Utah dad counted his blessings when his son Samuel was born Sept. 4, but when he got the hospital bill weeks later, he saw a charge he hadn't banked on — $40 to briefly snuggle his newborn in the delivery room.  Dad Ryan Grassley was stunned when his bill arrived from Utah Valley Hospital in Provo, with a $39.35 charge for "skin to skin after C-section."  And that was just part of the itemized $13,280.49 delivery bill.  "We weren't mad, but it seemed ridiculous," Grassley, 37, who works at an iron foundry, told the Daily News.  "I had no idea that I'd be charged for that."

Russia Suspends Nuclear Agreement, Ends Uranium Research Pact With United States.  Russia further curtailed its cooperation with the United States in nuclear energy on Wednesday [10/5/2016], suspending a research agreement and terminating one on uranium conversion, two days after the Kremlin shelved a plutonium pact with Washington.

Another Newport home tied to Trinity Broadcasting Network is for sale — this time at $5.25 million.  A secluded, ocean-view "trophy" home tied to the Trinity Broadcasting Network has hit the market in Newport Beach for $5.25 million.  The 9,467-square-foot house is set on over an acre in the guard-gated Harbor Ridge community.  The listing follows that of another home in the neighborhood tied to the broadcasting network earlier this year.  Built in 1979, the latest house to come up for sale has its own large gates, six bedrooms, an elevator, private tennis court, swimming pool and spa and a grassy pavilion area with an outdoor kitchen.  In the foyer, a chandelier hangs from a high ceiling.  Interiors include a formal library, piano room and bar.

Federal Debt in FY 2016 Jumped $1,422,827,047,452.46 — That's $12,036 Per Household.  At the close of business on Sept. 30, 2015, the last day of fiscal 2015, the federal debt was $18,150,617,666,484.33, according to the Treasury.  By the close of business on Sept. 30, 2016, the last day of fiscal 2016, it had climbed to $19,573,444,713,936.79.

2016 SAT test results confirm pattern that's persisted for 45 years — high school boys are better at math than girls.  Even though female high school students are better prepared academically than their male classmates on many different measures of academic success, both overall and for mathematics specifically, female high school students score significantly lower on the SAT math test, and the +30-point differences in test scores favoring males has persisted for several generations and exists across all ethnic groups.

Debate Commission: 'There Were Issues' with Donald Trump's Audio.  The commission on presidential debates admits there were problems with Donald Trump's audio during his first presidential debate with Hillary Clinton.  "Regarding the first debate, there were issues regarding Donald Trump's audio that affected the sound level in the debate hall," the Commission on Presidential Debates say in a carefully worded email to reporters.

Debate Commission Says There Were 'Issues' With Trump's Mic.  The Commission on Presidential Debates admitted today [9/30/2016] that Republican nominee Donald Trump's audio was not working properly during Monday's night debate at Hofstra University.  "Regarding the first debate, there were issues regarding Donald Trump's audio that affected the sound level in the debate hall," according to a statement from the commission.

Senate votes to override Obama veto on 9/11 bill.  Congress on Wednesday [9/28/2016] overwhelmingly rejected President Obama's veto of a bipartisan bill letting families of Sept. 11 victims sue the Saudi Arabian government, in the first successful veto override of Obama's presidency.  Marking a significant defeat for the White House, the House ensured the bill will become law after voting 348-77 to override Wednesday afternoon.  This followed a 97-1 vote hours earlier in the Senate.  Despite last-ditch warnings from the Obama administration that the legislation could hurt national security and was "badly misguided," lawmakers dismissed the concerns.

Congress rejects Obama veto of Saudi September 11 bill.  The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday [9/28/2016] to reject President Barack Obama's veto of a bill allowing relatives of the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia, the first veto override of Obama's eight-year-long presidency.

Cost of taxpayer-backed student loan forgiveness could skyrocket.  A program to encourage student-loan borrowers to go into public service may come with a hefty price tag.  Anyone who takes out a federal student loan can qualify for public service loan forgiveness.  (Borrowers who took out private student loans are not eligible for the program.)  Qualified borrowers will be able to use this benefit starting next year.  The ultimate cost of the program is difficult to determine.

Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson can't name foreign leader he admires.  Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson could not name a foreign leader he admires, when asked during a televised town hall meeting. [...] It is not Jonhson's first gaffe this month: about three weeks ago, he was asked what he would do about Aleppo if he becomes president.  A truly surreal dialogue followed.

Female Navy sailor who refused to stand during national anthem while in uniform is 'under review' by military and 'has been threatened with jail'.  A female US Navy sailor, who refused to stand for the national anthem while in uniform, is now under investigation by the military.  Intelligence Specialist 2nd Class Janaye Ervin posted a photo on Facebook explaining why she stands in solidarity with 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick's Star Spangled Banner protest.

Walmart workers refuse to make cop's retirement cake.  Three Walmart workers in McDonough, Ga., refused to decorate a "thin blue line" cake for a police officer's retirement party because they said it was racist.  A number of my Georgia readers alerted me to the story and on Saturday night I spoke directly with the police officer's daughter.  She asked that I not divulge her name and I've agreed to do that.  "I was so shocked," she told me.  "I didn't know what to do or say or anything.  I was trying not to lose my temper or make a scene."  For the record, Walmart has confessed that most of her allegations are true.

White House says U.S. safer under Obama, despite crime surge.  The White House said Monday [9/26/2016] that Americans are safer under President Obama, despite FBI crime statistics showing that violent crime rose about 4 percent last year.  "The numbers indicate that since President Obama took office, the violent crime rate has fallen 15 percent," said White House press secretary Josh Earnest, who said crime rates are still "near historic lows."  The FBI reported Monday [9/26/2016] that violent crime rose nationwide, fueled by an 11 percent increase in homicides, particularly in some of the largest cities.

FBI hands Trump a new talking point on debate day with news that murders were up more than 10 percent last year.  The Federal Bureau of Investigation handed Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump a gift-wrapped talking point on Monday morning [9/26/2016], announcing just hours before his first debate with Democrat Hillary Clinton that America's murder rate rose by 10.8 percent last year.  Trump has sought to tie Clinton to the Obama administration's domestic policy record while arguing that tougher policing can curb U.S. inner-city violence if only black voters would break from their traditional Democratic loyalties.

This is gun control at its finest:
'1 shot — 1 note': Russian sharpshooter performs Beethoven using pistols (Video).  A Russian sharpshooter has proven his skills are going way beyond just precisely hitting targets, as he performed various musical pieces, including by Beethoven, using two Glock pistols, a video has shown.

No, Terance Crutcher Wasn't Shot With His Hands Up And PCP Was Found In His Car.  First problem, he was walking back to his car, against the commands of the officers.  See why officers are very leery of that kind of action.  He drops at least one hand if not both when he reaches the car.  The reason the helicopter cut said 'he looks like a bad dude' was because he wasn't following commands of officer and officer thought he was on something.  Both officers fire, one tasing, one shooting at the same time.  Which means they both recognized a danger at the same time.

Terence Crutcher Was Not Shot With His Hands Up.  Here's the Definitive Proof.  Numerous media organizations that should know better, from Sky News, to Reuters, to NPR, are claiming that white Tulsa (OK) Police Department officer Betty Shelby shot and killed Terence Crutcher standing in the road with his hands up.  That is a demonstrable lie, as proven with simple screen captures from video footage from the police helicopter circling overhead.

DoD: $8.7 Billion So Far Fighting ISIL in Iraq and Syria, Averaging $12.1 Million A Day.  In a special report on Operation Inherent Resolve, the Department of Defense (DoD) details the actions and cost of fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL — $8.7 billion so far for an average of $12.1 million a day.  "As of July 31, 2016, the total cost of operations related to ISIL since kinetic operations started on August 8, 2014, is $8.7 billion and the average daily cost is $12.1 million for 724 days of operations," the report stated.

How Bad Off Is Oil-Rich Venezuela?  It's Buying U.S. Oil.  One oil rig was idle for weeks because a single piece of equipment was missing.  Another was attacked by armed gangs who made off with all they could carry.  Many oil workers say they are paid so little that they barely eat and have to keep watch over one another in case they faint while high up on the rigs.  Venezuela's petroleum industry, whose vast revenues once fueled the country's Socialist-inspired revolution, underwriting everything from housing to education, is spiraling into disarray.  To add insult to injury, the Venezuelan government has been forced to turn to its nemesis, the United States, for help.

Clinton Cash comic book
Florida Library Bans 'Clinton Cash:  A Graphic Novel' from Its Shelves.  A library in Florida denied a woman's request to put a New York Times bestselling graphic novel that criticizes Hillary Clinton on its shelves.  The Alachua County Library District denied Alachua County resident Ann Lhota's request to make Clinton Cash:  A Graphic Novel available to borrow.  Clinton Cash:  A Graphic Novel is currently the number one New York Times bestselling graphic novel, based off Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large Peter Schweizer's book Clinton Cash.


EpiPen manufacturer under scrutiny for defrauding Medicaid, suspicious influences.  EpiPen maker Mylan's CEO's connection to the National Association of State Boards of Education may be a part of the shady dealings being investigated by US lawmakers, including allegations that they defrauded West Virginia's Medicaid department.  Mylan has been highly scrutinized after increasing the price of its medical devices that fight life-threatening allergic reactions by 400 percent this year.  The pharmaceutical company is now facing an enforcement action after not cooperating with the West Virginia attorney general's subpoena issued last month, CNBC reported.  Heather Bresch is the CEO of Mylan and is reportedly very well connected.

AAA: You're All Wasting Billions Of Dollars On Premium Gas, So Stop It.  The American Automobile Association has an important message for Americans: we're all wasting billions of dollars every year on premium gasoline for vehicles that don't actually need it, and we should stop.  While high-octane gasoline is available everywhere and might make us feel like we're doing something good for our cars, we actually aren't.  It's not that putting higher-octane fuel into your car is going to hurt your car, but an additional survey by AAA shows that only 16% of drivers have cars with an engine type that can actually take advantage of high-octane gasoline and would benefit from it.

Hillary in for a new walloping with 'Clinton, Inc.' movie that digs deep into her psychology — and Bill's.  With the right lighting a twenty-something Virginia Clinton — Bill's mom — was a dead ringer for Monica Lewinsky.  That realization alone, and all its Freudian implications, is enough to recommend 'Clinton, Inc.: The Movie,' a film adaptation of the 2014 book that will hit theaters on September 30.  It turns out the future president's sexually undiscriminating but lovable and charming mother — and the rock-steady but ambitious and intimidating grandmother who helped raised him — formed maternal bookends that he would later reanimate with Lewinsky and Hillary Rodham.

US Air Force Grounds $400billion F-35 fighter jets due to 'faulty cooling lines'.  The US Air Force is struggling to get the world's most expensive weapon off the ground.  Just a month after declaring the F-35 'combat ready,' officials have now grounded 10 of the fighter jets.

U.S. national debt is more than all the world's physical cash, gold, silver, and bitcoin combined.  The U.S national debt is quickly approaching $19.5 trillion.  It will very likely be there this month.  It is hard to comprehend how much this amount is for the average American that is barely trying to get by.  But people are starting to wake up.  There is a large financial charade going on.  Most people realize that their standard of living is being eroded.  Anyone outside of coastal regions realizes that many parts of this country are struggling to levels that are not understood by the mainstream press.  Their control is slowly being lost.  One way to understand the amount of debt we have as a nation is to simply look at in context to how much physical currency is out there.

Inmates say prison made them watch Hillary Clinton's speech, blacked out Donald Trump's.  Federal convicts told a judge they were forced to watch Hillary Clinton's convention speech at the federal prison where they're being held — but said the prison imposed a blackout on Donald Trump's speech, tuning the facility's televisions to other channels.  The felons are trying to join the federal case against President Obama's 2014 deportation amnesty, saying that Mr. Obama is discriminating against U.S. citizens caught breaking the law by punishing them, even as he attempts to grant work permits and taxpayer-funded benefits to illegal immigrants.

Reminiscent of Mecca?
Glowing, cube-shaped design for performing arts center at World Trade Center complex unveiled.  A design of translucent marble and glass was unveiled Thursday [9/8/2016] for a long-stalled performing arts center at the World Trade Center complex.  Officials also announced that Barbra Streisand will serve as board chair of the Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center that will be dedicated to producing new works and serving as a public space.  Located between One World Trade Center and the memorial plaza, the cube-shaped center will aim to both commemorate the Sept. 11 tragedy and reflect the vitality of New York City, board members said from a room overlooking the project site.

Wells Fargo fined $185 million for improper account openings.  California and federal regulators fined Wells Fargo a combined $185 million on Thursday, alleging the bank's employees illegally opened millions of unauthorized accounts for their customers in order to meet aggressive sales goals.

Bakery refuses to write 'Trump 2016' on cake.  A Facebook post shared by a Bossier Parish teen is getting a lot of attention.  It reads, "Just left Albertsons.  The woman behind the cake counter just refused to make me a birthday cake because I wanted Trump 2016 on it.  Did that really just happen."  The cake is for the Benton girl's 18th birthday party, and the post has been shared now more than 150 times.  [Video clip]

This denied request for a cake didn't involve a gay wedding.  I'll confess I didn't see this one coming.  A 17 year old from Louisiana who is excited about voting in her first election and happens to be supporting Donald Trump got an unexpected surprise while preparing for her birthday party.  Going to the local baker, she was met with rejection when she asked for a cake with the candidate's logo on it.

The One Trillion Dollar Consumer Auto Loan Bubble Is Beginning To Burst.  Do you remember the subprime mortgage meltdown from the last financial crisis?  Well, this time around we are facing a subprime auto loan meltdown.  In recent years, auto lenders have become more and more aggressive, and they have been increasingly willing to lend money to people that should not be borrowing money to buy a new vehicle under any circumstances.  Just like with subprime mortgages, this strategy seemed to pay off at first, but now economic reality is beginning to be felt in a major way.  Delinquency rates are up by double digit percentages, and major auto lenders are bracing for hundreds of millions of dollars of losses.  We are a nation that is absolutely drowning in debt, and we are most definitely going to reap what we have sown.

US government orders antibacterial chemicals be removed from soaps.  They may look fancy.  But the US government has said old-fashioned soap and water is more effective than anti-bacterial products.  On Friday [9/2/2016], the federal authorities banned 19 chemicals long-used in antibacterial soaps, saying manufacturers failed to show they are safe and kill germs.  "We have no scientific evidence that they are any better than plain soap and water," Dr Janet Woodcock, of the Food and Drug Administration's drug centre, said in a statement.

Wells closing after Oklahoma quake fraction of state's total.  The 37 wastewater disposal wells to be shut down in north-central Oklahoma, where a 5.6 magnitude earthquake struck this weekend, are just a fraction of the state's total number.

Is Putin plotting to undermine the presidential election?  US intelligence officials are investigating whether Vladimir Putin is trying to undermine the race for the White House.  It follows concern the Kremlin is planning a 'covert operation' ahead of the presidential election in a bid to reduce public trust.  The probe is looking into the extent of Russia's suspected attack, which involves hacking political components that are vital to the vote in November.  Moscow's intent may not be to impact the result, but could be to cause chaos and create propaganda damaging to the US.

After NAFTA: $1.66B Merchandise Trade Surplus With Mexico Became $60.66B Deficit.  In 1993, the last year before the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect, the United States ran a $1,663,300,000 merchandise trade surplus with Mexico, according to the trade data published by the U.S. Census Bureau.  In 2015, the last full year on record, the U.S. ran a merchandise trade deficit with Mexico of $60,662,800,000.  In 1994, the first year NAFTA was in effect, the U.S. ran a merchandise trade surplus with Mexico of $1,349,800,000 — down from the $1,663,300,000 surplus of 1993.

Finally — Jacksonville State Attorney Angela Corey Defeated.  The brutally corrupt Jacksonville State Attorney Angela Corey, has been beaten in the 2016 primary race.  State Attorney Angela Corey pushed the false story that surrounded Trayvon Martin.  Corey lied to the Florida judiciary, lied to the public, and forced the investigators in her office to lie on her behalf.

Most Scientific Findings Are Wrong or Useless.  [Daniel] Sarewitz cites several examples of bad science that I reported in my February article "Broken Science."  These include a major biotech company's finding in 2012 that only six out of 53 landmark published preclinical cancer studies could be replicated.  Researchers at a leading pharmaceutical company reported that they could not replicate 43 of the 67 published preclinical studies that the company had been relying on to develop cancer and cardiovascular treatments and diagnostics.  In 2015, only about a third of 100 psychological studies published in three leading psychology journals could be adequately replicated.  A 2015 editorial in The Lancet observed that "much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue."  A 2015 British Academy of Medical Sciences report suggested that the false discovery rate in some areas of biomedicine could be as high as 69 percent.

Erdogan Goes Full Autocrat, Press Freedom Extinct in Turkey.  Since the media crackdown began, 2,308 media workers and journalists have been fired.  Hundreds of other journalists have had their government-issued press accreditations taken away, and many other journalists (the precise amount is unknown) have been informed that their passports have been revoked, making it impossible for them to travel abroad to either do their job or escape before they too are jailed.  Erol Önderoğlu, who is Turkey's representative for Reporters Without Borders, explains that the government is using the state of emergency to shut down as many newspapers, TV channels and websites as possible.

30 pieces of silver, adjusted for inflation:
Leaked Document Shows Soros Spent $650K To Influence Pope Francis On 'Economic And Racial Justice Issues'.  George Soros's Open Society Foundations spent $650,000 in an effort to influence Pope Francis during his visit to the United States, a leaked document reveals.  The document is an agenda for a May 2015 New York meeting of the U.S programs division of the Open Society Foundations.  It states that it had allocated $650,000 for a grant related to Pope Francis' September 2015 visit to the United States.  The group DC Leaks has released over 2,000 documents from groups associated with Soros.

Grocery store boots Girl Scouts, Salvation Army.  "Our primary obligation is servicing our customers by providing the most pleasant and convenient shopping environment," company spokesman Paul Simon said in a statement to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.  "Because of this we have decided to end the solicitation of our customers or distribution of written or other materials at our stores."  For the record, Schnucks is a privately owned company and the owners have a right to run their business however they see fit.  But they might want to reconsider calling themselves the "friendliest store in town."

University of Chicago to freshmen:  We do not support 'trigger warnings,' 'safe spaces'.  The University of Chicago has once again expressed its commitment to free speech, warning incoming freshmen not to expect any "trigger warnings" or safe spaces on campus where individuals can retreat from intellectual challenges.  In a letter sent to the class of 2020, the dean of students for undergraduates explained the private university's "commitment to freedom of inquiry and expression."

Company that price gouged EpiPen is Clinton Foundation donor.  The pharmaceutical company under fire for increasing the cost of its life-saving EpiPen has been criticized by Hillary Clinton — despite the fact that the manufacturer donated to the Clinton Foundation.  Records available on the website of the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation reveal Mylan, the company that manufactures the EpiPen, has donated up to $250,000.  On Wednesday [8/24/2016], Clinton released a statement blasting her family foundation's donor.

Target Refunding Millions Over Fake Egyptian Cotton Sheets.  Target Corp. is refunding millions of dollars worth of sheets after finding a textile supply company was pawning off phony fabrics as luxurious Egyptian-cotton.  Approximately 750,000 sheets and pillowcases manufactured by Welspun India Ltd. were labeled to be 500-threat count Egyptian cotton, Bloomberg reports, but found to be a knockoff instead.

Unsecured WiFi at Trump rally named 'Clinton Email Server'.  A WiFi network at a Donald Trump rally was named after his Democratic rival's long-running email controversy.  "Clinton Email Server" popped up at the rally Tuesday night [8/23/2016] in Austin, Texas.  The network — of course — was unsecured.

The Pentagon Takes Aim at Bomb-Carrying Consumer Drones.  They're cheap, they're light, and they can carry a small bomb:  The commercial drone is essentially a new terror gadget for organizations such as Hezbollah, Islamic State, or anyone else looking to wreak havoc on a budget.  "That's the same quad copter you can get on Groupon or go down to Sam's Club and buy for $400," U.S. Marine Corps Commandant General Robert Neller said last week at a Washington forum on future warfare.  The elusive nature of small drones is one reason the federal government has designated the District of Columbia a "national defense airspace" and prohibited drone flights there.

More of Kremlin's Opponents Are Ending Up Dead.  [Scroll down]  "It all went so fast," he recalled.  "In the space of about 20 minutes, I went from feeling completely normal to having a rapid heart rate, really high blood pressure, to sweating and vomiting all over the place, and then I lost consciousness."  He had ingested a poison, doctors told him after he emerged from a weeklong coma, though they could find no identifiable trace of it.  While Mr. Kara-Murza survived, few others in his position have proved as lucky.  He said he was certain he had been the target of a security service poisoning.  Used extensively in the Soviet era, political murders are again playing a prominent role in the Kremlin's foreign policy, the most brutal instrument in an expanding repertoire of intimidation tactics intended to silence or otherwise intimidate critics at home and abroad.

Why Venezuela faces collapse.  Last week the socialist government of Venezuela began seizing and destroying handguns, rifles and shotguns — continuing the late Hugo Chavez's effort to solve the nation's crime problem by disarming the nation.  However, since Chavez imposed what he and his followers proudly called "21st-Century Socialism" on one of the wealthiest nations in South America, Venezuela has been in economic, political and social free fall.  Disarming the country won't work, but one can certainly understand current President Nicolas Maduro's desire to disarm as many Venezuelans as possible.  He and his cronies are increasingly worried that an angry and frustrated populace could turn his country into a revolutionary cauldron.

Venezuela crushes 2,000 guns in public, plans registry of bullets.  Venezuelan police crushed and chopped up nearly 2,000 shotguns and pistols in a Caracas city square on Wednesday [8/17/2016], as the new interior minister relaunched a long-stalled gun control campaign in one of the world's most crime-ridden countries.  Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said the event marked the renewal of efforts to disarm Venezuelans, through a combination of seizures and a voluntary program to swap guns for electrical goods.  Venezuela has the world's second highest murder rate and the street gangs that plague its poor neighborhoods have become increasingly heavily armed in recent years, at a time when a deep recession has reduced resources available to police.

Venezuelan Responds to Economic and Societal Collapse by Theatrically Destroying Guns.  Socialism in Venezuela has failed.  The country can't even keep the power on.  What is left of the strangulated free market cannot provide jobs.  People have been reduced to eating garbage, pets, and zoo animals.  As civilization collapses, crime has exploded.  So what does the leftist government that brought about this situation do to rectify it?  Target guns, of course.

Starving Venezuelans Break into Zoo, Eat Horse.  As the economic crisis in Venezuela continues to worsen, starving citizens broke into a zoo and slaughtered a horse to eat it.  Several people busted into the Caricuao Zoo in Caracas and then butchered the zoo's stallion.

Tylenol use during pregnancy linked to behavioral problems in children.  Acetaminophen — most commonly in the form of Tylenol — is generally considered a safe method of treating pain and fever during pregnancy, but new research in England suggests it has an effect on children after birth.  Behavioral problems in children ages 5 to 7 was linked to maternal use of acetaminophen during pregnancy, though researchers at the University of Bristol say the risk should be weighed against not treating health conditions of a pregnant woman.

George W. Bush Didn't Kill Harambe, The Internet Is Just Weird.  If you're a normal, well-adjusted human being, you might vaguely remember Harambe, the endangered gorilla who was fatally shot by zookeepers at a Cincinnati zoo after a young boy fell into his exhibit pit back in May.  If you're a Weird Internet Person, then you have probably never stopped thinking about Harambe since his death.  The web has been whirling with conspiracy theories centered around the *real* cause of the gorilla's death.  The conspiracy theories are, of course, both inaccurate and (most of the time) passed along as a joke.  But the Harambe obsession is all too real.

NSA and the No Good, Very Bad Monday.  [Scroll down]  Because of the sheer volume and quality, it is overwhelmingly likely that this data is authentic.  And it does not appear to be information taken from compromised targets.  Instead, the exploits, binaries with help strings, server configuration scripts, 5 separate versions of one implant framework, and all sort of other features indicate that this is analyst-side code — the kind that probably never leaves the NSA.  It is also unlikely that this data is from the Snowden cache.  Those documents focused on PowerPoint slides and shared data, not detailed exploits.  Besides NSA, the only plausible candidate for ownership is GCHQ — and the implications of stealing Top Secret data from GCHQ and modifying it to frame the NSA would themselves be startling.  All this is to say that there is relatively high confidence that these files contain genuine NSA material.

NSA website recovers from outage amid intrigue.  The National Security Agency's website was offline for almost a full day until Tuesday evening [8/16/2016], in an unexplained outage that began shortly after hackers claimed to have stolen a collection of the agency's prized cyber weapons.  It's unknown if the two events are connected.  POLITICO first noticed that the agency's website wasn't working at 10:54 p.m.  Monday.  It came back online around 5 p.m.  Tuesday.

Key studies cited to 'prove' vaccines are safe were funded almost entirely by vaccine manufacturers.  In this critical review of the scientific literature on vaccines, ANH-USA and Brian Hooker carefully scrutinize the gross scientific flaws and blatant financial conflicts of interests that undermine the most commonly cited scientific studies which "prove" vaccines don't cause autism.  In a startling percentage of these studies, the "scientists" were either directly funded by vaccine manufacturers who stood to profit from vaccine safety whitewashing or served as highly paid expert witnesses to defend vaccine makers against lawsuits.

Newspapers rethink paywalls as digital efforts sputter.  Paywalls were supposed to help rescue newspapers from the crisis of sinking print circulation as readers shifted to getting their news online.  But with a few exceptions, they have failed to deliver much relief, prompting some news organizations to rethink their digital strategies.  Newspapers in the English-speaking world ended paywalls some 69 times through May 2015, including 41 temporary and 28 permanent drops, according to a study by University of Southern California researchers.

Donald Trump's Name Finally Shows Up on The D.C. Presidential Ballot.  Republican nominee Donald Trump was not on the presidential ballot in Washington, D.C. as of Thursday afternoon [8/11/2016].  The ballot included only Democrat Hillary Clinton and Libertarian Gary Johnson in the presidential race.  The Trump-Pence ticket was finally added after insiders expressed concern about the situation to Breitbart News.  The D.C. Republican Party blamed various paperwork-related complications that needed to be sorted out.

Fake wi-fi hotspots at the Olympics.  A cybersecurity report reveals several fake WiFi hotspots have been set up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in order to take advantage of the influx of people attending the 2016 Olympics.  Skycure, a mobile security firm, found that places like Rio Galeão Airport are unaware they were inadvertently hosting several nefarious networks, according to Forbes.  In other words, tourists arriving in the city are leaving themselves vulnerable to hackers once they turn on their phones or turn off airplane mode.  Another report, published by Kaspersky Lab, discovered that 18 percent of the available networks were highly unsafe.  Another 7 percent used antiquated encryption technology.

Hillary Will NOT Congratulate 'Girl With A Gun' Who Took Gold But GLADLY Congratulates....  Identity politics is something that progressives have always practiced, and Hillary is a master at cherry picking certain individuals that fit nicely into her narrative.  Simply listen to any of her speeches on any issue, and no doubt identity politics will eventually rear its ugly head.  Perhaps the most notorious example of identity politics was played out in public during ol hound-dog Bills many sexual scandals, in particular the Monica Lewinsky escapade, when Hillary a big advocate for woman's rights went on damage control and virtually on a smear campaign destroying the reputation of then intern Lewinsky and scores of other woman, with some actually being sexually assaulted by the president.  So it should come as no surprise that Hillary would congratulate a Muslim wearing a hijab for competing at the Olympics in Rio, while totally ignoring the first American gold medalist, because it involved a firearm.

Hacker Publishes List Of Cell Phone Numbers, Private E-Mails For Most House Democrats.  After disappearing for a couple of weeks, the hacker "Guccifer 2.0" returned late this afternoon [8/12/2016] to provide a new headache for Democrats.  In a post to his WordPress blog, the vandal — who previously provided nearly 20,000 Democratic National Committee e-mails to Wikileaks — uploaded an Excel file that includes the cell phone numbers and private e-mail addresses of nearly every Democratic member of the House of Representatives.  The Excel file also includes similar contact information for hundreds of congressional staff members (chiefs of staff, press secretaries, legislative directors, schedulers) and campaign personnel.

Cyberattack on Democrats bigger than first believed.  The Russian hackers who exposed a pro-Hillary Clinton bias at the Democratic National Committee have reportedly hacked even more Democratic emails than previously believed.  The cyber-criminals gained access to the correspondence of more than 100 Democratic Party officials and groups, apparently targeting Clinton campaign officials and party operatives, according to the New York Times.  The FBI has broadened its investigation, the paper said, and the agency alerted potential targets that their personal accounts may have been breached.

George Soros Had White House Meeting With Obama's ISIS Czar.  Liberal billionaire George Soros was at the White House late last year to meet with President Obama's controversial top adviser on ISIS, according to the White House visitor log.  Soros, joined by top aide Michelle's Vachon and Bulgarian political scientist Ivan Krastev, met with White House ISIS czar Rob Malley late in the afternoon on October 8, 2015 in the Executive Office Building, according to a recent update of the log.

DNC Email Hack Just Got A Whole Lot Bigger.  An investigation by the FBI has revealed the hack against the Democratic National Committee (DNC) may be much larger than expected.  According to The New York Times, the hack extended well beyond the DNC, and may have affected hundreds of other Democratic party officials and organizations, including the Democratic Governors Association.  The FBI briefed staff members of the House and Senate intelligence committees last week on the investigation into the email hacks against the DNC in July.  The FBI told staff it has no doubt that the Russian government was behind the hack, according to The New York Times, citing an anonymous staff member briefed on the matter.

'Self-driving' in spotlight again as China sees first Tesla autopilot crash.  Tesla said on Wednesday [8/10/2016] that one of its cars had crashed in Beijing while in 'autopilot' mode, with the driver contending sales staff sold the function as 'self-driving', overplaying its actual capabilities.  Tesla said it had reviewed data to confirm the car was in autopilot mode, a system that takes control of steering and braking in certain conditions.  The company, which is investigating the crash in China's capital last week, also said it was the driver's responsibility to maintain control of the vehicle.  In this case, it said, the driver's hands were not detected on the steering wheel.  [Video clip]

Protected minorities must be portrayed in a favorable light — whether it's realistic or not.
Disney Accused of Cultural Insensitivity Because a Character Is Too Fat.  The upcoming Disney film Moana will star a Polynesian princess for the first time in the franchise's history — but, rather than be excited, many people are complaining that the film's portrayal of a Polynesian demigod character is culturally insensitive because he's too fat.  According to MauiNow.com, Polynesian politicians are among those speaking out.  For example, New Zealand Labour MP Jenny Salesa (who is of Polynesian heritage) complained on Facebook that the movie having a fat demigod will actually harm children.  "The environment our kids grow up in and what they are exposed to have a role to play," she wrote.  "Disney movies are very influential on our children."

TSA: 'Artfully concealed' weapons on the rise in airports, create fears about threats to airliners.  A confidential Transportation Security Administration report says the number of "artfully concealed" prohibited items increased at airports in June, creating fears about threats to passenger aircraft.  Meanwhile, a U.S. railroad association issued a separate alert Monday [8/1/2016] to workers in light of the Islamic State's mass of social media posts, such as its magazine Dabiq, urging followers to kill.  A year ago this month, two U.S. service members stopped a heavily armed jihadi from gunning down passengers on a high-speed Amsterdam-to-Paris train.  Authorities said the National Guardsman and Air Force airman likely prevented a railway massacre.  The report by TSA's office of intelligence and analysis said the bulk of June incidents were at aviation hubs and included discoveries of weapons, ammunition and a hatchet hidden in luggage.

DC Travel Guide Rejects NRA Museum Ad.  The travel guide published by the Washington, D.C., official convention and sports authority has refused to run ads for the National Rifle Association's National Firearms Museum because those ads depict firearms.  Destination DC told officials from the NRA that it would no longer accept ads that depict any weapons or ammunition despite a relationship with the museum that dates back to 2012.

Why is Apple so afraid of a little picture of a gun?  Apple's next iPhone and iPad operating system will no longer feature an emoji picture of a handgun.  In its place will be an emoji of a green, plastic squirt gun.  There is nothing particularly threatening about the current handgun picture.  You only see the side of the gun; it isn't pointed at the reader or anyone else.  No bullets are even being fired.  The whole idea to drop the handgun emoji came about through a lobbying effort started by New Yorkers Against Gun Violence.  The bomb, sword, knife, and axe emojis will stay.  Apparently, a bomb with a lit fuse is OK but a nonthreatening handgun is too much.

Obama owes money from his 2012 presidential campaign.  This is not uncommon.  Politicians love to stiff vendors.  This is why smart printers demand cash up front for signs and the like. [...] By the way, Obama spent $1.5 billion in his two presidential campaigns.

3 of 4 NYT bestsellers are anti-Clinton books.  For the first time, three of the top four New York Times nonfiction best sellers are anti-Clinton books.  Two new books jumped to the front of the all-important hardcover nonfiction list just this week:  Armageddon, by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann, and Hillary's America, by Dinesh D'Souza.

Clinton campaign denies reports that its computer system was hacked.  The Clinton presidential campaign said Friday [7/29/2016] that an "analytics data program" maintained by the Democratic National Committee had been hacked but that its computer system had not been compromised, denying news reports from earlier in the day that the campaign had become the third Democratic Party organization whose systems had been penetrated.  So far, campaign computer experts "have found no evidence that our internal systems have been compromised," campaign spokesman Nick Merrill said in a statement.

Police officer who was accused of racism after he arrested Django Unchained actress faces demand for $10,000 after he leaked a recording of the incident.  A police officer accused of racism after he arrested Django Unchained actress Daniele Watts is being told to pay a $10,000 fine for leaking audio of the incident.  Sergeant James Parker released a recording of his encounter with Watts after she was found having sex in a parked car in an attempt to show the arrest was not racially motivated.  But now the Los Angeles Ethics Commission is demanding recently retired Parker admits he was wrong to release the tape — or else hand over the money.

Official figures reveal UK billed more than £350m each week by EU.  NEW figures have revealed that Vote Leave under-estimated the amount of money demanded by the EU from the UK each week by £26 million.  According to the Office of National Statistics the EU billed the UK for £19.6 billion in 2015 or almost £376 million each week.  The revelation comes after repeated claims by the Remain campaign and its supporters that Vote Leave's battlebus gross figure of £350 million a week going to the EU was "a lie".  They claimed the number was much lower but instead the ONS has confirmed it was an under-estimate.

Getty Sued for $1B for Selling Public Domain Images.  Documentary photographer Carol Highsmith made what the Library of Congress calls "one of the greatest acts of generosity," in the history of the institution, when she donated more than 18,000 of her photos to them in 2007.  But her generosity — intended to empower anyone to use her iconic photos of cities across America — was taken advantage of.  Getty Images and Alamy Limited have apparently been charging users to use her photos, which they rejiggered with new watermarks, a new lawsuit, spotted by Hyperallergic, alleges.  The 70-year-old photographer revealed this scam when the companies sent her a cease-and-desist letter for her own photo, after she posted it to her website.  The letter demanded $120 payment.

We'll Build a Wall and We'll Get Philadelphia to Pay for It.  Much has been made of the gigantic four-mile wall that the security people have built to shield DNC attendees from the robust protests taking place throughout Philadelphia.  Even People magazine noted that high-profile supporters of Bernie Sanders cannot get anywhere near the delegates they're hoping to influence and several have been arrested trying to scale the 8-foot fence that rings not just the stadium proper, but a giant area outside the stadium.  According to the US Secret Service, it was a nearly unprecedented effort to shield convention-goers from the riffraff.  Special Agent James Henry told NBC10.com that it would include "no-scale fencing to enclose the Wells Fargo Center and Xfinity Live!"

Mega-Rich Clinton Surrogates Create Reward For Espionage On Trump.  Republican nominee Donald Trump is in hot water for his call for Russia to release Clinton's deleted emails, but top Democratic donors announced two separate bounties for Trump's tax forms.  Democrats united against Trump during the third night of the DNC Wednesday.  Each speaker mentioned Trump's taxes, and former Virginia Governor Tim Kaine made fun of Trump by impersonating him, saying, "There's nothing suspicious in my tax returns, believe me."  Top Clinton fundraiser Moishe Mana offered to give $1 million to charity, and an unnamed donor teamed up with Clinton ally David Brock to make a $5 million reward for the tax documents.

Ronald Reagan's attempted assassin to be released from mental hospital 35 years after the shooting.  President Ronald Reagan's daughter is criticizing a judge's decision to allow the release of John Hinckley Jr. from the psychiatric hospital where he's been confined for more than 35 years since the attempted assassination.  Patti Davis says in a lengthy statement on her website that she will 'forever be haunted' by the day her father almost died in 1981.  Davis says she believes in forgiveness.  But she says forgiving someone doesn't mean letting them 'loose in Virginia to pursue whatever dark agendas they may still hold dear.'  Davis also says she's not surprised by the decision, but says her 'heart is sickened'.

Judge: Reagan shooter John W. Hinckley Jr. to be released after 35 years.  After more than 35 years in a psychiatric hospital, John W. Hinckley Jr. — who attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan — will walk free.  A federal judge ruled Wednesday [7/27/2016] he is no longer a danger to himself or others.  The 61-year-old will be released as soon as August 5 to his mother in Virginia with a number of monitoring requirements.  Hinckley Jr. attempted to kill Reagan and shot three people outside the Washington Hilton in March 1981.

The Editor says...
If Mr. Hinckley is 61 years old, how old must his mother be?  Is she supposed to keep an eye on him?

Chappaquiddick movie heads towards production.  Last December, John [Hinderaker] wrote about the plan to make a movie about the Chappaquiddick scandal.  It was at Chappaquiddick where Ted Kennedy, who was drunk, drove a young campaign worker off a bridge to her death, failed to take reasonable steps that might have saved her, and tried to cover up his culpability.  The notion of Hollywood going through with such a project struck me as implausible.  It's easy enough to make such a film without revealing the true degree of Kennedy's evil behavior, and John's post suggested that this is how the filmmakers would likely proceed.  But how do you make the film without casting Kennedy is a bad light over an incident that most Americans have either forgotten or never knew anything about?

DNC Promises to Fix Superdelegate Corruption — Next Election.  The Democratic Party was split between supporting former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders.  Wikileaks revealed this week the Democratic Party conspired from the beginning to torpedo the Sanders campaign and place Clinton as the nominee.  The deep chasm between the two party wings, with Clinton representing establishment dogma of pro-war/pro-Trans-Pacific Partnership and Sanders representing anti-war/anti-TPP principles shared by Republican nominee Donald Trump, created convention chaos as party leaders scrambled to rally disenfranchised Sanders voters.  To heal the fractured Democratic Party, the newly announced Reform Unity Commission will devise a plan to disenfranchise superdelegates from deciding the party's nominee.  The commission is expected to make its recommendations shortly after the 2016 presidential election.

'DNC Hacker' Unmasked:  He Really Works for Russia, Researchers Say.  The hacker who claims to have stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee and provided them to WikiLeaks is actually an agent of the Russian government and part of an orchestrated attempt to influence U.S. media coverage surrounding the presidential election, a security research group concluded on Tuesday [7/26/2016].  The researchers, at Arlington, Va.-based ThreatConnect, traced the self-described Romanian hacker Guccifer 2.0 back to an Internet server in Russia and to a digital address that has been linked in the past to Russian online scams.  Far from being a singly, sophisticated hacker, Guccifer 2.0 is more likely a collection of people from the propaganda arm of the Russian government meant to deflect attention away from Moscow as the force behind the DNC hacks and leaks of emails, the researchers found.

Faking it: headline-making viral video hoaxes were funded by Screen Australia.  [Scroll down]  The Investment Manager of Multiplatform & Interactive at Screen Australia, Mike Cowap, said the Terry Tufferson project was funded through Screen Australia's multiplatform investment arm, which focuses on online programming, access initiatives for new talent, and experimental technology and formats such as virtual reality. [...] "We were aware that some people may not realise the videos were fiction, so Screen Australia was clear from the outset that none of the content could cause a potential War of the Worlds moment, alarm people or cause them to take action."  The focus, he said, had to be on short and simple narratives that showed creative and technical skill and was entertaining.

Infant's death at day care investigated as homicide; high levels of Benadryl found in blood.  Authorities in Connecticut are investigating the death of a 4-month-old boy at an unlicensed day care as a homicide after medical inspectors working the case months later found that the baby had an extremely high level of Benadryl in his blood, Fox 61 reported.  Fairfield police have not made any arrests.  Investigators are now trying to determine if the homicide was intentional or accidental.

Obama vetoes bill to cut ex-presidents' pay.  President Obama on Friday [7/22/2016] vetoed legislation that would have scaled back the pensions of former presidents, a change that would have affected his own pension when he leaves office early next year.  Obama said he agreed with the bill's objective, but said the "Presidential Allowance Modernization Act of 2016" included provisions that would have unintentionally hurt government employees who work for former commanders in chief in ways lawmakers probably did not intend.

Two Islamic Jihad Terrorists Die in Gaza 'Work-Related' Accident.  They were working on a tunnel that is used to smuggle terrorists into Israel.  And last week, a tunnel collapsed on another jihadi, killing him.  Oops.

The Hostage Air Base — and Its Hydrogen Bombs.  The United States runs its air operations against ISIS in Iraq from Incirlik Air Base in Turkey.  The base, used by other NATO forces as well, is not American.  It is Turkish, and the U.S. needs government permission to fly from there.  Since the 15 July coup attempt in Ankara, U.S. forces at Incirlik are essentially hostages to the Turkish government. [...] Most worrisome, about 50 hydrogen bombs are stored by the U.S. at Incirlik, ostensibly on behalf of NATO.  These bombs are "protected" by Turkish troops and to some degree their potential use is shared with the Turkish Air Force.

Ohio: Hotel Clerk Saw Something, Said Something, Got Fired, May Be Arrested.  Three weeks before the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, a Muslim man in traditional attire asked multiple questions about booking a hotel for a month and refused to leave the hotel despite learning that it was booked for the time he wanted.  A hotel clerk, disturbed by his actions, asked her family to call 911.  The police responded immediately, because the clerk's sister said the man had mentioned the Islamic State (ISIS).  The clerk was fired in less than a week, and now the police may charge her, thus setting a dangerous precedent that if you point out a potential threat, you yourself will land in jail.  This is not to say that the man himself was a threat, but the circumstances were suspicious and the hotel clerk has arguably been mistreated in this case, with a chilling effect on the idea that "if you see something, say something."

Lawsuit seeks to expose, unravel plea deal for billionaire sex offender.  Palm Beach billionaire Jeffrey Epstein could face new criminal charges if lawyers for his alleged former teen "sex slaves" succeed in an unusual effort to overturn a 2008 plea deal that gave him house arrest, despite accusations he pimped the girls out to his rich and powerful friends.  Attorneys for two of the 30 girls Epstein, 63, allegedly prostituted on his private jet, in his Florida mansion and at his private island hideaway are attempting to open up — and potentially overturn — the government's secretive agreement with Epstein that critics say left him with just a slap on the wrist for pleading guilty to soliciting an underage girl for prostitution.

Budget deficit nearly doubles during Obama years.  The White House predicted Friday that the federal government's budget deficit for the current fiscal year will hit $600 billion, an increase of $162 billion over last year's and a final sour note on President Obama's watch.  While the figure was expected, the increase represents a reversal from previous years, in which budget deficits had steadily declined from the massive $1.4 trillion annual deficit early in Mr. Obama's first term during the recession.

28-Page Bombshell:  Saudi With Terror Ties Worked Security At US Border In 1999.  A Saudi national who was under investigation by the FBI checked a security checkpoint on the southwest U.S. border prior to the 9/11 attacks, according to 28 pages from a 2002 joint inquiry released by the House Intelligence Community on Friday [7/15/2016].

Sen. Shelby:  Obama Commuted Sentences of 33 Inmates Convicted of Firearm Violations.  Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) criticized President Obama for commuting the sentences of 33 criminals he said were convicted of firearm-related offenses while pushing for more gun control.  "By my count, the President has commuted the sentences of over 200 of these 'non-violent' federal inmates, of which 33 were convicted of firearm-related offenses," Shelby wrote in a sharply worded March 31 letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch.  Shelby sent the letter to Lynch a day after Obama commuted the sentences of 61 federal prisoners, bringing the total to 248, more than the last six presidents combined, according to the White House.

After 45 years, the FBI finally throws in the towel on D.B. Cooper hijacking.  The FBI has ended its nearly 45-year active investigation into the identity of skyjacker D.B. Cooper, who turned a $20 airplane ticket into a $200,000 ransom payoff and then parachuted into legend.  "Following one of the longest and most exhaustive investigations in our history," said Seattle FBI spokeswoman Ayn Dietrich-Williamson in a statement Tuesday [7/12/2016], the agency has "redirected resources allocated to the D.B. Cooper case in order to focus on other investigative priorities."

Former Fox News commentator sentenced to nearly 3 years for lying about CIA ties.  An Annapolis man who falsely claimed to work for the CIA was sentenced Friday [7/15/2016] to nearly three years in prison as a result of fraud convictions related to his deceptions.  A federal judge sentenced Wayne Shelby Simmons, a 62-year-old whose claims of CIA work propelled him into a guest slot as a terrorism analyst on Fox News and to work as a defense contractor, to 33 months in prison.

Crybabies:
Students scared of cops on campus force university to take drastic measures during RNC.  Students at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland were so traumatized by the prospect of sharing their campus with armed police officers during the Republican National Convention next week that the university has opted instead to essentially shut down for the week.  The students were incensed that school officials had agreed to allow police officers imported to maintain order during the convention to stay in campus housing.  More than 300 of them signed an online petition demanding that, among other things, the "riot police" store their weapons off-campus between shifts, restrict themselves exclusively to the residence halls and abide by university rules regarding anti-discrimination and sexual harassment.  Some students even asked to be moved to alternative housing for the week, saying the increased police presence caused them to "fear for their safety" following the shooting deaths of two black men in Minnesota and Louisiana.

What the city of Cleveland says you CAN'T bring to the Republican National Convention.  With protests raging nationwide and a controversial candidate set to seize his party's nomination in Donald Trump, the city of Cleveland has prohibited a long list of items from the area around the GOP convention — with an outright ban on gas masks and a strict limit on the allowable length of string.  Under regulations released by the city, 'rope, chain, cable, strapping, wire, string, line, tape, or any similar material' in lengths greater than 6 feet are strictly prohibited within all public access areas in the zone surrounding the convention.

Police Walk Out of WNBA Arena After Players Wear Activist Black Lives Matter Garb.  Good for them.  Four police officers walked out of basketball arena (Target Center), and away from extra-duty security assignment, after Minnesota WNBA players show up in activist warm-up gear and spout anti-police Black Lives Matter commentary.

Ruling could make sharing passwords for subscription services a federal crime.  A new federal court ruling could make sharing your passwords for subscription services — covering everything from Netflix to HBO GO — a federal crime punishable by prison time, according to a judge who opposed the decision.  The ruling, issued by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals last week, pertained to a trade-secrets case and found that certain instances of sharing passwords are prosecutable under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) — legislation predominantly concerned with hacking.  The case involved David Nosal, a headhunter who left his former company Korn/Ferry and then used the password of an employee to access the company's database and use that information at his new firm.  According to Fusion, the defendant was convicted of hacking charges in 2013 and sentenced to one year and one day in prison.  The appeals court upheld the conviction by 2-1.

Court: Private-account email can be subject to FOIA.  On the same day that the FBI announced that the criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server is likely to conclude without any charges, a federal appeals court issued a ruling that could complicate and prolong a slew of ongoing civil lawsuits over access to the messages Clinton and her top aides traded on personal accounts.  In a decision Tuesday [7/5/2016] in a case not involving Clinton directly, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held that messages contained in a personal email account can sometimes be considered government records subject to Freedom of Information Act requests.  The case ruled on by the D.C. Circuit focused on a relatively obscure White House unit: the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Breakaway Catholic group accuse Pope Francis of spreading errors about faith.  A breakaway traditionalist Catholic group accused Pope Francis on Wednesday of spreading confusion and errors about the faith, joining a chorus of conservative criticism over his perceived lax doctrine and emphasis on mercy at the expense of morals.

Security theater depends on believable props:
Iraq PM orders removal of British-made fake bomb detectors.  For the past nine years, Iraq's security forces have tried to stop car bombs with a British-made bomb detector wand that was long ago proven to be fake.  A day after a car bomb killed at least 157 people in central Baghdad, the country's prime minister, Haidar al-Abadi, has demanded their withdrawal.

Intel's Supercomputer Chips Get KO-ed By China and IBM.  Intel likely won't power the world's top supercomputers anymore, following two stunning announcements from the Chinese government and IBM.  The Chinese governmentunveiled Sunway TaihuLight, a supercomputer which has theoretical peak performance of 124.5 petaflops, making it the first supercomputer to break the 100 petaflop barrier.  A single petaflop equals about one quadrillion calculations per second.  The TaihuLight runs entirely on Chinese hardware, using ShenWei CPUs developed at the Jiangan Computing Research Lab in Wuxi.  That means Intel, which previously provided Xeon chips for the country's Tianhe-2 supercomputer, has been cut out of China's supercomputer loop.

National debt jumps nearly $100 billion in one day to record high.  The U.S. national debt is creeping up again, after holding steady for the last few months thanks to the annual flood of individual and corporate tax receipts.  Total government debt hit a record $19.38 trillion on Thursday, up nearly $98 billion from the day before.  It's the first time it has ever exceeded $19.3 trillion.  The debt will soar higher still in the coming months, and is expected to approach $20 trillion by the time President Obama leaves office.

At whose expense?
Obamas tap two firms to design Obama Center in Chicago.  After almost a yearlong search for an architect, President Obama and first lady Michelle announced on Thursday [6/30/2016] the firms they selected to design their Obama Center on Chicago's South Side — adding a Chicago shop that never even applied for the coveted commission.  Tod Williams Billie Tsien, based in New York, bested an international field of architecture stars.

Japan's top court has approved blanket surveillance of the country's Muslims.  Japan's Supreme Court has upheld the government's blanket surveillance of the country's Muslim community.  The court struck down the second appeal by Japanese Muslim plaintiffs against what they perceive as an unconstitutional invasion of their privacy and freedom of religion.  A 2010 leak of 114 police files revealed nationwide surveillance of Japanese Muslims.  The files revealed that Muslim places of worship, halal restaurants and Islam-related organisations across the capital, Tokyo, were being monitored.

PCUSA Assembly Lifts Up Muslim Prayers to Allah.  The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) offered prayers to the Islamic deity, Allah.  The prayer was led by a representative of the Muslim community on behalf of the Presbyterian Assembly. [...] The Islamic prayer was the the first order of business for the assembly.  The prayer was arranged by the Ecumenical and Interfaith ministry staff for the PCUSA.  They apparently got what the asked for.

Microsoft forced to pay £7,500 after Windows 10 began automatically installing on woman's computer.  Teri Goldstein made the claim after her computer — which previously ran on Windows 7 — became unusable after the software tried to download without her approval.  Microsoft has now said it will roll out an update that will change the alerts it uses for Windows 10 to prevent complaints such as this from happening again.

Swimming against the tide:

Mexican president urges North American integration after Brexit.  Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto on Monday [6/27/2016] called for greater integration with Canada and the United States in the wake of Britain's vote to split with the European Union.  Nieto, who spoke during a stopover in Quebec City, is scheduled to attend a North American leaders summit in Ottawa on Wednesday with his US and Canadian counterparts.  The three countries are economic partners in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and work closely on security matters.

Company that collected royalties for 'Happy Birthday' ordered to pay back $14 million after judge approves settlement that puts the song in the public domain.  A judge has approved a settlement that will put 'Happy Birthday to You' in the public domain and ordered the companies that collected royalties on the song for years to pay back $14 million.

Weaponized drone swarms will meet their match with this 60-kilowatt laser.  Drones may be fantastic as a consumer hobby, but these small unmanned aerial vehicles pose a significant security threat when they fall into the wrong hands.  One weaponized drone is bad enough, but drone swarms are a security nightmare for military officials.  Drones, whether alone or in groups, are difficult to spot when approaching, tough to follow on radar, and cannot be easily shot down using conventional weapons.  To combat this potential threat, Lockheed Martin is developing a laser-based weapon that'll blow such drones out of the sky.

Brexit: EU Planned to Ban Popular British Tea Kettles, Toasters.  Just two months before the Brexit vote, the European Union announced that it would begin banning the most popular "high powered" British tea kettles and toasters.  With British consumption of tea outstripping continental Europe's average by a factor of six, the European Commission (EC) had quietly delayed the implementation of new "ecodesign" restrictions on small household appliances during the run-up to the Brexit referendum vote over fears that bans would be perceived as an assault on the British staples of tea and toast.

Pope says Church should ask forgiveness from gays for past treatment.  Pope Francis said on Sunday that Christians and the Roman Catholic Church should seek forgiveness from homosexuals for the way they had treated them. [...] He recalled Church teachings that homosexuals "should not be discriminated against.  They should be respected, accompanied pastorally."

Pope says Christians should apologize to gay people.  Pope Francis said Sunday [6/26/2016] that Christians owe apologies to gays and others who have been offended or exploited by the church, remarks that some Catholics hailed as a breakthrough in the church's tone toward homosexuality.  "I repeat what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says:  that they must not be discriminated against, that they must be respected and accompanied pastorally," Francis said at a press conference aboard the papal plane returning from Armenia.

The Editor says...
The Bible is quite clear about what happens to effeminate men:  They don't go to Heaven, and there's only one other place to go.  First Corinthians 6:9-10:  ["]Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.["]  So if the Catholic Church wants to apologize, they should apologize for not preaching about the sixth chapter of First Corinthians.

US Customs and Border Patrol wants to ask for your "online presence" at the border.  The week, the US CBP published a notice in the Federal Register proposing a change to the Form I-94 Arrival/Departure Record paperwork that visitors to the US fill out when they cross the border, in which they announce plans to ask travellers to "please enter information associated with your online presence."  The form element will be optional, but of course, CBP screeners may subject travellers who decline to reveal their online names for additional scrutiny.  Visitors the USA are already photographed, fingerprinted, and interviewed.  Many countries have reciprocity policies through which they subject visitors to procedures that mirror those imposed by their own governments.  For example, Brazil fingerprints Americans, because Americans fingerprint Brazilians; other visitors are not fingerprinted.

It's like working in a Dilbert comic strip, but with lots of violence.
Chinese bank employees get beatings from trainer angered at low scores.  A motivational trainer in China, upset at the low scores in a session with rural bank employees, handed out beatings for eight of them, shaved the heads of the men and cut the hair of the women.

Foggy Bottom Breakdown?  After last week we must conclude that not everyone in the State Department is an idiot.  That conclusion — guarded, reluctant, and certainly temporary — is based on a truly earth-shattering event.  As the Wall Street Journal reported, fifty-one State Department officials, all of whom are or were advisors on the State Department's policy on Syria, authored a "dissent channel cable" (State's grandiose term for an email) petitioning for military strikes against Bashar Assad's government and urging regime change in Damascus as the only way to defeat the ISIS terrorist network.  The petition, in part, says, "Failure to stem Assad's flagrant abuses will only bolster the ideological appeal of groups such as Daesh [ISIS], even as they endure tactical setbacks on the battlefield."

What the story of ATMs and bank tellers reveals about the 'rise of the robots' and jobs.  One thing automation alarmists sometimes miss is that the simplistic "machines steal jobs" story tells an incomplete tale.  Take automatic teller machines.  One might think the introduction of ATMs first in the 1970s eventually meant massive technological unemployment for bank tellers.  Instead of depositing a check or withdrawing cash from a human, you could do it with an ATM card and a machine. [...] But that's not what happened, [...]

Workers May Soon Have To Share Health Data — Or Pay A Penalty.  Sometime next year, you may hear about a new way to save money on your health insurance.  To get the discount, you and your spouse have to join your company's voluntary "wellness program," the kind that typically promotes exercising more or losing weight.  As part of signing up, you're both asked to share your blood pressure, weight, diseases you've had and have, and your medical records, which may include the results of any genetic tests.  But if you don't want to fill out a questionnaire or get medically screened?  You won't qualify for the discount.  Or your premiums could go up by hundreds or thousands of dollars.

Obama has ordered flags at half-staff more than any president in history.  With his tenure in office marked by terror attacks and mass shootings, President Obama has reached a sad but remarkable milestone in his presidency:  He has ordered the lowering of the nation's flags to half-staff more often than any president in history.  On Sunday, Obama extended that unenviable streak even further, ordering all flags at federal buildings and ships at sea to be flown at half-staff to honor the 49 victims of the Orlando nightclub shooting.  Those flags will remain at half-staff until sunset Thursday, meaning that the nation will spend most of National Flag Week — proclaimed by Obama in a separate order last Friday — with the stars and stripes in a mournful pose.

This Is How All Bureaucrats Should Be Answered.  Making the rounds right now is an exchange that I certainly hope is authentic, between the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife and ranchers Larry and Amanda Anderson.  It seems the Oregon bureaucrats want permission to survey the Andersons' ranch land for purposes of tracking species decline.

Saudi Arabia Has Funded 20% Of Hillary's Presidential Campaign, Saudi Crown Prince Claims.  It is illegal in the United States for foreign countries to try to influence the outcome of elections by funding candidates.  In what may be the pinnacle of hypocrisy, moments ago Hillary Clinton, while speaking live on national security and addressing the Orlando shooting took some time from her constant bashing of the Second Amendment and calling for a ban on assault rifles, to say some less than kind words about Saudi Arabia whom it accused of supporting radical organizations. [...] According to the US Federal Election commission, over the past two years Clinton has raised a little more than $211.8 million.  20% of this sum is $42.4 million.  The report was published (and then mysteriously deleted) on the eve of Prince Mohammed making an official visit to the United States.

FAA Warns That Mystery Military Tests May Cause Widespread GPS Disruptions.  Starting June 7th, and continuing for the next month, the FAA has warned airplane pilots that GPS signals on the West Coast, and especially over California and Nevada, may be impacted.  The reason why is not exactly clear, but as Gizmodo notes, the US military will be testing a device or devices that will potentially jam GPS signals for six hours each day.  Officially the tests were announced by the FAA but are centered near the US Navy's largest installation in the Mojave Desert, China Lake, located "just down the road" from Area 51.  The Navy has kept silent about the nature of the tests.

Homeland Security Chair: 'We Are in the Highest Threat Environment I Have Seen Since 9/11'.  House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul said today [6/9/2016] that "we are in the highest threat environment" he has seen since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  McCaul made the statement at an event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations and moderated by Andrea Mitchell of NBC News, where House Republicans released their national security plans.

Was the Gotthard Base Tunnel Opening Ceremony an Illuminati Ritual Intended to Honor Satan? 
  •   The central figure in this production was a "goat-man" that bore a striking resemblance to Baphomet.
  •   In the occult world, Baphomet is often a symbol of Satan or the human embodiment of Satan.
  •   During the ceremony, the "goat-man" dies.
  •   During the ceremony, the "goat-man" recovers from his fatal wound.
  •   During the ceremony, the "goat-man" is worshipped by everyone else.
  •   During the ceremony, the "goat-man" is crowned as the ruler of the world.
Is it just me, or does that sound like it is a description of the one commonly known as the Antichrist?  For a very long time, global secret societies have conducted their dark rituals out of the view of the general public, but we appear to have entered a time when they are becoming much bolder.  These days, we are seeing these sorts of "Illuminati rituals" just about everywhere.  We have seen them regularly at major awards shows, in music videos, in television shows and movies, and even at the Super Bowl.

Why is Barack Obama Warning Americans 'To Be Prepared For A Disaster'?  When Barack Obama speaks to the public, it is very rare that he does so without a specific purpose in mind.  So why is he urging Americans "to be prepared for a disaster" all of a sudden?  On May 31, Obama took time out of his extremely busy schedule to deliver an address at the FEMA National Response Coordination Center in Washington.  During his speech, he stressed that every American is responsible for preparing for disasters, and that includes "having an evacuation plan" and "having a fully stocked disaster supply kit".

Australian heritage sites wiped from UN climate report at government's request.  The "World Heritage and Tourism in a Changing Climate" was released Thursday [5/26/2016] and lists 31 natural and cultural world heritage sites in 29 countries that are said to be vulnerable to climate change.  Risks to iconic tourist sites such as the Statue of Liberty, Venice, Stonehenge and the Galapagos Islands are described in the report.  However, no sites in Australia, such as the famous Great Barrier Reef, are mentioned.  News.com.au reports that the initial version of the report included references to the Great Barrier Reef as well as the Kakadu National Park and the Tasmanian Wilderness.  The Australian Department of the Environment confirmed to News.com.au that it asked for references to Australia to be removed, citing a negative impact on tourism.

Lawmakers Try to Roll Back Executive Power in Rulemaking.  Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) has proposed a bill that would make Congress responsible for the economic costs of federal regulations rather than unelected officials in federal agencies.  Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.), Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) and Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.) joined Lee to formally introduce the Article I Regulatory Budget Reform Act, which would require Congress to cast a vote on the "total regulatory burden" federal agencies are able to enforce on the private sector each fiscal year.

The best-run states are heavily Republican
Best-Run States Are Heavily Republican, Study Finds.  The ten most financially sound states in the country are all heavily Republican, while all but one of the ten worst states are heavily Democratic.  That's according to a ranking of states in a new report from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University[.]  The report — "Ranking the States by Fiscal Condition" — used official government data to measure the states' ability to pay short-term bills and meet longer-term obligations, such as public pensions or health care costs, using five separate measures.


Muslim girl picks Vermont military school after being denied from The Citadel over hijab.  A Muslim high school student from Florida who hopes to become a Navy officer is going to attend Norwich University after the Vermont military school said it would allow her to wear her headscarf beneath her uniform.

Obama commutes sentences of 42 prisoners.  President Obama on Friday [6/3/2016] commuted the sentences of 42 inmates, as he accelerates his effort to free prisoners burdened with lengthy sentences in the government's war on drugs.  Nearly half were granted to people serving life sentences, mostly for convictions related to crack or cocaine possession and distribution.  Most will be released on Oct. 1, but some will be freed next June.  Obama has issued 348 commutations during his time in office, more than the previous seven presidents combined, according to the White House.  Among those freed include 130 who were serving life sentences.  The president has said he will continue to grant commutations during his final months in office to nonviolent offenders who meet standards laid out by the Justice Department.  It's the third round of commutations for drug offenders the White House has announced this year.

Progressives Hope 'Finding Dory' Features Disney's First Lesbian Couple.  A blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment from the latest trailer for Disney/Pixar's upcoming film Finding Dory has prompted speculation that the film will be the first Disney project to feature a lesbian couple.

Sub sailor's photo case draws comparisons to Clinton emails.  A Navy sailor entered a guilty plea Friday [5/27/2016] in a classified information mishandling case that critics charge illustrates a double standard between the treatment of low-ranking government employees and top officials like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and ex-CIA Director David Petraeus.

Mishandling classified information leads to prison (if your name isn't Clinton).  With the release this week of the Inspector General's report on Hillary Clinton's private email server we learned that a lot of the things she has said over the past year were not true.  But we still have to wait for the FBI to decide whether Clinton's behavior rises to the level of a crime.  With that in mind, it's instructive to consider how the federal government responds to cases of mishandling classified information for people other than Hillary Clinton.  Today Politico has an important story on the fate of Petty Officer First Class Kristian Saucier.  Saucier pleaded guilty Friday [5/27/2016] to taking cell phone pictures of the engine room of his submarine.

DNC Chair's PAC Has Paid More in Salaries Than It Has Given to Democrats.  The leadership PAC of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D., Fla.) has paid out nearly $100,000 more in salaries than it has given to Democratic candidates during the 2016 election cycle, a review of Federal Election Commission records shows.  The Democrats Win Seats PAC, or DWS PAC, has a stated mission of directing "resources to help elect Democrats around the country."  However, records show the PAC has spent more on staff than helping campaigns.  Between Jan. 1, 2015 and April 30, 2016, the PAC paid $153,453 to Lindsey Schulte, the committee's highest-paid employee, according to a review of the DWS PAC's finances.

NYPD checking ammo after knifeman's jacket stops cops' bullets.  Four of the shots that cops fired at a madman waving a knife in Midtown failed to penetrate his jacket — which was not bulletproof — and the NYPD will now check the weapons for malfunction, law enforcement sources told The [New York] Post.  "The bullets we have may be defective and that's very disturbing," one source said.  "When we fire our weapons, we want to make damn sure that our bullets hit our target — neutralizing our target."  A sergeant and an officer fired a total of nine rounds at 46-year-old Garry Conrad on Wednesday [5/18/2016], with one of the shots killing the depressed Broadway stagehand who refused to drop the blade at West 49th Street and Eighth Avenue.

Newspeak is doubleplusgood.
Obama signs measure striking 'oriental' and 'negro' from federal law.  President Obama has signed legislation striking outdated racial terms such as "Oriental" and "Negro" from federal laws.  Obama signed the bill without fanfare on Friday along with six other pieces of legislation, the White House said.  The measure sailed through Congress unopposed, a rare example of bipartisan agreement in an election year.  It reached the president's desk after the Senate unanimously approved it on Monday [5/16/2016].

This Man Saved A Girl From Being Stabbed To Death, And Now Target Is Suing Him For It.  In 2013, Michael Turner saved the life of a 16-year-old girl who had been viciously attacked and stabbed in a Target store in Pennsylvania.  And instead of thanking him for protecting its customers and preventing them from being murdered, Target is now suing him for his heroism and alleging he acted irresponsibly.  The attacker, Leon Walls, was convicted of attempted homicide for stabbing then-16-year-old Allison Meadows in 2013.

Navy secretary fires back at conservatives:  Will name warships as I please; no politics involved.  Navy Secretary Ray Mabus says in a letter that he has the power to name warships as he chooses, in response to a former Marine and congressman who charges he has politicized the process.  Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican and House Armed Services Committee member, wrote Mr. Mabus to question the naming of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer after former Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.  The naming followed a pattern of Mr. Mabus, a former Democratic governor of Mississippi, of naming warships after Democrats and liberal activists, some of whom had little or no link to the military.

Study Finds That Tylenol Kills Much More Than Just Pain.  A new study suggests the popular painkiller Tylenol does more than reduce pain — it can actually reduce your ability to imagine other people's pain.  Researchers at Ohio State University conducted three experiments on college students to test whether acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol and many other prescription and over-the-counter painkillers, affects users' abilities to empathize with others who are experiencing physical or emotional pain.  Their findings were published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.

U.S. Discloses Saudi Holdings of Treasuries for First Time.  The Treasury Department released a breakdown of Saudi Arabia's holdings of U.S. debt, after keeping the figures secret for more than four decades.  The stockpile of the world's biggest oil exporter stood at $116.8 billion as of March, down almost 6 percent from a record in January, according to data the Treasury disclosed Monday in response to a Freedom-of-Information Act request submitted by Bloomberg News.  The tally ranks Saudi Arabia among the top dozen foreign nations in terms of holdings of U.S. debt, and compares with China's $1.3 trillion trove, and $1.1 trillion for Japan.  "The politics has always been secretive, so have their finances," said David Ottaway, a Middle East Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, a research institute in Washington.  "It does answer the question of how much they own, which is surprisingly not that much."

Mark of the Beast:
You Can't Leave Home Without It:  A Temporary Tattoo Could Replace Your Credit Card.  If you've ever been to a music festival, sports stadium or any other crowded event, you may have been concerned about carrying a purse or wallet, which can not only be cumbersome, but can make you the target of pickpockets.  And the alternative of carrying a solitary plastic credit card isn't much better since they can easily slip out of your pocket.  Those concerns might disappear in the not-so-distant future, thanks to technology being developed for ultra-thin, contactless payment stickers similar to temporary tattoos.  MC10, a healthcare technology company, is developing tattoo wearables that can affix to a payer's body as a breathable, waterproof NFC, or near-field communication, payment solution.

Study: Changes in racial composition lead to decline in church attendance.  The more mixed the Sunday morning pews are, the fewer people are likely to be in them.  That's the primary finding of a new study from Baylor University published in the current Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.  Researchers studied the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, where racial diversity doubled from 1993 to 2012, and found that, at the same time, churches with the greatest diversity growth also had the steepest declines in attendance.

Report: Romney recruiting Kasich, Sasse for third-party option.  Mitt Romney, the GOP's 2012 nominee, is among those courting prospects for a possible third-party bid to keep Donald Trump from the White House, according to a Washington Post report.  Among those prospects are Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), one of Trump's most vocal Republican critics, and Ohio Gov.  John Kasich, who suspended his presidential campaign in early May.  Kasich's chief strategist John Weaver said the governor isn't interested in running an an independent.

Venezuela Unleashes Tanks as 4 Killed, 1,200 Arrested.  Police and National Guard killed four suspects Tuesday during a wide raid in Western Caracas that involved tanks and helicopters, as Venezuela also underwent the rare climate phenomenon known as a "solar halo."  "As has been the request of our people, we have deployed OLP New Phase in 4 areas of Caracas," tweeted Interior Minister Gustavo Gonzalez as the operation began unfolding.  Local media said eight suspected criminals were killed during the operation, but Gonzalez spoke only of four killed when resisting police action.  Some 400 vehicles were used during the operation, ranging from motorcycles to tanks and choppers.

Consent of the governed and judicial tyranny.  Yes, Montana is a purple state in that it has elected both Democrats and Republicans to statewide offices, but at heart we are a conservative state — a state grounded in traditional values such as respect for God, love of country, hard work and fair play.  Unfortunately, because we go along to get along, we've been an easy target for the folks who are offended by God, are not that into patriotism, prefer not to work if at all possible, and think Fair Play is an amusement park ride.  Consider this:  According to a 2012 study by two political science professors at Stanford, Montana's state Supreme Court is the sixth most liberal court in the country.  No wonder folks from California like to move to Montana!  They probably view us as a colony.  The latest last straw that should motivate a political revolution in our state, but probably won't, happened on Tuesday [5/10/2016] when the Montana Supreme Court threw out a voter-approved law meant to send a clear message to illegal aliens that they are not welcome here.

Negative interest rates spark record gold rush as demand for safe deposit boxes jumps.  Investors snapped up gold at a record pace in the first three months of 2016 as global growth fears intensified and central banks slashed interest rates deeper into negative territory.  Concerns that Britain could leave the EU also triggered a spike in demand across Europe where "investors were plagued by lingering Brexit fears," according to the World Gold Council.

Report: Government Regulations Add $84,671 to New Home Prices.  Government regulations are responsible for adding $84,671 to the final price of a new single-family home, according to a report from the National Association of Home Builders.  According to the report, regulations implemented during the lot's development are responsible for 14.6 percent of the total, while 9.7 percent is due to costs that accrue after the builder has purchased a finished lot.  "Regulations come in many forms and can be imposed by different levels of government," explains the report.  "At the local level, jurisdictions may charge permit, hook-up, and impact fees and establish development and construction standards that either directly increase costs to builders and developers, or cause delays that translate to higher costs."

The Editor says...
Personally, I don't object to sensible rules about home construction, especially the part about having a city inspector look at the wiring and plumbing before it's all covered up.

Software Update Destroys $286 Million Japanese Satellite.  The Japanese X-ray telescope Hitomi has been declared lost after it disintegrated in orbit, torn apart when spinning out of control.  The cause is still under investigation but early analysis points to bad data in a software package pushed shortly after an instrument probe was extended from the rear of the satellite.  JAXA, the Japanese space agency, lost $286 million, three years of planned observations, and a possible additional 10 years of science research.  Hitomi, also known as ASTRO-H, successfully launched on February 17, 2016 but on March 26th catastrophe struck, leaving only pieces floating in space.

Dystopia: Venezuelans Are Now Killing Cats, Dogs, and Pigeons for Food Because Socialism Can't Provide.  Venezuela is on the verge of economic collapse.  The price of oil has dropped precipitously over the past few years — that's a budgetary nightmare for a nation dependent on its oil exports.  As a result, basic necessities, like toilet paper, are being rationed.  There's limited access to television and long distance phone service.  There are rolling blackouts due to energy shortages.  And now the government is cutting back the workweek to just two days.  This comes at a time when Venezuela's citizens need government services the most.  Supermarkets are not stocked regularly, so there's a food shortage; people are starving.  They've resorted to looting to survive.  You would think that the government can't really afford to print its own currency because it's so broke would be the cherry on top of this socialist nightmare.

'I have to be taller': the unregulated world of India's limb-lengthening industry.  Komal never told her friends where she really went for six months last year.  The 24-year-old, from the town of Kota, in western India, went to see Dr Amar Sarin, an orthopaedic surgeon in Delhi, who made her eight centimetres (3in) taller, a procedure which involved breaking the bones in her legs and wearing a brace until she could walk again.  Her parents had to sell the family's ancestral lands so she could get the surgery, but for Komal, the extra height is worth it.  "I have so much confidence now," she says.

The Editor says...
This misguided young woman needs to learn an important lesson about life:  Play the cards you were dealt, and make the most of what you have.  Your life isn't about you anyway.

Warning: Your hospital may kill you and they won't report it.  Medical error is the third leading cause of death in the U.S. after heart disease and cancer — an estimated 210,000 to 400,000 deaths a year among hospital patients — say experts in an open-access paper in the British Medical Journal — despite the fact that both hospital reporting and death certificates in the U.S. have no provision for acknowledging medical error.

Poll shows Gary Johnson in double digits in 3-way race against Clinton, Trump.  Libertarian presidential hopeful Gary Johnson, possibly benefitting from dissatisfaction with the two major parties' front-runners, is in double digits in a potential three-way race, according to a poll released Thursday [3/24/2016].  In a three-way contest, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton was at 42 percent, GOP front-runner Donald Trump was at 34 percent, and Mr. Johnson, who is seeking the Libertarian Party's nomination, was at 11 percent, according to the Monmouth University poll.

Gary Johnson for President?  The Case for — and against — the Likely Libertarian Nominee.  Good news, disgruntled Americans:  As you ponder whether to vote for one of the two most-disliked, dishonest, and morally corrupt politicians ever to run for president — Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton — you just might have a third option.  His name is Gary Johnson.  He's a popular two-term former governor of New Mexico.  He's the likely Libertarian party nominee.  And he's set to be on the ballot in the vast majority of states.

Famous California vegan restaurateurs under fire over revelation they eat meat.  The California-based husband and wife founders of celebrity-endorsed vegan restaurant group Cafe Gratitude say they have received death threats after it was revealed last week that they are raising, slaughtering and eating animals on their farm north of San Francisco.

So, something interesting happens to weed after it's legal.  Two years ago, the Washington state began an unprecedented policy experiment by allowing large-scale production and sale of recreational marijuana to the public.  The effects on public health and safety and on the relationship of law enforcement to minority communities will take years to manifest fully, but one impact has become abundantly clear:  Legalized marijuana is getting very cheap very quickly.

A SEAL's death shows US involvement in Iraq is more than just advisory.  Navy SEAL Charlie Keating IV — an adviser to Kurdish troops in Mosul, Iraq — was killed Tuesday [5/3/2016] in an encounter with Islamic State militants.  Keating, 31, born and raised in Phoenix, was a track star at Indiana University before joining the Navy after 9/11.  Technically, Keating was not a combatant.  He was an "adviser" who died in a firefight, rescuing other advisers under attack.  Which is exactly as he should be remembered — as an American serviceman of high skill and valor, not because a grandfather of the same name had been a notable figure in the 1990s savings-and-loan crisis.

The crash that broke the Kennedy grip on the White House:  Hollywood film to revisit events on Chappaquiddick in 1969.  It was an event that dashed the chances of Edward Kennedy inheriting his older brother's presidency and appalled millions of Americans.  Now the incident at Chappaquiddick in 1969 that broke the Kennedy grip on the White House will be revisited in an independent feature film.

Can Kennedys quash film?  Do the Kennedys still have enough clout to kill a movie about Chappaquiddick?  We ask because Apex Entertainment has announced that Jason Clarke [...] has been cast as Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy in the drama about the death of Mary Jo Kopechne.

Politics Move Left, Americans Move Right.  In an election year in which the top likely candidates come from New York, big cities arguably dominate American politics more than at any time since New Deal.  The dynamics of urban politics, which are characterized by high levels of inequality and racial tensions — may be pushing Democrats ever further to the left and Republicans toward the inchoate resentment of Donald Trump.  Yet if politics are now being dominated by big cities along the coasts, the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data suggests that when it comes to their own lives, Americans are moving increasingly elsewhere, largely to generally Republican-leaning suburbs and Sunbelt states.  In other words, politics and power are headed one way, demographics the other.

Animals get to use their own bathrooms at JFK airport.  The 70-square-foot room, at JFK's sprawling Terminal 4, allows dogs and other animals to relieve themselves without needing to exit the building to find a place to go outside — a step that requires an annoying second trip through the security line.

Cuban-American Filmmaker Warns America Is Morphing Into Communist Country.  Filmmaker and American citizen Agustin Blazquez never thought his native Cuba would become a communist country, but now he sees the same radical shift happening in America.  In [an] exclusive video interview for The Daily Caller News Foundation, he says the left has been clever by using "very non-threatening words," like liberal, progressive and concerned citizens, for advancing government control of American lives.  The truth about Cuban politics is hard to find because of media spin and propaganda dominating American discourse.

Nearly 1 in 4 Americans say they'll opt out if Trump and Clinton are their only choices in November.  Nearly a quarter of the electorate is just not that into a Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton general election.  A new poll out today from Rasmussen Reports shows that the parties' two frontrunners are tied among likely voters at 38 percent, but 24 percent would like to opt out of the presidential race.  Further breaking down that 1-in-4 figure, pollsters found that 16 percent would vote for some other candidate if they were forced to choose between Trump and Clinton.  Another 6 percent would stay home and 2 percent remain undecided.

Philip Kives, Pitchman Who Perfected 'As Seen on TV' Infomercials, Dies at 87.  Philip Kives, a Canadian entrepreneur whose company, K-tel, saturated North American airwaves for decades with ads for a gaggle of gadgets (the Patty Stacker, the Miracle Brush and the emblematic Veg-O-Matic) and a cornucopia of compilation albums ("Hit Machine: 20 Original Hits, 20 Original Stars," "25 Polka Greats" and "A Musical Journey:  Pan-Flute"), died on Wednesday in Winnipeg, Canada.  He was 87.

K-Tel Founder And Infomercial Icon Philip Kives Dies At 87.  Philip Kives, master of the infomercial, has died.  He was 87. With gadgets like the Miracle Brush and — wait, there's more! — the Veg-O-Matic food slicer, Kives started reeling in customers when he founded K-tel International in the 1960s.

Philip Kives, K-tel founder and 'wait there's more' infomercial king, dies at 87.  Philip Kives, the tireless TV pitchman whose commercials implored viewers to "wait, there's more!" while selling everything from vegetable slicers to hit music compilations on vinyl, has died at age 87.  Samantha Kives said Thursday [4/28/2016] that her father died a day earlier after being hospitalized with an undisclosed illness.  Kives became wealthy after founding marketing company K-tel International, which sold Miracle Brush hair removers, Veg-o-matic vegetable slicers and compilation albums with such titles as Goofy Greats among numerous other products.

Suit Alleges Al Jazeera America Lost $585 Million in Two Years.  Al Jazeera America, the ratings-challenged cable news network that shut down two weeks ago, and which was owned by the Qatari government, was hit with a lawsuit by one of its former employees who alleges among other things that the network lost $585 million in 2013 and 2014.  According to The New York Times, Anand Gupta, the former executive vice president of finance, filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court in Manhattan charging the network with denying him a promised promotion and salary increase because of racial discrimination.

Nooo!  Cracker Jack Ending Toy Prizes In Favor of Digital Codes.  Is there nothing sacred?  The toys in the Cracker Jack box are classic and fun.  They require a kid using their imagination.  Not everything has to be digital, in fact, the digital experience removes us from the human experience.  It has its place, but really, nothing will replace getting a mood ring or a dinosaur or even a toy gun!  Yes, all teeny-tiny but that's the point.

See?  You should have studied for your ham radio license years ago!
Venezuelan cellphone carriers suspend international calls, users innovate to stay connected.  Among the many aspects of daily life impacted by Venezuela's government tight control of the economy is the ability to use a cellphone, as carriers find it increasingly hard to make a profit due to people-oriented regulations they call senseless.  Last week, two of the three cellphone companies that operate in the country suspended all international service after they say the government repeatedly refused requests to increase the fees for international calls.

The rancid fruits of socialism are now on display:
Venezuela blackouts: 'We can't go on living like this'.  About the only thing that can be counted on around the clock at Gustavo Diaz's home these days is the gas stove.  The food in the fridge is spoiling.  The microwave oven sits unused.  The television is dark and the stereo system silent.  It's sweaty and uncomfortable inside, thanks to government-imposed electricity blackouts meant to deal with chronic power shortages across the country.  Even getting running water is a problem.

9/11 Memorial Is Super Sorry And Will Stop Banning Middle School Kids From Singing National Anthem.  The management at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City has now indicated that a pair of security guards acted improperly last week when they ordered a group of North Carolina middle school students to stop their choral rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner."  The guards had told the 51 Waynesville Middle School students — and a teacher conducting them — that their outburst of patriotism honoring dead Americans required a $35 performance permit.  Also, it turns out, the 9/11 Memorial — which reportedly spends $60 million each year to operate itself — takes 10 days to process each permit.

Why Puff the Magic Dragon Died Young.  A new study says early marijuana use could drastically cut life spans. [...] Somehow, I suspect that no matter unhealthy smoking marijuana should prove, our popular culture will never make Puff the Magic Dragon into the same kind of villainous product as cigarettes.  That's because the war against tobacco isn't only about health, but changing culture.  Ditto, the promotion of marijuana legalization.

Over Sixty Thousand Christians In America Gather Together To Fight Against Islam And The Islamic Persecution Of Christians.  Japan is reviving Shintoism, Zen Buddhism and emperor worship; Turkey is reviving Islam as its central religion and political objective and as well as Sufism; but Christians, they have thrown out their Faith for secularism, and envisage only secular war.  But this will not be the case in the future, when the lands of Christendom are surrounded by their enemies.  It is a sad reality that the spirit of zeal is truly only ignited in the midst of war.  In Russia, in Serbia and Poland, the flames of Christian militancy are growing, while they are still extinguished in the Western nations.  But this will soon change.

One of 12 in the World to Achieve a Perfect AP Calculus Score.  Seventeen-year-old Cedrick Argueta recently learned he's one of 12 young people in the world — out of 302,532 — to have gotten a perfect score on the Advanced Placement calculus AB exam.  "While I think talent is a big part of doing well, hard work definitely trumps that," he told a local news station, echoing what many researchers have said despite the widespread belief that stupendous academic skills are a fixed trait.

Controversial $400bn F-35 fighter jet now has computer 'brain' problem which could see entire fleet grounded.  The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has been hailed as the 'most expensive weapon in history.'  But despite a price tag of $400 billion for 2,457 planes, the fifth-generation fighter has been plagued with issues.  Now, a new report says problems with its logistics software system could ground the entire fleet.

Chinese man gets death for selling documents on encryption.  Chinese state media say a former computer technician has been sentenced to death for selling 150,000 classified documents to an unidentified foreign spy agency.

Here's someone who should know better, but he doesn't:
Ex-police commish caught carrying loaded gun in park.  A former Westchester County police commissioner was caught with a loaded gun without a permit in a park last week — but cops at the scene were ordered by higher-ups to let him go, law-enforcement sources told The [New York] Post.  Police responded to a report of a fight between two men at the Kensico Dam Plaza in Valhalla in Westchester on April 14 around 5:20 p.m.  There, they found former Mount Vernon Police Commissioner Terrance Raynor, and he fit the description of a suspect involved in the dispute, sources said.  But when cops tried to question Raynor, 52, he became "hostile and uncooperative," sources said.  He refused repeated requests to remove his hands from his pockets, according to sources.  When cops asked him for identification, Raynor, also the former chief criminal investigator for the Westchester District Attorney's Office, told them that he did not have to provide it.

Federal Park Ranger Mocks Founders, Constitution ... While Leading Tour of Independence Hall!.  A federal employee of the National Park Service who offers guided tours of Independence Hall in Philadelphia — the birthplace of the Constitution — stunned a group of tourists this week by telling them the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were the product of "class elites who were just out to protect their privileged status."  Mary A. Hogan, a federal employee making in excess of $95,000 per year in salary and benefits, provided a tour Monday afternoon [4/18/2016] at Independence Hall laced with factual inaccuracies and disparaging comments about the Founders and the Constitution.

McDonald's is testing giant and mini versions of its famous burger.  McDonalds are trialing a new version of their most famous burger for customers for whom the Big Mac, just isn't big enough.  The Grand Mac, made with a third pound of beef, two slices of cheese and salad on a huge sesame bun is being offered in Dallas and Ohio until June.  If the giant burger is a hit, the restaurant chain plans to roll them out nationwide.  The Grand Mac may be a way for the firm to catch up with its rivals who have begun offering bigger and bigger burgers over the years.

The Editor says...
The first time I ate a Big Mac, I was hooked.  The price was 48¢.

Lawmakers say Secret Service running out of agents.  Two lawmakers claimed Tuesday [4/19/2016] that the U.S. Secret Service may need to seek outside help to fulfill its mission because agents are leaving the agency faster than they can be replaced.  "USSS simply cannot hire enough personnel to keep pace with historic attrition rates," House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings of Maryland noted in a Tuesday letter to Secret Service director Joseph Clancy.

The Editor says...
Hmmm.  "[H]istoric attrition rates.  These guys see a lot of stuff that we don't, and I suspect they don't like what they see.

New housing boss makes $167k on top of $163k pension ... in same city.  Stanley Sanger's retirement didn't last long.  Neither did his time away from Union City, where he was born and raised, then worked for 41 years as a teacher, school principal and, not quite finally, as superintendent of schools.  After being credited with leading a turnaround of Union City's largely working class, urban district, Sanger retired after the 2013-14 school year, intending to live off his $167,000 school pension, and devote more time to his family and his fishing pole.  But then came some unexpected personal demands — which Sanger preferred to keep private — and when the executive director position at the Union City Housing Authority opened up with the retirement of Virgilio Cabello, Sanger applied for the job and got it.

F.B.I. Tells Panel It Needs Hackers to Keep Up With Tech Companies.  The F.B.I. defended its hiring of a third-party company to break into an iPhone used by a gunman in last year's San Bernardino, Calif., mass shooting, telling some skeptical lawmakers on Tuesday [4/19/2016] that it needed to join with partners in the rarefied world of for-profit hackers as technology companies increasingly resist their demands for consumer information.  Amy Hess, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's executive assistant director for science and technology, made the comments at a hearing by members of Congress who are debating potential legislation on encryption.  The lawmakers gathered law enforcement and Silicon Valley company executives to discuss the issue, which has divided technology companies and authorities in recent months and spurred a debate over privacy and security.

Sweden's deputy PM sparks outcry after describing the 9/11 Twin Towers attack as 'the September 11 accidents'.  Åsa Romson made the comments during an interview on Tuesday [4/19/2016], regarding the recent resignation of Sweden's Minister for Housing and IT after he compared Israel to Nazi Germany.  Romson, 44, of coalition partner the Green Party, commended Mehmet Kaplan on his work with young Muslims during 'tough situations like at the 11 September accidents'.

The Battle for Religious Freedom.  Georgia Republican Governor Nathan Deal recently vetoed H.B. 757, the Georgia Religious Liberty Bill.  The governor warned that he would veto any legislation that "allows discrimination in our state in order to protect people of faith."  He went on to tell fellow Republicans, who shepherded the bill that they should "recognize that the world is changing around us."  Governor Deal wasn't alone in issuing warnings about the bill.  Large corporations with a presence in the state threatened to pull operations out of Georgia if the bill passed.  Perhaps this was more on Governor Deal's mind than our changing world.

Report: Wikipedia retaliates against critics, blocks 1,000 IP addresses daily.  Wikipedia, the so-called people's encyclopedia that strives for even-handedness, "often" is edited with an agenda and retaliates against editors who see problems with entries by blocking their IP address, according to a new investigative report.  This Sunday's "Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson" includes two "Wikipedia insiders" who detail the retaliation, information control and conflicts of interest by the website, one of the most important on the web.

Andrew Jackson to be removed from the $20 bill and replaced by a prominent woman.  Treasury Secretary Jack Lew will announce this week that Alexander Hamilton will remain on the $10 bill and Andrew Jackson will be pushed off the $20 note in favor of a woman from American history, CNN said Saturday [4/16/2016].  The announcement will come around a year after an online petition called for Jackson to be replaced with a woman, and ten months after Lew announced he wanted to replace Hamilton instead.

Jack Lew nears decision to keep Hamilton on front of $10 bill, put a woman on the $20.  Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is expected to announce this week that Alexander Hamilton's face will remain on the front of the $10 bill and a woman will replace Andrew Jackson on the face of the $20 bill, a senior government source told CNN on Saturday [4/16/2016].  Lew announced last summer that he was considering redesigning the $10 bill to include the portrait of a woman.

Nagasaki mayor asks Obama to visit A-bombed city.  Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue on Wednesday [4/13/2016] said he handed a letter to U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy during a meeting in Tokyo, urging President Barack Obama to visit the atomic bombed city when he comes to Japan to attend the Group of Seven summit next month.  "Please express your country's steadfast determination to achieve the abolition of nuclear weapons through a message, stating that Nagasaki must be the last place to suffer the devastation they bring," the letter said.

The Editor says...
No American president should ever apologize for the use of atomic bombs against Japan in 1945.  Has Japan apologized for the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor?  Didn't the sole possession of atomic weapons turn America into a superpower in the 1950's?  Didn't the United States rebuild Japan after the war, turning it into the world's leading source of cheap toys and transistor radios?  Didn't the use of atomic bombs against Japan demonstrate to the world that atomic weapons will bring the most determined military force to its knees?  That would have been demonstrated sooner or later, and if not by us, then by someone with less likelihood of halting their use when the point had been made.

Ugliness all around as news leaks that Florida prosecutor won't take Corey Lewandowski to trial on battery charges.  Yesterday evening [4/13/2016], Politico provoked the "breaking news" chime on Fox News (and presumably elsewhere) with its report that Palm Beach County state attorney David Aronberg has decided not to bring Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski to trial on charges of simple battery brought by local police. [...] But far from ending the unpleasantness and letting the matter go away, this move has only led to further ugliness.

Here's how well socialism works:
Venezuela Is So Broke It Can't Even Print Its Own Money.  The world's most renowned banknotes, coins and paper printing house, De La Rue, based in England, demanded that the Central Bank of Venezuela pay up US$262,647,997 in fees for printing money and passports, among other goods.

Federal Court Rules That Spaghetti Is Not a Real Religion.  The United States District Court for the District of Nebraska ruled on Wednesday [4/13/2016] that worshipping spaghetti is not a religion.  The ruling was issued after a federal prisoner claimed that as a "Pastafarian," a member of a sect that worships a god known as the Flying Spaghetti Monster, his religious requests were not being respected by officials.  The pasta-shaped deity is a satiric creation rather than a genuine object of worship, the ruling said.

This Problem Could Push Much Of America Into Bankruptcy.  Puerto Rico's recent financial woes have deflected attention from a problem potentially far "yuger," as Donald Trump might say:  The $3.4 trillion black hole at the center of state and local pensions. [...] The problem is surprisingly simple:  States and cities overestimate returns on their pension fund investments, while systematically underfunding them.  The result is a growing deficit that will require massive tax hikes or dramatic and painful cuts in government services and promised pensions to public workers.

Medal of Honor recipients snubbed as warships named after liberal politicians.  As the Obama administration this week named another warship after a politician, a new report is circulating in Congress that shows that nearly 200 Navy and Marine Corps Medal of Honor recipients have never been awarded such an honor, contrary to naval guidelines and tradition.  Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, who has named several ships after Democrats and liberal activists not connected to the military, was in Detroit on Monday [4/11/2016] to announce that an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer will be named the USS Carl M. Levin.  The Michigan Democrat served 31 years in the Senate and chaired the Senate Armed Services Committee from 2007 to 2015.

Chase Bank Decides ATM Withdrawals Over $1000 Are Shady.  Not kidding.  Regular Americans must be stopped from taking out $1001 at a cash machine because it's probably shady, but Iran getting $150B is just fine.  The new ATM rule, f[o]r the moment, applies to non-Chase account holders.  Give it a little while and I bet it'll apply to Chase accounts sooner than later.

Sorority ditches Kentucky Derby party over "racial connotations".  Back in 2015, a group of Black Lives Matter protestors targeted an exclusive Kentucky Derby party hosted by the ladies of Kappa Delta Epsilon — calling the event overtly racist and "recreating an Antebellum South atmosphere on the Ivy League campus."  The protestors accused the party of being a "bastion of racism, exclusion and oppression."  They chanted, "What is Derby?  It's the face of genocide" and "What is Derby?  It's the face of police brutality."

Indiana University Students Mistake Priest for KKK Member.  On Monday [4/4/2016], students at Indiana University Bloomington mistook a priest for a Ku Klux Klan member, taking to social media to express their fear of the alleged Klansman, who they claimed was carrying a whip, and dressed in "white robes."  Rumors of a Klansman on campus were extinguished after it was pointed out that the passerby was actually a priest innocently making his way through Bloomington, Indiana.  When sighted on campus, students thought his white robes indicated an affiliation with the KKK.

Everyone mistook a priest for a KKK member.  Rumors of a klansman on campus have proven false after a priest innocently made his way through Bloomington.  Last night around 9:15 PM, social media became a furious storm of confusion regarding a man in white robes roaming along 10th St. and purportedly armed with a whip.  Students thought the white robes indicated Klu Klux Klan affiliation. [...] While the KKK has been active in the area in the past, it later became apparent this klansman armed with a whip was actually just a monk of the Dominican order in traditional white robes.  The "whip" he was holding may have been his rosary beads.

The Editor says...
The people making the false identification were university students.  Apparently none of them know a priest when they see one.  What does that tell you?

The Panama Papers Vindicate the NSA.  The NSA is recovering validation in another area, thanks to the "Panama Papers" reports on vast corruption in business and political elites around the world.  Those reports have shown in public what U.S. policymakers — via the NSA — have long known:  that many politicians around the world — elected and autocratic alike — are deeply corrupt.

Government Dysfunction Costs Lives.  Every year, more than half a million patients in the U.S.  are unknowingly put at risk of contracting a superbug infection during a common medical procedure.  A doctor threads a tube-like scope down your throat and into your digestive system to treat cancer and other problems.  You assume the tube is clean.  Think again. [...] The biggest problem is the unholy alliance between the hospital industry and complacent federal bureaucrats.  They all want to keep problems quiet.  Publicizing infections is bad for hospital revenues and erodes the public's misplaced confidence that the federal government is performing its oversight function.

Obama's Tax-And-Spend Budget Would Add $7.5 Trillion To Debt, CBO Report Shows.  President Obama's first budget as president declared that he was ushering in a "new era of responsibility."  His last budget as president shows that he's presided over an era of unprecedented fiscal irresponsibility.  That at least, is what the Congressional Budget Office's independent analysis of Obama's budget shows.  According to the CBO, Obama's budget would, if implemented, boost taxes by $2.8 trillion and increase spending by $401 billion over the next 10 years.  While it would trim 10-year deficits somewhat, annual deficits would climb every year after 2018, from $383 billion that year to nearly $1 trillion by 2026.

'Blunt' Obama: Drug Problem Was Ignored When It Was Hurting Minority Communities.  President Obama joined the National Rx Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit in Atlanta this afternoon [3/29/2016] to discuss the problems of drug addiction and the importance of treating it as a disease instead of a character flaw.  Obama explained at the summit that he was going to be "blunt," since his was in his last year of office, and he criticized people for ignoring the problem in the past.

The Editor says...
In my opinion as a non-doctor, drug abuse, alcoholism, and gluttony really are massive character flaws.  It is counterproductive to characterize them as incurable medical conditions.  The medicalization of character flaws is just an attempt to generate sympathy for the "victims" of drugs, alcohol and over-eating, who in reality are living with the consequences of their own poor judgment.

Library of Congress cancels 'illegal aliens' subject heading.  The Library of Congress is no longer using the heading "illegal aliens" in bibliographic records, thanks to a request from Dartmouth College students.

Library of Congress to Eliminate Terms 'Illegal Alien' and 'Alien'.  The Library of Congress is dropping the terms "illegal alien" and "alien" from its subject headings after a group of college students and the American Library Association protested the words' usage.  As early as May, the Library of Congress will begin revising its subject headings and replacing "Aliens" with "Noncitizens" and heading references to "Illegal aliens" with "Noncitizens" and "Unauthorized immigration."

Texas is trying to get rid of mandatory vehicle inspections. Should everyone?  The Texas branch of Watchdog.org has a good study out this week which looks at the question of state mandated vehicle safety inspections and if they are actually worth the money that is flushed into them every year.  The Lone Star State has been examining the question for a while now and their conclusions seem fairly obvious since this is the second time they've tried to do away with them.  As it turns out, there's a lot of money moving around but no real benefits in terms of safety and injuries or fatalities is evident.

Vehicle inspections should go, says state senator.  Last year Texas inspectors checked 19 million passenger cars.  That's more than 50,000 safety and emissions inspection trips seven days a week, and more than nine million hours spent by vehicle owners complying, according to Department of Public Safety figures.  The program returns just $125 million of the $275 million generated in fees back to the state.  But there has not been a single audit or study by the DPS chief auditor's office or the state auditor to determine if vehicle inspections have made Texans safer or allowed them to breathe easier.

Failed Reagan Assassin Secretly Lives In Lap Of Luxury, And Nobody Seems To Know.  The man responsible for shooting then-President Ronald Reagan spends much of his time in a posh, gated resort residence near Virginia's scenic James River located just outside of Williamsburg.  John Hinckley Jr., 60, could observe the 35th anniversary Wednesday of his attempted assassination of Reagan from a luxurious community astride the 13th hole of a PGA championship golf course, complete with a picturesque view of a tranquil lake, an investigation by The Daily Caller News Foundation has found.

John Hinckley Jr.  Could Become First Person Ever to Shoot President and Be Set Free.  Could John Hinckley Jr.  become the first person to ever shoot a president and then walk the streets again as a free man?  A judge is now considering the possibility, per a Fox 8 report.  Hinckley shot at President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981, hitting Reagan, press secretary James Brady, Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy and police officer Thomas Delahanty.  Brady was critically injured in the incident, eventually dying from his injuries in 2014.

They're 400,000 strong and the Pentagon sees them as an emerging threat.  The Pentagon, the world's largest user of drones, has posted a new policy on signs outside the mammoth five-sided building: No Drone Zone.  The signs, complete with a red slash through an image of a quadcopter drone, reflect America's growing concern about the proliferation of the small, inexpensive remote-controlled devices and the risk they pose to safety, security and privacy.  Federal law prohibits flying a drone anywhere in and around Washington, an area known as the National Capital Region.

Revealed: Clinton backer who called Trump 'divisive and inflammatory' is in charge of Trump aide prosecution in Florida.  The Florida-based prosecutor whose office will handle the battery case of Donald Trump's campaign manager is a Hillary Clinton supporter who once characterized the Republican frontrunner's rhetoric as 'divisive and inflammatory.'  Dave Aronberg, the 44-year-old State Attorney for Palm Beach County, was a former Democratic state senator and in November was named as part of Clinton's 'Florida Leadership Team.'  These political connections have caused Trump supporters to take to Twitter worrying that Corey Lewandowski, Trump's campaign manager who yesterday [3/29/2016] was charged with simple battery over an altercation with ex-Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields, wouldn't get a fair shake.

Dozens of drug criminals freed by Obama in clemency move designed to boost criminal justice reform.  All of the inmates are serving time for drug possession, intent to sell or related crimes.

Officers who shot unarmed black man Jamar Clark will NOT be charged because 'evidence shows they feared for their lives'.  Two Minneapolis police officers involved in the November fatal shooting of a black man will not be charged, a Minnesota prosecutor said Wednesday [3/30/2016].

Seoul says North Korea fires short-range missile into sea, jams GPS signals.  North Korea fired a short-range missile into the sea and tried to jam GPS navigation signals in South Korea on Friday [4/1/2016], Seoul officials said, hours after U.S., South Korean and Japanese leaders pledged to work closer together to prevent North Korea from advancing its nuclear and missile programs.

Men of Steal.  Here's what happens in Batman v.  Superman. [...] Lex Luthor knows that Superman is Clark Kent and Batman is Bruce Wayne.  How?  We aren't told how.  He also knows that a giant piece of kryptonite is in the South Seas.  How?  We aren't told how.  Bruce Wayne knows this, too.  How?  We aren't told how.  He just doesn't know that Lex Luthor is the guy who found it.  Why not?  We're not told why not.  Also, Wonder Woman is around.  She's been missing from the world stage since the end of the First World War, except that recently she used an ATM machine in France.  Why is Wonder Woman using an ATM machine?  We aren't told why.  And why, all of a sudden, is she in Gotham City?  We don't know why.  And since when is Gotham City across the bay from Metropolis?  We don't know since when.

As North Korea faces famine, Kim Jong-un balloons to 300 pounds.  The life of a tyrannical, murderous third-generation Communist dictator isn't all roses, apparently.  Kim Jong-un has really packed on the pounds, even as state media are warning his  slaves  subjects that they are going back to the bad old days of famine.  In the early 1990s, as many as one million North Koreans starved to death, and a generation of children were stunted in their growth, averaging a reported 4 inches shorter than their South Korean cousins.  So when they warn of tough times, North Koreans mean horror beyond the imagination of rich Americans, Japanese, South Koreans, or probably even Bangladeshis.

Cash or Digital Money, Personal Freedom or Globalism.  Sweden seemed to be at the forefront of the newest globalist scheme digital money v. cash, advocating a cashless global economy with a one-world currency.  A CBS World News article reported in 2012 that a small number of businesses in Sweden accepted only credit cards, including some churches, even though elderly people prefer cash, especially in rural areas.  Bjorn Ulvaeus, a former rocker, stated that cash encourages theft, citing his own son who was the victim of armed robbery three times.  Cheating and cash theft may have declined in Sweden but cybercrime around the world is indisputably on the rise.  Even though Sweden was the first European country to introduce bank notes in 1661, Ulvaeus would like Sweden to phase out cash altogether.

Japanese space agency loses track of $265 million satellite.  The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) lost contact with its ill-fated X-ray satellite, Hitomi, over the weekend.  The satellite, which was launched on February 17 and was calibrating its equipment before it was due to explore the universe, was supposed to start operating at 3:40 a.m. Eastern time on Saturday [3/26/2016].  But the spacecraft didn't send a signal to Earth at that time.  "Up to now, JAXA has not been able to figure out the state of health of the satellite," the agency said on Sunday.  JAXA says it is investigating what happened.

Israel's Democratic Collapse.  In states not controlled by a legal junta, as the people's elected representative it is the government's sole prerogative to determine the state's energy policy and to sign deals with foreign governments and investors.  But in Israel, the court gives standing to whoever it wants.  Given the radical pedigree of our justices — who have engineered a process where they appoint themselves — it was not surprising that the court permitted a group of unelected radicals to petition to destroy Israel's energy sector, and to cause the loss of hundreds of billions of shekels in future revenue to Israeli society.

Police trash man's home, take all electronic gear over alleged 'anti-Islam' tweet.  On Sunday [3/27/2016], the UK Telegraph reported that 46-year-old Matthew Doyle, of South Croydon, was initially charged by police with violating the Public Order Act 1986, a law basically designed to implement a form of Orwellian political correctness, after he tweeted about asking a Muslim woman he met to explain the Brussels terror attack.  The charges were dropped, however, primarily on procedural grounds.  It seems officers did not consult the attorney general's office before making the charge.  Nevertheless, he said his home had been ransacked and all of his electronic gear — computers, phones, etc., were confiscated.  All over a tweet.

Court bans father from taking son to church because ex-wife is Muslim.  On Sunday [3/27/2016], Breitbart.com reported that a British father was banned from taking his son to church because his ex-wife is Muslim.  The father, unidentified due to legal reasons, was also ordered to feed the child only halal food and must tell him he is a normal Muslim boy.  Worse yet, the father cannot take the boy to any Christian functions or even to a Christian building.  He could lose custody of the boy if he violates the ban, Breitbart added.  The father, Breitbart said, "was raised as a Muslim by his strict Pakistani immigrant parents" but left Islam and said he and his wife enjoyed a "Westernized" lifestyle.

Almost Entire City Council Arrested By FBI.  It was eerily quiet when Joel Barajas got to his office on Friday [3/25/2016].  That's because Joel was the only city council member inside the building.  The rest of them, as it happens, were in FBI custody.  Five top Crystal City, Texas officials were arrested on Thursday [2/4/2016].  A federal indictment accuses them of helping the operator of an illegal gambling operation and taking tens of thousands of dollars in bribes.

Some English Confectionaires Drop the Word 'Easter' From Chocolate Eggs.  How can you tell a civilization is dying?  When they try to appease the Barbarians at the Gate.  For a while, this tactic worked for Rome, which bought off various barbarian hordes so they wouldn't sack the city.  Unfortunately, some of those hordes eventually figured out that Rome was a paper tiger and would gratefully accept the ransom and then gleefully sack the city anyway.  What's happening in Great Britain as the dominant culture seeks to appease the unappeasable is that so much of what is being lost could have been saved if the powers that be actually believed in their own historic values.  Take away what made them great and they become less than ordinary, leaving themselves wide open to emotional exploitation.

Easter quietly dropped from Easter eggs.  Easter — the most important Christian festival of the year, celebrated by well over two billion people around the world — appears to be quietly disappearing:  at least when it comes to eggs.  Growing numbers of chocolate eggs are on sale in the UK without any mention of the word "Easter" on the front of the packaging.  Many of Britain's best known brands have quietly dropped the name of the Christian festival from their main branding, now selling Easter products labelled simply as "chocolate egg" or even "egg", it has been claimed.

The Editor says...
Easter eggs have nothing to do with Christianity, so this is a relatively minor concern.

French scream as US govt gives up the internet to ICANN.  The French government has slammed the agreement to move the domain name system out from under US control and hand it to Californian non-profit ICANN.  The French believe the move hands too much control to internet giants like Google and Amazon.  Speaking to leading French newspaper Le Monde, French government officials said that the transition plan will lead to the "privatization of ICANN, not its internationalization."  Axelle Lemaire, minister for the digital economy, put out a statement on Thursday which complained:  "Despite the continued efforts of civil society and many governments to reach a balanced compromise, elements of this reform project will marginalize States in the decision-making processes of ICANN, especially compared to the role of the private sector."

Interesting Lottery Terminal Hack.  The 5 Card Cash game was suspended in November after Connecticut Lottery and state Department of Consumer Protection officials noticed there were more winning tickets than the game's parameters should have allowed.  The game remains suspended.  An investigation determined that some lottery retailers were manipulating lottery machines to print more instant winner tickets and fewer losers.

Surrounded special forces hero blows up ISIS jihadis after calling in airstrike on himself.  The brave commando gave bomber jets his own co-ordinates after being trapped by a gang of evil Islamists whilst carrying out covert operations to disrupt their supply line.  His extraordinary bravery meant vital operational information did not fall into the jihadis' hands and also ensured that he took several of the group's twisted militants down with him.  The bloodthirsty Islamists were moving in to capture the stranded soldier following a fierce gunfight when they were surprised by the bombing raid and blown to hell.

The Editor says...
Yes, "blown to hell" — literally.

U.S. Marshals arrest 13,000 in sweep targeting 'worst' violent offenders.  The U.S. Marshals Service arrested more than 13,000 individuals with open warrants as part of a national operation aimed at targeting the "worst of the worst" violent, repeat offenders.  The Justice Department announced the results of the six-week fugitive sweep Wednesday [3/23/2016], which targeted individuals wanted for crimes like homicides, sex assaults and aggravated assaults.  Dubbed Operation Violence Reduction, the sweep focused on 12 cities currently combatting upticks in violent crime, including Baltimore; Washington, D.C.; Chicago; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and New Orleans.

The Editor says...
I don't know what else was going on that day, but I am of the opinion that operations of this sort are carefully timed and executed in a manner designed to divert the attention of the news media away from something else.

Men are fleeing Christianity, but embracing Islam.  A new study confirms what regular U.S. churchgoers have long known:  Women tend to outnumber men.  But the Pew Research Center report also says the phenomenon is not universal.  While Christian congregations may have difficulty keeping men in the pews, Islam faces no such trouble.  According to the study, less than one-third of American men say they go to church on a weekly basis, compared to 40 percent of American women.  But in 40 Islamic countries surveyed by Pew, 70 percent of Muslim men said they attend religious services at least once per week, compared to 47 percent of Muslim women.

The Editor says...
If I were a Muslim woman, I wouldn't be too excited about going to the local mosque, because of all this.

Muslim garb used in at least 12 Phoenix-area armed robberies.  Burka robberies (and burqa) are a growing trend in the U.S.  And they say Islam hasn't contributed anything to America.  This is not to say the robber(s) are Muslim, but thieves are clearly using the guise of Islamic clothing in their crimes.  Why?  Because even criminals are well-aware that law enforcement and civilians have been beaten down by Muslim supremacists into not speaking out for fear of being incorrectly labelled racist or Islamophobic.  In fact, one burka bandit described the Islamic head covering as the "perfect disguise".

Nixon Invented the Drug War to Decimate Hippies and Black People, Former Adviser Confesses.  President Richard Nixon launched the War on Drugs for one specific reason:  to decimate his perceived political enemies — the anti-war left, and black people.  That's according to an anecdote in a lengthy cover story for Harper's, in which journalist Dan Baum recounts an interview he conducted with John Erlichman, a former Nixon staffer who was jailed for one year due to his involvement in the Watergate scandal. [...] The dastardly plan failed only in the sense that Nixon ultimately lost — a victim of his criminal behavior and utter lack of scruples.  But the War on Drugs certainly brought ruin, poverty, and crime to minority communities, cost the nation outrageous sums of money, and expanded the scope of the federal government's oppressive power.

U.S. steps up fight over Yosemite names, asking trademarks be canceled.  The battle over Yosemite National Park trademarks is now sprawling across multiple fronts, and it could take more than a year to sort out.  Going on the offensive, the National Park Service has formally urged the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board to cancel the Yosemite-affiliated trademark registrations secured by the famed park's former concessionaire.  "These registrations are causing damage and injury to the National Park Service," Interior Department attorneys stated in a filing with the trademark board.

Clintons fiercely suppressing movie putting them in bad light.  Hillary Clinton's presidential aspirations may be threatened by a possible indictment over her email server, the loss of American lives in Benghazi and other scandals.  But the Clintons still wield enough power to suppress a movie that reflects poorly on her husband's administration 10 years after the only time it was allowed to be seen.  "The Path to 9/11" was written by Cyrus Nowrasteh, who confirmed to WND this week that the Clintons ordered the five-hour documdrama to be quashed after it drew a stunning 28 million viewers when it was aired by ABC amid controversy. [...] "The Path to 9/11" dramatizes the events leading to the 9/11 terror attacks, beginning with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.  It derived many of its scenes from the 9/11 Commission Report.  However, it was "never seen again," Nowrasteh said.

Top conservatives gather to plot third-party run against Trump.  Three influential leaders of the conservative movement have summoned other top conservatives for a closed-door meeting Thursday [3/17/2016]in Washington, D.C., to talk about how to stop Donald Trump and, should he become the Republican nominee, how to run a third-party "true conservative" challenger in the fall.  The organizers of the meeting include Bill Wichterman, who was President George W. Bush's liaison to the conservative movement; Bob Fischer, a South Dakota businessman and longtime conservative convener; and Erick Erickson, the outspoken Trump opponent and conservative activist who founded RedState.com.

Trump Volunteers Have to Promise Never to Insult Him for the Rest of Their Lives.  Donald Trump fans have to sign a contract promising to never insult the candidate for the rest of their lives if they want to volunteer for the campaign's phone bank.  NBC reported last week that Trump was making some volunteers to sign non-disclosure agreements before they were allowed to help the campaign.  "In a Thursday email inviting supporters for phone-banking at Trump Tower, the campaign tells supporters to attend a briefing and then 'sign your NDA' before volunteering begins," they reported.  On Tuesday [3/15/2016], The Daily Dot got their hands on the actual contract in question.

Keywords:  Egotist, thin-skinned, control freak, tyrant.

Donald Trump's volunteer contract forbids all criticism of Trump for life.  Donald Trump's campaign requires volunteers to sign a contract that forbids them from criticizing the Republican presidential front-runner, his family members, any Trump businesses or products, or his campaign.  The six-page contract, reviewed in full by the Daily Dot, theoretically lasts for the entirety of a volunteer's life.  Legal experts say, however, that the contract's non-disparagement clause would likely never hold up in court.

Hellfire Missiles Bound For Portland Oregon Intercepted in Europe.  This is the same type of missile recently admitted as being "accidentally" shipped to Cuba.  In a little discussed 2014 article, the Obama administration announced they were sending 5,000 of these missiles to Iraq.  Is it possible these sketchy transfers are lining up to be a similar problem evidenced in Operation Zero Footprint?

Senator hits NY's 'very dangerous' plan to give medical licenses to illegals.  A top Senate lawmaker and medical doctor on Tuesday ripped New York's new plan to let illegal immigrants become certified doctors and pharmacists, warning that it could lead to greater abuse of opioid prescriptions.

Windows 7 users complain of unprovoked Windows 10 auto-upgrades.  As Microsoft auto-upgrades more PCs to Windows 10, some users are complaining that they weren't adequately notified.  Reports of unwanted Windows 10 upgrades have been circulating for the past few days on Reddit and Twitter, after the last Patch Tuesday.  These users say they never approved or initiated the upgrade, and were dragged away from their Windows 7 (or perhaps Windows 8) installs anyway.

Pentagon seeks a few good computer hackers to test security.  Screened high-tech specialists will be brought in to try to breach the Defense Department's public Internet pages in a pilot program aimed at finding and fixing cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

The Editor says...
Excuse me for being perpetually skeptical, but in my opinion, this is a reverse trojan horse — a somewhat subtle sting job.  I doubt if the government is looking for help "finding and fixing cybersecurity vulnerabilities."  They're trying to identify all the most competent hackers by inviting them in to this contest.  Maybe a few will get government jobs, but I'll bet the rest will be under intense scrutiny for years to come.

Bitcoin's nightmare scenario has come to pass.  Over the last year and a half a number of prominent voices in the Bitcoin community have been warning that the system needed to make fundamental changes to its core software code to avoid being overwhelmed by the continued growth of Bitcoin transactions.  There was strong disagreement within the community, however, about how to solve this problem, or if the problem would ever materialize.  This week the dire predictions came to pass, as the network reached its capacity, causing transactions around the world to be massively delayed, and in some cases to fail completely.  The average time to confirm a transaction has ballooned from 10 minutes to 43 minutes.  Users are left confused and shops that once accepted Bitcoin are dropping out.

GAO Audit: Federal Government's Balance Sheet $18 Trillion in the Red.  At the end of Fiscal Year 2015, the federal government's liabilities exceeded its assets by more than $18 trillion, according to a February 26 audit report released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).  "The federal government's reported assets totaled about $3.2 trillion as of September 30, 2015, which was about $165 billion greater than the amount reported as of September 30, 2014," Gene Dodaro, comptroller general of the United States, wrote in a letter accompanying the audit report that was sent to President Obama and leaders of Congress.  "Its reported liabilities totaled about $21.5 trillion as of September 30, 2015, which was about $686 billion greater than the amount reported as of September 30, 2014," he continued, warning that "absent policy changes, the federal government continues to face an unsustainable long-term fiscal path."

Osama Bin Laden called for Americans to Fight Climate Change and 'Save Humanity'.  Osama bin Laden wrote a letter calling on the American people to help President Barack Obama fight "catastrophic" climate change and "save humanity", in the latest evidence of his worries about environmental issues, newly released documents show[.]  The letter was among materials that were seized in the May 2, 2011, U.S. raid on bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan that killed the al Qaeda chief and which were released on Tuesday [3/1/2016] by the Obama administration.

Drug dealers will be executed by force-feeding them their own supply under new rules being considered in Indonesia.  Drug dealers in Indonesia will be made to eat their own supply until they die if new rules are pushed through.  The country's National Narcotics Agency has suggested the punishment in a desperate bid to tackle growing drugs problems.  The proposal would strengthen already tough laws, which include death by firing squad if citizens are caught drugs trafficking.

Congressmen Have No Idea Why Special Operators Have To Pay Out Of Pocket For Basic Gear.  For reasons still unclear, elite special operators are often let down by their respective services and have to pay out of pocket for the most basic gear.  Private military suppliers have started to notice this phenomenon.  During a panel discussion on Capitol Hill Thursday [2/25/2016], heads of supply companies met with Congress to discuss the shortages and raise the issue with Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, Stars and Stripes reports.  In one case, former Navy SEAL Sean Matson had to pay $900 for an advanced ballistic helmet after the military measured his head four times but subsequently failed to provide him with the necessary equipment.  This same scenario has repeated itself with GPS devices and medical gear.

College bans energy drinks: 'They lead to high-risk sex'.  A Vermont college has banned the sale of energy drinks on campus because it said the drinks may lead to "problematic behavior" like "high-risk sexual activity" and alcohol abuse.  Middlebury College, in Middlebury, Vermont, also said the beverages may affect students' academic performance and lead to a culture of stress, Fox 2 Detroit reported.  The Middlebury Campus, the college's student newspaper, reported that the ban will take effect March 7.

Obama extends U.S. privacy protection to foreign citizens.  President Barack Obama signed into a law the Judicial Redress Act giving some European citizens recourse in U.S. courts to protect their personal data.  The Judicial Redress Act allows citizens of major U.S. allies, including the European Union, to pursue legal action against some U.S. agencies if their personal information is mishandled during a transatlantic criminal or terror investigation.  Under the Redress Act, private European citizens can sue some U.S. agencies for improperly disclosing their personal data.

Thousands Sign Online Petition Urging Kerry to Call Killing of Mideast Christians 'Genocide'.  More than 25,000 people have signed an online petition launched this week by the Knights of Columbus and In Defense of Christians asking Secretary of State John Kerry to designate the Islamic State's (ISIS or ISIL) systematic killing of Christians and members of other religious minority groups in the Middle East as "genocide."  The two groups are also launching a television advertising campaign calling for such a declaration, Andrew Walther, Knights vice president of media research and development, told CNSNews.com.

This is great news, because some Republican is sure to be nominated.
The View's Raven-Symonè Vows to Leave US 'If Any Republican Gets Nominated'.  Thursday [2/25/2016] on ABC's "The View," co-host Raven-Symonè declared she would leave the United States for Canada if a Republican is "nominated."  Symonè said, "My confession for this election is if any Republican gets nominated, I'm gonna move to Canada with my entire family.  Is that bad?"  When pressed she added, "I already have my ticket ... No, I literally bought my ticket, I swear."

Appeals court dismisses Rick Perry's criminal case.  The state's top criminal court on Wednesday [2/24/2016] threw out the remaining criminal charge against Rick Perry, sparing the former governor from trial and a potential prison sentence on a felony charge of misusing the power of his office.  The charge, related to Perry's 2013 threat to veto money for Travis County prosecutors in an attempt to force District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg from office, violated the Texas Constitution's separation of powers provision by improperly limiting the governor's veto authority, the Court of Criminal Appeals said in a 6-2 ruling.

A 'progressive' bully strikes again.  What do most Republican presidential candidates have in common with dozens of Christian, pro-family and patriotic organizations?  They're prominently featured in the Southern Poverty Law Center's latest report, "The Year in Hate and Extremism."

Can you imagine Reagan or Eisenhower or JFK putting up with this?

Russia to fly high-tech spy jets over the US in surveillance loophole.  Moscow is to ask permission to the Open Skies Consultative Commission on Monday [2/22/2016] to fly the surveillance planes.  However, Washington fears that Moscow is trying to gather intelligence on the US by flying the jets.  The planes have powerful digital cameras, which officials worry could be used to help Moscow gather sensitive intelligence.

Russia wants to fly over US with advanced digital camera.  Russia will ask permission on Monday to start flying surveillance planes equipped with high-powered digital cameras amid warnings from U.S. intelligence and military officials that such overflights help Moscow collect intelligence on the United States.

An Island of Rattlesnakes: What Could Go Wrong?  There was a time when human beings had a pretty clear idea of who their friends and enemies were.  Rattlesnakes were definitely in the latter category.  Political figures like Ronald Reagan and Rick Perry earned credit by shooting them, as I recall — or at least being prepared to do so.  But that was then, and this is the bizarrely perverse now.  In Massachusetts, government officials worry that they don't have enough rattlesnakes.

Oh, good.  A rattlesnake refuge.  Because you can never have too many rattlesnakes!
Massachusetts plans venomous rattlesnake colony on island.  A plan by the state to establish a colony of venomous timber rattlesnakes on an off-limits island in Massachusetts' largest body of water has some rattled by visions of dangerous serpents slithering through the surrounding woods, attacking hikers, fishermen and hunters.  Those are completely irrational fears based on the public's aversion to snakes, said Tom French of the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, who's directing the project at the 39-square mile Quabbin Reservoir and representing the state at a public meeting Tuesday [2/23/2016] to address the concerns.

Because they taste like chicken!

Massachusetts Plans Rattlesnake Colony on Uninhabited Island.  A plan by the state to establish a colony of venomous timber rattlesnakes on an off-limits island in Massachusetts' largest body of water has some rattled by visions of dangerous serpents slithering through the surrounding woods, attacking hikers, fishermen and hunters.

Uncle Bernie Sanders Is Brainwashing Our Uneducated Youth.  People are fleeing Venezuela at the rate of one million a year.  According to Forbes, the South American country's inflation rate is a staggering 808%!  But don't blame the USA for this.  Unlike with Cuba, we are still the number one importer of Venezuelan oil and the number one exporter of goods to that benighted country.  We essentially support Venezuela, even though it has been led sequentially by rancid America-hating despots like Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro.

Hospital pays nearly $17,000 in bitcoins to hackers who disabled computer network.  A Los Angeles hospital paid a ransom of nearly $17,000 in bitcoins to hackers who infiltrated and disabled its computer network because paying was in the best interest of the hospital and most efficient way to solve the problem, the medical center's chief executive said Wednesday [2/17/2016].  Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center CEO Allen Stefanek said the hackers demanded a ransom of 40 bitcoins, currently worth $16,664.  The FBI is investigating the attack, which began on Feb. 5.

Report: U.S. Cannot Protect Homeland From Iranian, North Korean Missile Strikes.  The United States remains incapable of fully protecting the homeland from ballistic missile strikes from North Korea and Iran, despite spending billions to develop a missile defense system that remains unproven and unfinished, according to a government oversight report.  The U.S. Missile Defense Agency, or MDA, continues to sink billions of taxpayer dollars into technology that is not proven to be capable of handling an onslaught of ballistic missile strikes from Iran or North Korea, according to the report, which was issued Tuesday [2/16/2016] by the Government Accountability Office.

Zika 'hysteria' is way ahead of research into virus, says expert.  One of the world's leading virologists has warned against public hysteria surrounding the Zika virus, saying global health authorities need to focus more broadly on prevention of infectious diseases rather than finding a cure for specific outbreaks.  Leslie Lobel, an Israeli physician who has worked with the US military and the Uganda Virus Research Institute to try to find a vaccine for Ebola, believes public panic over epidemics can cause more damage than the diseases themselves.

Architect of 2008 bailout says US banks still pose 'nuclear' threat to economy.  America's biggest banks present a "nuclear" threat to the US economy and should be broken up, a Federal Reserve policymaker and architect of the 2008 banking bailout said Tuesday [2/16/2016].  Neel Kashkari, the head of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve, said the US's biggest banks were still "too big too fail" and Congress should consider "bold transformational solutions to solve this problem once and for all".  "I believe the biggest banks are still too big to fail and continue to pose a significant, ongoing risk to our economy," Kashkari said in his first public speech since becoming a Fed policymaker in January.

Stray electronic-magnetic leaks used to harvest PC crypto keys.  Israeli security researchers have been able to extract encryption keys from a nearby computer by analysing stray electromagnetic radiation.  The attack by computer scientists from Tel Aviv University shows that TEMPEST-style side channel attacks are no longer just the preserve of Mission Impossible and three-letter spy agencies.

ISIS is broke, and only accepting payments in US dollars.  Faced with a cash shortage in its so-called caliphate, the Islamic State group has slashed salaries across the region, asked Raqqa residents to pay utility bills in black market American dollars, and is now releasing detainees for a price of $500 a person.

'Deafening silence:' Obama, 2016 Dems mum on recent police deaths.  A Fargo police officer fatally shot responding to a routine domestic disturbance call.  A 25-year police veteran killed while trying to serve a warrant outside Atlanta.  These are just the latest tragedies of cops murdered while performing their sworn duty — "to protect and serve."  But while President Obama and the Democratic candidates vying to succeed him are putting America's police departments on trial in the court of public opinion in response to a rash of deadly police shootings, the murder of police officers on America's streets is being met with a "deafening silence."

Top terror groups [are] focused on targeting planes, DHS secretary says.  Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson warned Thursday [2/11/2016] that terror groups remain focused on targeting aviation, on the heels of an attempted bombing last week in Somalia — and after the top U.S. intelligence official warned that the Islamic State will try to attack the U.S. this year.  Johnson, delivering his final State of Homeland Security address, stressed that his department is moving to reduce the number of access points to airport employees to reduce any insider threat.

US Congress locks and loads three anti-encryption bullets.  US Congress is preparing no fewer than three new bills over the ongoing encryption debate:  one banning end-to-end encryption, one setting up a commission to review the issue, and a third to make sure that it is Congress that gets to decide what happens next.  Leading member of the Senate Intelligence Committee Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) — who has been criticized for being too close to the NSA — has said she will introduce a new bill that will impose limits on encrypted devices.

Tin cans found 'reinforcing' concrete walls of high-rise building which collapsed in Taiwan quake.  The only high-rise building to have collapsed in the Taiwanese city of Tainan following a major earthquake on Saturday seems to have had serious constructions flaws.  The collapse has exposed cooking-oil cans embedded inside the building's concrete walls.  Witnesses at the scene have told Reuters that they saw large rectangular, commercial cans of cooking-oil packed inside the wall cavities of the 17-story Wei Guan Golden Dragon Building, apparently having been used as building material.

Caution:  Clinton anecdote.  May not have happened.
Chelsea Clinton says she left the pro-life Baptist church at age six because they talked about abortion in Sunday school.  Chelsea Clinton claims she left a Baptist church as a child because they started talking about abortion in Sunday when she was just six years old.  Chelsea made the comment at a recent fundraiser for her mother Hillary Clinton in an attempt to address evangelicals who question her mother's faith in God and secular voters who say she's too religious, according to The New York Post.  A Democrat shared Chelsea's speech with a Post reporter who did not specify where the campaign fundraiser took place.

Pharma Bad Boy Martin Shkreli Is a Big Democrat Donor.  Democrats have castigated [Martin] Shkreli for hiking the price of a potentially lifesaving drug by more than 5,000 percent.  Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, berated Shkreli during the hearing:  "I call this money blood money ... coming out of the pockets of hardworking Americans," he said indignantly.  Cummings might be interested to know that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign in July 2015 took $33,400 of Shkreli's "blood money."

Biggest Drug Bust In NJ History Tied To Mexican Cartels.  A historic drug bust led by multiple authorities from New York and New Jersey has resulted in the seizure of $2.4 million worth of heroin and the arrest of four dealers tied to Mexican drug cartels.

What the government is still hiding about the JFK assassination.  More than five decades after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, thousands of government files detailing the activities and testimony of shadowy spies, long-deceased witnesses and others with possible knowledge of the events remain shielded from public view.  The government gave a first-ever peek at what's still out there Thursday [2/4/2016], as the National Archives released a list of the 3,063 documents that have been "fully withheld" since JFK's murder in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.

Erika Lopez, first Tenn. woman to enlist for combat role, goes AWOL from Army.  The first woman in Tennessee and the fourth in the nation to enlist as a combat engineer in the Army went AWOL last month and is now considered a deserter, according to a military spokesperson.  Erika Lopez made headlines in July when she enlisted for a role that could put her on the front lines of battle, just after the U.S. Army lifted its ban on women in combat roles.  Ms. Lopez was in basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, by September but was placed on convalescent leave by the end of the year, according to a local CBS affiliate.

National debt hits $19 trillion.  The national debt hit $19 trillion for the first time ever on Friday [1/29/2016], and came in at $19.012 trillion.  It took a little more than 13 months for the debt to climb by $1 trillion.  The national debt hit $18 trillion on Dec. 15, 2014.

Dutch Police Are Teaching Eagles How to Capture Renegade Drones.  As quadcopters and other remote controlled flying devices becomes [sic] more popular — and laws against them become more restrictive — law enforcement is left with the challenge of taking increasingly large numbers of law-breaking drones out of the sky.  Some agencies opt for anti-drone drones.  The military can usually just shoot 'em down.  But the Dutch have an clever solution:  trained eagles.

Why Dip Buyers Will Get Clobbered: The US Economy Isn't Doing "Just Fine".  [Scroll down]  For example, consider the allegedly robust condition of auto sales.  During the last 12 months, retail sales of autos were up 6.1% or by $65 billion.  But then again, auto loan paper outstanding was up by nearly $90 billion!  That's right.  Auto lenders — especially the legions of subprime nonbank operations that have sprung up with junk bond financing — have been extending credit to anyone who can fog a rear view mirror.  Indeed, since mid-2010 when the auto recovery incepted, auto credit outstanding is up by $340 billion or by 90% of the $375 billion gain in auto sales.

The admiral in charge of Navy intelligence has not been allowed to see military secrets for years.  For more than two years, the Navy's intelligence chief has been stuck with a major handicap:  He's not allowed to know any secrets.  Vice Adm. Ted "Twig" Branch has been barred from reading, seeing or hearing classified information since November 2013, when the Navy learned from the Justice Department that his name had surfaced in a giant corruption investigation involving a foreign defense contractor and scores of Navy personnel.  Worried that Branch was on the verge of being indicted, Navy leaders suspended his access to classified materials.  They did the same to one of his deputies, Rear Adm. Bruce F. Loveless, the Navy's director of intelligence operations.

Drug traffickers secretly shipping mass quantities of weed out of Colorado.  Seeking a safe haven in Colorado's legal marijuana marketplace, illegal drug traffickers are growing weed among the state's sanctioned pot warehouses and farms, then covertly shipping it elsewhere and pocketing millions of dollars from the sale, according to law enforcement officials and court records consulted by The Associated Press.

Fox's News Corp Is a Major Donor to the Clintons.  21st Century Fox/News Corp. ranks ninth on the list of the top "corporate and union donors to the Clintons over two decades," according to a little-noticed list compiled by The Wall Street Journal in 2014.  The list counts donations from "companies, foundations, and employees."  21st Century Fox also ranks as the 13th biggest contributor to Hillary Clinton during her political career, according to a database maintained by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Report: 7-Year-Old Children Mining Cobalt for Apple, Microsoft, and Samsung Products.  In recent years, activists and independent media have brought attention to "conflict minerals," key components in technology that are often sourced from war-torn countries.  And a recent report from a major human rights group sounds the alarm on a largely overlooked metal that's being mined by thousands of children and underpaid adults in Africa.  Amnesty International issued the results of its detailed investigation into the sourcing of cobalt, a rare metal that forms a crucial ingredient of lithium-based rechargeable batteries, in a Jan. 19 report.  According to the authors, more than half the world's cobalt comes from Congo, including at least 20 percent which comes from so-called "artisanal miners" in the southern part of the country.

This fake swimming pool messes with your mind.  Argentinian artist Leandro Erlich created a mind-bending exhibit at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan that gives visitors the illusion that people are submerged in nine feet of water. [...] Erlich's work tries to "undermine the human senses," and "enter into relationships with spaces, and grasp reality."

With 22.3 million digits, new prime number sets record.  Mathematicians at the University of Central Missouri have discovered a record-setting prime number that's so large it would take about 6,000 pages of paper to print, the school announced Thursday [1/21/2016].

Lawyer Challenging Ted Cruz Eligibility Was Suspended From Practice of Law.  A birther lawsuit challenging Ted Cruz's eligibility was filed today [1/15/2015] in federal court in Texas.  I had previously written that such a lawsuit challenging the eligibility would most certainly lack standing and would be frivolous.  The lawyer who filed the complaint, Newton B. Schwartz, Sr., had been suspended from the practice of law by two separate states for disciplinary infractions.

Bitcoin Declared An "Inescapable Failure".  Bitcoin, a distributed and decentralised digital currency dubbed "the currency of the Internet", has been declared a failure by one of its most ardent supporters and developers.  In a lengthy post on Medium, Mike Hearn states that "despite knowing that Bitcoin could fail all along, the now inescapable conclusion that it has failed still saddens me greatly."  This comes as unfortunate timing as PayPal appoints Fintech figure and bitcoin entrepreneur Wences Casares to its board this week.  "I am honored to serve on the board of an iconic global company dedicated to driving the transformation of money on a global scale.  I look forward to working together with the PayPal board and leadership team to continue to deliver their compelling vision," Casares said.

Pope: "...all of the major religions are different paths to the same God." Really?  We have a dictator wannabe sitting in the White House who not only has fundamentally changed the United States but has encouraged and supported the spread of Islam throughout the world.  Islam, a so-called religion that has but one goal; domination!  Barack Obama has openly supported the Muslim Brotherhood an Islamist organization whose sole purpose in life is to destroy western civilization... since their founding in 1928! [...] And now we have a Pope that some have already declared, "The Pope from hell" who seems to be encouraging a fundamental change in Catholicism.

One World Religion: Pope Francis Says All Major Religions Are 'Meeting God In Different Ways'.  A new video has just been released in which Pope Francis very clearly expresses his belief that all of the major religions are different paths to the same God.  He says that while people from various global faiths may be "seeking God or meeting God in different ways" that it is important to keep in mind that "we are all children of God".  This is the most recent example that shows that the Pope has completely abandoned any notion that a relationship with God is available only through Jesus Christ.  As he has done throughout his papacy, he continues to lay the groundwork for the coming one world religion, and yet hardly anyone seems upset by this.  When I first heard of this new video, I was so stunned that I thought that it might be a joke.  But the truth is that this video is very real.

Two Months Later, Still No Answers in Death of Vladimir Putin Crony.  In early November, Russian millionaire Mikhail Lesin was found dead in a Washington, D.C., hotel room.  Lesin was very useful to Russian President Vladimir Putin in life, and his mysterious demise was extraordinarily well-timed.  Two months later, there are still no official answers to questions about how he died or what he was doing in Washington, D.C. [...] He was known as "The Bulldozer," and what he bulldozed was opposition media in Russia, which had been almost entirely replaced by State-funded, state-friendly, and outright state-controlled outlets by the time he was done.

Acting Army secretary steps aside amid Guantanamo fight.  The Pentagon on Monday [1/11/2016] announced that acting Army Secretary Eric Fanning is stepping aside temporarily while he awaits confirmation by the Senate.  Fanning was nominated as Army secretary in September but was designated as "acting" secretary after the former Army secretary retired in October.  The Pentagon said some members of the Senate Armed Services Committee expressed concerns over Fanning's designation pursuant to the Vacancies Act.

Was Putin's Media Chief Ready to Snitch Before He Dropped Dead?  When police found Mikhail Lesin dead in a Washington, D.C., hotel room, the most interesting question wasn't the cause of his demise, but what he was doing in the United States in the first place.  The former propaganda chief for Russian president Vladimir Putin, nicknamed "the bulldozer" for his history of rolling over his opposition, Lesin had been under scrutiny by the FBI and the Justice Department for potential money laundering and violation of corruption laws.  Lesin was suspected of hiding ill-gotten gains in nearly $30 million worth of luxury real estate in southern California, an astounding set of assets for a man supposedly collecting a civil servant's salary.  He'd also been considered for sanctions that would have prevented him from obtaining a visa to enter the United States.

Obama Has Killed Public's Trust In Government.  A new Gallup poll finds that the public ranks "government" as the top problem facing America today.  They put it above the economy, above unemployment, and way above immigration.  When Obama took office in 2009, government ranked fourth on the list of problems, but it has moved up steadily and has held the top spot for two years now.  Government wasn't even on the list of problems in George W. Bush's last year in office.  Gallup's data show that the share who rank government as their top concern climbed from 7% when Obama was sworn in to 16% in 2015.

Donald Trump's brilliant Ted Cruz birther strategy.  Say what you will about Donald Trump, but the man is not stupid.  Particularly when it comes to how to play the political game.  Witness how he has injected the idea — that nominating Ted Cruz might be a dangerous thing for Republicans because of the fact that the Texas senator was born in Canada — into the daily narrative this week.  The idea first came up in an interview with The Washington Post published on Tuesday [1/5/2016].

CIA Fooled by Massive Cold War Double-Agent Failure.  The CIA was fooled by scores of double agents pretending to be working for the agency but secretly loyal to communist spy agencies during the Cold War and beyond, according to a former CIA analyst, operations officer, and historian.  The large-scale deception included nearly 100 fake CIA recruits in East Germany, Cuba, as well as the Soviet Union (and later Russia) who supplied false intelligence that was passed on to senior U.S. policymakers for decades.  "During the Cold War, the Central Intelligence Agency bucked the law of averages by recruiting double agents on an industrial scale; it was hoodwinked not a few but many times," writes Benjamin B. Fischer, CIA's former chief historian.

Turkish Man Held in Preventive Detention for Insulting Erdogan on Facebook.  A Turkish court ordered preventive detention for a 17-year-old young man for insulting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on his Facebook account, Dogan news agency reported on Monday [12/28/2015].  After the Turkish authorities checked the account's content, the teenager was arrested by the police and taken to court, which issued its decision.  The Turkish criminal code stipulates sentences of between one and four years in prison for insulting the president.

The Editor says...
See?  This is why I stay away from all forms of "social media."  It's nothing but trouble!

Powerball exec Charles Strutt quietly quits post as nationwide investigation into lottery rigging grows.  A prominent lottery official who has run the Powerball game since its inception was quietly removed from his 28-year post leading the Multi-State Lottery Association after a jackpot-fixing scandal inside his organization got bigger, according to a document obtained by The Associated Press.

Declassified Cold War files reveal America's extensive nuclear target list.  The 800 pages of documents from a 1956 plan known as the "Atomic Weapons Requirements Study" were released by the National Archives and published this week for the first time by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.  "As far as can be told, no comparable document has ever been declassified for any period of Cold War history," the organization said, while calling the Strategic Air Command study a "chilling" document depicting plans to attack population centers filled with civilians.  The study includes thousands of targets or "designated ground zeros" — spanning 1,200 cities.

FAA Finally Admits Names And Home Addresses In Drone Registry Will Be Publicly Available.  The FAA finally confirmed this afternoon that model aircraft registrants' names and home addresses will be public.  In an email message, the FAA stated: "Until the drone registry system is modified, the FAA will not release names and address.  When the drone registry system is modified to permit public searches of registration numbers, names and addresses will be revealed through those searches."  I've been trying to get to the bottom of whether names and home addresses of model aircraft or hobby drone owners — including children as young as 13 — will be made available by the FAA to the public once the FAA's new unmanned aircraft registry goes live on Monday [12/21/2015].

Sheldon Adelson's stealth purchase: Why owning a Vegas paper shouldn't be secret.  It's downright bizarre: A newspaper struggling to figure out who its owner is.  And yet that's what unfolded at the Las Vegas Review-Journal, complete with tweets from staffers asking "who's our daddy."  We now know the mystery buyer was Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino mogul who is a major-league donor in Republican politics.

Insider allegedly hacked lottery software in multiple states.  If you use insider knowledge for your own gain, it could land you in hot water... especially if you hacked the computers at your job to get the information you need.  At least that's what Eddie Tipton, Multi-State Lottery Association's former security director, is being accused of.  Tipton allegedly used a rootkit — a malicious software that activates when a computer boots up — to know a drawing's winning numbers in advance.  He'd then ask an accomplice to buy the winning ticket and to collect the money afterward.  He was already convicted of fraud for tampering the lottery in Iowa, but he allegedly tinkered with more drawings in four states within the course of six years.  Authorities believe he may be involved in even more instances of fraud, though.

Jackpot-fixing inquiry spreads to 5th state as prosecutor says insider fixed 2 Kansas prizes.  The former security chief for a national group that operates state lotteries personally bought two prize-winning tickets in Kansas worth $44,000, investigators said Monday [12/21/2015], bringing to five the number of states where he may have fixed games to enrich himself and associates.

Jackpot-Fixing Investigation Expands to More State Lotteries.  The allegations read like a movie plot:  a lottery industry insider installs undetectable software giving him advance knowledge of winning numbers, then enlists accomplices to play those numbers and collect the jackpots.

Most cancer cases due to lifestyle choices, not 'bad luck,' study suggests.  Between 70 and 90 percent of cancer cases are linked to avoidable lifestyle choices like exposure to radiation and toxic chemicals, suggests a study published online Wednesday [12/16/2015] in the journal Nature.  That conclusion, drawn from researchers at Stony Brook University in New York, adds to ongoing study of the causes of cancer and individuals' ability to reduce their risk.  It also challenges findings published in the journal Science earlier this year that suggested most cancer cases are primarily due to "bad luck."

2,009-Page, $1,205,146,000,000 Republican Spending Deal Allows Funding of Planned Parenthood.  The 2,009 page fiscal 2016 spending deal that the Republican House leadership released today [12/16/2015] authorizes $1,205,146,000,000 in federal outlays between now and the end of fiscal 2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and it does not prohibit funding of Planned Parenthood, according to the House Appropriations Committee.  The spending bill is paired with a separate 233-page tax bill.

Today's terror threat level:  Woo-woo-woo-ding-ding-woo-woo-woo!
DHS Unveils New Terror Warning System, Issues First 'Bulletin'.  The Department of Homeland Security has a new terrorism advisory system, aimed at providing updates about potential threats to the American people.  It issued its first "Bulletin" warning Wednesday [12/16/2015].

Massive spending agreement reached; 2,009-page bill spends $572 million per page.  The new spending deal reached early Wednesday morning spans more than 2,000 pages, spends $1.149 trillion — and lawmakers will have only a few days to digest it all before they're asked to vote on the legislation, which lays out Congress's priorities for the rest of fiscal year 2016.  It works out to nearly $572 million per page, with lawmakers splashing money throughout the government, boosting both popular and unpopular programs alike, thanks to a spending hike agreed to in October's budget deal.

Where Did All the Money Shaun King Raised for Black Lives Go?  Shaun King is very good at raising money in support of black lives and one of those lives might be his own.  King, one of the most visible faces of the Black Lives Matter movement and no stranger to controversy, is now beating back accusations that he has misappropriated or mismanaged charitable funds.  King collected millions of dollars for everyone from Haitian orphans to the families of black men and children killed by police across America.  Some of that money went to survivors or victims' families, but much of the largess either went into failed projects, King's own pockets, or is unaccounted for.

Black Lives Matter leaders duke it out over disappearing charity money.  Are there cracks appearing in the far flung leadership of the Black Lives Matter movement?  One might imagine that inside any disparate political organization, disputes will eventually arise over the message, the strategy, priorities or any of several key management issues.  The same thing happened to the Occupy movement when they were unable to reach a consensus of Up Twinkles on who was supposed to clean out the rape tents in New York City.  The organization never really recovered.

Navy's Newest Ship, USS Milwaukee, Breaks Down at Sea.  The littoral combat ship USS Milwaukee, the Navy's newest ship that was commissioned in Milwaukee in November, broke down at sea Friday [12/11/2015] and had to be towed more than 40 nautical miles to a base in Little Creek, Va., the Navy Times reported.

Plumber's old truck spotted in ISIS video.  A Texas plumber who was flooded with threats after his old truck — still emblazoned with his company's name — was seen driven by ISIS thugs in Syria has armed himself and is suing a Ford dealer.  Mark Oberholtzer of Mark-1 Plumbing said a jihadi tweeted a photo of a fighter shooting an anti-aircraft gun on the Ford 2005 F-250 in December 2014 with the company logo and phone number still visible.  The nasty calls started pouring in, up to 200 a day.

Global Supermarkets Selling Shrimp Peeled by Slaves.  Despite repeated promises by businesses and government to clean up the country's $7 billion seafood export industry, an Associated Press investigation has found shrimp peeled by modern-day slaves is reaching the U.S., Europe and Asia.

Why you should wrap your keys in aluminum foil.  Your car is always listening.  Not for your voice, like the Amazon Echo or Siri, but for an electronic signal, such as the coded "unlock" signal from your electronic key fob.  If it's a newer car model, you might not have to press any buttons; just approach your car and the doors will unlock automatically.  In some cars, the engine will even turn on.  Wirelessly unlocking your car is convenient, but it comes at a price.  Criminals can easily intercept the key fob's signal and open your car without setting off any alarms.  If you have a true keyless car model, they might be able to just drive away.

Treasury Department delays decision on which woman to put on $10 bill.  Treasury Secretary Jack Lew won't be deciding which woman to feature on the next $10 dollar bill until 2016, after initially saying he would finalize a pick by the end of the year, a Treasury spokesperson tells CBS News.

The Editor says...
I'm still rooting for Mary Jo Kopechne.

The untold story of the campus 'rape crisis'.  [Scroll down]  This all began several years ago with the study that presented the "1 in 5" statistic.  The Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) went to work.  They used Title IX law — which forbids discrimination on the basis of sex.  They argued that harassment, assault, rape, rob a student of their right to their education.  President Obama and Vice President Biden decried the "rape crisis" on our nation's campuses, and the OCR issued its "Dear Colleague" letter, which directed college administrations to take the issue on forcefully — and prove they were doing so — or risk losing their federal funding.  In just over 12 months there has been a more than 100 percent jump in the number of colleges and universities being investigated by the DOE for being lax in pursuing this problem.

U.S. Army changing dog tags for first time in 40 years.  For the first time in 40 years, the U.S. Army is making changes to a century-old piece of hardware, dog tags, the identification implements that hang around each soldier's neck.  For a low-tech thing like the aluminum dog tag, the reason for the change is decidedly high-tech, the threat of identity theft.  On the new dog tags, the service member's Social Security number will be replaced with a randomly-generated, 10-digit Department of Defense identification number.

India's capital limits drivers to alternate days to curb dire pollution.  The Delhi government announced a plan Friday [12/4/2015] to curb the capital's pollution levels, among the worst in the world, by limiting drivers to alternate days beginning next month.  From Jan. 1, residents of the city, which had been choking in thick smog in recent days, will be able to drive only every other day according to their license plate numbers — odd numbers on one day, even numbers on the other. [...] New Delhi's air — a noxious combination of exhaust, dust, smoke from wood and dung-fired stoves, burning leaves and industrial output — surpassed Beijing's last year as the dirtiest in the world, according to a study by the World Health Organization.

Russia Is Planning To Build A Permanent Manned Base On The Moon.  Russia's space agency is planning to build a manned moon base — launching modules into space on six separate rockets.  Russia plans to launch a lunar probe in 2024 which will scout possible locations — before landing a man on the moon in 2030.  Construction of the Luna 25 lander has already begun, the official state news agency Tass has reported.  Once the components are in place, assembly of the moon base will continue over ten years.

The Editor says...
By all means, the U.S. should let Russia spend money on pointless trips to the moon, because there is no strategic advantage to a permanent lunar presence, and it siphons money out of Russia's government that would otherwise be used (presumably) on a military buildup.

Researchers find new phase of carbon, make diamond at room temperature.  Researchers from North Carolina State University have discovered a new phase of solid carbon, called Q-carbon, which is distinct from the known phases of graphite and diamond.  They have also developed a technique for using Q-carbon to make diamond-related structures at room temperature and at ambient atmospheric pressure in air.

Addicted to Distraction.  Addiction is the relentless pull to a substance or an activity that becomes so compulsive it ultimately interferes with everyday life. By that definition, nearly everyone I know is addicted in some measure to the Internet. [...] The brain's craving for novelty, constant stimulation and immediate gratification creates something called a "compulsion loop."  Like lab rats and drug addicts, we need more and more to get the same effect.  Endless access to new information also easily overloads our working memory.  When we reach cognitive overload, our ability to transfer learning to long-term memory significantly deteriorates.  It's as if our brain has become a full cup of water and anything more poured into it starts to spill out.

Donors gave a super PAC $6 million.  Candidates actually got about $140,000.  [Many donors] money went to the American Legacy PAC, an organization with ties to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.  With Carson as the face of its Save Our Healthcare campaign, American Legacy raised close to $6 million in 2014 — and spent nearly all of it paying the consultants and firms that raised the money.  Just 2% was donated to Republican candidates and committees, financial reports show.

Obama judicial nominees in limbo as 'nuclear option' backfires on Democrats.  The Republican-controlled Senate is confirming President Obama's judicial nominees this year at a slower pace than Democrats did after taking the Senate majority in 2007 under President George W. Bush, prompting court watchers to warn that politics is skewing the process.  Two years after Democrats detonated the "nuclear option" to change the filibuster rules to speed judges through confirmation, they are facing the other side of the coin:  Republicans in charge who are flexing their powers to slow down the process.

Illinois Lottery spends money on ad to say it has no money for big payouts.  For over four months Illinois has operated without a budget.  But the Prairie State continues function, not particularly well, as was the case when Illinois had a budget.  Despite those budgets, the state's pension fund is the worst-funded one in the nation.  Illinois has the lowest credit rating of the 50 states — so it shouldn't be shocking that Illinois, with a few exceptions here and there, continues to stumble along.  One of those exceptions is the Illinois Lottery.  Payouts are limited to $600 until the budget impasse is resolved — if you win more you are the proud owner of an IOU, which is suitable for framing assuming that your artistic tastes are modest.

Kansas Asks Its Entire Supreme Court to Step Aside in Key Case.  Kansas Republicans believe they have created a law that their own high court cannot review.  In the latest twist of the topsy-turvy constitutional showdown between the GOP-controlled state legislature and the state Supreme Court, the Kansas attorney general has asked the entire Kansas Supreme Court to recuse itself from hearing a key case.  The power struggle between Kansas Republicans and the state's highest court goes back to a years-long battle over education funding.

Forfeiting justice to over mighty officials.  New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, a Republican, signed a historic reform of civil forfeiture in her state earlier this year.  The reform law cracked down on the much-abused practice by, among other things, requiring that defendants be convicted of crimes before government can cite those crimes to justify taking away their property.  It also required that the proceeds of all forfeitures must go to the state's general fund, so as to eliminate any profit motive for state agencies or local governments.  This admirable reform doesn't sit well with officials in New Mexico's largest city, Albuquerque, who have decided to exempt themselves from the law by pretending that the law does not apply to municipal forfeitures.

King of Sweden calls for a ban on baths and admits he is now 'ashamed' to run one after realising how much energy they use.  The King of Sweden has called for a ban on baths to help save the environment.  King Carl XVI Gustaf, who once had a reputation as a lothario and is now a staunch environmentalist, said he realised how much water and energy they used when he was recently staying somewhere without a shower.  The 69-year-old 'green king' told Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet:  'It hit me how much water and energy it used.  'I thought "I can't believe I'm having to do this".  I felt quite ashamed.'  Apparently in jest, he added:  'We should ban all baths.'

The Editor says...
A king who doesn't feel that he can afford to take a hot bath now and then is not aware of his position.  What citizen of his country would expect him to forego that little luxury?  Is there really so little energy available in Sweden that bathing is a luxury beyond even the King?

ISIS guides followers on how to hide online with 34-page manual.  The Arabic document was translated and released this week by analysts at the Combating Terrorism Center, an independent research group at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.  It includes warnings to avoid Instagram because it is owned by Facebook, and Dropbox because former secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sits on its board of investors.  Famous government leaker Edward Snowden has also criticized Dropbox over its privacy, the document notes.  Users are also directed to use Apple's encrypted FaceTime and iMessage features over regular unencrypted text and chat features.

What's Actually in the Trans Pacific Partnership?  Here's a quick summary:
  •   A legislative body superior to Congress
  •   A vehicle to pass Obama's climate change treaty
  •   Increased legal immigration
  •   Reduced patent protection for U.S. pharmaceuticals
  •   Quotas on U.S. agricultural exports
  •   Increased currency manipulation
  •   Reduced U.S. power

Re-creating Noah's Ark: A project of passion and purpose.  Wherever you go, the physical features of the earth's terrain clearly indicate a catastrophic past, from canyons and craters to coral beds and caverns.  Some layers of fossil-bearing strata extend across continents, revealing the effects of a huge catastrophe.  In addition, the earth's crust has massive amounts of layered sedimentary rock, sometimes miles deep!  These layers of sand, soil and material — mostly laid down by water — were once soft like mud, but they are now hard stone.  Encased in these sedimentary layers are billions of dead things (fossils) buried very quickly.  Yes, the evidence for Noah's global Flood is everywhere and confirms the biblical account.

Islam, Christianity Are Fundamentally the Same, Prof Writes.  Yale theology professor Miroslav Volf argues that all religions are basically the same — equally prone to fanatical violence and to peaceful love of neighbor — and thus should be treated in exactly the same way.  In the wake of the extraordinarily brutal jihadist attacks perpetrated on innocent civilians in Paris Friday, Volf suggests in an article in the Washington Post that we look at religion as a single reality rather than making distinctions between different religions.

The Editor says...
It's hard to imagine that a man can make a living as a theology professor who believes all religions are the same.

Hackers Catch Prison Phone Company Securus Recording Attorney Calls.  In an example of Aaron Swartz's SecureDrop technology working as intended, the Intercept received a trove of dumped Securus phone records recently.  Securus, for those who have never been jailed in the United States virtually anywhere, is a phone services leader in the justice industry.  That particular part of the prison industrial complex, communication, is worth about $1.2 billion annually.

Texas biker shootout: 106 indicted by grand jury.  A grand jury in Texas has indicted 106 people in connection with the deadly May shootout between bikers at a strip mall restaurant parking lot, McLennan County Criminal District Attorney Abel Reyna said Tuesday [11/10/2015].  The defendants are accused of "engaging in organized criminal activity with the underlying offense being aggravated assault and murder," Reyna said.

Ted Cruz gets Heritage Foundation 'endorsement'.  According to a new a report from the Heritage Foundation, Sen. Ted Cruz is just about the ideal presidential candidate.  Heritage Action, the political arm of perhaps the most respected think tank in the conservative movement, which is now run by former South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, had almost nothing but praise for Mr. Cruz in its first ever presidential policy scorecard.

Obama's War Advisors Turn on Him.  On September 22, Barack Obama's hand-selected advisor coordinating global efforts to combat the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, retired General John Allen, announced his intention to resign the post.  Within a week, Evelyn Farkas, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia, also handed in her resignation.  Given the ongoing wars in Europe and the Middle East into which the West is increasingly committing resources, these resignations are alarming.  In general, the flight of Obama's war advisors from his administration went unnoticed by all but the keenest of observers.  Both Allen and Farkas have determined, however, to make it difficult for the public to ignore their warnings.

Obamatrade's Preamble Backs Government Ownership of Business.  The preamble to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal that the Obama administration has negotiated with eleven other governments — including what the U.S. State Department describes as a Communist regime in Vietnam — expressly affirms the "legitimate role" of "state-owned enterprises."  According to the Congressional Research Service, 40 percent of Vietnam's output comes from state-owned enterprises (SOEs).  In addition to the United States and Vietnam, the parties to the TPP include Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru and Singapore.

Woman who won $8.5 million jackpot at casino is denied her winnings because managers claim the slot machine 'malfunctioned'.  Veronica Castillo, from Portland, Oregon thought she had struck it lucky after hitting an $8 million jackpot.  The loan officer was playing alongside her mother on the slots at Lucky Eagle Casino in Rochester, Washington last weekend, when she put $100 in the machine and spun the digital wheels.  The machine declared her to be a winner but all she ended up getting was a measly $80 after staff at the casino say the winning payout was in fact an error.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: A Ben Carson Presidency Would Be 'Terrible' for Black Americans.  Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has a new column out for Time Magazine rather bluntly titled "Ben Carson Is Terrible for Black Americans."  The former NBA champion wrote that while Carson's success story is an inspiring one for African-Americans, his presidential run is "bad" because of his "repressive, muddled and pious policies."  Abdul-Jabbar doesn't think it helps African-Americans to have a president who "flounders helplessly in office because it would perpetuate the stereotype that blacks can't be effective CEOs, quarterbacks and leaders."

The Editor says...
Mr. Abdul-Jabbar (who lives under an assumed name, just like Barry Soetoro) should open his eyes, and see that the current president is "flounder[ing] helplessly in office" more obviously than any other president in the country's history.

Rivers of Rotting Garbage Anger Residents in Beirut, Lebanon.  Mountains of rotting garbage have been piling up for four months in the streets of Beirut, with recent heavy rains creating rivers of festering refuse in a the streets of a city that's home to 2 million people.  Waste-collection services ground to a halt in the Lebanese capital after one of the main landfill site[s] was shuttered in July.

Mexicans come up with "World's Worst" internet law.  Typically laws drafted by politicians to deal with computer crime are based on a complete lack of knowledge about how the Internet works, but the "Fayad Law" has been hailed as one of the worst in Internet history.  [Mexican] Senator Omar Fayad claimed he wrote the law in conjunction with the Federal Police but is so badly worded that it could effectively lock up any internet user in the country.

Woman Who Bought Gun That Killed Officer Gets Probation, Community Service.  A Jonesboro, Georgia woman who bought the gun used to kill Omaha Police Officer Kerrie Orozco was sentenced on Monday [11/2/2015].  26-year-old Jalita Johnson was convicted in August after pleading guilty to lying when she bought the gun for her convicted felon boyfriend, Marcus Wheeler, who later used the gun to kill Officer Orozco in May while she was attempting to serve a warrant on Wheeler for his arrest.  Wheeler was killed in the shootout with police during which Officer Orozco died from her wounds.  Johnson was given one year of probation, 40 hours of community service and 180 days' home confinement.

F-35 Data Smuggler Sentenced to Jail.  A former Connecticut resident has been sentenced to 97 months in jail for attempting to send sensitive technical data on the F-35 engine to Iran.  Mozaffar Khazaee, 61, was sentenced Oct. 23 to 97 months of imprisonment followed by three years of supervised release, according to a recent Pentagon Inspector General statement.  Khazaee also was ordered to pay a $50,000 fine.

The Editor says...
This guy will be out in a year if he gets a presidential pardon.

Shocking!  People in New York City make money through deception!  Who knew?
New York company fined over fake clothing donation bins that netted $10m.  Thrift Land USA of Yonkers Inc placed bins labeled with the names and logos of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Rockland County and I Love Our Youth Inc throughout the New York metropolitan area, leading the public to believe that donated clothing would benefit the two charities.  Instead Thrift Land, a for-profit company, made about $10m by reselling the clothing and gave the charities $100-$200 for the use of their names, plus a small monthly fee.

Judge rules man had right to shoot down drone over his house.  Should it have temporarily escaped your pressured memory, William Merideth in July said he saw a drone flying above his property in Hillview, Kentucky.  He believed it was spying on his 16-year-old daughter who was sunbathing in the garden.  So he took out his shotgun and blasted the drone out of the sky.  He was arrested for wanton endangerment and criminal mischief.  Now a Kentucky court has declared Merideth an innocent man.  Bullitt County District Court Judge Rebecca Ward on Monday [10/26/2015] dismissed all charges against Merideth, reported local TV station WDRB-TV.

Lottery clerks selling themselves winning tickets.  A man who sold himself a $1,000,000 winning D.C. Lottery ticket is just one of many retailers a WUSA9 investigation found winning the lottery at rates statisticians say border on impossible.  At least three retailers won the lottery around 100 times according to an analysis of D.C. Lottery records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.  "$10,000, $5,000," Lounes Issaad said about some of his 27 payouts that averaged $30,000 each.  "I don't have nothing to hide."

The Editor says...
One could easily surmise that scratch-off lottery tickets are marked, and these store clerks were able to crack the code.  Oh, but that would be a conspiracy theory!.  Couldn't possibly be true!  Most Americans would find it far easier to believe that convenience store clerks (in general) are the luckiest people alive.

6,600 federal inmates to be released this weekend.  The biggest federal inmate release on record will take place this weekend [10/31/2015].  About 6,600 inmates will be released, with 16,500 expected to get out the first year.  More than 40,000 federal felons could be released early over the next several years, the U.S. Sentencing Commission said.

Did Obama call FBI Director Comey on the carpet yesterday?  FBI Director James Comey holds the future of Hillary Clinton's campaign in his hands, as the FBI investigates her handling of classified information.  Director Comey last Friday [10/23/2015] also made some comments in a speech that seemed to contradict a recent propaganda push by the Obama administration. [...] So it is quite notable that yesterday Comey was called to the White House for a talk with the president.  Buried 362 words into the [Michael] Schmidt NYT article on Comey, we learn:  ["]On Thursday, the president met with Mr. Comey in the Oval Office to discuss his views.  The White House declined to describe the conversation.["]

Record number of Americans renounce citizenship.  According to IRS data published in the Federal Register on Monday [10/26/2015], 1,426 Americans expatriated in the third quarter of 2015, bringing this year's total to 3,221 so far.  The figure is 25 percent higher than the same period last year, when 2,585 renounced their citizenship.

Feds Preparing To Undo 'Citizens United' by Forcing Disclosure of Donors to Conservative Groups.  Citizens United was the Supreme Court case that ruled the First Amendment applies to everyone:  unions, individuals, and corporations supporting their interests through free speech.  But the Federal Election Commission has started the process to undo the Citizens United case [...]

How to spot a fake online review.  Now that Amazon is suing more than 1,000 people who allegedly offered to write glowing product reviews for cash, you might reasonably be concerned.

Illinois fails to pay lottery winners as state's budget craters.  The lottery is akin to the magical kingdom where dreams come true.  In New York, their constant advertisements on television assure us that all you need is "a dollar and a dream."  Sure, your odds of hitting the big, top level jackpot are significantly worse than getting hit by lightning while being attacked by a shark, but hey... somebody's got to win, right?  And every week somebody does, leading to a huge weight off their minds if they were financially struggling.  Unless, of course, they happen to live in Illinois where the state has stopped paying the winners while still selling tickets every week.

U.S. Spends $300 Mil on Stoves for Developing Nations.  The U.S. government has spent over $300 million on "efficient cook stoves" for developing nations and the federal employee behind the costly initiative just got a prestigious award that's supposed to honor those "whose work makes our country better, healthier and stronger."  It's not clear how American taxpayer-funded stoves operating in a poor African village makes the U.S. better, healthier and stronger.  What we do know for certain is that Uncle Sam has been a major contributor to a United Nations project, called Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, that aims to improve the lives of those living in the poorest areas of the world by reducing the health risks of indoor smoke from cooking meals over open fires and crude stoves.

Captain America battles right-wing conservatives in new comic.  In the latest issue of Marvel's revamped Captain America, the iconic superhero takes on a group of right-wing conservatives trying to stop illegal immigrants from crossing the border.  In "Captain America: Sam Wilson #1," the superhero also known as Sam Wilson heads to the border to take on an "evil" militia group known as the Sons of the Serpent, who are patrolling the area between Mexico and Arizona, according to a video summary of the issue created by the Maciver Institute.

Drone owners to be required to register devices.  The U.S. Transportation Department plans to start requiring drone owners to register their devices with the government later this year in a bid to crack down on unsafe flights, according to three people familiar with the plans.  The department aims to convene a task force next week to figure out the specifics of the policy, including which drones will be included, how users will register the devices, and whether the policy will apply to devices that have already been sold, the people said.  The task force is expected to deliver recommendations next month, the people said, with regulators aiming to implement a policy before Christmas — an exceptionally fast timeline for aviation regulations.

McDonald's all-day breakfast has been a disaster.  They're in no way "lovin' it."  McDonald's franchisees say the launch of all-day breakfast has been a disaster — griping that it has slowed down service, lowered average bills and sparked chaos in the kitchens.  Mark Kalinowski, an analyst for the Japanese finance company Nomura, surveyed 29 operators overseeing 226 different locations in the US and found that many were pulling their hair out due to the new menu options, which rolled out last Tuesday [10/13/2015] to much praise from Egg McMuffin lovers.

Whither Guantanamo Prisoners?  Pentagon officials are in Colorado this week to scope out potential sites to house prisoners [who are currently] at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, the Associated Press reported Monday [10/12/2015].  A team of officials will evaluate the state penitentiary in Canon City and the Federal Correctional Complex in Florence, which has been dubbed the "Alcatraz of the Rockies," according to the AP. Pentagon spokesman Navy Commander Gary Ross called the visits "informational."  The Pentagon previously looked at the Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, South Carolina.

Confederate flag supporters indicted under Georgia terrorism law.  A Georgia grand jury formally charged 15 members of a group supporting the Confederate flag on terror charges following a July confrontation with a black family who was celebrating a child's birthday, according to an indictment released Monday [10/12/2015].  Douglas County District Attorney Brian Fortner said members of the "Respect the Flag" group violated the state's Street Gang Terrorism and Prevention Act and made terroristic threats when their caravan of vehicles bearing the rebel flag drove past a neighborhood party.

Congressional Review Of Copyright Law May Threaten Drudge Report.  Congress may update digital copyright law affecting aggregator sites, like the Drudge Report and Real Clear Politics, along with news sites in the near future.  "Two years ago, the House Judiciary Committee launched a comprehensive review of our nation's copyright laws, which have not been updated since 1976.  As technology continues to rapidly advance, we have a responsibility to ensure that our laws are keeping pace with these developments," Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte said in a statement.

US navy returns to celestial navigation amid fears of computer hack.  For millennia, travellers used the stars to guide them on their journeys — a technique which, in recent decades, has been replaced by modern technology.  But now the US navy is reinstating classes on celestial navigation for all new recruits, teaching the use of sextants — instruments made of mirrors used to calculate angles and plot directions — because of rising concerns that computers used to chart courses could be hacked or malfunction.

The Editor says...
Sounds like a brilliant plan, unless you're on a submarine, or you're stuck in a fog or a thunderstorm.  On the other hand, if GPS has been made unavailable by enemy forces, the average sailor probably has more pressing concerns than bad weather.

Senators back celestial navigation for all Navy personnel.  Senators Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Gary Peters (D-Mich.) are pushing the Navy to teach all its sailors the ultimate backup plan in case of navigation systems sabotage — celestial navigation.  The pair sent a letter to Secretary of the Navy Raymond Mabus, Jr. asking why the celestial training was only being taught to some, but not all, personnel.  "Though celestial and nautical navigation skills are more challenging to acquire, they are absolutely critical for our sailors," they wrote.

Rebuttal:
Senatorial celestial GPS silliness.  The first sentence is a real howler.  I am a big fan of celnav (I own 5 sextants and know how to use them), but teaching celnav out of fear of GPS sabotage demonstrates a profound lack of understanding about both GPS and navigation in general.  There are plenty of reasons to know how to use a sextant, but these land-lubber senators have completely missed the boat.

Iranian complicity in the Khobar Towers bombing was suppressed.
A still-unsettled Clinton-era tragedy.  For 19 years, the survivors of the Khobar Towers bombing, myself included, and the family members of the fallen have had minimal clarity or explanation about who was responsible and why this devastating event took place.  The event that changed our lives so significantly has been shuffled off into the dustbin of history, until now.  I must pause to thank Washington Times Executive Editor John Solomon for his Oct. 5 article titled "Bill Clinton White House suppressed evidence of Iran's terrorism."  Finally, we can begin to answer many of the questions that have haunted us for so many years.  The betrayal by the Clinton administration began swiftly after the explosion[,] and a scapegoat had to be found.

The Editor says...
Now that the connection has been made between Iran and the Khobar Towers bombing, perhaps some "mainstream" reporter will address the connection between Iraq and the Oklahoma City bombing, and tie up the many loose ends in the case of TWA 800, both of which took place during the Clinton administration.

Most Russians Want Homosexuals 'Liquidated' or Ostracized — Poll.  More than half of Russians think that gay people should be either "liquidated" or isolated from society, according to a poll published Friday [10/9/2015] that showed a hardening of attitudes toward many minority groups in Russia in recent years.  The survey by the Levada Center, an independent pollster, is the latest in a series charting Russians' views on marginal social groups since 1989. [...] Gay people, prostitutes, homeless people and members of fringe religious groups have all become less welcome in Russia during the past 15 years — a period that has seen democracy diminished, tighter state control of information and growth in the power of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Declassified CIA report concluded director led 'cover up' of Kennedy assassination investigation.  The 2013 report, declassified last fall, concludes that [John] McCone, who ran the spy agency when Kennedy was fatally shot in November 1963, kept information from the Warren Commission during its investigation into the assassination.  The report's author, CIA historian David Robarge, writes that McCone and other top CIA officials were part of a "benign cover-up" to keep the commission focused on what the agency believed at the time was the "best truth ... that Lee Harvey Oswald, for as yet undetermined motives, had acted alone," according to Politico Magazine.

Former CIA director was part of a 'benign cover-up' to withhold information from investigators about JFK's assassination.  A former CIA director withheld information about President John F Kennedy's assassination, according to declassified agency reports.  The CIA reports, which were declassified last fall, claim that then-agency head John McCone and other top officials were part of a 'benign cover-up' surrounding the assassination of Kennedy in November 1963.  The report's author, CIA historian David Robarge, claims McCone withheld information to keep the Warren Commission focused on what the agency believed to by the 'best truth... that Lee Harvey Oswald, for as yet undetermined motives, had acted alone,' according to Politico.

Nurse used same syringe on 67 people at N.J. flu clinic, state says.  A nurse who administered flu vaccines to employees of a West Windsor company has been reported to health officials because she re-used a single syringe for the shots.  At an employer-sponsored flu clinic at Otsuka Pharmaceuticals last week, the unnamed nurse committed an "infection control breach," according to a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Department of Health.

Pilots Warned Not to Eject from F-35.  The "next-generation" F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has a problem.  No, not that one.  A new one. [...] Representative Jackie Spier told Defense News:  "We're seeing these flight restrictions because the F-35's ejector seats weren't tested to the level they would be on a normal aircraft, and the Pentagon rushed to field them prematurely.  This is yet another example of the kind of procurement malpractice we should be avoiding[.]"  The military's solution?  Tell pilots they need to weigh more than 136 pounds.

Toyota, U.S. clueless about how ISIS got hundreds of brand new pickup trucks.  Let's go places — like Syria and Iraq.  The U.S. government can't figure out how ISIS terrorists got their hands on hundreds of brand new Toyota pickup trucks, and the Japanese automaker is stumped, too.  Top U.S. counterterror officials probed the automaker about how the Islamic State acquired a fleet of new cars after souped-up Toyota pickups loaded with weapons and packed with fighters began appearing in its propaganda videos, ABC News reported.

US Officials Ask How ISIS Got So Many Toyota Trucks.  U.S. counter-terror officials have asked Toyota, the world's second largest auto maker, to help them determine how ISIS has managed to acquire the large number of Toyota pick-up trucks and SUVs seen prominently in the terror group's propaganda videos in Iraq, Syria and Libya, ABC News has learned.  Toyota says it does not know how ISIS obtained the vehicles and is "supporting" the inquiry led by the Terror Financing unit of the Treasury Department — part of a broad U.S. effort to prevent Western-made goods from ending up in the hands of the terror group.

The Editor says...
Build your own punchline:  To stop ISIS in its tracks, the U.S. should supply them with [insert the name of your least favorite truck] instead!

Bill Clinton White House suppressed evidence of Iran's terrorism.  Bill Clinton's administration gathered enough evidence to send a top-secret communique accusing Iran of facilitating the deadly 1996 Khobar Towers terrorist bombing, but suppressed that information from the American public and some elements of U.S. intelligence for fear it would lead to an outcry for reprisal, according to documents and interviews.  Before Mr. Clinton left office, the intelligence pointing toward Iran's involvement in the terror attack in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 U.S. servicemen and wounded hundreds was deemed both extensive and "credible," memos show.

The rise of ad-blocking could herald the end of the free internet.  here is, alas, no such thing as a free lunch.  What's even more depressing is that there is no such thing as a free internet service.  Most people nowadays probably understand that in relation to, say, social networking services, if the service is "free" then the users (or, more precisely, their personal data) are the product.  But this also applies to stuff that you haven't signed up for — websites that you browse, for example.  The site may be free to view, but there's often a hidden cost.  One part of that cost comes from surreptitious tracking of your browsing habits by outfits that sell that information to advertisers.  The other cost comes from ads that are placed on a webpage either directly by the site owner or as the outcome of a real-time auction that goes on in the depths of the internet.

Your three most vulnerable locations.  [#1] Parking lots.  The first location was parking lots — specifically that last fifty feet as you're returning to your vehicle.  Why is this a dangerous place?  Well, aside from lots of places for a bad guy to lurk, the average person's mind is already thinking about other things — other destinations, chores or personal issues — and not situational awareness.  Add to that one's hands may be full carrying bags and there may be some fumbling for keys.  Don't be this person!

'Happy Birthday' song copyright is not valid, judge rules.  None of the companies that have collected royalties on the "Happy Birthday" song for the past 80 years held a valid copyright claim to one of the most popular songs in history, a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled on Tuesday [9/22/2015].  In a stunning reversal of decades of copyright claims, the judge ruled that Warner/Chappell never had the right to charge for the use of the "Happy Birthday To You" song.  Warner had been enforcing a copyright since 1988, when it bought Birch Tree Group, the successor to Clayton F. Summy Co., which claimed the original disputed copyright.

Hillsdale Says it Was Excluded from Dept of Ed's 'College Scorecard' Because it 'Doesn't Count Students By Race'.  The Department of Education recently released its College Scorecard, an annual resource for students searching for schools that would perfectly match their interests.  Suspiciously kept off the list this year, were conservative colleges like Hillsdale College.  When the school asked why they did not appear on the Scorecard, the assistant press secretary for the Department of Ed, Denise Horn, told them it was because the school awards more certificates than two or four-year degrees and therefore doesn't meet their criteria.

After Obama Claims Conservative Voices Need to be Heard on Campus, WH Dismisses Conservative Colleges from 'Scorecard'.  Last week, President Obama offered a glimmer of hope to conservatives by slamming the politically correct culture on today's college campuses.  Students shouldn't be "coddled" from opposing viewpoints, he insisted.  Conservative speakers shouldn't be "silenced."  Obama's tolerant rhetoric, however, appears to be short-lived.  In the Department of Education's newly released College Scorecard, which helps students search for schools that fit their needs, the Center for College Affordability and Productivity noticed that certain schools were conspicuously left off the list.

U.S. taxpayers duped into shelling out $51 million in green subsidies for 'clean' VW vehicles.  The federal government paid out as much as $51 million in green car subsidies for Volkswagen diesel vehicles based on falsified pollution test results, according to a Times analysis of the federal incentives.  On Friday [9/18/2015], federal and state regulators said the German automaker used software in 482,000 of its diesel vehicles since the 2009 model year to cheat on U.S. emissions tests.  Environmental Protection Agency officials said Monday that the U.S. Department of Justice is also investigating.

Regulators say Volkswagen cheated on environmental standards.  News is breaking this morning that Volkswagen's tampering of emission control software is much larger than the 500,000 or so diesel models reported over the weekend: the true number may be as high as 11 million VWs.  Yesterday [9/21/2015] a spokesperson for the EPA said that VW could be liable for fines as much as $37,000 per vehicle, or $18 billion for the 500,000 or so models then reported to be offending vehicles.

Exclusive: In clash with pope's climate call, U.S. Church leases drilling rights.  Casting the fight against climate change as an urgent moral duty, Pope Francis in June urged the world to phase out highly-polluting fossil fuels.  Yet in the heart of U.S. oil country several dioceses and other Catholic institutions are leasing out drilling rights to oil and gas companies to bolster their finances, Reuters has found.

Blue stripe
Have You Seen a Blue Strip On a Curb?  I can't say that I have noticed any of these blue strips popping-up in my area, but I certainly hope they do!

The Editor says...
This is an internet hoax.  There is such a stripe in front of my house.  The city put it there, to show the location of the pipe that connects the water main to my water meter.  Everybody on the block has a blue stripe.  There is no further significance.


75% in U.S.See Widespread Government Corruption.  Three in four Americans (75%) last year perceived corruption as widespread in the country's government.

EPA Says VW Intentionally Violates Clean Air Standards.  The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday [9/18/2015] ordered Volkswagen to fix nearly 500,000 VW and Audi diesel cars that the agency said are intentionally violating clean air laws by using software that evades EPA emissions standards.

Ben Carson says he would not support a Muslim for president.  Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson said he would not support a Muslim for president, stating that he believes a president's faith matters and that Islam is not consistent with the Constitution.  "I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation.  I absolutely would not agree with that," he said in an interview broadcast Sunday [6/20/2015] on NBC's "Meet the Press."  Carson said earlier in the discussion that a president's faith should not matter so long as its "within the realm of America and consistent with the Constitution, no problem."  When host Chuck Todd pressed Carson on whether he believes "Islam is consistent with the Constitution," Carson said, "No, I don't, I do not."

Obama Administration Slams Conservative School As Not A Real College.  An Obama administration representative took a shot at a well-known conservative college Thursday, [9/17/2015] saying the school wasn't included on its much-heralded new "College Scorecard" because it isn't a real two-to-four year college.  Hillsdale College, a 1,500-student liberal arts college in Michigan, is ranked by U.S. News and World Reports as the 67th-best national liberal arts college in the country.  The college is well-known for the conservative identity of its student body and its focus on a core curriculum that emphasizes Judeo-Christian tradition and the U.S. Constitution.  It's also known for its refusal to accept any federal funding (including federal student loans), in order to remain free of most federal regulatory control.

Census reveals the richest and poorest families in America based on earnings.  The United States added 3.2 million jobs to the workforce in 2014, bringing the total to 139 million people employed, according to new figures released by the Census Bureau.  But despite the employment growth, the number of people living in poverty remained the same as in 2013 — around 46.7 million, or 14.8 percent — the bureau's American Community Survey showed.  And average incomes improved only slightly to bring them to $53,660.  For the poorest state, Mississippi, the median household income dropped to $39,680.  In the richest state, Maryland, the figure was almost double, at $73,971.

Stop using difficult-to-guess passwords, UK's spying agency GCHQ recommends.  The British spying agency, found to have been conducting wholesale surveillance on UK citizens, has recommended that the public make their passwords less complex.  In a brand new document called 'Password guidance: simplifying your approach', the company gives a range of guidelines to keep consumers safe.  That includes rolling back previous guidance "that complex passwords are 'stronger'" — instead recommending that people simplify their approach.  The agency gives a range of hints to those working in IT as well as normal consumers.

Three Good Samaritans helped Polk County Deputy Mike Walsh fight off a suspect who attacked him.  The Polk County Sheriff's Office is publicly thanking the three Good Samaritans who came to the aid of Deputy Sheriff Mike Walshon Sunday [9/6/2015] when they witnessed a suspect, Corey Johnson, beating up Deputy Walsh and then fleeing on foot.

Justice Dept. pressing for changes to computer crime law.  It's clearly illegal to hack into someone else's computer network and steal information from it.  But what about a police officer who uses his own department's computer database to look up women from his past?  Or an employee who uses his log-in credentials to download confidential information from his employer?

Government Employees Outnumber Manufacturing Employees 1.8 to 1.  The BLS [Bureau of Labor Statistics] has published seasonally-adjusted month-by-month employment numbers for both government and manufacturing going back to 1939.  In the first 50 years of the 76-year span since then, manufacturing out-employed government.  But in August 1989, government overtook manufacturing as a U.S. employer.

Ex-Labor Department employee admits bootleg movie operation.  A former longtime Labor Department employee admitted Friday to running a bootleg movie operation within the department's headquarters in Washington.  Ricardo Taylor — a three-decade Labor veteran who was the supervisor of the department's mailroom — will serve 24 months' probation with no prison time after pleading guilty to a federal charge of copyright law violation.

Russia makes play for Arctic, Obama seeks more Coast Guard icebreakers.  Forty percent of the world's oil and natural gas reserves lie under the Arctic.  Melting ice also would lead to new shipping routes, and Russia wants to establish a kind of Suez Canal which it controls.  More than a Cold War, Russia may be preparing for an Ice War, and the Pentagon is taking note.  Last March, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a snap, full combat military exercise in Russia's Arctic north to mark the anniversary of his annexation of Crimea — with 40,000 Russian troops, dozens of warships and submarines.

Illinois Says It Can't Pay Big Lottery Winners.  Without a state budget agreement two months into the new fiscal year, there's no authority for the state comptroller to cut checks over $25,000.

The Raspberry Pi is succeeding in ways its makers almost imagined.  When the Raspberry Pi shipped to a planet excited geeks in the middle of 2012, it changed the way we taught IT.  That had always been the intention of creator Eben Upton.  Give the kids the goods and they'll do the rest.

Many scientific studies can't be replicated. That's a problem.  Maverick researchers have long argued that much of what gets published in elite scientific journals is fundamentally squishy — that the results tell a great story but can't be reproduced when the experiments are run a second time.  Now a volunteer army of fact-checkers has published a new report that affirms that the skepticism was warranted.  Over the course of four years, 270 researchers attempted to reproduce the results of 100 experiments that had been published in three prestigious psychology journals.  It was awfully hard.  They ultimately concluded that they'd succeeded just 39 times.  The failure rate surprised even the leaders of the project, who had guessed that perhaps half the results wouldn't be reproduced.

AT&T reportedly playing dirty tricks to serve extra ads through airport hotspot.  AT&T's "free" Wi-Fi may be too good to be true. One of the company's Wi-Fi hotspots, in Virginia's Dulles airport, is reportedly using an ad-injection platform to tamper with the web traffic of users and bombard them with more ads.  Jonathan Mayer, a computer scientist and Stanford lawyer, says he discovered ad-injecting code while using the AT&T hotspot in the airport.  Mayer noticed ads appearing on educational, government, and ad-supported sites such as The Wall Street Journal, and decided to take a look at the web source, discovering that it was adding lines of code that would pull in promotional materials from outside companies. [...] For now, such tools exist in something of a legal gray area, with the FCC's net neutrality rules and a host of other legislation and rulings theoretically restricting their use.

Leading science publisher retracts dozens of papers for fake peer reviews.  Springer Publishing, one of the world's leading publishers of Science, Technology and Medicine (STM) books and journals, issued an announcement this week that 64 different professional articles, primarily in the medical field, had been retracted.  It turns out that the vaunted peer review process, designed to ensure that multiple sets of experts evaluate the quality of the work before it hits the presses, had fallen apart.  The peer reviews in some cases were found to be "highly suspicious" with bogus email addresses and questionable credentials.

Police radios will be killed soon — yet no one dares say 'Huawei'.  In less than 18 months' time the police radio network will be switched off.  There is no obvious replacement and the looming omnishambles is turning into a bonanza for Arqiva, the only company brave enough to offer a solution. [...] The British police and the other emergency services use a system called Airwave.  This uses a technology called Tetra (Terrestrial Trunked Radio) which is half way between a mobile phone system and a walkie talkie.  It's an ancient technology and very poor at mobile data, which runs at 7.2kbs.

Hackers who breached corporate wires made millions off insider trading.  An international hacking ring armed with tens of thousands of corporate secrets pocketed more than $100 million from illicit trades, targeting a core vulnerability of the financial system in one of the digital age's most sprawling insider-trading schemes, federal investigators said Tuesday [8/11/2015].  Since 2010, more than 30 hackers and traders across the U.S., Ukraine, Russia and other countries coordinated to steal and profit from more than 150,000 press releases, which were scheduled to be delivered to investors from corporate wire services Business Wire, PR Newswire and Marketwired.

Fox News Lurches Left as Murdoch's Sons Take Control of Media Dynasty.  Last year Murdoch elevated his sons to prominent positions, James to co-COO and Lachlan to non-executive co-chairman, but the turnover of the conglomerate came sooner than expected.  For 15 years, Roger Ailes has enjoyed near total autonomy as head of Fox News, but Ailes' sovereign rule ended abruptly with the move.

Republicans slam Obama administration as Russia tries Arctic land grab.  Republican lawmakers slammed the Obama administration this week after Russia announced it had submitted a bid to the United Nations for huge areas of the Arctic that could contain vast quantities of oil and gas, with one lawmaker describing the application as evidence of a "strategic blunder" on the part of the administration's foreign policy.  Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement Tuesday [8/4/2015] that Moscow was claiming over 463,000 square miles of Arctic sea shelf, extending more than 350 nautical miles from the shore.  The Arctic is believed to hold up to 25 percent of the planet's untapped oil and gas supplies.  Russia, the U.S. and Canada are among those trying to assert jurisdiction over parts of the region.

Lawsuit could reveal secret Saudi connection to 9/11.  A federal lawsuit moving forward in Manhattan could open the floodgates to tightly held government secrets about foreign connections to the 9/11 attacks.  While the Obama administration refuses to make public the censored 28 pages of the congressional intelligence report implicating the Saudi government in the terror strike — defying bipartisan requests from lawmakers — the two investigators who authored the long-secret section will more than likely be called to testify in the lawsuit brought against the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.  Former FBI investigator Michael Jacobson and former Justice Department attorney Dana Lesemann ran down FBI leads tying Saudi officials to some of the Saudi hijackers and documented their findings in the report.

North Korea turns back clocks to create new time zone.  The isolated nation's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) announced the change Thursday [8/4/2015].  North Korea's clocks will be turned back half an hour on Aug. 15, which marks the 70th anniversary of the country's liberation from Japanese rule at the end of World War II.  The change will place North Korea 12½ hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time, taking the country's time out of synch with Japan and South Korea, which are both 13 hours ahead of the U.S. East Coast.

RollJam: This $50 'Universal Remote' Unlocks All Kinds Of Car Doors.  With just two radios, a microcontroller and a battery, all purchasable over eBay for less than $50, independent researcher Samy Kamkar has created something wonderfully villainous.  His so-called RollJam exploits digital keys and unlocks cars almost at will.  In recent weeks, he's done just that on his own Lotus Elise models from 2005 and 2007, as well as some Toyotas, a Cadillac and the Cobra alarm keys used by a number of vehicles.  The RollJam takes advantage of a design flaw in the protocol that determines how keys communicate with cars.  It intercepts "rolling codes", the one-time authentication codes exchanged by car and key that change with each lock and unlock.

Russia hacked Joint Chiefs of Staff and shut down the email system of 4,000 Pentagon employees for Eleven Days.  Russia was behind a huge cyber attack on the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff, it has been reported.  The 'sophisticated cyber intrusion' occurred sometime around July 25 and affected some 4,000 military and civilian personnel work for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  It shut down the email system for 11 days, and masses of sensitive information is feared to have been sent to accounts across the internet.

Russia hacks Pentagon computers: NBC, citing sources.  U.S. officials tell NBC News that Russia launched a "sophisticated cyberattack" against the Pentagon's Joint Staff unclassified email system, which has been shut down and taken offline for nearly two weeks.  According to the officials, the "sophisticated cyber intrusion" occurred sometime around July 25 and affected some 4,000 military and civilian personnel who work for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  Sources tell NBC News that it appears the cyberattack relied on some kind of automated system that rapidly gathered massive amounts of data and within a minute distributed all the information to thousands of accounts on the Internet.

Kellogg's to dump artificial ingredients from cereal by 2018.  Amid declining sales and growing customer concern over processed foods, Kellogg's has announced it will eliminate artificial ingredients from its products within the next three years.  Paul Norman, the president of Kellogg North America, announced the company's decision on Tuesday [8/4/2015] during a call with investors.  "We have been working to remove artificial colors and flavors across Kellogg's branded cereals and a variety of Kellogg's branded snack bars as well as Eggo frozen foods," Norman said in a transcript released from the call.  "Our goal is to complete this transition by the end of 2018."

Ted Cruz Number One with Grassroots Tea Party Activists.  On a national grassroots call hosted by Mark Meckler, tea party leader and founder of Citizens for Self Governance, Texas Senator Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) came out as the clear early favorite of national grassroots leaders.  The call included over 100 tea party leaders and some former country Republican Party officials from 33 states including the early primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.

Santa Claus held hostage!
Russia demanding ownership of the North Pole.  Russia, while still digesting its meal of Crimea, is taking another bite at expanding its sovereignty by laying claim Tuesday [8/4/2015] to the North Pole and a large area of the Arctic Ocean — an area involving oil and gas drilling as well as fishing.  The Russian Foreign Ministry submitted its request on Tuesday to the United Nations committee that arbitrates sea boundaries.

Ted Cruz Edges Donald Trump in July's Breitbart Primary.  Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) barely edged businessman Donald Trump in July's Breitbart Primary as Trump surged into second place, followed by Dr. Ben Carson, who grabbed the third spot.  Cruz, who won June's inaugural Breitbart Primary, was the first choice of 28.3% of the 70,566 participants last month.  Trump was second with 27% of the vote.

ICANN chief warns of potential 'major problems' as U.S. prepares to relinquish Web oversight.  A year away from a historic transition affecting the digital landscape, the head of the organization that regulates Web addresses warns that much still needs to be done to keep the Internet intact, regardless of whether the U.S. relinquishes its oversight as expected. [...] As recently as last month, ICANN encountered a firestorm after publishing a proposal that privacy advocates said would ravage the concept of anonymity on the Internet.

State Department watered down human trafficking report.  In the weeks leading up to a critical annual U.S. report on human trafficking that publicly shames the world's worst offenders, human rights experts at the State Department concluded that trafficking conditions hadn't improved in Malaysia and Cuba.  And in China, they found, things had grown worse.  The State Department's senior political staff saw it differently — and they prevailed.  A Reuters examination, based on interviews with more than a dozen sources in Washington and foreign capitals, shows that the government office set up to independently grade global efforts to fight human trafficking was repeatedly overruled by senior American diplomats and pressured into inflating assessments of 14 strategically important countries in this year's Trafficking in Persons report.

Pope to lead Havana mass next to Che Guevara portrait.  Workers in Cuba have begun building the altar where Pope Francis will deliver mass during a landmark visit next month, placing it just to the left of a giant image of Che Guevara.  Francis, who hails from Argentina like the famous revolutionary, will visit Cuba September 19 to 22 as part of a tour that will later take him to the United States.

Mt. Gox head arrested over loss of 650,000 bitcoins.  Mt. Gox head Mark Karpelès was arrested by Japanese police on Saturday [8/1/2015], more than a year after the exchange folded amidst the loss of 650,000 bitcoins.  Karpelès hasn't been formally charged but "police are alleging that he manipulated the company's computer system to inflate its assets," The Wall Street Journal reported.

NY to give low-cost electricity to Amazon, Bausch & Lomb, 13 other businesses.  ReCharge NY allows selected businesses to buy low-cost power from the New York Power Authority in exchange for commitments to expand or create more jobs.

Obama poised to give financial aid to federal, state prisoners.  More prisoners may soon have access to federal subsidies to pay for college under a new Obama administration initiative, ending a 20-year ban on Pell grants for state and federal prisoners.  The move could come as soon as this week.  Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Attorney General Loretta Lynch are scheduled to visit Goucher College's Prison Education Partnership at the Maryland Correctional Institution in Jessup on Friday [7/31/2015], to make "an important announcement related to federal aid."

Thanks Obama: American Homeownership at Lowest Rate Since 1967.  In the era of Obama fewer Americans than ever own their own homes in yet another example of how there is no recovery in Obama's recovery.  In a sure sign that America is not doing well, the rate of homeownership has fallen as low as a time in American history when there were still large parts of the country that didn't even have electricity yet!

Swedish military investigating video of possible sunken Russian submarine.  Sky News reports that video of the 66-foot vessel was shot by a private company, Ocean X Team.  The company said on its website that it was unclear how old the ship was or how long it had been at the bottom of the sea, but added "the Cyrillic letters on the hull indicate that it is Russian."  Stefan Hogeborn, an OceanX diver that made the discovery, told Reuters that the submarine was "completely intact" with "no visible damage to the hull" and the hatches closed.

Want longer battery life? Avoid the New York Times and The Grauniad.  Software developer Santeri Paavolainen says the code powering today's websites is taxing browsers so much, it's having a significant impact on power consumption.  The programmer came to that conclusion after a casual examination of news sites including the New Scientist, the BBC, Forbes, The Guardian, and The New York Times, as well as Google and its YouTube video vault.  Paavolainen used an electrical power meter and a 2013 Retina Macbook Pro running on 50-per-cent-brightness with Flash disabled by default to work out the amount of power devoured when browsing various sites.

Congress Demands Answers After Meth Lab Explodes In Federal Building.  A suspected meth lab exploded in a federal laboratory Saturday night, and now Congress wants to know why.  Congress opened an investigation into the blast that occurred at a laboratory on the National Institute of Standards and Technology campus in Gaithersburg, Md., after initial reports that it was caused by a security guard manufacturing drugs.  On Wednesday [7/22/2015], Rep. Lamar Smith sent a formal letter to Penny Pritzker, secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce, which oversees the NIST, demanding to know exactly what was going on.

Thousands of Apps Secretly Run Ads That Users Can't See.  Thousands of mobile applications are secretly running ads that can't be seen by users, defrauding marketers and slowing down smartphones, according to a new report by Forensiq, a firm that tracks fraud in online advertising.  Over the course of the 10-day study, one percent of all devices observed in the U.S. ran at least one app committing this kind of fraud; in Europe and Asia, two to three percent of devices encountered fake ads.  Forensiq identified over 5,000 apps that display unseen ads on both Apple and Android devices.  Advertisers are paying about $850 million for these ads each year, according to the report, and the apps with the highest rate of ad fraud can burn through 2 gigabytes of data per day on a single device.

Green Beret tells of shooting Taliban in CIA job interview, loses Silver Star for it.  A Green Beret who was awarded the Silver Star, then saw it stripped away because he killed a Taliban bombmaker, is telling why he did it, as conveyed in a CIA job interview he conducted nearly four years ago.  Maj. Matt Golsteyn said the insurgent was a known maker of improvised explosive devices and was in the presence of such components.  He considered him an armed combatant, so he shot him.

Military reservists with DEA jobs say agency bosses ridiculed their service.  More than a dozen senior Drug Enforcement Administration agents who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan as military reservists claim their bosses within the law enforcement agency ridiculed their service, assigned them to jobs their war injuries made especially difficult — and, in one case, allegedly planted a cellphone in an agent's car to track his movements and record conversations.  The agents, who have filed a formal complaint with a federal watchdog agency over allegations that date back more than a decade, believe they were singled out from other veterans within the agency because their duties caused staffing problems, according to interviews and court documents obtained by Fox News.  If their claims are true, the agency's treatment of the reservists is in violation of President Obama's direct order to federal agencies that unfair treatment of veterans will not be tolerated.

Campaign Memo: Ted Cruz Has Raised More Hard Money Than Every Other GOP Candidate Including Jeb Bush.  The fundraising numbers from last Federal Election Commission (FEC) fundraising quarter for 2016 GOP presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) were so good combined with one week in the previous quarter, he has actually raised more "hard money" than former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a new memo from his campaign manager Jeff Roe obtained exclusively by Breitbart News reveals.

Obama's Waldorf Astoria snub breaks presidential tradition.  President Obama will not stay at the Waldorf Astoria on Friday amid fears the place could be bugged after it was sold to a Chinese company.  The Department of State changed a tradition of putting up US officials at the Waldorf — where every president since Herbert Hoover has hung his hat — after Hilton Worldwide announced it was selling the hotel to Anbang Insurance Group.  Reports say there are fears the Chinese might set up a bugging system.

Illegal Immigrant Who Killed Chandra Levy May Be Released.  Attorneys for Ingmar Guandique, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador who murdered Washington intern Chandra Levy in 2001, will likely ask for Guandique to be released from jail while he awaits a retrial of his 2010 conviction.  A hearing is scheduled for Tuesday [7/14/2015].

Judge Orders Anti-Obama Filmmaker D'Souza Receive Psychological Counseling.  A Manhattan judge ordered Dinesh D'Souza, best known for documentaries critical of President Obama, to continue four more years of community service, as well as psychological counseling on Monday. [...] The psychiatrists D'Souza was first ordered to see found no signs of depression, but U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman overruled their findings and ordered D'Souza see a new psychological counselor weekly.

Ex-Obama DHS Adviser Tweets #AllahuAkbar Celebrating SC Flag Change.  Mohamed Elibiary, the former Department of Homeland Security Advisor who was relieved of duty last year after his ties with the Muslim Brotherhood became publicly known is now praising Allah and the Obama Administration in response to South Carolina's decision to remove the Confederate Flag.  Taking to twitter, Elibiary applauded Obama's efforts to shame the South into giving up history for political correctness while praising federalism.

World's smallest [B]ible is the size of a grain of sugar.  The world's smallest [B]ible, etched on a microchip the size of a grain of sugar, has been placed on display as part of the Israel Museum's 50th anniversary celebration.  Created by scientists at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, the Nano Bible is a gold-plated silicon chip the size of a pinhead on which the entire Hebrew Bible is engraved.  The tiny [B]ible needs to be magnified 10,000 times to be legible.

Overflowing GOP presidential field has Fox News in demand.  [Scroll down]  It's not just Fox News.  Broadcast stations in the early primary voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada are preparing for a 2016 onslaught — which they welcome, because presidential ads boost their bottom lines every four years.

Man Catches Mechanics in His Car at Taco Bell Drive-Thru in Moreno Valley.  Several hours after dropping his car off at a Nissan dealership, an employee at a Taco Bell in Moreno Valley found two mechanics in his vehicle in the drive-thru lane. [...] The dealership told Eyewitness News the mechanics did violate policy.  Their standard test-drive route is 4.8 miles, and the two mechanics drove Jones' car a distance of close to seven miles.

The Editor says...
It doesn't matter if the standard test drive route is a quarter of a mile.  The standard test drive shouldn't loop through the Taco Bell drive-through line.  Your car is still yours while it's in the shop.

Inside the Biggest Lottery Scam Ever.  Eddie Tipton's case may piece together the most ornate and brazen run on the lottery of all time.  It's certainly the largest jackpot claimed and then withdrawn in lottery history.  And Tipton — if he did pull off the attempted heist — may not be the only one in on the job.

Obama's grandmother to cook for president on Kenya trip.  President Barack Obama's Kenyan grandmother, known as Mama Sarah, vowed Friday [7/3/2015] to cook a traditional meal for her grandson when he visits the East African nation, the birthplace of his father, later this month.

South Carolina church fire caused by lightning, officials say.  Lightning, not arson, caused the fire that gutted a traditionally black church in South Carolina this week, federal and state investigators have concluded.  Tuesday's [6/30/2015] fire at Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church in Greeleyville was caused by lightning, and there was "no criminal intent," the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said Thursday on Twitter.  The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division concurred, releasing a statement Thursday [7/2/2015] saying that the fire is "best classified as natural" and that investigators found no indications of wrongdoing.

Isn't this what the telephone is for?
Obama to visit Pentagon for ISIS update.  Obama plans to meet with his national security team and speak on the subject in the afternoon [7/6/2015], according to the White House.  He is expected to be briefed on the war by Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, among others.  The president's rare visit to the Pentagon comes as he is deepening the U.S. military's involvement in Iraq to help drive back ISIS forces.

Obama heads to the Pentagon for ISIS update.  President Obama will head to the Pentagon Monday [7/6/2015] to receive an update on operations against the Islamic State, Navy Times reported Sunday night.  At the Pentagon the president is expected to make remarks to the press on the ongoing airstrikes and operations against the terror group, one day before Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Somebody is cutting Internet cables, causing massive outages.  The FBI is investigating a mysterious string of attacks on fiber optic cables in the San Francisco Bay area, including one that severely disrupted Internet service at numerous businesses and residential buildings Tuesday morning [6/30/2015].

Survey says: 35 percent of Americans would expatriate.  As the Fourth of July weekend looms and Americans prep their grills and ready their fireworks, some citizens are packing their bags.  A recent online poll of more than 2,000 adults by TransferWise, a peer-to-peer money transfer service based in the United Kingdom, revealed that 35 percent of American-born residents and emigrants would consider leaving the United States to live in another country.  This percentage greatly increases for those age 18 to 34.

Why couldn't they have left the country eight years ago?
Poll: Obama Millennials Want To Leave The America They Created.  A new poll from TransferWise shows that 35 percent of those born in the United States would consider ditching their home country to live elsewhere; that number skyrockets among those aged 18-34, the so-called millennials, 55 percent of whom said they would think of taking off if given the chance.  Most of those millennials cite economics as a chief factor in their desire to leave:  43 percent of men and 38 percent of women said they'd leave if they could get paid more in another country.

Cruz Reminds Katie Couric That Hillary Created Anti-Obama Birther Movement.  Faded, former-media darling Katie Couric hosted Republican Senator Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) for a full-hour to discuss a wide range of issues Monday [6/29/2015].  The left-wing anchor, who is now perched at a place called Yahoo!, introduced Cruz as a historic candidate — potentially the first American president to be born in Canada.  Later in the interview, she questioned Cruz on his citizenship.

Biden cheers end of white majority, 'that's a good thing'.  Vice President Joe Biden welcomed a top Latin American leader to Washington by declaring that "those of us of European stock" will be the minority in less than two years, and, he added, "that's a good thing."  Biden made the comments during a State Department luncheon for Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.

Report: Sweeping New Hostage Policy Due To 'Idiot' At State Dept, WILL Harm Americans.  The federal government will stop threatening families with criminal prosecution for attempting to pay ransom for loved ones taken hostage by terrorist groups, President Barack Obama will announce Wednesday [6/24/2015] in an executive order clarifying and changing the way the government handles hostage situations.  The sweeping new policy is due to "an idiot" at the Department of State, an official close to the review process told The Daily Caller News Foundation — and "it's going to encourage more kidnappings of U.S. service members and U.S. diplomats stationed abroad, and it's going to make Americans targets."

Senate advances fast-track trade bill for Obama.  The Senate on Tuesday [6/23/2015] voted to advance President Obama's trade agenda, approving a measure to end debate on fast-track authority.  The 60-37 motion sets up a vote on final passage on Wednesday [6/24/2015].  If the Senate approves fast-track or trade promotion authority (TPA), it would then be sent to Obama's desk to become law.

Texas turns away from criminal truancy courts for students.  Gov. Greg Abbott has signed into law a measure to decriminalize unexcused absences and require school districts to implement preventive measures.

After Hacking U.S. Personnel Files: Chinese Will Dine With Kerry at Mt. Vernon.  Secretary of State John Kerry said he will meet with Chinese leaders next week for the annual U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue and then hold "a dinner at Mount Vernon" for them.  Kerry will be hosting the Chinese at Mount Vernon, the Virginia estate of George Washington, less than three weeks after the Office of Personnel Management announced that the personnel files of some four million current and former federal employees had been hacked, reportedly by the Chinese.

When was anyone fired for incompetence in the Obama administration?
Will anyone at OPM be fired for this catastrophic mega-hack by China?  Imagine the situation was reversed and the NSA had been caught lifting the personnel files of virtually every human being who works for the Chinese government.  How tense would relations be with China right now?  I'm thinking somewhere on the order of you-just-bombed-our-embassy tense.  As it is, if there are plans afoot to retaliate, the White House is doing an uncharacteristically good job of keeping them secret so far.

Pope Francis warns of destruction of world's ecosystem in leaked encyclical.  Pope Francis will this week call for changes in lifestyles and energy consumption to avert the "unprecedented destruction of the ecosystem" before the end of this century, according to a leaked draft of a papal encyclical.  In a document released by an Italian magazine on Monday, the pontiff will warn that failure to act would have "grave consequences for all of us".

The Editor says...
I guess the Pope should read the Bible, which clearly states that God has made the heavens, with all their host, and the earth, and all things that are in it, and the seas, and all that is in them, and He preserves them all. (Nehemiah 9:6)  God himself preserves the earth (and the oceans and the atmosphere), not governments, not environmentalists, and certainly not the U.N.

Obama Dealt Massive, Humiliating Defeat on Trade.  President Obama was handed a horrific defeat Friday [6/12/2015] in Congress as his own Party deserted him to thwart trade legislation for which he had personally lobbied and which he viewed as a keystone of his second term legacy.  The vote, which was on a measure crucial to passage of the legislation, wasn't even close, as the House rejected a trade adjustment assistance (TAA) package by 302-126.

How telemarketers get around the "Do Not Call" list.  The federal government set up the Do Not Call Registry 12 years ago, to stop annoying calls from sales people.  But they're still getting through.  Since 2009, complaints to the Federal Trade Commission have nearly tripled, from 63,000 a month to 150,000.

Vatican makes history: Pope allows Islamic prayers, Koran readings.  For the first time in Vatican history, the pope allowed for the reading of Islamic prayers and Koran readings from the Catholic facility.  The readings and prayer came as Pope Francis met with Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Vatican City, a gathering designed to pray for Middle Eastern peace.

Whistleblowers testify on gov't backlash, DHS agent says bosses tried to strip her gun rights.  A Department of Homeland Security whistleblower testified Thursday [6/11/2015] that the "retaliation" against her for probing a controversial visa program was so extensive she was told she couldn't "carry or own a personal weapon" — a step she described as a constitutional rights violation, and just one of several ways she was punished for speaking out.  Taylor Johnson, a senior special agent in the Homeland Security Investigations division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, testified at a Senate hearing alongside whistleblowers from several other agencies who claim to have faced similar harassment.

'Wounded Warrior' Charity Fights — To Get Rich.  The Wounded Warrior Project's CEO wants charity execs to get a big-league salary without worries about high overhead — and he's not shy about selling donor info.

Top Weather Service official creates consulting job — then takes it himself with $43,200 raise, watchdog says.  A senior National Weather Service official helped write the job description and set the salary for his own post-retirement consulting post — then came back to the office doing the same job with a $43,200 raise, the agency's watchdog found.  The deputy chief financial officer also demanded that he be paid a $50,000 housing allowance near Weather Service headquarters in downtown Silver Spring in violation of government rules for contractors, one of numerous improprieties in a revolving-door deal sealed with full knowledge of senior agency leaders, according to an investigation by the Commerce Department inspector general's office.

Huge fall in stop-and-frisk raises fear that cops are reluctant to confront criminals.  The frightening message — echoed by police supervisors and union leaders — comes as stop-and-frisk encounters are on pace to plunge by 42% this year, with 20,000 fewer street stops.  There were 11,652 stops across the city through June 3 — projecting to roughly 28,000 for the year, records obtained by the [New York] Daily News show.  As the number of stops fell, the number of murders spiked 19.5% during the first five months of the year, the number of people shot is up 9.2% and the number of shooting incidents jumped 9%.

Mississippi superintendent won't say if he'll drop charges against cheering spectators.  A Mississippi superintendent who pressed charges against people for cheering during a high school graduation ceremony says he plans to make a statement in court Tuesday [6/9/2015], but did not say whether he would drop the charges.  Senatobia school Superintendent Jay Foster reiterated Friday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press that his aim is to ensure that some families do not ruin graduations by causing a ruckus.  He said that when he first started at Senatobia four years ago, out-of-control cheering meant some families could not hear a graduate's name called or see them walk across the stage to receive their diploma.

The Editor says...
It's a shame they have to bring in the police to control the behavior of those who have no concept of decorum or polite behavior.

China is gambling Obama doesn't have will to respond to its massive land grab.  You may not have noticed, as ISIS expands its reach across Iraq and Russia fuels conflict in Ukraine, but the odds of an armed confrontation between the United States and China just dramatically increased.  After years of ignoring China's growing assertiveness in Asia, the Obama administration has been taken unaware by a major land and power grab by Beijing.  Over the past several years, China has steadily expanded its territorial ambitions, including a claim that the entire South China Sea is under its dominion.  The sea is one of the world's most strategic bodies of water.

We Can't Let John Deere Destroy the Very Idea of Ownership.  It's Official: JOHN Deere and General Motors want to eviscerate the notion of ownership.  Sure, we pay for their vehicles.  But we don't own them.  Not according to their corporate lawyers, anyway.  In a particularly spectacular display of corporate delusion, John Deere — the world's largest agricultural machinery maker — told the Copyright Office that farmers don't own their tractors.  Because computer code snakes through the DNA of modern tractors, farmers receive "an implied license for the life of the vehicle to operate the vehicle."  It's John Deere's tractor, folks.  You're just driving it.

GM says you don't own your car, you just license it.  GM has joined with John Deere in asking the government to confirm that you literally cannot own your car because of the software in its engine.  Like Deere, GM wants to stop the Copyright Office from granting an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that would allow you to jailbreak the code in your car's engine so that you can take it to a non-GM mechanic for service, or fix it yourself.  By controlling who can service your car, GM can force you to buy only official, expensive parts, protecting its bottom line.

Defense chief: Iraqis showed no will to fight at Ramadi.  The Islamic State group's takeover of the provincial capital Ramadi is stark evidence that Iraqi forces lack the "will to fight," Defense Secretary Ash Carter said in a TV interview that aired Sunday [5/24/2015].

Obama Deal Seeks to 'Eliminate' Trade Barriers With Communist Regime Now Running $24.9B Trade Deficit With U.S..  The Trans-Pacific Partnership that President Barack Obama is negotiating with 11 other nations seeks to eliminate both tariff and nontariff trade barriers with these countries, according to the Congressional Research Service.  One of those countries is Vietnam, which the State Department says maintains a Communist regime.  In 2014, the U.S. ran a $24,858,700,000 trade deficit with Vietnam, according to U.S. government trade data published by the Census Bureau.  U.S. producers sold $5,724,900,000 in goods to purchasers in Vietnam.  At the same time, producers in Vietnam sold $30,583,600,000 in goods to purchasers in the United States.

Go Forth And Pwn For Shizzle, Word List Guardians Tell Scrabble Players.  A new batch of 6,500 words are now available to Scrabble players, after publishing house Collins updated its widely used Official Scrabble Words list Thursday [5/21/2015].  The list includes tech jargon and slang, such as pwn, twerk and shizzle.

How rude!
Congressman Laughs at Conservative Sheriff for Saying Pot Causes Violent Behavior.  During a House Judiciary hearing Representative Steve Cohen (D-TN) asked conservative Milwaukee sheriff and frequent Fox News guest David Clarke if he thought marijuana possession should excluded from the discussion of violent drug offenses that included meth, crack, and heroin.  When Clarke said no, Cohen burst out laughing.

Study: Lyrics of No. 1 Hit Songs Average a Third-Grade Reading Level.  Have you ever been driving along, listening to the latest hit song on a Top 20 radio station, and thought, "Man, these lyrics are really dumb?"  Well, you're not alone.  According to a new study conducted by data wiz Andrew Powell-Morse, the lyrics for the last decade's No. 1 hit songs average a third-grade reading level.

The Editor says...
This isn't much of a news bulletin, inasmuch as the vocabulary one would expect to encounter in college is replete with words that don't rhyme with any other words.  The simpler the lyrics, the more memorable the song will be.

Cancer charities bilked donors out of $187 million, government says.  A group of four cancer philanthropies bilked donors across the country out of $187 million, the Federal Trade Commission charged Tuesday [5/19/2015] in what the agency called one of the largest government actions against charity fraud.  The four groups named in the civil complaint are the Cancer Fund of America, Cancer Support Services, the Children's Cancer Fund of America and the Breast Cancer Society.  Their operations from 2008 to 2012, which were called a "sham" by the FTC, relied on emotional appeals to help women and children with cancer.

Cancer charities used public's $187 million for cruises, dating sites: FTC.  The federal government has charged four sham cancer charities for bilking more than $187 million from consumers for cars, trips, luxury cruises and even dating site memberships.  All 50 states and the District of Columbia joined federal officials to charge in federal court the Cancer Fund of America, Cancer Support Services, Children's Cancer Fund of America and the Breast Cancer Society, according to the Federal Trade Commission.  The four charities and various executives were charged with using telemarketing calls, direct mail, websites and other materials to raise money.

Tennessee family accused of spending $187M raised for cancer charities on themselves.  The charities hired telemarketers to collect $20 donations from people across the country, telling consumers that they provided financial aid and other support to cancer patients, including pain medication, transportation to chemotherapy visits and hospice care.  But little money made it to cancer patients, as the groups "operated as personal fiefdoms characterized by rampant nepotism, flagrant conflicts of interest, and excessive insider compensation" with none of the controls used by bona fide charities, the FTC said Tuesday [5/19/2015].

Senators in both parties defy Obama, push renewal of crude oil exports for economy, energy security.  The bill demonstrates growing support among Republicans and Democrats for lifting the export ban, implemented in the 1970s when the Arab oil embargo prompted the prohibition of all exports of American crude oil.  The U.S. now has become the world's largest producer of crude oil and natural gas.  Supporters of the measure say it's time U.S. law catches up to that reality and point to provisions in the legislation that would halt exports in the event of unintended consequences.  "This bill provides triggers to stop exports if gas prices increase or if our economy is adversely affected," said Sen. Joe Manchin III, a West Virginia Democrat and co-sponsor of the bill.

NYPD Commissioner Considering Granting Amnesty To 1.2 Million Low-Level Offenders.  First he called for reduced penalties for smoking marijuana.  Now, Bratton wants to explore granting amnesty to 1.2 million city residents with open warrants for low-level offenses, people who run the risk of being arrested for failing to resolve tickets for drinking in public, disorderly conduct and the like, CBS2's Marcia Kramer reported Monday [5/18/2015].  There is one statistic that shows the magnitude of the problem.  Last year, of the hundreds of thousands of tickets that were given out for low-level offenses, fully 40 percent of the people either skipped the proceedings or didn't show up, Kramer reported.

HTTPS: the end of an era.  Mozilla, the foundation that maintains Firefox, has announced that it will effectively deprecate the insecure HTTP protocol, eventually forcing all sites to use HTTPS if they hope to use modern features. [...] An HTTPS site can not be built on a desert island network, because you need a signature from a certificate authority.  A dissident is screwed, because the dissident must give identifying information to the certificate authority.

Editor In Chief Of World's Best Known Medical Journal: Half Of All The Literature Is False.  Over the course of human history, our planet has experienced multiple paradigm shifting realizations, all of which were met with harsh resistence at the time of their revelation.  One great example is when we realized the Earth was not flat.  Today, we are seeing these kinds of revelatory shifts in thinking happen in multiple spheres, all at one time.  It can seem overwhelming for those who are paying attention, especially given the fact that a lot of these ideas go against current belief systems.  There will always be resistance to new information which does not fit into the current framework, regardless of how reasonable (or factual) that information might be.

New bill would allow New Jersey drivers to pump their own gas.  New Jersey and Oregon are the only two states that require attendants to pump gas.

Automakers Say You Don't Really Own Your Car.  [The Electronic Frontier Foundation] is fighting for vehicle owners' rights to inspect the code that runs their vehicles and to repair and modify their vehicles, or have a mechanic of their choice do the work.  At the moment, the anti-circumvention prohibition in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act arguably restricts vehicle inspection, repair, and modification.  If EFF is successful then vehicle owners will be free to inspect and tinker, as long as they don't run afoul of other regulations, such as those governing vehicle emissions, safety, or copyright law.

The Saudis drop the veil: Yes, we're considering our own nuke to balance against Iran.  The Saudis have not been coy about their intention to address the threat posed by a revisionist and potentially nuclearizing Iran.  While the West and the Obama administration, in particular, have been pursuing a deal with Iran that critics say ensures that the Islamic Republic will eventually develop an atomic weapon, Iran has been expanding its influence across the region.

More Pirate Fishing Off the Texas Coast!.  In a Saturday [5/2/2015] story from Breitbart Texas, you read about a tough new bill being pushed by the Texas congressional delegation to combat illegal fishing in the Gulf of Mexico.  The need for that law was proven again on Friday [5/1/2015], as not one, but two Mexican Lanchas were seized in US waters for poaching with illegal long lines and gill nets.

9th Circuit Court's Democratic Campaign Contribution.  The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has handed a gift to the Kamala Harris for U.S. Senate campaign, allowing Ms. Harris to collect confidential taxpayer information about donors to charities and nonprofit advocacy organizations, all without probable cause and a warrant.  The leftwing Harris is currently California's Attorney General, and is touted by some as "the next Barack Obama."  She also is the state's top charity regulator.  The court said she may collect names of top donors to all charities and nonprofit advocacy organizations for "law enforcement" reasons even without a hint of lawbreaking.  This will undoubtedly intimidate nonprofit critics of her policies.

Congress Launches Probe Into White House Data Breaches.  Congress has launched a probe into cyber attacks on White House computer networks that are believed to have exposed personally identifiable information of U.S. citizens and official meetings with ambassadors, according to a letter sent to President Obama by a Senate investigatory committee.  Lawmakers are attempting to determine the extent of a recent breach reported to have been committed by Russian hackers in 2014.  While the White House initially downplayed the extent of the information accessed by these cyber criminals, investigators say the breach may have been more widespread than previously believed.

FEC head under fire for women's forum 'stacked' with Dems.  The chairwoman of the supposedly nonpartisan Federal Election Commission is under fire for planning a forum next month on women in politics "stacked" with Democrat-leaning speakers and apparent Hillary Clinton supporters.  One conservative lawyer already is calling for an inspector general investigation; another group is urging Chairwoman Ann Ravel to call off the event.  To Ravel's detractors, the forum is yet another example of the allegedly partisan turn being taken by the FEC under her leadership.

Hugging without permission now 'sexual assault' at U.Va..  I and my wife [sic] are happily married, and neither of us is abusive, much less criminal.  But under the University of Virginia's broad new "sexual assault" policy, my wife could be deemed guilty of "sexual assault" when she hugs me without advance permission.  So, apparently, would any couple in America that engages in making out, without lots of explicit discussion in advance — that is, pretty much every person in America who is married or in a committed relationship.

1 receipt, 2 shopping carts, nearly $500K in losses for Home Depot.  A Bloomfield man was sentenced to three years probation Monday [4/27/2015] for scamming Home Depot out of nearly $500,000 with an elaborate ruse prosecutors say was carried out hundreds of times at stores in New Jersey and along the East Coast.  Daniel Chalet, 29, pleaded guilty in January 2014 to conspiring to commit wire fraud for a scheme that ran from 2009 through 2012, New Jersey federal prosecutors say.

GM, Ford, And Others Want to Make Working on Your Own Car Illegal.  It's called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).  It's been around since 2000 and started as anti-Internet piracy legislation.  But automakers want to use it to try and make working on your own car illegal.  Yes, illegal.  The general premise is that unlike cars of the past, today's vehicles are so advanced and use such a large amount of software and coding in their general makeup, altering said code could be dangerous and possibly even malicious.

Former CBS Reporter Sharyl Attkisson to Host New National Sunday Morning Show.  Sinclair Broadcasting Group has announced that it has hired former CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson to host a new national Sunday morning program that will air on its affiliates.  The 30-minute show will launch in the fall and will be "a blend of investigative and political journalism, with a focus on accountability."

There are a remarkably small number of people who trust the government.  Buried in a massive Pew study on the public's feelings about data and open government is this amazing nugget:  Just 23 percent trust the federal government to do the right thing "at least most of the time." [...] Not surprisingly, how you feel about the federal government depends somewhat on your party affiliation.  Twice as many Democrats as Republicans say they trust the government to do the right thing most of the time, a function of the fact that the "government" is currently represented, symbolically speaking, by a Democratic president.  Those splits would likely reverse themselves if a Republican was in the White House.

Belle Gibson, wellness author, admits she faked cancer: 'None of it's true'.  Australian wellness writer Belle Gibson, who built an online empire and sold a cookbook based on claims that a healthy diet cured her of cancer, has admitted for the first time that she never had the life-threatening disease.  "None of it's true," the 23-year-old confessed to Australian Women's Weekly in an interview published Thursday [4/23/2015].

Earth Day & Bill Penzey.  This week I placed an order with Penzey's Spices, a company headquartered in Milwaukee, WI. [...] They also have a catalog that they mail out periodically.  Lately it has come to my attention that the owner of the company, Bill Penzey Jr., includes a "newsletter" in his catalog, which is his soapbox to lecture his customers about diversity and other topics close to the hearts of progressives.

Journalists Who Reported That Tulsa Deputy Had Falsified Records Abruptly Resign.  Two journalists from The Tulsa World, who reported last week that the reserve officer who accidentally killed an unarmed black man had falsified training records, turned in their resignations today [4/20/2015] for reasons unknown.  Talking Points Memo learned that Dylan Goforth and Ziva Branstetter, the two staffers who broke the story last Thursday, were no longer with the World.

Missouri Town Responds To Officer Exodus After Election Of Black Female Mayor.  A small city in Missouri caught national attention when roughly half of its employees resigned following the election of its first African-American female mayor.  Many news outlets and bloggers have speculated that racism and sexism drove the exodus in Parma, a city of about 700 near the Mississippi River; whereas several residents say other factors were at play.

FEC Chairwoman to Solo Host Panel on Women in Politics Dominated by Dems.  The chairwoman of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) will be hosting a public forum next month to discuss the under-representation of women in politics "despite record-breaking numbers of women in the 114th Congress".  Though the government-funded event will be held in the FEC's Washington, D.C. office, the invitation is only signed by FEC Chairwoman Ann Ravel, who is a Democrat, and not by any of the other five FEC commissioners.  However, the main focus of the event — the recruitment of female candidates for public office — falls outside the traditional scope of FEC activities.

The Quest to Boot Old Hickory Off the $20.  This week, Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire introduced the Women on the Twenty Act, legislation aimed at putting an American woman on the $20 bill.  Shaheen's efforts nod to an initiative by Women on 20s, a group that is lobbying to change the $20 by 2020.  That year Americans will mark the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment, which granted women the right to vote.

DHS Ranked 'Worst Place To Work' In Federal Government.  According to a 2014 survey by the Office of Personnel Management, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was ranked by its employees as the worst place to work among the government's 37 large departments or agencies, Congress was told Thursday [4/16/2015].  The department, which includes agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), received an index score of 48 on global satisfaction in 2014, compared to a score of 62 in 2010.  Last year's score marks the lowest ranking of any government department that year.

Hacking into your home: TVs, refrigerators could be portal to most sensitive info.  Forget doors and windows, the easiest way for a crook to break into your home may be through the stainless steel refrigerator in your kitchen, or the big screen TV in the living room.  Modern appliances are increasingly connected to the Internet, and each presents a potential path for savvy hackers to enter your home virtually and steal your identity, bank and credit card information and any other personal information they can use to line their pockets and leave you in the lurch, experts warn.

Obama's 'Jade Helm' Program Comes to Texas.  Some have speculated that Jade Helm is the military's response to a possible attack by a weapon of mass destruction.  Others have noted that the training seems to be focused on putting down domestic political disturbances.  Monday [4/13/2015], an overflow crowd for the Real County Commissioners Court meeting, heard Lt. Col. Daniel Pawlak explain why the United States military has begun training inside the United States in unprecedented ways.  Sources in attendance in the Real County Courthouse told PJ Media that Pawlak said the military would be in Texas to train for "unconventional warfare suited to large land, low population areas."

Report: Tulsa sheriff's employees were told to forge Bates' training records.  Some supervisors at the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office were told to forge Robert Bates' training records, and three who refused were reassigned to less desirable duties, the Tulsa World reported.  Bates' training has come under scrutiny since the 73-year-old volunteer deputy killed Eric Harris on April 2.  Bates claims he meant to use his Taser, but accidentally fired his handgun instead.

Ex-Im Bank Official Hit With Bribery Charge.  A former loan official for the Export-Import Bank has been charged by the Justice Department with bribery for accepting cash or goods as bribes on 19 separate occasions.

North Korea Transfers Missile Goods to Iran During Nuclear Talks.  North Korea supplied several shipments of missile components to Iran during recent nuclear talks and the transfers appear to violate United Nations sanctions on both countries, according to U.S. intelligence officials.  Since September more than two shipments of missile parts have been monitored by U.S. intelligence agencies as they transited from North Korea to Iran, said officials familiar with intelligence reports who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Pentagon Deploys 'May I Kiss You?' Training.  An issue that could "dramatically affect" the mission of the United States Armed Forces is telling soldiers when it is okay to kiss a girl.  The Air Force is the latest branch to employ the services of Mike Domitrz, a speaker and author known for his "May I Kiss You?" training session, to teach servicemembers about consent and sexual assault prevention.  On Thursday [4/9/2015] the Air Force awarded Domitrz's company, the Date Safe Project, $10,000 for three training sessions.

The Editor says...
This sort of training might indeed be necessary because the military probably gets a lot of godless, fatherless recruits who don't know how to behave.

FTC opens new office to protect you from the Internet of Things.  The FTC says it'll be broadening its scope with the launch of a new Office of Technology Research and Investigation, described by the agency as "the next generation in consumer protection."  The new division succeeds and replaces the FTC's current Mobile Technology Unit, which focused on safeguarding children from deceptive mobile apps and overseeing other smartphone-centric topics.

21 Days: Treasury Says Debt Has Been Frozen at $18,112,975,000,000.  According to the Daily Treasury Statement for Friday, April 3, which was published by the U.S. Treasury on Monday, April 6, that portion of the federal debt that is subject to a legal limit set by Congress closed the day at $18,112,975,000,000 — for the 21st day in a row.  $18,112,975,000,000 is about $25 million below the current legal debt limit of $18,113,000,080,959.35.

Court asked to bar D.C. government from illegally spending federal funds.  A nonprofit government watchdog is asking a federal appellate court to bar District of Columbia officials from spending tax dollars under a budget measure previously declared unconstitutional by a U.S. District Court Judge Emmett Sullivan.  Judicial Watch filed its motion Tuesday [4/7/2015] to intervene in the case on behalf of Clarice Feldman, a longtime D.C. resident.  The case revolves around a measure passed by the D.C. Council and signed by then-Mayor Vincent Gray, the Local Budget Autonomy Act of 2012.  Gray reversed himself and declined to enforce the law after being advised by then-D.C. attorney General Irvin Nathan that it was unconstitutional.

Key Witness: Prosecutor Manipulated Me Into Falsely Testifying Against Scooter Libby.  Judith Miller, the former New York Times reporter, has blown a big hole in the case against Lewis "Scooter" Libby, convicted of lying to avoid blame for outing a CIA agent.  Miller was a key witness in Libby's trial, but in her new book she has repudiated her testimony.

Alaska House brushes off constitutional claims, 'orders' massive federal land transfer.  Rejecting the advice of its legal staff, the Alaska House of Representatives approved a bill Monday [4/6/2015] ordering the federal government to hand over most federal land in Alaska to the state by Dec. 31, 2016.  House lawmakers said the federal government would be allowed to keep national parks, such as Denali, but not national monuments, preserves and areas such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.

New revelation helps exonerate Scooter Libby.  In a book just released, The Story: A Reporter's Journey, Judith Miller, a key witness in the Libby prosecution, states that Patrick Fitzgerald had offered repeatedly to drop all charges against Lewis Libby if he would "deliver" Vice President Cheney to him.  In addition, she charges that Fitzgerald manipulated her into incorrectly testifying about a critical conversation she had with Libby and withheld exculpatory evidence from both her and the defense in order to induce her mistaken testimony — testimony the prosecution knew was made because she was acting under a false belief.

Native Hawaiians Arrested in Protests of Massive Telescope.  After days of blockading the road to prevent construction machinery from reaching the summit, thirty-one out of about 300 protesters against the $1.4 billion Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) in the Mauna Kea Conservation District on the Big Island of Hawaii were arrested by the Hawaii Police Department and officers of the Department of Land and Natural Resources. [...] Native Hawaiian protestors hope to reach the Supreme Court and worry that beginning construction before the courts reach resolution will cause irreparable harm to the environment and to Native Hawaiian ancestral graves and sacred places.

Army bows to Generation Y, loosens tattoo policy allowing more ink.  Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno confirmed Wednesday [4/1/2015] that the Army will change its unpopular tattoo policy, with looser rules that allow for more ink to take effect in the near future.  "Society is changing its view of tattoos and we have to change along with that.  It makes sense.  Soldiers have grown up in an era when tattoos are much more acceptable and we have to change along with that," the general said while speaking at a conference in Huntsville, Alabama, Army Times reported.

Brains behind the 1970s Pet Rock fad and 'Advertising for Dummies' Gary Dahl dies aged 78.  Gary Ross Dahl, the creator of the wildly popular and bizarre 1970s fad the Pet Rock, has died aged 78 in southern Oregon.

Obama commutes sentences of 22 people serving time in federal prison, mostly for drug crimes.  President Barack Obama on Tuesday [3/31/2015] shortened the prison sentences of nearly two dozen drug convicts, including some given life in prison for their crimes.

The 2 states Obama hasn't visited.  When President Barack Obama speaks at the Hill Air Force Base in Utah on Friday [4/3/2015], he'll have traveled to 49 states as president, nearly reaching his goal of stopping in every single one during his eight years in office.

Arizona Governor Vetoes Bill To Delay Identifying Police Officers Who Shoot People.  A controversial bill that aimed to prohibit law enforcement in Arizona from releasing the names of officers involved in shootings until 60 days after the incident was vetoed Monday [3/30/2015] by Gov. Doug Ducey.  Ducey said his No. 1 goal was to protect officers and their families, and the "arbitrary" 60-day timeframe didn't help police.  In a letter explaining his decision, the governor also noted that Arizona law already allows local police departments to weigh officer safety as they decide when to release names.

Military planning to spend billions on new Air Force One.  The Pentagon is considering spending billions of dollars on three new Boeing 747s to use as Air Force One, the aircraft that shuttles the United States president.  According to CBS News, the current Air Force One fleet is getting old, and the U.S. military says it's time for a new generation to carry future commanders in chief.  "We've got a pretty good size team working on it," said Air Force Col. Amy McCain, who is in charge of ordering the new Air Force One, according to the station.

BLS: Bartenders in U.S. Outnumber Clergy 12 to 1.  According to annual employment data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on Wednesday, bartenders in the United States outnumber clergy 12 to 1.  According to the report, there were 46,510 individuals working as members of the clergy as of May 2014, compared to 579,700 working as bartenders.  Clergy made an average salary of $47,730.

33 Strange Facts About America That Most Americans Would Be Shocked To Learn.  [#2] In more than half of all U.S. states, the highest paid public employee in the state is a football coach.

Republicans pass budgets in both House and Senate, trim $5.1 trillion in spending.  Remember when a disagreement between Republicans on the budget was "cataclysmic" for GOP claims to governance?  Democrats last passed a normal budget resolution six years ago, but Republicans went all of seven days before both chambers finally passed budget resolutions.

Firm Founded By David Axelrod Worked In Nigerian Election As Recently As December.  The political consulting firm founded by former Obama message guru David Axelrod was working for the challenger to the Nigerian president as recently as this winter, a spokesman for the firm confirmed on Friday [3/27/2015].  AKPD Message and Media said in August that it had stopped working with All Progressives Congress (APC) — the party of former military dictator Muhammadu Buhari who is challenging current president Goodluck Jonathan in elections next week — in March. AKPD partner Isaac Baker confirmed to BuzzFeed News on Friday that the firm worked for APC again for a period beginning in December 2014.

Will California's drought affect hydroelectric power?  For California, now in its fourth year of drought, the record low snowfall, in addition to the lack of rain, is beginning to hamper the state's supply of hydroelectric energy.  This winter California received only 12 percent of its average snowpack, meaning that there will be dramatically less runoff into the rivers and dams across the Sierra Nevada this spring.

License plate

A Test of Free Speech and Bias, Served on a Plate From Texas.  Nine states let drivers choose specialty license plates featuring the flag and honoring the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which says it seeks to celebrate Southern heritage. But Texas refused to allow the group's plates, saying the flag was offensive.  On Monday [3/23/2015], the Supreme Court will hear a challenge to that decision in Walker v. Sons of Confederate Veterans, No. 14-144, a case that considers the limits of free expression and the meaning of a charged symbol that many associate with secession and slavery.


House Republican Budget Overhauls Medicare and Repeals the Health Law.  House Republicans on Tuesday [3/17/2015] will unveil a proposed budget for 2016 that partly privatizes Medicare, turns Medicaid into block grants to the states, repeals the Affordable Care Act and reaches balance in 10 years, challenging Republicans in Congress to make good on their promises to deeply cut federal spending.

GOP Shows What A Responsible Budget Looks Like.  President Obama's budget, summed up:  More taxes ($1.8 trillion), more spending ($547 billion), more debt (about $6 trillion), and no hard choices.  Nothing on entitlement reform, tax reform, regulatory reform or anything else that Washington ought to be addressing.  The House budget, in contrast, eliminates annual deficits in less than a decade — without higher taxes — and does so by targeting the real problem:  out-of-control entitlement spending.  It would turn Medicare into a premium support program and Medicaid into block grants to states.  It would kill ObamaCare, which alone saves about $2 trillion over the next decade.  And it keeps control on overall discretionary spending while adding needed funds to the Defense Department.

House GOP Budget Axes Obamacare, Boosts Defense.  Republicans in the House of Representatives released their $3.8 trillion budget proposal for fiscal year 2016 Tuesday — a plan that would balance the budget within a decade by slashing $5.5 trillion in spending over that span while increasing military outlays and fully repealing Obamacare, among other policy initiatives.

House Republicans seek ObamaCare repeal, more defense $$ in new budget plan.  House Republicans, unveiling their first budget blueprint since the party took control of Congress, issued a sweeping spending plan Tuesday [3/17/2015] that calls for complete repeal of ObamaCare, major changes to Medicare and controversial moves to boost defense spending despite tight budget limits.  GOP leaders say their budget would balance in less than 10 years, and in that time cut spending by $5.5 trillion compared with current projections.

Lawyers say Canadian-born Cruz eligible to run for president.  While questions about Canadian-born Sen. Ted Cruz's eligibility to be president haven't drawn much attention, two former Justice Department lawyers have weighed in with a bipartisan verdict:  Cruz, they say, is eligible to run for the White House.  Neal Katyal, acting solicitor general in the Obama administration, and Paul Clemente, solicitor general in President George W. Bush's administration, got out in front of the issue in a Harvard Law Review article.  "There is no question that Senator Cruz has been a citizen from birth and is thus a 'natural born Citizen' within the meaning of the Constitution," they wrote.

Media Matters pushes hard for Hillary 2016, putting its nonprofit status in question.  By retaining longtime Clinton loyalist James Carville as a regular columnist, the liberal watchdog Media Matters for America has increased its influence as a player in the 2016 presidential election.  But Media Matters may be edging toward violating the tax rules that govern nonprofit organizations.  Carville's new role at Media Matters was announced Thursday [3/12/2015], following two weeks of controversy surrounding Hillary Clinton, a likely Democratic presidential candidate and former secretary of state.  Media Matters was founded by another Clinton friend, David Brock, one of the rare Clinton acolytes willing to defend her amid reports that she violated federal law by exclusively using a personal email address during her tenure as secretary of state.

Why does Media Matters deserve tax exempt status when they're cheerleaders for Hillary?  Last week, the Democratic party website Media Matters hired long time Clinton family friend and advisor James Carville to write for the site.  This is just the latest in a series of moves made by the Democratic party organ to boost the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.  But, as the Washington Examiner points out, Media Matters is a tax exempt organization, prohibited by law from engaging in political activity.

Ex-energy official's $1.7 million gig draws fire.  For five years, Dan Poneman was the Energy Department's No. 2 administrator during a time when the agency steered hundreds of millions of dollars to a struggling nuclear company that has won the backing of both the Obama administration and top Republicans and Democrats in Congress.  This month, he's set to become the company's president and CEO — a post that will bring him as much as $1.7 million a year.

Jesus Wants Me to Have This Jet.  God wants Pastor Creflo Dollar to have a $65 million private jet, according to paid spokesman for God, Pastor Creflo Dollar.  On Friday [3/13/2015], Dollar's website unveiled Project G650, an "airplane project" that he claims has something to do with "Understanding Grace" and "Empowering Change."  You may be wondering, What could this mysterious, holy airplane project be?  Probably something related to charity, you must think, like air-dropping food into famine-ravaged countries, or flying sick children to doctors, or lifting two of every animal out of a flood.  Not quite.

Reagan Was Right, Government Is The Problem.  The latest Gallup poll finds that more people list the government as a bigger problem in the U.S. than anything else — including the economy, jobs, health care, terrorism and race relations.  Global warming doesn't make the list at all.  Gallup notes that this is the fourth month in a row that government has topped the list.

Oil tankers Idle for Months off Delaware Waters, Puzzling Some.  Late last November, the tanker Olympic Flag carrying 650,000 barrels of Angolan crude dropped anchor about 7 miles off the coast in Delaware Bay, a seemingly routine shipment destined for a nearby Philadelphia refinery.  What happened next was anything but routine.  Instead of discharging its cargo within days and heading off for the next port, the ship idled offshore for nearly 11 weeks, discharging the oil at an unaccountably slow rate, according to shipping sources as well as vessel tracking data on ThomsonReuters Eikon.

Environmental trouble brewing for the K-Cup?  Keurig was sold to Green Mountain Coffee of Vermont in 2006, and last year sales of the coffee pods made up most of the company's $4.7 billion revenue, which was five times the amount from just five years earlier, according to the Atlantic.  Last year, the company sold more than nine billion K-Cups.  Almost one in three American households has a pod-based coffee machine.  As of last spring, only five percent of K-Cups sold by Keurig were recyclable, according to Mother Jones.  The remaining 95 percent are made with composite plastics and have the recycling number "7 blend" distinction, which cannot be processed in most recycling plants.

In a first, senators plan to introduce federal medical marijuana bill.  The bill, to be introduced by Senators Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), would end the federal ban on medical marijuana and implement a series of reforms long sought by advocates.  They include downgrading its status with the Drug Enforcement Agency from Schedule 1 to Schedule 2, allowing doctors to recommend its use in some cases to veterans, expanding access to researchers and making it easier for banks to provide services to the industry.

FBI email warns whistleblower of retaliation if surveillance program concerns reported.  The FBI bluntly told a potential whistleblower that he could face retaliation by coming forward with concerns about political meddling inside a secret terrorism and counterintelligence surveillance program.  The warning came in an email from a bureau attorney that raises questions in Congress about the bureau's ability to properly handle accusations of wrongdoing and protect those who come forward.

Feds crack down on Chinese 'birth tourism'.  In the largest operation of its kind, early Tuesday morning federal officials in Southern California served warrants at "Chinese birthing houses" or "maternity hotels," where wealthy Chinese nationals paid up to $80,000 for the sole purpose of giving birth in the U.S. to obtain citizenship for their children, earning in-state tuition to U.S. universities for them and permanent U.S. residency for the parents.

Fraudsters in Department of Education are caught stealing students' personal information to apply for loans and cellphones.  Government employees have been caught stealing students' personal information to apply for loans, credit cards and set up new cell phone accounts, Daily Mail Online has learned.  Reports on breaches of staff conduct inside the Department of Education shows how workers stole social security numbers from a database while a man was fired for trying to look up President Barack Obama's student loan records.  Cyber security campaigners warned that the failure to protect sensitive information because of 'bureaucratic incompetence' is just the 'tip of the iceberg'.

Bernanke: No to Fed audit, yes to emergency powers for president.  Many Republican lawmakers favor legislation introduced by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., that would subject the Fed's monetary policy decisions to policy audits by the Government Accountability Office.  Current Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen and other officials have criticized the audit idea in recent weeks on the grounds that it would politicize monetary policy decisions made by the independent central bank.  Bernanke, who was appointed by Republican George W. Bush, pushed back against Paul's bill and other proposals to ramp up congressional oversight of the Fed.  "I don't think that Congress has failed to make the Fed accountable," the former Princeton professor said.

Dumping subway trains into the ocean ... in a good way.  Usually, dumping metal into the ocean is a bad thing, but for once throwing disused items into the sea is working out for the greater good.  Over 2,500 New York subway cars have been used to create an underwater reef for crustaceans and fish in the Atlantic.

How Does PolitiFact Fact Check? By Tweeting People.  The Pulitzer Prize winning website PolitiFact has made quite a name for itself in the fact-checking business.  Operated by the Tampa Bay Times, the website is cited regularly by media outlets across the country as an authority on what is and is not true.  But how do they go about fact-checking claims they investigate?  PolitiFact routinely embeds links in its stories to supporting materials, but how does it reach out to an author of a column it is fact-checking?  Turns out it's not by phone or email, it's Twitter.

I strongly oppose 'Audit the Fed,' Yellen says.  Fed Chair Janet Yellen testified before Congress on Tuesday [2/24/2015] after presenting her semiannual monetary policy report.  The Federal Reserve will not hike rates for the next few Federal Open Market Committee meetings, according to Yellen's prepared remarks.  During the question-and-answer session, Yellen addressed a range of questions from the committee about the Fed's structure, its inflation measurement and the movement to "Audit the Fed."

U.S. Homeownership Rate Hits 20-Year Low.  The homeownership rate in the United States dropped to a 20-year low of 64.5 percent in 2014, according to new data released by the Census Bureau.  The homeownership rate is the percentage of households that own the home in which they live.  "It is computed," says the Census Bureau, "by dividing the number of households that are owners by the total number of occupied households."

Obama embraces natural gas exports to drive job growth despite likely domestic price hike.  The Obama administration is warming up increasingly to U.S. exports of natural gas after years of blocking greater access by domestic producers to the international market.  Tucked inside the White House's latest economic report to Congress is a section on energy production, with President Obama's top economic advisers embracing the concept of boosting natural gas exports as a driver of job growth, even as it would likely drive up prices paid by U.S. consumers and businesses.

Marine who vanished in Iraq in 2004 found guilty of desertion, sentenced to 2 years in prison.  A U.S. Marine who vanished in Iraq in 2004 has been sentenced to two years in prison for leaving his post and then fleeing to Lebanon after a brief return to the U.S.  As part of the sentence handed down Monday, Cpl. Wassef Hassoun will have a reduction in rank, loss of pay and a dishonorable discharge.  He was given two years and five days' confinement.

Big Pharma Is America's New Mafia.  Even our most prestigious journals publish research based on falsified studies, according to Charles Seife, a journalism professor whose class spent a semester trying to figure out why the data don't get corrected once research fraud comes to light.  "As a result," Seife writes, "nobody ever finds out which data is bogus, which experiments are tainted, and which drugs might be on the market under false pretenses."  If no one knows which data is bogus, we obviously have a big problem in conventional medicine.

Somehow the building didn't collapse, like both of the World Trade Center buildings did (in less than two hours).
Dubai Fire: Massive Blaze Strikes One of World's Largest Residential Towers.  One of the world's tallest residential towers caught fire early Saturday [2/21/2015] in Dubai's Marina district, sending bright yellow flames several stories high, but there were no reports of casualties, civil defense officials said.

Will Obama's New Regulations Wreak Havoc Upon The Elderly? Financial Advisers Say Yes.  If you're over 65 and you like your financial adviser, there's a good chance you won't be able to keep your adviser.  President Obama is set to speak at AARP headquarters in Washington, D.C. Monday afternoon [2/23/2015] alongside Sen. Elizabeth Warren and consumer protection chief Richard Cordray.  Obama will announce new regulations from his Department of Labor, which will set new rules governing financial managers and advisers.

The Fall of MSNBC.  Rarely has a prince so keenly disappointed his trumpeters.  It was announced yesterday [2/19/2015] that MSNBC's Ronan Farrow, once the sparkle-eyed wunderkind who would lead the network into broad, sunlit uplands, will be stripped of his show.  His time there, it turns out, was a waste of everyone's time.  In 2013, MSNBC chief Phil Griffin had enthused breathlessly that "Ronan has established himself as a provocative, independent journalist, capable of challenging people's assumptions and empowering audiences.  His show will be a game changer for MSNBC."  By February of 2015, he was forced to acknowledge that Farrow had "empowered," to judge from the ratings, almost nobody at all.

Federal Court Blocks Dem's Attempt to Out Conservative Donors.  A federal court on Tuesday [2/17/2015] blocked efforts by officials in California to force a conservative group to hand over the names of its donors, saying the order could violate those donors' First Amendment rights.  Kamala Harris, California's attorney general and a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, demanded last year that the Americans for Prosperity Foundation (AFPF) turn over its donor rolls.  The court enjoined that demand pending the outcome of AFPF's suit attempting to invalidate the order.

New York Compels 20 School Districts to Lower Barriers to Immigrants.  Twenty New York school districts found to be blocking access for undocumented immigrant children will be forced to modify their enrollment policies to break down illegal barriers to education, the state attorney general's office said on Wednesday [2/18/2015].

Going on the offensive against robocalls.  The group said Americans' frustration with being bombarded by auto-dialed calls, many of which are scams, has reached a breaking point.  Consumers Union said the campaign seeks to take advantage of that frustration by getting consumers to put their names on a petition at www.endrobocalls.org intended to get Verizon (VZ), CenturyLink (CTL) and AT&T (T) to provide free call-blocking technology.

Russian Cyber-thieves Steal $1 Billion From Russian Banks?  The first public exposure of the plot to steal millions at first appeared in late 2013 to be a simple mistake:  an ATM in Kiev, Ukraine, started dispensing cash while no one was around.  Within seconds, security cameras showed participants in the theft arriving and scooping up the loot and escaping before anyone at the bank could be alerted.  The losses extended far beyond that single ATM, and, according to Kaspersky, represent a quantum jump for the hackers, who stole as much as $18 million in 2014.  As Forbes noted in December, this is the same group that stole vast amounts of data from Staples, Sheplers, and Bebe, and is now considered to be "one of the most sophisticated cybercriminal groups ever seen."

Tattoos, prescription drugs, obesity hinder Army Reserves recruitment effort.  The majority of potential Army reservists are either hooked on prescription drugs, have too many tattoos, are overweight or have mental conditions that prohibit them from joining the military, recruiters say.  Seven out of 10 applicants — who return to their civilian lives after training, but can be called into active service at any time — fail to meet Army Reserve standards on "mental, moral and physical reasons," said Capt. Eric Connor, U.S. Army Reserve Command spokesman.

Israel prepares for 'mass immigration from Europe'.  The cabinet approved a 180 million Shekel immigration plan aimed at French, Belgian and Ukrainian Jews on Sunday, only hours after a Jewish guard was shot outside a synagogue in the Danish capital of Copenhagen.  Though less than the nearly half a billion Shekels initially requested by Immigration and Absorption Minister Sofa Landver, the new allocation would still mark a significant increase in Israel's efforts to promote immigration abroad.

Secret tapes reveal JFK's duplicity in Cold War, civil rights.  When buses carrying black and white passengers hoping to protest segregated facilities in Alabama were attacked, and their passengers beaten, in May 1961, Attorney General Robert Kennedy sent US marshals to protect the protestors, who came to be known as the Freedom Riders.  But [Patrick] Sloyan writes that neither Kennedy brother was genuinely sympathetic to their cause, concerned as they were with losing the support of white southern Democrats in '64.

FAA proposes drone pilots should get certificates, not fly over people.  The U.S. aviation regulator proposed rules on Sunday for commercial drone flights that would lift some restrictions but would still bar activities such as the delivery of packages and inspection of pipelines that have been eyed by companies as a potentially breakthrough use of the technology.

Chicago Little League whistle-blower getting death threats.  The man who blew the whistle on the Jackie Robinson West Little League team claims he's been receiving death threats for spoiling the youngsters' glory.  The team from Chicago's South Side was stripped of its US Little League Championship on Wednesday [2/11/2015] for using suburban players from outside its geographic boundaries.  Chris Janes — the vice president of the Evergreen Park Athletic Association and coach of a team that lost 43-2 to Jackie Robinson in four innings — had emailed Little League International in October to alert officials that he and others thought the all-star squad had been "manipulating, bending and blatantly breaking the rules for the sole purpose of winning at all costs."

New High-Tech Farm Equipment Is a Nightmare for Farmers.  The cost and hassle of repairing modern tractors has soured a lot of farmers on computerized systems altogether. [...] "There's an increasing number of farmers placing greater value on acquiring older simpler machines that don't require a computer to fix."  The problem is that farmers are essentially driving around a giant black box outfitted with harvesting blades.  Only manufacturers have the keys to those boxes.

Thieves use explosive gas to rob ATMs.  The strongbox inside an ATM has two essential holes:  a small slot in front that spits out bills to customers and a big door in back through which employees load reams of cash in large cassettes.  Criminals have learned to see this simple enclosure as a physics problem.  Gas is pumped in, and when it's detonated, the weakest part — the large hinged door — is forced open.  After an ATM blast, thieves force their way into the bank itself, where the now gaping rear of the cash machine is either exposed in the lobby or inside a trivially secured room.  Set off with skill, the shock wave leaves the money neatly stacked, sometimes with a whiff of the distinctive acetylene odor of garlic.

Want to Stop Drones from Flying Over Your House and Snooping in your Window? Here's How!  If you're concerned about the growing cultural propensity for voyeurism, some help is on the way.  Now that drones are widely available for public purchase and use, noflyzone.org lets you establish a no-snoop area over your property.

David Axelrod's Political Consulting Firm Far More Involved in Nigeria Election than Previously Disclosed.  A political consulting firm founded by Obama administration confidante David Axelrod has been far more involved in backing controversial Nigerian presidential candidate Gen. Muhammadu Buhari than previously disclosed, according to a series of emails obtained by the Washington Free Beacon and interviews with sources on the ground.  Axelrod's firm, the Chicago-based AKPD, has admitted to doing work on behalf of Buhari's All Progressives Congress (APC) party in the past, but claimed to have ceased its ties in March 2014 after the Islamist terror group Boko Haram kidnapped hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls.

Obama reportedly considered appointing Hillary Clinton to the Supreme Court.  President Barack Obama once mulled whether to make Hillary Clinton a Supreme Court justice, according to his top former adviser.  The Daily News reported Tuesday [2/3/2015] that former White House official David Axelrod said Obama considered offering Clinton the job after defeating her in the presidential primary six years ago.

US Navy's new 'Star Wars'-style railgun hits Mach 6.  The weapon was on display to the public for the first time at the Naval Future Force Science and Technology EXPO at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. Wednesday and Thursday.  The biennial event showcases the latest advances in power projection and force protection, including this year's star — the EM Railgun.  To defend ships, conduct surface warfare against enemy vessels and support U.S. Marines and ground forces, EM Railgun-armed ships will be able to fire hypervelocity projectiles giving US forces even greater reach and lethality.

In a surprise, Texas says it will stop collecting fingerprints of driver's license applicants.  Texas will stop capturing full sets of fingerprints of Texas driver's license applicants on Monday.  In a surprise move late Friday afternoon [2/6/2015], the Texas Department of Public Safety reversed its position and promised to stop the practice it quietly began a year ago.  The fingerprinting ends as quietly as it began.  DPS rolled out the program in January 2014 without any public announcement.

Some doctors won't see patients with anti-vaccine views.  With California gripped by a measles outbreak, Dr. Charles Goodman posted a clear notice in his waiting room and on Facebook:  His practice will no longer see children whose parents won't get them vaccinated.

Massachusetts Supreme Court Rules All Juror Names Will Now Be Made Public.  In a decision made Tuesday [1/27/2015], the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the names of jurors who serve in criminal cases are to be available to the public.  The new ruling means that if you serve on a jury, your name will become public record by the end of the trial at the latest, but the decision that isn't sitting well with everyone.  Those opposed to the ruling argue it will create harassment and other risks for those jurors.

NYC Gives Machete-Wielding Thug $5K For Menacing Cops.  He menaced cops with a machete — and the city paid him for it.  A Brooklyn thug who was shot by officers while waving an 18-inch blade at them and later sued the department for $3 million got a $5,000 settlement from the city — even though his own attorney said the shooting was probably justified.  Ruhim Ullah, 24, had pleaded guilty to menacing a police officer after the 2010 confrontation, in which he was shot once in the leg by a cop trying to stop him from attacking officers with the machete, according to his lawyer.

The Latest from West Virginia.  Currently, 40 states are in the process of initiating an Article V convention to propose three specific amendments.  One would impose fiscal restraint on the federal government through a balanced budget amendment, the second would limit the government's power and jurisdiction, and the third would impose term limits on Congress.  Should these amendments become ratified, they become law.  Congress can't change or amend (add pork to) them, the president can't veto them; the Supreme Court can't overturn them.

Grassley to hospitals: Explain why you're suing low-income patients.  Sen. Charles Grassley is calling out nonprofit hospitals who are suing poor patients over unpaid bills and says they could be breaking the law, according to a report by ProPublica and NPR.  Grassley, R-Iowa, sent a letter, dated January 16, 2015, to Heartland Regional Medical Center, a nonprofit hospital in St. Joseph, Mo., that has garnished the wages of low-income patients who were unable to pay their medical bills.

State Department Official Wants Disney's 'Frozen' to Teach Kids About Climate Change.  A high-ranking State Department official wants to enlist Princess Elsa and a talking snowman to teach the American public about the Arctic.  Adm. Robert Papp, the U.S. special representative for the Arctic, told an audience at the Arctic Frontiers conference in Norway this week that he met with a Disney executive to discuss raising awareness about the polar region using characters from the wildly popular movie Frozen.

The Editor says...
In normal times (prior to January, 2009), the State Department wouldn't have anything to do with environmentalism or elementary education.

CIA's Top Spy Steps Down.  The director of the CIA's National Clandestine Service, the storied home of the agency's most secretive intelligence operations, has announced that he plans to retire, The Daily Beast has learned.  CIA spokesman Dean Boyd confirmed that the director announced his retirement "after a long and distinguished career at CIA.  We thank him for this profound and lasting contributions to both CIA and to our nation's security."

Cruz Files Bill to Ban American Islamic State Fighters from Returning to U.S..  Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) will file legislation on Friday to ban American citizens who fight alongside the Islamic State (IS) and other terror groups from returning to the United States, where they pose a significant terror threat, according to sources in the senator's office.  Cruz, who first proposed the legislation last year, seeks to strip those Americans who travel abroad to fight with IS (also known as ISIL or ISIS) of their U.S. citizenship rights and stop them from coming back stateside.  The bill, known as the Expatriate Terrorist Act (E.T.A.), tightens and updates existing regulations by which a U.S. citizen effectively renounces his or her citizenship.

Republicans outfox Democrats on climate votes.  Senate Republicans head-faked Democrats on climate change Wednesday, agreeing in a floor vote that the planet's climate was changing, but blocking language that would have blamed human activity.  In a complicated maneuver that was the first politically perilous test for Senate Republicans, the new majority party split up the votes that Democrats had hoped would force the GOP into an awkward roll call on whether they believed in the science behind climate change — just hours after President Barack Obama slammed Republicans in his State of the Union address for dodging the issue.

Obama assails Supreme Court.  A day after snubbing liberal activists who were pushing for tougher campaign-finance regulations, President Obama took a swipe at the Supreme Court Wednesday [1/21/2015] for its "wrong" ruling five years ago on the issue.  "Five years ago, a Supreme Court ruling allowed big companies — including foreign corporations — to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence our elections," Mr. Obama said in a statement.  "The Citizens United decision was wrong, and it has caused real harm to our democracy."

Mad Dad Tells Off Kids For Yapping During National Anthem, Gets Year-long Ban From Games.  [Justin Schill] was attempting to enjoy a Brookside High basketball game when he saw some of these kids today chatting and laughing and generally having too swell of a time during the customary presentation of the national anthem.  Schiller was "absolutely infuriated" by what he perceived as disrespect for the song expressing America's very patriotic soul, he wrote on his Facebook page.  He decided to approach the kids and give them his version of the what-for.  The confrontation got Schiller kicked out of the game.  A few days later, he received a letter from the Brookside High principal informing him that he would be banned from school athletic events for all of 2015.

Saudi Arabia Gives the PA $60 Million.  Saudi Arabia has provided $60 million in direct support for the Palestinian Authority's (PA) budget, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Egypt Ahmad Abdulaziz Qattan said Tuesday [1/13/2015], according to the WAFA news agency.  Qattan reportedly said that the Saudi Fund for Development had transferred $60 million to the PA Finance Ministry's bank account.  The Saudi diplomat noted in a press release that amount covers Saudi Arabia's financial contribution to the PA's budget for October, November and December 2014.

Yemen not 'exporter of terror': president.  Yemen's president said Tuesday [1/13/2015] his country was a victim not an exporter of "terrorism" after it emerged one of the Paris gunmen received training from Al-Qaeda in the violence-torn country.  Said Kouachi, one of the two brothers behind the attack on French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, travelled to Yemen in 2011 and received weapons and training from Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), security sources said.

Dish Network Head Has Strong Ties to Democrats.  Dish Network claims that they dropped the nation's number one cable news network [Fox News Channel] because of a contract dispute.  Fox News disagrees, claiming that the move is an effort by Dish Network to censor their content.  While it's not entirely clear who's in the right in this matter, digging into the background of Dish Network's founder and chairman Charles Ergen may help to illuminate why animosity between Dish and FNC has reached such epic proportions.  As it turns out, Charles Ergen is a big-time donor to the Democratic Party.

President Obama just made a big privacy announcement. Here's what you need to know.  Here's what the president is announcing, in plain English.  [#1] An expansion in the number of Americans benefiting from free credit scores. [...] [#2] A federal bill requiring companies to reveal when they've been hacked. [...] [#4] A bid to safeguard data about your energy habits.

Tiny Cokes: Less guilt means more money for makers.  As people cut back on soda, the two beverage giants [Coke and Pepsi] are pushing smaller cans and bottles they say contain fewer calories and induce less guilt.

Pelosi to name first Muslim lawmaker to House intelligence committee.  Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi announced in a closed-door meeting Tuesday [1/13/2015] she would name the first Muslim lawmaker to the House's Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.  A senior Democratic aide said Rep. André Carson of Indiana would be named in the "coming days" to the key national security-focused panel.

Protesters Gather at Clinton Foundation to Complain of 'Missing Money' from Haiti Recovery.  Protesters gathered outside the Clinton Foundation in New York City to complain about "missing money" from the Haiti recovery effort from the 2010 earthquake: [Video clip] "New Yorkers with roots in Haiti say the picture [of the Haiti recovery] isn't so rosy," said the NY1 anchor.  The protesters claimed that the $10 billion meant to help rebuild Haiti did little to help the country after the devastating quake.  And that much of the money went to non-Haitian companies.

Former Haiti official: We have no idea where all that recovery money went.  Nearly five years after a 7.0 magnitude quake killed hundreds of thousands of its citizens, Haiti's recovery efforts remain muddled and confused, with the whereabouts of the billions of dollars pledged by the international community an apparent mystery to the country's leaders.  "We don't know where the money has gone," Raymond Joseph, former ambassador of Haiti to the U.S., said Friday [1/9/2015] in an interview on Bloomberg's "Market Makers."

A Statue of Muhammad on a New York Courthouse, Taken Down Years Ago.  It would have given great offense, had anyone known it was there.  For the first half of the 20th century, an eight-foot-tall marble statue of the Prophet Muhammad overlooked Madison Square Park from the rooftop of the Appellate Division Courthouse at Madison Avenue and 25th Street.  Sixty years ago, the statue was quietly removed, in an episode that now looks, in light of recent events in Paris, like the model of tact, restraint and diplomacy.

Islamic State Hacks CENTCOM Twitter Feed as Obama Talks Cybersecurity.  "ISIS is already here, we are in your PCs, in each military base.  With Allah's permission we are in CENTCOM now," said one tweet sent from CENTCOM's account.  The apparent hack came as President Obama addressed the nation regarding cyber security.  He is expected to propose two pieces of cyber security legislation and to address the effort in his upcoming State of the Union address.  The hackers subsequently tweeted images of spreadsheets containing the home addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of dozens of current and former senior U.S. military officers.

China's $20 Billion Bailout For Venezuela Gives It A Caribbean Beachhead.  With crude at $47 a barrel and Venezuela's budget premised on oil at $120, the country is broke and looking for a bailout.  Surprisingly, it got one — from China, which happens to need a strategic beachhead.

Poll: For first time ever voters say "the government" is the biggest problem in America.  America is not Europe. We are a country founded by individualists, scoundrels, dreamers, and doers.  We do not have the aristocratic legacy of the Old World with its stifling worldview and distinct class system within an ever present welfare state.  We are a free people.  This country was an escape from Europe.  This country is a free land. [...] This unique American nature is reflected in [a] recent poll.  As the state has encroached more and more into our lives in recent years, and as Americans have educated themselves on the Constitution and liberty generally over the last few years, the ignorance which simply allowed the state to expand without check has diminished.  People (at least some people) are waking up.

Piano Stores [are] Closing as Fewer Children [are] Taking Up [the] Instrument.  Stores dedicated to selling pianos like [Jim] Foster's are dwindling across the country as fewer people take up the instrument and those who do often opt for a less expensive electronic keyboard or a used piano.

Federal Debt Increased $7,458 Per Full-Time Worker in 2014.  The federal government drove $789,473,350,613.20 deeper into debt in calendar year 2014, an increase that equaled $6,875 per household, $7,458 per full-time year-round worker, and $8,853 per full-time year-round private-sector worker. [...] When Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009, the debt was $10,626,877,048,913.08.  Since then, it has increased $7,514,567,086,650.22 — which is $65,443 per household, $70,985 per full-time worker and $84,266 per full-time private-sector worker.

Congress poised in 2015 to order audit of Federal Reserve long sought by Ron Paul.  After years of being blocked by Democratic leader Harry Reid, the Senate will finally get a chance next year to vote on legislation to force a broad audit of the Federal Reserve's decision-making.  Once championed in Congress by former Rep. Ron Paul, the push to force the country's central bank to undergo a full audit has been picked up by his son, Sen. Rand Paul, and others, and has the backing of the leader of the new Republican majority, Sen. Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, whose office says the legislation will earn a floor vote.

Cosby hires investigators to smear rape accusers.  Bill Cosby has hired a battalion of private investigators to dig up dirt on his many accusers, The [New York] Post has learned.  The comedian, fighting an onslaught of accusations that he sexually assaulted more than two dozen women over many years, is paying six-figure fees to private investigators for information that might discredit his alleged victims.  Multiple sources confirmed that Cosby, through his Hollywood attorney Martin Singer, is implementing a scorched-earth strategy in which anything negative in his accusers' pasts is fair game.

FBI rejects alternate Sony hack theory.  U.S. law enforcement officials say an alternate theory of the Sony hack doesn't stand up.  After FBI agents were briefed yesterday, they concluded the security company offering the alternate theory did not have an accurate understanding of all the evidence, a U.S. official familiar with the matter told POLITICO today.

Norm Macdonald Was Right: Sony Hack Was an Inside Job.  Early in December, when little was known about the SONY hack, comedian and actor Norm Macdonald wrote the following tweets... [...]

FBI briefed on theory Sony hack was inside job.  A security firm has brought new evidence to the FBI that it claims points to a laid-off employee and others as the hackers behind the massive cyber-breach at Sony, even as the bureau publicly stands by its explanation that North Korea executed the attack.  Kurt Stammberger, senior vice president for market development at cyber intelligence firm Norse, told FoxNews.com that his company was turning over "raw data" to the FBI on Tuesday [12/30/2014].  He said the company also briefed the FBI for "two or three hours" on Monday during a meeting in St. Louis.  "They were very open" to the new information, Stammberger said.

No, North Korea Didn't Hack Sony.  The FBI and the President may claim that the Hermit Kingdom is to blame for the most high-profile network breach in forever.  But almost all signs point in another direction.

A Lot of Smart People Think North Korea Didn't Hack Sony.  The evidence linking agents of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to the recent digital implosion of Sony remains vague.  And even though the feds are squarely blaming North Korea, many security experts aren't buying it.

Malaysia premier under fire for golfing with Obama.  Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak was under fire at home on Thursday [12/25/2014] for spending his holiday golfing with US President Barack Obama in Hawaii while the country faces one of its worst floods.

Real-world doctors fact-check Dr. Oz, and the results aren't pretty.  What do real-world doctors have to say about the advice dispensed on "The Dr. Oz Show"?  Less than one-third of it can be backed up by even modest medical evidence.  If that sounds alarming, consider this:  Nearly 4 in 10 of the assertions made on the hit show appear to be made on the basis of no evidence at all.  The researchers who took it upon themselves to fact-check Dr. Oz and his on-air guests were able to find legitimate studies related to another 11% of the recommendations made on the show.  However, in these cases, the recommendations ran counter to the medical literature.

Half of Dr. Oz's medical advice is baseless or wrong, study says.  It's not hard to understand what makes Dr. Oz so popular.  Called "America's doctor," syndicated talk-show host Mehmet Oz speaks in a way anyone can understand.  Medicine may be complex.  But with Dr. Oz, clad in scrubs and crooning to millions of viewers about "miracles" and "revolutionary" breakthroughs, it's often not.  He somehow makes it fun.  And people can't get enough.  "I haven't seen a doctor in eight years," the New Yorker quoted one viewer telling Oz.  "I'm scared.  You're the only one I trust."  But is that trust misplaced?  Or has Oz, who often peddles miracle cures for weight loss and other maladies, mortgaged medical veracity for entertainment value?

The Editor says...
The Doctor Oz show is apparently targeted toward hypochondriac women between the ages of 18 and 49.  The show is an endless parade of insipid oversized models of human organs and an array of pointless props and gimmicks, padded to 58½ minutes by an overabundance of self-promotion, "coming up next" teases, and animated graphics.

China Tests Ballistic Missile That Uses Guidance Technology Traded by Bill Clinton for Campaign Donations.  China has just tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile that can deliver up to 10 independently targeted nuclear warheads, using technology given to them on President Clinton's watch to launch communications satellites.  The Dec. 13 test of the DF-41 was the third for the new weapon.  But it marked the first test of a multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle, or MIRV, technology and raises by an order of magnitude the nuclear threat to the U.S. as China continues its massive arms buildup.  And disturbingly, the threat is in large part of our own making.

$100 million wilding.  Is the cost of a brutal rape in Central Park 25 years ago heading toward $100 million?  Word broke last week that the Central Park Five, who have already won an unprecedented $40 million settlement from the city, are now making a second wrongful-imprisonment claim — this time against the state.  Possible payout:  $52 million!  It gets worse.  A spokesman for Attorney General Eric Schneiderman says the AG is likely to settle, because "he's committed to protecting the rights of the wrongfully convicted, and to helping individuals obtain justice and put their lives back together again."

States Move Forward With Plan To Alter Constitution.  A very important meeting is being held in Washington this week, but career politicians, lobbyists and most in the media don't want you to know about it.  More than 100 state legislators from around the country are meeting at the Naval Heritage Center.  The Assembly of State Legislatures (ASL) will discuss the rules for the first-ever Article V Constitutional amendment convention.  This is their third meeting.  They're preparing to take on Washington, and Congress doesn't like it.

The Gruber-Garner Connection.  Obamacare Architect Jonathan Gruber testifies before Congress to try and explain his comments about relying upon the "stupidity of the American voter" to pass the Affordable Care Act, it seems that Gruber's fingerprints can be found on another policy that has been in the news recently.  It turns out that Gruber was also helped Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg sell his plan to tax cigarettes at extraordinary levels.

Why Is This One Campus Assault Statistic Being Ignored?  Given all the attention paid to sexual assault on college campuses in recent months, you'd think a Justice Department report showing that the campus rape and assault rate had dropped 52% since 1997 would attract a lot of attention.  That is, after all, what the data contained in its 20-page report, released on Thursday [12/11/2014], show.  In 1997, the number of rapes or sexual assaults per 1,000 students ages 18-24 was 9.2.  By 2013, that had fallen to 4.4.  The same trend occurred for young women who weren't attending college.  Justice data show that the rate peaked in 2000 at 12.2, but was down to 4.3 last year.

Average Federal Spending Per Household Nearly $30K.  Did you know that the National Institutes of Health spent $374,000 to find out if a puppet show would convince preschoolers to eat more vegetables?  Or that the Department of Agriculture gave $50,000 to a business that packs and sells alpaca manure?  Your tax dollars paid for it — and much more.  In 2014, federal spending per household was $28,826.

Yes, Dems did funnel money to 'independent' in Kansas Senate race.  [Scroll down]  What voters did not know was at that very moment, Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid's political action committee, the Senate Majority PAC, was preparing to pour more than a million dollars into the pro-Orman effort in Kansas.  Reid was just waiting to make sure the donations came so late in the campaign that the public wouldn't find out about them until after the election.

Watchdog scolds State Department over security lapses, using warehouses for office space.  The top watchdog for the State Department warned Wednesday [12/10/2014] that U.S. personnel overseas remain at "increased risk" due to security shortcomings at diplomatic posts, including the "egregious" use of warehouses that don't meet security standards for office space.

Walgreens Pulls Gift Wrap Over Swastika Pattern.  A Southern California was shopping at a Walgreens in the Northridge neighborhood of Los Angeles when she saw what appeared to be a swastika pattern on blue and white gift wrap.

Stolen Valor "Ranger" meets actual Ranger. Does not fare well.  There are far too many of these stories each year and they really cause me to grind my teeth.  People going around claiming the status of heroes, wearing the uniforms and badges of honor granted only to those who served our nation with distinction, while having either never served or not having been awarded those honors are among the lowest types of cretins.

Keywords:  rigged, cahoots, scam, fishy.
Report: Half of N.J's most frequent Lottery winners are lottery retailers, family members.  Half of the 20 most frequent New Jersey Lottery prizewinners since 2009 are reportedly either licensed lottery retailers or family members of store operators.  An investigation by the Asbury Park Press found that as a group, those 10 people collected 840 prizes totalling nearly $1.8 million and that about 70 percent of those payouts were for Pick 4 tickets, where the odds of winning are 1 in 10,000.  The New Jersey Lottery told the newspaper that it is investigating some of the people on the list to see if they're actually illegally cashing in other players' winning tickets for a percentage of the winnings.

UC students protest tuition hikes while Napolitano is showered with pay and benefit.  University of California students are revolting over a significant tuition increase and the compensation for the college system's president likely won't soothe them.  Students across the state — most notably in Berkeley — are protesting a vote of the Board of Regents that approved "hikes of up to 5 percent a year, for the next five years, unless state funding is increased," according to NPR.  Contending "education is a universal human right," a group called "The Open UC" is staging walkouts and protests.

Electronic Election Fraud Apparent In Brazil; Done In America Today?  It would be a sure bet to think that a presidential candidate who bankrupted a country, brought growth to a standstill and inflation back to 6,5% would be summarily defeated in the coming elections.  That was the situation of the Marxist President of Brazil, the former terrorist Dilma Rousseff of the Workers' Party, the woman booed by 60,000 fans in the last World Cup games. [...] However, she won.  How can that be?  The leader of the Party, former president Lula, said they would do "the devil's work" in order to win.  The answer is worrisome and may be the greatest example of a perfect crime.

Drone pilots keep nearly crashing into real pilots.  Pilots of consumer are flying dangerously close to passenger aeroplanes, according to new information, and have been within feet or seconds of bringing down planes in New York and Washington.  Since June 1, airlines, pilots and air-traffic controllers told the FAA that drones have been within a few seconds or a few feet of crashing into aircraft, the Washington Post reported.  The near-misses mostly happened as planes took off and landed from some of the US's biggest airports, including those in New York, Washington and a US Air Force base in Oklahoma.

The Editor says...
Commercial and military pilots are trained to deal with bird strikes, and there are plenty of large birds that outweigh battery-powered low-level hobby-grade drones.  This appears to be an attempt on the part of the government to justify the regulation and licensing — if not the prohibition — of camera-bearing drones.

Ted Cruz: The Senate must block all presidential nominees until Obama rescinds his amnesty.  It's not so much that he wants the Senate to block O's nominees as he wants Mitch McConnell to refuse to bring those nominations to the floor in the first place.  That's a clever way of killing two birds with one stone.  If McConnell follows Cruz's plan, Cruz can take credit among conservative voters for having been the motive force in bottling up O's nominees.  If McConnell doesn't follow Cruz's plan, Cruz can point to it as proof that the establishment squishes refuse to fight the White House with everything they've got,

Stelter: News Anchors Have Secretly Met with Darren WilsonReliable Sources host Brian Stelter broke news Sunday morning [11/23/2014]:  according to his sources, multiple major news anchors have spoken to Officer Darren Wilson in hopes of securing a televised interview.  The meetings were secret and off-the-record, and the news organizations would not even confirm that they had happened.

If you really try, it is possible to get yourself killed by brandishing a fake gun.
Angry father speaks out after his 12-year-old son was shot dead by cops.  A concerned man, who was sitting nearby, called 911 and told the dispatcher:  'I'm sitting in the park... there's a guy here with a pistol, and it's probably a fake one, but he's pointing it at everybody.  'The guy keeps pulling it in and out... it's probably fake, but he's scaring the s*** out of people.' [...] Despite the 911 caller's prior warning that the gun was likely fake, the officer then fired two shots at Tamir, at least one of which hit him in the stomach, according to Cleveland.com. [...] Police later told Fox 8 the weapon Tamir was carrying was 'an airsoft type replica gun resembling a semi-automatic pistol.'  They added that the gun's orange safety indicator had been removed.

Cleveland Boy with fake gun killed by police.  A 12-year-old boy shot by police after grabbing what turned out to be a replica gun died from his wounds on Sunday, one day after officers responded to a 911 call about someone waving what the caller described as a "probably fake" gun at a playground.

Judicial Watch To Congress: Boycott Obama's State of the Union Speech Over Executive Amnesty.  Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton tells Breitbart News that Congress should boycott President Barack Obama's next State of the Union speech as part of its response to Obama's executive amnesty for five million or more illegal aliens.  "That seems to be one appropriate response," Fitton said in an email.  "Imagine if half of the chamber is empty."

Even the liberal media say Mary Landrieu is toast.  Had the Republicans been slightly less successful in the midterms, legions of expense-account reporters would now be in New Orleans, chronicling Mary Landrieu's effort to save her seat.  With Democratic control of the Senate at stake, there would be an avalanche of stories about how the underdog from one of Louisiana's most storied political families was fighting for her life in next month's runoff.  Instead, she's got this:  "Mary Landrieu: Dead Woman Walking?"  That's not a right-wing attack.  It's a headline on the liberal site Talking Points Memo.

Democrats fleeing Landrieu in Louisiana runoff.  National Democratic campaign groups have abandoned Sen. Mary L. Landrieu in Louisiana, leaving her massively outspent as she tries to hang onto her seat in a Dec. 6 runoff election to determine the last Senate seat.  And analysts say even if she wins a vote in the Senate tomorrow on approving the Keystone XL pipeline, she'll still face an uphill climb against Rep. Bill Cassidy, a Republican who is favored because of the state's increasingly conservative bent and the growing antipathy toward President Obama's agenda.

Chinese hack U.S. weather systems, satellite network.  The intrusion occurred in late September but officials gave no indication that they had a problem until Oct. 20, said three people familiar with the hack and the subsequent reaction by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which includes the National Weather Service.  Even then, NOAA did not say its systems were compromised.  Officials also said that the agency did not notify the proper authorities when it learned of the attack.

Democrats Leave a Body on the Campaign Trail.  Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu's re-election race is truly running out of air:  She's responsible for a mere 4 percent of all TV spots in the week-old Louisiana runoff.  Republican challenger Bill Cassidy and his friends paid for 96 percent of the spots that have run so far.  That's a spending disparity unthinkable just two weeks ago when top Democratic strategist Guy Cecil estimated a runoff could cost $35 million on each side.

Abandon ship: No outside groups donating to Landrieu runoff yet.  Granted, it's still early, but speed is of the essence in the short time of a special election.  Capitol City finds a notable lack of urgency on the part of Democratic outside groups to get involved in Louisiana.

64 percent say Obama is a 'liberal'.  President Obama's losses in the 2014 election come as an increasing number of Americans view him as a "liberal," according to a new post-election survey from the Public Religion Research Institute.  The poll shows 64 percent of Americans view Obama as a "liberal" — up from 57 percent after Obama's reelection two years ago and from 53 percent during the 2008 campaign.  Another 19 percent say Obama is a "moderate," while 12 percent label him "conservative" or "very conservative."

The Editor says...
We now know that 12 percent of Americans don't know how to use a dictionary.

GOP adds another Senate seat as Sullivan wins Alaska.  Republican candidate Dan Sullivan defeated Democratic incumbent Sen. Mark Begich in Alaska's U.S. Senate race Wednesday [11/12/2014].  The win gives the GOP eight Senate pickups in the midterm elections.  The party is also seeking a ninth seat in Louisiana's runoff in December.  Sullivan ran a confident campaign, ignoring the debate schedule Begich established and setting his own terms.

As War Heats Up, Obama Dismantles War Approach to Counterterrorism.  Lost amid Shellacking 2.0 — and between the sudden dump of over 60,000 previously withheld Fast & Furious documents and the president's reaffirmation of his executive illegal-alien amnesty vow — was the administration's further dismantling of the post-9/11 counterterrorism paradigm.  With nearly no one noticing, the administration transferred a long-held terrorist detainee out of Guantanamo Bay.

Now that the election is over...
Obama more than doubles number of troops authorized for Iraq.  President Obama authorized Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Friday [11/7/2014] to send up to 1,500 additional U.S. troops to Iraq, roughly doubling the force the United States has built up since June to fight the Islamic State militants who control much of Iraq and Syria.  The announcement of a major increase in the U.S. force in Iraq deepens U.S. involvement in a messy regional conflict that officials are warning may last for years.  The White House said it would request $5.6 billion for the military campaign against the Islamic State, including $1.6 billion to train and equip Iraqi troops.

Days after election, Obama sends another 1,500 troops to Iraq to battle ISIS.  President Barack Obama told Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel on Friday that the Pentagon can send as many as 1,500 additional ground troops to Iraq as part of the U.S. mission to fight ISIS.  That deployment would approximately double the American military personnel in place there.  The Defense Department had until Friday a mandate to send no more than 1,600 troops, and had put 1,400 in the field already.  The White House also asked Congress for $5.6 billion in new war funding, all while insisting that the U.S. military is not using ground forces in a combat role.

More Non-White Voters for the GOP.  [B]lack voter participation this year actually went up from the last midterm election, rising to 12 percent of the electorate, compared with 11 percent in 2010.  The new GOP strength among non-black minorities was to some extent the product of aggressive outreach in minority communities by the Republican National Committee and various state parties.  In Texas, GOP senator John Cornyn carried the Latino vote by a single percentage point, while Greg Abbott, who is married to a Latina, lost it by only ten points in the race for governor.  Abbott carried the Asian-American vote 52 to 48 percent.

US sends long-held Guantanamo prisoner to Kuwait.  One of the longest-held prisoners at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay was sent home to Kuwait on Wednesday, the first release based on the determination of a review panel that has been re-evaluating some men previously classified as too dangerous to release.

Curiouser and Curiouser — Eric Frein Had Laptop and WiFi While Eluding Capture.  On the night he was "captured" there were many, well, observations that just didn't align with the previous narrative as delivered.  Frein was clean shaven, well kept, and did not appear to present post-capture in a manner consistent with media reports.

New details revealed about accused cop killer's actions while on the run.  The former fugitive charged with ambushing a Pennsylvania state police barracks had a laptop computer and used the Internet while evading hundreds of law enforcement officials, according to court documents released Tuesday [11/4/2014].  State police found the laptop and two storage drives inside an abandoned airplane hangar near the spot where Eric Frein was captured Thursday night [10/30/2014], according to a search warrant inventory.  Frein told authorities he used unprotected Wi-Fi hotspots to connect to the Internet during his 48-day flight, documents said, raising the possibility he knew where police were focusing their search efforts each day.

92% of Marine Casualties in Afghan War Occurred Under Obama.  As U.S. Marines withdraw from Operation Enduring Freedom (the Afghanistan war), CNSNews.com's database on casualties shows that 418 Marines have given their lives in the conflict and that 92% of those casualties, 385 deaths, have occurred since President Barack Obama took office in January 2009.

Mormon church admits founder Joseph Smith was a polygamist who married a 14-year-old.  The Mormon church has admitted that its founder was a polygamist who married a 14-year-old girl, breaking a lengthy silence about its history.  Joseph Smith, who wrote the Book of Mormon and established the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is thought to have married as many as 50 women, but for years the senior church officials did not address the subject.

Muslims increasingly moving away from GOP.  Two-thirds of Muslim voters plan to visit the polls on Election Day, and more than half of them are Democratic Party supporters, according to a new survey.  Of 1,500 Muslim registered voters surveyed, 69 percent plan to cast ballots in the Nov. 4 midterm elections and 16 percent do not plan to vote, according to the poll conducted Wednesday [10/22/2014] by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).  Fourteen percent declined to answer.

Socialist Utopia: Venezuela is Rationing Food And Importing Oil.  Venezuela's economic woes just won't quit.  Its currency recently hit an all-time low with black market traders.  Now the South American country has to ration food — and, believe it or not, import oil.  Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves.  But it produces mostly thick, heavy crude that has to be mixed with lighter oil to make it usable.  Problem is, Venezuela's seriously mismanaged state-run oil industry isn't pumping enough light crude.  So this weekend the country will receive its first ever shipment of foreign oil:  two million barrels from Algeria.

Despite Riches, Venezuela Starts Food Rationing.  Amid worsening shortages, Venezuela recently reached a milestone of dubious distinction:  It has joined the ranks of North Korea and Cuba in rationing food for its citizens.

Jeanne Shaheen Campaign Kicks Breitbart News Reporter out of New Hampshire Event.  The campaign of Democratic incumbent Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) kicked this reporter out of an event at ReVision Energy on Wednesday afternoon [10/22/2014].  Shaheen's campaign asked the owner of the business — who refused to identify himself — to say to this reporter that "this was a private event and you're not welcome here."

Texas Ranked As Having Best Business Climate, Sixth Year In Row.  For the sixth year in a row, Texas is the highest-ranked state in the Development Counsellors International's (DCI) "Winning Strategies in Economic Development Marketing" survey.  The survey of U.S. corporate executives has tracked economic trends each year since 1996.  Of the 356 who were interviewed, about 50 percent said that Texas is the best state in which to conduct business.  Florida came in a distant second, followed by Georgia and North Carolina.

Texas led national job creation in September, marking 12th straight month on top.  Last week, we learned that Texas added 36,400 jobs in September and set a state record for adding 413,700 jobs in the last 12 months.  Today [10/21/2014], we know Texas led the nation in job creation for September and the last 12 months, according to data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Secret Service agents were sent to their boss's house to deal with his 'troublesome' neighbor.  More bad news for the Secret Service today as a government investigation has found more conduct they deem 'problematic.'  Operation Moonlight, which happened three years ago, had agents removed from their posts in Washington D.C. and heading almost an hour outside the city to settle a dispute between an agency employee and her neighbor.

Bush Didn't Lie.  New media accounts — including coverage by NRO's Patrick Brennan — confirm what I repeatedly have written since the depths of Operation Iraqi Freedom:  The late dictator Saddam Hussein did have weapons of mass death, and the United States of America was correct to invade Iraq, find these toxins, and destroy them.

Government Case Implodes as Its Former Lawyers Allege Fraud Against Holder's DOJ.  The New York Observer reports that two former Assistant United States Attorneys say the Holder Justice Department engaged in deceit and corruption of justice in connection with the DOJ's litigation against Sierra Pacific Industries, a California lumber company.  As a result of the allegations, a federal district judge has ordered the recusal from the case of every judge in the Eastern District of California.  He reasons that the court may have been defrauded by the government, thus requiring the appointment of an outside judge to handle the matter going forward.

Space plane lands after record 674-day secret mission.  An unpiloted Air Force space plane glided back to Earth Friday after a record 674-day stay in orbit, closing out a clandestine military mission with a computer-controlled landing at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.  The Boeing-built X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, wrapping up its second long-duration mission and the secretive program's third flight overall, touched down at 12:24 p.m. EDT (9:24 a.m. local time) [10/17/2014], rolling to a stop a few moments later.

The wobbling of Saturn's moon might mean there's an ocean sloshing inside of it.  Planets aren't always filled with molten rock, and guessing the composition of distant planets can be a tricky business.  But scientists now believe that Saturn's moon Mimas has one of two things under its icy, rocky surface:  a core shaped like a football or a liquid ocean.  In a study published Friday [10/17/2014] in Science, researchers analyzed Mimas's movements as it orbited Saturn.  By looking at images from NASA's Cassini satellite, they determined how much Mimas was wobbling.  The wobble was a lot wonkier than expected, leaving the research team puzzled.

The Editor says...
That's all very amusing, and it must be nice to make a living by engaging in idle speculation about such immaterial concerns.  (That's a problem if they are government scientists whose paychecks come from tax dollars.)  But the maximum temperature of Mimas is something like 80 or 85 degrees Kelvin, and there aren't many materials that "slosh" at those temperatures.

Do Reports of WMD Found in Iraq Vindicate George W. Bush?  The New York Times published an article this week that has re-ignited a 12-year-old debate:  Was then-President George W. Bush right about Iraq?  The report examined U.S. service personnel's encounters with abandoned chemical weapons in Iraq — and some conservatives were quick to pounce on the story as evidence that claims by Bush in the lead-up to the war that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction were true and that the United States' 2003 invasion was justified.

Rev. Billy Graham: 'America is Just as Wicked as Sodom and Gomorrah Ever Were'.  Reverend Billy Graham, arguably the most well-known and respected evangelical preacher of the last 50 years, said in a recently published commentary that America was "founded by men who believed in prayer" and that prayer can turn "the tide of history," adding that while "America is just as wicked as Sodom and Gomorrah" and deserves "the judgment of God," this judgment can be lessened through prayer.

Man Stabbed in Store, Customers Keep Shopping.  A Philadelphia supermarket stabbing that left a man with wounds in his face and neck didn't deter some customers, who continued to shop.

Clinton Aide Peddled Stories Against Conservatives Exposing Lewinsky Affair.  Emails sent by Sidney Blumenthal, a former aide to President Bill Clinton, to a prominent liberal journalist during the Monica Lewinsky scandal provide a rare look at the Clinton White House directly attempting to influence the journalistic process to target the Clinton's conservative critics.  Blumenthal, who is considered one of Clinton's staunchest defenders, did so by attempting to convince David Corn, then a reporter with The Nation, a progressive magazine, to look into Lucianne Goldberg and Bill Kristol.  Emails sent from Blumenthal to Corn are contained among thousands of documents released by the Clinton Presidential Library on Friday [10/10/2014].

Why Is CNN Laying People Off When It's Forecasting a $1 Billion Profit?  Yesterday afternoon [10/6/2014], Turner Broadcasting CEO John Martin announced that the company will reduce its headcount by 10 percent, eliminating 1,475 positions in the coming weeks.  At CNN, that means 300 positions will be cut through a mixture of buyouts and layoffs.

Tom DeLay Found Not Guilty by State's Highest Court.  Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was found not guilty today by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.  This is the highest appellate court in Texas for criminal cases and thus brings DeLay's political persecution to an end.

Evidence of the Islamic terror threat within our borders.  From shortly after 9/11 through 2006, I was busily conducting covert surveillance of certain Islamic centers in urban and rural locations inside the U.S.  I secured photographic and videotape documentation of what could be best and most accurately described as paramilitary type training at two locations, and turned over significant amounts of data, witness statements, videos, and photographs to a Washington, DC location.  I felt like I was doing my part to make the U.S. safer for my children and future generations.  That is, until I realized that nothing was as it appeared to be.  As time progressed, I noticed, as did others in our group that nothing was seemingly being done with the evidence we collected, assembled and submitted.

U.S. to pay Navajo Nation $554 million in largest settlement with single Indian tribe.  In the largest settlement with a single American Indian tribe, the Obama administration will pay the Navajo Nation $554 million to settle claims that the U.S. government has mismanaged funds and natural resources on the Navajo reservation for decades.  The settlement, to be signed in Window Rock, Ariz., on Friday [9/26/2014], resolves a long-standing dispute between the Navajo Nation and the U.S. government, with some of the claims dating back more than 50 years.

Harvard Gives Student Full Ride After He Tells Them He's Illegal Immigrant.  When Dario Guerrero, an illegal immigrant who found out about his status in high school, told Harvard that he was in the country illegally, the school encouraged him to apply — and gave him a full scholarship after he was accepted.

Coverup after New York mayor killed groundhog.  We already knew that this Groundhog Day, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio accidentally dropped a woodchuck named "Staten Island Chuck" before a crowd of spectators.  What went unreported until Thursday [9/25/2014] is the fact that the groundhog died of internal injuries one week after being dropped.  Moreover, the woodchuck was not actually the infamous "Staten Island Chuck," and Staten Island Zoo officials covered up the death.

D'Souza Speaks Out on Sentencing: There Was 'All-Out Attempt to Put Me Away'.  Conservative filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza spoke out tonight about his five-year probation and eight-month sentence to a community confinement center on Fox News.  D'Souza told Megyn Kelly, "My faith in an independent judiciary is affirmed."  D'Souza was indicted in January for campaign finance, and pled guilty in May.  D'Souza had suggested on multiple occasions that he was targeted for his criticisms of President Obama, a charge prosecutors strongly denied.

Today is the First Time Obama Has Said the Word 'Khorasan' in Public.  Today [9/23/2014] is the first time President Obama has uttered the word "Khorasan" in public.  Indeed, we can find no example of any White House official ever mentioning this al Qaeda cell by name in public.  The group has never even been mentioned in any of the White House background briefings on the terrorist threat emanating from Syria (and there have been several such briefings).  It's quite extraordinary to see military action against a group the White House has never talked about.

Chelsea Clinton Fears Her Baby Could Live on a 'Planet Without Elephants'.  If there is one thing Chelsea Clinton is most worried about, it may be that her soon-to-be child will grow up in a world without elephants.

The Editor says...
That's the way "survival of the fittest" goes sometimes, Chelsea.  You're going to teach your daughter about Darwin, aren't you?

Student loan debt curbs housing market by $83 billion, study says.  There's been lots of debate lately in housing circles about the impact of student debt on home ownership.  Now there's a new study out that attempts to put a number on that impact:  414,000.  That's how many home sales will not happen this year because of high levels of student loan debt, according to a report from John Burns Consulting, an Irvine-based firm that advises home builders.  That's equal to about 8% of all home sales, and enough to dent the housing industry by $83 billion a year.

Shape Shifter.  J. Christian Adams discussion of the Obama political machine's CATALIST database provides a peek into "Big Data" as applied to politics.  Mr. Adams gives an example of how CATALIST, which collects, collates and analyzes data on a vast scale can be used as a political marketing tool.  He tells the story of voters who should have been "safe" Republican voters being lured away by this new tool.

Top-level turnover makes it harder for DHS to stay on top of evolving threats.  An exodus of top-level officials from the Department of Homeland Security is undercutting the agency's ability to stay ahead of a range of emerging threats, including potential terrorist strikes and cyberattacks, according to interviews with current and former officials.  Over the past four years, employees have left DHS at a rate nearly twice as fast as in the federal government overall, and the trend is accelerating, according to a review of a federal database.

HHS Spending Millions to Stockpile Ventilators in Case of 'Public Health Emergency'.  The Department of Health and Human Services announced Wednesday it is spending almost $14 million over three years to develop "low-cost, user-friendly ventilators" that can be stockpiled in case of a "pandemic or other public health emergency."  "In pandemics and other emergencies, doctors must have medicines, vaccines, diagnostics, and critical equipment such as mechanical ventilators at the ready in order to save lives," said Robin Robinson, director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), which is part of HHS.

'CATALIST': Obama's Database for Fundamentally Transforming America.  The Democrats and the institutional left have a new political tool that allows them virtually to ignore moderates yet still win elections.  This tool, the Catalist database, was employed in the 2012 election.  That election defied conventional wisdom:  Mitt Romney sought and won independent voters overwhelmingly, but still lost.  If you wondered why the conventional wisdom about independents and moderates didn't seem so wise in 2012, the answer is Catalist.

House passes bill to audit Federal Reserve.  The House on Wednesday [9/17/2014] passed legislation to audit the Federal Reserve System.  Passed 333-92, the bill would require the comptroller general to conduct an audit of the Federal Reserve's board of governors and banks within one year and submit a report to Congress on the findings.  A total of 106 Democrats joined all but one Republican in support of the measure.  A version of the bill sponsored by then-Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) passed in 2012 by a vote of 327-98.  Paul's son, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), has introduced companion legislation in the Senate.

Comcast's open Wi-Fi hotspots inject ads into your browser.  Comcast is giving users a very good reason to demand an HTTPS connection on every site they visit.  The Internet service provider has started injecting ads for its services on websites where you wouldn't normally see them when you're using an Xfinity public Wi-Fi hotspot.

AT&T and Verizon say 10Mbps is too fast for "broadband," 4Mbps is enough.  AT&T and Verizon have asked the Federal Communications Commission not to change its definition of broadband from 4Mbps to 10Mbps, saying many Internet users get by just fine at the lower speeds.

More seniors are carrying student loan debt into retirement.  Student loan debt doesn't only hurt the young.  More seniors are carrying their college debt into retirement.  The total outstanding debt load held by seniors grew to $18.2 billion in 2013, up from $2.8 billion in 2005, according to a report released by the Government Accountability Office on Wednesday [9/10/2014].  The share of households headed by people between the ages of 65 and 74 who have student loan debt also grew, reaching 4 percent in 2010 from 1 percent in 2004.

Senator Cruz Walks Out.  Congratulations are in order to Senator Ted Cruz who, when he found himself facing an audience that was hostile to Israel, turned around and walked out.  The Texas Republican was speaking at a sold-out dinner gala for Middle East Christians, according to the report on the Daily Caller, when he asserted, "Christians have no greater ally than Israel." [...] It was when Senator Cruz said "Christians have no greater ally than Israel" that at least some members of the audience began to boo him and yell "stop it."

Ted Cruz Bids Mid-East Christian Audience Goodnight When They Boo'd His Defense of Israel and Christianity.  Kudos to Ted Cruz who stood on principle and boldly walked off stage when the audience openly reflected their anti-Semitism.  Cruz was the Key Note speaker.

Ted Cruz Stands Up to 'Hatred and Bigotry' at Conference of Middle Eastern Christians.  Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) said in an interview with the Washington Free Beacon that the "hatred and bigotry" he encountered when he was booed off the stage at a Middle Eastern Christian conference for defending Israel on Wednesday night was like nothing he has previously seen in his political career.  "I've certainly encountered audiences that disagreed with a particular point of view.  But this virulent display of hatred and bigotry was remarkable, and considerably different from anything I've previously encountered," Cruz said, just a few hours after his pro-Israel speech to the In Defense of Christians conference was drowned out by shouts and jeers from the audience.

Ted Cruz Booed for Supporting Israel at Christian Conference.  Leading Republican Senator and Christian supporter of Israel Ted Cruz (R-Tx) was booed off stage at a gala dinner in support of the Middle East's embattled Christian minority, after voicing support for Israel.  Cruz was the keynote speaker at the event, hosted by the recently-founded In Defense of Christians (IDC) organization.  In his speech, he declared that Christians "have no greater ally than Israel" — the only state in the region whose Christian population is growing as opposed to shrinking.

Ted Cruz Booed Off Stage At Middle East Christian Conference.  Sen. Ted Cruz was booed offstage at a conference for Middle Eastern Christians Wednesday night [9/10/2014] after saying that "Christians have no greater ally than Israel."  Cruz, the keynote speaker at the sold-out D.C. dinner gala for the recently-founded non-profit In Defense of Christians, began by saying that "tonight, we are all united in defense of Christians.  Tonight, we are all united in defense of Jews.  Tonight, we are all united in defense of people of good faith, who are standing together against those who would persecute and murder those who dare disagree with their religious teachings."  Cruz was not reading from a teleprompter, nor did he appear to be reading from notes.

The Editor says...
Ted Cruz never uses a teleprompter to deliver speeches.  A man of sound mind who knows what he believes and has the intellectual capacity can speak extemporaneously for as long as necessary.  In this regard, Senator Cruz presents a sharp contrast between himself and Barack H. Obama.

Gallup: By 6 to 1, Americans Think Our Gov't More Important Problem than Situation in Iraq.  By a margin of around 6 to 1, Americans says their own government is a more important problem than terrorism, war, or the situation in Iraq, according to a new Gallup Poll.  Asked, "What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today," 18 percent of Americans said "dissatisfaction with government," while 4 percent said terrorism, and 3 percent said the situation in Iraq.  In fact, dissatisfaction with government topped the list of problems; terrorism was number 9 on the list, just above "poverty/hunger/homelessness."

Obama Admin Finally Has A Major Border Security Plan — For Nigeria.  Last Thursday [9/4/2014] the State Department announced that it is launching a border security plan in cooperation with officials from Nigeria and several other nearby African nations such as Cameroon.  The problem Obama's regime hopes to correct with this border security program is that of the constant raids and attacks by the Islamic terror group Boko Haram.

NBC pays for Matt Lauer's helicopter rides to work: report.  In an effort to keep Matt Lauer happy, NBC is reportedly footing the bill for the "Today" host to take a helicopter to and from work so he can spend more time with his family.  In June, Mr. Lauer extended his $20 million salary with NBC News through 2016, following speculation that he would leave the show over the brutal departure of Ann Curry in 2012, the New York Post reported.  As part of the deal, the network reportedly agreed to pay for Mr. Lauer to take a helicopter to work in Manhattan from his home in the Hamptons.  Mr. Lauer also has an apartment in Manhattan.

Foreign Ownership of U.S. Government Debt Passes $6 Trillion.  For the first time in the nation's history, foreign interests now own more than $6 trillion in U.S. government debt, according to the most recent Treasury Department report on major foreign holders of the debt, which includes the numbers through the end of June.  As of the end of June, foreign owners held $6,013,200,000,000 in U.S. Treasury securities, up from $5,976,500,000,000 as of the end of May.

This is how wars get (re)started:
Obama Sending 350 Troops to Protect Baghdad Embassy.  The White House just announced that President Obama authorized hundreds of extra troops on the ground to protect the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.  Press secretary Josh Earnest said in a statement that that the Defense Department authorization stemmed from a State Department request for "approximately 350 additional U.S. military personnel to protect our diplomatic facilities and personnel."

Obama Orders 350 More Troops to Be Sent into Iraq to Bolster Security.  President Obama tonight [9/2/2014] ordered sending 350 additional troops into Iraq to bolster security at the United States embassy in Baghdad.  This is in addition to the 300 military advisors the president sent into Iraq back in June that he maintained would not mean a "return to combat."

The 10 Most Vulnerable Senators.  Montana's appointed Sen. John Walsh was by far the most endangered incumbent in the chamber at the time of the previous installment in early August, but his decision last month to not seek a full term opened the top slot to a couple other worthy contenders.  Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., is still in a perilous political position, but Louisiana Sen. Mary L. Landrieu has leapfrogged him on the list to become the Senate's most vulnerable incumbent.

Missing Libyan Jetliners Raise Fears of Suicide Airliner Attacks on 9/11.  Islamist militias in Libya took control of nearly a dozen commercial jetliners last month, and western intelligence agencies recently issued a warning that the jets could be used in terrorist attacks across North Africa.  Intelligence reports of the stolen jetliners were distributed within the U.S. government over the past two weeks and included a warning that one or more of the aircraft could be used in an attack later this month on the date marking the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against New York and Washington, said U.S. officials familiar with the reports.

Lawsuit details the chilling of conservative speech in Wisconsin.  Wisconsin prosecutors have selectively targeted conservative groups to effectively chill their speech, lawyers for a conservative activist detailed in a Tuesday [9/2/2014] filing with a federal appeals court.  Eric O'Keefe, director of the limited government advocacy group the Wisconsin Club for Growth, in February sued prosecutors over a secret investigation into potential campaign finance violations by conservative groups during recall elections.  Two judges have already rejected the legal theory offered by prosecutors and the probe has been halted, but prosecutors have asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit to reopen the case.

St. Louis cop suspended for old YouTube video; officer critical of Obama.  A 35-year veteran of the St. Louis Police Department who'd been assigned to duty in Ferguson suddenly retired this week over a YouTube video, it was reported Saturday [8/30/2014] as activists conducted another march through the strife-torn town pleading for God "to even the score."  Officer Dan Page's video, titled "The End of American Sovereignty & Constitutional Rights," is harshly critical of President Obama, liberal judges, affirmative action, and notes that the Declaration of Independence gives the people the right to overthrow the government.

Uh Oh: Mary Landrieu Doesn't Own a Home in Louisiana.  This is not what embattled "Louisiana" Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu wanted to read in the Washington Post — which, as it turns out, is her hometown paper: [...] Landrieu has gone 'full Beltway.'  She lives in her multimillion-dollar DC mansion, not in the state she ostensibly serves.  The Senator claims that she lives at her parents' house when she's in town, but neighbors, including some of her supporters, aren't so sure.

Grimes bus lacks permit to carry passengers.  The company owned by Jerry Lundergan that is leasing a tour bus to the U.S. Senate campaign of his daughter, Alison Lundergan Grimes, does not appear to have the proper permits required to operate the charter bus.  Grimes' campaign tour bus has come under scrutiny in the last two weeks since Politico ran a story suggesting that the campaign paid less than the market rate to charter the bus, which if true would violate federal campaign finance law.

'Retaliation': Docs show state prosecutors' launched mini-NSA probe of state conservatives.  Conservative targets of a Democrat-launched John Doe investigation have described the secret probe as a witch hunt.  That might not be a big enough descriptor, based on records released Friday [8/22/2014] by a federal appeals court as part of a massive document dump.  Attorneys for conservative activist Eric O'Keefe and the Wisconsin Club for Growth point to subpoenas requested by John Doe prosecutors that sought records from "at least eight phone companies" believed to serve the targets of the investigation.  O'Keefe and the club have filed a civil rights lawsuit against John Doe prosecutors, alleging they violated conservatives' First Amendment rights.

Cops cleared more than 400 times each year for justified homicides.  More than 400 fatal police killings a year are sanctioned by local, state and federal authorities as justified homicides, but the FBI doesn't specifically track how many times officers are prosecuted for improperly causing a person's death.  The FBI said Tuesday [8/19/2014] that it doesn't keep statistics on specific prosecutions of law enforcement officers because it doesn't track crimes by profession, though it does track justified homicide rulings. [...] The FBI defines justifiable homicide as "the killing of a felon by a law enforcement officer in the line of duty."

Perry Grand Juror Was An Active Democratic Party Delegate During Jury Proceedings.  Rho Chalmers, who disclosed to the Houston Chronicle yesterday [8/19/2014] that she was a member of the grand jury that indicted Texas Gov. Rick Perry, was an active delegate to the Texas Democratic Party convention during grand jury proceedings.  Chalmers' active participation in Democratic state politics is important because she claimed yesterday to the Houston Chronicle that her decision to indict Perry, a Republican, was not based on politics.

Surprise! Perry Grand Juror Is Also a Partisan Democrat Activist.  Tuesday night [8/19/2014] the Houston Chronicle published a story about the grand jury that indicted Texas Gov. Rick Perry.  Those grand jurors who spoke with the Chronicle broke the law to do so, and they knew that they were breaking the law.  They claimed that they were speaking to the newspaper to counter Gov. Perry's "spin" on the case.  That's not the job of a grand jury, by the way.  One of them is a woman named Rho Chalmers.  Chalmers tried to get around her lawbreaking by attempting to build this wall of implausible deniability. [...]

Several Perry Grand Jurors Broke the Law to Explain Why They Think Perry Broke the Law.  By Texas law, grand jurors are not supposed to talk to the media about their cases.  That did not stop several of the Gov. Perry grand jurors from breaking the law, specifically, talking to the Houston Chronicle.

New Site Recovers Files Locked by CryptoLocker Ransomware.  First spotted in September 2013, CryptoLocker is a prolific and very damaging strain of malware that uses strong encryption to lock files that are likely to be the most valued by victim users, including Microsoft Office documents, photos, and MP3 files.  Infected machines typically display a warning that the victim's files have been locked and can only be decrypted by sending a certain fraction or number of Bitcoins to a decryption service run by the perpetrators.  Victims are given 72 hours to pay the ransom — typically a few hundred dollars worth of Bitcoins — after which time the ransom demand increases fivefold or more.

Top websites crash as web 'starts to run out of space'.  Major technical problems could become a regular occurrence for website users because the internet is running out of space, experts have warned.  An online breakdown caused chaos on Tuesday [8/12/2014], costing the economy millions of pounds in lost trade and effectively closing access to a number of huge websites.  Online auctioneer eBay was out of action for most of the day, with buyers and sellers inundating the site with complaints about lost business after being unable to log onto their accounts.

100 dollar equivalent
Map: How much $100 is really worth in every state.  For the first time ever, the federal government this year introduced a data series that compares price differences among states and metropolitan areas.  Those estimates — regional price parities and real personal income — offer something simple and immensely useful for anyone considering making a move:  They allow you to compare how far your money goes in each state.

Here's why your Internet might have been slow on Tuesday.  Much of the network depends on trust: Servers publicly announce their routes, which are then rebroadcast to help networks know the best path for their data.  Because of that variation, the total number of routes changes depending on the time they're accessed and other factors.  But some older hardware has trouble handling things when the number of routes reaches above 512,000 because of restrictions in the hardware's specific type of memory.  And on Tuesday [8/12/2014], researchers say, it appears some servers vulnerable to that issue crossed that threshold.

State Department hires company to prep officials for congressional grillings.  The State Department has reportedly approved a contract worth up to $545,000 to help train department officials to effectively testify at congressional hearings after a series of poor performances. The Washington Times reports that the department has hired a company called AMTIS, Inc. to train staffers to effectively speak with lawmakers and testify at congressional hearings.  According to the Washington Times, the contract included classes, such as "Communicating with Congress: Briefing and Testifying," which will be taught by instructors with Capitol Hill experience.

Canadian Green Party President Resigns After Backlash over Pro-Israel Blog Post.  The president of the Green Party in Canada is stepping down from his position after a controversy over the fact that he expressed support for Israel in a blog post.  On Tuesday [8/5/2014], Paul Estrin issued a statement announcing his immediate resignation. [...] The post, which was later removed, marked a departure from the party's leftist and pro-Palestine stance, and as a result it angered many party members.

SketchFactor app racistly helps users avoid 'sketchy' black neighbourhoods.  A new app from smiling young white people in suits has come under fire for crowdsourcing tips on "sketchy " neighbourhoods in order to help pedestrians avoid trouble.  Creators Daniel Herrington and Allison McGuire, who previously provoked anger over their GhettoTracker website, insist on their website they are not "racists, bigots, sexists" but are simply trying to help people "take the guesswork out of city nagivation".  A press release for SketchFactor is very careful not to link "sketchy" areas with race or poverty, joking that unwanted encounters might include a man wearing no pants or an R Kelly cover artist and ironically suggesting that bad experiences users might report includes "racial profiling".

California couple struggling after being forced to pay deceased daughter's student loans.  A California couple is speaking out after they say their finances have been devastated over their daughter's student loan debt, which they are being forced to repay after the woman died unexpectedly four years ago.  Steve and Darnelle Mason's 27-year-old daughter Lisa died suddenly from a liver disease, leaving behind three children.  Darnelle Mason, who is now raising her grandchildren along with her husband, told Fox Business the "excruciating" pain of losing her daughter has only been compounded by the crushing debt.

The Editor asks...
Don't student loans have credit life insurance?

Scrabblers Rejoice: 5,000 New Words Are On the Way.  The word "te" as a variant of "ti," the seventh tone on the musical scale, is a hardworking little gem among 5,000 words added to "The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary," out Aug. 11 from Merriam-Webster.

Dr. Ben Carson: Mistake to Bring Ebola Patients to US.  Monday [8/4/2014] on Newsmax TV's "America Forum," Dr. Ben Carson said we should not have brought the Ebola infected missionaries back to the United States.  Carson criticized the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) pointed out we could send a hospital equipped plane or set up a properly equipped hospital on location in Africa.

Congressman calls for release of redacted 9/11 papers.  A U.S. congressman calling for the release of classified material from a report into 9/11 has warned there would be 'anger, frustration, and embarrassment' if the redacted pages were made public.  Representative Thomas Massie has joined a call for the government to declassify 28 pages redacted from the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001.  Earlier this year, the lawmaker described how he had to 'try to rearrange my understanding of history' after he read the classified pages of the joint investigation by the House and Senate intelligence committees.

The Editor says...
Maybe now we can find out what really happened to World Trade Center Building 7.

Afghan Teen Murders 3 U.S. Marines, Gets 7½ Year Sentence.  Amid the continuing imprisonment in Mexico of a U.S. Marine, another apparent miscarriage of justice is being called out by the families of three Marines who were killed in an insider attack in Afghanistan.  The attacker has been sentenced to just 7½ years in prison by an Afghan court.

Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.  (Matthew 6:5)
N.C. restaurant surprises customers who give prayer of thanks with 15% discount.  A North Carolina restaurant is offering a 15 percent discount to customers who publicly give thanks for their meal with prayer.  Mary's Gourmet Diner in Winston-Salem has been offering the discount for four years, but a recent Facebook post showing a receipt with the discount has gone viral, drawing special attention to the restaurant, Fox News reported Friday [8/1/2014].  One customer told the news agency that she visited the restaurant during a business trip.  Jordan Smith said she and her colleagues, "prayed over our meal and the waitress came over at the end of the meal and said," Just so you know, we gave you a 15 percent discount for praying."

Italian Reporter Reveals Hamas Cover-Up Over Misfired Rockets.  An Italian journalist who until Tuesday [7/29/2014] was embedded in Gaza has backed the IDF's account of a rocket strike on a school playground in central Gaza's Shati refugee camp on Monday.  At least 10 people were killed in the attack — most of them children — and some sources claimed the death toll was as high as 30.  Palestinian sources were quick to blame Israel, claiming that an Israeli fighter jet fired missiles directly at the playground and nearby hospital.  Israel denied the accusations, saying that Hamas rockets aimed at Israel from the area misfired, and struck both the school and the hospital.

Embarrassing leaked campaign memo spells out Nunn's strategies, vulnerabilities.  To the degree voters think about the internal workings of a political campaign, they probably assume some version of this exists for every candidate.  And they're probably right.  But there's a difference between assuming campaign operatives think and talk this way, and seeing it all laid out in black and white.

1 in 3 U.S. adults have 'debt in collections'.  An estimated 1 in 3 adults with a credit history — or 77 million people — are so far behind on some of their debt payments that their account has been put "in collections."  That's a key finding from a new Urban Institute study.  It examined non-mortgage debt, including credit card bills, car loans, medical bills, child support payments and even parking tickets.  The debt in collections ranged from as little as $25 to a whopping $125,000.  But the average amount owed was $5,200.

State Dept. Respects Religious Liberty In Countries Overseas, But Not In The US.  Sen. John Kerry spent more than 20 minutes discussing the religious crises overseas during the 2013 Annual Report on International Religious Freedom, advocating religious freedom for all and declaring religious liberty to be "a universal value... ingrained in every human heart... a birthright of every human being."  "That's what we believe," Kerry said.  But Kerry's speech has some ironic timing.  He's speaking on behalf of the State Dept. — that is, the federal government — the same federal government that tried to force a business to provide contraceptives contrary to the employers' religious beliefs.

Hillary Team Calls for Media Blackout of Anti-Clinton Books.  [Scroll down]  The interview doesn't detail any specific behavior that drew Team Hillary's ire beyond the simple act of writing a book.  Without the benefit of full context, it appears as though Hillary's flack is suggesting the books be banned.  At a minimum he is imploring the overwhelmingly pro-Clinton mainstream press to freeze out these authors and prevent their ideas and findings from being discussed on the media stage.  This is blatently hypocritical coming from the folks surrounding the former first lady, who famously defended "the right to debate and disagree" on the campaign trail in 2008.

Dallas County confirms first chikungunya case in local traveler.  Given the heavy travel patterns to Caribbean countries where the new mosquito-born virus is spreading widely, it was inevitable that someone would bring it back to Dallas County.  Dallas County Health and Human Services confirmed Tuesday [7/22/2014] the first case of imported Chikungunya virus in Dallas County this year.  The patient was infected with the virus during recent travel to the Caribbean, and was diagnosed after returning home, the health department said.

Working-Class Whites Lose Voting Dominance in Ohio.  For the first time, working-class whites make up less than half of Ohio's eligible voters, part of a demographic shift in a key Midwestern swing state that is pushing political parties to widen their appeal beyond the once-dominant bloc.

FBI warns driverless cars could be used as 'lethal weapons'.  In an unclassified but restricted report obtained by the Guardian under a public records request, the FBI predicts that autonomous cars "will have a high impact on transforming what both law enforcement and its adversaries can operationally do with a car."  In a section called Multitasking, the report notes that "bad actors will be able to conduct tasks that require use of both hands or taking one's eyes off the road which would be impossible today."  One nightmare scenario could be suspects shooting at pursuers from getaway cars that are driving themselves.

Dozens of Disney World workers arrested in child sex stings.  Almost three dozen Disney theme park workers have been arrested for alleged kiddie-sex crimes since 2006, according to a broadcast report.  The 35 busts have been for possession of child porn or trying to meet a minor for sex, CNN found after combing through law enforcement and court records.  So far, 32 of those busted have been convicted and the other cases are pending.

Obama administration fights to seize Microsoft emails held in Ireland in landmark legal battle.  The U.S. Justice Department is claiming that Microsoft must hand over emails that the company stores in databases in Dublin, Ireland, in a case that is being watched closely by tech companies legal scholars.  The U.S. federal government is claiming that it can force any company that conducts business operations within its borders to comply with warrants for data stored on its databases, even if those databases aren't physically located within the United States.

Comic books as propaganda:
Comic Character Archie to Die Taking Bullet for Gay Friend Pushing Gun Control.  On July 16, comic character Archie Andrews, of Life With Archie, will die after being shot while protecting gay friend Kevin Keller.  Keller is "Archie Comics' first openly gay character."  According to the Associated Press, Keller is "a married military veteran and newly elected senator who's pushing for more gun control in Riverdale after his husband was involved in a shooting."

Costco's Removal Of Dinesh D'Souza's 'America' Proves To Be A Massive Backfire.  Costco, a discount chain co-founded by a major Democratic donor, faced the wrath of the almighty dollar after stripping its shelves of Dinesh D'Souza's bestselling book America: Imagine The World Without Her.  According to Newsbusters, after Costco announced that it was dropping D'Souza's work, the book soared to #1 on Amazon.com.  Book reviewers on the website made clear their opinion of the retail giant.

Uniguest Needs a Better Explanation for Why Conservative Sites Are Being Blocked.  James Varney of the Times-Picayune in New Orleans, stayed at the Hyatt Place hotel in Riverhead, NY.  He tried to look at the Drudge Report, but was blocked from doing so by his hotel's internet connection.  In fact, he tried looking at a number of conservative websites, including Powerline and Instapundit.  They too were blocked.  He then tried a number of liberal websites from Talking Points Memo to DailyKos.  None of them had access problems.  His hotel, Hyatt Place, uses Uniguest to connect its guests to the internet.

Congress Quietly Deletes a Key Disclosure of Free Trips Lawmakers Take.  It's going to be a little more difficult to ferret out which members of Congress are lavished with all-expenses-paid trips around the world after the House has quietly stripped away the requirement that such privately sponsored travel be included on lawmakers' annual financial-disclosure forms.  The move, made behind closed doors and without a public announcement by the House Ethics Committee, reverses more than three decades of precedent.  Gifts of free travel to lawmakers have appeared on the yearly financial form dating back its creation in the late 1970s, after the Watergate scandal.  National Journal uncovered the deleted disclosure requirement when analyzing the most recent batch of yearly filings.

Progressive Watchdog Media Matters Employees Finally Get Their Own Union.  Progressive watchdog group Media Matters for America lost the fight to keep its workers from unionizing Monday, the Huffington Post reports.  Staff had been agitating moving to unionize since March, with Media Matters executives "fighting it every step of the way," according to a Service Employees International Union statement.  They filed a petition to the National Labor Relations board in April after executives rejected an attempt to unionize through a card check — an open method of unionizing that avoids secret-ballot elections.

DHS Flunks Citizenship Test Question: '15 Stars and Stripes' on U.S. Flag.  A DHS press release, dated June 20, commemorated the June 17th naturalization of 15 new US citizens, noting the "15 stars and stripes" on the U.S. flag.  The problem is that the American Flag doesn't have 15 stars and stripes; it has had 13 stripes since the Act of April 4, 1818, was signed by President James Monroe, and 50 stars since 1960, after Hawaii became a state the year before.  "These 15 candidates, symbolically representing the 15 stars and stripes on our Nation's flag, hailed from Australia, Canada, El Salvador, Greece, Guatemala, India, Iraq, Italy, Kenya, Lithuania, Mexico, the Philippines, Romania, Sierra Leone and South Korea," the press release said.

Scientist who faked AIDS research indicted.  A former Iowa State University scientist who admitted faking lab results to obtain millions in grant money for AIDS research has been charged with four felony counts of making false statements, an indictment filed in federal court shows.  Dr. Dong Pyou Han left his job as an assistant professor and a laboratory manager at the university last year after admitting that he spiked rabbit blood with human antibodies that made it appear the animals' immune systems were reacting to an AIDS vaccine being tested.  In reality, the vaccine was having little effect, according to Han's indictment.  Before the fraud was detected, the research was hailed as groundbreaking, according to the federal indictment.

Transgender priest gives sermon at Washington National Cathedral.  The first openly transgender priest to preach at the Washington National Cathedral urged the gay community Sunday to be brave and open-minded as it works to eliminate oppression.  The Rev. Cameron Partridge told the audience at the landmark Episcopal church that people need to be unashamed of who they are and embrace "the blessing of collaborating visions."

The Pacific's Salmon Are Back — Thank Human Ingenuity.  In 2012, the British Columbia — based Native American Haida tribe launched an effort to restore the salmon fishery that has provided much of their livelihood for centuries.  Acting collectively, the Haida voted to form the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation, financed it with $2.5 million of their own savings, and used it to support the efforts of American scientist-entrepreneur Russ George to demonstrate the feasibility of open-sea mariculture — in this case, the distribution of 120 tons of iron sulfate into the northeast Pacific to stimulate a phytoplankton bloom which in turn would provide ample food for baby salmon.  The verdict is now in on this highly controversial experiment:  It worked.

The people who sold Obamacare on the basis of several undeniable lies are now pushing a "Truth in Advertising Act."
New Bill Would Let FTC Regulate Photoshop.  Looking too good could literally become a crime under newly proposed federal legislation, which would give the Federal Trade Commission power to regulate Photoshop image editing software use in advertising and other media.  The Truth in Advertising Act of 2014 or "Anti-Photoshop Act" was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this year by Florida Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen along with Democrats Lois Capps of California and Theodore Deutch of Florida.  If enacted, the bill will empower the FTC to regulate and reduce the use of Photoshopped images in media.

Mom of Marine held in Mexico says she hasn't heard from Obama administration.  The mother of U.S. Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, who has been jailed in Mexico since March 31, says she has not heard from the Obama administration since her son's imprisonment.  Pressure continues to mount for the president to take action in securing the release of Mr. Tahmooressi, who says he got lost and took a wrong turn into Mexico while carrying three firearms in his truck.  Jill Tahmooressi, the veteran's mother, said she hasn't heard from the White House or the State Department, despite the nearly 125,000 signatures she's received on her "We the People" petition, which should entitle her to an official response, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

The NSA now owns Bitcoin.  Here's the flaw they exploited.  When a single entity ("a single miner" or "a mining pool") controls over 50% of the transaction processing it can control the entire system.  This means they can "see" every transaction, spend the same coins more than once, and deny transactions they don't approve of.  That's finally happened.

US marshals leak list of possible Bitcoin buyers.  The U.S. Marshals Service's auction for the for 29,656.51306529 Bitcoin it seized from online recreational pharmaceuticals purveyor Silk Road has gone off the rails after the Service accidentally spilled a list of interested parties.  Coindesk reports that an email sent to those asking for information about the auction listed those who have asked it more detailed questions about the event.

Rats outnumber NYC's human population.  City officials have declared war on rats in their latest effort to attack a population that experts estimate could be double that of the Big Apple's 8.4 million people.  Starting next month, the city's 45 inspectors will be bolstered by nine new employees of a pilot program to tackle the vermin in neighborhoods where rats have resisted repeated efforts to eradicate them — such as Washington Heights, West Harlem, Chinatown, the Lower East Side and the South Bronx.

'Pork' spending may curb invasive wild hogs.  The feds are offering big money to anyone who can hunt and kill wild pigs on federal lands in South Carolina — the latest move in the government's battle against an invasive species causing an estimated $1.5 billion in damage to farmland and property each year.  In a contract solicitation last week, an arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture offered up to $150,000 for bidders of a one-year feral hog control contract in federal forests about 30 miles northwest of Charleston, South Carolina.

Chelsea: The Poorest Clinton.  Today, we learned that Chelsea Clinton has been taking home an annual salary of $600,000 for her work as a "special correspondent" for NBC News.  In case you had no idea NBC News was employing the Clinton scion, here is an example of her "work":  [Video clip]

Why did NBC pay Chelsea Clinton $600,000 a year?  NBC's hiring of Chelsea Clinton as a "special correspondent" in its news division was widely recognized as an exercise in corporate cynicism when it was announced in November 2011.  Now a price tag has been hung on that scandal, with Politico's reporting that Clinton has been paid a salary of $600,000.

Obama's Balloon: Federal Student Loan Debt Up 517% in 5 Years.  Since President Barack Obama took office in January 2009, the cumulative outstanding balance on federal direct student loans has jumped 517.4 percent.  The balance owed as of the end of May was $739,641,000,000.00.  That is an increase of $619,838,000,000.00 from the balance that was owed as of the end of January 2009, when it was $119,803,000,000.00, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.  Earlier this month, Obama announced new executive actions to allow five million student-loan borrowers to cap their monthly payments at 10% of their income, according to the White House.

Protesters to Obama: Grant Jailed Christian Sudanese Woman U.S. Citizenship, Secure Her Release.  A coalition of Christian groups held at protest in front of the White House on Thursday [6/12/2014] to raise awareness about a Christian woman who is imprisoned in Sudan with her infant daughter and toddler son for apostasy.  "In the case of Meriam Ibriham, she needs to be released from the prison in north Sudan," Ed Lyons of the Persecution Project told CNSNews.com.  "She needs to be granted American citizenship."

Get Paid To Pull Over For "Voluntary" DUI Stops?  A private company is hoping drivers would voluntarily pull over to perform a roadside drug and alcohol test on Washington roads for some extra money.  Pacific Research Institute (PIRE), along with several other federal and non-profit agencies, is looking for approval from the Washington Traffic Safety Commission to begin work on a voluntary research study that would allegedly give a snapshot of how many impaired drivers are on the road at all times of the day.

Hillary and Obama and the Present Idiocracy.  Going by the evidence, Hillary Clinton may not have finished high school.  Or maybe she slept through history class.  She thinks that Abe Lincoln was a "senator from Illinois."  Abe Lincoln was never a US senator.  He was never a state senator, either.  He was never a senator at all.  Hillary, or her speechwriters, could have Googled that.

Hillary Fails History: Calls Lincoln a 'Senator from Illinois'.  President Abraham Lincoln was never a Senator.  Ever.  From Illinois or anywhere else.  Other than a single, two-year term as an Illinois Congressman, Lincoln held no national elective office other than that of our 16th president.  Lincoln did run for the United States Senate in 1858, but lost to Stephen Douglas.

Ted Cruz renounces Canadian citizenship.  Canada-born U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz has given up his citizenship from his birth country, making good on a promise from last summer.

It's official: Ted Cruz a citizen of the U.S. - and the U.S. only.  If you remember, the Texas Republican was born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father.  As such, he was a dual citizen — an American because of his mother, and Canadian because the country, like America, grants automatic citizenship to anyone born there.

23 Republicans and 55 Democrats Confirm HHS Secretary Who Will Force Christians to Act Against Their Faith.  Twenty-three Senate Republicans joined 55 Democrats last Thursday to confirm Sylvia Mathews Burwell to replace Kathleen Sebelius as secretary of Health and Human Services. Burwell was sworn-in today [6/9/2014].  During her confirmation process, no senator on the two committees that took her testimony asked her any questions about the Obamacare contraception-sterilization-abortion-inducing drug mandate that Sebelius issued in 2012.  That regulation is now the target of 100 lawsuits arguing that it violates the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion by forcing Christian to act against their faith.  Burwell will now succeed Sebelius not only as HHS secretary but as defendant in these lawsuits.

Islamic Prayers at Vatican for First Time As Pope Hosts Interfaith Prayer.  On Sunday, Islamic Prayers and readings from the Quran were heard from the Vatican for the first time in history.  The prayers came as a result of Pope Francis's request that Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas meet him at the Vatican City to pray amongst each other for peace.  Pope Francis hoped that inter-faith dialogue would promote peace between the Israeli and Palestinian people.

The Editor says...
If you are a Catholic, this should be enough to make you shop around for another denomination.  One cannot be a Christian and participate in Islamic prayers in one's church.

Marine Jailed in Mexico as US Welcomes Illegal Immigrants.  Since March 31, 25-year-old Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi has been jailed in Mexico after making a wrong turn and inadvertently crossing the international border.  Tahmooressi's vehicle carried several guns and the ammunition for them which led Mexico to charge him with possession of unregistered (in Mexico) firearms.  Americans are outraged that a U.S. Marine spent Memorial Day behind bars in Mexico with little meaningful attempt by the White House, Congress or the State Department to free him.

USDA's Wildlife Services killed 4 million animals in 2013; seen as an overstep by some.  The more than 4 million animals shot, poisoned, snared or trapped by the Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services in fiscal year 2013 included 75,326 coyotes, 866 bobcats, 528 river otters, 3,700 foxes, 12,186 prairie dogs, 973 red-tailed hawks, 419 black bears and at least three eagles, golden and bald. [...] At least two members of Congress have called Wildlife Services secret and opaque for failing to provide more information, and there are mounting calls for an investigation into how it operates.

Harvard grad Chuck Schumer fails history, credits Jefferson for Bill of Rights.  Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, stumbled Tuesday over basic American history, crediting Thomas Jefferson for authorship of the Bill of Rights during a debate over the First Amendment and campaign finance.  "I think if Thomas Jefferson were looking down, the author of the Bill of Rights, on what's being proposed here, he'd agree with it.  He would agree that the First Amendment cannot be absolute," Mr. Schumer said.  While Jefferson is deemed the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, he was not intimately involved in the writing of the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, which is the first 10 amendments to that founding document.

Vacationing Air Force bomber pilot helped land United Boeing 737 with 160 aboard.  United Flight 1637 was returning off-duty Air Force Captain Mike Gongol, his family and 157 other souls from their Christmas vacation when disaster struck.  The Boeing 737's pilot suffered a devastating heart attack at 30,000 feet on the way from Des Moines to Denver, forcing Gongol to rush to the cockpit and help guide the plane to an emergency landing.  His heroic actions have gone unheralded until now, as Gongol recalls the dramatic moment he answered the chilling announcement on the December 30 flight, 'Does anyone know how to fly a plane?'

A Group of Amateur Programmers Just Took Over an Abandoned NASA Satellite.  The ISEE-3 is a 36-year-old satellite that has been floating through space all willy nilly, ever since NASA left it for dead almost 17 years ago.  That was until a group of engineers and computer programs decided to take over the satellite and set it off on a new mission.  Now, two-way contact has been made via the Arecibo Radio Observatory in Puerto Rico and the amateurs are "in command" of the satellite.

Cabinet politics: Federal officials, grants are sent to help vulnerable Democrats.  If you were looking for Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz this week, you might want to consult the 2014 electoral map of endangered Democrats as a guide.  Mr. Moniz toured Louisiana's Gulf Coast oil and gas operations to assure the industry the administration supported its growth even as the president rolls out his climate change agenda.  At his side was Sen. Mary Landrieu, Louisiana Democrat, one of the most vulnerable incumbents in this fall's election. [...] Mr. Moniz's schedule is just one sign of the Obama administration's concerted effort to use the levers of government to prop up its chances of keeping a Democrat-controlled Senate in November.

Don't Change the Channel: Leave Channel 37 alone.  That was the chorus that came from a WMTS Coalition of healthcare organizations and manufacturers in late January, as they addressed the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) about their concerns.  Those organizations, along with healthcare facilities across the country, want the FCC to leave the 608-614 MHz spectrum band alone and maintain it for the Wireless Medical Telemetry Service (WMTS).  Better known as channel 37, the FCC is considering relocating the existing WMTS and allowing unlicensed devices to share it.

McAdams on Channel 37.  Fortunately for the FCC, it can bend time, because, as Flick notes, the incentive auction notice is a doozy.  It covers — in some detail — the auction, who's eligible; what to do with low-power TV stations, broadcast auxiliary operations, wireless microphones, white spaces, Canada, Mexico, pesky TV stations that stay on the air, extraterrestrial communications and annoying people visiting emergency rooms with heart attack symptoms.  Any one of these things alone typically would be addressed in a separate ruling, possibly to flounder indefinitely, but the FCC has to pry the spectrum away from broadcasters before the public discovers that its "public" airwaves are being completely privateered by the progeny of Ma Bell.

More about Channel 37.

Hollywood biggies caught on tape agreeing to hide Middle East funding for anti-fracking film.  James O'Keefe of Project Veritas has struck gold with his latest sting operation.  The Hollywood Reporter explains how the guerilla warrior is publicizing his latest achievement in unmasking the left.

James O'Keefe Punks Hollywood Greens.  O'Keefe's crew pose as a Middle Eastern potentate named "Muhammad" and his American ad executive.  They approach the Tickells with an offer of $9 million to finance an anti-fracking film.  "Muhammad's" motives are clearly expressed:  he wants to keep the U.S. dependent on Middle Eastern oil, and to that end he wants to stamp out fracking.  The Tickells have no problem with this at all.  They discuss the need to keep the film's source of funding secret, and talk about how they can create a false impression as to who paid for it.

The Editor says...
James O'Keefe has done some important work in the past, but if this is the best he can do, I think he's about halfway over the shark.

Scientists Are Creating New, Incurable Diseases in Labs.  Swine flu, or H1N1, had been dead for 20 years when it suddenly re-emerged in 1977 with a curious twist.  The new strain was genetically similar to one from the 1950s, almost as though it had been sitting frozen in a lab since then.  Indeed, it eventually became clear that the late-70s flu outbreak was likely the result of a lowly lab worker's snafu.  Lab accidents like that are extremely rare.  Still, two scientists are now arguing that it's not worth continuing to create new, transmissible versions of deadly viruses in labs because the risk that the diseases will escape and infect the public is too great.

No more get-out-of-jail-free cards for Minnesota legislators.  Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie (D) is robbing state lawmakers of a cherished perk long used to get them out of sticky situations:  A card that allows legislators to avoid arrest while the state House or Senate are in session.  Under the state constitution, lawmakers cannot be detained except in cases of treason, felony or breach of the peace.  The wallet-sized card has been used to get lawmakers out of drunken driving charges and other arrests, the Star-Tribune said.

The Robot Car of Tomorrow May Just Be Programmed to Hit You.  Suppose that an autonomous car is faced with a terrible decision to crash into one of two objects.  It could swerve to the left and hit a Volvo sport utility vehicle (SUV), or it could swerve to the right and hit a Mini Cooper.  If you were programming the car to minimize harm to others — a sensible goal — which way would you instruct it go in this scenario?  As a matter of physics, you should choose a collision with a heavier vehicle that can better absorb the impact of a crash, which means programming the car to crash into the Volvo.  Further, it makes sense to choose a collision with a vehicle that's known for passenger safety, which again means crashing into the Volvo.

Arizona College Student Bounces Back From the Dead After Nearly Giving Organs.  Two years ago, Sam Schmid's close encounter with death was called a "Christmas miracle."  As he lay in a coma after sustaining massive brain injuries in a car crash, doctors were discussing organ donation with his parents and ready to take him off life support.  Schmid astounded those at his hospital bedside who thought he was brain dead, raising two fingers to signal he still had life left in him.  But at the time, no one knew if the Tucson, Ariz., college student would ever return to his studies — or even walk or talk again.

Governor signs bill allowing 'Dreamer' to get law license.  Gov. Rick Scott signed 58 bills into law Monday [5/12/2014], including one that will allow a Pinellas County law school graduate to qualify for a Bar license even though he's not a citizen.

Ben Carson Moves Toward Presidential Run.  Ben Carson is warming to the idea of running for president.  Since the famous brain surgeon retired last year from Johns Hopkins Hospital, he's been speaking around the country to enthusiastic audiences.  And they've affected his thinking about seeking national office. [...] Carson writes that he suspects many others interested in high office would be better candidates.  But in his book he has a caveat:  "If I felt called by God to officially enter the world of politics, I would certainly not hesitate to do so."

ICE data: 36,000 illegals with criminal convictions were released during deportation proceedings.  A preemptive strike on DHS from the Center for Immigration Studies, designed to make Obama's upcoming "relaxation" of U.S. deportation procedures as politically painful as possible.  He's desperate to pander to his base, which is impatient after waiting more than five years for amnesty and has now convinced itself based on cooked numbers that he's some sort of crazed border hawk.  That's where the "relaxation" comes in — and that's the beauty of CIS's otherwise grim data, which shows just how relaxed the system already is.

Lamar Smith Calls Ice Release of 36,000 Criminal Immigrants a President-Sanctioned Prison Break.  Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith reacted harshly to a new report detailing the crimes committed by 36,007 criminal immigrants that Immigration and Customs Enforcement released last year.  "This would be considered the worst prison break in American history, except it was sanctioned by the President and perpetrated by our own immigration officials.  These criminal immigrants should have been deported to ensure that they could never commit crimes on U.S. soil.  But instead, ICE officials chose not to detain them and instead released them back onto American streets," Smith said in a statement Monday.

Feds released hundreds of immigrant murderers, drunk drivers, sex-crimes convicts.  Immigration officials knowingly released dozens of murderers and thousands of drunken drivers back into the U.S. in 2013, according to Obama administration statistics that could undercut the president's argument that he is trying to focus on the most serious criminals in his immigration enforcement.  Among the 36,000 immigrants whom U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released from custody last year there were 116 with convictions for homicide, 43 for negligent manslaughter, 14 for voluntary manslaughter and one with a conviction classified by ICE as "homicide-willful kill-public official-gun."

The Editor says...
Fidel Castro did the same thing 20 years ago.

Military now turns down 80% of applicants.  The U.S. Army hopes to hit 57,000 recruits for active duty this year.  It's on pace to do just that, even while applying a stricter set of standards as it pertains to physical fitness, appearance (i.e., tattoos), intelligence test results and an applicant's criminal history.  The Navy is no different.

When Driverless Cars Break the Law.  There is little doubt that the technology behind driverless cars is nearly advanced enough for mainstream use.  Google plans to make its biggest public display yet of its cars on Tuesday [5/13/2014], when it takes reporters on spins around Mountain View, Calif. Carmakers like BMW and Toyota are also preparing to sell cars that drive themselves.  Instead, the bigger question about driverless cars is a legal one.  Who is responsible when something goes wrong?

Bad Ideas in Oligarchy: Biden's Son Joins Board of Ukrainian Energy Company.  Today, Burisma Holdings, a company that describes itself as "Ukraine's largest private gas producer," announced the newest member of its Board of Directors:  R. Hunter Biden, a seasoned lawyer with extensive international business experience, will be in charge of the company's legal unit, as well as "provide support for the Company among international organizations."  His end goal:  to guide the company in a manner that will "contribute to the economy and benefit the people of Ukraine."  Biden also has a prominent dad who's part of an administration currently embroiled in a conflict with Russia over the Ukraine, so, that's cool too.  And it's not just that Joe Biden is his father, it's that Joe Biden has openly pledged to help Ukraine gain "energy independence" from Russia while condemning the latter's recent annexation of the Crimean peninsula.  Really, this is an awkward situation.

9 Questions To Ask About Biden's Work With A Gas Company In Ukraine.  Twitter is abuzz with questions about the involvement of Vice President Joe Biden's son Hunter with a gas company in Ukraine.  The company, Burisma, allegedly appointed Hunter Biden to its board of directors.  In late April, around the time the vice president made an official trip to Ukraine, Burisma allegedly appointed Devon Archer, one of Hunter Biden's business partners, to its board as well.

Urban Texans Lead Nation in Not Biking to Work.  Among large cities with 200,000 or more people, according to a report released this week by the Census Bureau, five communities in Texas led the nation in having the smallest percentage of workers commuting by bicycle.  In the border city of Laredo, Texas, in the five year period from 2008 through 2012, 0.0 percent of workers rode bikes to work.  That topped all large cities for the smallest percentage of workers commuting by bike.  In Garland, Plano, Fort Worth and Dallas, only 0.1 percent biked to work.  These Texas cities tied for next to last.  In four other Texas cities, only 0.2 percent rode bikes to work.  These included Arlington, Irving, San Antonio and El Paso.

Pope Francis Demands 'Legitimate Redistribution' of Wealth.  In Rome, during a speech to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and other UN agency heads, Pope Francis called for a "legitimate redistribution of economic benefits" using government and the private sector.  The AP reports that Francis asked the United Nations to promote "a worldwide ethical mobilization" through the "legitimate redistribution of economic benefits by the state, as well as indispensable cooperation between the private sector and civil society."

Pope Francis should stick to doctrine, stay away from economic 'redistribution'.  Until this week, his statements have called for voluntary action by wealthier countries and individuals as the right way to relieve economic inequality.  He appealed to our better selves, and in so doing, made us all ask if we could be kinder and more generous.  The answer, of course, is yes.  On Friday [5/9/2014], however, Francis chose a meeting with — of all people — officials of the United Nations to endorse what he called "the legitimate redistribution of economic benefits by the state, as well as indispensable cooperation between the private sector and civil society."

EMP Attack On Power Grid Could Kill 9-In-10.  Expert testimony before Congress on Thursday [5/8/2014] warned that an electromagnetic pulse attack on our power grid and electronic infrastructure could leave most Americans dead and the U.S. in another century. That dire warning came from Peter Vincent Pry, a member of the Congressional EMP Commission and executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security.

The Editor says...
One big problem with government forecasts of doom is the government's track record on pronouncements about global warming and various other potential threats, like SARS and acid rain and swine flu and holes in the ozone layer.  I'd rather take my chances with EMP than with Big Brother.

When the lights go out forever.  It would come with almost no warning.  Without any immediate signs as to why, the lights go out, cars stop dead, telephones cease to function, everything with a microchip in it fails, and most of it all never works again.  In the wake of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack on the United States, part or all of the country is thrust back into the 1860s but with 10 times the population.  The threat is real, it is pressing, and the United States is doing little to address it.  It strikes many Americans as a fanciful prospect, almost cheesy apocalypse porn, to suggest that something as simple as the destruction of the nation's power grid could thrust the United States into the dark ages.  But those who have investigated this prospect are not rolling their eyes to the threat as are so many of the country's sophisticates.

Mayor de Blasio unveils $41B proposal to develop 200,000 units of affordable housing.  Plan envisions 80,000 new apartments and says housing 'central pillar' of fight against inequality.

The Editor says...
That's $205,000 per unit to build apartments — in a housing project.

Judge halts secret probe of Wisconsin conservative groups, in win for Walker.  In a monumental victory for targeted conservatives in the secret Wisconsin investigation, Judge Rudolph Randa on Tuesday granted a preliminary injunction to stop the politically charged probe, ruling in favor of conservative activist Eric O'Keefe, his Wisconsin Club for Growth and "others."  The probe had been looking into possible illegal coordination between conservative groups and Republican Gov. Scott Walker's recall election campaign, but came under fire for the opaque way it was conducted.

Libertarians Trail Meter Readers, Telling Town: Live Free or Else.  Keene's two parking officers, both women, are often videotaped by young adults known as "Robin Hooders."  They track the whereabouts of the officers by two-way radio, feed expired meters before $5 tickets can be written, and leave a business card saying that "we saved you from the king's tariff."  Welcome to Sherwood Forest, N.H., where these acts of charity have led to some donations and gratitude, but also to sidewalk tensions, harassment allegations and litigation.

Arms Cache Most Likely Kept in Texas by the C.I.A.  In passing references scattered through once-classified documents and cryptic public comments by former intelligence officials, it is referred to as "Midwest Depot," but the bland code name belies the role it has played in some of the C.I.A.'s most storied operations.  From the facility, located somewhere in the United States, the C.I.A. has stockpiled and distributed untraceable weapons linked to preparations for the Bay of Pigs invasion and the arming of rebels and resistance fighters from Angola to Nicaragua to Afghanistan.

Indiana to host meeting for planning Constitutional Convention.  The movement toward calling a state-led Constitutional Convention for the purpose of altering the Constitution bypassing Congress, as specified by Article V of the Constitution, has taken a step forward.

Lawsuit: Iowa's do-not-hire list is illegal.  Iowa's state government has illegally used a so-called "do-not-hire" list for decades, a lawsuit filed Monday [4/28/2014] claims.  The lawsuit argues that the state has created "blacklists" despite multiple rulings by administrative law judges warning against the practice.

Keywords: Necessarily skyrocket.
Energy Future Holdings files for bankruptcy, power business will continue operating.  Energy Future Holdings filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization Tuesday after agreeing with key financial stakeholders to keep its power-producing businesses operating in Texas while it reduces roughly $40 billion in debt.  The company owns TXU Energy, a retail electricity provider, and Luminant, the state's largest power generator.  State agencies, including the manager of Texas' electricity grid, have been closely watching the company in the run-up to its filing to ensure that power production is not impacted.  In the short term, it appears power distribution and production will continue normally.

Clinton Library's Doc Dump Reveals CRA Fueled Subprime Bubble.  During the 1990s, former Clinton aides bragged that more aggressive enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act pressured banks to issue riskier mortgages, lending more proof the anti-redlining law fueled the crisis.  A 2012 National Bureau of Economic Research study found "that adherence to that act led to riskier lending by banks," with "a clear pattern of increased defaults for loans made by these banks in quarters around the (CRA) exam, (and) the effects are larger for loans made within CRA tracts," or low-income and minority areas.  To satisfy CRA examiners, Clinton mandated "flexible" lending by large banks.  As a result, CRA-approved loans defaulted about 15% more often, the NBER found.

VA hospital backs down after slapping man with $525 fine over soda refill.  The VA hospital that slapped a $525 federal fine on a man after he refilled his 89-cent drink without paying has backed down, choosing to issue a warning instead of a citation, a spokesperson for the facility said Thursday [4/17/2014].  Christopher T. Lewis, of North Charleston, was issued the $525 citation on Wednesday after he ignored signage indicating that there's no such thing as a free lunch — or complimentary drink refills — at the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center in Charleston.  Lewis, who is not a federal employee, told responding officers he had done the same thing "multiple times" before and never had any problems, hospital spokeswoman Tonya Lobbestael told FoxNews.com.

Texan, 23, Headed To State Prison For Urinating On The Alamo.  A Texas man was sentenced yesterday to 18 months in state prison for urinating on the Alamo.  Daniel Athens, a 23-year-old El Paso resident, pleaded guilty earlier this year to a criminal mischief charge in connection with the April 2012 incident at the Texas shrine.  While Athens could have faced a maximum of two years in custody, a plea deal saved him up to six months in custody.

Police: Ohio Man's Drone Hindered Medical Chopper.  A man is facing charges after deputies say he was flying a video camera-equipped drone that hindered the landing of a medical helicopter at an accident scene.

The Editor says...
I find this story hard to believe.  A medical helicopter would blow a toy "drone" out of its way, and in the event of a collision, the helicopter would win.  Sounds to me like a fabricated problem designed to build up public consensus in opposition to privately-owned and remotely-controlled aircraft.

U.S. Export-Import Bank: Corporate Welfare on the Backs of Taxpayers.  Congress will soon debate the fate of the U.S. Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im), which doles out financing to favored corporations and credit to foreign governments.  Proponents claim that such taxpayer bankrolling creates jobs and fills "gaps" in private financing.  In fact, the bank is a conduit for corporate welfare beset by unreliable risk management, inefficiency, and cronyism.  Terminating the bank's charter should be an easy call for lawmakers.  Even Barack Obama, as a presidential candidate, endorsed its end.  With strong growth in privately financed exports, there is no justification for maintaining this Depression-era relic.

This reader mocked Heartbleed, posted his passwords online. Guess what happened next.  Here's a lesson in online security: Passwords are important.  They keep your information safe.  Crucially, they also prevent other people from impersonating you.  Unfortunately, one of The Switch's readers learned that the hard way.

UNICEF launches 'Mr. Poo' mascot in India to curb public defecation.  UNICEF's new campaign, "Poo2Loo," targets India's public defecation problem with a series of music videos, pranks and advertisements featuring a giant feces mascot.  According to the campaign, 620 million Indians are defecating in public every day.  "That's half the population dumping over 65 million kilos of poo out there every day.  If this poo continues to be let loose on us, there will be no escaping the stench of life threatening infections, diseases and epidemics," the Poo2Loo website says, while asking visitors to sign a pledge to ending public defecation.

Facebook Exec to Headline Muslim Advocates' 'Countering Hate on the Internet' Dinner.  Increasingly, the war in the information battlespace is being waged outside the hallowed halls of the enemedia. [...] The key to winning this war for freedom is in the war of ideas.  So the apparatuses that truth-tellers and voices of freedom including my colleagues and me use, tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin, are of cardinal importance.  When news from my website AtlasShrugs.com goes viral, invariably it is Facebook that drives it.

Is One of the Most Famous Exonerations in U.S. History About to Fall Apart?  One of the guidelines of liberal propaganda is that if you are going to lie, lie big.  Global warming, Obamacare, Romney's a heartless guy.  It might be time to add to the list the famous Anthony Porter exoneration in Chicago in 1999.  Not only is Porter likely guilty of the double murder he was initially charged with, an innocent man therefore sits in an east central Illinois prison serving a 37-year sentence.  His probable framing was largely orchestrated by a since-discredited "journalism" professor and his students at Northwestern University, a cowed prosecutor's office in Cook County, and a Chicago media that enabled the whole charade.

Carson for president backers report $4 million raised, campaign apparatus into place.  Conservatives frustrated with the direction of the country think Dr. Ben Carson can change the course by winning the 2016 presidential race.  Now they just have to convince him.  The group, RunBenRun.org, a super PAC, has already raised $4 million toward a Carson bid for the Republican nomination and has collected 200,000 signatures for a petition to get him to join the race.

After 25 years in prison, man exonerated of NYC murder committed while he was at Disney World.  Despite having documents to back him up, he was convicted of murder.

Men Average $11,505 Higher Salary than Women in Dick Durbin's Senate Office.  [Sen. Dick] Durbin took to the Senate floor on Tuesday to preach on the importance of passing legislation aimed at solving the gender pay gap.  "How serious is equal pay for equal work to working people across America?" said Durbin, "I think it's critical."  The average female salary is $11,505 lower than the average male salary in Durbin's office, according to an analysis of Senate salary data from fiscal year 2013 that showed that more than two-thirds of Democratic Senate offices pay men more than women.

UPS Fires 250 Union Workers for Refusing to Work.  The liberal pro-union agenda has been taking a toll on the American workforce for years.  Our society has been eaten up by the entitlement mindset, training all of us to believe that we deserve certain things from our government and from our jobs.  A prime example of this is how unionized workers have been trained to believe that if they don't get what they want, the best option is to just stop working until they get it.

House kills Obama budget 2-413.  The House on Wednesday handily rejected a GOP budget alternative based on President Obama's 2015 spending blueprint.  It was defeated 2-413, following a pattern seen in recent years in House votes to overwhelmingly reject Obama's budget proposals.  Today's vote is just slightly better than the unanimous vote against Obama's budget in 2012.  The two "yes" votes came from Reps. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) and Jim Moran (D-Va.), who is retiring.

Obama dangles student-loan freebie for midterm 2014 voters.  President Barack Obama today suggested that's he'll pressure Congress to to reduce voters' student-loan payments before the November elections.  "We've got to make it easier to repay student loans," he told a subdued and unresponsive audience at Bladensburg High School, in Prince George's County, Md.  He used the same student-loan pitch in the run-up to the 2012 election, which helped him improve his support among younger voters, many of whom are having difficulty earning enough in the Obama economy to pay off their college debts.

Rangel didn't pay rent but state bailed him out.  New York City's longest-serving congressman won't pay his rent.  State taxpayers were stiffed out of at least $87,000 when Rep. Charles Rangel stopped paying for the district office he rents in Harlem's Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building, records obtained by The [New York] Post show.

Canadian troops told to zip it on leadership complaints if they want medical care.  Canada's wounded warriors are now being told they cannot criticize military leadership if they want to receive medical treatment, a top Canadian newspaper reported Wednesday.  Injured troops are first being told they must sign a form that requires they do not discuss "your views on any military subject" and should not "write anything that might discourage others or make them dissatisfied with their conditions or their employment," The National Post reported.

Insult And Injury: How Doctors Are Losing The War Against Trolls.  In the untamed world of online comment sections, no one is more vulnerable to criticism than doctors, who are restricted by confidentiality laws from defending themselves against even the most outlandish of claims.  With patients increasingly dependent on internet marketplaces to find care — and increasingly prone to frustration — it's the caregivers who get hurt.

Did Michigan just trigger 'constitutional convention'? Bid gains steam.  At issue is what's known as a "constitutional convention," a scenario tucked into Article V of the U.S. Constitution.  At its core, Article V provides two ways for amendments to be proposed. [...] The idea has gained popularity among constitutional scholars in recent years — but got a big boost last week when Michigan lawmakers endorsed it.

Study: Civil servant system outdated.  The federal government is headed for a crisis, a new report warns, and without reforms, a homegrown problem threatens to derail everything from foreign policy, to entitlements, to food safety.  The problem is the way the government manages its more than 2 million civil servants, according to a report from the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service and government consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton.

U.N. Court Orders Japan to Halt Whaling Off Antarctica.  The decision to ban Japan's annual whaling drive off Antarctica, handed down by the United Nations' highest court on Monday, was a hard-won victory for conservationists who long argued that Tokyo's whaling research was a cover for commercial whaling.  The ruling by the International Court of Justice in The Hague halts a Japanese program that has captured more than 10,000 minke and other whales in the Southern Ocean each year since 1988 in the name of biological research.

U.S. to require rear cameras in all vehicles by 2018.  The new rules set rear visibility standards that automakers will initially be able to meet only by installing cameras. [...] Since it was first proposed, the cost of hardware has come down as more cameras have been added to certain models.  Honda Motor Co. and Subaru Motor Co. both announced they are making the cameras standard in all vehicles.

Iowa expands its 'do not rehire' list.  Iowa continues to maintain an internal "do not rehire" list of fired employees who are barred from returning to state employment, even though judges have raised questions about its legality, according to a review by The Associated Press.

Anti-hate group blamed for inspiring Family Research Council gun attack dumped by FBI.  The Southern Poverty Law Center, which has labeled several Washington, D.C.-based family organizations as "hate groups" for favoring traditional marriage, has been dumped as a "resource" on the FBI's Hate Crime Web page, a significant rejection of the influential legal group.  The Web page scrubbing, which also included eliminating the Anti-Defamation League, was not announced and came in the last month after 15 family groups pressed Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI Director James Comey to stop endorsing a group — SPLC — that inspired a recent case of domestic terrorism at the Family Research Council.

Update:
The FBI isn't breaking up with the SPLC — it's just not keeping the relationship "official".  Last week, the FBI received a lot of attention and praise from conservative sources for finally eliminating the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) from its website's list of "hate crimes" resources.  However, while a headline at Breitbart says the FBI "dumps [SPLC] as hate crimes resource," and an article at The Daily Caller said the FBI was "breaking ties" with the SPLC, a public statement from the FBI and the agency's own website indicate the removal may mean just that — removal from the site, not a diminishing of the relationship between the two organizations.

More than half of top posts in key Obamacare agency are vacant or held by 'acting' caretakers.  Eighteen of the 32 top management jobs in the federal agency that is "ground zero" for running Obamacare are either vacant or filled on an acting basis.  The agency is the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight.  Its problems start at the top. Gary Cohen's last day as CCIIO's deputy administrator after less than two years on the job will be March 31, the latest departure from the agency.  Including Cohen's position, more than half of the most important jobs in CCIIO are either vacant or held by caretaking "acting directors."

Half-blind guard caught sleeping at WTC site.  Only days before President Obama revealed that his worst fear was a nuclear terror attack on Manhattan, a nearly blind guard was caught sleeping on the job at the Freedom Tower — where he was the building's first line of defense.  In this cellphone photo obtained exclusively by The [New York] Post, Abdul Basher, 65, is wearing shades and lying almost completely horizontal in a chair in the No. 1 terror target's south lobby, where he was the only guard stationed, sources said.  Even when awake, Basher admittedly can't open his left eye and has "hazy" vision out of his right due to a nerve condition.

Half-blind guard caught sleeping at WTC says he was just 'exercising his eyes'.  An alarming photograph taken in the lobby of One World Trade Center shows a half-blind security guard sleeping on the job — but the security guard swears he was in fact 'exercising' his bad eyes.  Instead of acting as the first line of defense for the world's number one terror target, Abdul Basher, 65, is laid out almost horizontal in a chair.  The intensely embarrassing image was taken at around 2.45 am on Saturday — six days after a New Jersey teen made it past another guard on the 104th floor.

Security Boss at 1 World Trade Center Resigns.  A spokesman for the New York City company that manages 1 World Trade Center says the building's head of security has resigned.  The Durst Organization's Jordan Barowitz confirms David Velazquez resigned Friday [3/28/2014].  The departure comes just days after the arrests of three skydiving enthusiasts who in September parachuted off the building, the nation's tallest skyscraper.  It comes about two weeks after authorities say a New Jersey teenager sneaked onto the site and climbed to the top of the 1,776-foot tower to take pictures.

DOJ: Free Exercise Clause Does Not Protect Kosher Meat Companies.  U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli told the Supreme Court on Tuesday [3/25/2014] that the First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) — which Congress enacted to guide the Executive Branch and courts in defending that right — would not directly protect kosher or halal meat-processing corporations from a hypothetical federal rule that by generally banning certain meat-processing practices effectively banned kosher and halal meat processing by incorporated businesses.

Nabisco Ad: Homosexuality 'Wholesome'.  Nabisco added its voice to the current trend of forcing liberal social agendas by producing a commercial for their Honey Maid graham crackers and Teddy Grahams snacks showing a homosexual couple raising two children with a voiceover stating "this is wholesome."  The ad begins with a father bottle feeding his baby as another father slips in to kiss the baby's forehead.  The commercial then meanders through a montage of families:  mixed race, single dad, tattooed dad, military dad, and two dads.

NJ police: After finishing 15-year term for robbing shoe store, man returns and does it again.  Police say a man who just completed a 15-year prison term for robbing a New Jersey shoe store went back there the day after his release and committed the same crime.

Sinkhole of bureaucracy.  Here, inside the caverns of an old Pennsylvania limestone mine, there are 600 employees of the Office of Personnel Management.  Their task is nothing top-secret.  It is to process the retirement papers of the government's own workers.  But that system has a spectacular flaw.  It still must be done entirely by hand, and almost entirely on paper. [...] During the past 30 years, administrations have spent more than $100 million trying to automate the old-fashioned process in the mine and make it run at the speed of computers.  They couldn't.  So now the mine continues to run at the speed of human fingers and feet.

ORI Director's Resignation Demonstrates Corruption in Science.  Science is rife with corruption, incompetence, dishonesty and fabrication — and now, thanks to a frank resignation letter by the US's top scientific misconduct official we have a better idea why.  David E. Wright, a respected science historian, has just quit his job as director of the Office of Research Integrity (ORI; part of the Department of Health and Human Services) and is scathing about his experiences there.  In his resignation letter, he accuses his boss HHS Assistant Secretary for Health Howard Koh of running an organization which is "secretive, autocratic and unaccountable."

Daredevil stunt reveals there are no working cameras in WTC tower.  The Freedom Tower, America's top terror target, doesn't have a single working surveillance camera inside — a stunning security lapse that let a New Jersey teen roam the top floors undetected for two hours, The [New York] Post has learned.  The video system for 1 World Trade Center "won't be operational until the building opens later this year," said a source familiar with the security plan.  That means there is no footage of Justin Casquejo, 16, as he slipped by a sleeping guard to the antenna of the 1,776-foot-tall building Sunday morning.

Charges unlikely for Houston dad accused of shooting daughter's boyfriend, prosecutor says.  The Houston father who police say fatally shot a 17-year-old boy who was inside his daughter's bedroom early Thursday morning [3/13/2014] will likely not be charged, an area prosecutor told MyFoxHouston.com.  Although a grand jury will review the case, prosecutor Warren Diepraam said it is unlikely that the father will be charged.

Top HHS Official Resigns, Rips Sebelius On His Way Out.  Calling working for the Obama/Sebelius Department of Health and Human Services the "worst job ever," David Wright has resigned as HHS director of the Office of Research Integrity.  That office monitors potential research misconduct, a job that must have kept it quite busy before, during and after the Obamacare rollout.

HHS official resigns, pens a must-read rebuke of federal bureaucracy.  A Health and Human Services official has resigned after dealing with the frustration of the "profoundly dysfunctional" federal bureaucracy, which left him "offended as an American taxpayer."  In a resignation letter obtained by ScienceInsider, David Wright, director of the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) — which oversees and monitors possible research misconduct — offers a scathing rebuke of the unwieldy and inefficient bureaucracy that he dealt with for the two years he served in the position.

Official resigns over "remarkably dysfunctional HHS bureaucracy".  The former Director of the Office of Research Integrity (OIR), David Wright, recently resigned in powerful fashion, penning a scathing letter to his boss in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) about the "remarkably dysfunctional HHS bureaucracy."  The letter, written on February 25th and recently published at sciencemag.org, details the "intensely political environment" that is HHS, the department charged with crafting and implementing Obamacare policy and regulations.  Apart from being famous for drafting 20,000 pages of onerous regulations inspired by the nearly 2,000 page Obamacare statute, HHS also made headlines for it's [sic] spectacularly disastrous rollout of healthcare.gov, the website responsible for ensuring the American people are actually able to comply with the new healthcare law.

Earth has a secret reservoir of water, say scientists.  Writing in the journal Nature, scientists on Wednesday [3/12/2014] said they had found an elusive mineral pointing to the existence of a vast reservoir deep in Earth's mantle, 400-600 kilometres (250-375 miles) beneath our feet.  It may hold as much water as all the planet's oceans combined, they believe.  The evidence comes from a water-loving mineral called ringwoodite that came from the so-called transition zone sandwiched between the upper and lower layers of Earth's mantle, they said.

Senate chaos: Democrat says cabinet secretaries can ignore GOP questions.  The Democratic chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee declared Wednesday that cabinet secretaries do not have to answer questions at hearings if they don't feel like it, the latest breakdown in collegiality.  In a politically-charged atmosphere during a hearing on increasing the minimum wage, HELP Committee Chairman Tom Harkin brushed aside ranking Sen. Lamar Alexander's request for a "yes or no" answer from Labor Secretary Thomas Perez.

Koch Brother Donates Money to Hospital, Liberals Protest (Not a Parody).  In fact, it was the New York State Nurses' Association, the NAACP New York State Conference, and SEIU Local 1199, among others, who marched on the soon-to-be-built David H. Koch Center at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, which was funded in part by a $100 million donation from the man one prominent liberal recently predicted would go down in history as a "famously evil person."  The donation was the largest in the hospital's history, and will presumably create a fair number of new nursing jobs.  So why are the usual suspects up in arms?

First state passes Article V Convention of States resolution.  Hey libs, it's happening.  The first state has passed a resolution to convene a constitutional convention and right the balance between the federal and state governments.

Court decision invites widespread public school violence.  A three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals may have been on solid legal ground when they agreed that school officials in Morgan Hill, Calif., could bar students from wearing U.S. flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo to prevent ethnic violence from students of Mexican ancestry, but their decision raises troubling concerns about threatening such violence as a means of suppressing free expression.

Discipline reform' is in Obama program to help young men. What's that mean?  When President Obama announced "My Brother's Keeper" Thursday [2/27/2014], he identified school discipline reform as one key to supporting the success of young men of color.  School suspensions and expulsions, which occur more often among black and Latino boys, make dropping out of school — and the host of risk factors that come with that — more likely.  "My administration has been working with schools on alternatives to the so-called zero-tolerance guidelines — not because teachers or administrators or fellow students should have to put up with bad behavior, but because there are ways to modify bad behavior that lead to good behavior," Mr. Obama said in announcing My Brother's Keeper.

Farrow, After Three Days on the Air, Receives Cronkite Award.  His first television show has only been on the air for three days, but Ronan Farrow is already winning awards for his journalistic work.  Reach the World, a global education group, will honor the 26-year-old Farrow with its annual Cronkite Award for Excellence in Exploration and Journalism.

Feds unveil plan to save honey bees — and $15 billion in crops they pollinate.  Claiming that the future of American food production depends on a revived honey bee population, the Agriculture Department on Tuesday [2/25/2014] announced it will spend $3 million to help ranchers and farmers improve the health of the bugs, key to pollinating $15 billion worth of food. [...] The money will be in the form of financial assistance and technical help targeted to five Midwestern states:  Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

Here Come The Democratic Birthers.  What?  You thought only Republicans could be birthers?  In a fundraising email sent out Monday [2/24/2014], the bombastic, bombthrowing Florida Democrat Alan Grayson included a transcript of remarks from an interview with MSNBC where he claimed that Ted Cruz was ineligible to be president. [...] Although the Constitution says that the President must be a "natural born citizen," the term is not defined.  However, most legal scholars believe that anyone who is a citizen at birth is "natural born."

Another "Successful Banker" Found Dead.  The dismal trail of dead bankers continues.  As The Journal Star reports, a successful Lincoln businessman and member of a prominent local family died last week. [...] This brings the total of banker deaths in recent weeks to 9 as Stuart is sadly survived by three sons and four daughters.

Group tries to slow federal government's move away from paper to the Web.  As the Obama administration pushes to do more business over the Internet, finally seeking to close the technology gap with the private sector, the digital makeover is running into a dogged opponent called Consumers for Paper Options.  The group is working the halls of Congress in closed-door meetings, underwriting research favorable to its position and mounting a news media campaign in an effort to preserve Washington as the capital of paper — and slow the move away from printed checks, forms and other paper communication.

Closing Arguments in ATF Agent's Case Against The Government Begin and End Today.  The closing arguments in Dobyns v. USA are set to take place this morning at the U.S. Federal Courthouse in Tucson, Arizona.  Former ATF Special Agent Jay Dobyns has been suing the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms for more than a year after the agency failed to properly provide protection for himself and his family.  His battle with the government has spanned over the course of a decade.

Most troubled PAC in history flies under radar, squanders Democratic donors' cash.  A PAC called 21st Century Democrats has raised $5.3 million since 2009, but not a penny of it has gone to candidates' campaigns or independent expenditures on their behalf, according to Federal Election Commission records.  That makes 21st Century Democrats one of the largest, yet least effective, independent political action committees in the country.

Medical Center won't let patients watch Fox News.  I imagine the only thing worse than being forced to watch CNN inside an airport terminal is being forced to watch it in a doctor's office.  So you can imagine my surprise when I discovered a Michigan health care facility, funded by federal tax dollars, blocked Fox News Channel from its waiting room television sets.  The president of Family Health Care directed staff to block Fox News after a board member complained about our network's coverage of the Affordable Care Act, an employee told me.

Judicial Watch: Top Pentagon Leader Ordered Destruction of bin Laden Death Photos.  Judicial Watch announced Monday [2/10/2014] that it received documents through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit showing that Admiral William McRaven ordered the immediate destruction of any photos of Osama bin Laden's death within hours of a Judicial Watch FOIA request.

Making butane hash a lethal mix in home drug labs.  The "chef" hunkered over a batch of hash oil he was making in a kitchen in Redondo Beach, using a common but extremely dangerous method known as "open blasting."  The 26-year-old meticulously stirred and heated the marijuana extract into the highest clarity, slowly producing "butane honey oil" that would be as clear and pure as amber.  This potent type of hash, also called "wax," has taken off in the marijuana market with the rise of electronic cigarettes and other vaporizing devices.

Michelle Obama Pitches Student Aid: 'Almost Everyone Is Eligible'.  [Scroll down]  The latest data show that the national two-year student loan default rate rose from 9.1 percent for FY 2010 to 10 percent for FY 2011.  The three-year default rate rose from 13.4 percent for FY 2009 to 14.7 percent for FY 2010.  The Financial Stability Oversight Council, a division of the U.S. Treasury, reported in April 2013 that "large and growing student debt burdens and a poor job market have pushed many borrowers into delinquency."

Study: Fatal Car Crashes Involving Marijuana Have Tripled.  According to a recent study, fatal car crashes involving pot use have tripled in the U.S.  "Currently, one of nine drivers involved in fatal crashes would test positive for marijuana," Dr. Guohua Li, director of the Center for Injury Epidemiology and Prevention at Columbia, and co-author of the study told HealthDay News.

Half the nation's uninsured live in just 116 counties.  A new study conducted for The Associated Press shows the administration is best off focusing on a relatively narrow geographic area:  Half of those under 65 without insurance live in just 116 of the nation's 3,143 counties.  And half of all 19-39 year olds without insurance — the most coveted demographic as health-care providers look to expand their risk pools — live in 108 counties.

Bernanke Leaves Fed with Record Balance Sheet of $4,102,138,000,000.  Retiring Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who was replaced by Janet Yellen as of today, is leaving the Federal Reserve with an unprecedented $4,102,138,000,000 in total assets on its balance sheet, up 391 percent from the $834,663,000,000 in total assets the Fed showed on its balance sheet when Bernanke took over as chairman in February 2006.  Much of the increase in the Fed's assets has come in the form of U.S. Treasury securities and Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae mortgage-backed securities that the Fed purchased over the last five years in its attempts to stimulate the economy.

There's Something About MyRA.  By now, you may have heard about MyRA.  The acronym, which President Barack Obama stumbled over in his State of the Union speech Tuesday night, stands for My Retirement Account.  Obama introduced the new plan like this:  "MyRA guarantees a decent return with no risk of losing what you put in." On Wednesday, the administration said it will launch a pilot program of the "new, simple, safe and affordable 'starter' retirement savings account" by the end of the year.

Western residents face threat of water rationing as feds reduce water flow.  For years, experts have been warning people in the American West they will have to make do with less water in the future.  That dryer future already may have arrived.  This year, for the first time in history, lower flows in the Colorado River have prompted the federal government to reduce the amount of water flowing into Lake Mead reservoir outside Las Vegas.  Bureau of Reclamation officials say if the river's level doesn't increase soon, there's a 50 percent chance that by next year, residents in Arizona, southern Nevada and California will have to start rationing water.

Most Americans Are Unaware Of [Insert Issue Here].
  •   Fewer than 25% of Californians knew "much at all" about the massive healthcare overhaul, the Affordable Care Act, that impacts every single American.
  •   Fewer than half of parents with children in public schools knew anything about the Common Core Standards, arguably one of the most radical overhauls of education in at least 50 years.
  •   A measly 39% of Republicans who think the 2012 attacks on an embassy in Benghazi was the "biggest political scandal in American history" could identify that event took place in a country called Libya.
  •   For kicks, 41% of Americans cannot ID their folksy deputy commander-in-chief, Vice President Joe Biden.

Feds charge Bitcoin start-up founder with money laundering.  Less than a year after raising $1.5 million for his Bitcoin exchange start-up BitInstant, CEO Charlie Shrem has been charged with money laundering.  A news release from U.S. prosecutors in Manhattan said that Shrem knowingly facilitated illegal purchases on the now-shuttered underground drug marketplace Silk Road.  Silk Road was a Web site that allowed users to buy everything from heroin to fake IDs.  To help preserve users' anonymity, the site required all transactions to be conducted in bitcoins.  According to the government, a man named Robert Faiella worked with Shrem to sell bitcoins to Silk Road users.

Fed's Dirty Little Secret: "The Gold Isn't There... Exists as Paper IOU's".  The assumption by global depositors who have entrusted their national savings with the Federal Reserve and US Government has always been that when they request to repatriate their holdings the Fed would simply open the vault, access said assets and ship them back to where they belong.  That's exactly what Germany expected would happen last year when the country requested that the Federal Reserve return about one-fifth of their gold reserves.  But that's when things got really dicey.

An Allen West comeback?  Allen West may have lost his seat in Congress, but the Florida Republican is not done with elected politics.  West told radio host Jesse Lee Peterson Thursday [1/23/2014] that another Allen West candidacy would likely be coming in 2016.  "I will definitely come back," said West, who lost his seat in 2012 to now-Congressman Patrick Murphy by fewer than 3,000 votes.

The 25 most common passwords of 2013.  According to password management company SplashData, the top three passwords of the year are "123456," "password" and "12345678."  The top three passwords haven't changed, but "123456" and "password" swapped places from last year.  The company's list of the "25 worst passwords of the year" was compiled using data that hackers have posted online, which are said to be stolen passwords.

Bombshell sworn allegation against Tim Geithner.  If anyone thinks "Bridgegate" is an example of political bullying and abuse of power, then the sworn (under penalty of perjury) allegation of a corporate heavy hitter against Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner is off the charts.

Pro-death Insanity Envelops Belgium.  [T]here's an insidious creeping horror that is progressively challenging our inherent notions of compassion and decency: the Culture of Death, which, over the last 30 years, has steadily been pushing the limits of acceptable medical behavior.  Europe has been ground zero for the pro-deathers' ultimate goal:  Death on demand at any time, anywhere, for any reason, for anyone, and by any means necessary — usually by assisted suicide and euthanasia.  Even within the European pro-death context, Belgium has gone stark raving mad.

Judge allows subpoena for records from Times-Picayune.  A federal magistrate has allowed a defense attorney to subpoena records from a New Orleans news organization about comments anonymously posted on its website.

National Cathedral goes off the deep end.  The cathedral's website promised that "written prayers, yoga mats, zafu meditation cushions, poetry, and mandalas to draw and color" would be "available as reflection tools."  For those unfamiliar with Eastern religions, you use a zafu during a zazen (sitting) meditation session.  Mandalas are geometric patterns representing the cosmos, and are used in Hinduism, which has thousands of gods, or in Buddhism, which is godless.

Ukrainians rally against new protest law.  Demonstrators packed Kiev's Independence Square in freezing temperatures on Sunday, rallying in defiance of new laws that set limitations on the right to protest.  Protesters and police accused each other of attacks during the large demonstration, which stretched into the early morning hours.

Court: Bloggers Have Same First Amendment Protections as Traditional Journalists.  A blogger — and, really, the public at large — has the same protections for free speech in the United State as a traditional journalist and can only lose a defamation lawsuit on an issue of public concern if plaintiffs manage to prove negligence.  In a ruling that may come as a surprise to many bloggers who probably didn't even realize this was even a question, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a new trial for Crystal Cox, a blogger who had lost a defamation lawsuit in 2011 over a blog post that accused an Oregon bankruptcy trustee and Obsidian Finance Group of fraud, reports the Associated Press.

Change for a Nickel? U.S. Mint Is Weighing It.  Industry groups are particularly wary of tweaks to U.S. coinage, which could force companies to update the equipment they use to accept change.  Machinery is now calibrated for a nickel that has been 75% copper and 25% nickel since 1866, except for a brief stint during World War II.  Dimes and quarters have been made out of the same nickel-copper sandwich since 1965.

Daunting Mathematical Puzzle Solved, Enables Unlimited Analysis of Encrypted Data.  The patented breakthrough, called "fully homomorphic encryption," could enable deep and unrestricted analysis of encrypted information — intentionally scrambled data — without surrendering confidentiality.  IBM's solution has the potential to advance cloud computing privacy and security by enabling vendors to perform computations on client data, such as analyzing sales patterns, without exposing or revealing the original data.

Exclusive: U.S. waived laws to keep F-35 on track with China-made parts.  The Pentagon repeatedly waived laws banning Chinese-built components on U.S. weapons in order to keep the $392 billion Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter program on track in 2012 and 2013, even as U.S. officials were voicing concern about China's espionage and military buildup.

FBI quietly drops 'law enforcement' as its primary mission.  Without any fanfare, "law enforcement" has been dropped from its status as the FBI's primary mission.

Obama's War Against the Elderly.  To begin with, you are probably aware that the nest-egg you saved is being undermined by inflation and lowered interest rates.  But let's consider how much and why this has happened, by doing some arithmetic.

Study names Virginia 'Worst state to be a burglar'.  Virginia is the worst state in the U.S. for burglars, according to a new nationwide study by a security systems company.  According to statistics compiled by SimpliSafe Home Security Systems, Virginia homeowners are 46 percent less likely to be burgled than the national average.  The study compares the legislative codes of all 50 states as well as the District of Columbia, and contrasts maximum and minimum burglary sentences, as well as maximum fines, as well as other factors.

Cops can use radio waves to bring your car to a halt.  Finding a safe way to stop fleeing cars has been a difficult problem for law enforcement for a long time.  Police have tried everything from spike strips to PIT maneuvers to bring fleeing villains to a halt.  Now, however, a British company has a slightly more high tech idea:  radio waves.  The company, known as E2V is working on a system called RF-Safe Stop that projects radio pulses which overwhelm and shutdown engine electronics.

The Editor says...
I would not want to be in the vicinity when that weapon was used.  Will the police pay for knocked-out engines on nearby cars?  Probably not.  If the radio signal is powerful enough to kill an automobile engine, wouldn't it also kill all the electronics in the are, and wouldn't it be a severe health hazard?  At the very least, this would almost certainly violate the FCC's RF exposure standards for "uncontrolled exposure areas."

State Dept Whistleblower's Emailed Hacked, Deleted.  The personal e-mail account of a State Department whistle-blower was hacked, and four years worth of messages — some detailing alleged wrongdoing at the agency — were deleted, The [New York] Post has learned.  The computer attack targeted the Gmail account of Diplomatic Security Service criminal investigator Richard Higbie, his lawyer, Cary Schulman, confirmed.  "They took all of his e-mails and then they deleted them all," said Schulman.  He said that he could not prove who was responsible for the hack job, but said the attack was "sophisticated" and called the targeting of Higbie "alarming."

19% of Americans Trust Government.  According to this new Pew Research poll, very few people trust government.  Let's hope it drops even lower so we can have a better shot at returning our society to a more rational, free, and productive state.  The more people believe in individual liberty and taking personal responsibility for their actions the better off we all will be.

Cryptolocker ransomware has 'infected about 250,000 PCs'.  A virulent form of ransomware has now infected about quarter of a million Windows computers, according to a report by security researchers.  Cryptolocker scrambles users' data and then demands a fee to unencrypt it alongside a countdown clock.  Dell Secureworks said that the US and UK had been worst affected.

Ethnicity And Race Designations Required?  As usual, the girl behind the front desk handed me a sheet with insurance information to verify.  I did so by comparing all the numbers on the sheet with the health insurance card that I carry in my wallet, then handed the sheet back to her.  She said:  "You haven't completed the form.  See the top right."  There were two more lines to fill in.  One said "ethnicity," the other "race."  Never before has any insurance form in any doctor's office I have visited required such designations!

X-37B Marks One Year On Orbit.  The X-37B offers a unique opportunity to not only launch things into space but get them back intact.  Combine the goals of the USAF and the NRO, and there's enough justification for the cost of operating the X-37B program.  So the X-37B sits calmly in orbit, quietly testing its mettle against the harsh environment of space.  Amateur satellite watchers who track the spacecraft have sometimes observed orbital changes, but no really strange behaviour.  The Air Force says almost nothing.  The NRO says nothing at all.  And X-37B normally remains out of the news headlines.

28 Pages Later: Shrouding an Act of War.  American blood spilled in wars that do not attack those who attacked us on 9-11.  To put this in perspective, fewer died in Pearl Harbor and we nuked the Japanese.  We were told after 9-11, that it was al Qaeda, with no other state sponsors.  If the allegations prove accurate, 9-11 was nothing less than an act of war by Saudi Arabia.

TSA Wants to Hire 'Economically Disadvantaged Woman Owned Small Business'.  The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is looking exclusively for an "economically disadvantaged woman owned small business" when it awards its next $30 million contract for security training.  The agency announced a solicitation for a company to conduct training for its Inter-Modal Security and Training Exercise Program (I-Step) last week. [...] An economically disadvantaged woman is one who earns less than $350,000 a year, with a net worth not greater than $750,000.

The Editor asks...
What happened to "equal employment opportunity without regard to race or gender"?

City to dealership: Take military flags down.  The City of Idaho Falls told an auto sales company to take down its flags honoring the military.  "We're just here supporting the troops," said Autos 4 Less owner Jonathon Long.  "We're even doing a Christmas donation box for veterans."  Long was told to take these flags down after the city apparently received complaints.

The Editor says...
Car dealerships routinely use ridiculously large flags to attract attention.  In west Dallas, it is often the Mexican flag.  Sometimes it is an exercise in bad taste, but even the most despicable used car dealer is entitled to freedom of expression, is he not?

Homeland Security inspector general who was under probe steps down.  An acting inspector general who was himself under investigation for allegations he misused his office and softened reports to keep from embarrassing the Obama administration stepped down from his job late Monday [12/16/2013].  Charles K. Edwards, who was charged with overseeing the vast Department of Homeland Security and its many bureaus and agencies since the retirement of the former inspector general, had faced a broadening Senate probe this year that focused on whether he had altered and delayed investigations to please the agency and the White House.

Convicted Terror Supporter Attends Congressional Briefing.  A convicted terrorist supporter who is currently under house arrest attended a Capitol Hill briefing hosted by a pro-Muslim Brotherhood group in a congressional office building earlier this month, according to reports.  Sami Al-Arian, a former engineering professor at the University of South Florida, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to aid the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in 2006.  He has been under house detention in Northern Virginia since 2008 for refusing to testify in a subsequent terror financing trial.  Al-Arian admitted in the plea agreement to having worked with the PIJ and other groups from the 1980s to the 1990s.

Ex-Scientology leader sues Church for harassment.  Scientology members allegedly set up high-tech surveillance cameras to spy on the family of a disillusioned former leader, a bombshell harassment lawsuit against the church claims.  Monique Rathbun, wife of former church bigwig turned critic Marty Rathbun, filed a suit in Comal County, Texas, saying she has been "harassed, insulted, surveilled, photographed, videotaped, defamed and humiliated" by church members, including a group called the "squirrel busters" who allegedly rented a home near the couple to spy on them.

Journalists Place Near Bottom in Poll Ranking Public Respect for Professions.  Continuing a decades-long trend, members of the media placed near the bottom in a poll which asked respondents their opinions of various professions.  In the Gallup survey, TV reporters were barely more popular than advertising salespeople, state-level politicians, car salesmen, members of Congress, and lobbyists with just 20 percent of respondents saying they had a favorable opinion.  They were tied with lawyers.  Print newspaper reporters fared slightly better at 21 points.

Report: W.H. delayed Obamacare, EPA rules till after 2012 election.  In an effort to ease President Obama's reelection bid, the White House delayed the imposition of a series of regulations affecting Obamacare and environmental protection ahead of the 2012 election, according to a new report in the Washington Post.

White House delayed enacting rules ahead of 2012 election to avoid controversy.  The White House systematically delayed enacting a series of rules on the environment, worker safety and health care to prevent them from becoming points of contention before the 2012 election, according to documents and interviews with current and former administration officials.  Some agency officials were instructed to hold off submitting proposals to the White House for up to a year to ensure that they would not be issued before voters went to the polls, the current and former officials said.

Kermit Gosnell Gets 30 Years In Drug Sentencing.  Dr. Kermit Gosnell was sentenced Monday [12/16/2013] in federal court for distribution of drugs from his West Philadelphia doctor's office.  This is almost a footnote to the three consecutive life terms he is already serving for murder and other crimes.

Inside the Saudi 9/11 coverup.  After the 9/11 attacks, the public was told al Qaeda acted alone, with no state sponsors.  But the White House never let it see an entire section of Congress' investigative report on 9/11 dealing with "specific sources of foreign support" for the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudi nationals.  It was kept secret and remains so today.  President Bush inexplicably censored 28 full pages of the 800-page report.  Text isn't just blacked-out here and there in this critical-yet-missing middle section.  The pages are completely blank, except for dotted lines where an estimated 7,200 words once stood.

The Editor says...
In general, those of us who question the official government narrative about 9-11-2001 are mocked as "truthers" by the political left and (if you will pardon the redundancy) the news media.  Eventually the truth will be fully exposed, and those of us who seek to uncover it will be vindicated.  Please note that the article immediately above was published in the New York Post, not just on a web site that caters to dubious conspiracy theories.

Act of War: CIA Leak Gives "Incontrovertible Evidence" That 9/11 Was State Sponsored.  If you have ever questioned the official narrative for the September 11th attacks then you have, without a doubt, been dubbed a conspiracy nut by the establishment media and those who hang on their every word.  Like the Warren Commission report on the JFK assassination, the 9/11 Report assembled by a Congressional investigation is unraveling and being revealed for what it really is — nothing more than a cover story.  This is no longer a conspiracy theory... it's conspiracy fact.

Obama Becomes First President to Acknowledge Existence of Area 51.  According to NPR's Adam Wollner, the closest any other U.S. president has come to discussing Area 51 was when President Bill Clinton issued a presidential determination exempting the site from environmental disclosure laws.  But that document only referred to the base as "the Air Force's operating location near Groom Lake, Nevada."  The CIA did not acknowledge its existence until last year.

Lockheed Martin Contracted to Colonize Mars in Mars One Project.  Lockheed Martin has landed a contract to build a lander to colonize Mars as a part of the Mars One Project.  The bid proposed by a Dutch company says they have received over 20,000 applications to be one of the first people to not only ever set foot on Mars, but set up a permanent human colony on the red planet.  The plan involves sending four people in the year 2025, funded by the Mars One foundation, with absolutely no chance of returning back to Earth once dispatched.

Meet the Robot Telemarketer Who Denies She's A Robot.  The phone call came from a charming woman with a bright, engaging voice to the cell phone of a TIME Washington Bureau Chief Michael Scherer.  She wanted to offer a deal on health insurance, but something was fishy.  When Scherer asked point blank if she was a real person, or a computer-operated robot voice, she replied enthusiastically that she was real, with a charming laugh.  But then she failed several other tests.  When asked "What vegetable is found in tomato soup?" she said she did not understand the question.  When asked multiple times what day of the week it was yesterday, she complained repeatedly of a bad connection.

Comrade Mandela's Secret Life.  The South African Communist Party is admitting Nelson Mandela was a high-ranking member.  Will the media report these facts?  Or will the "myth" continue to prevail?

Private company plans US's first controlled moon landing in 40 years.  A U.S. spacecraft hasn't made a controlled landing on the moon since Apollo 17 left the lunar surface on Dec. 14, 1972.  That's about to change.

The Coming Global Wealth Tax.  Between ObamaCare, Iran and last quarter's uptick in U.S. economic growth, taxpayers these days may be distracted from several dangers to come.  But households from the United States to Europe and Japan may soon face fiscal shocks worse than any market crash.  The White House and New York Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio aren't the only ones calling for higher taxes (especially on the wealthy), as voices from the International Monetary Fund to billionaire investor Bill Gross increasingly make the case too.

Drones [are the] secret weapon in [the] hunt for feral pigs.  Feral pigs in America's deep South are a major problem for farmers and civilians alike, with the porcine predators causing an estimated $1.5 billion annually in damage to crops and wildlife.  Enter the Louisiana Hog Control, an extermination company launched in 2011 by a couple of engineers determined to make a dent in the thriving pig population.

Republican doctors running for Congress amid ObamaCare rollout fiasco.  Eleven Republican doctors are running for the Senate, hoping that voters will see their medical expertise as an asset amid the administration's botched rollout of ObamaCare [...] A 2012 Gallup survey rated medical doctors as the third most-trustworthy profession, below only nurses and pharmacists.  In contrast, members of Congress were second from the bottom, considered more trustworthy than only care salespeople.

US's top secret launch nuclear launch code was frighteningly simple.  For nearly 20 years, the secret code to authorize launching U.S. nuclear missiles, and starting World War III, was terrifyingly simple and even noted down on a checklist.  From 1962, when John F Kennedy instituted PAL encoding on nuclear weapons, until 1977, the combination to fire the devastating missiles at the height of the Cold War was just 00000000.  This was chosen by Strategic Air Command in an effort to make the weapons as quick and as easy to launch as possible, as reported by Today I Found Out.

Detroit bankruptcy moves forward as judge rules city can shed debt.  Detroit's historic bankruptcy will move forward after a judge ruled Tuesday [12/3/2013] that the financially crumbling city is eligible to shed billions in debt.

Obama Admin Drafted Memos on Trillion-Dollar Coin During Debt Ceiling Showdown.  Fans of economic policy may recall that during one of the many recent debt ceiling showdowns, the idea to mint a trillion-dollar platinum coin came to the fore.  It turns out that the Obama administration took the idea seriously enough to have the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel draft memos pertaining to its legality, a fact belied by the White House's out-of-hand dismissal of the option in January.

U-M Paul DeWolf murder case: How stolen laptop's 'Find my Mac' app led to arrests.  It had been more than two months since a popular University of Michigan medical student was shot to death, and police seemingly had few leads.  But on Oct. 3 — 45 miles from where student Paul DeWolf was killed in his Ann Arbor fraternity — a man in Detroit attempted to log onto a computer he'd just purchased through Craigslist.  The man didn't know it, but the Mac laptop had been stolen from DeWolf's next-door neighbor around the time he was killed.  That computer had an app that would lead police directly to it, and to the two suspects now charged in DeWolf's killing.

DeKalb County juror form lists "slave" as occupation.  A new online juror questionnaire offered by the DeKalb County Court listed "slave" as an occupational option.  Court Administrator Cathy McCumber told 11Alive, the questionnaire went online a month ago, but is based off an internal list that's been used for 13 years.

Mother claims flu shot is responsible for death of teenage son.  A Utah mother is claiming that a flu shot is responsible for the recent death of her 19-year-old son.  Chandler Webb received the shot on October 15 during a routine physical, after he had decided to go on a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  The day after the exam, Chandler became extremely ill — suffering from vomiting and headaches.  A little more than a week later, Chandler slipped into a coma and spent nearly a month on life support at Intermountain Medical Center in Murray, Utah.  While at the hospital, Chandler underwent a variety tests, but his doctors couldn't confirm what had caused his illness.

The Editor says...
Here in Dallas, the County government has been aggressively promoting and marketing flu shots for several years.  As for me, I'd rather take my chances with the germs than the government, because the people who are lining up for flu shots don't really know what's in it!  After making flu shots a matter of routine for several years, the government may someday add some extra ingredients.

Lefties fabricate a new reason to hate online college courses.  The ability of people to enroll in online college course is a grave threat to the power of professors.  First and most obviously, it is low cost, high quality competition.  If students can listen to lectures by superstar professors from elite schools like Harvard or Stanford for free or nearly free, they might not be so anxious to fork over tuition for the local talent at a second or third tier institution.  The faculty at San Jose State University understands this very well, and have revolted against their institution participating in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).

Don't trust anything on Wikipedia.  Based on Wikipedia's comical ignorance of a subject I know well — New York City real estate — I'd take it a step further for the entire "people's encyclopedia" site:  Believe nothing it says about anything.  It's no secret Wikipedia's often bonkers.  Teachers warn students, and editors warn reporters.  Even so, the myth endures that it's a viable research tool that "usually" gets it right, even if a touch of skepticism occasionally comes in handy.

A Russian GPS Using U.S. Soil Stirs Spy Fears.  In recent months, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon have been quietly waging a campaign to stop the State Department from allowing Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, to build about half a dozen of these structures, known as monitor stations, on United States soil, several American officials said.  They fear that these structures could help Russia spy on the United States and improve the precision of Russian weaponry, the officials said.

Ex-Fed official: 'I'm sorry for QE'.  There's a real question as to whether the massive bond-buying program known as quantitative easing was worth the cost, former Federal Reserve official Andrew Huszar said Tuesday [11/12/2013].  "My argument is not that QE was not at all useful," he said on CNBC's "Fast Money."  "I believe that at the time, it was just one more tool that the Fed introduced to try to help the economy," he said.  "My point, ultimately, is the idea that very quickly into QE, it started becoming obvious that it wasn't working in the way that it was supposed to."

The secret world of cargo ships.  [Scroll down]  A system to scan 100 percent of all U.S.-bound cargo was to be in place by July 2012.  Six foreign ports signed on to the 100 percent requirement, but by February 2012 five had dropped out.  The process was too expensive and too difficult.  In reality, scanning every single U.S.-bound container is an outlandish idea:  Customs officials attempting to scan all U.S.-bound containers leaving one Hong Kong terminal managed only 5 percent.  The authors of a study commissioned by the EU thought the 100 percent target akin to a trade barrier and undiplomatically said so.  The technology to do the scanning isn't yet good enough; the blockages would choke ports.

Obama's Portable Zone of Secrecy (Some Assembly Required).  When President Obama travels abroad, his staff packs briefing books, gifts for foreign leaders and something more closely associated with camping than diplomacy:  a tent.  Even when Mr. Obama travels to allied nations, aides quickly set up the security tent — which has opaque sides and noise-making devices inside — in a room near his hotel suite.  When the president needs to read a classified document or have a sensitive conversation, he ducks into the tent to shield himself from secret video cameras and listening devices.

HHS to issue sweeping mental health rules.  The Obama administration will issue long awaited regulations Friday [11/8/2013] that require insurers to treat mental illness and addiction the same as physical illnesses, current and former lawmakers said.  In testimony Thursday before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee, mental health advocate and former Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius would announce the action during a speech in Atlanta.  Members of the panel familiar with the rule-making also said the regulations would be issued Friday.

Marvel Comics Introduces Muslim Superhero.  Marvel Comics latest minority superhero is a teenaged Muslim-American girl of Pakistani descent who will take on the currently unused Ms. Marvel persona.  The teen will be named Kamala Kahn, a Muslim girl going to high school and growing up in Jersey City, New Jersey.  For the last few years the comics giant has been engaged in an effort to introduce "diversity" into a comics universe historically dominated by white, male superhero characters.

Obamacare Woes Put Shutdown Rationale in New Light.  For three years Republicans warned that this contraption was so bulky and poorly built that it would have trouble getting off the ground — and that Americans would hate it.  Ignored or marginalized by the media, these critics are now having their say.

Vets group halts donations after official refuses to stand for Pledge.  A north suburban parks official says he's standing up for the U.S. Constitution by sitting down during the Pledge of Allegiance.  But Morton Grove Park District Commissioner Dan Ashta's symbolic actions have spurred an ideological tug of war with a local veterans group, which recently halted cash donations to the Park District until its entire board stands for the pledge at park board meetings.

8,400 Security Clearance Holders Owe IRS $85 Million in Unpaid Taxes.  More than 8,000 federal workers and contractors with security clearances owe $85 million in unpaid taxes to the IRS, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).  The GAO warned that individuals who have significant debt and access to classified documents pose potential security risks.

Every state's richest person: America's wealthiest people from sea to shining sea.  A new list out Tuesday [10/29/2013] reveals that America's wealth isn't just for the coastal elite by showing just how rich each state's most monied top dog really is.  From Hawaii, where real estate mogul Jay Shidler reigns supreme to Maine, where L.L. Bean chairman Leon Gorman looks out onto his outerwear empire, these are the richest in each.

Obamacare launch spawns 700+ cyber-squatters capitalizing on Healthcare.gov, state exchanges.  More than 700 websites have been created with names playing off of Obamacare or Healthcare.gov, making it likely that some Americans will mistakenly hand over private information to unknown third-parties.

USS Forrestal, the Navy's first supercarrier, sold for 1 cent.  It's an inauspicious fate for a ship with a colorful — and tragic — history.  It's perhaps best known for a 1967 incident in which stray voltage triggered an accidental explosion that struck a plane on the flight deck whose cockpit was occupied by a young John McCain.  A chain reaction of blasts and fires ultimately killed 134 men and injured more than 300.  But its rich past and nearly four decades of service are not enough to spare it.

Broke U.S. Resumes Spending.  What would you think of a person who earned $24,000 a year but spent $35,000?  Suppose on top of that, he was already $170,000 in debt.  You'd tell him to get his act together — stop spending so much or he'd destroy his family, impoverish his kids and wreck their future.  Of course, no individual could live so irresponsibly for long.  But tack on eight more zeroes to that budget and you have the checkbook for our out-of-control, big-spending federal government.

There's no actual debt ceiling right now.  The fiscal deal passed by Congress on Wednesday evening to re-open the government and get around the $16.4 trillion limit on borrowing doesn't actually increase the debt limit.  It just temporarily suspends enforcement of it.  That means Americans have no idea how much debt their government is going to rack up between now and Feb. 7, when the limits are supposed to go back into place and will have to be raised.  There is no dollar amount set for how much debt the government can accumulate between now and then.

Loophole will allow government to spend without limit until February.
Surprise! Debt-ceiling deal gives Obama a blank check.  It's the ultimate sweetheart deal for a free-spending federal government:  Wednesday night's [10/16/2013] debt deal didn't actually raise the limit on America's credit card, but instead removed it entirely until February 7, 2014.  Whether through legislative sleight-of-hand or something less sinister, the law of the land now permits the U.S. to run up new debts for 16 weeks without consequences, and forbids the Treasury Department from enforcing the debt limit that ordinarily keeps spending from spiraling out of control.

The International Monetary Fund Lays The Groundwork For Global Wealth Confiscation.  The International Monetary Fund (IMF) quietly dropped a bomb in its October Fiscal Monitor Report.  Titled "Taxing Times," the report paints a dire picture for advanced economies with high debts that fail to aggressively "mobilize domestic revenue."  It goes on to build a case for drastic measures and recommends a series of escalating income and consumption tax increases culminating in the direct confiscation of assets.

Nobel Peace Prize Again Goes To Group That Has Done ... What, Exactly?  Alfred Nobel would be rolling over in his grave to see some of the absurd choices his beloved peace prize is now drawing.  No, it wasn't just the award to global terror pioneer Yasser Arafat in 1994.  Or the one that went to the bureaucrat-filled, bankrupt European Union in 2012.  There also was the premature award to just-elected President Obama in 2009, who had done literally nothing but get elected president of the U.S. on a make-America-smaller platform.

Air Force fires general in charge of ICBMs.  The Air Force is firing the two-star general in charge of all of its nuclear missiles in response to an investigation into alleged personal misbehavior, officials told The Associated Press on Friday [10/11/2013].

Air Force Fires Two Star General in Charge of Nuke Missile.  The Air Force's two star general in charge of the units responsible for its 450 nuclear missiles has been fired "due to a loss of trust and confidence in his leadership and judgment."  Maj. Gen. Michael Carey has been removed from command of the 20th Air Force, according to an Air Force statement.  That command is responsible for the three wings that maintain control of the 450 intercontinental ballistic missiles scattered in missile silos across the northern plains.

NBC/WSJ poll: 60 percent say fire every member of Congress.  Throw the bums out.  That's the message 60 percent of Americans are sending to Washington in a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, saying if they had the chance to vote to defeat and replace every single member of Congress, including their own representative, they would.  Just 35 percent say they would not.

Liberal heckling sparks stream of one-liners from Ted Cruz.  [Scroll down]  To another heckler, Cruz responded:  "Ma'am, thank you for being here.  I wish you would participate in the democratic process through speaking respectfully. ... It seems that President Obama's paid political operatives are out in force today.  And you know why?  Because the men and women in this room scare the living daylights out of them."

Hard truths: Obama's report card 1,724 days in.  Six out of ten Americans now believe their federal government has become too powerful.  That's the largest percentage this century and one point higher than the previous top, 21 months into the Obama administration.

We Are All Tea Partiers Now: Americans Say No to Debt Ceiling Increase.  A new Fox News poll shows that a majority of American voters — 58 percent — would vote "no" on raising the debt ceiling.  Only 37 percent of American voters would vote to raise the debt ceiling.  An even bigger majority — 62 percent — would only vote to raise the debt ceiling after "major cuts in government spending."

Ford lets cars find parking spots.  Ford Motor Co. says it has developed a car that can sniff out open parking spaces ahead — and then park itself in that space, even without a driver behind the wheel. [...] Ultrasonic sensors can detect an open parallel, diagonal or perpendicular parking space ahead while a vehicle is traveling up to 18 miles per hour, with enough lead time that the driver doesn't overshoot the space.  The driver can then brake, shift to neutral, and press and hold the Fully Assisted Parking Aid button in the car.

The Editor says...
This might have been an amusing college-level programming project, but it is a solution for which there is no problem.  If you can't put your car into a parking space without making contact with the surrounding cars, and if you need a computer to take over that task, you should not be driving a car.  Press releases about technological "breakthroughs" of this sort serve only as free advertising, because the perception of cutting-edge technology will get mentioned on the air every time.

FBI raids on homes in Texas, Michigan remain a mystery.  Federal officials on Monday remained silent on why they raided homes in Texas and Michigan this weekend that property records indicate are owned in part by a Houston art appraiser.

The Editor says...
I find it hard to believe there's a valid reason for all the secrecy about what they were looking for, or what they found.  My guess, based on the treatment of Gibson Guitar, is that the "art appraiser" said or did something Barack H. Obama didn't like.

Mugged by a Mug Shot Online.  Mug shots are merely artifacts of an arrest, not proof of a conviction, and many people whose images are now on display were never found guilty, or the charges against them were dropped.  But these pictures can cause serious reputational damage, [...]

Who's Afraid of Peer Review?  [Scroll down]  The goal was to create a credible but mundane scientific paper, one with such grave errors that a competent peer reviewer should easily identify it as flawed and unpublishable.  Submitting identical papers to hundreds of journals would be asking for trouble.  But the papers had to be similar enough that the outcomes between journals could be comparable.  So I created a scientific version of Mad Libs.

How Soviet Intelligence Promoted Christian Marxism.  When you can't beat them, join them.  That's what the Soviet Union did to curtail Christianity's anti-communist influence.  In a new book titled Disinformation, a covert campaign to discredit Pope Piux XII is revealed.  In addition, the Soviets tried to influence the church with a Marxist-friendly version of Christianity.

No astroturf here.
Tea Party Patriots Have Record Turnout for Cruz on Tele-Townhall.  The Tea Party Patriots blew away expectations at last night's tele-townhall on the Continuing Resolution with 104,000 participants for Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK).  The previous record for an event was three weeks ago when 67,000 participants attended.  TPP Co-founder Jenny Beth Martin stated, "no special measures were taken to draw the crowd — only the standard Facebook post for two hours and a robocall earlier in the day."

U.S. Federal Housing Administration to tap $1.7 billion in taxpayer funds.  The U.S. Federal Housing Administration said on Friday [9/27/2013] it will draw $1.7 billion in cash from the U.S. Treasury to help cover losses from troubled loans, marking the first time in its 79-year history that it has needed aid.

The Pentagon's biggest, baddest — and costliest — piece of hardware ever.  When the USS Gerald R. Ford is finally christened, the massive aircraft carrier will be the biggest and baddest piece of Pentagon hardware ever built — and, critics note, the most expensive.  The 1,106-foot ship, under construction in Newport News, Va., has seen cost overruns push its expected price tag up some 22 percent to nearly $13 billion, with new technology dictating changes since work began in 2007.

Craig James accuses FOX Sports of religious discrimination.  Former Patriots running back Craig James, who lost his job commentating on college football for FOX Sports after just one week, now says he was the victim of religious discrimination, and he has hired a lawyer to do something about it.  James spent one week working for FOX Sports Southwest before FOX announced that he would not be back, citing anti-gay comments James had made.  James now says those comments were expressions of his religious beliefs, and he says FOX's statement about his termination was tantamount to a ban on religious people working at the network.

Broadcaster Fired for Opposing Same-Sex Marriage Blasts Fox Sports for Religious Discrimination.  This is not just a blatant case of religious discrimination in violation of law.  It is not merely an example of yet another step in the media's attempt to silence those of a traditional perspective on same-sex marriage.  It is a story that traces up much higher in the national FOX Sports organization than the regional network.

Bank of America ordered to pay $2.2 million to black Charlotte job seekers.  Bank of America has been ordered to pay $2.2 million to more than 1,000 black job applicants turned down for positions in Charlotte after a federal judge ruled that the bank racially discriminated against them, the U.S. Department of Labor announced Monday [9/23/2013].

The Editor says...
It sounds like a trap was set for the bank.  Do you really believe that in a city with a population of 750,000, a thousand people — all of them black — applied for work at the same bank, and they were all turned down, and then they all got together and hired a lawyer?  Isn't that a little far-fetched?

A River of American Money Flows to D.C..  To be sure, Americans' money is flowing to the nation's capital.  But it's not flowing back.  Indeed, the metropolitan area of Washington, D.C., a city with little identifiable industrial output, dominates the Census Bureau's newly updated list of America's wealthiest counties. [...] Based on the median family income in 2012, the wealthiest county in America — by far — is Arlington Co., Va., located just across the Potomac River from D.C.  In fact, Arlington's median family income ($137,216) is more than $10,000 higher than that of any other county in the United States.

Atomic bomb nearly exploded over North Carolina in 1961, report says.  The U.S. Air Force nearly detonated an atomic bomb over North Carolina in 1961 that would have been 260 times more powerful than the device that destroyed Hiroshima, according to a declassified report published Friday [9/20/2013] in The Guardian.  The 1969 document, obtained by investigative journalist Eric Schlosser under the Freedom of Information Act, details the Jan. 23, 1961, B-52 crash near Goldsboro, North Carolina, that saw two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs break up in mid-air.  The report said that one of the two bombs behaved exactly as nuclear weapon is designed to function in wartime and that only a single low-voltage switch prevented detonation.

US nearly detonated atomic bomb over North Carolina.  The document, obtained by the investigative journalist Eric Schlosser under the Freedom of Information Act, gives the first conclusive evidence that the US was narrowly spared a disaster of monumental proportions when two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs were accidentally dropped over Goldsboro, North Carolina on 23 January 1961.  The bombs fell to earth after a B-52 bomber broke up in mid-air, and one of the devices behaved precisely as a nuclear weapon was designed to behave in warfare:  its parachute opened, its trigger mechanisms engaged, and only one low-voltage switch prevented untold carnage.

Acquittal: Tom DeLay's Conviction Overturned.  Ronnie Earle's ridiculous, political case against former Rep. Tom DeLay has finally collapsed.  An appeals court has not only overturned DeLay's conviction, but has ordered him acquitted of all charges.

Appeals court overturns DeLay conviction, acquits him.  For the second time in the last few years, a high-profile corruption prosecution against a Republican member of Congress has collapsed.  This time, it's Tom DeLay that gets to celebrate, as an appeals court not only overturned his conviction but ordered an acquittal.

Tom DeLay money laundering verdict overturned.  For Tom DeLay, it was a day of triumph in the arena where he once held sway.  Walking through the halls of the U.S. Capitol, the once powerful Republican was greeted by cheers, hugs and slaps on the back from friends and former colleagues.  The images are a stark contrast to DeLay's darker days in the not so distant past.

DeLay: 'I can get my concealed weapons license back'.  Mr. DeLay had been convicted by a Texas jury of laundering money through several political groups in order to help federal candidates win elections in Texas, but an appeals court said the money-shifting was legal and tossed the conviction and officially acquitted him of the charges.

Tom Delay conviction overturned.  The wheels of justice have finally ground into dust the conviction of former Majority Leader Tom Delay, whose brilliant political career was ruined by a politicized indictment undertaken by a left wing district attorney named Ronny Earle.

DeLay conviction overturned.  An Austin appeals court on Thursday [9/19/2013] overturned the conviction of former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay on charges related to a scheme to influence Texas elections.  The vote by the 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin was 2-1.  DeLay's three-year prison sentence has been on hold as his case has made its way through the appellate process.

DeLay's Vindication, Texas's Shame.  It is a scandal that there has been and will be no serious jail time in the matter of former Republican majority leader Tom DeLay — Ronnie Earle, the hyperpartisan Democratic prosecutor whose risible case against DeLay has just been finally thrown out by the Third District Texas Court of Appeals, richly deserves to be measured for an all-orange wardrobe.  After eleven years, the matter of Mr. DeLay's fund-raising in the 2002 election cycle has been finally put to rest, with Mr. Earle's case having been vivisected by Justice Melissa Goodwin, [...]

Washington Sees Incomes Soar as Most of U.S. Declines.  American incomes have tumbled over the last decade.  But for many people in Washington, D.C., it's been something of a party. [...] [The D.C.] economy is expanding faster than the broader nation, and its property market is soaring, thanks in part to increased federal-government spending and an influx of federal contractors, lawyers and consultants.

Germany Could Face Electricity Customer RevoltDer Spiegel, Germany's leading weekly news magazine, reports this week that Germany's aggressive renewables program "has come with a hefty price tag for consumers," especially the poor.  Though no immediate action is expected before national elections in two weeks, there may be new initiatives soon after, as "government advisors are calling for a completely new start."

U.S. soldiers accepting cash, drugs for Mexican drug cartel contract hits.  Mexican drug syndicates have been offering cash to American military members to act as contract killers in murder-for-hire plots in the United States.  Experts worry this line of work will only become more enticing for vets who struggle to find civilian jobs after serving in combat zones and wary military recruits look for gang connections to potentially use their skills unlawfully.

Quran-Burning Pastor Terry Jones' Arrest Could Be Unconstitutional, Experts Say.  Terry Jones, the Quran-burning pastor based in Gainesville, Fla., says his Wednesday [9/11/2013] arrest by Polk County police was pre-planned to prevent his First Amendment-protected book bonfire.  Free speech experts say if that's true, his arrest was unconstitutional.  Jones was arrested after traveling in a truck that police say was towing 2,998 kerosene-soaked Qurans inside a large grill.  He said he intended to burn one Quran for each of the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

'Eco-school' that opened just three years ago is already leaking.  When it opened its timber doors three years ago, this £7million 'eco primary school' was applauded for its environmentally friendly credentials.  It was heated by solar power and its plumbing system relied on rain collected from the roof, which was made of locally grown sweet chestnut.  Sadly, the zero-carbon building is not quite as sustainable as the designers had hoped.

Venezuelan Gov't launches mandatory news broadcast.  Venezuelan President, Nicolás Maduro announced on Tuesday [9/10/2013] at a public event that the Government would launch a "Truth News Broadcast" via mandatory radio and television broadcasts to air his Administration performance.

A Million Muslims and Two Million Bikers.  With an additional three million people descending on Washington, DC, for two separate rallies, one would've thought the National Mall would've been difficult to navigate yesterday afternoon.  It wasn't.  The Million American March Against Fear, sponsored by American Muslim Political action Committee, was only sparsely attended.  With about two dozen people present, planners' estimates fell short by about 999,976 attendees.

Dozens Attend 9/11 Million Muslim March.  As of 12:35 PM EST on Wednesday, September 11, the much-ballyhooed Million Muslim March on the National Mall had a grand total of 25 attendees — including Professor Cornel West.  The rally has thus far included some "prayers, speeches, and a moment of silence" for victims of the September 11, 2001 Islamist terror attacks.

Will US Media Take Note of Growing Values-Driven Spanish-Latin American Coca-Cola Boycott?  Catholic News Agency is ahead of the curve on a likely major development affecting a U.S. household name.  The Coca-Cola Company's sponsorship of a "controversial Spanish reality (TV) show" ("disgusting" would appear to be a better word) in Spain is blowing up in its face, and not only because of the content of the program itself.  The caustic reaction of a Coke executive to those who have criticized his company's support of the program has sparked calls for a boycott of the company's products which seems to have the potential to cut into the company's sales volume.

California judge rules on the side of sound science — no warning labels required.  In the culmination of a five-week trial, California's Judge Brick ruled that health warnings would not be necessary on various fruit and vegetable products, 100% juices and baby foods, from companies including Del Monte, Dole, Gerber, Hain-Çelestial, J.M. Smucker, Seneca Foods and Welch's.  The demand for such labeling was sparked by an environmental advocacy group, the Environmental Law Foundation, [...]

Shooting breaks out — at anti-violence vigil.  Charlotte's recent spate of violence took a new twist Thursday night when gunfire broke out at an anti-violence vigil in the city's Villa Heights neighborhood.

Marines retreat on court-martial charges in Taliban urination case.  The Marine Corps has suddenly dropped criminal charges against an officer in the infamous Taliban urination video case, heading off what promised to be an embarrassing pre-trial hearing for the commandant on Wednesday [9/4/2013].  Defense attorneys for Capt. James V. Clement had won a judge's order, over objections from Marine prosecutors, for two staff attorneys to testify in open court about how senior commanders had interfered in the case to get a guilty verdict.

Congressmen Intentionally Remain 'Low Information Voters' on Obamacare.  On 9/10 Tea Party Patriots will descend on Washington to provide their federal representatives with something they apparently don't have — a clue.  That clue is that the citizens want Congress to exempt America from Obamacare, just like they've exempted big special interest groups.

Tea Party Groups Nationwide Unite Against American Attack on Syria.  Tea Party activists appear to be virtually unanimous in their support for the position taken by Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), who said on Tuesday [9/3/2013] the United States "should not serve as Al-Qaeda's Air Force."

What's the worst that could happen in your state?  An interactive map.

Russia releases 100-page report blaming Syrian rebels for a chemical weapons attack.  Russia says it has compiled a 100-page report detailing what it says is evidence that Syrian rebels, not forces loyal to President Bashar Assad, were behind a deadly sarin gas attack in an Aleppo suburb earlier this year.

Hackers find weaknesses in car computer systems.  In recent demonstrations, hackers have shown they can slam a car's brakes at freeway speeds, jerk the steering wheel and even shut down the engine — all from their laptop computers.

220,000 pounds of fish poisoned in Chinese river in latest pollution scandal.  Authorities in China have scooped up around 220,000 pounds of dead fish today that they say were poisoned by ammonia from a chemical plant.  Locals said dead fish covered the surface of the Fuhe River in central China and stretched for about 25 miles.

The Editor asks...
Where are the environmental activists and the animal rights people now?  They are all completely silent, because the offense took place in a Communist country.

This sounds like satire, but maybe it isn't.
Ex-squaddie changes sex and converts to Islam.  A former soldier has gone from downing pints with the lads — to having a sex change and converting to Islam.  Lucy Vallender, 28, said she is finally being "true to herself" after becoming Britain's first transgender Muslim.  Defiant Lucy — who used to be a TA private called Laurens — has become the second wife of a devout Muslim.  Lucy, who used to live in Cirencester, wed her online sweetheart without telling him she used to be a man.  Now she prays five times a day and wears a full burkha [...]

The Editor says...
This story is a liberal tabloid newspaper's dream come true:  It includes polygamy, a transsexual freak, a Muslim man-woman in a burkha, long-distance courting over the internet, and a subtle slap at the military.  Any bets on how soon he/she will be stoned, doused with acid, or shot, when his/her new husband finds out he/she used to be a man?

Alleged chemical weapons sites can't be bombed safely: experts.  Bombing stockpiles of chemical weapons — purposely or accidentally — will likely kill nearby civilians in an accidental nerve agent release, create a long-lasting environmental catastrophe or both, experts said.

Pentagon knew in 2012 that it would take 75,000 ground troops to secure Syria's chemical weapons facilities.  Securing Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles and the facilities that produced them would likely require the U.S. to send more than 75,000 ground troops into the Middle Eastern country, MailOnline learned Wednesday [9/4/2013].  That estimate comes from a secret memorandum the U.S. Department of Defense prepared for President Obama in early 2012.

The More Participants Used Facebook in a Michigan Study, the Worse They Felt.  For $20 and the chance to win an iPad, participants agreed to answer five survey questions texted to them five times a day over two weeks and a more broad survey at the beginning and end of the study.  After two weeks, the team tabulated the data and found some fairly unambiguous results.  Participants who logged into Facebook more often tended to suffer a diminished sense of well-being ("how do you feel right now") moment to moment and lower overall life satisfaction at the end of the period.

Tea Party Leader Who Endorsed McConnell Opponent Is Registered Democrat.  A prominent Kentucky Tea Party leader who endorsed the Republican primary challenger to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is a registered Democrat who signed a pledge to support Democratic policies and principles while running for state representative in 2012.

NY case puts N-word use among blacks on trial.  A federal jury has rejected the argument that use of the N-word among blacks can be a culturally acceptable term of love and endearment, deciding its use in the workplace is hostile and discriminatory no matter what.

The problem with commercial drones: Sometimes they crash.  Small drones are regulated like radio-controlled airplanes, in that they aren't really subject to much regulation at all, beyond guidelines that say they should be kept under 400 feet and stay clear of populated areas.  While drones are technically banned from commercial use, the Federal Aviation Administration rarely punishes companies that use them.

These guys are definitely not law school material.
Gun-carrying criminals taunting NYPD cops after stop-frisk ruling.  "You can't stop me!  You can't do that no more!  There are new rules!" suspect Steven Sidbury, 21, allegedly yelled at officers as they approached him in crime-riddled East New York last week.  The cops walked over to Sidbury when they spotted a suspiciously heavy object in the pocket of his hoodie outside 225 Wortman Ave. in Brooklyn just before midnight Thursday.  He taunted them over stop-and-frisk, then ran and tripped — and a loaded .38-caliber revolver dropped out of his jacket, law-enforcement sources told The [New York] Post.

The VA's Backlog of Unprocessed Claims Swells Under Obama-Shinseki.  [Scroll down]  Meanwhile, albeit largely ignored by the mainstream media, Obama's own veterans affairs "scandal" was unfolding — an enormous backlog of veterans claims.  In 2011, the claims backlog ballooned by 155 percent.  To its credit, the Washington Post is now covering this matter.  And the more it probes, the worse the matter looks.

Despite backlogs, VA disability claims processors get bonuses.  While veterans waited longer than ever in recent years for their wartime disability compensation, the Department of Veterans Affairs gave its workers millions of dollars in bonuses for "excellent" performances that effectively encouraged them to avoid claims that needed extra work to document veterans' injuries, a News21 investigation has found.

New Obama Scandal Erupts: Trump Targeted.  [Scroll down]  Then on Thursday [8/22/2013], Obama himself meets "privately" with his buddy the Attorney General of New York, Eric Schneiderman.  Two days later?  This headline in Politico:  ["]N.Y. sues 'Trump University'["]  Coincidence?

Houston Could Add 80,000 Jobs in 2013.  So many jobs are coming to Houston top oil companies from around the world are building new office spaces to accommodate their new employees.  In fact, banks are loaning money to companies even if the developers do not have a tenant.  Texas's economy is growing and grew 4.8% last year.  They added 100,000 jobs and Houston alone could add 80,000 this year.

U.S. agency says Michael Jackson estate owes $702 million in taxes.  The estate of pop music legend Michael Jackson owes $702 million in federal taxes and penalties, the Internal Revenue Service charged in U.S. Tax Court, accusing the estate of undervaluing some of the star's assets by hundreds of millions of dollars.

CIA Authors "Secret Key" Unlocks CIA Redactions.  "I was in the belly of the beast.  I began to see the lengths to which the CIA will go to conceal unconstitutional operations, hide information from Congress and silence anyone inside who challenges it."  Those are the words of Kevin M. Shipp, a former category 1, highly decorated CIA agent [...]

Woman Settles With Chicago Over $100,000 Parking Fine.  A Chicago woman has settled with the city of Chicago after she was left with more than $100,000 in parking fines when her ex-boyfriend abandoned her car in an inaccessible airport parking lot for nearly three years.

The Editor says...
Common sense would suggest a ceiling on parking fines, perhaps equal to the auction value of the offending vehicle.  But most traffic fines and parking fines have only a thin connection to common sense or public safety — they are all about raising money.

Nonprofits Take to the Air.  From October 15 to October 29, the Federal Communications Commission will be accepting applications for low-power FM radio licenses — community radio stations that broadcast at 100 watts or less, typically listenable within a roughly 5-mile radius.  Organizations must be locally owned, not-for-profit and be able to identify an unused frequency in their area.

The Editor says...
I could easily identify unused frequencies in my area, except that the big-money broadcasters own several stations apiece, which used to be illegal.  This action by the FCC will put the finishing touches on total bedlam on the FM broadcast band, which is exactly the kind of situation that the FCC was created to prevent.

Suspect in Huntington Beach riots arrested after "liking" his photo on police dept's Facebook page.  When the Huntington Beach Police Department posted a series of photos to its Facebook page on August 7th, asking for assistance in identifying some of the suspects involved in some of that day's activities, Luis Rodriguez was the feature in photo #15.  Apparently the temptation was too much for Rodriguez to resist.  He "liked" the photo of himself, a mock-worthy move that wasn't lost on viewers of the post.

What a tough life they have!
White House Press Corps: We're Prisoners of Obama's Vacation.  Members of the White House press corps went on record Sunday [8/18/2013] complaining about what it's like to follow the President around on vacations such as his present one in Martha's Vineyard.  Some even said they're prisoners of Obama's vacation.

The Editor says...
Years ago, many members of the press complained about having to spend so much time in Crawford, Texas.  It's hard to imagine that Martha's Vineyard is such a rough place to spend a week.

Feds lose another case against employers using credit, criminal reports to screen applicants.  A Maryland court has dismissed a lawsuit against an events-services company accused by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission of discriminatory hiring practices, a setback for a federal agency that increasingly argues the use of credit reports and criminal background checks can disproportionately impact minorities.  The judge stated that using such checks can in some cases be discriminatory.  However, the EEOC "bears the burden of applying reliable expert testimony and statistical analysis that demonstrates disparate impact stemming from a specific employment practice before such a violation can be found. ... The EEOC has failed to do so in this case."

The press is suddenly interested in the citizenship of presidential candidates.
Ted Cruz releases birth certificate.  [Senator Ted] Cruz was born in Canada in 1970, to an American mother and Cuban father. By virtue of his mother's status, Cruz instantly became a U.S. citizen.  He released his birth certificate to the Dallas Morning News, verifying what he has previously asserted. [...] As the Dallas Morning News points out, some legal experts say that Cruz also became a Canadian citizen by virtue of being born there, and must renounce his citizenship there, lest he remain a citizen of both countries.  But Cruz's office says that so far as it knows, the senator has no Canadian citizenship.

Ted Cruz Releases Birth Certificate, Is Eligible to Run for President, Canadian Parliament.  Texas Senator and potential 2016 candidate for the Republican nomination Ted Cruz released his birth certificate to the Dallas Morning News on Sunday, in an attempt to quell a minor birther movement that has questioned Cruz's American citizenship and eligibility to be president.

This is reason enough to leave Facebook, if you didn't have plenty of reasons already:
Facebook Group Says 'Virgin Mary Should've Aborted'.  Bible-believing Facebook users who are members of the group, "Catholics & Protestants Against FB Religious Discrimination" led the online fight to have the page taken down — and succeeded.  But, they didn't have long to celebrate.  As the religious group reports, Facebook just reversed its decision.  Now, the newly republished "Virgin Mary Should've Aborted" page has over 8,000 likes.

Defended murderers and pedophiles? New ICE boss' background called into question.  The acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement is a former criminal defense attorney who represented accused and convicted murderers, sex offenders and pedophiles and fought for the release of violent convicted offenders — a background some critics say makes him a less than ideal choice to lead the nation's second-largest law enforcement agency.

CVS is now requiring ID to buy nail polish remover.  Nail polish remover has become an age restricted, controlled substance.  A week ago, CVS has instituted a policy in the Washington D.C. region that anyone who purchases nail polish remover from one of their stores will have their ID scanned and their purchases tracked.  Nail polish is removed by acetone, a colorless, flammable liquid which is also used as paint thinner and it would seem, as an ingredient necessary for making methamphetamine.

FCC approves rate cuts for inmates' interstate phone calls.  Over the objections of groups such as the Idaho Sheriffs' Association, the FCC set a top rate of 25 cents a minute for collect calls and 21 cents a minute for prepaid calls.  Current rates can be roughly four times higher.  The commission also directed that rates be "cost-based," which rules out certain considerations that have increased contract costs."

'Sliders' steal from cars as you pump gas.  Thieves now brazenly steal while you're pumping gas.  It's been happening across the country, from Florida to Texas to Kentucky to Washington, D.C., according to reports on NBC's Today and ABC's Good Morning America.  Women seem to be primary targets in what are usually drive-by purse-snatchings.

Man Accused of Blowing Up Dog Not Charged With Animal Cruelty.  A man accused of blowing up his daughter's dog because he was mad at her is being held on $500,000 bail, but not for harming the pet pooch.  "In the animal cruelty statute in the state of Washington it talks about animal suffering," Undersherriff Dave Cox told ABC News.  Since the dog died instantaneously and didn't suffer before it died, "the prosecutor was concerned about that verbiage," Cox said.

Exclusive: FBI allowed informants to commit 5,600 crimes.  The FBI gave its informants permission to break the law at least 5,658 times in a single year, according to newly disclosed documents that show just how often the nation's top law enforcement agency enlists criminals to help it battle crime.

Extreme irony — EPA rules shut down the mother of all weather conspiracy theories.  The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) — a subject of fascination for many hams and the target of conspiracy theorists and anti-government activists — has closed down. [... ] The proximate cause of HAARP's early May shutdown was less fiscal than environmental, Keeney said.  As he explained it, the diesel generators on site no longer pass Clean Air Act muster.  Repairing them to meet EPA standards will run $800,000.

Homeland Security's Future Home: A Former Mental Hospital.  In the months after Sept. 11, the Bush administration and the U.S. Congress decided that Americans would be safer from terrorists if they combined 22 federal agencies into a single unit — including the Coast Guard, the Customs Service, the Secret Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Infrastructure Protection Center, the Federal Computer Incident Response Center, and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, to name just a few.

Angela Corey's team reportedly destroyed evidence in Zimmerman trial.  During George Zimmerman's trial for second-degree murder, and later manslaughter, computer analyst Richard Connor was called to testify for the defense.  His testimony was eventually stricken from the record by Judge Debra Nelson, but has nonetheless allowed for some startling discoveries.  Chief among these is that Trayvon Martin's cellular phone belonged to an account owned by his mother, Sybrina Fulton.

The great Beanie Baby bubble.  In 1998, so-called "investment-grade" rare Beanie Babies were projected to be worth vastly, vastly more than their $5 purchase price. [...] The Beanie Baby phenomenon taught some tough lessons about speculative bubbles and value in economics to a young audience.  Beanie Babies demonstrate that scarcity or a fixed supply is no guarantee of future price gains.

Math Behind Leak Crackdown: 153 Cases, 4 Years, 0 Indictments.  Soon after President Obama appointed him director of national intelligence in 2009, Dennis C. Blair called for a tally of the number of government officials or employees who had been prosecuted for leaking national security secrets.  He was dismayed by what he found.  In the previous four years, the record showed, 153 cases had been referred to the Justice Department.  Not one had led to an indictment.

Hamas Mourns Helen Thomas.  It might not be the way most high-profile journalists would like to be remembered.  Not long after the passing of veteran American journalist Helen Thomas yesterday, aged 92, Hamas' very own "military wing", the Izzedeene al-Qassam Brigades, posted on its website a heartfelt eulogy.

Kindle fired: 75% want printed books, not ebooks.  A stunning 75 percent of adults told Rasmussen Reports that they prefer a printed book on actual paper to an electronic version displayed on devices like the Kindle Fire, Nook or iPad.  Just 15 percent prefer ebooks.

Rand Paul: Obama Will Bail Out Detroit 'Over My Dead Body'.  Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said he will use every resource he has at his disposal to stop President Barack Obama from bailing out newly-bankrupt Detroit because he believes the city can and must save itself and learn from its fiscal mistakes.

The foolish man built his house upon the sand.
Some Mormons Search the Web and Find Doubt.  Around the world and in the United States, where the faith was founded, the Mormon Church is grappling with a wave of doubt and disillusionment among members who encountered information on the Internet that sabotaged what they were taught about their faith, according to interviews with dozens of Mormons and those who study the church.

Homeland insecurity.  Consistently, DHS is at the bottom of the list of Best Places to Work in the Federal Government, hardly a testament to its leader.  If you know anybody who works for DHS, you know morale is terrible.  DHS employees were warned in an internal memo recently that any one of them opening a Washington Post article on the Internet containing a classified slide showing how the National Security Agency eavesdrops on international communications was subject to being penalized.

Bill Cosby Agrees with the Zimmerman Verdict.  Joining former NBC player turned sports commentator Charles Barkley, actor and comedian Bill Cosby says that he agrees with the verdict in the Zimmerman trial.  Cosby also questions the media's handling of the shooting and the trial.

Selective silencing:  Was Michael Hastings murdered?  [Scroll down]  According to most recent investigative findings, it appears that Mr. Hastings made multiple contacts with sources directly associated with the illegal NSA domestic spying program, and either recently acquired materials and/or information about the extent of, the targets of, and the recipients of the information of domestic spying program. [...] Additionally and relevant to the circumstances surrounding his death, I believe that Michael Hastings knew, or had reason to know, that he was under both investigation and surveillance of the FBI as well as the NSA at the time of his death.

Panama Canal Missile Seizure Shows Cuba Remains A Threat.  As the vessel lumbered into the Atlantic side of the Panama Canal from Cuba, Panamanian authorities cornered the 450-foot rust-bucket, battled a maniacally violent crew who slashed ship lines to make it hard to unload the ship, and then watched as the ship's captain tried to kill himself before having a heart attack.  After subduing the crew, the Panamanians found no drugs buried beneath sloppily packed brown sugar, but did find defensive RSN-75 "Fan Song" fire-control radar equipment for SA-2 surface-to-air missiles.

Missiles and MiG fighter jets found hidden in sugar aboard North Korean ship.  Cuba has said missiles and fighter jets found buried under sacks of sugar on a ship bound for North Korea were being sent to the secretive state to be repaired.  The Caribbean nation admitted last night that it owned the military equipment and said it was due to be returned to the island once repairs had been completed.

The Editor says...
In order to return the airplanes for repairs, it was apparently necessary to hide them in a shipment of sugar.

Black Caucus preparing legislation to address racial profiling.  Congressional Black Caucus members are preparing racial-profiling legislation in response to the fatal shooting of an unarmed black Florida teen, aides say.  CBC lawmakers are drafting proposals meant to curb racial profiling; end state stand-your-ground laws and promote better training for the nation's neighborhood watch volunteers, among other anti-violence measures, The Hill reported.

I hope he boycotts Texas, too.
Stevie Wonder Boycotting Florida Following Zimmerman Verdict.  Stevie Wonder won't be performing in Florida anytime soon.  In the wake of the George Zimmerman acquittal, the singer said he would not be performing in the Sunshine State until its Stand Your Ground law is "abolished."  He also said he would not be performing in any other state that recognizes the law, which some say contributed to Zimmerman's acquittal in the shooting death of Florida teen Trayvon Martin on Feb. 26, 2012.

Kentucky Censors N.C.-Based Syndicated Columnist.  North Carolina psychologist John Rosemond's popular parenting advice column has been syndicated in more than 200 newspapers across the country since 1976, but soon it may disappear from all newspapers in the state of Kentucky.  In May, Kentucky's attorney general sent Rosemond a letter asking that he "cease and desist" publishing his Dear-Abby-style advice column in the state, saying that doing so constituted the unlicensed "practice of psychology," a crime punishable by $500 per offense and up to 6 months in jail.

Telemarketers call in reinforcements as they ignore do-not-call list.  Regardless of having registered a phone line with the Federal Trade Commission as a telemarketer-free zone, a growing number of consumers are saying that some businesses are ignoring their stated preference and calling anyway.

In Honor of Bill Clinton, EPA Pushes ATF Hero Off Building.  This Wednesday [7/17/2013], the Environmental Protection Agency will officially dedicate its office building at 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue as the William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building. [...] There's just one slight problem — the building already has a name.

The Editor says...
This is an obvious effort to put a positive light on the Clinton name, in preparation for Hillary's presidential run.

19 Years, 7 Months for Biggest Municipal Theft in US History.  Rita Crundwell of the small town of Dixon, Ill., has been sentenced to nearly 20 years in prison for stealing almost $54 million from the city to finance a lavish lifestyle that included ownership of farms with hundreds of show horses.  In a Rockford, Ill., courtroom on Feb. 14, U.S. District Court Judge Philip Reinhard handed down a sentence of 19 years, seven months in prison.  Last November Crundwell, 60, pleaded guilty to wire fraud and admitted stealing $53.7 million.  Authorities believe it could be the largest theft from municipal government in U.S. history.

Judicial Watch sues National Archives over sealed Robert Kennedy records at JFK Library.  The contents of the requested boxes include subjects ranging from the Central Intelligence Agency to the minutes from meetings of the so-called "special group" that RFK chaired, and his personal notes on Cuba.  Robert Kennedy, as President Kennedy's closest aide and confidant, was given unusual responsibility for overseeing covert operations against Communist Cuba and other sensitive national security and foreign policy matters.

Entire government of Luxembourg resigns after spying and corruption scandal.  The government was forced to resign after junior coalition partners withdrew their support in protest at Juncker's apparent failure to rein in a secret service spiralling out of control.

Ex-Sanford police chief: Zimmerman probe 'taken away from us'.  The George Zimmerman investigation was hijacked "in a number of ways" by outside forces, said the former police chief of Sanford, Florida.  Bill Lee, who testified Monday in Zimmerman's second-degree murder trial, told CNN's George Howell in an exclusive interview that he felt pressure from city officials to arrest Zimmerman to placate the public rather than as a matter of justice.

Britain set to privatize its Royal Mail postal service.  Britain is privatizing its Royal Mail postal service through a public stock offering within the next nine months.  The step was expected as the British government has been giving the Royal Mail a big overhaul in preparation for going public, including paying its whopping $6.9 billion pension fund deficit and bolstering its profit.

Russia convicts dead whistleblower.  A Russian court wrapped up the trial of a dead man Thursday, finding whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky guilty of fraud but waiving a sentence.  Magnitsky was a lawyer who unearthed a $230 million fraud by police and tax officials, but he was arrested and charged with perpetrating the fraud himself.  He died in a Moscow prison in 2009, apparently after a severe beating.

In Rapidly Aging Japan, Adult Diaper Sales Are About to Surpass Baby Diapers.  Japan's rapidly aging population is producing some interesting new business opportunities, including a booming market for adult diapers.  The Nikkei newspaper (subscription only) reported on Thursday that three Japanese paper companies — Daio, and Nippon Paper — are expanding their manufacturing facilities for what are politely called "incontinence products" due to an expected surge in demand.

With Political Ad Profits, Swing-State TV Stations Are Hot Properties.  When Allbritton, the media company that owns Politico, put its seven television stations up for sale this spring, analysts quickly singled out one as the most attractive: WJLA, the company's ABC-affiliated station in Washington.  It is the biggest of the bunch, the best known and, perhaps most important, a magnet for political spending.  WJLA banked $33 million in election-related advertising last year.

NSA recruitment drive goes horribly wrong.  On Tuesday, the National Security Agency called at the University of Wisconsin on a recruitment drive.  Attending the session was Madiha R Tahir, a journalist studying a language course at the university.  She asked the squirming recruiters a few uncomfortable questions about the activities of NSA:  which countries the agency considers to be "adversaries", and if being a good liar is a qualification for getting a job at the NSA.

Cameras Catch Mystery Break-In at Whistleblower's Law Firm .  The offices of a Dallas law firm representing a high-profile State Department whistleblower were broken into last weekend.  Burglars stole three computers and broke into the firm's file cabinets.  But silver bars, video equipment and other valuables were left untouched, according to local Fox affiliate KDFW, which aired security camera footage of the suspected burglars entering and leaving the offices around the time of the incident.

Watergate-style burglary hits State Dept. whisteblower's law firm.  Remember Aurelia Fedensin?  She's the former investigator for the State Department Inspector General who blew the whistle on Hillary Clinton's State Department covering up scandals and squashing investigations around the world.  Fedensin and her family have already been hassled with intimidating displays of force by the same State Department that seemed relatively untroubled by an ambassador allegedly chasing underage prostitutes through the streets of Belgium.  Knowing that her allegations would be explosive, Fedensin wisely retained the services of a law firm called Schulman & Mathias of Dallas, Texas.  Which just got robbed in a Watergate-style break-in.

Security Cameras Catch Break-In at Whistleblower's Law Firm.  The Dallas law firm representing the State Department whistleblower's had file cabinets and computers stolen but the thieves left behind valuables like silver bars.

Obama Scandal Machine's Own Amateurish Break-In?  [Scroll down]  [Aurelia] Fedensin's allegations touch former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton more directly than anyone else currently in the Obama administration.  Clinton was SecState when the eight investigations that Fedensin alleges were scuttled by senior department members, were scuttled.  The scandals even touch Clinton's own security detail as well as her long-time fixer, Cheryl Mills.

What Went Wrong with Asiana Flight 214.  The jury is still out on the official cause of the Asiana crash but most experienced airline pilots have heard enough to know this is most likely a case of gross pilot error. [...] The underlying reason of their error is one that is both simple and frightening and one that we see occurring more and more frequently.  Airline pilots are losing their ability to fly their aircraft.  Overreliance on automation has degraded airline pilots' basic flying skills to the point that many seem unable to cope when they are forced by circumstances to hand fly the aircraft.

Doug Engelbart obituary.  Doug Engelbart, who has died aged 88, will be remembered as the man who in 1963 invented the computer mouse, but that was incidental to his vision of computers augmenting the human intellect and increasing our "collective IQ".

'Freedom From Facebook' Wants Conservatives to Boycott This July 4.  A group of conservative activists and bloggers is urging right-wingers to defriend Facebook this Independence Day.  The 24-hour "Freedom From Facebook" boycott is necessary, they say, because the social-media giant has been systemically targeting and discriminating against conservatives, blocking content, and suspending or outright banning users.

Funny business in Jesse Jackson Jr. sentencing?  Sentencing for disgraced former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and his wife Sandi has been delayed, but the question is, why?  Is there a legitimate reason for the delay, or is something else going on behind-the-scenes?  U.S. District Judge Amy Berman-Jackson posted a note on the court's docket stating that Wednesday's [7/3/2013] hearing for the Jacksons would be delayed to "accommodate the court."  She said it was not requested by the couple's attorneys. [...] Judge Amy Berman-Jackson was nominated to the bench by President Obama on June 17, 2010.

For Starters, It's Not a Coin.  What is a bitcoin?  As a virtual currency, it is hardly an easy or intuitive concept.  The securities filing for the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust defines a bitcoin as "one type of a digital math-based asset that is issued by, and transmitted through, an open source, cryptographic protocol platform known as the bitcoin network."  In plainer terms, a bitcoin is digital money that you cannot hold, but can be bought and sold online in exchange for traditional currencies like dollars and yen.  The value of a bitcoin is set by transactions on online exchanges.

Anonymous Jihad.  The Tor network has become a go-to means for jihadists and criminals to communicate, raise money, and buy and sell illicit goods and services without fear of being identified or traced by intelligence or law enforcement officials.  The network uses technology called "onion routing" (Tor is an acronym for The Onion Router), which refers to layers of encryption that prevent governments or other users from obtaining information about users or websites hosted on the network.

Lose an Anti-Robocall Contest? One Solution: Annoy the Government.  Commercial robocalls, prerecorded sales pitches known to interrupt family dinners and playoff football games, are illegal unless a person has given written permission to get calls from the company.  At the FTC, they are one of the top consumer complaints, accounting for some 200,000 a month.  For a time, the advent of caller-ID in the 1990s allowed people to screen the intrusions.  But robocallers soon learned how to trick the devices so they would appear listed as someone else, such as a "card services" company.

Justice Department freezes funds to Big Brothers Big Sisters following audit.  Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, the national charity that has been championed by President Obama for its work with at-risk kids, overpaid consultants, failed to track taxpayer funds it passed on to affiliates and kept such sloppy financial records that the Department of Justice has cut off millions of dollars in federal grants, officials said.

The Other Court-Packing Scandal.  The United States Court of Federal Claims is a specialty court located just across the street from the White House.  The Court serves an important function:  it adjudicates claims for monetary damages, including takings claims, brought against the United States government. [...] This court's mission is more critical than ever in light of the rapid growth in the size and intrusiveness of government power under President Obama — and unless Senate Republicans object, its character is going to move far to the left in a few weeks.

Leftus Ignoramus.  Mary Landrieu last Thursday showed what would be, for many of us, appalling ignorance. [...] Consider just how profoundly ignorant that was for any grownup, to say nothing of a senator who chairs the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee.  South Dakota has no border with Canada.  Perhaps a state which was north of South Dakota might have such a border.  Let's see.  What state might that be?

Memo To G-8: Problem Isn't Tax Dodging; It's Spending.  The world economy is a shambles due in large part to governments in Europe, Japan and the U.S. continuing to spend beyond their means.  So what was topic No. 1 at the just-concluded G-8 summit?  Corporate tax avoidance!

McD's worker sues: Don't pay by debit card.  All Natalie Gunshannon wanted was to be paid a fair wage for her work, she said. [...] When she received her first paycheck, enclosed was a Chase Bank debit card with instructions on how to use it and the fees attached.  Her future earnings would be deposited into the debit card account and she could access her money from there.  Gunshannon never signed the card and when she returned to work she asked her supervisor if she could be paid by check or by direct deposit.  She was told the card was the only option.

The $9,000,000,000,000 Missing From The Federal Reserve.  Rep. Alan Grayson questions the FED inspector General where $9 Trillion dollars went... and Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman hasn't a clue.  [Video clip]

Class action suit filed against record label's ownership of 'Happy Birthday'.  Good Morning to You Productions has filed the lawsuit aimed at striking down Warner/Chappell Music's copyright claim to the iconic century-old birthday song.  Other parties include those over the past four years who have had to pay to use the song on stage, TV or in film.

Free Beacon Targeted In Hack Attack.  The Washington Free Beacon yesterday [6/10/2013] became the latest victim in a wave of cyber attacks targeting conservative news outlets.  The Beacon, in what appears to be a coordinated assault, joined National Journal and radio station WTOP as a target after certain articles were featured on the Drudge Report, one of the most heavily trafficked and influential sites in the world.  The Drudge Report itself has not been infiltrated.

FEMA Denies Aid to Texas for Blast.  The Federal Emergency Management Agency is refusing to provide additional money to help rebuild the small Texas town where a deadly fertilizer plant explosion leveled numerous homes and a school, and killed 15 people.

Monica Lewinsky was unavailable for comment.
Bill Clinton Wins Father of the Year.  Former President Bill Clinton was awarded "Father of the Year" this morning at a reception at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City.  Clinton received the award from the National Father's Day/Mother's Day Council.  According to the nonprofit's website, the award is presented to fathers who have achieved professional success while serving as role models to their children.  Clinton's daughter, Chelsea, was on hand to present her father with the award and had this to say [...]

Benghazi II? Beirut Embassy 'Fails to Meet Security Protocols'.  Three decades after 63 people were killed in a bombing there, the U.S. embassy in Beirut is not classified as "high threat," even though Lebanon as a whole is listed as "critical," Hezbollah has a strong presence near it, and the embassy itself "fails to meet security protocols."

MSNBC Chief Phil Griffin: Our Network Is 'Not The Place' For Breaking News.  Over the last several months, it has become pretty clear that when it comes to ratings, MSNBC struggles during breaking news events, while CNN and Fox both receive boosts.  In an interview with the New York Times this morning, MSNBC chief Phil Griffin essentially conceded the "breaking news" mantle to the other networks, telling viewers that his network is not focused on that sort of coverage.

Furloughed feds can tap jobless benefits, raising questions about sequester savings.  Though sequester-tied furloughs have forced federal employees to cut their hours and their pay, it turns out some of them are eligible for unemployment benefits.  That means that while individual agencies are trimming their own budgets with furloughs, the cost to taxpayers of unemployment benefits could simultaneously rise — in turn, undermining lawmakers' goal of using the sequester to cut costs.

Staples Disqualifies Gun Stores, Lumps Firearms Together With Illegal Drugs.  Staples is currently conducting a "PUSH It Forward Contest," which awards a $50,000 marketing campaign to the small business that wins it.  However, as Maple Creek Gunsmithing in Fremont, Neb. learned — small businesses that sell guns are not allowed to take part in the contest.

Due to the emissions control system...
DC ambulance breaks down while transporting shooting victim to hospital.  The D.C. fire department is trying to determine why one of its newer diesel ambulances broke down as crews were transporting a patient in cardiac arrest. [...] The driver of Ambulance 19 is telling investigators the indicator lights on the emission control system suddenly and unexpectedly jumped from a warning to shut down in a matter of seconds, and as the engine died, she was able to pull the rig to the side of the road.

Gov. O'Malley's inaction on Baltimore jail scandal.  Tavon White, the imprisoned gang leader who allegedly treated Baltimore's main jail as his fief, its guards as his concubines and his fellow inmates as enforcers, has been transferred to federal custody; for now, he is no longer Maryland's problem.  But the revelations (and an indictment) related to Mr. White's alleged jailhouse criminal enterprise continue to embarrass the administration of Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) and the state's Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.

China Is Our Number One National Security Threat.  Chinese hackers have obtained the designs for more than two dozen major U.S. weapon systems, including the Navy's missile defense system and our latest fighter.  Our very national survival may soon be at risk.

IRS: Women Filed $1.4 Million in False Returns.  Clinton [North Carolina] residents Angela Christina Lainez-Flores and her daughter Karen Mejia filed fraudulent federal tax returns for refunds totaling $1.4 million from tax years 2006 through 2012, IRS special agent Bennett Strickland stated Thursday [5/30/2013] at a probable cause hearing in a Raleigh federal courtroom.  Lainez-Flores and Mejia had been charged with conspiracy to defraud the federal government by filing fraudulent income tax returns.

Western Civilization Dumber Than 100 Years Ago.  A new study may stimulate the old adage of respecting your elders; it says the general level of intelligence in the Western Hemisphere has declined since the Victorian Era.  The study claims the IQ numbers are 14 points lower than from the 19th century.  One of the authors of the study, Dr. Jan te Nijenhuis, professor of work and organizational psychology at the University of Amsterdam, says the cause of the movement toward stupidity is that smarter women have fewer children while those of lower intelligence have more children.

Heresy:
Pope Francis suggests atheists' good deeds gets them to heaven.  Pope Francis has sparked a religious debate with comments made earlier this week confirming atheists can indeed go to heaven.  Christian teaching generally holds that belief in Jesus, and not good deeds, grants eternal life.  But the pope, in a morning Mass on Wednesday [5/22/2013], suggested that belief and faith weren't the biggest factors.

Pope Francis says atheists can be good.  Atheists should be seen as good people if they do good, Pope Francis has said in his latest urging that people of all religions, and none, work together.

Spain spent $680 million on submarine that 'can't resurface'.  Spanish engineers, who already spent some $680 million on designing the new generation S-80 class submarine, say it is a major "technical innovation."  There is just one problem the calculations show — if submerged into water, it may never come up again.

NY man admits to filing tax returns for dead.  A western New York man has pleaded guilty to filing more than 100 tax returns under the names of people who had recently died.

Mt. Everest's filthy secret: It's a dump.  The world this week is celebrating the 60th anniversary of the first successful effort to reach the top of the world's highest peak.  But environmental activists are using the occasion to call attention to the tons and tons of garbage — and human excrement — that have been left on Mt. Everest's slopes in the decades since Sir Edmund Hillary and his Nepalese Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay, made their historic climb.  And the picture they are painting isn't pretty.

Mount Everest Crowded, Littered with Corpses.  Edmund Hillary made history when he scaled Mount Everest fifty years ago.  Now, it's crowded with guided tours and littered with the corpses of inexperienced climbers.

MSNBC ratings hit 7-Year low with Obama scandals.  I guess liberals don't want to cringe and watch their pitiful 'news network' while the spin doctors at the propaganda station spin for Obama.

Report Says Poor Are Moving to Nation's Suburbs.  More poor people live in the nation's suburbs than in urban cities because of affordable housing, service-sector jobs and the increased use of housing vouchers, according to a study released Monday [5/20/2013].

The states with the most native-born residents.  In some states, more than three-quarters of residents were born in that state.  In others, fewer than 40 percent of residents are native-born.

There[']s a Question Mark Hanging Over the Apostrophe[']s Future.  The U.S., in fact, is the only country with an apostrophe-eradication policy.  The program took off when President Benjamin Harrison set up the Board on Geographic Names in 1890.  By one board estimate, it has scrubbed 250,000 apostrophes from federal maps.

The Looming Student Loan Crisis.  Failure to scrutinize employment income contributed to the housing crisis and now threatens student loans, which total more than $1 trillion.

Excluded by the Inclusion Cops.  I'm tired of being told what I'm allowed to read and hear by statist hacks like Inspector Veerappan.  John O'Sullivan likes to call the politically correct British police "the paramilitary wing of The Guardian".  Unfortunately, the "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Bureau" would take that as a compliment.

Roger Stone: LBJ had Kennedy killed.  Legendary Republican operative Roger Stone claims in his new book that Lyndon Johnson arranged John F. Kennedy's assassination, and that Richard Nixon and Johnson had a documented relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald's killer, Jack Ruby, years before Ruby shot Oswald in the basement of Dallas police headquarters in 1963.

University of Georgia stops plant photosynthesis to generate solar power.  Researchers at the University of Georgia have [...] discovered a way to generate electricity from plants through hijacking the photosynthesis process.  By altering the proteins inside a plant cell's thylakoids, which store solar energy, scientists can intercept electrons through a carbon nanotube backing that draws them away before they're used to make sugar.  While the resulting power isn't phenomenal, it's still two orders of magnitude better than previous methods, according to the university.

New Wyoming lithium deposit could meet all US demand.  Last year virtually all of the major brine and mineral-based lithium producers increased their prices, which in turn has spurred prospecting.  In the US exploration has been largely centred in Nevada, but the growing worldwide market for lithium has also spurred exploration in Argentina, Australia, Bolivia and Canada.  And now, the good news.  University of Wyoming researchers found the lithium while studying the idea of storing carbon dioxide under-ground in the Rock Springs Uplift, a geologic formation in southwest Wyoming.

Unsustainable and Unconstitutional General Welfare Spending.  Obviously, there is a spending problem in Washington, D.C., and the reason for it is no mystery.  The largest expenditure in Obama's budget — and the largest federal outlay in every budget since 1970 — is an expense item labeled "payments for individuals," which includes spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment benefits, disability payments, and other federal welfare subsidies.  These payments constituted 65 percent of all federal spending in 2012 and are expected to grow to 70 percent in 2016.  (By contrast, national defense spending was 19 percent of the federal budget in 2012 and will decrease to only 14 percent in 2016.)

FBI Hunts Cop Killer Domestic Terrorist.  This one is hiding out in Cuba, where she is being treated like a celebrity.  Which is pretty much how Columbia University treats domestic terrorists.

The 'pay to grieve' 9/11 museum is a national disgrace.  9/11 family members never wanted a billion-dollar money pit.  All we hoped for was a simple, uplifting, honorable and patriotic memorial for all who were lost that terrible September day.  Instead, those who want to pay their respects will have to pay Bloomberg & Co.

New Poll Finds CNN Far Less Believable Cable Channel Than Fox News.  It used to be that whenever an important news story broke, cable television viewers would quickly turn to CNN for must-see coverage of what was happening.  However, according to a poll conducted regarding the five-day coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing, that is definitely no longer the case.  The survey, which was conducted by the liberal Huffington Post website and the international marketing agency YouGov, determined that former titan CNN came in as far less trustworthy than Fox News over which was the most believable cable news channel.

Thirteen correctional officers indicted in Maryland.  More than a dozen Maryland state prison guards helped a dangerous national gang operate a drug-trafficking and money-laundering scheme from behind bars that involved cash payments, sex and access to fancy cars, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.  Thirteen female corrections officers essentially handed over control of a Baltimore jail to gang leaders, prosecutors said.  The officers were charged Tuesday [4/23/2013] in a federal racketeering indictment.

Police buried Trayvon's criminal history.  Sanford Police Department (SPD) investigator Chris Serino, for instance, said publicly of Martin, "This child has no criminal record whatsoever."  He called Martin "a good kid, a mild-mannered kid."  The media almost universally sustained this tragically false narrative. [...] For a variety of reasons, none of them good, elements within the SPD and the Miami-Dade School District Police Department, or M-DSPD, conspired to keep Martin's criminal history buried.

A 'Rag Tag Bunch' Strikes Gold.  It seems that "Trayvon" should have been on trial in Miami rather than enjoying his "suspension" in Sanford the night George Zimmerman killed him in self-defense.  Do read the whole thing to understand the deception with which liberalism has distorted this fiasco and the greater fiasco of crime in the Miami-Dade School System.

A Criminologist Questions Sandy Hook.  A statistical analysis of 30 years' worth of mass public shooting hard data shows that the odds are 2,000 to 1 against the processes underlying that data accounting for the kill/wound figures of the Sandy Hook shooting.  Therefore, very meaningful and very serious questions arise as to precisely what transpired in Newtown — questions that are very unlikely to receive a hearing in the MSM.

9/11 death 'toll'.  The 9/11 Memorial foundation, funded to the tune of $830 million, has begun nickel-and-diming visitors for ticket reservations.  Even though the nonprofit has long vowed admission to the sacred site would be free, it is now demanding $2 per ticket for all advance reservations made online or by phone.  Officials quietly rolled out the fee on March 1 [...]

The Gosnell Grand Jury Report.  Having now read the Gosnell grand-jury report, I must say I'm extremely impressed with how well-written it is.  Yes, the underlying facts are horrifying and disgusting.  But it reads like some of the best journalism.  Is that typical?

HHS Sebelius: America is a violent country.  Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius Friday declared America a violent country, and she blamed the media, Hollywood and street crime for the Wild West culture.  In a House budget hearing, Sebelius also said that violence in American culture has a "desensitization" effect that can push the mentally ill over the edge.

The Editor says...
Hollywood is the first place President Obama goes when he wants to raise money for Democrats.  If his administration genuinely feels that Hollywood is one of the country's biggest problems, perhaps he shouldn't fraternize with the Hollywood kingpins.

Democrat Robin Kelly wins special Illinois House election, but what about prison?  Despite the endorsement of President Obama, Robin Kelly easily won election Tuesday night [4/9/2013] in a special House election to represent Illinois' troubled Second Congressional District.  The sprawling urban-suburban district, containing Chicago's ugly South Side, was formerly represented by Jesse Jackson Jr., who like a number of Illinois politicians will be residing in a federal penitentiary for a while.

When a car salesman tells you keyless entry is safe, ask about this:
High-Tech Thieves Use New Gadget To Gain Keyless Access To Vehicles In Long Beach.  Police are asking for the public's help in identifying three tech-savvy criminals wanted for a series of car burglaries in which they used an unknown device to gain keyless entry to vehicles.

Conservatives Shouldn't Own Newspapers?  The Los Angeles Times is up for sale, and there are super-wealthy conservative bidders.  Get the popcorn out and watch the liberals squeal.

Give me two fish filets and help me with my homework.
McDonald's want ad demands bachelor's degree, two years experience for cashier.  With colleges producing more graduates, and youth unemployment at a sky-high 11.5 percent, even landing a job selling Big Macs is getting competitive.  Consider:  A job opening at a Massachusetts McDonald's restaurant for a full-time cashier requires one to two years experience and a bachelor's degree.

Associated Press bans the phrase 'illegal immigrant'.  "It's 'illegal immigrant' no more" says the Associated Press, which banished the phrase from its usage guide on Tuesday — the latest stylistic edict for journalists who have for years juggled such terms as "undocumented worker" or "illegal alien," its politically incorrect variant.  "The Stylebook no longer sanctions the term 'illegal immigrant' or the use of 'illegal' to describe a person.  Instead, it tells users that 'illegal' should describe only an action, such as living in or immigrating to a country illegally," said the senior vice president and executive editor Kathleen Carroll.

Clear Data: More Federal Dollars Push Up Unemployment.  How do we know when government spending is too high or too low, or if fiscal policies are stimulative or restrictive?  As President Obama and Congress work to shrink the $1 trillion federal budget deficit, it is important that they understand the fundamental inverse relationship between the size of government and jobs.  Since 1970, all six instances when our government got larger as a percent of GDP, the unemployment rate went higher.  All six times when government got smaller as a percent of GDP, our unemployment rate went lower.

Pedro is reluctant to "give back to the community."
Pedro Quezada, $338M Powerball winner, owes $29K in child support.  The New Jersey man who won the $338 million Powerball jackpot owes approximately $29,000 in child support.  Authorities stopped by Pedro Quezada's Passaic apartment on Wednesday [3/27/2013], one day after the 44-year-old claimed a lump-sum payment worth $221 million, or about $152 million after taxes.  No one answered the door.

Three Egyptian divers 'tried to hack through internet ocean-floor cables [...]'.  It is believed they were trying to cut through an SEA-ME-WE 4 undersea cable — one of the main connections between Asia and Europe, running from France to Malaysia and linking Italy, north Africa, the middle east and south Asia.

Paul's Budget Kills Departments of Commerce, Education, Housing, and Energy.  "Washington has a serious and reckless spending problem that must be re-evaluated.  American families across the country are required to live by a budget and Congress should be no different — every taxpayer dollar needs to be spent more wisely.  Therefore, I am offering a plan that will address this country's looming debt crisis in a truly timely manner — balancing the budget in just five years," Paul said.

Pope Francis: 'I Am Thinking Particularly of Dialogue With Islam'.  Speaking on Friday [3/22/2013] at an audience held for diplomats accredited to the Vatican, Pope Francis said that he hoped to "intensify dialogue" with other religion, particularly Islam.  He noted the pope is also known as the "pontiff" — or "a builder of bridges" — and that St. Francis was a peacemaker.

The Editor says...
The Pope needs to go back and read Exodus 20:3-4.  Then he should compare those verses in the Catholic Bible to the Authorized King James Version.

Despite abortion views, Biden, Pelosi receive Communion in Vatican Mass.  Vice President Joseph R. Biden and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi both received Communion during the Mass to celebrate the installation of Pope Francis in spite of their pro-choice position on abortion.  The vice president's office confirmed Tuesday night [3/19/2013] that both he and Mrs. Pelosi took Communion during the Mass at St. Peter's Square in Rome.

Dem Senators Vote to Keep WH Tours Closed.  While President Obama's administration has suggested that the Secret Service is to blame for the closure of White House tours, the onus now falls on the Democrat-controlled Senate.  On Wednesday [3/20/2013], Democrats rejected a Republican attempt to reopen the White House tours in a straight party-line vote.  54 Democrats voted against reopening the tours.  None have voted to defund President Obama's golf trips.

White and Wrong in Philly.  [Robert] Huber's article contains mostly tepid examples of whites' negative experiences with blacks and primarily black neighborhoods, such as a Philadelphia resident whose grill was stolen from her backyard but "blames herself" for not fencing it in.  Its tone is basically apologetic, absolving a drug dealer of responsibility because he was just "trying to get by" and describing the US' racial history as "horrible and daunting."  Yet this wasn't good enough for Mayor Michael Nutter and his comrades.  They still want Huber silenced.

Mayor Nutter Threatens Magazine with Criminal Charges for "White in Philly" Story.  Philly's Mayor Nutter is living up to his name.  And more troublingly his language quite clearly summons up the censorship used in countries such as Canada and the UK to suppress freedom of speech.  This isn't about the content of the article.  That's not even the point now.  It's about the mayor of a major city threatening a magazine without the usual Freedom of the Press types having much to say about it.

Despite Cuts, Schumer Gets Marine Corps Band to Play at St. Patrick's Day Parade.  Forget the sequester.  If you're Chuck Schumer, there are ways around it.  Consider the recent example of a U.S. Marine Corps band cancelling its scheduled performance at a St. Patrick's Day parade due to the "sequester" — and Chuck Schumer's successful "push" for the band to come anyway.

Government Steering Americans Toward a Tele-Work, Tele-Shop, Mass-Transit Future.  The Obama administration envisions a "low-carbon, low-petroleum" future where Americans tele-work, tele-shop, walk, bike and use carpools or mass transit if they must leave the neighborhood at all.  A study released Friday [3/15/2013] says the U.S. has the potential to reduce petroleum use and pollution in the transportation sector by more than 80 percent by 2050.  In other words, gasoline-powered cars may go the way of the dinosaur, and many Americans may end up living in planned, mixed-use, "walkable" neighborhoods, built along mass transit lines.

Poll: Government dissatisfaction highest since Watergate.  More Americans cite dissatisfaction with government as the biggest problem facing the country than at any other time since the months leading up to the Watergate scandal, a new poll finds.  Twenty percent of those surveyed call dissatisfaction with government the country's biggest problem, according to a Gallup survey on Thursday [3/14/2013] — up from 16 percent the month before.

Hundreds of family pets, protected species killed by little known federal agency.  Over the years, Wildlife Services has killed thousands of non-target animals in several states — from pet dogs to protected species — caught in body-gripping conibear traps and leg hold snares, or poisoned by lethal M-44 devices that explode sodium cyanide capsules when triggered by a wild animal — or the snout of a curious family pet.

No matter what you do, you can't be fired from a government job.
GSA ordered to give job back to executive fired after Las Vegas conference scandal.  The General Services Administration was ordered this week to reinstate a senior executive who lost his job last year amid revelations of lavish spending at a Las Vegas conference.  GSA officials had told Paul Prouty that he "knew or should have known about the questionable and excessive expenditures" that embarrassed the Obama administration when they were revealed last year.  But the agency failed to prove that the career civil servant in charge of federal buildings in the Rocky Mountain region was guilty of misconduct, the Merit Systems Protection Board ruled.

3,000 More Dead Pigs Won't Make the Huangpu River Any Worse.  The Huangpu River, a source of drinking water to Shanghai's 23 million residents, should basically be called rotting swine soup.  Some 3,000 more decomposing pigs have been found in the river near Shanghai since Monday [3/11/2013], bringing the number to about 6,000 dead hogs, but authorities claim that water is just fine.

Update:
Shanghai dead pig toll nears 12,600.  The number of dead pigs retrieved from waters in and near China's financial hub of Shanghai has reached 12,566 after local authorities plucked 611 pig carcasses Saturday [3/16/2013] from the Huangpu River, which provides drinking water to the city's 23 million residents.

Pew: For Every 10 Americans, Only 3 Trust The Government.  The Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C. has found that fewer Americans than ever trust the decisions made by the government.  Data collected from a survey taken in January of this year indicates that all demographics and partisan groups experienced an increasing lack of faith in government leadership, according to a release posted on the Pew Research website late last week.

Ryan Shows How To Balance The Budget Without Tax Hikes.  Rep. Paul Ryan's latest budget plan shows that we can balance the budget in just a decade without any new taxes and still increase spending if we get rid of the massive cost of ObamaCare./p>

Yes, Ted Cruz Likely Eligible to be President.  On Mar. 8, reporter Carl Cameron on Special Report on Fox News Channel was surveying potential GOP 2016 presidential candidates.  Then he raised Ted Cruz — one of the most brilliant constitutional lawyers ever to serve in the Senate — the new 41-year old Hispanic senator from Texas.  Cameron added, "But Cruz was born in Canada and is constitutionally ineligible" to run for president.  While many people assume that, it's probably not true.

Forget Transgender, Get Ready for Transpecies.  Species dysphoria is the equivalent of Gender dysphoria.  Mentally ill persons with gender dysphoria are fashionably diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder.  There is as of yet no Species Identity Disorder, but that is no doubt coming.  Like Trannies, Transpecies Americans create special pronouns for themselves and insist that refusing to pretend that they're cats or wolves is a hate crime.

Elderly Woman Dies After Nurse Refuses to Give Her CPR.  A 911 dispatcher pleaded with a nurse at a Bakersfield, Calif., senior living facility to save the life of an elderly woman by giving her CPR, but the nurse said policy did not allow her to, according to a newly released audiotape of the call.

The Editor says...
Two questions come to mind immediately:  Why did she call 9-1-1, and why did she go to school to become a nurse?  It appears that she is not a nurse, but a janitor or perhaps a zookeeper.  There's nothing wrong with being a janitor or a zookeeper, unless you were hired to be a nurse.  If she didn't want to resuscitate the dying patient, she should have waited until she could say, "There is someone here who has died," rather than, "There is someone here who is dying."

Projected Growth in Unpaid Bills Shows Illinois on Path to Total Breakdown.  On Monday [2/25/2013], the Insitute for Illinois' Fiscal Sustainability (IIFS), an outfit associated with the Civic Federation, a "nonpartisan" organization which appears to have leftist instincts and funding, warned that the state government's $8 billion stack of unpaid bills will grow to $22 billion in five years.  IIFS correctly blames out of control pension costs, and recommends several reforms which don't seem to match the urgency of the situation.

GOP Leaders Break 72-Hr Pledge.  The House Republican leaders today [3/6/2013] rushed through a vote on a 269-page $982-billion continuing resolution (CR) to fund the federal government for the remainder of fiscal 2013 in direct violation of a pledge they made to the American people to post bills online for at least 72 hours before voting on them.

American Conservative Union Chairman: Legalize Illegal Aliens.  American Conservative Union Chairman Al Cardenas said he supported a bipartisan Senate effort at immigration reform, stressing that the proposal must include a way for an estimated 11 million illegal aliens to "come out of the shadows" and be given "a legal status where they can be secure in this country for their future and that of their children."

Border Patrol Union Local 2544: What They Think of Homeland Security.  The Arizona Local 2544 Union members website, which they make clear is not an official Border Patrol Website, also makes it clear exactly how they feel about the Department of Homeland Security.  After you read [this article], read Idol Worship vs Reality, a Local 2544 dissertation on the administration.

Now they tell us: AP kills word 'sequestration'.  It hasn't even happened yet, but the Associated Press style gurus are killing the word "sequestration."

Clearing Away the Rubble...with Black Hawks, Tanks, and Loads of Ammo.  I've lived in this country my entire life and never heard of government agencies stockpiling millions of rounds of the hollow-point "training ammo" listed in its solicitations or shooting blanks from military aircraft over our neighborhoods and cities.  Not until now.  None of this makes sense if things are as peachy as the president claims, and I think these circumstances raise enough questions to warrant a congressional hearing.

The Feds Want Your Retirement Accounts.  Quietly, behind the scenes, the groundwork is being laid for federal government confiscation of tax-deferred retirement accounts such as IRAs.  Slowly, the cat is being let out of the bag.

Senate Hearings Already Held: National Retirement Accounts.  The Senate held RECESS hearings in October 2010 — only Senators Harkin (D-IA) and Socialist Bernie Sanders (D-VT) were in attendance, representing the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.  First up to testify before Harkin and Sanders was a Ross Eisenbrey, the Vice President of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), which "is housed on the third floor of the building occupied by the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress." [...] As I discussed earlier this month, part of this is about bailing out union pensions with your retirement.

What John Adams Foretold Has Come True.  [Scroll down]  What's next?  Confiscation!  "The Obama administration is reportedly moving on plans to nationalize private 401k and IRA retirement accounts, and replace them with government sponsored annuities (aka Treasury bonds that the Treasury currently can't sell to anyone but the Fed)."  Obama has begun a plan to nationalize (aka confiscate) private pensions and to eliminate private retirement accounts, including IRAs and 401k plans.  Think it can't happen here?  Think again!

Mosquito repellent Deet 'losing its effectiveness'.  The mosquito repellent Deet, which is widely used by holidaymakers and residents in warm climates, is losing its effectiveness, scientists say.

The Editor says...
Nobody makes such claims about DDT.  DDT kills mosquitoes, whereas Deet just diverts them to someone else.

Insolvency, U.S.A..  There are fiscal cliffs at every level of government, and it doesn't help that states and many municipalities cannot legally go bankrupt.

Saving the Fish to Kill the Fish.  Saving the fish isn't about saving the fish.  It's about preventing fishermen from making a living selling the fish.

'Trillions of carats' of diamonds found under Russian asteroid crater.  The Russian government has revealed that a vast quantity of high-quality diamonds rests beneath a Siberian impact crater, numbering in the "trillions of carats".

Virginia moves closer to creating state's own currency.  Lawmakers in Virginia say they want to keep their options open in case the value of the U.S. dollar ever collapses — so they're considering minting state coinage.  The Washington Post reported Tuesday [2/5/2013] that a proposal to study the effectiveness of such a plan "sailed through" the state's lower house this week.

Here's a sure way to drive small businesses out of business:
Democrats: Stop banning job candidates with criminal records.  New Jersey Democrats today introduced legislation meant to give convicted criminals a better shot at finding work and, sponsors hope, avoid returning to a life of crime.  The measure, known as "ban the box," would require employers to consider the qualifications of job candidates before asking about criminal histories.  Only after a person is offered a position would a company be allowed to inquire about past convictions under the bill, according to a draft copy.

Is your 401K about to be nationalized?  The $19.4 trillion sitting in personal retirement accounts like the 401K may be too tempting an apple for a government that is quite broke, both monetarily and morally.  The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director Richard Cordray recently mentioned these accounts in a recent interview, stating "That's one of the things we've been exploring and are interested in, in terms of whether and what authority we have."

Obama misses budget deadline.  President Obama missed the Monday [2/4/2013] deadline for submitting a budget to Congress, marking the fourth time in five years he has been late — and in a town where missing deadlines is routine, this one is beginning to get noticed.  The Budget Act requires that he submit a blueprint for taxes and spending by the first Monday in February, but only once, in 2010, has he met that deadline.  This year, the White House hasn't yet said when it will have a plan.

Gitmo Detainees Return to Field of Battle.  Former terrorists held at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo, Cuba were detected by U.S. intelligence agencies recently working with Islamist rebels in Syria, according to U.S. officials.  The al Qaeda-linked terrorists in Syria are part of a group called the Al Nusrah Front that is fighting alongside the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the rebels opposing the Bashar al-Assad regime in the civil war.  The number and names of the former Guantanamo inmates were not disclosed.

Guess which giant special interest is really polluting Alaska?  I wonder who was responsible for this mess?  BP?  Chevron?  But wait... if you read back to the first paragraph of that article, it almost sounds as if the US BLM (Bureau of Land Management) is in charge here.  How could that be?  An what's a "legacy well?"

Rep. Gohmert Calls On Obama's Former Constitutional Law Students To File Class-Action Lawsuit.  Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas appeared on Fox News' Hannity to discuss the court ruling against Obama on his National Labor Relations Board appointee.

LSU instructor sues university.  An LSU faculty member is suing the university, alleging that she was fired after reporting what she called the School of Art's theft of more than $75,000 from students.  In Margaret Herster's lawsuit filed this month, the digital art instructor says the art program illegally charged students course fees that hadn't first been approved by the Legislature as required by law.

The EEOC's New Rule on Background Checks.  [Scroll down]  The reasoning is as follows: Blacks and Hispanics are more likely to be incarcerated than whites.  Therefore, even a facially neutral policy against hiring ex-offenders will screen out more blacks and Hispanics than whites.  Consequently, the agency argues, this may constitute evidence of unlawful racial discrimination in violation of Title VII, giving the EEOC the authority to investigate and sue offending employers.

Big Brother's pencil-pushing bureaucrats guarantee high prices will stay high.
Louisiana stops sale of cheap milk at market.  A Louisiana supermarket was forced to yank its low-cost milk special after state auditors objected to the price.  Fresh Markets in Perkins Rowe was selling milk for $2.99 a gallon as part of a weekly promotion deal, but Louisiana requires that retailer markups be at least 6 percent above invoice and shipping costs, The Advocate reports.  State Agriculture and Forestry Commissioner Mike Strain said Fresh Market violated state regulations by selling milk below cost as part of a promotion.

State stops sale of cheap milk.  For Lafayette stockbroker Kenneth Daigle, buying a gallon of milk is no longer the bargain it used to be on Tuesdays at Fresh Market.  The upscale supermarket chain yanked milk from its $2.99 once-a-week promotion after a state auditor objected to the low price.

Walid Shoebat to America: You have been infiltrated, your president is a Muslim.  Walid Shoebat spoke a few days ago on Bible Prophecy talking mainly about Islam and the Antichrist.  But he focused part of his message on America and why he believes she will be one of the major countries fighting against the Islamic Antichrist in the end.  He acknowledges, though, that America has been infiltrated by the enemy, that even our own president is a Muslim who is supporting the Muslim Brotherhood in different parts of the world whether it be in Egypt or Syria.  Most of us here know that already but it's great to hear Walid speak the truth.

What's that?  Obama is a Muslim?  Yes, he is.

New Hampshire has most machine guns per capita in the country.  The number of automatic weapons in New Hampshire increased dramatically after 2010, according to federal firearms records, although it remains unclear whether the growth is being driven by civilians, law enforcement or the military.  The number of registered machine guns in New Hampshire spiked 80 percent between the end of 2010 and March 2012, according to the most current data available from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

A real leader doesn't need a teleprompter.
Sen. Ted Cruz says the GOP should focus on opportunity for lower classes.  Freshman Senator Ted Cruz challenged the Republican Party to return to championing growth and opportunity for the lower and working classes during a lunchtime address at the National Review Institute Conference Saturday afternoon [1/26/2013].  Speaking without a lectern or notes, Cruz moved easily around the stage as he presented his vision for the Republican Party's future to the audience at the conference.  "The policies of the Obama administration have fundamentally failed the communities struggling to climb the economic ladder," Cruz said.

President Obama's Cat-Food Future For Retirees.  Americans are drawing down their 401(k)s for nonretirement needs in record numbers, just as Social Security goes bust.  This portends poverty for millions as the White House fiddles.

Coulter: Guns Don't Kill People, Mentally Ill Do.  Seung-Hui Cho, who committed the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007, had been diagnosed with severe anxiety disorder as a child and placed under treatment.  But Virginia Tech was prohibited from being told about Cho's mental health problems because of federal privacy laws. [...] He was involuntarily committed to a mental institution for one night and then unaccountably unleashed on the public, whereupon he proceeded to engage in the deadliest mass shooting by an individual in U.S. history.

Mark Levin: Background Check Needed For Barack Obama.  Mark Levin is calling for background checks for all politicians, including one Barack Hussein Obama.  [Video clip]

Woman drives 900 miles out of her way after GPS error.  Put too much faith in technology and you may wind up in Croatia. [...] The woman only wanted to go about 90 miles from her hometown of Hainault Erquelinnes, Belgium, to pick up a friend at the Brussels train station.  Her GPS device sent her about 900 miles to the south before (during the second day of driving) she realized that something was amiss.

Leahy: Abolish mandatory minimum sentences.  The longest-serving Democrat in the Senate on Wednesday called for scrapping mandatory minimum sentences at both the federal and state levels, and said he wants Congress to take a critical look at the way U.S. law enforcement agencies use drones. [...] "This fast-emerging technology is cheap, but I think just because it's available doesn't mean it helps.  I think there could be a significant threat to the privacy and civil liberties," he said.

White House now requires 'We the People' petitions to have 100,000 signatures for official response.  President Barack Obama's deputies have quadrupled the number of signatures that petitioners on the administration's "We the People" website must collect to get an official response from the White House, following a series of popular, provocative and disrespectful signature drives by his critics.

The Editor says...
So you get a White House response.  Big deal.  What have you gained?

Civil servant working two full time public jobs, 70 miles apart.  A Michigan civil servant is in hot water after being exposed as holding down two six-figure public posts at the same time — earning him more than the Vice President.  Barnett Jones, has been paid $273,750 since May as Flint's administrator of public safety and head of security for the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, despite the fact the posts are both full-time and based 70 miles apart, according to the Free Press.

RFK Jr. says lone gunman not solely responsible for assassination of President Kennedy.  Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is convinced that a lone gunman wasn't solely responsible for the assassination of his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, and said his father believed the Warren Commission report was a "shoddy piece of craftsmanship."

The Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy.  Matthew Continetti writes at the Washington Free Beacon about the formation of an incredibly powerful lobbying group, composed of organizations that boast millions of political foot soldiers, with a total income measured in the billions of dollars.  It plans to spend tens of millions of dollars pushing a rigid ideological agenda.  It's a textbook example of everything we are constantly told is "wrong" with Washington, a combination of big money, political self-interest, political influence, and secrecy.

The Trillion-Dollar Platinum Coin.  Of course, there is one small problem:  Platinum is currently selling for about $1,590 a troy ounce.  So a $1 trillion coin would weigh 26,221 "troy tons," which might present a bit of a transportation problem getting from the mint to the Federal Reserve.  There is also the problem that nowhere near that much platinum has ever been mined since the metal first came to the attention of chemists in the 1740s.

Two years in the slammer if your dog bites a burglar.  The United Kingdom seems to have a lot of concern for protecting the rights of burglars as they commit crimes against law abiding citizens.  The case of Tony Martin, convicted of murder (later reduced to manslaughter after an international outcry) in 1999 for killing a burglar in his house with a shotgun was only the beginning.

Next Big Gov't Housing Bailout: Federal Housing Administration.  The Federal Housing Administration (FHA)'s 2012 audit confirmed what has been obvious for some time:  The FHA is deeply underwater, with a negative economic value of $34 billion.  With over $1 trillion in mortgages backed by the FHA, even minor changes in the housing market could add tens of billions to that total.  A taxpayer bailout is inevitable.

Fiscal Cliff Deal: $1 In Spending Cuts For Every $41 In Tax Increases.  When Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush increased taxes in return for spending cuts — cuts that never ultimately came — they did so at ratios of 1:3 and 1:2.

The Real Country-Killer in 2013.  Every week, the U.S. Treasury borrows money to keep operating, by holding auctions of "T-Bills."  Institutional investors, foreign and domestic, show up to bid on these government bonds (Treasury Bills).  What if investors decide that it just isn't worth risking any more of their money?  There won't be any money.  Even when the country still looks strong, investors could sit on the sidelines, worrying:  "Let someone else take the risk."  If the lending stops, can the country survive when the Ponzi scheme collapses?  What if there is no money to cut social security or Medicare checks, or operate the government?

Obama Orders Raise for Biden, Members of Congress, Federal Workers.  President Barack Obama issued an executive order to end the pay freeze on federal employees, in effect giving some federal workers a raise.  One federal worker now to receive a pay increase is Vice President Joe Biden.

Any Raise is Too Much; Congress Approval Rating is 18%.  Congress has done such a beautiful job handling the fiscal cliff and debt ceiling that president Obama felt it mandatory to issue an Executive Order giving [Vice President] Biden [and] Congress pay raises.

Home Depot Promotes Mexican-Made Coca-Cola Products.  Did Home Depot get a good deal from the bottler which enables them to "pander" to Hispanic labor force at-large?  Is "Made in America" branding simply not cool in the Era of Obama, and will it be diminished by similar promotions in the future?  I can only wonder what the local union employees that work for Coca Coca think about Home Depot promoting and selling the same non-American labor force products.

Biofuel credits behind mystery cross-border train shipments.  The mystery of the trainload of biodiesel that crossed back and forth across the Sarnia-Port Huron border without ever unloading its cargo, as reported by CBC News, has been solved.  CBC News received several tips after a recent story about a company shipping the same load of biodiesel back and forth by CN Rail at a cost of $2.6 million in the summer of 2010.  It turns out the shipments were part of a deal by a Toronto-based company, which made several million dollars importing and exporting the fuel to exploit a loophole in a U.S. green energy program.

Chinese prison factories revealed.  A Chinese prisoner's note, found in a box of Kmart Halloween decorations by an unsuspecting Oregonian, described the horrors of China's prison-factories.  Despite that sort of thing not supposed to be happening, it is happening because China remains a communist tyranny.

Has Obama's Big Spending Also Bought American Silence On Chinese Prison Camps?  Despite a slew of laws to the contrary, it looks as though America's vaunted trade relationship with China — the one hailed by the Obama administration and praised by CEOs from Siemens, Bayer, Coca-Cola, Citibank, and General Electric — remains what it always has been:  a great slave empire.

EEOC Protected Classes.  On September 19, 2012, the Newark, New Jersey Municipal Council passed Ordinance 12-1630, "which limits employers' ability to conduct criminal background checks."  The ordinance went into effect November 18, 2012 and "prevents employers with five or more employees who do business, employ persons or take applications for employment in the City of Newark, from asking applicants about their criminal history."  The employer "can only perform the background check after a conditional offer has been made and the employer makes a 'good faith determination' that the job position is of a sensitive nature."  Sensitive nature is, however, not defined.

Egypt: Nobody Gets Out With More Than $10K.  The tyranny is in full swing in Egypt, where the government has now banned anyone wanting to leave the country from taking more than $10,000 with them.  This is the same measure used by the government of Iran to prevent emigration, or to confiscate the cash of those who do wish to emigrate.

Alaska legislative aide's anti-Islam activism forces resignation.  A legislative aide who joined an anti-Islam group and became obsessed with its mission crossed the line and illegally used state resources to promote its interests, a state ethics panel concluded in a ruling released Friday [12/14/2012]. [...] [Karen] Sawyer's activism on behalf of Stop Islamization of America became an issue when she was chief of staff to Palmer Rep. Carl Gatto before his death this year.

Nelson Mandela 'proven' to be a member of the Communist Party after decades of denial.  Now, nearly half a century after the court case that made him the world's best-known prisoner of conscience, a new book claims that whatever the wider injustice perpetrated, the apartheid-era prosecutors were indeed right on one question:  Mr Mandela was a Communist party member after all.

NASA is completely unnecessary.  The Air Force has its own space program.
U.S. military sends mystery space drone back into orbit.  The U.S. military launched its highly secretive unmanned $1 billion X-37B space plane into orbit today from Cape Canaveral on top of an Atlas V rocket.  The U.S. Air Force which operates the small, top-secret version of the space shuttle still will not say how long the third X-37B mission will last, nor what the vehicle will be doing in orbit.

Many so-called comedians are political propagandists.
Comedian: Liberal comics 'don't want to make fun of Obama because they feel that it will weaken him'.  Conservative stand-up comedian Evan Sayet says there is "no doubt" his fellow comics have taken it easy on President Barack Obama.  "They've even admitted it themselves," he told The Daily Caller.  "Liberals don't want to make fun of Obama because they feel that it will weaken him if they honestly point out his foibles and his shortcomings.  The narrative is that Obama is sort of a god (in fact, Evan Thomas of Newsweek said exactly that.)

That's just crazy!
Congress strikes word 'lunatic' from US laws.  Americans may be forgiven for calling their lawmakers "lunatics" given the partisanship that has consumed Washington, but that term will no longer be allowed in laws promulgated by Congress.  The House of Representatives voted 398-1 on Wednesday [12/5/2012] to strike the word "lunatic" from all federal legislation.

The Editor says...
The word lunatic is archaic, but it is still well-known.  Everybody knows what the word means, and it isn't particularly defamatory if the shoe fits.  Doesn't the Congress have more important things to work on?

Massive Anti-Obama Rally Planned for Inauguration Day.  Inspired by concerns of unemployment, the economy, Benghazi, and matters of foreign policy; organizers are promoting a "Massive Anti-Obama Rally @ Obama's Inauguration Day."  Their goal?  500,000+ protesters armed with signs identifying the reason for their participation in the rally.

Oak Ridge and NVIDIA unveil Titan supercomputer.  Titan, according to Oak Ridge's announcement, is 10 times more powerful than its predecessor, Jaguar, with a theoretical peak performance of 20 petaflops, or 20,000 trillion calculations per second.

Does Government Want To Drain Americans' 401(k) Plan?  As Washington debates what to do about the fiscal cliff that it foolishly created, many potential sources of new revenue will be thrown on the table.  One of them is likely to be 401(k) plans.

Cornyn labels 'outrageous' Obama's 'crazy idea' to unilaterally raise debt ceiling.  John Cornyn is known for being a politician who carefully chooses his words.  He is, by choice, deliberate and judicious.  Today [11/30/2012], he was just plain mad.  In an interview on Fox News, the San Antonio Republican condemned a proposal floated by the White House to unilaterally raise the nation's debt ceiling if Congress fails to act before the spring 2013 deadline.  "It's profoundly irresponsible," Cornyn said.  "So that's a crazy idea and I'm amazed that [Treasury] Secretary [Tim] Geithner had the courage to float that yesterday."

Treasury Borrowed $211.69 Per U.S. Household on Black Friday.  The U.S. Treasury increased the net debt of the United States $24,327,048,384.38 on the day after Thanksgiving, which equals approximately $211.69 for each of the nation's 114,916,000 households.

$6800 per capita in redistributed wealth.
$3.4 billion Indian settlement finalized.  Finalization of a $3.4 billion settlement between the United States and nearly 500,000 American Indians was lauded Monday [11/26/2012] by the Obama administration.

Tulsans against Chloramine.  The Tulsa Metropolitan Utility Authority (TMUA) recently switched Tulsa's water system from the use of chlorine as a secondary disinfectant to chloramine — a combination of chlorine and ammonia — despite concerns about the effects of the chemical when ingested, used in cooking, or used in bathing.  The conversion was complete at the end of July 2012.  Chloramine-treated water can't be used directly in fish ponds and can't be used in dialysis.  It is documented to cause deterioration of materials commonly used in plumbing.

Sandy Island 'Undiscovered' After Appearing on Maps.  Sandy Island was nowhere to be found when Australian scientists reached the South Pacific location where it appeared on Google Earth, nautical charts and world maps.  "It raises all kinds of conspiracy theories," expedition member Steven Micklethwaite said, adding that the CIA is among the sources of the world coastline database.

States Choose Own Paths With One-party Governments.  Starting next month, Americans in 25 states will have Republican governors and Republicans in control of both houses of the state legislatures.  They aren't all small states, either.  They include about 53 percent of the nation's population.  At the same time, Americans in 15 states will have Democratic governors and Democrats in control of both houses of the state legislatures.  They include about 37 percent of the nation's population.  That leaves only 10 percent in states in which neither party is in control.

WWII code 'may never be cracked'.  Experts at intelligence agency GCHQ have asked for help in de-coding a message found attached to a pigeon leg, thought to date back to WWII.  The dead bird was found in a chimney in Surrey a few weeks ago.

Report: French officials accuse US of hacking Sarkozy's computers.  [Scroll down]  According to the l'Express report, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano reportedly did not deny the allegations when asked point-blank about them.  "We have no greater partner than France, we have no greater ally than France," Napolitano reportedly answered, at the opening of an interview with l'Express.  "We cooperate in many security-related areas.  I am here to further reinforce those ties and create new ones."

Obama administration declares: 'we have no greater ally than France'.  In an interview with L'Express, Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano told her French audience that "we have no greater partner than France, we have no greater ally than France," in an effort to convince them that Washington had not been hacking into Nicolas Sarkozy's office ahead of the French presidential election, as some French sources are suggesting.

FBI raids Detroit Public Library; $1,000 trash cans, possible shady deals raise eyebrows.  "There may be an individual who awarded contracts for personal gain.  And if that is the case, it is a total violation of the public trust," Jonathan Kinloch, president of the Detroit Library Commission, told the [Detroit] Free Press.  According to Kinloch, the contracts involve two technology firms that were hired for at least $2 million to update the library's computer systems.  A library official allegedly had ties to at least one of the contractors, and benefited personally from the million-dollar deals, he said.

The CIA Has Closed Its Climate Change Research Office.  EEnews.net's Greenwire reports the CIA has shut down its Center on Climate Change and National Security due to budget constraints.  The closure evidently took place earlier this year.

FHA Faces $13.5B Fiscal '12 Deficit, Audit Says.  The Federal Housing Administration faced a deficit of $13.5 billion for the fiscal year ending in September, according to an audit released late Thursday.  The report says the FHA will not have the capital resources available to handle the estimated losses on the roughly $1.1 trillion in mortgage debt that it backstops.  In total, the FHA has $25.6 billion in resources, but is forecast to see future cash flows of negative $39.1 billion, creating the deficit.  Analysts have said the FHA could require a bailout from taxpayers in order to bridge the gap.

White House website deluged with secession petitions from 20 states.  How would Old Glory look with 30 stars instead of 50?  As far-fetched as it may sound, the White House might soon be forced by its own rules to examine the question.  On Nov. 7, the day after President Barack Obama was re-elected, the White House's website received a petition asking the administration to allow Louisiana to secede.

Rep. Allen West demands recount.  Florida Rep. Allen West on Wednesday demanded a recount as his bid for reelection remained too close to call, with the tea party Republican trailing his Democratic opponent by fewer than 3,000 votes. [...] West, who warned before the election of "nefarious actions" by Democrats, suggested a county election supervisor was trying to rig the election.

Business Owners Warn Of 4,100 New Regs And The Administration's Secrecy About Them.  Every administration is legally required to publish a report each April and October in the Federal Register to inform Congress and the public of the administration's regulatory agenda and its potential economic impact.  The requirement is part of the Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980.  The Obama administration has missed its second straight legal deadline for disclosing its regulatory plans and their economic impact to Congress and the American public.  No previous administration has ever failed to produce the report even once.

NV newspaper: Obama a "narcissistic amateur," "embarrassment," "incompetent".  And those are the kinder thoughts that the editors of the Las Vegas Review-Journal had for Barack Obama in their lead editorial yesterday.  Those conclusions refer to Obama's overall performance on the economy and foreign policy.  When they get down to specifics on Benghazi, the anger pulses through every sentence.

Las Vegas Review-Journal lets Obama have it.  This is the most incendiary indictment of a politcian I've ever read in the mainstream media.

The Saudis are bulldozing Islam's heritage. Why the silence from the Muslim world?  The long-cherished ambition of Saudi Arabia's ruling Wahhabi sect to smash up the ancient buildings of Mecca and Medina is nearing fruition.  In Mecca, the house of one of Mohammed's wives has been demolished to make space for public lavatories.

Facebook admits error in censoring anti-Obama message.  Mistakes happen, for sure, yet Facebook made three or four in quick succession, evidence that this wasn't just a goof.  "They warned us once.  They censored it twice and then they suspended our account," says [Larry] Ward.

3.5 Years: Zero Budgets.  Senate Dems haven't approved a budget resolution since April 29, 2009.

The wealthiest person in each of the 50 states.  Bill Gates, who is America's wealthiest person worth $64.5 billion, still lives in Seattle, Washington near to the headquarters of Microsoft which he founded, while Wal-Mart heir, Jim Walton, worth $33.6 billion lives in Bentonville, Arkansas, where the retail giant is headquartered.

Historical treasures missing from National Archives.  Precious historical artifacts like the Wright Brothers airplane patent, the bombing maps for the nuclear attack on Japan, the original eyewitness radio report of the Hindenburg disaster and photos taken by the astronauts on the moon are just some of the items stolen from our National Archives.  So much of our past has been pocketed by thieves that the National Archives has formed a recovery team to get them back.

Government: Violent crimes rose 18 percent in 2011.  The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics reported Wednesday [10/17/2012] that the increase in the number of violent crimes was the result of an upward swing in simple assaults, which rose 22 percent, from 4 million in 2010 to 5 million last year.

DOE delays decision on natural-gas export license.  The Obama administration punted a decision on whether to prevent a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export license, saying it needs more time to review a complaint that an environmental assessment for the plan did not go far enough.  The Department of Energy (DOE) said it needs to review a complaint regarding a conditional permit granted to Cheniere Energy.  That permit would let the firm export LNG to countries without free-trade agreements from its Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana.

The Editor says...
What does the Department of Energy do to facilitate the production of energy?  The DOE doesn't produce energy — it reluctantly issues permits to energy producing companies.  In other words, the United State would have far more energy available if the DOE were abolished.

Obama White House Lists Prisoner Re-Entry Programs as Budget Priority for Black Families Only.  The White House's fiscal year 2013 budget includes $831 million for Department of Justice prisoner re-entry programs, which are designed to help inmates who have been released from prison find a job and to reduce recidivism rate.  Take a look at the Obama White House's Office of Management and Budget, and you'll find the program is mentioned under the fact sheet on key issues titled, "An Economy Built to Last and Security for African American Families."

Some States Not Sending Absentee Ballots to Military.  Jurisdictions in Vermont, Michigan, Mississippi and Wisconsin have failed to mail absentee ballots to military members by the Sept. 22, 2012, deadline established by the MOVE Act.  That was 45 days before the November 6 elections, which was what was required.

U.S. to End Pro-Democracy Broadcasts in Russia.  America's broadcast voice in Russia will soon be silenced following Moscow's ratification of a new law that will force a legendary broadcasting company to abandon the Russian airwaves.  Radio Liberty (RL), a division of the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe (RFE), recently fired a large portion of its staff after the passage of a Russian law prohibiting foreign-owned media outlets from broadcasting on AM frequencies.

The Editor says...
During the Cold War, the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe didn't wait for Russia's permission to use specific radio frequencies.  Things in the White House are different now, and not in a good way.

Fox News Contributor Can't Accept New Heart for Wife Due to Government Regulations.  [Charles Payne's] friend recently lost his daughter.  Payne's wife needs a heart transplant.  His friend offered them his daughter's heart.  Overwhelmed, they accepted.  Then the government got involved.

Disorder and Corruption in a New World Order.  Sixty years of communism, theft, and abuse of power are hard to overcome even though a strange form of capitalism has taken strong roots in Romania.  The shadow communism never went away and is re-emerging with a vengeance in public life with empty promises of free food, easy money, and free housing.

Just five per cent of takings from NFL's pink kit for breast cancer campaign goes to charities.  The proceeds ostensibly go to help support the fight against breast cancer, but critics now allege that most of the cash ends up in the pockets of NFL owners. [...] However, Business Week discovered that only 5 percent of the sales are being donated to the American Cancer Society.

Nebraska town with only 11 residents sells more than Four Million cans of beer every year.  The Oglala Sioux Tribe governs the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota, just over the state line from Whiteclay [Nebraska].  Last year the four beer stores named in the suit sold the equivalent of 4.3 million 12-ounce beer cans even though according to the latest census, Whiteclay has only 11 residents.

The Editor says...
I'll bet they sell a lot of this stuff, too, in addition to Aqua Velva, Woolite, and Listerine.

Military absentee ballots remain drastically low.  As of today [10/11/2012], voting registration deadlines in 18 states and territories have passed, and military absentee ballot requests remain at a worryingly low level compared with past election years.  According to the most recent data, released Sept. 22, Florida has sent 65,173, compared to the just over 95,000 it counted four years ago.  Virginia has sent out 12,292 military and overseas absentee ballots, less than 43 percent of the 28,816 it counted in 2008.

Cash-strapped farmers feed candy to cows.  Cattle farmers struggling with record corn prices are feeding their cows candy instead. [...] While corn goes for about $315 a ton, ice-cream sprinkles can be had for as little as $160 a ton.

Did someone mention ethanol?

Members of Congress Financially Benefit from Legislation They Support.  A Washington Post investigation found that 73 members of Congress have "sponsored or co-sponsored legislation in recent years that could benefit businesses or industries in which either they or their family members are involved or invested."

The Collapse of Communism: The Untold Story.  [Scroll down]  Should we really believe that millions of communists just became overnight capitalists and good citizens?  Surprise!  They turned out to become leaders of the new system.  It doesn't matter what political party in the former Soviet satellite countries you are looking at, left or right, they all were created and are run by former communists.  So communism didn't really disappear, it didn't go away.  It just adapted, morphed into the new system in order to survive and to continue on its mission.

Reid Attacks Romney in Apparent Violation of Senate Ethics Rules.  The personal political attack from [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid appears to violate the Senate's ethics rules.  According to the Senate Select Committee on Ethics, "Senate resources may only be used for official purposes.  The General Appropriations statute, 31 U.S.C § 1301, provides that official funds are to be used only for the purposes for which they were appropriated.  No official resources may be used to conduct campaign activities."  Reid's bold attack could attract the attention of the Senate Ethics Committee.

U.S. Investigating White House Cyber Attack.  Law enforcement and national security agencies are investigating the hacking of a White House computer last month that penetrated a network inside the White House Military Office that handles top-secret data, U.S. officials said.  On Capitol Hill, House Republicans this week asked the White House to provide details of the attack on the White House Communications Agency, which runs the Situation Room and classified communications and teleconferences.

October Surprise: Obama Plans Major Airstrike on Libyan Targets.  Today [10/3/2012], a Defense Department official confirmed to Breitbart News that there is advance planning for a "substantial air package" against targets in Libya.  Military sources suggest that this means that flight missions against Libyan targets will include manned flights, not merely drones.

Obama to designate Chavez home as nat'l monument.  President Barack Obama is designating the California home of labor leader Cesar Chavez as a national monument, a move likely to shore up support from Hispanic and progressive voters just five weeks before the election.

White House confirms cyberattack.  The White House confirmed but sought to downplay a report by a conservative website on Sunday [9/30/2012] that it had been the victim of a cyberattack, volunteering to POLITICO that no harm had been done.  The Washington Free Beacon reported that Chinese hackers had attacked a computer system in the White House Military Office.

Is QE 3 Really Just Another Bailout?  At a time when mortgage rates are at historic lows, home prices have fallen, and previous overbuilding leaves little room for growth in employment in the housing industry, why would the Federal Reserve suddenly decide to purchase $40 billion worth of mortgage securities a month supposedly in order to stimulate the housing market and thereby create more jobs?

Explosive Update: The Smolensk Crash.  The shocking news this week is that a snapped rivet was found during an autopsy of one of the recently exhumed victims of the crash.  This evidence bolsters growing evidence for an alternative explanation of the crash, which the new Polish government and Russian authorities insist was a matter of pilot error and heavy fog.  The alternate theory, increasingly borne out by evidence and testing, is that there was an explosion on board.

'Slander' and free speech are one and the same.  Who said the following:  "The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam."  Iran's Ahmadinejad?  Egypt's Morsi?  Some little-known, fatwa-flinging cleric increasing the bounty on Salman Rushdie's head?  None of the above.  The words are President Obama's, and he spoke them this week to the U.N. General Assembly.  No Big Media outlet reported this stunning pronouncement.

Where are all the separation of church and state people now?

Trump: Obama is a "Teflon" president.  Donald Trump, the real estate mogul and reality television personality, attacked President Obama Monday [9/24/2012] as a "Teflon" president, arguing that Mr. Obama benefits from a journalistic bias in his favor.  "You know, he gets the greatest press of anybody that I think I've ever seen," Trump said of the president, speaking at the convocation at Liberty University, a Christian college founded by Jerry Falwell.

How to Stop Hospitals From Killing Us.  Medical mistakes kill enough people each week to fill four jumbo jets.  But these mistakes go largely unnoticed by the world at large, and the medical community rarely learns from them.  The same preventable mistakes are made over and over again, and patients are left in the dark about which hospitals have significantly better (or worse) safety records than their peers.

Apparently, if you are a white male farmer, you do not have civil rights.
Obama USDA offering women, Hispanic farmers over $1.3 billion in discrimination payouts.  As part of "a new era of civil rights" at the Department of Agriculture, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced Monday that Hispanic and women farmers and ranchers who believe USDA discriminated against them can file claims to get a piece of at least $1.33 billion in cash awards and tax relief payments and up to $160 million in farm debt relief, beginning this week.  Women and Hispanic ranchers and farmers who feel the agency denied their loan or loan servicing applications because of their race or gender at various periods from 1981 to 2000 can file claims alleging discrimination from Sept. 24, 2012, to March 25, 2013, for a slice of the payout.

Hard Unemployment Truths About 'Soft' Skills.  "What exactly are the skills you can't find?" I asked, imagining that openings for high-tech positions went begging because, as we hear so often, the training of the U.S. workforce doesn't match up well with current corporate needs.  One of the representatives looked sheepishly around the room and responded:  "To be perfectly honest ... we have a hard time finding people who can pass the drug test."

Translation:  "Historically black college" means "all-black college."
Historically black colleges get $228 million in federal funds, including 15 schools in Alabama.  The U.S. Department of Education announced today [9/18/2012] that 97 historically black colleges will receive $227.9 million in federal funds as part of its annual Strengthening Historically Black Colleges and Universities grants.  Miles College President George French said there's a sense of relief after efforts to decrease federal funding across the board in the Department of Education.  "We're happy the funding levels were restored," said French.  "This is the second year we had to fight for funding.  It's still lower."

Three lawmakers, FEMA aide help open Scientology national office.  Three House members this week helped to open the first-ever Church of Scientology National Affairs Office in Washington, drawing politics into the controversial movement just as a new movie inspired by church founder L. Ron Hubbard opens.  Reps. Dan Burton, R-Ind., Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, and Danny Davis, D-Ill., spoke at the Wednesday [9/12/2012] opening on Dupont Circle.

Kansas considers removing Obama from ballot.  A GOP-controlled board in Kansas is trying to decide whether to remove President Obama from the state ballot over objections about his birth certificate.  The State Objections Board — consisting of three of the state's top Republican elected officials — ruled Thursday [9/13/2012] it did not yet have enough information and postponed a decision until Monday.  "I don't think it's a frivolous objection," Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach told the Topeka Capital-Journal.  "I do think the factual record could be supplemented."

The Editor says...
In case this is your first day on the internet, let me explain.  You see, President Obama (a/k/a Barry Soetoro) released an image of a document on April 27, 2011, which he claimed to be his birth certificate.  Subsequent examination of the image quickly revealed it to be a Photoshopped fake.  This act of fraud is one of many reasons that I believe President Obama/Soetoro should be impeached in the U.S. Senate and removed from office.

Obama Admin Transferred 3,000 Detainees to Afghan Gov't Control Day Before 9/11.  The U.S. formally transferred control of its largest prison to the Afghans in a ceremony Monday at Bagram airbase north of Kabul.

Strange Railroad Traffic Being Re-Routed Through Ft. Leavenworth Military Base.  The Northern line out of Kansas City has been closed since yesterday [9/10/2012], and all rail traffic is detoured through Lawrence since then.  The Northern line runs through the Leavenworth Military Base, and around the prisons. [...] These trains have been running non stop both directions all day long.  We know this because the trains blow whistles at every intersection, and every time they pass each other.

Chicago Under RahmCare: Do as We Say or Pay Up.  Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has announced a new "wellness program" for all city employees and their spouses (or domestic partners or civil-union spouses).  "Our program will change lives, make our workforce healthier, and save taxpayers money," Emanuel said.  The program, called Chicago Lives Healthy, is technically voluntary; but those refusing to participate in it will be penalized $50 a month per covered adult.  In other words, it's only voluntary if a couple wants to forego $1,200 a year.

'New York Post' Runs Boldest Anti-Obama Ad Yet.  Even casual readers of the New York Post will find it hard to miss the full-page ad immediately following the paper's must-read gossip section, Page Six, that claims President Obama's biological father is not Barack Hussein Obama Sr., but rather poet and labor activist Frank Marshall Davis.  Or as the ad puts it, "Communist Party Propagandist Frank Marshall Davis."  The ad, headlined "Obama's Big Lie Revealed," is a promotion for a DVD titled Dreams from My Real Father, which is billed as "Amazon's #1 documentary."

Students say they are forced to work on new iPhone 5.  Thousands of students in an east China city are being forced to work at a Foxconn plant after classes were suspended at the beginning of the new semester, it has been revealed.  Students from Huai'an in Jiangsu Province were driven to a factory in the city run by Taiwan's Foxconn Technology Company after the plant couldn't find sufficient workers for the production of Apple's much-anticipated iPhone 5, they said in online posts.  A student majoring in computing at the Huaiyin Institute of Technology said 200 students from her school had been driven to the factory.

Alinskyite Super PAC's Crusade to Take Down Michele Bachmann.  Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is now in the crosshairs of the radical left-wing Credo Super PAC which jettisoned an earlier pledge not to target any female congressional candidate in the upcoming election. [...] Bachmann is the "Queen of Crazy," according to Credo's website.  The PAC is attacking Bachmann because, among other things, she believes the U.S. Constitution limits the powers of the federal government, is an outspoken Christian, opposes same-sex marriage, believes manmade global warming is a myth, and wants to reform Medicare and Medicaid.

Television Stations Could Start Using Drones To Cover News Stories.  A drone originally developed for military use could soon be used by television stations and journalists as a news-gathering device.  The Schiebel Corporation's Camcopter, which is used by the United Arab Emirates Army and the Germany Navy, could soon be used for broadcasting purposes, according to TV News Check.

GOP platform proposes Tenth Amendment test for all federal spending.  All federal spending should be reviewed to ensure powers reserved for the states are not given to the federal government, according to the GOP platform approved Tuesday [8/28/2012].  The platform language is meant to ensure all federal spending meets the requirements of the 10th amendment, which prohibits state powers from being given to the feds.

One of most dangerous cities in US plans to ditch police force.  Amid what they call a "public safety crisis," officials in Camden, N.J., plan to disband the city's 141-year-old police department and replace it with a non-union division of the Camden County Police.  Camden city officials have touted the move as necessary to combat the city's growing financial and safety problems.  The entire 267-member police department will be laid off and replaced with a newly reformatted metro division, which is projected to have some 400 members.

Anti-Obama doc '2016' doing well in Ohio, Texas.  Here are the five strongest U.S. theater markets in terms of ticket sales for "2016: Obama's America," based on box office data from Rentrak, a media measurement and research company.

What Is the Natural Political Home of Indian-Americans?  One group whose support President Obama can apparently take for granted is Indian-Americans.  But why?  As we enter the home stretch of the presidential election, one group whose support President Barack Obama can apparently take for granted is Indian-Americans.  According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, 65 percent of the 2.85 million-strong community self-identifies as Democratic or Democratic-leaning.  Fewer than one in five see themselves as Republicans.  In 2008, a whopping 84 percent of Indian-Americans voted for Obama, one of the highest proportion of any ethnic group in America.

Feds shut down criminal probe of Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio.  Federal prosecutors closed an exhaustive four-year FBI criminal investigation and grand-jury probe targeting Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, former County Attorney Andrew Thomas and their top deputies, saying there will be no indictments.

Fed Primes the Pump to Re-Elect Obama.  [Scroll down]  "We will act in an apolitical, non-partisan manner to do what is necessary for the economy," Bernanke quickly responded.  "We have said we are willing to take further action."  As the election grows close, the Fed is acting to inflate the dollar — just in time to try to save President Obama.  According to the Fed, a third round of "quantitative easing" may be on its way so long as the economy doesn't ratchet up.

Box Office: Obama Doc '2016' Stuns Hollywood.  Gerald R. Molen, the Oscar-winning producer behind "Schindler's List" and "2016," and Dinesh D'Souza, upon who's book the film is based, should send the corrupt media a fruit basket today.  The corrupt media will likely tell you "2016" is a success because of racism and hate, but the real reason people are flocking is to try and grasp a better understanding of this awful, divisive, inept, and anti-American failure currently sitting in the Oval Office.  Nothing we've seen over the last four years and especially during this campaign in any way matches the carefully crafted image Obama and his media punks have crafted and bitterly clung to.

Exposing the Real Barack Obama.  Every seat in the theater was filled, even though there had been an earlier showing that day, and more showings were scheduled for the rest of the afternoon and evening.  I had to sit on a staircase in the balcony, but it was worth it.  The audience was riveted.  You could barely hear a sound from them, or detect a movement, and certainly not smell popcorn.  Yet the movie had no bombast, no violence, no sex and no spectacular visual effects.

Anti-Obama Documentary a Box Office Hit.  A documentary highly critical of President Obama's past became the second highest-grossing documentary of the year last weekend, grossing $1.2 million last weekend.  "2016: Obama's America," based on conservative author Dines D'Souza's book "The Roots of Obama's Rage," expanded to 169 theaters nationwide on Friday [8/24/2012], following the success of its limited release to 61 theaters over the past month, the Hollywood Reporter first reported.

Box Office Report: Anti-Obama Doc Drawing Big Crowds, Even in New York City.  An anti-Barack Obama documentary based on conservative author Dinesh D'Souza's book The Roots of Obama's Rage will expand nationwide this weekend after doing notable business in select markets across the country — including in liberal-minded New York City.

Wash Post Gushed Over 'Emotional Power' of 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' Slams 'Fear-Mongering' '2016'.  Apparently, one-sided documentaries are only a problem if they're conservative.

Why Is The Press Ignoring The Success Of '2016'?  So far, "2016" has taken in more than $9.3 million, which puts it easily within reach of becoming one of the top five highest-grossing political documentaries of all time.  And, if anything, the movie is just getting started.  Last weekend, it averaged nearly $6,000 per screen, which is higher than when it was showing in just 62 theaters a couple weeks ago.  But aside from a few grudging news stories about the weekend box office take and a smattering of predictably critical reviews, the media are largely turning a studied blind eye to the film.

Holder Justice Department Recruits Dwarfs, Schizophrenics, and the 'Intellectually Disabled'.  The PJ Tatler has obtained documents from the Justice Department detailing efforts to recruit attorneys and staff who are dwarfs or who have "psychiatric disabilities" or "severe intellectual disabilities."  On May 31, 2012, Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez issued a directive to affirmatively recruit people with these "targeted disabilities."  This DOJ policy does not merely involve prohibitions against discrimination, but rather the documents reveal deliberate recruitment efforts to hire as attorneys and staff for the Department of Justice people suffering from psychiatric disorders and intellectual disabilities.

The Editor says...
Why would the leadership of the Justice Department do something like this?  Because the Justice Department is politicized from top to bottom, and the next President will find it impossible to fire these people.  It's like pouring sugar in the gas tank of a car right before it is repossessed, just to be spiteful.  By loading the Justice Department with half-wits and psychotics, the next (non-Democrat) administration will have a hard time prosecuting any voter fraud that takes place in the November 2012 election.  On the other hand, how many people with "severe intellectual disabilities" make it through law school?

Federal Auditor: 2,527 DHS Employees and Co-Conspirators Convicted of Crimes.  There have been 2,527 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employees and co-conspirators convicted of corruption and other criminal misconduct since 2004, according to a federal auditor. [...] Some cases date back to fiscal year 2004 (Oct. 1, 2003 thru Sept. 30, 2004) although the majority of the open investigations were initiated in the last three fiscal years.  The DHS started operating in March 2003.

The Editor says...
That sounds bad, but it also sounds like a meaningless one-dimensional statistic that gives no indication of the seriousness of those crimes or the percentage of the DHS workforce involved.  The details are laid out in the remainder of the article.

Oklahoma police captain sues department over mosque assignment.  A Tulsa police officer and devout Christian is suing his department after being punished for refusing to go to a mosque for a mandatory cultural event.  Police Capt. Paul Campbell Fields, a 17-year veteran, was docked two weeks' pay, transferred, reduced to the graveyard shift and made ineligible for promotions for at least a year, after he told his chief his faith made it impossible for him to attend a "Law Enforcement Appreciation Day" at the Islamic Cultural Society of Tulsa, according to the lawsuit.

'2016: Obama's America' Movie Is Disturbingly Necessary.  [Scroll down]  To watch this movie and realize — or simply be reminded of — all that is unknown about President Obama is of concern.  Much of the information has been ignored by the American media totally.  When appropriately reminded as to what is still unknown about Obama to date, one has to ask:  How can any logical-thinking person [care] about Romney's taxes while not asking any questions regarding our current president's past?  The man influences the entire globe, but liberal Americans want to know how much Mitt Romney paid in taxes in the past rather than learn about the man who they have entrusted with the country.  Unbelievable.

Is America becoming a 'socialist state'? 40 percent say yes.  Two of every five Americans today say their country is evolving into a socialist state.  That finding, contained in a new nationwide poll, highlights a central debate in the 2012 election campaign and a major challenge for President Obama.

New Evidence of Corruption Involving Sale of Farmington Public Schools Property to the Islamic Cultural Association.  A stunning new development has come to light surrounding allegations of public corruption over the sale of Farmington Public Schools (FPS) property to the Islamic Cultural Association (ICA).  On Wednesday, August 8th, Reverend Bruce D. Burwell, Senior Pastor of Light of the World Christian Center in West Bloomfield, read aloud a prepared statement on how the person in charge of FPS properties told him the property was not for sale when he expressed an interest in purchasing it for his church.  FPS subsequently sold the vacant Eagle Elementary school property to the Islamic Cultural Association.

National Review's Rich Lowry Destroys MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on Meet the Press.  She's touted by the liberal media as one of the brightest commentators on television, yet MSNBC's Rachel Maddow got thoroughly demolished by National Review editor Rich Lowry on Sunday's Meet the Press.

Report: Rep. Steve King mulling bill to repeal everything Obama has signed.  Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), an outspoken critic of just about everything President Obama supports, is considering introducing a bill that would repeal everything Obama has signed into law.  King put forward this suggestion to an Iowa audience on Tuesday [8/7/2012], when he also reiterated his threat to sue the Obama administration for its June decision not to deport younger illegal immigrants.

Zimmerman Prosecutors In Huge Screw-Up.  In an embarrassing screw-up, Florida prosecutors today [8/9/2012] accidentally distributed a post-mortem photo of Trayvon Martin as well as copies of George Zimmerman's college records, material that Florida law considers confidential and exempt from disclosure.  The documents were inadvertently included in supplemental discovery records distributed this morning by prosecutor Angela Corey's office.

Zambian miners crush a Chinese manager to death.  Suppose a manager of a British mining company picked up a gun and opened fire on his African workforce?  What if the company concerned paid its Zambian miners less than the legal minimum wage?  Suppose relations on the shop floor became so poisonous that furious workers chose to crush a manager to death? [...] Yet all of the above has happened at a Chinese-owned mine in Zambia.

You drop fifteen tons an' whaddaya get?  In a move surely designed to give Iran's militant mullahs pause for thought, the Obama Administration has released information that America's biggest bunker-busting bomb is ready to use.  Last week, Air Force Secretary, Michael Donley, told Defense News that the massive ordnance penetrator, MOP, a 30,000 pound behemoth designed to penetrate the earth to an alleged depth of 200 feet, is ready to be employed against Iranian nuclear weapons production sites.  It is almost a certainty that the weapon's announced capabilities are short of actual performance.  You don't announce your limitations to your enemies so they can simply dig deeper redoubts for their bomb building program.  So actual penetration capabilities remain unknown.

Congressman's Anti-Big Government Rant Gets Standing Ovation On House Floor.  Rep. Mike Kelly just gained a lot of new fans.

The Editor says...
The Mike Kelly video is well worth your time.

The Communists Killed Kennedy.  Former CIA officer Brian Latell's new book, Castro's Secrets, includes the revelation that Fidel Castro knew Lee Harvey Oswald was going to kill President Kennedy.  The book deserves far more attention that it has received and adds to an existing body of evidence that Castro not only had foreknowledge of the plot to kill JFK but was actually behind it, most likely with Soviet backing.

Bill Nye the Obama Guy.  Bill Nye, that quirky science guy of 1990s TV fame, is taking his colorful bow ties and sweet science tricks on the road as another famous face of the Obama campaign.  Nye made a three-stop tour through New Hampshire this week touting the president's education policies and pushing for science and engineering programs.

Vast aquifer found in Namibia could last for centuries.  A newly discovered water source in Namibia could have a major impact on development in the driest country in sub-Saharan Africa.  Estimates suggest the aquifer could supply the north of the country for 400 years at current rates of consumption.  Scientists say the water is up to 10,000 years old but is cleaner to drink than many modern sources.  However, there are concerns that unauthorised drilling could threaten the new supply.

Unintentionally Hilarious Trailer for Pro-Obama Movie.  Judging by the 2:30-long trailer for The Obama Effect, the movie, set in 2008, is the fictional account of a man named John (played by Charles S. Dutton) who suffers a heart attack and discovers he's spared death because he has a mission from God:  campaigning for Barack Obama.  No, I'm serious.  The promoters of the film cast it as a comedy, but it's NOT a satire.  It really does appear to be a serious movie.

The biggest financial fraud in history receives scant media attention.  We are now finding out that the entire system has been rigged, enriching the "elect" and financially looting the rest.  If you are reading this, you have been robbed, although the corporate media remains silent about who robbed you, how it was done, and which government and non-government officials were complicit and benefited.  Why?  Perhaps the most compelling reason is that when the "average" person learns the depths at which corruption exists between the various banks, governments and government officials, there will be a revolution like the world has never seen.

All GOP Governors Elected in 2010 Reduced Unemployment.  Meanwhile, our president touts stagnation at 8.2% as "a step in the right direction."  Clearly, the solutions put forth in these 17 states are working, and the ones offered by the White House aren't.

Unemployment Rate Dropped In Every State That Elected A Republican Gov. In 2010.  In 2010, influenced by the Tea Party and its focus on fiscal issues, 17 states elected Republican governors.  And, according to an Examiner.com analysis, every one of those states saw a drop in their unemployment rates since January of 2011.  Furthermore, the average drop in the unemployment rate in these states was 1.35%, compared to the national decline of .9%, which means, according to the analysis, that the job market in these Republican states is improving 50% faster than the national rate.

The soft sexism of low expectations:
Mayor designates parking spaces for men.  Calling himself a proponent of equal rights, the mayor of a small town in the Black Forest has designated special parking spaces in the municipal garage for men — because they're harder to get into.

Restaurant Faces Investigation For Offering Church Discount.  A family-owned restaurant in Pennsylvania is under a state discrimination investigation for offering a ten percent discount for diners who present a church bulletin on Sundays. [...] According to the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act, a restaurant classified as a public accomodation.  As such, restaurants are not allowed to discriminate based on religion — among other things.

Why More And More Americans Are Abandoning Their US Citizenship.  In November, millions of Americans will trudge to their local polling places to cast votes in the hope of improving their lives here in the USA.  Between now and then, a few hundred Americans will vote with their feet in the hope of improving their lives outside the USA.  Last year, nearly 1,800 Americans surrendered their citizenship.  In a nation of 300 million folks, 1,800 émigrés is hardly a rush for the exits.  But the recent trend is, nevertheless, intriguing.

Justice Department files complaint seeking revamp of Corpus Christi police hiring practices.  The Department of Justice filed a federal complaint Tuesday [7/3/2012] against the city of Corpus Christi claiming its human resources department practiced a pattern of discrimination against prospective female police officers.  The complaint states the city violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and challenges the department's use of a physical ability test for new officers.

DOJ lawsuit: Physical test for police officers discriminates against women.  The Corpus Christi, Texas Police Department has found itself on the business end of a civil rights lawsuit after the Justice Department concluded that a physical ability test used when considering job applications discriminates against women.

Marylanders move in droves to Virginia.  Maryland lost the most residents in the mid-Atlantic between 2007 and 2010  — and many of them moved to Virginia, according to a study released Tuesday [7/3/2012].  Almost 40,000 Marylanders crossed the Potomac River for new homes in Virginia, taking $2.17 billion with them, according to the Internal Revenue Service data used in the study conducted by Change Maryland, a nonpartisan group advocating for less state spending and lower taxes.

Lifeguard in Florida fired after saving drowning man.  A young lifeguard in Florida has lost his job after rescuing a drowning man in a section of beach he was not assigned to patrol, local news media reported Wednesday.  Tomas Lopez, 21, was manning his post on Hallandale Beach, north of Miami, on Monday afternoon [7/2/2012] when a beach-goer alerted him to a swimmer struggling in an "unprotected" part of the beach.

Florida lifeguard fired for rescue outside beach zone.  A South Florida lifeguard who rushed to save a drowning man has been fired for leaving the section of the beach his company is paid to patrol.

Symptoms of a sick culture.  Two days before the Fourth of July, [Thomas] Lopez was fired for helping rescue a man drowning 1,500 feet outside of his designated zone.  "It was a long run, but someone needed my help.  I wasn't going to say no," Lopez told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and other media outlets.  When Lopez filed his incident report, he was canned on the spot.

Florida lifeguard says he's been offered his job back.  The south Florida lifeguard fired for leaving his post so he could save a swimmer outside his coverage zone said Thursday he has been offered his job back.  But Tomas Lopez told CNN he does not plan to return to work.

Consumers Prefer to Get More Rather than Pay Less — Because They're Bad at Math.  When offered the possibility of 33% off a product or the same product with 33% more quantity, which would you choose?  The Economist sums up the results of a new study published in the Journal of Marketing, which reveals that most consumers view these options as essentially the same proposition.  But they're not.

Con Ed locks out 8,000 employees, managers take over system as talks with union break down.  Negotiations broke down early Sunday [7/1/2012] between Consolidated Edison and its unionized workers, prompting the lock out of about 8,000 employees, utility officials said.  "We remain far apart," said Michael Clendenin, a Con Edison spokesman.

Rand Paul puts forward measure that would force the Senate to read bills.  After blasting the Senate last week for passing a 600-page bill no one had time to read, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) introduced legislation that would force the Senate to give its members one day to read bills for every 20 pages they contain.  "For goodness sakes, this is a 600-page bill.  I got it this morning," Paul said Friday [6/29/2012], just before the Senate approved a massive bill extending highway funding, federal flood insurance and low student loans rates.

Report: FBI Investigates More Than 100 Suspected Islamic Extremists Within U.S. Military.  More than 100 investigations into suspected Islamic extremists within the military have been carried out by the FBI, including 12 cases considered serious, NPR is reporting.  Investigators believe the main target to be military bases.

FBI Tracking 100 Suspected Extremists In Military.  The FBI has conducted more than 100 investigations into suspected Islamic extremists within the military, NPR has learned.  About a dozen of those cases are considered serious.  Officials define that as a case requiring a formal investigation to gather information against suspects who appear to have demonstrated a strong intent to attack military targets.  This is the first time the figures have been publicly disclosed.

Investigate Radical Christianity!  According to the esteemed Bible scholar Rosie O'Donnell, it's "just as dangerous as radical Islam."

Obama's red ink problem spreads to his campaign.  Deficit spending has become such a habit with President Obama that now his campaign is doing it.

This sounds like an idea you'd expect to hear in a communist dictatorship.
Desperation: Obama Surrogate Calls to Make Voting Mandatory.  Peter Orszag, former head of the Obama Office of Management and Budget, is desperate.  With even Roll Call recognizing that President Obama is fighting an uphill battle for re-election, Orszag is floating a trial balloon:  mandatory voting.

Voter Apathy Isn't a Crime.  It's a sure sign someone is losing when he demands that the rules be changed.  That might explain the renewed interest in forcing people to vote against their will.  Peter Orszag, President Obama's former budget director and now a vice chairman at Citigroup, recently wrote a column for Bloomberg View arguing for making voting mandatory.

Gary Kreep clinches win for judge.  Ramona lawyer and conservative legal advocate Gary Kreep, nationally know for challenging the legitimacy of President Barack Obama's birth certificate, has clinched a seat on the San Diego Superior Court.  Kreep led Deputy District Attorney Garland Peed by 1,569 votes Tuesday [6/19/2012], with 1,000 ballots left to count from the June 5 election.

Man Goes On Casino Bender After An ATM Let Him Take Out Unlimited Cash.  Ronald Page thought he'd hit the jackpot when a glitchy ATM at a Detroit casino allowed him to make unlimited withdrawals, reports Detroit's Local 10 News.  With unlimited funds at his fingertips, police say Page went on a gambling bender, hitting up at least three casinos, including the MGM Grand and Motor City.  By the time his bank, Bank of America, figured out what was happening, he had reportedly withdrawn and gambled away $1.5 million.

Tax-exempt Media Matters ramps up support for Obama during election year.  President Obama has received a steady drumbeat of support from Media Matters for America as he shifts into campaigner-in-chief mode.  A content analysis by The Daily Caller shows that the tax-exempt liberal messaging organization has steadily committed more of its resources to defending Obama from critical media coverage during 2012.

Government Thumb-Breakers.  When President Obama signed the controversial overhaul of the federal student loan program into law in 2010, he declared victory over "bankers and middlemen."  To this day, however, the federal government continues to engage in some of the same deceptive lending policies private firms are frequently accused of practicing.  Most glaring, experts say, is an extraordinarily high collection penalty — up to 25 percent — imposed on students who default on their federal loans.

NJ housing authority says old glory must go.  A 75-year-old Phillipsburg, New Jersey woman faces the possibility of eviction for hanging three American flags from her balcony.  The stars and stripes hang in front of the municipal building, on private homes and commercial businesses.  There's a big one outside the government run senior housing complex where Dawn Paulus lives, but it's the three little ones hanging from her sixth floor balcony that have stirred a huge controversy.

Wis. Leftist Group's Mailing Tries to Shame Non-Voters by Revealing Their Names to Neighbors.  Friday evening [6/1/2012], Madison, Wisconsin blogger Ann Althouse reported receiving (HT Instapundit) an "Incredibly creepy mail today from the Greater Wisconsin Political Fund."  She has a put up an image of what she received with names and addresses redacted (except for her name).  It's a list which includes Althouse and many of her neighbors indicating who has and hasn't voted in the last two elections.

FEMA chief refuses to attribute recent tornado activity to global warming.  Although the official line of the Obama White House is that global warming is a serious issue that needs to be dealt with, the president's point man on disaster relief refused Wednesday [5/30/2012] to attribute the recent increased tornado activity to the alleged climate threat.

Attendees of Eric Holder event think Operation Fast and Furious is a movie.  Attorney General Eric Holder gave the keynote address at a meeting of the Congressional Black Caucus and the Conference of National Black Churches on Wednesday morning.  Following the speech, The Daily Caller asked attendees what they thought of Operation Fast and Furious...

Top weather forecaster retires amid controversy.  The head of the National Weather Service has retired unexpectedly after an internal investigation found that agency employees improperly shifted millions of dollars in budget resources to weather service offices around the country.

Why would Obama's campaign strategist attend Obama's Kill List Meetings?  David Axelrod evidently attended the highest level national security meetings that decided who would be subjected to targeted assasination from above via drone strikes. [...] Wonder if Axelrod has security clearance?  Recall that Axelrod also attended meetings with Netanyahu — why was he there then?

766,000 More Women Unemployed Today Than When Obama Took Office.  The number of American women who are unemployed was 766,000 individuals greater in May 2012 than in January 2009, when President Barack Obama took office, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  In January 2009, there were approximately 5,005,000 unemployed women in the United States, according to BLS.  In May 2012, there were 5,771,000.

Target Corp. Announces T-Shirt Campaign for Homosexual Marriage.  Pro-family groups are taking major U.S. merchandiser Target Corporation to task for its recently announced initiative to raise money for homosexual activism.  Two years after getting into hot water with homosexual groups for backing Republican Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, who supported a state amendment to define marriage as only between a man and a woman, the Minnesota-based Target Corp. is now "inching into the gay-pride market," reported the St. Paul Pioneer Press, "offering 10 rainbow-themed T-shirts for sale online and promising to donate 100 percent of the proceeds to the Family Equality Council [FEC], a group for gay and lesbian families."

Meet Soros-Funded Domestic Terrorist Brett Kimberlin Whose 'Job' Is Terrorizing Bloggers Into Silence.  Drug dealer, alleged child molester, and convicted perjurer, forger and Indiana Speedway Bomber (who is also believed to have played a role in the assassination of a grandmother), Brett Kimberlin, spent 17 years in prison before his ultimate re-absorption into American society.  He started a non-profit dubbed "Justice Through Music (JTM)" that has, since at least 2005, been funded by George Soros' Tides Foundation and Barbara Streisand among other leftists.  Along with his associate, Kimberlin also started an organization called "Velvet Revolution" that supports the Occupy movement.

30 North Korean officials involved in South talks die 'in traffic accidents'.  Thirty officials of the North Korean regime who were involved in talks with South Korea have been executed or died in "staged traffic accidents," according to a human rights report.

Ohio has one of lowest rates of injury-related deaths in U.S..  Ohio has one of the lowest injury-related death rates in the country even though it has fewer injury prevention laws and programs than most other states, according to a national report released Tuesday [5/22/2012].

Tony Blair wanted to end speech with: "God bless Britain".  Tony Blair has disclosed that he once wanted to end an address to the nation with the words "God bless Britain".  However, the former Prime Minister said his suggestion provoked such strong concern from civil servants that he was forced to drop the idea.

Those who live to impose regulations on others aren't always as eager to obey regulations themselves.
What Stimulus?  [I]t's not only in formal speeches that the Obama administration is steering clear of publicizing the stimulus.  It has now been five months since the administration last put out a report card on the so-called American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA — aka the "stimulus"), which the act itself requires the administration to do.  In fact, the administration is now three economic quarters behind schedule in chronicling the effects of Obama's second-most prominent piece of legislation — again, in defiance of the very law it's supposed to be reviewing.

Critics Blast Big Psychiatry for Invented and Redefined Mental Illnesses.  [Scroll down]  Depending on the outcome of the ongoing conflict, millions of people may suddenly find out that they are afflicted with newly created "diseases," while others — especially certain individuals diagnosed with forms of autism — may no longer qualify under the new definitions.  Tens of millions more may soon be officially considered "addicts" under the revised definition for addiction, too.

Taxpayers On Hook For $850 Billion In Student Loans.  With a possible higher-education bubble looming, taxpayers are on the hook for about $850 billion in student loan debt.  Exactly how much of that the federal government would have to bail out if the bubble bursts is unknown, but with delinquency and default rates rising, it could be substantial.  Yet Congress may exacerbate the problem with current efforts to maintain lower interest rates on student loans.

Why France Has So Many 49-Employee Companies.  Here's a curious fact about the French economy:  The country has 2.4 times as many companies with 49 employees as with 50.  What difference does one employee make?  Plenty, according to the French labor code.  Once a company has at least 50 employees inside France, management must create three worker councils, introduce profit sharing, and submit restructuring plans to the councils if the company decides to fire workers for economic reasons.  French businesspeople often skirt these restraints by creating new companies rather than expanding existing ones.

Missing: $400 purse holding $800 cash, plus food stamp cards.  It bears repeating, as both a critique and a warning of things to come, that the great project of the American Left involves teaching the middle class to think of itself as "poor."  That way, they'll vote themselves into servitude.

Situation room
Strange Anomalies in the Famous Situation Room Photo.  The concept of a composite presidency certainly comes as no shock as someone who participated as a contributor and authored evidence presented at Sheriff Joe Arpaio's press conference on Obama's long-form birth certificate report.  On the heels of these events — and taking advantage of an anniversary of the bin Laden raid — are recent campaign tactics to politicize the killing of Osama bin Laden.  With the re-emergence of another round of gutsy call faux heroism regarding Obama's decision, it may also be a good time to revisit the famous "Situation Room" photo released by the White House.  Is it Photoshopped?  Like everything else Obama does to make a political point, is the photo a composite as well?

May 8, 2012:  The Night the Primaries Got a Lot of Fun.  In Wisconsin, Scott Walker received more votes running against no one in the Republican primary than the two major Democratic candidates got combined.  In North Carolina, "No Preference" garnered 21 percent in the Democratic Party presidential primary against Barack Obama.  In West Virginia, "A felon incarcerated in Texas took one in three votes away from President Obama in West Virginia's Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday.  Keith Judd, who is serving time in a federal prison in Texarkana, Texas, for extortion, took 37 percent of the vote, with 50 percent of precincts reporting.  Obama captured the remaining 63 percent."

Family Matters.  President Obama's brother-in-law Konrad Ng may have been involved in a federal Hatch Act violation, Buzzfeed reported Thursday [5/3/2012]:  ["]The Maryland Democratic Party appears to have skirted federal law on political activities by government employees, identifying President Barack Obama's brother-in-law Konrad Ng as the Director of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program in an email on the party's Asian American and Pacific Leadership Council.["]

Secret files missing at National Archives.  The National Archives and Records Administration has lost track of dozens of boxes of confidential and secret government files at its records center just outside of Washington, the latest in a series of such incidents spanning more than a decade.

'Boycott Best Buy' Movement Takes Off.  A former Marine who served in Beirut in 1982-1983 and Iraq in 2003 looks into the camera and declares, "On behalf of myself and my family, we will no longer conduct business at Best Buy."  He cuts his card in half.  The Marine joined over 8,000 others who have signed a petition to boycott Best Buy over the company's financial support for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group tied to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

Senators want to rid federal law of word 'lunatic'.  Sens. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) on Wednesday [4/25/2012] introduced legislation that would remove all references to the word "lunatic" from federal law, a step they said is needed to reflect the country's modern understanding of mental-health conditions.  Conrad said that by eliminating "lunatic" from federal law, the 21st Century Language Act, S. 2367, would help reduce the stigmatization of such conditions.

Lights, Camera, Crazy!  According to Richard Vedder, an Ohio University economist and the foremost national expert on college tuition, the fees at his alma mater, Northwestern University, consumed 15 percent of the annual median family income in 1958.  By 2003, tuition at Northwestern chewed up a gaudy 53 percent of median family income.  Other schools exhibit similar explosions.  Much of this obscene acceleration in prices can be laid at the feet of the federal government, which, in a vicious cycle, subsidizes loans, makes direct grants, and offers loan forgiveness, all of which in turn spur higher education institutions to hike tuition further, which in turn necessitates further government aid.

Five Devastating Numbers That Show Obama's Incompetence.  The average unemployment rate during George Bush's time in office was roughly 5.3% as compared to 8.2% today, which is part of the longest streak of over 8% unemployment since the Great Depression. [...] There are 5 million Americans who not only lost their jobs, but who became so discouraged trying to find a job that they just gave up.

America's false autism epidemic.  We have a strong urge to find labels for disturbing behaviors; naming things gives us an (often false) feeling that we control them.  So, time and again, an obscure diagnosis suddenly comes out of nowhere to achieve great popularity.  It seems temporarily to explain a lot of previously confusing behavior — but then suddenly and mysteriously returns to obscurity.  Not so long ago, autism was the rarest of diagnoses, occurring in fewer than one in 2,000 people.  Now the rate has skyrocketed to 1 in 88 in America (and to a remarkable 1 in 38 in Korea).  And there is no end in sight.

Obama Woos Young Voters with Cheap Student Loans.  Obama is calling on Congress to extend a law that cut interest rates on a popular federal loan program for low- and middle-income undergraduates.

GOP senators sue Obama over sham labor board nominees.  In a double-barrelled blast at President Obama, Senate Republicans today moved to join a lawsuit challenging the White House's Christmas "recess appointment" of National Labor Relations Board members even though the Senate was technically in session.  To handle their case, they hired Miguel Estrada, who in 2002 became the first-ever judicial nominee to be torpedoed by a Democratic filibuster.

Total Recall: Our Future Hangs on Wisconsin Vote.  Most Governors can slip in and out of other states with almost no notice, but Gov. Walker has been criss-crossing the country speaking on government reform and eliciting both ardent support and fervent opposition.  Such scenes go a long way to explaining why the upcoming recall vote in Wisconsin is so critical.  In fact, the upcoming vote is the most important election taking place in 2012.

She was for it before she was against it.
Retreat.  The congresswoman who has stood next to Trayvon Martin's parents at rallies and emerged as one of the most vocal critics of the Sanford Police Department supported the "Stand Your Ground" law at the center of the case.

Allen West speaks with Soledad O'Brien.  CNN's Soledad O'Brien got a much-needed education about political ideologies from Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) Thursday [4/19/2012].  When she brought up a quote from the Vice Chairman of the National Communist Party refuting the Congressman's claim there are 78 to 81 Communists in Congress, West simply replied, "I don't care what he says".

Obama Administration Discontinues Transparency Tool.  Since 1993, the Census Bureau has made available detailed data about federal government expenditures in its Consolidated Federal Funds Report (CFFR).  The 2012 report will be the last one.  Through the CFFR website, the public had access to such data as federal expenditures made at the county level for programs such as Medicaid, Social Security, and Medicare as well as for more obscure federal spending programs.  How much did the federal government send to Autauga County in Alabama for a hazardous materials training program?  That data was available, but now it is concealed.

'No trace' left after extreme executions in North Korea.  [Scroll down]  "When Kim Jong-un became North Korean leader following the mourning period for his father in late December, high-ranking military officers started disappearing," the South Korean government source told Chosun Ilbo.  "From information compiled over the last month, we have concluded that dozens of military officers were purged."  Mr. Kim also ordered loyal officials to "get rid of" anyone caught misbehaving during the mourning period for his father, the source added.

Strength of case against Zimmerman questioned.  Now that George Zimmerman is behind bars facing murder charges for shooting Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla. on Feb. 26, there are questions about just how strong a case prosecutors have against him.

Evidence against Zimmerman lacking on key issue.  Records released last week show little evidence that George Zimmerman acted with malice when he shot Trayvon Martin.  That could pose a problem for prosecutors.

George Zimmerman Case: Should Charges Be Dropped?  Two prominent U.S. lawyers are among the skeptics questioning whether evidence in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin supports the second-degree murder charge against George Zimmerman, given the confessed shooter's apparent injuries and freshly released eyewitness accounts.  "There is no second-degree murder evidence in this case," Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz said.  "It's a very close case."

Several George Zimmerman witnesses change their accounts.  Evidence released last week in the second-degree-murder case against George Zimmerman shows four key witnesses made major changes in what they say they saw and heard the night he fatally shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford.  Three changed their stories in ways that may damage Zimmerman.  A fourth abandoned her initial story, that she saw one person chasing another.  Now, she says, she saw a single figure running.

Maryland becomes the first state to ban employers from asking for social media passwords.  Moving to the forefront of social media privacy law nationwide, the Maryland General Assembly has passed legislation prohibiting employers in the state from asking current and prospective employees for their user names and passwords to websites such as Facebook and Twitter.  If Gov. Martin O'Malley signs the bill — his office said it was one of hundreds of bills it has yet to review — the bill would make Maryland the first state in the nation to set such a restriction into law.  Other states are considering similar legislation, including Illinois and California.

Bunkers, Food, Armor: Disaster Prep Hits Mainstream.  Preppers are folks who detect the possibility of calamity and decide to increase their odds of surviving it by putting aside supplies.  "Putting things by" — essential throughout most of humanity's existence — was common in the United States up until advances in transportation logistics brought about the "just in time" shipping model.

Remember:  Always get a second opinion.
'Stillborn' Argentine baby found alive in morgue — 12 hours after being pronounced dead.  A newborn in Argentina declared dead shortly after her birth was reportedly discovered 12 hours later alive and well in her coffin.  When six-months pregnant Analia Bouter gave birth at a hospital in Resistencia, staff told her the baby was stillborn and showed no signs of life, the BBC reported, citing local media.

Congressman Questions Labor Dept 'Propaganda'.  Rep. Joe Walsh (R., Ill.) is calling on Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis to explain why the department posted a series of overtly political posters throughout the building.  Walsh is responding to a Free Beacon report revealing that signs posted in at least 20 DOL elevators depict Secretary Hilda Solis carrying a bullhorn and rallying alongside the Rev. Al Sharpton.  Next to the pictures is a quote from Solis that reads in part:  "We all march in our own way."

British writer John Derbyshire sacked by The National Review for racist article.  Derbyshire wrote that parents of white and Asian children should teach them not to "attend events likely to draw a lot of blacks", who he said were generally less intelligent and more dangerous.  "A small cohort of blacks — in my experience, around five per cent — is ferociously hostile to whites and will go to great lengths to inconvenience or harm us," Derbyshire wrote.

Huckabee Show Opens With Staged Caller.  The thought is now out there that Mike Huckabee himself knew exactly who was on the other end of his phone line — a Cumulus programming executive with whom, presumably, he had spent a small eternity in the weeks leading up to the show's launch — and quite deliberately played possum.  Going along with a game to fool his listeners into thinking he was getting a real call when in fact he was not.  Was Mike Huckabee a participant in this charade?  Whose idea was it if not Mike Huckabee's?

Carpetbagger Joe K3 sweeps query under rug.  If you are Joe Kennedy 3.0 running for Congress as a member of the most politically connected family in the nation and you make an appearance at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, what questions should your handlers have primed you to expect?  I'll give you a hint — the JFK library is next door.  Here's another hint — Uncle Teddy's shrine is going up next to that.  Located between UMass-Boston and the presidential library is the under-construction Edward Kennedy Institute, more commonly referred to as the Ted Kennedy Shrine.

Woo-woo-woo!  Ding-ding!  Woo-woo-woo!
New tornado warnings to pinpoint storm's severity.  In a test that starts Monday [4/2/2012], five weather service offices in Kansas and Missouri will use words such as "mass devastation," "unsurvivable" and "catastrophic" in a new kind of warning that's based on the severity of a storm's expected impact.

The Editor says...
Since there are so many weather warnings on radio and TV, usually about storms in another county, the public has become annoyed and desensitized by the alerts.  So the government will now incorporate more shocking rhetoric in their warnings, so people will pay attention — for a few years.  After a while, the general public will blow off these warnings, too.  It is a lot like the government wanting to put graphic pictures on cigarette packages because nobody pays attention to the verbal warnings any more.  Bureaucrats hate to be ignored.

Ex-wife could be jailed for baptizing kids.  A Tennessee woman could do some time in jail for getting her two children baptized without consulting her ex-husband.  A state appeals court ruled this week that Lauren Jarrell could be charged with criminal contempt for violating a parenting agreement, WREG-TV, Memphis, reported.  She could face 10 days in jail if convicted.

Elderly Florida couple lawyers up after Spike Lee address tweet.  It was bound to happen.  The elderly Sanford, Florida couple whose address was misidentified by a tweet from a Los Angeles man and later retweeted by filmmaker and actor Spike Lee, has hired the Morgan & Morgan law firm to represent them, reports the Orlando Sentinel.  "At this point, they have retained us to protect their interests" and their safety, attorney Matt Morgan said of Elaine and David McClain, an elderly Sanford couple in their 70s.

Elderly couple forced out of home after tweet claims killer of Trayvon Martin lives there.  An elderly Florida couple have been forced to move into a hotel after their home address was wrongly tweeted as belonging to the man who shot teen Trayvon Martin.  The tweets were traced back to a man in California and the address was also reportedly retweeted by director Spike Lee to his almost 250,000 followers.

Couple who fled home after Spike Lee tweet hires Morgan firm.  A couple who say they were forced to leave their home after director Spike Lee retweeted their address to his Twitter followers has hired the Morgan & Morgan law firm to represent them.  "At this point, they have retained us to protect their interests" and their safety, attorney Matt Morgan said of Elaine and David McClain, an elderly Sanford couple in their 70s.

Elderly couple targeted by Spike Lee lawyers up; Lee promptly apologizes.  Alas for Spike, the law has no love for slow-witted hate-mongering celebrities who recklessly endanger people without even bothering to spend 30 seconds Googling the address they were given, and learning whether or not it falls within a certain famed gated community.  The elderly couple who live at the address Lee targeted have been forced into hiding, and are currently living in a motel.

GOP Rep. introduces Obama budget, measure gets 0-414 drubbing.  By a stunning 0-414 tally Wednesday night, the House of Representatives voted down a budget proposal based on President Barack Obama's 2013 recommendations.  Congress hadn't seen a budget vote that lopsided since last May, when the Senate voted down an Obama budget plan by a 0-97 margin.  That 2011 Senate slaughter came after minority leader Sen. Mitch McConnell insisted on a vote to demonstrate that Democrats would not endorse a budget with specific, targeted cuts.

Whose Movie Is Propaganda?  It's more than a little shocking when someone makes a movie that deals harshly with abortion.  This is Hollywood after all.  Abortion is a feminist sacrament.  The movie "October Baby" just debuted on 390 screens and registered in eighth place for the weekend, with an estimated $1.7 million gross. [...] Naturally, the critics just couldn't judge this movie by artistic standards.  It had to be savaged because it is so politically incorrect.

Georgia ranked as The Most Corrupt of the 50 States.  Georgia law books are chock-full of statutes written to curtail undue influence on political activity and public policy.  So utilities and insurance companies can't give to a candidate seeking an office that regulates them.  Legislators can't take political donations while in session.  Politicians can't use campaign money for personal benefit.  State workers can't accept gifts from vendors or lobbyists.  Except when they can.  Time and again, Georgia journalists and watchdog groups have found that money finds a way to flow around those laws.

Pentagon: Trillion-Dollar Jet on Brink of Budgetary Disaster.  At an estimated $1 trillion to develop, purchase and support through 2050, the Lockheed Martin-built F-35 was already the most expensive conventional weapons program ever even before Tuesday's [3/20/2012] bulletins.  The Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps are counting on buying as many as 2,500 F-35s to replace almost every tactical jet in their current inventories.  More than a dozen foreign countries are lined up to acquire the stealthy, single-engine fighter as well.

ObamaCare, the Comic Book.  The case for the health care law is just as annoying in cartoon form.

Federal government discards 10,000 computers a week, EPA says.  The U.S. Government Accountability Office is trying to put an end to one wasteful federal habit:  The 10,000 computers the Environmental Protection Agency estimates the government discards each week.  The U.S. government is the world's largest purchaser of information technology, yet doesn't always dispose of its technology in responsible ways.

Largest Missouri Caucus Adjourns Without Conducting Business.  No business was conducted.  No delegates were selected.  Attendees were threatened with arrest for trespassing if they did not immediately vacate the premises.  The entire affair was a comedy of mismanagement. [...] If establishment Republicans wonder why the support from the grassroots is waning, the blatent disregard for those who vote them into office and to whom they should be answerable, as exhibited in this circus of a "caucus", should be ample answer for them!

GOP Presidential Caucus in St. Charles, Missouri.  GOP voters began showing up at the high school two hours before the caucus was set to begin at 10 a.m.  Though the meeting didn't start on time as organizers worked to accommodate the near-overflow crowd, attendees would get more than they bargained for before the day ended.

'Birthers' sue to force state to verify candidates' eligibility.  Politicians and others file a lawsuit that seeks to make California Secretary of State Debra Bowen verify candidates' eligibility before allowing them onto a ballot.

Minnesota to vote on rescinding immunity for lawmakers facing drunken driving arrest.  The Minnesota Legislature is expected to vote this week to rescind a get-out-of-jail-free card for state lawmakers who are arrested for drunken driving.  The provision, found in the state constitution, allows lawmakers "privilege from arrest" when they are pulled over by police.

Utah State Legislature Unanimously Passes Anti-NDAA Resolution.  Earlier this week, lawmakers in Utah stood together and expressed their opposition to the indefinite detention provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Pat Robertson: Pot should be legal like alcohol.  Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson says marijuana should be legalized and treated like alcohol because the government's war on drugs has failed.

End the Drug War, Mr. President.  The War on Drugs has been a massive failure by any serious estimation.  Sixty-seven percent of our nations' [sic] police chiefs consider it so.

Here is what's wrong with that:
Top 10 Obama energy blunders.  Of course energy prices are exploding.  That's what the President wanted all along.  Remember his famous utterance, saying that under his policies, "electricity prices will necessarily skyrocket."  Also telling was his selection of Steven Chu as energy secretary.  Chu once said that it was important for U.S. gas prices to mirror Europe's sky-high petrol costs.  It looks like he may be getting his wish.

More about high gas prices.
More about Steven Chu.


Democratic megadonors like Soros to benefit from Nat Gas act.  Congress could pass what is dubbed the Nat Gas act as early as March 31, which will polish the fortunes of Westport Innovations of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and the Democratic donors who own it.  This lucrative connection has gone unnoticed and unexamined in Senate debate this week.  More alarming, the House has indicated it is ready to move forward on the Senate version with little evaluation.

Parents realize they left toddler at Chuck E. Cheese after seeing her on news.  A three-year-old girl was left alone at a Maryland Chuck E. Cheese after her parents — who are separated and share custody — both left, assuming she was with the other.  The pair didn't know their daughter, named Harmony, was all alone at the restaurant until they saw an appeal for help on the 11:00 p.m. news, ABC News reported.

Mich. 'Drive-Off' Plan: Swipe Drivers' Licenses.  A Saginaw, Michigan business owner says requiring customers to swipe their drivers' licenses when topping off their tanks could stop drive-offs — clients leaving gas stations without paying.  Privacy advocates, however, say the new "Post-Pay" method subjects innocent customers to potential identity theft.  Bob Hohn, president of Paxson Oil Company, invented Post-Pay because he was fed up with costly drive-offs.  Post-Pay makes it easier for police to catch people who pump-and-run without paying.

Leaked E-mails Suggest bin Laden Not Buried at Sea.  According to the official version of events promulgated by the Obama administration, after U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden, his body was flown to Afghanistan for identification and then buried in the Arabian Sea about 12 hours after his death, supposedly in keeping with Islamic ritual.  However, internal e-mails from intelligence service Stratfor, obtained by the hacker group Anonymous and posted to the Internet by WikiLeaks, cast doubt on that story.

Anyone Caught Defecting From North Korea Will See Three Generations Of Their Family Executed.  While all defectors sent back from China are believed to face harsh punishment upon their return to North Korea, the group now in China is particularly at risk:  the North Korean government has said that anyone caught defecting during the period of mourning for Kim Jong Il's death would have three generations of family members executed.

Trashing Tricare.  The Obama administration's proposed defense budget calls for military families and retirees to pay sharply more for their healthcare, while leaving unionized civilian defense workers' benefits untouched.  The proposal is causing a major rift within the Pentagon, according to U.S. officials.  Several congressional aides suggested the move is designed to increase the enrollment in Obamacare's state-run insurance exchanges.

The Ticking Time Bomb in Your Dashboard.  Air bags don't go off in fender-benders, but it's not necessary to have a catastrophic wreck for them to deploy, either.  The threshold is about 20-25 MPH, which isn't insignificant but also not enough (in many cases) to cause major structural damage to the car — the kind of damage that in the past would have resulted (reasonably) in a decision to throw the car away.  But today, it is routine to find otherwise repairable cars — some that can still even be driven — consigned to the junkyard because of the cost of replacing the air bags.

It is remarkable that the states are making plans of this sort.
Wyoming House advances doomsday bill.  State representatives on Friday [2/24/2012] advanced legislation to launch a study into what Wyoming should do in the event of a complete economic or political collapse in the United States.  House Bill 85 passed on first reading by a voice vote.  It would create a state-run government continuity task force, which would study and prepare Wyoming for potential catastrophes, from disruptions in food and energy supplies to a complete meltdown of the federal government.

Fearing A National Collapse, The State Of Wyoming Is Putting Together A 'Doomsday Bill'.  Wyoming state representatives have taken a cold hard look at the state of America and it seems they do not like what they see.  Jeremy Pelzer at The Casper Star-Tribune reports that legislators approved Friday [2/24/2012], a study looking at what the state of Wyoming should do if the U.S. suffers a total political and economic collapse.  House Bill 85 would create a state-run "government continuity task force," to prepare Wyoming for possible disruptions in energy and food, to a total breakdown of the federal government.

Reduced for Quick Sale: Mary Kay's Mansion.  The 11,874 sq ft property, which was built in 1984, has been put on the market at $3.3 million.  It is a significantly lower figure than the $5.7 million price tag it failed to sell at in 2007.

Transistor Made Using a Single Atom May Help Beat Moore's Law.  Scientists have taken a first early step toward escaping the limits of a technological principle called Moore's Law by creating a working transistor using a single phosphorus atom.

Feds Debunk Food Pyramid They Pushed for Two Decades.  President Obama says we should allow the federal government to take charge of our healthcare; as usual, the "experts" are best positioned to instruct us how to live our lives.  Except they're not.

Air Force trains flight attendants for VIP trips.  As attendants on Air Force One and other VIP planes flying as many as 1,000 missions a year, they perform all the safety and comfort functions of their commercial airline counterparts and more.

Do You Like Online Privacy? You May Be a Terrorist.  A flyer designed by the FBI and the Department of Justice to promote suspicious activity reporting in internet cafes lists basic tools used for online privacy as potential signs of terrorist activity.  The document, part of a program called "Communities Against Terrorism", lists the use of "anonymizers, portals, or other means to shield IP address" as a sign that a person could be engaged in or supporting terrorist activity.  The use of encryption is also listed as a suspicious activity along with steganography, the practice of using "software to hide encrypted data in digital photos" or other media.  In fact, the flyer recommends that anyone "overly concerned about privacy" or attempting to "shield the screen from view of others" should be considered suspicious and potentially engaged in terrorist activities.

Family of murdered Border Patrol agent files $25M suit against ATF.  The family of murdered Border Patrol agent Brian Terry has filed a $25 million wrongful death suit against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives claiming Terry was killed with AK-47s that were knowingly sold under the Fast and Furious gunrunning probe to a straw purchaser for drug cartels.  In a 65-page complaint, filed in Arizona state court on Wednesday [2/1/2012], attorneys for the family claim ATF "wrongdoing" in Operation Fast and Furious.

More about the Fast and Furious scandal.

Gallup state numbers predict huge Obama loss.  Gallup released their annual state-by-state presidential approval numbers yesterday [1/31/2012], and the results should have 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue very worried.

Northwest Indiana power plant to shut on March 31.  After electrifying Northwest Indiana for more than 80 years, one of Indiana's oldest coal-burning power plants will be switched off by March 31, and 109 workers will lose their jobs.  The State Line Energy Station in Hammond, a hulking red landmark between Chicago and Indiana, is closing due to economics, lawsuits and new federal clean-air regulations.

The Editor says...
Free advice for the owners of that plant:  Put it in moth balls.  Surround the building with fences and guards, and keep the place ready to restart when common sense prevails in this country once again.

The $1.2 Tril Gap: Obama's Subpar Recovery Continues.  Real GDP climbed a less-than-expected 2.8% in final quarter of 2011, and just 1.7% for the entire year, down from 3% in 2010.  The trend of subpar growth under Obama continues.  To get a better sense of how bad Obama's recovery is, consider this:  Under Obama, real GDP has climbed a total of just 6% in the two-and-a-half years since the recession ended in June 2009.  By comparison, real GDP had grown 16% by this point in the Reagan recovery, after the very deep and painful 1981-82 recession.

Romney Family Had Ann Romney's Atheist Father Posthumously Baptized Into The Mormon Church.  After wondering aloud yesterday [1/26/2012] whether the Romneys converted Mitt's dead father-in-law to Mormonism, Gawker's John Cook has confirmed it:  Yes.  They did.  Edward Davies, Ann Romney's father, was an atheist who was also strongly anti-religion.  By the time he died, he was the only member of Ann Romney's immediate family to not convert to Mormonism.  Fourteen months later, in 1993, he was baptized in a special ceremony at a Salt Lake City church.  This practice requires a living person who has already been baptized to undergo the immersion in water again on behalf of the dead.  No word on who this person might have been in Davies' case.

Buffett's Burlington Northern Among Winners From Keystone Denial.  Warren Buffett's Burlington Northern Santa Fe LLC is among U.S. and Canadian railroads that stand to benefit from the Obama administration's decision to reject TransCanada Corp.'s Keystone XL oil pipeline permit.  With modest expansion, railroads can handle all new oil produced in western Canada through 2030, according to an analysis of the Keystone proposal by the U.S. State Department.

The Editor has two questions:
Do railroads present less danger to the environment than pipes?  And why is the State Department involved in this anyway?

Why is it necessary to conduct military exercises in a big city?
LA Military Exercises.  The training, which a department official said would involve helicopters, has been coordinated with local authorities and owners of the training sites, police said.  Police said safety precautions have been taken to prevent risk to the general public and military personnel involved.  The exercises are closed to the public, police said.

11 stunning revelations from Larry Summers's secret economics memo to Barack Obama.  A lengthy piece in The New Yorker looks at policymaking in the Obama White House.  A key source for writer Ryan Lizza is a 57-page, "Sensitive & Confidential" memo written by economist Larry Summers — eventually to be head of Obama's National Economic Council — to Obama in December 2008.

This 30,000 Pound Bomb Works So Well Its Design Team Just Won A Rare Honor.  At over 20 feet in length and weighing 30,000 pounds, the MOP is a precision guided bomb whose first successful test in 2007 led to an Air Force order for eight more worth $28 million in April 2011.  One of the requirements of Boeing and Lockheed Martin's next generation bomber is to accommodate the MOP as the B-52 does now.

School Fears "Cougars" Mascot Will Offend Women.  A Utah school district decided not to select a cougar as the mascot of a new high school partly because school officials and some parents believed the word is disrespectful to women.

The Editor says...
One by one, legitimate and harmless words are being hijacked by the amoral dregs of society.

Top 10 Obama revelationsNew York Times reporter Jodi Kantor's new book, The Obamas, is chock-full of revelations about the First Couple.  To save you the time of reading (and the cost of buying) Kantor's account, we have compiled the Top 10 Obama Revelations that are contained in the book.

Harsh Punishments for Poor Mourning.  The North Korean authorities have completed the criticism sessions which began after the mourning period for Kim Jong Il and begun to punish those who transgressed during the highly orchestrated mourning events.  Daily NK learned from a source from North Hamkyung Province on January 10th, "The authorities are handing down at least six months in a labor-training camp to anybody who didn't participate in the organized gatherings during the mourning period, or who did participate but didn't cry and didn't seem genuine."

Oh, wait!  It was all just a misunderstanding.
North Korea denies punishing citizens for not mourning enough.  North Korea has angrily denied allegations that it punished some of its citizens for inadequately mourning the death of its late leader Kim Jong Il.  Kim died last month after 17 years of repressive rule over the secretive state, setting off deep uncertainty about North Korea's future.  The North Korean regime commemorated his death with elaborately choreographed ceremonies broadcast on state-run media that showed crowds of mourners beating their chests and wailing with grief in the snow-covered streets of Pyongyang.

U.S. Drops to 10th Place in Economic Freedom.  Well-defined, well-enforced property rights; a stable rule of law that prevents corruption and encourages equal justice; free trade; responsible government spending; ease of doing business; well-reasoned, certainty-inducing regulation:  these are the types of factors that energize a society toward productivity and prosperity, and have made the United States the world's leader in liberty and living standards for going on two centuries.  Unfortunately, the sort of big-government, top-down-virtue policies that adulterate such righteous merits have been infiltrating our beautiful country at an exponential rate, and subsequently, we've already lost our foothold among the freest of nations.

Pepsi Beverages pays $3.1M in racial bias case.  The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says the company's policy of not hiring workers with arrest records disproportionately excluded more than 300 black applicants.

Pepsi suffers $3.1 million shakedown for 'discriminatory' hiring policies.  Pepsi Beverages Co. has agreed to a $3.1 million settlement to end federal charges of racial discrimination over its hiring practices — but this wasn't the sort of discrimination that once existed in the Jim Crow South.  Pepsi was guilty of racial discrimination as defined by government bullies at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.  Increasingly, the EEOC has used the battering ram of discrimination, as it loosely defines it, to promote "diversity" at all cost.

Iran building missile base in Venezuela.  Iran and Venezuela are feverishly building ICBM bases on the Paraguana Peninsula, a thumbnail shaped spit of arid land around a thousand square miles in size, 250 miles northwest of Caracas.  These bases are designed to house missiles with nuclear tipped warheads capable of reaching large portions of the United States.

The Editor says...
Stand by for the Venezuelan Missile Crisis.  Many of the people who don't care if Iran nukes Israel will sing a different tune if Iran nukes Houston.

Hotel Room Key Failure Causes Chaos.  At midnight on New Year's Eve, key software at the Denver Marriott Tech Center failed, locking guests out of their rooms and causing chaos on hotel grounds.  According to a letter given to guests by hotel management, the building's "room key software crashed" at midnight on Dec. 31 [2011].

The Editor says...
Let this be a lesson to us all:  Y2K can happen at the end of any year!

Grandparents kicked out of mall after taking picture of grandson.  Two grandparents were kicked out of the University Park Mall Tuesday [12/20/2011] after they took a picture of their visiting grandson in the Food Court.  "We were going to take our grandson, he's five and visiting from California, to see Santa and we were just sitting around the table having something to drink, talking about what we were planning and that's when my husband took the picture," said Grandmother Debbie Cassella.  Cassella said immediately a mall employee instructed them to stop taking pictures or they would be thrown out of the mall.

The Curious Lack of Indonesians at Gitmo.  [Scroll down]  Sure enough, zero Muslims from the world's largest Muslim society were lured by the siren call of 72 virgins to the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq to wage glorious jihad against invading infidels.  That is, unless they were either extraordinarily cunning or extraordinarily easy targets.  Coincidentally, that's the same number of Indonesians caught trying to hijack our planes or blow them up with bombs in their Reeboks or underwear.

A $2.5 Million Libel Judgment Brings the Question: Are Bloggers Journalists?  'Bloggers Beware'  That was the headline on a conservative blog following a $2.5 million judgment this month against blogger Crystal Cox in a defamation case tried in federal court in Oregon.

Gary Johnson to leave GOP race, run as Libertarian.  Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson will drop out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination and instead seek to run as a Libertarian, according to the Independent Political Report.  The switch, which has been rumored for weeks, is set to be announced Tuesday [12/20/2011].

Occupying Churches.  The Episcopal cathedral in Boston seems to resemble what comedian Flip Wilson once spoofed in the early 1970s as the "Church of What's Happening Now."  Rev. Strait boasts on his cathedral website that this church named for the Apostle Paul resembles a "United Nations gathering" and holds weekly Muslim prayer meetings.  One canon priest, he notes, is quite "disciplined" in yoga practice.  And "ancient church traditions" mix with "urban grooves" at the cathedral's "emerging church worship community."

Romney in 2002: 'My Views Are Progressive'.  Another old Mitt Romney video is making the blog rounds.  In this one, from 2002, Romney says that he is "not a partisan Republican," but "someone that is moderate, and my views are progressive".

Mitt: 'progressive' to 'conservative' in 27 months.  A devastating video has emerged this morning showing Mitt Romney declaring himself as a non-partisan "moderate" and "progressive" candidate as he was courting the liberal Massachusetts electorate in 2002.  Yet just over two years after the statement was made, as he geared up toward a presidential run, he started describing himself as a "conservative Republican."  In the video segment that aired on New England Cable News, Romney can be seen making a late campaign push before his November 2002 election as governor of Massachusetts.

Americans' Fear Of Big Government Has Risen Under Obama.  The percentage of Americans who fear big government is close to an all-time high.  It's no coincidence that in recent history this alarm has tended to peak toward the end of Democratic terms in the White House.

Texas Approves Controversial License Plate Featuring Crosses.  Texas license plates are again drawing national scrutiny.  Last week, the board of the state's Department of Motor Vehicles voted to approve the "Calvary Hill" specialty license plate that reads "One State Under God" and features three crosses.  Motorists who choose to buy the plate pay a surcharge, which is divided between the state and the sponsoring group — in the case of Calvary Hill, a Christian-based youth anti-gang ministry in the east Texas city of Nacogdoches.

Hurricane predictors admit they can't predict hurricanes.  Two top U.S. hurricane forecasters, revered like rock stars in Deep South hurricane country, are quitting the practice because it doesn't work.  William Gray and Phil Klotzbach say a look back shows their past 20 years of forecasts had no value.

Federal judge: Montana blogger is not journalist.  A federal judge in Oregon has ruled that a Montana woman sued for defamation was not a journalist when she posted online that an Oregon lawyer acted criminally during a bankruptcy case, a decision with implications for bloggers around the country.

Crystal Cox, Oregon Blogger, Isn't a Journalist, Concludes U.S. Court.  Representing herself in court, Cox had argued that her writing was a mixture of facts, commentary and opinion (like a million other blogs on the web) and moved to have the case dismissed.  Dismissed it wasn't, however...

Dodge Dart is coming back.  Chrysler Group is tapping its history, resurrecting the Dodge Dart name for a new small car being unveiled at next month's Detroit Auto Show.  The Dodge Dart name was last used on a small car sold in the mid-1970s.

Connecticut Residents Left Without Electricity Spark Power Line Debate.  As electricity crews in Connecticut work around the clock to restore power to frustrated and fed up residents left in the cold after a rare October snowstorm took out trees and utility lines, many are wondering if burying all the power lines underground might solve the problem of power outages.  As of Wednesday afternoon [11/30/2011], more than 4,800 Connecticut Light & Power customers were still without power, which forced many into hotels and the homes of family members and friends to wait it out.

New Regs Make it Easier to be 'Hired Into the Federal Family'.  John Berry, director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), praised new government programs where students and recent graduates can be "hired into the federal family," during a speech on Tuesday [11/29/2011] entitled, "Why It's Cool to Work for the Federal Government," at a NASA educational summit in Chantilly, Va.  Berry also said that working for the government is "cool" because "the scale of your impact is greater than anywhere else you can be engaged and involved."

Obama, Congress restore U.S. horse-slaughter industry.  President Obama last month quietly signed into law a spending bill that restores the American horse-slaughter industry, just a few months after a government investigation said the ban on slaughtering was backfiring.  The domestic ban didn't end horse slaughter but instead shifted the site of butchery to Mexico and Canada — which meant increased abuse or neglect as the horses were shipped out of the country and beyond the reach of U.S. law.

Comedy of Errors Led to False 'Water-Pump Hack' Report.  It was the broken water pump heard 'round the world. [...] Within a week of the report's release, DHS bluntly contradicted the memo, saying that it could find no evidence that a hack occurred.  In truth, the water pump simply burned out, as pumps are wont to do, and a government-funded intelligence center incorrectly linked the failure to an internet connection from a Russian IP address months earlier.

15 Facts About McDonald's That Will Blow Your Mind.  In 1992 when Rutgers professor Benjamin Barber coined the term "McWorld," there were 12,700 McDonald's worldwide.  Today there are over 33,000.  The relentless spread of McDonald's over the past 61 years is an incredible business success story.  In some markets the burger chain is just getting started, with plans to open 200 stores in China this year.

"Living documents" are nothing but trouble.
Revision of psychiatric manual under fire.  The "bible" of American psychiatry — a manual of mental health used around the world by doctors, consumers and insurance providers — has come under fire from a growing group of psychologists who worry that proposed revisions will feed into a culture of overdiagnosing, and overtreating, otherwise healthy people.

Seniors scammed into buying 70 years' worth of toilet paper.  Florida scam artists told elderly victims the government had changed the laws regulating toilet paper and that their septic tanks would be ruined unless they bought specially formulated rolls, court documents said.  "Through this scheme, some elderly customers were defrauded into purchasing more than 70 years' worth of toilet paper," federal prosecutors in Miami said in a news release.

The Editor says...
Who is the real culprit in this case?  The U.S. government!  This sort of scheme only works because it is easy to believe that the government is about to outlaw something that everybody uses.  People who live in tyranny are never surprised by ridiculous and draconian changes imposed by their governments.

Couple forced to exchange Facebook passwords during divorce.  Breaking up just got harder to do — thanks to a Connecticut judge who ordered a soon-to-be divorced couple to exchange their Facebook passwords.

EU bans claim that water can prevent dehydration.  Brussels bureaucrats were ridiculed yesterday [11/17/2011] after banning drink manufacturers from claiming that water can prevent dehydration.  EU officials concluded that, following a three-year investigation, there was no evidence to prove the previously undisputed fact.  Producers of bottled water are now forbidden by law from making the claim and will face a two-year jail sentence if they defy the edict, which comes into force in the UK next month.

Water Water Everywhere, But Not a Drop to Think.  On November 17th, the European Union revealed what ought to be considered a "watershed" moment of philosophical bankruptcy:  Brussels bureaucrats banned all advertising which claims water can prevent... dehydration.  But wait, it gets better.  Producers of bottled water are now forbidden by law from making that claim.  If they do?  They'll be facing a two-year jail sentence for violating the law, which will be enforced in the UK beginning next month.


"In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later:  the logic of their position demanded it.  Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy.  The heresy of heresies was common sense."
George Orwell    


Cain Supports Collective Bargaining for Public Unions?  In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Herman Cain said he supports the "right" for public employees to bargain collectively.  In other words, he is in favor of unions on the taxpayer dime.  Cain also said federal workers have unions, meaning the right to collectively bargain, but they do not.

Investigator: Herman Cain innocent of sexual advances.  Private investigator TJ Ward said presidential hopeful Herman Cain was not lying at a news conference on Tuesday [11/8/2011] in Phoenix.  Cain denied making any sexual actions towards Sharon Bialek and vowed to take a polygraph test if necessary to prove his innocence.  Cain has not taken a polygraph but Ward said he does have software that does something better.  Ward said the $15,000 software can detect lies in people's voices.

One woman who accused Cain of sexual harassment now works for Obama.  GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain argues that he's no sexual harasser — but friends and family members of one accuser were only trying to right a wrong no woman should suffer in the workplace.  Karen Kraushaar, a 55-year-old former journalist who currently works for the Obama administration, was outed today [11/8/2011] as one of the three women who had filed sexual harassment complaints against Cain.

Murky past of Herman Cain accuser starts to emerge.  A 'gold digger' embroiled in legal and financial difficulties who has always lived above her station and will do anything to never have to work again.  This is the portrait that has started to emerge of the fourth woman to accuse Herman Cain of sexual harassment — the first to come out publicly.

Why not five terms?  Why not ten?
Bill Clinton thinks presidents should get 3 terms.  Former President Bill Clinton criticized the two-term limit on the presidency during an appearance on Morning Joe, noting that leaders of states with parliamentary governments have benefited from a lack of term limits.

Congress Uses Chimps To Monkey Around With Budget.  While Congress has talked a good game about reducing the deficit, it still uses a variety of gimmicks to hide how much it is spending.  One such trick is known as "changes in mandatory spending programs."  These "Chimps" are inserted into appropriations bills to produce phony budget savings.

2.6-tonne church bell stolen.  Brazen thieves have stolen a 2.6-tonne church bell from an iconic church in San Francisco.  The 122-year-old relic, which sat in front of St Mary's Cathedral after being replaced by an electronic chime in the 1970s, had survived the devastating 1906 San Francisco earthquake and a 1962 arson attack that gutted the building, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.  But it was unable to withstand the determination of metal thieves who would have used heavy lifting equipment in the brazen heist.

The Editor says...
The big news here is that there is a church in San Francisco.  Who would have believed it?

Replacing $1 bill with coin could save $5.6 billion.  A proposal to phase out the $1 bill and replace it with a $1 coin could be gaining currency as the "supercommittee" looks to find ways to save the government money. [...] Moving to a coin could save $5.6 billion over 30 years, according to the Government Accountability Office.

The Editor says...
Saving 5.6 billion dollars over the next 30 years is only a drop in the bucket.  The supercommittee is supposed to come up with a trillion dollars in immediate spending cuts.  They need to chop about 5.6 billion per week, starting immediately.

Hill Super Committee To Return To Public Session.  Some Republican members of the panel, such as Sen. Jon Kyl, has said the panel should focus on achieving the $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion deficit cutting goal.  Some lawmakers and outside groups have urged the panel to come up with a $4 trillion deficit reduction plan over 10 years.

Super Committee Health Goals Need Sound Policy.  If the goal is producing $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion in 10-year savings, the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction must think big and produce recommendations with real substance.

A New Spending Record.  Maybe it's a sign of the tumultuous times, but the federal government recently wrapped up its biggest spending year, and its second biggest annual budget deficit, and almost nobody noticed. [...] What happened to all of those horrifying spending cuts?  Good question.  CBO says that overall outlays rose 4.2% from 2010 (1.8% adjusted for timing shifts), when spending fell slightly from 2009.  Defense spending rose only 1.2% on a calendar-adjusted basis, and Medicaid only 0.9%, but Medicare spending rose 3.9% and interest payments by 16.7%.  The bigger point:  Government austerity is a myth.

Not a Single Christian Church Left in Afghanistan, Says State Department.  There is not a single, public Christian church left in Afghanistan, according to the U.S. State Department.  This reflects the state of religious freedom in that country ten years after the United States first invaded it and overthrew its Islamist Taliban regime.

Algore Akbar!  The cultist EU is about to impose cap-and-trade on U.S. airlines. [...] This is, to state the obvious, an invasion of U.S. sovereignty and a limitation of our freedom of navigation in the air and at sea.

An EMP Attack on America?  For most of this week, the Department of Energy and the states of Maryland and Florida will be holding emergency response exercises to determine their readiness in the event of a major failure of the national electric power grid.  The scenarios to be tested vary from a low-level event that would take out a handful of the transformers that control the grid that conceivably could be repaired within a matter of days, to a "worst case" scenario to simulate a total take-down of the grid, an event many experts believe could take four to six years to recover from.

Freedom of speech is dead in Australia.  For my money probably the best political blogger in the world is Australia's Andrew Bolt. [...] His war, like mine, is against those who would constrain our liberty by imposing on us more tax, more regulation, more control.  He's firm but fair:  one of the good guys.  This is why we should all worry greatly about the latest bizarre ruling from the Australian federal court, which has found Bolt in breach of the Racial Discrimination Act.

Chinese Ballet at Kennedy Center Extols Violent Revolution.  Audiences at the prestigious Kennedy Center are being asked to applaud a ballet that celebrates a movement that went on to murder hundreds of thousands.  The Chinese National Ballet is performing on Sept. 22-24 "The Red Detachment of Women," which glorifies the history of the communist land reform campaign in China, while concealing the reality of the violence that suffused it.

Conservatives Stop New Boehner CR.  The Republican leadership tried to pass a continuing resolution through the House of Representatives on Wednesday afternoon [9/21/2011] that would have permitted funding for Obamacare implementation, Planned Parenthood, the United Nations Population Fund, and the Palestinian Authority to continue in the new federal fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1.

Over 500 at Defiant Freedom Rally Near Ground Zero.  In a tone of defiance AFDI Executive Director Pamela Geller declared, "While White House guidelines forbid official 9/11 ceremonies from mentioning who attacked the U.S. on that day or why, our 9/11 Freedom Rally features more honest speakers.  We are here today to honor our war dead and stand for freedom and against the deception and lies being used to subdue us.  We must show the jihadists we are unbowed in the defense of freedom."

Oops!  How did THAT get in there?
Long-Lost Moon Rock Turns Up In Clinton Papers.  A long-lost, highly valuable Moon rock brought back from the Apollo 17 mission has turned up in the files of Bill Clinton.  The rock was one of 50 presented to each state, and was given to Arkansas while the ex-president was governor.  The rock, worth millions of dollars, had been missing since at least 1980 until an archivist found it in old gubernatorial papers.  Bobby Roberts, director of the Central Arkansas Library System, told Reuters the archivist opened a box previously archived as "Arkansas flag plaque."

September 11 SIOA Freedom Rally at Ground Zero.  While clergy, 9/11 first responders, and 9/11 family members are barred and/or not invited to the official ceremonies, both are welcome at the 9/11 Freedom Rally.  And while White House guidelines forbid official 9/11 ceremonies from mentioning who attacked the U.S. on that day or why, the 9/11 Freedom Rally features more honest speakers.

Feinstein: 'Wiped out' by scandal.  Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said she was "wiped out" by Kinde Durkee, a well-connected California Democratic political operative who served as treasurer for hundreds of state, local and federal campaign committees.

Rick Perry's governing style: Secrecy over straight talk?  Gov. Rick Perry's straight talk may have made him an instant star of the Republican presidential field, but even some of his supporters say his frank one-liners don't reflect his governing style in Texas, where Perry has been criticized as one of the most secretive governors in the country.  At home, Perry has fought for years to keep even mundane details of his schedule, spending and decision-making away from reporters and the public.

Prominent scientist pleads guilty to attempted espionage.  Stewart Nozette, once a prominent scientist for NASA who served on the Space Council under President George H.W. Bush, pleaded guilty Wednesday [9/7/2011] to attempted espionage, a case that attracted widespread notice but began as a seemingly routine fraud investigation.

Does Obama have something against Texas?  Is President Obama's failure to sign a disaster declaration for the Texas wildfires due to an anti-Texas bias?  On Mark Levin's radio program Wednesday night [8/31/2011], Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry speculated that one of the reasons federal assistance for the rampant wildfires has not been forthcoming might just be because the state in question is Texas.

MLK's Daughter: 'Lincoln Remembered for Signing the Declaration of Independence'.  At a ceremony to honor the opening of the new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in our nation's capital Friday [8/26/2011], the late civil rights leader's daughter Bernice made an historical error that would evoke tremendous ridicule and derision if she were a conservative.

Martha's Vineyard is the president's fantasy island.  In Obama's halcyon days, right after the campaign but before that governing part, three-fourths of Vineyard voters cast ballots for the Hope-Change ticket.  They overwhelmingly passed a nonbinding resolution on that same Election Day declaring health care a right.  The bluest town in the bluest state just happens to be on the island where the president passes the dog days of summer.  In Aquinnah, a stunning nine out of ten voters cast ballots for Barack Obama in 2008.

After guns are outlawed, what happens?
Baseball Bat Sales Up 6,000% as London Riots Continue.  With riots spreading from London to other cities in the UK, sales of aluminum baseball bats on Amazon.com's UK website have risen an astonishing 6,000%.  And no, the British haven't suddenly developed a love for America's national pastime.

Debt deal: $32.4 billion per page.  The debt framework President Obama and congressional leaders reached Sunday night [8/7/2011] runs 74 pages long, and could authorize as much as $2.4 trillion in new debt — or $32.4 billion per page.  That debt increase will get the country through the 2012 election, both sides said, but it does not bring to an end the sea of red ink that will continue to wash over the federal government for the foreseeable future.

Fertilizer Control:  Another liberty lost.
DHS Creates 'Ammonium Nitrate Security Program'.  The Homeland Security Department on Tuesday [8/2/2011] announced the creation of an Ammonium Nitrate Security Program, which is intended to prevent terror attacks like the ones perpetrated by Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma City in 1995; and more recently, by a Norwegian man in Oslo.

The Editor says...
First of all, the actions of a single psycho in Norway should not affect U.S. laws or diminish our freedom.  Secondly, there is considerable doubt that a fertilizer bomb in a truck could have done the damage inflicted in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Uniformed Mexican Soldiers Cross Into South Texas.  Almost three dozen uniformed Mexican soldiers in four military vehicles crossed the Rio Grande [7/26/2011] into South Texas near McAllen without authorization.

U.S. returns 33 Mexican troops who strayed into Texas.  U.S. Customs and Border Protection inspectors returned 33 Mexican soldiers on Tuesday [7/26/2011] who inadvertently crossed over the Rio Grande river into Texas, authorities said.  The soldiers, packed into four Humvees, crossed over the Donna-Rio Bravo International Bridge into south Texas at around 2 p.m., said Felix Garza, a spokesman for CBP in Pharr, Texas.

The Editor says...
I find it impossible to believe that the soldiers did not know exactly where they were.  International bridges are clearly marked.

Crews Need Police Escort To Shut Off Fire Hydrants.  City crews scrambling to turn off nearly 2,000 fire hydrants opened by residents seeking relief from the heat required a police escort to protect them from gang members and others upset with the shutdowns.

Norway suspect Anders Behring Breivik was a member of Nazi web forum.  The suspect in the twin attacks that killed at least 92 people in Norway was a member of a Swedish neo-Nazi Internet forum, a group monitoring far-right activity says.

The Editor says...
The Nazis are not on the "far right."  Nazi is a contraction of the German name of National Socialism.  Regardless of what you read in the press or hear from the Democrats, the Nazis are (and always have been) on the far left.

5 American Economic Statistics That Will Blow Your Mind.  Remember the Judgment Day style theatrics that surrounded the threat of a government shutdown back in April?  That sliced $350 million from this year's budget.  That's about as much as we borrow in two hours.

Cracking the Scratch Lottery Code.  [Scroll down]  That night, however, he realized that the voice was right:  The tic-tac-toe lottery was seriously flawed.  It took a few hours of studying his tickets and some statistical sleuthing, but he discovered a defect in the game:  The visible numbers turned out to reveal essential information about the digits hidden under the latex coating.  Nothing needed to be scratched off — the ticket could be cracked if you knew the secret code.

What do the states know about budgeting that Obama doesn't?  According to [an] article in the Washington Times, at least a dozen states ended the fiscal year with a budgetary surprlus.  Some of the states accomplished that feat even while cutting taxes, while others bit the bullet and cut popular programs.

Ron Paul worries Fort Knox gold is gone.  With the price of gold at record highs, presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul wants to make sure the U.S. gold bars at Fort Knox are really there.  Paul called a congressional hearing Thursday [6/23/2011] to grill federal officials about his bill to audit and inventory all of the gold reserves at Fort Knox, Ky., West Point, N.Y., and Denver, even though Treasury officials insist that the gold is audited annually and is all there.

The Editor says...
Well, of course, whether the gold is really there or not, the Treasury officials are gonna claim that everything is fine, and this whole question has no merit.  That's the way our government works.  And who among us could ever go to Fort Knox and verify what's there?

American Cancer Society Declares Poverty A Carcinogen.  A report released Friday [6/17/2011] by the American Cancer Society echoes a 1989 statement by Dr. Samuel A. Broder, then director of the National Cancer Institute, who said that poverty is a carcinogen.  The society's report said that the lower a person's socioeconomic status, the greater the risk of cancer.  That's especially true for lung cancer, the report said, "for which death rates are 4 to 5 times higher in the least educated than in the most educated individuals."

The Editor says...
Nonsense.  Poverty and lung cancer are both symptoms of a lifetime of bad decisions and foolish choices.  With only a few exceptions, people who have lung cancer have brought it upon themselves.

Landry slams OSHA for excessive regulations.  Rep. Jeff Landry took on regulations implemented by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OHSA) during hearings Wednesday [6/15/2011].  It's regulations administered by bureaucratic agencies that are making job growth weak and the work environment unsafe, Landry said during the hearings.  Landry said a constituent business owner was forced to pack-up and transport his upstart drilling barge because of costly regulations.

Dalai Lama: 'I am a Marxist'.  There is no better way to proclaim your lack of spiritual and philosophical depth than by, two decades after the fall of communism, disclosing that you're a Marxist.  Yet this is precisely what Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama did during a speech before 150 Chinese students at the University of Minnesota this month.  Journalist Tsering Namgyal reports on the story at Religion Dispatches, writing, "'as far as socio-political beliefs are concerned, I consider myself a Marxist.'

China Has Divested 97 Percent of Its Holdings in U.S. Treasury Bills.  China has dropped 97 percent of its holdings in U.S. Treasury bills, decreasing its ownership of the short-term U.S. government securities from a peak of $210.4 billion in May 2009 to $5.69 billion in March 2011, the most recent month reported by the U.S. Treasury.  Treasury bills are securities that mature in one year or less that are sold by the U.S. Treasury Department to fund the nation's debt.

Leader of Blue Angels Quits After Jets Flew Too Low at Recent Air Show.  The commander of the famed flight squadron the Blue Angels stepped down Friday [5/27/2011] after part of the team of six jets flew below a minimum altitude at a recent air show.

The $1 Trillion Fighter-Jet Fleet.  A new Pentagon forecast showing the total cost of owning and operating a fleet of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters topping $1 trillion over more than 50 years has caused a case of sticker shock in Washington.  And that price tag doesn't even include the $385 billion the Defense Department will spend to purchase 2,500 of the stealthy planes through 2035.

Court throws out Dearborn leaflet ban.  A federal appeals court Thursday [5/26/2011] invalidated a leafleting ban in Dearborn, ruling the city violated a man's free-speech rights when he was blocked from trying to convert Muslims to Christianity.

Congressman Prefers Fallen Marine as Name on Navy Cargo Vessel.  The Navy's decision to name a cargo ship now under construction after labor activist Cesar Chavez has drawn sharp criticism from one veteran lawmaker who says that a military war hero should receive the honor instead.

Sounds like a headline from 2011 B.C.
Afrigan [sic] refugees trying to escape to Europe are facing threats of human sacrifice.  Human sacrifice has been added to the dangers facing desperate African boat people trying to escape to Europe, with Italian authorities investigating the testimony of a Ghanaian teenager who said that he narrowly avoided being tossed overboard by a group of Nigerians in a ritual to appease the angry seas.

Should Homeland Security Control the GPS Network?  Americans have become accustomed to the presence of Global Positioning System (or GPS) technology embedded in everything from the GPS on their dash to their cell phones and iPads.  In fact, GPS is nearly taken for granted for everything from locating a restaurant to navigating a fishing boat through the fog.  But now it appears that GPS, which was developed primarily for its military applications, is rather overtly returning to its "national security" roots, as NASA plans to turn the security of the GPS system over to the Department of Homeland Security.

University of Texas Takes Possession of $1 Billion in Gold.  The University of Texas decided this week to take physical possession of some 664,000 ounces of gold it has bought over the past year, a quantity valued at nearly $1 billion as gold passed $1,500 per ounce Wednesday.  The increased demand for gold and other metals in the investment sector with a limited quantity has not only driven the bull market for metals such as silver, gold, palladium, and platinum, it has also led to concern that ETF dealers on the commodity exchange (Comex) may not be able to fulfill all orders for gold.

NOAA Fisheries Management — Masters of Mendacity.  The 2011 Annual Catch Limits (ACLs) for the New England fisheries go into effect on 1 May 2011.  They are essentially unchanged from the extremely low ACLs that virtually crippled the fleet in 2010. [...] The catch limits for haddock, a major contributor to fishing revenues, are decreasing 25%.

Even in Delaware, 'Obama 2012' bumper stickers don't mention Biden.  For those who are seeking signs and portents for the 2012 presidential matchup, may I suggest a trip to Delaware?  Here's what you won't be seeing:  Joe Biden's name on the "Obama 2012" bumper stickers.

Debt Beyond Belief.  Have you noticed the many television advertisements urging you to buy gold, to refinance your home, to get a reverse mortgage, or to fix your personal credit score?  There's a reason for this, not just individuals are financially stressed, but the entire nation is broke.

Playing with Fire?  The debt limit is the federal government's legal authority to borrow.  It currently stands at $14.3 trillion dollars.  If we raise it by another trillion dollars, we will be in the exact same situation we are today in less than a year.  If, as many political consultants argue, we raise it by more than $2 trillion, we would get past the 2012 elections.  None of this matters.  If we raised the debt limit by $10 trillion, we would still eventually find ourselves in the same situation we are today.

U.S. Census Bureau request alarms Tulsa County Assessor.  Buried deep in the bowels of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a provision to impose a 3.8% tax on real estate transactions.  Proceeding without regard to Federal Judge Roger Vinson's ruling that the health care law is unconstitutional the Obama administration appears to be pushing ahead with implementation of the real estate tax scheme.  The Tulsa World reports that County Assessor Ken Yazel has come under fire for comments made last month during the Tulsa County Republican Convention.  Mr. Yazel told the convention that the U.S. Census Bureau had asked his office for information that he believed could be used to help create a data base for collection of a 3.8% real estate sales tax.  The steadfast assessor isn't backing down from his statement.

Government Has $1 Trillion In Untapped 'Piggy Bank'.  At the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2011, the federal government had over $1 trillion in unspent funds that could be used to reduce future deficits.  Yet Congress seldom uses these "unobligated funds" for deficit reduction, preferring instead to spend the money.  That may be changing with the government running trillion-dollar shortfalls and a GOP House brimming with fiscal hawks.

Yes, Violence Can be the Answer.  It was the body slam heard around the world.  When some Australian schoolboys decided to videotape themselves bullying 15-year old Casey Heynes, one of them got more than he bargained for.  Casey, who had been pushed around and humiliated for years, responded to a punch in his face and other attempted blows by hoisting his tormentor WWE style and introducing him to the pavement.

Crossroads GPS launches collaborative FOIA site.  Crossroads GPS, the cash-flush Republican advocacy group, is launching a new initiative and website Thursday [3/24/2011], Wikicountability.org, which is designed to crowdsource FOIA files from organizations, individuals and journalists who have sought, and who have received, public information from the Obama administration.

U.S. Debt Jumped $72 Billion Same Day U.S. House Voted to Cut Spending $6 Billion.  The national debt jumped by $72 billion on Tuesday [3/15/2011] even as the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives passed a continuing resolution to fund the government for just three weeks that will cut $6 billion from government spending.

$61 Billion in Cuts — Vs. $223 Billion in One Month of Spending.  In Washington, D.C., America is witnessing one of the grossest spectacles of fiscal incompetency, coupled with denial, ever perpetrated by a political party.  And that's the Republicans.  Democrats have made it clear that they will accept nothing less than the destruction of the republic, if that's what it take to prove progressivism is "successful."  Over the top?  Consider this:  the highest cut in the federal budget proposed by the Irresponsible Republicans is $61 billion.  The Democrat Destroyers say such a cut is way over the top.  Last month, in 28 days, our government spent $223 billion of money we don't have.  That's nearly four times more than the cuts proposed by the Irresponsibles, every one of which will be fought tooth and nail by the Destroyers.

Texas Nationalists rally for secession at Capitol in Austin.  The Texas Nationalist Movement marked Texas Independence Day with a rally Saturday [3/5/2011] at the Capitol urging Texans to save the state by seceding from the United States.

Uncle Sam Finds 14,000 Facilities to Sell.  The White House said Wednesday [3/2/2011] it wants to raise as much as $15 billion for selling off unused buildings, from warehouses and supply sheds to outdated Federal Aviation Administration towers.  The federal government has already identified 14,000 buildings and structures to sell.

Utah Considers Return to Gold, Silver Coins.  It's been nearly 80 years since the U.S. stopped using gold coins as legal currency, and nearly 40 since the world abandoned the gold standard, but the precious metal could be making a comeback in the United States — beginning in Utah.

Gov't That Governs The Least Is One Americans Want Most.  Overall, nearly six in 10 (59%) Americans surveyed in February think the federal government has too much power, 31% believe it has the right amount of power and 7% say it has too little power.  Not surprisingly, 83% of Republicans and 72% of conservatives believe the government is too powerful.  But 64% of independents and 62% of moderates feel the same way.  Majorities of Democrats (52%) and liberals (54%) think the government has the right amount of power.

Sen. Rand Paul Prevails in Economic Debate With David Letterman.  This is two days in a row where a glib, lefty comedian has taken off his clown nose, engaged in a serious debate with someone from our side they disagree with politically and found themselves caught off guard by a prepared presentation of facts and logic.  Wednesday [2/23/2011] it was Jon Stewart being schooled by Donald Rumsfeld on the Iraq War and last night a calm, cool, and educated Senator Rand Paul gave David Letterman a terrific lesson on the basics of economics...

All Providence, R.I., teachers to get termination letters.  The school board of Rhode Island's financially troubled capital city has voted to send termination letters to all of its nearly 2,000 teachers after city officials said the move would give them "maximum flexibility" to make budget cuts.  State law requires school departments to notify teachers by March 1 if they'll be laid off the following school year.

The Teddy Files: Even Worse Than You Thought!  After repeated attempts, Judicial Watch has managed to pry loose certain documents relating to Teddy Kennedy from the FBI.  The FBI's original redactions plainly had nothing to do with national security, so the agency apparently was trying to protect Kennedy's reputation.  The most entertaining documents relate to a trip Kennedy took to Latin America in 1961.  He visited a number of countries, accompanied by his "political counselor." In each country, Kennedy met with prominent Communists or other left-wing leaders.

Judicial Watch Obtains Material from the FBI File of Senator Ted Kennedy.  "The FBI's reluctance to follow the law and release this material shows that it, too, is not above politics.  Our tough fight with the Obama administration shows that it was not keen on letting the American people know that Ted Kennedy, one of Obama's leftist politician heroes, liked to hang out with communists and prostitutes," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.  "We will continue to investigate why the FBI improperly chose to keep this information secret."

Mary Jo Kopechne was unavailable for comment.
The Polecat of the Senate.  The latest releases, while not pretty, are certainly not surprising to those familiar with the long career of the man the left hailed as "The Lion of Senate."  The facts suggests that the late Senator, well-known as a heavy drinker and the terror of young female campaign workers, was more of a cross between Alger Hiss and Charlie Sheen.  The newly released files report that Kennedy arranged to rent an entire Chilean brothel to satisfy his outsized libido, and invited one of the American Embassy's chauffeurs to participate in the festivities.

Oklahoma Police Captain Faces Disciplinary Action for Refusing to Attend Islamic Event.  The Tulsa Police Deptartment is investigating a captain who refused an order to assign officers to attend an upcoming Islamic event because he said it would violate his religious beliefs.  Capt. Paul Fields was reassigned after he refused to order officers under his command to attend the Islamic Center of Tulsa's Law Enforcement Appreciation Day, a spokesman for the department said.

Churches Open Doors to Muslim Worship.  Two Protestant churches are taking some heat from critics for opening their church buildings to Muslims needing places to worship because their own facilities were either too small, or under construction.  Heartsong Church in Cordova, Tenn., let members of the Memphis Islamic Center hold Ramadan prayers there last September.  And Aldersgate United Methodist Church in Alexandria, Va., allows the Islamic Circle of North America to hold regular Friday prayers in their building while their new mosque is being built.

Stop opening churches to Muslims.  Last week, Fox News posted a report that Heartsong Church in Cordova, Tenn., and Aldersgate United Methodist Church near Alexandria, Va., have made their church buildings available to Muslims to use as places of worship.  Critics of these outreach initiatives, such as Mike Huckabee, have been accused of ignorance.  However, the contents of Muslim prayers and teachings about Isa, the Islamic Jesus, give reasonable grounds for churches to reject such arrangements.

Ex-pilots shoot down timeline of Navy.  A foundation set up to celebrate Navy aviation's 100th birthday has disavowed an official history on its website, after former combat pilots complained of inaccuracies and political correctness. [...] The foundation's official history slide show featured four "firsts" for women, such as the first female operations officer in 1992.  It also accentuated humanitarian missions.  But it devoted only two slides to World War II and barely mentioned Vietnam, during which the Navy orchestrated a decade of multiple aircraft carrier operations.

The Federal Government's Unspent Billions.  An arcane budgetary category called "unobligated funds" includes money that Congress has appropriated for agencies and programs in every corner of the federal government.  When that money goes unspent, it just sits there — like an ancient wooden chest on a Caribbean island, just waiting to be pried open.  Senator Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) holds the treasure map.

Don't put wire on your windows — it might hurt burglars!  Residents in Surrey and Kent villages have been ordered by police to remove wire mesh from their windows as burglars could be injured.  Home owners in the villages of Tandridge and Tatsfield in Surrey and in Westerham, Brasted and Sundridge in Kent have said they are furious that they are being branded 'criminals' for protecting their property.

The Editor says...
Boo hoo.  The would-be burglar might hurt his fingers.  Just wait til someone imports razor wire to England.

Outbreak at Playboy Mansion.  Can the Playboy Mansion make you ill?  Hugh Hefner's iconic bachelor pad is under investigation after more than 80 guests at a conference and party there became sick with a suspected strain of Legionnaires' disease.

Walmart fires Layton guards for disarming shoplifter.  The whole incident happened in matter of seconds, Lori Poulsen said.  She and the other security employees at the Layton Walmart Supercenter had stopped a man who had unwrapped a laptop and hidden it under his clothes.  Trent Allen Longton was taken into an office, where he handed over the merchandise.  When Longton was asked to sit down, he said he needed to leave.  He told the group he had something on him that he couldn't get caught with.

Sweetheart deal for billionaire could cut off GPS service.  In the past decade, millions have come to depend on the seeming magic of the global positioning system (GPS) to guide them to their destination.  The navigational gadgets in cars, cell phones and other hand-held devices can even be a lifesaver.  Now the system may be undermined by a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decision last month to allow a well-connected company to exploit a slice of the airwaves in a way that potentially blocks GPS signals.

Party elite executed to clear path for Kim Jong-un.  A reign of terror has descended on the Communist Party in Pyongyang.  There have been reports of purges and executions to secure the succession of Kim Jong-un as North Korea's new dictator.  South Korean newspapers say more than 200 officials have been executed or detained by the state security bureau and one official jumped to his death.  North Korean guards are reported to have shot dead five would-be escapees along the frozen river on the border with China, and notices have appeared threatening the death penalty for anyone caught using a Chinese mobile phone or trading in US dollars.

Government OK's Comcast purchase of NBC.  The federal government on Tuesday [1/18/2011] gave Comcast Corp., the country's largest cable company, the green light to take over NBC Universal, home of the NBC television network.

A secret $6 billion bailout for Puerto Rico?  The Obama administration is eying a secretive tax deal critics charge is an indirect bailout for Puerto Rico to the tune of billions of taxpayer dollars.  The U.S. territory, desperate for revenues in the midst of the recession, surprised industry with a $6 billion tax on foreign firms  — including a significant bloc of U.S. pharmaceutical firms — Oct. 22 in a rare weekend legislative session without any public debate in advance.  But now U.S. taxpayers, not the firms, could end up footing at least a significant chunk of the bill.

Did someone mention Puerto Rico?

It'll cost a lot more if they DON'T.
Democrat: Citing Constitution will cost taxpayers $570K.  Democratic Rep. Corrine Brown said a GOP requirement that lawmakers cite the Constitution in each bill they introduce will cost $570,000 in additional printing costs.  The Florida Democrat, who is in her ninth term in Congress, said the extra costs are attributed to "supplies, labor and delivery."

America needs a new national debate on the Constitution.  It might seem unlikely that a lone law professor could spark a national discussion about the kind of government Americans want in the 21st century, but that's exactly what Georgetown Law School's Randy E. Barnett hopes to do with his modest proposal known as the Repeal Amendment.

Who is afraid of the Repeal Amendment?  Arising from those who are distressed at the seemingly limitless power of the federal government — taking over everything from car companies, banks, student loans, and even the practice of medicine — the Repeal Amendment seems to have touched a nerve on the left.  First, the Washington Post's Dana Milbank played the race card.

Nazis in America.  After a lawsuit and pressure from private interest groups, the Justice Department finally released a 617-page report detailing how the American government not only welcomed but employed Nazis after World War II.  Although this might appear to be ancient history, this report is perhaps more relevant to our age than it might seem.

Former Treasury Secretary Paulson loses $1 million selling D.C. home.  Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who spent his final years in George W. Bush's administration trying to stave off the housing crisis gripping the nation, has lost over $1 million selling his own Washington, D.C., home.

Ivory Coast president refuses phone call from Barack Obama.  The incumbent president of Ivory Coast is hardening his resistance to international pressure to stand down, even refusing to take a phone call from Barack Obama.  Laurent Gbagbo, who is widely viewed as having lost a recent election, is refusing to leave office despite attempts to persuade him from West African leaders and others in the broader international community.

Ohio Election Panel Unanimously Throws Out Dems' Complaint Against FNC.  Ohio election officials have unanimously dismissed a complaint by the Democratic Governors Association, alleging that the Fox News Channel made an illegal in-kind contribution of nearly $170,000 to then-gubernatorial candidate Republican John Kasich.  The DGA had alleged that the 90 seconds Kasich's campaign web address appeared at the bottom of the screen during an interview on Fox amounted to a political advertisement.  The Ohio Elections Commission ruled 5-0 that it did not.

Sixth Circuit Rules that Emails Protected from Warrantless Searches.  To what extent can the police secretly root through email?  It's a core question about the limits of police surveillance that the Sixth Circuit yesterday [12/14/2010] tackled in [a] lengthy opinion.  In short, privacy advocates are pleased as punch with the opinion, which holds that the government must obtain a search warrant based on probable cause before it can search emails stored by Internet Service Providers.

Expose the Public Pension Mess.  It seems that many members of the incoming Congress are mindful of the looming tsunami of unfunded state and municipal worker pension liabilities, not to mention the impending insolvency of cities and even states (such as California, Illinois, and New York).  A recent estimate put these unfunded public employee pension liabilities at as much as $3.574 trillion.  As frightening as that estimate is, it is probably unrealistically low.

Man guilty of duping Harvard, taking financial aid.  A Delaware man has admitted faking his way into Harvard University and has been ordered to repay more than $45,000 in financial aid he received.

The Editor says...
I wonder if anyone has ever faked his way into Harvard Law School...

The Municipal Debt Bubble:  When state and local governments want to spend more than they collect in revenues, they issue bonds.  Such bonds are a longstanding feature of the American landscape, going back at least as far as 1812, but during the last decade they have spun out of control, as states and cities have increased their borrowing to indulge in more and more spending on new stadiums, schools, bridges, and museums.  They have even started borrowing to cover their basic operational expenses.  Since 2000 the total outstanding state and municipal bond debt, adjusted for inflation, has soared from $1.5 trillion to $2.8 trillion.  The recession didn't slow the spending.

Duck And Cover, Obama-Style.  During the long Cold War, liberals said atomic bombs were non-survivable and so we had to negotiate disarmament.  Today, the Obama administration says cheer up, you might survive.

U.S. Rethinks Strategy for the Unthinkable.  Suppose the unthinkable happened, and terrorists struck New York or another big city with an atom bomb.  What should people there do?  The government has a surprising new message:  Do not flee.  Get inside any stable building and don't come out till officials say it's safe. [...] Administration officials argue that the cold war created an unrealistic sense of fatalism about a terrorist nuclear attack.  "It's more survivable than most people think," said an official deeply involved in the planning, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.  "The key is avoiding nuclear fallout."

Sunbathing can be good for you, say health charities.  Experts have overturned decades of advice by urging people to go out in the midday sun without sunblock — because the dangers of missing out on Vitamin D can outweigh the risk of cancer.

Stunning new Gallup Poll finds 13% of Americans still approve of Congress.  A fresh Gallup Poll released this morning reveals that somehow 13% of Americans still approve of the job being done by Congress.  The new Gallup survey did not identify those people, understandably.  However, even though it is a surprisingly high number given the work not done there in recent years, the 13% is a record low job approval for Congress since Gallup began compiling such data in 1974.

Whoopi Goldberg Doesn't Believe Japanese Attacked Pearl Harbor.  Whoopi Goldberg on Tuesday [11/23/2010] demonstrated an absolutely staggering ignorance concerning a variety of subjects.  Appearing on Fox News's "O'Reilly Factor," Goldberg admitted not knowing what a madrasa is, said it wasn't the Japanese that attacked America at Pearl Harbor, and claimed Muslims in America are more persecuted than Jews.

Can the U.S. Rare-Earth Industry Rebound?  Rare-earth elements were obscure until the past year, when China, their primary producer, tightened export quotas on the materials.  Rare-earth elements are used in a multitude of technologies, including magnets for wind turbines, hybrid-car batteries, fluorescent lightbulbs, and hard drives.  China is not the only country with significant reserves of these valuable materials; in fact, the U.S. was their primary producer until the 1990s, when the Chinese began undercutting the Americans on cost.  Now companies in the U.S. and Australia are ramping up production at two rich sites for rare earths, but the process will take years.

Sears to be open Thanksgiving for first time.  Sears will open on Thanksgiving Day for the first time in its 124-year history.  The Hoffman Estates-based retailer will open stores from 7 a.m. to noon on Thanksgiving Day.

Ponzi promises and priceless gold.  In August, Boston University Professor Laurence Kotlikoff wrote an article in the Finance and Development Journal of the International Monetary Fund titled "U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don't Even Know It."  In it he warned:  "Let's get real.  The U.S. is bankrupt.["]  He estimated that "Based on the Congressional Budget Office's data [...] a fiscal gap of $202 trillion (exists already), which is 15 times the official Treasury debt."  Last week, the Federal Reserve announced its intention to print another $600 billion plus to subsidize further the greatest Ponzi scheme in history called the U.S. Treasury market.  What does it mean for ordinary Americans?

Fox News Turned Off At Local Gym.  A member of a Southside gym is complaining the owners of the gym are being unfair, saying that Fox News has been banned from TVs where she works out.

U.S. phasing out paper savings bond.  The venerable U.S. savings bond, which has been issued in paper form since 1935, will soon become yet another casualty of the computer age.  As of Jan. 1, the U.S. Department of Treasury will no longer issue printed savings bonds through the traditional payroll savings bond purchase program.

Photographer Sues Texas For Using Image On Auto Inspection Stickers.  Jon Snow points us to the story of a photographer who discovered that a photograph he took of a cowboy hoisting a saddle is being used as the background image on approximately 4.5 million inspection stickers. [...] I could see the state claiming "sovereign immunity," which has become popular for state governments when they're accused of patent and copyright infringement claims.  You see kids, when governments infringe, it's no big deal.

October surprise!
Delay's Trial Begins Five years after Indictment.  Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, one of the most polarizing politicians of the Bush years, is finally getting his day in court, five years after being charged with illegally funneling corporate money to help elect Republicans to the Texas Legislature.

The new hierarchy in news.  Fox is now the reference standard for news, and not just in the cable universe.  CNN's former status as the breaking news source has been lost, while MSNBC merely manages to retain its viewers, a sure sign that it is a niche ideological player, while Fox is perceived as fair and balanced by viewers — mainstream, in other words, despite years of demonization by the left.  It is the go-to source for hard news, not an ideological outlet.  That label belongs towhat used to be called "mainstream" media.

Newly Dead Now Oppose Obama.  As a Chicago pol, President Barack Obama must be familiar with rumors that the cemeteries vote.  If so, he'd probably be worried to find out that in this campaign year, he's even lost the dead.  In death notices from around the nation, the recently deceased are reaching back to canvass the living.  "In lieu of flowers, Hal has requested that donations be made to your local animal shelter or to any candidate running against Barack Obama in 2012," reads the death notice of Harold Groves, a retired Air Force fighter pilot who died at age 77 on Aug. 26 in Myrtle Beach, Fla.

Debt, Depression, Default.  America is in Deep Trouble.  Consumers are spending less.  Small retailers are closing shop — even cable television subscriptions are seeing a loss in revenue.

One Trillion Attend One Nation Rally.  The One Nation rally had empty streets and by all reports parking spaces aplenty.  As also shown in the fenced-in photo linked [in this article], the side overflow areas lacked any crowds whatsoever.  Photo after photo from Twitter throughout the day showed gaping holes in the "crowd" shots.

'One Nation Working Together' Rally Claims Bigger Numbers Than 'Restoring Honor'.  Organizers of today's [10/2/2010] "One Nation Together Rally" are claiming that, based on a "satellite image," there are definitively more people on the Washington Mall today than there were on the 29th of August.  Congratulations, liberals!  Except "Restoring Honor" was on the 28th.

More about the One Nation rally.

Communism dries Cuba's coffee crop.  With suspicious haste, Cuba's communist government abruptly announced it would let private farmers cultivate their crops on government land.  Now we have an inkling why:  The government wanted to get out while the getting was good.

A Cuban time bomb?  [Scroll down]  Remembering how suddenly other seemingly iron-clad communist regimes fell, the possibility of a Cuban implosion is real.  That, of course, would be a nightmare for the U.S.  The memory of Fidel Castro dumping 125,000 political opponents and jailbirds he called "worms" on Miami in the summer of 1980 is all too vivid in Florida, now the fourth-largest state.  A sudden refugee flood would tax U.S. facilities already inadequately handling illegal Mexican immigration.

Conservative group banned from holding rally where Obama announced presidential run.  A conservative group has been banned from holding a rally at Illinois's Old State Capitol because the site prohibits political demonstrations — yet it's the same place where President Obama announced his run for president and later, his choice of Joe Biden for vice president.

Venezuela is the world's worst socialist hellhole.  It's a hallmark of authoritarian socialism that even as it wreaks economic havoc it issues grandiose claims and promises.

Clinton Administration's Chickens Come Home to Roost.  On August 16, 2010 the U.S. Department of Defense released a congressionally mandated report entitled "Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2010."  The release of the report created worldwide headlines and has been taken seriously by serious military analysts.

No time for Islam.  In a severe case of clock envy, Saudi Arabia has erected a nearly 2,000-foot-high timepiece intended to stake a symbolic claim for Mecca as the world's center.  Islamic scholars have proposed that the Royal Mecca Clock Tower supplant the observatory in Greenwich, England, to set the new global standard time.  It is the latest form of Muslim global outreach — taking control of time itself.  The Mecca clock is as much propaganda as it is a timepiece.

Price:  The Lame-Duck Threat.  Rep. Tom Price (R., Ga.), the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, tells National Review Online that he wants to prevent the House from having a lame-duck session in order to stop Democrats from passing "crazy legislation." [...] Price's reasoning is simple:  House Democrats, he predicts, "won't be honest with the American people," and may attempt to "shove through" a "national-energy tax," an "amnesty bill," and card-check for labor unions — even if they lose their majority in November.

Political Revenge.  If the majority party loses one or both chambers this fall, what could beaten and embittered Democrats do to the nation before the next Congress is seated?  They could actually make things worse.

Dropouts, underworked push U.S. rate to 16.5%.  Included in the national jobs report out Friday was an important — and uglier — number that often gets lost in the noise around the official unemployment rate.  Officially, the U.S. jobless rate is 9.5 percent, but by a broader measure the rate is well into double digits — at 16.5 percent.  The larger number — called the U-6 unemployment rate — counts jobless people actively seeking work but also includes those who have stopped actively looking for a job and part-time workers who want more hours.

WH Official Pushes Cap and Trade for Lame Duck Session.  Obama Energy Czar Carol Browner appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday with host David Gregory touting a lame duck session of Congress after the November elections as a means to pass elements of the unpopular Obama agenda.  The new Congress would not be sworn in until January.

You Vote, They Don't Listen.  It's official.  There will be a lame duck session of Congress even after voters have rendered their verdict on the work of the current incumbents in November.  This week, the House voted down a resolution opposing a lame-duck session to tackle hot button issues such as new taxes and climate change.

Good luck taming this corporation.  No corporation on the planet comes close to the United States government in sheer magnitude, or unimaginable, unprecedented power.  The nation's top 100 corporations combined still fall far short of the behemoth in Washington, D.C., which conducts extensive operations in agriculture, weapons production, medical care, housing, real estate, education, mail delivery, policing, resource development, banking, the arts, security services, food provision, transportation and much, much more.  Within five years, federal spending will consume 25% of every dollar generated by the private economy.

The Lame Duck Session Could Get Lamer.  There has been much concern about the Obama administration attempting to ram through various bills, such as Cap and Trade, after the November elections when Democrats will have no fear of influencing voters against them — especially if they have just lost their election bid.

FinReg's Crucial Congo Codicil.  What's the Congo have to do with financial overhaul?  Absolutely nothing.  But Democrats have sneaked it into the final bill, along with a host of other race-related oddities.

America's Fast Track to the Third World.  The Department of Defense has sounded an alarm about our access to a strategically vital group of metals called the rare earth elements.  A report on the problem prepared by the GAO is not pretty.  It concludes that the Chinese now control the production, processing, and manufacture of final products of these vital metals and now own the patents for many of these processes.  The worries of the DoD are well-justified; missile guidance systems, smart bombs, night vision gear, unmanned aircraft, and much more are dependent on the rare earth elements in some way.

Charges That Obama Stole the Nomination From Hillary Clinton.  Maybe the New Black Panther intimidation case is not an isolated event.  This could be the tip of a very large iceberg.

Parents deliver US citizenship.  Wang Rong, who is six-months pregnant, is about to leave Beijing for California so she can give birth to her baby in the United States and give the child its first gift — US citizenship.  The special delivery will cost Wang and her husband, both white-collar workers in the capital, 100,000 yuan ($15,000), but they say it is money well spent.

U.S. Plans Cyber Shield for Utilities, Companies.  The federal government is launching an expansive program dubbed "Perfect Citizen" to detect cyber assaults on private companies and government agencies running such critical infrastructure as the electricity grid and nuclear-power plants, according to people familiar with the program.

Unwelcome truths.  The White House, Democrats and the media have been having a collective cow over Gen. Stanley McChrystal's remarks, as reported in Rolling Stone, expressing disappointment in our commander-in-chief and critical of the president's team's handling of the war in Afghanistan. [...] Anyone who actually reads the article will wonder what the flap is about.  The fact is, the general may have done a great service for us all, including our troops in Afghanistan.

Gallup:  Majority of Americans Don't Know What "Progressive" Means.  Today [7/12/2010], Gallup released the results of a recent poll which quantifies why so many on the left have eschewed the liberal label in favor of progressive.  It finds that while just 12 percent of Americans say they would describe themselves as "progressive" and 31 percent say they would not, a majority of 54 percent are unsure about the meaning of the term.

The Editor says...
Until the American public finds out what "progressive" means, it's a great place for socialists to hide.

Kingdom of Lies.  In past elections for North Korea's Supreme People's Assembly, authorities have reported 100 percent voter participation and a 100 percent approval rate for all the candidates.  During the last election, however, the government admitted a 99.98 percent voter turnout — though public approval held steady at 100 percent.  Such are the increments of North Korean concessions to reality.  The regime's constitution is deception. Everything, starting with the birthplace of its leader, is a lie.

California License Plates May Go Digital.  California drivers may soon come bumper to bumper with the latest product of the digital age:  ad-blaring license plates.  State lawmakers are considering a bill allowing the state to begin researching the use of electronic license plates for vehicles.  The device would mimic a standard license plate when the vehicle is moving but would switch to digital messages when it is stopped for more than four seconds in traffic or at a red light.

The Editor says...
Isn't California where all those "urban blight" activists live, who hate to see advertising all over the landscape?  The people who hate to see others stoop to the level of "anything for a buck"?  Apparently it's okay for big government to be so mercenary.  It sounds as if the advertising is going to be on every license plate, and the products or services thus promoted will be chosen by the state.  What if the state decides to advertise something the driver finds repugnant?  How will the driver know?

Obama Administration to Start Direct Deposit.  Americans receiving payments for Social Security, unemployment insurance, veterans benefits, IRS tax refunds, railroad retirement, and government benefits will now find the money automatically deposited into their personal bank accounts.

Air Force Prepares for Homeland Defense.  For the first time ever, the Air Force is preparing to fight an enemy on American soil. [...] What "enemy" could they be preparing to fight against on U.S. soil?

Rasmussen Reports:  Three of Ten Americans are Nuts.  Well, that's not exactly what Rasmussen Reports said.  Technically, the poll showed that seven of ten Americans don't believe Congress knows what it is doing when it legislates on economic issues.

Testosterone Makes People Suspicious of One Another.  A dose of testosterone might be enough to save gullible types from being ripped off, a new study reveals.  Testosterone is linked to aggression, competition and social status.  Now scientists have found that the hormone also reduces naive individuals' confidence in others.

MSM Cowers, ABC News Execs Hunker In Bunker As Whistleblowers Attack.  ABC News is being publicly slaughtered by its own staff at the The New York Observer website, giving specific accusations of an ABC executive's illegally hiring and firing without just cause, promoting based on whims, discriminating against homosexuals, blacks and sexually harassing of employees.

Movie Tickets Reach the $20 Mark.  For the first time, a major Hollywood film will hit the $20 threshold at the box office, as movie-theater owners test the public's ability to absorb ever higher ticket prices.  Several theaters will charge $20 per adult ticket to IMAX showings of the animated 3-D family film "Shrek Forever After," the fourth "Shrek" installment from DreamWorks Animation.

WWII Vet Ordered to Remove American Flag From Outside New Hampshire Home.  Joe LeVangie, 88, is a World War II veteran who didn't think twice about flying an American flag outside his New Hampshire home.  At least until last week, when the Hillsborough housing complex where he lives told LeVangie and his neighbors that flying the flag was forbidden.

Coburn wants to certify bills are read.  Sen. Tom Coburn wants his colleagues to prove that reading is fundamental — at least when it comes to the dozens of bills that pass over their desks, often with nary a glance from lawmakers.  The Oklahoma Republican wants senators to certify they've read and understood the hundreds of bills that pass each year without any floor debate in the Senate.  The effort comes a year after last summer's "read the bill" campaign highlighted lawmakers who acknowledged they hadn't read the entire House health care bill, even as they tried to explain its intricacies to constituents.

The Dollar's Inevitable Demise.  To put it bluntly, the dollar's days are numbered and its demise is inevitable.  Anyone who still hopes there may be a way around it, must answer that ultimate money question:  Where in the world is the American federal government going to get $117 trillion?

On the other hand...
The Dollar's Demise is not Inevitable.  Look up the debt for the years 1997 through 2002.  What you'll find is that the debt went up from 1998 through 2001.  Yet, these are the very years frequently cited as having produced record budget surpluses.  How odd.  We have a surplus but the debt goes up.

GOP to insist on 10th Amendment.  Republicans are so determined to stop what they say is abusive and unlawful expansion of the federal government under President Obama that they are willing to abdicate power to the states to do it.  Taking its cue from the Bill of Rights, the Republican Study Committee, a group of conservative House Republicans, says that the 10th Amendment dictates that initiatives such as the health care reform law and other massive government programs are the business of state governments, not Washington.

Fox Rolls Along #1 For 100th Consecutive Month.  Fox News Channel which evokes the ire of liberals across the country has just finished first among cable news channels for the 100th consecutive month.

Obama's Granny is now a 'Doctor'.  Joining the ranks of her famous grandson, President Barack Obama's 88-year-old step grandmother Sarah Hussein Obama was awarded an honorary doctorate degree from a university in Kenya yesterday [5/3/2010].

The Editor says...
You remember Sarah, don't you?  She's the woman who says she witnessed President Obama's birth — in Kenya.*  If you haven't heard all about that story, it's because you've been watching television instead of visiting this page.

Proposal:  All New Yorkers Become Organ Donors.  "We have 10,000 New Yorkers on the list today waiting for organs.  We import half the organs we transplant.  It is an unacceptable failed system," [New York State Assemblyman Richard] Brodsky said.  To fix that, Brodsky introduced a new bill in Albany that would enroll all New Yorkers as an organ donor, unless they actually opt out of organ donation.  It would be the first law of its kind in the United States.

Troubling Precedent:  NJ Court Says Bloggers Are Not Journalists.  In the words of New Jersey Superior Court Appellate Judge Anthony J. Parrillo:  ["]Simply put, new media should not be confused with news media.["]  This backward-looking, snobbish decision is troubling for many reasons.  Before we get into the upcoming righteous outrage from someone who was a regular member of the "news media" for nearly 20 years — but is now a "new media" journalist — here's some background on the case.

Sniper kills Qaeda-from 1½ mi. away.  It was silent but deadly.  A British sniper set a world sharpshooting record by taking out two Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan from more than a mile and a half away — a distance so great, experts say the terrorists wouldn't have even heard the shots.  Craig Harrison killed the two insurgents from an astounding distance of 8,120 feet — or 1.54 miles — in Helmand Province last November firing an Accuracy International L11583 long-range rifle.

Barry and the Pirates.  The government of Kenya is no longer accepting pirates captured by the international task force operating in the Red Sea and approaches.  Kenya claims that its justice system is overloaded with Somali pirates and that it just can't handle any more of them. [...] Which raises the question:  what world leader happens to have close relatives serving in the government of Kenya?  That's right — none other than the Obamessiah himself.  His father, Barack Sr., was an economist in the first post-colonial government.  One of his half-brothers, Malik Obongo Obama, is a rising political star, and I'm sure you wouldn't have to throw many stones to hit a cousin or two employed by various ministries.  Obama has more personal pull in Kenya than in any other country in the world.

Protesters Disrupt Congressional Hearing.  The 111th Congress hit a new low last week — one that should make us all wonder exactly where the federal government is headed.  Four coal industry CEOs voluntarily showed up to testify before Rep. Ed Markey's House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. [...] As one CEO testified from his seat at the witness table, several protesters wearing masks suddenly appeared at the table.  They placed chunks of coal on the table where the CEOs sat and then stood in the area between the CEOs and Chairman Markey chanting "Coal is dirty."  You might think that Chairman Markey moved quickly and forcibly to protect the witnesses and reassert control over the hearing.  But again you'd be wrong.  This scene went on for 9 minutes.

Has Noah's Ark Been Found on Turkish Mountaintop?  The remains of Noah's Ark have been discovered 13,000 feet up a Turkish mountain — according to a sensational claim by evangelical explorers. [...] Mt. Ararat has long been suspected as the final resting place of the craft by evangelicals and literalists hoping to validate biblical stories.

The Editor jumps in...
Suspected?  The reason "Mt. Ararat has long been suspected as the final resting place" is because the Bible flatly states that's where it landed.*

New conservative 527 group has raised $30 million.  If you are unhappy with the Republican National Committee and still wish to find a way to support Republican candidates, there is a new organization to which you might contribute:  American Crossroads.  Like New Ledger's Pejman Yousefzadeh I supported Michael Steele's candidacy for head of the RNC and now regret it as he has consistently failed to meet my expectations.  If the Republicans are to take back the federal government it must be by proving their willingness to be fiscally responsible and the wasteful spending of the RNC under Steele is no way to send that message.

Judge:  Lejeune can't ban car decals linking Islam, terrorism.  After his son was killed in the attack on the USS Cole, Jesse Nieto put decals on his car that included "Islam=Terrorism" and "We Died, They Rejoiced."  But the Marine Corps deemed the decals offensive and told them he had to remove them or he could not park on federal installations.  So he went to court, and won.

Inhofe Ranked Most Conservative Senator, Sherrod Brown Most Liberal.  Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) is the "most conservative" member of the Senate, and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) is the "most liberal," according to National Journal magazine.

Unfortunate Coincidence.  There is no denying that flying from Poland to Russia in a Russian-maintained airplane and then crashing into the woods where Soviet secret police murdered 22,000 Poles can be described only as an "unfortunate coincidence," especially after being warned that something you did "could not go unpunished."

The Obama Bubble.  Why is there a remarkable stock market rally in the midst of the worst recession (depression) since 1930?  While we hear explanations of every day's rise and fall of the indices (e.g., the "whatever" numbers were not as bad as expected, or they were better than anticipated), the obvious answer is that a few serious investors have studied their (arcane) National Income and Product Accounting.  The stock market is rising because extraordinarily high corporate profits are just around the corner.

The Database That Ate American Business.  By this time next year American business will be reeling from the launch of what will become a government sponsored virtual bulletin board for the serial slandering of American manufacturing.  Reputations will be ruined and brands deeply damaged once the Congressionally-mandated internet bulletin board becomes operational.

Fee to Overthrow the Government: Five Dollars.  Since 1951, South Carolina has had a law on its books requiring anyone looking to overthrow the government to, well, register with the government.  No one had actually registered until February, when news of the law's existence spread on the internet and talk radio.

Rep. Hank Johnson:  Guam could 'tip over and capsize'.  Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) is afraid that the U.S. Territory of Guam is going to "tip over and capsize" due to overpopulation.  Johnson expressed his worries during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on the defense budget Friday [3/26/2010].

Democrat Rep. wonders if additional Navy personnel will make Guam 'tip over and capsize'.  Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., was questioning Admiral Robert Willard about the Navy's plans to relocate 8,000 personnel and their families to Guam.  After noting at some length that the island is narrow, Johnson says "My fear is that the whole island will become so overly populated it will tip over and capsize."

The Editor says...
If a Republican had demonstrated such monumental ignorance, does anyone believe this would not be front-page news?

The curious disappearance of Lachlan Cranswick.  Lachlan Cranswick, a 41 year-old nuclear scientist working in Ontario vanished last month without a trace.  The circumstances surrounding his disappearance are indeed curious and the case merits more than a casual mention, especially in light of numerous other instances of nuclear scientists and microbiologists turning up missing or dead within the last few years, many under mysterious circumstances.

Obama's exclusionary Easter Egg Roll.  The Obama administration announced on Tuesday it has reserved 3,000 free tickets to the annual White House Easter Egg Roll for students in D.C.-area public and charter schools, but not for children who attend private or parochial schools.

The Editor says...
Remember, Obama's daughters go to a private school.  Are they unwelcome, too?

Read the bill.  More than two dozen states have enacted legislation mandating the creation of searchable online databases detailing comprehensive information on government spending, and several governors have taken executive steps to create such Web sites.

Sometimes "conspiracy theories" have merit.
Did the CIA test LSD in the New York City subway system?  [Frank] Olson's ignominious end was written off as an unremarkable suicide of a depressed government bureaucrat who came to New York City seeking psychiatric treatment, so it attracted scant attention at the time.  But 22 years later, the Rockefeller Commission report was released, detailing a litany of domestic abuses committed by the CIA.  The ugly truth emerged:  Olson's death was the result of his having been surreptitiously dosed with LSD days earlier by his colleagues.

Who's Behind the Financial Crisis?  The New York Times is quoting a spokesman for George Soros as saying that the well-known hedge fund operator is guilty of no wrong-doing in connection with the financial upheaval currently affecting Greece and Europe as a whole.  But Zubi Diamond, author of the powerful new book, Wizards of Wall Street, says the agenda of Soros and other short sellers is clear.  Their purpose, he says, is "to loot America and any foreign country which invested in America.  Greece was one of them.  Iceland was ravaged and annihilated."

Is Greece Our Future?  Greece's financial collapse is turning into theater of the absurd.  Today [3/6/2010], public employees in Athens staged an occupation of a government building to dramatize their demand that they be maintained at taxpayer expense, in the style to which they have become accustomed, forever.

Five of the Royal Family demoted as BBC changes its protocol on broadcast death list.  The BBC has downgraded five senior members of the Royal Family by ordering that their deaths should no longer trigger an automatic interruption of normal broadcasts.  [They] had formerly belonged to a special BBC list known as Category 2, which has now been abolished.

6 Pieces of Advice for Hotel Guests from an Ex Housekeeper.  Everyone has seen the black light specials they roll out on the nightly news programs.  Oh [...] the filth!  The horror!  It's come to be expected, really.  Hotel blankets are teeming with bodily fluids.  So are the floors and walls.  We've seen the less than shocking exposes.

The burger and beverage recession.  Want more proof that the U.S. economy is still in a fragile state?  Consider this.  People are still holding back on buying burgers, soda and beer.  So much for fast food, soft drinks and booze being recession-proof.

World Wide Web May Split Up Into Several Separate Networks.  Google's threat to exit China is igniting worries that the Web, a linchpin of globalization, may fracture into regional fiefdoms.

Chowing down on the Haiti run.  The Guardian reports that the cruise line, Royal Caribbean International, which leases a private peninsula from the Haitian government for a luxury resort, elected to continue sending in the Independence of the Seas as scheduled despite appreciating the poor optics of fatcat westerners partying while bodies were being stacked up a few miles away.

World air passenger traffic plunges.  World airline passenger traffic fell 3.1 percent in 2009, the biggest drop in aviation industry history, fuelled by the global financial downturn, the International Civil Aviation Organisation said.  Preliminary figures for airline travel this year showed that international traffic declined by about 3.9 percent and domestic traffic by 1.8 percent, despite sharp growth in some regions.

The Editor says...
Three percent is a "plunge"?

What Every American Should Know About the National Debt.  [Scroll down]  Spending last year was about $3.5 trillion.  The deficit was $1.42 trillion, which means that revenues were about $2.1 trillion.  So $2.1 trillion is equal to their annual income.  The total national debt right now is $12.3 trillion.  So we owe five to six times more than we make every year.  But that's not the big deal.  In addition to that, there is another $45 trillion to $50 trillion in unfunded obligations that are off the balance sheet, which I think you ought to count.  Medicare is the biggest part of it by far, and Social Security is a large part, too.  So in reality, we owe between 25 and 30 times what we make every year.

President Byrd?  Yet as president pro tempore of the Senate, the nonagenarian former Ku Klux Klansman is third in line for the presidency.  If a ceiling were to drop on Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi — a scenario at the heart of the political thriller "The Man" — Byrd would be plotting the U.S. response to terrorism and the burgeoning federal debt.

It's Barbie in a burkha.  One of the world's most famous children's toys, Barbie, has been given a makeover — wearing a burkha.

Technology Predictions Are Mostly Bunk.  "Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further developments," said Roman engineer Julius Sextus Frontinus in 10 A.D.  This end-of-progress view has been echoed many times, including by Charles Duell, commissioner for the U.S. Patent Office, who in 1899 said, "Everything that can be invented has already been invented."

Man with "XXXXXXX" number plate receives lots of parking fines.  Traffic wardens in Birmingham, Alabama, enter seven letter Xs onto their forms when they issue tickets to cars without plates.  Unfortunately the default code matches the vanity plate of a motorist from the nearby town of Huntsville, who has received hundreds of incorrect payment notices over the past year.

'Little Buddy' GPS device keeps tabs on your kid.  Best Buy is selling a transmitting device that lets parents keep track of their children.  Parents can place the device in a child's backpack or lunch box, for example.

The Editor says...
GPS signals are very weak.  A GPS receiver will not work inside a metal lunchbox.  (Neither will a cell phone, which is the other half of this gadget.)  But even if the product works as advertised, if a kid with one of these devices is abducted, the "Little Buddy" will be the first thing tossed out the window.

Framed for Child Porn — by a PC Virus.  Of all the sinister things that Internet viruses do, this might be the worst:  They can make you an unsuspecting collector of child pornography.

Visiting the White House.  The day before Halloween, the White House released a partial list of visitors since Jan. 20 of this year.  The list is fascinating and highlights exactly what kind of house the Obamas are running.  Topping the visitor chart is Andy Stern, president of the far-left Service Employees International Union. [...] Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, clocks in with 14 visits.

$400 per gallon gas to drive debate over cost of war in Afghanistan.  Pentagon officials have told the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee a gallon of fuel costs the military about $400 by the time it arrives in the remote locations in Afghanistan where U.S. troops operate.

Did Flu Shot Cause Cheerleader's Rare Nerve Damage?  A sad story out of Virginia, where a 25-year-old woman, who was training to be a Washington Redskins cheerleader, has come down with a rare neurological disorder days after receiving a seasonal flu vaccination.  Now she can hardly walk forward without severe contortions or speak normally.  But amazingly, she can walk backwards, run forward and speak just fine as long as she's running.

C.I.A. Is Still Cagey About Oswald Mystery.  For six years, the agency has fought in federal court to keep secret hundreds of documents from 1963, when an anti-Castro Cuban group it paid clashed publicly with the soon-to-be assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.  The C.I.A. says it is only protecting legitimate secrets.  But because of the agency's history of stonewalling assassination inquiries, even researchers with no use for conspiracy thinking question its stance.

The Editor says...
How many "legitimate secrets" are 45 years old?  For example, the secret of the Navajo code talkers was declassified after only 25 years.

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Now FHA.  A huge, government-run housing agency shows massive losses and needs a bailout.  Fannie Mae?  Freddie Mac?  No.  It's the Federal Housing Administration, in a bad case of financial-meltdown deja vu.  The FHA, which insures mortgages made by first-time buyers with low down payments, says it may need a bailout because it will have losses of — get this — $54 billion.  And how did it lose all that?  By backing home loans made to people who couldn't pay them off.  Where have we heard this before?

Still think this Country isn't going Socialist?  Eight years after our country was attacked by those who seek to destroy us someone decides to honor the anniversary of another group of people that have been less than cooperative with America.  Wednesday night, September 30, 2009, the Empire State building was lit up in with the colors of red and yellow commemorating the anniversary of socialism in China.  Since when do Americans celebrate the birth of a regime that is guilty of atrocities towards human liberties?  Don't we have government agencies to keep these people in China under watch in order to protect America from them?

Kellogg's will use laser to burn logo on to individual corn flakes.  According to the advertising slogan, if you see Kellogg's on the box then you know it's Kellogg's in the box.  But now the company has become so concerned about similarly packaged supermarket cereals, it has developed a laser to burn its logo on to individual Corn Flakes.  The concentrated beam of light creates a toasted appearance without changing the taste.

The Editor says...
Don't stop there!  How about etching lottery numbers on Kix?  How about Mona Lisa on Melba Toast?  How about a checkerboard on Chex?

Tidal wave of patriots washing over D.C..  Rep. John Shadegg has been trying to get a bill enacted for 15 years that would simply require legislators to cite the constitutional authority for any legislation that is proposed.  His bill is called the Enumerated Powers Act (HR450).  It now has 52 co-sponsors, but there is very little chance that it will ever get to the floor for a vote.  Why?  Because the Democrats in Congress will not allow it.

The Public Takes a News Quiz [...] and Doesn't Do So Well.  The quiz included 12 multiple-choice questions and those who took it answered an average of 5.3 questions correctly.  Here are some of the results:  Seventy-five percent answered correctly when asked which party controlled the House, (the Democrats). [...] Twenty-three percent knew that "cap & trade" had to do with energy and climate legislation.

Did Bubba's Tapes Break the Law?  Recall that President Clinton didn't have an exemplary record for veracity when responding to legal discovery.  His impeachment, suspension from the Arkansas bar and resignation from bar of the U.S. Supreme Court each arose from false testimony he offered in the Paula Jones case.  And now comes the question of whether he again failed to fulfill an obligation to produce information.

Is the US Government bankrupt?  Before we continue to debate the merits of any Obama health care plan, we need to consider a few important facts.  By any rational means, we must consider the present condition of our Government's financial situation.  An honest look at those finances would have a prudent person conclude that our government is tacitly bankrupt.  Our unfunded liabilities far exceed our assets.

Federal Reserve Scandal Bigger than ACORN.  For the first time, a hearing is being held on Rep. Ron Paul's Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009 (H.R. 1207) by the House Committee on Financial Services.  Grass-roots pressure has been credited with forcing the hearing into what has happened to trillions of dollars supposedly spent by the Federal Reserve on the stabilization of the financial system.  In prepared testimony, Thomas E. Woods, Jr. of the Ludwig von Mises Institute offers his strong support for the bill and declares, "...if our monetary system were really as strong, robust, and beyond criticism as its cheerleaders claim, why does it need to rely so heavily on public ignorance?"

Did someone mention ACORN?

The Coming Flood of Government Jobs.  As the job news grows ever darker — according to the Labor Department unemployment has now hit a 26-year high of 9.7% — a ray of light is shining from one unexpected quarter:  the federal government.

Win one by being like the Gipper.  Rasmussen reports that all political labels are trending negative except one.  "'Liberal' is still the worst and remains the only political description that is viewed more negatively than positively.  Being like Reagan is still the most positive thing you can say about a candidate."

Red Flag To Fly Over White House.  Lest anyone doubt the communist leanings of President Barack Obama, look no further than to his decision to hoist the Red Chinese flag (for the first time in history) over the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Sunday, September 20. [...] Why is the mainstream press not all over this story?  Where is the outrage by veterans' organizations (especially Korean War veterans)?  Where is the national VFW?  Where is the American Legion?

Editor's note:
This story was also reported here:  [1] [2] [3] [4]

Update:
White House Debunks Reports It Will Fly China's Flag on South Lawn.  A ceremony, indeed, will take place.  But it won't happen on the White House grounds — rather, on the Ellipse, on the other side of E Street from the presidential residence.

Reid On The Rocks.  As [Harry] Reid pursues cap-and-trade, a medical overhaul and the rest of the leftist agenda, Nevadans are increasingly asking:  What about Nevada?  Reid is a high-profile incumbent in a state that's becoming an economic basket case.  Nevada has the third highest jobless rate in the country at 12.5%.  For 31 months, it's had the highest foreclosure rate of any state, and Las Vegas has the highest foreclosure rate of any major U.S. city.

ACLU questions Obama cookie plan.  A proposal to loosen restrictions on the use of tracking cookies by federal government websites should be carefully scrutinized so they don't jeopardize the privacy of people who visit them, groups advocating civil liberties warned Monday [8/10/2009].

Some E-Books Are More Equal Than Others.  This morning [7/17/2009], hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers.  These were books that they had bought and paid for — thought they owned.  But no, apparently the publisher changed its mind about offering an electronic edition, and apparently Amazon, whose business lives and dies by publisher happiness, caved.  It electronically deleted all books by this author from people's Kindles and credited their accounts for the price.  This is ugly for all kinds of reasons.

51% Say Congress is Too Liberal, 22% Say It's Too Conservative.  Fifty-one percent (51%) of voters nationwide believe that Congress is too liberal while 22% hold the opposite view and say it is too conservative.  A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 14% say the ideological balance of Congress is about right and 12% are not sure.

The Editor says...
Those who believe the Congress is too conservative are probably those who get all their information from late-night TV comedians.

Military helicopters land in Rolesville field.  Three Chinook military helicopters set down in a Rolesville field Monday afternoon, witnesses said.  People reported seeing the helicopters flying low and slow over Holly Springs, downtown Raleigh and elsewhere in Wake County.  A viewer told WRAL News they came to rest off Rogers Road about half a mile from U.S. Highway 401.

The Editor asks...
Isn't that what Fort Hood is for?  Why must this be done in a small town?

Repeating History.  Investors are worried about what they see in the U.S. and are parking their money in non-dollar foreign assets and gold.  When nonproductive assets are more valuable than land, factories and labor, something's amiss.

Voters Turn Negative On All Political Labels Except Reagan.  "Progressive" is becoming more of a dirty word, but all political labels — except "being like Ronald Reagan" — are falling into disfavor with many U.S. voters, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.  "Liberal" is still the worst and remains the only political description that is viewed more negatively than positively.  Being like Reagan is still the most positive thing you can say about a candidate.

How End-Users Suffer Under Socialism:  Central planners announced this week that they were fresh out of money to buy toilet paper — yes, toilet paper — for the island's 9 million citizens.  But not to worry.  A nameless official for state-run monopoly Cimex and quoted by Reuters assured that "the corporation has taken all the steps so that at the end of the year there will be an important importation of toilet paper."  The predicament would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic.  But toilet tissue is hardly the only item Cuba is lacking.

Shifting the Right of Way.  Sometime in the early morning hours of Sept. 7, residents of this small Pacific island nation will stop their cars, take a deep breath, and do something most people would think is suicidal:  Start driving on the other side of the road.

Governors oppose DoD emergency powers.  A bipartisan pair of governors is opposing a new Defense Department proposal to handle natural and terrorism-related disasters, contending that a murky chain of command could lead to more problems than solutions.  Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas (R), chairman of the National Governors Association, and Vice Chairman Gov. Joe Manchin (D) of West Virginia penned a letter opposing the Pentagon proposal, which they said would hinder a state's effort to respond to a disaster.

The Editor says...
Until you can find the word emergency in the Constitution, I'd say the federal government should leave local disaster plans to the local officials.

GOP Not Allowed to Say 'Government-Run Healthcare'.  Rep. John Carter (R-Texas), the secretary of the House Republican Conference and a former District Court Judge, is having his messages to constituents censored by Democrats on the Franking Commission.  Republicans are no longer allowed to use the words "government run health care" in the communications to their constituents.  Carter received an email from the Franking Commission informing him of the censorship.

Democrats Censor Mailing of Health Care Bill Chart.  Republican Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) also found himself being censored yesterday [7/23/2009] by Democrats who refused to allow mailings that included a chart he asked his Republican staff at the Joint Economic Committee to create. [...] There are three Republicans and three Democrats on the Franking Commission tasked with approval of franked mail pieces to ensure there is no abuse of the system.  The Democrats are refusing to let newsletters that include the chart be mailed.

The Franking Sign Monster.  [Scroll down]  Leaving aside for a moment the disturbing implications, the issue at the center of this dispute is a congressional rule which bars franked mail from being "partisan, politicized, or personalized."  This is, as they say, one of those ideas that sounds great on paper but quickly becomes problematic in practice and delivery.  Since these rules were last revised in 1997, the bar for judgments regarding the "partisan" nature of franked communications between House members and their constituents has been set quite low out of necessity.

Republicans Say Democrats Are Censoring More GOP Mail.  House Republicans this week accused Democrats of censoring GOP mailings to constituents on a variety of subjects and of imposing uneven requirements on the minority party's mail.  Democrats on the franking commission — which must approve all official mail — have blocked Republicans from using politically weighted descriptions of climate change legislation, the stimulus bill and other issues, according to e-mails obtained by Roll Call.

The Associated Press Declares War on the Online World.  My beloved, eternally bumbling Chicago Cubs swept the even lowlier Washington Nationals in a three-game mid-July series.  I read that in an Associated Press report headlined "Big 4th inning gives Cubs sweep of Nationals."  Will reporting this result to readers get me in trouble someday soon?  That result isn't as far-fetched as you might think.

Napolitano Lets the Word 'Terror' Come Out of the Closet at Homeland Security.  It's OK to call them terrorists again.  Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who drew criticism for not mentioning the word "terror" during her first appearance before Congress in February, has reinserted the term into her lexicon.  The former Arizona governor used the term or its variants 23 times Wednesday [7/29/2009] during a 30-minute speech before the Council of Foreign Relations in New York.

48% Say Obama Is Very Liberal.  Seventy-six percent (76%) of U.S. voters now think President Obama is at least somewhat liberal.  Forty-eight percent (48%) say he is very liberal, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

About that charity you run, Professor Gates.  Dan Riehl explores a charity headed by Professor "Skip" Gates which takes in a lot of money, pays out very little, mostly to his colleagues and assistants at Harvard, was late filing the necessary papers and lists as its office the house Gates rents from Harvard.  Perhaps as Ann Althouse suggested yesterday [7/24/2009] on her blog there was something in his home that Gates did not want the police to see.

Amazon Removes E-Books From Kindle Store, Revokes Ownership.  Today, Amazon removed George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm from its Kindle e-book store.  The company also went ahead and removed any digital trace of the books, too — striking them from both users' digital lockers and from Kindle devices.  This disturbing, Orwellian move underscores how, in spite of comments otherwise, a purchase in the digital realm can't be compared to physical ownership of content.

Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle.  In George Orwell's "1984," government censors erase all traces of news articles embarrassing to Big Brother by sending them down an incineration chute called the "memory hole."  On Friday [7/17/2009], it was "1984" and another Orwell book, "Animal Farm," that were dropped down the memory hole — by Amazon.com.

Update:
Amazon CEO apologizes for deleting Orwell books.  Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has issued an apology to Kindle customers after "1984" and other books by British novelist George Orwell were remotely deleted from their electronic readers.  "This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of '1984' and other novels on Kindle," the Amazon chief executive said in a post on Thursday [7/23/2009] on the Kindle Community discussion forum.  "Our 'solution' to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles," Bezos wrote.

The Editor says...
Who in his right mind would buy an e-book device now that we all know how easily those books can be erased and/or removed?

Another update:
Amazon sued over Kindle deletion of Orwell books.  A high school student is suing Amazon.com Inc. for deleting an e-book he purchased for the Kindle reader, saying his electronic notes were bollixed, too.  Amazon CEO Jeffrey P. Bezos has apologized to Kindle customers for remotely removing copies of the George Orwell novels "1984" and "Animal Farm" from their e-reader devices.

OAS kicks out Honduras, welcomes Cuba.  The Organization of American States embraces tyranny while rejecting a state for following its constitution.  Not that the MSM notices.

Honduras quits Organization of American States.  The newly installed Honduran government withdrew from the Organization of American States Friday night [7/3/2009], after a tense visit from the hemisphere's top diplomat who urged the return of the nation's deposed leader.  OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza visited Honduras Friday on a mission to convince members of the Supreme Court and other civic leaders to allow the return of President Manuel Zelaya, who was overthrown in a pre-dawn raid Sunday.

Prisoners on run cannot be named 'due to privacy rights'.  Prisoners on the run from Holleseley Bay prison cannot be identified because it would breach their rights to privacy, the Ministry of Justice has said.

The Editor says...
That's quite a contrast to the U.S., where the courts have ruled that no one on a public highway has a right to privacy.

R.I.P.:  Budget Woes Spell Doom for Roadside Rest Stops.  As millions of Americans take to the road for the holiday weekend, a humble highway fixture is under attack.  Later this month, cash-strapped Virginia plans to barricade entrances and switch off the plumbing and electricity at nearly half its highway rest areas.  Other states also are lowering budgetary axes on the public pit stops that have lined the interstate highway system since its creation in 1956.

The Editor says...
The states would have plenty of money for the maintenance of roadside rest stops if they were not giving away money to people who are too lazy to work.

EPA Holds First-Ever Bedbug Summit as Infestations Rise.  The bedbug, an obnoxious pest long thought confined to the sleepless nights of a bygone era, is back.  From college dormitories and homeless shelters to hospital maternity wards, high-end condos, and swanky hotels, bedbugs are embarked on one of the most remarkable entomological comebacks in recent memory.

Nagin's Phone Calls Screened 'to Keep Him Safe' While Quarantined in China.  They take their quarantines very, very seriously in China.  They don't even allow phone calls.  The mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, is under lockdown in a suburban Shanghai hotel after a passenger on his flight from the U.S. exhibited symptoms of swine flu — and now his Chinese hosts are screening his calls "to keep him safe."

China Requires Censoring on New PCs.  China has issued a sweeping directive requiring all personal computers sold in the country to include sophisticated software that can filter out pornography and other "unhealthy information" from the Internet.  The software, which manufacturers must install on all new PCs starting July 1, would allow the government to regularly update computers with an ever-changing list of banned Web sites.

Bank of America reports threat by Federal Reserve.  Bank of America's chief executive Thursday for the first time said publicly that officials in the Bush administration and the Federal Reserve threatened to remove top executives of the bank unless the financial giant merged with the troubled Merrill Lynch for the good of the foundering economy.  Bank of America's Kenneth Lewis told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that the threat was not the deciding factor in the bank's acquisition of the nation's largest investment banking firm.  But he added:  "What gave me concern was that they would make that threat to a bank in good standing."

Anti-President Obama message removed from business.  "I'm not going to stop what I believe," Iron Block Harley Davidson Owner Erik Dunk said.  Wednesday [6/10/2009], the electronic sign out in front of the Iron Block Harley Davidson in Adams Center read this:  "Obama are you kidding?  We're not Muslim.  You are not Christian." [...] Shop owner Erik Dunk says Harley Davidson got involved after a motorist complaint and told him they wanted him to remove it.

What's Keeping Obama Up?  The Rasmussen Poll conducted over the weekend of May 30-31 asks the key question, designed to give us perspective on Barack Obama's current popularity.  The question asked was whether the current problems "are due to the recession that began under the Bush administration or to the policies Obama has put in place since taking office."  In other words, who's to blame, George W. Bush or Obama?  By 62 percent to 27 percent, voters say Bush is still the culprit.  As long as this opinion remains prevalent, Obama will continue his high popularity.

Obama Dismisses Alleged Snub of the Sarkozys.  In the days leading up to president's stop in France, rumors swirled that the Obamas had declined a dinner invite from the French first couple, leading some to suggest that it was a reflection of frosty U.S.-French relations.

Robocall case sheds light on a secretive industry.  The despised robocall companies that send out illegal recorded calls nationwide to try and get people to buy car warranties or apply for credit cards are among the most secretive operations outside the CIA.  Employees are told they can be fired merely for mentioning the name of their employer.

Crisis spurs spike in 'suburban survivalists'.  Emergency supply retailers and military surplus stores nationwide have seen business boom in the past few months as an increasing number of Americans spooked by the economy rush to stock up on gear that was once the domain of hardcore survivalists.

Psychiatrists rewriting the mental health bible.  Is the compulsion to hoard things a mental disorder?  How about the practice of eating excessively at night?  And what of Internet addiction:  Should it be diagnosed and treated?  The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, commonly called DSM, is getting an update.  Now experts must decide what is a disorder and what falls in the range of normal human behavior.

Broadway's No-Hitter.  When the nominees for this year's Tony Awards were announced, I was struck by the fact that I hadn't cared for any of the musicals that turned up on the list.  Then I looked through my columns for the year and saw, much to my surprise, that I'd panned every musical that opened on Broadway in the 2008-09 season.  Some of my verdicts were mixed, others brutally dismissive.  But the bottom line was clear:  I didn't review a single Broadway musical that I would have paid to see.

Hugo's big purge.  The purge of foes and friends by Venezuela's socialist strongman Hugo Chavez — a kinder, gentler version (so far) of Stalin's Great Purge shortly before World War II — shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with a paranoid personality.  Mr. Chavez, who now prefers "Comandante-Presidente," is cleansing the nation, including his United Socialist Party, of people he judges to be disagreeable.

Waxman to push global warming bill without allowing subcommittee vote.  House leaders struggling to pass a major energy bill appear ready to bypass the subcommittee system because powerful carbon state Democrats aren't willing to go along with the proposal for hundreds of billions in new global warming fees.  With little hope of passing the measure out of the global warming subcommittee, Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., signaled he will move the bill to the full committee, where the legislation would likely pass.

Dubious but interesting...
H1N1 Government Manufactured?  There has been a lot of speculation, of late, that has come to my attention regarding the possibility that the H1N1 Virus, also known as the Swine Flu, is not a product of nature.  After all, the virus is made up of components from the human flu virus, avian flu virus, and swine flu virus — a combination not possible, according to some scientists, in the natural world.  There are no cases of swine being infected with this particular virus, either.  The origin, in essence, is a complete mystery.

The limits of terrorism:  With terror attacks having become a routine and nearly daily occurrence, especially in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the conventional wisdom holds that terrorism works very well. [...] But Max Abrahms, a fellow at Stanford University, disputes this conclusion, noting that they focus narrowly on the well-known but rare terrorist victories — while ignoring the much broader, if more obscure, pattern of terrorism's failures.

An Inconvenient Truth: Your Prius Is Making You Fat.  According to the report in the current issue of the International Journal of Epidemiology, obese people are responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than their slimmer neighbors partly because they are more prone to driving instead of walking. But the authors have the cause-and effect all wrong. It's not that obesity causes driving — it's that driving, in part, causes obesity.

Americans still fear big government more than big business.  With unemployment and economic uncertainty rising, the stock market stubbornly stumbling and President Obama promising an immense federal spending program and deficits to match even before his first 100 days are over, Americans remain convinced the larger threat to the nation's future remains Big Government, not Big Business.

Ex-assemblyman pushes plan to split California into two states.  The revolution will begin in Visalia — and it will be led by a man named Maze.  As in Bill Maze, a termed-out Assembly member turned rebel who is pushing for California to split in two:  the conservative interior as one state and the liberal coast as another.  He's serious.

A 'Copper Standard' for the world's currency system?  Hard money enthusiasts have long watched for signs that China is switching its foreign reserves from US Treasury bonds into gold bullion.  They may have been eyeing the wrong metal.

Canada Issues a Wake-Up Call:  You May Be a Citizen.  Thanks to a new law, Canada will bestow citizenship Friday on what its government believes could be hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting foreigners, most of them Americans.  The April 17 amendment to Canada's Citizenship Act automatically restores Canadian nationality to many people forced to renounce it when they became citizens of another country.  It also grants citizenship to their children.

Creeping Narcostate.  Venezuela is the weakest link in this hemisphere's war on drugs.  It's a leading transshipment point between the cocaine producers of Colombia and the drug lords of Mexico, one of whom just "earned" himself a spot on the 2009 Forbes billionaire's list.  About half of the 600 tons of cocaine produced in Colombia each year rolls through Venezuela undisturbed before it heads north to consumers.

Pirates of Puntland.  The United States and other countries have been cutting back on the ships needed to stem the piracy threat.  In 1989, the United States had 164 destroyers and frigates; today we have about 73.  In the same period, the British went from 48 such craft to 25.  This mirrors trends in other Western states.  The pirates in Puntland and elsewhere are exploiting a vacuum created by the withdrawal of Western navies from the sea.

If Congress Shall Make Any Law?  Congresswoman Michele Bachmann is rocketing up the Obama Administration's enemies list because she is asking questions no liberal wants asked and making points they certainly do not want made. [...] What is this thing she did?  Why, she cited the Constitution of these United States.  And for yet another brief moment in a growing long line of brief moments it became clear once again that Timothy Geithner was indeed not the smartest man in the room.  You could hear the uneasiness in Geithner's voice as he was forced to attempt to answer an actual question of substance.

Miles of Idled Boxcars Leave Towns Singing the Freight-Train Blues.  Folks here figured the mile-long stretch of a hundred-plus yellow rail cars, which divides this small town like a graffiti-covered wall, would leave soon after it arrived.  That was a year ago. [...] Tens of thousands of boxcars are sitting idle all over the country, parked indefinitely by railroads whose freight volumes have plummeted along with the economy.  And residents of the communities stuck with these newly immobile objects, like the people of New Castle, are hopping mad about it.

Just 53% Say Capitalism Better Than Socialism.  Only 53% of American adults believe capitalism is better than socialism.  The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 20% disagree and say socialism is better.  Twenty-seven percent (27%) are not sure which is better.

Gitmo in Conformity with Geneva Convention, Obama-Ordered Report Confirms.  The Guantanamo Bay prison where terror suspects are held was examined by a special task force ordered by President Barack Obama.  In its 81-page report, released Monday, the task force concluded:  "After considerable deliberation and a comprehensive review, it is our judgment that the conditions of confinement in Guantanamo are in conformity with Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention."

Study:  Fire a major killer of Indian women.  More than 100,000 young women were killed in fires in India in a single year, and many of the deaths were tied to domestic abuse, according to a new study published Monday.  Young Indian women are more than three times as likely to be killed by fire as their male compatriots, according to an article published on the Web site of the British medical journal.

Is there any gold inside Fort Knox, the world's most secure vault?  For several prominent investors and at least one senior US congressman it is not the security of the facility in Kentucky that is a cause of concern:  it is the matter of how much gold remains stored there — and who owns it.  "It has been several decades since the gold in Fort Knox was independently audited or properly accounted for," said Ron Paul, the Texas Congressman and former Republican presidential candidate, in an e-mail interview with The Times.  "The American people deserve to know the truth."

Village mob thwarts Google Street View car.  A spate of burglaries in a Buckinghamshire village had already put residents on the alert for any suspicious vehicles.  So when the Google Street View car trundled towards Broughton with a 360-degree camera on its roof, villagers sprang into action.  Forming a human chain to stop it, they harangued the driver about the "invasion of privacy", adding that the images that Google planned to put online could be used by burglars.

FBI database links long-haul truckers, serial killings.  The growing database includes more than 500 female victims, most of whom were killed and their bodies dumped at truck stops, motels and other spots along popular trucking routes crisscrossing the U.S.

88% Say It's Important To Keep The Dollar As America's Currency.  Eighty-eight percent (88%) of Americans say it is important for the dollar to remain the currency of the United States, including 70% who say it is Very Important.  Only three percent (3%) say it is not at all important if the dollar remains America's currency, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.  China's top government banker and a United Nations panel have both proposed that the dollar be replaced with a new global currency.  However, only 21% of American adults believe the proposal is intended primarily to help the global economy.

A life thrown into turmoil by $100 donation for Prop. 8.  [Margie] Christoffersen was a manager at El Coyote, the Beverly Boulevard landmark restaurant that's always had throngs of customers waiting to get inside.  Many of them were gay, and Christoffersen, a devout Mormon, donated $100 in support of Proposition 8, the successful November ballot initiative that banned gay marriage.  She never advertised her politics or religion in the restaurant, but last month her donation showed up on lists of "for" and "against" donors.  And El Coyote became a target.

Oil Companies Voting With Their Feet.  Much political hay has been made in Congress about "unpatriotic" corporations that move operations abroad.  Weatherford International is the latest, taking its headquarters from Houston to Switzerland.  The oil services company said that it wants to be closer to its markets.  But what it really meant was that it no longer saw the future in the U.S.  In a political atmosphere of blaming corporations, it's no wonder.  Halliburton fled to Dubai in 2007.  Tyco International, Foster Wheeler and Transocean International all went to Switzerland.

Versace hotel's cool beach bugs greenies.  The Versace fashion house is to create the first refrigerated beach so that hotel guests can walk comfortably across the sand on scorching days.  The beach will be next to the Palazzo Versace hotel being built in Dubai, where summer temperatures average 40°C and can reach 50°C.  The beach will have a network of pipes beneath the sand containing a coolant that will absorb heat from the surface.  The swimming pool will be refrigerated and there are also proposals to install giant blowers to waft a gentle breeze over the beach.  The scheme has infuriated environmentalists.

China tells rich nations to pay up on climate change.  Wealthy nations should divert as much as 1% of their GDP to help developing nations tackle climate change, say Chinese officials.  This would mean a total $284 billion a year if members of the Organisation for Cooperation and Economic Development (OECD) paid a sum based on the size of their economies in 2007.

Lawmakers being forced to give up gas-guzzling cars.  Congress has been bearing down to do more about global warming.  But a little-noticed amendment to last year's energy bill has hit especially close to home.  It requires House members who lease vehicles through their office budgets to drive cars that emit low levels of greenhouse gases.  Among the victims: Texas Republican Joe L. Barton, who will probably have to give up his Chevy Tahoe, despite his protests that it is made in his district.  "I guarantee you my district is not upset that I'm driving a Chevy Tahoe," he said.

Milk Prices Rise to Record Highs.  It's cheaper than oil and, barring a global mad cow crisis, we'll probably never run out of it.  But milk has one thing in common with oil:  It's trading at record highs.

Baskin-Robbins co-founder dies.  Irvine Robbins, who delighted ice cream afficionados by conjuring up ever more inventive flavours as co-founder of the Baskin-Robbins empire, has died aged 90.  Mr Robbins, who started the Baskin-Robbins ice-cream chain with late brother-in-law Burt Baskin in 1945, died on Monday at the Eisenhower Medical Centre in Rancho Mirage, California, company officials said.

Sir Isaac and the Airbus:  What the GAO is saying, in its lawyerly language, is that the facts show that the Airbus 330 cannot reach a sufficient speed to pull away from one or more aircraft it's supposed to refuel.  And if it can't, there could be a mid-air collision.

Are the Polls Accurate?  Harry Truman was trailing Thomas E. Dewey by 5% in the last Gallup poll in 1948, conducted between Oct. 15 and 25 — the same margin by which Mr. Obama seems to be leading now.  But on Nov. 2, 18 days after Gallup's first interviews and eight days after its last, Truman ended up winning 50% to 45%.  Gallup may well have gotten it right when in the field; opinion could just have changed.

UN says Iceland is the best place to live, Africa the worst.  Iceland has overtaken Norway as the world's most desirable country to live in, according to an annual U.N. table published on Tuesday [11/27/2007] that again puts AIDS-afflicted sub-Saharan African states at the bottom.

Airlines Are Safer Than Ever.  Flights on U.S. airlines have never been more crowded — nor have they ever been safer.  The last crash of a commercial jet occurred in November 2001, although the number of flights has increased substantially in the past six and one-half years.

Editor's note:
The last crash was that of American 587.

Argentina lays new claim to Falklands.  Argentina's claim to the Falkland Islands, which remain in British hands after a 1982 war, is "inalienable", President Cristina Kirchner says.  "The sovereign claim to the Malvinas Islands (Argentina's name for them) is inalienable," she said in a speech marking the 26th anniversary of Argentina's ill-fated invasion of the two islands 480km offshore.

Judge Denies McDougal Bid To Unseal Whitewater Testimony.  A federal judge has denied an attempt by Whitewater figure Susan McDougal to unseal her grand jury testimony from the case.  Lawyers for McDougal, who served 18 months in jail for civil contempt for refusing to answer grand jury questions, argued the reasons for sealing the case had "grown stale and disappeared" in the time since.

Post-9/11 Dragnet Turns Up Surprises.  In the six-and-a-half years that the U.S. government has been fingerprinting insurgents, detainees and ordinary people in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Horn of Africa, hundreds have turned out to share an unexpected background, FBI and military officials said.  They have criminal arrest records in the United States.

Sonny Bono 'assassinated' by hitmen.  Sonny Bono, former husband and singing partner of superstar Cher, was clubbed to death by hitmen on the orders of drug and weapons dealers who feared he was going to expose them, a former FBI agent claims.  Ted Gunderson, now a private investigator, has told the US Globe tabloid that Bono, who served as mayor of Palm Springs for four years, did not die after hitting a tree on a Nevada ski slope in January 1998 as everyone believed.

Climate change will boost farm output.  Australian agricultural output will double over the next 40 years, with climate change predicted to increase, rather than hinder, the level of production.  A recent spate of reports forecasting the decline of Australian agriculture because of climate change have greatly exaggerated, and even completely misreported the threat of global warming, according to senior rural industry figures.

Presidential Candidates Find 51st State Overseas.  The number of Americans living overseas is commonly estimated at about 6 million — twice the population of Chicago and greater than that of 33 U.S. states.  Britain is home to about 300,000 Americans, nearly the population of Pittsburgh.

The OPEC of Vitamin C:  Most U.S. consumers are aware that Chinese products dominate the shelves of most retail stores, but few realize the dominance extends to vitamins and drugs.  Fully 90 percent of all the vitamin C sold in America comes from the communist trade giant.  This near-monopoly control of the vitamin-C market caused the Wall Street Journal to dub China the "OPEC of vitamin C," and like the oil cartel it has been accused of price fixing.

Plane flies five passengers from US to London.  A major airline is under fire from environmentalists for flying an aircraft across the Atlantic with only five passengers on board.  The flight from Chicago to London meant that the plane, a Boeing 777, used 22,000 gallons of fuel.

The Editor says...
There's nothing wrong with flying a plane with only five passengers aboard.  The error was in the use of such a large jet.  Was that the only available jet?

Shock horror for would-be power cable thief.  Police in central England are hunting for a badly scorched would-be copper power cable thief after finding a hacksaw embedded in an 11,000 volt power cable Saturday night [2/9/2008]. [...] Copper prices have more than doubled in the last four years as China has gobbled up huge quantities of it, sparking a wave of copper thefts across the globe from South Africa and the United States to Italy and Britain.

Fake fears over Ethiopia's gold.  Ethiopia's national bank has been told to inspect all the gold in its vaults to determine its authenticity.  It follows the discovery that some of the "gold" it had bought for millions of dollars was gold-plated steel.

Canon is using Iris watermarking.  While visible watermarks are common among a variety of photographers, invisible watermarks, which are embedded in the image file, are somewhat less prevalent — but gaining ground and acceptance among photographers.

IBM to shove ads onto DVDs.  IBM hopes to slip commercials onto your DVDs.  Big Blue has asked the US Patent Office for the exclusive rights to a "system and method of providing advertisements during DVD playback."  If this thing ever shows up in your DVD player, your discs won't be ad-free — unless you shell out some cash for some sort of digital certificate.

The Editor says...
The only difference between that and a virus is the size of the organization that produced it.

Capital has severe HIV epidemic, report finds.  Washington, D.C., has the highest rate of AIDS in the United States, and more babies are born with the AIDS virus in Washington than in other U.S. cities, according to a report released on Monday [11/26/2007].

NYC traffic fees closer to fruition.  A panel in charge of solving the chronic gridlock plaguing New York City made its final recommendations Thursday [1/31/2008], offering a scaled-back version of the original plan but still proposing an $8 charge on cars entering the most traffic-choked parts of Manhattan.

Do As Dems Say, Not As They Dine.  According to auditors, the chain of restaurants run by the Senate food service, including the snooty Senate Dining Room, has almost never been in the black.  It's lost more than $18 million since 1993 and dropped about $2 million this year alone.  If the food service doesn't get an emergency bridge loan of a quarter-million dollars, it won't be able to make payroll.  So how will the Senate fix the problem?  Well, with California Sen. Dianne Feinstein taking the lead, the Democrats — that's right, the Democrats — have called a classic Republican play:  Privatize it.

Code Talkers' reunion shows their numbers are dwindling.  They were an elite group, assisting in the development of an unbreakable code that helped to win World War II.  And only 11 are still surviving.

Titanic search was cover for secret Cold War subs mission.  The man who located the wreck of the Titanic has revealed that the discovery was a cover story to camouflage the real mission of inspecting the wrecks of two Cold War nuclear submarines.  When Bob Ballard led a team that pinpointed the wreckage of the liner in 1985 he had already completed his main task of finding out what happened to USS Thresher and USS Scorpion.  Both of the United States Navy vessels sank during the 1960s, killing more than 200 men and giving rise to fears that at least one of them, Scorpion, had been sunk by the USSR.

Barr forms exploratory committee.  Former Republican Rep. Bob Barr said Saturday he has formed a presidential exploratory committee and may seek the Libertarian party nomination. [...] He currently runs a lobbying and public affairs firm with offices in Atlanta and outside Washington.  His clients have included the American Civil Liberties Union and the Marijuana Policy Project, a group pushing Congress to allow medical marijuana use and to cut spending for what it says are failed anti-drug media campaigns aimed at young people.

Barr Fight:  Libertarians are not necessarily looking for the same things as anti-McCain Republicans.  Barr's 98 percent American Conservative Union rating, pro-life voting record, and hard line on immigration might help him in the general election.  But these positions aren't necessarily assets in a party that is officially pro-choice, supports open borders, and prefers the Nolan Chart to the left-right political spectrum.

Judge blocks Clinton deposition over FBI files.  A federal judge has rejected an effort to force Hillary Rodham Clinton to testify in a decade-old lawsuit over White House acquisition of FBI background files.  The court ruling spares Clinton a politically sensitive deposition at a time when she is fighting to overtake Barack Obama in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Jihadists' useful idiots:  Given that hard evidence is often scarce in trials of unsuccessful terrorists, prosecutors in Miami no doubt felt fortunate to be trying defendants who participated in a ceremony pledging allegiance to al Qaeda — and it was captured on video. [...] Narseal Batiste stated — on tape — that it was for creating an "Islamic army" to wage a "full ground war" and commit an attack that would be "as good or greater than 9/11," such as blowing up the Sears Tower.  It wasn't enough.  He wasn't convicted.

Alan Keyes Leaving Republican Party.  After 20 or so years of working within the GOP to try and reform it into a more Christian/conservative Party, Dr. Alan Keyes is leaving the Republican Party.  He will soon make this announcement and explain why he can no longer, in good conscience, remain a Republican.

Army begins using $150,000 artillery shells in Afghanistan.  Canadian army gunners in Afghanistan are now cleared to fire GPS-guided artillery shells at Taliban militants — at the cost of $150,000 a round.  The Excalibur shell could very well be the most expensive conventional ammunition ever fired by the military.  Supporters argue that the weapon, which has the ability to correct itself in flight, has pinpoint accuracy.

Pressing Need for Blue-Collar Labor.  I am going to be politically incorrect.  The fact is not everyone should go to college.  Yet we have pushed the notion that the only way to get a useful education is to obtain a college degree.  Recently I spoke with an official of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).  He supervizes an important part of the subway system.  He told me there are hundreds of vacant jobs.  The result is that the infrastructure is deteriorating. [...] Another downside is that many people who go to college are out of place — they simply don't belong there.

Police concerned about order to stop weapons screening at Obama rally.  Security details at Barack Obama's rally Wednesday [2/20/2008] stopped screening people for weapons at the front gates more than an hour before the Democratic presidential candidate took the stage at Reunion Arena.  The order to put down the metal detectors and stop checking purses and laptop bags came as a surprise to several Dallas police officers who said they believed it was a lapse in security.

Big Brother is a liar.
Badda Bing Badda Boom.  Even though the satellite's orbit was over populated areas, the risk to humans was low according to research scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).  "It certainly would seem that protecting people against a hazardous fuel was not what this was really about," said Geoffrey Forden, a (sic) MIT researcher.  Forden and his colleagues calculated there was a 3-in-100 chance that the fuel tank would land within 100 yards of someone and there was virtually no chance it would remain intact.  So why did the president go ahead with the estimated $40 million operation if the risk was so low?  Apparently, the unspoken advantages tipped the scales on the disadvantages.

Pastors in China Imprisoned to String Christmas Lights.  Their fingers bleed.  If they don't see through their day's quota — 5,000 bulbs, they are beaten.  The next day they report to duty under guards' eyes.  They thread the fine wire through plastic frames for Christmas lights to be strung for selling around the world.  But their Christmas celebration is confined to being imprisoned.  Their crime?  Preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.  This past year, 600 pastors alone were put behind Chinese bars.

Read All About It.  Papers remained quite profitable, for the most part.  But as the future began to look increasingly troubled, one publisher's stock after another got hammered, starting around the turn of the century.  Especially hard hit were publishers of prestigious newspapers.  Dow Jones stock was at less than half its high before News Corp. made its successful bid for the Wall Street Journal publisher last spring.  Times-Mirror fell more than 50% before being acquired by Tribune Co., which in turn has fallen around 45% from its high.

No Safe Harbor.  China's closing of its ports to the U.S. Navy is another action by a hostile power.  So why are we turning the other cheek to a dictatorship that threatens us?  Apparently the phrase "any port in a storm" does not translate well into Chinese.  Two U.S. minesweepers, the USS Patriot and the USS Guardian, found that out when they requested refuge in Hong Kong from an approaching storm and were refused by Chinese authorities in clear violation of long-standing naval tradition.

A very mysterious foundation.  Some 3,000 scientists, including more than 100 Nobel laureates, have apparently accepted membership of a body called the World Innovation Foundation (WIF), which claims to be a powerful world-changing network to provide "the technological tools and miracle technologies that we shall all need to solve the world's impending global problems". [...] [Robert] Huber, described as vice-president, claims that he has no recollection of joining the organization.  "I am not aware what this organization is," he says.

Proposal raises bones of contention.  Alarm is growing among anthropologists in the United States over a plan that could empty institutions of about 120,000 human skeletons currently stored for research purposes.  Under a new proposal, the bones at museums, universities and federal facilities across the nation could be given to Native American tribes now living in the area from which the remains were excavated, even if the skeletons are not culturally identifiable to the tribes.

None dare call it 'conspiracy'.  On Tuesday [11/6/2007], the U.S. national debt topped $9 trillion for the first time in history, according to the U.S. Treasury Department's daily accounting of the national debt.  Nine trillion dollars!  The number is so staggeringly high that it exceeds our ability to comprehend it in monetary units.  Million, billion, trillion — in financial terms, for most of us, it means a lot of money, really a lot of money, but that is about as specific a picture as most ordinary people can grasp.

The Olympic Bible:  The organizers of the 2008 Olympic Games in China have put the Bible on the list of items that athletes are banned from bringing with them to Beijing ... This would seem to undermine claims by a Chinese government official, Ye Xiaowen, who told Reuters last month that China would accommodate the religious needs of visiting athletes.

Did someone mention the Olympics?

Police tell woman who had bag snatched 'sorry, that's not a crime'.  A mother who had her bag snatched was told by police it was not a crime — because she chased after the thief and won her property back.

Last pineapple cannery in the U.S. is gone.  The Ginaca machine is as Hawaiian as — well, as pineapple — maybe even more.  Pineapple was introduced, but the Ginaca was invented in Hawaii.  It cores and peels pineapples with little human labor.  It made possible the Hawaii pine industry, which at one time produced 82 percent of the world's canned pineapple.

Pilot of plane that bombed Hiroshima dies.  Paul Tibbets, who piloted the B-29 bomber Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, died Thursday [11/1/2007].  He was 92 and insisted almost to his dying day that he had no regrets about the mission and slept just fine at night.

On the Death of 'Hiroshima Bomb' Pilot Paul Tibbets.  A bulletin topping many news sites this afternoon announced the passing of Paul W. Tibbets, pilot of the plane, the "Enola Gay" (named for his mother), which dropped the atomic bomb over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.  Tibbets was 92, and defended the bombing to the end of his life.  Some of the obits noted that he had requested no funeral or headstone for his grave, not wishing to create an opportunity for protestors to gather.

Nitrite, Nitrate-Rich Foods Boost Heart Attack Outcomes.  Eating nitrite/nitrate-rich foods such as vegetables and cured meats may help improve the chances of surviving a heart attack and of recovering more quickly.

Robbery Suspect Charged With Murder After Alleged Accomplices Killed by Homeowner.  Three young black men break into a white man's home in rural Northern California.  The homeowner shoots two of them to death — but it's the surviving black man who is charged with murder.  In a case that has brought cries of racism from civil rights groups, Renato Hughes Jr., 22, was charged by prosecutors in this overwhelmingly white county under a rarely invoked legal doctrine that could make him responsible for the bloodshed.

Shooting of theft suspects may test self-defense law.  In a case legal experts say may "stretch the limits" of the state's self-defense laws, a Pasadena [TX] man shot and killed two suspected burglars during a confrontation as they attempted to flee his neighbor's property Wednesday afternoon [11/14/2007].

Battling Ghost Calls, That Telemarketing Annoyance.  The culprit behind what is becoming a common occurrence in some households may have a less than otherworldly explanation.  More often than not it is a telemarketer — and one that complies with federal regulation.  Indeed, adherence to the rules may be one reason for the ghost calls.

Twenty percent of Republicans vote 'present' on Ramadan resolution.  Forty-one Republicans, more than 20 percent of the caucus, and one Democrat voted "present" on a resolution recognizing the commencement of Ramadan on Tuesday.  The 42 lawmakers make up more than 10 percent of the members voting on the resolution.  There were zero "no" votes, and 14 members did not vote. [...] Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) said, "I voted 'present' because I read somewhere that Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion."

The Editor says...
If Congressman Pence really thought Congress was about to establish Islam as a national religion, he should have voted "no" instead of "present".

Headline translated from British to American English.
War Hero Dies As Paramedics Have Their Tea.  An 82-year-old war hero choked to death in front of his daughter — while a nearby ambulance crew were having their tea.  Paramedics were just 500 yards from stricken Ernie Rutkiewicz.  But a crew took 22 MINUTES to reach him because of a Government rule which says crews can't be disturbed during their meal breaks.

Congress considers Concord hazardous?  NASCAR fans might seem rabid, but are they actually contagious?  Getting a hepatitis shot is standard procedure for travelers to parts of Africa and Asia, but some congressional aides were instructed to get immunized before going to Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord and the racetrack in Talladega, Ala.

NASCAR cooties:  House Homeland Security Committee staffers are on a peculiar mission to study "public health issues at events involving mass gatherings," which has personally insulted Rep. Robin Hayes of Concord, North Carolina.  The event:  NASCAR.  The rub:  the requirement that the Democrat and Republican staffers attending first be immunized against Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, tetanus, diphtheria, and influenza.

'USAF struck Syrian nuclear site'.  The September 6 raid over Syria was carried out by the US Air Force, the Al-Jazeera Web site reported Friday [11/02/2007].  The Web site quoted Israeli and Arab sources as saying that two strategic US jets armed with tactical nuclear weapons carried out an attack on a nuclear site under construction.  The sources were quoted as saying that Israeli F-15 and F-16 jets provided cover for the US planes.  The sources added that each US plane carried one tactical nuclear weapon and that the site was hit by one bomb and was totally destroyed.

The Editor says...
The story above comes from Al-Jazeera, so there's at least a 99 percent chance that it's a pack of lies.  But just suppose that this is really true — what a story!  The first hostile use of nukes in 60 years!  And I can't think of more deserving recipients.

How Many Site Hits?  Depends Who's Counting.  The growth of online advertising is being stunted, industry executives say, because nobody can get the basic visitor counts straight.

Threats aren't confined to the war zone.  Tainted toothpaste is only the latest in a series of Chinese import disasters.  As the New York Times reported last month, all 24 of the toys recalled for safety reasons this year were made in China.  Chinese exports have inspired a massive recall of pet food, a recall of 450,000 tires, and a ban on China's farm-raised shrimp, catfish and eel, prompting this shot from Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.:  "'Made in China' is rapidly becoming a warning label for American consumers."

Fire ants may have met their match.  Imported red fire ants have plagued farmers, ranchers and others for decades.  Now the reviled pests are facing a bug of their own.  Researchers have pinpointed a naturally occurring virus that kills the ants, which arrived in the U.S. in the 1930s and now cause $6 billion in damage annually nationwide, including about $1.2 billion in Texas.

Surging debate surrounds the use of 'smart' meters.  As early as next year, some electricity customers in western New York may be able to save money, thanks to new "smart" meters, by doing their laundry and dishes at night or programming their air conditioner to raise the temperature in their homes if power becomes too expensive.  Advocates see the new meters as a tool that will help New Yorkers cut their utility bills, reduce the demand for power and help the environment.  But critics see a darker side to this idea.

Scientists hail 'frozen smoke' as material that will change world.  A miracle material for the 21st century could protect your home against bomb blasts, mop up oil spillages and even help man to fly to Mars.  Aerogel, one of the world's lightest solids, can withstand a direct blast of 1kg of dynamite and protect against heat from a blowtorch at more than 1,300C.

Drought?  HOA requires grass be green.  Amid record drought and heat that have pushed cities across the state to severe water conservation measures, residents of the Margot's Pond community outside Raleigh have been ordered by their homeowners association to keep the grass green.

Chavez puts Venezuela's clock ahead 30 minutes.  President Hugo Chavez has announced that Venezuela's official time will be put ahead by half an hour starting January 1, and its first-ever offshore oil rig will start pumping before the year is out.

Kathleen Willey Reports Stolen Manuscript, Suspects "Clinton Operative".  Kathleen Willey had planned to spend the Labor Day weekend proofing pages of her forthcoming book, "Target:  In the Crosshairs of Bill and Hillary Clinton."  Instead, she says, someone broke into her Powhatan County home Friday, Aug. 31, and stole a copy of her unpublished 230-page manuscript.  Her publishers are "aghast," she says.  "I think it's a Clinton operative," Willey says.  "It sounds like Watergate.  It's amateurish, but I know they're not amateurs."

The poorest countries in the world are the ones with the worst pollution.
Oxygen supplies for India police.  Police stations across the Indian city of Calcutta have been equipped with oxygen devices to enable police to offset the effects of pollution.  The extra air is for the benefit of hundreds of traffic policemen in the city who have to brave some of the worst pollution in the world.

Al Gore's son busted for drugs in hybrid car.  The 24-year-old son of former Vice President Al Gore was arrested for drug possession on Wednesday after he was stopped for speeding in his hybrid Toyota Prius, a sheriff's official said.

Al Gore's Son Arrested on Drug Suspicion.  Al Gore's son was pulled over for speeding on a California freeway early Wednesday and arrested on suspicion of possessing marijuana and prescription drugs, authorities said.  Al Gore III, 24, was driving a blue Toyota Prius about 100 mph south on the San Diego Freeway when he was pulled over by sheriff's deputies who said they smelled marijuana, said Sheriff's Department spokesman Jim Amormino.

The Editor says...
So... if you stand on the gas pedal long enough a Toyota Prius will go 100 mph.  That's the real news here.  But can you even imagine the media frenzy that would surround this story if it had been one of President Bush's kids arrested for the same thing?

Condo rule waived so U.S. flag can wave.  Although his condo complex has strict rules against decorations, Brendan Davis figured he could put up a small American flag outside his unit door.  After all, who would object to a flag on Memorial Day?  Apparently, a condominium security guard.  Albert Gonzalez, a guard at the ParkCrest Harbour Island condominiums, found the small flag stuck in a light fixture and warned, then later fined, Davis for violating the rules.

Official caught off-roading in preserve.  In this 11-hour battle between mud and man, the mud won.  It beat Chris Sharek, the director of Venice's utilities department, whose job is to ensure that the city obeys environmental regulations, though he apparently failed to do so himself.  A judge slapped Sharek with 25 hours of community service and probation last month for off-roading through a protected wilderness preserve with his wife and father-in-law.

Another target for terrorists...
Spain and Morocco to link by tunnel.  Spain and Morocco are planning a joint effort to link their countries by undersea train tunnel, Spanish news agency EFE reported Wednesday [3/7/2007].

Family film audience shown glimpse of horror flick in New York.  A family film audience was stunned to get an unintended glimpse of a horror movie, which left some parents and their children shaken and the theatre chain apologizing for the movie mix-up.

All noise banned on thrill ride.  No screaming on the Screamer!  A suburban amusement park has gotten so many complaints from neighbours about blood-curdling screams that it has instituted a no-shrieking rule for its scary new thrill ride, the Scandia Screamer. [...] Riders who let out a screech — or just about any other noise — are pulled off and sent to the back of the line.

The Editor says...
What kind of an amusement park demands total silence from people riding on roller coasters and other machines that are designed to be frightening?  Only in a place like California would this kind of prohibition be considered reasonable.




Habitat for Humanity

This subsection has moved here.




A few words about pennies

This subsection has moved to here.



Metal thieves knock Vancouver radio station off air.  A Vancouver radio station was knocked off the air for several hours Thursday after thieves raided its transmitter, stealing copper and other metal.  CFUN program director Stu Ferguson said the station went off the air around noon.

Scientists cast doubt on Kennedy bullet analysis.  In a collision of 21st-century science and decades-old conspiracy theories, a research team that includes a former top FBI scientist is challenging the bullet analysis used by the government to conclude that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in assassinating President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

JFK single-bullet theory in question.  More than four decades after his death, John F. Kennedy's assassination remains the hottest cold case in U.S. history, and the clues continue to trickle in.  Now Lawrence Livermore Laboratory scientists say a key piece of evidence supporting the lone-gunman theory should be thrown out.

The Editor says...
The single-bullet theory has been in question since the day it was announced.

Pot linked strongly to mental illness.  The report, released today by former Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Palmer, analysed the growing body of evidence of the long-suspected link between marijuana use and mental disorders.

Jermaine Jackson wants Michael to convert to Islam.  Jermaine Jackson said on Monday [1/29/2007] he wants his brother Michael to convert to Islam; and he believes the reclusive superstar has given it serious thought.

["Convert" from what?]

Dinner with Louisiana Governor Goes for $1 at Auction.  Call it a sign of the times for Louisiana's embattled governor:  A chance to dine with Gov. Kathleen Blanco fetched a winning bid of $1 at a recent fundraising auction hosted by a group of business leaders.

Web chief warns of domain name chaos.  Plans to fast-track the introduction of non-English characters in website domain names could "break the whole internet", warns ICANN chief executive Paul Twomey.  At present there are 37 possible characters that can be used in domain names, but if non-English letters are allowed, this number would rise to 50,000 or more, said Twomey.

California court says bloggers can't be sued.  The California Supreme Court ruled Monday [11/20/2006] that bloggers and participants in Internet bulletin board groups cannot be sued for posting defamatory statements made by others.

Getting help to remember passwords.  In 2005, RSA Security Inc. surveyed 1,700 business computer users.  It found that almost 60 percent had to manage at least six passwords, while 28 percent had to manage more than 13.  And that doesn't count personal passwords for who-knows-how-many e-mail accounts, voice mail boxes and Web sites.  Some are important, such as bank, credit card and stock brokerages, and some aren't.  But they require passwords all the same.

Poverty Reduction or Pork?  One likely reason for the World Bank's dearth of profits is its penchant for granting zero interest loans — grants by any other name — to middle-income countries such as China and India.  The World Bank sends 80% of its loans to 12 middle-income countries, including Turkey, Mexico, Brazil, and China.  It sends only 10% of its loans to Africa.

Solved:  the mystery of the crumbling €50 notes.  Thousands of Germans have been stuffing euro notes up their noses — and destroying not only their health but also the currency, police believe.  They say that the mystery of why euro notes have been falling apart since the summer — many look moth-eaten after only a day in the pocket — is down to an increasing use of crystal methamphetamine.  In Germany this drug is fast replacing cocaine as the illegal party substance of choice.

High metal prices drive coin smuggling.  Smugglers have tried to ship out millions of older one-peso coins from the Philippines, not for their face value of less than 2¢ each but for the copper and nickel content as metals prices soar.  The central bank said customs authorities seized a 40-foot container at the weekend that was loaded with 2 to 3 million coins, weighing 12.2-18.3 tonnes, bound for Japan.

Speaking of money, the following article is lengthy but very interesting.
No Ordinary Counterfeit.  After the indictments were released, U.S. government and law-enforcement officials began to say in public something that they had long said in private:  the counterfeits were being manufactured not by small-time crooks or even sophisticated criminal cartels but by the government of North Korea.

Speaking of North Korea...
Elk Grove man remembers the Pueblo.  The USS Pueblo still stands prisoner 40 years after its capture.  Tethered on the Taedong River in Pyongyang, the only commissioned U.S. Navy ship in foreign hands is promoted as a trophy celebrating the communist nation's Cold War conquest.

Army to switch from green to blue uniforms.  The U.S. Army plans to eliminate the green uniform worn by its soldiers for more than 100 years and switch back to traditional blue worn by those fighting the Revolutionary War.  Everyday-wear uniforms will include a dark blue jacket, light blue trousers and gray shirt, the Army said.

Is 60 too old to be a pilot?  Robert "Hoot" Gibson was not the happiest camper Friday, despite a party in his honor.  Not only was the longtime astronaut piloting his last commercial airline flight because of a forced retirement, but the flight was five minutes late, to boot.  Gibson, a colorful member of NASA's elite astronaut corps who commanded four of the five space shuttle missions he flew, is ending a 10-year run with Southwest Airlines because he turns 60 on Monday, the mandatory retirement age for pilots in the U.S. Gibson calls it blatant age discrimination.

[How many former astronauts are now airline pilots?]

Deal With Wen Ho Lee Begets Warning of Yet More Claims.  A decision by five major news organizations to pay $750,000 to a nuclear scientist named in news stories as the target of an espionage investigation is prompting warnings that the unusual payment could embolden others aggrieved by government leaks and lead to more litigation involving the press.

Many drivers are on the road illegally.  About 5 percent of South Carolina's drivers — more than 156,000 — have suspended or revoked licenses, according to South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles records.  Officials say many of those people continue to drive, causing crashes and financial strain because many people with suspended licenses also are uninsured.

FOX News Steps in the PC Puddle.  It's official.  FOX News has joined the rest of the politically correct and liberal news outlets.  Like CBS and NBC, FOX has given a $10,000 donation to the pro-homosexual journalism organization National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA).  FOX News is listed as a "Feature Level" sponsor of the NLGJA annual convention which runs through this weekend in Miami.

FBI says Violent crime was on the rise in 2005.  FBI statistics Monday [6/12/2006] confirmed what big cities like Philadelphia, Houston, Cleveland and Las Vegas have seen on the streets:  Violent crime in the U.S. is on the rise, posting its biggest one-year increase since 1991.

As DVD sales slow, Hollywood seeks a new cash cow.  After more than half a decade as Hollywood's savior, the DVD is looking a little tired — and the movie studios, for once, are having trouble coming up with a sequel.  DVD sales represent more than half of the revenue studios generate from most of their movies.  But those sales are expected to grow just 2 percent this year, a far cry from the double-digit growth the industry enjoyed just two years ago.

New spyware program blackmails computer users.  A new spyware program that lures computer users by claiming to give free access to pornographic Internet content ends up "blackmailing" them into purchasing a program to clean the infection.

The Wrath of Grapes:  In today's remarkable economy, with just a few minutes online, you can buy almost any product imaginable from almost anywhere in the world and have it delivered to your front door.  Except wine.

Truth About CastroThe Lost City not only is a loving tribute to Havana and Cuban art and music, it is also a loving tribute to liberty, democracy and capitalism.  Castro's regime is clearly portrayed as an evil dictatorship.

Moussaoui Sentenced To Life In Prison.  A federal jury rejected the death penalty for al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui on Wednesday [5/3/2006] and decided he must spend life in prison for his role in the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history.

Castro says he will resign if the US proves him wealthy.  Cuban President Fidel Castro has said that he would offer his resignation if his arch-rival, the United States, can prove that he has a huge personal fortune as claimed by Forbes magazine.

Does Rupert Murdoch Own your MySpace Content?  Originally, the MySpace terms of service granted the website a limited license that give it non-exclusive rights to use the material users display there, but only while they keep it there.  If a user deletes the data, MySpace no longer has any rights to it (if they happened to keep an archived copy).  But soon after MySpace was bought by Rupert Murdoch's media empire News Corporation last year, the terms were changed to indicate that "Content posted by you may remain on the MySpace.com servers after you have removed the content from the services, and MySpace.com retains the rights to those copies."

Murdoch could endorse Obama.  Rupert Murdoch, CEO of News Corp, says he could endorse Democratic Sen. Barack Obama for president in several of his newspapers, including the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, according to an interview published in Silicon Alley Insider, a business blog.

10 years after Ron Brown:  Only weeks earlier, Brown had been Clinton's bag man in a trip to New York where he collected about $1.2 million from Loral for the Democratic Party to use as "soft money." [...] America's security was traded for Clinton's re-election campaign.  Following the Clinton meeting and the money delivery, a close friend of Ron Brown told a Justice Department presentencing conference that he only had one option — to report the president's possible treasonous dealings with China.  Soon thereafter Ron Brown died in an air crash.

Did someone mention Ron Brown?

NJ Bill Would Prohibit Anonymous Posts on Forums.  Too much important opinion, including that leading to the founding of the country, was published anonymously to permit the government to ban anonymous opinion.  Even unto this day, anonymous pamphleteering is an honorable activity at the core of the First Amendment. [...] I would expect that such a statute, were it to be enacted, would be quickly challenged and almost as quickly overturned.

[Yeah, but that's what they said about Campaign Finance Reform.]

Curt Weldon:  Bin Laden Is Dead.  Rep. Curt Weldon, who broke the Able Danger story last year revealing that military intelligence had identified lead hijacker Mohammed Atta as a terrorist threat before the 9/11 attacks, now says that Osama bin Laden has died.

Massive fraud hits tsunami aid.  Of the 170,000 homes promised to the people of Aceh, only about 15,000 have been built, one year and four months after the tsunami.

Tsunami aid 'spent on politics'.  Three years after Australians donated $400 million to rebuild Asian lives devastated by the 2004 tsunami, aid groups are under attack for spending much of the money on social and political engineering.  A survey by The Australian of the contributions by non-government organisations to the relief effort found the donations had been spent on politically correct projects promoting left-wing Western values over traditional Asian culture.

California gang members to be tracked by GPS.  California prison officials have begun using Global Positioning System anklets to track known gang members.

[GPS receivers are not infallible.  They do not work deep inside buildings, in underground parking garages, or when wrapped in cement shoes at the bottom of a river.]

Neither King nor abortion foes are racketeers.  The Supreme Court's unanimous 8–0 decision this week rejecting claims by the National Organization for Women that demonstrations at abortion clinics are extortion and therefore punishable under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act was an important vote for freedom and free speech.

Bottled water, a natural resource taxing the world's ecosystem.  Bottled water consumption, which has more than doubled globally in the last six years, is a natural resource that is heavily taxing the world's ecosystem, according to a new US study. [...] "Making bottles to meet Americans' demand for bottled water requires more than 1.5 million barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel some 100,000 US cars for a year," according to the study.  "Worldwide, some 2.7 million tons of plastic are used to bottle water each year."

This is what "swift and sure" means...
Prosecutor says Guilty Saddam would hang quickly.  The Iraqi High Tribunal's chief prosecutor says Saddam Hussein will hang immediately if he is found guilty on charges relating to deaths of 148 Shiites. [...] "If the court passes a death sentence on any of the defendants in the Dujail case, the law is clear, the sentence must be carried out within 30 days following the appeal," Mr Mussawi said.

ACLU opposes creation of 'Catholic town'.  The founder of Dominos Pizza, Tom Monaghan, plans to create a town in Florida named Ave Maria.  No condoms, birth control pills or porn would be sold there.  The ACLU of Florida's executive director, Howard Simon, opposes it.

Invasion of the Computer Snatchers.  Hackers are hijacking thousands of PCs to spy on users, shake down online businesses, steal identities and send millions of pieces of spam.  If you think your computer is safe, think again.



Special Subsection about Patrick Kennedy's brush with the law:

Another Kennedy Cover-up?  If this driver is you then you can get ready for your field sobriety test.  Time to blow into the little tube!  Ohhhh [...] but not Patrick Kennedy!  He's Ted Kennedy's son!  According to one of the Capitol Hill police officers on the scene superior officers did not permit them to perform a field sobriety test.  Patrick Kennedy was put into a supervisor's car and driven home.

The Kennedy Tradition:  After his second smash-up in three weeks — and a lot of unanswered questions about an alleged police cover-up — Rep. Patrick Kennedy yesterday declared that he's entering rehab to deal with an addiction to painkillers.  Those questions need to be answered.  Because not even a Kennedy should be above the law.

Riding With Kennedy Worse than Hunting With Cheney, Group Says.  "I'd rather go quail hunting with Dick Cheney than get in a car being driven by a Kennedy," said Second Amendment Foundation founder Alan M. Gottlieb.  "As it stands right now, I think Congress should consider mandating drug testing of its members before they vote on legislation that would take away any of our civil rights.

Read Rep. Patrick Kennedy's Traffic Accident Report for Yourself.  In a statement to the press, Kennedy said that he "do[es] not remember getting out of bed, being pulled over by the police, or being cited for three driving infractions."

The Editor says...
Nonsense!  Who among us has ever had such a reaction to prescription medicine (...while driving at 3:00 a.m.)?  And who, after having such a complete loss of consciousness, would be able to drive a car at all?  And how many of us ordinary citizens, under the same circumstances, would escape DUI charges?

Sleepwalking Into History, Kennedy Style.  Police officers involved in the incident complained through their labor union about the special treatment afforded Rep. Kennedy, whose "eyes were red and watery," according to the police report, which added that his "speech was slightly slurred and, upon exiting his vehicle, his balance was unsure."  Rather than cop to drinking, Kennedy claimed he had no memory of the incident because of an interaction between "the prescribed amount of Phenergan and Ambien."
Yeah, right.

The Sleeping Pill Ate My Homework.  A couple of months back, US Congressman Patrick Kennedy drove his car into a security barricade near the Capitol building early one Thursday morning, leading many observers to think this scion of Camelot had been throwing back a few too many at the Hawk 'n' Dove, a Capitol Hill bar where, according to the Boston Herald, he'd been seen drinking earlier that evening.  But, "no," said Paddy.  "I consumed no alcohol prior to the incident."  In an excuse reminiscent of 'the dog ate my homework,' Kennedy said it was his sleeping pills that did it.



Special Subsection about the Sony Copy Protection Scandal of 2005:

Sony's anti-file-sharing CD causes a firestorm of anger.  On Halloween, a developer with an Austin-based software company posted on his blog a detailed report on a troubling discovery — a CD from Sony BMG had installed software on his PC that uses the same technique for hiding itself as the most pernicious type of spyware.

Sony halts production of music CDs with copy-protection scheme.  Stung by continuing criticism, the world's second-largest music label, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, promised Friday [11/11/2005] to temporarily suspend making music CDs with antipiracy technology that can leave computers vulnerable to hackers.

The Editor says...
If an individual had done what Sony did, peddling a product with a built-in rootkit, he could have been sent to prison as an evil, pernicious hacker.  But the courts seem to look favorably on music companies that are trying to protect their intellectual property, no matter how they do it.

Sony CD DRM Blow-Up Continues — Recalls Ordered, Lawsuits Possible.

Sony's DRM Rootkit:  The Real Story.  On Oct. 31, Mark Russinovich broke the story in his blog:  Sony BMG Music Entertainment distributed a copy-protection scheme with music CDs that secretly installed a rootkit on computers.  This software tool is run without your knowledge or consent — if it's loaded on your computer with a CD, a hacker can gain and maintain access to your system and you wouldn't know it.

Texas sues Sony BMG over alleged spyware.  Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed a civil lawsuit on Monday [11/21/2005] against Sony BMG Music Entertainment for allegedly including spyware on its media player designed to thwart music copying.

Update:
Sony BMG Settles Suit Over CDs.  Sony BMG Music Entertainment will pay $1.5 million and kick in thousands more in customer refunds to settle lawsuits brought by California and Texas over music CDs that installed a hidden anti-piracy program on consumers' computers.  Not only did the program itself open up a security hole on computers, but attempts to remove the software by some customers also damaged the PCs.  The settlements, announced Tuesday [12/19/2006], cover lawsuits over CDs loaded with one of two types of copy-protection software — known as MediaMax or XCP.



Tantrums:  [Al] Gore is bidding fair to become the Muqtada al-Sadr of America's Angry Left.  Savor his recent vituperations.  He has called our suave president a "moral coward" who is in alliance with "digital brown shirts."  He refers to Abu Ghraib prison as "the Bush Gulag;" and, forgetting the discrepancies of his former boss, he calls President George W. Bush "the most dishonest president since Richard Nixon."

Pentagon anti-male room?  Sex scandals at the Air Force Academy in 2003 sparked several investigations and constructive reforms.  Recent surveys indicate harassment has diminished at the military academies.  You would never know it, however, because bad news is good news for civilian "victim advocates" seeking more government contracts and jobs.

The four-year scandal of the 9/11 billions.  Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on projects that seemingly had nothing to do with 9/11 and lower Manhattan. [...] Millions went to help projects already in the works before 9/11 or on the drawing board with no prior funding source. [...] Substantial sums were given to companies to stay in lower Manhattan even though they had no intention of leaving.  In many cases, original eligibility rules were expanded, and deadlines extended, so that virtually no one was ineligible.

Louis Freeh On Clinton's Skeletons.  In his upcoming book, My FBI, Freeh writes, "The problem was with Bill Clinton — the scandals and the rumored scandals, the incubating ones and the dying ones never ended.  Whatever moral compass the president was consulting was leading him in the wrong direction.  His closets were full of skeletons just waiting to burst out."

Freeh at last.  In his book, Freeh says [...] "There was always some new investigation brewing, some new calamity bubbling just below the headlines."  Freeh continued:  "The problem was with Bill Clinton, the scandals and rumored scandals, the incubating ones and the dying ones never ended.  Whatever moral compass the president was consulting was leading him in the wrong direction.  His closets were full of skeletons just waiting to burst out."

Bored readers cutting off Globe's circulation.  Circulation is melting away at the Boston Globe, on top of vanishing ad revenue, and the need for deep cuts is forcing closure of its national news desk and two sections within the broadsheet.

Seceding seldom succeeds, but Vermonters try.  "If we had a right to join the Union, we certainly have a right to disband from it," SVR founder Thomas Naylor told the assembly.  In his view, Vermonters should join the cause if they say the US has lost moral authority and is unsustainable, ungovernable, and unfixable.  [And if they] want to help take back Vermont from big business, big markets, and big government — and do so peacefully.

The Mother of All Connections.  We know from these IIS documents that beginning in 1992 the former Iraqi regime regarded bin Laden as an Iraqi Intelligence asset.  We know from IIS documents that the former Iraqi regime provided safe haven and financial support to an Iraqi who has admitted to mixing the chemicals for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center.  We know from IIS documents that Saddam Hussein agreed to Osama bin Laden's request to broadcast anti-Saudi propaganda on Iraqi state-run television.  We know from IIS documents that a "trusted confidante" of bin Laden stayed for more than two weeks at a posh Baghdad hotel as the guest of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.

Republicans Introduce Bill That Unions Won't Like.  Labor unions and their Democrat allies have been howling ever since President Bush suspended the Davis-Bacon Act in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  The suspension allows federal contractors to hire employees at less than the prevailing wage in hurricane-devastated Gulf states.

Sustainable Earth and UN Delusions:  The bureaucratic international boondoggle hilariously misnamed the United Nations came together in 1992, without a great deal of fanfare that I recollect, to build a new Tower of Babel called "sustainable earth."  Very simply, all they want to do is to manage the world [...] not a very new or very creative idea.

BRAC Wars, Episode Three.  One of the most important issues in military transformation today is Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC). [...] President George W. Bush has initiated a new round of BRAC designed to eliminate excess basing infrastructure and free up resources that can be reinvested into the Pentagon's critical transformation initiatives.

Shortsighted tall tales:  Mr. Rove has testified before the grand jury several times.  So has Mr. Libby and many others.  E-mails and memos have been produced.  Phone logs have been examined.  There is no hint of complaint from Mr. Fitzgerald that the White House has been anything less than cooperative.  But top Democratic leaders, desperately looking for an issue in the absence of a real agenda, are crying "stonewalling" and some people apparently believe that's happening here.

I agree, let's not let the Rove story die just yet.  Before President Bush's Supreme Court nomination of Judge John Roberts completely overshadows the misidentified Karl Rove scandal, I think we better take a second look at the twisted direction this sad story has taken.  As far as Karl Rove's conduct in the Plame/Wilson affair, there is no scandal.  He didn't come close to committing a crime, nor even an ethical infraction.

How the Media Created Rovegate:  It's clear, based on the notes of his discussion with Matt Cooper of Time, that Rove wasn't aware of the facts and didn't have access to classified information about Valerie Plame's service or status in the CIA.  He said she "apparently" worked at the agency.  In any case, it turns out she isn't covered under a law designed to protect the identities of secret CIA agents.

A role model he is not.  The American Heart Association believes you can trust President Bill Clinton to mentor your daughter.  But try getting the nonprofit organization to admit that Mr. Clinton is a good role model for children.

Terri's grave:  "I kept my promise".  Michael Schiavo had a grave marker placed yesterday [6/20/2005] on the cremated remains of his wife Terri Schiavo that lists her death as Feb. 25, 1990 — more than 15 years before she died of court-ordered dehydration.

Terri Schiavo's Autopsy Report Leaves Unanswered Questions.  What is a surprise is that Dr. Thogmartin found no evidence of bulimia or of a potassium imbalance that would have caused Terri to collapse on February 25, 1990.  There is no evidence she had a heart condition before that date, either.  Michael Schiavo made the talk show rounds, asserting that Terri's profound disability resulted from undiagnosed bulimia.  That means Michael Schiavo lied.

Schiavo Autopsy Shows She Died of Severe Dehydration.  Media coverage of the autopsy results have centered on the lack of evidence for abuse and Terri's brain being "severely atrophied."

Vegetative Woman Awakens After Six Years.  A woman who went into a vegetative state more than six years ago awoke this week for three days and spoke with her family and a local television station before slipping back. [...] Her neurologist, Dr. Randall Bjork, said he couldn't explain how or why she awoke.  "I'm just not able to explain this on the basis of what we know about persistent vegetative states," he said.

Schiavo-like woman speaks after 2½ years.  A Kansas woman severely brain-injured after an accident in 2002 has begun speaking — to the amazement of her doctor.

In Canada, the Schiavo case with an outrageous twist.  An elderly Orthodox Jew is on life support.  His children have adamantly opposed his removal from the ventilator and feeding tube, on the grounds that Jewish law expressly forbids any action designed to shorten life.

Funeral called off after dying mom wakes from coma.  As Raleane (Rae) Kupferschmidt lay motionless in her hospital bed, family and friends said their final goodbyes and the funeral home was called.  But just as the grieving began in her Lake Elmo home, Kupferschmidt woke up from her coma.

First no more air maps, next no more road maps?  The U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) has proposed to withdraw all aeronautical data and products from public distribution.

Information about political junkets paid by lobbyists:
Rahall slips in the freebie poll.  The list of travel paid by lobbyists and other friends of Congress has an interesting pattern.  Democrats dominate the list, holding the top 12 positions.  The way Democrats have been demonizing Tom DeLay of late, I figured DeLay would be one of the biggest mooches in Congress.  But he is way down at 119th in travel paid for by lobbyists and the like.

Here is the list:  the ranking of Members of Congress taking privately-funded trips, from 2000 to winter 2005.

Also of interest:  Members Receiving the Most Gifts of Travel  during the last five and a quarter years the ranking of Members of Congresss receiving privately-funded trips.

2001 Clinton logging plan challenged.  The Wyoming attorney general and an environmental lawyer challenged the legitimacy of a 2001 Clinton administration logging plan Wednesday [5/4/2005] before the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.  The plan set aside 58 million acres nationwide as roadless areas in which logging is prohibited.  It also barred the U.S. Forest Service from maintaining roads in those areas.

Less speech, and no more car ads.  In 1965 Russ Darrow founded the business — Russ Darrow Group Inc. — that now includes 22 new and used vehicle dealerships.  Because of [the McCain-Feingold legislation], the company felt compelled to ask the Federal Election Commission whether it can continue to advertise when its founder is running for federal office.

Hazel O'Leary, Clinton's Energy Secretary, Removed From Plane.  Nine days after being named president of Fisk University, Hazel O'Leary found herself being questioned by the FBI after being escorted off a commercial airplane.  O'Leary disputes a report that she was loud and abusive.

United Flight 93 crashed without cockpit struggle.  Passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93 fought back against the hijackers but never actually made it into the cockpit, the Sept. 11 commission concluded.

Flight 93 mosque
The Flight 93 Memorial is a Mosque, Celebrating the Crash.  The original Crescent of Embrace design for the Flight 93 memorial (left) was laid out in the configuration of an Islamic crescent and star flag (right).  The crash site sits between the tips of the giant crescent, in the position of the star on an Islamic flag.

Crescent of Betrayal:  A book by Alec Rawls, about the terrorist memorial mosque now being built in Pennsylvania.

Subway's Anti-American Tray-Liners.  Subway's advertising strategy is a new low in corporate behavior — exploiting cultural tensions and inflaming anti-American sentiment abroad just to sell more sandwiches.  It is appalling that Subway, a U.S. company, would attack Americans and the Statue of Liberty in a time of war [...] just to gain market share.

58 Million Wage Earners Pay No Federal Income Tax.  According to the Washington, DC-based Tax Foundation, "a record 44 million tax returns filed in 2005 will be correctly demanding the return of every dollar (or more) that is being withheld from their paychecks during 2004."

Automatic registration for the draft:  The Texas DPS is going to automatically register 18 to 26 year old males with the US Selective Service (military draft) when they apply for or renew a Texas driver's license.

The Editor says...
This raises some important questions.  How many state agencies use their leverage to gather information for federal agencies?  And what other agencies will begin using this technique?

Charges Dropped Against Yee.  Citing national security concerns, the Army on Friday [3/19/2004] dropped all charges against a Muslim chaplain accused of mishandling classified documents at Guantanamo Bay, which houses suspected terrorists.

The Editor says...
The charges were dropped because of "national security concerns"?  That's why he was arrested!

Cheney:  War Could Last Generations.  Vice President Dick Cheney warned that the battle against terrorism — like the Cold War — could last generations, according to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Review of death sentences "ordered".  The International Court of Justice ruled [3/31/2004] that the United States "must" review the convictions and death sentences of 51 Mexicans in U.S. jails, saying local authorities had failed to consult Mexican consulates in violation of international law.

The Editor says...
Obviously the International Court has no leverage with which to enforce this order.

Dean urged unilateral action in Bosnia.  In a letter to President Clinton, Howard Dean appears to contradict his core complaint that President Bush has followed a unilateral foreign policy, instead of a multilateral approach that relies on consultation and joint action with allies.  He has repeatedly attacked Bush's decision to invade Iraq.

Supreme Court Upholds Political Money Law.  A sharply divided Supreme Court upheld key features of the nation's new law intended to lessen the influence of money in politics, ruling Wednesday [12/10/2003] that the government may ban unlimited donations to political parties.

Is Haiti Facing a Voodoo-Christian Showdown?  In late April, Haiti's President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a former Catholic priest, declared voodoo an officially recognized religion.  The decision means, among other things, that marriage ceremonies conducted by voodoo priests now have equal standing with Catholic ones.

Hi-tech hunt for music downloaders:  Using a surprisingly astute technical procedure, the RIAA examined song files on a woman's computer and traced their digital fingerprints back to Napster.

Clinton Whitewater costs won't be paid by taxpayers.  An appeals court in Washington, D.C., [has] rejected a request by former President Bill Clinton and Sen. Hillary Clinton that the federal government reimburse them for legal fees incurred during the Whitewater independent counsel investigation.

Juanita Broaddrick Dares Hillary:  Clinton rape accuser Juanita Broaddrick took to the radio airwaves on Friday [06/06/2003] to challenge Hillary Clinton's claim that she didn't know about her husband's philandering.

Carter Silent On Castro's Crackdown:  Jimmy Carter is the self-appointed globetrotter on behalf of human rights.  But when Carter friend Fidel Castro unleashed a brutal wave of repression recently, that included extradjudicial executions, Carter's reaction was silence, followed by muted criticism, and finalized with a stinging criticism of — the United States!

Fidel Castro's Dupes:  In Castro's Cuba, it is a crime to meet to discuss the economy, to write letters to the government, to report on political developments, to speak to international reporters, to advocate human rights, to visit friends or relatives outside your local area of residence without government permission.

Chicago Uses Storm-Troop Tactics to Trash Meigs.  The City of Chicago used surprise and shock tactics to start demolishing Meigs Field, the world-renowned airport serving downtown, ripping up runway without notice in the dark of night under police guard.

Why not just outlaw the potatoes?  Homemade potato cannons have become popular in Germany, and "prosecutors in the republic's 16 states are passing emergency rulings to try to outlaw them."

Nation's Most-Dangerous Cities Ranked:  Rankings Based On FBI Crime-Figures Analysis.

The list:  America's safest — and the most dangerous - cities:  St. Louis, Missouri is the Most Dangerous.

Was United Flight 93 shot down on September 11?  Report revisits nagging question of what really happened to the doomed jet.

To protect and serve:  Chances are the 42-year-old mother of two who was allegedly gang-raped in New York City by five illegal aliens did not know that Article Four, Section Four of the Constitution says that the federal government will protect each state against "invasion" and "domestic violence."

Smithsonian Museum Blasted for Stressing America's Failures.  A tour of America's premier federal historical museum in Washington D.C., reveals an unflattering historical portrait of America oppressing minorities.  Some tourists and cultural critics say the Smithsonian curators have "washed out" the nation's European ancestry in favor of "diversity" history.

U.S. won't support Net "hate speech" ban:  The Bush administration said on Friday [11/15/2002] that it will not support a proposed treaty to restrict "hate speech" on the Internet.

Political history – and the future:  Not since Ronald Reagan has a man who was supposed to be so dumb kept beating people who were supposed to be so smart.

Crying Wolf — The Genuine Dilemma of False Alarms:  It's absolutely astonishing that up to 98 percent — yes, 98 percent! — of all alarms are false.  Millions upon millions of dollars' worth of precious law enforcement time and resources are squandered annually responding to erroneous alarm calls.  And, even more tragic, over the years numerous police officers have been severely injured, and indeed killed, answering false alarms.

A New "Standard" For Customer "No-Service":  We have taken a giant step backwards with regard to the use of the telephone based customer service.  More and more companies are making it absolutely impossible for customers to reach them by telephone.

Painting Depicting Police Shooting Not a Threat, Court Rules:  A California high school student's painting, which depicted him shooting a female police officer in the head, does not constitute a threat, according to a recent ruling by a state appeals court in Sacramento.

Four Attacks on the Rule of Law:  The Rule of Law is of profound value to all of us.  Yet most of us fail to raise a finger against those who are waging flat-out war against its very foundations.  The assault comes from four directions.

Mailboxes Vanish:  If you've noticed that mailboxes seem harder to find than ever, it's true:  The government has removed almost 7,000 of them since September 11.

Neighborhood mailboxes being stamped out.  If you're suddenly having trouble finding a neighborhood mailbox, you've got lots of company.  In recent weeks, one-quarter of the 3,700 collection boxes in the Los Angeles area have been removed, said Joseph L. Harrison, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service's Los Angeles district.

"Metric Martyrs" Appeal To Go To UK's Highest Appeals Court:  Five small businessmen who were prosecuted for selling goods in imperial measures plan to take their case to Britain's highest appeals court, arguing that a series of lower court rulings have resulted in a constitutional crisis and may even jeopardize the U.K.'s sovereignty.  The five "metric martyrs" are battling against European Union regulations requiring loose goods to be sold in metric units only.

Eight years later,  All food must be weighed and sold by the kilo.
EU to ban selling eggs by the dozen.  British shoppers are to be banned from buying eggs by the dozen under new regulations approved by the European Parliament.  For the first time, eggs and other products such as oranges and bread rolls will be sold by weight instead of by the number contained in a packet.

White House vandalism report delayed:  The investigation into last year's White House vandalism has stalled because staffers have not been available for interviews for three months, a General Accounting Office investigator told WorldNetDaily.

NOW got federal tax dollars:  Feminist group received anti-tobacco money during Clinton years.

Survey: 1 in 5 Teenagers Ignorant About U.S. Independence:  As America celebrated its 225th birthday, a recent poll shows that almost a quarter of America's teenagers have trouble passing a fourth-grade level U.S. history test.  In fact, 22 percent could not name the country from which the United States declared its independence.



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Document location http://akdart.com/tempint.html
Updated February 17, 2023.

©2023 by Andrew K. Dart