Posts on Friday, May 1, 2020
Lebanon’s double agony
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On Tuesday night, protesters in Sidon, Lebanon, broke into a bank and set it on fire while singing. Demonstrators chanting “revolution” also tossed Molotov cocktails at a local central bank branch. The crowd cheered each time they hit their target. Protesters broke curfew to inflict similar destruction in Tripoli, Beirut, and Nabatieh.
Demonstrations that began in October 2019 resurged across the country this week as the coronavirus pandemic worsens Lebanon’s economic troubles and its new government scrambles for a solution. Violence escalated in Tripoli, Lebanon’s second-largest and poorest city, after a protester died on Tuesday. The military expressed regret over the killing but didn’t take responsibility.
Joe Biden Is Cooked
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Despite polls showing that he leads President Trump in key states and in the country overall, there remains something seriously missing and not credible in the putative presidential nomination of Joe Biden.
The polls are never accurate with Trump, and there is both a reticence by his supporters to identify themselves and some sampling errors by the main polling organizations because of the unusually high numbers of people this president draws to the polls in his support who are not otherwise frequent voters.
The real test of these matters is how the people vote, and the country saw Joe Biden come in fourth in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire, and
Libya's UN-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) conducted five air operations targeting militants loyal to renegade commander Khalifa Haftar at Al-Watiya airbase southwest of the capital Tripoli, a local official said early Friday. Al-Watiya is regarded as a key airbase in the country and is second only to Mitiga Airport. It was captured in August 2014 by Haftar, the leader of illegally armed forces in eastern Libya, who used it as his headquarters for western operations. "The operation targeted Haftar's forces and military ammunition," GNA military spokesman Mohammed Qanunu said in a statement. As part of Operation Peace Storm, air operations are being periodically carried out against the base,
A very good boy named Brody interrupted yesterday's weather forecast by WTVT’s chief meteorologist, Paul Dellegatto, and this is exactly the kind of television we need right now.
As you can see in the video, Brody apparently knocked over Dellegatto’s computer, which disabled the weather graphics, but resulted in the meteorologist being forced to welcome the large golden retriever on his lap for the remainder of the segment.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, rain showers, high temps, blah blah blah. Show us more of that dog!
The entire clip is near perfect TV. Notice the picture of Brody on Dellegatto’s desk (*chef kissing fingers gesture*). Plus, Dellegatto does an excellent job at delivering the weather
Sen. Elizabeth Warren is the heavy favorite among Democrats to be presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden’s running mate, a new poll finds.
According to the poll conducted by Data for Progress, 31 percent of likely Democratic voters want Biden to pick the Massachusetts senator.
Other options lagged far behind. Sen. Kamala Harris of California was preferred by 18 percent of respondents. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams both had 10 percent support.
The poll did not ask respondents about any male options.
The other women offered as choices, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, had support in the low single digits.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has made his first public appearance for 20 days - appearing to dispel rumours he has died.The despot cut the ribbon at the opening of a fertiliser factory in Sunchon, state media reported, and released pictures supposedly showing the event.Kim was seen smiling and talking to aides at the ceremony and also touring the plant, but the authenticity of the photos could not be verified.The dictator was accompanied by several senior North Korean officials including his younger sister Kim Yo Jong, Korean Central News Agency said.
Ohio’s stay-at-home order is being extended through the end of May, impacting Memorial Day weekend throughout the state.
The state’s stay-at-home order — first issued by Gov. Mike DeWine and health officials on March 22 — was set to expire late Thursday, but DeWine said during his daily coronavirus briefing it would be extended with exceptions for certain businesses.
“When retail opens up, that certainly will be a major exception for that,” DeWine told reporters, WCMH reports. “Certainly it’s an exception in just few days when manufacturing and other companies are allowed to start back so, it will be extended.”
DeWine didn’t indicate the duration of the extension Thursday,
Friday on MSNBC, network anchor Al Sharpton suggested President Donald Trump be careful about using the sexual assault allegations against presumptive Democratic nominee former Vice President Joe Biden politically.Sharpton said, “The Republicans, if they are going to try to use this politically, it could be a slippery slope because they did open the door to the over 20 women that have made allegations against Donald Trump.”He continued, “I remember during the 2016 campaign when Donald Trump walked into a debate with several women that had made allegations against Bill Clinton and he was running against Bill Clinton’s wife, not even Bill Clinton
Anthem kneeler and Trump-basher Megan Rapinoe says she wants to be Joe Biden’s running mate.What a perfect match.
She hates Trump and is embarrassed by her country!She’ll have to fight it out with crazy Stacey Abrams first, though.The National Post reported: Megan Rapinoe, the reigning FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year, is eyeing another prestigious title: vice president of the United States of America.
President Trump says the protesters who stormed Michigan’s Capitol on Thursday — some of them armed with rifles — are “very good people” who are angry with the state’s restrictive COVID-19 lockdown.
In a tweet on Friday morning, the president weighed in on tensions roiling the state and called on Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to negotiate with demonstrators who are demanding parts of the economy be reopened amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“The Governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire. These are very good people, but they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely! See them, talk to them, make a deal,” he wrote.
With the latest revelation, the FBI’s “Russiagate” investigation now stands exposed as worse than amateurish — and more like a search-and-destroy mission.
Destroy the Trump administration, that is — not actual US enemies.
Lawyers for ex-Gen. Michael Flynn released just-unsealed documents that suggest the FBI abused its power to take out President Trump’s first national security adviser.
Two FBI agents interviewed Flynn at the White House on Jan. 24, 2017, just days after the inauguration. The claim that he’d lied to those agents about his contacts with the Russian ambassador triggered a Beltway fury that forced him to quit, ending his career.
Joe Biden’s comment that he doesn’t want to open up his Senate records, in part, because of “speeches I’ve made” has attracted the attention of Republicans and President Trump’s re-election campaign.
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee’s statement came on MSNBC Friday morning as he denied a sexual assault allegation from a former Senate aide, Tara Reade.
The specific quote was highlighted on Twitter by Andrew Clark, the rapid response director of Trump’s re-election campaign.
“What’s Biden hidin’?” wrote former Breitbart editor Raheem Kassam.
Kimberly Guilfoyle, a Trump campaign adviser and girlfriend of the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., also noted her concern.
Actress Susan Sarandon praised a Democratic challenger to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s congressional seat, arguing that people have the chance to vote for someone willing to “speak up even when it’s not politically expedient.”
Sarandon made what looked at least like a tacit endorsement in response to Pelosi’s reaction to allegations against presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, where she effectively dismissed the claims made by his former Senate staffer Tara Reade that he sexually assaulted her back in 1993.
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government has approached the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for deletion of six terrorists sanctioned by the world’s top security panel, a senior government official in Delhi told Hindustan Times. Islamabad is likely to file more requests for deletions so that these can be processed by the UNSC before the year-end. Islamabad last month told a visiting UNSC sanctions monitoring team that it could not find most terrorists sanctioned by the security council over the years because the UNSC did not have complete and accurate information about them. (snip)Already, Islamabad has only confirmed that 19 of the 130 terrorists sanctioned
Westworld actress Evan Rachel Wood is the latest star to break ranks with Hollywood’s left-wing elite by backing fellow actress Rose McGowan’s recent stand against Democrats and the media in the wake of Tara Reade’s sexual assault allegation against Joe Biden.
Evan Rachel Wood tweeted her support of Rose McGowan, writing “I have to say this is… spot on,” in response to McGowan’s recent statement describing her disillusionment with the left-wing establishment, calling them a “cult.”
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.
“Our trucks are designed for household moves,” the sources said. “Properly caring for the remains of people’s loved ones requires vehicles suited specifically for that purpose.
Meghan Markle's defeat at the High Court today has been branded a 'disaster' and a 'humiliation' by leading lawyers after she lost the first round of her legal battle with the Mail on Sunday. Large parts of her case against Associated Newspapers were dismissed as 'irrelevant', 'inadequate' and 'impermissibly vague’ by a top judge this afternoon including her claims of a malicious media 'agenda' against her. Mr Justice Warby has also 'struck out' her allegations that journalists had acted dishonestly and had caused the rift between her and her estranged father Thomas by ‘digging up dirt’ to portray Meghan in a 'negative light'.
Israel bombed a munitions warehouse in central Syria on Friday morning in a rare daylight strike which sparked a massive explosion, according to reports from Syria. The attack appeared to be the fifth strike attributed to Israel against Iran-linked forces in Syria in the past two weeks, coming less than 12 hours after Israeli attack helicopters reportedly bombed Iran-backed forces in the Syrian Golan Heights late Thursday night.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said the arms cache that was bombed on Friday morning by Israel was located outside Homs and contained missiles and ammunition belonging to the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group.
North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, rumored for weeks to be deathly ill or even dead, has made his first public appearance in 20 days, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported Friday evening.
Few details were immediately available, but if true, the appearance would belie rumors of Kim’s death following surgery.
A homeowners association for a luxury South Carolina island has decided to reject a $1 million loan approved through the government’s Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program after facing backlash from the public, including a U.S. congressman from the state, according to a recent report.
First-term Democratic Rep. Joe Cunningham slammed the homeowners association for ritzy Kiawah Island, which is part of the region he represents, on Thursday, calling its initial decision to accept the coronavirus relief aid inappropriate, according to The Post and Courier.
Los Angeles — Katie Hill is back. The former Democratic congresswoman from Southern California who resigned last year is running a digital and cable TV ad urging residents of her old district to vote in a May 12 special election to determine who will finish her term. She opens the 30-second ad in a black mask with the White House in the background and delivers a dig at President Donald Trump, saying the coronavirus outbreak is “more dangerous because of what's coming out of that building."(Snip) The ad was funded with $200,000 from Hill's political action committee, HER Time. The ad is being targeted
President Trump announced Friday that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authorized the emergency use of Gilead Science's experimental antiviral drug remdesivir to treat coronavirus patients after early results of a clinical study indicated the drug helps speed recovery.Trump announced the news at the White House alongside Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day and FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn. "FDA's emergency authorization of remdesivir, two days after the National Institutes of Health's clinical trial showed promising results, is a significant step forward in battling COVID-19
Over decades, dozens of artificially deformed "alien-like" skulls that are more than 1,000 years old have been unearthed in a cemetery in Hungary. Now, these skulls are revealing how the collapse of the Roman Empire unleashed social changes in the region. During the fifth century A.D., people in central Europe practiced skull binding, a practice that dramatically elongates head shapes. These altered skulls were so drastically deformed that some have compared them to the heads of sci-fi aliens. The fifth century was also a time of political unrest, as the Roman Empire collapsed and people in Asia and eastern Europe were displaced by invading Huns, a nomadic Asian group.
If you were wondering what is going through fired FBI Director James Comey’s mind this week following revelations that he very likely took part in framing President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, he gave us some insight Thursday evening. It’s his garden. Flowers. Pretty ones. A rose, perhaps? (Tweet/Photo) And the messaging in his tweet — “a comforting sign” — likely has some meaning as well. Maybe the admitted role this disgraced former FBI boss, assistant attorney general, and federal prosecutor played in what appears to have been a concerted effort to unseat a duly elected president is finally dawning on him.
The U.S. Navy's Blue Angels and the Air Force's Thunderbirds are planning a multi-state flyover tour dubbed "Operation America Strong." (Photo) This is the first time the two fighter jet demonstration teams have collaborated since 2017. President Donald Trump announced the flyover tour at a news conference April 22 in hopes it would boost morale. "What we are doing is paying tribute to our front-line health care workers confronting COVID, and it's really a signal to all Americans to remain vigilant during the outbreak," Trump said.
President Donald Trump confirmed Friday in an interview that he still planned on visiting Mount Rushmore to attend the fireworks display for Independence Day.“I’m going to go there on July 3, and they’re going to have the big fireworks, that’s South Dakota,” Trump said in an interview with Dan Bongino. Trump said he spoke with the governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem, about her state and the ongoing fight against the coronavirus and confirmed his plans to attend the event. Noem asked President Trump to restore the traditional event after the National Park Service canceled it for eleven years citing fire concerns.
Updated: Cambridge man charged after pulling
knife on jogger for not properly social distancing replies
knife on jogger for not properly social distancing replies
A Cambridge man has been arrested on the charge of assault with a dangerous weapon after he allegedly pulled a knife on a jogger for not properly social distancing, according to police. Officers responded to a report of a man with a knife April 20 around 5:17 p.m. in the area of Putnam Avenue and Magee Street. The jogger, a 29-year-old Cambridge man, told officers he was running on Putnam Avenue toward Massachusetts Avenue when he saw a man, later identified as Michael Nichols, 43, of Cambridge, with two young children walking on the same side of the sidewalk.
Like most people, I cannot know for sure what actually happened between Joe Biden and Tara Reade many, many moons ago, or, for that matter, what may have once transpired between Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford. No one knows for sure but the individuals (and/or eyewitnesses) themselves, and memories of long-ago encounters may not be sharp — or may become vivid in one person’s recollection and utterly vague in another’s. If I were asked to detail an incident that happened a quarter-century ago, absent serious trauma, I’d be completely stumped. There’s a reason for statutes of limitation. And a reason that in a liberal society an individual
Brett Kavanaugh was a very difficult Supreme Court nominee for liberals to oppose. He had a stellar reputation, an impeccable record, and a genial disposition. While members of the Resistance held a protest on the steps of the Supreme Court minutes after President Trump announced him as the pick to replace retiring Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, their early efforts to keep him off the bench showed little promise.
All that changed in mid-September 2018, when the Washington Post carefully packaged and presented Christine Blasey Ford’s claim that Kavanaugh had tried to rape her when she was in high school. The media and Democrats immediately latched onto the accusation
A modified stay-at-home order for Illinois is now in effect until May 30 amid to the COVID-19 pandemic.
One of the biggest changes in Gov. JB Prtizker’s May order, compared to last month, is the mask requirement. Beginning Friday, everyone over the age of 2 should wear a mask or face covering when they leave their home and (Snip) Pritzker also made a last-minute modification Thursday night to to slightly relax restrictions on religious services.
The order now allows that services can be held as long as they comply with social distancing requirements and limits gatherings to 10 people. It also encourages houses of worship to use online or drive-in services.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is locking down the city of Gallup. Outgoing Mayor Jackie McKinney and new Mayor Louis Bonaguidi had both requested the governor invoke emergency powers under the state's Riot Control Act.
All roads into Gallup will be closed at 12 p.m Friday.
Effective today:
Businesses will be closed from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m.
Vehicles may only have a maximum of 2 people inside.
Residents of Gallup should shelter in place unless there is an emergency.
Just a few hours ago, I got back from La Jolla, a rich and deep-blue enclave of the city of San Diego that's the home of Mitt Romney. The just-after-sunset beach traipse was to see the bioluminescence event. Beach waves turn glow-in-the-dark at night as a result of the red tide, and it's a rare and completely yowza thing to see. Of course it drew a crowd. Street parking was competitive. The cars just kept coming and coming on Coast Boulevard near Wipeout Beach, and visitors bunched up at stoplights to use crosswalks — no slipping across the streets real quick
Toronto—Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday that Canada is banning the use and trade of assault-style weapons immediately. Trudeau cited numerous mass shootings in the country, including the killing of 22 people in Nova Scotia April 18 and 19. He announced the ban of over 1,500 models and variants of assault-style firearms, including two weapons used by the gunman as well as the AR-15 and other weapons that have been used in a number of mass shootings in the United States.(Snip) In the meantime, they can be exported, returned to manufacturers, and transported only to deactivate them or get rid of them.
The United States on Friday imposed sanctions on an Iranian-Iraqi businessman and his mining company, accusing him of being involved in efforts by Iran’s elite Quds Force to generate revenue illegally and smuggle weapons abroad, the U.S. Treasury Department said. The Treasury Department said in a statement that Amir Dianat has supported Quds Force smuggling operations for years, including efforts aimed at shipping weapons including missiles and at smuggling shipments from Iran to Yemen. The sanctions freeze any U.S.-held assets of Dianat or his company Taif Mining Services, which the U.S. Treasury Department alleged was a front company for the Quds Force, and generally bar Americans from dealing with them.
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.
Iran slammed Germany's ban on the activities of Lebanon's Hezbollah on Friday. The Iranian foreign ministry warned that Germany would face the consequences of its decision to give in to the wishes of the US and Israel. German authorities designated Hezbollah a "Shiite terrorist organization” and banned its activity on German soil on Thursday. Police conducted four raids linked to the Islamist group. Iranian government spokesman Seyyed Abbas Mousavi "vehemently condemned" the move in a statement published early on Friday morning. (snip). The foreign ministry statement also says the ban "ignores the realities in West Asia," and claimed that Hezbollah "is a formal and legitimate part of [Lebanon]'s government
Flynn bombshell puts renewed attention on
Durham probe, source says Barr talking
to him ‘every day’ replies
Durham probe, source says Barr talking
to him ‘every day’ replies
EXCLUSIVE: U.S. Attorney for Connecticut John Durham has reviewed the bombshell files released earlier this week showing FBI officials discussed whether they wanted to interview Michael Flynn in order to “get him to lie,” sources familiar with his investigation told Fox News, as the document drop renews attention on his probe of the law enforcement community's Russia case.Sources even said charges could be justified against officials, and that those reviewing the Justice Department and the FBI's actions are building a "serious case." Durham and Attorney General Bill Barr are said to be speaking regularly.
Kellyanne Conway Drops a Bomb —
Implicates Obama in Oval Office
Scheme to Destroy Trump (Video) replies
Implicates Obama in Oval Office
Scheme to Destroy Trump (Video) replies
Former Trump campaign manager and current Consultant to President Trump, Kellyanne Conway, joined America’s Newsroom on Friday morning to discuss the recent allegations against the Obama administration and their active spying on the Trump Campaign and Transition Team for political reasons.It is now clear that the Obama administration went after General Michael Flynn for over a year before the 2016 election and was spying on the Trump campaign for months to gain a political advantage.
Big Tech’s Big Brother Moves
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There is an urgent-care doctor in Bakersfield, California, by the name of Dan Erickson, and he and his business partner Artin Massahi posted a video on YouTube a few days ago making the case for herd immunity and an end to the economic shutdowns. The video was widely shared across the internet, but only for a short time. Why? Because YouTube took the video down after it had racked up five million views. Erickson and Massahi received a lot of pushback from their conclusions. Essentially, they extrapolated data they’d collected from running their area’s only walk-in COVID-19 testing site to project that some five million
The United States should prepare for another 18 to 24 months of “significant COVID-19 activity” — which likely won’t end until about 60 to 70 percent of the population has been infected, recover and develop herd immunity, experts reveal in a new report.
The report, released Thursday by the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, warned Americans of a worst-case scenario that would involve a larger wave of COVID-19 infections coming in the fall and winter, and one or more smaller waves in 2021. (Snip) The experts say it’s “hard to even understand the rationale” as some states are beginning to lift their restrictions.
Journalism is a long-lost art, once used to inform people, reporting news in an unbiased manner, offering reasoned opinion in a balanced way. Now the singular goal of most American journalism is to make President Trump look bad, parsing his words or taking them completely out of context. (snip)
The rest of the media joined in, with headlines like, “Trump’s disinfectant ideas horrify doctors and academics.” His comments were described as “musings”, another way of saying “thinking outside the box”, a concept unknown within the Washington DC bureaucracy.
Donald Trump claims to have seen evidence to substantiate the unproven theory that the coronavirus originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, despite US intelligence agencies’ conclusion that the virus was “not manmade or genetically modified”.
“We’re going to see where it comes from,” Trump said at a White House event on Thursday. “We have people looking at it very, very strongly. Scientific people, intelligence people, and others. We’re going to put it all together. I think we will have a very good answer eventually. And China might even tell us.”
SACRAMENTO — State officials pushed to close all beaches and state parks in California to try to prevent overcrowding they feared could spread the coronavirus, but Gov. Gavin Newsom decided Thursday only to temporarily close beaches in Orange County, an administration official said.
Newsom said at a news conference he was ordering a “hard close” in Orange County after beaches in Newport Beach and Huntington Beach drew tens of thousands of visitors during a heat wave last weekend. He said he was particularly concerned about the beach activity because Orange County has more coronavirus cases and hospitalizations than many other areas.
“Same reason we are not reopening arenas with tens of
Something interesting is happening to greenhouse gas emissions thanks to the coronavirus pandemic: They are plummeting. The world is seeing the lowest oil demand relative to supply perhaps ever, leading to oil futures contracts selling for negative values at several points. The International Energy Agency estimates that this year world carbon dioxide output will fall by a whopping 8 percent. If that pans out, it would be the largest drop ever recorded — some six times larger than the fall during the 2008 global financial crisis. That rate of decline is also approximately what would be necessary to achieve the goal
Former British spy Christopher Steele testified in March that a longtime ally of the Clintons contacted him in summer 2016 about his investigation into Donald Trump after learning about it from one or more Obama administration officials. Strobe Talbott, the former president of the Brookings Institution, contacted him in the months leading up to the 2016 election inquiring about an investigation he was conducting at the time into Trump’s possible ties to Russia, Steele said in a sworn deposition on March 18.
Former Vice President Joe Biden on Friday said he would not authorize the release of his Senate records, currently in the possession of the University of Delaware.In an interview with MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski, Biden denied accusations of sexual assault from Tara Reade, a former Senate staffer. But he refused to release his Senate records to help prove his innocence.Biden donated his Senate papers to the University of Delaware in 2012, which was set to release them to the public in December 2019. The university backtracked on the release when Biden announced his run for president in April 2019.
Former Deputy National Security Adviser K.T. McFarland exposed the corrupt FBI’s investigation of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn as really an attempt to take out President Donald Trump.McFarland slammed fired FBI Director James Comey and the agency’s efforts to set-up Flynn as revealed in newly released notes that show how he was ambushed in an interview in January of 2017. Comey “thought he was going to get away with” the blatant perjury trap set for the former Trump adviser, McFarland told Fox News host Martha MacCallum. (Video)
Former Vice President Joe Biden released a lengthy statement Friday addressing accusations of sexual assault from former senate staffer Tara Reade. He denied the accusations, refused to release his Senate records, and asked the National Archives to release any record of a complaint from Reade.Read Biden’s statement below: …As Vice President, we started the “It’s on Us” campaign on college campuses to send the message loud and clear that dating violence is violence — and against the law. We had to get men involved. They had to be part of the solution. That’s why I made a point of telling young men this was their problem too
The awful truth is dawning on too many Democrats: Joe Biden is too ravaged by mental infirmities and is too compromised in his treatment of women to be able to hold together their coalition and avert disaster at the polls in November. (snip) Planned Parenthood finally took a position on the allegations of sexual assault lodged against Joe Biden (D) after weeks of silence, with Planned Parenthood Action’s acting president stating that survivors “should be heard, listened to, [and] taken seriously” and calling for the Democrat Party’s presumptive nominee to “address this allegation directly.”
New networks of leftist organizations have been created, fueled by hundreds of millions of dollars in confidentially-sourced donations dedicated to fundamentally transforming how the 2020 election is conducted. Already, these networks have formed working groups, sponsored litigation, and lobbied Congress to pass federal mandates about how the 2020 election should be conducted.
They have even funded purported conservative organizations that place articles in conservative publications advocating for the fundamental transformations demanded by the left.
The coronavirus pandemic has sparked a frantic effort by the left to deploy massive new funding streams and to activate new aggressive and transformative organizations. They are pushing for legislative changes such as federally-mandated vote-by-mail and
Recently unsealed notes show top FBI officials debated whether they should get President Donald Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn “to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired,” or “admit to breaking the Logan Act” for talking to former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition. As the deep-state onion gets peeled back layer by layer to its rotten core, it becomes clear this wasn’t mere government misconduct. It was a criminal conspiracy.
These are not mere procedural quibbles, but profound questions about the integrity and legality of the FBI’s investigations into key officials in the incoming Trump administration, including Trump himself.
President Donald Trump told reporters late on Thursday afternoon that he will “certainly consider” bringing back former national security adviser Michael Flynn into his administration after bombshell FBI documents were unsealed this week that showed that the FBI discussed whether to use its interview with Flynn to “get him fired” and to “get him to lie.” “General Flynn was under an enormous pressure and it was an artificial pressure because what they did to Genera Flynn was a disgrace, it was a total disgrace, it’s shocking,” Trump said. “What they tried to do to destroy him and to hurt this presidency was — there has never been anything like it.
On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) stated that the recent revelations about former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s case are “bigger than Watergate and we need to make sure people are held accountable.”
McCarthy told host Sean Hannity that people need “a Congress that will work with them and work with this president. Because what you have talked about with Flynn and with the president is bigger than Watergate and we need to make sure people are held accountable.”
Key to the ambush interview of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn that set him up for prosecution and persecution on made-up charges by James Comey’s FBI was the advice given to Flynn by Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe -- relax, you won’t need a lawyer. Flynn had to be caught off guard and without legal counsel for the entrapment plan to work (snip) McCabe had a personal animus towards Flynn which goes way back, possibly originating in Flynn’s offer to be a witness in a legal proceeding filed against McCabe.
Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden has reportedly sent campaign operatives to the University of Delaware to go through his Senate records after he was accused by former staffer Tara Reade of sexual assault.“Reade says she believes that Biden’s senatorial papers, which are housed at the University of Delaware, may contain notes and other personnel records supporting some of her claims,” Business Insider reported. “Biden is refusing to allow public access to his senatorial archives, even though it may contain records that could shed light on Reade’s accusations — and even as his own campaign operatives have themselves accessed the papers in the past year."
In February, during the Super Bowl, Jeep ran an ad doing what Super Bowl ads so often will: It converted a beloved cultural product into a marketing message. This time around, the alchemy on offer involved the 1993 film Groundhog Day. Cheerfully soundtracked with the film’s most memorable song, Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe,” the spot featured Bill Murray reprising the role of Phil Connors, the misanthropic weatherman who relives the same day (and relives it, and relives it, and relives it). Instead of the existential agony posited in the original film, however, the commercial Murray delighted in the repetition. Because this time around, he faced
Out Like Flynn
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Under cover of Corona, the sewage of the DC septic tank flows on. The latest revelations in the Deep State entrapment of Michael Flynn (Trump's first National Security Advisor, for about twenty minutes) confirm what most sentient creatures have known for three years - that there was never any good-faith basis for the FBI's investigation, only (in the now released words of Assistant Counterintelligence Division Director Bill Priestap) the object "to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired".
The official pretext was that there might have been "a violation of the Logan Act". Oooooooh! The Logan Act of 1799 refers to a Dr George Logan,
Like it or not, this is a question that will continue to be asked, and the terrible answer has already begun to take a convincing shape.Recently, Fox News analyst Brit Hume told Shannon Bream that “it’s time to consider the possibility” that “this lockdown -- as opposed to more moderate mitigation efforts -- is a colossal public policy calamity.” He goes on to reference the millions of jobs, businesses, and incomes lost, and further mentions the negative “effect on children who don’t have a normal life,” concluding that “we may never recover from many of these losses for a very long time if ever.”
'Bombs away!': US touts
destruction of ISIS cave system by
coalition forces and provides video replies
destruction of ISIS cave system by
coalition forces and provides video replies
The United States has released video that shows coalition forces successfully hammering an Islamic State cave complex in Iraq with airstrikes.
The attack happened on Wednesday in Iraq’s Hamrin Mountains, an area that is a known refuge for ISIS fighters who use the cave systems to hide out, plan attacks, and smuggle weapons. The airstrikes hit 10 caves and were done in coordination with Iraqi forces, according to a Thursday press release from Combined Joint Task Force — Operation Inherent Resolve.
It is estimated that between five to 10 ISIS fighters were killed in the airstrikes, though that figure could change as Iraqi troops continue to search
James Clapper, former director of national intelligence under President Barack Obama, took extreme umbrage when he was accused of lying to Congress after he lied under oath to Congress during 2013 testimony about the administration’s program of widespread surveillance of American citizens.
“I didn’t lie,” the former spook snarled. “I made a big mistake and I just simply didn’t understand what I was being asked about.”
Mr. Clapper told this lie about his previous lie while on CNN, a cable television channel specializing in fictional “news.”
Hillary Clinton continues to hover in the wings, ready to step forward should Joe Biden fail. Don’t look now, but Joe is failing. Not only has his campaign been rocked by sexual assault allegations from one-time staffer Tara Reade, but the public is beginning to give up on the former vice president. A new Emerson College poll showed 57 percent of likely voters think President Trump will win reelection in November. Remember, Establishment Democrats put forward Uncle Joe because he was the “safe” candidate, bound to defeat Trump. Oops.
Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously wrote that an advantage of America’s federal system of government is that a state may “serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.” In a less celebrated passage of the same opinion, Justice Brandeis acknowledged that this was a mixed blessing with the potential to produce “arbitrary, capricious, or unreasonable” actions by the states. This is where we find ourselves today. A number of Democratic governors have used the coronavirus pandemic as a pretext to “experiment” with constitutionally protected civil liberties. Their states have, in effect, become laboratories of despotism.
Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing as the legislature considered a measure to extend Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s state of emergency declaration. The House of Representatives voted down an extension of the order, but Whitmer claimed she has broad authority to continue the lockdown regardless. This response only adds to the evidence she is abusing her authority amid the coronavirus crisis.
Protesters waved American flags and open-carried firearms as some changed, “Let us in!” and “This is the people’s house, you cannot lock us out.”
Video of the protest spilling over into the capitol building went viral on social media.
A Report From the Front
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Ever since President Trump expressed optimism about the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19, the mere mention of that drug can elicit instantaneous, strident, and finger-wagging condemnation by the mainstream media and all those who are pulling for the pandemic to lay waste to the economy and pave the way for a fundamental progressive transformation of America. Despite its use by health-care providers across the country and around the world to successfully treat COVID-19, you will be mocked as either a fool or a snake oil salesman if you approvingly utter the word “hydroxychloroquine” or even express hope that it can be used to save lives.
New unsealed FBI memos show that the Bureau found “no derogatory information” on former national security adviser Michael Flynn while investigating his alleged Russian contacts, and moved to close their investigation of him in early January 2017 before former FBI agent Peter Strzok intervened, asking to keep the case open.
The documents, which were released Thursday by the Department of Justice, show that Flynn was given the codename “Crossfire Razor” and investigated in a spinoff case predicated by the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” surveillance of the 2016 Trump campaign — a case in which the infamous Steele dossier played a “central role,” according to DOJ inspector general Michael Horowitz’s December report.
As the rest of us hurtle into this painful, terrifying new reality — if COVID-19 doesn’t get you, the economy surely will — the New York Times is doing what it does best: untethering further from reality, issuing dispatches for and by the one percent, perseverating over problems of privilege, name-dropping along the way.
As the old saw goes: Never let a good crisis go to waste.
And so we have op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd, who has built a far-too-long career out of relying almost exclusively on “King Lear” and the original “Star Wars” trilogy as political metaphor, profiling Larry David at the pandemic’s outset.
Key to the ambush interview of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn that set him up for prosecution and persecution on made-up charges by James Comey’s FBI was the advice given to Flynn by Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe -- relax, you won’t need a lawyer. Flynn had to be caught off guard and without legal counsel for the entrapment plan to work: Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who arranged the bureau's interview with then-national security adviser Michael Flynn at the White House on Jan. 24, 2017 -- the interview that ultimately led to Flynn's guilty plea on one count of making false statements -- suggested Flynn not have a lawyer present at the session,
Should we ignore some women?
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There is an obvious attraction in certain simple claims. ‘Believe all women’, for instance, is easy to utter, beneficial to the speaker and guaranteed to get applause from any live audience, terrified as they are into not clapping vigorously enough. It is also a deeply unwise piece of advice. As unwise as it would be to say ‘believe all men’ or ‘believe all humans.’ It suggests that the word of a woman is inevitably worth more than a man. Or that women do not lie, and could never be expected to. Or that while some women may lie it is worth accepting the consequences of this
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo lightened up the mood in what has been an otherwise tense and tumultuous few months due to the coronavirus by joking that he is an eligible bachelor in New York City.
"I am eligible," Cuomo said during an interview with 1010 WINS anchor Susan Richards on Thursday. Richards asked the 62-year-old father of three about new poll results by Long Island matchmaker Maureen Tara Nelson who said she surveyed 100 of her 2,000 female clients and concluded that Cuomo and his younger brother, Chris Cuomo -- an anchor on CNN -- are two of the most eligible bachelors in the country.
Joe's Biden's campaign dispatched operatives to the University of Delaware's library in the past year to rifle through his secretive Senate records there, Business Insider reported Thursday -- raising the possibility they accessed documents related to Tara Reade's accusation that he sexually assaulted her when she worked for him in 1993.
The development comes as both The Atlantic and The Washington Post argued that Biden should instruct the university to turn over the records, saying they "could contain confirmation of any complaint Ms. Reade made, either through official congressional channels or to the three other employees she claims she informed not specifically of the alleged assault but more generally of harassment."
Previously undisclosed documents in the case of former national security adviser Michael Flynn offer us a chilling blueprint on how top FBI officials not only sought to entrap the former White House aide but sought to do so on such blatantly unconstitutional and manufactured grounds.
These new documents further undermine the view of both the legitimacy and motivations of those investigations under former FBI director James Comey. For all of those who have long seen a concerted effort within the Justice Department to target the Trump administration, the fragments will read like a Dead Sea Scrolls version of a “deep state” conspiracy.
Trump impeachment attorney Jay Sekulow claimed to Fox News" Hannity" Thursday that former Special Counsel Robert Mueller was "AWOL" in his duties after then-FBI Director James Comey targeted then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn in January 2017.(Snip)"I think there is something else at play here," Sekulow added. "The initials on the actual [FBI] notes and documents that have been released that [Flynn attorney] Sidney [Powell] was able to get [read] O.S.C. -- Office of Special Counsel. Bob Mueller, where was he when this was going on? Absent Without Leave: AWOL."
Germany hunts down 1,050 people in
investigation of Hezbollah supporters
linked to terrorism replies
investigation of Hezbollah supporters
linked to terrorism replies
Hundreds of German counter-terrorism units and police fanned out across the country on Thursday, entering mosques, homes and religious associations in an investigation of 1,050 people suspected of links to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. The arrests and detentions were intended to question suspects as part of previously unannounced criminal cases.
The nationwide series of raids — the largest single anti-terrorism operation in years — came early Thursday after the Interior Ministry classified any activity linked to the powerful Shiite group as terror-related. The move was a break with previous European Union policy that differentiated between the group's military and political wings.