Posts on Friday, December 27, 2019
The U.S. has a Russia dilemma. How can it tamp down Russian aggression without engaging its military? That question will continue to play out in the halls of Congress and on the plains of eastern Ukraine. While impeachment proceedings cast a spotlight on Ukraine, Russian tanks and artillery occupy the country’s eastern flank. More than 3,000 civilians have been killed and 7,000 wounded since Russian forces invaded in 2014, according to the UN Human Rights Council. About 1.6 million people have fled, becoming refugees within their own country.
In an effort to further capture his base, the president will be launching the “Evangelicals for Trump” coalition in Miami, Florida, on January 3.“The Trump campaign’s launch of ‘Evangelicals for Trump’ will be held at a Florida megachurch with a capacity of 7,000 congregants, the campaign said Friday,” reports The Washington Times. “The outreach event for a key part of the president’s base will be held next Friday in Miami at El Rey Jesus, or King Jesus International Ministry.”Though the Trump campaign previously pledged to launch the coalition, the gesture to hold the president’s base comes on the heels of Christianity Today publishing an op-ed
Chasten Buttigieg, the husband of South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, currently refers to himself as the “First Gent of South Bend" on Twitter and refers to himself as the “First Gentleman” when he discusses what he will do if husband Pete becomes president of the United States. In the heading of his Twitter page, Chasten Buttigieg refers to himself as follows: “Teacher, First Gent of South Bend, husband to @Pete Buttigieg, doggo dad to @firstdogssb. All thinks theater, inclusion & education. Let hate sit alone. he/him”
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is on track to lose an incredible amount of money in 2019 due to his divorce from MacKenzie Bezos.The billionaire’s net worth fell $13.6 billion to $111.4 billion after his split in April saw a quarter of his earnings with Amazon go to his now-ex wife, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Bezos’ is on pace to lose more money than any other human being on the planet in 2019.The billion dollar couple submitted the final paperwork for their divorce in April and MacKenzie Bezos left him with 75% of Amazon stock while giving up her share of the voting rights for Amazon. (Tweet)
Michael Moore can’t keep his trap shut about President Donald Trump. The documentary director who’s better known as an obnoxious lefty these days provided more insane TDS soundbites just after Christmas. He told Rolling Stone’s progressive audience to be “afraid of white people” because the majority of them voted for Trump.Really, Mike? But we're supposed to believe you’re one of the good ones?Appearing on Rolling Stone’s podcast, “Useful Idiot,” Moore did the program’s name justice, spouting off some hateful progressive tripe about the moral failings of “white people” as a group because of their hand in electing Trump.
The Navy SEALs showed up one by one, wearing hoodies and T-shirts instead of uniforms, to tell investigators what they had seen. Visibly nervous, they shifted in their chairs, rubbed their palms and pressed their fists against their foreheads. At times they stopped in midsentence and broke into tears. “Sorry about this,” Special Operator First Class Craig Miller, one of the most experienced SEALs in the group, said as he looked sideways toward a blank wall, trying to hide that he was weeping. “It’s the first time — I’m really broken up about this.” Video recordings of the interviews obtained by The New York Times,
New York legendary radio personality Don Imus died Friday at the age of 79.The often controversial Imus hosted "Imus in the Morning" in New York for nearly 50 years. Imus, born in Riverside, Calif. in 1940, was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1989. He died at Baylor Scott and White Medical Center in College Station, Texas, after being hospitalized since Christmas Eve, according to a statement issued by his family. Deirdre, his wife of 25 years, and his son Wyatt, 21, were at his side, and his son Lt. Zachary Don Cates was returning from military service overseas."Don loved and adored Deirdre, who unconditionally loved him back,
Hunter Biden and newlywed wife Melissa joined the post-Christmas crowd at an open-air LA mall Thursday — with the pot-bellied son of the ex-vice president looking nearly as pregnant as his spouse, according to exclusive photos and video obtained by The Post.The pudgy Biden, 49, had trouble keeping his gut in his blue jeans — which he teamed with a white shirt, open dark blue jacket and shades — as he strolled with his 32-year-old wife through The Grove, a popular retail and entertainment complex in the area of the city’s historic Farmers Market.His wife was dressed in tight print pants, a sky-blue
On Christmas Day, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor and 2020 Democrat Pete Buttigieg declared Jesus Christ an impoverished “refugee” without ever explicitly mentioning his name.In a Twitter message, Buttigieg wrote: Today I join millions around the world in celebrating the arrival of divinity on earth, who came into this world not in riches but in poverty, not as a citizen but as a refugee. No matter where or how we celebrate, merry Christmas. [Emphasis added] (Tweet)
Four Jewish women were targeted in two more anti-Semitic attacks in Brooklyn this week, police said. A deranged woman assaulted three of the women in Crown Heights early Friday, cops said. Tiffany Harris, 30, of Flatbush allegedly slapped and whacked the women in the face and barked “F-U, Jews!” during the 12:40 a.m. assault at Eastern Parkway and Kingston Avenue, cops said.(Snip) Hours earlier, around 4 p.m. Thursday, a homeless lady attacked a 34-year-old woman who was with her 3-year-old child on Avenue U near West Fifth street in Gravesend at around 4 p.m. Thursday
Students in a Virginia school district will soon be allowed to take a day off in order to participate in protests in a novel new policy.The school board of Fairfax County has confirmed it will formerly allow the children to skip a day of class in order to exercise their civil rights. It comes amid a wave of student activism across the country which has seen thousands of young people take to the streets to call for change, from stricter gun laws to action on climate change. (Photo) At 188,000 students, Fairfax County Public Schools is one of the country's biggest school districts and the largest in Virginia.
A leaderless party with no plan
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In 2016, Donald John Trump offered the idea of defending our country and putting America First in trade and other dealings with foreigners. Hillary offered the status quo, this time with a woman as the figurehead instead of a black man.
Historians will wonder why the race was even close.
In 2020, President Trump has a solid record of peace and prosperity to run on, while Democrats struggle to offer an idea that connects with Americans. They keep missing.
Millions of Americans—including men—covered by Obamacare are now set to receive a separate bill for abortion coverage alongside the rest of their health insurance. The new rule, which was finalized by the Department of Health and Human Services last week, will come into effect on June 27, 2020. It will mean that the three million Americans who purchased health insurance through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) state exchange will receive two separate bills through the door each month.(Snip) The ACA already requires insurers to itemize abortion coverage separately but found in 2014 that many were still not doing so.
Ten Christians were beheaded and one other was shot dead by an ISIS-linked group in Nigeria in an act designed to coincide with Christmas. A video recorded before the execution in the war-torn state of Borno shows a group of 12 men and a blurred-out woman pleading for help from Christian organizations and Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari. “I appeal to the federal government to come to our aid,” said hostage Bitrus Zakka Bwala, a lecturer at the College of Education in Nigeria’s Yobe State. “As you can see, behind me are fellow Christians who were arrested at various points
The idea of a “decade in review” article at the end of 2019 is a bit of “fake news.” Technically, the current decade does not end until December 31, 2020. In that spirit, it is worth looking back at the past ten years through the “fake news” lens. These were years in which the mainstream media used false allegations and biased reporting to suppress conservative voices; they were also the first years in which, thanks to Andrew Breitbart, we began to resist them. 2010: Tea Party “N-word.” The media’s claimed, based on false allegations by House Democrats, that Tea Party protesters called civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-GA)
You just knew this was coming! Democrats are now defending crack addict Hunter Biden’s $50,000 monthly stipend from Ukraine’s Burisma Holdings. Will they defend his $1 billion pay-for-play with China next? Far left hack Jessica Tarlov defended Joe Biden’s crackhead,prostitute chasing son Hunter Friday on “Outnumbered.” Jessica Tarlov: I don’t think that the IMF cared that Hunter Biden was gettting $50,000 a month… David Asman: The New York Times did… The New York Times at the time said he should resign his position on the board. It looks like a conflict of interest.
When laws seem not to apply to those who create or enforce them, skepticism can turn into cynicism.
If left unresolved, cynicism can move toward a critical mass that, when met, bids trouble for the fate of a nation.
Today, concerning current political events, more than a few people toggle back and forth between skepticism and cynicism.
Skeptics question motives. Cynics have
Friday, MSNBC’s Al Sharpton during an appearance on “Morning Joe” weighed in on the prospects of President Donald Trump serving another term as president. Sharpton said it should make the American public “uncomfortable” knowing Trump could be reelected. “I think voters really that are struggling … which is a lot of base of the Democratic Party, are really trying to deal with kitchen-table issues. That’s what we’ve got to address, particularly while you have a president that’s bragging about the economy,” Sharpton outlined. “Right now, we cannot say with any confidence that Donald Trump would not be reelected.
A man died from injuries he sustained in a shooting Thursday night in St. Paul, authorities said.
Officers responded around 5:26 p.m. Thursday to a report of a shooting in the 200 block of State Street on the west side of St. Paul. (snip) A man, identified as 28-year-old Chee Kong Yang, was arrested and booked for murder, police said.
From Parkland to Las Vegas, and Columbine to Sandy Hook, Greg Zanis’ work has been a comfort to those suffering in the aftermath of whichever mass shooting was the latest to lead the news cycle.Zanis spent years creating almost 27,000 handcrafted memorials for every mass shooting victim, and traveled hundreds of thousands of miles at his own expense to lovingly place each one. But now the carpenter has announced his retirement – emotionally exhausted by the heartbreak of his work amid the ongoing epidemic of mass shootings in America.
Nancy Pelosi is Playing Political Games with the
U.S. Constitution over Donald Trump’s Impeachment replies
U.S. Constitution over Donald Trump’s Impeachment replies
No one can be sure what her intent is. I'm not sure she even knows but her decision to wait before transmitting the articles of impeachment to the Senate is setting a bad precedent that puts politics ahead of the U.S. Constitution.
For all the work that's gone into addressing the charges against President Donald Trump, it's hard to argue they rise to the level of impeachable offenses.
Major fights broke out at a Connecticut mall, forcing authorities to shutter the shopping center hours early, according to police and new reports.
The fights — involving “in excess of a couple hundred” people — broke out around 6 p.m. Thursday at the Connecticut Post Mall in Milford, where panicked shoppers streamed out three hours before its usual closing time, police told local outlet WTNH.
“This whole situation was crazy,” New Haven resident Monae Moye told the station. “They were fighting in the food court… All I saw was somebody, they swung and hit somebody in the head and that person just fell out. It was like they hit them so hard,
A 7-month old’s death and two fatal shootings the day after Christmas pushed the number of people killed in Baltimore this year to 342 — the second-highest total on record. Baltimore already surpassed this week the yearly record for killings per capita, due to the city’s rapid population decline. The city’s highest number of homicides was 1993, when 353 people were killed and the city had more than 100,000 additional residents. This year’s violence also surpasses 2018, which saw 305 homicides. In both 2015 and 2017, 342 people were killed.
A huge redwood tree fell and killed a man visiting Muir Woods National Monument in California on Christmas Eve, authorities said Thursday.
Subhradeep Dutta, 28, of Edina, Minnesota, died while walking on a marked dirt trail with two other people in the park north of San Francisco famous for its towering trees, according to the Marin County coroner's office and a spokesman for the park.
Dutta was pinned by the trunk of the 200-foot-tall (61-meter-tall) tree and died at the scene. The trunk measured more than 4 feet (1 meter) in diameter.
Trump and the Pharisees
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The recurring effort to subordinate Christianity to the reactionary public ethics of those who do not like Republican presidents is enjoying another resurgence. The recent editorial in Christianity Today and editorials in places like the Christian Post basically assert the following: President Trump is an exceptionally immoral President and unethical model and therefore any Christian who supports him is as bad or worse than him. (Snip) What do Moses, David, and the apostle Paul all have in common? Minimally they share a common tradition of being major authors of the Bible as well as personal authors of murder.
A wild brawl erupted at an upstate New York mall on Christmas Eve, with the fighters wreaking havoc in The Beef Jerky Outlet. In a viral clip posted to Twitter at least 10 people battle each other in the melee at Albany’s Crossgates Mall. A number of combatants appear to single out one person, throwing punches and forcing them into a wall, knocking down display items in the process. One person in the video can be heard shouting, “Out of the store, out of the store!” Towards the end of the footage, the fight moves to the front of the store. Amid the mayhem,
On a dreary Tuesday morning shortly before Christmas, two passengers boarded the 9.30am 355 bus from New York’s Port Authority bus terminal bound for American Dream, the most ambitious new mall to be built in the US in a generation. One was a mall worker who didn’t want to talk to the media; the other was me.(Snip) “They filled in wetlands to build a water park. It’s almost funny,” Jeff Tittel, the director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club environmental group, said bitterly. He predicts that the site will need to attract 100,000 cars a day to be successful,
Former United Auto Workers President Gary Jones reportedly dropped $13,000 in union funds at an Arizona cigar shop in a single day, according to a federal complaint. The complaint, filed in September against another union leader, mentions that an official purchased a dozen $268 boxes of Ashton Double Magnum cigars and a dozen boxes of Ashton Monarchs, costing about $275 each. In return, the official, reported to be Jones, was sent a thank you note from the Arizona cigar shop. The pricey purchases were part of $60,000 Jones and other UAW officials allegedly spent on cigars between 2014 and 2018, according to a federal
David Herring, brother of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, said he is "furious" to learn the Massachusetts Democrat called their father a janitor on the campaign trail.
“According to a family friend, David has disagreed with the way Warren calls herself the daughter of a janitor as she describes the work he found after losing a job as a salesman after his heart attack," the Boston Globe reports.
Congressional Democrats who fear Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham may be conducting a partisan investigation into the origins of the FBI’s probe into Russian meddling in U.S. elections are calling on him to resign.
Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., has written Attorney General William Barr and Durham, saying “neither of you possess the integrity necessary to serve in the Department of Justice.”
Signed by 10 of Johnson’s House Democratic colleagues — but none from Connecticut — the letter’s demand for Barr’s resignation is not unique.
In May, for instance, Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal said Barr should “probably resign” because,
The report of the I.G.'s findings on the use of FISA in the FBI Crossfire Hurricane investigation is an outrage. As a 22 year FBI Agent, I have personally conducted multiple investigations using both Title III "wiretaps" and FISA authorized intercepts. From this perspective, I can only see two possible interpretations of the actions of the FBI and DOJ. Either scenario should anger and frighten every fair minded citizen who takes the time to read the report and understand its implications. To comprehend the magnitude of the wrongdoing, consider the following
The Trump Administration and the Republican Party got a troubling sign Christmas week that all of their number might not be willing to stand together come an impeachment trial.
Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski on Tuesday told KTUU-TV in Anchorage she was “disturbed” that her leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, would be coordinating with the White House in the coming trial – assuming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will send over the articles of impeachment passed by the House earlier this month to the Senate.
Widely viewed as the quintessential “Republican In Name Only,” the Senate Energy and Natural Resources chairwoman
Tony Award-winning composer Jerry Herman, who wrote the cheerful, good-natured music and lyrics for such classic shows as "Mame," "Hello, Dolly!" and "La Cage aux Folles," died Thursday. He was 88.
His goddaughter Jane Dorian confirmed his death to The Associated Press early Friday. He died of pulmonary complications in Miami, where he had been living with his partner, real estate broker Terry Marler.
The creator of 10 Broadway shows and contributor to several more, Herman won two Tony Awards for best musical: “Hello, Dolly!” in 1964 and “La Cage aux Folles” in 1983.
The FBI’s FISA Frauds
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Rosemary Collyer is the presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (the “FISC”). FISC is the judicial body that issues surveillance warrants to our intelligence agencies, principally the FBI, authorizing the interception of electronic communications of people located in the United States who are agents of foreign governments or who have connections to foreign terrorist organizations.
On December 17, Judge Collyer issued a FISC opinion that was highly unusual because it was unclassified and made public. The Horowitz report said that the FBI intentionally misled the court by using incomplete and bogus information as the basis for it to issue FISA warrants against one-time Trump campaign advisor Carter Page.
With the help of Senate Republicans, Donald Trump spent the first three years of his presidency remaking the federal judiciary in his own image. The president has appointed 133 district court judges, 50 appeals court judges, and two Supreme Court justices—meaning about one-fifth of the nation’s federal trial judges, and one-fourth of its federal appellate judges, are Trump appointees. These jurists are leading a conservative revolution that will upend decades of precedent and enshrine reactionary policies into the law. The transformation has only just begun.
Like his deeply flawed coverage of the 1996 Olympic bombing, Tom Brokaw’s so-called apology this week to the late Richard Jewell leaves much to be desired.
The NBC News special correspondent this week said in the first of two nearly unintelligible tweets: “re richard jewell. 24 hours after the bombing i talked at length with a sr fbi official - who did not wave me off jewel as a suspect. i reported that and speculated why. but my last line was for now he’s just a person of interest. when the truth emerged i apologized.”
Brokaw added in the second tweet, “nbc made a substantial $ payment to the family
So I haven’t posted a tweet in nine months. How am I doing? I’m still in recovery. Over the previous 10 years, I had written 180,000 tweets. Yes, I said 180,000. That’s 18,000 a year, 1,500 a month.
I was putting out an average of 50 tweets a day — while holding down a full-time job editing a magazine, with two firm writing deadlines every week, and raising three children with a wife who works full-time.
How was that even possible? Well, I’ve always written fast. And for much of my life, I’ve felt like a frustrated would-be stand-up comic.
The Trump administration’s chief border enforcement official cast doubt on the administration’s goal of completing construction of the southern border wall by 2021, throwing cold water on one of the Trump campaign’s major promises heading into next year’s election.
“It’s hard right now to say whether we’re still going to meet that goal,” Customs and Border Protection acting commissioner Mark Morgan said in an interview with The New York Times published Wednesday. “But I’m confident we’re going to be close.”
President Trump has promised to install 450 miles of new border wall by 2021.
In September, Defense Secretary Mark Esper approved the transfer of $3.6 billion
Pete Buttigieg has tried to carve out a niche among Democratic presidential hopefuls as the candidate who is comfortable talking about religion. Unfortunately, he’s only comfortable trying to use religion as a means of beating conservatives, especially religious ones, over the head.
This annoying penchant was on display again in Buttigieg’s Christmas message. He tweeted:
Today I join millions around the world in celebrating the arrival of divinity on earth, who came into this world not in riches but in poverty, not as a citizen but as a refugee. No matter where or how we celebrate, merry Christmas.
Buttigieg’s message struck me as fake history.
Suddenly, Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign is being taken seriously.
For months, the Vermont senator was written off by Democratic Party insiders as a candidate with a committed but narrow base who was too far left to win the primary. Elizabeth Warren had skyrocketed in the polls and seemed to be leaving him behind in the race to be progressive voters’ standard-bearer in 2020. But in the past few weeks, something has changed. In private conversations and on social media, Democratic officials, political operatives and pundits are reconsidering Sanders’ chances.
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson said Thursday that California's government is not showing "urgency" in finding constructive solutions to the state's homelessness epidemic.
Carson told Ed Henry exclusively on "The Story" that the U.S. has made great strides over the last 10 years to reduce homelessness -- if the figures omitted the Golden State.
"It’s truly amazing. We’ve actually been making very good progress over the course of the last decade, in terms of homelessness, except in California," he said.
California's homeless rate has been around 16 percent, Carson said, adding there's no "simple fix" to the situation.
Homelessness crisis: From
houseboats to boulders,
unconventional methods used
to tackle problem in 2019 replies
houseboats to boulders,
unconventional methods used
to tackle problem in 2019 replies
Outrage. Frustration. Fear. Those are some of the words residents used in 2019 to describe the growing homelessness problem across the United States. There were numerous cases of harassment, rampant drug use and disturbing displays of mental illness that shined a light on the harsh reality that America's once-containable homeless problem had morphed into a modern-day crisis.
In Los Angeles, Heidi Van Tassell said a homeless man pulled her out of her car, dragged her into the middle of the street and dumped a bucket of feces on her head.
In Oakland, the soaring stats are still affecting the way retailers like Mika McCants operate their small businesses.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has scored a landslide victory in a primary race for leadership of the ruling Likud party.The leader, who was given an important boost ahead of the country's third election in less than a year, could now see himself be given another opportunity to form a government following the March election, after falling short in two previous attempts this year. By easily fending off Likud lawmaker Gideon Saar, Netanyahu also kept alive his hopes of winning immunity from prosecution after being indicted last month on a series of corruption charges.Taking to Twitter just over an hour after the polls closed the Prime Minister wrote:
A date has been announced for the swearing-in of businesswoman Kelly Loeffler, who is set to become the newest Republican in the Senate.Loeffler will be sworn in as a United States senator on Jan. 6, a spokesperson confirmed to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The soon-to-be junior senator from Georgia is replacing outgoing GOP Sen. Johnny Isakson, who announced earlier this year that he’d be leaving office due to his ailing health.The financial executive — who was chosen by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp after months of reviewing applications — has pledged to enter office with a fierce conservative agenda.“I’m a life-long conservative, pro-Second Amendment, pro-Trump, pro-military, and pro-wall,”
Earlier this month the presiding judge of the top-secret FISA court, Rosemary Collyer rebuked the Obama FBI for serious abuses in its efforts to obtain warrants to spy on the Trump campaign in 2016.But Collyer was warned in 2018 about the fraudulent FISA applications by Rep. Devin Nunes. In fact there was evidence back in May that the top Executives in Obama’s FBI all knew that there were multiple copies of the Steele dossier and yet they signed multiple FISA warrant applications to spy on President Trump anyways.
Fears of a listeria outbreak linked to hard-boiled eggs has led to a recall of the product from a number of popular supermarket chains, including Trader Joe’s, Costco, Kroger, and Fresh Thyme.The four chains ordered the recall of ‘hard-cooked eggs’ after at least seven people living in five different states fell ill. One patient from Texas died, according to authorities.The Centers for Disease Control said that the outbreak of Listeria monocytogenes infections could be traced to bulk, fresh hard-boiled egg products manufactured by Almark Foods, a Gainesville, Georgia-based company.
The Kennedy family’s political clout will be tested at the ballot box in 2020.One member of the nation’s most famous political dynasty will be on the ballot next fall, with a second leaning toward it. Democratic Senate candidate Joseph Kennedy III has been practically groomed since childhood to run for higher office and is taking the leap in the Sept. 1 primary. The not-quite-yet-there candidacy, Amy Kennedy, wife of former Rep. Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island, reflects the rise of women candidates in national politics broadly and the Kennedy family specifically.Amy Kennedy, 44, is considering vying for the Democratic nomination in a south New Jersey congressional district.
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.
“These bolivares soberanos notes are worth nothing,” Cordero, who is from Caracas, told Al Jazeera. “These notes I use are not circulating any more since last year.”