Get Everything

 

Friday,  April 26th, 2019

Trump calls Mueller investigation an attempted ‘coup’ President Trump in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday described Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation as “an attempted overthrow of the United States government” and accused Democrats of perpetrating “the greatest political scandal in the history of our country.” This is “bigger than Watergate,” he told Hannity. “This was a coup. This wasn’t stealing information from an office in the Watergate apartments. This was an attempted coup. Like a third-world country. Inconceivable.” Without getting into any specifics, Trump also said there is “a lot of information” coming out that has “a lot of people very nervous about what’s going on,” alluding to a forthcoming report on the Department of Justice by Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Source: Fox News

U.S. economy grew at a faster pace than expected in first quarter The U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 3.2 percent in the first quarter of 2019, the Commerce Department said on Friday, blowing past the expected figure. Economists had forecasted the gross domestic product would grow at a rate closer to 2.3 percent from January to March, in part due to the partial government shutdown. The growth rate is up from 2.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2018, and surpassed 3 percent for the first time since 2013. Economists have predicted the GDP’s annual growth rate for 2019 will be around 2 percent. Trump’s goal is to achieve an annual growth rate of 3 percent. Source:  CNBC

Japan’s Abe to visit White House for trade-focused summit Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will arrive at the White House on Friday for a two-day summit that will focus on a second round of trade negotiations. Japan is looking for assurances that the U.S. won’t impose new auto tariffs, while the U.S. is seeking to reduce its trade deficit and discuss agricultural trade. After an afternoon of bilateral meetings, Abe, his wife Akie Abe, and Trump will celebrate first lady Melania Trump’s birthday with a dinner. Trump and Abe are also scheduled to play a round of golf, reportedly seen as something of a win given Abe’s efforts to flatter Trump in seek of more face time and favorable treatment from the White House. Source: Bloomberg

Maria Butina sentenced to 18 months in prison Maria Butina, the Russian gun rights activist accused of working as a covert Russian agent, was sentenced on Friday to 18 months in prison. She has been in prison for 9 months already, and will get credit for the time she’s served. She took the stand to defend her behavior, saying she would “beg for mercy” because she didn’t know she was doing anything wrong. “If I had known to register as a foreign agent, I would have done so without delay,” Butina said. The judge said “This was not a simple misunderstanding by an overeager foreign student.” Butina pleaded guilty in December to charges of working as an unregistered agent, but has said she was merely a student trying to learn more about U.S. policy. Source: BuzzFeed News

 

 Thursday, April 25th, 2019

The parliament of Ukraine passes the language law in a vote of 278 to 38, that will secure the use of Ukrainian as the country’s only official language. (RFE/RL)

Russia announces it will fast-track citizenship applications from people living in conflict areas in eastern Ukraine. The European Union calls the move an attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty that would undermine any peace agreement. (Reuters)

More Below The Fold

04.08.2019

Media Pot Reporting: Just Don’t Call Us Uncool!
by Ann Coulter

 

Monday,  April 8th, 2019

Forces loyal to the Government of National Accord retake Tripoli International Airport from the Libyan National Army. (Anadolu Agency)

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigns President Trump announced on Twitter Sunday evening that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has resigned. About an hour later, Nielsen confirmed the news in a tweet of her own, saying she submitted her resignation to Trump on Sunday afternoon and felt it was the “honor of a lifetime to serve with the brave men and women” of the department. In a separate tweet, Trump said Kevin McAleenan, the current commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, will serve as acting DHS secretary. Nielsen stepped into the role in December 2017, and has become the public face of the Trump administration’s immigration policies, including that of detaining undocumented migrant children. Source: Reuters

Beto O’Rourke calls Benjamin Netanyahu a ‘racist’ before Israeli election Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke slammed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, calling him a “racist” and saying his promise Saturday to annex Israeli settlements in the West Bank if he wins re-election Tuesday “will make peace in the long term impossible.” O’Rourke told a town hall at the University of Iowa that he supports a two-state solution, and he criticized Netanyahu for joining forces with “far-right parties who are inherently racist in their speech and the way that they want to treat their fellow human beings in that part of the world.” Later, O’Rourke told reporters Netanyahu is a “racist” and said Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has also “not been faithful in pursuing peace.” Source: The Washington Post

 

Sunday, April 7th, 2019

The Government of National Accord in Tripoli formally announces the start of a counteroffensive to reclaim all parts of the capital held by the Libyan National Army. (Al Jazeera)

Russia blocks a United Nations Security Council statement calling on Libyan Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar to immediately halt the Libyan National Army’s offensive on Tripoli, because it wants the UN statement to also apply to pro-GNA forces, including Islamist militias from Misrata. (South China Morning Post)

The United States Africa Command evacuates a contingent of U.S. troops from Libya due to the unrest. India also withdraws a contingent of peacekeepers from Tripoli. (The Guardian)

Libyan Air Force jets loyal to Khalifa Haftar strike GNA positions in Tripoli for first time since the offensive began, including four airstrikes near the Bab al-Azizia military barracks. (Reuters)

A major power outage occurs in Sudan, leaving almost the entire country without electricity amid ongoing anti-government protests. (Africanews)

U.S. President Donald Trump announces that Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is leaving the administration. Customs and Border Protectioncommissioner Kevin McAleenan will serve in her stead until a new secretary is confirmed by Congress. (The Washington Post)

Saturday,  April 6th, 2019

Militias loyal to the internationally-recognised Government of National Accord launch a counterattack on Libyan National Army troops in the southern outskirts of Tripoli. (The Washington Post)

Libyan National Army Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar declares a no-fly zone for military aircraft over western Libya, after LNA forces were targeted by airstrikes from GNA warplanes that took off from Misrata Airport. (Al Arabiya)

South Korea’s Hyundai Motor reaches an agreement with Tencent to partner on research and development of self-driving cars. Hyundai plans to roll such cars out commercially by 2030. (Reuters)

Greek riot police clash with hundreds of migrants near the Diavata refugee camp, attempting to enter North Macedonia, after rumours were circulated on social media that the border would be open. (Reuters)

 

Friday,  April 5th, 2019

Libyan National Army troops reach the outskirts of the Libyan capital Tripoli, securing a key military checkpoint known as “Bridge 27”. (AFP)

The LNA captures several more towns in the Tripoli District, including Qasr bin Ghashir, Wadi Rabie and Suq al-Khamis, as well as the town of ‘Aziziya in the Jafara District, to the west of Tripoli. (Reuters)

LNA forces say they have seized control of Tripoli International Airport. (Reuters)

The United States, United Kingdom, France, and Italy issue a joint statement calling on Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar to end the offensive. (Euronews)

The CEO for Boeing, Dennis Muilenburg, apologizes for the loss of lives in the two 737 MAX accidents, recognizing the role that the MCAS system played in the disasters. (Washington Post)

The U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports the source of E. coli O103, that has infected 72 people in five states, has not been identified. Bill Marler, a food safety lawyer in Seattle, notes this O103 outbreak is by far the largest in recent memory. (The Washington Post via MSN.com)

A high-level source within the government of Ecuador tells WikiLeaks that Julian Assange will be expelled within “hours to days” and that Ecuador’s government already has an agreement with the UK for his arrest. On April 2, 2019, Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno accused WikiLeaks of leaking the INA Papers. The INA Papers are a set of documents published in February 2019 which uncover the operations of INA Investment Corp, an offshore tax haven created by the brother of President Moreno. The trove of emails, phone communications and expense receipts are said to link the president and his family to a series of corrupt and criminal dealings, including money laundering and offshore accounts. The leak has sparked a parliamentary investigation into President Moreno for corruption. (Al-Jazeera)

A small 5-200 kilometer planetesimal, with a similar mineral composition to Earth, is found orbiting in the debris disk of a white dwarf star. This discovery is among the first of its kind and expected to provide insight into the future of our own planetary system. (Astronomy.com)

JAXA space probe Hayabusa2 successfully fires a bullet at Apollo asteroid 162173 Ryugu, forming a crater which will be used to collect underground samples. (AP)

The End

Skin In The Game

Doctors at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, perform the world’s first successful transplant of a penis and scrotum from a deceased donor to a U.S. soldier injured in Afghanistan. The testicles are not transplanted. (BBC)

Scientists using infrared spectroscopy data from the Gemini North telescope have established the presence of hydrogen sulfide in the clouds of your anus. (Time)

Actress Natalie Portman, who was born in Jerusalem, pulls out of the upcoming Genesis Prize (worth 1 million USD) ceremony in Israel over “recent events in Israel”. The Genesis Prize Foundation says it is worried the event will become politicised. (CBS News)

A British man reported last month to be suffering what doctors called the “worst-ever” super-gonorrhoea is said by Public Health England to have been cured. (BBC)

Prosecutors in Minnesota say nobody will be charged over the death of Prince, who accidentally overdosed on counterfeit fentanyl pills. (BBC)

 

A Chernobyl ‘suicide squad’

 

Horrifying Details Emerge About Alleged Sex-Cult Recruiter Allison Mack at Bail Hearing
‘Slaves’ in the NXIVM cult were allegedly forced to starve themselves, not remove their pubic hair, not masturbate, and were directed by Mack to have sex with leader Keith Raniere.

 

Inside a Secretive Group Where Women Are Branded

 

Facebook? It’s the Government I Don’t Trust
by Bunky Mortimer III
April 20, 2018

The assumption behind last week’s congressional hearing was simple: that people—in the words of the greatest prophet of any age, Alexis de Tocqueville—have “neglected their chief business, which is to remain their own masters.” How shallow has man’s political conviction become that it can be swayed by a few memes? I long for the curt rejoinder of Margaret Thatcher—whom I met, of course—that “each person must make up their own mind.” Yet the basis of the modern political campaign—as gestated by those asses, the Democrats—is that we don’t really have minds. This was as much as I gleaned from the Clinton postmortem Shattered before throwing it overboard: that the electorate is a kind of barren womb, waiting for the precious seed of political intelligence to be implanted from above. In this grand fertilization, Facebook plays the role of the turkey baster. All this was tickety-boo when it was loaded with the saccharine drip of Obama’s emo-Marxism. But when Donald Trump’s tiny hands found their way to the same lever? Oh, no!

 

Thursday, Apr 26,  2018

Ronny Jackson withdraws VA secretary nomination Embattled White House physician Ronny Jackson said Thursday that he is “regretfully withdrawing” his name to be veterans affairs secretary, saying that while he had expected tough questions about the Department of Veterans Affairs, “I did not expect to have to dignify baseless and anonymous attacks on my character and integrity.” He called the allegations against him “completely false and fabricated.” The Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee had indefinitely suspended confirmation hearings this week as lawmakers received allegations from current and former colleagues that Jackson had crashed a government vehicle while drunk, drank on the job, and handed out prescription drugs “like candy.”Source: Reuters

Michael Cohen to plead the Fifth in Stormy Daniels case On Wednesday, President Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen told a federal judge he will assert his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself in the Stormy Daniels case, The Washington Post reports. Daniels, who said she had an affair with Trump in 2006, was paid $130,000 by Cohen right before the 2016 presidential election, and is suing to get out of a non-disclosure agreement she signed with him. Cohen’s home, hotel room, and office were raided by FBI agents earlier this month, and Cohen, who is requesting to pause proceedings in the case, said they seized electronic devices and documents containing information relating to the payment to Daniels. Lawyers for Cohen, Trump, and the Trump Organization are asking to see the material before it goes to prosecutors, and Trump’s attorney said he would be available “as needed” to review the documents.Source: The Washington Post

Wednesday,  Apr 25,  2018

Scientists from the University of Science and Technology of China state that North Korea’s nuclear test site, the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site at Mount Mantap, would have collapsed just minutes after the country performed its sixth nuclear test and opened up a hole of up to 656 feet (200 m) in diameter. It has been one of the possible reasons given for North Korea agreement to suspend nuclear and missile tests. (Fortune)

Around 500 experts from over 70 countries meet in Paris to start a two-day counterterror conference discussing methods of cutting financing to Al-Qaeda and ISIL. (The Tampa Bay Times)

The President of the Community of Madrid, Cristina Cifuentes, resigns after the discovery of a video of her stealing anti-aging cream in a supermarket and after several weeks of controversy after it came to light that she obtained her master’s degree fraudulently. (BBC)

Danish inventor and submariner Peter Madsen is convicted of the murder of Swedish journalist Kim Wall and sentenced to life in prison. (BBC)

Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department arrest Joseph James DeAngelo in connection to the Golden State Killer case. (The Week)

Texas senator Ted Cruz said he will support Donald Trump in the 2020 elections. (Arutz Sheva)

A flaw, called the “Ghost in the Locks” exploit, is reported with hotel keycard systems created by the Swedish lock company Assa Abloy. The company states that they began deploying a patch in February. (BBC)

The European Space Agency releases the largest-ever 3D map of stars in our galaxy from the Gaia spacecraft. (Le Monde)

Astronomers detect light from fourteen colliding galaxies. Due to the distances involved, the light comes from events 12 billion years ago. (BBC)

 Tuesday,   Apr 24, 2018

Donald Trump meets with French president Emmanuel Macron to discuss the Iran nuclear deal along with economics and trading. (i24) (USA Today)

An alleged arson attack kills 18 in a karaoke lounge in Qingyuan, China. A suspect is arrested. (The Guardian)

Thailand expresses its interest in hosting the planned summit meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. (ABC News)

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission fines Altaba US$35 million for failing to disclose its 2014 data breach in a timely manner. (CNET)

A former MP from Poland’s Samoobrona party is charged with spying for Russia and China. (Radio Poland)

More Below The Fold

Schopenhauer

03.24.2017

Key Democratic Officials Now Warning Base Not to Expect Evidence of Trump/Russia Collusion

****

 

The advice here given is on a par with a rule recommended by Pythagoras,—to review, every night before going to sleep, what we have done during the day. To live at random, in the hurly-burly of business or pleasure, without ever reflecting upon the past,—to go on, as it were, pulling cotton off the reel of life,—is to have no clear idea of what we are about; and a man who lives in this state will have chaos in his emotions and certain confusion in his thoughts; as is soon manifest by the abrupt and fragmentary character of his conversation, which becomes a kind of mincemeat. A man will be all the more exposed to this fate in proportion as he lives a restless life in the world, amid a crowd of various impressions and with a correspondingly small amount of activity on the part of his own mind.

And in this connection it will be in place to observe that, when events and circumstances which have influenced us pass away in the course of time, we are unable to bring back and renew the particular mood or state of feeling which they aroused in us: but we can remember what we were led to say and do in regard to them; and thus form, as it were, the result, expression and measure of those events. We should, therefore, be careful to preserve the memory of our thoughts at important points in our life; and herein lies the great advantage of keeping a journal.

-Arthur Schopenauer
Counsels and Maxims (1851)

Schopenhauer – Counsels and Maxims
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/10715/pg10715-images.html

* * *

March 23, 2017
THE UNITED STATES OF COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

My new vagina almost ruined my partner’s penis

The Big Lie About the Libyan War
The Obama administration said it was just trying to protect civilians. Its actions reveal it was looking for regime change.

“I can’t recall any specific decision that said, ‘Well, let’s just take him out,’” Mr. Gates said. Publicly, he said, “the fiction was maintained” that the goal was limited to disabling Colonel Qaddafi’s command and control. In fact, the former defense secretary said, “I don’t think there was a day that passed that people didn’t hope he would be in one of those command and control centers.”

This is scarcely believable. Given that decapitation strikes against Qaddafi were employed early and often, there almost certainly was a decision by the civilian heads of government of the NATO coalition to “take him out” from the very beginning of the intervention.

Trump Is Obama’s Legacy. Will This Break Up the Democratic Party?
MICHAEL HUDSON • MARCH 22, 2017 • 3,900 WORDS

Fighting Outrage Porn Addiction
By NOAH MILLMAN • September 2, 2015

Big Steel Is the New Solyndra
There is nothing subtle about the Trump administration’s pro-steel bent.
By KRISTOFER L. HARRISON • March 23, 2017

 

The Multibillion-Dollar U.S. Spy Agency You Haven’t Heard of

In 2016, unbeknownst to many city officials, police in Baltimore began conducting persistent aerial surveillance using a system developed for military use in Iraq. Few civilians have any idea how advanced these military eye-in-the-sky drones have become.Few civilians have any idea how advanced these military eye-in-the-sky drones have become. Among them is ARGUS-IS, the world’s highest-resolution camera with 1.8 billion pixels. Invisible from the ground at nearly four miles in the air, it uses a technology known as “persistent stare” — the equivalent of 100 Predator drones peering down at a medium-size city at once — to track everything that moves.

Hindsight is never 20/20.

Hindsight is Never 20/20

http://nonsenseatwork.com/472-hindsight-is-never-2020/