846: Tardy Party

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Thu, 28 Jul 2016 06:00

Norman Mailer This book was recommended by one of our fellow producers, a knight no less. ''I think Harlot's Ghost by Norman Mailer should be in here. A great exploration of Spook World i.e. the machinations of Capitalism's Invisible Army (as R. Buckminster Fuller liked to say).'' With unprecedented scope and consummate skill, Norman Mailer unfolds a rich and riveting epic of an American spy. Harry Hubbard is the son and godson of CIA legends. His journey to learn the secrets of his society'--and his own past'--takes him through the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the ''momentous catastrophe'' of the Kennedy assassination. All the while, Hubbard is haunted by women who were loved by both his godfather and President Kennedy. Featuring a tapestry of unforgettable characters both real and imagined, Harlot's Ghost is a panoramic achievement in the tradition of Tolstoy, Melville, and Balzac, a triumph of Mailer's literary prowess. Harlot's Ghost: A Novel Price: '-- (76 customer reviews) 0 used & new available... read morePortrait of a Dynasty Peter Schweizer From Amazon: Based on hours of unprecedented interviews with members of the Bush family, The Bushestells the inside story of the unique dynasty at the heart of American power. As well as laying out the secretive family's inner workings, this intimate and fascinating group portrait probes into such sensitive matters as their dealings in the oil business, George W.'s turbulent youth, and Jeb's likely run for the presidency in 2008. In this first full-scale biography, Peter and Rochelle Schweizer insightfully explore the secrets of the Bushes' rise from obscurity to unprecedented influence. The family's free-flowing, pragmatic, and opportunistic style consciously distinguishes them from previous political dynasties; they consider themselves the ''un-Kennedys.'' But with their abiding emphasis on loyalty and networking, the Bushes' continuing success seems assured''making this book essential reading for anyone who cares about America's future. The Bushes: Portrait of a Dynasty Price: $12.73 (26 customer reviews) 48 used & new available from... read moreThe Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich Peter Schweizer From the publisher: In his New York Times bestselling books Extortion and Throw Them All Out, Schweizer detailed patterns of official corruption in Washington that led to congressional resignations and new ethics laws. In Clinton Cash, he follows the Clinton money trail, revealing the connection between their personal fortune, their ''close personal friends,'' the Clinton Foundation, foreign nations, and some of the highest ranks of government. Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich Price: $16.79 (1225 customer reviews) 118 used & new available from... read moreThe Terror Factory: Inside the FBI's Maufactured War on Terrorism Trevor Aaronson A groundbreaking work of investigative journalism, The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI's Manufactured War on Terrorism exposes how the FBI has, under the guise of engaging in counterterrorism since 9/11, built a network of more than fifteen thousand informants whose primary purpose is to infiltrate Muslim communities to create and facilitate phony terrorist plots so that the Bureau can then claim it is winning the war on terror. The paperback edition of The Terror Factory includes all new information on the FBI's counterterrorism efforts related to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, as well as how the government has used (potentially illegally) FISA information in sting cases. The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI's Maufactured War on Terrorism Price: $16.43 (35 customer reviews) 35 used & new available from... read more*Insert chemtrail jingle.* David keith Climate engineering '-- which could slow the pace of global warming by injecting reflective particles into the upper atmosphere '-- has emerged in recent years as an extremely controversial technology. And for good reason: it carries unknown risks and it may undermine commitments to conserving energy. Some critics also view it as an immoral human breach of the natural world. The latter objection, David Keith argues in A Scientist's Case for Climate Engineering, is groundless; we have been using technology to alter our environment for years. But he agrees that there are large issues at stake. A Case for Climate Engineering (Boston Review Books) Price: $12.96 (19 customer reviews) 71 used & new available from... read morePhilip Corso Backed by documents newly declassified through the Freedom of Information Act, Colonel Philip J. Corso (Ret.), a member of President Eisenhower's National Security Council and former head of the Foreign Technology Desk in the US Army, has come forward to reveal his personal stewardship of alien artifacts from the Roswell crash. He tells us how he spearheaded the Army's reverse-engineering project that led to today's integrated circuit chips, fiber optics, lasers, and super-tenacity fibers, and ''seeded'' the Roswell alien technology to giants of American industry. Laying bare the US government's shocking role in the Roswell incident'--what was found, the cover-up, and how they used alien artifacts to change the course of twentieth-century history'--The Day After Roswell is an extraordinary memoir that not only forces us to reconsider the past, but also our role in the universe. The Day After Roswell Price: $5.93 (661 customer reviews) 114 used & new available from... read moreA new book from the retired general Wesley Clark. We all know the general from ''The Wesley Clark 7''. Wesley K. Clark From the publisher: With the end of the Cold War came not the end of history, but the end of America's sense of its strategic purpose in the world. Then, after a decade of drift, the US was violently dragged back into international conflict. Its armed forces responded magnificently but its leaders' objectives were substantially flawed. We fought the wrong war'--twice'--for reasons that were opaque, and few American citizens understood the cause for which their sons and daughters were fighting and dying. Don't Wait for the Next War: A Strategy for American Growth and Global Leadership Price: $21.58 (58 customer reviews) 93 used & new available from... read moreAzar Nafisi This book was mentioned in show 663 and some clips were played from an interview with Azar Nafisi. In there was even a quote from Ray Bradbury. Azar makes the case for fiction in the modern democratic society. From the publisher: Taking her cue from a challenge thrown to her in Seattle, where a skeptical reader told her that Americans don't care about books the way they did back in Iran, she energetically responds to those who say fiction has nothing to teach us. Blending memoir and polemic with close readings of her favorite American novels'--The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Babbitt, and The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, among others'--she invites us to join her as citizens of her ''Republic of Imagination,'' a country where the villains are conformity and orthodoxy and the only passport to entry is a free mind and a willingness to dream. The Republic of Imagination: America in Three Books Price: $19.35 (52 customer reviews) 180 used & new available from... read moreNot just a book in the No Agenda spirit, but truly a No Agenda Book. This should be a good read. Tom Kilbride From the publisher: For more than six years, media assassins Crackpot (Adam Curry) and Buzzkill (John C. Dvorak) have performed the twice weekly Podcast, No Agenda Show, a discussion of current events or whatever they feel like talking about, from wine to chemtrails. In this fictional account, they are recruited by the CIA to help foil an evil plot to create turmoil in the American population by taking down the Internet's most popular site. The story has adventure, intrigue, foreign travel, spies and assassins. So shut up slaves and buy this book. If not today, in the morning. No Agenda '' Saving America: Shut Up Slaves! Price: $10.00 (4 customer reviews) 16 used & new available from... read moreAs mentioned on show 661; the no agenda book. James Risen From the publisher: Ever since 9/11 America has fought an endless war on terror, seeking enemies everywhere and never promising peace. In Pay Any Price, James Risen reveals an extraordinary litany of the hidden costs of that war: from squandered and stolen dollars, to outrageous abuses of power, to wars on normalcy, decency, and truth. In the name of fighting terrorism, our government has done things every bit as shameful as its historic wartime abuses '-- and until this book, it has worked very hard to cover them up. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. FDR authorized the internment of thousands of Japanese Americans. Presidents Bush and Obama now must face their own reckoning. Power corrupts, but it is endless war that corrupts absolutely. Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War Price: $12.49 (219 customer reviews) 195 used & new available from... read moreThis book is described by Adam as helpful for people to understand the autistic spectrum. In this second version has more details on the DSM 5 and its implications on your children. Sally Ozonoff PhD (Author), Geraldine Dawson PhD (Author), James C. McPartland PhD (Author) From the publisher: Packed with real-life stories and everyday problem-solving ideas, this book has given many tens of thousands of parents the facts they need about high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (ASD), including Asperger syndrome. The authors are leading experts who describe ways to work with these kids' unique impairments and capabilities so they can grow into happy, self-sufficient adults. Parents learn practical strategies for helping their son or daughter relate more comfortably to peers, learn the rules of appropriate behavior, and succeed in school. The book also discusses what scientists currently know about ASD and how it is diagnosed, as well as what treatments and educational supports have been shown to work. Updated with the latest research, resources, and clinical strategies, the second edition clearly explains the diagnostic changes in DSM-5. A Parent's Guide to High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder, Second Edition: How to Meet the Challenges and Help Your Child Thrive Price: $12.93 (15 customer reviews) 62 used & new available from... read moreA movie produced by a NA producer. Adam had a conversation with him over dinner, planning a Panama trip. Synopsis: In this meticulously researched documentary, filmmaker Mark Hall traces the origins of sushi in Japan to its status today as a cuisine that has spawned a lucrative worldwide industry. This explosion in demand for sushi over the past 30 years has brought with it problems of its own, as fish stocks have steadily depleted, threatening the balance of the ocean's ecosystems. Sushi: The Global Catch Price: $9.99 (8 customer reviews) 1 used & new available from... read more

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Wed, 27 Jul 2016 00:30

Posted July 26th, 2016 @ 8:59am in #Trump#Influence#Clinton#Dark#Rotten

Yesterday I told you why Clinton's label of ''dark'' for Trump's convention speech was such a well-designed linguistic kill shot. It is so good, in fact, that I speculated it was designed by the Godzilla of persuasion '' who I did not name.

Dark is a fresh, unusual word (for politics). And it lets you fill in the details with whatever scares you the most about Trump while conveying a general tone of evil and negativity. Dark is no common insult. It originated from a master persuader.

Don't believe me?

Doubt me if you will.

Then read this.

Meanwhile, Trump was trying out his new linguistic kill shot by calling his opponent Hillary Rotten Clinton. Her actual name is Hillary Rodham Clinton, so it works as a play on words, and that helps memory retention, which is a persuasion trick. But it's more than a clever play on words.

Rotten '' like dark '' is a fresh, unusual word (for politics). And it is general enough that people can fill in their own details with whatever they find to be rotten about Clinton. If you think Clinton looks unhealthy, perhaps she is rotting from the inside. And if you think the primaries were rigged for Clinton, that sounds like a rotten situation. Likewise, Clinton's email problems sound rotten.

Rotten cleverly incorporates all of Trump's best labels for Clinton, including ''crooked'' and ''no stamina.'' And it put Trump back in the news cycle during the Democratic National Convention.

Both rotten and dark are labels that work as accumulative confirmation bias traps. Watch how many times Trump does something that you could interpret as dark, and how many times Clinton does something you could interpret as rotten. The labels will pick up strength over time.

If you're new to persuasion, Trump and Clinton probably appear to be two adults hurling random insults at each other. But once you see under the hood, you realize these insults are anything but random. They are the work of Master Persuaders, operating at the highest level.

Godzilla, meet King Kong.

'--

If you think policies are more important than persuasion, or vice-versa, you might love my book.

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Tue, 26 Jul 2016 22:59

Late last year Matthew Barzun, an official with the Obama campaign, called Craig Fox, a psychologist in Los Angeles, and invited him to a political planning meeting in Chicago, according to two people who attended the session.

''He said, 'Bring the whole group; let's hear what you have to say,' '' recalled Dr. Fox, a behavioral economist at the University of California, Los Angeles.

So began an effort by a team of social scientists to help their favored candidate in the 2012 presidential election. Some members of the team had consulted with the Obama campaign in the 2008 cycle, but the meeting in January signaled a different direction.

''The culture of the campaign had changed,'' Dr. Fox said. ''Before then I felt like we had to sell ourselves; this time there was a real hunger for our ideas.''

This election season the Obama campaign won a reputation for drawing on the tools of social science. The book ''The Victory Lab,'' by Sasha Issenberg, and news reports have portrayed an operation that ran its own experiment and, among other efforts, consulted with the Analyst Institute, a Washington voter research group established in 2007 by union officials and their allies to help Democratic candidates.

Less well known is that the Obama campaign also had a panel of unpaid academic advisers. The group '-- which calls itself the ''consortium of behavioral scientists,'' or COBS '-- provided ideas on how to counter false rumors, like one that President Obama is a Muslim. It suggested how to characterize the Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, in advertisements. It also delivered research-based advice on how to mobilize voters.

''In the way it used research, this was a campaign like no other,'' said Todd Rogers, a psychologist at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and a former director of the Analyst Institute. ''It's a big change for a culture that historically has relied on consultants, experts and gurulike intuition.''

When asked about the outside psychologists, the Obama campaign would neither confirm nor deny a relationship with them. ''This campaign was built on the energy, enthusiasm and ingenuity of thousands of grass-roots supporters and our staff in the states and in Chicago,'' said Adam Fetcher, a campaign spokesman. ''Throughout the campaign we saw an outpouring of individuals across the country who lent a wide variety of ideas and input to our efforts to get the president re-elected.''

For their part, consortium members said they did nothing more than pass on research-based ideas, in e-mails and conference calls. They said they could talk only in general terms about the research, because they had signed nondisclosure agreements with the campaign.

In addition to Dr. Fox, the consortium included Susan T. Fiske of Princeton University; Samuel L. Popkin of the University of California, San Diego; Robert Cialdini, a professor emeritus at Arizona State University; Richard H. Thaler, a professor of behavioral science and economics at the University of Chicago's business school; and Michael Morris, a psychologist at Columbia.

''A kind of dream team, in my opinion,'' Dr. Fox said.

He said that the ideas the team proposed were ''little things that can make a difference'' in people's behavior.

For example, Dr. Fiske's research has shown that when deciding on a candidate, people generally focus on two elements: competence and warmth. ''A candidate wants to make sure to score high on both dimensions,'' Dr. Fiske said in an interview. ''You can't just run on the idea that everyone wants to have a beer with you; some people care a whole lot about competence.''

Mr. Romney was recognized as a competent businessman, polling found. But he was often portrayed in opposition ads as distant, unable to relate to the problems of ordinary people.

When it comes to countering rumors, psychologists have found that the best strategy is not to deny the charge (''I am not a flip-flopper'') but to affirm a competing notion. ''The denial works in the short term; but in the long term people remember only the association, like 'Obama and Muslim,' '' said Dr. Fox, of the persistent false rumor.

The president's team affirmed that he is a Christian.

At least some of the consortium's proposals seemed to have found their way into daily operations. Campaign volunteers who knocked on doors last week in swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Nevada did not merely remind people to vote and arrange for rides to the polls. Rather, they worked from a script, using subtle motivational techniques that research has shown can prompt people to take action.

''We used the scripts more as a guide,'' said Sarah Weinstein, 18, a Columbia freshman who traveled with a group to Cleveland the weekend before the election. ''The actual language we used was invested in the individual person.''

Simply identifying a person as a voter, as many volunteers did '-- ''Mr. Jones, we know you have voted in the past'' '-- acts as a subtle prompt to future voting, said Dr. Cialdini, a foundational figure in the science of persuasion. ''People want to be congruent with what they have committed to in the past, especially if that commitment is public,'' he said.

Many volunteers also asked would-be voters if they would sign an informal commitment to vote, a card with the president's picture on it. This small, voluntary agreement amplifies the likelihood that the person will follow through, research has found.

In a now classic experiment, a pair of Stanford psychologists asked people if they would display in a home window a small card proclaiming the importance of safe driving. Those who agreed to this small favor were later much more likely to agree to a much larger favor, to post a large ''Drive Carefully'' sign on their lawn '-- ''something no one would agree to do otherwise,'' Dr. Cialdini said.

Obama volunteers also asked people if they had a plan to vote and if not, to make one, specifying a time, according to Stephen Shaw, a retired cancer researcher who knocked on doors in Nevada and Virginia in the days before the election. ''One thing we'd say is that we know that when people have a plan, voting goes more smoothly,'' he said.

Recent research has shown that making even a simple plan increases the likelihood that a person will follow through, Dr. Rogers, of Harvard, said.

Another technique some volunteers said they used was to inform supporters that others in their neighborhood were planning to vote. Again, recent research shows that this kind of message is much more likely to prompt people to vote than traditional campaign literature that emphasizes the negative '-- that many neighbors did not vote and thus lost an opportunity to make a difference.

This kind of approach trades on a human instinct to conform to social norms, psychologists say. In another well-known experiment, Dr. Cialdini and two colleagues tested how effective different messages were in getting hotel guests to reuse towels. The message ''the majority of guests reuse their towels'' prompted a 29 percent increase in reuse, compared with the usual message about helping the environment. The message ''the majority of guests in this room reuse their towels'' resulted in a 41 percent increase, he said.

Salespeople have known the value of such approaches for a generation, and political campaigns have also used them before this election. Social scientists began offering their services to Democrats back in 2004, when President George W. Bush's campaign was attacking the Democratic nominee, Senator John Kerry, as a flip-flopper and making the label stick.

Dr. Fox and others got an audience with someone in the Kerry campaign, but the meeting didn't lead to any active consulting, he said. The group circulated a paper outlining its members' expertise and proposals and in 2006 got a meeting with some senators, including Hillary Rodham Clinton and Harry M. Reid.

Consortium members said they knew of no such informal advisory panel on the Republican side. Efforts to contact the Romney campaign were unsuccessful.

The researchers said they weren't told which of their ideas were put to use, or how. But sometimes they got hints. Dr. Fiske, the Princeton psychologist, said she received a generic, mass-market e-mail from the Obama campaign before the election.

''It said, 'People do things when they make plans to do them; what's your plan?' '' Dr. Fiske said. ''How about that?''

Correction: November 14, 2012

An article on Tuesday about the role of social scientists in President Obama's re-election campaign omitted a word from the title of the book by Sasha Issenberg that examines data-driven campaign strategies. The book is ''The Victory Lab,'' not ''Victory Lab.''

https://www.congress.gov/treaty-document/106th-congress/22/document-text

Treaty With Russia On Mutual Legal Assistance In Criminal Matters

Signed by Bill Clinton February 10, 2000

Article 2 sets forth a non-exclusive list of the major

types of assistance to be provided under the Treaty, including

obtaining testimony and statements; providing documents,

records, and other items; serving documents; locating and

identifying persons and items; executing requests for searches

and seizures; transferring persons in custody for testimony or

other purposes under the Treaty; locating and immobilizing

assets for purposes of forfeiture, restitution, or collection

of fines; and providing any other legal assistance not

prohibited by the laws of the Requested Party.

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Source: Russia Beyond The Headlines

Mon, 25 Jul 2016 14:19

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Belgium's parliament has registered for further consideration a resolution on lifting of the European Union's sanctions against Russia, author of the draft resolution MP Aldo Carcaci told TASS on July 24.

The member of the parliament said the draft resolution discussion may be organized after the parliamentary holidays.

The EU economic sanctions against Russia remain in force to January 31, 2017. This autumn, the EU Council will have a wide discussion on further relations between the European Union and Russia, including milder sanctions or lifting them.

Sanctions and import substitution For incorporation of Crimea after last year's coup in Ukraine, Russia came under sanctions on the part of the United States and many European countries. The restrictive measures were soon intensified following Western and Ukrainian claims that Russia supported militias in self-proclaimed republics in Ukraine's southeast and was involved in destabilization of Ukraine.

As countermeasures, Russia imposed on August 6, 2014 a one-year ban on imports of beef, pork, poultry, fish, cheeses, fruit, vegetables and dairy products from Australia, Canada, the European Union, the United States and Norway.

The Russian authorities have repeatedly denied accusations of "annexing" Crimea, because Crimea reunified with Russia voluntarily after a referendum.

A system of import substitution had to be introduced in Russia in connection with imposition of Western sanctions on Russia for developments in Ukraine and Moscow's countersanctions.

Source: Tass.com

Read more: Why the standoff between the U.S. and Russia is here to stay>>>

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Thu, 28 Jul 2016 12:58

PostEverything

By Bruce Schneier

July 27, 2016 at 3:10 PM

Watch more!

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump says it's "far-fetched" and "ridiculous" to say Russia hacked Democratic Party emails to help him become president. (Reuters)Russia was behind the hacks into the Democratic National Committee's computer network that led to the release of thousands of internal emails just before the party's convention began, U.S. intelligence agencies have reportedly concluded.

The FBI is investigating. WikiLeaks promises there is more data to come. The political nature of this cyberattack means that Democrats and Republicans are trying to spin this as much as possible. Even so, we have to accept that someone is attacking our nation's computer systems in an apparent attempt to influence a presidential election. This kind of cyberattack targets the very core of our democratic process. And it points to the possibility of an even worse problem in November '-- that our election systems and our voting machines could be vulnerable to a similar attack.

If the intelligence community has indeed ascertained that Russia is to blame, our government needs to decide what to do in response. This is difficult because the attacks are politically partisan, but it is essential. If foreign governments learn that they can influence our elections with impunity, this opens the door for future manipulations, both document thefts and dumps like this one that we see and more subtle manipulations that we don't see.

Retaliation is politically fraught and could have serious consequences, but this is an attack against our democracy. We need to confront Russian President Vladimir Putin in some way '-- politically, economically or in cyberspace '-- and make it clear that we will not tolerate this kind of interference by any government. Regardless of your political leanings this time, there's no guarantee the next country that tries to manipulate our elections will share your preferred candidates.

Even more important, we need to secure our election systems before autumn. If Putin's government has already used a cyberattack to attempt to help Trump win, there's no reason to believe he won't do it again '-- especially now that Trump is inviting the ''help.''

Over the years, more and more states have moved to electronic voting machines and have flirted with Internet voting. These systems are insecure and vulnerable to attack.

Related: Your iPhone just got less secure. Blame the FBI.

But while computer security experts like me have sounded the alarm for many years, states have largely ignored the threat, and the machine manufacturers have thrown up enough obfuscating babble that election officials are largely mollified.

We no longer have time for that. We must ignore the machine manufacturers' spurious claims of security, create tiger teams to test the machines' and systems' resistance to attack, drastically increase their cyber-defenses and take them offline if we can't guarantee their security online.

Longer term, we need to return to election systems that are secure from manipulation. This means voting machines with voter-verified paper audit trails, and no Internet voting. I know it's slower and less convenient to stick to the old-fashioned way, but the security risks are simply too great.

There are other ways to attack our election system on the Internet besides hacking voting machines or changing vote tallies: deleting voter records, hijacking candidate or party websites, targeting and intimidating campaign workers or donors. There have already been multiple instances of political doxing '-- publishing personal information and documents about a person or organization '-- and we could easily see more of it in this election cycle. We need to take these risks much more seriously than before.

Government interference with foreign elections isn't new, and in fact, that's something the United States itself has repeatedly done in recent history. Using cyberattacks to influence elections is newer but has been done before, too '-- most notably in Latin America. Hacking of voting machines isn't new, either. But what is new is a foreign government interfering with a U.S. national election on a large scale. Our democracy cannot tolerate it, and we as citizens cannot accept it.

Related: Why would Russia try to hack the U.S. election? Because it might work.

Last April, the Obama administration issued an executive order outlining how we as a nation respond to cyberattacks against our critical infrastructure. While our election technology was not explicitly mentioned, our political process is certainly critical. And while they're a hodgepodge of separate state-run systems, together their security affects every one of us. After everyone has voted, it is essential that both sides believe the election was fair and the results accurate. Otherwise, the election has no legitimacy.

Election security is now a national security issue; federal officials need to take the lead, and they need to do it quickly.

Bruce Schneier is a security technologist and a lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. His latest book is Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World.

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Tue, 26 Jul 2016 15:43

WASHINGTON '-- As Donald J. Trump prepared to take his beauty pageant to Moscow in 2013, he relished the participation of one man above all: President Vladimir V. Putin. ''Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow '-- if so, will he become my new best friend?'' he wrote on Twitter.

Mr. Putin did not attend '-- in fact, Mr. Trump has yet to meet him, by all accounts '-- but his admiration for the Russian leader, shared by some of his campaign advisers, is clear. It stems from an affinity for brash, swaggering politics and business dealings in Russia that has overturned decades of Republican orthodoxy about Russia and its leader as an aggressive authoritarian whose values are inimical to those of the United States.

Hillary Clinton, by contrast, has a far more contentious history with Mr. Putin, despite the ''reset'' President Obama's administration pursued with Russia during her tenure as secretary of state. In 2011, Mr. Putin accused her of instigating the huge protests that erupted after parliamentary elections marred by fraud.

''She set the tone for some actors in our country and gave them a signal,'' he said darkly, going on to accuse her of engaging in ''active work,'' an old term of art for covert K.G.B. operations. When she compared Russia's intervention in Ukraine to Hitler's moves in the 1930s, he said she had ''never been too graceful with her statements.''

Now the question has emerged in the United States election campaign whether Mr. Putin has opted '-- directly or covertly '-- to throw Russia's support behind Mr. Trump. The conclusion by cybersecurity experts that Russian intelligence agencies breached the Democratic National Committee and released thousands of emails on the eve of the party's convention prompted accusations from Democrats and some Republicans that Mr. Trump was a kind of ''Siberian candidate,'' bolstered from abroad to undermine the nation.

''Given Donald Trump's well-known admiration for Putin and his belittling of NATO, the Russians have both the means and the motive to engage in a hack of the D.N.C. and the dump of its emails prior to the Democratic convention,'' Rep. Adam Schiff of California, a Democrat who is the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a statement on Monday.

''That foreign actors may be trying to influence our election '-- let alone a powerful adversary like Russia '-- should concern all Americans of any party,'' he added.

Mr. Trump dismissed the idea as a joke, and his campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, called it ''crazy'' in remarks broadcast on CNN. ''I don't even know what you're talking about,'' he said.

Just four years ago, the Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney called Russia the No. 1 geopolitical threat to the United States, a remark that was criticized at the time by Democrats but that seemed to anticipate the souring of relations after the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

As her campaign approached, Mrs. Clinton, too, sharpened her tone on the threat Mr. Putin posed, distancing herself in her book ''Hard Choices'' from a ''reset'' widely seen as a failure. Now it is Mr. Trump who sees '-- though not always '-- a new era of cooperation, ''because Putin likes me,'' as he put it on Twitter.

Mr. Trump's dabbling in business in the country dates to the Soviet era, when he visited Moscow in 1987 at the invitation of the Soviet ambassador to the United States, Yuri Dubinin, who had mentioned at a lunch in New York that his daughter had admired Trump Tower. ''He actually suggested that we make a similar statement in Moscow,'' Mr. Trump said at the time.

Mr. Trump's plans for a Trump Tower in Russia never came to fruition, but his interest in the country as a potential investment and marketing opportunity never waned entirely, as his decision to stage the Miss Universe pageant at a concert hall in one of Moscow's deluxe shopping centers, Crocus City, demonstrated.

As his campaign took shape this year, he turned to advisers who shared his views on Russia. Mr. Manafort has had extensive financial and political dealings with business executives in Russia and Ukraine.

Beginning in 2005, he worked as a political strategist in Ukraine for Viktor Yanukovych and his Party of Regions, which struggled to regain power after his first election as president in late 2004 was overturned as fraudulent, in what became known as the Orange Revolution. According to one of several cables disclosed by WikiLeaks in 2010, Mr. Yanukovych told the American ambassador at the time that he intended to ''build Regions into a party that had a platform and policies.''

''Doing so was important for the development of democracy in Ukraine, he asserted,'' according to the cable. Mr. Yanukovych won the presidency in 2010, only to be ousted in the political upheaval that prompted the Russian intervention in Crimea and later in eastern Ukraine.

Mr. Manafort also had business investments in the region, some of which were detailed in a lawsuit filed in New York in 2011 by Mr. Yanukovych's rival, Yulia Tymoshenko. Although the suit was dismissed, it detailed connections with a Ukrainian gas middleman, Dmytro Firtash, and a reputed kingpin of the Russian mob, Semyon Y. Mogilevich, as well as with another Russian tycoon, Oleg Deripaska.

In the lawsuit, Ms. Tymoshenko claimed that Mr. Manafort had helped Mr. Firtash in a project to use illicit proceeds from gas deals to buy and redevelop the former Drake Hotel on Park Avenue in Manhattan. The United States tried to extradite Mr. Firtash from Austria, but the request was turned down in 2015.

Adrian Karatnycky, an expert on Ukraine at the Atlantic Council, said that he viewed Mr. Manafort as a canny strategist and businessman. ''I don't see Manafort going in as an agent of Russian imperialism, but of personal opportunism,'' he said.

Another adviser to Mr. Trump's campaign, Carter Page, also lived and worked in Russia, serving as a consultant with Gazprom, the state-owned energy giant. In July, he delivered a graduation speech at the New Economic School in Moscow in which he warned that hostility between the United States and Russia, reminiscent of the Cold War, was a mistake.

While Mr. Putin has scrupulously avoided endorsing either candidate in the United States campaign, the tenor of coverage by the state news media has clearly favored Mr. Trump. He is portrayed as a populist break from the past, while from Russia's point of view, Mrs. Clinton embodies the worst aspects of an aggressive, antagonistic American establishment.

''They don't really expect much from a Clinton presidency other than continued confrontation, while they view a Trump presidency as a window for improved relations,'' said Vladimir Frolov, the foreign affairs columnist for the online magazine Slon.ru.

A report on Sunday on the weekly television program Vesti Nedeli cited an interview with The New York Times in which Mr. Trump suggested that American protection for the Baltic nations would not be automatic if he were elected, despite the collective defense clause in the NATO treaty.

''Such a practical look at the alliance shocked the American establishment, for whom NATO has long been a cult, as it is the main instrument of the U.S. for dominance in Europe,'' the television report asserted, showing photographs of American headlines calling Mr. Trump an agent and lap dog of Mr. Putin.

In December, when Mr. Trump's candidacy was still relatively young, Mr. Putin praised him, when asked, as flamboyant and talented. In a more recent appearance, at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, he welcomed Mr. Trump's stated goal of improving relations. ''What's wrong with that?'' Mr. Putin said, prompting applause from an audience that included business executives eager to resume smooth economic relations.

Mr. Trump has boasted about Mr. Putin's flattery, but his remarks on Twitter have been far from consistently positive toward the Russian leader. ''What do you think Obama will do when Putin seizes Alaska?'' he posted in March 2014, days after the annexation of Crimea. A month later, he quoted an evident admirer: ''President Trump, now that would make Putin wet himself!''

An irony for Russia, of course, is that interference in another country's political process is precisely what Mr. Putin has accused the United States of doing for at least the last 12 years.

Matthew Rojansky, the director of the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said that while it was plausible that Russian intelligence agencies were behind the breach and leaked the emails, it did not necessarily follow that Moscow had a favorite.

He said the leak more likely would reflect a goal ''to stir the pot,'' as Russia has done with support of insurgent parties in Europe. Mr. Putin, he said, had to be aware that direct intervention could well backfire with American voters, especially those in swing states like Ohio and Pennsylvania with roots in Poland, Ukraine or the Baltics.

''Could Putin really be that stupid?'' he asked.

Steven Lee Myers reported from Washington, and Neil MacFarquhar from Moscow. Andrew E. Kramer contributed reporting from Moscow, David M. Herszenhorn from Washington, and Doris Burke from New York.

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Archived Version

Thu, 28 Jul 2016 00:50

"This has gone from being a curiosity, and a matter of politics, to being a national security issue."

After taunting Hillary Clinton by asking Russian hackers to release 30,000 e-mails she deleted, Donald Trump finally forced Clinton's campaign to admit that her unsanctioned e-mail server scheme was a ''national security issue.''

Trump's comments about Russian hacking followed numerous reports this week that Russian hackers compromised the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) servers and then leaked thousands of e-mails sent by top Democratic staffers. DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz was forced to resign her position as a result of the leaks.

On Wednesday morning, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump asked Russia to turn over the tens of thousands of e-mails deleted by Hillary Clinton. The scandal-plagued former Secretary of State maintained for months that the e-mails were personal, not work-related, and that they were in no way classified.

But in a press release issued on Wednesday, Clinton's top campaign spokesman suddenly declared those e-mails to be a ''national security issue'':

This has to be the first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent. That's not hyperbole, those are just the facts. This has gone from being a curiosity, and a matter of politics, to being a national security.

Contrary to Sullivan's assertion about the unprecedented nature of Russian meddling in U.S. elections, former U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) begged the Soviets to help him get rid of President Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Sean Davis is the co-founder of The Federalist.

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Archived Version

Thu, 28 Jul 2016 02:13

Grand Theft Convention.

No, that's not a new video game. But it is what we just saw Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump do to the Democrats and Hillary Clinton, and the Democrats and Hillary Clinton are helping him do it!

During about an hour-long news conference earlier Wednesday, Trump was asked repeatedly about allegations that the Russian government is behind the hacked and leaked Democratic National Committee's emails that embarrassed the party on the eve of their national convention in Philadelphia. Trump quickly pivoted to also discussing Clinton's private email-server controversy and the 30,000-plus emails the former Secretary of State had deleted from her private server under questionable explanations and circumstances.

Advantage Trump.

Then came the money quote, or the bait, when he said: "Russia, if you're listening,I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing; I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press."

That comment was sure to grab headlines all on its own, but then the Clinton campaign incredibly took the bait and had a top policy advisor respond with this statement: "This has to be the first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent."

Advantage Trump.

Yep, the Clinton team actually said that. Instead of ignoring Trump's already deft stealing of the headlines away from their convention, the campaign hyped the distraction even further. Sure, they meant to make Trump out to be some kind of dangerous traitor. And Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller has indeed issued a series of Twitter statements insisting Trump did not literally ask Russia to commit espionage. But the real result is that the words "Hillary Clinton," "emails," "hacking," "espionage," and "national security" are back in the headlines again.

Instead of ignoring the story or simply scoffing at the obvious distracting attack, the Clinton campaign has fallen into the same kind of trap all those Republican candidates Trump defeated in the primaries fell for: misdirection. Most of the news media seems to have fallen for it, too, as the tone of most of the stories covering Trump's comments seem to indicate this could be the serious gaffe everyone was expecting Trump to make in this election.

Trump's ability to steal headlines with outrageous comments and survive the process is well-documented, but no one seems to have come up with an antidote for it. And, as for trying to make Russia into some kind of villain here and thus tainting Trump for any connection to that country or it's leader Vladimir Putin, ask Mitt Romney how much the voters care about Russia. He found out the answer the hard way in 2012, didn't he?

And guess what no one is talking about right now? All those "historic" stories about Clinton being the first woman to win a major party nomination are off the news sites now. Major lead-up stories to President Obama's big speech at the convention on Wednesday night are almost non-existent now. And no one is talking about Clinton running mate Tim Kaine's speech tonight at all.

Advantage Trump.

A lot of Clinton supporters and even some more objective observers might think that Trump's theft of the attention isn't all that great for his campaign. But those people are making a mistake that plagues so many people who follow elections. They forget that emotions are more powerful than facts in politics and the best persuaders play on our emotions. So speaking of those emotions, are you personally scared of Russia at all right now? You and Mitt Romney already knew the answer was "no."

And in the emotions game, you can't win without getting our attention first. Is Hillary Clinton or her campaign capable or even willing to do the things that could garner a similar amount of attention? So far, all we know is her team is capable of helping Trump shine more of a light on himself. No wonder he's ahead in the polls despite being massively outspent on advertising by Hillary Clinton.

Advantage Trump.

So again, what we're witnessing here is a presidential candidate stealing the other party's thunder just when it needs your attention the most.

Grand Theft Convention isn't a game, it's the real thing. And Trump just won it.

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Archived Version

Thu, 28 Jul 2016 03:12

New evidence is emerging that content from the DNC emails accessed by Russian hackers may have been altered before being released to Wikileaks. This added layer of information joined with the timing of the release and Trump's cozy relationship with Putin paint a picture of deep collusion and planning aimed at fracturing any potential Democratic unity at the most crucial point in the 2016 presidential election cycle.

Thomas Rid at Motherboard Vice reported on the discovery this morning:

The metadata in the leaked documents are perhaps most revealing: one dumped document was modified using Russian language settings, by a user named ''ФеÐ>>икс Эдмундович,'' a code name referring to the founder of the Soviet Secret Police, the Cheka, memorialised in a 15-ton iron statue in front of the old KGB headquarters during Soviet times. The original intruders made other errors: one leaked document included hyperlink error messages in Cyrillic, the result of editing the file on a computer with Russian language settings. After this mistake became public, the intruders removed the Cyrillic information from the metadata in the next dump and carefully used made-up user names from different world regions, thereby confirming they had made a mistake in the first round.

Then there is the language issue. ''I hate being attributed to Russia,'' the Guccifer 2.0 account told Motherboard, probably accurately. The person at the keyboard then claimed in a chat with Motherboard's Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai that Guccifer 2.0 was from Romania, like the original Guccifer, a well-known hacker. But when asked to explain his hack in Romanian, he was unable to respond colloquially and without errors. Guccifer 2.0's English initially was also weak, but in subsequent posts the quality improved sharply, albeit only on political subjects, not in technical matters'--an indication of a team of operators at work behind the scenes.

Rid went on to add:

The metadata show that the Russian operators apparently edited some documents, and in some cases created new documents after the intruders were already expunged from the DNC network on June 11. A file called donors.xls, for instance, was created more than a day after the story came out, on June 15, most likely by copy-pasting an existing list into a clean document.

Although so far the actual content of the leaked documents appears not to have been tampered with, manipulation would fit an established pattern of operational behaviour in other contexts, such as troll farms or planting fake media stories. Subtle (or not so subtle) manipulation of content may be in the interest of the adversary in the future. Documents that were leaked by or through an intelligence operation should be handled with great care, and journalists should not simply treat them as reliable sources.

Adding context to why Putin and the Russian government would go to so much trouble to influence the U.S. presidential elections, NPR reported:

The security firm the party brought in last month to deal with the data breach immediately pointed fingers towardwhat it called ''Russian espionage groups.''

''If [it's a coincidence] it's a really great coincidence,'' said Russia expert Fiona Hill, who directs the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution. ''The Russians have a word '-- ne sluchaino. It means, not accidental. Not by chance.''

Hill said the Russian hackers may not be taking orders directly from Putin, but that they are clearly working with Russian foreign policy interests in mind.

''They don't have to be run directly by the Kremlin. They can just be encouraged,'' Hill said. ''They [Russian security services] are very good at knowing how to play our media. We are making this email leak into a huge story, as they knew we would.''

On a personal level, Trump said last fall that he and Putin ''would probably get along '... very well.'' He has repeatedly praised Putin's strength, particularly when it comes to military intervention in Syria.

Add to that Trump's fondness for Putin (both as a man and as a hardline leader):

''He's running his country, and at least he's a leader, you know unlike what we have in this country,'' Trump told MSNBC in December.

During his annual end-of-year marathon news conference in December, Putin returned the compliment, calling Trump ''a bright personality, a talented person, no doubt.''

''He says that he wants to move to a different level of relations, to a closer, deeper one, with Russia,'' Putin said. ''How can we not welcome that?''

Slate added:

In 2007, he praised Putin for ''rebuilding Russia.'' A year later he added, ''He does his work well. Much better than our Bush.'' When Putin ripped Americanexceptionalismin a New York Times op-ed in 2013, Trump called it ''a masterpiece.'' Despite ample evidence, Trump denies that Putin has assassinated his opponents: ''In all fairness to Putin, you're saying he killed people. I haven't seen that.'' In the event that such killings have transpired, they can be forgiven: ''At least he's a leader.'' And not just any old head of state: ''I will tell you that, in terms of leadership, he's getting an A.''

Additionally, several of Trump's close advisers have Russian ties:

And several advisers in Trump's orbit have close ties to Russia and Russian interests. Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who advises Trump on foreign policy, raised eyebrows in Washington by sitting at a table with Putinduring a gala for the state-run English language news channel Russia Today last year. And Trump's top adviser, Manafort, has done political consulting work for Ukrainian politicians viewed as allies to Russia.

Even Trump's vaguely stated policy ideals align with the idea of his collusion with Russia right down to his abhorrence of NATO:

More consequential for Moscow: Trump's repeated skepticism about the value and strength of the NATO alliance, which formed the pillar of Western Europe and North America's opposition to the Soviet Union over the past half century.

A central tenet of the North Atlantic treaty is that member states view an attack against one of them as an attack against the entire alliance.

Speaking on the NATO alliance with the New York Times last week, Trump attacked NATO saying:

Asked about Russia's threatening activities, which have unnerved the small Baltic States that are among the more recent entrants into NATO, Trump said that if Russia attacked them, he would decide whether to come to their aid only after reviewing if those nations have ''fulfilled their obligations to us.''

''If they fulfill their obligations to us,'' he added, ''the answer is yes.''

In essence, Trump wouldn't live up to the obligations contained in NATO's charter. While he didn't explicitly link this reluctance to his relationship with Putin, the writing is on the wall.

That wasn't the only occasion in which Trump attacked NATO either. ''We pay so much disproportionately more for NATO,'' Trump said in March. ''We are getting ripped off by every country in NATO, where they pay virtually nothing, most of them. And we're paying the majority of the costs.''

Trump's anti-NATO remarks and general isolationist stance would benefit Putin's agenda at large:

The NATO skepticism plays into a much broader isolationist view that Trump has taken during his campaign, a view that would undoubtedly benefit internationally proactive countries like Russia, if it were carried out by a President Trump.

''The most important difference between our plan and that of our opponents is that our plan will put America first,'' Trump said Thursday night during his convention speech. ''Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo.''

Which is to say, Americans should regard any ''leaks'' published by Wikileaks in the coming weeks leading up to the 2016 presidential elections with a grain of salt. After all, Putin has a puppet in his pocket named Trump and a globe full of hackers, spies and allies all aimed at installing that puppet into the White House.

Tim Peacock is the Managing Editor and founder of Peacock Panache and has worked as a civil rights advocate for over twenty years. During that time he's worn several hats including leading on campus LGBT advocacy in the University of Missouri campus system, interning with the Colorado Civil Rights Division, and volunteering at advocacy organizations. You can learn more about him at his personal website.Like this:LikeLoading...

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Archived Version

Mon, 25 Jul 2016 14:39

The records, which WikiLeaks released along with nearly 20,000 hacked DNC emails and other documents on Friday, also expose one of the Beltway's worst kept secrets: that wealthy politicos can often buy their way to presidential appointments.

President Obama has been criticized for appointing dozens of top fundraisers '-- called ''bundlers'' in the political fundraising realm '-- to ambassadorships and other cushy federal positions.

The spreadsheet '-- which was accompanied by emails sent between officials with the DNC's finance team '-- contains 23 names of little-known corporate executives and professional fundraisers who have donated to the committee and various Democratic political action committees.

''Boards and Commissions'' spreadsheet contained in DNC records. (Redactions added by The Daily Caller)

The proposed appointments also provide more evidence that the DNC favored Clinton over her former primary challenger, Bernie Sanders.

Most of the donors listed on the spreadsheet have given to Clinton's campaign. None gave to Sanders.

DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz was forced to resign on Sunday because of the anti-Sanders bias that showed up in documents released by WikiLeaks. (RELATED: Debbie Wasserman Schultz To Step Down As DNC Chair)

It is unclear from the DNC spreadsheet if any of the people on the list made specific requests for federal appointments.

But one tip-off that the document is detailing a quid pro quo is an entry next to the name of David Shapira, the executive chairman of grocery store chain Giant Eagle, Inc.

''USPS'' '-- a likely reference to the U.S. Postal Service '-- is entered on the spreadsheet.

President Obama nominated Shapira for a position on the USPS' board of governors last year but the retail executive did not take the position because congressional Republicans held up his nomination.

Shapira and his wife Cynthia have donated heavily to Clinton, the DNC and other Democratic and liberal political action committees.

They have given the $2,700 maximum to Clinton. In 2014, Shapira contributed $100,000 to American Unity PAC, a political action committee that supports pro-LGBT candidates.

Cynthia Shapira has given $33,400 to the DNC this cycle and $58,400 to the Hillary Victory Fund since last year.

The Shapiras did not respond to a request for comment.

The donor spreadsheet is included in an email chain in which Jordan Kaplan, DNC's national finance director, asks other officials to provide names of donors they want to propose for federal commissions.

''Last call for boards and commissions,'' Kaplan wrote on April 20.

''If you have someone, send to [DNC finance chief of staff Scott] Comer '' full name, city, state, email and phone number. Send as many as you want, just don't know how many people will get to.''

The email confused at least one official involved in the exchange.

''Boards and commissions? Sorry, I'm lost,'' wrote Jordan Vaughn, the national finance director for the DNC's African American Leadership Council.

Comer explained: ''Any folks who you'd like to be considered to be on the board of (for example) USPS, NEA, NEH. Basically anyone who has a niche interest and might like to serve on the board of one of these orgs.''

''I should say, though, that the likelihood of landing a spot on ones as prestigious as NEA/USPS is unlikely,'' Comer added, referring to the National Endowment for the Arts and the U.S. Postal Service.

''It's much more likely they'll get something like 'President's Commission on the Celebration of Women in American History.' (no shade to women) But when you submit your names, we don't need specific designations,'' he continued.

Luis Miranda, the DNC's communications director and Wasserman Schultz's right-hand man, did not respond to a request for comment on the email chain and the spreadsheet.

Boehn, who once served as chairman for the political action committee Citizens for Reagan, says that the fact that Democrats are lining up appointments to federal committees months before the general election is strong evidence of a quid pro quo.

''Having participated in the boards and commissions work for President-elect Reagan, I know there's no need to involve partisans months before the election,'' he told TheDC. ''These appointments are made on a staggered basis so there's no rush.''

''As with so much associated with the Clinton operations, there is an appearance that these appointments have been pressed into service as a device to raise funds.''

The DNC list also includes David Trone. He's the wine and beer retailer from Maryland who made national news earlier this year when he spent $13 million of his own money on an unsuccessful campaign for a U.S. House seat.

He has maxed out his donations to Clinton and has given $334,000 to the Democratic Hope Fund. He also gave the maximum $33,400 to the DNC in November.

Martin Elling is named in the document. He's a senior partner at the consulting firm McKinsey & Company. He's given maximum donations to the DNC as well as to the Clinton campaign. He has also contributed $10,000 to super PAC supporting Clinton.

Another notable name is A. Robert Pietrzak. He's global co-ahead law firm Sidley Austin's securities and shareholder litigation practice. In that role he defends clients against securities class action lawsuits.

He has previous experience as a member of a federal commission. He once served on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's Financial Products Advisory Committee.

He has maxed out to Clinton as well as to the DNC.

Wayne Jordan, a real estate developer from northern California, is also on the list. He has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to various Democratic groups.

He gave $337,400 to the Hillary Victory Fund in December.

One person on the list appears to already hold a committee spot in the Obama administration.

Wade Randlett serves on the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations. A prominent donor to the DNC, the Clinton campaign and other Democratic PACs, he is CEO of General Biofuels.

Follow Chuck on Twitter

The records, which WikiLeaks released along with nearly 20,000 hacked DNC emails and other documents on Friday, also expose one of the Beltway's worst kept secrets: that wealthy politicos can often buy their way to presidential appointments.

President Obama has been criticized for appointing dozens of top fundraisers '-- called ''bundlers'' in the political fundraising realm '-- to ambassadorships and other cushy federal positions.

The spreadsheet '-- which was accompanied by emails sent between officials with the DNC's finance team '-- contains 23 names of little-known corporate executives and professional fundraisers who have donated to the committee and various Democratic political action committees.

''Boards and Commissions'' spreadsheet contained in DNC records. (Redactions added by The Daily Caller)

The proposed appointments also provide more evidence that the DNC favored Clinton over her former primary challenger, Bernie Sanders.

Most of the donors listed on the spreadsheet have given to Clinton's campaign. None gave to Sanders.

DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz was forced to resign on Sunday because of the anti-Sanders bias that showed up in documents released by WikiLeaks. (RELATED: Debbie Wasserman Schultz To Step Down As DNC Chair)

It is unclear from the DNC spreadsheet if any of the people on the list made specific requests for federal appointments.

But one tip-off that the document is detailing a quid pro quo is an entry next to the name of David Shapira, the executive chairman of grocery store chain Giant Eagle, Inc.

''USPS'' '-- a likely reference to the U.S. Postal Service '-- is entered on the spreadsheet.

President Obama nominated Shapira for a position on the USPS' board of governors last year but the retail executive did not take the position because congressional Republicans held up his nomination.

Shapira and his wife Cynthia have donated heavily to Clinton, the DNC and other Democratic and liberal political action committees.

They have given the $2,700 maximum to Clinton. In 2014, Shapira contributed $100,000 to American Unity PAC, a political action committee that supports pro-LGBT candidates.

Cynthia Shapira has given $33,400 to the DNC this cycle and $58,400 to the Hillary Victory Fund since last year.

The Shapiras did not respond to a request for comment.

The donor spreadsheet is included in an email chain in which Jordan Kaplan, DNC's national finance director, asks other officials to provide names of donors they want to propose for federal commissions.

''Last call for boards and commissions,'' Kaplan wrote on April 20.

''If you have someone, send to [DNC finance chief of staff Scott] Comer '' full name, city, state, email and phone number. Send as many as you want, just don't know how many people will get to.''

The email confused at least one official involved in the exchange.

''Boards and commissions? Sorry, I'm lost,'' wrote Jordan Vaughn, the national finance director for the DNC's African American Leadership Council.

Comer explained: ''Any folks who you'd like to be considered to be on the board of (for example) USPS, NEA, NEH. Basically anyone who has a niche interest and might like to serve on the board of one of these orgs.''

''I should say, though, that the likelihood of landing a spot on ones as prestigious as NEA/USPS is unlikely,'' Comer added, referring to the National Endowment for the Arts and the U.S. Postal Service.

''It's much more likely they'll get something like 'President's Commission on the Celebration of Women in American History.' (no shade to women) But when you submit your names, we don't need specific designations,'' he continued.

Luis Miranda, the DNC's communications director and Wasserman Schultz's right-hand man, did not respond to a request for comment on the email chain and the spreadsheet.

Boehn, who once served as chairman for the political action committee Citizens for Reagan, says that the fact that Democrats are lining up appointments to federal committees months before the general election is strong evidence of a quid pro quo.

''Having participated in the boards and commissions work for President-elect Reagan, I know there's no need to involve partisans months before the election,'' he told TheDC. ''These appointments are made on a staggered basis so there's no rush.''

''As with so much associated with the Clinton operations, there is an appearance that these appointments have been pressed into service as a device to raise funds.''

The DNC list also includes David Trone. He's the wine and beer retailer from Maryland who made national news earlier this year when he spent $13 million of his own money on an unsuccessful campaign for a U.S. House seat.

He has maxed out his donations to Clinton and has given $334,000 to the Democratic Hope Fund. He also gave the maximum $33,400 to the DNC in November.

Martin Elling is named in the document. He's a senior partner at the consulting firm McKinsey & Company. He's given maximum donations to the DNC as well as to the Clinton campaign. He has also contributed $10,000 to super PAC supporting Clinton.

Another notable name is A. Robert Pietrzak. He's global co-ahead law firm Sidley Austin's securities and shareholder litigation practice. In that role he defends clients against securities class action lawsuits.

He has previous experience as a member of a federal commission. He once served on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's Financial Products Advisory Committee.

He has maxed out to Clinton as well as to the DNC.

Wayne Jordan, a real estate developer from northern California, is also on the list. He has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to various Democratic groups.

He gave $337,400 to the Hillary Victory Fund in December.

One person on the list appears to already hold a committee spot in the Obama administration.

Wade Randlett serves on the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations. A prominent donor to the DNC, the Clinton campaign and other Democratic PACs, he is CEO of General Biofuels.

Follow Chuck on Twitter

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Archived Version

Tue, 26 Jul 2016 13:02

While the media's focus following the leaked DNC documents by lone (and hardly a group of Russian operatives hacker "Guccifer2" has been understandably on the Democrats' documents in which they reveal they strategy how target Trump and his republican peers, what we found more interesting was the list of the candidate's mega donors, those who have provided $100,000 and above, as per the leaked confidential documents.

For those interested in whose "generous" pocket Hillary Clinton will be found, if she is elected president, here is the answer.

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Archived Version

Wed, 27 Jul 2016 18:42

The Hillary Clinton campaign tweeted a photo yesterday to celebrate her nomination. The photo showed a Muslim woman emotionally wiping away tears as people around her cheered accompanied with the byline, ''We made history.'' It looked magical.

Except there was one problem. The woman in the photo, Nida Allam, was a devastated Bernie Sanders supporter.

Allam was at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Philadelphia with a group of Bernie supporters who, like her, support the endless raid of Palestinian terror attacks on innocent tourists and civilians living in Israel. Allam and her crew showed up to the DNC hall proudly donning Palestinian flags and Bernie banners with demands for open United States borders. She complained that the Clinton campaign had misconstrued ''my raw emotions as support for her when it is truly the emotions of a year's worth of hard work and dedication to the revolution, and realizing that though the campaign is over, the revolution has just begun.''

In fact, the next day, Allam bashed Bill Clinton for having used the words ''Muslim'' and ''terror'' in the same sentence.

''Why are Muslim Americans still associated with terrorism'...? Every American is against terrorism, every human with an ounce of compassion is against terrorism, so why single out Muslims?'' she posted to social media, continuing, ''Muslims are among the ones being attacked the most, and our peaceful religion is being hijacked, while our friends and family are being killed overseas and at home.''

Allam, a recent graduate of North Carolina State University, has been volunteering for the Bernie campaign since July 2015 and joined his campaign as a full-time employee in January. Her anti-Hillary sentiments were similar to those of hundreds of Bernie supporters who had attended the DNC this week.

Josh Fox, a fervent socialist and anti-Hillary voice on social media, pointed out in a Facebook live video at the DNC that seemingly the majority of Sanders delegates had emptied the convention hall during a celebratory video about Hillary, while the Clinton delegates had remained.

''It's insane,'' he said. ''Look, the whole California delegation is pretty much gone.''

Fox pointed toward the different sections of states represented at the convention hall:

Down there in new york on the right of the floor there's people. But look what's happening to the Bernie states. The bernie states are empty. One thing that you should know is they put a lot of the bernie states up in the back and the Hillary states down in the bottom. Hillary states that won got the better seats, and the Bernie ones got the upper echelon. That's kind of the way they organized it, it's not alphabetical'.... This campaign has to do something to get these people back in the room.

The Clinton campaign has not responded to the public's realization that the magical facade they had so cheerily portrayed was in fact the image of an angry weeping woman.

But has it ever?

Follow Pardes Seleh on Twitter.

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Mon, 25 Jul 2016 15:06

To the Democratic National Committee elites, keeping average Americans away from their convention is a good idea, while protecting the southern border from intruding terrorists, rapists and murderers is a bad one.

The DNC has erected a four-mile fence around its convention site at Philadelphia's Wells Fargo Center. (Isn't it ironic they're doing so much to protect a site named after a bank?)

The fence, which appears to be about 8 feet tall, is intended to keep out any individuals with whom Democratic Party leaders, delegates and other liberal elites would rather not mingle.

Fox 29's Steve Keeley shared a picture of a portion of the fence he said was erected near the intersection of Pattison and Broad.

Here's another shot from a CNN Headline News report:

Twitter user @brokencarpenter visited the DNC border wall and noted there was ''acres and acres and acres of fence.''

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Archived Version

Thu, 28 Jul 2016 07:12

Tuesday night (July 26), Bill Clinton, the husband of presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, took the stage at the Democratic National Convention to honor his wife's historic achievement. Bill's stately-but-approachable appearance and middle-of-the-road fashion choices make him a terrific candidate for the supporting role of first spouse of the United States. (He was also the 42nd president of the United States.)

He may lack current first lady Michelle Obama's upper arm strength, but he makes up for it with a nice head of hair.

We've yet to read an interview with the person who styled Bill's silver locks for last night's DNC appearance, or even see a brief in Women's Wear Daily or GQ crediting the designers who dressed him for the occasion. Did he buy his suit online, like Melania Trump's Net-a-Porter-purchased Roksanda last week? Did he go to a store? Work directly with a designer? We just don't know, which means it's going to be really difficult for this particular navy suit to sell out, as so many of the dresses worn by Michelle Obama have over the past eight years. Was it Hickey Freeman? Hart Schaffner Marx? Again, we just don't know.

Here's what we do know: Clinton's suit was navy blue, and he wore a tonal cobalt tie in a shade similar to the Christian Siriano dress Michelle Obama wore the night before. (Some noted then that the dress matched the stage's background. Clinton's tie did too!) The suit had two buttons, a notch lapel, and full-cut trousers that broke substantially over his shiny black dress shoes. One might have even called it a ''pantsuit.''

The LA Times' Adam Tschorn noted that although we don't know who made this suit, ''if you stare at it long enough, a subtle tone-on-tone stripe becomes apparent.'' Clinton accessorized with a watch Tschorn identified as a 47mm blue-faced Runwell watch by Shinola'--a $550 Detroit-made timepiece. (It's apparently patriotic enough for Clinton, although the FTC has its doubts.) The potential first gentleman also adorned his lapel with a Hillary campaign button. For jewelry, he wore his wedding ring.

As a fashion moment, it might have been a little underwhelming, but as a historical one, it was not. Clinton's look stated clearly: I'm with her.

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Archived Version

Mon, 25 Jul 2016 15:19

Facebook admitted Sunday that it had blocked links to the Wikileaks trove of emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee.

In a Twitter post late Saturday, WikiLeaks accused the social media giant of ''censorship'' and gave its followers an online workaround, saying ''try using https://archive.is.''

The WikiLeaks allegation followed a firestorm of controversy that erupted earlier this year when former Facebook workers admitted routinely suppressing conservative news.

In response to the WikiLeaks charge, another Twitter user, @SwiftOnSecurity, chimed in that ''Facebook has an automated system for detecting spam/malicious links, that sometimes have false positives,'' which prompted a response from the company's chief security officer.

''It's been fixed,'' Facebook CSO Alex Stamos tweeted.

Facebook didn't immediately return a request for comment.

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Archived Version

Mon, 25 Jul 2016 19:47

From:erik.ramanathan@gmail.com To: colleen.m.coffey@gmail.com Date: 2016-04-27 16:05 Subject: Re: Invitation to Attend Dinner and Discussion with The Obama FoundationThanks, Colleen, and sorry I missed your call. Jordan, I love the thought of you with ''free time.'' As someone who not only supports the President but dedicates nearly all my time to nonprofit leadership, strategy and governance endeavors, I couldn't be more interested in attending and learning more, and the night looks good. As you may recall, my husband Ranesh is Jonathan Lavine's partner and general counsel and has been traveling nonstop for the past few weeks so I just want to coordinate our RSVP appropriately with him as soon as I get him back stateside. I'm sure we can close the loop formally by end of week. Thanks! -Erik Erik D. Ramanathan Chairman, Public Health Foundation Enterprises O: 508.358.2697 M: 917.647.1065 erik.ramanathan@gmail.com > On Apr 27, 2016, at 12:26 PM, Colleen Coffey wrote: > > Erik, > > Hello, I hope you are doing well! I just wanted to reach out and follow-up on the message I left you this morning. As I mentioned, the Barack Obama Foundation is putting together a dinner on Thursday, May 5th to discuss the vision and goals of the Foundation. Given that you have been such a great supporter of the President I thought this might be something you would be interested in attending. > > I have copied Jordan Kaplan on this email. Jordan is the DNC Finance Director but also helping set up the Foundation in his free time. If you have any questions or are looking for any additional information on the Foundation he is the best person for you to connect with. We hope you will be able to join us! > > You can RSVP by clicking here: http://act.barackobamafoundation.org/page/s/dinner-rsvp-5-5 > > > > Best, > > Colleen > > -- > Colleen Coffey > (603) 508-0697

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Archived Version

Thu, 28 Jul 2016 02:22

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Archived Version

Mon, 25 Jul 2016 20:05

Evidence suggests that a Russian intelligence group was the source of the most recent Wikileaks intel dump, which was aimed to influence the U.S. election.

Close your eyes and imagine that a hacking group backed by Russian President Vladimir Putin broke into the email system of a major U.S. political party. The group stole thousands of sensitive messages and then published them through an obliging third party in a way that was strategically timed to influence the United States presidential election. Now open your eyes, because that's what just happened.

On Friday, Wikileaks published 20,000 emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee. They reveal, among other things, thuggish infighting, a push by a top DNC official to use Bernie Sanders' religious convictions against him in the South, and attempts to strong-arm media outlets. In other words, they reveal the Washington campaign monster for what it is.

But leave aside the purported content of the Wikileaks data dump (to which numerous other outlets have devoted considerable attention) and consider the source. Considerable evidence shows that the Wikileaks dump was an orchestrated act by the Russian government, working through proxies, to undermine Hillary Clinton's Presidential campaign.

''This has all the hallmarks of tradecraft. The only rationale to release such data from the Russian bulletproof host was to empower one candidate against another. The Cold War is alive and well,'' Tom Kellermann, the CEO of Strategic Cyber Ventures told Defense One.

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Here's the timeline: On June 14, cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, under contract with the DNC, announced in a blog post that two separate Russian intelligence groups had gained access to the DNC network. One group, FANCYBEAR or APT 28, gained access in April. The other, COZYBEAR, (also called Cozy Duke and APT 29) first breached the network in the summer of 2015.

Cybersecurity company FireEye first discoveredAPT 29 in 2014 and was quick to point out a clear Kremlin connection. ''We suspect the Russian government sponsors the group because of the organizations it targets and the data it steals. Additionally, APT 29 appeared to cease operations on Russian holidays, and their work hours seem to align with the UTC +3 time zone, which contains cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg,'' they wrote in their report on the group. Other U.S. officials have said that the group looks like it has sponsorship from the Russian government due in large part to the level of sophistication behind the group's attacks.

The Cold War is alive and well

Tom Kellermann, CEO of Strategic Cyber Ventures

It's the same group that hit the State Department, the White House, and the civilian email of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The group's modus operandi (a spearphishing attack that uploads a distinctive remote access tool on the target's computer) is well known to cyber-security researchers.

In his blog post on the DNC breaches CrowdStrike's CTODmitri Alperovitch wrote ''We've had lots of experience with both of these actors attempting to target our customers in the past and know them well. In fact, our team considers them some of the best adversaries out of all the numerous nation-state, criminal and hacktivist/terrorist groups we encounter on a daily basis. Their tradecraft is superb, operational security second to none and the extensive usage of 'living-off-the-land' techniques enables them to easily bypass many security solutions they encounter.''

The next day, an individual calling himself Guccifer 2.0 claimed to be the culprit behind the breach and released key documents to back up the claim, writing: ''Shame on CrowdStrike.''

Related: What the Joint Chiefs' Email Hack Tells Us About the DNC Breach

Related: The Ukrainian Blackout and the Future of War

Crowdstrike stood by their original analysis, writing: ''these claims do nothing to lessen our findings relating to the Russian government's involvement, portions of which we have documented for the public and the greater security community.''

Other security firms offered independent analysis and reached the same conclusion. The group Fidelis undertook their own investigation and found Crowdstrike to be correct.

A Twitter user named @PwnAlltheThings looked at the metadata on the docs that Guccifer 2.0 provided in his blog post and found literal Russian signatures.

His findings were backed up by Dan Goodin at Ars Technica. ''Given the evidence combined with everything else, I think it's a strong attribution to one of the Russian intelligence agencies,'' @PwnAllTheThings remarked to Motherboard.

Motherboard reporter Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai actually conversed with Guccifer 2.0 over Twitter. The hacker, who claimed to be Romanian, answered questions in short sentences that ''were filled with mistakes according to several Romanian native speakers,'' Bicchieri found.

A large body of evidence suggests that Guccifer 2.0 is a smokescreen that the actual culprits employed to hide their involvement in the breach.

That would be consistent with Russian information and influence operations. ''Russian propagandists have been caught hiring actors to portray victims of manufactured atrocities or crimes for news reports (as was the case when Viktoria Schmidt pretended to have been attacked by Syrian refugees in Germany for Russia's Zvezda TV network), or faking on-scene news reporting (as shown in a leaked video in which ''reporter'' Maria Katasonova is revealed to be in a darkened room with explosion sounds playing in the background rather than on a battlefield in Donetsk when a light is switched on during the recording),'' notes a RANDreport from earlier in July.

The use of Wikileaks as the publishing platform served to legitimize the information dump, which also contains a large amount of personal information related to democratic donors such as social security and credit card numbers. This suggests that Wikileaks didn't perform a thorough analysis of the documents before they released them, or simply didn't care.

It's the latest installment in a trend that information security researcher Bruce Schneier calls organizational doxing and that Lawfare's Nicholas Weaver calls the weaponization of Wikileaks.

The most remarkable example of which, prior to the DNC incident, was the June 2015 the publication of several sets of NSA records related to government intelligence collection targets in France, Japan, Brazil and Germany. The data itself was not remarkable, but it did harm U.S. relations and may have compromised NSA tradecraft. ''Wikileaks doesn't seem to care that they are being used as a weapon by unknown parties, instead calling themselves a 'library of mass education'. But the rest of us should,'' Weaver writes.

The evidence so far suggests it's a weapon that Putin used to great effect last week.

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Archived Version

Thu, 28 Jul 2016 00:19

A Senate treaty document provides the text of the treaty as transmitted to the Senate, as well as the transmittal letter from the President, the submittal letter from the Secretary of State, and accompanying papers.

Text of Treaty Document available as:For complete and accurate display of this text, see the PDF.

[Senate Treaty Document 106-22][From the U.S. Government Printing Office]-----------------------------------------------------------------------106th Congress Treaty Doc. 2d Session SENATE 106-22_______________________________________________________________________ TREATY WITH RUSSIA ON MUTUAL LEGAL ASSISTANCE IN CRIMINAL MATTERS __________ MESSAGE from THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES transmittingTREATY BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION ON MUTUAL LEGAL ASSISTANCE IN CRIMINAL MATTERS, SIGNED AT WASHINGTON ON JUNE 17, 1999, AND A RELATED EXCHANGE OF NOTES February 10, 2000.--Treaty was read the first time, and together with the accompanying papers, referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations and ordered to be printed for the use of the Senate ------- U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE79-118 WASHINGTON : 2000 LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL ---------- The White House, February 10, 2000.To the Senate of the United States: With a view to receiving the advice and consent of the Senate to ratification, I transmit herewith the Treaty Between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters, signed at Moscow on June 17, 1999. I transmit also, for the information of the Senate, a related exchange of notes and the report of the Department of State with respect to the Treaty. The Treaty is one of the series of modern mutual legal assistance treaties being negotiated by the United States in order to counter criminal activities more effectively. The Treaty should be an effective tool to assist in the prosecution of a wide variety of crimes, including terrorism, money laundering, organized crime and drug-trafficking offenses. The Treaty is self-executing. The Treaty provides for a broad range of cooperation in criminal matters. Mutual assistance available under the Treaty includes obtaining the testimony or statements of persons; providing documents, records and other items; serving documents; locating or identifying persons and items; executing requests for searches and seizures; transferring persons in custody for testimony or other purposes; locating and immobilizing assets for purposes of forfeiture, restitution, or collection of fines; and any other form of legal assistance not prohibited by the laws of the Requested Party. I recommend that the Senate give early and favorable consideration to the Treaty and give its advice and consent to ratification. William J. Clinton. LETTER OF SUBMITTAL ---------- Department of State, Washington, December 30, 1999.The President,The White House. The President: I have the honor to submit to you the Treaty Between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters (the ``Treaty''), signed at Moscow on June 17, 1999. I recommend that the Treaty be transmitted to the Senate for its advice and consent to ratification. Accompanying the Treaty is a related exchange of notes that I recommend be transmitted for the information of the Senate. The Treaty covers mutual legal assistance in criminal matters. In recent years, similar bilateral treaties have entered into force with a number of countries. This Treaty contains many provisions similar to those in the other treaties and all of the essential provisions sought by the United States. It will enhance our ability to investigate and prosecute a variety of crimes, including terrorism, money laundering, organized crime and drug-trafficking offenses of particular interest to the U.S. law enforcement community with respect to the Russian Federation. The Treaty is designed to be self-executing and will not require new legislation. Article 1 states that the Parties shall provide to each other, in accordance with the Treaty, comprehensive mutual legal assistance in criminal matters. Article 1(2) defines legal assistance in criminal matters for purposes of the Treaty as assistance provided by the Parties in connection with: prevention, suppression, and investigation of crimes; criminal prosecutions; and other proceedings related to such criminal matters. Article 1(3) provides for legal assistance where the conduct that is the subject of the request constitutes a crime under the laws of both Parties. The Requested Party may, in its discretion, also provide legal assistance where the conduct that is the subject of the request would not constitute a crime under the laws of the Requested Party. Article 1(4) states explicitly that the Treaty is intended to apply solely between the Parties; it does not give rights to any other persons to obtain or exclude any evidence, or to impede the execution of a request. Article 1(5) defines the term ``person'' to include both individuals and legal entities in Article 1(4), Article 2(4), Article 5(3) subparagraphs 1-5, Article 10(1), Article 14), and Article 15(2). Article 2 sets forth a non-exclusive list of the major types of assistance to be provided under the Treaty, including obtaining testimony and statements; providing documents, records, and other items; serving documents; locating and identifying persons and items; executing requests for searches and seizures; transferring persons in custody for testimony or other purposes under the Treaty; locating and immobilizing assets for purposes of forfeiture, restitution, or collection of fines; and providing any other legal assistance not prohibited by the laws of the Requested Party. Article 3 provides for the establishment of Central Authorities and defines Central Authorities for purposes of the Treaty. Each Party must implement the provisions of the Treaty, including the making and receiving of requests, through its Central Authority. For the United States, the Central Authority is the Attorney General or persons designated by the Attorney General. For the Russian Federation, the Central Authority is the Office of the Procurator General of the Russian Federation or persons designated by the Procurator General.Article 3(3) provides that the Central Authorities will communicate directly with one another for the purposes of the Treaty, and may agree upon such practical measures as may be necessary to facilitate the implementation of the Treaty. Article 4 deals with the denial of legal assistance. Article 4(1) sets forth the circumstance under which a Requested Party's Central Authority may deny assistance under the Treaty. A request may be denied if: (i) it relates to a crime under military law that is not a crime under general criminal law, (ii) its execution would prejudice the security or other essential interests of the Requested Party, or (iii) it does not conform to the requirements of the Treaty. In an exchange of diplomatic notes dated June 17, 1999, September 22, 1999, and October 20, 1999, the Parties restated the understanding of the negotiating delegations that the ``security or other essential interests'' provision in Article 4(1) provides an adequate basis upon which to deny assistance requests in cases the United States would consider political offenses. Under Article 4(2), the Requested Party may not decline execution of a request on the grounds of bank secrecy. Before denying assistance, the Central Authority of the Requested Party is required under Article 4(3) to consult with its counterpart in the Requesting Party to consider whether legal assistance can be given subject to such conditions as the Central Authority of the Requested Party deems necessary. If the Requesting Party accepts assistance subject to such conditions, it is required to comply with the conditions. If the Central Authority of the Requested Party denies assistance, it is required under Article 4(4) to inform the Central Authority of the Requesting Party of the reasons for the denial. Article 5 prescribes the form and content of written requests under the Treaty, specifying in detail the information required in each request. The article permits requests to be made in other forms in urgent situations but requires written confirmation within ten days unless the Central Authority of the Requested Party agrees otherwise. Article 6 provides that, except as otherwise agreed by the Central Authority of the Parties, requests for legal assistance and documents attached to them must be accompanied by a translation into the language of the Requested Party. Article 7 addresses the execution of requests. Article 7(1) requires the Central Authority of the Requested Party to execute a request promptly or to transmit it to the authority having jurisdiction to do so. It obligates the competent authorities of the Requested Party to do everything in their power to execute a request in a timely manner. Article 7(2) requests the Central Authority of the Requested Party to represent the interests of the Requesting Party in executing the requests. Under Article 7(3), requests are to be executed in accordance with the laws of the Requested Party except if the Treaty provides otherwise. It provides that the competent authorities of the Requesting Party will have the authority to issue subpoenas, search warrants, or other orders necessary for the execution of requests. Except if prohibited by its laws, the Requested Party must follow procedures specified in the request. Under Article 7(4), if the Central Authority of the Requested Party considers that execution of a request will interfere with a criminal investigation, criminal prosecution, or proceeding related to a criminal matter ongoing in that State, it may postpone execution or impose conditions on execution after consultation with the Central Authority of the Requesting Party. If the Requesting Party accepts legal assistance subject to such conditions, it must comply with them. Article 7(5) further requires the Requested Party, if so requested, to use its best efforts to keep confidential a request and its contents, and to inform the Requesting Party's Central Authority if the request cannot be executed without breaching such confidentiality. This provides the Requesting Party an opportunity to decide whether to pursue the request or to withdraw it in order to maintain confidentiality. Article 7(6) requires the Requested Party's Central Authority to respond to inquiries by the Requesting Party's Central Authority regarding the status of the execution of a request. Article 7(7) states that, upon request of the Central Authority of the Requesting Party, the Central Authority of the Requested Party must furnish information in advance about the date and place of the execution of a request. During the execution of a request, the Requested Party must permit the presence of such persons as are specified therein. Article 7(8) requires the Central Authority of the Requested Party to inform promptly the Central Authority of the Requesting Party of the outcome of the execution of the request. If the request is not executed, or if execution is delayed or postponed, the Central Authority of the Requested Party must inform the Central Authority of the Requesting Party of the reasons for non-execution, delay, or postponement. Article 8 apportions between the two Parties costs incurred in executing a request. It provides that the Requested Party pay all costs, except for the following items to be paid by the Requesting Party: fees of experts, costs of translation, interpretation, and transcription, and the allowances expense related to travel of persons pursuant to Articles 11 and 12. If it becomes apparent that the execution of the request requires expenses of an extraordinary nature, the Central Authorities of the Parties must consult to determine the terms and conditions under which legal assistance can be provided. Article 9 requires the Requesting Party to comply with any request by the Central Authority of the Requested Party not to use the results of the execution of a request obtained under the Treaty for purposes other than those described in the request without its prior consent. Nothing in the Article prevents the use or disclosure of the results of an executed request to the extent that there is an obligation to do so under the Constitution of the Requesting Party in a chemical prosecution. The Central Authority of the Requesting Party is obliged to notify the Central Authority of the Requested Party in advance of any such possible or proposed use or disclosure. Once the results of an executed request have been used for the purpose for which they were provided, and in the course of such use have been made public in the Requesting Party in accordance with the Treaty, no further limitations on use apply. Article 10 addresses the procedures for obtaining testimony and evidence in the Requested Party. Article 10(1) provides that a person requested to testify and produce documents, records, or items in the Requested Party be summoned, if necessary by subpoena or order, to appear and testify and produce such documents, records, or items, in accordance with the requirements of the law of the Requested Party. Article 10(2) further states that, in accordance with procedures used in the Requested Party, persons present at the execution of a request must be permitted to pose questions directly or to formulate questions to be posed to the person being questioned, and to make a verbatim transcript of the proceeding using, if necessary, technical means. In the event that a person whose testimony or evidence is being taken asserts a claim of immunity,incapacity or privilege under the laws of the Requesting Party, Article 10(3) provides that the evidence will still be taken and the claim made known to the Requesting Party for resolution by its authorities. Article 11 addresses the procedures for obtaining testimony in the Requesting Party. Article 11(1) provides a mechanism for the Requesting Party to invite the voluntary appearance in its territory of a person located in the Requested Party. As part of its invitation, the Requesting Party must indicate the extent to which the expenses and allowances will be paid. The Central Authority of the Requested Party is required to inform promptly the Central Authority of the Requesting Party of the response of the person. A person who agrees to appear may ask that the Requesting Party advance money to cover these expenses. This advance may be provided through the Embassy or a consulate of the Requesting Party. Article 11(2) provides that a person appearing in the Requesting Party pursuant to this Article will not be subject to service of process, or be detained or subjected to any restriction of personal liberty by reason of any acts or convictions that preceded the person's departure from the Requested Party. If this guarantee cannot be provided for any reason, the Central Authority of the Requesting Party is obligated to indicate this in the request to inform the invited person and to allow that person to decide whether to appear taking these circumstances into account. Under Article 11(3), any safe conduct provided for by this Article ceases seven days after the Central Authority of the Requesting Party has notified the Central Authority of the Requested Party that the person's presence is no longer required, or if the person has left the Requesting Party and has voluntarily returned to it. The Central Authority of the Requesting Party may, in its discretion, extend this safe conduct period up to fifteen days if it determines that there is good cause to do so. Article 12 provides that a person who is in the custody of either Party and whose presence in the other Party is sought for purposes of legal assistance under the Treaty will be transferred to that Party for that purpose if the person consents and the Central Authorities of both Parties agree. Under this article, for example, a witness incarcerated in the Requested Party could be transferred to the Requesting Party to have his deposition taken in the presence of the defendant or a defendant in the Requesting Party could be transferred to attend a witness deposition in the Requested Party. Article 12(2) further establishes both the express authority and the obligation of the receiving Party to maintain the person transferred in custody unless otherwise authorized by the sending Party. The return of the person transferred is to occur as soon as circumstances permit or as otherwise agreed by both Central Authorities, and the sending Party is not required to initiate extradition proceedings for return of the person transferred. The person transferred receives credit for service of the sentence imposed in the sending Party for time served in the custody of the receiving Party. Where the sentence imposed expires, or where the sending Party advises the receiving Party that the transferred person is no longer required to be held in custody, the person is to be treated as a person invited pursuant to Article 11 or returned to the sending Party. Article 13 requires that, upon request, the Requested Party Provide the Requesting Party with copies of publicly available records, including documents or information of any nature and in any form that are in the possession of an executive, legislative, or judicial authority in the RequestedParty. The Requested Party may further provide copies of records, including documents or information of any nature and in any form that are in the possession of an executive, legislative, or judicial authority in that Party, but that are not publicly available, but only to the same extent and under the same conditions as these records would be available to the competent authorities of that Party. The Requested Party has the discretion to deny the latter type of request entirely or in part. Article 14 requires the Requested Party to use its best efforts to ascertain the location or identity of persons or information about items in the Requested Party specified in a request. Article 15 obligates the Requested Party to use its best efforts to effect service of documents pursuant to a request. A request for the service of a document requiring a person to appear in the Requesting Party must be transmitted a reasonable time before the scheduled appearance. Proof of service is to be provided in the manner specified in the request. Article 16 provides the conditions through which items can be located, seized and transferred. Article 16(1) obligates the Requested Party to execute requests for search, seizure, and transfer of any item to the Requesting Party if the request includes the information justifying such action under the laws of the Requested Party. Article 16(2) provides that, if requested, every official of the Requested Party who has custody of a seized item certify the identity of the item, the continuity of its custody, and the integrity of its condition. Article 16(3) further provides that the Requested Party may require that the Requesting Party agree to the terms and conditions deemed necessary to protect third-party interests in items to be transferred. Article 17 addresses the transfer of documents, records, and other items. When a request for legal assistance concerns the transfer of documents or records, Article 17(1) requires the Requested Party to transfer true copies of them, unless the Requesting Party expressly requests the originals, in which case the Requested Party must make every effort to comply with the request. Article 17(2) further provides that, insofar as not prohibited by its laws, the Requested Party is obligated to transfer documents, records, or other items in such a manner or accompanied by such certification as may be requested by the Requesting Party in order to make them admissible according to the law of the Requesting Party. For this purpose, the CentralAuthorities of the Parties will exchange information pursuant to Article 3(3) with respect to the requirements for admissibility in their respective legal systems. Documents, records, and other items transferred as requested under this paragraph require no further certification to make them admissible. Article 17(3) states that the Central Authority of the Requested Party may require the Central Authority of the Requesting Party to return, as soon as possible, any documents, records, or other items furnished to it in execution of a request under the Treaty. Article 18 obligates the Parties, in accordance with their laws, to assist each other in locating, immobilizing, and seizing proceeds, including earnings from, or that are the result of, criminal activities, as well as instrumentalities of crime, for purposes of forfeiture, restitution to victims of crime, and collection of fines imposed pursuant to judicial decisions in criminal matters. Article 18(2) provides that if the Central Authority of one Party becomes aware that proceeds and instrumentalities of crime that may be subject to forfeiture are located in the territory of the other Party, it may so inform the Central Authority of the other Party so that the other Party may take appropriate measures under Article 18(3). The Central Authority receiving the information is obligated to notify the Central Authority providing the information of the action taken. Under Article 18(3), the Party that has immobilized, seized, or forfeited the proceeds and instrumentalities of crime is required to dispose of them in accordance with its laws. That Party shall transfer all or part of such forfeited assets, or the proceeds of their sale, to the other Party, including for the purpose of forefeiture and restitution, insofar as permitted by its laws and to the extent it deems it appropriate and within the time frame and under the conditions it deems acceptable. Article 19 provides that the Central Authorities will consult, at times mutually agreed, to promote the most effective use of the Treaty. Article 20 states that the Treaty applies to any requests presented after its entry into force even if the relevant acts or omissions occurred before that date. Article 21 provides that the provisions of the Treaty will not prevent either of the Parties from cooperating and granting legal assistance in accordance with the provisions of other applicableinternational treaties and agreements, national laws, and practices. Article 22 provides that the Treaty is subject to ratification and will enter into force upon the exchange of instruments of ratification, which is to take place as soon as possible. Article 22(2) provides further that, upon entry into force of the Treaty, the Agreement between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Russian Federation on Cooperation in Criminal Matters, signed on June 30, 1995, will no longer be in force. Article 22(3) states that either Party may terminate the Treaty by written notice to the other Party through the diplomatic channel, and that such termination will take effect six months following the date of receipt of notification. A Technical Analysis explaining in detail the provisions of the Treaty is being prepared by the United States negotiating delegation, consisting of representatives from the Departments of Justice and State, and will be transmitted separately to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. The Department of Justice joins the Department of State in favoring approval of this Treaty by the Senate as soon as possible. Respectfully submitted. Strobe Talbot.

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Archived Version

Tue, 26 Jul 2016 15:57

References in TextThe Federal Rules of Evidence, referred to in subsec. (d), are set out in the Appendix to Title 28, Judiciary and Judicial Procedure.

Amendments2005'--Subsec. (a)(1)(C). Pub. L. 109''97 added subpar. (C).

2004'--Subsec. (a)(4). Pub. L. 108''458, §'¯5401(a), added par. (4).

Subsec. (e). Pub. L. 108''458, §'¯5401(b), added subsec. (e).

2000'--Subsec. (b). Pub. L. 106''185 inserted heading and amended text of subsec. (b) generally, substituting present provisions for provisions relating to conveyances subject to seizure and forfeiture, exceptions, officers and authorized persons, disposition of forfeited conveyances, and suits and actions.

1996'--Subsec. (a)(1). Pub. L. 104''208, §'¯671(a)(1), made technical amendment to directory language of Pub. L. 103''322, §'¯60024(1)(F). See 1994 Amendment note below.

Subsec. (a)(1)(A)(v). Pub. L. 104''208, §'¯203(b)(1), which directed the amendment of subsec. (a)(1)(A) by adding cl. (v) at end, was executed by adding cl. (v) after cl. (iv), to reflect the probable intent of Congress.

Subsec. (a)(1)(B)(i). Pub. L. 104''208, §'¯203(a), (b)(2)(A), inserted ''or (v)(I) or in the case of a violation of subparagraph (A)(ii), (iii), or (iv) in which the offense was done for the purpose of commercial advantage or private financial gain'' after ''subparagraph (A)(i)''.

Subsec. (a)(1)(B)(ii). Pub. L. 104''208, §'¯203(b)(2)(B), substituted ''(iv), or (v)(II)'' for ''or (iv)''.

Subsec. (a)(1)(B)(iii), (iv). Pub. L. 104''208, §'¯203(b)(2)(C), (D), substituted ''(iv), or (v)'' for ''or (iv)''.

Subsec. (a)(2). Pub. L. 104''208, §'¯203(d), substituted ''for each alien in respect to whom a violation of this paragraph occurs'' for ''for each transaction constituting a violation of this paragraph, regardless of the number of aliens involved'' in introductory provisions.

Subsec. (a)(2)(B). Pub. L. 104''208, §'¯203(b)(3), in concluding provisions, substituted ''be fined under title 18 and shall be imprisoned, in the case of a first or second violation of subparagraph (B)(iii), not more than 10 years, in the case of a first or second violation of subparagraph (B)(i) or (B)(ii), not less than 3 nor more than 10 years, and for any other violation, not less than 5 nor more than 15 years.'' for ''be fined in accordance with title 18 or in the case of a violation of subparagraph (B)(ii), imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both; or in the case of a violation of subparagraph (B)(i) or (B)(iii), imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both..''

Subsec. (a)(2)(B)(i). Pub. L. 104''208, §'¯203(c), amended cl. (i) generally. Prior to amendment, cl. (i) read as follows: ''a second or subsequent offense,''.

Subsec. (a)(3). Pub. L. 104''208, §'¯203(b)(4), added par. (3).

Subsec. (d). Pub. L. 104''208, §'¯219, added subsec. (d).

1994'--Subsec. (a)(1). Pub. L. 103''322, §'¯60024(1)(F), as amended by Pub. L. 104''208, §'¯671(a)(1), substituted ''shall be punished as provided in subparagraph (B)'' for ''shall be fined in accordance with title 18, United States Code, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both, for each alien in respect to whom any violation of this paragraph occurs'' in concluding provisions.

Pub. L. 103''322, §'¯60024(1)(A)''(E), (G), designated existing provisions of par. (1) as subpar. (A) of par. (1), redesignated subpars. (A) to (D) of former par. (1) as cls. (i) to (iv), respectively, of subpar. (A), and added subpar. (B).

Subsec. (a)(2)(B). Pub. L. 103''322, §'¯60024(2), in concluding provisions, substituted ''or in the case of a violation of subparagraph (B)(ii), imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both; or in the case of a violation of subparagraph (B)(i) or (B)(iii), imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.'' for ''or imprisoned not more than five years, or both''.

1988'--Subsec. (a)(1). Pub. L. 100''525, §'¯2(d)(1), in closing provisions substituted ''or imprisoned'' for ''imprisoned'' and ''this paragraph'' for ''this subsection''.

Subsec. (b)(4)(C), (5). Pub. L. 100''525, §'¯2(d)(2), amended Pub. L. 99''603, §'¯112(b)(5), (8). See 1986 Amendment note below.

1986'--Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 99''603, §'¯112(a), amended subsec. (a) generally. Prior to amendment, subsec. (a) read as follows: ''Any person, including the owner, operator, pilot, master, commanding officer, agent, or consignee of any means of transportation who'--

''(1) brings into or lands in the United States, by any means of transportation or otherwise, or attempts, by himself or through another, to bring into or land in the United States, by any means of transportation or otherwise;

''(2) knowing that he is in the United States in violation of law, and knowing or having reasonable grounds to believe that his last entry into the United States occurred less than three years prior thereto, transports, or moves, or attempts to transport or move, within the United States by means of transportation or otherwise, in furtherance of such violation of law;

''(3) willfully or knowingly conceals, harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, in any place, including any building or any means of transportation; or

''(4) willfully or knowingly encourages or induces, or attempts to encourage or induce, either directly or indirectly, the entry into the United States of'--

any alien, including an alien crewman, not duly admitted by an immigration officer or not lawfully entitled to enter or reside within the United States under the terms of this chapter or any other law relating to the immigration or expulsion of aliens, shall be guilty of a felony, and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine not exceeding $2,000 or by imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years, or both, for each alien in respect to whom any violation of this subsection occurs: Provided, however, That for the purposes of this section, employment (including the usual and normal practices incident to employment) shall not be deemed to constitute harboring.''

Subsec. (b)(1). Pub. L. 99''603, §'¯112(b)(1), (2), substituted ''has been or is being used'' for ''is used'' and ''seized and subject to'' for ''subject to seizure and'' in provisions preceding subpar. (A).

Subsec. (b)(2). Pub. L. 99''603, §'¯112(b)(3), inserted ''or is being'' after ''has been''.

Subsec. (b)(3). Pub. L. 99''603, §'¯112(b)(4), substituted ''property'' for ''conveyances''.

Subsec. (b)(4)(C). Pub. L. 99''603, §'¯112(b)(5), as amended by Pub. L. 100''525, §'¯2(d)(2)(A), inserted '','or the Maritime Administration if appropriate under section 484(i) of title 40,''.

Subsec. (b)(4)(D). Pub. L. 99''603, §'¯112(b)(6), added subpar. (D).

Subsec. (b)(5). Pub. L. 99''603, §'¯112(b)(7)''(9), as amended by Pub. L. 100''525, §'¯2(d)(2)(B), substituted '','except that'' for '':'Provided, That'' in provisions preceding subpar. (A), substituted ''had not received prior official authorization to come to, enter, or reside in the United States or that such alien had come to, entered, or remained in the United States in violation of law'' for ''was not lawfully entitled to enter, or reside within, the United States'' wherever appearing, inserted ''or of the Department of State'' in subpar. (B), and substituted ''had not received prior official authorization to come to, enter, or reside in the United States or that such alien had come to, entered, or remained in the United States in violation of law'' for ''was not entitled to enter, or reside within, the United States'' in subpar. (C).

1981'--Subsec. (b). Pub. L. 97''116 strengthened the seizure and forfeiture authority by striking out the ''innocent owner'' exemption and merely requiring the Government to show probable cause that the conveyance seized has been used to illegally transport aliens, which when demonstrated, shifts the burden of proof to the owner or claimant to show by a preponderance of the evidence that the conveyance was not illegally used, by relieving the Government of the obligation to pay any administrative and incidental costs incurred by a successful claimant provided probable cause for the original seizure was demonstrated, and by striking out the requirement that the Government satisfy any valid lien or third party interest in the conveyance without expense to the interest holder by providing the lienholders interest be satisfied only after costs associated with the seizure have been deducted.

1978'--Subsecs. (b), (c). Pub. L. 95''582 added subsec. (b) and redesignated former subsec. (b) as (c).

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Tue, 26 Jul 2016 15:56

The DNC aided and abetted two illegal aliens on Monday night during the nationally televised DNC Convention 2016 in Philadelphia. Thus, according to the law, the DNC twice violated Section 8 U.S. Code 1324.

At 8:04pm local time, the DNC invited an illegal alien to accompany her daughter to tout Hillary Clinton for president. During her speech, which was televised on national TV, the daughter explicitly said her mother is in the United States illegally. Minutes before the mother and daughter team took to the stage, the DNC played a video showing the daughter communicating with Hillary Clinton during one of her tour stops in Nevada. It was then that the daughter (Karla) admitted to Hillary Clinton that her mother (Francisca) received a government issued letter of deportation. Clearly, the mother is ignoring the deportation order, and so to is the DNC and Hillary Clinton.

Following the mother / daughter act, another illegal alien took to the podium at 8:09pm local time. Her name is Astrid Silva, and she said in clear english, ''I came to America illegally with my mother when I was 4-years old. We crossed the river [Rio Grande] on a raft.''

Aside from illegally harboring two illegal aliens, it would be interesting to learn how the illegal aliens traveled to Philadelphia and who paid for the travel arrangements? Furthermore, where are they staying this evening and who paid for the lodging?

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Tue, 26 Jul 2016 17:41

CRN Politics

By Barry Secrest

Sometimes it's hard to notice what's missing, however, in contrast with the Republican convention, there is one integral component which essentially encompasses the entire meaning of a nation's election, and that's the venerated symbol of the nation, which is its national flag.

Indeed, millions of men and women have fought and died for the US flag and have been born & buried under its shroud, but the American flag is, somehow, conspicuously missing at the democrat convention at Philadelphia arena.

The Daily Caller, to its infinite credit, was the publication that noticed the fact that not one US flag can be seen in the vast Philadelphia arena housing the democrat convention.

In photo after photo, not one actual US flag can be seen.

By contrast, the Republican convention in Cleveland featured the US flag in almost every nook and cranny.

Heck, even the GOP convention graphic suggests a US flag

So why no flag for the democrats?

Easy, the democrat party has been, now, completely infiltrated and is an anti-nationalist globalist party, dedicated not to the United States, but rather to the world.

The US flag is a thing better to be trampled upon and or burnt, rather than proudly displayed to democrats.

These people are not proud of their nation, they're proud only of their ideology.

In fact, in most cases, a typical democrat of today views the US flag as a symbol of division and oppression rather than a beacon to the free world.

This is why it's so important to understand who their party leader is and what they're actually about rather than to merely listen to their political rhetoric.

Globalists, by their very natures, cannot be loyal to any individual nation, theirs is an ideology dedicated only to global causes which automatically precludes any sort of obedience to any respective nation, or people.

This is why there are no US flags in attendance at the DNC.

Related from Barry Secrest:

Eyes Wide Shut: Stunning Koch Brothers GOP Nod To Hillary Clinton Exposes Ruling Class Deceptions

Killing America: A Shadow War Between Establishment Globalists & Citizen Insurgents Has Begun

Hillary Clinton's Largest Donor is Same Billionaire Controlling "Black Lives Matter" Insurrection: George Soros

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Wed, 27 Jul 2016 18:10

What is the Democratic Party going to do without half of their voters? The DNCWalkout is going to destroy them.DNCWalkout '' In what looks to actually be the death of the Democratic Party thousands of DNC attendees marched out of the Convention during Hillary's speech.

This is an exhilarating time to be alive. 2016 is the year that America took its power back from the Establishment.

Super Delegates have stolen the nomination from Bernie Sanders and tried to do the same to Donald Trump. The only difference was that Trump won by such a large margin that the GOP could not get away with stealing the Republican nomination from him.

Both parties' delegates were quoted saying the will of the people don't matter. The only thing that the establishment cares about is what the establishment wants. Tonight they learned that the people will not go along with that.

It will be hard to win a presidential election with only 25% of the nation's voters backing Hillary.

This is a victory in the Global RevolutionSource: https://twitter.com/search?q=dncwalkout&src=typd

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Thu, 28 Jul 2016 12:47

By Emily Zanotti|5:41 pm, July 27, 2016

The nomination was barely sealed up at the Democratic National Convention before Bernie Sanders, who had campaigned against Hillary Clinton for the party's nod, went back to being an Independent.

Sanders, who considers himself, officially, an Independent in Congress because his views lean further left than the Democratic party's platform, caucuses with Democrats. But until declaring an intention to run for the presidency in 2015, he had rarely, if ever, identified as a member of the Democratic Party (he's been in politics since 1979).

And now, despite pleading with his base to support Hillary, even though they're concerned that she's too moderate, Sanders will return to Vermont and to his seat in the Senate, and he'll do it with no official party affiliation.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was forced to resign as Chairwoman of the DNC after leaked emails revealed she'd tried to keep Sanders from challenging Clinton for the party's nomination, might even be vindicated'--sort of.

Sanders has struggled all along with whether to call himself a Democrat, even ducking the question of his party affiliation, raised by local Vermont media, just days after he declared. He later tried to reinforce that he was, indeed, a Democrat. But Sanders certainly wasn't a party player'--and that's exactly the concern Wasserman Schultz voiced in the Wikileaks document dump.

In an April 24 email she received with an article describing the ways Sanders felt the DNC was undermining his campaign, she wrote back, ''Spoken like someone who has never been a member of the Democratic Party and has no understanding of what we do.''

If Wasserman Schultz's job was to ensure that a Democrat got the Democratic party nomination, then she might have been doing her job correctly (even if Bernie's supporters would disagree).

There's the additional complication, of course, that Wasserman Schultz was a vocal Clinton supporter, a Clinton surrogate and is now a senior adviser to the campaign, as she's been officially booted from her DNC duties. But if anyone is vindicating her position, it's Sanders, dumping the Democratic party as soon as it was no longer useful.

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Thu, 28 Jul 2016 13:02

Singer-actress Audra McDonald has had enough of Bill O'Reilly's racism towards the Black community. On Tuesday night's episode of ''The O'Reilly Factor,'' the TV host responded to Michelle Obama's remarks during her Democratic National Convention speech where she said the White House was built by enslaved Black people.

''Slaves that worked there were well-fed and had decent lodgings provided by the government, which stopped hiring slave labor in 1802,'' the conservative historian stated.

It lead McDonald to give O'Reilly a history lesson of her own via social media. On Twitter Wednesday morning, the Broadway star posted a series of messages addressed, ''Dear Mr. O'Reilly.''

Dear Bill O'Reilly'...live in this: pic.twitter.com/p41Cb5F5l2

'-- Audra McDonald (@AudraEqualityMc) July 27, 2016

Each tweet was accompanied by photos showing the terrible conditions enslaved Africans lived in.

Dear Bill O'Reilly'...Wear these: pic.twitter.com/yRDlD2b8Rk

'-- Audra McDonald (@AudraEqualityMc) July 27, 2016

With each tweet, the Broadway star asked the Fox News anchor to put himself in the place of an enslaved Black person.

Dear Bill O'Reilly'...Take a ride on this: pic.twitter.com/j2kXKXYPtB

'-- Audra McDonald (@AudraEqualityMc) July 27, 2016

The ''Shuffle Along'' star told the former teacher to ''endure some of these,'' referring to scars received from whippings by slave owners.

Dear Bill O'Reilly'...endure some of these'... pic.twitter.com/Tdt9OxKeXh

'-- Audra McDonald (@AudraEqualityMc) July 27, 2016

She also asked O'Reilly to live through the reality of nursing babies being separated from their mothers, who were sold to other slavemasters.

Dear Bill O'Reilly'...live through this a few times'... pic.twitter.com/reJpHhTaSh

'-- Audra McDonald (@AudraEqualityMc) July 27, 2016

After addressing a tweet by Chris Filby '' who reacted to McDonald taking aim at O'Reilly '' she finished her response to the syndicated columnist.

Point missed completely'...also I wasn't addressing you in any way shape or form unless your name is Bill O'Reilly. https://t.co/9uQ7731BDL

'-- Audra McDonald (@AudraEqualityMc) July 27, 2016

''Maybe now you'll get why people are having a hard time with your description of the slaves 'accommodations,' '' the six-time Tony winner said.

Dear Bill O'Reilly'...Maybe now you'll get why people are having a hard time with your description of the slaves 'accommodations'.

'-- Audra McDonald (@AudraEqualityMc) July 27, 2016

McDonald is not the only one who is fed up with the political commentator's ignorant, racist comments. Others on Twitter have reacted just as swiftly.

Dre Lou used O'Reilly's rhetoric against him by making this comparison in response to another Twitter user.

@Blazefire84 "Why are we calling people who are raped 'victims'? They should be happy somebody wants to sleep with them." #BillOReilly logic

'-- Dre Lou (@dre_lou) July 27, 2016

Sam Levine called for the host to lose his job for ''defending'' enslavement.

How dare @oreillyfactor defend the practice of slavery?! He should be fired and/or resign for saying something so ignorant. #BillOReilly

'-- Sam Levine (@Sam_Levine) July 27, 2016

Iris Carter flipped the tables on O'Reilly by inviting him to be enslaved by her in exchange for property.

#BillOReilly, I promise 40 acres and a mule if you become my slave. This man needs prayer.

'-- Iris Fambro Carter (@IrisCarter65) July 27, 2016

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Thu, 28 Jul 2016 14:23

It's not enough to contain ISIS and the threat of terrorism'--we have to defeat it.

Radical jihadists, like so many adversaries in our history, underestimate the strength of our national character. Americans will not cower or cave. And we will not turn on each other or turn on our principles. We will defeat those who threaten us. We will keep our country safe and strong, free and tolerant. And we will always defend our friends and allies.

Hillary, December 6, 2015The threat we face from terrorism is real, urgent, and knows no boundaries. Horrific attacks like the ones in Paris, Brussels, Orlando, and San Bernardino have made it all too clear: It is not enough to contain ISIS and the threat of radical jihadism'--we have to defeat it. Hillary Clinton has laid out a comprehensive plan to do that:

1. Take out ISIS's stronghold in Iraq and SyriaWe have to defeat ISIS on the battlefield by:

Intensifying the coalition air campaign against ISIS fighters, leaders, and infrastructure;Stepping up support for local Arab and Kurdish forces on the ground and coalition efforts to protect civilians; andPursuing a diplomatic strategy aimed at resolving Syria's civil war and Iraq's sectarian conflict between Sunnis and Shias'--both of which have contributed to the rise of ISIS.2. Work with our allies to dismantle global terror networksWe have to stem the flow of jihadists from Europe and America to and from Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. To that end, we must work with our allies to dismantle the global terror network that supplies radical jihadists with money, weapons, and fighters. That means:

Working hand in hand with European intelligence services to identify and go after enablers who help jihadists forge documents and travel undetected;Targeting efforts to deal with ISIS affiliates from Libya to Afghanistan; andWorking with tech companies to fight jihadist propaganda online, intercept ISIS communications, andtrack and analyze social media posts to stop attacks'--while protecting security and privacy.3. Harden our defenses at homeWe have to do more to identify and stop terrorists'--including so-called ''lone wolves'''--from carrying out attacks in the United States, including:

Supporting first responders, law enforcement, and intelligence officers with the right tools, resources, intelligence, and training to prevent attacks before they happen;Launching an intelligence surge to get security officials the tools they need to prevent attacks;Keeping assault weapons and other tools of terror out of terrorists' hands by allowing the FBI to stop gun sales to suspected terrorists, enacting comprehensive background checks, and keeping military-style assault weapons off our streets; andSupporting law enforcement to build trustful and strong relationships with American Muslim communities. We need every American community invested in this fight, not fearful and sitting on the sidelines.Related:

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Tue, 26 Jul 2016 23:01

In the Presidential Election of 2016, Republican and Democratic insiders are wrestling like two dogs over a bone over who controls the illegal drug trade.

To the victor go the spoils. Who wins the election wins control of America's vast drug bazaar, largest in the world, whose proceeds prop up lucky bankers and politicians lapping at the trough of the biggest richest slush fund in the history of the world.

It's the smart playIt's the biggest business in the world, and the No. 1 industry on the face of the planet, in terms of foreign trade. And if you didn't know that about the illegal drug trade, then the vast amounts spent on propaganda and disinformation every year in the so-called ''War on Drugs'' is working.

The first industry to globalize vertically was the illegal drug business. It's an open question whether drug trafficking drove globalization, or the other way around.

Negotiated by Bill Clinton, the chief beneficiary of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement)'--by dollar volume and impact on the economy'--was the drug trade.

The Democrats, committed to globalization, will continue to farm out transportation and money laundering to, among others, minions of Mexico's President Enrique Nieto Pena, cronies of retired Colombian strongman Alvaro Uribe, and a host of eager bankers from the world's largest banks.

Will a Republican victory will bring back Oliver North? No, it'll be a Trump Administration appointee with a certain erect posture and short-but-stylishly-cut hair, chosen to occupy the Oliver North seat on the National Security Council.

The Enterprise Lives. And prospers.

Why there's no Global War on Johnnie Walker Red

Although America's sun is slowly sinking below the horizon, the country still boasts the biggest and the best illegal drug delivery pipeline on the planet, so efficient it's sick, the and envy of the world. The UK and Europe may be nipping at our heels, growing bigger vis a vis the U.S. as drug consumers, but the U.S. remains the biggest market.

This market is what we sell to the world; one of a few businesses where we're still No. 1, along with financial services, which basically means meaning laundering drug money, and movies based on comic books.

Here's a statistic from the UN's World Drug Report for 2016:

207,000 drug-related deaths globally.

Compare that with this fact from the UN's World Health Organization:

''In 2012, 3.3 million deaths, or 5.9 percent of all global deaths, were due to alcohol consumption.''

If the U.S. cares about the health of its citizens we'll soon have a Liquor Enforcement Administration(an LEA), with approximately sixteen times the funding that the War on Drugs receives every year, which is 40 billion dollars.

That's within reach of the Pentagon budget; its safe to say it ain't gonna happen.

It doesn't happen, becauses of the banks, and also because, as the UN World Drug Report also states, and flatly, worldwide people spend more money on drugs every day than on food.

Yup. You can look it up.

An even bigger reason: Global Too Big to Jail Banks.

London's Financial Times has warning for global elite

Even when you think you're talking about something else, you're talking about drugs, even if you don't know it. London's Financial Times briefly surfaced from the 19th Century with a headline reading ''Global elites must heed the warning of populist rage'

''The explanation for the prolonged stagnation in real incomes are repeated financial crises and subsequent weak recoveries, which have destroyed popular confidence in the competence and moral principles, honesty, and decency of the elite.''

The greedy parasitic elite that betrayed the middle class, and the country.

The Times continues, ''The role of finance is excessive. The financial system remains riddled with perverse incentives.''

Without drug money there is no financialization. Because the banks by themselves don't have the capital. Some say that sounds like a good thing.

''Air America meets Traffic meets Pineapple Express''A steady diet of movies like the upcoming 'Mena' starring Tom Cruise playing the supposedly-swashbuckling former Air America pilot Barry Seal, has given the movie-going public the idea that the real action in the illegal drug trade is in drug trafficking.

That's not the case. The real action is in money laundering. Because if you can't wash clean the money you end up with, it quickly becomes useless to anyone with more long-term goals than throwing the biggest party or longest orgy the world has ever seen. And because money weighs more than drugs'--and is way more bulky unless you're smuggling marijuana which is today considered more out of the stone age than old school.

So there's a problem. Providing a solution are casinos, bodegas, cambios, Western Union, grocery stores, restaurants, even dry cleaners, and banks. Especially banks. If they weren't laundering drug money, HSBC, JP Morgan, Barclays and Bank of America would have already gone the way of Mario Brothers or YAHOO, which makes news only when pieces are sold off in foreclosure.

Three brief moments in time in the drug tradeA Turkish boat carrying a massive 3.2 tonnes of high purity cocaine hidden in a ballast tank at the front of the MV Hamal was busted 100 miles east of the Aberdeenshire coast.

It was a record $673 million (£512 million) cocaine haul.The captain and second in command'--Mumin Sahin and Emin Ozmen'--were convicted, and sent to prison.

''The Captain and the second in command'' are the drug trade's equivalent of David Letterman Show favorites Mujibur and Sirajul, who ran a t-shirt shop in a tiny frontage near the Ed Sullivan Theater. They were ordinary people who Letterman found exceptional just because there were so ordinary.

Is there a shortage of people ready to take a chance smuggling a half-billion cargo? Is that the plan?

''Operation SCREENPLAY'' gets a tentative green light''OPERATION Screenplay will go down as one of the all-time great UK drug busts,'' enthused John McGowan, head of border investigations.

''To put it in perspective, the total seizure of cocaine by all police forces in England and Wales in 2014-15 was 3.4 tons. That was for everything. This single seizure was 3.2 tons.''

In a blatant pitch for more government funding'--so that he could presumably really go to town, he added, ''And all we had was intelligence from the French that there was a considerable quantity of cocaine on board.''

The paper seemed not so sure. The report ended, ''Despite the size of the seizure, anecdotal evidence suggests police did not record a dip in the amount of cocaine on our streets.''

Playing whack-a''mole around the worldAn expert who testified at their trial about ''recognised trade routes'' for shipping cocaine was perhaps a little too candid. He told the jury:

''It is now south of Venezuela and Guyana because of a lot of enforcement activity by the USA patrolling the coast. It's massive importation '' unprecedented in my experience.''

Those sneaky traffickers. Always playing whack-a-mole.

Cocaine production in Colombia increased dramatically'--shooting up a staggering 46 percent'--last year. The country now has the resources to produce 712 tons of cocaine annually. Growth exploded in lawless areas in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the north and in the Amazon region, on the Venezuelan and Ecuadorean borders and along the Pacific coast.

But cultivation dropped in central Colombia, where the people running both Colombia's government and drug trade live. Imagine that.

The Mexican Navy left with many barrels of zesty condimentsThe Mexican navy found 13 tons of cocaine inside barrels of hot sauce in Manzanillo, 500 miles west of Mexico City. The barrels filled with condiment and cocaine were believed to belong to the Sinaloa Cartel.

A week earlier, busy Mexican sailors discovered almost a ton of cocaine'--more than 900 keys'--floating in the open sea off the coast of Chiapas.

A ton of cocaine. Just'... floating'...100 miles from shore.

The world's richest industriesThe illegal drug trade has yearly revenues exceeding the 946 billion in annual revenue of Walmart, Microsoft, Google, Ebay, and British Petroleum, combined. How much money an industry makes is the best rule of thumb for how much clout that industry exerts on the countries in which it operates. In the U.S., and almost everywhere else, it's a cash cow of almost unimaginable proportions.

The richest industries are all based on assets we use in our daily lives. Computers, entertainment, oil, shopping, drugs. According to therichest.com, ''They are industries we give our hard-earned money to out of necessity, desire, or a mix of the two. And they also tend to be the most valuable, and not just from a monetary standpoint. Their value lies in the fact that they're needed to help society advance and function smoothly.''

Imagine several hundred million people trying to get through Monday morning without coffee. Luckily, that won't ever happen.

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Thu, 28 Jul 2016 00:36

2016

The billionaire, who had dialed back his giving, has committed more than $25 million to supporting Hillary Clinton and other Democratic candidates and causes.

By Kenneth P. Vogel

07/27/16 05:18 AM EDT

Billionaire investor George Soros has quietly reemerged as a leading funder of Democratic politics. | Getty

PHILADELPHIA '-- George Soros is back.

The billionaire investor, who scaled back his political giving after a then-unprecedented $27 million spending spree to try to defeat President George W. Bush in 2004, has quietly reemerged as a leading funder of Democratic politics '-- and as a leading boogeyman of conservatives.

Story Continued Below

Soros has donated or committed more than $25 million to boost Hillary Clinton and other Democratic candidates and causes, according to Federal Election Commission records and interviews with his associates and Democratic fundraising operatives. And some of his associates say they expect Soros, who amassed a fortune estimated at $24.9 billion through risky currency trades, to give even more as Election Day nears.

The 85-year-old Hungarian-born New Yorker had planned to attend his first-ever Democratic convention here to watch Clinton, with whom he has a 25-year relationship, accept the Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday. But an associate said he decided to cancel the trip this week because Soros, who recently returned to active trading, felt he needed to closely monitor the economic situation in Europe.

Nonetheless, people close to Soros say he seems more politically engaged than he's been in years, motivated, they say, by a combination of faith in Clinton and fear of her GOP rival Donald Trump, who Soros has accused of ''doing the work of ISIS'' by stoking fears.

Soros' political adviser Michael Vachon said his boss ''has been a consistent donor to Democratic causes, but this year the political stakes are exceptionally high.'' Vachon added: ''They were high even before Trump became the nominee because of the hostility on the other side toward many of the issues George cares most about and has worked to support for many years, including immigration reform, criminal justice reform and religious tolerance.''

The willingness of Soros to turn on the cash spigot full force to beat Trump is seen in Democratic finance circles as a very good sign for Clinton. Perhaps more than any other donor on the left, Soros is seen as having the potential to catalyze giving by other rich activists.

To be sure, other elite liberal donors are also stroking big checks, including San Francisco environmentalist Tom Steyer (who has donated $31 million in 2016, albeit almost entirely to a super PAC he controls), New York hedge funder Don Sussman ($13.2 million to various campaigns and committees) and media moguls Haim Saban and Fred Eychaner ($11.1 million each). But few have the bellwether effect of Soros.

The cumulative effect of the mobilization of the left's richest benefactors has helped Clinton's campaign and its allied outside groups build a massive financial advantage over committees backing Trump, who is regarded with suspicion at best by the GOP donor class. That's allowed Clinton and her allies to build a humming campaign machine that dwarfs Trump's.

Soros has had a hand in funding many pieces of that.

Through the end of June, Soros had donated $7 million to a super PAC supporting Clinton called Priorities USA Action, according to FEC filings, making it the biggest recipient of his political largesse this cycle. And three Democratic operatives say he's considering donating another $3 million to the group.

FEC records also show Soros gave $2 million to American Bridge 21st Century, an opposition research super PAC that has been targeting Trump and other Republican candidates, and $700,000 to an assortment of Democratic Party committees, PACs and campaigns, including Clinton's.

Soros has committed $5 million to a super PAC called Immigrant Voters Win that's devoted to increasing turnout among low-propensity Hispanic voters in key swing states, though FEC records show he'd donated only $3 million through the end of June, the period covered by the most recent filings.

Soros has committed another $5 million to a nonprofit devoted to fighting conservative efforts to restrict voting, according to the associate. That group, the Voting Rights Trust, is run partly by Clinton's campaign lawyer Marc Elias. It's registered under a section of the tax code that doesn't require it to disclose its donors, meaning that Soros' donations and those of other donors will never be formally, publicly reported to the government, and also that it could be possible that some donations might be passed through from other groups.

Likewise, Vachon said Soros has committed or donated $2 million to a voter mobilization group called America Votes that doesn't disclose its donors and another $1 million or so to a handful of state-based voter mobilization groups that are not required to disclose their donors.

And this month, according to Vachon, Soros donated $1.5 million each to Senate Majority PAC, a super PAC boosting Democratic Senate candidates, and to Planned Parenthood Votes, a super PAC that boosts candidates who support abortion rights, including Clinton.

The giving pattern and motivations seem similar to 2004, when Soros, motivated by a deep and abiding opposition to the Iraq War and other Bush administration policies, sprinkled $27 million around a handful of liberal groups boosting John Kerry's unsuccessful challenge to Bush.

That spending, coupled with Soros' inflammatory rhetoric '-- he compared the Bush administration's rhetoric to that of the Nazis and described defeating Bush as ''a matter of life and death'' '-- made him a target of sometimes vicious personal attacks from conservative politicians and media outlets casting him as a puppet master, a self-hating Jew, a communist or worse.

Some allies say the public chastisement ate at Soros, as did the inability of his political spending spree to oust Bush, and his perhaps slightly ironic concerns that campaign finance laws allowed rich Americans like himself too much influence in politics.

And, after 2004, he dialed back his political giving, suggesting he might never again spend as heavily on politics, characterizing his involvement during the 2004 election as ''an exception.''

Instead, he focused his philanthropic attention on his international foundations, which have donated more than $13 billion over the past three decades to nonprofits that aim to defend human rights, shape the democratic process in Eastern Europe and expand access to health care and education in the U.S. and around the world.

And he played a formative role in the 2005 launch of a secretive club of major liberal donors called the Democracy Alliance. It sought to steer cash away from groups fighting short-term electoral battles and toward ones seeking to build intellectual infrastructure for long-term fights outside the Democratic Party, such as combating climate change, income inequality and the outsize role of big money in politics.

One liberal operative this week recalled asking someone close to Soros why the billionaire had reduced his spending on partisan politics.

''The answer was that he found it 'odious' for any one individual to throw too much political weight around through donations,'' recalled the operative. ''Maybe, in light of what's happened in the last few cycles, it seems less so, or he feels like he needs to help balance the outside-money scales a bit,'' the operative added.

Additionally, though Soros backed Barack Obama over Clinton in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, he quickly soured on the Democratic president, who he felt was insufficiently aggressive in pursuing liberal priorities. He expressed frustration with Obama during a private Democracy Alliance meeting in 2010, which some interpreted as a willingness to back a primary challenger in 2012. And though he backed Obama's 2012 reelection campaign, that year he told a close Clinton ally that he regretted supporting Obama over her, and praised Clinton for giving him an open door to discuss policy, according to emails released late last year by the State Department.

Soros ''said he's been impressed that he can always call/meet with you on an issue of policy and said he hasn't met with the President ever (though I thought he had),'' Clinton ally Neera Tanden wrote to the then-secretary of state. Tanden continued that Soros ''then said he regretted his decision in the primary '-- he likes to admit mistakes when he makes them and that was one of them. He then extolled his work with you from your time as First Lady on.''

The Soros associate dismissed the conversation characterized in Tanden's email as ''idle dinner party chatter,'' suggesting it did not represent Soros' full assessment of Obama.

But Jordan Wood, national finance director for a PAC called End Citizens United, on Tuesday suggested Soros' giving may have slumped in recent years partly because of Obama. ''With George, his giving has spiked because of Hillary. He really likes Hillary Clinton, and he didn't like Obama as much,'' said Wood, in an interview at a reception at a Center City bar for the campaign finance reform group Every Voice.

End Citizens United, which supports candidates, including Clinton, who pledge to push campaign finance reforms, this year received a $5,000 check from Soros, the maximum he could legally give to that group. He also has donated to Every Voice, as has his son Jonathan Soros, who attended Tuesday's reception.

Jonathan Soros wouldn't comment on his father's increased political giving, but he pointed to George Soros' recent writing about Trump, which includes one column in which Soros warned voters that it's important to ''resist the siren song of the likes of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz'' if the U.S. is to effectively fight terrorism.

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Sun, 24 Jul 2016 21:43

President Obama's Kenyan half-brother wants to make America great again '-- so he's voting for Donald Trump.

''I like Donald Trump because he speaks from the heart,'' Malik Obama told The Post from his home in the rural village of Kogelo. ''Make America Great Again is a great slogan. I would like to meet him.''

Obama, 58, a longtime Democrat, said his ''deep disappointment'' in his brother Barack's administration has led him to recently switch allegiance to ''the party of Lincoln.''

Barack Obama is seen with his half-brother, Malik.Photo: APThe last straw, he said, came earlier this month when FBI Director James Comey recommended not prosecuting Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton over her use of a private e-mail servers while secretary of state.

''She should have known better as the custodian of classified information,'' said Obama.

He's also annoyed that Clinton and President Obama killed Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy, whom he called one of his best friends.

Malik Obama dedicated his 2012 biography of his late father to Khadafy and others who were ''making this world a better place.''

''I still feel that getting rid of Khadafy didn't make things any better in Libya,'' he said. ''My brother and the secretary of state disappointed me in that regard.''

But what bothers him even more is the Democratic Party's support of same-sex marriage.

'I like Donald Trump because he speaks from the heart. Make America Great Again is a great slogan. I would like to meet him.'

- Malik Obama''I feel like a Republican now because they don't stand for same-sex marriage, and that appeals to me,'' he said.

Obama believes strongly in the institution of marriage '-- so strongly that he has at least three current wives, although press reports have put the number as high as 12.

When asked by The Post how many wives and children he has, Obama demurred.

''That's personal,'' he said.

Obama made headlines in 2011 when he married his third wife, who was still in her teens.

Obama plans to trek back to the US to vote for Trump in November. Obama used to live in Maryland, where he worked for many years as an accountant and is registered to vote there, public records show.

The president's and Malik's father, Barack Obama Sr., left Kenya in 1959 when Malik was a year old and his mother was pregnant with his sister Auma. Obama Sr. enrolled at the University of Hawaii, where he met and married the president's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham. Malik Obama didn't meet his younger half-brother until 1985. President Obama, 54, has seven half-siblings from both sides of his family.

Malik Obama, the eldest, is the director of the Barack H. Obama Foundation, a controversial Virginia charity named for his father. He says he started the charity in 2008 because he wanted to make a difference in the family's hardscrabble village in Kenya.

But the charity came under fire when The Post revealed in 2011 that it was an off-the-books operation that hadn't registered with the state of Virginia or, as it claimed, had tax-exempt status from the IRS.

Shortly after The Post report, the IRS gave its stamp of approval, leading to speculation that the president had intervened.

Malik Obama seen announcing his intention to run for a Kenyan gubernatorial seat.Photo: Getty ImagesBut Malik Obama bristles at the suggestion, saying he dug deep to pay for the electrical transformers and college scholarships that the foundation provided in Kogelo. According to its latest tax filing, the nonprofit has just $24,000 in its coffers.

''My brother didn't help me at all,'' said Obama. ''He wanted me to shut it down when I set it up. He hasn't supported me at all.''

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Sun, 24 Jul 2016 23:45

Hillary to Schultz: You're Fired. You're Hired. Within about no time at all, Debbie Wasserman Schultz went from embarassed, to losing a speaking slot, to "resigning", to ... brand new top Clinton campaign official. Sorry again, Bernie fans. But she's not sorry.

Hillary just sent this statement out by email:

Like President Obama, Hillary offers no apology or even acknowledgment that it was wrong of the DNC to rig the election against Senator Sanders. Instead, she praises DWS and gives her a new job. ON HER CAMPAIGN.

If that isn't a middle finger to the Bernie Sanders voters, I don't know what is.

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Mon, 25 Jul 2016 16:29

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has said that Wikileaks have obtained information that, when released soon, will guarantee a Hillary Clinton indictment.

During a recent interview with ITV, Assange said his next release will ''provide enough evidence'' to see Hillary arrested.

Silenceisconsent.net reports:

WikiLeaks has already published 30,322 emails from Clinton's private email server, spanning from June 30, 2010 to August 12, 2014. While Assange didn't specify what exactly was in the emails, he did tell ITV that WikiLeaks had ''accumulated a lot of material about Hillary Clinton, which could proceed to an indictment.''

Assange hinted that the emails slated for publication contain additional information about the Clinton Foundation. He also reminded ITV's Robert Peston that previously released emails contained one damning piece of communication from Clinton, instructing a staffer to remove the classification settings from an official State Department communication and send it through a ''nonsecure'' channel. Assange then pointed out that the Obama administration has previously prosecuted numerous whistleblowers for violating the government's procedures for handling classified documents.

In regard to the ongoing FBI investigation, however, Assange expressed a lack of confidence in the Obama administration's Justice Department to indict the former Secretary of State.

''[Attorney General Loretta Lynch] is not going to indict Hillary Clinton. It's not possible that could happen. But the FBI could push for new concessions from the Clinton government in exchange for its lack of indictment.''

WikiLeaks has long been a thorn in the side of the former Secretary of State, who called on President Obama to prosecute the whistleblowing site after its 2010 leak of State Department cables. Julian Assange remains confined to the Ecuadorian Embassy in downtown London, as Ecuador has promised to not hand over the WikiLeaks founder to US authorities.

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Thu, 28 Jul 2016 14:09

Mike Pence, Indiana Governor and Donald Trump's running mate, said in 2000 that he was in favor of sending money allocated to care for people with HIV/AIDS to organizations that provide conversion therapy.

Pence advocated for that position on his campaign website from that time, as BuzzFeed's Andrew Kaczynski reports:

During his first successful run for Congress in 2000, now-Indiana Gov. Mike Pence wrote on his website in a section on LGBT issues that money from a program to help those with HIV/AIDS should go to organizations ''which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.''

That section on LGBT issues was called, ''Strengthening the American Family.'' It read:

Congress should oppose any effort to put gay and lesbian relationships on an equal legal status with heterosexual marriage. Congress should oppose any effort to recognize homosexual's as a ''discreet and insular minority'' entitled to the protection of anti-discrimination laws similar to those extended to women and ethnic minorities. Congress should support the reauthorization of the Ryan White Care Act only after completion of an audit to ensure that federal dollars were no longer being given to organizations that celebrate and encourage the types of behaviors that facilitate the spreading of the HIV virus. Resources should be directed toward those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior. [emphasis added]Though the section does not explicitly mention conversion therapy by name, the context along with the focus on changing one's sexual behavior both strongly indicate that conversion therapy is what was being indicated.

For reference, here's what the Ryan White Care Act does according to the Department of Health and Human Services:

The Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program (RWHAP) provides a comprehensive system of care that includes primary medical care and essential support services for people living with HIV who are uninsured or underinsured. The Program works with cities, states and local community-based organizations to provide HIV care and treatment services to more than 512,000 each year, reaching approximately 52% of all those diagnosed with HIV in the United States.

In essence, Mike Pence was in favor of taking money away from organizations that achieve the above goals if they 'celebrate and encourage' homosexual sex and sending money to groups that endorse the belief that you can pray away the gay.

Watch a video on the Ryan White Care Act, which turned 25 last year, below.

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Wed, 27 Jul 2016 16:24

Koskinen's July 22 reply came only a week after the House Republicans contacted the tax agency. It arrived to their offices Monday, the first opening day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

''We have forwarded the information you have submitted to our Exempt Organizations Program in Dallas,'' Koskinen told the Republicans.

The Exempt Organization Program is the division of the IRS that regulates the operations of public foundations and charities. It's the same division that was led by former IRS official Lois Lerner when hundreds of conservative, evangelical and tea party non-profit applicants were illegally targeted and harassed by tax officials.

Blackburn told TheDCNF she believes the IRS has a double standard because, ''they would go after conservative groups and religious groups and organizations, but they wouldn't be looking at the Clinton Foundation for years. It was as if they choose who they are going to audit and question. It's not right.''

Blackburn said she and her colleagues will ''continue to push'' for answers on the Clinton Foundation's governing policies, including its insular board of directors. She said they also will examine conflicts of interest and ''follow the money trail.''

''In my opinion, there's a lack of good governance, there is the appearance of conflicts of interest, and there are continued questions about the financial dealings,'' she told TheDCNF.

House Republicans singled out Laureate Education and Uranium One as two companies that seemed to have paid lavish sums to the Clintons and later received official government benefits.

Laureate hired former President Bill Clinton as ''honorary chancellor,'' paying him $16.5 million over five years. The Baltimore-based company, which operates for-profit universities in 28 countries, also donated between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation, according to the foundation's web site.

While Bill was collecting a paycheck from the company and his wife was secretary of state, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), an arm of the World Bank, invested $150 million in Laureate. It was the largest-ever single IFC investment to an educational company. The United States government is the largest contributor to the IFC. During that same period, the Department of State's U.S. Agency for International Development awarded $55 million to the International Youth Foundation. Laureate CEO Douglas Becker is on the foundation's board of directors. International Youth Foundation, the Clinton Foundation and Laureate jointly participated in foundation programs.

A Laureate spokesman denied the quid pro quo charges: ''Allegations of any quid pro quo between Laureate, the International Youth Foundation and the Clintons are completely false,'' she told TheDCNF, adding, ''the IFC's decision to invest in Laureate had no connection to and was not influenced in any way whatsoever by Hillary Clinton.''

The IFC also awarded $150 million to another company owned by Frank Giustra, a close friend of Bill Clinton. Giustra donated $100 million to create the ''Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership'' within the Clinton Foundation. The funds went to Pacific Infrastructure, a company in which Giustra had a significant financial stake. The company was to build a port and oil pipeline in Colombia that was strenuously opposed by environmental and human rights groups because the pipeline sliced through five indigenous villages and forcibly displaced the tribes.

Giustra also was an owner in Uranium One, a uranium mining company with operations in Kazakhstan and in the western United States. Giustra wanted to sell a share of the uranium business to Russia's atomic energy agency, which required U.S. approval, including that of Secretary Clinton. The Russian investment was approved.

Blackburn added that it appeared the Clinton Foundation '-- which was tax-exempt only to construct and manage Clinton's presidential library '-- never got IRS approval to become a tax-exempt global organization with operations in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Pacific and the Caribbean.

''In the Clinton Foundation we have a charity that has never filed the appropriate paperwork,'' Blackburn charged.

Charles Ortel, a Wall Street analyst who has been investigating the Clinton Foundation, told TheDCNF that the expansion of the foundation into a global giant was not legally approved by the IRS.

''It's crystal clear in a review of their application that their purposes were narrowly limited, as they should have been, to a presidential archive in Little Rock, Arkansas,'' he said to TheDCNF. ''End of discussion.''

Blackburn also questions the makeup of the Clinton Foundation's board of directors, which IRS rules require include independent, arm's-length board members. The Clinton Foundation board mainly consists of close friends, business colleagues and big donors to the Clintons, as reported by TheDCNF.

''All charities need to guard against incestuous relationships which limit their ability to be objective,'' the congresswoman said. ''In the Clinton Foundation, we see a lack of diversity within their board.''

Uranium One did not respond to TheDCNF's request for comment. The Clinton Foundation also did not respond to TheDCNF's request for comment.

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Tags: Bill Clinton, Clinton Foundation, Federal Trade Commission, Frank Giustra, Hillary Clinton, Internal Revenue Service, International Finance Corporation, John Koskinen, Laureate Education, U.S. Agency for International Development, Uranium One, World Bank

Koskinen's July 22 reply came only a week after the House Republicans contacted the tax agency. It arrived to their offices Monday, the first opening day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

''We have forwarded the information you have submitted to our Exempt Organizations Program in Dallas,'' Koskinen told the Republicans.

The Exempt Organization Program is the division of the IRS that regulates the operations of public foundations and charities. It's the same division that was led by former IRS official Lois Lerner when hundreds of conservative, evangelical and tea party non-profit applicants were illegally targeted and harassed by tax officials.

Blackburn told TheDCNF she believes the IRS has a double standard because, ''they would go after conservative groups and religious groups and organizations, but they wouldn't be looking at the Clinton Foundation for years. It was as if they choose who they are going to audit and question. It's not right.''

Blackburn said she and her colleagues will ''continue to push'' for answers on the Clinton Foundation's governing policies, including its insular board of directors. She said they also will examine conflicts of interest and ''follow the money trail.''

''In my opinion, there's a lack of good governance, there is the appearance of conflicts of interest, and there are continued questions about the financial dealings,'' she told TheDCNF.

House Republicans singled out Laureate Education and Uranium One as two companies that seemed to have paid lavish sums to the Clintons and later received official government benefits.

Laureate hired former President Bill Clinton as ''honorary chancellor,'' paying him $16.5 million over five years. The Baltimore-based company, which operates for-profit universities in 28 countries, also donated between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation, according to the foundation's web site.

While Bill was collecting a paycheck from the company and his wife was secretary of state, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), an arm of the World Bank, invested $150 million in Laureate. It was the largest-ever single IFC investment to an educational company. The United States government is the largest contributor to the IFC. During that same period, the Department of State's U.S. Agency for International Development awarded $55 million to the International Youth Foundation. Laureate CEO Douglas Becker is on the foundation's board of directors. International Youth Foundation, the Clinton Foundation and Laureate jointly participated in foundation programs.

A Laureate spokesman denied the quid pro quo charges: ''Allegations of any quid pro quo between Laureate, the International Youth Foundation and the Clintons are completely false,'' she told TheDCNF, adding, ''the IFC's decision to invest in Laureate had no connection to and was not influenced in any way whatsoever by Hillary Clinton.''

The IFC also awarded $150 million to another company owned by Frank Giustra, a close friend of Bill Clinton. Giustra donated $100 million to create the ''Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership'' within the Clinton Foundation. The funds went to Pacific Infrastructure, a company in which Giustra had a significant financial stake. The company was to build a port and oil pipeline in Colombia that was strenuously opposed by environmental and human rights groups because the pipeline sliced through five indigenous villages and forcibly displaced the tribes.

Giustra also was an owner in Uranium One, a uranium mining company with operations in Kazakhstan and in the western United States. Giustra wanted to sell a share of the uranium business to Russia's atomic energy agency, which required U.S. approval, including that of Secretary Clinton. The Russian investment was approved.

Blackburn added that it appeared the Clinton Foundation '-- which was tax-exempt only to construct and manage Clinton's presidential library '-- never got IRS approval to become a tax-exempt global organization with operations in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Pacific and the Caribbean.

''In the Clinton Foundation we have a charity that has never filed the appropriate paperwork,'' Blackburn charged.

Charles Ortel, a Wall Street analyst who has been investigating the Clinton Foundation, told TheDCNF that the expansion of the foundation into a global giant was not legally approved by the IRS.

''It's crystal clear in a review of their application that their purposes were narrowly limited, as they should have been, to a presidential archive in Little Rock, Arkansas,'' he said to TheDCNF. ''End of discussion.''

Blackburn also questions the makeup of the Clinton Foundation's board of directors, which IRS rules require include independent, arm's-length board members. The Clinton Foundation board mainly consists of close friends, business colleagues and big donors to the Clintons, as reported by TheDCNF.

''All charities need to guard against incestuous relationships which limit their ability to be objective,'' the congresswoman said. ''In the Clinton Foundation, we see a lack of diversity within their board.''

Uranium One did not respond to TheDCNF's request for comment. The Clinton Foundation also did not respond to TheDCNF's request for comment.

Follow Richard at Twitter

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].

Tags:

Bill Clinton,

Clinton Foundation,

Federal Trade Commission,

Frank Giustra,

Hillary Clinton,

Internal Revenue Service,

International Finance Corporation,

John Koskinen,

Laureate Education,

U.S. Agency for International Development,

Uranium One,

World Bank

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Wed, 27 Jul 2016 16:25

Clinton Foundation July 15 LetterHTTP/1.1 200 OK Server: nginx Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 Status: 200 OK X-UA-Compatible: IE=Edge,chrome=1 X-Request-Id: 5d88131d5671dfc66f15cfe164bf4207 X-Runtime: 0.453032 Via: 1.1 squid03:3128 (squid) Expires: Wed, 27 Jul 2016 16:25:54 GMT Cache-Control: no-cache X-Page-Type: docview X-Doc: 319409151 X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN Content-Encoding: gzip Transfer-Encoding: chunked Accept-Ranges: bytes Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2016 16:25:55 GMT Via: 1.1 varnish Age: 0 Connection: keep-alive X-Served-By: cache, cache-iad2136-IAD X-Cache: MISS from squid03, MISS X-Cache-Hits: 0 X-Timer: S1469636754.621918,VS0,VE644 Vary: Accept-Encoding, User-Agent

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Tue, 26 Jul 2016 16:10

NEW YORK '• Politico acknowledged Sunday that it was a ''mistake'' for one of its top reporters to send the Democratic National Committee an advance copy of an article while emphasizing there were no substantive changes made to the piece prior to publication.

A May 2 article by Politico's Ken Vogel and Isaac Arnsdorf '• ''Clinton fundraising leaves little for state parties'' '• has come under scrutiny since WikiLeaks published over 19,000 internal DNC emails on Friday.

In an April 29 email thread, DNC national press secretary MarkPaustenbach shared Vogel's detailed questions with others working to coordinate a response to what would be an unflattering story about fundraising efforts. Paustenbach also spoke to the Clinton campaign that day in preparing the DNC's pushback, according to the emails.

On April 30, PaustenbachtoldDNC Communications Director Luis Miranda that he'd received the story in advance. ''Vogel gave me his story ahead of time/before it goes to his editors as long as I didn't share it,'' he wrote. ''Let me know if you see anything that's missing and I'll push back.''

Sharing articles with sources in advance is generally frowned upon in newsrooms.

Journalists are expected to ask questions of those they write about prior to publication, but sharing entire stories in advance is generally discouraged in newsrooms.

On Sunday, Politico spokesman Brad Dayspring told The Huffington Post in an email that sharing stories with sources isn't standard practice.

''Politico's policy is to not share editorial content pre-publication except as approved by editors,'' Dayspring wrote. ''In this case the reporter was attempting to check some very technical language and figures involving the DNC's joint fundraising agreement with the Clinton campaign. Checking the relevant passages for accuracy was responsible and consistent with our standards; Sharing the full piece was a mistake and not consistent with our policies. There were no substantive changes to the piece and in fact the final story was blasted out by the both RNC and the Sanders campaign, and prompted Politifact to revise its rating on the issue in question.''

Vogel, Politico's chief investigative reporter and author of the 2014 book Big Money, is regarded as one of the top journalists on the politics and money beat. He's reported critically on fundraising across party lines and the article in question wasn't one the DNC or the Hillary Clinton campaign would have liked to see in print. Vogel and Arnsdorf reported that only 1 percent of $61 million raised by the Hillary Victory Fund '• a group comprised of Clinton's campaign, the DNC and 32 state party committees '• had gone to state parties.

Two days later, Politifactrevised its ratingon a claim from actor and Clinton supporter George Clooney that ''the overwhelming amount'' of money raised at a Clinton fundraiser would go to down-ballot Democrats. In light of Politico's reporting, the fact-checking organization changed its assessment from ''Mostly True'' to ''Half True.''

As Vogel andArnsdorf wrote at the time, allies of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) were concerned with the joint fundraising arrangement. ''They see it as a circumvention of campaign contribution limits by a national party apparatus intent on doing whatever it takes to help Clinton defeat Sanders during the party's primary, and then win the White House,'' they wrote.

The WikiLeaks trove, more broadly, has reinforced long-running perceptions among Sanders supporters that the DNC wasassisting the Clinton campaignduring the Democratic primary.DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz announced her resignation Sunday in response to the fallout from the leak.

Though the Politico story wasn't positive toward the DNC, the courtesy Vogel extended to the party has been seized upon as evidence of liberal media bias by some conservatives media figures, such as radio hosts Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin and Republican pollster Frank Luntz.

The Republican National Committee, too, has turned a spotlight on leaked emails involving Politico.

On Saturday, The Republican National Committee blasted a Business Insider story on Vogel's emails to its press mailing list and communications director Sean Spicer charged that the reporter allowed the Democrats ''to edit'' his stories in advance.

Disclosure: The reporter worked with Vogel at Politico from November 2007 to March 2010.

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Wed, 27 Jul 2016 00:29

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson attends the "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey" screening event at the Paley Center for Media on June 4, 2014, in New York City. He is among a batch of new members on Defense Secretary Ash Carter's Defense Innovation Advisory Board.(Photo: Cindy Ord)

WASHINGTON '-- Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, Amazon head Jeff Bezos and former Obama administration official Cass Sunstein are among the newest names to join Defense Secretary Ash Carter's new Defense Innovation Advisory Board.

Carter announced those names as part of a list of ten new members for the board, which he created in March to advise the Pentagon on technology innovation issues. The board is headed by Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Alphabet, the Google parent company.

The board, Carter said in his speech, is ''charged with keeping DoD imbued with a culture of innovation in people, organizations, operations, and technology, to support people who innovate, those creative figures in our department who are willing to try new things, fail fast, and iterate; and also to ensure that we're always doing everything we can to stay ahead of potential adversaries.''

DEFENSE NEWS

Carter Names Three to Innovation Board

The board now includes the following members:

Eric Schmidt, executive chairman, Alphabet Inc. (DIAB chair)Jeff Bezos, president, chairman and CEO, Amazon Inc.Adam Grant, professor, Wharton School of BusinessDanny Hillis, computer theorist and co-founder, Applied InventionsReid Hoffman, co-founder, LinkedIn; and partner, Greylock PartnersWalter Isaacson, president and CEO, Aspen InstituteEric Lander, president and founding director, Broad Institute of MIT and HarvardMarne Levine, chief operating officer, InstagramJ. Michael McQuade, senior vice president for science and technology, United TechnologiesWilliam McRaven, chancellor, University of Texas SystemMilo Medin, vice president, Access Services, Google CapitalRichard Murray, professor, California Institute of TechnologyJennifer Pahlka, founder, Code for AmericaCass Sunstein, professor, Harvard Law SchoolNeil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicistHoffman, Isaacson and McRaven had all previously been announced as members of the board.

But the biggest names are Tyson, arguably the face of popular science around the world today, and Bezos, the Amazon founder who also owns The Washington Post. Bezos is also the head of Blue Origin, a space launch company working with the United Launch Alliance to develop a new engine for military launch.

Although not as flashy a name as some of the others, the inclusion of McQuade is notable, as United Technologies is the only legacy defense contractor involved in the board.

The board will work over the summer before providing initial recommendations to Carter by October.

Email: amehta@defensenews.com

Twitter: @AaronMehta

Read or Share this story: http://defnews.ly/2a4PMJ0

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Tue, 26 Jul 2016 11:23

Yeni Safak, Turkish daily with close ties to President Erdogan accused former U.S ''NATO Commander of being 'behind the failed coup', the charge was denied by the commander later.

''It's absolutely ridiculous,'' Mr. Campbell told WSJ of the front-page article in Yeni Safak.

The organizer and financial distributor of the coup attempt turns out to be an ISAF ex-US commander, investigation reveals, according to the allegations on the pro-government Turkish newspaper.

A former U.S. commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), a NATO-led security mission in Afghanistan, was the organizer of the July 15 military coup attempt in Turkey, the story says.

General John F. Campbell was one of the top figures who organized and managed the soldiers behind the failed coup attempt in Turkey.

Campbell also managed more than $2 billion money transactions via UBA Bank in Nigeria by using CIA links to distribute among the pro-coup military personnel in Turkey.

The ongoing investigation unveiled that Campbell had paid at least two secret visits to Turkey since May, until the day of the coup attempt.

The coup plot that was foiled by the comprehensive effort of Turkish Nation, including its citizens, politicians, media and police forces, was organized by the Fethullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) led-by so-called cleric Fethullah G¼len who has been living in self-exile in America for several years.

American Intelligence, Military and other institutions are accused of supporting the FETO leader G¼len and his gangs for the military coup.

Military sources said Campbell, who was the commander of ISAF between August 26, 2014 and May 1, 2016, had made some top secret meetings in Erzurum military base and Adana Ä°nicrlik Airbase.

Read more: Queens Of The Stone Age planning to return to studio this yearÄ°ncirlik Airbase has been used by the U.S. Military for conducting the anti-Daesh campaign in Syria. Military sources said that Campbell was the man, who directed the process of trending / blacklisting the military officers in the base.

If the coup attempt was successful, Campbell would visit Turkey in a short time, according to the sources.

Transition of $2 billion from Nigeria to Turkey

The Nigeria branch of the United Bank of Africa (UBA) was the main base for the last six-months of money transactions for the coup plotters. Millions of dollars of money has been transferred from Nigeria to Turkey by a group of CIA personnel.

The money, which has been distributed to an 80-person special team of the CIA, was used to convince pro-coup generals. More than 2 billion dollars were distributed during the process leading to the coup.

After taking money from their bank accounts, the CIA team hand delivered it to the terrorists under the military dresses.

Categorizing the military officers

The sources said that some familiar figures in the Eastern and Southeastern part of the country had taken active roles during the process, while the members of the G¼lenist gang have been used in central and eastern region.

All officers who command a group of soldiers in a patrol station, unit, company, regiment, brigade, division, corps, or army were kept in close surveillance.

In 2015, the pro-G¼lenist officers in the Ä°ncirlik base established an investigation desk. They drew the map of all soldiers under their command. They investigated the soldiers' trends, their personalities and family background.

Read more: The British Museum announces most successful year everAll soldiers were categorized in three groups: opponents, neutrals, and supporters. A commander from the smallest patrol station to all military units had been blacklisted under the process.

Soldiers who were marked as opponents to the junta, was debarred from the ''financial support.''

The military personnel who were in a neutral position received a difference in the amount of money, according to the importance of their position and ranks.

The money transactions were started in March 2015 through the commissioned ''courier''. The supports who also were categorized as ''those who will move with us,'' were provided a huge amount of money.

All soldiers and officers in this category were considered as the devoted members of the FETO terror group. A bag with a large amount of money was found in the room of Brigadier General Mehmet Dişli, one of the top military officials detained for leading the coup attempt.

Retired U.S. General Dismisses Allegations

John Campbell, a retired four-star general who oversaw the U.S.-led military coalition in Afghanistan until May, told The Wall Street Journal that the story ''doesn't even warrant a response.''

''It's absolutely ridiculous,'' Mr. Campbell said.

The U.S. government has categorically dismissed the allegations, which have helped stoke anti-American sentiment in Turkey.

''Any reports that we had any previous knowledge of a coup attempt, that there was any U.S. involvement in it, that we were anything other than entirely supportive of Turkish democracy are completely false, unequivocally false,'' President Barack Obama said last week.

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Mon, 25 Jul 2016 21:08

Update: moments ago US Central Command denied the report that a US fighter jet was shot down above Iraq.

Of course, it would be relatively easy for the Islamic State to confirm or deny the report by showing some evidence of the crashed jet.

* * *

According to Almasdar News, a US jet was downed by Islamic State militants in the vicinity of Ain Al-Assad base west of Anbar. The reports remain unconfirmed as no video footage or pictures have been published. Though, the event has been reported by ISIS's media wing, Amaq.

According to unconfirmed reports, the crew of the plane has been killed.

It is unclear as of this moment, if the jet was taken down with US weapons. The US military has not yet commented on the claims by the terror group.

Developing story

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Archived Version

Tue, 26 Jul 2016 12:36

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An elderly priest has been killed in a hostage situation in a church south of Rouen, Normandy, northern France this morning by alleged Islamist attackers. His killers, who are understood to have been shot dead by French police.UPDATE 1320 '-- Islamic State claims responsibility, French President Fran§ois Hollande confirms terrorist attack Media sources associated with the Islamic State have claimed the Rouen terror attack as their own, remarking that two of their own ''soldiers'' were responsible. Shortly beforehand the French President Fran§ois Hollande told press that it was an act of terrorism and that both attackers had proclaimed their allegiance to the Islamic State. He called it a ''disgusting attack''.

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UPDATE 1250 '-- UKIP condemns attacks, ''Militant Islam is at war with the people of Europe''Party defence spokesman Mike Hookem MEP has said in a statement to press that leaders, including Britain's new Prime Minister Theresa May need to up their game to defeat radical Islam. The former Royal Marine said: ''This latest appalling murder in France shows that militant Islam is at war with the people of Europe and with peaceful religions.

''Every day now we have a new story of bloodshed and European leaders need to face facts rather than spend their time trying to convince people this isn't a problem. Juncker, Merkel and other EU leaders who oversaw the mass migration without any security checks have blood on their hands.

''May needs to up her game.

''Normandy, the home of the D-Day landings where thousands lost their lives to free Europe from fascist tyranny has today witnessed a different form of fascism.

''But we defeated the Nazis so we can defeat these murderers if our leaders admit to what we are facing.''

UPDATE 1240 BST '-- Pope Francis Condemns 'Barbarous Murder' of Priest in Normandy In the written statement sent to Breitbart News, papal spokesman Father Federico Lombardi, said that the Holy See was ''shocked'' by this latest news, which is added to a whole series of violent attacks in recent days, ''creating immense sorrow and worry.''

Lombardi said that the Pope ''shares in the sorrow and horror over this absurd violence,'' offering his ''most radical condemnation'' of the act as well as his prayers for the victims.

Read more at Breitbart London

UPDATE 1230 BST '-- Image of slain priestA picture of the elderly Father Jacques Hamel has emerged on Facebook. Eulalie Garcia, who works near the church, told the BritishExpress: ''He was someone who was treasured by the community. He was very discreet and didn't like to draw attention to himself.''

UPDATE 1220 BST '-- Archbishop of Rouen describes alleged Islamist killers as ''victims'' in statementAway from his diocese at the World Youth Day celebrations in Krakow, Poland the archbishop of Rouen has released a statement on the death of one of his priests this morning, which strangely seems to identify both the slain clergyman and his killers as ''victims''.

He said: ''I have learnt with sadness of the killing this morning at the Church of Saint-Etienne du Rouvray. The three victims: the priest, Father Jacques Hamel, 84, and the perpetrators of the assassination.

''Three other people were injured, one very seriously. I cry out to God with all men of good will. I would invite non-believers to join in the cry!

UPDATE 1145 BST '-- Front National Responds to SlaughterLeaders of the surging populist-right party the Front National have responded to this morning's attack. Party leader Marine Le Pen tweeted this morning, remarking that the low-tech, simple nature of the attack will strike fear into the hearts of the French. She said: ''The terror continues in Rouvray. The modus operandi makes it clear that we have to fear new attacks by Islamist terrorists''.

Marine's neice Marion Le Pen, meanwhile was also tweeting. She wrote: ''They kill our children, murdering our policemen and slaughtering our priests. Wake up!''.

UPDATE 1130 BST '-- Murder in region famous for liberation of Europe from Nazism The church south of Rouen is just 30 miles East of the landing beaches where American, British, Canadian, and other Allied troops landed in 1944. The city was heavily bombed in the build-up to the liberation and was largely rebuilt after the war.

The city of Rouen sits on the River Seine in the north of France and is the capital of the region of Normandy. French heroine and ''martyr'' Joan of Arc was put on trial in the city in the Middle Ages, which retains a strong Christian ethos.

UPDATE 1110 BST '-- Priest namedThe martyred priest who according to reports was either beheaded or had his throat cut has been named locally as 86 year old Father Jacques Hamel. He was ordained in 1958.

UPDATE 1058 BST '-- Second victim ''fighting for life''While one hostage has been reported slain by the attackers, another hostage is said to be ''fighting for life''. It is not clear if they were too stabbed, or if they were caught in crossfire while French police shot dead the two attackers.

UPDATE 1050 BST '-- Police speak of 'Islamists' Fast-moving reports from Normandy this morning suggests the attackers shouted Islamist slogans including ''Daesh'' '-- Arabic for 'Islamic State' and ''Jihad'' as they entered the church. Other clues to the potential motive for the brutal attack that has seen a priest murdered '-- possibly beheaded according to reports '-- include reports of local police speaking of ''Islamists'' and the fact the French anti-terror prosecutor has been given the case to investigate.

The Story so far:

A hostage situation developed during the daily mass this morning when two attackers entered a church in Rouen, France and took a number of hostages. Between four and six hostages were thought to have been taken, however reports in French media including Le Figaro now suggest the priest leading the mass ''had his throat cut'' by the attackers.

France's Le Point magazine reports ''corroborating sources'' on the ground who witnessed the attackers shouting ''Daesh'' '-- Arabic for 'Islamic State' '-- upon entering the church

Given that one hostage, thought to be the parish priest, was killed before police were able to end the situation a force spokesman has said there will be a ''comprehensive review''.

Police sources report the two hostage takers were ''neutralised'' by police and are understood to have been shot dead.

France3 television Normandy reports police and special forces vehicles have arrived on-site and ''a dozen shots'' have been fired. A priest and a number of worshippers are understood to be among the hostages.

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Wed, 27 Jul 2016 15:06

GETTY

A pensioner was allegedly raped by an Eritrean refugeeThe man, originally from Eritrea, was charged with rape and placed into custody while police investigate the case.

A witness heard the woman crying out for help and called the police.

Related articlesThe victim, who lives in a nursing home, had to receive medical treatment following the attack and was released from hospital on Tuesday.

The abused pensioner was visiting the cemetery to visit her sister's grave in the town of Iddenbueren when the reported attack happened.

The alleged rapist arrived in Germany in 2013 and was living just 15 minutes away from the scene of the attack in the nearby refugee shelter in Horstel.

If found guilty, he could face a total of 15 years behind bars.

The alleged attack follows a spate of sexual offences committed by migrants across Europe.

New Years Eve celebrations in Cologne were marred when as many as 1,000 women were sexually assaulted and robbed by men of North African and Arabic origin.

In February, the chief of police for Colognge admitted most of the attackers may never be caught.

Mr Juergen Mathies said: "The CCTV footage is not good enough to clearly identify sexual assaults. We can see some thefts but that's all.

"We are relying on witness accounts and victims identifying their attackers."

Related articlesThe man, originally from Eritrea, was charged with rape and placed into custody while police investigate the case.

A witness heard the woman crying out for help and called the police.

Related articlesThe victim, who lives in a nursing home, had to receive medical treatment following the attack and was released from hospital on Tuesday.

The abused pensioner was visiting the cemetery to visit her sister's grave in the town of Iddenbueren when the reported attack happened.

The alleged rapist arrived in Germany in 2013 and was living just 15 minutes away from the scene of the attack in the nearby refugee shelter in Horstel.

GETTY

Juergen Mathies admitted the police may never bring the Cologne attackers to justiceIf found guilty, he could face a total of 15 years behind bars.

The alleged attack follows a spate of sexual offences committed by migrants across Europe.

New Years Eve celebrations in Cologne were marred when as many as 1,000 women were sexually assaulted and robbed by men of North African and Arabic origin.

In February, the chief of police for Colognge admitted most of the attackers may never be caught.

Mr Juergen Mathies said: "The CCTV footage is not good enough to clearly identify sexual assaults. We can see some thefts but that's all.

"We are relying on witness accounts and victims identifying their attackers."

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Wed, 27 Jul 2016 16:23

A "detonation incident" has been confirmed by police near a reception centre for migrants in Zirndorf, Germany.

Witnesses reported an explosion but police said in a statement that they had arrived at the scene to find a burning suitcase, at around 1.15pm UK time.

There was no indication that explosives were detonated and the fire may have been caused by a spray can inside the suitcase, they said.

On their official Twitter account, they added: "no explosion, no injuries".

The BR24 news website reported witnesses as saying several men ran away from the scene after the blast.

Police are now searching for the owners of the suitcase and issued descriptions of a man aged around 30 and a woman of about 25 who were believed to have been seen with the suitcase.

Zirndorf is near Nuremburg

Pictures of the scene outside the migrant centre in Bavaria appeared to show debris in an alleyway.

The incident came just days after a Syrian with suspected links to Islamic State blew himself up near a bar in Ansbach, also in Bavaria.

Armed police have arrived at the centre for migrants

Germany had already seen nine people killed in a shopping centre shooting spree in Munich on Friday and four passengers on a train and a passer-by wounded in an axe attack in Wuerzburg on July 18.

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Wed, 27 Jul 2016 19:03

''The fear is large that Salafist sleeper cells, jihadis, and ISIS terrorists in Germany get support from foreign intelligence services that are not friendly to us,'' Tipi said. ''We can assume that the secret arsenals for a major attack are used not only in Germany but the whole of Europe. It would be very negligent if we do not recognize this danger and don't uncover these arsenals.''

French authorities found 334 war grade weapons and made 223 arrests during raids in the aftermath of the Nov. 13 terrorist attack in Paris. About 160 suspicious mosques have or will be closed for radical activities in the country.

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Thu, 28 Jul 2016 12:50

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) '-- The Danish People's Party, an anti-immigration and nationalist group that supports the center-right government, says Denmark should halt immigration from Muslim countries, citing the threat of violence from Islamic extremists.

In an interview published Thursday, deputy party leader Soeren Espersen told the Berlingske newspaper that Muslim migrants should be barred from entering Denmark for four to six years because "we need a respite after recent terrorist attacks in Europe."

Martin Henriksen, another senior party member, confirmed to Denmark's TV2 that it was the group's stance.

Critics including the opposition Social Democrats lashed out at the proposal, saying it wrongly conflates mainstream Muslims with Islamic extremists and compared it to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's plan to ban Muslims from entering the U.S.

Government officials didn't immediately comment on the proposal.

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Thu, 28 Jul 2016 13:40

Chancellor Angela Merkel has declared Germany will do not change its migration policies but will do 'everything humanly possible' to ensure security after refugees who carried out attacks 'mocked the country that took them in'.

However, Merkel vowed Germany will 'stick to our principles' and give shelter to those who deserve it as she claimed that terrorists wanted to reduce Germany's readiness to take in refugees.

Merkel spoke on Thursday after a spate of recent attacks in the south of the country.

'The terrorists want to make us lose sight of what is important to us, break down our cohesion and sense of community as well as inhibiting our way of life, our openness and our willingness take in people who are in need,' she told a news conference for which she interrupted her vacation.

'They see hatred and fear between cultures and they see hatred and fear between religions. We stand decisively against that,' she added.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel vowed not to change her migration policies at a conference in Berlin today

Merkel today returned early from her summer holiday to address the terror crisis in germany and Europe

Merkel said the fact that two men who came to Germany as refugees carried out attacks claimed by the Islamic State group 'mocks the country that took them in.'

She pledged to do everything to clear up the 'barbaric acts,' find out who was behind them and bring them to justice. She says Germany owes that not just to victims and relatives and other Germans, but also to other refugees.

Merkel also said that Germany will do 'everything humanly possible' to ensure security, though there will have to be a 'thorough analysis' before specific new measures are drawn up.

Germany is on edge after four attacks in the space of week, two of which were claimed by IS.

On Thursday, Bavaria's interior minister says the Munich shooter who went on a rampage that killed nine appeared to have seen it as an 'especially positive fate' that his birthday was on the same day as Adolf Hitler's, April 20.

Joachim Herrmann also told reporters that the 18-year-old German-Iranian assailant nourished sympathies for the Norwegian mass shooter Anders Behring Breivik who killed 77 people five years before the attack in Munich on the same date, July 22.

Herrmann said that, despite this, there was no indication that the Munich attacker was involved in right-wing networks.

The assailant killed nine people and wounded 36 in a shopping mall before killing himself.

Herrmann also spoke about the Syrian asylum-seeker who blew himself up outside a bar in southern Germany. He said he was in an online chat shortly before the explosion with a person in the Middle East.

Flowers and tributes are left at the Olympia Shopping Centre in Munich where Ali David Sonboly killed nine people in a shooting rampage on Friday

Ali David Sonboly reportedly saw it as an 'especially positive fate' that his birthday was on the same day as Adolf Hitler's, April 20

He didn't specify which country the person was in and added that investigators don't know his or her identity, news agency dpa reported.

Attacker Mohammed Daleel died and 15 people were wounded when his bomb exploded outside a wine bar Sunday night after he was denied entry to a nearby open-air concert because he didn't have a ticket. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility.

Herrmann said that whoever the assailant was chatting to knew he had explosives. He said that when Daleel said there were security staff near the festival, the unknown person said he should find a way in.

Bavarian officials have presented an anti-terror plan following four attacks in Germany in a week, two of which were claimed by the Islamic State extremist group.

Herrmann said that his state - where three of the four attacks took place - would hire 2,000 additional police officers until 2020, improve police equipment and create new offices to fight Muslim extremism and cybercrime.

He also called for tougher background checks on asylum-seekers and new strategies to deport criminal asylum-seekers more easily. Three of the four attacks were committed by asylum-seekers.

Police yesterday raided a mosque believed to be a 'hot spot' for Islamic extremists in the city of Hildesheim

The raid came as part of a crackdown on the radical German-speaking Muslim group DIK, which was branded a 'hot spot of radical Muslims'

Bavarian Justice Minister Winfried Bausback said at a news conference with Herrmann: 'The threat of Salafist terrorism has arrived in Europe, in Germany, but also in Bavaria.'

Meanwhile, Germany's commissioner for immigration, refugees and integration is calling on mosques across the country to be more pro-active when it comes to preventing extremism among Muslim youths.

Aydan Ozoguz said in an interview Thursday with the daily Heilbronner Stimme: 'We need to hold mosques more responsible when it comes to prevention among teenagers.'

Ozoguz' call against Muslim extremism came after four violent attacks that shook the country recently.

Two of them were the first in Germany claimed by the extremist Islamic State group. The attackers were asylum-seekers who hadn't grown up in Germany.

On Wednesday night, police raided a mosque believed to be a 'hot spot' for Islamic extremists in the city of Hildesheim. The raid didn't appear to be connected to the recent attacks.

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Thu, 28 Jul 2016 00:47

In a move to prove a point about security, a group of hackers have released blueprints to 3D print the eighth and last TSA master key this week at a conference in New York.

If you are unfamiliar, TSA approved locks allow luggage security personnel to unlock and inspect your bags without damaging locks, using master keys. There are two companies that design these locks, Travel Sentry, which outsources seven lock designs to other manufacturers, and Safe Skies which produces their own lock.

In 2014, the Washington Post inadvertently published an article which included a high resolution photo of all seven Travel Sentry TSA master keys. The photo has since been removed from the article, but not before someone was able to digitally recreate the keys, and then share the files. Less than a year later, 3D printed copies emerged, making all Travel Sentry locks essentially useless against theft. A hacker named Xylit0l used the high-quality public images and more data to make 3D printable copies of the Travel Sentry master keys. DarkSim905, Johnny Xmas and another hacker later added to the project with some fixes.

The Safe Skies key was more difficult to reproduce, with zero images of it being publicly available. However, because they only make one master key, all their locks contained the data needed.

''This was done by legally procuring actual locks, comparing the inner workings, and finding the common denominator. It's a great metaphor for how weak encryption mechanisms are broken '' gather enough data, find the pattern, then just 'math' out a universal key (or set of keys),'' Johnny Xmas explained at the Eleventh HOPE conference in New York. ''What we're doing here is literally cracking physical encryption, and I fear that metaphor isn't going to be properly delivered to the public.''

The talk was given by DarkSim905, a lock enthusiast who heads the New Jersey chapter of TOOOL (The Open Organization of Lockpickers); Nite 0wl, a member of TOOOL from New York City; and Johnny Xmas, of RedLegg International's TradeCraft Labs.

Image: Johnny Xmas

Purchasing as many Safe Skies locks and keys for examination as possible, the possible key blanks were identified and existing keys were modified to match them. ''Once I had blank keys that would fit the locks I needed to figure out what the cuts should be,'' Nite 0wl added.

The hackers have said that the purpose of the project was not to scare people with the idea that anyone can use a 3D printed key to break into their luggage '' and that wasn't their goal in releasing the files for the Travel Sentry keys, either. The point, which they say was completely missed in 2015, was to highlight the dangers of government key escrow, a data security measure in which a third party is trusted with a cryptographic key that they may only use with the authorization of the entrusting agency.

Now that anyone with a 3D printed key could have access to your luggage, is it any different to an all powerful agency we blindly hand our bags to on a daily basis? You can watch the full video of the panel below.

Feature and other images courtesy Johnny Xmas.

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Sun, 24 Jul 2016 21:07

Air conditioner, complete with piping, insulated with foamed rubber pipe covering / Wikimedia Commons

BY:Alyssa CanobbioJuly 22, 2016 4:10 pm

Secretary of State John Kerry said in Vienna on Friday that air conditioners and refrigerators are as big of a threat to life as the threat of terrorism posed by groups like the Islamic State.

The Washington Examinerreported that Kerry was in Vienna to amend the 1987 Montreal Protocol that would phase out hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, from basic household and commercial appliances like air conditioners, refrigerators, and inhalers.

''As we were working together on the challenge of [ISIS] and terrorism,'' Kerry said. ''It's hard for some people to grasp it, but what we''you''are doing here right now is of equal importance because it has the ability to literally save life on the planet itself.''

Kerry said that most of the substances banned in the Montreal Protocol have increased the use of HFCs and claimed that the coolant was thousands of times more potent than CO2. He added that the increase of HFCs has lead to the trend of global climate change.

''The use of hydrofluorocarbons is unfortunately growing,'' Kerry said. ''Already, the HFCs use in refrigerators, air conditioners, and other items are emitting an entire gigaton of carbon dioxide-equivalent pollution into the atmosphere annually. Now, if that sounds like a lot, my friends, it's because it is. It's the equivalent to emissions from nearly 300 coal-fired power plants every single year.''

Members of the Montreal Protocol have met their obligations and have aided in the shrinking of the hole in the ozone, as well as created jobs and improved the quality of life, Kerry said.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy was also present at the negotiations and is serving as the lead negotiator for the United States. McCarthy has said that her goal is to enact the HFC agreement by the end of the year.

New EPA rules along with the global deal would band HFCs in the United States and push for alternative chemicals for use in appliances. The negotiations are part of President Obama's climate agenda to combat global climate change.

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Thu, 28 Jul 2016 02:30

While there is no actual threshold which must be reached in order to elicit a White House response '-- an official White House petition made on petitions.whitehouse.gov needs to obtain 100,000 signatures in 30 days before the White House will respond . The Change.org site boasts victories from its previous petitions.

Successful petitions from Change.org include granting burial rights in Arlington National Cemetery for female World War II pilots, naming a Staten Island ferry after a fallen Afghanistan war veteran, and even getting olympic gold medal diver Greg Louganis on the Wheaties Box.

ISIS has killed some 2,043 people in 29 countries since 2014, according to CNN. The Daily Caller News Foundation was unable to obtain the latest data on how many deaths have occurred globally from air conditioning to compare the two.

If successful, the petition will ultimately make its way to President Obama.

Follow Craig Boudreau on Twitter.

Send tips to craig@ dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].

While there is no actual threshold which must be reached in order to elicit a White House response '-- an official White House petition made on petitions.whitehouse.gov needs to obtain 100,000 signatures in 30 days before the White House will respond . The Change.org site boasts victories from its previous petitions.

Successful petitions from Change.org include granting burial rights in Arlington National Cemetery for female World War II pilots, naming a Staten Island ferry after a fallen Afghanistan war veteran, and even getting olympic gold medal diver Greg Louganis on the Wheaties Box.

ISIS has killed some 2,043 people in 29 countries since 2014, according to CNN. The Daily Caller News Foundation was unable to obtain the latest data on how many deaths have occurred globally from air conditioning to compare the two.

If successful, the petition will ultimately make its way to President Obama.

Follow Craig Boudreau on Twitter.

Send tips to craig@ dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].

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Mon, 25 Jul 2016 15:40

FILE - In this Thursday, Oct. 8, 2015 file photo, International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde listens to a journalist during a press conference in Lima, Peru. France's top court ruled on Friday July 22, 2016, that International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde must stand trial in France over a 2008 arbitration ruling handing 400 million euros to a politically-connected business magnate. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd, File)syndication.ap.org

PARIS (AP) '-- France's top court has ruled that International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde must stand trial in France over a 2008 arbitration ruling that handed 400 million euros to a politically-connected business magnate.

Lagarde, who was French finance minister at the time of the deal in favor of tycoon Bernard Tapie, is accused of negligence in the case. She has denied wrongdoing.

A special court ruled in December that Lagarde should stand trial, but she appealed. France's Court of Cassation on Friday rejected the appeal.

Lagarde lawyer Patrick Maisonneuve expressed disappointment at the decision, but told The Associated Press that he expects the trial to show that the IMF chief did nothing wrong.

The unusually generous 2008 arbitration deal, paid from public funds, prompted years of legal disputes that remain unresolved.

The investigation began in 2011, soon before Lagarde was named to head the IMF in the wake of sexual assault allegations against her predecessor, French economist Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

IMF spokesman Gerry Rice said Friday that the Executive Board "continues to express its confidence in the Managing Director's ability to effectively carry out her duties."

The decision last year to send her to trial had come as a surprise because a prosecutor had earlier argued that the case against her should be dropped.

"Negligence" by a person invested with public authority carries a risk of up to a year in prison and a 15,000 euro ($16,500) fine.

She will be tried at the Court of Justice of the Republic, a special body that tries government ministers for alleged wrongdoing while in office. A date has not been set for the trial.

The case is part of a larger legal saga centering on Tapie, a flamboyant magnate and TV star who had sued French bank Credit Lyonnais for its handling of the sale of his majority stake in sportswear company Adidas in the mid-1990s. With Lagarde's approval, a private arbitration panel ruled that he should get 400 million euros in compensation, including interest.

The deal was seen by critics as a sign of a too-close relationship between magnates and the French political elite. Tapie was close to then-President Nicolas Sarkozy, Lagarde's boss.

In a separate part of the case, Tapie has been ordered to pay back the entire 400 million euros. An appeals decision is pending. He could also face a criminal trial on fraud charges, which would be separate from the Lagarde trial.

___

Philippe Sotto contributed to this report.

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Mon, 25 Jul 2016 22:42

Out of nowhere, a huge fad sweeps the country. It dominates social media and leads to a blizzard of think pieces, which are followed almost immediately by a backlash, as critics warn of the fad's baleful consequences. Eventually, people get bored and move on to something new. That could well be the story of Pok(C)mon Go, the augmented-reality game that has everyone wandering the streets in search of Pikachus and Squirtles. It's also the story of the A.L.S. Ice Bucket Challenge, in 2014, in which millions of people filmed themselves dumping buckets of ice-cold water over their heads, in order to fight Lou Gehrig's disease. Facebook users posted more than seventeen million videos of dousing, and countless celebrities'--Bill Gates, Justin Timberlake, Leonardo DiCaprio'--got drenched for the cause. For a few weeks, a previously little-known and underfunded disease dominated the public imagination.

But the feel-good story made some people feel bad. The challenge was derided as ''slacktivism'''--a way for people to feel virtuous without doing much. Critics fretted that the exercise amplified people's tendency to donate for emotional reasons, rather than after careful evaluation of where money can do the most good. Some argued that it would divert donations from diseases that afflict many more people than the six thousand who receive a diagnosis of A.L.S. every year. People even attacked ice-bucketeers for wasting water.

All these critiques had the same underlying theme: the faddishness of the challenge undermined its value. This makes intuitive sense, but is it true? Actually, no. Silly though the Ice Bucket Challenge may seem now, it had far-reaching effects. It raised a reported two hundred and twenty million dollars worldwide for A.L.S. organizations; in just eight weeks, the American A.L.S. Association received thirteen times as much in contributions as what it had in the whole of the preceding year. Public awareness rose: the challenge was the fifth most popular Google search for all of 2014. Brian Fredrick, the vice-president for communications and development at the A.L.S. Association, told me, ''The challenge suddenly made a lot of people who probably didn't even know who Lou Gehrig was aware of the disease. It really changed the face of A.L.S. forever.''

More concretely, the money raised has led to more research and more spending on patient care. The A.L.S. Association has tripled its annual funding for research. ''The research environment is dramatically different from what it was,'' Barbara Newhouse, the association's C.E.O., told me. ''We're seeing research that's really moving the needle not just on the causes of the disease but also on treatments and therapies.'' Last summer, a team from Johns Hopkins published a paper in Science that was hailed as a breakthrough in A.L.S. research; the team members said that funding from the challenge had accelerated the pace of their work.

It's true that the vast majority of the people who made A.L.S. donations during the challenge haven't done so again. But contributions to the A.L.S. Association have stayed about twenty-five per cent higher than in the year before the challenge, and the average donor age dropped from above fifty to thirty-five. The campaign was an enormous success with millennials, a demographic most charities have had a hard time reaching. The young are the demographic least likely to make charitable donations, and millennials seem more resistant to traditional charity appeals than previous generations. The challenge circumvented those problems by leveraging the power of social media to spread the word, and by making it easy for people to donate via their cell phones.

If the success of the challenge had come at the expense of other charities, ambivalence might be justified. But there's almost no evidence that this was the case. According to Giving U.S.A., individual donations in the U.S. rose almost six per cent in 2014, which doesn't suggest any cannibalization effect. Indeed, it's likely that the very nature of the challenge, which belongs to a category known to anthropologists as ''extreme ritual,'' made people more openhanded. Dimitris Xygalatas, an anthropologist at the University of Connecticut who has studied the effects of such rituals, ran a fascinating experiment with people who were undergoing kavadi'--a Hindu ritual that commonly involves piercing the skin with sharp objects and then making a long procession while carrying heavy objects. Xygalatas found that people who did kavadi, and even people who just joined in the procession, donated more to charity than people in a control group. And those who gave the most painful descriptions of the experience donated the most. As a result, Xygalatas has suggested that the Ice Bucket Challenge, far from stealing from other charities, almost certainly increased the total size of the pie.

That, really, was the true accomplishment of the challenge: it took tools'--the selfie, the hashtag, the like button'--that have typically been used for private amusement or corporate profit and turned them to the public good. The campaign's critics implied that, had people not been dumping freezing water over their heads, they would have been working to end malaria instead. But it's far more likely that they would have been watching cat videos or, now, playing Pok(C)mon Go. The problem isn't that the Ice Bucket Challenge was a charity fad. It's that it was a charity fad that no one has figured out how to duplicate. '...

This article appears in other versions of the July 25, 2016, issue, with the headline ''Philanthropic Fads.''

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Thu, 28 Jul 2016 06:56

The milk crystals of the Pacific beetle cockroach are beautiful. Slice open an embryonic roach under a microscope, and the crystals spill out in a shower of nutrient-dense glitter.

But the flavor of cockroach milk is nothing to write home about. Subramanian Ramaswamy, a biochemist at the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine in Bangalore, India, told The Washington Post as much early Tuesday. As a party dare '-- he'd lost a drinking competition '-- one of Ramaswamy's colleagues once ate a sprinkling of the crystals.

''He said it doesn't taste like anything special,'' Ramaswamy said.

Most roaches lay eggs. Not the Pacific beetle cockroach. It gives birth to live young, sort of like humans if we kept babies by the dozen in fleshy organs called brood sacs. Also like humans, mother Pacific beetle cockroaches produce food for their offspring. The embryos dine on a liquid substance packed with fats, sugars and protein. You can think of this like cockroach milk.

It gets weirder.

[This college student is eating bugs for 30 days so you will too]

Insect experts have long known that this cockroach species secreted liquid food. But they thought baby roaches simply digested the stuff. When Barbara Stay, a zoologist at the University of Iowa, first stumbled upon a cache of crystals tucked inside the embryos, scientists were stumped.

''We didn't believe these crystals were actually protein crystals,'' Ramaswamy said.

Close inspection of the crystals using X-rays proved otherwise. Experiments suggest that cockroach milk is among the most nutritious and highly caloric substances on the planet, according to research published recently in the journal for the International Union of Crystallography, IUCRJ. Pound-for-pound, cockroach milk crystals contain three times more energy than buffalo milk, according to the analysis by Ramaswamy and his colleagues. Buffaloes, he said, were the previous top contender for producing a protein with the most calories.

''It's a complete food,'' Ramaswamy said of the roach crystals. In the brood sac, the embryos gulp down the liquid. There, the proteins turn to hard crystals in their guts. Nothing is wasted '-- ''the mouth is open and the backside is closed,'' as Ramaswamy described the embryos. Within the sac, the baby roaches rely on these concentrated nutrients to grow large with an alien speed.

The discovery comes at a time when dairy milk is under increasing environmental scrutiny, as cow burps add to greenhouse gases. Alternatives like almond milk, too, have not always fared better; growing the nuts is a famously water-intensive process.

So what about a roach drink? When asked if the energy-efficient cockroach crystals might end up in more human mouths, Ramaswamy described the potential as fantastic. ''I could see them in protein drinks,'' he said. Then he described the hurdles.

[Here's how to talk people into eating more bugs]

Lacking nipples, cockroaches cannot be milked in the county fair sense. A cockroach-inspired thirst-quencher, if it ever existed, would more likely come via yeast, he said. Bioengineered yeast is already used in the food industry to produce synthetic sweeteners, for instance.

Plus, the roach brand is bad for business.

''I don't think anyone is going to like it if you tell them, 'We extracted crystals from a cockroach and that is going to be food,' '' Ramaswamy said. Further examination of the crystals will also tell if the roach crystals are toxic to humans.

The researchers certainly did not set out to find the next great protein shake. ''In the U.S. there is a big thrust that all research has to be translational,'' he said, meaning directly applicable to human health. ''This was just born out of curiosity.''

If curiosity can kill the Western aversion to drinking bug milk remains to be seen.

[Should we eat more insects? The U.N. thinks so.]

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Thu, 28 Jul 2016 07:21

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BILL O'REILLY (HOST): Finally tonight, Factor Tip of The Day. As we mentioned, Talking Points Memo, Michelle Obama referenced slaves building the White House in referring to the evolution of America in a positive way. It was a positive comment. The history behind her remark is fascinating. George Washington selected the site in 1791, and as president laid the cornerstone in 1792. Washington was then running the country out of Philadelphia.

Slaves did participate in the construction of the White House. Records show about 400 payments made to slave masters between 1795 and 1801. In addition, free blacks, whites, and immigrants also worked on the massive building. There were no illegal immigrants at that time. If you could make it here, you could stay here.

In 1800, President John Adams took up residence in what was then called the Executive Mansion. It was only later on they named it the White House. But Adams was in there with Abigail, and they were still hammering nails, the construction was still going on.

Slaves that worked there were well-fed and had decent lodgings provided by the government, which stopped hiring slave labor in 1802. However, the feds did not forbid subcontractors from using slave labor. So, Michelle Obama is essentially correct in citing slaves as builders of the White House, but there were others working as well. Got it all? There will be a quiz.

[...]

I just can't get rid of that history teacher thing. You know what I'm talking about?

Previously:

Rush Limbaugh Says That Michelle Obama Needs To Get Over Slavery

On Fox, Ben Carson Shuts Down Media Attacking Michelle Obama's DNC Remarks As Race Baiting

Fox Guest Calls Michelle Obama's Discussion Of American Race Relations "Race-Baiting" And Says It Was "Beneath Her"

Bill O'Reilly Uses Images Of Obama At Muslim Wedding To Claim His "Emotional Attachment To The Muslim World Has Hurt The USA"

Charles Krauthammer Calls Out Bill O'Reilly For Stoking Racial Tensions With False Attacks On BLM

O'Reilly: Martin Luther King Would Not Support Black Lives Matter Movement

O'Reilly Tells Trump Blacks Are "Ill-Educated And Have Tattoos On Their Forehead''

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Thu, 28 Jul 2016 06:09

With less than two weeks to go before the start of the Rio Olympics, there are a number of dark clouds gathered over the event that are showing little sign of clearing.

First up, there's Russia. Despite the discovery of wide-spread doping among Russian athletes at previous Games, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has ruled that its up to individual sporting federations to decide whether or not Russian athletes can compete in their sports '' but some are not convinced. Australia's sports minister has said that any measures below what the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has recommended will damage the reputation of the Olympic movement.

Secondly, there is the accommodation.The Olympic Village is not as ready as it could be '' with reports of unfinished facilities, electrical issues and plumbing problems. The Australian delegation has refused to even stay there.

Thirdly, there are concerns over security. Authorities are investigating threats after a Brazilian Islamist group pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group '' which has claimed responsibility for several attacks in Europe in recent months. Double the amount of security personnel than at the London 2012 Games are being deployed in Rio.

Finally, beyond the logistics of holding a safe and successful Games, there are the dark clouds that go far beyond the Olympics. Brazil's series of corruption scandals, its political crisis and a deep recession have left left some 50 percent of Brazilians opposed to the amount of money being spent on the Games, according to polls.

So, a lot has changed since 2009, when joy gripped Rio as it was named the host city for the 2016 Games. Now, the Olympics are almost here and that excitement appears to be long gone for many '' as people take to the streets, not in celebration, but in protest.

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Thu, 28 Jul 2016 06:01

Two more people have been arrested in connection with the attacker in Nice who killed 84 people in the coastal city on July 14.

Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins said the main suspect, who was shot dead on the scene, had been planning the attacks for months. Five other suspects are already in custody and are under formal investigation.

A source told Reuters newsagency the two new suspects' photos had been found on the attacker's mobile phone.

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Thu, 28 Jul 2016 05:57

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Tap to find outFollowing the murder of an elderly priest in a church in northern France by two men thought to be linked to ISIL, French President Francois Hollande has warned that the militant threat in the country has never been so severe.

In a brief televised address the French leader talked of a war against Islamist militancy.

''I also owe you the truth: this war will be long. It is our democracy that is being targeted, it is the bulls-eye and it will be our shield. It is our unity that makes us strong so French men and women, let us form a blockade, that is how we will win the war against hate and zealotry.''

It is now believed the two attackers had been carrying a ''fake explosive device covered in aluminium foil'' along with hand-held weapons when they entered the Catholic church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray.

After slitting the throat of Father Jacques Hamel, in his 80s, some of the congregation were able to escape and alert the police, who sent in a team specialised in dealing with hostage situations.

Three of the hostages were used as human shields to block the police from entering the church. When they were eventually let go, the two attackers followed them out of the church shouting ''Allahu Akbar'' before being killed by police.

The news agency Amaq, which is affiliated with ISIL, said two of its ''soldiers'' had carried out the attack.

After meeting the President and France's interior minister in Paris, The Archbishop of Rouen, Dominique Lebrun spoke of the difficulty of observing Christian teachings in the face of such brutality.

''They said to love, and I say, love your enemies, and even pray for them, when I read that sentence I say, 'love your enemies, is that possible?' I will try, at least I will pray for them.''

The head of the Church of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury added his thoughts:

Tuesday's attack in the sleepy Rouen suburb comes less than two weeks after a Tunisian ploughed a truck into a crowds in the French Riviera city of Nice, killing 84 people. ISIL claimed that attack.

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Thu, 28 Jul 2016 05:53

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Tap to find outThe controversial question of Donald Trump came up as the Hungarian and Austrian leaders met in Budapest to try to ease tensions over migration.

Hungary's right wing prime minister Viktor Orban '' who recently said he backed the US Republican's hardline stance on the issue '' again described immigration a ''poison'', saying his country didn't need a ''single migrant''.

The Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern begged to differ.

''There might be one more thing that we don't agree with Mr. Prime Minister, and this issue is Donald Trump. I am sure that there is only one thing that we can learn from him: that a man should never dye his hair,'' Kern said at a joint news conference.

As the joke was translated into Hungarian, it brought a glimmer of amusement from his host in the form of a wry smile.

But Orban became serious as once again he lambasted the European Union's plan to share migrants across member states under a compulsory quota system, saying Europe should learn from Donald Trump.

''The democrats' foreign policy is bad for Europe and fatal for Hungary. On the other side the policy announced by Trump and the Republicans on migration and foreign policy '' is good for Europe, and for Hungary it means life,'' he said.

Accepting the US Republican presidential nomination, Trump proposed a total suspension of migration from countries ''compromised by terrorism''.

Hungary has filed a legal challenge against the EU's quota plan and will hold a referendum on October 2 on whether to take part in the scheme.

''There is no need for a common European migration policy: whoever needs migrants can take them, but don't force them on us, we don't need them,'' Orban said.

Hungary has recently introduced further security measures along its border with Serbia.

In early July Austria promised to send 20 police officers to Hungary-Serbia frontier, marking a change of tack by Vienna which has previously criticised Hungary's treatment of migrants.

Chancellor Kern acknowledged that migration to Austria and Germany had declined since Budapest introduced its tough measures. ''If we are beneficiaries from this process, then we have to assist it,'' he said.

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Thu, 28 Jul 2016 05:47

A huge car bomb exploded near a Kurdish security forces headquarters on Wednesday (July 27) in the Syrian city of Qamishli in Hasaka province.

At least 48 people were killed in the blast which was so powerful that witnesses said it shattered windows across the Turkish border.

The so-called Islamic State (ISIL) said it was responsible for the explosion and that it had targeted Kurdish forces.

The Kurds control much of Hasaka province after capturing it from ISIL fighters last year.

It is not the first time the militant group has targeted the area. A suicide blast killed six members of the Kurdish security force in April.

In July, an ISIL suicide bomb killed at least 16 people in Hasaka.

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Thu, 28 Jul 2016 05:25

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See more in the cross-post on the NewsBusters blog.

Seconds after Reid sought to spin the DNC's Wikileaks scandal as overblown, former RNC Chairman and MSNBC political analyst Michael Steele fought back by informing Reid and All In host Chris Hayes that their comrades ''in liberal media and liberal politics, don't seem to have the same level of outrage if those e-mails were written by a Republican conservative.''

Of course, this outraged Reid as she shouted down Steele so she could simply write off his compliant as invalid (for some reason) because Donald Trump has repeatedly ''retweet[ed] white nationalists.''

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Thu, 28 Jul 2016 04:52

On Tuesday's The View, host Whoopi Goldberg openly admitted that she could care less if the DNC rigged the system, because it was at the expense of ''a white guy.'' After revealing emails broke last Friday showing DNC officials had conspired to defeat Bernie Sanders, the ladies at the View became angry at Sanders supporters disrupting the Democratic Convention with their booing. Whoopi became enraged and ranted that they should be supporting Hillary Clinton because, ''[The system] has been rigged against women for years!''

Read more of the blog here.

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Thu, 28 Jul 2016 03:51

'Someday a woman will be president' T-shirts banned by Walmart in 1995 for offending 'family values'

Prominent feminist writer drops off social media after rape threat against her 5-year-old daughter

WATCH LIVE: President Barack Obama addresses the 2016 Democratic National Convention

Donna Brazile brings DNC to its feet with barn-burner speech: 'We're never going back'

Melania Trump's website yanked offline as questions swirl about her 'degree'

'Oh, come on': Elizabeth Warren shuts down reporter who asked if it's mean to call trump a racist

Veteran journalist Carl Bernstein: Trump's Russia remarks a 'disqualifying event'

NYC Mayor Bloomberg whacks Trump: 'I'm a New Yorker '-- I know a con when I see one'

Marco Rubio to star at antigay rally '-- weeks after his crocodile tears for Pulse massacre victims

WATCH: 'Real Time with Bill Maher' live from the Democratic National Convention

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Thu, 28 Jul 2016 03:45

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Thu, 28 Jul 2016 00:25

Over the past 30 hours, the gun debate in America has taken a dramatic turn.

At 2:11 a.m. on Thursday, Democratic Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy declared victory, 14 hours and 50 minutes after he took over the chamber floor to protest Congress' years-long inaction on gun control measures. Beginning at 11:21 a.m. on Wednesday, three days after 49 individuals were killed by a gunman in the Orlando, Florida, nightclub mass shooting, Murphy vowed not to concede until Senate Republicans agreed to allow two votes: one to prohibit suspected terrorists from buying guns, and another to expand background checks on potential gun purchases. By Thursday, there wasn't a hard guarantee that either amendment would pass, but Murphy implied there was an understanding from both sides that votes needed to be cast to curb gun violence in the United States.

At a press conference on Thursday morning, which had a tagline of ''disarm hate,'' Senate Democrats were joined by Tina Meins, whose father was killed in the December 2015 mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, and by the Reverend Sharon Risher, whose mother and two cousins died in the June 2015 mass shooting in Charleston, South Carolina. They argued the country has reached a tipping point in the gun movement, enhanced by Americans' ongoing fear of terrorism, including homegrown lone wolves and the Islamic State militant group, or ISIS. ''Everyone realizes that the terrorist we need to fear is not on the streets of Aleppo or Mosul or Fallujah,'' Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey told reporters Thursday morning. ''It's on the streets of the United States. And they will have guns unless we pass tough laws.''

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Markey said legislators are at the juncture where they are close to having a showdown in the Senate on the issue of gun control in the U.S.

Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal, who remained in the Senate chamber for the duration of Murphy's 14-hour-50-minute filibuster, said Americans want change, and the hot-button issue of guns in America right now presents an opportunity to show the country that it's possible.

''The most difficult question I am asked, having spent the better part of 25 years on this issue, is 'What has changed?''' he said. ''The answer is that Americans have changed in their realization that gun violence cannot only be prevented, but it must be prevented.''

Murphy is an outspoken gun control advocate, whose state is home to Newtown, where the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre occurred. His filibuster began when he interrupted a Senate debate on the Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations bill, in which Democrats had demanded the inclusion of gun amendments.

''My legs are a little bit rubbery, but my heart is strong this morning because I know that we made a difference yesterday, and I know that we galvanized support all across this country,'' he told reporters.

Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, also said seven months ago that the gun control movement is at a tipping point. ''We're finally at the precipice we've been waiting for,'' he said at a Brady Campaign event in November. The organization, one of the leading gun control advocacy groups, works to extend background checks at the national level to all sales of firearms, including at gun shows and online. Federal law currently doesn't apply to about 40 percent of total gun sales that occur each day.

At the media event Thursday'--the eve of the one-year mark of the deadly Charleston shooting'--in which nine black worshippers were gunned down during Bible study at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church'--Murphy gathered with his colleagues to discuss the immediate steps they could take to reduce gun violence. They vowed to continue the fight until change occurs. He said Senate Democrats decided to take the floor on Wednesday because the legislative body had been ignoring the Orlando massacre. Overnight, he ended the filibuster with the story of 6-year-old Dylan Hockley and a teacher's aide, Anne Marie Murphy, who tried to shield the boy from bullets in the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre; both were two of the 26 individuals killed on December 14, 2012.

Both pending measures Murphy stood behind on the Senate floor are backed by Democrats. The first, an amendment California Senator Dianne Feinstein offered in December after San Bernardino, would allow the government to ban those on federal terror watch lists from buying guns and explosives. Murphy discussed the second on the Senate floor, which would mandate universal background checks for all gun sales, including at gun shows and online.

As for the GOP plan, Republican Texas Senator John Cornyn, the Senate Majority Whip and second-ranking Senate Republican, described a rival proposal on the Senate floor Thursday that would notify law enforcement officials when an individual who is on the terror watch list tries to purchase a firearm. The U.S. Department of Justice then would have 72 hours to show probable cause that the possible buyer has committed or could commit a terrorist act. His proposal, along with Feinstein's, already was struck down in December after the San Bernardino massacre.

Feinstein and Cornyn now are discussing a way to reach a compromise on their two measures. At the press conference, Feinstein said the Senate likely could vote on her legislation Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Republican Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey, who in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre co-wrote a background checks bill that in April 2013 the Senate ultimately struck down, joined Murphy on the floor Wednesday to urge his colleagues to ensure suspected terrorists can't buy guns. His legislation would require the attorney general to create an annually adjusted list of likely terrorists who could be blocked from buying guns.

During his filibuster, Murphy permitted questions from 40 of his Democratic colleagues, including Senators Blumenthal, Markey and Charles Schumer. But he never conceded the floor. His efforts were applauded by politicians and activists across the country: Democratic presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton, her rival Bernie Sanders and Erica Lafferty Smegielski, whose mother died at Sandy Hook Elementary, all commended his actions. After the eight-hour mark, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid issued a statement, urging Republicans ''to find the courage'' to stand up to the National Rifle Association by joining Democrats to demand change. He also called the negotiations ''little more than a smokescreen'' from the GOP attempting to give themselves political cover while they march in lockstep with the NRA.

It will soon be determined whether the Democrats have found an unexpected ally in Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump on the matter. The New York billionaire on Twitter Wednesday expressed interest in meeting with the NRA to discuss ''not allowing people on the terrorist watch list, or the no-fly list, to buy guns.'' The lobbying group, which boasts more than 4 million members, responded by saying its leaders are happy to have a conversation with Trump, whom they endorsed in May, but on Wednesday said that its objective remains ensuring that Americans wrongly placed on the list are given their legal rights to due process. Republican leaders share the NRA's view that stricter gun laws would undercut the Second Amendment.

New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, who also remained in the chamber through the duration of Murphy's filibuster, on Thursday called on his colleagues to have ''courageous empathy'' to ensure domestic tranquility because victims aren't content to wait for change.

''This is a fight that should not belong only to the victims of gun violence,'' he said. ''This is an American fight.''

From left: Senators Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal, both Connecticut Democrats, depart the Senate floor directly after an almost 15-hour filibuster in the hopes of pressuring their Republican colleagues to act on enacting gun-control measures, at the U.S. Capitol on June 16.Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

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Wed, 27 Jul 2016 20:11

Bill O'Reilly responded to a part of Michelle Obama's Democratic Convention speech Tuesday, claiming that the slaves who built the house were well taken care of.

After Michelle noted that she wakes up every morning in a house built by slaves in her moving speech Monday, O'Reilly rushed to point out that ''others'' helped build the White House as well.

''Michelle Obama referenced slaves building the White House in referring to the evolution of America in a positive way,'' O'Reilly said. ''It was a positive comment. The history behind her remark is fascinating. George Washington selected the site in 1791, and as president laid the cornerstone in 1792. Washington was then running the country out of Philadelphia.''

''Slaves did participate in the construction of the White House. Records show about 400 payments made to slave masters between 1795 and 1801. In addition, free blacks, whites, and immigrants also worked on the massive building. There were no illegal immigrants at that time. If you could make it here, you could stay here.''

''In 1800, President John Adams took up residence in what was then called the Executive Mansion. It was only later on they named it the White House. But Adams was in there with Abigail, and they were still hammering nails, the construction was still going on.''

''Slaves that worked there were well fed and had decent lodgings provided by the government, which stopped hiring slave labor in 1802. However, the feds did not forbid subcontractors from using slave labor. So, Michelle Obama is essentially correct in citing slaves as builders of the White House, but there were others working as well.''

Um, okay.

[H/T Media Matters]

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Wed, 27 Jul 2016 19:25

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Wed, 27 Jul 2016 18:52

Martin was covering the DNC protests in Philadelphia for teleSUR.

Abby Martin, host of "Empire Files," was released by police on Monday after a violent arrest while covering DNC protests for teleSUR, but says that many more wait to be processed after "mass marches, mass protests and mass arrests and detentions," despite police reports that no arrests have been made at the DNC.

Martin was on her way to a "Democracy Spring" event where there were reports of civil disobedience and arrests being made. The police had closed off all streets surrounding the action and directed Martin to an exit, where she was arrested for a lack of credentials. She and her producer, Mike Prysner, unknowingly entered an area where only those with credentials are allowed.

IN DEPTH:US Decides

The police stopped them and told them to leave the area. As they were complying and leaving the area, another police officer grabbed Martin, twisted her arm, tore her dress and arrested her for "disorderly conduct."

Three cops "aggressively manhandled me," she said, before throwing her in a police van and driving her to an elementary school to be processed alongside many protesters that had participated in the Democracy Spring action and others.

"I was just trying to accept my fate and how unreal what was happening was," said Martin. "I just kept thinking about what people go through" in aggressive arrests every day in the U.S.

"It's just really stunning to go through that experience and to know that this is what police do to people every day in this country."

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Wed, 27 Jul 2016 18:51

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Wed, 27 Jul 2016 16:13

While he was in the process of denying any connection to the Russian government during a press conference in Florida, Donald Trump asked Putin to hack the United States to find Hillary Clinton's missing emails.

Video:

Trump said, ''If it is Russia, which it's probably not, nobody knows who it is, But if it is Russia, it's really bad for a different reason, because it shows how little respect they have for our country. When they would hack into a major party and get everything, but it would be interesting. I will tell you this. Russia, if you're listening, I hope you find the thirty thousand emails that are missing. I think you'll probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let's see if that happens next.''

Donald Trump is about to get national security briefings, and he just invited the Russian government to hack the US government in an attempt to find Hillary Clinton's emails.

Instead of proving that there was no relationship between his campaign and the Russian government, Trump confirmed it. Not only is there a relationship between Trump and Putin, but the Republican nominee is asking for favors on live national television.

If there was any doubt that Comrade Donald is working with Putin's Russia, it was confirmed during the press conference.

Republicans thought that they were nominating a strongman, but what they've got is Putin's puppet.

Donald Trump, Russia, trump asks russia to find Clinton emails, Trump asks Russia to hack US, Trump press conference

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Wed, 27 Jul 2016 15:16

The man who tried to kill President Ronald Reagan is set to go free, after a judge decided Wednesday to allow would-be assassin John Hinckley Jr. to live with his mother in Virginia full-time.

Hinckley is set to begin his "convalescent leave" on Aug. 5, according to U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman's order.

Friedman wrote that "all of the experts and treatment providers" who testified during the hearing agreed that Hinckley's issues -- major depression and psychotic disorder -- were "in full and sustained remission and have been for more than twenty years."

"Mr. Hinckley is clinically ready for full-time convalescent leave," Friedman wrote.

Hinckley, 61, attempted to kill Reagan outside of the Washington Hilton Hotel on March 30, 1981. He fired six shots, hitting four people, including Reagan, who was wounded when a bullet bounced off his presidential limo. Press Secretary James Brady was shot in the right side of his head, sustaining serious injuries. When he died in August 2014, Brady's death was ruled a homicide.

Hinckley was arrested at the scene and was later found not guilty by reason of mental insanity. Hinckley had allegedly tried to kill Reagan in order to gain the affection of Hollywood starlet Jodie Foster.

Friedman ruled Wednesday that Hinckley will have to attend individual and group therapy sessions and is barred from talking to the media. He can drive, but there are restrictions on how far he can travel. The Secret Service will also periodically follows him.

Hinckley will be required return to Washington once a month for doctors to check on his mental state and his compliance with the conditions of his leave. He'll also be barred from trying to contact surviving victims and their families, along with Foster.

Hinckley's release from Washington's St. Elizabeths hospital has been more than a decade in the making. In late 2003, the judge allowed Hinckley to begin leaving the hospital for day visits with his parents in the Washington area.

In 2006, Hinckley began visiting his parents' home in Williamsburg, Virginia, for three-night stretches. That time has increased over the years so that for more than the last year he has been allowed to spend 17 days a month at the home, which is in a gated community and overlooks a golf course.

While outside the hospital, Hinckley has had to comply with a series of restrictions, and a number of those will continue now that he will be living full time in the community. He will have to attend individual and group therapy sessions and is barred from talking to the media. He can drive, but there are restrictions on how far he can travel. The Secret Service also periodically follows him.

Despite the restrictions, life in Williamsburg will likely be busy for Hinckley. According to court records and testimony at a recent court hearing on the issue of his release, he has spent time volunteering at a church as well as a local mental hospital. He has attended meetings for people living with mental illness, talks at a local art museum and concerts. His hobbies include painting and playing the guitar and he has recently developed an interest in photography. He's also indicated he'd like to get a full-time job and at one point went to Starbucks and Subway to talk about applying.

"I don't like flipping around the TV, I want to do things," a court document quoted him saying.

He also has said he wants to "fit in" and be "a good citizen."

Reagan died in 2004 at the age of 93.

Fox News' Matt Dean and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Wed, 27 Jul 2016 06:32

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Wed, 27 Jul 2016 06:23

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Tue, 26 Jul 2016 15:35

Tiegen explained that there will always be operators who have a desire to serve, but the ''downgrading'' of the Obama administration in foreign hot spots has sowed doubt among the military and special operations community.

''If you ask for help, or you need your help, you expect the military to come help you, one way or another,'' said Tiegen, noting another similar situation to his own in Benghazi occurred in Afghanistan a year later, this time with a group of stranded Marines surrounded by enemy forces. He claimed President Barack Obama's decision to withdraw troops from the country left the Marines without a lifeline. Tiegen believes similar situations are likely to happen under a Clinton presidency.

Tiegen's recommendation toward fighting terrorist elements like ISIS, al-Qaida and others is simple, it revolves around a single question:

''Do you want to fight terrorists at home or do you want to fight them overseas?'' said Tiegen, noting the Clinton-Obama foreign policy has already led to the U.S. having to fight terrorists at home in places like San Bernardino and Orlando.

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Tiegen explained that there will always be operators who have a desire to serve, but the ''downgrading'' of the Obama administration in foreign hot spots has sowed doubt among the military and special operations community.

''If you ask for help, or you need your help, you expect the military to come help you, one way or another,'' said Tiegen, noting another similar situation to his own in Benghazi occurred in Afghanistan a year later, this time with a group of stranded Marines surrounded by enemy forces. He claimed President Barack Obama's decision to withdraw troops from the country left the Marines without a lifeline. Tiegen believes similar situations are likely to happen under a Clinton presidency.

Tiegen's recommendation toward fighting terrorist elements like ISIS, al-Qaida and others is simple, it revolves around a single question:

''Do you want to fight terrorists at home or do you want to fight them overseas?'' said Tiegen, noting the Clinton-Obama foreign policy has already led to the U.S. having to fight terrorists at home in places like San Bernardino and Orlando.

Follow Russ Read on Twitter

Send tips to [email protected].

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].

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Tue, 26 Jul 2016 06:27

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Mon, 25 Jul 2016 20:02

WASHINGTON '-- President Barack Obama says GOP nominee Donald Trump's recent suggestion that the U.S. might not come to the defense of NATO allies is another sign of Trump's "lack of preparedness" on foreign policy.

Obama said in an interview broadcast Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation" that Trump's comments to the New York Times '-- in which Trump suggested allies that haven't paid their NATO dues wouldn't be guaranteed of getting help if Russia invaded '-- were an admission that the U.S. might not live by NATO's "most central tenet."

Obama, speaking before the Democratic National Convention begins Monday, said Trump's comments on NATO last week were "an indication of the lack of preparedness that he has been displaying when it comes to foreign policy."

NATO members promise that an attack against any of them is considered an assault against all.

Trump told the Times that he wouldn't predict the U.S. response in the case of a Russian attack of smaller NATO allies like Estonia or Latvia. "If they fulfill their obligations to us, the answer is 'yes,'" Trump said.

Obama responded: "There is a big difference between challenging our European allies to keep up their defense spending, particularly at a time when Russia's been more aggressive, and saying to them, 'You know what? We might not abide by the central tenant of the most important alliance in the history of the world.'"

Related: Donald Trump: I'm Running Against Hillary Clinton, Not 'Rest of the World'

In contrast, Obama said that presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who served as secretary of State in his first term, is supremely capable of taking over the reins of power in January. He said he believes there has never been candidate better prepared for the presidency.

"She's not always flashy. And there are better speech makers. But she knows her stuff," Obama said.

Obama address an array of issues during the interview, including:

'-- race relations. He said additional scrutiny or suspicion of African-American males is "just a common experience that many of us share. But I will tell you that it's a lot better now than it was. And that doesn't mean that we can be complacent about it."

'-- on why he used the term "radical Islam" as a candidate in 2008 but not as president. Obama said Muslim allies voiced concerns that the phrase could give the impression that "crazy groups" such as the Islamic State group or al-Qaida were carrying the mantle of Islam. He said defeating militants will require help from more than 1 billion Muslims in the word.

'-- whether most Americans feel safe. Obama said it's been "a really tough month," but that people in the U.S., he believes, "are significantly more safe now than they were before all the work that we've done since 9/11."

Asked what it takes to be an effective president, Obama cited the ability to build a team of talented, hardworking people and "make sure they are all moving in the same direction." Another factor, he said, was "personal discipline in terms of doing your homework, and knowing your subject matter, and being able to stay focused."

And to make all this work "you have to really care about the American people... not in the abstract," Obama said, noting that is crucial because that will help ground the president in that difficult job and prevent them from being overly influenced by polls, pressure and difficult developments.

If you don't have that sense of grounding, "you will be buffeted and blown back and forth by polls and interest groups and voices whispering in your head," he said. "And you will lose your center of gravity. You will lose your moral compass."

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Mon, 25 Jul 2016 19:56

Bernie Sanders supporters adopted one of Donald Trump's attack lines against Hillary Clinton at the opening of the Democratic national convention on Monday, chanting ''lock her up'' at protests in downtown Philadelphia.

Around 200 people were gathered at Philadelphia City Hall at noon, ahead of a planned march through the city. Most of the crowd were Sanders supporters, who voiced their anger at the leaked Democratic National Committee emails that showed behind-the-scenes support for Clinton during the Democratic primary.

''Lock her up, lock her up,'' protesters chanted repeatedly. Many were carrying anti-Clinton banners, drawing attention to both the recent WikiLeaks disclosures and her own use of a private email server while secretary of state.

Related:Wasserman Schultz booed at DNC as FBI announces inquiry into email hack

Trevor Minter, a 21-year-old bartender from Fort Worth, Texas, was among the dozens demanding the Democratic nominee be jailed.

''I feel like I've been cheated, I feel like my brothers and sisters have been cheated, and I feel like it's all her fault,'' Minter said.

He said he was dissatisfied with ''all the classified emails she's let out using her own servers and using her own personal email and then you have the WikiLeaks, all the going behind people's backs''.

''Lock her up'' is a favourite chant at Trump rallies, and could be heard throughout the GOP convention in Cleveland last week. The Republican nominee has branded Clinton ''Crooked Hillary''.

The FBI investigated Clinton's use of a private email server while in office, but decided against pressing charges at the beginning of July.

Minter said he was not concerned at using an attack line associated with Trump and his supporters.

''It's been something that Trump's been saying for a while but I honestly believe she should be indicted.''

Some supporters told the Guardian that the chant was not entirely spontaneous.

''Well, really it's because a big truck with the sign 'lock her up' passed by,'' said Sarah Hernandez, a 22-year-old chief marketing officer from Houston.

Minter, who had travelled with Hernandez to Philadelphia, pointed out that the truck actually had the message: ''Hillary for prison.''

''Yes. It said: 'Hillary for prison 2016','' she said. ''And someone started chanting: 'Lock her up, lock her up', and we all joined in.''

''Hillary for prison 2016'' is a common message seen on pins and T-shirts at Republican rallies.

Tim Turner, 53, had travelled to Philadelphia from Indianapolis, Indiana. He had also noted the truck's presence and was among those chanting.

''We just know that she's not very honest,'' he said.

''You know, I've never caught her in a criminal act. But I think she's dirty.''

Like Minter, he did not mind using a line associated with Trump.

''No, I don't mind it at all. He should be locked up as well. There's a lot of people he owes money to. I think the same could go for him.''

Matt Schmidheiser, an 18-year-old student from Cherry Hill, New Jersey, was similarly emphatic.

''I think she does need to be locked up her along with the DNC chairwoman who just stepped down. Because they both just horribly mislead the American public and they spit lie after lie and nobody seems to care.''

Schmidheiser was carrying a homemade poster that catalogued Clinton's alleged misdeeds. He had been a little late arriving at city hall and missed the chant.

''I wasn't there for it but I would love to have been a part of it and I would love to start another,'' he said.

''I think it's accurate and I think she needs to be in prison for the rest of her life.''

Earlier Sanders himself seemed incapable of controlling some of his more passionate supporters, judging from the mood at a meeting of delegates at the Pennsylvania convention center.

Loud boos could be heard from within the closed-room meeting as the Vermont senator told them: ''We have got to defeat Donald Trump and we have got to elect Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine '... This is the world we live in.''

''Trump is a danger to the future of our country and must be defeated,'' Sanders insisted. ''I intend to do everything I can to see that he is defeated.''

At least a portion of his audience seemed unconvinced. Instead, a chant of ''We want Bernie!'' sparked up from a vocal group who are clearly not fully on board with the official message of Democratic party unity.

Sanders got much bigger cheers when he mentioned the resignation of the DNC chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, which he said ''opens up the possibly of new leadership at the top of the Democratic party that will stand up for working people and will open up the doors of the party for those people who want real change''.

He also agreed with other speakers that the struggle, at least in terms of fighting for more progressive policies, goes on. ''This campaign has been a fantastic beginning and from today onward we continue the fight,'' concluded Sanders as delegates prepared to file out far less fired up than they had been when they came in.

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Mon, 25 Jul 2016 16:04

Debbie Wasserman Schultz appears at the Florida delegation at a breakfast on July 25, 2016, in Philadelphia, during the first day of the Democratic National Convention.

Audience members wearing Bernie Sanders shirts shouted and yelled, waving signs that said 'Thanks for the "Help" Debbie.'

By Nick Gass and Daniel Strauss

07/25/16 09:26 AM EDT

Updated 07/25/16 10:13 AM EDT

PHILADELPHIA '-- Chaos erupted as Debbie Wasserman Schultz addressed Florida delegates on Monday, with opponents jeering the outgoing Democratic National Committee chairwoman as she delivered a speech at a state breakfast meeting.

"So I can see that's little bit of interest in my being here and I appreciate that interest," Wasserman Schultz said amid the cacophony, which began as soon as she started speaking.

Story Continued Below

"And a little bit of interest from the press," she continued -- straining to be heard over shouts of "Shame!" -- "but that really shows you that Florida is the most significant battleground state that will make sure that Hillary Clinton is elected president of the United States of America. We are the state that will deliver the White House to make sure that we can continue to make the progress that we have been able to make under Barack Obama for the last eight years."

When Wasserman Schultz entered the room, the crowd hushed momentarily and then her supporters began cheering. As she began talking, though, audience members with Bernie Sanders shirts started shouting and yelling waving signs that said ''Thanks for the 'Help' Debbie" and signs that simply read ''e-mails.''

Wasserman Schultz is still slated to gavel in the convention later Monday, although she is not expected to deliver any larger speech.

Her remarks were drowned out both by cheers and boos from the crowd. The Florida congresswoman, who faces a primary challenge from Bernie Sanders-backed candidate Tim Canova, attempted to pivot away from the party discord immediately, noting the overnight shooting at a Florida nightclub.

"We have so much to do and we have to make sure that we have to move forward together in a unified way. We know that the voices in this room that are standing up and being disruptive, we know it's not the Florida that we know. The Florida that we know is united," she said. "The Florida that we know is going to make sure that we continue to create jobs like the 14.8 million jobs that were created under Barack Obama's leadership. The 20 million people who now have health care that didn't have it before."

Chris Riker, a pro-Sanders delegate from Miami's 24th district waving a Bernie sign and shouting, said all delegates received an email that Wasserman Schultz would be speaking Monday.

''Honestly it's their fault that this happened. There is absolutely no reason that a day after rightfully resigning in disgrace with the quote 'Bernie Sanders will not be president' leaked from an email that she should be addressing the delegates," Riker said. "It's bad for the party, it looks biased and quite frankly it looks tone-deaf.''

''I will literally boo anytime she's involved in the convention because she shouldn't be involved," Riker added, remarking that the emails confirmed the chairwoman's "biased conduct" and the state party made a poor decision in having her speak.

Florida state Sen. Eleanor Sobel, wearing a Debbie for Congress shirt, dismissed the Sanders supporters as "rude, disruptive and obnoxious."

"They should have stopped speaking," Sobel said. "They should have stopped speaking and let her speak."

Dan O'Neal, an organizer for the Arizona chapter of the Progressive Democrats of America who supports Sanders, said he came into the room when he heard the shouting.

''She shouldn't have been here," O'Neal said. " She should have been on a plane back to Florida.''

After her remarks, Wasserman Schultz left the room. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker then took the stage and the crowd quieted down again.

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Mon, 25 Jul 2016 15:21

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Mon, 25 Jul 2016 07:35

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Mon, 25 Jul 2016 13:58

NBC's Chuck Todd interviews Donald Trump on ''Meet The Press'' broadcast today:

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Mon, 25 Jul 2016 13:47

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Mon, 25 Jul 2016 12:33

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Mon, 25 Jul 2016 12:10

Onstage at the Just for Laugh's festival in Montreal, comedian Mike Ward shared how he found out Quebec's Human Rights Tribunal was suing him for a joke they deemed offensive.

''One day the caller ID read: Human Rights Tribunal,'' he said, according to CBC News. ''When I answered, the woman said, 'Mr. Ward, we're calling you about one of your jokes. We think you know the one.'''

Mike Ward (Image source: CBC News)

Ward told the crowd Wednesday he didn't even know such a governmental agency existed ''until I got sued,'' CBC News reported.

The target of Ward's jab? Jeremy Gabriel, a singer with a genetic disability, who gained fame in the province when he was 10 after being flown to Rome to sing for the Pope in 2006.

Jeremy Gabriel (Image source: YouTube)

Ward's jokes about Gabriel began in 2010 with his take on ''petit Jeremy,'' CBC News said. He called Gabriel a bad singer but that it was okay because he was dying, according to a CTV News report, and performed the bit 230 times over a 3-year period.

Gabriel has Treacher Collins syndrome, which affects development of bones and facial tissues and isn't fatal if properly managed, CTV added.

The Human Rights Tribunal ruled Ward's jokes violated Gabriel's rights and ordered him to pay Gabriel $35,000 '-- $25,000 in moral damages and $10,000 in punitive damages, CBC News reported.

He also must pay Sylvie Gabriel, Jeremy's mother, $5,000 for moral damages and $2,000 for punitive damages, CBC News added.

A complaint about Ward was lodged with the Human Rights Tribunal in 2012.

More from CBC News:

The plaintiff argued the jokes gravely affected Gabriel's dignity.

During the case, Gabriel's lawyer Marie Dominique argued that there is a difference between making fun of a public figure and making fun of a child with a disability.

Dominique said Ward's jokes reinforced stereotypes of people with disabilities, adding that the jokes hurt the boy's confidence, his career and led to bullying in school.

The judge, Scott Hughes, concluded the jokes went beyond being an exercise in freedom of expression.

''The discrimination that Jeremy fell victim to is unjustifiable,'' Hughes said in his judgment released late Wednesday, CBC News said.

But Ward's lawyer, Julius Grey, argued that his client was exercising freedom of expression and was operating within the comedic norms. Grey said the ruling will be appealed.

''I'm in total disagreement with the decision and I've already received the mandate to appeal it,'' Grey told CBC News. ''I'm in such disagreement with the judgment that I couldn't even take it apart in bits and pieces. The whole judgment needs to be taken to appeal.''

The founder of the Just for Laughs festival, Gilbert Rozon, told CBC News he gets scared when laws affect freedom of expression.

''I think freedom of expression '-- like the assumption of innocence '-- is something we've worked hard for over many centuries,'' Rozon said after the Human Rights Tribunal ruling. ''I'm always worried when we get too involved in it, putting down rules, laws, over what we can and cannot say. It always gives me a certain fear.''

Here's a clip of Ward talking about the ruling:

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Mon, 25 Jul 2016 12:04

Clinton Campaign Manager Robby Mook told CNN's Jake Tapper Sunday that ''experts'' have claimed that Russian hackers who favor Donald Trump coordinated the release of thousands of Democratic National Committee emails to aid the nominee's campaign.

''I don't think it's coincidental that these emails were released on the eve of our convention here,'' Mook told Tapper in a special edition of ''State of the Union'' broadcasted from the Democratic National Convention headquarters in Philadelphia.

Image source: CNN/''State of the Union''

The emails, released Friday by WikiLeaks, included discussions on tactics that would help to negatively portray Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders during his run for the White House.

''What evidence is there that the Russians were behind this in terms of the hacking and or in terms of the timing by WikiLeaks?'' Tapper asked.

Mook replied that it's important to wait and ''let the experts speak on this,'' noting that ''it's been reported on in the press that the hackers that got into the DNC are very likely to be working in coordination with Russia.''

The campaign manager noted again that the timing of the leaks would be ideal for hackers looking to create ''maximum damage'' in an effort to aid Trump.

Image source: CNN/''State of the Union''

Tapper called Mook's suggestion a ''very, very strong charge.''

''You're basically suggesting that Russians hacked into the DNC and now are releasing these files through WikiLeaks to help Donald Trump,'' he said.

''Well this isn't my assertion,'' Mook said, stressing that ''a number of experts'' made the allegations.

''I think we need to get to the bottom of these facts, but that is what experts are telling us. Experts have said that it is the Russians that in fact went in and took these emails,'' he said. ''And if they are the ones who took them, then we have to infer that they are the ones who released them.''

The GOP nominee's son, Donald Trump, Jr., joined Tapper later Sunday morning. When asked about the speculation surrounding Russian involvement in the WikiLeaks scandal, he dismissed the ''expert'' claims as ''disgusting'' and ''so phony.''

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Mon, 25 Jul 2016 12:01

A black Donald Trump supporter scolded an apparent CNN reporter outside the Republican National Convention on Thursday after he was asked what he thought about ''white supremacists'' supporting the GOP candidate.

A black Trump supporter scolds a reporter outside the RNC in Cleveland. (YouTube/Rebel Pundit)

The Trump supporter, identified as Kenneth, expressed his opposition to Black Lives Matter and the Clintons before the reporter shifted the focus, causing the interview to go off the rails.

''What do you think of the fact that the white supremacists support Trump?'' the reporter asked.

''It doesn't matter. That's the right of free speech. I'm sick of this race and divide. And CNN is perfect at doing that,'' Kenneth responded. ''It's always divide and conquer. People have the right to choose who they want.'' What the hell does that have to do with Donald Trump? He's not a racist! I'm sick of that!''

He continued: ''It's a scam! And I know it's not going to get on CNN. We're sick of you, media!''

At that point, conservative reporter Andrew Marcus turned the questions around on the man identified as a CNN reporter, asking him if his questions were ''fair'' and whether Black Panthers support Obama.

''I'm just here doing my job,'' the reporter insisted.

Watch the tense exchange below via Rebel Pundit:

'--

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Sun, 24 Jul 2016 23:10

But would he support a Democrat over Duke if that's what it took to keep the former Ku Klux Klan leader from winning?

Trump said he wanted to make clear that he rebukes Duke "as quick as you can say it."

"Because last time with another person in this position, I did it very quickly. And they said, 'He didn't do it fast enough,' " Trump said. "Rebuked. Is that OK? Rebuked, done."

"Just so you understand, I don't know anything about David Duke, OK?" Trump had said.

Trump was pressed three times by Tapper on whether he would distance himself from support from the Ku Klux Klan.

"I don't know anything about what you're even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists," Trump said then. "So I don't know. I don't know -- did he endorse me, or what's going on? Because I know nothing about David Duke; I know nothing about white supremacists."

He later blamed his answer on a "bad earpiece."

Later on Sunday Trump's running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, also denounced Duke, over Twitter.

"Well said @realDonaldTrump on #MTP. There will never be a place in our party for that man or his hateful rhetoric."

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Sun, 24 Jul 2016 21:18

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Sun, 24 Jul 2016 21:13